Posted on 05/02/2010 12:16:54 PM PDT by Matchett-PI
20 April 2010: An oil rig rented and operated by BP in the Gulf of Mexico explodes, killing 11 workers.
21 April 2010: All 115 workers are evacuated from the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig.
22 April 2010: The Deepwater Horizon collapses into the sea and sinks.
22 April 2010: President Obama delivers a speech on Wall Street to advocate more government intervention in the country's financial sector, but offers no reforms for Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, which helped precipitate the 2008 meltdown. He also delivers a speech regarding the contributions of Earth Day to environmental awareness.
Meanwhile, 200,000 gallons of oil are spilling daily.
23 April 2010: President Obama blasts the Arizona governor, state legislators, police officers and residents for backing federal laws that prohibit illegal immigration.
23 April 2010: The oil continues to flow.
24 April 2010: The president delivers his weekly radio address, which focuses on further regulation of Wall Street. He also calls upon certain segments of his original supporters -- African-Americans, Latinos, Hispanics, and women -- and asks them to mobilize for political action.
24 April 2010: Efforts to contain the spill are hampered by lack of resources and difficult weather.
25 April 2010: President Obama interrupts a weekend getaway to meet with the Rev. Billy Graham in North Carolina.
25 April 2010: Oil spreads across the gulf and heads toward the Louisiana shoreline.
26 April 2010: President Obama appears in a "Vote 2010" video, distributed by his political action wing Organizing for America, which serves as a stark appeal to blacks and Latinos -- specifically -- for their votes in November.
26 April 2010: The Coast Guard warns that the spill could become one of the worst in United States history.
28 April 2010: The President holds a rare, impromptu press conference on Air Force One, addressing "questions on the Arizona immigration law, the financial regulation bill and other issues." Obama also prepared to make his second nomination to the Supreme Court and warns of a "'conservative' brand of judicial activism in which the courts are often not showing appropriate deference to the decisions of lawmakers."
28 April 2010: large pools of oil are spotted close to the Louisiana shore line.
29 April 2010: the White House Flickr Feed is updated with a photo of the President meeting with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and senior administration officials, including National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones, which indicates that they are urgently working the issue of the oil spill.
29 April 2010: Meanwhile, local officials, the Coast Guard and private citizens continue their efforts to prevent damage to the Louisiana coastline.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Perhaps if the oil breached the Louisiana levees, then caught on fire, and then turned New Orleans into a Dresden-like inferno, the President would stop campaigning for a couple of days and actually pay attention to his own, personal Katrina. Even The New York Times has noticed, decrying the President's lackadaisical response. But I'm guessing that somehow, someway, it's all President Bush's fault.
Exactly. bttt (See post #18 above)
I think the reason he didn’t do anything is because here in FL we have been trying to drill for years, but a lot of people were concerned because of the tourism industry.
Check this out: The story in our Tampa paper the day before the blast:
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/apr/19/na-time-for-florida-to-tap-gulf-energy-resources/
Just in the past month finally drilling plans were being put forth in the legislature and covered in the news. There were a lot of stories on how people were actually changing their mind to allow drilling in just the week before the explosion.
Now suddenly it’s all turning the other way. The timing is just too coincidental.
He can't be bothered with every little national environmental disaster that comes down the pike. He's a very busy man after all. /sarc
I have a post coming up I think you’ll enjoy.
Yes they did. But what they "manufactured" against Bush (relying on a reliably ignorant, uninformed public as to how government works to get away with it), is actually true in B.O.'s case. Unlike with Katrina, it was the Fed's responsibly to contain the fall-out from the oil-spill from the get-go. (See post #18 above)
I think this one is going to stick to the man-child.
Be fair! Let’s give him credit.
At least he showed his ugly face, unlike Christmas when an terrorist attempted to bring down an airliner.
Kidding aside: excellent timeline. Thanks!
The St Petersberg Times, our superlib rag (horrid paper - it reminds me of what CNN would be if they had a print edition) actually ran an editorial on how Obama blew it.
Of course, they did it on Saturday morning, probably the worst day to get news from the paper. They just couldn’t bring themselves to print it on a regular news day.
Excellent thread for posterity! Thanks for posting.
Penelopesire: While you’ve been away, a thread you don’t want to miss.
BP2: You will appreciate this one.
In the case of this platform failure, it is the same type of behavior. And, I am very suspicious about how this high technology drilling platform allowed combustible gasses to gush out onto the platform deck. How is it possible? These platforms are engineered to such an advanced technology, there is no way that such an event could happen unless it was intentionally allowed to happen. I say it was intentionally allowed to happen to score points against the drill here, drill now efforts. It was intentionally allowed to happen to score points for the environmentalists who are failing in their efforts with the global warming carbon credits scheme.
This disaster will hurt America, no doubt about it. It is the burning down of Capitalism before our eyes.
“Why waste a good disaster?”
I agree.
1. When a double-dip recession arrives, Obama will blame the oil spill (and the greedy oil companies responsible for it).
2. When damages rise to hundreds of billions of dollars, Obama will be first in line to offer up the federal Treasury to bankroll them—but will insist on the enactment of a VAT to ensure that this new spending is “fiscally responsible.”
3. When cap and trade comes to a vote, Obama will argue that the oil spill proves we cannot rely on expanding domestic drilling and that he has concluded that reliance on nuclear power likewise would be “too risky;” hence only an aggressive cap and trade policy can wean us from dependence on foreign oil and avert global warming.
4. And heck, why not use this opportunity to socialize the oil companies to prevent future “irresponsible” behavior?
The possibilities are endless.
bttt
Read my post #30 for more thoughts on the matter.
This expert is mincing no words - he thinks it was a political decision not to take the short window of opportunity they had to burn off the oil and contain the spill early on:
MOBILE, Ala. -- Federal officials should have started burning oil off the surface of the Gulf last week, almost as soon as the spill happened, said the former oil spill response coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Ron Gouget, who also managed Louisiana's oil response team for a time, said federal officials missed a narrow window of opportunity to gain control of the spill by burning last week, before the spill spread hundreds of miles across the Gulf, and before winds began blowing toward shore. ...
Gouget, now an environmental consultant with Windward Associates in Seattle, was part of the group that created the 1994 plan designed to allow federal responders to begin burning oil as soon as a major spill occurred, without an approval process.
"They had pre-approval. The whole reason the plan was created was so we could pull the trigger right away instead of waiting ten days to get permission," Gouget said. "If you read the pre-approval plan, it speaks about Grand Isle, where the spill is. When the wind is blowing offshore out of the north, you have preapproval to burn in that region. If the wind is coming onshore, like it is now, you can't burn at Grand Isle. They waited to do the test burn until the wind started coming onshore." ....
He said the NOAA officials involved at the Unified Command Center in Louisiana know how to respond to spills, and know burning should have started as soon as possible after the initial release was detected.
Gouget said they may have been overruled.
"It may have been a political issue.
The burn would make a big big plume and lots of soot. Like Valdez, the decisions to get the resources mobilized may not have occurred until it was too late," Gouget said.
"This whole thing has been a daily strip tease. ...It's unfortunate they didn't get the burning going right away. They could have gotten 90 percent of the oil before it spread."
Gouget said portions of the oil will still burn, especially the stuff bubbling up from the broken well. (Watch Coast Guard video of test burns here.)
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to have been ANYONE in his administration who might have figured out early on that this could be a dangerous situation, and did anything about, or told him what HE should do about it.
LIAR!
We have The Mob from the Southside of Chicago along with their far-flung international "interests" ensconced in the White House, so we can't legitimately rule out anything. They have too much at stake already as they've been laying the ground work for many, many years. Their mind-set is to do what they have to do.
We have more to fear from the enemy within than from the enemy without.
We must pull out all the stops to defeat them in every election...even if the 'RAT is only running for dog-catcher in a little town of 50 people.
And anyone who votes third party is casting his vote for a 'RAT.
See post 34 above
LIAR, is right.
I don't think he'll get away with it this time, however. See post #34 above
bttt
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