Activist: Gulf fishermen being held responsible for toxic seafood

By Daniel Tencer
Saturday, August 21, 2010 21:12 EST
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Federal government admits not testing for arsenic, mercury or other toxic heavy metals in seafood

The US government, and even President Obama himself, have said that Gulf seafood is safe to eat in the wake of the massive BP oil spill.

But an admission from the federal government that it hasn’t been testing Gulf seafood for toxic heavy metals, and news that fishermen are being forced to sign waivers making them liable for toxins in their catch, suggest not everyone is convinced of the safety of Gulf seafood.

Louisiana fishermen’s activist Kindra Arnesen says dock owners are asking fishermen to sign waivers that put the full responsibility for toxins found in the catch on the fishermen themselves.

“This liability cannot fall with our fishermen,” she said in a video posted to blogger Alexander Higgins’ Web site.

Arnesen’s claim comes as Louisiana prepares to allow shrimping on the coast to resume this Monday. A news report from IPS says many shrimpers in the Gulf are simply unwilling to go back in the water, due to fears their catch could be contaminated.

Mississippi commercial shrimper James “Catfish” Miller told IPS there’s only one place on the state’s coast where oysters can be caught, “and there is oil and dispersants all over the top of it.”

Mississippi lifted its ban on commercial fishing in the Gulf earlier this month, but Miller and others refuse to start fishing again. Miller showed IPS a simple test to prove the waters are still contaminated: He sank an absorbent rag into the water, and minutes later pulled it up. “The rags were covered in a brown oily substance that the fishermen identified as a mix of BP’s crude oil and toxic dispersants,” IPS reports.

NO TESTING FOR TOXIC HEAVY METALS

In House hearings this week, federal government officials indicated they have not been testing for heavy metals known to exist in crude oil, some of which can be toxic to humans and are believed to be able to build up in marine life after an oil spill.

During questioning by House Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), FDA Acting Deputy Director Donald Kraemer said his agency isn’t monitoring for the presence of heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury in Gulf seafood. He suggested that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration may be handling that area.

But NOAA senior scientist Bill Lehr didn’t have an answer for Markey as to whether the NOAA is monitoring for heavy metals, and said only, “We’ll get back to you with an answer on that.”

“It’s my understanding that compounds like mercury, arsenic and other heavy metals that are present in crude oil have the ability to accumulate in the tissues of fish in levels that may cause harm particularly to pregnant women and children,” Markey said.

But the FDA’s Kraemer told Markey that his agency “does not expect to see an increase” in heavy toxins from the spill.

That comment befuddled some oil spill observers and scientists. As Washington’s Blog notes, crude oil contains not only heavy metals, but organic compounds such as benzene and toluene, which are toxic to humans.

An Associated Press report earlier this month reported that a study on crab larvae in the Gulf concluded that oil from the spill is making its way into the food chain:

The government said last week that three-quarters of the spilled oil has been removed or naturally dissipated from the water. But the crab larvae discovery was an ominous sign that crude had already infiltrated the Gulf’s vast food web — and could affect it for years to come.

“It would suggest the oil has reached a position where it can start moving up the food chain instead of just hanging in the water,” said Bob Thomas, a biologist at Loyola University in New Orleans. “Something likely will eat those oiled larvae … and then that animal will be eaten by something bigger and so on.”

Tiny creatures might take in such low amounts of oil that they could survive, Thomas said. But those at the top of the chain, such as dolphins and tuna, could get fatal “megadoses.”

“In my 42 years of studying crabs I’ve never seen this,” [biologist Harriet] Perry said.

‘CULTURAL GENOCIDE’

Kindra Arnesen, who works with the Cultural Heritage Society of Louisiana, is warning of a “cultural genocide” of the Gulf Coast fishing industry if the government doesn’t start testing for heavy metals in seafood.

“There’s going to be a cultural genocide of they don’t test the seafood and make sure that it’s safe,” she said. “Not only to protect our fishermen, but hello, what about the consumer? … We pride ourselves on bringing fresh, uncontaminated seafood to the market for the consumer to eat.”

The concerns of fisherman and scientists alike seem to contradict the positive tone the federal government has taken with respect to oil in the Gulf.

“Let me be clear: Seafood from the Gulf … is safe to eat,” President Obama recently said at an appearance in Theodore, Alabama.

It’s “important for consumers… to know that their food is safe, but it’s also important for the fishermen and processors, who need to be able to sell their products with confidence,” Obama said.

The following video was posted to the Web by Alex Higgins, August 17, 2010.

The following video of a House Energy and Commerce sub-committee meeting on August 19, 2010 was uploaded to the Web by FloridaOilSpillLaw.com.

Daniel Tencer
Daniel Tencer
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  • Anonymous

    I wouldn’t touch this shit with a “ten foot fishing pole.” The fishermen have become the scapegoat for the Big Piss oil volcano. People having hard times will see this as a meal “ticket” to get money from the fishermen or sue them for everything they own. The fishermen are not big enough to wiggle out of such a law suit. Only corporate pigs that can litigate for years and tears and years.

  • Anonymous

    “‘Let me be clear: Seafood from the Gulf … is safe to eat,’ President Obama recently said at an appearance in Theodore, Alabama.”

    Reminds me of Bush telling the country to go shopping after 9/11.

  • Anonymous

    The fishermen deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. They have basically stated they are willing to go broke before they are willing to sell possibly poisoned fish to consumers (that’s you and me, people). I salute these guys as heroes and humanitarians, something they probably never wanted or expected or ever set out to be. Talk about bravery above and beyond the call. They shame our government.

  • Anonymous

    BP was responsible for the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.

    BP, therefore, should be held responsible for the safety of any seafood removed from the toxic Gulf of Mexico waters, as well as the financial well-being of all Gulf Coast residents affected.

    Thus, BP should be forced to set up seafood testing facilities along the Gulf Coast that will conduct testing on any seafood harvested from Gulf waters before it is sent to the markets.

    U.S. taxpayers should NOT have to foot the bill. Gulf Coast residents should NOT have to foot the bill.

    And if any dies from tainted seafood from the Gulf, BP’s executives should be hunted down, charged and put in jail, along with any of BP’s investors who have a problem with this.

    We now have a new class of citizens, both in the U.S. and around the world, the corporate criminal class, a class of citizens who care more about profits, and their financial well-being, than the well-being of everyone else. Oh wait, I’m wrong. The corporate criminal class has always been with us, which is one reason why government regulation of corporate criminal activity is so essential, as well as higher taxation of those wealthy individuals who just can’t seem to control their greed, a scorched-earth greed in which enough is never enough and to whom sharing, integrity,compassion and the safety of others are just meaningless words.

  • Anonymous

    This is way beyond unconscionable. It is despicable.

  • Anonymous

    Let’s face it. Most Americans are not going to eat Gulf Seafood for some time. No one knows the extent of the toxicity from the oil and the dispersant, which could be worse than the oil. Why would anyone risk their health for a few shrimp or some other catch, let alone feed their kids the stuff. I can’t see much of a market for a long time. This needs to a major factor in their claims against BP.

  • Anonymous

    Exactly how are they going to trace the shrimp back to the boat that caught it? I know how shrimp are caught & sold & unless they’ve come up with a way to “tag” each shrimp – this is going to be really interesting.

  • Anonymous

    BP’s more greasy than their oil. A special place awaits them in Hell

  • Anonymous

    To summarize: If the fishermen who have lost their livelihood to the BP spill take a settlement from BP, they can’t sue BP. But the fishermen can be sued if the fish they now catch is contaminated with BP’s oil spill.

  • Anonymous

    or Bush’s EPA telling workers that the air around ground zero was safe to breath after 9/11.

  • Anonymous

    I bet there is a YouTube somewhere that explains how to test seafood for the various contaminants that the FDA won’t test. With the Free Market System we can do our own testing and buy our own testing equipment. Government is bad and inefficient. Imagine Diners across america sitting down with their own laboratory testing equipment in every restaurant vigorously getting those test results before the food gets cold. God Bless Amerikkka! Thank You conservative think tanks for looking out for our interests and reducing our Government for us. Pray for more BP profits. Jesus loves BP.

  • Anonymous

    I wanted to think that this activity went out the door with Bush, the only reason why I thought it might was because the Dems gave Georgie everything he wanted, therefore held to suspicion. Today? When it comes to The People vs. BP – the government is nothing more than a defense whore!

  • Anonymous

    I’ve had enough – what about you?

  • http://twitter.com/sacxtra sacxtra

    Put the head of the FDA, the head of the EPA, the head of NOAA, and the head of BP in a prison cell, don’t let them out until this is settled.

  • Anonymous

    This is an outrage! We’ll burn your house down, but if you want to retrieve your valuables, what’s left of them, you’ll have to sign this waiver making you responsible for arson in the burning.

    BULLSHIT!

    Thanks to the corporate control of our bought and paid for politicians, this country is going to hell in a handbasket.

  • Anonymous

    Don’t forget “Mission Accomplished”…..my personal favorite.

  • Anonymous

    And how exactly are you going to know where the fish you are eating was caught?

  • Anonymous

    I think the idea is more that they are in effect releasing BP from liability. My question is, who got to the dock owners?

  • http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

    Jesus Christ! Could the Obama admin fuck this up any worse? I’ve been patient…in the sense that I expected very little in the way of competence or thoroughness…because after 2000-08 I’ve learned to lower my standards until I’m only mildly displeased…but this shit is getting retarded.

    I know the Gulf needs to get back to work…and the key to that is to let people start doing their jobs as fast as possible…

    …but not testing the goods for the toxic waste that was dumped onto it and then asking the independent workers to sign off and take the blame for any poison catches they make is so foul and repugnant it could have been written as a policy by Karl Rove.

    Congrats Obama admin…I used to think of you as indifferent and typical…now I will finally confess that you are evil and completely amoral.

  • Anonymous

    Amen to that!

  • http://twitter.com/LadyLiberty13 LadyLiberty13

    This makes me glad I’ve never liked shrimp. Still, it sucks for the shrimpers. This is really unfair.

  • http://twitter.com/LadyLiberty13 LadyLiberty13

    Unfortunately, there’s no way to prove that someone died from shrimp they ate from the gulf. That’s what BP is banking on.

  • Anonymous

    Do you think Obama asked anyone if, when he said the Gulf seafood was safe, anyone had verified, or examined, this remark?

    I do, and I bet he was told that the water was tested.

    How else can one explain why he exposed his daughter to the toxic sludge?

  • Anonymous

    Why not resort to making the heads of the FDA, EPA, NOAA and the head of BP go onto a reality show where they are forced to eat, live and breathe the toxicity of the Gulf.

  • Anonymous

    LOL: the free market.

    You couldn’t be more deluded and yet you cling to it like guns and religion.

  • Anonymous

    You’re joking, right?

    You don’t think that our civilization is capable of tracking where the seafood came, and comes, from?

    Seriously, you must not be aware of either the latest egg recall or science.

  • Anonymous

    Sounds way too simple and too much like justice.

  • Anonymous

    I don’t understand how you can say this unless you possess some knowledge of shrimping, food safety or restaurants, which somehow I’m betting you don’t.

  • MrEthiopian

    Bush sold America to the highest bidder and Obama did nothing about it. America is dead!
    Say that to yourself “America is dead”
    We are now nothing but slaves to the corporations, corporations like BP will mandate what laws need be enforced and who will be responsible, the corporation or bottom line is all that matters. Look at what has happened to this country since 911 “America is dead”
    Too read a story like this that puts the blame on the last people that would want to sell tainted seafood is unimaginable, people that were just making ends meet prior to the BP DISASTER and now putting the blame on people that were NOT responsible for the criminal mismanagement, BP and our SHITTY government is too blame NOT the individual attempting to feed his or her family.

    Buy a gun because this country is in desperate need of revolution, America is dead – but not for long.

  • Anonymous

    The whole operation has been run, by both gov and BP, to protect BP. From dispersants to the amount that was spilled to the potential toxicity of the seafood, it’s all to protect BP.Fucking disgusting.

  • Anonymous

    Good point. It’s fucking disgusting.

  • http://twitter.com/LadyASG Lady ASG

    How come there is no class action lawsuits over this? Where are the lawyers at..they can be banking more than BP!

  • http://twitter.com/LadyASG Lady ASG

    How come there is no class action lawsuits over this? Where are the lawyers at..they can be banking more than BP!

  • Anonymous

    Not true. I worked in a fish market. When there have been “red tides” in the Gulf, we were unable to get certain fish. We knew what port our fish came from. The delivery service knew what dock, etc. It can be traced down the line quite easily.

  • http://thegreatendarkenment.blogspot.com/ Chris Harmatta

    This isn’t a lack leadership. This is an abandonment of leadership. Obama’s basically abdicated his position, without filing the paperwork.

    I don’t see any way in hell, with his record of corporate whorisom, wishy-washyness, kowtowing to the minority, bragging about how he’s including republican ideas — which we soundly rejected by electing him — in his legislation… I just don’t see how this guy goes down as anything but an incompetent one-term president.

    Like Jimmy Carter, but without the vision.

  • Anonymous

    Do you work in the seafood industry?

    (thanks for your “expert” advise – but I think you’re comparing shrimp to eggs)

  • Anonymous

    The remote beach where Obama and daughter swam, was closed to the public, and there are no verifications that they actually went into that water. It would be simple to switch the photo op to another beach anywhere in the world. There is no proof the water you see is the Gulf Water, in which case, of course he was swimming with his daugher…..somewhere else.

  • http://www.rawstory.com RawStory

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  • Anonymous

    This isn’t a lack of leadership say due to a lack of experience. This is an abandonment of leadership. Obama has time after time, totally turned his back on the people who elected him in favor of kowtowing to the minority and the corporations they represent.

    As chief executive, make the fucking job assignment, Don’t sit back a play with your schlong while agencies point their fingers and duck responsibility, TELL them what they need to do and MAKE them do it.

    I don’t see any way in hell this phony gets re-elected or goes down in history as anything other than a James Buchanan or a Herbert Hoover,.. a Jimmy Carter with a lack of vision.

    With all of the watered down, semi-marketable reform-like substance he keeps signing and bragging about, I seriously think I might be more satisfied with his leadership if he’d forced Harry Reid to force mitch mcMushmouth to still be standing and wet stinky diapers, reading from the phone book filibustering a real HEALTH care bill. You know, one that reformed it, rather than just called for writing more and bigger checks to a corrupt industry.

  • http://www.rawstory.com RawStory

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  • http://www.facebook.com/D.Hotkiss Douglas Hotchkiss

    this is your brain on america

  • Anonymous

    I hope people note my sarcasm…

  • Anonymous

    That’s a good question that I think has two answers; 1. In the Pacific Northwest, the good vendors display the origin of the fish along side the price per lb. 2. I can’t imagine buyers and distributors buying any Gulf catch if they can’t sell it to restaurants and retailers. If people don’t want it, there is no market. Right now, it seems there is NO MARKET.

  • Anonymous

    I think the larger issue is the buildup of toxins that takes many years to reach, but by that point your body is screwed. Little kids forming life-long disabilities, etc.. I doubt anyone would “die” from eating the seafood, but over the next 10 years, they would start developing disorders and diseases related to it. By THEN it would be much too late to “prove”, in a court of law kind of way. In fact, the LACK of testing is what will break the back of such cases, no proof someone “intentionally sold poison food”.. if you can’t establish the poison was there in the first place, courts of law can’t help you.

    This is a long-term play BP and the Federal Government is putting into motion. Failure to test and have a official accounting today means they don’t get held officially accountable in the future.

  • Anonymous

    Probably need Federal Permits to run docks. Show that you can follow protocol and properly inspect cargo and ships and the like. If there is a “federal mandate” to do something, they kind of have to do it to keep running their docks. All it would take is a simple memo from the government agency that says “the new policy is, all fishermen must sign this new waiver to bring catches ashore”. No “getting to” involved.

  • Anonymous

    you clearly both missed the snark and have no clue who SynGas is (based on virtually every other post out there by them).

  • Anonymous

    Ah, but the core principles are that you don’t need to test the food.. just don’t go to where people have been getting sick.. of course, to sell papers (rooted in advertising dollars) they won’t print such things, so good luck finding out where people are dying from contaminated food!

    Just think of all the extra “consumption of goods” it creates when everyone buys their own labs to carry with them everywhere they go, too!

  • Anonymous

    1) not every square inch of the gulf has “oil and dispersant” in it.

    2) splashing around in the water for 10 or 15 minutes is not the same as ingesting thousands of shrimp’s worth of toxins from a Tuna.

    3) fish swimming in the gulf have this stuff go across their gills, basically their lungs, and is absorbed constantly into their blood. You didn’t see the President or his child drinking or inhaling the water, did you?

    4) the President is pretty isolated while in office, he only gets info from “official sources” on most matters; do you think the powers that be wouldn’t happily lie to him about this? He has to trust his “advisers” and “official offices”, and it would appear he’s being lied to just like WE are… only, he doesn’t spend time reading Raw Story I’m guessing.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DRU2G2W4WAZYK4QBJK6YGU2COQ danieliukas

    Too bad the fishermen are not Bankers or military contractors. Bushbama would take car of them.

  • Anonymous

    That is “getting to” in that the federal government is mandating the protection of a corporations interest over those of the independent fisherman and anyone that eats seafood.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DRU2G2W4WAZYK4QBJK6YGU2COQ danieliukas

    Shrimp is yummy. I would not buy any anymore. Sorry Gulf Fishermen. Used to be the best shrimp. It aint now. So lets blame the fishermen. Wait, they did not “contribute” (read bribe) the government like BP did.

  • Anonymous

    They should all do as a commentor on another blog suggested:

    Sign the waivers “Tony Hayward”

    And yes, this is bullsh*t of the highest, stinkiest order. It’d be like not testing crops for radiation five miles from Chernobyl two weeks after that catastrophe and making the farmers sign waivers taking responsibility if people start glowing in the dark. Un-f*cking believable!

  • http://biscuits007.wordpress.com/ protobone

    Wow, our government lied. Go figure. DeepWaterHorizon well head is still leaking. Seafloor is fractured and can’t be fixed. Nope. Well gonna leak and leak and say bye bye to the Gulf. Wow, our government lied. Well there you go.

  • Anonymous

    “Let me be clear: Seafood from the Gulf … is safe to eat,’” President Obama recently said…

    Gulf of Tonkin? Persian Gulf? That, or maybe he had his fingers crossed behind his back, because if he meant Gulf of Mexico, he’s either lying, stupid, or crazy.

  • Anonymous

    You can already trace market fish all the way back to the day a given boat sold the shrimp, or any other seafood.

  • Anonymous

    Unfortunately it looks like we all need greenhouses to keep our food organic now and if we want clean fish we might consider barrelponics. Not a bad option to have given the outlook of the future. Cancer might force the living to decentralize the food production, that might be a silver lining here – if that’s possible. Fish in a barrel. Depressing, although interesting to experiment with. A way to cheaply feed your cats if you are vegetarian. Bubble people.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHn_OnwzStQ

  • Anonymous

    Yes, good point. Fucking unbelievable bastards.

  • Tio Holtzman

    In an effort to smooth things over with Gulf Coast residents, BP has dispatched its wealthiest shareholders to the region. They will be charged, over the next several years, with spreading feces over the oily, mutated graves of Gulf Coast residents and their children.

    Thanks BP!

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3XEMEHO6BZRQB32JGAYJQYDBVE EnderW

    why is obama wasting his time and lying for people who only vote republican?

    most of those fishermen and the owners in the gulf don’t vote democrat. and we all know how republicans operate.

    i don’t see why obama is covering for them by saying the critters are safe to eat.

    shrimp, for instance is at the bottom of the food chain, it’ll be one of the things most widely contaminated.

    even in a good year, you will find oil-stained shrimp in the stores. imagine now.

  • My3Cats

    and obama and his daughter were in Panama City, Florida, not Louisiana. No way he and his daughter were near the oil spill, contaminants or eating shrimp caught from the Louisiana delta.

  • Anonymous

    Folks, I hate it for the fishermen in the Gulf, but seafood from there will not be safe to eat
    for a minimum of ten years…if Obama claims that it is safe to eat seafood from there, then he
    is as big a liar as Bush when he said the air in NY was safe to breathe following 9/11/01.
    I thought it was very interesting how the US Coast Guard was taking orders from BP, but
    if you think about it, it makes sense…the US is a fascist country now, where the military takes orders from corporations.
    No media outlet has covered this of course, and the sheeple didn’t notice it.
    But anyway, folks, eat up that Gulf Seafood at your own risk.
    Anyone that tells you that food is safe to eat…is a liar.

  • Anonymous

    I bet the meat and poultry industries are eating this up. Any downturn in seafood consumption, especially seafood from the BP-fouled Gulf waters, will mean an increase in their profits because of heightened demand for anything but seafood from the Gulf.

    Will seafood from the Gulf be identified as coming from the Gulf, possibly tainted by either oil or dispersants?

    Will BP be required to establish seafood testing facilities along the Gulf Coast to monitor each fisheman’s catch before it is processed and sent to the markets?

    Will U.S. taxpayers have to pay for this monitoring, beyond just smell tests?

    Will all industry-friendly revolving-door hacks be fired from our federal agencies, replaced by corporate “monitors” who will make certain that corporations don’t continue to run through our nation’s halls like a bull elephant in a china shop?

  • Anonymous

    Gulf fishermen are small business people aren’t they?

  • Anonymous

    This is preposterous. Corexit in the food chain. BP put it there. It’s a fact.

    http://thedonkeyedge.com/2010/08/02/the-nose-knows/

  • http://twitter.com/shivabeach Shiva

    Get BP out there, open their wallet and start throwing money. They have hidden themselves away and are shirking their duty.

  • Anonymous

    “Louisiana fishermen’s activist Kindra Arnesen says dock owners are asking fishermen to sign waivers that put the full responsibility for toxins found in the catch on the fishermen themselves.”

    If only the dock owners would force BP and the federal government to sign affidavits that they guarantee fish and shellfish in the area really are unaffected.

  • Anonymous

    I agree with the 10 years for Fish but for shrimp and clams and crabs, it may be a full generation or more. Because that oil and dispersant is embedded into the floor of the ocean and the shore so it’s sitting in their environment. And we don’t know what mutations may or may not come from the shrimp and clams and crabs for essentially living and breeding in the contaminated soil and water. They are making them sign because the dock owners don’t want to be sued and you can bet your last dollar that the people and companies they sell to are making them sign papers stating that this is safe. What gets me the most sick about this wholes situation is that our politicians are either ignorant or essentially brain dead.

    Because you allow a company to essentially destroy the gulf from the largest oil spill ever and also by adding more toxins from the Corexit that you say not to use and THEY USE IT ANYWAY. And by using it (which is band in europe because of the toxicity) along with the oil, it essentially caused this poison to get into the food chain of our nation. This food will get onto your plate and theirs one way or the other. They allow the poisoning of our food and our nation and don’t even figure out the ramifications of this happening.

    I feel sorry for our leaders, I really do. It seems like everything is setting up to hit us all at once (poisoned food supply, economic depression etc.). And when it does, they will find out how much the truly screwed not only their people but themselves. They where useful idiots and people manipulated them because of it.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3XEMEHO6BZRQB32JGAYJQYDBVE EnderW

    The dock owners are largely Republicans, and Republicans don’t believe in personal responsibility in matters of harm to others.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3XEMEHO6BZRQB32JGAYJQYDBVE EnderW

    Yes, and here in America, most small business owners vote right wing, and Republicans don’t believe in taking any responsibility for their part in the harm of others.

    Think about it this way:

    Who are you going to sue for damages? What records are going to be kept of what came from whom? A whole bureaucratic structure would have to be built to trace seafood right back to the boat. That doesn’t exist.

    Bottom line: For your own safety, and the safety of your loved ones, boycott gulf seafood. Demand labelling the source of fish, right down to the local fishmonger’s display / meat department display.

  • Anonymous

    Is Obama part of this massive conspiracy to destroy the Gulf and thus America? It appears that way… why would he claim Gulf seafood is safe to eat when it has not been properly tested? This boggles the mind!

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3XEMEHO6BZRQB32JGAYJQYDBVE EnderW

    nah, he’s just trying to get the republicans there to not vote the way they always always always vote.

    it’s a dumb move on obama’s part. now, when the tainted seafood goes to your dinner table, it reflects on him.

    haven’t the dems learned that the DLC is merely a bunch of GOP moles?

    OBAMA NEEDS TO FIRE THE DLC!!!

  • Anonymous

    1) Why are people still buying gas from BP, Exxon Mobil and ARCO?
    2) Label all Seafood from the Gulf as “Consume at your own risk….BP denies responsibility”
    3) The fishermen need to relocate. That Gulf is poisoned.

  • panamarick

    This government is so broken and corrupt if they had an Olympic event for banana republics we would certainly come in as one of the top ten.

    I think these assholes are just playing everything out until the next show drops (say the greatest depression) and then they will point the cannons at us and tell us all to shut the fuck up or else.

  • Anonymous

    “A whole bureaucratic structure would have to be built to trace seafood right back to the boat. That doesn’t exist.”

    Yes indeed it DOES exist, it is used all the time by high-end seafood restaurants.

    You know the entire food distribution system is completely computerized and they can track anything back to the farm if they really want to.

    I was involved in a lawsuit where they tracked a jar of salsa: each truck each warehouse, each worker, all the way back to the tomatoes at the farm. They do indeed have all of this stuff in their computers.

    The food companies do it all the time for their own internal purposes, to cut costs.

    Of course they are not going to bother to tell the public about this system, because then they would be forced to use it to track down illnesses, and they don’t want to have to deal with that.

  • Anonymous

    The gulf is not an inland lake, it is part of the ocean. The oil will very soon spread over the entire ocean.

    Boston Harbor was the dirtiest place in the whole ocean for many many years until they installed a new sewage treatment plant. It only took one tide cycle to clear the harbor and now it’s no dirtier than the open ocean.

    This pollution will quickly spread to all ocean water and pollute it all equally. Within a short period the gulf will not be any worse than anywhere else.

  • Anonymous

    Let Obama and company eat a dozen Louisiana oysters every day for a month and then people might have some confidence. Not too much but some.

  • Anonymous

    Interesting so your saying every government employee, hired during the Bush eight years was fired the very first day Obama got into office and replaced with registered Democrats. Not only don’t I recall a few hundreds thousand federal employees not being fired, I believe this would also be illegal.
    Truth is each and every corrupt employee has to be caught, has to be investigated, and them once substantive proof if obtained, charged and prosecuted a crime and then fired and replaced.
    This takes a huge amount of time and effort, basically every time something visibly publicly dishonest happens, the administration can then commence investigating it. Sucks but every corrupt corporate appointee in government will takes years to dig out, just like foreign sleeper agents. This doesn’t even take into account corporations routinely bribing new government employees.
    The biggest problem stems from the failure to prosecute the bribe payers (those who benefit from the corruption) far more severely than the bribe receivers. Million dollars in a Swiss bank account versus billions of payout damages, the FBI is going to be busy.

  • Hologram5

    1) Why are people still buying gas from BP, Exxon Mobil and ARCO?
    —————————
    The sad part is…
    The rest of the oil companies are taking advantage of this and raising their prices so that these companies are the cheapest gas around, in this economy can you really blame the people buying here so that they have extra money to feed their families?

  • http://www.facebook.com/tom.aiken2 Tom Aiken

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  • http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

    “Interesting so your saying every government employee, hired during the Bush eight years was fired the very first day Obama got into office and replaced with registered Democrats. Not only don’t I recall a few hundreds thousand federal employees not being fired, I believe this would be illegal”

    Nothing looks dumber on the internet…or anywhere else really…than interpreting someones words and then telling them what ‘they said’. I said nothing of the kind, and it would take an idiot working overtime to come up with what you’ve spun out of my words.

    But tell me how my complaint is invalid? Tell me the Obama administration…in place during the entire span of the Gulf oil spill from start to now…is somehow doing a bang up job? Tell me that an administration on top of this situation is in no way culpable for tactics like this being permissible. Either they’re okay with it…or they aren’t…and it looks damningly like they’re okay with it.

    I’d agree that big wheelbarrows of cash are a big part of the problem…since anyone with any authority gets bought as fast as we can elect them, and that every administration keeps plenty of people in place from previous admins…

    …but I never indicated that these things weren’t true. My statement is expression of extreme disappointment at the fairly obvious tolerance of corporate chicanery being used to victimize Gulf residents. If you’re sensitive to Dems being mauled over this, note my barbed comment about 2000-08 causing me to lower my standards…I’m no fan of the other idiots, but calling the current actions being taken in Gulf states criminal and wrong is an act of sanity, not a partisan statement.

    As for real investigations…crooks don’t investigate crooks they’re in bed with. The cynic in me expects the Gulf to suffer and for government to screw them repeatedly all the while, no different or better than post-Katrina. I no longer expect anything from this administration but pretty speeches that allow the press to feel better…the sole difference being that the faceman giving the speeches won’t be mildly retarded.

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  • http://tiedyes.com tarathralls

    Also, we don’t want BP to claim bankruptcy because so many people boycott that then they won’t have enough money to meet that $20 Billion commitment they made (which btw, is only going to be doled out in $5 Billion per year increments…and only to those who will sign an agreement saying they will never sue BP any time in the future….I am so sick of seeing those BP ads about how they’re gonna clean up every last drop…ha ha

  • http://tiedyes.com tarathralls

    Obama’s been confusing me since the day I heard that Rick Warren was going to be the pastor at his inauguration…and then that he appointed Rahm, Gibbs, Geithner, kept Gates and the Generals on, escalated Afghanistan, didn’t repeal DOMA or DADT, appointed two questionable Supreme Court justices, didn’t come forth for HCR, didn’t make sure we got a good Financial Reform Bill…the list is long…I think Obama is saying the seafood is safe because that’s what his bosses have told him to say…oh, wait, did you think he was actually in command? Somehow, I doubt it…he has to answer to his higher-ups, too, I fear…

  • DeeDee2Die4

    Let’s all whine as we drive, drive, drive.

    Meat eaters contaminate the land and foul their bodies.

    Fisherman have stripped spieces and left behind nothing.

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    #1- Lower the human population. Unlike the top video, there is no Devine Right. There are 3-4 billion more (disgustingly, slovenly) humans than can live gracefully on this planet.

  • tea resa

    Um should I pity any man who sells me fish that he probably wont eat himself? No I dont have pity on people who sell their neighbors poison. I dont pity fishermen who fish in known polluted waters. I pity the children who die for the fisherman’s children. I pity the poor parents who buy the cheap fish at the grocery store thinking theres regulations in place, only to deal with thier family getting ill. Why are we scooping up the poison and feeling it to eachother? Where is the brotherhood of man? Its all about money from the large down to the small. You generous hearted people who pity poison salesmen.

  • Anonymous

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  • Bruce

    I know what tea in your nick stands for. Tea party. You want to blame the fishermen for this disaster, and call them poison salesmen. You show such great concern for people who might get ill, talk about the “brotherhood of man” (pardon me while I barf and bet everything I own that it doesn’t include Muslims in your mind), and yet you can’t wait to point the finger at the fishers instead of BP.

    What the fuck is wrong with you people? Have you lost all sense of right and wrong? Do the fishermen have the technology or the money to test their catch? If they weren’t required to do so before, why suddenly AFTER BP destroys the GOM is this becoming their responsibility? I challenge you to explain that.

    You’re sick, so damn sick that you don’t even realize it. I shudder to think that what you posted actually made perfect sense in your Beck-infested mind. That’s what’s really scary.

  • Wide Awake

    The only problem I have with this information, is the ‘Take Action’ petition at the bottom.
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  • ouzels

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