Exxon:Powering fraud with corruption

Today in my law class, Tom Edwards a Alabama Supreme Court nominee, told our class about a case that made it all the way to the Alabama Supreme Court twice with the same verdict. I am talking about the case that started in 1999 and concluded in November 1, 2007 with a ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court siding with Exxon over the state.

It starts in Mobile Bay where oil rigs outside of the bay are drilling for oil. The rigs as you can guess are owned and operated by Exxon. Whenever Exxon sells gas from that came from these rigs, they are supposed to pay the state of Alabama in royalties. Some how or another they fail behind in their payments to the state. The accounting firm working for Exxon found the error and sent a memo asking Exxon officials what they wanted to do and the CEO of Exxon, according to Edwards, wrote back saying to do nothing and signed it with his initials. Exxon owed the state $50 million in backed royalties.

The state after finding out about the backed royalties filed a lawsuit. The first trial was in 1999 were the state obtained the memo with the CEO’s hand written directions and his initials. The jury of course found Exxon guilty and wanted to award the state with the $50 million in backed royalties while adding on $3 billion in punitive damages. The verdict was thrown out by the Alabama Supreme Court, “ruling that internal company documents shown to the jury were privileged and thus inadmissible (according to bloomberg.com).” The documents in question was the company memo. According to Edwards they named the papers, “privileged”, because of the lawyer confidentially laws. One problem with that is that Exxon did not go through a lawyer to write the memo. The memos were between the accounting firm and the CEO.

Non the less, Exxon was retried in 2003 and without the smoking gun the State would have a hard time convicting Exxon of wrong doings…or so you would think. The State still had enough evidence that the new jury wanted to give $63.8 million in backed royalties and awarded the State $12 billion! The judge lowered this back down to $3 billion since that was what was first decided.

You probably know what happened next don’t you? The Alabama Supreme Court (decided 8:1) threw out the $3 billion punitive damages and only awarded the State the original $50 that Exxon owed.”It’s a dangerous precedent for a state to be able to charge someone with fraud if you don’t agree with its interpretation of a contract,” Exxon General Counsel Charles Matthews said in the statement (bloomberg.com). It is dangerous to let billion dollar corporations do what they want to and cheat people out of contracts. To hold them accountable to their actions.

Edwards believes that the Court did this because Exxon cut them checks to help them get elected. They were worth the investment I would say. They helped Exxon save $3.01 billion. In Alabama, candidates do not have to list who gives them money or how much they gave. Edwards is running for a seat on the Alabama Supreme Court and has promised that he will not take such donations. I will hold him to that. His political opponents have already excepted such donations. If you have the money, the State of Alabama is for sell.

My friend Sam Neely brought up to me today when we were talking about the subject, that the PACT Program has recently ran out of money and has needed a bail-out. Proposals from the Alabama Legislature was of course to raise taxes. That $3 billion could have went a long way. Who am I kidding? It would have lined the pockets of people sworn to look out for the citizens they represent.

College Football: Preview and Predictions

Before we begin, let us not forget

(How we are going to rate this is I am going to give the winner with either a (+) or (-). (+) means the team will win by the number or more, (-) means that the team will win by that or less.)

The University of Alabama 2010-11 Schedule

vs.San Jose State- Bama will have no problem with this team but it is the first game of the season, mistakes will be made and a huge deal with the unveiling of the new Saban statue on the walk of champions. Do not judge how great this team is by this game. Bama by 15+

vs. Penn State- A long time in the making. In many ways this is a rebuilding year for the Nittany Lions, they are relying on a unproven quarter back who is a talent but very little experience but is only a sophomore so Bama is most likely going to see them next year in Happy Valley. Bama 15-

at Duke- Duke has given teams fits in the past few years but not usually the stronger SEC teams. Bama 20+

at Arkansas- Ryan Mallet is a stud QB that fits well into B obby Patrino’s system. He finished the season with 225-403-7 (completion, attempts, interceptions), 3,624 yards with 30 touchdowns. He averaged 278.8 yards a game and was one of the nations best QBs. However, when he came to Bama, Kirby Smart’s defense held him to around 35% completion rating. This year there are a lot of new faces in that secondary but I don’t think Arkansas’s defense can handle this running game. Bama 20+

vs. Florida- the re-rematch! Florida has seemed to completely reloaded and has a QB that might just make Alabama fans wish we had Tebow back. Bryant-Denny is the factor here with a new QB and expect the loudest game in Alabama history! Bama 10-

at South Carolina- The Old Ball Coach recently said that if he doesn’t win with this team then they won’t need to fire him. They have the best QB situation that SC has had in a while, its at home after a tough Florida game and SC has produced some of the best defenses in the SEC, look for this to be closer than anyone would like to admit. Bama 3-

vs Miss- Ole Miss thought that they had a national championship team last year and barely escaped with the amount of wins that they had. Had a huge lose at running back and I am not sure that this one is worth standing up for. Bama 21+

at Tennessee- Second coach in two years, this program is looking for stability that it is used to. They recruited decently despite coming in late. QB questions coming in, not sure how good that Offensive line is but this is Alabama vs Tennessee and the new head coach is one of Saban’s best friends. The score will not reflect the dominence that Bama will show. Bama no problem but low score. Bama 10-

at LSWHO-Bama 45+

vs. Miss State- They have a good coach that is back for his second year look for this team to be better but still not as good as they will be in 3 years if he stays. Bama 21+

vs. Georgia State-Bama 35+

vs. Auburn- Alabama will not sleep on this game again. Bama 28+

SEC Championship- Georgia is going to be the only team in contention to kick Florida out of the East and they are no where close this year. Georgia is still rebuilding after Bama tore the house down a few years ago. Bama vs Florida in the re-re-rematch. Side note: Bama and Florida are the two best teams in the nation and they will play each other twice in one year but the winner of the SEC Championship is the only game that truly matters because the winner (unless one of the teams has a second lose in the season) will go onto the national championship. Not fare but that is the way the cookie crumbles.

I have heard a lot of talk about Notre Dame on College Football Live and they are making a big deal that ND isn’t in the top ten. Why would they be? They haven’t been relevant since Lou Holtz. So you won some games in the 90’s and expect to be handed every game you play? No thanks. If they played in the SEC, the only competitive game they could muster is against Vanderbilt and Kentucky. ND will not win another national championship for a number of reasons. 1.) they suck, 2.) they are not in a conference, 3.) they suck! Maybe after this coach proves that he can not do anything but make ND a ordinary team that can only beat up on cup cake schools then people will be surprised only when ND breaks into the top 25.

I am interested to see what Boise State does this year now that they have their shot. This is arguably not even the best team Boise has put on the field but after ten seasons of eleven plus wins, they are finally in the top five before the season starts. Ok, they scheduled V.Tech which will be like a home game for V.Tech but if they win that game then that will be the only good team they will play all year. Boise needs to try to get in one of these stronger conferences that wants another team to add to really be considered as a power house.

Also, today on College Football Live, one analysts said UConn will be in the National Championship while the other said Boise State will be in there. So look for the most exciting National Championship game ever slept through. UConn vs. Boise State! This blog has better opinions than these two idiots.

This land is your land…

A huge thing that was talked about during the Health Care passing in congress was that the Dems were doing this huge political push just a few months before midterm elections. What the heck? Republicans were building this up as a death stroke for the Democrats and Reps are certain that they are going to gain many seats that they had lost in the prior election. I am having just a few problems with this but we will get to that later.

Tonight on Hannity, the topic was “What can the GOP do to regain control” or something to that effect. I have a colossal problem with this.

The Right Wing nuts such as Hannity, Beck and Limbaugh (picking on them because they are the loudest and most often the are the most wrong) it seems to be rallying an army for a counter offensive. I thought we were all on the same team. I didn’t know that the country is split into Republican or Democrat and what about us that are stuck in the middle? I am not going to vote for someone just because they have an R or a D by their name. Both parties have more than proven their ability to screw things up (can be argued that screwing up and vacation time is the only consistent thing about the parties).

I don’t like this idea that the GOP is going to, “regain”, control. These are elected officials, at the end of the day you are not in control of anything unless the AMERICAN people say so. Maybe instead of butting butt heads together in the Senate, you could go out to your constituents and ask them what they think. It seems the only time I hear from my representative is when they want either money or reelection. Maybe one day politics in this county will be run the way they were meant to be run. The founders of the country considered this a public service for their fellow man.

I understand that even when the country was founded, they were separated into their own parties that reflected their beliefs in how the country should be run. Its ok to disagree as long as your not being disagreeable. I don’t want the GOP to take control of Congress because the CITIZENS of AMERICA!! would not be fairly represented.

Why not just put your heads together and come up with a way to push this country in the right direction instead of holding it back? This is a country for the people, by the people, not the GOP Mr. Hannity.

What does Alabama have to do to win this season?

Got to stop that INSIDE TRAP!!!

No but seriously, A-day has just finished and just like any spring scrimmage we have to look at certain things. I don’t think anyone expected the team to look as crisp as they did against Florida.

Going in, a lot of people were saying that this might be the best offensive team that Bama has ever put on the field and I agree. Lets start with running backs, we have the returning Heisman winner, a Heisman candidate behind him, and two backs behind them that would be starting at ANY other program. Thats pretty good depth. At QB we got the undefeated champion in Greg McElroy who has learned from his mid season slump last year and is one of the best at managing the game. He understands that he has a stable of great running backs that he can dump the ball off to whenever trouble arrises. Behind him is AJ who is a redshirt Freshman!! Freaking sweet, no more are the days of Brodie Croyle going down and we are stuck with Spencer Pennington! AJ has a decently strong arm but can put a lot of touch on his deep throws that really spread the field. One small problem with him that he probably won’t learn until he has some true playing time, is how he manages the game. He held on to the ball a little too long in the scrimmage when he could have checked down to a running back. Bama is also loaded at the wide receiver spot as well. Hopefully, Julio dropped all the passes that he was going to drop in the season on A-day, which was a lot. Julio forces teams to double him while Maze will stretch the field and be the deep threat while Hanks will just catch everything that hits him in the hands. Behind these three are a bunch of young no names that will make their presence known this year. For example, Brandon Gibson (sph) caught 8 passes for 142 yards Saturday. Offensive line didn’t look the best but it is one of those positions that has to be evaluated at the start of the season, a scrimmage just won’t do it.

A whole bunch of people were worried about this year’s defense and they should just stop. We have one of the best d-linemen in Marcel Dareus, a great linebacking core led by Donta Hightower and a young shut down corner in Dre Kirpatrick. It would be very difficult to say how good they will be based on a scrimmage with the offense they have seen all spring long. However, everyone was running to the ball, tackling well, and in the secondary, covering well. You don’t really have time in the spring to throw in all of your blitz packages so you focus on doing the small things right. They did the small things right on A-day.

The biggest problem for the tide this year might actually be the special teams. No kick/punt returner, no field goal kicker, and no punter from last year. 12 yard punts won’t cut it and neither will air balling a 40 yard field goal.

Just based on what I saw this spring, I believe we will see much of the same of the year before last when no team ever got a lead on Bama until late in the season. Just look for Bama to beat Florida twice this year. We have an offense that can score quick or milk the clock and a defense that will give them plenty of chances to score.

Just as long as we stop that inside trap!

You may not drive barefooted

Let me begin by saying that I love Alabama….football.

Thats about as nice is this thing is going to get.

I introduced my thoughts on how to fix the United States Economic situation in my last blog and this is sort of the same but in, hopefully, a more calm and organized manor. With that being said, let the bashing begin.

The Problem(s)

I have lived in Jefferson county from birth until I was 18 years old and moved away to college. I didn’t know what was being done around the community until I got out and moved to another county. Education is next to last in the country (thank God for Mississippi) and corrupt politics have tainted and all but halted the growth of the state’s largest county (by population) which has been felt around the state. Birmingham was once known as the Magic City because how fast the city came to life. The people in charge of building roads for the city back in the early 1900’s saw the potential of the city and didn’t build for its current size but decided to plan ahead and they built enough blocks and roads for the city to grow to what it is today. It was home to thriving iron industry and is still the only state in the union that can produce everything needed to make iron. Iron pretty much built the city and when the industry started to down size, so did the city’s standards. Fast forward a couple of decades, in steps La La Larry and his 40 thieves. We got Don Seigelman and his boy Richard M Scrushy! Don’t forget about the newest member, Bob Riley!!

We got Langford who has pushed for opening of Visionland that was given bonds from the fine folks that worked with Langford. The park declared bankruptcy and was sold to the highest bider for only 5 million dollars. Langford was pushing to open up a domed stadium that economists have warned, would never get paid for because the lack of interest in Alabama for pro teams. Lets not forget to give credit where credit is revoked, Langford helped (mostly caused) the near financial ruin of Jefferson County! In Washington D.C., they were calling it,’The Largest Municipal Bankruptcy Ever’. But wait! There’s more!

Don and ‘Richy ain’t but somebodies ….. now’ are just jokes. A punch line gone bad. Don is a wanna be bribed governor who was friends with the dick in question Richard Scrushy (who was the briber). Scrushy took Health South that had the best surgeon in his field (Dr. Andrews) and turned it to crap in the blink of an eye. I feel like this is recent enough not to go into great detail about it.

All I got to say about Bob is that I disagree with him about gambling and apparently he disagrees with himself about the subject. He gets paid millions of dollars a year from casinos in Miss. so that Alabama will not have any for of gambling in its state. Which directly impacts…

..education in Alabama is about as low as Langford’s moral scale. Teacher’s are not being paid enough, not given the resources to succeed in their job and the correct support from the board of education.

The Fixins

(Laws)

We have to make laws for white collar crimes much harsher. Corruption needs to be taught a lesson in pain. They need to feel the pain that they have caused to the average citizen who trusted them to look after their best interest. Hard time isn’t good enough. Hard time includes three meals a day, rec time, access to books and tv. I am all for cruel and unusual punishment. Obviously the system isn’t working and something needs to be done. Waterboarding is good enough for terrorists.

Education is possibly the easiest thing to fix finically. Left the gambling laws and allow a state lottery. The lottery can either support K-12 or college. I don’t care but people have a lust for money and why not play off this to help educate kids. Raise the standard of education in this state. We need higher property tax. Alabama is lowest in the country in property tax (next lowest is Tennessee and even if Alabama doubled its tax it would still be the lowest). Property tax is the main income for schools as of right now and I think there is a direct connection for the two.

These three things would drastically help raise money for schools. Better resources for the teachers and higher wages for GOOD teachers! F tenure! I think it is crap that a teacher can get tenure based on how many years they have been in one school. I think that each teacher should have their annual evaluations like usual but make the evals their pay for that year. If the teacher has good evals for the year then the next year they should be paid more. If the teacher performs poorly the next year they get a pay deduction and if the evals prove to be very poor then the teacher should be investigated more closely and given one year to prove themselves. If they do not improve then they should be fired. This would encourage teachers to keep improving themselves and their teaching strategies.

The Board of Education is made up of business people who decide what should and should not be taught in school. Thats crap! I am not sure who should decide what should and shouldn’t be in schools but I believe there should be higher standards for children each year. Kids will adapt to the schedule they are given. If you want them to start learning times tables in 1st grade, then they will learn it! Kids want to learn!

Finally, lets get rid of the crap laws. We are one of the handful of states left that have poor being taxed the most based on income (based on percentage of income)! The rich get taxed the least based on percentage. I believe that if we are going to have an income tax it should be equal across the board. Why punish people because they make more or less than the next person?

Adding smarter laws and getting rid of crap laws like “You man not drive barefooted”, would drastically improve Alabama’s situation. (These problems are not limited to the actual numerous amount of problems Alabama has. Just the ones I chose to write about at 12 o’clock.)