RICK

I don't know if there's a loose connection or a short-circuit in Rick Santorum's wiring, but something's goofy about this ex-senator who wants to be president.
One late reminder was his warning to our youth, over the weekend, about the perils of a college education.
Such an experience, said Santorum in a Michigan speech, can turn normal, sensible, right-thinking students into flaming liberals, in the mold of Barack Obama.
Calling colleges "indoctrination mills," Santorum labeled the president a snob for urging kids to go there.
Actually, here's specifically what Obama had urged in a particular speech to Congress three years ago: "I ask every American to commit to at least one year of higher education or career training. This can be community college, vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma."
Sounds sensible. How many employers do you know who hire youngsters to good jobs straight out of high school?
Santorum himself got exposed to higher education quite a bit -- undergraduate degree from Penn State, MBA from Pittsburgh and law degree from Dickinson. And through all that he emerged ...... not as a liberal, but as a confirmed, bone-headed apostle of the far right.

foto2

The Republican doctrinaires who insist that Colorado voters have photo-identification cards are at it again.
They've set in motion a House bill that promises an expensive and wrong-headed solution to a problem that doesn't exist. They've dug up an old bogeyman, "vote fraud."
One of the bill's primary backers is Secretary of State Scott Gessler. Gessler is, by law, Colorado's chief elections officer and someone who ought to be encouraging more people to vote rather than fewer.
Now if this identity-card system were to become law, of course, a voter could simply show election judges a driver's license or other government-issued photo card. But the sad fact is that a significant number of eligible voters, notably the young, old and members of minority groups, do not have such a thing.
Yes, they could spend time and money to get one. They shouldn't have to.
The driving force behind this "identity" campaign is pure, hidebound Republicanism. And it is not really aimed at voter fraud. That's a lie; there's no such significant fraud nowadays..
This campaign, in fact, is aimed deliberately by white-bread conservatives at discouraging the vote of as many as possible of old, young and minority-group people who historically go Democratic.
That's as plain as the noses on their white faces.

bankers

Two of my uncles and a dear old cousin were bankers, and I have no animosity whatever toward that breed. I am, in fact, occasionally amused and entertained by the twists and turns I observe in the way they do their business.
It's a business that does not lightly let a loose dollar or a spare dime slip by.
Like today. I got a message from Wells Fargo of a very modest gain in an unused account -- monthly accrued interest of 76 cents. At the same time the bank levied on me what it calls a "monthly check return/image stmt. fee" of $2.
So I'm out $1.24. But entertained.