Bang On
Immigration
We have talked about recent Republican stunts to ship migrants to cities and states run by their political rivals. While it is easy to be horrified at the cruelty displayed by politicians trying to rile up their voters ahead of a pivotal election, it’s worth exploring just why the migrant crisis at our southern border is so bad.
According to US law, migrants can show up at our borders and seek asylum, and they do in significant numbers each year. However, rather than the federal government - the entity in charge of managing immigration - funding robust systems to deal with the influx of migrants, we have a patchwork of federal, state, local, and charitable organizations stressed to the breaking point:
A 40-year beacon of refuge shuttered in the city earlier this year. The local non-profit Annunciation House, which works to help migrants arriving in the area, announced that it would be closing its largest shelter, Casa del Refugiado, due to maintenance issues and a lack of volunteers.
It had the capacity to house up to 1,500 migrants and had weathered years of turmoil in immigration policies, helping migrants in dire straits as they were put into federal detention or ended up on the streets.
Without that, the city’s new facility, which opened last month, has to find other shelters for those without alternative housing to go to, which are already bursting at the seams, or get them on their way to another city as fast as possible – including via controversial bussing practices.
Whether it is scenes of huge, squalid refugee camps under a bridge or shelters overflowing as they attempt to process immigration claims, it is easy for immigration opponents to highlight the dysfunction in the system and declare it a failure. And, realistically, our government(s) are badly failing immigrants who come to the US fleeing violence, oppression, and crushing poverty.
Federal agencies are understaffed, underfunded, and ill-equipped to deal with recent migrant waves:
Customs and Border Protection in El Paso has been stretched by recent increases in border crossings and apprehensions and at one point in September almost 1,000 migrants were released to the streets of El Paso in a six-day period.
While US immigration policy says refugees and migrants are welcome here under certain conditions, the reality on the ground is large numbers of applicants overwhelm the rickety systems in place along the southern border, and spill into the streets of Texas towns. Is it any wonder Texans stand poised to reelect their governor, who treats migrants as political pawns rather than human beings? Some Texans have legitimate gripes with the federal agencies dumping need families on the streets of their cities. The obvious solution is to properly fund housing, legal, and care services for these vulnerable communities, but Democratic administrations have proven unwilling to take that political risk, lest they be accused of supporting ‘open borders’ which they are anyways. By failing to offer a realistic solution for our country’s immigration woes, Democrats surrender the issue to the right, which is happy to use the threat of a Brown tsunami at the border to scare voters.
Elsewhere in the world, Italian voters elected a right-wing coalition led by Giorgia Meloni. She has…thoughts on immigration:
In her 2021 autobiography "I am Giorgia", Meloni said mass migration diluted ethnic identity and that Italy should favour welcoming in Christians and people "as compatible as possible with our own national community".
Uhhh, yeah. While many have fixated on her disturbing views and rhetoric, less attention is paid to Italy’s role as a migrant holding center for Europe. The EU’s laws - supported by its two most powerful nations, France and Germany, located a comfortable distance from Africa - say that wherever migrants and refugees land, they must stay while their applications are being processed:
"If we let them in but they can't go north, Italy becomes the refugee camp of Europe," [Meloni] said. "That isn't reasonable."
In the years before Meloni’s predecessor - and current coalition member - Matteo Salvini was in charge, Italy saw an uptick in immigration from Africa, with refugees fleeing civil war and brutal regimes for the promise of better lives in the EU. Salvini ran Italy until 2019 and introduced strict anti-immigration measures, denying tens of thousands of asylum seekers and preventing refugees from even setting foot on shore. The measures worked, and the numbers fell sharply:
At the peak in 2016, 181,000 migrants reached Italy by sea. Containment measures led to a sharp fall and in 2019, the year Salvini limited charity boats' access to Italy, just 11,500 arrived.
After a relative lull, numbers are on the rise again, with 72,430 people arriving so far in 2022, mostly from North Africa, which at its closest point is 180 miles (290 km) from Italy's southern-most island, Lampedusa.
As Salvini’s policies were partially unwound in 2021, immigration rose, and gave Meloni the perfect political wedge issue to become prime minister. However, lest you think immigration writ large is the problem:
Italy has taken in 171,000 Ukrainians since February -- more than the number of boat migrants in the past three years.
Meloni has called the Ukrainians "real refugees", telling parliament in March that the government should "take advantage of the moment" and expel all "illegal migrants".
Yikes. So, again, it is easy to point out the hypocrisy, the racism, and the cruelty in right wing immigration policies, but they remain an effective campaign tool, especially in places familiar with the realities of handling desperate migrants fleeing atrocities. By forcing Italy to handle hundreds of thousands of African migrants, the EU opens the door to fascist politicians who can (rightly) claim their country is a holding pen for people its other members seem uninterested in helping. By allowing the slow decay of federal facilities and support services along our southern border, the US government - perhaps by design - hands a powerful, effective campaign tool to the country’s cruelest, most cynical politicians. And, as always, the poor and helpless suffer, sacrificial pawns on a political chess board.
Ron DeSantis
Listen, I am sorry we continue to talk about awful governors, but they insist on finding new ways to be awful. On that note, let’s talk DeSantis. It is hard to overstate how banal he is as a person, how he’s cribbed everything from his speaking style to the way he stands from someone else (Trump). Beneath his clownish exterior he is a dangerously effective politician who ruthlessly wields his executive power to do the bidding of the hard right in Florida, laws be damned.
We’ve talked about the ways he revoked voting rights from over a million people, and created a task force to mislead and arrest anyone who dared register to vote. Or how he has apparently used federal pandemic funds to fly migrants to Massachusetts for a campaign stunt. Or his many culture war crusades against banks, Disney, or anyone else he feels might keep his doughy face on prime time Fox News.
Perhaps the most insidious thing in a long list of DeSantis’s executive accomplishments is his unilateral gerrymander of Florida’s House districts, against his own party’s efforts and - probably! - state law:
DeSantis threw out the legislature’s work and redrew Florida’s congressional districts, making them far more favorable to Republicans. The plan was so aggressive that the Republican-controlled legislature balked and fought DeSantis for months. The governor overruled lawmakers and pushed his map through.
Like with Amendment 4, DeSantis decided the state constitution didn’t apply to him:
Florida’s constitution was amended in 2010 to prohibit partisan-driven redistricting, a landmark effort in the growing movement to end gerrymandering as an inescapable feature of American politics.
But he just…did it anyhow?
DeSantis aides worked behind the scenes with an attorney who serves as the national GOP’s top redistricting lawyer and other consultants tied to the national party apparatus, according to records and interviews.
[…]
He spent more than 100 hours working for the DeSantis administration on redistricting, according to invoices sent to the Florida Department of State.
Essentially, Florida has laws saying it cannot draw overly partisan legislative maps, and the Republican legislature submitted one that gave the GOP a modest edge, because, you know, they were legally required to do so?
DeSantis said nah, and brought on a team of openly partisan Republican operatives from the right wing’s dankest fever swamps, who drafted maps that don’t even pretend to be non-partisan. While DeSantis’s work was likely done to secure his own reelection and advance his political profile in the run-up to what many expect will be a presidential campaign, his map fuckery may have very serious, very immediate consequences in the balance of power at a national level:
Analysts predict that DeSantis’ map will give the GOP four more members of Congress from Florida, the largest gain by either party in any state. If the forecasts hold, Republicans will win 20 of Florida’s 28 seats in the upcoming midterms — meaning that Republicans would control more than 70% of the House delegation in a state where Trump won just over half of the vote.
Losing four seats in the House could be a death sentence for Dem hopes. And there isn’t much anyone can do about it before the election. Sure, there will be lawsuits over the maps, because that is how we solve problems in this country, but resting our hopes on a Supreme Court that has decided racism is over does not feel like a valid political strategy.
Worse, his success will embolden the worst elements of the anti-democratic right around the country:
The reverberations of DeSantis’ effort could go beyond Florida in another way. His erasure of Lawson’s seat broke long-held norms and invited racial discrimination lawsuits, experts said. Six political scientists and law professors who study voting rights told ProPublica it’s the first instance they’re aware of where a state so thoroughly dismantled a Black-dominated district. If the governor prevails against suits challenging his map, he will have forged a path for Republicans all over the country to take aim at Black-held districts.
In DeSantis, the GOP found a governor willing to break every law, every rule, and every norm in pursuit of absolute power. They have used him as their sledgehammer, an amoral striver happy to dilute or erase the votes of anyone who doesn’t agree with him. Republicans may have singlehandedly snatched control of a chamber of Congress in the process, throwing the country into two years of turmoil and providing more runway to replicate their success in every state they hold power.
In addition to imitating Trump’s speech and mannerisms, DeSantis has wholeheartedly embraced his attitude that it’s not against the law if you can’t be held accountable for it.
Brett Favre
Two freakin’ years ago, we talked about former NFL quarterback Brett Favre and his association with a group of state officials who stole nearly a hundred million dollars intended for Mississippi’s poorest families and funneled it instead to themselves, their friends, and various politically connected celebrities, apparently.
At the time, I was somewhat…skeptical of Favre’s excuses for his association with the welfare crooks:
I am not in public relations, but when you have to follow up your “I didn’t know the million dollars I got was for welfare kids” with an defensive explanation of how you also have a charitable foundation that helps kids, it doesn’t look great.
Despite his initial plea of ignorance, it has since come out that Favre was deeply involved with the welfare crooks. In fact, the state has filed a civil lawsuit - why not criminal? great question! - against 38 defendants to reclaim the funds. Here are a few examples of non-Favre recipients of ill-gotten state welfare money:
[MDHS Director] John Davis’s nephew was paid $400,000 to create “coding academies” for the two nonprofits. He had no experience as a computer programmer and produced nothing.
Davis’s brother-in-law was paid over $600,000 for a nonexistent job and a lease on a nonexistent building.
Marcus Dupree, a former college football phenom, was paid $371,000 to buy a 4,000-square-foot house, with a swimming pool, pavilion, and “adjoining acreage on which Mr. Dupree was to maintain horses.” Dupree claimed in charity filings it would be for “equestrian activities for underprivileged children.”
Professional wrestlers and their families got in on the action:
Ted [DiBiase] Jr. set up dummy companies “Priceless Ventures” and “Familiae Orientem,” which were paid around $3 million. These payments were marked as “leadership training” and supporting inner city youth for purposes of TANF eligibility. Brett DiBiase’s $160,000 tab for a four-month stay at a luxury drug rehab in California called Rise in Malibu was covered, and TANF money paid for Davis’s first-class flights and accommodations to visit him — all for the ostensible purpose of examining top-notch models in drug treatment to mimic in their own state. Brett also accepted contracts and money for work he was supposedly performing during his rehab stay. Ted Sr., whose nickname as a performer was “The Million Dollar Man,” received $1.7 million in support of his wrestling ministry.
There is a grim irony in funds intended to help the poor being used to pay for a rich person to attend luxury drug rehab. Anyhow, Favre was caught directing $5 million to build a volleyball stadium at his daughter’s college, and set up meetings seeking state funds for a start-up pharmaceutical company he invested in:
A document distributed at the January 2, 2019 meeting describes plans to secure money from the state's Department of Human Services, which operates Mississippi's welfare program. The pitch was led by Jacob VanLandingham, then the CEO of pharmaceutical company Prevacus, which was attempting to develop a concussion drug.
Despite Favre’s repeated attempts to distance himself from the scandal, here he is encouraging his pharma buddy to…bribe public officials? With trucks?
Favre texted VanLandingham at one point: “This all works out we need to buy her and John Davis surprise him with a vehicle I thought maybe John Davis we could get him a raptor.”
The cartoonish level of corruption involved is, unfortunately, overshadowed by the fact that only six people have been arrested and charged in connection with the original investigation, and no one has been criminally charged by the federal government - who supplied the TANF funds this sprawling criminal network helped themselves to. The state may recover some of the funds via the courts, but it sends a pretty clear message to anyone seeking to siphon federal welfare assistance - give it a shot, you’ll probably get away with it.
Speaking of TANF funds, as Vox explains, many states use the flawed block grant program as a piggybank to fund some truly awful stuff:
A single company in Oklahoma used more than $70 million in TANF money to run adult relationship classes and make pro-marriage ads. Many states divert welfare money to fund “crisis pregnancy centers,” or thinly veiled anti-abortion clinics. Utah cut back cash aid only to have state caseworkers repeatedly tell applicants to seek help from the LDS Church, including non-Mormons who would need to be baptized to receive aid. Many states just don’t spend the money at all, amassing tens of billions of unspent dollars, even during the pandemic.
Brett Favre has become the face of this scandal, because his unrepentant corruption, status as a sports superstar, and deeply stupid text transcripts make him an easy target. But if he and his accomplices - political and celebrity - are allowed to steal with little consequence, and the federal government turns a blind eye to what has become a badly abused slush fund, we’re all…losers? I guess. God this is depressing.
Jack Owoc
Good news - we’ve got one topic this week that won’t make you so depressed you want to stare forlornly into space for hours. Remember this fuckin guy?
I admire the confidence it takes to unironically post something like this on social media. Anyhow, let’s talk about Jack Owoc, the founder of Bang Energy:
He wore a shiny Renaissance-meets-Miami-nightclub blazer, an even shinier button-up, New Balance sneakers, and a joyless expression. Slung around his neck were two thick gold chains, and on his chest rested a big, bedazzled lowercase B—the logo of his company, Bang Energy. Through his veins coursed the caffeine equivalent of about nine cups of coffee.
I feel like when you become a Bloomberg reporter, you do not anticipate publishing sentences like ‘through his veins coursed enough caffeine to hospitalize an NFL linebacker’ but sometimes you get lucky. I will allow said reporter to keep going, because, well:
Ninety seconds later—after he’d twice declined the moderator’s invitation to sit down; run through the salad days of his soaring, and now stagnating, company; and disparaged two rival energy drinks—the moderator cut him off. “Can we go from the stage to the chair?” he asked in the tone of a parent dealing with a difficult but amusing child.
Owoc, who’s 61, shook his head.
“No, we cannot do that. I’ve got too much energy. This is Bang”—he raised his right arm to the sky—“we’re bringing the Bang! Who wants to bring the Bang?”
The event was a Q&A about the fate of his company - this was a business conference and Owoc was treating it like a pep rally. And, despite recent challenges, Bang remains third in the US energy drink market, making Owoc a billionaire. How did this guy pull off such a coup in an industry as ossified as carbonated beverages?
Bang has no board of directors or outside investors. Owoc answers to no one. And he can be dangerous to cross. He recently spent millions of dollars suing four former Bang employees for breaching their noncompete agreements.
[…]
Owoc is known to fire people public-execution-style, using email and copying scores of other employees. According to court records, he once accused his general counsel of racketeering and embezzlement and later explained the attorney’s termination in a memo: “Tomfoolery was at an all-time high and we had no choice except to excise the cancer and get it out of our organization before it metastasized and killed the host!”
Ah yes. If there are common traits among upstart billionaire entrepreneurs, being an aggressive, needlessly cruel, ruthless piece of shit seem to top the list. Also, being wildly eccentric - obsessed with power and control above all else:
These days, Owoc rarely shows up at Bang’s office in Weston, Fla., before late afternoon, if at all. He mostly rules his kingdom from his $7.7 million home, where executives come for evening audiences that sometimes stretch into the night. As Owoc once told one of them, “The king doesn’t come to you. You come to the king.”
And deeply insecure?
Owoc had taken up weightlifting in high school, after a girl told him he was too skinny for her to go out with.
Owoc’s obsession with weightlifting and sports supplements built a small empire called VitaHouse. Then, in 2012, Owoc created Bang as a pre-workout energy drink - highly caffeinated supplement brews popular with lifters. Some years later the sugar free rocket fuel gained mainstream popularity, due in part to Owoc’s savvy hiring and influencer marketing. And…hair transplants?
One evening, Owoc summoned the film crew he’d hired to shoot a documentary about himself. To fix his thinning mane, he’d had hair transplanted from his face and back onto his scalp. It was time to remove the bandages covering the bloody mess beneath, and Owoc wanted it on tape as a record of perseverance. If you want something, he told the camera, you need to fight for it.
Sure, why not. Bang was on the rise, Owoc a billionaire eccentric with a lush mane, and the company closed a surprise distribution deal with PepsiCo that could be worth billions more. Then, with the Monster lawsuit ongoing but unlikely to upset Bang’s empire, old enemies came back to haunt Owoc:
In 2009, after Owoc had begun selling a now-discontinued pre-workout drink also called Bang, [David] Fox sued Owoc for trademark infringement. A year later they settled, agreeing that Owoc could keep using the name Bang as long as he stuck to a narrow fitness niche: The products had to contain a considerable amount of creatine and could be sold only in gyms and supplement stores.
A fellow in California had cut a deal with Owoc saying he couldn’t sell Bang as anything other than a fitness beverage. Now, with Owoc clearly violating their deal and refusing to respond to legal requests, Fox reached out to Sacks, co-founder of Monster. When the Monster/Bang lawsuit reached arbitration, things started to fall apart:
The arbitration was a disaster for Owoc. The scientific expert Bang put forth admitted in his testimony that there was no evidence supporting Owoc’s claims about super creatine. Four studies commissioned to test the claims also failed to find measurable evidence. (Owoc dismissed the scientists who did the studies as “a bunch of little bitches.”) In April the arbitrator ruled that Bang had broken its promise to the juice maker and meted out a $175 million penalty. Worse, he ordered Owoc to pay a 5% royalty to Orange Bang and Monster on all future US sales of Bang. This June a federal judge affirmed the ruling.
Meanwhile, Owoc felt PepsiCo wasn’t holding up its end of the bargain, as Bang’s sales had stubbornly refused to grow. Keep in mind - he was still the sole owner and a billionaire, but he did this anyway:
In November 2020, less than seven months after the deal was announced, he declared it dead. He borrowed a well-worn phrase from a former US president and reality-TV personality he and his wife had publicly praised and donated to: “We sincerely expected PepsiCo to execute at an even higher level based on their enormous resources and promises. Unfortunately, we were wrong. PepsiCo, you’re fired.”
And just this week, Owoc filed for bankruptcy:
Court papers filed in Florida on Monday reveal that Bang’s parent company owes more than $500 million to its arch-rival, Monster Beverage Co., and a small California juice maker. It owes another $115 million to PepsiCo Inc., its old distributor.
Despite Owoc’s bluster on social media, his chaotic management style has brought his company to the brink of collapse:
Bang has been in financial disrepair since at least March, when it defaulted on hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, bankruptcy court documents show. Bang’s lenders held off on seizing their collateral -- and even advanced $60 million of new money -- while the company searched for a rescue deal.
I know it is surprising that the gold chain-wearing, hair transplant-celebrating guy who liked photoshopping himself into pictures with his business rivals was not a good financial steward of a beverage empire, but here we are. It appears Owoc was neither bangin’, nor, in this case, hangin’.
Short Cons
Bloomberg - “BEC scams indiscriminately target all types of industries, but over the past few years they’ve found a new kind of victim: the eager homebuyer.”
Yahoo! - “The Fed’s analysis of household wealth distribution indicates a sharp increase in consumer debt for nearly all Americans. However, the data also shows that the wealthiest Americans (the top 10%) have avoided this debt explosion.”
Insider - “Burger King, Popeyes, Jack in the Box, and Del Taco have ended their partnerships with Reef Technology, a ghost-kitchen startup.”
Yahoo!! - “As borrowers wait to apply for student loan forgiveness, several debt servicers have used the opportunity since the cancellation announcement to tout private loan refinance options.”
Tips, thoughts, or nine cups of coffee to scammerdarkly@gmail.com