RUTHFULLY YOURS

Harry Reid’s gambit to deny Republicans a 54th Senate seat.

Elections have consequences, as President Obama said in his glory days, and barely a week later the losing Senate Democrats have already broken their line against the Keystone XL pipeline. Call it the Save Mary Landrieu Act of 2014.

The Louisiana Democrat faces a Senate runoff next month against Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy, and, lo, Majority Leader Harry Reid has suddenly allowed a vote on legislation she proposed with North Dakota Republican John Hoeven earlier this year that Mr. Reid blocked. The idea is to give her a show of political independence from Mr. Obama, who is about as popular in the Pelican State as BP .

You have to admire this transparent show of low political principle, especially because it clearly betrays that Mr. Reid has been the real obstacle to passing pro-growth, bipartisan legislation for the last four years. Ms. Landrieu couldn’t get Harry to move for ages, but now that Republicans will soon take charge her comrades will do anything to prevent the GOP from getting a 54th Senate seat.

The House has already voted eight times to authorize building the Keystone XL, which would open a new avenue for crude oil from Canada and the Bakken Shale formation in North Dakota to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico coast. The House plans to vote again on Friday to pass the latest version sponsored by Mr. Cassidy, which is roughly the same as the Senate bill.

President Obama has refused for six years to sign off on the pipeline, which his own State Department has estimated would create some 42,100 jobs and concluded would not significantly increase carbon emissions. State has completed five environmental reports confirming the null carbon hypothesis.

It is troubling that the first non-Christian to address the Church of England synod can be linked to extreme Islamist networks. By inviting Fuad Nahdi, the Church is lending credence to the notion that only radical Islamism can represent British Islam. What hope, then, for those genuine moderates within Britain’s Muslim community?

A British Muslim activist is to speak before the Church of England’s general synod on November 18 — the first time a non-Christian has addressed the assembly.

Counter-extremism campaigners, however, have expressed disappointment that the Church would choose an activist accused of connections with extremist groups.

Fuad Nahdi, director of the British Islamic organization Radical Middle Way [RMW], has a long history of working with activists and groups tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, described by the former head of the MI6 as being, “at heart, a terrorist organization;” and Jamaat-e-Islami, the Brotherhood’s South Asian cousin, responsible for acts of genocide during Bangladesh’s 1971 Independence war.