Hillary Clinton Prepares for 2016 by Supporting the Keystone Pipeline

The left continues to support Clinton and Obama. And all they've done is spit in the eye of the environmental movement. Let's remember that Hillary works for Obama. Support for the pipeline would not happen unless the President gave his blessing:

But the rumor is that Clinton’s State Department is nonetheless about to recommend approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which the top climate scientists in the nation have unanimously called a terrible idea. As far as I know, though, Clinton’s subordinates haven’t reached out to ask them why. For more than a year now, it’s been one of Washington’s worst-kept secrets that Clinton wants the pipeline approved. And why not? Its builder, TransCanada, hired her old deputy campaign manager as its chief lobbyist and gave lobbying contracts to several of her big bundlers. Leaked emails show embassy officials rooting on the project; it’s classic D.C. insiderism. (And, weirdly, her rumored successor is just as involved—Susan Rice has millions in stock in TransCanada and other Canadian energy companies.)

And in one sense it doesn’t make much difference. Everyone in the capital’s also known that the Keystone decision, in the end, will come down to President Obama, who will weigh State’s findings and then rule whether the pipeline is in the national interest. When that happens, we’ll find out if he’s a more modern politician than Hillary, or if he’s still fighting yesterday’s wars too.

Transcript: 'Meet The Press' (12-9-12)

Full transcript. Excerpt below:

MR. DAVID GREGORY: This morning on MEET THE PRESS, time running out to avoid the fiscal cliff. Is a deal closer than most think?

In public, the lines are drawn. But behind the scenes, the give and take over taxes and entitlement cuts point toward a deal by Christmas. What is standing in the way? This morning, the debate is right here. The house speaker’s top lieutenant, Congressman Kevin McCarthy, and top White House ally, the assistant Senate majority leader, Dick Durbin. McCarthy and Durbin square off.

Then, what is the political endgame for both Republicans and Democrats? Who wins and who loses as this fight drags on?

Plus, the future of the Republican Party is a hot topic as both sides start plotting the 2016 campaign. Our political roundtable features two former Capitol Hill insiders: Newt Gingrich and Lawrence O’Donnell, plus three journalists on the story.

Transcript: 'State of the Union with Candy Crowley' (12-9-12)

• Interview with Tom Cole, Marsha Blackburn; Interview with Christine Lagarde

Transcript: "Fareed Zakaria GPS' (12-9-12)

Full transcript. Excerpt below:

We have a very important show for you today. First up, with Washington at an impasse, an exclusive conversation with one of America's greatest deal-makers, James Baker, the former Secretary of State, former Secretary of the Treasury, former White House Chief of Staff, on how to stay off the fiscal cliff and on what his party should learn from the last election.

Next, when the U.S. aimed high in the 1960s, we sent a man to the moon. With a similar effort, we can now cure cancer. That's what the head of the largest cancer center in the world, Houston's MD Anderson, says. You'll want to hear why we are close to success and yet so far.

And America has lost its number one standing in lots of areas from competitiveness to education. The new number one, in most cases, a Scandinavian country. What is the secret sauce? We'll dig into it.

But, first, here's my take. As we debate whether the two parties can ever come together and get things done, here is something President Obama could do, probably by himself, that would be a signal accomplishment of his presidency: End the war on terror.

For the first time since 9/11, an administration official has sketched a possible endpoint. Jeh Johnson, the outgoing general counsel for the Pentagon, said in a speech to the Oxford Union last week that, "As the battle against al-Qaeda continues, there will come a tipping point at which so many of the leaders and operatives of al- Qaeda and its affiliates have been killed or captured, such that al- Qaeda as we know it, has been effectively destroyed."

At that point, he said, "our efforts should no longer be considered an armed conflict." You might not realize it, but we're still living in a state of war. This is the longest period that the United States has lived in such a situation, longer than the Civil War, World War I, World War II.

It grants the president and the federal government extraordinary authorities effectively suspends civil liberties for anyone the government deems an enemy and it also keeps us at a permanent war footing in all kinds of ways. Ending this situation should be something that would appeal to both left and right.

James Madison, the author of the Constitution, was clear on this topic. "Of all the enemies to public liberty," he wrote, "war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies. From there proceed debts and taxes. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

If you want to know why we're in such a deep budgetary hole, keep in mind that we have spent about $2 trillion on foreign wars in the last decade. In addition, we have had the largest expansion of the federal government since World War II.