Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has come to Exxon’s defense — again. AP Photo/Eric Gay, File.
Climate change, why it’s a witch hunt, it is, for real and true! What this is actually about is protecting Exxon, with republicans going full court testerical over the issue, claiming the usual excuse, freeze peach.
Citing Exxon Mobil’s right to “free speech,” 11 state attorneys general — all Republicans — filed in court this week to stop an investigation into the oil and gas giant’s decades-long history of climate denial.
The attorneys general — from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin — filed a brief to support Exxon’s request to stop the so-called “Exxon Knew” investigation, arguing that there is a “public policy debate” over climate change and that the investigation is an “unconstitutional abuse” of power.
“The Constitution was written to protect citizens from government witch-hunts such as this one, where officials use their authority and the threat of criminal prosecution to try and suppress speech on a viewpoint they disagree with,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement.
This isn’t the first time Texas has intervened in the investigation on behalf of the state’s largest company. Paxton and his counterpart from Arkansas filed on behalf of Exxon in May of last year when it challenged a Virgin Islands subpoena. Paxton has said the investigations are “ridiculous.”
Think Progress has the full story.
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Investigating a corporation’s rampant crime spree violates its corporate right to free speech.
But arresting or killing people for protesting does not. Because corporations are people, but people aren’t.
Gotta love that. “I’m irrationally ‘debating’ something that’s already settled, therefore you can’t treat it as settled!”
Piled on top of: “You can’t investigate me for wrongdoing until after you’ve proved it!”
Intended to stop a case which is completely cut and dry— from what I’ve heard, the “Exxon Knew” investigation is a got-Capone-for-tax-evasion thing; they’re investigating Exxon for defrauding their shareholders by failing to notify them about the fact that global warming is a threat to their future profitability.
So we are going to use the courts to suppress speech on a viewpoint we disagree with.
yep, yep, yep