"Sorry about the Ogallala Aquifer, kids. We have to protect Mary Fucking Landrieu"

[phantom power]

Out in Nebraska, where my friends Randy Thompson and Jane Kleeb have been fighting a ferocious rear-guard action against the Keystone XL pipeline, the gigantic death funnel and Republican fetish object, they have taken on TransCanada's attempt to buy their state legislature, steal their property, and (ultimately, and sadly, inevitably) poison their land and water with the dirtiest fossil fuel ever discovered. But now, they have run into an enemy too mighty even for Randy and Jane and their supporters to outwork.

The essential cowardice and abject stupidity of the national Democratic party.

While no decisions have been made to go forward with the plan, the strategy would see a vote on the controversial pipeline before the Republican majority is sworn-in, and would allow Landrieu, and other moderate Democrats, to vote in support of approving it. Republicans, who have supported approval of the pipeline since its inception, have said a vote on its approval would be one of their first priorities in the 114th Congress.

Sorry about the Ogallala Aquifer, kids. We have to protect Mary Fking Landrieu, that legislative giant. Sorry, too, that your back 40 now looks like the garage area at Talladega, and that all the birds now peck once at the ground and keel over dead, and that it's very hard to grow anything through three feet of oil sludge, but there's a useless senator from the chemistry set once known as Louisiana whom we have to protect. Besides, bottled water isn't that expensive.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Selling_Out_On_The_Cheap

[Orsino]

1. We need to stand together to protect that vital national resource...

...Mary Landrieu.

[belzabubba333]

2. it's what happens when dems dont vote. you send a message to the party

here comes keystone say goodbye to freshwwater but dont worry there will be some republican to sell bottles of it to you

[LondonReign2]

7. And why do you suppose they didn't vote?

Was the Dems message not centrist enough?

[belzabubba333]

20. b/c theyre whinney, short-sighted,not thinking clearly. any of those?

[LondonReign2]

29. Ah, well, the strategy of blaming the voters will

undoubtedly get them to the polls next time. Brilliant work!

[belzabubba333]

67. it hasnt worked yet, but maybe people losing their health care, getting right to work

fracking fluid in your drinking water , loss of net neutrality, kestone xl tpp and the otherone maybe that'll wake them up,

bu bu but we need smething to vote FOR not something to vote against

waiting for all that to be passed and THEN voting to do something about it THAT'S brilliant

[truedelphi]

75. Your meme has already been rejected by the voters.

Twelve million of us voters already watched our houses being foreclosed, while Obama's "good buddy" Geithner ran the Country's economy into the ground. (At least as far as the dwindling middle class is concerned.)

This happened under Obama - last time I looked he had a "D" after his name.

It was Hillary Clinton's State Department that requested the Keystone Pipeline, and Ms Clinton only came out against the Pipeline after she realized in late 2010 that there were enough newly elected Republicans in Congress to make sure it went through.

It was Barack Obama's EPA that was doing very diligent work on the fracking fluids situation, allowing homeowners to win in court, so then Obama's staff saw to it that those people over at the EPA quit working so hard.

And on and on.

If Obama can take executive action on immigration, he certainly is then empowered to take executive action on the damn fracking situation. What is more of a national security issue than a nation's water supply, ask you? If the Damn Russkies had, circa the Cold War, been injecting fracking crap in Calif.'s water and aquifers, the Democratic Leadership in this country would have been demanding some type of military retaliation against that nation. But since it is Big Corporate America, which will offer executive jobs to any family members of Senate and House people who are able to look the other way, fracking is continuing.

[belzabubba333]

77. so to you obama=mit romney

oh and btw Senate nears 60 on Keystone

[truedelphi]

81. No pls don't be so mis-leading. We Progressives

Are saying that it is time to end the last 50 years of Corporate Rule, which only gives us voters a choice between:

1) Endless war proponents from both parties.

2) Endless establishment of the rights of the Big Banking Class to take away from Main Street and give themonetary assets to Wall Street and on and on.

3) Corruption of the Judiciary by the Military and the Big Banking and Big Politico Classes.

4) Destruction of the environment for the purpose of enriching the Big Banking and Big Politico Classes.

And on and on.

I would love to see an election wherein Liz Warren, D, was facing off Neal Barofsky, R, for the Oval Office, for instance. That would be awesome.

####

[belzabubba333]

82. me too and the next election looks good for dems we could take both houses and with warren as potus

well it could be very good. but people need to prep, find out what hoops you have to go thru to vote and do them. get a photo id, find out how to find your polling places so you can keep tabs on their movement , check with the state your in make sure you registered to vote. we got almost 2 years and you know this next election their gonna cheat their asses off. so we need to be prepared

[LondonReign2]

78. No one can seem to answer this one

Which of our candidates ran on net neutrality, or against TPP, or against fracking, or against Keystone?

[belzabubba333]

79. what they ran on was " hey im not obama either"

[LondonReign2]

80. But which ones ran on those things?

You say the voters should have come out to elect people that ran on those things...so which ones did? Which ones came out and took bold, loud stance on those issues?

And by the way, Obama supports the TPP and fracking. We shall see if he really is against Keystone or not.

[Kelvin Mace]

76. Yeah, if sick people would just

decide WHICH cancer they want to kill them instead of of whining about not wanting cancer at all.

[awoke_in_2003]

45. you're slip is showing. nt

[MadDAsHell]

63. What the heck?

[SammyWinstonJack]

50. ugh!

[840high]

58. Nope.

[Scootaloo]

61. Also they hate you for your freedoms, or something like that

[BlancheSplanchnik]

55. because the issues are complex, and it's hard to know what the players are doing.

When the question is narrowed down to one clear issue, people know what's best. (generally. As we saw with the ballot initiatives.)

No one's providing a single trustWORTHY source with understandable explanation.

Most people dont know how to analyze or inspect sourcing, or even stop and think if a claim makes sense or conflicts with events/statements from the day before.

Add all the reptile-brained propaganda, base emotion, lower-instinct, id-driven media blasting away at us........and you've got massive chaos.

[Notafraidtoo]

57. I agree with this post n/t

[BlancheSplanchnik]

59. thanks. :)

[Marr]

19. No, this is what happens when your party is led by corporate infiltrators. /nt

[belzabubba333]

22. such foolishness,the republicans thank you cause

House Republicans are fast tracking Keystone Pipeline bill.
House Rules Committee meeting today at 5:15 pm ET to move a bill to approve the Keystone pipeline to the floor for a vote tomorrow.
Breaking News site.


NOW they can do some of that legislating stuff they have not bothered to do all this term.
NOW....for the pipeline.


now that we handed them congress. but dems need something to vote for. of course you could have voted to stop this.

[Marr]

23. Blaming the voters when you lose an election is like

blaming the public when your Penzoil-flavored donut stand goes out of business.

If you lose, you employed a losing strategy-- by definition.

And by the way, I voted, as did every liberal I know. The ones who tend to sit out elections are the self-described "moderates" and "conservative Democrats" that the party leadership is always urging us to bend over to backwards to pursue. That is a losing strategy, clearly, as it costs us support from other voting blocks.

[LondonReign2]

31. Why don't whiney liberals like you shut up

and learn to LIKE your Republican flavored Democrats, huh?!????!?

[LondonReign2]

30. Republicans managed to shut down virtually everything while in the minority

Will the Dems do the same?

[ablamj]

37. No

Gotta keep that powder dry!

[Art_from_Ark]

64. The "Use By" date of that powder

came and went a long time ago.

[polichick]

33. True.

[Cha]

66. It's sends a horrible fooking message about who cares about our Enviroment or lack thereof.. Sick

of their enablers, too.

[truedelphi]

3. Difference between the Republicans and the Friggin' Third Way Democrats -

One group openly lets you know that in all honesty they could care less about you unless you represent billions of dollars of product or control.

The other group pretends they care.

[polichick]

6. And that makes one group more dangerous.

[ReRe]

25. +1

[PFunk]

72. And you wonder why alot of dems want to start a new dem party

just saying

[truedelphi]

74. I am not wondering, myself. I have known since Nov 2004 that we

Need to have a whole new party.

[CanonRay]

4. When the Ogallala Aquifer has been a polluted mess for a hundred years

no one will even remember Mary Landrieu's name.

[xxqqqzme]

5. After she loses the run-off,

no one will remember her in 10 years. Her senatorial career is that uneventful.

[Maru Kitteh]

10. This assumes there will be an aquifer in a hundred years

Likely, there will not.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/last-drop-americas-breadbasket-faces-dire-water-crisis-n146836

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer#Accelerated_decline_in_aquifer_storage

http://www.livescience.com/39186-kansas-aquifer-water-depletion.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/12/how-long-before-the-midwest-runs-out-of-water/

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

8. Fuck that! Mary Landrieu was one of few Democrats who stood up for the truth

and called out the racism in the South and the Democratic Party. She is better than ANY fucking Republican!

[elzenmahn]

13. Better than the aquifer?

Better than the environment?

I think not.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

17. For you, this issue is more important than racial equality. For me, it isn't.

[deurbano]

26. These issues are not mutually exclusive.

[m-lekktor]

32. she is the only DEM option for racial equality in LA?

i find that hard to believe. Joe Lieberman was very pro gay but, as a gay man, you couldn't have PAID me to support that asshole here in CT just for that reason.

[TheKentuckian]

85. A person can only go three days without water. Nothing is more important than water. Water is life.

No, what you think is you don't draw from that aquifer, what you forget is potable water is a limited resource and destroying a source endangers us all.

"Speaking out" won't stop death from thirst. I'm black and live in the south, nothing trumps a water matter. Water is life, you are not thinking that though through to its conclusion but rather responding to emotion.

Saying fuck it to an aquifer is insanity, saying fuck drinkable water because somebody said something good is a simply bizarre rationale that thumbs it's nose at physics.

With this kind of logic and triage, we might as well nuke ourselves out of existence and save the pain and trouble because we are not going to make it and we are going to take everything else with us.

Too much sociology mixed with too little science creates functionally crazy people. An aquifer isn't important? In which universe is that?

[hopemountain]

39. landrieu is not any different from a one

who puts the $$$ signs before the reality of a finite resource - the planet.
there is no rationale for supporting something so destructive to help re-elect a senator. it is more true the dems who are jumping ship money leading them by the nose as well. pathetic.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

40. No one stood up for black folks but her, so I have her back,

Democrats take us for granted

[hopemountain]

41. then, please ~

give her a call and convince her how wrong she is on this issue. indigenous people whose land and aquifer is being encroached are also being put in harms way. what about them? and when the water is contaminated and the oil slicks from the pipeline pollute communities of all colors to the point of being unlivable - what about then?

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

48. Why don't you call the Republican who will beat her and ask him?

[hopemountain]

83. i'm pretty sure

it would sound better coming from you, stalwart liberal 71 (sic)

[Ykcutnek]

9. I defend a lot of stupid things our party does, but fuck them if they approve the pipeline. nt

[Peacetrain]

11. I have beat my head against the wall about this for the last 2 years

People need to get off their every-loving backsides and stand up for once.. instead of sitting on the side lines carping about how freaking imperfect the Democrats are.. this affects everyone.. from the far left to the far right.. Let me tell you who sold out.. people who sat down and tuned out.. I live in this area.. and left right and center are off the wall on this if they cannot pull together.. this aquifer is central to the health of the United States and its food sources.. not just giving people on the plains drinking water.. this is the water that irrigates all the fields and gives us the food we take so granted..

[Omaha Steve]

12. But the DSCC dropped the million plus ads for her run off

[former9thward]

38. They are out of money.

They took out a several million dollar loan near election day and I don't think they want to go further in debt -- especially when it looks like a loss.

[Omaha Steve]

42. Exactly

I knew they were out of $. But if they expect a loss, why give in on the XXL to try to save her?

[MisterP]

14. Landrieu represents the best that the party--no, America itself--has to offer

and her nobility of spirit will ensure that this vote for Keystone will turn out to be a vote against Keystone, because by definition the Dems are against Keystone and are the only thing stopping it: you just want to turn the party into a pup tent that'll lose elections, unlike when we won in '14, and we only lost '14 because of critics like you

yes it's needed because I'm literally cobbling together other people's posts

[JDPriestly]

15. So they save Mary Landrieu and give a big boost to the Green Party.

What fools!

[JDPriestly]

16. Mary Landrieu will most likely lose no matter what.

The numbers are what matters.

Some polls.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2014/senate/la/louisiana_senate_cassidy_vs_landrieu-3670.html

[ollie4]

69. Not only that, her opponent will just co-sponsor a Republican version in the House!

She cannot win. And this stunt will not make any difference.

You would think.....assuming we vote for the pipeline, which I don't think we should do anyway.....we would make it a bargaining chip to get the reps to support something else we want?

It is just so incredibly stupid! We're giving it away....

[NorthCarolina]

71. Probably, but the Koch brothers will finally get their pipeline. nt

[bvar22]

18. The Ogallala is being drained at an unsustainable rate by...

..Industrial Farms and expanding population.

After center-pivot sprinklers were developed, the water table in many areas of the High Plains started to fall, and as early as 1970 some wells that reached down into the Ogallala’s wetness began to go dry. As with nearly all aquifers in the West, the vast lake of the Ogallala is in danger of being sucked to a puddle as pumps empty it faster than rainfall can recharge it. To make crops and towns grow, many billions of gallons are withdrawn each day—over the course of a year this adds up to more water than the entire flow of the Colorado River.

In the High Plains region and throughout the West, aquifer replenishment is a process almost as slow as that which weathers a jagged mountain down to a gentle hill. What takes nature millennia to fill, humans mine in a matter of decades. Some experts fear the Ogallala could disappear entirely within twenty to thirty years, leaving dry hollows beneath the earth upon which so much farmland stands.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-and-environment/ogallala-aquifer-ze0z1305zwar.aspx?PageId=2#ArticleContent

[hatrack]

47. Well, yes and no . . . . there's tremendous variability in aquifer thickness

10-15' deep on its thinnest edges in New Mexico and north Texas before pumping began, still 1,200+ ' deep and more in the heaviest areas of saturation in Nebraska.

The deepest water is where there are the fewest farms (sandhiill country, suitable only for ranching), and the most intensively cultivated areas are areas where the aquifer was relatively thin to begin with, and continues to drain.

[Dont call me Shirley]

21. Shouldn't the term be right-wing democrats, not moderate democrats, for moderate they are not.

[ReRe]

27. Yes

[turbinetree]

24. Water lets vote

Let's get some Tar sands water and some fracked water and lets see if these humans will drink it, and if they don't drink the stuff then they vote no, if they drink this stuff they then vote yes on the Keystone, put your health where your mouth is ---end of story:

[DonCoquixote]

28. I saw some on here

Who kept defending Mary Landrieu. "oh,if we do not keep some Blue Dogs, we will lose." They foten pervert dean's 50 state strategy to say we gotta get those blue dogs in, when really, the goal is to support the porgressives that state parties throw to the dogs (see, Alan Grayson, winner of Florida election, see, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, aka she who does the GOP job for them.) To be fair, she did get one of the most craven crucifixions ever when she dared imply that people in Dixie were still racist. "Don't insult the voters" some said here.

Well, despite Mary getting points for stating a hard, cold, proven time and again FACT, she is also the Oil Companies paid servant. She tried to annex thosuands of acre of Florida she she could let the Oil rigs in. The same Oil rigs that were so competent, they manged to damage Florida beaches, even though we voted those rigs OUT! Of course she would vote for keystone because it promsies to save the same Louisiana oil industry that wrecked the environment time and again. Hey mary, when you let Oil wreck all that sotrm surge draining wetland, the same stuff that would protected New Orleans. Hey mary, did you think they would help you after katrina? No, they slammed the door in your face. Did they help after Deppwater Horizon, No they slammed the door in your face. After all, you think Bobby Jindal wants to help you and your brother, Moon, kepp his job as new orleans Mayor? No!

[Feron]

46. Just a correction..

Moon is her father. Mitch, the current NOLA mayor, is her brother.

And Bobby Jingles is too busy running for president and leaving the state in fiscal ruins to worry about anything else. He's also too busy filming a cameo in a Kevin Sorbo movie.

[DonCoquixote]

54. mea culpa

I wish i was wrong about the poltics. Mary is on C span right now talking about how they shoudl vote for it already.

[Lithos]

34. Is her challenger different on this issue?

I suspect not.

It's pretty stupid to make an argument that she's awful because of this one issue and you should not support her even if her loss means no difference to this issue. Her win will make a definite difference to other issues.

L-

[irisblue]

35. might be useful for a computer savvy person to overlay

the Ogallala aquifer with the proposed keystone pipe line.......if I have to drink that ..water.. I'd be more interested. Make your challenge more simple warriors.

[Lithos]

36. More than that

The issue is whether or not the Keystore pipeline is going to pass now or later, with or without her vote. It is only a matter of when at this stage - this Congress or the next one.

What is more important now is that Landrieu is locked in a very tight runoff. It would be rather a better experiment for a computer savvy person to view what her 98% positive vote record has done and how it will compare with her opponent.

L-

[earthside]

53. Her challenger is the House sponsor.

So Landrieu actually wants to help pass Cassidy's bill.

Rachel Maddow ripped her and the Senate Democrats to pieces on this tonight.

Senate Democrats at their cynical worst.

[Lithos]

56. So, you agree...

No change on this *single* issue if Landrieu loses.

However, many other changes if Landrieus loses.

Isn't that the same as biting your own nose off to spite yourself?

L-

[Hippo_Tron]

43. Keystone XL is going to get a vote anyway in the new congress

Obama can veto it now and he can veto again a few months from now.

[baldguy]

44. 45 is just as good as 47, right?

[jtuck004]

49. This song comes to mind when I read these, I do not know why...

[Algernon Moncrieff]

51. Hi. Nebraskan here. I just want to let you know it's OK

Hell, all we use the water for is to grow corn and soybeans, which we don't do much with except to feed to tens of thousands of hogs and cattle that are sent to markets around the US. I think we'll be OK if there's a big spill -- which Keystone swears won't happen.

[Half-Century Man]

52. So if she can't win she's gonna Poison the country?

Fuck that

[Jim Lane]

60. Landrieu is useless with one huge exception: 2016.

We rate to pick up Senate seats next cycle, when a lot of Republicans elected in the 2010 wave have to run for re-election in blue states and while facing the larger presidential-year electorate.

Depending on the size of our net gain, control of the Senate could be right on the edge. It might turn out, after Election Day 2016, that the Senate is controlled by whichever party won the Louisiana runoff 23 months earlier.

If you want President Clinton or President Warren or President Biden or President O'Malley or President Sanders or etc. to be able to get some nominees confirmed, you should grit your teeth and support a right-winger like Landrieu, who is likely to go along with the Democratic Party on a lot of things like that.

[customerserviceguy]

62. The Keystone pipeline was going to go through, no matter what

Election Day guaranteed that. It would have been attached to essential legislation EVERY time until the President either signed it, or shut down the whole government forever. Or at least until 01/21/17, when either Hillary or a Repuke would have signed a law allowing Keystone.

Why not get something of value for it, rather than nothing at all?

[ollie4]

70. what are we getting for it?

Mary cannot win anyway. And this won't necessarily help. Just looks desperate

[DCBob]

65. Is there really a big risk to the Ogallala aquifer?

Here's an article from a professor at univ of Nebraska th that down plays the risk. His arguments seem reasonable.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/10/03/what-are-the-risks-of-the-keystone-xl-pipeline-project/the-pipeline-poses-minimal-risk-to-the-ogallala-aquifer

[RiverLover]

84. I wonder how much $$$ Koch Brothers gave U of Nebraska this year?

They're not just influencing politicians~

Fri Aug 09, 2013
Koch Brothers Influence Peddling, Is Your Alma Mater on the List?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/09/1230049/-Koch-Brothers-Influence-Peddling-Is-Your-Alma-Mater-on-the-List

[TheKentuckian]

86. Reasonable = sufficient rationalizations to pretend all might be not to bad

as not to stand in the way of near term profits of somebody in extraction and not fight the TeaPubliKlans.

When and if you are wrong you will wring hands and play the who could have known game and hide from the guilt of facilitating destruction and causing death.

How much life would you destroy for political convenience?

You do know you will die without water in just a few days, right?

[Vinca]

68. Isn't the pipeline tied up in eminent domain battles in court?

If the fools on the hill vote for it, can it go forward without eminent domain being settled? And why should a Canadian oil pipeline be allowed to take land owned by American families?

[Madmiddle]

73. Land e-i-e-i-o has to go.

She's a blue dog anyway.