Free Republic

Would this remain a local DC story if the accused had been staff director of an important committee in a Republican controlled Senate? >>>>A former senior congressional aide was indicted this week in D.C. Superior Court on charges that he sexually assaulted two women after drugging them with a sedative that he allegedly put in their drinks. Donny Ray Williams Jr., 36, who served as staff director for a Senate subcommittee and worked in the offices of several members of Congress, gave at least one woman Ambien and assaulted her while she was unconscious, according to court papers. Williams was...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal magistrate refused Wednesday to order the White House to provide BP PLC with emails by a former top adviser to President Barack Obama about the administration's response to last summer's massive Gulf oil spill. A lawyer for the oil giant had argued that emails by Carol Browner, Obama's former adviser on energy and climate matters, and three other officials in the Executive Office of the President could shed light on the White House's role in estimating the rate of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from the company's blown-out well. But U.S. Magistrate...

Energy Policy: An administration that has no respect for Congress, the courts or the Constitution has been found in contempt for reissuing a drilling moratorium that a U.S. district judge found overly broad. The Obama administration's trouble with the courts has continued with a judge's ruling last week that the Interior Department's reinstating of a drilling moratorium followed by a de facto moratorium via an overly restrictive permitting process constituted contempt. The administration had issued a drilling moratorium in May in waters deeper than 500 feet after the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig off Louisiana that...

The Obama administration doesn’t hide its contempt for Congress, independent agencies, watchdog groups, the media and whistle-blowers. Now a federal judge has found the administration in contempt of court. It’s about time. The case, Hornbeck Offshore Services v. Salazar, centers on a company challenging the moratorium on deep-water drilling imposed after the BP oil spill. On June 22, U.S. District Judge Martin L.C.Feldman ordered Interior Secretary Kenneth L. Salazar not to enforce the moratorium because it appeared “arbitrary and capricious and, therefore, unlawful.” The 5thU.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the order. Mr. Salazar got around the injunction by rewording...

"In the chaotic aftermath of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, a poorly orchestrated effort to knock down the towering blaze may have inadvertently led to the sinking of the platform, according to interviews and documents obtained by the Center for Public Integrity and shared with ABC News. As part of an ongoing government investigation, Coast Guard officials are trying to reconstruct the initial response to the rig explosion that unleashed one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history. One concern surrounds the use of briny seawater instead of fire-retardant foam to drench the rig. The Coast...

Energy Policy: As the job-killing deepwater drilling ban continues offshore, our interior secretary defends an onshore ban imposed in Utah. If we could drill in places like that, maybe oil wouldn't be gushing a mile under the Gulf of Mexico. The 64-million-gallon question in the Gulf oil spill is why we were drilling 5,000 feet down in the first place. The administration line, as expressed by the president in his recent Oval Office speech, is that oil resources on land and just offshore are running out. The falsity of that claim can be seen in the battle over 77 oil...

The BP spill won't destroy Barack Obama's presi dency. It won't even signifi cantly dent his standing in polls, if current trends hold. But it should mark the end of a period of unbridled liberal presumption that began with his rise in 2007. In his new book, "The Icarus Syndrome," Peter Beinart writes of "hubris bubbles" that infect American foreign policy after successes. In the domestic arena, liberalism has been riding its most expansive hubris bubble since Lyndon Johnson modestly declared on the cusp of the Great Society, "These are the most hopeful times since Christ was born." Those millennial...

Machines that separate oil from water—even allowing the oil to be refined later—can be on-site in the Gulf of Mexico within days, Jean-Michel Cousteau, president and founder of the Ocean Futures Society, told CBNC Thursday. Cousteau, who is backing the use of the machines, or units, is on the advisory board of Ecosphere Technologies, which makes them. Cousteau, the son of legendary sea explorer and ecologist, Jacques Cousteau, said there are 24 to 26 units that are ready to go and in the region. The units are mobile water treatment plants, which use a nonchemical oxidation process, Michael Vinick, chairman...

Within about two weeks of the BP oil spill, a number of countries stepped up to offer assistance including the governments of Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United Nations. Research and technical expertise, booms, chemical dispersants, pumps, skimmers and wildlife treatment were offered. As the president insisted “everything possible” was being done to respond to the spill, offers of help were being flatly refused. Just three days after the spill, the Dutch government offered to provide ships with oil-skimming booms and proposed a plan for...

The Gulf oil spill that's so bedeviling President Obama has its roots back in the Clinton years. In 1995, President Bill Clinton signed the Outer Continental Shelf Deepwater Royalty Relief Act, which exempted oil wells drilled deep in the Gulf from the normal royalty payments to the government. Usually, these payments amount to between 12 percent and 16 percent of their revenues, so the exemption did a great deal to catalyze drilling in deep waters in the Gulf of Mexico. The Deepwater Horizon well, where drilling began in 2001, was one of those catalyzed by the Clinton legislation. Overall, deepwater...

Leadership: FDR said we had nothing to fear but fear itself. JFK asked what we could do for our country. Now we can add Obama's whine about the disaster in the Gulf: "I can't suck it up with a straw." 'Even though I'm president of the United States, my power is not limitless," the president told Grand Isle, La., locals in a video released Friday. "So I can't dive down there and plug the hole. I can't suck it up with a straw. All I can do is make sure that I put honest, hardworking, smart people in place ....

Energy Policy: The advisory board on offshore drilling says it never endorsed a moratorium, which was added later by the interior secretary. The only thing transparent about this administration is its lies. Experts brought together by the Obama administration to review offshore drilling safety were asked to review recommendations in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. They did not give their blessing to the six-month drilling moratorium announced by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and have accused him of deliberately appending their report to make it seem like they did. According to the New Orleans Times Picayune, Salazar's May 27...

Leadership: The president says he went to the Gulf to find out whose derriere to kick. After he gets his foot out of his own mouth, perhaps he can talk to us about that Coast Guard memo. Scapegoating has become a hallmark of this administration. Certainly BP was responsible for the safe operation and maintenance of Deepwater Horizon. But after an accident in federal waters the federal government, which has a plan to save the entire planet from greenhouse gases, had no plan to save the Gulf from a single gushing well, with the possible exception of finger-pointing. In this...

The Economy: As if the latest measly numbers on our jobless recovery weren't bad enough, along comes the administration to pile disaster upon disaster by slapping a six-month ban on deep-water drilling. When President Obama visited Louisiana on May 1, he talked about the possibility that the oil gushing from BP's Deepwater Horizon well could "jeopardize the livelihoods of thousands of Americans who call this place home." Now the administration's response could jeopardize the livelihoods of tens of thousands more. In a letter sent to Obama on Wednesday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal challenged the president's decision to suspend deepwater drilling...

VACUUM AND SUCK THE OIL OUT OF THE GULF NOW!!! In 1993, a massive 800 million gallon oil spill happened in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Aramco successfully cleaned up that spill. The lead engineer that cleaned that spill was an American engineer who worked for Aramco. His name is Nick Pozzi and is based currently based in Houston. Apparently Pozzi offered his solution to BP and Coast Guard and they promptly dismissed his solution. Was it too expensive? It's a lot simpler to understand than the top kill. It simply requires oil tankers equipped with giant vacuums (think a massive wet/dry...

Accountability: Democrats have finally gotten around to blaming the Bush administration for the Gulf oil disaster. We wonder when this administration will take responsibility for anything. Asked on the "Imus in the Morning" program Tuesday on Fox Business Network if the Obama administration is to blame for the damaging fallout of the spill, Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., actually said, "Well, you know, they come into office a year ago with all of this. And so, after the last eight years ... " before being interrupted by a perplexed Imus. We too are perplexed. George W. Bush was blamed for the...

Emergencies: As frustration with the federal response grows, Louisiana's governor lashes out at the feds for doing little except blame BP for the Gulf oil spill. Meanwhile, Congress sees a chance to raise your gas taxes. While the Obama administration continues on its quest to fundamentally transform America, the largely unabated Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico threatens to fundamentally transform the ecosystems and economy of Louisiana and the Gulf region. The federal government's response so far has consisted largely of scapegoating BP and ignoring its own responsibilities and lack of preparation, railing against Big Oil, while Congress...

An underwater camera provides a live view of the BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

Energy: The administration has banned new offshore drilling until the Gulf oil spill is investigated. Was its heart in it anyway? It seems environmental concerns apply only to certain forms of energy. No one pays much attention to the aquatic "dead zones" that have appeared off our shores at the mouths of our rivers due to agricultural runoff created by mandates for corn-based ethanol. Ethanol is green energy, good energy — never mind that such biofuels drive up food prices, increase hunger around the world and damage the environment in their own way. The explosion that blew apart an oil...

Media Bias: As the Gulf Coast faced ecological disaster, the president yukked it up with White House correspondents. His Saturday radio address didn't even mention the oil spill. President Bush, call your office. Rarely has media sycophancy been on such sharp display as in the largely indifferent response to President Obama's own indifference to the oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The coverage has been far different from that given to President Bush's handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The White House announced Saturday morning that Obama would head to the Gulf Coast on Sunday, just a...