Archive for criminals

BP still hasn’t paid billions of dollars in fines, other payments to Gulf Coast, environmental groups

suck it bp

If you have an ounce of logic in you, then you know that the longer we wait to repair what BP destroyed, the more difficult it will be to fix their mess. BP accepted criminal liability in the 2010 gulf oil disaster and was supposed to pay a $4-billion fine.

And tests confirmed, and Hurricane Isaac exposed, that globs of oil found on Louisiana beaches after Hurricane Isaac came from the 2010 BP spill. The area is still suffering the consequences of BP’s negligence and they should be falling all over themselves to rectify that.

BP has pleaded guilty to manslaughter and environmental crimes, because:

BP we care

USA Today:

Saturday marks the third anniversary of the spill in 2010, but only a small fraction of the billions in fines and other money owed by BP has trickled in for use on restoration projects, environmental groups say.

Local, state and environmental groups are banking on money from several sources

However, BP is proud to use their money to pay people to go on the Tee Vee Machine and say reassuring things like this:

bp adbp ad smaller

And they lavish us with ads like this repeatedly force ads like this down our throats:

Here’s what’s really going on:

Gulf Coast groups say the region is still struggling.

Environmental groups say an unusually high number of sick dolphins are washing up on shore. They’re also finding tar balls on beaches, particularly after big storms.

USA Today has all the gory details.

If you really want to get your blood boiling, read this via the Government Accountability Project:

On April 19, 2013, GAP released Deadly Dispersants in the Gulf: Are Public Health and Environmental Tragedies the New Norm for Oil Spill Cleanups? The report details the devastating long-term effects on human health and the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem stemming from BP and the federal government’s widespread use of the dispersant Corexit, in response to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. [...]

Conclusions from the report strongly suggest that the dispersant Corexit was widely applied in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon explosion because it caused the false impression that the oil disappeared. In reality, the oil/Corexit mixture became less visible, yet much more toxic than the oil alone. Nonetheless, indications are that both BP and the government were pleased with what Corexit accomplished. The report is available here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three

“We will clean this up. We will make this right.”

We won’t hold our breath.

BREAKING: BP accepts criminal liability in gulf oil spill, will pay $4-billion fine

UPDATE:

Via an L.A. Times email alert, this isn’t enough to compensate for the loss of human life, sea life, and environmental damage:

Energy giant BP has accepted criminal liability and will pay at least $4 billion in connection with the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, one of the nation’s worst environmental disasters.

In an announcement today from its London headquarters, BP confirmed an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department to resolve all federal criminal charges and all claims by the Securities and Exchange Commission against the company stemming from the events that began with the April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.

As part of the agreement, BP said it has agreed to plead guilty to 11 felony counts of misconduct or neglect in connection with the 11 deaths caused by the rig’s explosion. It also agreed to plead guilty to other charges, including one felony count of obstruction of Congress. The agreement is subject to U.S. federal court approval.

For the latest information go to www.latimes.com.

VIDEO- Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL): Women who receive abortions should face criminal charges.

Via at Think Progress:

Cliff Stearns thinks women who make the painful decision to get an abortion are criminals who should be punished.

What? War on Women? What?

Matthews: So it should be a criminal matter for the woman as well as the doctor?

Stearns: I think so. You are killing an embryo and in some cases you are killing an embryo that is four or five months into gestation.

Chris Matthews pushed and pushed until he finally got an answer, and that answer made my blood pressure shoot through the roof.

Stearns has got to go. The candidate who should take his place, J.R. Gaillot, is a friend of mine, and his website is at this link, so please hop over and show your support. J.R. is a great guy who is, you know, pro-women.

VIDEO: “You’d think that if a congresswoman got shot in the head, that would have changed Congress’ views.”

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The other day I posted the ad you see in this clip. In that post, Mayors unite: “Keep guns out of the hands of criminals,” I said:

Nobody’s taking anyone’s Second Amendment rights away, okay? But there is such a thing as oversight and common sense. Try it sometime, Republicans.

Of course, the first Twitter response I got was from a right winger accusing me of wanting to take firearms away from our police and armed forces. No kidding, that’s what they said. Had they bothered to watch the ad or even read the blog title, they’d have realized that the topic was the problem with criminals acquiring guns, nothing more.

This is about background checks and loopholes, not the right to own firearms. This is about people like Rep. Gabby Giffords, who nearly lost her life at the hands of a nutcase who shot a hole in her brain because he managed to get his hands on a 9mm Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol with a 33-round magazine.

Think Progress:

As conservative Justice Antonin Scalia explained in D.C. v. Heller, respecting the Second Amendment does not mean filling every building with firearms, or eliminating concealed carry rules, or placing guns in the hands of convicted felons or the mentally ill. Sadly, far too many lawmakers have let the NRA convince them that the myth of the Second Amendment far exceeds the reality.

I was very happy to see David Gregory addressing this issue with Mayor Bloomberg. Now if only people would actually listen to what Bloomberg said instead of having irrational knee-jerk responses to non-existent threats.

VIDEO- Mayors unite: “Keep guns out of the hands of criminals.”

Of course, the GOP loves to make a non-issue into a panicky message to entice voters (“They’re taking away our guns!”). Nobody’s taking anyone’s Second Amendment rights away, okay? But there is such a thing as oversight and common sense. Try it sometime, Republicans.

Boston Mayor Tom Menino and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg don’t agree on football — but they strongly agree that we can keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people while supporting the 2nd Amendment.

3rd pleads guilty in Obama student loan case

Anyone who believes this was just out of curiosity is beyond naive. The whole subject is part of the centerpiece of the Obama Obsession, linked directly to “Who controls him” and “He’s the product of Afirmative Action, it was all handed to him”.

DES MOINES, Iowa — A third former employee of a U.S Department of Education contractor has pleaded guilty to illegally accessing President Barack Obama’s student loan records.

Patrick Roan, 51, of Iowa City, pleaded guilty in federal court July 13 to one count of fraud activity connected with computers, a misdemeanor. He faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine when he is sentenced Oct. 12.

Roan’s attorney, Rockne Cole, said Roan looked at Obama’s student loan records once and had “no malicious intent at all” in doing so.

“It was basically very similar to what you do with a Google search, but obviously under these circumstances it was not appropriate,” Cole said.

(snip)

Roan was one of nine Vangent Inc. employees accused of accessing Obama’s student loan records. Two others pleaded guilty last month to a charge of exceeding authorized computer access and face up to a year in prison and $100,000 fine at their Sept. 24 sentencing.

Fewer young criminals push states to close prisons

Nice to know that something is getting better.

WALES, Wis. — States across the country are quietly shuttering dozens of reformatories amid plunging juvenile arrests, softer sentencing policies and bleak budgets.

The closures have juvenile advocates cheering because they’ve long pushed to get kids out of razor wire-ringed institutions and into treatment programs. As more reforms took hold, the number of juveniles in state lockups dropped dramatically.

The U.S. Justice Department says the number of juvenile offenders declined 26 percent between 2000 and 2008, from about 109,000 to 80,000.

States grappling with busted budgets can’t afford to operate facilities with so many empty beds, so they’re closing them. And it’s helping states save money. In Ohio, officials said the closures will save $40 million a year.