Flush Your Free Lunch Down the Toilet

Mayor Plusquellic's Sewers for College plan has evolved into a lease of the Akron sewer system rather than sale. After looking at other lease deals on infrastructure around the Country the original plan to sell the system outright has been modified to be a lease deal. Leases comes with the same caveats as sales. The system would almost certainly be leased by a foreign entity and that foreign corporation would have to raise user fees in due time to cover operations. A spokesperson from one firm is quoted in today's ABJ article:

''Generally, it means more efficient operations and lower-cost pricing,
even taking into account profit for dividends and reinvestment into the
system,'' Henning said. ''It also means that customers are paying 'real
cost' pricing, rather than a subsidized price based off the use of
government bonds to finance infrastructure improvements.''

You see public works are actually subsidized because capital improvements are financed with government issued bonds. Oh wait a minute, I thought local governments pay debt service with revenue collected from user fees and taxes. So the subsidy actually flows from citizens that use the infrastrucure. We are subsidizing ourselves, that has to stop.

Call it a lease, a sale, creative financing, it's all the same. Privatization will come with more costs in the form of increased fees. This deal can't create money out of thin air and fund universal college scholarships at the same time.

A Bold Move Towards Regionalism

The City of Akron and Summit County Governments are about to sample the much talked about but seldom visited waters of regionalism. Akron and Summit our planning a trial by fire approach to merging the administration of safety forces. The ABJ explains how the new chain of command will report to County Sheriff Drew Alexander:

Larry Givens, the retired Akron Police Chief, was introduced as Plusquellic's new deputy mayor of public safety. Givens will report to Alexander and the two will now be at the top of Akron police department's chain of command, Plusquellic said.

There are several positive aspects of this prposed arrangement. The first of which is that it sign proactive move in the direction of combining a city and county government in real life. It's not just topic for MPA students to write papers on. Carving out one of the core services for this first phase gives the move some credibility and potential to have a real impact. In theory the plan is supposed to achieve efficiencies and save money without stripping the APD of its autonomy which is important for buy in. It's been two or three years since the Fund for Our Economic Future started pushing for transformational change in our framework of governance and this move may be a result of that proect.

Mayor Plusquellic is also a winner here. He claims a new creative idea to tout to constituents and this one makes sense. Merging government services good, private sewer systems bad.

Crossover Voting Meet Overwhelming Force

The prospects of crossover voting amounting to anything more than a pet project of Rush Limbaugh and his merry band of dittoheads are slim and none. Of course loud mouth righty blowhards get the adulation of an intellectually immature fan base poised to move when called upon. The thought of steering the election to a favorable match up for November is in the same category as the bumper sticker pablum they ingest daily.

There as been a good deal of press on the GOP crossovers in the Ohio primary election and Cuyahoga County in particular. The Columbus Dispatch released an analysis of crossover voting and found a sizable number of GOP superfans crossed over to the tune of over 20,000 voters. The intent of course was to cast votes for Clinton and keep her campaign alive thus throwing the race into turmoil. Of course the democratic race didn't need an help with that and the crossover voting didn't really alter overall course of the election. In politically savvy move SOS Jennifer Brunner has cast aside any ideas of prosecuting crossover voting in an interview with the Cleveland PD:

"I would be very hesitant to move forward in a criminal investigation," Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said before giving a speech at John Carroll University. "At what point are you going to start getting into censorship?"

Basically let the cretins have some fun it can't stop the inevitable defeat the GOP will be suffering in the general election, or so we hope. Still the Cuyahoga BOE is pursuing a investigation of crossovers in the County. This "quixotic effort" as described by County Prosecutor Civil Division chief Dave Lambert, will go nowhere fast once it hits the inevitable party line vote.

I've said it before, winning this election will have to be done using the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force. The GOP attack dogs are going to use voter suppression, caging and other dirty tricks to sway this election. The appropriate defense to this crap is to bring the full force of progressive ideas and a strong candidate to the electorate. An unstoppable wave of D(d)emocratic voters that will wipe out the effects of any GOP nonsense.

Caging, Voting's Dirty Little Secret

The practice fo voter caging is finally getting some attention from Congress. Politico has an article covering the efforts of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) to introduce legislation limiting the practice. Supporters of the bill claim rightly, that the practice of challenging the addresses of large swathes of registered voters discourages college students and younger voters from voting.

In NE Ohio we have had are share of this tactic. In the case of the 2004 election the GOP cadres submitted mass requests to verify voters addresses in Cuyahoga and Summit County. The requests targeted minority voters in low income neighborhoods not college students. This was a perfectly devious compliment to the voter challenges at the polls that also targeted this demographic. Nothing like the white mayor of rich Westlake challenging black voters in poor East Cleveland.

Limiting the practice at the federal level makes sense. They already have something called the Voting Rights Act I think. Still you will always have some critics of measures that encourage people to vote. In a wonderful coincidence one of the potential critics on the Senate Judiciary Comm. is Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT). A different man but same name as beloved Ohio GOP Chairman Bob Bennett who coordinated the voter suppression efforts in 2004.

Five Years of Lies

"When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth."

Khaled Hosseini
The Kite Runner


The war in Iraq was built on lies and false bravado. From the tales of errant WMD to the not so subtle conflating of Saddam and the terror of September 11th. The mission accomplished moments, last throes, fight them there and surge is working chicanery have had five years to obscure the truth of what has happened in Iraq. Any meaningful debate on Iraq policy must be navigated around the detritus of talking points and bumper sticker schlock. Almost every pronouncement from the administration on progress must be interpreted with either skepticism or outright disbelief. Awakening counsels are really the result of bribing one side of a future civil war. The the reconstruction of a country into an economic success has morphed into a failed free market laboratory. The spread of democracy in the Middle East has been revealed as an entreaty to ethnic cleansing, torture and has created a new class of diaspora left to flee the calamity as means of survival.

The lies that this war are built on have damned this country, its leaders, and its citizens to an endless feedback loop of suffering and human wreckage. The American attention span for the never ending and costly occupation of Iraq has continued to shrink. The lack of thirst for information or demand for the truth and accountability are acts of complicity in creating the lies that have sustained this war.

Now the next champion of this misadventure has grabbed the baton and kept marching forward with the same talking points and disrespect for the truth. John McCain is already finding convenient ways to falsely conflate Al Queda and Iran and then retracts the words as alleged gaffes. He is proudly proclaiming that we only have two options, continue on this reckless path or surrender to the forces of evil. Never mind the folly that led us to war in Iraq is the reason for the instability. There is no gray or in between even though the complexity of the mess we have created can't be mitigated with absolutes. Our right to the truth was stolen long ago. Until we get it back this trip through the hellish confines of this period our history will never end.

The Cost of Floyd

The former winner fo the 2006 Tour De France has one more fight left in him and he's not letting money get in the way. Floyd Landis makes one last ditch effort to save his bad reputation starting today. Not taking the decision by USADA to uphold his positive doping test seriously Landis now goes to the Court of Arbitration of Sport. This time around promises to be another rehash of the previous findings. Floyd's people will again plead why the test administered to Floyd after an unprecedented comeback in stage 16 of the 2006 TDF must have been wrong. Floyd will rant like a paranoid delusional about the French lab that bothcedhis test and the dark secrets of Greg Lemond's childhood.

None of the time and money spent presenting an alternative to what actually happened will change the outcome. UCI cycling is already hurting from more doping scandals like Puerta and last year's tour. This latest round in the Floyd chronicles is just one more reminder of the hubis tearing down a great sport.

McCain Already Opting for Public Funds

John McCain hit the dusty ground of Iraq running by conducting a "fact finding" mission Sunday. This trip didn't appear to have the exorbitant security trappings of his last junket but had the regular hoopla. On the fact finding agenda were meetings with St. Petreaus and Iraqi leaders including his honor president Nouri al Maliki. Just to blur any line between fact finder and campaign stop McCain had Senate colleagues and stalwart Iraq enthusiasts Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham in tow.

The punditry has been keen to point out McCain's advantage over his rival Dem challengers. While Obama and Clinton continue to drag out the nomination process McCain can start assuming a presidential aura and visit important people and kiss important general asses. It's a really smart strategy I'll admit. I'm guessing a sliver of voters have assumed that a transition already took place and he's the new president.

I hope someone at the Federal Elections Commission is paying attention. This trip was clearly a campaign stop at the expense of taxpayers. If the Straight Talk Express is going to opt in for a public campaign funds that's great, he has been a champion of campaign reform right?

McCain just started running a tab barkeep, don't forget to settle before the General Election is over.

Cheney was also in Iraq today. He snarled something about last throes or phenomenal progress. I don't know does anyone even care?

JP Morgan Takes Out the Trash

How bad is the outlook in the financial markets? If the fall of the great Wall St. powerhouse Bear Stearns is any indication then it's bad. More than Jim Kramer ranting bad.

JP Morgan Chase agreed to buy the beleaguered Bear Stearns today for the insane and even troubling low price of $2 per share. That blows my mind. Bear Stearns a mainstay financial giant was brought to its knees from the corrosive (explosive) impact of the credit woes stemming from the sub prime mess. The fact that JP Morgan was able to snatch them up for almost free ($236 million total price) is telling to how done Bear Stearns was. Even the unprecedented offer from the Fed to accept mortgage derivative securities as collateral for securing much needed liquidity couldn't save Bear from the Bear market.

Another gauge of the magnitude of this downturn is the type of victims it has claimed. The tech bust of the 2000 era killed off a lot of crazy IT and web concoctions that had no business plans and no way to make any money. I mean come on man Loudcloud was no Citigroup. The whirlwind we are reaping now is going right after the heart of the financial system and that's what makes this particular turmoil rather frightening.

Three Cheers For the Fourth Amendment

My persons, houses, papers and effects are rejoicing over the House passage of the correct FISA bill today. The Dems finally got it together and crammed a bill without telco immunity through a successful vote.

Thanks for taking all kinds of crap from presidential apologists and fear mongering cretins Speaker Pelosi. The secret session last night was the last antic in the b-s arsenal and when that revealed nothing new, the votes were still there. Thanks for pulling together a large enough coalition to get the needed votes in the face of faltering moderates. Enough of the Blue Dogs shed their yellow coats to do the right thing. Take a stand for the Constitution that the Bizarro World "strict constructionist" judge loving goofballs on the right have been trying to deconstruct one piece at a time.

Don't Blame It on Björk

As the protests and unrest continue on the streets of Lhasa, Tibet news watchers are preparing for the the inevitable crackdown from the Chinese government. It's hard to say whether or not the response from the Chinese will be more subdued due to the attention being lavished on the Olympic games host country. A bloody suppression of Buddhist monks may discourage McDonald's and Walmart from spending more on advertising during the Olympics telecast.

A China under the spotlight might be enough to give the Tibetan protesters reason to take on their Chinese overlords for the first time in two decades. Maybe that perceived heightened awareness that the world is watching China gives the Tibetans just enough motivation to take up the challenge again. Surely a government preparing to host people from all over the planet would not want to squander it's benevolent image over some street protests. I also think what we are seeing in Tibet is the leading edge of a movement that was triggered partially from the events in Kosovo where a long fought quest for independence was unilaterally declared by Kosovars and then recognized by the U.S and other Western democracies.

Maybe, just maybe the recent antics of Icelandic pop-star Björk during a performance in Shaghai were the final rallying cry needed for this latest movement in Tibet to coalesce. Let's hope there are democratic governments willing to take a stand for reforms in Tibet and remind the China of the 21st century this in not 1950.

Today's Paranoid Rant

The American public is easily swayed into following stories with broad sweeping themes especially when it involves high profile public officials caught up in sex stings. The news cycle has been completely consumed by the Eliot Spizter Hookergate drama and there is no sign that it's losing grip on viewers. The next phase of coverage has naturally turned to the details of the woman for hire in question. I think CNN had her MySpace page up earlier this evening, no kidding.

This leads me to today's paranoid rant. I think there have been multiple occasions of the Bush administration using the news cycle to control the release of good and bad news. The recent events demonstrate the latter. Maybe its the soon to be released report refuting (again) the Saddam Al Queda link or the Commander of Central Command resigning in a apparent protest. Here is an imagined phone call that I think took place last week.

A phone rings somewhere in the Department of Justice...

DOJ Official: Hello DOJ office of Vice and Virtue.

SecDef Gates: Hey this is Robert Gates, you know the guy who took over for Rummy at DOD.

DOJ Official: What can I do for you Mr. Secretary?

SecDef Gates: Well we need to work the news cycle next week. You know get people to look the other way so we can release another one of these darn Iraq reports.

DOJ Official: Oh yeah what's this one about?

SecDef Gates: Doesn't matter, none of them vindicate this crappy policy I've been shouldered with. I'll ask the questions here anyhow. Is there any high profile investigation that you could throw out there early next week? You know something juicy that will really catch the publics' eye?

DOJ Official: We have something really big but we were going to wait to go public with it. You know until the whole thing's a slam dunk so to speak.

SecDef Gates: Hey man your president needs you. Give it up.

DOJ Official: Alright it involves the Democratic governor of New York and a prostitution ring, a really high priced whore house.

SecDef Gates: Oh I see. That will have to do. Can you get it out by Monday?

DOJ Official: I think so. We were able harvest a great deal of evidence using that improved wiretapping capability. Lots of communications involving sex for hire and the like. Should catch fire in the media no problem.

SecDef Gates: Yeah Terrorist Surveillance Program, that's rich! Well thanks for your help.

DOJ Official: Your welcome.

End phone call.

Fed Takes Out the Trash

The guys who brought us the magic of the deregulated mortgage market are finding new and creative ways to make amends. The plan announced today by the Fed was ambitious enough to coax very a large gain out of the market and has the cutsey name Term Securities Lending Facility. The Fed is basically allowing large financial institutions to borrow liquidity (cash or safe Treasuries) and use the mortgage backed securities that have led to the liquidity woes as collateral. My favorite twist on the proposed credit line is this, any securities that hve a premium rating will be accepted as collateral.

This is of course is meaningless since many of the "premium" credit ratings were assigned with a wink from S&P and Moody's to the future detriment of investors. At this point in the game the mere act of accepting this garbage as collateral is soothing enough to the calm everyones' nerves for the time being.

The Fed is going to lend up to $200 billion as of his program. It would be nice to think the same helping hand may soon be extended to local government issuers who have been stung by the collapse of the auction rate securities market. A collapse brought on by the aforementioned players now on the receiving end of the Fed's generosity. For more information on that mess check out Mayor Bloomberg's little financial news site.

Here It Comes...

...there it goes.










It was bad enough for the Akron PD to break out the snow chains and




we canceled the family picnic.

Anyone Want To Buy A Sewer System?

I'm not keen on Plusquellic's plan to sell the Akron sewer system because of its apparent abdication of a main line government responsibility.

On the other hand as the City of Cleveland has discovered again, aging infrastructure leaves governments and taxpayers with a huge liability. I know sewer lines are not prone to bursting (thank god) but the required CSO compliance comes with a multi-billion dollar cost. That's a bill somebody is going to get stuck with.

Tom Ricks at CPL

Tom Ricks WaPo military affairs reporter and author of the book Fiasco will be giving a talk in Cleveland:

Cleveland Public Library Main Branch
Louis Stokes Wing
Sunday March 2nd at 2PM

See you there.