A repository for Marcospinelli's comments and essays published at other websites.

Obama Plans Oval Office Address To The Nation On Gulf Oil Spill

Sunday, June 13, 2010


There is nothing that Democrats in Congress are doing that Obama hasn't signed off on, much less ordered.



When you are the president, you are the head of your political party. When your political party controls both Houses of Congress and the White House, you do what the head of your party tells you to do. The only people who don't understand this are those who have never worked in politics.



Democrats like to hide this from the people, and lend the illusion of democracy (small 'd'), like "herding cats", "no organized party", etc., but that's how it is, and it's the only reason there are political parties.



If you do not get behind what the leader of your political party tells you to do, you're going to find your life really cold and lonely for the duration of your term in office. Come election time, you will NOT have the party behind you, and that is certain de@th for your time in office.



Do you know what and who the DLC is?



Those of you who are defending Obama do so at the expense of your own best interests. As long as his numbers remain high, he does the bidding of the corporations and the establishment elites.
About David Axelrod
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Obama To Demand BP Create Liability Account For Spill Claims


BP does business all over the world through subsidiary corporations. The calls for Obama to put BP into temporary receivership is to put BP's North American subsidiaries into temporary receivership. BP America's headquarters is in Houston, Texas.



FYI - BP was merged with American corporation Amoco in 1998. In 2000, BP Amoco acquired Arco (Atlantic Richfield Co.) and Burmah Castrol plc. British shareholders own about 40% of BP, and American shareholders hold about 39%.
About Gulf Oil Spill
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Obama To Demand BP Create Liability Account For Spill Claims


As an old, old, liberal Democrat, I would enjoy nothing more than being able to say Obama and Democrats are doing a great job. I would have loved to have said that about Bush & Cheney, too -- Ok, I wouldn't have loved it, but I would have done it anyway, grudgingly.



But to have said that about Bush & Cheney would have meant they were governing & legislating as Democrats. Or as Democrats are supposed to govern & legislate, with Democratic policies.



Obama and the DLC-controlled Democratic Congress are not governing/legislating as Democrats.



If anybody should have been acting as Obama has been acting (in an extraordinary effort at bipartisanship, making unilateral concessions to the other side) it should have been Bush & Cheney after being handed the keys to the White House by one Supreme Court justice's vote. But they didn't and after 8 years of extreme corporate rule, voters handed Republicans their hats; Obama and Democrats were given a clear mandate to govern and legislate as Democrats.



But Obama is behaving as if the message of the 2008 election was that voters liked the results of Bush-Cheney-Republican-years, just not their style.



Can anybody deny that? And does anybody believe that's what voters intended when they put Obama and Democrats into power?
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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Obama To Demand BP Create Liability Account For Spill Claims


There are over 50,000 oil & gas wells in US waters in the Gulf of Mexico, and NONE OF THEM have viable disaster plans for responding to accidents.



Blow-Out Protectors (BOPs) blow out with more frequency than oil companies would like you to know (failure rate as high as 50 percent).



http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/chevron-concedes-deficiency-of-blowout-preventer/article1599893/?cmpid=rss1
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Why the United States Still Can't Get BP to Do What's Necessary

Short version:



American citizens, US taxpayers, will be bailing out BP, paying the costs (or absorbing the losses) caused by BP's criminal failure.
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Why the United States Still Can't Get BP to Do What's Necessary

While BP is the operator & principal developer of the oil field with 65% of interest. 25% is owned by Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, and 10% by MOEX Offshore 2007 (a unit of Mitsui).



Anadarko maintains insurance policies designed to provide financial protection for such events, & estimates its coverage will likely total approximately $177.5 million, less deductibles of $15 million. Mitsui is believed to have a $45 million owner's extra expense policy. Transocean (the drilling contractor) is believed to have $560 million of physical damage insurance & some $950 million in third party liability insurance, of which $700 million excess of $50 million is thought to cover offshore risks. Cameron (the manufacturer of the blowout preventer that failed on the rig) has a $500 million liability insurance policy.



And BP's insurance coverage?



About 3 years ago, BP decided that it was being taken for a ride, overcharged for insurance, so it decided "to go bare".



And what does our government say? "No problem. We've got to stimulate growth and jobs."



None of these corporations has insurance coverage that comes anywhere close to repairing the damage. But they don't have to because they know that our government will bail them out & pass the costs of clean-up onto the American people.



Whether run by Republicans or Democrats (DLC-controlled Democratic Party), our government socializes the risk & privatizes the profits.
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