Politics, Government & Public Policy: June 2010 Archives
Rory Cooper lists 10 things President Obama can do immediately to speed up the clean up of the gulf oil spill. Numbers five and six strike me as an opportunity for some enterprising state or local official:
5. Remove State and Local Roadblocks: Local governments are not getting the assistance they need to help in the cleanup. For example, nearly two months ago, officials from Escambia County, Fla., requested permission from the Mobile Unified Command Center to use a sand skimmer, a device pulled behind a tractor that removes oil and tar from the top three feet of sand, to help clean up Pensacola’s beaches. County officials still haven’t heard anything back. ...6. Allow Sand Berm Dredging: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has recently prevented the state of Louisiana from dredging to build protective sand berms. Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser immediately sent a letter to President Obama requesting that the work continue.
For a huge burst of positive publicity with almost guaranteed immunity to prosecution, one of these state or local officials should just ignore the stop signs thrown up by the federal government do what they know needs to be done. The feds will be dumb enough to come down hard on them, and 99% of the public will condemn the feds and praise the daring official. This kind of opportunity is rare, and looks like a sure springboard into Congress for anyone bold enough to take it.
(HT: Instapundit.)
Republicans need to stop assuming that American blacks are a lost demographic, because there are several conservative issues that seem to appeal to them. Al Sharpton himself admits that the vast majority of blacks are in favor of gun rights.
SHARPTON (4:52): I would say 90% of the calls I received yesterday were in support of the Supreme Court and people say they want to bear guns. They’re tired of the violence and it’s very very interesting. I have had a few on both sides today, but yesterday was overwhelming, it was stunning to me.I just told Attorney Lou Meyers, lady stopped me last night; I did the commencement address at Boys and Girls High. She said I listen to your show Reverend and I want you to know I’m saved sanctified by feel of the Holy Ghost, but if they come in my house I’m going to drop them right where they stand. So, and she looked like she was in her eighties.
Blacks also support school voucher programs and start a lot of small businesses. There's no reason for Republicans to give into the race-baiting of the Democrats and concede the demographic to leftism.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer to President Obama:
In a disgraceful abdication of their duties, the Democrat majority in Congress has decided not to pass a national budget resolution in 2010.
House Democrats will not pass a budget blueprint in 2010, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) will confirm in a speech on Tuesday.But Hoyer will vow to crack down on government spending, saying Democrats will enforce spending limits that are lower than what President Barack Obama has called for.
Such vows -- by Democrats or Republicans -- are never kept. This is theater.
In the scheduled address to the progressive think tank The Third Way, Hoyer will acknowledge that the lower chamber will do things differently this election year.“It isn’t possible to debate and pass a realistic, long-term budget until we’ve considered the bipartisan commission’s deficit-reduction plan, which is expected in December,” according to Hoyer’s prepared remarks that were provided to The Hill.
The real point here is that Democrats don't want to pass a budget with zero Republican votes that shows trillions of dollars in red ink for decades. Reality sucks.
Michael Barone unleashes a devestating broadside against Obama, labeling not merely a thug, but an ineffective thug.
Finally, the $20 billion escrow fund that Obama pried out of the BP treasury at the White House when he talked for the first time, 57 days after the rig exploded, with BP Chairman Tony Hayward. It's pleasing to think that those injured by BP will be paid off speedily, but House Republican Joe Barton had a point, though an impolitic one, when he called this a "shakedown."For there already are laws in place that insure that BP will be held responsible for damages and the company has said it will comply. So what we have is government transferring property from one party, an admittedly unattractive one, to others, not based on pre-existing laws but on decisions by one man, pay czar Kenneth Feinberg.
Feinberg gets good reviews from everyone. But the Constitution does not command "no person . . . shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law except by the decision of a person as wise and capable as Kenneth Feinberg." The Framers stopped at "due process of law."
Obama doesn't. "If he sees any impropriety in politicians ordering executives about, upstaging the courts and threatening confiscation, he has not said so," write the editors of the Economist, who then suggest that markets see Obama as "an American version of Vladimir Putin." Except that Putin is an effective thug.
It seems that when Obama put himself forward as a candidate he had no real idea of what the President is actually supposed to do. It says a lot about his character that he assumed that he would be worthy of the office despite any evidence.
Obama in the Oval Office is like a child running hurdles in the Olympics.
