Privatized Government Just isn't Working for Obama

Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and leaders from several coastal parishes are urging the Army Corps of Engineers to immediately approve a $350 million plan to build artificial barrier islands out of sand to hold back the oil. Jindal - a Republican who very publicly suggested he might refuse to take President Obama's federal stimulus money in 2009 - has been pushing the federal government hard for several weeks to approve and help pay for the creation of these offshore artificial sand islands, but has been stymied by the several federal agencies who regulated coastal wetlands all saying that by law they need to do impact and other studies before they can approve these barriers. Meanwhile, the oil has already begun to move inshore past where the islands would have been. Meaning that the Republican governor of Louisiana, often mentioned as a possible Republican presidential opponent for Obama in 2012, may well be the media hero in this whole mess while President Obama, who has been relying on a slow-moving and heavily privatized federal bureaucracy to respond to the spill, will probably end up being the goat. When Republicans, early on, predicted that this oil spill would be Obama's "Katrina," they may well have been right. Just like over 90 percent of Americans don't know that Obama cut their taxes and tax rates are lower now than at any time since 1950, or that Obama has moved us from losing to creating jobs, most Americans also have no idea what Obama is doing in or about the Gulf. If the White House doesn't get control of both the disaster in the Gulf and their messaging on what they're doing, this will be Obama's Katrina and could badly hurt his 2012 chances.

Comments

marcus_w71's picture
marcus_w71 12 years 44 weeks ago
#1

There is so much to digest in this little blog entry.. It seems as if the only people that can put all of the pieces together are the people who get their news from sources outside the spectrum of the corporately blinded press.. Most Americans have not heard of Obama's efforts because the media sweeps it under the bed.. The media is looking for the next big sex scandal or their busy prepping up Princess Palin for the next outlandish statement made on the FOX Spin Cycle.. The real story is >>> is that the Free Press has been hijacked by America's Corporate Anarchists.. The commercials that you watch on the Talking Heads Circuit on Sunday will pretty much tell the tale.. Big Oil masquerades as "Green Energy" , Big Banks tout their fiscal sanity, and General Electric talks about "American Investment" while in the past 30 years GE has pretty much moved all manufacturing to China... Vital information is filtered through this corporate mesh and sanitized for public consumption.. I firmly believe that our country has lost it's fiery belly because we don't know what the truth is, and if we do know the truth, there is a Tea Party member that minimizes consequence into an edible bite sized morsel..

Personally my heart goes out to Bobby Jindal and to the people on the Gulf Coast.. Don't get me wrong I can't stand the GOP,LLC ,but, this tragedy ascends politics .. As we slowly watch the ecological genocide unfold in the gulf I can't help but cry for the shrimpers and fishermen that are going to have their lives up-ended.. I am envisioning the sound crashing blue waves being replaced by black swells, sloshing and slurping ... Every time I start my car I feel guilty about my human desire to get from point A to point B and I really don't know how to change it..The one thing I know I can do push my legislators but I am afraid that our economic disaster just pushed back our "Green" initiative.. The Bush administration is the gift that keeps giving and it almost appears as if Obama is also in the pocket of our lords and masters in the Petroleum Industry...

Revelation 16;3~

~Then the second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it became like the blood of a corpse. And everything in the sea died.

I'm not religious but this is kinda creepy

stonesphear's picture
stonesphear 12 years 44 weeks ago
#2

Jesus is just good advice. You can praise his name till the earth merges with the sun but it is meaningless if you don't heed his advice.

marcus_w71's picture
marcus_w71 12 years 44 weeks ago
#3

In my world Jesus is more of a philosophy then he is a prophesy.. As far as using the word "heed" as in heeding his advice I would disagree.. I have read most of The New Testament and Jesus seemed like a fluid thinker.. He was a Pisces after all "Note the use of Fish" in his symbolisms" .... I respect his teachings and as far as most church goers are concerned I would probably respect him more then the Christians do..

GreenMule's picture
GreenMule 12 years 44 weeks ago
#4

Oh yes, they do know their taxes are lower, if they filed a tax report. They would protest at the White House with their assault rifles if he had raised taxes. President Obama is offering white americans an insight as to their twisted behavior. Black and Brown people all over the world are watching the tragedy. American Companies pollute as part of their business here and abroad. They scurry back to the states when they pollute abroad killing tens of thousands and leaving dead earth and water. There are only monetary consequences when it's done in America. British Petroleum, in partnership with other companies, is operating as if there was a coal mine disaster / a fiery airliner crash killing all on board. Bobby Jindal doesn't make the rules. Was this oil platform closer to Louisiana than Russia to Alaska? Only white americans and broken, as in horse, negroes would believe the oil spill is the president's Katrina. The president shows great resolve to allow the Tea Party Hate Groups, Racist Radio Talk Show Hosts / Governors to insult him before the world, and etc., to enter his political rallies / to come to Washington to protest with rifles, handguns and spare ammunition. Hanging the president in effigy, threatening government officials with murder, spitting and screaming nigger, nigger, nigger; and with white musicians and corporate executives threatening to murder the president. The few brave Blacks and Whites in America walked in peaceful marches to show America its inhumanity to man. They were mangled and murdered without consequence. How is it white americans can label a man as a nigger, gook, spick, kite, jap; and lose sight of the man in order to kill? It is so amazing that white americans can be so twisted as to believe everyone is deceived by their blame game. Apparently there are no consequences for the poor behavior of white americans only in the U.S.A.

rladlof's picture
rladlof 12 years 44 weeks ago
#5

Privatized Government may not be working for President Obama (or the rest of us or, in fact, anybody), but he and the DLC White House remain eternally committed to it. This is the Obama Administration’s pony to ride into hell and, dagmabit, they’re gonna.

Stanfordbinet142 12 years 44 weeks ago
#6

On Monday's show, Thom asked if the Gulf oil disaster is Obama's Katrina. I say yes because even as the oil washes ashore, Obama is pushing for more offshore drilling, along with John Kerry, John McCain, and many mainstream "eco" groups.

I am an environmentalist, not a right-winger. Part of the reason I put thousands of hours into Obama's campaign is because I didn't want McCain's nuclear energy plan or Palin's oil drilling expansion. However, this is exactly what what we are being given, under the guise of "job creation." To use the Katrina analogy, it's as if, in the middle of the flooding of New Orleans; George Bush had proposed a national program of dike weakening and levee destruction.

We environmentalists have to start saying, "We told you so." Back when the oil companies first wanted offshore oil, we said that accidents and oil spills would be inevitable. We have just been proven right in the most horrible way imaginable. Now listen closely; a nuclear power plant melt down is also inevitable if we continue to use nukes. Our nuke plants are breaking down, leaking tritium, developing holes in their reactor chambers, and becoming so radioactive that people can't even enter the buildings anymore. Nukes are a technological dead end and they are unnecessary.

The November, 2009 issue of Scientific American lays out a plan for us to be carbon and nuke FREE by 2040. The group THE CLEAN also just published a study done by an organization called Synapse that has similar results. These plans must be the blueprint for our new energy policy--not nukes, oil, and coal.

This bill must be stopped. It gives billions to new offshore oil, UNLIMITED billions to nuclear power(really! trillions and trillions!), billions to coal, billions to the unproven and probably impractical technology of carbon sequestration, and forces wind, solar, and other alternative energy to compete against each other for less than half the money. Most of it goes to the old, dirty technologies. Call the White House and call your Senators today.

I know of no more brazen example of corporate control of our government than this bill which would create thousands of new offshore oil wells being introduced and probably being passed in the middle of the worst oil spill in history. The obvious, sensible, human reaction to this disaster is to ban new wells. If people still controlled our government, this is what would be being debated right now. Instead, corporations control our government and they want oil wells. Obama, of course, is doing their bidding by being their front man every day insisting that new offshore drilling has to be part of our energy plan, when that simply is a lie.

So, yes, this is his Katrina. I just hope that some Democrat who actually cares about the environment realizes this and challenges him in the 2012 primary, or we will be faced with a radioactive, greenhouse gas filled, coal mine littered future, thanks to Obama.

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