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Follow the Money!

A

Anonymous

Guest
You just have to follow the money:


You can see that Tyson spent $120,000 on Raffaniello & Assoc who is the largest contributor to FPL who is the largest contributor to Rep. Rooney:

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/firmsum.php?lname=Raffaniello+%26+Assoc&year=2010

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?lname=FPL+Group&year=2010

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=2010&cid=N00029018&type=I&newmem=N


The meat industry just bought a speech in support of getting rid of the GIPSA rules.

Connecting the dots isn't that hard.

We have the best Congress money can buy.



Rooney Urges USDA to Drop Costly Proposed Rule for Livestock Producers
Friday, 11 February 2011 12:09



Washington, D.C. – In a speech during today’s House floor debate on overturning costly federal regulations, U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney (FL-16) urged the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to reconsider a proposed rule governing livestock and poultry marketing practices.

Rooney, who serves as Chairman of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry, said the rule would lead to higher consumer prices, lower produce income and reduced competitiveness.



Complete text of Congressman Rooney’s statement:

The Honorable Thomas J. Rooney
Floor Statement
February 11, 2011

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the resolution on regulations and jobs in particular I would like to discuss USDA’s Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) proposed rule governing livestock and poultry marketing practices.

This proposed rule should be carefully considered for its unintended consequences, particularly for those it is supposed to protect – livestock producers.

In the proposed rule, GIPSA is attempting to overturn numerous judicial decisions by stating, quote, “finding that the challenged act or practice adversely affects or is likely to adversely affect competition is not necessary in all cases” end quote. In other words, a plaintiff would no longer have to show actual harm when challenging a packer’s activity. The rule would also ban packer-to-packer livestock sales and restrict dealers to representing a single packer.

While intended to strengthen the cash market, these changes are likely to actually disrupt orderly market transactions.

It will have far reaching implications for livestock procurement -- impacting producers, packers, processors, retailers and consumers. It far exceeds Congressional intent in the 2008 Farm Bill, lacks a credible economic analysis, and is the result of a flawed regulatory process. A Subcommittee hearing last year demonstrated that concerns are widespread in the livestock community and bipartisan here in Congress. We must continue to examine this proposal and act accordingly.

The 2008 Farm Bill process considered numerous proposals to address livestock marketing and procurement issues. Most of these ideas were rejected by Congress and the USDA was directed to conduct rulemaking on a narrow range of technical issues. The proposed rule that emerged went far beyond the intent of Congress and was seen by many as an agency trying to win via rulemaking what it had failed to win in courts.

USDA determined that this was not a significant rule even though observers assert it will incur costs beyond the $100 million threshold for a significant rule. Therefore, no comprehensive economic analysis accompanied the proposed rule. At least ten times in the proposed rule, GIPSA states some version of the phrase, “GIPSA believes that potential benefits are expected to exceed costs” without offering any supporting evidence.

The Secretary has since indicated that he will conduct a cost-benefit analysis. The taxpayers appropriated $13 million this year for USDA’s Office of Chief Economist -- that office should have preformed an analysis before the rule was proposed so it could have been available during the comment period.

Concerns about this bill are broad and bipartisan. Members of both parties have raised questions about the scope, process, and intent of this rulemaking.

Our work on this rule is far from complete and we must continue our efforts. Therefore, I rise in support of this resolution.
 

Mike

Well-known member
You can see that Tyson spent $120,000 on Raffaniello & Assoc who is the largest contributor to FPL who is the largest contributor to Rep. Rooney

I see where Tyson paid Raffaniello and FPL paid Raffaniello, but I don't see where Raffaniello paid anything to FPL.

In fact, it looks like FPL paid Raffaniello for subcontract work.

And you say Raffaniello is the largest contributor to FPL?


Are you drunk, stupid, lying again, or all three?
 

Texan

Well-known member
Mike, I don't think OT actually wrote that stuff at the top. Not nearly enough dashes, dots and smilies for OT to have written it. In fact, it looks very much like something that was written by Econ/Tex - sounds just like him:


Oldtimer said:
You just have to follow the money:


You can see that Tyson spent $120,000 on Raffaniello & Assoc who is the largest contributor to FPL who is the largest contributor to Rep. Rooney:

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/firmsum.php?lname=Raffaniello+%26+Assoc&year=2010

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?lname=FPL+Group&year=2010

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=2010&cid=N00029018&type=I&newmem=N


The meat industry just bought a speech in support of getting rid of the GIPSA rules.

Connecting the dots isn't that hard.

We have the best Congress money can buy.

Are you still in contact with Econ/Tex, Oldtimer? If so, tell him we'd like to hear from him and get an update on his case. I've tried to follow all of it I can, but the information available is somewhat sketchy. I tried to PM him a while back, but never got a response so I deleted it.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Texan said:
Mike, I don't think OT actually wrote that stuff at the top. Not nearly enough dashes, dots and smilies for OT to have written it. In fact, it looks very much like something that was written by Econ/Tex - sounds just like him:


Oldtimer said:
You just have to follow the money:


You can see that Tyson spent $120,000 on Raffaniello & Assoc who is the largest contributor to FPL who is the largest contributor to Rep. Rooney:

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/firmsum.php?lname=Raffaniello+%26+Assoc&year=2010

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?lname=FPL+Group&year=2010

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=2010&cid=N00029018&type=I&newmem=N


The meat industry just bought a speech in support of getting rid of the GIPSA rules.

Connecting the dots isn't that hard.

We have the best Congress money can buy.

Are you still in contact with Econ/Tex, Oldtimer? If so, tell him we'd like to hear from him and get an update on his case. I've tried to follow all of it I can, but the information available is somewhat sketchy. I tried to PM him a while back, but never got a response so I deleted it.

Yep-- thats where I got it... Heres an article on the suit:

Supreme Court Rejects Tyson Lawsuit
posted on January 28, 2011



WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Monday turned down an appeal from a former Tennessee poultry farmer who sued Tyson Farms after losing his contract to raise their chickens.
The justices did not comment in turning away Alton Terry, who said Tyson cut him off because he helped organize area farmers and complained about the company's practices. Lower courts had previously dismissed the lawsuit.

Terry, essentially, argued that he lost his contract to raise chickens on his 12-acre farm, because he squawked too much.

Terry was a poultry farmer who brought together a group of area farmers and told them they had the right to complain about Tyson's practices. He also raised concerns directly with Tyson, among the world's largest meat companies.

Terry says Tyson and other big companies have too much sway over farmers, and federal courts also have bowed to agribusiness interests by setting too high a standard for the farmers to succeed in court.

He casts his fight as a "struggle between those who grow our food and those who process and market it."

Tyson, a unit of Springdale, Ark.-based Tyson Foods, Inc., had urged the court to stay out of the lawsuit, arguing that the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati properly dismissed it.

Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson said the company was not surprised at the high court's action. Tyson denied Terry's claims, "which we believe would have been ultimately disproven had the case gone to trial," Mickelson said.

The 6th Circuit ruled that Terry not only had to show that he was harmed by Tyson actions, but that he also had to prove the company diminished competition by ending Terry's contract and sending a signal to other farmers. Terry didn't even claim anticompetitive behavior by Tyson, much less prove it, the court said.

At an earlier stage in the case, the Bush administration's Agriculture Department sided with Terry. Since Barack Obama became president, USDA has proposed rules that would limit the control chicken companies have over the farmers who raise birds for them and would make it easier for farmers to file suits under the 90-year-old Packers and Stockyards Act. The proposed changes would make clear that farmers don't need to prove industry-wide anticompetitive behavior to sue under the act.

Last year, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the law has not kept pace with the marketplace, where consolidation has strengthened the hand of the big companies in their dealings with farmers. "Our job is to make sure the playing field is level for producers," Vilsack said.

USDA said it is reviewing the 61,000 comments it received about the proposed changes, including opposition from Tyson. The law "only prohibits those practices that harm competition," Mickelson said.

Tyson has contracts with nearly 6,000 farmers to raise broiler chickens. Under the contracts, the company supplies the chicks, feed and know-how to get the birds up to a weight where they can be slaughtered. Growers are paid under a formula that measures weight gain in the birds relative to how much feed has been provided.

Terry bought his farm in 2001, but only after getting assurances from a Tyson manager that the farm he was buying had a first-rate reputation. He says he was led to believe that he would not need to make major investments in the poultry equipment anytime soon.

The following year, he said, he began to learn about problems other farmers were having with Tyson. After a while, he formed an association of area farmers and forwarded complaints about Tyson to USDA.

His growing conflict with Tyson came to a head after he was three times denied permission to watch his birds get weighed by the company, as he claims is his right under federal law and the contract.

By March 2005, less than four years after Terry bought the farm, Tyson told him it would no longer provide chicks. According to Terry, the company said it ended its arrangement with him because the farm needed costly equipment upgrades and his behavior had become confrontational.

But Terry said the real reasons for the termination were his efforts to organize the farmers and his complaints to USDA.

He filed suit in 2008.

After losing the Tyson contract, Terry tried to sell the farm but couldn't, he said, because Tyson's demand for expensive upgrades scared off potential buyers. Eventually he lost the farm to foreclosure.

http://www.iptv.org/mtom/story.cfm/news/2000
 

Tex

Well-known member
For all you campaign finance virgins out there, here is how it works:

A lobbyist takes in money to represent a company or an interest. In this case with just this lobbying firm, it is $120,000 from Tyson for RAFFANIELLO.

He then takes that money along with other money he gets from other interests and pays off politicians for their access. In a way, he is laundering the campaign contributions for access or credit with Congress. Committee heads or sub committee heads don't always get these contributions themselves, but they do much of the heavy lifting for the party to get the contributions. This was the case with Tom Rooney and the GIPSA rules on the floor of the House.

Of course the members of Congress need this kind of system to keep the proverbial smoking gun away from them. Same with laundered drug money. They only see a friendly face that has contributed heavily to all their causes, and in return, a guy like Raffaniello will get to tell them what the donors want in exchange. It is how corporations buy public policy.

The few times real people go to Congress to tell them what is going on does not carry the weight of the campaign contributions behind them, unless it is like a FPL who does the donations directly and usually don't have dirty work that needs to be done--- it is usually pretty honest policy work that doesn't come with all the bad policy that a Tyson wants to push.

D.C. is run with election money. It is the votes. It is just funneled through lobbyists in a type of money laundering scheme. Just think it through and if you have half an ounce of intelligence, you will see this is the case.

FPL accessed the same lobbyist as Tyson. They wanted to leverage their campaign donations in much the same way Tyson did.

Tyson also went to a real heavy hitter, Trent Lott, who has his own judicial campaign problems, which is why he decided to retire from the Senate before a few dates hit. He was much more influential when it comes to the federal judiciary and it was part of the reason for his early out of the Senate.



2006 re-election campaign
Main article: United States Senate election in Mississippi, 2006

Lott faced no Republican opposition in the race. State representative Erik R. Fleming placed first of four candidates in the June Democratic primary, but did not receive the 50 percent of the vote required to earn the party's nomination. Fleming and second-place finisher Bill Bowlin faced off in a runoff on June 27, and Fleming won with 65% of the vote. Fleming, however, was not regarded as a serious opponent, and Lott handily defeated him with 64% of the vote.
[edit] Resignation

On November 26, 2007, Lott announced that he would resign his Senate seat by the end of 2007.[12] According to CNN, his resignation was at least partly due to the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, which forbids lawmakers from lobbying for two years after leaving office. Those who leave by the end of 2007 are covered by the previous law, which demands a wait of only one year.[13] In his resignation press conference, Lott said that the new law had had no influence on his decision to resign.

Lott's resignation became effective at 11:30 p.m. on December 18, 2007.[14] On January 7, 2008 it was announced that Lott and former Senator John Breaux of Louisiana, a Democrat, opened their lobbying firm about a block from the White House.[15]
[edit] Current work

Lott now works at the Breaux Lott Leadership Group, a "strategic advice, consulting, and lobbying" firm.[16][17] He also serves on the board of directors of EADS North America.[16]

On October 10, 2008, Lott was named Honorary Patron of the University Philosophical Society, Trinity College, Dublin.

Lott is a 3rd Degree Freemason and holds the Grand Cross in The Southern Masonic Jurisdiction.
[edit] Richard Scruggs controversy

On November 29, 2007, The New York Times noted that Lott's brother-in-law, Richard Scruggs, was indicted on charges of offering a $40,000 bribe to a Mississippi state judge in a fee dispute. Scruggs represented Lott and Rep. Gene Taylor in settlements with State Farm Insurance company after the insurer refused to pay claims for the loss of their Mississippi homes in Hurricane Katrina. Lott and Taylor had pushed through federal legislation to investigate claims handling of State Farm and other insurers after Hurricane Katrina, a potential conflict of interest.[18][19] On July 30, 2008, the Associated Press reported that during a deposition related to the Hurricane Katrina claims, Zach Scruggs, son of Richard Scruggs, was asked by State Farm Fire & Casulty Cos. attorney Jim Robie, "Has it been your custom and habit in prosecuting litigation to have Senator Lott contact and encourage witnesses to give false information?" Zach Scruggs responded, "I invoke my Fifth Amendment rights in response to that question." [20] On February 14, 2009, The New York Times noted in relation to an indictment of Judge Bobby DeLaughter for taking bribes from Scruggs that federal prosecutors have said that Lott was induced by Scruggs to offer DeLaughter a federal judgeship in order to gain the judge's favor.[21] The entire Dickie Scruggs saga was recounted in the release of the book Kings of Tort in 2009 by Pediment Publishing.[22]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trent_Lott

Raffaniello's donations can be found here:

http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.php?sort=D&capcode=3byht&name=RAFFANIELLO&state=&zip=&employ=&cand=&all=Y&old=N&Soft=&c2010=N&c2008=N&c2006=N

This particular guy might have a republican background, but he also sponsored people like Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln for his client. They really don't care what party it is.

You can check out Tyson's lobbying by clicking on different years in this particular data base and who they paid in lobbying fees outside of their own lobbying expenses on the Hill.

These corporations are more than willing to buy the services of ex Senators or staff insiders to get government to shift things in their favor. It is called the revolving door politics.

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?lname=Tyson+Foods&year=2010

See if you can find their fees to Lott and Breaux's lobbying firm.

I will post Tyson's SEC bribing of Mexican officials on another topic. What is the difference between buying a politician and a foreign official? One is technically legal. It is those kind of technicalities that are stealing pubic policy.

Tex
 

Texan

Well-known member
Thanks for the update on the case, Oldtimer. I was afraid that's what would happen.

And for those of you who don't really care what happens to a contract broiler grower, let me try to put it into terms that cattlemen can understand...

A lot of cattle people, particularly the younger guys, don't have the money to invest in enough cattle to stock their place, or else they're not comfortable with the risk, so they choose instead to run cattle on the gain for somebody else. It's usually pretty decent money, without the huge investment and risk required for actually owning the cattle. And pretty simple to figure out - somebody else provides the cattle, and you get paid for what they gained while on your place, based on an agreed upon price for the gain. We're all familiar with those deals.

But, how would you like to run gain cattle in a place where there is only one source for those cattle? That's how the poultry complexes work - they divvy up areas and don't hardly compete with each other. Kinda hard for most of us to understand since there are always plenty of people to provide us with cattle, but that's not the way it works in the poultry business.

So...how would you like to run gain cattle for the only source of cattle in your area and not be allowed to see those cattle weighed when they go out? Weighed by an employee of the cattle owner on the cattle owner's scales and not even be allowed to watch it? How would you feel about that?

And if you're weighing on the trucks, how would you like it if the owners let cattle stand on the trucks for hours before they were weighed? So you not only never really see for sure what they weighed, you know for a FACT that there was an unreasonable amount of shrink involved.

And then when you complain about it, you find out that you'll never get any more cattle to put on your place. No cattle means no gain which means no income. So, you eventually lose your place.

Being in the cattle business, and used to making trades over the phone or with no more than a handshake, I think most of us would laugh at the thought of something like that happening. But that's basically what happened to the contract grower in this case. He wanted the birds weighed promptly after leaving his farm and he wanted to see them being weighed on the company scales. Certainly not too much to ask for, is it?

You don't have to be a broiler grower, or anti-packer, or a disciple of OCM or R-CALF to recognize that this guy was treated unfairly. The Packers and Stockyards Act supposedly prohibits this kind of treatment, so this grower had every right to seek justice through PSA. And it looks to me like justice was denied him.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Texan said:
Thanks for the update on the case, Oldtimer. I was afraid that's what would happen.

And for those of you who don't really care what happens to a contract broiler grower, let me try to put it into terms that cattlemen can understand...

A lot of cattle people, particularly the younger guys, don't have the money to invest in enough cattle to stock their place, or else they're not comfortable with the risk, so they choose instead to run cattle on the gain for somebody else. It's usually pretty decent money, without the huge investment and risk required for actually owning the cattle. And pretty simple to figure out - somebody else provides the cattle, and you get paid for what they gained while on your place, based on an agreed upon price for the gain. We're all familiar with those deals.

But, how would you like to run gain cattle in a place where there is only one source for those cattle? That's how the poultry complexes work - they divvy up areas and don't hardly compete with each other. Kinda hard for most of us to understand since there are always plenty of people to provide us with cattle, but that's not the way it works in the poultry business.

So...how would you like to run gain cattle for the only source of cattle in your area and not be allowed to see those cattle weighed when they go out? Weighed by an employee of the cattle owner on the cattle owner's scales and not even be allowed to watch it? How would you feel about that?

And if you're weighing on the trucks, how would you like it if the owners let cattle stand on the trucks for hours before they were weighed? So you not only never really see for sure what they weighed, you know for a FACT that there was an unreasonable amount of shrink involved.

And then when you complain about it, you find out that you'll never get any more cattle to put on your place. No cattle means no gain which means no income. So, you eventually lose your place.

Being in the cattle business, and used to making trades over the phone or with no more than a handshake, I think most of us would laugh at the thought of something like that happening. But that's basically what happened to the contract grower in this case. He wanted the birds weighed promptly after leaving his farm and he wanted to see them being weighed on the company scales. Certainly not too much to ask for, is it?

You don't have to be a broiler grower, or anti-packer, or a disciple of OCM or R-CALF to recognize that this guy was treated unfairly. The Packers and Stockyards Act supposedly prohibits this kind of treatment, so this grower had every right to seek justice through PSA. And it looks to me like justice was denied him.

Texan-- I followed this from day one-- and I agree 100%---and think cattle folks should be looking closely-- not only the takeover from all the little feedlots closing up and and the Packers taking over much of the feeding industry-- to the years of lack of change and oversight/enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act which allowed Big Corporate (banker roulette funded) outfits like Eastern Livestock to leave thousands of small producers (many of which will go bankrupt over it) with $130+ MILLION in bad checks.....

I've heard for years that the porkification/chickenization of the cattle industry couldn't occur because it takes ownership/control of too much land----- but as a good friend of mine (Lynn Cornwell, who was past president of NCBA) used to say-- and we are seeing now-- they don't have to gain control of the source- only 1 part of the production line (feeders/packers) and they have as much a tie up as if they controlled it all... And the way it is going right now--especially with JBS/Tyson owning major parts of the feedlot section they are tying up two parts of the industry.....

More efficiency of price? More control of price ?
Guess who takes it in the shorts?
 

Tex

Well-known member
The "efficiency" gains are there but they slowly go way over any efficiency gains and start using it as a tool of market control where they capture all of the value in the market. When these poultry growers do get their properties paid off, they are expected to make major "upgrades" which do not provide positive cash flows on the investment and they have to use their equity in their property to subsidize the new "upgrades" whose benefit is captured by the integrator. Basically these meat companies are able to get in the door with claims of efficiency, but soon turn it into an extortion scheme on their suppliers to pay for value the meat industry captures.

In the Clinton administration the poultry growers knew they were not being treated fairly and that the weights were being fudged by the company on their poultry. There was a big movement by growers to make these companies follow rules of insuring their products and inputs were weighed properly. I was told by Jim Baker, former head of GIPSA, that the management of the complex had to sign off on these rules, which included allowing a producer to watch his or her poultry being weighed. The federal judges are not enforcing this part of the law and they are the last say on it. Period.

Tyson had been caught red handed fudging the numbers so they could make the payouts in their "tournament system" go the way they wanted, not based on the actual factors of feed and weight of animals.

They only got caught because one of their workers inside the plant saw what was happening, had a real conscience, and reported to the media (yes she lost her job and all the rest). It was on the local television station and GIPSA did nothing.

It was like the crooks had the cops on the take.

These guys were stealing the value of the family farmers and politicians were paid to look the other way.

If you don't think this will happen in the cattle business, you are too naive to stay in it. It is just matter of time and the same will be done to you.

These are not isolated incidents as poultry farmers who try to exercise their rights know. Even when the company has to sign off on these rights, the federal courts now say that one must prove that the cheating of these farmers has to harm the competition of the meat packers. If they are all doing it, how in the world can you prove that harm? They all participate and do the same frauds. You can't prove that because you can't even get into court.

We have the best government money can buy and it is buying it. We don't have the rule of law. We have the rule of very wealthy men who manipulate the system and have the best attorneys from K Street money can buy so they never have to pay for their actions even when they sign off on them.

Tex



Oldtimer said:
Texan said:
Thanks for the update on the case, Oldtimer. I was afraid that's what would happen.

And for those of you who don't really care what happens to a contract broiler grower, let me try to put it into terms that cattlemen can understand...

A lot of cattle people, particularly the younger guys, don't have the money to invest in enough cattle to stock their place, or else they're not comfortable with the risk, so they choose instead to run cattle on the gain for somebody else. It's usually pretty decent money, without the huge investment and risk required for actually owning the cattle. And pretty simple to figure out - somebody else provides the cattle, and you get paid for what they gained while on your place, based on an agreed upon price for the gain. We're all familiar with those deals.

But, how would you like to run gain cattle in a place where there is only one source for those cattle? That's how the poultry complexes work - they divvy up areas and don't hardly compete with each other. Kinda hard for most of us to understand since there are always plenty of people to provide us with cattle, but that's not the way it works in the poultry business.

So...how would you like to run gain cattle for the only source of cattle in your area and not be allowed to see those cattle weighed when they go out? Weighed by an employee of the cattle owner on the cattle owner's scales and not even be allowed to watch it? How would you feel about that?

And if you're weighing on the trucks, how would you like it if the owners let cattle stand on the trucks for hours before they were weighed? So you not only never really see for sure what they weighed, you know for a FACT that there was an unreasonable amount of shrink involved.

And then when you complain about it, you find out that you'll never get any more cattle to put on your place. No cattle means no gain which means no income. So, you eventually lose your place.

Being in the cattle business, and used to making trades over the phone or with no more than a handshake, I think most of us would laugh at the thought of something like that happening. But that's basically what happened to the contract grower in this case. He wanted the birds weighed promptly after leaving his farm and he wanted to see them being weighed on the company scales. Certainly not too much to ask for, is it?

You don't have to be a broiler grower, or anti-packer, or a disciple of OCM or R-CALF to recognize that this guy was treated unfairly. The Packers and Stockyards Act supposedly prohibits this kind of treatment, so this grower had every right to seek justice through PSA. And it looks to me like justice was denied him.

Texan-- I followed this from day one-- and I agree 100%---and think cattle folks should be looking closely-- not only the takeover from all the little feedlots closing up and and the Packers taking over much of the feeding industry-- to the years of lack of change and oversight/enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act which allowed Big Corporate (banker roulette funded) outfits like Eastern Livestock to leave thousands of small producers (many of which will go bankrupt over it) with $130+ MILLION in bad checks.....

I've heard for years that the porkification/chickenization of the cattle industry couldn't occur because it takes ownership/control of too much land----- but as a good friend of mine (Lynn Cornwell, who was past president of NCBA) used to say-- and we are seeing now-- they don't have to gain control of the source- only 1 part of the production line (feeders/packers) and they have as much a tie up as if they controlled it all... And the way it is going right now--especially with JBS/Tyson owning major parts of the feedlot section they are tying up two parts of the industry.....

More efficiency of price? More control of price ?
Guess who takes it in the shorts?
 

Beefman

Well-known member
Tex said:
For all you campaign finance virgins out there, here is how it works: A lobbyist takes in money to represent a company or an interest. In this case with just this lobbying firm, it is $120,000 from Tyson for RAFFANIELLO.

He then takes that money along with other money he gets from other interests and pays off politicians for their access. In a way, he is laundering the campaign contributions for access or credit with Congress. Committee heads or sub committee heads don't always get these contributions themselves, but they do much of the heavy lifting for the party to get the contributions. This was the case with Tom Rooney and the GIPSA rules on the floor of the House.

Of course the members of Congress need this kind of system to keep the proverbial smoking gun away from them. Same with laundered drug money. They only see a friendly face that has contributed heavily to all their causes, and in return, a guy like Raffaniello will get to tell them what the donors want in exchange. It is how corporations buy public policy.

The few times real people go to Congress to tell them what is going on does not carry the weight of the campaign contributions behind them, unless it is like a FPL who does the donations directly and usually don't have dirty work that needs to be done--- it is usually pretty honest policy work that doesn't come with all the bad policy that a Tyson wants to push.

D.C. is run with election money. It is the votes. It is just funneled through lobbyists in a type of money laundering scheme. Just think it through and if you have half an ounce of intelligence, you will see this is the case.

FPL accessed the same lobbyist as Tyson. They wanted to leverage their campaign donations in much the same way Tyson did.

Tyson also went to a real heavy hitter, Trent Lott, who has his own judicial campaign problems, which is why he decided to retire from the Senate before a few dates hit. He was much more influential when it comes to the federal judiciary and it was part of the reason for his early out of the Senate.

Tex

I noticed you made these comments following the testimony of Rep Tom Rooney (R-FL) on the House floor on Feb 11. Now that you’ve taken pot shots at the messenger, take a shot as his message……..what was it he said that’s in error? How about the 115 bipartisan members of the House that sent the letter to Ag Secretary Vilsack on Oct 4? Their concerns would mimic those indicated by Rep Rooney. Are those 115 members all on the take too?

As you know, both the House and the Senate have ethics rules regarding gifts. Most lobbyists won’t even buy a congressional member a cup of coffee, nor will the member accept it. You describe “laundered contributions” being dished out like candy at a parade. If you really have evidence of dollars and gifts changing hands, here's your opportunity to be a hero and prove it. Good luck.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Beefman said:
As you know, both the House and the Senate have ethics rules regarding gifts. Most lobbyists won’t even buy a congressional member a cup of coffee, nor will the member accept it. You describe “laundered contributions” being dished out like candy at a parade. If you really have evidence of dollars and gifts changing hands, here's your opportunity to be a hero and prove it. Good luck.

You apparently haven't ever read or heard about the Jack Abramoff case :???:
 

Beefman

Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
Beefman said:
As you know, both the House and the Senate have ethics rules regarding gifts. Most lobbyists won’t even buy a congressional member a cup of coffee, nor will the member accept it. You describe “laundered contributions” being dished out like candy at a parade. If you really have evidence of dollars and gifts changing hands, here's your opportunity to be a hero and prove it. Good luck.

You apparently haven't ever read or heard about the Jack Abramoff case :???:

OT--you started this thread and titled it "follow the money". You stated we have the best Congress money can buy. Along comes Econ who spins that yarn about "laundered contributions". When challenged you go back several years and dig up Jack Abramoff? What's up with that? Come on OT.....You said connecting the dots wasn't that hard. Just show us the money!
 

Tex

Well-known member
Beefman, there is nothing that will ever be able to be proven to you because you just don't want it.

I did ask why the members, including my own, who incidentally sent at least 3 letters to GIPSA on my behalf, why they signed onto that letter. It is no secret that the senator from Tyson pushed back in the the agriculture committee in the Senate along with all the republicans except Chuck Grassley, did not fix the problems at GIPSA in the last farm bill and left it to GIPSA to fix the problem. You and I know that the details are left to the experts in almost all legislation. The regulatory agencies do this work. GIPSA hasn't done anything until now to actually address the problems in the industry. It was REQUIRED by the last farm bill.

You might note that Senator Blanche Lincoln was not returned back to the Senate. She did, however, procure some relief to the farmers she damaged while representing Tyson. She was also the welfare queen of agriculture, especially the rice industry. People in Arkansas were tired of her.

It is also equally known that the chairmen and women in these committees lead the pack and also lead in donations from agribusiness. They will sell out their mother if they think they can get away with it. Senator Blanche Lincoln was thrown out because of it but the letter was written before the election. I think it surprised some, especially the committee chairs who saw what happened to Blanche Lincoln.

Another Lincoln, Rep. Lincoln Davis, my representative, was thrown out for the same reason, and yes, he signed the letter at the behest of the lobbying of the meat packers. People in my area held him accountable.

People are tired of D. C. politicians selling them out and they are taking note. The problems of sell out politicians have done so much damage that it has put us in the biggest recession since the Great Depression.

Republicans want to think they had some big sweeping support by voters and I think they are in the process of making their own noose. The democrats were thrown out for the same reasons republicans were thrown out the last election. They couldn't get the job done, even with a majority. I couldn't find anyone that signed the letter at the USDA/DOJ meeting with farmers in Alabama and yet they wanted to scuttle the solutions that resulted in these GIPSA rules.

Politicians are like lemmings and they follow the leader--- the committee chair or high ranking members who think they have it figured out. You have the ones like Goodlatte from VA (former head of ag. committee in House) who think they can use their position to sell out the people they are supposed to represent for their own self interests. Scott, the dem who pushed the letter is in a similar position. Neither of them attended the meeting in Normal, Alabama and Scott was the chair of the subcommittee!. The democrat Sec. of Agriculture for Alabama, Ron Sparks, did attend the meeting and a family farmer spoke out with a personal story on how Sparks betrayed contract law for agribusiness interests. He didn't win his run for Gov. of Alabama and if it were up to the people at the meeting in Alabama over the poultry issues, he would have been sent to jail instead of running for gov.

I don't think Goodlatte nor Scott have any poultry farmers in their district which is probably why the parties put them up for committee or subcommittee chairmanship. It is easy to sell out the public interests if you don't have that constituency in your district. You get to reel in the money from agribusiness or whatever committee, and have no voters in your district mad at you for selling out.

Yes, there were 115. They are being looked at right now for their actions just as the Lincolns mentioned above have been. We have too many whores in Washington D.C. masquerading as public servants. We have a lot of lemmings who follow them instead of actually researching the problems in their own districts and figuring it out. Maybe that was the problem with the Lincolns. It is a much thrown out number by the meat packers but it has shown how the system really works more than anything else and voters are getting wise to it.

Go to Open Secrets and look up Tyson's direct contributions to members here:

http://www.opensecrets.org/usearch/index.php?searchButt=Search+OpenSecrets.org+%3E%3E&q=Tyson+Foods&cx=010677907462955562473%3Anlldkv0jvam&cof=FORID%3A11#666

Do the show all in the categories on the pages.

Then go to the lobbying firms they hired and do the same thing, looking at who they are paying off. It isn't coffee money.

Tyson alone spent over 2.5 million in their own name. That is just ONE of the meat packers.

I know you might think that is just coffee money, Beefman, but real people don't. They rightly see that we have the best Congress money can buy.

I wish more in Congress would shun people like you when you offer to buy coffee for them. They need to have coffee with people while in their district, not with lobbyists. They already get a salary from taxpayers and can pay for their own ------ coffee.


Here is just a few of direct contributions of John Breaux and you can see the Breaux Lott Leadership Group that Tyson paid $425,000 and who they paid directly to candidates (you can filter through them yourself).

http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.php?name=Breaux%2C+John&state=&zip=&employ=&cand=&c2010=Y&sort=N&capcode=zwppp&submit=Submit

I didn't even look up the other names it could be under.

Looks like Scott got a $7600 cup of coffee for pushing against GIPSA regulations by the National Chicken Council alone:

http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00034272&cycle=2008


It just goes on and on and on. Different organizations, groups, names, etc.

Yes, Congress is for sale and everyone is starting to figure that out. All that selling out has cost our economy dearly. It has made GIPSA a paper tiger in the past along with a whole lot of other regulatory agencies.

Since you are so incredibly not credible you better stop there, Beefman. You won't find anything you don't want to find.

Tom Rooney? He is just following the same old same old in D.C.

I didn't see him at the GIPSA/DOJ meetings either. I guess he was too busy drinking coffee with the lobbyists who put him up to his little speech on the House floor. Another thing for meat packers to brag about, just like the 115 and the federal judges who have decided they have to legislate from the bench to get big money out of jury trials.

Absolutely disgusting.


Tex





Beefman said:
Tex said:
For all you campaign finance virgins out there, here is how it works: A lobbyist takes in money to represent a company or an interest. In this case with just this lobbying firm, it is $120,000 from Tyson for RAFFANIELLO.

He then takes that money along with other money he gets from other interests and pays off politicians for their access. In a way, he is laundering the campaign contributions for access or credit with Congress. Committee heads or sub committee heads don't always get these contributions themselves, but they do much of the heavy lifting for the party to get the contributions. This was the case with Tom Rooney and the GIPSA rules on the floor of the House.

Of course the members of Congress need this kind of system to keep the proverbial smoking gun away from them. Same with laundered drug money. They only see a friendly face that has contributed heavily to all their causes, and in return, a guy like Raffaniello will get to tell them what the donors want in exchange. It is how corporations buy public policy.

The few times real people go to Congress to tell them what is going on does not carry the weight of the campaign contributions behind them, unless it is like a FPL who does the donations directly and usually don't have dirty work that needs to be done--- it is usually pretty honest policy work that doesn't come with all the bad policy that a Tyson wants to push.

D.C. is run with election money. It is the votes. It is just funneled through lobbyists in a type of money laundering scheme. Just think it through and if you have half an ounce of intelligence, you will see this is the case.

FPL accessed the same lobbyist as Tyson. They wanted to leverage their campaign donations in much the same way Tyson did.

Tyson also went to a real heavy hitter, Trent Lott, who has his own judicial campaign problems, which is why he decided to retire from the Senate before a few dates hit. He was much more influential when it comes to the federal judiciary and it was part of the reason for his early out of the Senate.

Tex

I noticed you made these comments following the testimony of Rep Tom Rooney (R-FL) on the House floor on Feb 11. Now that you’ve taken pot shots at the messenger, take a shot as his message……..what was it he said that’s in error? How about the 115 bipartisan members of the House that sent the letter to Ag Secretary Vilsack on Oct 4? Their concerns would mimic those indicated by Rep Rooney. Are those 115 members all on the take too?

As you know, both the House and the Senate have ethics rules regarding gifts. Most lobbyists won’t even buy a congressional member a cup of coffee, nor will the member accept it. You describe “laundered contributions” being dished out like candy at a parade. If you really have evidence of dollars and gifts changing hands, here's your opportunity to be a hero and prove it. Good luck.
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
Tex said:
Another Lincoln, Rep. Lincoln Davis, my representative, was thrown out for the same reason, and yes, he signed the letter at the behest of the lobbying of the meat packers. People in my area held him accountable.


Did I miss something?

Do you still live in Texas as your profile states?


Lincoln Davis was the former U.S. Representative for Tennessee
 

Tex

Well-known member
I will always live in Texas. It is something my wife can't understand all the time.

Tex

hypocritexposer said:
Tex said:
Another Lincoln, Rep. Lincoln Davis, my representative, was thrown out for the same reason, and yes, he signed the letter at the behest of the lobbying of the meat packers. People in my area held him accountable.


Did I miss something?

Do you still live in Texas as your profile states?


Lincoln Davis was the former U.S. Representative for Tennessee
 

Beefman

Well-known member
Tex said:
Beefman, there is nothing that will ever be able to be proven to you because you just don't want it.

I appreciate the fact you responded. Although you and I likely will agree on very few things, the dialogue is healthy, and I respect the fact you took the time to respond.

Tex said:
I did ask why the members, including my own, who incidentally sent at least 3 letters to GIPSA on my behalf, why they signed onto that letter. It is no secret that the senator from Tyson pushed back in the the agriculture committee in the Senate along with all the republicans except Chuck Grassley, did not fix the problems at GIPSA in the last farm bill and left it to GIPSA to fix the problem. You and I know that the details are left to the experts in almost all legislation. The regulatory agencies do this work. GIPSA hasn't done anything until now to actually address the problems in the industry. It was REQUIRED by the last farm bill.

The directions in the ’08 Farm Bill to GIPSA were very specific. One of the main points that the 115 House members indicated to Vilsack on Oct 4was that the agency way overstepped the assignment.

Tex said:
You might note that Senator Blanche Lincoln was not returned back to the Senate. She did, however, procure some relief to the farmers she damaged while representing Tyson. She was also the welfare queen of agriculture, especially the rice industry. People in Arkansas were tired of her.

Sen Lincoln (D-AR) did a fine job as Chair of Senate Ag Committee. She, along with several other good Demos in both the House and Senate were shown the door in the election because she had a “D” next to her name. Just because she voted in opposition to your views doesn’t make her “Tyson’s” Senator.

Tex said:
It is also equally known that the chairmen and women in these committees lead the pack and also lead in donations from agribusiness. They will sell out their mother if they think they can get away with it. Senator Blanche Lincoln was thrown out because of it but the letter was written before the election. I think it surprised some, especially the committee chairs who saw what happened to Blanche Lincoln.

Another Lincoln, Rep. Lincoln Davis, my representative, was thrown out for the same reason, and yes, he signed the letter at the behest of the lobbying of the meat packers. People in my area held him accountable.

People are tired of D. C. politicians selling them out and they are taking note. The problems of sell out politicians have done so much damage that it has put us in the biggest recession since the Great Depression.

Republicans want to think they had some big sweeping support by voters and I think they are in the process of making their own noose. The democrats were thrown out for the same reasons republicans were thrown out the last election. They couldn't get the job done, even with a majority. I couldn't find anyone that signed the letter at the USDA/DOJ meeting with farmers in Alabama and yet they wanted to scuttle the solutions that resulted in these GIPSA rules.

No surprise there. If the Ala meeting was anything like the Colo meeting, there was no reason for Reps or Senators to attend. The meetings followed the same script as the M-ID meetings the year before. You will not get two cabinet members (Holder / Vilsack) out to the country without 1) a well defined script; 2) a loud, rowdy, supportive mob (RCalf / OCM); and 3) a predetermined outcome. These were “statement” sessions, and not “listening” sessions. Total waste of everyones’s time. Seriously, why would any elected official attend such a circus?

Tex said:
Politicians are like lemmings and they follow the leader--- the committee chair or high ranking members who think they have it figured out. You have the ones like Goodlatte from VA (former head of ag. committee in House) who think they can use their position to sell out the people they are supposed to represent for their own self interests. Scott, the dem who pushed the letter is in a similar position. Neither of them attended the meeting in Normal, Alabama and Scott was the chair of the subcommittee!. The democrat Sec. of Agriculture for Alabama, Ron Sparks, did attend the meeting and a family farmer spoke out with a personal story on how Sparks betrayed contract law for agribusiness interests. He didn't win his run for Gov. of Alabama and if it were up to the people at the meeting in Alabama over the poultry issues, he would have been sent to jail instead of running for gov.

I don't think Goodlatte nor Scott have any poultry farmers in their district which is probably why the parties put them up for committee or subcommittee chairmanship. It is easy to sell out the public interests if you don't have that constituency in your district. You get to reel in the money from agribusiness or whatever committee, and have no voters in your district mad at you for selling out.

Yes, there were 115. They are being looked at right now for their actions just as the Lincolns mentioned above have been. We have too many whores in Washington D.C. masquerading as public servants. We have a lot of lemmings who follow them instead of actually researching the problems in their own districts and figuring it out. Maybe that was the problem with the Lincolns. It is a much thrown out number by the meat packers but it has shown how the system really works more than anything else and voters are getting wise to it.

Go to Open Secrets and look up Tyson's direct contributions to members here:

http://www.opensecrets.org/usearch/index.php?searchButt=Search+OpenSecrets.org+%3E%3E&q=Tyson+Foods&cx=010677907462955562473%3Anlldkv0jvam&cof=FORID%3A11#666

Do the show all in the categories on the pages.

Then go to the lobbying firms they hired and do the same thing, looking at who they are paying off. It isn't coffee money.

Tyson alone spent over 2.5 million in their own name. That is just ONE of the meat packers.

I know you might think that is just coffee money, Beefman, but real people don't. They rightly see that we have the best Congress money can buy.

I wish more in Congress would shun people like you when you offer to buy coffee for them. They need to have coffee with people while in their district, not with lobbyists. They already get a salary from taxpayers and can pay for their own ------ coffee.


Here is just a few of direct contributions of John Breaux and you can see the Breaux Lott Leadership Group that Tyson paid $425,000 and who they paid directly to candidates (you can filter through them yourself).

http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.php?name=Breaux%2C+John&state=&zip=&employ=&cand=&c2010=Y&sort=N&capcode=zwppp&submit=Submit

I didn't even look up the other names it could be under.

Looks like Scott got a $7600 cup of coffee for pushing against GIPSA regulations by the National Chicken Council alone:

http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00034272&cycle=2008


It just goes on and on and on. Different organizations, groups, names, etc.

Yes, Congress is for sale and everyone is starting to figure that out. All that selling out has cost our economy dearly. It has made GIPSA a paper tiger in the past along with a whole lot of other regulatory agencies.

Since you are so incredibly not credible you better stop there, Beefman. You won't find anything you don't want to find.

Tom Rooney? He is just following the same old same old in D.C.

I didn't see him at the GIPSA/DOJ meetings either. I guess he was too busy drinking coffee with the lobbyists who put him up to his little speech on the House floor. Another thing for meat packers to brag about, just like the 115 and the federal judges who have decided they have to legislate from the bench to get big money out of jury trials.

Absolutely disgusting.


Tex
Here’s my observation...........you obviously have contacts and some expertise in the poultry industry. Clearly, Tyson has taken up permanent residency in your cross hairs. If you are also in the legal profession, my guess is you’ve rubbed elbows with Dudley Butler a few times as he’s fought them many times in court (again, my observation - otherwise, not my business, and I’m not asking for confirmation). As I’ve viewed a few of the 60K+ comments posted on the GISPA website regarding the proposed rule, many are from poultry producers. If you were to separate out only the poultry comments, most are form letters - one comment reads EXACTLY like the others, only thing different is the signature at the bottom. There are also comments from several independent poultry producers that are in strong opposition to the rule. I will admit, you likely know more about poultry than I do. If there are truly poultry issues in the proposed rule that need to be implemented, separate them out and make them poultry specific. You’d likely get more traction on the hill with this strategy. When you attempt to also throw a blanket on the beef / pork industry with misguided, damaging rules (such as what was proposed), you’ll hit strong opposition. Again, I did not see you counter or label anything inaccurate that Rep Rooney stated on the floor. He has provided solid reasons to his opposition to the proposed rule. Doesn’t mean he’s in anyone’s pocket. Again, you’re leaving the impression Tyson is way more powerful than they truly are.

Take care.

Beefman
 

Tex

Well-known member
Beefman, you made some points in the post previous to this one that still need attention.

Was Rep. Scott one of the ones circulating the letter the 115 signed and did he take a big donation from the National Chicken Council?

This goes directly to your credibility of whether or not Congress is getting paid to what they do.

I think you make the mistake on Blanche Lincoln that many have. She lost in part because she was one of the obstructionists in the last farm bill over the OIG investigation of GIPSA and their total incompetency in running the agency at that time. The people on the ground saw it.

Most of us here in the countryside are upset at our politicians because they have sold out our country to the highest bidder. Money runs public policy way too much and bends the rules and their enforcement to their will. People saw it in almost all of the regulatory agencies not doing their jobs. We have enough regulations but we have incompetence in their implementation.

Tyson and the meat industry as a whole is very clever at dividing their suppliers for their own benefit. Sure there will be suppliers who break with them because they are the ones getting the benefits over the other ones.

The meeting in Alabama was the first ever of the USDA/DOJ actually listening to the problems in the industry by the people working in the industry and not just those who are able to afford a seat in every committee meeting that has to do with their business. These farmers were upset at what the poultry model, not just Tyson, but every one of these companies, because of the value they steal from them every day in order to "compete" in the market. The problem is that the protections they have under the law are not enforced. These integrators are winning in the competition game because they are the best at stealing value by breaking a) and b) of the Packers and Stockyards Act and federal judges and paid off politicians are either too corrupt or incompetent to stop it. None of the big state poultry associations controlled by these companies tried to get their family farmer suppliers to go to the meetings, just as the NCBA poo pooed the event in Colorado. They are too afraid of everyone figuring out what is going on.

The Packers and Stockyards Act and its enforcement is defined for the meats industry, not just poultry producers. They are economic concepts embodied in the law to prevent meat packers from dividing their suppliers to take their value from them and use it to either compete other companies out of the market or get monopoly profits.

Go back to your economics class. The value they give is equal to what they will pay for their marginal supply. They don't give that value to everyone because they want to break the PSA and steal the producer surplus and use it to out compete competitors. It is the same in poultry as in beef as in pork as in all commodities.

No poultry producer is upset because they are producing an inferior product and getting an inferior price. They are upset because these integrators are continuing to get their new supply by paying more to new suppliers for the same product, thus devaluing the existing farmer's production assets. They routinely extract value by discriminating in pay based on the assets involved, not the value of the animal. That is a recipe for taking the profitability out of the producer's side and giving it to the integrator. Contract agriculture has given them these tools. It will be the same in beef and there is ample evidence that they are already doing it by discriminating against the price setting mechanism for the same quality product.

This is really the Walmart model. If you want to continue to sell to Walmart, they will capture the value of your production so they can out compete their competitors. There is a fine line between competition and abuse of market power to steal this value. Walmart has the Robinson Patman Act, which is not well enforced either. All of these laws are economic laws with economic concepts, just as the Glass Steagall Act was. They came out of a time in American history where corporations were able to use their market power to dominate markets and then extract concessions from either consumers OR their suppliers through the abuse of market power. Our laws on natural monopolies like electricity have the same exact economic principles.

Just imagine how much profitability electric companies could garnish if they could charge individually for electricity based on the value to individual customers instead of a rate for all users. They could take all of the consumer surplus by charging more to those in wealthier neighborhoods and capture all of the consumer surplus. In the meats industry, as it pertains to suppliers, the same could be true of meat companies to their suppliers if meat companies were allowed (they are doing it in poultry already in their contracts) to take the producer surplus based on the individual and not the market.

You are pretty good at finding out the maximums for meat packers. You need to step back a little from that view and get a more broad view. Don't do as the politicians did on allowing the financial institutions to use other people's money to generate business from which they made billions in profits but shifted the risk to the public.

Don't support an industry model that does the same in the meat packing business. Price discrimination based on the productive assets of others instead of the market price of others does exactly that. It is common in the poultry business and will be common in the beef industry if things aren't changed. Our federal judges are too incompetent or corrupt to follow the law and stop it.

My case proves that point beyond any doubt.

Of course the federal judges are about as smart as the politicians who followed Phil Gramm over the cliff with his theory that companies wouldn't harm the financial system because they would be harming themselves. That would be true if only politicians were not sell outs to the principals of the world who bribe them to sell out the principles. We see how it turned out in the financial industry. The biggest, deepest recession since the Great Depression. Deflationary policies like the above have that effect. Deflation through the use of market market power may be good in the competition game for those with market power, but exercise of market power is a net negative for the economy as a whole. It undermines the free market. That is why we had the Great Depression and why they made all the market laws like the anti trust laws in the first place. Business continues to try to water these down for their own benefit but it harms the nation as a whole as we are experiencing now.

Ask the Walmart suppliers. Even old Sam Walton reportedly wouldn't sell out to foreign goods that were subsidized by other governments. Look what it has done to our manufacturing sector. We have trade deficits out the kazoo, cheap money, and an economy that has lost the fact that profit is necessary for businesses. It is even necessary for family farmers supplying the raw product to these companies. Our rural communities have had too much value extracted from them and concentrated in the hands of the few who trade this value on Wall Street.

Tex



Beefman said:
Tex said:
Beefman, there is nothing that will ever be able to be proven to you because you just don't want it.

I appreciate the fact you responded. Although you and I likely will agree on very few things, the dialogue is healthy, and I respect the fact you took the time to respond.

Tex said:
I did ask why the members, including my own, who incidentally sent at least 3 letters to GIPSA on my behalf, why they signed onto that letter. It is no secret that the senator from Tyson pushed back in the the agriculture committee in the Senate along with all the republicans except Chuck Grassley, did not fix the problems at GIPSA in the last farm bill and left it to GIPSA to fix the problem. You and I know that the details are left to the experts in almost all legislation. The regulatory agencies do this work. GIPSA hasn't done anything until now to actually address the problems in the industry. It was REQUIRED by the last farm bill.

The directions in the ’08 Farm Bill to GIPSA were very specific. One of the main points that the 115 House members indicated to Vilsack on Oct 4was that the agency way overstepped the assignment.

Tex said:
You might note that Senator Blanche Lincoln was not returned back to the Senate. She did, however, procure some relief to the farmers she damaged while representing Tyson. She was also the welfare queen of agriculture, especially the rice industry. People in Arkansas were tired of her.

Sen Lincoln (D-AR) did a fine job as Chair of Senate Ag Committee. She, along with several other good Demos in both the House and Senate were shown the door in the election because she had a “D” next to her name. Just because she voted in opposition to your views doesn’t make her “Tyson’s” Senator.

Tex said:
It is also equally known that the chairmen and women in these committees lead the pack and also lead in donations from agribusiness. They will sell out their mother if they think they can get away with it. Senator Blanche Lincoln was thrown out because of it but the letter was written before the election. I think it surprised some, especially the committee chairs who saw what happened to Blanche Lincoln.

Another Lincoln, Rep. Lincoln Davis, my representative, was thrown out for the same reason, and yes, he signed the letter at the behest of the lobbying of the meat packers. People in my area held him accountable.

People are tired of D. C. politicians selling them out and they are taking note. The problems of sell out politicians have done so much damage that it has put us in the biggest recession since the Great Depression.

Republicans want to think they had some big sweeping support by voters and I think they are in the process of making their own noose. The democrats were thrown out for the same reasons republicans were thrown out the last election. They couldn't get the job done, even with a majority. I couldn't find anyone that signed the letter at the USDA/DOJ meeting with farmers in Alabama and yet they wanted to scuttle the solutions that resulted in these GIPSA rules.

No surprise there. If the Ala meeting was anything like the Colo meeting, there was no reason for Reps or Senators to attend. The meetings followed the same script as the M-ID meetings the year before. You will not get two cabinet members (Holder / Vilsack) out to the country without 1) a well defined script; 2) a loud, rowdy, supportive mob (RCalf / OCM); and 3) a predetermined outcome. These were “statement” sessions, and not “listening” sessions. Total waste of everyones’s time. Seriously, why would any elected official attend such a circus?

Tex said:
Politicians are like lemmings and they follow the leader--- the committee chair or high ranking members who think they have it figured out. You have the ones like Goodlatte from VA (former head of ag. committee in House) who think they can use their position to sell out the people they are supposed to represent for their own self interests. Scott, the dem who pushed the letter is in a similar position. Neither of them attended the meeting in Normal, Alabama and Scott was the chair of the subcommittee!. The democrat Sec. of Agriculture for Alabama, Ron Sparks, did attend the meeting and a family farmer spoke out with a personal story on how Sparks betrayed contract law for agribusiness interests. He didn't win his run for Gov. of Alabama and if it were up to the people at the meeting in Alabama over the poultry issues, he would have been sent to jail instead of running for gov.

I don't think Goodlatte nor Scott have any poultry farmers in their district which is probably why the parties put them up for committee or subcommittee chairmanship. It is easy to sell out the public interests if you don't have that constituency in your district. You get to reel in the money from agribusiness or whatever committee, and have no voters in your district mad at you for selling out.

Yes, there were 115. They are being looked at right now for their actions just as the Lincolns mentioned above have been. We have too many whores in Washington D.C. masquerading as public servants. We have a lot of lemmings who follow them instead of actually researching the problems in their own districts and figuring it out. Maybe that was the problem with the Lincolns. It is a much thrown out number by the meat packers but it has shown how the system really works more than anything else and voters are getting wise to it.

Go to Open Secrets and look up Tyson's direct contributions to members here:

http://www.opensecrets.org/usearch/index.php?searchButt=Search+OpenSecrets.org+%3E%3E&q=Tyson+Foods&cx=010677907462955562473%3Anlldkv0jvam&cof=FORID%3A11#666

Do the show all in the categories on the pages.

Then go to the lobbying firms they hired and do the same thing, looking at who they are paying off. It isn't coffee money.

Tyson alone spent over 2.5 million in their own name. That is just ONE of the meat packers.

I know you might think that is just coffee money, Beefman, but real people don't. They rightly see that we have the best Congress money can buy.

I wish more in Congress would shun people like you when you offer to buy coffee for them. They need to have coffee with people while in their district, not with lobbyists. They already get a salary from taxpayers and can pay for their own ------ coffee.


Here is just a few of direct contributions of John Breaux and you can see the Breaux Lott Leadership Group that Tyson paid $425,000 and who they paid directly to candidates (you can filter through them yourself).

http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.php?name=Breaux%2C+John&state=&zip=&employ=&cand=&c2010=Y&sort=N&capcode=zwppp&submit=Submit

I didn't even look up the other names it could be under.

Looks like Scott got a $7600 cup of coffee for pushing against GIPSA regulations by the National Chicken Council alone:

http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00034272&cycle=2008


It just goes on and on and on. Different organizations, groups, names, etc.

Yes, Congress is for sale and everyone is starting to figure that out. All that selling out has cost our economy dearly. It has made GIPSA a paper tiger in the past along with a whole lot of other regulatory agencies.

Since you are so incredibly not credible you better stop there, Beefman. You won't find anything you don't want to find.

Tom Rooney? He is just following the same old same old in D.C.

I didn't see him at the GIPSA/DOJ meetings either. I guess he was too busy drinking coffee with the lobbyists who put him up to his little speech on the House floor. Another thing for meat packers to brag about, just like the 115 and the federal judges who have decided they have to legislate from the bench to get big money out of jury trials.

Absolutely disgusting.


Tex
Here’s my observation...........you obviously have contacts and some expertise in the poultry industry. Clearly, Tyson has taken up permanent residency in your cross hairs. If you are also in the legal profession, my guess is you’ve rubbed elbows with Dudley Butler a few times as he’s fought them many times in court (again, my observation - otherwise, not my business, and I’m not asking for confirmation). As I’ve viewed a few of the 60K+ comments posted on the GISPA website regarding the proposed rule, many are from poultry producers. If you were to separate out only the poultry comments, most are form letters - one comment reads EXACTLY like the others, only thing different is the signature at the bottom. There are also comments from several independent poultry producers that are in strong opposition to the rule. I will admit, you likely know more about poultry than I do. If there are truly poultry issues in the proposed rule that need to be implemented, separate them out and make them poultry specific. You’d likely get more traction on the hill with this strategy. When you attempt to also throw a blanket on the beef / pork industry with misguided, damaging rules (such as what was proposed), you’ll hit strong opposition. Again, I did not see you counter or label anything inaccurate that Rep Rooney stated on the floor. He has provided solid reasons to his opposition to the proposed rule. Doesn’t mean he’s in anyone’s pocket. Again, you’re leaving the impression Tyson is way more powerful than they truly are.

Take care.

Beefman
 

Texan

Well-known member
Oldtimer or Tex:

Do either of you have a list of the groups that filed amicus briefs in the contract grower's case that was referenced here? All I can find is on pdf and I can't get it to download. All I'm interested in is the names and which side they supported - I don't need to see the actual briefs. Thanks.
 

redrobin

Well-known member
Tex said:
You might note that Senator Blanche Lincoln was not returned back to the Senate. .....

It is also equally known that the chairmen and women in these committees lead the pack and also lead in donations from agribusiness. They will sell out their mother if they think they can get away with it. Senator Blanche Lincoln was thrown out because of it but the letter was written before the election. I think it surprised some, especially the committee chairs who saw what happened to Blanche Lincoln.
Stincoln Blanche Lincoln (I saw a sign in her district saying that) was beat because she was a democrat. She was also the deciding vote on the obamacare I think. Tex a man that will misrepresent one thing will misrepresent another. I know tyson growers that do a good job and have wore out houses and built new ones. They must not be too dissatisfied.
 

Tex

Well-known member
redrobin said:
Tex said:
You might note that Senator Blanche Lincoln was not returned back to the Senate. .....

It is also equally known that the chairmen and women in these committees lead the pack and also lead in donations from agribusiness. They will sell out their mother if they think they can get away with it. Senator Blanche Lincoln was thrown out because of it but the letter was written before the election. I think it surprised some, especially the committee chairs who saw what happened to Blanche Lincoln.
Stincoln Blanche Lincoln (I saw a sign in her district saying that) was beat because she was a democrat. She was also the deciding vote on the obamacare I think. Tex a man that will misrepresent one thing will misrepresent another. I know tyson growers that do a good job and have wore out houses and built new ones. They must not be too dissatisfied.

"I know tyson growers that do a good job and have wore out houses and built new ones."

So do I, redrobin.

I also know family farmers who called me recently because they were going broke because they weren't paid enough. One of them told me that they were told by Tyson that if they didn't heat their houses enough that Tysons would call PETA on them. They haven't been paid enough to pay for the propane costs to cover the variable costs per flock. They were not bad growers, either.

We will never know why each individual voted the way they did in that election. I can only tell you what people have told me that are from Arkansas.

Tex
 

Tex

Well-known member
Texan said:
Oldtimer or Tex:

Do either of you have a list of the groups that filed amicus briefs in the contract grower's case that was referenced here? All I can find is on pdf and I can't get it to download. All I'm interested in is the names and which side they supported - I don't need to see the actual briefs. Thanks.

It was my case and I have it in PDF form so if you pm me with your email, I will email it to you. It is the actual amicus brief and has all the groups that signed on to it. I don't know how to put a pdf file on this site but if you tell me how to do that, I will do it.

Tex
 
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