Saturday, October 25, 2008

Palin's Pipeline Kind of Crooked


ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Oct. 25) - Gov. Sarah Palin's signature accomplishment — a contract to build a 1,715-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska to the Lower 48 — emerged from a flawed bidding process that narrowed the field to a company with ties to her administration, an Associated Press investigation shows.

Instead of creating a process that would attract many potential builders, Palin slanted the terms away from an important group — the global energy giants that own the rights to the gas.-- Despite promises and legal guidance not to talk directly with potential bidders, Palin had meetings or phone calls with nearly every major candidate, including TransCanada.
-- The leader of Palin's pipeline team had been a partner at a lobbying firm where she worked on behalf of a TransCanada subsidiary. Also, that woman's former business partner at the lobbying firm was TransCanada's lead private lobbyist on the pipeline deal, interacting with legislators in the weeks before the vote to grant TransCanada the contract. Plus, a former TransCanada executive served as an outside consultant to Palin's pipeline team.
-- Under a different set of rules four years earlier, TransCanada had offered to build the pipeline without a state subsidy; under Palin, the company could receive a maximum $500 million.

Anybody surprised by this??? Plainly, Sarah is not the straight arrow she pretends to be.

Monday, October 20, 2008

And I guess I might as well toss in my latest letter...



Dear Editor:
I have had scores of letters published in the Bee over the last quarter century. However, more recently, it is getting harder to see my submissions actually show up on your pages.
One reason for this is of course the growing population of letter writers as Fresno expands. Another reason though is your tendency to waste paper and ink on people only casually acquainted with reality.
The most recent example would be the letter of Stanley Bridges wherein he blames gay marriage for forest fires, drought, the economic meltdown, and even the state budget fiasco. People with reasoning like this would be more at home in colonial Massachusetts accusing people of witchcraft. How many cogent letters end up in the round file because you give scarce page space to kooky ideas such as this? What point is served, except to scare the rest of us with the realization that people like Mr. Bridges will actually be allowed to vote on election day?

Jeffrey W. Eisinger

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Planned Parenthood Protesters


Well, the Bee has apparently rejected another one of my letters. Thankfully, I have my blog to fall back on. So here is what you missed as a Bee reader:



Dear Editor:
I am in full agreement with the recent letter from Ruth Jenkins wherein she castigates those busybodys protesting outside the Planned Parenthood facility. As Ms. Jenkins suggests, the time of these protesters might be much better spent demanding improved health care, education and other social services from our elected representatives.
My additional suggestion is for a modification to the signs these people hold, if they feel compelled to continue their harassment of the clientele coming to seek the services of Planned Parenthood. Specifically, everyone seeking to dissuade women from having an abortion should be more than willing to hoist a placard that reads "I will adopt your baby, no questions asked!" If they are not willing to put real action to their strident judgmentalism, they are no better than the Pharisees whom Jesus condemned...immaculate on the outside, but unclean on the inside.

Jeffrey W. Eisinger

Todd Palin: Idiot!


Todd Palin addressed a crowd of 75 fellow sportsmen at a gun club this morning as part of a three-event campaign swing through Pennsylvania.The husband of the Republican vice presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, told supporters that it is important to have a ticket that "supports our core values -- hunting and fishing." Mr. Palin, who is new to the campaign trail, spoke for only three minutes at the Pitcairn-Monroeville Sportmen's Club.


I thought our core values were things like equality, democracy, freedom of speech, and privacy.....Oh wait, that was pre-Bush. Maybe Todd is right afterall??????