Eric Schneiderman de la Mancha
The Donald Trump presidential election and ensuing Era has left the Left plumbing new depths of abject disbelief in Reality. Their desperation has led them to serially, incessantly chase fake news as if it is actually news – on all of which We the People look in disbelief.
We just yesterday had a day-long House hearing – in which nigh every Democrat asked after a fact-free allegation that there was some sort of coordination between the Trump campaign and Vladimir Putin’s Russia. This has been the Democrat mantra – for going on a year now. There remains zero evidence of any such collusion. Yet the Left continues its Don Quixote impression – tilting at yet another windmill.
Who exactly was Don Quixote?: “(A) Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedera…(about) an hidalgo named Mr. Alonso Quixano who reads so many chivalric romances that he loses his sanity and decides to set out to revive chivalry, undo wrongs, and bring justice to the world, under the name Don Quixote de la Mancha….Don Quixote…does not see the world for what it is and prefers to imagine that he is living out a knightly story….”
“Russia hacked the election” – is a Quixote-esque fantasy. But of course, the Left’s very many Don Quixotes predate by decades the electoral arrival of Trump. And very few if any have done windmills and delusion better than New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
Schneiderman has spent the last several years doing what very few people would consider the actual job of the Attorney General of New York – hounding international oil and gas company ExxonMobil. How Exxon conducting its global business is germane to the chief law enforcement officer of one particular state – is light years beyond me.
But Schneiderman has his petroleum windmill – and he is fully deluded. His years-long contention is that Exxon secretly knew that man-made climate change is a real thing (it actually isn’t) – and that they sat on said knowledge while continuing to engage in oil and gas business.
Schneiderman…is a fool. Behold this headline – from December 6, 2015:
Even ExxonMobil Says Climate Change is Real
ExxonMobil had – at that point – said what Schneiderman accused them of not saying. So everything Schneiderman has done to pester Exxon since then – has been a titanic waste of everyone’s time, money and effort. Which, in actuality, is consistent with everything Schneiderman had done before then.
I understand Exxon’s position. When being incessantly hectored by the Left to say things that aren’t true, businesses who want nothing more than to be left alone to do business – parrot the Left’s windmill talking points. It’s also why I don’t begrudge Rex Tillerson – then-Exxon’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), on his way to becoming Trump’s Secretary of State – reiterating Exxon’s browbeating-arrived-at climate change position at his Senate confirmation hearing.
None of this matters to Schneiderman. Carl Sandberg famously said: “If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell.” Schneiderman has taken Sandberg’s assertion to heart – and right at Exxon.
Having with Exxon neither the facts nor the law on his side, Schneiderman has routinely pounded the table and yelled like hell. Which is, in fact, the entirety of the anti-Exxon-Leftist-Rockefeller-Foundation-funded media-and-elected-official-campaign – in which Schneiderman has been a willing and eager participant.
What Schneiderman just did with regard to Tillerson having a second email address when he was Exxon’s CEO – is just more table-pounding and hell-yelling. Another media grab in the aforementioned Leftist anti-Reality operation.
Tillerson used for his second email address the name “Wayne Tracker” (Wayne is his middle name). Exxon says this is routine practice for executives of large companies – to help control what has to be a constantly overflowing inbox. And Exxon had already disclosed the second address – and emails to and from it – in documents filed with Schneiderman and the courts.
Schneiderman went public with the second address – disingenuously portraying it as some sort of cover-up uncovered. Again, Exxon had disclosed the email address. Schneiderman claimed Exxon did this to dodge Schneiderman’s climate change persecution. Again, Exxon had turned over emails to and from the account.
Schneiderman generated a lot of sympathetic stories in Leftist outlets – but in so doing may have done actual damage to his Don Quixote case.
While Schneiderman was pounding and yelling (and lying) – Exxon’s lawyers were arguing the law and the facts: “On March 13, 2017, the New York Attorney General filed a letter with this Court regarding former CEO Rex Tillerson’s use of multiple ExxonMobil email accounts. That letter marked the first time ExxonMobil learned of the Attorney General’s concern about Mr. Tillerson’s email accounts.
“The fact that Mr. Tillerson used two email accounts was readily apparent from documents produced in this matter over the past year.
“While there is nothing improper about using more than one account to organize and prioritize emails, it is entirely improper for the Attorney General to raise this issue for the first time in a letter filed publicly with the Court.
“Not only did that letter violate this Court’s requirement that parties attempt to resolve disputes before bringing them to the Court, it has unfairly prejudiced ExxonMobil in the eyes of the public based on sensational coverage in the press. A simple question about subpoena compliance should not have been handled this way.”
But of course, Schneiderman’s windmill tilting has nothing to do with actual compliance with actual law and courts – and everything to do with “unfairly prejudic(ing) ExxonMobil in the eyes of the public based on sensational coverage in the press.”
Because Schneiderman isn’t arguing the facts. He isn’t arguing the law. He is pounding the table and yelling like hell. Playing his role in the Leftist-Rockefeller fake news campaign.
This is “Legally Blonde” – without all the, you know, actual lawyering. It’s PR with a JD (public relations with a Juris Doctorate – a law degree).
It’s fake law – to generate fake news. And it should be taken just that seriously.
This first appeared in Red State.