I spoke too soon. Bradley Thuringer’s committee has placed this crazy flyer in South Dakota mailboxes to distract people from the need to cap interest rates on payday lenders by shouting “Obama!”
The payday lenders attacked IM 21 sponsor Steve Hildebrand’s business last year during the petition process; now they attack him personally. Distracting and disgusting.
The guy on the right has an unusual tan. Makes him a Liberal automatically.
On the bright side just more Libs doing what they can to protect US citizens from being robbed blind by korporate amerika. That’s a good thing.
The entire premise of the card is false. Any honest person following this issue in SD knows it did not start on the left side of the political aisle in our state. The ballot committee is me, and Hilde. Shame on all of them.
Only a week left to blame everything on Obama. Next is Hillary.
this idiocy of obstruction requires unprecedented star power to cut thru the bullsheit. here’s how scientists warning us of climate change at the door:
[B]allot measures, one Florida industry insider recently bragged in a leaked tape from a closed door meeting, are “incredibly savvy maneuver[s]” that “would completely negate anything they [pro-solar interests] would try to do either legislatively or constitutionally down the road.”
WOW!!
So, David Letterman is featured on [Nat’l Geographic’s]Season 2 premiere. He journeys to India, where…a slipshod grid causes daily power outages…30 percent of the country’s electricity is lost before it reaches consumers. Though solar holds huge potential for India — a potential that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set ambitious goals to tap — the country’s government also remains committed to expanding its fleet of coal power plants.
Those coal-fired plants mean that some of India’s cities have the worst air quality in the world — worse even than China’s notoriously smoggy metropolises. Indians in the capital city of New Delhi sweep the soot from their floors and window sills multiple times daily; residents of major Indian cities who check Google weather will often find that the day’s forecast is only “smoke.” And, of course, these coal plants drive climate change.
Yet when Letterman interviews the country’s minister of power, coal, renewable energy and mines (yes, all one job) and Modi himself, both insist that the country must keep burning coal. And their reasons are compelling: Some 300 million Indians still are unconnected to the electrical grid — that’s only slightly less than the total number of people living in America. Modi, the leader of the world’s largest democracy, insists — and has insisted since he was first elected — that India’s first priority must be development, and that development requires the country to exploit every energy source available.
Climate change is a pressing concern that poses a dire threat to India. Heatwaves, sea level rise, flooding and drought will all hit India harder than many more developed countries in more temperate climates. But as India moves through its industrial revolution, Modi wants the countries that went through their own revolutions a century ago, and are wealthier for it today, to do the heavy lifting in addressing the climate crisis.
I would say that this postcard makes me more likely to vote for IM 21, but I already voted for it.
I’m sure Hildebrand didn’t say Christians are bigots. He may have said that bigots claiming to be Christian are bigots. And that’s just how it is.
http://billmoyers.com/story/years-of-living-dangerously-returns-to-television-sunday/
attempting to edit these down for size lately causes the blog to seize. sorry, it should have shrunk to this:
“Though solar holds huge potential…the country’s government also remains committed to expanding its fleet of coal power plants [producing] the worst air quality in the world —…these coal plants drive climate change.
Yet when Letterman interviews the country’s minister of power… the country [insists it] must keep burning coal….Some 300 million Indians still are unconnected to the electrical grid —…the world’s largest democracy, insists…that India’s first priority must be development, and that development requires the country to exploit every energy source available.
Climate change is a pressing concern that poses a dire threat to India. Heatwaves, sea level rise, flooding and drought will all hit India harder than many more developed countries in more temperate climates. But as India moves through its industrial revolution…the countries that went through their own revolutions a century ago… are wealthier for it today, to do the heavy lifting in addressing the climate crisis.”
This really makes libs look good. A group of conservatives like Hickey do have a conscience and are very much on board as well. But it seems easier to get a democrat to agree to this than a republican. People with a conscience on either side of the aisle can see the wrongness of predatory lending to the poor.
OMG! There is Obama’s hand and he isn’t wearing his wedding ring, again, He’s gone Muslim on ‘murrica and is out to ge…… wait. That is his right hand. Never mind.
It seems like repeating the same “Who’s behind” lines on both sides of the card is wasteful, or they just didn’t have enough to say to cover two sides of the card. Or maybe those are two different cards, one that talks about exposing and the better one that says “exposed.” They got more information more tastefully put on the “Exposed” card.
On the other card, they could have fit “It’s not your job to protect stupid people from themselves.” That’s what I would have done.
When did Hickey become a born-again liberal?
Indeed, Steve! The card’s omission of you as a prime mover on this bill shows the speciousness of their attack. IM 21 isn’t some partisan ploy. It’s South Dakotans trying to protect their friends and neighbors from a predatory industry that even Adam Smith would have found objectionable.
It’s merely a “Hail Mary” attempt by the predatory lenders in this state.
On another note, the Chicago Cubs for the first time in 108 years have just won the World Series!!! Congrats to them and their fans… Now let us get out to vote next Tuesday and elect the first woman president in American history!!!!
Owen, the thing I like about IM 21 and most of the ballot measures is that they give us a chance to talk about real policy without getting bogged down in personal partisan politics. The payday lenders want to cast IM 21 as some nefarious Obama plot, just like the SDGOP is sending out cards painting District 3 House candidates as Obama drones, because they know they’ll lose a real policy debate.
The payday lenders’ attempt to invoke Christian-bashing is nuts. Again, see Hildebrand’s co-sponsorship with Pastor Steve Hickey. South Dakota churches are some of Hildebrand and Hickey’s biggest allies in pushing IM 21 as a moral response to un-Christian usury.
Similar ad is running on TV.
Grudz, since self interest seems to be your primary motivation when you say that “It’s not your job to protect stupid people from themselves.” What about the rest of society that has to deal with the consequences of bad decisions by payday loan shark customers? There are all kinds of costs to you and me and society as a whole when we let people dig themselves into a hole they cannot possibly dig themselves out of. If you did not vote for IM21 to protect people from legal loan sharks, you should have voted for IM21 to help protect society from bearing more of the costs from people who have been victimized by payday loan sharks. It is not as simple as live and let live when the effects go far beyond the individual payday loan customer.
I just can’t wait until this D@##% election is over. It better not be another 2000.
I’m an NFL fan myself (go Vikes!), but it’s nice to see the Cubs finally win again after 108 years. That’s an interesting bit of baseball history, Claussen. It was nice to see Cleveland and Chicago in the world series instead of the same ol’ Yankees that get in every other year.
Yes, it is Jenny. Just think, the last time the Cubs won a World Series the president (Teddy) at that time later had his likeness carved some 20 to 30 years later on Mt. Rushmore, which itself just celebrated its 75th birthday…. It’s time for a woman President!!!
Darin wrote:
1) Payday lenders aren’t loan sharks. Nobody who takes out a payday loan is in danger of having their kneecaps busted or cement shoes installed.
1a) Mind you, I’m not singing their praises. I wish payday loans weren’t needed, but it’s pretty clear 12 million Americans rely upon them for short term access to cash.
2) The Pew Charitable Trust’s research and the investigations of Freakonomics suggest the payday loan industry is much more complicated than you want it to be. 60% of those who take out a loan pay it back either with no or minimal rollovers. Only a small subset (10 – 15%) have real trouble with paying back loans and get into a “hole they can’t climb out of.”
3) We can eliminate the symptom, but if we don’t address the underlying condition (people struggling to make ends meet), removing a financial tool to resist economic shocks will not improve households in South Dakota. Indeed, it may force more people into bankruptcies, losing their home or transportation, etc.
4) Thanks to the laboratories of democracy, other states have shown workable solutions to reduce the negative impact of the payday loan industry while still providing a space for short term loans to exist, helping marginal income folks make ends meet.
5) Nobody is being lied to. Payday loans must show how much the APR is, and how much it actually costs to borrow money. This isn’t a rigged carnival game – the terms are right there for all to see. And I contend the majority of those who’re living paycheck to paycheck know acutely where every dollar goes and whether they’ll be able to pay back the loan (Pew & Freakonomics back that up).
Therefore the compelling interest isn’t to eliminate the payday loan industry (as IM 21 will do), and interfere in the personal financial choices of South Dakotans, but to revise it to mitigate the damage which must be covered by you and I via public support. Colorado’s efforts have done well in that regard.
Wayne B. – IM 21 is just the needed regulation this predatory industry needs. The 10-15% of their customers having trouble with payback are where the sharks feed and a 36% cap is quite proper. IM 21 will only eliminate the industry if the industry is dependent on the blood of their victims. If the industry is valid, then profits from selling 36% loans should suffice in any marketplace.
5) Nobody is being lied to.
What about everyone who reads about the 18% cap on loans as spewed by….wait for it…..Payday Lenders?
Isn’t it a factual reality that predatory lenders make the majority of their ill gotten gains from the small percentage of repeat borrowers who are trapped in a cycle of borrowing?
Is it not also a fact that since Payday loans are paid on payday, doesn’t that necessarily mean the borrower is habitually short of funds for other monthly services, facilitating the need to continue borrowing?
Theft will increase and pawn shops will make a killing. Can’t wait!
Curtail predatory lending and increase business for two others sounds like a fair trade to me. Thieves and pawnshops have to make a living, too.