Rep. Yusuf Hussein ("Joe Barton") Barton (R-Tex) Apologizes to BP on America's behalf

I'm guessing Halliburton et al.

As a sidebar, that company has literally nine lives, having an ex-VP so close to the cause must help.

They've gotten away pretty unscathed over the whole thing despite their equipment being partially responsible for the spill. No real public outrage at the fact that when the gouvernment demanded Halli pay up, they refused to. Don't think that's being pursued very well.

This is the same company that operates in Iran despite sanctions. Should probably be sanctioned by its own gouvernment if they gave a damn about hypocrisy.

In a perfect world, part of Halliburton would be scrapped and fed to the gulls. The gulls would then in turn become massive peace-and-loving robots that could feed the starving and finally cure AIDS.

Of course if this was a perfect world, we wouldn't need this forum.

 

I'm wishing (not hoping, since I know it won't happen) that clean-up and compensation literally destroys the company or that it is legislated into oblivion. A corporate death penalty. I'm not worried about their future ability to pay because it is such a huge company with so many assets that I'm confident it's carcass will cover the costs. As for benchmarks on how huge national catastrophes are handled, that's the precedent I want. I want companies to know if they **** up that bad, they're dead.

 

this isn't about barton being in oil companies' pockets. democrats and republicans take money from the same corporation. this is about tea party rhetoric backfiring. the party of no better be careful they don't have to many incidents like this are the nov elections they are predicting to do so well in might blow up in their face.

its unbelievable that the guy was so damn disrespectful to the president to use a word like "shakedown" in an official hearing where the president isn't the person in trouble.

 

Good points.

 

Limbaugh today...

 

I partly agree with Limbaugh ( ). Ordinarily, claims of damages would be adjudicated by the courts. I imagine some of it will still go to court.

But, this escrow is just much cheaper and more practical. There are a ton of claimants with widely varying degrees of damages. It would clog the courts for years and put thousands of lawyers' children through college if we applied the standard protocal to this situation. It makes sense for the government and it makes sense for BP. I have to guess that BP agreed to do it because it saw some advantages to it, and not just because of political pressure. They'll end up paying scads of money anyway. This way they save some on lawyer expenses, shrink how long headlines will be talking about damages, and they've set an anchor point for the magnitude of their liability. For a shakedown, this escrow doesn't hurt BP very much.

 

Yeah, I don't get what Rush is complaining about. BP voluntarily agreed to Obama's plan. They had no "legal" obligation to do so.

We don't know what was said, and Obama may have used particularly strong language, but at the end of the day BP agreed willingly.

Furthermore, Rush is a ****ing idiot.

 

So what made this country great is people suing culpable corporations.

That's American exceptionalism? How... lofty.

 

the government actually doing something practical and efficient makes the party of no government look bad

 

It's the republican mantra as of late... "Government can't do anything right - if you give us control we'll prove it!"

 

Further proof that the BPublicans (I like that one lol) are really making fools of themselves...

 

Remember the "other" foreign based company that spent billions to fix a preventable disaster after the fact? The company also has a huge amount of American workers.

They did something wrong, the public was outraged, congress drilled them and they paid up. Why wasn't it a shake down then and where was Joe? What's the difference between a Japanese Company and a British company?

 

Probably all the money BP has donated to Joe's campaign.

 

Nah, there's nothing going on now days that can compare to the crap that happened in 50's, 60's, 70's. Civil Rights, political assissinations, bomb drills, etc. We have our fair share of issues but imagine what D&D would have looked like back then...

 

I would have been too busy to notice the internet.

 

CEO no longer in control of gulf effort...

 

Some thoughts from Ken Rudin:

 

Wow, dems finally had the guts to take advantage of one of the many screwups of the repubs.

 

Corporation as people.
They only people when it benefits them.

If a legal immigrant did something that burned down half of Houston
Even if it were a mistake
They would not be getting any apologies
They'd be kicked out more than likely.

I like the idea of a CORPORATE DEATH PENALTY!!

Rocket River