Below is a blog Comment we sent to the PBS Tavis Smiley blog site entitled “Tavis Smiley Blogs Round-Up: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill.”
It’s worth a read.

Re: “Tavis Smiley Blogs Round-Up: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill.”
Web: http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/voices/2010/06/round-up-gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill.html

When you consider the spate of reliable info already available about how regulators were romanced and ‘captured’ by BP — info about how regulators “looked the other way” and ignored glaring BP problems while lowering the bar for inspection standards and for minimum safety requirements for BP — and when you consider how rigorously BP fought against standard recommended safety provisions utilizing ‘assurances’ we now know were utterly fraudulent and were proffered in bad faith, regarding its ability to respond to and correct major malfunctions in “Deep Water” wells and regarding how ‘safe’ Deep Water Drilling actually is — when you consider all these things and so many more horrifying bad-faith BP and regulator activities (and inactivity – inertia) that we now know led to this Gulf disaster, it is especially aggravating to hear a Reagan-appointed Louisiana federal judge, who holds significant Gulf oil industry investments, strike down Obama’s temporary “Deep Water Drilling Moratorium” when such bedlam, incompetence, corruption, ineffectiveness and uncertainty still hangs thick in the air. Exactly “where” does this seemingly infinite stream of corruption, undue influence, bribes, payoffs and “dirty politics” actually “end” in this horrifically seedy, catastrophic, disgusting episode? I addressed this issue in a blog entitled “Judicial Politics Adds To BP Oil Sleaze” located at http://gbruce.com/reflect/2010/07/09/judicial-politics-adds-to-bp-oil-sleaze/

Sincerely,
Reflecting Pool Discourse Blog
http://gbruce.com/reflect/

(See also, “27,000 Abandoned Gulf Oil Wells May Be Leaking” and “American Politics at Toxic Levels“).