Is Mayor Muriel Bowser Making DC More Mafia-like??? Or Just a Municipal Dictatorship???
Among any fascistic mayor's greatest fears:
Is DC Mayor Muriel Bowser making DC into a Mafia-style crime syndicate (or just more so than when she took office in 2015)??? Or is she Hell-bent on functioning as a dictator(ette)???
They're both fair questions; and, they're not mutually exclusive. Before I begin to explain why I ask them, I'll point out that I'm not one for hyperbole or sensationalism -- having an extreme hatred for both. So, I gave deep and lengthy consideration to the matters stated herein and to how I'd frame the issues. I've taken much care to ensure that I don't exaggerate or misstate anything. However, I'm guessing that, at this juncture, 100% of the 137M American voters who didn't vote for Trump (66M for Clinton, 8M Independent/3rd-party and 63M who stayed home) and at least 60% of the 63M who voted for him would now say that it's not an exaggeration for us to predict that 45 could drag us into World War III or an "Even Greater Depression" than what the world saw from 1929 to 1945. They'd probably go on to say that it's the sanity (or the lesser degree of insanity) on the part of other nations' presidents that has kept the world economy from completely tanking and/or kept us from entering into a third worldwide conflict since the January 20th, 2017 inauguration of Donald J. Trump -- not any level of good leadership on his part. (That's not to say that neither will occur by the end of 2020.)
That said, underestimating the magnitude of a problem can sometimes present a greater danger than overestimating its magnitude and possible long-lasting effects. As the world tunes in for its daily doses of White House drama, watches Trump replace cooler heads (like Tillerson and McMaster) with warmongers (like Pompeo and Bolton, respectively) and tries to guess which nation 45 will start a major war with first (North Korea, Russia, China, Venezuela), we need to also take notice of "the domestic Trump effects". The most intense and globally impactful Trump effects are summed up in the observation that many people are using all of their political bandwidth keeping up with Trump; and, this is allowing the remainder of the federal government (including Congress), 49 state governments (excluding California), all local governments (congressional oversight of DC Government notwithstanding) and all other national governments over which the U.S. has held sway (especially Israel) to disregard human rights and democratic norms -- or even to very overtly go rogue. Domestically, Trump is attempting to put the finishing touches on America's 40-year transition toward becoming a fascist oligarchy in which state and local governments are subservient to wealthy businesspeople.
Nothing says that America is transitioning toward full-blown fascism more than the U.S. capital's local government beginning to openly and unabashedly do the bidding of publicly-unaccountable, wealthy businesspeople -- to the detriment of its poor. Washington, DC hasn't gotten all the way there yet; but, the transition is occurring -- and some other American locales are already there. The incumbent mayor winning the upcoming primary and general elections with a political mandate is all that it would take to fully embolden Muriel Bowser and other instruments of DC gentrification to begin an all-out economic inquisition against the city's poor. It is this unchecked gentrification of long-term DC residents which government watchdogs must guard against. This is where firm standards of economic justice and of government accountability to the public are needed the most. As far as I can tell (myself not being a lawyer), Mayor Bowser's activities are lawful; but, she's reaching the limit in terms of how much she can gentrify the city within the parameters of the law.
It's fair to say that Mayor Muriel Bowser currently prefers changing the law over breaking the law -- that she wants socio-politically conscious Washingtonians to look the other way while she legally diminishes their rights but that she doesn't yet feel the need to break the law in order to do her devilishly dictatorial deeds. Besides, Washingtonians probably don't have the appetite for a long and protracted investigation into yet another public official; but, the good news here is that they won't need to endure such an investigation if they vote not only against Bowser but for the same primary opponent between June 5th and the June 19th primary. (DC has two-week long early voting...for now.)
DC voters have yet to call out Ms. Bowser's broken campaign promises; and, I worry that we might not get a critical mass of District residents to do that even now or to make informed votes in June -- thus this blog post and my many videos and other writings about the direction of both her administration and the local political scene as a whole. But, for now, she's comfortable with keeping the law or changing it through legal channels -- affordable housing laws, laws that allow citizens to sue in court for the purpose of stopping the city's planned developments that would otherwise hurt low-income residents (tort reform) and laws that determine and govern the duties of a government watchdog. The political machine and the public's disinterest therein are still working well enough for her and her political cronies.
So, after promising the low percentage of DC denizens who were even paying attention to her 2014 primary season campaign that her administration would be transparent and accountable to the public, the Bowser administration is taking steps to limit its transparency and accountability -- the most notable example of this type of behavior being her administration's efforts to oust DC Government watchdog Traci Hughes. As with the investigation into campaign activities of her predecessor Vince Gray, this collusion within her administration to rid itself of the current director of the Dept. of Open Government or "DOG" has not been traced to the chief executive herself. (The case can be made that DC's local officials have mastered the art of insulating the chief executive against indictment.) This push to eliminate Ms. Hughes should leave one to wonder why Muriel Bowser is so blatantly breaking such a profound political promise of transparency and accountability and what it is that she has to hide. Whatever she is hiding is not necessarily an illegal scandal -- her administration having no shortage thereof. The danger is that she'll do perfectly legal things which, as separate items, might not be problems; but, as a collection, will work to decrease democracy. Other mayoral initiatives (such as her suggestion that legislation mandating the creation of affordable housing be weakened) are both legal and blatantly target the city's low-income residents.
It's no military secret that DC is becoming more expensive by the day. Anybody who's paying attention knows that the Bowser administration has it in for government watchdog Traci Hughes and aims to lessen the powers of the position before Ms. Hughes' replacement is selected. I suspect that the meetings and data which Mayor Muriel wants most to deny the public access to are those which would reveal a pattern of deliberate and expedited gentrification on her part; but, the closest I could come to actually proving that suspicion thus far was to uncover Ms. Hughes' work to keep Bowser's influence over administrative law judges in check. Administrative law judges often rule on matters pertaining to lucrative city contracts, some of which go to developers who fund mayoral campaigns. I can't speak to whether or not they're also lining her pockets, though I can speculate. This gets us to the age-old adage that "The love of mammon is the root of [various sorts of] evil". It gives us the space to conclude that Bowser holds animosity against Hughes for interrupting a process that would have allowed the same type of contract steering which Bowser attempted to execute with her family shelter replacement plan (having been put in check by the DC Council on that occasion).
Interestingly enough, Ms. Hughes used the transparency which the DC Council forced concerning the family shelter as an example of the type of transparency that the board of a public hospital which is directed by one of Bowser's political allies should have exhibited before closing the last obstetrics unit which serves the city's two poorest wards. Ironically, the hospital board has chosen to fight the ruling that requires them to make public the minutes of a meeting that should have been open to the public in the first place. Go figure. The flap over administrative judges and over the family shelter point toward a desire by Bowser to do contract steering galore, thereby taking the city away from long-term residents and handing it to the wealthy on a silver platter. Traci Hughes is just getting in the way. Well, let me see if I can replace Traci Hughes as the greatest threat to Bowser's plans -- if only by presenting a narrative which catches on like wildfire before the June 5th start of early primary voting and causes Washingtonians to vote against Bowser. After all, Traci Hughes can only take action against the Bowser administration so long as Bowser is mayor. A robust information campaign from now until November 6th can solve the Bowser problem altogether on January 2nd, 2019 by ousting Bowser like she wants to oust Hughes.
In a strange twist of fate, it turns out that two of the people who've been implicated in the Bowser administration's efforts to relieve themselves of Traci Hughes were also part of the effort to shut down a long-term homeless advocate (mid-June 2006 to present) who has exposed DC Government's seemingly intentional failures across multiple mayoral administrations toward the poor and homeless community. That advocate would be me, Eric Jonathan Sheptock. Though there was a healthy degree of tension between myself and certain elements of DC Government between June 2006 and December 2014, we managed to communicate respectfully and work together to some degree -- even if not a high enough degree. The homeless advocates would eventually find a friend and champion in Councilman Jim Graham (1945-2017) who lost his bid for re-election during the 2014 campaign season.
In January 2013 I filed a FOIA request with the federal government concerning the property transfer that gave a federal building to DC Government to be used as a homeless shelter and which led to the city now owning that building and gaining the right to repurpose it. (The building sits across the road from a 2.2M sq. ft., $1.3B construction project that could be finished in 2023 -- 2 years ahead of schedule.) I sent that information to Councilman Jim Graham. After discussing building conditions at a February 28th, 2013 hearing before Councilman Kenyan McDuffie, I discussed the FOIA request with Councilman Jim Graham at a March 13th, 2013 hearing. During the latter hearing, Mr. Graham committed to holding a hearing on the present and future of the CCNV Shelter. I organized other advocates, pressed Mr. Graham for a hearing date and attended the June 27, 2013 CCNV Hearing with a dozen homeless advocates in tow. At that hearing it was decided that Councilman Graham would convene a task force. That task force ran from October 2013 to July 2014 and led to the creation of a piece of legislation which was eventually passively approved by Congress. In December 2014 I received recognition from the DC Council for my then-8.5 years of advocacy. So, it's not hard to see why a mayor who is Hell-bent on gentrifying low-earners out of DC would dislike me. I can force results, get answers and speak to the media in ways that resonate with the general public.
I won't go too far into the story of the troubles that exist between DC Government and myself at this stage of the game; as, this post is a long litany and juxtaposition of the reasons we have to watch closely and see how much Muriel Bowser is becoming like the mayor of Budapest and/or Al Capone. I had a one-to-one conversation with Councilwoman Muriel Bowser in the summer of 2010 at the Shaw Library (from which I'm writing this post). It was our first one-to-one away from the council chamber where I'd previously spoken to her while others milled around in the chamber. As she and I stood, otherwise alone, in the library basement, she seemed quite rigid and disinterested in what I had to say about the broken promise of then-mayor Adrian Fenty to build affordable housing across the road. Water under the bridge. On to the next battle. In April 2015, three months into her mayoral term, I did one of several stints on the Kojo Nnamdi radio show. With it addressing the then-nascent Bowser administration's efforts around homelessness, a cabinet member was scheduled to join me. I found it peculiar that Dept. of Human Services Director Laura Zeilinger was chosen to accompany me on the show, rather than Inter-agency Council on Homelessness Director Kristy Greenwalt. I'd known Laura since July 2007; whereas, Kristy only began her job in April 2014. I'd grown quite fond of Laura; and, I silently wondered if Mayor Bowser sought to pit someone I loved against me to bring an opposing narrative. I quietly took it in stride. Water under the bridge. On to the next battle. (I wouldn't blog about this suspicion for just over a year -- until mid-2016.)
In January 2016 I had an e-mail exchange with Kristy Greenwalt concerning how things went for the homeless during Snowzilla. Her response to my polite overtures was quite rude and condescending. She became so unmistakably passive aggressive that it caused me to see some of the less intense moments as far back as August 2015 as having been part of a build up. With her slow progression into full-on passive-aggressiveness having likely begun in August 2015, it accelerated after Snowzilla and brought me to a boiling point in May 2016. That boil never completely simmered down; because, her behavior toward me never improved. Long story short, the tension between Kristy and I led to her initiating a court case on Friday, October 13th, 2017 -- a case that I might (begin to) win as early as Friday the 13th of April. That case revolves solely around e-mails. There is a little-known DC law that makes it a crime to send someone two or more e-mails that you had reason to believe they didn't want to receive from you.
My story relates to that of Traci Hughes in that I had encounters with Steve Walker who serves as Muriel Bowser's Director of the Mayor's Office of Talent and Appointment's or (MOTA) and with Betsy Cavendish who is the mayor's legal counsel -- both of them having also been implicated in the administration's attempts to oust Traci Hughes. My experience was that Betsy Cavendish is the one who comes from the mayor's office to give an attitudinal tongue thrashing to the mayor's opposition, while Steve Walker is the one who uses the more professional approach that is designed to silence or dispose of the opposition. In April of 2016 Steve Walker tried to persuade me to forgo any efforts to become a member of the ICH and he suggested other boards and commissions that I might prefer to join. He talked to me about how I needed to bring my advocacy activities into alignment with the mayor's vision, though I had explained to him that the nature of advocacy is not to go with the flow; but rather, it is to propose changes and to offer solutions to problems being faced by an underprivileged subset of a government's constituency.
Mr. Walker very calmly and respectfully tried to get me to choose a different path that would not conflict with the will of the mayor or her administration. (On one level I expect a mayor to avoid any opposition; but, previous DC mayors have been less intolerant of opposition and more inclined to make changes in accordance with problems that the advocates raise than Bowser is.) During one of at least two face-to-face meetings that I had with Steve Walker, we were joined by Betsy Cavendish (whom he hadn't told me was going to be present). I knew within 30 seconds of her opening her mouth that I didn't like her. But I held my ground. She was gone in less than 10 minutes. She'd fulfilled her tongue-thrashing duty, but failed to instill fear in me. Were she to press much harder, she'd find out that I'm not afraid to die -- so long as the cause is both clear to those who hear about my death and it's for a just cause. As with a suicide bomber, threatening to kill me is about as useless as a [rubber] in a convent. I never thought during our encounter that murder was in the cards. My point is simply that, no matter how aggressively the Bowser administration comes out against me, I won't back down. If Bowser figures that my words can force her out of office, then she and/or her business partners in crime might sink to a new low of Mafia-style murder of a poor homeless advocate. But, in all honesty, we're not yet at the point where I'd expect a DC mayor to do gangland killings; there are about 10 weeks before June 19th and there is not yet any information suggesting that my words are successfully encouraging DC voters to support Jeremiah Stanback instead of Muriel Bowser. So, the plot hasn't thickened enough for me to assume that any such danger exists. The neat thing here is that me having written my observations about the current progression of DC politics herein makes it highly unlikely that Bowser or her cronies would try to do me any harm. So, I'll keep it up. Let's see what happens. If I come up missing, that may prove that the answer to both questions with which I opened this blog post is a resounding "YES!!!"
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