Saturday, December 10, 2016

No one knew the depth of Trump's corruption because of his personal attacks and hubris.

The United States of America is a banana republic. I think Mr. Trump's cabinet will be met with indifference and not ambition to agenda's between countries. The global community is not about to turn on a dime for some kind of new paradigm proposed by Trump. They might let him build a hotel, but, beyond that I don't see much happening.

June 14, 2010 (L-R) Rex Tillerson, Chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil, John Watson, Chairman and CEO of Chevron, James Mulva, Chairman and CEO of ConocoPhillips, Marvin Odum, President of Shell Oil Company, and Lamar McKay, Chairman and President BP America, Inc. listen to questions from members while participating in a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, June 15, 2010 in Washington, DC. The group of oil executives are testifing on the topic of 'Drilling Down On America's Energy Future: Safety, Security And Clean Energy.'

December 10, 2016
By Phillip Bump

So far, President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet (click here) picks have mostly been either multimillionaire and billionaire executives or retired generals. In that context, it's probably less of a surprise that Trump may be close to selecting ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, elevating a dark-horse prospect who may surge past seasoned political actors like Mitt Romney and Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) in the stretch.

Tillerson's hardly an unknown character on the world stage, but he's probably not too familiar to Americans. As such, we've put together a brief profile of the man who may soon be in charge of the United States' international diplomacy.

Tillerson has no experience in the public sector, a first in modern history for a potential secretary of state. Tillerson, 64, joined ExxonMobil in 1975, after receiving a civil engineering degree from the University of Texas. He worked his way up through the ranks, beginning as a production engineer and becoming chairman and chief executive in 2006....

Exxonmobil has committed human rights violations throughout he world and participated in the corruption at Minerals and Mining Management during the Bush administration. That record does not qualify Mr. Tillerson for anything except payment to victims of his company.

July 8, 2011
By Bill Mears

Washington (CNN) -- Global energy giant Exxon Mobil Corp. (click here) will be forced to face a lawsuit over alleged murder and torture committed by company agents in remote Indonesia, after a federal appeals court said Friday that corporations cannot claim immunity from liability.

A divided 2-1 panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reinstated a massive lawsuit filed by 15 Indonesian villagers from the oil-rich province of Aceh. They claim government security forces working for Exxon Mobil committed brutal oppression while guarding a natural gas facility in 2000-01.

At issue is whether foreign nationals can go into U.S. courts to press civil claims stemming from actions overseas by non-American citizens in a time of martial law. The decision will have widespread implications for multinational corporations doing business in other countries.

"It would create a bizarre anomaly to immunize corporations from liability for the conduct of their agents in lawsuits brought for 'shockingly egregious violations of universally recognized principles of international law,'" wrote Judge Judith Rogers in a detailed, 112-page opinion. "The law of the United States has been uniform since its founding that corporations can be held liable for the torts committed by their agents. This is confirmed in international practice, both in treaties and in legal systems throughout the world."...

Exxonmobil and Russia may have profits planned for the oil industry, however, assisting a foreign government by nominating a CEO that seeks power over the people of the USA is treason. 

February 27, 2016
By Kenneth Rapoza


Western sanctions against Russia (click here) are costing America's most powerful company a few hundred million bucks. A billion to be exact.
Exxon Mobil XOM +0.77% said in a 10-k filing with the SEC on Wednesday that it lost a maximum of $1 billion from sanctions.  In July 2014, the European Union and United States imposed sanctions on the Russian energy sector. The West believes Russia is behind much of the civil unrest in eastern Ukraine. Sanctions began in March 2014 following Russia's annexation of Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula that was once part of Ukraine. But the punishment was kicked up a notch in July with sanctions banning American companies from doing business with Russian oil and gas drillers. That hurt a new $723 million joint venture between Exxon and Rosneft , Russia's largest state owned oil company. This year, the two companies were to start drilling for oil in the Kara Sea, located in the Arctic Circle in northern Russia....

In seeking power within the USA government's State Department to conduct business with Russia, Mr. Tillerson is committing corruption.

This was 2012 between Ukraine and Exxonmobil while Viktor Yanukovych was president.

August 15, 2012
By Pavel Polityuk
Kiev - Ukraine has picked a consortium (click here) led by ExxonMobil (XOM.N) and Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) to develop its Skifska gas field in the Black Sea, it said on Wednesday, as it seeks to wean itself off increasingly expensive Russian gas imports.
The project, whose total costs have been estimated by the government at $10-12 billion, is part of the former Soviet republic's plan to ease its dependence on gas imported from Russia, which amounted to some 40 billion cubic meters last year and accounted for nearly two thirds of the country's consumption.
"Thanks to state projects aimed at increasing domestic production we will be able to produce at least 45 billion cubic meters domestically,"
Environment and Natural Resources minister Eduard Stavitsky told reporters in announcing the winner of the Skifska tender....
Then came 2014:
21 November 2014
The student protests organised (click here) to force President Viktor Yanukovych and Prime Minister Mykola Azarov to sign an association agreement with the EU developed into a revolution that overthrew the government and sparked a counter-revolution in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.
The revolution, or rather its success, frightened Russia and President Vladimir Putin and he ordered the rollout of a plan to annex Crimea.
Nationalist forces inside the Russian Federation, groomed by Russian media for years and flushed with the annexation, took it upon themselves to free the east of Ukraine from the rest of the country. Behind them came Russian military hardware and soldiers, although the Kremlin insists they were not on official army service.
This war, officially called an Anti-Terrorism Operation, has continued for some months....

The Exxonmobil offices in Kiev closed in 2014. Today, Exxonmobil has suspended it's activities in Ukraine while still holding the leases. But, at the same time Exxonmobil is engaged in activities in the Black Sea near Crimea. 

April 29, 2014
By Stephen Bierman

Exxon Mobil Corp.’s dream of drilling (click here) in the Russian Arctic may risk running aground on the politics of Ukraine.

The company plans to start drilling in August in the Arctic’s remote Kara Sea -- the centerpiece of Exxon’s global alliance with Russian state-controlled OAO Rosneft. The partnership, which includes shale exploration in Siberia and joint venture fields in Texas, will come under greater scrutiny after the U.S. placed sanctions on Rosneft’s Chief Executive Officer Igor Sechin.

“With Sechin being sanctioned it may complicate relations for Rosneft with Western companies,” said Mattias, who oversees about $3.3 billion in Russia assets as CEO of Prosperity Capital. “Maybe some transactions will be threatened as a result and perhaps Russia will counter and they will be less keen for American companies to work on Arctic projects.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin said today that further sanctions may force Russian to reconsider Western companies’ participation in key industries, including energy. He told reporter he sees no need for retaliatory sanctions now....

Mr. Tillerson's priorities are a danger to the USA's national security.