Monday, January 16, 2006

Belleville News-Democrat: Secret Documents Link Big Tobacco to Medical Society

A story by the Belleville News-Democrat's Mike Fitzgerald tells the interwoven tale of Tobacco giant Phillip Morris and physicians, including the Illinois State Medical Society.

According to Fitzgerald, documents released as part of the nationwide tobacco settlement link Phillip Morris to the Illinois Civil Justice League (ICJL) all the way back to the mid-90's.

The Illinois State Medical Society is also a member of the ICJL, and in 2004 ginned up grassroots support for Supreme Court candidate Lloyd Karmeier. Karmeier recently repaid the ICJL by voting down the landmark $10 billion consumer fraud verdict against Phillip Morris's parent company, Altria.

You with me so far? Good, because there's more.

The story details how doctors have been pawns of the tobacco companies going back to 1975. More recently, Big Tobacco recruited the California State Medical Society in an unsuccessful effort to curtail California's anti-smoking efforts.

And while Altria says that its longstanding financial support to the ICJL comes without "strings attached", she omits mention of key ties further linking Altria to Justice Karmeier.

According to the Illinois State Board of Elections website, the Illinois Chamber of Commerce and Illinois Chamber of Commerce made a $55,000 radio buy in direct support to Lloyd Karmeier, roughly 20 radio stations and 8 radio networks reported October 18th.

Where did the Illinois Chamber come up with all the money?

According to the State Board of Elections, Phillip Morris's Altria kicked $10,000 to the Illinois Chamber PAC just days earlier.

Other major out-of-state coporations contributing to the Illinois Chamber's political efforts include: Dow Chemical Company, Enterprise Rent-a-Car, Ford, GE, International Paper, Mass Mutual, Mid-America Energy, Sara Lee, UPS, Unicare Insurance, Burlington Northern and Union Pacific.

Dow Chemical is currently in court in Madison County, as well as Burlington Northern and Union Pacific, according to the Madison Record.

Enterprise Rent-a-Car was named in a wrongful death case being appealed at the time of the election that could soon land up in the Supreme Court.

You can bet there's more.

11 comments:

Bill Baar 8:23 AM  

I remember the Doctor on the Chesterfield ads telling you smoking was good for you.

What's the point here YDD?

We should ignore ISMS endoresement of All Kids because they're in cahoots with Darth Vadar i.e. the tobacco lobby?

If you want advice on tort reform isn't someone who's had their pants sued off them a good one to turn to for adice?

PS What's Illinois done with it's share of the tobacco settlement by the way?

Extreme Wisdom 8:38 AM  

YDD,

Dittos to Bill. This is hardly a huge revelation.

Judges all over the Country have their campaigns bought and paid for by their former colleagues on the trial bar, and we're supposed to get all huffed up about Altria supporting Karmier through ICLJ?

If your point is that these ties should be public prior or during a campaign, I suppose I'd agree with you.

Otherwise, it's just your monied interests (trial lawyers, corrupt education bureaucracy, Race-baiting Indentity Politics Pigs, etc.) versus our monied interests (Insurance Cos., Tobacco Companies, Religious Right, etc.).

Relax. You guys still have the tax funded partronage army. We promise to win just enough of the battles to keep the economy afloat so you can keep extracting money from us.

Remember, true parasites live in harmony with their hosts.

Anonymous,  9:26 AM  

Hey, of course this is important, YDD posted....and we all know how in love with his posting and comments he is.


Cheers

Anonymous,  10:35 AM  

"We promise to win just enough of the battles to keep the economy afloat so you can keep extracting money from us."

Hardy-har-flipping-har.

Tell us professor again about rising tides lifting all boats and reaganomics and deficit spending...please please...

grand old partisan 1:07 PM  

Anon 9:26, get a life.

YDD – First and foremost, are you implying that there were “strings attached” to the ICJL’s contribution to Karmeier? That is a pretty serious charge to make against a state Supreme Court Justice….I hope you have something to back it up.

Your post brings up an important thing to remember during this current climate of scandal: PAC’s, corporations & interest groups (both liberal and conservative) typically give financial support to candidates who agree with them already. In this case, given his history and apparent philosophy on the bench, Karmeier was probably going to vote down that decision anyway. The ICJL knew that, and so they supported his candidacy. I think you’d have a hard time proving that their contribution factored into his vote on the bench….but, as I said above, you better at least try to prove it if you are going to imply it.

As for all the contributions by corporations….your choice of words is telling: “Other major out-of-state coporations contributing to the Illinois Chamber's political efforts include….” You admit that those corporations were donating to the Chamber’s political efforts, not specifically or exclusvely for the purpose of the Supereme Court race, which is good. But I’m not sure why you feel the need to say “out-of-state.” All of those coporations may be headquartered somewhere else, but they do significant business in Illinois, and this employ citizens of the state and pay taxes in some way to the state coffers. So I think they have every right to become involved politically here.

In regards to those companies potentially having cases before the court and being indirectly involved in a campaign for a seat on the court, you may have a point that it doesn’t look good. But, what about all the money that the trial lawyers’ lobby gave in that race? If Maag’s had won, and he tipped the Court in favor of settlements that benefited trial lawyers, would you be making the same sort of insidious implications about him “repaying” his financial backers?

Anonymous,  4:26 PM  

Got get those evil GOPers YDD....they're everywhere, just waiting for you and the Democrats to win back the hearts and minds of americans.....

Yellow Dog Democrat 5:03 PM  

I think most doctors would be surprised to find out that they are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the tobacco industry.

It's like finding out that your contributions to the Urban League are being used to advance the cause of the Klu Klux Klan.

And Extreme Wisdom, whose the parasite and whose the host? After all, you can have a host without a parasite, but not visa-versa, and last time I checked, people were baking bread thousands of years before there was a company named General Mills with a multi-million dollar CEO.

You probably think the slave was a parasite on the plantation owner.

And GOP -- It is the argument of these same out-of-state corporations that they don't do significant business here -- have no legal nexus -- and therefore shouldn't be sued under Illinois law.

I always distinguish between out-of-state corporations because their motivations are most suspect -- for the same reason we don't allow foreign nationals to contribute to our federal elections, even though Rupert Murdoch does significant business here, etc., etc.

Phillip Morris knows this, and that's why they wrote their check to the Chamber instead of just buying the ads themselves. Of course, then the voters of Southern Illinois wou have known the ads for Karmeier were paid for by Big Tobacco, which would have presented a problem among Christian voters.

You guys are a riot -- defending a behavior in your own party that you would have lambasted if done by Democrats, and your only defense is "Democrats do it (or something similar) too". If you really mean everything you say about ethics in your posts about Blagojevich and the Democrats, you should demand more from your own party.

grand old partisan 5:13 PM  

Yellow Dog, in regards to the last paragraph of your 5:03 post, I plead guilty as charged...you are absolutely right. But (i know, there's always a but!) "defending a behavior in your own party that you would have lambasted if done by" the other is hardly a tactic exclusive to me or the Republican Party. I know you know that. I'd love to hear your admit it!

Also, if you really think that these sort of contributions in judicial cases are wrong, why are you not calling upon your fellow Democrats in Springfield to close the loop-holes instead of just attacking corporations for doing something that is allowed under the current laws?

Anonymous,  9:22 PM  

worry about your own party YDD, you have enough trouble. Hypocrit.

Extreme Wisdom 9:38 PM  

YDD asked:

...who's the parasite and who's the host? After all, you can have a host without a parasite, but not visa-versa, and last time I checked, people were baking bread thousands of years before there was a company named General Mills with a multi-million dollar CEO.

My response:

A fair point. Not to get to complex here, but we are all a little parasitic and all hosts to some degree.

Though I don't subscribe to leftist ideas of limiting CEO pay (they did that in 1993, and that gave us the stock option scams), I admit to being embarrassed and angry about the executive class getting huge bonuses while bankrupting companies.

If some of you lefties could set aside your partisan rancor, you'd notice that quite a few of us Republicans are upset over the corruption on our side of the aisle.

While your point about some of us 'defending behavior in our party' is accurate against some of us, it is not accurate against all of us.

Let's make a deal. Let's both do our best to clean up the slime in each of our parties.

You guys elect Eisendrath and we'll elect anybody but Topinka, and Illinois will be a little bit cleaner for it.

Each of us saying "you first" isn't a solution.

Bill Baar 10:03 PM  

Republicans have become the party of Sams Club Shoppers. I don't agree with everything Ross Douthat & Reihan Salam suggest here but I have more faith in Republican creativity on social policy then anything will see from the left.

I saw Ira Magaziner speak once to an audience of Health Care Execs when he was working in secret with Hillary on the plan. I could see old style Liberalism dying right there in the room with this odd evasive man not making any sense.

Anyways, I'd like to see some of the Republican candidates for Gov pick up on some of the ideas here..especially the focus on family as economic unit and key raising incomes and building wealth.

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