I agree Mary this is a joke...

Ahh the good old government. Well at least the president can tout that he settled with BP...wonder just how screwed up we'll find the gulf in 4 years....The eco system in alaska still hasn't recovered from the Exon spill and all you see on tv is ads BP puts out saying how fantastically revived the gulf states are...what joke...BP is probably high fiving all the way to the bank...our gov and president are a bunch clowns.

Well the Court says Corporations are persons. So we all know every criminal on the street gets to negotiate with the gubmint as to how they will be prosecuted and what their punishment will be. And the gubmint alwasy does wht the criminal wants. Here in the gulf states, BP has been running ads about how they are spending billions on the gulf clean up and for the good of businesses. Like it was their idea as good citizens. They were ordered to spend that money. They killed those 11 guys, sank a monster sized oil rig, killed millions of animals and fish, ruined thousands of people's lives because they took unwise shortcuts in their drilling operation to save $200,000 a day in equipment costs. Engineers on board and in sub-contractor's offices were screaming not to do what they did, and they killed people anyway. And now the gubmint is going to let them take a write off of their fines, which is another way of saying let the US taxpayers cover a major junk of their fines. Everyone should get your gas from anyone other than BP, let them write that loss off too.

I haven't went back to BP since the spill and I vowed to NEVER go back ever again!!

Persuasive. I agree. But the only one who may have lost his job title is the old PG Chairman who referred to the "little people". He was retired, lavishly of course. So though he lost his job title, he still lives like a Baron. Other than that you are right - those fellers never lost a paycheck.

Mary, Mary, MARY Jones of course >>> NO one is going to jail at BP NOR any polititions nor any DOE (BIGGGGGG DOGGGGGZ neithurrrr yuno) <> AFTER ALL now, WHY SHUD THEY??? THEY WUZ just "FILLING" they POCKKKETZ as wuz "PROMISED" to THEM!!!

BIG BRO SAYS & NOSE thaa "THEY ALL COME FIRST/LAST/ALWAYS <> BEFORE MEXIMERICANSZZZ!!!""""" SAAVY?Comprende"/DIG???

Same here addy121. Hell I haven't ever used Exxon, and when the merged with Mobil, I ceased using them too. Oil and tar still covers areas of the Exxon Valdez spill.

BP should be made to pay hundreds of billions in fines and all management should get at least 10 years jail time. They covered up how bad the leak was, lied repeatedly to federal, State and Local Gov't, and worse, the US citizen directly affected by the preventable disaster. They ruined the ecosystem, killing millions of animals, and destroying human lives, and caused (and will cause) cancer in people exposed to their dispersant, a known carcinogen. Cancel any current gov't contracts, revoke all drilling permits and set a 20 year moratorium on issuing any new ones to BP or any subsidiary. Maybe then they will take their actions and inaction's seriously, because based upon their commercials claiming how great a job they are doing in the Gulf (friends who live there have given me first hand accounts of how much BS these ads are) show they are still lying or are self delusional.

Remember also that CASTROL is BP, so every time that you buy a bottle of oil of CASTROL, you're buying BP.

What most people lose sight of is that if it were not for the fact that the blowout preventer failed to work, there would not have been this massive spill. That blowout preventer was not designed by BP and it was not their responsibility to maintain it. The blowout preventer was designed and built by Cameron International and it's maintenance was the responsibility of Transocean who was the rig operator. I am by no means saying that BP does not bear some responsibility for the disaster, but it would do people good to remember there were other companies involved who were just as responsible, if not more so than BP. The problem is that most of these companies are pretty much unknown to people outside of the industry so they are essentially getting a pass in the mainstream media coverage. BP is the name everyone knows so they are the ones taking the biggest hit in all of this. BP has also reached settlements with some of these other companies, letting them off the hook for a fraction of what they otherwise might have been liable for in part for PR purposes and in part to help keep these companies, which are vital to the industry as a whole, from going under completely. After all, there are quite a few oil companies but not many that make blowout preventers. If a company like Cameron were to go under it would have severe repercussions for the operations of BP and many other oil companies.

Mary Jones, I would not assert that no one will go to jail. Man slaughter is a serious charge that will be a federal charge in my opinion so they could be handed a six year sentence in a federal prison which would not be a country club. As for the fine it is my opinion justice will be served in this instance. Had this been another administration that I won't mention under the MMS of DOI there would not have been manslaughter charges and the fine would have been minuscule. I know first hand from working the Buschard 120 oil spill off the coast of MA back in the early 2000 era. This administration has sent a message and set a precedent. I cannot recall when manslaughter charges were presented against workers of an oil company nor a record setting fine. I commend DOJ for their aggressive pursuit of BP for this tragic oil spill. I would suspect other oil companies will act with prudence including Haliburton on any future or present offshore oil drilling ventures. We can clearly see the federal government is not in partnership with big oil like another administration was. Do you recall the MMS incident back in the early 2000 years? It was sex, drugs and oil during that era for the Minerals Management Services which has now been broken up in to two agencies.

What is not even mentioned is, off the Louisiana coast, there is a area of the gulf that is covered on the bottom with the oil, that sank because of the use of a chemical(that is banned everywhere else in the world); the area is dead, fish,crabs,shrimp,turtles,dolphin than stray into the area, soon die; there is no known way to clean it up; the government was warned by all the top Marine scientists in the world, not to use it to sink the oil; however the head of the mines division of the dept. of interior(whose background was a secretary to a powerful senator), overruled them and caused a unbelievable disaster, She has since retired, the damage is done ,experts say the area will be a dead zone for at least 50-100 years, it covers several hundred sq. miles.

"The Obama administration could be cutting a deal that allows BP to write off much of the fines as a tax deduction," Rep. Jo Bonner, R-Ala., said in a statement in October. "What's more, the bulk of the penalty collected by the federal government would essentially be walled off from local control to be doled out as the administration sees fit."

Flashback: same results of suing the "Wall Street Fat Cats" for Mortgage Securities FRAUD.

Heck, you can use this as a template for any other DOJ court case.

It is going to be interesting to find out what happens when the remaining BP oil plumes rise and wash to shore.

"And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;"

BP...harbingers of the Apocalypse.

$4.5 billion doesn't begin to cover it and is an affront to all of us.

The Gulf states are up $20 Billion and counting for minimal environmental costs to a body of water they didn't show the least environmental concern over prior to 2010. Tar balls washed up routinely when I lived there back in 1990s, along with couches and refrigerators.

BP money has purchased everything from new police cruisers to ipads for local governments along the Gulf.

It's a shame the US has chosen to treat our British allies like this. Their economy, and their pension funds in particular, are heavily invested in BP's success. Fleecing BP creates ill-will toward American business interests abroad, and could cost the US economy at some future point.

If corporations are people now, how come they don't go to jail too?

They probably lost more than 4.5 Billion dollars in the amount of oil spilled into the Oceans. What is that amount? A weeks pay for the entire company? EPA you are a F-U-C-K-I-N-G JOKE! You offend me as well as the Department of NO JUSTICE. The reason Lady Justice is blindfolded is not to the see all the governmental bribes by Corporations/People.

Thanks for selling out America, Douche Bag Democrats! I want my damn vote back, you Communist Prick! And if you think I'm voting for a Republican, you've lost your damn mind, too!

After HOW MANY YEARS of fighting in court? Charge them double... miserable, polluting bastiches.

I'd rather the U.S. get $4.5B revenue than have to pay to house white collar criminals that probably have already learned their lesson. They were hurt in the pocketbook pretty badly. That's $4.5B in tax that middle class families don't have to pay!

JS in SD, did you miss the fact that BP knew that the blowout preventer was faulty before it was installed? It's amazing how some people make up the excuses that they do.

Great now we can buy a new gulf coast.

What is that, like 10% of their profits in any given year? How much is it costing to clean up? Oh yeah, that's what we have taxpayer dollars for, so companies like BP can run roughshod and lawless to maximize their profits while everyone else foots the bill.

If there was ever a Tragedy of the Commons, it is the way the US Government bails out crooked companies.

Actually, I take that back. It is not the US Government, it is the Hijacked Government of America, hijacked by an International Band of Thieves that call themselves "Bankers and Investors" while hiring lobbyist to do their dirty work.

Lobbying should be a felony in the US, period. If this were happening in a country such as Russia, we'd call it what it really is, Bribery.

kind of curious who believe should be in jail? Some of you are rediculous in your demand toward personal justice... Prosecution has to get 100% agreement from the jury for a conviction... Sorry, I don't have that kind of confidence, especially when so much of the evidence and witnesses are not longer available.

This is a good... don't know if the $ is enough or valid. Being the largest does make it reasonable.

.

The attorneys loved this law$uit

I'm sure their buddies in congress will find a way to give them more than that in special perks. They can't make their good friends angry they might loose money in bribes.

Since corporations are people my friend, the company should go to jail.

Every dime of profits for the next 10-20 years should go to Uncle Sam just like a prisoner who's sentenced to hard time. Their CEO's also should be doing some jail time also.

These companies want to be treated as people, we need to treat them just like one of us.

Huge fine!??

Give me a break.

This isn't even a single quarter of profits for these monsters.

What they've done is beyond criminal. If I were religious and I believed in sin, I'd say they should be punished by hellfire.

@BrainCandy-3328906 - They knew of no such thing. There is no way that BP would have knowingly allowed the installation of a critical piece of equipment like a blowout preventer knowing that it was faulty. Either site a source for your outrageous claim or go crawl back under your rock. You sound like a typical troll making things up as you go along. You hide behind the anonymity of the internet and make libelous statements that you know full well are false. There would be absolutely no reason for anyone associated with this rig to do what you are claiming.

Listen to yourself. BP undertook an inherently dangerous business pursuit to create value, and capture the petroleum you rely on for energy.

They pay taxes and hire many Americans in well-paying jobs. Their management took some shortcuts on an ambitious project, and the Gulf was slightly dirtied for a short time. Having lived on the Gulf, I recall the population largely being in favor of dismantling the EPA, and I also recall tar balls washing on shore, and garbage everywhere, but hey, that's neither here nor there. BP is being punished.

Pension funds traditionally invested with BP because of their reliable dividend. Wipe the elderly retired people out? Cause the blue collar men and women who work on BPs rigs to lose their jobs?

Pay more at the gas pump yourself? Keep in mind other countries are looking to us to set liability precedents for our oil companies operating on their soil and in their waters.

I'm just saddened by the hypocritical indignation on this board. It's as though this is the first time you've witnessed an institution make a mistake!

Hellfire? WTF?? You use their gasoline to drive to work--all of you do, even if you boycott BP franchised pumps! You get government services provided by BP tax dollars! Some of you will be heated tonight with gas provided by BP. Just chill out and save your hate for people who destroy value-not those who made a mistake trying to create it.

They do but it always the minority share holder son. Old Circus fire case.

In addition, two BP employees have been indicted on manslaughter charges and a BP executive has been indicted on charges he lied to authorities about his work estimating the Gulf spill rate.

Only two indicted on manslaughter charges for the horrible deaths of 11 men??? ...sigh...

i hate bp.

JS in SD, that fact on the blowout preventer was one of the first facts to come out about this spill, while it was still in progress. As well as other faulty equipment on the platform that management continually ignored. Facts aren't something you choose to believe or disbelieve, they're just facts. And these facts have been backed up by several sources. Where the hell were you at when this was going on?

So, when will the hearings begin about how incompetent the government was during this whole disaster?

Where is the outrage about how Minerals Management Services (MMS), now known as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE), was complicit in its incompetence?

Since its inception in 1982 this service has been involved in numerous scandals. In 2009, the apparent conflict of interests in the MMS regarding collecting royalties and overseeing safety, problems began.

In 2008, reports from the Department of Interiors Inspector General, dozens of officials of the MMS were implicated in criminal conduct. It was found the employees used cocaine and marijuana, and had sex with energy company representatives. According to the investigation, MMS staff had also accepted gifts and free holidays they labeled as a “culture of ethical failure”.

In 2010 another inspector general investigation showed that MMS regulators in the Gulf region had allowed industry officials to fill in their own inspection reports in pencil and then turned them over to the regulators, who traced over them in pen before submitting the reports to the agency. MMS staff had routinely accepted meals, tickets to sporting events, and gifts from oil companies. Staffers also used government computers to view pornography.

MMS's regulatory decisions contributing to the 2010 oil spill included, in negligence, the decision that an acoustically controlled shut-off valve (BOP) would not be required as a last resort against underwater spills at the site, MMS's failure to suggest other “fail-safe” mechanisms after a 2004 report raised questions about the reliability of the electrical remote-control devices. And the fact that MMS gave permission to BP and dozens of other oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico without first getting required permits from the (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that assess threats to endangered species and to assess the impact the drilling was likely to have on the gulf.

In 2010 MMS was changed to three separate divisions, BOEMRE being one of them.

To date the only government casualties are a regional supervisor of the Gulf region for MMS who pled guilty and was sentenced to a year's probation in federal court for lying about receiving gifts from an offshore drilling contractor. In 2010 Elizabeth Birnbaum, director of then MMS, resigned

Another example of incompetent government oversight, collusion and corruption and yet nothing is done.

Yes, BP is complicit, but so is our criminal government. This $4.5 billion should go to all the American people suffering because of our governments incompetence. Of course this will never happen. The government will pocket this money and leave the Gulf region to continue to wallow in their problems.

Just like we’re leaving hurricane Sandy victims to fend for themselves.

Saxon-

The dead zone off of Louisiana is at the mouth of the Mississippi river and has existed for a very long time. Most scientists agree that the oil spill had a minimal effect on it as it is too far away from the impact zone. It is mostly the result of human pollution traveling down stream in a huge river system that extends throughout the middle of the country and through much farmland and many industrial towns and cities. Should we hold our cities and farms to the same standards?

You people need to get a grip. BP was heinously wrong. The disaster was a mess for all of us who live on the Gulf Coast and another unwanted disaster after Ivan and Katrina. That said, BP has shelled out enormous amounts of money and many poor towns benefited and are still benefiting from BP money. The clean up efforts brought people in droves into the economy and ridiculously high paying jobs were offered to local people to aid in the clean up effort.

As for the environmental effects, no doubt this was a tragedy but the gulf has proved resilient thus far. I worry about long term effects but remember, this is not the Valdez incident. It did not happen in a small bay but in the 9th largest body of water in the world that has proven to be very resilient in the past.

Having been directly effected by this I do not take my business to BP however all of you rattling your swords and spouting how criminal this is may want to take it down a notch. BP was wrong but, here where we have been seen the effects of this first hand, they have gone out of their way to try to compensate for their mistake.

Hey before another chair get lynched in the South. There's a back story to the BP gulf oil spill.

ONCE AGAIN: Deregulation to Blame for Another Tragedy.

The evidence is in: Halliburton, Dick Cheney, secret energy task force meetings and massive Republican deregulation has once again led to tragedy. The April 20, 2010 Gulf oil spill is yet another story of careless, reckless deregulation and corruption under the Bush administration which has led to loss of life, destruction of wildlife and the environment, loss of income, and more. The full impact of the oil spill is still unknown, but the environmental and economic fallout from the massive spill is mounting quickly.

Evidence is mounting up that the oil spill in the Gulf is the result of a tragic sequence of equipment failures – but ultimately, all of them should have and could have been caught, had the rig been regulated properly. It turns out that tens of thousands of offshore rigs are barely regulated, a result of Dick Cheney’s private energy meetings and interference with the Department of Minerals Management Services, which regulates the off shore drilling. The MMS is also responsible for collecting the billions in royalties from the oil companies and is the same agency that was investigated and found to be doing cocaine and having sex with oil executives. Their judgment regarding the necessity of regulations was clearly not impartial.

“The oil well spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico didn’t have a remote-control shut-off switch used in two other major oil-producing nations as last-resort protection against underwater spills.The lack of the device, called an acoustic switch, could amplify concerns over the environmental impact of offshore drilling after the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig last week….. regulators in two major oil-producing countries, Norway and Brazil, in effect require them. Norway has had acoustic triggers on almost every offshore rig since 1993. The U.S. considered requiring a remote-controlled shut-off mechanism several years ago, but drilling companies questioned its cost and effectiveness, according to the agency overseeing offshore drilling. The agency, the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, says it decided the remote device wasn’t needed because rigs had other back-up plans to cut off a well.”

A report commissioned by the department of Minerals Management Service (MMS) in 2003 said that remote acoustic systems were useful when the primary shut-off pipe device has failed and are also useful in depths greater than 10,000 feet. What changed their minds? Environmentalists postulate that Dick Cheney’s secret Energy Task Force influenced this critical decision not to mandate the acoustic switch. It’s also worth noting that The Dept of Interior MMS under the Bush/Cheney administration were busted for doing cocaine and having sex with oil industry executives, a fact that may have um…impacted their objectivity, shall we say? As well as their willingness to be persuaded to see things in a manner advantageous to the oil companies (and by oil companies, I mean Dick Cheney “Maximization of oil profits is a stated goal of his (Cheney’s.”).

Environmental lawyer, Mike Papantonio, said on the Ed Schultz Show that Cheney’s Energy Task Force determined that the shut off valves were a burden on the industry.

While many countries do not require this switch, many oil companies use the switch without being required to do so. At the cost of $500,000 per switch, the fact that several companies use this switch willingly gives weight to the valve efficacy argument and makes the Dept of Interior’s claim that the switch has not been proven effective suspicious.

In the hours leading up to the spill, Halliburton was pumping cement into the well, which was supposed to block any oil or natural gas from surging out through the drill piping. They then capped with the (now infamous Halliburton) cement plugs, which are designed to stop gas or oil surge inside the pipe. The last plug was still missing just before 10 p.m. on the 20th when the oil began its now fateful surge through the pipes.

In September 2011, the U.S. government published its final investigative report on the accident. In essence, that report states that the main cause was the defective cement job, and put most of the fault for the oil spill with BP, also faulting Deepwater Horizon operator Transocean and contractor Halliburton.

It's time the people who continually post 'drill baby drill' take ownership and accept the law of unintended consequences that falls upon all people because of the disregard for safety and logic over the overwhelming demand for greater profits for the already wealthy.

illumination fascination-3070427:

An acoustic cut off switch would not have accomplished a thing in this accident. The switch, as its name implies is simply an automatic switch that sends a signal to close the BOP. In the Deepwater Horizon accident, the BOP did attempt to close, but failed, so an additional switch on it would not accomplish a thing. It would be analogous to having a motion activated switch onto a light bulb that is burnt out. It would not matter how many switches or ways to trigger the light bulb on if it was burned out.

The government should be fined to for allowing any company to drill in the ocean, imagine when the greddy pigs start drilling in the frozen arctic and they have an oil spill no biggy they can pay a fine , and dont forget the laws are made by the rich for the rich, we are just sheep to fill their corrupt pockets.

BP isn't going to pay this fine. Anyone stupid enough to pull up to one of their gas pumps will be paying this fine. If you have a credit card, shred it. If you have vapors to get to another station, do it.

We may not know for years what this has done to the eco-system. In the meantime, they will be far and away from the problem and never look back. It's just like in the movie Erin Brokovich. Would like to catch them all some nice fish from the area and sit them all down for a nice, quiet dinner. Just for them!

nawtark, the Valdez was a minimal amount of oil comparatively to this. We are talking a ship of oil compared to a minimum (experts say) of 77,000-80,000 gallons a day for 83 days! BIG difference.

JS in SD is wrong on the blow oup preventer. Braincandy's response is correct. Also I would like to second the quetion: where were you when all this was exposed in the news ? Cause like all the other cost items in the project they cut corners everywhere. They used single piston preventers when their competitors in deep water were using dual piston units. They "saved" a $100k or so on that one decision. Ha Ha ! Now thy take credit for spending billions on clean up like they were doing us a favor or something. All proof that the multi billion dollar project managers who want to take credit for being job creators and more can be stupid little "savers" after all. Don't forget to honor the dead in April on the anniversary of their murder by their corporate bosses.

Hey Geo...

One estimate of the amount of oil that was leaked was 210,000,000 gallons. The gulf holds 643,000,000,000,000,000.000 gallons of open water. I know how big the spill was and have first hand experience examining the effects both at the coast and close to ground zero. I am not happy about it. It is still a far different scenario than the Valdez incident.

and i understand what you are saying about a smaller area of water. I am not trying in any way to minimize the spill in Alaska. I even have heard that some oil naturally leaks into the waters at times from fissures, etc. (I don't know if that is true, but I have read that). I guess the point I was trying to make was the one you were making about still dealing with the Exxon spill. The gulf may be dealing with this and may not know how bad it was for years to come. I think were on the same page, we just turned it at the same time...!

"What's more, the bulk of the penalty collected by the federal government would essentially be walled off from local control to be doled out as the administration sees fit."

...now ya see it.....poof.... now its gone.......

jeff sutter

Let us pock your pickets

......... again

Hilarious. That's like saying Exxon paid for the Exxon Valdez. BP isn't gong to pay a dime either. Lawyers will get hundreds of millions, the gov, it's billions, and the tax to pay them will be applied at the pump.

David, and don't forget. The Gulf will still be a filthy mess.

I'm sure BP wishes they didn't have to deal with someone they don't own. THey did their best to try to get people they knew they could manipulate by contributing lavisly to the likes of ERik Cantor and JOhn Boehner. THis is a REpublican company!

If anyone's interested in a source http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/64093.html

Just because a Republican says so does not make it fact. What we tend to do that is so infuriating is to come to judgement before anything actually happens.

@ anti trust I read the story. It says large fines and criminal charges. But They may have updated the story. I see they changed the headline.

Yes, the story has been updated since I posted my earlier comment. At the time of my posting, they were still "working" on a deal according to the story. No "final" deal had been announced. I feel that more people should have been held criminally responsible (including management of the rig operator, the manufacturer of the blow-out equipment, and any/all other BP partners in the venture. They also should all be held financially responsible for every single aspect of the damage caused by the spill and that is the point I was trying to make in my comment.

Once the Federal Government has taken BP's money, that money no longer counts as BP's net income.

It's a tax "write-off" because it was 100% taxed. It was all seized by the Federal Government.

That a Republican congressman is making a big deal out of this means either he is stupid, or more likely, he wants to grab more free money for his constituents from hard working British citizens.

That's low.

@ maryjones: don't know how you can say at this point no one goes to jail. manslaughter charges are filed but no one has gone to court yet. what you state may come true but that statement is premature.

and to all the bp and oil industry apologists on the vine back during the disaster i state a resounding:

HAW!

I agree. I recall reading a while back that BP pretty much viewed getting fined for lack of safety as the cost of doing business. Maybe it was from another oil spill they caused and was heavily fined. I can't remember exactly where I heard/read it. I do know it was before the Gulf spill though.

I haven't been to a BP ever since. Nor do I use Castol oil.

When the US government has been grossly negligent in the past (i.e. using members of minority groups in medical experiments, various wrongful imprisonments, property seizure, etc) we've always looked at the case carefully, and if we determined that those running the US government knew what they were doing was wrong, and did it anyway, then we had to dismantle this whole "USA" operation.

No deals. Seriously Zapper. America screws the pooch all the time (WMDs?) why is BP so unforgivable in your world? In all these commenters' make-believe worlds? Glass houses and stuff.

JD, you have too much faith in the honesty of corporations. They are profit motivated. Period. Our Congress helped them along by not insisting that they practice sound extraction practices and we got what we got. This is what being Big Oil friendly translates into. Disaster. Disaster every single time.

relax: Just because people do it, and have done it for years, doesn't make it right. If we actually start doing the "right" things, we might eventually come up with some "right" answers. Unfortunately, English is the only language where two positives can make a negative: "Yeah, right."

One other thing: I don't believe in forgiveness. I see it as permission to do whatever one more time.

BTW, last I heard Exxon never paid their penalties for the Exxon Valdez oil disaster in Alaska, either. It still doesn't make it right. See what forgiveness leads to?

Sad but true.

I was trying to figure out how you were applying the 14th Amendment to this issue. Then I looked at americanhistory.about.com and found the following in how the COURTS have extended the "due process" portion of that amendment to corporations.

Key Clauses of the 14th Amendment

Four principles were asserted in the text of the 14th amendment. They were:

1. State and federal ciizenship for all persons regardless of race both born or naturalized in the United States was reaffirmed.
2. No state would be allowed to abridge the "privileges and immunities" of citizens.
3. No person was allowed to be deprived of life, liberty,or property without "due process of law."
4. No person could be denied "equal protection of the laws."

Over time, numerous lawsuits have arisen that have referenced the 14th amendment. The fact that the amendment uses the word state in the Privileges and Immunities clause along with interpretation of the Due Process Clause has meant that state as well as federal power is subject to the Bill of Rights. Further, the courts have interpretated the word "person" to include corporations. Therefore, they too are protected by "due process" along with being granted "equal protection."

While there were other clauses in the amendment, none were as signficant as these.

why john c. shame on you for saying such cynical things about our sacred job creators. you just might hurt their feelings and they'll move off shore.

all hail the job creators, for they do no wrong!

...and yet, Travis probably votes Republican.. Go Figger!

don't know if that's true, but those were my thoughts exactly, neut.

Jerry, ultimately the US taxpayer.

dave, dave. did you read the article?

"We apologize for our role in the accident, and as today’s resolution with the U.S. government further reflects, we have accepted responsibility for our actions.”

not that i'm a defender of bp, but this statement is very concrete and unambiguous.

Hey Randy, California is like a big bowl of granola, "what ain't fruits and nuts is flakes!" get my drift?

Yes Tom! And several generations of my family migrated to California from Oklahoma and Tennessee via West Texas....here in California we call it evolution!

No, Rmoney would have apologized to BP and offered to give them billions in taxpayer money so BP wouldn't have to give up any of its precious profits cleaning up their own mess.

Actually it does. Gulf, in particular, has a very rich ecosystem of bacteria that uses oil as carbon source for itself. It will disappear and rather quickly.

Remember when the oil spill happened that it was OUR President Obama that got the oil companies to agree to fund 20 billion to help the people that was effected by the ol spill. The republicans cried that how dare he hold the oil company to help the people. I realize that it is going to take a while to get the gulf back to normal but BP has put out 20 some billion unlike Exeon under a republican adminstration that let them fight it out in court and then years later end up with nothing. One of these years the people are going to wise up and the republican party is going to be a has been. I am amazed that there is so many americans in the top 1%. Look at the last election there must have been at least 60 million of them that stood up for the 1%.

jonny c, wuuunnnnnt no ???????? bou right urr rong here den wuzz dere Brer Bear!!! JUSSSSSS BIGGGG BROZZZ way n' uncle SAMMMMIEEEES continuous broken (PAYY'yumm sum-mo$ under-thaa-TABLE QUIKKKKKLYEE) B-FO sum-budddiee ELSE NOTICES the GREEN RIVER "FLOWING"-OVER-FLOWING!!!

Someone should treat this person.

Nice try, PR headquarters of BP.

hey siegfried! people are not assuming criminality on the part of bp. no assumption needed because pb has ADMITTED CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY. please try actually reading these articles before commenting.

quote from above: bp will... "plead guilty to manslaughter and other criminal charges as part of a settlement with the U.S. government over the deadly Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and massive oil spill"

ps: you can be held criminally responsible for something by doing something intentionally OR by failing to do what is reasonable in a situation. there WERE individuals on the platform who were very worried about their own safety because they knew of risks that were being taken. some of the people who chose to take the risks were not on the rig and never would be. your blind faith in industry and the human organism needs glasses.

Dan-

I don't know what state you were in during the oil spill but I can assure you much was being done by people in all these states when I was in them. Truth be told, just after the spill NOBODY had any answers... even Kevin Costner proved to be fruitless in his aid... ;) Trying desperately to pin this on Pres. Obama is a stretch and creeps in that partisan talk in a non-partisan issue.

Actually the Republicans were sucking their their pipes right in front of millions TV viewers and were not ashamed just like a bitch hoes that they were.

SRBINAT, are, not were.