Frugal Café Blog Zone

Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on May 1, 2010

Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh has detailed the day-by-day timeline of Pres. Barack Obama’s press conferences and activities for the 8-day period following the oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. The 200,000 gallons of oil that are spewing into the ocean daily are now reaching land and are polluting the fragile Louisiana coastline and are spreading to Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.

NOAA Map of Gulf of Mexico oil spill off US coast

Our commander in chief’s main duty is to secure and protect our nation’s borders. Pres. Obama still has made no effort, taken no action to secure the Arizona border to prevent more violent illegal aliens from crossing into the state and the country, and now, he’s blown it again. He dithered and disregarded for more than a week the environmental catastrophe of the coastline borders of several states. States he is duty-bound to protect.

This is already worse than the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster… the horrific damage to wildlife and ecosystems, the fishing and shrimping industries, tourism, and quality of life of citizens is infinitesimal — the costs for remediation and lost revenue and destroyed states’ economies unfathomable. While British Petroleum is responsible for the initial damage caused by the oil rig explosion, our federal government is responsible to immediately step in to protect the US coastline and surrounding waters. Had Obama not spent more than a week flitting about to tend to his personal agenda, a focused oil containment effort launched last week would have been manageable and would have very likely prevented most of the damage that is now unfolding. Now it is out of control.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Obama screwed up royally.

Here’s a portion of the transcript from Limbaugh’s April 30 EIB network broadcast that gives a breakdown of how Obama’s week unfolded after the oil rig exploded and 11 people were killed. His references to Obama “lowering the sea” I believe is a critical nod to Obama’s hubris in his 2008 presidential acceptance speech (click here for Obama’s “Oceans Receding, Planet Healing” video).

The full transcript of Limbaugh’s commentary is available for a few weeks to regular readers, archived for members of Limbaugh’s 24/7 Club.

Obama Pays Oil Slick Lip Service; He’s Interested in His Agenda, Not His Job
Rush Limbaugh Show | EIB Network
April 30, 2010

RUSH: What a teachable moment! Obama had a press conference today, the original purpose of the press conference — not a press conference, he had a ceremony outside the Oval Office in the Rose Garden — and the purpose of it was to tout a non-existing economic growth rate. The actual growth rate’s about 1.6%. I’ll explain how that happens in mere moments. But something got in the way of this. That damn oil slick. Obama’s Katrina. That damn oil slick just got in the way, so he had to give some lip service to the oil slick, (imitating Obama) “It’s all British Petroleum’s fault, they gotta clean it up, I’m sending some czars down there. Now let me tell you what I really came out here for,” and look at these people, and he had seven or eight props up there disguised as human beings to tout new jobs in the so-called clean energy sector and so forth.

It is clear this guy does not really want to be president. He doesn’t want to deal with the country’s problems. He does not have any desire to manage. He can’t be bothered with the responsibilities of his office.

He simply is wanting and is imposing his ideology without distraction. He wants to make sure that he gets this transformation of the country done. That’s what he’s doing. He’s getting even with his country for all of its transgressions in the past. So we got an oil slick, added benefit, now he can cancel offshore drilling. It’s an amazing thing to watch.

The amount of time he spent on the oil slick today versus the amount of time he spent on those props disguised as human beings and their jobs was fascinating. So there you have it.

[...]

Here, let me go through the timeline very quickly on this whole oil spill thing. This has been his focus since the oil rig explosion. The rig exploded on April 21st. There was a massive explosion of an oil rig in the Gulf. The White House was strangely silent about the environmental disaster just ’til a few days ago. Obama’s focus has largely been on politics, not containing the environmental disaster in the Gulf. Here is some of what the president has been doing since the explosion, most of which involves bashing Wall Street and Arizona.

Thursday, April 22nd, Obama went to Wall Street to push his takeover of the country’s financial sector, offering no reform of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, which caused a financial meltdown two years ago. Oh, and he gave an Earth Day speech, by the way, folks. Instead of doing something that might actually help the environment, the president took time out to speak about 40 years of Earth Day, a bright moment in our nation’s history and a milestone in the ongoing fight to protect our environment.

Meanwhile, the oil continued to leak into the Gulf. On Friday, April 23rd, Obama blasted the Arizona governor, state legislators, policemen, and residents for making an attempt to deal with the violence of chaos caused by illegal aliens, and still the oil flowed into the Gulf.

On Saturday, April 24th, the president gave his weekly radio address. The topic was not the oil spill in the Gulf. It wasn’t about capping the red ink spill in Washington. It was to bash Wall Street again and to rally his original supporters, African-Americans, Latinos, Hispanics, and women. And still, the oil flowed into the Gulf.

On Monday, April 26th, the president appeared in a video which was a rather stunning racist appeal to blacks and Latinos for their votes this November.

On Tuesday, April 27th, while the oil continued to flow, Obama continued his bashing of Arizona, calling their immigration law, which mirrors federal law, saying it was poorly conceived.

On Wednesday, April 28th, as the oil continued to flow, and we were told that it was twice as bad as we thought it was, Obama bashed judges that followed the Constitution.

“President Barack Obama, preparing to make his second nominee to the Supreme Court, warned Wednesday of a ‘conservative’ brand of judicial activism in which the courts are often not showing appropriate deference to the decision of lawmakers.” And still the oil flowed.

On Thursday, April 29th, Obama attended a DNC fundraising dinner closed to the press after he had told everybody he was going to send SWAT teams and Janet Napolitano to the Gulf to see what’s going on out there. Is the oil causing the sea level to rise? No. As I said earlier, Obama should have gone in and lowered the sea level right after the spill, and then that oil that spilled would have come ashore much lower on the shoreline than it would have otherwise because he’s lowered the sea level. After the oil’s come in lower, you go scoop the goo out, take it wherever, and then you raise the sea level back up where it normally was and bammo, you’ve got no oil slick. But Obama was too busy bashing Wall Street to lower the seas. He was too busy bashing judges to lower the seas. He was too busy bashing Arizona, its governor, its people, its laws, and its lawmakers to lower the seas in the Gulf of Mexico.

Today we had the most lengthy statement on this since it happened on April 21st.

OBAMA: I have dispatched the secretaries of Interior and Homeland Security, as well as the administrator of the EPA, my assistant for energy and climate change policy, and the NOAA administrator to the Gulf coast to ensure that we continue to do everything necessary to respond to this event.

RUSH: Which is nothing.

OBAMA: I have ordered Secretary Salazar to conduct a thorough review of this incident and report back to me in 30 days on what, if any, additional precautions and technologies should be required to prevent accidents like this from happening again.

RUSH: Okay, so he basically blows it off, he’s dispatched underlings, including global warming people to get down there, and report back in 30 days.

Meanwhile, in 30 days how many pelicans are gonna die and other migratory birds? When he finished saying that — and I don’t have time to play them now, we’ve got basically three minutes of Obama doing a ceremonial show with a bunch of props on how great the economy is, after his 31-second explanation of what they’re doing to deal with the oil slick. He never once, not once made an effort to go down there and lower the sea level in the Gulf, which coulda handled this. If he had done that, we wouldn’t even be here today talking about it.

France24english: Louisiana oil spill

Below is just one of many stories on the devastation that is feared.

Environment News Service, Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Endangers Birds Throughout the Americas:

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, April 30, 2010 (ENS) – Bird conservationists fear the spreading Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will affect not only local birds but migratory bird populations as far north as Canada and Alaska, and as far south as South America.

The oil spill, now 100 miles long by 48 miles wide, is being pushed onshore by the prevailing southeast winds and is expected to hit the Louisiana’s Chandeleur Islands on Saturday.

The state bird of Louisiana, the brown pelican, removed from the U.S. Endangered Species list only late last year, nests on the Louisiana coastal islands of Breton National Wildlife Refuge, which encompasses the Chandeleur Islands. Their breeding season just began and many pairs are already incubating eggs.

“This spill spells disaster for birds in this region and beyond,” says George Fenwick, president of the nonprofit American Bird Conservancy. “The complexity of the Gulf coastline, with numerous bays, estuaries, inlets, marshes and creeks, will make cleanup extremely difficult. Impacts could last for decades for much of the habitat, and some species may suffer significant long-term population declines.”

The oil spill is fed by oil gushing at the rate of 5,000 barrels a day from a broken wellhead on the sea floor about 51 miles southeast of Venice, Louisiana.

UPDATE, May 3, 2010… found this too-funny-to-pass-on observation by Jim Treacher at The Daily Caller, Making fun of Obama is racist, even if you’re Obama:

That’s why, for the last two years, he’s broken with the traditions of the POTUS’s speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and zinged his enemies, not himself and his (ahem) comrades.

Or maybe it’s just because he’s a jerk…

If it weren’t for settling scores, Obama wouldn’t have anything to do all day. You know why it took him so long to react to the Gulf Coast oil spill? Because it didn’t criticize him.

Mwahahahaha… way to go, Mr. Treacher!

Brown pelicans and seagulls... some of the millions of birds that are in danger from the oil spill | Photo credit: AP

More on the oil spill…
New York Times: U.S. Missed Chances to Act on Oil Spill and Unanswered Questions on the Spill
Gateway Pundit: DEVASTATING: Video Shows Feds Knew Of Potential Ecological Disaster Immediately After Rig Explosion and Obama Takes Break from Campaigning, Visits Oil Slick Disaster 12 Days Late
Business Insider: Now Even The New York Times Hints That The Oil Spill Is Obama’s Katrina
Mcnorman’s Weblog: They Knew How Bad This Oil Slick Could Be
HillBuzz: Question: How can the White House and Democrats at large manage and dictate your healthcare if they can’t come up with an effective strategy for handling an oil spill?
Daily Mail: Obama ‘too slow to act against oil slick disaster’ threatening species along the coast
Radio Equalizer: ‘GOD’S A DEMOCRAT’
Patterico’s Pontifications: Obama’s Katrina (Updated x2)
Noel Sheppard, NewsBusters: Bill Maher: ‘Why Isn’t Barack Obama Getting More S–t For This’ Oil Spill? and Paul Krugman’s Sarcastic Headline: ‘The Oil Spill Is Obama’s Fault’
RedState: Obama Eight Days Behind Curve On Well Leak

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