Interior Department Inspector General Issues Report Detailing Sleaze at Minerals Management Service

One thing about this administration you can always count on is consistency.
Q. “Is it true POTUS was negotiating with aliens from Mars who cut a deal to recover any oil spills in oceans?”
A. “(Noun, verb,) and let me make this perfectly clear, it was Bush’s fault.”
Yes, We’uns is not real bright, but we picked up on that speech after the first 5,000 times.

This is a blatant attempt to place blame on Bush.
Sigmonde | May 25, 2010 11:51:53 AM
Sure, because Bush NEVER did anything wrong. Certainly nothing that could still have any impact a whole 18 months after he left office. Just like when Obama leaves office he’ll have had no lasting impacts, right?
This report was started well before the spill. But that don’t let that fact get in the way of your Two Minute Hate.

“The investigation was kicked off by anonymous letter, dated October 28, 2008, addressed to the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Orleans, LA.”
This is quite an indictment of government expediency. We have some pretty serious and sensational charges in a report/investigation that took over 19 months to complete!! A report like this in no way should have taken so long to complete. The offenses listed, if true deserved swift and appropriate punishments.
“The Inspector General writes that after MMS supervisor Don Howard was fired the inappropriate behavior “appears to have drastically declined.””
Of course we can’t confirm that. Summation, Bush=evil and Obama=change from that although there is nothing to suggest he changed anything.
So now we know what this administration has been doing for the past month. Competing this report so they can point the finger at Bush. Why bother dealing with the clean-up when you can blame the other guy.

63% of americans want health care repealed…
catman | May 25, 2010 12:06:21 PM
So now Rasmussen speaks for all Americans? Well, lets save a bunch of money this November and just use their polls to decide things! Actually, how’d their proprietary “likely voter” model held up in the primaries and special elections we just had…
Huh, odd – when their likely voter adjustments would be subject to factual checking by actual results, they didn’t do any polling.
And what is their likely voter model? Well, lets go to the horse’s mouth. As Scott Rasmussen helpfully explained, they throw away the results from a portion of the groups most likely to support the President:
“Likely voters are less likely to include young adults, people who [as] Tom mentioned were very supportive of the President. They are less likely to include minority voters who are, again, very strongly supportive of this President. And so the gap is consistent.” Scott Rasmussen, Nov 2009
So according to your assertion, you’re not American unless Rasmussen arbitrarily decides you’ll vote in November! I would guess their Republican house effect gap will get dramatically smaller come September, when the November elections will enforce a reality check on their results.

jhw 539 35 days into the worst oil spill
in history and Obama is planning His
memorial day vacation. The government needs to take charge and the main reason they
have not is it gives them cover to blame
all of the response on BP.

jhw 539 35 days into the worst oil spill
in history and Obama is planning His
memorial day vacation. The government needs to take charge and the main reason they
have not is it gives them cover to blame
all of the response on BP.
deadwrestler | May 25, 2010 12:35:32 PM
You want him personally out there with a mop? And all of a sudden the government can’t handle insurance regulations (although Medicare is run so perfectly that Republicans insist there isn’t a cent to spare there!), yet you think they are better experts than BP in deep see drilling?
Yeah, I’m sure the Navy has a fleet of skimmers and remote drilling rigs ready to go. Maybe they can call in Bruce Willis to help too?

jhw … a mop would be a good use of his time. i think bruce willis would also be great for morale.i think your onto something. janet incompetano could stand to burn off some calories along with hilary and kagan. might as well throw in donna brazille as well. its takes a village to do a clean up you know. this could also be part of pelosis wellness features of her health care fiasco.

jhw 539 you are right I would like to see him out there and not in hiding when it comes to this. And where in the blue blazes is he when
you can put to work thousands of people
to help clean up this mess. Instead let`s
extend unemployment for another 99 weeks
because the economy is back. Just genuis
if your constantly act like your running for election. When your in charge it is time to
step up and quit hiding behind others.

“Maybe they can call in Bruce Willis to help too?” – jhw539
Good point 540 wannabee!
Has NoBo asked Mr. Willis yet?
Huuuummmmm?????

“That’s nonsense. No CEO is judged for being unable to turn around a company in 18 months. The best tend to take 24-36 months, and that’s just to turn around a corporation – not a country. ”
______________________________
Then how is it that according to the report all this corruption magically stopped on a dime when Mr. Salazar put put a memo on ethics. Must have been some memo. What consequences were there for those found to be corrupt according to this report? Suspensions? Fines? Sending them to the gulf as the front line of cleaning up? Nope nothing but a convenient press release in the midst of the WH feeling the heat of their slow bureaucratic response. This still doesn’t deflect the utter lack of materials and red tape clearance needed to meet this crisis in a timely manner.

Wow Noz You’re in quite a punchy mood. The Pres should just give you a commission.

Guess what! News says Obama is going to the gulf coast Friday instead of going to Chicago for theater and fancy dining. Good for him and for those folks down south. I wonder what changed his mind.

“You want him personally out there with a mop?”
No. We want our president to be fully engaged in this crisis, not going off for a weekend vacation of theater and dining in fancy restaurants..
Posted by: Sigmonde | May 25, 2010 12:54:49 PM
_______________________________________
One of the hardest working Presidents we’ve every seen – handling 2 major wars, the economic collapse precipitated under Bush, a major health insurance overhaul, negotiating a major international agreement against Iran that includes China and Russia, major advances for the benefits for military families and veterans, a major ecological failure from big oil, major student loan overhauls and on and on . . .
We all remember how many vacation days the last president took – and how many times he used Airforce One to fly back and forth to his personal ranch (on average once every 5 weeks, month after month, every year for all 8 years of his presidency).

“One of the hardest working Presidents we’ve every seen..”
Are you a Canadian? I remember reading a comment where you said you were a Canadian.

The oil and gas industry buying off government officials under the Bush administration – couldn’t possibly happen!

Appearing on KDKA NewsRadio 1020 Pittsburgh earlier today, Vice President Joe Biden was asked about the fact that the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service has been allowing oil drilling permits without requiring needed permits.
“I think we do” have a real problem here, the Vice President said. “We’ve had a real problem with that for a long time.”
Mr. Biden said for his entire career in the Senate he’d been one of the “main guys opposing drilling. Under the last administration they sort of threw away the key.”
The vice president said he doesn’t “have a problem with drilling if they have incredibly heavy oversight. But it just wasn’t happening.”
So, he continued, “when President Obama announced that he would go for limited drilling it was conditioned upon the fact that there be real serious oversight. And we’re finding out that the oversight was as bad as I thought it was in my career as a senator.”
Asked what the vice president meant by seeming to suggest the Obama administration is just now finding out the MMS oversight is “a real problem” – 16 months after taking office – the White House responded with press releases detailing how Interior Secretary Salazar has been instituting reforms of MMS since being sworn in in January 2009, including a new ethics review and ending the royalty-in-kind program.
“Since last January 2009 Secretary Salazar has been implementing reforms aimed at changing how the Department of Interior does business,” Interior Department spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff said. “He has said that he became the Secretary of the Interior in part because these reform efforts were foremost in his mind and foremost in the President’s mind. He believes that we have done a lot to change this department in the last year, but that additional reforms must be done ensure the American people that they have a strong and independent organization holding energy companies accountable and in compliance with the law of the land.”
-Jake Tapper
This is from a previous article from Tapper (May 14th). So, Biden knew there were problems, Obama knew there were problems, Salazar has supposedly been implementing reforms for 1 1/2 YEARS and the report about the ‘sleaze’ JUST NOW comes out? How blatantly convenient for the politically minded Obama administration. Give me a break.

Salazar has supposedly been implementing reforms for 1 1/2 YEARS and the report about the ‘sleaze’ JUST NOW comes out? How blatantly convenient for the politically minded Obama administration. Give me a break.
Shoe | May 25, 2010 2:56:42 PM
When SHOULD the report come out? You know, how long should they hold onto it to make you happy? The report is old news – the Bush admin acted on some of the issues – and only making a splash because the media is looking for anything to do with Interior.

Additional breaking news: President Obama will request $500 million in extra money for security at the U.S. border and will deploy an additional 1,200 National Guard troops, according to an administration official.

“Guess what! News says Obama is going to the gulf coast Friday instead of going to Chicago for theater and fancy dining. Good for him and for those folks down south. I wonder what changed his mind.” – Sigmonde
My sarcastic post about Obama Commissions.

Mr. Salazar should remove his boot from the throat of BP and place it firmly on the rear end of the administration… to get them into action. It seems only the governors of the states are doing anything and crying for help from the feds, but help is not arriving… Why won’t the Corps (corpse for Mr. Obama) help build the sand islands to keep the oil from the marshes?
It’s for BP to cap the well and stop the flow — apparently only they can do this. But the feds should help the states mitigate the damages…
Where have they been for 35 days?

Yeah, and then we can send him/her to wake up Obama.
35 Days is too long to be sleeping.
Posted by: Noz | May 25, 2010 4:21:09 PM
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Hogwash.

I’m shocked. Just simply shocked that there would be sleaze and corruption in Louisiana or in a Federal agency! Who coulda thought it! I can’t recall all of them, so don’t quote me but…What with the scandals at other agencies involved with mining and drilling rights in the west (sex, drugs, and booze), the SEC (porn viewing), Air Traffic controller (bringing kids to do the controlling), Congress (unpaid taxes, kickbacks, cash in freezers, lobbyists, junkets, interns), Pentagon (poker games, prostitutes, etc). What’s classic is under Obamaland the Federal government employees drinking and viewing porn are being paid more than normal working people and their salaries are increasing as normal folks wages are going down as they continue the Bush policy to destroy the middle and working class.

I’m shocked. Just simply shocked that there would be sleaze and corruption in Louisiana
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This is far more than ‘sleaze’ – this is government officials under the Bush administration being bought off by Big Oil.

This is clearly an attempt to once again blame Bush. Ain’t gonna work.
Posted by: Sigmonde | May 25, 2010 7:52:49 PM
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The above article shows government officials being bought off by Big Oil – and it was happening under the Bush administration.
From what we can gather from Republican right comments, Bush is responsible for nothing that happened during his administration.

“Bush is responsible for nothing that happened during his administration.”
The Bush administration investigated this and held the people responsible by charging them and firing those responsible. This is 2010 and this memo is an attempt (cheap shot) by the Obama administration to blame Bush.
If there is a current problem in MMS, what is it, who is being charged and why are we not seeing firings?

“Bush is responsible for nothing that happened during his administration.”
The Bush administration investigated this and held the people responsible by charging them and firing those responsible.
Posted by: Sigmonde | May 25, 2010 9:00:50 PM
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Some were let go, some weren’t.
I can’t find any indication anybody was charged.
Please provide a reference, so we can check this.

I can’t find any indication anybody was charged.
Google : MMS Don Howard
Posted by: Sigmonde | May 25, 2010 11:04:29 PM
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Thank you.
“The Bush administration investigated this and held the people responsible by charging them and firing those responsible.”
Posted by: Sigmonde | May 25, 2010 9:00:50 PM
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So, ONE person was charged and got probation? And only ONE person was let go? Harsh.