To the Ramparts!

OK—this is not the news that you necessarily need to hear when the week is young, but my duty, Dear Reader, is clear. So here it is:

We’re fucked.

Sorry for the strong language, but it’s pretty clear: with the most recent decision of the Supreme Court, democracy just retreated to a minute dot in the rearview mirror.

So, allow me to present you the guy who has just gob-sacked us.

Yup, it’s John Roberts and why shouldn’t he be smiling? He has just handed the rich and powerful a major victory; in the process, he has ensured that anybody who isn’t rich and powerful is screwed.

Roberts was one of five guys who just decided—not only are corporations people (the work of Citizens United), but now there are absolutely no limits to how much spending overall in politics an individual can make.

I came to this issue via an article in The New York Times; here’s the sentence that triggered it:

She has been battered by $10 million in negative ads against her, most of it underwritten by the Koch brothers-backed group Americans for Prosperity.  

Who’s the “she?” Kay Hagen, a United States senator from North Carolina. And the Koch brothers? Two guys, neither of whom live in North Carolina (full disclosure: I have not checked this out…)—but even if they did, so? Why should a guy be able to give 10 million bucks to a political party, when an average guy like you or me is going to have a hard time to cough up a hundred bucks?

“Do you think Citizens United is going to be the Dred Scott of the 21^st century?” I asked Mr. Fernández over the dinner table.

“Probably,” he said.

Well, if it’s not Citizens United, it’s McCutcheon versus Federal Election Commission. And the decision raised the question: did Roberts know what he was doing? Did he really think that giving money to political parties was “free speech?” Was he naïve?

Well, consider this line from his decision:

In a bit of irony, the Chief Justice reveals his deep understanding of how Washington works in his discussion of disclosure.  Right after pointing out how effective our current disclosure law is, the Chief adds the following:  “The existing aggregate limits may in fact encourage the movement of money away from entities subject to disclosure. Because individuals’ direct contributions are limited, would-be donors may turn to other avenues for political speech. See Citizens United. Individuals can, for example, contribute unlimited amounts to 501(c) organizations, which are not required to publicly disclose their donors.  . . . Such organizations spent some $300 million on independent expenditures in the 2012 election cycle.”   

In short, Roberts—who, after all, is a Harvard man—knew all too well what he was doing.

But who am I, except the guy at the last red table in the café? Right, so it was time to call the legal department, which in this case was Johnny, my brother.

“It’s total bullshit—pretty soon, there will be only person in the country with free speech, and that’ll be the richest guy in the country.”

“And did he know what he was doing?”

“Of course!”

“And is there any intellectual argument or rationale to justify the decision?”

Disgusted noise from the other end of the line.

So I tuned in to the video below—and so should you. And found out, by the way, that there are two states that actually have campaign financing that makes sense. Arizona, for example, has an excellent system, as described below:

Arizona enacted a campaign finance law that provides matching funds to candidates who accept public financing. The law, passed in 1998, gives an initial sum to candidates for state office who accept public financing and then provides additional matching funds based on the amounts spent by privately financed opponents and by independent groups. In 2008, some Republican candidates and a political action committee, the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, filed suit arguing that to avoid triggering matching funds for their opponents, they had to limit their spending and, in essence, their freedom of speech.

What happened to the case? Well, here’s the next paragraph:

The U.S. District Court for District of Arizona found the matching-funds provision unconstitutional. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned the case, saying it found "minimal" impact on freedom of speech.

And here’s the last word:

The Supreme Court reversed the lower court order in a decision by Chief Justice John Roberts. "Arizona's matching funds scheme substantially burdens political speech and is not sufficiently justified by a compelling interest to survive First Amendment scrutiny," the chief justice writing for the majority, noted that the holding does not contend that the First Amendment forbids all public financing.

In short, any chance that campaign finance is going to have is slim, indeed. Here’s one writer on the subject:

Indeed, one of the main cases relied on in McCutcheon was the Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett case from 2011, which struck down a perfectly good public campaign finance statute in the state of Arizona. Ya wanna try to pass one anything like that today? Roberts will laugh you out of the Supreme Court, and he's already now built enough of the chain of precedents to do it.   

What’s the solution?

Well, you can sign a petition for a constitutional amendment here.

I saw the video below advertised on the site of Americans for Campaign Reform (ACR), which supports two pieces of legislation. Here’s what they say:

Federal public funding legislation enjoys bipartisan support in both houses of Congress, with over 120 cosponsors. The bills would create a modern system of public funding of Presidential and Congressional elections based on small donations from citizens.

I mean, we all do want to take the money out of politics..,

…don’t we?

News flash: this story has a—potentially—happy ending, since John Paul Stevens, the retired US Supreme Court justice, has recently written a book, in which he proposes six constitutional amendments. Here’s what The New York Times said:

His own book has, in addition to the chapter on campaign finance, chapters on gun control, the death penalty, gerrymandering and aspects of state sovereignty. Each concludes with a proposed amendment.

And here’s what the 94-year ex-justice said about McCutcheon versus the FEC:

The plaintiff, Shaun McCutcheon, an Alabama businessman, had made contributions to 15 candidates in the 2012 election. He sued so he could give money to 12 more. None of the candidates in the second group were running in Alabama.

Mr. McCutcheon was not trying to participate in electing his own leaders, Justice Stevens said. “The opinion is all about a case where the issue was electing somebody else’s representatives,” he said.

Whew!

Thought I was the only one!

(Felt badly about ruining your day, so check out this dude on cello….)

Pardon our Dust

I fear it just as much as my father did, though his fear was that people would stop doing crazy things and turn normal. Nice for them, perhaps, but what would Jack write about?

In my case, I worry that the usual bastards will give up their bastardry, but guess what? There’s absolutely no hint, today, that that’s happening.

I bring you our loveable old friends the Koch brothers, who inherited their empire from their father as well as his rabid conservatism (Papa was a founder of the John Birch Society, as well as an oilman). So the Koch brothers have significantly expanded their empire, and have moved into production of the tar sand oil of Alberta, Canada.

What is tar sand oil? It’s technically called bitumen, and here’s what Wikipedia has to say about it:

Bitumen is a thick, sticky form of hydrocarbon, so heavy and viscous (thick) that it will not flow unless heated or diluted with lighter hydrocarbons. At room temperature, it is much like cold molasses"

There are tar sand deposits all over Montana and North Dakota, as well as vast amounts of the stuff in Alberta. But because of the viscosity, the tar sands need to be processed before they can be refined in conventional refineries. And how does the tar sand oil get from Alberta or North Dakota to the pre-processing plant in Whiting, Indiana?

Well, there’s the famous Keystone Pipeline XL, two phases of which are completed, one is under construction, and the fourth is pending approval by the US government. But it’s important to know—however ugly most petroleum products are, the tar sands are especially toxic: here’s an excerpt from The New York Times from an article from January of this year:

The development of Alberta’s oil sands has increased levels of cancer-causing compounds in surrounding lakes well beyond natural levels, Canadian researchers reported in a study released on Monday. And they said the contamination covered a wider area than had previously been believed.

Still not convinced? Well, consider the town of Lac-Mégantic, in which a train carrying the tar sands derailed, caused a huge explosion, and killed 47 people. Oh, and here’s more information:

Underneath the remaining buildings, cleanup crews have discovered that much of Lac-Mégantic's downtown is saturated with heavy metals — lead, arsenic, copper — and that thick crude oil. Three months after the explosion, they are still pumping spilled crude oil and chemicals from underneath what used to be a gorgeous lakefront street.

OK—so the tar sand oil is being processed in Indiana—but what about the by-products of the processing? Called petroleum coke—also known as pet coke—in Indiana, only 5 days of the stuff can be stored. And according to one article:

Under the company's federal permit and consent decree with the U.S. EPA, the waste is surrounded by 40-foot walls; an enclosed conveyor and loading system is equipped with wind screens and water sprayers to keep dust down.

Since the Whiting facility is producing more pet coke than it can store, it’s shipping the stuff to a facility on the Southeast side of Chicago—a poor area of town. And guess who owns the facility, called KCBX? Right—the you-know-whos….

And guess what? The same stuff that is so toxic that it has to be enclosed over in Indiana? Here’s what Koch Chemical spokesman Paul Baltzer (and however much they’re paying him, it’s not enough) has to say:

But in letters to the Illinois EPA, the company said "it is not feasible" to cover the piles because "stockpile locations and usage patterns are constantly changing."

"KCBX puts a priority on regulatory compliance and managing operations in a manner that protects the health and safety of employees, the community, and the environment," Baltzer said in a statement.

Well, as you can see in the clip below—the skies over the Southeast side of Chicago are frequently black, and so people are keeping their kids inside. Which, if you have ever endured a Chicago summer, would be intolerable if you didn’t have air conditioning. But as it happens, many people in Chicago—especially poor and lower-middle class people, because of course that’s what these people are—don’t have air conditioning.

So a whole bunch of poor people are getting exposed to some really toxic stuff, all for the benefit of some rich guys who are getting richer by the nanosecond and who are using that money to buy state legislatures to ensure that laws are vaguely written, that environmental regulation is weakened, and that a reactionary point of view is pushed down our throats.

And guess what? It’s not the first time. Here’s what the pet coke situation looked like in Detroit, before the mayor ordered them to be removed.

And yes, the Koch brothers own that facility, too….

Scrambling to Keep Up

“I can be the president of the United States or I can control Alice, but I cannot possibly do both,” famously said Teddy Roosevelt about his hellion daughter. And every father in America knew just what he meant.

And that’s the way I feel about Wisconsin governor Scott Walker. Consider—I emailed myself an article my friend Gary posted on Facebook; here’s the headline: 
    

Wisconsin Prepares to Hand Half-Million in Taxpayer Funds to Koch-Tied GOP Lobby Shop

OK—that was something I had to check out. But it was late, my brain was tired; I sent it off to my inbox to be dealt with in the morning. Well, it’s 11:50, and where have I spent the morning? Right up there in Wisconsin—virtually—looking at, among other things, a map of frac sand mines and production centers.

Sorry, I couldn’t copy / paste the map, but here’s the link.

In Iguanas, I reported that South Western Wisconsin is known as the Drift-less Area, so called because the glaciers never rolled into the area. So it’s hillier, and there are curious rocks, the Niagara dolomite limestone, or some such thing. And that’s precisely the area where there were a few sand mines, because Wisconsin is one of the few, or at least one of the richest, places to produce this:

OK—that’s frac sand, or “silica sand: smooth, round grains of almost pure quartz that can be found in lower Wisconsin’s sandstone bluffs.”

A couple years ago, Wisconsin had fewer than ten sand mines; today, it has over one hundred. And here’s what they look like:

And what’s the big deal with frac sand? Well, it’s the only sand you can use for fracking, a process which involves drilling extremely deep vertically, then drilling horizontally several lines, and then forcing a water mixed with frac sand at extremely high pressure. The water / sand mixture fractures (hence the name, get it?) the shale and natural gas is released.

Those fussy environmentalists, of course, have various quibbles. The process requires enormous amounts of water, and thus lowers the water tables, and makes irrigation all the more difficult. Oh, and it also produces some really gunky byproducts—water and sand and a lot of toxic petrochemicals. And where do you put that? Into the river? Dump it on the ground, or in ponds?

Never mind—says the industry. It produces natural gas, and that’s a clean fuel, and don’t we want to be energy independent?

OK—to get at all this sand, the Koch brothers, owners of Koch Industries (a huge petrochemical concern), had to run up to Wisconsin and find someone they could work with. And they certainly did—Scott Walker, who promised to relax Wisconsin’s fussy environmental regulations. How fussy were they? Quite a bit like Minnesota’s, which also has the frac sand deposits. And how many mines / processing plants does Minnesota have today? A handful.

Which tells you how effectively Walker made a “business-friendly” environment in Wisconsin.

So what’s the problem, you say. We create all this sand, ship it off to North Dakota or Texas. That’s their problem, right?

Well, beyond being just a bit callous…no.

“It was clanging railroad cars at night, underground blasting that put cracks in the walls of peoples’ kitchens,” she said. “I had emails that said, ‘I don’t know what they’re doing, but there’s sand all over the inside of my house.’” 

That’s what Kathleen Vinehout, a Wisconsin state senator, said.

Right—sand all over your house is an annoyance. But what about sand in your lungs?

These particles are associated with an increased risk of a battery of illnesses that Crispin Pierce, a professor of environmental public health at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, ticked off for me: “Silicosis, bronchitis, tuberculosis, chronic pulmonary diseases—it’s a really nasty, toxic substance.”

Well, there are emission standards for each mine—but they measure the emissions from one mine only. And what happens when there are three mines, one processing plant, and trucks filled with the stuff—all in one area? Sadly, because this industry is so new—no one knows. So we’ll find out in a generation or so, when Wisconsinites all start wheezing (in the Drift-less Area, of course).

(Added value to Wisconsinites in that area—definitely consider taking up smoking, because guess what? Your lungs are fucked, anyway….)

Oh, and there are social costs, too. The mining companies are coming along waving huge checks at people who will either sell or lease their land. Here’s one account:

She was offered more than $100,000 from the mining company EOG Resources Inc. to move but declined, citing high moving costs and a connection with the area. Since then, she said, her home value has dropped by about half, to around $60,000. The mine provides subsidies for lower property values, but Sonnentag said her property is too far away to qualify.

What happened? Reading further on in the story, it’s clear. She said “no,” her neighbor said “yes.” So she saw the value of her property fall, due to the mine, which was too far away to qualify for the mine subsidy program.

From the same story:

As the mines have been built, a chasm between some neighbors has widened.

"Why should I have to move because my neighbor wants to be selfish?" said Sonnentag. "If I had trouble, I always used to know I could count on my neighbors.

"Not anymore. Now, it's the sand people versus the anti-sand people."

Remember how I was going to tell you about the half million the State is going to give a Koch brother lobbying group?

And remember Teddy Roosevelt and his daughter—Alice ?

See what I mean?

All the Governor Money Can Buy

Well, a woman named Diane Ayers, whom I don’t know, stepped right up to the plate and diagnosed the situation. Here she is:

Re Bill Dunn post, your question: "Why did this never happen in Wisconsin's 165 years of history until Scott Walker became governor?"

Because, Bill, this is the first time in Wisconsin history that the core of state government has been illegitimately seized by corporate-owned political fascists, who do not hesitate to suspend civil liberties and distort or defy the constitutional rights guaranteed to this state's citizens.

Their prime directive is to discredit, divide and destroy all those agencies, civic organizations, labor unions, even community groups of individual citizens seeking to communicate their views and concerns.

Their goal? The permanent destruction of democracy in Wisconsin - and eventually throughout the U.S. - replacing it with an institutionalized oligarchy that maintains its control by doing away with public education, worker rights, voting rights, etc., -- creating a powerless underclass that will work to serve and fear to challenge their corporate masters -now and for generations to come.

Right—got that taken care of. Now—can I go to the beach?

Just a minute, you say—what’s going on in Wisconsin?

Scott Kevin Walker, born 2 November 1967, in Colorado Springs moved to Delavan, Wisconsin when he was ten. An eagle scout, he also attended a two week program called Badger Boys State and Boys Nation in Washington DC. This, he said, inspired him to become a politician.

He entered Marquette University; he dropped out. He worked for IBM and then The Red Cross. At age 22, he ran for the Wisconsin State Assembly and lost. He then moved to a Republican district—Wauwatosa—and won three years later. He served nine years in the Assembly, and then became Milwaukee County executive in 2002. He was elected governor in 2010, and promptly instituted a….

Stop!

I’ve been trying, I’ve really been trying, to be neutral, objective, fair-minded; I’m the son of a newspaperman, after all. But after all, this is not a newspaper; it’s my blog.

So I will tell you that yes, dear Readers plus Diane, this is something not seen before. This is a guy deeply in bed with corporate America, especially the mining and oil interests; guys like the infamous Koch brothers, who contributed big, big money into the recall campaign. How much? Well, I just googled “Koch brothers Scott Walker” and the first citation is from Forbes of 2012: “Scott Walker didn’t get a dime from us,” it reads. The second citation? Politifact.com, saying…well, copy and paste time:

1.              Billionaire Koch brothers gave $8 million to Wisconsin Gov. Scott ...
www.politifact.com/.../billionaire-koch-brothers-gave-8-million-wisconsi...‎

◦                Cached




Jun 20, 2012 - "In fact, the Koch brothers alone gave twice as much money to Scott Walker as the total amount of money raised by Tom Barrett." Roughly ...


I’ll come clean—I didn’t click on either of the links. Why? Because there is ample evidence that there’s a link between the Koch brothers and Walker. Remember the famous prank call, from a radio host pretending to be David Koch?

Well, revealingly, all I had to do was type “Scott” into the search bar of YouTube and up it came….

And what had Scott Walker done, to get himself into a recall election? He had proposed curing an expected 3.6 billion dollar state deficit by eliminating the right of the public service unions to bargain collectively. And that spurred crowds of up to 100,000 people to camp out in protest in the capitol.

Nor was this all. Here’s Wikipedia on Scott Walker’s social issues:

Social issues played a part in the campaign. Walker has stated that he is "100% pro-life" and that he believes life should be protected from conception to natural death.[43] He opposes abortion, including in cases of rape and incest.[23][44] He supports abstinence-only sex education in the public schools, and opposes state supported clinical services that provide birth control and testing and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases to teens under the age of 18 without parental consent.[23] He supports the right of pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for contraceptives on religious or moral grounds.[23][45] He supports adult stem cell research, but opposes human embryonic stem cell research.[20][44][46][47]

Right—short version: a reactionary.

Who has subverted the rules, rammed down repressive abortion laws, stripped public service positions in favor of his corporate friends. Oh, and had seven or so of his political staff convicted of various crimes. The most recent revelation, by the way, is that as Milwaukee County executive, his campaign staff was actively involved in handling the tragic death of a fifteen-year old kid who was killed by a falling slab of concrete from a county parking garage.

The protests never really went away, and people began singing protest songs at noon in the capitol rotunda. So Walker decided that people would need a permit to protest in the capitol. That of course, led to howls—the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, as well as the state constitution, guaranteeing the right of assembly.

And now comes the slightly thicker edge of the wedge. It turns out that people cannot even watch, and tourists to the Dairy State are being told: spectating is illegal. In fact, a lawmaker, Sondy Pope, was threatened with arrest for just that.

“He stole the election,” said my friend Gary, referring to the 2012 recall, and went on to give specifics. I’ve forgotten, now, and anyway, it seemed irrelevant.

If he didn’t steal it, he bought it…..