Cartoon of the Day: Michelle Obama’s Valentine’s Day
Gift
February 14th, 2011

Ed Lasky
FOR THE past few weeks, a parallel plot line to the revolutions in the Arab
world has been playing out in the media. With rare exceptions, the largest
American cable and satellite providers simply do not provide viewers access to
Al Jazeera English, the cousin to the powerful Qatar-based world news network.
AJE has launched a full-fledged campaign – including advertisements quoting, of
all people, major US news figures – to convince cable carriers to open their
programming. But most have declined: Burlington, Vt., is the closest city to
Boston where viewers can see the network on television.
AJE’s battle with the cable carriers is major news in the Middle East. Not
carrying the network sends a message to the Arab world about America’s
willingness to accept information, unfiltered, from the very region we spend so
much time talking about. These television wars began not in Tunisia or Egypt,
but in Iraq.
We have enough terror apologists in the media already without an entire
station devoted to obscuring the truth being beamed into America’s
homes.
Ed Lasky
Seahawk Drilling Inc. said it has filed for bankruptcy protection and plans
to sell its fleet of offshore drilling rigs to a competitor for $105
million.
Seahawk, which announced the deal with Hercules Offshore Inc. Friday, has
been hurt by a slowdown in Gulf of Mexico drilling after the BP oil spill last
April. The government halted drilling in deep waters and imposed tough new rules
that have curtained all energy exploration in U.S. waters.
Employees will be let go; shareholders are suffering big losses as the stock
plunges. Gulf communities have already been stricken by big job losses and
declines in state tax revenues. We have become even more dangerously dependent
on overseas sources of crude and prices have skyrocketed as Obama turned the
handle to the off position when it comes to Gulf oil drilling.
There has been a lot of damage caused by Barack Obama’s policies and there
will be a lot more to come as long as he is in office.