Obamalog: A Brief History of the

Obama Administration

WEEK SEVENTY-TWO

May 31, 2010

        In their last report before the U.N. Security Council votes on sanctions against Iran, international nuclear inspectors declared that Iran has produced a stockpile of nuclear fuel that experts say would be enough, with further enrichment, to make two nuclear weapons:

·                    The report, by the International Atomic Energy Agency, a branch of the U.N., appears likely to bolster the Obama administration’s case for a fourth round of economic sanctions against Iran and further diminish its interest in a deal, recently revived by Turkey and Brazil, in which Iran would send a portion of its nuclear stockpile out of the country.

June 1, 2010

1.     With the deepening crisis threatening to define President Obama’s second year in office, the Obama administration said that it had begun civil and criminal investigations into the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico:

·                    Attorney General Eric Holder said in New Orleans that he planned to “prosecute to the fullest extent of the law” any person or entity that the Justice Department determines has broken the law in connection with the oil spill, and shortly after Holder’s announcement, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 120 points as energy stocks tumbled on expectations of federal investigations—BP lost 15% of its market value during the day’s trade.

3.     The Supreme Court backed away from strict enforcement of the famous Miranda decision and its right to remain silent, ruling that a crime suspect’s words can be used against him if he fails to specifically tell the police that he does not want to talk:

a.     In the Court’s 5-4 decision, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court shifted the balance in favor of the police and against the suspect—joining Kennedy to form the majority were Chief Justice John Roberts and JusticesAntonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito;

b.     In her first strongly written dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayer said that the ruling “turns Miranda upside down” and “marks a substantial retreat from the protection against compelled self-incrimination”—joining her in dissent were Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and Stephen Breyer.

3.     The Justice Department is not prepared to ensure public safety in the aftermath of an attack using weapons of mass destruction, the agency’s inspector general said in the latest warning about U.S. government readiness for a terrorist event:

·                    In the event of an attack by nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, the Justice Department is supposed to coordinate federal law enforcement activities and take over if the incident overwhelms state and local police, the report says, but, according to a unidentified Justice Department office, “we are totally unprepared,”, and while the report praises the FBI for meeting planning requirements, it says that the department as a whole and its other component law enforcement agencies have not—that includes the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which is supposed to take the lead on public safety after an attack.

4.     A defense expert says that a problem that rendered as many as 10,000 U.S.military GPS receivers useless for days is a warning to safeguard a system that enemies would love to disrupt:

·                    The Air Force has not said how many weapons, planes, or other systems were affected or whether any were in use in Iraq or Afghanistan, but the problem, blamed on incompatible software, highlights the military’s reliance on the Global Positioning System and the need to protect technology that has become essential for protecting troops, tracking vehicles, and targeting weapons.

June 2, 2010

        The BP oil slick drifted perilously close to the Florida Panhandle’s famous sugar-white beaches as a risky gamble to contain the oil by shearing off the well pipe ran into trouble a mile under the sea when the diamond-tipped saw became stuck, and it took BP 12 hours to free it—the company said that preparations were being made to resume cutting but did not give a timetable on when that might start:

a.     If the strategy fails—like every other attempt to control the leak located 5,000 feet underwater—the best hope is probably a relief well, which is at least two months from completion;

b.     The president has placed a moratorium on new deepwater drilling projects, but federal regulators have approved the first new well in the Gulf of Mexico since he lifted a brief ban on drilling in shallow water—the Minerals Management Service granted a drilling permit sought by Bandon Oil and Gas for a site about 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana and 115 below the ocean’s surface.

June 3, 2010

1.     BP sliced off a pipe with giant shears in its latest bid to contain the worst spill inU.S. history, but Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said that the cut was jagged and placing a cap over the gusher will now be more challenging:

a.     Allen said that the cap was to be lowered and sealed over the next couple of hours, and it will not be known how much oil BP can siphon to a tanker on the surface until the cap is seated, but the irregular cut means it won’t seat as snugly as officials had hoped;

b.     The Minerals Management Service stopped issuing permits for new oil and gas drilling in the Gulf, even as an administration spokeswoman denied a formal freeze on drilling in shallow water—earlier in the day, according to a copy of an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press, a top official in the federal agency that oversees offshore drilling told a company seeking a permit that “until further notice,” no new drilling is being allowed in the Gulf, no matter the water depth.

2.     The EPA set a new health standard that coal-fired power plants and other industries will have to meet on sulfur dioxide, a pollutant that triggers asthma attacks and causes other respiratory problems:

·                    The EPA set the standard within a range that an industrial panel of scientists had suggested, and this makes the first time the standard has been changed since the original one was issued in 1971.

3.     Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that he does not think the European debt crisis will derail the U.S. economic recovery, and he praised the steps Europe is taking to deal with the crisis:

·                    Geithner said that because of the momentum the economy has built up during the past several months, the U.S. is in a strong position to weather the global turmoil caused by Europe’s debt problems.

June 4, 2010

1.     Tar balls crashed onto the white sands of the Florida Panhandle as BP engineers, trying to collect the crude now fouling four states, adjusted a sophisticated cap over the Gulf oil gusher:

·                    Even though the inverted funnel-like device was set over the leak late on June 3^rd, crude continued to spew into the sea in the nation’s worst oil spill, and BP engineers hoped to close several open vents on the cap throughout the day in their latest attempt to contain the oil.

2.     U.S. officials said that James Clapper, the Pentagon’s chief official for intelligence, counterintelligence, and security matters, has been chosen to become the next director of national intelligence, a position described by the White House as the second toughest in Washington—if confirmed, Clapper, a retired Air Force general, would replace Dennis Blair, who resigned last month:

·                    Created in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the national intelligence director coordinates 16 intelligence agencies and is supposed to smooth out areas of conflict, and he is also in charge of the president’s daily intelligence briefing.

3.     The U.S. Department of Energy said that Oregon will get $1 million in stimulus funds to train workers to weatherize homes, and the $1 million is part of $29 million awarded to help develop and increase availability of weatherization training—Oregon’s is the largest of 34 similar projects nationwide to receive recovery act funding:

·                    Gov. Ted Kulongoski said that the state’s goal is to make 5,000 homes more energy efficient, and about 1,200 have been weatherized so far—with $38.5 million already allocated from federal stimulus grants for weatherization, there are not enough trained workers to meet the demand.

4.     Stocks fell to their lowest level in four months after the government said that hiring remains weak, and another European country warned that its economy was in trouble:

·                    The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 323 points to close below 10,000—the lowest finish since February and the third-worst slide of the year.

5.     The government reported, in a disappointing employment report that fell short of Wall Street’s expectations, that employers had added only 41,000 private-sector jobs in May, sending stocks skidding and raising questions about the strength of the economic recovery:

·                    Mark Zandi, the chief economist for Moody Analytics, said, “only 41,000 private-sector jobs were created in May and close to 100,000 on average since job growth resumed at the start of the year, and the economy needs closer to 150,000 in monthly gains to stabilize the unemployment rate.”