Bad Deeds for 10-17-2011

 

Exxon Aims to Bail on Payments for Valdez Damage – It’s been more than 22 years since the Exxon Valdez dumped 10 million gallons of crude into Alaska’s Prince William Sound, but you don’t have to look very hard to fnd lingering impacts from the spill. You can actually still find oil on the shore there, the fisheries are still struggling, and some bird species haven’t recovered. But now Exxon is saying it won’t pay up, despite an agreement to cover those additional cleanup costs.

 

Cain Proposes Electric Fence To Kill Illegal Immigrants – On a campaign tour through Tennessee, Cain elaborated on what will be a central portion of his immigration policy: a big electric fence. Cain’s fence, he announced on Saturday, would be electrified and run the entire course of the US-Mexican border with voltage high enough to kill anyone trying to enter illegally.

Cain’s ideal fence would be 20 feet high with barbed wire on the top with a sign saying “It will kill you–Warning.” In a campaign stop in Tennessee, Cain clarified that the sign would be written in both English and Spanish.

In case the big electric fence wasn’t enough, Cain would add some extra (unspecified) “technology” to cut down on illegal immigration. He also suggested adding American troops armed with live ammunition to patrol the border, indicating maybe that “technology” he’s referring to is something akin to drone crafts armed with bombs.

Update: Cain went on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to quickly walk back remarks that he’d build an electric fence designed to kill illegal immigrants as part of his approach to immigration policy. Cain told David Gregory the whole thing was a joke and described it as not a “serious plan.” (Actually, his whole campaign is a joke. – JLV)

Funny, in campaign rallies in Tennessee Cain spoke at length about the fence, providing details of how he thought the fence should look and how it would work. And he prefaced those statements with “we have a crisis of illegal immigration.” Those don’t sound like the words of a man cracking a joke.

It gets worse. Cain may be walking back his electric border fence, insisting it was a joke, but that ignores the fact that Cain’s crowd wasn’t laughing. They were cheering. And that’s a fact that no-one seems willing to acknowledge.

 

Wall Street Occupies Washington D.C. – In order to engage in these practices that brought the world’s economy to its knees, Wall Street had to make sure that the federal government based in Washington, DC would both de-regulate the financial industry (and provide lax oversight) and that Congress and the Federal Reserve would bail out banks with few strings attached if they were in danger of failing.

The way the financial industry and big banks won this kid glove treatment from the federal government is by occupying Washington — flooding it with campaign contributions, lobbyists, and its own staffers and executives to occupy key positions of power. ThinkProgress has assembled a rundown of three ways Wall Street has occupied Washington (click the link to read about them).

 

Wisconsin Town Considering Restricting Bikes, Pedestrians on Town Roads – The town of Hull is considering restricting bike and pedestrian use on some of its roads, a measure one advocacy group says is illegal. The ordinance is in response to what town officials say is a growing problem with road safety, but the town hasn’t had a crash involving a bike or pedestrian since 2008.

 

Federal Air Pollution Protections for Drilling are Woefully Outdated – In the drilling rig-studded Upper Green River Basin of Wyoming, levels of smog-forming ozone reached 123 parts per billion earlier this year—worse than the worst day in Los Angeles all last year.

It’s not just the people of Wyoming who are noticing a problem. A controversial technology called hydraulic fracturing—or fracking—has led to a gas drilling boom from Colorado to Pennsylvania. But federal air pollution protections for drilling are woefully outdated and do not cover most pollution sources. That means that people who live near the gasfields are left with lung-burning smog and cancer-causing benzene.

 

Bank of America Needs Your $5 – Bank of America received $138 billion in bailout funds from us, paid no federal taxes, claimed a $3 billion profit in 2010 and awarded its CEO a $9.05 million bonus but is hard up enough for cash that they now *must* charge anyone with an account below $6,000 a $5/month charge for the privilege of having an ATM card.

Regards,

Jim