2018 archive
Consumer Predation Agency 0
The Trumpling continues.
Watchdog groups are up in arms because, under Mulvaney, the CFPB has put on hold a rule that would restrict payday lenders and their high-interest-rate loans. The agency has also dropped a lawsuit against online lenders charging 900 percent interest rates. Critics say these moves are payback for campaign contributions to Mulvaney when he was a congressman representing South Carolina.
Much more at the link.
Path to Pariah 0
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No Immunity 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr., points out that it can happen here (an almost has). Here’s a bit:
Well, if Trump’s rise proves nothing else, it proves that it could happen here. It even shows how. Meaning that, more than any other single event, his presidency has forced us to see our vulnerability to new media manipulation and disinformation. Tweet by agonizing tweet, he has embodied the frightening possibilities of this new idea that truth can be whatever you need it to be.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Anyone can stumble over politeness.
Armed and Ingenous 0
Washington State is currently considering a bill to regulate bump stocks, such as the one used in the Law Vegas shooting. The Seattle Times’s Danny Westneat is not sanguine about its chances of passage.
It was a 20-minute tour of the absurd rhetorical lengths to which the gun-rights crowd will go to try shooting down even the most modest attempts at slowing the country’s mass-shooting carnage.
Follow the link for his reasoning.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness is child’s play.
The rifle was loaded and unloaded multiple times, but at one point the gun fired when the boys thought it was unloaded.
“Unfortunately, there was still one round in the chamber and the rifle discharged,” Dreckman said.
The 8-year-old boy was hit in the face below the left nostril.
. . . and another gun that fired itself.
The Stink 0
I have wondered before in these electrons which is most corrupt, the IOC, FIFA, or the NCAA.
My question has been answered.
The Genius Has Left the Stable 0
In the Bangor Daily News, Robert Klose makes the case that Donald Trump is a genius, in one particular way. Here’s a bit of the piece (emphasis added):
Refer again to my comment about a genius being someone who possesses exceptional abilities or insights in a specific field. In Trump’s case, it is his genius for reading people. An inveterate New Yorker, he knew better than to lay his toxic bait in the cities, where urbanites had long ago pegged him as a charlatan. Rather, he went on safari and found appetites for his vulgar hogwash in the rural American underbelly.
An Appropriate Standard 0
Sean Wilentz suggests that the best way to evaluate the performance if Donald Trump is not to compare it with that of the nation’s best presidents, but with that of the worst.
Aside:
He makes Warren G. Harding look good.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Discovering politeness in unexpected places.
A 4-year-old boy is in critical condition after police say he accidentally shot himself.
Authorities say the child was shot in the face around 4:30 p.m. in Warren.
According to police the child found the gun in a car.
Jim Crow 2.0 0
At Above the Law, Elie Mystal argues convincingly and disturbingly that the Republican Party is working to re-establish American apartheid. The most disturbing part of his argument is the “convincingly” bit.\
Here’s an excerpt:
(snip)
We have a word for what Republicans are trying to do: apartheid. That’s what we call it when a racially homogeneous population tries to rule a larger population through rules and laws that prevent the larger population from exercising political power. With this Census trick, Republicans are trying to make it so that many brown people are not even counted.
Do please read the rest.
A Bonanza of Bogosity 0
Thom and Congressman Pocan discuss the Nunes memo and conclude that there’s no there there, as well as the Republican schism over a budget.
Jay Bookman has more.