What the HELL is going on?!

Oil covered pelican on island off Louisiana coast (MSNBC)

Why isn’t President Obama mobilizing every possible resource to deal with the mess that BP has made in the Gulf of Mexico? What the HELL is going on here? Now is the time for action, not “just words.” I’m getting sick and tired of seeing photos of dead and dying sea birds and pools of oil ruining irreplaceable marshlands.

Frustration grows over oil spill says CNN. No f*cking kidding!! According to CNN, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said today that

If the government finds out that BP is “not doing what they’re supposed to be doing, we’ll push them out of the way appropriately, and we’ll move forward to make sure everything is being done to protect the people of the Gulf Coast, the ecological values of the Gulf Coast and the values of the American people,”

So what is he waiting for? It’s been about a month since the oil started gushing out. It’s pretty obvious BP has no clue how to stop it.

Marcia McNutt, director of the U.S. Geological Survey, told reporters that while BP has failed to meet its own schedule for stopping the gusher, their schedule was probably not feasible from the outset given that the tasks involve construction, mobilizing equipment and fabricating devices.

“I think everyone has to understand that the kinds of operations they’re doing in the deep sea have never been done before,” said McNutt, who is helping lead a team of scientists from the Department of Energy, NASA and others in helping find a solution to the leak.

So why the HELL were they allowed to drill a hole deeper than Mt. Everest is high then? Should there have been a plan A, plan B, and plan C already prepared in case of an emergency?

Why the HELL are we allowing a foreign oil company to run the show while the gross and disgusting mess they have made gets worse and worse and damages our country’s precious natural resources forever and kills off endangered species like the brown pelican?

Does Obama really want the Mississippi River to be permanently fouled with BP oil? Does he really want New Orleans to become a ghost town? Again, I ask, what the HELL is going on here?

I read this post by Rayne at FDL last night: “White House in Denial; Public Wants Real Action on BP Oil Disaster NOW” and finally it has made it onto Memeorandum. Perhaps it will get some attention. Rayne writes:

It’s been more than 30 days since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and the well nearly a mile below on the sea floor began to erupt oil and methane, killing 11 of our fellow citizens and injuring even more both immediately and in the continuing damage which followed.

And nothing has happened of any consequence since then.

Oh, we’ve had a Category 5 hurricane of hot air, some decent questions from Congressional hearings, but zippo-zilch-nada in the way of an effective solution.

I agree. It’s waaaayyyyy past time for some action! Rayne offers 11 suggestions, beginning with:

1) Obama needs to use that goddamned unitary executive power he’s been clinging to and declare a state of emergency in federal waters along the Gulf of Mexico, using an Executive Order. This is now an international situation, not just an American one, because the oil will eventually end up in the North Atlantic.

and ending with:

11) And right now I’m tempted to tell one Barack Obama to get really, genuinely excitedly-upset, be more than that Spock character for once, add the passion of Captain Kirk and the anger of Dr. McCoy in the mix. That fakery last week only made us heave with nausea.

Not likely Obama will show any genuine emotion, but maybe someone could help him figure out how to fake it. While the US media remains mostly cowed by the WH’s efforts to pretend this ecological horror isn’t really happening, the UK press is covering the very real damage that has already been done. From the Daily Mail:

A pelican colony off Louisiana’s coast was seen awash in oil yesterday with birds and their eggs coated in the ooze.

Nests rested in mangroves precariously close to the crude that had washed in.

Workers had surrounded the island with oil-absorbing booms, but puddles of oil had seeped through the barrier.

Anger with the government and BP PLC, which leased the rig and is responsible for the cleanup, has boiled over as more wildlife and delicate coastal wetlands are tainted.

The story says that Obama has sent some “officials down to survey the damage.” Isn’t it a little bit late for that? How about we actually DO something like kick BP out of the Gulf and then prosecuting them to the full extent possible? And then how about listening to the scientists who are evaluating what is really happening, but are being ignored by the do-nothing Obama administration? And Salazar should be gone yesterday.

I read in Dakinikat’s post from last night that some communities are actually trying to raise their own money to try to deal with the oil. What the HELL??!!! What is wrong with our government? And what is it going to take for Americans to rise up and demand real change? We need leadership right now, and if President Obama can’t do the job, he should step aside so we can find someone else who will.

From Daily Mail: nesting pelicans as oil washes ashore