The vote on ANWR looms and the number of undecided Senators is getting smaller and smaller. Please use this link to contact your Senator and urge them to vote to boost domestic production.

Update: The very important cloture vote is expected around noon today. The motorcade just zoomed past our office here on Pennsylvania Ave., en route from the White House to the Capitol. The Vice-President (The President of the Senate) must be on his way, in case they need his vote.

If you live in Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, please weigh in with Senators Pryor, Salazar, Carper, Nelson, Conrad, DeWine, Johnson, respectively, by clicking on their names.

The time is now. Let’s get this thing done. Here’s a link to an editorial in USA Today, supporting exploration of ANWR.

Every now and then, some group makes a move in public that is so fantastically idiotic that it shocks the conscience. That group this week is Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union of the esteemed and shrinking AFL-CIO, and their boneheaded strike against New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA).

Hard to know where to start on this one, but here goes:

– First, the strike is illegal under New Yorks’ Taylor Law. For that, (for violating a judge’s injunction) the union is being fined $1 million a day, a staggering sum even for a group inside the AFL-CIO, which is used to lighting a match to this kind of money for losing and unpopular political causes;

– Second, the strike is timed for the Christmas season, for maximum leverage against the MTA. However, it also exerts maximum leverage against the small shops who do far more than 1/52 of their business this week and who count on transit to stay in business. Since public sympathy is the biggest weapon that any union has, they just squandered it. Overall, it’s estimated that the city is losing over $400 million a day.

– Third, they took on a newly- (and overwhelmingly-) elected Mayor.

– Fourth, their demands read more like a letter to Santa. They now contribute not a cent to their health care (know anybody with this perk?) and are rejecting the MTA’s “outrageous request that they contribute a whopping 1% (Yes, you read that right: one percent) to their health care. They want the retirement age lowered to 50. (You’d have to say that’s moving in the opposite direction from the rest of the civilized world, no?) and they want to put a cap on how much discipline the MTA can mete out to its members. Right. Can’t imagine anybody would mind the MTA looking the other way for the last half year — after hitting their TWU quota — for train operators driving too fast, or under the influence of alcohol, whatever. What the heck, they can always get ‘em early next year, before the quota is hit, right? They also asked for hefty salary increases when the average train driver’s pay alone is $63,000, as compared to the average salary for the average joe in New York at $45,000.

Hard to know where all of this is headed. At this writing, word is that the International Union, in a show of good sense, is about to put the local in some sort of protective custody and take over the negotiations. Let’s hope so — maybe they can knock some sense into Local 100, a group that clearly had a little too much egg nog at negotiation time.

Don’t forget to check back on Saturday for an early Christmas gift, a terrific video of Cool Stuff Being Made. We’ve seen it and it’s terrific. We’ll just say it’s a mode of transportation, will give another clue later.

It’s Wednesday and you know what that means, right? Time for another Wednesday Poster of the Week, a vintage poster from the NAM archives. So many of these are World War II-era posters, tying our national defense and readiness to the enormous power and importance of manufacturing. It is the same today, as our manufacturers produce the stuff that keeps our troops safe and armed.

And so we say, keep the liberty bell ringing — busy factories will (still) do it.

[Click on image to enlarge]

Sen. Cornyn: On Alito, I worried about waiting until January 9, because I worried it would leave him hanging out there like a pinata, but it’s hard to run a hate campaign during the Christmas season, and it’s also a testament to the quality of the nominee [that this hasn't happened]. I expect he’ll be confirmed.

Sen De Mint: They have to dig into 25-year old memos to criticize him. No one seems to be going after the decisions he made on the bench. Unless theres some revelation that comes out in the hearings, I expect he’ll be confirmed.

Looks like Sens. Cornyn (R-TX) and DeMint (R-SC) will be with us today.

Sen. Cornyn (NAM Vote Rating: 100%) has arrived. On “the news of the day”, Congress is trying to wrap up its business: Patriot Act, NSA wiretapping issues. Once business is done we’ll “do America a a favor and leave town and our poll numbers will probably go up….”

On ANWR, it’s in a critical procedural posture. It’s been added to the DOD Appropriations bill. There are some technical arguments regarding Senate Rule 28 which would prohibit its attachment to an appropriations bill but that can be waived by the Senate, but I presume Sen. Stevens has the votes.

Sen. DeMint (NAM Vote Rating: 88%): “Democrats don’t have any ideas of their own, don’t want to show America that we have solutions. They’re trying to block solutions and then blame Republicans when it doesn’t get done. They’re doing that on energy.”

When we leave here the end of the week, we’re going to have to convince people that we are trying got lead and the Democrats are trying to block and blame.

Sen. DeMint on ANWR: There are a couple of Republicans who are undecided. They need to hear from their constituents.

“It is inexcusable to deny the domestic exploration of oil. We generate electricity with natural gas because we don’t have nuclear, stopped years ago. You can’t be competitive in this country in manufacturing when you’re paying these kinds of energy prices. Hopefully folks back home are calling their senators. ANWR…is about being competitive as a nation, secure as a nation and whether we’re going to be energy independent. If we can’t pass ANWR, America’s in a heap of trouble, because that’s the low-hanging fruit.”

We just got word of a live blogging event with Sens. DeMint (SC) and Vitter (LA) via conference call.

We plan on attending and specifically asking questions about the Department of Defense Authorization Bill and the consequences of passing such legislation.

Stay tuned for more information and, as always, click “comment” to send us any questions you’d like to ask these Senators.

Following on Rep. Kingston’s excellent post on Red State entitled, “ANWR One Step Closer to Becoming Law“, we move to the Senate. It has now turned from a marathon to a sprint. The vote will be either Tuesday or Wednesday. Here’s an excellent first-hand account of what this all means to Alaskans. Anybody remember the Alaskans…?

Final push is now. We owe it to all the folks like Jack Kingston who have fought the good fight on this. If you’re interested in lessening our dependence on foreign sources of energy and if you want to turn loose a daily supply equal to that of Texas’ current on-shore supply — from an area one-fifth the size of Dulles Airport — click here to let your Senators know.

As you know, we often say we have the smartest damned blog readers on the planet, and we were reminded of that again last week, and of the power of the blogs to cut through the noise created by the cognoscenti and deliver the real facts. While we in the lower 48 argue mightily over opening a tiny part of ANWR to exploration, in came a comment from a Mr. Herrera, who (God forbid) actually knows something about ANWR and Alaska. As usual, we wished we could have made the case as well and as passionately as he does. And so we just stand back and let our readers speak:

“My job is currently to know and understand ANWR and help pass ANWR legislation in Congress and I have had in my office in the last month the President of the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation (which represents all Inupiat Natives of Alaska’s North Slope), the State Senator representing the North Slope of Alaska, the elder leaders of both the Inupiats of Kaktovik (ANWR’s only residents) and Point Barrow, Alaska [the highest-latitude community in the US] as well as dozens of native representatives from all over Alaska who are here solely to try and convince Congress that opening the 10-02 area of ANWR is the best idea for the Native people of Alaska as well as Alaskans and Americans as a whole. Over 75% of Alaskans support opening 10-02 including the Governor and our 3 delegates to Congress.

The Alaska State Legislature, the voice of the people of Alaska has, for over 20 years, passed yearly resolutions and appropriated millions of dollars to open ANWR. It is Alaska’s land and we have benefited hugely from oil development at Prudhoe Bay. Fire stations, clinics, meeting halls, jobs, a sustainable tax base, running water — all these things were brought about to the people of the Arctic directly from taxes on oil revenues at Prudhoe Bay and solid jobs many natives hold working in the oil industry. The native population of Alaska is overwhelmingly supportive of this issue. Proof? The Alaska Federation of Natives (Alaskan Native’s Governing Body representing all native peoples of Alaska) continued democratic passage of resolutions stating yearly support for ANWR. That’s the voice and leadership of all Alaskan Natives making that statement.

The law on ANWR states no more the 2000 acres can be used for surface development within the 10-02 Area. Thats .04% of the total ANWR area. Thats less than 1/2 of 1 percent.

Others ignorantly claim the area in question is “refuge” and “wilderness”. [This is] wrong. The 10-02 Area is designated neither “refuge” nor “wilderness”. The southern and central areas of ANWR are labeled such and are permanently off limits to development. The 10-02 Area is defined as an “area set aside for oil and gas exploration” as defined in the ANILCA bill. That’s not refuge. Thats not wilderness. The fact that the 10-02 resides within the ANWR borders means zero as ANWR is specifically divided and defined by the bill that created it by zone and each zone has a legal definition of use and purpose.

The Gwichin Indians who live 160 miles from 10-02 leased all their native lands 3 times for oil exploration. Not only that, the Gwichin themselves own and operate oil production contract companies that leach off the oil fields they condemn. “

Please contact your Senators and tell them to make this happen. Vote is expected today or tomorrow.

We provide this as a public service to blog readers everywhere….

In preparation for Christmas, might be time to get your expectations in check. Here’s a site — Claus.com (Jeez — does everybody have their own website ?!?) — where, among other things, you can check your “Naughty or Nice” rating. Just plug in your name in check your current status with the big man. And yes, you’re in there , don’t worry. The site also features the “Top Ten Ways to Make the Naughty List” and — while there’s still time — the “Top Ten Ways to Make the Nice List“.

We leave the rest to you.