06/23/2010
Michelle Malkin’s syndicated column Ken Salazar Gets a Kick in the You-Know-What covered the court order [PDF] voiding Obama’s hasty moratorium on offshore drilling, a decision reminiscent of what happened after Harry Truman’s nationalization, (by Executive Order) of the steel industry as a result of steelworkers strike during the Korean War.
No one in the MSM is worrying about Obama’s possible abuses of power, they're investigating the judge:
Martin Feldman, judge who overturned Obama Gulf drilling ban, had investments in oil: 2008 report By Sean AlfanoNew York Daily News, June 23rd 2010
The federal judge who overturned the Obama administration’s deepwater drilling ban in the Gulf of Mexico reportedly has extensive investments in the energy industry, financial disclosure reports reveal.
U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman owned roughly $15,000 in Transocean Ltd. stock in 2008.
Transocean owned the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded April 20, killing 11 workers and triggering the worst oil spill disaster in U.S. history, with as much as 127 million gallons of oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico.
Feldman’s other financial investments from the 2008 report include Halliburton, which was also involved with the Deepwater Horizon.[More]
I’m not an expert on what judges are supposed to recuse themselves, and neither is the author of that article. Possibly one of the other 553 articles along the same lines was written by a writer who knows what he’s talking about. Possibly not. And the investment report is from 2008.
But I doubt if there’s anyone with more than a hundred thousand dollars in the market who doesn’t have at least that much oil stock. Also, the ruling is not about Transwater, whose oil rig exploded, but all the others that didn’t.
And Obama and Salazar’s decision doesn’t just affect the oil industry — it affects everyone in the United States who uses oil, which is everyone. It also has a major financial impact on everyone in the Eastern District of Louisiana, which is where Judge Feldman’s court is located.
I'd say this is like complaining that the judges in Truman’s steel nationalization case should have recused themselves because they were riding around in steel cars, and living in steel-framed buildings. But it’s part of the Obama phenomenon that everyone who thwarts him in any way will be investigated.
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