RSN: The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare, Oregon Was Founded as a Racist Utopia, Wall Street Fine Print: Retirees Want FBI Probe of Pension Investment Deals

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William Boardman | Saudi Arabia a Force for Stability? Dream On! 
 
William Boardman, Reader Supported News 
Boardman writes: "The Saudi mass beheadings on January 2 proved nothing new to a world that well knows Saudi Arabia is still a tribal police state with a moral code of medieval barbarity." 
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David Sirota | Wall Street Fine Print: Retirees Want FBI Probe of Pension Investment Deals 
David Sirota, International Business Times 
Excerpt: "'Even though we aren't Wall Street experts, we just started to ask questions about how the pension fund was managed, and what it was invested in. That's when we realized the fees we've been paying to the investment companies were the problem.'" 
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Stephen Eric Bronner: Prejudice of Immigrants as the Self-Fullfilling Prophecy of Bigots 
Stephen Eric Bronner, Reader Supported News 
Excerpt: "Every leading candidate for the Republican nomination has embraced anti-immigrant/anti-refugee sentiments: Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Ted Cruz have all engaged in virulent and demagogic attacks on refugees. Even the Democratic Party is not immune to such bigotry." 
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Sanders Fans Plot Sabotage of Trump Event 
Amie Parnes, The Hill 
Parnes writes: "Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump could 'feel the Bern' on Thursday night. Trump, who is making an appearance in Vermont, the home state of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, could have some empty seats in the house, thanks to the senator's supporters." 
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Oregon Was Founded as a Racist Utopia 
Matt Novak, Gizmodo 
Novak writes: "When Oregon was granted statehood in 1859, it was the only state in the Union admitted with a constitution that forbade black people from living, working, or owning property there." 
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UK Has Sold $8 Billion of Arms to Saudi Arabia in Five Years: Report 
Middle East Eye 
Excerpt: "The UK has sold $8.2 billion of arms to Saudi Arabia since David Cameron became Prime Minister, despite widespread human right concerns." 
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The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare 
Nathaniel Rich, The New York Times 
Rich writes: "The farmer, Wilbur Tennant of Parkersburg, W.Va., said that his cows were dying left and right. He believed that the DuPont chemical company, which until recently operated a site in Parkersburg that is more than 35 times the size of the Pentagon, was responsible. Tennant had tried to seek help locally, he said, but DuPont just about owned the entire town." 
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Lawyer Rob Bilott on land owned by the Tennants near Parkersburg, W.Va. (photo: Bryan 
Schutmaat/The New York Times)

Rob Bilott was a corporate defense attorney for eight years. Then he took on an environmental suit that would upend his entire career — and expose a brazen, decades-long history of chemical pollution.

ust months before Rob Bilott made partner at Taft Stettinius & Hollister, he received a call on his direct line from a cattle farmer. The farmer, Wilbur Tennant of Parkersburg, W.Va., said that his cows were dying left and right. He believed that the DuPont chemical company, which until recently operated a site in Parkersburg that is more than 35 times the size of the Pentagon, was responsible. Tennant had tried to seek help locally, he said, but DuPont just about owned the entire town. He had been spurned not only by Parkersburg’s lawyers but also by its politicians, journalists, doctors and veterinarians. The farmer was angry and spoke in a heavy Appalachian accent. Bilott struggled to make sense of everything he was saying. He might have hung up had Tennant not blurted out the name of Bilott’s grandmother, Alma Holland White.

White had lived in Vienna, a northern suburb of Parkersburg, and as a child, Bilott often visited her in the summers. In 1973 she brought him to the cattle farm belonging to the Tennants’ neighbors, the Grahams, with whom White was friendly. Bilott spent the weekend riding horses, milking cows and watching Secretariat win the Triple Crown on TV. He was 7 years old. The visit to the Grahams’ farm was one of his happiest childhood memories.

When the Grahams heard in 1998 that Wilbur Tennant was looking for legal help, they remembered Bilott, White’s grandson, who had grown up to become an environmental lawyer. They did not understand, however, that Bilott was not the right kind of environmental lawyer. He did not represent plaintiffs or private citizens. Like the other 200 lawyers at Taft, a firm founded in 1885 and tied historically to the family of President William Howard Taft, Bilott worked almost exclusively for large corporate clients. His specialty was defending chemical companies. Several times, Bilott had even worked on cases with DuPont lawyers. Nevertheless, as a favor to his grandmother, he agreed to meet the farmer. ‘‘It just felt like the right thing to do,’’ he says today. ‘‘I felt a connection to those folks.’’

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