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Martha McSally and the Vulture Capitalist: not a bedtime story

October 23, 2018October 22, 2018 by

Vulture capitalist Paul Singer made huge profits attacking miners dying of asbestos exposure. He donated heavily to Martha McSally’s campaign.

“Follow the Money” a phrase popularized after Watergate, has never been more true than today. Some are blatant about it, as Trump on Saudi Arabia: “They spend $40 million, $50 million….Am I supposed to dislike them?”

Martha McSally would probably prefer to keep her big money connections quiet. When she first ran for Congress in 2016, she received over $100,000 from an innocent-sounding PAC called Winning Women. This was over one-third of her entire budget during that critical quarter. As reported on this blog, Winning Women is funded largely by vulture capitalist Paul Singer.

What does it mean to be a Vulture Capitalist? In the case of Paul Singer, it meant that he made huge profits attacking miners dying of asbestos exposure and seizing money meant to address a cholera epidemic in the Congo. You can’t make this stuff up. Investigative journalist Greg Palast, author of Vulture’s Picnic, has researched this deeply. He explains:

Singer’s modus operandi is to find some forgotten tiny debt owed by a very poor nation (Peru and Congo were on his menu). He waits for the United States and European taxpayers to forgive the poor nations’ debts, then waits at bit longer for offers of food aid, medicine and investment loans. Then Singer pounces, legally grabbing at every resource and all the money going to the desperate country. Trade stops, funds freeze and an entire economy is effectively held hostage.

Singer then demands aid-giving nations pay monstrous ransoms to let trade resume. At BBC TV’s Newsnight, we learned that Singer demanded $400 million dollars from the Congo for a debt he picked up for less than $10 million. If he doesn’t get his 4,000 percent profit, he can effectively starve the nation. I don’t mean that figuratively – I mean starve as in no food. In Congo-Brazzaville last year, one-fourth of all deaths of children under five were caused by malnutrition. (as of Oct 2011)

Recently, former United Nations envoy Winston Tubman suggested I ask Singer or his business associates, “Do you know you’re causing babies to die?”

The key is, that Singer depends on finding a jurisdiction that will allow his legal maneuvers to put his claims before those of the population, so having lawmakers on his side is important to his business model.

Domingo DeGrazia, LD10 House Candidate, Vows to Improve Child Welfare

October 19, 2018October 17, 2018 by

Democrat Domingo DeGrazia is a multi-faceted, charismatic and passionate candidate who is taking on Todd Clodfelter in LD10. He describes his life’s work in terms of helping kids and families as a child welfare advocate in the legal system. Frustrations with that system have finally driven him into politics, so he can try writing the laws instead of contending with them. He is also the son of artist Ted DeGrazia of the Gallery of the Sun – perhaps why he took up the guitar.

Domingo DeGrazia may be a first-time politician, but he is a dead serious one.

“I come from working for families against the state of Arizona, going up against the attorney general. I know what it’s like to be in a fight against an opponent that has more resources, dug in harder. So tell me I’m walking into a fight where I’m in the minority working for the little guy, I’m completely ok with that. That’s what I do.”

This is a good mindset for someone running for the Arizona legislature.

DeGrazia has seen firsthand the pain caused by the budget cuts made in 2008 to the child welfare system. He’s fought cases for years as a trial attorney, then moved into appellate law to try to find a bigger lever for change. Then 2016 happened. And he decided the only thing to do now, was to run for the Arizona legislature.

AZ’s Worst Legislator: Todd “Confederate” Clodfelter in LD10

October 19, 2018September 29, 2018 by

I know the Republican incumbent, state Rep. Todd Clodfelter of Tucson’s LD10. I listened as he told a woman at a town hall who was afraid to send her children to school that we would all soon need to carry guns to defend ourselves. I still feel ashamed that I did not go stand next to that mother and challenge his vision of Arizona.

Remember the coverage of Todd Clodfelter’s display — on the floor of the Arizona House of Representatives — of his laptop computer’s screensaver depicting what most of us think of as “The Confederate Flag”? He is immune to the argument, quoted in a Washington Post interview with a Civil War Historian, that “You can’t filter out the racism and leave what’s pure and historical in the flag, because that purity doesn’t exist. Some things are so primitively stained or tarnished by history that they can never be set side. The flag is a perfect example.” Clodfelter defended his use of the flag as “acceptable” imagery. This is the Clodfelter I know.

Kavanaugh’s Rage and Belligerence Is the Hallmark of a Sadist

September 30, 2018September 28, 2018 by

Brett Kavanaugh cried, shouted and pouted at his hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. — Brett Kavanaugh cried, pouted and shouted at his hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. This is not the demeanor of a US Supreme Court Justice.

I am appalled and outraged at the spectacle presented in yesterday’s hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senators should vote against Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Senators should also lodge a complaint to the Ethics Committee against Senators Grassley, Hatch, and Graham for the unethical, extremist, partisan tactics they used to subvert the already hampered efforts of the Judiciary Committee to determine the veracity of allegations against Judge Kavanaugh and whether or not he fit to serve on the Supreme Court.

Yesterday morning Dr. Ford testified in the Senate Judiciary Committee through her terror and spoke the truth. The laughter of Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge is seared into the neuropathways and lodged in the neural nodes of her brain and is viscerally felt throughout her body. For the last 36 years and for the rest of her life, she will feel that physical, disabling pain and fear. She will hear and feel that laughter.

Few Came to Hear Husband-Wife GOP Candidates Tout School Choice in LD24

September 22, 2018 by

Lela Alston is a Democrat running for re-election to the Arizona House in LD24.

Hardly anyone came to hear two Republican candidates for the state legislature at a recent Clean Elections Candidate forum that was held at the Hampton Inn on Highland Avenue in Phoenix.

The attendance was very small with a total of 10 people, which included the timekeeper, the master of ceremonies, the audio engineer, and my partner and I. It was a “forum” because the only candidates who participated were the two Republican nominees for the legislature, the husband and wife team of Vicki and David Alger.

Vicki Alger is running for the Senate against Democrat Lela Alston, who is currently representing the district in the state House of Representatives. David Alger is seeking a position in the state House of Representatives and is opposed in that race by Democrats Dr. Amish Shah and Jennifer Longdon. Of the five candidates, only Ms. Alston has served in an elected public office.