Fox News Claims that Obama has Nationalized BP

Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 05:01 pm

Since the creation of the victims fund was announced last week, Fox News has been going ballistic with claims that President Obama bullied BP and abused his power. These claims went to whole new level today when on FNC’s Journal Report, John Fund referred to the $20 billion put up by BP as a new model for how a company is, “nationalized.”

Here is the video courtesy of Media Matters:

While the panel from the also Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal was bemoaning the misery of BP, John Fund took it to whole new level by claiming that by getting BP to place $20 billion in escrow, Obama had nationalized the company. Fund said, “It’s almost like we have different models on how you nationalize a company. There’s the original model with General Motors and Chrysler, and now there’s a new model, the next Toyota for example. You are going to basically face such liability that the federal government is going to effectively own your future.”

John Fund does not seem to know what the term nationalize means. Nationalization by definition means to convert from private to government ownership. The last time I check, the United States government does not own BP. In fact, I would like to hear Mr. Fund explain how Barack Obama, the President of the United States, could nationalize a foreign corporation? It is not possible. There are several things that Obama could do. He can cancel BP’s government contracts. He can revoke all their drilling licenses, but he can’t nationalize them.

BP has nothing in common with the automobile bailout. Neither GM nor Chrysler caused the biggest environmental disaster in US history. The auto bailouts can be argued until the end of time, but it really stretching it to compare them to BP. What Fund is truly upset about is that BP is being held accountable. What he means by nationalization is not a government takeover, but government holding corporate America accountable.

The arrogance of the people, and news organizations, that are defending BP is mind blowing. These people sincerely believe that BP should not be held accountable in any way for their negligence in the Gulf. To put this in perspective, BP has over $1 trillion in unsold oil reserves. I think they can afford to put a down payment of $20 billion in escrow for the victims. By giving people like John Fund airtime, Fox News has proven once again that no Obama falsehood is too big, or too small to be advanced.

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Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

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