Life Imitates Art – Jersey Style
[w/Update below]
I figured my outrage was exhausted, after reading today’s Bergen Record story about corporate blackmail by polluters who poisoned the Passaic River (and NY Harbor) with dioxin.
Corporate polluter Tierra is suing local governments in order to pressure DEP and the NJ Attorney General’s Office to stand down on their lawsuit seeking to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, – click on an see:
Taxpayers on the hook? Big legal bills ahead in fight over blame for pollution
Officials from towns caught in a costly lawsuit that claims they’re responsible for polluting the lower Passaic River say it’s unfair that taxpayers will have to foot the growing legal bill.
But a spokesman for Tierra Solutions Inc., which in February 2009 sued more than 70 towns and cities — including Paterson, Hackensack, Newark and Clifton — said the company never wanted the court battle and blames the state for suing it in the first place.
But then I came across this BP scheme to buy scientists – and yes, I do consider corporations seeking to buy scientists and supress science as worse than blackmail:
Watch it and Check it out: BP tries to Buy Gulf Coast Scientists
And yes, similar things are happening here, but more subtly and behind the scenes inside DEP and other high places in Trenton.
[Update: The corporate abuses never seem to end – looks like BP is extorting liability waivers in exchange for compensation checks, exactly the OPPOSITE of what Obama pledged – Let’s go to the video tape: President Obama Claimed Escrow Fund From BP Would Not ‘Supersede’ Rights to Present Claims in Court, Feinberg Says It Will
Someone needs to ask President Obama why Ken Feinberg is directly contradicting him on claims against BP and those with claims giving away their right to sue later and being forced to sign a piece of paper with a BP lawyer there to receive a check.
Feinberg is doing nothing but liability damage for BP if everyone has to sign off not to sue to receive a check right now. That is not how this was painted by the Obama administration. I’d like to know where the rest of our media is on this besides Ed Schultz.
Right.
(well at least I found some good news – Star Ledger reports: Atlantic Green Power gets land use approval for 14.4 megawatt solar farm)