Ken Burns officially outed as America's "Empire Whisperer"

I was calling out Ken Burns for promoting American exceptionalism in his PBS documentaries (mockumentaries?) more than 15 years ago.

But, the photo above, from this Pro Publica piece not actually focused on Ken Burns, but rather on Clarence Thomas, is proof positive of him as that "Empire Whisperer." Kudo to Jeet Heer, as seen by my via my Twitter alerts email feed, for first pointing out (as I'd not seen the article yet) how many people were overlooking Burns standing between Clarence Thomas and David H. Koch. (Jeet himself forgot to add the magic words about the photo's location: Bohemian Grove.)

Kudos to Pro Publica for noting in the caption that Koch has financed Burns' movies. He's also financed other things via "The David H. Koch Fund for Science," which long ago pressured PBS to tone down anything it said about climate change.

Maybe #BlueAnon type librulz will start waking up about PBS and stop giving it money. I said they should, for this reason (and it accepting other wingnut money as well), nearly a decade ago, and had a folo piece about Koch money buying PBS omerta a year later.

I ran into one of those #BlueAnon on Twitter, responding to the person whom Heer had quote-tweeted. Said person I ran into was gushing about Burns' Vietnam series. I told him the truth about just how craptacular it was.

In another post, I noted that bringing to PBS his dramatization of the book, "The Emperor of All Maladies," about the "war" on cancer, David Koch apparently bought Burns' silence about the carcinogenic power of petrochemicals. That link also notes him writing American Indians out of the picture in his librulz-acclaimed National Parks series.

He also had errors, presumably in the service of empire, in his Roosevelts series. His "10th inning" add-on to "Baseball" was meh and included Landis hero-worship.

Coming soon on #PBS #Nova — cheese, Koch style!

Scott Walker/Wikipedia

The Koch Brothers got outed earlier this week on their GOP 2016 Presidential nomination favorite — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

First, why Walker?

1. He's a governor, and Dear Leader's leap from the Senate aside, from Jimmy Carter on, previous executive experience (counting Poppy Bush as Veep) has been the normal White House route. That rules out Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul, as well as, possibly, Jeb Bush as an ex-governor too long removed from office. Chris Christie probably is too liberal. John Kasich will probably stay out. Rick Perry

2. He's shown the chops as a union-buster.

3. By winning a recall, and re-election, he's shown he's a winner.

That said, Ed Kilgore notes the Koch Corleones are likely to do the equivalent of a "request for proposals" before officially tapping one candidate. And Vox says that the Kochs might not tap anybody too quickly, lest they lose leverage — as risible as it is to imagine a group of billionaire brothers losing political leverage.

Meanwhile, the first point may be worth bearing for Democrats, too. Martin O'Malley's a (recently ex)-governor. Hillz Clinton was the executive power behind the throne for the Slickster, and after running for Senate, then was an executive of sorts as Secretary of State. Bernie Sanders, whatever his odds are, is a senator. (So is Elizabeth Warren, should she change her mind; that said, her short Senate tenure would put her in the Obama category.

Now, that said, the joking header?

The David H. Koch Fund for Science is a major supporter of PBS' Nova science program. (Nova's already been criticized for pulling its punches on climate change ever since getting Koch money, and PBS in general has been accused of kowtowing.) Hence my joking about the science of Wisconsin cheddar!

Unsafe at any location: Texas workers

In light of Rick Perry's indictment and its relationship to crony capitalism practiced by him at the Texas Enterprise Fund and him and Greg Abbott at the the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas, the Dallas Morning News has a timely piece.

Due to a mix of no state occupational safety administration, an overstretched federal OSHA and a strong anti-union atmosphere in The Pointy Abandoned Object State, the News shows that in many individual industries, like construction, Texas' per-capita death rates far exceed those in any other state. 

Shock me.

That's with Abbott recently accepting money from Koch Industries' fertilizer division, and telling people to "just drive around" if they want to make sure a nearby fertilizer plant is safe. That's after fertilizer manufacturers told residents of West, Texas, to basically go fuck themselves.

Per the News, after construction, warehousing, manufacturing, retail trade, wholesale trade, and hospitality and food services are some, but by no means all, of the industries where Texas is more dangerous to work than the national average. Go read the story. 

It's also, of course, tied to the high number of "illegal immigrants," not just in agriculture and construction, but other industries. Food service? Don't forget about chicken processing plants, etc., in the state, as well as restaurant food prep and "pre-cook" food processing for "fast-casual" restaurants like Chili's and others. Landscaping, primarily for rich folks like GOP political contributors (and some Democratic ones) also employs many. In all of those, if you're an "Ill Eagle," you're more expendible.

This is a made-for-the-campaign in the governor's race, too. Let's see if Wendy O. Williams (yep, that's Wendy Davis' nickname in these parts for the duration) picks up on it or not; don't hold your breath. Libertarian Kathie Glass would say regulations are Communism and that the answer is workers suing lawyers (even though tort "reform" gutted non-rich people's legal recourse), and Green Brandon Parmer might say something if he were alive.

#ExxonValdez — remembering 25 years

One dead whale in Prince William Sound, 1989, via Exxon.
AP photo via Houston Chronicle

In the spring of 1989, I was in the first full year of graduate divinity school. I still belonged to, and believed in the tenets of, a fundamentalist Lutheran church. (No, family and friends, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod doesn't fit a narrower definition of Christian fundamentalists, but it does fit nicely in a broader sociology of religion definition.)

Anyway, I digress.

I was also, for the most part, still steeped in my parents' political beliefs, between my dad's Eisenhower-Main Street conservativism (with his twinge of Eisenhower-Main Street racism), and my mom's "None Dare Call It Treason" moving to Art Bell-listening Tea Party progenitorship (as I know with that anecdotal proof positive that the Tea Party idea is nothing new).

Anyway, again I digress.

I was already a bit of an environmentalist, at least in the sense of believing that Christian creationism did imply some sort of "good stewardship." And I was moving a bit beyond that, even.

Then, a seemingly drunken captain, Joseph Hazelwood, sailing a past-its-due-date, environmentally inadequate oil tanker, ran it aground on Alaskan rocks. And caused a massive animal die-off and other problems for which eXXXon (that's the correct spelling, folks) still refuses to admit full responsibility today.

That includes full financial responsibility, getting punitive damages cut to 10 percent of the original award due to "quirks" in maritime common law, per Wikipedia. And, since then? I've not seen either major party make major changes to environmental civil law to increase punitive damages for "takings" of reducing environmental and scenic value.

As for me? I took the next steps toward becoming a real environmentalist. (In the next five years, I took a chunk of steps toward becoming a real secularist [I avoid the Big A label, as much at times due to some Big As as well as Christian fundamentalists] and becoming a real liberal. By the end of the 1990s, I had moved beyond the Democratic Party, in fact and fortunately.) As part of that, I also became even more of an environmentalist, and a more activist one.

Indeed, while I had the pleasure of living in the Dallas area for most of the first decade of this century, I even "visited" a couple of eXXXon's annual shareholder meetings, as you can see. 

And, per the poster, we had even more to protest against eXXXon by 2008, or earlier. Since then, eXXXon has continued to be just as responsible of a corporate citizen on global warming and climate change, and now on oil and gas fracking, as it was on the Exxon Valdez. So eXXXon is the gift that keeps on giving.

And, in more ways than one. Per Wikipedia's story on the disaster, when in the original suit, eXXXon was hit with $5 billion in punitive damages, it got a $4.8 billion line of credit from J.P. Morgan. To insulate itself, Morgan created the first modern credit default swap.

In other words, eXXXon's Alaskan oil slick helped crap on the American economy nearly 20 years later. That said, why would anything about any unholy alliance between Wall Street and Big Oil surprise you? See: "Bros., Koch" for more.

Meanwhile, as High Country News notes, eXXXon's "cleanup" wasn't. There's still officially 21,000 gallons of oil in Prince William Sound and unofficially, much more.

===

And Perry reminds us, in light of the Houston Ship Channel collision over the weekend, that things haven't changed a lot. That includes the damage to wildlife, not just the inconvenience to the modern economy.

The #KochBros must be stopped? But how? And why?

Image via FreePress.net

Just about every liberal activist knows by now that the billionaire climate-denying oil barons, Charles and David Koch, want to buy the suite of newspapers in the Tribune Company, including the L.A. Times and Chicago Trib. Mother Jones has a good profile of what's at stake here.

First, on the "they must be stopped" is ... maybe not. Maybe they don't need to be stopped.

Garance Franke-Ruta, at the Atlantic, argues that as regional papers (yes, the gutted L.A. Times, since the Trib takeover followed by the Sam Zell demoltion, is that; it's not a national newspaper anymore, if it was at one time), they can't go too conservative, or the market forces that the likes of the Kochs like to tout (until folding, spindling and mutilating them) will demolish them.

She has a good point. Nowhere in the U.S. is an avowedly conservative paper the leading paper in a city. The Washington Times is obliterated. The New York Post is a laughingstock to all but true believers. Phil Anschutz's  Examiner stable are also-rans in all locations.

In the two biggest cities in question, there's other issues. The L.A. Daily News and the Orange County Register are already more conservative than the Times, definitely with the OCR, arguably with the Daily News. If the Kochs try to go right of both of them, the Times will tank for sure. In Chicago, the Sun-Times is arguably more conservative.

In Baltimore, if they take the Sun too far right, a Washington Post with brains, and a gamble, could start a Baltimore edition.

And, especially with a fair amount of news not paywalled, including all AP and Reuters news via news aggregators, it would be easy for a lot of readers to ditch them for non-local news anyway, and then, if they don't live in the central city, rely on their suburban weeklies for print news and radio or TV for big local or regional news.

Speaking from my personal-professional knowledge of the industry, the Kochs could take a bloodbath in L.A. and Chicago.

If Dean Singleton finds more brains than he's shown in the past, or his hedge fund stakeholders force him to, the Daily News could take a half-step to the left in L.A., while beefing up local coverage, and obliterate a partisanly-hacked Times.

And, reflecting this? Yes, wingnut claims aside, the typical reporter or editor at a big-city paper is probably at least a bit more liberal than the general readership, but reportedly, HALF of Times staffers indicate they'll quit if the Kochs buy the paper.

In Chicago, the Sun-Times isn't as much more conservative as the OCR is in greater Los Angeles; it may be more so than the Daily News, but it still wouldn't be too hard of a step. Heck, some Trib readers might go there by default. Let's not forget, either, that Chicago has a set of suburban daily papers. If a Koch-owned Trib flushes real journalism down the terlit, they'll be set to pounce.

Of course, the counterargument is "Sun Myung Moon." He willingly took a bloodbath, year after year, over the Washington Times.  The Kochs could do so for even longer. And, if L.A. Times staffers are dead set on quitting, if the Kochs buy the paper, they'll hire replacements for less. In fact, they probably welcome you quitting just as much as you welcome the idea of quitting.

So, perhaps Franke-Ruta is just half right.

That said, beyond money, there's the issue of "reach," of influence.

If the Koch Bros. make a knee-jerk change of direction with these papers, even if they don't care about financial losses, the loss of readership will mean loss of influence.

That said, I don't think the Kochs do "nuance" very well. But, since the average newspaper reader is better educated than the average general American, and the Koch Bros. have a reputation, the only way to get past that is by doing "nuance."

Again, back to Moon and the Moonie Times. It did nothing but preach to the choir in an echo chamber.

Now, what if this isn't good enough, and you think the Koch Bros. must be "stopped."

As to the "how"? There's nothing illegal about them buying the papers. There's also no civil monopoly at stake or conflict of interest at stake. In short, unless some liberal group wants to outbid them, they have a right to do what they want.

A better starter project would be to write PBS, protesting the David H. Koch Fund for Science's continued sponsorship of Nova.

Time for an American 'decline'?

Graphic via New York Times

GOP/tea party and Koch Brothers wingnuttery of ssaying that Obama will take the United States into an era of decline, in which these wingnut employers will have to lay off workers, etc., what if there’s truth in the statement, but it has nothing to do with Obama?

What if modern technological devices won’t cause another “industrial revolution”? What if the current economic growth rate isn’t just do to recovery from a fiscal crisis, but something more momentous and longer lasting?

And, what effects might it have? Will it further increase the income inequality already being fueled by the likes of the Koch Brothers?

The New York Times takes a serious look at this issue.

Now, my only formal study of economics was a high school semester of intro to macroeconomics. So, I’m not qualified to comment too much on the piece.

That said, regular readers here know that I loathe the idea of American exceptionalism, whether a Christianity-based version of the religious right or a more secular version espoused by neoliberal Democrats, and undercut it whenever I can.

So, is this great decline at least possible? You bet. Given neoliberal Democrats’ ties to Silicon Valley (including the anti-unionism it has), is it possible that said neolibs have overestimated the long-term economic potential of tech devices, and that they have especially overestimated them because most of the manufacture is done abroad, primarily in China? Certainly.

Is it also true that neoliberals haven’t done a lot more about income inequality than old-fashioned conservatives? Indeed.

So, if you’re not an Obamiac or Clintonite, especially — or if you are, but you’re an open-minded one, click that NYT link and read through.

I do hope Gordon isn’t correct. But, what if he is? There’s other factors at play, like an aging country with retiring Baby Boomers spending less. Even if Gordon is too dour with a 0.2 percent growth estimate … 0.5 wouldn’t be much, and is certainly a realistic guesstimate.

Tax the rich ideas and more for Labor Day

As we await Labor Day tomorrow, otherwise known as "The GOP deludes tea partiers into believing it cares about workers while Democrats hypocritically walk across the Mackinac Bridge day," let's think about ways to empower labor, whether its union-organized or not.

First, many people of intelligence recognize that  relatively unprogressive federal tax rates (combined with often regressive sales taxes at state and local levels) allow the rich to accumulate money which does little to stimulate a sluggish economy.

So, first, at the federal tax level:
1. We need more progressivity in income tax rates.
2. We need to tax capital gains and hedge fund money at the same rate as income.
3. When companies offshore more and more money, and then, like the non-liberal Apple, try to hold the federal government hostage by wanting a tax holiday to bring that money home, we need to instead have a surtax on such overseas, off-shored money.
4. If the rich claim that conspicuous consumption of trickle-down economics stimulates the economy, fine, let's up the ante and have a federal property tax. (Watch the Koch brothers shit bricks over that one.)
6. We of course need to up the amount of income covered by FICA taxes, eliminate loopholes in federal personal tax codes (including the mortgage interest deduction, which benefits the middle of the middle class rarely), as well as various corporate income tax loopholes. At the least, on homes, crack down on any deductions for buying second homes, whether they are vacation homes or income generators.

Second, at the corporations as persons level. If corporations want to continue to make that claim, and Supreme Court rulings continue to support it, here's a possible counter-action or two.
1. Put every single member of a corporation on trial whenever corporations allegedly commit criminal activity. People would simply refuse to work for unethical major businesses.
2. Reinstitute the draft and when we have another war, undeclared or not, draft entire corporations, i.e., the Halliburtons of the world. Or, wingnut think tanks.

At the state level:
1. At a minimum, stop making food subject to sales tax.
2. Put more progressivity into state income taxes.
3. On state income tax forms, require a state disclosure form about how much of state revenue comes from various types of taxes and how much comes from fees, licenses and other non-tax "taxes."

At the local level:
1. Have states do revenue sharing on local property taxes. Some states do this in part with school districts, but not municipalities.

Koch Brothers hypocrisy alert

Yes, it was nice that Charles G. Koch mentioned the military as well as entitlements in his op-ed.

But there were two magic missing words: "corporate welfare."

Hey, Charles and David, whenever you're ready to give up some oil industry tax deductions, and say so in public, THEN you can write an op-ed that I'll take with less skepticism.

As for specific handouts? Charles and David get more than oil bucks from Daddy Federal Warbucks. They include ethanol subsidies, logging road subsidies, free dairy grazing on federal land subsidies, and making deals with socialist governments. Don't forget their old man got his start with Uncle Joe Stalin!

Also, until you, looking back on the current deficits, say what you would have done differently on the financial crisis, you don't get 100 percent seriousness on the deficit. Nor do you get seriousness on military spending until you can find a quote from five years ago similar to one from today.

More on the shady dealings here of Bros. Koch here.

FiredogLake has a brilliant deconstruction of how this column explodes in Koch's face if you change the focus from the federal budget to climate change and make other changes accordingly.

Walker is high on Koch

Yes, Scott Walker, the new GOP governor of Wisconsin, is high on Koch - money from the Koch brothers, that is. The Center for Media and Democracy has details.

Some tea partiers wake up, smell the coffee

If revenge is a dish best served cold, then irony might best be served as lukewarm Laodicean (look it up) mush.

Chow down, tea partiers!

A few are realizing the responsibilities that go with actually getting a bit of a seat at the table.

Others are realizing the coffee they smell is the Koch Brothers brand, at a cost of about $1 billion a cup more than Hills Brothers. (Do they even make that any more?)

And, for those tea partiers who have smelled this particular brand of coffee? Charles and David Koch campaign contributions.

Guess what, Ms. Gena Bell of Ohio, ardent supporter of John Kasich for governor and angry at being used like a cheap prop by Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity?

Your new governor drank the maximum allowable $5,000 Charles Koch cup of coffee. Feel enthusiastic now?

Or, now that you have a paid political job yourself, will you have a different take?

And other Ohioans who feel similar to her, but never were offered political positions, will you shrug off billionaire money in politics? Will you even actively campaign against it? Will you push the GOP to address the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court, at least to some degree, through campaign-finance legislation?