Report May Ease Path for New Pipeline

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Photo Credit: Larry W. SmithThe State Department issued a revised environmental impact statement for the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline on Friday that makes no recommendation about whether the project should be built but presents no conclusive environmental reason it should not be.

The 2,000-page document also makes no statement on whether the pipeline is in the United States’ economic and energy interests, a determination to be made later this year by President Obama.

But it will certainly add a new element to the already robust climate change and energy debate around the $7 billion proposed project. The new report does not make any policy recommendations, but its conclusion that the environmental and climate change impacts are manageable could provide Mr. Obama political cover if he decides to approve the pipeline.

Although the study will help guide the president’s decision, it does not make the politics any easier. Environmental advocates and landowners along the route have mounted spirited protests against the project, including a large demonstration in Washington last month. They say they view Keystone as a test of Mr. Obama’s seriousness about addressing global warming.

The president faces equally strong pressure from industry, the Canadian government, most Republicans and some Democrats in Congress, local officials and union leaders, who say the project will create thousands of jobs and provide a secure source of oil that will replace crude from Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and other potentially hostile suppliers.

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Chocola: Rove Only Cares About GOP ‘Brand’

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photo credit: silas216Club for Growth President Chris Chocola says Republican strategist Karl Rove is more concerned about the packaging of GOP candidates than their political philosophy, a position he believes dismisses how voters feel about a candidate’s “core beliefs.”

“What Karl Rove and some of the establishment groups care about is only the brand,” Chocola told CBS’ “Face to Face” Thursday. “They only care if someone’s a Republican or not. They don’t really care what their core beliefs are.”

Chocola, whose own limited government group just targeted nine GOP congressmen for defeat because their voting records aren’t conservative enough, was referring to Rove’s Conservative Victory Project, which plans to target conservative Republican candidates whose views may be too extreme to get them elected.

Chocola says there’s a difference between how Club for Growth measures candidates and how Rove does it.

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Lawmakers Accuse Obama Prosecutors Of Lying About Espionage Probe At NASA

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Photo Credit: AP

Congressional leaders are challenging a U.S. Attorney’s denial that the Justice Department shut down a federal espionage investigation involving the illegal transfer of U.S. space defense weapons technology to foreign countries, including China, The Washington Examiner has learned.

Melinda Haag, the U.S. Attorney for Northern California, also denied that she had ever requested authority to prosecute anybody as a result of the espionage investigation.

But Sen. Charles Grassley, R-IA, and Representatives Lamar Smith, R-TX, and Frank Wolf, R-VA, say Haag’s denials don’t square with evidence they’ve reviewed and they wonder if Justice Department or White House officials interfered with a potentially explosive espionage investigation or if “politics played a role in the prosecutorial decisions made in this case.”

“Your statement conflicts factually with information we received from federal law enforcement,” Wolf, Smith and Grassley said in letters sent today to Haag and Assistant U.S. Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco questioning the abrupt end to an FBI national security investigation and grand jury probe.

At the center of the controversy is cancellation of a national security probe once led by Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary Fry. Frustrating attempts by foreign powers to steal U.S. space weapons technology have long been priorities for the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and NASA’s Inspector General.

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CPAC Turns Away Pamela Gellar

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Photo Credit: breitbart For the last four years, Pamela Geller of AtlasShrugs.com and the American Freedom Defense Initiative have held events at CPAC featuring guests she invites to discuss the influence of Islamism on America. But this year, the American Conservative Union (ACU) has no room for Geller or her message.

In 2009, she brought Geert Wilders, who is the head of the third largest party in the Netherlands and has spoken out against the Islamization of his country.

In 2010 she held an event that her organization, The American Freedom Defense Initiative, hosted, titled “Jihad: The Political Third Rail”, with speakers like Allen West, Wafa Sultan, Simon Deng, Anders Gravers, and Steve Coughlin. In 2011, she hosted an event discussing the Ground Zero Mosque with 9/11 families. In 2012, the event was titled “Islamic Law in America.”

In years past, the events were standing room only thanks to their popularity, but that apparently was not enough to counter pressure brought to bear from somewhere to exclude Geller’s message.

Geller and her coworkers recently won a court battle allowing them to post ads that countered the #Myjihad ad campaign that posited that jihad was a peaceful word. Yet despite the law’s defense of her rights, the ACU will not stand up for her against critics.

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Beretta Exec Likens Gun Ban to Book Ban

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Photo Credit: APBeretta USA, one of the nation’s largest firearms manufacturers, compared a Maryland gun-control bill to a book ban Friday and warned it may consider leaving the state if the legislation passes.

Beretta general counsel Jeffrey Reh said Maryland Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley’s Firearm Safety Act of 2013 is “tantamount to a legislative effort to ban certain books” during testimony before the Maryland House Judiciary Committee.

“That might seem like a provocative statement but the parallels are apt,” Reh said, according to testimony obtained by the Free Beacon. “The possession and use of firearms and printed materials are both protected by the Constitution. Both rights come from the only legislation in U.S. history that was voted on and approved directly by the citizens of our country.”

“One might suggest that books do not kill and that the current legislation is sought for beneficial reasons,” Reh continued. “In fact, the misuse of books—say, the Bible or the Koran—have led to tragedy, and efforts to ban certain books—for example, Huckleberry Finn—have also come from allegedly ‘beneficial’ intent.”

The Maryland Senate passed O’Malley’s contentious bill late Thursday night. The bill moved Friday to the House of Delegates where thousands of supporters and opponents flooded the Capitol to watch events unfold.

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DePaul Punishes Student Who Exposed Vandals Of Memorial For Aborted Babies

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller Back in January, on the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a group of 13 students destroyed a makeshift memorial for aborted babies on the main campus of DePaul University. The display — 500 pink and blue flags — was set up by DePaul’s chapter of Young Americans for Freedom. (RELATED: Abortion display destroyed on campus)

Senior Kristopher Del Campo, who chairs the DePaul YAF chapter, contacted public safety officials after pro-abortion thugs tore the flags from the ground and threw them in trash cans around campus.

About a week later, as The Daily Caller reported, Kevin Connolly, an investigator for DePaul’s public safety department, produced a brief report listing the names of 13 students who flatly admitted to wrecking the display. The reports said the vandals “had seen anti-abortion posters around campus earlier in the day that they found offensive.” (RELATED: Students admit vandalizing display)

DePaul’s assistant dean of students, Domonic Rollins, provided Del Campo a copy of the report. The national website for Young Americans for Freedom then published it online.

Take a wild guess which student the nation’s largest Catholic school has now singled out for punishment.

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Too High To Drive? Marijuana-Friendly Colorado Debates Blood-Level Limits.

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Photo Credit: Washington PostWhen is someone too stoned to drive? The answer, it turns out, has been anything but si mple in Colorado, which last fall became one of the first states in the country to legalize marijuana.

Prosecutors and some lawmakers have long pushed for laws that would set a strict blood-level limit for THC, the key ingredient in cannabis. A driver over the limit would be deemed guilty of driving under the influence, just as with alcohol.

Such legislation has failed several times in recent years in the face of fierce opposition from marijuana advocates and defense lawyers, who claim a one-size-fits-all standard doesn’t work for marijuana because it affects the body differently than alcohol.

On both sides, passions run high.

“I haven’t had a car accident since I was 18, and I’ve had marijuana in my system for most of that time,” said Paul Saurini, 39, one of numerous weed activists, or “wactivists,” who spoke out against setting a firm blood-level limit during a public hearing in the state capital this week.

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Iowa Radio Host Steve Deace Eyes Senate Run

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Photo Credit: APIowa radio host Steve Deace will look seriously at running for Senate if conservative Rep. Steve King passes.

The nationally-syndicated commentator, who fashions himself a “conservative blowtorch,” put Karl Rove and Republican Gov. Terry Branstad on notice Thursday that no establishment-favored candidate will skate to the nomination – a warning that heightens the possibility of a bloody primary in a state the GOP must win in any realistic scenario to take the Senate next year.

“I think that it’s Steve King time to take the next step,” Deace told POLITICO. “Him running is sort of necessary to show that Karl Rove cannot pick our candidate. If King decides not to run, then I think it’s very important that someone who actually shares the principles that have made King so popular with conservatives across Iowa runs for that seat.”

“That would not be anyone attached to Terry Branstad or Karl Rove,” he added. The comments are part of the continuing blowback directed at American Crossroads after the group’s president compared King to failed Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin a month ago.

“It’s far too early to comment on a field that doesn’t even exist yet,” said Crossroads spokesman Jonathan Collegio. After Rep. Tom Latham announced he would not run for the seat opened by Democratic incumbent Tom Harkin’s retirement, Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey told POLITICO Thursday that he, too, is considering a run.

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Obama Pardons 17, Including Man With Firearms Charges

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photo credit: A.A.President Obama on Friday pardoned 17 people around the country, including a Georgia man whose offense was possession of an unregistered firearm.

Larry Wayne Thornton of Forsyth, Georgia, faced four years of probation until Obama’s pardon.

The pardon has the potential to come under scrutiny, as Democrats and Obama himself have called for stricter gun-control laws in the wake of last year’s elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. In response to that shooting, Democrats have called for a range of options, including reinstating an assault weapons ban, and forcing all firearms purchasers to undergo background checks.

Obama also pardoned Lynn Marie Stanek of Oregon, who was charged with using a communications facility to distribute cocaine. She faced six months in jail and five years of probation.

Michael John Petri of South Dakota was also pardoned; he was convicted of possession of cocaine with an intent to distribute it.

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Detroit Will Be Run by Financial Manager

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Photo Credit: Reuters
The state of Michigan is taking on one of the most difficult turnaround projects ever attempted: a rescue of a sprawling city with $14 billion in debt, a depleted tax base, a legacy of government corruption—and very little time left to avert financial collapse.

Republican Gov. Rick Snyder said Friday he plans to appoint an emergency financial manager for Detroit, taking control of the state’s largest city out of the hands of elected leaders. The governor, who has called a revitalization of Detroit critical to sustaining the state’s nascent economic recovery, said he didn’t believe city leaders were addressing rapidly enough Detroit’s ballooning deficits and a persistent cash drought.

At an invitation-only town hall at Wayne State University, Mr. Snyder called it a “sad day” that he “wished had never happened.” But he said that the emergency manager would also bring Detroit new promise. “It’s time to say that we should be moving forward,” he said.

City and state Democratic leaders opposed the governor’s move. “I am deeply disappointed by today’s hostile takeover of Detroit. We need to trust the democratic process, not throw it out,” said Lon Johnson, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, in a statement on Friday.

The governor’s decision represents a turning point for a city that was once the industrial capital of America and an engine of its growth. Six decades ago, Detroit was a city of nearly two million people brimming with factory jobs that offered immigrants from the South and abroad a pathway into the American middle class.

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