Chevron still refusing to pay for Ecuador spill

When the courts fail to deliver the result that you want, just ignore it, right? How's that work out for everyone else? Once again it's the corporate world deciding when and if they want to follow the law.

Because of the frustration with Chevron, a new case is being filed in Canada and possibly other countries as well. It's important to remember that the case started in the US but Chevron insisted on the case being moved to Ecuador. It's almost as though Chevron thought they could control the legal process there when they asked for the change of location. Surely that wasn't it, right?

More on the failure to pay the court ordered $18 billion from the Houston Chronicle.

For the past year, Chevron Corp. has refused to pay an $18 billion pollution lawsuit judgment from a court in Ecuador, arguing that the judicial process there was marred by politics, official misconduct and fraud.

So on Wednesday, the company's Ecuadorean opponents moved the case to Canada, a country whose court system enjoys a rock-solid reputation.

They filed suit in Ontario, in a bid to seize enough of Chevron's assets to satisfy the $18 billion judgment from their homeland. If the Canadian court sides with them, they say, Chevron will have a hard time claiming that the court itself is defective.

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Super PAC donations dominated by men

The percentage is just about the same as the number of women in Congress and in CEO positions. Across the board, these numbers need to change. CBS News:

The bulk of the cash being funneled to super PACs -- groups independent from political campaigns that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money -- comes from a select few wealthy Americans. One look at the list of donors bankrolling these groups makes one thing clear: This new element of American politics is overwhelmingly dominated by men. As women continue to strive for better representation in politics, the introduction of super PACs has opened up a powerful new means of political speech that has so far been employed mostly by men.

According to the nonpartisan research group the Center for Responsive Politics, as of May 21, about 20 percent of donations to outside groups like super PACs in this election cycle have come from women (among the donations that could be broken down by gender). In dollars, that amounts to $31,165,706 -- however, that includes $15,000,000 in donations from just one person, Miriam Adelson. Adelson's husband, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, is best known in this campaign season for single-handedly keeping Newt Gingrich's Republican primary bid alive with his super PAC donations.

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Archdiocese of Milwaukee paid off child rapist priests to go away

It's nice to see that the Catholic church has been so consistent across borders when it comes to sweeping violations of the law under the carpet. We've seen the same thing happen in Belgium and Ireland, where instead of following the law and reporting rapists, they opted out and took matters into their own hands.

In the case of Milwaukee, the local archdiocese paid off child rapist priests instead of contacting the police. Why does the Catholic church continue telling others what is moral when they so often are wrong and in violation of the law themselves?

Despite previous denials (we can now call them "lies") current New York Cardinal Timothy Doland's Milwaukee archdiocese was deeply involved in this scandal. Why was that acceptable to the church before and why did they elevate him to Cardinal when they had to know what was going on? Now that we know he lied about paying off rapists, shouldn't he be stepping down? Or are lies OK when it's a senior member of the Catholic church?

More on the latest disgusting coverup of rapists at the NY Times:

Questioned at the time about the news that one particularly notorious pedophile cleric had been given a “payoff” to leave the priesthood, Cardinal Dolan, then the archbishop, responded that such an inference was “false, preposterous and unjust.”

But a document unearthed during bankruptcy proceedings for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and made public by victims’ advocates reveals that the archdiocese did make such payments to multiple accused priests to encourage them to seek dismissal, thereby allowing the church to remove them from the payroll.

A spokesman for the archdiocese confirmed on Wednesday that payments of as much as $20,000 were made to “a handful” of accused priests “as a motivation” not to contest being defrocked. The process, known as “laicization,” is a formal church juridical procedure that requires Vatican approval, and can take far longer if the priest objects.

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Romney's state funded solar panel developer went bankrupt

Timing is everything, Mitt. The day after Romney blasted Obama for the Solyndra collapse, Romney's own Solyndra filed for bankruptcy. Does this now mean that Mitt Romney is also a complete failure because one of his state loan investments went under? Boston Herald:

Lowell-based Konarka Technologies announced late yesterday that it filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection and will cease operations, lay off its 85 workers and liquidate.

“Konarka has been unable to obtain additional financing, and given its current financial condition, it is unable to continue operations,” CEO Howard Berke said in a statement. “This is a tragedy for Konarka’s shareholders and employees and for the development of alternative energy in the United States.”

The demise of Konarka could become a hot topic on the campaign trail because Romney personally doled out a $1.5 million renewable energy subsidy to the Lowell startup in 2003, shortly after taking office on Beacon Hill.

Interestingly enough, this bankruptcy wasn't the first Romney state investment into solar to go belly up, but the second. More from Think Progress. Read the rest of this post...

Most drug money profits made in West, not in producing country

It's an interesting new study that suggests once again, the Western banks are also having an easy ride in the drug war. The minions are paying the price yet somehow the big banks always manage to escape. What are the odds? Only 2.6% of the drug money profits stay in the producing country whereas 97.4% are in the West according to the study.

One of these days we need to stop flushing billions down the toilet for these drug wars. How is it possible to go on for so many decades yet show no results? If anything, the problem is worse today than it was when these phony wars started. The Guardian:

"Colombian society has suffered to almost no economic advantage from the drugs trade, while huge profits are made by criminal distribution networks in consuming countries, and recycled by banks which operate with nothing like the restrictions that Colombia's own banking system is subject to."

His co-author, Daniel Mejía, added: "The whole system operated by authorities in the consuming nations is based around going after the small guy, the weakest link in the chain, and never the big business or financial systems where the big money is."

The work, by the two economists at University of the Andes in Bogotá, is part of an initiative by the Colombian government to overhaul global drugs policy and focus on money laundering by the big banks in America and Europe, as well as social prevention of drug taking and consideration of options for de-criminalising some or all drugs.

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GOP outside groups planning $1 billion campaign blitz

We were right, here at La Maison. It's shaping up as a $2,000,000,000 ad campaign (sorry, presidential election) at the very least.

Politico (just the juicy bits; my emphasis):

Republican super PACs and other outside groups shaped by a loose network of prominent conservatives – including Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – plan to spend roughly $1 billion on November’s elections for the White House and control of Congress[.] ...

Just the spending linked to the Koch network is more than the $370 million that John McCain raised for his entire presidential campaign four years ago. And the $1 billion total surpasses the $750 million that Barack Obama, one of the most prolific fundraisers ever, collected for his 2008 campaign. ...

The Republican financial plans are unlike anything seen before in American politics. If the GOP groups hit their targets, they likely could outspend their liberal adversaries by at least two-to-one, according to officials involved in the budgeting for outside groups on the right and left.

More at the Huffington Post.

Add to that the billion dollars Obama thinks he needs, and you're talking real money.

Now ask yourself — What's the first thing the billionaires filling both side's coffers will want, the first second after that money is spent?

Lower taxes.

It's billionaire-malpractice if they don't extract those promises.

In the opinion of the geniuses here at La Maison, the Lame Duck Deal is cooked and ready to serve. We're just waiting till December when it shows up at the table.

See you in December.

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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John Lennon & Elton John - Whatever Gets You Through The Night

As quickly as the nice weather arrived, it's gone again here in Paris. We're back to the traditional gray skies and rain, with a lot more of the same in the ten day forecast. The garden needs rain but let's not exaggerate. Read the rest of this post...

North Carolina considers law against predicting sea level rise

The National Memo calls this a "Today in Stupid" story, but that's telling it from a mainstream-left perspective and ignoring the man behind the curtain.

As the story makes abundantly clear, "stupid" is just a cover explanation for shoveling money into the hands of political paymasters, those who "invest" in politicians.

If you invest in something, you expect to turn a profit from it. National Memo (ht Joe Conason via Twitter):

Perhaps searching for a way to one-up their much derided anti-marriage law, North Carolina lawmakers are considering ban on science with a new bill that would essentially make it illegal to predict a rise in the sea level.

After a state-appointed board of scientists determined that a one meter rise in sea level is likely by the year 2100 — echoing the scientific consensus on the issue — a coastal economic development group called NC-20 decided to push back against the results.

They are upset that such an estimate would thwart development along the coast, as it would be illegal to build in the “flood zone” where there is under one meter of elevation.

“If you’re wrong and you start planning today at 39 inches, you could lose millions of dollars in development and 2,000 square miles would be condemned as a flood zone,” Tom Thompson, the chairman of NC-20, told News & Observer of Raleigh.

The developers went to their bought pols, and the bought pols brought forth a bill:

So, with NC-20′s support, Republican lawmakers circulated Replacement House Bill 819.

This isn't stupid, it's corrupt. It's stupid only at the level of the Matrix.

How much corruption is too much for the American public? If we keep calling it "stupid" there's a ton of room on the upside.

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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