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.
From Trump’s “stolen election” lies, we can’t get no relief,
He carps on about stolen votes, but he never names the thief.
Somebody needs to tell this guy
Americans aren’t buying his lies,
And that he’s turned us into the United States of Disbelief.
“If you are committing fraud against the American people, all of us in public leadership should be trying to stop it and throw you in prison for enriching yourself off the American taxpayer.”
“We are done, Americans are done with endless conflict in the Middle East, spending trillions of dollars, American lives… this is insane and we have to call it for what it is.”
“The U.S. State Department announced on Monday that it has revoked more than 175,000 visas during President Donald Trump’s administration so far,” Fox News reports.
President Donald Trump is asking for $1,500,000 million for the military for next year. That’s close to $600 billion (adjusted for inflation) more than we were spending on the military in fiscal year 2025, before Trump took office, Alternet reports. This increase is huge by any measure. It comes to around $4,600 per household. It is around 8% of the total budget.
A new Emerson College survey of likely 2026 voters finds the Democrats with an 11-point advantage over the Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, leading 53% to 42%. President Trump holds a 39% job approval rating, consistent with the past two months, whereas his disapproval increased another point, to 57%.
A new American Research Group poll finds just 30% of Americans say they approve of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president and 67% say they disapprove.
Wall Street Journal: “Around 40% of voters in the 2024 election said the economy was their top issue, far outstripping any other matter. And those voters favored Donald Trump by 60% to 38%. Many say they were moved by his pledges to tame inflation, rebuild U.S. infrastructure, cut red tape and trim government waste. … About a year and a half later, more voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy than approve, 61% to 35%, an average of polls by the Cook Political Report found this month.”
