Richard Ellis sent this letter to the NYT:
With all the casting about to figure out who to blame for BP’s catastrophic oil spill, it would appear that the time has come to revisit the embargo placed on the April 2001 meeting of President Bush’s “Energy Task Force.” We do know that present at the meeting were representatives of Exxon-Mobil, Conoco, Royal Dutch Shell Oil, and the American subsidiary of BP.
Isn’t it time that the details of that meeting were revealed once and for all? Even though knowing what promises were made and what deals were struck will do nothing to staunch the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, it might help us to understand why it was allowed to happen in the first place.
Richard Ellis
To form a heartening visual backdrop for Obama’s oil-spill photo-op, BP bused in those workers who appeared to be there “cleaning up”–then bused them right back out again.
This is an uncanny repeat of the moment when George W. Bush (finally) showed up in New Orleans after Katrina, to make his Reassuring Statement for the global audience.
When his advance team came in to set up the lights and podium, etc., the residents of that ravaged neighborhood mistakenly assumed that BushCo’s operatives had brought their powerful generator there to help rebuild the place. But they were only there to do that big of presidential theater, and split immediately after it was over.
Anderson Cooper did a long report about BP/Obama’s dog-and-pony show:
And here’s an email from Debbie Fleming Caffery, who took this picture of the BP workers on the school bus requisitioned by the company. Please read her email to the end.
MCM
From Debbie Fleming Caffery:
My dear friends,
I know all of you are watching the Gulf Oil Spill disaster.
From what I can tell, the President did not see the marshes where the oil is pouring in. He went to a fairly clean beach with a few tarballs on it, with a staged scene of a clean-up crew that were bused in by BP. They were wearing straw hats with a band of the American flag. (Anderson Cooper also talked about this.)
For taking a photo of a Hallibuton sign, I had my license taken down, and my press info, by a guard who was with a US Army officer.
I moved back to Louisiana a month ago. I have to say my homesickness had gotten severe the last few years.
I am asking everyone to please help my state once again. I think the best way at this point is to write the President and all of your public officials, and stand up for Freedom of the Press.
The press which is being controlled by BP, and the Coast Guard is tangled up in it!
Debbie Fleming Caffery
BP Prepares to Take New Tack on Leak After ‘Top Kill’ Fails
Thus the New York Times reports today (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/us/30spill.html).
So we’re all waiting for BP to solve this problem? BP, which caused the problem in the first place, through its own apocalyptic greed and swaggering incompetence? BP, whose “clean-up” so far is a frightful joke, compounding the original catastrophe?
And we’re asking BP how it’s going, and what they’re planning next, as if their take on things is
worth considering–when they’ve been lying from the start, and working very hard to cover up
the situation, by forcing a vast black-out on the press?
Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks that BP’s management should not be running anything
right now, but facing charges. The government should seize the corporation’s assets, including
its equipment, and start listening to some people not on BP’s payroll–people who might know
how best to stop the leak, and clean the lands and waters that the oil is killing even as we speak
That, at least, is what the government would do if it were ours and not BP’s.
MCM
“Why Isn’t BP Under Criminal Investigation?” ask ex-EPA officials
by Jason Leopold
http://www.truthout.org/ex-epa-officials-why-isnt-bp-under-criminal-investigation59936
BP ‘Lying Or Incompetent’ About Scope Of Gulf Oil Spill, says Ed Markey
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/30/ed-markey-bp-lying-or-inc_n_594800.html
Oil Spill Is ‘Beyond The Capacity’ Of BP To Solve, Military Might Have Role, says Colin Powell
Sam Stein
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/30/colin-powell-oil-spill-is_n_594779.html
BP Lacked Well Control Six Weeks Before Blowout, E-Mails Show
May 30, 2010, 6:28 PM EDT
By Joe Carroll
May 30 (Bloomberg) — BP Plc told U.S. regulators six weeks before its Gulf of Mexico well blew out that workers had difficulty maintaining control, according to e-mails released today by the House Energy and Commerce Committee investigating the spill.
31
BP must go down for this
Requiem Pro Sinus (Death Song for the Gulf); and the toxic effects of the BTEX chemicals on residents and wildlife
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/51707
30
BP keeps the media away
Just like the US military! Maybe BP will permit “embedded” journalists to tag along on certain junkets?
So BP owns the Gulf of Mexico? Time for Greenpeace to lead a large fleet through BP’s blockade–US fishing vessels, Cuban and Bahamian ships, as well as vessels chartered by news agencies.
MCM
Gulf Oil Spill: Media Access ‘Slowly Being Strangled Off’
MATTHEW BROWN
NEW ORLEANS – Media organizations say they are being allowed only limited access to areas impacted by the Gulf oil spill through restrictions on plane and boat traffic that are making it difficult to document the worst spill in U.S. history.
The Associated Press, CBS and others have reported coverage problems because of the restrictions, which officials say are needed to protect wildlife and ensure safe air traffic.
Ted Jackson, a photographer for The Times-Picayune newspaper in New Orleans, said Saturday that access to the spill “is slowly being strangled off.”
NO-VACATION NATION
Written by Nicole Woo
CEPR’s kicking off the summer vacation season with an appearance by CEPR Senior Economist John Schmitt
on CBS Sunday Morning [today]. He talks about paid vacation and holidays in the United States — or lack thereof.
In No Vacation Nation*, CEPR finds that we’re the only advanced nation that doesn’t guarantee its workers
any paid vacation or holidays. In fact, 1 in 4 U.S. workers do not receive any paid holidays or vacation –
see the grim picture below.
30
Is Jeb next? (Robert Parry)
Time to Turn to Jeb?
By Robert Parry
In watching TV news accounts of the recent American disasters – a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a fatal mine explosion in West Virginia, continuing economic fallout from Wall Street excesses, worsening fears about the impact of the massive U.S. debt – I was struck by the absence of one name: George W. Bush.
It was as if the mainstream journalists were following an unwritten rule: that is, whatever the relevance, the former President was not to be mentioned as a culprit in these catastrophes.
Smart Pig: BP’s OTHER Spill this Week
by Greg Palast for Buzzflash.com
Friday, May 28 2010
With the Gulf Coast dying of oil poisoning, there’s no space in the press for British Petroleum’s latest spill, just this week: over 100,000 gallons, at its Alaska pipeline operation. A hundred thousand used to be a lot. Still is.
On Tuesday, Pump Station 9, at Delta Junction on the 800-mile pipeline, busted. Thousands of barrels began spewing an explosive cocktail of hydrocarbons after “procedures weren’t properly implemented” by BP operators, say state inspectors “Procedures weren’t properly implemented” is, it seems, BP’s company motto.
Few Americans know that BP owns the controlling stake in the trans-Alaska pipeline; but, unlike with the Deepwater Horizon, BP keeps its Limey name off the Big Pipe.
Orwell Rolls In His Grave, featuring MCM – Buy the DVD
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