[StBernard] The Spillionaires

[Westley Annis]

The Spillionaires

Posted Friday, April 15, 2011, at 12:58 AM
Many tried to point out Obama's miserable failure of leadership during the
BP oil spill. Barack was simply too busy partying, vacationing and playing
golf to actually lead, besides, BP and the Obama administration had been all
buddy-buddy until the spill.

At the time the BP oil spill happened, all Obama and his pals in the media
could do was try and make political hay of the situation. Since Obama has no
real leadership abilities, or management experience, what has gone on in the
Gulf since the BP spill has been gross mismanagement, nepotism and greed
gone to seed.

A very eye-opening report from ProPublica and the Washington Post, as well
as the UK Guardian, shows what happens when you have a gross dereliction of
duty at the Presidential level.

To quote the report, we now have "The Spillionaires".

http://www.propublica.org/article/spilli...

The article is long, and the facts are many, so I will just try and give you
some highlights.

Before I do, I should point out that nature took care of the majority of the
spill, just like Rush Limbaugh, other Conservatives, and real scientists
(not on the government dole) said it would. The hysteria by Democrats was
for political gains, and to help destroy our energy production, which has
always been a big goal of the left in America.

Because of the mismanagement by Obama and his cronies, locals were
interviewed and records examined for a suburb of New Orleans, the greedy
little hamlet of St. Bernard Parish. Documents showed that companies with
insider ties to the Parish, got lucrative contracts after Obama's shakedown
of BP. Remember, BP contributed vast sums of money to Obama.

Most bills were submitted with little or no documentation. One subcontractor
billed BP $15,400 per month to rent a generator which usually costs $1,500
per month. Just the tip of the iceberg.

Another company, in which the powerful Sheriff of St. Bernard Parrish has a
financial interest, charged BP more than $1 million a month for land it had
been renting for less than $1,600 a month. Way to go Sheriff!

"Because the federal government ceded control over spill cleanup spending to
BP, it's impossible to know for certain what that money accomplished, or
exactly what was done," the report found.

Typical Democrat politicians.

They stick their damn noses into everything they should leave alone and then
when something comes up the feds should oversee...they punt, or as Obama has
done many times, they vote "present".

"This Parrish raped BP," said Wayne Landry, the chairman of the St. Bernard
Parish Council, who expressed frustration with all the shenanigans.

"...Sales tax receipts, a key measure of economic activity, rose
significantly in ... communities from Louisiana to Florida. A recent story
by the Associated press found that governments along the coast used BP money
to buy SUVs, Tasers, and other equipment not necessary to clean up oil."

That doesn't really shock me, does it you? If you are driving down
Interstate 80 and you see a brand new shinny dump truck, you know right away
that dump truck is a government vehicle. The taxpayer farmer paying the
bills, usually buys a used dump.

Back to the oinkers at St. Bernard Parrish. They collected almost $26.8
million in sales and lodging taxes receipts in the six month period after
the spill, twice as much as over the same period a year earlier.

"Flush with cash from cleanup and claims, many fishermen bought new toys,
boats and trucks. Sales at the nearest Chevrolet dealer rose 41%."

Allot of money went for overtime for chosen employees of the Parish. Forty
government employees earned staggering amounts of overtime, including three
employees who claimed overtime to buy dog food. One employee claimed 497
hours of overtime in less than 7 weeks! Nice work if you can get it.

One fisherman, friends with the "rulers" in St. Bernard Parish, earned
$67,000 fishing in 2009. Then his luck changed. This same fisherman got
$100,000 for his 6-month claim, and that was in addition to the $90,000 for
working on the cleanup, and another $20,000 in emergency funds from BP. In 8
months this fisherman, and many others, received $210,000, more than 3 times
his 2009 income. Again, nice work if you can get it.

"Felesia Carter, a manager at St. Bernard's only off track betting parlor,
said customers were gambling away claims money. Her business was so good,
she said, that employees worked overtime."

Much of the problem in St. Bernard's parish was due to the heavy handed
dealings of parish President, Craig Taffaro, Jr.

"He invoked a Louisiana law that allowed him to declare a 30-day emergency
and handle the crisis without normal checks and balances."

Taffaro chose a contractor, a pal of his with no oil clean up experience,
and debt problems galore, to supervise the cleanup. Taffaro and his buddies
decided who would get what, when they would get it, and how much. At one
point, Taffaro hired his future son-in law, to work in the finance part of
the operations, at a nice fat wage of course.

St. Bernard Parish was "among the first to benefit, snagging a $1 million
check for oil spill expenses. Parish employees (government workers) went
shopping for cameras, printers, a file cabinet, staplers, six pair of
children's scissors and 712 shirts emblazoned with the parish name." Well
isn't that special?!!

Oh there is so much more.

Off duty Sheriff's Deputies were paid $45 per hour to provide security. Oh,
I know, they were just trying to help out. Nice to get $45 bucks an hour
stuffed into your pockets when helping out huh?

There are many reports that you can read, with lists of abuses that will
take you hours to read. The point is, no one knows exactly where all the
billions that BP spent for clean up, actually went.

Some went for clean up, but lots of cash went for gambling, hookers, cars,
boats, trucks, minks, fancy clothes, new houses, vacations, jewelry,
tattoos, or was just plain stolen by local politicians and their buddies.

That is the price of government and Presidential mismanagement and
stupidity.

That is the interesting thing about Louisiana. The state is rich in
resources, timber, oil, shipping, gambling, tourism, etc., but much of their
money is spent in the Democrat welfare machine and political corruption. The
locals say, they just wait for the next hurricane or natural disaster to
come around to get the rest of the county to rebuild their homes, improve
their highways, or maintain their infrastructure. It is hard to get mad at
them, when we let it happen.

The facts show that, prior to hurricane Katrina, millions upon millions of
federal taxpayer dollars were allocated to rebuild and improve levies in the
New Orleans area, but the Democrats in control at the time, spent the money
elsewhere, welfare, political corruption, etc.

I don't see Louisiana coming up here to our part of the world to help us out
with blizzards, droughts, high winds or whatever. They chose to live in
Louisiana, so take the good with the bad. They seem to take the good, and
waste it on government and welfare, then demand that the rest of us
subsidize the bad.

As a side note, I was in New Orleans, two days before Katrina hit. I heard
the radio spots with President Bush, begging folks to listen up and pay
attention. Telling people to "get away." Warning folks over and over and
over and over again. I listened, I got out, but many did not listen, and
then Bush was labeled a racist because they did not listen, when it was the
Democrats in charge who were incompetent.

Natural disasters can turn into a nice slice of pie for folks when the
government can not or will not do its job. Or when politicians are too busy
taking over car companies, and bribing unions, to do the job they are
suppose to do.

However, in the end, Obama's gross lack of intelligence and hatred of
American industry, may end up crushing those that were so greedy to get BP
money. You see, Dear Leader Obama is destroying the oil business in
Louisiana, and in the end, the money they looted from BP may be their last
hurrah.

Never underestimate the power of a Democrat politician to do the wrong
thing, at the wrong time, for the wrong reason, and with the wrong people,
and then lie about it. That is what they do.

As Conservative genius Van Helsing at Moonbattery says, "every time our
looter government steals a nickel, it spends a dime, then demands more."

Are you ready for tax increases? Better get ready.

Special thanks to Moonbattery for daily bringing the truth to light.