I realize this is my second Keystone XL-related post of the day, and I don’t mean to beat you all over the head with the subject — but this is really just too ludicrously facepalm-worthy to let pass without comment.

Self-fancied “green” activist and billionaire Tom Steyer has made it his personal mission to commandeer the eco-radical movement’s wildly misbegotten crusade against the proposed 1,700-mile pipeline route (see my debunkings of the serial installments of his “The [Mis]Truth about Keystone” ad campaign from last September for more on that), but the guy is out with yet another painfully trumped-up rendition of an anti-pipeline ad that purports to hit viewers with “the facts” that really just come across as more of non sequiturs:

“It’s a sucker punch to America’s heartland. The deeper we dig into the Keystone XL pipeline, the closer we get to the truth. China’s become one of the biggest players in Canadian oil. Chinese government-backed interests have invested $30 billion in Canadian tar sands development, and China just bought one of Canada’s largest producers.” Man, you really seem to hate China a lot for a big-government progressive that tends to support the unsustainable spending policies that keep us in debt up to our eyeballs, and China one of the biggest players in that American debt. $1.317 trillion of it, to be exact. “They’re counting on the U.S. to approve TransCanada’s pipeline to ship oil through America’s heartland, and out to foreign countries like theirs. TransCanada’s ads say the oil will help make America energy independent, but under oath, TransCanada won’t commit to selling us one single barrel.” Guess the country from which we import the most oil? Canada. By a long shot. Why we want to maliciously limit the opportunities of one of our biggest trading partners and allies, I don’t quite understand. Also, the Keystone XL pipeline would transport oil from Canada as well as the seat of our own shale revolution in North Dakota. We need more pipeline running through America’s heartland to support our domestic oil-and-gas boom just as much as Canada does. “The oil lobbyists and politicians — they take Americans for suckers. Keystone means more profit for investors like China, more power for their economy, and more carbon pollution for the world. Keystone’s a sucker’s deal for America. Just say no to Keystone.” Besides the increased use of rail that both Canadian and American producers have been employing to ship their wares to Gulf Coast refineries, Canada is already making quick moves to expand their pipeline capacity toward their own west coast. Read: Their oil sands will be shipped to Asia, with our without our involvement. Denying the Keystone XL pipeline will therefore not reduce carbon emissions, not prevent that oil from going to China, and only cut off our own noses to spite our collective face in the process.

Politico reports, however, that the ad is meant to run nationally on MSNBC just before and after President Obama’s State of the Union address tomorrow night. I.e., this latest endeavor of Steyer’s is hardly meant to sincerely change hearts and minds so much as it is to galvanize MSNBC’s already progressive-leaning audience and to whip any and all available legions into the appropriate furor for their big climate-change-minded push against the president’s oh-so-treacherous “all of the above” energy platform. …Good luck with that.