"The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants" - Albert Camus

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Fox Guarding the Hen House: Trial Lawyer Who Repeatedly Sued Food Companies Now Regulating Them

Mississippi native J. Dudley Butler is a notorious plaintiff’s attorney who has filed numerous lawsuits against poultry companies alleging unfair marketing and procurement practices.

Before his nomination by President Obama as Administrator of the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyard Administration (GIPSA) – an agency charged with monitoring the marketing of livestock, poultry, meat and other ag products and ensuring healthy competition — he was an attorney in the Butler Farm and Ranch Law Group in Canton, Mississippi and well-known to the meat and poultry industry. He was one of the “Johnnie Cochrans” of ag law: “Got a chicken? Got a case.”

His appointment as GIPSA Administrator was hailed by the populist group R-CALF USA (Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America), where he was previously a member, and by the Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM), which he helped to found. While Butler’s legal efforts to bring Packers and Stockyards Act cases against poultry companies failed, his nomination as GIPSA administrator made R-CALF and friends realize they had hit pay-dirt: The friendly lawyer who donated a saddle to their 2009 Convention fundraising auction now might be able to alter the very rules that had been an obstacle to success in court.

You get the government you vote for.  The Chicago machine is now the D.C. machine.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It doesn't feel so good, having the shoe on the other foot. Deal with it.