I WAS IN A GOOD MOOD AFTER THE CUBS' WIN...

so I figured I could handle listening to Mark "Foamer" Levin for a bit.  I learned that many of his callers want to either form their own party or purge RINOs like Speaker Ryan from the GOP.   This may be the beginning of the end for the GOP.

HEADS I LOSE, TAILS I LOSE

That's the position 5,300 peasants were at Wells Fargo.  Any one of them could be fired for not doing enough fraudulent cross-selling OR for notifying the "ethics" department.  In the latter case, Wells Fargo retaliated against internal whistleblowers:

Now CNNMoney is hearing from former Wells Fargo (WFC) workers around the country who tried to put a stop to these illegal tactics. Almost half a dozen workers who spoke with us say they paid dearly for trying to do the right thing: they were fired.

"They ruined my life," Bill Bado, a former Wells Fargo banker in Pennsylvania, told CNNMoney.

Bado not only refused orders to open phony bank and credit accounts. The New Jersey man called an ethics hotline and sent an email to human resources in September 2013, flagging unethical sales activities he was being instructed to do.

Eight days after that email, a copy of which CNNMoney obtained, Bado was terminated. The stated reason? Tardiness.

One former Wells Fargo human resources official even said the bank had a method in place to retaliate against tipsters. He said that Wells Fargo would find ways to fire employees "in retaliation for shining light" on sales issues. It could be as simple as monitoring the employee to find a fault, like showing up a few minutes late on several occasions.

"I endured harsh bullying ... defamation of character, and eventually being pinned for something I didn't do," said Heather Brock, who was fired earlier this month as a senior business banker at a Wells Fargo branch in Round Rock, Texas.

FEEL GOOD NEWS

(h/t Atrios)

I've been reading about the problems at Glenn Beck's media empire for over a year and now it seems it's on the verge of collapse unless he can figure out a Trump-like bankruptcy.

I FOUND ONE!

A few years ago, I spent about 6 months looking for a conservative thinker who wasn't basically a crackpot. Aside from Russell Kirk, I came up empty. There are occasional outbursts of sanity from Ponnuru and a few others but until now, I was unaware of any current Amrican conservative who was consistently sane. My new hero until further notice is Samuel Goldman. He makes obviously good points, such as:

I think the great message of Trump is that there really are not that many movement conservatives.

and

A lot of conservatives — not so much political professionals who spend their time studying the numbers, but rank-and-file Republicans and voters — really seemed to believe that they are a silent majority. In some ways, this election could be described as the story of a minority that thinks it's a majority.

The latter delusion is heavily promoted by talk radio gasbags like Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck and Levin.

Goldman also isn't impressed with Austrian economics:

It’s hard to say what would have happened if the administration had failed to secure the stimulus and funds to insure international liquidity in 2009 and 2010. But the bottom did not fall out of the economy. The administration deserves credit for this.

Tough as things are, the U.S. economy is also doing better than other countries’. That’s partly due to the energy boom, which is sheer luck. But Obama’s opposition to the kind of austerity policies that are causing so much pain in Europe also has something to do with it.

TRUMP GETS HIMSELF MORE FREE PUB FROM A GULLIBLE PRESS

On Sept, 15, Trump refused to tell the WaPo's Robert Costa whether or not he still believed Pres. Obama was not born in America and thus ineligible to be President.

On Sept. 16, Trump snags full coverage by the gullible press by promising a "big announcement" and then shows up late & pointlessly has some vets sing his praises before finally admitting Pres. Obama was born in America.

MARKET CONSOLIDATION

Derek Thompson has an informative piece in The Atlantic and I especially liked this line:

Between too-big-to-fail banks and seemingly incompetent cable companies, there may be popular support for action against consolidated market power.

This incompetence has flourished during a period of great consolidation in the cable industry and here's a chart that shows some of the consolidation.

I DISLIKE SEAN HANNITY

so I'm pleased to learn that many conservatives also dislike him.  Here's one of the better posts from The Right Scoop:

K-Bob MODERATOR • 2 days ago

Massengill's poster boy Hannity has really lost his mind. He makes Alex Jones look like a true statesman, by comparison.

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MORE GOOD NEWS FROM ARIZONA

According to this new poll, registered voters approve of legalizing marijuana:

The Arizona Republic/Morrison/Cronkite News Poll asked registered voters’ opinions on Proposition 205, a measure to legalize the possession and consumption of marijuana by persons who are 21 years of age or older.

• Proposition 205 — Favor: 50 percent, Against: 39.9 percent, Don’t Know: 10.2 percent (+/‐ 3.4)

VALUES VOTERS AND THE DONALD

I cannot believe Trump spoke to the Fundies because he's hardly a Christian.  I have had a low opinion of these people for years and today just confirms my belief that they aren't really Christian.

TRUMP IS RE-LIVING THE '60s

Earlier this year he blabbed about how the "silent majority" supports him just as Nixon did in 1969 and on Wednesday night he claimed to have a "secret plan" to  destroy ISIS.   In 1968, Nixon told some editors of Mid-West newspapers that he had a secret plan to end the Vietnam War.