Here’s the video of Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) offering his apologies to BP for President Obama’s “$20 billion shakedown.”
The formal apology comes at 3:45, but whole wind up is, as they say, a must see.
Eli Sanders was The Stranger's associate editor. His book, "While the City Slept," was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He once did this and once won... More by Eli Sanders
I hope there is a special place in hell for Rep. Barton (R-Oil).
As much as I am really not happy with the Democrats and that includes Obama, the Retardicans are just so much worse…
I’m an Obama-loving environmental lefty and I played the video ready to be incensed, but I really don’t disagree with much of what Barton said. BP made the mess and BP should fix it, clean it up, and make sure it can’t happen again, with the harsh schoolmarms of government and lawsuits looking over its shoulder. But demanding that the company put a huge amount into a fund, and stop paying dividends, seems relevant to nothing.
@3, don’t worry, I’m sure BP’s attorneys are working on ways to make sure they won’t have to pay all of it out. They’ll drag it out as long as they can until public outrage subsides.
Did Tony give him a blowjob?
@3: in theory, corporations exist at the pleasure of the state. if obama wanted, he could revoke their charter, or nationalize every asset BP controls in this country.
The punchline, avatar, is that BP _can’t_ clean it up. It’s gushing & that’s all there is to it. Maybe they might be able to slow the spill a few months from now, but the reality is that there is no solution. The oil will continue to pour in for a long time. BP (& other oil companies) knew this & drilled anyway. They put their cronies in government, in both electing shills like Barton, as well as putting them in the federal oversight agencies. I find it extremely naive of you to suggest that BP will ever “make sure it doesn’t happen again,” because they’ve done everything in their power to prevent anyone one from making them accountable.
And to add to the horror, you may not know of something called the Gulf Stream. The Gulf of Mexico may look nice & isolated on the map, but there’s a very large river in the Atlantic, and it starts in the Gulf of Mexico. So that oil is being carried very quickly into the Atlantic, across the top & down into Europe. And it will continue to flow for a long time.
In all honesty, no one really knows the impact, because nothing like this has ever happened to humans ever before. Not on this scale. It calls for an unprecedented reaction. 20B is a slap on the wrist. A far more appropriate reaction would be to nationalize the company, let them cry about it in court, but in the meantime take their profits and put that money into research into how to stop the spill & alternative energies resources.
@4: having been on the plaintiffs’ side of the Exxon Valdez litigation for over 20 years, that’s undoubtedly true, but making BP move money from one pocket to another doesn’t really help anything.
@6: I totally agree that corps shouldn’t be so big, powerful and consequence-free, which is one reason that I approve of LOTS of thorough govt. oversight and regulation. (The Corporation is a great eye-opening/confirming movie.) But if the goal is to plug the leak, compensate everyone who has and will be hurt, and re-establish the environment as best we can, why is the govt. better at that than BP with lots of oversight?
Sorry for getting birds in your oil.
This man is either bought and sold by the oil companies, or deeply ignorant of prevailing world opinion.
Rep. Barton points out that if he required a shakedown of money to his district he would and should go to jail. He then makes a case why Obama should go to jail. His problem here is not with the shakedown. It is with having a democrat in the white house. He opposes anything a Democrat does regardless of it is right for the country.
#1 was pretty close but I would call it “Rep. Barton (R-Not Obama)”
All this is great until the well collapses (it’s already tilting) and the natural erosion from the massive pressure finishes eating away at the already compromised piping thats causing oil to vent from the sea bed–not just the cam views we’re deigned to be shown.
Once the whole thing collapses in and we get a little tsunami going, we’ll see if $20B is enough.
@8,
There’s already talk of BP filing for bankruptcy. What are the odds that they’ll use that as an excuse to absolve themselves of the responsibility of cleaning this shit up AND to refuse to pay their share? The government needs to get that money out of them now.
The rep should be forced to drink a gallon of gulf oil-water and then be tarred and feathered.
When are they gonna nuke that thing already?
Max @ 6: In theory, we are a nation of laws, and the President can’t do whatever he wants, and there is a well-established legal route for adjudicating torts through the courts, which does not involve the president.
In the case of the original Ken Feinberg liability resolution system, for 9/11, Congress passed enabling legislation and both the airlines and the wronged parties could choose whether or not to participate. But apparently the November election timetable doesn’t allow for such legal nicities this time around, so we are using presidential fiat to ensure that the voters see Obama “doing something”.
Okay, hold it.
The president didn’t order them to do this he asked them and they agreed so it’s perfectly legal. STop trying to say the president is acting illegally.
PArt of “adjudicating torts” would include letting the tortfeasor settle, Mr. Wright, and if BP agrees to this fund and process for settling, duh, the claimants using this fund will agree that’s it, they are bound by the results of this process, and that’s all legal too, as no one is forcing them to do it and they keep the right to go to court unless they agree to give up that right.
As for bankruptcy, readers seem to not know the basics. One — the per barrel fines likely could bankrupt BP but also likely is that the US govt. would not want them out of business and unable to pay claims. The US govt. can waive or not pursue criminal fines, duh. Two, the claims of the creditors including injured folks are senior to any right to have dividends in a bankruptcy. So in effect, the injured peopel already “own” BP. Three, a bankruptcy in this case is a reorganization in which BP continues to exist (like United airlines, duh) while under court supervision with substantial power held by creditors committees supervised by the bankruptcy judge all of which would ensure that the money keeps coming in and goes out to pay US fines (see aboe) then claims then if anything is left over after all that the shareholders get the company back.
So in fact everything is fine and we’re handling this alot better than the Valdez spill which STILL hasn’t led to Exxon paying many folks many of them located right here in Seattle. TWENTY YEARS. You call that a legal nicety? That’s legalistic bullshit.
Guess what. The president is certainly allowed to tell BP that the prosecutorial discretion of the DOJ may well be based on acts of contriteness and restitution like the escrow fund. All in all this is a wonderful example of leadership to save homes and livelihoods of thousands of people in the gulf, people whom some of these commenters are ready to ignore over petty squabbling about ill conceived notions of the law and facts.