Chapter VIII: Where's the Beef?
1020hrs, 7 June 2013, Washington DC, United States.
"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." Alexis de Tocqueville
"You can lead a man to Congress, but you can't make him think." Milton Berle.
"This session of the United States House Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry is now in order."
The Chairman of the subcommittee, Representative Charles O'Conner (D-Illinois, 9th District), banged the gavel and sighed loudly. A sixty-something, grey haired, pot-belled single Irish-American, he was in the twilight of his career; after thirty two years (that's sixteen elections!) of service, he was getting tired of the political process. He was good for helping the freshman representatives get adjusted to the inner workings of Congress, and good for getting a few favors here and there but most of the time now he was becoming increasingly isolated as party leadership wanted someone else to run the show. Times were changing, and they wanted a more "hip" look to it, and O'Conner was not the new image they wanted. So here he was, stuck in a bullshit (figuratively and literally speaking) subcommittee, talking about egg production, birthing rate of sows, humane slaughter methods, wider cages for chickens, what type of feed they got, who produced it...this was a world apart from when he sat on the famous Ways and Means Committee in the 1990s. And the most stupid thing about it? He was from a district that was completely urban and had nothing to do with Agriculture. This was a do nothing position for a do nothing congressman.
"I would now like to recognize ranking member Jorge Trevino for his opening remarks," O'Conner said, distractively. He took a glance around the room; despite the boring name of the subcommittee, it was packed full of enterprising people who wanted to see their government in action, no matter how trivial or petty it might seem.
"Thank you Chairman O'Conner. I also thank the witnesses who have taken time out your busy schedules to come and testify here. As you all are aware, the continued rise in corn prices has affected the feed for cattle, thereby raising the price of beef in the last four months."
The ranking member's voice blurred into the background as Charles drifted off to his glory days on power committees. Ways and Means. Armed Services. Energy and Commerce. Ethics. Those were the days.
"I would like to call our first witness to the stand, Mr. Mark Delagarza."
This is going to be a long, long, long day. Where is my whisky flask when I need it?
"Thank you Mr. Chairman, Representative Trevino. I represent the Beef and Cattle Association, and over the last couple of months, we have watched with concern over…"
Two hours later, the subcommittee adjourned for lunch.
About fucking time, gotta get out of here and back to the office. Too bad Madam's Organ Bar doesn't open until later today.
"Representative O'Conner." A female's voice snapped him out of his thoughts.
"Representative Clemens," he replied gruffly.
Georgia Clemens (R-Georgia, 5th District and yes, having the same name of the state was the source of many jokes), was one of the freshmen representatives elected in the 2012 election. She was a very new member on the political scene in general, not counting her surprise announcement to run for Congress. Born in a black, working class neighborhood, her father always told her that she could do great things. After getting an undergrad at Winston-Salem in Political Science, she went to law school and at the University of Virginia and worked at a couple of law firms doing research before returning home and holding some minor elected offices before running for Congress.
"I was wondering if we could take lunch together. Like last week?"
O'Conner signed. "Jesus, you newbies don't let up. Plus, I'm a Democrat, and you know how your side feels about Democrats these days." He turned away but Georgia grabbed his arm.
"Oh come on, that's never stopped you in the past. I think you like it."
O'Conner grunted at that statement, but she was right. He was one of the few old school Democrats like in days gone past, conservative (yes, there is such a thing) but not too conservative (he never cared for those limousine liberals anyway), for big government, but just big enough to take a slice of the pie and run with it. Social issues he couldn't care about at all. Abortion, contraception, whatever. That was for people wanted controversy with a quick and easy voter turnout. All talk and no action.
"Dammit. Fine. How does Five Guys sound?"
Georgia smiled. "Only if you can chauffeur us there."
"Deal."
Ten minutes later, they were at the only Five Guys burger joint in town, at 1825 I Street Northwest.
Charles got the Bacon Cheeseburger with A1 sauce, grilled onions, lettuce, and mayo while Georgia got the little burger with mustard, lettuce and nothing else. Not even fries or a drink.
"That is the most pathetic meal I have ever seen anyone eat," O'Conner said of her meal. He took a bite of his burger, spewing juices everywhere.
"Well, I try to watch what I eat," Georgia replied. "Didn't you hear about the guy, ah, what was his name today…Bob Evers, that's it. Anyway, he was going on about the Nakanishi Group."
"Fucking Japs." O'Conner didn't really care about political correctness most of the time. "My daddy fought against them at Tarawa. Wounded his ass so bad he couldn't walk for months."
Georgia politely ignored the casual racism and continued on.
"Well, he complained to us that the Nakanishi group was trying to buy up all his land. When he refused, they bought out the company he was contracting with and used that to get to his land."
"Can't trust the slanty-eyed suckers." He remembered the 1980's when Japan seemed to be taking over everything, flooding the market with their high-quality cars and appliances. The phones in his office never stopped ringing with the concerns of his constituents, worried that they would lose their jobs or worse, have to work for a Japanese boss. Now the phones rang again, this time about China.
Again, Georgia ignored that comment. "So the North America arm of the Nakanishi group has been popping up a lot in our hearings, buying up lots of land and such. I got to thinking, why do they need all that land?"
"Uh-huh," mumbled O'Conner, taking another bite of hamburger.
"So I contacted their PR office and the response I got was that they are planning to expand their company and get into the food industry here in the US."
That got O'Conner's attention. "Hold on, didn't you say that they were buying up agricultural land? I don't know much about that Jap company, but that seems like very odd maneuver for a tech company."
"Exactly. So…" She pulled out some paper from her purse. "I put this together."
Wiping his hands on some napkins, O'Conner put on his reading glasses and looked at the documents.
"So, they buy all this agricultural land, but aren't in agro-business. Huh, it says here that they've bought up plots of land in Hawaii, California, Utah, Minnesota, Iowa, and Texas. They also own companies that specialize in construction, transportation, and...three beef processing plants?
"Uh-huh. Beef processing plants."
"So it says here that they bought a shipping company that specializes in cold-storage shipping. Man, what are these guys up to? And it also says that they own a Japanese farm that specializes in Kobe beef." He flipped the page.
"Keep reading."
He looked back down at the document. "But the farm hasn't had cows in, years. They were sold off at auction to another company." There was a table on the side that showed how many tons of Kobe beef they exported to the US. Rather than decreasing, it actually went up. The shipping rate increased to match the exports. All this information was making O'Conner's head spin…or maybe it was just his heart acting up again.
"Stuff keeps coming here from that farm marked as 'beef.' It passes the USDA stuff and everything."
"Why do you think that is?" Georgia was simply curious about how these things worked.
"Where did you get this?" he asked.
"Well, I compiled it from customs information, Nakanishi's published reports, some other companies in the US that they bought out, stuff like that. The agriculture and shipping stuff was buried in like the 500th page of their annual report."
O'Conner shrugged. "They could just get their beef from other companies and ship it here to be processed."
"I thought that too, but they haven't done business with anybody like that in Japan. Those big businesses, they're called…uh, kai…key…kayraitsu (she butchered the pronunciation), right. Most of them have their hands in some sort of food industry, but this is just peanuts compared to them. This is the only agricultural operation they have their hands in. Everything they have is tech or finance related."
O'Conner leaned back in his chair. "So, a tech and finance company wants in on the food industry, but sells their only remaining cattle off, and somehow keeps shipping beef here using their shell company. And they don't do business with any other agro-business corporations."
Georgia nodded. "Well, as of now, they're starting business with other big food companies here." She continued looking from her notes. "Their CEO is money obsessed. He closes down an operation if it doesn't generate profit within a certain amount of time. This type of operation, to get involved in where margins are already low enough to begin with, competing with other companies and nations that have way more experience in these matters, to ship expensive beef across the Pacific and then continue shipments after closing up shop doesn't make any sense. They might do it for other things, like tech or even heavy industry stuff, but why buy out other companies wholesale when you can just get some other company to ship it for you at a cheaper price?"
This was very interesting news indeed. For the first time in months, Charles O'Conner had a sense of purpose again, even if it turned out to be nothing.
"Where is the closest beef processing plant that they own?"
Georgia pulled out some notes from her purse. "Um, Hawkings' Processing Plant, in Orange, Virginia of all places."
"That's about a two-hour drive, right? Close enough. I think it's time for a field trip."
"On taxpayers' money?" Georgia was wary of spending her constituents' money on something that might turn out to be nothing.
"It's official, no harm done."
"What about the Secret Service? Or the Capitol Police?" Georgia did have a point there, but…
"The Secret Service doesn't really have jurisdiction in protecting us," O'Conner said. "Even after the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, they have been kind of slow to put security of any kind us. The Capitol police has the rest of DC to worry about, and they're not going to baby a couple of Reps. Plus if they did, they don't have the personnel to do so. I'll call someone and let them know we're going out but other than that, we're on our own."
Georgia was seemed convinced by that. "Well then, let's do this."
Agent Robert Greyson was the Secret Service agent on duty that day at the VP residence (Number One Observatory Circle). They had just had to corral him into the house for now, under orders from the president because he had been drunk. Again. In the middle of the day. Thankfully he didn't have anything important scheduled so all his appointments were cancelled. Greyson's phone in his pocket started to ring. He looked at the number, and recognizing it, picked up.
"Agent Greyson speaking."
"Hey Bob, it's me! Charles!"
Greyson sighed. "No, I'm not free to go to the bar today."
"It's not that."
"Then what is it?" Greyson was getting very annoyed. Representative O'Conner was a good man, but really annoying at times. "Please, I'm on duty and I need to get back to work."
"Oh come on, I know you're guarding the VP and he's drunk off his ass again, so just pay attention for a second, at least for the person who helped you get this job."
Greyson dropped his head in disgust. Thanks for reminding me.
"What do you want?"
"Well, another rep and I are going up to visit a place for our subcommittee, a beef processing plant or something. Just wanted to let you know we're heading out there, and if we run into any trouble, I'll give you a call."
"That's it?" You called me for this?
"That's it."
"Okay, whatever. Sure thing." That is the most stupid request I have ever heard him ask for.
"Thanks a million Bob!"
"You're welcome, Charles."
O'Conner hung up the phone. Christ, Greyson thought. This is the guy who helped me get into the Secret Service? What was I thinking? Oh well.
He went back to staring at the bland wallpaper at the wall, waiting for the VP to eventually sober up.