MMS has approved 198 deepwater oil leases since Deepwater Horizon explosion

The most recent lease was handed out on June 10. Wouldn't it make sense to step back and figure out what is going on and what changes need to be made to protect the environment before jumping into more drilling? Common sense is probably overrated anyway.

“MMS quietly granted oil companies the right to drill 198 more deepwater wells as if the spill wasn’t devastating the Gulf,” said Derb Carter, senior attorney and director, Carolinas Office, Southern Environmental Law Center. “If it’s too deep to stop a spill, it’s too deep to drill. BP is under criminal investigation for its explosion and dumping millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf, yet MMS approved 13 new leases for BP to drill in deepwater without any better oversight.”

The groups’ lawsuit challenges MMS approval of leases, including 198 deepwater leases, in the Central Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20 and ongoing spill. In a legal claim added on June 10 to an ongoing lawsuit in federal court, the groups allege that MMS failed its legal responsibility after the explosion and spill to reconsider its 2008 conclusions that the sale of the deepwater leases and future oil drilling would have no potential significant impact to the environment and no detailed environmental review was required.

“Clueless and inept is really the only way to describe the ongoing situation at MMS,” said Mike Senatore, vice president for Conservation Law at Defenders of Wildlife. “This agency is at the epicenter of the worst environmental disaster in our nation’s history and yet it’s still going about business as usual. How else do you explain MMS’s approval of the right to drill hundreds of new wells in the Gulf, including 13 for BP, based on the same fundamentally flawed and patently illegal environmental documents used to green-light the Deepwater Horizon operation?”

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BP outsourced spill payout payments to business focused on cost savings

I think we all know what this means. The US government needs to strip this away from BP and take charge. Send BP the bill and keep them and their shifty "cost savings" business partner out of the process.

Publicly, BP has said it intends to be generous in compensating those affected by the Gulf oil spill: CEO Tony Hayward has pledged to pay all "legitimate" claims resulting from the disaster, even offering to waive the $75 million cap on liability for economic damages.

But to handle claims from the spill, BP has hired a risk-management company who advertises that a main benefit of its services is "reducing our clients' loss dollar pay-outs" -- a goal Gulf advocates say is in direct contradiction to Washington and BP's promises to fully compensate coastal residents.

ESIS Inc. -- part of the Swiss-based global insurance giant the ACE Group -- is a risk-management firm whose mission is to "impact our clients' business and reduce their total cost."

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Obama hits back at Teabaggers and GOP

It's about time and very well deserved. Now repeat every day and be more forceful the next time. Nobody is saying Obama needs to swear or lose his temper but being firm and forceful without bowing to those responsible would go a long way.

In an interview with POLITICO, the president said: “I think it’s fair to say, if six months ago, before this spill had happened, I had gone up to Congress and I had said we need to crack down a lot harder on oil companies and we need to spend more money on technology to respond in case of a catastrophic spill, there are folks up there, who will not be named, who would have said this is classic, big-government overregulation and wasteful spending.”

The president also implied that anti-big government types such as Tea Party activists were being hypocritical on the issue.

“Some of the same folks who have been hollering and saying ‘do something’ are the same folks who, just two or three months ago, were suggesting that government needs to stop doing so much,” Obama said. “Some of the same people who are saying the president needs to show leadership and solve this problem are some of the same folks who, just a few months ago, were saying this guy is trying to engineer a takeover of our society through the federal government that is going to restrict our freedoms.”

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New rulings at The Hague prepare the ground for convicting the chain of command

Thanks to Scott Horton, we learn that progress is being made in The Hague. Horton quotes Marlise Simons at the New York Times (my emphasis):

Judges at The Hague handed down two rare genocide convictions on Thursday, sentencing two security officers for the Bosnian Serb Army to life in prison for their roles in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the worst single episode in a decade of war that left 100,000 dead and tore the Balkans apart. [ . . . ]

The military operation ended with the deportation of thousands of women and children and the execution of close to 8,000 captive men and boys. Although the United Nations war crimes tribunal has convicted more than a dozen people of crimes committed in Srebrenica, it has only once before issued a conviction of genocide. And that ruling, against Gen. Radislav Krstić, was lessened on appeal to “aiding and abetting genocide.”

Horton then adds (again, my emphasis):

But the decision involving two other high-ranking security officials, Vujadin Popović and Ljubiša Beara, may actually be worthy of more attention. They were charged with and convicted of “extermination as a crime against humanity” and “murder as a violation of the laws and customs of war.” The convictions rest on evidence that the genocidal crimes were not spontaneous, but rather the result of decisions taken within the formal chain of command during the 1992-95 war. [ . . . ]

What happens to prisoners, including how they are moved, is particularly significant because it provides evidence of formal government intent and purpose, moving legal culpability up the chain of command.

While this trial doesn't appear to relate directly to (ahem) our own government intent and purposes, cases like these are built step by step. Gitmo is a government operation, and Abu Graib isn't over by a long shot.

Tick tick tick,

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Compare and contrast ACORN vs. BP and federal contracts

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

As always, Rachel Maddow makes much too much sense. Why does the US government continue to throw billions at companies such as BP? It's always a mystery why there are not "out clauses" for instances such as this. This week we even watched John Boehner step in to defend a taxpayer bailout for BP. The US government can definitely have a strong impact by using its purchasing power but Republicans and Democrats alike are too timid to use the strength that they have. Or is business that strong and the government doesn't have any power? If that's the case, maybe it's time to close shop and admit business owns America. Read More......

BP board to review dividends on Monday - but remember, Wall Street paid them

Wow, someone there is actually listening. To be fair to BP - really - the Wall Street bankers did not receive this level of pressure nor did they even consider not paying out dividends during the worst period of the economic crisis. Wall Street continued to pay them and while I talked about it, few raised the same level of fuss that we've witnessed here. This is one rare instance where BP is showing some amount of ability to listen. This is not to say that they will stop the payout, which they should do, but it should be noted that they're doing more than Wall Street.

BP directors will meet on Monday to discuss whether to suspend dividends to shareholders, the BBC has learned.

Executives will then meet with US President Barack Obama on Wednesday, but no announcement on the payments is expected in the near future.

BP has been under intense pressure from the US government, which wants BP to use the money to pay for the Gulf of Mexico clean-up.

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Buy BP gas or the environment will die

Or something like that but with a BS marketing spin. This is the most ridiculous load of rubbish but what we've come to expect from BP.

Oil from nation's worst spill could soon end up at gas stations once BP sells the crude taken from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico to raise money for wildlife protection.

BP PLC has promised to use the net revenue made from selling oil captured from its leaking well to fund wildlife protection efforts in four Gulf states. BP spokesman Mark Proegler said Friday that BP was still negotiating with a buyer.

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A bit more Exile

I saw some of these video clips this week when my neighbor invited me upstairs to watch a TV program about Exile on Main Street. (Seemed to be a British program.) To correct the story from last week, it was Keith, not Mick who had the house in Villefranche-sur-mer where they started the recording. The house is your classic pre-1929 bubble mansion that you see along the coast. Not a chateau but hardly a shack-teau either. It's one of dozens that used to be owned by banking and industry titans until the stock market failure when they lost everything. Oh how times change. Now we bail the bastards out and let them keep their money.

The lads appeared to have a heck of a good time recording on the Riviera for the summer and into the fall. Friends and family were all around and they even had a chef feeding them around the clock. The party seemed to stop when the arrests started happening so they looked for greener pastures, which meant LA. After the flash of the Riviera, where else would you go? Read More......

Louisiana shrimp king's business wiped out

It's quite a fall going from $1 million on a good day to $3,000 sweeping up oil for BP. Even worse, how many years will the fishing fleets be impacted like this? BP has trashed the livelihood of workers and business owners alike they think these payouts will suffice.

The money is only a fraction of what it would be for a successful shrimp season and 2010 was shaping up to be a banner year.

"Every 10 years, when you get a cold winter, you get a really good shrimp crop," Blanchard said. "We were licking our chops."

On a good run, a big shrimp boat could earn $1m (£686,000) a day. The going rate for fishing for oil is $3,000, less for smaller boats – not a lot once divided among captain and crew. Several of the men say they have yet to be paid.

Blanchard says his losses are on a far grander scale. "I've lost $15m worth of sales in the last 50 days. That would have been $1m in my pocket," he said.

A few of the big freezer boats are still going out, but Blanchard says he is reduced to selling BP fuel and water for its contract clean-up crews, and renting out dock space. By his terms, it's a pittance and he has no idea when he will get back to work.

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Americans being arrested for credit card debt

Another step backwards. Nobody is excusing reckless behavior with credit but if anyone should be arrested, fingerprinted and sent to jail it ought to be the bankers that created this system. And perhaps the politicians that went along with it as well.

It's not a crime to owe money, and debtors' prisons were abolished in the United States in the 19th century. But people are routinely being thrown in jail for failing to pay debts. In Minnesota, which has some of the most creditor-friendly laws in the country, the use of arrest warrants against debtors has jumped 60 percent over the past four years, with 845 cases in 2009, a Star Tribune analysis of state court data has found.

Not every warrant results in an arrest, but in Minnesota many debtors spend up to 48 hours in cells with criminals. Consumer attorneys say such arrests are increasing in many states, including Arkansas, Arizona and Washington, driven by a bad economy, high consumer debt and a growing industry that buys bad debts and employs every means available to collect.

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