http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/26/1439161/-UPDATE-Legal-Action-Against-Koch-Brothers-Rick-Scott-Jeb-Bush-Goes-To-U-S-Supreme-Court?detail=email
And so it continues. The unethical, and allegedly illegal, Florida indenture involving four very well-known political figures, including a 2016 presidential candidate, continues. Here is some background on the story followed by the latest legal action, which is now on its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In February 2015, Florida Attorney Steve Medina asked me to help him break an exclusive story on Daily Kos about a scandal involving Charles Koch, David Koch, Florida Governor Rick Scott, and presidential candidate Jeb Bush. They are part of a deal made that allows Koch Industries' highly profitable paper and pulp company, Georgia-Pacific, to dump millions of gallons of toxic waste per day into the St. Johns River in Florida.
The original story (well worth the long read) has been picked up by multiple news groups, and also shared, posted, tweeted and emailed with a social media reach estimated to be in the millions. The first update reveals more about the legal claim. Americans are not only aware of the massive Koch corruption; through an online petition they are stepping up and taking action to stop it.
In October of 2015, I received the most recent correspondence below from Mr. Medina, which I am now relaying to Daily Kos readers and the public, with his permission:
Dear Leslie, I have uploaded to my Scribd account the PDF of the Petition for Writ of Certiorari recently filed at the U.S. Supreme Court in the case ofKaren Ahlers, Neil Armingeon, Environmental Youth Council St. Augustine, Florida Clean Water Network, Inc., and Putnam County Environmental Council, Inc. v. Rick Scott, Pam Bondi, Jeff Atwater, and Adam Putnam, as Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund, and Georgia-Pacific Consumer Operations LLC.
The petition discusses the beneficial property interest of all the people of Florida in the St. Johns River, and a grossly confusing and misleading newspaper notice. I highly recommend that interested members of the public read the petition and then look at the March 3, 2005 newspaper notice beginning at page A-25 of the appendix and see if they could have understood it had they seen it in their local newspaper.
Governor Rick Scott and the all-Republican Florida cabinet, who together form Florida’s Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund, claim that the newspaper notice cuts off the public right to challenge the private easement granted to a Koch brother’s company, Georgia-Pacific. The easement allows construction and operation of a pipeline to dump tons per day of chronically toxic paper mill waste into the St. Johns River, an American Heritage River.
Jeb Bush, over the objection of then-Attorney General Charlie Crist, gave his preliminary approval for the pipeline easement back when he was governor. The petitioners contend that their due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment would be violated by allowing this newspaper notice to cut off their administrative hearing rights to challenge the Georgia-Pacific private easement.
A similar pipeline is currently being reviewed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers involving another Koch brothers’ company, Buckeye, which operates on the west coast of Florida. That pipeline would dump into a vital seagrass estuary of the Gulf of Mexico off the Fenholloway River. The elderly man who challenged that private pipeline easement died. His administrative challenge was then dismissed around the same time the mysterious newspaper notice was issued to Georgia-Pacific.
In addition to the formal legal petition to the Supreme Court of the United States, thousands of people have signed an online petition to the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida demanding a federal criminal investigation of Rick Scott’s land give-away to the Koch brothers. That petition drive is ongoing. Persons wishing to sign the online petition should go to https://www.change.org/...
This type of protest and activism gives many hope that the voice of the people can and will expose corruption and hold the guilty parties responsible, not only with fines but with jail time. No one should be too big or too rich to jail, and the same penalties for crimes/misdeeds should apply equally to the rich and poor. As a country, we are not even close to being there yet, but with legal actions like these, it's an indication we are, at least, heading in the right direction.
i have pictures flashing through my mind of Koch bros. doing a perp walk on every news channel even Fox too big to be prosecuted will that be the next news quote. will money and republican back pocketed politicians prevent justice and allow regulations that protect us from big money pursuits of more money. this is where it all comes out who really controls the country and proof of money's ability to buy individual "JUSTICE"????
they spend millions looking in the wrong backyard just like voter fraud turn around and look down it's at you feet republicans spend the peoples money on the real criminals investigate the real crimes against American people. it's so much they keep from us while railing about emails that they have no proof involve anything detrimental to US but one think you can be sure of what they refuse to admit is a detriment mostly to our health and well being take healthcare away, food stamps and pollution of our air, water and grounds, investigative committee's who's zoomin who??????????????
