I'm just nauseated from listening to Obama Chief of Staff Rahm "Dead Fish" Emanuel on ABC's This Week comment on BP CEO Tony Hayward's weekend of watching his yacht lose in the annual race around the Isle of Wight, although moderator Jake Tapper brought it up. [This makes"Dead Fish" my fourth nominee to date for this year's Jackass of the Year award. The other contenders include last year's winner Alan Grayson, Michael Posner, and John Morton.] This was Hayward's first break since the crisis erupted and a day after BP management decided to expedite the transition management of the spill incident to Managing Director Bob Dudley (an inconvenient fact Tapper and Emanuel chose to ignore). Okay, if you want to play that game, the Republican National Committee is willing to remind you about Obama's itinerary since the Deepwater Horizon explosion, including golf, concerts, baseball, political fundraisers, meeting with rock star Bono, dates with Michelle, etc., while Obama chose not to contact Hayward directly (after all, Obama had more important things to do than deal with the biggest natural resource disaster in American history...)
Oh, I can already hear the defensive White House quickly point out that others from the administration have been in contact with BP. (They won't go out of their way to point out that Hayward is working with a BP team as well.)
The fact is that BP should have fired their public relations consultants a long time ago. It's not like they have taxpayer money to run the White House
Of course life isn't fair. The national media are going to ask Louisiana and other Gulf state residents whether they like the idea of a still employed Tony Hayward going off to the yacht races with their economy and ecology being battered by the oil spill, struggling to keep their businesses afloat. It has a "let them eat cake" feel. It adds to BP's growing list of gaffes, whether it's Hayward complaining "I would like my life back" or BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg's oddly-worded statement "we care about the small people" (meaning Gulf state residents affected by the spill), with angry residents not cutting the Swedish businessman any slack for his English as a second language, choosing to interpret what was said as condescending.
Rahm Emanuel, of course, went beyond that and started taking credit for BP's improvements in capturing oil from the broken pipe and for simultaneously drilling a second relief well. [I don't really see the need for a second well; the process is stop-and-go as casing is inserted to keep the hole from collapsing, and the drilling technology exists for intersecting with the broken well. This is more a political than technical necessity, meant to address political concerns if the first relief well has a catastrophic problem, so we don't end up waiting several more weeks for a second attempt to reach the well. But then again, "Dead Fish" isn't writing a check for the second relief well.] There are intrinsic technical and logistical reasons why the cap currently in place is improving its oil collection, closing vents in a methodological manner, which have nothing to do with Obama Administration bureaucrats constantly nagging, "Is it soup yet?"
As for the shakedown of BP by the Obama Administration, a flagrant abuse of executive power: I just need to remind people that the function of the judicial branch is all about addressing damages. I know BP is covered by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (despite the opinions of environmental lawyers), which is why some have been trying to rewrite the rules after the game has been played (cf. Article 1 Section 9 of the Constitution). The $20B escrow account came after BP already announced that it was prepared to make good on all legitimate claims, at no expense to the American taxpayer. What's particularly disturbing is the "independent" Obama Administration pay czar Kenneth Feinberg's claim, even without an infrastructure in place, that he'll streamline the approval/payment process and upsize payments; either Feinberg is piggybacking upon the work BP has already done in qualifying and paying recipients, or he's opening the door to potential fraud or overpayments. Granted, given BP's abysmal ratings, Americans, particularly Gulf state residents, probably don't care if BP gets ripped off, because they probably want their pound of flesh, but in fact about half of BP's shareholders are American income investors,whom have seen their stock price collapse and dividends suspended through the end of the year. There's a lot of speculation regarding alleged BP cost-cutting at the expense of drilling safety (including fingerpointing by BP's business partners), but whatever the failure--human error, mechanical failure, and/or even act of God--Obama's attempt to explain away the government regulatory failure as an isolated instance of crony capitalism at MMS is clearly untenable, given the government's ongoing relationship with AIG, the GSE's, and the auto companies, never mind the health care industry's Faustian bargain with the Obama Administration.
Obama Takes on Arizona's Immigration Law
The decision for the Justice Department to take on Arizona's new immigration law is probably the worst kept secret around. Admittedly, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prominently brought it up in a South American interview. (After all, isn't it the business of other countries to comment on the internal affairs of the United States?)
I've made it clear that I believe that the law is unconstitutional because border protection, which I consider a constituent element of common defense, is a federal responsibility. Article 1 Section 8 also provides for the common defense, Article 1 Section 10 subordinates the states in terms of the common defense, and Article 4 Section 4 provides a common defense against state invasion. Article 1 Section 8 says that Congress should adopt a uniform law of naturalization. The Fourteenth Amendment clearly subordinates states' laws to the federal government in terms of naturalization. Moreover, Article 2 Section 2 empowers the President to make treaties (including immigration/visitor treaties), subject to Senate confirmation, and Article 1 Section 10 prohibits states from engaging in treaties.
Does that mean I agree with the Obama Administration? Of course not. Right now John Morton has made it clear that the Obama Administration uses its arbitrary discretion in deciding whether ICE will enforce immigration law, and they've made it clear that they want comprehensive immigration reform (meaning amnesty, probably for most undocumented visitors without a criminal history). It looks, in fact, like the administration is shutting down some 50 detention facilities nationally.
To the extent that the state is doing something that the federal government isn't doing (i.e., enforcing foreign visitor restrictions), the state (and local government) is subsidizing federal activities. State and/or local legal costs could explode, particularly without the immunity provided by ICE 287G. What about manpower costs of assuming federal police responsibilities, where do you keep the detained visitors, or what do you do if ICE refuses to accept unauthorized visitors on arbitrary grounds or accepts and then releases them locally? Not to mention community resistance if visitors fail to cooperate with local authorities for fear of self-incrimination...
What I want to see is enforcement of existing immigration laws and border protection; that is a federal responsibility. The real solution is hiring a new President in 2 years whom will not use ICE as a political asset but will fairly enforce existing laws, critical for our national defense...
Political Cartoon
Lisa Benson points out the one sure competency of the feckless Obama Administration: the ability to spend other people's money.
Quote of the Day
If you do not tell the truth about yourself, you cannot tell it about other people.
Virginia Woolf
Musical Interlude: Chart Hits of 1970. The Carpenters, Chicago, James Taylor, the Jackson 5, and the breakup of the Beatles, the Supremes, and Simon and Garfunkel... In my new "Chart Hits" series, I've avoided reprising songs I've listed in prior posts, including (for this year) the Beatles' "Let It Be" and Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Waters".
The Guess Who, "American Woman"
The Carpenters, "We've Only Just Begun"
Marmalade, "Reflections of My Life"
Chicago, "25 or 6 to 4"
Diana Ross, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough"
