Exxon: Pouring Oil on Trouble Waters -- Part 5

December 19, 2008
Exxon: Pouring Oil on Troubled Waters -- Part 5
-AKA -
"Billions for Defense; Not One Penny to Pay Our Just Debts"

"The day" finally came.

The day we were going to find out if the Supreme Court was going to hammer Exxon and "correct" the 9th Circuit for halving the jury's award of damages or if, somehow, they were going to find a way to ratify that decision. Or ... some folks who had learned pessimism by being a part (the "victim" part) of this 20 year fiasco, actually believed that the Supremes might reduce it further. Our attorneys, the best in the business, however, had assured us that couldn't happen. That there was no legitimate way for the Supreme Court to lower the award further. That was one option we were not to worry about.

We had several days of anticipation as Supreme Court decisions were handed out over a few day period and ours didn't happen on the first day. Or the second. In fact, it didn't happen until the day the Court was ready to leave [get out of Dodge] for the season.

It wasn't until July of 2008 that the Supreme Court handed down its decision. It made its determination and sent it back to the 9th Circuit for implementation.

[To the tune of American Pie, please:] "That was the day that justice died."

The United States Supreme Court ignored everyone the 9th Circuit had ignored ... jurors, a long-term highly respected judge, the Constitution and common law that it provides we are to follow, the State of Alaska, the earth's environment ... and all of the people who live below the waterline. And then it ignored the 9th Circuit also.
In an announcement that left the hardest of hard-bitten attorneys in numbed shock ... the court chopped the remaining $2.5 billion award down to $507.5 million.

There are no words. It is as manifestly unjust as anything I have ever witnessed the court system doing. It was not only legally wrong, but it was morally wrong. Indeed, it was the first time I have truly believed that the Courts have been so politically packed that they are now simply part of the corpocracy. They are not a check and balance. They are not an independent judiciary. They are bought and paid for politicians. And they have committed an act of overt evil.

Then, just because it could, Exxon took the plaintiffs and rubbed their faces in it one last time. They argued to the 9th Circuit that because the Supremes said that $507.5 million was all that could be awarded ... that meant they didn't have to pay the 20 years of interest on it either.

Plaintiffs and their attorneys were so defeated and destroyed that there was no fight left. We filed pro forma motions with the 9th Circuit explaining that, once again, Exxon was simply flatly wrong legally. But no one's heart is in it. And no one even seems to be able to care how the 9th rules. We are arguing over the pennies to place on our closed eyes after having lost fortunes. It really makes no difference.

For the tiny amounts that the Supremes said we could have; we settled with Exxon for 75% of them. I have no clue what leverage Exxon had left to deny paying the entire amount the Supremes said they had to. But they proved that the courts would do pretty much whatever the Big and Powerful asked for and there was no fight left in any of us. When the elephants play, the grass gets trampled. And we were all, ultimately, the grass.

So the checks are starting to arrive. Little tiny checks. People's lives and livelihoods had been ruined by Exxon beyond hope of repair or salvation. All they were left was the knowledge that at least Exxon was going to have to pay ... and pay enough that they could afford to retire (after 20 years of waiting and scraping and scrimping and taking new jobs at middle age for which they weren't trained, some still trying to eke out a living catching what fish they were allowed by Fish and Game as the Department tried to manage PWS to revive the fish stocks). Many people have been clinging with their fingernails so long to keep from the total financial collapse that just letting go and crashing and burning is better than continuing to try to hold on.

And now, the Courts have stolen their retirement also.

I used strong language above. I speak of the courts committing true evil and stealing from people. I believe that to be true. But I wish to make one point extremely clear here. Although I do believe what the courts did was wrong ... horribly, terribly, immorally wrong, and that the Exxons of the world have "bought" our courts and did prove that they can "buy" [what one might still euphemistically refer to as] "justice"... I do not believe that the individual justices were directly bribed nor do I have any suspicions or accusations about any particular justice or justices who personally "sold" their decision. I don't know what all other criteria the individual justices considered; or indeed, the courts in joint session considered. One may not want to know such things. If you wish to enjoy your meal, stay out of the kitchen! But, largely, although I think they were horrendously, clearly, and demonstratively wrong ... I believe it most likely that the justices believed their votes were "right" and that their decisions were made without substantive improper motivations.

I do not wish, with this series of articles, to accuse either the justices of the 9th Circuit or of the U.S. Supreme court of malfeasance or improper abuse of office.

The Supremes do suffer from institutionalized arrogance. Because they have "the last word" ... ie: there is no where to appeal their decisions. They are very proud of the quote that:

"We are not final because we are infallible; we are infallible because we are final".

These checks won't hurt. Some folks may manage to pay down a credit card bill or even buy a truck. But we ended up, after 20 years, with less than $500 million of the $5 billion that the judge and jury had said was legally ours. Justice delayed is justice denied. Especially when after two decades of injustice, the courts put the decimal point in the wrong place and overtly deny it as well.

The plaintiff attorneys are brilliant people who are at the top of their game. They had secured one of the greatest of all time verdicts for one of the most deserving groups of victims. This isn't tobacco legislation where people got sick and died because they decided to smoke. This isn't a McDonalds case where the plaintiff put a cup of scalding hot coffee between her legs and then squeezed.

The fishermen and other plaintiffs had done absolutely nothing wrong.

In this situation we had totally innocent plaintiffs, unlike almost all mega-award cases (which somehow seemed to survive this appeal process ... the tobacco companies for example virtually all decided to settle; they didn't have Exxon's "make war not peace; win at all costs and hurt the other side as much as is humanly or, more precisely, corporately possible" mentality).

The plaintiff attorneys had put their political lives and careers (as well as their reputations and financial futures) into this case and had defended it through the most violent of legal storms that could be unleashed by a behemoth that had vastly more money to throw at this than almost anyone in the world. If one could buy "justice", Exxon was going to do it.

In a con job worthy of anything Alice believed before breakfast Exxon tried to convince the world that they had done nothing wrong either! Although many (most?) news outlets were not easily flim-flammed, Exxon clearly has the power and influence even with the media to get its story out.

Exxon argued (argues) that Hazelwood, Captain; or God, An Act of; were the only reckless culpable parties. In English ... the only ones who did anything wrong. So that, therefore, only Hazelwood and God deserved any blame. And if Exxon didn't deserve any blame, they certainly didn't deserve any punishment.

It is important to understand that for legal purposes a corporation is an entity that is legally construed (for essentially all purposes) as a "person". I personally am not convinced of the wisdom of such exalted treatment to an entity that one can create on a piece of paper and the stamp of the appropriate state office in a few minutes, but it is a concept with much history and is well-settled law.

So Exxon, although a corporation, is legally capable of wrongdoing and being punished for such wrongdoing. To carry an analogy much farther than it should go, the Board of Directors, officers and executives are the "brain" of the corporation which sometimes cause it to do things that it shouldn't; much like our brains do with us. So it is the corporation itself, not its officers nor directors, that was found liable for causing damages by its negligent behavior and was assessed punitive damages for its reckless behavior. [Captain Hazelwood was also found liable of these things, but a judgment against him is not worth the paper it is printed on as he has nowhere near sufficient assets to satisfy such a judgment. But Hazelwood and Exxon were found jointly and severably liable which means that each is liable for the entirety of the damages awarded by the jury.]

And it is the corporation which [who? :-)] was trying to make the case to the public (and hiring marketing firms to do so), that the entities at fault were simply God and Hazelwood; not the corporation. But if the corporation was negligent (!), it was not reckless (which is the critical issue regarding punitive damages and such a determination was necessary in order for punitive damages to attach).

Let me be crystal clear here. This is a critical point. We can debate whether we think Exxon was reckless for putting a known drunk at the wheel of an oil tanker. But our decisions are (and should be) irrelevant, because the jury; those whose duty it was to decide and who were in the best position to decide, did decide. Exxon, itself, was reckless. This is no longer solely an opinion, it is a determined matter of law that even the Supreme Court has no legal ability to change.

It was reckless for an additive plethora of reasons, the primary one of which was that they knowingly placed a fully loaded ~1000 foot, 212 ton, tanker filled with 56 million gallons of the worlds ugliest (tarry, high sulphur content, etc.) crude oil under the control of Captain Hazelwood while it traversed some of the most pristine environmentally sensitive areas of the world; at night (it was almost exactly midnight when they missed the gap and hit the reef) ... knowing that he had a substantial drinking problem and a history of incredibly poor judgment. Exxon had paid for Hazelwood's alcohol rehab treatment in 1985, but made no follow-ups of any sort: no post-treatment evaluations or counseling, no monitoring of any sort.

Instead Exxon immediately put him back in command knowing as they admitted at trial that "a captain with a substance abuse problem was a recipe for disaster".

Hazelwood's driver's license (for automobiles, not supertankers ... although one would think if he wasn't considered capable of entrusting an automobile to, it is difficult to imagine that handing him the keys to a crude oil carrying supertanker would be fine) had been revoked or suspended three times between 1984 and 1989 by the State of New York for alcohol violations. In fact, at the time of the spill, his driving license was in suspension because of an arrest in New York for driving under the influence in September of 1988. This information is routinely reported to employers and is generally a requirement that it also be reported to the employer by the drunken driver himself. It is virtually inconceivable that Exxon did not know that at the time they told him to drive one of the largest and potentially most destructive vehicles in the world ... he could not legally drive to the docks to board the vessel.

Exxon senior management was proven to have received multiple and continuing reports between 1985 and 1989 that Hazelwood was continuing to drink to excess openly; indeed publicly. Exxon took no actions of any sort in response to these reports, except that his superiors would drink with him!.

In 1989 (five years before the trial and before Exxon's lawyers and P.R. people got everyone in the company's management "under control", the Chairman of Exxon specifically said that putting Hazelwood in charge of a supertanker was a "gross error"). Not just a negligent mistake, mind you, but he specifically admitted that Exxon had made a "gross error". There are many ways of saying "reckless" for purpose of punitive damages and other legal issues. "Gross error" is one of those equivalent terms. An "error" equates to "reckless" which might make them liable for compensatory damages, but does not make them liable for punitive damages. But "gross error" is the same as "gross negligence" which is the equivalent of "reckless". Therefore, by the admission of Exxon's own chairman ... Exxon fit the criteria for punitive damage liability.

Further, at trial five years later, after having been heavily coached, an Exxon manager testified that Exxon's policies, despite their knowledge of the risk to the public of the "catastrophic" results of a supertanker accident, allowed a relapsed alcoholic to command an oil tanker which left him (the manager), given "Exxon's attitude towards alcohol", with "no policy to protect the safety of the public".

There was other testimony regarding that and other aspects of Exxon's general recklessness in shipping out of PWS (breaking federal fatigue laws, departing into heavy ice conditions at night to save money, etc.).

But I don't need to try to prove that Exxon was reckless. I noted at the beginning of his section that it was reckless as a matter of law that not even the Supreme Court has the power to change. That is because the jury so determined. And once a jury makes a factual determination (which this is construed to be), that issue is not appealable.

The way our system works is often misunderstood. But since the right to trial by jury is paramount, only the jury is allowed to determine facts. [Which makes practical sense as well ... it is only to a jury that factual disputes are presented. Only the jury (and trial judge) hear the testimony and watch the body language of those speaking and are privy to so many things that can't be captured in an electronic record, that it would make no sense to have an appellate court attempt to redetermine the facts of the case.] Additionally, in this case, there was no question but what there were highly competent lawyers and experts on both sides making sure the evidence was properly presented and done so in as favorable a light to their side as possible. And the jury determined that Exxon was reckless.

What is appealable is the "law". That is what the lawyers argue to the judge about and what the judge ultimately includes in his written (and spoken) jury instructions. If the judge was incorrect on the law ... if he made a ruling (regarding an objection to the admission of certain evidence, for instance) that was wrong legally, or if an instruction regarding the law given to the jurors was wrong ... that may be appealed.

But whether Exxon was reckless or not, may not be appealed unless the judge gave incorrect instructions regarding his jury instructions regarding how they are to determine whether conduct qualifies as reckless. No one has seriously argued that the judge got the law wrong on this issue. (I say "seriously" instead of just saying that no one argued it ... because it is possible that Exxon did argue it at some point. But no one took it seriously and no appellate court ever suggested that there was a problem with the formulation of the law.)

Presumably, in fact, that is why the Supreme Court had to leave in the award some amount of punitive damages. They too were bound by the jury's finding of recklessness. (That said, even though they couldn't legally touch the fact that punitive damages were appropriate, in their consideration of "how much?" they effectively did by the back door what they could not by the front.)

The general public, however, was not so bound. Exxon argued vociferously to the media and anyone else outside the courtroom who would listen, that it was not reckless.

There is an old theory that if you can obsfucate an issue sufficiently, then no one really understands what is right and what is wrong and assumes everything is gray and that whatever the courts ultimately decide is probably right. Because we as a nation, perhaps more than any other on earth, respect and honor our judicial system.

Indeed we believe in it in a way that we seldom even think about but that folks from other countries really don't ever seem to understand. Other countries have legislatures to pass laws and an executive branch: presidents or other administrations to carry them out ... but in perhaps no other country is the court system relied upon so strongly, and believed in so fiercely, as the third leg of out government and the one most important for preserving out freedoms and protections from oppression. In the words of the Australian commedian/singer Fred Dagg: "You don't know how lucky you are, mate, you don't know how lucky you are."

Sadly, despite the intellect and apparent nitty-gritty willingness to claw and scratch and give their best fight no matter what the arena, the plaintiff attorneys proved to be idealistic optimists after all. They believed in the system. Even after so many, many years of delay, they too, honestly believed that although the wheels grind slowly, that they grind exceedingly fine and that justice would ultimately prevail. They believed that we were a country of laws and an honorable court system and that raw money and power could not buy justice away from those to whom it belongs if the forces of good gave it their all. I would not be surprised to see the major law firms that have gone so far out on a limb for those below the waterline in this case to be shuttering their offices. Some will stop in the bankruptcy courts that they had practiced in. Others will simply go away.

Because they were wrong.

Exxon proved, gloatingly, to the world, that we no longer live in a country of justice and law. Instead, we live in a corpocracy and the Exxons of the world run it. And they glory in proving that they do.

It is conceivable that a justice was bribed. Exxon certainly had the money and we've seen a lot of outright bribery by oil companies in Alaska. And justices don't make enough money to be above financial temptation. But I have no evidence nor even real suspicions that such happened.

I believe what happened is that the insurance companies finally purchased the judges they want on the bench (judges and justices do not believe in the concept of punitive damages or if they do, they believe they should be severely limited). But they did this ... well ... I am not alleging that they did it in any way that was not legal. There are ways within the system to "purchase judges" without committing a crime.

Continued:

Exxon: Pouring Oil on Trouble Waters -- Part 4

December 17, 2008
Exxon: Pouring Oil on Troubled Waters -- Part 4
-AKA-
"We Don't Care. We Don't Have To Care. We're Exxon!"

During nearly 20 years of waiting (sometimes somewhat desperately) with several "we're going to be cutting checks in the next few weeks" over-optimisms along the way, the fishermen and other plaintiffs in the oil spill litigation never lost hope. I spoke to a great number of them during this time. Many "refused to think about it" because they didn't want to get their hopes up that they would soon be seeing money. Many thought the appeals process would result in a somewhat smaller award. But even the most hard-bitten and cynical of these independent, largely "have no use for government" weather-worn men and women of the world's most dangerous profession [commercial fishing in Alaska held that distinction for many years although modern safety mandates may now have dropped us below logging] still believed. We all believed that, although the wheels may grind slowly they would grind fairly and we would receive the bulk of our money. Particularly for those who died, and even those who went broke and bankrupt or faced other horrendous problems because of the delay in the interim, the phrase "justice delayed is justice denied" was often used.

But I don't believe in the entire 20 years speaking with hundreds of fishermen, claimants and lawyers, did I ever hear anyone suggest that they thought the jury award would ultimately be thrown out. Battered, bruised, a bit leaner ... yeah, we knew the jury verdict/award was in for a rough trip through the appellate process just from Exxon's arrogant pronouncements after the trial when the essentially flatly announced that it simply wasn't going to happen and they'd do whatever it takes to make sure of that. But for a group of people who you would think would be natural cynics and who would have the least faith in "the system" of any group outside of armed fortresses in Montana, the fishermen were remarkably confident that the system would, eventually, bring them justice (in the form of a substantial check!)

In June of 2008, in the case captioned Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, Supreme Court Case Number 07-219, the United States Supreme Court utterly destroyed that faith. They also utterly destroyed the entire concept of punitive damages as they had been understood for hundreds of years; and which were thus protections granted to the citizenry by the common law which protections were specifically enshrined in the U. S. Constitution. Although the award was only a pittance to Exxon [equal to ~three weeks of profit in 2006], it was a fortune to the largely ... "economically challenged" ... plaintiff class. The Court destroyed the fortunes of many in order to hand a pittance to a giant corporation. To do so they had to ignore the Constitution, the concepts of common law and the entire concept of punitive damages as it had always been known.

The money meant nothing in itself to a behemoth the size of Exxon, but the law that the case created succeeded beyond the wildest hopes of corporate boardrooms and insurance companies to behead the "punitive damage monster" which was one of the last protections against the malevolent acts of the corpocracy left to the people.

It is conservative chic now to be against punitive damages awards because the insurance companies have spend untold amounts of money to convince people (especially people in legislatures, government executive branches and those who sit on court benches, but the citizenry as well) that punitive damages caused the horrendous increases in insurance premiums. There is not a scintilla of truth to that and many studies have proven that there is no causal connection (other than by convincing people of it, the companies can get away with raising rates and have something to blame it on), or that punitive damage awards had (or have) any statistically substantive effect on either the percentage or actual amounts of money paid as damages. Even insurance companies don't really care about punitive damages. In fact, I would bet a bundle that they like having them in the states where they remain. Because the most profound connection between insurance companies and punitive damages is not in relation to how much insurance companies pay out in jury awards ... but rather as the "fall guy" for how large a premium they can get away with charging for their policies.

Yes ... I believe in the market. But insurance companies are so big and so collusive, and so tied into government, that they have, to a large extent, removed themselves from the actions of the market. That, again, is such a large topic there isn't room to deal with it adequately here. But conservatives ... Constitutional "strict constructionists" ... should be the last people in the world to want the government to intervene and yank yet one more set of protections that "the people" have and that were guaranteed by the Constitution. Those insurance company patsies are simply being used ... and unwittingly, used against their own core philosophies without being aware of it.

As noted earlier in this series, the jury awarded $5 billion dollars in punitive damages against Exxon to be paid [by mind-numbingly complex formulations] to the members of the plaintiff class ... in 1994. Exxon, true to its promise (hmm ... that is almost an oxy-moronic sentence, but it is accurate), appealed the case to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The trial court had ordered interest on the award at 6.9% until it was paid, so the fishermen and their lawyers weren't too bothered by Exxon's appeal to the 9th Circuit. Of course, that was because they expected to win it.

But that was just the beginning of the whittling and the incredible delays. Well, the delays didn't begin, they "continued". It had already taken five years after the spill to get a verdict in 1994. It took another seven (!) years (although no one seems to understand why) for the 9th Circuit to rule on it; throwing the verdict out as "excessive" in 2001 in the 9th Circuit Appellate decision 490 F.3d 1066.

The 9th Circuit sent it back ("remanded it") to trial court judge Holland for "reevaluation". Holland did a masterful job defending the initial verdict, but presumably to avoid directly contradicting the higher court and hoping that he would be able to end it once and for all, in December of 2002 he reinstated the punitives at four billion. Again ... we were expecting that it would get whittled at a bit. No one was greatly surprise nor greatly distressed. Indeed, we were proud of Judge Holland for sticking to his guns and not knocking it down much more substantially. The checks would soon be in the mail ... not.

Exxon marched it back to the 9th Circuit. The 9th Circuit sent it back to Holland saying, in effect "try again". Holland, to whom the fishermen should build a monument (if they had any money to build with which they don't), was close enough to retirement that he simply refused to be bullied. He knew that it was a fair verdict and that $4 billion was, if anything given Exxon's size, too small of an award! Thus he flatly refused to kow-tow to the judicial overlords and after drafting another masterful decision demonstrating the appropriateness of the existing award, in January of 2004 he reinstated it at $4 billion (plus the $2.25 billion in compensatories plus interest). When it comes time to build statues in Alaska he deserves one. Unfortunately, because his magnificent work was trashed by the appellate courts he won't get one. But he did exactly what the law and judges are supposed to do and he had the nerve to not back down to the power of the Appellate Justices when they "strongly suggested" that he change his mind (so that he would take much of the heat for a judgment that the Justices will, hopefully, be ashamed of for the rest of their lives). He refused to compromise his principles, beliefs or The Law, which the good judges of his generation truly believed to be an honorable thing. He believed in the concept of stare decisis upon which our entire legal foundation rests. He is the sort of judge that should have been promoted to the appellate courts.

He wasn't.

Why it took so long it seems impossible, in retrospect, to understand. But Exxon marched it back to the 9th Circuit and in January of 2006 claimed to the court that the award should be cut to $25 million! The plaintiff counsel and legal experts across the country were aghast, but reassuring. Virtually no one believed that it would get hammered further.

By this point, the IRS had special offices set up in Anchorage to make sure they got their cut of the substantial payments that even the IRS and other branches of the federal government believed would soon be forthcoming. In fact ... those special IRS offices had been set up for years. I don't know when they finally disbanded them. The law firm of Keller-Rohrback that had been appointed to handle the disbursing of the funds had their humongous data base system set up. Percentages for individual claimants had been argued about, fought about, hammered out and finally finalized. The arguments now were that Exxon should not be allowed to continually pointlessly delay the day of reckoning. So many of the original plaintiffs had died that it had become an abuse of process to continue to allow the delays.

But delay was the name of the game. Certainly Exxon in the oily blackness of its heart seemed to believe so. But, unbelievably, the 9th Circuit, after yet another set of mind-numbing procedural morasses, in December of 2006 essentially told the very Honorable Judge Holland (and the jury who devoted months of their lives to the case, the State of Alaska itself, and, most of all, those fishermen and others who had lost their livelihoods, their cultures and their ways of life) ... in the most polite terms descriptively plausible ... to "stuff it". On its own, the 9th Circuit simply bypassed Judge Holland and slashed the punitive damage award from $4 billion to $2.5 billion.

It was a mindlessly vicious thing to do and amounted to no less than outright theft.

Even though it was simple politically motivated theft that the "strict constructionists" of the Constitution have to make illogical exceptions for ... at least it was over. At least the checks would be in the mail soon. Keller-Rohrback did a test run of the plant sending the tiny compensatory damage checks to those who still "had some coming". With a sort of communal resigned sigh, the plaintiff class, litigants and attorneys both, accepted that half a loaf was better than nothing and that for the sake of closure, we needed to just accept it and get on with our lives. Exxon had already proven that justice delayed is justice denied (especially for the substantial percentage of claimants who had died over the intervening 17 years) and ... that Exxon had enough muscle that it could flex it and cause this delay and by doing so thereby making their point and proving it.

And then, in a move that shocked even the battle hardened veterans of this war; the attorneys who had fought and battled this fight for most of their careers and whose (substantial) law firms would barely break even if that after all they had gone through (and the public has a low opinion of lawyers? Well, now that I mention it I'm not very fond of the Exxon 3-piece suit goons, but the plaintiff lawyers went above and beyond) ... Exxon appealed the award to the U.S. Supreme Court. The reaction was mostly that everyone was infuriated. Plaintiffs' lead attorney, the awesome Brian O'Neill was literally "shocked". We all knew beyond any doubt that the United States of America's Supreme Court ... was not going to hear a drunk driving case.

It was just yet another delay tactic. But ... we reminded ourselves that we were at least getting 6.9% interest which at that time wasn't bad at all, and resigned to wait a few more months until the Supremes turned down the case. [Unlike many appeals, there is no appeal of right to the U.S. Supreme Court. They have absolute discretion on what cases to hear.]

Then there was a sound, a rustle in the wind, and oven doors opened wide and flames of the underworld leaped out. The Grinch stole Christmas once again. The Supremes actually decided to hear the case! It was absurd. It was beyond absurd. And every legal professor and scholar of note agreed. There was obviously no way that they were going to reduce the award further. Ahh. Perhaps this was a backhanded way of scolding the 9th Circuit for cheating the poor, the fisherfolk, the Native cultures, those who lived below the waterline [when the Titanic sank, the people in the expensive berths above the waterline almost all survived; those in the cheap berths below the waterline largely perished]. The 9th Circuit had wrongly ignored the jury, the judge and the law and had tossed those who lived below the waterline into the oiled ocean at the behest of one of the richest, most powerful corporations. Maybe we had it wrong. Maybe the Supremes were going to slap down the Grinch and we'd have Christmas after all.

We could wait another year. We'd waited this long.

Continued:

Exxon: Pouring Oil on Trouble Waters -- Part 3

December 15, 2008
Exxon: Pouring Oil on Troubled Waters -- Part 3
-AKA-
Being Exxon Means You Never Have To Say You're Sorry

Oil ... $$$$$$$ ... Black Gold!

The centerpiece of international politics, wars and economics. A sizable portion of the world's population believes we are at war in Iraq because of it. A song that I quite enjoyed when there was a small handful of us loudly proclaiming that we would be nuts to go to war with Iraq; one that I copied and passed out freely before George W's "shock and awe", was entitled "How Did Our Oil Get Under Their Sand?".

We have it (oil ... we're a little light on the sand). Indeed, we have so much of it we can apparently afford to dump it in the ocean.

In the minds of most people when they think of oil, they envision the stuff they pour into their car engines. And, of course they are correct. That is refined motor oil. But crude oil, the unrefined hydrocarbon gunk that is pumped out of the ground and, at one time was attributed to decayed dinosaurs, is not something you'd want in your car. Nor in your boat. Nor in your fishing pots or nets. And most certainly not in the seafood meal at the fancy restaurant.

Nor is all oil the same; not even all crude oil. The oil that Captain Hazelwood and Exxon decided to return to nature had made a remarkable journey even before it so abruptly ended.

The oil had arrived in the port of Valdez after being pumped from deep, deep wells nearly a thousand miles to the north in Alaska's North Slope Prudhoe Bay fields and travelling completely across the state (which is the most difficult, by far, of all states to travel across) via one of the world's engineering and construction marvels: the Alaska pipeline. The Port of Valdez is a deep water port, ice free (by Alaskan terms) year round, and able to handle the giant oil tankers that transported the Black Gold to the energy starved world.

Alaskan oil [somehow appropriately] is heavy, tarry stuff that requires [like many Alaskans :-)] a lot more "refining" than most. It is not the clean "sweet" oil found in backyard wells in Texas. Nor is it the stuff that Jed Clampett could find bubbling up in his backyard woodlot. Our oil is thousands of feet below the surface and for whatever reason, largely decided to locate itself in some of the most inhospitable places on earth.

Alaska's North Slope holds vast reserves of oil. As anyone who has followed the news at any time in the last few decades knows, there is a terrific and ongoing battle regarding extraction from the ANWR portion of the North Slope between the Luddites who hide behind the much cooler sounding title "environmentalists" on one side and Sarah's "drill, baby, drill" contingent on the other. This topic deserves vastly more in-depth treatment than I can give it here, but may well be a follow-on column since oil is such a "hot" topic these days in any event.

I personally am in no hurry. Even if alternative energy forms were found and oil was essentially replaced as a fuel, it has sufficient other uses that it will always remain of high value. I'd just as soon leave it in the ground as a bank account for my grandchildren. My objections however have nothing to do with environmental concerns. There are none remaining of note. That is simply a phony excuse by the Luddites. The existing oil operations in the North Slope have had no negative environmental impact. The caribou and other wildlife seems quite attracted to the spectacle (face it ... they are bored with thousands of miles of featureless tundra as their lifetime view) and it has not had any negative effects on the environment whatsoever.

No ... the only time our Alaskan crude oil has harmed the environment was when a drunk sea captain decided to see if his boat was tougher than the rocks of Bligh Reef [it wasn't].

And that harm to the environment was real. It wasn't the "pretend harm" that the greenies use to scare people into opposing drilling. This was real harm. And it not only harmed the environment dramatically (twenty years later and it still hasn't recovered ... biological processes operate much more slowly in this cold climate), but it harmed, even more dramatically, the people who made their living off that environment. And those who made their living off the people who made their living off of the environment.

For those of you just joining us, the brief synopsis is that a drunken Captain (who Exxon had put through alcoholic rehab previously and absolutely knew that he had relapsed badly; indeed he couldn't legally drive even a car - his license was suspended for his third DUI since the rehab only a few years before the accident) was given command of a massive oil tanker and, without bothering to tell anyone, apparently tried to slip through a channel where no oil tanker belonged. And then, he and his bottle went down to his stateroom to do "paperwork" while leaving control of the vessel in the hands of a third mate who was not certified to run the tanker in Prince William Sound (PWS), although he was in the open ocean. For reasons that will never be known, it didn't make it. It appears that when they first scraped the reef a drunken Hazelwood staggered into the wheelhouse and screamed "hard right". Unfortunately he was drunk (and perhaps dyslexic?). If he'd yelled "hard left" we may never have heard of the Exxon Valdez.

As it was, it (in the Captain's inimitable slurred radio report) "fetched up" on the reef and was apparently leaking some ... cargo. That "hard right" caused unfathomable destruction of wildlife and pristine habitat. The spill killed an estimated 350,000 to 390,000 seabirds, in addition to 3,500 to 5,500 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, 250 bald eagles, 22 killer whales and billions of salmon and herring eggs (along with countless other flora and fauna).

It also caused unfathomable loss and damage to those who lived there and were "married" to the land, the sea, and its abundant resources.

This happened in 1989.

No, I didn't mistype. My fingers didn't slip. I didn't get confused. It truly has taken nearly 20 years to pry any money out of them.

Let me give you a move visceral feeling for how long ago Exxon oiled us and then postponed the day of reckoning. In 1989, we had the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. On June 3 of that year, we also had the Tiananmen Square Massacure. Seems we've had several Chinese governments and entire major philosophy changes since then! :-)

The world moves right along unless you are Exxon with your foot on the brake.

Indeed, Alaska has only been a State for 50 years! For 20 of those we've been living with the never-ending saga of the Exxon Valdez.

In 1989, on November 9 ... the Berlin Wall fell. "No", you say, "that couldn't be! That was more like half a century ago." Well, the Exxon spill was 1/5 of a century ago. But yes ... before such major changes in the world ... the Exxon Valdez had already attempted to cut a new channel through Bligh reef.

In 1989, gasoline was $1.29 a gallon. The mimimum wage was $3.35. A dozen eggs were 96 cents; a loaf of bread, 69 cents! Oh and before serious competion with the internet which should have lowered it's price (!), the cost of a first class stamp was $.25!

It seems like it was a different age, a different era. And it was! Exxon managed to delay through the passing of years, decades, a century and a millenium. It is difficult to believe that the Supreme Court of 1989 (or 1994) would have sliced and diced the exemplary damages award so viciously. [Truefully, even though I understand that this Court is the most conservative in a very long time ... I still find it difficult to believe that even they would do ... what they did!]

Exxon is so big and so powerful and so unbelievably arrogant that they were able to "leverage" that power to keep the money out of the hands of the fishermen for all this time ... and Exxon has now succeeded in keeping most of the money out of the hands of the fishermen forever.

"The check's in the mail."

Exxon claimants [as all the prevailing plaintiffs in the Exxon-Valdez lawsuit are called] have been waiting nearly 20 years to hear those words; nearly 15 years since the jury verdict awarding us, in addition to modest compensatory damages, a $5 billion punitive damage award.

But, the checks aren't for anything close to that. Actually, ignoring interest [as Exxon still hopes to be able to do] and many other variables, we are roughly a decimal point off. In other words, if your share, according to the only people legally qualified to know and therefore to decide; the jurors, was say $100,000, then your "check" would be for ~$10,000. If the jury [and convoluted formulas that were subsequently applied] said your claim was worth $10,000, then your check is for ~$1,000.

And for this we waited 20 years?

Actually, the checks aren't in the mail yet. Presumably they will be soon.

The folks that will be receiving money in this first "round" are those claimants who had no issues of any sorts attached to their claims [eg: judgments against them, IRS liens, child support liens, probate issues (since so many of our original claimants have died), assignments (so many people were so broke they were forced to sell part or all of their Exxon claim to speculators for a small percentage of its worth. Of course, they may look like geniuses now ... , or other]; and had gone through all the stacks of paperwork properly and along the way filled out the proper forms to have the Claims Administrator [the law firm of Keller Rohrback] directly deposit the funds to their bank accounts.

But given the history of this situation, that's really close to "the check's are in the mail".

In 1994 a major trial was held in federal court with approximately 32,000 plaintiffs and a jury, who by all accounts took their job very seriously. After four weeks of testimony and argument and four days of significant deliberation and balancing Exxon's claim that they didn't deserve to be punished any further, primarily because of all the money they had already spent cleaning up their mess, against the reality of what happened, the jury concluded that Exxon needed to both finish reimbursing the actual "out of pocket or never in pocket" type losses (compensatory damages) which was never much at issue. It also made the finding of primary importance that Hazelwood AND Exxon were reckless (ie: "grossly negligent"). Although this point seemed unassailable and crystal clear to everyone but Exxon, it was so dear and the attorneys had fought so long and so hard to get to that point that the lead plaintiff attorney actually had tears when the announcement was made. He had done it.

The finding meant that Exxon was liable for punitive damages and, given the size of the company it was expected that they would be "significant" [the relevant standard being focused on company size and income since the purpose is "punishment" and an award of $10,000 might punish a small mom and pop, but wouldn't be noticeable to Exxon]. Generic formulations yielded nearly absurd results because Exxon was SO huge and profitable that in order for it to "feel" the punitive damages award, the number would have to be staggering.

If one wishes to swat a two year old child for doing something he shouldn't have, it doesn't take much to accomplish that goal. If you swat an elephant with the same force and power ... it would notice you no more than it would a mosquito. In fact, it would probably be more bothered by a mosquito.

Exxon was, and Exxon-Mobil is, an elephant compared even to other elephants.

Instead of shooting for an absurd number that would actually be fitting under the circumstances, plaintiff counsel determined to ask for something that, given Exxon's size, was clearly reasonable and, therefore, presumably appeal-proof. They asked for fifteen billion. The jury gave them five. This was far less than the purpose of punitive damages would dictate as it was but a small percentage of Exxon's annual profits and a pittance compared to Exxon's overall value. It may not have been something that Exxon could pay out of the petty cash annual party fund, but neither would it have a substantive negative effect on the company. This discrepancy (between the value of the award and the value and profits of Exxon) has only increased with time.

As Brian O'Neill, the plaintiff lead attorney said shortly after the initial verdict::

"With a company as large as Exxon that thinks it is above the law, you need to take a substantial bite out of their butt before they will change their behavior. We want to change Exxon. We want to make the Exxons of the world aware that they are responsible the same way that you and I are responsible. It is really a great day. It took five years to bring it about, but we got there."

Indeed, all that was true and for the first time in five years in some of the economically devastated towns and villages, it was the first day of sunshine in half a decade. Despite all the suffering, the loss of culture, the loss of livelihood, the psychic pain that could never be healed ... it was a large enough verdict that there was sunshine and some smiles again. Even though the award was fairly small in terms of the size of award compared to size of company that would be required for "punishment", Exxon was so huge that, in absolute terms, this was a tremendous award; it would arguably be the second highest sustained jury award on record.

There was only one little problem. The award was not sustained.

In a display of corporate arrogance unmatched in modern times (well, perhaps, other than Enron giving top management huge bonuses just before closing their doors), Exxon vowed that as a matter of principle, and because it thought that people should be grateful to it (for all the work it did cleaning up the spill) instead of suing it, it would make sure the fishermen and other plaintiffs never received anything anywhere close to an award of that magnitude.

Exxon succeeded beyond its wildest dreams and beyond the wildest nightmares of the plaintiffs and their attorneys. They made certain that the lesson for all to see was NOT that "the Exxons of the world were made aware that they are responsible the same way that you and I are responsible". Instead, Exxon set out to prove, and ultimately did so with resounding success that the Exxons of the world are NOT responsible the same way that you and I are responsible. They boldly and "in your face" demonstrated that O'Neill was absolutely correct in saying that Exxon believed that were above the law ... and they successfully proved that, indeed, they were.

There is an old African proverb that says: "When elephants play, the grass gets trampled." You have to give O'Neill and his firm credit though. They stuck with us the whole time and fought tooth and nail every inch of the way. It is a tragically sad commentary on our system that even with powerful law firms on our side, that we didn't manage to rise much above the level of the grass. The elephants in the world have gotten so big that there is almost nothing able to control them. They've been paying lobbyists for so long (and as we have been discovering in Alaska, the Big Oil boys have been cutting out the middle man when convenient and paying the legislators directly) that they managed, by the back door, to pack the courts as well.

At most ... we got up off the ground by sheer brute force and transformed ourselves from grass to mosquitoes.

We buzzed around them. We even bit them. But ultimately we had about as much effect as one would expect a mosquito to have in dealings with an elephant. We were naive. All of us, including the Federal District Court Judge Holland who maintained his honor by telling the 9th circuit to shove it when they ordered him to knock the punitives down. Our hot-shot lawyers were naive. The fishermen were naive. "Oh, come on ... the United States Supreme Court is not going to take a drunk driving case!" Unless, that is, you have a Court that has been picked as they rose through the system by litmus test on such things as "tort reform", which is phony lingo for "taking away rights guaranteed by the U.S. Consitution but not admitting to it". 20 years of naivete. Even more than the money (and that is saying a fair bit), I think all of us on the side of right, truth and justice are more upset by a 20 year spanking than anything else. We are embarrassed that we actually believed our "judicial system" was in the business of dispensing justice. Even I fell for it and I had a Superior Court judge tell me once to always remember that the courts are in the business of judgments; not justice.

And that there was a huge difference between the two.

Which is something we have all now (even the most stubborn of us) finally learned.

Harken back to Brian O'Neills' statement following the verdict, above. This is what he said after the Supremes gutted it:

"I feel bad for all the claimants, that they're not going to get enough money to put together their lives again. I feel bad for all the claimants because they're not going to get the satisfaction knowing that there was a just punishment administered to Exxon. And I feel bad for all of the claimants because the judicial system has let them down. It just isn't fair."

Part 4 of This Series May be Viewed Here:

Rolling Heads

November 27, 2008
Rolling Heads

Having spent so much time yammering generically about the fact that Sarah Palin took on the Big Boys and won, it seems particularly appropriate to use Thanksgiving to give you all a more specific rundown on exactly who the turkeys are whose heads have, or are soon likely, to roll.

It has been awhile since I did my "Sarah Palin cleaned up Alaska" shtick on this blog. But when I'm writing in an online news or (some other) blog comment section regarding an article on Palin I find that I do some version of it fairly regularly. Generally this is when either the initial article or existing comments do the "Sarah Palin is ethically challenged, and dumb besides; even the people of Alaska can't stand her any longer" regurgitation. (It is not difficult finding such allegations; an enormous number of people still believe the media's caricature despite having at least the opportunity to learn a lot more about her now that the election is over. This is not a woman who shies from the media! :-) She has almost certainly given substantively more interviews post-election than she was allowed to do during the campaign!

My standard rap often includes the assertion that Palin "cleaned house" [and Senate :-)] up here and took on the Big Boys and won; that people had been campaigning on reform tickets for years but once elected, either joined the gravy train or were effectively silenced. When it came time to stand up and fight, they backed down and the Big Oil folks just pocketed them.

But, I claim that Palin was utterly fearless. And in her we finally found someone who would stand up to the rampant corruption and not blink. When she was serving as Chair of the Oil and Gas Commission she discovered documented, provable, rampant corruption but she couldn't get anyone to pay attention to her. So she quit and ran for her boss's job [Governor] and whupped him in the primary! A sitting Governor who had served the state for decades as a U.S. Senator and she demolished him in the primary and then tromped a two-term, very popular, prior Governor in the main race.

Then she (and the FBI whom she called in to work on the case) started cleaning up and that because of her probes some "(self) important people", including some who could have bought the entire Alaskan prison system without major financial difficulty are going to spend their retirement looking out from its bars. She showed that many of our legislators were for sale on the open market. (She found them on eBay ... no! Just kidding! :-) I claim that even Senator Stevens wouldn't have been busted if it hadn't been for the probes she started.

I further claim that once the Big Boys found that she couldn't be bought, bribed, blustered or bullied they didn't leave the state in a huff (as had been predicted by many); but just sort of shrugged and said "ok" and that she has been able to develop a good working relationship with them.

But I thought I should put some meat on those sort of amorphous claims and take a closer look at exactly who got caught either purchasing legislators or being a purchased legislator, and dispel, or respond to, however you want to phrase it, the "yeah, who?" challenge.

So, let's see. Who all has Palin "taken out"?

I should begin this by saying that the probes are continuing and that there will undoubtedly be future additions to it. [For example, our recently "reelected in a squeaker" U.S. Representative, Don Young, hasn't been charged or indicted of anything. But, by last April, he had still spent well over a million dollars (!) on attorney fees! I don't know what the tab must be by now!]

We have different "categories" of corrupt players. For starters, we have the Big Boys who a couple years ago were highly respected business leaders and well thought of "involved in the community" type folks and are now convicted felons. In addition to which they are either at or approaching retirement age and are so desperate to not spend any more of it in the Big House than necessary that they turned on their prior "partners in crime" and ratted them out to the FBI or U.S. Attorney's office in exchange for "hoped for" leniency.

The "Biggest Gun" in this group is Bill Allen who is the ex-CEO of the "used to be high flying" oil services company VECO (which is largely an Alaskan company but it also operates in Asia, the Middle Ease, the Caribbean and other parts of the U.S.). He was very involved in community affairs and a highly respected and very well known "friendly face of your friendly neighborhood oil company"! In May of 2007 he pled guilty to extortion, bribery and conspiracy to impede the IRS. Joining him in so pleading was VECO's Vice [yes :-)] President for Community and Government Affairs, Rick Smith. The specific issue that was behind the activities he pled to involved bribing legislators to pass an oil tax law that VECO was pushing. His sentencing awaits, but is anticipated to be between nine and eleven+ years in jail plus a substantial fine. This is not the sort of person who envisioned the type of "retirement community" he will be joining! Where the sentence ultimately is within that range is presumably contingent to some degree on how well he does the job of bringing down everyone else. But he cut his deal to rat on his partners in crime (allegedly) not primarily for a better sentence for himself, but to keep his son and other family members from being charged (which means we'll probably never know what all his son Mark did).

But Allen is an excellent example of how far the mighty have fallen since Sarah put the trip wires out around the candy jar. The Allen family is a family of money. It is a family that has even more money now that they "had" to sell VECO. Even Allen is living the good life at the moment. But he is going to either have a heart attack and die before he gets there (strangely it seems a lot of folks who can't psychologically or emotionally deal with spending significant time in prison die before they get there), or he is going to be spending a huge portion of the remainder of his life in jail. It will be a dramatic change for the man!

Those two, Allen and Smith, are the highest ranking Oil Boys to bite the big one. But it isn't only the oil industry that is involved. Our legislators were so clearly for sale that even a bunch of high muckety mucks in the fisheries industries are being investigated for legislator purchases! Oh, and on the "payer" side of the ledger we also convicted lobbyist William Bobrick who was sentenced to five months in prison.

The list of the "payees" (the folks on the take) that are convicted, indicted, or "allegedly anticipated to be indicted" has some even more powerful names. The biggest, of course, is "Senator for Life" ... not; Ted Stevens. As virtually everyone knows he was convicted ... excuse me, I erred on what the definition of is is! :-) Ted Stevens was found guilty by a jury [he is right ... technically he hasn't been convicted yet - that will be done by the judge at sentencing] of not reporting gifts from Allen and others. Even at that he came within a whisker of being re-elected anyway. [There was some logic to that ... even if he was kicked out of the Senate a week after being elected to the seat, the seat would be filled by a Republican. Instead we have democrat Mark Begich.]

So, Senator Stevens has been found guilty of seven felonies and lost his Senate seat ... and I have a hunch the worst is yet to come. His trial was strange enough, between prosecutorial and juror misconduct. The capper being a juror telling the judge -- after Stevens lost the election due, presumably to his "conviction", that he lied at the prosecution's behest. It makes one wonder how many layers of corruption there are. The Democrats wanted that seat badly ... they are desperate to have 60 seats so they can be "filibuster-proof". Whether or not it was intentional skulduggery (and we may well never know), there was enough bizarre stuff that Stevens may win a new trial on appeal. The process could take years before such a new trial ever came to be and no one has a clue what might happen to Bill Allen or other witness by then. Likely, Stevens is going to get convicted and sentenced ... but the man is 80 years old and stubborn as a mule ... I personally don't expect him to spend any time behind bars. But that doesn't really matter. His life is in tatters. His reputation destroyed. His life's work (and he truly did some excellent stuff) ... will be completely overshadowed by his reputation as "the crooked Senator" now. Probably even worse than all that, his pride and joy, son Ben, who was the president of the Alaska State Senate ... looks to be even deeper into the scandals than Ted. I think Ben probably will serve substantive time in prison. He is accused of taking bribes from the fisheries industry, VECO and others. Bill Allen says he bribed him. I know that is not what Ted's hopes for his handsome, dynamic, powerhouse of a son were.

What other big names? Well ... we have another parent and child combination under severe scrutiny. Ex-Senator; ex-Governor Frank Murkowski (the sitting Governor that Sarah tromped in the primary) looks like he is going under. They haven't indicted him yet, but the Feds can pretty well demonstrate that he got over $20,000 worth of unreported "value" from VECO (a large part of that was apparently polling services) ... and the word is that there will be lots more on the plate when the indictment is actually presented. He had served the state for decades as its "other Senator", but resigned to "come home and take over the Governor's job". Then ... although the law has been changed to try to keep something so embarrassing from happening again, as Governor he had the right to fill vacant U.S. Senate seats; even those that he just vacated! So he appointed his daughter Lisa!!! No nepotism in Alaska! It looks like he may not have done her any favors though as she has allegedly been caught with her hand in the cookie jar as well; for, among other things, diverting taxpayer funds to a road to her home!

So the curtain is apparently falling on two of the biggest political family acts in Alaska: the Ted and Ben show and the Frank and Lisa show.

Let's see ... in the "sure, I'll have some" department I've discussed our U.S. Representative, Don Young (the list of his alleged scandals is lengthy, but also includes VECO bribes), our current U.S. Senators, Stevens and Lisa Murkowski, our prior Governor/Senator Frank Murkowski, the ex-president of the State Senate and son of our Senator for Life, Ben Stevens. Those are the biggest names on the "take" list ... they are also the biggest names in state politics! Or were before the name "Palin" surfaced :-)

Others that have been hammered include Frank Murkowski's Chief of Staff Jim Clark (who also cut a deal with the Feds to narc out more folks). The former Speaker of the (State) House, Pete Kott was sentenced to six years in prison. Former State Representative Victor Kohing got a three and a half year sentence. Former State Representative Tom Anderson got five years.

There are several people who have either been indicted or very publicly named as on the take. That includes former State Representative John Cowdery who has been indicted for taking bribes. Former State Representative Bruce Weyrauch will be going to trial soon - Bill Allen says VECO bribed him as well. Oh, Trevor McCabe; he was hooked up with Senator Ted and was apparently the recipient of "scam" money procured by Ted.

There are ... several others who are almost certainly going to be charged. There are rumors swirling about a few more. And almost certainly there are some that are guilty that simply aren't going to get caught.

So that's the situation to date. One of the main planks on which Sarah Palin ran for Governor was to bring these people to justice [these folks were, bottom line, engaged in a conspiracy to steal Alaska's resource wealth] and one of the reasons she had a 90%+ favorability rate is because ... unlike every other politician who had made that promise ... she did it.

Commander Palin

October 18, 2008
Commander Palin

I know we were talking about Obama, but I ran into a post elsewhere that irritated me so I'm doing a quick "response" for those who might be confused enough by the blather to believe the idiot (I'm sorry ... but that poster is an idiot, not just uninformed like many).

The post denigrated both Palin and Alaska's National Guard (and her relationship and responsibilities regarding it). So let me get some facts out there for those who are legitimately uninformed (given the news media "misinformed" may be more common), but in either case please be aware of the following:

Alaska's National Guard is the elite Guard force in the country and the elite of the elites of all arctic fighting forces and is universally considered to be so among those who know about such things. The U.S. Marines (as well as the Army) send their troops up to be trained by and to learn from our National Guard.

America's first line of missile interceptor defense (protecting the entire U.S.) is the 49th Missile Defense Battalion of the Alaska National Guard and Sarah Palin, as Governor of Alaska, is the Commander in Chief of that Defense Battalion.

As such, she is (and was long before any veep candidacy was even considered) routinely briefed on highly classified military issues, homeland security, and counter terrorism by the federal "powers that be". It is an entirely different situation from any other state governor because in most states the national guard is a sort of minor afterthought. In Alaska, it is a big thing and a major part of America's defense system.

In fact, Sarah has a higher classified security rating than EITHER Obama or Biden! She is already entrusted with more national security information than either of them are allowed! (In fact, I have wondered a bit at some of her early apparent "airheadedness" in interviews regarding the international situation and national defense ... and I've come to believe that she was really unsure at first what, if anything, she was allowed to say.) I assume that got cleared up as she has since shown she can certainly hold her own in that arena (even with an acknowledged foreign affairs expert like Biden during her debate with him). She has been taught to keep a secret and she does so. If it is one she is sworn to uphold (such as regarding national security or foreign affairs) she, as a matter of character, would rather be viewed as an airhead than to reveal anything that she shouldn't.

As a result, I think she simply clammed up and accepted looking dumb until she was definitively briefed on where that line was. (If you recall, she was the last of the four candidates to be briefed because she was the last announced and had not gone through the formal security briefing that the candidates all receive at the time of those early interviews ... and she already knew stuff that they couldn't and therefore didn't tell Obama or Biden because of her clearance level. So, I think she simply had not had a chance to get a definitive determination on what she could and could not reveal at that point ... she was thrown into this thing in such a surprise whirlwind that there probably just hadn't been a chance for it before the press got their hands on her.) This paragraph is conjecture. The others are not.

This one is not conjecture either: she met with McCain in February (!) ... and no one ever knew about it (except the tiny handful of people involved). This is a lady that can keep a secret! (In fact ... only tangentially related, but remember how long she kept her recent pregnancy a secret!) She can be trusted with our national security secrets. And, indeed, she already is.

I found it interesting that in his interview regarding her, Major General Craig E. Campbell who was the Major General and head of the Alaska National Guard (and therefore reported to Palin), noted that Palin had ordered troops and helicopters to Louisiana to help with the hurricane damage just the week before the interview. She didn't check with any federal agency or ... anyone. She received a request for help from the Governor of Louisiana and she deployed our troops and 'copters to help out. Even from here we probably got there and did more good more quickly than the federal folks! [You really should see the interview ... he says much more, and says it much more eloquently than I ... as he knows a lot more about it than I.]

But the Major General reported to Palin, not to the President or anyone else. Until and unless the Guard is nationalized (which happens on occasion - eg: our troops in Iraq), she is the sole Commander in Chief. And she was (is) an active and involved one ... even visiting our (Alaska's) National Guard troops in Kuwait long before anyone had considered her for the veep seat.

Those people who claim that her assertion that being Commander of the Alaska National Guard aided her foreign policy knowledge and experience is fluffery and that she was a "Commander" in name only; that it didn't mean anything substantive ... are either uninformed, misinformed, or intentionally misinforming.

She still knows things about our national security that Obama (and Biden) do not, and are not allowed to know!

Thank you for letting me clear the air on that. I feel better now :-)

Post-Debate: McCain's Only Chance Now

October 16, 2008

Post-Debate: McCain's Only Chance Now
He lost the debate ... at least in the mind of the public and they are the ones that ultimately decide these things. He is way behind, depending on which poll you follow. Time is about out. He has, absent an unexpected major event, only one realistic chance, imho. That chance is that the following (well researched, well documented) article is widely read and understood. This issue was raised briefly many months ago then it "disappeared" from the punditocracy. Somewhat to my surprise (I was dubious when I first looked into it) it appears to be accurate and a potentially serious concern. (Also I now have some thoughts and theories on why the Islamic world is keeping mum on it until after the elections).

There aren't many life-rings left to throw to McCain's campaign. If you agree with this please tell everybody to come and read and add what they know in the comments section. I'm sure there is much that can be added to this and your comments will help the spreading of this understanding to gather momentum. If you (intelligently) disagree ... if you can find where I've made mistakes of fact or logic ... please tell me that also! I'm not on a witch hunt. You'll see I've not been totally supportive of McCain if you read some of my other posts. I have an open mind here. Convince me and I'll change it!

This is a critical issue! If this is right, we don't dare elect Obama! And ...

Uurgh. I can tell this blog is getting too "heavy". I know these are critical issues, but sometimes a little humor is necessary to take the edge off. So take a couple minutes and watch this "thoughtful commentary" on electing Barack Hussein Obama! :-)

Back to "heavy". This really is a critical issue. And the campaign season is nearly over. It really may be that if people understand (the post below this), McCain wins; and if they don't, Obama does.

Barack Hussein Obama -- Insult to Islam?

October 15, 2008
Barack Hussein Obama -- Insult to Islam?

This evening's debate is the big political news. So as a registered contrarian I won't really talk about it today :-) I'll comment afterwards, but Barack will win. McCain will pull his punches and only get out half his words and Obama will have him for dinner. Unless ...

Unless McCain asks the one question that will scare Obama into stutters.

"Are you ridda and if so do you understand the international ramifications?"

Ok. Look. I'm not a wingnut. I don't believe that Obama is [intentionlly or under U.S. law] a Muslim and has been lying to us. I don't believe he was born overseas and is therefore ineligible to be President (although I'm still researching that one for fun :-) I don't believe he attended terrorist training camps.

Obama acknowledges that his father and stepfather were Muslim.

In Islam the religion of the father is the religion of the child

Obama has rejected Islam as his personal religion and claims to be Christian

Indeed, he has been slammed by the right-wingers for attending an (admittedly radical, but still Christian) Christian church for the past 20 years or so. Indeed, if I'm right, it would be better for him to convert to Islam! There is no reason we can't have a Muslim as President.

By renouncing Islam and claiming to be Christian, he has committed apostasy (called "ridda" in Islam). That is not a uniquely Islamic concept; most religions and certainly the Christians also claim that one who rejects their religion, eg: Christianity, is an apostate. But the Christian response is generally more benign than the Islamic one.

Nor is there a "universal" Islamic response. It varies from country to country and sect to sect. But it is universally a "big deal" in the Muslim world.

Even without a fatwa, the punishment is death in many Islamic countries and the cultural movement is towards a stricter interpretation and harsher penalties. This is true even in such critical countries as Pakistan and carrying out that punishment is the sacred duty of all Muslims. But it appears likely that fatwas will indeed be issued.

As I understand it, electing Obama would be an insult to Islam, Islamic peoples and the entire Islamic world. Countries the U.S. thinks of as friends, will be insulted. Some of the greatest and most respected contempary scholars and teachers of Islam still say that apostosy should carry the death sentence and is a more heinous crime than murder. Doubtless there are many Islamic governments who would rather deal with Obama than McCain. But even in the most secular Muslim country, there will be enormous pressure from the religious powers not to deal with a country led by an apostate. Moreover, there appears to be a movement towards applying Islamic law (sharia) in even secular countries.

Please understand ... an apostate is very different than an infidel. We're constantly called infidels by some in the Islamic world. We're used to it and think of it as no big deal. But an infidel is just one who has not yet seen the light. Essentially a pagan, if you will. Christians who were never Muslims are infidels, but not apostates.

Granted that this is not Obama's "fault". But hey, there is nothing inherently "fair" about the world. It isn't Obama's "fault" that he is an innately tremendous natural orator. It isn't McCain's "fault" that his mouth and brain aren't always in sync when speaking under pressure. This has nothing to do with "fault". But what is, is.

If things are as I understand them to be (and Obama has been honest regarding his religion), international relations relating to the Middle East will be very difficult if he is elected. Some countries we have considered "friends" will not speak with Obama. Indeed, U.S. participation in peace talks, negotiations, anything related to the Middle East, may be curtailed. [Not that I wouldn't mind a four or eight year break from having to deal with that part of the world ... but it isn't realistic and it would be extremely dangerous.]

In fact, Obama may not be physically safe in Islamic countries. [Or anywhere else, although to some extent that comes with the job regardless of your religion.]

I am bewildered at the lack of Islamic uproar about this to date. Possibly most "Joe six-pack" Muslims [yes, I know - just looking for a little gallows humor] in Turkey or Kuwait or Iran don't know (or care) enough about Obama to even be aware of it. But certainly the leaders, both secular and religious, of Islamic countries are aware of this. There are only a few possibilities that I can think of to explain it.

One is that it honestly never occurred to them. I find that difficult to believe, but it is possible. The second is that Barack is indeed lying and really is a Muslim and just pretending to be a Christian (and the powers in the Islamic world know this and have kept it quiet. In (particularly) radical Islam such lying is acceptable if it serves the greater Islamic good (in this case, having a Muslim as head of the Great Satan). I don't believe this. It just sounds to wing-nuttish. The third possibility is that I'm wrong. That is certainly possible. If you find an error in my facts or logic, please advise! The fourth possibility is that the entire Islamic world would so much rather deal with Barack than McCain that they are all just tacitly ignoring this "inconvenient" fact. If so, I have to believe that it will be raised after the election by, say Iran, in order to try to further the schism between the U.S. and the Islamic world. In other words, out friends aren't saying anything because they want to deal with Obama badly enough to "overlook" or intentionally "not notice", and our enemies are not saying anything in hopes that he is elected so that they can then use this against us.

It is mildly interesting that I attempted to post a comment [as a true and respectful seeker of knowledge of Islam]on Al Jazeera's online English language site asking that question and the moderators wouldn't print it. I followed it up with an email to them asking the same question, noting that I understood why they might not want to publish the question on the site. I haven't heard back from them either.

Those are the only reasonable possibilities I've been able to discover. Everything else sounds distinctly like something from the paranoid fringe. For instance, there is a dedicated segment of the population who I think of as paranoid conspiratorationalists who believe that this is ALL a setup by the puppet masters that really pull the strings in this world. Under that theory, Obama was selected to be elected by the international community of puppeteers and that this is just part of a larger program for bringing down the U.S. and globalizing the world. That theory has been around since at least the '60s when it was a somewhat popular left-wing rant. Indeed, the wingnuts from both the left and right seem to often see this issue similarly but from completely different perspectives. The extreme right-wing thought the attack on the World Trade Center was appropriate because it represented all that was wrong in the world: this conspiracy to globalize and internationalize everything. The extreme left-wing thought it was the right thing because it represented the conspiracy by the giant corporations to take over the world and turn us all into a corpocracy.

I don't believe those theories. I'm truly not wing-nutty enough. But I'm running out of other explanations :-)

I hope (!), especially since it appears that he is going to be elected, that I'm flat wrong. If so, please tell me where I glitched either facts or logic.

Otherwise, we have a problem of Biblical (and Koranic! :-) proportions.