The Lie Politic » Newsmakers

Poll: Democrat Bounces Back in IL-Sen Race

theliepolitic — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:43:43 +0000

The Republican response to Alexi Giannoulias, the Democrats’ nominee for President Obama’s old Senate seat in Illinois, has been one of outright derision. As soon as he locked up his nomination last month, the NRSC blasted out a video tying Giannoulias to the scandals surrounding his family’s Broadway Bank; when Giannoulias visited the White House yesterday, the NRSC mocked Giannoulias when Obama called him a “potential” (as opposed to “the next”) senator from Illinois.

Now Giannoulias is getting a boost from, of all things, a Rasmussen Poll — it shows him jumping into a lead over Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) since last month. (Scott Rasmussen has confirmed to me that the leaked results are accurate.)

Alexi Giannoulias (D) – 44 (+4)
Mark Kirk (R) – 41 (-5)

That’s after an air-clearing interview that, many Democrats thought, didn’t do much for Giannoulias.

Visit SourcePopular Posts:

Copyright © 2010 The Lie Politic. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@theliepolitic.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

A Partial Defense of Payday Lenders: Banks Are Just as Bad

theliepolitic — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:43:43 +0000

For many people, payday lenders and check-cashing outfits are the scum of the financial-sector earth; they’re called usurious, compared to illegal loan sharks and may finally be subject to at least some federal regulation (if not enforcement). But G.D. at Post Bourgie has an interesting defense of the so-called “fringe” banking services: At least they’re not as bad as banks.

But the proliferation of banks in poor neighborhoods has done little to keep the unbanked from opting for “fringe banking services” — check cashing services, payday lenders, and the like. Those institutions charge onerous fees of their own, but unlike the big banks, their fees are explicitly outlined. Customers may cough up $12 for the privilege of cashing your $300 check, but it makes more economic sense than being stuck with miscellaneous surcharges over the course of several weeks for not maintaining a minimum balance, withdrawing money from an ATM, writing a check, or overdrafting your account — penalties that can accrue much more easily and be much more disastrous when your life is inherently unstable.

Although market research indicates the alternative-to-banking industry as a whole earns about $27 billion in profits a year, banks made $20 billion on debit card overdraft charges alone in 2009 — which means they’re undoubtedly pulling in more than $27 billion in profits from ATM fees, minimum balance fees, check writing fees, bounced check and overdraft charges. Who is it that is screwing over Americans with banking fees again? Because it seems more and more like the answer is “everyone.”

Visit SourcePopular Posts:

Father of Cop Who Died on 9/11 Rejects Military Trial for KSM

theliepolitic — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:43:43 +0000

Mohammed Salman Hamdani was a New York City police cadet who died trying to evacuate people from the World Trade Center. His father, Talat, writes a poignant commentary for McClatchy objecting to any backtracking from the Obama administration and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on the plan to try the 9/11 conspirators in a civilian court:

The commissions are simply not prepared or experienced enough to handle complex international terrorism cases. Part of the problem is that while many military judges are competent, hard-working and honorable, military criminal cases typically involve prosecutions of U.S. soldiers and sailors for ordinary crimes. There are relatively few murder cases, fewer death penalty cases and almost no conspiracy cases, much less international terrorism trials. This is a problem no new law can fix.

Others worry that federal trials will give the accused a soapbox to spew their hateful agendas. In fact, federal judges are known for preventing such outbursts, as was the case in the Zacharias Moussaoui trial. It was in the Guantánamo commissions that the 9-11 defendants were allowed to give five-minute tirades.

This argument always seemed weak to me: can you imagine not putting Timothy McVeigh on trial because he might make hateful statements? Or any serial killer, for that matter?

Read the whole thing.

Visit SourcePopular Posts:

Reid Vows Filibuster Reform

theliepolitic — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:43:43 +0000

Ezra Klein at The Washington Post reports:

“The filibuster has been abused,” Sen. Harry Reid said at a reporter’s briefing this afternoon. “But next Congress, we are going to take a look at it. And we’re going to make some changes in it.”

Reid didn’t say precisely what he’s got in mind for a fix, Klein reports, nor has the Senate majority leader said how he plans to get such a controversial measure through the upper chamber. (Ironically, it’s sure to be filibustered.) But there’s a growing sense that something has to change if Congress hopes to tackle the most pressing problems of the day, which currently include a health coverage crisis, a jobs crisis, a climate change crisis, a debt crisis, a deficit spending crisis and a housing crisis, to name just a few.

There are bills out there addressing all of these things, but when it requires a full month to pass a bill that literally every member of the Senate supports, as was the case last fall surrounding unemployment insurance, then there’s no way for the chamber to enact the more controversial reforms with anywhere near the urgency that these things demand. (The House has passed 290 bills in the last 14 months that are now sitting idle in the Senate.)

There are those who argue that the snail’s pace of the Senate was the conscious design of the founding fathers. (George Will penned such an argument just a few weeks ago.) And they have a point. You wouldn’t want Congress passing reactionary legislation to every emotional event that ever befell the country.

But again, when even bills with unanimous support are tied up for weeks on end simply to make a political statement, then the chamber has lost its ability to govern. It’ll be interesting to see what Reid and the Democrats intend to offer by way of reform.

Visit SourcePopular Posts:

Will ‘The People’s Surge’ Be the Last Big Anti-Health Care Reform Rally?

theliepolitic — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:43:42 +0000

There’s some waning enthusiasm in the most powerful Tea Party-organizing groups for staging more protests against health care reform legislation. In comparison to the “House call” rallies that preceded the House and Senate votes on reform, the much-reported-on “Take the Town Halls to Washington” campaign has made no visible impact so far — it was first reported five days ago — outside of point-and-laugh coverage on liberal blogs.

The rally to watch might be the March 16 “People’s Surge” being organized by FreedomWorks. Only 18 people have officially signed on so far, but FreedomWorks knows how to put these things together. That could double whatever efforts the “Take the Town Halls” coalition, of activists like Mark Skoda and Michael Patrick Leahy, can muster. But for the first time I’m sensing fatigue over this issue among Tea Party groups. The fate of this bill rests with a small number of members of Congress — the fate of their groups (i.e., whether they take over the GOP) rests on the result of primaries and elections that are coming on fast.

Visit SourcePopular Posts:

Lunchtime Links

theliepolitic — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:43:42 +0000

Graham’s “Gang of 14″ proposal isn’t finding many takers among Dems.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) is pushing for a loophole in the Senate’s financial reform bill for the payday lending industry.

Santorum says he’s “paying a price” for being pro-life.

Democrats should start getting worried about turnout in November.

The Obama/SCOTUS scuffle continues.

Rubio’s $250 million in earmark requests undermines his campaign image.

Dems are still likely to lose around four Senate seats this year.

A look at how America’s drug laws created a permanent “undercaste.”

Visit SourcePopular Posts:

All the Economic Cheerleading Isn’t Fooling Americans

theliepolitic — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:43:42 +0000

While economists got out their pom-poms last week to celebrate the news that official unemployment is only 9.7 percent (while skillfully ignoring the increase in underemployment and the 40 percent of the unemployed who have been that way for six months or more), Americans weren’t buying their routine. A new Rasmussen poll shows that despite official optimism, 34 percent of Americans think unemployment will be worse in a year. While 29 percent of those polled think that unemployment will go down, another 29 percent think that unemployment will remain more or less the same — which it what economists think, too, when they are not cheering on the markets.

Those with experience job hunting don’t care if official statistics say that job openings were up 7.6 percent in January: 53 percent of the unemployed think the job market is worse than last year, and they’re right. The Labor Department says that there are 5.5 unemployed people competing for every opening, up from 1.7 at the the beginning of the recession. Some 15 percent of unemployed people say it’s better now and 29 percent think it’s similar.

Republicans and independents are more likely to be bearish about the economy, and more likely to know someone who lost a job and gave up looking in frustration. Of course, 45 percent of Americans still believe that it’s possible for someone who wants a job to find a job despite all evidence to the contrary — and Rasmussen doesn’t break that stat down by party affiliation.

Visit SourcePopular Posts:

Where Same-Sex Couples Bank Without Fear

theliepolitic — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:43:42 +0000

With the news that Citibank screens some of its clients for “objectionable content” — and applies that screening process to gay-themed businesses — many LGBT business people and Citi customers are probably wondering where their business is truly welcome. Luckily, Jeremy Quitner of The Advocate has a great run-down of banking programs designed to cater to the needs of LGBT clients — and, specifically, to the special needs of same-sex couples.

Quitner explains why targeted LGBT banking and financial planning programs are so important.

“It boils down to marriage rights,” says Jennifer Hatch, president of Christopher Street Financial, one of the oldest financial advisories for gays and lesbians, based in New York. “The average straight couple gets a lot of their financial setup simply by saying ‘I do.’”

As LGBT rights advocates have often argued, marriage confers certain legal rights that makes everything easier — and it includes banking.

But some groups, like Christopher Street Financial, work specifically with same-sex couples and LGBT individuals to design financial plans in accordance with their sometimes unique needs and, in the last decade, has seen competitors finally pop up all over the country. Chicago’s Northern Trust, which deals exclusively with high net-worth individuals — a lucrative income stream for many retail banks — just launched its first practice aimed at high net-worth individuals with non-traditional family relationships. Boston’s Wainwright Bank started issuing affiliate credit cards in the 90s that gave a portion of the proceeds to LGBT rights groups — and it says that 10 percent of its employees are openly gay, including two senior executives and one member of the board.

Wells Fargo, based in San Francisco, worked to reach out to the LGBT community for 20 years, though it only established a specific LGBT practice in 2005, and in 2009 it began a program to certify financial planners to work with same-sex couples. Bank of America’s wealth advisory practice through its Merrill Lynch affiliate — again, a personalized banking service aimed at high net-worth individuals — will nonetheless work with LGBT individuals or couples in any income bracket for financial planning fees ranging from $250 -$1,000.

Interestingly, Citibank today announced that it plans to double its private banking force over the next two years. It is not reportedly dedicating any of those new private banking resources to an LGBT-specific practice. Apparently, the money in the LGBT community that is attracting attention from its big competitors isn’t of enough interest to Citibank.

Visit SourcePopular Posts:

Glenn Beck on Massa: ‘I Almost Threw Him Out of the Studio’

theliepolitic — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:43:42 +0000

On his radio show today, Glenn Beck lit into former Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) for his disastrous, rambling appearance on the Tuesday episode of Beck’s Fox News Show.

“America, have you ever heard of a 50-year old man having a tickle-fight — five men tickling each other so hard that they can’t breathe?” said Beck. “I think we found out who he is — someone who can’t be trusted to tell the truth about his life.”

Beck indulged the “possibility” that somebody “got to” Massa and turned him — at the very least, said Beck, the former congressman “lied” in a pre-interview. Beck’s crew laughed about Massa’s generic answers to Beck’s questions about corruption, asking Beck why he didn’t push him further.

“I almost said, ‘I think we could, but you’ve wasted enough of my time, get out,’” said Beck. “I almost threw him out of the studio three times. … What a waste of time this man was!”

Bitterly, Beck expressed hope that he’d helped Massa kill his own credibility. “Now that we spent the hour,” said Beck, “we don’t have to ever pay attention to this man ever again.”

Later in the show, Beck invited on Michelle Malkin — who’d sounded the alarm to conservatives about trusting Massa — and bowed to her foresight.

Visit SourcePopular Posts:

Video: Michele Bachmann Kicks off ‘Take the Town Halls to DC’: ‘Now is the Time to See the Whites of Their Eyes’

theliepolitic — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:43:42 +0000

The “Take the Town Halls to DC” coalition has put up video of its kick-off last night, with the Memphis Tea Party’s Mark Skoda introducing a speech by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) by casting the effort as a low-key lobbying push.

“Our objective, here, is really to have a conversation with our representatives,” said Skoda. “It’s not about placards.”

Bachmann took it a little further. “We the people are going to roll them out,” said Bachmann, “and when we roll them out we’re going to roll this bill back.” Activists needed to get into their representatives’ faces: “Now is the time to see the whites of their eyes.”

Visit SourcePopular Posts:

Congress Sinks Lower While Obama Holds Steady

theliepolitic — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:43:41 +0000

A new Associated Press-GfK poll found that just 22% of Americans approve of Congress — the lowest point yet during the Obama presidency. However, neither Republicans nor Democrats are safe; half of all people say they want to fire their congressman.

Conversely, Obama’s job approval is holding fairly steady at 53%.
Visit SourcePopular Posts:

Hickenlooper Holds Solid Lead in Colorado

theliepolitic — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:43:41 +0000

A new Public Policy Polling survey in Colorado finds John Hickenlooper (D) leading Scott McInnis (R) in their race for governor, 50% to 39%.

“There’s absolutely no doubt Democrats are better off with Hickenlooper in the race than they would have been if Bill Ritter had tried for reelection. While Hickenlooper’s favorability spread is a positive 51/27, Ritter’s approval rating continues to be in negative territory as it has been for the last year at 38/50. That’s a 36 point net improvement for Democrats by swapping Ritter for Hickenlooper and given that it’s no wonder the party’s in so much better shape now.”
Visit SourcePopular Posts: