Obama Monty Hall To Give Lovely Parting Gifts To BP Death Victims
The title pretty much tells the tale. It was just stated on The Ed Schultz Show on MSNBC that:
Family of 11 victims of the Deep Horizon explosion to visit White House next week.
Well, that is just swell.
On the day a forlorn paucity of the media belatedly report on the deceptive collusion that the US Government and BP have been sitting on physical evidence, and factual conclusions drawn therefrom, contained in the full set of video feeds they both have been viewing from the outset of the BP Macondo/Deepwater Horizon blow out, we learn the White House is suddenly going to submit to external pressure and grant the victims of the BP/Deepwater Horizon homicides a walkby meet and greet ceremonial dog and pony show. After nearly two weeks of the victims screaming they have been forgotten, the audience has been approved from on high.
How refreshing. I hope the bereaved at least get an official White House coffee cup and Presidential keychain for their participation.
This is just wrong. It is not wrong for Obama to meet with the relatives and next of kin to the wrongfully deceased of an American natural disaster. It is wrong they had to beg for it, wrong it is being sold like a new product release, and wrong it is used as a convenient image makeover for an Obama Administration recalcitrant to treat mass scale criminal, and wholesale recklessly wanton environmental behavior as what it really is.
Think this is an exaggeration? Just wait and watch. Let me know when there is individual criminal liability where it belongs, as opposed to an inbred with the corporate culture, wink and nod plea and fine scheme in collusion with BP, Transocean, Halliburton and/or their powerful lobbyists. You know, criminal prosecution of the truly criminally negligent actors and authorities. The ones making the imminently foreseeable, cold, craven and disastrous decisions precipitating the needless death of eleven souls and the biggest environmental disaster in the history of the United States. Not the kind of cozy package deal the US government is known for giving BP when they have wreaked wholesale death and environmental destruction.
I do not presume to speak for the Deepwater deceased and their survivors; but I find it hard to believe they would not rather the President and American government show they will no longer accept the absent regulatory effort, coddling of profit before morals corporate greed, and “looking forward” blind ignorance of accountability for dereliction and destruction of the ethos we should, and claim to, stand for. The dead and their relatives are entitled to better than is given the latest basketball team to win a championship.
Mr. Obama, show the victims of the negligent homicide at Deepwater Horizon you have something more than meager food for souls forgot.
[Graphic from Rachel Maddow Show via Jalopnik]
Well, you certainly nailed that, bmaz. Whew! And many thanks.
I’d buy that for a dollar! As opposed to donating another red cent to the Democratic corporate coddling machine.
This may be an opportunity for the media to get the story right, but that requires explaining sciencish stuff. Once people get the science, they’ll get the criminality.
Riki Ott on Maddow tonight: oil cleanup is hazardous; these are toxins.
I say let Haley Barbour, Tom Delay, and GW Bush clean it up.
Obama did put his ‘angry’ face on when he talked about the fifty million dollars BP is spending on advertising when he was in the Gulf Coast today.
So there’s that.
Thanks for the first link, bmaz! I listen to the entire album at work from time to time (does that drummer EVER get tired???).
I (along with several other commenters here) live here, next to the Gulf beaches. In fact, our company picnic is today on Fort Desoto park at the entrance to Tampa Bay. My feeling is this will be the last season of usable beaches for a few decades. (This area is fucked: it relies on tourism for a large part of its income.)
I’ll let you know as soon as I smell it. In a few days.
In spite of a century of warnings that what we were doing was going to destroy our own habitat, here we are.
It’s just hard to even let a little emotion out, lest it all come screaming out like a leak in a dam, cutting larger and larger hole.
damned “a” sticks ;)
Talk about a good example why we don’t learn from history.
I can show you patches of beach that are still virtual deserts due to the Santa Barbara oil spills of the late 60’s, the almost solid goo six to twelve inches below the top.
Well, guess what, red state Florida, you are next. Have a good day!
Ah, John, you’ve a problem.
You could stick a BOP on top of those emotions, or you could simply let them all out, which would lead, as you say, to a greater hole-i-ness. Now, if you decide that you will go for the BIG blowout, do consider the nuclear “option”, but build up the suspense first, and do a very public countdown.
Just be careful not to be belligerent, for then you will lose all your “privileges”, legally speaking, in which case be certain to tell the authorities, very clearly and very slowly, that you a choosing to remain silent in the hopes that Miranda will be there, it’s no guarantee, but SCOTUS says its all you’ve got.
Seriously, some genuine emotion and the inevitably attendant disgust would be a healthy thing. Collectively we’ve sat on our better emotions and humanity for far too long.
Time to let ‘er rip?
DW
**Applause!**
*standing on chair clapping*
Bravo, bmaz!
Call it for what it is, a shame sham.
Obama continues along in his pathetic way.
One begins to wonder if there is a single, genuine emotion, or non-self-serving sensibility in the man?
One notes, OT, that Ari Fleischer wants Helen Thomas fired because, he claims, that Helen is, “advocating religious cleansing.”
Will the great and noble Obama Co. argee with Fleischer?
One cannot imagine that Obama would defend Helen, though that is what he should do, were he a man of conscience and understanding.
Instead, Obama will drone on …
DW
Probably the only time he shows emotion is when he’s working his joystick, ridding the world of orphan and grandmom terrorists.
It’s not just the 11 who died on the platform who deserve our sympathy. Those involved in the cleanup effort are being exposed to a spectrum of carcinogens and are working without adequate protection, as were those involved with the cleanup of the towers.
Why is BP permitted to have any personnel in the region? It is a crime scene. Anything they do must be considered as tampering with evidence.
Time for Obama to invite Fleisher and Helen over for a beer.
Obama is a drone that likes to kill children with drones and joke about it. Little wonder that he loves to drone on.
Well, after that, there’s not much left to be said, bmaz. Thanks for expressing it so well.
All I can feel right now is utter contempt and disgust.
I’m feeling so cynical this morning that I wonder if Obama invited them to the White House to try to get them to sign liability releases for BP.
Boxturtle (Just sign in here. Don’t worry about all that text, it’s just boilerplate)
Spot on. They’re get a few grand to buy their silence, just like the families of the 9/11 victims.
You might be waiting a while. But get caught with a few joints and have the wrong color skin, you can expect time in the slammer.
Remember, bmaz lives in AZ.
Boxturtle (“I grew up on a farm. I know a goat when I smell one” – Anon contestant, busting out Monty’s curtain)
Parenthetically, you’re gettin’ better and better.
More, please.
(Humor is not merely appreciated, it’s a dire necessity, especially when turned upon the bastids)
DW
I loved Let’s Make a Deal and I remember that episode. Monty had counted the fellow up to $200 (a lot of money back then) and offered him the money or Carol’s curtain. Everybody knew they hadn’t given away the car yet.
The fellow smiled at Monty, put the money in his pocket and said “I grew up on a farm. I know a goat when I smell one”. And sure enough, there was a goat behind the curtain!
Boxturtle (Wonders if any of the families will remember this when Obama steps from behind his curtain)
A truly righteous rant, counselor. I think our fearless leader and his corporate handlers are in the process of making the worst miscalculation of all time. If BP is allowed to spin off a tiny part of their operation as responsible for the spill while protecting the rest (and avoiding criminal charges for anyone in senior management) and the oil then spreads along Florida and up the east coast beaches, that will lead to economic devastation on a scale that puts people on the streets demanding action on the level of what we saw in the fall of the Soviet Union and their fellow Eastern Bloc countries. When there is no longer any economic risk to taking to the streets (because they’ve already lost everything), then the angry mobs will shut down the rest of the country and achieve a change of governments.
A clear and faithful rendition of actual, current reality, Jim, and a further “scenario” that, hopefully, will go forth from this place to the hearts and the minds of the many.
DW
Is there any leader on the horizon who possesses the ability to calm the oncoming storm??
People on the left are too busy blaming that leader for causing Gore’s loss in the 2000 election. Never mind the massive fraud and manipulation starting with Bush’s cousin calling the election in Florida for him on Fox news and then the rest of the chorus line falling in step.
Is it a “leader” that is necessary, or simply the recognition of the importance of humanity? (As an attribute not the species)
“Leaders” and the world’s mindless reliance upon such beings, have brought us to this place. The next “leader” should be someone who encourages others to think, without considering their own advantage.
When thinking of such persons, wacpeac, your name comes readily to mind.
DW
Indeed. And I would merely add that if we follow the example I presented, where folks take to the streets when there is nothing left to lose, I don’t expect it to be violent. As you point out, in dire times like that, people will recognize one another’s humanity. Remember how the troops would not fire on the crowds when those governments fell? The troops knew the government had lost its authority and that they were more a part of the people than a part of the government.
Obama is great and giving cocktail parties and speaking at funerals which is why he should have been vice president and NOT president.
Instead, how ’bout a salesman selling caskets and funeral services at a funeral parlor?
Look at the bright side. Bygones hasn’t yet mentioned indefinite protective custody for persons associated with the perpetrators of their own accidental deaths. Corporate employees really owe it to their CEOs to avoid getting themselves negligently, inconveniently and publicly killed. That should be a felony – why, considering the strategic importance of oil and the fact that we are always at war, it might actually be a “murder at war” crime. Maybe the pope can issue a spiritually charged reminder about the implications of workplace suicide as well, quid pro quo. Somebody needs to commission a military commission!
Good piece, but it’s “do not presume”
Harken, bmaz.
DW
Agree on “presume” rather than “deign.”
Hark and hearken are interesting though, eh? I don’t know why, but I use “Hark!” in constructions like “Hark, the herald angels sing” or “Hark, hark, the lark,” but “hearken” when I mean “hearken to me” — ie, not just listen, but listen to understand something, to learn something.
And of course it’s “hark back,” not “harken back,” when we mean that something in the present reminds us of something in the past.
“Harken” is merely the “Murkan” spelling of “hearken”, skdadl.
Agree with your usage, and appreciate your every venture into the “weeds” of etymology and allied speculations, most thoroughly.
;~DW
I was meaning to tease more than harass Dad (fun tho’ that always is) or you. I was sort of waiting for Mary to come along and say yabbut she’s a Canuck and she spells funny.
I wish I could say something useful in these discussions; I’m reading faithfully, but I know too little about the politics or the science to be useful. Mostly I just feel overwhelmingly bad — for y’all first of all, especially people who are tied to the Gulf, and then of course the rest of us should this ever make it to the Gulf Stream. At that point, I could get noisier.
Oh, it’s gonna make it to the gulfstream; just a question of when. And you were right about presume.
I think it was John Emerson who was right in the first place. DW and I just joined the chorus. ;)
Oh dem euphemisms of you proper defenders of the Mother Tongue …
We “piled on”.
Thou wouldst tweaketh the tail of our bmaz?
I am sore amazed. (This constitutes the totality of any seriousness on my part …)
As you well know, skdadl, you and Petro are accorded a special “pass” for being above us, however you must not misjudge the generosity of our nation towards yours, I know, we have behaved in rather stingy fashion, in the past, and now wish to make up for that short-sightedness on our part, as much oils as may be currently sent your way, is coming, we hope to be “on-stream” with considerably more if things work out that way …
As to thanking us, well, think nothing of it.
We hope to treat our neighbors to the north quite as well as we treat our neighbors to the south.
Earplugs and blinders have already been passed out to all those too big to fail, too big to nail, and too fookin’ big to go to jail … because there is so much noise that nobody can hear anything, why nobody even hearkens snark … like know awes arc. If ya catch my drift?
;~DW
It’s ok (for those on the west coast), BP’s gonna contain it to one side /s
http://www.allhatnocattle.net/handelsman100521.jpg
That’s really kind of the thing, eh? I mean, the whole of the east-coast fishery? Up to Newfoundland? And then Ireland and Scotland? You guys: that’s civilization as we know it. ;)
Is BP drawing anti-Brit sentiment in the U.S.? (I’m all for anti-BP feeling, but corpses like BP seldom seem very nationally rooted to me any longer. They’re all deracinated, far as I can see.)
Gosh, no. The average American doesn’t even know what BP stands for, never mind associating it with the British people.
Still, if it worries you all over there, you might mention to your soccer team that losing to us on the 12th would be very well thought of.
Boxturtle (Not the the average American follows soccer)
I’m not “over there” (ie, with the redcoats). I’m “up here” (ie, with the scarlet tunics).
(Not the average scarlet tunic follows soccer either, although Toronto is getting better at it. I used to live in a Portuguese neighbourhood, and they kind of seduce you. It’s a lot of fun when they or the Italians win.)
Hard to remeber who’s from where. And I’ve slept since then.
The good news is we don’t blame the Canadians, either!
Boxturtle (But be careful…the only people we’ve fully cleared of blame is ourselves)
“Hard to remeber who’s from where. And I’ve slept since then.
The good news is we don’t blame the Canadians, either! ”
In Minnesota we are giving the Canadians the blame.
Our Flinthills Refinery, that produces 85% of the Gasoline, Heating Oil, etc, consumed in Minnesota and Western Wisconsin, gets all its crude from Alberta, via pipeline. This week we were treated to a documentary about mining the oil sands there, how much toxic water is produced from the process, how much is left to poison Alberta’s ground water, How many spills and explosions the Williams Pipeline had had over the years (one in the suburbs a few years back burned up five families in their homes one Sunday Morning. Only survivor was a teen aged son who left early for a paper route.)
Williams Pipeline is what Sarah Palin wants to tie into from Alaska. So far she has not gotten the financing. (Alberta being about half way to Alaska).
Majority Share in the operations of Flinthills and the distribution chain, plus heavy investor in pipeline is owned by Koch Brothers of Okalahoma and Kansas. Major financial forces in Minnesota behind two Republican Senators — Rudy Boschwitz, and Norm Coleman. Koch also major $$$ force behind Bush/Cheney.
Good Political News this weekend. The DFL Endorsee for 6th District is Tarryl Clark, State Senator from around St. Cloud, and the opponent for Michele Bachmann (Republican Loudmouth – 6th District). Till this weekend Clark had an opponent in the August 10th Primary, a Doctor from the east side of the District, but she withdrew, and endorsed Clark — nicely waiting till filings were closed as of last week, meaning Clark now has a clear run till November. Last time round Bachmann put a ringer into the DFL Primary, causing much confusion, but with filings closed, won’t happen this year. Very classy move by Dr. Reed, the opponent who withdrew. It will be a tough race, but something tells me Clark can win it. She does very well as a progressive in the more conservative end of the district. For some reason, Bachmann has a ton and a half of oil and gas money. Clark is Alternative Energy all the way, wind and 2nd generation biofuels.
Excellent news about Clark. Does she have enough money to fight anywhere close to even on advertising and ground?
Do you mean this scarlet tunic, dear skdadl? And there’s a moose, too, but do hide it from Petrocelli, else it’ll be on the grill.
(Actually, I think Colbert’s from SC, but don’t tell anyone.)
Actually, I much prefer Antelope and Elk … *g*
That is Petro! The spittin’ image!
Hey ! My Antlers were shed in April …
Revealing what?
Exactly. Putting a Yank between the Americans and the Brits is establishing a cut-out. It has nothing whatever to do with anti-British feeling; it has everything to do with BP working like mad to limit its liability and to remove the assets it can from US jurisdiction. BP also knows that if Obama has to work to criticize or prosecute a corporation or reach its assets, he’ll toss that hot potato not to his DoJ but to Joe Lieberman, who will promptly tell us it can’t be done – in exchange for a little luvin’ from his Senate pals.
Only for the Upper Class Twits running BP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSqkdcT25ss
They’re very good at kicking the beggar, aren’t they? That seems to be their one genuine skill. Removing bra from the front: total fail.
That was a lot of fun, John. We used to have fun. I have clear memories of fun, I swear I do …
There were some surveys of scientists who work in the bureaucracies of government, during the Bushco years; the reports invariably demonstrating the difficulty of the interfaces between science and politics. There are a few incidents in historybooks discussing mishaps which have occurred when bureaucracy botched the science in the military, perhaps an object lesson in how to approach reform; and maybe much like the political, scientific, and pecuniary interests which have intersects within civilian resource extraction industries. One early incident, in this respect, which I have in mind because I knew a commission participant who expressed disgruntlement about the discovery process and blueribboning of the ultimate findings in the mostly in camera executive sessions of the subsequent postmorta hearings, was an early prototype deep sea submarine which had a design flaw which caused implosion, but which also had been drydocked for patchwork months prior to the fatal accident after a harbor collision. There were backup systems for recovery when the vessel lost power during a dive to record depth for personnel-carrying undersea military vessels at the time; but the formation of onboard ice, plus the extreme pressures at experimental depths in the ocean, combined to prevent recovery routines from working as intended. This was far from a regional environmental disaster at the time, though it was a nuclear powered boat.
Now now, bmaz, don’t be so hasty. We wouldn’t want to criminalize industrial policy differences, would we? That would be like… it would be like… criminalizing politics!
The ceremony, I hear, is to put these families on par with the families of dead miners. Personally, I would not welcome a fraught visit to DC and being whisked through the stifling White House protocol while grieving for my family, my future and my pocketbook. I’d rather the government worked harder to prevent other families from experiencing my pain.
Inside the Beltway, this looks like an attempt to shut up this catastrophe’s version of the 9/11 spouses before they organize and allow us to see through their eyes and needs rather than through BP’s or the government’s. This also makes it look as if Obama’s top priority is managing the message rather than managing the government’s oversight of a serial polluter and fixing the holes in that oversight that helped allow this to happen. It is as if Obama’s priority were to blunt efforts to reform and improve oversight, lest the Democratic Party’s coffers fill with sand rather than gold.
More generally, the president is not the chaplain in chief, he’s not Monty Hall; he’s an executive running a public service organization that seems to have forgotten the public. As for this visit, I hope no plebeians dare ask awkward questions, or worse, demand answers.
It is my understanding that James Cameron, of “Titanic” fame offered Bee Pee the use of his “fleet” of “undersea vehicles”. It is said that Bee Pee “graciously” refused this offer.
Now I realize that Cameron is involved, in some way, with an “environmental look-see group” examining the impact of the spill, and that he probably does not wish to embarrass President Obama.
However, I see no compelling reason that Cameron should not make the same offer to Obama, simply that there be “viewpoints” of the scene of the “unimaginable” spill, other than those of Bee Pee.
By now, the political “capital” resulting from the President’s buypartisan policy of governance should easily cover any embarrassment such an offer might entail.
DW
Let’s see now, how many weeks later?
Obama pledges ‘every resource’ to aid Gulf citizens put out by oil disaster
LINK.
President Barack H. Obama’s sense of timing, nuance, and irony are simply astounding, are they not?
DW
So he was holding back until now?
I think he means “Every resource, while still controlling the flow of information”.
Boxturtle (As opposed to controlling the flow of oil…)
If you don’t have the time to read BP’s almost 600-page document (and who among us isn’t eager to dive into the Kagan dump from Clinton’s library), here’s a synopsis for you.
BP’s Spill Plan: What they knew and when they knew it
LINK.
I think BP’s pretty happy right now. Their well is finally “producing.” Sure, it leaks more (67%) than it is delivering (33%), but it is still producing a salable product. That’s an income stream they can use.
Bob in AZ
Right. But remember the flow is much higher now that the crimped riser is gone. So, my guess is even though they are now collecting up one third of the output, the two thirds leaking is still every bit as much, if not more, than was previous leaking before this “success”.
In reality, all this “success” appears to have accomplished, at least at this point, is give BP a way to make money from the well.
Exactly my point.
Bob in AZ
It is somewhat beyond maddening this is being referred to as a “success”.
They’ll be needing it to pay their fines. Or to buy off the congresscritters and the judges.
Fatster,
I left you a comment back on the Koch thread.
Cheers,
Bob in AZ
I got it, too, Bob! Left you a response there and on the thread just before this one. Many thnx.
As I explained over at the BP Gulf Disaster thread, the “Duh” moment was not directed at you, but at BP. See over there for details.
Cheers,
Bob
Bbbbbbut, bmaz, Michelle will do her best handflippy game show model thingamajobby deal when they get the keychain ;-)
Cap Slows Gulf Oil Leak as Engineers Move Cautiously
LINK.
It was rude and wrong to not focus on the 11 deaths from the get go. Pics of those survivors who died would be as heart-wrenching as any photos of penguins and gulls.
The WH is surfacing the victims’ families. It will serve to advance the call for manslaughter charges, and more.
dont you think the OB WH knows that?
Um, no, I don’t think anything of the sort; there is not one shred of evidence to indicate that and a massive amount to the contrary. If you would like to see the state of the evidence on criminal prosecutions (the evidence is everything point to a coddling comprehensive settlement that lets BP off the most damning penalties), please review the material in the links in the main post.
2 things.
1. Stuff happens. It’s the price of a modern world.
2. If not for the environmentalists pushing drilling into the ocean this might not have occurred. Even so, there is no denying that fixing anything a mile under water is exponentially more difficult than fixing the same thing on land.
pl
1. We haven’t BEGUN to pay the price of how we are living. 2. I am not sure which “environmentalists” you mean that had the power to “push” drilling out into 5k ft. of water. Do you mean that by pointing out that drilling is environmentally destructive the oil companies decided to hide it?
Having been so exposed for what they are the corporate hacks and defenders are left with this silly accusation toward the environmentalists. Hope they enjoy their “modern world” a bit before it kills us.
The oil companies have been drilling offshore for decades. They’ve been moving into deeper water because they can, now, with the technology that’s available.
Environmentalists only have something to do with this in the twisted little minds of conservatives, who seem to think that oil will appear by magic wherever they drill.
emptywheel is upstairs!
The US Is Defending Not Just Its Closest Ally in Israeli Raid, but Also Approach to War
“I hope the bereaved at least get an official White House coffee cup and Presidential keychain for their participation.”
And a copy of the Sternly Worded Letter to BP signed by our Chief Executive himself. That’ll show em.
The people (theoretically) running the show in DeeCee might want to think about (immediately) freezing BP’s assets for cleanup, etc…before it’s too late. The way things are going, this entity could cease to exist (in its present form, anyway) in the not-too-distant future. I’m not a lawyer, but it’s a safe bet that trying to extract assets from a reconstituted transnational legal entity would be made immeasurably more difficult. We’d better get while the gettin’ is good.
Who’s going to buy them? The possible purchasers are limited, and some of them would have to sell off stuff to avoid anti-trust penalties.
As I said, I’m not a lawyer. However, it does seem to me that the longer we wait to tie up some assets, the more difficult it’s going to get to do so. Simply presenting an invoice just ain’t gonna cut it, especially after this thing leaves the front page – as it inevitably will. Every possible legal roadblock will be thrown into the mix.
Not only that, but BP is handing out $10 Billion in dividends just for the first quarter. If BP’s assets are frozen for cleanup, those $$$ are out the door and can’t be reeled back.
Bob in AZ
Interesting 2+min presentation on drilling relief wells. It’s a BP vid, but does give some idea of how it’s done.
Who loves ya baby. Barry the pimp.
BP faces ban on future American operations
LINK.
Debarment–what are the chances of that, and what are the consequences?
Lisa Derrick is upstairs!
Ultra Rick Roll: “Epic Fail Guy” Republican Governors Association Meme
An article tonight in the NY Times with some Obama remarks has him talking about making the people “whole”. That is a common expression used by public lands ranchers. Sounds like he is talking to Ken Salazar – a sure way to fail. You can’t make someone “whole” who loves seeing pelicans – with a black beach and no pelicans left.
Was BP Actively Restricting Media Access to the Oil Spill?
LINK.
Does the bear . . . ?
BP directors call for chairman to go over Deepwater leak
Environmental disaster has been matched in scale by public relations disaster for the hapless oil giant
LINK.
Obama’s very careful to do his photo-ops on the “clean” end of the beach…away from the birds and wildlife which have been coated in oil.
I want to see a shot of him holding a brown pelican, in which the only part of the bird not covered in crude, is it’s sad, WTF? eyes. That way, Mr. Centrist will get some of the shit on himself.
Of course, in a few months, we’ll makes sure that happens, with the mid-terms. :o)
We’ll see.
Allen Has Ordered ‘Uninhibited Access’ to Oil Spill Operations
LINK.
With regard to the perps responsible for the murders & oil crimes against humanity, I still think we ought to outsource the justicable matters to a forum that takes these matters seriously, Chinese Criminal Court. They can then investigate/arrest, try, convict & hang the conspiracy of brit & american oil fuckers.
I hope some Gulf Goo washes up in China.
Can you spell ‘frustration’? P-i-s-s-e-d.
LINK.
Go locals!
There was nothing “negligent” about BP’s behavior before the murders.
Their actions were more like Willful and Reckless Disregard for Human Life.