Nikki Haley's Next Job

I wasn't blown away by Hurricane Matthew last week.  But here's what did blow me away:

Nikki Haley was in control right from the beginning.  She spoke with authority, and did not seem to be considering anything other than the safety of the people of South Carolina.

She did not hesitate to ask for federal emergency funds.

As I headed out on Wednesday morning, ahead of the evacuation deadline, I noted rows of port-o-potties at rest areas to handle (pardon the pun) the overflow.  I saw police and other emergency vehicles out and ready.  And the next day I was not surprised to hear that the I-26 reversal went smoothly.

There were shelters open, lots of them, and frequent announcements made as to where to go for shelter, what to bring, how to deal with pets.  There were phone numbers for people who needed answers or encountered problems, for anything from finding shelter to price gouging.

While I was hiding out, Nikki Haley was making frequent announcements that were broadcast on TV and radio, with her department heads addressing status and progress.  She never failed to thank those who were working hard to protect us.  She took as long as was needed to keep us informed.  And I believed that the efforts to restore us to normalcy would proceed efficiently.

On the way home on Sunday I saw that road crews had indeed been out taking trees and debris off the roads.  There were police at stop lights that were not working.

To sum it all up, Nikki Haley can kick butt when it comes to emergencies.

Unfortunately, when she is able to slow down, she begins to make all those political decisions that hurt the people of South Carolina.  She puts money in the pockets of the rich, individuals and corporations, as she fights to deny the poor medical insurance and food stamps.  She sticks her government nose into the business of legislating women's reproductive rights and wastes taxpayer dollars to create hurdles to voting rights.  Despite the tragic numbers of gun fatalities, she stands firmly against any gun legislation that might save an innocent life.

In other words, when Nikki Haley has the opportunity to philosophize she makes big mistakes that hurt many people.  She shadows the politics of power.  She aligns herself with the wealthy and convinces herself that her reasons are solid.

So, exactly a year after the 2015 floods, the road to Johns Island was again flooded, as I am sure many other roads were flooded, because no action had been taken after the crisis to prevent the problem from repeating itself.  We still have not raised the gasoline tax in order to repair roads and bridges, even though corporations who have been given sweet deals to move here are pulling the plug, quite possibly because of the disgraceful infrastructure.  And then there are corporations who won't come here because of the low standard of education.

But Nikki sees herself a future national treasure, much as Jim duh-Mint did, and just as Tim Scott imagines.  When she is able, she will always align herself with the right-wing, because that is where the money and power lie.

What is to be done about this waste of Nikki's talent?  I propose that she be given a job in the Clinton administration where she doesn't have to profess a philosophy of government, but just simply has a well-defined job to do.  Something where she has already proven her skills.  I am thinking head of FEMA.

It's Not About Us -- Yet

We Dems worry a lot.  I know I have been all but losing sleep over the idiots who are running for president on the republican side.  Who hasn't, really?  But yesterday I (accidentally) slipped into the shoes of a republican voter, and suddenly all this insanity became clear.

Imagine that you have over the past thirty-plus years, after having been knocked around by everything from oil embargoes and gas shortages to war, unemployment, underemployment, unaffordable housing, loss of health insurance, and on and on.  Overwhelmed?

Now suppose that you had a work ethic that taught you that with a hard day's work you would be paid fairly, you would be able to raise your children in health and comfort and with the potential for an even better future, and that you would be able to retire someday without worry, to enjoy whatever years remain.

And then think about how little free time most people have.  And how exhausted they all are.  And worried.  And disappointed -- no, angry.

Imagine that there are people who have had wealth and power, and imagine that they are angry too.  They are angry because they feel under constant threat of losing that power, and resent that they may not be allowed to create more wealth, with no restrictions.  It only took a few evil geniuses to convince others that there are ways to "persuade" the American people that this small group is entitled to all that wealth and power.

From Carnegie to Rockefeller to the Kochs to Art Pope,  that has been the goal.  They formed clubs and foundations and think tanks where the best and the brightest could strategize.  They threw many millions of dollars into these groups and into every aspect of our lives where they could influence us with their newspeak, where freedom really means the freedom of the wealthy to pillage and plunder, but we learn that it means the freedom to be angry at those who might take our jobs.  Liberty means corporations enjoy no regulations, no taxes, no obligations, but we believe it means Andy Griffith's "America."  Corporations are not just "job creators," but, so we are told, are people.

These great greedy minds have not only figured out how to turn themselves into heroes, but also how to focus our rage away from the oligarchs to those of us who are in their way, and those who are disposable.  They have bought much of the media and threatened the rest of it.  They have dazzled us with distractions, celebrities and electronic toys, convinced us that we need whatever they have to sell and raised the cost of living so that we are never able to feel secure and end up living in a constant state of worry.  We are too exhausted to look at the problem and work at the best solution, and we are all too happy to grab at the solution they have fed us.

This is the message of the plutocrats:  the answer to our problems is to rage at the minorities;  the answer is to control the behavior of those whose values are different than ours;  the answer is to give it up to the leaders who will carry out our rage for us.

In other words, give the power to the likes of Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, all the others that have occupied the clown car.

One Trump supporter said it feels like giving the finger to the government.

And who is the government?  These days the government is the Congress that has popularity ratings lower than syphilis.  The guys whose only goal over the past eight years was to block Obama.  The ones who shut down the government in an attempt to deny people health care.  On some level republican voters know this, but this is not the message they keep hearing.  

Republicans in America know they are angry.  They know they are angry at government.  They know their Congress has done nothing for them.  They feel the anger, but they don't know the details.  So they blame Obama and they blame "government."  Basically, they are blaming exactly who they have been told to blame for decades.  Imagine Ted Cruz' surprise to find out that he is the government he has been telling people to hate.

I once had a conversation with someone as he repaired my washing machine.  It circled around money:  repairing rather than buying a new machine, pinching pennies after retiring, working as long as possible.  And at one point he exclaimed about people on food stamps who are ripping us off.  I countered that there are so few, and it is so much less than the corporations that are stealing from us.

His answer:  "But we can't do anything about them."

Our republican friends and neighbors know things aren't right.  And they are listening to the loudest voices in the room who are happy to give a shape to their anger.  Under the guidance of Kochs et al, the Rubios and Cruzes point the finger at Obama, as they have for eight years.

But what is interesting, is that so many of those republican voters know that there is something that doesn't smell right about the Rubios and Cruzes either.  They have all too well internalized the message that government is bad and politicians should not be trusted.  Trump supporters may not know that Trump has maximized his wealth by ripping off the government, or they may just give him kudos for succeeding at it.  What they do know is that Trump is not government and he is not a politician.  They know that he is angry at everybody,  except for them, because he has told them he loves them.

So that is my little foray into the minds of the republican voters.  Their support of Trump and the other idiots isn't about us just yet.  And hopefully Bernie and Hillary will be well equipped to offer the less crazy republicans a better choice come November.  And we have to remind ourselves that turning out to vote for one or another of the republican clown car isn't really about us.  Just yet.

The Ironic Cherry Reads...

Dark Money

by Jane Mayer

The great Jane Mayer, who wrote Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas, and The Dark Side, about the abuses that occurred during our "war on terror," has written another timely and gripping book of America and politics.  Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Radical Right is about as nail-biting as any work of political espionage.  It is a much needed expose of Charles and David Koch, who have been on a path to control politics and government since 1970, as well as a not-too-long list of the wealthiest few with the most power.

On that list, in a chapter on gaining control of the states, is Art Pope, who has engineered the demise of North Carolina through large donations to private and anonymous -- and untaxed non-profit -- organizations, which he controls.  Here I am in South Carolina well awash in right wingnuts with an anti-tax, pro-gun, anti-EPA, anti-Obamacare, anti-education agenda, and as I read about the gutting of North Carolina by Art Pope, my heart was breaking.

The "Kochtopus" as Mayer says this multi-layered secretive organization has been called, may have been incubating for a few decades, but it came into full flower with the first semi-annual donors' conference a week after the inauguration of Barack Obama in January, 2009.  It is this event that begins the book, because it was the election of an African American Democratic president that spurred these corporate giants to join forces to do everything in their power to, as the popular saying goes, "Take back the country."

In fact, when Donald Trump and Sarah Palin talk about taking back the country, the fans in the audience are unlikely to realize the true meaning.  It is in fact the goal of the Kochs to take the country back from anyone who believes that the government belongs to the people, and not just the wealthy.  Their fight has been, from the beginning, a fight against paying taxes, against environmental and worker safety regulation, against anything or anyone who would get in the way of profit.

Their means evolve over time, as Mayer describes in well-documented detail.  You may have heard that the Kochs are generous philanthropists, giving to The Kennedy Center, National Public Radio, The Smithsonian, and a mind-blowing number of educational institutes.  And all that generosity is not for nothing.

The Kochs have managed to fund programs in secondary schools as well as universities to influence and develop libertarian courses throughout the country, including our own College of Charleston, where, according to the Center for Public Integrity:

At the College of Charleston, the Charles Koch Foundation sought names and email addresses of any student participating in a Koch-sponsored class, and to be notified in advance of media outreach related to the school.

Textbooks in courses influenced by Koch generosity describe the New Deal as a failure and free market philosophies as the true path to success.   The David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, opened in 2010, promotes the position that humans will be better off by adapting to climate change rather than fighting it; for example, we might "build 'underground cities' and develop 'short, compact bodies' or 'curved spines' so that 'moving around in tight spaces will be no problem.' "

With plenty of aforethought and great stealth, in 2011, before census results had been released, the plan to take over the country through redistricting began to be implemented.  In North Carolina, public meetings were held and public testimony obtained but ignored.  When the state supreme court was about to hear the suit claiming the maps violated the Voting Rights Act, outside cash wisely spent during the 2012 judicial race kept the court conservative, and in line.

After the 2012 election, the Kochs and their icky partners decided that the republican party could not be trusted to take the country back, so they redoubled their funding and their plans.  We may chuckle about how the republican party continues to try to rewrite their agenda to effect voters' feelings about them without changing their pro-corporate power anti-everything-else agenda.  But it has worked.

It worked dramatically in North Carolina, in states like Wisconsin and Kansas.  It worked to turn Congress not just red but Tea Party red.  And it has been courting and winning over our justices for decades.  They won't stop until they also can cut a notch into their belts for the presidency.

All those fear mongering right-wing ads that are carpet-bombing our state are being brought to us by the Kochtopus.  It is no surprise Marco Rubio has moved up in the polls, because there is a lot of dark money betting on that horse.  And it may be that nobody likes Ted Cruz, but he toes the Koch party line, and in return they will keep him well fed.  Follow the money.  As Mayer documents, most of it goes back to the Kochs.

I could go on.  This is a nearly 400 page book, and I wish there were an additional 400 pages.  It is horrifying, and it is hard to walk away from.  As it should be.

The Charleston County Public Library in an all-too-rare flash of wisdom, has purchased eight copies in hardback, as well as audio and eBook format.  I hope you will give this really important book a read.

Getting Away with Lies

Yesterday, the Post & Courier had an opinion piece by Dave Schwartz.  You may not know him; he doesn't even have a wikipedia page.  But this is just the way his employer, David Koch, of the Americans for Prosperity, likes it.  Anonymity allowed him and his brother, the other Koch, to get away with years of control of our legislators, until investigative journalists like Rachel Maddow forced them out of the shadows.

So we have this new guy who comes into town and spreads lies about bad government and good corporations, bad taxes and good job creators, and then moves on.  He has been State Director for AFP in Maryland, then Virginia, and now South Carolina.

The opinion piece in the Post and Courier is an example of the dirtiest of dirty work, full of blatant and absurd lies, like calling the American Legislative Exchange Council "non-partisan."  He argues, predictably, that it is our high state taxes that is the cause of all our ills.  If only we had low taxes like Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, we would have -- that's right -- job growth and prosperity.  And he sites that other "non-partisan" group, the Civitas Institute, for research that states that SC has the highest tax rate and the "lowest take-home pay in the region."  The Civitas Institute, for those of you who aren't aware, is that North Carolina group of right wing-nuts who, despite Schwartz claim that they are non-partisan, describes themselves as "North Carolina's conservative voice."  A voice that is funded by Art Pope, who as NC budget director engineered the cutbacks that have devastated North Carolina in recent years.  He has just resigned; we might want to keep an eye on him to see where he will be going to spread his dysentery next.

Anyway, to get back to Dave Schwartz and the Post & Courier.  He has made claims in that piece that are totally fabricated, made to scare and anger readers.  We know he is disseminating lies.  We know that our governor bribes businesses to our state with tax giveaways, that our education system suffers as a result, that too many of our workers are not paid a living wage.  We know that the reason our economic growth in SC is lower than much of the rest of the country is that our yahoos in the legislature and our governor are wasting our resources working to cut services to the poor, deny voting rights to seniors and minorities, and ensure that workers are not allowed to fight for a living wage.  We also know that big corporations are favored over small businesses, and that because the wealthy who profit in our state are not made to contribute, our education, health care and infrastructure resembles that of a third world country, where the lines are clearly drawn between the rich and the poor, and those in the shrinking middle struggle every day to access the American dream.

We should not allow Dave Schwartz and other Koch and Pope minions to get away with disseminating lies without fear of contradiction.  When we see an article online, let's quickly comment.  Let's write letters to the editor pointing out the fallacies and distortions, and correcting the misinformation.  Let's not complain among ourselves, or ignore these outrages.  They will not go away.  They will invade and erode, so that truth becomes fiction.  They snuck into North Carolina like body snatchers and left its government wasted and its people devastated.

It is hard to believe that we have elections coming up in a few months.  Interest has been pretty lackadaisical, considering all we have at stake.  Our Democratic politicians and candidates aren't screaming loud enough, they aren't showing enough outrage.  Shouldn't one of those candidates be writing an Op Ed in the Post and Courier denouncing Dave Schwartz's ridiculous claims?

Somebody, anybody, everybody, please, speak out.  And let's start with the fact that he is misrepresenting who he is and what his organizations stand for.