Oil Companies begin to leave the Gulf

WSJ "Numerous operators told Secretary Salazar that they were in the final stages of moving rigs, deepwater rigs out of the Gulf of Mexico and to West Africa and the Middle East," according to a person familiar with the matter. "We were frankly disappointed at the lack of serious attention that was paid by the Department of the Interior on the horrible economic impact that the Department of Interior's policies are having on the industry and on communities along the Gulf Coast."
Elections have consequences. How ironic; Springsteen sings of the common worker losing his job and plants closing down, then supports Obama who causes all these things to happen.
Never, never get your voting information from celebrities.

Elena Kagan's Commerce Clause

NRO  "Coburn's hypothetical is basic enough. If Congress passed a law mandating that Americans eat their vegetables, is that covered under the Commerce Clause? Kagan's answer, or lack thereof, is telling:"

Jon Stewart asks, Has This Government Proven Itself Competent Enough To Regulate Industry?  "If that's what this White House considers competence, we're REALLY in trouble. As for Stewart, that's one heckuva good job by a comedian. Makes the clowns at MSNBC look like the real jokers, doesn't it? "

Obama’s Oil Spill To-Do List

Heritage "The Heritage Foundation has offered a great deal of research and analysis related to the current crisis. It can be found indexed here. Starting today, we will also highlight the top actions the federal government must take immediately to assist the citizens of the Gulf as they cope with this tragedy. As the government responds or acts on these actions, we will directly update this post online to reflect the news and add new actions as we deem appropriate."

Red tape keeps prized oil-fighting skimmers from Gulf, coastline  ""We are literally talking about more than a thousand skimmers that are available, but we only have 400 - if this number is correct -- at work," LeMieux said. "It is hard to believe that the response is this anemic; it is hard to believe that there is this lack of urgency or sense of purpose in getting this done."
"The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 requires regions to have minimum levels of equipment such as boom and skimmers, making it difficult for every oil-fighting resource to be directed to the Gulf of Mexico."
Related: SPEAKING OF COMPETENCY .. HOW ARE THINGS IN THE GULF?  "Well .. finally we get word yesterday from the Great and Powerful Oz that some foreign help will be accepted. Let's see how far this goes." Neal Boortz.

Obama’s big oil spill bungle The short answer is that every agency — each with its own particular bureaucratic agenda — was able to veto each aspect of any plan to fight the spill, with the unintended consequence that nothing stopped the oil from destroying hundreds of miles of wetlands, habitats, beaches, fisheries and recreational facilities. "Where was the president? Why did he not intervene in these and countless other bureaucratic controversies to force a focus on the oil, not on the turtles and other incidental concerns?" Dick Morris, The Hill.

Administration Cannot Drop Bid for Nuclear Waste Dump in Nevada, Panel Finds

NY Times "President Obama had promised in his election campaign to drop the Yucca Mountain plans if he were elected. But the states of Washington and South Carolina, with major stores of waste, had petitioned to prevent the Energy Department from withdrawing the application. So did the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s trade association; several counties in Nevada; and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, made up of state officials who sit on public service commissions." Via Heritage.

Democrats scramble to save reform package

Washington Times "President Obama touts his financial-reform bill as the most far-reaching since the Great Depression, but critics are calling it a paper tiger that wouldn't have stopped the last financial crisis while imposing an intricate web of new government regulation on banks that will stifle economic growth for years to come."

Building A Liberal Trojan Horse at the Justice Department

Hans A. von Spakovsky "The bottom line is that the damage Perez and his minions are doing to the Civil Rights Division will be nearly impossible to reverse if this new Policy Section comes into fruition. Congress, though, has the power to block it. Rep. Frank Wolf has already expressed his concern over this pernicious plan. Will other lawmakers let it die the slow death that it richly deserves?"Hans A. von Spakovsky is a Senior Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a former commissioner on the Federal Election Commission.

The war in Afghanistan; Posts by Max Boot

Max Boot "Boot is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard, a weekly columnist for the Los Angeles Times, and a regular contributor to other publications such as The Washington Post and The New York Times.[1] He blogs for Commentary Magazine on its page Contentions.[6] He serves as a consultant to the U.S. military and as a regular lecturer at U.S. military institutions such as the Army War College and the Command and General Staff College.[1]" Wikipedia.

Why We Must Prevail in Afghanistan "I think Packer is exactly right — which is why it’s so important that we prevail in Afghanistan. I believe our current strategy, under the leadership of General Petraeus and backed by what seems to be a freshly committed president, gives us a good chance to do that, notwithstanding the myriad difficulties we face. I will learn more, however, in Afghanistan itself, which is where I am currently headed."

Don’t Let Afghanistan Distract from Iraq "The president should realize that the gains of recent years can still be lost, and that preserving what so many American personnel — military and civilian alike — have sacrificed so much to achieve will require sustained, high-level attention."

In Afghanistan Forever? "Those of us who hoped for some kind of winding down of the longest war in US history will almost certainly be disappointed now. David Petraeus is the real Pope of counter-insurgency and if he decides that he needs more troops and more time and more resources in Afghanistan next year, who is going to be able to gainsay him? That’s Thomas P. Barnett’s shrewd assessment."

Would a Tehran ‘No Fly’ Zone Work?

Pajamas Media "Read your history of Islamic expansionism: within a century of Mohammed’s death, Islam had conquered most of the known world at that time. That is the choice Bush and Cheney clearly recognized. It’s the reality that Obama and the left is in deep denial about."

Giant Cleanup Ship Met with Puny Response from Bureaucrats

Heritage "After our government claimed that we did not need or could not obtain larger ships to skim the Gulf oil spill, a giant-capacity skimming ship has arrived in U.S. waters. Yet our government has us wondering whether it will permit the ship to join the cleanup effort.
"The problem is not simply the Jones Act; it’s also that our Environmental Protection Agency may squelch the ability to use this giant ship."

Ten Russians Accused Of ‘Snooping’

Sweetness and Light  "On Monday in federal court in Manhattan, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Farbiarz called the allegations "the tip of the iceberg" of a conspiracy of Russia’s intelligence service, the SVR, to collect inside U.S. information.
"The Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) is the Soviet Union’s Russia’s primary external intelligence agency. It is the successor of First Chief Directorate (FCD) of the KGB."

Saving Obama From Himself

Victor Davis Hanson "The reality of Barack Obama is that he was an inexperienced community organizer with an undistinguished record as a Senate newcomer. A perfect storm of popular anger at eight years of George Bush, a lackluster John McCain campaign, Obama's landmark candidacy as an African-American, a disingenuous campaign promising centrist and bipartisan governance, and the financial meltdown in 2008 got the relatively untried and unknown Obama elected."

The Dodd-Frank Assault on Economic Recovery

Heritage “The bill, completed early Friday and expected to come up for a final vote this week, is basically a 2,000-page missive to federal agencies, instructing regulators to address subjects ranging from derivatives trading to document retention. But it is notably short on specifics, giving regulators significant power to determine its impact.”

Liberal Democrats. Maybe you like yours, but a Democrat in Congress is a likely "yes" vote for this kind of legislation.

Chip Bok, Townhall