MOMocrats Guest Contributor/Former West Virginian Roxane Dover: In Memory of Sen. Robert C. Byrd

Living in Silicon Valley while penning this tribute to my late West Virginian Senator, I note that part of my appreciation for him parallels my appreciation for living here, in this land of start-ups where you can screw up and start again.  This is the land of opportunity and of momentum, of forward-thinking and of constant change.  In my view, the late Senator Byrd modeled all of those things that make Silicon Valley great.  He had some reprehensible moments in his younger life, but he asked (and found) forgiveness for it; and he modeled a commitment to the greater good that many of today’s politician’s lack.  Like me, a child of a coal miner, Senator Robert C. Byrd cared deeply about poverty in America, and his legacy of good works will be long-lasting.  Here is my humble tribute:

Growing up in West Virginia, I could be assured of two things: church on Sunday and Robert Byrd in the Senate.  First elected in 1959 when my mother was only 12, Senator Byrd was elected to his ninth term in the Senate three years ago despite his advanced age (he died at 92).  This spoke volumes about West Virginia’s commitment to the man dubbed “The King of Pork,” a term that will offend all but West Virginians.  Byrd had some despicable things in his past – I’ll write about those in a moment – but, above all, Byrd had a commitment to improving the lives of my fellow West Virginians.  He called it what it was: poverty.  And he did everything in his power to make life a little less poor for West Virginians, spearheading the pouring of Congressional appropriations into the state -- which, to this day, has the best roads in the nation.  Why?  Highway repair and improvement creates jobs, and Senator Byrd knew that; he brought billions of dollars to West Virginia though a myriad of federal projects.  West Virginia scored the FBI fingerprinting lab among other top-dollar projects because of his hard-lobbying for our poor little state.  Bluntly, West Virginia will be set back decades without him.  It took that long, at least, for him to wield the power that he did to direct money to our state.  And frankly, Jay Rockefeller (also D-WV), the state’s other long-term Senator, doesn’t hold the same sway despite his prominent family name.  (Perhaps this is because he is not “from” West Virginia but, rather, carpet-bagged from New York.)  For a state that has little to offer other than its coal and an equally-steady export of people – for there are no jobs – harder times are ahead.

BP Oil Spill -- Where Do We Go From Here? Where Do I Go From Here? A List of Proactive Steps

My kid ADORES Legos. And yet--

Eleven people dead from the Deepwater Horizon explosion in addition to 41 oil-industry related deaths and 302 injuries between 2001-2007. Oil-covered pelicans. Dolphin carcasses choked with oil.

Legos are made with plastic, a product that requires petroleum in its manufacture.

And there, in a nutshell, is everyone's addiction to oil. It's woven so completely in our lives, in our kids' favorite toys, the convenient sandwich bags we use, the useful stain-free fabric in our upholstered car seats, in our prettifying makeup. To divest ourselves of these things feels like removing joy, ease, or what's surely a minor, harmless, and pleasing indulgence from our lives. No wonder we resist.

What this devastating disaster for the Gulf has made us do is look at ourselves. Both to see what we can do to help, and to see how we're part of the problem.

Michele Bachmann, Corporate Avenger. And She's Not Alone.

Never one to miss a good media moment, Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann made it clear at a Heritage Foundation Luncheon that she was there to lead the way in protecting BP from getting "fleeced" in connection with damages claims as a result of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy.  That's right, a company who was able to pay its CEO 3 times in salary what it spent on safety and compliance needs someone to stand up and protect it from the "illegitimate" claims of fishermen who are out of work, probably permanently, as a result of corporate recklessness and negligence.

By now we are used to nonsense flowing from Rep. Bachmann at about an equivalent rate to the oil currently spewing out from the blown Deepwater rig.  But the thing is, Rep. Bachmann is not alone in this sentiment, and may just be playing smart politics from the right's perspective.  And that should make us all take notice.

At the start of today's House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on the spill, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) issued his own apology.  But this apology was not aimed at the American public, or even the "small people" harmed by this disaster.  This apology was issued directly to BP CEO Tony Hayward for the tragedy of his company being subject to the $20 billion "shakedown" announced by the Obama administration and BP yesterday.

Listen carefully and you will hear a common narrative emerge from both Rep. Bachmann and Rep. Barton, and that is a narrative proclaiming a willingness to pay only "legitimate" claims.  The thing is, there is no reason to believe that the claims made so far by anyone effected by this country's greatest environmental disaster in the Gulf have been anything but legitimate.  It's just that Bachmann and Barton would like BP and its insurers to be the primary authority for what is and is not a "legitimate" claim.

And if I was protecting corporate interests, so would I.  Over ten years have passed and claims related to the Exxon Valdez spill are still winding their way through the courts.  Just recently the Supreme Court knocked down a significant portion of those damages claims, which now sit at less than $550 million.  Under the guise of Chief Justice Roberts the Court has shown a growing hostility toward the rights of individuals when matched with the "rights" of corporations. 

This "shakedown" by the Obama administration results in an independent arbitrator deciding victim compensation, thereby circumventing the kind of judicial manipulation made possible by battalions of lawyers and infinite resources.  It reflects the kind of pragmatism that usually gets the president considerable criticism by the left.  But in this case, that kind of pragmatism might just be brilliant.

Planes, Trains Automobiles & BP Boycott: All a Red Herring

This is what I've heard about the BP oil spill in the Gulf from a variety of sources, and like me, I'm sure you've noticed everyone is taking every chance they have to say something (now, including me):

On June 14, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) sent a message that read:

While the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico gets worse by the minute, BP continues to dodge the tough questions about what went wrong and what they're doing to fix it.    

It's time we got some straight answers. If BP won't give them of their own free will, we must compel them to do so. This week, 18 of my colleagues and I introduced legislation to grant President Obama's bipartisan investigative commission subpoena power that will allow it to uncover the unvarnished truth.  

. . .

As the slick approaches more than a hundred miles in either direction, the economic and environmental costs are seemingly immeasurable. Thousands of Gulf Coast residents have already had their livelihoods stolen from them and the region is losing billions in economic productivity. Equally heartbreaking is millions of acres of wetlands -- forty percent of all the wetlands in the country -- that are at risk in the Gulf of Mexico and the hundreds of species threatened by the spill, some possibly with extinction. 

This bipartisan commission is our best chance to determine what really happened and to protect us from future disasters. I hope you will stand with me today and send a message to Washington that New York and the nation expect us to act. 

I know you share my empathy with the citizens of the Gulf Coast and the concern for the workers that are helping lead the clean-up. Thank you for standing with me as we search for the truth about what caused this tragedy and to help heal the region. 

On June 15, President Barack Obama gave a speech about the oil spill and our the "battle plan" for making this right:

On April 20th, an explosion ripped through BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, about forty miles off the coast of Louisiana.  Eleven workers lost their lives.  Seventeen others were injured.  And soon, nearly a mile beneath the surface of the ocean, oil began spewing into the water.

. . .

Already, this oil spill is the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced.  And unlike an earthquake or a hurricane, it is not a single event that does its damage in a matter of minutes or days.  The millions of gallons of oil that have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico are more like an epidemic, one that we will be fighting for months and even years. 

But make no mistake:  we will fight this spill with everything we’ve got for as long it takes.  We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused.  And we will do whatever’s necessary to help the Gulf Coast and its people recover from this tragedy. 

Tonight I’d like to lay out for you what our battle plan is going forward:  what we’re doing to clean up the oil, what we’re doing to help our neighbors in the Gulf, and what we’re doing to make sure that a catastrophe like this never happens again. 

(Go read the battle plan here.)

Daily, I get entreaties from friends via a variety of mediums (largely social media sites) to boycott BP.

I'm not going to do that.

Where Do We Go from Here? Baby, You Can Drive My Car.

This post by Karoli is the first of the MOMocrats series, Where Do We Go from Here? about the lessons of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf.

As I write this, I'm watching the oil industry undergo the requisite drilling grilling by appropriately outraged Congressional Democrats and laughably sympathetic Congressional Republicans. Thoughts race through my mind, criss-crossing the dialogue. As industry executives flatly declare that all is being done which can be done, thoughts fly.  "Do these people live in the real world? Do they understand what has happened here? Are they so wanton, so craven, that they can shrug off what they have done?"

Do they understand that we are close to turning the Gulf of Mexico into a dead zone? Do they? REALLY?

If they did, you'd think no one would be trying to lift the President's six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling.

If they did, you'd think they'd hammer down that moratorium and forbid any more fracking and cracking of the delicate sea surface until they figured this out.

If they did, they'd be scrambling to make investments in something other than oil.

In the Wake of the Gulf Oil Disaster: Where Do We Go from Here?

As devastating pictures of sullied waters, ruined beaches and oil-drenched wildlife continue to inundate our television and computer screens; as the idea sinks in that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill devastation is not over, and will not be over next week, or next month, or next year, or this decade, not even if some new feat of technological acrobatics finally succeeds in fully stopping the still-flowing leak; as we realize that the damage from this unprecedented ecological disaster may well permanently alter not only the vital ocean and wetland ecosystems of the Gulf, but also the lives of millions of people who depend, in one way or another, upon those ecosystems for their livelihoods and lifestyle, here at MOMocrats, we ask ourselves: where do we go from here?

BP's deliberate, mindful neglect of safety procedures in the name of speed and profit appears to have been the most immediate cause of the Deepwater Horizon explosion. The federal government's lax enforcement of its own oil drilling regulations allowed BP to get away with such negligence, on a far too regular basis, for far too long. When it comes to casting blame in this crisis, there are real people we can point our fingers at, people we, the victims of this disaster, can accuse by name, who committed real and terrible mistakes in their reckless desire to profit from our nation's hunger for oil. And those people should be punished for their selfish negligence.

Work. Life. Policy.

MamaBee recently opined about her ambivalence about work life policy and her upcoming BlogHer panel with Morra Aarons-Mele on the same.

MamaBee wondered: Wearing my manager hat, I bristle at the idea of government involvement in how I manage my employees.  How can government possibly understand the unique needs of my business and workers?  I’m all for legislating anti-discrimination and family policy — equal pay; affordable, high-quality childcare; and paid family and sick leave, for example.  But I’m having a hard time getting my mind around how the government can practically be involved with flexible work.

I wonder how we can continue without government intervention. I’ve no doubt that MamaBee is a terrific manager but that’s my point: she is one manager. For most U.S. employees, your work life balance, your ability to telecommute, to have flextime or comp time, to have paid time off, or to job share, is only as good (or bad) as your manager, your department head, your unit, and/or your company. Most of us are one job reclassification, downsize, merger, acquisition, or reorganization away from instantaneous disappearance of our work life policies.

BP Lies, Again and Again. Where Are the Consequences?

A video, courtesy of the National Resources Defense Council, cataloging several of BP CEO's Tony Hayward's most egregious gaffes and falsehoods regarding the Deepwater Horizon oil spill:

In the first hours after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20th, British Petroleum officials claimed there was no oil leaking from the broken well head, and that the oil seen in the water was a small, residual slick that had leaked from the rig itself as it was destroyed.

Days later, BP announced that there were 1,000 barrels of oil leaking from the well per day. BP continued to publicly cite that estimate for several days, even as the U.S. Coast Guard, using data given to it by BP, estimated that at least five times the amount BP claimed -- 5,000 barrels -- must have been leaking from the well daily.

When journalists and independent scientists looking to verify the flow rate asked BP for video of the leaking well, BP refused, repeatedly, until May 13th, when it finally released a 30 second video. Just one day later, scientists who had analyzed the brief video came to a grim conclusion: the Deepwater Horizon oil well might actually be leaking anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil daily.

Go Read This: Waiting for Obama (Is There a Community Organizer in the House?)

MOMocrat Queen of Spain nails it. Read Waiting for Obama now.

This is our country. Let's help clean it off and fix it. College students on summer break. Seniors who can take long blocks of time and travel to the Gulf. Families who might be persuaded to take a family volunteer vacation to the economically and environmentally devastated Gulf to help in some way.

Yes, a thousand--no, a million times YES! Yes we can help the Gulf, Mr. President. Just let us know how. We're all sickened by what's happening there to our brother and sister Americans and to the plants and animals. Let's do something truly patriotic, and get volunteers shoulder to shoulder NO MATTER WHAT PARTY, to save this cultural and ecological treasure that is the Gulf.

Sure, we know OFA is there to help with the November elections. But we also know OFA was able to organize people quickly and easily for the National Day of Service that this administration promoted. We'll be there in November, but the Gulf needs us now and let us be there now to help there too.

Let us rise to the occasion. Call us to our higher selves. It's not enough to be angry at BP or to use every instrument of governmental power to hold this corporation legally accountable. It's time for BP to pay for skilled work to be done to clean up the Gulf, *and* for organized volunteers to help however they can.

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k once in a blue moon.

A MOMocrats Fable for June, LGBT History Month

Once upon a time, there lived a child who was born anatomically female, but who insisted that everyone in kindergarten call her George. George never wore skirts. George loved to skateboard and scooter, and you couldn't really do that comfortably in a skirt. George ADORED race cars.

George also insisted he was a boy. A sweet kid, a dreamy, pale, ethereal kindergartener, most days George wore a favorite baseball cap to keep longish bangs from poking into his eyes.