“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it." ~ Mark Twain

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            As a kid I played the game Connect Four,  the idea of the 2 player game was to connect four of your colored discs vertically, horizontally or diagonally before your opponent could connect four of their discs. In this game the government has picked the black discs and the American people have picked the red discs. While doing this research the American people never got a chance to play their discs. The US government and its “black disc of dirty fossil fuels” never gave us a chance to connect 4 , we never even got a chance to play. The US Department of State required an environmental impact statement (EIS) of the Keystone Pipeline. The Department of State allowed Transcanada, the company applying for the permit to choose its own company to do the EIS statement. TransCanada picked Cardno Entrix to do the Environmental Impact Statement. If you look at the above picture they are the ones taking questions or technical comments for the Department of State’s website!

             A little background on the company Cardno Entrix. They prepared the environmental study  for  BP’s Deep Water Horizon, and we all know how that one turned out. Entrix has also represented BP, TransCanada, Exxon Mobile, Dow Chemical company, and FEMA. I see a little bit of a pattern, here do you see thepattern? So who are the key players? 

            The first player, David Goldwyn is a former state department staff member.“Former State Department key staff member, David Goldwyn, is now a tarsands lobbyist. While still at the State Department, he coached TransCanada staff and their lobbyists on messaging and “studies” they needed in order to alleviate all of the valid concerns being raised about the safety of the project.” Jane Kleeb (http://www.boldnebraska.org/entrix) 

           The second player is Paul Elliott is the former national deputy director for Hilary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign run."Elliott — who served as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's national deputy campaign manager in 2008 — sought to broker multiple meetings between senior State Department officials and TransCanada executives. He offered to enlist TransCanada officials’ aid in helping State officials forge an international climate agreement. And he deluged administration officials with letters testifying to the virtues of the Keystone XL expansion project, which would ship crude oil from Canada’s oil sands region to American refiners." From Mother Jones

          The third player is Broderick Johnson, the newest advisor to president Obama’s reelection campaign. Johnson was also a top aide in Clintons Whitehouse. Broderick worked for the lobbying firm of Bryan Cave LLP whose client was TransCanada.“Johnson’s federal lobbyist filings indicate that TransCanada paid Bryan Cave at least $240,000 late last year and early this year for Johnson to work on supporting the “submission for a presidential permit for Keystone XL Pipeline.” He lobbied members of Congress, the filings show, as well as the administration and the State Department.” (Greenspace Environmental news from California and beyond)

TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha denied that Johnson lobbied on behalf of the Keystone project.

         The fourth and final black disc is the oil industry that seems to be able to infiltrate every agency and every politician. Dirty oil makes for dirty politics. But there is some hope led by Bernie Sanders and 13 other members from the House and Senate, a letter to the office of Inspector General was sent calling for an investigation into the State Department’s handling of the EIS and national interest determination(NID)  for TransCanada corporation’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Link to the letter below.  http://sanders.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/IG%20Letter%20FINAL.pdf

          So now it’s time for the American people to “stop having smart people put us on” and get back into the game to stop the Connect Four, by dirty oil. We can connect four, actually more than four,  join us on November 6 when we surround the Whitehouse to protest the Keystone pipeline. (http://www.tarsandsaction.org/)

Read the non-so fine print of the contact information who is ENTRIX?