OIL AND CAVEATS

So you've changed your mind about exploring for oil, have you, Mr. President.
Great!
Well, maybe!
Let's see. You proposed in your weekend address to open up more federal lands for oil exploration, including Alaska's north slope, while keeping Anwar off limits, where alone, there are enough known petroleum reserves to keep America's cars and industry running for a decade or more. Why? Don't want to rile those prickly environmentalists? Not to worry, Mr. President, they would never vote for a Republican anyway. So why not go for it and announce a REAL comprehensive plan for oil drilling.
But then there is that other little caveat to a REAL plan - the fraud and manipulation by Wall Street traders and speculators you want your erstwhile Attorney General Holder to root out first. Even if such banditry is being committed by Wall Street evildoers, how long will that take? After all, this is the same Attorney General who was handed a video tape two years ago of Black Panther thugs in front of a Philadelphia voting precinct brandishing billy clubs and verbally intimidating voters and news media, on which Holder still has not been able to spot criminality.
Then there is the other caveat you mentioned Saturday - forming an "interagency" commission to oversee drilling in Alaska and off the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Is the Interior Department not doing its job? After all, overseeing oil exploration and issuing permits is the responsibility of the Interior Department's Bureau of Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE). If this agency is not doing its job than Interior Secretary Ken Salazar should fire the lot and hire experts who can expedite and oversee oil drilling. What we don't need is another government commission. Commission equals delay tactic, Mr. President.
It appears you are trying to get out in front of Republicans in the House who have already approved three bills mandating drilling off shore, on shore and in Anwar. Not to worry, Mr. President, the Democrat Senate will kill such nuisance bills.
Meanwhile, Americans continue to pay nearly four dollars a gallon, on average, for gasoline (over $4.00 in Indiana).
How about proposing a REAL plan, Mr. President, that mandates BOEMRE set a three to six month limit for evaluating and approving new drilling permits; provide tax incentives for American-owned and American-headquartered oil companies to apply for American leases; mandate all oil taken from American soil and off American coastlines be for use by Americans only and not sold on the world market under the auspices of OPEC; approve new refineries; establish one gasoline formula for the entire country instead of the nearly two-dozen such regional formulations now mandated, saving refining costs and about 25-cents a gallon at the pump; hire only native born or naturalized citizens to work in the newly created oil industry jobs.
And there would be thousands of such jobs created.
American oil for Americans now - that would be REAL plan, Mr. President.

HOW LOW CAN WE GO

Yesterday's appearance by Mexican President Felipe Calderon before a joint session of Congress should be an affront to every thinking American. Which may explain why the Democrat side of the aisle leaped to its collective feet in exuberant applause after Calderon parroted President Obama and asserted the new Arizona illegal immigration law would violate civil rights of Mexicans in that state illegally.
Republicans should have acted like thinking Americans and walked out. Instead, they held their applause, but remained fixed in their seats. Which is unfortunate.
Calderon also claimed that America must share the blame for the drug violence on the Mexican-American border and admonished Congress for not passing a comprehensive immigration reform bill.
Whoa, Amigo! We don't need your advice on American domestic policy.
I would love to know which group of Obama speech writers wrote the words that were spouted by this leader of a chronic third world country that, despite having big income from its rich oil resources, remains mired in violence and corruption, and its people remain mired in poverty.
El Presidente Calderon apparently hasn't read the Arizona law either, an oversight he shares with Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano.
Both Obama cabinet officials have denounced the Arizona bill as a civil rights violation waiting to happen. Holder even huffed and puffed about filing suit against the Arizona law on grounds it violates the U. S. Constitution
What Obama, Holder, Napolitano and Calderon all appear ignorant of is a 1975 Supreme Court decision which ruled under federal immigration law police can demand to see the identification of anyone, whether or not that person is stopped for reasonable suspicion, a small civil rights protection tucked into the Arizona law, but not required in federal law.
There is only one reason the White House red carpet was rolled out for Calderon. Votes! Obama is trying to impress Latino voters in this country by hosting a state dinner for the Calderon's and giving the Mexican President the ultimate platform of a joint session of Congress which he used to insult this nation.
I hope another traditional Democrat block vote was taking note - American Jews. Obama went out of his ill-mannered way to snub the Prime Minister of Israel recently, the leader of a progressive and productive nation and our only reliable middle eastern ally.
There is something very wrong with this foreign policy picture.