Pence family’s failed gas stations cost taxpayers $20M+

a reply to: Kharron

Let me ask you something.

What has Trump DONE (actually DONE) that has had a negative impact on your life?

The reason why I ask, is because WE (the nothing-people) can't do jack-sh#t about who runs, who gets nominated, who gets elected.


This "come-together" kum-by-ya attitude is fine, until we start talking about taxes, rights, free speech, gun rights, immigration.


We are a shattered, divided, broken nation because we've been led to believe that government is on our side and will take care of us, when in reality, most of us just want to be left alone.

You want a consensus on Pence?

Fine.

He and his family are lying dirtbags.


Until you compare him to even worse dirtbags, then he's awesome because he's not "that" bad.



People are a greedy, brutal, ugly, tribal, petty, nasty species.


There is no Shangri-La. There never will be. We just hope that the dicks are on our side when they start acting like, well, dicks.

a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1

It seems that posting the same sentence In every thread will result in something different. What they say about repeating the same thing over and over with the same results could be true and that it is a sign of insanity.

I am no fan of politicians in general, but maybe just maybe, that because there have been zero arrest is because they have no evidence to convict, and it's sort of a requirement in order to obtain a conviction.

As for the Pence family business, the States have a clear avenue to respond to this situation and that is the court system. If they allowed a family member like Prince's brother to interfere, and I am not sure they can show that, then it's on them.

The States also have the Federal system which has shown a propensity to go after this administration this far, however if they fail to utilize it, again that is on them and so far that appears to be the case.

Much bigger fish still in the game of contaminate and run away have done far more damage and cost the taxpayers much larger figures both recently and from the past.

That is on us, so I see no reason to expect any difference, after all, when we do the same thing over and over, and then repeat, it is a sure sign of yep, you guessed it, insanity.

a reply to: schuyler

Thank you for all that info schuyler.

Everything you described begs a question though: if the EPA is so hard on people to clean up their own messes, to the point where they bankrupt businesses; why were they so lax with the Pence family as to completely forgive the cleanup costs in the end? Why are other people's lives ruined and the Pence family keeps their profit and moves onto higher office positions?

a reply to: Kharron

It's not even their own messes sometimes. It could be someone else's mess and you bought the land and had nothing to do with the problem.

The question is what does justice look like?

Maxine Waters husband got bailout to the tune of 12 million.

www.politifact.com...

thehill.com...

I'm sure Jesus came to him personally and told him that Gas stations were the future and it was gods will to get the bailout

a reply to: DBCowboy

There is that poem that ends in, "And there was no one left to speak for me."

Do I need to wait until DJT personally comes to my house and shoots my dog, or can we make an assessment based on his warmongering, heavy atrocities in the Middle East, division and derision at home, immigration policies and family separations, incessant lies to the public and the disinformation of the public, and so on...

How long does all of this need to go on before he is called a lying dirtbag, like Pence is so easily called?

Is what I'm saying anything new? No. People have called for unity throughout history, and when it happens changes get made as well. Without it, we all remain sheep, even those that are "woke". It takes a paradigm shift.

originally posted by: Kharron


Do I need to wait until DJT personally comes to my house and shoots my dog, or can we make an assessment based on his warmongering, heavy atrocities in the Middle East, division and derision at home, immigration policies and family separations, incessant lies to the public and the disinformation of the public, and so on...

dear Lord, you are swimming in the Kool-aid.

originally posted by: network dude

originally posted by: Kharron


Do I need to wait until DJT personally comes to my house and shoots my dog, or can we make an assessment based on his warmongering, heavy atrocities in the Middle East, division and derision at home, immigration policies and family separations, incessant lies to the public and the disinformation of the public, and so on...

dear Lord, you are swimming in the Kool-aid.

No, I just try to stay informed:

For Trump, 2017 has already been an explosive year: The U.S. has said it dropped over 2,400 bombs on Afghanistan, up from 1,337 last year. In the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the U.S. has already dropped 32,801 bombs, compared with 30,743 in 2016. And the U.S. has also conducted more than 100 strikes against Al Qaeda in Yemen in 2017, compared with 38 in 2016.

Trump did promise in a campaign speech in 2015 to “bomb the #” out of ISIS, and he seems to be living up to his word—with little regard for the consequences.

Under Trump, civilian casualties from America’s war on ISIS have reached an all-time high in Iraq and Syria.

The pace of air attacks has led to dozens of civilian deaths, watchdogs say. From 28 to 88 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan, according to the Bureau for Investigative Journalism. And Airwars, which tracks international airstrikes against ISIS, estimated that U.S.-led airstrikes killed 1,060 civilians in Iraq and Syria in August 2017, compared with 138 in August 2016.

Newsweek

I find it hard to ignore numbers.

Edit to add: I take it I don't need to explain the division and derision, family separations, incessant lying? Lying is not even an issue any more, people accept it as a given.

originally posted by: network dude

originally posted by: Kharron


Do I need to wait until DJT personally comes to my house and shoots my dog, or can we make an assessment based on his warmongering, heavy atrocities in the Middle East, division and derision at home, immigration policies and family separations, incessant lies to the public and the disinformation of the public, and so on...

dear Lord, you are swimming in the Kool-aid.

Yea, that's some DQ snip right there, and I am not talking about Dairy Queen. Sounds like things Obama is guilty of but let the Trump haters HATE! Kinda funny if you think about it.

a reply to: Kharron

More "unity" has come about (in history) from the point of an arrow, the barrel of a gun, than through any type of warm embrace.

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: Kharron

More "unity" has come about (in history) from the point of an arrow, the barrel of a gun, than through any type of warm embrace.

Do you think that's what we need here? In order to unite us? The barrel of a gun?

a reply to: DBCowboy

Ha!

That's not unity, that's victory (oppression)... just remove the opposing view entirely, what remains must be unity. Impeccable logic.

"Here's some unity for ya... Bang!

Glad we agree".

Jees...

originally posted by: Kharron

That's terrible, hope you guys get that cleaned up fast.

I also hope the owner of the mill didn't run for office and pretended to be a good guy. Gal?

Its the way it is...there isn't enough money to "clean up" fast or otherwise. When a company has been polluting for 50 to 100 years, there is no clean up unless the Government does it. We need to remember that what they did back in the day was perfectly legal and acceptable.

I guess my point is there is no Good or Bad in any of this. The owner of the mill is not bad was not bad...Made a living for 10,000 families over the years.

originally posted by: Kharron

Do I need to wait until DJT personally comes to my house and shoots my dog, or can we make an assessment based on his warmongering, heavy atrocities in the Middle East, division and derision at home, immigration policies and family separations, incessant lies to the public and the disinformation of the public, and so on...

I think you had a better chance of Obama killing you since, well, he DID kill Americans without due process. I don't see Trump doing that, so you are safe now.

originally posted by: Kharron
a reply to: schuyler

Thank you for all that info schuyler.

Everything you described begs a question though: if the EPA is so hard on people to clean up their own messes, to the point where they bankrupt businesses; why were they so lax with the Pence family as to completely forgive the cleanup costs in the end? Why are other people's lives ruined and the Pence family keeps their profit and moves onto higher office positions?

I basically answered your question in the very first sentence of my post. And the answer is exactly the same. In the case of the Shell station I mentioned, the owner abandoned the land and the public picked up the tab with the owner losing a piece of property that was otherwise his. I see no difference at all here between the results from the Shell station and the results from the Pence situation. Further, I maintain that it is NOT true that the "public picked up the tab that Pence should have paid." The EPA MADE these onerous requirements that no one could possibly pay. Requiring expensive lab testing of dirt that was being removed is just insanely stupid, and suggesting that Pence & Co "owe" that is also insanely stupid. It should never have been a requirement in the first place. What you have here is a government agency run amok with Pence and the Shell station owner caught in their pincers. The EPA caused this so-called $21M bill, not Pence.

originally posted by: Xtrozero

originally posted by: Kharron

That's terrible, hope you guys get that cleaned up fast.

I also hope the owner of the mill didn't run for office and pretended to be a good guy. Gal?

Its the way it is...there isn't enough money to "clean up" fast or otherwise. When a company has been polluting for 50 to 100 years, there is no clean up unless the Government does it. We need to remember that what they did back in the day was perfectly legal and acceptable.

I guess my point is there is no Good or Bad in any of this. The owner of the mill is not bad was not bad...Made a living for 10,000 families over the years.

I partially agree with you; jobs are good but what you said reminded me of something that happened years ago.

A local car dealership, one of the larger ones, had to shut down because they were stealing from employees. Basically they were working people 80 hours a week, but paid them only 40. This was effectively paying people half the minimum wage in the slow months. This went on for years and all of them got investigated and the owners could not pay all their past employees back without going bankrupt.

And I remember some people in the local newspaper saying this was a good business and it created jobs for years.

No, it's not a good business just because it creates jobs, the same way a mother is not a good mother just for giving birth. That business in particular held people back for years and paid them half of what they deserved. If they knew better, they would not have let themselves get exploited while the owners yacht. Creating jobs means nothing if people are being exploited, or the nature or the city around it is getting exploited, or if the aftermath of the business will cost the taxpayers more than those jobs paid out.

As far as these gas pumps go; they may not have known the dangers when they started, but they sure knew about them when they avoided paying for the cleanup.

originally posted by: schuyler

originally posted by: Kharron
a reply to: schuyler

Thank you for all that info schuyler.

Everything you described begs a question though: if the EPA is so hard on people to clean up their own messes, to the point where they bankrupt businesses; why were they so lax with the Pence family as to completely forgive the cleanup costs in the end? Why are other people's lives ruined and the Pence family keeps their profit and moves onto higher office positions?

I basically answered your question in the very first sentence of my post. And the answer is exactly the same. In the case of the Shell station I mentioned, the owner abandoned the land and the public picked up the tab with the owner losing a piece of property that was otherwise his. I see no difference at all here between the results from the Shell station and the results from the Pence situation. Further, I maintain that it is NOT true that the "public picked up the tab that Pence should have paid." The EPA MADE these onerous requirements that no one could possibly pay. Requiring expensive lab testing of dirt that was being removed is just insanely stupid, and suggesting that Pence & Co "owe" that is also insanely stupid. It should never have been a requirement in the first place. What you have here is a government agency run amok with Pence and the Shell station owner caught in their pincers. The EPA caused this so-called $21M bill, not Pence.

This is your first line:

I do not know about the Pence family involvement here, but I do now a bit about the situation of contamination of old underground gas tanks.

This entire expose is about what the Pence family did and how much money the taxpayers have to foot for the bill. It also states that the records are incomplete, that information is missing and that this is only concerning Indiana and not two other states. It also says that this is only the beginning of the cleanup and that it could be much more.

Then there are documents linked that show that Pence family agreed to pay some millions for the cleanup, hadn't and then in the end settled to pay cents on the dollar, with the public covering the rest of the bill. It shows that the state had a law that it could help with $2m a year of cleanup costs; Pence as governor changed that to $2.5m and then his family received 2.5x that in a year. It shows that 10 years after bankruptcy, his family company still gets one of the largest amounts of taxpayer money for cleanup, even compared to other larger and more involved companies in the state.

All of this is in the article, so we do know.

a reply to: Kharron

It is better not to make a vow than to make one and not fulfill it.

originally posted by: rickymouse
Every gas station pays into a fund to take care of contamination under any situation. They do here, that cost is spread out amongst the gas customers buy. The cleanup is being funded by that organization, the fact that the legal costs bankrupted the company and were found later to not be right means that the state is on the hook for these charges.

I am thinking these charges may never have been right, someone was trying to get back at that business, probably someone who would gain by them being shut down.

I had a friend who almost bought an old Porcelain style gas station . They did an environmentall study and sure enough the tanks were leaking for a long time. It seems any old station. Is going to have similar issues. Luckily he found out before he closed on the deal. It's not an environmentally clean business. What is the criminal wrong doing that's being claimed? Sounds like the deal bankrupted a pretty big venture. What more could be done?.