I see that Congress has decided to do a two-month extension of the payroll tax holiday and unemployment benefits. The cost will be borne by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage originators. And the key concession from the White House is to relent on language that forces them to make an expedited decision on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The fascinating thing about that is that the White House has already said that if they are compelled to make a quick decision, they will reject the pipeline. So, you have the spectacle of the Republicans ostensibly going to the mat from the oil industry, but actually screwing them over. The White House issued the following statement after the deal was announced:
Statement by White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer
The President said that Congress cannot go home without preventing a tax increase on 160 million hardworking Americans, and the deal announced tonight meets that test. This is an important step towards enacting a key provision of the President’s American Jobs Act and a significant victory for the American people and the economy, because as independent analysts have said, failing to extend this tax cut would have had a damaging effect on our recovery and job growth. The President urges Congress now to finish up their business for the American people.
As for the pipeline, The Hill reports:
Boehner and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said they would not accept even a temporary extension of the payroll tax holiday without the Keystone language.
A senior White House official, however, said the president would not accept an attempt by Congress to mandate construction of the pipeline before there was an adequate review of health and safety regulations.
The official said the State Department has already said that if the review was shortened to 60 days as it is in this bill, it won’t be able to conduct the necessary review.
So the pipeline will almost certainly not be approved, the official said, proving the entire process moot.
I have a problem with the word “moot.” First, it used to mean “debatable” until Jesse Jackson went on Saturday Night Live and changed the meaning into something closer to “no longer relevant.” That’s the sense in which The Hill uses it. The language in the bill is unimportant (from the perspective of anyone who opposes the pipeline) because it won’t create the pipeline. But, if the administration is to be believed, the language will actually kill the pipeline. If that’s the case, it’s hardly moot. We’re about to watch the Republicans kill the pipeline by voting for it. Democrats who vote against the language will actually be making a failed attempt to save the pipeline.
So, one of two things is going on here. Either the Republicans are the worst allies in the history of legislative negotiations or the administration is lying and the Republicans are calling their bluff.
I don’t think the answer to that question is moot. Or, maybe it is. I have no idea what that word means anymore.
Unfortunately, your point on the changeability of the meanings of words is moot…
Does this mean that you get to keep the car?
Only if she gets the house.
Aside from the moot question, the risk here for the Dems is that the Republicans are going to attack on the “job killing” and “energy killing” denial of the pipeline to be built. They will smear environmentalists. They will (as Newt did) call the San Francisco liberal environmentalists (or something of that sort). They seem to be forgetting that none of the oil from the tar sands would go to the US for use. Building the pipeline might bring some temporary jobs. Mostly, however, this will benefit refiners in Texas and oil companies who will export the refined oil overseas. But the number of jobs “created” by it will be hugely inflated by the Republicans.
You are almost certainly right about the Republicans’ motivation here.
They don’t want the pipeline; they want the issue. They want to campaign on the claim that Obama killed the pipeline.
That’s the only explanation of their actions that makes any sense.
In law, “moot” has for long time meant “no longer relevant” — a case is “moot” if there is no longer a dispute to resolve. But it also carries the sense of “debatable”. For example, lawyers and law students engage in “moot courts,” which are practice runs of court arguments.
Right, and even within the law, that is basically two contradictory definitions.
Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself; I am large, I contain multitudes…
They’re not called “moot courts” because they’re debatable. Law is always debatable and, in court, moot and otherwise, routinely debated. They are called “moot” because they are theoretical exercises without legal consequence, even if people of legal authority, such as judges, take part.
No one seems to have looked up the word in a dictionary. If one does, one will find all three definitions that people are using: irrelevant, debatable, and theoretical.
What’s been lost is the sense of the word meaning ‘debatable.’
When you see the word used these days, it almost always means the exact opposite, even when the question has no legal component.
For example, “Should we get the chocolate or cinnamon babka?”
“The question is moot, because we have no money.”
In others words, there is no point in debating or answering the question because it is irrelevant.
Yes, I was surprised to see the dictionary recognized that meaning, as I don’t think I’ve encountered it among books or people who use language well. It is superfluous; we have the word “debatable”, commonly used and understood correctly. We don’t have another word that precisely conveys “moot”, which does not always precisely mean “irrelevant”, because “irrelevant” requires specification or inference of a context to which they are irrelevant. Moot courts are moot because they are without legal consequence. Whether they are irrelevant depends on the question “irrelevant to what”?. They are relevant to abstract legal theories, the training of lawyers, and sometimes evaluation of judges. They are not relevant to the law as applied. Moot may also be specific to a context, but need not.
“Debatable” seems to me a debatable definition. “Moot” so-defined adds no expressive power to the language and is likely to lead to confusion with the other definition, which does have expressive power because it has no exact synonymn. The “dedbatable” definition has obviously gotten some use and recognition, but if it is dying, I can only cheer its demise.
The fascinating thing about that is that the White House has already said that if they are compelled to make a quick decision, they will reject the pipeline.
Not “White House.” State Department. And not even the Secretary of State, but the career, professional regulators in some office in the State Department.
Too many people are falling into the trap of acting as if every action by the executive branch comes out of the Oval Office.
You forget rule # 1. The buck stops with the President. Either that, or you like making excuses for every bankster CEO as well, for all the criminal wrongdoing going on under their watch.
“The buck stops with the President.”
You think, and argue, in cliches. You do this to blur or obscure meaning, rather than to convey it.
You haven’t actually made a single argument against what I wrote. You just invoked some magic words and insulted be.
Because that’s pretty much all you’re able to do.
What this strategy also does is guarantee that during the early caucus months digging into the real information of the Keystone and proving that it not only an environmental disaster but a jobs disaster and all to have the end products shipped to Europe for their use not ours is understandably an issue to allow on the table in this form. If the constituents have their ears on and Dems are willing to shout.
Add to that the opportunity to continue talking to the American public about the 1% and there’s real leverage long term all because the Rep’s were greedy to bully the Pres.
This sucks the Repugs are blatantly pandering to their big oil buddies at our expense. Rush an environmental decision that has nothing to do with the issue at hand. Jobs my ass. History will show this is a new Repug low.
I use “moot” – of little or no practical value or meaning… frequently, but never gave it a lot of thought ’till now. I might have to change that. For example, I commented recently elsewhere the “that the truth is impolite is moot” – regardless of being a former governor and senator etc etc ad adnausium, Corzine embezzled company funds to pay off gambling debts, and that is a truth that is undebatable.
Corporatism is Fascism by Mussolini’s own definition, published in Time Magazine, that is a truth that is undebatable. Mitt Romney is using a campaign slogan – Keep America American – that was once a Klu Klux Klan slogan, that is a truth that is undebatable.
Practically, however, pragmatically these truths – that Mitt is whither of ignorant inadvertence or not too subtle dog-whistle is using a KKK campaign slogan, that Authoritarian “Christian” Dominionist Republicans are goose-stepping Nazis and former governor and senator etc etc ad adnausium Corzine embezzled company funds to pay off gambling debts, are “not nice things to say”, they are impolite, and serve not to elaborate the debate but to devolve all debate into self-righteous holier than thou victimhood, which is of little or no practical value of meaning. Leaving it “moot”.
Think I’ll start using boondoggle instead: work of little or no value, a project funded by the federal government out of political favoritism that is of no real value to the community or the nation.
I’m going with “the administration is lying” and maybe I will be pleasantly surprised.
Also, the non-fixed nature of the English language is generally considered a strength.
I think the Republicans want Obama to kill the pipeline well in advance of the election, and the Democrats want him to defer the decision until after the election. If Obama does kill it, then the GOP gets a nice set of talking points about how Obama hates jobs and energy independence.
I can’t remember ever using “moot” to mean “debatable”. It’s something between “irrelevant” and “dubious”. It’s used to dismiss an argument as pointless, usually with a shrug of the shoulders. But to those with frozen shoulders, that’s a moot point.
The party of “STATES RIGHTS” once again ignores the will of Nebraskans to ram this pipeline through their objections. The Ogallala Aquifer and Sand Hills should not be jeopardized so multinational corporations can profit.
How many of these aholes would vote for it if their drinking water was potentially in peril?
How many have ever seen the beauty of the Sandhills, especially Chimney Rock?
I am sure very few of them.
I grew up in Nebraska and my family currently lives there so this issue is very emotional to me. Nebraskans legit safety and health concerns are being discarded by a party that screams states rights in order to hook up their oil company donors and use it as a political weapon. It is disgusting.
in case you didn’t know…the KOCH BROTHERS are behind Keystone.
Koch Brothers Positioned To Be Big Winners If Keystone XL Pipeline Is Approved
By David Sassoon at InsideClimate
Thu Feb 10, 2011 2:03am EST
Obama’s bitterest political enemies already import and refine 25 percent of oil sands crude reaching the U.S., and stand to profit from an increased flow
By David Sassoon
The Keystone XL pipeline, awaiting a thumbs up or down on a presidential permit, would increase the import of heavy oil from Canada’s oil sands to the U.S. by as much as 510,000 barrels a day, if it gets built.
Proponents tout it as a boon to national security that would reduce America’s dependence on oil from unfriendly regimes. Opponents say it would magnify an environmental nightmare at great cost and provide only the illusion of national benefit.
What’s been left out of the ferocious debate over the pipeline, however, is the prospect that if president Obama allows a permit for the Keystone XL to be granted, he would be handing a big victory and great financial opportunity to Charles and David Koch, his bitterest political enemies and among the most powerful opponents of his clean economy agenda.
The two brothers together own virtually all of Koch Industries Inc. — a giant oil conglomerate headquartered in Wichita, Kan., with annual revenues estimated to be $100 billion.
A SolveClimate News analysis, based on publicly available records, shows that Koch Industries is already responsible for close to 25 percent of the oil sands crude that is imported into the United States, and is well-positioned to benefit from increasing Canadian oil imports.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/10/idUS292515702420110210
Something happens and an issue that was controversial is “rendered moot” — meaning it no longer requires debate, the question is no longer a question.