Food poisoning, you know. Got it straight from Tony Heyward. Don’t need no respirators for preventing food poisoning…

“Smart use of resources…”???

With this administration?

I giggle.

Barack Obama could fuck up an anvil.

But the folks at OSHA have told us it’s all good and no need for respirators.

Just like they did after 9/11

The worst of it is, that within 24 hours of the blowout, he knew what we were faced with. That he continued to let BP use, for example, the U.S. Coast Guard and NOAA for their own private PR/science-and-technology firm is obscene.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-04/obama-briefed-in-april-by-carol-browner-on-how-bad-bp-spill-was-/?cid=hp:mainpromo1

It’s not too late. Americans are, sadly, very forgiving to presidential fuckups. If he would freeze BP’s assets, take over their ongoing bullshit operation in the GOM, and turn it over to NASA (who’s better at problem-solving in a hostile environment?) he just might have a chance of salvaging something from this misery and stopping the gusher. If he did this, instead of kissing Tony Hayward’s ass, he’d look like Captain America.

Of course, it would involve doing something which is anathema to he and the rest of the corporatist shits running the country:

Re-establishing the domain of the federal government over these giant robber barons.

I think we shouldln’t hold our breaths, not even for “enlightened self-interest.”

Hey no air masks no protective gear am glad homeland security showed up. I don’t want anyone working without the right gear cleaning the spill.
When is OSHA going to come protect the Americana though?

Whether or not you like him, James Carville did a good job of racking Obama’s ass. That had to hurt. :o)

Has the MSM ever asked why workers who bring their own air masks are getting fired? Or are they still to busy arguing if the BP oil spill is Obama’s Katrina?

Question is the Coast Guard wearing Air Masks? If no why not?

apparently it was all for show

Carville recently chanced upon Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen eating dinner with BP CEO Tony Hayward at a New Orleans restaurant, the senior White House aide says. Allen had called Carville after his first TV outburst to talk about the administration’s response, but Carville failed to return the call. When Allen asked why, Carville said he had been busy, the aide says (Carville did not reply to requests for comment). That does not sit well with administration officials who suggest that Carville’s readiness to go public with his criticism is not matched by his private willingness to offer concrete suggestions about what they could do differently.

http://themoderatevoice.com/75220/details-obama-briefed-on-oil-spill-in-april-and-james-carvilles-rants/

The news prompted the Coast Guard to demand 125 commercial fishing boats participating in containment work to return to shore.

When are the fishing boats coming back?

His wife probably put him up to it to help the GOP.

ICE, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, visited two command centers, one in Venice and the other in Hopedale, twice in May. ICE agents arrived at the staging areas without prior notice, rounded up workers, and asked for documentation of their legal status, according to Black. …

Since when does Homeland Security handle Immigration?

ICE was moved to Homeland Security when the department was established as was Secret Service and Coast Guard (amongst other groups)

ICE

I spoke to a general practitioner physician in New Orleans two summers ago when my daughter and I volunteered for Habitat for Humanity. Her office was closing, and she was joining another doctor’s practice. She told me that the city had lost 40% of the population, and so she, and others, had been forced to close their businesses.

She also told me that, as I had observed, that a lot of the rebuilding of homes in the lower and upper Ninth Wards was being done by Hispanic labor. She said that they were hard workers, and that she, and a lot of the population, welcomed them. In fact she told me then that, as a result of the increased Latino population, and obviously depressed values, Miami investors were looking to invest in New Orleans, which the City badly needed, and that the population might change to a more Hispanic one. Of course, this was considered a win/win for New Orleans.

Once again, I guess Barry, and his Administration, didn’t get the memo! And it’s Bush’s fault!

Elliot, I’m confused. Are you saying that Carville’s criticism of Obama was “all for show”? If so, it doesn’t look that way to me, and it’s the blackest of black humor to have the honcho of the United States Coast Guard ragging on Carville, when the good admiral has been little more than a trained parrot reading the press releases that BP’s been handing he, and RAdmiral Mary Landreau, who, three days after the platform blew, said, a bit erroneously:

“No oil is leaking from the wellhead.”

That was just the beginning of the Coast Guard becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of BP. No real surprise, since the Obama administration has been practically listed on the Fortune 500.

BTW, that Carville refused to take the call from the head of the USCG, and later told him “I was busy.” is waycool, to me. :o)

bmaz is upstairs!
Obama Monty Hall To Give Lovely Parting Gifts To BP Death Victims

As far as the implication that Carville’s (or anyone else) not having a “solution” to this misery, being a reason to refrain from criticizing the people responsible for it, which unspinnably includes the current occupant of the White house, I think that’s arrant horseshit.

But, natheless, I leap into the breach:

Freeze BP’s assets.

Take over EVERY aspect of the attempt to shut down the wellhead.
(What has Obama got to lose by doing this? His presidency is imploding before his eyes…)

Bring in NASA to work with the best underwater engineers in the world. Who’s better at solving problems in a hostile environment than NASA?

Start telling the world the stone, cold, truth. No more bullshit; no more low-balling. It would be the first step in, at the least, recouping some credibility in dealing with this.

I don’t trust BP’s “We’re semi-successful” pressers about them getting up to half of the ejaculant. Does anyone on here? Thanks; glad we cleared that up.
If this thing is still going two months from now, when they start the relief well, by then we’re going to have a dead GOM, and incidentally, a president as crippled in a political sense as one of those sad pelicans, with the large difference, that the president will deserve HIS crippling.

Again, Obama has nothing to lose by re-establishing the domain of the federal government over these corporate shits. If he can do it and stop the gusher, he will, to some extent, be Captain America all over again.

But I think that kind of political courage is out of the ken of this “articulate and intelligent” weakling. I think that, at some core level of himself, he’s willing to go down as the poster-boy for presidential failure, rather than rock the free-market Titanic.

OSHA said respirators were not necessary for Front Line Customs and Immigration Workers when there was the Swine Flu Scare. DHS didn’t want to ” scare” passengers coming in to the United States so they got OSHA to agree with them. Screw the people who work the front line dealing with potential sick people. It took a grievance by NTEU Union to get permission to use respirators, AFTER the fact. No one gives a shit, let em in, waive any potential problems and to hell with the employees.

emptywheel is upstairs!
The US Is Defending Not Just Its Closest Ally in Israeli Raid, but Also Approach to War