Ken Cuccinelli made me proud of my first name; Ken Salazar has just ruined it.

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told a Senate hearing he would ask BP to repay the salaries of any workers laid off because of the six-month moratorium on deepwater exploratory drilling imposed by the U.S. government after the spill.

Make no doubt about it; this came from the top and is proof that Obama's end game is to seize BP - a clear demonstration of the "never let a crisis go to waste" principle.

Had the BP oil spill resulted in a situation where it was difficult or dangerous for the other wells to operate such that the oil companies had voluntarily shut down the wells, then it would be reasonable for BP to reimburse the companies and workers; but this was not the case. The Obama administration supposedly shut down the operations to figure out how to make rigs safer. However, the spill did not increase the need for rigs to be safer - rather, even using this line of argument, the spill merely demonstrated that there was a need for safer rigs. In other words, using Obama's logic, all of the rigs were unsafe even before the spill and (had the government been aware of the problem) the government would have imposed exactly the same moratorium even without the spill. Thus, it is ludicrous to suggest that BP should pay for the shutdown.

Of course, the Administration knows this; but it sees the opportunity to nationalize yet another company. This is exactly what Chavez has been doing (in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and currently) and it is an ominous sign for the US and for any US stock. Expect massive losses in the stock markets if the government is successful in this - even pursuing it will put a serious damper on any supposed recovery.