After the shock of Dickie Scruggs' guilty plea for bribery, Eliot Spitzer's call-girl denoument, and the sentencing of Bill Lerach to prison for what was essentially capping, it is necessary to evaluate the implications. Is it coincidence that all three of these lawyers were "consumer advocates"? All three have caused real pain to the Fortune 500 billionaire CEO oligarchs. Now, they have been rendered harmless. Coincidence?
Half-way through the year 2008, as the Bush-Cheney-Rove term is expiring, we see the results of 7 years of prosecutorial efforts by the Executive Department coming to surface. They are now celebrating a trifecta in their twist on "tort reform".
You recall the Bush-Cheney-Rove appointment of foxes to guard the henhouse gates, the latitude given to the Lays and their Enrons (and other stratospherically-salaried CEOs), the purging of the Federal Attorneys General, the refusal to protect consumers, the failure to enforce environmental standards. Now add the selected prosecutions of Eliot Spitzer, Dickie Scruggs, and Bill Lerach which have all come to flower in the last year. Of course, all three of these successful advocates for public interests really did commit wrongdoing. But there is a quality of bogus-ness to the raft of "charges" they faced.
My instincts are to give little weight to Conspiracy theories, and to chalk up many events, without condemnation, to the arbitrary eruption of Coincidence. Is it just coincidence that three of our most powerful consumer attorneys are now neutralized?
There are three reasons to re-visit this question.
THE TOBACCO CASES. I am one who studied the "conspiracy" of Tobacco. I documented the "sweet heart" suits in 9 States in which Tobacco Companies paid a drunk incompetent lawyer (nine of them!) to sue themselves and obtain victories appealed to the Supreme Court of each State so that they would have "precedence" against any plaintiff.
THE JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY. I also documented 20 years of publications by the John Birch Society accurately reporting the misfeasance of selected Negro men and Jews, while failing to report any of their achievements. This is racism hiding behind a veil of "truth", and it shows the invidiousness of this form of hatred.
STATE BAR PROSECUTIONS. I am also reminded of the prosecutions against me. While the State Bar has yet to disbar any attorney who counseled the pirates of Enron in pillaging the consumers of billions of dollars, the State Bar has yet to prosecute any attorney representing a criminal CEO whose depradations were enabled by hordes of lawyers who set up the off-shore shell corporations. The State Bar has gone after dozens of naive and impoverished Sole Practitioners, while ignoring the stench of the dead horse of corporate malfeasance in the profession. When I was a hungry and poor attorney just starting out, the State Bar came after me. Their "complaining witness" actually stated in Deposition that "the attorney did nothing wrong" and "I have no complaint with him". I gave the State Bar transcripts which showed that a rich attorney, Wolf Stern, had perjured himself in court. I gave the State Bar records which showed rich attorneys had joined their clients and enabled criminal CEO's to pillage the public and shareholders. The State Bar elected not to prosecute.
The point is that the Prosecutor (State Bar, or Attorney General of any State or Federal Agency) has DISCRETION for who they go after and which laws they enforce.
When Bush-Cheney-Rove hijacked the Republican Party and stole the Presidency, one of their goals was to remove the exposure of the rich to law suits brought by the victims of their Big Business concept of "opportunity". They called this effort to close the court house door, "tort reform". Not content with merely appointing unqualified judges who shared their ideology, the cabal went after the leaders of the plaintiff's bar.
I realize Spitzer, Scruggs and Lerach were all culpable. When the State Bar prosecutor went after me, after 21 hearings, financially exhausted, I gave up and compromised with them. By contrast, when Big Business went after Ralph Nader -- with prostitutes, hush-money, offers to persuade the jury with bribes -- Ralph Nader spurned their efforts. He passed that test of being a righteous man and did not compromise with the nastiness and insinuations. Many others, they really DO take the low road, they fall and deserve their fall. And I fell, because I was naive and weak.
Still, there is some significance here. It is not coincidence that the corrupted Big Business targeted the top, the most successful, the billionaire attorneys of the plaintiffs' Bar. The robber barons at the US Chamber of Commerce who were in bed with Enron, WorldCom, and Philip Morris, must be thrilled. But it is more than that. They must be seeing the return on their investment in "tort reform" -- the program of Bush in going after the people who were fighting for the rights of the oppressed.
What a pack of lies. ANYONE who read even one months worth, let alone the 20 years you claim to have read, would have seen the JBS touting the achievements of Americans from all races and religions, made possible by our inspired Constitutional Republic and free enterprise system.
ReplyDeleteYou have exposed yourself as one that has not done the research you claim to have done.
Above JBS reference is to The John Birch Society
ReplyDeleteMr. Law needs to check his information or go to the source, The John Birch Society, and then retract his contention that The John Birch Society is racist.
ReplyDeleteMr. Knott of the Knott's Bery Farm was not a member of The John Birch Society. He may have purchased material from us but he never subsidized any of our publications. I would hope someone who knew the gentleman or a family member can easily refute Mr. Law's racist accusation against him.
The John Birch Society has always welcomed Blacks into its membership. We have published plenty of favorable article about Blacks. One of our early writers and lecturers was George Schuyler. We hosted numerous Black people on our speakers bureau including Julia Brown, Freeman Yearling, Leona Holmes, Charlie Smith, Soloman Belete (former Ethiopian Marine Corp Commandant), Leonard Paterson, Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, Rev. Steve Craft, Ezola Foster, Tony Bryant, Dr. Mildred Jefferson, and Evans-Raymond Pierre (research director for The JBS for several years.
Our magazine "The New American" and its predecessors "American Opinion" and "The Review of the News" have featured countless articles favorable to Blacks.
I have written articles to local Black-owner papers on great Black Americans past and present including many of the above.
Mr. Law needs to make a retraction. Readers who want the truth about The John Birch Society should visit our web site JBS.org
or they may contact me at shurtleffhal@aol.com
Hal Shurtleff
Regional Field Director
The John Birch Society
June 28, 2008 LAT reports that Dickie Scruggs was sentenced by Judge Neal Biggers Jr. to the maximum 60 months in prison and fined $250,000. Dickie changed his initial plea to guilty of offering $50,000 to bribe a judge. He collapsed, shaking, to the floor, in the court room.
ReplyDeleteHis son, David Zachary Scruggs, and law partner Sidney Backstrom, had previously been indicted, pled, and are serving time. The attorney who delivered the cash, Timothy R. Balducci, was recorded by the judge, who was wired undercover by the FBI. Judge Biggers reminded Dickie that Balducci was recorded saying: The only person in the world outside of me and you that has discussed this is me and Dick...THERE ARE BODIES BURIED THAT, THAT -- YOU KNOW--THAT HE AND I KNOW WHERE". What is that?
During 8 years of this take-over of our government, it has not just been the Presidency. Judges have been appointed who have no understanding of, and actually no interest in, Law. District Attorneys and Attorneys General have been appointed whose devotion to their personal career opportunities outstrips the need for public protection from predators. The impact of these idiological competence-free appointments will be with us for a long time.
ReplyDeleteI replied to the honorable Hal Shurtleff of JBS, with an apology, a clarification, and no retraction. Regarding his list of black members of the JBS speakers bureau, it speaks for itself. For example Evans-Raymond Pierre (research director for The JBS, is one of the bizarre sources for the FBI-fabricated charges that MLKJr was a "communist". http://www.angelfire.com/mo2/blackmormon/q51.htm. Clearly, this is not an example of JBS writing stories "favorable" to a black man or minority. The Fear of Communist take-over has been a red herring for decades. Although a take-over by ANY extremist under color of ideology (or claiming ideals) should be prevented, JBS ignores the fact that Bush-Cheney-Rove have robbed the public and destroyed most of our civil institutions--while JBS is STILL warning us about the danger of "communists". In this role of crying about the bad "wolf" of communism, JBS has distracted us. They refuse to "see" the foxes who crept in under color of patriotism who pretend to "guard" our gates. Wake up. Among chickens, it makes no difference whether they are eaten by wolves or foxes.
ReplyDeleteHaving said this, we owe a great debt to JBS for helping prevent America from being taken over by "communists". But where was JBS when our government was taken over by a cabal who has done to us all the things JBS warned that the communists would do -- destroy our institutions. Please. Help.