Corporate Crime: Just Another Cost Of Doing Business

As a political science major in college during the 1900’s, I was forced to sit through two survey classes in modern economic theory: Econ-101 and Econ-102. Later, as a law student, I was forced to sit through another class about corporations. Each course was taught from a Keynesian free market perspective and each propounded the conventional wisdom that laws regulating corporate greed and malfeasance were a waste of time and were in fact counterproductive, because all that was needed to keep businesses in line was the unfettered exercise of the free market.

This economic model was actually quite simple and is, not incidentally, identical to today’s Libertarian/Tea/GOP mantra. The idea is that businesses will misbehave like any other over-privileged children (read, fraud, Ponzi schemes, ripping off customers, cooking the books, tax evasion, making dangerously defective products etc.) until their misconduct simply costs too much money for them to continue. How much is too much, you say?

Economics professors love to use a fictional product called a widget to illustrate the appropriate profit-to-mayhem ratio. And so, if business-A and business-B each make widgets and business-A uses cheaper, shoddier parts, they may make more profit in the short run, but only until their shoddy widgets begin to piss off the consumer and they quit buying them. Then business-B corners the widget market and business-A is forced either to invest a bit more capital into making a better widget, or go out of business.

In the free market as applied to corporate malfeasance, if the widgets produced by business-A, are so shoddy that their use causes mass death and destruction, the resulting civil settlements may theoretically, also cause business-A to either mend their negligent, reckless, or even criminal widgets, or lose profitable market share.

Morality plays no part in this business model; so selling cars containing  exploding widgets (like say, gas tanks) is just fine, right up until the point at which the resulting cost of legal settlements and lost sales revenues exceed that of the marginal profit. Then, and only them, does business-A, spend the least amount of money possible to retrofit their cars with a non-exploding widget and, (after intentionally lengthy and protracted litigation), eventually pay off a few unusually persistent grandchildren of  ancestors who were burned to a cinder or disfigured beyond recognition in the various  auto/widget conflagrations. And all of this is usually accomplished without any admission of corporate liability or criminality.

It always bothered me that the free market ideal was offered as a replacement for other allegedly outmoded concepts like The Golden Rule, the Social Contract, and, oh, I don’t know, a sense of decency. But I was also taught that the system was foolproof, as all businesses would eventually be forced by the free market to conduct themselves in a moral fashion, even if they did not do so out of a newfound over-abundance of altruism.

Even now, I am still wondering how long these alleged free market corrections are going to take before they actually correct the recent spate of rampant mega-abuses by U.S. mega-businesses. Years? Decades? Centuries, maybe? I was in my teens, when I was first inculcated by the smart business guys in the virtues of the free market and now I am in my 50’s and am still hearing the same old tired song and dance, this time from The U. S Chamber of Commerce and politicians on the political right.

You might recall a post I wrote on May 17, 2011, highlighting a Rolling Stone story about how Goldman Sachs bought and bundled billions in worthless sub-prime mortgages, made more billions after knowingly unloading this garbage onto unsuspecting customers, insured the poison paper to make more billions when the paper eventually proved valuable only as toxic toilet paper, and then lied to congress about the whole scheme. Oh, right, and we taxpayers were forced to bail out the big banks to cover their losses.

Now, if we apply current Keynesian/Libertarian/Tea/GOP/free market principles, you would think that Goldman Sachs must have considered the cost of their bamboozlement, insofar as it might adversely affect their profit margin and thereby force them to conform their behavior to more human standards. In retrospect, it appears that they did conduct such a cost/benefit analysis, aforethought.

In the end, government lawyers were patting themselves on the back for getting Goldman to agree to a $500 million civil settlement, but it does not take a math whiz or an economist to see that Goldman still came out $12.4 billion ahead after their brilliant, convoluted, illegal, transaction of subterfuge. Just to be clear, Goldman and Sachs broke several federal laws, bilked its own customers, bilked the insurance company, lied to congress (also a federal crime) and still made $12.4 billion, in profit. And their tiny payout penalty was agreed upon after a solely civil ceremony.

Why no criminal charges were brought against the upper management of Goldman Sachs, will ever remain a mystery; like who built Stonehenge, or what ever happen to the Anisazi, or which animal remnant sits atop The Donald’s noggin.

Just today we learned that JPMorgan also agreed to cough up a whopping $153.6 million, again in civil penalties, for their little part in the same scheme as Goldman’s, leaving them with a net profit last year of a mere $17.4 billion. To date, no criminal charges have been filed against anybody at JPMorgan either.

So somebody please explain to this aging Keynesian conscriptee, why the government did not at least force these charlatans give back all of their ill-gotten gains, if not plead guilty in criminal proceedings? If we follow Keynesian logic, the government did nothing to adversely affect the offender’s profit margins much less their continued liberty.

Instead we allowed Goldman and JPMorgan to simply quantify the pittance paid as just another cost of doing business and then pass on that cost to the rest of us, thereby permanently negating the only sanctions that might have kept them from doing it over again and over and over again.

Please remember to ask any candidate for whom you are thinking of voting, exactly when the free market is going to start kicking in and what efforts he or she will make in government to jumpstart this process. Let me know what they say and I’ll leave a note for my great, great, great, grand children.

J. Brandeis Sperandeo 

Denverforward Standing Still

Mayor-elect Michael Hancock got a running start (in place) yesterday, by announcing the committee heads to address the long-standing, entrenched, embarrassing, and costly policy failures in the area of public safety.

With the possible exception of Adrienne Benavidez, the Who’s Who on his list of appointees either created the present problem, allowed it to fester and grow into the abysmal situation it is today, or simply has no expertise in the area at all.

Committee To Select The New Police Chief

[Blogger’s Note: if you have a short attention span, you need not read the italicized writing, except for the blurb about Al LaCabe.]

Fidel “Butch” Montoya served under Wellington Webb as the Denver Manager of Safety and deputy mayor from 1994 to 2000. In that capacity, Butch Montoya (and Denver Police Chief Whitman, who is only now being fired) was under a constant barrage of citizen protests resulting from such police indiscretions such as illegal police no-knock home invasions and others.

As another example, Montoya hired admitted felons, drug-users, thieves, gang members, and indecent exposers onto the police and fire departments, but rejected many other recruits with clean criminal histories. The rationalizations he offered for his actions and inaction in general, were sophomoric, unbelievable and lead this long-time resident to believe that Montoya, at minimum, tacitly accepted the culture of malfeasance among his ranks.

The Police that Butch Montoya hired are the same thugs that have been propagating, continuing, and lying about the police culture of violence that has earned the Denver Police Department the dubious honor of no.1 in police violence, for a city of its size, in 2010. And Butch Montoya is heading up the committee to pick a new police chief to replace his old friend Jerry Whitman? Seriously?

According to his own website, “Doug Friednash represents clients in governmental matters and in election issues and initiatives political and issues campaigns, including the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, Coloradans for Responsible Reform, and the Colorado Preservation Doug also represents governmental entities on various matters.

In addition, Doug's practice includes representation of companies in complex commercial litigation. He has experience in appellate proceedings and alternative dispute resolution forums. He also provides advice and defense in administrative and regulatory matters. His recent litigation experience includes representation of a national taxi company, a securities broker-dealer, a national pharmaceutical benefit management company, and the largest privately-held jeweler in the United States in complex commercial litigation and trademark infringement issues.”

Mr. Friednash appears to be politically very well connected and have expertise in several different areas, none of which involves the area to which he was appointed. I do not know why he was selected to help Butch Montoya pick a new Police Chief, but I suspect that his law firm may have been a significant political donor to/fund raiser for the Mayor-elect’s campaign and also suspect that Mr. Friednash may soon be appointed as a Denver County Court Judge, as a vacancy arises.

According to her biography, former State Representative Rosemary Rosemary Marshall’s

“primary legislative focus was to enact laws governing fraud and deceptive practices in mortgage lending. In 2007 she accomplished that goal by sponsoring and passing one of the most comprehensive packages of mortgage fraud legislation in the country. Her 2008 legislative agenda included financial literacy education in public schools; affordable hearing aides for children with hearing disabilities; and requiring the criminal justice system to address and recommend solutions to reduce racial disparities in the penal system. Her work in her final session was only one example of her pride in working to champion and support legislative initiatives that seek to improve the lives of women, families, and persons with disabilities. It was for this work that she was honored as a recipient of the Dan B. Davidson Award for Excellence in Community Inclusion. Representative Marshall is certified by MIT-Harvard in Public Policy Negotiations, which has helped her view Colorado’s concerns in a national and global context.

Representative Marshall has a long history of committed political and community service to the citizens of Colorado, and has worked to promote integrity in government by her involvement in countless local and statewide campaigns. She is a member of the NAACP, a founding member of Colorado Black Women for Political Action and is a recipient of their political achievement award. She serves on the Board of the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority, is Vice President of the Colorado Caucus of African American elected officials.”

I highlighted the one area in which she worked, that at least had the words “criminal justice” in it; and so again why an obviously stellar person who is so clearly qualified in so many areas other than the one to which she was appointed, was in fact appointed, is a mystery to me, but it is clear that both Friednash and Marshall will almost certainly feel compelled to defer in decision-making to one of the main architects of the present malaise in Denver public safety today.

Safety Committee.

Al LaCabe is also a former Denver Manager of Safety, who retired in 2010. Below is a list of just a few of his accomplishments on the job:

“During his time in office, LaCabe contended with some of the more volatile issues to face the Hickenlooper administration.

Hickenlooper named LaCabe as safety manager weeks after the July 3, 2003, fatal shooting by Officer James Turney of Paul Childs, 15, who was developmentally disabled and armed with a knife.

That case and the July 11, 2004, fatal shooting by Officer Ranjan Ford Jr. of the unarmed, 64-year-old Frank Lobato in his bed ignited an uproar shortly after Hickenlooper took office.

LaCabe disciplined both officers, over the protest of union officials. He overruled Police Chief Gerry Whitman's recommendation of a 20-day suspension for Turney and instead suspended the officer for 10 months. He suspended Ford for 90 days before agreeing to a 50-day suspension to settle an appeal.

The Turney discipline decision was a harbinger of a pattern that saw LaCabe overrule recommendations from police commanders. LaCabe has said such clashes will dissipate under the new discipline system, which will eliminate inconsistencies and confusion.

During LaCabe's tenure, new training procedures also were instituted for police. They included arrest procedures, "decisional shooting" and how to deal with those who are mentally ill. The department also bought more nonlethal weapons and hired a minority-recruitment officer.”

Okey dokey. Does anyone who read a newspaper during that period of time remember any homicidal cops actually being fired? Did anyone who read a newspaper recently notice any new discipline system or new training procedures, until Charles Garcia was hired a few months ago (as a temp) by interim Mayor Vidal? Is the city not still paying out millions in claims for violent misconduct to which LaCabe responded with veritable slaps on the wrist? And now that Al LaCabe is picking the new members of the Safety Committee, does anyone really expect the new discipline instituted by Mr. Garcia to continue?

According to his bio: Since moving to Denver in 1992 from Washington, D.C., Josh Hanfling has been a nonprofit coordinator, contributor, volunteer and more with multiple organizations. An Entrepreneurial Studies graduate from Babson College in Massachusetts, he maintains a hands-on philosophy of community involvement. In addition to the many organizations he has revitalized, Josh has gained notoriety for several successful business ventures

VOLUNTEER AFFILIATIONS
Chairman, Denver Justice Council
Founder and Chairman, Friends of the Denver Fire Department (FDFD)
Board Member, The Denver Hospice
Corporate Co-Chair, Concerts for Kids
Development Board Member, National Jewish Hospital
Board Member, The American Transplant Foundation”

So Josh appears to be a lobbyist, restaurateur, has sat on a billion committees, and is good buddies with the same Denver Fire Department that faces a severe budget shortfall this year and is fighting those cuts. Great pick, Mr. Mayor-elect.

According to his website, former Denver City Attorney, David Fein’s “practice focuses on three main areas: civil litigation (representing businesses, individuals, non-profits and governmental entities in civil disputes, including cases involving constitutional issues), employment litigation (federal discrimination and state law based claims) and counseling (advice regarding executive contracts, non-compete agreements and severance agreements) and election/political law (advice and litigation concerning elections, campaign finance, initiatives and redistricting).”

Again, a politically well connected, very smart, great guy, with apparently no experience in this area, (except maybe as city attorney, negotiating large payout claims to citizens who were brutalized by cops hired by Montoya and kept on by La Cabe). And again, I foresee a future on the Denver Bench for Mr. Fein.

According to her bio, Former Head of Denver’s Public Safety Review Commission Adrienne Benavidez “was appointed as Director of the Division of Finance and

Procurement in March 2007. Prior to her current appointment,

Adrienne served as the Executive Director of the Color of Justice,

Inc., a non-profit, non-partisan organization that provided legal

and policy advocacy for communities of color in the Metro Denver

area.

Ms. Benavidez earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science

and a Juris Doctorate Degree, along with completion of the Special Emphasis in Tax

Certification Program from the University of Colorado. Adrienne has been a practicing

attorney since 1991 and previously practiced in the areas of commercial litigation and

bankruptcy and provided pro bono legal service to community based organizations.

Ms. Benavidez also completed the ten month long Denver Community Leadership Forum

which focuses primarily on the development of collaborative leadership skills and coop-

erative problem solving.

Adrienne has worked with several community groups and has served as a member of the

Board of Directors of several organizations including the Colorado Hispanic Bar

Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, Servicios De La Raza, Harrison Memorial

Animal Hospital, and public radio station KUVO. Adrienne’s community service included

working on civilian oversight of police issues and she was a member of the Denver Civil Service Commission and past Chair of the Denver Public Safety Review Commission.”

Ms. Benavidez is the only one of the seven appointees, who has actually worked hard to effectuate real change in Denver’s abysmal public safety culture of corruption. She  began her service on the Commission in the 90’s under the Wellington Web Administration. Perhaps she was largely unsuccessful in her efforts because of the entrenched good-ole-boy system instituted under Butch Montoya and continued under Al LaCabe. Unfortunately, in her present appointment, Ms. Benavidez is sure to be outnumbered again by those same folks who ignored her before.

Not an auspicious beginning for the new Administration.

J. Brandeis Sperandeo

Hey Dude, Where's My Job?

Jobs, jobs, JOBS! Apparently, buoyed by their success in the 2010 midterm elections and undaunted by the reality that they have taken exactly zero measures to remedy the situation since then, the Tea/GOP is again prepared to make 2012 political hay out of the abysmal jobs situation in the U. S. today. The pundits all say that a 9% unemployment rate during 2012 will be the death knell to the Progressive cause and the Obama reelection campaign. Unemployment is at around 9% right now. Imagine that.

Since Wall Street is now booming and the Fortune 500 guys have never been more flush with cash, you might wonder where the jobs have gone and why they are not returning along with the fortunes of Goldman Sachs, BofA, and AIG (that changed their name to AIU, but that sounded too much like IOU, so then changed it again to Chartis).

Oh God, is Brandeis going to bore us to tears again, with yet another unendingly long diatribe in a dreary series of unendingly long diatribes on this and related subjects?

No, I am not. Yes, I have researched and written over 22 (okay, 33 actually) posts in this area and will list them at the bottom, but I’m going to keep this one simple, so that you may have a handy, short answer when some moron tells you that Obama killed the jobs and that the only way to bring them back is to elect more Tea/GOP charlatans.

There are two main reasons why the jobs numbers suck in the U.S. right now, and President Obama is not to blame. The big business folks (who are bank-rolling the Tea/GOP) are to blame, and I’ll tell you why:

1. American companies have shipped jobs overseas. Why? So megabiz can make more money for their wealthy stockholders, that’s why. Opening a plant, firm, or customer service center in a foreign country does not carry the burden of:

1. Taxes
2. Following Child labor laws
3. Insuring safe working conditions
4. Paying workers a decent wage
5. Providing job security for workers
6. Providing pensions for workers
7. Providing health insurance for workers

2. Instead of creating U.S. jobs, big business is either hoarding their cash or using it to acquire other businesses.. Profits are through the roof, yet they claim that they are too “insecure” to create jobs. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says that they are waiting for four things to happen before they will allow their members to create new jobs:

1. The government lifts recent regulations on banks/insurance companies that were enacted to prevent the Ponzi scheme-type activities (actually worse, but I promised to keep this short) that almost caused another Great Depression.
2. The government lifts recent environmental protection rules that were enacted to help prevent another BP Oil catastrophe.
3. The government dismantles the New Affordable Health Care legislation, and replaces it with the old health insurance industry system that you  came to know and love all those decades, if you lived through it.
4. The government lowers taxes on corporations, but they still get to keep the same loopholes.

Maybe the Tea/GOP is correct in the sense that the Obama Administration has worked to protect the middle class and the working poor from the ravages of the heretofore unfettered, Machiavellian business quest for hegemony. But anyone who actually believes that returning to the former status quo will create jobs has been on LSD since the Clinton Administration. Again, in the interest of brevity, I will not elaborate.

That’s it. I’m done. For those of you who may have the stomach for further reading, I will list below, the other stuff that I have written on this and related subjects, which stem from the finest data that I shamelessly lifted from actual journalists.

J. Brandeis Sperandeo

Just Can’t Watch The “Debate” Tonight, 6/13/11

John Hickenlooper v. Rick Scott: Not Even Close, 6/2/11

ConocoPhillips CEO Latest To Flirt With Extortion, 5/17/11

Highlights From Rolling Stone, 5/17/11

Questions Every American Should Be Asking, 5/17/11

ConocoPhillips CEO Latest To Flirt With Extortion, 5/17/11

Questions Every American Should Be Asking, 5/17/11

ConocoPhillips CEO Latest To Flirt With Extortion, 5/13/11

Questions Every American Should Be Asking, 5/13/11

U. S. Violates Human Rights of Citizens, 5/5/11

Welfare Queen Exxon Mobil Profits Up 69%, 4/29/11

llegal Immigrants 1,000,000 - Immigration-Bigots Zero, 4/23/11

My Own Skewed View, 4/21/11

Lies, Damned Lies & Opinions, 4/15/11

You Might Be A Hypocrite, If…, 4/13/11

In Defense of Christianity, 4/7/11

A Matter of Perspective, 4/6/11

Can’t Be a Progressive Anymore, 4/5/11

Faux Emergencies In America, 3/11/11

State Workers "Share In The Sacrifice" Every Day., 2/28/11

Google The Koch Brothers...Just Once!, 2/22/11

If We Did This, We’d Be Fired., 1/21/11

House Oversight Committee Refuses to Oversee The House, 1/17/11

Does The Health Care Bill Really Kill Jobs?, 1/12/11

The Job-Killing What, 1/12/11

John Boehner Cancels Legislative Business, 1/10/11

Fear Sells, 1/9/11

What To Do About The Lying Charlatans?, 1/7/11

More Fun Facts About Health Care in The U.S., 1/6/11

Repeal and Replace This!, 1/5/11

My Other Brother Darrell, 1/4/11

Stock Market Rebound, 1/1/11

If We Were Any Dumber..., 12/31/10

Just Can’t Watch The “Debate” Tonight

I just can’t watch the Tea/GOP “debate” tonight, between the various candidates, quasi-candidates, maybe candidates, no-one-else-is-stupid-enough-to-run candidates, my-book-fees-go-through-the-roof-if-I-say-I-am-a candidates, and all-my-rich-friends-and-other-drunks-say-I-should-run candidates.

Since former New Mexico Governor and serious candidate Gary Johnson was shut out of the debate by CNN, the remaining field will bend over backwards and grab their ankles to:

1. Blame President Obama for everything from the forest fires in Arizona to global warming (which does not exist, but, if it does, it is Obama’s fault.)

2. What they say will be complete pandering garbage, but the underlying message to donors and to the Tea Party will be more important and I can’t watch that either. They will prescribe various cost cutting remedies designed to chart a course toward fiscal health, but no plan will involve inconveniencing their wealthy donors in any way, so:

1. No tax increases on the wealthiest 2% of the population. Why not? Because Pater needs a third  vacation home in the Cayman Islands!

2. Repeal capital gains taxes. Pater died shtupping the maid and they need all of his dough to put into tax sheltered accounts in the Cayman Islands, where they, incidentally, have a third vacation home.

3. No tax increases on mega-corporations. Without that extra cash, how can they pay $multi-million bonuses to rich CEOs, so they can buy that third vacation home and add to their already bulging accounts in the Cayman Islands?

4. allow big businesses to continue shipping American jobs overseas. America demands cheap Nikes, and iStuff, so the former middle class will just have to learn to speak Chinese and greet customers at the WalMart. Mean while, the CEOs of these companies will be relaxing in their third vacation homes in, yes, you guessed it, the Cayman Islands.

5. Repeal recent “job killing” regulations on the Fortune 500 companies. Why should oil companies like BP and Exxon have to follow burdensome safety rules? Goldman & Sachs should again feel free to drum up another ponzi scheme and rake in billions (now sheltered in the Cayman Islands) and give us the bill, just like last time.

6. Continue financing the military-industrial complex, (not the actual soldiers) so that Halliburton, Raytheon, and Blackwater CEOs can take shelter (tax shelter, that is) from the hell that is war in their third vacation homes in the Cayman Islands.

7. Kill “ObamaCare,” to insure a return to the status quo for the mega-pharma/insurance companies. Cayman Islands. Them, not us. Get it?

However, their ideas will uniformly require the rest of us to “share in the sacrifice” and so they will include plans to:

a.    Dismantle Medicare and replace it with coupons that folks over 65 can use to try to buy 30% of a health insurance policy from a private insurer, if they can find a company that will take the risk.

b.   Dismantle Social Security and replace it with…uh…soilent green?

c.    Strip state workers rights to collective bargaining about unnecessary frills like job security, pensions, a safe work place, fair wages, no child labor, no gender, age, racial discrimination, etc.

d.   Increase taxes on the poor and the middle class though great ideas like “the flat tax,” increased sales or excise taxes, gasoline taxes, etc.

e.    Cut funding for Head Start, Aid to Families With Dependent Children, family planning clinics, and block grants for state-run social programs.

f.    No more helping companies that actually make goods in the U.S.A. and employ millions in the middle class, like GM, Chrysler, and green energy start-up ventures. Those jobs should be in Mumbai, where they belong!

As for social legislation I can’t watch because each candi..whatever, will attempt to sound more pious, and replete with family values than their opponents. The family values in questions will undoubtedly involve:

1. Abolishing abortion, contraception, and sex outside of the man-on-top-woman-on-bottom marriage bedroom, the way Jesus had intended it.  Underlying message? A child born of rape or incest could turn up to be the next American Idol or even The Bachelorette!

2. Outlawing all gay marriage, so gays will not start humping barnyard animals. Underlying message (as if the main message was not scary enough)? Just because you never heard of Jesus with a woman doesn’t mean he was gay!

3. Denying that the Founding Fathers ever provided for the separation of church and state and insisting that we acknowledge the U.S. as a Christian Nation.  Note: Mike Huckabee is currently working on this historical revision, which will also include the Midnight Ride (to warn the British) of Paul Revere, the shot Heard Round The World from Concord…New Hampshire, and how the Founding Fathers freed the slaves. All revisions will come complete with the full blessing of Jesus.

4. Sending all illegal aliens back to where ever they came from and building a wall, so they can’t get back in. Underlying message? Jesus, (in addition to not being at all gay, and Founding America) would have wanted it that way.

5. Supporting our troops (with ribbons and stuff), but not with actual money or healthcare or the GI Bill, or jobs when they get home from war. Jesus will go as far as ribbons but we have this deficit that Obama caused, so…

6. arming every American citizen with a gun, or two, or three, so that the gummint (that each candi…whatever wants to lead) can’t tell them what to do (with the exception of above items 1-4 and any other good Christian rule that might come up on Sunday in church).

7. Promoting religious tolerance, as long as the religion is Christian-based.

I also can’t watch because I cringe at how many groups of people these sort-of, kind-of, maybe candidates will piss off tonight. My general read is that there will about 15%-18% of the U.S. population who are so stupid, bigoted, and mean of spirit, that they will cheer on these heroes and therefore will remain psychologically unscathed, after the debate.

The seven whatevers will not be playing to a national audience but rather to a select group of the Tea/GOP in Iowa. Yet the “debate” will broadcast nationally and I believe that it will be recorded.

Although big business will spend billions to support whomever becomes the front-runner and to debrief the public about what the candiwhatevers said tonight, the progressives will have this debate and many, many, many more crazy-assed tasty tidbits of tripe to sound-byte a resounding response.

Are these seven wannabes hoping that they can say dangerously stupid stuff to get nominated and then do a“king’sxIdidn’tmeantosaythatitwasinresponsetoagottchaquestionwhoareyougonnabelievemeorthetapeofmespeaking?” Do they really believe that most Americans have such a short memory? Do they think that they can “advertise” their way out of it, before the general election?

I don’t have an answer to that one, but I just can’t watch the “debate” tonight. Mostly because it is not a debate, but a fashion show to see who can the most out of touch with everything I stand for. And they want to be President of my country. I’ll read the excerpts in installments tomorrow.

J. Brandeis Sperandeo

Anthony Wiener Should Resign

My oldest daughter thought I was kidding when I wrote on Facebook that Anthony Wiener should resign his seat in the U.S House of Representatives. I was absolutely serious. This is not simply a case of mistakenly sending a picture of his junk to one person, or six people, or 40,000.

It was a pattern of narcissism-driven risk-taking with several different women over three years, and during his new marriage as well. Then he lied with impunity to his wife, his friends, his constituents, and to millions of us who thought of him as our champion and wanted to believe his lies. I reserve the use of “oops, I did it again,” as an excuse made by a much lower class of individual and certainly not conduct becoming a U.S. Representative.

The political/religious right will now be able to use this totally disabled mess-of-a-man as an example, an easy talking point about a progressive hypocrite. Wiener’s credibility is in the toilet. He was Obama's point man. Now Wiener is nothing more than a liability for progressives, while other jerk-offs like Andrew Breitbart gain credibility as actual journalists. Anthony Wiener's job was to fight for us, and now he can no longer do that job in the arena of Washington politics. He should resign.

                                                                                                      

Someone else reacted in surprise to my earlier comments and lamented that they typified a culture of Puritanism. I was in college in 1974. Anyone else who shared that experience with me would “lol” at the very idea of me and Puritanism being mentioned in the same sentence. Since I am neither a convicted felon nor a religious convert, my moral certitude has not changed, but is still as firmly entrenched as ever, thank you very much.

It is, (I’ll apologize in advance for offending anyone out there in cyberspace) my belief  that the younger generation is so much more socially and sexually uptight, image-obsessed, and puritanical than my generation ever was or is today. It is not my culture (or better put, my generation) that is becoming more puritanical, I am afraid it is theirs.

Big business has inundated and inculcated the youth culture with a mind-numbingly staggering number of rules denoting everything that is cool, edgy, yesterday; all designed to get them to feel insecure and to assuage that insecurity by going out and buying more stuff. It seems that younger folks are conditioned to follow anything and everything that they are told that promises to improve their self esteem or general social cred.

How, you ask, do the notions of Puritanism and Consumerism relate to my present diatribe about Anthony Wiener? So sorry that it takes more than a five-second sound byte to explain; please be patient.

You see, the middle class is currently losing a protracted battle with a group of very powerful theocrats and oligarchs who have combined forces and have no problem reducing our nation’s population to little more than that of indentured servants who simply do as they are told. The middle class may cease to exist within a generation.

Younger folks may have nothing to take over from us but bills, electronics, and a plethora of rules for or against everything we formerly thought was our own business behind closed doors. That eventuality, my fellow Americans, would fulfill the prime prerequisite for a theocracy and is the essence of Puritanism.

As only one example, a man running against Sen. Amy Klobuchar in Minnesota named Dan Severson is running on a platform that there is no such thing as the separation of church and state. Below is his direct quote:

"Quite often you hear people say, 'What about separation of church and state? There is no such thing. I mean it just does not exist, and it does not exist in America for a purpose, because we are a Christian nation. We are a nation based on Christian principles and ideals, and those are the things that guarantee our liberties. It is one of those things that is so fundamental to the freedoms that we have that when you begin to restrict our belief and our attestation to our Christian values you begin to restrict our liberties. You simply cannot continue a nation as America without that Christian base of liberty."

There is no historical basis for his views. In fact, our Founding Fathers, like James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, were staunch advocates for the complete separation of church and state, as they did not believe that there were any officially Christian nations that provided actual religious liberty to their people. I agree with them.

Thomas Jefferson once said: "Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites."

Theocrats like Dan Severson, Michelle Bachman, Tim Pawlenty, Mike Huckabee, and basically the whole Tea/GOP would be tickled pink to shove their own brand of religious liberties (i.e. rules and regulations) down our throats. Big business is financing their crusade because they both believe that an enslaved populace is a compliant populace who buy everything and question nothing.

It is not simply another election cycle, my friends. We are looking at a slow but inexorable movement toward a theocracy, powered by the Koch Brothers, enforced by Haliburton and Blackwater.

When selfish idiots like Wiener champion our cause and then sully it with behavior more in keeping with the coming-of-age movie, American Pie...and then repeatedly lie about it, the news cycles all but ignore how Sara Palin said that Paul Revere, on his famous midnight ride, was actually trying to warn the BRITISH and ignore that her followers tried to flood Wikipedia to change the actual historical record, so that Palin would not look like the imbecile that she is. But now everyone is talking about Wiener’s wiener or that psychopath who killed her child in Florida. And folks like me are left feeling as if we are in the middle of a Kurt Vonnegut novel.                                                                                                              

Anthony Wiener was one of my personal heroes and he should resign.

Please excuse the phantom limb syndrome.

J. Brandeis Sperandeo

John Hickenlooper v. Rick Scott: Not Even Close

Some of us in Colorado don’t realize how lucky we are to have a governor like John Hickenlooper. Yesterday, Hick was roundly criticized by the local Tea/GOP for vetoing a mean-spirited bill they passed, which would have required that certain parents enrolled in our state health care plan pay a 1,000%-higher premium for their children’s coverage.

Fiscal watchdogs such as Sen. Greg Brophy and House Speaker Frank McNulty actually said in public that a family of four, making less than $56K (that’s total income for all four) don’t need the help with health care, because they already have all kinds of extra cash which they are currently spending on “beer, cigarettes, and lottery tickets.”

The Tea/GOP folks claim that the change would have saved the general fund $1.2 million, mostly because the affected families would not be able to afford the higher premiums and would be forced to drop out of the program.

Governor Hickenlooper told the Tea/GOP in advance that he would veto the bill, but they passed it anyway, so they could demonstrate just how they could have made yet another step to solve our budget crisis on the backs of those who can least afford it. The Tea/GOP called this total waste of time an “important step on welfare reform.” And they are currently ranting about it in public like Governor Hick has just stabbed them in the back.

Now let’s compare the way Colorado Governor Hickenlooper just acted on behalf of low-income sick folks to the most recent actions of hero/Tea/GOP/health insurance executive/billionaire/megalomaniac Governor Rick Scott of Florida.

Scott just directed that all applicants for the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program must take a drug test, to make sure that they are not squandering state funds on…uh…drugs.

In a press release, Gov. Scott stated: "While there are certainly legitimate needs for public assistance, it is unfair for Florida taxpayers to subsidize drug addiction," Scott said. "This new law will encourage personal accountability and will help to prevent the misuse of tax dollars."

But Scott didn’t just direct away the rights of all those indolent, drug-addicted, beer-swilling, cigarette-smoking, lottery- ticket-buying, poor folks. No, Scott is further requiring mandatory drug testing for all prospective state hires, and random drug testing of current employees in agencies whose directors he appoints. Colorado State Republicans like Brophy and McNulty must be so proud of Floridians like Rick Scott. If only Colorado had a Governor who would take such bold action like that!

It is not just an ideological thing with Scott. Did I mention that he was a health care executive? He made his billions off of the private health care industry. When he became Governor, he divested himself of all interest in one of his companies named Solantic, an urgent care chain facility that he co-founded. By divest, I mean that he put it all in his wife’s name.

And you will never guess what is one of the more popular “private and confidential services” that Solantic provides at $35 a pop!

Scott’s mandatory drug testing directive looks especially dodgy when combined with his push to privatize Medicare and move Medicaid into private HMOs. Solantic does not take Medicaid but does business with private Medicaid HMOs.

Aside from the Medicaid issue, hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Floridians will now have to pay…uh…some company to test them, if they want to keep their jobs/benefits with the State. Scott thinks that Solantic should, but is not required to be left out of the impending massive government contract for pee pee services. Some company is going to rake in $2-3 million a year, just on the testing alone. If Scott’s plan to privatize Medicare/Medicaid (otherwise known as the Tea/GOP/Paul Ryan Plan) is realized, it will bring in billions to Rick Scott’s wife’s business.

Florida has a $3.6 billion deficit, but Governor Scott thinks that the extra $3 million Florida is blowing (giving to his wife) on mandatory drug testing for poor welfare recipients and middle class state workers will “give Floridians peace of mind.”

At first you wonder how this guy got elected, then you read that he spent $73 million of his own money to get there. Still, the founder of health care mega-Corp Columbia/HCA was linked to a mega-scandal, well in advance of his recent purchase of the governorship.

Scott was kicked out of Columbia/HCA by his own board of directors in 1997 amid the nation's biggest health care fraud scandal ever. The company's guilty plea and payment of $1.7 billion to settle charges including the over-billing of state and federal health programs was taken as a repudiation of Mr. Scott's relentless bottom-line approach.

Though Scott was not directly implicated in the fraud scandal, his maniacal quest for profits was widely believed to have provided the incentive for the fraud. Floridians voted Scott into office and are already choking on that decision. They should visit an urgent care facility.

Now that we have done this little comparison of the two different governors, noting their two radically different approaches to health care for the poor, ethics, politics in general, and just plain old morality, Ole Hick is looking more like a saint than the traitor that Brophy and McNulty are making him out to be. These local yokels ought to thank their lucky stars that they have a governor like John Hickenlooper, who looks out for the little guy, instead of a criminal like Rick Scott, who only looks out for himself.

You Tea/GOP folks should be careful what you wish for. Can you say TANCREDO?

J. Brandeis Sperandeo