This Is Hopeless

Or so I think.  Then I plow on.

Back cleaning out my mom's house.  We're trying to get it rentable by Thursday.  The bar is pretty low, but I think we'll have to come back and do more.  But I'm getting more ruthless about throwing things away.  But what do you do with things like this?

Actually, that's fairly easy.  It will go into one of the boxes headed to the thrift shop.  But old letter and photos, jewelry, watches, and stuff.  Pictures on the wall.  The realtor helping to rent the place thinks we shouldn't leave any pictures up we wouldn't want to lose.  And there are a few.

So blogging is a low priority at the moment.

At least we can put things we can't decide on into the garage.

But I'm guessing we'll be back in a month to do more.

Not complaining, just thinking out loud.  My mom cleaned up my messes often enough, so turnabout is only fair.  She has given us a lot, and throwing things away was painful for her.

Nordstrom's Great Marketing Department

My step-father died about thirty years ago.  My mom just last summer.

Today I opened a letter addressed to my step father that included two new Nordstrom credit cards.

Meanwhile, I'm still battling with Feedburner problems. (I know, I need to find a new RSS feed.  I will, I will.) I posted yesterday about why I thought Rep. Johnson had filed to appeal the decision of the Superior Court to allow Gov. Walker's Medicaid expansion even though though the legal counsel told Sen. Gary Stevens that such a move required a vote of both houses.  It didn't make it to other blogrolls.  So if any one is interested you can get to it here.  I tried to put the issue into context.  It also includes the complete contract between the Alaska Legislative Council and the DC law firm Bancroft PLLC.

And for people who do come here when they see the new post links at other blogs, if you don't see anything for more than a day, you might just want to check anyway.  Or you can subscribe and get your own reminder - those seem to be working.

You can subscribe in the upper right - as you can see in the image to your right.

Legislature's Contract With Bancroft DC Law Firm To Sue Governor Walker Over Medicaid Expansion

This post began with me wanting to just post the contract between the Alaska Legislative Council and the Bancroft law firm.  But as I tried to explain the context it got more and more complicated.   I was trying to figure out what the push was all of a sudden to get approval and to skip the Senate's approval.   Eventually it became clear.  And while I don't think I have anything here that hasn't already been published by someone somewhere, I think maybe I've put the pieces together in an easier way to follow it all.  Or maybe it just makes sense to me because I've now spent so much time doing this.

There was a fair amount of sturm und drang over Rep. Craig Johnson ignoring the legal opinion that both the House and the Senate had to vote to approve the appeal.  It makes sense to me now.  I'll say it here, and then the rest puts it all into context with some commentary on how I found my way through this maze.   So here's the skinny as I see it:

There's a 30 day window in which to appeal to the Alaska Supreme Court.  Although the judge's decision is dated March 1, 2016, which would appear to make the deadline March 31, there is something else in the court record called the "Final Judgment" which is dated April 5, 2015.  Thus the magic drop dead date was May 5, 2015 - 30 days later.  

So no matter what the legislature did or did not do, if the appeal wasn't filed in the court by May 5, 2016, there wasn't going to be an appeal.  So, apparently Johnson went and filed the appeal by the deadline in the hopes that the attorneys will be able to win any challenges to his authority to file the appeal without the House and Senate voting to move to Phase 2 of the contract with the DC law firm, Bancroft PLLC.  


Now, here's the post I was working on that led to the conclusion above.

I've posted the full contract below.  You can just scroll down and read it all.  But for those who are a little fuzzy on all this, here is some background.

As briefly as I can:

1. Congress passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010 and President Obama signed it
2. Republicans around the country did everything they could think of to kill the Affordable Care Act, including filing lawsuits saying it was unconstitutional.
3. The first challenge to make it to the Supreme Court was decided in 2012 and it upheld the Affordable Care Act.  An attorney - Paul Clement - for the law firm of Bancroft PLLC represented The National Federation of Independent Business, et al
4. The second challenge to make it to the Supreme Court was decided in 2015.  Again the Affordable Care Act was upheld.
5. About this time expansion of Medicaid in Alaska as called for by the Affordable Care Act was not making its way to the governor's office in Juneau.  So the governor expanded Medicaid administratively.
6. When the legislature is out of session, the Legislative Council does necessary business  on behalf of the whole legislature.  The Council voted to sue the governor over his decision to expand Medicaid.  And they asked the court to block the expansion until after the case was heard.
7. The court rejected blocking it and the Alaska Supreme Court did too.
8. The Legislative Council's suit  lost in the Alaska Superior Court in March 2016.
9. The Alaska Legislature is currently in overtime, having been unable to complete their work in the 90 day session.  The Legislative Council has some specific duties, but most importantly, acts in lieu of the State Legislature when it is out of session. But not when it is in session.
10. The House of Representatives has approved extending the contract and told Bancroft to file an appeal.  (Well, I thought this was true when I wrote this, but it appears that neither body voted to approve going to the contracts Phase 2 (which will be explained below))
11. The Democrats are pointing to a letter from the Legislature's legal counsel to Senator Gary Stevens, saying that when the Legislature is in session, decisions to take legal action require approval of both houses of the Legislature.  The decision to move ahead was only approved by the House.  (And apparently not even that, though I admit I'm confused on this.) An attorney I talked to about this speculated there was a deadline for the appeal and so they wanted to go ahead and file it before that deadline passed.  If they didn't they couldn't keep harassing the governor on the state level and the ACA on the federal level, and the Bancroft PLLC would forego the Phase 2 $150,000 and the continuing guerrilla warfare against ACA.  But I checked.  The Alaska Courts website says you have 15-30 days to file an appeal (depending on the type of case.).  The case was decided on March 1.  So even if it were working days and not calendar days, it's been over 60 days now, surely that's more than 30 working days.  But as we all know, reading the law with just a little bit of knowledge can be dangerous.  Obviously they're still planning to appeal.  So either there are provisions that allow extensions of that time, I've misread it, or they've already filed the appeal.  But if that were the case, it would be on the record.  You can see why so few reporters really dig in to get all the details of the story.  One thing just leads to another.  I'm tired and I'm not going to try to figure out how to look up if there has been an appeal filed already.  Someone else can do that.  [I'm leaving this all in so you can see all the false paths I explored before finding the right one.]

Well, I couldn't just abandon it at that point.  I have looked up cases before so I poked around on the Alaska Court System webpages for searching cases.  It's much easier than it used to be, though I did come up with different things in different searches.  

It was, in fact, about deadlines.  The case was filed May 5.  It says the case was settled April 5.  But the judge's ruling is signed March 1, 2016. 

But on the appeal it says the final judgment date is April 5, 2016.  The red on the upper left marks the appeal filing date - May 5, 2015.  The red in the middle on the right shows the trial court judgment date as April 5, 2016.  This is really so as the court judgment document above shows.  

Click to enlarge and focus these images originally from Alaska Court System

\

But further poking around shows that even though the decision was made on March 1, 2016, there is another date - April 5, 2016, that's labeled "Order:  Final Judgment Case Motion #22."  The information below is from this court system page.  Just keep scrolling down when you get there.  But here I've distilled the key dates and put them into this table:

03/01/2016	Case Dismissed. Case Closed
03/10/2016	Motion for Entry of Final Judgment Attorney: Borghesan, Dario (1005015) Filing Party: Walker, Bill; Davidson, Valerie Case Motion #22
03/23/2016	Non-Opposition to Defendants' Motion for Entry of Final Judgment Attorney: McKeever, Timothy A. (7611146) Case Motion #22: Motion for Entry of Final Judgment
04/05/2016	Order: Final Judgment Case Motion #22: Motion for Entry of Final Judgment
05/05/2016	Appeal Filed in the Supreme Court Case No: S-16309

So there it is.  Johnson was going on the advice that it is better to ask forgiveness than ask permission.  There just wasn't time to get permission.

Below is the whole contract so people can see it for themselves.  My layperson's eye doesn't see anything too unusual.   It's really the whole idea of spending $400,000 to try this Hail Mary lawsuit, that's at issue, more than details of the contract.  But since it's been bandied about, we ought to be able to read the whole thing.   I've noted a few highlights.  There's some seemingly weird language like the clause on Human Trafficking, but I figure that's boiler plate that has to be in every state contract.

Maybe others with more legal experience or knowledge of the players will point out things I overlooked.

Highlight 1:  This is a two phase contract.  Each phase is a flat fee.  By starting the appeal, it looks like the second clause begins and the company gets the final $150,000 payment. From the contract (see whole contract at end of post):

1. "Phase 1 - the flat fee for consultation, advice, and handling the court action until a final judgment or other resolution of the court action in Superior Court will be $250,000; the Committee will pay the Contractor $100,000 when this Contract is entered into, and $150,000 when services in the Superior Court are completely rendered. If the Project Direction elects to not proceed to the Supeme Court, then Phase 2 does not apply and the services and payments re complete.
2. Phase 2 - the flat fee for handling any appeal to the alaska Supreme Court (and subsequent Superior Court action if sent back to Superior Court) will be $150,000; the Committee will pay the Contractor $75,000 when the Contractor files the first brief and $75,000 upon final resolution."

So, it seems that the House's move to appeal, automatically gets us to Phase 2 - $75,000 for the first brief - the appeal I assume - and then another $75,000 when it's all done.  Chump change for the Majority it seems.   $150,000 would pay for two starting teachers in the Anchorage School District, their benefits, and still leave something on the table.    This can only benefit the law firm.  It's hardly likely to win.  And if they win, then Alaskan general health will lose.   So I can only guess that key legislators were leaned on to help this law firm pick up another $150,000 on top of the $250,000 they got for Phase I.

Think this through.  $400,000. [I'd note here that the Independent/Democratic Coalition has put out a press release saying that $300,000 has already been spent with $150,000 left to go for a total of $450,000.  Maybe something changed since the contract, but the contract is pretty clearly for $400,000 total.]  If we pay the attorneys $400 per hour, that's 1000 hours.  If we assume attorneys work 50 hour weeks, that's 20 weeks, about five months, full time.  Much, if not most, of the work would be done by para legals who get paid way less that $400 per hour.  And most of the legal research Bancroft has already done in prep for their other Obamacare challenges.

Note:  I first posted about this law firm and its role in representing 26 states that fought Obamacare to the Supreme Court August 19, 2015 when the lawsuit was originally announced.  Then I posted again a couple of weeks later when the Legislature lost their lawsuit.  And I'd note that Paul Clement, the attorney who lost the 2012 case at the US Supreme Court is listed as one of the attorneys in the Alaska case that lost in Superior Court.

Sorry for getting sidetracked there, but those two old posts give a lot more relevant background on the firm.

Highlight 2:  Contract goes from August 18, 2015 until "completion of the legal services required by Clause 1, or August 1, 2017."


Highlight 3:  Interest rate for late payment (after 90 days) is 1.5% per MONTH which comes out to an annual interest rate of 18 - 19% depending on whether it's compounded or not.  Credit Union 1 offers 0.30% on a premium savings account with $100,000 or more in it.  They offer rates between 4 and 7% for boat and vessel loans up to $250,000.  Is that a fair comparison?  After all, this is for a late payment after 90 days, so the first three months are interest free.  And the state should be good for the money, right?  Well, that used to be true.


Highlight 4:  The Project Director and Vice Project Director

"The Project Director and Vice Project Director are the persons appointed by the Presiding Officers of the Alaska State Senate and the Alaska State House of Representatives  The Project Director under the Contract is Chad Hutchison, for the Alaska State Senate.  Mr Hutchison is is [sic] authorized to oversee and direct the activities of the Contractor under this contract and shall, unless otherwise stated in this paragraph, approve all billings from the Contractor.  The Vice Project Director under this Contract is Mark Higgins for the Alaska State House of Representatives. Mr. Higgins is authorized to oversee the activities of the Contractor under this contract. .  ."

A quick internet search doesn't tell us too much about these men.

Chad Hutchison, according to a brief description under an opinion piece in the Juneau Empire, is a Fairbanks attorney and staffer for Sen. Coghill.  The opinion piece argues passionately for this lawsuit and I found it, on the whole, using logic and reason to make his points.  We can argue about his assumptions and I didn't fact check it, but it's not the kind of empty explanations we've been hearing from Juneau's finest.  Apparently there's another Chad Hutchinson who's Director Fairbanks Pipeline Training Center Trust and a longtime member of the Operating Engineers Union.

Mark Higgins is a staffer for the House Majority.  He's served as a political consultant and as a lobbyist for the Kenai Peninsula Borough.  Higgins was the subject of concern back in 2009 when Rep. Craig Johnson wanted to hire him to finish a 'long overdue report' on fisheries for a task force with which Higgins' wife, Debra, was involved, if I can untangle the story, as an aide to Rep. Johnson.   Senators Stedman, Harris, and Coghill had problems with the appointment because of the apparent conflict.  Johnson said he couldn't find anyone else with Higgins unique qualifications - his ability to write, his background in fisheries, and his knowledge of the law.  Johnson is quoted,

"If I thought there was a better person out there I would have certainly tried to get that person," he said.

That's about as clear as most politicians are going to get.  He didn't think there was anyone with better qualifications.  Which suggests he didn't look. Seems to me there are lots of Alaskans who know about fisheries, the law, and can write.   Reading between the lines of that article, I'd say Johnson  had this overdue report and they were getting some pressure to get it done and someone in the office said something like, Mark could do that.  But when you read between the lines even with some knowledge of how organizations work and a good imagination you can end up anywhere from close to way off.


Anyway.  Here's the contract.  I know, by now, anyone who didn't just skip everything and come directly here, is already asleep.  But if you're still awake and ready to tackle the contract, go get yourself a chocolate chip cookie as a reward.  Or a bowl of strawberries if you prefer.  Maybe with some vanilla ice cream.

Alaska - Bancroft Lawsuit Contract

Parting And Arriving Shots

It was just about midnight as we took off from Anchorage last night.  It's summer if you count the seasons by how much light we have.

I'd note there was one Alaska legislator on the plane who took a break from the session to go to his daughter's college graduation.










But LA was fogged in pretty solid as we approached.  Downtown is somewhere down there between the wing and the mountains.  At this point the clouds were broken enough that I could see occasional spots of light.  But as we circled back toward the airport and the ocean, the cover got thicker.  I

counted slowly to 45 from the point we went into the clouds until we came out to this view below.

And then we our flight path to the airport cross the San Diego Freeway.  (When I left LA long ago, the freeways had names, not numbers.)

We were able to get off the plane pretty quickly and to the luggage carousel in ten minutes - just in time to see the first suitcases coming out.  We had our two 13 minutes after the door in the plane opened.  I continue to be impressed at Alaska's ability to make and keep their pledge to get the luggage out in 20 minutes from getting to the gate or you get mileage or a coupon off your next flight.

And then when we got to my mom's house and I read the Dispatch online, I saw that Alaska Airlines was rated as having the best service of the major carriers.  But it also mentioned that people are getting used to all the extra fees (like luggage, food, change) that

"raised $3.8 billion for U.S. airlines last year."

They can charge all these because there are so few airlines left that they can all just copy each others' fees and the traveler has no choice.  And because they have the power to unilaterally say you have to pay $100 just to change your flight to another day.  I understand there was a time when people booked a bunch of flights and then cancelled, leaving the airline with empty seats.  You can handle that more strategically - like charges within a week of the flight, or after the third or fourth change a year.  But these kinds of arbitrary and lucrative charges by the airlines, by banks, and other large corporations are part of the reason we have a growing gap between the rich and the poor.  Especially when the added profit goes to shareholders instead of employees or customers.  But at least Alaska's 20 minute guarantee gives people a reason to check in bags instead of taking them onboard.  No more hour waits for your luggage.

Geese Fly By

This is a pretty thin post.  But I did spent a half hour just enjoying the peace (but not quiet, since the Seward Highway is adjacent) of the Helen Louise McDowell Preserve.  There wasn't much happening, but when nothing 'big' happens, you notice the little things.  The biggest things was the
goose fly-by.


 





But mostly it was the little stuff.  Like raindrops on the water. As the rain increased somewhat, so did the number of rings in the water.












                                                          But then things calmed down so the reflection looked almost real.
I was on my way back from Loussac library.  I posted some pictures last night about the progress of the renovation of the entrance.  But I was having Feedburner problems and that post hasn't gotten to other blogrolls.  You can see the Loussac post here.  





[More Feedburner trouble.  Obviously I need to find another way to get the RSS feed to other blogrolls, but in the meantime I'm trying to repost and see if I can get it to work.  This is the first time Feedburner hasn't picked up the feed for several new posts over a couple of days.]

[UPDATE 7:10am:  I went into Feedburner.  There's a way to manually ping the feed, but I'd been trying that and it didn't work.  This time I found a place to 'resynch' and so I tried that.  And soon the latest post had reached another blogroll.  We'll see how long this lasts and I still need to find another way to do the RSS feeds.]

Loussac Remodel Update - Atrium Is Gone (Repost*)

Here's Loussac Library (Anchorage's main libray) on May 10, 2016.  They've taken out the whole atrium area.  The geometric metallic grid is, I believe, what held up the ceiling/roof glass.  The whole glassed-in area is now gone.





Below is pretty much the same view on Loussac's opening back in 1986.

Image from 2012 What Do I Know? post

And here's the atrium back on March 23 of this year.  The stairway and the deck with the statue of William Seward are gone.

And today, all the glass is gone.  I think those X's in the top row of windows are the bracing that is sitting out in front now in the top picture (and a couple below.)  It's scary that I only 'think' this,

that I'm not sure.  For all the times I was in there, you'd think I'd be certain.  But I guess I never observed as carefully as I should have.  But it did make enough of an impression that I 'think' that's it.

The top picture was taken from the stairs in the Alaska room to the right of this picture.  But the library wasn't open when I was there tonight, so this is from on top of the grassy slope to where the entrance deck was.

This is looking directly to where the glassed atrium was against the wall there.

Here's a better view of the grid.  It'd make a great playground feature.  I'm wondering if it's going back in as part of the new library or if it's just sitting here until it's taken away.  Based on this picture of what the entrance will look like, it appears this grid is headed for the scrap pile.  I still think it should be a playground jungle gym..

Image from Anchorage Library Foundation

The Alaska Journal of Commerce had a different view of the entrance.  It looks different from the one above.  From what I can tell, the top one was later than the bottom one.

Image from Alaska Journal of Commerce

I wasn't the only one there checking this out and I knew I had to include this next picture, particularly for Michelle.

To put all this in context, here are some excerpts from the 2010 Anchorage Library Master Plan:

"Some upgrades to the Z. J. Loussac building have already been completed and others are underway; however, additional improvements, including the redesign of the Library entrance, are on hold because of the failure of an April ballot proposition that would have partially funded that project." (p. 19)

"Some upgrades to the Z. J. Loussac building have already been completed and others are underway; however, additional improvements, including the redesign of the Library entrance, are on hold because of the failure of an April ballot proposition that would have partially funded that project." (p. 44)

"A concept for redesigning the entrance area exists but has not been implemented due to a lack of funding. A library staff committee produced an excellent report that contained ideas for the revitalization of several of the Loussac Library’s interior spaces. Many components for moving the Loussac Library in the direction of becoming Anchorage’s community living room are available but have not yet been acted upon." (p. 44)

From a September 2015 memo on delays in construction, we do have this estimated opening date.

"Based upon the changed scope-of-work, which has added days and is subject to change again as the project proceeds, the new scheduled opening of the Entry and Upgrades is set for December 31, 2016."

The the Library Foundation website says:

"The Z.J. Loussac renewal began in May 2015 and is scheduled to be finished in early 2017." 

Maybe they can have the opening before every little detail is finished. 

[*Repost - that's a warning to those who subscribe and have already seen this.  Feedburner is being balky again.  As I mentioned in the last post, this seems to be due to Google neglect of this feature (See "Feedburner:  Google's Biggest Screwup") and I have to find a new way to get the RSS feeds to other blogrolls for more consistency and speed.]

What Happens When Your Parents Aren't Who You Think They Are? And Feedburner Doesn't Share Your Posts?

I linked to a very interesting piece in Saturday's Guardian about a family that wasn't quite [remember, I tend toward understatement] what it seemed to be and the dislocation this caused the teenage sons.

But Feedburner hasn't done its work to get this posted in other blogrolls, so people reading other blogs can't see this new post.  (Blogrolls, for those scratching their heads, are the lists of other blogs that many blogs carry on the right or left column.  Mine are on the right.)

This has been a recurring problem over the last year.   Blogrolls do bring enough folks to the blog that it's worth reposting.  So I'm posting this in hopes Feedburner picks this one up properly and I'm using this post direct you to

What Happens When Your Parents Aren't 

Who You Think They Are?

Generally, when this happens, I repost it, and for some reason the reposts, if I'm lucky, go up right away.  But there is already a comment on this post and if I repost and delete the original, the comment will disappear.  So please bear with me.  It's worth reading and the comment adds other dimensions I hadn't considered.  (This does give me a chance to correct a typo in the title.  Thanks J)

What Happens When Your Parents Aren't Who You Think They Are?

When raising the issue of epistemology (very loosely, how do you know what's true?) with my students, I'd sometimes ask things like, "How do you know your mother is your mother?"

It quickly become obvious that all their evidence is second hand.  They have evidence (such as birth certificates)  and what other people tell them.  But there is always a possibility that there mother really isn't their mother.  Maybe she's their grandmother and their sister is their mother.  Or maybe they're adopted.  It's a good opening to issues of knowing what is true and the different rules different people use to verify truth.

But this story I'm going to link to is even more unlikely.  What if your mother is really your biological mother, but she's not who you think she is.

The Guardian has a story Saturday of two Canadian-born, naturalized American brothers, who, well, here's the beginning of the article:

Tim Foley turned 20 on 27 June 2010. To celebrate, his parents took him and his younger brother Alex out for lunch at an Indian restaurant not far from their home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Both brothers were born in Canada, but for the past decade the family had lived in the US. The boys’ father, Donald Heathfield, had studied in Paris and at Harvard, and now had a senior role at a consultancy firm based in Boston. Their mother, Tracey Foley, had spent many years focused on raising her children, before taking a job as a real estate agent. To those who knew them, they seemed a very ordinary American family, albeit with Canadian roots and a penchant for foreign travel. Both brothers were fascinated by Asia, a favoured holiday destination, and the parents encouraged their sons to be inquisitive about the world: Alex was only 16, but had just returned from a six-month student exchange in Singapore. 

After a buffet lunch, the four returned home and opened a bottle of champagne to toast Tim reaching his third decade. The brothers were tired; they had thrown a small house party the night before to mark Alex’s return from Singapore, and Tim planned to go out later. After the champagne, he went upstairs to message his friends about the evening’s plans. There came a knock at the door, and Tim’s mother called up that his friends must have come early, as a surprise. 

At the door, she was met by a different kind of surprise altogether: a team of armed, black-clad men holding a battering ram. They streamed into the house, screaming, “FBI!” Another team entered from the back; men dashed up the stairs, shouting at everyone to put their hands in the air. Upstairs, Tim had heard the knock and the shouting, and his first thought was that the police could be after him for underage drinking: nobody at the party the night before had been 21, and Boston police took alcohol regulations seriously. 

When he emerged on to the landing, it became clear the FBI was here for something far more serious. The two brothers watched, stunned, as their parents were put in handcuffs and driven away in separate black cars. Tim and Alex were left behind with a number of agents, who said they needed to begin a 24-hour forensic search of the home; they had prepared a hotel room for the brothers. One of the men told them their parents had been arrested on suspicion of being “unlawful agents of a foreign government”.

The reporter follows up on many of the questions you're probably asking yourselves.  Here's the link again.

This is a great story for a high school class - I can't imagine any high school students who wouldn't be totally sucked into this story and imagining what it would be like if this happened to them.  And there are lots of lessons a teacher could get the students to explore.

Why Is John Doe Being Treated So Differently From Snowden, Manning, And Assange?

The Wiki-Leaks source Bradley Manning was condemned as a traitor and convicted to 35 years in prison.

Edward Snowden is stuck in Moscow facing espionage charges if he gets anywhere he could be extradited to the US.

Julian Assange, the head of Wiki-Leaks is still in the Bolivian embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden, and, he fears, from there to the US.

But when the Panama Papers came out, the media and politicians focused on the contents, not the leaker.  I don't hear cries for him to be in prison.

There are differences, to be sure.  Manning and Snowden exposed US secrets.  Manning as an employee of the US and Snowden working for a US contractor.  Yet Snowden's leaks have led to worldwide outrage about US data collection and changes in the law to provide more protections.  The Wiki-Leaks have proven embarrassing, but despite early claims about risking the lives of US military, I have been unable to find evidence this has happened.


And now we have the Panama Papers.  Leaked by someone who has recently identified himself as John Doe.  Instead of calling for John Doe to be punished, we see headlines like this:

"Obama: Panama Papers leak shines light on 'big global problem'"

and

Panama Papers: US launches crackdown on international tax evasion

OK, I get it that these papers weren't leaked from secret government files, but rather from a private law firm practicing out of Panama.

But economic espionage is a big deal.  From the New York Times:

"The private sector spent $665 million on data loss prevention last year, according to the technology research firm Gartner, with a 15 percent increase expected this year. On the legislative front, Congress strengthened penalties for those convicted under the Economic Espionage Act, raising the maximum fine for individuals convicted to $5 million from $500,000. And in terms of law enforcement, the F.B.I. lists digital crime, including intrusions that result in trade secret theft, as its third priority, just behind terrorism and counterintelligence. The agency reported a 60 percent increase in trade secret investigations from 2009 through 2013."  [emphasis added]

Is Obama ignoring the cyber theft of data from a private company because the information that was stolen was important for the public good?  After all, that's the argument that Wiki-Leaks and Edward Snowden make.  They didn't do to help a foreign country.  They didn't do it for money.  They did it because they thought something terribly wrong was going on.

Just like John Doe did with the Panama Papers.

Or is it because the Wiki-Leaks and Snowden leak were embarrassing to the President - both because security was so bad and because the information leaked was embarrassing and revealed that the American public was being lied to as well as being spied on massively?

But the Panama Papers are different because they help to support a point that Obama has been making about American companies avoiding taxes through off shore tax havens?

I keep mentioning John Doe.  I was looking at Panama Papers yesterday and discovered that the person who leaked them has posted very recently his reasons for doing that and for taking the name John Doe.  Here are some excerpts from "John Doe's Manifesto."

He begins by identifying his critical issue:  world wide income inequality.  And even though people are talking about it, it hasn't really been adequately dealt with and there are many questions.

"The Panama Papers provide a compelling answer to these questions: massive, pervasive corruption. And it’s not a coincidence that the answer comes from a law firm. More than just a cog in the machine of “wealth management,” Mossack Fonseca used its influence to write and bend laws worldwide to favour the interests of criminals over a period of decades. . . 

Shell companies are often associated with the crime of tax evasion, but the Panama Papers show beyond a shadow of a doubt that although shell companies are not illegal by definition, they are used to carry out a wide array of serious crimes that go beyond evading taxes. I decided to expose Mossack Fonseca because I thought its founders, employees and clients should have to answer for their roles in these crimes, only some of which have come to light thus far. It will take years, possibly decades, for the full extent of the firm’s sordid acts to become known."

He's pleased that the Panama Papers seem to have now started a serious debate on the topic.

He introduces himself.

"For the record, I do not work for any government or intelligence agency, directly or as a contractor, and I never have. 

Now, some have claimed the CIA is behind this leak.  If true that would help explain why this was so handy for Obama to use in his speech on off-shore tax havens.   Is John Doe's manifesto released now intended by the real leaker to counter those rumors?  Or is it the CIA's way of denying the rumors?  There's nothing in the manifesto that suggests how John Doe knew about all this and had access to it all.  He does point out, by way of justifying this fuzziness about his identity,  that there are a lot of people who would like to see the leaker dead and I don't doubt that.

My viewpoint is entirely my own, as was my decision to share the documents with Süddeutsche Zeitung and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), not for any specific political purpose, but simply because I understood enough about their contents to realize the scale of the injustices they described. 

[For those who do not speak German - most people, I'd guess -  Süddeutsche Zeitung means, literally, South German Newspaper.]

He goes on to say that he's hoping that a lot of prosecutions will result from these revelations.  (There were some resignations by people like the Prime Minister of Iceland and the head of a Chilean anti-corruption agency when the leak was first made public.)

The prevailing media narrative thus far has focused on the scandal of what is legal and allowed in this system. What is allowed is indeed scandalous and must be changed. But we must not lose sight of another important fact: the law firm, its founders, and employees actually did knowingly violate myriad laws worldwide, repeatedly. Publicly they plead ignorance, but the documents show detailed knowledge and deliberate wrongdoing. At the very least we already know that Mossack personally perjured himself before a federal court in Nevada, and we also know that his information technology staff attempted to cover up the underlying lies. They should all be prosecuted accordingly with no special treatment. 

In the end, thousands of prosecutions could stem from the Panama Papers, if only law enforcement could access and evaluate the actual documents. ICIJ and its partner publications have rightly stated that they will not provide them to law enforcement agencies. I, however, would be willing to cooperate with law enforcement to the extent that I am able. "

Besides prosecution of wrongdoers, he wants immunity for whistleblowers.

"Legitimate whistleblowers who expose unquestionable wrongdoing, whether insiders or outsiders, deserve immunity from government retribution, full stop. Until governments codify legal protections for whistleblowers into law, enforcement agencies will simply have to depend on their own resources or on-going global media coverage for documents. 

In the meantime, I call on the European Commission, the British Parliament, the United States Congress, and all nations to take swift action not only to protect whistleblowers, but to put an end to the global abuse of corporate registers."

He wants campaign reform in the US. 

"It is an open secret that in the United States, elected representatives spend the majority of their time fundraising. Tax evasion cannot possibly be fixed while elected officials are pleading for money from the very elites who have the strongest incentives to avoid taxes relative to any other segment of the population. These unsavoury political practices have come full circle and they are irreconcilable. Reform of America’s broken campaign finance system cannot wait."

Then he lists all the players he think have failed.

Governments have failed (and he cites a number of examples including:

"Jennifer Shasky Calvery, the director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network at the United States Treasury, just announced her resignation to work instead for HSBC, one of the most notorious banks on the planet (not coincidentally headquartered in London). And so the familiar swish of America’s revolving door echoes amidst deafening global silence from thousands of yet-to-be-discovered ultimate beneficial owners who are likely praying that her replacement is equally spineless.

Banks, financial regulators and tax authorities have failed. . .

Hopelessly backward and inefficient courts have failed. . ."

The media have failed.

"The sad truth is that among the most prominent and capable media organizations in the world there was not a single one interested in reporting on the story [Panama Papers.] Even Wikileaks didn’t answer its tip line repeatedly. 

But most of all, the legal profession has failed. . ."

We live in interesting times.   There's a lot of interesting stuff on the Panama Papers website and the graphics are outstanding too.   The size of this leak dwarfs previous leaks.  The website has graphics comparing it to Snowden's and Wiki-Leaks. [UPDATE May 8, 2016: I wish though, that they'd put publication dates on their stories.]

I'd just note that the move to computers and then to the internet has made private conversations and messages that the socially, politically, and economically prominent have used to hide their shady dealings available in a way they could never have imagined.  And hackers are following Eastern martial arts philosophies that teach how to use one's opponent's strength against him.

Budding And Blooming

Spring's transformation in Anchorage is pretty spectacular.  We go from snow, to brown, then there's this explosion of things popping out of the ground to reclaim their place in the sun for five months.  We've got one big, proud red tulip.

A lily bud.

I think this is the chocolate lily bud, but I'm not sure.  I'll have to see what comes out.

And here's a bleeding heart bud.