A Nation Where Blame, Denial, Refusing Information and Lie Trump Taking Responsibility

  

A Nation Where Blame, Denial, Refusing Information and Lie Trump Taking Responsibility

The President ordered his recovering alcoholic, reservist major, news reader Secretary of War to plan and implement an attack against Trump-declared fast-boat, purported drug smugglers in open Caribbean waters, some of whom were not even heading towards the United States… Multiple attacks, based on Trump’s unilateral declaration of a new war on narco-terrorists without congressional or judicial approval and without tangible proof. It is estimated that at least 90 individuals over many such strikes were killed, including two who seemed to be clinging to a decimated boat via second strike on September 2nd. Indeed, inexperienced Hegseth was also facing renewed criticism over his earlier careless use of an unsecure Web platform to discuss military actions. Now he had to join the Trump team of finding someone to throw under the bus over the killing of these two survivors. He had a good teacher.

Trump’s “war on drugs” was clearly a lame excuse for exercising military power against a leftist dictator he wanted out. The President even contemplated spreading military action to Venezuela (and even ally Colombia) territory, unlikely to be more than bombs and missiles. While China was and is still the main source for fentanyl ingredients, on December 1st, Trump pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was convicted in 2024 of trafficking drugs into the United States. The 57-year-old Hernandez was released from a federal prison in West Virginia, where he had been serving a 45-year sentence. So much for caring about true importation of drugs into the United States.

The United States drew opprobrium from many other nations for these attacks on small vessels, mostly in international waters. Mutterings of “war crimes” and even “murder” echoed, even from close allies. The UK stopped sharing intelligence with the US over Caribbean activity, and there was even bi-partisan criticism in Congress of these extra-judicial killings, viewed by many as Trump usurpation of yet another Constitutional right delegated exclusively to Congress, the right to declare/initiate “war.” But straight out of the Trump playbook, the cleverly worded blame shifting began at once. Congressional testimony clearly saw the shifting sands of explanation.

Having purportedly ordered, “kill everybody,” Pete “nobody likes or respects me” Hegseth said (but denies) in his implementation of Trump’s directive, that he handed over the design, implementation and command of this operation – with a huge US fleet looming near Nicaraguan waters – to former Navy Seal, Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley. Hegseth noted that it was Bradley who ordered the strike that killed those two survivors… but he was honored and proud to stand behind the Admiral. Hegseth noted that while he watched the strike that generated survivor on September 2nd, because of the “fog or war,” he did not see anything. In testimony before the Senate on December 4th, the good Admiral, obviously reeling from the bus tires that were running over him, declared that indeed he did order that second strike, with the unlikely explanation … I thought they were resuming the narco-run (in a destroyed boat?), so I ordered the second strike.

This pattern of blame, deflection and outright refusing to deal with divulging underlying facts, from the Epstein investigation to January 6, 2021, incitement of the Capitol attackers, is Trump’s signature… a man who continuously screws up and never takes responsibility for his obvious failures. He is blessed with a dwindling following of MAGA diehards who believe everything he says… as their own eyes and experience tell them otherwise. In the military, the buck stops with the commander of the unit where the mistake was made. In Trump-world, the buck only stops with the President on success; failures are either misreported or “blamed on others.”

Biden seems to have cause everything that Americans see as wrong with Trump’s policies, but the President’s blame game, the litany of hoaxes and con jobs foisted on the American people, accelerated by the “enemy of the people” (the press), and covering up embarrassing realities are Trump’s signature moves. But simple things, like taking credit for lowering prices everywhere when every American has proof to the contrary in the rising price of real estate (rentals and purchases), consumer goods and particularly medical care, are eroding Trump’s credibility with most Americans.

Trump well knows what he did and where he screwed up, but Mister “double down” depends often on keeping truth hidden. Lawsuits attempting to assert civil damages by trying to connect Trump, as an inciter, to the damages and injuries resulting from the Capitol assault on January 6, 2021, would produce an embarrassing reality for Mr. Trump. Robert Birsel, writing for Newsweek, explains: “President Donald Trump has reportedly asserted executive privilege to prevent his courtroom opponents from getting access to evidence in the lawsuit in which he is accused of stoking violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

“What occurred on January 6, 2021—when Trump supporters attacked the Capitol to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden's win in the 2000 election—has become one of the most contentious political issues of recent years… The attack caused millions of dollars of damage at the Capitol and about 140 police officers were injured, some of whom brought legal action… It is unclear exactly which records Trump is aiming to keep out of the hands of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

“However, Politico has reported that a White House spokesperson confirmed that the president has decided to fight disclosure of some material subpoenaed last year from the National Archives and Records Administration… ‘The President asserted executive privilege over the discovery requests in this case because the overly broad requests demanded documents that were either presidential communications or communications among the president’s staff that are clearly constitutionally protected from discovery,’ the spokesperson, Abigail Jackson, said in a statement.

“The police officers who filed the lawsuit say Trump’s remarks to a crowd of supporters fueled the riot that nearly derailed the transfer of power from Trump to Joe Biden… Lawyers for the officers have complained about long delays in getting access to White House records from Trump's first term in office, which are now in the custody of the National Archives, Politico reported… In January 2022, when Trump was a former president, the Supreme Court ruled that he could not exert executive privilege to block the release of White House records to the House's January 6 committee.” Trump’s main vulnerabilities, from Epstein to his own actions and massive Trump family economic gains, stem from the truth (definitely not Truth Social) and enough people to see and believe that truth.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I’d like to restate a famous quote from Abraham Lincoln updated: “A house built on lies cannot stand”… I hope.

What Trump Believes His Base Demands: Racism

 

What Trump Believes His Base Demands: Racism

From his obsession with “shithole” countries, immigrants from Somalia are all gangsters and laggards, immigrants from third world countries need to reverse migrate, white people – from here in the United States to Afrikaner farmers in South Africa – face the most discrimination, diversity, equity and inclusion are evil and must be stamped out, our white Christian European legacy is the only source of legitimate rule, and thus the United States must be purged of impure immigrants and returned to white Chistian nationalism. The largest segment of American crime is thus caused by Black and Brown residents here. That these refugees have much lower rates of criminality than native born citizens thus must be a Democratic “hoax.”

Yet, in the early days of this nation, most people moving here were not rich folks; they were mostly piss-poor immigrants ready to work hard and build this nascent republic… or slaves. Trump truly succumbs to flattery (he loves the fake awards and building names changed in his honor… and demands “donations” to his pet projects and political causes as the price of government approvals and contract, and unfortunately presidential pardons). Winners (his mega-wealthy cronies) are rewarded with tax cuts, exemptions from tariffs and lucrative contracts… and the rest – losers – have to pay for that. His Supreme Court 6-3 rightwing majority might as well be on his personal payroll, and he now controls the largest law firm anywhere on Earth, his instrument of retribution, the incredibly corrupt Department of Justice.

A few short months ago, Trump declared that he was the “affordability President,” but today, he tells us that we have the best economy in history, cheap prices and a solid job market (both severely and obviously untrue) and that “affordability” is a “hoax” fabricated by the Democratic Party. He is pushing a replacement for the Affordable Care Act – providing a refund for Americans to get healthcare insurance in the public marketplace – a tired old Republican ruse that has been rejected every time it has been suggested (with parallel suggestions to replace Social Security). Not only would this give insurance companies the right to set exclusions and skinny policies, adjusting their premiums and deductibles accordingly, but it would require Americans to evaluate complex alternatives designed to favor people who are healthier and younger.

Republicans, who have spent 15 years trying to repeal the ACA and minimize those who might access Medicaid and SNAP programs, and they twist the dictionary definition of “socialism” to suggest that their efforts are nothing more that stopping “creeping socialism.” A total false use of that word. The notion that corruption is acceptable permeates his appointments. Kristi Noem has a series of ICE-supporting ads with her as the star… and it seems if he the ad agency tasked with making those commercials is somehow related to her and her cronies, and got that DHS contract without having to make a bid. Crypto billions anyone? Foreign hotels? Golf courses?

Soon-to-be-removed (in my opinion), clumsy and perk-loving Kash Patel (damn he loves his new government private jet… and so does his Nashville girlfriend) leads a hollowed out and demoralized FBI, agents pulled off their traditional work to join ICE agents in immigration enforcement or to review thousands of pages of Epstein documents, redacting Donald Trump’s name which seems to be everywhere.

Believing that no amount of research, empirical data gleaned over more than a century of experience, policies that have never worked before, will work this time, Trump implements these inane failed policies. Tariffs will generate revenues (highly regressive de facto taxes that impact average Americans and lower-level earners the most), allow us to end income taxes (trust me, the de facto sales taxes would slam most Americans a whole lot harder than income tax) and will protect manufacturing jobs here? What, that under 10% of our economy engages in manufacturing, will give a whole lot of reshored jobs to robots?

That Trump believes that Article I of the Constitution, that empowers Congress, should somehow be moved to Article II (presidential powers) so he alone can set tariffs/taxes, initiate war, fire almost anyone Congress has funded, cancel citizenship and deport or prosecute his enemies without the inconvenience of warrants, due process and neutral courts. As armed soldiers march down US city streets under Trump’s orders, peaceful protests are “illegal” to him, and those protestors who oppose him and his policies, must be arrested and prosecuted… but violent protestors who support Trump, know that if they are convicted of crimes, they will be pardoned. Pro-police unless police are attacked by his supporters. Not a “law and order” president no matter what he says.

Ah the other practice Trump caters to in an effort to ensure his base remains loyal is supporting their pet conspiracy theories… other than that other Democratic “hoax” – the Epstein scandal – and to destroy “elite” universities and end bona fide medical and scientific research… replacing established scientists and medical experts with toxic hacks. RFK, Jr – disowned by his own family – runs the most dangerous conspiracy theory mill in the country: The Department of Health and Human Services. Measles, once ended in the US, is coming back with a vengeance; research to contain other current and possibly future diseases is being defunded, and RFK’s replacements for competent medical researchers are, once again, linking autism to vaccines and, of all things, Tylenol.

RFK, Jr and his conspiracy-theory-loving replacements are now focused on stopping vaccine recommendations that have so far saved potentially hundreds of thousands of children from a potentially fatal future. Alice Park, writing for the December 6th Time, explains: “On Dec. 5, the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 8 to 3 to eliminate the first dose of hepatitis B vaccine that has been recommended for all newborns since 1991. It now recommends the birth dose only for mothers who are positive for hepatitis B or whose hepatitis B status isn’t known, and in remaining cases, leaves families and doctors to decide when to administer that dose. The committee also voted to allow ‘shared decision-making’ about whether babies receive all three doses of the vaccine. Currently, CDC recommends babies get vaccinated for hepatitis B within 24 hours of birth, then when they are one to two months old, and finally at six to 18 months.

“The decision led to immediate pushback from infectious-disease and public-health experts. ‘The ACIP recommendation to end the universal birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine puts millions of American children at greater risk of liver damage, cancer and early death,’ said Dr. Tom Frieden, former CDC director and president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, in a statement. ‘Now obstetricians, pediatricians, insurers, state health departments and others should stand up for fact-based care, protect our children, and not mess with success—not accept this misguided and dangerous recommendation.’”

An older and obviously unhealthy Trump seems to be sliding into a new desperation with more name-calling, inappropriate attacks mostly against women, to me he seems increasingly reflective of behavior that is typically associated with dementia. And still, most elected Republicans jump at his command… and too many are consumed with disenfranchising voters likely to vote against his candidates and his policies. But he has clearly tapped into the MAGA rage that elected him.

I’m Peter Dekom, and it is most depressing that my granddaughters are going to grow up in a nation that was ransacked and shredded by Donald Trump and his followers.

As the Supreme Courts Leans into Single Party Rule

 

As the Supreme Courts Leans into Single Party Rule

And Reversing almost a Century of Precedents

“So, having a President come in and fire all the scientists and the doctors and the economists and the PhDs and replacing them with loyalists and people who don’t know anything is actually not in the best interest of the citizens of the United States.” 

Likely dissenting Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, during oral arguments, December 8th.

Here is the 1935 Supreme Court case that the Trump administration wants reversed : Humphrey's Executor vs US. Here is a summary of that case: “President Hoover appointed, and the Senate confirmed, Humphrey as a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In 1933, President Roosevelt asked for Humphrey's resignation since the latter was a conservative and had jurisdiction over many of Roosevelt's New Deal policies. When Humphrey refused to resign, Roosevelt fired him because of his policy positions. However, the FTC Act only allowed a president to remove a commissioner for ‘inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.’ Since Humphrey died shortly after being dismissed, his executor sued to recover Humphrey's lost salary… The unanimous Court found that the FTC Act was constitutional and that Humphrey's dismissal on policy grounds was unjustified. The Court reasoned that the Constitution had never given ‘illimitable power of removal’ to the president.” Oyez.org.

Writing for the December 8th Associated Press, Mark Sherman grapples with how a president can ignore the very statutes that have created virtually every federal administrative state in well over a century: “No president before Trump has sought to wrest control of the agencies that regulate wide swaths of American life, including nuclear energy, product safety and labor relations. But the six conservatives, including three appointed by Trump, seemed more concerned about issuing a ruling that would endure than handing too much power to Trump.

“Their rhetoric was reminiscent of the presidential immunity case in 2024 that allowed Trump to avoid prosecution for his efforts to undo the 2020 election results. The court is writing a decision ‘for the ages,’ Justice Neil Gorsuch said then.

“Solicitor General D. John Sauer, who argued the immunity case for Trump, defended the president's decision to fire Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter without cause and called on the court to jettison Humphrey's Executor… Members of the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Consumer Product Safety Commission also have been fired by Trump.

“The only officials who have so far survived efforts to remove them are Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor, and Shira Perlmutter, a copyright official with the Library of Congress. The court has suggested that it will view the Fed differently from other independent agencies, and Trump has said he wants her out because of allegations of mortgage fraud. Cook says she did nothing wrong… A second question in the Slaughter case could affect Cook. Even if a firing turns out to be illegal, the court wants to decide whether judges have the power to reinstate someone.”

Having issued presidential immunity in the 2024 ruling in Trump vs US – absolute when the president is acting directly in his official capacity and qualified is there is a colorable relationship to official duties – the Supreme Court seems hell-bent on reassembling the administrative state, as a litany of rulings during the Trump have shown. In that immunity decision, Roberts included the power to fire among the president’s “conclusive and preclusive” powers that Congress lacks the authority to restrict.

Unlikely to depoliticize the drawing of congressional districting any time soon, and quite willing to override congressional, civil service and even union mandates that hem in presidential power, the Court seems willing to keep an agency independent only where the structure creates a very separate, board-run entity for the expressed purpose of limiting presidential discretion, where stability and consistency are of the essence of such unique agencies. Like the Federal Reserve. Hands off the “executive branch”!!!

The feared result of all this, expected in June, is most crass and fundamental cronyism, where loyalty and, for the mega-rich, well-placed donations, dictate policy… where those without money are simply squeezed out. Trump’s track record on this speaks, yells, for itself. But the Supreme Court seems determined to redefine our government, from top to bottom. Ballroom, anyone?

I’m Peter Dekom, and we are rapidly devolving into one of the most corrupt constitutional democracies on Earth.

Immigrants be Gone – Why Aren’t US Native Americans Cheering?

 

Immigrants be Gone – Why Aren’t US Native Americans Cheering?

Lies Flow and Remain MAGA “Truths”

“We could go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country… [Naturalized Somali US Congresswoman] Ilhan Omar is garbage. She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage. These [Somali immigrants] aren’t people who work. These aren’t people who say, ‘Let’s go, come on, let’s make this place great.’…These are people that do nothing but complain… When they come from hell, and they complain and do nothing but b—-, we don’t want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.” 

In a press interview.

“We’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in [Somali] garbage into our country…. When I see somebody like Ilhan Omar, who I don’t know at all, but I always watch her — for years, I’ve watched her — complain about our Constitution, how she’s being treated badly, our Constitution, the United States of America is a bad place, hates everybody, hates Jewish people, hates everybody. And I think she’s an incompetent person. She’s a real terrible person.” 

Trump at a White House cabinet meeting. As federalized troops were deployed to Minneapolis, where there is a large Somali community.

"Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation" 

Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.

"Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for — You won't be here for long!" 

 Trump Thanksgiving post

“This memorandum mandates that all aliens meeting these criteria undergo a thorough re-review process, including a potential interview and, if necessary, a re-interview, to fully assess all national security and public safety threats along with any other related grounds of inadmissibility or ineligibility. An individualized, case-by-case review and assessment will be done of all relevant information and facts. USCIS will also conduct a comprehensive review of all relevant policies, procedures, and operational guidance for compliance, accuracy, and needed improvements during this time.” 

 In implementation of Trump directive, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Memo to personnel to review all asylum seekers and those already admitted to the United States from 19 designated nations, all poor and mostly people of color. December 2nd.

“I have no idea. It was just an MRI… It wasn’t the brain because I took a cognitive test and aced it. I got a perfect mark, which you would be incapable of doing.” 

To a reporter who asked about his MRI

Yup, a medical procedure that had never before been used in Trump’s medical check-ups is suddenly routine. Falling asleep in international gatherings, military parades, campaign rallies and cabinet meetings is standard “Sleepy Joe” … what? That’s Donald Trump slumping forward? Lyin’ Pete Hegseth isn’t interesting enough even when he is throwing an admiral, following his orders to “kill everyone,” under the bus? We are so jaded that we have not even recognized his roiling insults (“quiet piggy,” “she’s garbage,” one reporter was “seriously retarded,” Somalia “stinks,” etc.). Trump has always lambasted immigrants of color… particularly Muslims… and immigrants from “shithole” counties. No surprise. But as his poll numbers are beginning to mirror the Titanic, his late-night tirades (posted, of course), his increased reliance on name calling have reached new voluminous depths, even for Trump.

For those of us who have lost parents to Alzheimer’s or other comparable dementia diseases, this angry name calling is nothing new. For a 79-year-old President, with the power to release a nuclear missile attack on his own, all these accelerating symptoms have to be terrifying. Instead, notwithstanding the Epstein debacle and congressional concern over extra-judicial executions using massive naval overkill, attacks that could be war crimes, the bulk of the Republican Party still buys into Trump’s dictatorial orders. His obvious lies are parroted like gospel. But with a cowering cabinet and a sycophantic congressional majority, what should be a deep review of Trump removal under the 25th Amendment because of his obviously deteriorating condition. Isn’t.

It would be a shame if the nation fell into a new autocratic form of government because a potential mentally impaired president is simply followed without question. And the meantime, Trump’s demonization of immigrants (particularly non-whites) escalates. See also my Whites (and Super-Educated/Rich) Only Migration blog on Trump’s granting special immigration asylum to white Afrikaner farmers from South Africa. “Mr. Trump has seized on immigration as a potent political weapon, demonizing immigrants and equating them with crime and disease. In a social media post on Thursday night [11/27], Mr. Trump claimed that Somalis were ‘taking over’ Minnesota and that Somali gangs were ‘roving the streets looking for ‘prey.’” NY Times, December 3rd.

“The president said on Truth Social that ‘most’ foreign-born U.S. residents ‘are on welfare, from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels’ as he blamed them for crime across the country that is predominantly committed by U.S. citizens… The perception that immigration breeds crime ‘continues to falter under the weight of the evidence,’ according to a review of academic literature last year in the Annual Review of Criminology.

“‘With few exceptions, studies conducted at both the aggregate and individual levels demonstrate that high concentrations of immigrants are not associated with increased levels of crime and delinquency across neighborhoods and cities in the United States,’ it said.” NPR, November 28th. That immigrants are one of the greatest creators of new jobs in this country slips by, unnoticed. But Trump is also targeting citizens, even ethnically European whites, if they do anything to thwart his cruel immigrations policies, or his use of troops bring to heel those who do not fit his description of a good or “heritage” Americans, a phrase which excludes descendants of slaves or even indigenous peoples. On December 3rd, Los Angeles Times guest columnist, Gustavo Arellano, noted that Trump’s immigration targets “could be anyone now”:

“[Trump embraces] an idea the farthest fringes of the American right have preached going back to the days of slavery, when some wanted freed Black people sent back to Africa, lest they poison democracy. In recent years, it’s been proposed by so-called Heritage Americans who insist the United States rightfully — and only — belongs to folks whose ancestors were roughing it on the frontier back in the days when passenger pigeons blotted out the sun … But don’t sit too comfy if you can trace your family back to William Bradford. Trump also wrote that he wants a ‘major reduction’ in ‘disruptive populations’ — ‘anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country ... or non-compatible with Western Civilization.’

“But who is anyone kidding?... Demonizing, detainment, detention, deportation — this is what Trump has gleefully pursued against undocumented immigrants from the start of his second term. But it was never just about the ‘worst of the worst,’ as the dozens of American citizens rounded up in his indiscriminate raids can attest. It was always about anyone who wasn’t white… It was always about anyone who stood in Trump’s way.

“It’s why Trump wants to send in the military at the slightest protest against his policies , why he called Democratic lawmakers ‘traitors’ for daring to remind military members that they swore an oath to uphold the Constitution and not illegal commands by rogue leaders… Trump is using the deadly attack on the National Guard troops as cover not just to halt all asylum applications but also to propose booting from this country anyone who isn’t 100% with him — even if you’re a citizen or a legal resident.” Funny, I heard most of this vitriol from Vladimir Putin too. In Russia, though, they don’t send death threats to the opposition; they simply “eliminate” them.

I’m Peter Dekom, and while most of these vectors are about as un-American as you can get, that one third of the third most populous nation on Earth just might be following a leader whose mental faculties might be falling faster than a rock thrown off Gibraltar is particularly troubling.

 

Hollywood’s New Misery

Hollywood’s New Misery

If You’re a Lender, Fund Manager, I-Banker, Smile. Unions and Talent Are Mad as Hell

As if the film and television (including streaming) companies weren’t stressed enough, among AI, rising supply chain/health care costs, political pressure (censorship and the “donate or else” reality), changes in consumer tastes (catering to the young without losing the rest), etc., you’d might not think that studios would still vie for big theatrical entertainment, and the streaming world would simply be a continuing income supplement or a competitor for only one of your divisions. But industry consolidation, factoring the massive costs of buying the massive entertainment players, puts an additional pressure on costs.

Traditional networks used to order 22 to 26 episodes a year. Plenty of work for writers, directors, crew and performers. As streamers began to dominate the space, they were happy to buy old traditional network fare – Netflix was particularly adept ay marketing what used to be “network reruns” far better than did any traditional network – and reduce the percentage of original production from 50% to 30%. Oh, and streamers’ order pattern is 8 to 13 episodes/season. Although YouTube remains the largest streamer on earth, Netflix is the world leader in scripted, premium content. But as A-list creators and talent were able to extract a theatrical release for their Netflix features prior to exhibition on Netflix, the streamer was never able to make that theatrical component work. That will become material later.

The industry was still reeling from a recent flurry over-priced studio acquisitions. The Walt Disney Company announced the purchase of Rupert Murdochs’ 21st Century Fox on December 14, 2017, and the transaction was completed on March 20, 2019. The price started at $52.4 billion, but wound up at a staggering $71.3 billion after a short and nasty competitive bidding war with Comcast. Murdoch retained the physical plant, Fox broadcast/news and other assets, and Disney used the library to feed its nascent streamer.

A complex reverse merger left former Discovery CEO David Zaslav effectively heading both Warner Bros. (which was then held by AT&T) and the Discovery assets for $43 billion of cash and massive assumption of debt carried by the new entity, Warner Bros Discovery (WBD). Despite efforts to whittle down the debt and the success of a slew of successful theatrical releases, WBD was forced to consider selling the whole of the company or splitting the company into the linear television and cable assets, on the one hand, and the theatrical arm/HBO-HBO Max asset on the other (with the physical plant). Gee, that seems to have happened as I’ll explain below.

With the world assuming the likely buyer would be newly formed Paramount Skydance merger entity under Oracle heir, David Ellison, Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison (David’s father), already under a heavy debt load from massive investments in artificial intelligence development, began looking for other potential equity investors in the Middle East and elsewhere. After all, the Ellisons were tight with Donald Trump, and the only other expected bidder, Comcast, faced headwinds from the Trump administrations from his distaste for Comcast’s NBCUniversal.

Then came the unexpected behemoth, Netflix, which had the financial capacity to buy WBD without much strain, but its aversion to theatrical releases suggested that WBD would not be a comfortable acquisition. But then the WBD traditional studio lot would make a major improvement over the smattering of Netflix offices, and WBD’s franchise content would provide creative and marketing values for the streamer. The deal for Netflix to buy the WBD premium content wing (vast feature and television content library, including HBO/HBO Max) and a magnificent historical studio complex sprang to life, as Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva (December 5th) explains how the surprise announcement that Netflix got the golden ring (studio lot, WB content including HBO/HBO Max), albeit for the tidy sum of $82.7 billion:

“Unlike Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, who pulled out from his Wednesday [12/3] appearance at the NYT’s DealBook Summit, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos showed up at the streamer’s off-the-record event, mingling for hours and taking pictures with talent, including Jacob Elordi, Ted Danson, Rian Johnson and Mike Schur… But if a reporter broached the WBD sale in any way, even as a joke, Sarandos would walk away. The Netflix boss clearly was not going to do anything that might jeopardize his company’s chances in the high-stakes auction…

“The philosophical differences [are particularly deep] in features. Netflix has disrupted the movie business by undermining theatrical distribution, with Sarandos calling movie-going experience ‘outmoded for most people’ as recently as several months ago. On the call announcing the merger this morning [12/5], Sarandos expressed commitment to theatrical releases while reiterating the streamer’s insistence on truncated windows, noting that ‘over time the windows will evolve to be much more consumer friendly.’

“The Warner Bros. staff may be in for another culture shock as Netflix has a very distinct work culture marked by high level of intensity. The studios have gone through a couple of different owners over the past couple of decades through the failed AOL and AT&T mergers, each bringing a different work environment. Just three years ago, they went through a culture clash with the new regime following the acquisition by Discovery.

“And then there is the prospect of layoffs that follow every merger. The concern was brought up at the Warner Bros. Discovery town hall this morning, with Zaslav sounding upbeat, saying that the intention is for Netflix to bring over ‘most’ people.” While the deal has to withstand regulatory scrutiny with at least US and European regulators, a process expected to take between one and two years, that may be an unpleasant experience as unions, guilds, talent and rightsholders are already expressing rage at this anti-theatrical player, driven by algorithms that enrage too many creatives… and ready to fight.

For those of us in entertainment transaction land, we see Netflix cutting talent, rights and other costs/prices to justify the purchase price – a practice that will ripple throughout the industry as it always does – and we just see one fewer buyer in this consolidating marketplace reducing and limiting mainstream competition and opportunities accordingly. “While the sale may ‘serve the financial interests of shareholders of both companies,’ it is also sure to have sweeping consequences for the future of the entertainment industry, ‘and especially the human creative talent whose livelihoods and careers depend on it,’ the SAG/AFTRA actors guild argued in a statement issued Friday [12/5]…

“Following the news that the streaming giant had won the bidding war for the one of the most storied studios in the entertainment industry, the below-the-line union’s secretary treasurer warned in a statement that the development is ‘yet another call for alarm as we continue to see these corporate giants seek mergers and billion-dollar fast track consolidation deals.’” Deadline, December 5th.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I see one more huge reason why apartment rentals and real estate prices in Los Angeles are about to fall… after the Olympics.

Another Time, Another Place

 

Another Time, Another Place

Don't it always seem to go

That you don't know what you've got

Till it's gone

They paved paradise

And put up a parking lot

Joni Mitchell – Big Yellow Taxi

Even though Donald Trump and MAGA followers might have missed those wildfires, that expanding coastal erosion, ignored the growing frequency of intensive tropical storms, the flood here and the drought there… they still want us to “drill, baby, drill” and let China take over every aspect of EV car and truck manufacturing, leaving us with a fading fossil fuel world as our preferred energy source. Back at the turn of the 19th to 20th century, when cars were just beginning to sputter down dirt roads, where paved highways were still a luxury relegated to them big city folk, many American towns banned them new-fangled thing-a-ma-jigs from small town America. Seems backfiring car engines scared the horses. Odd that if you want to see horses on city streets these days, you have to travel to New York’s Central Park or Amish Country in Pennsylvania. That green area in the pie-chart above is what percentage of greenhouse carbon emissions come from fossil fueled transportation.

Still, cars were originally created for people to travel farther, transport their goods to market and create an industrial future like no one could ever have imagined. Unless your best friends own major interests in the fossil fuel industry (including car and truck makers), you have to be a pretty unobservant person to think fossil fuels are good for us… forever. But cars and trucks seem to have lost that notion of being “there to help people”… with so much of modern life, particularly cities where our economy seems centered, being determined by cars. As garages, streets and access to parking now define how cities are built and zoned… space is more the final frontier for automotively-directed construction and planning than that area beyond Earth.

Aside from those edifices of a glorious past, apartment buildings have, over the years, been subject to requirements for off-street parking as a condition of permitting construction or renovation. I live in a large prewar apartment in Beverly Hills, but every year I have to “buy” the right to park near my home. Writing for the December 1st edition of FastCompany.com, writer Andy Boenau took a hard look: “[T]here’s a tipping point when the built environment and our lives are arranged around motor vehicles where the benefits start to come undone. Building to prioritize space-hogging cars brings a long list of negative externalities.

“In Greek mythology, the god Dionysus granted King Midas his wish for the power to turn everything he touched to gold. Midas revels in the effortless wealth—objects, furniture, and even the ground beneath him turn to gold. The Midas touch was great right up until he wanted to eat or drink or just hug his daughter… There’s a King Midas aspect to motor vehicles, this technological gift that promised and delivered abundance until it became a curse…

“Like Midas discovering he couldn’t eat golden food, we’re discovering that car-dependent places can’t sustain the human activities they were meant to enable. The same infrastructure that promised connection now isolates. What began as freedom morphed into obligation… American cities now dedicate somewhere between one-third and one-half of their land area to streets, parking lots, and garages. In downtown Los Angeles, parking occupies more space than all the buildings combined. We’ve paved over so many of the destinations cars were supposed to help us reach.

“The economic costs of car dependency are brutal at the household level. Transportation often ranks as the second-largest expense after housing, consuming up to 30% of household income. The “drive until you qualify” phenomenon pushed families toward affordable suburban housing, only to burden them with commutes that devoured time and money. Car loan defaults have jumped 50% in the last 15 years, and in 2024, car repossessions hit the highest number since 2009… The Midas story ends with the king learning wisdom through suffering. We’ve suffered quite a bit from the built environment. But even in real life, things can get better in the end.”

David Harrison, writing for the April 3, 2023 Wall Street Journal, paints the picture: “America’s parking glut has its roots in zoning rules first passed in the 1950s, when car ownership was on the rise and urban planners worried there weren’t enough curb spaces for all the new drivers. Many municipalities imposed detailed parking requirements for every type of land use. In Los Angeles, for instance, churches must include one spot for every five seats in the pews. Hospitals must have two per bed.

“Parking mandates resulted in an abundance of parking, particularly in the West, where development boomed after they took effect. Parking covers about 14% of the land area in Los Angeles County, according to one study by a group of researchers from Arizona State University, UCLA and Georgia Tech. That is an area almost as large as Houston... Downtown parking garages in most cities are rarely full.

“About 20 years ago, researchers and local leaders began challenging the rationale behind those rules. A 2016 study by C. J. Gabbe, a professor at Santa Clara University, and Gregory Pierce of UCLA found many of those spots are rarely used. The cost of providing all those spots is passed on to consumers in the form of higher rents or retail prices that even nondrivers pay, subsidizing drivers… A garage adds about 17% to the average rent, the study found. Almost three-quarters of carless renters have a parking spot included in their rent. They collectively pay $440 million a year for parking they don’t need, the study concluded.

“One of the earliest experiments with reducing parking came in 1999 with a Los Angeles ordinance designed to turn neglected downtown office buildings into apartments and condominiums… To encourage builders to take a chance on what was then a moribund part of town, the ordinance made them exempt from parking requirements though forbidden from removing existing spaces.

“That allowed builders to pack more units into the buildings and offer them at lower cost. In a 2013 paper, Michael Manville, a UCLA urban-planning professor, studied 56 of those refurbished buildings that added about 6,700 new units, and found that 2,640 of them wouldn’t have been economically viable had existing parking rules prevailed.” The Journal also noted that LA doesn't even track the number of parking spaces. The WSJ estimates on the low end, the entire U.S. has at least 700 million parking spaces, and on the high end, the estimate is more like 2 billion. That works out to somewhere between 2.5 and 7.0 parking spaces per registered vehicle in America.

Today, there are large downtown LA areas where people don’t own cars. Uber, Waymo and Lyft are common, but a whole new elevated Metro is proving increasingly popular here. Are Angelenos evolving? Perhaps. But urban wildlife certainly is. I’ll close today’s blog with a story about raccoons: “For Raffaela Lesch, an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, inspiration struck while she was walking around the campus. She had tossed a can into a waste bin, and it landed with a thud instead of a clang. Soon, Lesch realized why, as a raccoon — aka a ‘trash panda’ — popped its head out of the garbage… Lesch reflected on how prevalent and comfortable raccoons can be in urban environments — even in the middle of the day — and it sparked her curiosity: Could she be witnessing the early stages of the same process that led to the domestication of dogs thousands of years ago?...

“[Her] researchers used a computer imaging program to measure the length of the specimens’ snouts, from the tip of the nose to the tear duct, and total head length, from the tip of the nose to where the ear attaches to the head. When Lesch and her students mapped the counties where each picture was taken, a clear pattern emerged: Urban raccoons’ snouts were 3.6% shorter than those of raccoons in rural areas.” CNN, November 24th. Raccoons are clearly evolving… How has accommodating cars changed our human biological evolution? I suspect, not for the better.

I’m Peter Dekom, and there is no question that if we were able to bring an average American from 1905 into the present, we might finally understand what we have done to ourselves.