Fake Website

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<a href="https://movetoamend.org/corporate-rule-examples-19" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://movetoamend.org/corporate-rule-examples-19</a><h2 dir="ltr" style="margin: 0.8em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.25em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Chevron Corporation Takes on First Amendment Powers in Richmond, CA</h2>Evan Aczon
January 2018Earlier this year, a Move To Amend story about corporate abuse of power addressed the looming physical and financial presence of oil giant Chevron Corporation over the town of Richmond, California.<a href="https://movetoamend.org/corporate-rule-examples-19#1" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">1</a> The refinery is the biggest employer in the city, providing work for roughly 1200 employees and taking up nearly 3000 acres, sprawling across the landscape as you look out from the Richmond Hills to the San Francisco Bay and Golden Gate Bridge just beyond.Yet there is a dark duality of the Chevron plant, where the daily output of smoke and exhaust is matched by the corporatism seeping into the very fabric of Richmond’s governance and its municipal and regional politics. Physical explosions and fires sent residents scrambling for shelter in 1989, 1999, 2012, and 2016, resulting in thousands of hospitalizations and millions of dollars in settlements. Unpaid taxes and lawsuits kept money out of the local coffers while taking huge tax cuts from the federal government.The most toxic output from the Chevron refinery, however, may not be coming from the smokestacks, but from the printing presses. In a truly blatant exercise of illegitimate corporate power under the First Amendment (these rights belong to natural persons, not corporate entities), Chevron Corporation has bankrolled an entire public relations operation posing as a local news website, The Richmond Standard, which states the following:This news website is brought to you by Chevron Richmond. We aim to provide Richmond residents with important information about what's going on in the community, and to provide a voice for Chevron Richmond on civic issues.Whether or not that disclaimer is present is not what is at issue here. What matters is that Chevron is openly publishing its own opinions in the form of a community news website, posting updates on local events like marathons and holiday parades, while also sprinkling in subtly anti-activist, stories about climate change marchers and Chevron-supporting stories about its “community work.” <a href="https://movetoamend.org/corporate-rule-examples-19#2" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">2</a> <a href="https://movetoamend.org/corporate-rule-examples-19#3" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">3</a>As noted in a 2014 piece from the Los Angeles Times, the Chevron Corporation even stated that there would be nothing critical of the oil giant in The Richmond Standard, saying, “We came out in the beginning and said, if you're looking for a story that's critical of Chevron, you're not going to find it in The Richmond Standard."<a href="https://movetoamend.org/corporate-rule-examples-19#4" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">4</a>The outlet has also become a primary outlet for Richmond Mayor Tom Butt, who frequently pens letters to the community through The Richmond Standard. Butt’s policies and positions also appear frequently and with marked support from Chevron.The corporatization of a “news source” is something that should frighten all residents, especially when that outlet is being bankrolled by one of the biggest corporate welfare recipients in the country. In an age of “fake news” and growing media consolidation, the sourcing of journalism and the integrity of the content we’re reading online should always face strict scrutiny.When corporations assume First Amendment press freedoms to enter the journalistic marketplace with their own biased coverage, endorsing candidates, ballot measures, and policies, they are implementing a right never intended for the corporate form in a democracy.“Corporate news” can be unbridled pay-to-play, promotion of company positions at low cost and it should be sought out and stopped at the source. Most importantly, the right of corporations to constitutional First Amendment freedoms of the press must be withdrawn by the people and their legislative bodies.Join Move to Amend and work to make it clear that corporations should not have constitutional rights and that money is not a form of protected speech! To join the movement, please visit: <a href="https://movetoamend.org/amendment" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">www.movetoamend.org/amendment</a>.Read more:<ol style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em 40px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li dir="ltr" sites="sites" all="all" themes="themes" amend="amend" images="images" star-gray.png="star-gray.png" style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url("");"><a name="1" id="1" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Chevron Refinery Harms Local Communities in California | </a><a href="about:blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Move To Amend</a></li></ol><ol style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em 40px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li dir="ltr" value="2" sites="sites" all="all" themes="themes" amend="amend" images="images" star-gray.png="star-gray.png" style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url("");"><a name="2" id="2" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">170 activists, some from Richmond, rankle Amtrak passengers and conductors on cross country trip | </a><a href="about:blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Richmond Standard</a></li></ol><ol style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em 40px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li dir="ltr" value="3" sites="sites" all="all" themes="themes" amend="amend" images="images" star-gray.png="star-gray.png" style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url("");"><a name="3" id="3" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Over 450 community members tour Chevron Richmond Refinery | </a><a href="about:blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Richmond Standard</a></li></ol><ol style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em 40px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li dir="ltr" value="4" sites="sites" all="all" themes="themes" amend="amend" images="images" star-gray.png="star-gray.png" style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url("");"><a name="4" id="4" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">A Chevron PR website pretends to be an objective news source | </a><a href="about:blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Michael Hiltzik</a></li></ol><div style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; line-height: 24px;">Of all the things conservatives have done to sabotage and derail the Affordable Care Act – and good lord, is this a long list – nothing seems quite as offensive as the right’s campaign to encourage those without coverage to stay uninsured, on purpose, to advance an ideological cause.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; line-height: 24px;"> </div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; line-height: 24px;">Regular readers may recall that we covered this<a href="http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-intersection-moral-and-intelle?lite" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-decoration: none;">quite a bit</a> over the summer. Conservatives launched organized efforts to convince the uninsured to voluntarily “refuse to enroll” – because if fewer people participate in the system, costs would soar, and in theory the system could become unsustainable. Struggling families will of course be completely screwed in this scenario, but for the right, that’s a small price to pay – and a sacrifice they’re willing to see others make.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; line-height: 24px;"> </div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; line-height: 24px;">Eric Lach, referencing <a href="http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20131112/whos-behind-websites-aiming-confound-alaska-enrollment-healthcaregov" rel="nofollow" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-decoration: none;">a report</a> from the Alaska Dispatch, noted yesterday that the campaign is <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/florida-conservative-group-helping-muck-up-obamacare-in-alaska" rel="nofollow" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-decoration: none;">still very much underway</a>. Indeed, it appears far-right Floridians are now lobbying Alaskans to stay uninsured on purpose.</div><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; line-height: 24px;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">The websites, dontenrollalaska.org and knowthefactsalaska.org, strike different tones and do not identify their creators, but they share similar layouts and were created on the same day in September. Facebook pages for both groups were also created on the same day, and, according to the Dispatch, television ads for both groups have been running during the same commercial breaks in Alaska.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"> </div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">And while the websites don’t identify the creators or backers of either group, a representative from the Alaska chapter of the Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity told the Dispatch that a group called the Foundation for Government Accountability was “directly involved” in both websites.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"> </div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Based in Naples, Fla., the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) is a 501(c)3 non-profit that “promotes public policies that achieve limited, constitutional government and a robust economy that will be an engine for job creation across the states.” One of the foundation’s directors is Robert Levy, the chairman of the board of the Cato Institute, the Washington, D.C. think tank with a long and complicated relationship with the Koch brothers.</div></blockquote><div style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; line-height: 24px;">Even by the standards of contemporary conservatism, there’s something morally bankrupt about wealthy far-right forces targeting struggling Americans and telling them to go without access to basic health – on purpose – apparently because they don’t like the president.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; line-height: 24px;"> </div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; line-height: 24px;">The debate over health care reform has never been especially responsible or high-minded, but this is uniquely ugly.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; line-height: 24px;"> </div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; line-height: 24px;">Indeed, freshman Sen. Angus King, a mild-mannered independent from Maine, recently <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/09/30/senator_conservatives_encouraging_people_to_skip_obamacare_are_murderers/" rel="nofollow" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-decoration: none;">expressed his understandable contempt</a> for those behind schemes like these.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; line-height: 24px;"> </div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; line-height: 24px;">“That’s a scandal – those people are guilty of murder in my opinion,” King told Brian Beutler in September. “Some of those people they persuade are going to end up dying because they don’t have health insurance. For people who do that to other people in the name of some obscure political ideology is one of the grossest violations of our humanity I can think of. This absolutely drives me crazy.”</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; line-height: 24px;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; line-height: 24px;">Senator, you’re not the only one.</div>
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Authorities in California shut down 10 fake Obamacare websites, amid nationwide concern among law enforcement officials about potential fraud during the program's rollout, the state's attorney general said on Thursday. 
The sites, which mimicked the official "<a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/www.coveredca.com" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; font-weight: 600;">Covered California</a>" affordable health insurance website, were removed from the Internet in an effort to stop fraud connected to the rollout, said a spokesman for California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who ordered the sites to close after a month-long investigation. "These websites fraudulently imitated Covered California in order to lure consumers away from plans that provide the benefits of the Affordable Care Act," Harris said in a statement. "My office will continue to investigate and shut down these kinds of sites." The extent of fraud related to the Affordable Care Act is not yet clear. But Harris' spokesman, Nicholas Pacilio, said that attorneys general from several states have been participating in regular conference calls on the subject. In September, Better Business Bureaus nationwide warned that fraudulent telemarketers were calling consumers pretending to offer information about the Affordable Care Act in an effort to obtain personal information for identity theft. In the California case, the websites used names meant to evoke the state's own insurance exchange, Harris said. Consumers who used Internet search programs such as Google to find the Covered California site were presented with ads for the fake sites instead, some of them using the exchange's logo and using its name. But instead of directing users to the site of the state's insurance exchange, where they could purchase policies approved under the new law and possibly qualify for a federal subsidy, the ads took consumers to the websites of private insurance companies and brokers. Harris warned consumers who wish to sign up to go directly to the<a href="https://www.coveredca.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; font-weight: 600;">state's site</a>. She said policies offered outside the exchanges may not have the consumer protections required by the Affordable Care Act and may not be eligible for subsidies. Harris did not disclose the names of the businesses involved, other than to <a href="https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-kamala-d-harris-shuts-down-imitation-%E2%80%98covered-california%E2%80%99" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; font-weight: 600;">list the now-shut website names</a>. ===</div>