Congressman Barton apologies to BP...
 

WTF is wrong with american politics, Republican wants to make Obama look like a bad guy for getting 20billion out of BP and now he apologies to Hayward...

Mad World :upsidedow:helpme:(:Oh crap:mad:

Well answer me this, where does Obama get the power to demand unlimited funds from BP? Where does Obama get the power to then take money from BP and redistribute it as his appointed puppet sees fit? That is a dictator not a president.

I have NO problem with BP paying every cent they owe to the people they have harmed, but the way Obama is doing its close to extortion.

Seems to me he's looking out for his people and making sure the responsibles put enough aside to help the people who been wronged with this disaster.

But apologizing on behalf of your country to Hayward... Come on where does Barton get the power to Apoplogize for America to a company who caused such a disaster?

I see Obama's actions as being a step towards making sure that they pay for the damage they have done instead of them dragging their feet and trying to get out of it.

Chances are this whole thing will end up costing much more than 20 billion, but at least this is a start.

both dems and repuclicans kiss corporate ass.

but republicans really jam in that tongue.

and republicans are so desperate to exploit obama's weaknesses and seize power again they will do and say anything.

Yea, there's alot of political spin going on and it personally disgusts me for either to use such a massive event to play politics.

Exactly - the number should be closer to 10x's that.

Fuck Barton - what a douche!

the same thing that is wrong with most if not all politics in other countries too.

Barton is in Texas, where BP is based and where big oil companies are god and no doubt they contributed a lot to his campaign, he has stock in them or his family works for them.

Texas also doesn't have oil washing up on their shores.

they must, money makes their asses goes around

AGREED:thumbsup:thumbsup

its a fucking escrow account for one. and the person in charge of the account was also in charge of the 911 fund which I would bet was appointed by BUSH since that was during his term. Same guy, so no politics there.

I don't think the govt is dishing out the money, I think BP is still deciding who what where when and how much, the govt is just making sure they allocated the money aside for it... IE, they don't try to side step anteing the fuck up or trying to go bankrupt later, in both cases if BP doesn't pay the govt errr tax payers will be left coming up with billions in aide to the people need it and BP would be fucking us all again for the 5th time.

I have no problem with Obama "persuading" them to put money in escrow for future claims / damages to be paid from.

No kidding, I hope BP gets their asses sued to hell and back.

And this idiot (forgot his name) that was in charge of giving out money to the 9-11 victims is placed in charge of this new money hand out....this is going to go to shit real quick.

Didn't the families from 9-11 get shit on about receiving money from 9-11 for their families?

Here is the assholes name:
Ken Feinberg Named BP Oil Spill Escrow Pay Czar

So... a republican... in Texas... supports big oil. How is this news? Perhaps he has a hunting trip planned with Dick Cheney and he doesn't want to "accidentally" get shot in the face for not supporting BP?

Exactly why a judge should be in charge of it. Not some appointed piece of shit.

Exactly my thoughts.

Did you mean they have a corporate office there or something?
I'm pretty sure that "British Petroleum" is based in Britain.

the bad news: what a complete absolute nightmare of epic proportions

the good news: the glass is 1/2 full side of me hopes that this removes the curtain hiding what goes on inside the beltway, showing americans the cluster fuck of those in charge.

He was hoping that statement would resonant with all the tea party types. But it backfired.

There was no shakedown here. Corporations fuck everyone and then they tie it up in the courts for years and years. Obama actually got a company to pay up front for the first time in history as far as I can recall. I don't like how Obama has handled this whole spill, but getting a company to pony up the money up front was a MAJOR accomplishment. Otherwise, these blue collar fisherman would have to go to court against a corporate giant. Not only that, by the time the settlements were handed out, the lawyers make more than the fisherman.

Look at the Exxon spill. those people are just getting their payouts now.

It's in Houston

what do you think obama did to get them to pony up? any guesses? my guess is bp crunched the #s pre-meeting and had already planned to put the money in escrow. and now, guess what, bp can close the books on it and get all the publicity of doing the right thing forced upon them by obama.

could be wrong, but i find it difficult to believe that in the span of a 20 minute meeting, the $20b was thrown out by obama and bp execs huddled up and then said ok, we'll cave.

Oh you guys are talking about their offices in America.

They are actually based out of England. Their global corporate offices are in London. Y'all might have noticed the British accents of the guys running the company. :)

Well, BP had no bargaining power going into the meeting and Obama realized that and was able to get a staggering amount of money out them. My point is that I can think of several recent presidents who would not have asked for that money. Also, BP can not "close the books" on this because part of the agreement was that this is in no way a cap.

I have to disagree with your assumption that BP crunched the numbers and was happy to give up 20 billion. All the documents show they are about as stingy as a company can get when it comes to spending money even to the point of trying to save a few hundred thousand dollars. Everyone thinks they are so rich they don't care about money but that's not the case. No company enjoys cutting a 20 billion dollar check with no guarantee they will not have to pay more.

appreciate your reply. who knows what went on behind the closed doors. i will say that $20b isn't a staggering # for bp though. and by closing the books, i mean they can certainly close the books internally. just like exxon and the valdez, we can try all we want to get more money but it never happened.

He knows who butters his bread.

He negotiated it in a meeting. Presidents are allowed to do that. It's not GM, he didn't nationalize them.

True, we don't know how this will play out and getting more money out of BP may prove to be very difficult if not impossible. I suppose I am happy that because of the escrow account, the people directly impacted by this will at least get their money in a relatively timely fashion instead of after 20 years of court battles.

that's a very good point. as optimistic as i am, it's sometimes hard for me to be so with this calamity. but i certainly agree that those folks need to be made whole as soon as possible.

BP company should pay for the damages, I think.
After all, the failure of this company is what caused the spill.

I just so this on the news. HOLY FUCK! Barton stuck his foot in his mouth and is now back peddling like mad. But the fact is he believes it.

Unbelievable if you are against a company paying for it's mistakes then you a muppet!

The conservatives are unbelievable. Where did any president get the right. Obama didn't "force" anybody BP agreed. He just persuaded them. BP could of said fuck off, but they did not.

Conservatives beat up Obama when he doesn't act and they beat him up when does act. He can't win.

i'm no conservative and i've had an open mind re: obama running the country, but the facts are in and he's a guilty party in this royal fuck up.

I know its strange his own party is not calling him out on his royal fuck up.

BP should pay for it's mistakes, I doubt anyone is against that. The issue is it sets a bad precedent when the executive branch of the government is the one that dishes out the punishment. In this case Obama is biased. The more he gets out of BP the better he looks.

I'd rather have the courts fine BP.

I think we should stuff BP's ceo, board of directors and every oil industry lobbiest in the hole to stop the leak...


Spanx!
Jack

I don't care right now why it happened, I want to know how to fix it, thats what I want Obama to say.

yeah we got that, their US offices are in Texas (Houston) and I'd imagine that a lot of their base of operation is out of Texas, employ a lot of Texans and contribute to a lot of Texas Politicians.

There wasn't a punishment, this wasn't a fine.


BP was asked to put money in escrow, to make sure they had funds available to pay for the mess they caused. As simple as that. If the don't use up the 20 billion in escrow they get the unused portion back. But we all know they are going to spend much more than 20 billion by the time this is over with.

This was the right thing to do. They have the money, lets make sure we put a good chunk a side so WE the TAX PAYERS don't get stuck paying for this at the end of the day if BP decides to shuffle money around, or let their US subsidiary go bankrupt, or spend all of their money on dividends and good PR advertising lol.

This was a simple as the money being put a side. The money goes BP -> escrow -> pays claims. insteads of BP -> (lets hope the money is still there) -> pay claims.

It's called the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. As long as the US government can prove in court that negligence by BP (or any of the contractors) helped cause the oil spill (which I doubt will be hard to do), then BP is legally liable for every penny. There is no cap.

Besides, it's BPs fault Obama demanded the escrow. If BP had their shit together, and was efficiently processing claims, this wouldn't have been required of them. Instead, the screwed around, and there were tons of complaints and frustration over claims. So Obama had to do something.

If Obama didn't do anything, you'd be complaining he's not assertive enough. He demanded the escrow account though, so now you're complaining about that. There's just no winning with some people. :-)

Of course. Though as I'm reading things, it looks like the old Texas oil wells aren't what they used to be (dried out) and most of the oil is coming out of the Gulf and they employ a lot of people from Louisiana

Anyway, my point was that they are a British company overall. And the office in Texas is just what I said it is. One very small office in their big picture just because we have already pretty much used up all the oil wells in Texas

I'm sure that they are far more interested in their production in the Middle East or other spots where there are larger oil fields.

I wonder if there's any oil in Asia? I don't have a clue. But when I was googling BP to find out exactly where their true base of operations is (London, England) I saw the regional office in Texas that you are talking about that is in charge of North America, and a regional office in Singapore that is in charge of Asia.

Do the Asian countries just burn oil, or do they have resources that haven't been developed yet?

wouldn't keeping the 20 billion make BP more money, enabling them to pay back whatever is the real legal amount of money owed?

just a pricey pr stunt i think

Their office in Texas could be a sand of grain to BP compared to other locations. No one is arguing or suggesting anything in regards to the size of their Texas offices vs the rest of BP's operation. What I said originally is why Barton was taking up for BP, it is because BP is important to Texas because of BP's offices and business that they do in Texas. I don't know how many oil wells have dried up in Texas but there is a LOT of oil wells off of the Texas coast and a lot of refineries in Texas. Oil is still the major player in Texas and BP is one of the top companies in the game. Of course a Texas Politician is going to take up for them. Not sure why you going off on this tangent or what point you trying to make.

They skipped the court part and there are LIMITS signed into law by CLINTON. How great is Clinton looking now :disgust

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Why hate Obama enough to make yourself look this fucking stupid. :1orglaugh

...I think Biden said it best when he said

Barton fucked up large. This will be a serious weapon for the Dems. The forced apology for his apology made it even worse. Repubs are going to have to sacrifice him.

I saw this too. Barton is class-a asshole.