Justice Department sell-out?

[Judy G. Russell]

So... would somebody care to explain to me just exactly why the Justice Department suddenly shot itself and the country in the foot today by lowering the demand in the tobacco racketeering case to less than 10% of what the expected penalty was?

Here's a quote from the Washington Post from the tobacco companies' chief lawyer:
"We were very surprised," said Dan Webb, lawyer for Altria Group's Philip Morris USA and the coordinating attorney in the case. "They've gone down from $130 billion to $10 billion with absolutely no explanation. It's clear the government hasn't thought through what it's doing."Repeat: that's from the TOBACCO companies' chief lawyer. When you surprise your adversary by lowering your demand, you probably ain't doing your client much good.

So... sell-out?

[Lindsey]

So... would somebody care to explain to me just exactly why the Justice Department suddenly shot itself and the country in the foot today by lowering the demand in the tobacco racketeering case to less than 10% of what the expected penalty was?
According to Reuter's (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=831209), Judge Kessler is questioning whether "additional influences" may have prompted that action. And just what might those "additional influences" be? Gosh, I just can't imagine. :rolleyes: Perhaps we should heed Deep Throat's advice and follow the money. The tobacco industry is, after all, a big contributor to the Republican Party. The shocking thing, I guess, would be that the cave-in appears to be such blatant pandering. Then again, it's getting harder and harder to be shocked at anything this Administration does.

Oooooh, I love the concluding paragraph in a blog entitled "Betty the Crow News (http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/index.php?p=969) " that Google uncovered for me just now:


No Justice Department sources have claimed not to have had sex with that industry. Some critics regard the government’s position as an overt payoff to tobacco companies; others argue that tobacco is an important economic and cultural institution and that the industry should receive reparations from the government to recover the costs and good will lost to an incessant stream of lawsuits and unfavorable government-sponsored advertising.
--Lindsey

[Judy G. Russell]

As cynical as I am about most things, I really am shocked by this: when the Government caves in litigation in a way that surprises everyone, including the Judge and its adversaries, you sure have to wonder...

[Lindsey]

Yeah, when the lawyer for the defendant questions whether the Justice Department knows what it is doing, that's more than a little unusual! (BTW, I added a paragraph to my original answer while you were in the process of replying to it.)

--Lindsey

[Judy G. Russell]

others argue that tobacco is an important economic and cultural institution and that the industry should receive reparations from the government to recover the costs and good will lost to an incessant stream of lawsuits and unfavorable government-sponsored advertising.
Oh... my... goodness... On that basis, John Gotti is owed a fortune by the government...

[MollyM/CA]

That ain't the half of it, is it. What do you think will happen when all the courts are stacked with Bush scumbags (as opposed to the regular lineup of ...)?

We had a tobacco farmer on GARDEN at one time and that half of the story is sad. They didn't know any other kind of farming very well and had always depended on tobacco and its subsidies for their living. The possibilities of another crop making them any kind of living on the acreage they had were slight. Yet they had become aware of the nature of the crop --growing poison.

[Lindsey]

Oh... my... goodness... On that basis, John Gotti is owed a fortune by the government...
LOL!!! :p

--Lindsey

[Lindsey]

The possibilities of another crop making them any kind of living on the acreage they had were slight. Yet they had become aware of the nature of the crop --growing poison.
Yeah; there have been efforts to try to move the Virginia tobacco farmers to other crops, but they've been mostly unsuccessful. Some of the tobacco settlement money is supposed to go towards helping those farmers, but the way the allocation formulas work, most of it goes to absentee landlords in places like New York and Chicago, and precious little to the people actually doing the farming.

--Lindsey

[Judy G. Russell]

Sigh... if half of the farm subsidies went to these farmers to move them to different crops... and if wishes were horses...

[MollyM/CA]

As minor farmers (15 acres of almonds) we get a lot of stuff about ways to get money --soil conservation projects like our wastewater (irrigation water) return ditch) and this and that --it always turns out they are only available for much bigger farms, often a 200 acre lower limit. I'm sure subsidies work the same way --the big conglomerate farms get a big conglomerate proportion of the money.

Almonds aren't subsidized --but they are a high-value crop, like tobacco. (We sell them to Germany and Japan, through the co-op --in farmerese a marketing organization) When we put in our first orchard (they get senile and have to be pulled out --we're on our second) the neighbor behind us had been making what he considered a very good living on his 40 acres (no mule) for many years.

[Judy G. Russell]

I wish we could get tobacco farmers to switch to almonds, then -- I like almonds!

[Lindsey]

I wish we could get tobacco farmers to switch to almonds, then -- I like almonds!
Almonds apparently thrive in the inland areas of California, where it's warm and dry. Even the California coast is a bit too damp to be ideal, and I can't imagine that the tobacco-growing areas of Virginia and North Carolina would be terribly hospitable to them. <sigh>

--Lindsey

[Judy G. Russell]

Okay, well, then, we'll just have to find some other crop that'll work. There has to be something else!

[Bill Hirst]

Okay, well, then, we'll just have to find some other crop that'll work. There has to be something else!
Marijuana?

[Lindsey]

Marijuana?
Hey, that sounds like a good cash crop!!

--Lindsey

[Lindsey]

There has to be something else!
Tobacco is really tough to replace because it's such a profitable crop. Per acre operating income for flue-cured tobacco in southside Virginia is $1212. That's compared with $214 for peanuts and $72 for cotton, two of the suggested replacement crops. Small farmers, especially, can't afford NOT to grow tobacco.

It occurs to me that I should suggest to my nephew Ryan, who is really, really interested in agriculture and is headed to Virginia Tech in the fall, that this would be a worthwhile project to pursue.

--Lindsey

[Judy G. Russell]

It occurs to me that I should suggest to my nephew Ryan, who is really, really interested in agriculture and is headed to Virginia Tech in the fall, that this would be a worthwhile project to pursue.
Absolutely!

And if Ryan needs a home away from home at Tech, remember that my sister lives in Blacksburg...

[Judy G. Russell]

Only if we change the Supreme Court...

[Lindsey]

And if Ryan needs a home away from home at Tech, remember that my sister lives in Blacksburg...
Oh, that's right! How could I forget that?

Ryan's a great kid, he really is. He's an Eagle Scout, he won a citizenship award from one of the area American Legion groups, and he received an award from the VoTech department at his high school as best automotive tutor. For the last year or so, he has been running his own lawn care business, and he really has done rather well for himself.

--Lindsey

[Judy G. Russell]

Ah -- I thought Ryan was your Eagle Scout nephew. He sure is making the family proud.

[Wayne Scott]

Have you forgotten that the tobacco industry also contributes a large amount of money to the party you admire so. They don't contribute as much as they did when you guys held the White House and both chambers of Congress, but as soon as Dr. Dean returns you to power, they will once again.
Wayne

[Judy G. Russell]

For every dollar that goes to a Democrat, almost four dollars go to a Republican (2004 preliminary figures):

• Tobacco company PACs donated more than $1.4 million directly to federal candidates, with 74 percent ($1,112,212) of the total donations going to Republican candidates and 26 percent ($384,000) going to Democratic candidates.

• Tobacco PACs have donated nearly $1.3 million to non-candidate committees, including Democratic and Republican party committees and leadership PACs established by individual members of Congress. Of the total, $1,008,499 (77 percent) went to the Republicans, $217,000 (17 percent) to the Democrats and $74,484 (6 percent) to non-party committees.

[MollyM/CA]

Sic 'em!!!

[Lindsey]

Ah -- I thought Ryan was your Eagle Scout nephew.
Actually, both of my sister's boys are Eagle Scouts, but I don't think Adam probably would have followed through if he hadn't had the spur of possibly being shown up by his younger brother.

--Lindsey

[Lindsey]

As cynical as I am about most things, I really am shocked by this: when the Government caves in litigation in a way that surprises everyone, including the Judge and its adversaries, you sure have to wonder...
A new development on this (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/16/politics/16tobacco.html?) in today's New York Times:

WASHINGTON, June 15 - Senior Justice Department officials overrode the objections of career lawyers running the government's tobacco racketeering trial and ordered them to reduce the penalties sought at the close of the nine-month trial by $120 billion, internal documents and interviews show.

The trial team argued that the move would be seen as politically motivated and legally groundless.

"We do not want politics to be perceived as the underlying motivation, and that is certainly a risk if we make adjustments in our remedies presentation that are not based on evidence," the two top lawyers for the trial team, Sharon Y. Eubanks and Stephen D. Brody, wrote in a memorandum on May 30 to Associate Attorney General Robert D. McCallum that was reviewed by The New York Times.

The two lawyers said the lower penalty recommendation ordered by Mr. McCallum would weaken the department's position in any possible settlement with the industry and "create an incentive for defendants to engage in future misconduct by making the misconduct profitable."
And I'm sure you'll be shocked, shocked to learn that McCallum turns out to have had ties to--yes, yes, you guessed it: the tobacco industry.

The newly disclosed documents make clear that the decision was made after weeks of tumult in the department and accusations from lawyers on the tobacco team that Mr. McCallum and other political appointees had effectively undermined their case. Mr. McCallum, No. 3 at the department, is a close friend of President Bush from their days as Skull & Bones members at Yale, and he was also a partner at an Atlanta law firm, Alston & Bird, that has done legal work for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, part of Reynolds American, a defendant in the case.
Me thinketh it stinketh.

--Lindsey

[Dan in Saint Louis]

Me thinketh it stinketh
According to Woodward and Bernstein:

RULE #1: Follow the money
RULE #2: see Rule #1

[Lindsey]

According to Woodward and Bernstein:

RULE #1: Follow the money
RULE #2: see Rule #1
Yep! Are you aware of the other "follow the money" scandal-in-the-making? (There are so many lately, it's hard to keep up--everybody wants to be another Tom DeLay!) This one involves Republican Congressman Randy ("Duke") Cunningham of Escondido, California:

WASHINGTON – A defense contractor with ties to Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham took a $700,000 loss on the purchase of the congressman's Del Mar house while the congressman, a member of the influential defense appropriations subcommittee, was supporting the contractor's efforts to get tens of millions of dollars in contracts from the Pentagon.

Mitchell Wade bought the San Diego Republican's house for $1,675,000 in November 2003 and put it back on the market almost immediately for roughly the same price. But the Del Mar house languished unsold and vacant for 261 days before selling for $975,000.

Meanwhile, Cunningham used the proceeds of the $1,675,000 sale to buy a $2.55 million house in Rancho Santa Fe. And Wade, who had been suffering through a flat period in winning Pentagon contracts, was on a tear – reeling in tens of millions of dollars in defense and intelligence-related contracts.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20050612-9999-1n12windfall.html
This, you should understand, was in a real estate market where prices have been rising on the average of 20% per year, when properties are snatched up almost as soon as they hit the market, and in which the winning buyer almost always offers more than the asking price.

But it gets better.

It turns out the real estate broker who set the price on Cunningham's house is one of his big campaign contributors. (http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20050615-9999-1n15duke.html) She was the agent on the purchase of his Rancho Santa Fe home, and she was also the agent on Wade's ultimate sale of the original house at a $700,000 loss. (Gosh, what trust; I don't know that most of us would employ the same agent who had given us a bum steer on the purchase of a house to handle its sale as well. But I guess the back scratching feels sooooo good...)

That's not all.

It turns out that Cunningham's Washington, DC residence is a 42-foot yacht named "Duke Stir" docked at the Capital Yacht Club on the Potomac River. But he doesn't own it; his landlord is (wait for it) -- none other than the same Mitchell Wade who paid such a handsome price for that house in Del Mar. (http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/06/16/news/top_stories/2005-6-16-22-58.txt) What a guy, huh?

--Lindsey

[ndebord]

Yeah; there have been efforts to try to move the Virginia tobacco farmers to other crops, but they've been mostly unsuccessful. Some of the tobacco settlement money is supposed to go towards helping those farmers, but the way the allocation formulas work, most of it goes to absentee landlords in places like New York and Chicago, and precious little to the people actually doing the farming.

--Lindsey

Lindsey,

Well, the researchers have been hard at work trying to find alternative uses for Tobacoo, thereby keeping the farmers in place and still growing the stuff.

http://biotech.ifcnr.com/article.cfm?NewsID=211

Nick

[Lindsey]

Well, the researchers have been hard at work trying to find alternative uses for Tobacoo
I guess the question is whether those alternative uses will be as lucrative as curing the leaves for chewing or smoking.

One thing you don't hear too much of any more is using tobacco as an agent for producing pharmaceutical products via genetic manipulation. The plant is apparently a promising host for such things, but for some reason that possibility seems to have been dropped.

--Lindsey

[MollyM/CA]

I think one reason is that tobacco's an expensive, high-input crop to grow, and not adapted to being grown over a large part of the country. Possibly also, its close relationship to tomatoes and potatoes and peppers (and Jimson Weed, a very widespread kissing cousin) could cause problems with the pharm genes drifting as the Roundup Ready and Bt genes are doing.

[Lindsey]

Now that you mention it, the possibility of drifting genes is probably a very large part of the problem. :(

--Lindsey

[Bill Hirst]

Now that you mention it, the possibility of drifting genes is probably a very large part of the problem. :(

--Lindsey
You wouldn't have trouble with drifting jeans if you'd wear skirts like any respectfully represssed female of these sexually-inhibited United States.
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I'll go and flog myself now for saying that.

[Lindsey]

Pfffffft! Believe me, I'd be more than happy to wear skirts if the clothing manufacturers would see fit to sell skirts that (a) were not pencil-shaped; and (b) were not either miniskirts or ankle length. What on earth do they find so wrong with A-line skirts that are approximately knee-length that they make almost none of them? Or maybe I should be upset with the buyers for the stores in this area for not seeing fit to stock their stores with them. At any rate, I've pretty much given up on finding appropriate skirts.

--Lindsey

[Judy G. Russell]

And I'm sure you'll be shocked, shocked to learn that McCallum turns out to have had ties to--yes, yes, you guessed it: the tobacco industry.
Gee... I am sooooooo surprised...

[Lindsey]

Gee... I am sooooooo surprised...
Gotta give the Bushies credit for turning the federal government into a well-oiled money machine... :mad:

--Lindsey

[Judy G. Russell]

Gotta give the Bushies credit for turning the federal government into a well-oiled money machine... :mad:
"Credit" is not exactly the word I'd use...

[Lindsey]

What? Are you saying they haven't restored honor and integrity to the White House?

--Lindsey

[Judy G. Russell]

I wouldn't use THOSE words either.

[Mike]

At any rate, I've pretty much given up on finding appropriate skirts.
So have many of my friends. They search for inappropriate skirts, instead.

[Lindsey]

So have many of my friends.
LOL!!!

--Lindsey