ArcaMax

From the Lowdown's "Early Political Warning System" comes this Code Red alert (BRRAAAPP) ... a fast-moving front of corporate corruption is sweeping westward from the White House ... (BRRAAAPP) ... Residents are urged to seek higher ethical ground immediately ... (BRRRAAAPP).

This is not a test, but a warning of an unnatural disaster: A plutocratic cabal of corporate elites is aiming to gut and eventually eliminate America's National Weather Service! Yes, that's the extensive network of scientific analysts, monitoring systems, researchers, emergency responders, and others trying to anticipate, prepare for, and protect us from the worst of storms, floods, wildfires and other calamities.

In the name of "efficiency," Republican politicos are now defunding and cancelling essential storm warning centers, hurricane monitoring staffs and flood rescue teams. They're even closing some forecast offices at night (as though bad weather checks out at sunset). Why?

Greed. Wall Street profiteers -- including President Donald Trump appointees and political funders -- have long lusted to privatize the weather service. While no one can control the weather, it is possible to control, commodify, and monopolize the collection, interpretation, and distribution of forecasting data. So, Trump Inc. intends to stop providing these functions as a public service for the benefit of all. Instead, weather data would become a corporate profit center, packaged and sold at premium prices to media conglomerates, insurance giants, private resorts, and others who can afford it.

These privatizing profiteers are shameful. They're deliberately demonizing, destaffing and dismantling a public service that is essential to America's common good -- just so they can steal it for their own profit. To rebel against their destructive greed, check out Union of Concerned Scientists: UCS.org

AREN'T MILLION-DOLLAR POLITICAL "DONATIONS" A EUPHEMISM FOR BRIBERY?

To paraphrase British historian Lord Acton: "(Money) tends to corrupt, and absolute (money) corrupts absolutely."

During my time as a Texas elected official, I happened to witness an almost vaudevillian performance of Lord Acton's axiom on the floor of our state senate. A multimillionaire named Bo Pilgrim, baron of a factory chicken empire called Pilgrim's Pride, had come to the Capitol to speak against a bill requiring corporations like his to provide decent workers' compensation benefits. Bo didn't speak in words, however -- he simply walked onto the senate floor and brazenly handed out $10,000 checks to compliant senators.

Today, corporate political money doesn't just talk, it screams -- drowning out the voices of all who oppose the special favors the corrupt "donors" buy. And these days, a $10,000 check is considered almost charming in its innocence.

Take Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a far-right-wing demagogic politico who prides himself on demonizing and directly harming poor and powerless people, while scooping up fantastic donations from the financial powers he serves. This year, after railroading a slew of corporate gimmies into law, Abbott cashed in. Last month alone, he pocketed four million-dollar checks -- one each from a real estate titan, a ruthless pipeline autocrat, a Trump-backing money manager and one of Elon Musk's corporate operatives

Excuse me for speaking out, but this is a gross example of kakistocracy -- government by and for the very worst people in society. If they didn't shower him with cash, even Greg Abbott wouldn't speak to them. It's time to start calling this what the dictionary plainly says it is: bribery.

To find out more about Jim Hightower and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

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