Right Wingers Open To Lifting Cap For Liability To BP? Hold On There, Buddy ...

I read a "rumor" that the Republicans in Congress are now eager to back a raise on the cap of $75 million for the BP oil spill. The reasoning goes that if this does, in fact occur, BP will have no choice but to file for bankruptcy protection -- leaving the clean-up costs, and payouts for the Gulf Coast businesses to the American taxpayer. And, of course, just blowing off the ecological damage to the Gulf that America will probably never ever recover from.

Remember when the Exxon Valdez was given that hefty fine that was eventually reduced to pennies on the dollar after 20 years? Let that be a warning. Oil companies across the globe own America. Drill, baby, drill is not the mantra we should be spouting. Kill, baby, kill is more likely, as the damage done by this man made disaster (let's not get caught up in the right wing meme that this is a natural disaster), could have been prevented but for the bottom line (dollar) that these corporations are squeezing out for their base (shareholders and congresscritters).

And don't get be started on mountain top removal coal mining.

From Ashley Judd:

But the ache I feel for my mountain home is now more than a bittersweet nostalgia accrued through inimitable generations of belonging. There is a searing tear, a gaping wound in the fabric of my life and the lives of all Appalachians. And it gets bigger with every Appalachian mountaintop that is blown up, every holler that is filled, every stream that is buried, every wild thing that is wantonly and recklessly killed, every ecosystem that is diminished, every job that is lost to mechanization, every family that is pitted one against the other by the state-sanctioned, federal government-supported coal industry-operated rape of Appalachia: mountaintop removal coal mining.

H/T to Crooks and Liars.

Franken - 1; Diana Furchtgott-Roth - 0

This is an excellent video of Senator Al Franken (I love saying that) at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing concerning medical bankruptcies.



Because Franken is a comedy writer, a lot of people who have never read his political books or listened to him when he was on Air America, have no idea just how brilliant he is, how cool and calm he is when he smacks you in the face with your bullshit and lies, and quite frankly, I am glad he finally ran for office, won, and is now in there fighting for the rights of real Americans.

H/T to Think Progress.