ONCE AGAIN COP KILLS, WALKS FREE...

Demonstrators filled the lobby of Seattle's City Hall, and marched into traffic late in rush hour yesterday. They were protesting news that Seattle Police Officer Ian Birk would not be charged by King County Prosecutors for killing Native American woodcarver John T. Williams last year.  Prosecutors claimed they could not charge Birk because they couldn't show malice.  Hogwash!

Lem Howell is a longtime civil rights attorney in Seattle. He disagrees with that reasoning.

Howell: "Saying we can't prove malice. The police officer had his gun out before he ever approached Williams. It was right there on the film. Satterberg is disappointing. His conduct is outrageous. Not even negligent homicide? That's inexcusable. He does not deserve to be a prosecutor."

The following is from NWCN News.

Protesters plan more rallies in wake of woodcarver decision

Credit: Jeff Christian, KING5.com

by KING 5 News

NWCN.com

Posted on February 17, 2011 at 1:15 PM

Related:

• Protest against police brutality winds through Seattle
• Raw: Protester attempts to break police line
• Prosecutors won't charge Seattle officer in woodcarver shooting
• Seattle Police officer in fatal shooting resigns

Gallery

SEE ALL 37 PHOTOS »

SEATTLE -- Protesters against the fatal police shooting of a First Nations woodcarver are using Facebook to organize more demonstrations.

Several groups and invitations have been created since Wednesday night, when nearly 300 people marched from Westlake Center to where John T. Williams was shot and killed by former Seattle Police officer Ian Birk last August.

Birk resigned Wednesday, hours after King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg announced no criminal charges would be filed against him for the shooting. 

One Facebook event, named "Another rally at Westlake--Birk's resignation changes nothing" calls for protesters to meet Friday from 6-9 p.m. So far, 50 people say they are planning to attend.

"One night of amazing protest is not enough," reads the event description. "The only way things will ever change is if we change it, and that will take more and more people in the streets."

Another protest is planned for Saturday at Victor Steinbruck Park from 1-4 p.m. Organizers plan to hold a "carve in" at the "John T. Williams woodcarver rally" and then meet for another protest at Westlake Center at 6:00 p.m. 

"Never has there been a clearer message that police officers are held to a different set of standards (and NOT beholden to the same laws) as the rest of the citizenry," one person wrote on the invitation. "This is an outrage. I am gonna make a point of being there at the park at the end of Pike Place Market this Saturday at 1:00 pm."

Wednesday's protesters were mostly peaceful, aside from a few minor scuffles. Several people shouted at Seattle Police officers dressed in riot gear. Others sat in the street, but no one was arrested.

TUNISIA, EGYPT, YEMEN, LIBYA, BAHRAIN, IRAN, WISCONSIN,,,WISCONSIN?

Surely, cable reporters are on the streets in Madison, Wisconsin where tens of thousands  fed up Wisconsinites have taken to the streets demanding their rights.  Workers and students joined forces to take on the dictator Governor Scott Walker who has threatened to call out his armed forces against them.  However, the people are not intimidated and are continuing to put on the pressure.  Where is Aljazeera when you need it?


The following is from World Socialist Web Site.

Tens of thousands demonstrate against attacks on government workers in Wisconsin

By Tom Eley 
17 February 2011

Protesters gather in front of the state capitol building in Madison

On Wednesday a crowd estimated at about 30,000 demonstrated in Madison, the capital of Wisconsin, against attacks on the wages and conditions of public sector workers launched by Governor Scott Walker. The demonstrations, which continued throughout the day and peaked at noon and again in the early evening, followed a Tuesday protest estimated at between 13,000 and 20,000 and a series of rallies, demonstrations, and school walk-outs across the state.

Officials ordered the closures of Madison’s public school system after 40 percent of teachers had called in before Wednesday morning to declare a sick day in order to attend the rally. Busloads of demonstrators continued to arrive in the capital from throughout the state. Near Milwaukee, a crowd estimated at 1,500 marched on Walker’s suburban home. About 1,000 high school students staged a walkout in the city of Appleton.

In an effort inspired by Egyptian demonstrators in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, dozens of workers and youth camped out in the Statehouse overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday. They have promised to continue the occupation until Walker’s bill is defeated.

It is anticipated that the protests will continue Thursday and Friday. Schools throughout the state are bracing for teacher absences and student walkouts. A large walkout of University of Wisconsin-Madison undergraduates and graduate students is expected Thursday.

A student

Walker’s plan, which may be passed in some form by the weekend, is a far-reaching attack on workers. Among a bevy of proposals, the bill would bar workers from negotiating over pensions, health care benefits, or workplace conditions. Only pay would be subject to bargaining, but it would be locked into raises no greater than annual increases in the Consumer Price Index. Public workers would be forced to nearly double their contributions to pensions and health care plans.

Beyond these draconian measures, Walker has enraged workers with the anti-democratic way he has demanded them. On February 11, he announced that he had put the National Guard on alert to deal with any worker resistance.

The last time the National Guard was called out in Wisconsin to deal with striking workers was the May First eight-hour day movement in 1886, when in the days after the Haymarket riot in Chicago the state militia opened fire on striking steel workers in Milwaukee, killing seven.

Walker’s bill arrogates to his office dictatorial powers that recall the rampant abuse of executive authority by 19th-century governors. According to a press release from Walker’s office, “if Governor has declared a state of emergency, the bill authorizes appointing authorities to terminate any employees that are absent for three days without approval of the employer or any employees that participate in an organized action to stop or slow work.”

One of the most striking elements of the demonstrations in Madison is the support they have won from the youth. In addition to the Wednesday walkout in Appleton, over 800 Madison East High School Students, more than 50 percent of the school, staged a walkout and marched two-and-a-half miles to the capitol building on Tuesday. A single high school student, Ona Powell, is credited with organizing the strike through a Facebook page and word-of-mouth. On Monday, high school students struck in Stoughton, an industrial town near Madison.

Undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, have been prominent in the demonstrations there, and students at the University of Wisconsin campuses in Milwaukee and Superior have also joined protests.

On Tuesday, Walker attempted to campaign for his bill in the western Wisconsin cities of La Crosse and Eau Claire. In each city he was met by hundreds of demonstrators. In Eau Claire, his vehicle had to deviate from its intended course and enter a factory from the rear.

Walker is consciously attempting to turn private sector workers against their class brothers and sisters in the public sector. In La Crosse he told steelworkers that industrial workers in Wisconsin have made enormous “sacrifices,” so government workers should to the same. “What I’m asking for pales in comparison to what everybody else is doing in the private sector,” he said. “We think these are reasonable, modest changes. I think most employees outside of government would say this is a pretty good deal.”

These attempts were not successful, however. By all accounts the large demonstrations in Madison were attended by many workers from the private sector.

The public sector unions who have called the protests—among them the Wisconsin branches of the the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), National Education Association (NEA), and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)—have presented them as a lobbying effort to sway a handful of Republican senators to vote against elements of Walker’s bill.

The unions are not interested in defending either working class living standards or the right to strike—as proved only too well by the NEA and AFT, which have both backed the Obama administration’s assault on public education and work rules known as Race to the Top. All the public sector unions have abided by reactionary laws forbidding government workers from striking.

In Wisconsin, the unions are primarily motivated by a measure in the bill that would ban the automatic dues check-off, which would threaten to eliminate millions of dollars from their revenues. The unions funnel this money to the same Democratic Party that in numerous states, and at the national level under the Obama administration, is spearheading the attack on government workers’ wages and jobs. The only difference is that the Democrats “work together” with the union official to implement the cuts, while Republicans prefer not to deal with the union bureaucracies.

The social demands animating demonstrators in Madison and around Wisconsin are entirely opposed to the pro-austerity line supported by the trade unions . They see their struggle as a fight against wage-cutting, anti-democratic attacks on workers’ rights, and the abuses and humiliations of a political system that constantly demeans their work. Indeed, numerous signs at the rallies and comments in interviews make clear that workers and youth in Wisconsin identify with the uprising of the Arab workers and youth against US-backed tyrants in the Middle East.

Christine Hendricks and Melinda Foster

“The government only wants the rich to get richer, and it’s leaving the working and middle class behind,” Melinda Foster, a radiology technician at the University of Wisconsin hospital, told the World Socialist Web Site. “Why can’t we cut the billionaires’ and executives’ pay?”

Sally, a teacher, said the budget cuts would make paying her bills much harder. “This last winter was really tough for me,” she said. “I ended up borrowing money just to pay my property taxes. I am working another job in addition to being a teacher. At least I’m not putting kids through college. We don’t have cushy jobs; many of us are working paycheck to paycheck to make ends meet.”

Edson, a teaching assistant at the University of Wisconsin Madison, compared the development to the toppling of dictators in the Middle East. “When the government stops listening to us, that’s when it becomes like Egypt,” he said.

Their desire to defend their jobs, wages, and rights, and their striving for greater solidarity with other workers—in different trades, states, and even nations—inevitably brings workers and youth into conflict with the trade unions and the corporate-controlled two party system. But these sentiments must find independent forms of struggle and ultimately a conscious political expression in the struggle for socialism.

The demonstrations in Wisconsin have put paid to the myth of the passive and backward American worker. The next step in this fight is for broader sections of the working class follow the initiative in Wisconsin and enter into struggle against wage-cutting and anti-democratic abuses.

SLAVERY IS NOT A FOND MEMORY

Ah, the good old days...those days of sodas, and pretzels and SLAVES.  I don't think so.  Scarlett O'Hara was just another racist, plantation dwelling fluffed up white woman who liked to think of herself as something special.  Her and all her " gentleman" slave owning, man friends are something to detest not long for. And as for John Wilkes Booth, white supremacist terrorist, a little pre execution water boarding would have been nice. So what does all this have to do with the Grammy Awards?  Not much actually, but it is a fine kick off spot.

Burn, baby, burn!

The following is from AlterNet.

Lady Antebellum and the Glorification of the Pre-Civil War South By Tami , What Tami Said Posted on February 16, 2011, Printed on February 16, 2011 http://www.alternet.org/story/149940/ A few months ago, "Need You Now" by the country group Lady Antebellum was among iTunes' free downloads. I'm a curious music lover with eclectic tastes, so I snagged the song for my iPod. It was catchy and nice in the inoffensive and pop-y way of crossover country--think Carrie Underwood not the rougher alt-country of Lucinda Williams. I'll keep the song, which will fit nicely in some future playlist. But the band chafes me. It's not the music. It's the name. "Lady Antebellum" seems to me an example of the way we still, nearly 150 years after the end of the Civil War; nearly 50 years after the Civil Rights Act; and in a supposedly post-racial country led by a biracial president, glorify a culture that was based on the violent oppression of people of color. According to an article in the Augusta Chronicle, the idea for the name "Lady Antebellum" came after a photo shoot where band members dressed in Civil War-era clothing. It seems harmless--just a nod to the band's roots south of the Mason-Dixon Line, a recognition of the Old South. Wikipedia defines the antebellum period thusly: The antebellum period (from the Latin ante, "before," and bellum, "war") was the time period in America from after the birth of the United States to the start of the American Civil War.[2] The Antebellum Age was a time of great transition because of the industrial revolution in America. It also was a time of growth in slavery in the American South. It was a phase in American history when America spread towards the west coast which among historians is generally referred to as "Westward Expansion". Read more... In the public consciousness, part of this story translates into "Gone with the Wind"-style mythology about big manor houses sat on sprawling plantations; fair, delicate, pale-skinned maidens in frilly dresses; brave and handsome men in gray; and solid, traditional American values. This rosy view of the antebellum South only holds up if you don't scratch too deep. But we're not likely to do that and disturb the patriotic version of history. We like myth better. That is why, over the years, at least two women have gushed at me: "I would just love to go back to that time!" One, a white woman who had recently read the Margaret Mitchell novel that became the classic movie, did not consider that for her to be "Scarlett," I would have to be a darkie working in the fields. My family would have to live in bondage as chattel--our very lives dependent on the whims of our masters. The way of life she associated with the antebellum period, and the economy that supported it, was dependent on free labor and the dehumanization of people of color (not to mention a bunch of classism and sexism). As an African American descendant of slaves, I cannot overlook that bitter reality. My acquaintance read "Gone with the Wind" and wondered how grand it would be to be Scarlett O'Hara. I wondered how awful it must have been to be Mammy. As an amateur family historian, I have scoured wills and bills of sale of Southern landed gentry in search of the names of my great-great-grandparents among the fine china and horses. Once you have done that, it is hard to look at the mythologizing of antebellum Southern culture as benign. I was thinking about this fact last week as I finished reading Manhunt, by James Swanson. The book was a riveting account of the 12-day search for Abraham Lincoln's assassin, Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth. Manhunt is a historical account that reads like a James Patterson novel. I couldn't put it down, despite knowing how the story ended. The book contains thrilling personal narratives of a defining event in American history. Hearing the impressions of President Lincoln's family, members of his Cabinet, Union loyalists and rebels, made history come alive. After reaching Manhunt's midpoint, I thought surely it would become a book that I enthusiastically recommend to other readers. But I found that as John Wilkes Booth's saga wore on, Swanson seemed to be lionizing the assassin, which I found disconcerting and not a little offensive. Booth is drawn in purple prose. The author goes on and on about the actor's luminescent white skin, his thick black hair, his charm and elegant clothing. We learn about Booth's passionate conviction, his belief that his cause was noble and the inconveniences of life on the run. Booth becomes a hero, while his pursuers are drawn as petty bumblers, eager to cash in on the fame and money associated with bringing in the president's killer. Swanson even compares Booth to Jesus twice.  Late in the book, Swanson writes about how years after Lincoln's assassination, Booth has found a heroic fame that Lee Harvey Oswald or James Earl Ray never will. There is no better example of this than Manhunt itself, which seems to forget that Booth--charming stage star though he was--was, more importantly, vain, a murderer, a traitor, a racist and a megalomaniac.  This is yet another example of the soft and fuzzy way we look back on the Confederate cause, the antebellum South and slave culture. I cannot imagine a book set in Germany at the time of World War II that would fawn over the charm and appearance of defenders of the Third Reich or mention how members of the Nazi Party thought their cause noble. We would not draw those opponents as anything but villains for the evil they committed against humanity. Yet, mention the antebellum South or the Confederacy, and some Americans grow starry-eyed. No one thinks of the more than 10 million enslaved Africans who died in the Middle Passage or on some plantation or small farm. No one thinks of the people who were denied their freedom and humanity so that the Southern economy could rise, and that all those Rhetts and Scarletts could sit in their fine houses, showing off their fancy clothes and manners. That America forgets my ancestors, while longing for the "glory days" that their enslavement made possible, is offensive. I don't like what the Confederate flag stands for and hate to see it flown. I think a century is not long enough to turn an assassin into a hero. And a middle-of-the-road country band with a name that harks back to pre-Civil War days doesn't feel benign to me. You may say that I am thinking too hard. I say that sometimes society doesn't think hard enough about the elements of history we cherish. Originally published 1/20/10. Get pieces like this delivered to your inbox weekly. Sign up for our Culture and the Arts Newsletter here. © 2011 What Tami Said All rights reserved. View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/149940/

[w1]

JERKS ON THE LEFT, JERKS ON THE RIGHT SEEM TO FIND RAPE FUNNY

DISGUSTING!


From The Atlantic.










The Lunatic Left-Right Harmonic Rape Convergence Theory

FEB 16 2011, 8:47 AM ET

Nir Rosen, the far-left journalist who joked about the sexual assault on Lara Logan, has company: Debbie Schlussel, the extreme right-wing commentator. Rosen calls for the elimination of Israel, and is a pro-Hamas Hezbollah apologist; Schlussel is a racist anti-Muslim commentator. They come from radically different places on the political spectrum, and yet they share a common inhumanity. Here is Schlusselfinding great happiness in the rape of Lara Logan:

So sad, too bad, Lara. No one told her to go there. She knew the risks. And she should have known what Islam is all about. Now she knows. Or so we'd hope. But in the case of the media vis-a-vis Islam, that's a hope that's generally unanswered.

This never happened to her or any other mainstream media reporter when Mubarak was allowed to treat his country of savages in the only way they can be controlled.

Now that's all gone. How fitting that Lara Logan was "liberated" by Muslims in Liberation Square while she was gushing over the other part of the "liberation."

Hope you're enjoying the revolution, Lara! Alhamdilllullah [praise allah].

How far past disgusting is this? Way past disgusting. Garance Franke-Ruta has an interesting piece up on the Atlantic site about the dangers faced by female correspondents. By the way, in one of Nir Rosen's manytweeted apologies last night came this gem: "on the job you get used to making jokes about our own death, other people's deaths, horrors, you forget that you sound like a dick at home."

 Sorry, no. I've never heard anyone in the field have fun with the rape of a colleague. Our own deaths, yes, but this? No.  

Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. Author of the book Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror, he has reported from the Middle East and Africa. He also writes the magazine's advice column

EGYPT IN IRAQ

Will CNN describe this as a peoples uprising for democracy? Somehow I doubt it.  Funny, how it all depends on who, when, where.  


Although, I must say Obama handled Egypt with rare brilliance.  He was for Mubarik, the protesters, neither and both.  That takes courage.


From Red Ant Liberation Army News.

Iraqis attack government offices

February 16, 2011BJ MurphyLeave a commentGo to comments

February 16, 2011

About 2,000 protesters marched in Kut to demand better services before storming the council building

Three people have been killed and dozens wounded in clashes between security forces and protesters in a southern Iraqi province, after around 2,000 people attacked government offices in protest over poor services.

Protesters took threw rocks and took over a provincial council building in Kut in Wasit province, about 160km southeast of Baghdad, on Wednesday. Three government buildings were set on fire, including the governor’s official residence.

A police source in Kut said three protesters were killed in clashes and about 30 wounded, including 15 policemen. A hospital source said one of the dead was a 16-year-old boy who suffered a bullet to the chest.

Punishment pledged

Officials said policemen and soldiers fired their weapons into the air in a bid to dissuade protesters, while private security guards employed by Wasit council opened fire directly into the crowd.

“Those were private guards, only they fired at the protesters. They were outside the law,” police Brigadier General Hussein Jassim told AFP. “Our forces only fired into the air.”

Major Mohammed Saleh, the senior police intelligence officer in Kut, said: “Measures will be taken against the private guards but after the situation has calmed down.”

Demonstrators are demanding Latif Hamad al-Tarfa, the provincial governor, resign over poor basic services such as electricity and water.

They held up placards that said, “To all citizens: Electricity is only for officials”, a reference to Iraq’s dramatic shortfall in power provision.

“We demand that our rights be met, that we have better services and that the authorities fight corruption,” Ali Mohsen, a 54-year-old professor at Wasit university, said.

“We demand that the governor resign … all we need is services.”

An official told Al Jazeera that protesters were enraged by comments by al-Tarfa belittling demonstrators at a much smaller protest a week ago.

VALENTINES DAY IN IRAN

MEANWHILE IN THE THEOCRATIC DICTATORSHIP OF IRAN PROTESTERS WERE BEATEN BY POLICE AND RIGHT WING RELIGIOUS GOONS ON THE STREETS OF TEHRAN TODAY.  THE MULLAHS AND THEIR HENCHMEN DON'T SEEM TO WANT ANYONE TO DEPART FROM THEIR ANOINTED WISDOM.  THAT'S USUALLY HOW IT  IS WHEN SOME GROUP THAT SPEAKS FOR GOD OR ALLAH OR WHATEVER OTHER NAME YOU MIGHT HAVE FOR A SUPREME DEITY.  I MEAN HOW COULD THE REST OF US MERE MORTALS KNOW WHAT IS GOOD FOR US.  


SMASH THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN
SMASH ALL RELIGIOUS AUTOCRATS
THINK FOR YOURSELF

DAMN DAMS NEED TO COME DOWN, NOT GO UP

Stop with the damn dams already. Start tearing them down with a thirty day completion time frame. Just a thought.


According to International RiversBelo Monte, which with an installed generating capacity of 11,231 MW would be the world's third largest dam, and its complex array of two powerhouses, artificial canals, huge dykes, two reservoirs, spillways, ports, roads, and work camps would devastate more than 1,500 sq km of the Xingu River region of the central Brazilian Amazon.

The vast mosaic of indigenous reserves and protected areas of the Xingu would be in harm's way, and according to the experts, more than double the official figure of 19,000 people would likely have to moved to make way for the dam. A 100 km stretch of what is known as the "Big Bend" of the Xingu (number one on the map) would dry up when most of the Xingu's flow is diverted to the power house (casa de força)."

From UK Indymedia.

Brazilian protesters criticise dam project

Dan | 14.02.2011 19:41 | Climate Chaos | Energy Crisis | World

Environmentalists and indigenous-rights supporters gathered in the Brazilian capital on 14th February to protest a hydroelectric dam project that they say would be devastating to the Amazon region. 

The demonstration, in front the congressional building in Brasilia, seeks to stop the construction of the Belo Monte dam, which they say would flood at least 400,000 hectares (nearly a million acres) of forest, displacing 40,000 indigenous people and other local residents, and destroying various species of wildlife and insects.

The construction of the controversial reservoir – a $17 billion project – was authorized in January by Brazil's Environmental Institute. The contractors working on the dam, to be located on the Xingu River in Para state, have permission to clear 238 hectares of the forest, an area larger than Monaco.

The protesters want to give Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff a petition signed by half a million people from around the world who criticize the project. The government argues that the hydroelectric dam, with a potential capacity of 11,000 megawatts, is needed to guarantee a supply of energy for a country that is growing economically.

Set for completion in 2015, Belo Monte would be the second-largest dam in the country, behind Tucurui.

FROM OCCUPIED KANSAS

Apparently the people of Kansas need to rise up and cast off the foreign invaders from Canada and the Billionaire Autocrats from closer to home. “From start to finish, this a dirty project,” said Stephanie Cole, a spokeswoman for the Kansas chapter of the Sierra Club. “Forests in Canada are being destroyed and increased reliance on fossil fuels will accelerate global warming.”

The following is from the Kansas City Star.

Complaints and concerns flow about oil pipeline in Kansas

By DAVID GOLDSTEIN
The Star’s Washington correspondent

WASHINGTON | Crude oil from western Canada began flowing through a controversial pipeline in Kansas this month.

Pipeline supporters insist that its construction provided an economic boon, producing money and jobs for the state. But local officials along the pipeline’s path complain that the state sold them out — unnecessarily — to attract the oil company.

Because of an exemption the state gave the company that owns the pipeline, six Kansas counties won’t see a dime in property taxes from the project for a decade, a loss they estimated at $50 million in public revenue.

There are environmental concerns, too, in Canada and in other states where the pipeline runs beneath drinking water supplies.

“If we had that pipeline on the tax rolls this year, we could have cut our levy by 30 to 40 percent,” said Dan Holub, a Marion County commissioner. “Rural counties don’t have much of a tax base and a whole bunch of expenses. We’ve got 1,600 miles of road.”

Supporters of the deal, however, counter that the pipeline company will owe taxes for 90 years after the abatement expires. They said the project would help the state’s shrunken oil industry and was environmentally sound.

But questions persist about whether the company, Alberta, Canada-based TransCanada, used the power of eminent domain to improperly acquire access to the land.

That’s how it obtained an easement through Greg Roles’ 160 acres of wheat and soybeans in Clay Center. He resisted TransCanada’s $15,000 offer and is suing the company in a case that could end up before the Kansas Supreme Court on appeal because Roles lost at the district court level.

“I’m the only guy who has tried to stand in front of them,” Roles said. “I know I’m the only guy in Kansas. This deal just isn’t right. Where are our elected officials?”

The debate isn’t likely to go away.

That’s because TransCanada plans to use its existing Kansas pipeline, called the Keystone, as a pivotal piece in a $7 billion, nearly 1,700-mile project to transport heavy oil from Canadian tar sands to refineries in Texas. The pipeline, called the Keystone XL, could carry up to 500,000 barrels a day, doubling the amount of oil that TransCanada brings in overall.

The massive undertaking has galvanized opponents who argue that safety and the environment are at risk.

In Nebraska, where the proposed pipeline would be built to connect to the Kansas portion, it would run beneath the Ogallala Aquifer — a shallow water table that provides drinking water for about 2 million people in eight states, including parts of central and western Kansas.

Currently, the Kansas pipeline can move only 156,000 barrels of oil from northern Alberta to a refinery in Cushing, Okla., by way of several Canadian provinces and several states. The new project would construct a separate pipeline to carry Canadian crude south through six states, including the existing pipeline in Kansas, to refineries in Texas.

The company claims the project would create about 20,000 new construction and manufacturing jobs and add $20 billion to the U.S. economy.

It also would “improve U.S. energy security and reduce dependence on foreign oil from the Middle East and Venezuela,” Russ Girling, TransCanada’s president and CEO, said in a recent statement.

That’s backed up by a recent report from a private energy consultant for the U.S. Department of Energy. It said that Canadian crude oil and reduced demand “could essentially eliminate Middle East crude imports longer term.”

But the report also pointed out that if Canadian suppliers export oil to Asia from Canada’s west coast, “more Middle East crude moves into the USA.” It further noted that with so many pipelines bringing crude across the border, TransCanada’s new pipeline, if approved, might not be needed for years.

Approval of a cross-border permit will be up to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Several members of Congress wrote in support of the project, but others urged her in a letter last summer to go slow in her decision, which is expected by spring after her department looks at the environmental effect. The EPA said that the State Department’s original report last year was “unduly narrow” because it did not fully examine oil spill response plans, safety issues and greenhouse gas concerns.

If the administration signs off on the pipeline, it would inadvertently be aiding two of President Barack Obama’s arch political foes: David and Charles Koch, who own Wichita-based Koch Industries. The Kochs have bankrolled conservative efforts and candidates who oppose Obama and the Democratic Party’s environmental policies.

According to Solve Climate news, an energy and climate online news service, the Kochs would stand to gain from the project because their company controls nearly a quarter of all tar sands crude oil imported into the United States.

Extracting the oil from tar sands and liquefying it enough so it will move through a pipeline is an energy-intensive process that adds greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Getting it out of the ground in Canada involves clear-cutting forests, leaving a wasteland that oil companies promise they will restore.

“From start to finish, this a dirty project,” said Stephanie Cole, a spokeswoman for the Kansas chapter of the Sierra Club. “Forests in Canada are being destroyed and increased reliance on fossil fuels will accelerate global warming.”

Keystone pipeline 
•Life of the project: 100 years

•Property tax revenue: $531 million (excluding the first 10 years)

•Barrels of oil per day now: Up to 156,000

•Barrels per day under proposed Canada-to-Texas pipeline: Up to 500,000

@ For a video on tar sands oil, go to KansasCity.com.