William Black explains Mitt Romney’s 47% comment

William K. Black is spot on in his analysis of Mitt Romney, the candidate of America's Social Darwinist Party (aka the Republican Party):

Romney's initial non-apology for his dismissal of the 47 percent claimed that he was not "elegant" in his statements, but that is a deliberate effort to divert our attention from the real point. His consignment of nearly half of all Americans to the trash heap was deliberately crude because his fellow plutocrats love the crudeness of his dismissal of those they see as immoral moochers. His speech demonstrated perfect pitch for his audience because his plutocratic peers are the only Americans who Romney knows and understands.

Continue ReadingWilliam Black explains Mitt Romney’s 47% comment

Your bi-partisan politicians at work: floodgates to open to Wall Street misinformation

The hucksters are about to fill the airwaves with misinformation. From the New York Times:

Soon retirees and other investors will be barraged with advertisements for private stock offerings — via mail, cold calling, television, radio, billboards, the Internet and so on.Such advertising, which used to be banned under federal securities law, will make it easier for hedge funds, venture capitalists, start-ups and other nonpublic companies to find investors. It will also make it easier for hucksters and rip-off artists to lure people into unsuitable investments and outright frauds because private offerings are not subject to disclosure requirements and other investor protections that apply to publicly held companies. Bipartisan majorities in Congress and President Obama are to thank for this development. Bowing to the financial industry, they joined forces last April to pass a law that requires the Securities and Exchange Commission to lift the ban on mass advertising of private offerings.

Continue ReadingYour bi-partisan politicians at work: floodgates to open to Wall Street misinformation

Military Voting Philosophy

I remember the presidential election of 2004, during which the armed services were flooded with the message that it was seditious to speak out against your Commander in Chief, and certainly bad to consider voting against your own commander. Luminaries of the time like Ann Coulter published the principle that anyone who casts doubt on ones president is a traitor. This was a solidly accepted conservative plank. But the message fed to members of the armed forces has changed for the 2012 election: Not My President This image has been going around on Facebook, among other sources. I suspect that the message they receive about their Commander in Chief is different than before. There also is a busy meme insinuating that Democrats are busily working to deny military members their right to absentee vote. Does this mean that the military is a Republican organization? Or does it cleave to one of the Three Tea Party branches?

Continue ReadingMilitary Voting Philosophy

How Rights Become Privileges: MO Amendment 2

The 2012 Missouri primary had several important lessons to impart. The first, which I may have discussed in previous election years, is that the way to bring the "correct" voters to the polls is to have an apparently innocuous but important candidate or issue and a loud, contentious issue or candidate that only seems to matter to one side. In this primary cycle, there was a preponderance of hotly contested Republican seats, and a very dangerous, never advertised Tea Party constitutional amendment. Republicans came out to vote overwhelmingly, and the Amendment passed resoundingly. The full body of the amendment is at the bottom of this article. Basically on the ballot it read as if it was just reinforcing the first clause of the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

  • In reality, it says that people have the right to worship the (singular, Christian) Almighty God (but not all those others) including to pray whenever their conscience dictates (such as during science classes).
  • Public meetings can now be started with exclusionary prayers as long as the officiant is invited by someone.
  • I have not yet figured out how the mandatory publishing of the Bill of Rights in schools will be twisted, but I expect as a precedent to posting the Ten Commandments adjacent (as an alleged inspirational source)
  • Students cannot be punished for refusing to do assignments that might conflict with their faith (evolution, geology, astronomy, etc).
So I expect Missouri to soon be incurring legal fees on the order of replacing several major bridges, or (more likely) in lieu of funding science education for a decade. [More (Including the language of the Amendment)]

Continue ReadingHow Rights Become Privileges: MO Amendment 2

Using the Internet to warn about home construction fraud

I used to work as an Assistant Attorney General in the area of consumer fraud. Back in the 1980's there weren't many ways to get the word out that you had been ripped off by a contractor. You would likely complain to your friends and family, and that is about it. That has certainly changed. Here is a website created recently by Ray Gregory, a friend of mine who was ripped off by a contractor--this work isn't even close to acceptable. Thanks to the Internet, anyone considering using this contractor will find the name Timothy W. Watson of Norfolk, Virginia prominently listed next to vivid photos and descriptions of his extremely crappy work. Perhaps this website will prevent other innocent people from getting ripped off. We are ALL leaving indelible trails on the Internet these days, both innocent people, but also the scoundrels.

Continue ReadingUsing the Internet to warn about home construction fraud