Thanks to the SEC

The Securities and Exchange Commission, which is the govt “watchdog” that’s supposed to bark at corporate wrong-doing, has a gift for us this Thanksgiving. Well, that is, not us exactly. More like for lobbyists.

As the Project on Government Oversight reports, the SEC is postponing a new ethics rule. That’s no big deal, right? Wrong.

As POGO notes, the move deliberately allows an untold number of senior SEC employees to evade standard employment regulations – more specifically, it allows them to leave the agency and immediately begin lobbying their old government colleagues on behalf of corporate clients.

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Hope Dies Last

Eliseo Medina, a long time union activist who used to march with Cesar Chavez, is in deep shit.

So there Mr. Medina was on Friday, now 67 years old, in a white tent just below the Capitol on the National Mall in the 11th day of a water-only fast he hopes will “touch the heart” of the House speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio, and make him act on immigration.

Despite Boehner’s penchant for tears whenever he’s feeling sorry for himself –

which he does a lot – would you really want to bet your existence on his heart? On his ability to empathize with someone in trouble? Other than himself, of course.

I am loaded with admiration for Mr Medina’s courage and optimism, but his judgement may need a little work. You can’t shame the shameless.

“We Don’t Hire the Unemployed”

The sterling-silver New York Times took a break from its long series of tear-stained stories covering the tragic consequences on the rich of our economic disintegration to notice – briefly – how destructive our attitudes toward the unemployed have become.

Ms. Barrington-Ward…was laid off from an administrative position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2008; she had earned about $50,000 that year. With the recession spurring employers to dump hundreds of thousands of workers a month and the unemployment rate climbing to the double digits, she found that no matter the number of résumés she sent out — she stopped counting in the thousands — she could not find work.

“I’ve been turned down from McDonald’s because I was told I was too articulate,” she says. “I got denied a job scrubbing toilets because I didn’t speak Spanish and turned away from a laundromat because I was ‘too pretty.’ I’ve also been told point-blank to my face, ‘We don’t hire the unemployed.’ And the two times I got real interest from a prospective employer, the credit check ended it immediately.”

Outside the Bubble, or Tales of Terror

Recently Ted “My hair has a life of its own and it’s better than mine” Cruz took a tentative step outside the Conservative Bubble inside which he has spent most of his life in order to address a group of *gasp!!* ordinary people.

It didn’t go too well. They…well, they laughed at him.

Speaking with Fox News’ Chris Wallace in front of a crowd for the Atlantic’s Washington Ideas Forum, Ted Cruz claimed he “didn’t want a shutdown” — a comment that was immediately greeted with laughter.

To be fair, the audience, apparently unclear on the concept of just how disconnected from reality a bubble-ized conservative is, thought he was self-referentially joking. He wasn’t.

Responding to laughter in the audience in response, Cruz said, “Now, folks here can disagree, but repeatedly, I voted to keep the government open.”

He believes it, too. He actually thinks that’s the way it went down. Conservative bubblers are nothing if not mentally flexible. As rubber bands.

Sorry, Ted. The real world doesn’t coddle you like the bubble does. Sometimes it laughs.

Easiest $$$ Evah!

From Salon:

Three women in Virginia have started a consulting firm to help the Republican Party appeal to women voters, which seems like it will be a real challenge since the Republican Party is terrible on the issues that many women care about.

Actually, it’s not a “challenge” since the Pubs have no intention of addressing the problems of real women (as opposed to mechanical dolls like Sarah and La Coulter) and have made it clear they’re not going to let anybody make them. Which means that three very smart women have just found a way to collect a boodle from the RW gravy train without doing, well, anything, really. I mean –

When you have the chairwoman of the Republican Women’s Policy Committee laughing on Fox News about how women should have to shoulder the financial burden of maternity coverage alone because a man “has never delivered a baby,” you know the problem isn’t about messaging.

When you have a state attorney general wondering aloud why God hasn’t punished the United States for guaranteeing women their constitutional right to abortion care, you know the problem isn’t about messaging.

This is going to be a great gig. OK, so they’ll have to spend a certain amount of quality time pretending to listen to Pub morons like Cucinelli and “Women Get Diseases in Ditches” Gingrich so they can tell them what they want to hear but that’s a minor sacrifice when you consider the size of the check these bozos will gratefully hand over to hear women who aren’t hookers tell them they’re right and if they just say it differently women will flock to join The Team.

It’s brilliant. What could be an easier score than charging megabucks for telling men so stupid, so immature, so hopelessly ignorant that fairy tales are true?