THESE CONSERVATIVE TIMES

The following is the lead-in to a story that could only come during times when nobody feels financially secure. What with everybody and anybody telling us that we need an awful lot of money in order to retire and what with everybody having been talked into the investment world, and given that under the Bushite regime no one can feel safe anymore because Bush’s entire regime has been dedicated to destroying the feeling of security that a safety net gave all of us—even if we didn’t need it, we could still know it was there—these kinds of schemes were bound to multiply. Current America reminds me of a Charles Dickens sort of world or a backwoods Mark Twain one, full of con men and gullible fools. I don’t think things have been so bad for average Americans since the Depression. Thank you, Mr. Texan Bush.

[OPEN QUOTE] Monday July 17, 6:31 PM EDT

By Kevin Drawbaugh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Forty investment firms across America's Sun Belt are under federal examination over so-called "free lunch" investment seminars that target elderly victims, authorities said on Monday.

In six states with large retiree populations, the Securities and Exchange Commission is looking hard at seminars where seniors get a free meal and a hard sell for investments that can range from inappropriate to fraudulent.

"Regulators are now examining 40 firms and more firms have been identified for examinations," said Lori Richards, director of the SEC's Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations at a conference on senior fraud. She did not name the firms.

At the conference, a study was released with a finding that surprised some officials -- elderly victims of investment fraud seem to be more financially literate than non-victims. . . .

©2005 Reuters Limited. [CLOSE QUOTE]


RIGHT WING MEDIA HARMS CONSERVATIVE INTEGRITY

The short passage below comes to you from a columnist deep inside the NY Times:

“When I was covering the war in Iraq, we reporters would sometimes tune to Fox News and watch, mystified, as it purported to describe how Iraqis loved Americans. Such coverage (backed by delusional Journal editorials baffling to anyone who was actually in Iraq) misled conservatives about Iraq from the beginning. In retrospect, the real victims of Fox News weren't the liberals it attacked but the conservatives who believed it.” —Nicholas D. Kristof

You can read the entire column at if you are rich enough to pay online for all the media that has the news you want to read. But who has that kind of money? The day is coming when news will be available only to the rich. That day will come when you can no longer go into a coffee shop, a doctor’s office, etcetera and read a used hard copy of USA Today or the NY Times or your local paper or any magazine or paper. Hard copies will be as extinct as the dodo bird.