I’m writing early, and tomorrow will be day five. I’m having trouble with irritation with patches. I scratched one off in the middle of the night and woke up craving. Grrr!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 2:36 (average 4:14). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Fantasy Football:
I OOPSED!! We filled three out of five spots for our fantasy football league. For more information about the last two spots, check Monday’s article.
Short Takes:
From NJ.com: Two liberal groups say they’ve found a “smoking gun” in a century-old state law that could force Gov. Chris Christie to schedule the general election in November.
New Jersey Citizen Action and New Jersey Communities United in a brief today, told the state Supreme Court today that the state’s 1915 law on filling U.S. Senate vacancies said that unless the vacancy occurred shortly before the next general election, it should be filled at the closest general election.
The purpose, according to drafters of the original law, was to “avoid the expenses of special elections for United States Senators and Congressmen.”…
I would love to see it, because, if both the Senate vote, and the General Election are combined, as they should be, turnout for Booker will assist down-ballot Democrats, and that's exactly what Christy want's to spend $12+ million of NJ taxpayer's money to avoid.
From MSNBC: Is Miss Utah planning a career in Congress?
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
She had her talking points, and she was bound and determined to stick with them regardless of the question asked. It's sad to see such goose-stepping at such a young age. That she comes from a Red State was quite apparent, because her opinion trumped her intellect.
From Alternet: Bank of America’s mortgage servicing unit systematically lied to homeowners, fraudulently denied loan modifications, and paid their staff bonuses for deliberately pushing people into foreclosure: Yes, these allegations were suspected by any homeowner who ever had to deal with the bank to try to get a loan modification – but now they come from six former employees and one contractor, whose sworn statements were added last week to a civil lawsuit filed in federal court in Massachusetts.
“Bank of America’s practice is to string homeowners along with no apparent intention of providing the permanent loan modifications it promises,” said Erika Brown, one of the former employees. The damning evidence would spur a series of criminal investigations of BofA executives, if we still had a rule of law in this country for Wall Street banks… [emphasis added]
Click through for the rest of this highly enlightening article. BofA employees were told to lie to customers to trick them into foreclosure. Bring on the DOJ!
Cartoon:
17 Responses to “Open Thread–6/19/2013”
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3:30 My spirits are dampened by your lightning speed, TC!
2:55 I needed a spring shower today!
Unlless Critter Crunchged me here, this will end my winning streak.
2:46 My best time ever…I think, and I am still second. Great time TomCat.
My best time ever. For some reason, mu browswe has stopped mudding my mouse.
NJ.com ~ Great news for the people of NJ! Bad news for Christie. I do like him though. Get out and vote Democrat in November, everyone!
MSNBC ~ Is she related to Rick Perry? Her intellect is similar.
Alternet ~ DOJ, are you paying attention???
Cartoon ~ They would have made him drink hemlock back then.
I don't like him, because he cut programs and killed labor to give tax breaks to billionaires.
LOL!
Amen!
Worse than hemlock, they would have made him drink InsaniTEA.
It's clear that Miss Utah studied at Dubya's "Is Our Children Learning" College.
At least she made the case for a serious need of education reform.
Love it, Nameless!
Re: Chris Christie
This should be done immediately and help save the State of NJ 12 million dollars to hold a "special" election. Gov. Chris Christie is too hung up on his own re-electon efforts and his political career. If Chris is that popular in NJ, he has nothing to fear but his own fear of himself.
Jim, since the Democratic gubernatorial contender is so weak, that Obama wouldn't even meet with her, I thinkj Christie is safe personally. I think he wants more Republicans in the NJ House and NJ Senate.
Tom, strange about the patches. I have super sensitive skin and the patches did not irritate. And the Chantix did take away the cravings.
Sadly, we all react differently.
Puzzle — 2:55 I needed a spring shower today!
NJ.com — Yeehaw! Just love some of those old obscure laws! May it be so!
MSNBC — In my mind, Miss Utah clearly flubbed her response to the question asked, whether from nerves or lack of knowledge, goose-stepping or lack of intellect, or some other reason. But the real issue is the lack of pay equity and the seemingly lack of political interest in solving this problem that affects one half of the population.When I received a promotion to branch manager, I asked the district manager what it was specifically that he saw in me that he liked for the job. He said, "You're single, with no kids so you will devote the time and energy necessary to the job." He had big hopes for the branch (bank), to have this small branch turned around and be profitable. After 15 months, we rose in productivity from 148 of 152 branches to 3rd of 152 branches; our loan delinquencies dropped from 6.37% of the portfolio to 1.32%; and we went from an annual loss to a small profit. Very successful over 15 months. The decision was made however that the branch would be closed because it was the wrong type of bank for the area. The bank executive thought we would be lucky to retain 40% of our business through the transfer to another branch. We maintained 75%. I also discovered that I was paid 3/4 of the pay of other managers at my same level — mostly male, a few female. and all with less senioity as far as time in and relative experience.
To me "married with children" is a dirty word. The job is the job. The expectations should be the same and the pay the same. It seems to happen a lot. Once I discovered that a new employee who I was training, was paid $150/yr more than I. When I requested a raise, I was given a $200/yr raise so that I made $50/yr more than she did, but I had 1 year's experience. Sometimes I think people are targeted from day 1.
There maybe laws out there to supposedly prevent this, but there are ways that some use to get around it. Until the spirit of the law and the terms of the law and the carrying out of the law are the same, women will always come out on the short end.
As to those that say there is no gender gap, come live in my shoes for a while. There was a book years ago called 'Black Like Me' by journalist John Howard Griffin. Griffin, white, became black and travelled the south in 1959 for 6 weeks to experience the racial hatred towards blacks. May the naysayers take the same type of journey and find the truth.
Alternet — The big banks are a big problem in the US — Jamie Dimon and JP Morgan Chase with their very risky transactions; Bank of America with its mortgage foreclosure methods; other banks with a myriade of questionable if not illegal practices.
I am a long time mortgage banker in Canada. I considered it my job to ensure as many people as possible stayed in their homes for as long as possible. I would do as much as the law and the mortgage permitted me to do to keep people in their homes, and at no time was I ever asked, or was it suggested that I lie to a client or "make things disappear". I have always said that banks are in the banking business not the real estate business.
IMO, the American banking industry has gone rogue and sees itself as a law unto itself. Bof A needs to be taken to task for this egregious behaviour. That includes prison time for the executives, and maybe even managers that carried out this crap. Those who participated in this charade should be fired. And to the employees that went along with this for their 30 pieces of silver, your time is coming when that silver won't help you. You have no ethics. Karma will be a real bitch!
Cartoon — I think the Republican/Teabaggers have been listening to too much Dean Martin — "If the moon [or any other disc shape like the earth] hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore!" — they still think the earth is a flat disc as opposed to the sphere that science and astronauts have proven it to be. Sigh . . .
You'll beat me today.
Amen!
Considering that it's even worse here, that's horrid!
Amen Again!
Shhhh! Or baggers will try to eat the moon!!
In defense of Miss Utah –
http://www.care2.com/causes/5-people-way-dumber-on-equal-pay-than-miss-utah.html
Joanne, although I tagged that as humor, that poor girl has not had the time to develop the same level of InsaniTEA as the Republicans you reference. 🙂