Conrad Theodore Seitz

An article in today’s New York Times online describes an investigation of state attorneys general which disclosed that the attorneys are frequently fighting on the side of large corporations in their states that are resisting anti-pollution regulations promulgated by the federal government.

This collusion is so extensive that in many cases, the attorneys are simply copying draft letters supplied to them by the corporations, making a few slight changes in wording, and sending them on to the feds as complaints about supposedly excessive regulation or mismeasurement of pollution emitted.  The vast majority of these attorneys are, of course, Republicans.  In return for their cooperation, the corporations supply the attorneys with huge quantities of money for their re-election campaigns.

For example, the attorney general of Oklahoma has gotten over $215,000 from energy companies in “campaign contributions” since 2010, even though he ran unopposed in the last election.  The attorney general of Texas, the top recipient of contributions, has had over $2.5 million in contributions since 2006.

In return for lavish contributions, the attorneys general have sided with regulated companies in aggressively opposing attempts by the federal Environmental Protection Agency to cut down on air pollution caused by such things as coal-burning power plants.

This team-up of energy-extracting corporations (oil, coal, and natural gas producers) and state attorneys general has impaired efforts to clean up the pollution produced by these corporations.  What is more, it is undermining the traditional role of attorneys general, which is to encourage corporations to comply with state and federal laws that attempt to limit pollution.

If this process of collaboration continues, there will be no distinction between law enforcement agencies and the large companies that they are supposed to regulate.  When these companies corrupt state attorneys general, the people lose and the ideal of republican government is subverted.

The article can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/us/politics/energy-firms-in-secretive-alliance-with-attorneys-general.html

A fascinating and horrifying story is told at this web address: http://truth-out.org/news/item/10943-the-death-of-sunny-sheu#startOfPageId10943  This story is far from unique, and has come to light only because of the persistence of the victim in the face of death threats and the legwork of a dedicated journalist.  There are many other evil actions taken by people in power in this country that never come to light.  How do I know?  There is a saying that if you see one cockroach in your kitchen, there are five hundred hiding in the walls; I think this applies equally to incidents of this nature.

The case involves the assassination of a Chinese-American man who made the mistake of fighting a corrupt judge in New York City, Queens.  When this wealthy, corrupt judge failed to redress this man’s justified grievances, he went public with his complaints, brought the judge’s corrupt activities to light, and was rubbed out.  Despite the inept nature of the cover-up for this assassination, nothing has been done to bring justice in this case.  It is already four years old, and it has never been mentioned in any mainstream media source.  I came across it by accident.

The judge involved lied on his disclosure forms (you know, the ones that are supposed to prevent conflicts of interest) and, when given any opportunity to correct his lies, failed to do so.  He has committed a felony under New York state law and retired without ever being brought to justice.  The man who told everyone, even the FBI, what was going on is dead.

Here’s an article about his retirement (from August 11, 2012) which is very flattering… until you read the comments: http://queenscourier.com/justice-joseph-golia-retires-after-a-life-and-love-of-law/ … a number of people simply commented: “Murderer!” and one wrote “How does a judge accumulate millions of dollars in real estate?”

It seems that ex-Justice Golia is now a consultant to the law firm of Finz and Finz, which appears to be involved in personal injury litigation (like auto crashes and liability cases.)  Ironically, Finz and Finz were partners in winning a $20 million judgement against Philip Morris for making addictive cigarettes.  A case like that, if seriously attacked by a lawyer that really wanted to punish a cigarette company, ought to be worth in the hundreds of billions of dollars and result in the forced closure of the company and the sale of its assets.  This is because ninety percent of people who have ever smoked cigarettes are still smoking and half of them are destined to die from smoking.  After all, addictive drugs are bad (and illegal), right? and people who push drugs to innocent consumers should be thrown in jail, right?  wrong.

The take home lesson from this story is that America is nearly as corrupt as certain third world countries.  It seems that the corruption has been hidden from view by a complaisant media.  The little guy always seems to get the shaft.