Cory Gardner is a red flag for Colorado's political and income middle

Cory Gardner is a red flag for Colorado’s political and income middle. 

Cory Gardner, opposing Democratic Senator Mark Udall in Colorado, is ranked as the 10th most conservative member of Congress.  Colorado is hardly the 10th most conservative state in the union.  Gardner sounds and looks moderate, but his legislative positions were, are, and would align closely to his Tea Party House colleagues.  This election is also about electing a senator for the next six years who will represent your views and will be voting to determine Supreme Court vacancy  replacements.

Gardner’s and Udall’s visions of freedom are very different.  Udall promotes freedom for individuals from an intrusive government, a maverick leader in the Senate against overreaching NSA surveillance.  He is a strong advocate for the ability for women and men to choose their reproduction schedules and whom they marry.  Freedom for Udall also means freedom from worry about affording health care and college for their kids.

 Gardner’s vision of freedom is to gut environmental laws and favor tax policies for business while supporting greater government interference in choices individuals can make.  His position on reproductive rights and marriage equality are the most extreme of any, even criminalizing abortions and doctors, opposes birth control practices that interfere with his belief that life begins at conception.

The U.S. unemployment rate is now back to pre-crash levels and in Colorado it is below the national average. The deficit has been cut in half and the national economy is growing at 3%.  Colorado has the highest economic growth in the nation which is not only due to an improving national economy, but to a booming energy sector.  Science denier Gardner is not even sure humans cause global warming. Mark Udall prizes a balanced approach to natural resource development and Colorado’s growth is evidence that approach can work.

Gardner, unlike Udall, has voted in Congress to make it even more difficult for the middle income earners to recover from the Great Recession. He has voted to cut Pell grants and opposed decreasing interest rates on student loans or refinancing student loans to lower rates.   Most Colorado families depend upon women working, but Gardner has voted against raising the minimum wage or furthering equal pay for women in the workforce.

One of the most underrated boosts to middle income earners is the ACA (Obamacare), which both the GOP and Gardner still want to repeal.  Gardner offers no alternative, no fixes no workable way to pay for covering preexisting conditions. He has no viable plans to make health insurance affordable for 30 million Americans, mostly middle income, who once again would have to choose between losing their home or health care treatment because they could not qualify for or afford insurance. 

 No traditional Medicare coverage was lost due to the ACA (contrary to a very misleading Gardner ad), and the ACA added 14 years to the life of Medicare.  Gardner supports changing the efficiently administered Medicare program to provide a voucher system and block grants to states that upends a system that now guarantees coverage that keeps up with costs and gives stability to co-pays.

A version of this appeared in the www.skyhidailynews.com October 30 2014

If Obama is viewed as a failure, then the GOP Congress is viewed as more of a failure.

GOP candidates claim the Obama administration is a “failure.”  A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll concluded, though, that the American people were “fed up” with Washington, and they were 20% more fed up with Congress than they were with President Obama.  If Obama is viewed as a failure, then the GOP Congress is viewed as more of a failure.  

If the measure is how much Obama achieved of his own agenda, the answer is most of it has been successful.  His major failure so far is not passing comprehensive immigration reform, not from lack of trying.  Most of his domestic accomplishments, such as economic recovery and health care reform, were enacted before the obstructionist Tea Party took over the House.  Perhaps the greatest success Democrats had was keeping the economy from going over the brink into another Great Depression, using passage of stimulus spending and tax cuts and also clever fiscal policy.  The unemployment rate is now back to pre-crash levels, and the economy is showing a 3% growth rate.  Austerity measures (which the GOP pushed for the U.S., too) are threatening to force Europe into recession or deflation, and also into continuing high unemployment.

The GOP Congress still wants to repeal Obamacare, but offers no alternative, no workable way to pay for covering preexisting conditions, and has no plans to make it more affordable for 30 million Americans. 

Gardner, ranked as the 10th most conservative member of Congress and opposing Mark Udall for Senate in Colorado, wants to repeal Obamacare.  Obamacare ends discrimination against higher women’s premiums, and it also covers birth control and cancer screenings.  Gardner also pushes federal laws that not only criminalize abortion from the time of conception, but cripples in vitro fertilization, bans IUDs and some other birth control methods, and Gardner wants women to pay out of their own pockets for the few over-the-counter methods left that are legal.  (Ending Obamacare ends insurance coverage of the pill, too.)  All federal laws, including Obamacare, are already currently forbidden from covering any abortions, so that's not happening.

Armageddon as predicted by the GOP did not happen to Obamacare (ACA).  More signed up for coverage and paid premiums than forecast.  Early indications are that 2015 average premiums within exchanges will show little change from 2014.  The American Medical Association in their July journal found that the ACA is successfully working as designed.  Medicare cuts?  No traditional coverage was lost, and 14 years were added to the life of Medicare.

Energy policy?  The GOP Congress wants to ditch environmental protection laws to boost energy production.  However, while protecting the environment, Democratic “all of the above” energy policies, including promoting alternative energy sources, have permitted the U.S. to become the largest producer of natural gas in the world, and the U.S. will begin having enough oil production very soon to begin exporting. Gardner is still denying humans are responsible for global warming against the proof provided by scientists held in high esteem in the field.

Ebola?  We should not forget that the GOP congressional budget priorities were to reduce funding to the CDC.  Officials confirmed this caused a slowdown in the search for vaccines.  The president's choice for Surgeon General has also been blocked by the GOP members of Congress, which is why a "czar" had to be chosen to provide some guidance and continuity during this time.

Promoting the middle class?  The GOP congressional policies cut Pell grants, oppose decreasing interest rates on student loans, and oppose raising the minimum wage or furthering equal pay for women in the workforce.

For more, visit www.mufticforumblog.blogspot.com

http://kff.org/private-insurance/report/survey-of-non-group-health-insurance-enrollees/

http://kff.org/health-reform/poll-finding/kaiser-health-tracking-poll-july-2014/

http://www.denverpost.com/election2014/ci_26665118/republican-cory-gardner-defends-conservative-record-senate-bid

America's Fed Up: Obama Approval Rating Hits All-Time Low, Poll Shows - NBC News
  "The frustration carries over to the nation’s political leaders, with President Barack Obama’s overall approval rating hitting a new low at 40 percent, and a mere 14 percent of the public giving Congress a thumbs up."

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/16/us/politics"  Yet, congressional Republicans are viewed more negatively than congressional Democrats.....

Congressional Job approval ratings

Approve

Disapprove

No Answer

Congressional Republicans

Congressional Democrats

19%

70

11

30

61

9

Despite the Republican advantages over all, Americans continue to broadly disapprove of congressional Republicans even more than congressional Democrats. "

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/politics/do-people-really-think-obama-is-the-worst-president-since-wwii.html/?ref=YF
http://www.coloradohealthinstitute.org/blog/detail/modest-price-increases-in-store-for-second-year-of-online-marketplace
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/13/1336238/-NIH-Director-Budget-cuts-delayed-Ebola-vaccine-nbsp-treatement#

FactChecking the Colorado Senate Race

FactChecking the Colorado Senate Race



This one takes the Senate Campaign in Colorado, Republican Cory Gardner v Mark Udall. Gardner ads come out with a lot of egg on faces.  Read it. Fact Checking.org has not been kind to Udall, but when you put it all together, Gardner ads are twisted.  www.factcheck.org

ACOG Statement on “Personhood” Measures

February 10, 2012

Washington, DC -- The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) is unequivocally opposed to the so-called "personhood" laws or amendments being considered in several states. These measures erode women's basic rights to privacy and bodily integrity; deny women access to the full spectrum of preventive health care including contraception; and undermine the doctor-patient relationship. ACOG firmly believes that science must be at the core of public health policies and medical decision-making that affect the health and life of women.

Like Mississippi's failed "Personhood Amendment" Proposition 26, these misleading and ambiguously worded "personhood" measures substitute ideology for science and represent a grave threat to women's health and reproductive rights that, if passed, would have long-term negative outcomes for our patients, their families, and society. Although the individual wording in these proposed measures varies from state to state, they all attempt to give full legal rights to a fertilized egg by defining "personhood" from the moment of fertilization, before conception (ie, pregnancy/ implantation) has occurred. This would have wide-reaching harmful implications for the practice of medicine and on women's access to contraception, fertility treatments, pregnancy termination, and other essential medical procedures.

These "personhood" proposals, as acknowledged by proponents, would make condoms, natural family planning, and spermicides the only legally allowed forms of birth control. Thus, some of the most effective and reliable forms of contraception, such as oral contraceptives, intrauterine devices (IUDs), and other forms of FDA-approved hormonal contraceptives could be banned in states that adopt "personhood" measures. Women's very lives would be jeopardized if physicians were prohibited from terminating life-threatening ectopic and molar pregnancies. Women who experience pregnancy loss or other negative pregnancy outcomes could be prosecuted in some cases.  

So-called "personhood" measures would have a negative impact on fertility treatments, including in vitro fertilization (IVF), that allow otherwise infertile couples to achieve pregnancy and create their families. Such proposals would also invariably ban embryonic stem cell research, depriving all of society potential lifesaving therapies.

ACOG supports guaranteed access to the full array of clinical and reproductive services appropriate to each individual woman's needs throughout her life. These "personhood" measures must be defeated in the best interest of women's health.  

Attack ad against Udall on health care heaps fibs on top of alleged fibs

Once in a while a series of negative and political attack ads are so off base, outrageous, and offensive that they just cannot go unchallenged.  These attack ads are fibs about alleged fibs.  There are such ads running against Mark Udall, Democrat running for Senate, that accuse him of virtually lying about Medicare and insurance premium costs.  In fact, bottom line, no benefits have been removed from Medicare, insurance premiums have not increased but slightly decreased, and Obamacare has extended Medicare’s life.  Yes, some had to find a new insurance plan, but nearly all found another plan that had better benefits than their old one.

How Gardner would vote in the Senate on Obamacare: to repeal, and he has offered no plans to replace, which means if the GOP had its way, millions would be back to scrambling again to change plans and be back to being overcharged, capped, no way to cover preexisting conditions, most would be unable to afford any insurance, and everyone would be SOL if they lost employer insurance.

Some fact-checking: One ad attacks Udall for his support of Obamacare because Udall said Obamacare would strengthen Medicare.  Instead, the ad continues, Obamacare removes over $1,000 plus from seniors' benefits. No traditional Medicare benefits are affected by Obamacare.  Period.  What the attack ads do not disclose is that instead of weakening Medicare, Obamacare has added at least 14 years to its solvency, and Gardner would reverse that.

What is affected is Medicare Advantage, which combines Medicare and supplemental policies.  Insurance companies had been raking in excess profits with Advantage by overcharging and hiking prices above what government Medicare costs.  Those subsidies have been removed and applied to funding health care.

Also what attack ads do not disclose is that Udall’s opponent Gardner consistently has voted in Congress in lockstep with the rest of his GOP caucus to privatize Medicare (premium support) to let seniors under 55 buy private insurance and to give block grants to states to fund it, eliminating Medicare federal  government direct payments to the rest of seniors with no assurance increases would keep up with  future increases in health care costs.  

Another attack ad related to Obamacare is that Udall misleads us about Obamacare reducing the costs of insurance.  While not all of the October rates for Obamacare insurance in all states are in, that has not happened on the average in states with their own exchanges, including Colorado.  A Kaiser Family Foundation report came to that conclusion, though there are variations per state and per plan.

States like Colorado (unlike most red states) also permit Medicaid expansion that reduces having hospitals shoulder unpaid charity bills and then shift costs to premiums of paying customers.  If all states expanded Medicaid as Obamacare permits, a move fought tooth and nail by the GOP, we would all begin to see less cost shifting to all of our premiums nationwide.

A version of this appeared in the Sky Hi Daily News Thursday/Friday 10/9/2014 www.skyhidailynews.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/07/29/wonkbook-obamacare-is-giving-medicare-a-new-lease-on-life/

www.forbes.com/.../trustees-medicare-will-go-broke-in-2016-if-y..(forecast made in 2012)

http://kaiserfamilyfoundation.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/8627-analysis-of-2015-premium-changes1.pdf

Science should trump political opinions and it backs Udall's position on birth control

Does the personhood amendment ban certain kinds of birth control?  That is becoming a key question in the Colorado Senate campaign, and buried in a recent factcheck.org meandering judgment call, it might be up to the US Supreme Court to decide.  That is hardly comforting.  Furthermore, scientific facts should trump political opinions, and the facts are supported by those most scientifically involved in the issue:  The personhood amendments ban certain kinds of birth control and more. Found at the end of factcheck.org is this gem:

“The nonpartisan American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) says that defining a fertilized egg as a person with legal rights ‘would have wide-reaching harmful implications … on women’s access to contraception.’”

Cory Gardner, Republican challenging incumbent Democrat Mark Udall, on one hand opposes the state personhood amendment but supports the federal one. To blunt criticism he is against birth control, he then advocates over-the-counter sales of birth control while opposing Obamacare that covers the entire cost of birth control, wanting women to pay for birth control out of their own pockets. Not only is that a consumer-unfriendly approach, it is also dangerous and would leave little choice of birth control methods to women.

From the ACOG website, www.ACOG.org:  “These "personhood" proposals, as acknowledged by proponents, would make condoms, natural family planning, and spermicides the only legally allowed forms of birth control. Thus, some of the most effective and reliable forms of contraception, such as oral contraceptives, intrauterine devices (IUDs), and other forms of FDA-approved hormonal contraceptives, could be banned in states that adopt "personhood" measures.  Women's very lives would be jeopardized if physicians were prohibited from terminating life-threatening ectopic and molar pregnancies.  Women who experience pregnancy loss or other negative pregnancy outcomes could be prosecuted in some cases.  

“So-called "personhood" measures would have a negative impact on fertility treatments, including in vitro fertilization (IVF), that allow otherwise infertile couples to achieve pregnancy and create their families. Such proposals would also invariably ban embryonic stem cell research, depriving all society of potential lifesaving therapies." 

Not only is Gardner speaking out of both sides of his mouth, but what he is advocating is not in women's interests.  Mark Udall is correct in hitting Gardner for his stance on birth control and personhood in current advertising. 

So why all of this focus on women's choice issues anyway?  There are many other pressing concerns that will face the Senate.  The reason is that women's rights are of great interest to a very important demographic -- unmarried women -- which has determined the outcome of elections in Colorado in the past.  Women had thought the war had been won, but what the GOP and Cory Gardner are supporting are a rollback of those victories.  However, Gardner has also not made a case for his position on other issues, attempting the soft approach of "my father sold tractors; Udall is a politician who supports Obama."  On those "other issues" he is still an unknown factor, a pig in a poke.

A version of this appeared in the www.skyhidailynews.com October 3, 2014

http://www.factcheck.org/2014/09/abortion-distortions-2014/

ACOG Statement on “Personhood” Measures

February 10, 2012

Washington, DC -- The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) is unequivocally opposed to the so-called "personhood" laws or amendments being considered in several states. These measures erode women's basic rights to privacy and bodily integrity; deny women access to the full spectrum of preventive health care including contraception; and undermine the doctor-patient relationship. ACOG firmly believes that science must be at the core of public health policies and medical decision-making that affect the health and life of women.

Like Mississippi's failed "Personhood Amendment" Proposition 26, these misleading and ambiguously worded "personhood" measures substitute ideology for science and represent a grave threat to women's health and reproductive rights that, if passed, would have long-term negative outcomes for our patients, their families, and society. Although the individual wording in these proposed measures varies from state to state, they all attempt to give full legal rights to a fertilized egg by defining "personhood" from the moment of fertilization, before conception (ie, pregnancy/ implantation) has occurred. This would have wide-reaching harmful implications for the practice of medicine and on women's access to contraception, fertility treatments, pregnancy termination, and other essential medical procedures.

These "personhood" proposals, as acknowledged by proponents, would make condoms, natural family planning, and spermicides the only legally allowed forms of birth control. Thus, some of the most effective and reliable forms of contraception, such as oral contraceptives, intrauterine devices (IUDs), and other forms of FDA-approved hormonal contraceptives could be banned in states that adopt "personhood" measures. Women's very lives would be jeopardized if physicians were prohibited from terminating life-threatening ectopic and molar pregnancies. Women who experience pregnancy loss or other negative pregnancy outcomes could be prosecuted in some cases.  

So-called "personhood" measures would have a negative impact on fertility treatments, including in vitro fertilization (IVF), that allow otherwise infertile couples to achieve pregnancy and create their families. Such proposals would also invariably ban embryonic stem cell research, depriving all of society potential lifesaving therapies.

ACOG supports guaranteed access to the full array of clinical and reproductive services appropriate to each individual woman's needs throughout her life. These "personhood" measures must be defeated in the best interest of women's health.  

House vote on immigration ensures high Latino support for Democrats for years to come

GOP House votes on immigration bills last Friday is a gift to Democrats, ensuring high Hispanic support for Democrats for years to come. In Colorado statewide races, the Hispanic vote is significant. Over 485,000 Hispanics, 12% of the electorate, are registered to vote. In 2012, President Obama got 75% of their vote.  Several other battleground states also have large numbers of Hispanic (or Latino) voters, and they could determine the balance in the US Senate. 

Two Colorado Republican congressmen bucked their party and voted no on the Republican bill. The impact is to deprive Democrats of some campaign sound bites to rally greater turnout of the Hispanic vote this November. It does not change Hispanic perception of the general anti-Latino immigrant tone of the Republican Party.

Democrat incumbent Sen. Mark Udall is facing  Congressman Cory Gardner.  Former congressman Bob Beauprez (R) is challenging Gov. John Hickenlooper (D), and Democrat Andrew Romanoff is taking on Republican Congressman Mike Coffman in the 6th district. Coffman gained more Hispanic voters in his Denver suburban district through redistricting so that he has had to do some backtracking on his hard-line anti-immigrant positions. Gardner and he were two  of the few GOP House members who voted against the Republican bills.  Beauprez has yet to check in on this year’s immigration issues.

There are three major sore points between Hispanics and Republicans: “dreamers,” “pathway to citizenship,” and deportation of children in the recent border crisis. Both agree to secure borders, only the GOP makes it a condition of doing anything, if anything, later.  Hispanics want a comprehensive package plan.   “Dreamers”  were brought to the US by their parents when they were children. Frustrated by Republican opposition to support legislation to allow them to work and study without fear of deportation, President Obama used executive orders to give dreamers a two-year reprieve and has threatened to extend and expand deferred deportation by executive order.  One of the Republican bills Friday would have stripped him from being able to use his executive power of prosecutorial discretion, exposing  half a million young people  to deportation in the middle of their studies.

GOP anti-immigrant rhetoric calls a pathway to citizenship “amnesty,” and Friday they killed a bipartisan compromise the Senate had hammered out.  Both Gardner and Coffman have a history of opposing comprehensive immigration reform that would give a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented and the dream acts.

The “crisis on the border” with nearly sixty thousand, mostly children, flooding the US also got the GOP anti-immigrant treatment. Their Friday bill slashed administration requests for funds, and it gutted an anti-human trafficking law. Their action would have allowed instant deportation regardless of any due process hearings or humane considerations the law requires. It also would have reopened gates to Central American traffickers.

Harry Reid, Senate Majority leader, will allow no votes in the Senate on these House bills, effectively killing them.  The President now can only address the border crisis and “dreamers” issues with his limited executive powers and resources. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/growing-share-of-hispanic-voters-helped-push-obama-to-victory/2012/11/07

http://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/10/01/latinos-in-the-2012-election-colorado/

www.votesmart.org

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_25907264/mike-coffman-is-no-friend-immigrants

http://www.9news.com/story/news/politics/2014/08/01/reps-coffman-gardner-buck-party-on-immigration/13498889/

House OKs bill to address border crisis

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans passed legislation late Friday to address the crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border by sending migrant youths back home without hearings, winning over conservatives with a companion bill that could lead to...

NEWS.YAHOO.COM

Udall the victim of a false ad; he did not vote for a carbon tax; Crossroads GPS is playing dirty tricks

An ad running in Colorado attacks Sen. Mark Udall for voting for a carbon tax that would raise fuel costs for middle class Americans. Factcheck.org says "he did no such thing".  The dirty tricks season is upon us.
http://www.factcheck.org/2014/07/more-carbon-tax-distortions/

Gardner political ad is a backpack stuffed with untruths

It is worth a wry smile or a whiplash when a political ad runs immediately after a news report that makes a joke of the commercial. So it was the other night.  The news story was that job growth and unemployment figures were back to October 2008 (the beginning of the recession) and that the DOW was nearing record heights. The glowing report  was followed immediately by a Cory Gardner commercial .  Gardner is the Republican  who will take on incumbent Colorado Senator Mark Udall in November.  

The Gardner ad featured an angry young adult woman, a college graduate, claiming that Udall had passed “massive spending bills that crippled our economy “  and left us with 10% unemployment, high student loans, and paying for health insurance “we cannot afford.”

Her message  was a backpack stuffed with  untruths.

Udall crippled the Colorado economy? He was not even a senator when the crash occurred in during the Bush Republican administration and in spite of a stonewalling GOP dominated Congress, the news story was that the economy had pretty much recovered.  The Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation (Metro Denver EDC)  presented the 2014 Metro Denver Economic Forecast  that concluded ”  "2013 was a year of records in areas such as employment growth, housing, commercial real estate, and the stock market…”

High unemployment?  The   Department of Labor shows actual unemployment figure in Colorado is 5.8%. Per the Metro Denver EDC,”  The state restored all of the jobs lost during the recession by the middle of 2013”. 

What about college grads like her? True, 10% of  those of college age are unemployed, but  in her age bracket of over 24, the unemployment rate is only 5.1 percent.  Among workers with bachelor’s degrees like her, only 3.3 percent are unemployed.

The ad continued, claiming Udall left students with high student loans, yet  the GOP in Congress, (including Rep. Gardner)  voted against  and prevented lowering interest rates and allowing refinancing at lower rates. Gardner also voted to cut Pell grants, and  to eliminate in-school interest rate subsidies. (Gardner did submit a bill in May to increase tax deductions caps from $2500 up to $5K on loan interest, but it hardly offsets the his votes against  more significant, immediate and direct measures).Through executive order, Obama tied loan payback to income level, providing some relief. Her finger needs to point at Gardner, not Udall.

The ad hit Udall for  forcing young people” to pay for health insurance they could not afford’, yet Obamacare allows young adults under 26 to remain on their parents’ plans and it  subsidizes policies based on income, with those earning less than $15,000 paying little to nothing.  Cory Gardner ,who wants to repeal Obamacare,  would return young people to the past, risking a car or bike wreck or skiing accident that would  put them in debt or cripple them with  bad credit ratings  for years to come.

Why such an ad? Perhaps Gardner fears  single women like her, who swung the 2012 election blue because of his and  the GOP’s anti reproductive rights planks,  might do it again in 2014, and they are hoping no one pays attention to the facts.

A version of this appeared in the Sky Hi Daily News July 11,2014 (www.skyhidailynews.com)

Links to data sources used in the posting:

http://www.metrodenver.org/research-reports/economic-forecasts/) 

http://www.bls.gov/lau/

http://kwgn.com/2014/07/03/strong-jobs-report-hiring-up-unemployment-down/ 

Ukraine crisis puts energy independence on the front burner

The Ukraine crisis points to the importance of energy independence.  Much of the world’s strife can be attributed to the distribution of natural resources.  The givers control; the receivers are at their mercy, chained to them by supply line tethers.

 Oil has always driven much if not all  of US military and foreign policy. US’s entanglement in the middle east; its devastating invasion of Iraq; the first Gulf War  are just a few examples.  We are already approaching energy independence in this country with our ability to tap onto our vast natural gas reserves and our increase in oil production.  The Ukraine crisis points to the need for Europe to get itself independent of imports from Russia.

Columnist Thomas Friedman, writing in  the New York Times March 4, opined  Russian  Pres. Vadimir Putin  “ prefers to turn Russia into a mafia-run petro-state…all the better to steal from” and contends we should hit him where he hurts, forcing down energy prices with our own exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) ,  crashing the Russian economy which is pumped up  now on oil revenues..Undermining Putin’s petro revenues is better than going to war.

 The threat of Russia shutting off their energy supply is a powerful reason for allies like Germany  that gets 30% of its gas from Russia and other  European friends in a similar pickle  to resist joining us fully  in modifying Russia’s behavior. . Russia controls their shutoff valves .

Russian pipelines supply petro resources from one end of Western Europe to the Balkans (including as far south as Croatia). Their pipelines  crisscross the Ukraine, making control of it strategic to both Russia and Western Europe.

A couple of years ago I was traveling through Romania, a former Soviet satellite, and now a member of NATO and the EU.  Rusting  oil storage tanks and refineries dotted the landscape to remind us of its former importance as an oil producer.  However, we saw  a huge pipeline propped up above ground. I asked our guide where the oil was coming from now.  He said Russia. Why, I asked? Is the oil field dried up? No, he said, it is cheaper to get it from Russia than to drill it ourselves. Romania and the rest of Europe are addicted to Russian energy ..

Supplying western Europe with another source of natural gas from the US  is not a short term solution and it is controversial. Friedman contends just  to threaten and begin that process would have an  effect on Putin’s calculations immediately.

 To make good on the threat, we  need to change our laws that now  limit the amount of natural gas exports.  Terminals and certain processes  need to be built to handle LNG exports. Government approval needs to be streamlined .  Rep. Cory Gardner (R-CO)) and Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO)support reforming the process; other senators oppose(.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-07)

 Some fear our energy costs would rise.. . Exporting oil  and natural gas means more fracking and the Keystone pipeline completion. Both are  fought by environmentalists. Friedman suggests  imposing  carbon taxes and raising our own gas tax  would  force world petro prices down.  My thought:  This trade off could  encourage alternative energy development   in the longer run. If anything, the Ukraine crisis will serve to put this public policy debate on the front burner.

A version of this blog ran as a column in the Sky Hi Daily News...www.skyhidailynews.com...March 28, 2014

Considering the alternatives to feckless and toothless in foreign and domestic and Colorado senate race politics

John McCain’s bluster and attacks at President Obama for not being hawkish enough and call him “feckless”  has me yelling back at the TV when he appears…”ok; what would you have done?”   Send troops into Syria just to show we are not wimps? Bring Georgia into NATO when 20% of it is already occupied by Russian troops? Surround Russia with nuclear missiles we never intend to use?  Start a natural  gas war that would only hurt western Europe that relies on Russian oil and gas?  (It wouldn’t do much to us but raise our  fossil fuel prices through the roof since world markets determine such prices).  Threaten NATO military intervention  in the Ukraine when even he has taken that off the table?  Give me a break.

 At least McCain deserves credit for coming up with some alternatives, but the alternatives he presents are those that we have no intention of following through….they are just toothless wonders, worse than even Obama’s drawing red line in Syria which had no realistic bite to them, especially as our allies there were hijacked by Al Qaeda affiliates. McCain’s alternatives are so full of potential backlashes, to swallow them without  chewing on them  is enough to make rational people choke.

This follows the pattern of other blustering critics of the Obama administration.  Whatever he is for, they are against even though they have no alternatives.  It is nearly always “repeal” but don’t replace. When some more moderates who agree there are indeed problems that need to be addressed  do present alternatives, their proposals  are so full of measures most cannot swallow or  they believe they will not work.

At the suggestion of a leader of the Tea Party Express, a  reader of my columns, I visited the Winston Group’s site which he claimed proved some points he was making…that the Tea Party still had the oomph and public support to be a power because it was a power in 2010.  In examining the reasons the conservative Winston Group, a beltway lobbying and political consulting outfit, tried to explain away Gov. Romney’s loss to Obama in 2012, they concluded it was because the public did not buy the alternatives he put forth, even though most Americans were in tune with conservative objectives on budget, deficit, jobs and the economy. 

The GOP may again be committing the same mistake in 2014.  Sen Mark Udall in Colorado may be low enough  in the polls to appear  beatable now, or in danger of losing in the 2014 midterms, but the GOP is falling into the  2012 trap.  Voters may not be happy campers with the Democrats, but they also are rational and they do consider alternatives when they learn about them.   Nihilism is not a plan. Elections are not won on just anger.  The question voters ask is “as compared to what or whom”.

 Damning Obamacare may be the only  GOP handle that unites their party and which, therefore they are putting forth their only  strategy in the midterms, but either presenting an empty sack full of hot air or one that does not address the problems polls show voters understand  begins to appear as a cure that is worse than the disease.

The only “replace” even getting honorable mention is the one put forth by three Republican Senators, which would either cost as much as Obamacare  and tax those already insured  by their employers to pay for it. At the recent retreat of the GOP congressional caucus, they could not even agree if they should advocate a replacement, much less what a replacement would be. Therefore, in unison, they are stuck in “repeal”mode.   

It will become even more evident in the Colorado Senate race when voters outside GOP’s gerrymandered  conservative bastions of north  east Colorado and Colorado Springs look at the GOP’s candidates who are right of the right, supporting the personhood amendments (a sure fire turnoff of women voters) and still stuck calling Hispanic’s desire for eventual citizenship “amnesty”, or failing to support dream acts (another turnoff of potential Hispanic votes).  Outside the very conservative Congressional districts, Colorado is a different, more liberal, demographically different state where the decisions will be based on “as compared with whom or what”.