Slashdot Mirror
Louisiana Federal Judge Blocks Drilling Moratorium
eldavojohn writes "In the ongoing BP debacle, the Obama administration imposed a six-month moratorium on offshore drilling and a halt to 33 exploratory wells going into the Gulf of Mexico. Now a federal judge (in New Orleans, no less) is unsatisfied with the reasons for this and stated, 'An invalid agency decision to suspend drilling of wells in depths of over 500 feet simply cannot justify the immeasurable effect on the plaintiffs, the local economy, the Gulf region, and the critical present-day aspect of the availability of domestic energy in this country.' The state's governor agrees on the grounds that blocking drilling will cost the state thousands of lucrative jobs." The government quickly vowed to appeal, pointing out that a moratorium on 33 wells is unlikely to have a devastating impact in a region hosting 3,600 active wells. And reader thomst adds this insight on the judge involved in the case: "Yahoo's Newsroom is reporting that the judge who overturned the drilling moratorium holds stock in drilling companies. You can view his financial disclosure forms listing his stock holdings online at Judicial Watch (PDF)."
Yahoo's Newsroom is reporting that the judge who overturned the drilling moratorium holds stock in drilling companies.
No conflict of interest here, no sir...
This ain't rocket surgery.
Now when the same problems cause a second leak we can 100% confirm those problems are the cause!
How else will we address the third leak?
The baby's fine -- please stop sending business cards.
So basically it's like someone being raped by everyone in a club and saying they like the music a lot so they aren't staying out.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Seems to me in this case the Fed ought to get the last word in based on the longterm impact this may have on the entire country as compared to the economic impact this may have on Louisiana. However, because Louisiana still operates under Napoleanic law unlike the rest of the country, I suspect things are going to get very interesting very shortly.
I love his comparison that just because one went doesn't mean the others will. Gee they use largely the same hardware and have virtually identical disaster response plans. Nope no risk at all. I think all that he sees at risk is his stock portfolio.
the obaming.
Both sides are playing politics while the gulf is getting screwed. The judge's ownership of stock is as irrelevant as Obama taking millions in campaign contributions from BP.
It's sickening that, in this modern age, we let a single person throw around this much power.
"A few months ago, I approved a proposal to consider new, limited offshore drilling under the assurance that it would be absolutely safe"
LOL, tool.
Maybe he should get a nice BP logo tatooed on his lower back, so that his corporate master has something pretty to look at while buggering justice
Wherever You Go, There You Are
The above quote should read "a moratorium on 33 drilling wells". Drilling wells are a rate (ie 33 wells per month), active wells are a stock. The distinction is important. The vast majority of oil and gas jobs are involved in the drilling and completion process. Operating a well after it has been completed requires very little resources. For example, a typical onshore well may cost $2-3 million to drill and complete in a 14-30 day time period, but only cost around $2,000/month to operate after completion.
Please note that I'm not saying a drilling moratorium should not be passed. Just that the moratorium will likely have significant impact on the Gulf economy, and that the state of Louisiana's concerns are quite valid, and that the Federal government's dismissal of them here is misleading and likely inaccurate.
No mention in the link about the "experts" that the administration consulted coming out and saying they don't support the ban and that the administration misrepresented their position. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/22/judge-halts-obamas-oil-drilling-ban/
You can sit there and be critical of the judge all you choose - but the question still remains. Does his ruling make sense? If you look at the economic impact of the President's decision - it's just as much of a catastrophe for the region as the Oil! Further - these accidents don't happen every 15 minutes - those arguing against drilling because of possible second episode are just playing an emotional argument, not a logical one.
Gee - why not pick on the judge because he was a Reagan appointee?
Have you compiled your kernel today??
Why in the world would a judge hear a case when the outcome could effect his own wealth? Secondly does the judicial branch even have standing to enter the fray when the president makes a decision in time of great national emergency? I would think that even the Supreme Court may lack the authority in this case.
I can not exactly quote Bill Maher on the lost jobs issue but I will amend it to say that he said stuff your damn job. You people want to destroy the oceans, destroy the forests and completely destroy the Earth. It's time for you absurd red necks to get an education and work in areas that do not destroy nature. His version was much more insulting. But the man does have a point. Whether it is the coal mine areas of our nation or the oil rig areas or the areas being deforested by sprawl and timber harvesting it is not the Ph.D. people that we see doing those tasks. It is left to people who have very rudimentary educations or no education at all. The more we allow them to continue in ways that they have done in the past the more harm will fall upon all of us.
I honestly don't think this will be much of an issue. You've seen what happened to BP. If you're a deep water drilling company and you don't have all your ducks in a row after that, you're an idiot. So Obama's reasoning for the moratorium, until the safety measures can be re-evaluated, is redundant because these companies had better be at the forefront of responsibility without further external incentives.
Kind of like how Ford, GM, and Honda were probably double and triple checking their acceleration systems after Toyota's little stint in the headlines recently.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
He held stock in 2008, which is clear from even the most superficial glance at the document. Why write "holds stock"?
That's the slashdot angle.
Oh - it was posted by kdawson. Nevermind.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
A Federal judge... I wonder what that cost the oil companies.
Mr Obama decided to "inform" BP that it must put adequate funds to meet all compensation claims into an escrow account beyond its control, although he has no authority to do so. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, instructed it not to pay a dividend until all claims tied to the spill are settled. Her fellow Democrats in Congress are trying to raise BP's liability retroactively--the sort of move America's courts rightly frown on. Mr Salazar, on even thinner legal ice, suggested that the government would hold BP accountable not just for the harm directly done by the spill, but also for the jobs lost in the oil business thanks to the freeze on oil drilling in deep water that he himself has imposed.
The magazine frowns upon all these things and it makes some sense. If, as The Economist suggests, BP's value has already dropped by $89 billion and that's "far in excess of all but the most dire forecasts of the ultimate costs of the spill," what is to be gained by all this backlash against the oil industry but a bunch of political posturing?
News flash: The United States is still inexorably reliant on its oil industry. If the Obama administration wants to do something about future oil disasters, maybe it should think more seriously about that and what can be done about it. Also, had government done a better job of regulating the oil industry in the first place, BP's shoddy practices might not have gone unchecked and this disaster might never have happened.
Breakfast served all day!
It seems to me that any permit in the Gulf that mentioned protecting walruses should be declared defective and fraudulent and canceled immediately without compensation with criminal prosecution to follow. Enjoin that.
I do not see why the Federal Government should get the last word. If anything Obama's handling of this disaster is itself a disaster. Garnering political favor (shipper unions) in refusing to accept aid from foreign nations who have the ability to help (Netherlands in particular) by refusing to lift the Jone's Act which prevents non American crewed ships from operating in our waters. Bush immediately lifted the act in face of Katrina, where Bush ran into problems is that the some states, in particular Louisiana, refused Federal assistance except in very tightly controlled situations. Hell we even had a city practically thumb its nose at the Federal government and I dare say it was totally motivated by politics.
Now we have a Federal Government actively standing in the way of states trying to prevent an ecological disaster while at the same time using the same disaster as a means to eventually forever block drilling. We drill deep because its about the only place we can after being driven offshore. Other nations will drill what we won't so it would be best to do so with our people and our rules. Applying blame with reckless abandon over an entire industry is childish. You can damn well bet the other drillers are working hard to prevent a repeat; it just is too costly to good business to be wrong. No, we now have a Federal government with a commission of drilling haters who will "decide" what can and cannot be done yet the people chosen speak of the rules before anything is discussed.
If anything, just like Katrina, this has proven there are disasters and their are opportunities beyond the power of the government. The government is not the end all solution that some want it to be, so what do they do? Prevent people from proving it.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The drilling rigs are not cheap. Having them sit idle will cost millions and millions of dollars. There is demand for them elsewhere in the world. They will contract out to other companies operating in other countries. When the moratorium is lifted in 6 months, there won't be any available rigs to be had which means no jobs either.
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
If you look at the economic impact of the President's decision - it's just as much of a catastrophe for the region as the Oil!
Oh yes, if you look at the impact of potentially wrecking the fishing and tourism industries of a thousand lines of coastline and compare that to the 6-month delay of constructing a number of new wells that equal about a percentage point of the wells currently out there, you'll find that they're absolutely equivalent catastrophes! Totally the same!
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Dude, are you for real?
Do you know how much this ONE blowout will cost to everyone, including you? Do you really know?
Those employees can look for another job, but we just can't look for another planet, alright?
From page 20:
The Court cannot substitute its judgment for that of the agency, but the agency must "cogently explain why it has exercised its discretion in a given manner" (State Farm, 463 U.S. at 48). It has not done so.
- AJ
okay with me - promise no more pictures of dead birds and sad fishermen if another one goes just as they get this one stopped . It seemed kind of obvious that the regulators of this enterprise were as rotten and deficient as any in the government and we have absolutely no assurance anything out there in the terribly remote deep gulf can be known to be built to reasonable standards until someone looks . 6 months to try to finally take a look at where we are now seemed pretty minimal to me . Clearly Obama should have thought of this before supporting more of the same - thought the quality of the financial regulators might have clued him in . Oh well - maybe having the gulf coated with oil will slow water evaporation and reduce hurricane severity this year
Well Bore.
Change That DOESN'T Matter !!
Yours In Kranoyarsk,
Kilgore Trout
It seems like the other oil companies are eager to join BP in the public relations garbage can. We have seen no other companies step up and say they will review their own safety procedures, despite lots of evidence that the others are almost as bad -- or worse and luckier, who knows since inspections are obviously not finding what there is to find?
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Our rules got us into this mess.
Maybe if we required redundant BOPs with an acoustic shutoff...course, if that was the case we likely wouldn't be having this discussion.
Next to what Obama has saddled both you and I with skyrocketing national debt, this will cost me very little.
The Mississippi River pours as much water into the Gulf of Mexico in -38 seconds- as the BP oil leak has done in two months.
You are displaying classic liberal exaggeration syndrome.
Perhaps you would be more comfortable running in circles, loosing feathers, clucking "The Oil is FALLING! The Oil is FALLING!".
Grow up. Travel some. Learn that numbers mean things.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
Just that the moratorium will likely have significant impact on the Gulf economy, and that the state of Louisiana's concerns are quite valid, and that the Federal government's dismissal of them here is misleading and likely inaccurate.
That's the thing: I don't know enough about the Gulf economy to say, but all things considered over the long term, fishing shrimping, tourism (have to include Florida on this one ), possible health consequences to the population, and every other thing that matter to an economy (I'll skip the "worthless" wildlife that offers no economic benefit to the region), will this moratorium really have that much of an effect on the economy? And if you consider the region wide damage, what are the net costs - meaning, after this spill, how long before the regions economy is back in the black? Tourism in that area is going to be affected until tarballs stop washing up on shore and I'm afraid, the Gulf fisheries are going to be going through some horrible times - fishermen on Government assistance (being paid to sit home).
We really need to think of the big picture here.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Gulf Of Mexico Ecosystem > 80,000-100,000 jobs
His point was that just because one driller made a mistake, doesn't mean the rest are bad. Every time someone has a car accident, we don't shut down the freeways for 6 months.
If not for the Federal Government, they never would have gone to deep water. The Feds passed a law limiting BP's liablity, and now they want to repeal it. They also disallow off shore drilling as well as on shore drilling. So if not for the Federal Government, they never would have gone to the risky deep water drilling.
Everyone wants to villify BP even though they help to keep oil costs low(because they increase competition with the other oil companies), and employ 80,000 people. I hope those who went out to protest DON'T OWN CARS, or any other petroleum based product. I'm sure they do, hypocrites.
Having worked in nuclear power for 25+ years I know something about how accidents happen and how to prevent them. This event was a total institutional failure. BP failed, the MMS failed, the other oil companies and supporting companies failed. This is epic failure like we haven't seen since Chernobyl, worse in my view because the reactor (in this case, the well) is still critical, still on fire, and a mile under water. The blow out preventers have been shown to not work, the emergency plan has been shown to be a fraud (walruses anyone - dead people phone numbers anyone, buhler?) the technology to respond to blowouts and 10-100,000 barrel a day leaks simply does not exist, and the regulator might have well been saboteurs for all the good they did. A 6 month moratorium is not even close to enough time to fix these problems. But I would put the ball back in the industry's court, my solution would be to make 10CFR50 App B (nuclear power regulation for quality) apply to deep well drilling and tell the industry they can start drilling as soon as their CEO states under oath or affirmation (i.e. lie and its a crime) that their rigs comply. Safely handling high hazards ain't new, many industries do a fine job - BP has proven it can't and by the above revelations we have no assurance that Exxon, Shell, Halliburton or anyone else can either. Shutting down a few wells will hurt the economy of Louisiana and I say tough shit until you fix your problem. But on the other hand I never saw so many people working at a nuke like the ones that have been shut down for safety problems. Once the oil companies see what they have to do to get their practices fixed there will be many many many jobs for the people that will be doing the fixing.
The oil companies have rigs THEY bought. That money is sitting out there doing absolutely nothing. Say...Brazil has an oil field. Well, guess what, the rigs getting moved to a place where they are actually wanted, and a place where money will start coming in. As for the gulf well, just imagine you spent 15 million dollars to move your rig and now HObama says its ok to start drilling again. You think they are going to move those oil rigs back? Fat chance. Once they are gone, it might be 20 years before anyone even thinks about drilling in the gulf again and as for the jobs in that area, better learn Spanish and head to Brazil or Venezuela because those jobs are going to be gone...for good...yeah I think that about sums it up as to why its so important to get drilling started again(and yes I am all for tightening the crap out of safety regulations)
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
Thank God they are stopping the Russians and Chinese from drilling there.... oh wait a minute.....
Self Defense - A Human Right www.a-human-right.com
Oil industry apologists are saying we're all being whining, ungrateful children because we reap the benefits of cheap energy but bash the poor, hard-working people who put the gas in our cars. But what they don't mention is the fantastic amount of money spent buying this oil-dependent reality in the first place. From buying politicians to clouding the issues in the public forum to preventing research in clean alternatives. It's a sick, terrible system. And it's impossible to use the tools of democracy to fix it because even when we try to vote for change it's bait and switch.
The thing that gets me is how the writing can be plain on the wall and people who don't know better take their cue from people who do know better but whose financial best interests depend on pretending they don't. "Global warming is just a theory! It's still debatable!" Yeah, about as debatable as the theory that tobacco is a carcinogen. Hell, we can even get Republican presidents to mouth the words "oil addiction" and "we need to kick the habit." We just can't get anyone -- reps or dems -- to do a fucking thing about it. They're both beholden to the special interests.
I can't even begin to fathom that latest talking point, Obama's being mean to BP. Chicago-style takedown! What the fuck?! And I bet you're still upset about those fucking Eskimos beating up on poor ol' Exxon for all those decades trying to get the money they've been promised. $20 billion is going to be a drop in the bucket for all the damages wracked up and there will never be a full accounting. Most victims will never be made whole.
From the bleating on the right, you'd think that Obama had nationalized BP, crucified their board of directors on a line of crosses on a tarred beach, and signed an executive order to go to 100% renewables before 2012. If only! I'm actually pissed at how anemic his response has been. No, he can't snap his fingers and make the well go shut, he can't stand on the heads of the engineers and make them work faster but he could at least help unsnarl the clusterfuck that is the disaster response. He could take BP's management out of the loop on disaster mitigation. He could put the environmental experts in the control room so they can get the unfiltered information from the well head minus the BP spin. At the very least he could prevent the BP contractors from burning the sea turtles.
Yeah, yeah, mod me down. Go and confirm exactly what I'm saying.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
What is three football fields long by three wide and 10 yards tall?
A: The gulf oil spill
That should put it in terms any American can understand.
Then don't fucking drill and save yourself those fucking millions.
So the investors (ie fat cats) should save their millions instead of pay it to the workers (ie little guys). Are you sure that's what you meant?
Or is losing an ENTIRE FUCKING COAST so unimportant to you as to oppose halting new activity for a little bit?
The oil is already spilled - stopping drilling will not cure that.
The government can't save you.
He might be hard to swallow for some, but he covers Obama's link to big oil.
http://watchglennbeck.com/
Observe: a presidency going down in flames...
We can argue day and night about whether more drilling is a good idea. But that's not the question -- the real question is:
Does the law give the President the power to impose a moratorium in this situation?
If not, then it doesn't matter whether it was a good idea or not. The President is not a King or an Emperor. He does not have the authority to decree how things should be, no matter how mad he is or how great of an idea his decree is.
Last I checked politicians make political decisions and judges make legal decisions...Does Obama & the executive branch have the legal authority to declare this moratorium? This is what judges decide...The judge seems to be overstepping his role by weighing in on the political aspects of it.
I apologize, I do not want to live in a country where anytime a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong is subject to some sort of political pressure that is again in my words amounts to a shakedown. So I apologize.
For the record, even Fox News has his statement. Many of his fellow Republicans were ashamed of his original statement. They even continued to be ashamed of his spoken statement and he later sent out a written statement in an attempt to appease members of his own party. Rep. Barton's statements were completely self serving considering he is on the House Energy and Commerce Committee as well as a very large recipient of big oil and BP's campaign donations. Even more so, if you take his statement for face value, he is saying that nobody should ever be punished for their misdeeds.
You need to go back and re-read the apology he issued.
I know he meant he disliked the manner in which the white house forced the payment. I still think the exact terms he used, in his prepared statement, are telling of a greater allegiance to the industry he worked in as an executive and that helped him get elected, than to the public he was supposed to be serving.
If the environment gets ruined because American law says that they don't have to drill relief wells (unlike many other countries), who the fuck cares about jobs? Sure we cant go to the beach on the weekend, can't eat fish, and tourism is completely in the shitter, but at least gas only costs 1$ a litre! I can just drive somewhere thats not polluted, right?
Sorry to get in the way of your stupid american partisan politics, but honestly, in reality - its not hard to do the math. Simply weigh on one side, a priceless environment ruined by a disaster which may now be world wide , and on the other side some US energy sector jobs. Sure it sucks for the 80k people (your figure) that are impacted by this, but i tend to think that the gulf coast environment, and perhaps the entire atlantic ocean, is a wee bit more important. I would think that this would be obvious to anyone who didn't have some other political agenda to push here.
Smart people can ALWAYS find other lines of work. What happened to them pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps? Or does that talking point only apply to a different political debate. I get that it may seem like an over-reaction, but clearly your american government has severely UNDER reacted for the last 30 years, in regards to regulating oil drilling. Id prefer they make up for that now, rather than continuing on the course that has directly led to this "meltdown".
We shouldn't need a meltdown to enforce regulation on dangerous industries, but in america it seems to be how they like to do things.
Ass backwards.
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
The Mississippi River pours as much water into the Gulf of Mexico in -38 seconds- as the BP oil leak has done in two months.
Wake me up when the Mississippi river is pouring that much oil into the Gulf of Mexico. That's like saying "you have 10 grams of arsenic in your body? That's nothing - you have 1000 times more water already there!"
You raise an issue worthy of further consideration. It was first posed succinctly by the fictional character from Austin Powers - International Man of Mystery. Dr. Evil: "Why must I be surrounded by frickin' idiots?" (Similarly, Scott Adams states this as the Dilbert Principle, we are all stupid, about most things, most of the time.) With the rise of civilization and technology has come increased complexity. Unfortunately, we seem, on average, to be ill equipped to cope with it. It's amazing we can get things done at all, really, when you think about the difficulty we have making what ought to be simple decisions.
Consider this week the news is full of European countries enacting substantial budget cuts. We know that's the wrong thing to do. It times of economic prosperity, we should run balanced budgets or pay down national debt. When faced with a recession so enormous that people invoke the Great Depression as an analog, though we have only about 20% unemployment, rather than 30% or more, this situation is dire. We know that we must run deficits, large ones, in order to create a demand stimulus large enough to moderate this trough of the economic cycle. Nonetheless, we have politicians trying to score political points by railing against deficit spending -- which didn't bother them for the past 8 years when they were in charge.
The problem is profound, widespread ignorance, but not merely ignorance as in the mere unawareness of relevant facts. It's ignorance that makes one blind to the limits of one's own ability to asses one's own capability. Smearing lemon juice on your face doesn't make you invisible to security cameras. If you think it does, then you're not qualified to be a bank robber, but you're also not qualified to assess many, many other issues -- foremost among them, you're not qualified to assess your sills as a bank robber, and are likely to be utterly ignorant as to the possibility that you might not be able to assess those skills without outside assistance. Presented with relevant facts, these people remain impervious to rational assessment of a situation. They are so poorly equipped that they can't evaluate their own ignorance.
The Anosognosic's Dilemma: Something's Wrong but You'll Never Know What It Is (Part 1)
After the first disaster which destroyed a Space Shuttle and killed all the astronauts aboard, a presidential commission was appointed to investigate, by President Reagan. Its members included the nobel prize winning physicist, Richard Feynman. Feynman wrote his own appendix to the official report of the committee. It's one of the most fascinating documents, and should be required reading for any engineer, politician, manager, or judge . It ranks up there with The Selfish Gene, Goedel Escher, Bach, and The Mythical Man Month.
Richard Feynman, the Challenger Disaster, and Software Engineering
Feynman's Appendix to the Rogers Commission Report on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident
The lesson of the Challenger disaster directly applies to the Deepwater Horizon oil well blowout disaster. Simply because we haven't had a disaster yet does not in any way imply that we are not doing things, lots of things, which are likely to lead to a disaster.
This problem applies to big problems, like managing national budgets, building and flying reusable spacecraft, drilling a mile under the ocean surface for oil -- and to small problems, like using mod points on Slashdot.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Maybe they could put those engineers, rigs and workers in place checking and reinforcing existing infrastructure?
Grow up. Travel some. Learn that numbers mean things.
From your grand parent post:
His 6 month moratorium was overreaching and a cynical first installment for the anti-civilization, anti-prosperity "Cap-and-Tax" legislation being greased up to force down our throat like Obama's "Early Death Care".
Seriously dude? You lost the right to tell someone else to grow up and stop exaggerating when you wrote that pile of bullshit. Cut the crap.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
First, a disclaimer.
I happen to live on planet Earth. I am, therefore, somewhat biased to protect it. This bias may affect my perception of decisions, such as drilling oil wells that could have "immeasurable effects" on the ecology of the drilling site if done wrong.
Now, this article summary, and the statement from the judge, shows clearly in my opinion why we should never use the word immeasurable as a way to justify one action or another. It seems the opposition quite quickly was able to measure the impact, and the impact is about 1%. The first oil company willing to pledge enough cash to completely recover from a second disaster like the BP one, I'd say happy drilling. Until then, we need to suspend drilling holes at depths where we aren't technologically far enough along to fix things if they go wrong.
It does surprise me, that we've found the technology to destroy this planet hundreds of times over with nuclear energy, but we can't plug a hole a mile underwater. Kinda leads you to which way this planet's headed.
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
Whenever anyone makes the claim that any corporation contributed to any political campaign, they mean that employees of that company made donations. That is because it is illegal for corporations to give money to federal candidates. So they have their upper management and majority stock holders "donate" money to a Political Action Committee which then donates the campaign. The effect is the same.
LOL, tool.
Exactly what are you laughing at? A year ago, the common wisdom -- particularly on towards the right side of the political spectrum -- was that environmental concerns are just handwringing by whacko liberal moonbats, that increased offshore drilling is a necessary part of a comprehensive energy plan, that it would help reduce our dependency on foreign oil (somehow, magically, despite the fact that in free market system it all goes on the global market anyway), and that The Industry can be trusted to self-regulate.
Hell, if you read this thread, you'll *still* see people saying the industry can be trusted to self-regulate... it'll all take care of itself, don't you worry now.
You know what's behind this? You know that meme that probably more than half of slashdot FIRMLY believes -- that the private sector is always more competent than the public? That the public sector can't do anything right, can't regulate correctly, can't do anything other than act as a net negative drag on the private sector?
Yeah. Obama the radical socialist that he is? He partially believed that too. He believe what he was told by the executive apparatus and the oil companies -- that the oil companies had top expertise, that they knew exactly what they were doing, that they had safety dialed in and had right incentives to behave without further regulation. And, of course, that there wasn't massive regulatory capture during a presidential administration headed up by two guys who've been Oil guys for a long time.
What would be funny if it weren't so utterly pathetic and gravely consequential for the future of our society is that even though Obama has apparently learned his lessons, there's millions who won't.
Funny how it's playing out that way in financial regulation, too. We're all going to be asked to believe that cosmetic choices that won't cause any real pain for Wall Street are the best way to go -- and after all, the bankers and finance guys are the industry experts, so who better to advise us? We certainly wouldn't want meddling outsider officeholders drafting legislation about an industry they know little about without heavily consulting the industry about the best path, right? We wouldn't want heavy government involvement, anyway. That's a drag on The Market at best... and Socialism at worst.
You're going to hear this stuff. Again. And Again. Lots of times between now and the election. Some of you with fiscal conservative tendencies are going to fall for it. Some of you with libertarian tendencies are going to fall for it hook, line, and sinker. If enough of you fall for it, we're going to be here again in 5-10 years, same people saying loudly that the real problem was government meddling, socialism, we should have just let the private sector work. And the same actors in the private system will be racing their yachts and walking away with billions while socialized environmental and financial cleanup costs mount, one way or another.
Well, that's what you'll hear from some commentators. From others, you'll hear "LOL, tool."
Tweet, tweet.
The President is the Chief of the Executive branch of Government; he can unilaterally declare that the BP site be nuked from orbit if he so desires. It's the job of the Judiciary to determine the legality of his actions. There will always be that dynamic tension between the Executive and the Judiciary. Human nature being what it is, the Executive will always try to get away with as much as they can, while the Judiciary exists to make sure they comply with the laws of the land as enacted by the Legislature. It's called "Checks and Balances".
And why the fuck am I even explaining this to you? Your response to the parent post didn't even make any sense in the first place. If you're not American, I apologize for being harsh; if you are, you should be deeply ashamed of your ignorance.
I gotta stop.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Good lord...you are an idiot. Read a book or something.
I'm saying he apologized for the shakedown. No one has ever said that BP shouldn't be liable for the damages it caused. But no one has said they caused $20 billion in damages either. $600 million in claims have been filed to date. Taking $20 billion to cover $600 million in damages is a shakedown no matter how angry you are at BP.
Judge Marty Feldman?!??? You gotta be joking...
Well, I certainly hope he keeps an eye on this case.
pointing out that a moratorium on 33 wells is unlikely to have a devastating impact in a region hosting 3,600 active wells.
Those 33 wells are the focus of most of the high value work taking place. Finished, productive wells require very little labor or material relative to those 33 deep water wells. One of those deep water rigs is worth a hundred finished wells in terms of economic activity.
The experts cited by the government as recommending a moratorium unanimously deny making any such recommendation. The Judge voided this moratorium in part because the government just made up that part. We we're repeatedly promised fact based, expert and scientific governance by Obama.
I'm not happy with this Judge. This is just more judicial activism at work and I'm no more in favor of this instance than any other, even if the governments claims are bogus. The Interior Department has jurisdiction over the minerals of this nation and judges shouldn't be second guessing it any more than they should be imposing gay marriage on voters that reject it. Besides, I'd rather Obama and crew go into November with the moratorium in place, months after the huge layoffs in LA and the evacuation of all of the deep water rigs to South America and the African coast.
The damage is done. No sense in stopping now.
Imposing a drilling moratorium now is like shutting the barn door after the horse has run off.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
FUCK THOSE GUYS.
Let 'em learn to build windmills and solar panels.
and weave macramé planters from hemp...
Um, even you are getting it wrong. Obama didn't "put" anything in escrow; he pressured and convinced BP to voluntarily put $20B in an independently-managed escrow fund to pay claims. There has been no taking of property at all (and thus no question of "due process"); BP gave the money.
Are you adequate?
That's fine, but he wasn't apologizing for them having to pay for damages. I'm sick of hearing people say that he was.
Another fucking case of another fucking crooked Federal judge.
I guess I better shut up, the last time I said anything bad about a federal judge he sent the Marshal Service to my house to bug me.
True story.
People want to blame our presidents (both past and president) for this country going to Hell in a handbasket when it's really the Judicial branch that's the problem.
Now so broken mods dont work at all.
Will they ever get it right?
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/06/22/soros-oil-spill-payoff/
This guy will make some money from the moratorium :)
What about the Democrat Congressman who physically assaulted, plus grabbed by the neck and put in a chokehold, a student asking questions?
Perhaps your moral code is different from mine, but I think there's a HUGE difference between a guy who thinks it is wrong for a president to have power to extract money from a company (no due process of law), and a guy who commits a criminal act on a public DC street. (But of course the Democrats' actions were a-okay and the TV media doesn't discuss them at all - instead they just keep replaying the Republican over and over.)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Perhaps he considers his Oath to the Constitution to be more important?
To allow a single man to extract money from a corporation, without due process, is to create a lawless society. That is treading dangerous ground. When the Roman Republic and Julius Caesar tread upon that ground, it eventually led to a dictatorship and the death of democracy (the elected Senate became powerless) for over 1500 years.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
It's not a shakedown. Not by any stretch of the imagination*
A) It's in Escrow. Do you know what that means?
B) 600 million is the tip of then iceberg. Look at the costs of smaller events, like Valdez
Not a shakedown. Quite frankly it's appalling that people like you can not conceive of having a corporation set money aside to pay for the horrific damage that is still going on today. And will be going on for years.
I knw everythign is Obama's fauklt:
A) It's his fault for the accident
B) He isn't working fast enough
C) He got BP to set aside too much money
D) The years of MMS cozying was clearly set in motion by Obama
E) Obama didn't get enough money
F) Obama didn't don e his secret under water jet suit to personally go to the well and calculate oil flow himself.
He has handle this as best as any president could be reasonably expected to.
You fucking twits are an albatross around the neck of a free society.
*unless your imagination is sonpsered by big oil.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Perhaps he considers his Oath to the Constitution to be more important? To allow a single man to extract money from a corporation, without due process, is to create a lawless society.
That would be a fair argument were we talking just about this particular incident, but I was taking about his other dealings on the committee. His opinion here may have been based on the constitution, but his phrasing to me sounded like he was on the oil industry's side, and I'm suggesting that he had oil's interests ahead of ours in things like safety regulations on these oil rigs.
>>>He has handle this as best as any president could be reasonably expected to.
Yes Bush handled the Katrina emergency as best as he could, but that doesn't stop Democrats from bashing him all these years later. It's a bit hypocritical for you (or anyone) to say it's wrong to criticize the current president, and then turn right round and criticize the previous president an hour later. It's also hypocritical to say it's wrong to portray Obama as a Nazi, when Bush was called a Nazi for most of the decade. "Do as we say, not as we acted during Bush's regime." Is that the motto?
If it was okay to treat Bush as shit and blame him for the Katrina destruction, then it's certainly okay to treat Obama similarly. That's consistency.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
All the deep water rigs will be moving to Brazilian waters. Yomama already gave them some money to do that (yes), and Soros (Mr. Democratic party hisself, the bluest of blue staters, the liberal darling) is "moving on" some of his cash that way as well.
All part of the plan to keep bankrupting the USA productive middle class (now on the endangered species list and the largest "minority" we have) and then when the crisis is almost unbearable, just this side of "fuck it, revolt time!", transform this nation into a full plutocracy under some disguise of "socialism" under a slew of emergency executive orders.
It's coming. Anyone who can't see it, doesn't want to see it.
Never let a good crisis go to waste! Oh..be sure to include all the talking points about how it is the tea party's fault, or bush, or anything but what it really is, the international billionaire globalist class who have hijacked both political parties, own them outright, and also the government, and keep their brainwashed tame poodle grass roots organizers pointing fingers at the other brainwashed tame poodle grass roots organizers.
So long as some big oil monster doesn't come up and choke a guy, the oil spill, the ecosystem it's destroying, the 11 people that died on the rig, and the billions of dollars this will cost to fix are small potatoes, right? It's simple assault, who cares? You make it sound like he got the CIA to hack their account numbers and embezzle vast sums of money. Screw it, your moral code is different than, well, most everyone's.
...the battle for middle earth continues.
John Podesta's brother, Tony Podesta is BPs lead lobbyist. John is the founder of the Center For American Progress and the former Clinton chief of staff. Hopefully they can discuss in court just how much BP stock was traded in the 4 weeks before DWH blew up when it was known by BP/USGC/MMS to be an out-of-control well, by whom, and why! I now know why Obama didn't talk with the BP CEO for so long. John Podesta's FUCKING BROTHER is BPs lobbyist.
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/42150/
Maybe if we required redundant BOPs with an acoustic shutoff
Saying "redundant BOP" is like saying "redundant RAID". A BOP is already redundant, it's built into the design. That's it's sole purpose: to be a redundant shutoff mechanism. Since the BOP actually crimps and cuts the pipe, adding another one adds nothing to your safety - if some condition caused the first to fail, it will almost certainly cause the second to fail as well. There is also new analysis of the oil flow that suggests that the BOP actually did attempt to close, but the pipe cracked before it could crimp shut for some reason, and so is shooting out of a small slit (which is more than likely opening wider).
That could be an explanation for why original estimates were around 5,000 barrels a day, and are now into the 50,000+ range.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
I thought the point was pretty clear. If a Republican had assaulted a journalist, then it would be on the front page of the NY Times every day until he resigned.
There's a double standard. A Republican says something questionable, and the media not only talks about his statement endlessly, but exaggerates it and lies about it so most people don't even know what he said, but think he's terrible.
I've seen the statement, and I know damn well what he was apologizing for: A President who has proven time and time again that he doesn't give a shit about the rule of law. But instead of talking about that issue, the media lies and claims he was apologizing for BP having to pay. Is this a real issue? Or is it just about mindlessly bashing Republicans?
I'm against the President having control of an oil spill trust fund. I'm afraid that he'll do the same thing with the money that he did with GM. He gave GM to his Union buddies instead of the bond holders who were legally entitled to the company. I'm afraid that he will do the same thing with the trust money. The people who will suffer will be the people on the gulf coast who actually deserve that money. Instead, it will go to the President's buddies.
Yes, anyone with half a brain knows nothing is literally "absolutely" safe. At the same time, anyone thus equipped automatically understands "absolutely safe" to mean "with a high degree of probability" or "absolutely safe to the best of our ability to ensure it, barring highly unusual circumstances", or hell at least "very safe". These are not inherently unreasonable statements, and I'd like to credit the President with the half a brain necessary to understand that. Indeed, I'd like to think that most of the country's acceptance of off shore drilling was based on the reasonability of these safety assurances.
By the same token, nobody claimed the Titanic was literally unsinkable, until after the fact. They claimed specific safety features that would allow it to float under many circumstances that would sink other ships.
But therein lies the key difference between the Titanic and Deepwater horizon.
The Titanic sank because it hit an iceberg which opened up five of the hull's sixteen compartments to water, exceeding both it's specified and hypothetical ability to float. While there's a lot to be said about errors occurring up to the impact, the fact is that the ship was never designed to survive that kind of damage.
Deepwater Horizon, on the other hand, was supposed to be able to prevent a spill in exactly the circumstances that occurred. Pockets of methane gas coming up the pipe were not unexpected phenomenon. That's why so many were shocked that the safety devices apparently failed. But then we learned that some of the equipment had already failed inspections, had shown signs of failure (like pieces of a seal floating up the pipe), and even that one of the safety devices had been deliberately disabled.
This would be like if the Titanic sank even though only a couple of its cmpartments were breeched, but, woops, the builders hadn't bothered to actually separate them because that would have taken too long.
Tone down the statement "absolutely safe" to whatever reasonable degree you want, and BP still failed to reach it.
The enemies of Democracy are
... if they cannot demonstrate that they have a way of stopping such a leak. I say let all of the oil companies have a crack at fixing the current leak. The one that manages to stop it can drill. Any company that fails to stop the leak can no longer drill.
No, he didn't. Not by a fucking mile he didn't. Lets count the differences
1)Katrina was predicted. We had disaster plans for it for decades
2)Katrina was known about days to weeks ahead of time, because hurricances are slow moving. We didn't know about the oil rig ahead of time
3)Pre-Katrina the army corps of engineers had been complaining about lack of funds to fix the levies for years. Bush did nothing. No such problem here, although we do see MMS lieing down on the job we are at least seeing action on fixing that.
3)Post Katrina the feds were slow to respond. Here the feds have been working on things since day 1.
4)Post Katrina Bush publicly defended the man in charge of the fuck up, showing either a complete lack of knowledge or a complete lack of compassion.
5)Post Katrina FEMA continued to mismanage money and provide subquality housing and shelter for years after. (Here we have to hold judgement on Obama, because this event is nowhere near over. He may do well or poorly. But the fund is a good start).
We'll need to wait until its actually over to tell the end result, but so far Obama is leagues better than Bush in disaster recovery.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
"Even more so, if you take his statement for face value, he is saying that nobody should ever be punished for their misdeeds."
Why lie?
He says that certain types of punishments shouldn't be applied, not that _no_ type of punishment should be applied. The particular type of punishment that he don't think should be applied is what he calls 'political shakedown'. He says nothing about other types of punishments.
Of course, if you were willing and able to stop lying you would probably have done so by now.
You are a moron.
You know, the ones whose motto is normally "sentence first - verdict afterward," "shoot first, ask questions later" or "hang 'em from the nearest tree"? These people who normally regard the Constitutional rights of individuals as mere "technicalities" that only benefit criminals have all turned into hairy-assed civil libertarians when it comes to a huge multinational corporation.
Applying the same arguments the right wing usually applies to criminals, particularly those with the misfortune to have dark skin or a funny accent, all of BP's assets should have been seized and should be on the auction block by now. That $75 million limitation of liability? Pah, a mere technicality. We know they're guilty, so let's put Tony on a horseback and git-a-rope!
The problem Barton complained of was not that BP had to pay for damage it caused, but rather the extra-legal medium for compelling the payments. The USA is (or was) governed by the rule of law, and obligations such as BP's are judged and enforced by the courts. Obama has peformed an end run around the courts by pressuring BP to set up this $20b fund. That, not the underlying obligation of BP to pay, was the sustance of Barton's complaint.
It's worth recalling that Obama was also the one *who ended the long-running moratorium on offshore drilling*.
I live in Canada. We never see this fact mentioned in U.S. new items and discussions. Is this even in the news there?
Give us the money now or things could get hard for you later.
You do realize how funny this statement is after sitting through the last president, right? The media bashed the shit out of anyone dissenting from Bush right up till the last election, especially concerning the Iraq war. Everything about that war has been a total farce, but anyone pointing it out was raked over the coals for it. And giving money to buddies? Is it any different than awarding overpriced no-bid contracts to his buddies? The more I see of Obama, the more he's just Bush wearing a mask.
The Obama Administration's decision to have a moratorium was based on a report the Administration had produced by a bipartisan committee. The Administration's summary states that the recommendations of the report were "peer-reviewed by seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering." However, the Administration failed to point out in its summary that 5 of those 7 experts disagreed with the report's recommendations, and believed that the 6 month moratorium was not supported by the facts of Deepwater Horizon case.
Not surprising to me, this Administration ignores legitimate science in making it's so-called scientific decisions. In doing so, it is like the other administrations before it. This Administration, however, is distinguished in the lengths of its rhetoric to claim a higher regard for science than prior administrations. (I knew they were bullshiffers when they insinuated during their campaign that science clearly reveals right and wrong solutions to our complex problems; it does not.)
The judge found completely unsupported technical non sequiturs in the Administration's decision. For example, the "peer-reviewed" report expressed technical concerns about drilling challenges in waters greater than 1,000 feet, and yet, the moratorium simply cuts off at a more restrictive 500 feet without any explanation for where that number came from.
The Administration dismissed oil industry claims that the moratorium would cause irreparable harm. That position was based on the Administration's correct belief that the oil business would ultimately resume drilling operations after the moratorium is lifted. However, the Administration ignored the very clear evidence that thousands of workers and hundreds of businesses would very likely be irreparably harmed and permanently displaced by the moratorium. So though big oil will survive, many of the oil people of today won't. In this way, it appears that the Administration's definition of survival is a purely abstract perspective that is satisfied with the survival of an industry over the long run, but has no concern for the actual people in that industry who will be irreparably harmed now. (A lifetime in government can make you forget about people.)
It is clear to me that the reason the Administration called these shots was because the voting public roared, and the Administration had to do _something_, and shooting stuff down is _all_ it can do. But that's no substitute for legitimate risk mitigation. It's a grossly cynical political maneuver, performed at the very material expense of tens of thousands of people, and done as pandering to many millions more whose only connection to this thing is through newspaper headlines, and whose only damages are emotional.
Be mindful of our environment. Be mindful of each other. Learn from our mistakes. Leave politics at the door.
but he is dead right.
No, he was dead wrong. BP did not have the money seized from they, they willing agreed to put the money in an escrow.
Of course people like you would rather those harmed not to be paid. Look at Exxon Valdez, more than 20 years later and those people still have not been paid.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Due process my ass. You seriously want to tell thousands of gulf fishermen that they need to hire lawyers, initiate a lawsuit, and fight for their lost wages? With what money are these fishermen going to hire said lawyers? BP has enough lawyers they could tie the lawsuits up for years while these guys starve.
That's what the fishermen in Alaska did after the Exxon Valdez spill. More than 20 years they are still waiting to be paid.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Ethics aside: If you can't absorb the risk, you shouldn't make the wager... unless you have no qualms about being forced to walk away from the game.
Being an oil company is a choice. Being an oil company that does deepwater drilling is a choice. Being an oil company that does deepwater drilling poorly is a choice.
Since when does being bad at your risky job entitle you to privileges unavailable to people who aren't as stupid as you are?
(Oh yeah, sorry, that's a long list right now. I guess we know how this will turn out.)
[|]
Excellent post. I like such themes and anything connected to this matter. I definitely want to read more on that post soon.That would be the good article certainly made this segment amazing.Keep it up! Cheap Wholesale T-shirts
You are supposed to drink the koolaid, not pickle yourself in it.
The agency concerned also showed no evidence that the incident that happened was likely to happen, but it did.
Isn't that it went wrong so badly enough proof that things can go badly?
A little less faith in the almighty oil companies and a little more critical independent thinking would suit you.
Basically you got a biased judge (everyone does it is NOT a defence) going against the evidence of the disaster and claiming the a few wells are going to ruin the economy. Geez, anymore then it already has been ruined by the likes of this judge whose poor decision making skills have lead to this disaster in the first place?
Right wing capitalists, the Iraqi minister of information got nothing on you. "No sir this oil well is NOT burning, tons of oil are not pooring into the ocean, the local ecology and economy are not being devasated."
But you are slipping, you really should have added how benefits are bad for poor people but good for rich people if they happen to run banks or car companies.
If I was Obama I would tell the Americans to go screw themselves.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If they only had been drilling for a few months at those depths then I would agree, but drilling at those depths has been going on for years now with no accidents happening.. Also they know pretty good what actually happened at the dissaster site. Being realistic and even with that the judge might have some interest, stopping drilling would cost thousands of jobs at those sites, which means also the suppliers will have to let a lot of people go, which means the suppliers of the suppliers would also have to let people go (and so on).. I agree that current/new sites should have stricter protocols/safeties (Hell, the US goverment should look at them selves also for the disaster as they don't even have a mandatory safetyvalve in the contracts (which over here in the EU is mandatory (I think it even must have 2 safetyvalves)), ok in this case BP did have one safetyvalve and it didn't function properly), but stopping drilling won't do anyone any good.. One thing that has bothered me, is the fact why they didn't just blow the well with nukes, just like the russians have done a couple of times.. I can only think of one reason, and that is really pure money, as I presume blowing it up like that makes the well unusable for quite some time..
The joke used to be... Q: "What are 500 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?" A: "A good start."
I respectively submit that it be officially changed to: "What are 500 judges at the bottom of the ocean?", with the same answer.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
we saw what happens in India when things go wrong.
Any industry handling dangerous materials which does not adhere to known proper safeguards and procedures is subject to a major disaster. You can toss in Nuclear power too as seen in Russia. It does not matter if it is government or a private entity, things can go wrong, things go wrong faster when you don't pay attention
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Your car (lets call it a Toyota for fun) mysteriously accelerates causing you to crash into someone. The government says no new cars may be manufactured until the problem is fixed. Should Toyota have to pick up the payroll for Ford, GM, Volkswagen, SAAB, Honda, and Hyundai until the government lifts their moratorium? How about the employees of the subcontractors like Owens-Corning or Firestone?How about the employees of the car dealers? The repair shops? The auto insurance companies?
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
Federal judges are appointed. What's the procedure for removing a judge from office?
Does failure to recuse himself when there's an obvious conflict of interest constitute grounds for such a removal?
I could be wrong here, but if I recall correctly a judge (regardless of level) has no authority to overturn a decision by the executive branch. Without knowing all facts - it would appear the executive branch has legal authority over drilling permits. Therefore the executive branch can decide at any time whether to allow or deny drilling activity. A judge simply cannot overrule a decision by the executive branch just because they don't like it, they have no authority to do that. At best, this judge could bring a case to court seeking to challenge the legal authority, or the extent of the legal authority of the executive branch with regards to drilling permits, and seek to have the law changed. If the law (the one that gives the executive branch authority to regulate drilling) is then found to be unconstitutional or in violation of some statute or unconscionable or some such thing by the court, then it goes back to the legislature to rewrite the law and vote on a new/amended one, which can then be signed into law by the president. Rinse, repeat. Judges: Stop trying to legislate/execute from the bench, it's not your job.
Looks like Obama's using the politics he knows from Chigago to me. That certain is a change I don't believe in.
Give us the money now or things could get hard for you later.
When the "things" that could get "hard" are the legal consequences of your actions, then that's not a shakedown.
People and corporations make out-of-court deals all the time. The idea is that you agree to some penalty that is less than if you were to go to court and lose, while the prosecutor/plaintiff gets a positive outcome for them without the expense and risk of litigation.
The difference between striking a deal with prosecutors, and being shook down by the mafia, is that if you refuse the deal with the prosecutors then you still get your day in court. The penalty for not paying the mafia is not a matter of due process, it was not a penalty you would ever legally owe. The government on the other hand has every right to pursue every legal penalty against BP.
Offering to go easy on them if they play ball now is not a shakedown, it's a deal -- and it tends to annoy people when dealing with ordinary criminals. But when its a fabulously wealthy multinational, suddenly it's unfair to try to get them to cooperate in return for better treatment.
If BP thinks this "shakedown" is unfair, all they have to do is say no and go to court. Obviously they think their chances are better with a happy government than with a pissed one. They think they're getting a deal, or they'd just say no.
There's no violation of due process here.
The enemies of Democracy are
Clearly regulators, lobbyists, need to justify next years offshore porn budget. I suspect the offshore porn satellites are high speed low drag with less bandwidth restrictions than local on shore ISP's.
BP = BP +Amoco. Oopsie.
PS What about MS (Ireland)? Is THAT not a foreign company?
Yes I do, you obviously don't though. Yes, people and businesses are due due process when their property is taken, however none of BP's property has been taken yet. BP voluntarily setup an escrow account and deposited money in it. There was political pressure but BP could have told Obama to take a hike. As New Orleans' federal judge proved, which TFA is about, a court of law can declare the government does not have the ability to take something.
As for the victims of this spill, they have claim too, but you can't ignore the laws, constitution, and set procedures contrary to them just to satisfy your sense of empathy or anger. IF we did that, we could see things like a right to a fair trial or trial by a jury of our peers disappear just as easily when someone else finds the need convenient.
The Constitution lost meaning many years ago. Today politicians use it for toilet paper, both Democrats and Republicans. Obama is just the most recent example. His predecessor, Bush, trashed the Constitution as well. There was no due process for prisoners at Gitmo. Hell there was no due process in the invasions of Afghanistan or Iraq. The feds have been denying states states rights. Bush went after CA after the state approved medical marijuana.
If the USA's Founding Fathers were alive today they'd be calling for another revolution. As Thomas Jefferson said "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
What "this"? What "above"?
Are you saying that lenin did not do forced nationalisation or that the boards of AIG + co are communist sympathisers? Or is there there something I am missing here?
One, I said no such thing. And two, I think this is quite clear: "if you think communism and socialism excludes government investments and needs forced nationalization you are the one who needs their head examined. Even wealthy people supported communists."
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
What about the Democrat Congressman who physically assaulted, plus grabbed by the neck and put in a chokehold, a student asking questions?
I haven't heard of this, but if it did happen then the miscreant, congressman, should be made to pay.
I think there's a HUGE difference between a guy who thinks it is wrong for a president to have power to extract money from a company (no due process of law)
Obama does not have that power, BP caved in. If BP had wanted to it could have sued the government. And as TFA's judge showed the court can find what the government did was wrong.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
it's a bargain, plea deal,
You make those after there has been a legal finding of actions, such as a grand jury indictment. There has been no such finding here. Way in the beginning BP said it would pay for the legal consequences of its actions. As far as the law is concerned, no more pressure was necessary.
But Obama wanted more than the law.
Obviously they think their chances are better with a happy government than with a pissed one.
Legal and illegal is not the same as the administration being happy or unhappy. You again described the extralegal shakedown.
Before this BP had done everything legally required. The administration wanted more than that and used the threat of persecution to make BP pay up more.
It is clearly a shakedown, and of course BP thinks it's unfair. However, BP has a responsibility to the shareholders. If management thinks paying off a shakedown is cheaper than the full might (legal and extralegal) of the US government being brought to bear on them, then management won't risk going to court no matter how far outside the law the shakedown is.
And people complained about GW Bush abusing his power as executive.
He has handle this as best as any president could be reasonably expected to.
No he didn't. Obama let BP handle it when he could have called all the experts around the world to help.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
To allow a single man to extract money from a corporation, without due process, is to create a lawless society.
In fact BP did not have to set up the escrow account, if it wanted and Obama tried to seize BP assets BP could have sued. And judges do tell the government it went too far. The judge in TFA did just that, "Judge lifts offshore drilling ban as `overbearing'".
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
How much is this risk? Do you think that every well which fails in this way has this much oil under this much pressure?
If you're going to try to quote the moratorium statement in the expert study, keep in mind that the moratorium phrasing was added after the experts were done with the study and those experts have protested the modification of their report.
Now we have a Federal Government actively standing in the way of states trying to prevent an ecological disaster while at the same time using the same disaster as a means to eventually forever block drilling
Citation needed!!!
In fact this admin supports off-shore drilling. Prior to the accident it proposed lifting restrictions on drilling off-shore. "On March 31, 2010, President Obama proposed to open vast expanses of American coastlines to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time".
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
No, you're the troll and this is my last post in this thread. I won't even bother reading past what I put in the subject line.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
No, you don't have to wait until there is legal action against you to strike a deal. That's only in the specific case of the plea bargain, but many deals are struck before the courts are ever involved. There is nothing unusual or extralegal about this.
Happy versus unhappy government is describing how rigorously they will pursue legal remedies. Of course BP said they'd pay for the legal consequences; how could they claim otherwise seeing as they have no choice in the matter? Of course they were also going to fight those consequences in court to have them reduced as much as possible. But if they demonstrate good faith beforehand, then those legal consequences may be less than they could, legally, be, without having to go through the trouble of a court fight. This again is quite common and completely legal.
That's the whole point, that's why there is nothing extralegal about this -- if BP doesn't cooperate with the government, the government will pursue the maximum legal penalties against them, which of course still means the government has to win their case in court which makes this completely unlike actual shakedowns. Offering to pursue less than the maximum legal penalty is a deal, not a shakedown.
You say they've done everything they're legally required to do, but the investigation into what happened and what safety guidelines BP evaded is still ongoing and it's the legal consequences of that which they are -- based solely on what is known up to this point -- rightfully afraid of. It is for that reason that BP has every incentive to cooperate with the government, in hopes that compliance now will make them look better in the coming legal shitstorm.
The enemies of Democracy are
And BP is complying with the law, said it would from the beginning. Anything extra is a shakedown. The administration doesn't consider the current law adequate. Too bad. That's the law. But the administration thinks it can arbitrarily go above the law. And BP will comply because it is in an industry that is beholden to the government for its very existence.
he government will pursue the maximum legal penalties against them, which of course still means the government has to win their case in court which makes this completely unlike actual shakedowns
The consequence of not going above and beyond the law is carried out through the court system AND various executive regulatory actions. The full power of the federal government would be against them through "difficulties" in getting past all regulatory hurdles, through moratoriums on drilling (already flexed a little of that muscle), through the likely expense of hundreds of millions of dollars to defend against even baseless prosecution by the government.
The consequence of not going above and beyond the law is carried out through the court system AND various executive regulatory actions.
Yes, all of which has yet to occur. BP has yet to face those consequences. Which is why the government offering a way for them to reduce those consequences is the opposite of a shakedown. This is a simple concept. You do something stupid and damaging. You are facing massive lawsuits and regulatory action for this. The government says, help to make it right now, demonstrate good will (and no, saying "I will comply with the law" doesn't count because you don't have a choice), and we'll go easy on you in said future legal action. Otherwise, we will not go easy on you.
ZOMG MAFIA SHAKEDOWN!
Jeezus. Do you think being offered the chance to take defensive driving for a speeding ticket before you've even been proven guilty in court zomg is a shakedown?
through the likely expense of hundreds of millions of dollars to defend against even baseless prosecution by the government.
I don't know which is more ridiculous -- that you're implying that hundreds of millions is a serious penalty for the negligence of a company the size of BP, the kind that would supposedly make them pay out billions of "extralegal" damages, or that you're suggesting that prosecution against them would be baseless.
No, wait, I know. It's the latter. Acting like BP are innocent victims here, like this isn't a direct consequence of their own negligence and cutting of corners on safety and ignoring signs of danger all in the name of saving a few bucks, is beyond stupid, it's disgusting.
The enemies of Democracy are
As much as the Chicago mafia wants BP to do so. BP is now their bitch.
"Yes, all of which has yet to occur. BP has yet to face those consequences. "
In a predictable legal framework, the necessary environment for successful businesses, BP knows the consequences and has given indication to live up to them. No more is needed. The administration strong-arming companies outside of that framework is detrimental to business in this country. Just the thought they can do it is scary.
And after that you again described a shakedown.
Do what we want whether the law says you have to or not, and we may go easy on you. Not easy just in the legal and regulatory world, but now we can use our pulpit to tell the world you're not so bad a guy. Don't play ball and we'll use our position to demonize you daily, which can affect your stock, and get CEOs fired once they become too hot. We've handled this so badly so far, we need a clear victory. Pay up to make it look like we're really running the show and on top of things, or it will be bad for you.
Shakedown, quite simply.
"like this isn't a direct consequence of their own negligence and cutting of corners on safety and ignoring signs of danger all in the name of saving a few bucks, is beyond stupid, it's disgusting."
The investigation isn't even over, and you have them convicted. No wonder you are buying the administration's BS.
Whoa. Thanks for the heads up on that! I was under the impression that they were only putting a pause on a few new oil rigs, but they're planning on shutting down all the oil rigs in the Gulf? That's big, big news!
Or maybe you're getting a little carried away with the hyperbole there.
And quit watching Fox. Seriously.