bobbyw24
06-21-2010, 02:16 PM
A tea party favorite running for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky says President Barack Obama is using the Gulf of Mexico oil spill to advance an energy tax.
While Democrats denounce BP for the spill, a Republican congressman from Texas accuses the White House of performing a $20 billion "shakedown" by pushing the company to create a compensation fund for spill victims. Rep. Joe Barton also apologizes to BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward at a Capitol hearing, although he is later pressured by GOP leaders to apologize for his apology.
In the two months since BP's underwater well ruptured and started belching millions of gallons of crude into the Gulf, many conservatives have expressed fears that Obama and his allies will use the spill to make government bigger and intrude more into private enterprise.
Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul of Kentucky said Friday that he was disturbed by Obama's promise to find out "whose ass to kick."
"I'll move past the obvious problem with the appropriateness of the comment to just say this: Look in the mirror Mr. President," Paul said in a statement. "This crisis has been a case study in failure to lead, failure to act, and using a crisis to advance your own agenda rather than solve the problem."
Erin Ryan, a tea party activist in Redding, Calif., said Barton was correct to use the word "shakedown."
"Wow," Ryan said. "Somebody finally said it out loud?"
Conservative talk show host Mark Williams, chairman of the California-based Tea Party Express, said the White House went too far by pressuring BP to create the fund while the Justice Department is conducting criminal and civil probes of the spill.
"I'm accustomed to mobsters behaving that way, I'm just not accustomed to it from the
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/US-Gulf-Oil-Spill/2010/06/21/id/362577
While Democrats denounce BP for the spill, a Republican congressman from Texas accuses the White House of performing a $20 billion "shakedown" by pushing the company to create a compensation fund for spill victims. Rep. Joe Barton also apologizes to BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward at a Capitol hearing, although he is later pressured by GOP leaders to apologize for his apology.
In the two months since BP's underwater well ruptured and started belching millions of gallons of crude into the Gulf, many conservatives have expressed fears that Obama and his allies will use the spill to make government bigger and intrude more into private enterprise.
Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul of Kentucky said Friday that he was disturbed by Obama's promise to find out "whose ass to kick."
"I'll move past the obvious problem with the appropriateness of the comment to just say this: Look in the mirror Mr. President," Paul said in a statement. "This crisis has been a case study in failure to lead, failure to act, and using a crisis to advance your own agenda rather than solve the problem."
Erin Ryan, a tea party activist in Redding, Calif., said Barton was correct to use the word "shakedown."
"Wow," Ryan said. "Somebody finally said it out loud?"
Conservative talk show host Mark Williams, chairman of the California-based Tea Party Express, said the White House went too far by pressuring BP to create the fund while the Justice Department is conducting criminal and civil probes of the spill.
"I'm accustomed to mobsters behaving that way, I'm just not accustomed to it from the
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/US-Gulf-Oil-Spill/2010/06/21/id/362577