June 23, 2010 08:05 PM UTC

BFF: Blanche Lincoln and Sam Walton

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• by: CoalCreekWildfire

Wal-Mart, like all big business, is an equal-opportunity corruptor.

Blanche Lincoln is helping the Walton (Wal-Mart) family by adding language to the Senate’s financial-overhaul legislation. The language protects a bank controlled by the Walton family, one of the richest in the U.S.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, one of the chief architects of the financial-regulation overhaul nearing completion in Congress, is pushing for a change that would benefit a bank in her home state of Arkansas.

The bank, Arvest Bank Group Inc., of Bentonville, Ark., is predominantly owned by the Walton family, of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. fame, perhaps the most influential family in the state and one of the richest in the U.S.

Wal-Mart is Blanche Lincoln’s #1 contributor, excluding law firms, at $52,750 since 2005. The left and the right are always happy to enact special rules for big business in exchange for campaign dollars.

Was the federal Minerals Management Service (MMS) “asleep at the switch?” MMS records show they knew what BP was doing:

… analysis of records provided by the U.S. Minerals Management Service shows that BP used the less costly design-called “long string”-on 35% of its deepwater wells since July 2003, the earliest date the well-design data were available.

Sources

Damian Paletta, Lincoln Intervenes for Arkansas Bank, WSJ.com Business, 6/23/2010, http://on.wsj.com/bIFaBO

Russel Gold and Tom McGinty, BP Relied on Cheaper Wells: WSJ Analysis Shows Oil Giant Used ‘Risky’ Design More Often Than Most Peers, WSJ.com Business, 6/19/2010, http://on.wsj.com/cTe11o

Tags: Blanche Lincoln, Sam Walton, Wal-Mart, Financial Overhaul Legislation, Arvest Bank Group  

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