It's About the Water

 And the Air, Roads, Bridges, Schools, Government Buildings, Post Office......

Hang on to your hats folks because the great American estate auction is about to begin. The powers that be have been privatizing public assets for decades now, but that has just been a warm-up to what is about to begin.
Two posts I read this morning address this topic from different perspectives. The first is from Huffington Post on the looting of Fannie May and Freddie Mac:

"On Friday, Trump’s transition team announced his selection of Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) as the nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget. Earlier this year, Mulvaney introduced legislation blocking payments by the housing lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to funds that support low income housing unless both Fannie and Freddie are recapitalized and released.
....
When the housing market tanked and the Great Recession of 2007-2009 began, the federal government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both deeply underwater, sending their stock prices plummeting. The Obama administration has since insisted on keeping the housing lenders under government authority and has redirected their profits into government coffers.
During this time speculators like Paulson bought up stock at bargain basement prices and began lobbying the government to end federal control and oversight of the lenders and then recapitalize them and release them back to the private market. Such a policy would, undoubtedly, send the stock price soaring and those who had tens of millions worth of penny-stock would see billions in profit ― including Paulson. Trump had invested between $3 million and $15 million into Paulson’s funds, according to the president-elect’s most recent disclosure report filed in May. "

Again Our Dear Leader is setting himself up to profit handsomely off the office he has not yet assumed along with his Billionaire Buddies (TM), shoving an even larger slice of the national wealth into the hands of the Chosen.

The second item is posted by Tom Sullivan over at Hullabaloo on the conversion of utilities into "profit centers":

" But let's look at another source of fouled drinking water which the residents of Flint, MI might recognize. Some 81,000 homes in Pittsburgh received letters this summer warning of possible lead contamination in their water. Financially stretched public utilities around the nation are turning to the private sector water companies to help out with their aging infrastructure: global water barons such as Nestle and Suez, and smaller for-profit outfits such as Aqua America. Mother Jones from October:

Pittsburgh's utility called in Veolia, a Paris-based company that consults with utilities, promising "customized, cost-effective solutions that reflect best practices, environmental protection and a better quality of life." Veolia consults or manages water, waste, and energy systems in 530 cities in North America, with recent contracts in New York City, New Orleans, and Washington, DC. Last year, the company, which operates in 68 countries, brought in about $27 billion in revenue.

By the end of 2015 "the utility had laid off or fired 23 people—including the safety and water quality managers, and the heads of finance and engineering." Veolia switched from soda ash to a cheaper corrosion inhibitor:

Such a change typically requires a lengthy testing and authorization process with the state's Department of Environmental Protection, but the DEP was never informed of the change. Nearly two years later, as news spread about the disaster in Flint, the utility switched back to soda ash.

After Veolia took control in Pittsburgh, prices went up, billing became erratic, and customers initiated a class action lawsuit over "grossly inaccurate and at times outrageously high bills." Mother Jones reports:

Last December, facing the class-action lawsuit, a state citation for changing corrosion controls, and mounting debt, Pittsburgh terminated its contract with Veolia. All told, PWSA had paid Veolia $11 million over the course of the contract.

Earlier this month, the utility announced it was suing the company. According to a press release, Veolia "grossly mismanaged PWSA's operations, abused its positions of special trust and confidence, and misled and deceived PWSA as part of its efforts to maximize profits for itself to the unfair detriment of PWSA and its customers."

Pittsburgh follows Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, Gary, Ind., and Buenos Aires and other international cities that found for-profit water not such a bargain. There's a reason for keeping public utilities public."

So, we take a vital necessity that no one can do without and start squeezing dollars out for private profit. We see this pattern repeatedly in Republican proposals to "unleash the free market", "outsource" services and sell off national assets. In the name of "eliminating fraud and waste" and "streamlining" the government and "privatization", they are first, foremost and always concerned with getting public funds into the hands of the connected power elite. 

And let's be clear who the real power elite is - not the visible stars, celebrities & talking heads, and not even the elected office-holders but rather the shadowy figures who recruit, promote, fund and control those officeholders. Lobbyists write the bills (see "ALEC" for example) and hand them over to the "lawmakers" to pass, directly serving corporate interests. As always, to understand what is really going on, follow the money.

One of my pet peeves (I have a cute menagerie of them) is the general ignorance of what government, both federal and local,  provides for us. Things we don't even see, taking completely for granted, are the product of our tax dollars at work. Postal service, paved roads, police, fire, EMS, street lighting, (sometimes) clean water, bridges, airports, all these things. Many true-believer conservatives think the federal government should patrol the borders, protect us from foreign invasion and that's about it. The best example of this conservative paradise were actually put in place (they are doing their best at it in Kansas)

Everyone Should See This

 

Ex-Democratic Staffers Prepare A Guide to Resistance 

This Google Doc was prepared by progressive ex-congressional staffers who witnessed first-hand how an extremist and minority Tea Party stymied much of Pres. Obama's agenda. They propose using these same tactics against the new Junta. 

Some key ideas are to get active in groups, focus on particular items in the Pretender's agenda, show up and get involved at the local level and engage in continual, unrelenting opposition. Don't let the scoundrels get comfortable - keep them on the defense!

I would like to hear everyone's ideas on how to implement this strategy!

Who Carries the Risk?

That is the key question in social insurance programs. Social Security and Medicare are probably the two most successful government social programs in US history but they have been targets of the Right and the plutocrats since their inception. Josh Marshall observes (emphasis added):

"The policy and political playing field on social insurance programs and safety net issues has for decades been one of defense, protecting programs like Social Security and Medicare which have been the pillars of the American social compact going back to the 1930s and 1960s respectively. The budgetary and ideological threats to each are not new. In each case they go back to the passage of the original legislation, with the aim being first to abolish them outright and then later to create new programs under similar branding which place the risk on individuals as opposed to creating security by socializing risk....
...What is key to understand with all these plans, whatever their names, is this: The amount of money the country will spend on health care for baby boomers is relatively fixed in toto ...
...The key in all these plans, with all the bewildering bundle of jargon, flimflam and subterfuge, is who carries the risk: society as a whole or individuals. The Medicare model puts everyone in the same boat. The Paul Ryan model puts the risk on individuals. That is the foundational prism through which to see all of these debates whether they're about Medicare, Social Security or to a lesser degree about Obamacare. It is all about who carries the risk."

 That is what all the talk about "privatization" is - don't believe the B.S. about the magic of the free market to make everything more efficient. The "magic" they are after is the privatization of profits while exporting all the risk and down-side costs to the public sphere. That is how we have ended up with such a ridiculously skewed income curve in this country. They want to own all the schools, prisons, hospitals, postal service, water departments, etc. etc. etc. and charge us for the privilege of lining their pockets ever deeper in stolen loot.

Three cheers for the new Aristocracy!

In the Future...

Marko the Magnificant and His Mystic Mind Powers Predict...

 

...There will no longer be Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. Instead we will be blessed with the "Lil' Shopper" program. Children will be sent to mandatory "Lil' Shopper" camps where they learn all the crucial skills for selecting luxury goods approved and  provided by Our Dear Leader. 

Instead of Merit Badges, they will be awarded Prestige Patches for mastering tasks such as memorizing the Luis Vuitton catalog or knowing all the available options for the BMW i-series.

Not needing useless information such as starting a fire or reading the stars (Hollywood stars excepted!), they will be trained in crucial skills such as managing a credit rating, identifying varieties of caviar and truffles, and the mechanics of bankruptcy. 

Following the example of Our Dear Leader, they will learn to have the best of everything until the debt is too high, then Presto Chango - file for Chapter 11 and start fresh! (The chumps left holding the bag are clearly inferior and not products of the "Lil' Shopper" program).

They will also be enrolled in the "Lil' Witness" program to help them develop into the valuable Little Eyes and Little Ears our Dear Leader Needs. If mom or dad dare to shop at a dirty discounter, or avoid the Holy Sales Tax or buy non-approved merchandise they will be trained to alert the Department of Homeland Shopping immediately!

 

"A Political 9/11"

Former Acting CIA Director Mike Morell in HuffPost (emphasis added):

“It is an attack on our very democracy. It’s an attack on who we are as a people,” Mike Morell told The Cipher Brief. “A foreign government messing around in our elections is, I think, an existential threat to our way of life. To me, and this is to me not an overstatement, this is the political equivalent of 9/11. It is huge and the fact that it hasn’t gotten more attention from the Obama Administration, Congress, and the mainstream media, is just shocking to me.”

The CIA concluded in a secret assessment that Russia interfered in the U.S. election not merely to mess around with the democratic system, but specifically to help Donald Trump win the presidency, according to a recent report in The Washington Post. 

“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official familiar with the findings. “That’s the consensus view.” ...

Intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian hackers also broke into the Republican National Committee’s computer systems but did not release that information publicly. ...

McConnell’s comments stand in stark contrast to those of Trump, who told “Fox News Sunday” that reports of Russian meddling in the elections were “ridiculous” and an “excuse” to undermine his victory."

This from the guy who said the election would be rigged - unless he won.

"“No, I don’t believe that at all,” he said.
“Nobody really knows, and hacking is very interesting,” Trump added. “Once they hack if you don’t catch them in the act you’re not going to catch them. They have no idea if it’s Russia or China or somebody. It could be somebody sitting in a bed someplace. I mean, they have no idea.”"

World-class computer hackers and professional cyber analysts - "they have no idea". You have to be a true genius to really know it all:

Trump has also rejected daily intelligence briefings, preferring to receive them just once a week. He said he doesn’t need them all the time because he’s “like, a smart person.”

You know there is trouble ahead when you don't even know what you don't know...As they say, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing".

 

What He Said...

 

Keep the Home Fires Burning

Paul Krugman illuminates several points I have been mulling in my mind. In particular, his closing thoughts on keeping the outrage fresh in your mind. We musn't let ourselves come to accept the Drumpf era as acceptable or normal or moral. We must keep a "fire in the belly", a hot core of certainty that what has happened is wrong and deserves ongoing resistance. 

It can't be continual rage, fire that is out-of-control; that is what the Right-wing hate machine feeds on, consuming and ultimately destroying all who play with it. Rather what we need is more akin to a well-banked wood stove or a campfire, keeping you warm through the long winter night.

From Prof. Krugman's column today...

"So this was a tainted election. It was not, as far as we can tell, stolen in the sense that votes were counted wrong, and the result won’t be overturned. But the result was nonetheless illegitimate in important ways; the victor was rejected by the public, and won the Electoral College only thanks to foreign intervention and grotesquely inappropriate, partisan behavior on the part of domestic law enforcement.

The question now is what to do with that horrifying knowledge in the months and years ahead.

One could, I suppose, appeal to the president-elect to act as a healer, to conduct himself in a way that respects the majority of Americans who voted against him and the fragility of his Electoral College victory. Yeah, right....

Now, outrage over the tainted election past can’t be the whole of opposition politics. It will also be crucial to maintain the heat over actual policies. Everything we’ve seen so far says that Mr. Trump is going to utterly betray the interests of the white working-class voters who were his most enthusiastic supporters, stripping them of health care and retirement security, and this betrayal should be highlighted.

But we ought to be able to look both forward and back, to criticize both the way Mr. Trump gained power and the way he uses it. Personally, I’m still figuring out how to keep my anger simmering — letting it boil over won’t do any good, but it shouldn’t be allowed to cool. This election was an outrage, and we should never forget it."
 

Winter Dream

Like a baby with a hand grenade
Like a monkey with a gun
The madman is elected
The Republic will be undone

Fantastic Beasts

 Say what you will about 2016 but Thanksgiving this year was wonderful for us. The weather was gray and rainy in northern Michigan but the family times were bright and warm. It was great to see my Aunt Barbara with two of my cousins, having a cozy dinner and being with her after the passing of my Uncle Chuck at the end of September. We were also able to spend some quality time up at Douglas Lake with my sister and brother-in-law. We watched a just-inches-short but epic for the ages Michigan-Ohio State football game. Both teams were 10-1, ranked 2 & 3 nationally, and put on an edge-of-seat, slam-bang game with 2 exciting OTs before the cursed Buckeyes managed to score the winning touchdown -  after a questionable call!

We also enjoyed one of the treats of the season, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. This film is an extension of the Harry Potter universe but with a new cast and different, more adult orientation. It is set in 1920s New York city, the bustling, young metropolis of fresh-off-the-boat immigrants, Jazz-age hipsters and art deco styles. The young traveler Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) arrives by ship unaware that in the United States, magic has been pushed under ground and magical beasts outlawed. A fast-moving plot involving comic confusions, sinister big-shots, creepy religious fundamentalists and a wonderful cast make this a truly welcome 2-hour vacation from the strange times we are living in. Joe Bob says check it out!

Speaking of Fantastic Beasts, have you seen the real-life creep show that is taking shape in King Mida's under-construction administration? A weird, unearthly menagerie of fringe congress critters, Fox News graduates, Right-Wing think tank escapees and various other frauds, true-believers and crank billionaires are flocking to the new Versailles on the Hudson.All the TV cameras are excitedly pointed to the Gold-encrusted lobby of Trump Tower! Who will he pick! Who gets fired! It's so exciting, you could almost miss the $25M fraud settlement against Trump U, the private talks with overseas investors, the preparations to gut Medicare & Social Security....

Lots to talk about in the near future - for now I would like to share this link to George Lakoff's essay "A Minority President: Why the Polls Failed, And What the Majority Can Do". He is a professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley and studies the intersection of Politics with neural & cognitive science. He discusses how our actions are influenced by sub-conscious processes, language and frames of reference. I'm digesting the article now and think it offers much to think about and discuss. 

What do you think?

Corruption, Ctd.

 

I have a feeling this is going to be a topic with a lot of entries. Now there is a Trump deal in Argentina that strings are getting pulled for. From Talking Points Memo (TPM):

 
According to a report out of Argentina, when Argentine President Mauricio Macri called President-Elect Trump to congratulate him on his election, Trump asked Macri to deal with the permitting issues that are currently holding up the project.
This comes from one of Argentina's most prominent journalists, Jorge Lanata, in a recent TV appearance. Lanata is quoted here in La Nacion, one of Argentina's most prestigious dailies. Said Lanata: “Macri called him. This still hasn’t emerged but Trump asked for them to authorize a building he’s constructing in Buenos Aires, it wasn’t just a geopolitical chat."

Let the healing dealing begin!

"I Make the Best Deals..."

The question, of course, is for whom. If you guessed "the American people" or "those who voted for Mr. T", thanks for playing but you loose, and there is no consolation prize. 

This week the new Trump hotel just down the street from the White House...

just held an event last week pitching foreign diplomatic delegations on moving their business to Trump's hotel. From a write up in The Washington Post ...To many of the guests at the reception Tuesday, accepting an invitation to tour the $212 million hotel and check out the $20,000-a-night, 6,300-square-foot “town house” suite seemed like a good idea. They spoke admiringly about the renovation and left with a goody bag of chocolates and a brochure. It listed the choices of accommodations and meeting rooms and expounded on the location’s “striking prominence” at historical moments such as the Inauguration Day parade...“Why wouldn’t I stay at his hotel blocks from the White House, so I can tell the new president, ‘I love your new hotel!’ Isn’t it rude to come to his city and say, ‘I am staying at your competitor?’ ” said one Asian diplomat.

This is the establishment that offers a $100 signature cocktail, "a concoction of rye, potato, and winter-wheat vodka, shaken and served with raw oysters and caviar."

He's not in office yet but already angling to use the office of the presidency to enrich himself directly. Just about all major players in national politics earn good money from their connections and associations but this takes it to a whole other no-holds-barred level. It's not going to just be the Trumps but also their loyal cronies, of course. One area where Democrats have been making noise about "working with the president elect" is on infrastructure. That sounds reasonable - the roads, bridges & water plants in this country are in generally bad shape. We need to rebuild these things, people need jobs, the economy needs more consumer spending - sounds good, no? Well, maybe not! 

Trump’s plan is not really an infrastructure plan. It’s a tax-cut plan for utility-industry and construction-sector investors, and a massive corporate welfare plan for contractors. The Trump plan doesn’t directly fund new roads, bridges, water systems or airports, as did Hillary Clinton’s 2016 infrastructure proposal. Instead, Trump’s plan provides tax breaks to private-sector investors who back profitable construction projects. These projects (such as electrical grid modernization or energy pipeline expansion) might already be planned or even underway. There’s no requirement that the tax breaks be used for incremental or otherwise expanded construction efforts; they could all go just to fatten the pockets of investors in previously planned projects.

So what is supposed to be a policy for the good of the country is instead a policy for the good of the companies. I think the rule now is if you shake the hand of the new ruling party, you better count your fingers after!

 

 

Some Light-Hearted Diversion

 

Thanks to Talia Bara for the link.

#NotMyPresident ?

One  of my first reactions election night was the above sentiment: Mr. T is Not My President! That is certainly how it feels - I didn't vote for him, his positions on a host of topics seem profoundly wrong and I abhor his entire bullying, braggadocios shtick. But...is it hypocritical to take this attitude? Many progressives criticized the Orange man for not pledging to accept the election results (unless he won, of course). Am I now guilty of the same thing?

Here is my argument for why I think it is not a hypocritical position to take: his campaign is so far outside the normal course of American political tradition that he did not earn my support in any way. Again and again he broke the informal rules under which we run our elections - no release of tax returns, personal and vicious attacks against individuals, insulting our allies, playing footsie with the authoritarian Putin, and on and on. This is not a typical election and its results are a fundamental threat to the democratic traditions we have followed for over 200 years. 

OTOH, many respected Democrats have stuck with the view that "he won the election, he will be our president, we have to support him now". That is always how we have done it in the past. Like a sporting contest, when the game is over, acknowledge the winner, congratulate them and move on. 

As I said, this seems like a horse of a different color and the old rules don't apply.

What do you think?

Beginnings

Let's start with some definitions, always a good place to start:

rationalism ‎(countable and uncountable, plural rationalisms)

1. (philosophy) The theory that the basis of knowledge is reason, rather than experience or divine revelation.

crony capitalism ‎(plural crony capitalisms)

1. (politics, idiomatic) an economic and political system dominated by privately owned, capitalist or financial undertakings that are dependent on the revolving door between themselves and publically held offices to secure the regulatory, taxwise, and prosecutorial leeway, such as financial subsidies, bailouts, settlements and special rubber stamped legislation, from those office holders to let the undertakings profitably weather their own misdeeds, mistakes, and outright crimes, as well as unlucky or unfriendly free-market conditions

           tragedy of the commons ‎(plural tragedies of the commons)
           (economics, politics, social criticism) A situation in which unmanaged use of a shared          resource (such as the atmosphere or an ocean) by a number of participants results in the unintended     ruin or total consumption of that resource.

useful idiot ‎(plural useful idiots)

1. (historical, pejorative, political jargon) Soviet sympathizer in Western countries, from the perspective of the political right.
2. (pejorative, political jargon) One who is seen to unwittingly support a malignant cause through their 'naive' attempts to be a force for good.

kakocracy ‎(usually uncountable, plural kakocracies)
 
        1.  (dated) Rule or government by the worst of the people. 

The above words and phrases highlight some of the issues on my mind this first week of our bizarre,  worrisome future under our new overlords. The electorate has spoken! Or rather, the roughly 25% of eligible voters who saddled us with a vulgar talking yam (to borrow Charlie Pierce's phrase) who doesn't seem to know much about the job he has just landed. He was reportedly surprised by all the responsibilities the president has when Obama gave him a brief run down. His staff did not seem to realize they have to hire an entirely new set of people to staff the administration. Who knew presidentin' was so much work!

I have more questions than answers at this point. First task is to regain emotional, spiritual and physical equilibrium after the shocking conclusion to the vile, endless campaign. A week on and body & soul are doing much better. Next to questions of the mind! How should we mentally frame the rise of Mr. T? How do we respond to racism, prejudice, hate? What do we do going forward?....

I'll finish with this for now, not as a whine or whimper but as a description of the last week, not an ending but a starting point for what is to come:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

"Second Coming" W. B. Yeats, 1865 - 1939