Time to Clean Up the Byrd Droppings

Vladimir Lenin, the Russian communist politician, led the Bolsheviks for 27 years.

Dictator Joseph Stalin controlled the Soviet Union for 29 years.

Henry III reigned over England for 38 years.

Fidel Castro’s Communist ideologies ruled Cubans for 49 years.

Robert Byrd’s tenure in Congress, however, outlived them all and lasted 58 years.

Working in both the House of Representatives and Senate for over a half a century, what legacy does Robert Byrd leave this country after his death early yesterday morning? Despite claiming that “intolerance has no place in America,” he joined the Ku Klux Klan in his early 20’s and even unyieldingly opposed the Civil Rights Act as late as 1964, which he filibustered for over 14 hours. His countless apologies for numerous bigoted statements over the years, however, are sure to be overshadowed by this professional politician’s perpetual push for pork.

Although Byrd occasionally claimed to favor fiscal restraint, his relentless bartering of his vote on bills in exchange for pet project funding proved otherwise. As we mark the end of his clamped hold of the public coffers, no fewer than 30 taxpayer-funded public services projects currently named after him have been left behind. The self-anointed “Big Daddy” of West Virginia cast nearly 19,000 votes during his tenure and brought over $1 billion of pork projects to his state at the expense of taxpayers around the nation from 1995-2006 alone.  Thanks to the Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), we the taxpayers have an extensive list tallying Byrd’s pork projects (a.k.a. “Byrd Droppings”) that accumulated over the years. He proudly burned holes in our pockets, claiming: “They call me 'The Pork King,' they don't know how much I enjoy it.” Clearly. Why else would he have erected a bronze statue of himself in his state’s Capitol Rotunda?

Senator Byrd leaves behind a classic example of the fiscal recklessness our Congress continues to force upon the working private sector by funding every personal pet project they can dream up for their individual states.  During a Senate floor debate in 2001, Byrd stated that "one man's pork is another man's job... You can look around and see what I've done." For professional politicians like Byrd, they believe their roles are less about protecting individual liberty and limiting their responsibilities to those within the scope of the Constitution and more about creating personal accomplishments, building a name for themselves, and making history.

Combined with a lack of term limits and a tangled web of gerrymandered congressional districts, politicians conveniently find themselves reelected and continually in a position to redistribute the wealth of the nation at their flawed discretion.  

Ironically, Congress’ approval rating has been on a slow, steady decline over the past few years.  How then, when less than 20% of the population approve of how Congress does its job, do our politicians still have the nerve to pat themselves on the back? How is it, that when their phone lines are perpetually flooded with the begging requests of constituents to oppose bills or at least read the legislation they intend to enforce before casting a vote, that they feel as though they’ve fulfilled their sworn obligation to the public and earned their $174,000 annual salary?

ABC News Contributor Cokie Roberts claimed that Byrd will be remembered “as the guardian of the Senate, as an institution.” If this is true, then our nation can only hope that Senator Byrd’s disgraceful legacy of fiscal irresponsibility will swiftly follow and die with him, so his death can mark the turning point in our history when future Congressmen and women will act as guardians of the Constitution and protectors of the people instead of defenders of their reelection careers.

~Gee

I'm From the Government, and I'm Here to Propose...More Government

As oil steadily spreads east, and newscasters lead nightly with heartrending pictures of silk-coated pelicans struggling to free themselves and stretching now useless wings, it is painfully evident the Obama administration’s policy of finger-pointing and maligning big oil has not saved our marshlands.  Though full of machismo, President Obama’s “declaration of war” on the spill in his June 15 address was short on substance and failed to inspire confidence.  His self-described “battle plan” offered no concrete solutions or immediate answers for a weary Gulf coast and a crestfallen nation.  The speech was rife with platitudes and empty militaristic imagery, which is ironic given that the months since the spill have manifested Obama’s inexperience, even to his staunchest of allies.  The birds, seemingly frozen in oil and in time, have become a symbol of this presidency, while this tragedy has showcased the follies of liberals’ belief in the unbridled expansion of the power and size of government.

To be sure, the Obama administration and Congress have followed their leader into battle.  Over the past two weeks, Congress has conducted trial-like hearings with BP CEO Tony Hayward and BP America President Lamar McKay.  Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) called for McKay to resign.  Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, a Republican who represents New Orleans, suggested McKay’s pound of flesh could be exacted more harshly.  “Mr. Stearns asked Mr. McKay to resign,” Cao said. “Well, in the Asian culture we do things differently.  During the Samurai days, we just give you a knife and ask you to commit harakiri.”  Following Hayward’s robotic stream of responses that investigations must be completed before he could testify as to BP’s negligence, Rep. Edward Markey (D-PA), chided, “Is today Thursday, yes or no?”  Though later retracted, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) termed the hearings a “shakedown.” 

Many prominent conservatives have spoken out against the hearings as premature and gratuitously aggressive and have recognized that all efforts should converge on the single objective of stopping the spill.  Other right-wing figureheads such as Mark Levin, Michael Savage, and Rush Limbaugh have done more than criticize the hearings and have gone so far as to liken the hearings to Stalinist Russia.  Though President Obama is certainly no friend to big oil, and his vision for capitalizing on this crisis through the blitzkrieg passage of cap and trade is steadily surfacing, the iron fist that implemented the Great Purge and forced collectivization bears no likeness to President Obama or his administration; to suggest otherwise is to diminish the suffering of true victims. 

Though President Obama cried he would “not settle for inaction,” these hearings are paradoxically the ultimate act of inaction.  Mere pomp and circumstance, they are an empty show put on by a puerile government that believes the answers to what ails this country—even the oil drenched Gulf—can be found in sterile Washington offices and closed-door meetings.  Neither the parading of BP executives before Congress nor the demonization of big oil contributes to the goal of saving the Gulf.  There is most certainly a time for investigation, accountability, and reckoning, but that time is not now. 

If the hearings have taught us anything, it is that government, with all its impenetrable red tape and crippling bureaucracy, is not the panacea the far left would have us believe.  Federal relief efforts in the Gulf have been sluggish due in large part to that same bureaucracy, which not only appointed a commission to explore criminal charges against BP, but has also created the position of an “oil czar,” who will undoubtedly consult with the same environmentalists who pushed for deep sea drilling as he or she formulates a recovery plan.  If this administration has been on top of the crisis since “day one,” as it has repeatedly attempted to convince the public, there should be no confusion regarding the chain of command, but that’s precisely what “big government” does.

Ronald Reagan once quipped, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help,’ ” and those fighting this disaster on the front lines such as Governor Bobby Jindal have pleaded with the federal government to either lead, follow, or get out of the way.  Governor Jindal has expressed his outrage and frustration not only with the federal government’s seeming lack of urgency, but also with its bureaucracy, which is both stymieing and even aborting the relief efforts his state has implemented.  Jindal described the hoops through which he was forced to jump to clear barges for siphoning surface oil:  “Twenty-four hours were lost unnecessarily,” he said. “That's thousands of gallons of oil that could have been sucked up if they had been allowed to do their jobs.”  Sixteen barges were ready or had already been deployed from the Delta Marina, but the Coast Guard halted them, because they did not have proof of certified inspections for fire extinguishers and life vests. “It’s the most frustrating thing,” Jindal said.  “Literally, yesterday morning we found out that they were halting all of these barges.  They promised us they were going to get it done as quickly as possible,” but “every time you talk to someone different at the Coast Guard, you get a different answer” the Republican Governor complained.  Thanks to Governor Jindal’s public and tireless remonstrations, the barges are operational, but other governors are now facing red tape as thick as the sludge in the Gulf.

Had the Bush administration or FEMA insisted on inspecting every helicopter airlifting evacuees from New Orleans or the firefighters sifting through the wreckage World Trade Center for survivors, there would have been countless more deaths.  President Obama’s “battle plan” for the Gulf, comprised of clean up by committee and hearings by commission, is only obstructing real progress.  For those countless legions who in chorus chanted “Yes We Can” and looked to Obama as their savior and great hope for change—one who would smite evil bankers, speak credit into existence, and restore America through burning bush revelations—the President has failed to fulfill prophecy with regard to the oil spill.  Rather than looking to our elected officials, we should turn to the true Hope of the world, the one whose very voice spoke the oceans into existence, and pray for divine guidance as we deal with the consequences of failing to protect this earth and its precious resources with which we have been entrusted. 

~ elf

Freedom (Caution: Do Not Use Without Government Supervision!)

”You never want a serious crisis to go to waste, and what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you didn’t think you could do before.”

Those are the words from President Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel back in 2008 during the presidential campaign. Emanuel broadly applied this idea to a wide range of problems, implying that had the federal government simply stepped in to supervise the situation, each crisis could have been avoided.  From health care to energy reform, education to regulatory reform, and even in the fiscal and tax areas – “the solution,” as Emanuel claims, always leads back increased government control.  This morning, in the wake of President Obama’s newly-appointed oil spill commission and energy Czar, we see another example of this government fix-it mentality implying that government can and will fix all of the nation’s problems.

We’ve got an unstoppable oil leak? No worries, the government will swoop in and ensure it never happens again.  We don’t have health insurance?  No worries, the government will step in and ensure we never have to pay a high premium again.

Our politicians preach on responsibility – corporate responsibility, environmental responsibility, and social responsibility, always with the subtle suggestion that the current problems of our country somehow link back to being the direct result of Bush-era greed that could have conveniently been avoided if only we had a controlling body to referee the rules and lifeguard the economic pool. The magic ingredient needed to fix each of this country’s problems, according to this administration, is control. Just add government intervention.

Are we listening to their rhetoric? Are we paying attention to what they are implying?

Our politicians insinuate that if those countless masses of irresponsible CEOs and greedy individuals had simply exercised a bit more fiscal responsibility, if they just cared a little more about the future generations, if they had only showed concern for the environment instead of their corporate profits, if they simply controlled their excess, if only they had someone to watch over them and make sure they behaved – none of this would have happened.  In other words, our politicians want us to believe that if only we had let the government control the situation from the beginning, the risk of failure would have been removed.  In Emanuel’s own words: a crisis requires immediate government intervention and provides “the opportunity to do things that [government] could not do before.”  I.e., if we had only given the government the power it needed to control the situation, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now.  

Federal government intervention under the banner of national emergencies is not a new idea to the American public.  Teddy Roosevelt once gave a speech at the turn of the last century on “The New Nationalism” in which he claimed that our money and property only belongs to us if there isn’t a better government-determined use for it.  He stated that personal property is “subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.”  Nationalism, as Roosevelt stated, “puts the national need before sectional or personal advantage.”  However, because our country is founded on principles equal opportunities, which grant us free access to life, liberty and the use of our personal property (with minimal government intervention) but does not necessarily guarantee equal outcomes, this call to Nationalism has been rejected over time.

Yet, with all the political lecturing as though our government were a nurturing parent desperate for more opportunities to monitor its reckless  and unruly children, er, constituents, who simply can’t fend for themselves, our politicians continue to push their controlling agenda on this country with no regard for their own call to responsibility, moderation, and self-control.

Who oversees the overseers?  Who regulates the regulators?

The recent housing collapse is largely attributed to the federal government’s meddling involvement with bank loans via the Community Reinvestment Act, which was enacted over 30 years ago. Our country is teetering at the grand canyon of national debt, we’re on the verge of losing our triple-A lending status (which basically means that our interest rates used to pay back our federal government’s debt could skyrocket if we continue along this path), and our national debt is on the verge of being unsustainable, also because our federal government for years has overstepped its fiscal boundaries.

Do our politicians have room to lecture on self-control and responsibility?

No, they do not. 

When has our government proved that it is above the vices of the common man? Does the government stop its reckless spending that will inevitably bankrupt our country?  No, our Congress continues to sneak in additional spending that we simply cannot afford. However, the American public is catching on – we are aware that we cannot control and sustain our debt, so our politicians have found a way around the minor inconvenience of the public calling for less spending by citing each plea for additional funding as a national emergency. The checks may bounce, but what does it matter to our politicians if the bill had “good intentions” of fixing a national emergency?  What does it matter if our hard-earned money is used for a national cause determined not by populous vote but by self-regulating politicians?

Take H. R. 4899, for example, a bill currently on the table in the House of Representatives and marketed as an act proposing “emergency supplemental appropriations for disaster relief and summer jobs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and for other purposes.” Despite the bill’s blatantly broad description projecting an image of good-natured responsibility and assistance in the wake of current economic issues, it’s a prime example of how our government never lets a good crisis go to waste.  Slyly tucked forty pages into H.R. 4899 is a proposed $174,000 paycheck to Representative John Murtha’s family, because apparently, according to our politicians, entitlement funds for the family members of dead politicians qualify under the “for other purposes” emergency category.

Where in the Constitution have the states granted the federal government the right to take up mandatory tax collections at the expense of the public to fund their “charitable” causes?  How does this $174,000, for example – which happens to be the equivalent of an additional one-year Congressional salary payment – qualify as an emergency fund in the eyes of our politicians? The current spending habits of our elected officials and their blatant disregard and reckless spending proves that they would rather burden the American family for generations with debt through taxes for money they think they’ve earned a right to freely distribute. I highly doubt that when Teddy Roosevelt shaped his definition of Nationalism, that taxpayer-funded collections for families of deceased politicians qualified as the new “national need.” 

It’s always easy for politicians to spend someone else’s money, but the redistribution of our money and property at the expense of self-appointed political perks does not fall into the same category as emergency funds either, which is why Nationalism will always be rejected.  The people inherently know that regardless of how bad a problem is or how big a crisis gets, there can never be an end-all government solution for everything. The public also inherently knows that not every problem is an emergency nor will increased government control ever remove a nation from the risk of a future crisis, because the individuals making up our collective government body will always be subject to the exact same vices and flaws that the government seeks to villainize and control in the private sector. 

~Gee 

The Buck Stops Where?

        In his commencement address at Kalamazoo Central High School in Kalamazoo, Michigan on June 7, President Obama focused on the theme of personal responsibility:

“Don't make excuses. Take responsibility not just for your successes, but for your failures as well.  The truth is, no matter how hard you work, you won't necessarily ace every class or succeed in every job. There will be times when you screw up, when you hurt the people you love, when you stray from your most deeply held values.  And when that happens, it's the easiest thing in the world to start looking around for someone to blame. Your professor was too hard, your boss was a jerk, the coach was playing favorites, your friend just didn't understand. We see it every day out in Washington, with folks calling each other names and making all sorts of accusations on TV.”

        Rather than passing the buck, President Obama urged the class of 2010 to accept that it is their actions and their actions alone that will determine the directions of their lives, and that they are responsible for their choices; they are the makers of their own destinies.

      
Ironically, President Obama has spent his entire tenure in office playing Monday morning quarterback and blaming anyone and anything but himself and his administration – including former President Bush, Vice President Cheney, the Bush administration, conservatives on Capitol Hill, Fox News, and members of the tea party – for the problems and failures of the present and for standing in the way of his twisted version of progress, the “fundamental transformation of America.”  President Obama has gone so far as to pompously liken the state of the country he inherited in 2009 to the division of the Union and the greatest threat to the survival of freedom and democracy this country has faced since its birth during the tenure of President Lincoln. 

          Perennially passing the buck, President Obama has repeatedly employed the theme of housecleaning and in particular, the symbol of the mop, to illustrate his efforts to “clean-up” the alleged disorder and chaos with which the previous administration bequeathed him.  Willfully ignorant of the pervasive cries for real change Americans can believe in, such as transparency and accountability, President Obama has predictably attributed residents of Virginia and New Jersey sweeping tax and spend liberals from the steps of their capitols to anger directed at the Bush administration:

“The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office,” Obama said in an interview with ABC News. "People are angry, and they're frustrated. Not just because of what's happened in the last year or two years, but what's happened over the last eight years.”

          Though Obama did nothing as a Senator to prevent the housing bubble or even to sound the alarm for the pending financial crisis, he is quick to cast aspersions and blame on others, all while ignoring the actions and – in the case of the oil spill – the gross inaction of his administration.  President Obama, it appears, would have the graduates do as he says and not as he does.

          Finally rising to the level of visible vexation following near two-months of maintaining his cool and collected public persona, President Obama has demonstrated his outrage regarding the BP oil spill by assuring the American people he is learning “whose ass to kick.”  While Hollywood and the lame-stream media labeled President Bush’s lethargic response to Hurricane Katrina as genocide, they have been markedly silent to Obama’s “hands-off” approach to the Gulf crisis.  In the forty-six days following Katrina, President Bush visited New Orleans 8 times and surveyed the damage only 2 days after the hurricane touched down.  President Obama, however, who vowed he “would not rest” until the spill has been contained, has visited the Louisiana coast a mere 3 times and has yet found time to fundraise for Senator Boxer, vacation in Chicago, attend 4 commencement exercises, honor America-loathing Paul McCartney, golf, and play basketball.  Obama has consistently reminded the American people that he and his administration have been on the job since “Day 1” regarding this disaster, but his actions and inaction are wholly inconsistent with this promise.

        
         Americans were right to want leadership from the Bush administration in the aftermath of Katrina, and they are right to seek it from their Commander-in-Chief in the wake of a natural disaster that will affect our shores and industry for decades and potentially generations.  Mr. Obama has been derelict with his duties, and in this instance, he would be wise to heed his own advice and stop shirking blame, roll up his sleeves, and get his hands dirty. 

          Mr. President, Americans are weary of your constant campaigning; the day you entered office was the day we began measuring your actions not the grandiose nature of your words.  We see your anger.  We are angry too.  We crave information and the truth, and we want action.  You have not placated your electorate with an occasional strategically placed curse word.  Blaming BP CEOs, equipment manufacturers, and federal agencies that oversee drilling has not prevented oil globs from washing ashore.  Nearly two months following the explosion that caused the leak, Americans should not be asking, “Who is in charge?” 

          Several days ago, President Obama finally declared of the oil catastrophe, “I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down.”  This is the type of candid admission of personal responsibility the President touted in his graduation speech, which engenders faith in government rather than fear and mistrust.  The American people are weary of Monday morning quarterbacking.  We want a quarterback who leads his team swiftly and decisively, one who drops back into the pocket and hits his open receiver in between the numbers and admits when his pass is wide right.  Any football fan knows receivers won’t go up the middle for a quarterback they don’t trust to know the precise timing of their routes.  That’s how the great combinations like Montana-Rice, Manning-Wayne, and Jurgensen-Taylor are born: trust.  Now, it is up to President Obama if he is going to become a leader who admits he’s dropped the ball, thrown some picks, and goes into the huddle at the start of the third vowing that the game rests on his shoulders.  Mr. Obama, stop passing the buck.  The fate of the Gulf region depends on your leadership and execution.

~Elf

Worst Case Scenario

After a month of hearing the media's interpretation of which coastlines could (potentially, maybe) be affected next or how the situation could be worse, it looks like I'm not the only one who thinks that the media is trying to create excess drama (and likewise needs to get Michael Bay involved with the situation).

I guess it's no surprise that the media likes to use shock and awe factors to boost their ratings by showing us how disastrous an event could have been. (Five bonus points to anyone who can name the following reference without clicking on the link above:  Quote: "...And now here's what it would have looked like if the plane had crashed into a school for bunnies!")

~Gee

It's A Bird, It's A Plane, No It's...

During the 2008 Presidential Campaign, then-Senator Barack Obama released his “Blueprint for Change,” a document outlining his grand plans for our nation once he became president.  The document was hailed as an idyllic roadmap to this country’s transformation.  In his proposal, he grandly claimed to the nation that he was in the presidential race to quite literally “save our planet.”  He also boasted that “the Democratic Party has always made the biggest difference in the lives of the American people.” 

Now, however, in the face of the largest man-made oil spill in history, where is President Obama, the savior of the world? What steps has he taken to stop the gushing of oil into the gulf and onto the shores of American soil?  A month after the spill, the man who claimed his presidency would mark the moment in history that “the planet began to heal” is notably absent from the solution-finding process.  Why?

Well, first of all, I imagine it’s a little difficult for the President to successfully don a brightly-colored spandex suit, mask, and cape to come flying to the rescue of the planet as his inflated comments suggested he would (although, if that were to happen, I have no doubt that the media would capture the “inspirational” moment of Obama’s head held high, his cape blowing in the wind, and a whole rescued family of endangered baby ducks sleeping peacefully in his arms).  In all seriousness though, the reality of the oil spill requires complex, highly-specialized, technological inventions to solve a problem that has never before been seen, so honestly, what contribution could a community organizer / politician have on the situation? Answer: none.  There is no scientific solution that our government can offer to a problem that clearly requires a scientific solution. 

Why would the government be able to do any better than BP’s failed attempts?  How could they? The federal government is not an oil-drilling specialist.  The federal government’s only expertise is – and should be – in policy-making (and given the vast quantity of recent bills that have passed into law without our politicians reading the text to ensure constitutionality, I make this statement quite liberally). Still, scientists from oil drilling companies are the experts.  They are the ones that politicians call in for special advice when regulating and making new laws and policies, since the technology is simply beyond their general knowledge base. 

If expert scientists and engineers from oil companies are unable to find a solution to the oil spill, there is certainly no way that Obama is going to find a solution. Obama realizes this, therefore, instead of putting himself in the spotlight and subjecting his impotency and inability to solve this deep-sea dilemma to the public’s über-critical eye, he opted to lay low, hoping no one would remember his claim to rescue the planet just a few years prior.

Even if Obama can’t imagineer a real solution on his own, he has recently taken action by commissioning James Cameron, Director of the movie Titanic, to do the brainstorming for him…because, you know, people who direct movies about sunken ships clearly understand the technology behind stopping an oil leak.  

Listen, I don’t claim to have the answers to this problem either, but it just seems to me that if the government is going to turn to Hollywood to save the planet, maybe Obama should have chosen Michael Bay over James Cameron.  I mean, in Armageddon, Bruce Willis’ team was a bunch of deep-sea oil rig geniuses who flew two spaceships into space (spaceships, by the way, that were magically funded, built, and modified for the space drilling expedition in a mere few days time). They drilled a bunch of holes into an asteroid, walked around dramatically in slow motion, and dropped a couple of nukes down the half-mile holes.  If the government is looking for solutions from Hollywood, it just seems like it might just be better to put the fate of the world in the hands of Bruce Willis and his team instead of Leonardo DiCaprio. (After all, in the words of the immortal Bruce Willis: "The United States government just asked us to save the world. Anybody wanna say no?")

Still, all joking aside, I do think some credit needs to be given to the federal government in times like this.  After all, I don’t believe that every crisis is at the fault of the current sitting president. It’s simply not possible to blame any one particular party for a disaster, because a disaster – by its very nature – usually implies that there was a perfect storm of mishaps that have been building over time.  Take Hurricane Katrina, for example – one of the most powerful series of climate patterns to hit the Gulf in years.  Would the hurricane have been so destructive if the population had not chosen to live in a region that is several feet below sea level and logically in a location subject to high risks of flooding?  Was it President Bush’s fault that the local tax money that had been collected for over 20 years was squandered by local politicians on other pet projects fix instead of repairing the levies as the region’s primary source of protection against flooding? No, but that’s what happens when we create a nanny state – we create false expectations for a government entity that has no reasonable means or requirement to solve every problem on this planet. 

It is not the federal government’s responsibility or role to fix every bad mortgage deal. It is not the federal government’s responsibility to regulate and control the patient-doctor relationship.  Nor is it the federal government’s responsibility to find a solution for the failures of private companies.  However, since the federal government previously failed to review BP's engineering "fail safe plans" when approving the original drilling permits, the federal government must assume at least partial responsibility for the current disaster. Likewise, this oil spill affects the ocean coast and borders multiple states. Since the ocean is beyond the constitutional reach of the states independently, it is reasonable to also assume that the federal government does need to step in to protect the property of those affected by the spill.

In short, every day that passes without the federal government taking action to at least protect the property of the states affected, the federal government is failing at its constitutional responsibility. 

Regardless of whether this systematic failure did or did not happen during Obama’s presidency, the impact is still hitting the Gulf now, so we must ask: Where is his leadership?  He is perfectly willing to come to the aid of banks (that support him) or pass mandatory health care (with added perks to interest groups who support him), but where is his "patriarchal" attitude now? If it's his moral obligation to save the planet and oversee our whole lives, including what we eat, what kind of car we drive, and how much money we can make, where is his "protective" umbrella of assistance for the Gulf States?

If Obama wants to play Superman for every other part of our lives, if he wants to make grandiose claims that under his leadership, “the planet can begin to heal,” he had better be prepared to follow up his lofty speech with action – and this oil spill is his chance to do so. However, given the ongoing span of this oil disaster and the continual lack of leadership our President has demonstrated, it’s about time that this administration stops the blame-game, fear-mongering, and threats against BP with fines for violating environmental regulations and starts making legitimate steps toward protecting the trans-state coastline until a solution can be found.

~Gee