The Shrinking Tea Party

I came across these numbers and I am thrilled to pass them on.  The Tea Party has to be one of the most uneducated group of people I have come across, and to see that quite possibly (fingers double crossed) the end of the Tea Party has come....woohoo!!! Check out numbers of the tea party rally turnouts: 

Top 10 Overpaid CEOs

Josh Harkinson of The Nation compiled a list of the top 10 overcompensated executives of 2010. The selections were based on their pay packages and comparing their pay with others who held the same position at similar companies and also the difference in their companies bottom line and their own.

Bud Crystal, a compensation consultant, states: "You have almost no relationship between pay and performance when it comes to the CEO."

Philippe Dauman, Viacom 

Compensation: $84.5 million

Stock performance (change 2009-2010): +30%

Ray Irani, Occidental Petroleum

Compensation: $76.1 million

Stock performance: 23%

Wiliam Weldon, Johnson & Johnson
Compensation: $21.6 million
Stock performance: -0.5%

Lawrence J. Ellison, Oracle
Compensation: $70.1 million
Stock performance: +16%

John Chambers, Cisco Systems
Compensation: $18.9 million
Stock performance: +5%

John Stumpf, Wells Fargo
Compensation: $17.6 million
Stock performance: +16%

Michael Strianese, L-3 Communications
Compensation: $16.5 million
Stock performance: -17.2%

Shantanu Narayen, Adobe Systems
Compensation: $12.2 million
Stock performance: -20.8 %

John Surma, United States Steel
Compensation: $8.3 million
Stock performance: 6.4%

Craig Dubow, Gannett
Compensation: $7.9 million
Stock performance: 2.8%

Link to article: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/10-most-ridiculously-overpaid-ceos

BP Re-Enters Politics and the Gulf of Mexico

On the 1 year anniversary of the oil spill, BP has started back up making contributions to politicians, and it is not that suprising on who they are backing. GOP are the beneficiaries of their donations.

BP Corp. North America gave $5,000 contributions to Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif). House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) received $1,000 and $5,000 contributions. Other recipients were the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which each accepted $5,000 from the company.

The only Democrat to receive a donation was Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.), who got $3,000 on March 22.

Since the oil spill, there has not been many substantial change to industry standards on how to prevent another oil spill. Despite this lack of change to either the prevention of or the clean up in an event of an oil spill, permits are now being issued by Michael Bromwich of Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement to restart deep watery drilling. BPOil.com recently reported on this.

According to a new government report, the new, post-BP offshore drilling safety plan still relies on the BOP, which is flawed by design. When the very accident they are designed to prevent happens, the BOP is rendered useless. Regardless of the lack of any meaningful change since the BP oil disaster, 6 new deepwater drilling permits have just been issued – one of them in water 2,000 feet deeper than BP’s Horizon. And once again, BP will soon be drilling in the Gulf.