Tag Archives: Oil Spill

News

Obama’s traditional allies are beginning to notice his incompetence

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First, in the UK. (H/T Scrubone)

Excerpt:

What a difference 18 months and an oil spill makes. In January 2009 Barack Obama was hugely popular on this side of the Atlantic, and could have walked on water in the eyes of the British media, the political elites, and the general public. In June 2010 however he probably qualifies as the most despised US president since Nixon among the British people. In fact you can’t open a London paper at this time without reading yet another fiery broadside against a leader who famously boasted of restoring “America’s standing” in the world.

When even Obama’s most ardent political supporters in Britain, including Boris Johnson, are on the offensive against the White House, you know the president’s halo has dramatically slipped. It’s hard to believe that any politician could become more disliked in the UK than Gordon Brown, but Barack Obama is achieving that in spades. And as Janet Daley noted of the British press, the love affair with Barack is well and truly over.

As I wrote previously, we are witnessing one of the worst exercises in public diplomacy by a US government in recent memory, one that could cause significant long-term damage to the incredibly important economic and political partnership between Great Britain and the United States. And for those who say this is minor storm in a tea cup, I would point out that it is highly unusual for a British Prime Minister to have to stand up to an onslaught against British interests by an American president, as David Cameron has just done. In fact the prospect of a major confrontation between Downing Street and the White House grows stronger by the day.

But this is not the whole picture. President Obama’s handling of BP is part of a far bigger problem. This is an administration that has consistently insulted Britain, and has even sided with her foes in some cases, most notably in its wholehearted support for Argentina’s call for negotiations over the sovereignty of the Falklands, a position that has been strongly backed by Venezuelan tyrant Hugo Chavez. Time and time again, the Obama team has undercut America’s key allies, from London to Prague to Jerusalem, while kowtowing to the enemies of the United States in the name of engagement. It is a disastrous foreign policy that not only weakens American global power, but generates resentment and anger in nations that have traditionally stood shoulder to shoulder with America.

And even on CNN, the network that put Obama into office.

Excerpt:

CAFFERTY: Wolf, it turns out that recovery is in the eye of the beholder. President Obama and Vice President Biden have kicked off a massive P.R. campaign, celebrating what they’re calling ‘recovery summer.’ They say the $860 billion economic stimulus bill is working. The White House says two and a half million jobs have been created, and that the number should reach three and a half million by the end of this year. They’re highlighting new jobs at thousands of infrastructure projects across the country.

But the celebration may be premature. Just yesterday,  the Labor Department reported new claims for jobless benefits jumped by 12,000 last week- much sharper increase than was expected, and it shows that the pace of layoffs has not slowed appreciably. Plus, we still have a national unemployment hovering just below 10 percent. An editorial in the Washington Times, called ‘Obama’s Endless Summer of Spending,’ suggests the administration’s ‘make-work’ jobs program has failed, and that those infrastructure jobs, which are being funded by the taxpayers, will disappear when the stimulus money runs out- soon. Fact is the current recovery has been one of the worst for job creation ever.

Meanwhile, the picture in many of the 50 states is terrible and getting worse. State and local governments are cutting wherever they can, in order to meet their budgets, reducing or eliminating public services, underfunding state pension plans, and cutting 230,000 state and local government jobs in just the last couple of years.

Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan is out with a dire warning that the U.S. may soon reach its borrowing limit if we don’t make some drastic changes and reduce our $13 trillion national debt. But President Obama wants billions more for stimulus spending. Somewhere, there appears to be a rather serious disconnect.

I blogged before about how underwhelmed MSNBC was with his lame oil spill speech. His presidential approval numbers are around -20.

News

MUST-READ: Coast Guard obstructing Bobby Jindal’s efforts to clean up the oil spill

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Check this out:

From ABC News.

Excerpt:

Eight days ago, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal ordered barges to begin vacuuming crude oil out of his state’s oil-soaked waters. Today, against the governor’s wishes, those barges sat idle, even as more oil flowed toward the Louisiana shore.

“It’s the most frustrating thing,” the Republican governor said today in Buras, La. “Literally, yesterday morning we found out that they were halting all of these barges.”

Sixteen barges sat stationary today, although they were sucking up thousands of gallons of BP’s oil as recently as Tuesday. Workers in hazmat suits and gas masks pumped the oil out of the Louisiana waters and into steel tanks. It was a homegrown idea that seemed to be effective at collecting the thick gunk.

“These barges work. You’ve seen them work. You’ve seen them suck oil out of the water,” said Jindal.

[…]”The Coast Guard came and shut them down,” Jindal said. “You got men on the barges in the oil, and they have been told by the Coast Guard, ‘Cease and desist. Stop sucking up that oil.'”

[…]The governor said he didn’t have the authority to overrule the Coast Guard’s decision, though he said he tried to reach the White House to raise his concerns.

“They promised us they were going to get it done as quickly as possible,” he said. But “every time you talk to someone different at the Coast Guard, you get a different answer.”

Why? BECAUSE THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH LIFE JACKETS ON THE BARGES.

What about this news from Monday:

“We need the Coast Guard to deploy all the resources they have – using the military air traffic control assets if needed, or sentinel ships for water-based reconnaissance – but we must deploy every resource we have and not simply wait and hope for the best. Federal officials could also work to relax regulations to free up non-essential oil fighting resources, including skimmers and boom, from ports and refineries. We asked the President to consider this during his last visit and he said today that he was still looking into it.”

“I also asked that the President demand BP give us full access to their claims data so we can ensure Louisiana people and businesses are getting the payments they need to reimburse their losses related to this spill. As of the last report, 39 percent of claims had not been paid and we have no way to know the circumstances or details related to these claims.

“We again asked the President to increase the monitoring of our deepwater wells so they do not have to be closed down and cost tens of thousands of our people their jobs during a six-month or longer process by a government committee that hasn’t even been assembled yet.. Louisiana people should not have to lose their jobs because the federal government cannot do their job.

The governor has urged the Obama administration to lift the ban on the drilling moratorium citing unfortunate and unfair impact upon Louisiana.

Obama has played golf nearly 40 times in 8 weeks and held fundraisers for Democrat senator Barbara Boxer.

Wouldn’t it be great if Jindal solved this problem himself without any help from the federal government, and then explained his experiences to the American people during his presidential campaign in 2012? He could explain exactly what Obama did to help/hurt his efforts to clean the spill. Imagine the presidential debates when Jindal could explain everything that he did, and Obama could counter by explaining how well he can play golf, slash Louisiana jobs, pass the cap-and-trade energy tax, and point fingers at people who are trying to fix the problem.

Videos

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.