Posted on 06/17/2010 9:41:18 AM PDT by Nachum
WASHINGTON — A day after top BP officials met with President Barack Obama at the White House and agreed to set up a $20 billion compensation fund, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas called the money a "shakedown" of the company and apologized for the president's action.
Barton, the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce committee, told BP CEO Tony Hayward Thursday morning that he was sorry about what the president had done. The money is a "slush fund," Barton said, and "unprecedented in our nation's history."
"I do not want to live in a country where anything a citizen or corporation does something that is ... wrong is subject to some sort of political pressure, that again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown," said Barton.
(Excerpt) Read more at mcclatchydc.com ...
Where did I say I was against due process?
Yup. Kind of like a novice chess player. Can’t think more than one move ahead...
So where is the call for Auditors of the fund, for transparency of the fund’s workings, for uploading of the recipients’ names to the Internet? Play Obozo’s own game and ring him round with so many restrictions that he cannot steal from the ‘slush fund.’
I wouldn’t apologize to BP, but Barton’s essentially correct about this extraordinary meeting. Obama is acting like Chavez.
Perhaps Barton and other Conservatives believe there are more important things than Party politics. Like the rule of law? Trying to beat up capitalism more than commies is a losing proposition.
Pray for America
It takes a shyster to catch a shyster!
They’ll never make an ad of a Repub calling this a shakedown, because that’s exactly what it is. And about time someone other than Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann bothered to say so.
I hope these buffoons in Congress know how stupid they look on FNC just sitting there passing gas and posing for their “media” on one side of the screen and the oil pouring into the Gulf being shown on the other side of the screen. Senator Foghorn is up there doing photo ops while the Gulf is being destroyed. PLUG THE DAMN HOLE DADDY!!! There will be plenty of time to stand around gabbing and passing gas later!!! I get the impression that none of those jerks know what to do and have just given up! It’s sick! It’s starting to appear as though they are letting the oil continue to spill while they conduct their “hearings” to destroy “BIG OIL”. Fat Mikey Moore wants “Sicko”? We’re seeing “Sicko” right now.
wow. jjackson and al sharptjerk must be jealous as heck about this guy’s shakedown booty.
gosh i truly despise this piece of trash. can enough people wake up by 2012 or will TEOTW come first?
You didn’t, I’m replying to your saying you would have stopped short at the apology to BP. Regardless what they are culpable for, I don’t think an end-run around the system in order to score political points off a demonized entity is proper.
Jamie Gorelick’s new challenge: Backing BP
When BP executives filed into the West Wing on Wednesday morning to meet with President Barack Obama, they were joined by at least one familiar Washington hand: former Clinton administration Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, who signed on earlier this month to represent BP in congressional inquiries linked to the massive oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
As one of the top lawyers in Washington and a former Justice Department official, it is no surprise that BP tapped Gorelick and her prominent law firm, WilmerHale, to do the nearly impossible: defend it against a deluge of legislative inquiries into the oil disaster.
And her role is not very different from the one played by another prominent Democrat, former White House counsel Greg Craig, who is now representing Goldman Sachs — which until the oil spill was Washington’s favorite corporate pariah.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38645.html#ixzz0r89Zgcf8
Also the Wednesday, 6/16/2010 Speech after the BP Meeting ...
Mr. Haywood, dats a nice company ya got dere. Be a shame if somfin’ happened to it.
Jamie Gorelick’s new challenge: Backing BP
After leaving the Justice Department, Gorelick served for six years as vice chairwoman of Fannie Mae and got caught up in the mortgage agency’s accounting controversy. In 2005, two years after Gorelick left Fannie Mae, a federal investigation into the public-private mortgage company found that accountants had falsified signatures to erase $9 billion in losses from the books. Eliminating those losses resulted in Gorelick and four other Fannie Mae executives taking away six- and seven-figure bonuses in 1998.
The federal investigation found that Gorelick was paid more than $25 million during her time at Fannie, and the huge compensation received by Fannie Mae executives later became a major issue in Congress.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38645.html#ixzz0r89rgERb
Since leaving Fannie Mae, Gorelick has been a partner at WilmerHale and head of its Defense, National Security and Government Contracts Practice Group. Even with a Democrat in power, she has not shied away from representing clients with interests at odds with the Obama administration.
Earlier this year, student loan giant Sallie Mae made it a point to hire prominent Democrats, including Gorelick, and Democratic lobbyists from the Podesta Group to stop congressional legislation that would severely alter its role in the student loan industry. Their efforts were defeated, and the Obama administration succeeded in attaching a reform bill to the health care legislation that made the federal government the only lender to students — effectively cutting out private companies like Sallie.
Gorelick has also represented Steve Rattner, a prominent Democratic fundraiser, against accusations by the Securities and Exchange Commission that he arranged a pay-to-play deal that secured a $100 million investment from the New York public pension fund for his private investment management firm.
I'm going to have to guess what I read yesterday was written by some yahoo journo who didn't do his own homework, had no clue that she'd been on board to deal with the congressional inquiries for some time.
>> who do not have the guts to stand up to US government blackmail and extortion.
There’s only one thing that matters here: the bottom line.
Put your expectations of virtue aside - it’s meaningless in the games the “big boys” play.
BP could be going along with 0bamao’s shakedown now for public relations purposes, but when it comes time to write the check, they wouldn’t be legally obligated.
Now this is what I have been talking about. Obama apologizes to other countries for the US past actions, Republicans need to start apologizing to everyone for Obama’s actions. No better way to show up Obama but to turn his leftist techniques back on him and see the MSM try to report it. Next, apologize to minorities for Obama's high unemployment and promise to try harder to stop him.
Ah so!
I see now—community organizing is sorta like the mob; the mob shakes down the neighborhood shop owners for “insurance money” so that nothing “unfortunate” might befall them...
Uh-huh! Got it!
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