How Do These Idiots Get on TV to Pontificate??

Former GE CEO and Chairman Jack Welch was on Morning Joe this morning demonstrating that he is senile.

He was asked by Joe whether it was a problem that Americans don't manufacture things anymore and that the Chinese are the big manufacturers now. Welch, who oversaw a lot of this off-shoring manufacturing during his rein as master of the Universe, said some stunningly stupid things. He claimed that the Chinese only manufacture small things where we have retained the manufacturing of important things like the iPad. One of the other "experts" on Joe's panel asked "what about high speed rail?" Welsh said that isn't the Chinese, he claims the high speed rail is in Japan. Yes, Japan has had high speed rail for year but unless you are under a rock everyone should know China has just leapfrogged over everyone with their high speed rail -- faster, safer, longer, freigh handling -- and Jack doesn't know?! China builds 1200 miles of high speed rail and has it operational this year and Welch denies it's occurring! He thinks we make the iPad?!! Is South Korea part of the USA now? Because Samsung, the manufacturer of the iPad is in South Korea. Only small things, huh? I guess Jack considers the GE wind turbines "small things" made in China. They are 80 meters high and made in Shenyang, China! It takes at least 6 HUGE flat bed tractor trailer trucks to move one of them from the port where we import them to the Columbia Gorge where they are being installed. GE's Global Research Center is in Shanghai and Jack Welsh doesn't know??!!

Idiots! Scarborough should do just a little sanity test on proposed guests before booking them on his show. At a minimum they should be up on current events in their own freekin' industry!

Open Letter to Bill Randall

Bill:

I heard that during a campaign stop for the House in North Carolina you said that "there was some sort of collusion" between BP and the government that allowed the Gulf Coast oil spill to happen.

You asserted that the government let BP get away with breaking offshore drilling regulations, which then led to the oil spill fiasco:

"I don't know how or why, but in that situation, if you have someone from a company proposing to violate the safety process and the government signing off on it, excuse me, maybe they wanted it to leak."

You acknowledged that your theory is "purely speculative and not based on any fact," but you insisted that there might be a "cover up going on."

I think you are right. But I think you have the parties involved confused. What possible motivation would BP have to participate is such a scheme with the government? Since the so called 'accident" had to be set in place during the Bush administration when they selected just the right place to destroy, how did they get the Obama administration to agree to allow it to trigger? No, these participants don't make sense.

But there is a conspiracy that does make sense and is already working. I think there is evidence that there is collusion between the various oil companies. For example, during the testimony before the Senate hearing this week it was disclosed that the Gulf of Mexico response plans for ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell are virtually identical to BP’s and just as deficient. It is well known that

they share lobbying companies and associations and all have been very generous to many of the same candidates.

But why? Well, if the Gulf of Mexico is made into a dead zone and fishing and tourism is killed off completely then the only industries and jobs available to border states will be in the oil industry. They will bow to the oil companies and give them any franchise they want to drill, baby drill. It could be a free-for-all! If the Gulf is dead, what more harm could be done?

We are already seeing evidence that pressure for this is being pushed. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour is critical on the moratorium on new drilling. He said:

. . . we've lost off shore jobs because we have a lot of them. But I'm going to tell you, my concern is bigger than that. My concern is because we produce 30 percent of all the oil in the United States in the Gulf of Mexico and that more than 80 percent of that is from deepwater drilling, what you're talking about is reducing American oil production by about a fourth. That's the opposite of what we need. We need more American energy.

Congressional representatives from Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi are appealing to the Obama administration to shorten the six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf, noting the damage that will be done to regional economies dependent on the oil and gas industry. Louisiana's governor, Bobby Jindal, has described the moratorium as a self-inflicted wound that will make it even harder for his state to recover. Louisiana's two senators, one a Republican and one a Democrat, have also argued against the length of the moratorium.

I think you are thinking too small. There is a conspiracy but it's not between Obama and BP. It's ALL the oil companies conspiring to create conditions for a drilling free-for-all and buying politicians to implement it. You should conduct a thorough investigation into the matter. In fact you might want to withdraw from your Congressional race so you can devote full time to this investigation.

Good luck! I'm sure you will be very successful in your investigations. Go get em!! You'll be our hero!

Volunteers Bail out BP

I volunteer in my community and I'm a big believer in volunteering but in the case of the aggregious actions by BP, no American should do volunteer work to clean up for them. BP should be required to pay everyone a prevailing wage for sopping up shorelines, picking up and cleaning wild life, and all the other jobs currently being done by volunteers. And BP should cover every person who works on this clean up with medical coverage in case they get sick handling their mess. This is not a time for volunteers -- god bless them -- to be bailing out an irresponsible corporate giant but instead they need to be compensated by the offender and protected. Let's not have another situation like the 9-11 responders who were forgotten when they got sick from being at ground zero.

Another outrage that is little reported is how the government is cooperating with BP on the extent of the damage this gusher has caused and is causing. Reporter Mac McClelland reported for Need to Know from Grand Isle, La. where she was refused entry to a publically owned beach by local law enforcement. He told her she had to get a pass from BP's public information office if she wanted to go to a public beach. WTF!!