Federal Housing Finance Agency finally grants mortgage reductions to more than 30,000 homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than their houses are worth. Sen. Warren promptly (and rightly!) reminds us that "(t)he big banks got their money immediately" while homeowners had to wait damn near eight years. And if underwater homeowners had received the help they needed back in 2008 instead of 2016? They would have detoxified all those toxic securities that crashed the economy. But then, certain politically well-connected banksters wouldn't have been paid. No, really, that's what stopped our government from doing the right thing -- certainly banksters didn't get a mandate from the voters in 2008!
Ho hum, Adam Johnson at FAIR finds the "liberal" media gives more space to Verizon than its striking workers when covering the strike. (The score was 31-13 quotations from four news sources -- two traditional, two "new" -- over the first week of coverage; that score isn't even symmetrical, let alone fair.) I do appreciate Mr. Johnson's generosity in allowing that Verizon's "highly-sophisticated public relations machine" would overwhelm even the best journalists, but maybe basing the proverbial first draft of history so much on quotations isn't the best way to go.
Sir Elton John secures an injunction from a British court that could actually put journalists in jail for mentioning his or his husband's names in a story -- which, given the sexual imbroglios both men have been accused of lately, journalists will be tempted to do. We have to remind ourselves that Britain really doesn't have a First Amendment, which would prevent this kind of high-handedness in America -- and make those well-to-do folks who are guilty of extramarital transgressions, or far worse ones, work considerably harder to hide them.
A Consumerist investigation finds that, surprising as it may seem, it is Dunkin' Donuts' national policy to prompt consumers to enter the three-digit CVV code "for transactions that meet certain criteria" when using their credit cards -- but it is not their policy for clerks to demand that you say these numbers out loud so everyone can hear them, as clerks at upwards of two New York locations seemed to think. Call me old-fashioned, but I still think you shouldn't be ashamed of paying for things like that with cash -- save your credit cards for larger or remote purchases. Just because it's easy doesn't mean you should do it.
Finally, the Tennessee state legislature withdrew its notorious "bathroom bill" earlier this week -- congratulate yourselves if you worked against that bill, and then get ready for them to bring it up all over again later on this year -- and now some state legislators are riding the waaaambulance about it, with the state Senate Speaker Pro Tempore warning that business interests that opposed the bill should maybe think twice next time about asking the legislature for corporate incentives. Which is worse: that legislators would unfairly and unlawfully withhold corporate welfare goodies from organizations that advocate against these bills, or that legislators hand out corporate welfare goodies in the first place? I'm honestly not sure.
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