Chamber of Commerce Credits Apple’s Success to Trial Lawyers

I love the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It’s utterly over-the-top arguments have lead it to the conclusion that the success of Apple is due to trial lawyers.

Apple, you see, became the latest company to tell the Chamber of Commerce to go crap in a hat when it came to its stance on climate change. Apple quit. But according to the chamber, they weren’t told by Apple to take that proverbial long walk of the short pier because its position on global warming was out of touch with science and the opinions of the vast majority of people. No, it couldn’t be that.

According to the chamber, Apple must have quit the organization because of the trial lawyers. I kid you not.

In Friday’s Washington Post the chamber said its critics were organized by “our normal adversaries– trial lawyers, activist unions [and] environmental extremists.”

Chamber COO David Chavern went on to write in his letter, that “[I]nterest groups are looking for public leverage to force us to do things against the best interests of the business community…”

You see, according to the chamber, Apple, one of the most successful consumer businesses on the planet, doesn’t really know what is in its best interests. Apple, according to the chamber, is being pressured by trial lawyers. We’re responsible for Apple being what it is today.

It’s nice to see such a feather in the cap of the trial lawyers. Usually we must be satisfied knowing only that there are safer playgrounds, safer cars, safer drugs, and safer consumer items of all kinds as a result of lawyers holding companies accountable for what they make.

But now we get to add in Apple’s success. Cool. I can live with that.

h/t Legal Reader
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See also:

• The Chamber and Climate Change Debacle: Ignoring the First Rule of Holes (NRDC):
  

  …it is clear that the US Chamber is worried about the impact of the controversy over their climate position, but it isn’t worried enough to have an honest discussion with its members as to what’s going on. Instead, the Chamber is firing wildly at its traditional scapegoats – lawyers, unions and environmentalists – and blaming the troubles on them. But what the Chamber is burying here is that it has created this mess for itself, and the companies that have quit the chamber and criticized it have done so of their own accord. (more)

• Chamber: They Just Hate Us Because We’re Awesome (Mother Jones):
  

  The US Chamber of Commerce has had a very rough week. Mother Jones exposed their inflated membership numbers, forcing the Chamber to shrink its tally by 90 percent. Following a series of high-profile departures by members who opposed the leadership’s position on climate change, a group of liberal NGOs has organized a “Stop the Chambe”” campaign, and the San Francisco Chamber is publicly divorcing them. The Chamber is so beleagured that it is now painting itself as the victim of—wait for it—a “corporate campaign.” (more)

• Chamber fires back at climate critics (Politico):
  

  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce fired back at critics on Thursday, after a series of defections by member companies angry over the business lobby’s opposition to climate change legislation.”The only regrets we have is that we maybe have not always used the right language,” Chamber CEO Tom Donohue told reporters. “We don’t have regrets about our position, and we don’t intend to change it.” (more)