Month: September 2024

The only Republican good is personal and corporate profit

The bottom line to this post is simple: Vote “no” on every Washington State “Initiative” that appears on your ballot in November if you value the common good. (N.B. Some local jurisdictions have some “Propositions” or “Measures” that deserve a “yes” vote—don’t confuse those with the “Initiatives”—all four of which should be packed together and labelled as the “Republican Greed Initiatives.”)

Washington voters will see these four statewide initiatives on the November ballot. All four are spear-headed and financed by Brian Heywood, a wealthy venture capitalist transplant from California, and Jim Walsh, the chairman of the Washington State Republican Party and a current west side representative to the Washington State legislature. The intent of all four initiatives is to convince you, as a resident of Washington State, that you should reject what a majority of our elected representatives have made state law in the interest of the common good of the people of Washington. 

The measures contained in this suite of Republican greed initiatives are numbered I-2109, I-2117, I-2124, and I-2066. (To access the Voter Guide detail, see P.S. below.) 

The Cardinal Greed Initiative, I-2109

I-2109 would repeal the relatively new Washington State capital gains excise tax. The capital gains excise tax provides significant funding for K-12 education, higher education, school construction, early learning, and childcare. Why, pray tell, might Mr. Heywood be interested in repealing the capital gains excise tax? Simply put, greed. Mr. Heywood moved to Washington State from California, in his own words, “to make money.” Obviously, he is willing to go to great lengths and expense to fund and promote initiatives in order to keep every bit of that money from supporting the public schools. This despite the fact that these are Washington public schools, educating the workforce on which Heywood’s ever expanding wealth depends. 

Worried about tax on the capital gains from the sale of your home or your farm?They’re exempt—as are a host of other capital gains, like those from the sale of livestock, timber, or stocks in your Individual Retirement Account (IRA). So what capital gains are taxed? We might characterize them as “abstract capital gains,” primarily capital gains made on the sale of stocks and bonds or other financial instruments, just exactly the sort of transactions and manipulations that grow even more wealth for people who are already wealthy. Most importantly no such capital gains are subject to the excise tax until they exceed $250,000. Can you even imagine that sort of gain reported on your Form 1040? (Note also that the exemption is indexed to inflation.) None of those limiting facts about the application of the excise tax are widely advertised or known, a convenience for those like Mr. Heywood who would rather you focus only on the word “tax” and worry that your own meager nest egg might be threatened. Republican chairman Walsh (no doubt with Heywood’s backing) even tried legal maneuvering to keep any mention of the loss of school funding if the excise tax is repealed off the ballot. (See extended coverage and references in “Washington State Republicans Want To Keep You in the Dark.”)

The Climate-Trashing Heywood/Walsh Initiatives

Two of the remaining three initiatives, I-2117 and I-2066, would repeal good faith efforts to address the devastating effects of global heating. With wildfires, sequential summers of record heat, and “thousand year” storms with record tide surges, rainfall, and flooding like that of Hurricane Helene that cropping up routinely, getting on board to minimize further global heating is the paramount example of the common good. With the leader of the entire Republican Party declaring that “climate change is a hoax” and vowing that “on day one” he will “drill, baby, drill” it is time to heap ridicule on any Republican who claims to “believe in climate change,” while they proceed to advocate dismantling, or, worse, prohibiting by initiative good faith efforts to address the long term threat. 

I-2066, is a particularly bald-faced attempt to protect the fossil gas industry by baselessly ginning up angst and loathing by pretending that government and/or government agencies are about to tell existing fossil gas customers that they have to scrap their gas appliances. Alarmist BS. Stop for a second and consider what a political suicide move that would be. Yes, it is sensible to curtail expansion of gas distribution infrastructure—and would, in a long term, save us all money in installation and maintenance costs. Expansion of fossil gas piping would only insure ongoing demand for fossil gas, when we need to gradually phase out burning fossil fuels. After all, the first rule of holes is that when you find yourself in one you ought to stop digging. (Aside: Think of those coveted, short-lived, pricey to burn—and hot—incandescent lightbulbs we hardly ever see anymore?) I-2066 wouldn’t just prohibit limits on new fossil gas infrastructure; it would “require certain utilities and local governments to provide natural [fossil] gas to eligible customers.” I-2066 could hardly be more coercive in favor of perpetuating the climate risks of the burning of fossil gas.

I-2117 would dismantle Washington State’s cap-and-trade system that has just gotten off the ground. Why? Let’s roll around in the dirt and argue about how much cap-and-trade might (but might not) be adding to the cost of fuel—and by all means don’t consider the benefits of decreasing our dependence on fossil fuels or the long term costs, both monetary and human, of notaddressing the issue of global heating. Like the other global-heating-promotion initiative, I-2117 would also preemptively prohibit any similar future state efforts of similar type.

Reject both of these fossil fuel industry-funded, global-heating-denying initiatives.

Finally, I-2124, that would make long term care insurance financially impracticable

Anyone facing the need for long term care for themselves, an elderly parent, or some other family member knows how expensive and hard-to-come-by it is. Think of state-required purchase of long term care insurance as something akin to an add-on to Social Security. Like Social Security (which Republicans have wanted to dismantle since it was enacted nationally in the 1930s) long term care insurance, like all insurance programs, depends on pooled investment and the spreading of risk across participants some of whom will need it eventually and some of whom, unpredictably, never will. By changing participation in the insurance pool from mandatory to elective, I-2124, if passed, would doom long term care insurance to financial collapse—the final Republican blow to the efforts to bolster the common good.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. You can already read the WA State Voter Guide concerning these statewide initiatives by visiting vote.wa.gov, entering your voter registration name and your birthdate, clicking “Your Ballot and Voting Materials,” and, on that page, clicking “Voter Guide: What’s on Your Ballot?” (While you’re there, be sure to also click “Your Voter Registration” to confirm that your “Home Address” (the registered address that determines what will appear on your ballot) and your “Mailing Address” (to which the ballot will be sent in the next election) are both accurate, and that your registration is “Active”. 

Brian Heywood and Jim Walsh. Would you buy a used car from either of these men?

Master of Self Promotion

This November eastern Washington voters will choose a new person to represent us in the U.S. House of Representatives from Congressional District 5 (CD5). We need to get this right. The voters of eastern Washington, once they elect a new Representative, tend to stick with that choice for decades. (Cathy McMorris Rodgers 20 years—retiring the end of this year, George Nethercutt 10 years, Tom Foley 30 years, Walt Horan 22 years.)

Carmela Conroy is a Spokane native and now retired foreign service officer with the U.S. State Department. She served our country in non-partisan posts under four different presidents of both parties for nearly 30 years, including stints in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Japan. Her opponent, Michael Baumgartner, is the current Spokane County Treasurer and a man who exhibits a terrific knack for self-promotion. 

For example, in a video interview in a Spokane Valley gun store conducted shortly before the Washington State August Primary Election, Mr. Baumgartner declared [the bold is mine]:

I was a civilian with the State Department overseas, but I’m the only one in the race who has served my country overseas—not a veteran but a civilian—but I certainly have been shot at and seen islamic terrorists up close.

Of what did Baumgartner’s civilian service with the State Department overseas actually consist? Fourteen months in Iraq as an “Economics Officer” and nine months as a “US Government Contractor” in Afghanistan. As a “Contractor” in the latter position he describes what he actually did as “Negotiated agenda and wrote cables for weekly Government of Iraq Cabinet Meeting” and “Helped write several research papers.” 

While Mr. Baumgartner suggests great risk to life and limb (being “shot at”) during these 23 months of employment, the nature of the desk tasks at which he was employed are cause for wonder. His ignorance of the decades of service of the most prominent of his primary opponents, Carmela Conroy, suggests a man who naively expects to ride into office on gross inflation of his experience and expertise.

Another example: For the last nearly six years (a four year term and a half) Mr. Baumgartner has held the position of Spokane County Treasurer. The Treasurer’s office is housed at the Spokane County Courthouse along with many of the other offices of county government and the Spokane County Superior Court. Mr. Baumgartner’s attention to the administrative duties of his $120,000 a year job as County Treasurer is a subject of speculation: the rare “Baumgartner sighting” is a standard joke among county staffers. 

The top paragraph displayed at Mr. Baumgartner’s “About” page at his campaign website is this:

Michael Baumgartner is a former Washington State Senator and diplomat, now serving as the Treasurer of Spokane County overseeing a nearly $1.9 billion fixed-income investment fund.

That sounds impressive and demanding of great expertise, but what does “overseeing a nearly $1.9 billion fixed-income investment fund” actually amount to? Does he actively manage this immense investment? Well, no. That task is currently performed (for a considerable fee) by “Meeder Public Funds, Inc.,” a registered investment firm that publishes a monthly Investment Report of its efforts on behalf of Spokane County to securely invest that $1.9 billion of the Spokane Public Investment Fund (SPIF). (See an example of that report here. For Meeder info see last page.)

It turns out that the “oversight” of the SPIF which Mr. Baumgartner wishes to claim is actually the responsibility of the “Spokane County Finance Committee.” That committee consists of the Treasurer (Mr. Baumgartner), the County Auditor (Vicky Dalton), and the Chair of the Board of County Commissioners (Mary Kuney). From the Spokane County website:

The County Finance Committee reviews and approves the County Investment Policy and County Debt Policy. Meetings are held at least twice per year per the Spokane County Investment Policy. 

Clearly, Mr. Baumgartner is neither solely responsible for the “oversight” of the $1.9 billion of the Spokane Public Investment Fund, nor does that oversight require more than a minimal commitment of time and effort. In fact these meetings have been just two per year in 2022, 2023, and 2024 and in that time have averaged about an hour for each gathering.

Not unlike the woman he seeks to succeed in office, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Mr. Baumgartner is quick to suggest that major legislative accomplishments, like the ultimate funding of the long-awaited North-South Freeway—and the establishment of at least one of the Spokane medical schools—were pivotally dependent on his efforts, when, in fact, both of those projects were the result of extensive bipartisan efforts.

This is nowhere near an exhaustive list of Mr. Baumgartner’s vacuous self promotion—but it nonetheless suggests that we, the voters, would do well to pay more attention to the lack of substance of his claims of prowess lest we send another lightweight to represent us in the U.S. Congress.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

Some perspective

My dad often remarked that a single dollar paid the monthly rent on the house that provided a roof over the family seven in which he grew up in Upper Michigan in the early 1900s. His dad, my grandfather, who was long dead when I was born, made a dollar a day back then as the sawyer in the local lumber mill, the highest paid skilled laborer in the mill. My father had only a high school education, but he lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s and, perhaps as a result, he understood that the value of money is not constant, it erodes over time.

One of the earliest lessons my dad preached to me was that if you took the little money you could save and “stuffed it under your mattress” it would lose its value. To keep up with “inflation” you needed to have a savings account with a reputable local bank, an account that was protected by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) against the bank failures he had lived through in the 1930s. Just as importantly, he emphasized that you had to make sure that your savings account paid a rate of interest that exceeded the rate of inflation—otherwise what you could buy with your saved dollars would diminish. In this same context dad would discuss the “hyperinflation” that destabilized Germany in the 1920s, impoverished common folk and led to the rise of the Nazis and the Second World War—one more example of the potential instability of the value of money. 

Note that in my youth in the 1950s and 60s “credit cards” were in their infancy, money was tangible as paper bills or coins or paper checks written on money held in a bank as a “checking account”. The closest one came back then to saddling yourself with consumer debt was buying something “on time” or on “layaway”, both of which were anathema to my parents. You either saved up to buy a thing you wanted or you went without. With the single exception of a carefully-researched mortgage to buy a home, saddling oneself with paying interest to purchase something was viewed with great suspicion. After all, over time the value of one’s money was going to erode thanks to inflation. Adding an obligation to pay interest on a purchase was to compound that erosion. 

My point in recounting all this is to emphasize that “inflation,” the devaluation of money with time, and the instability of the value of money, is embedded in our lives and the nature of money.

Inflation is expressed as a rate of rise, the percentage change from one year to the next, of the surveyed price of a defined basket of goods and services chosen to mirror the “cost of living”. Every year since 1955 that percentage change has been a positive number, i.e. every year since 1955 the cost of living has risen by an amount that has varied from 0.25% to a high (in 1980) of 18% with a corresponding decrease in what a dollar can buy. 

In an ideal, vaunted (and non-existent), totally “free market” economy the price of goods is determined by “supply and demand”. If supply is limited by some shortage of the materials with which to make the goods (or by the sort of supply chain disruption experienced in the late pandemic) and demand is stable, the price will increase by “cost-push inflation”. Similarly, if consumers “demand” more of something the price will also increase, “demand-pull” inflation. Like so much else in economics, this is a wild over-simplification. For example, “demand” is determined as much by the total amount of money available (and who has access to that money) as it is by the desire of consumers to purchase a product or service. 

Here’s where the “monetary policy” of the Federal Reserve comes in. Since the “1951 Accord” between the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve has acted independent of the executive branch of the federal government (i.e. the president and political parties) to try to control the rate of inflation via “monetary policy.” As a practical matter, that means that the Federal Reserve, currently headed by Jerome Powell, adjusts the availability of money in the economy to try to target the year-to-year rate of inflation to around 2%. The Fed has several means to change the money available in the economy. The one you most hear about is by adjusting the “federal funds rate,” the interest rate “at which depository institutions (banks and credit unions) lend reserve balances to other depository institutions overnight on an uncollateralized basis.” Changes in the federal funds rate either restrict or loosen the money available for borrowing in the economy, for example, the terms on which banks offer mortgages to prospective home buyers. 

With some rare but notable blips (like that 18% rise in 1980 mentioned above) the Federal Reserve’s independent adjustment of “monetary policy” has kept the rate of inflation in the U.S. above zero and fairly stable since 1954. (See this table.) Note, though, that, in those 70 years, the overall cost of living still increased each year. “Controlling inflation” means only that the rate of rise of prices has been reduced to what is considered an acceptable level. Ongoing erosion in the value of money, a reduction in the purchasing power of money over time, is baked into how our system works. Anyone who wistfully points to a gallon of gasoline costing thirty-five cents in the 1960s or longs for the price of goods even five years ago needs to see those prices through the lens of inflation.

Over the seventy years from 1954 to 2024, the average annual rate of inflation has been approximately 3.5% (derived from manipulations of this formula), a remarkable achievement considering all the financial crises of our earlier history. However, that also means that what a dollar would buy in 1954 is the same as what $11.70 will buy in 2024 dollars, which harkens back to my father’s comments about savings account interest levels and inflation. (A useful rule of thumb: a dollar today has the same buying power as ten cents did in 1964, a factor of 10, i.e., roughly speaking, $15K invested in 1964 would have to have grown to $150K just to have the same value today.) 

Many voters are convinced that whoever is president at the time is responsible for the rate of inflation, i.e. the rise in the cost of living. Trump recently fueled that belief by accusing the Federal Reserve of “playing politics” by lowering the federal funds rate a half a percentage point, even though the Fed was clearly responding (belatedly, at that) to data confirming that the rate of inflation was nearing the Fed’s target of 2%. 

Anyone who demeans the Fed’s largely successful effort over the last 70 years to tame the rate of inflation ought to spend some time in a country like Argentina, where the  Argentina peso routinely loses value (i.e. prices rise) significantly from morning to evening and prices are written in chalk. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

he little-noticed Republican effort to control how your retirement fund is invested

For the last half of the 20th century the popular libertarian economist of the “Chicago School”, Milton Friedman, tirelessly promoted his conviction that the only social responsibility of business is to increase its profits:

This shareholder primacy approach [known as the Friedman Doctrine] views shareholders as the economic engine of the organization and the only group to which the firm is socially responsible. As such, the goal of the firm is to increase its profits and maximize returns to shareholders.

Friedman died in 2004. His Doctrine was tarnished by the crisis of 2008 when the relentless pursuit of profit by deregulated big banks nearly crashed the economy, but—little noticed—the principle of profit above all else lives on in the fossilized economic convictions of the Republican Party. Little noticed by most of us, the concerted Republican attack on “ESG” (standing for environmental, social, and governmental concerns) is a bid to legislatively enshrine Friedman’s profit primacy as the only criterion investment managers are allowed to use in choosing where to park our retirement money—with the result that yours and my retirement savings are often used to fund industries of which we might staunchly disapprove.

The fundamental policy question is this: Should investment managers be allowed to consider anything other than corporate profitability (Friedman Doctrine) in making investment decisions? Specifically, should such managers be allowed to consider the environmental, social, and governmental (obscurely labelled “ESG”) consequences of corporate actions?

If all that has flown under your radar, you’re not alone—and that is exactly where the Republican Party wants the issue to fly. Did you completely miss—as I did—that President Biden’s very first veto, issued three years into his presidency in March of 2023, nixed a Republican led effort to forbid that investment managers of retirement funds consider ESG criteria in their management decisions? From CBS news at the time:

“There is extensive evidence showing that environmental, social, and governance factors can have a material impact on markets, industries, and businesses,” Mr. Biden said in a statement announcing the veto. “But the Republican-led bill would force retirement managers to ignore these relevant risk factors, disregarding the principles of free markets and jeopardizing the life savings of working families and retirees. In fact, this bill would prevent plan fiduciaries from taking into account factors like the physical risks of climate change and poor corporate governance, that could affect investment returns.”

Republicans have heavily criticized the rule and say ESG investing practices that take into account issues like climate change unfairly penalize industries like the oil and gas sectors.

When I look back at this Republican, Leonard-Leo-led effort to restrict the criteria by which my retirement money is managed and invested, it makes me hopping mad. The fossilized Friedman Doctrine that enshrines short term profit above all else lives on in the Republican quest to villainize and outlaw the use of ESG considerations as “woke capitalism.” This is another clever culture-war-couched effort to use the force of law to impose Republican economic doctrine to restrict our freedom—in this case by narrowing the criteria investment managers are allowed to consider in investing yourretirement savings. 

The personal significance of this seemingly obscure issue was brought home to me by a Reveal podcast entitled “Your Retirement Investments Are Probably Fueling Climate Change.” Vanguard Group, Inc. is a huge money manager with about 9.3 trillion dollars under management. (Yes, that’s a “t” for trillion. For scale, 9.3 trillion is more than 50 times a whole two-year budget for the State of Washington.) I, probably like many of my readers, have a retirement account parked with the Vanguard Group in a “mutual fund,” to the specific investments and management of which I pay almost no attention. The Reveal podcast points out that Vanguard is a huge investor in new carbon fuel projects, including a current vast expansion of the Coalstrip, Montana open pit coal mine. On top of that, the podcast details how Vanguard, under pressure from Republican-dominated state governments, recently abandoned a 2021 commitment to environmentally conscious investing. 

It’s not just Republicans in the U.S. Congress, it’s Republican lawmakers who control legislatures in many states. “By 2024 a total of nineteen states had passed laws restricting investment firms from considering environmental factors in their decisions.” 

Does every current day Republican lawmaker understand the linkage between the ludicrous Republican culture war crusade against “woke capitalism” and the drive to keep our retirement savings flowing to corporations that have only short term profit as their goal? Probably not, but ignorance is no excuse. We are being led astray. This relatively obscure Republican effort to enshrine the Friedman Doctrine into restrictive law is yet another reason to vote against every Republican on the November ballot. 

Furthermore we might all do well to delve a bit further into how our retirement money is invested. Life is not just about short term monetary gain.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. Many of my readers are old enough to remember the effectiveness against the institution of Apartheid of the decades-long effort to disinvest in South Africa. That action, begun by university students in the 1960s, eventually grew to an international financial pressure campaign based on condemnation of the social institution of Apartheid—NOT on any Friedman-esque fixation on short term profits that the current day Republican Party wishes to enforce on the U.S. financial system.

They’re trying to distract us.

The Washington State Climate Commitment Act was passed and signed only three years ago, in 2021, without much fanfare. The intent of the Act is to provide economic incentives to nudge our state’s economy toward a long term goal of converting to a non-fossil-fuel-based economy by 2050. Emry Dinman, in a front page article in the Spokesman last Wednesday, describes the mechanism:

…[T]he Legislature approved the Climate Commitment Act in 2021, capping how much [greenhouse gases] can be emitted in the state each year and requiring businesses that emit the most carbon to bid for an “allowance” to emit a small portion of that overall cap.

Billions have been raised since the first cap-and-trade auction in 2023, money the state has poured into hundreds of projects, including the purchase of electric buses, air quality monitors and air filters in schools, the conversation of the state’s diesel powered ferries to hybrid-electric models, and work to boost salmon populations.

Unable to block passage of the Act, Republicans immediately set to work to undermine and repeal it. While publicly pretending that they, too, wish to tackle climate change (even as the leader of their party, Donald Trump, openly declares his disdain for climate science, withdrew from the Paris Accords, and now declares he will “Drill, baby, drill” if re-elected), Washington State Republicans set out to criticize the cap-and-trade mechanism and to pretend that the whole effort would be too costly for the average citizen. 

Already in May of last year Chairman of the Washington State GOP, Jim Walsh, had filed Initiative 2117 with the Secretary of State’s office as “Repeal the Cap and Trade Tax”. Later in 2023 multi-millionaire hedge fund manager and transplant from California, Brian Heywood, single-handedly funded paid signature gatherers to get this and several other initiatives on the ballot. No time was wasted to see how the Climate Commitment Act might work in practice. As noted above, the first carbon allowance auction didn’t even occur until 2023 and we are only beginning to see the benefits of the money from carbon allowance auctions or have any hint of the reductions in the burning of fossil fuels that should result from the cap-and-trade system.

All of this should remind us of a similarly timed effort by Republicans to repeal another landmark law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) The ACA (dubbed “Obamacare”) was signed on March 23, 2010. By the fall of the same year the Republican Party’s “Tea Party” movement took up, among other things, repealing the Affordable Care Act as a crusade of Republicans—before any of the provisions of the ACA had even been put in place. Republicans campaigned (and some are still campaigning) on “repealing Obamacare” even as Americans decided that, in spite of some warts born of compromise, once it was put into practice they generally liked the provisions of the ACA. 

One of the important functions of government is to look forward and incentivize actions that will prove ultimately beneficial for the entire country. Knowing that a majority of citizens responsibly understand that global heating resulting from the burning of carbon fuels is a major threat to the future of life on our planet, only a few Republicans (besides Donald Trump, Spokane County Commissioner Al French comes to mind) openly articulate their disdain for climate science. Instead, they twist themselves in knots.

A cardinal example is Tod Myers, vice president of the Washington Policy Center, the reliably fossil-fuel friendly, Koch-donor-group-affiliated think tank that pumps out “free market” propaganda, served as Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ brain, and supports Mr. Baumgartner as her replacement. Like most of the writers and talking heads at WPC, Mr. Myers’ degrees have little or nothing to do with the environmental science in which he professes expertise:

He has a bachelor’s degree in politics from Whitman College and a master’s degree in Russian/International Studies from the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington.

According to Emry Dinman’s article, Mr. Myers “emphasized that he believes climate change is a serious threat, has long been an advocate for a ‘carbon tax,’ effectively a tax on all fuels.” It is true that years ago Mr. Myers was criticized by some of his fellow Republicans for an opinion piece he wrote arguing in favor of a carbon tax at the well head or the coal mine (coupled to a dividend sent to those most affected) as a “free market” alternative to government mandates. Of course, no carbon tax has ever come close to passing, mostly on account of Republican opposition to anything that includes the word “tax”. 

Regardless of Mr. Myers’ claim of “believ[ing] that climate change is a serious threat”, he recently debated on the same side as multi-millionaire Brian Heywood specifically against the Climate Commitment Act. Note that Mr. Myers is staunchly criticizing the Climate Commitment Act before giving its application a chance to demonstrate its utility in reducing emissions. 

For my part, I often reminded myself while performing surgery that “Perfect is the enemy of good.” That adage served me well—and I submit that it also applies to Mr. Myers. The Climate Commitment Act of 2021 was the best compromise that could be made into law to address the real threat of global heating. Certainly it has flaws—like virtually all legislation—flaws that can be worked out over time. For Mr. Myers to lobby along with Mr. Heywood for the repeal of the Climate Commitment Act, a ‘good’ law (in my adage) that has hardly been tested, is an example of throwing out the ‘good’ while claiming to pursue his unattainable ‘perfect’ (carbon fee and dividend). If any of these people were anything but closet climate deniers they would want to give the Climate Commitment Act at least the benefit of the doubt. 

A good portion of Mr. Dinman’s exhaustive, nearly 3000 word treatise is directed at trying to determine how much (if any) the Washington State Climate Commitment Act might affect sticker prices for carbon-based fuels, headlined as gasoline. This is precisely the issue on which I-2117’s climate-denying masterminds, Brian Heywood and Jim Walsh, want everyone to focus. They certainly don’t want voters thinking about the long term consequences of government NOT encouraging the transition to renewable energy: the epic storms, the heat, the drought, and the wildfires, the leading edge of which our region is already experiencing. After all, some in the Republican camp profess that “God is in charge of climate change,” that is, we should ignore it. Humans have no responsibility; trying to curtail the burning of fossil fuels is foolish and flies in the face of “progress”. 

Meanwhile, on the lower part of the same Wednesday, September 18th, Spokesman front page (pictured below) was an implied warning: “Spokane Recorded Its Third-Hottest Summer.” The body of the article adds some striking details: the second hottest summer in all of Spokane’s weather record keeping (which began in 1881) was just three years ago in 2021—and first place was set in 2015. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist—or a climate scientist—to see the obvious trend to the hotter and drier inland northwest summers predicted by climate models—nor does it require much to link heat and drought to our new annual summertime focus on wildfires. Climate change, better-labelled global heating is already here.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

Here’s that front page. 

Shall we just change the standard?

In 2017, at the same time the Fairchild Air Force Base was owning up to it’s PFAS contribution to groundwater contamination on the West Plains, Spokane International Airport (SIA) quietly sampled several test wells on its property for PFAS. When the tests came back with high concentrations consistent with decades of use of PFAS-containing Aqueous Fire-Fighting Foams, the SIA board, SIA’s CEO, Larry Krauter, and Spokane County Commissioner Al French kept the results quiet, resulting in seven more years of French’s constituents drinking PFAS contaminated water from private wells. During those years Mr. French blocked county government from even considering administration of grant money that would have offered well testing to investigate the extent of the spread of PFAS to private wells. 

During those seven years not only did Krauter and French on the SIA board seek to avoid exposure of the test results and block investigation into the extent of contamination, but at various times lobbied against laws regulating the use of PFAS-containing Aqueous Fire-Fighting Foams, a complicated story laid out by Aaron Hedge in his article “Airport CEO: Lawmakers should ‘wait and see’ before banning toxic PFAS.”

All of which begs the question of how these officials could sleep at night knowing that they were keeping people in the dark while their constituents, their children, their farm animals, and their gardens drank PFAS-laden water for seven years longer than necessary? Denial is the key.

It seems likely based on SIA’s lobbying activity that, without saying so openly, Al French, Mr. Krauter, and others engaged in denial of the science linking PFAS to cancer, birth defects, liver and kidney problems. Certainly there is precedence for this view. Mr. French, past master of political games himself, is quick to label the science of global heating (aka “climate change”) as a “politically driven agenda.” Mr. French’s arrogant disdain for public health and medical science was on display during the Covid pandemic in his engineered firing of Dr. Bob Lutz from his position with the Spokane Regional Health District. For Mr. French any science that conflicts with his development goals is to be discounted as “playing politics”, not legitimate science.

So as to the question of how one sleeps at night knowing that one’s silence is poisoning people, there’s a simple answer: “I don’t believe that PFAS is really dangerous (even if I won’t come right out and say I’m a ‘PFAS denier’). 

So where does the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership,” come in. Project 2025 is the blueprint for the remake of government that would occur in the event of a second Trump administration. It is 920 pages of rather dense reading. On page 431, the issue of PFAS is addressed in a couple of bullet points under “New Policies, Superfund”:

• “Revise groundwater cleanup regulations and policies to reflect thechallenges of omnipresent contaminants like PFAS.
• “Revisit the designation of PFAS chemicals as “hazardous substances”under CERCLA.” [Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 that established Superfund]

Clearly, the easiest way to dispose of an environmental threat is to use political power to change the standards by which the threat is judged. Nevermind the science, if we can just raise the acceptable level of PFAS in drinking water from say 4 ppt to 70 ppt, which, after all, we believe (based on our arrogance) is perfectly safe, then most of the problem of PFAS poisoning wells pretty much goes away, businesses will thrive, and money will be made. Voila! Problem solved! All we need is the power to take over the decision making process.

Mr. French is up for re-election this November. We should encourage him to retire.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

The real world consequences of a scurrilous claim by the leader of the Republican Party

The proper response is full-on laughter and derision to an elderly, addled, angry bully asserting to an audience of 67 million viewers that immigrants in Springfield, Ohio are killing and eating their white neighbors’ cats and dogs. Since last Tuesday’s debate social media has been awash with memes mocking the bully’s statement; his declared source, “They’re saying it on TV”; and his continued claims, against many official denials, that pets are being killed and eaten by immigrants. Trump doubled-down even after the woman in Springfield who wrote the Facebook post admitted it had no basis in fact.To an increasing number of American voters Trump reminds them of their elderly, crazy uncle raving on at a family gathering. 

Worse, on the Friday following the debate, Trump’s weird running mate, JD Vance, expanded on the elderly uncle’s xenophobic rhetoric:

Without citing evidence, Vance wrote on X: “In Springfield, Ohio, there has been a massive rise in communicable diseases, rent prices, car insurance rates, and crime. This is what happens when you drop 20,000 people into a small community.”

Vance went on to charge that the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, “aims to do this to every town in our country.”

A spokesman for Vance told the Washington Post that he would provide evidence for the senator’s claims but did not say when.

Meanwhile, as ridicule is heaped on Trump’s nationally televised statement, there are real life consequences:

The rhetoric has escalated, and numerous buildings in Springfield – including its City Hall and an elementary school – were evacuated Thursday due to a bomb threat that included “hateful language” about the city’s immigrant population.

On Friday, two elementary schools were evacuated based on information received by the Springfield Police Division, the Columbus Dispatch reported. The Springfield City School District did not immediately return a voice message seeking comment. 

The best and most thorough discussion of the fallout from the Republican statement is Robert Hubbell’s Substack post from September 13, “Why Springfield, Ohio matters.” (Click the underlined title and, if you’re not already a subscriber, you will see a page where you can either enter your email address to receive his near-daily email missives or click “No thanks” to take you directly to the post.) 

Historian Heather Cox Richardson’s Substack post on September 13 (a great read), provides more detail on the build-up of the lie. It started with JD Vance’s increasing focus on Springfield back in July. His words spurred white supremacist groups to gather in Springfield. The whole ugly lie expanded following the hearsay Facebook post in late August (since withdrawn, see above). The whole build-up led to Trump’s ludicrous debate assertion that “They’re eating the pets.”

Senator Vance (R-OH) evidently couldn’t care less about the effects of his words on the well-being of the people of Springfield, Ohio, including his own constituents. Heather Cox Richardson points out that, at least for Vance, this whole episode is fundamentally about political power, the little people hurt in the process be damned: 

The widespread ridicule of Trump’s statement has obscured that this attack on Ohio’s immigrants is part of an attempt to regain control of the Senate. Convincing Ohio voters that the immigrants in their midst are subhuman could help Republicans defeat popular Democratic incumbent senator Sherrod Brown, who has held his seat since 2007. Brown and Montana’s Jon Tester, both Democrats in states that supported Trump in 2020, are key to controlling the Senate. 

Two Republican super PACs, one of which is linked to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), have booked more than $82 million of ad space in Ohio between Labor Day and the election and are focusing on immigration. 

The outcome of these two U.S. Senate races might determine the course of the federal government for the next four years. If Republicans in the November election can capture a U.S. Senate majority—even by one vote—they will use that toe-hold to block nominations to federal judgeships, block any efforts to provide an enforceable code of ethics for the Supreme Court, stymie voting legislation, and, finally, blame the administration for “not getting anything done.” Recognize further that this would prolong the “tyranny by the minority” that is inherent in the composition of the U.S. Senate, where, in 2020, Republicans held half the seats while representing only 43.5% of the population of the nation. The stakes are high for continuation of their minority rule—and JD Vance and Trump don’t care who they hurt in pursuing it.

One hopes that the unfounded rumor, “They’re eating the pets”, to which Trump exposed the nation last Tuesday will result in continued ridicule by highlighting the dangerous, racist, dehumanizing, xenophobic, white supremacist rhetoric on which the Republican Party has pegged its brand. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. Heather Cox Richardson, in her closing paragraphs, drew a sickening political parallel to the “They’re eating the pets” rumor, a political parallel that underscores the real-world consequences of spreading lies and rumors in pursuit of power:

In 1890, Republicans faced a similar problem. They had lost the popular vote in 1888, although they installed Republican president Benjamin Harrison in office through the Electoral College, and knew the Democrats would soon far outnumber their own voters. So they set out to guarantee that they could never lose the Senate, which should enable them to kill popular Democratic legislation. 

But they misjudged the electorate, and in the 1890 midterm election, voters gave control of the House to the Democrats by a margin of two to one, and control of the Senate came down to a single seat, that of a senator from South Dakota. In those days, state legislatures chose their state’s senators, and shortly after it became clear that control of the Senate was going to depend on that South Dakota seat, U.S. Army troops went to South Dakota to rally voters by putting down an “Indian uprising” in which no people had died and no property had been damaged. 

Fueled on false stories of “savages” who were attacking white settlers, the inexperienced soldiers were the ones who pulled the triggers to kill more than 250 Lakotas on December 29, but the Wounded Knee Massacre started in Washington, D.C.  

Of course, there is a stark difference. In the late nineteenth century statements and rumors spread at a snail’s pace via telegraph, newspapers, and word of mouth over months. Fact-checking was equally slow. Today, in contrast, Trump makes his incendiary claim to 67 million people, social media explodes, and fact-checking (via the debate moderator) is nearly immediate.