The Chris Moeller Archives

Sorry, I was on vacation again

Interesting financial development in Washington last week, instigated by an invigorated Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The agency released to the public 7,700 consumer complaints against the financial services industry. One banking rep called it a “public shaming” of the industry. Bankers had lobbied hard and expensively against the release, saying that the complaints amount to one-sided stories in each case.

That’s rich. The idea that a complaint by an American citizen and consumer submitted to a government agency should not be a matter of public record is a radical one indeed, yet that’s the world we’ve been living in up to this point. The culture of secrecy is slipping away from them and they can feel it. How is this different than the Federal Communications Commission publicly releasing the complaints it gets from TV viewers about broadcast programming? It isn’t.

---

The four dissenting voters in the historic gay marriage decision at the Supreme Court are being dishonest. You're giving them entirely too much credit if you accept their written dissents at face value. They are members of ancient religious tribes and each of their dissenting "legal" opinions are reflective of ancient prejudices, personal anxieties, self-loathing, bad science, and bad sociology. The law was never a consideration.

---

There's one person that we could dare say is most often forgotten as a gay pioneer-- a person that was "out and proud," and unapologetic, and also absolutely dominant in her field dating back to the early 1980s. Give it up for Martina Navratilova.

---

Now's a great time to revisit 1996's Defense of Marriage Act. Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, Tom Daschle, Chris Dodd, Tom Harkin, Joe Lieberman, Patty Murray, Harry Reid, and Paul Wellstone are hoping you'll forget about that one.

Only seven years ago, Barack Obama told MTV he opposed gay marriage, and only four years ago, White House aide Dan Pfeiffer told a group of bloggers, "The president has never favored same sex marriage. He is against it." Now the White House lights up at night in the colors of the rainbow, and in only a decade, historians will be trying to sell us on the idea that Obama was a pioneer for gay rights.

---

Hillary Clinton came out for gay marriage in March 2013, the same week Bill O'Reilly announced he was okay with it.

---

Donald Trump has been fired from NBC for repeatedly denigrating Mexicans. Trump says that illegal immigrants are "pouring across our borders unabated. Public reports routinely state great amounts of crime are being committed by illegal immigrants."

I don't know why everybody is so upset. He's citing "public reports."

posted by CM @ 9:31 PM