A number readers have written to me asking me to comment on the finding by a federal judge that the Obama administration is in contempt of court by maintaining a deep water new drilling moratoriam despite the court having rule such moratorium illegal:
Judge Feldman was quite direct in his ruling, He said that the Interior Department acted with “determined disregard” of his ruling by lifting the original moratorium and then imposing a new one.
“Each step the government took following the court’s imposition of a preliminary injunction showcases its defiance…Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the re-imposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium, and in light of the national importance of this case, provide this court with clear and convincing evidence of the government’s contempt.”
Despite the contempt finding, the Obama administration continues to refuse to issue deep water permits, and has slowed down even shallow water permits, prompting this response from Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu:
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) slammed what she called a “de facto moratorium” on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico late Saturday night amid news that a major shallow-water driller filed for bankruptcy.
Landrieu, an outspoken critic of the Obama administration’s offshore drilling policies, blamed the Interior Department’s “excruciatingly slow release of oil and gas permits” for the company’s hard times.
“How many more rigs have to leave and how many more businesses have to close before it realizes the havoc the de facto moratorium is wrecking on the Gulf Coast? When these businesses close, people lose good paying jobs, our communities erode and our unique culture disappears,” Landrieu said in a statement.
I told you all before the 2008 that Obama was a legal pretender. His verbiage about the “rule of law” only applies to laws and policies he likes.
And Obama does not like any law or policy which permits increased domestic production of carbon-based energy, as part of an almost delusional vision of a “green economy.”
Judge Feldman needs to start enforcing his findings of contempt the way judges always have enforced their rulings, through the threat of imprisonment of those who continue the contemptuous behavior.
What makes you think the health care system will be treated any differently than our domestic energy industry once the regulators get control through Obamacare in the coming two years?
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Comments
This habit of ignoring laws will become addicting to our President and, more importantly, to the Democratic Party. Even the Soviet Union had elections, remember, and O comes from a famously corrupt region of the country. Their next step could easily be to fix the problem they have with the electorate by fixing the elections, Chicago style. I cannot help but think that we are closer to tyranny that we think.
"What makes you think the health care system will be treated any differently than our domestic energy industry once the regulators get control through Obamacare in the coming two years?"
Absolutely nothing. He is in contempt of 2 federal rulings, although only one has been officially declared. Time to hold Salizar (who is only a stooge front-man) and the One (who is calling the shots) accountable.
The judiciary branch is being made impotent. The legislative branch has only a sliver of power, since the Pelosi congress ceded much of their legislative powers to the executive branch (allowing the bureaucracies to make regulations, etc. without congressional oversight). Balance of powers – the cornerstone of our Constitutional republic – are virtually erased at this point.
Accountability time. See Rep. Allen West's CPAC key note for the way forward:
http://www.therightscoop.com/allen-wests-keynote-speech-for-cpac-2011
Does everyone now understand why the Constitution is so important? Even with the Constitution we seem unable to enforce the law. What choice would we have without the law than to resort to violence? Let's enforce this law and all of the other constitutional laws that have apparently been "deemed" to be revoked by our elites (border enforcement, 2nd amendment, qualifications to be president, and so on…).
I wonder if Mary Landrieu is regretting her Obamacare deal with the Devil.
"c w swanson said…
This habit of ignoring laws will become addicting to our President and, more importantly, to the Democratic Party."
WILL? You haven't been paying attention. It already IS an addiction.
Perhaps Professor Jacobson will elaborate legal and effective remedies available, in the case where judicial/law enforcement and electoral remedies have failed, against executive authority self-asserting as boundless and pursuing favoritism (corruption) as normative.
Re: "an almost delusional vision of a green economy".
The man is an economic illiterate. This is the guy who told us if we properly inflated our tires and put incentives in the tax code to caulk our windows we'd be on our way to energy independence and job creation.
We hear almost every day that companies are sitting on over $1 trillion of excess cash. Can there be any doubt that when companies crunch the numbers and conclude that developing "green" alternatives will generate a return sufficient to justify the risk, they will take on those "green" projects?
And with sevearl world class train operators in the U.S., if there were a market for the $50 billion high speed train system that Biden wants to loot the taxpayers to build, wouldn't one of the existing train systems be exploiting that opportunity? Or planning to if it made economic sense?
It's pretty sad that we're governed by a bunch of central planning zealots who think they're smarter than "the market".
1. Judge Feldman needs to start enforcing his findings of contempt the way judges always have enforced their rulings, through the threat of imprisonment of those who continue the contemptuous behavior.
And the House should impeach the Secretary of the Interior and, perhaps, the President. (Despite my 'perhaps', I am inclined to think that the case for impeaching Obama is already stronger than the case against Clinton ever was. Lying about a squalid affair: meh. Deliberately crippling the nation's energy production: different in kind.)
2. And Obama does not like any law or policy which permits increased domestic production of carbon-based energy, as part of an almost delusional vision of a "green economy."
We'll need a post-petroleum economy sooner or later. Letting a leftist Harvard lawyer mandate the path to that economy is like letting an ambulance-chasing shyster supervise medical treatments.
3. It's hard to see how Obama can get reelected if there is $5 gas and/or gas lines on Election Day. As it happens, oil policy is an area where the supposedly unelectable you-know-who can legitimately claim expertise.
thug-ocracy = no consequences for ignoring law
We are a nation 'without the rule of law'. Might makes right, in this new Charles Manson- Cloward- Piven world.
Here an example of how the President is killing the Gulf oil drilling–Seahawk, a drilling company, has been forced to go into Chapter 11 because of the slow down in drilling: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/11/AR2011021107472.html
Is there anyone who still disagrees that Obama is deliberately killing the economy of the United States?
The actions of Team Obama during the BP oil spill are repeated now, and will have continued dire consequences for US employment and well being.
Obama: We don't need legal formalities. We made BP pay up now.
Courtier: Sire, what effect will this have on other large corporations?
Obama: They will tremble in fear before our power.
Courtier: Sire, will they continue to invest and create jobs?
Downside of Gangster Government
09/20/10 – Power Line → UK Telegraph
[edited] Obama's populist demonization of BP is spectacularly damaging. It undermines international confidence in US legal protections, as if Obama had stood in the NY Stock Exchange proclaiming "investments not welcome here". Most corporations with big investments in the US are evaluating US political risk after seeing the legally questionable way BP has been treated.
Cash-rich multinationals are investing instead in previously high-risk emerging markets. These markets are higher growth, and bizarrely also seem legally and politically safer.
Optimists say US corporations have lots of cash, and an investment boom will soon be creating jobs. But, there is now little reason to invest in the US, which seems politically inept and economically marooned.
EasyOpinions
I'd pay good money to see Judge Feldman issue a bench warrant against Secretary Salazar.
BTW, the last link ("legal pretender") goes to a general Blogger page. It's missing a direct link to the post you have in mind.
@pubsecrets – thanks, fixed.