Offshore Oil Drilling and the Oil Rig Disaster in the Gulf

[Bostech]

Don't worry,Obama said Gulf will be better then before oil spill...which reminds me of a joke in Bosnia,when Croat forces threatened to destroy 500 year old bridge "Don't worry we will build older one".
They did,brand spanking new..and older.Imagine how clean Gulf coast will be after Obama does his thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stari_Most

[Timkin]

I would like a breakdown of Mr. Obama's  Plan to make the Gulf better than it was before.

They (B.P.)  either cannot contain this , or they will not.  Whichever it is, to me this now requires assistance from anyone willing to help.  I do not see how anyone with reasonable intelligence cannot see this.

[Timkin]

Just in... U.S. scientists significantly boost their estimate of how much oil is leaking into Gulf

Government officials raise estimate of oil spewing from a well in the Gulf of Mexico to 35,000-60,000 barrels per day.

This would be a probably more accurate estimate.  Can you imagine the pressure that must be at the well head is this is even close?   

[JeffreyS]

Can you believe he is from Texas?  Did you catch Michelle Bachman (R) Minnesota on CNN telling BP not to be chumps and to stand up to the President?
I think it would have been better to tell BP to stop causing the deaths of their workers and not to set about on endeavors if you can not guaranty the endeavor's safety and control in case of accidents.  Does she really want to cry a river for for a company who when told you have to put up 20 billion dollars they can just casually say OK no problem?

[finehoe]

THE PARTY OF BP.... I haven't seen much in the way of polling on this, but I'd hazard a guess that BP isn't especially popular with Americans right now. The company's horrific safety record, its willingness to cut corners, its repeated falsehoods about the scope of the ongoing disaster, and its efforts to downplay the significance of the crisis have, I suspect, made BP rather villainous in the eyes of the public.

Common sense suggests politicians, especially in a competitive election year, would go out of their way to look "tough" against BP. No one wants to side with the foreign company responsible for the worst environmental disaster in American history.

No one, that is, except a surprising number of leading Republicans.

Rep. Joe Barton's (R-Texas) public apology to BP CEO Tony Hayward this morning looks like a potential game-changer, but let's not forget that there's a much larger push among Republicans to defend BP.

GOP officials: Barton's apology will likely be the most memorable moment of the dispute, but let's not forget that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) slammed the escrow fund to help victims of the spill as "a redistribution-of-wealth fund" that could serve as a "gateway" for "more money to government." Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) blasted the White House for securing the funds for Gulf Coast businesses and families, condemning the success as a "Chicago-style political shakedown." Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) disapproves of the escrow fund, and has said he's worried it will undermine BP profits too much. At one point, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) went so far as to suggest American taxpayers should help pay for the relief effort, though he later backpedaled.

GOP candidates: In Nevada, Senate candidate Sharron Angle has said the appropriate response to the disaster is further deregulation of the oil industry. In Kentucky, Senate candidate Rand Paul said it's "un-American" for the president to criticize BP.

GOP allies: A variety of Republican media personalities -- Limbaugh, Hannity, and Oliver North -- all read from identical talking points, calling the independently-operated escrow account "a slush fund." Dick Armey has blasted the fund, as has the Heritage Foundation.

What on earth is going on here?

I suspect there are two factors playing out.

The first is that Republicans probably feel like they don't have a choice, at least in a partisan sense. President Obama and Dems are going after BP -- demanding the $20 billion, lifting the liability cap, proposing tax hikes and new safeguards -- which means Republicans are necessarily inclined to move in the other direction. After all, whatever Democrats are for, Republicans are against, regardless or merit or circumstances.

As Kevin Drum noted, "Keep up the BP-bashing a little bit longer and eventually, just out of reflex, Fox News and the Republican Party will be calling for Obama to make payments to them."

The second is that BP is a giant, private oil company, and when it's under fire, the Republicans' knee-jerk response is to launch a defense. Even if BP is to blame -- even if BP is criminally responsible -- Republicans want to blame government, bureaucrats, and environmentalists. Holding a giant corporation accountable just makes the GOP uncomfortable.

In an election context, this has the potential to be incredibly toxic. Barton's public apology to BP will be part of about a zillion campaign ads over the next several months, and Republicans have made a huge strategic error positioning themselves as the Party of BP.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_06/024307.php

[Lunican]

Well, at least Sarah Palin is still a complete idiot...

http://embed.crooksandliars.com/v/MTcyMTUtMzc3ODM?color=173466

[hillary supporter]

Well the Republicans are back at it again, apologizing to BP for our dirty poor people and our ugly beaches getting in the way of their oil business.

Just unreal

[Timkin]

this is actually completely believable. Is this really any surprise?

[hillary supporter]

creepy!

[Timkin]

Well, at least Sarah Palin is still a complete idiot...

http://embed.crooksandliars.com/v/MTcyMTUtMzc3ODM?color=173466

Sarah Palin should be thanking God, that she is not President. She could not stop the gusher in the Gulf any more or any faster than Obama could, not that I am defending either person.

[hillary supporter]

Im sure this will get worse when Obama is re-elected in 2012

[stjr]

Well the Republicans are back at it again, apologizing to BP for our dirty poor people and our ugly beaches getting in the way of their oil business.

http://www.youtube.com/v/KO5yvdDrkv4

What puts out more brown goo than a BP oil spill?  Rep. Barton - castigated by his own party, and now claiming a poor choice of words, tries to take them all back. :

Representative Joe L. Barton on Thursday quickly backpedaled, and then recanted, the remarks he made about BP’s liability fund that had caused an immediate uproar from Democrats and Republicans  alike. At last count, Mr. Barton, Republican of Texas, retracted the apology he gave the energy giant during the House hearing earlier in the day, where he criticized the $20 billion fund created to help those affected by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

In a statement, Mr. Barton apologized “for using the term ‘shakedown’ with regard to yesterday’s actions at the White House in my opening statement this morning, and I retract my apology to BP. As I told my colleagues yesterday and said again this morning, BP should bear the full financial responsibility for the accident on their lease in the Gulf of Mexico.”

Mr. Barton’s party offered little support. During the scrum of afternoon activity, the top three Republicans in the House â€" John A. Boehner of Ohio, Eric Cantor of Virginia and Mike Pence of Indiana â€" released a statement bluntly saying that Mr. Barton’s “statements this morning were wrong,” adding that BP has acknowledged it is responsible for economic damages.

Before Mr. Barton’s apology, another Republican â€" Representative Jeff Miller, who represents a Florida Panhandle district â€" had called for Mr. Barton to step down as ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

In his own statement, Mr. Miller said he was “shocked” by Mr. Barton’s “reprehensible comments.”

“BP has caused the greatest ecological and environmental disaster our nation has ever seen,” Mr. Miller added.

White House officials and Congressional Democrats had criticized Mr. Barton’s statements almost immediately.

“This wasn’t a P.R. gaffe,” said Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff. “Joe Barton spoke from his heart. He believes BP is the wronged party.”

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said in a message on his Twitter account that if the Republicans took control of the House in November, they would put Mr. Barton in charge of energy policy.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California tried to broaden the focus beyond Mr. Barton, pointing out that another Republican, Representative Tom Price of Georgia, had said that the new $20 billion fund “suggests that the Obama administration is hard at work exerting its brand of Chicago-style shakedown politics.”

Mr. Barton is “not alone” among Republicans in his sympathy for BP, the speaker said.

Tony Hayward, the chief executive of BP, was testifying before a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee when Mr. Barton, the ranking member of the panel, made the explosive comments during his opening statement.

“I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday,” Mr Barton said, referring to President Obama’s announcement about the liability fund. “I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case, a $20 billion shakedown.”

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/barton-what-i-really-meant-to-say/?hp

[Bostech]

Sean Hannity also knows whos fault is for oil spill...all those enviromental groups forcing poor oil companies to drill in deeper waters.

I said it long time ago,Republicans represent pure evil.The yare terrorizing this country more then any Al Qaida ever will.

And can you imagine what kind of treatments people around world get,especially Iranians,from these oil companies and governments they are controling when they are treating Americans this way?
If Americans are small people imagine what they think of some Iraqi or Nigerian.They are disposable human slaves and their countries are dumpster for their toxic crap.

[Bostech]

And why is Oreilly calling her "governor"?
Shes unemployed.

[Timkin]

Good point....although I think shes making a pretty tidy income going around speaking ...

This whole oil spill issue has me overdosing on Pepto Bismol