The Genuine Lunacy Is Spreading from the House to the Senate
Charles P. Pierce, Esquire October 15, 2018
In Tennessee, it is better-than-even money that Marsha Blackburn will end up representing the state in the United States Senate. As a member of the House of Representatives, Ms. Blackburn distinguished herself by trying to sign onto the Birther train while wearing the equivalent of a Groucho Marx mask. From Politico:
“The congressman does not doubt that the president was born in the United States. In the wake of the last election, a number of her constituents expressed surprise that candidates don’t have to establish that they meet the constitutional requirements for the office. They are equally surprised that she has never had to offer any identifying documents when she has filed for federal office,” replied her spokesman, Claude Chafin. “The congressman belives that aspirants to the most powerful position in the free world should meet the same basic identifying standard as a 16-year-old Tennessean aspiring to a driver’s license.”
(The spokesman for Ms. Blackburn referred to her as “the congressman”? That’s weird.)
She then moved along to champion the completely fantastical notion that Planned Parenthood is running an online shopping channel for baby parts. In 2016, she chaired a money pit of a congressional investigation into this nonsense that ended up costing us all nearly $800,000. And she’s favored to move up in the world.
Now, there’s a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate named Karin Housley, and, in 2009, Ms. Housley had some thoughts about Michelle Obama that she felt compelled to share on her Facebook wall.
“I do miss Nancy Reagan. Ronald even more. Speaking of Bedtime for Bonzo, I think even that chimp stood up straighter than Michelle. Uh-oh, someone is going to make a comment.”
I’ll step up. You’re an idiot.
Say what you will about the Republican congressional majorities, but, up until this point, they’ve largely managed to keep the genuine bats relegated to the expansive belfry of the House of Representatives. The Senate majority is ruthless in its search for power, almost automatonic in its solidarity, and it has sold its collective soul to an incompetent and dangerous president for the price of tax cuts and some judges. But its activities-and most of its members-at least make sense. Not so in the House, where the wild things are.
But the fact is that the Republicans couldn’t keep a lid on this forever. Creeping Gohmertism is moving ever closer to the Senate. Housley probably won’t win, but Blackburn is likely to do so. Until the Republicans are willing to disenthrall themselves from the fundamental crazy, there is no reason ever to take Never Trump seriously as an ongoing political phenomenon.
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Sears Didn’t ‘Die.’ Vulture Capitalists Killed It.
Robert Kuttner, HuffPost October 15, 2018
If you’ve been following the impending bankruptcy of America’s iconic retailer as covered by print, broadcast and digital media, you’ve probably encountered lots of nostalgia and sad clucking about how dinosaurs like Sears can’t compete in the age of Amazon and specialty retail.
But most of the coverage has failed to stress the deeper story. Namely, Sears is a prime example of how hedge funds and private equity companies take over retailers, encumber them with debt in order to pay themselves massive windfall profits, and then leave the retailer without adequate operating capital to compete.
Part of the strategy is to sell off valuable real estate, the better to enrich the hedge fund, and stick the retail company with costly rental payments to occupy the space that it once owned.
In the case of Sears, the culprit is a hedge-fund operator named Edward Lampert, once a senior merger guy at Goldman Sachs. In 2005, Lampert merged Sears with Kmart, loaded both up with debt, and used some of the debt on stock buybacks to pump up the share price and enrich shareholders, notably himself and his hedge fund.
In a decade, 175,000 people at Sears/Kmart lost their jobs and revenue was cut in half. Various pieces of Sears were sold off. Lampert did just fine.
Lampert’s hedge fund also became a prime a lender to Sears, making money off of commissions and interest charges as well as being a prime shareholder. The strategy ensures that the fund and its beneficiaries (including Lampert himself) get rich, even if they run Sears into the ground. For the most part, the nostalgia coverage of the demise of Sears has missed this.
If you look hard, you can find an excellent 2017 piece from The New York Times by Julie Creswell, “The Incredible Shrinking Sears,” on Lampert’s role. Another writer who regularly covers how hedge funds and private equity have pillaged American retailing is David Dayen.
The story goes far beyond Sears. Last year, about 20 retail chains went into bankruptcy. In most cases, the culprit was a hedge fund or private equity owner. (These two business models were once rather different, but are increasingly converging.)
This entire business model is one of the most extreme examples of how financial engineering is destroying potentially viable parts of the real economy.
I’ve written about how private equity and hedge funds are destroying independent daily newspapers, using the same acquire, strip and flip strategy. A book that tells the larger story in vivid detail is “Private Equity at Work,” by Eileen Appelbaum and Rosemary Batt. But in general, this backstory is missing from the news coverage whenever another retailer bites the dust.
This entire business model is one of the most extreme examples of how financial engineering is destroying potentially viable parts of the real economy.
The tactic of loading up a company with debt and then paying yourself exorbitant fees and dividends and manipulating the share price at the expense of the company ought to be illegal. It’s a plain conflict of interest. Likewise being both creditor and shareholder.
Ditto the use of Chapter 11 bankruptcy in order to profit yet again by picking over the remains. A hedge fund operator who drives a company into the ground by stripping assets for his own profit should not be permitted by bankruptcy court to keep control of the company. But that practice is the norm. Lampert will step down as CEO but remain chairman with a controlling ownership stake of what’s left of Sears.
It’s astonishing how little attention this maneuver has gotten, and how scarce are the demands for fundamental reform. One reason may be that Wall Street Democrats as well as Wall Street Republicans are leading players in this parasitic industry, and few politicians of either party have taken them on.
It was insider conflicts of interest at the expense of consumers, workers and investors that inspired the Glass-Steagall Act, separating investment banking from commercial banking. If we ever resume the task of draining the true financial swamp, we need a Glass-Steagall for hedge funds, private equity operators and bona fide businesses.
There are many things wrong with American capitalism. One of the most flagrant, and least appreciated, is the perverse role of hedge funds.
Sears, in its glory days, was the opposite of financial engineering. It was run by real people, and it sold real stuff, to real people. To make the American economy great again, get rid of the financial engineers and make America real again. Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and a professor at Brandeis University’s Heller School. His new book is Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism?
White Women: Stop Waiting For Black Women To Save You
Tamika D. Mallory, HuffPost Opinion October 11, 2018
Last week, Sen. Susan Collins doubled down on white supremacy and patriarchy in America. Women and survivors of all genders will never forgive her for it.
In a 43-minute speech last Friday, Collins managed to dismiss survivors, argue in favor of a man accused of sexual assault, and advance Donald Trump’s white supremacist political agenda. While a lot of people had been holding out hope for her to vote against confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, I wasn’t surprised.
Like many people of color, on a gut level, I expected this outcome. We’ve seen the system (and white women) fail us over and over again.
Collins complained that Kavanaugh was being sentenced by public opinion and denied due process — an argument with which I’m familiar. I’ve been working on the issue of automatic criminalization for a long time. I’ve spoken out, marched and organized against the lack of a presumption of innocence granted to Tamir Rice, Kalief Browder, Stephon Clark, Chikesia Clemons.
After listening to the senator’s speech, I joked about welcoming her into the movement. But of course she wouldn’t do anything like that. Because the people typically impacted by automatic criminalization are not white conservative men.
It’s time for white women who are outraged, marginalized and silenced to stand up and speak out for all of our rights.
If Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing exposed anything besides his belligerence and questionable grasp of the truth, it was that the power white men take for granted is under threat. And there are white women who will stop at nothing to protect it.
Women of color have always known there is no justice for us under this current system. Many of our white sisters in the struggle woke up to that reality with the election of Trump. That awakening continues to this very day.
It’s time for the 47 percent who voted against Trump to collect their white sisters. We need them all to choose us, their fellow women, over the white men who hurt all of us, but who grant white women a little bit of power along the way.
White women are finally feeling the rage we have felt for the last 400 years. They are feeling the powerlessness we’ve wrestled with for generations. It’s time for them to stand with us — behind us — to ensure equity and justice forall women, for all people.
They don’t have to start from scratch. Women of color, particularly black women, have sacrificed for years, laying the groundwork in the process. Exhibit A: Anita Hill, who nearly three decades ago testified before an unsympathetic Judiciary Committee in a world that was nowhere near ready to hear her truth, opened the floodgates for women to speak out about sexual harassment and assault.
Dr. Hill faced many of the same threats as Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, but without a national Me Too movement seeing and supporting her. Like many women of color and unlike Dr. Ford, she wasn’t extended empathy or permitted any vulnerability. Her testimony before a group of white men (many of whom are still in elected office) who coldly questioned her credibility, marked one of the first times women openly challenged rape culture in America.
As Brittney Cooper has written, black women’s status at the absolute bottom of the American hierarchy, with no access to male or white privilege, has meant that we literally have nothing to lose and everything to potentially gain by putting our bodies on the line. We’ve done this time and again. We cannot keep doing it on our own.
In some ways, white women have more to lose by rejecting white male patriarchy. But they also have everything to gain. The treatment of Dr. Ford showed once and for all that whiteness is not enough to protect white women from patriarchy. It’s time for white women who are outraged, marginalized and silenced to stand up and speak out for all of our rights.
We need them to get comfortable with discomfort, to check their fellow white women when they prop up white supremacy and white male patriarchy, to sacrifice their bodies and support our work with their dollars as well as their voices. That means showing up, and showing out, but also centering and lifting up our voices and experiences. It means voting for women of color who will fight to end rape culture, white supremacy and patriarchy.
From the first day of the hearing until this past week, where thousands shared their survivor stories and turned their pain into action, we’ve come together to resist this nominee. For two years, we’ve fought back against Donald Trump’s white supremacist agenda. Now, women are mobilizing en masse like never before: all ages, races, religions, disabilities, sexualities and gender identities. We are running for office in record numbers. We are occupying Senate offices and the Capitol steps, and storming the doors of the Supreme Court.
We’re revealing our deepest traumas no matter the consequences and we are no longer containing our fury. Instead, we’re using it. We will no longer accept the white, male death grip on power as a foregone conclusion.
In 2017, during the Women’s March on Washington ― which I helped organize and which was the largest single-day protest in U.S. history ― we came out in search of hope. But hope alone isn’t enough. In November, we will replace rape apologists with the women the march inspired to run against them. In January 2019, we’re coming back with an agenda to end rape culture, white supremacy and patriarchy in America.
Our pussy-grabbing president thinks we’ve given up. We haven’t. Over the last five weeks, we’ve rocked the foundation of the white male patriarchy. And judging from their tantrums, white men (and the white women who support them) are starting to understand that their time in power is coming to an end.
This is just the beginning of a women’s wave that will not stop until the country, its laws, its policies, its systems provide justice and equality for us all.
Tamika Mallory is an esteemed social justice leader, advocate and activist.
GOP plays blame game while fighting to save House majority
Steve Peoples, Associated Press October 15, 2018
FILE – This Oct. 1, 2018, file photo, shows the Capitol at sunrise in Washington. Republicans have begun to concede defeat in the evolving fight to preserve the House majority. The party’s candidates may not go quietly, but from Arizona to Colorado to Iowa, the GOP’s most powerful players are shifting resources away from vulnerable Republican House candidates deemed too far gone and toward those thought to have a better chance of political survival. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Republicans have begun to concede defeat in the evolving fight to preserve the House majority.
The party’s candidates may not go quietly, but from the Arizona mountains to suburban Denver to the cornfields of Iowa, the GOP’s most powerful players this midterm season are actively shifting resources away from vulnerable Republican House candidates deemed too far gone and toward those thought to have a better chance of political survival.
And as they initiate a painful and strategic triage, the early Republican-on-Republican blame game has begun as well.
GOP operatives connected to several vulnerable candidates complain that the committee responsible for electing House Republicans has failed to deliver on its promise to invest $62 million in political advertising across 11 states this fall, a promise detailed in a September memo that declared, “The cavalry is coming.”
The operatives spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution; vulnerable Republican candidates still hope to receive additional financial support over the three weeks before Election Day.
But if the cavalry is coming, it’s not coming for everyone.
Already, the Republican operatives and spending patterns by both sides indicate GOP defeat in as many as a dozen House races — halfway to the number Democrats need to seize the House majority this fall. Dozens more seats are in play.
“We’re starting to hone in on what are the races we can actually win. Sometime that requires a hard conversation,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan’s fundraising chief, Spencer Zwick.
Even after a burst of enthusiasm that helped Republican Senate candidates in several states following the recent Supreme Court debate, some Republicans closely following the more complicated House battlefield fear the party may have already lost Congress’ lower chamber. With 22 days to go, they’re working furiously in an expanding political battlefield to limit their losses.
Fundraising challenges make it harder.
As of Friday, the National Republican Congressional Committee has spent or reserved $44.8 million of television advertising in competitive House races since the end of July, according to spending records obtained by The Associated Press. That’s significantly less than the $62 million promised in last month’s memo.
A committee spokesman explained it would meet the original spending projection by including polling and online advertising, which is more difficult to track. Meanwhile, the Republican committee is expected to take out a sizable loan to help meet its commitments.
A separate memo, circulated to donors in recent days by the super PAC associated with Ryan, noted that it’s been forced to carry the bulk of this year’s financial burden given weak fundraising by the Republican candidates themselves.
Of more than 30 races considered pure toss-ups, the memo states, Ryan’s super PAC is the sole spender in 14.
“The GOP is now facing a green wave,” wrote Corry Bliss, who leads the group, known as the Congressional Leadership Fund. “Democratic candidates are outspending Republican candidates in key races by $50 million.”
Indeed, Democratic candidates have outspent their Republican counterparts $116 million to $66 million across almost 80 competitive House districts since July, according to Friday’s spending records. The Congressional Leadership Fund has helped make up the difference, having invested $93 million over the same period, backed by massive donations from Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson.
“This is going to be a devastating election for Republicans across the ballot,” said Republican strategist Terry Sullivan, who called the party’s fundraising issues a symptom of the GOP’s broader challenge this fall.
“Republican donors are smart folks,” he said. “They’re not going to give money to a losing cause.”
The Republican triage has been shaped by geography and demographics as much as by the candidates themselves.
The GOP has a decent chance of preserving any House district that features a cornfield, pollsters and strategists say, pointing to less-educated rural voters who make up a significant portion of the Republican base. But where education and incomes are higher in suburban areas, Republicans are growing increasingly pessimistic.
The NRCC in recent days has canceled plans to help at least three vulnerable Republican candidates: Rep. Kevin Yoder in suburban Kansas, Rep. Keith Rothfus in suburban Pittsburgh and businesswoman Lea Marquez Peterson in Tucson, Arizona. GOP strategists fear three open seats in the Pennsylvania suburbs and two more in suburban New Jersey are slipping away if they’re not lost already.
And Republicans haven’t invested at all in a handful of other would-be competitive races, including Southern California’s open seat to replace retiring Republican Rep. Darrell Issa and the seat of Iowa Republican incumbent Rep. Rod Blum, whose district features the state’s northern suburbs and more than a dozen college campuses.
Democrats canceled their advertising reserves in GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock’s suburban Virginia district, a sign of confidence in light of public and private polling that gives the Republican incumbent little chance of winning. That’s despite the NRCC spending nearly $5 million in the district since July.
At the same time, the Republican super PAC has shifted money away from at least two other vulnerable Republicans, including suburban Denver Rep. Mike Coffman and Michigan Rep. Mike Bishop.
Yet Coffman spokesman Tyler Sandberg notes that Democratic groups ramped up their spending by more than $1 million over the last week, evidence that the race is “trending back in Coffman’s direction.”
Bishop noted that the NRCC has invested more than $3 million in his race despite one super PAC’s recent decision to abandon the district.
The Congressional Leadership Fund “has got lots of folks out there who really need help,” Bishop said. “I’m confident that their decision to do what they’ve done is a decision based on the fact that I’m well-covered here.”
Bishop conceded that he’s been badly outspent by his opponents: “Michigan’s never seen this influx of money.”
It’s not all bad news for Republicans.
Polls suggest Republican prospects have improved in several GOP-leaning states where Democrats face re-election, silencing recent concerns that Democrats could take the Senate majority this fall as well.
And several vulnerable House Republicans coming into the election year — a group that includes California Rep. David Valadao and Texas Rep. Will Hurd — appear to be in strong shape as Election Day approaches.
The debate over Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh gave Republicans a big boost in enthusiasm, at least in the short term, according to Republican pollster Glen Bolger. Since then, the outlook for Republican candidates running in red states has improved — but that’s not necessarily the case for those in blue states, he added.
Will it last?
“I’m not going to sit here and tell you Republicans have zoomed far ahead,” Bolger said. “Things are better.”
Associated Press writer Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
George Clooney Warns Against Fear, Hatred From Trump Administration in Stirring Power of Women Speech
Nate Nickolai, Variety October 12, 2018
George Clooney didn’t shy away from criticizing the Trump administration’s culture of hate and disbelief while introducing Emma Gonzalez at Variety’sPower of Women event. But that doesn’t mean he’s given up hope.
After introducing himself as “Amal Clooney’s husband” (“I know, I know, I can read this room,” he joked), the actor called out the current administration’s work in creating “a time where fear is our stock in trade” before highlighting the numerous hateful stances it has taken toward people of different religions, races and genders.
“Fear of Muslims. Fear of immigrants. Fear of minorities. Fear of strong women,” he said. “And because our government needs us to be afraid, the question is, are we really scared of all the things that actually make America great? And if the answer is yes, then we’ll have history to answer to. Because these are the ideas that will define us for generations.”
Clooney warned that the government’s actions would have repercussions, especially with the upcoming midterm elections in November.
“When you call an entire religion your enemy, you might very well make an enemy out of an entire religion. When you tell a whole race of people that you value them less, you can’t be surprised when they question your values. When you tell women that coming forward to testify about their abuse is a joke, don’t be shocked when they’re standing on your lawn, laughing on Nov. 7,” Clooney said.
He continued, “After all the jokes, and insults, and reality show frenzy, what will be remembered, what will stand the test of time, is holding responsible these wolves in wolves’ clothing.”
Clooney praised Gonzalez for her tireless efforts to obtain more gun control regulation, while reminding the audience at the Beverly Wilshire Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, Calif., that trying times can also create inspirational leaders.
He highlighted Gonzalez’s speech at the March for Our Lives campaign in March, during which she stood in silence for six minutes and 20 seconds, the same amount of time a school shooter took to massacre 17 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
Gonzalez, Clooney said, became an overnight expert when it came to gun control, and it’s her heart that is one of the driving forces for change today.
“She made us listen to her heart,” Clooney said. “A heart that believes that we as a country can be so much better. A heart that called for adults to act like adults so children don’t have to.”
Solar power now accounts for around 1% of the world’s electricity generation, up from a negligible amount of solar capacity only a decade ago. But that’s just scratching the surface of the industry’s potential. Solar energy is the most abundant form of energy on earth, with enough solar energy hitting the planet’s surface every hour to provide for all of humanity’s energy needs for a year.
If the Energy Transition Outlook 2018 report from DNV GL, a quality-assurance and risk-management company, are true, solar electricity production could grow 65-fold by 2050, eventually making solar one of the largest sources of energy in the world. That presents a tremendous opportunity for long-term investors.
Image source: First Solar.
Why 6,500% growth is within reach
One of the reasons solar energy could grow 6,500% between 2016 and 2050, the period this report is analyzing, is because solar energy is growing from a fairly small base. According to DNV GL, only 290 gigawatts (GW) of solar was installed at the end of 2016, and about 100 GW are now being built per year. By 2050, DNV GL expects 18,895 GW to be installed by 2050.
Solar and wind power together are projected to provide two-thirds of all electricity in 2050. Incredibly, this is expected to come at a cost saving, with energy expenditures as a percentage of GDP falling from 5.5% in 2016 to 3.1% in 2050. Wind and solar will actually save money for consumers as they grow.
Who is installing all of this solar energy?
Thirty percent of that 18,895 GW of solar energy capacity is projected to be installed on rooftops around the world. That presents a potential growth opportunity for a global rooftop solar leader like SunPower Corporation(NASDAQ: SPWR), which makes high-efficiency solar panels that pay more power generation on each roof. Since customers are willing to pay a premium for efficiency, SunPower can even charge more than commodity solar panel prices for its products, and that will help its economics as the industry grows.
What’s left is 70% of the solar market, which will be installed in large and small ground-mounted systems known as utility-scale solar projects. This is where First Solar(NASDAQ: FSLR) thrives as a solar panel provider, and Canadian Solar(NASDAQ: CSIQ) and JinkoSolar(NYSE: JKS) make solar panels and build their own projects.
We’ve seen the utility-scale solar business become highly competitive over the last decade, but First Solar, Canadian Solar, and JinkoSolar have a global scale few other companies can match, and that will be a competitive advantage in the long term. We’re also seeing them slowly upgrade the manufacturing process to higher-efficiency components (although still well behind SunPower), which will squeeze slightly more power from each acre of land and lead to a growing competitive advantage.
Can this turn around solar stocks?
Usually, an industry that’s expected to grow 6,500% over the course of three decades would be a big winner for investors. But solar stocks have struggled over the past decade as the sale prices for panels and projects have come down and put pressure on margins and over-leveraged balance sheets.
What I think we’ll see over the next decade is a few winners emerge and consolidate power in the industry around advantages like high efficiency or low-cost utility-scale solar technology. That’s why I think SunPower, First Solar, Canadian Solar, and JinkoSolar are set to succeed, despite a sketchy past of value creation for some of them. At least we know the industry is expected to grow, and investors will hopefully enjoy some tailwinds from that growth.
“MARCH TO THE POLLS” Live look over downtown Chicago where people are marching to early voting sites after an earlier rally in Grant Park. Women’s March Chicago put on the event in an effort to “use our voices and our votes to remove anti-female politicians from office.” bit.ly/2NBZRQc
"MARCH TO THE POLLS" Live look over downtown Chicago where people are marching to early voting sites after an earlier rally in Grant Park. Women's March Chicago put on the event in an effort to "use our voices and our votes to remove anti-female politicians from office." bit.ly/2NBZRQc
