IT’S ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU SICK . . .

A Halliburton employee serving as a technical advisor to BP on the Deep Water Horizon oil rig that blew up in the Gulf of Mexico recently testified before a U.S. Coast Guard inquiry currently investigating the disaster.  In that testimony, he informed the Coast Guard commission that he had sent emails and a computer model to BP’s engineers two days before the explosion indicating that their was a considerable risk of gas leaks given the lack of sufficient stabilizing supports utilized in the construction of the oil well. 

BP Chief Engineer Brian Morel’s response to that email?

“Hopefully, the pipe stays centralized due to gravity [because] it’s too late to get any more product to the rig.”

In other words, “I hope SH!T doesn’t happen.”

Morel and one of the top two BP officials on the rig have invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and have refused to testify.  The other top BP official has said he is too sick to testify.

So what do BP boys do when faced with having to take personal responsibility for their own monumentally disastereous  – as in deadly – decisions?

They either TAKE THE FIFTH or DRINK A FIFTH.

So you think it’s all those ”immoral” people who got sub-prime mortgages on a house that they could not afford who are mailing the keys back to the  bank?

WRONG!

Statistically speaking, it is the wealthiest people who are making “business decisions” to walk away from mortgages when what is owed on the loan is greater than the value of the house.    And the rich are doing so at almost twice the rate of the sub-prime and owners of lower-cost homes, according to data compiled by the real estate analytics firm CoreLogic. 

In other words, sub-prime borrowers generally cannot make the payments, and involuntarily have to walk away; rich people can make the payments and voluntarily choose to walk away!

These are called “strategic mortgage defaults”, because the individuals do a complete cost/benefit analysis in order to determine if it makes financial sense to keep the home when it will likely never appreciate in value enough in the long run to pay for itself.

It’s not dissimilar to what health insurance companies do when denying coverage for that little bout of cancer your spouse is battling, or what BP did when deciding to take shortcuts while drilling on that rig in the Gulf of Mexico.  Hey, it might cost them more in the long run, but they are willing to take that chance given that it will certainly save them money in the short-run.  Thus giving them a better opportunity to make more money in the long run.

Amoral Capitalism. Risk/reward analysis.  It’s just business, partner; you know, it’s all about ”the bottom line.”

Sam Khater, CoreLogic’s senior economist, said it best:

“The rich are different: they are more ruthless.”

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) cannot account for $8.7 Billion of the $9.1 Billion allocated for the rebuilding of Iraq – that is 96% of the money.

96% of the money just vanished?

The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) has just released a report outlining the extent of the problem, and made recommendations for a plan that will ensure future accountability of the expenditures.  Think that hindsight might be a little short of 20/20 vision? How about $8.7 Billion U.S. taxpayer dollars short?

Hey, Mitch McConnell!  Now there is some deficit-busting waste and fraud.  How about going after Halliburton and it’s executives for that money?  Oh, I almost forgot.  You’re programmed to just say “No”.

What’s that old saying . . . follow the money?  First, check with “Slick” Dick Cheney and KBR – the Halliburton subsidiary that was awarded the no-bid contract for reconstruction of Iraq. Somewhere deep in that corrupt wallet rife with fraud, they will be certain to find some of that cash.  Oh, and by the way, you are not the only one who was curious how KBR just happened to get a no-bid contract for an unjustified war that Dick Cheney  – former CEO for Hallburton – was instrumental in orchestrating.

Adding insult to injury, KBR hired 10,000 of its American workers through an offshore shell company that exists in a computer file on the 4th floor of a building in the Cayman Islands.  That allowed KBR to avoid withholding millions of dollars in Federal Social Security and Medicare taxes.  DoD discovered this in 2004, but said nothing, because it saved money on the reconstruction budget.  And now DoD cannot even account for 96% of the money? 

After all of these issues were brought out into the light of day, and investigations into widespread corruption started ramping-up, Halliburton immediately relocated its corporate headquarters to Dubai, ostensibly for business reasons.  Talk about pouring salt into the wound.

Mission Accomplished?

At least for ”Slick” Dick and his Halliburton cronies, it was.  Right up the U.S. taxpayers wahzoo – and he didn’t even have the common courtesy to kiss us on the back of the neck when he was done.  No heart, no soul, no shame, and no accountability.  Nothing but a big fat capital gain on your Halliburton stock.

All from war profiteering with the spilled blood of young American men and women on your hands.

There will be a special pit in Hell for you, Slick Dick.

                                  KIM JUNG IL

First they claimed Saddam Hussein was insane?  And in the last year or so they were clamoring about how mad Ahmadinejad of Iran is, what with all of his Holocaust-denial crap (sounds like the “birther” movement, eh?).

But Kim Jung IL of North Korea is in a category all his own – this guy is simply crazier than a rat in a tin shithouse.

Weapons of Mass Destruction?  Check.

Threat to U.S. National Security and World Peace?  Check.

State sponsor of terrorism?  Check.

Has all the trappings of another “Operation Iraqi Freedom” – you know, “Mission Accomplished“? 

So where are those “drum beats for war“, and WTF is Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, Fox News, and the rest of those sabre-rattling Neo-Cons doing sitting on their hands?  They were wrong on Iraq.  They keep talking about Iran.  But in this case – we can call it “Operation N. Korea Freedom” – they even have a damn good chance at being right for a change!  Or are they too scared to let Obama wag the dog ?

We’re waiting . . . . . . . . . . ?

Man, this silence is deafening.

PARALLEL UNIVERSE by Steve Hester

Remember how “vibrant” the economy was at the end of the Bush Era? 

Recall that when Bush left office in January of 2009, the U.S. budget deficit was at an historical all-time high, roughly $1.3 Trillion .

So now Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell claims that the Bush Tax Cuts “increased revenue, because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy.”

What an inexplicable disconnect between his statement and the foregoing facts regarding the economic collapse brought on by the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, and the deficits a majority of Americans agree that Bush hung around Obama’s neck; deficits that were unprecedented in relation to previous Administrations.  It’s patently obvious that McConnell operates from a parallel universe where the laws of basic math and logic don’t apply.  

As Ezra Klein of the Washington Post so kindly put it, “it’s enough to make you very, very sad.”

What’s even more unbelievable is how McConnell and the Republicans attempt to blister Obama and the Democrats on taxes, spending and deficits, all while ignoring the most blatant evidence of what the Republicans did after inheriting Clinton’s budget surplus.  To describe this behavior in terms of an hypocrisy is an understatement.

So now the country seems inclined to put these guys back in power?

That is utterly terrifying.

NOTE: the sublime painting by Steve Hester is an original watercolor for sale at this link.

OIL SKIMMING BOAT

Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his fellow cohorts now claim President Obama did not act quickly enough in response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  McConnell appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” this past Sunday, and based his assertions on the premise that a Republican President would have brought a multitude of oil skimmers into the Gulf much sooner.

As is typical with many Republicans, this Palin-like “common sense” retort to complex problems is far too simplistic when set against the facts.

Besides, you don’t just move hundreds of oil-skimmers away from other critical areas – like harbors and ports – where ships and oil depot facilities routinely spill untold amounts of oil into the waters, having the potential to create smaller-scale environmental disasters.  Furthermore, how do they think – well actually, they obviously don’t – they could transfer hundreds of the smaller skimmers from, for instance, California to the Gulf of Mexico?   Would they sail in the treacherous waters down the Pacific coast of Central America and through the Panama Canal in such small watercraft? 

Not if their asses were on the line.

Are Republicans really interested in fixing this country’s problems?

Then first start by skimming all the political B.S. off your claims.

So BP is going to commence with a procedure to test the integrity of a new system installed on that broken well that they have promised numerous times to fix over the past 80+ days now. 

Talk about testing integrity?  Look at this long list of their previous blunders.

Think about it.  An Integrity Test and  BP.  Is this engineering lingo or a public relations gambit?  Who inside BP would even consider putting the words “Integrity” and “Test” and “BP” all in one sentence.  After all, it’s a classic oxymoron - a contradiction in terms. 

BP’s integrity has already been tested numerous times.  They flunked.

Meanwhile, the United States is being executed by its own energy policy.

AND WE HAVE NO ONE TO BLAME BUT OURSELVES.

“IF I ONLY HAD A HEART . . . “

“All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced [back] to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian.”
               

         - Pat Paulsen (comedian, satirist and Presidential candidate 1968-1996)

So most White Americans oppose illegal immigration?

The Native American Indians really screwed up when they let the White Man set foot on their continent – and the rest, as they say, is history.  Revisionist history, if you read the tidily scrubbed Anglo-Saxon school books.  You know, Manifest Destiny, The White Man’s Burden, and all of those other inane Christian rationalizations for why it was God’s divine plan for the White Man to conquer North America, and take the continent away from Native Americans.

Gives a whole new meaning to the term “white washed”.

Now the Iroquois Indian Lacrosse Team – ranked fourth in the world – cannot even leave their own continent in order to compete in the sports World Championship tournament beginning this week.  Why?  Because the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will not officially recognize the Iroquois Nation as a sovereign entity for purposes of carrying their own passports.  When the U.S. State Department offered to secure expedited U.S. passports for these “foreigners”, they respectfully declined; as one spokesperson for the tribe said so poignantly:

“It would be like saying the Canadians are having travel difficulties and the U.S. says we’ll make you U.S. passports and you can go over.”

For now, the team is stuck in a bureaucratic limbo in New York City, while awaiting a decision on whether they will be “allowed back into the United States” – you know, that land we stole from their ancestors - upon their return from playing in the lacrosse tournament scheduled to commence tomorrow in England.

Can you imagine the outrage if Mexico started telling U.S. citizens that they would not officially recognize a U.S. passport when trying to leave Cancun?  But they will give you a Mexican passport so you can continue on your way.

“This land is your land. This land is my land” . . .

Someone needs to strike one of those lines from Woody Gutherie’s lyrics.

Could have fooled me.

According to a business website sponsored by the state of Indiana - the home state of Wellpoint Health - the company is going to suffer an 11% decline in revenue this year as a result of widespread unemployment in the U.S., which causes the company to lose enrollment in it’s health insurance programs.  As a result, Wellpoint has no choice but to increase health insurance rates since there are less people participating in it’s risk pools.

So what’s a company to do?  For starters, raise medical insurance rates by 20% in California.  That should bring things back in line. 

After all, compensation in 2009 for Chief Executive Angela F. Braly rose to $13.1million, a 51% increase from the previous year, according to a company filing. 

Ever consider the correlation between her 50% rise in annual salary and the $150,000 the company had to spend in 2009 for her personal security?  Did the fact that this is public information even occur to the company lackeys before they claimed that Wellpoint needs substantial rate increases in order to stay competitive?  And stay competitive in what?  Corporate America CEO salaries?

$6.5 Million would have bought a lot of health care for your customers, Angela.  You best be paying your security guards a competitive wage to stay on their toes, and watch out for those crazy unemployed, skin cancer-ridden bald guys you stopped treating because they failed to report they had a pre-existing acne condition years ago.  Now they are all cranked up on painkillers, with nothing left to lose, and probably driving around your neighborhood tonight.  And they are some pissed-off, mean looking dudes.

Hope you sleep well tonight Angela. 

Sweet Dreams!