Bankster by Nancy OhanianIt's great when is reasonable and understanding when they ensnare someone for bending the rules, especially if-- the classic example-- it's a man who steals some milk to feed his staving baby or a loaf of bread for a starving family. Leniency may well be in order. But not from a tough conservative law-and-order regime. At least not for individuals.
Even the phrase "multilevel marketing" sounds a lot better than "pyramid scheme," let alone "Ponzi scheme." Even "multilevel marketing scheme" sounds vaguely better than "pyramid scheme." But pyramid schemes are often illegal and, somehow multilevel marketing schemes are usually not. The Federal Trade Commission differentiates between legitimate multi-level marketing (MLM) companies and pyramid schemes claiming that MLM "have a real product to sell" while pyramid schemes don't. "If the money you make is based on your sales to the public, it may be a legitimate multilevel marketing plan.
I feel like Austin Frerick, the former Treasury Department economist running for Congress in the Des Moines-based Iowa seat (IA-03), has become a friend aside from just one of the Blue America-endorsed candidates. I feel like I learn something every time I talk with him.
Did anyone ever really believe Trump's idiotic campaign promises to drain the swamp that he personifies or hold Wall Street-- which now runs his regime-- accountable? If so... how tragic! Late Tuesday evening Trump had Mike Pence break the 50-50 tie in the Senate that will now allow banks more leeway to prey on their customers without fear of sanctions. That it even got to a point where the GOP-controlled Senate needed a tie-breaking vote from Pence was strange.
If you've been reading DWT even in the most cursory of ways any time since 2005, you know we spend a lot of time on the DCCC and on the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. It's been a theme as much as the DC culture of corruption and the bankruptcy of conservatism and the banal evil of the Republican Party.
I hope everyone's already read Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone piece this week, Trump The Destroyer, more a story on the ugliness of the Regime he's assembled around himself-- "Trump managed to stuff the top of his Cabinet with a jaw-dropping collection of perverts, tyrants and imbeciles, the likes of which Washington has neve
This was an exciting week. Trump hasn't even been sworn in yet, but the Republicans and the conservative Dems who back their reactionary agenda are already moving rapidly in Congress towards the reactionary policies they stand for. Most of the ink has been going towards Republican Party plans to re-do-- or at least wreck-- the healthcare system.
Liz Black Lung Cheney (R-WY)The Republicans passed, 237-187, the REINS Act— Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2017— Thursday night.
Friday morning, the House passed the GOP's so called Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act 266-144, originally written by lobbyists for Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Blue Dog John Barrow (GA), who has since wisely been retired by his district's voters.
