Speakers to address failures of death penalty
The death penalty is the ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights.
Despite its virtues, our justice system does make mistakes. Since its reinstatement, more than 130 innocent people have been released from death row across the nation. There is evidence that the death penalty is applied arbitrarily across race and class. A person whose victim is white is 3.5 times more likely to be sentenced to die than one whose victim is a person of color. The death penalty does not deter people from committing a crime. Nor does it erase the pain of crime for any of us. “Killing people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong” is an unjust, immoral and violent waste of resources that doesn’t make sense in Montana. This conversation is important to all of us, and I invite you to come and be part of it.
Betsy Mulligan-Dague, executive director, Jeannette Rankin Peace Center, Missoula
The guys with money said deregulation was way to go
With the near-collapse of our financial system upon us, it may be wise to review the cause.
Both presidential candidates are calling for new regulatory oversight because of the supposedly unforeseeable level of greed by those running the huge investment banks. This catastrophe, though, was accurately predicted by some crazy liberals.
In 1999, Sen. Phil Gramm (now McCain’s financial adviser) sponsored a bill to repeal the protections of the Depression-era Glass-Steagel Act, which had remedied the cause of the Great Depression, the unrestricted consolidation of banks, investment firms and insurance companies. The Gramm bill did away with the Glass-Steagel barriers so that giant investment, financial and insurance banks could once again be formed.
Days after the Gramm bill passed with McCain’s vote, the liberal blog PublicCampaign.org wrote:
“Friday, October 22, 1999 should go down in history as the day that big money in politics won its biggest victory ever. That was the day that White House and Senate negotiators worked out a final, late-night deal engineering the repeal of a critical Depression-era law, the Glass-Steagal Act, that for six decades has kept the banking, securities and insurance businesses separate from each other. ... Now, despite promises otherwise, the U.S. Treasury and the taxpayers will be in the position of bailing out speculators in the event that their risky plays in the securities business threaten the solvency of the soon-to-be-formed mega-banks.”
But, those were liberals, what did they know? All the smart guys with all the money said deregulation was the way to prosperity.
Richard Buley, Missoula
Liberal pressure behind financial mess
Deregulation of banks and Wall Street was not the cause of the financial mess, as alleged by Al Yee on Oct. 2 (letters).
He conveniently omitted substantial liberal pressure on the lending industry to make loans to people who, ultimately, could not afford them. Pressure came from the likes of Sens. Christopher Dodd (the top recipient of contributions from the failed Fannie Mae) and Barney Frank, two liberal Democrats who now assert they can fix the problem they helped create. They perpetrated a cruel hoax on many low-income families, promising the American Dream of homeownership only to have it snatched away when it became clear the payments were not affordable.
Keep in mind banks use our money to lend to our neighbors. It is not their money! Ask yourself whether you would loan money to someone if you questioned whether he or she could repay you. I suspect your answer is a resounding “No!” Yet that is what Democratic congressional leaders demanded of banks. One does not have to go back to the Hoover era, Mr. Yee, to find the most likely source for our current crisis. Bill Clinton signed the law that started the downfall in 1999. That bill passed because of included language encouraging loans to low-income families, many of which turned out to be quite risky.
The Montana Power debacle might have been spurred by deregulation, but probably was about illegality. I understand that shareholders in the company were not informed of the leadership’s goal of asset inflation and sale. I have been in such a leadership position in a regulated industry. Boards may not sell off substantial assets, especially if it changes the entire focus of the company, without consent of the stockholders. If they did, it is not deregulation at fault. It is crime!
Ward S. De Witt, Missoula
Leaders’ friends getting their severance pay
The $700 billion bailout bill is supposed to help us folks.
It did not pass the first time, as our Sen. Max Baucus wanted to attach a spending bill for his own state (many other senators did the same). Baucus attached a $110 million road bill to get his approval for our bailout. While not a bad thought, this is a “bailout.” Instead, why not a special fund to directly help the people in Montana who are in foreclosure and losing their homes?
Our leaders are spending hundreds of billions of dollars in other countries for freeways, drug prevention, education for farming and building other industry. But when called to help their own constituents they have no helping hand unless it is their friends on Wall Street, who will get their tens of millions in severance pay for running our economy into the ground - and our senator approved of it. Again, they should take all the severance pay, and put it in a fund to directly pay the folks who are in trouble.
We should all be calling Baucus and giving our opinion, even if you think he did the right thing. Jon Tester, to his credit, voted against this bill as presented.
Allan Marcus, Polson
Let Big Finance eat cake
Rather than the American taxpayer investing $700 billion in AIG, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, et al., and struggle to provide for our families each day waiting for a return on our “investment,” let’s invest our money where we can actually feel and touch an immediate return.
Let’s invest in ourselves. With $700 billion, American ingenuity could restructure our economic system, addressing social and environmental challenges and creating tens of thousands of new, good-paying jobs. Millions of investors making health care affordable.
With $700 billion, hope, devastated by nature and apathy, will be returned. Quality education yielding advances in science and technology will reduce our energy dependency upon foreign largess mitigating our environmental concerns. Parents and grandparents taking stock in our children’s futures, providing opportunities that could, one day, resolve the mysteries of the universe. Stock, in bettering the human condition offered by our investment firm America. That seems like a fairly decent return on a hedge bet to me, but then again, didn’t they all?
As for AIG, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and the others - let them eat cake.
Charlie McGrath, Missoula
Think about Obama’s 173 days on the job
Can’t help myself from throwing in my two cents’ worth on the “rock star,” Barrack Hussein Obama.
First, I am amazed at his “rock star” status, when to date he has not produced anything in his tenure as a U.S. senator. Voting “present” is roughly akin to saying “I’m here, but I don’t wish to make my opinion known with a recorded vote because I’m running for president.”
Second, anyone take the time to notice how quick his campaign put his wife under wraps? Where has she been?
Third, what about his mentor, William Ayers, a known terrorist who bombed the Pentagon and publicly stated he “wished he’d done more damage?”
I could go on and on, but won’t, because he’s a “rock star,” and thank God I’m not.
But, take this one to bed with you and think about it when you nose around in the fridge for some fresh tofu after midnight. In 173 days of your chosen profession, whatever it may be, were you a management employee, were you a section chief or chief, if it was a police or fire department? Not likely. This guy hasn’t even been one lap around the block, and I sure don’t want him speaking for me. Sleep well, but wake up please.
J.W. Allendorf, Florence
Demand the truth out of Palin
Does anyone see the similarities in the Bush/Cheney administration and the Palin administration in Alaska?
Palin, her husband and her staff are refusing to cooperate with a bipartisan investigation of the firing of Alaska’s public safety commissioner. Doesn’t this sound just like our current administration’s practices of not honoring subpoenas?
The current president and his VP seem to have no regard for the laws of our nation and believe they are not accountable for the many wrongs they have committed. Isn’t interesting that Palin believes she is not accountable either. Palin demanded that Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska cooperate with the investigation of him and all his shady dealings; why don’t her supporters demand the same of her? After all, don’t you want to know the truth before you vote?
She would be the second-in-command of the greatest nation in the world with McCain not a healthy man. If she did misuse her power at the state level, imagine what she may do at the national level. To me, it seems Palin and Cheney have a lot in common.
Demand the truth before you vote. Hopefully all of the people that support her realize she did support the “bridge to nowhere” and accepted the money for it and then, when it became an embarrassment for her state, she was against it. However, she did not send the money back to the feds but built a road to nowhere to connect to the now-defunct bridge to nowhere. Now that is interesting.
Search for the truth, it will set you free - or drive you crazy. Please vote with knowledge.
Kevin Pierce, Missoula
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