Month: June 2015

by William Skink

Over at Intelligent Discontent, Don Pogreba bemoans the continued efforts of the Montana Meth Project. Besides coining my new favorite term—propagandistic vandalism—Don draws attention to the diminishing donations and big pay check for the executive director. Also, there’s the little matter of it not working.

Ironically we learn about the failure of the Montana Meth Project from the Billings Gazette reporting on a panel on exploding meth use in Eastern Montana sponsored by…the Montana Meth Project. From the link:

Chances are high that the local crimes you read about in the newspaper — robbery, assault, theft — have a common root in meth use.

That’s because the drug has evolved and is making a resurgence in Billings, local experts said Monday at a forum on methamphetamine held at the Billings Public Library.

“It’s making a huge, huge comeback,” said Rod Ostermiller, chief deputy for the U.S. Marshals Service.

The event, sponsored by the Montana Meth Project and Billings Gazette Communications, featured criminal justice and drug treatment officials as well as first lady Lisa Bullock and a spokesperson from the Montana Petroleum Association.

Yellowstone County Attorney Scott Twito called meth the top public safety threat in Billings for the way it fuels other, sometimes violent crime, reiterating comments made last month in a Gazette story on the drug.

The obscene reality is meth’s resurgence may ultimately be good for the Montana Meth Project. Sponsoring a panel that gets media coverage could help reverse that downward donor trend Don highlighted. NOT EVEN ONCE could get a whole new surge of money. Notice the presence of Lisa Bullock, and wonder how far away the ear of the Governor may be to directing public money to this effort.

Remember, back in 2006, the Indy reported it like this:

Montana officials at every level have cozied up to the project and are now working to secure public funding to sustain it, while the state’s congressional delegation is looking for ways to export it beyond Montana’s borders through federal grants. Arizona and Utah are hastily trying to import the ads, encouraged by their dramatic profile and the unanimous support they’ve received from politicians and news coverage alike. The Montana Meth Project has successfully developed a public image of itself as not only a bighearted offering from a deep-pocketed man, but also as a revolutionary and, more important, successful attempt to rein in Montana’s meth problem.

One of the reported differences with this latest surge in Meth use is the provenance of the crank is out of state, and out of country. Just today there was news of an alleged leader in a California-to-Montana Meth ring sentenced. I say alleged because there’s no chance Joshua Alberto Rodriguez is anything other than a middleman. Even US Attorney Mike Cotter admitted this dealer’s replaceability:

U.S. Attorney Mike Cotter said the investigation dismantled “an acute and violent threat” to Great Falls and surrounding areas, but he acknowledged in a news conference that other dealers have stepped in since the bust. He declined to elaborate.

The drugs appear to have been manufactured in Mexico and were sold uncut in Montana, said Joseph Kirkland of the Drug Enforcement Agency.

The other defendants include residents of California and Montana who range in age from 25 to 46. All 20 have been ordered to pay a $2.4 million monetary judgment.

Investigators used search warrants, a wiretap, physical surveillance and financial documents to learn the details of the operation. They also tracked Rodriguez’s trips to Montana through the GPS on his phone.

Let’s look on the bright side. Drug problems could be good for justifying increases in Law Enforcement budgets. The Meth problem could be good for that six-figure salaried director of the Montana Meth Project. And drug sales are good for Big Banks, who launder the loot and get wrist slaps from the now Attorney General, Loretta Lynch:

Some Republican Senators are having a field day, and rightly so, over the fact that Obama’s attorney general nominee, Loretta Lynch, looks to have allowed bank giant HSBC, and more important, its executives and officers, off vastly too easy in a massive money-laundering and tax evasion scheme.

The background is that Lynch, as attorney for the Eastern District of New York, led the investigation of HSBC’s money laundering for drug dealers and other unsavory types that led to a $1.9 billion settlement in 2012. That deal was pilloried by both the right and left as being too lenient given the scale of HSBC’s misdeeds.

Crap, there I go again, being all negative and critical. Good party loyalists aren’t supposed to look beyond the tokenism of her appointment to her servitude to power.

I blame my reptile dysfunction. From my warped perspective, it’s almost like there’s political protection for that lucrative intersection between big banks and drug cartels.

By JC

I don’t have time to flesh this story out, but Rep Hill took some swipes at 4&20, and the quality of their political analyses during the absence of jhwygirl and Jay Stevens:

I know from others who work in the trenches of the Capitol that we really didn’t find 4&20 to be a relevant source of political analysis any longer. — Rep. Ellie Hill (D) HD94

I’m sure some of her disdain for us stems from our criticism of her legislation deregulating motor carrier laws to allow ridesharing companies like Uber to operate in Montana.

Well, after reading the Reuters news today that the California Labor Commission has determined that Uber drivers are employees, not contractors, it shines a light on the bill Rep Hill shepherded through the Montana Legislature granting Uber and other ridesharing companies the right to operate in the state.

June 17 (Reuters) – A San Francisco-based driver for smartphone-based ride-hailing service Uber is an employee, not a contractor, according to a ruling by the California Labor Commission.

The ruling, filed on Tuesday in state court in San Francisco, said Uber is “involved in every aspect of the operation.” It is the latest in a host of legal and regulatory challenges facing Uber in the United States and other countries.

Uber had argued its drivers are independent contractors, not employees, and that it is “nothing more than a neutral technology platform.”

If Uber drivers are employees, that opens Uber up to higher costs, including Social Security, workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance.

Rep Hill’s bill is entirely based on a false premise that Uber’s drivers are contractors, and not employees, and is written in a fashion that if in Montana drivers are likewise deemed to be employees then many unexpected things will happen — like a driver who is an employee for Uber must carry the liability insurance to protect his employer. Nice… for Uber.

Rep Hill’s Uber bill confuses the distinction between contractors and employees. To those of us who work as true independent contractors, it is apparent that her legislation neglected to anticipate the problems with Uber drivers being classified as employees, but also created a type of contractor (ridesharing driver) that could be exploited by a business model intended to enrich the corporation at the expense of the employee disguised as a contractor.

So, of course democrats like Hill don’t like political analyses by Skink and I when we criticize poorly thought out and badly written legislation — legislation that does a great disservice to the history of the democrat party as protector of unions and workers.

Let’s see democrats response if/when the classification of Uber’s drivers as “contractors” is challenged in Montana.

 

by William Skink

It’s the best news I’ve heard in months. Mayor Engen successfully led the City of Missoula’s condemnation efforts against the Carlyle Group and now the City is moving on to prepare for the next stage of the process:

The city of Missoula won the first round of its legal fight to take ownership of Mountain Water Co. – the preliminary order of condemnation set forth in a 68-page decision by Missoula County District Judge Karen Townsend.

So what happens now that Townsend has ruled? Expect a new round of legal proceedings, appeals, a debate over costs and planning talks to shift the private utility to public ownership.

I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the importance of Missoula controlling its water infrastructure. This legal battle is just one little skirmish in a larger war to control the most essential resource that exists on this planet. Without water, we die. It’s that simple.

No one should be surprised that Wall Street is snatching up water rights and water utilities across the globe. From Alternet:

The recent media coverage on water has centered on individual corporations and super-investors seeking to control water by buying up water rights and water utilities. But paradoxically the hidden story is a far more complicated one. The real story of the global water sector is a convoluted one involving “interlocking globalized capital”: Wall Street and global investment firms, banks, and other elite private-equity firms — often transcending national boundaries to partner with each other, with banks and hedge funds, with technology corporations and insurance giants, with regional public-sector pension funds, and with sovereign wealth funds — are moving rapidly into the water sector to buy up not only water rights and water-treatment technologies, but also to privatize public water utilities and infrastructure.

Seen in this broader context, Missoula’s victory is monumental. After missteps during he initial sale, and conservative estimates of cost that proved too conservative, Mayor Engen should be commended for staking his entire political career amidst public skepticism over this effort.

The future of human existence on this planet will center around water, and if we look at what’s happening in California, the critical steps to conserve what’s left will be stalled and fought by dangerously entitled rich people who simply can’t absorb the reality that their green lawns must be sacrificed for the greater good.

Here’s a piece from The Washington Post, Rich Californians balk at limits: ‘We’re not all equal when it comes to water’:

Drought or no drought, Steve Yuhas resents the idea that it is somehow shameful to be a water hog. If you can pay for it, he argues, you should get your water.

People “should not be forced to live on property with brown lawns, golf on brown courses or apologize for wanting their gardens to be beautiful,” Yuhas fumed recently on social media. “We pay significant property taxes based on where we live,” he added in an interview. “And, no, we’re not all equal when it comes to water.”

Yuhas lives in the ultra-wealthy enclave of Rancho Santa Fe, a bucolic Southern California hamlet of ranches, gated communities and country clubs that guzzles five times more water per capita than the statewide average. In April, after Gov. Jerry Brown (D) called for a 25 percent reduction in water use, consumption in Rancho Santa Fe went up by 9 percent.

What do other residents of this ultra-wealthy enclave think about these water restrictions?

The restrictions are among the toughest in the state, and residents of Rancho Santa Fe are feeling aggrieved.

“I think we’re being overly penalized, and we’re certainly being overly scrutinized by the world,” said Gay Butler, an interior designer out for a trail ride on her show horse, Bear. She said her water bill averages about $800 a month.

“It angers me because people aren’t looking at the overall picture,” Butler said. “What are we supposed to do, just have dirt around our house on four acres?”

It’s disturbing to see rich people throw tantrums over water restrictions. It certainly doesn’t bode well for humans adapting to a rapidly changing climate. It’s not hard to envision a near-future dystopia where the wealthy continue to play golf while the poor die off from dehydration.

For now, Missoulians can celebrate this significant victory. But stay vigilant, citizens. The war for critical resources will continue.

by William Skink

where once this Blackbird liked to fly
the sky is empty, clouds all gone
the sun is blazing, heating rocks
lizard soaks it up and runs

where to run? no where to hide
Jaybird squawks and pecks at flies
buzzing round a pile of shit
marked with flecks of politics

dismember tail, colors change
lizard even changes names
Jaybird’s beak is long and slick
and lizard knows where it can fit

By JC

First off, I’d like to thank Skink (aka lizard) for offering me a place to vent a little, and maybe write something of interest. He and I had a good conversation this morning, and will be developing some ideas on where to go from here.

I’d love to continue to share a blog space with him, as when I first met his writings, and later his meat space personage, I recognized someone who was passionate about his writing and desire to get to the thick of things, and not let the political party fishbowl get in his way. Of course, when you chuck bricks at the fishbowl, sometimes the blowback is harsh, if not predictable. Liz has never been shy about rocking the boat, even when it might threaten his livelihood.

My inclination is always to do whatever I can to support the efforts of people to speak truth to power, empower the rebels. Occasionally that may not dovetail with my opinions or understanding of the facts, or world view, but I am willing to defer to the passion of young people motivated by necessity or virtue. I honor those who are willing to go the extra mile to get to the root of the matter, and learn from their efforts and mistakes. I have seen in lizard a willingness to slice through the bullshit and get to the core of the issue — whether it be geopolitics, the national political-corporate syndicate, state and local politics, or community issues… and then to take the time to be a family man and pursue his own personal creative efforts. He is the true “energizer bunny”.

So I am honored to be able to continue our collaboration! We may decide to expand our blogging or change venues and invite some other folks in and try to provide a unique view of politics and policy, the environment, social issues, and culture from the local to the global that no one else in Montana is doing. So stay tuned as we move on from here. Continue reading “Ahhh, the Good Life: Time to Retire to the Rocking Chair… NOT!”