Wake Up Call

It wasn’t the Russians. It wasn’t racism. It wasn’t Wikileaks, Fox News, Corporate Media or the FBI. We did it to ourselves.

My Dad’s Democratic Party was a party of inclusion. It was the party of steelworkers, farmers, waitresses, cab drivers and carpenters. The Democratic Party of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is a white collar party of exurban commuters and stock traders. Many of the folks that elected Donald Trump were abandoned by the Democratic Party. Their party abandoned worker’s rights, fair wages, unions, pensions and the social safety net in favor of financial controls, closing tax loopholes and free trade. Not that those things are not important, but if you are living paycheck to paycheck and can’t afford to send your kids to college, the travails of corporate malfeasance are not an overarching priority. Working folks had nowhere to turn except to the planet of empty promises and pie-in-the-sky. It is my ardent wish that Democrats have learned from this experience, but that may well be pie-in-the-sky too. We can’t blame outside forces for Donald Trump. We need to look inward and find where we have failed.

Robert Reich got it right;

Recent economic indicators may be up, but those indicators don’t reflect the insecurity most Americans continue to feel, nor the seeming arbitrariness and unfairness they experience. Nor do the major indicators show the linkages many Americans see between wealth and power, stagnant or declining real wages, soaring CEO pay, and the undermining of democracy by big money.

Glen Greenwald has been following the backlash vote;

For many years, the U.S. — like the U.K. and other Western nations — has embarked on a course that virtually guaranteed a collapse of elite authority and internal implosion. From the invasion of Iraq to the 2008 financial crisis to the all-consuming framework of prisons and endless wars, societal benefits have been directed almost exclusively to the very elite institutions most responsible for failure at the expense of everyone else.

Everyone recognizes the need for change. There are calls for a new party, a new politics, a new coalition. “We need a people’s party — a party capable of organizing and mobilizing Americans in opposition to Donald Trump’s Republican Party, which is about to take over all three branches of the US government. We need a New Democratic Party that will fight against intolerance and widening inequality.” says Reich. We had that party, it used to be the Democratic Party, but we have lost our way.

Here is what we need to understand:  a hell of a lot of people are in pain. Under neoliberal policies of deregulation, privatisation, austerity and corporate trade, their living standards have declined precipitously. They have lost jobs. They have lost pensions. They have lost much of the safety net that used to make these losses less frightening. They see a future for their kids even worse than their precarious present.

Today Bernie Sanders is the most important person in the Democratic Party and even he is not a Democrat. It’s time to focus people. We need to bring back the party we once had, the party that recognizes that we have forgotten the people part of the equation.

Fair, transparent, and accessible elections?

Just an update on Gianforte and his stream access lawsuit. On Monday, the Gianforte campaign sent out a Cease and Desist letter to every Montana broadcasting station calling on all stations to stop airing a commercial by the Democratic Governors PAC regarding the 2009 lawsuit, claiming that the ads are “false and misleading”  According to the letter, stations “should refuse to air it or immediately refuse to continue airing it.”

Claims that the ad is defamatory to Mr. Gianforte are dubious at best but, why not take a shot? What I found most telling about the letter was not the content, but the sender. The letter was sent out by the counsel to the Gianforte for Montana campaign James Bopp of Terre Haute, Indiana. Yes, this is the same James Bopp that was the brains behind the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision that removed all limits on campaign donations for rich folks and corporations. Bopp was also instrumental in nearly destroying campaign finance oversight in Montana.

The Citizens United ruling has resulted in near-complete control of our elections by corporations and wealthy patrons who are able to hide behind the anonymity of a myriad of Dark Money organizations;

In 1980, the top 0.01 percent of the population contributed 15 percent of total political contributions. But between 2010 and 2014, just 195 donors—the top .0013 percent of the population—funded 60 percent of super PACs, which, as (supposedly) independent corporations are exempt from both donation limits and spending limits, thanks to the progeny of Citizens United.

Bopp was also instrumental, as a member of the 2016 Republican Platform Committee in striking all language relating to LGBT rights from the GOP platform. Bopp, and by extension his client Gianforte, feel that control of our elections by wealthy corporate interests is just like a bunch of regular folks, like you and me, banding together and spending millions of dollars to influence our elections.

Yes, this is the same Greg Gianforte who thinks the “Jersey Gianforte” label is defamatory because he’s a real Montanan and has vowed to not accept special-interest money. And yet he is more than willing to hire and accept out-of-state help from a radical right-wing millionaire lawyer from Indiana who wants to tear down our electoral process and wants to influence elections in Montana.

According to the nonpartisan grassroots organization Common Cause;

“James Bopp is the point man for conservative wealthy interests whose goal is to dismantle the laws and regulations we have in place to stop the buying of Congress and other elected officials,” said Common Cause President Bob Edgar. “America has Bopp and company to thank for the flood of secret corporate dollars flowing into the mid-term elections drowning out the voices of ordinary voters. Wall Street, Big Oil and the insurance industry will all seek a return on their investments as soon as the campaigns are over, and the public will pay the price.”

Gianforte has said;  “I will continue to fight for fair, transparent, and accessible elections because I, along with all Montanans, believe that our elections should be decided by ‘we the people’ — not by a small number of wealthy people who seek to hide their money and motivations,” And yet once again, the Gianforte campaign seeks to demonstrate that those with whom you associate speak reams about your true objectives.

Defining “Public”

“I would oppose any plan that jeopardizes keeping public lands public.”, Greg Gianforte – March 28, 2016

Mr. Gianforte has recently become an advocate for public lands although his definition of “public” and “access” is still somewhat hazy.  In defending his lawsuit against the State of Montana in 2009 over public access along the East Gallatin River his lawyers asked for a decree to “extinguish” the “improperly conveyed Easement and any other claimed easement rights claimed by FWP and/or the public”. So, just how strong is Gianforte’s support of public access? Let’s examine statements by a few of the organizations that Mr. Gianforte supports, through his tax-deductible family foundation.

Heritage Foundation

States have a proven record of managing resources, and already have the regulatory structures in place to do so on federal lands within their boundaries as well. Not only would new management multiply benefits for all Americans, it would also encourage better care of the environment and natural resources by putting them in the hands of people who have an immediate stake in wise management.

Americans For Prosperity

Most Americans acknowledge that the federal government has a role to play in managing our nation’s vast landmass. National parks, military bases, and interstate highways are all federal lands that are understandably under Washington’s control. However, every acre of land that does not fulfill these basic functions of government is an acre that could have been better used by a private citizen or company. Unfortunately, this opportunity cost applies to the vast majority of federal lands that sit idle as an untapped frontier for prosperity.

Property and Environment Research Center

There is nothing inherently national in scope about many federal land management responsibilities. Timber harvesting, livestock grazing, and energy development are carried out responsibly and profitably on state trust lands. Our results provide further evidence to question whether these activities should remain federal responsibilities. States could likely earn much greater revenues managing these activities, but transfer proponents must consider how management practices would have to change in order to generate those revenues under state control.

Importantly, each of these groups is primarily funded by the extreme Libertarian, oil baron Koch Brothers and their wealthy donor network who make no bones about coveting private control of public lands. Gianforte gave the keynote speech at the Koch-backed, AFP “Passion to Profit” workshop in 2015.

2016 Republican Platform

Experience has shown that, in caring for the land and water, private ownership has been our best guarantee of conscientious stewardship, while the worst instances of environmental degradation have occurred under government control.

Clearly, for such a champion of public lands, Mr. Gianforte supports, and seeks the support, of many organizations and individuals who do not share his enthusiasm for keeping public lands and access in public hands. Experience decrees that what you say matters, but who you fund, who you listen to and who you associate with may be more telling.

Darkness Descends on Montana

So, we last reported on the dark money group, Protect America’s Consumers and their attack on the nonpartisan Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The “PAC” PAC is, of course, not the only shady political action committee operating in Montana under the cover of darkness. They like to call themselves “social welfare” organizations although no one in Montana can afford to travel in their social circles. Their money comes mainly from outside the state and they hope to influence your vote or your laws in ways that benefit their wealthy and anonymous donors.

Another shadowy group, “Montanans for Community Development” has taken to the courts to try, for the third time, to strike down Montana’s rules governing campaign finance that were passed by both parties in the Legislature on a vote of 51-48. The Montana Disclose Act effectively blocks the flood of “dark money” spending by nonprofit groups that do not disclose their donors and that of course pissed off the anonymous funders even though;

The Supreme Court has confirmed that disclosure requirements do not block free speech, and that the state has an interest in providing its citizens with information about the groups and individuals who spend money in elections, Assistant Attorney General Matthew Cochenour wrote.

There is no evidence supporting the allegations MCD makes against Motl.

Other dark money organizations, like the  Montana Family Foundation and the Montana Policy Institute, funded in part by current Republican gubernatorial candidate, Greg Gianforte fought hard to kill the Disclose Act. “Jeff Laszloffy, president of the Montana Family Foundation, published a letter that said if the bill “were to become law, Montana houses of worship would be at risk of having to publicize every single tithe they receive.” He said that he would challenge the law in federal court if it is passed.”

The Montana Growth Network, funded by out-of-state billionaires and corporations, thinks Montanan’s aren’t smart enough to pick the members of our Supreme Court so, they spent $900,000 to assure that their friendly candidate would be elected in 2012. Three years later, an investigation by Montana’s Commissioner of Political Practices found that the Montana Growth Network had violated Montana campaign laws. Turns out that the secret major funders of the group just coincidentally had business before the high court. Billionaires James Cox Kennedy and Charles Schwab are both involved in trying to privatize public waters in Montana and strike down the Montana stream access law. John Gibson, president of the Public Land/Water Access Association said;

“If they can’t win in court, they’ll change the court, they’ll change the justices that make the decisions, and that’s ongoing.”

The situation looks fairly clear to Bruce Farling, executive director of Montana Trout Unlimited, a conservation group that has worked to defend the stream access law against these challenges.

“Those guys wrote big checks to this outfit [Montana Growth Network] to write big checks to [support] McKinnon, and I can’t think of any other reason they would be interested in that race other than the fact that their stream access cases have shown up before the Montana Supreme Court,”.

Rep. Art Wittich, R-Bozeman, was found guilty of colluding with the National Right to Work Committee (along with 14 other Republican candidates). He took $19,599 worth of in-kind contributions that he failed to disclose to win his seat in the legislature.

Wittich’s case is the first in the Right to Work investigation to go to trial, and it will likely set a precedent for other open cases against candidates and the nonprofit corporations, which are registered as social welfare organizations.

A 2012 documentary Big Sky, Big Money on PBS’ Frontline won kudos and awards for documenting the influence of dark money operations in Montana following the Supreme Court, Citizen’s United decision. Has anything changed? These corrupt groups continue to have undue influence on our elections, local and statewide, as well as who we seat on our high court. When we out one group, the money just shifts to another with a patriotic-sounding name that, always includes terms like “Freedom”, “American”, “Patriot”, “Liberty”, “Montana”, or “Family” in it’s title. As one group dies, or is banned, the next just steps up to assume the same mantle. Lawsuits, or even new laws can’t completely stop billionaires who seek advantage in controlling our Montana government.

Consumers vs. The Weasels

If you watch the teevee in Montana you’ve seen the ads. Another shady right-wing AstroTurf group has been running ’em for a couple of months now attacking the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) with outright lies, shady prevarications and fraudulent rhetoric, while implying that Senator Jon Tester plays a role in supporting this dastardly evil empire.

The CFPB was created in 2010 as part of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in response to the “Great Recession” of 2008 with an admittedly malevolent mission “to provide a single point of accountability for enforcing federal consumer financial laws and protecting consumers in the financial marketplace.”

We aim to make consumer financial markets work for consumers, responsible providers, and the economy as a whole. We protect consumers from unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices and take action against companies that break the law. We arm people with the information and stepstools that they need to make smart financial decisions.

Of course the K-Street elite can’t bear the fact that there could actually be a semi-federal agency that stands up for the humble consumer against the righteous power of omnipotent corporations. Knowing that they would be justifiably reviled if they acted blatantly against protection of lowly consumers using their own names, a bunch of financial geniuses created another dark money organization allowing them to never have to reveal their secret identities or take responsibility for their actions.

The CFPB has done such despicable things as requiring mortgage lenders to reveal the full consequences of driving borrowers to high-interest loans, forced mortgage lenders to verify a borrowers’ ability to repay, providing borrowers with a low-cost loan counselor, allowing folks scammed by credit card companies get refunds, and much more. Of course, this devious pro-profit group was also driven to distraction by the fact that the CFPB was the shifty step child of Senator Elizabeth Warren who has been a thorn in the side of the financial industry for decades.

Following the devious and dark deceptions of the Protect America’s Consumers sham group (a group that seems to have no members) is of course a tricky row to hoe, but none of the claims made against the CFPB appear to hold yellow water. The smartly produced video advertisements also serve to raise doubts about the veracity of Democratic Senators (including Tester) that the political nonprofit group targets, and come, coincidentally during a national election cycle.

This and other dark money groups are shielded from disclosure of their members, their activities, or funding. If you prefer that your facts arise from a dark hole in the ground with no attribution, facts or accuracy, please send large amounts of money.

 

Black Decoys

The latest epistle floating around from the corporate brain trust aimed at stealing your public lands comes from the Property and Environment Research Center out of Bozeman.

We talked about PERC and its mission earlier. This is a deceptive front group doing phony research for Exxon, the Koch brothers and other resource extractors aimed at convincing the public that we are too stupid to manage our own lands and market forces can do a better job. PERC is closely aligned with the American Lands Council and other corporate-funded 501(c) groups. Along with PR guru and corporate lobbyist Richard Berman and his plethora of front groups like the Green Decoys website and the Environmental Policy Alliance, they have initiated a hard push in the media using seemingly rational reasoning to advance the idea of transfer of public lands to private hands. Many dispatches from the Berman-created Green Decoys front group attacking various conservation groups and signed by “senior research analyst” Will Coggin have raised hackles across western states.

In this latest poison-pen letter, PERC tries to make the somewhat oxymoronic point that restricting access and concentrating use on fewer and fewer public parcels will result in a greater appreciation of our common resources and better stewardship of the few places that we have left. Only through the use of proper “access management”, by which they mean access only for the privileged few and “private land managers”, can we begin to appreciate and properly manage our public resources.

PERC continues earlier Will Coggin/ALC attacks on conservation organizations such as Trout Unlimited and on the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) for promoting increased public access and appreciation of our wild places and thereby limiting the role of timber, mining and drilling companies.  By citing examples of egregious resource damage due to poor management or improper use, they aspire to prove that private management and/or private ownership is the only way to save our wildland resources from decimation and over-use by greedy public sportsmen. Don’t be fooled, their ultimate goal is to shut off all public access to our communal treasures to allow acquisition and rape by their affluent backers.

Access or Profit?

Think the State of Montana is better at managing public lands than the Federal Government? Think again.

The National Wildlife Federation just released a report titled How Could Your Recreational Access Change if Federal Lands were Controlled by the States? The report details differences between state and federal management of public lands.

Spring Prairie then

During the 1890s, Spring Prairie north of Kalispell was a favored stop for wagon and mule trains traveling the Fort Steele Trail. This important trail connected the Mullan Road near Missoula with the Tobacco Plains and the prosperous mining districts in British Columbia. Spring Prairie offered a large spring of clear water as well as plentiful grazing and timber and was an important resting point before the caravans entered the arduous, heavily timbered part of the northward journey.

Spring Prairie today: At least there is plenty of public access

By the Enabling Act of 1889, Montana was to be given sections 16 and 36 of every township within it’s borders when it became a state. The lands were to be held in trust by the state for public education. Spring Prairie was part of that bequest. Montana law requires state trust lands to be administrated to “secure the largest measure of legitimate and reasonable advantage to the state.” Today, due to this mandate to maximize revenues from state lands, Spring Prairie is mostly paved over with plans afoot in the near future to fill and pave the spring itself. Phase 4 of the development will put just over $100,000 a year into state coffers.

At statehood, Montana was given 5.9 million acres of school trust land. After selling off around 800,000 acres, today the State Land Board administers about 5.1 million acres. Those lands include 4.7 million acres under 9,000 agreements for crop and range leases throughout the state, 5,301 oil and gas, metalliferous and non-metalliferous mineral, coal, and sand and gravel leases, and 39 coal leases. The state sold 61.4 million board feet of timber from 780,000 acres of state lands in 2014. Since the state owns our riverbeds, Montana also leases 19,000 acres of riverbed and island tracts for oil and gas development. In 2014, Montana sold 4,093 acres of state trust land.

Until 1991, most of the leased lands were accessible only at the whim of the lessor. Today you can buy a State Lands Permit to access most state lands. About 1.3 million acres of Montana’s public lands are “landlocked” that is, they are surrounded by private parcels and not accessible by the public. One example is the section surrounded by Ted Turner’s 22,000-acre Bar None Ranch. Turner Enterprises leases 16,600 acres of public land in Montana. The area is technically open to public access, but the reality is there is no access across the private land unless you pay Mr. Turner’s Montana Hunting Company $14,000 to hunt on the “public” land.

If Montana were to take possession of all the BLM and U.S. Forest Service land in the state, they would gain about 25 million acres on which to maximize profits for the state. In 1999, the Montana State Legislature passed a law exempting many DNRC activities from MEPA compliance for “lease renewals” and certain other activities associated with trust lands management. If these lands were managed like state trust lands, much of your current access would be lost, or restricted. Much of the new land would necessarily have to be sold to the highest bidder to maximize profit for the state. You would have to buy a permit for lands you can now access for free. Some lands you can now access would be leased for commercial activities which would impair public access and impact wildland values. Virtually every decision on management of public lands would be based on what is best for the state revenue stream and not on what is best for the physical streams, forests and recreational values.

Spring Prairie has become an asphalt wasteland under state management to provide a modest boost to state coffers. Little oversight from overworked and understaffed state agencies would result in much the same fate for many currently open public lands in Montana if the current iteration of the Sagebrush Rebellion is allowed to move forward with its profit-fueled ,corporate vision for public lands in our state.

 

Truth in Advertising

The First American Freedom & Liberty Institute for Traditional Faith and Values (FAFLI) is a project of the Foundation for American Resourcefulness, Courage and Exploitation (FARCE).

FAFLI is dedicated to the overuse of hyperbole in pursuit of ultimate property rights for some Americans. Through strategic research and inordinate use of buzz words FAFLI seeks to address and correct onerous federal and state governmental actions that negatively impact energy, environmental development and private wealth. We respect the legitimate marketing of property rights to those in the best position to properly make use of our common resources. We respect proper resource development for the benefit of affluent and prosperous conservative patrons in order to provide excessive remunerative compensation to deserving American property owners without disrespecting the sources of their wealth.

We welcome all donations by American corporations, conservative American foundations and prosperous Americans who share our appreciation of the dominion of the few in directing the continuity of the American revenue stream. We seek an end to excessive and destructive government regulation based on agenda-driven policy making, junk science, and hysteria. We see no part for government involvement to further policies that can better be achieved through our own junk science and hysteria.

80% of our funding is used to secure the property rights, holdings and net worth of our founding members (me). 6% goes to agenda-driven scientific and superficial research to further the obfuscation and denial of national issues that may affect our opulent lifestyle. 11% of donations will further our hidden agenda of driving poor and middle-class taxpayers deeper into fear, indebtedness and privation to further increase the valuation and assets of our contributing members. The remaining 3% of our annual budget will produce a glossy quarterly online newsletter overstating the vulnerability of our economy, introducing irrelevant and exaggerated controversies to produce extreme anxiety among possible opponents and we will also publish vibrant profiles of opulent lifestyles to which nearly anyone can aspire.

Please consider a generous donation today. You will receive an ostentatious, sleek membership certificate suitable for framing and a free subscription to our scintillating quarterly FAFLI newsletter. FAFLI is a 501 (c) (4) Social Welfare organization.  All donations are tax deductible and as always your anonymity is assured through the United States Internal Revenue Code.

Perils of Proposing Public Parcel Plunder

Todd Tanner published a great piece in High Country News on the menace of recent Congressional legislation to promote the transfer and sale of public lands.

This is about power, plunder and money.  It’s about water, which is the source of all that power here in the West. And it’s about the fact that an awful lot of folks back in Washington want to privatize our federal lands.

Montana writer Hal Herring called the vote “an attempt to re-create our country, to vanquish forever the notion that we citizens can hold anything in common. It’s a new paradigm, where the majority of Americans are landless subjects with little recourse in the courts or political process.”

It’s a great piece and needs to be distributed widely, but it’s in another Western publication. That’s fine, and we need to see more of it, but we’re pretty much preaching to the choir. Westerners, by a wide margin oppose transferring our public lands to the states. I say we hit ’em where they live.

The deluge of letters we have seen recently supporting land transfer have all come, mainly, from a single source. The Washington, D.C. PR firm of Berman & Company, funded mostly by oil and gas money. The letters are written by Berman employee Will Coggin deceptively attacking western conservation organizations and promoting the sale of public lands to the highest bidder. So, maybe we should let Washington know just how we, as westerners, feel about the corporate smear campaign. I say, we of the Western persuasion, and especially members of slandered groups like Trout Unlimited, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, should blitz the D.C. newspapers with letters supporting our public lands and condemning corporate-funded, dark money propaganda.

I chose the Washington Post for my missive, but you could choose any popular D.C. publication. For the Post, you can send a letter to letters@washpost.com  Here are the rules:

What are the guidelines for letter submissions?
We prefer letters that are fewer than 200 words and take as their starting point an article or other item appearing in The Post. They may not have been submitted to, posted to or published by any other media. They must include the writer’s full name — anonymous letters and letters written under pseudonyms will not be considered. For verification purposes, they must also include the writer’s home address, e-mail address and telephone numbers. Writers should disclose any personal or financial interest in the subject matter of their letters. If sending e-mail, please put the text of the letter in the body and do not send attachments — they will not be read.

As an example, here’s my letter to the Post.

We, out here in the square states, continue to see a smooth, corporate-funded attack on our public lands. Frequent letters in our newspapers, written by corporate-funded shills and lobbyists from Washington D.C. PR firms, advocate for the transfer and sale of our communal property. We are drowning in the drool of energy, mining and timber companies who can’t wait to get their hands on our public resources and lock out all of us bumpkins who see the true value of lands held in common with every citizen of our country.

We see unwarranted attacks on conservation organizations such a Trout Unlimited and Backcountry Hunters and Anglers who have done more to promote and protect our shared lands than all the lobbyists, lawyers and CEOs in D.C. combined. Our public lands provide clean air, clean water, hunting, fishing and recreation to all the good folks of our country. They are not simply assets on a spreadsheet to be pillaged at will.

I would like to suggest that you folks keep your corporate salivation on your side of the Potomac and quit exporting hate speech to the West. We will do whatever it takes to protect these lands for the good of all the citizens of our republic and you can rest assured that when you next decide to visit our nation’s great parks and public lands they will still be open, accessible to all, and they will be here waiting for you.

Legislative Canoodling

In his latest proclamation from the House floor, Speaker, Austin Knudsen holds forth on respect for the rules of “procedural maneuvering”. Yes, it appears there are rules.

He decries the passage of the Healthy Montana Act (SB405) as a “massive expansion of Obamacare in our state” and “medical welfare”. That’s all well and good and I’m sure that is his honest opinion. After all, he does support the process by which the bill was passed.

“I respect legislators who make decisions on policy for their constituents — that’s why they sent us here.”

But, it seems that what he doesn’t support is that bill was passed over his objections. Big bills, such as the Healthy Montana Act and the ratification of the the CSKT Water Compact (SB262) are passing the legislature over the objections of the Tea Party leadership and apparently that’s not seen as acceptable by a minority of members.

“A group of representatives who were upset that they weren’t getting their way used procedural maneuvering to sidestep the rules, rendering them basically meaningless. This group has decided that they will use any means necessary to get what they want even if it means breaking the rules. A civilized body should never resort to an “ends justifies the means” mentality.”

Respect for the rules is proper and right. We all live by mutually agreed to rules, but those rules can be changed by collective agreement. Yes, there was a certain amount of bending of the rules by both sides in these debates, but that seems to be the way the system works.

One important point seems to be overlooked by the Speaker. Both of these important bills were supported by a majority of Montana citizens and expressed through their duly-elected representatives. In votes of  54-42 and 53-47, a majority of House members consisting of both Democrats and Republicans were able to express their endorsement in our legislature. Rules are rules of course, but rules are not law. No amount of legislative canoodling, or political chicanery, by either side, was able to muzzle the voice of the people of the Treasure State and to me, that seems to be a good thing.