[HN Gopher] Purdue Pharma can protect Sackler owners in opioid b...
___________________________________________________________________
Purdue Pharma can protect Sackler owners in opioid bankruptcy,
court rules
Author : nceqs3
Score : 103 points
Date : 2023-05-30 18:18 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ca2.uscourts.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ca2.uscourts.gov)
| boeingUH60 wrote:
| If only El Chapo and his cohorts were smart enough to sell drugs
| the legal way and get away with it...
| wmf wrote:
| Mexican cartels have started inserting themselves into legal
| businesses like farming within their territory, increasing
| prices and taking the resulting profits.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Purdue manufactured opioids in measured doses without unsafe
| adulterants.
|
| Guess what? Junkies lived. Turns out that when they get a clean
| high manufactured by competent pharmaceutical engineers, they
| tend not to be found catatonic by callous law enforcement who
| say "fuck it" and refuse to save their lives with the naloxone
| they have with them.
|
| When did junkies start dying? With the supply of oxy dried up
| because the DEA shut down pill mills, they had no other options
| than dirty street heroin that it turns out is mostly just
| fentanyl and carfentanyl.
|
| I have no clue how this is considered an improvement by the
| media that reports on such things, or why so many are so eager
| to buy it.
|
| If El Chapo started selling clean/safe drugs that didn't kill
| people, how the fuck would he be anything other than a
| goddamned hero? How many are dying of overdoses every week
| again?
| bb88 wrote:
| When a company pursues to market an addictive drug, and
| knowingly sells it to counties that had 5 to 10 times more
| opioid prescriptions than people, that's illegal and that
| should be stopped.
|
| Knowing this and allowing them to do it anyway would be a
| dystopia I want no part of.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| > that's illegal and that should be stopped.
|
| It should be legalized.
|
| Death-by-opiate/opioid-overdose shrank while they were
| selling this. Shutting down the pill mills _killed_ people.
| Like, more people are dying now than otherwise would. And
| you 're ok with that?
|
| I guess when the DEA makes up bullshit, you're just happy
| to parrot it.
|
| > Knowing this and allowing them to do it anyway would be a
| dystopia I want no part of.
|
| You're in the dystopia now. You're just insulated from it.
| Something close to 100,000 people will this year because
| they're using dirty street drugs and fucking elephant
| tranquilizer instead of Purdue's safe drugs.
|
| WTF. I wish I got to live in a world where evil was
| committed by supervillains doing it deliberately, rather
| than this clownworld where people do it and think they're
| the good guys. You should be ashamed of yourself. Go do
| some fucking self-reflection.
| john006 wrote:
| [flagged]
| reocha wrote:
| What are you trying to say here?
| john006 wrote:
| [flagged]
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Is there a credible criminal complaint against the Sacklers? Not
| "we don't like them" allegations, but specific and credible
| allegations of criminality?
| uoaei wrote:
| There are very real costs to the national economy that result
| from killing, harming, or incapacitating millions of otherwise-
| capable working-age folks by knowingly getting them addicted to
| opioids and building the business infrastructure to expand that
| influence as wide as possible. Surely there is a law that can
| be interpreted to compensate for the effects that this campaign
| has wrought on society.
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| _> There are very real costs to the national economy that
| result from killing, harming, or incapacitating millions of
| otherwise-capable working-age folks _
|
| and then there's the killing, harming, or incapacitating
| millions of folks, on top of that!
| uoaei wrote:
| Yes I was only appealing to the legalistic interpretation.
| The larger story is that such evil is banal-ified when we
| stick to arguing only for legal interpretations of their
| choices and actions.
|
| _Eichmann in Jerusalem_ helps cast light on what people
| mean when they talk about things like systemic harms.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I think it boils down to whether laundering money should be
| legal. As far as I know, it is, in this sense.
|
| - Everybody acknowledges Purdue Pharma broke the law and acted
| unethically.
|
| - Everyone acknowledges Purdue Pharma made a lot of money
| directly from doing the above.
|
| - Everyone acknowledges the Sackler family took a lot of money
| out of Purdue Pharma, including after they specifically knew
| Purdue Pharma was likely to pay judgements for the above.
|
| - What's unclear is how we should treat the Sackler money as a
| result of all of this.
|
| Bankruptcy law, as I understand it, limits itself to the
| possibly-enforceable and attempts to generate the best outcome
| for creditors.
|
| Which by definition involves negotiation between profiteering
| owners (who want to give up as little of their ill-gotten money
| as possible) and creditors (who want as much money as
| possible).
|
| And since, at the end of the day, owners can always hide money
| overseas or in trusts... creditors have an incentive to settle
| for less-than-everything.
|
| So this is less about criminal culpability and more about
| negotiation.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Hasn't this area of law been pretty much static for 100+
| years?
|
| Surely this exact case has happened before? It's gotta be
| pretty common for a company to be wildly profitable for a
| while, then suddenly bankrupt, and some owners have extracted
| all the profits in the meantime.
| tomatocracy wrote:
| No idea if they're completely unique but the legal
| circumstances here appear to me to be at least unusual so
| this certainly isnt a common company bankruptcy story:
| shareholders agreed to pay money into the bankruptcy estate
| of the companies in return for a release of related, but
| separate, litigation claims from third parties against
| them.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| From my reading, trading money into a bankruptcy pot in
| exchange for personal liability protection didn't seem
| that unusual and is apparently commonplace nowadays.
|
| Whether it should be or not... probably not. But then
| we'd need much tougher laws to compel compliance with
| personal judgements as a consequence of bankruptcy
| proceedings (e.g. revoking citizenship, foreign country
| cooperation, etc).
|
| If we removed the possibility for liability protection as
| part of a deal, shareholders would have less incentive to
| cooperate financially, and so there'd need to be a bigger
| enforcement stick to balance the equation.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I think the difference here is that it was a family company
| (providing a "singular" benefiting target to vilify and
| pursue) and the number of aggrieved parties.
|
| If it were instead 1,000 different shareholders and
| corporate officers, I think the public would have lost
| interest.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I think this is downplaying the effect of the devastation
| their actions have caused. Pretty much everyone knows
| someone impacted by their products. As the degrees of
| separation increases, so does the number of people
| brought into the world of addiction. personally, i know
| many people that have opiate addictions, and not one of
| them was introduced to them from buying them on the
| street or were addicts of anything prior.
| johndhi wrote:
| Opinions vary widely. There are credible criminal claims for
| stuff like "conspiracy to influence the FDA to ignore contrary
| evidence" that you could call either criminal or standard
| business practice depending on how on-fire your hair is.
| bhouston wrote:
| The company they ran has been found guilty of criminal charges
| twice:
|
| "Purdue has twice pleaded guilty to criminal charges, but no
| members of the Sackler family have been charged with crimes."
|
| https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/after-years-of-pain-opio...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _company they ran has been found guilty of criminal charges
| twice_
|
| I'm wondering about the "members of the Sacklers family."
| shrubble wrote:
| Mis-labeling of a drug and withholding relevant information
| about an approved drug from the FDA (I think it is called
| 'surveillance') would be two things to examine I would think...
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| And here rests another piece of the legitimacy of our government.
|
| From time to time you see the latest Corruption Perception Index
| scores come out [1] and the USA always ranks among the least
| corrupt countries.
|
| That's due to the difficulties in defining corruption. Here in
| the USA I think there is very little illegal corruption that
| happens. Very few people avoid a speeding ticket by greasing the
| palm of a police officer.
|
| Instead we have stuff like this, where a powerful family, aided
| by the most prestigious management consultants [2] kill and
| addict millions of citizens, but they took steps to ensure the
| law accommodated their evil, and protected them afterwards. It's
| not technically corruption because they worked within the system
| to pass their laws and peddle their dope.
|
| So then it's not just local police, or a local government, or
| even one administration that people see is corrupt and working
| against us, but the entire system of government, 'by the people,
| for the people' has somehow been perverted, and turned into a
| sham.
|
| And then these same villains see how the people have no mechanism
| to fight back, they see all we can do is roll over and take it,
| and it inspires them to think about what they can get away with
| next.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index
| [2] https://hub.jhu.edu/2022/06/30/mckinsey-opioid-documents-
| arc...
| RobotToaster wrote:
| America just rebrands corruption as "lobbying", then pretends
| corruption is something that happens elsewhere.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Lobbying... that's the kind of corruption that's enshrined in
| the first amendment, right? So important they didn't even
| leave it for the second or third or tenth amendments? The
| amendments which are collectively known as the Bill of
| Rights, or the United States' founder's first attempt at
| crafting a list of fundamental human rights?
|
| That one?
| boeingUH60 wrote:
| Lobbying can be murky but is not comparable to raw corruption
| like in third-world countries. Anyone is free to lobby a
| politician...if I call my local representative or Senator and
| press them about an issue, then I'm lobbying. Equating it
| with corruption frankly indicates ignorance.
| TimPC wrote:
| In all honesty while they rank the US as low on a corruption-
| scale globally they do capture a fair amount of the corruption
| in the US. The US has similar scores to Bhutan and Seychelles
| not Denmark and Canada.
|
| As for the case itself, it seems the court wants to protect the
| settlement because they know it's unlikely they will be able to
| pierce the veil of corporate protection and go after the
| owner's for the $5.5-$6 billion that is only voluntarily
| contributed if the settlement works. In considering the greater
| good I think the win of $5.5-$6 billion in additional
| settlement money for victims is a greater good than the
| restrictions on potential lawsuits against the Sacklers is an
| evil. Ideally any victims who had their rights restricted by
| this clause would have an option to be a late joiner of the
| settlement and could ensure compensation that way.
| ccooffee wrote:
| I think cases like this are outside the scope of the Corruption
| Perceptions Index. At least, your wikipedia link describes it
| as: (*emphasis* mine)
|
| > The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) is an index which
| ranks countries "by their perceived levels of *public sector
| corruption*, as determined by expert assessments and opinion
| surveys.
|
| From skimming the court order, it seems that this is an
| instance of private sector corruption. In 2004, the Purdue
| board (which included at least 6 Sackler family members)
| created a policy to indemnify the board, executives, and some
| others against any claims/suits/etc. There was a narrow carve-
| out where a court decision that someone acted in "bad faith"
| would void the indemnification.
| ly3xqhl8g9 wrote:
| The adage "we have a legal system, not a justice system" is
| repeated _ad nauseam_ in these cases. But thinking about it:
| what if we were to have none, neither legality, nor justice,
| but simply randomness, _fiat fortuna, et pereat mundus_ [1].
|
| An example in this case would be: instead of all the boring
| legalese, the high-paid BigCons [2], and the unfulfillable
| expectation of pristine judgements, to have just a coin flip:
| 50% chance for guilty, 10 years jail, 50% chance free as a
| bird. Skew it even further, for every person killed or $1
| million stolen add some percentages to the guilty chance and
| some years to the penalty. Solve every lawsuit in a matter of
| seconds, nothing to debate [3], no false belief of fairness or
| equity, just sheer, dumb luck, for the society or for the
| accused.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_iustitia,_et_pereat_mundu...
|
| [2] 2023, Mariana Mazzucato, _The Big Con: How the Consulting
| Industry Weakens Our Businesses, Infantilizes Our Governments,
| and Warps Our Economies_
|
| [3] 'Lawyer cited 6 fake cases made up by ChatGPT; judge calls
| it "unprecedented"', lots of _unprecedented_ to come in the
| near future, https://arstechnica.com/tech-
| policy/2023/05/lawyer-cited-6-f...
| john005 wrote:
| [flagged]
| bombcar wrote:
| As an aside, those with large net worths should consider
| bankruptcy planning. It's not really "fun" but nobody _intends_
| to go bankrupt, and states vary _widely_ in what is excluded,
| especially in the homestead exemption.
|
| For example, Florida, DC, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, South Dakota,
| Texas have unlimited (of various flavors, for example Texas is
| 100/200 acres rural (single/family) or 1 acre urban). Most
| require something like 40 months living, but consult an advisor.
| dylan604 wrote:
| This seems like an actual bit of planning for the wealthy done
| not by themselves but their advisors. Some people might be down
| voting for it being cynical, but you know that those that have
| money have paid people to consider every possible angle at how
| to not only protect their money but turn a profit in situations
| that would otherwise devastate an average person.
| bombcar wrote:
| The very wealthy certainly use it (the most famous case being
| OJ Simpson) but even if you're not 1% wealthy, but have
| assets, you should at least consider it. Especially if you're
| looking to move anyway, it could be a factor.
|
| > Annual bankruptcy filings in calendar year 2022 totaled
| 387,721, compared with 413,616 cases in 2021, according to
| statistics released by the Administrative Office of the U.S.
| Courts.
| dylan604 wrote:
| There are all sorts of techniques/tricks/hacks (depending
| on your style) of using the system that does not require 1%
| kind of income. Sort of that line from The Firm, "I want to
| bend the law as far as I can without breaking it." You can
| form a corp and place all of your assets in it, then have
| your employer hire the corp and not you so you earn no
| income. You don't own a house, but your corp does and
| allows you to stay there. Stuff that sounds shady AF, but
| is legal but might require you to spend a few hours going
| over paperwork with members of the gov't from time to time
|
| edit: removing the repeated comments
| ethbr0 wrote:
| We can't have judicial activism only when it pleases us. Either
| laws are applied in the way they are written... or what are they
| for?
|
| The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals finds that the Bankruptcy Code,
| as currently written, allows for this action.
|
| That the Sackler family is a bunch of profiteering, morally-
| bankrupt assholes is immaterial.
|
| If we feel this is an unjust outcome, change starts with Congress
| passing laws that alter the Bankruptcy Code.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| In recent decades, ballot initiatives that allow the public to
| vote directly on a legal change have proved a significantly
| faster way to get something done than the legislative process.
| Indeed, in some US states initiatives that become law are
| subsequently stymied by the legislative or executive branches.
| In an era of instantaneous networked communication, the
| traditional model of governance and the informal party
| structure seem to function more as tools to divide and conquer
| the population than to implement its policy aspirations.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| The ballot initiative system is a major part of why
| California is such a dysfunctional shithole. Let's please
| _not_ bring that godawful mess anywhere else.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| The best argument against direct democracy is a five minute
| talk with the average voter. Try it.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I have, of course. Have you ever talked to legislators?
| Many of them are little better, either intellectually or
| morally.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Fair point, but direct democracy is also subject to the
| passions of the masses overriding the concerns of experts.
| Faster isn't always better.
|
| E.g. by individually-benefit-but-mass-cost initiatives ("Vote
| yes if you want $1"), exploiting insufficient education ("To
| enshrine wildlife management into our constitution" that
| actually permits nature exploitation), or overly emotional
| issues-of-the-day ("Increase national security powers" after
| a terrorist attack).
|
| Though it seems like the sheer organizational barrier to
| ballot inclusion (i.e. mass signature collection) limit the
| worst excesses of the above.
|
| In modern times, direct ballot initiatives definitely have
| their place in a functioning democracy, although perhaps with
| high barriers to listing, maximum numbers per ballot, and
| cool-down periods ("Will be on the ballot X years from now").
| nvahalik wrote:
| > but direct democracy is also subject to the passions of
| the masses overriding the concerns of experts
|
| And likewise, sometimes the "experts" installed within the
| bureaucratic system are not representative of the needs of
| the society.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Indeed! Which is why counterbalance and dampening of
| oscillation are desirable features in a system of
| government. But you over-emphasize that, and you get a
| government incapable of action.
| shw1n wrote:
| Very eloquently stated
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _passions of the masses overriding the concerns of experts_
|
| That is an issue, but I wasn't advocating for the inherent
| superiority of referenda over legislative process, only
| that it's more practical to get something done. It's
| probably faster to get _yourself_ elected than it is to
| lobby elected officials on some abstract or distributed
| issue where there isn 't an obvious coalition.
|
| I don't disagree with your other ideas, except for the
| cool-down period. While that can certainly be abused,
| asking people to sign up for something that can't be
| manifested for several years into the future is an instant
| demotivator to any action.
|
| Having said that, I think the entire election machinery and
| so on could usefully be replaced by digital voting, and
| managed on an ongoing basis rather than at infrequent
| intervals; a wikiocracy, so to speak. It will have flaws,
| limitations, and be subject to abuse, but representative
| democracy as practiced in most places is a 16th-18th
| century political technology that is manifestly inadequate
| for 21st century polities.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| You know how the President can issue executive pardons?
|
| Can the President also issue something like the inverse, for
| cases where the law seems obviously buggy?
| henriquez wrote:
| No.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Thanks.
| opwieurposiu wrote:
| This is known as a Writ of Attainder and the United States
| Constitution forbids it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Thanks, and I didn't know of that. Humourously, my genuine
| question was multiply downvoted. Odd.
| jrflowers wrote:
| The southern district of New York was doing judicial activism
| and the second circuit of appeals was not?
|
| Since both things are humans talking about their
| interpretations of text, can you ELI5 why one was rooted in
| activism and the other was rooted in objectivity?
| jfengel wrote:
| "Things I hate" are activism.
|
| "Things I like" are reading the plain, obvious text of the
| law/Constitution/16th century jurist that I've decided is
| relevant.
| beerpls wrote:
| [flagged]
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I say this in the most respectful way, but apathy and
| internet-complaining do not change make.
|
| By what method do you suggest bankruptcy is changed?
| beerpls wrote:
| So when the mega wealthy control the laws and politicians
| and then you come to me asking how we should get the laws
| and politicians so what we want, what do you expect me to
| say?
|
| I'm not suggesting anything about bankruptcy. I'm saying
| it's foolish to think voting will make this right
| majormajor wrote:
| "Voting" is certainly not a standalone answer to "how to
| get Congress to change laws."
|
| As you say, it's not gonna be easy to change politicians'
| minds... so doing _nothing_ certainly won 't do it.
|
| You can pick defeatism or you can get creative. Step 1 in
| the US as it is is probably "find your own connected
| people with access to money and work on getting them
| involved."
|
| It takes a long time, but I'd start with studying the
| anti-abortion movement, the environment or climate ones,
| or the ones around sexuality. Those are all fields where
| the laws of the land have moved.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| So what will make this right?
|
| It's clear what you're against -- what are you for?
| boeingUH60 wrote:
| Cynicism is the refuge of the weak-minded and weak-willed.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| You're assuming that the 2nd Circuit based their decision on a
| valid reading of the law. Why do you believe that? (I don't
| know, myself.)
|
| The legal system does have a history of favoring the powerful
| and connected.
| ss108 wrote:
| I think the alternative assumption would require some more
| evidence. The notion they are correct is default (until they
| are overruled by SCOTUS).
| wolverine876 wrote:
| I agree that it's the common default, but assuming by
| default that the system is working isn't the act of a
| responsible engineer, or citizen.
| [deleted]
| UKR_anon wrote:
| [flagged]
| ethbr0 wrote:
| No, you're down voted for posting with an anonymous account,
| preemptively complaining about being down voted, and not adding
| anything interesting to the discussion.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| >> _Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not
| less, as a topic gets more divisive._
|
| >> _Avoid flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet
| tropes._
|
| >> _Please don 't use Hacker News for political or ideological
| battle. That tramples curiosity._
|
| >> _Please don 't pick the most provocative thing in an article
| or post to complain about in the thread. Find something
| interesting to respond to instead._
|
| >> _Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but
| please don 't create accounts routinely. HN is a community--
| users should have an identity that others can relate to._
|
| >> _Please don 't comment about the voting on comments. It
| never does any good, and it makes boring reading._
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| it's a big club
|
| and you ain't in it
| [deleted]
| nneonneo wrote:
| Being unaware of some of the details of this saga, I'm floored to
| read the following:
|
| pg. 17
|
| > Starting in 2007, the Sacklers anticipated that the effects of
| litigation against Purdue would eventually impact them directly.
| See, e.g., Deferred Joint App'x at 5059 (David Sackler emailed
| Jonathan and Richard Sackler, "We will be sued . . . . [A]sk
| yourself how long it will take these lawyers to figure out that
| we might settle with them if they can freeze our assets and
| threaten us."). From 2008 to 2016, Purdue distributed a
| significant proportion of the company's revenue--an approximated
| $11 billion in total--to Sackler family trusts and holding
| companies. This represented an increase in the distribution
| pattern from years prior and "drained Purdue's total assets by
| 75% and Purdue's 'solvency cushion' by 82%" during that same time
| period.
|
| pg. 25
|
| > In applying the Iridium factors, the bankruptcy court observed
| that, in this case, counsel on both sides were experienced and
| formidable. Id. at 86-87. Over 95% of the voters approved the
| Plan, showing clear creditor support, and the potential
| difficulty in collecting from the Sacklers and their related
| entities on any successfully litigated claims was an issue of
| "significant concern." Id. at 89. The court noted that while the
| Sacklers are worth approximately $11 billion, they are a large
| family whose assets are "widely scattered and primarily held" in
| spendthrift trusts--both offshore and in the United States--that
| are largely unreachable via bankruptcy proceedings.9 Id. at 88.
| Moreover, certain members of the Sackler family live "outside of
| the territorial jurisdiction of the United States and might not
| have subjected themselves sufficiently to the U.S." such that a
| U.S. court would have personal jurisdiction over them. Id. And,
| perhaps most importantly, according to the court, continued
| litigation--even if it were limited to the claims at issue--would
| be extremely expensive and lead to delays. Id. at 89- 90. Thus,
| the court reasoned, an order against confirmation would not only
| destroy the entire settlement but would also result in a major
| escalation of costs and time.
|
| The argument the bankruptcy court made - and which this decision
| upholds - appears to boil down to "they've been so successful at
| squirreling away the $11bn they took out of the company that we
| probably can't get it back, so we shouldn't try; letting them get
| away with it yields more for creditors".
|
| Yikes. I guess this makes it legal to do the following:
|
| - Start a company, do something really bad, and make a lot of
| money. - Before you get sued, take the money out and hide it in
| offshore accounts. - Get sued, declare bankruptcy, and return a
| small fraction of the money as "goodwill" in exchange for a
| release of claims.
|
| And, oh, have really good lawyers so that the court calls your
| counsel "experienced and formidable", enough to make coming after
| you too expensive to even consider.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| It's up to the elected branches to make that harder /
| impossible to do. Courts apply the law that those branches put
| in place.
|
| A lot of misplaced anger here.
| throwaway17_17 wrote:
| This is not a new result, it is just the first time that a
| Court of Appeals had to actually say it out loud. Also, the
| point of bankruptcy is to yield the most possible value for the
| creditors, it is an integral component of the balancing test
| for confirmation of proposed settlement for resolution of the
| proceedings. I'm not a fan of the outcome or the process, but
| this is just a case of the law working as intended.
| 1024core wrote:
| > Moreover, certain members of the Sackler family live "outside
| of the territorial jurisdiction of the United States and might
| not have subjected themselves sufficiently to the U.S." such
| that a U.S. court would have personal jurisdiction over them
|
| Bin Laden lived outside US jurisdiction too, but that didn't
| stop the US from going after him. The Sacklers have been
| responsible for way more than the 3000 deaths that OBL caused.
|
| > Thus, the court reasoned, an order against confirmation would
| not only destroy the entire settlement but would also result in
| a major escalation of costs and time.
|
| Of course, these considerations don't come into effect when
| it's a, say, a poor Black guy caught for shoplifting $50 worth
| of goods; then it's "lets throw the book at him and lock him up
| for a dozen years!", even though locking someone up can cost
| upwards of $50K/year in places like California.
| orangepurple wrote:
| The difference between you, me, the poor black guy caught for
| shoplifting $50 worth of goods, Bin Laden, and The Sacklers
| is their connections to the Israeli ruling parties and
| intelligence services. In turn, those services are affiliated
| with AIPAC. AIPAC in turn heavily influences American
| politics.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-
| Policy/dp/03...
|
| Steven Rosen, the former AIPAC official, illustrates AIPAC's
| power for the New Yorker's Jeffrey Goldberg by putting a
| napkin in front of him and saying, "In twenty-four hours, we
| could have the signatures of seventy senators on this
| napkin." As Mearsheimer and Walt make clear, this is no idle
| boast, and they go on to say, "As will become clear, when
| issues relating to Israel come to the fore, Congress almost
| always votes to endorse the lobby's positions, usually in
| overwhelming numbers".
|
| They note AIPAC President Howard Friedman telling the
| organization's members in August 2006, "AIPAC meets with
| every candidate running for Congress. These candidates
| receive in depth briefings to help them completely understand
| the complexities of Israel's predicament and that of the
| Middle East as a whole. We ask each candidate to author a
| "position paper" on their views of the U.S.-Israel
| relationship - so it is clear where they stand on the
| subject."
|
| One congressional candidate (Harry Lonsdale) who went through
| this vetting process recounts that, "I found myself invited
| to AIPAC in Washington, D.C. fairly early in the campaign,
| for "discussions". It was an experience I will never forget.
| It wasn't enough that I was pro-Israel. I was given a list of
| vital topics and quizzed (read grilled) for my specific
| opinion on each. Actually I was told what my opinion must be,
| and exactly what words I was to use to express those opinions
| in public..... Shortly after that encounter at AIPAC, I was
| sent a list of American supporters of Israel..... that I was
| free to call for campaign contributions. I called, they gave,
| from Florida to Alaska."
|
| AIPAC also keeps track of congressional voting records and
| direct funds to opponents of congressmen who don't follow
| their line.
|
| Apart from Congress, Mearsheimer and Walt show successful
| Jewish activists in key government positions (particularly
| from the 1970's onwards), such as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard
| Perle, Douglas Feith, Elliott Abrahams, David Wurmser and
| Lewis "Scooter" Libby in the Clinton and Bush
| administrations. This political combination managed to steer
| George Bush, sideline Condoleeza Rice, and bully Colin Powell
| into the Iraq war . The authors show the enormous frustration
| of the CIA as their intelligence was distorted to support the
| lie of Iraqi WMD and start an unprovoked war that was not in
| the interests of the United States.
|
| A feeble Congress votes record aid budgets to Israel
| (currently four billion dollars a year), with loans being
| converted to grants, and quick acquiescences to Israeli
| demands that aid be paid up front (which means the U.S. has
| to borrow it to give to them), and to the Israeli refusal to
| account for how it was spent, both necessary conditions for
| other aid recipients.
|
| The whole process is supported by Jewish Think Tank activists
| such as Daniel Pipes, Michael Rubin, and Joshua Muravchik at
| the American Enterprise Institute, and prominent journalists
| such as William Kristol, Michael Ladeen and Norman Podhoretz
| who are now agitating for America to declare war on Iran (and
| subsequently Syria and Saudi Arabia although they are not so
| open about this).
|
| In their conclusion, Mearsheimer and Walt ask what can be
| done about the outlandish failure of the American government
| to act in the interests of America. They doubt that the
| Israel Lobby will relinquish its power in the press, campaign
| finance or government, so they suggest pressure for more open
| discourse, which seems to be happening. It was initially
| impossible to publish this book in America but it did
| eventually see the light of day after an article in the
| London Review of Books and an unprcedented 275.000 downloads
| of the working paper on Harvard's Kennedy School of
| Government website.
|
| The authors see the (remote) possibility of congressmen
| treating Israel like any other country and they also show
| that the majority of American Jews aren't Likudniks and
| opposed the war in Iraq. They didn't like the AIPAC /
| Wolfowitz group but of course they lost out to the activists,
| so its not clear where all this goes, apart from generating
| some rumbling at the other end of the spectrum (for example,
| Robert Griffin's, "The Fame of a Dead Man's Deeds" ). At
| present, Israel is greatly favoured while congress directs
| America to carry the massive cost of her wars in addition to
| generous transfers of aid.
| boeingUH60 wrote:
| This sounds like conspiracy drivel. AIPAC is an influential
| lobby like many other lobbies focused on different issues.
| Making it look like like a villain controlling congressmen
| as puppets is delusional..
| NoRelToEmber wrote:
| Given that White House staff [0] is 32% Jewish (2.4% of
| US) and only 24% non-Jewish white (55% of US) [1], the
| allegations raised by that post seem very plausible.
|
| [0] Roles such as policy advisors, director of
| congressional outreach, director of labor engagement,
| etc., not security or housekeeping.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36119693
| sitkack wrote:
| How does a legal shield from creditors also apply when you commit
| a crime? Or are crimes just financial debts?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-05-30 23:02 UTC)