Shocking but not surprising.

acanuck — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 21:46:40 +0000

Shocking but not surprising. Business as usual.

Thanks for the link. It

NCD — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 15:45:19 +0000

Thanks for the link. It appears the standard operations and procedures for lease bidding of the federal BLM agency is about as weak as those for MMA's for regulating offshore drilling safety. According to the Democracy Now interview, bidding for million dollar oil leases is easier than buying a car, at least for a car they run a credit check. All Tim needed was a driver's license, and the BLM apparently knew he was not a legit bidder almost immediately but let him go on and bid up parcels anyway. He says he even raised the money to begin paying for the bids the next day but this information was disallowed from his trial. The oil auction was, according to the Democracy Now show, mostly thrown out later by the Obama administration because the BLM was not following its own procedures. I don't suppose anyone at BLM will be jailed for that however, they'll probably be promoted.

I guess it's easier for BLM employees to just throw a guy in jail for years for questionable bids, rather than doing their homework by vetting bidders. Its obviously more expensive for the government given the cost of prison time and all the money wasted on this ridiculous trial. Hopefully, the Judge will let him off with some form of parole, although the Judge's exclusion of evidence for the defense doesn't give one a lot of confidence on his fairness.

The only thing consistent is that the core mission of the agency, be it BLM or MMA, is to protect big oil, come hell or a 100 million barrels of spilled oil.

Democracy Now interviewed

Donal — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 13:02:00 +0000

In reply to Feds Get Conviction in Oil Finance Scandal

Democracy Now interviewed deChristopher this morning. He went in to protest and was invited in to bid. After he won four bids, they realized he was not a normal bidder and arrested him. He did actually raise the money to cover those bids, but it didn't matter. In fact, the judge disallowed most of his testimony. And it appears that the bidding was very irregular.

dagblog - Comments for "Feds Get Conviction in Oil Finance Scandal"

Shocking but not surprising.

Thanks for the link. It

Democracy Now interviewed