Duped into voting for President Obama?

[OnyxCollie]

32. President Obama's Supreme Court pick, Elena Kagan,

Last edited Mon Apr 1, 2013, 03:18 AM - Edit history (4)

during her stint as Solicitor General, wrote a brief to the SCOTUS urging them to deny a hearing to Don Siegelman, while the DoJ suggested that Siegelman be given an additional 20 year sentence.

Siegelman Judge Asked To Recuse As Kagan, Rove Oppose Reviews
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-kreig/siegelman-judge-asked-to_b_534628.html

Both Leura and Bill Canary have issued statements denying wrongdoing. To defer to Alabama's two powerful Republican senators, the Obama administration has so far continued Canary in office after she served during the two Bush administrations as the president's top prosecutor in Alabama's middle district, covering the state capital region.

~snip~

A bipartisan group of 91 former state attorneys general from more than 40 states formed an unprecedented coalition to file a friend-of-the-court brief to the Supreme Court arguing it should hear Siegelman's case because his actions did not constitute a crime.

But Kagan, now widely reported as a leading candidate to ascend from her post as Justice Department solicitor general to become her friend Obama's nominee for a Supreme Court vacancy, urged the high court in November to deny Siegelman a hearing. Kagan used technical legal arguments devised with the assistance of DOJ's trial prosecutors.

~snip~

Kagan's stance already has created strong skeptics in progressive circles in Alabama, and is certain to irritate Siegelman supporters around the country if she is nominated to the Supreme Court. DOJ has requested that Fuller resentence Siegelman, now 64, to an additional 20 years in prison.

I guess that's why Don Siegelman didn't get a pardon.

(For those needing a refresher, Don Siegleman was a thorn in the side of Big Oil.)

ExxonMobil’s Alabama Paydirt
http://harpers.org/blog/2007/11/exxonmobils-alabama-paydirt/

The State of Alabama believes that it was victimized by ExxonMobil. According to the state’s complaint launched by the Administration of Governor Don Siegelman, ExxonMobil committed fraud and underpaid the state in a contract dispute over natural gas pumped from Mobile Bay. Alabama won that litigation, and a jury awarded the state a judgment against ExxonMobil of roughly $3.6 billion. Not chump change, even for ExxonMobil. And for Alabama, an immense sum of money (roughly a third of the state’s annual budget).

But ExxonMobil appealed, secured a stay, and ultimately took the matter to the Alabama Supreme Court. Thursday, the state’s High Court handed down its decision, by a vote of 8-1. The Court sided with ExxonMobil and against Alabama. The punitive damage award was rejected, and Alabama was left with a compensatory award of $51.9 million, a pittance.

~snip~

Nevertheless, there is something very foul and unseemly in the air surrounding this decision. It expunged the punitive award altogether. And the decision was 8-1. Every Republican justice sided with ExxonMobil and the court’s sole Democrat sided with the state. This serves to underscore and highlight what really looks like a partisan and political divide. That also is extremely telling.

Leura Canary, the US Attorney (and Good Bushie) that Obama kept on is the wife of Bill Canary:

William Canary is a campaign partner of Karl Rove’s and worked with Rove in Alabama Court politics starting with 1992; Toby Roth, the former chief of staff to Governor Bill Riley was a third member of their team. The Rove-Canary-Roth team scored a series of quite astonishing successes, and in the end it totally transformed the Alabama court landscape, starting with the state’s Supreme Court. I have no reason to link Rove, Canary and Roth to the specific litigation between ExxonMobil and the State of Alabama in particular. But in broader terms, the ExxonMobil decision should be counted the ultimate triumph of the Rove-Canary-Roth game plan. It got the oil and gas community exactly what it was aiming for from the beginning: the elimination of punitive damage awards in commercial cases.

Obama appointed the former 9/11 claims czar to be the bp oil spill claims czar.

Ken Feinberg, BP Not Independent According To Judge
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/03/ken-feinberg-bp-not-indep_n_817933.html

NEW ORLEANS — The administrator of the $20 billion compensation fund for Gulf oil spill victims is not independent from BP and must stop telling potential claimants that he is, a federal judge said in a ruling Wednesday that may spur more people to sue rather than settle.

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier said claims czar Ken Feinberg and any of his agents must change the way they communicate with people seeking money from the fund. The ruling came just hours after Feinberg released details on how final payments would be determined.

~snip~

Feinberg was appointed last June by BP and the White House to oversee the fund. His Washington law firm was paid $850,000 a month for its work through the middle of January, and now Feinberg is discussing with BP how much he should be paid going forward.

Barbier said: "The court finds that BP has created a hybrid entity, rather than one that is fully independent of BP."

Feinberg Says Judge Should Stay Out of BP Oil Spill Claims Fund
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-12/feinberg-tells-judge-to-stay-out-of-bp-oil-spill-claims-process.html

The attorneys general of four Gulf Coast states had asked U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans to monitor fund administrator Kenneth Feinberg to ensure fair and prompt payment of thousands of oil spill damage claims, as required by law. On April 7, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood asked Barbier to intervene, conduct an independent audit of Feinberg’s Gulf Coast Claims Facility and hold public hearings on the findings.

“The court does not have the power under the Oil Pollution Act to impose upon the GCCF the monitoring sought by the attorney general,’’ David Pitofsky, Feinberg’s lawyer, said in court papers filed yesterday.

~snip~

Hood said he analyzed recent claims-payment data and accused Feinberg of using “economic duress to manipulate financially desperate claimants’’ into accepting quick, inadequate settlements that would prevent them from later suing BP for damages.

Hood claimed Feinberg’s fund has paid “barely 3 percent of interim business claims and 9 percent of individual interim claims’’ for economic damages resulting from the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. He said the claims facility imposed “unreasonable’’ documentation requirements and then used claimants’ inability to provide the records as grounds for denying legitimate claims.

BP increases monthly fee for claims czar Kenneth Feinberg's law firm to $1.25 million
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2011/03/bp_increases_monthly_fee_for_c.html

Documents provided by the administrator of BP's claims fund for Gulf of Mexico oil spill victims show the oil giant agreed to increase his law firm's monthly compensation from $850,000 to $1.25 million.

The documents furnished Friday to The Associated Press include a letter from former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey to claims czar Kenneth Feinberg. Mukasey stated his belief that the extra money was warranted because Feinberg's duties had grown. Mukasey was asked by Feinberg to weigh in on how reasonable his compensation was.

The pay hike, detailed in a Tuesday letter from Mukasey to Feinberg, is retroactive to Jan. 15 and runs through the end of 2011.

~snip~

Feinberg has said he believes the Gulf of Mexico should largely recover from BP's oil spill by the end of next year, and he doesn't think the entire $20 billion will be needed to compensate victims. Only half of that should suffice, he has said.

"He has performed poorly, and I'm being polite, and yet they are giving him a raise," said Orange Beach, Ala., Mayor Anthony Kennon, whose community was hard hit by the oil spill. "The real question is, how does BP view his performance? They are giving him a raise, so they must think it's good. That speaks for itself."

Feinberg says 100,000 claims lack proof
http://louisianarecord.com/news/233695-feinberg-says-100000-claims-lack-proof

Gulf Coast Claims Administrator Kenneth Feinberg told a group of foreign journalists yesterday that close to 100,000 claims submitted as a result of the BP oil spill “lack proof.”

United Press International reported today Feinberg’s statement that he cannot pay “80 percent of the remaining 130,000 claims because they lack adequate documentation.”

~snip~

Even BP has voiced complaints about the GCCF. As plaintiff lawyers and Gulf Coast politicians claimed that Feinberg was too slow and stingy about payments, BP has said the GCCF has been overly generous.

In February, Barbier ruled that Feinberg “cannot be considered ‘neutral’ or totally ‘independent’ of BP.”

Since the Gulf is already fucked, might as well sell the rest of it off.

Obama Administration To Offer More Than 20 Million Acres in Western Gulf of Mexico for Oil and Natural Gas Exploration and Development
November Sale Will Offer All Available Unleased Areas in the Western Gulf of Mexico, Only Latest in a Series of Recent Major Offshore Oil and Gas Sales

http://www.doi.gov/news/mediaadvisories/tomorrow-obama-administration-to-offer-more-than-20-million-acres-in-western-gulf-of-mexico-for-oil-and-natural-gas-exploration-and-development.cfm

WASHINGTON – Tomorrow, as part of President Obama’s all-of-the-above energy strategy to continue to expand safe and responsible domestic energy production, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will hold an oil and gas lease sale that will make more than 20 million offshore acres available, and represents all unleased areas in the Western Gulf of Mexico Planning Area. The Western Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale builds on two major Gulf of Mexico lease sales in the past year alone, a 21 million acre sale held last December and a 39 million acre sale held in June.

“At President Obama’s direction, his Administration continues to implement a comprehensive, all-of-the-above energy strategy, expanding domestic production, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and supporting jobs,” said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. “Developing public energy resources in the Gulf of Mexico continues to generate much needed revenue for local communities while helping to power our nation and fuel our economy.”

BTW, welcome to DU.

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