Disinfo Rehab

I don't know what is more irritating to me, as a taxpayer, to observe and make me cringe when it comes to the so-called "Stem Cell Research Initiative" voters, in their inimitable wisdom, passed in 2004 here in California.

Part of it is the actual law itself - but also, the way both the press and so-called "leaders" of local governments have chosen to overlook serious problems with this law.

Instead, they've chosen instead to shower an institute funded with $3 billion dollars of credit card spending with yet more "free" (aka "taxpayer funded" goodies). All for a scientific institute that is to be headed up by...a real estate developer with no experience in science, let alone stem cells.

Let's start by taking a look at the law itself. Now, throughout the campaign, voters heard endless, heart-tugging emotional stories of those afflicted with terrible diseases. The initiative's backers skillfully manipulated people, who want to do things to help others, to vote for this new law. People against the law were dismissed as ultra-right religious extremists (even though opposition came from people of diverse political views).

Like so many other initiatives, any real examination of the ramifications of the law were never fully examined. Then the thing passed. And suddenly, after the dust settled, we started to see a wave of "mea culpas" from the press like this one in the December San Francisco Chronticle, and another in the Bay Guardian.

Among the little details: the initiative is using borrowed money, $3 billion worth, and part of that has to go to paying of the debt created by the borrowing right away. So first thing we're seeing these guys spend money on isn't life-saving research - it's bond debt. Out of $300 million in borrowed money in the first few years, as much as $200 million could go to...debt service. To paraphrase the Chronicle - this is like using part of a home loan to make the house payments. Now there's a responsible way to manage money!

If the institute wants to stop spending money on stem cell research, they can. And if they want to spend it on wild parties, they can. And if you want to call your elected officials to bitch and demand a stop to such shenanigans...you can't. They wrote the law so it's almost impossible to enforce the same kind of oversight we demand on every other state program.

Best of all, the guy who wrote this thing, with all its faults, and vague promises of how the taxpayers will make their money back, just happens to be the guy in charge of the institute now and responds to queries about how he'll run things with the words "trust me."

That inspires a lot of confidence. Especially since he's the one that wrote so many poison pills in the law that keep anyone from stopping him from using the state credit card any way he wants. No wonder he was the Governor's choice for the job - we all know how much Gov. Doofinator loves spending on the taxpayer's credit cards!

Now, I am sure the reporters here are congratulating themselves on a job well done for 'exposing' the innards of this law. But I have to wonder -where was all this investigative journalism before the people voted on it and why did so many people including celebrities, politicos, and pundits, sign on to this thing without reading the fine print?

It gives me little satisfaction to say "I told you so!" in this instance - I'd rather people have been a little more responsible, used their votes a bit more wisely, and demanded real answers to some questions before voting.

Now, it's bad enough that voters passed a law with more loopholes, giveaways, and outright deceit as this one - but it is worse to see what so-called "leaders" of California's cities are doing now to attract the Big, Taxpayer Funded Headquarters for this thing.

Reading the "bids" taxpayers' representatives in cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, and elsehwere are simply astonishing. We have a situation where cities, in a desperate bid to get the institute in their home towns are trying to out-do each other with offers of free office rent, free gym memberships, free this, and free whatever. Anything at all to get the $3 billion dollar credit card in their home town.

Now, what's really pathetic is that once again local elected officials are doing two dumb things local electeds do really well - make "investments" in vague promises, and never tell anyone where the money is coming from to pay for said "investments."

The first is one we hear a lot. Whenever some large, and usually dumb, idea is presented to the public, elected officials use their favorite word when they want to "invest" in a vague promise with your money. They use the word "encourage." Whenever you hear this word, you need to get out a guard dog and put it next to your wallet - because it usually means someone wants to take money away from you and piss it away on something really dumb or give it away to someone who already has billions of dollars.

In this case, cities are giving away all kinds of free things, including hundreds of thousands of square feet of real estate, money to pay for fancy offices, and money for things like gym memberships to get the Big Headquarters of the so-called "California Institute for Regenerative Medicine" aka "The $3 Billion Credit Card You Have to Pay For."

Every single time you read what elected officials have to say when asked why they're giving away money in a time of budget crisis to this thing, they all say something along the lines of how spending this money is an "investment" that will "encourage" businesses to open up shop near said institute, and thus, trickle down the effect of all that spending into local tax coffers, and of course, "create jobs." Now, there's nothing in any of these deals that guarantees any of that. But you never hear that part. No one asks, and no one tells.

If there is one thing I wish I could accomplish in politics, it would be to spend the next ten years on a long rage PR campaign to put a stake in the heart of political "junkie logic" like this in public discourse. Why? Because it is 100%, pure, unadulterated bullshit. Let's see why.

Now, let's use our friend "metaphor" to deconstruct the political junkie logic in an easy to understand way, and see why any local elected official that engages in said logic needs to be asked to leave town:

Suppose you were asked to take a good portion of your take home pay and put it in an investment your new friend wants you to make. No one can show you the potential rate of return. In fact, no one can show you that there's any return at all. Worse, when you ask how the investment will work, you're attacked as being a coward, a liar, or just plain crazy. "Can't you see how your 'investment' will 'encourage' people?" they say?

You keep asking "But if I give you my $40,000 of savings, how will I make the money back?" and your new friend keeps saying that your money won't directly benefit you back - but it will encourage others to give money to you since you're such a great person for making this investment, and you want to encourage others to do the same so you get your money back. You have no guarantees, and the person taking your money could disappear tomorrow -and you'd be left with nothing.

Now, if this sounds more like a "con" than a sound investment, you'd be right. If you did something like this, you'd go to jail. If you're an elected official, you're praised as someone who "creates opportunity" and is "pro-business."

Meanwhile the countryside is littered with abandoned office space and industiral plants businesses got at the taxpayers' expense, all in the name of "investing" in the community and the vague promise of "jobs" in the future. And guess what? Most of those elected officials got promotions from the voters anyway!

In the case of the Stem Cell Mafia Institute, the "winning" city may find itself in for a rude shock should they "win" the right to have this debt-creator in their backyard, paid for by more of their citizens' money. See, there's no rule in any of that well-written law that the money has to be spent locally. In fact, they're mandated to spend money where research is being done now - anywhere. Even out of state.

And no company has put up its stockholders' dividends or its own profits up and said "Hey, I'll move to the city where the Institute is!" - because most companies aren't so stupid as to invest in fairy tales. There's also no guarantee that in the future the Stem Cell Mafia won't come back and say "give us more or we'll leave" after the big investment.

So while we can't figure out how to pay for a few cops in L.A., we can find money to give away $177 million to a billionaire for speculative development, and we can find millions more to "give" to a taxpayer-financed credit card agency with no real fiscal oversight. We can't vote ourselves taxes to pay for roads, schools, and whatnot but we can vote to borrow money and entrust it to a guy with no scientific background and let him play with it as he sees fit.

It's time to end the madness. If there was even a small amount of common sense, civic leaders across California would not be letting themselves be played like this. They'd instead suggest that if the Stem Cell Mafia wants to pitch its circus tent in their neighborhood, they'd have to have written guarantees that they'd employ local people at decent wages.

They'd have to guarantee that the states taxpayers, who are paying for the credit card debt keeping the lights on, would share in the patents and royalties generated by any research. And they certainly wouldn't' compete against each other like hookers at a street corner - they'd work together, since all of California voted for the initiative, and all of California should benefit.

I realize what I just said was a fairy tale as well. But hey! A person has to dream, right?

(note: this article was originally published on March 29, 2005. However in the ensuing upgrade from one platform to another, it was lost. It is being republished as current events warrant a trip in the Political Wayback Machine.)

Posted by Greg Dewar at 4:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Watching Sen. John Kerry post-election is something that makes feel both anger and pity for the man. Anger, because there's been constant media reports of how he found new and improved ways to blow the election, but pity, because it is clear that his delusions of grandeur that the Republicans capped on him about during the campaign seem to have some basis in reality, at least now.

It's also amazing how Kerry's spin team is trying to take a page out of 1984 and employ an army of Winston Smith wannabes to rewrite history, blasting anyone who dares suggest that their "campaign" wasn't some genius effort. What? You didn't realize he was for losing the election before he was against it?

Today, an advisor to Sen. Clinton said just that and for that has been getting all sorts of crap from the Kerry-ites in Washington D.C. and Boston for simply telling the truth - they ran a bad campaign, and took advice from D.C. insiders and Corporate thinkers who give not a whit about anything but lining their own pockets.

This is not the first time Kerry's spin team has tried to sell a version of events that is entirely at odds with the truth - in this case, the fact that he lost the election, primarily because of his campaign's constant bumbling, along with his own personal ineptitude.

Watching his top aides try and spin their fumbles is at once enraging, and entertaining. Enraging, because they can't seem to figure out that they blew it. Entertaining because it's fun to watch corporate-style mouthpieces come up with new and creative uses of the language to deflect blame and responsibility. Hey! There's money to be made in 2006 blowing more races!

Even more irritating are the constant emails I still get from Johnny boy begging for money, even though he has millions ready for more campaigns due in large part to the fact his campaign ended the 2004 election with a surplus.

Now, that in and of itself is another indictment of multimillionaire Kerry and his overpaid advisors in and of itself. How he can dare ask Mr. & Mrs. Average American for a penny out of their limited incomes to fund his future foibles is beyond me.

Even more pathetic are the appeals to "protest" Bush policies - which presumably wouldn't be happening if he had, say, won the election.

Here's a recent message I got after the Senate voted to allow oil drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. The subject line was "51, 49, and 260,000. Here is a portion of Kerry's (overly wordy) email:

Dear Greg,

That awesome display of grassroots power rattled our opponents. They even railed against my e-mail message on the Senate floor and entered its text into the Senate record. So, think of it this way. The Republican leaders of the Senate have 51 reasons to celebrate today, but you and I have 260,000 reasons to do the same.

Hmm...so it I am to understand this correctly, we're supposed to celebrate because a bill he and others didn't want to pass got approved by the Senate, but 260,000 people signed an online petition that had literally no effect on the outcome did so. Talk about spin!

I'm going to use Junkie John's logic in my world, one without bazilionaire friends, ski chalets in Idaho, and spending millions on on other loser millionares.

I'll go call up the phone company and tell them that I was this close to paying my bill this month, but I am choosing not to.

I will reassure them by telling the phone company that I had a petition of my friends and family, who would like to call me up on the phone, asking me to pay my bill so I could take their calls, but darn it! We just couldn't make it this month. But it was still a victory for the phone company because an unprecedented number of people kicked me in the butt to pay my bill on time.

See how the media junkie logic of today's spinmeisters doesn't cut it in the world you and I have to live in? See also just how irritating it is to receive this crap from St. John the Loser over and over again. At least retired Gen. Wes Clark's site and emails aren't nearly as annoying.

IT's time to kill the spin and speculation about Sen. John "I Blew It" Kerry's plans for 2008, or any other year. It's time to stop the madness. Despite the spin, despite the BS, despite all the denial, and despite all the blogging, he lost the election. It was not all the fault of some vast conspiracy - it was not merely a failure of a few mishandled tactics.

John Kerry lost the election because he never should have been the nominee in the first place. He was momentarily boosted at a time when his campaign was dead broke by a collusion of insider interests and the bungling of other candidates, untested by a real campaign in years.

St. Johnny and his people never realized that the crowds and money and volunteers weren't there because of St. John the Windbag - they were there despite his presence. No amount of talking, spinning, and blogging by desperate, cynical D.C. insiders is going to change that fact.

Stop the Madness. Just Say "No John Kerry" in 2008.

© 2003-2006 Greg Dewar | All Rights Reserved | Originally Published at www.schadelmann.com

Posted by Greg Dewar at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Every year I get calls from friends and relatives at election time, asking me to help them make sense of the choices they have at election time. Even after a campaign as high-profile as the last one in 2004, people still find it difficult to discern just which candidate is best for them.

When you're dealing with as underwhelming a campaign as we've had for the last couple of months for the leader of America's 2nd largest city, well you get more calls. Hence, my guide to the elections this Tuesday.

I have been purposely ducking writing about the election much this past week, partially due to real-life concerns, but partially because, well, it's all been a bit underwhelming in this rush since January to talk about Big Issues.

People keep asking me who I am voting for, and to be honest I really don't know - or if I'm even going to vote at all.

There's been too many disappointments in this race to date, and it makes it hard for me to cast a vote for someone just because they are "not" someone else. Here's what is keeping me from voting right now. Read it and if you agree or disagree, drop me a line or post a comment...

When I look at the candidacies of the two incumbent City Councilmembers who are running, Bernie Parks, and Antonio Villaraigosa, I see two people who could not be further apart in terms of viability. However, they also both share a dirty secret.

Bernie Parks' one-man grudge match against Mayor Hahn has about as much chance of winning as one of the fringe candidates at this point. Antonio Villaraigosa's campaign is definitely in the top 2 and is guaranteed a runoff, but there's been something underwhelming about his run this time vs. 2001.

I hate to join that chorus, but I've been waiting to see the "magic" his staff has been touting to me for a year now, and there is no magic. A competent campaign and a solidly run operation, yes, but the much-promised "epiphany" of The Great Antonio hasn't happened yet. Well, at least he gets Democrats to vote for him - maybe that's magic.

But my main problem with the incumbent councilmembers are two unanimous votes that tend to exemplify what's wrong with City Hall.

One was a vote to give $177,000,000 to billionaire developer Philip Anschutz (the world's 62nd richest person) to build a hotel near the Convention Center. The other was the unanimous vote to codify the really dumb and expensive idea to muck up the Venice Boardwalk.

The first is another example of how we talk about a sushi-bite issue, like "cops" but don't talk about anything else. Then when another "issue" comes up we talk about that. No one makes the connection. We somehow can't come up with the money to pay for the police without more taxes. We agonize and freak out about the "tax vs. no tax" debate.

And yet, the city finds money to give to the 62nd richest man in America for a speculative development that frankly, he oughta bear the burden of himself. It's hard to see why he needs a government handout when we can't pay for police. The city won't make any profit off their money - they just give it away, and don't even get the benefit of investing $177,000,000 the way a private investor would.

It begs the question: could the City Council have found a way to say, cut, $10 million off of billionaire Anschutz's government cheese to pay for more cops? Or, if the city is going to go into the hotel business, why not buy $177,000,000 of the proposed development as an investor, and take the alleged profits this genius is going to create, and pay for more cops that way?

The Boardwalk situation here in Venice is an example of why it never pays to talk to City Hall when your Councilmember has come up with a really dumb idea. You can go to the hearing, bring 1000 of your best friends and talk until you are blue in the face.

None of the councilmembers could care. They vote for each others' projects to ensure, well, that everyone votes for each others projects. Meanwhile, all that noise you hear about open government is just noise.

It was truly sad to see all these assorted Venetians get all worked up about this issue, and try and "lobby" the council during the public comment period. It was a nice effort, but also doomed from the start, because, frankly, most of the councilmembers could give a hoot about what a bunch of hippies that can't vote for them think.

I realize these are two little issues out of many accomplishments both have on their resumes. Guess what? They're my issues and they are what's keeping me from voting for either one right now.

If the grumpy white people in the Valley can get mad about "those people" in the schools, I can be perturbed at wasteful spending and unresponsive goverment. Tha is keeping me from committing to vote for Villaraigosa (Parks was never a serious candidate in my mind) just yet.

Likewise, when I look at the candidacies of three former or current Sacramento legislators, Bob Hertzberg, Richard Alarcon, and (again) Antonio Villaraigosa, a similar situation comes to mind - the incredibly stupid Energy Deregulation bill that was put together at the behest of the private utilities, and screwed California over pretty good.

In the case of Hertzberg and Villaraigosa, both were serving in the Legislature when this turd of a bill was passed with a unanimous vote. Since the mayhem that ensued, enriching Enron and power speculators at the expense of most citizens, I've yet to hear one legislator from that vote admit it was stupid idea and apologize, for making an honest mistake.

While the Mayor's attack ads may not be entirely accurate, implying that Ken Lay was pulling the strings with Bob and Tony, it is accurate to point out that yes, they did support this idea, and yes, California got screwed over to the tune of billions of dollars, by wealthy special interests. Can't we have anyone take responsibility anymore for their actions?

Which leads me to a particular disappointment with Bob Hertzberg. While he seems like a nice guy and was kind enough to call me up after I wrote an early column talking about his candidacy, we're now in the final days of the campaign and I can't really tell what he's going to do if he gets elected. But more troubling is his constant evasion on his current roster of law clients, many of whom have business before state and local boards, and the seeming intentional vagueness of his proposal to "break up LAUSD."

I am not naive enough to think a former elected official wouldn't use their contacts and knowledge to make money once they leave the legislature. But when I read stories like the one that I read in the LA Times, detailing Hertzberg's flip-flop on why he can't tell us who pays his bills, I start to get disappointed. For someone who has taken shot after shot at the incumbent's ethics record, this rings rather hollow.

Even more troubling is his work on behalf of a chain of auto-repair shops sued for fraud. After reading how he used his status on Gov. Doofinator's "transition team" to try and stop an investigation into the chain's fraudulent practices, and the Doofinator's removal of a regulator not favorable to Hertzberg's client, I really was astonished. It did explain a little bit more of that hugging session the two had in Santa Monica to discuss "the plan" to break up LAUSD (the one we can't read on paper because it doesn't exist yet). Put it all together, and it leaves me really disappointed, since I wanted to like the guy (even if his campaign web guys stole my slogan idea).

If he'd just been up front at the beginning as to who pays his bills and let us decide early on what he's about, instead of playing the Sacramento politico "dodge and weave" rhetoric, I'd have an entirely different opinion of the situation. For me, being up front is way better than concealing until the end.

Sen. Alarcon has talked a good game throughout this race , and in the debates he's often been one of the best speakers on issues I care about. That said, he hasn't been able to get much traction for someone who's been in politics as long as he has. Plus, while he has a nice laundry list of ideas and reforms, there's nothing particularly new for any of them, and there's no indication that much would be different, aside from some tweaks to the way city contracts are awarded.

Finally, we have Our Mayor. I've said a lot in the past about what I think of the Mayor's performance, it's no surprise that I have a hard time pulling a voting lever for this guy. I had hoped that somehow the embattled mayor would seize the movement and say "f--k it" and charge forth with some sort of revitalized campaign, knowing he was in trouble and try something daring.

Yes, I know, I know, wishful thinking. But he'd have been in no worse shape than he is in now, which at this point may mean not making the runoff. The whole situation more or less sums up what the problem has been all along - a person who has neglected to seize the moment from Day One on any major issues, with the results plain as day. Yes, hiring Chief Bratton has been great (beats the heck out of that other guy who was Chief that he tossed out) but you can' only run on that and Dad's name for so long.

So at this point I don't know who to vote for, or whether I should bother to vote at all. Thanks to the continuing follies of the LA County Elections people, I never got my permanent absentee ballot - they claim I'm not registered as one even though  I have registered as one twice - so I'll head to the polls. That is, unless there's something good on TV.

But wait! There is a reason to go vote! That's only if you live in Council District 11, which encompasses all of the West LA communities. A very spirited battle has been waged by three candidates. Of them all I am supporting Bill Rosendahl.

There have been many cheap shots taken at this guy by certain other candidates in this race who will remain nameless, which to me typify what is  wrong with politics these days. More to the point - when I asked all the candidates for their opinions on a hot-button issue in Venice regarding the Boardwalk's new rules, Bill responded right away, and didn't duck the issue.

His opponents have yet to return a single email or call of mine with responses to a few simple questions, including one on the Boardwalk issue. Plus, Bill's not afraid to say what's on his mind, even if it is not popular. At a Democratic Party debate watch at the Santa Monica Headquarters, Bill was asked to speak about how he felt John Kerry did in the debate, and while he was supporting Kerry, he said that in his opinion he didn't feel Kerry had done as well as he should have.

That's a gutsy move when you're in a room of potential supporters and hard core Dems, to say what you think, and let the chips fall where they may. It beats the bureaucrat mentality some would bring to this job, and it beats business as usual. So if nothing else, I'll head on over to the rec room and cast my ballot for Bill. My vote for mayor is still up for grabs - candidates, feel free to drop me a line and convince me of their strengths.

© 2003-2006 Greg Dewar | All Rights Reserved | Originally Published at www.schadelmann.com

Posted by Greg Dewar at 6:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)