Sholom Rubashkin, who was recently found guilty of 86 charges related to money laundering and fraud in connection with the raid, was set to go back on trial Dec. 2 in Sioux Falls, S.D. on the immigration offenses.

The order for dismissal by Reade follows a request by federal prosecutors filed early Thursday morning.

According to the government’s calculation of the sentencing guidelines, due in large part to the amount of loss associated with defendant’s fraud and false statement convictions, any convictions with regard to Counts 1 through 72 would be entirely eclipsed by defendant’s recommended guideline sentence on the counts for which he has already been convicted. This is not to minimize the importance of those counts, but at least for the purposes of the advisory sentencing guideline range, any convictions on Counts 1 through 72 would have no impact upon defendant’s sentence. However, any evidence of immigration violations would be relevant conduct that the Court could consider at sentencing even without a second trial.

In the government’s estimation, now that defendant has been convicted on the most serious offenses charged in the pending indictment (in terms of potential penalties), and given that a jury has determined defendant committed crimes by making false statements about the harboring of undocumented aliens at Agriprocessors, Inc., and his knowledge of undocumented workers at Agriprocessors, Inc., dismissal without prejudice of Counts 1 through 72 and the forfeiture allegation is the most appropriate and efficient manner in which to proceed in this case. Dismissal will avoid an extended and expensive trial, conserve limited judicial and prosecutorial resources, and lessen the inconvenience to witnesses. The public interest has been substantially served because of the convictions and jury findings noted above. The government asks that such dismissal be without prejudice so criminal charges and the forfeiture allegation could be reinitiated based upon a change in circumstances or a reevaluation of present
circumstances.

According to documents filed with the court, Rubashkin’s legal team had no objection to dismissal of the charges.

Prosecutors also noted in their motion to dismiss that the current financial condition of Agriprocessors, Inc. as a company “and the fact that it is an empty shell” were justifiable reasons for not pursuing possible forfeiture charges.

Rubashkin, 50, and other senior members of the Agriprocessors management and executive team still face a state trail, currently scheduled to begin next spring, on alleged violation of child labor laws.

Currently, Rubashkin is being held by federal authorities, pending a decision in a bail hearing held Wednesday.

Today, Grassley all but eliminated the possibility that he would support such a plan, warning that it would be the first step toward a health care system controlled entirely by the government.

From a speech today on the Senate floor:

[S]ome say that we can avoid these [payment] problems by putting the government-run plan on a level playing field with private insurers. They say Congress could setup a system so that the government-run health insurance plan has to follow the same rules as private insurers. They say it would have to pay the same rates, form networks and be independently solvent. So my question is this – when this new government-run health insurance plans starts to cost too much, is Congress going to start breaking its promises? Will it change the rules? [...]

[M]aybe at first Congress repeals the requirement that the government-run plan has to form a network. Next, Congress might allow the government plan to start paying lower rates than private insurers – just like Medicare and Medicaid. At that point, Congress might let the government-run plan dip into the treasury from time to time to keep the government plan solvent. This would increase government costs for everyone.

As the government takes more and more control over the plan, providers would get paid less and taxpayers would end up paying more. Rates for the government-run health insurance plan would be lower than private insurers because the government can impose lower rates by law – also known as price-fixing. This is a common talking point for supporters of the government run plan. They say the government can use its influence to lower costs. But as the government cuts payments to providers, costs will go up for everyone in the private market.

Slowly but surely the government plan would take over the market. Eventually, all the promises about creating a level playing field have been broken, and we would be left with a single-payer, government-run health insurance program. The simple truth is supporters of a government plan absolutely intend for this to be the outcome.

The question is, can Grassley convince Baucus of the same thing?

Mike Lillis covers Congress for the Washington Independent, a Center for Independent Media site.

Time may not have necessarily healed all wounds in Postville following last year’s massive federal immigration raid, but it has dulled the pain enough for demonstrators to approach immigration with a considered thoughtfulness not seen previously.

“The overall feel of this rally was so different than the one in July,” said Sister Mary McCauley as she reflected on the differences between Postville’s one-year anniversary observance held Tuesday and the much larger demonstration and march held last summer. “What I felt today was a specific focus and call for comprehensive immigration reform. In July everything was so raw — there was a lot of anger being expressed.”

McCauley, who officially retired as the pastoral administrator for the region that includes St. Bridget’s Catholic Church in Postville, is one of the people who have held hands, prayed and worked tirelessly in the months following the massive immigration raid at Agriprocessors that ended with 389 mostly Hispanic laborers in federal custody and charged criminally.

Sister Mary McCauley

“We are aware of some of the pain, suffering and injustice that you experienced in your home country and also upon arriving in the United States,” McCauley said to the immigrants who gathered at the church for a prayer vigil on Tuesday evening. “For any pain, suffering or injustice that we as individuals, our Postville community, our government or any of our citizens may have caused, we ask your forgiveness.”

Following McCauley’s comments, the roughly 700 people assembled at the church lined up on the street outside. Compared to last summer, there were far fewer signs held by participants, and most were carried primarily for group identification. While the walkers were not silent, there was no deliberate effort made to organize specific chants.

The group walked through a residential area, with a clear sense of purpose but little outward anger. They met no resistance, save a single comment yelled through a resident’s open window. Upon arriving at the Agriprocessors plant’s property line, no one seemed to want a confrontation. Instead, four men of faith climbed into the back of a waiting truck, grabbed nearby megaphones and offered a blessing.

“Confident of [God's] constant presence, we ask [his] blessing on this plant,” said Rabbi Morris Allen, who drove in from St. Paul, Minn. “Since its opening in 1987, many have labored to produce nourishing food. We ask your blessing on all who have worked here, who are working here, or may work here in the future. May they labor in the atmosphere of peace, justice and safety.”

Even before the blessing could be translated into Spanish, the marchers applauded to signal approval of the sentiments expressed.

“I dreaded this day for two weeks, but then it dawned on me a few days ago that this day was really just going to be like any other,” said Paul Rael, Hispanic lay-minister at St. Bridget’s. “This was a day to continue our theme of July 27, advocating for just practices in the work place, family solidarity and comprehensive immigration reform. We also had another opportunity to let the story out of our people. Those stories need to be told, known and repeated.”

And, they were. During the prayer vigil, two immigrants, one male and one female, provided compelling narratives of their journey into the U.S. and what they found upon arrival.

Sandra Rybachek of Madison, Wis., and Jorge Mario Perez of Postville hold a Guatemalan flag in front of St. Bridget's Church in Postville on Tuesday.

“Today was a day of sadness because we stood in solidarity with people who have lived in pain,” McCauley said. “I felt great heartache, but I also felt great hope at the number of people who were here. One of our Mexican women walked with me and expressed what a great day it was. She had tears of joy.

“But until we can get our citizens to call up on their congresspersons and senators, and until we can get our political leaders here in Postville and seeing the pain of the people, then only will immigration reform become a priority. What we have to do is move it from Postville and what we’ve witnessed today and into the global world.”

Although no members of the Iowa congressional delegation personally came to Postville for the one-year anniversary, representatives were sent from the offices of U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin and Rep. Bruce Braley, both Democrats. Official statements were distributed by Rep. Tom Latham, a Republican, as well as Braley and Harkin. U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, also a Republican, wrote a letter to McCauley indicating his regrets and offering “best wishes for a memorable afternoon.” Iowa Gov. Chet Culver and Lt. Gov. Patty Judge did not acknowledge the anniversary.

“I want to tell the press here that reports of our death are premature,” Biden said. “I promise you that if you stand up for Joe Biden tomorrow night, there are going to be scores of people standing up with you.”

Biden was introduced by Atul Nakhasi, a 20-year-old Univeristy of Iowa junior, president of the UI Democrats and the recipient of the Press-Citizen’s person-of-the-year award. “Over the last year, I’ve had the great honor of introducing Sen. Clinton, Sen. Obama, and Sen. Edwards,” Nakhaski said. “And now I am here to do one more introduction at one last event, saving the best for last. Sen. Biden and his campaign may not have the most money and celebrities, but he doesn’t need it. Our votes cannot be bought by money or celebrity; that’s not how Iowa works.”Biden was also quick to remind caucusgoers that the election is not just about experience. “If that was the case, then I win. It’s over,” Biden asserted. “And it’s not really about change, it’s about action.” Biden discussed some of his accomplishments as a senator, including the recent passing of his Iran exit strategy and the Violence Against Women Act that he authored and fought for until it passed after an eight-year battle.

But it was Biden’s closing argument as to why voters should caucus for him on Thursday that sealed the deal for a number of caucus-goers in the room, prompting some of them to switch their allegiance to Biden at the eleventh hour. Iowa City resident Tim Taffe was one such convert. He had been going back and fourth between Edwards and Obama for a while, but now plans on caucusing for Biden, and Edwards will be his second choice if he’s not viable. “It was Biden’s closing argument that sold me,” Taffe said. “I mean, who else that is running right now could we entrust to take over tomorrow?”

Biden set the audience by telling them how he had been asked by the national press the day before Christmas what his closing argument was going to be, and he took the audience back to 1968, when he took a job as a public defender in Delaware. He compared the Iowa caucuses to standing in front of the jury, wherein Iowans, like a presiding jury, would have to deliberate about who they thought would be the best candidate to serve as president of the United States.

“I want you to close your eyes and think of the person you’ve decided to support and ask yourself the following questions,” Biden said. “Assume that person was president right now. What degree of confidence do you have, as good as that person may be, that he or she has the confidence to end the war in Iraq tomorrow? Has the confidence to deal with the spiraling crisis in Pakistan? Who do you think, tomorrow, is fundamentally prepared to make these decisions?”

“Secondly, is your candidate capable of standing in the political ring of the general election with John McCain and capable to debate foreign policy, national security and dealing with our troops?” Biden continued. “Who will the press give equal standing to? Who will walk into that contest and be ready?”

“Who will be able to stand in front of Rudy Giuliani and debate terrorism with him? I’ve forgotten more about it than he knows,” Biden quipped.

“Then there’s Huckabee. Is your choice prepared to go toe-to-toe and strip away the phony assertions of the religious and moralizing right as to why they possess the values of America?” Biden asked. “Ladies and gentlemen, I can hardly wait for that debate.”

“Tell me where in the gospel that it says the Lord condones waterboarding. Tell me where in the gospel that it says it’s a higher value to provide $85 billion in tax cuts to people who earn an average income of $1.4 million, and not insure our children.”

Biden concluded: “Ladies and gentlemen, these are the moral values that I can’t wait to debate. Thank you very much.”

Biden’s closing argument made instant converts out of Iowa City residents Jenifer Angerer and Meg Corbin, both of whom had been leaning toward Sen. Chris Dodd before the night had begun. “Coming into the night I was a Dodd supporter, namely because my husband is a firefighter,” said Corbin, a junior high teacher in Coralville. Dodd was endorsed by the International Association of Fire Fighters. “But after tonight, I’m leaning toward Biden. He has such an impressive foreign policy record, and we need somebody in the office like him to deal with all of the global crises.”

“I was leaning towards Dodd and possibly Edwards before tonight, but I hadn’t heard Joe Biden speak yet,” Angerer said. “He definitely sold me, namely because of all the damage that’s been done internationally over the past seven years. It needs to be mended immediately, and I think Joe Biden is the candidate that can do that starting tomorrow.”

Then there is Shawn Noble, who told the Iowa Independent at an Obama event in Coralville earlier in the day that he was planning on caucusing for Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and would go to Obama if he wasn’t viable. Noble changed his mind after hearing Biden speak. “He was very impressive. I think I’m going to caucus for Biden now instead of Kucinich,” Noble said. “But I’m still sticking to Obama as my backup plan.”

Grove declined to say which candidates had the best YouTube profiles, but said that “the mere fact that candidates are on YouTube” means that campaigns are changing “to get their message out and to interact with voters in the 21^st century.”

Every announced candidate has a YouTube account, except for former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson. It is somewhat difficult to gauge users' interest in the candidates. Each candidate channel or profile provides the number of subscribers, channel views and videos watched. A subscriber is a user who has signed up to receive videos whenever the candidate uploads a new video; subscribing signifies some level of commitment to and interest in the candidate.

At the time of writing, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama had 6,566 subscribers, the most of any Democratic candidate, followed by New York Sen. Hillary Clinton with 4,054, former Sen. John Edwards with 2,949, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich with 1,965 and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel with 1,259. On the GOP side, Texas Congressman Ron Paul has 16,525 subscribers, followed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with 2219 subscribers, Giuliani with 1512, McCain with 1352 and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee with 596.

Grove said that while subscriptions are important, examining the number of views a video receives indicates whether the video is effective. “That means people are actually watching your videos,” he said. But getting users to respond to videos is the top prize. “The highest bar of success is video response … the most active and engaging thing a user can do,” he said. “The big lesson is it’s a two way medium. It’s not just a shrunken television screen. It’s actually a way to engage and interact and hear back from voters.”

YouTube is actively reaching encourage political involvement among its users. As YouTube’s News and Politics Editor, Grove hosts a channel called CitizenTube, whose goal is “to highlight and support user-generated political content on YouTube,” he said. While he creates some content like interviewing candidates, CitizenTube is mostly about connecting people, “The idea of educating, empowering and connecting voters and candidates with each other,” Grove said. As part of CitizenTube, the website sponsors a program called “You Choose,” which allows a different candidate each week to address and interact with YouTube users. Duncan Hunter used the platform to ask YouTube users about their heroes. Hillary Clinton encouraged people to suggest a theme song for her campaign. “It was a unique, fun project that got people engaged,” Grove said. Indeed. It generated extensive media coverage and more than 500,000 video views after just a few days.

YouTube is also co-sponsoring a Democratic presidential debate in July and a Republican debate in September with CNN. YouTube users will submit questions (in video form), and CNN will select which videos to use. “For the first time in the history of presidential debates, voters from around the country will be able to ask the future president of the United States a question in video form and hear the answer,” said Chad Hurley, CEO and co-founder of YouTube in a statement.

But YouTube may also influence the 2008 campaigns in a less predictable fashion. Campaign operatives anxiously await—or fear—the next "Macaca moment", an instance where a candidate’s error gets caught on tape and shared with the world. (In the 2006 Virginia Senate race, Republican George Allen was videotaped using a derogatory slur—Macaca—and when the video went on YouTube it went "viral", spreading across the web and eventually the nation. Grove recently called the Obama:Apple::Clinton:IBM video the first viral video of the campaign; to this date, it has been viewed more than 3 million times. What makes a video viral is harder to explain. “There is no secret sauce,” Grove said. “Any piece of content, a video that taps into a sentiment or a feeling that’s out there but isn’t being currently expressed has a better chance of bubbling up to the top.”

David All, a GOP media consultant recently posted his tips to campaigns on how to use YouTube and avoid being sunk in the event of a "Macaca moment". Grove said that while he believes YouTube has helped increase transparency in politics, he said that he hoped it would go “beyond the gotcha moments” and toward “a more authentic political dialogue.” YouTube videos might be able to “strip away some of the spin,” he said. “Both candidates and voters are thirsting for it.”

Grove called YouTube “a tremendously democratizing force in politics” that “flattens out the dialogue.” It is “giving power to people,” he said. “And it’s giving candidates and voters and issue groups all a chance to create a lot of different content about and connect with each other.”

Although the conference, hosted by Cedar Cultural and Educational Foundation and sponsored by local businesses and agencies, was rarely without overt proclamations of shock or grief, the time Gosch spent at the podium was by far the most intense of the day.

“Last September I received a packet of photographs,” Gosch said after describing in painful detail the days and weeks following Johnny’s kidnapping. The first image of a young boy hog-tied while wearing only his underpants and socks filled the wall. “This is my son Johnny sometime near the time when he was kidnapped. He is still 12 years old in this picture,” she added once the sobs had calmed. “I knew immediately it was my son and it has also been confirmed by forensic specialists at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children who have examined and compared them with existing pictures.”

Tony Nassif, president and founder of Cedar Cultural and Educational Foundation, says he believes “Noreen discovered domestic human trafficking before it even had a name.”

The conference, which brought together such strange bedfellows as the Cedar Rapids Chamber of Commerce, The Gazette and the Linn County Association of Evangelicals as sponsors, was not political, according to Nassif. It was,he said, about raising awareness of “an insidious cancer devouring the mind, soul and body of its victims, their families and even their community and nation.” According to Nassif, human trafficking and child abduction testifies to the reality of evil.

Roughly 200 people, about 70 percent of them women, sat in Cedar Rapids conference rooms Friday to learn more about human trafficking and child abduction. Throughout the day they heard from both local, state and national speakers including Board Chairman Ric Lumbard of the Center to Restore Trafficked and Exploited Children; U.S. Department of State Deputy Senior Advisor Dr. Laura Lederer; U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement Victim-Witness Coordinator Susan Shriner; Web Wise Kids Executive Vice President Monique Nelson; and Law Enforcement Policy and Support Division Program Manager Linda K. Daniels.

Although some spoke with a secular bent while others spoke from a religious perspective, all – save Gosch – spoke to the faith-based community frequently and by name.

Dr. Lederer during her lunch keynote speech called for a raising of the awareness of the issue of human trafficking within the faith-based community and stated how the government would continue to work with such groups in fighting against it.

In the program, Nassif wrote, “God gave us everything we need to fight this fight, and to win it. He calls us to set the captive free.”

Lumbard provided the most direct call to the faith-based community when he pointed to the many problems of children who had been repeatedly raped, molested and abused and asked, “Is it fair to the secular community?”

This type of extended abuse, according to Lumbard, imparts “a level of evil” where care and well-being aren’t nearly enough. He added those who wished to help in this battle would need to “pull out the tools we have in the body of Christ.”

As a final illustration of his belief about what could and would help those under age 15 who had suffered from sexual trafficking he added, “Some have asked about those who might be victims but who believe in different gods than my God. They ask me about ‘What if this person has a Hindu god?’ Well, if he [the Hindu god] will get the job done, knock yourself out. But I don’t think so.”

Nassif, who plans to continue what he calls “the Tony Nassif Road Show,” in other communities throughout the U.S.

“We don’t have an option,” he told conference goers, “we have an obligation.”