By The River

Anyone who knows me knows I have a morbid fascination with Erik Prince and Blackwater. Prince and I are from the same hometown, Holland, Michigan. His father, Edgar Prince, made his fortune in auto parts and when he died, young Erik used that money to found Blackwater, the private security firm now known as XE that got in trouble over killing civilians in Iraq. Edgar Prince did a lot of good for Holland, but also was instrumental in funding the rise of the Christian fundamentalist right at the national level.

I always wondered how much money the Prince family had after Edgar died in 1995. Prince Corp. was sold to Johnson Controls in 1996. Thanks to some unexpected Google serendipity, we now have a snapshot from 10 years ago or so: $100 million. I know that because the New York Times reported tonight that Erik Prince was in talks to sell Blackwater/XE to a group of investors that included one Jason DeYonker, who “managed the Prince family’s money from 1998 to 2002.”

I was curious whether the Dutch name DeYonker meant that he was also from Holland, Michigan. So I did a Google search and came up with a page from Forte Management, a private wealth management firm in New York City and Los Angeles where Jason DeYonker was a partner. The firm boasted on its web page that Jason DeYonker, “co-managed a +$100 million family office” before joining Forte Management. So no later than 2002, the Prince family had a fortune of at least $100 million. And that was just before the start of the Iraq War and the huge contracts Blackwater received to provide security for State Department personnel.

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Henry Hudson, a Virginia federal judge appointed by the execrable George W. Bush, ruled today that the the section of Obama’s national healthcare act requiring people to buy health insurance is unconstitutional, supposedly because Congress cannot “regulate inactivity,” i.e., make you do something that you don’t want to do.

Man, I wish I’d known that during the Vietnam War, when the draft hung over my head for several years. Draft board, I would have said, I don’t want to fight in Vietnam and you can’t make me. BwaHaHaHaHa!

Hudson’s ruling is getting far too much attention. Barely any attention was paid to the two federal judges, one in Virginia and one in Michigan, who have already ruled the same provision of the healthcare law constitutional. If you’re keeping score, it’s Obama 2, Republicans 1.

Hudson is a classic hardline prosecutor who likes locking people up a little too much. He was also director of the U.S. Marshals Service during the infamous Ruby Ridge assault in Idaho that left two members of the Weaver family dead. Hudson was previously best known as a judge for locking up football player Michael Vick on dog fighting charges.

Congress requiring people to buy health insurance is substantively no different than state legislatures requiring you to buy auto insurance, or banks requiring you to purchase fire insurance if you have a mortgage from them.

There will always be people who think they’re lucky and resent the money they have to pay out for insurance. If their luck fails, few of them have the resources to make good the losses on their own. The result? You lose your car–or worse–because an uninsured driver can’t pay to replace your totaled car. A bank suffers a $300,000 loss when an uninsured house burns to the ground. And physicians, hospitals, and society at large must bear the cost of millions of dollars of care for uninsured. Or they are allowed to die, and their families are left destitute. Yes, it does happen.

Does anyone think these are good situations?

The Republicans don’t really care if you have to buy insurance. That’s just a fig leaf for their true concern, that businesses will have to buy insurance for their employees or pay a penalty to the federal government. Because everything the Republicans do these days is about making the rich richer, and if you have to be poorer or sicker to make that happen, tough luck for you.

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Sitting in the audience at the Harrisburg Fire Bureau budget hearing last night was like sitting with the Greek chorus in some ancient classical drama. I’m talking, of course, about the many city firefighters at the hearing. They whispered and murmured as the city budget director and their own fire chief, Robert Tailloni, made the case for closing the Paxton Fire Station, laying off nine firefighters, and not filling the vacant positions of 11 others.

Tailloni argued that Paxton ought to be closed because, among other alleged failings, it is located on busy, one-way Second Street and the trucks can’t make a right turn out of the station.

“I have,” whispered a firefighter sitting behind me. “I have,” said another. Councilwoman Wanda Williams said if they don’t make right turns onto Second in emergency situations, they sure ought to.

During a break in the action, one guy came over and regaled his buddies with an overheard exchange between a firefighter and Bob Kroboth, the city budget director. “Where’s the fire chief?” Kroboth said. “I thought YOU were the chief,” the firefighter rejoined sarcastically.

Tailloni raised a new issue about the Paxton Station, claiming that its basement, which became a swimming pool during floods, had been filled with fly ash from the city incinerator at some point in the past. Fly ash is now known to be a carcinogen, and a bad one. He said a health study ought to be done of cancers among firefighters stationed there.

The Greek chorus went into action, whispering skepticism about the story and noting that in any case, the ash was covered by a thick layer of concrete.

Damn those unions. They never stay on message and are always coming up with inconvenient facts.

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“I haven’t heard any Shipoke residents complain about the [Paxton fire] station closing,” said Harrisburg City Council vice president Patty Kim at the Fire Bureau budget hearing last night.

It was one of those Huh? WTF moments. Councilman Brad Koplinski looked over at me and shrugged. Perhaps Councilwoman Kim didn’t hear of the petitions we are circulating, or our Facebook page in support of the Paxton Station.

I was at the budget hearing tonight for the Harrisburg Fire Bureau, concerned about Mayor Linda Thompson’s payback proposal to close the Paxton Fire Station, just a couple of blocks from my Shipoke neighborhood and serving us, South Harrisburg, and Downtown, including all the highrise apartment buildings that more often than not are elderly housing. People in my neighborhood have talked of little else since Thompson announced massive cuts in the fire budget, including the closing of our station, to help close a yawning budget deficit. We’ve had enough bad fires in our neighborhood that we know the importance of the Paxton Station and the firefighters who man it.

I went to the microphone during the citizens’s portion of the meeting and identified myself as a 21-year resident of Shipoke. Looking straight at Kim, I said there seemed to be confusion about Shipoke’s attitude toward closing the station (Councilman Kelly Summerford also claimed two Shipoke residents called him to say they would support closure if someone would just explain why it was happening). I told council that even if 100 percent of Shipoke didn’t oppose closing the station, it was “pretty darn close” to 100 percent. Note to self: your Midwestern roots are showing.

I thought Patty might take the opportunity to make a face-saving comment, but she sat there in stony silence. Perhaps she was contemplating the large number of votes she has gotten from Shipoke residents in the past, and how those might all disappear the next time she runs for office if she votes to close the Paxton Station. I hope so anyway.

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Harrisburg Paid Firefighters Union president Eric Jenkins held a press conference today to denounce Mayor Linda Thompson’s plan to close the Shipoke fire station at Second and Vine Streets (a.k.a., the Paxton Station) and lay off an undetermined number of firefighters. Jenkins talked about many things, but the link here goes to a dramatic moment when he rebutted Thompson’s claim that she “inherited this mess” from former Mayor Stephen R. Reed.

Jenkins produces documents showing the Thompson was part and parcel of the creation of the city’s financial mess and says her plans will endanger the residents of Shipoke and Downtown and South Harrisburg, including four public housing projects. Outside of this clip, he said closing the Shipoke fire station could raise fire insurance rates for all city homeowners by as much as 2-10 percent PER MONTH while generating a tiny amount of savings in the city budget.

While Jenkins is black, as is Thompson, most of the fire union members who appeared with him today were white. Given the mayor’s antipathy toward whites, is it any surprise she has attacked the union with a vengeance?

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