Shame, Come Back, Shame

For these folks, shame left the building a long time ago

WTC LAWYER THE 'DEVIL'S ADVOCATE'

One of the high-priced lawyers who have sucked $47 million out of the $1 billion World Trade Center insurance fund is infamous for defending companies that manufactured Agent Orange, a pregnancy drug linked to cancer, and defective breast implants. James Tyrrell, a partner in the law firm Patton Boggs, is hailed in legal circles as the "master of disaster" and the "devil's advocate."

Another lawyer, Thomas Jones, serves simultaneously as secretary of the WTC Captive Insurance Co., which manages the $1 billion FEMA fund, and as partner in theChicago-based McDermott Will & Emery, the fund's legal counsel.

In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan last week, 9/11 responders blasted the Captive's mounting expenses - $75 million so far, including $47 million on law firms - and Jones' alleged "conflict of interest."

They charged the city-run WTC Captive is a cash cow for its employees, consultants and lawyers, and has "squandered" money that should go to 10,000 cops, firefighters and other workers with illnesses blamed on toxic exposure at Ground Zero. It has paid just $45,000 to a carpenter who fell off a ladder.
[...]
Documents obtained by The Post show that eight senior partners at McDermott, Will & Emery, including Thomas, can each bill the insurance fund $618 an hour. The partners first billed a "discounted" $550 an hour, but that fee was raised 6 percent in 2005, and 6 percent again last year.

Under the same agreement, junior partners in the firm can bill $389 to $484 an hour; associates $223 to $242 an hour, and paralegals $150 to $200 an hour.

Nice work if you can get it.

Mayor Bloomberg in another article stated:

"The truth of the matter is, Congress didn't set up a victims' compensation fund," the mayor said. "We'd like them to do that, we've asked for that; they set up a captive insurance company. And the insurance company can only pay out monies if somebody sues us in court and wins a judgment against us."

If that was true then why has $47 million gone to lawyers to defend the contractors and $45 thousand gone to payments?

And it sure seems a long way from what Mayor Bloomberg said previously:

In a joint press release on March 21, 2003 with Governor Pataki, announcing the legislation that allowed for the formation of the WTC Captive, Mayor Bloomberg is quoted as saying that "This legislation is necessary for the City to expedite the payment of claims relating to this effort."

Yet 6 years later only lawyers have been paid, and paid not to expedite but to impede payments to first responders and others who responded to search for survivors/recover bodies and clean up the debris from the 9/11 disaster.

It's bad enough that the EPA, (via a Bush political hack who overruled scientists at the request of Bush ), said the air was safe for these workers. Now the money alloted to them is being spent fighting their claims.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

No I would not sleep in this bed of lies

NewsFlash!!! Michelle Malkin lies!

David Weigel has it over at Hit & Run:

Andrew Sullivan, whose defense of Ron Paul this week put H&R's to shame, catches Fox News accusing the candidate of "9/11 Truthism":

GIBSON: According to a recent Rasmussen Report poll, 35 percent of Democrats think President Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks beforehand. The so-called 9/11 Truth Movement has already infected people like Rosie O'Donnell and one in three Democrats, and many other people, Americans evidently, including Congressman Ron Paul. With me now is FOX News contributor and syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin.

So, Michelle, this stuns me. It wouldn't have stunned me had it come up in the Democratic debate, but it's a jaw-dropper to see it in the Republican debate.

MICHELLE MALKIN: It is and it doesn't belong here. And I'm glad that this moment provided great TV for FOX News — it was a very instructive exchange — but Ron Paul really has no business being on stage as a legitimate representative of Republicans, because the 9/11 truth virus is something that infects only a very small proportion of people that would identify themselves as conservative or Republican. And as you say, John, this is far more prevalent, this strain of 9/11 truth virus, on the left, and in much of the mainstream of the Democratic Party as that Rasmussen poll showed.

Paul never said that or anything like it at the debate. What's Malkin's evidence?

You know, I try not to spend too much time in these cesspools, but it is worth taking a visit to places like, you know, these WTC7 sites and Students and Scholars for Truth, and I note that Ron Paul has basically allied himself with these people. He appears with Students for Truth on campus and he's appeared on radio shows like 9/11 conspiracy nut Alex Jones.

I'm shocked, shocked! that La Malkin would go out on a limb to smear someone who disagrees with Dear Leader. Because it's just not true:

Ron Paul has appeared on Alex Jones' show, but he has never appeared with "Students and Scholars for Truth" or "Students for Truth." Those groups don't actually exist. What Malkin is probably referring to is this incident three months ago, when members of Student Scholars for 9/11 Truth attended a Paul campaign appearence. Group leader Justin Martell buttonholed Paul and got him to admit that he 1) generally doesn't trust government accounts of things and 2) would sign on to a 9/11 investigation if Dennis Kucinich launched one. (He did question the Kennedy assassination: John Gibson, take notes!) Check out the video—it's pretty clear he's not sure what to think of the group.

David continues after Malkin posts a tepid apology:

Malkin is trying too hard, and with too little evidence, to prove that Paul agrees with the Student Scholars. Early in the video they tell a drive-through window attendant that "9/11 was an inside job perpetrated by our own government." When Martell confronts Paul, he's careful not to say that. He says "we've heard that you have questioned the government's official account." He opens the door for Paul to claim a conspiracy behind 9/11. Paul never does.

That's more politeness than she deserves.