Tag Archives: BP

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Why does Obama think that cap and trade laws will stop the Gulf spill?

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Mike Pence vs Frank Pallone re: Obama’s horrible speech from earlier this week.

Topics:

  • Obama refused to talk about the spill in his speech
  • Obama wants to call in experts to “kick asses” instead of solve the problem
  • Obama won’t ask other private companies (oil experts) to help stop the spill
  • Obama promises to cap 90% of the spill without explaining how he would do it
  • Obama thinks that cap and trade legislation will help to stop the spill
  • Obama thinks that pushing renewable energy laws will help stop the spill

Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey writes:

This speech was suited for Day 1 of a catastrophe, not Day 57.  It had no answers at all.  None.  It’s as if Rip van Obama awoke after eight weeks of slumber and had been told just that morning about a massive problem in the Gulf of Mexico.  For a man who has repeatedly claimed to be “fully engaged since Day 1,” and who repeated that claim last night, Obama gave every impression of still being in the spitballing stage of crisis management.

Obama didn’t even offer an original thought for spitballing.  In his short presidency, Obama has had two responses to any issue: appoint a czar or create a commission.  The auto industry got a czar, for instance, and the deficit that Obama’s spending has driven out of sight got a commission.  Last night, Obama wanted people to know he was taking this seriously by appointing a czar and a commission, the latter of which had been announced weeks ago.  That was the sum total of his substantive response last night.  Small wonder Obama chose an Oval Office speech rather than face another press conference.

Just keep in mind that even the radical, radical nutcases at MSNBC hated Obama’s speech. (H/T The Anchoress)

Excerpt:

Olbermann: “It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days.”

Matthews compared Obama to Carter.

Olbermann: “Nothing specific at all was said.”

Matthews: “No direction.”

Howard Fineman: “He wasn’t specific enough.”

Olbermann: “I don’t think he aimed low, I don’t think he aimed at all. It’s startling.”

Howard Fineman: Obama should be acting like a “commander-in-chief.”

Matthews: Ludicrous that he keeps saying [Secretary of Energy] Chu has a Nobel prize. “I’ll barf if he does it one more time.”

Matthews: “A lot of meritocracy, a lot of blue ribbon talk.”

Matthews: “I don’t sense executive command.”

Obama’s only tool is a hammer (socialism) so it seems like every problem is a nail. The solution is always to raise taxes on the productive and then spend the money buying votes from the unproductive.

News

BP bused in 400 temp workers to clean an area for Obama’s photo-op

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Yahoo News reports. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Perhaps you saw news footage of President Obama in Grand Isle, La., on Friday and thought things didn’t look all that bad. Well, there may have been a reason for that: The town was evidently swarmed by an army of temp workers to spruce it up for the president and the national news crews following him.

Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts, whose district encompasses Grand Isle, told Yahoo! News that BP  bused in “hundreds” of temporary workers to clean up local beaches. And as soon as the president was en route back to Washington, the workers were clearing out of Grand Isle too, Roberts said.

“The level of cleanup and cooperation we’ve gotten from BP in the past is in no way consistent to the effort shown on the island today,” Roberts said by telephone. “As soon as the president left, they were immediately put back on the buses and sent home.”

Roberts says the overnight contingent of workers was there mainly to furnish a Potemkin-style backdrop for the event — while also making it appear that BP was firmly in command of spill cleanup efforts.

[…]News of 11th-hour spruce-up brigade spread rapidly Friday afternoon and infuriated locals. One popular radio host, WWL’s Spud McConnell, suggested that the Coast Guard and the White House may have been involved in setting up the “perfect photo op.”

Obama was more interested in public opinion than in actually doing something. He cares about being elected – not about doing anything useful.

Obama connections to BP and big oil

Barack Obama was the top recipient of contributions from BP over the last 20 years.

Excerpt:

BP and its employees have given more than $3.5 million to federal candidates over the past 20 years, with the largest chunk of their money going to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Donations come from a mix of employees and the company’s political action committees — $2.89 million flowed to campaigns from BP-related PACs and about $638,000 came from individuals.

On top of that, the oil giant has spent millions each year on lobbying — including $15.9 million last year alone — as it has tried to influence energy policy.

During his time in the Senate and while running for president, Obama received a total of $77,051 from the oil giant and is the top recipient of BP PAC and individual money over the past 20 years, according to financial disclosure records.

[…]Former [Democrat] Rep. Jim Turner, now a lobbyist for BP with Arnold & Porter, formerly represented the 2nd District of Texas, which includes a large piece of Gulf shoreline. And at the Podesta Group, BP lobbyist David Marin was formerly the lead Hill staffer for Congress’s Select Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina.

And worst of all, Hot Air notes that Obama proposed down-sizing the Coast Guard crisis center 3 months before the spill.

Remember: it’s not just big oil, it’s big bankers, too

Obama gets lots of contributions from big banks.

Excerpt:

The world’s top-earning hedge fund managers have bankrolled almost exclusively Democratic campaigns.

The top 10 highest-paid hedge fund managers in 2009 have dished out campaign contributions almost only to Democrats.

Over their lifetimes, those managers have given almost $33 million in campaign contributions to Democrats, according to research by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and that is based on data maintained by the nonpartisan CQMoneyline.

The same managers gave roughly $600,000 to Republicans, according to the research. The contributions went 98 percent to Democrats and two percent to Republicans.

Democrats and big corporations are two peas in a pod.

News

Bobby Jindal wonders why Obama is doing nothing about the oil spill

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Bobby and Supriya Jindal

Editorial from Investors Business Daily.

Excerpt:

The federal government’s response so far has consisted largely of scapegoating BP and ignoring its own responsibilities and lack of preparation, railing against Big Oil, while Congress makes plans to quadruple the federal gasoline tax, ostensibly to finance cleanups.

Never let a good crisis go to waste when there’s a chance to make big government bigger.

“We’ve been frustrated with the disjointed effort to date that has too often meant too little, too late for the oil hitting our coast,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said on Day 36 of the spill.

As of Tuesday morning, he was still waiting for the federal government to provide millions of feet in booms and to approve an emergency permit for a state plan to dredge and build new barrier islands to keep the oil from reaching the marshes and wetlands.

Jindal, who is so desperate for the islands that he says he’ll build them himself even if it means going to jail, states: “We need more booms, more skimmers, more vacuums, more jack-up barges that are still in short supply. Let’s be clear: Every day that this oil sits is one more day that more of our marsh dies.”

The leftist media was on Bush 48 hours after Katrina for “not doing enough”. But they’ve given Obama a pass for 37 DAYS (as of Thursday). Is that consistent? Well, it’s consistent with their enormous bias against conservatives.

I normally would not think that Obama should be blamed for this at all, because it’s not the federal government’s job to rush in and rescue states. But Jindal is no fool, and he seems to think that there are specific things that Obama should be providing. So why isn’t Obama providing them, and why doesn’t the media care about the environment now that Obama is President?

More here at Michelle Malkin.