Republicans Pivot From "Drill, Baby, Drill" To Blaming Obama For Their Own Malfeasance

What will $966,845,207 worth of lobbying plus $143,831,148 in bribes to Congressmen do for us?

I was driving home Tuesday night and heard an infuriating radio report whose main point seemed to be that the BP Oil spill is Obama's Katrina. When I checked the dial-- to see if it had moved of its own accord off one of the NPR stations I normally listen to, to one of the right wing propaganda networks-- I saw it was still where I left it, on the Pasadena NPR outlet. And the host, Neal Conan of Talk Of The Nation, was apparently in love with the sound of his own voice repeating "Obama's Katrina." He must have said it a dozen times. I guess if it had been a right wing propaganda network it would have been ten dozen times or twenty dozen times.

As a thick blanket of ugly crude flows onto beaches and into sensitive marshes in Louisiana, the president and his administration find themselves in deepening water in Washington. While patience with BP wears thin, the White House continues to rely on the oil giant to stop the gusher in the Gulf of Mexico and clean up the mess it's created. Why, critics ask, when BP has already failed repeatedly?

Meanwhile, state and local officials complain bitterly that the federal government's been too slow to send the equipment needed to contain the gigantic spill and too bureaucratic to quickly approve the alternate methods needed to protect the coastline.

Then there are questions about the scandal-ridden federal agency that might have prevented this disaster in the first place. More and more people ask: Is this Obama's Katrina?

Later in the program, Valerie Harper, nominated for a Tony Award as Tallulah Bankhead in Looped. But first, is the federal government doing everything it can to contain the damage? Is this Obama's Katrina?

That was the first 10 seconds of the program. His guest was Ian Urbina of the NY Times who had just reported about malfeasance at the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service (MMS). His Times reporting made clear from the git-go that the malfeasance was just more run-of-the-mill Republican Party hatred of governance turning into inability to govern. Urbina's opening two paragraphs:

Federal regulators responsible for oversight of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico allowed industry officials several years ago to fill in their own inspection reports in pencil-- and then turned them over to the regulators, who traced over them in pen before submitting the reports to the agency, according to an inspector general’s report to be released this week.

The report, which describes inappropriate behavior by the staff at the Minerals Management Service from 2005 to 2007, also found that inspectors had accepted meals, tickets to sporting events and gifts from at least one oil company while they were overseeing the industry.

Before we get back to NPR, let's take a look at the unabashed GOP propaganda network and the latest poutrage they've managed to drum up in regard to Alan Grayson pointing out that when an inherently anti-regulatory party-- the Republicans-- gets their hands on the government, they refuse to regulate. Simple enough. Pathetic Fox flack Bill Hemmer revved up a GOP robot from Georgia, Tom Price, a corporate pawn who never stops talking the anti-healthcare line even as he stuffs over $2,000,000 in lightly veiled bribes up his ass from health care corporations-- and another $279,361 from Big Insurance plus $217,450 from pharmaceutical companies. When people say "Tom Price doesn't belong in the People's House, he belongs in the Big House," it isn't because of his personality. Price walks up and down K Street with a "For Sale" sign on his back weekly and is well-known to have never voted against any special interest that has paid him off. So who better to come onto Fox and regurgitate all the GOP talking points of the day, while trying to denigrate a congressman whose refusal to take special interest money is a daily reminder of how degenerate crooks who think their terms in Congress is part of a self-enrichment scheme are?



OK, let me hop back over to the less blatant, but only slightly less misleading broadcast from NPR. Although Urbina made it clear that all the misdeeds that the media has latched onto to try their best to turn the Gulf Oil spill into "Obama's Katrina," has happened while Bush and the Republicans were running the country (into the ground), NPR sort of did what they could to gloss over that apparently unimportant detail. Conan seemed to go deaf every time Urbina mentioned something like "all the misbehavior that they were focusing on seems to have stopped around 2008, so before this administration took over." And when he's finally forced to address it he asks what Obama has done to change the culture of corruption that is always part and parcel of Republican governance-- and integral part of the nature of conservatism.

Urbina points out that Ken Salazar has made some moves, including putting "forward a new ethics code for the entire agency, which were fairly strong." But the real fault that the Obama Administration should be made to answer for-- and not just at the Interior Department-- is why Bush Regime holdovers are still on the job, still doing damage to the American taxpayers who are paying their salaries? Some might also ask why none of the Bush Regimistas have been indicted but I think, by now, everyone who ever imagined Obama was something other than a centrist who believes in a vision of bipartisanship, has given up on anything like that ever happening. Still, Urbina seemed determined to ruin the cheap premise of Conan's idiot show:

I think it's a little overstated to cite this as President Obama's Katrina. Much of the misbehavior that's cited in this report and elsewhere predates this administration. But yes, as the disaster sort of draws out longer and longer and wider and wider, I think the stakes get higher and higher for the administration to solve it.

That didn't deter Conan to bring on another NPR reporter, David Schaper, to try to resuscitate the meme: "There are a lot of people who are saying the long-term impact to them and their livelihoods may be much greater than Katrina." And when Conan asked from calls from the audience, how did he put it? "We want to hear from you. Is the federal government doing everything it can to contain the damage? Is this Obama's Katrina?"

Perhaps a better question would have been, "Do you think Obama should can that worthless corporate hack Ken Salazar and appoint Raul Grijalva Secretary of the Interior? This is a note that came from Grijalva today:

Every day, the situation in the Gulf of Mexico grows worse. Over 200,000 gallons of oil are being spilled each day. This environmental catastrophe will impact the Gulf region for decades to come. BP is to blame. They will pay for the entire effort to clean up the Gulf, which could cost as much as $12 billion. The cleanup will take several years.

But the damage done goes far beyond the environment.

Fisherman cannot fish. Tourists are not visiting the hotels or beaches. Restaurants and other small businesses are losing customers left and right, and the tide of oil shows no signs of stopping.  The economic life of the Gulf has been devastated, yet again.

Hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in revenue will be lost as a result of BP’s careless actions. Livelihoods will be broken, delayed or destroyed.

And, under current law, BP will only have to pay for a fraction of the damage.

That’s why I have introduced HB 5355, a bill that will eliminate the $75 million liability cap on economic damages caused by this disaster. $75 million will not even come close to addressing the massive damage inflicted on Gulf Coast businesses and families.

I have always fought for the environment, and I will continue to fight to ensure that our country’s natural beauty, from one coast to the other, is preserved and protected.

And replacing Salazar with Grijalva isn't the only thing Obama ought to do to get this situation under control. Although a lot of commenters are demanding criminal prosecutions for B.P. executives-- a great idea-- Obama should take a close look at this to-do list from the Center for American Progress and get on the stick:

• One highly visible leader at the White House should lead the command and coordination at the cabinet level between the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Energy, the EPA, the Department of Justice, the White House Office of Energy and Climate Policy, the White House Office of Science and Technology, and the Department of Defense. Two excellent choices for this role would be Vice President Joe Biden or energy advisor Carol Browner. This leader should also work directly with the affected states’ governors.

• The Federal Emergency Management Agency should be in charge of onshore coastal recovery and disaster response, assisted by the Army Corps of Engineers. The National Guard should be fully deployed under the control of each state’s governor, with Army units if necessary. The EPA, NOAA, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should exercise relevant oversight. And any environmental and disaster response contractors working for BP should instead work directly for the federal government.

• The federal government should clearly be in charge of surface-water recovery and maritime disaster response. The Vessels of Opportunity and other maritime contractors now working for BP should be under contract with the federal government, including research vessels. The Coast Guard with the EPA, NOAA, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service oversight should manage dispersant use for cleanup.

• The Environmental Protection Agency should immediately bar BP from new federal contracts-- including drilling in federally controlled oil fields-- because of its repeated environmental crimes.

• The State Department should continue to reach out to other nations that have experience with disastrous oil spills to see if assistance and ideas are available. This should be a government-to-government effort, not one undertaken by private companies.

• Claims for damages and lost revenues should be put under the authority of the U.S. Coast Guard National Pollution Funds Center. The scope of this disaster far exceeds the NPFC’s traditional resources, and other federal, state, and local claims processing resources must therefore be brought to bear, particularly from the Coast Guard’s sister agency FEMA.

• The EPA, the Justice Department, the Internal Revenue Service, and other law enforcement branches of the federal, state, and local government should exercise subpoena authority to seize or monitor relevant communications and data collection, and assets if necessary.

• The EPA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should begin a health-monitoring program for the most at risk populations so there is a baseline from which to measure health complications from the spill and cleanup.

• Federal agencies, not BP, should handle spill response hotlines for volunteers, technology ideas, affected wildlife, and others. Full call records need to be logged with incident reports and technology ideas presented publicly on dynamic websites.

And he should look at these pictures every morning when he wakes up and every evening before he goes to sleep. Even if BP's latest attempt, the top kill really is working-- and it looks promising-- the damage is done; and this must never be allowed to happen again.


UPDATE: And Speaking Of Alan Grayson...

Alan is the only incumbent Blue America has endorsed for re-election so far this year. He's also the only endorsement we ever made based on a vote of our donors. He's under constant attack from the GOP and is, no matter what anyone else says, their #1 target. Please consider helping Blue America get his back.