It’s the one-year anniversary of the BP oil spill,
But nobody’s worried about oil extraction’s ills.
With gas near four dollars,
People start to holler —
That Palin-esque refrain: “Drill, baby, drill!”
I have to hand it to Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (NPA), whose wardrobe choice for a recent roundtable with the president in Panama City helped him stand out. Charlie and the First Lady went with aqua, while the business owners, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, and others stuck to neutrals. If you’re going to go, go bold, Crist seems to say, while sitting as far from Obama as possible without leaving the room. No doubt Crist wants to avoid more photos of himself seeming friendly with the president. The endless repetition by Republicans of a shot of Crist doing the one-armed man hug with Obama last year could have been one reason for his departure from their party as a candidate for U.S. Senate. Well that, and the fact that they are soulless jerks.
The only thing worse than a massive oil leak from the bottom of the ocean would be massive radioactive oil leak from the bottom of the ocean.
— Rep. Ed Markey (D – Mass.), Chair of the House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment and the president’s point man on the Gulf oil catastrophe, responding to calls from Donald Trump and others to nuke the oil spill. Markey was responsible for forcing BP to install its “spill cam” so the gushing oil could be viewed by the public.
BP's YouTube site: happy horse manootyI jumped awake in the early morning darkness this morning from a nightmare. In the dream, I was standing on the seawall watching a pod of dolphins surface for air, hearing them expel, then suck in new oxygen through the blowholes near the tops of their heads. Except suddenly the dolphins weren’t here on the east coast of Florida in my warm blue water, they were in the Gulf of Mexico. And when they surfaced to breathe, they were coated in thick brown oil, which they sucked deep into their lungs. Then they began to spasm and die…
One can only guess that the reason BP doesn’t want people to know the extent of the disaster is because they hope to be allowed to continue drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico
The oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico already showed that BP has a basic disconnect between words and actions. The whole “Beyond Petroleum” campaign was just that: a media campaign, a tagline, an empty slogan. BP and the other oil companies have done almost nothing to move beyond petroleum, nor has there been any real pressure — by consumers, shareholders, or legislators — for them to do so.
But the company’s crisis communications is shaping into an even bigger sham. BP has done all the right things, according to the new media ethic. They have profiles on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr. The message is the same at each of these sites: “BP cares, and no one is working harder than BP to make this thing right. Check out for yourself how hard we’re working.”
You’ve got to keep a cool head in order to win a hot game.
— U.S. Senate candidate Gov. Charlie Crist (NPA), commenting on the importance of his leadership in helping Florida deal with the BP oil spill disaster. It’s unclear what actions, if any, Crist has taken in the crisis outside of accepting federal relief, and calling upon BP to provide more compensation to Floridians affected by spoiled beaches, fisheries, and habitat. Crist already accepted $25 million from BP to promote tourism and has asked for another $50 million to cover additional state expenses.
We love a snarky challenge, and there’s a really good one on Twitter right now. #renamebp invites you to come up with a new name that the inititals “BP” stand for. Currently leading are “Bitch Please,” “Bush’s Pals,” and “Blame POTUS.”
…things are happening today. The oil that we showed you is being cleaned up. There’s equipment all over the parish and we do have a senior person from the Coast Guard in our office now that can make decisions and can hold BP’s feet to the fire, because they are the ones that should be stepping up to the plate. I think he cares and he’s a hands-on guy. I was real impressed.
Plaquemines Parish, LA. Pres. Billy Nungesser (R), commenting on Pres. Obama, and the current response to the BP oil spill.
Word is that Kash Patel is a MAGA-mad, vindictive kook,
And getting him confirmed is going to be a real donnybrook.
But kids might be safer to have the guy
Running a vengeance campaign at the FBI
Than sitting down to write another children’s picture book.
“As President-elect Donald Trump fills out his Cabinet and chooses his closet advisers ahead of Inauguration Day, many African American leaders are asking why more Black people haven’t been appointed to key positions.”
“If you defended the 34x felon, who committed sexual assault, stole national security documents, and tried running a coup on his country… you can sit out the Hunter Biden pardon discussion.”
“The only reason to nominate someone like Patel to run the FBI is to commit impeachable abuses of power. Trump makes no secret that this is, in fact, his purpose. Patel is similarly explicit on the point. Yet the Senate might very well confirm the man once Trump removes the incumbent FBI director and nominates Patel to replace him. … If it actually does so, would that constitute ‘consent’ to impeachable offenses?”
Trump has nominated at least 10 billionaires (or billionaire spouses) to cabinet positions and other top roles, making the incoming presidential team the wealthiest in history. Just his cabinet nominees are collectively worth more than $9 billion, according to New York Magazine. Though Biden’s cabinet is also a moneyed persons club, its wealth amounted to just $118 million in 2021, per Forbes.
“If you want to rub elbows with President-elect Donald Trump and his incoming administration during inaugural celebrations, it’ll cost you — between half a million and $2 million, specifically,” USA Today reports.
America’s job market rebounded in November, adding 227,000 workers in a solid recovery from the previous month, when the effects of strikes and hurricanes had sharply diminished employers’ payrolls, reported the Associated Press. Last month’s hiring growth was up considerably from a meager gain of 36,000 jobs in October. The government also revised up its estimate of job growth in September and October by a combined 56,000.
“Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, spent over a quarter of a billion dollars in the final months of this year’s election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, federal filings revealed on Thursday,” the New York Times reports. “The sum is a fraction of Mr. Musk’s wealth. But it is nonetheless a staggering amount from a single donor, who poured the cash into allied groups and is now playing a role in helping shape the next administration.”
“Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun invested $30 million in President-elect Donald Trump’s crypto project three weeks after the election, helping Trump make a potentially hefty profit,” the Washington Post reports. “Sun, who recently made headlines for buying, then eating, a $6 million banana art piece, is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission on charges of fraud, market manipulation and other alleged violations.”
