What will Bill and the McKibbenites of 350.org do now? Oh Noes!
From Climate Litigation Watch:
Donor-, Tort Lawyer-Prompted NY AG Climate “Fraud” Suit Crashes, Burns
In its “fraud” pursuit of ExxonMobil as a proxy for the energy industry, and anyone who might dare to oppose the climate agenda again, the New York Attorney General failed to clear the lowest bar ever established for such matters, the Martin Act.
This is what happens when law enforcement launches abusive investigations and prosecution at the behest of donors and the plaintiffs’ tort bar. The nasty story of how all this came about is laid out in documentary form here.
This is not good news for Massachusetts’ AG Maura Healey who leapt in, filing her own suit as the NY AG’s meltdown became apparent, to — one would be forgiven for concluding — avoid filing in the wake of this disaster.
FULL STORY HERE: https://climatelitigationwatch.org/donor-tort-lawyer-prompted-ny-ag-climate-fraud-suit-crashes-burns/
UPDATE:
Here is the court’s opinion:
https://climatelitigationwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/452044-2018-Op-12.10.19.pdf
The sordid history of this abuses, as we knew it in August 2018, is here.
Much more is now known, some of which CLW posted in recent weeks.
Much more is coming.
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Now it is time for some federal “Abuse of Power” charges in return….
Where would you even start?
Unlike the U.S,. House of Representative Democrats, with the actual abuse.
Someone should pay Exxon’s legal fees, but it should not be the taxpayer. The plaintiffs firms behind this have hundreds of millions of dollars and should be taught a lesson about this risks of corrupting federal prosecutors with their scams.
“#ExxonKnew lawsuit crashes and burns”
Top scientists say AGW exacerbated the situation if not totally to blame.
Blatantly BREXIT is to blame…..
As James Freeman of the Wall Street Journal used to say, “Its all George Bush’s fault.”
Oh Mann, if only we could apply the Martin Act to climate science , they’d all be in jail !!
What situation? Fifteen percent greening of planet? Record crop yields? Reduction of global poverty? Enhanced quality of life?
JR: 15% greening as of 2014. The latest about a year ago was 18%. The climateers don’t like to visit this subject. The greening (and doubling of harvests) is the only unequivocal manifestation of climate change. It makes “carbon” emissions unequivocally a huge plus on any real cost-benefit analysis.
Another fire caused by Global Warming!
Actions need to be taken to prevent this.
Quite to the contrary my opinion is that we should let all of these farcical witch hunts burn on their own pyres as they get hit for court costs.
Unfortunately, the money to fund these things is inexhaustible — liberal billionaires, but more from marxist NGOs and vast amounts of laundered taxpayer money.
Well it was good for some political donations and headline placement ad spots.
Moving on to the next show trial waste-o-time.
What is clear is NY’s AG Leticia James should be disbarred from Law practice.
Of course being the first “woman of color” at the NY AG, as she is frequently described by her supporters, will allow her to continue to abuse her office’s powers.
It is how political correctness and using the race card cowers the Liberal media and Legislators from doing their jobs to bring public accountability to office abusers like James (and Obama).
I think this open’s the door for disbarring a number of states attorneys. At the very least, since many of them are elected officials, it will provide a lot of gunpowder for upcoming elections. It also opens the door for a number of interstate actions, including Lanham actions to obtain permanent injunctions against any number of environmental groups so that any of the specious claims they make could be cause for contempt citations.
Me thinks this is more bigger than the initial ruling would appear …
true….every bit of it
If it wasn’t a $c@m….they would all be suing the UN/IPCC for saying China and developing countries can increase their emissions….and that’s where all of the increase has come from
If they really believed this crap…they would all be screaming China is ki11…ing us all
(I hope with the new format, some of these ridiculous censors are wiped out)
I hopped for a 42 USC 1983 (Civil action for deprivation of rights) action regarding:
– The ExxonKnew absolute garbage that’s the legal underpinning for their theory of responsibility for not acting on data that wasn’t even corporate, private data. The implication that a private legal person was expected to analyse data one way or follow the opinion of one of the person in contract with them who interpreted it one way is crazy.
– The massive, almost 100% in the open, conspiracy of Dem AG and private activists to enforce that theory.
true….every bit of it
If it wasn’t a $c@m….they would all be suing the UN/IPCC for saying China and developing countries can increase their emissions….and that’s where all of the increase has come from
If they really believed this crap…they would all be screaming China is killing us all
Why doesn’t she sue Hollywood and Al Gore for co2 producing private jet travel, #algoreknew, #hollywoodknew
They are a bunch of swindlers and idiots. Notwithstanding their expensive, elitist educations, the Rockefeller heirs apparently didn’t learn a damn thing.
I hope they rot in hell.
https://climatelitigationwatch.org/player-cards/#cbp=/?html-inline-1530301777133
I consider McKibben to be a modern day Rasputin employing tons of guilt to bamboozle impressionable but vulnerable adolescents.
Middlebury College is complicit. It should be ashamed that it has allowed McKibben to abuse its students.
“swindlers and idiots”. You are far too kind.
As for McKibben, watch him debate Alex Epstein back in 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_a9RP0J7PA&t=18s. Epstein has a common sense perspective on fossil fuels as a good thing! How dare he? (grin). Alex mops the floor with McKibben. While Alex remains calm and sounds sensible, McKibben gets flustered and nervous and sweaty. Anyone who likes McKibben and 350.org should watch it. McKibben only has a BA in English from Harvard but pontificates on climate as if he knows the subject better than anyone.
Thanks for the link – I just downloaded the decision and read the first and last parts. As a resident of New York, I am glad to see this come to such a clear conclusion in favor of the defendant. What a lame case it was, and what a sad commentary on the misdirected mindset of our state’s public officials who should have known better!
Oh dear! How sad, never mind!
They’ll be up the jungle so fast their feet won’t touch the ground…….
So far the WSJ has coverage on the news. Not sure about other media groups because I’m boycotting them from decades back.
And what was the carbon footprint of this show trial?
Does Exxon have grounds to sue for damages? Or at least court costs?
Sometimes, reading reports like these, I have an image of the US where billionaires own the judiciary
and to promote their own interests can, with no conscience at all, ruin the lives of individuals whose only “crime” is to run a business giving goods that people want and providing jobs that people need.
Is this how Americans want the rest of the world to see them, totally in the power of an eco-mafia.
Well maybe the Gangs of NY is a more confined way of looking at it. In that context Americans have the same watch-from-a-distance at NY idiots wonderment that others have. Country boundaries don’t matter so much when observing urban cultural and intellectual blight and abuse of once familiar institutions.
There needs to be a consequence for filing frivolous lawsuits such as this. Right now, every greentarded atheist, misfit, deviate of all kinds, ecochondriac, and all other assorted malcontents can waste the time and resources of an already overburdened legal system with total impunity.
At the very least, the plaintiffs should be responsible for the costs incurred by the defendants.
ECO -CHONDRIAC
mate THAT should be the Word of the Year for 2020
excellent melding
I’ve just read this astonishing tosh about ExxonMobil on the wikipedia page for the AGU:
The sponsorship of AGU by ExxonMobil became a source of concern for many members after evidence surfaced that ExxonMobil had known about climate change for decades but had actively worked to undermine climate science.[71][72][73][74] On February 22, 2016, a letter signed by 100 scientists was delivered to the AGU, requesting that they cut all ties with ExxonMobil and other companies that foster climate misinformation.[75][76][77] The AGU Board of Directors met on 22 April 2016 and voted to continue accepting sponsorship from ExxonMobil, arguing that there was not unequivocal evidence that ExxonMobil continues to participate in climate misinformation.[78] Instead of making a short-term political statement, the Board wished to engage with the energy industry over the long term.[79][80] In response, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Ted Lieu sent a critical letter saying that ExxonMobil continues to fund climate denial and is misleading the AGU.[81] The Union of Concerned Scientists also sent a letter urging them to reconsider.[82] However, in a meeting on 23 September 2016, the Board upheld its previous decision.[83]
Exxon absent this year, but Chevron is there:
https://www.agu.org/Fall-Meeting/Pages/Thank-you-sponsors
Whitehouse at one time wanted to jail skeptics using RICO laws.
Chevron brought a RICO suit against the “slip & fall” lawyers who tried to extort money from them in a similar manner and won.
https://www.chevron.com/stories/appeals-court-affirms-rico-judgment-against-lawyer-behind-fraudulent-ecuador-lawsuit
With all of the collusion and extortion attempts associated with these junk climate science lawsuits, let’s hope ExxonMobil goes full-Chevron on these fascist thugs.
And some of you may recall this …
U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni in Manhattan rejected as “implausible” Exxon’s argument that the states’ Democratic attorneys general, Eric Schneiderman and Maura Healey, were pursuing politically motivated, bad faith fraud investigations in order to violate its constitutional rights.
Caproni was nominated to the bench by Obama, after she headed the FBI Office of Legal council, and was shown to improperly use elements of the Patriot Act to “spy on people.”
Early in his judgment the judge referred to the AG’s “hyperbolic complaint”. He also referred to political statements by the previous AG.
Toward the end, the judge said that the defense technical experts “eviscerated” the testimony of the AG’s witnesses.
The short story seems to be that the judge did not find anything the AG’s department said to be credible. He didn’t quite call them lying liars …
I noticed those as well. I take them as subtle proof that the Court did not appreciate the AG’s consumption of limited judicial resources in pursuit of the AG’s political interests.
My family is (or was, several are now gone) infested with attorneys, including a judge. I have obtained an informal education on some of the law and ‘legalese’.
This judge ripped the AGs AND all of their experts new backside orifices. Besides the hyperbolic and eviscerated comments, the judge questioned why one witness was called, since he could remember nothing relevant; that another misused XOM internal models, yet STILL couldn’t produce anything significantly different than what XOM did; one claimed XOM’s non-disclosure inflated the stock price per his THEORY, but did NOT actually look at the behavior of the stock during the time period involved (there was no significant change in the stock’s price); he said one witness was shown to be blatantly wrong and not credible in his analysis of the Mobile Bay facility; and some of the AG’s witnesses did not even support what the AG said they did.
Moreover, the AG could not produce a single investor claiming any damages.
The AG and his witnesses have professionally embarrassed themselves.
OTOH, I am highly impressed by the thoroughness of EM’s analyses, models, and efforts to understand their markets, and make solid, responsible business decisions. It’s a good stock for an investor’s portfolio.
Was this case the model for the “impeachment hearings”?
They both seem to have an overlapping cast of clowns.
I noticed those as well. I’m sure they’ll try to spin it as something other than the abject failure that it is, but that’s some of the harshest language in a legal finding I’ve ever read – and I’m in the business.
Needed: Tort reform where loser pays. It won’t stop Deep State apparatchiks from abusing the courts to harass people, but it would at least pay back the victims.
Should the lawyer himself that personally pays, not the taxpayer. Take it out of the AG’s personal assests.
Climate religion does strange things to courts.
Some things never change in that context.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trial
No mention of this on the BBC!
Greta ThunderBerg hardest hit!
“……by a preponderance of the evidence, that ExxonMobil made any material misstatements or omissions about its practices and procedures that misled any reasonable investor,”
Preponderance? I’m not a legal expert, but isn’t that basically heresay, or a claim? Latitia couldn’t even make that stick. Great way to waste taxpayer money.
No, “preponderance” just means “more likely guilty than not”. This is the lowest bar to hurdle in the legal world. If you can’t even show a preponderance of evidence, then you should never have even brought the case in the first place. Shame on them for wasting so many tax dollars on this.
Let’s hope ExxonMobile files against the State of NY for legal expenses in defending itself against such unsupportable charges. The judge “dismissed with prejudice” .
Any lawyers reading here? Does that give ExxonMobile grounds to recover expenses?
Don’t know about recovering costs. But defending lawsuits is a legitimate business expense, which they can write off against earnings.
So the net effect of the suit is NY tax money was spent to achieve the sole result of lowering Exxon’s taxable income. Hopefully it also lowers the re-election chances of the AG.
Lowering your taxable income still lowers all income. The result is Exxon shareholders are getting a smaller dividend.
Oh really? When did Exxon announce a dividend cut?
3rd Qtr 2018 dividend: $0.82
4th Qtr 2018 dividend: $0.82
1st Qtr 2019 dividend: $0.87
2nd Qtr 2019 dividend: $0.87
3rd Qtr 2019 dividend: $0.87
I guess $0.87 is a smaller dividend than $0.82, but then I didn’t study higher level math.
Not really up on basic finances, are you Don?
“Two of the more common applications of the word are as part of the terms “with prejudice” and “without prejudice”. In general, an action taken with prejudice is essentially final; in particular, “dismissal with prejudice” would forbid a party to refile the case, and might occur either because of misconduct on the part of the party who filed the claim or criminal complaint or could be the result of an out of court agreement or settlement. Dismissal without prejudice (in Latin, “salvis iuribus”) would leave the party an option to refile, and is often a response to procedural or technical problems with the filing that the party could correct when filing again.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prejudice_(legal_term)
I bet this inspires David Middleton to park his Jeep Rubicon in the garage and put the EXXON Ferrari in the driveway. Can somebody drive by his house and tell us?
Just a Jeep Rubicon… No Ferrari, no Lambo, no Porsche. If I was going to drop $100k on a vehicle, I might think about a Mercedes G-Wagon… But I think I’d rather have a maxed out Jeep Gladiator.
“The Jeep Gladiator, Jeep Pickup or J-series is a series of full-size pickup trucks based on the large Jeep SJ platform, which was built and sold under numerous marques from 1962 to 1988.” (wiki)
The problem with the Gladiator pickup is when you roll your truck, all your stuff falls out. Also, it doesn’t float as well as the fully-enclosed SJ version. Just sayin’ 🙂
There’s a new Gladiator… 😎
Epic fail by the smug. The legal action was unmerited to begin with.
To play it safe, Exxon should warn stock holders for the events of next year;
If Trump wins, everything stays the same and earnings will stay high.
If Bernie wins, the economy will tank and earnings will drop by half.
If Hillary wins, the economy will tank but earnings will DOUBLE …… because of all the tank fuel needed for the invasion of Russia.
And if Warren wins, the company will be nationalized, shut down, and all investor money lost.