Octopus Overlords

"There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of—not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, OK, they’re really angry because of this and that," Kerry said of January’s Charlie Hebdo attacks. "This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate. It wasn't to aggrieve one particular sense of wrong. It was to terrorize people. It was to attack everything that we do stand for."

The son used an anatomical term to refer to Mr. Cuomo, and asked, “How do we beat him, Dad?”

“We will,” the senator replied. “I’m going to run against him.”

“I wish you would, Dad,” the son said, his mood seeming to lift, adding with coarse language that he “would be so proud” if the senator soundly defeated Mr. Cuomo.

“You watch what I’m going to do in the next couple of years with him, especially starting this year,” the senator said. “No more, you know, buddy-buddy and all that stuff,” he continued, and then referred to the governor with an expletive.

LordMortis wrote: Whodathunk? I always thought of Hamtramck as a Polish city and I would have thought Dearborn to be the first "majority muslim city" in the US. Shows what I know and how much I get out anymore.

LordMortis wrote:Is this political randomness or religious randomness?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... story.html

Whodathunk? I always thought of Hamtramck as a Polish city and I would have thought Dearborn to be the first "majority muslim city" in the US. Shows what I know and how much I get out anymore. Still, it's an interesting read when contrasted with all of this fear of them and how the US continues to be a shifting stew and not a true melting pot.

There's a lot of "Oh, snap" and high-fiving on the internet about Janet Yellen's comeback to Ralph Nader this week. "Ralph Nader wrote Janet Yellen a sexist letter," declared Vox, on its business and finance website. "Her response is a fantastic short lesson in monetary policy." Well, first of all, Nader's letter wasn't sexist. He merely advised the chairwoman of the U.S. Federal Reserve to sit down with her "Nobel Prize-winning husband, economist George Akerlof, who is known to be consumer-sensitive," and figure out some way to help millions of retired Americans.

Let's remember here that Nader, whom I've encountered flying coach and eating a cold sandwich, has dedicated his life to defending ordinary consumers. Let's also remember that Janet Yellen is in charge of an incredibly powerful, secretive government institution that used public money to protect super-wealthy U.S. bankers seven years ago while millions of Americans were ruined or beggared by the reckless pump-and-dump schemes Wall Street had been running.

That Yellen happens to be a woman and Nader a man is irrelevant. What is important, and largely not discussed, is the point Nader was making: that ultra-low interest rates have hurt retirees and savers, not just in America, but in every Western nation that used cheap money to grease the financial system when it was about to seize up.

Kraken wrote:Some of our retirement savings are in a savings account that's been stuck at 0.75% ever since the crash.

OTOH I refi'd our 5.75% mortgage into a 2.79% variable home equity line last year. Higher rates are not welcome there.

Of course, monetary policy is not designed for people like me.

LordMortis wrote:
I'd jump on CDs or even corporate bonds in heartbeat but there's pretty much nothing to jump on to.

Kraken wrote:I'd jump on CDs or even corporate bonds in heartbeat but there's pretty much nothing to jump

For the past year or more, 1-5 year CDs have been paying 0.70%, vs. 0.75% on regular savings. It's like they don't even want you to lock in your money.

malchior wrote:

Kraken wrote: For the past year or more, 1-5 year CDs have been paying 0.70%, vs. 0.75% on regular savings. It's like they don't even want you to lock in your money.

They don't need your money - they are getting it essentially for free at the discount window and maintaining accounts costs them money. It's totally broken but that is the game now. Only 1 or 2 top 10 banks care at all about the interest rate going up (Schwab for sure and maybe Bank of New York - Mellon). Not a lot of pressure on them except from the inflationistas/gold bugs whose influence is basically zilch at this point.

By Friday, he was on CNN discussing his favorite soup — and telling host John Berman that, had he won the presidency in 1988, perhaps millions would have been exposed to his promotion of turkey soup. He said he may mention it to President Obama.

“A lot of people are throwing them out. And they’re missing a fabulous meal,” he said. “So maybe if I’d become president of the United States, we could have had literally thousands — maybe millions — of people out there making themselves turkey soup and sharing it with others.”

“Given the reaction to this,” he added, “maybe I’ll suggest it to the president. Who knows?”

LordMortis wrote:Why aren't we "as a nation" calling these Extremist Christian acts of terrorism, Extremist Christian acts of terrorism, when we "as a nation" have no problem calling out Extremist Muslim acts of terrorism, Extremist Muslim acts of terrorism?

Isn't there a point where the collective we either take exclamation point off of Muslim or add it Christian? How do you ever address the crazy if you can't find consistency?

Police have not released a motive for the shooting, but Vicki Cowart, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountains, said that witnesses to the shooting reported that Dear "was motivated by opposition to safe and legal abortion."

Investigators have not confirmed the claim, but two law enforcement officials told NBC News on Saturday that upon questioning, Dear made a comment about "no more baby parts" in an apparent reference to Planned Parenthood. The officials stressed that Dear's comments were made amidst a flurry of "rantings" that also included statements about politics and President Barack Obama.

People who were familiar with Dear from time he spent living in South Carolina were accustomed to similar rhetoric.

Former next door neighbor John Hood said that Dear hardly ever spoke wit him, but when he did, he would offer nonsensical advice, like recommending that Hood put a metal roof on his house so the U.S. government couldn't spy on him.
...
Whether or not Dear's strange antics should have raised a red flag, sources told NBC News that there would have been nothing apparent in Dear's background — including a felony conviction or previous mental health issue — that would have disqualified him from buying the AK-47 style, high-powered rifle used in the shootings.

This week’s carnage in Colorado brings the death toll from North Carolinian terrorists, including Eric Rudolph, to eight. That’s just one shy of the nine people murdered in Charleston. Throw in the work of a few lesser miscreants, and you’re looking at roughly 20 casualties inflicted by Carolina extremists.

Holman wrote:

LordMortis wrote:Why aren't we "as a nation" calling these Extremist Christian acts of terrorism, Extremist Christian acts of terrorism, when we "as a nation" have no problem calling out Extremist Muslim acts of terrorism, Extremist Muslim acts of terrorism?

Isn't there a point where the collective we either take exclamation point off of Muslim or add it Christian? How do you ever address the crazy if you can't find consistency?

Ted Cruz, at least, is unafraid to face facts.

He has declared the Colorado Planned Parenthood killer to be a transgendered leftist activist.

Enough wrote:

Holman wrote:

LordMortis wrote:Why aren't we "as a nation" calling these Extremist Christian acts of terrorism, Extremist Christian acts of terrorism, when we "as a nation" have no problem calling out Extremist Muslim acts of terrorism, Extremist Muslim acts of terrorism?

Isn't there a point where the collective we either take exclamation point off of Muslim or add it Christian? How do you ever address the crazy if you can't find consistency?

Ted Cruz, at least, is unafraid to face facts.

He has declared the Colorado Planned Parenthood killer to be a transgendered leftist activist.

He really is a giant pile of excrement.

geezer wrote:

Enough wrote:

Holman wrote:

LordMortis wrote:Why aren't we "as a nation" calling these Extremist Christian acts of terrorism, Extremist Christian acts of terrorism, when we "as a nation" have no problem calling out Extremist Muslim acts of terrorism, Extremist Muslim acts of terrorism?

Isn't there a point where the collective we either take exclamation point off of Muslim or add it Christian? How do you ever address the crazy if you can't find consistency?

Ted Cruz, at least, is unafraid to face facts.

He has declared the Colorado Planned Parenthood killer to be a transgendered leftist activist.

He really is a giant pile of excrement.

You're too kind. (Seriously).

An El Paso County clerical error was apparently to blame for Planned Parenthood shooting suspect Robert Lewis Dear Jr. being listed as a woman on his voter registration card - a detail that fueled national speculation over his gender identity.

Ryan Parsell, El Paso County's chief deputy clerk and recorder, said his office incorrectly recorded Dear's gender in October 2014, leading to the issuance of both a driver's license and voter's registration card erroneously identifying him as a woman.

"The Clerk and Recorder's Office processes over 500,000 transactions a year," Parsell said. "Mistakes are going to be made, and it is a reminder to us of the important job that we do to see that a mistake made by us has had national implications."

Isgrimnur wrote:I sure am glad that Ted waited until all the facts were in to make a reasoned response, especially since the issue in question happened in a state that he represents.

When a reporter reminded Cruz it has been reported Dear made a comment about "baby parts" while being apprehended, Cruz retorted, "It’s also been reported that he was registered as an independent and a woman and a transgendered leftist activist. If that’s what he is, I don’t think it’s fair to blame on the rhetoric on the left. This is a murderer.”

Cruz's claim appeared to be based on a voter registration form that lists Dear's gender as female. "We know that he was a man who was registered to vote as a woman," Cruz said.

Asked if we could call the shooting an act of domestic terrorism — as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has — Cruz again urged caution about drawing conclusions from the shooting at this point.

“I would call it a murder, and we’ll see what the facts are," Cruz replied. "It was a multiple murder of what appears to be a deranged individual. And it was horrific, it was evil, and we’ll find out more out about the facts, but I don’t think we should jump to conclusions.”

Former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was found guilty on all counts Monday afternoon in his federal trial on charges of bribery, extortion and money laundering.

As CBS2’s Jessica Schneider reported, Silver was one of the most powerful men in Albany up until about a year ago – along with Gov. Andrew Cuomo and former Senate leader Dean Skelos, who together with Silver were sometimes called the “three men in a room.”

But at 4 p.m., he was convicted of receiving $5 million in improper fees from law firms for referrals. He showed no expression when the verdict was read, Schneider reported.
...
Silver walked out of court just before 6 p.m. He only said that he was disappointed, and that he will fight the verdict on appeal with his attorneys.

He now faces up to 130 years in prison.

Moliere wrote:Hand out flyers on jury nullification? Go to jail! On felony charges no less.

Keith Eric Wood is being prosecuted for standing outside a Michigan courthouse and handing out a leaflet that discusses jury nullification. According to Michigan authorities, his leafletting (1) constitutes felony “obstruction of justice,” by “knowingly and intentionally giving the members of a . . . jury pool a pamphlet that encouraged the jurors to violate their oaths and directly contradicted the instructions the jurors would be given thereby tainting the entire jury panel,” and (2) “willfully attempt to influence the decision of a juror in a case [a misdemeanor] by argument or persuasion that was not a part of the proceedings in open court in the trial of the case” (even though the leaflet wasn’t referring to a particular case).

It seems to me that such speech is constitutionally protected, and that the prosecution therefore violates the First Amendment. One can debate whether jury nullification is good or bad for the legal system, but it’s clear that it’s not a crime for jurors to refuse to convict even when the jury instructions seem to call for a guilty verdict. So Wood is encouraging a jury to engage in legal — even if, in the view of some, harmful — conduct.

El Guapo wrote:Though I'm curious why the guy felt compelled to do this, if not to interfere with a particular case.