OBAMA'S BIG OIL SPILL BUNGLE

OBAMA'S BIG OIL SPILL BUNGLE

By DICK MORRIS

Published on TheHill.com on June 29, 2010

It's one thing to say that Obama's administration showed ineptitude and mismanagement in its handling of the Gulf oil spill. It is quite another to grasp the situation up close, as I did during a recent visit to Alabama.

According to state disaster relief officials, Alabama conceived a plan -- early on -- to erect huge booms offshore to shield the approximately 200 miles of the state's coastline from oil. Rather than install the relatively light and shallow booms in use elsewhere, the state (with assistance from the Coast Guard) canvassed the world and located enough huge, heavy booms -- some weighing tons and seven meters high -- to guard their coast.

But...no sooner were the booms in place than the Coast Guard, perhaps under pressure from the public comments of James Carville, uprooted them and moved them to guard the Louisiana coastline instead.

So Alabama decided on a backup plan. It would buy snare booms to catch the oil as it began to wash up on the beaches.

But...the Fish and Wildlife Administration vetoed the plan, saying it would endanger sea turtles that nest on the beaches.

So Alabama -- ever resourceful -- decided to hire 400 workers to patrol the beaches in person, scooping up oil that had washed ashore.

But...OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) refused to allow them to work more than 20 minutes out of every hour and required an hourlong break after 40 minutes of work, so the cleanup proceeded at a very slow pace.

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?

According to Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, the administration's "lack of ability has become transparent" in its handling of the oil spill. He notes that one stellar exception has been Obama aide Valerie Jarrett, without whom, he says, nothing whatever would have gotten done.

Eventually, the state stopped listening to federal agencies and just has gone ahead and given funds directly to the local folks fighting the spill rather than paying attention to the directives of the Unified Command. Apparently, there is a world of difference between the competence of the Coast Guard and the superb and efficient regular Navy and military.

Now the greatest crisis of all looms on the horizon as hurricanes sweep into the Gulf. Should one hit offshore, it will destroy all the booms that have been placed to stop the oil from reaching shore. And there are no more booms anywhere in the world, according to Alabama disaster relief officials. "There is no more inventory of booms anywhere on earth," one told me in despair.

The political impact of this incompetence has only just begun to be felt. While administration operatives are flying high after a week in which the president's ratings rebounded to 49 percent, per Rasmussen, after his firing of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the oil is still gushing and the situation is about to worsen.

The obvious fact is that Obama has no executive experience, nor do any of his top advisers. Without a clear mandate from the top, needed efforts to salvage the situation are repeatedly stymied by well-meaning bureaucrats strictly following the letter of their agency policy and federal law. The result, ironically, of their determined efforts to protect the environment has been the greatest environmental disaster in history. But some turtles are OK!

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OBAMA VS. PRESS FREEDOM by Dick Morris

OBAMA VS. PRESS FREEDOM

By DICK MORRIS



Jon Leibowitz, the chairman of Obama's Federal Trade Commission, is at the epicenter of a quiet movement to subsidize news organizations, a first step toward government control of the media. In our book, 2010: Take Back America -- A Battle Plan, we reported that he had commissioned a study to examine plans for a federal subsidy for news organizations. Among the measures under consideration are special tax treatment, exemption from antitrust laws and changes in copyright laws.


Now Leibowitz has begun to pounce. A May 24 working paper on "reinventing" the media proposes that the government impose fees on websites such as the Drudge Report that link to news websites or that it tax consumer electronics such as iPads, laptops and Kindles. Funds raised by these levies would be redistributed to traditional media outlets.

While Leibowitz distanced himself from the proposals for the taxes, calling them "a terrible idea," his comments appear to be related only to the levies proposed in the working paper. Nobody is commenting on the other part of his proposal -- a subsidy for news organizations.

By now, the Obama MO should be clear to all. As he has done with the banks, AIG and the car companies, he extends his left hand offering subsidies and then proffers his right laden with regulations. Should the government follow through on Leibowitz's ideas and enact special subsidies and tax breaks for news organizations, it will induce a degree of journalistic dependence on the whims of government not seen since the days when the early presidents bestowed government advertising on favored periodicals.

Is it too difficult to imagine that the Democrats might pass laws favoring news organizations, only to question -- as former White House communications director Anita Dunn did -- whether or not Fox News is a news organization or an "arm of the Republican Party"? We can see a future in which news media are reluctant to be too partisan or opinionated for fear that they would endanger their public subsidy.

Once such a subsidy is extended to news organizations, every company in the business must have it. Otherwise, the competitive advantage for the subsidized companies would prove too steep an obstacle to overcome.

In all the attention that has been given to the idea of an Internet tax on news aggregation sites and on tech equipment -- trial balloons that would obviously be shot down -- very little attention has been focused on the expenditure side of the proposal -- the subsidy of news organizations.

But The Wall Street Journal reported six months ago that Leibowitz had commissioned a study to determine "whether the government should aid struggling news organizations which are suffering from a collapse in advertising revenues as the Internet upends their centuries-old business model." Among the steps under consideration are changing "the way the industry is regulated, from making news-gathering companies exempt from antitrust laws to granting them special tax treatment to making changes to copyright laws."

These are exactly the kind of subsidies that could and would trigger government oversight and control.

Look at how radio stations squirm when their licenses are up for renewal before the FCC. We can imagine news organizations pulling their punches in order not to antagonize the hand that feeds them.

The Leibowitz study, and the subsidy proposals that are likely to emerge from it, represent a chilling threat to the First Amendment and to our civil liberties.

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DEMS: THEY'RE DROPPING LIKE FLIES

THEY'RE DROPPING LIKE FLIES

By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN

Published on DickMorris.com on February 15, 2010

Enter Coats. Exit Bayh. Bye, bye, Bayh!

The first time Evan Bayh gets a serious race for re-election, he quits!

The Scott Brown victory is still rippling through the House and the Senate causing retirements among committed, dedicated, long-term liberal Democrats. Seeing voter anger, they are heading for the hills.

The process seems to work as follows:

a. Public anger manifests itself in the Brown victory

b. The improvement in Republican chances impels top notch, former statewide elected officials to jump into races against Democratic incumbents

c. The Democrat bows out in the face of likely defeat. Suddenly, he wants to spend more time with his family.

This process has run its course in Indiana and may shortly be manifest in Wisconsin where former Governor Tommy Thompson is considering a run against Senator Russ Feingold. It may yet play out in Arkansas where Senator Blanche Lincoln now has a top tier opponent in Congressman John Boozman. And Senator Patty Murray may hear footsteps behind her with the entry into the race of wealthy businessman Paul Akers and the possible entry of former almost-Governor Dino Rossi. Rossi lost the governorship of Washington State in a Franken-esque theft after initial counts showed him defeating Christine Gregoire by 261 votes. Now Governor Gregoire won in the recount.

In New York State, billionaire Mort Zuckerman may take on appointed Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and, if he doesn't, former Governor George Pataki might jump into the race.

When we predicted a Republican win in the Senate in 2010, some laughed. But nobody's laughing now.

On a less high profile level, the House is also swinging Republican. The death of Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha opens the way for a likely GOP pickup in a special election and the Republicans now stand to pick up ten more seats through Democratic retirements. One wonders if the likes of Texas Democrat Chip Edwards, South Carolina's John Spratt, or Arkansas' Mike Ross might not be far behind in the race into retirement.

It now looks more likely than ever that Congress will go Republican in the elections of 2010.

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DickMorris: OBAMA'S BROKEN TAX PROMISES

OBAMA'S BROKEN TAX PROMISES

Dear Friend,

In this video commentary, I discuss Obama's broken tax promises.

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Please forward this email to any friends or family who may be interested in viewing my video commentary!

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Dick

CATASTROPHE by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

Full Title: How Obama, Congress And The Special Interests Are Turning A Slump Into A Crash, Freedom Into Socialism, And A Disaster Into A CATASTROPHE...And How To Fight Back

Click here to order a copy of CATASTROPHE now!

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CANADIAN HEALTH CARE: COMING SOON TO THE USA?

Dear Friends,

In our new book, Catastrophe, we spell out exactly how the Obama health care proposals will lead to a Canadian style socialized medicine -- and we explain the consequences.

* A 16% higher cancer death rate in Canada

* An eight week wait for radiation therapy for cancer patients

* 42% of Canadians die of colon cancer vs. 31% in the US

* Cutbacks in diagnostic testing

* The best meds for chemo therapy are not available

* No way out of the system; you can't even pay for services yourself

Why is health care so bad north of the border? Because there are too few doctors to treat everybody and cost savings -- which slice medical incomes -- drive doctors out of the profession. When Obama calls for a 21% cut in Medicare fees to physicians and a $2500 cut in health costs per capita, that is exactly the kind of downward spiral in medical care quality he will bring to the United States. By making too few doctors cover too many patients, he will cut the quality of care to everybody.

As Obama's proposals make their way through Congress, it is vital that we all get up to speed on what is happening in Canada, so we can stop it from happening here. It is through word of mouth that we need to spread the information to undermine public support for the changes Obama would bring.

That's why we wrote Catastrophe. That's why we hope you read it!

Thanks,

Dick

CATASTROPHE by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

Full Title: How Obama, Congress And The Special Interests Are Turning A Slump Into A Crash, Freedom Into Socialism, And A Disaster Into A CATASTROPHE...And How To Fight Back

Click here to order a signed copy of CATASTROPHE while supplies last!

http://www.dickmorris.com

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