Keystone again?

In what should be no surprise, the Republicans are trying to exploit the Ukraine crisis to push for their favorite domestic policies. This time, it's the Keystone XL pipeline and natural gas fracking. The Plain Dealer actually republished a column from Glenn Garvin of the Miami Herald in which he claims that approving the Keystone pipeline will put real pressure on Putin and Russia. What? A pipeline that will be finished in a year, if it were started today, and will deliver 830,000 barrels of oil a day, once it reaches full capacity, to Texas refineries. That is less than 1% of the current market's global capacity of 92 million barrels a day. This is supposed to affect the current situation in Crimea? The Republicans will find it a bit more difficult than in 2001, when they used 9/11 to pass the Patriot Act, a tremendous hit to our civil liberties. They had that one on the shelf waiting for a moment, and they used it. Let's hope that the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress know better this time.