Ring of Fire’s Mike Papantonio appears on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews to discuss the incestuous relationship between the oil industry (BP, Halliburton, and Transocean) and the Minerals Management Service, and how that relationship help cause the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.
Chris was great here! Other than that, the same old shit. One yahoo wants to keep drilling inspite of this horrible BP disaster and Mike can’t get it through his head that Obama appointed idiot Salazar! Chris is the only one coming in clear, here. Those 27,000 wells that are sealed and dormant—accident waiting to happen because no one checks on them. There is so much wring with this country it just gets on my nerves. The idiocy never ceases to amaze me. This country is running on empty…..empty in so many ways. No laws, no punishment for criminals (you can bet Obama and Co. will let BP off the hook), no decent health care, no concern for the environment, unemployment skyrocketing, unemplyment benefits continue to be cut off(Obama doesn’t mind this trend—see MichaelMoore.com), cut Social Security and raise the retirement age to 70, no concern for future generations etc. This country is just plain morally bankrupt. This country is over as we knew it. End the world now and put us out of our misery.
I meant “There is so much WRONG with this country”….sorry for the typo.
There will be no moratorium on off shore drilling…..the decision was for big oil….Keith just announced…..surprise, surprise. They won’t go to court until August 30th. What do you think now Mike?
I like how Mike came across here – his usual, straight-talking self – which he Has been, all along, but I find it refreshing to see him ever more than way – and also that both Ed Schultz and Chris Matthews are turning up the heat. I like that! Get Fiery, Fellas!!!!!
Mr. Charbonnet has a valid point about the jobs of the workers of these rigs – it’s not Their fault, and they need to put food on the table and pay their bills, same as anyone does.
The problem Is, these exploding rigs are Trying to tell us (so to speak) that we just Don’t have the safety and technology to drill in this way. Stubbornly (and Greedily) those in power will Not listen.
Those men who died – That sure didn’t help their families to survive or pay bills (plus, the terrible Grief of losing a loved one added to fears of survival), but when people are desperate….they do desperate things. I don’t blame the workers of the rigs anymore than Chris Matthews blames the machinery of them. He’s right – the Fault Clearly lies w/Salazar, MMS and how our govt. Always seems to give in to greed.
Mike’s saying that, too. He may not directly criticize Obama, but, rest assured: Mike IS saying that, as well. My take, at any rate.
Chris Matthews came up w/a solution of paying the oil rig workers, and Mr. Charbonnet said that the oil rigs will disappear to Brazil – and so those people lose out.
It’s Crazy Thinking! We just need to STOP this offshore drilling.
My God, everything is Filty about it – the unstoppable Disaster of Oil and Corexit and Methane Gas polluting Everything, the MMS, the person in “charge” (Salazar), And all those oil wells out in the gulf – 27,000! – accidents waiting to happen, I’m sure, everyone One of them –
And, in the face of this, the answer is to Keep On Drilling!!!????
Well, that’s NOT what Mike is saying, Nor Chris Matthews, thank God.
If you feed your baby poisoned baby food, that hardly sustains the baby. Even if there’s just a trace of the poison, if you keep spooning this into the baby, the baby eventually will sicken and likely die.
Signs and signals, warnings and premonitions. We keep ignoring them.
The multinationals don’t Care!!! It’s not Their problem – it’s Their Profit.
(I should put that on a bumper sticker)
Regulation. Jeez, such an Insane concept. Tea Baggers piss & moan about the govt. Shaddup, all of you Bastards!!! You want the regulation when it’s in Your backyard, the Disaster, don’t you, Sh*theads!!!
Sorry, for various misspellings….
To suggest that fishing and oil rigs go hand-in-hand, in the assumption it will maintain jobs, especially at this point, sounds very ludacrous. I recently e-mailed an old college instructor of mine asking him what his take was on the BP oil spill, and here is the point he made about why cleaner energy would bring more jobs:
“The argument about job creation – economic value – is vacuous. Many more jobs, permanent jobs, would be created with wind energy development off our coasts than does oil drilling and draining the oil reservoirs – whose number of jobs are smaller and time-frame but temporary. Of course – if drilling off-shore creates the enormous and long-term pollutions as does the BP leak, the clean-up jobs will be numerous and long-term – but that will screw-up the economics.”
This latest ROFR video made me think of what Bill Maher said shortly before the last season of Real Time ended: “if a windmill were to fail in the ocean, there would just be a splash.”
As for the need to fire Salazar, Obama must be more proactive in eliminating the oil men in his administration, much like he was with Gen. McChrystal and the man in the administration last year in charge of that botched Air Force One photo-op in low airspace in NYC last year.
Since Obama is running out of time on fulfilling his campaign promises, if he is not effective enough, would electing/voting for someone in the Green or Independent party be the answer in 2012? Otherwise, Obama could win by default if another GOP candidate doesn’t take over. I can imagine a low voter turnout in 2012, doesn’t anyone else here on ROFR?
Yesterday, I came across this interesting AOL article on a successful solar-powered airplane prototype, which sounds quite promising in hopes of weaning off the oil addiction, at least for airplanes:
http://www.aolnews.com/us/article/solar-plane-passes-big-test-flies-24-hours-straight/19547116
To all – here is an article from truthout.org on the oil industry continuing to heed any kind of safety regulation:
http://www.truth-out.org/big-oil-refuses-negotiate-safety-bargain-with-union-despite-deadly-accidents61165
NR, I will get to your links later, but you make many valid points. From what I could understand of what Mr. Charbonnet was saying – and maybe I got this wrong? – is that the oil workers of the rigs desperately need work.
In the here and now.
And, I can empathize w/that. I don’t think these workers are idiots, morons or jerks, just because they need to work.
The bigger picture, though, is the safety of the country. Of the Gulf Coast. That HAS to be more important, at this point, than any individual job.
I protest that it’s Not an either/or deal.
If things were being run right, the workers would be paid, in some way, just as Chris Matthews said, and we’d be transitioning to better energy wherein those workers, if they elected, could get training for.
Meanwhile, as Mike says, Salazar would be fired, so would that idiot in charge of the Coast Guard, and BP would Not be allowed to block access to any site.
In the end, this goes back to Obama. Given all that Mike says Should be done, it all goes back to the one in charge of the total situation – Pres. Obama.
Keith Olbermann did a story on his July 8 program, with an interview afterward, about the solar powered plane. Story is at end of program. In addition to the aol news link NR posted.
can download video podcasts (m4v IPod format)
feed://podcast.msnbc.com/audio/podcast/MSNBC-COUNTDOWN-NETCAST-M4V.xml
can download audio podcasts (mp3 format)
feed://podcast.msnbc.com/audio/podcast/MSNBC-COUNTDOWN-NETCAST-MP3.xml
NR and Jon in MD,
I saw the segment on Keith about the solar powered plane. Yes, it’s possible to have alternative energy, but this countyr never wants to do it. This countyr is more interested in starting wars. As Rachel said this week from Afghanistan…”there is a lot of money in war.”
NR,
Of course there will be lower voter turnout in 2012. What is there to vote for? It’s no surprise about the oil industry re: the article you left. Safety is the last thing they care about.
Colleen and Jon in MD, when it comes to the solar-powered airplane, it reminds me of this special report I had to give in the 8th grade on an electric airplane as the assignment was to propose an invention. However, I will have to admit that a SOLAR-powered airplane looks a lot more feasible than an electric, battery-operated airplane.
As for the 2 wars we are in, I remember, at least in the late Bush years, America was spending $10 billion each month in Iraq while they had a $79 billion surplus. Does anyone know how much per month we are spending in Afghanistan and whether they have an unaccounted surplus?
All in all, for those of us who receive an income, I’m sure just about all of us can agree that the federal taxes that come out of our paychecks we would want to be put forth to HCR over war any day. After all, most wars fought after WW2 are driven by political purposes that have virtually no public support and lack a manufacturing base for jobs in the US economy. Too bad we don’t have a president like Ike anymore warning us of the MIC and Carter warning us about the crisis of confidence (apparently, Carter’s “Crisis of Confidence” speech was a turn-off from most voters in 1980 thinking it was the worst speech such a president has ever given, even though it was really the truth – seems like Carter being president was a lot like Eddie Murphy in the movie “Daddy Day Care”).
I don’t know how much USA is spending per month in Afghanistan but the 30,000 more soldiers Pres Obama ordered there in Dec 2009 intending to be withdrawn July 2011 cost $1 million per year per soldier at the $33 Billion supplemental budget funding level the house passed July 2. See warisacrime.org or defundwar.org to try to stop it in the Senate.
As for Afghanistan having a budget surplus like Iraq did (because of oil production Americans died for the oil companies’ freedom to sell) Afghanistan would need something to export. If opium and/or heroin were legal Afghanistan would have a budget surplus. At least 80% of world opium is grown in Afghanistan. Helmand Province alone (where Marja is a cluster of towns spread over 80 square miles not a city) has been estimated as a source of 40% of world opium harvesting. Big pharma should be required to buy that opium to make narcotic painkillers like codeine (for coughing) and pay fair trade certified rates to farmers for it.
People in Louisiana need work; however, they were getting them after Katrina. The companies were hiring illegal and legal workers from Mexico. Might as well as put up a sign American people need not apply. Furthermore, if there are jobs in that state, most of them (including government ones) are low wage ones because like the rest of the South, Louisiana is a anti-labor, ant-union state.
I did not add the word “not” so the sentenance should read they were not getting them after Katrina