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June 22, 2012 03:50 PM UTC

Open Line Friday!

  • 53 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“The moderates, no question, they’re just a bunch of liberal Democrats afraid to say so.”

–Rush Limbaugh, yesterday

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53 thoughts on “Open Line Friday!”

    1. And sometimes Congress still works

      I have less faith the R-House majority will do anything but dig in it’s partisan heals because they can.

    2. that is massively cutting the funding to the food stamp program? Leaving millions of already poverty-stricken families to go hungry?

      Not sure I would applaud Congress just yet over this massive mistake of a bill. And if you dig into the bill, it’s still quite a bit of welfare money headed to large agro-corporations.

  2. Matt Taibbi – The Scam Wall Street Learned From the Mafia

    To grasp the full insanity of these revelations, one must step back and consider all this information together: the bribes, yes, but also the industrywide, anti-competitive bid-rigging scheme. It turns into a kind of unbroken Mobius strip of corruption – the banks pay middlemen to rig auctions, the middlemen bribe politicians to win business, then the politicians choose the middlemen to run the auctions, leading right back to the banks bribing the middlemen to rig the bids.

    When we allow Wall Street to continually raid the public cookie jar, we’re not just enriching a bunch of petty executives (Wolmark’s income in 2008, two years after he was busted in the FBI raid, was $2,464,210.18) – we’re effectively creating an alternate government, one in which money lifted from the taxpayer’s pocket through mob-style schemes turns into a kind of permanent shadow tax, used to maintain the corruption and keep the thieves in place. And that cuts right to the heart of what this case is all about. Wall Street is tired of making money by competing for business and weathering the vagaries of the market. What it wants instead is something more like the deal the government has – regularly collecting guaranteed taxes. What’s crazy is that in order to justify that dream of regular, monopolistic tribute, they’ve begun to see themselves as a type of shadow government, watching out for the rest of us. Amazingly enough, this even became a defense at trial.

    …

    This incredible defense, which the attorneys for all three defendants led with, perfectly expresses the awesome arrogance of the modern-day aristocrats who run our financial services sector. Corrupt or not, they built this financial infrastructure, and it’s producing the prices they genuinely think are fair for us – and for them. And fair to them is the customer getting the absolute bare minimum, while they get instant millions for work they didn’t do. Moreover – and this is the most important part – they believe they should get permanent protection from the ravages of the market, i.e., from one another’s competition. Imagine Jack Nicholson on the witness stand, dressed in a repairman’s uniform and tool belt. Who’s gonna fix those refrigerators? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? You can’t handle the truth!

    And with the Senate in their back pocket, I doubt any of the fundamentals will change.

    1. has become a problem, as it generates little value aside from amassing wealth for fewer and fewer. The financial industries (i.e., investment banks,retail and commercial banks, brokerages, etc.) have in large part abandoned the boring and traditional business of making loans. The current capitalist system is, more and more, crises prone, volatile and risky. This is complicated, but I would recommend the book Liquidated, by Karen Ho.

      I agree with V.P.iden here:

      Wall Street and Corporate America need to become better Americans and patriots.

      1. better Americans and patriots, unless forced to by laws, regulation and oversight.

        An interesting theory about this year’s Presidential election popped into my head this morning – what do you think:

        President Obama is tied to financial folks, if for no other reason than for the huge amounts of money it takes to run for President.  So the Wall Streeters and financial folks – none of whom have been held accountable for bringing this country to its knees four years ago – have been cozy but only to extract what they want from this Administration – a laissez faire approach to their criminal acts.

        But now there is a viable Republican candidate for Prez.  Yippee! Now we banksters can get even more of what we want from the federal government.  So, oh so subtly (at least subtle enough for the average low-information voter to not notice) the banksters rig the economy so that a majority of those same voters will vote against the incumbent – vote for someone new in November who promises to fix everything.  Rawmoney gets what he wants, the banksters get what they want, and the low-information voter never understands what just happened – corporate America acquires even more power than they have now.

      2. Woman Who Couldn’t Be Intimidated By Citigroup Wins $31 Million

        The U.S. Justice Department decided to join her suit in January. Citigroup didn’t dispute any of Hunt’s facts; it didn’t mount a defense in public or in court. On Feb. 15, 2012, the bank agreed to pay $158.3 million to the U.S. government to settle the case.

        Citigroup admitted approving loans for government insurance that didn’t qualify under Federal Housing Administration rules. Prosecutors kept open the possibility of bringing criminal charges, without specifying targets.

        Citigroup behaving badly as late as 2012 shows how a big bank hasn’t yet absorbed the lessons of the credit crisis despite billions of dollars in bailouts, says Neil Barofsky, former special inspector general of the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

        ps – And where exactly does Senator Bennet stand on balancing the needs of the country vs. the greed of Wall St.?

  3. Public Education Finances: 2010

    According to this (page 11) Colorado is 39th in per pupil spending. Not great but not horrible (in comparison) either, especially when you take into account that expenses here are lower than in places like the north east.

    The other interesting one is page xvi where it shows per pupil spending 1992 – 2010. First it has gone up every year, even through the recession. Not what I expected as state after state has been laying off teachers – but with that expenses still go up. I’s also doubled over that period so still growing at a rate greater than inflation (which is not sustainable).

    1. after this data-set. States were able to keep teachers on through most of 2010 because of the influx of federal money. Once that dried up, you saw massive teacher layoffs. That would have been 2010-2011. I would love to see the data from then through now.

  4. Boyles reported this am that this afternoon will be the

    last one for the Caplis-Silverman show.  Anyone know anything about that?

    Maybe the market does work.  I think the Dave Logan show on KOA in the same time is hands down the best and only real “talk radio” in Denver.

  7. This story is definitely making the rounds:


    Emotional, widespread reaction to harassment of 68-year-old bus monitor

    Karen Klein is probably not the first face that comes to mind when you think of a poster child for bullying.

    Yet there she was, sitting in the back of Bus 784 as it rolled through the streets of Greece, New York, on Monday afternoon. Four middle school boys barraged her with verbal abuse, jabbing her about her weight, attacking her family and chuckling as they made violent and graphic threats. Except for a few even-keeled retorts, the 68-year-old bus monitor brushed sweat from her brow and remained quiet, peering up front and out her window, seemingly waiting for her hellish ride to end.

    Her suffering may have gone unnoticed had not one of the young teenagers posted a 10-minute video of the harassment on YouTube.

    By Wednesday, police were interviewing Klein and her alleged verbal abusers. And by the next day, as the video began going viral, she had become a cause cГ©lГЁbre.

    Her torment became a prism through which total strangers the world round characterized her experience as symbolic of everything wrong with modern-day parenting, children and more. Beyond anger, some expressed sadness for the seemingly defenseless older woman who, they felt, bravely suffered the slings and arrows flung at her for no good reason at all.

    http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/22/…

    After watching the Youtube video and reading this story, I just can help but wonder if there’s an opportunity here. If the Iraq and Afghanistan veteran unemployment is 2 to 3 times the national rate, and there are jobs like this that need a strong commanding presence to help keep order, why not give these jobs out as either VA work-study positions, or under the VocRehab and Employment program?

    Hoot all you want, but one thing vets know how to do is work with unruly teenagers…

      2. but they lose their minds if you suggest someone else is going to parent thier kids. So instead we have a bunch of kids who have no idea what discipline looks like, in any shape or form. As a whole they completely lack respect for their teachers, neighbors, or any adult (including their own parents). Why not? They probably hear their parents showing a lack of respect for the same people.

        This video is disturbing and upsetting. I wonder if these kids’ parents are even embarrassed by the behavior or only that it was caught on tape?

        1. Some guy floated out the idea that this unfortunate woman deserved some nice gesture to help her feel better. He started a donation site to raise money to “give her a vacation”…as of yesterday morning, he had raised $600,000. The lady may never have to work again, because of the kindness and generosity of Americans.

          There IS hope for this nation.  

            1. I said hope, Ralphie…however slight… not probability. 🙂

              There are some pretty lame-ass people in this world…I guess time will tell.

    3. but it is a different milieu. They would have to be trained so they don’t just respond as many of us would like to see happen. While some kids might deserve an over the top, ass-whipping response that is not what the schools ought to be going for.

    3. … I’m not sure which will bring in more bucks, that Obama Registry or the “SUPER FAN” Romney t-shirt: http://www.mittromney.com/stor…

      I will add that it’s the massive influx of money into politics that makes Presidential candidates operate online stores like traveling salespeople — and it’s the Ds, not the Rs and their Supreme Court, trying to rein it in.

  10. A Roman Catholic church official was convicted Friday of child endangerment but acquitted of conspiracy in a groundbreaking clergy-abuse trial, becoming the first U.S. church official convicted of a crime for how he handled abuse claims.

    http://www.ajc.com/news/nation…

    How this will impact the churches “fourtenn days for freedom” to keep the sluts from getting their whore pills remains to be seen.

    Also, one of Milton Friedman’s collaborators recently died, though the story doesn’t mention her role in “Driving Miss Daisy.”

    1. They have more important things to do, like purge American nuns who spend their time trying to help poor people when they should be picketing abortion clinics.

      The story I read had some fascinating information about a list of predator priests this monsignor kept.  It was in a gray folder that was kept in a safe.  Nobody knew where to find it when a grand jury requested it in 2004.  The safe was opened and one of the church’s lawyers put the gray folder in a file, but he swears he didn’t know that it contained the predator list.  Fortunately he found it and turned it over to the grand jury a few days after Cardinal Bevilacqua (the guilty monsignor’s boss) died.

      I’m sure the timing was just a coincidence.

  12. …I will. (More thoroughly researched than my earlier f**kup)

    Generic Congressional Vote:

    Bloomberg (6/15 – 6/18,734 LV) D48%/ R41% – Democrats +7

    Rasmussen Reports (6/11 – 6/17, 3500 LV) –  D38%/ R45% – Republicans +7

    Pew Research (6/7 – 6/17, 1563 RV) – D47%/ R43% – Democrats +4

    Reuters/Ipsos (6/7 – 6/11,848 RV) – D47%/ R44% – Democrats +3

    CNN/Opinion Research (5/29 – 5/31, 895 RV) D48%/ R45% – Democrats +3

    USA Today/Gallup (5/10 – 5/13, 1012 A) D44% R50% – Republicans +6

    http://www.realclearpolitics.c…

    Hmm..throwing out the usual BS from Rassy, perhaps the Likely Voter and Registered Voters are tired of the Republican’t Party’s bullshit?

    2. Even if this was an agressive action, which hasn’t been confirmed last I heard, the politics of Syria haven’t changed. Russia will still back Syria up if we were to invade or declare any military action. They have openly spoken of sending Syria ships and planes if the U.S. or NATO attempts a regime change. Our best hope at this point is to get Assad out of Syria ASAP through diplomacy with Russia if possible, or through Turkey if not. This is not to mention what actions Iran would take or China. The international political climate hasn’t changed because of what may or may not have happened to Turkey’s fighter jet.

      Just sayin’!

        1. by the media. The so-called “Yemen Plan”. And while playing to Putin’s ego is always the safest bet, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Russia, and Putin in particular, would see no value in Assad once he is out of power. What would they get out of offering him asylum?

          Syria is far more complex than Yemen, and infinitely more complicated than Lybia. There just is no comparison in the international politics involved. Unfortunately, I don’t see much of a solution aside from the surrounding countries attempting to evacuate as many citizens as possible in order to cut down on the murder of thousands of civilians. As far as Assad, unless he sees the light. Our only hope is that Russia decides to go the asylum route, even with nothing in it for them. The Russians can always offer asylum in return for having some say in who takes over the new regime in order to keep their relationship strong.

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