Who cares about the temper tantrums being thrown by the pampered media because they didn’t get to meet Tiger Woods? The real story is that while 50,000 people were at the White House asking the president to address climate change by cracking down on the fossil fuel industry, he was spending the weekend with a guy who is the epitome of Big Oil and much much more.

No wonder he was keeping the destination secret before this trip. Intended or not, it was a big F U to the people who had planned for months to travel to Washington to protest the critical cause of climate change. Worse, there has been no response whatsoever to the tens of thousands of protesters who came to his house on Sunday, nor to the many many more who were at coordinating marches in cities across the country and untold numbers of people who were there with them in spirit.

Well maybe there was another reason why the identity of Obama’s host was kept secret in the weeks leading up to the trip.

It was a relief to hear more than a passing reference to climate change in President Obama’s State of the Union Speech, including promises of more support for wind and solar power. But the oil industry heard nothing to even cause even a smidgen of concern.

Three events collided this past week for me in the space of 36 hours, all revolving around climate change: Obama’s inaugural address, the death of John Chandley, and the decision of Nebraska’s governor to allow the Keystone XL pipeline to be built in his state. Three other events loom on the horizon: the ongoing drought, the Presidents Day protests in DC led by 350.org and Bill McKibben, and the eventual decision — one way or another — by President Obama on that pipeline.

MCW Enterprises Ltd., a Canada-based corporation, announced on Nov. 19 that it has received all necessary permits to streamline tar sands extraction at its Asphalt Ridge plant located in Vernal, Utah starting in December.

The Tar Sands Blockade of TransCanada Corporation’s “Keystone XL South” continues in Texas, but former members of the Clinton and George W. Bush cabinets believe the northern half will soon be green-lighted by President Barack Obama.

In a Nov. 13 conference call led by the Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA), an oil and gas industry front group, CEA Counsel John Northington said he believes a “Keystone XL North” rubber stamp is in the works by the Obama Administration.

“I think the Keystone will be approved in fairly short order by the administration,” Northington said on the call.

A huge report was published on Oct. 10 by Los Angeles County that’ll likely open the floodgates for hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) for unconventional oil and gas in the Monterey Shale basin. The report, as it turns out, was done by LA County in name only.

As the Los Angeles Times explained, the study found “no harm from the method” of fracking as it pertains to extracting shale gas and oil from the Inglewood Oil Field, which the Times explains is “the largest urban oil field in the country.”

On the eleventh day of action against TransCanada’s demolition of forest, land and family farm property in East Texas, actress Daryl Hannah joined Eleanor Fairchild to defend her farm from the heavy machinery TransCanada is using to prepare the environment for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The two ran out and put their hands up in front of the machinery.

Fairchild, who the Tar Sands Blockade describes as a “feisty 78-year-old great-grandmother,” put her hands up in the air, along with Hannah, to say, “Stop!”

A Tar Sands Blockader, Alejandro de la Torre, locked his body in a concrete capsule buried in the path of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline to stop a small family farm in East Texas from being destroyed by construction. He blocked demolition for at least six hours before police were able to break off a chunk of concrete is arm was in and arrest him.

Police confiscated cameras of Blockaders that were there to film for Torre’s safety. Tar Sands Blockade spokesperson Ramsey Sprague reported they wanted to keep cameras on him as long as possible but police intimidated observers and took the cameras.

Two brave activists named Benjamin Franklin and Shannon Bebe chained themselves to heavy machinery to delay construction on the toxic Keystone XL pipeline. Police were initially respectful towards them, but when a TransCanada supervisor named “John” arrived on the scene and asked to privately huddle with the cops, things got ugly.

According to Benjamin and Shannon, police immediately put them in stress positions and used chokeholds, violent arm-twisting, pepper spray and even repeated tasering until they relented.

Afterwards TransCanada staff congratulated the police on “a job well done.”

Sign our petition demanding TransCanada CEO Russell Girling denounce the torture of the Keystone XL Blockaders – then call TransCanada’s corporate offices to demand immediate action.

I spoke with Ron Seifert, a spokesperson for the Tar Sands Blockade. He recounted what happened to blockaders yesterday and then explained why activists find it critical to be out resisting construction of the tar sands pipeline.