How Is Obama Getting Blamed While The Party Of Drill Baby Drill Is Getting Off Free?

[gokira]

This is insane

[kestrel91316]

1. Because he's a Democrat. They are the root of all evil. Didn't you get the memo?

[tabatha]

2. This country is insane.

[LakeSamish706]

3. More like this world is insane actually! n/t

[gokira]

4. a cause

one word windfall profits tax in 2009, we liberals fought for that, but obama was against it, when you go against your base and try to muddy the waters you get stuck in mudd

[Phx_Dem]

37. +1, lead by an insane and inept media.

[Traveling_Home]

5. He won. He is our President. He is in charge. No whining! nt

[Jennicut]

6. Because then the media would have to acutally go back and look at how

W., Cheney and the rest really screwed up this country and we can't have that in the MSM, can we?

[flyarm]

7. MAYBE BECAUSE HE CHOSE TO BE PRESIDENT AND THEN MAYBE BECAUSE OF THESE REASONS?

Groups Challenge Continued Oil Operations in Gulf Excluded from New Moratorium http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/28/bp_oil_spill_conf...

BP Oil Spill Confirmed as Worst in US History; Environmental Groups Challenge Continued Oil Operations in Gulf Excluded from New Moratorium

Although President Obama has extended the moratorium on new deepwater drilling permits for six months and halted operations at thirty-three deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico, some oil rigs are continuing their operations. The Center for Biological Diversity has filed a lawsuit to halt forty-nine offshore drilling plans in the Gulf of Mexico that were approved without full environmental review. Meanwhile, the group Food & Water Watch is leading an effort to shut down the Atlantis, another BP oil rig in the Gulf. The group warns an oil spill from the Atlantis could be many times larger than the current spill and even harder to stop.

watch/listen/read

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8455172

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


Since spill, feds have given 27 waivers to oil companies in gulf
Source: McClatchy

Since spill, feds have given 27 waivers to oil companies in gulf

By Marisa Taylor | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Since the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig exploded April 20, the Obama administration has granted oil and gas companies at least 27 exemptions from doing in-depth environmental studies of oil exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico.

The waivers were granted despite President Barack Obama's vow that his administration would launch a "relentless response effort" to stop the leak and prevent more damage to the gulf. One of them was dated Friday — the day after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he was temporarily halting offshore drilling.

The exemptions, known as "categorical exclusions," were granted by the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, or MMS, and included waiving detailed environmental studies for a British Petroleum exploration plan to be conducted at a depth of more than 4,000 feet and an Anadarko Petroleum Corp. exploration plan at more 9,000 feet.

"Is there a moratorium on offshore drilling or not?" asked Peter Galvin, the conservation director at the Center for Biological Diversity, the environmental group that discovered the administration's continued approval of the exemptions. "Possibly the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history has occurred, and nothing appears to have changed."

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/07/9376...



xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx from my journal previously posted

ahhh the strange bedfellows.....remember Dashle who pushed Obama during our primaries..and was one of his top advisors...........working with Whitman..the lady who lied about the air quality at Ground zero in NY?? Can i tickle your memory..she lied and people died and keep dying!! And that is just one example..

Spill, Baby, Spill
By Michael Isikoff, Ian Yarett and Matthew Philips | NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated May 10, 2010

BP has been trying hard to burnish its public image in recent years after being hit with a pair of environmental disasters, including a fatal refinery explosion in Texas and a pipeline leak in Alaska. One major step was to announce, in 2007, that it had hired a high-powered advisory board that included former EPA director Christine Todd Whitman, former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, and Leon Panetta, who were each paid $120,000 a year. (Panetta left when he became President Obama's CIA director.) Two years ago the oil giant's chief executive, Robert Malone, flew board members out to the Gulf of Mexico on a helicopter to demonstrate the safeguards surrounding BP's advanced drilling technology. "We got a sense they were really committed to ensuring they got it right," Whitman told NEWSWEEK.

Now BP, formerly known as British Petroleum, finds itself blamed for what could prove to be the worst oil spill in U.S. history. And only weeks after Obama announced an ambitious plan to open up more U.S. offshore waters to oil drilling, shunting aside environmental concerns from his own Democratic Party, his administration is facing a comeuppance from hell. "There was a lot of wishful thinking, I guess," says Villy Kourafalou, a scientist at the University of Miami's Rosensteil School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. "The new technologies were said to be so wonderful that we'd never have an oil spill again." Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), who had sought to block the expanded drilling, says the oil and gas industry was pushing this idea hard. "They said, 'We'll never have a repeat of Santa Barbara,'?" referring to the 1969 rig explosion off the California coast. Both the Bush and Obama administrations "were buying the line that the technology was fine," Pallone adds.

BP pressed hard to make that point in D.C. Its PR efforts included payments of $16 million last year to a battery of Washington lobbyists, among them the firm of Tony Podesta, the brother of former Obama transition chief John Podesta. Last fall, after the U.S. Interior Department proposed tighter federal regulation of oil companies' environmental programs, David Rainey, BP's vice president for Gulf of Mexico exploration, told Congress that the proposal was unnecessary. "I think we need to remember," he said, that offshore drilling "has been going on for the last 50 years, and it has been going on in a way that is both safe and protective of the environment."

Read the full article at:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/237298

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

and never forget this..we Floridans won't!!!


YouTube - Barack Obama on Offshore Oil Drilling ( to Florida voters while asking for their votes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8fkbEuCQss ...


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Obama: “Oil Rigs Today Generally Don’t Cause Spills”


Obama Repeats Katrina Oil Spill Myth To Defend Offshore Drilling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm8gLmuTvJ4 ... ...


By: David Dayen Thursday April 29, 2010 1:42 pm

snip:

What a difference 18 days makes. Here was Barack Obama, on April 2, before the BP oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, claiming that oil rigs are safe to justify his position on offshore drilling:

I don’t agree with the notion that we shouldn’t do anything. It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced. Even during Katrina, the spills didn’t come from the oil rigs, they came from the refineries onshore.

Not only does this quote look ridiculous in hindsight, it wasn’t true at the time, as Brad Johnson points out:

Obama’s claim that oil rigs did not cause any spills during Hurricane Katrina is simply false, as the Wonk Room reported in June, 2008, when Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and other conservatives made the same false claim:

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Caused 124 Offshore Spills For A Total Of 743,700 Gallons. 554,400 gallons were crude oil and condensate from platforms, rigs and pipelines, and 189,000 gallons were refined products from platforms and rigs.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Caused Six Offshore Spills Of 42,000 Gallons Or Greater. The largest of these was 152,250 gallons, well over the 100,000 gallon threshhold considered a “major spill.”

http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/04/29/oba ... ... ’t-cause-spills/


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Government to Oil Plume Discovery Team: Shut Up

Posted by flyarm in General Discussion
Tue May 18th 2010, 02:38 PM
Government to Oil Plume Discovery Team: Shut Up | The Seminal

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/48816 ...

Government to Oil Plume Discovery Team: Shut Up
By: Jim White Tuesday May 18, 2010 6:06 am


The research vessel Pelican. (photo: Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium)

On Saturday, the New York Times brought the world’s attention to the discovery by a team of researchers on the the vessel Pelican that there are large underwater plumes of oil emanating from the Deepwater Horizon spill. Remarkably, the response of the government to the attention focused on this discovery has been to tell the researchers to stop granting interviews with the press. At the same time, the blog on which the researchers had been providing updates has also fallen silent since Saturday.

Pensacola television station WEAR filed a report (video at the link) on the oil plume and broke the news about the scientists being muzzled by the government:

Over the weekend, a research crew from the University of Southern Mississippi found evidence that there are 3 to 5 plumes… About 5 miles wide, 10 miles long and 3 hundred feet in depth.

But after giving that information to the press, the lead researcher now says he has been asked by the federal government… Which funds his research… To quit giving interviews until further testing is done.

What an interesting change of course for the government. Even the government’s website on the Deepwater Horizon response had been touting the mission of the Pelican as recently as May 6:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu... ...

Thanks to Chill_ Wind for posting.............

Wackenhut in the Gulf guarding BP & US 'Command ' Center - (The Nation, Jeremy Scahill, 5/29)

Edited on Sat May-29-10 09:54 PM by chill_wind


BP and US Government 'Command Center' Guarded by Company From Afghan Embassy Hazing Scandal
Jeremy Scahill

I just got off the phone with my friends Naomi Klein, author of "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," and her husband Avi Lewis, host of al Jazeera English's popular program Fault Lines. They are traveling around the devastated US Gulf reporting on the horrific disaster caused by BP's massive oil spill. They described to me a run in that they just had with the private security company Wackenhut, which apparently has been hired to do the perimeter security for the "Deepwater Horizon Unified Command." The "Unified Command" is run jointly by BP and several US government agencies including the US Coast Guard, the Department of Defense, the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security.



Wackenhut, of course, is the notorious private security company that operates in the US and around the globe. It recently became part of the huge British mercenary network G4S. Most recently, Wackenhut gained global infamy for the conduct of guards from its subsidiary Armor Group after it was revealed by whistleblowers that the company created a "Lord of the Flies environment" at the embassy "in which guards and supervisors are 'peeing on people, eating potato chips out of cracks, vodka shots out of cracks... brawls, threats and intimidation from those leaders participating in this activity." According to the Project on Government Oversight, "Multiple guards say this deviant hazing has created a climate of fear and coercion, with those who declined to participate often ridiculed, humiliated, demoted, or even fired. The result is an environment that is dangerous and volatile. Some guards have reported barricading themselves in their rooms for fear that those carrying out the hazing will harm them physically."

In other words, Wackenhut is the perfect choice to "guard" the joint BP-US government-US military operation in the Gulf.

Lewis told me that for two weeks his crew has attempted to interview officials from the Unified Command's Joint Information Center. "We had been shut down or dodged for 2 weeks of official requests," he said. Finally, Lewis and Klein, who is on assignment for The Guardian, decided to go to the information center in person "to try to nail something down."




the rest: http://www.thenation.com/blog/bp-and-us-go... ...

" It is completely sci-fi. It's a corporate state." -- from the article
Klein, who spent extensive time in New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina documenting the widespread disaster profiteering and privatization that endures to this day said the fact that Wackenhut is guarding a joint operation of the US government and BP is not surprising given what is happening in the Gulf right now. "The whole Gulf Coast is a corporate oil state," she told me. "It's like BP broke it, so now they own the entire Gulf Coast." She added: "We might accept the premise that BP is best positionioned to know how to fix the blow up at 5,000 feet, but that also seems to mean they think they should control media access and the entire clean up of a massive national emergency. BP is in charge of everything. We were on the water in open seas the day before the Wackenhut incident and a boat pulls up next to us and asked if we worked for BP and we said, "No," and they said, 'You can't be here.'" It is completely sci-fi. It's a corporate state."

[Dr.Phool]

27. And today BP CEO says "There are no oil plumes."

You gonna believe me or those pointy headed scientists and environmental wackos?
------------------------------------------------------


BP CEO disputes claims of underwater oil plumes

(AP) – 16 hours ago

VENICE, La. — Disputing scientists' claims of large oil plumes suspended underwater in the Gulf of Mexico, BP PLC's chief executive on Sunday said the company has largely narrowed the focus of its cleanup to surface slicks rolling into Louisiana's coastal marshes.

During a tour of a BP PLC staging area for cleanup workers, CEO Tony Hayward said the company's sampling showed "no evidence" that oil was suspended in large masses beneath the surface. He didn't elaborate on how the testing was done.

Hayward said that oil's natural tendency is to rise to the surface, and any oil found underwater was in the process of working its way up.

"The oil is on the surface," Hayward said. "There aren't any plumes."

Scientists from several universities have reported plumes of what appears to be oil far from the site of BP's leaking wellhead, which is more than 5,000 beneath the surface.

Those findings — from the University of South Florida, the University of Georgia, Southern Mississippi University and other institutions — were based on video images and initial observations of water samples taken in the Gulf over the last several weeks. They continue to be analyzed.

One researcher said Sunday that their findings are bolstered by the fact that scientists from different institutions have come to similar conclusions after doing separate testing.

"There's been enough evidence from enough different sources," said marine scientist James Cowan of Louisiana State University, who reported finding a plume last of oil last week about 50 miles from the spill site. Cowan said oil reached to depths of at least 400 feet.

An even larger plume — 22 miles long, six miles wide and more than a thousand feet deep — was reported by the University of South Florida.

"We stand behind it," said William Hogarth, dean of the school's College of Marine Science. Hogarth, the former head of the National Marine Fisheries Service, said laboratory results are due this week.

A third scientist, LSU chemist Ed Overton, said simple physics sides with BP's Hayward. Since oil is lighter than water, Overton said it is unlikely to stay below the surface for long.

But Hogarth and Cowan said BP's use of chemical dispersants to break up the oil before it reaches the surface could reduce its buoyancy, keeping it in deeper water.

An estimated 18 to 40 million gallons of oil have been unleashed since BP's Deepwater Horizon platform exploded and sank last month, killing 11. With the undersea leak now expected to continue spewing oil until August, Hayward said the cleanup effort could last for months or even years.

The embattled CEO spent only a few minutes on the subject of plumes on Sunday, concentrating instead on outlining his company's cleanup efforts.

"The fight on this battlefield today is in Louisiana," he said.

Calls to BP seeking more information on how they tested for the underwater plumes weren't immediately returned.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[jonnyblitz]

8. because the party of drill baby drill isn't running the country,

Obama is.

[msongs]

9. thank gosh obama didnt authorize anymore off shore drilling since he took office lololol nt

[flyarm]

12. and good thing Obama didn't give more waviers to BP and the oil companies since the GULF gusher

Since spill, feds have given 27 waivers to oil companies in gulf
Source: McClatchy

Since spill, feds have given 27 waivers to oil companies in gulf

By Marisa Taylor | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Since the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig exploded April 20, the Obama administration has granted oil and gas companies at least 27 exemptions from doing in-depth environmental studies of oil exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico.

The waivers were granted despite President Barack Obama's vow that his administration would launch a "relentless response effort" to stop the leak and prevent more damage to the gulf. One of them was dated Friday — the day after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he was temporarily halting offshore drilling.

The exemptions, known as "categorical exclusions," were granted by the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, or MMS, and included waiving detailed environmental studies for a British Petroleum exploration plan to be conducted at a depth of more than 4,000 feet and an Anadarko Petroleum Corp. exploration plan at more 9,000 feet.

"Is there a moratorium on offshore drilling or not?" asked Peter Galvin, the conservation director at the Center for Biological Diversity, the environmental group that discovered the administration's continued approval of the exemptions. "Possibly the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history has occurred, and nothing appears to have changed."

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/07/93761/despite-spill-feds-still-giving.html

[ProSense]

14. Yeah, had he not made his energy policy announcement a couple of months earlier

this accident would never have happened.

I suppose the media pundits think that's sound logic.

[flyarm]

15. just a quick look at his advisors and appointments of people will easily show you who Obama supports

nd it sure as fuck is not we the people! Or our eco system or environment!

and you damn well know that!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

from my journal previously posted

ahhh the strange bedfellows.....remember Dashle who pushed Obama during our primaries..and was one of his top advisors...........working with Whitman..the lady who lied about the air quality at Ground zero in NY?? Can i tickle your memory..she lied and people died and keep dying!! And that is just one example..

Spill, Baby, Spill
By Michael Isikoff, Ian Yarett and Matthew Philips | NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated May 10, 2010

BP has been trying hard to burnish its public image in recent years after being hit with a pair of environmental disasters, including a fatal refinery explosion in Texas and a pipeline leak in Alaska. One major step was to announce, in 2007, that it had hired a high-powered advisory board that included former EPA director Christine Todd Whitman, former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, and Leon Panetta, who were each paid $120,000 a year. (Panetta left when he became President Obama's CIA director.) Two years ago the oil giant's chief executive, Robert Malone, flew board members out to the Gulf of Mexico on a helicopter to demonstrate the safeguards surrounding BP's advanced drilling technology. "We got a sense they were really committed to ensuring they got it right," Whitman told NEWSWEEK.

Now BP, formerly known as British Petroleum, finds itself blamed for what could prove to be the worst oil spill in U.S. history. And only weeks after Obama announced an ambitious plan to open up more U.S. offshore waters to oil drilling, shunting aside environmental concerns from his own Democratic Party, his administration is facing a comeuppance from hell. "There was a lot of wishful thinking, I guess," says Villy Kourafalou, a scientist at the University of Miami's Rosensteil School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. "The new technologies were said to be so wonderful that we'd never have an oil spill again." Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), who had sought to block the expanded drilling, says the oil and gas industry was pushing this idea hard. "They said, 'We'll never have a repeat of Santa Barbara,'?" referring to the 1969 rig explosion off the California coast. Both the Bush and Obama administrations "were buying the line that the technology was fine," Pallone adds.

BP pressed hard to make that point in D.C. Its PR efforts included payments of $16 million last year to a battery of Washington lobbyists, among them the firm of Tony Podesta, the brother of former Obama transition chief John Podesta. Last fall, after the U.S. Interior Department proposed tighter federal regulation of oil companies' environmental programs, David Rainey, BP's vice president for Gulf of Mexico exploration, told Congress that the proposal was unnecessary. "I think we need to remember," he said, that offshore drilling "has been going on for the last 50 years, and it has been going on in a way that is both safe and protective of the environment."

Read the full article at:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/237298

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

and never forget this..we Floridans won't!!!


YouTube - Barack Obama on Offshore Oil Drilling ( to Florida voters while asking for their votes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8fkbEuCQss ...


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Obama: “Oil Rigs Today Generally Don’t Cause Spills”


Obama Repeats Katrina Oil Spill Myth To Defend Offshore Drilling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm8gLmuTvJ4 ... ...


By: David Dayen Thursday April 29, 2010 1:42 pm

snip:

What a difference 18 days makes. Here was Barack Obama, on April 2, before the BP oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, claiming that oil rigs are safe to justify his position on offshore drilling:

I don’t agree with the notion that we shouldn’t do anything. It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced. Even during Katrina, the spills didn’t come from the oil rigs, they came from the refineries onshore.

Not only does this quote look ridiculous in hindsight, it wasn’t true at the time, as Brad Johnson points out:

Obama’s claim that oil rigs did not cause any spills during Hurricane Katrina is simply false, as the Wonk Room reported in June, 2008, when Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and other conservatives made the same false claim:

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Caused 124 Offshore Spills For A Total Of 743,700 Gallons. 554,400 gallons were crude oil and condensate from platforms, rigs and pipelines, and 189,000 gallons were refined products from platforms and rigs.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Caused Six Offshore Spills Of 42,000 Gallons Or Greater. The largest of these was 152,250 gallons, well over the 100,000 gallon threshhold considered a “major spill.”

http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/04/29/oba ... ... ’t-cause-spills/


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Government to Oil Plume Discovery Team: Shut Up

Posted by flyarm in General Discussion
Tue May 18th 2010, 02:38 PM
Government to Oil Plume Discovery Team: Shut Up | The Seminal

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/48816 ...

Government to Oil Plume Discovery Team: Shut Up
By: Jim White Tuesday May 18, 2010 6:06 am


The research vessel Pelican. (photo: Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium)

On Saturday, the New York Times brought the world’s attention to the discovery by a team of researchers on the the vessel Pelican that there are large underwater plumes of oil emanating from the Deepwater Horizon spill. Remarkably, the response of the government to the attention focused on this discovery has been to tell the researchers to stop granting interviews with the press. At the same time, the blog on which the researchers had been providing updates has also fallen silent since Saturday.

Pensacola television station WEAR filed a report (video at the link) on the oil plume and broke the news about the scientists being muzzled by the government:

Over the weekend, a research crew from the University of Southern Mississippi found evidence that there are 3 to 5 plumes… About 5 miles wide, 10 miles long and 3 hundred feet in depth.

But after giving that information to the press, the lead researcher now says he has been asked by the federal government… Which funds his research… To quit giving interviews until further testing is done.

What an interesting change of course for the government. Even the government’s website on the Deepwater Horizon response had been touting the mission of the Pelican as recently as May 6:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu... ...

Thanks to Chill_ Wind for posting.............

Wackenhut in the Gulf guarding BP & US 'Command ' Center - (The Nation, Jeremy Scahill, 5/29)

Edited on Sat May-29-10 09:54 PM by chill_wind


BP and US Government 'Command Center' Guarded by Company From Afghan Embassy Hazing Scandal
Jeremy Scahill

I just got off the phone with my friends Naomi Klein, author of "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," and her husband Avi Lewis, host of al Jazeera English's popular program Fault Lines. They are traveling around the devastated US Gulf reporting on the horrific disaster caused by BP's massive oil spill. They described to me a run in that they just had with the private security company Wackenhut, which apparently has been hired to do the perimeter security for the "Deepwater Horizon Unified Command." The "Unified Command" is run jointly by BP and several US government agencies including the US Coast Guard, the Department of Defense, the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security.



Wackenhut, of course, is the notorious private security company that operates in the US and around the globe. It recently became part of the huge British mercenary network G4S. Most recently, Wackenhut gained global infamy for the conduct of guards from its subsidiary Armor Group after it was revealed by whistleblowers that the company created a "Lord of the Flies environment" at the embassy "in which guards and supervisors are 'peeing on people, eating potato chips out of cracks, vodka shots out of cracks... brawls, threats and intimidation from those leaders participating in this activity." According to the Project on Government Oversight, "Multiple guards say this deviant hazing has created a climate of fear and coercion, with those who declined to participate often ridiculed, humiliated, demoted, or even fired. The result is an environment that is dangerous and volatile. Some guards have reported barricading themselves in their rooms for fear that those carrying out the hazing will harm them physically."

In other words, Wackenhut is the perfect choice to "guard" the joint BP-US government-US military operation in the Gulf.

Lewis told me that for two weeks his crew has attempted to interview officials from the Unified Command's Joint Information Center. "We had been shut down or dodged for 2 weeks of official requests," he said. Finally, Lewis and Klein, who is on assignment for The Guardian, decided to go to the information center in person "to try to nail something down."




the rest: http://www.thenation.com/blog/bp-and-us-go... ...

" It is completely sci-fi. It's a corporate state." -- from the article
Klein, who spent extensive time in New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina documenting the widespread disaster profiteering and privatization that endures to this day said the fact that Wackenhut is guarding a joint operation of the US government and BP is not surprising given what is happening in the Gulf right now. "The whole Gulf Coast is a corporate oil state," she told me. "It's like BP broke it, so now they own the entire Gulf Coast." She added: "We might accept the premise that BP is best positionioned to know how to fix the blow up at 5,000 feet, but that also seems to mean they think they should control media access and the entire clean up of a massive national emergency. BP is in charge of everything. We were on the water in open seas the day before the Wackenhut incident and a boat pulls up next to us and asked if we worked for BP and we said, "No," and they said, 'You can't be here.'" It is completely sci-fi. It's a corporate state."

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[muffin1]

46. +1,000,000 n/t

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Dr.Phool]

28. We're getting DLC'ed to death down here!

[flyarm]

31. yes while our gulf coast and gulf is being destroyed by those who greased their pockets

with the oil boys money from both political parties!

while we catalog dead birds and marine life ........and our eco system dies.

But they can try as hard as they might..I will not shut up..nor should any of us!

This is a catastrophe of epic proportions! No one's hands in our government are clean! To think so or pretend so is not only being a fool but is being treasonous to our nation and future generations!

We on the Gulf Coast know only too well how the DLC is working this and the propaganda they try to dish out!

And we know their fucking games!..disgusting games ..the games that cause the murder of the Gulf of Mexico and all that live in it!..after all, they are our neighbors that so graciously have let us enjoy their homes!

My heart breaks for all the dolphin i have so enjoyed watching daily...and swam among...and the Manatee and the fish that jump with abandon.. and the birds that sit next to me on the beach, that I now have cataloged their death..

stuff it DLC...your shit doesn't wash clean, anymore than the dead birds on our beaches!

[Name removed]

13. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[GoCubsGo]

18. They may not run the country, but...

...they DO own the vast majority of the Mainstream Media. Therefore, THEY pretty much control the message, not President Obama.

[indepat]

11. It happened on BHO's watch, just like 9-11 happened on WJC's watch?

:shrug:

Edited for spelling and to add ?

[Lorien]

17. Who said the repugs WEREN'T getting blamed? There's been loads of articles here

making it very clear that Cheney's deregulation blitz lead to this disaster. The problem though is that pointing fingers won't stop the gusher or clean up the mess. Neither will any other political games. As the commander in chief, Obama is responsible for making decisions about America's safety and well being today. Now. Not in 2007. Leaving BP in charge is obviously not making us safer. That's what he is "getting blamed for", he's not getting blamed for the disaster itself which falls directly on the shoulders of BushCo.

[flyarm]

19. +1.. but that makes too much sense!! Yes there are many many posts showing the blame is spread wide!

and to those responsible before , during and after ........this catastrophe!

[ProSense]

20. These

people

[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Bitwit1234]

21. Well he is being blamed

because the US didn't have equipment and a plan in effect to handle oil spills. What else can they blame him for. A lighting strike to the Washington Memorial because the rods were tough enough. I think this is absolute the child est minds of these republicans and tea bags. They think like the 8 year old bullies on the school ground.

It's your fault because your face got in the way of my fist.

[jenmito]

22. I'd like to know how Bobby Jindal is still being portrayed as doing a great job when in reality

he has been holding back $22 million out of the $25 million BP gave him to spread out to the parishes which need help, not to mention supplies he's not dispersing...

[flyarm]

23. He is not getting good response here at DU..nor should he! I have seen many many posts about what

you just posted..many many!!

Perhaps you missed them?

[jenmito]

24. I'm talking about in the MEDIA-not HERE. They're still treating Jindal as a hero who's on the case

even while people in his own state are criticizing him. See here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=321627&mesg_id=321627

[flyarm]

26. sorry you did not make that clear! here he is getting eviscerated! n/t

[jenmito]

29. I doubt Jindal's image is being hurt by evisceration by people on DU. We need

the MEDIA to start exposing his inept response.

[flyarm]

30. yes indeed , but don't hold your breath..many of us on the Gulf coast are now seeing stories that

were in our local media over a month ago!! Just now!!

And when we were reporting such stories here we were called liars and worse!

And the paid DLC'ers were sent to attack us like pit bulls ..to slow or stop the flow of info!


just where is our government on this shit???????




Deepwater Horizon survivors allege they were kept in seclusion after rig explosion, coerced into signing legal waivers

According to two surviving crew members of the Deepwater Horizon, oil workers from the rig were held in seclusion on the open water for up to two days after the April 20 explosion, while attorneys attempted to convince them to sign legal documents stating that they were unharmed by the incident. The men claim that they were forbidden from having any contact with concerned loved ones during that time, and were told they would not be able to go home until they signed the documents they were presented with.
Stephen Davis, a seven-year veteran of drilling-rig work from San Antonio, told The Guardian's Suzanne Goldenberg today that he was held on a boat for 36 to 40 hours after diving into the Gulf from the burning rig and swimming to safety. Once on a crew boat, Davis said, he and the others were denied access to satellite phones or radio to get in touch with their families, many of whom were frantic to find out whether or not they were OK.
Davis' attorney told Goldenberg that while on the boat, his client and the others were told to sign the statements presented to them by attorneys for Transocean — the firm that owned the Deepwater Horizon — or they wouldn't be allowed to go home. After being awake for 50 harrowing hours, Davis caved and signed the papers. He said most of the others did as well.
Davis' story seems to be backed up by a similar account given to NPRby another Deepwater Horizon crewmember earlier in the month. Christopher Choy, a roustabout on the rig, said that the lawyers gathered the survivors in the galley of a boat and said, "'You need to sign these. Nobody's getting off here until we get one from everybody.' ... At the bottom, it said something about, like, you know, this can be used as evidence in court and all that. I told them, 'I'm not signing it.' "
Choy said that once he was finally allowed to get off the boat, he was shuttled to a hotel, where he met up with his wife. At the hotel, representatives from Transocean confronted him again and badgered him to sign the statement. Exhausted, traumatized and desperate to go home, Choy said that he finally relented and signed.
Choy's lawyer, Steve Gordon, is incensed over what transpired in the hours after the explosion. He, along with other attorneys for Deepwater Horizon workers, is trying to get the documents voided by the courts.
"It's absurd. It's unacceptable, and it's irresponsible," Gordon told NPR.
— Brett Michael Dykes is a national affairs writer for Yahoo! News.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100521/sc_ynews/ynews_sc2191

[HughMoran]

25. Because that's what Democrats do

By taking responsibility, they often let their moronic detractors off the hook. Sometimes being a Democrat sucks.

[FrenchieCat]

33. Because the Left spent the entire weekend before last blaming the President,

and then the Media took its cue, and ran with it.

[Name removed]

34. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JoeyT]

43. You mean the same way the left were attacked non-stop by

people here when they started screaming about the President deciding offshore drilling was a good thing?
The timing of which was godawful and probably why he's catching a bit of the blame.

Weird how the left were just being hyperbolic alarmists over the whole drilling thing, right up until what they were predicting actually happened.

[FrenchieCat]

45. Politics is the art of the possible.......

His choice was to either compromise or not get shit done.

His timing was off certainly, but his intentions were based on
doing something as opposed to doing nothing.

Obama’s position nearly 2 years ago.....

Sun August 3, 2008

Obama said Friday that he would be willing to compromise on his position against offshore oil drilling if it were part of a more overarching strategy to lower energy costs.

"My interest is in making sure we've got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices," Obama told The Palm Beach Post early into a two-day swing through Florida.

But on Saturday morning, Obama said this "wasn't really a new position."

"I made a general point about the fact that we need to provide the American people some relief and that there has been constructive conversations between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate on this issue," he said during a press conference in Cape Canaveral.

"What I will not do, and this has always been my position, is to support a plan that suggests this drilling is the answer to our energy problems," Obama added.

"If we've got a plan on the table that I think meets the goals that America has to set and there are some things in there that I don't like, then obviously that's something that I would consider because that's the nature of how we govern in a democracy."
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/02/campaign.wrap/

So Obama’s announcement on 3/31/10 wasn’t a surprise, he was just trying to get his
energy bill through.

Obama's drilling decision seen as compromise
Posted: 04/01/2010 01:00:00 AM MDT

It was a compromise governed by the tough choices the country now faces, Obama said, and he urged both sides in an entrenched debate to give a little.

"This is not a decision that I've made lightly," Obama said, with an experimental jetfighter that flies on biofuels serving as a backdrop to the announcement at nearby Andrews Air Force Base.

Although the question of offshore drilling had been under study for nearly a year, according to Salazar, the particular timing signaled a quick pivot from the administration's win on health care to the looming debate over climate-change legislation.
....
Experts said the administration may believe that concessions on offshore drilling would be attractive to key senators, including Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

But Obama also appeared to set up a larger argument the administration will make as it pushes for sweeping legislation that would rewire the way the country produces and consumes energy: Democrats are willing to give on nuclear power and drilling if Republicans are willing to accept limits to carbon emissions.
....
That drilling moratorium had been lifted by President George W. Bush in 2007, but Salazar put Republican plans to allow offshore drilling on hold pending further review.
http://www.denverpost.com/frontpage/ci_14797310

Some didn't even think Obama's drilling plan was a plan for drilling at all!

“Obama’s False Promise on Offshore Drilling”
Steve Everly, American Solutions:


More than a year into his presidency and after imposing numerous delays on American energy production, President Obama announced today that he would open up portions of the Outer Continental Shelf to offshore drilling.

But the plan is defined more by what it restricts than what it opens up. The Obama administration chose to take off the table large portions of the OCS in an announcement that was supposed to be about expanding American energy.

The announcement signifies:

* No drilling in the Pacific Ocean.
* No drilling in a large portion of the Atlantic Ocean.
* No drilling in some of the most promising areas of the Gulf of Mexico.
* No drilling in much of Alaska.

While opening up any portion of the OCS for responsible energy development appears to be a great step forward, the truth is that none of this has been finalized, and most new drilling will not occur until after 2012 at the earliest.

The offering also comes with a hefty price: President Obama wants to force Americans to swallow a massive new energy tax before any state will reap the benefits from this new offshore drilling. The bill Mr. Obama urged Congress to pass last summer, the Waxman-Markey energy tax, would eviscerate the economy, killing more than one million jobs per year while raising the cost of energy for all Americans.

If an energy tax passes Congress this year, the negative impact on the economy will happen long before the first oil comes from these new offshore leases.

In addition, the multitude of steps to be taken before any of these lease sales are made after 2012 are still a work in progress. Each offshore tract that the administration proposes will no doubt fall victim to an array of court challenges and bureaucratic hangups, each of which will push back new offshore drilling even further.

Instead of following the will of the people and moving forward immediately with offshore drilling, the President is asking us to trust him to proceed in the future, kicking the can of energy independence years down the road. Recall that during the 2008 campaign then-Senator Obama affirmed his support for offshore drilling, only to take office and implement a series of delays and roadblocks to responsible oil and gas development.

According to a study by the American Energy Alliance, offshore drilling has the potential to create millions of new American jobs and could provide more than $2 trillion in new government revenue at the local, state, and federal level.

By delaying offshore drilling for at least another two years, the President’s decision does nothing to allow us to begin reaping those benefits. Mr. Obama’s insistence on imposing a new tax on American energy also hamstrings any future job creation or new drilling revenues.
http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=17617

You may not have agreed with Obama's compromise in order to get what was needed,
but that it still is what it was....

[Redstate Blueboy]

35. That's a good point!

I always get a hoot when I see a R talking about Obama's "slow" response!

[rocktivity]

36. It's the party of Drill Baby Drill that's DOING the blamining

and the so-called liberal media are enabling them.

:headbang:
rocktivity

[treestar]

38. They own the major media

It always carries water for them.

[Synicus Maximus]

39. Could it be because Obama indorced offshore drilling on March

31?
Today President Obama announces a vast increase in offshore oil drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf. Much of the East Coast from Delaware to Florida is now open for new oil and natural gas drilling. Within 2 years drilling off Virginia may begin.

The Obama Plan allows exploration in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico more than 125 miles from the Florida shore. After environmental assessments vast parts of the Alaskan Chuckchi and Beaufort Seas in the Arctic Ocean is allowed.

[boppers]

40. *endorsed?

[depakid]

41. Ratified would be the better term

[jeanpalmer]

42. Because he's the President

and is being blamed for the inadequate response. Bush didn't cause Katrina, but was blamed for the inadequate response.

Also, his pro-offshore drilling policy is the same as theirs. But he's the only one with an official proposal on the table to open up more areas to offshore drilling. If he had proposed a moratorium on offshore drilling, instead of being blamed he could say "I told you so." He turned himself into a target.

[hulka38]

44. I blame anyone who wanted to expand drilling

which would be the GOP, the DLC and any other Dem heavily influenced by big energy like Obama.