Still Gushing
Tom McLaughlin is a reporter for the Local Puppy Trainer who has been having all the fun lately by covering the legal problems of our politicians. He has a blog on their website on which he announces: “I cover lawyers, politicians and salamanders. If it ain’t slimy I want nothing to do with it.”
His most recent post asks the burning question: Are BP executives from outer space?
Walton County Sheriff Mike Adkinson asked [BP vice president Bryant] Chapman if he could get an assurance that, in the event he gets tar balls on his beaches and there isn’t any BP crew around to pick it up, BP would be willing to pick up the tab when Adkinson sends out his public works people without going through “proper channels.”
Chapman nodded his head in the fashion universally known to mean yes. Then he said … “No.”
It is all about money, and BP controls the money. Because of all of the budgetary restrictions that Republicans have imposed on local governments, they can’t spend a penny that they don’t have in the bank. Everyone’s emergency fund is at or near empty, so they are stuck waiting for BP to reimburse them before they can do anything else. As long as BP controls the money, governments can’t do what they think they should.
