Joe Barton Is Ashamed
Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) haz a sad:
Barton came under a lot of pressure, he then retracted his apology to BP. That didn’t stop Republican leadership from trying to distance themselves from Barton:
Barton apologized to BP this morning for the “tragedy” of its $20 billion fund to pay damage claims from the Gulf Coast oil spill. Barton has since apologized for apologizing to BP. Nonetheless, Reps. John Boehner (R-OH), Eric Cantor (R-VA), and Mike Pence (R-IN) released a joint statement this afternoon calling Barton’s original statements “wrong.”
“Congressman Barton’s statements this morning were wrong. BP itself has acknowledged that responsibility for the economic damages lies with them and has offered an initial pledge of $20 billion dollars for that purpose.”
Never mind that Eric Cantor was saying the exact same thing as Barton yesterday. He just didn’t say it loud enough, I guess. But here we have the Republican Party platform in a nutshell. Corporations should be able to do whatever they want without any oversight from government.
Tags: BP, Freedom Clowns, Joe Barton, oil spill
How anyone can think that we (or, really, the people of the Gulf) have anything to apologize for with BP I’ll never know. They are clearly the responsible party, they were clearly negligent in certifying their capacity to manage or even cleanup something like this and it is beginning to look like they may have made stupid decisions for the construction and completion of this well.
And all of this oil and pain you see minute by minute on TV is exactly the consequence of government getting out of the way of business…..
The TV is filled with a lot of noise from Republicans to the effect that the President has no authority to force BP to establish the escrow fund, that the amount is too high, some kind of ‘shakedown’, etc. But can you imagine the outcry from the same people if the White House urged patience and asked all the Gulf residents and businesses to simply fill out forms and wait for reimbursement? It seems to me that their outrage is over the fact that the President managed to do one very concrete thing to relieve the suffering and ensure that BP would pay for their misdeeds.
ek,
President Obama never gets any credit from his critics, ever. His critics on both the left and the right are never, ever satisfied.
Joe Barton’s language came directly from Republican Party-distributed talking points. The silver lining for Democrats in 2010 is that Republicans apparently think Fox News viewers make up the entire electorate instead of a sub-50 percent fraction.
UI: This critic is sometimes satisfied, but frequently disappointed that he has governed much less boldly than he campaigned.
Ditto, Geezer.
Geezer: I would argue that’s consistent with every other President in the last 50 years during their first two years. What did Mario Cuomo say, “You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.”
I saw a moderate-to-liberal Republican absolutely flip-out at the TV when they ran the Barton piece on the news last night (LOL).
All’s I got to say is, Republicans…..Keep talking.
Bill,
There are a lot of pure legislative issues that I can certainly agree with relative Cuomo’s point. It is the things having to do with civil liberties, law enforcement, and war-making that are directly under his control that are so maddening, for he has now reinforced the Bush precedent that these things are legal and constitutional when, in fact, they have destroyed the last vestiges of even the illusion of freedom, justice, and rule of law in this country.
anonone
Still, ek, where is the president’s authority found for his actions here? The precedent being set here for unbridled executive power is disturbing.
Still, ek, where is the president’s authority found for his actions here?
Only the power of persuasion. There were no actions taken other the actions BP agreed to.
The executive “actions” were the actions Obama might have taken, if BP had decided not to see things his way about the dividend, the escrow fund, and the accelaration of payments. I wish I knew what they were, but I am sure they would have been 100% legal and effective. But fortunately Obama was not required to follow through on those actions.
I am more with Haley Barbour. This benefits BP by giving it a limit on liability. The truth is it may be the best the law allows. There is actually a fund paid for by an oil tax to take care of this. It limits the liability of oil companies to millions not billions. We may have gotten a good deal. We don’t have to fight this for 20 years in court. and get a fraction of the damage.
There is no cap on the damages. You and Haley Barbour are both wrong. You are shocked, I know.
http://resources.lawinfo.com/en/Articles/Oil-Spill/Federal/how-much-will-bp-have-to-pay-damage-caps-for-.html