Human rights lawyer, @SDonziger, was given a 6 month sentence—punishment for winning a $9 billion judgment against Chevron. As he approaches the end of his sentence, we've collected all the video clips we've published over the past 21 weeks. #FreeDonziger gregpalast.com/steven-donzige…
“This is a corporate criminal prosecution, orchestrated by Chevron, financed by Chevron, carried out by a Chevron law firm, before a Chevron-linked judge. It’s that simple.” ~ @SDonziger#FreeDonziger
“Chevron is trying to criminalize its opponents as a way to get away with the environmental crimes they committed in Ecuador.” ~ @SDonziger#FreeDonziger
“I'm confident that I did the right thing, the legal thing, the ethical thing — and I think almost any lawyer faced with the situation I was in would have done the same thing.” ~ @SDonziger#FreeDonziger
Human rights lawyer @SDonziger was a classmate of #BarackObama's at Harvard. He gave up everything to represent the indigenous people of the Ecuadorian rainforest and take on Chevron. I asked him why he didn't just cash in on his connections. #FreeDonziger
“This is an apocalyptic catastrophe. It's a humanitarian nightmare.” ~ @SDonziger#FreeDonziger
“I think about #RosaMoreno all the time...Rosa was holding the front lines on the medical side against all the little children and adults who were getting cancer in her community... and ultimately succumbed in late 2016.” ~ @SDonziger#FreeDonziger
“There's a level of punitive retaliation taking place against me that is all out of proportion to the normal misdemeanor case that one sees in the United States of America.” ~ @SDonziger#FreeDonziger
“Chevron's attack against me is mostly an attack against the people of Ecuador, and more broadly an attack on the very idea of #HumanRights accountability.” ~ @SDonziger#FreeDonziger
“The types of things that are happening to me, are the types of things you don't normally associate with a rule of law country, or the United States of America.” ~ @SDonziger#FreeDonziger
“Almost all federal judges in the US, even those appointed by Obama, are pro-corporate... It’s really hard to get a human rights lawyer as a judge on the federal bench... So it’s really hard to get a fair hearing on human rights claims.” ~ @SDonziger
“They keep thinking they can outlast us, or crush us. Or we'll get impatient, and we'll quit or we'll walk away... And that just never happens, because there's too many people who are too committed to justice in this case.” ~ @SDonziger#FreeDonziger
“I am the victim of corporate abuse. Chevron committed fraud trying to nail me in the racketeering case.” ~ @SDonziger#FreeDonziger
“They were dumping 4 million gallons a day... because Texaco decided to play God and dump as a way to save money, knowing people would drink this stuff and be exposed to cancer causing substances — and ultimately many of them would die.” ~ @SDonziger
“This is an unusual outlier case, because the amount of money at stake is so big — and because we actually got a judgment. You'd be hard pressed to find one other case in world history where there's an environmental judgment of this size.” ~ @SDonziger
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Chevron told Biden they could produce 800,000 barrels a day from Venezuela, replacing 100% of Russia’s oil exports to the US. But the plan's being blocked by Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Bob Menendez, tweedle corrupt and tweedle corrupter —via @KPFARadiokpfa.org/episode/flashp…
And, weirdly, some greens, like Bill McKibben, are saying no to Venezuelan oil — as if the alternative right now was solar powered cars. Bill’s been a great voice for warning us about climate change. But this is about right now. soundcloud.com/gregpalast/fla…
#Putin went from the virtually unknown Deputy Mayor of Saint Petersburg to #Russia’s President and potentate by winning a weird competition organized by Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky who sought a “Russian Pinochet” to succeed Yeltsin as President. gregpalast.com/how-billionair…
The competition, dubbed “Operation Successor,” went so far as to send Russia’s “Larry King,” Mikhail Leontyev, to interview General Pinochet for Russian TV while Pinochet was under indictment in Chile on murder charges. buzzflash.com/articles/greg-…
Russians were treated to the old dictator’s advice on choosing a leader who could imitate Pinochet’s “strong hand,” a police state, while promoting a hyper-capitalist economy.
Whatever peace there is in #Ukraine is the result of the Minsk agreements of 2015 signed by Ukraine, Ukrainian Separatists, France and Germany and endorsed by Russia. 🧵 gregpalast.com/7-facts-about-…
The Minsk accords gave the eastern region protection from attack and some measure of autonomy — but not independence. On the basis of the agreement, Russia moved out of the Donbas.
However the Ukrainian govt never implemented the agreements under which Russian troops left the border area. From Putin’s view, by breaching these agreements the Ukrainian Parliament (over the objection of President Zelenski) is clearly daring Russia to go back into the Donbas.
Beyond religion, this war is, just like the war in Iraq, about oil — the PRICE of oil. By rolling tanks to the border, Putin has successfully raised the price of oil to nearly $100/barrel. #Ukraine#UkraineCrisis gregpalast.com/7-facts-about-…
Oil revenues provide 40% of Russia’s entire federal budget. And with the price doubling, Russia has gone from broke to loaded in months. The threat of war adds about half a billion dollars a day to Russia’s coffers. #Ukraine#UkraineCrisisgregpalast.com/7-facts-about-…
So what’s the solution? Ultimately, Putin’s real interest is the price oil. The only way to contain a black belt in judo like Putin is to attack in a place he doesn’t expect... #Ukraine#UkraineCrisisgregpalast.com/7-facts-about-…
I don’t think it’s just Trump that’s in trouble now that a grand jury is being impaneled. The GOP, incl. Brad Raffensperger, were playing fast & loose with accusations of voter fraud. Wouldn’t be surprised if Brad gets busted.
There’s probably no one in the country who's more vicious when it comes to false, unsupported accusations of voter fraud than Brad Raffensperger. He's the Purge’n General of Georgia. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Brad Raffensperger's no hero. gregpalast.com/stealing-georg…
Raffensperger is the guy that wrongly removed 198,000 legitimate voters from the voter rolls of Georgia. We have their names and addresses. I did the investigation, and the @ACLUofGA put out my report. aclu.org/press-releases…
Our action partner, @BlackVotersMtr, has boycotted Biden’s speech in #Georgia on the #VotingRights bills, refusing to act as a photo op prop. Understand the frustration: we’ve been screaming about Georgia as #JimCrow central for 8 years...
Laws alone won’t help: we need the Justice Department to stomp on the new "voter fraud vigilante" challenge system we uncovered. We need enforcement of the laws we have, Joe. gregpalast.com/georgias-origi…
And CNN and MSNBC should stop referring to #Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger as a "hero" just because he wouldn’t go to jail for Trump. gregpalast.com/stealing-georg…