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Politics : How Quickly Can Obama Totally Destroy the US? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Qualified Opinion who wrote (9252)	4/3/2014 7:26:29 PM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation Recommended By slowmo Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16547

Obama Asked Networks For Primetime Slot to Spike Football on Phony 7.1 Million O-Care Number, Was Rejected Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, April 3, 2014, 4:59 PM Bummer. Barack Obama asked the networks for a primetime slot to spike the football on his phony and already discredited 7.1 million Obamacare enrollee number. ( Truth Revolt) The networks said no. Buzzfeed reported, via Townhall: White House officials sought valuable primetime airfor a rare, impromptu Tuesday night address to tout the accomplishment of signing up more than 7 million people under the Affordable Care Act. But network officials refusedto make the kind of accommodation they did previously for the announcement that Osama Bin Laden had been killed, for instance, and Obama was left instead cutting into the much smaller audiences of Ellen and other daytime shows. Three sources familiar with the request confirmed the White House asked for the primetime slot in their effort both to emphasize a bright moment following the challenging roll out and, more important, to try to reintroduce the country to a law that remains unpopular. One top White House official referred BuzzFeed to another top official for comment on the conversation with networks, but the second official did not respond to a request for comment. credit fubho

To: Qualified Opinion who wrote (9252)	4/3/2014 7:35:58 PM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 16547

Chevron Takes Battle To Radical Environmentalist Lobby ................................................................................................. Investor's Business Daily: news.investors.com After thwarting a $9.5 billion judgment from an Ecuadorean court, Chevron is going after the entire edifice of environmentalist enablers who make such junk lawsuits possible. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. To the surprise of many, the oil giant is suing the tony, white-shoe law firm of Patton Boggs for alleged unethical involvement in an all-out legal attack by environmentalists over rainforest pollution in Ecuador. Chevron accuses the oh-so-respected firm of lying, concealing inconvenient facts, running a public smear campaign and miscellaneous other flim-flammery, all for the sake of the dollar signs spinning in their eyes. This poses a problem for Patton Boggs, because seldom have the facts in a case been so scurrilous. Chevron had been accused of polluting the rainforest floor in Ecuador through its 2001 acquisition of Texaco, supposedly harming thousands of villagers as it callously took its profits. It was all-so-perfect a story to go with the leftist narrative about greedy oil companies exploiting innocent Third World victims. Only it wasn't true. Fact is, Texaco cleaned up its share of the Ecuadorean oil-extraction operation near Lago Agrio, where the accusations were hatched, and then got two clean bills of health from the Ecuadorean government in 1995 and 1998, having fulfilled its responsibilities free and clear. Enter Steven Donziger, an environmental zealot with a bent for Hollywood theatrics who drew in droves of big players by persuading them he could win monster verdicts with big payouts. One of these players was a hedge fund that "invests" in expected lawsuit awards, which brought Patton Boggs into the picture. Never mind that Donziger wrote his own judgment from numbers he drew out of the air, got someone on his team to pay off an Ecuadorean judge to rule his way, invited a filmmaker to glorify him even as he spoke cynically of his acts in Ecuador and hauled in movie stars such as Daryl Hannah to inveigh against corporate evil. Two major law firms that saw the shakedown for what it was backed out and steered clear of the whole affair, worried about fraudulent reports, payoffs, conflicts of interest and other evident problems. But not Patton Boggs, which did its best to suborn justice with distraction lawsuits and a plan called "Invictus" designed to chase down Chevron's assets all over the world in a bid to fulfill the $9.5 billion Ecuadorean payout verdict. Donziger's idea was to wear down Chevron until the company agreed to shell out $100 million to make him go away. Chevron called it extortion and refused. Was there absolutely no one at the storied Patton Boggs law firm who thought about the company's reputation in light of the possibility that the lawsuit could lose? Apparently not. According to Chevron's new lawsuit against Patton Boggs, the firm seemed confident it could use political connections to pull off the shakedown. Such, apparently, is the business climate in Washington, where environmental ends justify any means — from combating climate change to starving California's Central Valley of water to this mother of all suits against Big Oil. Throw in a typically corrupt Third World court, and it's no surprise that enviro-radicals nearly got their $9.5 billion pound of flesh. Instead, they lost when an exasperated Manhattan judge, Lewis Kaplan, last month declared the case so tainted by fraud that the judgment could not be collected anywhere in the U.S. For good measure, he also barred Donziger from profiting from his crimes. To its credit, Chevron isn't taking the path too often followed by corporations these days — that is, leaving sleeping dogs to lie. It's attacking the root of the problem, suing all those who made the lawsuit possible. Given the degree and extent of the corruption here, here's hoping it succeeds.