Thom Hartmann: Peter Pitts on the line with us, he is the former associate commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration in the Bush administration and currently a director with Porter Novelli, a PR firm and president and co-founder of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest , which had its origins as a project of the Pacific Research Institute, a San Francisco think tank with ties to Phillip Morris. Peter, welcome to the program.

Thom Hartmann: So what’s going on with Blackwater? We’re getting all these stories. When I, this isn’t, I mean this is a systemic problem. The corporate corruption of our political institutions, of our government, that went nuts during the Bush administration although it’s been an ongoing and increasing problem ever since the Reagan administration, arguably since long before that, but certainly since the Reagan administration.

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In an interview on ABC News’ Good Morning America today, Rand Paul is calling the white house pressure on BP ‘Un-American,’ and he says, "Sometimes Accidents Happen."

He added, "What I don’t like from the president’s administration is this sort of, you know, 'I’ll put my boot heel on the throat of BP.' I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business."