What a coincidence, so does Obama.

Perhaps a conspiracy theorist would like to make hay from the fact that in one of the Scarborough tweets highlighted in the above Politico link, Joe praises the work ethic of Rep. Paul Ryan, whom Rachel Maddow had dismissed as an unknown, unimportant back-bencher in the Boehner report, she had filed the previous evening.

MichelleF said:
What a coincidence, so does Obama.

This does show the hypocrisy of the conservatives, Michelle, who last week were claiming that Obama plays too much golf, etc. But I am with you this time, because Boner playing golf, and sporting that perpetual tan, shows his support for Obama. Finally.

In Boehner’s defense, he’s not doing it to golf…he’s got to keep that well-done tan going. He’s almost too well done! He’s almost extra crispy!

Stick a fork in him….heeeee’s done!

Actually Val, if I had said it’s ok for Boehner and not for Obama, that would be hypocrisy. That’s not what I did.

Joe, the faux con strikes again. Here is a man who days ago said the Gore story wasn’t worth reporting due to lack of evidence (or something), and then he has no problem telling a tale about Boehner based on rumor and gossip. Oh so typical of MSNBC and it’s propaganda.

Joe does what Keith tells him to do, he says what Keith and the WH tell him to say. Joe is a sell-out and worse.

This is was Joe’s final nail in the coffin. He could careless if conservatives win elections anymore , why bring this BACK up a second morning right off the bat , and drag this out for 3 more hours ?

Joe Scaraborough (D) Fl

* Apologize for the grammar , Joe just really pisses me off. Aka Judas

And Joe’s MSNBC colleague Alex Witt claims she got “chills” over Obama’s immigration speech. Chills, thrills, tingles….wow, those MSNBC anchors/analysts/journo’s just get all emotional over teh one.

I guess it was when he said:

“Being an American is not a matter of blood or birth, it’s a matter of faith,” Is he laying the ground work to give birthers some credence? (snicker).

Obama doesn’t have a clue, and yet chills, thrills and tingles are the words of the day at the station that gives us propaganda from morning to night.

Michelle, why would the truth get in the way of a good rant?

John Boehner is known as a guy that likes to golf, likes to have a good time and is not known as a hard worker.”

Like this joe?

Obama during oil spill — golf, parties, photo-ops… and more golf! (photos)
Posted by Kevin Kristy Headlines, Latest News, The O Spill May 28, 2010
By The Numbers
Rounds of golf: 9 – 4/23, 4/24, 5/8, 5/15, 5/16, 5/22, 6/13, 6/19, 6/26
States visited before stepping foot in Louisiana: 6 – NC, NY, IL, CA, IA, MO
Concerts: 2 – 6/2 (McCartney), 6/6 (Kelly Clarkson)
Comedy shows: 2 – 5/1 (Leno), 6/6 (George Lopez)
Vacations: 2 – 4/23-4/25 (Asheville, NC), 5/28-5/31 (Chicago)

@notsofast – ….so you what do you expect Obama to do about the oil spill again? (physically – what can he do?)

Someone should ask Starbuck-Joe Scarborough to explain
dead women in his office.
He must so resent people who still matter..

“FORT WALTON BEACH, FL–Lori Klausutis, a 28-year-old office worker for Rep. Joe Scarborough (R-FL), was found dead in the congressman’s district office. Police said preliminary findings from the medical examiner’s office showed no foul play or any outward indication of suicide.”

I remeber the 2001 Condit Affair & Starbuck-Joe resigned in disgrace….
He nauseates me, always on the edge of sanity ready to explode

Sestak, Romanoff, Blago, Black Panthers, kill switch, union bailout in defense bill, job losses, stock market and dollar tanking…and on and on. Yet this is what we’re talking about. Juicy gossip..yummy.

.

The Heritage Foundation has offered a great deal of research and analysis related to the current crisis. It can be found indexed here. Starting today, we will also highlight the top actions the federal government must take immediately to assist the citizens of the Gulf as they cope with this tragedy. As the government responds or acts on these actions, we will directly update this post online to reflect the news and add new actions as we deem appropriate.

Oil Spill To-Do List. Without further delay, here are the first ten actions President Obama can take immediately to help solve the crisis in the Gulf.

1. Waive the Jones Act: According to one Dutch newspaper, European firms could complete the oil spill cleanup by themselves in just four months, and three months if they work with the United States, which is much faster than the estimated nine months it would take the Obama administration to go at it alone. The major stumbling block is a protectionist piece of legislation called the Jones Act, which requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried in U.S.-flagged ships, constructed in the United States, owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed by U.S. citizens. But, in an emergency, this law can be temporarily waived, as DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff did after Katrina. Each day European and Asian allies are prevented from helping us speed up the cleanup is another day that Gulf fishing and tourism jobs die. For more information on this, click here.

2. Accept International Assistance: At least thirty countries and international organizations have offered equipment and experts so far. According to reports this week, the White House has finally decided to accept help from twelve of these nations. The Obama administration should make clear why they are refusing the other eighteen-plus offers. In a statement, the State Department said it is still working out the particulars of the assistance it has accepted. This should be done swiftly as months have already been wasted.

Take Sweden, for example. According to Heritage expert James Carafano: “After offering assistance shortly after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, Sweden received a request for information about their specialized assets from the State Department on May 7. Swedish officials answered the inquiry the same day, saying that some assets, such as booms, could be sent within days and that it would take a couple of weeks to send ships. There are three brand new Swedish Coast Guard vessels built for dealing with a major oil spill cleanup. Each has a capacity to collect nearly 50 tons of oil per hour from the surface of the sea and can hold 1,000 tons of spilled oil in their tanks. But according to the State Department’s recently released chart on international offers of assistance, the Swedish equipment and ships are still ‘under consideration.’ So months later, the booms sit unused and brand new Swedish ships still sit idle in port, thousands of miles from the Gulf. The delay in accepting offers of assistance is unacceptable.” For more information, click here or here.

3. Lift the Moratorium: The Obama administration’s over-expansive ban on offshore energy development is killing jobs when they are needed most. A panel of engineering experts told The New Orleans Times-Picayune that they only supported a six-month ban on new drilling in waters deeper than 1,000 feet. Those same experts were consulted by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar before he issued his May 27 report recommending a six-month moratorium on all ongoing drilling in waters deeper than 500 feet. A letter from these experts reads: “A blanket moratorium is not the answer. It will not measurably reduce risk further and it will have a lasting impact on the nation’s economy which may be greater than that of the oil spill. We do not believe punishing the innocent is the right thing to do.”

And just how many innocent jobs is Obama’s oil ban killing? An earlier Times-Picayune report estimated the moratorium could cost Louisiana 7,590 jobs and $2.97 billion in revenue directly related to the oil industry. For more information on this, click here.

4. Release the S.S. A-Whale: The S.S. A-Whale skimmer is a converted oil tanker capable of cleaning 500,000 barrels of oil a day from the Gulf waters. Currently, the largest skimmer being used in the clean-up efforts can handle 4,000 barrels a day, and the entire fleet our government has authorized for BP has only gathered 600,000 barrels, total in the 70 days since the Deepwater Horizon explosion. The ship embarked from Norfolk, VA, this week toward the Gulf, hoping to get federal approval to begin assisting the clean-up, but is facing bureaucratic resistance.

As a foreign-flagged ship, the S.S. A-Whale needs a waiver from the Jones Act, but even outside that three-mile limitation, the U.S. Coast Guard and the EPA have to approve its operation due to the nature of its operation, which separates the oil from the water and then releases water back into the Gulf, with a minor amount of oil residue. The government should not place perfection over the need for speed, especially facing the threat of an active hurricane season. For more information on this, click here.

5. Remove State and Local Roadblocks: Local governments are not getting the assistance they need to help in the cleanup. For example, nearly two months ago, officials from Escambia County, Fla., requested permission from the Mobile Unified Command Center to use a sand skimmer, a device pulled behind a tractor that removes oil and tar from the top three feet of sand, to help clean up Pensacola’s beaches. County officials still haven’t heard anything back. Santa Rosa Island Authority Buck Lee explains why: “Escambia County sends a request to the Mobile, Ala., Unified Command Center. Then, it’s reviewed by BP, the federal government, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Coast Guard. If they don’t like it, they don’t tell us anything.”

State and local governments know their geography, people, economic impacts and needs far better than the federal government does. Contrary to popular belief, the federal government has actually been playing a bigger and bigger role in running natural disaster responses. And as Heritage fellow Matt Mayer has documented, the results have gotten worse, not better. Local governments should be given the tools they need to aid in the disaster relief. For more information on this, click here.

6. Allow Sand Berm Dredging: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has recently prevented the state of Louisiana from dredging to build protective sand berms. Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser immediately sent a letter to President Obama requesting that the work continue. He said, “Once again, our government resource agencies, which are intended to protect us, are now leaving us vulnerable to the destruction of our coastline and marshes by the impending oil. Furthermore, with the threat of hurricanes or tropical storms, we are being put at an increased risk for devastation to our area from the intrusion of oil.” For more information on this, click here.

7. Waive or Suspend EPA Regulations: Because more water than oil is collected in skimming operations (85% to 90% is water according to Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen), operators need to discharge the filtered water back into the Gulf so they can continue to collect oil. The discharged water is vastly cleaner than when it was skimmed, but not sufficiently pure according to normal EPA regulations. If the water has to be kept in the vessel and taken back to shore for purification, it vastly multiples the resources and time needed, requiring cleanup ships to make extra round trips, transporting seven times as much water as the oil they collect. We already have insufficient cleanup ships (as the Coast Guard officially determined); they need to be cleaning up oil, not transporting water. For more information, click here.

8. Temporarily Loosen Coast Guard Inspections: In early June, sixteen barges that were vacuuming oil out of the Gulf were ordered to halt work. The Coast Guard had the clean-up vessels sit idle as they were inspected for fire extinguishers and life vests. Maritime safety is clearly a priority, but speed is of the essence in the Gulf waters. The U.S. Coast Guard should either temporarily loosen its inspection procedures or implement a process that allows inspections to occur as the ships operate. For more information, click here.

9. Stop Coast Guard Budget Cuts: Now is not the time to be cutting Coast Guard capabilities, but that is exactly what President Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress are doing. Rather than rebuilding and modernizing the Coast Guard as is necessary, they are cutting back assets needed to respond to catastrophic disasters. In particular, the National Strike Force, specifically organized to respond to oil spills and other hazardous materials disasters, is being cut. Overall, President Obama has told the Coast Guard to shed nearly 1,000 personnel, five cutters, and several helicopters and aircraft. Congress and the Administration should double the U.S. Coast Guard’s active and reserve end strength over the next decade and significantly accelerate Coast Guard modernization, but for the time being, they should halt all budgetary cuts.

10. Halt Climate Change Legislation: President Obama has placed his focus to the oil spill on oil demand rather than oil in our water. Regardless of political views, now is not the time to be taking advantage of this crisis to further an unrelated piece of legislation that will kill jobs and, in the President’s own words, cause energy prices to “skyrocket.” Less than 5% of our nation’s electricity needs are met by petroleum. Pushing solar and wind alternatives is in no way related to the disaster in the Gulf. It’s time for President Obama to focus on the direct actions he can take in the Gulf rather than the indirect harm he can cause in Congress. As Heritage expert David Kreutzer opines: “Fix the leak first, and then we’ll talk.” A crisis should not be a terrible thing to waste, as Rahm Emanuel said, but a problem to be solved. For more information,

Ination says:
July 1, 2010 at 4:47 pm Ination(Quote)
Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0

@notsofast – ….so you what do you expect Obama to do about the oil spill again? (physically – what can he do?)

The above!

Oh, and here is some news for ya!

Tuesday, June 29th at 7:29PM EDT

Day 70: Obama Finally Accepts Foreign Aid for Oil Spill

With a hurricane forming in the Gulf, oil washing up along the shorelines along the Gulf states, and major damage already done to the coast and industries, Obama finally has accepted foreign help:

The United States is accepting help from 12 countries and international organizations in dealing with the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The State Department said in a statement Tuesday that the U.S. is working out the particulars of the help that’s been accepted.

The identities of all 12 countries and international organizations were not immediately announced. One country was cited in the State Department statement — Japan, which is providing two high-speed skimmers and fire containment boom.

More than 30 countries and international organizations have offered to help with the spill. The State Department hasn’t indicated why some offers have been accepted and others have not.

That was very informative. Thanks to you both for providing me with this!

Funny how he didn’t bring up Obama’s many golfings. There must be a way to count Obama’s golf outings and compare them to Boner’s. Nah, msndnc wouldn’t want to do that. All that’s going on in the world and Scarman is harping on this issue? He’s become a real shill for the Dems and Obama lately.

TfT said:
Joe, the faux con strikes again. Here is a man who days ago said the Gore story wasn’t worth reporting due to lack of evidence (or something), and then he has no problem telling a tale about Boehner based on rumor and gossip. Oh so typical of MSNBC and it’s propaganda.

Joe does what Keith tells him to do, he says what Keith and the WH tell him to say. Joe is a sell-out and worse.

You forgot to mention JournoList in this post.

Joe , quit using that funny glue on your rug .

BFD:

Thanks so much for reminding me. In fact, I wouldn’t doubt that Joe is a member of journolist, and was so jealous of Weigel that Joe is the leaker of the Weigel emails. Spread the word far and wide — Joe did it.

@tiredofbs: I’ll say that some on your list will not stop the leak or really aid the clean-up; I’m still unsure about relaxing environmental regs when it comes to coastline modifications and relaxing safety rules because if there is an accident, then it seems that the victim’s family’s would still have grounds for a lawsuit; I personally don’t have a problem with considered deployment, rather than a willy-nilly, throw the kitchen sink at it approach and according to the AP, the A-Whale anchored in the Gulf, yesterday.

Joe tries to swing both ways because he fancies himself a kind of political independent. Certainly progressives are not fond of him.

1. Waive the Jones Act: According to one Dutch newspaper, European firms could complete the oil spill cleanup by themselves in just four months, and three months if they work with the United States, which is much faster than the estimated nine months it would take the Obama administration to go at it alone. The major stumbling block is a protectionist piece of legislation called the Jones Act, which requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried in U.S.-flagged ships, constructed in the United States, owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed by U.S. citizens. But, in an emergency, this law can be temporarily waived, as DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff did after Katrina. Each day European and Asian allies are prevented from helping us speed up the cleanup is another day that Gulf fishing and tourism jobs die. For more information on this, click here.

Nice talking point. Too bad it is not the truth: http://www.factcheck.org/2010/06/oil-spill-foreign-help-and-the-jones-act/

Likewise is the suggestion that the drilling moratorium should be lifted. That makes no sense in light of the current crisis, which disproves the oil industry argument that deep sea drilling is safe for the environment. Belief in that ascertion, which I am confident was offered in good faith by the oil industry, is no longer justified, at least until a full scientific analysis of the causes, and some very strict safety rules are complied with. Surely that is one lesson we must have learned.

Magister said:
Magister says:
July 1, 2010 at 6:29 pm Magister(Quote)

@tiredofbs: I’ll say that some on your list will not stop the leak or really aid the clean-up; I’m still unsure about relaxing environmental regs when it comes to coastline modifications and relaxing safety rules because if there is an accident, then it seems that the victim’s family’s would still have grounds for a lawsuit; I personally don’t have a problem with considered deployment, rather than a willy-nilly, throw the kitchen sink at it approach and according to the AP, the A-Whale anchored in the Gulf, yesterday

Today I believe is day 73
This is the USA
Why?

JamesA1102 said:
JamesA1102 says:
July 1, 2010 at 6:35 pm JamesA1102(Quote)
Thumb up 1 Thumb down 0

1. Waive the Jones Act: According to one Dutch newspaper, European firms could complete the oil spill cleanup by them

fu- fact checks my behind!

The Talking Points are your specialty

Jones Act: Maritime politics strain Gulf oil spill cleanup

Pressure is building for President Obama to lift a 1920 protectionist law so that high-tech foreign oil skimmers can help with the Gulf oil spill. Why are 1,500 available US oil skimmers not on the scene?
Temp Headline Image
A fleet of oil skimmers collect oil from the broken oil well under the surface at the Gulf oil spill site, approximately 42 miles off the coast of Louisiana. The Coast Guard is calling in more skimming boats and equipment from the Netherlands, Norway, France, and Spain.
(Sean Gardner/Reuters)

By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer
posted June 19, 2010 at 10:50 am EDT
Atlanta —

The Coast Guard Friday “redoubled” efforts to keep the Deepwater Horizon oil spill from impacting Gulf states by calling in more skimming boats and equipment from the Netherlands, Norway, France, and Spain after previously telling one Dutch official “Thanks, but no thanks,” to an offer of help.

That revelation comes as Florida lawmakers beg for more skimmers to ward off Gulf spill oil approaching the state’s white sand beaches and as the Unified Command – led by Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen – struggles with chain-of-command issues as BP changes its on-scene leadership.

The news of more foreign ships steaming toward the Gulf also comes amid a heated political debate over the role of the 1920 Jones Act, a protectionist law that prohibits foreign-flagged boats and crews from doing port-to-port duty within 3 miles of the US coast.

On Friday, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) of Texas filed legislation to waive the Jones Act to welcome more high-tech foreign clean-up boats, saying the Jones Act is standing in the way. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said last week “that we have not had [a] problem” with the Jones Act. At the same time, US marine interests complain that up to 1,500 US-flagged skimmers sit idle, and should be used first. [Editor's note: The original version of this paragraph misspelled the Texas senator's name.]

IN PICTURES: The Gulf oil spill’s impact on nature

“We are still receiving reports of foreign-flagged vessels being turned away or their offers of assistance hanging in limbo. That should not be the case,” Sen. George LeMieux (R) of Florida wrote to President Obama Friday. “There is a breakdown of communication and it is critically important the situation get fixed and we see an armada of skimmers at work.”

Confusion has steadily built around the exact US skimmer strategy and the role of the 1920 Jones Act. President Bush waived the act temporarily to allow foreign ships to help with the hurricane Katrina relief effort.

Only a day after Fox News quoted Admiral Allen saying, “To date, nobody has come for a Jones Act waiver,” Coast Guard Capt. Roger Laferriere, the second-in-command, told ABC World News that both Allen and Mr. Obama had, in fact, worked to waive the Jones Act to allow more foreign vessels to attack the spill.

“We have exhausted all our East Coast supply of skimming vessels,” Captain Laferriere said. “We are now looking at Norway, France, Spain, and other European vessels.”

Currently, 447 skimming boats are working the unabated spill area, the mass of which is now inching toward Florida. Unified Command last week implemented a “surge” strategy of moving the fleet to areas directly threatened by the spill.

Evidence built this week that Obama and the Unified Command are walking a political tightrope over the Jones Act and the role of foreign vessels in the Gulf oil spill cleanup. Some Republican congressmen, including Charles Djou of Hawaii, already oppose the Jones Act, saying it drives up consumer prices. Largely Democratic-leaning unions, meanwhile, support the act and are carefully gauging Washington’s reaction.

Maritime industry spokesmen say boat owners and longshoremen – who are tied to the AFL-CIO, one of Obama’s biggest union supporters – have no issue with waiving the act if US vessels can’t be found to do the job. Yet, “There are American vessels that are completely equipped to deal with this situation with no instructions to do anything,” Mark Ruge, who works with the Maritime Cabotage Task Force, tells Human Events blogger Robert B. Bluey.

In testimony last week to Congress, Ken Wells, CEO of the Offshore Marine Service Association, said the oil spill response threatens to “degrade” the Jones Act, even though the dozen or so foreign boats currently on the scene have American crews.

“We find that many of these vessels are blatantly ignoring the Jones Act,” Mr. Wells testified. “Worse, we find that the agency charged with enforcing the Jones Act has failed to live up to its responsibilities to enforce the law and to interpret the law as Congress intended.”

Proximity of the US skimming fleet could be complicating deployment, since many boats are staged along the West Coast and in Alaska. But with Obama yet to publicly address the practical and symbolic Jones Act issue, the confusion is part of what Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz calls an “improvised response” to the spill in part due to BP’s lack of preparation for an unprecedented wellhead event as well as slowness by the administration to grasp the scope of the disaster.

Grasping to boost the spill response as BP tries to contain a runaway wellhead spewing up to 60,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf a day, Allen announced Friday that Unified Command is outfitting 2,753 locally owned boats with skimming equipment, a process that could take two months. That, at least, is likely to prove politically popular along the Gulf Coast, where many residents are clamoring for ways to help fight the spill – and to get paid doing it.

“This is something that is on a scale that far exceeds anything we’ve done in a domestic response before,” Allen said.

IN PICTURES: The Gulf oil spill’s impact on nature

Largely Democratic-leaning unions, meanwhile, support the act and are carefully gauging Washington’s reaction.”

\Bingo!

JamesA1102 said:
Nice talking point. Too bad it is not the truth: http://www.factcheck.org/2010/06/oil-spill-foreign-help-and-the-jones-act/

I’m sorry, but did you even look at the linked State Department chart? Did Factcheck even look at it? It’s jaw dropping to look at the amount and types of help that are available and on offer, yet “under Consideration” on Day 70 something. Job One, for anyone that isn’t an idiot, upon knowledge of the leak is to contain and control the oil and to keep it from reaching shore by any means necessary. Another interesting feature of that list is that we’ve refused just one offer: French dispersant that is not approved for use. The rest we’re not refusing, we’re just not accepting.

Is this Change You Can Believe In?

Interesting comment that the U.S. also has such skimmers, but they are not in the area. I believe that it was said that some were in AK. Why were these American assets not in the Gulf before the spill? Who had the foresight to have large skimmers in AK waters? Do we have a whale-equivalent? Why not? I understand that the U.S. has an oversight agency evaluating safety compliance of deep-water drillers. Did they not require that drillers have large skimmers, vacuumers, separators on sight? Why do all these other nations appear to have spill technology and assets that we do not?

More Republican vs. Democrat bullshit. SPIN…SPIN….SPIN….!!! You guys watch too much TV News…so much you sound like them. All bullshit. If the two parties (and their party supporters – YOU!) stop worrying about increasing their individual power base, bank accounts and being re-elected this country would become what it once was. It has become a shit hole of political wrong doing and we are in fact broke as a nation. Broke? The government and the POLITICAL SYSTEM controlling it are also broken. And none of you can see this? Everything looks just peachy to you? Things are far from peachy!! We just print money when we need it? Currency MUST be backed by something of value such as gold. I doubt there’s enough gold to back the abyss of a mess our illustrious leaders have driven this country to become. Wake up before it’s too late!!