Exxon Can’t Explain Shift From Climate Science To Climate Denial Funding
In an unusually intense interview featured on the National Public Radio (NPR) program On the Media, ExxonMobil spokesman and former journalist Richard Keil repeatedly failed to offer a reasonable explanation in response to charges that the energy giant shifted funding in the 1980s away from climate scientists and towards climate
Volkswagen Emission Scandal May Lead To Industry-Wide Probe
German automaker Volkswagen has now admitted to installing software in its vehicles to cheat US pollution admission tests and has claimed that 11 million of its cars worldwide contain the software. The company announced it would set aside $7.3 billion to pay the costs of fixing the cars so they can actually pass an emissions test.
SEC Commissioner’s Husband Caught Marketing Influence
The law firm that employs John W. White, husband of Mary Jo White, Chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has changed its marketing material after being scrutinized for the way the firm advertised its connections to regulators. The firm, Cravath, Swaine & Moore, was trumpeting John White’s work for an advisory group to the influential Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) just as Mary Jo White, in her capacity as SEC chair, is considering candidates to lead the PCAOB.
DOJ Fails To Bring Charges Against GM Executives Despite Promises
Last week, the Justice Department announced they were changing their policy on letting corporate executives walk away scot-free without criminal charges. This week, the Department of Justice announced it will let every executive of General Motors (GM) walk away scot-free with no criminal charges for defrauding consumers and misleading regulators on a faulty ignition switch that killed over 120 people.
California Teachers’ Pensions May Embrace Hedge Funds
The hedge fund industry continues to expand its influence throughout the US economy and financial system despite having a lackluster performance record. The latest catch is a true whale, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, a pension fund worth approximately $119 billion that serves roughly 880,000 active and retired school employees.
As Opioid Addiction Spreads One Family Cashes In
The CDC also claims that 45% of people addicted to heroin were also addicted to prescription opioid painkillers. The Sackler family, 100% owners of Purdue Pharma, producers of OxyContin, became billionaires through knowingly promoting opioid addiction in America.
Appealing Treasury Department’s FOIA Response On Hank Paulson AIG Records
The following letter was mailed today to the Treasury Department’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) division. It is a response to a two year old FOIA request that asked for records concerning former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s communications during a period that included the AIG bailout. The Treasury Department claimed, amazingly, that no official records could be found and gave me 35 days to appeal the no records response.
Student Loan Crisis Driven By For-Profit Colleges, Report Shows
Brookings Institution found that “most of the increase in default is because of an upsurge in the number of borrowers attending for-profit schools and, to a lesser-extent, community colleges and other non-selective institutions whose students had historically composed only a small share of student borrowing.”
Resurfaced Documentary: Donald Trump Used Undocumented Immigrants, Screwed Taxpayers
A 1991 documentary on Donald Trump suppressed from broadcast by legal threats from Trump titled “Trump: What’s The Deal?” is now available online. The documentary paints an extremely unflattering picture of Trump as a businessman and a man in general highlighting questionable if not illegal business practices and making all but explicit claims that Trump committed adultery while married to Ivana Trump with his later wife Marla Maples.
DOJ Claims Corporate Executives Will No Longer Be Above Law
After years of being mocked and ridiculed for failing to prosecute even one of the major Wall Street criminals that brought the global economy to its knees in 2008, the Justice Department now claims it will finally start enforcing the law on cases that involve criminal wrongdoing by corporate executives.