Category: Federal Government

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar characterizes the United States Federal Government approach to BP:

“Our job basically is to keep the boot on the neck of British Petroleum to carry out the responsibilities they have both under the law and contractually to move forward and stop this spill,” Salazar told CNN’s “State of the Union” program.

George Orwell characterizes totalitarian government:

But always— do not forget this, Winston— always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.

Frightening, isn’t it, how the Department of Interior, that is the Parks Department, for crying out loud, sounds like Big Brother?

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit and Transterrestrial readers! If you’re in IT, check out my QA blog QA Hates You. And don’t forget to visit my little corner of Cafe Press for cool gear.

Yesterday, I mentioned how President Obama took away more than he gave while chanting, “Drill, baby, drill.”

And he keeps on taking:

The Environmental Protection Agency tightened water-quality standards that could severely limit future surface coal-mining operations throughout Appalachia, while mining-industry officials said the change was unfair and endangers jobs in the region.

The action is a significant step in the EPA’s push under the Obama administration to limit the practice of mountaintop coal mining and its environmental effects. For the first time, the agency is setting limits on the electrical conductivity, or salinity, of streams, which can be impacted by such mining.

Even without passing cap-and-trade, your Hope and Change Federal government is working hard to raise energy prices for you.

Obama opens door to offshore drilling in Virginia, rejects plans for new Alaska sites:

In a reversal of a long-standing ban on most offshore drilling, President Barack Obama is allowing oil drilling off Virginia’s shorelines and considering it for a large chunk of the Atlantic seaboard. At the same time, he’s rejecting some new drilling sites that had been planned in Alaska.

Unfortunately, even the AP here is noting in the opening paragraph that President Obama is taking something away while giving something of lesser value.

The story should say:

The White House is considering whether to create a honeypot of international terrorism suspects at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, which would allow terrorists who escape or who are freed through an attack to return to battle immediately. The prison would replace Guantanamo Bay, which President Obama has promised to close and now seeks to put a small political bump ahead of real-world considerations.

It really says:

The White House is considering whether to detain international terrorism suspects at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, senior U.S. officials said, an option that would lead to another prison with the same purpose as Guantanamo Bay, which it has promised to close.

The idea, which would require approval by President Barack Obama, already has drawn resistance from within the government. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and other senior officials strongly oppose it, fearing that expansion of the U.S. detention facility at Bagram air base could make the job of stabilizing the country even tougher.

I cannot tell if the administration really cannot see the actual implications and results of its actions or if it just doesn’t care. I understand the President is having trouble stopping smoking. The question is, what?

This author argues that the United States will default on its debt:

Almost everyone is aware that federal government spending in the United States is scheduled to skyrocket, primarily because of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Recent “stimulus” packages have accelerated the process. Only the naively optimistic actually believe that politicians will fully resolve this looming fiscal crisis with some judicious combination of tax hikes and program cuts. Many predict that, instead, the government will inflate its way out of this future bind, using Federal Reserve monetary expansion to fill the shortfall between outlays and receipts. But I believe, in contrast, that it is far more likely that the United States will be driven to an outright default on Treasury securities, openly reneging on the interest due on its formal debt and probably repudiating part of the principal.

A national health care program wouldn’t be able to kill the sick and elderly quick enough to save us.

Treasury to Auction $104 Billion In Debt Next Week, a Record:

The Treasury announced Thursday a record $104 billion worth of bond auctions for next week, part of its herculean efforts to finance a rescue of the world’s largest economy.

The sales will exceed the previous record of $101 billion set in auctions that took place in the last week of April and consist of two-year, five-year and seven-year securities. That record was matched by another $101 billion week in May.

Call me a wee bit skittish in the 2009 Obama Economic World, but sooner or later these headlines are going to have to include the word try instead of assuming someone while buy what could become junk bonds.

(Link via Instapundit.)

A photograph accompanying this story in Popular Mechanics about Area 51 illustrates how federal laws will eventually encompass every behavior on the planet (and, given the subject matter of the story, maybe the universe):

Where is it in the Constitution that Congress can prohibit passing your tresses to someone else? Eh, probably the Interstate Commerce Clause.

(Link seen on Instapundit.)

Apple growers fear China: Lower wages make it difficult for U.S. to compete:

Farmers have been growing apples here since before the Civil War, and as times have changed, they have changed with them, planting smaller trees to speed up harvests and growing popular new varieties to satisfy changing tastes.

But the growers who have made this mountainous region the core of apple-growing in Pennsylvania worry that they face a new challenge that may be too big to overcome and could change their way of life.

Like farmers in the bigger apple-producing states, they are becoming increasingly anxious about the prospect of China flooding the U.S. market with their fresh apples – an event many believe is inevitable, even if it could be years away.

They saw what happened in the 1990s when Chinese apple juice concentrate made it into the United States. Prices got so low, some U.S. juice companies were forced out of the U.S. market. Growers could no longer afford to grow apples just for making juice.

Meanwhile, someday, China might outpace the United States in apple production. Assuming, of course, apple buyers don’t fear that Chinese apples, like Chinese wheat gluten and toothpast, will actually kill you.

No, let’s identify what the apple growers fear today:

With the Farm Bill up for renewal this year for the first time since 2002, apple growers are pressing for an unprecedented amount of federal funding to develop technologies to make harvesting less costly, and aid to develop overseas markets.

They fear not getting their fair share of that amount withheld from your paycheck, citizen. Even if you prefer pears, the apple growers of America still want your business.

UPDATE: Jay Tea isn’t afraid of Chinese apples.

Todd Akin, R. MO, wrote legislation to bar Federal courts including the Supreme Court from hearing cases trying to strike down the words Under God from the Pledge of Allegiance.

If legislators have nothing better to do than curtail checks and balances upon their powers, perhaps it’s time to cut them down to part time and reduce their salaries accordingly.

(Text of HR 2028: Pledge Protection Act of 2003.)

Count this as a victory for the agitators of the 1960s: personal things take on political overtones, such as getting fired:

One day after she was fired, former U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers accused the Bush administration Saturday of silencing dissenting views in the rank and file.

Chambers’ departure may not garner the same spotlight as those of former counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke and former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, but it appears to fall into a similar category: officials who leave or are forced out after questioning Bush administration policies.

Just Jo Functionary doing the job to the best of her ability, but fired because she was a maverick who didn’t follow the book? Well, yes:

Chambers said that she didn’t expect to be fired seven months after the Interior Department put her on administrative leave with pay for talking with reporters and congressional staffers about budget woes on the 620-officer force.

You know, we here in the private industry world would get canned and possibly sued if we were to disparage our employers in the media. In government, you get seven months of free money without having to pretend you’re working and a gold bullhorn to trumpet the iniquity of it all.

You loyal readers have noticed I often spit upon proposals to create new felony crimes or bump existing infractions up into felonies (come on, jaywalking causes over $1000 damage to public safety?). Well, some other digitaluminaries are weighing in on this very subject, including Professor Reynolds and Robert Prather (Not Richard Prather, sorry Shell Scott fans).

Now, if each of us could convince one of our senators that this is a good idea, we’re a little under 6% of the way to reform! Well, not quite 6 percent, but closer than we are now.