Thursday, June 17, 2010

The Offer BP Could Not Refuse

While the damage that BP has and is causing in the gulf coast is horrific on so many levels, and while the images of the disaster are so hard to look at, somehow America is devolving into just another Banana Republic.  The rule of law no longer matters. Even though BP waived their protection from the 'liability cap' that was not good enough for the White House. They want the money! Just like Tony Mantana in Scarface, this administration has a style all it's own.
In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you force your ideology down their throats.
So when BP came to the White House for the 'meet' to finalize the deal, I'm sure they got an earful.
What you lookin' at? You all a bunch of fuckin' assholes. You know why? You don't have the guts to be what you wanna BP? You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fuckin' fingers and say, "That's the bad guy." So... what that make you? Good? You're not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don't have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. There's a bad guy comin' through! Better get outta his way! 
$20 Billion dollars later, the administration has access to an unlimited amount of funds, available to him for whatever he wants. Oh, he may have to launder it through several parties and hops to make it look quasi legit, but the unions will be involved, and they will make a lot of money too.

Obama's Political Oil Fund

BP has more than 600 claims personnel working to pay fishermen and others that have suffered economic damage. It has vowed to pay all "legitimate" claims and has worked through 20,000 of 42,000 submitted so far, at a cost of $53 million. BP has also promised it will not limit its payments to the Oil Pollution Act's $75 million cap on these damages, and last month it announced it would hire an independent mediator to review claims. Any claimant denied payment has the right to sue for redress under the law, which means BP has an incentive to get these payouts right.
By contrast, a government-administered fund more or less guarantees a more politicized payment process. The escrow administrator will be chosen by the White House, and as such would be influenced by the Administration's political goals. Those goals would include payments to those harmed by the Administration's own six-month deep water drilling ban. That reckless policy will soon put thousands of Gulf Coast residents out of work, but the White House knows that BP isn't liable under current law for those claims. The escrow account is an attempt to tap BP's funds by other means to pay the costs of Mr. Obama's own policy blunder.

and with the government in control?
Democrats are vowing this fund will be tightly crafted and used only for oil-spill payments. But only last week Democrats on Capitol Hill wanted to siphon money out of the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund—established in 1986 and funded by oil taxes to help clean-up spills—to pay for their extension of unemployment benefits. The history of such government funds is that they are always raided for politically favored purposes.
There is no 'lock-box'. The new arrangement assures that more locals will be victimized because payments that would have been paid by BP, will now go to Obama's political interest groups, and close allies (unions).

And what happened when some heretic stood up to speak the truth?

Apology to BP's Hayward triggers uproar
Representative Joe Barton, a major recipient of campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry, triggered an uproar with his lengthy apology to Hayward for being the victim of a White House "shakedown."
State-run media is quick to say that the only way you could interpret actual laws and protections contrary to the presidents actions means corruption. The old adage that 'perception is reality' now applies to the law.
In addition, conservative Republican Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota was quoted as telling the Heritage Foundation think tank on Tuesday that the escrow account was a "redistribution-of-wealth fund."
I think that pretty much sums it up. It's never about the crisis. It's about the opportunity it represents. "You can't let a good crisis go to waste"
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