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 ...
You are right. If Republicans apologized to the people everyday for this asshat in the WH it would frost his ass something fierce.
You equate one comment, that Boehner has already disavowed, to the whole party?
So you would just recommend we “go with the flow”. Luckily there are some who won't.
Barton is on safe legal ground, given Chris Mathews assessment, immediately following Obama’s speech.......
As for Gibbs’ comment regarding BP contributions to Barton....$27K over 21 years isn’t exactly noteworthy.....
If Republicans want to win in November, they need to start getting some backbone.
Up to now they have been doing okay in stopping Ibama’s agenda for the most part or trying to anyway but they obviously need to do much much more in that department.
Even democrats are starting to abandon Obama and are running away from him and his agenda with track shoes on!
And now you even have part of the liberal media going after Obama too.
The time is right and ripe. It’s time to stand up and say and do the right thing for the good of the country and our (legal) citizens!
It is more than a shakedown, it is government extortion. Obama and his hoods should be in jail.
“This is a shakedown, the old fashioned Chicago way.. Total Alinsky, Blago, and Al Capone Daley machine style hardball politics.”
In truth, it was another Chicago politician—Jesse Jackson—who honed the fear-driven shakedown to a fine art.
True, but at the same time they won’t be legally obligated to pay more than 75 million in claims unless there is determined to be criminal conduct. What do we do when they reach 75 million and decide to stop writing checks? I’ll tell you what we will do: me and you and every other taxpayer will have to pay those claims. The Feds will come up with some kind of Save the Gulf Coast Act and stock it chock full of (more) borrowed cash to pay out to anyone who claims they suffered. It will have crappy oversight, be subject to tons of fraud (like Katrina), and generally cost twice as much as what it should.
I don’t think having the government pick some “thrid party” to administer this claims fund is a good idea because it will just be an extension of the Feds and be just as poorly managed. But there needs to be some assurances, solid, legally binding assurances, that BP will go beyond the 75 million cap for paying claims. Otherwise, there is nothing stopping them from doing what you suggest—simply not write any checks because they aren’t legally required to do so.
I never understand why Republicans dont turn around all their techniques on them.
Exactly. Republicans can turn on the democrats and use their own tactics against them. They can and they should. They are already labeled the party of no, the obstructionist party. But those things can be good things in the current political landscape.
I hope nobody is surprised. The neighborhood community organizer specialized in shakedowns, and the Community-organizer-in-chief does the same. He’s just a thug, one with more power than should ever be entrusted to a bully.
If Barton takes a friendly "donation" from BP - the MSM will be at his doorstop 50 days before the election - and every day up until... If he's throwing in with them - it better NOT involve cash - or checks - or any donations...
“Play Obozo’s own game and ring him round with so many restrictions that he cannot steal from the ‘slush fund.’”
Nice in theory, hard to do in practice. Even a diversion of 5% of the fund to political activities would be $1 billion-a very tidy game-changing sum when allocated to 30 or 40 key battleground races. Who has ever heard of a government-run program where the fraud, waste and abuse was limited to a mere 5%? In Medicaid and Medicare (which are hundreds of billions of dollars), the rate is more like 10%. The number of claimants is likely to in the hundreds of thousands or millions. Unlike the 9/11 fund, which Ken Fineberg also oversaw as “special master”, which had fewer than 3,000 victims/families whose claims had to be adjudicated, this is a monstrously huge task. There’s no way Fineberg can personally review/adjudicate the number involved. Even if he devoted a mere 5 minutes per case, he could only plow through 120 in a 10 hour day. Can you picture families waiting 3, 5 or 10 years for him to get around to their case? No way: inevitably these decisions will get delegated to a large number of bureaucrats. Ken Fineberg may “sign off” on each one (the way members of Congress “sign” letters going from their office use a robo-type pen), but deep in the bowels of the process all it will take is a few strategically placed adjudicators who will receive fraudulent claims from ACORN employees or SEIU employees and approve payments to them that everyone understands will end up in the coffers of the Democratic Party. If Sam Brown from ACORN receives a $100,000 government check that he cashes and then remits $90,000 to ACORN (hey, he deserves a “handling fee,” doesn’t he?) to be divided among 45 employees who all agree to make “individual” donations to whatever campaign they are instructed to do so, who will ever be able to follow such a money trail? It won’t be as simple as just cross-checking BP fund recipients against a list of campaign donors.
In this “anything goes” administration, we can be reasonably certain that “anything goes.” And unlike when a Republican was in the WH, there ain’t no Woodward and Bernstein in the MSM who will be devoting great gobs of time trying to expose this massive corruption.
“If Republicans apologized to the people everyday for this asshat in the WH it would frost his ass something fierce.”
I love it! Republicans could launch a Health Deform Apology Campaign with one apology around one factoid every day between now and Election Day. “We apologize for the healthcare reform plan that was supposed to save you $2500 but will instead cost about $1,000 a year more for the typical American family.”
Where the hell is Boehner on Wall Street reform? Where the hell was he on the GM bailouts, where was he on TARP? Where the hell is he on the banks continuing and continuous looting of the treasury? Where is he on Bernanke and Turbo-Timmy? Derivatives, High Frequency Trading, Bernanke printing money.
We have two parties in this country, one for the looters, and one for the moochers.
And that's even before we start talking about the PR stupidity of this, which apparently Boehner does recognize.
If the GOP doesn't want to get tagged with being on the side of the looters, let them get to work on these issues. Wake me up when that happens.
Rand Paul, Sharon Angle, Chris Christie, DeMint... more like these, and faster, please.
Strictly from a politic point of view this is too much.
If you or me dump a can of oil in Boston Harbor, I guarantee you we get hosed.
But Barton labels the recompensation of livelihoods and income a shakedown? They made 60 Billion in profits last year, it’s not as if they cannot afford the costs of their criminality - the deaths, the despoiling of the waters and the land.
Lord, the GOP at its stupidest.
I hope to God that the house leadership was on the phone to Barton within the hour telling him to shut up or they will cut him off.
But probably not.
+1
So BP hires jamie Gorelick, the former deputy AG under Clinton-
and then there is Eric Holder pretending he is going to conduct a criminal probe of this BP gang that can’t shoot straight
And congress (batpig boy Waxman!) preening and posturing like proper little Stalinists in this political theater and BP meekly prostrates its top executives instead of using them to manage a solution- apparently they ARE wankers after all
while the well slowly (or quickly) erodes and collapses into an open sewer of oil
God Bless America!
Guess when you live in the DC bubble, this defending of corporate criminality seems a sensible thing to do.
Not only the polluting, but the deaths of the 11 men are directly attributable to the decision of the BP rig chief, his COO, and Hayward.
Manslaughter charges at the very least.
Anyway, when I heard Barton this morning I couldn’t believe it. What was his alternative to BP paying for its actions........none.
Wonder if the Dems will replay the tape of Barton kissing Hayward’s oily arse during the fall campaigns.....nationalize every race they could.
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