Stacking the Deck - A Pox on Younger Homebuyers

 

As older homebuyers cash out of their appreciated homes, many with mortgages fully paid off, as empty-nesters seek to downsize, they are converging on smaller homes that have often been the traditional entry level or slighter more bailiwick of first or second-time homebuyers. But there’s a big difference: older buyers have cash and have no need to qualify for a mortgage… younger buyers face that lending process with mortgage rates around 7%... and threatening to rise even higher after the next Fed rate hike. Those higher mortgage rates literally have no impact on someone who does not need to borrow to buy a home, but it could be the lead straw that crushes the camel’s back of a younger homebuyer.

It's bad enough that that sensitive first-time-buyer affordability index has fallen below where it has been in decades, but even with house prices finally moderating, with mounting mortgage rates, the situation is still particularly bad for entry-level buyers. Writing for the November 12th New York Times, Ronda Kaysen explains: “For most younger Americans, the entree to homeownership, a rite of passage for many adults, has been blocked by forces beyond their control. They have been competing in a market unlike any other, one defined by the largest run-up on home prices in modern history blunted only by the steepest climb in home mortgage rates in decades. As first-time buyers scramble to cobble together money for down payments and closing costs, they are competing in a market with an anemic inventory against investors and repeat home buyers flush with cash.

“First-time buyers account for the smallest share of the market in the 41 years that the National Association of Realtors has tracked such data. In the year from July 2021 to June 2022, first-time buyers accounted for just 26 percent of home buyers. Normally, they account for around 40 percent of the market. They were replaced by repeat buyers who were older, wealthier and whiter than they had been in decades, according to a recent survey by the trade association.

“The share of white buyers jumped to 88 percent during the survey year, representing the largest share of white buyers since 1997. The share of Black buyers fell to 3 percent from 6 percent, and Asian/Pacific Islander buyers fell to 2 percent from 6 percent from the previous survey year. The median age for all buyers was 53 years old, the oldest they’ve been since 1981, when the association first conducted its survey.

“The more years a person spends renting, the fewer years they have to build equity in a home and eventually pass that equity along to the next generation. A renter is also forever at the mercy of the mercurial rental market, with little control over what their costs will be from one year to the next.” Catch-22.

Unable to buy that “stake in America,” younger buyers seem to be disenfranchised from the get-go. They know that they will bear the biggest burden from climate change. They are aware of the mounting pressures to cut Social Security and Medicare (most in Y and Z generations believe, with some justification, that these programs with be defunded). They live in a nation that has polarized to the point of internal violence. Frustration, inflation and anxiety about the future define this constituency. And when they go into the housing marketplace to find that little American dream, they face being outbid by an older, cash-in-hand buyer or a corporate buyer feeding its rental fodder inventory. And yes, as a result of this pressure, more people are renting… and rental rates are soaring as well. In Glendale, California, rents rose over 30% this year!!!

Professionals unable to find a home to buy and facing a contracted rental market? A new kind of “homelessness”? And for those at the bottom, squeezed by a Federal Reserve Board that actually seeks to increase unemployment, knock-knock-knocking at recession’s door, this conversation about homelessness is more about a nation that just does not care. The middle class, once quite comfortable in stable economy, are facing their own shocks… and those at the bottom are more an inconvenience (NIMBY-style) than a human concern that might have been stronger in better times.

Kaysen tells us how frustrated younger earners are today: “Rising interest rates threw cold water on those [trying buying a first home] strategies, but even as the lines outside the open houses evaporate, the prices haven’t fallen enough to lessen the pain of the higher rates. About 54 percent of American renters don’t believe they will ever be able to afford to buy a home, according to a Credit Karma survey from October.

“‘There is a double whammy right now, it’s not just the interest rates, it’s a broader macro economy,’ said Colleen McCreary, chief people officer and a consumer advocate at Credit Karma. ‘It’s this idea that economically things are not stable and I don’t know when that stability is coming back.’

“Unsuccessful buyers are left grappling with the consequences, from the small disappointments, like wondering if you’ve wasted a year of Sundays to fruitless open houses to the existential ones, like delaying when or if you have children until you know where you’ll be living. In correspondences with The New York Times, dozens of buyers expressed a profound sense of frustration about lives on hold. They feel unmoored and uncertain, stuck waiting for the next stage in life to start.” Look at recent elections. Look at the anger and frustration. We seem to be looking to blame people. To find out why? Are we being replaced? Who’s able to live the American dream “if not me”? And if that isn’t political tinderbox waiting to explode…

I’m Peter Dekom, and this uncomfortable feeling that is roiling through America is not because we are following extreme political vectors… these times are in fact unstable and unsettling… and the symptoms are all around us and multiplying.

Vax Facts Whacks… That Just Keeping Killing

 

Vax Facts Whacks… That Just Keeping Killing

And It Ain’t ‘Bout COVID No More

You might even say that one of the most significant aspects of misinformation accelerated by social media, the explosion of conspiracy theories, can be fatal for millions of followers. Medically speaking. Many believe that this medical toxicity was born in the earliest days of social media. “Confidence in childhood vaccination was shaken by the 1998 publication in the Lancet, a leading British medical journal, of a notorious paper by Andrew Wakefield and other researchers asserting a link between the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and autism.

“The research was eventually shown to be fraudulent. Wakefield eventually lost his medical license in Britain, but he has resurfaced in the U.S. as a leading anti-vaccination activist. Despite having been consistently refuted by research, the supposed link between the MMR vaccine and autism is continually cited by the anti-vaccination movement.” Michael Hiltzik, writing for the November 30th Los Angeles Times.

It's obvious, particularly to those of us who faced banner-carrying anti-vaxxers at those earliest COVID mass vaccination sites, that something much bigger was brewing. To millions of Americans, particularly those who harbored “deep state,” “Q-Anon” notions and beliefs that tracking devices were imbedded vaccines, suspicions of anything that emanated as government policy – soon associated with the MAGA movement – vaccinations of every kind are/were unnatural, dangerous and often an instrumentality of governmental control. The demonization – now manifest in the new GOP House leadership seeking to investigate an octogenarian public health civil servant (Dr. Anthony Fauci, now retired) for his leadership in the COVID vaccination effort – tells us how strong that lingering antivax spirit remains.

That vaccine skepticism was more prevalent among such Republicans produced measurable results. The November 15th Yale Insights noted that infections among those most likely to oppose COVID controls and vaccination requirements are significantly higher than those willing to accept medical reality: “New research from Yale SOM [School of Management] points to another factor that puts people at greater risk of dying from COVID-19: party affiliation. The study finds that excess deaths during the pandemic were 76% higher among Republicans than Democrats in two states, Ohio and Florida. What’s more, the partisan gap in death rates increased significantly after vaccines were introduced.” That notion translates to vaccines in general these days.

This growing COVID antivax movement opposes vaccinations of all kinds, even those we have routinely required of elementary students for well-over half a century. Parents, where such vaccinations are not mandatory, are increasingly opting out of routine measles, mumps and rubella inoculations for their children. What this aversion to preventative medicine means, not just for the unvaccinated children, is that diseases that were very much under control for decades are now resurfacing with epidemic consequences for us all.

Measles outbreaks around the world are now killing the unvaccinated. Hiltzik explains: “In the modern world and our modern society, there can be no excuse for an outbreak of measles. The disease can be lethal for young children, but they can be protected by a vaccination administered to 1-year-olds that is more than 93% effective.

“Yet America is once again facing a measles surge. In Columbus, Ohio, an outbreak in daycare centers and schools is now at 44 cases and has been spreading rapidly. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counts 55 cases nationwide this year, as of Nov. 24. That’s the highest total since 2019, following a pattern that points to an even larger outbreak in coming months…

“‘We’re on the brink of a collapse in public health because we’re seeing intentional efforts to play politics with people’s health,’ says Rekha Lakshmanan, strategy director for the Houston-based Immunization Partnership.

“Fifty-one bills related to vaccination mandates in schools and workplaces were enacted this year in 26 states, according to the National Council of State Legislatures… While some measures upheld or strengthened vaccination requirements, others barred mandates or loosened standards for non-medical exemptions. Such measures were signed into law in Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and Utah [notably red states].

“The anti-vaccination movement gained strength from the COVID pandemic, thanks to the politicization of the disease and the measures meant to contain its spread by former President Trump and his right-wing echo chamber.

“‘Under a flag of health or medical freedom, an outright defiance of masks and social distancing came to symbolize allegiance to President Trump,’ Peter Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital, has observed. Hotez is also dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.”

The problem is not just the further exposure of all of us to diseases we thought were at best marginal threats – when they are now raging across broad swaths of our population – but the fact that these diseases not only breed and grow but create the opportunity for increasingly vaccine resistant varieties of these ailments to develop and spread. I don’t know about you, but I am loathe to let conspiracy theorists put my health and the health of my family seriously at risk to support their misguided crusade against medical science under the false flag of “personal freedom.” Nature will not be voted down!

I’m Peter Dekom, and if viral contagion could smile and laugh, they would show these expressions at their aiders and abettors, this malignant antivax crowd.

What Increasingly Seems to Be OK is Certainly Not OK

 

There are so many vectors in legislation, much of it already passed, where racial, ethnic, religious and gender discrimination are both enabled and specifically sanctioned. For example, the United States Supreme Court clearly supported laws (6-3) that legislatures intended to and did restrict minority voters, but lacked specific language naming the discriminated class. Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee (2021). The Court reversed a 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruling that the Arizona voting law disproportionately restricted voting access to Black, Latino and Native American voters. In short, if you choose your words well, you can create laws that allow clear discrimination in fact.

As leading GOP political figures embrace “replacement theory” (that minorities hovering at the border are vying to continue to replace White traditional voters), White Christian Nationalism (that Christianity is our national religion, and Christian Whites should control the country, with guns if necessary), QAnon (that there is a deep state of pedophiles trying to usurp traditional White Christian governance) or an anti-CRT/culture war (that we cannot admit to any current gender, racial, ethnic or religious discrimination or teach the countervailing tolerance to our young public school children), hate crimes are soaring. And those dedicated to keeping such issues outside the classroom are pretty much eliminating one of the most basic cures for discrimination and hate crimes.

From its leadership down to grassroots efforts, the Republican Party also has refused for decades to accept any significant legislation, even proposed by its own president (G.W. Bush, for example), to address serious and obvious failures of our current immigration policies. The GOP also tells you that rioters who have killed and injured in trying to take the Capitol to reverse election results are “ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse,” and that the Second Amendment (passed in an era of flintlocks and muskets) allows citizens to own military grade semiautomatic assault weapons as part of a right violently to overthrow a government that does not accede to their right-wing demands.

Even as a significant number of police and sheriff departments have failed to report their 2021 hate crime statistics to the FBI (like Los Angeles and New York City), the numbers that have been received tell is that those hate crime incidents are hardly going away. Roughly 2/3 of these crimes target individuals, and almost a 1/3 are property crime… with a tiny sliver railing at society in general. The above FBI chart breaks down those individual personal attacks. As social media and right-wing mass media provide a well-lighted national platform for hate speech and degrading bias, demonization of people just being themselves becomes acceptable, regardless of the often-violent consequences.

Lest blue state leaders and voters believe that this is simply a red state phenomenon, the facts are quite startling… and different. Shimmeringly blue California is no exception. Even bright blue Los Angeles. Writing for the December 15th Los Angeles Times, Libor Jany and Richard Winton tell it as it is: “Hate crime reports across Los Angeles are up 13% over last year’s record-setting levels, according to LAPD Chief Michel Moore, who said he believes inflammatory rhetoric on social media was contributing to the increase.

“The new statistics, presented at Tuesday’s Police Commission meeting [12/13], showed that with less than two weeks left in the year the city will almost certainly top 2021’s total of 615 reported hate crimes. That tally was the most among large U.S. metropolitan areas, and the third-highest annual total in any U.S. city since the 1970s.

“So far in 2022, crimes against LGBTQ people have risen to 30 from 19 at this time last year, and those against Jewish people have jumped from 72 to 88. But as in other major cities, Black Angelenos remain the most targeted group, the department’s figures show. The number of hate-related incidents involving Black residents jumped 36% to 279, according to the figures.

“The only groups to see a decrease in the number of attacks or other crimes were the city’s Asian American and Pacific Islander subgroups, which were victimized in 20% fewer incidents compared with a year ago, when they experienced a sizable uptick in incidents. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta referred to last year’s numbers as ‘an epidemic of hate.’

“These are troubling numbers for L.A. as well as for the region,” Moore said during his presentation… The Los Angeles Police Department deems a hate crime any criminal act motivated by gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion or disability.

“Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, said the most recent statistics put L.A. in line with other major cities across the U.S., which have seen increases in reported hate crimes. He said that a significant number of offenders in Los Angeles are people with mental health issues.

“Later in Tuesday’s meeting, Moore blamed the rise, in part, on the growth of racist and bigoted speech online — which often goes unchecked… ‘As I talked to law enforcement professionals and educators on this issue, they believe one of the largest drivers is the expansion of social media and the lack of checks and balances because expression of hate and the fact that it has given individuals who would otherwise have no voice a tremendous platform,’ Moore said… He singled out Kanye West, the performer who now goes by Ye and is facing a backlash because of a recent series of antisemitic and conspiracy-filled rants… ‘We see Kanye West and others that have gone to Twitter and other social media platforms and we’ve seen other platforms such as Parler that have been created solely ... for people with extremist views to have a platform,’ Moore said during Tuesday’s meeting. ‘And that, I think, is dangerous.’”

“Moore’s comments came on the heels of a report last week [early December] by the county Commission on Human Relations that found that hate crimes surged countywide in 2021 to their highest level in two decades.” What is increasingly troubling is the escalation of cultural leaders’ embracing discrimination – even condoning violence – combined with politicians like Ron DeSantis choosing words and policies that seem innocuous on their own, but are bastions of justification for right-wing vitriol, bias and demonization of people being themselves and of no threat to anyone. Particularly those words relating to culture wars, immigration and anti-CRT legislation. As Twitter explodes with ramped-up racism, antisemitism and gender bias.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if you want to eliminate hate crimes, you have to stop teaching and legitimizing hatred… or giving bigots a major platform to spread that hate and bias.

Oh, So Unequipped to Deal with Crypto

 

What could possibly go wrong with an alternative, decentralized, non-governmental virtual currency system utilizing a new generation of connective exchanges “protected” by blockchain verification being promoted by geeks, hustlers and celebrities? One based on private party beliefs and trust, not appropriately regulated, and capable, based on potential scale, to circumvent national monetary and fiscal policies? One that could be used for both legitimate and questionable financial transactions with wild price fluctuations based on the actions of private individuals?

So many tech geniuses, trendy Y and Z Gen believers, hosts of celebrity followers and millions who just did not want to be left behind as tales of fabulous riches made quickly floated in mass and social media all the time… invested, proselytized and smiled. A little volatility, sure, but the overall trended appeared to be upward. Many still believe.

While some nations banned this alternative currency (e.g., China), others made it official tender (e.g., El Salvador). The United States is still wallowing in a confused effort to contemplate how digital currencies (also including those “non-fungible tokens” – NFTs – that hovered between being collectibles vs investments) could and would be regulated. At its peak, estimates place the overall market capitalization of the 50 largest cryptocurrencies at a startling aggregate of more than $800 billion.

For those who entered the market early, took their newfound riches and left earlier in the game, their smiles turned into gales of laughter. Bitcoin soared. They made their fortunes already. But then it happened. A major crypto Tsar and purported mega-billionaire (and political contributor) watched his world collapse… dropped from super-wealth to around $100,000 in cash or equivalents… with a whole lot of liabilities and US criminal charges staring him in the face (arrested in the Bahama on December 12th on a US want). Sam Bankman-Fried’s (“SFB’s”) baby, the crypto-engine FTX exchange (once the world’s second largest), crumbled before his very eyes. Bankruptcy. And a whole lot of very angry users and investors. From billions to dust. Crypto’s future was very much in doubt, even though the damage occurred primarily at only one particularly large crypto-trading entity. Governmental inquiries. Private lawsuits.

Most crypto users truly had/have no genuine understanding about how what was effectively a belief-based private currency worked. Many “investors” remain in crypto to this very day, convinced that the effects of the FTX collapse will pass, allowing crypto to continue, albeit better regulated. They just see appreciating value. And yes, since the US went off the gold standard over half a century ago, even the US dollar is effectively a belief-based currency. But the dollar has an entire nation behind it, as the dollar continues to be one of the world major reserve currencies (a global standard for international transactions).

Yale School of Management Professor of Accounting, Rick Antle, took a quick walk through this nascent debacle in the December 2nd issue of Yale Insights: “It is not surprising, then, that regulators have been a bit behind the curve in the crypto world. (Are they ever ahead? Can you regulate something before there is some experience with it?)

“The intangible nature of crypto assets means also that volume can be cranked up very, very quickly. There are no beer barrels to store, no cars to manufacture and ship. You just move around some symbols. This is where the ‘garden-variety scam’ comes in. Business history is full of examples of companies that grew too fast with little attention to controls and accounting, which tend to slow things down. As attorney John Ray—now FTX’s CEO—wrote in a bankruptcy filing, having control rest in the hands of ‘a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals’ who in turn are enabled by ‘compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight’ is a tried-and-true recipe for disaster. Even so, this situation seems quite extreme. Mr. Ray, who is extremely experienced in bankruptcies, states: ‘Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here.’…

“[Ray’s bankruptcy declarations include:] The FTX Group’s approach to human resources combined employees of various entities and outside contractors, with unclear records and lines of responsibility. At this time, the Debtors have been unable to prepare a complete list of who worked for the FTX Group as of the Petition Date, or the terms of their employment. Repeated attempts to locate certain presumed employees to confirm their status have been unsuccessful to date. (Emphasis added.)…

“Of course, there will be big effects on individuals who will lose assets in the FTX failure. At this point, it is difficult to estimate how deep the losses will run or how many people will lose. Because FTX was a trading platform, it held customer assets. The Ray Declaration contains a balance sheet for the parts of FTX labeled the WRS Silo [comprised of the US side of the business] that contains the following qualification: ‘Balances of customer crypto assets deposited were not recorded as assets on the balance sheet and are not presented.’ (Emphasis in original.) The qualification for balance sheet for the Dotcom Silo [FTX’s total holdings in this market] is: ‘Balances of customer crypto assets deposited are not presented.’ (Emphasis in original.) These customer assets likely far exceed the assets on the balance sheets of those two silos, which were $1.36 billion and $2.26 billion respectively… So if customer assets were lost or stolen, we really have no idea how much might ultimately be lost.”

I will not tell you that cryptocurrency is dead; it certainly continues with many believing that FTX was just a signal for some needed course correction. But Professor Antle summarizes the inherent weakness in the crypto system: “Crypto assets are pure information assets. They have no tangible existence and can therefore be easily moved, stored, sold, etc., at least from a physical point of view. Crypto assets signify rights that exist only to the extent that people believe they do. For example, Bitcoin is valuable because it gives you the ability to acquire goods and services in exchange for Bitcoin.” And if you do not understand how crypto works, should you indulge?

I’m Peter Dekom, and if your crypto trading portal has no regular office hours, are you worried that the executives behind it might soon be offering visiting hours?

He Ain’t Russian Around No More

“Shall we forge ahead and defeat the enemy?... Or on the contrary,

shall we prepare for a difficult but necessary compromise?”

Pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov.

You don’t have to be a rocket (or missile) scientist to know Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not going according to Vladimir Putin’s plan. It’s an ugly secret that is fairly obvious to Russia’s own military personnel. For example, “Alexander Khodakovsky, a Russian militia commander in Donetsk [eastern Ukraine], appeared on Russian state television calling for the use of nuclear weapons because he doesn't believe Russia has the resources to win the war in Ukraine.” CNN, December 14th. In early December, even Putin admitted that wrapping up his special military operation (his euphemism for the war) could be a “lengthy process.” Putin himself has also raised the specter of Moscow’s possible abandonment of the “never as a first strike” policy over its use of nuclear warheads, tactical or otherwise.

Clearly, Putin doesn’t want to talk about the war anymore, perhaps hoping that his people do not start counting body bags being sent back from the front, perhaps one of the reasons Russia’s call-up of up to 300,000 “reservists” for deployment in Ukraine relied heavily on young men from outside of the largest cities. According to the December 14th Associated Press, “Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed Monday [12/12] that Putin would be skipping the annual news conference for the first time in 10 years. He didn’t give a reason, but many commentators ascribed it to Putin’s reluctance to face unpleasant questions about what he calls Russia’s ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine.

“The annual news conference has been used by the Kremlin to polish Putin’s image. The tightly stage-managed program, televised live, lasted up to 4½ hours and featured Putin talking about a wide variety of domestic and foreign policy issues… In a commentary on Twitter, the British Defense Ministry said: ‘The press conference has become a significant fixture in Putin’s calendar of public engagement and has frequently been used as an opportunity to demonstrate the supposed integrity of Putin.

“‘Although questions are almost certainly usually vetted in advance, the cancellation is likely due to increasing concerns about the prevalence of anti-war feeling in Russia. Kremlin officials are almost certainly extremely sensitive about the possibility that any event attended by Putin could be hijacked by unsanctioned discussion about the ‘special military operation.’ ‘… Putin also canceled another annual fixture, a televised call-in show on which he takes questions from the public to nurture his father-of-the-nation image…

“The Kremlin has muzzled any criticism of its action in Ukraine from the liberal antiwar camp, shutting down news outlets and criminalizing the spread of any information that departs from the official view. But it has faced increasingly vocal criticism from Russian hard-liners who have denounced the president as weak and indecisive and called for ramping up strikes on Ukraine.” Hardliners mean: “use tactical nuclear weapons now!”

Word from those able to examine the wreckage of Russian missiles, now being used with virtual impunity on obvious civilian targets in the biggest cities, is that they most of there are decades old, probably drawn on stockpiles no one really believed would ever be used again. Moscow seems increasingly reliant on munitions from Iran and perhaps even North Korea. A few Ukrainian drone strikes against Russian military airfields slip by as “terrorist attacks” or simple accidents in Russian media, where these are even reported.

Russia’s latest strategic change has been to demoralize Ukrainians by massively hitting their homes, hospitals but most of all critical water and energy infrastructure. No pretense. No fear of “war crimes” for purposely targeting civilians, perhaps remembering WWII allied strikes against Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were prosecuted either. Putin was fully expecting to bring these staunch resisting holdouts to their knees, because outside of wearing these civilians down – perhaps with the assistance of the growing resistance in NATO nations of a never-ending need to finance Kyiv defense… while paying vastly higher prices to heat their home in a cold winter.

But militarily, Putin will do everything in his power to rain missiles and drone-strikes down on Ukrainian citizens. This brutal escalation of violence has moved the United States to escalate the nature of the defensive weapons it is making available to Kyiv. “The Biden administration is finalizing plans to send the Patriot missile defense system [pictured above] to Ukraine… Amid a barrage of Russian attacks, Ukraine has been calling for the US to send the advanced air defense system that is widely considered one of the most capable long-range weapons to defend airspace against incoming missiles, as well as some aircraft. It would be the most effective long-range defensive weapons system sent to the country, and officials say it will help secure airspace for NATO nations in eastern Europe.” CNN, December 14th.

If Putin’s decimation of civilian targets in Ukraine doesn’t work, Putin is faced with limited alternatives: nukes or compromise, and Putin hates the humiliation that compromise would carry, even if he spins the result as victory. Drawing the war out beyond 2023 is probably a lose-lose for Vladimir. So…

I’m Peter Dekom, and while ending the Ukraine war would provide massive economic benefits for most of the rest of the world, the means of getting to a reasonable conclusion is fraught with danger.

A Night at the Sinema, an Aversion to Extremes?

    

“Americans are told that we have only two choices – Democrat or Republican – and that we must subscribe wholesale to policy views the parties hold, views that have been pulled further and further toward the extremes.”

Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema on why she left the Democratic Party and reregistered as an Independent.

Krysten Sinema and West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin were considered Democratic “moderates” within their party, at least according to the label they were given by most of the press. With Raphael Warnock’s victory in Georgia, the Democratic Party took a clear majority in the Senate, and as now-Independent Sinema stated that she would still caucus with the Dems, not much really changed by her move to “Independent.” With an abysmal 19% approval rating among Arizona Democrats, Sinema – once a member of the Green Party – faced an almost insurmountable barrier to her generating the Democratic primary vote for her 2024 reelection bid. I wonder why she moved out of the Democratic Party. Hmmmmm?

But her statement above is worthy of analysis, nonetheless. I am trying to picture how a MAGA-dominated party and Democratic Party are equally increasingly reflecting extremes. Perhaps we should look at the salient issues, one by one, to see how extremists have “taken over” these stalwart old parties.

Even as a majority of Americans believe that semiautomatic assault weapons need to be taken off the streets, a basic part of Democratic gun policy, except for a highly ineffectual red flag law, Republicans continue to reject meaningful gun control… even as gun crimes rise (the major upward tick of crime in the United States) across the land. The Trump reconfigured Supreme Court has made carrying concealed firearms much easier, and GOP-controlled legislatures everywhere have loosened gun laws continuously. Stand your ground. Open carry. Concealed carry. Etc. So if they are so concerned with crime rates, why are Republicans complaining about crime when they make the most basic tool of violent criminals easier to access and carry?

But GOP is the main support of the police, hardly the Democrats they claim. Other than to push for equal application of the law to everyone, Dems are not trying to “defund the police”; that is not remotely a part of the Democratic platform even as Republicans pretend that it is. But as the Capitol Police recently received medals for their actions on January 6, 2021, in which some of them died and many of them were seriously injured, they refused to shake the hands of the GOP leaders whose lives they saved, reserving that honor solely for Democrats. GOP policy is to shake off that Capitol attack and case the insurrectionists who inflicted their violence on the police, despite the hundreds of criminal convictions, as “ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.” Hardly supportive of police efforts.

Universal healthcare, a Dem favorite? Aside from the fact that we are the only major democracy without it, we all need to remember that uber-Republican Richard Nixon proposed universal healthcare in 1974. Healthcare costs are still rising for most of us. So are costs in general that are attributable to the Ukraine War, supply chain shortages, the higher price for agricultural products because of irrigation water shortages and increases in consumer demand… with no meaningful policy from the GOP to contain those costs. Blame sure. Present solutions. Not so much.

Sure, Dems support raising the federal $7.25/hour minimum wage – unchanged for well over a decade – while Republicans vote consistently against that (as did Sinema), but that doesn’t seem particularly extreme. As Dems continue to support efforts to tackle climate change, despite the tsunami of evidence (more intense tropical storms, coastal erosion, record heat, wildfires from dried out forests, flooding in some areas with crop-killing aridification in others, etc., etc.), Republicans continue to marginalize the threat and vote against legislation intended to counter this existential threat. The GOP has opposed every effort since Ronald Reagan to fix our very broken immigration laws, even rejecting solutions from Republican presidents!

As those pre-pandemic new jobs promised after the massive GOP-led 2017 corporate tax cut (the rate dropped from 35% to 21%) never appeared, the resulting federal deficits did… explosively! As Republicans continue to oppose COVID measures, even school-required non-COVID vaccination mandates we have had since the 1950s, guess which party’s adherents have been impacted the most? One study, for example, published in September by the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that so-called excess death rates, or deaths elevated beyond what is expected based on historical trends, were 76% higher in Florida and Ohio among Republicans than Democrats from March 2020 to December 2021.

The GOP is pledged to cut Social Security and Medicare, which sounds a bit strange and extreme given the support the GOP has traditionally garnered from seniors. They embrace anti-abortion laws, have moved the Supreme Court into a becoming a GOP operative which has also supported GOP bills across the land further to restrict voting rights. All of these notions required the Republican Party materially to alter the status quo and impose earth-shattering and unpopular new laws… taking it farther into the extreme.

As the titular head of the Republican Party embraces White Supremacists, antisemites and fierce QAnon/replacement theory believers, his entire party is supporting a backdoor effort – via anti-CRT laws and anti-“woke” cultural war issues – to marginalize minorities even further. With a constitution that favors rural vs urban voters (passed when the US was 94% rural), younger, minority and urban voters are increasingly disenfranchised through redistricting and the equal state representation in the Senate (where Wyoming with under 600,000 voters is the equal of California with 40 million), the tide is turning such that even this anomaly cannot stop the rise of these marginalized voters.

So, if we really want to be objective about which party has veered more to extremes (away from the moderate American middle) and see exactly how Republican legislatures have diluted Democratic candidates by gerrymandering and voting restrictions, take a long careful look at the above charts… and the now MAGA-controlled GOP (with or without Trump) is even more extreme than ever.

I’m Peter Dekom, and please do not mistake Senator Sinema’s true “I need to be reelected” move to become an Independent, described by her as a result of disenchantment with purported (but non-existent) extremists taking over the Democratic Party.

Allegations, Seizures and FIFA

 Cash Seizure by Belgian Police

I’m sure I’m not the only person wondering how a tiny oil rich nation with a particularly inhospitable climate, notoriously famous for playing fast and loose (looking the other way) with cheap imported labor and deeply averse to LBGTQ people, ever got the go-head for the World Cup. They had to move the event late in the year to minimize the intense risk of excessive heat, but the event was still marred by officials hell-bent on keeping those symbolic rainbows off the pitch and trying to silence those who decried some pretty abysmal labor practices. There were even some untimely deaths. So much went wrong with the games, with an even worse negative icing on the cake: a viral infection shot up in the waning days of the Cup competition.

Even within Qatar, between a desire to reflect modernity and their deeply religious heritage, it was almost always going to be a challenge. They threw money at the World Cup. I sincerely think they did the best they could given their historical practices, standard operating procedures and the press of conservative Islamic values, but those questions still remained. FIFA, the relevant international governing body, tried to minimize the protests and the politics behind many of the players and their fans, but that was a hopeless goal from the onset. “Footballers” are notoriously outspoken and unwilling to be contained.

For example, England’s violent and disruptive hooliganism at soccer matches in the 1980s led to Brits being banned from playing in European stadiums. "We really must eradicate the blot on our reputation," said Margaret Thatcher declared as existing UK leagues were disbanded. The wildly popular Premiere League, a 20 team UK organization founded in 1992, grew from those ugly roots. While the sport is rising in importance here in the United States, it generates nowhere near the passion and commitment of fans from most of the rest on the world. Its top athletes are the highest paid on earth, and its champions are demi-gods in their home nations. The mere thought of completely containing rabid fans is close to absurd.

So why did Qatar, an unlikely venue, gain selection as the 2022 host nation for the World Cup? World Cup venues are generally selected 7-10 years in advance through a bidding process: Countries interested basically propose a super-elaborate project for hosting that includes what kind of stadiums, infrastructure, transportation, and housing they will build. A FIFA committee examines the bids and determines which country is best suited for the event. That FIFA committee will eliminate host nations that might not qualify and otherwise narrows the field. An electronic vote of member nations makes the final selection, often following the preliminary committee’s recommendations. Ah, that committee. It would seem to have a lot of power. And an unlikely selectee would probably need some serious international support to gain approval.

There have been wiffs and sniffs of possible bribery resounding now and again, but until recently, these were generalized accusations. Then came the notices of specifics, discovering caches of cash linked to those associated with the games. The BBC.com headline for December 13th read: “EU corruption scandal: MEP [member, EU Parliament] denies Qatar bribery after €1.5m seized.” That seizure is pictured above. Here’s how that BBC piece presented that accusation:

“Greek MEP Eva Kaili has denied involvement in an alleged bribery scandal involving World Cup host Qatar at the European Parliament… She is one of four suspects charged after Belgian investigators found €1.5m (£1.3m) in two homes and a suitcase… MEPs have voted - by 625 to one - to strip Ms Kaili of her role as one of its 14 vice-presidents.

“Parliament leader Roberta Metsola has spoken of ‘difficult days for European democracy.’… Qatar has denied any wrongdoing… ‘[Eva Kaili] declares her innocence and that she has nothing to do with bribery from Qatar,’ her lawyer, Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, told Greek TV on Tuesday [12/13]… Prosecutors carried out a string of searches over several days and said cash worth about €600,000 had been found at the home of one suspect, €150,000 at the flat of an MEP and €750,000 in a suitcase in a Brussels hotel room.” Makes you wonder what really happened? Hmmmm.

I’m Peter Dekom, and this should roll out into a most interesting scenario.

Democratic Nations and Attempted Coups

Arrest of Peru’s President Pedro Castillo

Germany arrests Reichsbürger leader Germany arrests Reichsbürger leader

“Ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse”  “Ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse”

“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude [the “stolen election” mantra] allows for the

termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.

Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”

Donald Trump, December 3rd.

On December 7th, Peru’s President had a bad day: “In a nutshell, President Pedro Castillo thought he was going to be impeached and tried to move ahead of lawmakers by closing down Congress. He said he intended to rule by decree and reform the country’s constitutional court and judiciary. In effect, he challenged the armed forces to choose sides.

“But the plan backfired. He announced that he was closing Congress, but Congress refused to be closed down. Instead, lawmakers went ahead with a previously planned impeachment trial and overwhelmingly voted to remove him from power. The military for its part rejected Castillo’s ploy.

“Castillo was later arrested on a charge of violating a constitutional order. He was replaced by former Vice President Dina Boluarte, who was sworn in as president. Peru’s first female leader intends to serve until 2026.” Eduardo Gamarra, writing for the December 9th US News and World Report. Clean, neat and quick. Next. You read what Castillo’s intentions were and wonder how he ever expected to pull that off. At least, in Latin American style, he should have embraced his military first.

But Peru could be dismissed as a banana Republic, so let’s move up to the First World and a recent coup attempt: Germany. Here is a nation where ultra-right-wing players have defined modern German history, most diabolically the Nazi era under Adolph Hitler. But that proclivity to elevate those who believe in Aryan purity – under the Germany for Germans mantra (“they shall not replace us”?) – has never completely faded from the German psyche. Like our Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, 3% Percenters, etc., Germany has its own set of militia-supported anti-democratic players: the “Reichsbürger” (Citizens of the Reich) movement, a far-right group that rejects the postwar democratically elected German government and advocates for the reestablishment of the German Empire. Yup, not neo-Nazis, just down and dirty monarchists.

Indeed, thousands of the “Citizens” have been plotting, scheming, and training to storm, take over the German parliament and control of government. According the Yahoo!News (also December 9th), “Dozens of people were detained by German police this week over allegations that a QAnon-inspired fringe group planned to overthrow the government and install a new national leader in a violent coup… Germany’s chief federal prosecutor Peter Frank said some 3,000 officers took part in raids at 150 sites across the country. More arrests were expected to take place in the coming days, authorities said.

“According to German officials, members and supporters of a ‘domestic terrorist organization’ had made concrete preparations to storm Germany’s Parliament building in an armed attack that included arresting lawmakers and installing an aristocrat as the new head of state… ‘The suspicion exists that an armed attack on constitutional bodies was planned,’ German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said. The terrorist group that the suspects belonged to had set a ‘goal of overcoming the existing state order in Germany and replacing it with its own form of state, which has already been worked out in outline,’ prosecutors said….

“Germany’s domestic intelligence agency started observing the group in 2016. In 2020, there were said to be around 3,300 supporters, but that number jumped to 21,000 by the end of 2021, security forces told the local newspaper Tagesspiegel in April.

“The Reichsbürger’s antigovernment views became popular during the COVID-19 pandemic when lockdown restrictions took effect. In 2020, then-German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer banned a faction of the group. ‘We will be relentless in continuing the fight against right-wing extremism, even in times of crisis,’ Seehofer said at the time.” They were apparently well-armed, and the German police took down that group even before they were able to mount their attack. Apparently, the German government did not take the threat to their democracy lightly.

And then there is the American response to a coup attempt. Overwhelmed Capitol Police begging for National Guard assistance are ignored, people are killed and injured, members of Congress are hiding under their desks, armed right-wing soldiers are leading thousands to seize the Capitol, all on behalf of Donald Trump because he clearly lost an election but did not want to give up power. Still, almost two years later and after a major congressional election, the arrest and conviction of hundreds of coup participants, not one of those who were responsible for that Capitol attack were arrested for their efforts to stop the orderly transition of power.

Donald Trump, the fomenter in chief, continues to tout, without any evidence, that the 2020 presidential election was stolen… and has announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election. Meanwhile, at his Mar-a-Lago home, the ex-President continues to entertain White supremacists, QAnon adherents, antisemitic leaders (even as his daughter converted to Judaism) and those favoring a full-on military takeover of the United Stated to install Mr Trump immediately as President… rejecting the past election results. Even after his major corporate holding company was convicted for criminal tax evasion. This is what we have become as a nation.

I’m Peter Dekom, and ask yourself what’s wrong with this picture… and why the United States seems unwilling to take very serious threats to its democracy… seriously.

Tough on Crime, Fierce Supporters of America’s Police, Correct on Ending COVID Restrictions?

Tough on Crime, Fierce Supporters of America’s Police, Correct on Ending COVID Restrictions?

Republicans? Not Really! And still, the myth persists!

It’s about “look at what we say, not what we do” syndrome. “We want parents to control public schools’ curricula on behalf of their children” translates in application to “we want conservative religious views, no discussions of gender differences or racial disparities and no health requirements to attend class.” They call it a culture war or “anti-CRT” legislation, but those sentiments are primarily from parents who do not have children in public primary and secondary schools. Over 70% of parents with such children are more than content to let professionals determine school curricula, and there are no US school districts where that course of studies encourages “grooming,” attempts to determine gender realities or places guilt on children for historical racial discrimination or oppression. Still, the myth persists.

Further, despite the mythology that the FBI is a tool of the Democratic Party, that federal criminal investigatory body, like most police forces, is primarily comprised of conservative agents. While there is no official polling of the political preferences of agents, just looking at the political realities of former FBI directors (which is reported), usually appointed from within the agency’s ranks, the FBI is a buttress of the GOP:

1/ J. Edgar Hoover (May 10, 1924 – May 2, 1972), Political party: Republican
2/ Clarence M. Kelley (July 9, 1973 – February 15, 1978), Political party: Republican
3/ William H. Webster (February 23, 1978 – May 25, 1987), Political party: Republican
4/ William S. Sessions (November 2, 1987 – July 19, 1993), Political party: Republican
5/ Louis Joseph Freeh (September 1, 1993 – June 25, 2001), Political party: Republican
6/ Robert Mueller (September 4, 2001 – September 4, 2013), Political party: Republican
7/ James Comey (September 4, 2013 – May 9, 2017), Political party: Republican
8/ Christopher A. Wray (Appointed August 2, 2017), Political party: Republican

Still, the myth persists.

That there is a perception that Dems are soft on crime belies the reality that one of the largest components of such lawlessness, gun crime, is soaring, almost in lockstep with the laxity of local gun control laws and the spread of more than 20 million military-grade semiautomatic assault rifles into our civilian population. Taking such weapons off the streets does not stand a chance of passage given the stiff Republican opposition to the that commonsense limitation that most Americans, even gun owners, support.

The use of firearms in connection with crimes and generally within our civilian population has reached new heights (depths?). In October, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data on U.S. firearm deaths last year, counting more than 47,000 — the most in at least 40 years. That only one in thirty civilian gun homicides is justified appears to be statistic that too many just ignore. Yet NRA still tells that that “only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Still, the myth persists.

That Republicans cry that only they are friends and supporters of our nation’s law enforcement officers flies in the face of those brave Capitol Police officers who defended Congress from an all-on armed attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. But even as some of such guardians died or were severely injured in furtherance of their duty, GOP members of Congress – whose lives were probably spared – have officially described the insurrectionists (many of whom have been convicted for their criminal activity) as “ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”

How do those police officers feel about this seeming betrayal by the GOP? “After being awarded the Congressional Gold Medal at a ceremony Tuesday [12/6 and pictured above] at the U.S. Capitol for their heroism during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot staged by supporters of then-President Donald Trump, police officers and their family members pointedly refused to shake hands with the two highest-ranking Republican lawmakers, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.” Yahoo!News, December 6th. Hardly the respect for police and law and order touted by Republican candidates everywhere. Still, the myth persists.

In the world of COVID, there is the notion that lockdowns, masking and required vaccinations are wrong-headed, power in the hands of Democratics who wish to control everyone, and that the Republican’s loosening of all of the above has been the salvation of a pandemic that is long gone, well... According to NBC News, December 7, 2022: “Several studies have found that Covid deaths are unevenly distributed among Republicans and Democrats. One study, published in September by the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that so-called excess death rates, or deaths elevated beyond what is expected based on historical trends, were 76% higher in Florida and Ohio among Republicans than Democrats from March 2020 to December 2021.” Another COVID surge is neigh upon… again. Other once near-eradicated diseases (like measles) are rising as GOP supported anti-vaxxers, inspired by GOP “success” with COVID restrictions, end mandatory public school vaccination programs. Still, the myth persists. QAnon anyone?

I’m Peter Dekom, and I continue to sit in wonder at the masses of MAGA supporters whose set-in-concrete right-wing, polarizing and very passionate beliefs are unmovable by hard facts.

The Real Cancel Culture

“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.” 

US Constitution, Article 1, Section 4, Clause 1

The United States struggled with what this new animal – “democracy” – should look like from the get-go. There were no other nations with a democratic model back in 1787, and the colonial delegates gathered in Philadelphia were tearing each other apart about how to elect the nation’s chief exec. “One group of delegates felt strongly that Congress shouldn’t have anything to do with picking the president. Too much opportunity for chummy corruption between the executive and legislative branches.

“Another camp was dead set against letting the people elect the president by a straight popular vote. First, they thought 18th-century voters lacked the resources to be fully informed about the candidates, especially in rural outposts. Second, they feared a headstrong ‘democratic mob’ steering the country astray. And third, a populist president appealing directly to the people could command dangerous amounts of power.” History.com. The result: the Electoral College, a group of specific delegates selected every four years to elect the president. The populist concerns behind this controversy seem almost laughable in 2022, given that the populist-driven GOP used this same system to elect a populist president in 2016. The Electoral College was notably flawed, even at the time, but it was “The Great Compromise” that pleased no one but worked… sort of.

Indeed, “Of the 58 presidential elections in the history of the United States, 53 of the winners took both the Electoral College and the popular vote. But in five incredibly close elections—including those for two of the past three presidents—the winner of the Electoral College was in fact the loser of the popular vote.” History.com. In 2016, for example, Donald Trump lost the popular vote but won the Electoral vote. Those original constitutional delegates did not trust each other. A flawed system still challenges the modern vision of what constitutes a democracy.

This confusing distrust also defined those pre-constitutional delegates’ attitudes in Congressional representation. Less populated states, vast tracts of land with farmland and very little in the way of manufacturing or trading, feared and held in disdain those states with big harbors (trading centers) and manufacturing capacity, notably with relatively densely populated cities. The “Connecticut Compromise” straddled that disconnect with a bicameral legislature: the population-based House of Representatives (where all appropriate bills must originate) and the land mass-based Senate (where each state was accorded two Senators). This was all well and good in a nation that was 94% agricultural. Not particularly effective today in a nation where farmers account for less than 2% of our workforce, and where we are approaching becoming 90% urban. Today 30% of the population elects 50% of the Senate.

This fundamental distrust, the complete lack of any then-functioning democratic systems as a possible model, the use of districts not individual votes, the inability to communicate quickly (versus days or more on the road by horseback) and the need to get the nation up and running, created an admittedly imperfect founding document. Those charged with creating our Constitution figured it could be amended along the way. No one ever suspected that severe partisan polarization would eventually make the Constitution “unamendable.” The United States has the least amendable constitution in the democratic world; the last amendment (the 27th – Congress cannot give itself a raise without an intervening election) was passed three decades ago, centuries after it was introduced in 1789.

The distortions in our political system have led to a litany of anomalies, exacerbated by recent Supreme Court rulings curtailing the application of the equal protection provisions of the 14th Amendment in voting cases and those pitting religious beliefs against antidiscrimination laws, that led the prestigious British journal, The Economist, to relabel the United States as an unrepresentational, “flawed democracy.” International organizations and the leadership of many countries have written about their fear that the United States, using that archaic legal system, is veering towards right-wing, populist autocracy.

The January 6, 2021, insurrection, an attack on the Capitol – subsequently officially called “ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse” by the Republican Party despite the violence, unending assertions from a former president and his masses of his followers about a “stolen election,” a completely false assertion – reaffirmed suspicions of the possible end to American democracy. The Supreme Court just might help right that perception, or simply hammer in a very large nail in our democracy’s coffin.

On December 7th, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case, Moore vs Harper, following their refusal to step into this North Carolina gerrymandering case back in March, allowing the court-drawn districts to be used this year. The case will examine the interpretation of the above constitutional provision, perhaps in the context of other, later constitutional amendments.

The case: “Republican efforts to draw congressional districts heavily in their favor were blocked by a Democratic majority on the state Supreme Court because the GOP map violated the state constitution… A court-drawn map produced seven seats for each party in last month's midterm elections in highly competitive North Carolina.” Mark Sherman, Associated Press, December 5th. But the bigger and more frightening aspect of this case, beyond the gerrymandering and state constitutional questions, is whether a state legislature can so set the “manner” of election so as to allow an effective legislative override or replacement of a popular vote.

“The Republican leaders of North Carolina's legislature told the Supreme Court that the Constitution's ‘carefully drawn lines place the regulation of federal elections in the hands of state legislatures, Congress and no one else.’… Three conservative justices already have voiced some support for the idea that the state court had improperly taken powers given by the Constitution when it comes to federal elections. A fourth has written approvingly about limiting the power of state courts in this area.

“But the Supreme Court has never invoked what is known as the independent state legislature theory. It was, though, mentioned in a separate opinion by three conservatives in the Bush v. Gore case that settled the 2000 presidential election.” AP. During oral arguments, liberal and ultra-right-wings of the Court predictably split – with three other conservative justices (Roberts, Coney Barrett and Kavanaugh) in the middle expressing concerns about a radical shift of election control to state legislatures while wanting to limit judicial election supervision. The new 6-3 conservative court is making unpopular rulings. Is this finally hurting the GOP? Is there possibly a nascent movement within the Court that might move away from the radical right?

The results of the mid-terms may have denied the GOP their expected red tsunami, but so far we still face a rogue Court, seemingly hell-bent on rewriting their own precedents, Congressional statutes and even provisions of the Constitution to suit that ultra-right-wing Trump reconfiguration. Trump’s disdain for the Constitution – “A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution” in his own words – is also unfortunately deeply reflected in the MAGA movement. Does our democracy hang by a slender thread that autocratic partisans want to cut?

I’m Peter Dekom, and that the Supreme Court even took this case suggests that American democracy might be at risk, in more than one case before them.

Where Big Private Media Becomes a Lacky of a Purported Democratic Government

  Former NDTV Anchor Ravish Kumar

India’s PM Modi with Billionaire Gautam Adani

Where Big Private Media Becomes a Lacky of a Purported Democratic Government

Or Adding Insult to India: A de facto propaganda ministry

The United States has Aussie-billionaire-turned-US-citizen, Rupert Murdoch, and his media holdings, whose Fox News became Donald Trump’s de facto ministry of propaganda… until Murdoch recently turned on him. India is about to have its own media billionaire on steroids, with vastly more control of mass media there than Murdoch does here. Gautam Adani, the third-richest man in the world. When you factor in Adani’s more concentrated media power in the Subcontinent, it’s even more than the population differential: the 327 million in the United States, 1.35 billion in India. It’s about free speech itself. It is all about India’s mega-huge 24-hour-a-day telecaster, New Delhi Television (NDTV), founded in 1998, and today India’s last large independent television network.

Adani is on the verge of implementing a hostile takeover of NDTV, which some claim will be the end of meaningful independent television news in India. I might mention that Adani is also a fierce supporter of and friend to Hindu nationalist party (Bharatiya Janata Party – BJP) Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, a man who has been focused on silencing his media critics any way he can. Some say skirting the law very effectively. With this takeover of NDTV, Modi’s control over national media is all but total. Dissent has been repressed, journalists beaten and otherwise intimidated, even jailed. Many papers have been shut down. Until now NDTV, was viewed as such a powerful bastion of independence that it could not be reined in by Modi. With the NDTV takeover all but closed, longtime network anchor Ravish Kumar decided he had had enough and resigned.

Writing for the December 6th Los Angeles special correspondent Parth M.N. adds: “NDTV, they say, has been the only remaining Indian broadcast network that continues to question Modi’s Hindu nationalist agenda. The other nearly 20 English or Hindi news channels across India, they assert, have taken to brazenly touting the party line… ‘Today, I see the race to the bottom on some TV channels and find myself completely unable to come to terms with it,’ said former NDTV anchor Rajdeep Sardesai, who called the network, where he worked until 2005, a ‘pioneering institution’ in ‘an era that was not driven by ratings ... [when] quality mattered.’

“About eight years ago, not long after Modi came to power, billionaire industrialist Mukesh Ambani, then the richest man in India, acquired Network 18 — a credible news outlet at the time, where Sardesai was editor in chief. Soon after the takeover, Sardesai resigned, along with other senior editors. [It’s happening again.]

“According to Reporters Without Borders, India stood at 132 out of 180 countries in its press freedom index in 2012. A decade later, it has slipped further to 150. The group’s 2022 report specifically mentions Modi, who became prime minister in 2014. ‘The violence against journalists, the politically partisan media and the concentration of media ownership all demonstrate that press freedom is in crisis in ‘the world’s largest democracy,’ ’ it read.

"The future of NDTV, founded by Prannoy Roy and his wife, Radhika Roy, came into play in August when Adani covertly acquired a third-party company that had the largest stake in the network… The Roys tried to fight him off, but apparently in vain. As of Monday, Adani owned a 37% stake in the company — making him the single largest shareholder — and was trying to acquire more. As a result, the Roys have resigned as directors… ‘It is the end of news on news channels,’ said Abhisar Sharma, an independent journalist who left a mainstream TV job four years ago and currently has 1.4 million YouTube channel subscribers.

“Adani and Modi both hail from the western state of Gujarat and have had a lengthy relationship. When Modi became prime minister in 2014, Adani’s net worth was $7 billion. Today, it is $147 billion, making him India’s richest man.

“In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Adani addressed concerns that his taking over NDTV could end its independence. ‘Independence means if the government has done something wrong, you say it’s wrong,’ Adani said. ‘But at the same time, you should have the courage when the government is doing the right thing every day. You have to also say that.’… Modi and his office have not spoken publicly about the Kumar resignation or the impending takeover of NDTV.” For a government that tells us that it never really does anything seriously wrong, Adani’s quote says it all. Illicit killings, anti-Muslim campaigns (even involving murder and rape), and other acts of violence and repression from the Modi regime were once reported. No so much anymore.

Donald Trump enjoyed a special relationship with fellow leader, Narendra Modi, often admiring the Indian PM and his way of running his government and controlling the media. Here, in the US, the desire to stifle conflicting mainstream critics that do not support MAGA and GOP policies or their prime movers is a never-ending Trump habit that seems to have carried over to the entire cadre of elected Republicans. India is a good example of what happens when such governmental efforts are successful. Whether the GOP effort is a direct assault on mass media news (calling them the “enemy of the American people”) or recasting that effort under the guise of fighting a culture war, protecting parental rights or preventing mainstream Americans from being “replaced,” make no mistake; the goal is to eliminate the critics and stifle First Amendment dissent.

I’m Peter Dekom, and listen very carefully to the buzzwords of repression – often presented with sugar on top – watch the company such speakers keep, and ask yourself what are they really try to say… and make you believe.