Barack Obama, Molotov cocktails and rubber bullets

in Rio . . .

See: Rubber Bullets Fly at Anti-Obama Protest In Rio

A molotov cocktail was launched in front of the US consulate in Rio de Janeiro late Friday in protest of the arrival of President Barack Obama, the O Globo newspaper in Rio reported. Military police reacted by firing rubber bullets into the gathering of 200 at around 18:30 local time. A CBN news reporter suffered a minor injury from the shots and traffic was blocked.

It was supposed to be a grand tour of Latin America. Brazil, Chile and El Salvador were to be backdrops for showcasing Obama's popularity, allowing him to be pictured with adoring crowds and given positive press.

Obama should at least be glad that the Rio protesters were not allowed within spitting range.

See Also:
Obama takes in Rio with Libya on his mind

Obama cancels public speech in Rio square: embassy

Obama's Brazil presser scrubbed

Chile protesters want Obama to apologize for CIA encouragement of Pinochet dictatorship

More Oil Rigs Preparing to Leave The Gulf

See: Diamond Offshore Drilling Announces New Term Floater Commitment

Devon was one of three operators of Diamond Offshore rigs that invoked a force majeure clause in their contracts, claiming that the drilling moratorium would prevent the rigs from working. Diamond Offshore said late last month that it does not believe a force majeure exists under the terms of those contracts and is working with its customers to assess each situation.

[Emphasis is mine-Syrah]

This was at the bottom of a Wall Street Journal article published on the 9th.

Democrat President Obama's disastrous handling of the oil spill, particularly in his strange and oddly tenacious attempts to shut down all deep-water drilling in the Gulf, will have long term consequences for the US and for the world.

Its a big planet. Those oil rigs can be moved anywhere in the world. We are very likely to see a number of them end up off the coast of Brazil much to the benefit of Petrobras and its investors.

The US can profit from the Oil in its territories, or not. It looks like Obama and the Democrats would prefer that the US is made even more dependent on foreign sources of oil.

Will The Democrat Administration Destroy The US Deep-Water Oil Drilling Industry And Increase US Dependence On Foreign Sources Of Oil?

The Democrat Obama Administration has asked a Federal Court to reinstate its deep water oil drilling ban in the Gulf of Mexico.

See: Obama Asks Court to Reinstate Ban on Deepwater Drilling

The Interior Department, which oversees oil and gas exploration on public lands and offshore, is charged with the “prudent and safe” management of those resources, the court filing said.

“A short-term suspension of deepwater drilling while safety regulations are updated is necessary to achieve that goal,” the document stated.

In his original decision to grant a preliminary injunction against Democrat President Barak Obama's Deep-Water Drilling Moratorium, Judge Feldman wrote: This Court is persuaded that the public interest weighs in favor of granting a preliminary injunction. While a suspension of activities directed after a rational interpretation of the evidence could outweigh the impact on the plaintiffs and the public, here, the Court has found the plaintiffs would likely succeed in showing that the agency’s decision was arbitrary and capricious. An invalid agency decision to suspend drilling of wells in depths of over 500 feet simply cannot justify the immeasurable effect on the plaintiffs, the local economy, the Gulf region, and the critical present-day aspect of the availability of domestic energy in this country.

The world does not sit around on its thumbs when Democrats try to stop things. The Democrats only have jurisdiction over so much of the world. The rest of the world can and will move on.

See: Stop the oil, not job creation

A prolonged moratorium would only make an awful situation worse.

Before the administration takes action on the moratorium, here are questions that decision-makers should ask: What would an extended moratorium on deepwater drilling really mean for the country? Are the perceived benefits worth the real costs?

The spill is already taking an enormous toll on the people in the communities around the Gulf that depend on the jobs and wages that deepwater drilling provides. If the moratorium overcomes the current legal challenge and is reinstated, this toll would only increase.

Oil companies cannot let their rigs go idle in these difficult economic times. If they are denied access to Gulf resources even for a short period, they will take their operations to promising new locations off Brazil, West Africa or China and sign new leases.

Once the rigs leave the Gulf it becomes very tough to get them back. Tens of thousands of Gulf residents are directly — and indirectly — employed by the offshore industry. When the rigs leave, so will their jobs. The scenario has been rightfully compared to the auto industry leaving Detroit.

If this moratorium debate drags on, the rest of the nation could get hit as well. Without this critical source of domestic, affordable fuel, we would be forced to import even larger amounts from overseas.

We already spend $1 billion a day on foreign oil. With a moratorium, that number will rise and our dependence on OPEC grow. Both outcomes increase our energy and economic insecurity — moving the country in the wrong direction.

Interestingly enough, and one possible explanation for the Democrat Administration's urgent and tenacious efforts to put in place and keep in place, a crushing moratorium on US Deep-Water Oil Drilling, may lead back to one of its largest campaign donors, George Soros.

In another part of the world, off the coast of Brazil, large deep-water oil deposits have been discovered. Petrobras, the Brazilian oil giant is poised to begin exploiting those oil deposits. Interestingly, George Soros is one of Petrobras' largest investors. As with Petrobras, George Soros is also one of Obama's and the Democrat Party's largest “investors.” Petrobras needs some deep-water oil drilling rigs to become available so that it can exploit its rich deep-water oil deposits. The Democrat Administration's devastating drilling ban has made many of those deep-water oil drilling rigs available.

Better yet, once those deep-water oil drilling rigs are moved and put inplace far abroad, the US fields that they had served will be effectively shutdown for many years to come, increasing the market value of all of that foreign deep-water oil, and the value of George Soros' huge investment in Petrobras, all that much more.

Is the tail waging the dog?

See also JCM's: C2 Saturday A.M. Bulldog Edition for more on the odd Oil Spill Clean-up problems and the strange connections between George Soros, Barak Obama, the Democrats, and Brazil's Petrobras.

Is There A Soros Connection To The Offshore Drilling Moratorium?

From: The Drilling Ban Is Soros' Bonanza

If the moratorium stands and energy prices rise, the only ones to profit will be foreign-owned companies such as Petrobras and investors such as George Soros, who has an investment in the oil giant in the neighborhood of $900 million. Yes, the same George Soros who also is a major investor in the Democratic Party and President Obama's 2008 campaign.

Soros would love to see domestic offshore drilling shut down and those three dozen deep-water rigs sitting idle shipped off to the coast of Brazil. He has a huge investment in both Petrobras and the Democrats. He expects a return on all his investments.

While we track the trail of oil gushing from Deepwater Horizon, we should also follow the money that will be gushing into George Soros' bank account, courtesy of the U.S. government and the American taxpayer.

What purpose does the Offshore Drilling Moratorium serve?

[Additional]

From: Moratorium Won’t Reduce Drilling Risks

Nor is it clear, if the moratorium went into effect, the pullback would be all that temporary. For one thing, the moratorium is contingent on a special commission making yet more safety recommendations in six months, but there is no guarantee they’ll be done by then. Meanwhile, there are only so many floating rigs in the world, and Brazil, for instance, has just embarked on a $200 billion drilling program. (You read that right: $200 billion.) It takes a month to move an idle rig from the Gulf of Mexico to Brazil, where it will likely stay for years. So a six-month moratorium would quite likely have far greater effect on American oil production that it would seem at first glance.

So again,- What purpose does the Offshore Drilling Moratorium serve?

[Additional]

From an article in the Wall Street Journal, published in August of 2009.

See: Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling

The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil's Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil's planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.

The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a "preliminary commitment" letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-Im Bank says it has not decided whether the money will come in the form of a direct loan or loan guarantees. Either way, this corporate foreign aid may strike some readers as odd, given that the U.S. Treasury seems desperate for cash and Petrobras is one of the largest corporations in the Americas.

And again we should ask, - What purpose does the Offshore Drilling Moratorium serve?

[UPDATE - Monday, June 28th, 2010 - 13:00]

Wow.

JCM at Correspondence Committee just pointed me to a post that he put up on this subject back on Saturday the 19th.

See: c2 saturday a.m. BULLDOG

I don't think any of this was planned. Obama is relying on process instead of action. A process which bolsters his contention that fossil fuel is bad, and that we need huge "investments" (read taxes) to get to alternative energy sources.

The drilling moratorium sounds like "action" but again is process, a process which directly or indirect benefits some of his closest advisors.

The advice he is getting is both process oriented, and tainted.

The result is not fixing the problem, but supporting other agendas. I do not believe it is a conspiracy in that there was or is a "plan." It is like with much of the left a "distributed conspiracy" that a bunch of individuals with similar goals, working each on their own little piece to push events in a way that matches their worldview.

A perfect storm of events, personalities, ideologies, and agendas driving the outcome toward what they prefer.

I agree. Not a conspiracy so much as tainted advice and the natural outcome of a group of people working from a shared world-view.

There is also a lot at stake.

I think that we should keep all of this in mind along with the tenacity the Administration has displayed in its efforts to keep the Moratorium in place, even after it has been overturned by a federal court.

What purpose does the Offshore Drilling Moratorium serve? Why the urgency to reinstate it?

Hillery Clinton Talks About Brazil As A Taxation Model

See: Clinton: 'The rich are not paying their fair share'

"Brazil has the highest tax-to-GDP rate in the Western Hemisphere and guess what — they're growing like crazy," Clinton said. "And the rich are getting richer, but they're pulling people out of poverty."

Both Clinton and Obama campaigned for president on promises to allow the Bush tax cuts for wealthy Americans expire this year, a plan that is now part of Obama's budget. The move will effectively raise taxes sharply on people earning more than $250,000.

Hillery is clearly suggesting that Brazil's high tax rate is the reason that its economy is growing.

Brazil may have a high tax rate, but it also largely avoided the banking disaster that has put many other western nations on the brink of bankruptcy.

See: Lessons from Brazil: Why Is It Bouncing Back While Other Markets Stumble?

But all of Brazil's banks can be thankful that, to a large extent, they haven't had to deal with the toxic assets that crippled banks in developed countries. Unlike their counterparts elsewhere, Brazilian banks were not as exposed to the property sector and credit derivatives, and financial soundness indicators were robust coming into the crisis, according to Fabio Barbosa, head of Banco Santander Brasil and the Brazilian Federation of Banking Associations (Febraban). He cites the high capitalization requirement as a key reason for the sector's resilience -- the minimum capital adequacy requirement in Brazil is 11%, compared with 8% under the Basel regulations that other banks around the world follow. In December 2008, the average ratio for the sector in Brazil was 20%, and for the country's five largest banks (accounting for 67% of total assets) the ratio was 18.5%. He adds that Brazil also didn't have a shadow financial system, like in the U.S., thanks to tight regulatory and supervisory oversight. All financial institutions (including investment banks) are under the watch of the Central Bank.

One of Brazil's biggest advantages is that it did not have a Barney Frank or a Chris Dodd plundering it's banking system to redistribute wealth.

Comparatively, with the rest of the western world seeing their future play out for them in the street riots of Greece, Brazil is doing pretty good. It could do even better.

High tax rates reduce the private sectors ability to raise money for new projects, new ideas, new services, and new businesses. If Brazil were to reduce its tax rake to a lower level, productivity in their private sector would likely increase, which ironically enough, would also increase the amount of tax revenue that the government would be able to take in. Increasing the opportunity for the private sector to make money also increases the potential amount of taxable revenue that can be collected.

Conversely, if Brazil were to increase its tax rake even more than it is at present, it could expect to see an eventual decline in private sector productivity. Lower profits would reduce the amount of taxable revenue that the government could then skim out the publics pockets.

There is a point at which the tax rates can be raised high enough that the result would be reduced tax revenue to the Government. Right now, Brazil is in a boom period. They are making money. The high tax rate is not the reason that they are making money. It is just a factor that businesses in Brazil have to deal with, a hindrance that they have to overcome, a red-line that they have to pay for in their books.

In time, as their economy matures, that high tax rate of theirs will become more of a problem. Their politicians will either have the wit and the will to lower their tax rates which will increase profits and tax collections, or they will squeeze the public even harder with even higher taxes, which will reduce profits and reduce tax collections.

But to think that Brazil has somehow managed to tax itself into prosperity . . . is nuts.

Lula's Unserious And Infantile Response To The Iranian Nuclear Weapons Problem.

While it might be breathtakingly stupid, it is all too commonplace on the left to argue that nations that have nuclear weapons should just crumple them up and toss them away in order to achieve a moral high ground when dealing with other nations that have or are attempting to develop Nuclear Weapons.

I suppose it is possible for someone to be so naive as to really believe that such a strategy is anything more than madness.

From the Chinese Xinhua News Agency

Brazilian president: only countries without nuclear weapons can criticize Iran

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Thursday that the countries which criticize Iran's nuclear program should get rid of their own nuclear weapons as well, according to news reaching here from Berlin.

In order to have the moral authority to criticize Iran, "It is important that those which have a (nuclear) arsenal let go of it, so that we will not have any more arguments," he said during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had said that negotiations with Iran were not progressing.

Lula, if the world was run only by Gandhi's, such a strategy might even work. Gandhi is dead. There was only one of him and he only had the success he had because the British did not have it in them to fight and kill several million Indians in order to maintain an expensive and unprofitable empire.

Either Lula is a fool of the first order or he is just bloviating out of his gaseous ass to make himself a figure on the world stage. Dangerous loons like Lula end up provoking wars that other people have to fight and die in.

If Lula is not willing to commit Brazilian troops to a land war in Iran, he should not be allowed anywhere near the discussions on Iran's Nuclear Weapons Program.

~

Hat tip to Correspondence Committee: C2 Saturday A.M. Bulldog Edition

Obama Manages To Blow It With France

Crispian Balmer of Reuters reports on Sarkozy's frustrations with the Obama Administration.

Stung by perceived snubs from U.S. President Barack Obama and encouraged by the growing importance of the G20, Sarkozy is increasingly reaching out to non-aligned states in an effort to extend France's international influence.

He has forged especially close ties with Brazil, is seeking alliances in central Asia and is intensifying his activities in the Middle East, using multi-billion dollar military and civilian nuclear trade deals as his calling card.

These initiatives are being played out against a discordant tone in Franco-American relations. This lack of harmony does not constitute a crisis, but is nonetheless raising eyebrows.

Nobody needs to root for Obama to fail. He is managing that very ably on his own.

Brazil's Olympic Drug Wars

It looks like Rio de Janeiro is on the brink of Marshal Law. Maybe things have calmed down for now, but this is not a good sign.

Rio de Janeiro has said no to an offer by the Brazilian federal government to send federal troops to police the city after Saturday's deadly confrontation between drug trafficking gangs and the military police that tried to intervene in the drug lords battle for better drug-selling spots in the Morro dos Macacos (Monkeys Hill) favela, in Vila Isabel, 6 miles from downtown Rio.

According to the authorities, the little war left 12 people dead, 10 criminals and two policemen. Saturday morning a police helicopter carrying four officers was shot by the drug dealers. The bullets hit the pilot's leg and the chopper propeller.

The pilot was able to land the helicopter in a soccer field from an Olympic Village nearby preventing a bigger tragedy had it crashed into a residential area. The chopper, however, caught fire and two of the military men were killed, the other two suffered minor burns.

The Olympics may prove to be very exciting.