A federal agency, with access to unlimited tax dollars, descends upon corporations, demanding access to all manner of records to 'discover' a wrong that they can use to extract punitive damages. Has there ever been a better argument for less government?
You show me the corporation, I will find the crime.
(Reminds me of the governmental abuse Trump and associates have undergone, and are still undergoing)
"At a dense 278 pages, it reads like the diary of a man reduced to his last nerve cell of patience, kept going only out of determination to record every detail of his journey toward madness before perhaps jumping out an office window or going limp in front of a BART train."
These bastards are systematically destroying our country. It makes me so sad to see where our country is now. Donald Trump would be a breath of fresh air compared to this fuckery. Barrack Obama set us on this path and that idiot in the white house is nothing more than a wizard for oz. Thank you Matt for your great work
Hahaha are you suggesting the LA Times should pivot from their 24 hour coverage of Dave Chappelle to investigate the governance policies of the fifth largest economy in the world?
I'm leaving California in less than two months. It's going to be like that scene in the last episode of Breaking Bad, when Jesse escapes and drives away in a sort of highway-hypnotic semi-delusional bout of hysterics.
This kind of rancid deranged shit is why NOTHING can be done anymore. Between 1952-1960, we built a substantial portion of the Interstate Highway System. THOUSANDS of miles of roads, but NO attorneys were able to stop it. In today's CA, they could not build 1 high speed railroad in 10 years. There is a CO2 pipeline going in the Midwest, which is widely agreed to be a Good Thing. Yet there are hundreds of idiots who have NO EVIDENCE of ANYTHING who are opposing this. We cannot build a petroleum pipeline, even though our society depends on petroleum.
Bravo, Matt! Shine a light on these obscure but consequential stories, and you will be doing what the NYT/WaPo/CNN crowd never does anymore (if it ever did). As a California resident, I can hardly wait to read the next part of your investigation/analysis. Stepping back from the details for a moment (and the details are truly revealing!), I would encourage you to do more stories like this which the legacy media is not doing, and less stories critiquing what they are doing, if that makes sense. You are excellent at investigative analysis, so more of that please; leave the smackdowns of big media to others who are less capable of such investigative work. Thank you!
Another great article Matt, you are the man. I love these exposes of judicial fuckness, especially at the federal level, makes it even more delicious if not more terrifying, and if anyone thinks this is going to somehow get any better, just look at what’s coming out of the Ivy League law schools, a wave of social justice Einsatzgruppen. When the smoke clears, the only inhabitants left on earth will be government attorneys and cockroaches, where litigation will begin immediately in a class action against the roaches.
The mentality displayed by these attorneys is at the cutting edge of what will be normalized in the future if it's not stopped. The American Bar Association and prestigious law schools throughout the country are embracing social justice activism as a legal ethos in place of the rule of law.
It will not be long before recent graduates make their way into the judiciary. Over time they will take full control and come to endorse these tactics as justified for social justice.
We must immediately regulate the teaching and accreditation of lawyers to prohibit things like compelled diversity statements and all other social justice compulsion tactics.
To many lawyers. To many regulations. We are destroying our own country. Amusing that one company gets cited for not hiring enough Asians while Harvard actively discriminates against Asians. This is a really fucked up country thanks to bipartisan efforts.
I was in the technology industry in California for a long time. I left eight years ago and never looked back. I saw where the state was going and decided it was time to bail. As a bonus, I got to mostly retire early on my house winnings upon moving. California is going in a very bad, quite Marxist direction about a great many things. Companies are leaving because being there is too hard. The problem now is that anyone looking to do mass employment in California won't. It is so risky that getting new operations will not really be possible. If you want your life controlled by the state, by all means go there. Unless you are very rich or quite strange, you will not like it.
You took an exceedingly dry set of cases and made them and the ideas behind them comprehensible and interesting! Thanks.
I am not "anti-government," but I am well aware of the government's power and potential for abuse of that power. After AGs like Holder and Garland and the horrendous abuse of power by the IRS under Lois Lerner, we should all be aware of what the government says and does. Get rid of the Ministry of Truth next.
This reads to me simply as a case of the race hustler shakedown methods we observed beginning in the 1980s being co-opted by the federal government. Use the media to spin up outrage over a fake story, then reap the benefits.
The Lawyers Who Ate California: Part I
A federal agency, with access to unlimited tax dollars, descends upon corporations, demanding access to all manner of records to 'discover' a wrong that they can use to extract punitive damages. Has there ever been a better argument for less government?
You show me the corporation, I will find the crime.
(Reminds me of the governmental abuse Trump and associates have undergone, and are still undergoing)
"At a dense 278 pages, it reads like the diary of a man reduced to his last nerve cell of patience, kept going only out of determination to record every detail of his journey toward madness before perhaps jumping out an office window or going limp in front of a BART train."
Great writing again from Taibbi.
Edit: Wow part II is up already.
These bastards are systematically destroying our country. It makes me so sad to see where our country is now. Donald Trump would be a breath of fresh air compared to this fuckery. Barrack Obama set us on this path and that idiot in the white house is nothing more than a wizard for oz. Thank you Matt for your great work
Hahaha are you suggesting the LA Times should pivot from their 24 hour coverage of Dave Chappelle to investigate the governance policies of the fifth largest economy in the world?
I'm leaving California in less than two months. It's going to be like that scene in the last episode of Breaking Bad, when Jesse escapes and drives away in a sort of highway-hypnotic semi-delusional bout of hysterics.
This kind of rancid deranged shit is why NOTHING can be done anymore. Between 1952-1960, we built a substantial portion of the Interstate Highway System. THOUSANDS of miles of roads, but NO attorneys were able to stop it. In today's CA, they could not build 1 high speed railroad in 10 years. There is a CO2 pipeline going in the Midwest, which is widely agreed to be a Good Thing. Yet there are hundreds of idiots who have NO EVIDENCE of ANYTHING who are opposing this. We cannot build a petroleum pipeline, even though our society depends on petroleum.
Bravo, Matt! Shine a light on these obscure but consequential stories, and you will be doing what the NYT/WaPo/CNN crowd never does anymore (if it ever did). As a California resident, I can hardly wait to read the next part of your investigation/analysis. Stepping back from the details for a moment (and the details are truly revealing!), I would encourage you to do more stories like this which the legacy media is not doing, and less stories critiquing what they are doing, if that makes sense. You are excellent at investigative analysis, so more of that please; leave the smackdowns of big media to others who are less capable of such investigative work. Thank you!
Another great article Matt, you are the man. I love these exposes of judicial fuckness, especially at the federal level, makes it even more delicious if not more terrifying, and if anyone thinks this is going to somehow get any better, just look at what’s coming out of the Ivy League law schools, a wave of social justice Einsatzgruppen. When the smoke clears, the only inhabitants left on earth will be government attorneys and cockroaches, where litigation will begin immediately in a class action against the roaches.
If the last paragraph of this piece does not convince one that this is Obama's third term, nothing ever will.
The mentality displayed by these attorneys is at the cutting edge of what will be normalized in the future if it's not stopped. The American Bar Association and prestigious law schools throughout the country are embracing social justice activism as a legal ethos in place of the rule of law.
It will not be long before recent graduates make their way into the judiciary. Over time they will take full control and come to endorse these tactics as justified for social justice.
We must immediately regulate the teaching and accreditation of lawyers to prohibit things like compelled diversity statements and all other social justice compulsion tactics.
In awe at the work this took and the clarity with which it is presented.
To many lawyers. To many regulations. We are destroying our own country. Amusing that one company gets cited for not hiring enough Asians while Harvard actively discriminates against Asians. This is a really fucked up country thanks to bipartisan efforts.
You’re an amazing journalist, Matt. Looking forward to the next installment.
I was in the technology industry in California for a long time. I left eight years ago and never looked back. I saw where the state was going and decided it was time to bail. As a bonus, I got to mostly retire early on my house winnings upon moving. California is going in a very bad, quite Marxist direction about a great many things. Companies are leaving because being there is too hard. The problem now is that anyone looking to do mass employment in California won't. It is so risky that getting new operations will not really be possible. If you want your life controlled by the state, by all means go there. Unless you are very rich or quite strange, you will not like it.
You took an exceedingly dry set of cases and made them and the ideas behind them comprehensible and interesting! Thanks.
I am not "anti-government," but I am well aware of the government's power and potential for abuse of that power. After AGs like Holder and Garland and the horrendous abuse of power by the IRS under Lois Lerner, we should all be aware of what the government says and does. Get rid of the Ministry of Truth next.
This reads to me simply as a case of the race hustler shakedown methods we observed beginning in the 1980s being co-opted by the federal government. Use the media to spin up outrage over a fake story, then reap the benefits.