that's prompted the watchdog journalist harvey wasserman to write this week: "the gop/corporate coup d'etat is nearly complete." but not quite. look at what happened in richmond, california. richmond is a city of more than a hundred thousand in the bay area. chevron, one of the biggest and most powerful companies in the fortune 500, has a refinery there, with big pollution problems. after that refinery erupted in fire two years ago, the city, led by mayor gayle mclaughlin, sued chevron for what it alleges is a long history of negligence. what's more, the city is making chevron pay an additional two hundred million dollars in taxes and other payments to make richmond, once a danger zone of poverty and crime, a better place to live. this election year, chevron came out with guns blazing, spending more than three million dollars against progressive candidates in richmond who refused to follow the company line. chevron money bought expensive fliers and mailers, paid for billboards and slickly produced attack ads that tried to make the candidates they didn't like look bad. >> vote no on e