By Robert F. Bukaty, AP

This entire election cycle, the Ron Paul campaign has been fighting an empirically proven and documented media black out. Ron Paul supporters understandably complain about how the mainstream media has ignored him. But this is not the only challenge faced by his campaign. What is more troubling is how the Texas congressman’s own party has treated his campaign.

Here’s the good news, Ron: It’s nothing personal. The bad news for Independent voters is that the reaction to his campaign is just one example of the two-party system’s pressure on candidates to conform. Last week I wrote about how the two-party system fears third-party candidates and tries to keep them off the ballot, but the influence of the establishment does not end there. Each main party also tries to stifle dissent within itself, urging all voters in “the big tent” to march in lockstep behind their approved candidate. The Republican Party fears Ron Paul for many reasons, as John Nichols pointed out on NPR. The first is that he doesn’t have the right pedigree:

“That is what frightens Republican party leaders. The notion that the Grand Old Party might actually base its politics on values, as opposed to pay-to-play deal-making, unsettles the Republican leaders who back only contenders who have been pre-approved by the Wall Street speculators, banksters and corporate CEOs who pay the party’s tab—and kindly pick up some of the bills for the Democrats, as well.”

Both parties fear candidates who don’t have the right connections, the right background, or powerful backers. The influence of power in both parties ensures that only the approved survive, and when a candidate with an independent streak challenges this reality, the pressure to conform begins. The second reason for fearing Ron Paul or any candidate outside the “mainstream” is that these candidates question the party dogma. Agree with his positions or not, Independent voters should respect the courage of a candidate who dares to challenge the two-party ideology. Ron Paul publicly promotes an ideological revolution, opposing foreign wars, violations of civil liberties, and the power of the banking class:

“A true revolution has to be ideological. Revolutions can be violent; they can overthrow a government with nothing really improved. An ideologically positive revolution is what is necessary, and that’s what we have going in this country. We may lose a battle here or there. But ultimately we are going to win the war because we are winning the hearts and minds of the American people.”

Republican leaders fear Ron Paul’s independence and ideology, and so it is not surprising that they do everything they can to minimize his impact. Not surprisingly, national leaders fear that Ron Paul will ruin the campaign of their chosen candidate, Mitt Romney. Party leaders intend to counter any effect the Paul campaign could have.

As the Texas Monthly records:

“This e-mail went out to party regulars over the signature of Bill Crocker, Republican national committeeman: Please plan to attend the SD [Senate District] conventions next Saturday and bring all your friends. We need to be sure we are not overwhelmed by the Ron Paul people, who still want to send a list of all Ron Paul people to the state convention.”

Mitt Romney supporters worry that Ron Paul’s primary campaign will weaken Romney’s chances in the general election. Why? They fear that Paul supporters may refuse to vote for Romney and local Paul-controlled party leadership will not do their best to support him. Craig Robinson, a former Republican leader in Iowa, has concerns:

“[H]e fretted whether others in the state party structure would do the work necessary to help Romney win in the state. ‘This could be problematic for Romney down the road and problematic for Iowa Republicans in general,’ Robinson said. ‘I think Iowa’s going to be very tough, very difficult for Mitt Romney this fall.’”

It comes down to the simple fact that extreme partisans in the two-party system believe in party solidarity and electoral victory more than good policy or the future of the American people. Too many party leaders are so bound up in the prospects for the general election that they refuse to take the time to win over Ron Paul’s energized supporters or even the party’s traditional, conservative base. Instead of listening to the new ideas and engaging in a real policy discussion, too many Republicans have repeated the party-centric mantra that the most important thing is to defeat Obama in November.

On the Democratic side, no prominent candidate has dared to challenge President Obama in this year’s primary. Despite widespread disappointment among the liberal base, party leaders insist on focusing on the general election. Party leaders care about winning. What should be done after winning is a secondary concern.

This is one reason Independent voters scorn the two-party system. Party dogma and power politics have reduced the parties to an establishment demonizing anyone on the other side of the aisle or within their own party who might challenge the status quo. The heated opposition to the Ron Paul campaign is just one example of the pressure imposed on those who dare to be different. Perhaps it is time to look outside the two-party system for independents who care about good policy and the American people.

Timothy TroutnerIndependent Voter Network - Unfiltered Political News by Independent Contributors

U.S. Army / Cooper T. Cash

In America, we do not negotiate with terrorists. That’s the mantra. Reagan said it, Bush said it, and now even Mitt Romney is saying it. Yet according to a May 6^th article from the Washington Post, the United States for the last several years has been engaging in sit down talks with the Taliban and related terrorist organizations.

The talks have centered on negotiations for the release of imprisoned insurgents in exchange for pledges of peace, information, and influence.  This “strategic release” program is limited to the most violent sections of Afghanistan where military operations have reached the limit of effectiveness. The silence of the program raises more questions about how little the public knows of operations in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Perhaps most revealing of all, the program has raised tensions with the Afghan government who are often excluded from talks.

Whether or not one agrees with the strategic benefit of sit-down talks with the Taliban, the lack of transparency being used in doing so is disheartening. The insurgents being released are coming from the Parwan detention center. This allows for privacy since Congress does not play a role in regulating Parwan, like they do with the Guantanamo Bay prison, for example. Military officials have confirmed the existence of the program, and that it has been going on for years, but would not confirm when exactly it was established, how many prisoners have been released, or if any released prisoners have returned to violence.

It is also unclear how high up the chain of command each release goes. Who has the ultimate say on which terrorists can be released and which Taliban leaders can be trusted to hold up their end of the deal and refrain from violence? The clandestine nature of the program is uncomfortably similar to the silent expansion of drone use in Afghanistan and the entire region.

Both of these programs have come about quietly, and both are endangering relations with American allies in the Middle East. Pakistani-US relations are at an all time low with the continuation of unmanned aerial attacks on Pakistani land, technically an act of war. And now, the Afghan government is aggravated at their exclusion from these sit down talks. The US is actively striving for their inclusion, but the insurgent groups requesting the negotiations refuse to work with the Afghan government, seeing the US as the only legitimate source of power.

This breakdown of responsibility sums up the ultimate failure in Afghanistan. The United States presence in Afghanistan is holding the country together, as the democratic government set up is crippled by corruption and a lack of infrastructure. For instance, now more than ever, Taliban insurgents are turning to the Afghan government looking to move beyond violence and rejoin society. The Afghan government, however, is not prepared to help them. This lack of preparedness is what leaves room for the Taliban and related groups to gain traction and puts the US in a diplomatic bind.

Ultimately, the Obama Administration’s openness to negotiation with terrorist organizations is levelheaded and realistic, and may be one of the few strategies remaining to bring change to Afghanistan. However, its methods of doing so, in secrecy, and hindered by a lack of Afghan preparedness, are reminiscent of all that is going awry with current US involvement in the Middle East.

Michael AbramsIndependent Voter Network - Unfiltered Political News by Independent Contributors

A home ignited by blowing embers during the 2007 Witch Creek Fire. Note the burned sticks in the foreground where the wildland fire stopped, the green iceplant, then the dense, unburned patch of chamise chaparral right next to the house. Credit: Richard Halsey

The following article is a serialized story of the decade-long effort to convince intransigent government officials in San Diego County that science matters and that the region’s native chaparral ecosystem has value. In the name of fire protection, the county attempted to establish a plan that could have allowed it to clear tens of thousands of acres of native habitat without proper oversight as required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The story is timely because of the current politicization of science in the United States and the impact that process can have on public policy. The story also provides valuable lessons to activists dealing with the enforcement of environmental law.

This is part II of VII.

Click here for Part I of The Politics of Fire: The Struggle Between Science and Ideology in San Diego County

Part II: Academic Nonsense

When the scientists’ letters were sent to San Diego County and leaked to the media, the county’s response was quick and severe. Supervisor Jacob reportedly said she wanted Wayne Spencer’s head on a platter in retaliation for SDFRN’s criticisms (Dr. Spencer was the lead signatory on SDFRN’s letter and a wildlife scientist with a national reputation for objective analysis). Officially, Jacob responded by saying the errors “don’t change the bottom line.” Bob Eisele, the county staff member who reportedly compiled the task force report, said it was scientifically sound, contradicting the scientists he cited who indicated their work had been misrepresented.

Efforts by the report’s critics to establish a dialogue with the county were unsuccessful. During a phone call with Jeff Collins, a member of Supervisor Jacob’s staff, on March 9, 2004, Richard Halsey from the California Chaparral Institute was told that Jacob “has her mind made up” and that there was no interest in including outside scientists or their opinions in a new wildland fire technical group the county would be establishing. The Chaparral Institute is a scientific and educational non-profit focusing on the preservation of native shrublands.

Then on May 25, 2004, Robert R. Copper, the general manager of the county’s Land Use and Environment Group, held a confrontational meeting with SDFRN members Spencer and Dr. Anne Fege, the former Supervisor for the Cleveland National Forest. Other attendees included Bob Asher (retired head of the county’s Multiple Species Conservation Plan – MSCP), Tom Oberbauer (the new MSCP head), and Ray Fernandez, a county manager.
Spencer and Fege entered the meeting with the intent of establishing a collaborative effort with the county to incorporate science into the process of developing a comprehensive fire management plan for the region. Things didn’t turn out that way.

Although Copper admitted that the task force report was “sloppy and inaccurate” and had no doubt that citations had been “fabricated,” he characterized the inaccuracies as “irrelevant” and the concerns raised by scientists as “academic BS.” He also stated that Jacob had already made the decision to promote vegetation management as the answer to wildfire risk and merely cited the report to justify her decision.
Accusing Spencer and Fege of “tail-gunning” the county, Copper, along with Oberbauer and Asher, said SDFRN should have consulted with them prior to writing any letter to the county. Spencer was shocked by this statement because he had began discussing the nature of the letter and the scientific reviews with Oberbauer, Asher, and other county employees weeks before anything was released. In fact, Oberbauer had advised Spencer to send the letter and had suggested to whom it should be addressed.

“It was ugly,” Spencer said. “We went in hopes of mending fences and finding out how we can work with the county to improve their approaches to land management based on science. That was not their agenda. The county’s agenda appeared to be intimidation.”

Copper also reportedly stated during the meeting that the board’s reaction to the scientists’ reviews were just the opposite of SDFRN’s intentions. According to him, the board’s sentiment was, “Let’s clear the backcountry just to spite them.”

Although Jacob told the press that she would call for an examination of the scientist’s allegations, none of the reviewers were ever contacted about the matter.

Despite the serious questions raised about the task force report, the county refused to withdraw it. During the May 25 meeting with Spencer and Fege, Copper indicated that the county had to “act in real time, in real space” and “didn’t have time for peer review, information input, or workshops” to fine tune policy. He considered “the perfect is the enemy of the good.”

“It was clear that they had a preordained conclusion, and they just sort of cobbled together supposed support for it,” Spencer said later. “It was dressed up as if it was a scientific discussion.”

Afterwards, Copper followed through on his threat made during the meeting that no signatories to the SDFRN letter should ever again expect consulting funds from the county. He ordered all county staff to disassociate themselves from SDFRN and do what they could to “marginalize” those who were involved in what he labeled as a “radical fringe group.” Spencer, who at the time had significant consulting agreements to assist the county with environmental issues, has never since received county funds.

The controversy continued through the summer of 2004. During a phone conversation on July 19, Halsey asked Oberbauer how the county was planning on moving forward. Oberbauer repeated Collins’ earlier point that there was going to be some kind of science advisory board that would be looking into fire-related issues. Halsey asked if any of the scientists who provided input on the task force report would be included. Oberbauer responded by saying that those involved in the letter to the county had “poisoned the well” and made it impossible for the county to deal with them. The county thinks these individuals are a “bunch of whackos,” he continued, who had complicated the process. “People need to understand the ramifications of their actions,” he said. “Those scientists don’t know anything about politics.”
Oberbauer’s comment about political inexperience was unusual in that Fege was the former supervisor of the Cleveland National Forest, Keeley had testified in numerous Congressional hearings, and Spencer advised high-level planning/research groups such as the National Academy of Sciences on how to improve agency decision-making on often politically charged planning issues.

When Halsey asked if the county could just forget about the individuals and focus on the data provided in the research, Oberbauer indicated that all the papers do is “spend half the time criticizing the other side” and only provide simple “observations” (In order to have a science paper published, it must go through an anonymous peer-review process in which the author’s data and hypothesis testing are examined and evaluated. The scientists’ methods and conclusions must be defensible in order for the paper to be accepted by the scientific journal’s editors.).

On August 23, 2004, the task force report was quietly removed from the county’s website after Supervisor Ron Roberts was informed during a private conversation with Halsey that court action was possible over the misrepresentation of the scientists’ work if the report was not taken out of circulation.

Unfortunately, Supervisor Jacob has cited the report several times since it was removed from the county’s website during county board meetings to support her contention that “clearing brush” is the single best way to protect lives and property. This, despite repeated testimony by scientists and submitted research papers demonstrating that successfully reducing wildfire risk requires a holistic approach (land planning, fire safe building codes, retrofitting older structures, financial support for fire protection services, public education, and vegetation management). Vegetation management alone is not adequate due to the fact that embers, blowing as far as two miles ahead of the fire front, are one of the primary reasons homes ignite.

Dr. Jack Cohen, a research scientist with the US Forest Service and whose work Jacob was made familiar, has concluded after extensive investigations that home ignitions are not likely unless flames and ember ignitions occur within 120 feet of the structure. His findings have shown that,

…effective fuel modification for reducing potential WUI (wildland/urban interface) fire losses need only occur within a few tens of meters from a home, not hundreds of meters or more from a home. This research indicates that home losses can be effectively reduced by focusing mitigation efforts on the structure and its immediate surroundings.

County residents paid a heavy price for their regional government’s policy focus on wildland vegetation rather than community fire safe planning. Three years and a few weeks after the task force report was removed from circulation, the 2007 Witch Creek Fire in San Diego County burned more than a thousand homes and killed two people. A comprehensive study by the Institute for Business and Home Safety after the 2007 fire concluded that, “there were few, if any, reports of homes burned as a result of direct contact with flames.”

If the homes had been properly retrofitted with fire safe features (such as attic vents and garage door seals) and yards had been cleaned of flammable materials (wood piles, palms trees, etc.), it is likely the loss in 2007 would have been significantly less.
–
This article is the second in The Politics of Fire series.

Check back soon at Independent Voter Network for the following installments. 

Richard W. HalseyIndependent Voter Network - Unfiltered Political News by Independent Contributors

As W.E. Messamore reported here at IVN yesterday, no candidate for the Americans Elect nomination for president reached the organization’s internal threshold to qualify for its online nominating convention scheduled for June. According to a statement by the group’s CEO Kahlil Byrd, its leadership and membership are currently discussing how best to proceed “before determining next steps for the immediate future.” An announcement regarding the results of these conversations is expected to be made as early as tomorrow.

The news of the group’s failure to recruit a field of candidates for its presidential nomination sent a wave of schadenfreude through the Democratic and Republican blogosphere. “The project appears to be a bust, which is heartening — Americans Elect was an overly-secretive, well-financed gimmick, eager to play electoral mischief for reasons that were never clear,” wrote Steve Benen at The Maddow Blog. “Bad News: Great new centrist-party hope can’t pick a nominee,” announced Ed Morrissey at Hot Air.

Among those who are not professional cheerleaders for the Republican-Democrat two-party political status quo, however, there are likely a great many for whom the failure of Americans Elect to meet its caucus threshold will come as a significant, though perhaps not entirely unexpected, disappointment. So where did Americans Elect go wrong? One potential answer is that the organization approached the problem from the wrong direction, namely, from the top down.

There is no doubt that the contempt for the Republican and Democratic parties on the part of the American public has created a strategic opening for alternatives to the forced choice between two increasingly intolerable evils. The presidential contest, however, may well be the worst possible point at which to enter the breach. According to a Gallup survey published yesterday, 92% of those polled are already fairly certain as to who will win the presidential race, with 56% stating that they believe President Obama will secure re-election, while 36% are of the opinion that Mitt Romney will score an upset. Such perceptions of inevitability reveal that the two-party state is first and foremost a state of mind. A viable third party or Independent political strategy will likely have to build the opposition to the misrule of the two-party state from the bottom up, beginning with local and state offices, or even just a handful of promising candidates for US House and Senate. In politics, as in architecture, you cannot place a keystone until you’ve built a base and frame.

Another inherent weakness in the Americans Elect strategy is its implicit assumption that the ideal alternative presidential ticket would be bipartisan, consisting of one individual from each of the two legacy parties. Americans are leaving the Democratic and Republican parties in droves. Poll after poll reveals a deepening disgust with the reigning party system. If the public can no longer stomach the Democrats or the Republicans, what in the world would lead one to believe that people would line up to support a Democrat and a Republican?

Whatever may come to pass with the Americans Elect presidential ticket, the organization has nonetheless done a great service by obtaining ballot access in dozens of states across the country. These ballot lines will be guaranteed for a number of election cycles. It is thus entirely possible that, in the coming years, we will find independently-minded individuals taking advantage of the opportunity afforded by a pre-existing, empty ballot slot in future elections for offices at all levels of government.

Damon ErisIndependent Voter Network - Unfiltered Political News by Independent Contributors

Credit: www.ChadCondit.com

As campaigns under California’s new open primary begin to take shape, the implications of the new electoral process are starting to make themselves more apparent. This year, all voters can vote for any candidate, regardless of party affiliation and only the top-two vote-getting candidates will compete in the general election.

Yesterday, an opinion editorial in the Modesto Bee by UC Merced political science professor Nathan W. Monroe called attention to the race in the Central Valley’s 10th Congressional district, which has pitted an incumbent party-line Republican Jeff Denham and a Democrat from Texas, Jose Hernandez, against a hometown independent candidate and son of former Central Valley representative Gary Condit, Chad Condit.

Monroe writes in the op-ed titled “Congressional Race Could be History Making“:

“Under the new system, an independent candidate only has to get enough votes in June to be second place. If he can, he gets to go head to head against just one of the major party candidates in November, instead of both … [L]ooking at valley representatives, past and present, a candidate of Condit’s moderate stripes could get serious traction.”

Chad Condit’s Congressional campaign website posted an interesting video of a campaign rally that took place late last week. The video features local speakers supporting Condit’s independent run for Congress that include the President of the University of Merced Democratic Club and a representative for the local sheriff’s association.

But, the highlight of the 5 minute presentation comes at the end when former Democratic Congressman Gary Condit follows his wife with an impassioned prediction that the younger Condit’s independent run is “just the beginning” of a movement that will ultimately succeed in wresting control of government from the Washington, DC political party power brokers.  When in Congress, the senior Condit was one of the original founders of the Blue Dog Democrats who once wielded particularly significant power in Congress during Bill Clinton’s second term.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Matt MetznerIndependent Voter Network - Unfiltered Political News by Independent Contributors

Credit: Gage Skidmore

Reports of Ron Paul’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. While a Monday email sent to reporters regarding Ron Paul’s election strategy has been widely interpreted and spun as the Texas congressman’s withdrawal from the Republican primary– with The Drudge Report running the misleading headline “Paul Out,” and Fox News Channel’s Shep Smith misreporting that Ron Paul is now “out of the race” –the email simply formalized and publicized the Paul campaign’s “guerrilla” delegate strategy of focusing on acquiring delegates instead of making a bid for the popular preference vote in primary states.

If anything, the email signaled that the Paul campaign is more serious than ever about actually winning the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, especially as it comes on the heels of a month-long string of major delegate victories that have bolstered the Ron Paul campaign’s hopes of a brokered convention in Tampa and demonstrated the potential viability of its delegate-focused strategy. After seeing marked results from this strategy, an announcement that the campaign will be pursuing it even more single-mindedly can hardly be interpreted as a retreat.

Last month at IVN, I outlined this strategy:

If the trend continues, and a well-funded, highly-organized, and very energetic Ron Paul campaign continues to sweep up delegates (with a majority of the party’s delegates still up for grabs in large states like California) there is a real and growing possibility that Mitt Romney will not secure enough delegates to win his party’s nomination on the first ballot at the Republican Party convention in Tampa. If this happens, the convention will become a brokered convention and all bound delegates will be “unbound,” allowed to change votes for whichever candidate they choose.

Although it is impossible to determine the actual number without official counts, Paul’s campaign seems quietly self-assured that at this point, many of Mitt Romney’s bound delegates will vote for Ron Paul and hand him the nomination, not because Paul thinks he can charm and persuade them in Tampa, but because the Paul campaign has already stacked each state’s slate of delegates with his own supporters, who have been stealthily getting elected as delegates. There’s no telling how many of Mitt Romney’s currently bound delegates are actually covert Ron Paul supporters ready to turn on a dime after being unbound in a brokered convention and vote for Ron Paul.

Since then, Ron Paul supporters and a few good investigative journalists have been digging deeper into the RNC’s rules for its nominating process on the floor of the national convention in Tampa. What they’ve unearthed is the possibility that Ron Paul doesn’t even need a brokered convention to win the nomination. His covert supporters mentioned in the excerpt above– those who will attend the convention as bound Romney delegates, but who are actually Ron Paul supporters hoping to get past a first ballot– may not be bound to vote for Mitt Romney on the first ballot after all. It’s all in the RNC’s Rule 38, which says:

“No delegate or alternate delegate shall be bound by any attempt of any state or Congressional district to impose the unit rule.”

According to Fox19 Cincinnati’s Ben Swann, citing an article at FairVote.org, Rule 38 has already been interpreted by the RNC’s own legal council to mean that the national party rules do not recognize state laws or procedures that bind delegates to vote for a particular candidate, but that they are free to vote for their individual preference on the floor of the national convention. The issue came up in 2008 when a member of the Utah delegation wanted to vote for Mitt Romney instead of John McCain, to whom Utah’s delegates were bound. Several weeks before the 2008 Republican national convention, Jennifer Sheehan, Legal Council for the RNC, wrote a letter to Nancy Lord, Utah National Committee-Woman, asserting:

“The RNC does not recognize a state’s binding of national delegates, but considers each delegate a free agent who can vote for whoever they choose, and the national convention allows delegates to vote for the individual of their choice, regardless of whether the person’s name is officially placed into nomination or not.”

If this is the case, and again, this is the RNC’s own interpretation of its own rule, with an established and recent precedent (that ironically happened to benefit Mitt Romney in 2008), then Ron Paul may not need to last until the second ballot of a long-shot brokered convention to let loose his stealth delegates. Though their states may have bound them to Romney, once they’re on the convention floor in Tampa, it will be the RNC’s rules that matter and if Paul’s hand is strong enough he could just win his party’s nomination on the first ballot.

Another RNC rule that seems to indicate the primacy of the individual delegate’s preference at the nominating convention is Rule 37, Section (b), which states:

“In the balloting, the vote of each state shall be announced by the chairman of such state’s delegation, or his or her designee; and in case the vote of any state shall be divided, the chairman shall announce the number of votes for each candidate, or for or against any proposition; but if exception is taken by any delegate from that state to the correctness of such announcement by the chairman of that delegation, the chairman of the convention shall direct the roll of members of such delegation to be called, and the result shall be recorded in accordance with the vote of the several delegates in such delegation.”

The final say here seems to be with the will of the individual delegate on the floor, not with the delegate’s state, nor even with the chairman of the state’s delegation to the convention.

If Ron Paul’s supporters outnumber the other delegates in Tampa, he seems to have the parliamentary grounds for a first ballot upset and a primary victory– no brokered convention necessary. If it comes to this, the Romney camp will, no doubt, challenge the convention result. It’s a fight that could end up in the courts. Legally, which would take precedent over the other, the RNC’s rules or state laws that bind delegates to vote for certain candidates on the first ballot of the convention?

As IVN’s Kymberly Bays recently reported, this exact question has already been resolved at the US Supreme Court level: the national party’s rules take precedence over state laws because as a private organization and free association of individuals, a political party has the constitutional right to set its own rules and state laws interfering with that private process violate a political party’s First Amendment rights.

The Monday email is no mystery then– if Ron Paul could win his party’s nomination simply by having enough of his energetic supporters become delegates from their state, why would he spend millions of dollars on radio and television ad purchases to win what amounts to an inconsequential straw poll?

W. E. MessamoreIndependent Voter Network - Unfiltered Political News by Independent Contributors

Credit: usgs.gov

Quite a few conservative commentators are making waves about a Government Accountability Office statement (PDF) which says that 1.5 trillion barrels of shale oil in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming may be recoverable.

Their reactions are all along the same lines: this shale-oil reserve could “by itself supply domestic oil consumption for more than 200 years”, and “will Obama, in a possible second term, block the development of the resources that can assure America’s economic supremacy for generations?”

Typically simplistic. If only it were that easy.

Few, if any, of those conservative oil-boosters are reading further into the GAO’s report. Two pages later, it mentions that there are two ways to get the oil out of the shale.

The first involves massive strip-mining to get the rock out, then heating it to 650 degrees plus to release the oil. That method has three major commercial problems: it can never get at the bulk of the reserves, which are buried under thousands of feet of non-oily rock, the cost of the power (and water to make that power) to heat the rock makes the oil it produces very expensive, and there are no roads suitable to get the equipment needed for large-scale mining. These all add up to a trickle of oil at very high prices, not the economic-powerhouse gluttony the right wing think these shale reserves represent. It also has non-commercial problems: the strip mining of vast areas of what is currently nature preserve, massive regional air and water pollution and of course the runaway effect dumping so much carbon (from burning all that oil) into the earth’s atmosphere would have on global warming.

The second method involves drilling holes, then lowering very powerful heaters to free the oil from its shale matrix in situ and pumping the oil out. In theory, this opens up even deep-buried reserves but as the reports states, the biggest commercial problem there is that there is no proven commercially-viable way of doing this. Everything done so far has been “pilot”, “experimental”, “small scale”. Best estimates say commercial technology for this method of extraction are 10-20 years away. Even then, it will mean expensive oil for the same reason strip-mining does: the cost of power needed to heat and the cost of ever-scarcer water both for power-generation and in this case for fracking. The same non-commercial problems still apply, and you can add likely massive contamination of ground water reserves that are essential for urban areas and agriculture across several states.

All of this adds up to why shale oil isn’t a pipe-dream solution to our energy woes and doesn’t mean Americans can fuel gas-guzzling SUVs for a dollar a gallon for a century to come. There’s a reason oil experts differentiate between theoretical reserves and commercially exploitable reserves. Shale oil is expensive oil and even on a purely robber-baron capitalist ethic isn’t worth squat unless other oil is just as expensive.

Luckily for the shale-oil lobby (and unluckily for Republican oil demagogues), while we may not have seen “peak oil” yet we have already passed a more telling tipping point: that of “peak cheap oil, and, says the IMF, we may soon have a permanent doubling of oil prices.

Sorry, but any triumphalism about America’s energy supremacy in the century to come would be vastly, incredibly, misplaced.

This article was excerpted from The Agonist, where it first appeared.

Steve HyndIndependent Voter Network - Unfiltered Political News by Independent Contributors

Credit: Indianapolis Star

Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock’s Republican primary victory last week over Senator Richard Lugar marks a changing of the guard. By expelling the Senate’s longest tenured Republican by 20 points, Lugar was resoundingly repudiated. But does his purported successor present a better option for Indiana?

The perception leading into this primary was that Lugar was too moderate, too willing to work with the Democrats, and he had simply been in Washington too long and thus lost connection with his constituents. When it was discovered that Lugar sold his Indiana residence after winning his first term in 1976 and had basically been living in Virginia ever since, it was a hard fact to dispute.

Lugar couldn’t shake the image that he was generally the Democrats’ and particularly President Obama’s “favorite Republican,” especially after Lugar broke ranks to confirm Obama’s Supreme Court nominees. While Lugar’s legacy requires more than a few sentences to summarize, that many of his eulogists are Democrats seems to bear this perception out.

But whatever one might think of Lugar’s penchant for compromise and bipartisanship, it easy to see how Mourdock plans to govern.

Immediately following his victory, Mourdock clearly explained in a New York Times report that “This is a historic time, and the most powerful people in both parties are so opposed to one another that one side simply has to win out over the other.” Not to be outdone, the day after his win Mourdock described compromise and bipartisanship on CNN as “Democrats joining Republicans.”

A party’s base can find such bravado enlivening, but it ought not be conflated with philosophical integrity. On the one hand, there is a matter of clinging to one’s principles. But on the other, is such preordained intransigence likely to devolve into knee-jerk partisanship? Will simply voting against Democrats be a sign of conservative purity?

Then again, bipartisanship is not all it’s cracked up to be. Such boondoggles as the Patriot Act, Iraq War, Medicare Part D, and TARP were all passed with bipartisan consent in a decade that was itself marked by polarized politics. Is Mourdock the type of conservative who can be counted on to break with party leaders and vote against such Republican initiatives as those above? After all, they each meet Mourdock’s definition of bipartisanship because they involved Democrats coming over to vote for Republican measures.

It’s too early to determine what kind of senator Richard Mourdock might be. He has to survive November’s US Senate election against Democrat Joe Donnelly first. But Mourdock’s primary victory should also not be overestimated. Lugar is gone because as a 36-year incumbent he inevitably accumulated a record with vulnerabilities and he ran into a candidate with statewide recognition who was backed up by an organized opposition.

But Mourdock should also not be confused as a Tea Partier par excellence. A three-time loser in congressional elections before finally winning state treasurer, Mourdock has been trying to be a Washington politician for over twenty years. He may prove otherwise, but when it comes to the hope voters and pundits are placing in Richard Mourdock, voter beware.

Carl WicklanderIndependent Voter Network - Unfiltered Political News by Independent Contributors

Photo: RepublicDomain.com

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be, do not forget, stay out of debt. Think twice and take this good advice from me: guard that old solvency.” Those of you who are Gilligan’s Island fans may remember this sage piece of advice, given by Polonius (the Skipper) to Laertes (Mary Ann) and sung to the Toreador Song (Carmen). But if you look at our current national debt exceeding 15.7 trillion, apparently few of our elected officials in Washington either value this advice or are Gilligan’s Island fans.

The national debt should be an important issue for President Obama, former MA Governor Mitt Romney, and all congressional candidates. And while there is plenty of blame to go around for why the debt is as high as it is today, in fairness our government has not always been this fiscally irresponsible. In fact a close look at history shows that Congress and the president did a much better job of staying out of debt for a long time, even before Gilligan’s Island came along.

The first tracking of our national debt was set up in the 18th Century (1790s) by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. The National Debt as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was low from the 1790s up to 1900, maxing out at 35% of GDP during the Civil War but by 1900, the total debt was less than 20% of GDP and stood at  $2,136,961,091.67.

Federal Debt was much higher in the 20th Century. Peak periods included after World War 1 (35% of GDP, dollar amount of 26 billion), the Great Depression (40% of GDP, 43 billion), World War 2 (from 45% of GDP and 49 billion in 1941 to a whopping 122% of GDP and 269 billion in 1946), the Reagan and Bush presidencies from 1980-1992 (maxing at 66% of GDP and 4.2 trillion in 1992) and the Clinton presidency (from 68% of GDP in 1993 to 58% of GDP and 5.7 trillion in 2000).

And this century, the National Debt keeps going up. CBS News pointed out recently that the Debt rose $4.899 trillion during the two terms of the Bush presidency, and as of 3/19/12 it was up $4.939 trillion since President Obama took office (3+ years, still in 1st term). Currently debt exceeds 100% of GDP.

While it is clear that more debt has been accumulated in less time under President Obama than President George W. Bush, both parties, Republican and Democrat, have contributed substantially to our debt. What causes debt? War, entitlements, and overall– the failure of Washington to live within its means. The continual raising of the debt ceiling and spending, regardless of the mounting debt, shows a lack of fiscal discipline and an apparent disregard for the impact this debt will have on current and future generations of Americans (currently debt to be paid is $50,134 per citizen and $138,391 per taxpayer) .

Are there solutions being offered? Well, yes. But according to a report released in February, 2012 by U.S. Budget Watch, a project of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, only GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul is credited with having a plan to reduce the debt. Paul’s plan shows reductions in taxes and spending, with greater reductions in spending.

Dr. Paul deserves credit for offering a clear vision of how he would reduce debt, and other candidates like Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney should be asked to do the same. But given the performance of both political parties, as both have had control of the presidency and Congress, it is hard to be optimistic that either is serious about reducing the debt.

Peter BarbourIndependent Voter Network - Unfiltered Political News by Independent Contributors

On May 7, 2012 voters can began voting in California’s first “Top Two Open Primary”. Previously, candidates running for office appeared only on their own party ballot. Now, under the “Top-Two Open Primary Act”, all candidates running, regardless of their party preference, will appear on a single combined ballot. For the first time, voters can also select a “No Party Preference” candidate in the primary election. This change gives voters the option to select a Moderate candidate that balances the views of both parties. In office, a “No Party Preference” candidate holds a powerful split vote to break stalemates between the parties. This vote can be instrumental in passing budgets, approving projects, and making decisions.

I am the “No Party Preference” candidate for the United States House of Representatives California District 7. This new district represents the Sacramento County Suburbs. It’s a more compact district and was designed by the Citizen’s Commission for Redistricting to eliminate the gerrymandering which snaked the previous district all the way to the Nevada border. In my opinion, it’s a better district for the voter because it is centered in Sacramento County to more effectively represent the needs of a growing suburban population.

As the “No Party Preference” congressional candidate, I am focused strictly on addressing our economic recovery and not on fighting political ideology. My goals for my first term are: 1) Create jobs by landing a company headquarters along the Hwy 50 and 99 corridors, 2) Reduce commutes by building a bridge across the American River between Watt and Sunrise, and 3) Interconnect Elk Grove to El Dorado via a byway. These important tasks have been delayed by a lack of leadership and I intend to complete them.

To create jobs for our area, I recently wrote George Lucas, director of the Star Wars movie series, to invite him to locate his new Lucas Films digital arts campus at Mather Field or at the recently annexed expansion of Folsom. This was in response to an announcement George Lucas made titled, “Lucas Films pulls out of Marin.” As Congressman, I will continue to invite employers like Lucas Films to locate here and do everything I can to retain the employers we already have. This is what cities are doing to bring in employers. This is what Chicago did to encourage Boeing to move its headquarters there from Seattle. This is what I will do for the Sacramento region if elected your Congressman. Please consider a “No Party Preference” candidate this election and break the party stalemate so we can get down to business.

Editors Note: Curt Taras is an independent candidate for Congress in California’s 7th Congressional District. (www.VoteCurt.com).  

Curt TarasIndependent Voter Network - Unfiltered Political News by Independent Contributors