I've said it all along, conservatives and republicans are insane. Literally.

O.k., can we finally say the Republicans are so far out of the mainstream that every word they utter is bizarre. And surely we all can agree they are completely bereft of ideas or solutions to any of this nations problems.

The last sentence Dominic wrote can simply be shortened to: "They won't be happy."

what a crazy SHAKEDOWN! "grrrr!!!! you have to pay for the huge disaster you created!!! RAAHHHH im a monster!!!"

@ All, you know in the end they won't pay a fucking dime. The republican controled courts will make sure nothing is ever paid out to anyone. And I give you the Exxon Valdez as an example.

The Republicans' position isn't contradictory at all. It remains, as it has for a long time, "fuck the people".

Twas Joe Barton:
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/06/gop…

I just wonder what kind of deal Obama made w/BP. Capping and/or controlling the lawsuits? Not getting too serious about all this alternative energy stuff?

I'll bet you a dollar some kind of quid pro quo was hatched.

@8, I'm hoping it was more of a threat than a quid pro quo. Honestly, I think the $20b fund was a way around the problem #5 stated. Obama's not stupid, he knows that if the courts deal with this then BP will just outlast most of their lawsuits and end up paying a fraction of what they really owe.

How did Obama get them to agree to it? I honestly don't know. But in my rose-colored mind, I imagine Obama threatening to do everything in his power to dismantle BP entirely if they didn't pay up.

You guys are idiots. The representative from LA is against the moratorium on off shore drilling because the minute it was instituted, the best payed workers in the state, oil and gas field workers, lost their jobs. And when The President was asked about it in Louisiana last week; his response was 800 buck a month in unemployment should do until BP is sued.

Southerns do not want far left "a disaster is a horrible thing to waste" liberal fucks telling them how to run their state, when far left green economy libs know nothing about the local economy. And certainly have no viable plan to replace ALL the oil and gas jobs with ones of the same pay scale in the green economy.

If liberals had their way those poor stupid racist southerns would just have to deal with working at McDonalds instead of the oil fields. But hey...at least we will all live in a green economy utopia with bicycles and rainbow powered cars!

For fucks sake....

@10 Fine, Mrbombit. This liberal fuck is tired of his tax dollars going to shitholes like most southern states are - where people take govt handouts then bitch about how awful the govt is.

Solve your own fucking oil problem with your own money, not mine.

@10 Obama's suspension of offshore drilling leases don't impact existing operations, and there were no pending leases. The offshore drilling expansion plans don't start until 2012. So how exactly would the suspension impact the jobs of workers today?

I don't know which source you're using about the unemployment aspect. The only thing I can dig up is Gary Locke's declaration of a fishing disaster in May, which would open up emergency unemployment for commercial and charter fishermen. I don't know what those rates would be, but you're right, it's probably not enough, and I look forward to bp covering the full cost of their losses.