Bootleggers and Baptists at the Super Bowl

This was the most inspiring commercial of yesterday's Super Bowl.  It shows Budweiser heroically overcoming the nanny state, bringing the people the Budweiser that they deserve. 



This is a link to a site showing how much money Budweiser has given to "Partnership For A Drug Free America", the liquor lobby's anti-marijuana political action committee.  They spend most of their time lobbying for marijuana prohibition. 

Here's a video of a guy discussing how it all works. 




Hit the "Bootleggers And Baptists" Post Label below for more info on the concept. 
(Budweiser sells a vice.  They are the bootleggers.  "Partnership For A Drug Free America" represents the Baptists.  Both sides need each other for support and funding.)   

Why Big Business loves Big Government

Just in case you've ever doubted how much Big Business LOVES Big Government, go here. 

Big Business loves government regulation.  Loves it, loves it, loves it.  Regulation is a glorious "barrier to entry" that helps keep out competitors. 

And the dude in the linked article wants to have his industry regulated for YOUR own good....

Jimmy Hoffa wants me to do the right thing and join his union to protect the environment

From The Daily Caller:

President Barack Obama’s administration is using new “environmental standards” to force independent owner-operator truckers into becoming part of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a union that gave more than $2 million to Democrats in the last two election cycles.

By increasing the number of “green” requirements truckers have to comply with in order to get into some major United States ports — like Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland — the Obama administration and the Environmental Protection Agency are helping push previously independent truckers into companies, which then makes them vulnerable to unionization or, in many cases, forced to join a union.

I love, love, love the word "green". 

Please allow me to explain the word "green" as it was used in Annus Horribilis 2010. 
There are no environmentally friendly trucks, skyscrapers, houses, shopping bags, cars, kitty litters, or restaurants.  But if you are willing to employ favored companies, support favored programs, or manufacture products using materials and processes that favor certain political constituencies, you can be awarded the "green" label.  

Purchasing a Prius, eating at a restaurant that has napkins and tablecloths made of recycled tampons, or eating Locavore bananas grown in a greenhouse with a bigger carbon footprint than Al Gore's house - none of these things do diddly squat to protect the environment.  The costs and environmental impacts of greenie production are so ridiculous and so expensive that they defeat the purpose.  "Green" is nothing but marketing with a light sprinkling of Ultra-Wholesome Big Brotherism.
It makes you feel better and creates more power for Uncle Sam.   

As these aren’t administrative laws from the EPA per se, trucks that don’t fit this new “green” standard, which is meeting at least 2007 EPA emissions levels, are still allowed to operate throughout the country. But each of the major port authorities won’t let them in if they don’t fit the new environmental regulations, which would force many independent truckers out of business if they resist since many truckers depend on business from the ports to survive.

Most of this silliness is centered around the Port Of Long Beach, California.  Getting a truck in and out of California now requires about as much hassle, paperwork and graft as getting a Chinese orphan out of Beijing. 

My employer, Jukt Micronics, recently opened a West Coast warehouse.  West Coast, West Coast, West Coast....what city did we choose?  L.A.?  San Francisco?  Sacramento?  San Diego?  

Nope.  Phoenix, Arizona.  My employers are not silly people, despite being educated at Baylor University.  Nobody in his right mind would open something in California under current conditions. 

Alex Cherin, an attorney who represents a trucker advocacy group opposed to these forced unionization attempts, told The Daily Caller the Teamsters have been trying to get independent truckers classified as employees of a company for years because “under federal labor law, they [the Teamsters] cannot unionize independent contractors.”

“They [the Teamsters] see this as their window of opportunity,” Cherin said in a phone interview. “They know that most drivers want to stay independent contractors to keep their freedom, but that many can’t afford these new ‘green trucks.’ They want to piggyback their agenda onto an environmental initiative.”

There is is again.  The Baptists And Bootleggers thing.  In this case, the Teamsters are the Bootleggers and the Environmentalists are the Baptists.  Here's an explanation:

The bootleggers like prohibition because it gets rid of competitors. But a politican who wants to listen to the bootleggers needs a more high-minded cause to sell to the public. The Baptists give the politicians cover with the argument that drink is from the devil—it leads to social unrest, unemployment, higher social costs and so on.

If you buy into the idea that carbon emissions are evil, then no one other organization emits more evil than the Teamsters.  But they're claiming to fight evil by keeping the independent truckers out of the ports. 

You gotta love it. 

Cherin said the Teamsters has been pushing unionization more and more lately, and it has “really heated up with the ‘green trucks’ program.” He said that the air in Southern California is cleaner as a result of the program, but that this is really a unionizing effort disguised in a “green” initiative.

Americans for Limited Government spokesman Rick Manning said this effort is definitely driven by labor unions, especially since the leader of the Teamsters, Jimmy Hoffa, Jr., is pushing it.

Aw that makes it all better, doesn't it?  When I think of "wholesome", "green", and "little Disney bluebirds flitting about my recycling bin", I can't help but think of the Hoffas, and I hope that Jimmy Senior is now composting nicely.   

Hoffa, Jr., the current president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and son of the infamously “disappeared” union boss Jimmy Hoffa, alluded to his real intent with the program while advocating on behalf of the new “green truck” rules in a Huffington Post blog.

“We want the trucking companies to buy and maintain clean new trucks,” Hoffa, Jr. wrote in March 2010.

Oh for God's sake.  Just because the demon spawn of Jimmy Hoffa wants me to buy new trucks doesn't mean I should have any obligation to do so.  Folks, I can get your crap delivered from Point A to Point B at less cost with the tractors I already have. 

And please spare me any of the "green" bullshit that they're using to justify these power grabs.  If the American trucking industry were to allow you to run out of, say, toilet paper for three days?  You would burn Al Gore at the stake, and not think twice about the environmental impact of the grease fire.  
One little product shortage is all it would take to end this entire farce.  Lord hasten the day.     

“We also want them to pay their truck drivers a fair wage and the employment taxes that go with it."

If I can find a driver willing to haul a load for the amount that I'm willing to pay, then that's a "fair wage".  I don't need the rent-seeking bastard of Jimmy Hoffa telling me what is and isn't right. 

The trucking companies would prefer the federal government protect them from those obligations.”

Who died and left Jimmy Hoffa in charge of my obligations?  Do you have an obligation to pay your yard service, your baby sitter, the guy who changes your oil, your grocery store, your drug dealer, etc. a "fair wage"?  Yeah.  You pay them as little as the market will bear.  That's the fair wage  When they want more, you start checking out competitors.  That's what people do.  That's what Jimmy Hoffa, Barack Obama, Joehn Boehner, The Pope, and Oprah do.   

These new “green trucks” cost more than $100,000 and, to meet the “green” requirements, truckers have to join companies and, by extension, the Teamsters union.

That is stretching it just a little.  Truckers don't "have to join companies".  Yet.  But to meet the massive regulatory burden it's very difficult for an independent trucker to make it these days.  Go here to learn about Uncle Sam's latest regulatory brain fart called CSA 2010.   This thing makes driving across town the equivalent of a genius level Sudoku puzzle. 

The government has had to delay implementation of CSA 2010 for at least a year because they can't get their computer systems to work properly. 

The trucking industry, however, will be expected to comply immediately when the government is ready.  Lots of independent truckers will give up and go work for Jimmy Hoffa.  After all, he's the one who is getting what he paid for. 

That's the end of my rant.  I feel better now. 

The pics of the kickbacks came from here.  The hostility toward unions came from working at with the union guys at trade shows here.   The Daily Caller's main page can be found here.  My hostility toward the Teamsters evolved slowly.  It would've happened quicker except for the influence of my friend Frank.  A couple of the other Teamsters at Frank's company require three attempts to back up to a toilet, much less a freight dock.   

Casino Jack - the worst movie ever made about a great story

I went to see the "Casino Jack" last night.  It's the new Kevin Spacey movie about the rise and fall of lobbyist Jack Abramoff. 

Jack Abramoff ?  Jack Abramoff ?  Why, I don't even know Abram....
Sorry about that.  Couldn't help it. 

I wanted to love this movie.  I wanted it to be greatness. 
Unfortunately, it's badly written, poorly edited, and horribly directed.  The director, George Hickenlooper, has done mostly documentaries up to this point.  Maybe that explains why he shovels in every tic, idiosyncrasy, and mannerism that his research uncovered. 
By the time you finish watching this thing, you'll know that Jack Abramoff worked out every day, walked around his office with dumbells, loved to quote from movies, covered his head on the Sabbath, wore a fedora the rest of the time, kept a bust of Ronald Reagan on his desk, ate kosher, and produced a couple of Dolph Lundgren movies.  But you'll have no idea what made him tick. 

Ok, enough of the minor league Roger Ebert nonsense. 

Here's what's interesting about the Jack Abramoff scandal.  This is from The Washington Post:

Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff and public relations consultant Michael Scanlon quietly worked with conservative religious activist Ralph Reed to help the state of Texas shut down an Indian tribe's casino in 2002, then the two quickly persuaded the tribe to pay $4.2 million to try to get Congress to reopen it.


Dozens of e-mails written by the three men and obtained by The Washington Post show how they built public support for then-Texas Attorney General John Cornyn's effort get the courts to close the Tigua tribe's Speaking Rock Casino in El Paso in late 2001 and early 2002. The e-mails also reveal what appears to be an effort on the part of Abramoff and Scanlon to then exploit the financial crisis they were helping to create for the tribe by securing both the multimillion-dollar fee and $300,000 in federal political contributions, which the tribe paid.

Ten days after the Tigua Indians' $60 million-a-year casino was shuttered in February 2002, Abramoff wrote a tribal representative that he would get Republicans in Congress to rectify the "gross indignity perpetuated by the Texas state authorities," assuring him that he had already lined up "a couple of Senators willing to ram this through," according to the e-mails.

What he did not reveal was that he and Scanlon had been paying Reed, an avowed foe of gambling, to encourage public support for Cornyn's effort to close two Indian casinos in Texas.

(People with a monopoly in an industry, especially a "vice" industry, have long utilized opponents of their industry to preserve their monopoly.  This is called the "Bootleggers And Baptists" phenomenon.  Bootleggers and Baptists are united in their opposition to legal alcohol sales, and both sides vote in favor of alcohol prohibition.  You can hit this link to read about illegal marijuana dealers tipping off the police about semi-legal medical marijuana dispensaries.  Bootleggers and Baptists - once you understand how it works, you'll see it everywhere.) 

Abramoff, one of Washington's powerhouse Republican lobbyists until his work came under scrutiny by law enforcement agencies this year, has long been close to Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition and now southern regional chairman of President Bush's reelection campaign. Both have political ties to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), as does Scanlon, who had served as his spokesman.

Here's a summary of the movie and the scandal....An Indian casino has a race-based gambling monopoly in a certain region. There are rumors that another tribe will also be given a casino license, cutting into the profits of casino #1. 
Casino #1 hires a lobbyist to block casino #2 from opening.  The lobbyist, who is damn good at what he does, hires Ralph Reed and The Christian Coalition to protest against The Gambling Menace, The Horrors Of Gaming, and the like. 
The lobbyist then turns around and takes money from Casino #2 and spreads some more of the wealth in Congress, this time as an encouragement for the regulators to examine and support the pro-gambling side of things. 
  
So.  If you assume that it's ok for our government to prevent me or anyone else from opening a casino, or if you assume that it's ok for our government to issue race-based casino licenses and withdraw them at will, and if you assume that government has a right to regulate private behavior....

If you know that Congressmen are bought and sold like East Lancaster crack whores, and if you are willing to tolerate this kind of whoremongering from military contractors, big business, the green energy/perpetual motion machine lobby, and unions...
Then what was so bad about Jack Abramoff ? 

And why would you ever trust government to properly regulate gambling, funeral homes, pharmaceuticals, or even rural stoplights?  Much less your healthcare? 

The Weekly Radley: Protectionism At Work

I saw this on Radley Balko's site.  I hope you can't read the fine print at the very bottom of the advertisement, the obligatory "this ad paid for by.....".  
But first, try to guess who paid for it !  Doesn't it look like something designed by a group of concerned citizens? 
Give up? 
Ok, think "Bootleggers Dressed As Baptists"
You can hit the label at the bottom of this post to see more "Bootleggers And Baptists" stuff. 

Ok, go here to see who paid for the ad. 
It wasn't a "Parents Concerned About Kids Gambling Online" group, was it? 
It almost never is. 
The Indian Casino monopoly opposes online gambling.  Memphis, Tennessee wine shops oppose grocery store wine sales.  California's recent failed marijuana legalization proposition was opposed by almost all marijuana growers.  The funny thing is the way they all try to posture as guardians of our virtue, when all they're doing is blocking potential competitors.   
Big Bidness loves a monopoly.  And the only way they can have it long-term is if the government helps them preserve it.

A rant about wine prohibition in Memphis grocery stores

During a recent Memphis vacation, I kept running across propaganda put out by the Tennessee Wine And Spirits Retailers Association and their sister monopolists at the Wine And Spirits Wholesalers Of Tennessee.

The TWSRA wants to keep wine out of Tennesse grocery stores. 

Why? 
Here's some ultra-wholesome boosterism from the WSWT site that tries to explain:

Our industry was created by the 21st amendment, which gives wholesalers the responsibility to foster the safe and responsible distribution of beverage alcohol in Tennessee.


Ours is one of the healthiest wholesaler trade associations in the entire country comprised of more members than any other state. This ensures that the selection of wine and spirits products available in Tennessee is far greater than most states. We are committed to preserving the integrity of our products and the climate in which they are sold.


The story of beverage alcohol distribution in Tennessee is both a lesson in history and a case study in the state's evolving business climate. We are proud of our heritage and take very seriously the duty we have been given by the state to ensure the safe and responsible distribution of our products. Here you will find a wealth of resources regarding Tennessee wholesalers, from our beginning with the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, to the role we play in today's competitive market.

The 21st Amendment is the one that ended alcohol prohibition, but allowed government to begin regulating the sale and distribution of alcohol.  In other words, the graft potential was transferred from the bootleggers to the legislatures.
In Fort Worth, Texas and other areas not suffering under Sharia law, you can go into a grocery store and purchase a bottle of wine. 
In Memphis, you can't.  It depends on the whims of the various legislatures.

So what excuse would anyone use to force shoppers to make multiple stops to pick up their bread and wine?
Get ready....you know what's coming....they make you run all over town because....IT CREATES JOBS !!!!

Here's Hank Cowles, writing for the Memphis Flyer:

More than one million jobs have vanished in America in the last sixty days, and the end is nowhere in sight. Closer to home, changing our state's current alcohol-sales laws to allow wine sales in grocery stores or other big retailers will not generate a single new job, but would likely throw several thousand of our fellow Tennesseans out of work.



The Tennessee Wine and Retailers Association estimates that between 2000 and 3000 jobs might be lost, while members of the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission estimate they would need to hire over 2000 compliance officers to oversee this expanded availability of wine!


Wine in these stores would be just another item feeding their bottom line without generating more sales tax, while the loss of 2000 jobs would have a serious multiplier effect on the state economy. Most of these people would end up on the states' unemployment rolls, further deflating Tennessee's' ability to help its citizens. (The Tennessee Unemployment Department recently notified most Tennessee employers that the unemployment tax they pay will be increased due to the high number of claims filed by Tennesseans who have already lost their jobs).

As of Saturday, December 4th, in the year of our lord 2010, it is illegal for wine to be transported by anyone other than wine store employees using teams of mules.  Consumers may not transport wine in their own vehicles.  The mule teams, staffed by members of the Teamsters Union (to be regulated by legislative oversight committees), will be charged with making all residential wine deliveries.
All wine shop customers must be carried through Tennessee liquor stores in sedan chairs and each customer will be charged with employing four Customer Carriers upon entering a liquor store.    
Cash registers are now illegal in Memphis wine shops.  Winesellers must do all of their accounting and bookkeeping in traditional ledgers.  A tax rebate will be available for those using an abacus.  

One other thing....both wholesaler websites claim that the Memphis wine selection would decline if grocery stores were allowed to sell wine, implying that the citizens of Memphis now have a variety of vino that would make Bacchus blush. 

Horsecrap.  In the ultra-competitive Fort Worth wine market, we have liquor stores whose contents could float a Memphis steamboat out of a dry dock.   

But I went to TWO different Memphis liquor stores that didn't have any Jim Beam Black Label.  Any Fort Worth store that ran out of JBBL would instantly be surrounded by an angry mob wielding torches and pitchforks. 
But in Memphis people don't know any better. 
The alcohol merchants of Memphis, thanks to the "Bootleggers And Baptists" phenomenon, have never had to compete.  They are allowed to get away with such shameful behavior because Tennessee citizens have no choice in where to buy any alcohol.  (Hit the "Bootleggers And Baptists" label below for an explanation of this behavior.)

Ok, one last point, not quite related to the topic at hand.  My employer, Jukt Micronics, has a factory/warehouse facility in Johnson County, Texas.  Johnson County has the most bewildering overlay of contradictory, Sharia-inspired, idiotic liquor laws that I've ever seen.  You can buy beer in some places, but not in others.  You can purchase wine in a few convenience stores, but not everywhere.  The Baptist Imams and Mullahs have worked hand-in-hand with the Bootleggers to create this monstrous web of confusion.  Who benefits?
The liquor store owners just outside the city limits or county lines. 

Who else benefits? 
Johnson County is now known as the Crystal Meth Capital Of North Texas. 
One adult male out of every ten is now on parole, probation, or is an involuntary guest of the state. 
I'm not saying that there's a cause and effect relationship here, but it seems that all this prohibition is very effective in "saving and creating" jobs for law enforcement, judges, parole officers, probation clerks, jailers, the private prison industry, drug testers, urine tasters, and nanny state stool-sniffers. 

That's all I've got this morning.  Hope you have a great day.  Please keep the wine-deprived citizens of Memphis in your prayers. 

Soli Deo GloriaThere. 

Driving You To Drink

Check this out, from a link provided by Jacob Sullum of Reason magazine:

These are the top contributors to the main group opposing marijuana legalization in California. 

The #1 contributor is SA Recycling.  Guess what they recyle? 
Metal cans. 

The #2 contributor? 
The California Beer & Beverage Distributors.

#3 is someone named Diane Lake.  If the Diane Lake is the person whose contributions are shown here, she has given a ton of money to various Republicans and Barack Obama.  Not that there's any difference between the two on this issue. 

Ms. Lake is followed by the Deputy Sheriffs and the Narcotics Agents, two groups who are concerned about job security (their own, not the people whose lives they destroy because of a victimless crime).

Late and $5000+ Contributions Received
NAME OF CONTRIBUTOR CITY STATE/ZIP
GEORGE ADAMS ANAHEIM CA / 92869
ID NUMBER EMPLOYER OCCUPATION
SA RECYCLING RECYCLING
AMOUNT TYPE TRANS. DATE FILED DATE TRANS #
$10,000.00 INITIAL 9/9/2010 9/9/2010 1517618-INC85

NAME OF CONTRIBUTOR CITY STATE/ZIP
CALIF BEER & BEVERAGE DISTRIBUTORS STATE ISSUES SACRAMENTO CA / 95814
ID NUMBER EMPLOYER OCCUPATION
1326337
AMOUNT TYPE TRANS. DATE FILED DATE TRANS #
$10,000.00 INITIAL 9/7/2010 9/7/2010 1517176-INC54

NAME OF CONTRIBUTOR CITY STATE/ZIP
DIANE LAKE BAKERSFIELD CA / 93309
ID NUMBER EMPLOYER OCCUPATION
N/A NONE
AMOUNT TYPE TRANS. DATE FILED DATE TRANS #
$5,000.00 INITIAL 9/7/2010 9/7/2010 1517176-INC53

NAME OF CONTRIBUTOR CITY STATE/ZIP
PLACER COUNTY DEPUTY SHERIFF'S ASSOCIATION PAC LOOMIS CA / 95650
ID NUMBER EMPLOYER OCCUPATION
890856
AMOUNT TYPE TRANS. DATE FILED DATE TRANS #
$1,000.00 INITIAL 9/1/2010 9/2/2010 1516741-INC52

NAME OF CONTRIBUTOR CITY STATE/ZIP
CALIF. NARCOTIC OFFICERS' ASSOC. SANTA CLARITA CA / 91355
ID NUMBER EMPLOYER OCCUPATION
AMOUNT TYPE TRANS. DATE FILED DATE TRANS #
$20,500.00 INITIAL 7/13/2010 7/13/2010 1500207-INC17

Here's Steve Fox, co-author of Marijuana Is Safer, on the surprising number of Bud Distributors (the drink, not the weed) opposing marijuana legalization:

Unless the beer distributors in California have suddenly developed a philosophical opposition to the use of intoxicating substances, the motivation behind this contribution is clear. Plain and simple, the alcohol industry is trying to kill the competition. They know that marijuana is less addictive, less toxic and less likely to be associated with violent behavior than alcohol. So they don't want adults to have the option of using marijuana legally instead of alcohol. Their mission is to drive people to drink.

Pic came from here 

Bootleggers And Baptists, part 3

In which Bruce Yandle explains his "Bootleggers and Baptists" concept of government regulation. 

Here's Reason magazine:

While serving as the Executive Director of the Federal Trade Commission during the Reagan years, Bruce Yandle developed a theoretical framework he called "bootleggers and Baptists" to help make sense of regulatory dynamics. As the old story goes, when Baptists lobby for dry Sundays, it's the bootleggers who benefit. Yandle's insight was to point out that "bootlegger and Baptist" coalitions are surprisingly common in US politics. Paul Feine sat down to talk with Yandle about modern day examples of "bootleggers and Baptists."



And of course Bruce Yandle teaches at George Mason University, home of the dynamic duo at Cafe Hayek.

Lord Oxburgh wants to be the J.R. Ewing of carbon capture

From The Times (U.K.):

Lord Oxburgh, the climate science peer, ‘has a conflict of interest’

A member of the House of Lords appointed to investigate the veracity of climate science has close links to businesses that stand to make billions of pounds from low-carbon technology.


Lord Oxburgh is to chair a scientific assessment panel that will examine the published science of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

The CRU has been accused of manipulating and suppressing data to overstate the dangers from climate change. Professor Phil Jones, its director, has stood down from his post while a separate inquiry, chaired by Sir Muir Russell, takes place into the leaking of e-mails sent by him and his colleagues.

Climate sceptics questioned whether Lord Oxburgh, chairman of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association and the wind energy company Falck Renewables, was truly independent because he led organisations that depended on climate change being seen as an urgent problem.

Andrew Montford, a climate-change sceptic who writes the widely-read Bishop Hill blog, said that Lord Oxburgh had a “direct financial interest in the outcome” of his inquiry.

Lord Oxburgh has said that he believes the need to tackle climate change will make capturing carbon from power plants “a worldwide industry of the same scale as the international oil industry today”.

A great case of hiring a fox to guard the henhouse. 
 
Isn't it funny how so many of the people clamoring for immediate and decisive action on this non-crisis are the ones who stand to make millions from it? 
 
Remember:  If Lord Oxtail can "tackle climate change" by forcing industry to purchase his voodoo machinery, he becomes the J.R. Ewing of carbon capture. 
 

Picture of J.R. Ewing from the Dallas TV program came from here. 

Bootleggers And Baptists, part 2

Look back here for an earlier post about Bootleggers and Baptists. 
Go here for another great example.  We must save the Everglades !  Or bail out U.S. Sugar.   

"The most important part of the (Bootleggers and Baptists) theory for me is not that politics makes strange bedfellows–it’s that special interests use the high-minded moral high ground folks to hide their theft."
                                             - Russ Roberts of Cafe Hayek

(Note to Nick in California....Is this why the government needs to hire expensive publicists?  Or do the politicians come up with this reasoning on their own?)

Bootleggers And Baptists

The guys over at Cafe Hayek are fond of an analogy called "Bootleggers And Baptists".
The best explanation I could find (in a hurry) was at the Marginal Revolution blog.  Here goes:

The bootleggers like prohibition because it gets rid of competitors. But a politican who wants to listen to the bootleggers (and preserve their business) needs a more high-minded cause to sell to the public. The Baptists give the politicians cover with the argument that drink is from the devil—it leads to social unrest, unemployment, higher social costs and so on. Same with Mexican trucks. Who can justify keeping out lower cost Mexican trucks just to keep the wages of Teamsters high?  Enter Public Citizen (a political watchdog group). This isn’t about greed. It’s about keeping American air clean.

This is one of the reasons why the insurance companies aren't wailing and slashing their collective wrists over Obamacare.  It's going to make it almost impossible for a new competitor to enter the market.  The insurance companies, in this case, are the bootleggers. 

This is why marijuana is still illegal.  The drug cartels are the bootleggers. 
This is why I can't go to the former Army medic down the street for prescription drugs.  The AMA fits the role of "bootlegger" nicely. 

Now go here.  Get back to me when you finish.  You can tell who the bootleggers are, right?   

It's for The Children.  It's for The Air.  It's for Working Families.  Naaaaaaw.  It's almost always for The Bootleggers. 
Don't be fooled again.