Reporter Fired for Reporting Obama’s BP Donations
IHateTheMedia.com
Doug McKelway used to be a reporter for WJLA-TV, the ABC affiliate in Washington, DC.
Unfortunately, he was fired for accurately describing some environmental groups as “far left” and, even worse, for daring to mention that President Obama had taken more money from BP than anyone other politician.
Here’s how the Washington Post describes McKelway’s report on Washington, DC environmental protests:
Lockerbie Statements coming back to bite Obama
By Patrick Goodenough, CNSNews.com
The four Democratic U.S. senators probing the early release of the Libyan convicted in the Lockerbie bombing believe there were links to a BP oil deal, but their inquiry may have the unintended consequence of raising questions about just how strongly the Obama administration opposed the Libyan’s release.
Abdel Baset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was the only person convicted of the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing in which 270 people were killed. Sentenced to life in prison, he was freed and sent home last summer “on compassionate grounds,” after medical experts said he was dying of prostate cancer.
Scottish government ministers, stung by accusations that they released Megrahi to ease a massive oil exploration contract in Libya, are pointing out that it is the U.S. government that is blocking the release of two documents relating to the decision.
One of the documents is a demarche and letter to Scottish First Minister Salmond from deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in London, Richard LeBaron, dated August 12, 2009, eight days before Megrahi was released.
Jindal: Obama, We Don’t Want a BP Check, We Want to Go Back to Work!
Jindal Smack-
Obama’s BP attacks fuels concern in UK
By Jean Eaglesham, Financial Times
Obama points the finger at BP
British business on Wednesday expressed alarm at the “inappropriate” and in-creasingly aggressive rhetoric being deployed against BP by President Barack Obama, warning that the attacks on the oil company could affect energy security and damage wider transatlantic industry relations.
Richard Lambert, director general of the CBI, a leading British employers’ organisation, told the FT the presidential attack was “obviously a matter of concern – politicians getting heavily involved in business in this way always is”.
He suggested the White House strategy was misplaced, stating that “apart from anything else, BP is a vital part of the US energy infrastructure. So the US has an interest in the welfare of BP, as much as the rest of the world does.”
Miles Templeman, director general of the Institute of Directors, said he was “very concerned – this sort of political rhetoric is inappropriate.” Mr Templeman emphasised that British business appreciated the gravity of the Deepwater Horizon spill and the environmental damage being wreaked on the gulf coast. But he warned: “There is a danger that this will become a British business thing and there will be a prejudice against British companies because of it. The issue should be decided outside politics.”
White House chief tied to BP adviser
By Jerome R. Corsi, WND
Emanuel has some connections with BP executives
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, WND has learned, lived rent-free in Washington, D.C., for years, thanks in part to a friend under contract with oil giant BP.
While the White House approaches "day 50" of the environmental disaster caused by an explosion on BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig, unable yet to stop the flowing crude in the Gulf, several media sources have questioned the administration’s efforts to regulate BP prior to the incident.
WND’s research further raises the question of whether the White House was compromised by Emanuel’s financial ties to the company.
Emanuel lived for five years rent-free in an apartment owned by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and her husband, Stanley Greenberg, whose consulting firm was a prime architect in BP’s efforts to recast itself as a "green" corporation and recipient of hundreds of thousands of dollars awarded through a committee chaired by Emanuel.
Crisis not ‘wasted’: Obama to nationalize oil companies?
By Drew Zahn, WND
Will Obama Nationalize Oil?
While management of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has shaken many Americans’ confidence in the current administration, some voices in entertainment, news and academia see the crisis as reason to give the federal government even more power – namely, the ability to take over the oil industry.
The notion is catching on with the public, too. A CBS poll recently tabulated 63 percent of Americans believe the Obama administration should be doing more in response to the spill, and activists working through the SeizeBP.org website are planning protests in 50 cities throughout the week demanding the federal government take over BP, the company that owns and operates the leaking oil drill.
The Seize BP organization is demanding BP assets be nationalized not only to clean up the spill, but also to compensate families affected by what the organization calls "this capitalist-made disaster."
Since BP’s offshore drill began gushing crude into the Gulf of Mexico in April, the Obama administration has deferred to the corporation’s expertise in seeking to stop the flow.
But as the ongoing environmental disaster has extended beyond 40 days and counting, entertainer Rosie O’Donnell, political pundit James Carville and former Clinton cabinet member Robert Reich have joined those calling for a federal takeover of the situation.
On her "Rosie Radio" program earlier this week, O’Donnell quoted Carville, who told CNN’s John King, "This president needs to tell BP, ‘I’m your daddy, I’m in charge. You’re going to do what we say.’"
"James Carville said the best thing," O’Donnell affirmed, adding that she’d like to see Obama say, "’I'm signing an executive order and I’m taking over the BP oil spill.’ Like, boom, boom, boom. Someone has to do it."
EDITORIAL: Obama’s oily Katrina
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES
BP Oilbama is taking some hits for the oil spill and his lackadaisical response
Back in 2007, then-Sen. Barack Obama critiqued the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina. "There is not a sense of urgency out of this White House and this administration," he declared, two years after the disaster struck. Now, more than a month since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank, with a massive oil spill making landfall on the Gulf coast, Louisiana’s Gov. Bobby Jindal is the one calling for "more urgency." The only rush in Washington is over where to shift the blame.
Mr. Obama apparently never had a plan for responding to this disaster. The White House seemingly felt that if the administration didn’t treat it as a crisis, it would go away. If fingers were to be pointed, they could direct them at BP. That political strategy worked well for a week or so. But BP has failed to come to grips with the spill, and the White House, lacking ready solutions, looks feeble and rudderless.
When the rig blew up on April 20, the U.S. Coast Guard made a commendable effort to save lives of oil-rig workers. After that, the government assumed the posture of a deer in the headlights. It took a week for Mr. Obama to issue the panicky command directive "plug the damn hole," but he did not otherwise seem concerned. He waited almost two weeks to visit Louisiana, being held up by higher priorities like meeting U2′s Bono in the Oval Office and doing a standup routine at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Military assets were available for immediate response to the catastrophe, but the Department of Homeland Security had to make a request before they could act. DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano seemed unaware of this requirement. She waited nine days to declare the spill of "national significance" and admitted she didn’t know the Defense Department had any equipment that might be helpful. (For the record, the Naval Research Laboratory pioneered oil-spill control methods in the 1970s, and the Navy maintains oil-containment gear stockpiles around the world for emergency response to just these types of catastrophes.)
Obama To Aides: ‘Plug The Damn Hole’
AP
very Presidential…
Oil spill frustration is rampant.
The White House is being pounded for not acting more aggressively in the month-old oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The administration is hitting back, mostly at BP. Louisiana is threatening to take matters into its own hands. The truth is, the government has little direct experience at either the national or state level at stopping deepwater oil leaks – and few realistic options.
With the oil flowing and spreading at a furious rate, President Barack Obama has accused BP of a "breakdown of responsibility." He named a special independent commission to review what happened.
But the administration seems to want to have it both ways – insisting it’s in charge while also insisting that BP do the heavy lifting. The White House is arguing that government officials aren’t just watching from the sidelines, but also acknowledging there’s just so much the government can do directly.
"[T]o those tasked with keeping the president apprised of the disaster," the Washington Post reported, "Obama’s clenched jaw is becoming an increasingly familiar sight. During one of those sessions in the Oval Office the first week after the spill, a president who rarely vents his frustration cut his aides short, according to one who was there. ‘Plug the damn hole,’ Obama told them."
A superpower — and a president — with declining clout
By Richard Cohen, Washington Post
Early this month Barack Obama went down to Louisiana to eyeball the possible damage from BP’s exploded oil rig, keep the cleanup crews on their toes — no version of "Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job" from him — and show the Gulf Coast states and the rest of the nation his concern. On May 3 , The Post’s Web site played the story precisely where it belonged — entombed in the middle of the page. In its placement, it said the president of the United States did not, in this case, matter all that much.
Everyone knew that Obama was merely showing that he was not George W. Bush. He was not going to ignore a calamity, especially one affecting New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. On the other hand, we all knew that he could not reverse the winds or cork the spill. In fact, he could do precious little except show that he cared.
This was a symbolic moment — the tide, menacing the coast with oil, moving its own way, just as events across the globe seem to be. We are accustomed to American presidents being supremely important if for no other reason than that they command the world’s mightiest military. But we ought to appreciate also that presidential importance, in terms of being able to influence events, is slipping.
In the Middle East, nothing Obama has done has made much of a difference. In Europe, the euro teeters. As critical as this currency is, it is far less important than the concept of European integration upon which it is based. We tend to forget that Europe is the home office of awful wars — twice in the last century we got involved — and if you include Russia as part of Europe, as some Russians insist, then we have to count the Cold War, too. As for Russia, it shrugs off American complaints and moves progressively backward — not a European democracy, just something else.
Obama’s Free Pass
By Howard Fineman, Newsweek
Let’s try a political thought experiment. Imagine that a few months after a new president takes office, his administration approves an offshore oil well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico. It is to be run by BP, whose employees were very generous donors to the president’s campaign. The oil company airily dismisses the possibility of a catastrophic leak that might destroy the coastline. Nearly a year later, the president—to the dismay of his environmentalist supporters—says he wants to greatly expand offshore drilling. Soon after that, the BP well explodes, and oil spews into the gulf. It’s clear to everyone that the blowout is a major catastrophe, requiring a federal mobilization. But the president’s initial response is to say, in effect: do not worry, BP will pay for the cleanup. Eleven days pass before he goes to survey the scene.
Of course, this is a sketch of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and the president is Barack Obama. But here is the rest of the experiment. Imagine the reaction of Washington—the media, Congress, the "national conversation"—if the president wasn’t Obama but George W. Bush. "We would be under siege," says Dan Bartlett, who was communications director in the Bush years. "There’d be calls for special prosecutors, investigations everywhere. The focus wouldn’t be on what was happening out in the gulf—it would be on what happened in the West Wing."
Now, I hold no brief for George Bush, and I have no desire to launch a screed against the home-field advantage that Obama still gets in the non-Murdoch media. But I do marvel at how Obama has become the hallucinatory Escher drawing of our politics. It’s hard to decide which way the stairs are built, whether they will lead to the roof or basement, and there is no flat middle floor to stand on. To those on the right, he’s evil incarnate, but on the left, he still can do no wrong, or at least nothing so wrong that they are willing to take him on. That "blowout preventer" is still working.
The stark division in politics these days is mostly over how we see the president himself. At the recent Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans—a gathering of the conservative hard core—the ballroom was filled with a sense of apocalypse, fear, and even dread about Obama. It was emotion far beyond the mere derision that the same crowd used to heap on Bill Clinton. In that red-state world, Obama is an alien usurper, intent on imposing a socialist one-world regime.
