{"id":4189,"date":"2010-06-17T19:15:57","date_gmt":"2010-06-17T23:15:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=4189"},"modified":"2010-06-17T19:20:29","modified_gmt":"2010-06-17T23:20:29","slug":"sometimes-no-commentary-is-needed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2010\/06\/17\/sometimes-no-commentary-is-needed\/","title":{"rendered":"sometimes, no commentary is needed&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<br \/>\n<table width=\"90%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"5\" border=\"0\" align=\"center\">\n<tr>\n<td>\n<div align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.star-telegram.com\/2010\/06\/17\/2272444\/texas-congressman-apologizes-to.html\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"480\" vspace=\"5\" height=\"269\" border=\"1\" title=\"Joe Barton representing Arlington Texas\" alt=\"Joe Barton representing Arlington Texas\" src=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/photo\/2010\/06\/17\/PH2010061703884.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<hr size=\"1\" \/>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">I&#8217;m speaking now totally for myself. I&#8217;m not speaking for the  Republican Party. I&#8217;m not speaking for anybody in the House of  Representatives but myself, but I&#8217;m ashamed of what happened in the  White House yesterday.<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">I think it is a tragedy of the first  proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would  characterize as a shakedown, in this case, a $20 billion shakedown, with  the attorney general of the United States, who is legitimately  conducting a criminal investigation and has every right to do so to  protect the interests of the American people, participating in what  amounts to a $20 billion slush fund that&#8217;s unprecedented in our nation&#8217;s  history, that&#8217;s got no legal standing, and which sets, I think, a  terrible precedent for the future.<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">If I called you into my office,  and I had the subcommittee chairman, Mr. Stupak, with me, who was  legitimately conducting an oversight investigation on your company and  said, if you put so many millions of dollars in a project in my  congressional district, I could go to jail, and should go to jail.<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">Now,  there is no question that British Petroleum owns this lease. There is  no question that British Petroleum &#8211; that B.P. &#8211; I&#8217;m sorry. It&#8217;s not  British Petroleum anymore &#8212; that B.P. made decisions that objective  people think compromise safety. There is no question that B.P. is liable  for the damages.<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">But we have a due process system, where we go  through hearings, in some cases court cases, litigation, and determine  what those damages are and when those damages should be paid.<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">So  I&#8217;m only speaking for myself. I&#8217;m not speaking for anybody else. But I  apologize. I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen  or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong is subject to  some sort of political pressure that is &#8211; again, in my words, amounts  to a shakedown. So I apologize.<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<div align=\"center\"><sup>see the <u><strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.star-telegram.com\/2010\/06\/17\/2272444\/texas-congressman-apologizes-to.html#article_comments\">comment section<\/a><\/strong><\/u> in Barton&#8217;s hometown paper<br \/><\/sup><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m speaking now totally for myself. I&#8217;m not speaking for the Republican Party. I&#8217;m not speaking for anybody in the House of Representatives but myself, but I&#8217;m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}