When Ed Crane isn’t making completely uninformed statements about the LGBT community and blaming President Obama for everything under the sun (especially the price of oil), he’s calling prostitutes on craigslist enterprising young women with laptops. Like he did this morning.
I listen to KFBK every morning, because it’s the only news talk that comes in on the crappy, 20 year old clock radio in my bedroom. I hate listen to Crane’s Corner, a daily dose of Fox News talking points brought to you by morning anchor Ed Crane. I finally just looked him up and this is him. Not the 75 year old I was expecting, although a little hair dye and a killer set of veneers can go a long way. Couple of recent highlights:
1. Blaming Barack Obama for things.
“Consider that in 2008 gas was around two dollars….But this President…a hostage to the environmentalists refuses to try..”
Um, Ed? Gas was $2 at the end of 2008 because the house (of cards) that derivatives built spectacularly collapsed. Now if you want to stop conveniently forgetting most of that year, skip back with me to July 2008, when the national average for gasoline was $4.11 a gallon. Here’s another gas one:
Actually..it’s building right now….back in 2008….when then senator obama was promising us all hope and change—-we were concerned about…gulp….two dollars a gallon for gas…the average price around this time in 2008 was a dollar ninety six…today that same gallon in california will run you an average of 3.85 a gallon
This was from the February 15th Corner and it’s wrong. The national average in February 2008 was $3.04 per gallon.
2. Thinly veiled disdain for the LGBT community.
But it is good to know if tomorrow, I wake up singing show tunes, have an irrestible urge to go shopping for that gorgeous pair of Jimmy Chus or Manolo Blanick pumps— or start looking at the Victoria’s Secret Catalogue to see whats in my size, that Berkley will be there for me. Likewise, if I start borrowing all of Amy Lewis’ Jennifer Anniston and Reese Witherspoon DVD’s and start searching on line for Doris Day Rock Hudson movies I can download, or swap my old spice for Channel number 5—it’s comforting that hard by the Bay Bridge, theres a city that will cater to my—well feminine side…
That was on a story about the City of Berkeley covering the cost of sex-change operations for transgender city employees. A fair amount of this Corner was spent making unoriginal jokes about what transgender/gay people are interested in. Showtunes, REALLY?
OK that’s all I have time for. Enjoy your weekend!
He didn’t bother to vote at all on SB 890 (Leno), a bill that would require debt collectors to have the bare minimum of paperwork before suing a debtor in court. To show that they at least served the person so that person can at least show up to their own lawsuit. At the very least, it will prove that they are at least suing the right person, because people who don’t owe the debt have had their wages garnished. It happened to Senator Lou Correa and he told his story on the Floor yesterday. If only this had happened to Ron Calderon- perhaps he wouldn’t have been taking a walk while this was being voted on. It passed anyways.
But he definitely made sure to be back on the floor to earn the honor of being the ONLY Democrat Senator who voted “No” on SB 810 (Leno), the single payer healthcare bill. Perhaps he should’ve just stayed gone. He’s the Leeroy Jenkins of the California State Senate– useless, then he shows up and proves to be so unhelpful you wish he would’ve just kept being useless.
And did you know his son/nephew/some other Calderon is running this year? Does California really need more do-nothing, non-voting Calderons in office? Methinks not. If you’re in his district, do yourself a favor and stop voting for these clowns.
Just saying: Earlier this morning Senator Lou Correa voted “no”on AB 22 (banning use of credit reports in hiring process) but just voted “aye” on AB 350 (expanding the Displaced Janitor Opportunity Act to include many more types of employees: window washers, cafeteria workers, dietary service providers, etc.).
Oh heavy sigh. Why not vote for something that helps some constituents? You know, just throw it in there while you’re busy voting for something that helps your union donors?
Seriously these two are serial non-voters. After watching both of them remain silent on a bill that should’ve been a no-brainer (especially if you’re a Democrat) YET AGAIN, I’ve decided to do a Calderon/Hernandez watch. Cal-Her Watch 2011 is in full effect.
The bill in question is AB 22 (Mendoza), a bill that would outlaw the use of credit reports in the hiring process, with a few exceptions. With so many people experiencing near or total financial devastation, and jobs being so hard to find, putting up another barrier to employment is…well it stinks. Of course the Rebublicans (typo & it stays) got up and waxed poetic about the good old days when you could use any tool you saw fit in the hiring process. Anyone with more than a passing interest in this stuff could see that coming. It’s not them I have such a problem with. They’ve made their case and I disagree.
But the non-voting, when this bill has 20 ayes and only needs ONE more to make it out…yeah, good going guys. At least the rebubs (I like the sound of that) have the balls to act.
Thus begins a pet project: The Calderon & Hernandez No Vote Project.
Just read a post over on Gawker about a proposal to make all lobbyists wear badges. Mass Rep John Binienda compared it to Hitler making Jews wear tattoos. Well, not really, sir. But still unnecessary. Lobbyists don’t slink around capitols in diguise. They don’t wear these things 
Everybody knows who the lobbyists are. Legislators don’t take meetings with unknowns, and then later realize they’ve been lobbied and and yell “Tricked again! If only there was some way to identify these damn creatures!”
From Gawker
Does anyone else get the eerie feeling that many of the things we once considered objects (spatulas, staplers, small tools, barbecues, kitchen appliances) are now just facsimiles of objects? I noticed this a lot during the holiday shopping season. Stores were filled with aisles, displays and shelves of things that weren’t so much actual gifts as the ideas of gifts. While a cutlery set from Walmart may satisfy the requirements of usual and customary holiday proceedings, it doesn’t benefit the receiver in any real way. They can’t say “I now have a cutlery set.” The only thing they can say is, “Someone wanted to get me a cutlery set and gave me something that resembled one.”
I'm not a real blender, I just play one on television!
This idea certainly doesn’t apply only to things that are given as gifts. It applies to more and more of the “objects” I see for sale these days. I feel every time I need something, I am faced with more choices than ever before, but each of them is only a composition of plastic, metal and circuitry that temporarily alleviates my perceived need for said item and NOTHING MORE. Like a prop.
My boyfriend recently purchased a smoker (the kind that smokes meat, not a real live smoking person. Unfortunately, he has no need for a human smoker because he is already his own.) It had all the requisite elements that would lead one to believe the object was genuine: it was sold in a store for money, it came in a box, its various parts assembled into the appropriate and promised shape of a smoker. Upon use, the jig was up. The thing immediately proved itself to be an imposter, nothing more than a conglomeration of parts and fittings. You see, the sides were too thin to retain the necessary heat, the legs failed to maintain a relationship with the body…actually, that’s where my knowledge of smokers and their parts ends. But that should be enough to illustrate my point: this item was not what it claimed to be. Holding things upright is the non-negotiable responsibility of a leg! Retaining heat is a core function of a wall! We returned the thing immediately and blamed ourselves for buying the cheap one. But on closer inspection, it turned out that even the not-cheap ones suffered the same setbacks. I believe the prices of these items- and a host of others ranging from home furnishings to clothing- are purely psychological.
So does anyone know where I can buy real things? (That is not an attempt at a witty closure, I really do want to know.)
Where are the jobs we were promised during the elections? Where is the discussion for jobs? The Repubs capitalized on our fear of never finding a job again. They promised they’d focus the economy and give up the moral values war that’s been falling ever lower on the priority lists of average Americans for years. And yet now we have the Pence Amendment.
Nevermind that Planned Parenthood already did NOT use federal funds for abortions. They were already prohibited from doing so. This amendment stripped Planned Parenthood of the funding it used to provide contraceptives, STD treatment and screening, and education….with contraception and education being the only ways it is even possible to reduce abortion.
But either way, this is not what people signed up for.
I have been contacted by a New York law firm about the possibility of being the NAMED PLAINTIFF in the consumer class action suit against Chase for overdraft fees! In the last post, I mentioned visiting bank-overdraft.com and signing up. Well that shit paid off.
We’re in early stages of intake and investigation right now. I’ve sent some bank statements and signed a retainer, and I don’t know if my examples will be good enough. In March of 2009, I was hit with SEVEN overdraft fees in ONE motherfucking day. So that’s a great example. I hope my account history proves I’m a good candidate for lead plaintiff. If I was lead plaintiff, it would by my name v. JP Morgan Chase on all court documents. I’d also attend some hearings and most likely be deposed. This would be the vindication I’ve so desperately wanted. And for all the other people I hope are signing up for this suit.
…read the amended complaint filed against JP Morgan Chase. It’s a whopper…216 pages. I’m only on page 23 and I am livid. Here’s why.
At the end of 2009, it became widely known that banks regularly engage in shady accounting as a way of triggering excessive overdraft fees. Consumer outrage and pending legislation has forced some of the larger banks to change their ways. But another consequence is several class-action lawsuits. These suits allege what I was sort of aware of all along, namely that they do not give consumers any information about opting out of so-called overdraft “protection” (what a bullshit term, as overdraft protection implies just that- protection from an overdraft, not facilitating it), they purposefully rearrange transactions to generate more fees, and they do not accurately report current balance information to customers.
The poorest 10% of bank customers incur 90% of the fees. In the 10 or so years I’ve been a customer of Washington Mutual (now Chase). I’ve spent a fair amount of that time being employed part-time or unemployed altogether. In other words, I was poor. Poor people run chronically low balances in their bank accounts (duh). Reordering transactions or delaying a deposit will wreak havoc on those with double-digit balances. It matters.
Around 2005 or so the fees started accumulating in batches, and I would regularly end up over $100 in the hole for three to five small transactions. I would log onto my account and despair over the trail into insolvency. Most of the transactions would be under $10, each with a $20-something fee attached. Did that cup of coffee taste like it was sugared with gold flakes? Because it cost as much. I did notice that transactions were routinely posted in an order that only vaguely resembled the order in which I incurred them. This got me many times. “If only the phone bill had gone through AFTER the pack of cigarettes, soda, coffee, and pack of gum!” In a chronological world, I might have still overdrawn, but only once, not five times.
Sometimes I would plead with WaMu to reverse the fees, and many times I got the “Well that’s why we encourage you to balance your checkbook” speech. (First I ask, who even has a checkbook? Debit card use is widely touted as THE way to pay for things, with Visa check card advertisements going so far as to mock people who use cash.) Second, what good is it to balance your checkbook when the transactions are not even applied in the order you would’ve recorded them? Maybe I did balance my checkbook into ONE overdraft (oops!). Makes no difference when you log on the next day and find that the transactional order has taken on a life of it’s own and triggered an avalanche of fees.
I had asked several times, “Well why can’t the bank just decline the transactions I don’t have money for?” Nobody ever gave me a good answer, ranging from vague “We don’t do that” to “Just balance your checkbook.” I was never informed of opting-out. I didn’t know it was possible to do so, and while I don’t remember asking directly, it is clear to me that I was a customer not happy with the optional “service” of overdraft protection, and I should have been told about my right to discontinue it.
Now what about using the ATM or checking accounts online to monitor your balance? Not as accurate as one would hope. Check out Item D in the Factual Allegations section of the complaint, it’s a catchy little ditty entitled “Chase’s Cloaking of Accurate Balance Information.” All that time spent checking my balance and believing it to be accurate! Silly me. The problem is, when you are a person who regularly operates in the scary realm of Less Than $10 Till Payday, accurate balance information is kind of life or death, vitally important. I wouldn’t have bought a cup of coffee and a pack of cigarettes with my last $9 if I had known it was actually my last ten cents.
I don’t know how much in overdraft fees I’ve paid in the last 5 years. I do know that in 2009, the year of unemployment, it was over $1,000. The worst was last July, when I went to deposit the checks my roommates had written me for rent. I deposited them in person and asked for a cashier’s check to give to the landlord. The lady behind the counter told me my funds were on hold. Why? Because of my “account history.” I just about lost it. I asked, “You meant the account history where I have incurred and subsequently paid hundreds of dollars in fees? I should have a plaque on the wall, actually.” I know it wasn’t her fault, it just was a new Chase policy to make the lives of chronic fee payers even more miserable, but still. And what ended up happening? I couldn’t tell the landlord to wait 3 business days or whatever while my funds cleared. I had to write a check for rent that day. So I wrote a personal check, knowing the money was sitting in my account. And he cashed it before Chase let the funds go. I got an insufficient funds fee.
If you or anyone you know has dealt with this, check out bank-overdraft.com. I signed up to be a part of the national class action against Chase. They haven’t contacted me yet (I got an automated email telling me it could take awhile) but it definitely made me feel better. When I think of the last five years and how much financial difficulty I’ve dealt with, which was regularly made much worse by WaMu/Chase, I get so mad. This is one of the reasons I decided to become a paralegal. Besides the desire to get out of the realm of double-digit account balances, my passion for consumer advocacy has grown out of situations like these.
