This week marks the start of confirmation hearings in D.C. and the start of the Washington state legislative session. Please join us this evening for a much-needed drink at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.We meet every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the small room at the back of the tavern beginning about 8pm.
Can’t make it to Seattle? Check out one of the other 198 chapters of Living Liberally, including ninteen in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find, or go out and start, a chapter near you.
New research shows the Republican narrative of what caused the housing crisis is a lie.
“[Their] story of the housing crisis goes like this: Government programs that helped low-income households purchase houses led to widespread defaults on the subprime loans they held, sparking the entire the financial meltdown … the financial crisis and recession were caused by policies Bill Clinton implemented that were designed to stop discrimination in housing loans, known as ‘red-lining,’ in poor areas. …
But according to MIT’s Sloan School of Management, most subprime loans and lenders weren’t subject to that law, “when it comes to the financial crisis, government wasn’t the problem. It was lack of government, specifically the failure to impose the necessary regulatory structure on the shadow banking system.”
In other words, the rogue lending practices that led to the mortgage meltdown and Great Recession were caused by Republican deregulation policies, which is what liberals have been saying all along.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/he.....ng-crisis/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Hey GOPers, you built this.
RR,
You might want to reconsider linking to a corporate media site that underwrites ignorant racist hilbilly perversion like Milo Yianopoulos and Breitbart.
In Jeff Sessions’ confirmation hearing, now underway, Sen. Feinstein asked Sessions about Roe v. Wade and gay marriage. He replied that while he disagrees with these SCOTUS decisions, they are the law of the land, and he will follow them.
@2 Are you equating CBS News with Breitbart and Yianopolous?If you want direct links, here they are:
http://mitsloan.mit.edu/newsro.....-happened/
http://rfs.oxfordjournals.org/content/29/7/1635
@4 In other words, lots of people over the entire income spectrum got in over their heads. The end result was a much larger version of what happened in California in the early to mid 1990’s when multi-million dollar homes in Blackhawk were left empty with the front doors standing open. Oh yeah, there was also that guy who walked away from a couple of hotels with his name on them in Atlantic City…
@4,
CBS is the parent company of Simon and Schuster who is lining up lucrative book deals with Breitbart’s white nationalist staff (including racist authoritarian Yianopolous) and inking cross-promotional deals with Bannon, Breitbart and a host of other media companies.
If we are at all concerned that ignorant racist sister fucking hillbillies have been enabled to seize control of the federal government it behooves us to understand who is getting rich by enabling them.
I appreciate the direct links. Thanks.
@6 We all have black sheep relatives. I have a brother who’s an obtuse wingnut. That doesn’t make me a bad source.
@5,
I believe a more accurate picture could only be obtained by taking into account the enormous pressure within the secondary markets to create new securities by creating new loans. It was this drive to create more and more securities (and fees and commissions for the investment banks) that drove the mortgage lending industry into creating loan products like Countrywide’s “Fast-N-Easy” liar loans. Loans that especially catered to toothless hillbilly Trailer Trump Americans with itinerate work histories gathering cans and fixing up cars who wanted to use their mobile homes as ATMs to fund the dream vacation to Branson or Sturgis.
So This about a guy who is cheering the repeal votes of Obamacare while being thrilled with his ACA coverage is making the social media rounds.
So remind me again why we shouldn’t just come right out and call a whole bunch of Trump voters stupid?
I’ve been watching the Sessions confirmation hearing all morning, and my takeaway is that Sessions is mouthing an intention to slavishly follow the black letter of the law, but when asked about things like the torture of Alabama prison inmates, displays no moral compass as to what the law should be.
Ted Cruz is now making a hypocritical ass of himself in the Sessions hearing.
@8 My understanding of the mortgage crisis is that Wall Street banks developed a lucrative trade in bundling and reselling mortgages, and to keep that trade going, they pressured originators to keep the loans coming without regard for loan quality, and pressured credit rating agencies to give these loans ratings they didn’t deserve, resulting in the financial system being inundated with bad loans. The significance of systemic fraud in the mortgage industry is that mortgages account for about 90% of household debt, and therefore pose systemic risks in a way that similar abuses in auto or credit card lending would not.
Sweet Jesus I hope this is fake news…
Trump team reportedly fires the leaders of US nuclear weapons safety and security”
@8&12
Shush.
EVERYBODY knows the Obamunists were giving away free loans to welfare queens before they took office.
Sessions: “We cannot allow improper erosion of the right to vote.”
He’s now on record that this is what he thinks the U.S. Attorney General’s role should be in enforcing the Voting Rights Act.
Sessions seems to be signaling he’ll enforce the federal prohibition of marijuana in states that have legalized it.
Sen. Hatch, after reading a list of police groups that support Sessions, calls criticisms of his record “smears.”
I have it on good authority that the last time a UFO touched down in White Center the aliens said, “Let’s get the fuck out of here before we get rear-ended.”
http://www.seattletimes.com/se.....-121785541
@9 The same kind of thinking as that of the folks who were showing up at the “town meetings” six years ago hollering about how the government “better keep its hands off my Medicare!”
@11 When has he ever not?
@18,
that is some high mileage Trailer Trump American in that video.
Very aggrieved since she fell off the pole. How much you wanna bet that tongue stud comes with one or two STDs and a couple of felony arrests for solicitation.
@3 They should have asked him if separation of church and state were settled law. They are such a bunch of liars. We’re on our way to a police state sure as shit. Run by Russia and Jerry Falwell, no less.
Sessions: DOJ consent decrees with police departments undermine the police; he foresees “ending these decrees at some point.”
It’s time to start asking if the Russians have something on Comey.
http://www.dailykos.com/
I’m still watching the Sessions confirmation hearing. Ted Cruz never misses an opportunity to be a rabid partisan. He tries to portray Obama as a president who has refused to enforce immigration laws and allowed alien criminals to remain in the country. In fact, Obama has deported more aliens than all 20th century presidents put together, and deporting alien criminals has been a top priority of his immigration policies.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics.....d=41715661
Has anybody asked Sessions if he thinks the racial imbalance in our prison population is an indication of a problem? I doubt it.
@26 I did not hear that question asked.
CNN reported this afternoon that top U.S. intelligence agencies, including the FBI, are taking seriously information originally obtained from a former British spy by Republicans opposed to Trump’s candidacy that Russian hackers have compromising personal and financial information about Donald Trump.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/.....index.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: This is basically a new development in an old story. CNN withheld details of the nature of the information, and ABC says some of the allegations about the Trump campaign working with the Russians is clearly disprovable.
Roger Rabbit Speculation: In the old Soviet days, when the Russkies wanted to get their hooks into someone, they often utilized female KGB agents for that purpose, and Trump is a known womanizer. I wonder if he’s been patronizing the Russian dating sites that advertise on HA? Just curious, that’s all.
@RR @ 28
Hello.
Well folks, tonight is the Milk chocolate Messiah’s farewell speech.
Don’t let the door hit you in the ass, MCM.
@30 Yes, Obama’s farewell speech drove home what the succession from POTUS 44 to POTUS 45 is all about: From class to ass.
@29 Boys will be boys. For further details, see @31.
@29 It’s explosive, alright, and not just because of how Putin played Trump, but how easily he played him. The U.S.A. is about to become a Russian province.
30 & 31
No, it’s one pompous ass taking over from another pompous ass.
Oh man, just how dumb are the Seattle voters? Look no further than city council loon Sawant. Now she is parading Che Taylor as an innocent black man gunned down by murderous seattle police.
wow…just fucking wow…..certifiable communist nutjob.
oh well..you gotta live with it, bitches.
@34 Go ahead, make a fool of yourself. It’s a free country.
This is for you, doc: Congratulations, Hillary will never, ever be president. If the memos linked @29 are true, you fools elected a Kremlin agent instead.
Low Information Poster @35: Get your ideologies straight. Sawant is a socialist nutjob, not a communist nutjob. As for whether Taylor was an innocent man gunned down by murderous police, that’s for the inquest to determine. And before you blame Sawant’s election to the city council on “Seattle” voters, you may want to look at a Seattle council district map, because most “Seattle voters” had no say in whether she got on the city council.
@29 Is it too soon to start chanting, “Lock him up!”?
@1 They would be correct though in pointing out Bill Clinton’s signature repealing Glass-Stengel got the ball rolling. They could not have done it without a Democratic president.
@39 Way too early as he’s not taken the oath of office. And having the votes to impeach. Over a story that has about the same factual basis as the Pope would vote for Trump.
@3 Sessions is a dick so maybe he could be a good AG. Assholes make good AG’s, and the more defense attorneys say he is a asshole the more likely Sessions could be a damn good AG. You got nice things to say about any AG’s RR, and you do have state if you worked for the AG or Prosecutor just to put any biases in the open. Transparency and good ethics require that.
@6 What is your problem elite? The Duck dynasty got theirs. It’s tome for other hillbillies to get theirs. Or is this all sour grapes? Betcha get in good with California hillbillies in the Napa valley you can learn how to find sweet grapes, and wild rice.
@10 Enjoy the Kabuki theatre as in the end his fellow Senators of both parties will vote to confirm him. The committee should just vote to confirm and send it to je floor where he will be confirmed. Why you wasting your time RR? I’m sure Gilligan’s Island is running somewhere. Ginger or Mary Ann are definitely more entertaining, hell the Captain is more entertaining.
@15 Well he is a lawyer or was at one time right. And you know what they saw about lawyers: You know they are lying when you see their lips moving.
@13 Well you could check out the official web site at
https://nnsa.energy.gov/
Check It out and you may determine the news story is a little overblown.
@24 Do you need President Putin’s address or do you think you can find it?
@27 Because Senators would actually have to work in a bipartisan way on both sides of the isle? That many of the actions would not look tough on crime at all? Just wouldn’t play well back with the voters? At least Session’s would not need to worry about the Federal prohibition on marijuana as the racism and sexism underlying our drug laws would come out. Well Sessions would have more time to apply anti monopoly and economic laws.
@3 law of the land. Yeah until Sessions pushes to help repeal them. Smart answer. Smart answer.