George Will: The BP shakedown = Northern Hemisphere Venzuela

George Will asked to comment on the BP $20 billion dollar contingency fund comes back with a classic answer. If you are not worried you should be. His biggest concern is the White House usurping the courts in terms of claims against BP and of course that it’s not exactly voluntary. The Chicago Way.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB5ku14Db-4

Personally, I’m not so concerned. Every President threatens and browbeats at some point. It’s just this was so clumsy and so public. The Chicago Way.

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Jim Vicevich

Jim is a veteran broadcaster and conservative/libertarian blogger with more than 25 years experience in TV and radio. Jim's was the long-term host of The Jim Vicevich Show on WTIC 1080 in Hartford from 2004 through 2019. Prior to radio, Jim worked as a business and financial reporter for NBC30 - the NBC owned TV station in Hartford - and as business editor at WFSB-TV in Hartford for 14 years while earning six Emmy nominations and three Telly Awards.

13 Comments

  1. Anne-EH on June 21, 2010 at 5:14 am

    Once again a reminder of which when major companies get in bed with politicos such as President Barak Obama or as the saying goes, sleep with dogs and you get fleas.



  2. chris-os on June 21, 2010 at 5:25 am

    Will neglected to say that there is $100 million from BP for temporary laid off oil rig workers in the $20 billion.



  3. rickyrock on June 21, 2010 at 7:29 am

    What a genius ……….BP has perpetrated fraud,is guilty of negligence, covering up evidence, in short…out right lying to the world.All that George comes up with is that government intervention is worrisome ????What a clown.The total bill for this cleanup could top 100 billion.Give us all a break!What worries me George is that these idiots are still being allowed to operate.

     

     



    • Steve McGough on June 22, 2010 at 5:15 am

      I would not even be willing to venture a guess as to how much the clean up would cost. You throwing out the $100 billion or more figure is absurd to say the least. Where did you come up with that number … oh yeah, from thin air.



    • rickyrock on June 22, 2010 at 1:26 pm

      Hey Steve i got the 100 billion dollar figure out of that same "thin air "that BP got their initial oil leak estimates ………remember that bs?? It was 4000 then went to 10,000 then doubled by the US science panel to 20,000 a day ..Now It's at 100,000. I am estimating this damage based on current and future claims .Let me also remind you that there are 6 power plants along the gulf of Mexico that supply roughly power to over 4,000,000 people Anclote being the biggest one. These power plants rely on water  in their cooling process,They cannot use water contaminated with oil. It is impossible to accurately predict the future monetary damages but the uncertainty remains and the ramifications are truly frightening.



    • Dimsdale on June 23, 2010 at 8:59 am

      The way this well is spewing oil, it calls into question the lefty claim that our offshore oil resources are "limited".  At the rate ricky claims (only exceeded by the growth in the rate of "estimated" leak rates), we can completely eliminate the need for foreign oil!



    • Dimsdale on June 24, 2010 at 5:16 am

      "…guilty of negligence, covering up evidence, in short…out right lying to the world."  Wow!  I was sure you were talking about Øbama there!



  4. sammy22 on June 22, 2010 at 4:26 am

    I am w/ rickyrock. Or should BP get a pass for good stewardship of the oil lease that the US "people" generously gave the company? The White usurping the courts? give me a break.



    • Steve McGough on June 22, 2010 at 5:15 am

      Who the heck said BP should get a pass? Nice straw man as usual.



    • Dimsdale on June 23, 2010 at 8:59 am

      Not even BP has said that!



  5. sammy22 on June 22, 2010 at 12:12 pm

    So what is the point of "talking" about the usurpation of the courts ?



    • Dimsdale on June 22, 2010 at 5:08 pm

      The point is that when the rule of law is bypassed for the rule of Øbama, you got yourself some good old fashioned tyranny.  The role and rules for the president are laid out in the Constitution.  As will pointed out, using a tragedy like this as an excuse to overstep the law is dictatorial at worst, and unConstitutional at best.  Øbama is effectively declaring a muted form of martial law that could be perpetuated from crisis to crisis, contrived or real.  Emmanuel said it himself: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."  By "things", he means things prohibited by the Constitution in normal situations.

       

      Much of the damage would have been mitigated if the administration had reacted in a timely and concerned manner, minimizing the damage.  Will the Øbama administration be putting up (our) money as well to address their complicity in this disaster?



  6. rickyrock on June 26, 2010 at 6:18 am

    The President of the United States is obligated to protect us and part of that protection is our environment and namely the sad destruction of a vital area.I agree that Obama should have acted more quickly and more efficiently .yes, some of the damage would have been mitigated but to say the administration is complicit is not legally founded nor is it with intentional malice a forethought.



George Will

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