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Billions of dollars & thousands of jobs lost with Obama’s Gulf drilling moratorium

June 3, 2010 By Carol Greenberg 4 Comments

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With Mr. Obama’s administrative order last week to halt most deep water drilling in the Gulf in the wake of the BP oil spill most companies are pulling up stakes; many may never return.

One of those companies is Walter Gas and Oil who was within reach of finding oil and has invested millions of dollars into their venture with most probably seeing no return. The MMS (Minerals Management Service) ordered Walter to start shutting down last Friday.

Secretary of the Interior Salazar has also blocked new drilling permits for 6 months and suspended 33 deepwater drilling operations.

“We’re pausing deepwater drilling and examining the system to ensure this disaster doesn’t happen again,” Salazar said during a conference call with reporters. “We need to take a cautious approach to offshore oil and gas development as we strengthen safety.”

Drilling in waters 500 feet or less will not be affected and neither will wells already in operation. The Presidential Order does not affect the 4,515 shallow-water wells, and it does not affect 591 producing deepwater Gulf wells.

So how does this bode for industry in the affected area? Not well, says the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association.

The Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association is the oldest trade association in the state exclusively representing all sectors of the oil and gas industry operating in Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico, including exploration and production, refining, transportation and marketing.

Here are a couple of basic facts about the oil and gas pulled from the Gulf:

  • Roughly 33% of our nation’s domestically produced oil comes from the Gulf of Mexico, and 10% of the nation’s natural gas.
  • 80% of the Gulf’s oil, and 45% of its natural gas comes from operations in more than 1000 feet of water – the deepwater (2009 data).

In an e-mail I received from LMOGA today below is how the moratorium will affect the industry and the area already devastated by the BP spill:

  • Suspension of operations means roughly 33 floating drilling rigs – typically leased for hundreds of thousands of dollars per day – will be idled for six months or longer.
  • $250,000 to $500,000 per day, per rig – results in roughly $8,250,000 to $16,500,000 per day in costs for idle rigs.

Secondary impacts include:

  • Supply boats – 2 boats per rig with day rates of $15,000/day per boat – $30,000/day for 33 rigs – nearly $1 million/day.

Jobs

  • Welders, divers, caterers, transportation, etc.
  • Each drilling platform averages 90 to 140 employees at any one time (2 shifts per day), and 180 to 280 for 2 2-week shifts Each E&P job supports 4 other positions.
  • Therefore, 800 to 1400 jobs per idle rig platform are at risk. Wages for those jobs average $1,804/weekly; potential for lost wages is huge, over $5 to $10 million for 1 month – per platform. Wages lost could be over $165 to $330 million/month for all 33 platforms.

And in addition to the jobs and all the other impacts with the drilling moratorium itself, many offshore workers live in Louisiana. The state is going to see a decrease in income taxes and sales taxes that would normally be paid by those employees. (The state does not collect a sales tax on oilfield supplies and equipment used offshore.)

And Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is certainly not happy about any of this. He sent a letter to Mr. Obama and Secretary Salazar in which he states:

“Already, Louisiana has suffered severe negative economic and ecological impacts from the BP oil spill. During one of the most challenging economic periods in decades, the last thing we need is to enact public policies that will certainly destroy thousands of existing jobs while preventing the creation of thousands more.”

Since the above facts are not as yet listed on LMOGA’s website, anyone with questions may contact the PIO Mr. Larry Wall at 225-387-3205.

Filed Under Gulf spill, moratorium on Gulf drilling Tagged With BP spill, LMOGA, moratorium on Gulf drilling, Salazar

OFA and the DNC: ACORN 2.0

June 2, 2010 By Carol Greenberg 2 Comments

Anita Moncrief has guest-blogged on my site to write this stunning followup to The Peril of the OFA. Thank you Anita!

If elections were like football games, this would be your two minute warning.  All of the passion, energy and renewed interest in politics that propelled the tea party movement of 2009 opens the door to a new level of involvement. As patriot groups around the country prepare for the November 2010 elections, a quiet force has been building behind the scenes.

Investigative reporter Carol Greenberg’s work inside Obama’s Organizing for America has already helped expose the OFA’s connection to ACORN and its network of top Democrat party insiders. Greenberg’s latest article explains the OFA plan to deploy rapid response teams to Ohio ahead of the elections.

Any liberal discussion of Ohio includes the sentiment that “Ohio is ground zero for the left.” Long a playground for groups like ACORN, they conducted voter experiments, filed lawsuits against the state and their voter fraud shenanigans led to a civil RICO suit brought by the Buckeye Institute. ACORN’s settlement of the case required that it surrender its business license in the state.

Unfortunately for conservatives, the awareness of ACORN’s network of organizations and mob like behavior come at a time when he same political workeasily be done by Obama’s permanent campaign. A campaign that was absorbed into the Democratic National Committee after it ceased being Obama for America.

Obama’s ACORN cronies designed a system that could be substantial from any number of leftist organizations, including the DNC.

“Apparently, ACORN and Project Vote were ’smack dab’ in the middle of another one of Obama’s voter registration drives. According to ACORN reports, ACORN was Catalist’s first client. Let me be clear, the ACORN VBASE, is the archetype of the Obama campaign. ACORN’s technology combined with union money elected a president.”

Draft slides of a 2006 Project Vote PowerPoint show that Project Vote’s method could produce the desired results to sway an election.

Critics of Project Vote and ACORN underestimate their effectiveness in contacting voters to move them on an issue or to the polls.

Other slides detail their plans to turn this Voter Mobilization Network over to the leftist friends (including the DNC).

The left may scoff at whether this connection exists, but Karyn Gillette, then development director of Project Vote, also gave me a copy of the 2004 DNC donor list to work from. Karyn Gillette came to Project Vote from Ohio where she was employed by Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

“According to a court filing in Ohio alleging ACORN violated state Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law, ‘Project Vote, regularly advises Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner (hereinafter “Secretary Brunner”) on election strategy, and recently issuing a news release claiming credit for Secretary Brunner’s directive restricting challenges to suspected unlawful voter registrations.’

“Maurice Thompson, the attorney handling the Ohio RICO action, told me late yesterday, ‘Evidence of collusion amongst ACORN, Project Vote, the Obama Campaign and Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner comes as no surprise to us — these supposedly separate entities appear to have been co-mingling funds, trading political tips, and helping each other gain power for years now.’”

Here is a screen shot of the email Gillette sent to ACORN.org email addresses containing the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Though a number of news outlets like the New York Times had copies of the DNC donor list,  it was never made public, until today.

Click here to view the DNC major donor list ACORN used to fundraise for its voter registration drives.

The OFA’s organizing machine can track millions of calls and mobilize countless volunteers and it would behoove the right to take notice. Twitter and Facebook may spread the message and connect folks but there is a serious need for some good old fashion grassroots door knocking. If conservatives are going to win in November there must be a combination of new and old organizing. In 2004 Ohio surprised the nation by going red for Bush. As many others have noted, there was initially a

…lack of outreach among African American communities. Karl Rove proved in 2004 with black voters in Ohio that persons should not assume that African Americans will consistently vote progressive.”

Organizing for America has stopped the game clock with the unveiling of Vote 2010. November is the goal and they have the ball. Kickoff events are scheduled around the country for June 5th. Inviting emails with subjects like “What are you doing Saturday?” are making the rounds.

Conservatives, what are you doing this Saturday? If you want to win in November, it should be attending one of those kickoff parties. OFA, it’s the new ACORN. Learn who they are and how they operate. Click here to find an event near you or to sign up for their updates. If the OFA can continue to organize to pass Obama’s agenda and maintain the Congressional majorities, and all of the momentum of the past year and a half will be lost.

Crossposted by Anita Moncrief at Hot Air

If elections were like football games, this would be your two minute warning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-minute_warning All of the passion, energy and renewed interest in politics that propelled the tea party movement of 2009 opens the door to a new level of involvement. As patriot groups around the country prepare for the November 2010 elections, a quiet force has been building behind the scenes.

Investigative reporter Carol Greenberg’s work inside Obama’s Organizing for America has already helped expose the OFA’s connection to ACORN and its network of top Democrat party insiders. Greenberg’s latest article explains the OFA plan to deploy rapid response teams to Ohio ahead of the elections.

Any liberal discussion of Ohio includes the sentiment that “Ohio is ground zero for the left.” Long a playground for groups like ACORN, they conducted voter experiments, filed lawsuits against the state and its voter fraud shenanigans lead to a civil RICO suit brought by the Buckeye Institute. ACORN’s settlement of the case required that they surrender their business license in the state.

http://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/about-us

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/03/update_on_acorn_rico_suit.html

Unfortunately for conservative, the awareness of ACORN’s network of organizations and mob like behavior come at a time when their efforts can easily be done by Obama’s permanent campaign. A campaign that was absorbed into the Democratic National Committee after it ceased being Obama for America.

Obama’s ACORN cronies designed a system that could be substantial from any number of leftist organizations, including the DNC.

“Apparently, ACORN and Project Vote were “smack dab” in the middle of another one of Obama’s voter registration drives. According to ACORN reports, ACORN was Catalist’s first client. Let me be clear, the ACORN VBASE, is the archetype of the Obama campaign. ACORN’s technology combined with union money elected a president.”

Draft slides of a 2006 Project Vote PowerPoint show that Project Vote’s method could produce the desired results to sway an election. Other slides detail their plans to turn this Voter Mobilization Network over to the leftist friends (including the DNC).

The left may scoff at whether this connection exists, but Karyn Gillette, then development director of Project Vote also gave me a copy of the 2004 DNC donor list to work from. Karyn Gillette came to Project Vote from Ohio where she was employed by Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

“According to a court filing in Ohio alleging ACORN violated state Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law, “Project Vote, regularly advises Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner (hereinafter “Secretary Brunner”) on election strategy, and recently issuing a news release claiming credit for Secretary Brunner’s directive restricting challenges to suspected unlawful voter registrations.”

Maurice Thompson, the attorney handling the Ohio RICO action, told me late yesterday, “Evidence of collusion amongst ACORN, Project Vote, the Obama Campaign and Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner comes as no surprise to us — these supposedly separate entities appear to have been comingling funds, trading political tips, and helping each other gain power for years now.”

Here is a screen shot of the email Gillette sent to ACORN.org email addresses containing the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The 10K and up DNC list is below.

http://www.scribd.com/full/32277284?access_key=key-mbzls714b149pwmemfg

The OFA’s organizing machine can track millions of calls and mobilize countless volunteers and it would behoove the right to take notice. Twitter and Facebook may spread the message and connect folks but there is a serious need for some good old fashion grassroots door knocking. If conservatives are going to win in November there must be a combination of new and old organizing. In 2004 Ohio surprised the nation by going red for Bush. As many others have noted there was initially a

…lack of outreach among African American communities. Karl Rove proved in 2004 with black voters in Ohio that persons should not assume that African Americans will consistently vote progressive

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/sexandgender/761/don%27t_blame_black_voters:_the_obama_non-effect

Organizing for America has stopped the game clock with the unveiling of Vote 2010. November is the goal and they have the ball. Kickoff events are scheduled around the country for June 5th. Inviting emails with subjects like “What are you doing Saturday?” are making the rounds.

Conservatives, what are you doing this Saturday? If you want to win in November it should be attending one of those kickoff parties. OFA, it’s the new ACORN. Learn who they are and how operate. Click here to find an event near you or to sign up for their updates. If the OFA can continue to organize to pass Obama’s agenda and maintain the majority all of the momentum of the past year and a half will be lost. So Made 8.7 million door to door and contact attempts

Filed Under ACORN, DNC, OFA, Obama, Ohio Tagged With ACORN, Barack Obama, DNC Donor list, Jennifer Brunner, Karyn Gillette, Ohio, Organizing for America, Project Vote

The OFA Peril: Ignore at our own risk

June 1, 2010 By Carol Greenberg 5 Comments

You’ve just won an all expense-paid trip to Hawaii.

Waikiki Beach

Waikiki Beach

NOW do I have your attention?

Calling all Tea Party groups, tea partiers, twitterers, Facebookers et al, it’s “Tough Love” time!

I’m sure all of you have heard the words “this is serious” and these three little words have become banal to you all.

Many of us Conservatives seem to be “riding high” on the presumption that the November elections will be a slam-dunk for us all. However: money, great candidates and astute campaign managers cannot be assumed to be a winning combination and is no guarantee against  the corrupt Godfather-tactics of the “Community Organizer-in-Chief” in the Oval Office and his elite OFA (Organizing for America) forces. And money is no obstacle.

Several months ago in conjunction with Anita Moncrief I warned against the ongoing threat of OFA.

Just to make sure everyone realizes the fact below, SO LET ME BE PERFECTLY CLEAR:

Barack Obama’s OFA is a project of the Democratic National Committee

I’ve tried to get the attention of my own reps in Congress, the GOP, politicians on twitter, Michael Steele. You name it. My pleas have either gone ignored or I have received the response of:

We know they are there.

Sort of like the scorpion or rattlesnake waiting outside your hotel or bedroom window. NOT a comforting thought.

So this is how it is going to be. We are on our own. We are going to have no choice but to counter-act them ourselves. I went undercover for the third time last week with a conference call to Ohio Lt. Governor Lee Fisher (Dem) who won the Ohio US Senate primary against Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner. I again pretended to be one of “them.” Ohio is a true battleground state and is usually a deciding state not only in presidential elections but mid-term elections as well.

You are all saying “well, Brunner lost the primary to Lee Fisher. But she ain’t a threat anymore.” WRONG! Soros-funded and ACORN- backed  Brunner is still in charge of the November election and I don’t believe anything will be different this go-around.  Even though she lost the primary corrupt Brunner will still be on Obama’s side and stop at nothing as she did in 2008 to pull out all the stops to put and keep Dems in office. Could be she was promised something by Zero for a “great performance”?.. Lest you forget how Election 2008 went in Ohio here is a recap. And back in February Hotline On Call announced the ODP (Ohio Democratic Party) will build a “firewall” to insure Obama is again re-elected in 2012:

The ODP has been deploying staffers all across the state for a road show known as the “Knockout” program. The program aims to “knockout the Republicans for the next decade [by] motivating activists to get involved early and often.[sic] The ODP plans to hold these “Knockout” events in all 88 counties, and in doing so, they’re lengthening their volunteer list. What’s more, ODP field staffers say they’re supplying those volunteers with access to some of their best data to make them most effective now.

Fisher announced on the call last week that Obama will be bringing his artillery to Ohio, rolling out his dreaded OFA “rapid response” teams and included will be at least one, but probably more, “appearances” by the Organizer-in-Chief himself.

If you read my “An Inside Look at the OFA” post you’ll see a couple screen shots of these “rapid response” teams I managed to get while on a webinar with them and warned everyone about.  I’ll show them to you again:

As you can see calls are broken down by representative, precinct, and every single one is carefully logged.

When I heard about how our beloved Scott Brown caved on the cloture vote on Wall Street Reform, apparently under OFA pressure I was poo-pooed by many who believe the 922 calls claim to have been made to his office by OFA was exaggerated, but after what I’ve seen I absolutely believe this is true. And it’s confirmed by this one OFA tweep:

Scott Brown & OFA

Below is another screen shot of how Lincoln was tossed during the Healthcare Deform fiasco:

As you can see here OFA actually made 114% more contacts than they had originally hoped for. A total of 7,060 calls, doors-knocked on and other means of contact.

As Ohio goes, so goes the nation.

For the most part, yes. Ignore Ohio at your own peril, and the peril of the nation!

And this is what’s in store for all of us all over the country. How Obama plans to keep control in Election 2010. It ain’t pretty:

I can’t make it any plainer than that. Sorry. We’re all gonna have to go out there and work our buns off just like they are or we’ll be headlining in the premier episode of next season’s “LOST.” The biggest problem Conservatives have is we haven’t learned to play hardball like the other side does, so in the words of Todd Beamer

LET’S ROLL!

FYI please read Anita Moncrief’s conclusion “An Inside Look at the OFA Part II” where she connects all the dots between the “usual suspects” of OFA, Obama, SEIU and ACORN.

Wednesday Ms. Moncrief will be following up with the second part of the OFA/DNC expose and their illicit coordination with ACORN to ensure their candidates are elected. Stay tuned…

Crossposted at RedState

Crossposted for me by Anita Moncrief at Hot Air

Filed Under Election 2010, OFA, Ohio Tagged With DNC, Jennifer Brunner, Lee Fisher, Lincoln, OFA, Ohio, rapid response teams, Scott Brown