Three and a half years of unambiguous actions and decisions seem to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that it is unnecessary for corporations to
waste their time and money to "influence" the Obama admin. The Obama team was not only bought, but created by corporate interests such as Shell in order to dominate US govt.

If only the problem were as simple as Eric Holder, et al having a personal conflict of interest.

"U.S. courts “should not create a cause of action that challenges the actions of a foreign sovereign in its own territory, where the [sued party] is a foreign corporation of a third country that allegedly aided and abetted the foreign sovereign’s conduct,” the Justice Department wrote."

Yet we can get involved in regime change in foreign sovereign countries like Libya and Syria?

Thank you Puck Lo. Obama is not much more than Republican lite and this story is a part of the avalanche of proof that he could care less about the people of this country and the world.

Actually Obama is far to the right of old-style Republicans like Eisenhower and Nixon and MUCH more adventurist in his foreign policy.

Bingo. If American right-wingers, that is, the minority percentage of them who actually have the wherewithal to realize that they ARE right-wingers, ha (the affliction seems to be lost on, and not self evident to most!) weren't so driven by prejudice, and brainwashed via M$M, they'd fucking realize they've already got their repub in the White House!

Ike was a true Democrat compared to Obama. He warned us about the corporations and the "...military industrial complex..." and we didn't listen. Ike was a true American patriot, unlike the traitors of Reagan, Clinton, Bush 2 & 2, and Obama.

You've got a good point, Rainborowe. One must bear in mind, however, that the United States, under the Nixon Administration, had already begun to slide to the Right in earnest, and it's continued up through today.

Obama has been shiting on the Mother Earth and marginal populations for years on behalf of his corporate Masters. Just another day of the typical sell out.

Bodi,
The UCC must influence parallel thought patterns.

How's that "Hope & Change" thing workin' out for us???!!!

Right on! You know it.

Straigtht to heart of the problem! Bernie Sanders in 2016!

That's just this time. But after the 2012 election his interest may perk up.

He's said repeatedly that he's not going anywhere near the throne. He's content letting Kang and Kodos play their kabuki theater on who gets it this time.

Thank you for this info.... I have been trying to stay in touch with this type of issue...when I first heard about the Nigerian situation, read about the Ken WiWa(sp).... case...and how the Nigerian Delta is the most polluted place in the world.... I have handed out articles about this to other people...

I believe his full name was Ken Saro Wiwa--but full marks for getting it right.

Multinational corporations make law and justice with the
power of money and provide a safe haven to social predators while promoting the
rape of the planet for profit. The world
has no or few laws and little to no enforcement of justice to limit or abolish
multi National corporate abuse but in fact what laws exist or are enforced
promote abuse and injustice in the name of profit to shareholders. However the shareholders are for the most
part other corporations not people but a few greedy power hungry social predators. It’s time the world limits the criminal abuse
of multinational corporations and the few who control them for gain and or
power.

A president's attorney general pick says something about what the presidential regime is about. Holder is just a corporate lawyer, and his Chiquita deal was a way to get his clients out of going to prison over murder charges, which Holder "successfully" brokered. Now, with this recent twist with the Shell case (what happened and is happening in Nigeria with Shell is also murder, by the way), it's clear that Holder is looking to change U.S. law, sort of along the lines of the Powell memo, making U.S. laws subordinate to corporate operations.

http://reclaimdemocracy.org...

It was easy to be critical of boobs like Ed Meese and John Ashcroft, who wore ideology and malevolence on their sleeves. Holder is equally a corporate legal reformer like them, but he's destroying important protections, such as statutes affording civil protections. For instance, in addition to this abominable position on the Alien Torts Act, he is investigating Julian Assange and antiwar activists on speech grounds, in clear contrast to First Amendment protections.

When you vote for Obama, you vote for Holder and this vision, too. If you want corporate rule, just continue to vote Dem/Repug. I don't think people are digging down and seeing what's happening here. Thanks to Puck Lo for a great article exposing this corruption.

The 2-Party political dictatorship is the problem.
The Democrats put us on a slower track to the next Great Depression
(i.e., put the frog into the pot of water that slowly goes to boil),
the Republicans will put on a faster track
(i.e., throw the frog into a pot of boiling water).
I prefer the fast track,
so that the majority of voters will finally learn the truth experientially,
that crony-corporate-predatory capitalism,
with its ownership
of our political system is the real problem.
Then we could convene a Constitutional Convention
to form
a more perfect union.

No surprise, Obama is a corporate shill, nothing more. No vote for either Obama or Romney. Why vote for my own and my children's destruction?

Who runs this country the corporations or the government. Wait they are married right?

I used to know the answer to this, but how was it that aliens could bring suit in the US of A against foreign nationals under ATCA in the first place when the occurrence took place on the high seas?

It is quite obvious that said legislation created the cause of action, which is precisely why the US DOJ's position makes no sense, since the cause of action has always existed by statute for over 200 years.

I believe this is what I recall when I first found out about this wonderful piece of legislation along time ago.

It sounds like someone cared about international justice (if only occasionally) back in the 70s. Now? Not so much. Against not only foreign transgressors but also multinationals? Uh-uh, no way.

Clearly, law is no longer the complicated tool used sometimes to effect real justice but is only effective in the hands of the biggest bullies with the cleverest, most devious lawyers, and used for their exclusive benefit. Justice itself is just a word.

Well in the context of world history, that's unsurprising. the very idea of the rule of law itself is only a few hundred years old, and has been thin, contentious, and challenged every day since.

Well, one could point out the Ten Commandments, the Code of Hammurabi, the Magna Carta, and such, but I do agree that 'the rule of law' in larger societies has no doubt always been problematical with the privileged actually using a different set of laws than the common man.

It is too easy to criticize Holder and Srinivasan for working for large corporations which by all accounts put profits over human lives. The problem is that lawyers are supposed to represent their clients. That is what they do. Even a child molester is entitled to representation by a lawyer. The legal aide lawyers may despise some of their clients, but the system is designed so that anyone can be represented.
That said, the change of heart at the Justice Department this year does suggest that someone got to someone else. But the fact that Holder once represented Chiquita has nothing to do with that.

Gee, I wonder how much money they gave his campaign.
We need to take MONEY out out of getting people elected.
Just a ridicules amount of money for TV ads.
The TV owners have gotten enough money from owning the airwaves, it's time they pitched in.

And we expected less?

Put three people in a room and the one with the hatchet and bloodlust wins no matter how good the other two are. Reality rewards the sickest. Sure evidence of the evil universe Gnosticism details.

A parade should be held for whomever manages to take out the CoC.

We aren't headed for a depression. We're in one but the mainstream media won't cover it that way. They aren't about to.

The US Chamber of Commerce. An on going criminal enterprise that is not being investigated by another on going criminal enterprise. The United States Department of Justice! Which is being backed by another on going criminal enterprise. The Obama Administration!

Another straw on the camel's back.

When entities subject to US law by doing business in the US
are held to a standard of respect for that law wherever they act a wide variety
of tax avoidance schemes will begin their deserved, natural deflation. Also deflated will be one further measure of
that consistent, flagrant, indifferent disrespect for human rights now so
normative in the corporate way.

What’s more important in the formation of US international
policy, a respect for human life or business as usual.

Oh, you don't say now do ya?

I am not surprised that the corporatist and CIA-connected Obama supports these big oil companies.

The Obama administration is backing Shell Oil

Single-partee rule for you, my gringo friends! Arriba!

Working strategy is not attacking Shell or what have you. It is to cut the chains of your neighbor. Than free men will build free society.

EarthRights seems a good environmental organization to back.

Good story,gal and thanks!

"Thanks Barry, but no thanks!"