Tag: Flood

Cape Town is not alone. I was startled to discover that Mexican officials frequently treat water distribution and treatment not as public services but as political favors. When thunderstorms are cause for panic Nezahualcoyotl is a city in Mexico State near the nation’s sprawling capital. Officially, nearly all Mexicans have access to running water. Numerous engineers across Mexico similarly expressed frustration that they were sometimes forbidden from making technical fixes to improve local water service because of a mayor’s “political commitments.” In Nezahualcoyotl, I met a water director who openly boasted of using public water service for his political and personal gain. My sources also alleged that the powerful Revolutionary Institutional Party, or PRI – which has long run Mexico State, and thus controlled its water supply – has turned off the water in towns whose mayors belonged to opposition parties. Water corruption isn’t limited to Mexico State, or to the center-right PRI party. Water is a state secret In Xalapa, the capital of Veracruz state, I saw how water can hold a different kind of political power. The workers controlled valuable information about the city’s water system. But when politicians manipulate it for their personal or political benefit, some cities flood while others go dry.

With Koch money flooding into the GOP, those days are gone The rising tide of political spending that has swamped Washington in the wake of Citizens United and other controversial Supreme Court rulings may have lifted Republican fortunes across the country and in Washington, but apparently it isn’t enough. Congressional Republicans are expected to hide five “policy riders” in the fiscal year 2018 omnibus appropriations bill due for a vote this month that would let churches and charities pour their coffers into partisan pockets, allow parties to spend unlimited funds on ads coordinated with candidates, and make sure the rest of us can’t see what’s going on. These back-door attempts to eliminate longstanding limits on political spending and prevent any meaningful public disclosure are just the latest signs that Republican politicians have lost their moral compass. Today’s GOP has come to worship at the altar of big money, no matter what the cost to American democracy. It wasn’t always like this. In his 1905 address to Congress, Republican President Theodore Roosevelt decried the corruption that resulted from unlimited corporate power and political spending. “There is no enemy of free government more dangerous and none so insidious as the corruption of the electorate.” Roosevelt called for sweeping legislation “directed against bribery and corruption in Federal elections” that would bar corporations from spending money to influence elections and require full disclosure of campaign contributions and political expenditures. Congress extended the prohibition on political expenditures to unions in 1947, and in 1954 enacted the modern tax code with an amendment by then-Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson — which was accepted without discussion or debate — making it clear that charitable and religious groups that want to enjoy the benefits of tax-exempt status have to sit on the electoral sidelines. When Congress came back to strengthen the law in 1974, giving us the campaign finance regulatory framework we have today, the bill passed with the support of 15 Republican senators and 137 Republican representatives. There are certain periods in our Nation's history when it becomes necessary to face up to certain unpleasant truths.

Cape Town is not alone. I was startled to discover that Mexican officials frequently treat water distribution and treatment not as public services but as political favors. When thunderstorms are cause for panic Nezahualcoyotl is a city in Mexico State near the nation’s sprawling capital. Officially, nearly all Mexicans have access to running water. Numerous engineers across Mexico similarly expressed frustration that they were sometimes forbidden from making technical fixes to improve local water service because of a mayor’s “political commitments.” In Nezahualcoyotl, I met a water director who openly boasted of using public water service for his political and personal gain. My sources also alleged that the powerful Revolutionary Institutional Party, or PRI – which has long run Mexico State, and thus controlled its water supply – has turned off the water in towns whose mayors belonged to opposition parties. Water corruption isn’t limited to Mexico State, or to the center-right PRI party. Water is a state secret In Xalapa, the capital of Veracruz state, I saw how water can hold a different kind of political power. The workers controlled valuable information about the city’s water system. But when politicians manipulate it for their personal or political benefit, some cities flood while others go dry.