Telling New Hampshire One Thing, and Minnesota's CD8 another?More Friday Fun from Youtube

It was bad enough when Cravaack voted against the people of the United States and for big oil on the Kesytone XL pipeline, misinforming and disinforming his constituents about the number of jobs created - as in a few hundred at best, more likely jobs LOST.  And lying about the pipeline lowering gas prices, because of that pesky detail about where the pipeline ends, with teh processed petroleum from the pipeline being sold overseas.  Trans Canada refused to guarantee that the U.S. would be the recipient of the oil; we have to compete for it on the open market just like everyone else.  The pipeline would end in Port Arthur, Texas, which is a foreign trade zone.  A free trade zone is where not only is the oil intended for EXPORT rather than domestic consumption, there are no taxes being paid to the U,S, on it - increasing the profit for big oil, AND at the sane time it is competing with the U.S. oil exports.  We won't be less dependent on 'conflict oil' and we won't have more jobs or lower oil prices from it either.  But certain politicians will benefit from voting for this - and lying to voters - in the form of more support from entities like the Koch brothers and Koch industries and other 'big oil'.  Cravaack will no doubt get his percentage of the take, like a server gets a tip based on the size of the bill for a meal and beverages at a restaurant.  Because make no mistake, Cravaack and his Republican cronies are doing the step 'n fetchit bowing and scraping bidding of big oil, not serving US.

But don't take my word for it, here is a report from last September.

Exporting Energy Security: Keystone XL Exposed

Oil Change International, September 2011

TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline is a $7 billion project to bring heavy, sour crude oil from tar sands production in Alberta, Canada to Port Arthur, Texas for refining. It has sparked an ongoing struggle as advocates and opponents of the project make their case in various ways to the Obama Administration.
Among the most oft repeated talking points by industry and their allies is the idea that Keystone XL is necessary for American energy security, and that its construction will help wean America of its dependence on Mideast oil. But the idea that Keystone XL will decrease America's dependence on foreign oil is demonstrably false.
To issue a presidential permit to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, the Obama Administration's State Department must find that the pipeline serves the national interest. This report demonstrates compellingly why it does not. On August 25, 2011, Robert Jones, a spokesperson for TransCanada declared: "

The U.S. has a decision to make, [d]o they want to import oil from Canada or get conflict oil from OPEC nations?"

(That would be the fear mongering and deliberate outright bold face lying to the U.S. - DG)

The report continues:
On the surface this notion has a clear, if facile, appeal. But an understanding of the changing realities of the oil market in the United States and globally, and a close scrutiny of the oil companies that stand to profit from the pipeline, reveal a completely different story. In fact:
1. The Keystone XL pipeline is an export pipeline. The Gulf Coast refiners at the end of the pipeline's route are focused on expanding exports, and the nature of the tar sands crude Keystone XL delivers enhances their capacity to do so.
2. Valero, the top beneficiary of the Keystone XL pipeline, has recently explicitly detailed an export strategy to its investors. The nation's top refiner has locked in at least 20 percent of the pipeline's capacity, and, because its refinery in Port Arthur is within a Foreign Trade Zone, the company will accomplish its export strategy tax free.
3. The oil market has changed markedly in the last several years, with U.S. demand decreasing, and U.S. production increasing for the first time in 40 years. Higher fuel economy standards and slow economic growth have led to a decline in U.S. gasoline demand, while technological advances have opened up new sources in the United States. Increasingly, U.S. refiners are turning to export.
The oil market is fundamentally global. The only way to reduce dependence on foreign oil is to reduce dependence on all oil.
(emphasis added below is mine - DG)
These facts reveal the important truth that the Keystone XL pipeline would not in fact enhance U.S. energy security at all. The construction of Keystone XL will not lessen U.S. dependence on foreign oil—rather, it will feed the growing trend of exporting refined products out of the United States, thereby doing nothing to enhance energy security or to stabilize oil prices or gasoline prices at the pump. If completed, it will successfully achieve a long-term objective of Canadian tar sands producers—to gain access to export markets.
The oil market is fundamentally global. The only way to truly reduce our dependence on foreign oil is to reduce our dependence on all oil.
This report looks at data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), corporate disclosures to investors, and oil market analyst reports. This information should form the basis of the Obama Administration's deliberations on the Keystone XL pipeline. An honest assessment of the Keystone XL project will show that the oil will be exported and will not benefit U.S. consumers or any reasonable definition of the nation's interest.
Download: Exporting Energy Security: Keystone XL Exposed (PDF, 1.69 M)

Instead, do you know what source - and there was ONLY ONE source, and it was NOT fact checked - that was relied on by Republicans, including Chip Cravaack?  According to his legislative assistant, Ian Foley, it was the Canadian Energy Research Institute - CERI - which is funded and chaired by the same Canadian oil interests that stand to profit, personally and corporately, from the Keystone XL pipeline.  Trans Canada has admitted that it provided grossly inflated estimates of jobs that would be created.  There is absolutely no legitimate reason to use the CERI data, unverified, over the report that has no special interest funding, and which clearly serves the U.S. public interest instead of corporate special interests - including foreign special interests, as Cravaack clearly appears to do.
Given Cravaack's votes to increase the benefits and profits and subsidies to big oil, at the expense of the citizens of the United States, including his constituents in Minnesota, benefiting big oil is more of a pattern than an  honest single mistake.  Given the World Bank's rule of thumb that corruption is the abuse of public authority for private gain, this certainly appears to me to be an example of Republican corruption.



Federal law requires a congressman or woman live in the state, but not the district, they represent.
The question that Cravaack is NOT answering here very well,  is that there is a large difference between actual residence, living in a state and district, from maintaining a mail drop as a sort of legal fiction.
Clearly, there is some legitimate question what Cravaack is telling the people of New Hampshire when the  New Hampshire Business Review aka the NHBR has this on their web site:

The freshman GOP congressman from Minnesota announces that he's moving from Minnesota to New Hampshire with his family in tow so that he and his wife -- who Cravaack says often had to spend three days a week in the Boston area for her work with a medical supply company -- can spend more time with their children.

Where's Waldo, er, where is Chip the Chip-o-crite?  Where are those family values without the family? (And when, oh when will we get to see Where oh where is chip? part deux?)
I couldn't help but notice that the web site also has this notice:
Proposal under review would put all New Hampshire prisoners in private, for-profit facilities -- the first state to do so
Will New Hampshire become the first state in the nation to hand over its entire …   (read more)

Friday, April 6, 2012                  

Wow - more push for privatization of public services and duties, including prisons, selling it cheap for private profit. Yup, it has the big red smeary hand print of ALEC, which includes big oil and the Koch's, all over the NHBR and presumably a good portion of the right wing politics of that state too.