Democrat Honesty and the BP Oil Spill

Renewable energy is a nice goal but it is not going to get us to where we need to be anytime soon. We need bridge fuels. We could almost overnight signficantly reduce our carbon footprint and save a billion dollars a day in imports(reduce trade deficit), and employ millions of individuals by switching to natural gas (T. Boone Plan).

Aside from the special interests, this T. Boone plan is so common sense it is hard to understand why any rational person would oppose it.

 

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Uh, no - their regs are the ones involved here, and in numerous smaller "events" over the past several years. They prevented nothing.

They caused this. This entire situation, from regulation to oversight to policy to bureaucratic organization and staffing, is a creation of W's Executive Branch administration and the compliant Congress of his first term. You can, as Buffalo finds pleasure in doing over and over and over, fault Obama for not waving his Magic Negro Wand and fixing their entire godawful mess in his first year in office, but the mess itself? - W&Co all the way.

It is kind of comical how solemnly the accusations are delivered, how damning they are supposed to be: "See, Obama has had months and months and he hasn't fixed this horrible mess either! He's failing! No leadership! Look at all these horrible messes he is having trouble cleaning up! One after another after another!"

Uh, dudes? These horrible messes? Anything seem familiar about the terms "deregulation" and "oversight failure" and "high profits" and "corporate negligence" and so forth and so on and on and on? That penny for your thoughts gonna drop any time soon?

 

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Is it ignorance, or just stupidity?

We might remind that if "the Democrat pot [is] just as black as the kettle", then 1=4. But that's beside the point, as far as I'm concerned.

If the Democratic pot is just as black as the kettle, why do you have so little to say about the kettle? Or the general narrative? Why is it always about Democrats specifically? Oh, right:

Which is exactly why you spend so much time trying to assign blame and play politics. Right?

Integrity, Mr. Roam. Acquaint yourself with it someday.

 

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I am not up to speed on T. Bonne plan, but the Macondo prospect, site of the current oil leak, was considered a great find because it was 40-50% natural gas.

 

I read your posts and I see a pic of a guy with the caption saying "If you repeat it enough, people will start to believe it."

 

We already have a sufficient land based resources of natural gas. The Marcellus Shale formation is huge and has barely been tapped.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcellus_Formation#Economic_impact

http://www.pickensplan.com/theplan/

 

What specifically don't you recognize as the simple, obvious facts of the matter?

I'll be happy to bury you in the verification mode of your choice. There's nothing in that post anyone can't see for themselves, but if you need help - - -

 

Nice. You are trolling and ignoring statements that invalidate and/or diffuse the blame you are trying to pin on one person. Sounds honest.

 

A longer view

While Bush, Cheney & Co. undoubtedly exacerbated the problem, it has existed for a long time. Corporate corruption of the gobernment runs back at least to the railroad days.

But, yes, expecting Obama to have fixed every problem in the government by now is stupid. Even more so when we consider that the sector most aggressively criticizing the president is the same one that would scream bloody murder about executive power if a Democratic president came into office and started cleaning house with such such ferocity.

In a way, this disaster is a grotesquely magnified version of the stop-light dilemma. A friend's father works for a county government in Oregon, and I remember one day some years ago talking to him about a situation taking place in the rural area, in which he had campaigned to his bosses that certain intersections in the middle of nowhere needed to be regulated. He could never win support for the "unnecessary" expenditure. And then one day a young boy was hit and killed crossing the street on his way to school, so the county bosses finally agreed to put a four-way stop sign at the intersection.

Prevention is too expensive for many in this country. All too often, we only act after disasters occur, regardless of how obvious the problem may be.

This time, it's a really big disaster, and it's going to take more than a stop sign or flashing red light to prevent it from happening again.

 

Based on the events, it would appear they enforced the regs, there were no major spills/leaks until Obama came in and redirected funding, equipment and personel to a new dept. Ultimately there were not enough inspectors available to recognize BP was crossing the line and force them to perform the required tests or shut them down. There were warning signs in Febrary and March, that if heeded, would have prevented the blow out and resulting geyser on the ocean floor.

 

In this case, W&Co radically reorganized the relevant agencies, restaffed them, significantly modified their policies and behaviors in specific ways, set up the rules and oversight practices Salazar largely continued, colluded with the industry involved in especially open and flagrant manner during all this, etc.

I was replying to this assertion:

In the context of this apparent joke, which was instead a serious claim:

Todd Palin was an eighteen year employee of BP in Alaska, where his wife Sarah managed to overlook BP's red flags and violations (even major ones in her own State) for her gubernatorial 'drill America' campaign and entire - admittedly brief - tenure as Governor.

John McCain was an influential Senator and candidate for President who never showed any sign of having noticed anything wrong with BP, or any oil company - instead, cooperating fully with the Executive Branch policies of W&Co with regard to oil industry regulation (approving without caveat or demurral every one of W's relevant appointments that came before him as Senator, for example) and supporting such legislation as a budget bill requiring the expansion of drilling to ANWR and similar areas.

So what navigator finds "hard to believe" would happen has already happened, is routine circumstance, is just the simple facts of events already on record.

They got lucky with a few in the Gulf - such as the Atlantis - is all. They were drilled under the same oversight and regulatory practices. That's one reason fro a moratorium - everything done under W's setup, both before and after Salazar picked up the reins, has to be re-evaluated.

Meanwhile, there were several major spills and other mishaps under W&Co's oversight - the big pipline leak in Prudhoe Bay in 2006 (BP, again), for example, as ignored by Palin even in her recent statements (where she claims to have called only for drilling on land).

C'mon, guys - W&Co set up the entire current regulatory and oversight relationship of the oil companies at the Federal level. That's simple enough to grasp, surely?

 

Good point. I am sure that BP really didn't care who they had to pay off to make them look the other way.

 

Well MR. Tiassa you just might want to Acquaint yourself with Integrity someday, actually you need to do it now.

Oh should I start posting all of your assignments of blame to George on every thing from 9/11 to Katrina to anything that you in your partisan pique decided was the Buck that Landed on George's Desk.

Yes, You the Liberals and Katrina, what don't you understand about;

United States federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1385)

Seems you assigned a lot of blame on George from Katrina over this.​

And what don't you understand under the Constitution of the United States, that the Federal Government is restricted from interfering in State Matters, even natural disasters, and man made, unless there is a formal request by the State.

Seems you assigned a lot of blame on George from Katrina over this.​

And again what don't you understand about the fact that the BP disaster is taking place in Federally controlled waters, no worries about;

United States federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1385)

or ​

The Constitution of the United States​

Now exactly what has Obama done?

Has He used His powers of Executive Order to clear the Federal Red Tape Rue and Regulation, to get personnel and equipment on the job, to mitigate, protect the beaches and wet lands, and clean up the oil?

Or is the Jones Act still in place?

72 days after the Blow Out we first hear that Obama is going to accept help from overseas sources?

You say Obama trusted BP when BP said they had it under control?

Well after 10 day would you have said BP, had it under control?

Well after 20 day would you have said BP, had it under control?

Well after 30 day would you have said BP, had it under control?
.................
.........

72 days after BP has the disaster Obama and just now Obama is accepting out side help?

72 days after BP has the disaster and Obama still hasn't suspended the Jones Act (P.L. 66-261) ????

It is the Republicans who are desperately trying to get that act lifted to allow help from foreign sources.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0619/Jones-Act-Maritime-politics-strain-Gulf-oil-spill-cleanup

And Obama hasn't even yet implemented the full Gulf Oil Disaster Plan!!!!

In fact;

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0619/Jones-Act-Maritime-politics-strain-Gulf-oil-spill-cleanup

Yes where would you assign the blame, Obama for how many day believed BP and their claim of having things under control????

That would be fine except why didn't Obama implement the Gulf Oil Disaster Plan that has been in place since 1986, on top of BP's efforts to control the Blow Out Disaster?

If the Presidents name was George, we all know what your tune would be, the same as Obama's has been for the last 18 months, it's all Georges Fault.

Again Tiassa, both parties are to fault, we have had 77 years of both parties setting this up, the Democrats are no less guilty than the Republicans, in all of this, and until lately, the Republicans major transgression was failing to up hold the Constitution and allowing the Democrats to whittle away the restrictions place by Article 1 Section 8 of the United States Constitution and expand the federal government role into state and individual lives, and as of the last 8 years, the RINO's of the party have tried to out Democrat the Democrats, and buy the vote of the people by social spending programs.

Yes Tiassa, Acquaint yourself with integrity today, and look at the Democrats with the same jaundice eye you assign to the Republicans.

Simple answer, because you and joe, and pj, and ice, and.......other liberals on the Forum, have so little to say about the Democratic Pot, integrity on your part, checking your own for black soot.

Again from my first thread and posts....

I just am holding up the mirror of integrity on the Liberals and Democratic Party, a ideal that is sadly lacking in their make up.

ps: Obama still has the power of Executive Order, and has failed to use it to use it, to cut through the Federal Bureaucratic Red Tape that has stifled the clean up.

 

That talking point seems to curiously resistant to facts.

Q: Did Obama turn down foreign offers of assistance in cleaning up the Gulf oil spill? Did he refuse to waive Jones Act restrictions on foreign-flag vessels?

A: No to both questions. So far, offers from six foreign countries or entities have been accepted and only one offer has been rejected. Fifteen foreign-flag vessels are working on the cleanup, and none required a waiver.

http://m.factcheck.org/2010/06/oil-spill-foreign-help-and-the-jones-act/

 

Hay Repo Man, as far as factcheck.org, being a nonbiased source;

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Ph.D. is the Director of the ANNENBERG Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania which is the organization BEHIND the FactCheck.org “truthfulness” website.

Dr. Jamieson's newest book entitled “Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment” is a MAJOR HIT PIECE against the Conservative voices in the media on television, radio, and in print. View the book’s Table of Contents:

http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/echochamber/

Yes, what a coincidence Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a died in the wool Obama supported and Director of Fact Check. Org, yes

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:roflmao:

 

Factcheck LOL.

First the numbers are wrong.

Second, if the Jones Act wasn't an issue, what prompted this June 18th?

Third, please tell me how you can deem vessels specially designed for oil cleanup ineffective when the majority of vessels BP has employed in the cleanup are converted fishing and shrimp boats with deckhands using pool skimmers?

 

How can anyone respect the truth and the Conservative media at the same time? It isn't possible.

Can I get a reference to this Gulf Oil Disaster Plan of 1986? I can't find anything about it. You have the fighting spirit, Buffalo, but no ammunition.

 

Is that the best you can do?

http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/jones-act-not-hindering-gom-clean-efforts/

http://www.wmfe.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=10745&news_iv_ctrl=1041

And on and on. Kathleen all Jamieson is one of the directors of FactCheck.org. You can see them all here. Good luck finding anything untruthful or distorted in their reports.

 

I guess Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen is a lefty as well?

http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/doc/2931/727351/

The Jones Act is a non issue.

 

Brooks Jackson
Director, FactCheck.org.....
CNN, Associated Press,
Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation" with Kathleen Hall Jamieson (Random House, 2007).

Viveca Novak
Deputy Director, FactCheck.org.....
Common Cause's current President and Chief Executive Officer is Robert W. Edgar, former Democratic Congressman

And what does their bio's say about their pollitical afilliation?

How many are liberal demorats?

Journalists -- Who Are They, Really?​

http://www.mrc.org/static/biasbasics/Exhibit1-6WhoAreTheyReally.aspx

•44 percent of journalists identified themselves as Democrats while just 16 percent tagged themselves as Republican. Thirty-four percent described themselves as independents.

Well at least 16% of them are honest about their party affiliations.

Campaign Journalists (2004)

http://www.mrc.org/static/biasbasics/Exhibit1-14CampaignJournalists(2004).aspx

•Tierney found a strong preference for the liberal Kerry: “When asked who would be a better president, the journalists from outside the Beltway picked Mr. Kerry 3 to 1, and the ones from Washington favored him 12 to 1. Those results jibe with previous surveys over the past two decades showing that journalists tend to be Democrats, especially the ones based in Washington.”