San Francisco Billionaire Vs. The American Heartland

Last week, the Obama Administration announced that it has again delayed a final decision on the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The administration seems to understand how unpopular the delay will be—it made the announcement last Friday, while most Americans were focused on Passover and Easter. It is now highly unlikely that a final decision will be made before the mid-term elections in November. 

Building the pipeline is overwhelmingly popular with the public, in part because it will create tens of thousands of jobs for Americans. But here’s the biggest outrage in the process: the power broker behind the decision is Tom Steyer, a San Francisco billionaire former hedge fund manager and radical environmentalist. 

Steyer has reportedly threatened the Obama administration with severe consequences if it dares allow the pipeline to be constructed. He says he will throw $100 million into key congressional races this fall to help the left so long as Obama doesn’t move forward on the pipeline. So, faced with the choice of creating blue-collar jobs in the heartland or following the orders of a San Francisco environmental extremist, Obama chose the billionaire. 

Steyer is an advocate for the deindustrialization of America. But even he should realize that Canada’s oil is going to be extracted from the ground regardless of how the Obama Administration rules on Keystone. The only question is whether that oil is sent to America or China. 

There’s an opportunity here for conservatives. The left is trying to turn the Koch brothers into a liability for conservatives. New York Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer has called them “un-American” and said that by Election Day he wants every voter to know who the Koch brothers (or, more accurately, a liberal caricature of the Koch brothers) are. Conservatives should be doing something similar with Steyer. 

I bet not one in a million voters knows who Steyer is. But they should. He’s bankrolling many Democrat campaigns and leftwing causes. He spent $11 million to support the election of Terry McAuliffe as governor of Virginia in 2013. He’s using his fortune to advocate for policies that will prevent the creation of thousands of jobs, while arguably doing little to nothing for the environment. 

There is a television ad just waiting to be produced about Steyer and his radical agenda. The American people deserve to know that the Obama administration’s environmental agenda is being directed by a billionaire hedge-fund manager and friend of Al Gore. 

Dobson Defeats Abortion Mandate!

My friend and ally Dr. James Dobson and his radio ministry, Family Talk, won a significant victory against the Obama Administration in federal court late last week. The issue was the HHS mandate under Obamacare requiring businesses to cover birth control and abortion-causing drugs in their employee health insurance programs or face punishing fines. The “mandate” has been challenged in federal courts all over the country. While the decisions have been split, the Obama Administration has lost more cases than it has won. Last week, a federal court blocked enforcement of the mandate against Dobson and Family Talk. In the final analysis, the battle will be resolved by the Supreme Court, where we are hopeful but cautious. 

Of course, the bigger context for this story is the full-blown assault by the left against the free exercise of religion that is guaranteed in the Constitution to Americans of all faiths. From the U.S. military to the economic market place there are threats to both the free exercise of religion and the “conscience rights” that are central to our constitutional republic. Believers are being herded into the “closet” and told that their religious beliefs cannot be allowed in the public square. We will not surrender to these demands, and the Constitution is on our side. It is a battle we must not lose! 

Domestic Terrorists? 

America dodged a bullet last week. The confrontation at the Cliven Bundy ranch in Nevada between heavily-armed Bureau of Land Management agents and hundreds of supporters of the rancher who flocked to the ranch to rally in his defense was a tinder box that could have easily been ignited. 

The confrontation is occurring five years into an Obama Administration that increasingly is seen as violating the Constitution. Polls indicate that growing numbers of Americans view their own government as a threat to their liberty. At the same time, the law enforcement arms of many federal government agencies increasingly look like and adopt pseudo-military tactics and employ heavy-handed tactics in confrontation with citizens. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how a standoff could have resulted in a tragedy. 

The legal battle is unresolved, and there is fault on both sides of this dispute. But it behooves elected officials to avoid rhetoric that would make a violent denouement more likely. Here’s an idea: let’s send in the Senate Majority Leader, a man with decades of experience. Surely he would calm the waters – NOT! 

Senator Harry Reid, in a breathtaking display of irresponsibility, attacked supporters of the rancher, labeled their protest “domestic terrorism” and added that they were not patriots. Later the same day, he doubled down, calling them “terrorist wannabees.” Senator Reid’s irresponsible rhetoric fans the flames, particularly in the Western U.S., where there is growing resentment about what is seen as a war being waged by the federal government on ranching, mining, forestry and energy. The senator should be ashamed of himself.