Unbelievable! Tea Party Bus Sponsor's Negligence Killed 23 Seniors In Fire, Blames Federal Government.
By Susie Madrak Thursday Sep 10, 2009 10:00am
This reminds me of that old joke about the guy who killed both his parents and then threw himself on the mercy of the court because he's an orphan...
Lindsay Beyerstein did some great reporting on this. Don't miss the hypocritical Republican punchline!*
One of the featured corporate sponsors of the Tea Party Express had to pay millions of dollars to settle lawsuits for its role in a bus fire that killed 23 elderly nursing home residents fleeing Hurricane Rita in 2005.
The BusBank, a Chicago-based charter company, a "Tour Partner" of the Tea Party Express, a rolling protest sponsored by the Our Country Deserves Better PAC under the supervision of former Republican state legislator Howard Kaloogian, now a PR exec for the GOP-linked firm Russo, Marsh & Rogers.
BusBank is also arranging to ferry Tea Baggers to their 9/12 march on Washington to voice their demands for unfettered capitalism. (Update: Commenter Casual Observer asks if there's a Dick Armey connection here. There is. Dick Armey's FreedomWorks Foundation is the premiere sponsor of the 9/12 march; and Kaloogian's OCDB PAC is a "Gold Co-Sponsor.")
In 2005, a bus carrying seniors fleeing Hurricane Rita burst into flame outside of Dallas, immolating 23 nursing home residents. Investigators later found that the bus was: driven by an undocumented migrant without a valid U.S. driver's license, lacking adequate fire extinguishers, and not registered to operate in Texas. When the bus had mechanical problems before the crash, the driver took it to an unqualified mechanic who failed to notice the critical fault--an unlubricated axle that eventually melted and caught fire.
BusBank (aka Global Charters) hired the subcontractor, Global Limo. BusBank boasted on its website that it had a "rigorous operator certification process" to ensure the safety of contracted bus drivers. BusBank used Global even though the subcontractor had a long record of federal and state safety violations, had entered bankruptcy, and was being sued.
BusBank's association with Global appears to have been more than a one-off, Global Limo's owner Jim Maples even listed Global Charters as his employer when he gave $5000 to the RNC in 2004.
*BusBank CEO Bill Maulsby blamed insufficient federal oversight, "We're not safety experts," he said. "We clearly need to depend on the federal government."
In November 2006, a federal court convicted Maples and sentenced him to five years' probation for failure to maintain his buses. Investigators found 168 violations in Maples' four-bus fleet.
The following month, US Fed News reported that BusBank had been awarded a Homeland Security contract worth up to $55 million.
In June, BusBank and Global Limo settled out of court for a total of $11 million, a pittance when split between the families of the 23 victims and the patients who survived the crash. BusBank's legal troubles are far from over. According to one report, more lawsuits are getting underway this month.
The firm filed for bankruptcy in Delaware in August.
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what? they want the government to solve their problems?
... to pull themselves by the bootstraps. It was then when they realized they all were sporting Italian loafers.
So yet again Dick Armey appears linked in with this effort to get unregulated capitalism resurrected. Yep this party should get called
THE GOPRANOS, the party of Religious nuts and tax cut sluts.
I would not find it surprising if Pat Toomey and Grover Norquist have a hand in this too.
http://democratz.org
"THE GOPRANOS, the party of Religious nuts and tax cut sluts."
Wow that's hittin' the nail on the head.
http://www.zazzle.com/the_gopranos_mousepad-1...
GOPraNOs?
Nice touch, lol!
That IS it!!
I love it!!!!
this is guaranteed a sue job.
They will sue whoever has the deepest pockets,
that is where the state and government comes into place.
was yet another projection exercise by the right.
Say it ain't sooooooo!
Hating "big gov't" is the other projection issue.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/10/john...
Off topic I know...
but no ones posted in the open thread for awhile.
Ok now about this bus thingy....
What a bunch of goddamn assholes. When things go wrong that they themselves could have, SHOULD have prevented, it's the fault of the govt.
in the form of a contract worth $55 million? Your debts must be more than your assets in order to file.
Payout $11 million in settlements. Get a HLS contract for $55 million.Net gain: $44 million.
The bankruptcy thingy is just an inconvenience. They will restructure - rise from the ashes (no pun intended) like the phoenix and live to kill again.
"Got fuel to burn. Got roads to drive!"
Check the rules. Federal rules govern all bankruptcies. They may not be able to discharge the law suit awards, either. Some things are exempt from discharge.
... the government can't run anything (let alone be responsible for highway safety).
... not!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0q44ALM7jo&fe...
I don't think that asshole Stossel's brain ever recovered from the bitch slap. LOL.
John Stasshole has certainly paid his dues as a lying right-wing hate monger at ABC. Just one long audition for Fox.
*BusBank CEO Bill Maulsby blamed insufficient federal oversight, "We're not safety experts," he said. "We clearly need to depend on the federal government."
True believers in their own bullshit. HA!
.
We're hauling around busloads of "patriots" protesting in favor of unfettered (read: "unregulated")free markets, but it's the government's fault the senior citizens fried??? It's gotta' be painful contorting (or distorting) logic like that!
on this guy's buses? Alrighty, then!
perhaps driven by undocumented migrants and in buses that were taken to unqualified mechanics. There's so much to work with here.
buses, trucks, trains to airplanes has someone to inspect their equipment. Who TF is this guy?
Well, he doesn't want some government man interfering in his operation! He just needs them to take the blame!
socialize the costs/responsibility. It's what they do.
that's exactly what they do...
They can't do tort reform by themselves. How the Hell are they supposed to get rid of those damn pesky lawyers. No, not the ones in Congress - they already own them - it's those damn trial lawyers they need to get rid of, the ones who sue them and donate to Democrats.
Just ask Lord Dr. Boutany.
John Stossell is moving to Fox "News." Man, I used to like the guy a long time ago. What happened to him?
what happened to you?
:-)
Moving out of Texas helped too, I think.
Damn it Nangleator that is word for word what I just wrote too; your first, you win.
Disgusting.
do i have to see her face 3 times a week? palin offers absolutely nothing.
"Obama is extending his NO Enforcement - Open Border Amnesty Policy to ObamaCare. Just cross the border and enter a government clinic and you can get free health care paid for by U.S. taxpayers. What a country! Obama is already letting 3.6 million illegal aliens in the country [every year] and we get to pay for the health care." (every year?)
[ http://www.ameripac.org/original-articles/oba... ]
put a number (3.6 million) on it when Obama hasn't even been in office for a year. Methinks this is a number that Bush let in.
That's what I said! I was hoping Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann could expose these people. Thanks ron
you know the deal president obama is to blame for everything. nevermind the fact that illegal/undocumented people were crossing the border(s) during the 8 yrs. of BUSH. of course we
know it's been going on for sometime. this site is more anti-obama and anti-government. i personally look to corporations/global elites for this "cheap labor" movement. president obama has now become the path of least resistance for explaining blame/fault.
Though the interesting thing is, stock/share holders and other benefactors like the money, and the public companies... by law must make their best effort to derive said profits.
What I find puzzling, is the fact that I see many people claim our President is in bed with the corporations at the same time he supports "employee free choice".?
Ref: Theory and practice of organizing the whole of society into corporate entities subordinate to the state. According to the theory, employers and employees would be organized into industrial and professional corporations serving as organs of political representation and largely controlling the people and activities within their jurisdiction. Its chief spokesman was Adam Müller (b. 1779—d. 1829), court philosopher to the Fürst (prince) von Metternich, who conceived of a “class state” in which the classes operated as guilds, or corporations, each controlling a specific function of social life. This idea found favour in central Europe after the French Revolution, but it was not put into practice until Benito Mussolini came to power in Italy; its implementation there had barely begun by the start of World War II, which resulted in his fall. After World War II, the governments of many democratic western European countries (e.g., Austria, Norway, and Sweden) developed strong corporatist elements in an attempt to mediate and reduce conflict between businesses and trade unions and to enhance economic growth.
[ http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Co... ]
Golly, the rightarded traitors should not be killing off their remaining voters like that. I wonder if they plan on slaughtering a few more elderly on the 12th this month and try to blame it on a black man named Obama.
My opinions only and only my opinions, as always.
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M74j8LvX6k ](0:20) ;)
says the driver
I actually thought for a second before I clicked on the link that it would be Toonces the Cat
http://www.uclick.com/client/nyt/ta/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_yWyBjDEaU
At least the Nazis were decent enough to gas their victims first before the cremotorium.
It was all the saurkraut and beer.
The guy even looks like an old fashioned snake-oil salesman, gathering up the suckers
It always is....
no...sometimes it's Clinton's fault.
He was found quilty, so he must pay for his stupidity and negligence of killing people.
What is the value of stories like this? A tenuous link between people you hate, some recrimination, some blame-passing, plenty of tar. What are we supposed to glean from this, that "those people" are just hopelessly evil/incompetent, and all dark thoughts and sins flow out from their benighted souls? So we can bask in our own purity and make up cutesy insults like "Rethuglicans" and "rightarded"? What does this us/them game help achieve, other than senseless nationalism?
Stories like this show the 'free market' crony capitalist Republicans are hypocrites and their lack of responsibility, be it with George W.'s administration or BusBank & CEO Bill Maulsby, has consequences that are buried in the graveyards across this country.
This situation, while tragic and infuriating, isn't remotely unbelievable. :-/
How do you find middle ground between reality and bat-sh*t crazy!?!
The Bus Bank is not a bus charter company, it is a broker. They don't own any buses, they just market themselves as a charter provider and farm out all the orders to different bus companies. I have worked for them for many years, and they currently owe me a significant amount of money, which I will most likely never see, due to their bankruptcy.
The fact they they are providing buses for the tea party express or for tea bagger gatherings doesn't make them a "sponsor", they're just the company that was hired to provide transportation. (They once tried to get me to take a bunch on Prop 8 supporters on tour in CA, but I said no, which is a dumb business decision, but I don't have shareholders.)
Realistically, they are responsible and liable for the actions of their subcontractors, and they shouldn't hire anybody with a bad safety record, but the implications of this article seem a bit off base.
And Maulsby's comment about the gov't being responsible was a dumb thing to say, but he's right that we need better oversite of bus operators in this industry, because there are plenty of crooks who skimp on maintenance, and enforcement in quite lax.
BusBank is a featured sponsor ("Tour Partner") of the Tea Party Express. Check the TPE website, BusBank's name and logo are up on the marquee with Freedomworks and the Our Country Deserves Better PAC. It's not just some charter bus company contracted to arrange transportation, it's lending its name (and likely its cash) to the Tea Party Express.
BusBank was responsible for due diligence to ascertain whether its subcontractor was safe. It didn't do its due diligence, even though it promised its customers on its website that it carefully vetted every subcontractor. This wasn't just a one-off relationship with Global Limo, either.
"We don't want the government in OUR business!!! Damn those big-government Democrats!!! People need to take responsibility for themselves!!!"
"What? You want us to take responsibility for our ourselves?"
"We're not safety experts. We clearly need to depend on the federal government."
Some more of that good old fashioned conservative responsibility.
So that's more weeks of _probation_ per dead senior than the Lockerbie bomber got in _prison_ per each of those dead? Or am I wrong? Could have been really _hard_ weeks of probation.
im not taking comfort in the deaths of others, I just have an appreciation for irony.
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