Free Republic

Energy Policy: President Obama says the oil disaster proves the need to get off fossil fuels. But before we save the planet, let's save the Gulf and stop exploiting crises to deny America the energy it needs. Saving the planet is nice, but just how do we plug the hole again? With an abundance of hand gestures, the president didn't really say in his speech Tuesday night. He did say fossil fuels were bad and green energy is good, but the people of the Gulf states don't need wind turbines right now. Contrary to Obama's assertions, our "addiction" to foreign...

Energy Policy: The advisory board on offshore drilling says it never endorsed a moratorium, which was added later by the interior secretary. The only thing transparent about this administration is its lies. Experts brought together by the Obama administration to review offshore drilling safety were asked to review recommendations in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. They did not give their blessing to the six-month drilling moratorium announced by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and have accused him of deliberately appending their report to make it seem like they did. According to the New Orleans Times Picayune, Salazar's May 27...

Leadership: The president says he went to the Gulf to find out whose derriere to kick. After he gets his foot out of his own mouth, perhaps he can talk to us about that Coast Guard memo. Scapegoating has become a hallmark of this administration. Certainly BP was responsible for the safe operation and maintenance of Deepwater Horizon. But after an accident in federal waters the federal government, which has a plan to save the entire planet from greenhouse gases, had no plan to save the Gulf from a single gushing well, with the possible exception of finger-pointing. In this...

The Economy: As if the latest measly numbers on our jobless recovery weren't bad enough, along comes the administration to pile disaster upon disaster by slapping a six-month ban on deep-water drilling. When President Obama visited Louisiana on May 1, he talked about the possibility that the oil gushing from BP's Deepwater Horizon well could "jeopardize the livelihoods of thousands of Americans who call this place home." Now the administration's response could jeopardize the livelihoods of tens of thousands more. In a letter sent to Obama on Wednesday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal challenged the president's decision to suspend deepwater drilling...

Energy: An administration never enthusiastic about offshore drilling is using the Gulf oil spill as an excuse to suspend Arctic exploration. Who could've seen that coming? Now we'll be more dependent on foreign oil. Suspicions in some quarters that the administration was being deliberately lax in its response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in order to pursue a larger, anti-domestic energy agenda were met with derision. But if not deliberate, the effect is the same as the administration prepares to shut down our search for new oil. President Obama on Thursday announced a suspension...

Accountability: Democrats have finally gotten around to blaming the Bush administration for the Gulf oil disaster. We wonder when this administration will take responsibility for anything. Asked on the "Imus in the Morning" program Tuesday on Fox Business Network if the Obama administration is to blame for the damaging fallout of the spill, Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., actually said, "Well, you know, they come into office a year ago with all of this. And so, after the last eight years ... " before being interrupted by a perplexed Imus. We too are perplexed. George W. Bush was blamed for the...

Emergencies: As frustration with the federal response grows, Louisiana's governor lashes out at the feds for doing little except blame BP for the Gulf oil spill. Meanwhile, Congress sees a chance to raise your gas taxes. While the Obama administration continues on its quest to fundamentally transform America, the largely unabated Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico threatens to fundamentally transform the ecosystems and economy of Louisiana and the Gulf region. 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...

Media Bias: As the Gulf Coast faced ecological disaster, the president yukked it up with White House correspondents. His Saturday radio address didn't even mention the oil spill. President Bush, call your office. Rarely has media sycophancy been on such sharp display as in the largely indifferent response to President Obama's own indifference to the oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The coverage has been far different from that given to President Bush's handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The White House announced Saturday morning that Obama would head to the Gulf Coast on Sunday, just a...

Energy: The administration has banned new offshore drilling until the Gulf oil spill is investigated. Was its heart in it anyway? It seems environmental concerns apply only to certain forms of energy. No one pays much attention to the aquatic "dead zones" that have appeared off our shores at the mouths of our rivers due to agricultural runoff created by mandates for corn-based ethanol. Ethanol is green energy, good energy — never mind that such biofuels drive up food prices, increase hunger around the world and damage the environment in their own way. The explosion that blew apart an oil...

Obama plans third tour to LouisianaFri, 04 Jun 2010 05:16:48 GMT As the massive oil spill problem remains unsolved, US President Barack Obama plans for a third visit to the Louisiana Gulf Coast to survey the efforts that have been done so far. The White House said in a statement that "President Barack Obama will return to the Louisiana Gulf Coast to assess the latest efforts to counter the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill". The disaster began on April 20 with the explosion of a deep-water rig that killed 11 people. The explosion has caused millions of gallons of oil...

Did any of you know that the US supposedly has a National Contingency Plan for dealing with very large oil spills? And that EPA has legal responsibility for maintaining readiness for such an eventuality? Who knew? I’ve watched hours of coverage and this hasn’t been mentioned anywhere. The National Oil and Hazardous Substances Contingency Plan Act was signed into law in 1994 (superceding previous legislation that went back to the 1969 Torrey Canyon oil spill.) Laws and regulations are collated here. The EPA has an online book describing the National Continency Plan. See for example http://www.epa.gov/oem/docs/oil/edu/oilspill_book/chap7.pdf (change the number to...

June 3, 2010, 7:57 p.m. EDT Spill could mean dark times for Sunshine State Bad timing: Oil oozes closer as Florida started seeing a rebound in visitors By William Spain, MarketWatch CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Already reeling from a real-estate crisis and deep economic slump, Florida faces yet another financial cataclysm if oil from the Gulf spill mars its famous shores, scaring away crucial tourist traffic and wreaking havoc on its fisheries. Beaches are big business in the Sunshine State. At stake there alone are hundreds of thousands of jobs and perhaps billions of dollars in revenue, depending on when and...

http://weaselzippers.us/2010/06/01/video-timeline-of-obamas-hideous-response-to-gulf-oil-spill/

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said the president told her he planned to send federal officials to her state this month to engage in "direct dialogue" on Arizona's controversial new immigration law. Ms. Brewer, a Republican, met with President Barack Obama in the White House's Oval Office on Thursday. She described the exchange as "cordial." According to a White House statement on the meeting, the president "reiterated his concern" about the law, and listened to Ms. Brewer's concerns. He told her that his administration had reduced border crime and illegal immigration, according to the statement, which didn't mention the plan to...

Sixty years ago this month, the North Korean People's Army, enticed by the Truman administration's announcement that Korea was no longer within the "U.S. defensive perimeter," launched a surprise attack across the 38th parallel - the arbitrary demarcation line drawn by the United Nations between the Republic of Korea and the communist north, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The onslaught was so successful that in a matter of just three days, Seoul was captured and the poorly trained and equipped ROK military was smashed. Hundreds of American advisers and hastily deployed reinforcements were killed, captured or listed as missing...

"This is the worst," a Democratic friend exclaimed over the phone on Tuesday, the first day back at work after the Memorial Day weekend. I knew without asking what he meant -- the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico that dominated television coverage and was into its second month with no quick solution in sight. * They haven't built a popular new television program around it -- yet. No one has created a new media franchise for himself out of it. There isn't a name for it that has become part of popular culture. I was thinking back to...

BASKING in the warm glow of its victory in the Cold War, the 21st century promised continued US global dominance. America’s military might and economic prowess made it appear as a colossus unlike any seen before. Then the shocking events of Sept 11, 2001 shattered the myth of America’s invincibility and exposed it as both vulnerable and frightened. Worse, it permitted the neo-cons to push then President George Bush onto the path of disastrous wars which contributed, in no small measure, to an economic crisis that has left Americans numb. Not surprisingly, America’s current predicament has renewed the debate of...

The well has been capped, more or less. BP engineers Thursday night guided a containment dome onto the hydrocarbon geyser shooting from the Gulf of Mexico oil well -- a desperate and iffy attempt to capture the leaking oil and funnel it to a ship on the surface. It was not an elegant operation. Furious clouds of oil escaped the "top hat." Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander for the spill, called the development a positive step but said, "It will be sometime before we can confirm that this method will work and to what extent it...

President Barack Obama 'furious' at oil spill, but won't vent WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama insisted Thursday he was "furious" about the US oil disaster but that "yelling" would be pointless, as aides rejected claims he had shown insufficient emotion over the crisis. The White House also disputed a media narrative that political trauma over America's worst environmental catastrophe would crimp Obama's agenda, even as doubts grew over his pending trip to Asia this month. But as the White House fired its latest shots in the public relations battle over the spill, new video emerged of helpless sea birds coated in...

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released documents Thursday night showing the Coast Guard recorded on April 21 -- less than 24 hours after the Deepwater Horizon explosion -- the magnitude of the oil leak disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.  “Potential environmental threat is 700,000 gallons of diesel on board the Deepwater Horizon and estimated potential of 8,000 barrels per day of crude oil, if the well were to completely blowout,” the Coast Guard reported in a log of events from the immediate aftermath of the April 20 explosion --...