West, Texas Fertilizer Plant fined $118,000 by OSHA for explosion that killed 15 and injured 160

Remember this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDMmOpfvyWw

Well, check out just how much this company ended up having to pay for their negligence.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued 24 citations to the West Fertilizer Company for serious safety violations found in an investigation following the deadly explosion there in April.
Fifteen people were killed and more than 160 were injured in the April 17 blast. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D – Calif., announced the citations on a conference call with reporters Thursday morning.
Boxer, who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, is heading the charge at the Capitol to determine whether regulations were followed at the fertilizer plant ahead of the April blast. She said the owner, Adair Grain Inc., will have to pay $118,300 in fines. The citations were issued Wednesday morning, Boxer said.
The explosion, which left a crater 90 feet wide and 10 feet deep, caused more than $100 million in property damages, according to a report by the Insurance Council of Texas. More than 200 homes were destroyed or damaged. In May, a $1 million investigation by state and federal officials did not find a concrete cause for the explosion.
The fire did begin in the plant’s seed room, which backed up to an ammonium nitrate storage bin. The location housed 150 tons of the chemical, of which between 28 and 34 exploded. The force of the ammonium nitrate explosion was equal to 15,000 to 20,000 pounds of dynamite exploding.
Boxer said she scheduled the conference call because she is concerned that inspections of facilities housing large amounts of chemicals are lagging due to the government shut down.
“I’m stepping in here in the hopes that, as a result of my telling you these things, maybe another explosion could be prevented,” she said.
The citations, which Boxer repeatedly described as “serious safety violations,” are for, among other things, unsafe handling and storage of anhydrous ammonia and ammonium nitrate. OSHA found poor labeling of ammonia storage tanks as well as replacement hoses that were not tested for pressure.
The West Fertilizer Co. was found to have inadequate relief valves and no barrier protection around the ammonia piping. There was no respiratory protection program, OSHA found, nor were there appropriate fire extinguishers. Forklift operators were not property trained and the fertilizer plant did not have a hazard communication program or an emergency response plan.

16 people die, 160 are injured and huge number of people are put out of their homes and businesses; and the only thing this company has to pay is $118.000?!?! This is an outrage! Angry The owners of this company ought to be brought up on murder charges for their negligence.

However:

The investigation into the West explosion is ongoing. More fines are possible, Boxer said.

I won’t hold my breath, least I turn blue and die. As you all know, I am a Paleoconservative of the Pat Buchanan stripe. However, there is one thing that I cannot stand and I have been known to speak out against it on here; and that crony capitalism. This was nothing more than a corporate whitewashing of an ugly accident by the Texas office of OSHA, in concert with this company.

I think that if the Obama administration was worth a tinker’s damn; that he would order a full investigation by the justice department and see if there was any criminal liability on the part of the owners and if so, see if charges could be brought against the owners of this company. Sixteen lives were snuffed out, because the owners of this company could not be bothered to follow OSHA’s rules. This is unacceptable and something should be done.

However, because we have a President and an Attorney General, who are nothing more than a bunch of “House Negros”, nothing will be done at all. Waiting

Hmmmmm: NSA Director Alexander Admits He Lied about Phone Surveillance Stopping 54 Terror Plots

Looks like the Obama administration is continuing with the same stuff that the Bush administration did.

Quote:

The head of the National Security Agency (NSA) admitted before a congressional committee this week that he lied back in June when he claimed the agency’s phone surveillance program had thwarted 54 terrorist “plots or events.”
NSA Director Keith Alexander gave out the erroneous number while the Obama administration was defending its domestic spying operations exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden. He said surveillance data collected that led to 53 of those 54 plots had provided the initial tips to “unravel the threat stream.”
But Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Wednesday during a hearing on the continued oversight of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that the administration was pushing incomplete or inaccurate statements about the bulk collection of phone records from communications providers.
“For example, we’ve heard over and over again that 54 terrorist plots have been thwarted by the use of (this program),” Leahy said. “That’s plainly wrong,” adding: “These weren’t all plots and they weren’t all thwarted.”
Alexander admitted that only 13 of the 54 cases were connected to the United States. He also told the committee that only one or two suspected plots were identified as a result of bulk phone record collection.
via Controversies – NSA Director Alexander Admits He Lied about Phone Surveillance Stopping 54 Terror Plots – AllGov – News.

New lies for old. There is no difference anymore. Hence why I am not voting Republican come 2016, unless something changes drastically on that side of the fence; and I know darned well I am not voting for a Democrat, ever again. 😡

Video: Republicans are turning on Ted Cruz

As I wrote on here before — twice, the Republican picked the wrong game to play here and now, they’re paying for it. Not to mention that the Republicans have been utter hypocrites on the entire Obamacare issue.

The Story:

A Republican congressman said Monday that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is largely responsible for the first government shutdown since 1996.
Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that while he believes many individuals are at fault, including President Barack Obama, he said Cruz and others who bought into the quixotic campaign to defund the Affordable Care Act “took a lot of folks into the ditch.”
“But if I had to cast blame anywhere, I would say it was Sen. Cruz and those who insisted upon this tactic that we all knew was not going to succeed,” Dent said. “What he did essentially, Sen. Cruz, basically, he took a lot of folks into the ditch. Now that we’re in the ditch, you can’t get out of the ditch, the senator has no plan to get out of the ditch, those of us who do have a plan to get out of the ditch and will vote to get out of the ditch will then be criticized by those who put us in the ditch in the first place.”
Dent said that he will continue to urge House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to bring a “clean” continuing resolution — one that includes no language to undermine the health care law — to a vote.
via GOP Rep Blames Cruz For Shutdown: ‘He Took A Lot Of Folks Into The Ditch’ (VIDEO).

The White House blinks?

(H/T Ace)

Depends on who you ask.

Via HotAir.com:

After weeks of insisting it won’t negotiate on either the budget or the debt ceiling, a top White House adviser said this morning that Barack Obama would sign a short-term lift in the latter to gain more time for a longer-term agreement.

Via WaPo:

President Obama would accept a short-term increase in the federal borrowing cap , rather than one lasting a year or more, a senior White House official said Monday. The statement was an acknowledgment by the administration that it may not be possible to reach a deal on a long-term increase in the debt ceiling before a critical Oct. 17 deadline.
Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council, said members of Congress ultimately have the responsibility to decide how often they want to raise the debt ceiling, although he argued that an extended hike is preferable. …
The Treasury says it will run low on cash in as little as 10 days, placing the nation at risk of a historic default. Some Republicans have suggested that if Congress can’t reach an agreement by Oct. 17, they might try to forge a coalition to support an interim measure to increase the $16.7 trillion debt ceiling for as little as six weeks.
Sperling’s comments Monday suggested that the White House would accept such a measure. The statement was notable because administration officials had rejected a short-term debt ceiling increase during a similar impasse in the summer of 2011, when the White House insisted that the debt limit be increased to cover borrowing through 2012.

Boehner is staying on message. Check out this video via CNN, and notice how they attempt to make the Republicans look like the bad guys?:

National Journal explains why Obama and the democrats have to work with the Republicans:

Obama has at least two incentives to talk. First, there is the matter of optics. Voters want to believe that their leaders are open-minded, a trait they particularly expect in a president who promised to change the culture of Washington. Obama simply undermines his credibility by stiff-arming the GOP. Their obstinacy is no excuse for his. During the last protracted government shutdown, President Clinton talked almost every day with GOP rivals Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole.
Second, Obama has an opportunity to deftly steer an embattled and divided GOP away from Obamacare and to an issue worthy of high-stakes negotiations: The nation’s long-term budget crisis. While it’s true that the deficit has dropped in recent months, nothing has been done to secure Social Security and Medicare beyond the next 10 years. Punting this red-ink quandary to the next president would mar Obama’s legacy.
In April, I wrote that both the White House and the GOP House had incentive to strike a deal that would both raise taxes and trim entitlement spending. The story traced the outlines of such a deal, but the moment was lost. Boehner doesn’t trust Obama and is worried about a revolt from his no-compromise caucus. Obama doesn’t trust Boehner and is worried about a revolt from his no-compromise caucus. The House speaker reportedly raised the idea of a so-called grand bargain at a White House meeting last week, and got laughed at. That is the exact wrong response.

So, we’ll see. Hopefully this shut down ends quickly. As I am sure these people; like my friend John —- would like to get back to work. I say this because of this right here: I am all for political principles. However, stopping Government for the sole purpose of furthering those principles is just unacceptable in the real world. James Antle has it correct; Republicans need to play the long game, and not this sort of stupidity. It is only hurting people that have nothing to do with the political process.

There is a fine line between political principles and blatant idiocy; wise is the man that knows the difference between the two.

Excellent Reading: Jim Antle asks: “What’s Wrong With the Republican Right?”

This is some excellent reading here. I just wish more of the Republicans AND Tea Party types would read it and listen:

No longer will it suffice for Republican politicians to come to Washington and compile respectable, or even stellar, ratings from conservative groups. If federal spending is ever to be restrained as the baby boomers enter retirement, we will need politicians who are willing to employ unconventional methods in the fight.
Conservatives need rebels and boat-rockers, not conformists and time-servers. So I argued in my recent book on the political prospects for limited government. Sen. Ted Cruz would seem to fit the bill. The Texas Republican has been a one-man demolition crew, aiming his wrecking ball squarely at Capitol Hill’s customs and conventions.
But, surveying the scene in Washington, is Cruz an example of the old saying about being careful about what you wish for?
via What’s Wrong With the Republican Right? | The American Conservative.

One part that I really like in particular:

To be sure, in politics it sometimes pays to consider the long game. Barry Goldwater lost in a landslide in 1964, giving the Democrats the supermajorities they needed to usher in the Great Society. But in time, the GOP became Goldwater’s party to a far greater extent than Nelson Rockfeller’s.
Ronald Reagan lost the fight against the Panama Canal Treaty, just as he failed to win the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 or 1976. But Reagan’s subsequent victories are remembered long after most of those who had earlier beaten him were forgotten.
It would be premature to count Cruz out over a fiscal impasse that has yet to reach a decisive conclusion. But it might be worth asking a few hard questions.
Is the current confrontation likely to reverse or materially change the Affordable Care Act? Is it moving public opinion against Obamacare or against the Republicans? What is it accomplishing?
Perhaps if the answer is simply that it is raising Ted Cruz’s profile, it will still benefit conservatives over the long term. Since Goldwater and Reagan retired, the right has long lacked figures who can compete on more or less even terms with the Doles, Bushes, McCains, and Romneys of the world.
But it should not simply be assumed that this answer is good enough. Conservatives once fought Republicans whose “dime store New Deals” were only incrementally different from what the Democrats proposed.
Over time, they began to rely on things like American Conservative Union scores to assess lawmakers’ fidelity to principle. Groups like the Club for Growth emerged, challenging the business interests that had traditionally run the Republican Party for influence in the primaries.
Today it is no longer enough for most conservatives to have a Republican who will vote with them most of the time. Conservatives insist on politicians who will fight when it counts most. And they realize that some fights—Obamacare, the Wall Street bailout, the Gang of Eight immigration deal—matter more than tax breaks for hedge fund managers.
There is one more step in this evolution: evaluating whether conservatives are actually producing results. Too often, conservatives measure that by the volume of liberal outrage a Republican political figure inspires.

I believe that every last person that even remotely thinks about getting into politics of any sort; ought be tied to a chair and forced to read that part right there until he can recite it by memory!

I suggest you go read the rest of that one; it’s good. I don’t want to quote the entire thing here. We need more thinkers and less reactionaries in that party. Plus too, I said the same thing, when it comes to the long game. Jim Antle gets that; and that’s a good thing. 😀

Video: Democratic Party Senator public relations FAIL!

When I saw this, I simply said one thing: HOLY MOSES! 😯

The quote, via the Washington Free Beacon:

DANA BASH: You all talked about children with cancer unable to go to clinical trials. The House is presumably going to pass a bill that funds at least the NIH. Given what you’ve said, will you at least pass that? And if not, aren’t you playing the same political games that Republicans are?
HARRY REID: Listen, Sen. Durbin explained that very well, and he did it here, did it on the floor earlier, as did Senator Schumer. What right did they have to pick and choose what part of government is going to be funded? It’s obvious what’s going on here. You talk about reckless and irresponsible. Wow. What this is all about is Obamacare. They are obsessed. I don’t know what other word I can use. They’re obsessed with this Obamacare. It’s working now and it will continue to work and people will love it more than they do now by far. So they have no right to pick and choose.
BASH: But if you can help one child who has cancer, why wouldn’t you do it?
REID: Why would we want to do that? I have 1,100 people at Nellis Air Force base that are sitting home. They have a few problems of their own. This is — to have someone of your intelligence to suggest such a thing maybe means you’re irresponsible and reckless –
BASH: I’m just asking a question.

Right about now; if I were anything closely related to the Democratic Party — leadership, strategist or whatever — I would be ordering a double of some very strong liquor. The Democrats will never, ever live that one down; ever.

Update: Now a memeorandum thread.

Others: Weekly Standard, Hot Air and The Lonely Conservative

This is why the GOP needs to wise up about this shut down

Because we are going to lose businesses. Government shutdowns hurt everyone, not just those in Government employment.

The Story:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Business leaders have failed to persuade their traditional Republican allies in Congress to avert a government shutdown. And they fear that bigger problems lie ahead.
That’s driving business leaders to take sides with a Democratic president whose health care and regulatory agenda they have vigorously opposed.
President Barack Obama is embracing the business outreach. On Wednesday, Obama is set to host chief executives from the nation’s 19 biggest financial firms.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has sent a letter to Congress signed by about 250 business groups urging no shutdown and warning against a debt ceiling crisis.
The partial closing of the government and the looming confrontation over the nation’s borrowing limit highlight the remarkable drop in the business community’s influence among House Republicans.
via Associated Press.

This is why I sort of thought that this shutdown was a bad idea. What the Tea Party Reps in the house forget is that the Republican Party’s biggest constituents are business owners; big and small. This could hurt the GOP in a huge way. Now, while I think that Obamacare was a bad idea; I happen to know that the GOP lost the battle, it is now law, affirmed by the supreme court. So, why not play the long game, and try to actually win elections in 2014, and 2016 — including the White House? Then, once that happens, try to tweak the Affordable care act to make it a bit less intrusive and get rid of the mandate.

What the Republicans are doing now in the house is basically going to undermine any attempts to win any sort of an election come 2014 and 2016. In other words, the Republicans in the house are playing the wrong game for the situation. However, the truth is that Harry Reid could bring up what the house sent, for a vote; which wouldn’t pass. But he is playing political games and keeping the government shut down to make a point. This will work against the Democrats in senate and the house and will play against whomever is running in 2016.

Simply put, this is an game of political brinkmanship, which is putting a good deal of people, like my friend John; out of work. It is not like the shutdown is going to stop Government totally, that is a farce. Simply Put, the Governmental employees who ARE out of work, should not be punished, because of the idiot divide, between the House and the Senate; it just does not make any sense and it is going to hurt those who actually campaigned to serve their Country as public servants.

In other words: Let’s cut the stupid stuff and get back to work.

Much like the Obama Administration: The DNC is Broke

Very interesting:

FORTUNE — There’s another budget crisis in Washington, and it’s unfolding inside the Democratic party. The Democratic National Committee remains so deeply in the hole from spending in the last election that it is struggling to pay its own vendors.
It is a highly unusual state of affairs for a national party — especially one that can deploy the President as its fundraiser-in-chief — and it speaks to the quiet but serious organizational problems the party has yet to address since the last election, obscured in part by the much messier spectacle of GOP infighting.
The Democrats’ numbers speak for themselves: Through August, 10 months after helping President Obama secure a second term, the DNC owed its various creditors a total of $18.1 million, compared to the $12.5 million cash cushion the Republican National Committee is holding.
Several executives at firms that contract to provide services to the party — speaking anonymously to avoid antagonizing what remains an important if troubled client — describe an organization playing for time as they raise alarms about past-due bills falling further behind. And senior strategists close to the DNC say they worry the organization appears to have no road map back to solvency. “They really thought they could get this money raised by the summer,” one said, “but the fact is, from talking to people over there, they have no real plan for how to solve this.”
via The Democratic National Committee is nearly broke – The Term Sheet: Fortune’s deals blogTerm Sheet.

This could be why here:

Sources close to the DNC say officials there have quietly laid the blame in part on the White House. It’s no secret that DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who also represents an area around Miami in the U.S. House, lacks strong relationships inside the administration. But it’s not even clear who at the White House should be minding the problem these days, following the exodus of President Obama’s top political brains.

Eh, serves ’em right for overreaching while they had the majority. If this Government shuts down and it does look like it is going to; the Democrats might not ever recover from it. Here is hoping that this is the case. The Republicans might end up eating it too. I mean, if you think that Government workers do not vote; think again. I have a friend, who works in the Government and right now — he is highly ticked off at both sides.

It should be interesting come 2014!

This is my problem with the current state of the GOP

In a earlier posting, I wrote some stuff in anger. Now that I have calmed down a bit. I have more to say.

Basically what I have to say is this: For all intents and purposes: I am finished with the GOP on a National level. They are not a conservative Christian party in my humble opinion anymore. If anything they are nothing more than an “Democratic Party Lite” type of a party. From this moment on, I will voting whatever third party I feel matches my own personal convictions.

It looks like the Republican Party might just end up making Ted Cruz the face of the GOP in 2016. I hope that I am wrong about this, but if I know politics like I do; the GOP will pick someone who is a reflection of their base and a reflection of current political winds. The GOP tried an establishment candidate twice before and they lost — they will not do this again. It is not that I do not like Cruz, I just believe that he wasted a good deal of time and taxpayers money grandstanding on a losing bet.

It is very strange what is happening in the GOP now. There are two factions: One faction is the Cruz faction that some call extremist. The ones that call him this are those that believe that Big Government Conservatism is a-okay; but I digress. The other faction is the old Neoconservative Big Government Conservative wing of the GOP. Both factions are entrenched and both factions are quite well funded. Both factions are working out of concert with the other.

As a result of this, Obamacare is going to get funded and we are going to get stuck with it. That is, unless the house of representatives does something and I mean something bold. However, the realist and the common sense part of me, sees this comment by President Obama and knows that he is correct:

I don’t know how I can be more clear about this: Nobody gets to threaten the full faith and credit of the United States just to extract political concessions. No one gets to hurt our economy and millions of innocent people just because there are a couple of laws that you do not like. It has not been done in the past. We’re not going to start doing it now.
I’m not going to start setting a precedent, not just for me but for future presidents, where one chamber in Congress can basically say each time there needs to be a vote to make sure Treasury pays its bills, we’re not going to sign it unless our particular hobby horse gets advanced.
Imagine if you had a Republican president and a Democratic speaker, and the Democratic speaker said, well, we’re not going to pass the debt ceiling unless we raise corporate taxes by 40 percent or unless we pass background checks on guns or whatever other list of agenda items Democrats were interested in. Does anybody actually think that we would be hearing from Republicans that that was acceptable behavior? That’s not how our constitutional system is designed. We are not going to do it.
The American people have worked too hard to recover from a bunch of crises _ several of them now, over the last couple of years, inflicted by some of the same folks in Congress that we’re talking about now _ to see extremists in Congress cause another crisis. And keep in mind, by the way _ this whole thing has to do with keeping the government open for a few months.

~~There is video of it on CSPAN, but for some reason, I could not cut it up and embed it here.~~ I guess someone at CSPAN must read my blog. Because here is that video:

That part that I bolded and underlined? The President is absolutely correct about and I hope like the devil that Ted Cruz and the Tea Party house members read this; and remember it. If they set a precedent, the Democrats will exploit it to their liking once they are in office. So, I would be really careful and really think long and hard about what they are about to do in the House.

It’s Official: Ted Cruz and the Tea Party lost the battle on Obamacare

All that work, and for what? Nothing. 😡

Senators from both parties linked arms to defy Sen. Ted Cruz, defeating his attempt to filibuster the stopgap spending bill and clearing the way for it to pass — including full funding for Obamacare — later Friday afternoon.
The 79-19 vote saw 25 Republicans join with all Democrats to advance, easily overcoming Mr. Cruz and his allies who had argued this was the key vote in trying to defund President Obama’s healthcare law.
Next up are votes to waive budget rules, to strip out the Obamacare defunding — which Democrats expect to pass on a simple majority vote — and then passage of the bill, which will also only require a majority.
At that point the bill would go back to the House, where Republicans are struggling to figure out a path forward.
“This is like the movie ‘High Noon. The two sides are walking down the street. I just hope that like the movie ‘High Noon,’ I hope the good guys win,” said Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat who accused Mr. Cruz and his allies of being anarchists, hoping to destroy governmentaltogether.
He said the country is facing a situation “every bit as dangerous” as the lead-up to the Civil War.
For Republicans, the rhetoric was more muted but the vote was no less weighty.
“Do we just give up?” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican who joined Mr. Cruz’s push to block the spending bill.
Without any action, the government’s authority for basic spending expires at midnight Monday, and operations such as school funding and national parks would have to cease.
The House has passed a bill to fund government through Dec. 15 but to withhold any money for Obamacare. If all goes according to Senate Democrats’ plans, they will pass their own bill that funds government through Nov. 15 and restores money for the health care law.
via Senate defeats Cruz filibuster, passes bill that funds Obamacare – Washington Times.

To tell you the blunt truth; I am so damned angry now — angry at the RHINO Republican establishment, angry at the liberal socialist far leftist Democratic Party. Angry at the ruling class in this Country; just damned angry at the entire damned thing.

This is what happens when people choose someone based upon his speeches and his personality and his SKIN COLOR! This is what happens when Republicans choose someone who could not win a damned election if his damned life depended on it! This is what happens when big Government conservatives rule a damned supposed party that defends the idea that the United States of America is a Constitutional Republic!

I am about ready to just pull the plug on this damned blog, and the old one; and just go on the damned Government dole and say to hell with it. I will be just like everyone else in this damned Country — a damned leech and if the Government collapses under the weight of socialism, and the money is no good anymore; I will just try to survive the best way I can. 😡

This is an outrage, John McCain, Mitch McConnell sold us out and now we’re stuck with that Communist healthcare plan. I can hear it now; when my parents get the notice that their healthcare plan with Blue Cross is cancelled and they are forced to join one of the exchanges and they end up paying MORE for the plan. I can hear it now, “What the hell?!??!?”

I will simply say to my parents: “That’s what you get for voting for a Democrat.”

We are officially screwed.

Enjoy the next three years people — because it is over for America.