Blog

Some bits of information noted in our articles about the TransCanada pipeline project:

• Many Nebraskans who oppose the pipeline project or who simply want the route changed are citing environmentalist lingo in making their case.

• Nebraskans who call themselves conservative are working with or supporting groups and individuals with whom they would normally say they have nothing in common politically; on one side there are leftist-environmental groups¹ and on the other, labor unions².

• Nebraskans who call themselves conservative, in citing environmentalist lingo, are assisting an environmentalist agenda now and in future.

• People who call themselves conservative who work with left-wingers on an issue today are giving those left-wingers credibility for tomorrow.

Primary reasons the U.S. is trouble:

• Moral bankruptcy; lack of ethics in general conduct, lack of personal responsibility, and a failure to consider whether principles are adhered to in our dealings with others.

• Lack of long-term and analytical thinking is leading to layers of poor decision making.

• Political discourse is increasingly reduced to a “Soup of the Day” mentality; it’s all about today’s issue.

• Morals and character count, so it matters who is standing next to us when we attempt to fix problems, address concerns, and/or impact policy.

You might notice I didn’t reference spending, taxes, or regulations; they are all just symptoms of the overall disease. A lack of discretion and failure to engage in long-term critical thinking often means ineffective, undesirable results, and/or ultimately undercuts chances of ever moving towards constitutional, limited government.

A closer look at one Nebraska politico who has been heavily involved in advocacy against the pipeline, provides, I think, a vivid illustration of exactly the type of person constitutional, limited-government types should avoid. That politico is Jane Fleming Kleeb. (Kleeb, by the way, does not rhyme with “dweeb”, as intuition might direct; it rhymes with “Deb”.) Until recently, we thought only media, political insiders and junkies, and the like even knew Jane Kleeb’s name, unless there was some vague recollection of her last name from the 2008 election season. Jane’s husband, Scott, a Democrat, was defeated by Mike Johanns, in the general election for Nebraska’s open U.S. Senate previously held by Chuck Hagel.

GiN became aware of Mrs. Kleeb’s separate perturbing presence in Nebraska politics by the middle of 2009 and correctly categorized her as destructive and beyond progressive. However, despite our own observations and even direct experiences, we determined we weren’t interested in enlarging her profile. So, we decided to take what the medical professionals call a “watchful waiting” approach, hoping that the symptoms of the disease would disappear without treatment.

In retrospect, perhaps we misjudged. Some diseases require aggressive surgical removal before they spread.

I questioned myself when my own husband casually informed me one afternoon:

“That Jane Kleeb seems pretty smart.”

Excuse me?!

My husband described an interesting debate he’d heard on Omaha’s 1110 KFAB between Kleeb and TransCanada’s President. He thought Kleeb raised a lot of good points, in fact, he thought she’d bested the guy from TransCanada.

It’s important to note my husband had not followed this issue at all prior to the week of the debate. Unlike a number of Nebraskans who call themselves conservative, my husband doesn’t mention “the environment” in his list of concerns about the pipeline. He’s mostly expressed confusion regarding the way the whole thing has been handled. The only semblance of an environmental concern he has expressed is a wondering aloud about why the company and a lot of Nebraska politicians seem Hell-bent on placing an oil pipe over a major aquifer if there are alternatives available.

My husband’s review of the debate was obviously very interesting to me. Because I know more than I’d like about Jane Fleming Kleeb and her poses, I have not listened to the radio debate myself. My interest in it rests solely on the first impression she created in the mind of a rank-and-file Republican voter, who is generally fed up with “the ruling class“. He is not a political junkie so he had no idea who Jane Kleeb was. Via the radio debate he found her to be well spoken, reasonable, measured, and not using environmental rhetoric to an extent that set off his wait-she’s-a-wacko radar. I found his reaction emblematic of the overall problem with people like Kleeb; she poses as a reasonable political moderate in certain venues under certain circumstances. However, if one takes the time to scrutinize her rhetoric and actions, she is far more radical.  I also find my husband’s reaction unfortunate because, too few Americans wonder how much their one-time perception differs from reality (sorry, Mr. Dawdy).

To illustrate the contrast in Jane Kleeb’s poses, we can start with the pipeline issue.

In the radio debate venue, she was, apparently, perfectly down-home Nebraskan, wanting more oil coming into the state, just not this yucky tar sands oil. It is my understanding, in fact, the way this Jane Kleeb framed the argument, one could imagine a Huskerfied version of Rosie the Riveter, constructing a Nebraska oil refinery with her own two hands, if only she could. *Sigh*

Interestingly, however, in a creepy Three-Faces-of-Eve manner, a woman, curiously also named Jane Kleeb, in manifesting her second face, was involved in a recent series (August 2011) of protests of the TransCanada pipeline project in Washington, D.C. Here’s a snapshot from one of the days of protests featured on the Huffington Post: (Yes…it is possible to visit that site without experiencing cranial explosion, but only just. Proceed at your own risk.)

Click to read Huffington Post article

A number of Nebraskans were arrested at the D.C. protest lalapalooza, and in fact, Mrs. Kleeb proudly reported to Lincoln’s Channel 10/11 (formerly/http://www.1011now.com/home/headlines/Nebraskans_Arrested_During_White_House_Protest_128214788.html):

“‘The Nebraskans were actually sitting in the front row,’ Kleeb said. ‘It was a somber mood – folks were very serious. There was no kind of laughing or any kind of high-fives and when they got arrested they stood strong – held their heads high and really represented our state well.‘” (emphasis added)

“Represented our state well”?? What’s the standard?? While that’s plenty fascinating, I think the following quote from the 10/11 article makes my point about just how far out there Mrs. Kleeb really is, and, as a bonus, is strangely entertaining:

“But for Kleeb, the move is rather bittersweet. She’s a strong supporter of the Obama Administration.

‘I am not disillusioned with the president. I still believe he is a visionary leader,” she said. “But I am absolutely disappointed with his leadership when it comes to energy. He promised us that when he was elected he was going to heal the planet and save us energy and that has not happened,’”  (emphasis added)

Click to read article "Environmental Religiousity…"

So, the Jane Kleeb’s pose or chosen face in most venues, regarding the pipeline, has been that she’s a Nebraska farmer who just wants that pipeline moved.

But the real Mrs. Kleeb doesn’t want oil – she wants to heal the planet. Further, she thinks Barack Obama can do it. Ya suppose she thinks he can part the seas, too? Oh…and save us energy? With what? Does electricity shoot out of his fingernails? Anyone else creeped out here?

A few days ago, I examined the whole subject of the religious fervor with which some embrace and promote a “green” agenda. This embrace, rather like an ugly virus, has infected the country such that we’re bombarded with a bizarre “going green” campaign and a growing number of retrograde policies that have a real impact on Americans’ daily lives and wallets.

America’s inability to tap its own natural resources is at the top of the list. Drilling bans and restrictions, lack of added refinery capacity, and a flurry of other environmental regulations are inhibiting our ability to safely extract much needed oil. Increased gas costs are adding to the pile of many other stupid policies which keep (archived link) and the prices (archived link) of many goods and services up.

We wouldn’t even be interested in promoting the extraction and piping of oil from our northern neighbor if we would extract and pump our own oil.

Such policies are so absurd, environmental-wackos actually cite the fact that oil prices kept high (archived link), along with subsidies, will help the development of “alternative energy” sources. Like 16th century Dutch windmill technology, a gasoline additive that takes more money and energy to produce than the end product, and the stuff which operates sundials and companies like Solyndra. In other words, an entirely false construct of artificially government-controlled pricing and prohibitions, along with funds provided through taxation, borrowing, and the printing press are all necessary to make green dreams come true.

Further, as pointed out in an earlier article about TransCanada, Jane Kleeb has an inherent conflict of interest on the whole subject of energy; her husband Scott owns a company which could not and would not exist without the growing religious-zealotry for “goin’ green” and, more importantly, without the Obama Administration’s and Congress’ embedding of “green” subsidies and tax credits throughout the February 2009 Stimulus Bill.

Simply put, Jane Kleeb has no credibility on this subject.

So, when one of the “Three Faces of Eve” versions of Mrs. Kleeb came onto the GiN site, the Nice Nebraska Farm Gal, inviting coffee and a chat, readers might understand why I’d demur.

Comment made on GiN article "Transcending the Typical TransCanada Talking Points"

While sheer morbid curiousity might compel me to request a Jane Kleeb definition of “states rights”, I think I can figure it out. More importantly, where does this woman get off thinking she’s going to instruct anyone on “where we are headed with energy independence and the environment”, considering all? Know something the rest of us don’t, Mrs. Kleeb?

Click to read full CRS Sept. 2010 report

At the beginning of this article, I asserted that lack of discretion regarding with whom people align and lack of long-term critical thinking frequently ends in ineffective and even undesirable results. This whole bizarre TransCanada business provides an unfortunate example. With Jane Kleeb at the helm, those who want the pipeline routed as is, where is, have nothing to worry themselves about.

In the past week and a half, I’ve been asked multiple times why much more hasn’t been made of the existence of the September 2010 Congressional Research Service report, which stated, very plainly, that siting and regulation of interstate oil pipelines is not done by the federal government, it’s done by state governments, if states only care to put appropriate structures in place.

I’ve also been asked why the Unicameral’s Natural Resources Committee and other State Senators who introduced pipeline legislation were bizarrely and unnecessarily confused, and questioned their own siting authority, considering the information revealed by the Committee’s Interim Study Report dated December 2010. And why was the CRS report from September 2010 alluded to, but not included?

Click to read LR435: Legislative Interim Study Report

While there are no good answers to these important questions, I cannot avoid wondering whether the involvement of  Jane Kleeb doesn’t play a huge role. She and her fellow pipeline opponents where, quite obviously, entirely ineffective in bringing focus to such disturbing information. Why? A number of reasons, likely:

• When people, like Jane Kleeb, have so many axes to grind, some just don’t get properly sharpened.

• A number of Jane Kleeb’s long-term allies are directly in the line of fire.
  

Kleeb and company seemed to avoid asking a number of very pointed questions or revealing relevant and important information…

• Kleeb led the charge in bringing the CRS report’s existence to the attention of the Nebraska media, but the posting on her website and the packet she prepared did not reveal where, when, and how she had learned of the document. This leads to the conclusion that it was leaked to her by an insider, perhaps someone in the Unicameral.

• Kleeb and her cohorts failed to mention the Interim Study Report, which is just as troubling as the CRS report.

• Kleeb and company have not, to date of which I’m aware, called out any Nebraska legislators who seem curiously M.I.A. from the pipeline debate, including the typically front and center Heath Mello, Jeremy Nordquist, Amanda McGill, and Daniel Nantkes-Conrad. Why? Kleeb and said Senators are far too entangled with one of Nebraska’s leading political power coalitions – heavily funded and led by unions. Some of those very same unions are vocal advocates of the TransCanada pipeline project.

Kleeb, in fact, has such a long history with Nebraska’s organized labor power coalition, some people might rightly wonder whether or not her very visible involvement in pipeline opposition and, yet, total ineffectiveness in focusing on specific and timely remedies, isn’t highly questionable.

Finally, Kleeb and company supported passage of any/all of the three bills introduced in the Unicameral this past session…why? While the bill that did ultimately pass seems like legislation that should have already been on Nebraska’s books, NONE of the three bills had anything to do with siting a pipeline or doing much to regulate one, in other words, none of the bills went anywhere near establishing what was required, as pointed to in both the Sept. 2010 CRS report or the Dec. 2010 Natural Resources Committee Interim Study Report.

Just WHY didn’t Jane Kleeb and her posse call out ALL legislators involved in this ineffective legislative effort?

Instead of getting focused, staying there, and actually holding legislators’ feet to the fire, Mrs. Kleeb opted for the crocodile tears routine. Here is video from her testimony at a State Department hearing about the pipeline in Washington, D.C. last week:

Yah. That’s more effective…than say…

• Prior opportunities for effective action

OR EVEN

• Logic

• Reason

• Facts
  

Nuff said…Re: coalescing with one Jane Kleeb on the TransCanada issue, ladies and gentlemen?

I say…
Let her frolic off to heal the planet and return to working with her usual friends…

(Maybe as seen, below??…warning…you may need a bucket) E-mail subscribers, click HERE.

We constitutional conservative types can focus on healing the moral bankruptcy that has apparently resulted in Nebraska officials praying the clock runs out so they don’t have to take any responsibility.

How ’bout it????

But, there’s oh-so-much-more. (To be continued.)