David Bender is filling in for the vacationing Steph and the Mooks this week. Be sure to tune in today when David talks to Michael Smerconish, The Rude Pundit, and David Crosby!
LiveBlog for Tuesday, February 28, 2012
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juliet bravo
Cheers!
juliet bravo
Great line-up - Cliff Schecter is hi-larious, plus one of Steph's imaginary ex-husbands!
Klassie
Santorum is a closeted church lady. Happy Tuesdee everyone!
juliet bravo
The problem with the voter ID laws is they are a mess. Gil Paar, 69, refused to vote after his Veterans Administration ID was rejected. He said he did have driver's license, but many vets do not, often due to their injuries while serving, and should be allowed to use their VA photo ID to vote.
http://www.educationvotes.nea.org/2012/02/22/wisconsin-mans-veterans-card-rejected-at-polls/
Dannybob
And I wouldn't mind if they unleashed Mary from LI on this Billy Butthead character! I'm not turning the radio back on until this hick muhfuh is off the air!
juliet bravo
Dannybob Bendy does a good job disarming rightwing callers by finding common ground - they either play ball and have a reasonable discussion, or hang up.
Klassie
Bendy could use a sidekick. Maybe Mary from Long Island.
juliet bravo
Klassie Or Art. Or not....
Klassie
juliet bravo lol. they'd have to shut off his mike every so often to get a word in, by cracky.
juliet bravo
Klassie What's this ding-blasted newfangled telly-phone thing anyway? Maybe Mike in Raleigh can create an Art 2.0 random By Cracky generator. David can just push a button and get a random Art non sequitur. It would probably make more sense anyway.
Klassie
Voting machine tampering only works if it's close. Occupy the polls EN MASSE.
juliet bravo
Caller makes a good point - maybe people can take pictures of their vote on the screen, each screen showing what their selections were and how it's tallied - remember people who checked the Kerry box and got a "Congratulations, you voted for Bush" message?
sandybrook
I agree with the caller. I feel empty after I vote; not sure if my vote was ever counted!
Klassie
I vote absentee. At least I have a piece of paper for awhile.
abozeman8466
Please stop comparing Santorum to Reagan. Remember who was Reagan running against? Carter. A guy who was TOTALLY clueless about what to do foreign policy wise, economy wise and just plain old politically-wise. I know we can't predict the future but giving Romney a chance for people to fell sorry for him and re-surge is a mistake. Make the Republicans put someone new out there and then let him or her find out what it's like to really get vetted. Let them find out what is's like when everything is on "Blast". they can't handle it.
Klassie
abozeman8466 Yeah, Carter was a real douche, in that he was an honest, ethical man and a visionary about evergy policy. He wasn't a criminal like Reagan who held up the hostage release until after the election.
juliet bravo
I never thought I'd say this, but I miss Marcus Bachmann!
Klassie
juliet bravo He's jolly isn't he, and always ready with a song! I miss "No Blitz" Cain. :-(
juliet bravo
Klassie Ah, Herman Cain - now those were the days...
juliet bravo
That's what happened in France about 5 years ago - voters were disgusted with the corruption scandals of Chirac's presidency and stayed home in droves from the primary. The result was the ascendancy of ultra-rightwing, anti-Semitic bigot Jean-Marie Le Pen. Horrified, French voters turned out en masse, many wearing clothespins on their noses, to vote for Chirac, who was financially sleazy but at least sane, in a landslide.
juliet bravo
I agree - I'd prefer an internal karma correction for the Republican party rather than enabling them to point to outside interference as an excuse to not face their own issues. We really need a healthy two-party system, which is why Democratic drift rightward has been such a problem.
Klassie
juliet bravo spot on
Klassie
Good morning. Voting for Frothy is dangerous, imo. If there's a brokered convention it could spell trouble for Obama.
juliet bravo
YES - opening measures of "Carry On"
abozeman8466
Please come back fast Stephanie. This David Bender guy is about as exciting as a laxative.
Dannybob
@abozeman8466 - at least Bendy does "umm, uhhh, uhh, err" his way through the show they way Sparks does!
juliet bravo
Basically, the game is to drive up oil futures over fears of instability in the Middle East, even though we are now a net EXPORTER of oil.
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to guess that the ups and downs of the oil futures market are not related to the so-called fundamentals, i.e. actual supply and demand, but rather speculation. Chris pointed out that the market is comprised of roughly 30% end users, people who actually use gas and oil, like American Airlines, 30% big banks, and 30% other investors, i.e. people gaming the market and trying to make money on the spread.
As Chris pointed out, the concept of any futures market is to soften the spikes of the fundamentals of the actual commodities market - strikes, droughts, etc.- whereas in this case, the futures market is more reactive and driving spikes in the price of the commodity. Of course, that's illegal under Dodd-Frank, but there's no enforcement going on, and Republicans are trying to repeal those provisions.
juliet bravo
On Sunday's "Up with Chris Hayes", he dug into the interaction of fearmongering and saber-rattling about Iran and/or the Middle East in general and gaming the oil futures market - really interesting discussion:
Klassie
juliet bravo hiya Juliet. I got this in an email from Chris Hedges today
juliet bravo
Klassie Interesting - the Occupy movement is definitely a game changer.
BrianLK
Two brief notes:
--I enjoy David Bender's subdued, quiet, civil style much more than Stephanie Miller's frenetic, noisy, loud style.
--The Democratic party, and most Democrats, want Santorum as the Republican nominee. Very likely he WOULD be easier than Romney to beat in November. But if the economy takes another deep dive between now and November, the Republican, regardless of his identity, will win. Do we really want to run a 33% chance of having Rick "Taliban" Santorum as president? Please, Democrats in open primaries, vote for Romney!
juliet bravo
BrianLK I loved David Bender's radio shows from back in the day on Air America to when he subs for Steph. He has a more low key approach but just as twisted a sense of humor, and handles a wide range of callers, including freepers, very well, getting them to actually converse instead of just spout talking points.
I have to agree about the Santorum voters backfiring - David is right to raise the specter of Democratic glee about Reagan's nomination, complacent that no one in their right mind would vote for such an extremist. The fact is, most voters don't pay attention until the last few days before the election, by which time the media has already legitimized and sanitized the crazy candidate.
juliet bravo
A tip-off that you're talking to a real Michigan native is that they use the back of their left hand as a map to indicate where they live - hard to do on the radio, I guess. Anyway, on the ubiquitous Michigan mitten map, Traverse City is your ring-finger fingernail. Beautiful place.
Michiganders should write in "George Romney" as a reminder to ol' Mitt that his dad actually had principles and stuck to them, and had strength of character even when he made mistakes.
juliet bravo
Nice Diogenes name drop :-)
juliet bravo
Goooooood morning, Livefyrebloggers at large!
Looks like David Bender's bringing the varsity team guestwise today.