By now you've all seen the photo above
Kos posted last month. A catastrophe waiting to happen, one of many, caused once again by conservative policies. Here's the other
shoe dropping:
The Texas fertilizer plant that exploded last month, killing 14 people, injuring more than 200 others and causing tens of millions of dollars in damage to the surrounding area had only $1 million in liability coverage, lawyers said Saturday.Tyler lawyer Randy C. Roberts said he and other attorneys who have filed lawsuits against West Fertilizer’s owners were told Thursday that the plant carried only $1 million in liability insurance. Brook Laskey, an attorney hired by the plant’s insurer to represent West Fertilizer Co., confirmed the amount Saturday in an email to The Associated Press, after the Dallas Morning News first reported it.
(More at
Christian Dem in NC's diary) You better believe who's gonna bear the brunt of this disaster, outside of the people who paid the ultimate price and the many who were injured and lost homes. The same people who bailed out Wall Street, the same people who shoveled trainloads of guts and treasure into a clusterfuck called Iraq, the same people who are now being told they must tighten their belts and make sacrifices. The same middle class taxpayers the same conservative goons always bleed dry like their personal piggy bank to socialize their losses.
Transferring costs from businesses onto individuals has become a cottage industry. It pops up everywhere, ideology always falls by the wayside. From Wall Street picking your pocket to contractors paid to give Iraqi's free healthcare, even smaller concerns are getting in on the con. The apartment complex where I live now require renter's insurance, but not for your stuff. They require coverage up to $250,000 on their stuff, their pipes, their walls. Which means the deduct has to be sky-high, so high it's not gonna cover anything the renter owns. Unless they happen to regularly keep 50k worth of diamonds and gold in their $600 studio apartment ...
The poorer someone is, the easier it is to stick them like that. Republicans are fond of comparing businesses to people. Their SCOTUS stooges wasted no time giving corporations the same rights as a person—when it came to benefits. Just not the responsibilities, just not the social stigma. What we would call a powerful person who takes money from the most vulnerable, desperate people they can shake down for no other reason than no one is around who will stop them?
A million dollars is peanuts compared to the damage this plant caused. But in the great state of Texas, this is one of the few industries that have any requirement at all. If the hair man had his way, there would be no requirement at all. Which most anyone might call unfair, or bullshit. In Texas, anywhere else these ultra goons get behind the wheel, that's just the price of them doing their business in your backyard. Let freedom ring.