Bonus No. 1: With a Second War on Terror Looming, a New Film Explores… the First.

I remember when I once wrote a piece about George Forbes that was considered “too favorable” by an alternative press editor.

He felt that it would confuse people.

Why?

Because I hadn’t really been kind in my coverage of Forbes. He held power over City Council from 1974 through 1989. And to simply say, he held power, is to minimize the grip on how things would go.

He intended to remain in City Council very long.

He told Frank Keegan in the late ’70s:

Not very much longer. I have come to the conclusion that you do what you can. Like Dr. King said, ‘I’ve been to the Mountain top.’ I went to see Ahmed (Evans) at Auburndale and 123rd Street. I was the last guy to see him, along with Walter Beach (former Browns player). I talked to him and told him to cool it and I would be back. When I went back, I was shot at like I was a rabbit.

That was the day of the Glenville shootout, July 23, 1968.

Forbes was then Mayor Carl Stokes’ front man.

Now, George Forbes will be 90 years old on April 4. He has led a long, successful life.

I likely have spent more time writing about him than any other Cleveland figure.

You simply couldn’t avoid it if you were a reporter in his years of power.

The truth is that there were aspects of George Forbes that you couldn’t not like.

To cover City Hall during his time, you couldn’t avoid him.

I once wrote a piece in 1982, “My Monday with George. Better than dinner with Andre.”

“Each Monday George gives life lessons, rare performances,” I continued.

I wrote of two political moves he made.

In the first, he passed a 25 percent water rate hike everyone was against with now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t deftness. He walked away from the meeting looking disappointed. The absence of applause reveals the lack of appreciation…

The rate hike of 25 percent followed one of 15 percent. And it was assumed that all other 20 councilmen were opposed.

Forbes tilted the outcome by feigning outrage that Mayor George Voinovich would lay off water department workers. Somehow many of those workers showed up en masse at the meeting. George “ranted and raged” at possible layoffs as “a political thing.”

Now he set it as a Council vs. administration, not a rate hike vote.

“It’s bullshit and we are not going to be pressured… This business of politics, you can’t beat us at that. You can’t beat me at my game,” as he slams Ed Richard, then Voinovich’s person at the table.

Then to toss some confusion into what the meeting is about, Forbes talks to one of the water department people in the audience, a question seemingly out of nowhere.

“Butch,” says Forbes, “how long you been with the city now?”

He doesn’t wait for a answer. He addresses Richard again: You ain’t going to lay off Butch. I’ll tell you right now…”

Another slight diversion.

Forbes ask an administration person: “Is the mayor there?”

I guess he expected a “no” answer. But it’s “Yes.”

Now in full command, I wrote, Forbes then says, “I don’t want him.”

Call the roll, says the Council President.

“It’s 10 to zip, without a word of protest.”

I wrote: He had stopped on a dime, reversed directions and the dime was standing on end.”

Forbes and Carl Stokes were the principal black politicians as Cleveland changed from an old white ethnic town in the civil rights era. Stokes was still a creature of the rights era.

I remember when Stokes returned to town. I ran into him on the street and he invited to me see the renovation of what would be his new law office. He said to me, “You didn’t think I came back to be a councilman did you?”

I certainly didn’t.

It was also apparent that Stokes still wanted to taste the power he had held. But his time had passed.

He had been eclipsed by George Forbes.

Stokes struck out at Forbes in 1985 with a bitter attack.

“He has turned out to be a foul-mouthed, unregenerated politician of the most despicable sort and I think he ought to be out of office.”

He went on to charge Forbes with helping some with rewards for himself.

It so happened that soon after his attack, Stokes, as chief judge had to appear before Forbes to have the court’s budget approved.

It was a scene made for a TV drama.

I wrote:

Forbes came to the table quietly, looking more stern than usual, a tense frown. There were no words by him to open the meeting.

Forbes then passed over several other budgets to summon Stokes, who had taken a front row seat.

Forbes seemed unusually grave, tense muscles in his forehead revealing his intense unease.

Had this been a year earlier the two might have joked. But to Stokes Forbes was ‘Mr. Chairman.’ To Forbes, Stokes was ‘Sir.’ There were no smiles, no personal words at all.

The evidence of animosity between the two was more in what didn’t happen and what wasn’t said by two old friends.

It was clear that Forbes wanted this man out of his sphere—quickly.

‘Any questions?’ asked Forbes after a reading by (Merce) Cotner of the basic figures of the budget. Then almost immediately, ‘You may leave, sir.’

But there were question from Council members. Then Stokes asked to address the body but it was only to ask for extra bailiffs.

As more questions were asked, Forbes became irritated. “John,” he address a member, “Come on, let’s wind it up.” Gary Kucinich then prolonged it with another question, which Stokes took concise language to answer.

Forbes ended his career by leaving Council to run for mayor. He lost to Michael White. That changed the nature of City Hall politics. White became a different kind of servant to the town’s power people.

Forbes became a part-time professor in addition to his lawyering.

I was surprised when he asked me to address his Baldwin-Wallace political science students. But I went anyway. Twice actually.

At one of the sessions, I brought along a blow-up photo of Forbes grabbing me as he tossed me out of a meeting.

I wasn’t sure what response I’d get from him. But I wasn’t surprised at all at the response.

“Pass it around,” he said and the photo went around the room.

You couldn’t embarrass George. He knows himself.

Back in the dark ages of blogging, I suggested to George Nemeth that ought to be reading an early blogger’s posts and George replied: I don’t have to because you do. That’s how I feel about Matt Taibbi. There is so much I don’t have to read because he does. For instance, before this morning I had no idea who Martin Gurri was. Now I do.

Gurri, Taibbi tells me, is a former CIA analyst and author of the 2014 book: The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium. Writing in Interview with Martin Gurri, “A Short-Term Pessimist and Long-Term Optimist,” Taibbi ledes:

Gurri’s book, which outlines the inherent contradictions between traditional hierarchies of power and the demystifying power of the Internet, is compellingly predictive on a number of levels, but it’s easy to see why some mainstream thinkers might look askance. He says things that are obviously true, but that no one wants to hear, the worst possible combination.

Ask any mainstream media critic—say, Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post—what needs to be done to rebuild trust in news organizations, and the answer might be a combination of, “We need to do ideological litmus tests before conducting interviews” and “We need to boycott Fox News,” without so much as a nod to, “We maybe have to stop screwing up, too.”

In politics, media, financial services, medicine even, there’s an institutional unwillingness to admit that their trust problem might in any way be self-inflicted. A central premise of Gurri’s book is that the public, around the world, is reacting to real institutional shortcomings. He even has a chapter called, “The Failure of Government.” At the same time, he finds some of that failure in the habit of setting expectations too high, deceiving the public into misunderstanding “the reality of what democratic governments can achieve.”

The non-subscriber version of the interview is, of course, abbreviated, but still these two exchanges caught my attention. First:

TK: You referenced the repeat appearance in protest movements of imagery from “V for Vendetta,” a movie that ends with the destruction of the old regime, and everything else will “take care of itself.” Do you think there’s disinterest in the form of future governance among political activists because they’re pessimistic about actually taking power? Or is it optimism: if they overthrow established authority, problems will vanish? Or is it the quasi-ironic/nihilistic spirit of these times, where even the most capable people don’t like to imagine themselves as power-holders? Where in our society are people trained for actual governance?

Gurri: The posture of negation that edges into nihilism is a function of the structure of the public itself. The public in the digital age is many, not one. It’s fractured into mutually hostile war-bands. The only way to unify and mobilize these groups is to emphasize what they stand against: the system, the elites, the established order. Governance would require organization, leadership, programs—but all those things would once again divide the public into its component parts. So the posture remains eternally against. Even when protesters win concessions—as in France with the Yellow Vests, for example—they will not take yes for an answer.

Your last question is a very interesting and troubling one. In the digital age, people are trained to express themselves, to perform in a way that will grow their following, rather than to govern. (Think Donald Trump.) Yuval Levin has written that our institutions were once formative—they shaped the character and discipline of those who joined them—but are now performative, mere platforms for elite self-expression and personal branding. I completely agree. Outside of the military, which still demands a code of conduct from its members, I don’t see where people are trained to govern today.

And second:

TK: You speak in the book of being worried for the future of representative democracy. How much more or less bleak does the picture look now, after four years of Donald Trump? It looks possible that his legacy will be the delegitimization of electoral politics, as traditional hierarchies have almost rallied to something like an authoritarian counterrevolution in response to him. If people have lost faith in authority, have elites also lost faith in the ability of populations to hold up their end of the bargain in democracies?

Gurri: First, I hold that Trump was a symptom — an effect rather than a cause. He possessed an outlandish personality, and that brought its own effects, but one can easily find Trump-like populists all over the world. Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, for example, makes Trump seem like an etiquette book by comparison. Globally, the public is looking for alternatives to the ruling elites, and these populists, by their very outrageousness, are signaling that they are not them.

Second, the elites, as I said before, are stuck in a sterile nostalgia for the 20th century. They are at war with the world as it actually is today, and I imagine they would love to disband the public and summon a more obedient version. Hence the panic about fake news and the tinkering with control over content.

When Trump won in 2016, the elites refused to accept his legitimacy. He was said to be the tool of Vladimir Putin and an aspiring tyrant. When Trump lost in 2020, he and many of his followers refused to accept the legitimacy of that election. A Trumpist mob sacked the Capitol building to demonstrate its rage. None of this is good for democracy or the legitimacy of our political institutions.

But let’s look at the big picture. Trump won in 2016, and, in his inimitable style, ran the US government for four years. He lost in 2020 and moved out of the White House to make room for Joe Biden, just as he was supposed to do. Now Biden is in charge. He gets to run the government. The drama of democracy has generated lots of turbulence but remarkably little violence. The old institutions are battered and maladapted but they have deep roots. The American people may be undergoing a psychotic episode, but they are fundamentally sensible.

That last sentence, that we, the American people, are in the midst of a psychotic episode is chilling. Yet Gurri remains optimistic in the long run. Like John Astin’s Buddy, Gurri expects that we’ll eventually be able to say that we’re Feeling much better now.

Bonus No. 1: Off-road, off-grid: the modern nomads wandering America’s back country.

Bonus No. 2: I generally don’t like Bill Maher; occasionally, however, he’s spot on.

Bonus No. 3: Dogs Can’t Help Falling in Love.

Bonus No. 1: Mail-in voting did not swell turnout or boost Democrats, study finds.

Bonus No. 2: We should all carry a stack of these. They seem really handy.

Bonus No. 3: Top Democrat Jim Clyburn: ‘No way we’d let filibuster deny voting rights.

On Sunday, 2 January 1972, Ralph Joseph Perk became Cleveland’s 52nd mayor and the first Republican to be elected to that office since the second World War. Perk would be remembered for this ribbon cutting, but Roldo Bartimole knew that there were much bigger issues for the new mayor to handle and he got right down to business.

In his 3 January 1972 issue of Point Of Viəw (volume 4, number 13), Roldo, under the headline—Able To Produce $6 Billion In Profits Over Decade, Now Finds Itself Pauper Case. why?—ledes:

Would you believe that an entity that could produce more than $6,000,000,000 in profits, pay out more than $3,000,000,000 and have another $3 billion to invest in capital projects could today be a pauper organization on the verge of bankruptcy?

That that organization could be mired in self pity, spiritually depressed and pitifully disillusioned?

That it could be physically disintegrating?

That its board chairman must tell its work staff that it must endure further employee cuts? And that the chairman cannot find any new resources to keep present operations functioning?

The organization is the Cleveland community.

Cleveland’s financial crisis is as real as Disneyland.

This was a bold move for Roldo. The theme was not a new one for him, but he had not before hit the issue of wealth inequality fostered by Capitalism in the United States so directly. Roldo asked:

If this community and its people can produce such wealth during the past decade, why is it that there is not enough money in the community to pay for even minimum services to protect the health and safety of its citizens?

The short answer is greed, but I have come to believe that the people who produce collect the wealth suffer from a kind of psychological illness akin to that which leads people to become hoarders. Our über wealthy, Roldo’s elites live in a capitalist world where wealth is the only scorecard. They engage in pissing contests where the length of the numbers after the dollar sign are a stand in for the strength of your stream. Their success, their self-worth, is literally their self-worth. Roldo continues:

There is no financial crisis in Cleveland. There is merely a need to distribute the wealth of Cleveland among its people, rather than a handful of wealthy.

Why then is there no revenue to operate the city? And why are the near suburban cities almost in the same position as Cleveland? And why will Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights be in the same position soon?

No reason other than the enormous greed of corporate Cleveland and the leeches that live off the dividends it produces.

And the politicians are all bought, if not directly, indirectly. Perk is no different from his predecessor. Carl Stokes opted for a city payroll tax he knew was inequitable. Perk, instead of seeking a tax increase (so far), demands severe sacrifices primarily from the people least able to afford it.

Further, Perk perpetuates the myth that Cleveland has no money to provide needed services and the solution to the city’s financial needs lie in the direction of service cutbacks and reducing waste. But never, never does the solution lie in making those enjoying the benefits of city services pay the bill.

The classic response is, of course: If you raise the cost of doing business in a community by raising taxes, at some point the wealthy will just move. America was not quite there in 1972, but it very soon would be. This is the argument that has pitted community against community, state against state and, ultimately nation against nation as multinational corporations threaten to take their business (and their jobs) elsewhere.

This continues today with businesses abandoning communities in search of tax breaks. Perhaps the most egregious examples came in 2017 under the ludicrous Make America Great Again era of defeated President Donald John Trump with faux bidding wars among communities started by Amazon and Foxconn’s $3 billion con of Minnesota. “People,” Roldo wrote, “are getting angry.” He continues:

The pressure is so severe that even David Rockefeller, chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, has felt the need to speak about it at the Advertising Council dinner recently and his talk was partially reprinted in the Wall Street Journal:

Considering the seriousness and growing prevalence in some quarters of this (anti-business) attitude, it seems to me that businessmen have no choice but to respond by becoming reformers themselves, making a conscious effort to adapt the operation to the market system to our changing social, political and technological environment.

The question really comes down to this: Will business leaders seize the initiative to make the necessary changes and to take on new responsibilities voluntarily, or will they wait until these are thrust upon them by law?

Rockefeller isn’t talking about real change, of course, but rather a need by business—a need by Capitalism—to throw a sufficient heap of scraps to the people making the most noise so as to quiet the barking and, in so doing, stave off the tumbrels. Rockefeller continues:

Because of the growing pressure for greater corporate accountability I can foresee the day when, in addition to the financial statement, certified by independent accountants, corporations may be required to publish a ‘social audit’ similarly certified. In anticipation of this, businesses should seek ways of reflecting in their accounting procedures their concern for the less tangible elements of the quality of life.

In the midst of our current pandemic, I wonder if Rockefeller would have had the balls to call out the insane profits of Amazon and Jeff Bezos’ mountain of wealth? Under the tag Money-Makers, Roldo lists the profits and cash dividends of the worst offenders: Cleveland’s wealthiest corporations. The top ten on the list were:

Cleveland's 10-Wealthiest Corporations in 1971

In total, the 50, Cleveland-based, corporations raked in $6,194,490,000 and paid cash dividends of $3,199,890,000.

In a brief notice under THE CLEVELAND PAPERS, Roldo writes:

A set of papers dealing with the Cleveland power structure is now available for $1.50. It examines Cleveland’s ruling class as it relates to various problem areas, including health, consumer affairs, housing, pollution, politics and the job place.

The Papers are produced by The Illuminating Company, a radical Cleveland research group.

The book is well worth the price and could serve as the basis for a class on power structure operations.

While there are no authors listed on the document, I do know that in addition to Roldo, Barbara Ehrenreich wrote at least one part of the report. The table of contents lists:

1. The Business Oligarchy;
2. Foundations—Tools Of The Oligarchy;
3. Cleveland’s Medial Empire;
4. Housing;
5. Consumer Concerns—Who’s Responsible;
6. Taxes: No Robin Hood For The Poor;
7. The Fouled Environment; and
8. Workplace Oppression.

When the 25th Street Bookstore closed I acquired a number of copies of the document and I still have two copies left for anyone who thinks $5 is not too much to pay for a bit of Cleveland history. (A steal at that price since A. I may be in possession of the only surplus issues on the planet and B. Adjusted for inflation, $1.50 would be $9.59 in 2021 prices.) If you’re interested, let me know in the comment section below.

In his 17 January 1971 issue of Point Of Viəw (volume 4, number 14), Roldo followed on on the general case of rapacious greed by Cleveland’s corporate elites made in the previous issue and devotes the issue to a very specific tax-money grab: the insane scheme to build a jetport on Lake Erie. This would prove to be the first in a long list of such raids on public coffers—including a billion-dollar bridge to Canada. Roldo, writing in Jetport In Lake A Corporate Profit Scheme. So, Don’t Do It In The Lake—Or Anywhere, ledes:

The ability of one group to set priorities for a community enables that sector to derive enormous unearned profits. The Greater Cleveland Growth Association, fronting for corporate interests, has pushed to the front of the community priority list its plan for a Jetport in Lake Erie.

The Jetport scheme would make someone of the Jesse James mentality drool. It has all the profit potentials that evidence the monumental greed and selfishness typical of corporate leadership of any city.

The 200-plus page proposal, called a ‘prefeasibility technical report,’ outlines one of the largest ripoffs this community will ever be left paying for.

I wonder how Roldo might compare this ripoff to those that would follow in the decades to come including Gateway, Tower City, The Galleria, The Flats, The Rock Hall (with its attending rapid service). Roldo continues:

As usual, the scheme was paid for by tax-free foundation funds, $50,000 from Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund, routed through the Cleveland Development Fund, which has done more to divert public funds into private hands than any one agency I know. CDF has been a major business, tax-free front used to fund studies that result in private profit via the use of massive public tax funds.

By spending no more than pennies of its own, the Cleveland corporate community wants a billion dollar creation, supplemented by about another billion dollars in transportation feeder facilities, that will become the foundation for private profits of billions for rich corporations.

I have been known to say that you don’t get rich by making money, you get rich by not spending money. What I normally mean is that buying bigger houses and cars tends to make you poorer, but what Roldo is writing about here is my advice on steroids: getting richer by spending other people’s money. Roldo continues:

But by all means placing the true cost where it belongs should be avoided at all costs as the Growth Association suggests:

The Jetport must be an economically sound product and NOT SUBJECT THE AIRLINE CARRIERS TO UNFEASIBLE INVESTMENTS AND COSTS. [Roldo’s emphasis.]

In other words, you build a billion dollar facility for their business but make sure they have to finance it. How about the taxpayer and his or her unfeasible investments and costs?

The Growth Association plan explains that revenue bonds will be used to finance local commitments where possible. But this too is a tax. For example, toll charges or special taxes to pay off revenue bonds typically continue years after the reason for them has been paid. [Emphasis mine, JH] The New York Port Authority is a good example of the misuse of such powers.

I doubt that even Roldo foresaw how this theme would consume his reporting over the next four decades. Much deeper in his piece I was struck by the following paragraph. Roldo continues:

The intention that the construction of a Jetport would be good for the ecology of the region [Emphasis mine, JH] received wide coverage in the news media.

The rationale was as perverse and twisted as you might imagine. You have to read the whole sordid explanation to appreciate how pathological these people were.

Speaking of pathological, finally in the issue, Roldo returns to the Cleveland Police Department in Leisman Case Shows Perk, As Stokes, To Allow Police To Rampage With News Media Covering Up. He writes:

An officer couldn’t have a worse record of misbehavior than [Cleveland Police Lieutenant Harry] Leisman and still remain on the police force.

Mayor Ralph Perk has continued the practice of coddling a man who seems to have made a habit of shooting people. Wherever he goes, people turn up dead.

Perk, who pleaded that he wants a clean administration and doesn’t want a ‘bad’ cop on the force, moved to cooperate with Leisman by not suspending him but granting a leave of absence after Leisman’s latest shoot ’em up.

This one, Christmas eve, left a trail of blood on the West Side and two dead, one a 10-year old boy who was watching TV and the other a 25-year old woman. A bar room dispute set off the gun battle. Leisman used a stolen M-14 in his wild one-man charge of the bar.

What was a cop doing with an M-14? Good question. Roldo continues:

If the news media had any concern for the community, or any desire to show their concern for justice they wouldn’t be handling the whole Leisman story as they have.

What the media are doing is boxing themselves in purposefully by dredging up conflicting stories so that they will not have to take a stand.

They have reported Leisman with a shotgun, with a rifle, with nothing, with an M-14 handed to him by a mysterious ‘someone.’

All this is the product of a form of journalism that allows the journalist to escape any responsibility and thus allows the cop to escape responsibility too.

The reporter works hand in hand with the cops who traditionally shield one of their own.

Police reporters at the [Cleveland] Press and Plain Dealer know Harry Leisman much better than I do. They know his reputation. They can quote first hand to show exactly what he is. But they won’t. Frankly, they can take the blame, as much as Leisman, for the death of the 10-year old.

And oh. Did you think I was over the top using the word pathological above? I wasn’t. Roldo continues:

Probably most damaging are the results of a psychological test which concludes that Leisman is psychologically unfit to be a policeman.

Roldo concludes by doxing the mayor.

Perk’s home number is 883-3866 or at work 694-2000. He ought to hear from people who feel that cops who kill 10-year olds through negligence don’t make good employees.

Sadly, I think any reasonable person might draw a line directly from Harry Leisman to Timothy Loehmann.

See here for a bibliography of books and other materials mentioned in this series.

Previously while Readin’ Roldo…

President Joseph Robinette Biden sits in the oval office and all is wrong in the world. Don’t get me wrong. I am pleased that Donald John Trump is away—for now—from Washington, but we have no reason to celebrate the election of Biden and Kamala Devi Harris to our two highest offices. If we lose ourselves in celebration and look away we will have nothing left.

Glenn Greenwald, writing in As the Insurrection Narrative Crumbles, Democrats Cling to it More Desperately Than Ever, shreds the myth, and ledes:

Twice in the last six weeks, warnings were issued about imminent, grave threats to public safety posed by the same type of right-wing extremists who rioted at the Capitol on January 6. And both times, these warnings ushered in severe security measures only to prove utterly baseless.

First we had the hysteria over the violence we were told was likely to occur at numerous state capitols on Inauguration Day. “Law enforcement and state officials are on high alert for potentially violent protests in the lead-up to Inauguration Day, with some state capitols boarded up and others temporarily closed ahead of Wednesday’s ceremony,” announced CNN. In an even scarier formulation, NPR intoned that “the FBI is warning of protests and potential violence in all 50 state capitals ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.”

The resulting clampdowns were as extreme as the dire warnings. Washington, D.C. was militarized more than at any point since the 9/11 attack. The military was highly visible on the streets. And, described The Washington Post, “state capitols nationwide locked down, with windows boarded up, National Guard troops deployed and states of emergency preemptively declared as authorities braced for potential violence Sunday mimicking the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of pro-Trump rioters.” All of this, said the paper, “reflected the anxious state of the country ahead of planned demonstrations.”

But none of that happened—not even close.

The hysteria, however, worked. Greenwald continues:

The argument… is that the threat was being deliberately inflated and exaggerated, and fears stoked and exploited, both for political gain and to justify the placement of more and more powers in the hands of the state in the name of stopping these threats. That is the core formula of authoritarianism—to place the population in a state of such acute fear that it acquiesces to any assertion of power which security state agencies and politicians demand and which they insist are necessary to keep everyone safe.

Safe and quacking in their boots, because the crazies are coming for their pearls.

Bonus No. 1:

This morning while reading the ever excellent North Royalton Post, I came across a letter-to-the-editor from Scott Jeppesen of Medina, Ohio with the headline: Another brilliant decision made by the leftist. While I read the letters daily, I rarely respond. In this particular case, however, I thought I might a thought of value to Mr. Jeppesen. I wrote:

This is in response to a letter-to-the-editor under the headline: Another brilliant decision made by the leftist in this morning’s Post.

In response to Mr. Jeppesen’s letter yesterday, I would note that education, like so much in life, is a numbers game. The population of China in 2019 is estimated to have been about 1.4 billion. In the same year the United States population was only around 0.39 billion: a ratio of 1.4 to 0.39 or approximately 3.6 Chinese for every American.

Those numbers are generalized. Distributions for age, sex, &c. will show different ratios, but the general number works for this illustration. Imagine for a moment an American Dream Team in any sport you might wish to assemble and then imagine that team facing a Chinese Dream Team with 3.6 more players—five American basketballers facing 18 Chinese basketballers, for instance. Just where are you going to bet your mortgage?

We are in the same place educationally. For every top student we graduate from an elite university, the Chinese are graduating at least 3.6 top students.

In addition, the Chinese are not so ignorant as to base their educational system on local property taxes or a family’s ability to pay. For them education is a national priority with national goals and national funding.

Anything else is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

I’ve included a link in the letter to see if Mr. Jeppesen wants to continue the conversation

Bonus No. 1: Pest Control Takes On Trump 2024.

When Cuyahoga County dipped into its general fund on Jan. 15 to pay a $6.1 million bond debt on a 25-year old debt related to the Cavs’ basketball arena the payments crossed the $165-million mark in total. It has two more annual payment to make.

Over the years I have encouraged reporters to tell this story to little avail.

Once the Plain Dealer gave it a good headline. But that was years ago.

One guesses they don’t want to remind the public of the ongoing robbery.

This $165 million in public money hardly gets noticed by a slew of journalist in this town. It’s not on their scoreboard.

It is on mine.

And I’m accused of spending too much time, too much typing telling that story.

I plead guilty.

You won’t have to read this much longer. None of us lives forever.

But as long as I do, I’m going to remind all.

And I’ve found another way these multi-millionaire and billionaires who own sports franchise profit. They’re major league scofflaws.

That $165 million should have been paid by Dan Gilbert, a healthy billionaire owner of the Cavs, who uses the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse to advertise his business. The team owners absconded with the naming rights that originally went to the Gateway Economic Development Corp. Gilbert is listed as a $49.6 billion man.

What’s interesting is if he’s saving that $165 million, it’s money that isn’t taxable. So he’s relieved also of a tax burden, as he is with all the benefits he gets of an arena built essentially for him and his players.

Millionaires and billionaires on public welfare. Where is Republican outrage? Where is the news media outrage at this corruption?

The GREED here is massive. It cannot be allowed to be extended and continued.

We are entering an election year. Can we expect more from the Plain Dealer and television than repetition of what candidates send out about themselves?

Do you already get the sense that the Cleveland power establishment has anointed Justin Bibb to be the next Cleveland mayor?

I’m not impressed with the young, vibrant Mr. Bibb.

But his fund-raising is impressive. Especially for an unknown. He’s raised some $170,000 early on.

He makes certain claims in his preliminary promotion of himself as a neighborhood kind of guy. In a city of neighborhoods.

But he lives downtown, not in a real neighborhood.

We need some straight talk. Both from candidates. And from the news media.

Cleveland, everyone knows, has severe problem. Yes, it has valuable assets.

It’s past wealth has left us with incredible legacies—from the theaters at Playhouse Square to the Cleveland Art Museum and many others.

But they cannot sustain families in poverty.

I tried to show the power interests here have been so successful as to heighten inequality.

It gets revealed also if you Google Cleveland and come up with some of the following bad news of our city:

Cleveland comes in at No. 5 on 24/7 Wall St.’s 2018 list of the “Worst Cities to Live In.” The list is based on “quality of life” factors such as home value, air quality, infrastructure, poverty rate, education, crime and other things. Cleveland ranks behind only Memphis, St. Louis, Flint, Mich.

Cleveland had the highest poverty rate among large U.S. cities in 2019, overtaking Detroit, according to data released by the U.S. Census bureau last week. More than 6,500 of those adults in poverty in Cleveland worked full-time for the full year.

Cleveland is the 5th-fastest shrinking large city in the US, according to new study. The city’s population is now down to just over 380,000. —August 22, 2020

[Cleveland is] one of the poorest cities in the country. Cleveland’s 35 [percent] poverty rate is more than double the U.S. poverty rate and higher than that of all but one other city in the state… The city is also dangerous. There were 1,633 violent crimes in the city for every 100,000 residents in 2016. —June 19, 2018

It has to be taken seriously now. It cannot wait.

It will erupt again.

Bonus No. 1: Don’t we all…

Bonus No. 2: Got Guillotines?

Bonus No. 3: Yeah, we passed Stage 4 months ago and don’t even think about Stage 5.

Bonus No. 1: The Biden Administration Takes on the Big Issues.

Bonus No. 2: The Imperfectionist—No such thing as a fresh start.

Bonus No. 3: Don’t Hate Rush Limbaugh. Copy Him.

Bonus No. 4: Biden Offers Moderate Solutions to Radical Problems.

Bonus No. 5: It’s Not That Biden Is Too Slow. It’s That He’s Going Too Small.

Since before I arrived in Cleveland in November 1984, a common theme of Roldo Bartimole’s Point Of Viəw has been the robbery of Cleveland tax dollars by billionaire owners of Cleveland’s sports franchises: the Indians, Browns and Cavaliers. While taxes have risen in the city and Cuyahoga County, the team owners have avoided all, or nearly all, of the burden.

I’ve known sports’ fans, enamored with their teams who wished Roldo would just stop repeating the same old story that the Indians, or the Browns, or the Cavaliers were getting a pass on taxes. They didn’t care because their team distracted them from the money flowing out of their pockets, out of Cleveland, our of Cuyahoga County and out of Ohio to benefit people who needed their own teams of accountants to keep track of their wealth.

Well, Roldo kept at the story year and after year and he’s still pounding away and river of cash is going elsewhere. In an opinion piece for Crain’s Cleveland Business—Do we need a council committee on inequality?—Roldo ledes:

On Jan. 15, Cuyahoga County paid $6,145,133 on bonds owed for the Rocket Mortgage Field House, according to an e-mail response from a county official.

The bonds relate to overruns on the arena built in 1990s, almost three decades ago. There are two annual payments remaining.

The county had to pay the full amount, In past years, the city’s admissions tax paid the larger portion. Due to the pandemic, admission taxes revenue was unavailable.

So, how much money is Roldo talking about here? Roldo writes:

Some years ago, I asked the county to provide information on the property values and the lost income of the three sports facilities for the Browns, Indians and Cavaliers.

The response revealed the cost in lost tax revenue:

The Browns stadium, now First Energy Stadium, should have paid for a two-year period, $16,055,034 on the stadium alone. The city itself actually pays taxes on the land.

The arena, now Rocket Mortgage Field House, should have paid $7,582,482 for the same two-year period.

And Progressive Field, where the Indians play, should have paid $9,700,620 for that same two-year period.

That’s a total of $33,338,136.

Did you get a personal thank you from billionaires James Arthur Haslam III, Paul Joseph Dolan or Daniel Gilbert?

Me neither.

I began to follow Baratunde Rafiq Thurston after listening to one of his How To Citizen podcasts last August. (I was fascinated to discover this morning that I actually first heard of Baratunde way back in 2012! and forgot about him.) I think that the very populist Democracy Means People Power, Literally was my first.

This morning he has a few words for the flighty senator from Texas. In A BRIEF STATEMENT Baratunde writes:

Texas Senator Ted Cruz was born in Canada. This week he fled to Mexico. But he’s spent most of the past four years living inside his own ass, making a mockery of the U.S. principle of divided government, rule of law, and basic human decency. It’s fitting that a cowardly human who defended and praised the bully who slandered and insulted both his wife and his father would scramble over the border wall to escape the country he only pretends to serve.

He took a break from his busy summer schedule pre-planning to undermine our democratic elections to tweet insults at the people of California during their suffering. He also voted against Hurricane Sandy relief for the people of New York and New Jersey during their suffering. But he is not alone. Let us save some disdain for those without the name Ted Cruz.

Mitch McConnell — oh he of the partial, self-serving variety of pseudo patriotism who says Donald Trump is responsible for insurrection but not enough to be held accountable for it — just last year stood against COVID relief by referring to the once-in-a-century-pandemic rescue package as a “Blue State Bailout.” It’s blue states that have been bailing out Kentucky for his entire time in the Senate, but don’t let facts get in the way of a good opportunity to weaken our democracy.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, I have no patience for these so-called leaders or much of this Republican Party. They have stood against the people in the pandemic, during fires, and in the ice. Too many of them sided with violent insurrectionists and failed to hold their chief inciter accountable. As far as I’m concerned, they can all go to Mexico, if that nation will even have them, and return when they’ve decided to actually support the United States of America.

But, but but… ‘Merica!

Bonus No. 1: From what I have heard, it’s known as “to read!”

Bonus No. 2: How Rush Limbaugh Paved The Way For Trump.

Bonus No. 3: Mainstream media fawns over a toxic bigot who poisoned our politics.

Bonus No. 4: My favorite Cruz-Family Moment.

Bonus No. 5: What Donald John Trump is endlessly looping in Mar-a-Lago.

Bonus No. 6: And finally, one for Roldo—The Heart of Cleveland.

The most vital lesson I have learned from reading the first four years of Roldo Bartimole’s Point Of Viəw—I’m still reading—is that time and time again, across more than 60 years, Roldo has told us what would happen if we allowed elites to run roughshod over Cleveland and he’s invariably been right. We keep believing that elected officials will make a difference.

The truth is that they’re in on the scam. We are the only force for change. Seven years ago, back on 29 March 2014, Roldo Bartimole wrote:

Can we see into the future?

Sure we can.

When County Executive Ed FitzGerald indebted Cuyahoga County residents to build a $270 million, 600-room hotel, a reasonable person would tell you that he put taxpayers in a perilous position.

I said it then. I believe it now.

The hotel, to be constructed where the Cuyahoga County administration building once stood indebts taxpayers with financing a hotel. It also required the County to move its offices.

The heavy financing comes at a time when the County pols are asking voters to authorize another $290 million for sports stadiums, for expensive riverfront and lakefront subsidies and a costly Public Square revamping.

Do they believe everyone’s pockets are overflowing with excess money?

Do they understand that much of Cleveland suffers from a poverty of income and spirit?

Yesterday, in Cuyahoga County, in “Worst Case Scenario,” Bails Out Downtown Hilton Once Again with $15 Million, Sam Allard wrote:

In accordance with the “worst case scenario” projections of budget analysts, Cuyahoga County will bail out the Hilton downtown Cleveland hotel with an infusion of nearly $15 million.

This payment—which has been approved by county council, and which officials have hastened to underscore is contractually obligated—will cover mostly debt service and taxes that the hotel chain claims it cannot afford due to low occupancy rates.

After a $7.9 million bailout last year, the total amount contributed by county taxpayers to the hotel is nearly $22 million, more than double the county’s total contributions toward Covid rental relief and small business grants.

What a disgrace.

It does not matter who is mayor or county executive. It only matters that the elites of Cleveland—from Marcus Alonzo Hanna forward—hold power and wealth in their greedy little hands and continue to fuck the people of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County for their own amusement and continued riches.

Who don’t mean shit. What matters.

Bonus No. 1: The Press is godless. We don’t have any bibles. Oh, that’s right…

Bonus No. 2: The solution dear Pig, is, always is, leave nowhere and be now here.

Bonus No.3: It’s all fun and games until 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14.

The pace of the 2021 Mayor election has started to quicken early.

But the spotlight thus far is on the wrong subject.

It shouldn’t be on the potential candidates, many as there are.

This will be—or should be—a change election.

It should not necessarily be WHO but WHAT.

We have had in Cleveland nearly two decades of political drift.

It’s a city that can’t afford any more.

Two decades of paying little attention to the many or their dire needs.

But, more important, too much attention to the needs of the high income population and its desires.

It’s not help the needy. But support our civic takers.

What do I mean?

If you read or listen to the news carefully you will get the message that Cleveland’s vitality is its downtown.

And if you ask where public funds flow, it would be the same answer: downtown.

It is the massive financing of the three major league sports teams via taxes that, unfortunately, are taken regressively from the many. But they go to the few: the multi-millionaire and billionaire owners and the multi-millionaire players.

Hardly fair. The need for economic justice is dire. But missing.

Similarly true Is the subsidy flow to downtown developers, Playhouse Square, hotel construction, supported to some extent by property tax forgiving and numerous special fund—city, county and state and federal.

This is all SOLD to the public by a fawning news media. They consider all these “advances” as proper and positive. And do so without weighing the cost and who pays it.

There is little or no questioning of priorities.

So we need a community debate on such matters.

We are not likely to get it from any single candidate.

It needs to be forced onto the Public Agenda.

How does this happen?

Only by the interests of citizens not running for mayor or backing a specific candidate. They must participate.

It’s a very tough road.

Especially since the record is that the public (voters) are not interested or have been turn off by their experience.

What they do or want doesn’t seem to matter.

How do you turn this around?

You have to offer hope. You do that by establishing a test.

Much of what has been done—financing sports, tax abatements, opening Chagrin Highlands to development—can’t be undone at this point.

There’s one new gimmick that needs to go.

Every candidate should be asked whether he or she supports the 30-year, atop a 30-year TIF. It’s a form of tax abatement.

[Tax Increment Financing is far from a new subject for Roldo. JH]

City Council recently bestowed the extension for development on the East Bank of the Cuyahoga. The development has been ongoing for some time by the Wolstein Group.

It’s a familiar story.

A 30-year TIF atop a 30-year TIF suggests that all the Council members who voted the subsidy won’t be here when it concludes. Sixty years of tax break in all. Only two Council members gave it a thumbs down —Jenny Spencer, relatively new, and Brian Kazy.

The Flats project already has other incentives and comes when interest rates are historically low.

Further, do we need more restaurants? Financed with public funds?

The other factor that doesn’t seem ever to be examined: How will subsidized business here effect other ongoing businesses already impacted by the general economy and especially by the pandemic.

It would be advisable that mayoral candidates be asked to pledge not to use the 30-year TIF extension, voted by the Republican state legislature.

Why are Democrats in economically damaged cities playing the card handed to them by Republican Corporate (and Corrupt) state legislators?

A reader forwarded the above image–mouse over for the enlargement—to me and suggested that I focus on the return address:

Joseph G.Tegreene
1228 Euclid Avenue #816
Cleveland Ohio 44115

Tegreene, the treasurer of the Reëlect Mayor Kucinich Committee, is a long-time friend and supporter of Dennis John Kucinich. He served as Financial Director during Kucinich’s single term as the 53rd mayor of Cleveland.

Roldo Bartimole mentioned Tegreene in his Point Of Viəw no less than 21 times—including three Scrooge Awards¹—beginning with: Volume 10, Number 15; Volume 10, Number 20; Volume 11, Number 4; Volume 11, Number 8; Volume 11, Number 10; Volume 11, Number 11; Volume 11, Number 19; Volume 11, Number 23; Volume 12, Number 19; Volume 14, Number 13; Volume 14, Number 14; Volume 14, Number 16; Volume 15, Number 11; Volume 16, Number 1; Volume 16, Number 11; Volume 16, Number 22; Volume 17, Number 8; Volume 17, Number 14; Volume 17, Number 20; Volume 19, Number 2; and, finally? Volume 28, Number 4.

Roldo mentioned Kucinich, of course, many more times—192 by my count—in POV beginning in Volume 2, Number 3 published on 22 June 1970.

Kucinich’s public career began with his election to Cleveland City Council from the 12th Ward in 1970. He last won an election—to the U.S. House of Representatives—in 2010. He ran twice, and lost, for the Democratic Party nomination to president in 2004 and 2008 while serving in Congress. He lost his reëlection bid to the House in 2012 and a run for Governor of Ohio in 2018.

I expect that his opponents will make more of what Kucinich did between his terms in public office than his elected accomplishments. I don’t have great expectations for his chances to be finally reëlected mayor of Cleveland in 2021.

[Update at 1700 on 17 February: Roldo has weighed in on the mayoral race.]

1. Tegreene recieved three Scrooge Awards: A pawnbroker. (1978); A telescope to watch city hall from his office in the Board of Education building. (1982) and Ambition stripes he can wear on his sleeves (1983)

Early in the most recent Pandemic, a friend commented that the virus came out of nowhere. When I told her that scientists have been warning us about the coming pandemics for decades, she asked why did you ever hear anything about it. I told her that she didn’t hear about it because it was not in the interest of the One Percent to do so.

We are literally setting up greed to kill us all. Humanity is acting like a virus that threatens all life on our planet—Global Warming is the biggest threat—and Nature, acting in self defense, is doing everything possible to stop us. This is the case that John Oliver makes in his first show for 2021. He could have talked about the current pandemic, but he chose to talk about the next one.

I’m a frequent caller to WCPN’s Sound of Ideas, and in a recent show on our pandemic, I asked the panel what were we doing about the next pandemic? They jumped on the question, recognizing that they had a narrow window to convince the population that the question was not if there would be another pandemic, but rather how much time did we have before we took another, quite possibly far more deadlier—as is the pattern—hit from Mother Nature.

There is a military proverb that suggests generals are always preparing to fight the previous war—think The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell—and scientists are warning us that the people who profited from this pandemic are not all that interested in preventing, or at least reducing the effect of, the monster on the horizon.

While the One Percent may escape on Elon Musk’s rockets, the rest of us face a different outcome is not quite so cushy.

We are so fucked.

Bonus No. 1: For now: Full Last Week Tonight With John Oliver 2/14/21