Posts Tagged ‘goldman sachs’
Melinda Haag, US Attorney for Northern California warns banks to shut down, or be closed down…
And the Haag says: marijuana dispensaries helping cancer patients? Bad. Banks taking cancer patient's homes? Good.
Oh wait…
Not banks, marijuana dispensaries…my bad.
But you can of course understand my confusion, considering Melinda’s most recent statement:
“Marijuana dispensaries are full of cash and they’re full of marijuana, and everybody knows that…they are at risk of being robbed, and many of them are robbed…people in the community may be supportive of the dispensary until there’s an armed robbery and people come running out of the dispensary shooting guns.”
Ah, I see…
So Melinda wants to close dispensaries as they are in danger of being robbed, what with all that cash inside…
Really.
Then…why not close the banks?
You want to talk about cash inside…especially the banks that are close to schools, yes, they must be forced to shut down now…immediately. And I am sure the people who normally support the banks in their community would quickly change their minds if confronted with armed assailants, coming out of the banks shooting at their kids, their cats and dogs, grandma…hell, shooting at everybody.
Oh but hold on, hold on…
Also according to Melinda, these marijuana dispensaries are committing crimes, maybe not on the state level, but certainly federal statutes so really, she could shut them all down if she so chose, but she isn’t so you see, she’s being fair and reasonable after all.
Fine.
Then again, shut down the banks, especially the ones close to people’s homes because the banks are committing not only federal crimes, but state crimes as well…
Mortgage and foreclosure fraud, not to mention the defrauding of investors by selling derivatives with bogus grade A ratings…you know, all that stuff the banks did to make themselves great profit while helping cause the collapse of the housing market and the ensuing recession, yeah, that little economic morass that cost houses, jobs, pensions?
Right, so this is Melinda Haag’s crusade, this is her choice, either go after the marijuana dispensaries selling medicine to cancer patients, or the banks that are stealing the cancer patient’s homes and pensions…and Melinda chooses to leave the banks alone so she can focus in on those non-profit dispensaries, the dispensaries that donate to charity, give good health insurance to their employees while paying them a livable wage, in the Bay Area…the dispensaries that pay their share of taxes, contribute to city revenue and get few complaints from their neighbors. Yes-sir, Melinda Haag, that devotee to justice orders a shut down, because the dispensaries might be robbed, because they are funneling their product nationwide, because they are a crime center…
Yet, when asked, she and her office will provide no proof for any of these latter charges.
Meanwhile, the criminal banks commit fraud, illegally foreclose on peoples homes, use robo-signers and dangle out all that cash, just an open invitation for multiple, multiple bank robberies at many of their financial crime centers, and many of them within residential communities, near schools, near preschools and damnit, even near maternity wards…I mean, think of the CHILDREN!…and all of these charges are well-documented.
But Melinda Haag does nothing, they all remain open, they agree to a settlement that is little more than a slap on the wrist, financially while nobody, not one of these banking types go to jail.
Melinda closes nothing, does nothing…
Nothing, but get her name in the papers one more fucking time for going after medicinal marijuana dispensaries, approved of within their communities and legally approved by the state of California’s voters.
As Chris Roberts writes in SF Weekly, regarding the allegations by Haag of complaints and crimes around the dispensaries:
“So the feds won’t name the schools, won’t name the complainants, and won’t provide the statistics used to justify the crackdown. But trust them: The problems are real.”
Trust…right…tell ya what Melinda, I’ll start to trust you when the Feds finally really do something to reign in the criminal enterprises known as Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Chase…until then, I got nothing for ya’ but scorn. You’re an absolute fraud who may know the law, but knows nothing about justice.
Read the articles:
Medical Marijuana Crackdown Explained: Feds Are Saving the Children
Berkeley Patients Group, City’s Most Prominent Medical Marijuana Dispensary, To Close
Then if so inclined, please call, tell Melinda Haag what you think about her brand of American Justice and her utter lack of honesty about this crackdown:
Federal Courthouse
450 Golden Gate Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102
The U.S. Attorney’s office is located on the 11th Floor of the Federal Courthouse.
Phone: (415) 436-7200
Fax: (415) 436-7234
TTY: (415) 436-7221
Have a nice day.
An open letter to the President, and both the Democratic and Republican Parties…
- Hell, even GW Bush is impressed with how far to the right you managed to push budget negotiations… you know, to help the people you uh, you promised to help?
Hello…
So, I might as well address this to the highest ranking of you, though I’m not so sure that’s something to be proud of these days…in fact, from where I sit it’s something to be rather ashamed of but nonetheless, this goes out to Obama, Pelosi, Boehner, Cantor, Reid, Geithner, Bernanke, McConnell…
Yeah, all of you public servants(?)
Okay, something is happening in this country that none of you really seem to understand…I mean, have you looked around yourselves lately? In the cities? Have you read the polls? Have you bothered for a moment to look past your office walls, your meeting rooms and political staffers and handlers and their gratuitous nods of the head?
I don’t think you have…
You see, I and a lot of other Americans read the news and I don’t know about you politicians, but what I’m reading lately simply doesn’t make sense.
Poll after poll shows that Americans want taxes raised on the wealthy and the safety net? They want it left alone. It’s almost universal, bipartisan…consider these headlines of late: 68% of Millionaires support raising taxes on millionaires and Poll: Tax the rich, corporations and Vast Majority Of Americans Favor Buffett Rule’s Millionaire Tax: Poll Also consider these: Washington Post/Bloomberg poll: Even GOP majorities say tax rich, protect Social Security, Medicare and New Poll shows Republicans have it all wrong with Social Security and Attacks on Social Security called “un-American” and Faith groups target ‘Super Committee’ on poverty
That all seems a pretty clear message.
Yet, then I read this bullshit: Boehner Dismisses Democratic Super Committee Proposal As Unserious
Now, I happen to agree with Boehner about this, but me and the majority of Americans? Our reasons are quite different from Boehner and the GOP’s reasons for disagreeing with the proposal. Boehner says the Dem proposal is unserious because it raises taxes on the wealthy whereas I disagree with the Democratic’s proposal because it proposes billions in dollars in cuts to Medicare, even more extensive cuts than the Catfood Commission’s proposal. The cuts however, Boehner is almost fine with except he wants them to go deeper than the Democrats have proposed…
Okay, so…in light of all this, what the hell is wrong with you politicians?
You’re not listening…or maybe you are. Maybe you are listening quite intently, you’re just not listening to the majority of Americans, instead keeping your focused ear intently on your campaign donors, the financial institutions, big money lobbyists…essentially anyone but the American people.
Seems fairly evident, but I suspect you all might disagree with this assessment. Yeah, two words to that…fuck you. I’m not stupid, please stop treating me as such.
So then, if you are there in DC to do the work of the people, why is it you choose to ignore the people completely? This is why you have a 9% approval rating, Congress. Oh, and Boehner, Cantor, McConnell and the rest of you GOP hacks, what the American public really wants are jobs. Jobs!!!! And jobs aren’t created by lower taxes on the wealthy. Stop your bullshit, they aren’t. Jobs are created by demand. Demand is created by people with money to spend, keeping the social safety net and unemployment benefits puts money in people’s pockets, which they then spend which creates demand, which creates jobs. Know what else creates jobs? Spending on infrastructure, which again puts money in people’s pockets…and so on and so forth. Austerity makes everybody broke, nobody spends, no demand…it ain’t that hard to figure out…are you all just fucking stupid? Now, I know you have said that you’re spending cuts thus far enacted have created jobs, but they haven’t. In fact, they have done the opposite: REPORT: House GOP’s ‘Job Creating’ Spending Cuts Destroyed 370,000 Jobs.
Oh, and Barack and Nancy? Let’s not get all full of righteous indignation on this one. Last week, the GOP decided to put you guys in the corner by agreeing to one part of your jobs agenda, while linking it with a budget cut item: House GOP Lays Trap For Obama On Jobs Plan. Yeah, the GOP agreed to end a three percent withholding tax on private contractors intended to keep corporations from cheating the government on taxes, and in return the GOP proposed to pay for this by limiting Medicaid eligibility for people who also receive social security benefits.
Wasn’t that nice of them?
Private contractors get the a-ok to cheat on their taxes, paid for by kicking grandma and the disabled off their health insurance.
Well, it would seem this GOP proposal was tailor-made for the Democrats to stand up, just say no, go to bat for those less fortunate and tell the GOP to blow while explaining to the American people what the GOP was trying to get away with…except the Democrats didn’t do this. Nope. Instead, they agreed.
More money for the wealthy, more costs for the poor.
I seem to be picking up on a pattern here…Barack, Nancy, Harry…who are you standing up for?
You agree to Medicare cuts on the poor and kicking some people off Medicaid, which runs counter to what the American people have said they wanted. And you…Eric, John, and Mitch…you are giving more and more money to the wealthy, at the expense of the poor, which again, is the opposite of what the American people have said they want to see happen…
Yes, a pattern.
And then you wonder why thousands of people are hitting the streets nationwide, fueling the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Oh wait, I forget, many of you have said you understand the people’s frustrations. Yeah, great…well I understand that you’re all a bunch of self-righteous assholes, but that don’t turn you into good people, now does it? Nope. And none of you are doing much about that frustration you claim to understand either, except presenting proposals that either do nothing to address income inequality, or will only serve to make it worse.
In these occupy demonstrations, in all of these different cities, stand Americans of every race, age, class and creed. And you know what else they are? They are the disenfranchised of this country. Do you think these people would be suffering the elements, the police brutality if they really felt that voting for one of you frauds would change anything? Doubtful. These protests, these people are the fruit of your labors, those who believe the system to be broken, or if it is working, it sure ain’t working for them…and not for me either. I’ve attended a few of these rallies in different cities and you know what I see? I see middle-aged couples, the elderly, the young, white, black, hispanic…and all these different members of society, they are uniting against you, against your bullshit ways, your bankrupting ways…your Republican power-grabs and your Democrat craven cavings to the financial industry and the banks…
And speaking of banks…
Hey Bernanke and Geithner, do you honestly think we haven’t been paying attention to what you’re currently letting Bank of America get away with? And Barack, these assholes were appointed by you…so you’re on the hook as well. Right now, your crew, with GOP assent, is seeing fit to allow Bank of America to set up American tax-payers for another huge debt, all so this bank doesn’t have to pay for their own investment mistakes, again. Yes, Bank of America has moved 75 trillion dollars in potentially bad derivatives from its holding company, into Bank of America proper…want to know why?
Because unlike its holding company, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America is FDIC insured, so if these 75 trillion dollars in bad derivatives fail, the government (FDIC) will have to pay out, which of course means, the taxpayers have to pay out, bail out Bank of America for more bad investment decisions. Bernanke, Geithner and Obama are allowing this to happen. They are allowing this to happen to you… once again taking the money from the middle class and potentially giving it to the wealthy to compensate for their poor choices.
So back to that pattern:
The Democratic leadership, in the form of Pelosi, Reid and Obama have shown they are quite willing to cut the social safety net, to cut benefits to the poor and disabled, to the elderly so long as the Republicans are willing to allow some marginal taxes on the rich. The Republican leadership in the form of Cantor, Boehner and McConnell are of course unwilling to do this, no how, no way, and in return for their refusal, they want even deeper cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security than the Democrats are willing to offer. Meanwhile, the Fed is letting Bank of America off the hook for bad investments again, with American tax-payers potentially footing this bill if the derivatives go bad…again moving money from the poor and middle class to the wealthy.
Yes, a pattern.
These politicians, elected by the American people only agree on one thing, doing whatever it is the American public doesn’t want you to do while at the same time, doing very little about job creation.
Yet all of you feel you should be reelected.
Why is that?
Since the occupation protests have begun, thousands of protestors have been arrested across this country…but of the people working in the financial institutions who caused the recession that led to millions of lost jobs, of bankrupted pensions, savings, cities and states?
Nobody arrested. None. Zero.
Again, why is that?
Are you simply admitting in cold hard arrest statistics that the rule of law is dead, provided you are wealthy enough to have received a Bush tax cut, extended further by Obama? Is that the established line in the sand? If you qualify to receive a tax break due to wealth, the law no longer applies to you?
I’m thinking that rather than being reelected, what should really happen here is Obama, Reid, Pelosi and Bernanke, Cantor, Boehner, McConnell and Geithner, all of you need to wind up in a cell right next to the heads of the major banking institutions in this country. You all, who have taken it upon yourselves to damn your children’s futures for your own selfish gain.
Pathetic, all of you.
Off to jail, lock them in the Bastille…why not? What do we really have to lose anymore? This way, the rest of us can try this again, we can have our country back, see if we can do better and I’m betting we can. After all, you pathetic politicians have lowered the bar so far…be pretty damned impossible to do worse.
Or better yet, get involved with the Occupy Protests in your city, what else you gonna do? Sit bitching on the sidelines? Vote? Yeah, good luck with that…the people currently in power, and the politicians too would like nothing better than for you to just stay home and vote at the appropriate time for one of the politicians they’ve hand-selected to serve (them) you…
Think about it.
And have a nice day, even the aforementioned politicians…right before you trip down your front steps and chip your tooth on the sidewalks our taxes paid for…and if you bloodied your nose, that’d be cool too. Okay…I’m sorry about that last part, not that I didn’t mean it…I’m just sorry about being petty sometimes, trying to work on that…kind-of.
Oh, and P.S. – To the mayor of Oakland, Jean Quan…resign, and take the members of the Oakland Police Department who caused the violence with you…you’re all one collective disgrace…and to San Francisco (interim) mayor, Ed Lee and Police Chief Greg Suhr, stop with the games already…you really want another Oakland on your hands? Seriously…let it go.
An “adult crisis” metaphor for the economy…
Politicians keep social workers busy...
Hey everybody…
So, the patient is wheeled into the emergency room on a gurney, after letting his best friend, George W Bush, talk him into slitting open his right wrist. He’s bleeding pretty bad, could die if the doctors don’t act quickly. Hearing the call, Dr. Obama rushes into the room and quickly stitches up the cut, but only a quarter of the way before going on vacation.
But the patient’s still bleeding, so the nurse rushes back to the break room where she finds Dr. Romney, Dr. Perry, Dr. Bachmann, Dr. Boehner and Dr. McConnell. Hearing what has occurred, the doctors nod confidently to one another and go see the patient. They study the bleeding wound, then confer amongst themselves before choosing a new course of action, whereupon they quickly roll up the patient’s shirtsleeve and cut his left wrist wide open too.
Finished, they jet off to Wall Street to party with the whores.
Have a nice day.
A Question of Greed…
S'mores are my favorite...
Since the rule of law is dead:
GOP cuts funding to the SEC because of “budget deficits,” despite the fact money for the SEC does not come from the budget, but from regulatory charges paid by the brokerage firms the SEC investigates, thus saving the same companies/banks that fucked us into a recession millions while also making it more financially difficult for the SEC to prosecute all the companies that did all the fucking.
Oh, and that recession – nobody in jail, banks made billions.
Oh, and that British Petroleum oil spill – nobody in jail or charged.
Oh, and that Foreclosure Fraud – nobody in jail or charged.
Oh, and the Medical Lobby/hospitals/administrators/insurance companies/big pharma – how many people have died because they couldn’t afford not to? – nobody goes to jail and nobody charged.
Okay then, so does this mean when Republicans and not a few Democrats, including Obama, cut back on the safety net because of the deficit, one debt ceiling and/or budget at a time, while in the same moment, they give ridiculous tax cuts to the wealthy which go a long way towards helping create that deficit…does this mean then, that when I decide to go to the exclusive parts of town or to the Financial District to get my money back, that just like the banks, the oil companies, the insurance and medical industry, that I won’t go to jail or be charged either for theft and/or fraud?
Right, right?
No?
Interesting, then the rule of law must only be kind-of dead, inasmuch as the bottom 99% is ruled by the laws of the top 1%, the same 1% who only calls it class war when the bottom 99 fights back against their greedy, entitled ways…
Have a nice day.
A Baton Rouge review from the New Orleans Assassin…
Letter grades are so difficult to hand out...
Hello…
Yes, I still kill people for a living.
Though I’m thinking of starting my own charter school, but more about that later…
I know its been a while, and I might apologize if I believed in such sentiment but I don’t…so, another legislative session comes and goes, and I’m caught in the city in that early summer dry spell…why do contract hits slow down in the early part of the summer? I don’t know, your guess is good as mine, but during the down time I’ve been taking a few weeks to myself, sitting by the river, drinking a good strong cup of coffee and watching the barges and hey, how about the Mississippi a few weeks back? I mean, damn…sometimes being an assassin just don’t do a bit of good, no matter how expert one might be. It’s not like I could have disposed of the water, though I will admit, one drunken night after a few, few too many, I did try…and if you were near the Quarter, you know what I’m talking about, kind of risky going without the silencer, but obviously I wasn’t making the best of decisions that night…if I had, I wouldn’t have tried shooting a river in the first place…fair enough? After many Abitas though, lots of dumb shit starts making sense…s’why I don’t drink for the most part.
Anyways…back to the legislative session…mixed bag this year, though slightly better than expected…and overall, let’s take a look at some of the good and the bad and most importantly, look at how I can make this work for me…and working for me, that would seem to be the theme of this years session…I mean really, a four cent cigarette tax extension vetoed because Jindal swore not to raise taxes? The only reason for that foolishness is aspirations to a rabid GOP base and a ride on the Romney machine…unless Jindal’s courting the pro-cancer crowd, and that could very well be, he is a Republican and cancer is a money maker for pharmaceutical companies and hospitals and Jindal, he likes himself some hospitals…even if they don’t have the necessary funding.
Okay, okay…sidetracked again…
Did I mention I might be starting my own charter school?
Yeah, I get 49% of the seats on the board…and I’m betting my 49% will easily dictate to the other 51, we’ll be far better armed. Gonna call it the ”Jackal School of the Arts and Assassination.” Normal curriculum, except we’ll be pretty pro-science. No creationism at the Jackal, and no “Intelligent Design” either, and a whole lot more about climate change…know what else? Ronald Reagan’s name will be taboo at the Jackal, and so will George W. Bush, who will be known simply as “Treason” so at the Jackal, if you mention treason, you’re talking Texas. My school, my rules and if you don’t like it, too bad, don’t enroll here. If you don’t come to the front doors as a friend, don’t come at all, seriously, don’t come…but really, is anyone stupid enough to come to the Jackal School of the Arts and Assassination with complaints?
If so, you will be outgunned.
I pay the bills, I set the template…oh, and all those teachers fired after Katrina…front of the line to apply, if so interested, so thanks to Baton Rouge and Bobby for this corporate charter thing (the possibilities) and don’t worry guys and gals, there could be worse schools then mine as a result…you might get stuck with Starbucks High or maybe the Dow Chemical School of Pleasant Poison, Halliburton Cementing Central or even the Goldman Sachs Institute of Fuck You, America.
We all know many charter schools deny entry to those less fortunate or those with behavioral problems and they wreck much of the admirable work of those so dedicated to, and inside the public schools through deprivation, and I wish I could do more to right this wrong, but what I can do is promise you that at the Jackal, we’ll take anybody, and in a few years of training a few handpicked students and teachers, well…plots have a way of hatching and plots, they can bust open all the school doors for everybody…at least that’s what I’ve heard, you know, about plots and conspiracies and, and such…
Moving on…
Turns out I’m going to have to find another way to communicate with friends on the inside as Facebook appears out of the picture, but really, that’s neither here nor there since me and my ilk have dozens of guards on the take anyway and speaking of prison, would it surprise you to know of my humanitarian streak, to find out I sponsor several young adults at Delgado Community College? If it does, one might ask whether you live entirely in a world of black and white, you know, like Treason does. Grey my friends, this world is grey as a coming storm cloud which this tuition hike might be for me if it weren’t for the tax breaks my software business is going to get in the next fiscal year.
I tell ya, that Bobby…on and on about not raising taxes like with the cigarette thing…yet he raises school tuitions, well, what would you call that? It’s a tax ya fool, they just go under different names. Oh, and raising the fees for probation and parole…you know, we here in the field have noticed a trend of this as late nationwide and I gotta say, our contract fees are going up because of it, but it’s okay for us, I mean we have a marketable skill, one that grows more marketable each year but a lot of people coming out of the prisons don’t. So I get it, it’s easy to pick on prisoners, I mean who sticks up for ex-cons? Well, I’m an ex-con, and though I may be well past any probation or parole time myself, let me just say that finding a job with a record, no matter what anyone says about the legalities of it, discrimination happens and it’s often hard for those so unskilled to find a job carrying a record, so raising these fees on people just adds to the pressure…and rasing these fees? Again, fees are just another name for a tax, but since Bobby’s going for the GOP base, if there’s one thing we all know about the Grand Ol Party, they give a fuck about ex-cons…oh, and if there’s one place we know for sure these ex-cons can’t collect a pay check anymore, at least not one they can show Probation and Parole, it’s for the hard work they could have done at a synthetic marijuana or bath salts factory.
Way to narrow down the job prospects Baton Rouge…and while I’m sure many citizens of New Orleans were pleased that penalties were increased for businesses that hire illegal immigrants, especially when dealing with state contracts, I bet they would have been even happier if Jindal and co. would have also guaranteed things like benefits and livable wages and maybe even local hire laws…but hey, it’s a start right? I know I’m getting a bit sick of the Argentinian crew that moved in Uptown getting some of my contracts. I know they do it cheaper, but this is about quality… and in my trade quality typically wins out, just as I suspect it will eventually in this case. Just wait till one of those guys in the CBD gets fingered because an Argentine got careless and if there’s one thing we all have come to know about Argentinian assassins, eventually they all do get careless.
Course I’m sure I don’t have to explain that to anyone here…common knowledge complete, like the rats run into the Quarter from the river at dusk, or New Orleans needs more movie theaters.
Oh, and here’s a thought, maybe you jokers would have a better time of placing limits on pay packages for the higher ups in college administrations or getting state employees to contribute more to their pensions if you weren’t trying to screw with state employee’s healthcare or if you demanded similar limits on pay for CEO’s in the private sector. And speaking of bitching, let’s just touch base for a moment on transparency. Yeah, Jindal ran on it and yeah, now Jindal runs from it and maybe one of these days the transparency law gets passed, like after Jindal leaves Louisiana for the whole Vice-Presidency thing…dream a little dream…don’t care where you go Bobby so long as you’re gone, besides…putting you on a national stage to give speeches, well, let’s just say that unless you’re getting off a helicopter to exploit another disaster to appeal to your base while railing against the Feds, when it comes to the speeches, you kinda suck.
Wooden would be a compliment.
When it comes to transparency…the time has long since come. Much like BP, Feinberg and the whole lot of them, lack of transparency gives the appearance you’re hiding something and what with that whole Medicaid contract thing…and the Chaffe report, you’ve been hiding a lot. You know it, we know it…and the businesses reaping insider benefits, they know it a lot. Pretty sleazy Bobby, and pretty slick, like Mitt Romney’s hair products.
And also Bobby, let’s tell the truth about this legislative session, you’ve had some issues this time round.
Hell, your own House out-righted you, made you look positively spend-happy at times…so, thank God for the Senate, huh?
And what else…
Sell the prisons? Oops…
Try to raise tuition at all the state universities too? Oops…cough cough TAXES cough cough…
SUNO and UNO what?
Reauthorization in 2014 of your plan to screw the poor by turning over a lot of Louisiana’s Medicaid programs to private insurers, those bastions of corporate and civic responsibility…nothing says “we care” like corporations trying to turn a profit by turning down health procedures for the sick…
Anyways Bobby, the New Orleans Assassin would like to wish you better luck next year…cause I firmly believe next year you won’t be here, instead you’ll be vying for either a useless figurehead position like Vice President or you’ll be part of an administration hell bent on screwing the entire country the way you’ve been trying to screw Louisiana so see-ya…and honestly, I’m of two minds on that subject:
Civic-mindedly, it’s disappointing to grow older in your age of the robber-barons and their Republican, and not a few Democrat enablers.
And personally, Republican policies always create desperation, and desperation creates contract work…some of it pro-bono for those who couldn’t typically afford my services and on the flip side, those who can afford it, get more money to spend and spend they will…often on me and my services.
So, the way I see it, another middling legislative session, some of it good personally, but per usual, mostly bad for the majority of the state. In any case, like I mentioned it’s the slow season and in the spirit of helping those less fortunate, time for some pro-bono work, so I’ll be looking…just put the chalk ”X”, last pew on the left at St. Louis Cathedral and then walk away…I’ll find you and we’ll talk.
Or, keep a look out for the signs announcing construction of the “Jackal School of the Arts and Assassination.”
I’ll be around…and oh, one last thing…a special thanks for the defeat of concealed weapons on college campuses. I’m not typically called to work at the universities, but if that day comes, well, call me more comfortable…
Have a nice day.
It’s okay everybody…Tony’s doing fine…
I swear...doing great, actually...
April 20th, 2010…remember where you were?
How long did it take for you to realize there was an ongoing serious problem? How many days had to go by before it occurred the problem was tremendous, huge and that oil, it was going to keep on coming…all the way into shore…all the way into the career of Tony Hayward, splattering it with hydrocarbons and goo…
I don’t know how long it took for Tony to figure any of this out, to really understand the size of the problem in the Gulf back then. This wasn’t Texas City where the various deaths were lamented and then the company moved on, paid a fine…whatever. The eleven dead on the Deepwater Horizon were the least of his problems…the oil, they couldn’t figure out a way to stop the oil…caps and tubes and caps again…
And that Tony, throughout those early months, he just kept talking to the press and putting his foot in it.
“Make things right.” (Now BP would have to back that up, or at least make it look that way in the commercials.)
“I want my life back.” (Oops, boy did he want those two seconds back.)
“I don’t feel that my job is on the line, but that might change.” (Ya think?)
And then he was fired, well kind of. More accurate would be to say he was demoted, large pay cut; he wouldn’t completely get his life back, but he’d get enough to make the mortgage payments and be comfortable…
Well, if you were losing sleep over this, be ready to again get a good night’s rest because Tony’s finally got his life back now…and then some!
“Former BP boss Tony Hayward is set to make £14million from his latest venture – despite presiding over a disaster that wiped £40billion off the oil firm’s share price. Mr Hayward is one of four backers, including financier Nat Rothschild, behind Vallares – a newly created firm that plans to run oil and gas assets around the world. Yesterday the company listed on the London stock market after raising £1.35billion…
…the deal will see Mr Hayward and Mr Rothschild – along with former Goldman Sachs banker Julian Metherell and financier Tom Daniel – make as much as £533million between them if they successfully acquire £8billion of assets.”
Hey Mr. Dudley, how much did you make last year?
Or more importantly, the people along the Gulf, all those dealing with the GCCF and Ken Feinberg in the claims process…with the quick claims, the final and interim claims…how much did you make? How many of you lost jobs, houses, cars, savings? How many of you are suffering from mental health issues, from physical issues?
Well, hopefully this news will lighten your burden, put that skip back in your step and give you one less thing to be worried or depressed about. Yes, everyone can get back to business as usual because Tony Hayward’s doing just fine, better than fine actually…he’s got so much of his life back now, he just bought three more.
Read the article:
Have a nice day.
The American Dream…
Wanna know why the Federal Reserve is bad for everyone?
Well, everyone but that oh so fortunate top 1%…
Enjoy!
Yes, its thirty minutes long…but how many sitcoms have you watched in your life? Can’t say I agree with everything presented here, but its certainly more amusing than the latest episode of Everybody Loves Two and a Half 30 Rocks…
Have a nice day.
Just so I’m completely clear on this…
If I ran the government, it might look something like...
Okay…
So you guys start two wars, deregulate the banking industry and the markets…
The wars don’t end, the investment banks start manipulating markets with the complicity of the Federal Reserve…
Thus, leading to a bunch of bad loans sold as good loans leading to the collapse of the housing market and the near collapse of the banks…
The government continues giving tax breaks to the wealthy so the wealthy will create more jobs.
The government then gives bailouts to the banks so the banks will lend money, extend credit…etc…
But, the wealthy don’t create jobs, they hoard their money and then the banks do the same by not lending, or freeing up credit…
Meanwhile large businesses have found ways via tax loopholes to pay little to no taxes, and due to so many lost jobs caused by the recession, caused by the banks, the tax revenue dries up state and nationwide…
In response to this, the cash strapped government extends the tax breaks to wealthy individuals who continue to not create real jobs…
And all of these actions (or inactions) create a crisis.
But you have a new solution, and your solution is to defund planned parenthood so poorer women can’t receive healthcare, fire teachers so our kids can’t gain a competitive edge, end medicare so grandma can’t see a doctor and attack state employees, raiding their pensions so when they retire they’ll have less money to pay for the health care you’re cutting…while the wealthy and the corporations keep their tax cuts, the banks keep their money and for all the fraud conducted by all of these investment banks that led to the recession, nobody is prosecuted and nobody goes to jail so nobody learns nothing…and essentially are free to start it all over again.
And you call your new plans fiscally responsible, “tightening the belts,” and “not kicking the can down the road.”
In a nutshell, one more time…
The wealthy hoard while pissing away real jobs, the banks keep their profits and consolidate further while the investment banks keep what they made from market and real estate fraud…and you continue to give subsidies to oil companies who also are making record profits while the rest of us pay record prices for gas, food and utility bills.
And for paying attention to this, I’m an asshole?
For noticing that although you may not have kicked the can down the road, you still kicked it hard and it hit the middle and lower class in the balls…oh, and then you helped them to their feet with the belt you tightened around their neck before shoving their livelihood and savings over the cliff you created with your fiscal responsibility.
And if I say the words “class war,” I’m being unreasonable?
Well…what would you call the ongoing plan of the corporations, banks, the state and federal government?
Democracy?
For who, 1% of the country?
I tell you, if I didn’t know better…I might think the GCCF’s Ken Feinberg is running this sham too…
Have a nice day.
How to ensure coastal restoration…
Gulf breeze might clear their heads...
Simple,
If you really want to make sure Louisiana gets all the money they need for coastal restoration, only one thing really needs to happen…
Pass a bill in Congress requiring Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America to build new corporate headquarters and base their operations in Grand Isle.
Just a thought…
Have a nice day
What does Wisconsin have to do with the Gulf Coast?
Citizens United
In a word?
Climate.
I’m not talking about environmental climate change, I’m talking about the political climate, the deregulation climate, the climate that continues to sweep through this country and threatens you, the American citizen at your door with not a polite knock, it’s more akin to home invasion, battering rams that splinter the wood with its force until the whole thing smashes in and stares greedily at your family.
But first, the back-story:
When the financial system broke down in 2008 as a result of companies like AIG, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers playing fast and loose for ten years with their newly deregulated financial systems, allowing them to leverage their own companies to the point of collapse in pursuit of short-term profits, they knew they had an ace in the hole. Deregulation had allowed them to grow to sizes unseen since the Great Depression so if they were to fail, they would take the interconnected global economies with them. They knew this and when the house of cards came down, they received the TARP bailouts from GW Bush so essentially, while making billions in profit at the expense of pension funds and house mortgage owners, they then received billions more in rescue money from the government to keep themselves solvent, and that money from the government? That was your money, and the money to the executives that created this mess so quickly gained in those several years of exorbitant short-term profit? They kept it, and nobody went to jail for the fraud they played on our country because their co-workers filled the President’s cabinet, the New York Reserve, the treasury and the SEC.
Large business everywhere watched this charade play out. They bore witness to what these companies got away with and realized yet again that any fines levied for the companies’ inappropriate behavior amounted to little more than a parking ticket for you or me.
Corporate responsibility was at little to none.
At the same time the financial mess was being created, the Mineral and Management Service, the regulatory agency responsible for overseeing oil companies was rubber stamping deep-sea oil well permits and doing blow with corporate heads while ignoring the fact that neither the states, the MMS or the companies themselves had a plan in case something should go wrong on one of the oil rigs. Nobody had a plan to seal the well or clean up the mess.
And few, if any said a word about this.
And then April 20th happened.
The Oil Spill…the great catatsraphuk that is British Petroleum’s Gulf Coast Disaster played and plays out across four states. Millions of barrels of oil, methane and chemical dispersants were dumped into the Gulf of Mexico, leading to dead people, dead dolphins, wasted fisheries, destroyed oyster beds, destroyed cultures, businesses and families and ten months later we have increasing illness, we have tar balls left on beaches while BP closes shop on its cleanup. British Petroleum claims the GCCF and Feinberg’s payments are too high, too much when everyone in the region knows they aren’t enough, not nearly enough. Mental health issues continue their escalation on those both direct and indirectly impacted, court cases are filed, reporters write, British Petroleum reneges on its commitments to Louisiana and the rehabilitation of their oyster beds. Politicians in Florida, Mississippi and Alabama are seething, screaming at Obama to do something about the businesses and people who are being abandoned, essentially asking Obama to be a President.
And in his State of the Union address, the President doesn’t even mention the Gulf Coast.
And in the state of the Gulf Coast – Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida are being forgotten.
British Petroleum is reneging on their commitments to the environment and to the people, while Ken Feinberg is low-balling claimants straight to insolvency. And for Gulf Coast residents? No bailouts from the government. Most people receiving any compensation from the Gulf Coast fund are forced to waive their rights against seeking any more money from over a hundred companies regardless of an unknown future. Sicknesses as a result of the spill? No. Environment doesn’t bounce back by 2013? No. Oil continuing to come ashore? No. And these hundred companies still operate and still make money both on and off their shores.
And British Petroleum is not fulfilling their corporate responsibilities to the people.
Why?
Because they don’t have to, climate dictates.
Meanwhile nationwide, like a financially desperate Gulf Coast, the other 46 states continue to suffer through a recession that while it may be recovering in the sense that profits are again going up for the same banks and investment firms that created the mess in 2008, the people who lost their jobs as a result are still unemployed, and the federal government and the states are still experiencing a continuing recession that is forcing cutbacks on their state and federal budgets.
This recession, caused by corporate irresponsibility, was made possible by current climate conditions and it is these cutbacks that have led to the protests in Wisconsin. Governor Walker has declared that in order for him to close the budget gap, he has no choice but to end collective bargaining rights for state unions.
He says the state of Wisconsin is broke and has no choice.
Two weeks ago, John Boenher, Speaker of the House said the same thing about the federal government, “We’re broke. It’s time for us to get serious about how we’re spending the nation’s money.”
And hundreds of companies like British Petroleum, walk away, without paying whatever is necessary for them to “make things right,” in the disasters of their own creation. In fact, in many instances, corporations like Bank of America and General Electric actually received tax benefits and paid nothing. Nationally, and in the states, the Republicans and oftentimes the Democrats want to take the money from us.
Republicans want to defund Planned Parenthood: healthcare for the poor. Obama wants to defund energy assistance. Republicans want to prohibit unions for federal employees. They want to defund investigations of the fiscal crisis and enforcement of new regulations on the banking and investment industry. Both sides want to cut education, reducing grants and rasing tuitions. Republicans want to defund the EPA and the NOAA. They want to cut money to public transit. They want to cut money for social services, addiction treatment, housing programs. They want to end community development grants, used primarily in poor neighborhoods.
Have to, we’re all broke, didn’t you hear?
It’s a budget crisis.
Republicans and Democrats nationwide also often agree the people who will pay for this crisis are the people who had no part of its cause and were typically its victims, while the people whose criminal activity led to these budget deficits? They will continue to receive their tax breaks, their bonuses, the lifestyles they have grown so accustomed too.
Personal responsibility and shared sacrifice is the watchword from Democrats and Republicans.
Corporate responsibility garners nary a mention.
It’s the climate.
So, while the people nationwide are forced to accept austerity cuts, while politicians are attempting to destroy state and federal unions and while the people of the Gulf Coast continue to watch their livelihoods, culture and families stagnate in limbo…corporate profiteers are back in business. British Petroleum begins issuing dividends to stockholders and reporting profits. The large multinational banks and investment firms continue to issue bonuses and Wisconsin unions are asked to give up their rights
Barack Obama continues to say little to nothing.
While the people?
They continue to suffer. The Gulf Coast resident, the union member, the middle class and the poor are dictated pain and sacrifice and forced to take it while the government and the corporations go on their merry way, married by a climate of profit and deregulation, at your expense.
And this is wrong.
This is Un-American.
This is not a shared sacrifice, the average American citizen is a sacrificial lamb and it must end.
So, what do the union protesters in Wisconsin, in day 14 of their fight against their governor have to do with the Gulf Coasts struggles against British Petroleum, Ken Feinberg and an out of earshot Federal Government?
Everything.
The fights are the same.
It’s the average person of this country trying to fight against a political and corporate power structure that cares very little for their individual lives and more for their personal bank accounts, their profit margin and their market share.
The fight in Wisconsin is the Gulf Coast’s fight and the Gulf Coast’s fight is Wisconsin’s.
It’s the fight of all of us, for all of us to change this climate and unify the nation against the very people whose attention to profit creates the economic suffering of the many, and against the politicians who continue to let it happen.
We have to, because in the current climate, the oil spills of financial ruin will continue to occur nationwide.
Have a nice day.
