Hiding From the Press

Let's Play Pretend

Good morning, friends,

Yesterday we promised another ramble on the subject of how “privatization” seems to be on the way to becoming a practice that helps government conceal and hide things from the public.

“Say a thing, do a thing,” so here we are. It’s going to be a bit off-the-cuff even by our own usually slappy standards. Not a typo— slappy, not sloppy, though we’re not above some sloppiness either. Where’s your editor? Ain’t got none!

Imagine for a moment that you’re the Mayor or City Administrator for a large city that isn’t quite one of the ones silly people leap to thinking of when they think “I’ve made it!”

A San Antonio, perhaps. No offense to San Antonio— but whatever the population, and however much the industry, Houston and Dallas are out there patting you on the head and let’s not even talk about Chicago, Philadelphia, or Miami.

You’re in San Antonio and you need a new police chief. The current one is being eaten alive daily with conflict in the local press after some scandal that he can’t blame on his predecessors and can’t pin on his underlings.

He’s done like disco.

You could hire from within, but you’d still be eating garbage in the local papers every morning, and on the local newscasts every night. People are burning effigies in certain neighborhoods.

Something must be done.

It’s time for a nationwide search! Fresh leadership! New ideas! Someone untainted by scandal. With impeccable credentials. A real leader with a sound background. It’d be nice if he was tall and broad-shouldered too. While we’re making a wishlist, understand?

Of course— if you conduct this nationwide search yourself the very first thing that’s going to happen is those jerks barbecuing you every day in the newspapers and on TV are going to hit you with PIR’s and FOIA’s enough to wallpaper an office, demanding every last scrap of everything about the search. Who are the candidates? What criteria are you using? Etc.

Sure, the law allows you to withhold certain information— allows you to get some shelter from the state Attorney General, but it’s all so tiresome. And frankly— it’s going to make it impossible to get the best man (or woman!) for the job. You want up-and-coming Chiefs in other cities to apply— not tired and washed-out jobless hacks that are between gigs, right? Well, no up-and-comer is going to apply if his name might end up in the newspapers before you’ve even offered him a contract. His current employers might find out and now what?

What do?

Well, that’s when you hire a handy dandy consulting firm of some kind. They’ll take care of it all for you. They’ll post the job description. Make it anonymous. Contact likely candidates that they know personally, perhaps. Present you with a short list of only the best men! The best men! (And ladies!)

It’s gonna be so great. You’re going to love it. Best part? You don’t have to surrender a scrap of paper to those jackals coming after you. "Sorry— private company— not subject to PIR’s or FOIA’s, we’d love to comply but in this case we couldn’t even if we wanted to. So sorry. Better luck next time. Buh bye.”

Gosh. That worked great.

Why don’t we start hiring consulting firms to handle all our high-level job searches?

Done!

But why stop there? If that’s all it takes— let’s start bringing “consultant firms” in on every last thing.

It all sounds like a sad joke— and maybe it is. But it’s happening in towns and cities all over the country.

In some cases, it’s relatively benign, as we’ve described. There are lots of valid reasons to hire a firm to hunt down the best candidates for important jobs. Hiding the bulk of the applicants from discovery as we’ve described is actually just a fringe benefit and honestly a mostly valid one for various reasons. But it’s a perfect illustration for how the practice proliferates and spreads. Think of it as a gateway drug for expanding the consulting firm con into other corners.

There was a recent case— can’t remember where exactly right now, where a mid-sized city was taken to court for basically trying to outsource a whole slew of local government projects to various consulting firms.

The local paper of record was suing— accusing them of doing it entirely to avoid scrutiny. The judge seemed to agree— saying that the buck has to stop somewhere, or one could just outsource the most basic elements of daily operation to third parties in order to avoid scrutiny.

Wanna complain about your water bill?

Contact our local consulting agency that manages the water department for us. We’d love to help— but gosh, private company. Hahah. We’ll make a note of your complaint the next time their contract comes up. K? Buh-bye.

See how that works? Now let’s take this idea and walk it backward toward the Federal Government where smudging information and burying details is on a whole other level.

Yesterday we were talking about extra-territorial processing centers for migrants and made passing reference to how no one should be pleased at all with the prospect.

Whether on the right or left, the idea of a crop of scattered “Migration Gitmos” outside the boundaries of the USA should be alarming. Let’s ignore the procedural advantages they offer for information control. Just by virtue of distance and the differing jurisdictions, they present tremendous challenges for the 4th estate in trying to stay on top of what’s going on. Pile on top of that the various networks of NGO’s, consultants, the UN, and other grifters that are somehow all paid in taxes, but nearly impossible to hold to account.

It’s all so far away. Yawn.

What’s happening with the sportsball? Get me a beer. But not that bud light swill. That stuff’s gender fluid, ain'tcha heard? I want that fancy stuff— what’chamacallit. Yeah. The Stellas. The crisp, tasty Stellas. Stella Artois. It’s from overseas, I think. Good stuff. Yum.

A bit of a departure from our usual, but we had fun writing it, even if we plan to pin yesterday’s newsletter on top of the webpage so that new visitors don’t get the wrong idea about things around here like they might if this were the first thing they see.

Image to maintain and all.

Here’s a funny that comes to us from well-known purveyor of all things Texas— the guy they call “Traces of Texas,” online.

Have a great weekend. We say that and similar sentiments at the end of every newsletter, but we really do mean it.

Whatever else— we’re here because you’re here. Keep reading, we’ll keep writing. Contracts come no simpler than that.

As always, the newsletter is produced with zero oversight, and no one should mistake it for an official communication on behalf of our employers at Kinney County. Indeed, any errors, mistakes, or frivolous diversions are entirely our own.