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Shakedown definition: Slang. Extortion of money, as by blackmail..
Extortion is, by the by, "Illegal use of one's official position or powers to obtain property, funds, or patronage." or "An excessive or exorbitant charge."
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First, the money is going into an escrow account to pay people effect by the spill, and so of course since this isn't going to the President Crazy Joe is wrong on multiple counts.
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Michelle Bachman claims this is wealth redistribution, but she is so freakin' crazy it doesn't really count.
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Since then Joe Barton has apologized for his apology in the most bizarre statement I have seen in a while. "I want to be absolutely clear that I think BP is responsible for this accident, should be held responsible and should in every way do everything possible to make good on the consequences that have resulted from this accident," he said. "And if anything I said this morning has been misconstrued to the opposite effect I want to apologize for that misconstrued misconstruction."
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Misconstrued misconstruction. Really? What the hell does that mean. I think he is saying, if I can parse this, when he apologized to BP for the illegal extortion of money by the White House; what he meant is "I mean the opposite of the following statement - I did NOT apologize to BP for the White House NOT conducting a shakedown."
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By the by, this is the man that the Republicans want to be in charge of over site of oil companies. Sweet!