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Jindal, the Coast Guard, and the barges: government efficiency at its finest — 41 Comments

1. If 58+ days ago Mr. Obama had temporarily halted all bureaucratic red tape and said the federal government would actually do something to speed up the recovery, even Rush Limbaugh would be singing his praises.

   But no he was looking for some butt to kick.

2. Like they say, good enough for government work.

   This whole escapde does not exactly fit the lib narrative of effective government with regulations that benefit us all, supervised by a lightworker who will heal the planet and all that, instead of reading My Pet Goat to schoolchildren. (Golf doesn’t count.)

3. I’d like to see him suck it up with a straw, myself.

4. At any rate when the rise of the oceans begins to slow, they will have an oily sheen over the top of them.

5. The worst part of this is the fact that the White House turned down offers of assistance from the Dutch, the British, and who knows how many other countries just days after the spill. And yet this fact curiously goes mostly unreported or unremarked upon in–except in the conservative blogosphere and in the foreign press.

6. The President got something right: He can’t solve problems by sucking.

   If only he’d understand that in foreign affairs and other areas…

7. Reminds me of Lee Ioccoca’s line when he was frustrated by the bureaucracy in engineering taking forever to design a convertible of a certain model car.

   “Just cut the roof off the damn thing!”

8. Some basis things Obama could do: Create a plan. Organize the resouces. Provide leadership that focuses on solving the problem before assigning blame. Control the effort by utilizing systematic feedback.

   His response, “All I can do is make sure that I put honest, hard-working smart people in place … to implement this thing,” is only one of MANY tasks he can and should be doing.

   And still, the “thing” worsens; and a man whose only experience is in politicizing “things,” demonstrates how easy it is to destroy, but how difficult it is to create and protect.

9. “Things.”

10. You are ask far to much.

11. Had Obama used his power to temporarily void the Jones Act so Dutch and British ships with skimmers could have been at work in week two, the containment and cleanup would look different right now. Had Obama issued executive orders to by pass environmental studies regulations so sand barriers and oil booms could be placed starting in week two, things would look much different today.

    It appears that the government has used bureaucratic rules, regulations, and lethargy to purpously slow the cleanup. Obama does not see it, but this was his chance to be a hero. Now he’s the goat. Although Peggy Noonan feels sorry for him:
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704289504575313181930072638.html?mod=quicklinks_PeggyNoonan
    I don’t!

    The only sure way to stop the oil leak is to complete the relief wells. They say it’ll take another month or two for that. In the meantime, it should be full speed ahead on the containment and collection effort. If only the government decides to get with it.

    For perspective on this it is worth reading about the Pemex Ixtoc I well that blew up in 1979.
    That’s available here:
    http://www.investingdaily.com/tes/17424/macondo-and-100-oil.html?cigx=d.k,stid.13236,sid.1948300,lid.202#

12. One aspect of the government efforts we have not seen reported yet is fraud and corruption. As someone who lives near the Gulf coast I saw the Katrina fiasco. When you start waving money around, all sorts of folks come out of the wood work. From individuals who claimed damages on houses they did not live in to crooked contractors who billed the government for work not done to cities which claimed inflated debris removal costs, it was free money for all. It won’t be much different this time.

13. To continue with J.J.’s tack,

    “The Coast Guard needed to confirm that there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board, and then it had trouble contacting the people who built the barges.”

    Government agencies and the Coast Guard should have been on the phone locating and then procuring whatever was needed to effectively assist clean-up efforts.

    Instead they are effectively hindering efforts.

    What evidence is there, beyond sheer incredulity, that this is not entirely intentional upon the part of the administration?

    In Obama’s recent speech, the only specific action he specified was developing alternative energies, which means passing Cap & Trade, which will be necessary to lead us down the road to an environmentally glorious future.

    The delay in clean-up and protection is NOT accidental or an example of incompetence. Positing it to be so is increasingly untenable.

    How many more examples do we need before the conclusion that this is intentional is accepted?

14. Geoffrey Britain: I actually think a great many people have come to believe the delays are intentional, a Cloward-Piven sort of thing. It is hard for the mind to accept, that level of duplicity. I have never been much of a conspiracy theorist, but in this case it has become almost inescapable.

15. “I can’t suck it up with a straw.” Wow, really?

    Imagine the uproar if Bush had said this about Katrina: “I can’t mop it up with a Shamwow.”

    Geez.

16. The word for today is “kakistocracy”

    kak·is·toc·ra·cy (kăk’Ä­-stŏk’rÉ™-sÄ“, k餒kÄ­-)

    n., pl., -cies.
    Government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens.

17. I’m starting to think we may actually have to get to ten dollar gas and twelve hours a day without electricity to change people’s minds about progressives. So many are practically begging for suicide by State.

18. Knowing Obami mindset, he is thinking that the longer oil continues to gush, the better it is for his agenda. He can continue shaking down BP, while pushing for “green” energy, etc. Remember, ‘never let a crisis go to waste.’

19. While we are into conspiracies, I can point out that the economies being destroyed, including the drilling moratorium, are in red states. They are also right to work states.

20. Step-by-step:

    IF
    as Dear Leader says, he and a team of gee-whillikers experts have been on top of this from Day One,
    THEN
    based on all the impediments thrown in the way of actually DOING SOMETHING to keep the oil from reaching shore, one must conclude that he and the team DO NOT WANT remediation of this spill (at least, not just yet).

    OR

    IF
    Dear Leader was fibbing about the crackerjack team and that it was a high priority,
    AND IF
    he subsequently realized the oil spill was causing an ecological disaster that required mitigation (and also was turning his former supporters against his lackadaisical Administration),
    THEN
    he would have (1) suspended the Jones Act to allow non-US-flagged ships into our waters to help with skimming operations, he would have (2) instructed the EPA and the Coast Guard and the other bureaucracies hamstringing abatement efforts in the Gulf to suspend their stringent rules due to the urgency of the situation, he would have (3) assembled a team of oil engineers and practical hands-on, git-er-done types to figure out a course of action, and offered manpower and material to implement their recommendations. You will note that none of that has yet happened; this must be an invalid theory.

    There are two possibilities left:

    That yes, he fibbed about the “On Top Of It With A Crack Team From Day One” story, AND he still doesn’t believe it’s an economic and ecological crisis (but then why would he take to the airwaves day-after-day claiming the opposite?? — so rule out that possibility as well.)

    The last remaining possibility is: (and it’s the same as the conclusion of the first if-then case above)
    THIS GULF OIL SPILL SUITS HIS AGENDA FOR SOME REASON. HE CALLS IT A CRISIS IN HIS MANY SPEECHES, BUT HE SHOWS NO INCLINATION TO CUT RED TAPE, SUSPEND THE JONES ACT, OR EXPEDITE REMEDIATION IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER.

    He COULD do something, he DOESN’T do anything.

    OBSERVE HIS ACTIONS INSTEAD OF LISTENING TO HIS WORDS.

    The only conclusion I can draw from the facts before me is this:

    This President is willing to sacrifice the economic and ecological future of the Gulf Coast to get his ruinous cap-and-trade bill passed.

    At first I thought he was just “acting stupidly”, to quote His Wonderfulness. But as I considered more carefully, NO! — he’s got loads of advisers, he’s got the moral authority of the Presidency;
    He
    is
    just
    choosing
    not
    to
    act.

    HOWEVER
    He still has not done anything to make us believe HE considers action to mitigate damage a priority. He’s publicly excoriated BP, and extracted a $20 billion dollar reparations commitment from them (to be administered by some crony), BUT HE’S STILL DONE NOTHING CONCRETE TO
    THEREFORE
    he would still have done something more than verbally spank BP

    I know, I know, I’m sounding all “Glenn Beck” here. But think it through.

    Obama campaigned on his organizational skills and team of experts back in 2008. He knows how to assemble people to do a job. Either he HAS done so, and the inaction we see is the result of his expert team choosing to stymie action — or — he HASN’T, and this inaction is the result of the Coast Guard, the EPA, and all forty-leven other different bureaucracies THWARTING ACTION at the same time despite EVERYONE recognizing this is an emergency. This all-the-govt-bureaucracies-just-happen-to-be-run-by-Capt-Queeg-types-who-require-countersigned-documentation option, to my mind, requires some Administration muckety-muck directing the heads of these organizations that ALL Written Procedures Must Be Followed Or Else).

21. From my reading, it doesn’t sond like the barges lacked life vests or fire fighting gear, but that the coasties were trying to determine if they were equiped per design. Why else did they need to contact the manufactuer of the barges?

    As far as Obama’s intent, it sure looks like he is just standing in the way. But why? He might punish big oil and America, but he’s also punishing himself and Democrats politically.

22. Sound, not sond. Duh.

23. He just did the work of the government!

24. OOOPs- in my editing and tweaking I neglected to erase everything from “HOWEVER” to the end. Please disregard. The Final Word should have been “act.”

    (Golly-dern, I hate when I do that…)

25. neo-neocon,

    I too shy away from conspiracy theories and it gives me no pleasure to suggest ‘that level of duplicity’. However, given that Obama was briefed by the Coast Guard in the first few days and told that it could be very bad, Obama knew the seriousness of the spill almost from the start. Logically, the conclusion that the delay is intentional is inescapable.

    IMO, Obama has now destroyed his chances for reelection in 2012. He’s gambling everything on being able to use this crisis to ram Cap & Trade through the Senate. Should he achieve that goal, the collapse of the US economy in 2011, already highly probable, becomes almost certain.

    In such an eventuality, he’ll declare martial law (as any Pres. would have too) and request ’emergency powers’ to address the ‘unforeseen’ crisis.

    Even in such a crisis, I don’t believe the US military would support a coup. But I can see Obama using martial law to institute changes that would make our transformation into a euro-style socialistic society essentially complete and almost impossible to reverse.

26. If only the Coast Guard had airplanes in which they could fly marine safety inspectors from other areas of the country to expedite the release of resources to combat the common enemy, oil.

    It also might help if a respected senior Coast Guard officer was put in overall charge of the federal response so that that person would understand the critical nature of expediting such inspections and might just have the home phone numbers of the people who could make it happen.

27. Geoffrey, calm down, remember that with regard to government never try to explain by conspiracy what can be explained by incompetence.

    As for Obama being re-elected in 2012, in the last three months he has applauded (along Congressional Dems a foreign leader urging the breaking of US laws, sent a “let’s be friends” delegation to a country we at quasi-war status with-Syria, botched the management of the oil spill clean-up, set up a moratorium on off-shore drilling which will cost thousands of jobs, is going to sue a state for trying to protect its citizens under the law. And all this is small stuff when compared to stabbing our allies in the back, groveling before our enemies and Obamacare.

    Point is (finally) barring a mass release of hallucinogens into the water, air and food supply the anointed one is out in 2012, max, and there is an increasing chance he may not last that long. My bet is that there are increasingly few Dems who are looking forward to an early retirement or lynching (same thing up to a point) so I doubt he will be able to pass much of anything before November and absolutely nothing afterward (note to self: do not admit that my predictions are usually wrong, however logical, then again so are everyone else’s).

    As for martial law, are you planning to run through the streets, naked, shouting obscenities, firebombing and shooting in order to solve our economic and energy problems? I know I am but I doubt there will be enough of us to warrant martial law anywhere.

28. There is an explanation: Agenda 21.

    Passed in 1992 by the UN, the agenda states goals and methods for addressing environmental issues. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_21. Cap-n-trade is the work of Agenda 21.

    What does it explain? Why Obama is actually refusing to mitigate and even exacerbating the harm the spill is causing.

    Is he actually doing that?

    Well, three days after the explosion, he refuses Dutch help and their offer of skimmers. And it should be noted the Dutch are the experts in this field. The city of Pensacola notes that their request to use sand skimmers is ignored. By May 6 at least 12 nations offer of help has been refused with this whopper:

    “While there is no need right now that the U.S. cannot meet, the U.S. Coast Guard is assessing these offers of assistance to see if there will be something which we will need in the near future.”
    http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/05/06/us_not_accepting_foreign_help_on_oil_spill

    Of course, we know about Louisiana Governor, Bobby Jindall, and his frustration with the lack of boom and response about building the barrier. The Louisiana marshlands are especially important and vulnerable. (Obama likes to attack the vulnerable–like partially born children.) Now we learn about other stupidities such as operations stalled for over a week because of life vests.

    But that’s not all, if you order your cap-n-trade packet today.

    Obama and BP have had a cozy relationship. He is their mightiest campaign “sucker” (One thing he is good at sucking is campaign money). http://www.examiner.com/x-7812-DC-SCOTUS-Examiner~y2010m6d5-Obama-uses-BP-oil-spill-to-push-corporate-welfare-a-deceptive-globalwarming-bill-BP-lobbied-for

    And, it seems BP received environmental waivers and is about as non-green a color as, well, oil. http://www.examiner.com/x-7812-DC-SCOTUS-Examiner~y2010m6d2-BP-A-Serial-Environmental-Criminal-with-close-ties-to-the-Obama-Administration

    But order today and Obama will include eliminating 20,000 jobs (and were just getting started), oil independence, and, as Mr. Frank noted, put a hurt on some red states.

    Obama’s reputation and credibility is being destroyed by his actions to the oil spill. But then, didn’t that happen as a result of the HCR debacle?

    Agenda 21 is the international coordination of the environmental movement which was designed not to protect the environment, but to destroy the USA.

29. Agenda 21… among lots of other agreements and treaties and deals they made and we ignored. and when we didn’t, were basically outed as cranks, to those who had never paid attention. the rest were too afraid to be attacked the same way.

    its taken people this long to get around to just the idea that maybe obama isnt a good president… to get them to agenda 21 and other things would take longer than it will take to finish the job of all those agreements

    Political Economy means that everybody except politicians must be economical (GK Chesterton)

    you cant even get them to follow the lineage and thinkers behind these things, they have been taught that the devil himself could build a church and the fact that it was the devil has no bearing. (Sanger was laundered that way as we forgot more and more of what the real deal was about – want to point out the population stuff in 21?).

    i tried to show the woodrow wilson, era of leagues in names, instead of peoples in names, or progressives in name.

    of course if you start reading the history, your going to bump into a whole lot of Jewish bankers, Jewish this or that… so if you show lineages and people connected or with whom, you get labeled an anti-semite. OR if you connect the progressive versions or movements in religions, with what the people who created them thought, watch out.

    so there is this big hole in their history.

    its interesting to note that the ideas of the 1850s became the actions of later years. or as chesterton put it.

    The only difference is this: that the old capitalists were more sincere and more scientific, while the modem capitalists are more hypocritical and more hazy. The rich man of l850 used it in theory for the oppression of the poor. The rich man of 1927 will only use it in practice for the oppression of the poor.

    or are we to claim the progressives are going to raise prosperity for all and retain a three tier system (low, middle, high)? OR drive the middle in to poverty to create a moat around them that no man of no means can jump over again (low, high)?

30. From Artfldgr:

    or as chesterton put it.

    The only difference is this: that the old capitalists were more sincere and more scientific, while the modem capitalists are more hypocritical and more hazy. The rich man of l850 used it in theory for the oppression of the poor. The rich man of 1927 will only use it in practice for the oppression of the poor.

    Wow. Great quote. So we can’t trust capitalism. Who did Chesterton trust?

31. It has to be deliberate. They want this to be happening.

32. Geoffrey Britain:

    I know how you feel.

    I confess to being all over the map where Obama is concerned; ranging to actually raising the question, “Under what circumstances can national elections be suspended or canceled?” in

    Thinking the Unthinkable

    to wondering if Obama has already sealed his fate in my latest

    “…and the sharks will come.”

    To me, his very election is still a Monty Python nightmare from which I cannot awaken.
    –

33. BofV,

    I thought I was being calm and rational. I even reread my comment and I don’t see anything particularly excitable about it. What am I missing? I did mention the possibility of financial collapse and martial law but did so in a calm manner. Does the idea frighten you? It should but panic always gets you dead, which however does end the anxiety, so there is that;-)

    A lot of calm, educated people think economic collapse is not only probable but virtually certain.
    People like Arthur Laffer, Pres. Reagan’s economic guru and even Greenspan is now expressing concern.

    As for Martial law, in an economic collapse any Pres. would have to declare it, which I so stated. A Pres. requesting ’emergency powers’ would also be expected, in order to deal with the chaos, food disruptions and rampant disorder that would follow money being worth… exactly nothing.

    “As for martial law, are you planning to run through the streets, naked, shouting obscenities, firebombing and shooting in order to solve our economic and energy problems? I know I am but I doubt there will be enough of us to warrant martial law anywhere.”

    No Bob I’m not planning on doing any of those things and I recommend you rethink your plans for doing so 😉

34. Paul_In_Houston,

    I know how you feel. It’s impossible not to be all over the map with Obama. He so perfectly encapsulates both the ‘fool and the knave’. I’ve reached the conclusion that he’s more knave than fool but it’s quite possible to be both and express different mixtures of both from day to day.

35. Mr. Frank Says:
    June 18th, 2010 at 3:34 pm

    “One aspect of the government efforts we have not seen reported yet is fraud and corruption.”

    Mr. Frank, I lived in Mobile and along the Gulf Coast for years and I can’t remember a hurricane hitting and there not being fraud and corruption. It seems there are always Federal or State folks who think they won’t be caught.

36. I can’t help contrasting Obama’s actions to those of Bush after the tsunami. Within days, Bush had done the diplomatic work to assure cooperation and coordination between the US, India, Japan, and Australia as major responders. He had naval vessels underway to rescue the stranded, provide medical treatment, and distribute aid via their own helicopters. Our carriers distributed water purified in their own on board systems. Our satellites and recon planes provided information about the situatiion on the ground in areas cut off.

    What did Bush do right? He assured Indonesia that the military presence would be temporary. He treated India as a capable actor not as a victim. He delegated authority to the truly capable: our military. (I doubt that he asked about their Nobel prizes.) He asked his father and Clinton to work on follow-up and they did in a truly bipartisan manner. And he did this while our country was being called stingy by the UN and was being mocked by the German media for always wanting military solutions to problems. He did not have his people publicly threaten others or play the boots-on-the-necks bully. He saved many, many lives, and he didn’t stage photo-ops to show how great he was. In this crisis, when unhampered by incompetent local officials and a undistracted by a hysterical media, Bush showed what competence and compassion are. And few bothered to recognize it. Obama should have been taking notes.

    OMT, Jamie Gorelik is representing BP in all this? She of The Wall and Fanny-Freddie bonus fame. I wouldn’t let this woman rake leaves in my yard. Is BP nuts, or is cronyism a normal metabolic process for the company?

37. Coasties are smarter than this.
    IMO, the bet is that this is what they’ve been told to do.
    Never let a crisis go to waste.

38. When I heard of this, a parody of that Gilbert & Sullivan favorite came to mind:

    I am the very model of a modern Coast Guard admiral.

    This indicates that the USCG has become more of a bureaucracy — where individual rules are more important than the reason behind the rules, and where the focus ignores the big picture for the minor rules. Perhaps it comes “from above”, but I would guess there would be a few “leaks” of such commands.

39. Wow. Great quote. So we can’t trust capitalism. Who did Chesterton trust?

    no one, which is what is normal, in a competitive socieyt of thinkers who can do things to each other.

    [almost every crime show covering real life you will realize that just a bit of prudent distrust would ahve saved many of them]

    you forget the condition of the time, which is prior to marxism, eveyrone was captitalist or monarchist.

    and there was this group of marxists, who were not marxists yet as marx had not done his stuff. (it was the progressives).

    and these capitalists of the old guard thought up the ideas of oppression and a false opposite (to become what i listed in the other post as far as state organiations)

    they didnt have power, but they were thought of like the difference between austrian economists and other forms…

    so he is refereing to the marxist capitalists who claimed oppression and all this in THEORY…

    against the ones that came later who decided thanks o marx’s quote as to change things not just commen ton them…

    they endeavored to make their prophecies real. no different htan the AGW crew making their work real.

    so they endeavored to cook the books and through manupulation fulfil the thing (this is why people act the way they do under the cassandra effect beleiving that you sabotaged things to be right!!)

    so GKC is lamenting the move from ideas which dont work to a reality that doesnt work and the resultant pain and damage it causes.

    he is not talking the new lexicon, but the old one. where the colllectives are not peoples organizations, but leagues. (once they were known as to what they wanted and were working for, theyh had to drop those labels and pick up others. jsut as dropping eugenics and picking up abortion as a social good, which that quote of chestertons comes from, is a similar laudering of the groups through name games)

    The OLD order..
    GOD —> Kings/Politicos —> Elite —> People/serfs/slaves/etc —> scapegoats to vent on

    The American Revolution
    GOD —> People —> Political Employees

    The Socialist Revolution AS STATED/SOLD to our VANITY
    People —> Political Employees —> Economy

    The Socialist Revolution AS it IS in ACTUALITY
    Elite/Politicos —> People/serfs/slaves/etc —> scapegoats to vent on

    THE communist revolution which proceeds from the socialist revolution as it is in actuality

    Politicos —> People/serfs/slaves/etc —> scapegoats to vent on (Elite)

40. Artfldgr: My question was a leading question in that exactly what Chesterton believed and when he believed it is hard to pin down, but as a Christian apologist, he has troubles with Capitalism that don’t appear in Judaism.

    Although a great fan of Chesterton, I don’t share his antipathy to capitalism.

    I don’t understand your explanation. Marxist capitalism? Plus, his comment probably did occur around the time of the Russian revolution so Marx had done his stuff. Still, I’m getting a hint of what you’re saying and I know there’s something there.

41. I don’t understand your explanation. Marxist capitalism?

    Prior to Marx capitalism and economics were synonymous. Marx actually even coined the term capitalism, so as to put socialism (hegel) in opposition. to make up a negative to its positive. realizing that every positive cause had a backer, it was easier to take up every negative cause having none, and promote it as a positive against its Hegelian opposite. when you couple a field of open and unoccupied positions, with social chaos, and human disbelief of power acquisition so bold, you get a pretty clear road to a two class system (sans god this time).]

    just remember at one time, Marxism, was first considered a variation of economic organization, like the Austrian school or later, Keynesian economics (the economics of ruining a capitalist state while providing bread and circuses, deflating guns and butter).

    one has to look at dates and cast things into their proper place. something that we don’t do today as we cast our current knowledge back to the historical and blame them for not knowing or doing better. its a false view, and the view made worse when the positional tends to be from conditions that the past would have found abhorrent as it led to death rather than survival.

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