The similarities between Verizon $2 fee & Scott Walker Family Care walk-back

12/29: Verizon Wireless to charge $2 for one-time payment

12/30 2:50PM: Verizon Says It Won’t Back Down On $2 ‘Convenience’ Fee

12/30 3:30PM: FCC Voices Concern Over Verizon Wireless Fee

12/30 3:40PM: Verizon Caves, Pulls Plug On Fee

I’m sure they’d cave in to consumer pressure even without the FCC getting involved. I’m sure of it!

LOL. Something like this:

July 2011: Wis. officials announce sweeping Medicaid changes

Dec 13, 2011: Feds ordered Walker to lift cap on Family Care

Dec 29, 2011: Walker wants to lift cap on Family Care programs

Dec 30, 2011: Gov’s office: Walker, feds not talking about same Family Care issue

Of course the Feds arent talking about the same Family Care! Of course not! LOL

GOPers are corporations, my friend.

Letter of the week: John Lindsay from Pacific Palisades!

John writes to the nutjobs manning the WSJ op-eds:

The Dec. 21 letter “Californians Have Themselves to Blame,” about our high-speed train fiasco, puts the blame on all Californians (especially liberals) for the demise of our once-glorious state because we have voted for “Democratic control of their state time after time.”

Californians are by now quite used to being criticized for all manner of aberrant behavior, especially of the liberal variety. But, all you California-bashers please keep this list of California governors in mind before you take a swing at the California piñata again:

Republican Ronald Reagan (1967-1975); Democrat Jerry Brown (1975-1983); Republican George Deukmejian 1983-1991); Republican Pete Wilson (1991-1999); Democrat Gray Davis (1999- Recalled in 2003); Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger (2003-2010); Democrat Jerry Brown (2010 onward).

So, to summarize: Republicans (including the storied Mr. Reagan) ran the state for twice as long as Democrats over the past four and a half decades.

Darn those liberals.

John Lindsay

Pacific Palisades, Calif.

LOL. Right on, John.

Let’s not forget that the batshit crazies also rant about how those darn liberals ruined the US economy (when debt evidently swirled out of control, gasp). Except that during the past 30 years, Dem POTUSes were in power only for 11! And the economy was positively giddy and deficit was erased during one of those liberal regimes.

Darn those liberals, indeed.

GOP tests new fear tactic: Hindus!

TPM:

Gov. Steve Beshear (D-KY) is heavily favored to win re-election in a vote next Tuesday, with leads of roughly 2-1 in all the publicly released polls. Now his Republican opponent, state Senate President David Williams, is launching an attack against Beshear on a new front: Beshear participated in a Hindu religious ceremony!

Finally, GOP has the Beshear-Obama connection:

0.6% of South Carolinians think Obama is a Hindu. No, never mind that 30% of them believe Obama is a Muslim, 0.6% believe he is Hindu

Scary. Watch out, Hindus. The wingnuts are on to your secret Bengali mole President.

Monster discovery: credit ratings firms played pay to rate

Shocking:

The research shows that profit may influence credit rankings after a government panel described the rating companies as “key enablers of the financial meltdown” in 2008.

No. You don’t say!

Credit-rating companies routinely award higher rankings to debt issued by banks and corporations that pay them the most, a conflict of interest that may escape Congressional efforts to change the way they do business.

Bonds from countries and cities that pay about half as much as issuers of less creditworthy debt are “rated more harshly,” according to a study by scholars at Indiana University in Bloomington, Washington, D.C.-based American University and Rice University in Houston.

On the other hand, freedom of speech means money talks and the rest get rated BB-.

Wait till Peter Wallison finds out about this. I’m sure he’ll uncover evidence how poor people with CRA mortgages bribed, err, paid S&P & Moody’s to rate their mortgage pools AAAA for Awesome Awesome Awesome!

I’m sure, though, that corporate media will cover this corruption with the same vigor as they covered fake scandals like birth certificates, Solyndra etc.

Whoever shorted ADBE, YHOO, GOOG, EBAY & COST is making a killing today!

 

 

Fail:

Stocks go up, stocks go down. But not like this

Fight the power: 999 (the UK version) is a joke

Phone hacking, spying on citizens and .. now, add software piracy to the list of illegality from Scotland Yard:

The West Yorkshire police force is in the British High court today, accused of stealing intellectual property from a firm whose software decodes forensic data from mobile phones

Also, too, US version of a 999 is a joke. But, at least, everyone knows that it is.

Fyi

Presidents & their contribution to deficit

Facts have a liberal bias:

George W. Bush is sworn in on January 20^th, but his first budget does not take effect until October 1, 2001:

10/1/2001: Bush starting deficit – $5.8 trillion

9/30/2009: Bush ending deficit – $11.9 trillion

Bush debt contribution: $6.1 trillion

Barack H. Obama is sworn in on January 20^th, but his first budget does not take effect until October 1, 2009:

10/1/2009: Obama starting deficit – $11.9 trillion

9/30/2011: Obama ending deficit – $14.8 trillion

Obama debt contribution: $2.9 trillion

On the other hand, only one of the above is secret Kenyan Muslim.

Wow: Michael Winslow’s Whole Lotta Love

Wonder when the “copyright” lawsuits start:

Wow

What does @NYTimes mean by this: “Weak Start for Wall Street”?

Weak Start For Wall Street

Same day on same paper:

Wells Fargo Earnings Rise 21%, to $4.1 Billion

Citigroup Earnings Rise 74% to $3.8 Billion

Gee, how much more should’ve earnings risen for NYTimes to not consider “weak”?

Gee, I wonder what the “very serious people” are trying to tell us about how they feel about #OWS

NYT Front – 2 stories on Romney & nothing else:

Occupy what?

Chicago Tribube:

Occupy what?

WaPo:

Occupy what?

Meanwhile, at theOpelia-Auburn News:

And at the Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette

Remember how the NYTimes & WaPO keep telling us that Opelika and Ft. Wayne are real ‘muricans? How come real ‘muricans are interested in stuff NYTimes/WaPo keep ignorin’ ? I’m droppin’ the g’s n honor of real ‘muricans