Michael Moore Predicts . . .

For three weeks now, I’ve written a daily missive to you giving you the facts and the truth (as I see it) about our chances to win big in the Midterm elections. The majority of these have been written while I was in bed recovering from Covid-19. It’s hard to write while lying down and typing for hours at a time on a phone. I miss my Blackberry, I miss the beautiful blue screen of WordPerfect. I don’t miss my Commodore 64.  

Two things I’ve noticed from the reaction you all have been sending me: 

1) The majority of you have enthusiastically joined me in my belief that we are going to crush these traitorous coup-supporting Republicans who have stripped women of basic human rights and seek to destroy the rest of a Democracy that is seriously hanging on by a thread; and

2) The rest of you are in full panic attack mode. Instead of believing in my fact-based optimism, you think I might have rose-colored glasses on. You want to believe I’m right, but you’ve bought into the pundit and pollster orgy of “analysis” about how the Republicans are now “surging” and that the country has turned against the Democrats who seem to have happily given us record inflation, rampant crime and trans restrooms in every elementary school. 

“Mike, I hope you’re right, but I’m afraid you’re not” is the line everyone in this second group writes to me.

But the majority of you are fired up and working as hard as you can to get out the vote. You are convinced that we can pull this off. You aren’t “hoping” we win — you are making sure we are going to win. You know the Trumpsters are indeed traitors for staging a violent coup attempt to overturn our 2020 presidential election (while hanging Mike Pence and killing Nancy Pelosi in the process). You know these Republicans won’t stop until Trump is back in the White House. Which would mean the end of the U.S. as we know it. 

I understand the rest of you are scared shitless. Hey — so are we! In the past week, the media has been force-feeding us nonstop hourly reports of the Republicans “pulling ahead,“ and reporting that now the American people are convinced that the Democrats and Joe Biden personally are to blame for the temporarily high gas prices, the outrageous costs of Halloween candy, the Black men (!) who are going to mug you and the starving American babies in need of formula that Biden must be hoarding somewhere. 

These stories are then followed by new polls showing Americans abandoning Democratic candidates and pledging to vote for Republicans who had wrecked the economy under Trump, blundered the response to Covid-19 which left one million Americans dead, and continue to propagate the Big Lie that Trump actually won the election and Joe Biden is not the true president. These same Republicans, who seek to ban all abortion, who want to end same-sex marriage, who supported Trump’s two trillion dollar tax break for the rich — well, according to the press and the pundits, they have an excellent chance to do well on November 8th. 

So I see why you are starting to believe the new Conventional Wisdom. Especially when it is delivered to you by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the PBS Newshour and our friends on MSNBC and CNN. They can’t all be wrong. They mean well. They do important work. 

But we’re a nation now trained not to use the critical thinking lobe in the brain God and/or nature gave us. And so as soon as the Times says, “Voters See Democracy in Peril, but Saving It Isn’t a Priority”, we start to shake, our hearts race, tears well up and we immediately buy the new story — even though I, your humble narrator, have given you 24 big facts, 24 real truths to the contrary — plus singing to you in the middle of the night a Midterm lullaby! — while  providing you a logical roadmap to our midterm Blue Tsunami. 

And then this morning we wake up to this in the Washington Post: 

“Democrats fear the midterm map is slipping away: Polls in both the House and Senate show improvements for Republicans amid economic and crime concerns.” 

Yet, according to an NBC poll also this morning, a slight majority of Americans say they want the Democrats in control of Congress. And I am convinced that, if we all do our work in the next two weeks, we will have that majority in both houses.  

(Photo by Rafa Elias)

So why believe me? The guy in a ballcap with just a high school degree? The guy who tried to warn you in 2016, five months before the election, that Trump was going to win. Most howled and denounced me for stating what to me, living in the Midwest, was sadly obvious. It was like running down the middle of the street with my hair on fire screaming “Bloody murder!” but few would listen. I even made a quick documentary called “Michael Moore in TrumpLand” where I risked my life to try and convince a few hundred Ohio Trump supporters that they could both “not like Hillary AND vote for her!”. I soon realized that that form of complex thinking was not possible for this group of MAGA Americans. Nonetheless, it was the #1 most-watched piece of television on iTunes for eight weeks (“The Walking Dead” was #2). I’d like to think I helped to close the gap ‘cause in the end Trump only won because he got an average of two votes more per precinct than Hillary did in Michigan. Yes, you read that right. Two votes per precinct, two people who just stayed home on Election Day, two people you forgot to remind to vote, two people per precinct who didn’t use iTunes because they liked Vudu instead. 

So I’d like to finish by addressing those of you who are terrorized and depressed because the media has you convinced your fellow Americans are now back on the Trump bandwagon. 

Let’s go over the one main fact that should guarantee the winning of ANY election:

There are more of us than there are of them! By the MILLIONS!

• Democrats have won the popular vote in 7 of the last 8 presidential elections. 

• Amongst 33 states and territories who let you affiliate with a party when you register to vote, there are currently 48 million registered Democrats vs. 36.4 million registered Republicans. 

• There are also 35.3 million registered independents. And a recent WSJ poll has Democrats with a 38%-35% edge over Republicans among independents.

• The vast majority of Americans agree with us on ALL the major issues — legal abortion (62%), climate crisis (75%), minimum wage (62%), paid family leave (70%), legal marijuana (91%), unions (71%), Medicare for all (69%), Equal Rights Amendment for women (78%), mass incarceration, tax the rich (80%), free college (58%), free pre-K+ (71%), stopping voter suppression, LGBTQ+ rights (71%), take money out of politics, more gun control (70%), etc. 

The people are already with us — by a wide margin. So how can we lose?

By failing to get out the vote — a vote that is ours if we want it.

Are we going to let that happen? We can’t just talk about it. We have to DO IT. 

What did each of you do this weekend to guarantee a victorious turnout on November 8th (and to get people out now in the states where early voting is taking place)? If you weren’t able to do anything, may I ask you to do a favor for me? 

There are only 2 weekends left before the election. Will you send me a personal, private email and tell me what you may be able to do and/or aregoing to do in each of these next two weekends to get out the vote? It can be anything! Just drop me a note at mike@michaelmoore.com. If it helps, make this written commitment to me of what you will do in these next 16 days. It can be as simple as reminding your cousin to vote. Or helping your grandma. Or taking five people with you to the polls — and then to lunch or dinner afterward. Sign up with Grassroots Democrats HQ, Democratic Volunteer Center, Democratic National Committee, or Sunrise Movement to do phone banking from home. Or drive to Pennsylvania or Nevada or North Carolina or Ohio for a couple days of door-to-door campaigning. 

But I want you to write me and tell me what you’re going to do. It’s all private. I won’t post anything. I just want to know I’m not doing this by myself!

Some of you have written me to ask “What if you are wrong?” Well, the only way I can be wrong about the Blue Tsunami is that if all of you do nothing. If you want me to suffer that embarrassment(!), then just do nothing to bring out the vote. One person wrote me and asked, “If you are wrong and we lose, will you post an apology?” Ha! How can I apologize for the millions if we fail to do our job? If we lose, it won’t be on me, it’ll be on all of us. So let’s not let that happen. Let’s prove ourselves right! Let’s turn the “hope” of us winning into actual winning! 

It really is this simple. Your small action can make all the difference. It’s a real joy to be doing this with you.

And now let me leave you with this…

“How wonderful it is that nobody needs to wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." 
     
— Anne Frank

An open letter to Michael Moore from Sharon Higgins

Sharon Higgins is a founding member of Parents Across America and is also the author of three major blogs dedicated to both authentic reform and to exposing the criminal masterminds behind the corporate take over of public education. Her indispensable blogs include: The Broad Report, Charter School Scandals, and The Perimeter Primate. Her impeccable research has yielded invaluable information for activists and public education advocates. Whether you need information on a Broadyte recently infecting your school district, the name of one of the charter school executives who embezzled a half a million dollars, or want to read up on the Gulen Movement's insidious control of much of the charter school industry, Higgins has it covered. In An open letter to Michael Moore from Sharon Higgins she makes an appeal to Michael Moore to take up the cause of defending public education from the philanthrocapitalist vultures and their vile hangers on.

Dear Mr. Moore,

I am one of the people who will have the opportunity to see you at your UC Berkeley book event this Saturday night. It's going to be great to hear you speak!

Yesterday, as I listed to your interview on NPR's Talk of the Nation, I was happy to hear how you have considered doing a documentary about the American school system. I'd like to add my voice to the chorus of people who make that request of you everyday.

It's clear that you are aware of some of the devastating issues facing public education, such as the demoralization of teachers. I was impressed that you knew how Finland's success is the result of great policy decisions made years ago (the type of decisions the country continues to ignore). I was very gratified to hear that you did not like Waiting for Superman.

I believe that you are going to get more and more requests to make a documentary about public education. A lot of public school supporters are extremely upset at how public education is being forced to go down the wrong road. We want the truth to be exposed, and will keep turning to you for help.

That alarming truth is that our nation's public education system is in the process of being dismantled and privatized in the name of "education reform." The strategies being used are right out of the disaster capitalism playbook, with both Republicans and Democrats in support of the plan (including President Obama's administration). A wrong-headed, glorified "business model of education" has been shoved down our throats but it's not working. The school reform we've now been subjected to for years is failing!

Opportunists and predators ("edupreneurs") are having a feeding frenzy on the stream of public school funding. School districts spend millions on consultants and useless programs, and then whittle away at teachers, librarians, and electives for kids. Privately-run, publicly-funded, inadequately-monitored charter schools get preferential treatment and the myth of their superiority is constantly parroted. [continues...]

Read the entire story here.

Michael Moore in Wisconsin: America Is Not Broke

"Dead Peasant" Policies, Life Settlements, and Other Evils of Capitalism

I saw Capitalism: A Love Story over the weekend and came away with another layer of understanding of how our former love, with whom we invested so much trust and care throughout our long affair, turned out be the incarnation of evil and generally oppressive despot, despite all of our best efforts to make it work.

So, yes, Virginia, there is still a Santa Claus, but he is not coming to your house anymore unless you are in the top 1 percent of Americans (See chart above, and click it to enlarge: From Center of Policy and Budget Priorities). If you are so lucky as to be in the top 1 percent, Santa needs to remember to have the doorman bring right up all those Neiman-Marcus items you ordered online. Otherwise, they may be taken by the hungry crowds in the street who are starting to circle your building.

Now if you are one of these hungry ones, looking for a job or another job to help keep food on the table or a roof above your head, you probably can't afford the 10 bucks to see Michael Moore's movie. So here is something you might want to check out. When you go to the public library, if you still have one that is still open, to print out your resume and application letters, go to this site to see if your employer or your past employer has a "dead peasant" policy on you. It is a death hedge, you might say, one that is tax-deductible for your employer, and if you happen to starve to death or die of a stroke, then your employer collects. Check out the hundreds of corporations that buy "dead peasant" policies on their peasants, er, employees.

I was glad to see that Michael Moore also picked up on the Pennsylvania school story from earlier this year, where a contracted corporate juvenile detention center paid $2.6 million in kickbacks to a Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. for keeping all their beds and desks filled with children.

There are many real life capitalist horrors that Moore's researchers missed or could not include. My favorite of late is a new investment scheme known as life settlements, an arrangement whereby investors buy up life insurance policies at a discount, bundle them into packages, and sell them to other investors who collect when the original insureds die. The New York Times explains (and this is no joke):

After the mortgage business imploded last year, Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea to make money. They think they may have found one.

The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.

The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return — though if people live longer than expected, investors could get poor returns or even lose money.

Either way, Wall Street would profit by pocketing sizable fees for creating the bonds, reselling them and subsequently trading them. But some who have studied life settlements warn that insurers might have to raise premiums in the short term if they end up having to pay out more death claims than they had anticipated.

The idea is still in the planning stages. But already “our phones have been ringing off the hook with inquiries,” says Kathleen Tillwitz, a senior vice president at DBRS, which gives risk ratings to investments and is reviewing nine proposals for life-insurance securitizations from private investors and financial firms, including Credit Suisse [and Golman Sachs].

“We’re hoping to get a herd stampeding after the first offering,” said one investment banker not authorized to speak to the news media.. . . .

. . . .In early 2008, the firm [DBRS] published criteria for ways to securitize a life settlements portfolio so that the risks were minimized.

Interest poured in. Hedge funds that have acquired life settlements, for example, are keen to buy and sell policies more easily, so they can cash out both on investments that are losing money and on ones that are profitable. Wall Street banks, beaten down by the financial crisis, are looking to get their securitization machines humming again.

Ms. Tillwitz, an executive overseeing the project for DBRS, said the firm spent nine months getting comfortable with the myriad risks associated with rating a pool of life settlements.

Could a way be found to protect against possible fraud by agents buying insurance policies and reselling them — to avoid problems like those in the subprime mortgage market, where some brokers made fraudulent loans that ended up in packages of securities sold to investors? How could investors be assured that the policies were legitimately acquired, so that the payouts would not be disputed when the original policyholder died?

And how could they make sure that policies being bought were legally sellable, given that some states prohibit the sale of policies until they have been in force two to five years?

Spreading the Risk

To help understand how to manage these risks, Ms. Tillwitz and her colleague Jan Buckler — a mathematics whiz with a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering — traveled the world visiting firms that handle life settlements. “We do not want to rate a deal that blows up,” Ms. Tillwitz said.

The solution? A bond made up of life settlements would ideally have policies from people with a range of diseases — leukemia, lung cancer, heart disease, breast cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s. That is because if too many people with leukemia are in the securitization portfolio, and a cure is developed, the value of the bond would plummet.. . . .

And so a generation hence, the biggest casinos of Wall Street may be positioned, once more, to make a killing, so to speak, from the continued deterioration of life and early deaths in a place once known as America.