Damn BP and Damn the Corporate Criminals

There were a couple of major court rulings getting handed down today, but the one I want to jump to first is the one that makes me angriest and affects me more directly (as I live in one of the affected states).  Today a judge issued a ruling over who bears the most blame for the disastrous explosion and subsequent Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico back in 2010:

...BP PLC already has agreed to pay billions of dollars in criminal fines and compensation to people and businesses affected by the disaster. But U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier's ruling could nearly quadruple what the London-based company has to pay in civil fines for polluting the Gulf of Mexico during the 2010 spill.

Barbier presided over a trial in 2013 to apportion blame for the spill that spewed oil for 87 days in 2010. Eleven men died after the well blew.

The judge essentially divided blame among the three companies involved in the spill, ruling that BP bears 67 percent of the blame; Swiss-based drilling rig owner Transocean Ltd. takes 30 percent; and Houston-based cement contractor Halliburton Energy Service takes 3 percent.

In his 153-page ruling, Barbier said BP made "profit-driven decisions" during the drilling of the well that led to the deadly blowout.

"These instances of negligence, taken together, evince an extreme deviation from the standard of care and a conscious disregard of known risks," he wrote.

BP is of course going to appeal the decision - 'cause God forbid they'll openly accept the blame after fighting this for four years - but are claiming they believe "that an impartial view of the record does not support the erroneous conclusion reached by the District Court."

You want impartial?

Here's impartial:

• Eleven workers died.
• A massive explosion happened on a BP-owned oil rig, from what turned out to be from years of intentional negligence ignoring safety standards, all in a rush to get a rig running to churn out billions in profits.
• A massive ecological disaster occurred as millions of gallons of crude oil - toxic, stifling - poured into the Gulf on a scale that dwarfed all previous oil spills.
• Eleven families lost their loved ones.
• Entire industries dependent on the Gulf for living - tourism, fishing - were wiped out or hit hard, and will remain so for years to come.
• What part of "eleven men lost their lives" do you not get, BP?

It doesn't help BP's case that they've been slow to pay up for damages they've already agreed to own up.  Like any crook, they are loathe to part with the money they've so rightly killed other people to keep.

Some of the online chatter about BP's corrupt practices here, about the satisfaction that finally someone in authority is holding this corporation accountable for the blood on their ledger, is about how the insane rhetoric of the uber-rich claiming "corporations are people" ought to let this follow that logic to its rightful conclusion: putting BP as a corporation on death row for the deaths it caused.  There's a part of that which comes across as poetic justice: the truth is that will never happen, as it's impossible to strap a company logo down into the electric chair.  What should happen is that the courts - that Judge Barbier - should start forcing the CEOs and board of directors of these negligent criminal corporations to pay up in total all that they should.

No more delays.  No more excuses.  Pay all the damn fines and then some.  If these corporate overlords of malice and inhumanity refuse to, then throw them in jail until they do.  Did you know Exxon - the company responsible for the other major oil spill from hell the Valdez - still hasn't paid off their fines they had agreed to pay (they're still fighting it in the courts)?  Make them - Exxon, BP, all the other corporations wrecking havoc across our world - accountable to the law.  MAKE THEM ACCOUNTABLE TO THE PEOPLE WHO SUFFERED.

We are long overdue for true justice.

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Current Political Mood

I'm just not inclined to think much about politics these days.

Even with the sudden uptick in the Occupy Wall Street news - and the Far Right blowback to something that can successfully counter their Teabagger movement - for some reason I'm neither thrilled nor contemplative.

There's still a lot of protesting and military action going on in the Middle East for example.  Meh.

There's the economic meltdown in Europe still happening in slow motion.  Meh.

There's the anti-voting BS the Republicans are attempting at the state level to suppress minorities, the poor, and college-age voters.  Meh.

Just not feeling connected to the world at the moment, that's all.

Too much outrage burn-out?  Too much stress coping with unemployment?  Dunno...

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Damage Done: December 2010 Florida Update

That Rick "MEDICARE FRAUD" Scott and the GOP-majority state lege would go after our state's educational system (all to destroy the teachers' unions, never mind the damage done to our kids) was pretty much a given.

It's how they're going to go about doing it that ought to make state residents regret their votes.

Not ONLY will Scott and the Pork Barrel GOP go after massive property and corporate tax cuts that will hinder school systems' ability to PAY FOR ANYTHING (just remember, parents, this was the year the schools started asking you to provide all supplies for your kids, including toilet paper!), they will pursue the most radical attempt ever on pushing their wingnut obsession with school vouchers.  They will make vouchers universal (from the St. Pete Times' opinion section):

It is clearer than ever that Republicans intend to mount a frontal assault next year on Florida's public schools. Legislators show no interest in building consensus on efforts to abolish teacher tenure and create a merit pay system. Gov.-elect Rick Scott also pledges to slash school property taxes even as declining property values and tax revenues have forced deep spending cuts in education. But those misguided approaches are small potatoes compared with their pursuit of a radical plan to give all students tuition vouchers. 

The whole thing about vouchers is that it's a feel-good proposal by conservatives: a means of introducing "choice" into a public educational system they despise.  Vouchers are meant to give parents money to afford sending their kids to different schools outside of walking distance that can provide better opportunities (say, if your kid is gifted in fine arts but the best art school is on the other side of the county).  But vouchers are an illusion of choice: schools are still limited by how many students they can enroll, and there's no guarantee your kids will get into the school they need or you prefer because - guess what - everyone else is trying to enroll there too.  The push for Vouchers is also a con game: the proponents want them available for private (read: Christian) schools as well, meaning they want tax-funded moneys to pay for something that violates the rules of Separation of Church And State.

To refer back to the Times' article:

It is unclear how much universal vouchers would cost the state and how they would be financed. Taking a portion of the per student funding for public schools and allowing families to spend that amount as they wish would not leave enough money for public education. And presumably, the hundreds of thousands of students already in private schools would receive public money as well.The state already faces a budget deficit of more than $2.5 billion. On top of that, Scott wants to cut school property taxes 19 percent and eliminate the corporate tax. That would be the same corporate tax that companies can avoid paying now by earmarking the money for vouchers. How does this possibly add up?

Again, take a good look at the con game.  The REAL OBJECTIVE here by Scott and the Pork Barrel GOP is to cut corporate taxes ALTOGETHER.  Never mind that 19 percent cut to your property tax, citizen: home owners will still be stuck paying a bill with whatever is left of your millage rate, while corporates get to pay NOTHING toward our state and our families.  And again, no guarantee that all that money saved to the corporations will go back into their workers, their businesses, or anywhere else that would help our depressed economy.

The Republicans are really only interested in one thing when it comes to fiscal policy: Tax Cuts.  Everything else - balancing a budget, paying for social services, KEEPING PEOPLE ALIVE, ALERT AND HEALTHY - is meaningless to them.  They want their tax cuts.  They don't want to pay for anything, and all the while they'll take all the public money they can in state-level pork barrel projects, corporate payouts, and everything else they can get away with because YOU VOTERS DO NOT PAY F-CKING ATTENTION TO WHAT HAPPENS IN TALLAHASSEE.

Please, Floridians.  Please for the LOVE OF GOD.  Try to get this into your heads.  Tax Cuts is just another phrase for Snake Oil.  You are getting conned by political hacks and corporate criminals into buying a product that does not work.  Please, please, learn this now.

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From Balloon Juice, All You Need To Know About Our Corporate Overlords

This is from a comment posted on a thread at Balloon Juice.  The bold text was my addition:

The last election cycle demonstrated that even if you allow Wall Street and the corporations dictate a large portion of the policy, they will still fund campaigns to destroy you because they don’t want their share or ten times their share, they want it all, all the time.They are never going to stop going after social security. They want every single dollar of the education budgets. They do not want to pay any taxes for anything. They do not want any regulation that ties their hands with respect to their workers, the environment, or any other external costs imposed upon the public by their business activities. Oh yeah, and if they screw up and take the economy down, they want the government to bail them out.

I concur.

Until the Greedheads responsible for all the disasters we've suffered over the last three eight thirty years are held accountable and shipped to jail... until all the goddamn Supply-siders get sued for Fraud and selling snake oil to the nation... we are well and truly fucked as a country.

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One Last Week To Try And Convince Florida That Rick Scott As Governor Is a REALLY BAD IDEA

Seriously, people.  43 to 46 percent of likely voters WANT to vote for Rick "1.7 BILLION IN MEDICARE FRAUD" Scott?  Do you WANT me to go to each and every one of your homes to SLAP SOME GODDAMN SENSE INTO YOU?!

Sigh.  I know, I shouldn't resort to physical violence, BUT SERIOUSLY HOW THE HELL ELSE ARE WE SANE PEOPLE GONNA CROWBAR SOME GODDAMN SENSE INTO YOU VOTERS' SKULLS?

Okay.  Okay.  Calming down a bit.  Let's try a little bit of logic here:

Experience as a CEO of a company DOES NOT automatically mean a person will have experience running an elected office.  In Rick Scott's case, his experience as a CEO isn't even good: he mismanaged a major Health Care firm - Columbia/HCA - into such a sorry state that the board of directors FORCED HIM OUT and left the health care firm to pay off $1.7 BILLION in fines, court costs, and settlements related to the massive amount of Medicare Fraud the company performed during Scott's tenure.
Let's take a moment to review his work history here: Scott as CEO did massive damage to his own corporation.  This happened either because A) the Medicare fraud happened outside of his knowledge (Scott's excuse), which means that Scott was incompetent and incapable of keeping track of his own business, or B) the Medicare fraud happened with Scott's knowledge (the whistleblowers' contention, with some evidence backing that claim), which means that Scott was (and very well IS) a corrupt and greedy bastard.  There is no third explanation here.  Either way, Scott is an inept manager or a corrupt bastard.  This is who you want for our state's Governorship?
Add to this Scott's experiences running businesses after his getting the boot from Columbia/HCA haven't been all sunshine either.  Mostly bouncing around as a venture capitalist starting a series of health-related businesses including a planned Health Network that didn't seem to go anywhere after Discovery Channel bought up the rights by 2001.  Scott tried another health care business called Solantic, a chain of "urgent care" clinics... and THAT is a source of headaches involving lawsuits covering discriminatory hiring practices among other questions of mismanagement.  If Scott's had any success post-HCA, it's been running a lobbyist firm opposed to Obama's Health Care Reform laws: successful in that he's raised tons of cash and getting his name out there for, guess what, running for Governor.

The scary thing for me is how blind the voters seem to be of Scott's actual track record.  The voters seem only interested in one thing: that Scott has the Republican(tm) Seal of Approval having won the August primary over McCollum.  Pity there is, given the voter turnout (1 million) for the Primary compared to the actual number of registered Republicans (over 3 million) in the state, Scott didn't even really win a majority of the Party.  He just won with the more obsessed (Teabagger) and dedicated (Wingnuts) elements of the Party that even tried to show up and vote.  Which on its own is a sad state of affairs: did a majority of Republicans just not even care in the end who represents the Party for the Governor's seat?

What is worse is the overall voter turnout: compared to Presidential election cycles, the so-called Midterm elections have fewer voters.  Basically, only Teh Crazies come out to vote.  Which ought not to be the case here: in Florida at least there is the VERY REAL DANGER that a corrupt bastard like Rick Scott could end up in control of:

• Our state's budget: he can veto and line-item veto things at his pleasure.  And while the Legislature legally has control of passing the budgets, the Governor would have a lot of influence in pushing which programs to fund or defund.  And this is a guy with a history of FRAUD on his resume...  Seriously?
• How the state's legislative districts and Congressional districts are drawn based on this decade's 2010 Census numbers.  While Amendments 5 and 6 to the State Constitution can pass and could well assure that partisanship won't gerrymander everything to hell and back, there's any number of political maneuvers that could delay that effort of fair redistricting... and Rick Scott as Governor will influence the redistricting to his benefit.
• Our public and social services.  For all the bullshit Scott is saying about "Let's Get To Work," like he has the solutions for curbing the unemployment crisis our state is suffering (12-14 percent Unemployment!), Scott is openly threatening to cut state-employed jobs.  And someone like him isn't going to stop at 6,000 jobs... or 60,000 jobs.  Any cuts he can find to justify massive tax breaks for his business and corporate buddies will do.  Even if it means closing every library, every child care service, every poverty-fighting program that is staving off the disaster this state is currently suffering.  Someone like Scott will slash first and never question the consequences: let the poor people worry about that...

Just on those three points alone, the whole of the state's registered Democratic population (over 4 million) ought to be rising up out of their seats to rush to the local early voting polls and putting their vote in AGAINST SCOTT.  Alex Sink is a goddamn SAINT compared to Scott... and you Democrats aren't showing up in droves yet?

GET OUT THE GODDAMN VOTE, DEMS!

WAKE UP FLORIDA!

For the LOVE OF GOD, ANYONE BUT RICK SCOTT!  Just.  DON'T.  VOTE.  For that crook!

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Michael Been of The Call Died Recently

Well they blew the horns/
And the walls came down/
They'd all been warned/
And the walls came down...

This is, sadly, another tragic reminder that we are all mortal.  And yeah, it sounds petty, but The Call was a band I knew and liked.  So this is a death that hits closer to home than most other celebrity passings...

The Call was one of the early 80s New Wave bands out of California (although two of the bandmates, Been especially, hailed from Oklahoma).  They had some decent success but nothing that was chart-topping, more of a cult fave among the hip kids among the Gen-X crowd, and among their fellow rock artists they'd impressed.  You'd probably remember them from this video:




Pretty much their best-known song, although Everywhere I Go, I Still Believe, and Let The Day Begin were well-known minor hits.

From The Walls Came Down video, you'd think The Call were just another Protest Band from the dying days of the L.A. Punk scene.  Not really.  Most of their songs tend to be spiritual, almost Christian in lyrical tone.  But it wasn't the hard evangelical Christianity they evoked: what they sang came out as moral outrage against corruption of power and the forces of darkness:


Sanctuary fades, congregation splits/
Nightly military raids, the congregation splits/
It's a song of assassins, ringin' in your ears/
We got terrorists thinking, playing on fears...


Finding an article online about The Call's Christian stylings wasn't hard:

Unlike much of "contemporary Christian music," The Call uses no religious rhetoric and attempts no proselytizing. Their style is at once driving, confrontational, rhythm-oriented, vulnerable and self-deprecating... Their records show not a trace of the self-righteous theologizing and Bible-quoting that ruins so much "Christian music."  Instead, the band has consciously chosen to use gripping and gritty images of conflict, cataclysm and deliverance, giving their music a genuinely provocative sense of the suffering, struggle and vision of their spiritual adventure. Been and keyboardist Jim Goodwin say this complexity reflects their belief that life contains extremes that cannot be addressed with a pat approach. Almost every one of their songs describes battles with the weapons of love and reconciliation, passing through death to life again in the span of a song. Been says his songwriting hammers away at the spiritual indifference in his own life, and his search for spiritual answers. Sounding a little like a voice crying in the wilderness, he said, "I just keep writing the same song over and over..."

I don't think there are any Russians/
And there ain't no Yanks/
Just corporate criminals/
Playin' with tanks...

This is the closing stanza from The Walls Came Down: moral outrage at the hypocrisy of global politics in four simple lines.  Me and my brothers whenever we'd hear this song would shout out the last two lines, easily remembered and easily repeated.  But those just weren't cool words of protest to chant, like we were screaming "Fuck 'em all" during any other godawful 80s Punk song.  The Call, and Michael Been, were trying to preach to us, letting us know who the enemy is.  Not the Russians.  Not us Yanks.  Just the Corporate Criminals.

If only the Teabagger Crowd grokked that and started railing against Wall Street instead of Pennsylvania Ave.

Safe journey for your soul into the Afterlife, Michael Been.  Say hey to Emperor Norton for me.

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