And then, of course, there’s this.  Mike Moore backs down from the Senate fight after enunciating how much of a slam-dunk he is for the job, he just says . . . “NAH”.

Is this letter a joke?

Ronnie Musgrove is probably a more realistic candidate for Senate this year, but Moore could be potent as a gubernatorial candidate in 2011.

I disagree, Tom.  He will have been out of the scene (presumably completely) for a decade.  I personally think that’s too long.  I think he is taking it to the house from a public service perspetive . . . which is fine.  It will be interesting, as the Scruggs saga unfolds, to see exactly what his professional relationship was with Scruggs and Hood.  I think all of it will come out.  Of particular interest will be this “resolution counsel” animal that they have birthed.

I find it completely telling, but not surprising at all, that camera-hog Mikey chose to make this statement via a letter in the CL.  Obviously to avoid the certain questions about his relationship with Scruggs, SKG, etc etc etc....

You hit the nail on the head “my two cents.” Moore cherry picked David Hampton specifically giving him first dig at his statement for a reason. The CL has mastered the art of selective omission and selective reporting over the years.  They can always be counted on to kid glove folks like Moore.

And, Tom, please keep talking up Musgrove and Mabus and even Moore.  Fact is without Moore, the Dems just don’t have much in the dugout who can make it back around to home plate. 

Retreading Mabus or Musgrove, either would be a Godsend for Republicans.  And I also love the fact that Schumer and these other nat’l democrats have made waves about winning a Mississippi Senate seat.  Please Dems get Schumer out there supporting your candidates prominantly, too. They just love Shumer in Shubuta.

Who knows who will be in jail by the time the Scruggs thing shakes out?

Alan wrote:  “I think [Mike Moore] is taking it to the house from a public service perspective...”

Another thing is that his wife is not enthused about the political arena.  Moore had a good shot at getting elected governor in ‘99 but chose instead to run for re-election.  He said of the governorship, “I don’t want that job.”

Benjamin Disreali wrote:  “They just love [Sen. Charles] Schumer in Shubuta.”

Chuckie’s real popular in D’Lo and Duck Hill, too.  And Sullivan’s Hollow is thinking of changing its name to “Schumer’s Hollow.”

Are you misspelling “Disraeli” on purpose?

He’s spelling it correctly.

Queen Victoria

Benjamin Disraeli

Steve, that’s the British spelling lol.  We Mississippi Disrealis decided to change it up a little, to give us a distinctive American feel. We’re not quite as imperialistic as the English Disraelis, but we’re getting there.

And, Steve, the day Sullivan’s Hollow becomes “Shumer’s Hollow” .... well, I just can’t imagine that.

with moore out, barbour has more options as to who he appoints to fill lott’s seat.  he can consider a candidates “capability” as much now as “electability.”

Good point, Rookie

The appointed senator-- no matter who he is-- will be the odds-on favorite to win the election, especially if it’s next November.*

...the day Sullivan’s Hollow becomes “Schumer’s Hollow”...

In 1971, the joke was that Sullivan’s Hollow would be renamed “Waller’s Hollow,” after Bill Waller carried it over Charles Sullivan in the governor’s race.

* I recently learned that John Stennis won the 1947 special Senate election with 26.9%.  It was a six-man field, and if there had been a runoff, Congressman Bill Colmer of Pascagoula very likely would have been elected.  The next year, Speaker Walter Sillers changed the law to provide for runoffs in special elections.

I had a good conversation yesterday with someone close to Moore.  He told me that the Senate was all that Moore ever wanted, and that it is extraordinarily telling that he is not running for it.

Moore is obviously a guy with extraordinarily political talents and it seems he threw it all away for money and influence.  He just got in with the wrong crowd.  Even though I disagree with Moore on a lot of things, he is a modern political tragedy.

Sadly, it does show how even crusading politicians eventually become part of the system they start out fighting against.

There was a time back when he was a young District Attorney, and had a reputation as a corruption hunter, when Moore would have been the one investigating this kind of thing, prosecuting the perpetrators, and sending them to jail.

It would have been hard back then to ever picture the young Mike Moore being suspected of standing on the wrong side of the line.  Former Jackson County Supervisor Eddie Kyahat is probably smiling somewhere, saying “See, what I meant, now, Mike?”.

Alan.  You’re getting soft and squishy in your old age.

How many times has a mother in a courtroom (or a funeral home) said to a judge, “Judge.  I’m so sorry.  My son just got in with the wrong crowd?”

Moore’s story is as old as the Greeks.  Icarus, too, flew too close to the sun.

lawdoctor1960 wrote:  “Sadly, it does show how even crusading politicians eventually become part of the system they start out fighting against.”

Moore served four terms as AG, and, in my view, this is another example of why we need term limits.  We limit the governor to two terms in a lifetime and the lieutenant governor to two successive terms-- not to mention the U. S. president-- but no others.  I think that legislators especially should be term limited, so we can have a “citizens’ legislature.”

Mississippi adopted the initiative in 1992, and the only two initiatives that have ever reached the ballot were the ‘95 and ‘99 term limits proposals.  Several groups, including the state farmers’ organization, did a great job of muddying the water on this issue.

NOTE:  Mississippi-- like all states-- allows non-residents to lobby our legislature.  Since that’s OK, why shouldn’t it also be OK for out-of-staters to gather signatures on initiative petitions?

Man, what PLANET are you on?  You want somebody from AL or NY or wherever to put stuff on the ballot.  Are you going to let them vote!?

Actually, I wouldn’t have taken the time to address that, but it’s indicative of your thinking in the comment about term limits.  I hope that most people have realized the folly of that concept for the legislature - not statewide office, although I have concerns about that.

The job of legislator is part-time, it takes a while to learn the inside of state government.  A two-term legislator is just getting warmed up unless he or she has some serious background in state government.  Agency heads and other staff would love chewing on new meat; it gets tough after they been around a while.

Term limits would also give the staff a lot more clout than they have now, which is considerable.

States that have term limits are now dealing with the lack of institutional knowledge on the part of the members.  If you really want a citizen legislature and not a professional one, you had better forget about term limits.

Brush you are dead on with the Citizen Legislature.  Good post.

We need statesman to step up and serve. Public service should be a sacrifice and until those whose lifestyle would suffer as a result of it, we will continue to get the likes of jim hood.

With only budget analysts and legal staff for support, the State agency directors and staff play to role of “policy analysts” to our “Citizen Legislature” - to the disadvantage of all citizens, including those in the Legislature.

The idea of adding policy analyst positions to the legislative staff merits consideration.  Otherwise, the Stage agencies will continue to call the shots and attribute any opposition to “an increasingly partisan” Legislature.

Okay, I just read the second part of the Biloxi Sun Herald article on P.L. Blake and his $50,000,000.00 payout and I still think this story, while still in its infancy, is the most potentially explosive one.

Let me get this straight. 

Jeffrey Wigand, the man whose information was documented in the movie, “The Insider”, and who everyone in the case pretty much agrees was the most important witness as far as getting the tobbacco companies to settle, and who provided the most damaging information about the tobbacco companies, was paid $2,230,000 for his obviously very substantial assistance in the case.

P.L. Blake, , who also provided “insider information”, albeit information that no one from Scruggs, to Blake, to Moore can seem to consistently describe or adequately explain, was paid $50,000,000 for his assistance in the case, and no one in the Scruggs firm seems the slightest bit interested in reducing or stopping his payments. 

There can be only one possible explanation.  That is, they know exactly what he did for this money, they know he earned it, and the last thing they want in the world is Blake coming out and telling what he did to earn it.

And, they all wonder why no one is buying this story.

I’ll be there is going to be a movie about what P.L. Blake did for his money.  I have a feeling that when we do see it, it will be on Law and Order.

Wigand didn’t get paid.  Williams got the 2.2M.

We have policy analysts, they’re called lobbyists.  And don’t say they only represent one side, there are lobbyists for every side. 

When Dick Molpus was passing the lobbying regulation law, he kept saying the “general” interest of the public was being pushed aside by the “special” interests.  When somebody finally pinned him down on who/what the “general” public interest was, he said - surprise! - public education.  At that time, education had more lobbyists at the Capitol than any other “special” interest.

You’re right, I did misread this article and got Wigand and Williams a little mixed up.  Thank you for catching that.

But, I’m a little confused about your point on lobbyists.  So, is your take on the $50 million being secretly spread around, that this is just business as usual in Mississippi and how things get done here?  If so, I hope it hasn’t got that bad, but maybe it has and this whole affair has just exposed what everyone has been doing.

It is certainly making me look at the plantiff’s bar, especially the tort kings like Scruggs, in a whole new light.

I don’t think many lobbyists are getting $50M.  That’s not business as usual, this situation is highly unusual.

My point there was that we don’t need “policy analysts” hired by the Legislature.  All that does is create another group of people trying to influence the members, and those analysts will be hired by whoever is in control and will do their bidding, i.e., be biased.  Just let the lobbyists do their job, everyone knows they’re biased, therefore takes their info with a grain of salt.  They’re like lawyers in a way, advocates.

brush wrote:  “Agency heads and other staff would love chewing on new meat; it gets tough after they been around a while.”

Your “meat” metaphor is a reminder of the beef plant scandal.  This fiasco was concocted by Rep. Billy McCoy, who was in his 7th term, and Rep. Steve Holland, who was in his 6th term… and abetted by Commissioner Spell, who was in his 3rd term.  Yeah, they were “tough” all right-- “tough” enough to screw the taxpayers.

If your definition of “citizen legislature” is that the Steve Hollands of the world get to hang around for 40 or 50 years, then you and I have a very different concept of “citizen legislature.”

As to Mississippi’s initiative process: consider that (1) we let out-of-staters lobby our legislature, and (2) for years, we’ve let highly-paid out-of-state political consultants run election campaigns here. 

Given these two facts, why should we not also let non-residents gather signatures on initiative petitions?  After all, the signatures have to be validated by the circuit clerks-- regardless of WHO collected them.

Steve, I guess, no I’m sure, I owe you an apology.  I completely misunderstood your first comment about out-of-staters gathering signatures on a petition.  I guess there must be some specific prohibition against a non-resident helping to gather signatures - I seem to remember something like that.  I don’t think I would have a problem with that.

As for term limits, I would rather have somebody making decisions who, eventually, would be subject to voter recall than someone who’s not.

I often wonder, if we were to describe to our founding fathers, Jefferson, Washington, Adams, Hancock, Franklin, and all the others, our process of lobbying politicians to vote a particular way, and of giving them large campaign contributions in exchange for this, (or even worse, to describe to them the practice of giving large loans to judges by lawyers, that are never repaid), what their reaction would be.

I would imagaine above all else, their hearts would be broken, when they saw what we had done with the gift they had given us.

That’s okay; they only let 35 to 40 percent of the population vote in the first place, so wouldn’t have a hell of a lot of room to talk.

Lawdoc, you’re one idealistic dude/dudess!  You think that didn’t go on back then?  What they gave us was a country free of English rule, run by property owners, who presumably cared enough to get involved and make sure that things didn’t get too far out of hand.

(Look at some of the old political cartoons, they were really involved - why do you think the liquor stores and bars are closed during voting hours.)

The price of freedom has always been and will always be vigilance and blood.

BTW, ole Strom almost nipped Lincoln in the primaries, if he had, we wouldn’t have all these problems we’ve got now.

(Sorry about that, my brain lost control of my hands.)

Considering how mob rule destroyed the Greek democracies and the French Revolution, I don’t blame them.

One of the first actions of the first Congress was a deal by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and New England leaders to trade votes for placing the capital on the Potomac, which the Virginians wanted, with votes for federal assumption of the war debts of the states, which Hamilton, New York, and New England wanted. Those guys knew how to grease the system. Pork and patronage have always been more important than ideology to political leaders and parties.

Researcher, you’re one cynical son of a gun.  What diversity we have here!

Do you think pork and patronage dictate policy/ideology or vice versa?

"Do you think pork and patronage dictate policy/ideology or vice versa? “

Why do you say those are the only two choices we get?  I understand that politics is how things get done in a legislative policy, and vote trading is a fact of life.

There is a world of difference between vote trading and vote buying (or vote renting as one pol put it one time).  Maybe, rather than idealistic, I am just naive.  But, I would like to think that maybe, just maybe, there are a few people in office, who actually do it because they give a damn, rather than what they can get out of it for themselves.

Maybe it’s just a different philosphy that can’t be resolved.  I’ll bet that when Scruggs and the prosecutors look across the tables at each other, Scruggs sees guys who just weren’t smart enough or driven enough to make several hundred million dollars, and the prosecutors see someone who has let their fixation on the acquisition of immense wealth cloud, or erase, all judgement of what is right and wrong.

And, maybe I’m just naive, rather than idealistic.

Yeah.  I remember Charlie Merkel’s comment about Scruggs’ “scorched earth” philosophy of practicing law.  (And Merkel is no softy.) I would guess that Scruggs and others of that mentality justify it on the basis of winning for their client.  And, there’s nothing wrong with using all available means to win as long as you use them fairly. 

But those same guys say that they’re fighting the “huge corporations” for the “little guy”, but they’re using the same methods they decry:  fighting the battle in the media to influence the public and thereby potential jurors and even the judges (because they’re elected).

Scruggs’ answer to the prosecutors is you just don’t have the stomach and the willpower to do battle.  And to a certain extent he’s right - they get paid whether they win or lose.  Scruggs’ problem is he simply doesn’t want to lose.  If in fact he was part of the bribery deal - which I’m not sure of yet - it’s simply because he wants to win at <all> costs.

Uh… Tom, if you’ll allow me to defend our founding fathers for a minute (the ones you obvioulsy think are mean ole white dudes), allow me to point out that I don’t know too many countries in the 1770s that practiced democracy, much less the republican form of it and much less allowed every citizen to vote.  Most of the world’s nations then didn’t know what a vote was.  And, some of those nations, particularly in the Middle East, have evolved little in terms of the sophistication of their government.  So, I’d say allowinig 35 to 40 percent of the population to vote on folks (many of them from modest, self-made means) who’d represent their local area was indeed revolutionary for the day.

You know, you really need to judge historical figures within the context of their own time, how they stack up against the predominant practices of the era. (something liberals often refuse to do in order to make quick, cheap political points) We often think of the Greeks and Romans as being very democratic and enlightened, (and they were) but both would be considered almost totalitarian states by today’s standards.

So, within their proper context, I’d say our founding fathers were indeed men of character and compassion who wanted to take the basic idea of liberal Western democracy as first articulated by the ancients and extend that well beyond what was typical for the day. I think they had a long term vision, and they knew this government would morph into something they really couldn’t grasp at that time. 

Yes, I do often wonder what they’d say about some of today’s practices.  I think in the context of allowing minorities and women to vote, I really think they’d see it as a natural progression of the system they set in motion.  As far as lobbying, I frankly don’t know whether they’d be comfortable with that, at least to the extent that it is practiced today.  But, they would understand it and be familiar with the concept.

BD writes:

Uh… Tom, if you’ll allow me to defend our founding fathers for a minute (the ones you obvioulsy think are mean ole white dudes), allow me to point out that I don’t know too many countries in the 1770s that practiced democracy, much less the republican form of it and much less allowed every citizen to vote. Most of the world’s nations then didn’t know what a vote was.  And, some of those nations, particularly in the Middle East, have evolved little in terms of the sophistication of their government.  So, I’d say allowinig 35 to 40 percent of the population to vote on folks (many of them from modest, self-made means) who’d represent their local area was indeed revolutionary for the day.

Well said; I completely agree, and as far as I know never suggested otherwise.  The United States was the most advanced liberal democracy on Earth at the time of its founding, and it arguably remains so to this day.

All I’m saying is that if we want to start talking about what the Founding Fathers would think if they saw our country today, one of the first things we should acknowledge is that they’re not any better equipped to judge us than we are to judge them.

It all comes down to CHARACTER, which I’ll define loosely as, doing the “right” thing when nobody’s looking. We must choose the people we back, first and foremost, on strength of character, then do all we can to help them get elected. I’ve witnessed active Republican Women on the Coast, for over thirty years, doing just that. They never ask for anything in return, except that their candidates stay true to the principles of good government. When they fail, the girls work hard to send them home.
This is a life-long committment to Mississippi and America, that most of us should aspire to.

brush wrote:  “I guess there must be some specific prohibition against a non-resident helping to gather signatures… .  I don’t think I would have a problem with that.”

I assume you mean you wouldn’t have a problem with out-of-staters gathering signatures.  As I noted in my blog post-- to which I’ve twice linked on this thread-- the prohibition against non-resident circulators was enacted in 1998, effectively killing Mississippi’s initiative process.

Don’t be surprised if the federal courts strike down Oklahoma’s similar prohibition next year, which will open the door to getting rid of Mississippi’s prohibition.  (Sort of ironic, isn’t it?  Oklahoma and Mississippi were #49 and #50, respectively, to eliminate the prohibition of alcoholic beverages.)

On the lobbying:  I have read that the Great Compromise - a House based on population and a Senate based on equal representation - actually had a lobbyist who was representing the interests of the small states.

On the initiative:  Why do think the process is so convoluted and cumbersome - the Legislature wanted it that way so we wouldn’t have referendums out the wahzoo like CA.

That’s interesting.  How much money did he have to give out to individual legislators to get that legislation passed?  I didn’t think they were allowed to give them money back then.  You learn something every day.

brush wrote:  “... the Great Compromise - a House based on population and a Senate based on equal representation - actually had a lobbyist who was representing the interests of the small states.”

This is the first I’ve heard such a thing about the Constitutional Convention, and I don’t think it’s true.  There were a number of big state/small state compromises.  James Madison pushed hard-- and failed-- to have the Senate as well as the House based on population.

And they were not called “lobbyists” until much later, after President U. S. Grant’s practice of meeting favor-seekers in the LOBBY of the Willard (?) Hotel in Washington.

“Why do you think the [initiative] process is so convoluted and cumbersome - the Legislature wanted it that way so we wouldn’t have [ballot propositions] out the wahzoo like CA.”

Well, the legislature has certainly succeeded, since we’ve only had two initiatives on the Mississippi ballot in the 15 years that we’ve had the initiative.  The 1998 law banning out-of-state signature gatherers really put the quietus on our initiative process, but don’t be surprised if the federal courts remove that roadblock.

Yes, the Willard Hotel lobby…

I would have said y’all are relying on Wikipedia, but this appears on their web site:

Research done by Deanna Gelak, a former president of the American League of Lobbyists, for a forthcoming book on lobbying to be published by TheCapitol.Net in 2008, shows that the term “lobbying” appeared in print as early as 1820:
“

Other letters from Washington affirm, that members of the Senate, when the compromise question was to be taken in the House, were not only “lobbying about the Representatives’ Chamber,” but were active in endeavoring to intimidate certain weak representatives by insulting threats to dissolve the Union.
”

— April 1, 1820, New Hampshire Sentinel (America’s Historical Newspapers)

And, I DIDN’T JUST MAKE UP the stuff about the Constitutional Convention.  I’ll find the info that I’m drawing from memory on, but please note I didn’t say they called him a lobbyist, just that he was there.  The story, again, y’all know things get inflated, is that he hung out in the lobby of the hotel across the street from the Convention meetings, waiting to by drinks in the bar.  Now, I don’t know if that’s where the name came from, but we do have a lot earlier reference than Grant.

I’m reasonably certain there have been lobbyists since the Neolithic era.  Regardless of when the word “lobbyist” was actually coined, lobbyists played a crucial role in the development of the American Constitution--and it’s a good thing.  Without the antifederalist lobby, for example, we would have no Bill of Rights.

I would also add that the 1808 international slave trade abolition in the Constitution was an attempt to form a compromise between the pro-slavery lobby and the abolitionist lobby, as was the three-fifths doctrine.  Later, the equally dreadful Missouri Compromise--which included the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the worst piece of federal legislation ever signed into law--represented an attempt to appeal to those lobbies again.

Even the right to petition, included in the First Amendment, could be seen as an attempt to protect the rights of lobbyists.  There is nothing new about the concept, in other words; just the word.

It would be interesting to learn when the first “campaign contributions” first started being given to public officials by lobbyist, and how they couched it to avoid being locked up for bribery the first few times, before they got the practice accepted.  Unless they have decided that that fact wasn’t interesting enough to make their lobbyist self-history.

Lawdoc wrote:  That’s interesting.  How much money did he have to give out to individual legislators to get that legislation passed?  I didn’t think they were allowed to give them money back then.  You learn something every day.

[I know I’m not getting this italics thing right - help.]

You have always been able to give people money, it just has to be reported on the lobbying form.  Campaign contributions are limited - y’all know that.  The responsibility to report them is on the candidate.  Lobbying expenditures are reported by the lobbyist.  If a lobbyist gives “anything of value” to a person covered by the law - which, btw, covers janitors to the governor, local and state - the lobbyist reports that.  No limit, no minimum threshold for the name.

I could check, but I doubt that ole P.L. was registered to lobby.

And, Head is exactly correct, the right to petition includes the right to lobby.  It’s constitutional, baby!

I’m sure P.L. Blake wasn’t registered, (or that his presense in legislative or governmental offices was even ever acknowledged or admitted).  Not that that really matters as far as the end result.

But to digress.  When did the first lobbying form appear, that listed how much money a lobbyist had given to a candidate to secure their support?

I still am interested in the first time a “lobbyist” decided to pay a “campaign contribution” for a legislator or public official’s “support” (it had to have been one of those great unsung moments of history, like the first guy who actually ate a raw oyster).

I really want to know-at what point in history, did giving money to legislators to get them to vote a certain way, quit being thought of as a bribe, and start being thought of as a “campaign contribution”? 

I can see how uncomfortable a lobbyist could be talking about this (and the one former lobbyist I know, told me he quit the business after walking out of just one too many legislators’ offices hoping that he had not just been taped by the FBI).  But, it would be a really interesting history, I’m sure.

Well, it did come out right.

Ah...............is there any way to get back on track with ‘flash-bulb Mike? I hate to turn moderator here but, geeez! I wish to learn about Mike’s inability to run for the Senate. Has his enablers become his disablers? Tell me more about Bobby Kahyet. I think he was Mike’s first political victim.

It’s “Eddie” Kyahat (the father of Ole Miss Chancellor Robert Kyahat, to emphasize what a small place Mississippi really is), not “Bobby”.

It’s a story that is well known in Jackson County.  Mike Moore investigated and prosecuted Kyahat and several other Jackson County Supervisors (in a case brought to him by the FBI, to show you how high his stock was with them back then) for busting invoices and embezzlement of county funds that preceded the Operation Pretense cases by several years. 

Anti-corruption kind was kind of Moore’s thing, back then, and he hunted it down pretty religiously, and where ever he found it, in his early days.  It’s hard to picture now, but he was the ultimate “anti-insider” and ultimate “anti-good ole boy” back then.  It’s kind of shocking to see how intertwined he has become with Scruggs, and behavior that would have had Moore on the warpath and empaneling a grand jury years ago.

It is hard to not think that he would be running for, and probably winning, Lott’s Senate seat, but for Scruggs getting caught at the most inopportune time possible for Moore (unless, of course, the seat wouldn’t have even been open, but, for Scruggs getting caught). 

In a way, I picture Moore as just another victim (in a list growing increasingly longer), of Scruggs, and what seems to be about the most unbridled and relentless pursuit of wealth and power seem around here for some time

It wasn’t just Khayat.  Moore prosecuted or negotiated the removal from office of four of the 5 Jackson County supervisors.  I agree that the fact that Moore portrayed himself as the white knight fighting a corrupt system makes it all the more ironic that corruption has apparently kept him from fulfilling his long-time dream of the US Senate.

Yeah...............I was in that area during the ambush on EDDIE and the rest. There are two distinct ways of spelling Khayet and ‘yat’ on the end. Two different sets but the same mix I think. When I was there, the populace was clearly on the side of EDDIE. He was good to all his voting public. However, Mike was on his climb within the political arena and the ‘end justified the means’.

The ‘end is here’. The means will be discussed down at the Court House.

If I remember right, Jackson County had an unexplained excess of around $2,000,000 in the treasury the year after Khayat and the others were removed from office. 

I think a lot of people were on Eddie’s side, (the same as I am sure a lot are on Moore and Scruggs side now), before the trial.

Trials are a good way of revealing the truth, and I really hope Scruggs and company ask for their day in court.

Lawdoctor, do you really think this will go to court?

Please.

Know this.

Mike Moore is NOT a victim (of Scruggs) or anyone else.  If he is a victim, he’s a victim of himself alone.

Re: Brush/Lawdoctor.  Take a whack at the research for the Wigand/"Williams" information, and if you have any proof, let’s have it because there isn’t any truth to your numbers or your facts.  If you’re legal story-telling from news reports, get the facts or an anaconda might turn around and bite you in the ass.  Re Williams: I’m fairly certain that there is a contract settlement which was based on lawsuits devoted to (1) Maddox vs Unknown Defendant (as Represented by J. Fox DeMoissey, Sept. 29, 1993, Jefferson County Circuit Court, Louisville, KY, and (2) Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company, Inc. vs. Merrell Williams, M&S Enterprises, and John Does 1-10, Biloxi, MS Federal Court, February 14, 1995. Williams dropped his personal injury counterclaims, the first of which was created long before Scruggs started fiddliing with Brown and Williamson and violating a Court Order in Jefferson County, Ky. and his Defendant status in the Federal matter is really an interesting tell-all on personalities in Mississippi’s mud wrestling. If you’re both practicing attorneys, you may want to stand out of the way of rolling fireballs with which your apparent knowledge is about as good as midieval war games, and misrepresentations that are, at the very least, harmful and worthy of closer scrutiny.  By way of incidentals, why don’t you peak at those “arbitration fees” panels that Moore and Scruggs got from zig-zagging in the Lear[Citation] for 1 or 2 years?  Personal injury counterclaims form a basis of the Williams counterclaims, but there’s no public knowledge on that because it was a matter that started outside of the Mississippi jurisdiction.  Mike Moore’s Medicaid Lawsuit, aka, Mississippi Ex Rel vs Tobacco, et al, June, 1994, used private attorneys on contingency fee contracts - including Scruggs, Barrett, and Minor.  Scruggs was the lead “counsel” along with South Carolina’s Ron Motley.  In the format of the Master Settlement, no content of the text included Wigand or Williams. But it’s clear that there could have been no Lawsuit or Settlement without clearing the runway of lawsuits which involved the Mississippi troopers, including Moore. I believe Governor Christine Gregoire plucked the final tail feathers on Moore’s bird in 1998.  Moore flew the coup.  The “fee” business is sealed, but the question remains :did Moore take to the sky with Scruggs to haul in “arbitration fees” in various other States while he was Mississippi’s Attorney General?  Ask him.  You could ask the former AG.  Williams, Merrell. Jogando Com a Mafia do Tobacco. EDT, Brasillia, Brasil, (2007).  Let’s speculate, Lawdoctor, what do you think that Wigand got? Careful.  He’s a friend of that hotdog lawyer, Ron Motley and has a temper.

...correction note: “Moore and Scruggs zig-zagging, etc.” I have no knowledge that Moore zig-zagged, and so this is an alledged notion, not a fact...There’s no basis in fact and I withdraw the notion that “Moore zig-zagged in Dickey’s plane for anything at all...”

Emlyn, I’m not sure why I was dragged into this, although you appear more upset with lawdoc than me.  I was responding to lawdoc’s interpretation of an article, post, whatever, and correcting his error.

I really don’t care who got what, because I got none.

In my old, really smart-ass days, I would have made have a repartee to the anaconda comment, but I will bite my tongue.

After what’s happening to Scruggs and company, you really think Motley and Ness are wanting to have anyone in South Carolina start looking over their deal with a microscope?

The biggest mistake Scruggs made was to not let the sleeping dog of the tobacco fees lie, by getting caught up in other fights.  Maybe Motley and Ness are taking note of that and will decide to sit this one out. 

I guess it depends on whether there are any P.L. Blakes hiding in the woods in South Carolina, doesn’t it?

I think it was William Golding who actually came up with the line in the Watergate movie where Deep Throat keeps coming out of the shadows with that famous line, “Follow the jet vapors....” Motley?  No.  Ness?  In Scotland.  The rest is cats in a closed room full of rocking chairs.

Re question/Lawdoctor:  There’s rumor that from the very beginning of the Mississippi interest in tobacco, Scruggs was really under funded.  I think somebody said he was out to try to beat big tobacco, which at that time is thought to have an annual budget for law in USA at or around 60 m - and Scruggs’ war chest was only 5 m.  I know lawyer J.D.Lee came from the Castano group, which was funded by hundreds of lawyers, but they lost their class-action status.  When that happened, Motley pitched a program to pay the group if they pitched in Scruggs’ war chest.  They did.  Lee said he put in 100 k and is getting 10 m.  There are multiples of Lee’s who have to be paid, but I have no idea how the pay-off’s are structured to square things with the IRS, State lawyers, and special Assistant A.G.’s.  I also don’t think the A.G.’s were entirely idealistic in their firm picks, so everybody is PL Blake and nobody is PL Blake.  I think you can imagine how buckaneers managed to split their heists, sometimes burying the partnerships with the treasure in the sand.  It’s quite possible, since you ask, there are more PL Blake’s, and it’s equally probable that this is just another sort of RICO, with front and back door places for tobacco money to be sorted out.  The real tragedy is that Moore’s declaration may have been his political future as laid out by the very best of friendships - Dickie Scruggs who, at one time, would have considered all options of management to keep Moore’s hands clean.  I think all PL Blake’s, as you suggest, are out there.