It was an abrupt and remarkable about-face. In a Rose Garden ceremony in the presence of the CEOs of America’s largest oil companies and special guest David Koch (brother Charles remained ball-gagged and handcuffed by the editorial board of The Nation), President Obama signed an executive order fast-tracking construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline and, to the astonishment of all in attendance, promised federal subsidies and loan guarantees to TransCanada Corporation for the facility. In his remarks the president said, “It’s high time the helping hand of my all-powerful and omnipotent administration come to the aid of our country’s most popular and vital industry. Our citizens will no longer be denied the high-polluting, pet-coke discharging, energy-sucking Canadian tar sands oil so necessary to maintain their wasteful and profligate lifestyles and, in the case of Al Gore and Pharrell Williams, that precious fuel that sends their Gulfstream G650’s to the next global-warming summit.
Environmental activist Yoko Ono’s reaction was as lucid as we have come to expect. For their part some Republicans were, as they often are, chagrined, although in this case no one knows why. (This post is interactive: Visualize your favorite chagrined Republican now).
In other news today:
Sports
LSU quarterback Anthony Jennings appeared on the 2015 Heisman Trophy watch list. The pundits predict a 72 percent pass-completion rate, achieved solely by screen passes to Leonard Fournette.
Alternative Energy
Prominent environmentalists condemned wind and solar power, remarking that solar is “too hot and burns up too many cute little birds when they fly over”, and wind is “unreliable; its sharp and unforgiving blades pulverize bigger-but-still-cute birds into bite-sized chunks for the coyotes, and its tall towers endanger the lesser prairie chicken, that flightless, cute kind-of-little bird so beloved by the several ranch hands in West Texas who come into contact with the species every year”. Solar is fine for Bubba from Mississippi. “Them critters drop right out of the sky, all fried up good and well done, just how I like ’em. And it saves Lurleen from another day in the kitchen.”
Religion
After 17 ballots the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas elected its first openly gay bishop, who narrowly defeated a Hispanic woman from the Rio Grande Valley and a transgender African-American person from the Diocese of New Hampshire. The early favorite – the middle-aged white guy (Diocese of Quincy, ACNA) – was eliminated early. In his post-election remarks the new bishop, who most-recently served as rector of Saint Stonewall Church of the Heavenly Liberation (Diocese of California) said, “I look forward to the warm and loving embrace – spiritual, of course – of my new flock, where I am destined to encounter, at long last, the “orthodox” Episcopal church.
Grievance Leftism
Al Sharpton paid his delinquent tax bills, renounced the millions in protection money extracted over the years from major corporations, resigned his membership in posh New York private clubs, took up residence in a cardboard box in Megyn Kelly’s front yard, and began medical treatments to turn himself Caucasian. In a press conference in which all the words were pronounced correctly he rejected his sordid history of race-baiting, apologized to the New York police for the Tawana Brawley incident, and denied that he ever really believed Officer Wilson should in any way be prosecuted for the Michael Brown incident.
And finally this, to explain the day.