After Obama left, BP workers also left (BP Buses In 400 Workers)

[IndianaGreen]

According to LA Councilman on CNN right now, Jefferson County Parish.

BP lies all the time!

[kirby]

1. So?

If the beach was pristine as everyone is 'complaining' about (cleaned up before Obama arrived), why would they need to stick around? Sounds to me like it would be time for them to go to another area and clean that area.

[IndianaGreen]

2. It was a BP photo op

to con the public that BP is actually doing clean up.

[kirby]

3. So the beach was already clean?

Did they clean it or not?

If not, I understand the complaint.
If they did, I do not understand the complaint.

[IndianaGreen]

4. Beach has beaucoup of tiny tar balls

The complain is being made by LA officials. Workers showed up just before Obama arrived, and left right after Obama left. Workers were hired by BP.

[cornermouse]

9. But it was such a nice photo op, don't you think?

[IndianaGreen]

11. BP lies more than Baghdad Bob

but without his wit.

[cornermouse]

14. Was it Suttles or the other one?

They appear to take turns at being called CEO of BP.

[IndianaGreen]

15. Suttles is COO, the blond guy is CEO

CNN is now working this story of the phony photo op.

The British guy is overall CEO of BP.

[IndianaGreen]

5. UPDATE: BP Buses In 400 Workers During Obama's Visit (WDSU-TV)

BP Buses In 400 Workers During Obama's Visit

Jefferson Parish Councilman Calls Company's Actions 'Shameful'

POSTED: 2:18 pm CDT May 28, 2010
UPDATED: 5:21 pm CDT May 28, 2010

GRAND ISLE, La. -- Officials from Jefferson Parish claim BP bused 400 cleanup workers into Grand Isle on Friday in time for a visit from President Barack Obama.

Jefferson Parish Councilman John Young said the workers were brought in to clean oil off Grand Isle's beaches.

The extra workers were brought in for Friday only, at a rate of $12 an hour, officials told WDSU. They were mostly from Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes.

Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts called BP's efforts "shameful."

"The level of cleanup and cooperation from BP in the last week in no way compares to the effort shown on the island today," Roberts said. "This is a total shame that a mockery has been made of this visit by the executives of BP."

During a visit Friday to Louisiana, Obama toured a beach where tar balls are washing ashore and attended a briefing at a Coast Guard station in Grand Isle.

Oil has been washing ashore in Grand Isle for about a week.

http://www.wdsu.com/news/23711711/detail.html

[boppers]

8. Beach gets cleaned, politicians complain.

Yeah.... not seeing the problem with cleaning up after the spill there.

[IndianaGreen]

10. That beach is still not cleaned!

Unless you think tar balls are not oil!

[boppers]

17. It can't be totally cleaned until the leak is stopped, and all the oil is collected or eaten.

This is going to take YEARS. All the yelling in the world can't change that.

My point was that politicians and pundits were complaining that cleanup isn't happening, and then complain about cleanup happening. It's opportunistic hypocrisy at best.

[dsc]

37. this is no different than when they restored electricity to parts of New Orleans

so Bush could speak and then cut it back off.

[girl gone mad]

21. What's it like..

being put in a position where you have to defend the criminal enterprise British Petroleum?

I imagine it's more soul-crushing than being a meth addicted prostitute working the family values convention.

[boppers]

22. Defending reality without spin is easy.

Much easier than seeing evil conspiracies over my shoulder at every glance, and more intellectually engaging than living in a simplistic world of dualism.

[girl gone mad]

27. I bet the meth-addicted prostitute..

would make similar rationalizations.

[boppers]

29. If by "rationalizations", you mean "able to think about more than overtly simplistic models", Yes.

eom

[ProSense]

12. This doesn't make any sense.

Do they need the President to stand guard on the beach?

"The extra workers were brought in for Friday only, at a rate of $12 an hour, officials told WDSU. They were mostly from Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes."

This gives the impression that the locals don't care about their beaches.

There are no local or federal government officials on the beaches?

[boppers]

19. The regional officials are there to complain.

This is southern politics. Scream and cry for the cameras, then go back to their mansions until they can get on camera again.

If you want to help:
Volunteers: [phone]

[ProSense]

23. I mean seriously,

Are there no local or government officials and volunteers on these beaches? The notion that BP can bus in workers who leave a beach that still needs cleaning and people only make a stink about it after the President leaves is a bit suspect.

This means the beach was not being cleaned and the crews were there for a photo op.

This means BP is playing games. So why didn't anyone complain when the President, the governor and other officials were there?

[boppers]

25. It's not just BP playing games. It's how things are done in the south.

Imagine a well-dressed politician pointing and screaming about a piece of litter (which is two feet away from a trash can), and how federal agencies and multinational corporations are criminally corrupt in not removing the litter.

They'll scream, stop, shout, but they won't pick up the litter unless they're paid to do it... and then they'll bitch about their wages.

There's no sense of civic pride, of communal responsibility, it's all about making noise and pointing fingers.

[CountAllVotes]

13. K&R

:dem: :kick: :kick: :kick:

[avaistheone1]

6. BP is slick.

Like an oil slick.

[IndianaGreen]

7. BP cannot be trusted

They are still lying about top kill.

[avaistheone1]

16. BP has more lies to offer

than they do oil.

I don't trust them in the least.

[JoePhilly]

18. If you have not figured it out yet ....

The GOP plan is to ....

(1) Get majorities in 2010 ... as we help them do so ...

(2) Try to impeach Obama for ANY weak ass house of cards they can build.

But hey ... let's sit here on DU and scream about how awful Obama is ... ISSA or Palin, or Romney, or some other far right wing SHIT would be far better.

[gateley]

20. This is insulting to Obama. BP continues to play games. nt

[Divine Discontent]

26. it is extremely insulting to the president. I wish he wouldn't stand for it and round them up for

their crime against the country by being extremely negligent in a situation they knew could be monstrously disastrous for this country, only in the pursuit of their GREED, er, I mean profits. He's gotta be rough as hell from here on out, BP is the devil right now and doesn't care, and will do whatever Obama allows them to get away with - he hopefully will pull them out and have his justice dept seek unprecedented indictments on them for the negligence, and their lies.

[izquierdista]

24. Does anyone else see the irony?

One BP exec to another: "We best look REAL busy when the massa come. Go on and get a bunch more people down there."

I don't know what to make of it. But I do know that if BP could buy expendable slaves to do the cleanup on the cheap, they would.

[boppers]

30. Dude. That was pretty overtly racist.

Either that, or a pretty shocking jolt of reality that transcends racism, and points out how "commercial exploitation of labor for monetary gain" is universal, and the most recent human racism of slavery is one of our most recent touch-stones of how it is morally wrong.

[izquierdista]

31. Yea, choice #2

Keep thinking on it. I wonder if it is just a coincidence that just a few short years after slavery was ended, "they" thought up this corporate personhood thing.

[ProSense]

28. Hmmm?

Hundreds of workers hit the beaches ahead of Obama's visit, cleaning debris from the shoreline before they hopped on buses and left soon after the president arrived.

"This is the cleanest I've ever seen the beach," Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said. "We saw a surge of activity the last couple of days. Let's hope it continues now that he's gone."

link

So the workers left before the President did, the beach is clean and Jindal is still playing politics.

[IndianaGreen]

32. Parish official: BP shipped in workers for president's visit (CNN)

Anderson Cooper reported on this story on his 360 show, and he had a CNN reporter that saw what happened and actually asked BP's Suttles about it during a press conference.

Parish official: BP shipped in workers for president's visit

(CNN) -- A Gulf Coast official accused BP of shipping workers into Grand Isle, Louisiana, for President Barack Obama's visit to the oil-stricken area Friday and sending them away once the president left the region.

Early Friday morning, "a number of buses brought in approximately 300 to 400 workers that had been recruited all week," Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts told CNN's "Situation Room."

Roberts said the workers were offered $12 an hour to come out to the scene at Grand Isle and work in what he called a "dog and pony show."

But, when Obama departed, so did the workers, he said, adding that he's never seen more than 20 workers at the Grand Isle cleanup site since the effort started.

<snip>

Roberts told CNN's Anderson Cooper the hundreds of workers who showed up early Friday wouldn't speak to local emergency management officials.

"The sheriff's office did manage to get one person to speak with them and that individual said they were hired yesterday and told to report to a staging area at 7:30 this morning," Roberts added. "It just doesn't add up."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/28/gulf.oil.spill.bp/index.html?hpt=T1

Is it party policy now to defend BP at all costs?

[TheKentuckian]

33. Anyone who can't even allow for the possibility of a show being set up by BP

is nutso.

[Odin2005]

34. This is the most egregious example of corporate-manufactured "reality" I've ever seen.

FUCK THESE FUCKERS!!! :grr:

All corporations should be assumed to be lying until proven otherwise.

[jeanpalmer]

35. Remember Bush's photo op

when he went to the factory and behind him was the stack of boxes that said "made in America" in bold letters, but the fine print on the boxes said "made in China"?

It's all about managing perceptions...

[jeanpalmer]

36. When Obama found out about that

that his visit had been used by BP to stage a cleanup, did he get upset, or angry, or was he in on it? I'm betting he was in on it. How did BP know where and when to send the workers?

[Ned Bro]

38. Potemkinesque

Appearance uber alles.