BP claims shoddy cement work by Halliburton caused Gulf oil disaster

A federal court will soon assess damages and lay blame for the massive Deepwater Horizon oil disaster that sent hundreds of millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, and that killed 11 people, back in April 2010. And BP, which has taken most of the brunt…

Scientists find Gulf War veterans have chronic abnormal blood flow in brains

(NaturalNews) More than 20 years after the end of the Gulf War, tens of thousands of US veterans are still complaining of a host of symptoms developed during or after their tour of duty. They suffer from memory and concentration problems, chronic headaches, widespread pain, depression, balance disturbances, gastrointestinal problems, chronic fatigue and more. The latest figures from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs scientific advisory committee on the Gulf War illness show about 25 percent of the 700,000 military personnel deployed to the 1991 Persian Gulf War are affected. The cause of what is often called Gulf War Syndrome (GWS) is still unknown but prime suspects are exposure to depleted uranium weapons, neurotoxic chemicals including pesticides, nerve gas, and multiple vaccines given to the soldiers by the military. Another explanation that has been widely circulated over the decades is that GWS is simply a bogus disease of malingerers and hypochondriacs — a condition that is “all in their heads.” This dismissal of the suffering of veterans who insist they are severely ill with GWS has come from a wide spectrum of so-called experts including doctors, journalists and some government officials. For example, former New England Journal of Medicine editor Marcia Angell sarcastically called it a “will o the wisp” syndrome in a New York Times interview. And self-styled health claims debunker journalist and lawyer Michael Fumento have scoffed that anyone who hasn’t had the kind of symptoms GWS sufferers claim to experience would have to be an android. Now there’s new and compelling evidence that GWS really is a disease that is, in fact, “in the heads” of veterans suffering with the cluster of health problems that make up the controversial syndrome. Specifically, it is in their brains. A new study just published online in the journal Radiology documents blood flow abnormalities found in the brains of veterans with Gulf War illness that have persisted 20 years after the war. In some veterans, the blood flow abnormalities have gotten worse over time. “We confirmed that abnormal blood flow continued or worsened over the 11-year span since first being diagnosed, which indicates that the damage is ongoing and lasts long term,” principal investigator Robert W. Haley, M.D., chief of epidemiology in the Departments of Internal Medicine and Clinical Sciences at the University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said in a statement to the media. The hippocampus is the part of the brain responsible for forming long-term memories and helping navigate space. The UT researchers noted that many of the GWS neurological symptoms, including memory loss, confusion, irritability and disorders in motion control, are clues that the hippocampus may be impaired. For the just published study, Dr. Haley’s research team used a new technique called arterial spin labeled (ASL) MRI to assess hippocampal regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in 13 control participants and 35 patients with GWS. The scientists noted that there appears to be predominance of one of three types of symptoms in GWS patients : impaired cognition; confusion and ataxia (lack of voluntary muscle control); and central neuropathic (nerve) pain. Each patient in the study first received intravenous infusions of saline and then, after 48 hours, an infusion of a short-acting cholinesterase inhibitor called physostigmine. Physostigmine is used to test how well the cholinergic system (a neurotransmitter system involved in the regulation of memory and learning) is working in the brain. Richard W. Briggs, Ph.D., professor of radiology at UT Southwestern and co-author of the new research paper, pointed out in the media statement that scanning the brain after giving the cholinesterase inhibitor medication is particularly well suited to diagnosing Gulf War illness because it picks up brain abnormalities too subtle for regular MRIs to detect. “This allows us to make the diagnosis in a single two-hour session without the need for exposure to ionizing radiation,” Dr. Briggs said. The findings replicated the results of a previous nuclear imaging test called a SPECT (single-photon emission computerized tomography) scan which was performed by Dr. Haley largely on the same group of veterans over a decade ago. The new study shows that the abnormal brain blood flow detected then had persisted. In fact, the new findings revealed something else very troublesome: the brain abnormalities may have progressed 11 years after initial testing and nearly 20 years after the Gulf War, suggesting chronic alteration of hippocampal blood flow. For more information: http://www.rsna.org/Publications/rsnanews/index.cfm http://www.naturalnews.com/Gulf_War.html http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10640454

Wave of sick, injured Gulf fish has scientists questioning whether BP disaster to blame

(NaturalNews) Fish with strange skin lesions, abnormal fins, discolorations, liver blood clots, and other mysterious health issues are turning up in the inland and coastal waterways of the Gulf of Mexico, according to new reports. Unable to explain the phenomenon, many scientists suspect that the BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster that occurred last April may be to blame, as Gulf waters became highly contaminated with both crude oil and Corexit chemicals dumped into Gulf water by the US government. Many of the abnormalities now being observed in Gulf fish are similar to those observed in sea life following the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill at Alaska’s Prince William Sound, which caused the herring fishery there to collapse and never recover. According to a report in the Pensacola News Journal (PNJ), a similar pattern is taking place in the Gulf, which has experts worried that Gulf water conditions are much worse than they seem. “I’ve had tens of thousands of fish in my hands and not seen these symptoms in so many fish before,” said William Patterson III, a biologist from the University of West Florida (UWF), who has been studying fish for 15 years, to PNJ. “All those symptoms have been seen naturally before, but it’s a matter of them all coming at once that we’re concerned about.” Patterson is currently evaluating the long-term effects of the BP disaster on Gulf sea life. So far, he has observed serious lesions, external parasites, damaged livers and ovaries, and other serious symptoms indicative of severely compromised immune systems. Multiple other teams of scientists are currently combing Gulf waters and studying the health of life there as well. Numerous investigations are currently underway, including several involving the presence of petroleum hydrocarbons in fish tissue. The ultimate goal of them all is to pinpoint precisely what is making Gulf fish sick. “The fish have a bacterial infection and a parasite infection that’s consistent with a compromised immune system,” said Jim Cowan, an oceanographer at Louisiana State University (LSU), to the St. Petersburg Times . “There’s no doubt it’s associated with a chronic exposure to a toxin.” Sources for this story include: http://www.pnj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011105080328

The BP spill in the Gulf: One year later

(NaturalNews.com) – It’s been called the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, and rightfully so, if for no other reason than because, one year later, the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is like the nightmare gift that keeps on giving, some experts are saying. The Deepwater Horizon exploration platform, which was drilling in the BP-operated Macando Prospect 40-odd miles off the coast of Louisiana, exploded in a ball of flame April 20, 2010. The explosion killed 11 people, injured 17 others and fractured the extraction pipe, gushing an estimated 200 million gallons of oil over the next 95 days in a region that has been called one of the most important ecosystems in all of North America. The well was finally capped on July 17. The relief well process was completed on Sept. 19, and the federal government officially declared the well “dead.” The spill caused an immediate impact on Gulf-related industry, as well as leveling severe damage to marine and wildlife habitats all up down the Gulf Coast. The spill impacted as much as 320 miles of Louisiana coastline at its peak. After being closed throughout much of the summer, the shrimping industry was suspended once again in November in about 4,200 square miles of Gulf when tar balls were discovered in shrimp nets. In January Frances Beinecke , appointed to a special commission to examine the causes of the disaster and make recommendations to prevent future accidents, said “tar balls were continuing to wash up on shore, and that oil sheen trails were being seen in the wake of fishing boats. Wetlands and marshlands were still in decline and dying; crude oil lay offshore in deep water, as well as fine silts and sands onshore.” Though skimmer ships, floating containment booms, dispersants and other measures were employed to sop up the oil and prevent the bulk of it from reaching shore, oil still found its way there, and in great amounts. More of it, in fact, that many experts believe BP was willing to admit. The Obama administration pointed the finger of blame squarely at BP , even holding the oil giant responsible for picking up the tab for deploying the National Guard in support of recovery efforts. The company, for its part, set up a $20 billion compensation fund, having approved more than 300,000 claims and paying out $3.8 billion by the spill’s anniversary date. But the jury is still out on the spill’s final costs and damage estimates. In all, according to RestoreTheGulf.gov , a Web site established by the government to track progress in cleaning up the spill, 800,000-plus barrels of oily water were recovered and nearly 1.8 million gallons if dispersant was deployed in an attempt to clear the Gulf. How have the efforts faired? You will get different responses to that question. On the one hand, one report said this week , there are some good signs. Scientists found thriving schools of fish when they attempted late last year to gauge the effects of the spill. “Trawling surveys done in the fall of 2010 caught triple the number of marine creatures as prior years,” said a report in Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper. “With no one netting them, it seemed, the fish were surging.” But that bit of good news comes with caveats. For example, Blair Mase, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration marine mammal stranding coordinator, says deaths of dolphins in the region this year is exceptionally high , and that the spill could be playing a major role. “We’re trying to determine what’s causing this. It could be infectious related. Or it could be non-infection,” she said, noting that her agency was examining a number of causes, including the spill, infectious disease and biotoxins. In addition, some of the region’s best sporting fish and species of seafood are turning up with heinous-looking, uncharacteristic lesions. Perhaps more telling, scientists say there is a hefty amount of oil left – perhaps even more than what spilled during the Exxon-Valdez disaster off the coast of Alaska in 1989 (about 257,000 barrels of oil). There are also reports that the spill is having effects on Gulf Coast residents as well. Darryl Malek-Wiley, environmental justice organizer with Sierra Club, said in an interview this week that the combination of oil and the dispersants used to clean it up are taking their toll. “Some of the people who are sick, they’re taking samples of their blood and they’re finding the chemicals that make up the dispersants in their blood, as well as Louisiana sweet crude, and having serious health impacts,” he said. “Loss of memory, rashes, sinus. Some folks we’ve talked with, they forget where they’re going. They forget who you are. And these are men, all of them were fishermen in relatively good physical shape.” As for the seafood industry, the government says its tests have not turned up any safety concerns, noting that samples of swordfish, tuna and other fin fish have found “no detectable oil or dispersant odors or flavors,” according to the Globe and Mail. But perhaps more telling is that a number of experts don’t believe the spill has led to any meaningful reform. “The BP oil spill is, potentially, a ‘cultural anomaly’ for institutional changes in environmental management and fossil fuel production,” a study by P. Devereaux Jennings of the Alberta university and Andrew Hoffman of the University of Michigan concluded. They added that a “true change in our approach to handling issues related to oil drilling, oil consumption and environmental management have yet to occur.” Adds Beinecke: “Today Americans have the right to ask: are we any safer than we were last April? At the broadest level, the answer is no.”

Cap The Gene Spill – New video says GMO contamination of world is far worse than Gulf of Mexico oil spill

(NaturalNews) As part of an ongoing effort to warn the public about the dangers of runaway GMO pollution of our planet, the Institute for Responsible Technology executive director Jeffrey Smith has released a new video called Cap the Gene Spill . The video is viewable in its entirety at: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=29315DF17DC44267949234EA7262ED2F In it, Jeffrey compares the genetically modified contamination of the planet to the Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe. Except the genetic pollution of our planet is actually far worse than the Gulf spill because genetic pollution can’t be “cleaned up.” It persists in the environment… perhaps for the entire future of life on planet Earth. Here’s some of what Jeffrey Smith says in this new video: [GMO pollution causes] intense, insidious environmental degradation that may never be able to be cleaned up. And just like the oil spill, you can trace it back to government incompetence and collusion, and industry manipulation — putting out technologies that are not safe long before the science is ready. What about the self-propagating genetic pollution? Once it gets out, it then spreads, and cross pollinates… it becomes a self-propagating pollution that could outlast the effects of global warming or nuclear waste. This is an impossible thing to clean up, and we are bequeathing to all future generations the folly of this generation. Never before have we fed the products of an infant science to the entire population, or released it into the environment without a way to fully recall it. So we need to cap the gene spill . Put it back in the laboratory where it belongs. Maybe someday we can predictably and safely manipulate the DNA of plants and know what its impacts will be in the environment and in our bodies, but that day is far away. Watch the full video now at: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=29315DF17DC44267949234EA7262ED2F The video links to www.ShopNoGMO.org which offers a convenient shopping guide to help you avoid genetically modified foods in grocery stores and health food stores. Personally, I consider Jeffrey Smith to be the single most important person leading the fight to stop the genetically modified gene contamination of our world. This man deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for his valiant efforts to protect humanity from what is literally becoming the seeds of our own destruction . Follow Jeffrey’s work at www.ResponsibleTechnology.org Soon, NaturalNews will be launching a separate news channel on GMOs, and we plan to strongly increase our editorial coverage of Jeffrey’s outstanding work. Keep reading NaturalNews.com for more news about our collective fight to help save humanity from the evils of fraudulent science and greed-driven corporations that seek to control the world’s food crops. Please also share the link to this page, and forward the video link to as many of your friends as possible. They need to see this. Really.

Full devastating effects of Gulf oil disaster could take a decade to emerge, says scientist

(NaturalNews) The full extent of the damage caused by the BP oil disaster last April may not become apparent for at least another decade, says Samantha Joye, a professor in the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Georgia. Contrary to claims made by BP’s compensation fund that the Gulf will fully recover by 2012, Joye says that 2012 will more than likely mark the point at which some of the more serious Gulf damage begins to come to light. Under healthy conditions, multitudes of organisms and microorganisms populate the Gulf seafloor and provide oxygenation for sediment and food for other species. These creatures, which play a vital role in the aquatic food chain, were largely devastated by the oil disaster, though the issue has not been addressed. In time, this hidden devastation throughout the entire aquatic ecosystem will become apparent, and the end result will not be pretty. “Filter-feeding organisms, invertebrate worms, corals, sea fans — all of those were substantially impacted — and by impacted, I mean essentially killed,” said Joye, concerning the damage. “Another critical point is that detrital feeders like sea cucumbers, brittle stars that wander around the bottom, I didn’t see a living (sea cucumber) around on any of the wellhead dives. They’re typically everywhere, and we saw none.” The long-term effects of the absence of these creatures will be a loss of the many other creatures that live near the surface, which include many varieties of fish and other sea creatures that humans use for food. If these creatures ultimately die due to a major break in the food chain, fisheries around the Gulf will no longer be able to operate, and many species of Gulf fish could cease to exist. “I do believe that (the Gulf) will recover from this insult, but I don’t think it’s going to recover fully by 2012,” added Joye. “I think it’s going to be 2012 before we begin to really see the fisheries [sic] implications and repercussions from this.” Sources for this story include: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12520630

Gulf human rights hero Thomas B. Manton falsely imprisoned, murdered

(NaturalNews) Former President and CEO of the International Oil Spill Control Corporation, Dr. Thomas B. Manton heroically fought to expose the truth about the massive Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, which was caused by a BP oil platform explosion in April 2010. However, all of his hard work resulted in his false imprisonment and subsequent murder, an all-too-common scenario among whistle blowers who expose lies and corruption. Dr. Manton was one of the first to warn the public that far more oil than what BP had reported was gushing into the Gulf every single day, and that, eventually, the massive oil-and-chemical plumes would wrap their way around the Gulf and travel up the eastern seaboard, contaminating beaches and wildlife all along the way. Manton also warned that the worst is yet to come within the next few years as the toxic brew slowly makes its way throughout the environment. “Once the winds change, it will then come eastward and pollute the beaches of the west coast of Florida and the “loop current” could carry this oil spill right around Florida, through the Florida Keys and pollute the east coast of Florida as well,” Manton wrote on May 28, 2010. Unlike most others, Manton was not about to let BP or the U.S. government get away with hiding the facts about the spill, facts that include a growing list of human deaths from exposure to both the oil and the Corexit chemicals used to mitigate it. And this is precisely why people like Dr. Tom Termotto, National Coordinator of the Gulf Oil Spill Remediation Conference, say that Manton was deliberately framed and murdered. “[Manton] was particularly distressed that the U.S. Federal Government allowed BP to completely take charge of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster area, as his experience taught him that the offending oil company should never be given command over the oil spill response,” said Termotto, speaking of Manton’s extensive history in dealing with oil spills. And when Manton was first arrested, Termotto explained that “Dr. Manton was serving an unlawful 15-year prison sentence, convicted of a crime he did not commit.” An August 8, 2010, report in the Keechobee News explains that Manton was found guilty on one count of possession of child pornography. However, some sources claim the offending material was planted on Manton’s computer in order to set him up. Either way, Florida’s criminal justice system oddly placed Manton into a regular prison, where eventually he was murdered by other inmates for the heinous nature of his supposed crimes. “[Manton] was railroaded through the criminal justice process with such speed, force and determination — after the BP Oil Spill received so much national and global attention — that many of us could only come to certain disturbing conclusions,” said Termotto. “His sentence, given all the extenuating circumstances, exceptional disregard of various criteria, and flouting of sentencing guidelines, was unprecedented in Florida history.” And Manton is not the only Gulf whistle blower to have been targeted for silencing. In August 2010, Matthew Simmons, another leading whistle blower in the BP oil scandal, was found dead in his Maine home. Some reports say he accidentally drowned in his hot tub, while others say he died of a heart attack. Many believe Simmons death was also a set up because of his outspoken opposition to what he regularly said was a massive BP coverup. According to Simmons, BP did not respond to the disaster properly, and afterwords tried to lie about it. Simmons also accused the mainstream media of being a BP accomplice, conveniently cooperating with its efforts to dupe the public into thinking everything was under control when it really was not. Like Manton, Simmons also warned that human health would be greatly affected by the disaster in years to come. What makes both deaths perhaps the most highly suspicious is the mainstream media’s treatment of both situations. Both men were very outspoken and received significant media attention during the time of the disaster. But upon his death, Simmons received scant and conflicting reports about the cause of his death. And Manton’s death has yet to even receive any media attention. Sources for this story include: http://www.examiner.com/human-rights-in-national/gulf-human-rights-hero-murdered http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00028410/01646/1j http://www.examiner.com/human-rights-in-national/gulf-oil-whistleblower-renewable-energy-guru-matt-simmons-rip-videos

Another offshore oil rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico

(NaturalNews) It’s a war zone out there! … if you’re an oil platform worker, anyway. Another oil rig, the Vermilion Oil Rig 380 , has exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, just a few miles from the infamous Deepwater Horizon that started the massive volcano of oil that poisoned the Gulf this summer. U.S. Coast Guard helicopters were immediately dispatched to the scene, where 13 workers were found floating (alive) in the water around the rig. The rig is reportedly on fire, but it is being reported by ABC News that the rig wasn’t drilling for oil at the time of the explosion. No information explaining the cause of the explosion has yet surfaced. One workers was apparently injured in the explosion. While it may be too early to know for sure, there are so far no reports of oil being spilled into the Gulf from the rig. This second explosion naturally brings to mind the safety and reliability of offshore drilling platforms. In many ways the Deepwater Horizon incident was described as a fluke, a rare event that would likely not be repeated any time soon. To see another oil rig exploding just weeks later does not inspire confidence in the minds of Gulf Coast residents who have already been hit hard by the previous oil spill as well as the Corexit chemicals widely used as oil dispersants. It raises the question that’s now on everybody’s mind: Could Deepwater Horizon happen again? If so, how can we improve the safety of offshore oil drilling? Or better yet, how can we replace that dangerous, dirty industry with clean, renewable energy sources that don’t burst into flame when something goes wrong? When wind turbines fail, they don’t explode into great balls of fire that kill workers and destroy the environment.

British Petroleum releases new fish oil supplement (satire)

(NaturalNews) A new parody puppet video from NaturalNews.TV shows British Petroleum pitching a new fish oil product with the added benefit of “12,000 percent more crude oil!” The video is available on the new video sharing website NaturalNews.TV at the following URL: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=AFCAF1A67B40EA3EDC5B62CDB59D3B19 The parody video was scripted and puppeteered by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, editor of NaturalNews.com, who decided to create the video “to emphasize the hilarity of BP’s mishandling of the Gulf Coast oil spill.” The parody puppet video, however, isn’t trying to make light of the very real suffering and destruction that has taken place in the Gulf Coast following the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Rather, Adams says the video was created as free speech commentary that makes fun of BP’s bizarre decisions surrounding the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The video features what looks like an oil rig worker puppet describing the health and nutritional benefits of “BP Fish Oil Plus” made with “100% natural crude oil.” It ends with Bob going off camera, screaming, “If I still had my shrimping job, I wouldn’t need to film these stupid commercials!” “In an age where common sense seems to have been largely lost,” Adams explains, “Humor remains the best way to reach out with an important message.” And what message is conveyed by Adams’ BP Fish Oil Plus video? Well, that BP’s handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster is a joke. Watch the video and decide for yourself: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=AFCAF1A67B40EA3EDC5B62CDB59D3B19 A huge collection of other health-related videos are also available on www.NaturalNews.TV

Gulf Coast now a BP police state as law enforcement conspires with BP to intimidate journalists

(NaturalNews) Normally I would open this article by explaining this is the story the mainstream media won’t dare report. Except in this case, they are reporting it. It’s right on CNN, on the Anderson Cooper “360″ report. What happened is that Lance Rosenfield, a photographer working for ProPublica (http://www.propublica.org), was standing on a public road, taking photos of a BP refinery in full public view. After taking his photos, he was tailed by local law enforcement officials to a gas station, where they demanded to look at the photos he had just taken. A private BP security goon then showed up at the scene, and an official from the Department of Homeland Security soon arrived and began to intimidate Lance. With his wits about him (and some basic knowledge of the Bill of Rights), Lance at first refused to show his photographs to local law enforcement. They threatened to detain him (probably under the Patriot Act) if he didn’t, so he gave in and let them see the photos. Later, when private BP security personnel asked for Lance’s personal information, he refused to give it to them. So — get this — the police turned over his private information to the BP security goon! As Lance explained on CNN: “The BP — the BP security guard showed up at that point and asked me for my personal information, and I declined, because he’s a corporate security guard. And he turned to the police officer, who then turned over all my personal information. And I protested. I said I didn’t understand under what legal — what legal grounds he was able to give him my personal information.” The reporter, O’Brien, then asks him: “So, when you asked him, what did he say? Lance replies, “He didn’t give an answer. He said, well, we can — we’re going to do it anyway, whether you like it or not. And we can call our Homeland Security officer, Tom Robison, to come down here and explain it. But, you know, this is what I’m going to do anyway. And he didn’t give me an answer. And then he did call Tom Robison. …this Homeland Security officer came, Tom Robison, it seemed like his only point of being there was to intimidate me.” And of course, Lance Rosenfield is right: They are there to intimidate people. Local law enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security are now all working for British Petroleum! This is exactly what I warned about, by the way, in a recent article that was widely read across the ‘net, entitled “First Amendment suspended in the Gulf of Mexico as spill cover-up goes Orwellian” (http://www.naturalnews.com/029130_Gulf_of_Mexico_censorship.html) Why this matters This is scary stuff, folks. Now we have a police state in America. No one can deny it. You can’t argue the point anymore. It is documented fact, and it’s happening right now in the Gulf Coast. If you pick up a professional camera and start snapping photos of a BP refinery, or a BP cleanup vessel, or a beach with an oil boom on it, you risk being followed, detained, questioned and intimidated. And if you don’t surrender your own rights and consent to an illegal search of your photos or film footage, you will be hauled into a federal holding facility and held by the Department of Homeland Security until they feel like letting you go. Your rights as a free citizen have now been obliterated. America is now a fascist corporatocracy that answers to the financial interests of the corporations — at the expense of the freedoms of the People. What’s really scary about this is that BP is a British corporation that is now controlling American law enforcement officials. Didn’t we fight a war to get rid of a British police state once already? Didn’t we declare our independence from British rule a couple hundred years ago? Why are our public streets, beaches and oceans now ruled once again by a conniving, dishonest and downright ominous British corporate giant that has apparently gained control over our local law enforcement officials? And if this is tolerated, how far will this go? Will BP soon set up roadblocks and checkpoints on public highways to search private vehicles for digital photos and video footage? Can BP’s private security goons arrest and detain you even if you’re on public property? (Apparently they can…) The real story See, rather than tell the truth about what’s happening in the Gulf, BP has resorted to police state tactics to threaten the media and intimidate journalists, threatening them with arrest, detainment and felony crimes if they get close enough to snap photos of what’s really going on in the Gulf Coast. Why was ProPublica targeted for intimidation? Probably because they just published a story exposing BP’s 40-day release of toxic chemicals into the air from a Texas refinery. The story is entitled, “BP Texas Refinery Had Huge Toxic Release Just Before Gulf Blowout” and you can read it right here: http://www.propublica.org/article/bp-texas-refinery-had-huge-toxic-release-just-before-gulf-blowout The story reveals that the BP refinery being photographed by Lance Rosenfield illegally released 538,000 pounds of toxic chemicals including “17,000 pounds of benzene, a known carcinogen; 37,000 pounds of nitrogen oxides, which contribute to respiratory problems; and 186,000 pounds of carbon monoxide.” Salon.com is also covering the police state tactics now being used by BP to stiff-arm the media. In a story called “The BP / Government Police State”, Salon reports: (http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/07/05/bp/) “These are true police state tactics, and it’s now clear that it is part of a pattern. It’s been documented for months now that BP and government officials have been acting in unison to block media coverage of the area.” It goes on to repeat text from Newsweek , which states: “As BP makes its latest attempt to plug its gushing oil well, news photographers are complaining that their efforts to document the slow-motion disaster in the Gulf of Mexico are being thwarted by local and federal officials — working with BP — who are blocking access to the sites where the effects of the spill are most visible. More than a month into the disaster, a host of anecdotal evidence is emerging from reporters, photographers, and TV crews in which BP and Coast Guard officials explicitly target members of the media, restricting and denying them access to oil-covered beaches, staging areas for clean-up efforts, and even flyovers.” Salon concludes with this surprisingly blunt statement: “The very idea that government officials are acting as agents of BP (of all companies) in what clearly seem to be unconstitutional acts to intimidate and impede the media is infuriating. Obviously, the U.S. Government and BP share the same interest — preventing the public from knowing the magnitude of the spill and the inadequacy of the clean-up efforts — but this creepy police state behavior is intolerable. ” What it all means On one hand, it’s fascinating to see the mainstream media suddenly discovering that we all live in a police state. Gee, Alex Jones and other freedom commentators have been warning about this for years, and they all got written off as “conspiracy theorists.” But it turns out they were dead on. There is a conspiracy under way right now . It’s a conspiracy between the U.S. government and British Petroleum to cover-up all evidence of what’s really happening in the Gulf Coast. “Conspiracy” is precisely the correct word to describe their behavior in all this, and I can only wonder how long it will take before the mainstream media reluctant utters the “C” word on air. What’s happening is exactly a conspiracy. The Random House Dictionary defines “conspiracy” as: 1. an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot. 2. a combination of persons for a secret, unlawful, or evil purpose. 3. an agreement by two or more persons to commit a crime, fraud, or other wrongful act. Does that sound like what’s happening with BP and the federal government? It sure does. BP and the U.S. government are now clearly conspiring to use police powers to intimidate, threaten, detain and potentially imprison anyone who seeks to report on the truth of what’s happening in the Gulf Coast. And this, in turn, is the classic definition of what happens in a Police State. From the same dictionary, a “Police State” is “a nation in which the police, especially a secret police, summarily suppresses any social, economic, or political act that conflicts with governmental policy.” Once again, that’s exactly what we’re seeing in the Gulf Coast. BP’s private security goons are the new “secret police.” And with the help of local and federal law enforcement officials, they are actively suppressing the public’s right to know the truth about what’s happening there. You see, the real loss of what’s happening with the BP oil catastrophe isn’t merely the damage being caused by the oil; it’s the destruction of our freedoms as BP stream rolls the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights to destroy our freedoms and once again place us under British rule! You are now subjects , not citizens, once you enter the Gulf Coast zone in America. Your “rights” have been stripped away and replaced by threats and intimidation, backed by an armed band of corporate-sponsored secret police. You are witnessing the end of America the free and the rise of a fascist corporatocracy where all your rights and freedoms have been suspended until further notice. And now, shamelessly, even local law enforcement isn’t on your side anymore. They’ve sold out to their corporate slavemasters to the point where BP is now covering the salaries of nearly all the cops and Sheriffs working in certain areas there. As Mac McClelland from Mother Jones reportedly said, “One parish has 57 extra shifts per week that they are devoting entirely to, basically, BP security detail, and BP is paying the sheriff’s office.” The truth is too scary All this can only make you ask the obvious question: What could possibly be happening in the Gulf Coast right now that’s so scary that BP and the federal government is willing to destroy your rights in order to protect their secrets? That’s the relevant question here, no? Clearly there must be a very big secret in the Gulf of Mexico — a secret so devastating to BP’s financial future that it is willing to do almost anything to avoid that secret from getting out. Why are beach cleanup workers being required to sign non-disclosure agreements? Why are journalists being threatened and intimidated? Why are local cops being used as BP’s private security force? I can only shudder at the possible answers to this all-important question. A secret so dark and so dangerous that BP would do anything to keep it from getting out. There can only be a couple of possible answers to this that would justify such police state actions: • Perhaps BP and the federal government is about to unleash a nuclear explosion to stop the oil outflow, and they don’t want anyone knowing about it until it’s already done. • Perhaps the U.S. government is planning a multi-state roundup and evacuation of the population to clear out the entire Gulf Coast region in anticipation of something big and dangerous (such as a nuke, or an oil-soaked firestorm of a major U.S. city, or a dangerous new chemical being dumped in the Gulf by BP, etc.) • Perhaps human bodies are washing up on the beaches for some unknown reason, and the shock of it would be too much for the public to bear. … or maybe there’s some other unimaginable reason none of us “little people” have thought of yet. In any case, the situation doesn’t look pretty. The very freedoms that we just celebrated on Independence Day have been obliterated by a British corporation which now rules our U.S. law enforcement and Department of Homeland Security. I can only conclude that our government has been infiltrated by a foreign corporation that is now using our own government to enslave us by destroying the very freedoms we once fought so hard to acquire. We are now living under a fascist corporatocracy, and we are seeing first-hand that these corporations will stop at nothing to protect their interests, even if it means sacrificing our freedoms. B.P. = Beyond Prosecution.

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