{"id":1451,"date":"2007-10-15T05:02:58","date_gmt":"2007-10-15T10:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=1451"},"modified":"2007-10-15T05:02:58","modified_gmt":"2007-10-15T10:02:58","slug":"the-fourth-rail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=1451","title":{"rendered":"The Fourth Rail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As Matt Abe notes over at North Star Liberty, <a href=\"http:\/\/northstarliberty.blogspot.com\/\">pragmatism seems to be the order of the day<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>After opposing them while he was a U.S. Senator, candidate Fred Thompson now backs billions in taxpayer subsidies to Archer Daniels Midland and Big Ag to burn our nation&#8217;s corn supply for fuel \u2014 while domestic oil exploration and petroleum refinery construction have been at a virtual standstill for years, conveniently providing the &#8220;crisis&#8221; that ethanol has been waiting to solve.<\/p>\n<p>Ethanol may be a scam, but like light rail and SCHIP for all, it wins elections&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8230;or, more to the point, primaries.\u00a0 In rural states.<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t get me wrong.\u00a0 I grew up in a rural state.\u00a0 The notion that America could be run entirely according to coastal urban interests and still survive is comical.\u00a0 But the classic rural state cliche &#8211; rock-ribbed conservatives who send the likes of Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan and Tim Walz to Congress, to bring home all the swag they can frank &#8211; is a real thing, which leads to things like the ethanol boondoggle.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230;even if it doesn&#8217;t solve the problems that it purports to solve, even with a blank check from the public treasury. Just ask Governor Tim Pawlenty \u2014 or former lieutenant governor candidate Judi &#8220;What&#8217;s E85?&#8221; Dutcher.<\/p>\n<p>Ethanol&#8217;s a no-brainer \u2014 for politicians on both sides of the aisle. Tyler would certainly agree.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Sort of like paying your bookie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Matt Abe notes over at North Star Liberty, pragmatism seems to be the order of the day: After opposing them while he was a U.S. Senator, candidate Fred Thompson now backs billions in taxpayer subsidies to Archer Daniels Midland and Big Ag to burn our nation&#8217;s corn supply for fuel \u2014 while domestic oil [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-08"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}