Motley Moose – Archive

Ah, what a quaint notion – justice for all. Wake up, people. We live in a plutocracy.

From the Vail Daily in Colorado:

Alleged hit-and-run driver may not face felony

A financial manager for wealthy clients will not face felony charges for a hit-and-run because it could jeopardize his job, prosecutors said Thursday.

Say, what?

Bicyclist hit from behind

Milo was bicycling eastbound on Highway 6 just east of Miller Ranch Road, when Erzinger allegedly hit him with the black 2010 Mercedes Benz sedan he was driving. Erzinger fled the scene and was arrested later, police say.

Erzinger allegedly veered onto the side of the road and hit Milo from behind. Milo was thrown to the pavement, while Erzinger struck a culvert and kept driving, according to court documents.

Erzinger drove all the way through Avon, the town’s roundabouts, under I-70 and stopped in the Pizza Hut parking lot where he called the Mercedes auto assistance service to report damage to his vehicle, and asked that his car be towed, records show. He did not ask for law enforcement assistance, according to court records.

Hmm…

Sounds serious.

So, who’s this Milo character?  

The bailout of failing financial institutions in 2008-09, while arguably necessary, missed an essential step which may now be stalling our economic recovery:

Specifically, [former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan] said today in a panel discussion at a Fed conference in Jekyll Island, Georgia:

Banks operated with less capital because of an assumption they would be rescued by the government, he said.  [Lehman Brothers] wouldn’t have failed with adequate capital, he said.  “Rampant fraud” was also an issue, he said.

“Fraud creates very considerable instability in competitive markets,” Greenspan said. “If you cannot trust your counterparties, it would not work.”

Greenspan is right.

George Washington – Even Greenspan Admits that Moral Hazard and Fraud are the Main Problems Washington’s Blog 7 Nov 10

This is highly out of character for Greenspan who once noted, “I don’t think there is any need for a law against fraud.”  And he was hardly alone.

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

In South Africa, East Asians are both white and black at the same time. Here is how this happened:

For many years South Africa’s white minority governed the country through a policy of apartheid – racial segregation and discrimination intended to favor whites and continue white rule. Under the 1950 Population Registration Act, South Africa’s government classified individuals into three racial categories. These constituted Blacks, Whites and Coloureds. It was upon the basis of these classifications that apartheid functioned. It was also upon these classifications that parts of apartheid quickly began to approach the ludicrous.

The world, you see, is not just composed of black people and white people. South Africa’s apartheid system, however, found it hard to deal with those outside its black-and-white classification scheme.

More below.

The New York Times has a front-page story, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11… headlined:

“Democrats Divided on Tax Cut Strategy.”

The story alleges that the White House and the Congressional Democrats are struggling to come up with a unified position as to how to deal with the expiring Bush Tax Cuts. Some of them reportedly have no appetite left for combat.

And they wonder why they just got trounced?

Meet the people who gave the GOP control of the House of Representatives

25% of Americans do not believe in evolution.

21% of Americans believe there are real sorcerors, conjurers, and warlocks.

25% do not believe in astrology.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, four in 10 Americans mistakenly believe the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act creates a panel that makes decisions about end-of-life care.

20% of Americans believe the sun revolves around the Earth. – Gallup 1999

33% don’t believe the 1st Amendment applies to all religions.

24% believe President Obama is a Muslim.

Voter participation in American mid-term elections is notoriously low. The 2010 election is no exception. Only 41.5% of eligible voters cast a ballot. Approximately 56% voted for the GOP. That means 23% of eligible American voters gave the GOP control of the House of Representatives. Look once more at that list above and ask yourself – Is this any way to run a country?

This will be the third time I have posted this diary. As time has passed I have posted it each time in a slightly different manner. I first posted it the day after President Obama was elected, and then posted it again a week or so before he was sworn in as President of the United States of America.

I am posting it once again, because I was reminded of my earlier diaries by DeniseVelez’s latest diary that shared Mark Morford’s  Letter to a whiny young Democrat. I am posting it again, because we all have let our country, our President, and ourselves down. I am posting it again, because it is still not too late to do something to change the course we are on towards 2012. Finally, I am posting it again, because I am sick to death of liberals and progressives having the attention span of a gnat, and shitting on the one chance I have ever seen of actually making a difference for the future of the United States of America.

So here goes nothing…now pay attention and pass it along!

Ask Not… **Updated** (+)

by: Hollede

Fri Jan 09, 2009 at 16:07:51 PM EST

Slightly edited and re-posted from November 5, 2009. I was listening to Tavis Smiley this morning and was reminded of this earlier post. I will update with the clip from Morning Joe-Boy (or “Jughead” as Stewart calls him), if I can find a tube. Tavis rocks. I have liked him forever. And I really like Jughead. (Please note the “dripping with sarcasm” alert>:E)

Ask Not…

by: Hollede

Wed Nov 05, 2008 at 16:24:19 PM EST

I have a couple of important issues that I want addressed by our new President. God, after eight long years, it feels so good to call someone President again. President Barack Hussein Obama.

However, I am going to skip over my desires and speak to something I think our new President needs. Something our country needs. Something our world needs.

We need you.

But only if anyone here wants it.

Consider carefully whether this is worth your time.

Motley Moose. The Blog for the Bully Boys Who Love to Hate MyDD

http://mydd.com/users/changeag…  

by guess who?

Is the title of yesterday’s column in the San Francisco Bay Chronicle, by Mark Morford.

Morford, writes Notes & Errata every Wednesday.  

Thought you all might enjoy  giving it a full read (if you haven’t already).  It is making a rapid round of the web.

His scathing critique of Tuesday’s election losses and his conclusions about the reasons for them won’t sit well with many young liberals.  

Letter to a whiny young Democrat

 

A number of commentators have lamented increasing polarization in Washington. Conventional wisdom has it that America is as divided and partisan as it ever has been. Sectional divisions are tearing this country apart and preventing problems such as the deficit from being addressed; the differences between blue America and red America, in this view, are rapidly approaching crisis point.

There is some justice to this view. Polarization has probably increased, by a number of metrics, over the past few elections. Indeed, I previously noted something to this exact effect.

Let’s take another look, however, at the hypothesis, using a different type of measurement. Do blue states elect Republican representatives, and vice versa? In a polarized nation, this would probably not be the case.

Here is the House before the midterms:

Here is 1894:

As this stark contrast illustrates, perhaps polarization ain’t so bad as it used to be.

More below.

Underlying the outcome of the recent midterm shift in our political landscape is the almost universal acknowledgement that the electorate is not happy.  Down on Congress, certainly, concerned about the direction the country is headed and pessimistic that things will change any time soon.  We all seem to understand it’s because our economy is broken and we are broke, and more importantly the remedies we’ve applied are widely unpopular.  Looking back to 2008 one is staggered by the cupidity of those whom ‘free market’ theory entrusted with our national economy:

Wall Street has turned the economy into a giant asset-stripping scheme, one whose purpose is to suck the last bits of meat from the carcass of the middle class.

What really happened to [Bear Stern] and [Lehman Brothers] is that an economic drought temporarily left the hyenas without any more middle-class victims – and so they started eating each other, using the exact same schemes they had been using for years to fleece the rest of the country.  And in the forensic footprint left by those kills, we can see for the first time exactly how the scam worked – and how completely even the government regulators who are supposed to protect us have given up trying to stop it.

This was a brokered bloodletting, one in which the power of the state was used to help effect a monstrous consolidation of financial and political power.  Heading into 2008, there were five major investment banks in the United States: Bear, Lehman, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.  Today only Morgan Stanley and Goldman survive as independent firms, perched atop a restructured Wall Street hierarchy.  And while the rest of the civilized world responded to last year’s catastrophes with sweeping measures to rein in the corruption in their financial sectors, the United States invited the wolves into the government, with the popular new president, Barack Obama – elected amid promises to clean up the mess – filling his administration with Bear’s and Lehman’s conquerors, bestowing his papal blessing on a new era of robbery.

To the rest of the world, the brazenness of the theft – coupled with the conspicuousness of the government’s inaction – clearly demonstrates that the American capital markets are a crime in progress.

Matt Taibbi – Wall Street’s Naked Swindle Rolling Stone 15 Oct 09

Could it really be that bad?  America seems to think so and the widespread disaffection with both political parties will continue until it is fixed.