As the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill conspiracy starts to unravel (directed by Obama? Or ordered by Rahm Emanuel, who certainly had the connections?), the administration scrambles in an attempt to make the center hold. Their latest attempt at hiding the damage done by their ill-conceived plot to force a confrontation over energy policy: Blocking media access to the disaster site.
Something out of Communist China? Welcome to hope and change...the New York Times reports:
A pilot wanted to take a photographer from The Times-Picayune of New Orleans to snap photographs of the oil slicks blackening the water. The response from a BP contractor who answered the phone late last month at the command center was swift and absolute: Permission denied.
“We were questioned extensively. Who was on the aircraft? Who did they work for?” recalled Rhonda Panepinto, who owns Southern Seaplane with her husband, Lyle. “The minute we mentioned media, the answer was: ‘Not allowed.’ ”
Journalists struggling to document the impact of the oil rig explosion have repeatedly found themselves turned away from public areas affected by the spill, and not only by BP and its contractors, but by local law enforcement, the Coast Guard and government officials.
And it's not just the average schmuck who's turned away from the muck..even Democratic Senators are getting cut-blocked:
Last week, Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, tried to bring a small group of journalists with him on a trip he was taking through the gulf on a Coast Guard vessel. Mr. Nelson’s office said the Coast Guard agreed to accommodate the reporters and camera operators. But at about 10 p.m. on the evening before the trip, someone from the Department of Homeland Security’s legislative affairs office called the senator’s office to tell them that no journalists would be allowed.
“They said it was the Department of Homeland Security’s response-wide policy not to allow elected officials and media on the same ‘federal asset,’ ” said Bryan Gulley, a spokesman for the senator. “No further elaboration” was given, Mr. Gulley added.
What the f*ck is the Department of Homeland Security doing denying access to the site of an oil spill? This is not a battlefield with enemies roaming the perimeter, this is not the aftermath of a suicide bomb, with body parts still to be scraped up - these are beaches with oil on them! Who's security is in danger by snapping pictures of that?
A-ha. Only a few people, actually. Political folks, mostly, who would be harmed if continued negative publicity came out via pictures of oil-stained sands. The same folks who really don't seem to want people asking any questions, who were trying to muzzle scientists early on, and now are trying to muzzle the press.
Barack Obama. Rahm Emanuel. And the folks at BP, whose hands are just as dirty with Democratic money as they are with spewing oil.
Almost makes you think they have something to hide...a conspiracy, one might say....
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