Tacker guilty in Nettleton BioFlop

NEMS360 gives us the latest report in the Nettleton BioFlop.

William T. “Tommy” Tacker II of Okolona faces a virtual life sentence after a federal jury agreed Wednesday he took part in a multimillion-dollar biofuels subsidy fraud.

Tacker, 56, got into financial difficulties after trying to make a go with a Nettleton biodiesel refinery.

It found Tacker guilty of 10 counts of conspiracy, filing fraudulent documents and aiding and abetting the scheme through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Commodities Credit Corp.

Tacker could receive up to 50 years in prison and up to $2.5 million in fines. At age 56, that could mean he spends the rest of his life behind bars.

Neither man will be sentenced for several weeks while the U.S. Probation Service develops background reports for consideration by Senior Judge Glen H. Davidson.

Late Wednesday, Tacker’s next legal options weren’t clear and his attorneys declined to comment.

Biodiesel of Mississippi Inc., purchased very little soybean oil from which to make biodiesel and produced very little fuel. But it collected more than $2.8 million from the USDA for fictional production increases from mid-2003 until March 2005.

NYT - Thompson ordered by Ethics to repay costs of Caribbean trip

The New York Times reports that the U.S. House Ethics Committee has ordered Representative Bennie Thompson and others to repay the costs of two trips to the Caribbean sponsored by corporate interests.

None of the other members of Congress on the trips were admonished because they did not know of the sponsorships, the committee said. But all were ordered to repay the cost of the trips, about $11,800 in total.

The others were Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee; Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick of Michigan; Donald M. Payne of New Jersey; and Delegate Donna Christensen of the Virgin Islands. All five are Democrats.

Peter Flaherty from the National Legal and Policy Center exposed this trip as a corporately paid event and here is his take on the matter.

TPM reports the Ethics Committee

is referring to the Justice Department the matter of three employees of Carib News -- which sponsored the trips -- who allegedly submitted false information to the committee during pre-travel review for the trips in question. The panel also admonished its own former counsel, Dawn Kelly Mobley, for "improperly" communicating confidential information to two of the Carib News officials during the investigation.

Stay tuned.

Ethics Committee - Thompson Not Guilty Due to Ignorance

The U.S. House Ethics Committee has admonished Representative Charlie Rangel for taking a trip to the Caribbean paid for by corporate interests in violation of House Ethics rules. The Committee said that Rangel's staff knew corporate funds were involved, so he gets a slap on the wrist. But,

The report cleared five others saying that they "properly relied on the information provided to them by the officers and employees of Carib News and the Carib News Foundation in seeking and receiving pre-trip approval from the committee to accept these trips." They are Reps. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.; Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y.; Donald Payne, D-N.J., Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich.; and Delegate Donna Christensen, D-V.I.

It seems ignorance saved Thompson from also having the Ethics Committee shake its finger at him. While he did go on trips that violated the rules, they couldn't prove he knew it, and they couldn't prove his staff knew it, so, no problem. How is that for confidence in the Homeland Security Chairman?

I mean, lets be fair. What about this poster would ever lead you to think it was sponsored by corporate interests?Now, what about the corporate funds going to Thompson's Tunica event organized by his own staffer?

Northside Sun: Jim Hood allows "the judiciary to be a profit center" for campaign contributors

The Northside Sun blistered Attorney General Jim Hood today in an editorial criticizing the contracts from his office to campaign contributors and comparing his "pay to play" reputation with that of his former campaign contributor and former outside counsel and special attorney general Joey Langston.

Maybe it’s just a coincidence that some of Attorney General Jim Hood’s largest campaign supporters also happen to get a big slice of the state’s litigation business he farms out to private attorneys.

The system needs to change either to bring more competition to how these contracts are awarded, or to prohibit the attorney general from receiving campaign donations from those who do business with his office.

Some of these same people pitching lawsuits to Hood also happen to show up prominently on his list of campaign contributors. For instance, Texas attorney Ken Bailey gave $75,000 to Hood’s re-election campaign in 2007 and another $110,000 over the past three years to the Democratic Attorney Generals Association, another major Hood donor.

What interest does a Texas attorney have in a Mississippi attorney general’s election, other than the hope that the investment will pay off for him? In Bailey’s case, it has and then some. He is scheduled to receive $2.78 million in attorney’s fees paid by Eli Lilly on top of the $18.5 million the drugmaker has agreed to pay the state in a recent settlement over antipsychotic drugs.

According to the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform, Bailey is just one of several attorneys with a financial stake in Hood’s office. It claims Hood, in his first five years in office, received more than $500,000 from attorneys and law firms doing business with the attorney general.

Just a quick insertion here. That number may be true, but the Wall Street Journal puts the number at $790,000 "from partners and law firms that have benefited financially from [Hood's] office" just in 2007 alone.

Let’s not forget that two of Hood’s biggest campaign contributors, Dickie Scruggs and Joey Langston, are now in prison for attempting to bribe a judge.

Scruggs and Langston were well-known for perfecting this ploy of spinning campaign contributions into big legal fees. You would think that Hood would rush to be squeaky clean after witnessing the fate of his cronies. Instead, the shady practices continue. Hood keeps thumbing the nose at the electorate. Not a politically wise course given an electorate demonstrably averse to politicians lining their pockets in exchange for favoritism.

When Langston was sentenced, the judge stated, “The damage you have done to the rule of law is the real tragedy in this case.” Allowing the judiciary to be a profit center for well-connected campaign contributors is just one more chapter in this sordid story.

Big Money for Congressional Black Caucus

The New York Times continues a critical examination of the Congressional Black Caucus and related organizations. As we have mentioned, Mississippi's own Bennie Thompson is involved in multiple ethics investigations related to his actions connected to these groups. Thompson serves as Chairman of the Board of the Congressional Black Caucus Institute.

When the Congressional Black Caucus wanted to pay off the mortgage on its foundation’s stately 1930s redbrick headquarters on Embassy Row, it turned to a familiar roster of friends: corporate backers like Wal-Mart, AT&T, General Motors, Coca-Cola and Altria, the nation’s largest tobacco company.

Soon enough, in 2008, a jazz band was playing at what amounted to a mortgage-burning party for the $4 million town house.

Most political groups in Washington would have been barred by law from accepting that kind of direct aid from corporations. But by taking advantage of political finance laws, the caucus has built a fund-raising juggernaut unlike anything else in town.

It has a traditional political fund-raising arm subject to federal rules. But it also has a network of nonprofit groups and charities that allow it to collect unlimited amounts of money from corporations and labor unions.

From 2004 to 2008, the Congressional Black Caucus’s political and charitable wings took in at least $55 million in corporate and union contributions, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

The caucus says its nonprofit groups are intended to help disadvantaged African-Americans by providing scholarships and internships to students, researching policy and holding seminars on topics like healthy living.

But the bulk of the money has been spent on elaborate conventions that have become a high point of the Washington social season, as well as the headquarters building, golf outings by members of Congress and an annual visit to a Mississippi casino resort.

In 2008, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation spent more on the caterer for its signature legislative dinner and conference — nearly $700,000 for an event one organizer called “Hollywood on the Potomac” — than it gave out in scholarships.

At the galas, lobbyists and executives who give to caucus charities get to mingle with lawmakers. They also get seats on committees the caucus has set up to help members of Congress decide what positions to take on the issues of the day. Indeed, the nonprofit groups and the political wing are so deeply connected it is sometimes hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

“The claim that this is a truly philanthropic motive is bogus — it’s beyond credulity,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director at the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, a nonpartisan group that monitors campaign finance and ethics issues. “Members of Congress should not be allowed to have these links. They provide another pocket, and a very deep pocket, for special-interest money that is intended to benefit and influence officeholders.”

But caucus members have attracted increasing scrutiny from ethics investigators.

All eight open House investigations involve caucus members, and most center on accusations of improper ties to private businesses.

Elsie L. Scott, chief executive of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, acknowledged that the companies want to influence members. In fact, the fund-raising brochures make clear that the bigger the donation, the greater the access, like a private reception that includes members of Congress for those who give more than $100,000.

“They are trying to get the attention of the C.B.C. members,” Ms. Scott said. “And I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. They’re in business, and they want to deal with people who have influence and power.”

In 2007, it retained Zahra Buck, a former aide [salary here] to Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and a caucus member, to help expand a lobbying campaign.

Remember that this is not the first Thompson aide to benefit from this big money. The website TPMMUckraker reported in December that another Thompson staffer had been paid by lobbyists to conduct events honoring Thompson, while still a federal employee being paid by taxpayer dollars to work for Thompson.

Everyone, Republicans and Democrats alike, use big money to advance their agendas. But not everyone represents a district so poor as Thompson does, or pretends to humbly stand up for the poor against corporate interests like Thompson does, and then milks the corporate interests like Thompson seems to be doing.

Brumfield - Speight pleads guilty in bioFlop

Patsy Brumfield continues her coverage of biodiesel crimes in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal.

Disbarred Tennessee attorney H. Max Speight pleaded guilty today to participation in a nearly $3 million biodiesel fraud of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Today, he responded to a deal with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and pleaded guilty to one count charging him with filing false subsidy statements about production at a now-shuttered Nettleton refinery.

That leaves William T. “Tommy” Tacker II of Aberdeen the sole defendant in the case.

Speight and Tacker were partners in the operation, which went bankrupt in 2006. In 2008, Speight went to state prison in Tennessee after pleading guilty to stealing more than $1 million from several legal clients.

We've been keeping an eye on this as well and look forward to more of Patsy's reporting on it.

Dems blunder in attack on Nunnelee

First, the Democrats attacked Alan Nunnelee for raising taxes. We imagine they were upset, because raising taxes is their job, not Republicans. Second, it turns out one of their attacks was wrong. Way wrong. Backward. They attacked him for cutting taxes. Of course, that makes more sense as Democrats prefer higher taxes, so they ought to criticize a Republican for cutting taxes. But this time, they did that by accident: When a 'tax increase' is actually a tax cut

Democrats are going after Mississippi state Sen. Alan Nunnelee (R) for his record on taxes, but at least one punch didn’t land.

In a release this week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) says Nunnelee, in 1996, “sponsored a bill to increase income tax rates and optional standard deductions according to changes in the U.S. inflation rate.”

What that bill cited actually did, though, was increase tax brackets according to inflation. That translates to a tax cut, rather than an increase. The bill at the time was being pushed by GOP Gov. Kirk Fordice, in order to reduce state income tax rates.

We fervently oppose tax increases and it is fair game to criticize those. But obviously, this was not one.

(Responding via Y'all Politics)

MDOT: Meet the new King, same as the old one

It seems that Southern District Transportation Commissioner Wayne Brown (D-Lucedale) may not run for reelection, and Senator Tom King (R-Petal) may run for the seat.

The key to MDOT politics is not partisanship, it usually comes down to one issue: Butch Brown, Executive Director of MDOT. He is hired by a majority of commissioners so to maintain control he needs 2 votes. He doesn't care if those votes are Republican or Democrat.

Wayne Brown has been a supporter of Butch Brown. And the word is, Tom King would also be on the Butch Brown team.

(We're back from our Christmas Vacation.)