Today begins a 12-state "Moral Week of Action," an extension of the "Moral Monday" protests that have followed the wave of reactionary laws from the North Carolina government. Seven of the 12 states are Southern; the others are Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, and New York; the first four of these have seen similarly reactionary state governments, while the fifth can claim to be merely disappointing. I wish the Moral Monday protestors luck, but more than that, I wish them faith.
Trumpets are blaring about the $16.6 billion settlement between our government and Bank of America, but David Dayen at the Guardian reminds us not to expect too much good to come of it. Our government has mandated that out of the $16.6 billion, about $7 billion of that money actually go toward reducing homeowner principals or interest payments -- and if the JP Morgan Chase settlement is any guide, that money will come out very, very slowly. Banks can weasel out of helping homeowners in other ways, too -- by the time you read about them, you might well think our government and the big banksters have rigged these settlements to benefit the banksters.
Yet another data point in our ongoing effort to slam the Comcast meme that merging with Time-Warner is OK because the real competition comes from wireless: Kate Cox at the Consumerist finds that streaming the entire series Breaking Bad over one month's time would cost $1200-$2200 -- if your wireless provider doesn't hit you with the data-throttling stick first. You already knew (if you've ever used your laptop in a Starbucks, for example) that wireless broadband is slow, unsteady, and insecure; now you know it's also pricey as hell. Some "competition."
Remember the wealthy teenager who drunk-drove four people to death and got probation because his lawyer argued his wealth hadn't taught him enough responsibility? The kid's pa is in the news now, for impersonating a police officer. Why was he posing as a reserve police officer at a disturbance call? The world may never know, as Mr. Couch hasn't commented since the arrest. In any case, it looks like "affluenza" either runs in the family or is very contagious.
Finally, Larry Klayman says President Obama and Attorney General Holder "jump to judgment, on a consistent and regular basis, against 'whitey' and in favor of their black brothers." I'm sure glad he said "consistent" and "regular," or I would have had no idea what he meant. Seriously, passages like "racist hacks who should be removed from office and banished to hell by whatever legal means are appropriate" more accurately describe a writer with anger-management issues than they describe his targets. And if he thinks Messrs. Obama and Holder have created "a huge racial divide" in America, he must not be acquainted with slavery or Jim Crow or redlining.
Comments