We, the undersigned law students and new lawyers, pledge to boycott Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP in response to the firm’s work shielding corporate polluters from climate accountability, its racist legal attacks against Indigenous communities, and the persecution of human rights lawyer Steven Donziger, whose imprisonment is a direct result of Gibson Dunn’s unethical and bullying litigation strategies.Gibson Dunn has consistently advanced the interests of corporations that cause immense harm to the climate and frontline communities, particularly Indigenous communities. The 2021 Law Firm Climate Change Scorecard by Law Students for Climate Accountability (LSCA) found that Gibson Dunn conducted the second most anti-climate litigation of any law firm. Gibson Dunn has represented Dakota Access despite significant environmental impacts and its incursion on sacred Sioux land, and it currently represents a plaintiff in Brackeen v. Haaland, a lawsuit seeking to strike down the Indian Child Welfare Act, a vital law protecting against the removal of American Indian children from their communities.
Likewise, Gibson Dunn has aggressively litigated to ensure that Chevron evades liability for dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste that did irreversible environmental damage and caused widespread cancer and birth defects among Indigenous and campesino communities in Ecuador. Tens of thousands of Ecuadorians brought suit and were awarded a $9.5 billion dollar judgment to fund cleanup of the pollution; rather than pay it, Chevron has used Gibson Dunn to to demonize Steven Donzinger, the attorney representing these plaintiffs. Gibson Dunn helped mastermind a wholly unprecedented campaign of coercion, bribery, and persecution against Mr. Donziger. For the “crime” of refusing to endanger vulnerable environmental activists in Ecuador by handing over to Chevron years of sensitive communications with his clients, Mr. Donziger was kept under house arrest for two years — an act the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights decried as illegal under international law — and was recently sentenced to six months imprisonment. He surrendered himself on October 27.
These scorched-earth tactics are not new to Gibson Dunn, which has been fined by the Montana Supreme Court for “legal thuggery” and “blatantly and maliciously trying to intimidate” its opponents. A New York federal judge sanctioned the firm for “unacceptable shenanigans,” and a California federal judge found Gibson Dunn’s misconduct to be “a product of a culture which permeates” the firm. But Gibson Dunn’s extraordinary campaign to prevent Indigenous Ecuadorians from receiving relief by attacking Mr. Donziger represents a dangerous escalation of these tactics, and a tremendous threat to all future environmental plaintiffs and their advocates.
Last spring, in a letter signed by 87 law student organizations from dozens of law schools across the country, LSCA called on Gibson Dunn to commit to an ethical standard for its fossil fuel work. These student organizations have yet to receive a response. We reiterate their call.
As the newest generation to enter the legal profession, we refuse to be a part of Gibson Dunn’s work undermining access to justice, particularly for Indigenous communities. And we refuse to contribute to a firm that is doing so much to exacerbate a climate crisis that threatens every one of us with an unlivable future.
Sincerely,
The undersigned law students and new lawyers:
Trump, Not So Statuesque
Things are looking down for the Donald.
For a long time, Republicans have brandished the same old narrative to try to scare their way into the White House.
Their candidates were presented as the patriarchs, protecting the house from invaders with dark skin.
With Nixon, it was the Southern Strategy, raising alarms about the dismantling of Jim Crow laws.
With Reagan, it was launching his 1980 campaign on fairgrounds near where the Klan murdered three civil rights activists.
With Bush senior, it was Willie Horton coming to stab you and rape your girlfriend.
With W. and Cheney, it was Qaeda terrorists coming back to kill us.
With Donald Trump, it was Mexican rapists and the Obama birther lie.
For re-election, Trump is sifting through the embers of the Civil War, promising to protect America from “troublemakers” and “agitators” and “anarchists” rioting, looting and pulling down statues that they find racially offensive. “They said, ‘We want to get Jesus,’” Trump ominously told Sean Hannity Thursday night.
But Trump is badly out of step with the national psyche. The actual narrative gripping America is, at long last, about white men in uniforms targeting black and brown people.
In the last election, Trump milked white aggrievement to catapult himself into the White House. But even Republicans today recognize that we have to grapple with systemic racism and force some changes in police conduct — except for our president, who hailed stop-and-frisk in the Hannity interview.
The other scary narrative is about our “protean” enemy, as Tony Fauci calls Covid-19, which Trump pretends has disappeared, with lethal consequences. With no plan, he is reduced to more race-baiting, calling the virus “the China plague” and the “Kung Flu.” Nasty nicknames don’t work on diseases.
The pathogen is roaring back in the South and the West in places that buoyed Trump in 2016. Texas, Florida and Arizona are turning into Covid Calamity Land after many residents emulated their president and scorned masks and social distancing as a Commie hoax.
Is Trump’s perverse Southern Strategy to send the older men and women who are a large part of his base to the I.C.U.?
The president showed off his sociopathic flair by demanding the repeal of Obamacare — just because he can’t stand that it was done by Barack Obama. Millions losing their jobs and insurance during a plague and he wants to eliminate their alternative? Willful maliciousness.
And this at the same time he has been ensuring more infections by lowballing the virus, resisting more testing because the numbers would not be flattering to him, sidelining Dr. Fauci and setting a terrible example.
The Dow fell 700 points on the news that Texas and Florida are ordering a Covid-driven last call, closing their bars again, and the virus is revivifying in 30 states.
In 2016, the mood was against the status quo, represented by Hillary Clinton. But now the mood is against chaos, cruelty, deception and incompetence, represented by Trump. In light of our tempestuous, vertiginous times, Joe Biden’s status quo seems comforting.
It is a stunning twist in history that the former vice president was pushed aside in 2016 by the first black president and put back in the game this year by pragmatic black voters.
Bill Clinton was needy; he played a game with voters called “How much do you love me?” Do you love me enough to forgive me for this embarrassing personal transgression, or that one?
But Trump has taken that solipsism to the stratosphere, asking rallygoers in Tulsa to choose him over their health, possibly their lives, recklessly turning a medical necessity into a tribal signifier. I wasn’t surprised that so many seats there were empty, but that so many were filled.
In a rare moment of self-awareness, Trump whinged to Hannity about Biden: “The man can’t speak and he’s going to be your president ’cause some people don’t love me, maybe.”
It’s not only the virus that Trump is willfully blind about. A Times story that broke Friday evening was extremely disturbing about Trump’s love of Vladimir Putin. American intelligence briefed the president about a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offering bounties to Taliban-linked insurgents for killing coalition troops in Afghanistan, including Americans. Yet Trump has still been lobbying for Putin to rejoin the G7.
Trump had a chance, with twin existential crises, to be better after his abominable performance in his first three years. But then, we’ve known all along that he is not interested in science, racial harmony or leading the basest elements of his base out of Dixie and into the 21st century. Yes, the kid from Queens enjoys his newfound status as a son of the Confederacy.
A Wall Street Journal editorial Thursday warned that he could be defeated because he has no message beyond personal grievances and “four more years of himself.”
But Trump has always been about Trump. And the presidency was always going to distill him to his Trumpiest essence.
I asked Tim O’Brien, the Trump biographer, what to expect as the man obsessed with winning faces humiliating rejection.
“He will descend further into abuse, alienation and authoritarianism,” O’Brien said. “That’s what he’s stewing on most of the time, the triple A’s.”
Good times.
How To Outsmart A Narcissist The Right Way
We all would have loved to be able to outsmart a narcissist in the times when they are hurting us and when we are under siege from their malicious behaviour. But why doesn’t this seem to work? Why is it that many people don’t beat narcissists and in fact end up getting more abused when they try to?
06:44realized that this is a profound soulcontract and if we haven’t made theunconscious conscious we will be showingup in an unhealed in a childhoodcontainer which means that we’re goingto be holding the narcissist responsiblefor our wounds and we’re going to behanding over a lot of fear and pain andinsecurity and neediness which hooks itinto the narcissist and into the wholedynamic and we’re going to play out thatnot winning getting our wounds smashedmore and more and more and more open toget our attention to finally understandthat the narcissist is not the healer ofour wounds the narcissist is themessenger of them because this is theuncanny irony is that narcissus have themost expert ability to find everyinsecurity you’ve got every weak linkand target it with full intensity now isthat ironicor is that actually really meant to be Itotally believe it’s really meant to bebecause that’s what’s making ourunconscious wounds that were our normalwe were just bumping along in life withthem it brings them up in such a waythere’s no ignoring them so if weunderstand that this is a soul contractif we understand that the narcissus isin our life exposing for us ourunconscious wounds to make themconscious then what we’ll do is we’llstop holding the narcissus responsiblefor them we’ll stop feeding thenarcissist with narcissistic supplywhich is initially very very hard to dobecause when our original deepest mostpainful wounds are targeted and smashedand they’re energized it’s very hardto hook in and handover narcissisticsupply and fight back and be terrifiedand incensed and devastated and allthose things but when we realize thatthis is what’s playing out then eventhough we are all of those things westop hooking into the narcissist and weconfront all of those things in ourbodies instead we saw partner we make itall about that we heal we find those wereleased some way up level them and thenwhen we do that we are freed from thewhole debacle and it’s such an irony isthat when we’re not realizing that we’rein a soul contract with an aid and angelin disguise and we’re holding themresponsible for our wounds we want tooutsmart them we’re going to try tooutsmart them but we never will we wantto get beaten up with our wounds more itnever works yet there are any years iswhen we detach and we say you’reactually the messenger just the catalystyou’re the aid this is all about finallybeing able to self partner and come homein my own body and clean up my originaltraumas from my childhood from myancestors from my beliefs from from thescrewy beliefs of humanity you know andwhen I cannot level that it’s actuallynot even about you and my ego is noteven invested at all because it’s notabout you there’s no ego in this is onlyconsciousness is only awakening and whenwe fully stream into that consciousnessand awakening we defeat the narcissistbecause there is no longer any fear orpain or ego battle when we’re in theirarena in their vibration for a battle toeven take place we’ve up leveled toanother frequency here and anotheremotional frequency another dimensionliterally which doesn’t include egosso they unravel and this is what happensis the narcissist in your experiencewill unravel come undone be defeatedsimply because you’re up leveling andtranscending to another reality wherethey can’t use any fear or pain againstyou because we have to understand todefeat a narcissist what is a narcissista narcissist is a false self and what isa false self a false self is aconstructed image that’s not real thatneeds energy outside of itself to existto operate it needs your fear pain andattention and when you become selfpartner to make it all about Europeleveling you snap all of that off all ofthat goes your healing any of theoriginal wounds that means that you werehooked into a narcissist you leave itall behind so the irony is when weunderstand the soul contract we have noneed to outsmart and Isis as the onlyneed we had is to evolve ourselves andthen naturally organically we outsmartthe narcissist because we cut off allconnection so really hope that’s helpedand given you so much food for thoughtabout this and the truth of what playsout with this so if you like my videosand if they’re making sense to you Iwould love you to like and comment andshare and subscribe to my channel andalso too if you want to get even adeeper dive into this stuff you can
The G.O.P.’s Bonfire of the Sanities
cloudwatch
Or, for that matter, the very idea that the F.B.I. is dedicated to destroying the Trump presidency. Recall this is the same bureau that, wittingly or not, probably did more than any other arm of government to create the Trump presidency in the first place, in part because disgruntled F.B.I. field agents were intent on forcing James Comey to reopen the Clinton email investigation 11 days before the election.
.. None of this would have surprised Hofstadter, whose essay traces the history of American paranoia from the Bavarian Illuminati and the Masons to New Dealers and Communists in the State Department. “I call it the paranoid style,” Hofstadter wrote, “simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind.” What better way to describe a Republican Party that thinks America has more to fear from a third-tier F.B.I. agent in Washington who doesn’t like the president than it does from a first-tier K.G.B. agent in Moscow who, for a time at least, liked the president all too well?
.. The paranoid style, he noted, was typically a function of powerlessness. “Having no access to political bargaining or the making of decisions, they find their original conception that the world of power is sinister and malicious fully confirmed.”
.. Today, Republicans control every branch of government, and nearly every aspect of the Russia investigation. Robert Mueller, a Republican, was appointed special counsel by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, another Republican, and a Trump appointee. Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, supposedly accuses the F.B.I. of anti-Trump perfidies in a secret four-page memo, but he won’t share the memo with the director of the F.B.I. — who’s also a Trump appointee.
.. The principal lesson of paranoia is the ease with which politically aroused people can mistake errors for deceptions, coincidences for patterns, bumbling for dereliction, and secrecy for treachery.
.. The failure to know the difference, combined with the desire for a particular result, is what accounts for the paranoid style.
.. America already has one party that’s lost its mind. We don’t need another.