Soros, BP and Obama: Singing From the Same Hymnal

Joy Tiz

©2010

Even if we’re unsure exactly what that looks like. Even if we don’t yet know precisely how to get there. We know we’ll get there

-Barack Obama

Last week, I had an emergency root canal.  A root canal is an excruciating tribulation but once it’s over, you will be better off for it.  The same cannot be said of Obama’s Oval Office screed.

A mere seven weeks into America’s  most damaging environmental emergency, our commander in chief assured us that he will lead us to someplace even though he has no clue where that someplace may be.  What he does know for an unqualified certainty is that only the government can get us to that chimerical someplace.

The most repugnant parts of the oily speech were his efforts to use the language of war.  “Battle plan”, “fight” and” siege” skipped right over asinine into profane.  Once again, Obama’s deficient knowledge of American history was on full display when he told the world that during World War II, many doubted America’s capacity to produce necessary planes and tanks to win the war.  Who the hell ever doubted that?

Obama used his airtime to denounce the evil capitalists at BP and reassure a nervous nation that he is going to make them pay.  He is going to “make” them put money in an escrow account to be managed by a “third party”.  There is no lawful authority that gives Obama the power to do any such thing.  Hate on BP all you want, but at no time has anyone at BP even suggested they could not or would not pay out claims sent their way.  Perhaps Obama would know that if he had met with the CEO sometime prior to day fifty-eight of the crisis.

Nowhere in all of the twaddle was any hint that Obama was interested in actually plugging the damn hole.  Obama’s SOP for dealing with a crisis is to outsource.  We should be relieved to recall that shortly after the spill, the president deployed his A Team of bureaucrats, lawyers and outright lunatics, including Steven Chu—did you know he won a Nobel Prize?  That would be the same Steven Chu who wants us to paint our roofs white to combat fictitious climate change.  If Chu can’t get that damn hole plugged, who can?  Obama  heroically appointed another unaccountable czar and established a national commission.  That should get the damn hole plugged post haste.

At no time while outlining this can’t-fail scheme did Obama mention waiving the Jones Act that would enable the Dutch and other foreign friends furnish assistance.   

Instead, Obama is fixated on  economy asphyxiating policies.

Obama’s efforts to deflect criticism onto BP will be blunted when the public figures out that BP and Obama are singing from the same hymnal on energy policy.  Three oil companies are on board for cap and tax, among them is BP.

The president would have you believe that the cause of the oil calamity is the free market.  BP, according to Obama, is a wild eyed, anti-government free marketeer.  Quite the contrary: 

BP was a founding member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a lobby dedicated to passing a cap-and-trade bill. As the nation’s largest producer of natural gas, BP saw many ways to profit from climate legislation, notably by persuading Congress to provide subsidies to coal-fired power plants that switched to gas.

In February, BP quit USCAP without giving much of a reason beyond saying the company could lobby more effectively on its own than in a coalition that is increasingly dominated by power companies. They made out particularly well in the House’s climate bill, while natural gas producers suffered.

But two months later, BP signed off on Kerry’s Senate climate bill, which was hardly a capitalist concoction. One provision BP explicitly backed, according to Congressional Quarterly and other media reports: a higher gas tax. The money would be earmarked for building more highways, thus inducing more driving and more gasoline consumption.

Elsewhere in the green arena, BP has lobbied for and profited from subsidies for biofuels and solar energy, two products that cannot break even without government support. Lobbying records show the company backing solar subsidies including federal funding for solar research. The U.S. Export-Import Bank, a federal agency, is currently financing a BP solar energy project in Argentina. 

 BP also employs lobbying firm, the Podesta Group.  That would be the same John Podesta who runs the Center for American Progress—a George Soros funded left wing think tank.

Obama can posture all he wants and denounce BP as the villain.  It’s not like he’s worried that BP is going to demand their money back—a total of $77,051—the largest donation the firm has ever made to a political candidate.