Yes, but what about the fears!

>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
Why are BP and the President handling something that is clearly the courts responsibility?
Let's just start with this. Again, from BP's summary of the agreement:

The fund will be available to satisfy legitimate claims including natural resource damages and state and local response costs. Fines and penalties will be excluded from the fund and paid separately. Payments from the fund will be made as they are adjudicated, whether by the Independent Claims Facility (ICF) referred to below, or by a court, or as agreed by BP.
The ICF will be administered by Ken Feinberg. The ICF will adjudicate on all Oil Pollution Act and tort claims excluding all federal and state claims.

The idea here is to prevent what happened with Exxon Valdez, where Exxon fault paying claims for 20 years until the SCOTUS cut the payouts by 80%, and many claimants had died.
The idea is that this creates a giant facility for doing out-of-court settlements, something the majority of claimants and BP would do anyways. It doesn't prevent claimants or BP from going through the courts, it mostly just means there's a government-run escrow being set up to ensure that BP has set aside the funds to pay claims, and adds a 3rd option for processing claims (the Independent Claims Facility), which people can use, or not.
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
I worry of Presidents taking the roles of the courts, once your are the cops and the judge, your democracy is in trouble. I worry more here than I am accusing. It sets a dangerous precedent. Moreover, if something goes "bad" with the escrow, who handles it then? The President and BP again? Or do the courts then have step in and take something over that they never had any say in how it worked? In other words, he is going outside the way things work. And I think he did so to respond to the moronic claim that his administration wasn't doing enough or crying dragon tears.
Last part first, I agree that the whole thing seems like a somewhat meaningless capitulation to perverse media narratives.
That said, the agreement was never meant to deprive anyone of their right to lay claims in court. Basically, it was just a way to A) make sure the money is removed from BP's bank account before claims are processed B) give claimants a 3rd alternative for getting claims assessed (aside from the courts and direct negotiation with BP), and C) give both BP and Obama a PR win for being proactive on the topic.
I guarantee you that Obama will be in a world of hurt if this does become a backdoor way to deprive people of their right to sue in court -- the left and right would come down on him like a ton of bricks.
The key thing that irks me about hearing this fear about creeping executive power from anyone on the right is that there's this huge drama about "taking" money from BP (as in, asking for voluntary contributions to an escrow fund), but no real sign that any of those people want to deprive Obama of the power to detain terror suspects indefinitely without trial. That's the point Colbert made in his segment on this same topic.
Again, this is bullshit intended to try to make BP out to be some sort of victim of a fictitiously tyrannical Obama administration, when I think the safe bet is that Obama sat down with Hayward and said "look, here's a way for you to really show people you're on the up and up with paying the money..."

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

Why are BP and the President handling something that is clearly the courts responsibility?

Let's just start with this. Again, from BP's summary of the agreement:

The fund will be available to satisfy legitimate claims including natural resource damages and state and local response costs. Fines and penalties will be excluded from the fund and paid separately. Payments from the fund will be made as they are adjudicated, whether by the Independent Claims Facility (ICF) referred to below, or by a court, or as agreed by BP.

The ICF will be administered by Ken Feinberg. The ICF will adjudicate on all Oil Pollution Act and tort claims excluding all federal and state claims.

The idea here is to prevent what happened with Exxon Valdez, where Exxon fault paying claims for 20 years until the SCOTUS cut the payouts by 80%, and many claimants had died.

The idea is that this creates a giant facility for doing out-of-court settlements, something the majority of claimants and BP would do anyways. It doesn't prevent claimants or BP from going through the courts, it mostly just means there's a government-run escrow being set up to ensure that BP has set aside the funds to pay claims, and adds a 3rd option for processing claims (the Independent Claims Facility), which people can use, or not.
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

I worry of Presidents taking the roles of the courts, once your are the cops and the judge, your democracy is in trouble. I worry more here than I am accusing. It sets a dangerous precedent. Moreover, if something goes "bad" with the escrow, who handles it then? The President and BP again? Or do the courts then have step in and take something over that they never had any say in how it worked? In other words, he is going outside the way things work. And I think he did so to respond to the moronic claim that his administration wasn't doing enough or crying dragon tears.

Last part first, I agree that the whole thing seems like a somewhat meaningless capitulation to perverse media narratives.

That said, the agreement was never meant to deprive anyone of their right to lay claims in court. Basically, it was just a way to A) make sure the money is removed from BP's bank account before claims are processed B) give claimants a 3rd alternative for getting claims assessed (aside from the courts and direct negotiation with BP), and C) give both BP and Obama a PR win for being proactive on the topic.

I guarantee you that Obama will be in a world of hurt if this does become a backdoor way to deprive people of their right to sue in court -- the left and right would come down on him like a ton of bricks.

The key thing that irks me about hearing this fear about creeping executive power from anyone on the right is that there's this huge drama about "taking" money from BP (as in, asking for voluntary contributions to an escrow fund), but no real sign that any of those people want to deprive Obama of the power to detain terror suspects indefinitely without trial. That's the point Colbert made in his segment on this same topic.

Again, this is bullshit intended to try to make BP out to be some sort of victim of a fictitiously tyrannical Obama administration, when I think the safe bet is that Obama sat down with Hayward and said "look, here's a way for you to really show people you're on the up and up with paying the money..."

Tags for this video have been changed from 'potus, scotus, brotus, ponceus, leonus, leonidas, sparta' to 'smooth summer lips' - edited by kronosposeidon

"Occam's razor is the principle that the simplest solution is usually the correct one.

"The origins of what has come to be known as Occam's razor are traceable to the works of earlier philosophers such as Maimonides (1138–1204), John Duns Scotus (1265–1308), Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274) and even Aristotle (384–322 BC)." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor

BP has no right to deny access to a public place. I would have let them arrest me, and then straight to the SCOTUS we go!

It's time they got monetarily raped. If I were president I would issue an executive order to have the CEOs summarily arrested, tarred, feathered and then proceed to acquire their assets; which I would liquidate and give the proceeds directly to the tax payers.

The only time corruption doesn't take place in high government is when the Congress and SCOTUS do their fucking jobs.

I see this show, and then look down and see those stock exchange ticker tabs; I am disheartened. Not only does government need to be limited but corporations need to be limited, yet again.

Citizens United, the Conservative lobby, has successfully convinced the SCOTUS to overturn the laws that limited their political contributions, or "1st ammendment rights".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United

Huh, this is exactly what I thought the original Tea Party was caused by.

The East India Company was the first evil company, and it seems that the world has still not gotten away from that problem.

Here is a list of investment banks.
http://www.quazell.com/bank/bank_inv.html

A whole slew of companies run the government. They are, after all, Corporate Citizens! If the founders were alive this day they would have marched on the capital and ousted the SCOTUS for ruling in favor of corporate entities in the Citizens United case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United

I guess that Neo-Conservatives forgot about that part of the Tea Party.

Here's why Ron Paul will never get elected.

He will cut the Military spending, he will cut non essential government entities, and welfare; not welfare at state levels, but federal welfare meaning tax reform. Corporate welfare? Gone.

I wonder how many people will lose their jobs, and that alone is enough to seal his fate.

The SCOTUS decision on Citizens United effectively destroys his chances, thanks to our brand of democracy where a corporate entity can be a citizen!

>> ^Nithern:

Until November rolls around, Republicans are automatically oppositing ANYTHING the Democrats propose or vote on, without question or hestiation.


Yep, but we don't want to let them do it without liberals like me calling them on it and reminding people what craven hypocrites they are.

Oh, and the news tag is for stuff that calls itself news, I'm not enforcing journalistic standards on it. I mean, if newspapers and 24 hour news channels don't enforce standards, why should I?

You know who I want in the SCOTUS? Stephen Colbert.

@gwiz665, I agree, but you probably missed the level of hue and cry from Republicans when Democrats talked about filibustering Bush's SCOTUS nominees. Basically their argument then was that according to the Constitution, the President should have the ability to select whoever he wants, that the voting standard should only be about competence and not ideology, and that it should always be a straight up or down vote.

Now that the shoe's on the other foot, their principled stand on all three is completely washed away, and they want to blame it on the Democrats for having been so partisan in the past that now they need to be just as partisan.

I didn't really expect anything else, their original stands weren't principled, but instead partisan. This is just one more piece of evidence towards showing they have no principle other than trying to defeat Democrats, no matter what they're doing, and that their avarice drives them to start talking about filibustering the Democratic nominee on the day the retirement is announced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission

This alone should be enough to prove the farce of our current system of governance.

I would wager judging by the chart posted by ABC-Washington Post. That the SCOTUS ruling is in direct opposition to the majority of the US people.

>> ^dag:
Google's recent activity is worrying. Maybe I should be alarmed by them, but I'm not. Probably because Google is built on a core of innovation instead of copycatting and lawsuits. If Microsoft was a person (and I guess it is, according to the SCOTUS) then I would say it suffers from poor self-esteem. There must be a recognition of that within the company- that they have little innovation to be proud of - and that's what drives their company ethos. Oh and this of course.>> ^Croccydile:
>> ^campionidelmondo:
I'm more worried about Google to be honest. They're starting to control too much information, spreading into every sector. They just launched a social network, will launch their own phone as well as operating system and so on... Not that M$ doesn't suck, but then again most corporations are evil. Yes, Apple too.

Speak of the devil... http://www.gaborcselle.com/blog/2010/02/remail-acquired-by-google.html
This is only one small company, but that is even beyond Microsoft to not only buy them, but remove the product. At least when Microsoft bought Visio they kept selling it!



I understand your concerns given Microsofts history, but at the same time you cite copycatting when you point to DR-DOS... which was well after the fact. Really that was just poor Gary Kildall trying to recoup the old glory that was CP/M since nobody else was using it by that point.

"IBM originally approached Digital Research, seeking an x86 version of CP/M. However, there were disagreements over the contract, and IBM withdrew. Instead, a deal was struck with Microsoft, who purchased another operating system, 86-DOS, from Seattle Computer Products."

Sorry Gary, you had the chance for what was the deal of the century and lost it to Microsoft who saw someone had already made a clone of CP/M, bought it, spruced it up, licensed it to IBM and made billions off a $50,000 investment. Are we really supposed to feel that bad for those who missed that boat in the 80s? Imagine how pissed the dude who sold 86-DOS must be right now.

(Sorry, just nitpicking because even though MS has been a copycat at times... you gave probably the worst example Don't worry we still love you. I would hardly say Microsoft is lacking innovation as well with all of the side projects they have been churning out lately. But I digress I am the Microsoft apologist since they are an easy target I feel the need to make a counterpoint)

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Google's recent activity is worrying. Maybe I should be alarmed by them, but I'm not. Probably because Google is built on a core of innovation instead of copycatting and lawsuits. If Microsoft was a person (and I guess it is, according to the SCOTUS) then I would say it suffers from poor self-esteem. There must be a recognition of that within the company- that they have little innovation to be proud of - and that's what drives their company ethos. Oh and this of course.>> ^Croccydile:
>> ^campionidelmondo:
I'm more worried about Google to be honest. They're starting to control too much information, spreading into every sector. They just launched a social network, will launch their own phone as well as operating system and so on... Not that M$ doesn't suck, but then again most corporations are evil. Yes, Apple too.

Speak of the devil... http://www.gaborcselle.com/blog/2010/02/remail-acquired-by-google.html
This is only one small company, but that is even beyond Microsoft to not only buy them, but remove the product. At least when Microsoft bought Visio they kept selling it!