The law officially will be applied to some, but not to all, which means we’re in full banana republic mode.
Read my article, The day the FBI kissed the rule of law good-bye.
Mexico: No rule of law
Teacher protesting the #Ayotzinapa disappearance of the 43 student teachers. His shirt reads “I AM A TEACHER. I defend education. I defend my people. I defend my country.”
Mary O’Grady looks at Mexico’s Rule of Law Crisis
The fate of 43 missing university students and corruption allegations test President Peña Nieto’s pledge to transform the country.
Until now the president has been able to ignore Mexico’s legendary lawlessness. He has been riding an international wave of excitement around the opening of the energy sector, with few questions asked. But unless he wants to make common cause with the hard left—which thinks it has him on the ropes because of the missing students—he needs to admit his mistakes, purge his cabinet and make the rule of law job No. 1.
That would be a first in Mexico’s history, a country that sees, as O’Grady puts it, “the traditional use of the criminal-justice system as a profit center for the state.”
Ecuador: Patton Boggs to pay Chevron $15 million
HUGE:
Following Chevron’s win in the fraud case committed against them, Chevron and Patton Boggs settle their epic legal battle over jungle oil pits in Ecuador
Chevron and Patton Boggs have settled disputes linked to long-running litigation over toxic drilling waste pits in Ecuador, with Patton Boggs agreeing to pay Chevron $15 million, issue a statement of regret, and withdraw from the Ecuador case. Chevron agreed to release all claims against Patton Boggs and its partners.
The settlement is a stunning and highly unusual setback for any law firm, let alone the nation’s leading lobbying firm, long a bedrock of the Washington establishment. While the payment will cover only a tiny portion of the money Chevron has spent on the legal battle, the settlement overall tarnishes the reputation of Patton Boggs.
I know of no other instance where a top lobbying law firm has settled publicly in such terms, particularly when
Now, as part of the settlement with Chevron, Patton Boggs has agreed to assign its 5 percent interest in any money the plaintiffs might obtain. It also agreed to assist Chevron with discovery against the Ecuadorian plaintiffs and their New York-based lawyer Steven Donziger, who has been doggedly fighting Chevron for more than two decades and who Chevron has argued was part of a racketeering scheme to obtain a fraudulent judgment.
Daniel Fisher at Forbes puts it best: Patton Boggs Pays Chevron $15 Million To Rid Itself Of Donziger
The settlement, down to the humiliating, pre-negotiated press release, resembles deals Chevron has negotiated with London-based Burford Capital and other parties that assisted New York attorney Steven Donziger in his attempt to make the oil company pay for widespread pollution left over from a Texaco drilling program in Ecuador in the 1970s and 1980s.
…
Law firms are rarely found liable for tactics they use to zealously represent their clients, and multimillion-dollar settlements are even rarer. Perhaps more unusual is the law firm’s agreement to deliver partners James Tyrrell and Eric Westenberger to Gibson Dunn’s New York offices for depositions overseen by a court-appointed special master. The firm has also agreed to turn over documents, provided its former clients don’t prevail on challenges under the attorney-client privilege.
Maybe, just maybe this will give pause to anyone considering to engage in fraudulent legalfare against U.S. corporations.
Related:
Why Patton Boggs Has Come to Regret Picking a Fight With Chevron
A federal judge in New York has dismissed a suit Patton Boggs filed against Chevron (CVX), which accused the oil giant of bad faith in response to the law firm’s attempt to enforce a multibillion-dollar pollution judgment in Ecuador. While the fizzling of the Patton Boggs case by itself might not seem significant, the dismissal leaves behind Chevron’s counter claims against the law firm, in which the oil company accuses the Washington partnership of participating in a massive fraud and coverup related to that same Ecuadorian judgment.
I’lll be in Silvio Canto’s podcast tonight at 8PM Eastern to talk about this and other Latin American news.
UPDATE:
Paul M. Barrett writing for Business Week:
In nearly three decades of writing about the law business, I can’t think of a comparable retreat.
Linked to by Doug Ross. Thank you!
Linked to by Instapundit. Thank you, Ed Discoll!
Linked to by Bad Blue. Thank you!
Linked to by American Thinker. Thank you!
Le-gal In-sur-rec-tion‘s post of the day. Thank you! Understatement of the year: “Chevron must have really good lawyers.”
Brazil: “Mensalão” vote-buying convictions to be appealed
Their lawyers will be able to put their kids through Princeton University; heck, the lawyers will have enough money left to retire in Princeton, if they ever get to retire! This is going to be drawn out for decades:
Brazil Court Allows Corruption Case Appeals
Decision Could Lead to Lengthy Retrials
Brazil’s Supreme Court voted Wednesday to reassess the landmark convictions it handed down against a dozen defendants found guilty last year of participating in a vote-buying scheme that rocked the government of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The 6-5 vote allows 12 of the 25 defendants in the case, including Mr. da Silva’s once-powerful chief of staff José Dirceu, to appeal parts of their prison sentences, which could open the door to lengthy retrials. Mr. Dirceu maintains his innocence and says he is a target of political retribution.
The decision could send shock waves through a country that has long struggled with corruption, and where many held up the court’s earlier convictions of the defendants as a sign of change. The cash-for-votes scandal, dubbed the Mensalão, or ‘big monthly payoff’, resulted in Brazil’s biggest-ever political corruption trial.
Instead, the retrials now risk becoming a symbol of the inability of Brazilian prosecutors to make high-profile corruption convictions stick, said José Garcez Ghirardi, a professor of political theory and law at the Fundação Getúlio Vargas law school in São Paulo.
As I had posted a while ago, no one has served time on these charges.
Lula himself was not implicated in the case and has denied any knowledge of the scheme, so don’t be surprised if he runs again.
Immigration law problem,
particularly considering how it affects current citizens; here’s a list of the crimes waived under S744 (click for larger version),
UPDATE,
More here.
Linked by Mr. Bingley. Thank you!
My latest at BlogHer
BlogHer invited me to write about the Heritage immigration study:
The Heritage Foundation and IQ: Not a Reflection on the GOP.
IQ is a side issue; the real issue is what policies and laws the government enacts, and we should be cautious when watershed laws are rushed through.
Please read the article and leave a comment.
Argentina: Courts now under Cristina’s authority
The judicial system is compromised: borrowing a page from Chavismo, Argentine Legislature Extends President’s Control Over the Judicial System
Argentina’s Congress passed legislation giving the president and political parties greater control over the judicial system, just days after hundreds of thousands of Argentines took to the streets to protest the measures.
President Cristina Kirchner’s populist, left-wing ruling coalition approved the changes that limit injunctions against government policies and create three new appellate courts.
Within a week or two, Congress is also set to change the Magistrates Council that appoints and impeaches judges, subjecting its members to popular elections. That likely will give Mrs. Kirchner’s party control over the council, which will be able to impeach judges by a simple majority, instead of the two-thirds vote required now.
Mrs. Kirchner says the new laws will make the legal system less beholden to special-interest groups. The sweeping changes come less than a month after Mrs. Kirchner submitted the legislation to Congress.
No more separation of powers,
Legal experts say the revisions will make it hard for individuals and companies to challenge laws and presidential decrees, especially those expropriating private property. Rights groups Human Rights Watch and Transparency International have warned the legislation would give the executive branch unprecedented control over the courts.
This gives free hand to the government to act or seize assets before a case is solved.
For commentary in Spanish, please read Monólogo de una República Perdida, by Agustín Ulivarri Rodi.
Venezuelan immigration to the USA quadrupled over the past 15 years
Venezuelan journalist Carlos Subero researched immigration patterns from Venezuela to the US since 1997 and found that it has surged from 2,500 to 10,000 per year. This reverses the trend of the 1950s, when Venezuela received immigrants from Spain, Italy and Portugal.
Subero, who blogs at Carlossubero’s blog, also found that every forty minutes a Venezuelan obtains a US resident visa, and that the majority of Venezuelan immigrants to the US are middle class or upper-middle class. One in every six is in the traditional professions, a real “brain drain” in Venezuela.
As you can see on the graph below, immigration jumped to the 10,000/yr mark on 2005, when Hugo Chávez announced the Salto Adelante, hacia la construcción del Socialismo del Siglo XXI (Leap Forward, towards building 21st Century Socialism) and began expropriating private lands and businesses:
Personal safety, economic reasons, and politics are the top reasons for immigrating to the USA. Subero also found,
- Whole families are immigrating – the parents seek better lives for their children
- Venezuelans are not interested in entering the USA illegally
- 40% of immigrants in 2009 were sponsored by next-of-kin who is an American citizen
- Most seek American citizenship.
Subero’s book, in Spanish, is available through Amazon.
Here’s a brief interview, also in Spanish,
Cross-posted at Liberty Unyielding.