When I am wrong, I do (eventually, grudgingly, through clenched teeth and other clenched areas) admit it.
I use to refer to Greta Van Susteren as Greta Van Substanceless. I detested her program because she spent way too much time on Anna Nicole Smith and other nonsense. I would watch O’Reilly and Hannity, and then switch to CNN because even badly liberally slanted news on topics that matter is better than a neutral eye on nonsense. I could watch CNN with the sound off and observe the ticker.
Friends of mine recently have suggested that I give Greta a second look. I am glad I did. She has focused on everybody from Sarah Palin to Brett Favre (I admit a severe football bias on the latter).
The past couple nights Greta has been outstanding. She went toe to toe with Gloria Allred, and she turned Gloria all red.
Greta Van Susteren is no partisan hack. When leftist crybabies attack Fox News the way conservatives go after terrorists, they are referring to Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck. Nobody attacks Greta. She is neutral, reasonable, and fair. She is not even political. Her angle is legal, and she seems to have a sincere grasp of the law.
Gloria Allred is absolutely a partisan. She is on the left. She is an ardent liberal warrior (When liberals wage war, they do so on Republicans). She has been called everything from an ambulance chaser to a publicity hound. She does come across as parasitic.
Yet my opinion should not carry the day. I listened to the two women debate, and Greta came across as far more believable.
The issue centered around the controversy over California Gubernatorial Nominee Meg Whitman hiring and then firing a housekeeper who was an illegal immigrant.
Allred accused Van Susteren of being a shill for Meg Whitman. Van Susteren emphatically pointed out that she has never even met Ms. Whitman and does not know her at all.
Allred has been accused of shilling for Jerry Brown. Allred has donated to him in the past. Allred has criticized him in the past as well, but from the left. He was not liberal enough on some issues for her. He is still much more liberal than Ms. Whitman, and therefore deserving of her support.
While there is no direct evidence that Jerry Brown was behind this October surprise, it does seem strange that whenever Democrats are losing in the polls, they get in the gutter.
(Democrats will claim both sides do it. There is not even close to an equal tit for tat on this one.)
Al Gore denied breaking the George W. Bush drunk driving scandal 4 days before the 2000 election. John Kerry broke the Bush National Guard non-story as Dan Rather and Mary Mapes and the Jayson Blair Times relied on “fake but accurate” memos.
Greta had Allred on the defensive by pointing out a simple fact that I concede to completely overlooking. By Allred having her client sue Ms. Whitman for $6,000 in back wages, she is risking opening the woman up to deportation.
I am not in any way saying justice should be ignored. If Ms. Whitman owes this money, it should be paid. There are people who exploit illegal immigrants in awful ways. Some rapists deliberately sexually assault women because they know the women fear deportation. This is heinous, and while the rapists deserve the harshest penalty (I advocate the death penalty for rape), entering the country is illegal. Nobody deserves to be raped, but entering America illegally increases the risk of being victimized.
Gloria Allred is no dummy. She had to know that subjecting her client to potential deportation is not worth the amount of money being sought.
This makes the charge that Ms. Allred is not acting in the best interest of her client very valid. Greta Van Susteren did not even passed judgment. She simply kept asking Ms. Allred if the risk-reward ratio was worth it for the client. Ms. Allred hemmed and hawed.
When a fiduciary violates their responsibility, that is called corruption. It is up to Ms. Allred to act in the best interest of her client. Time will tell if she did that. I suspect otherwise.
This situation is personal for me because I know what it is like to be victimized by a corrupt entity while watching people get exploited.
As I have said before, one of the most corrupt entities on Earth is the National Futures Association. I have met several of the sources of the corruption, from Phil Raleigh and Ronald Hirst to Melissa Glassbrenner to Bill Maitland. They are led by the top corruptocrat Dan Driscoll. I have discussed in the past why Dan Driscoll is basically Eliot Spitzer with better hair. I brought a legal issue to Mr Driscoll, and his response was stunning, even for a talentless technocrat like himself.
I was responsible for making sure that any new potential brokers hired by my firm had the integrity and character to be in the financial services industry. After all, most clients would not want criminals handling their money. I took this oversight role very seriously.
I repeatedly told applicants that the coverup is often worse than the crime. If they have issues in their backgrounds, disclose them to me in a confidential setting. Don’t lie to me. If a person has criminal convictions, they might still be allowed to become brokers based on the circumstances. If they lie on their applications, the NFA will show no mercy (I agree with this).
One fellow lied on his application. He had felony convictions. The NFA website clearly states that anybody convicted of a felony is subjected to “statutory disqualification.” The person has the right to an appeal, which can take months.
(Most people refuse to fight. One guy had a felony drug charge. In the years since, he got married, had a child, and turned his life around. He fought for an entire year, and finally was granted the right to be a broker. I agreed with the end result. Yet somebody who stole money from clients would not be a good case for redemption. Each case is different.)
When I found the applicant lied, I explained I could not hire him.
I was then sent a letter by the New York Civil Rights Commission accusing me of human rights violations!
Human rights violations? To me that was something done by Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot. I was a paper pusher at a brokerage firm.
In New York, it is actually illegal to discriminate against felons. The applicant sued my firm with help from an aggressive leftist bleeding heart civil rights attorney. She was Gloria Allred without the fame.
(Civil rights is often thought to involve race. The applicant was Caucasian and male, as am I.)
I explained that the issue was that the applicant lied. Yet even so, I pointed out that the NFA bans the hiring of felons.
The civil rights attorney investigated, and came back to me with news that the NFA refuted my point, and that there was no prohibition on hiring felons.
I researched for answers, and it seems that like any group of government-lite weasels, the NFA splits hairs very fine.
(The NFA is not a “rules-based” organization. It is “philosophy-based,” which means they make up the rules as they go along.)
It is legal for firms in this industry to hire felons. It is just illegal to allow them to do the actual work.
So I can hire a felon, but cannot let him make sales calls or solicit business. The entire role of a broker is to perform those functions. Yet to hire a person to sit and do nothing is legal. Only a quasi-government agency like the NFA (self-regulatory organization for hair splitters) could be this stupid.
I went to Dan Driscoll for help. I explained to him that many clients would be uncomfortable having convicted felons as brokers. Worse, the guy lied on his application.
Mr. Driscoll pointed out that the NFA supported the notion of not having felons as brokers.
Yet Mr. Driscoll would not back me up to the New York Civil Rights Commission. I was hung out to dry, thrown to the wolves.
The case was settled, and I was not convicted of any civil rights violations. I vigorously denied the charges.
The New York Civil Rights Commission successfully intimidated the NFA. It was better for the NFA if a small firm gets sued than if the NFA gets sued.
Dan Driscoll decided it was easier to sacrifice a pawn like me than allow an ounce of honor to lead to a cleaner financial services industry.
Both Dan Driscoll and the NFA, in addition to the NYCRC, used and abused people. The brief settlement this applicant received came at a price of his reputation as a problem employee. I will never disclose his name, but the industry is small. Plenty of people will not hire this guy because he gamed the system.
The NYCRC knew this. They did not care. A liberal ideological agenda trumped fiduciary responsibilities.
Gloria Allred makes her living defending parasites, be they hookers, adulteress mistresses, porn stars, or illegal immigrants.
The NYCRC does the same, in this case putting the rights of felons and liars over law abiding citizens.
The NFA and Dan Driscoll speak about the integrity of the derivatives market, but have zero interest in anything but preserving their own power. Any client that gets ripped off by this broker suffers solely because the NFA will not stand up for the rule of law.
Greta Van Susteren declared that enough was enough. At some point sanity has to take over. An 11th hour election attack could lead to a woman getting deported solely so Gloria Allred can get more fame and publicity before using this woman up and moving on to the next “victim.”
Without rules, laws, and honor, the entire system breaks down. Between Gloria Allred, Dan Driscoll, the NFA, and the NYCRC, it is no wonder that hiring is down in America. Corporations are paranoid. They are tired of frivolous lawsuits by leftist trial lawyers who get rich off of the misery of those who never get a fraction of the payday that the lawyers get in ancillary benefits.
Why be honest? Gloria Allred, the NYCRC, the NFA and Dan Driscoll have all proven that the penalty for corruption is…nothing.
Al Gore and John Kerry almost stole elections with help from liberals in the media. Gloria Allred may just take down Meg Whitman and elect Jerry Brown because she is like that.
Then again, what do I know?
I am just a human rights violator (not convicted) in a world gone mad where felons are oppressed victims and honest workers are guilty until proven innocent.
eric