Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, who’s a creator and promoter of the Tea Party, was on the Mike Rosen Show yesterday, and he and Rosen spent a couple minutes discussing the Wall Street Greed protest.

Armey’s rambling about the demonstration shows why the simple message of Wall Street Greed is so effective.

The conservatives try to say, Wall Street is not greedy because…. and they immediately start to sound really out of touch.

Here’s Dick Armey, who’s not a stupid guy:

Armey: …Goofballs that are walking around now protesting what they call, Wall Street greed is just ridiculous. I don’t know how you even respond to people like that.

Rosen: You’re talking about the, Occupy Wall Street, demonstration here.

Armey: Right, right. These folks first of all, the first thing the left does, progressives, there’s a documented history of this is a design by them, is distort the language. Basically what they argue is that people who have gone out and worked hard and earned their living and want to keep the money they earned through their legal, honest effort, these people are greedy…. To me, greed was wanting something from someone else that you hadn’t earned. That’s what I always thought greed was. But to these folks, greed is wanting to keep what you worked very hard to earn. I mean, I don’t get it. I don’t get their line of thinking. You know, I think they’ve got a distorted sense of truth. I don’t know, it’s very frustrating to me because it’s hard to know how anybody can be that misguided and that arrogant.

Rosen might have been alone, even among his audience, in not wanting to ask: Ok, about that Wall Street Greed that is self evident in America?

Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler has been denying that partisanship played any role in his decision to file a lawsuit to stop Denver from mailing election ballots to inactive voters, who last voted in the 2008 general election.

Gessler’s latest public denial of partisan-taint came on KHOW’s Caplis and Silverman Show last week, in response to a direct question from Silverman at 33 minutes in the podcast Sept. 28 show, 5 p.m. hour:

Silverman: Isn’t this just partisan on your part? Isn’t it because you’re thinking this will favor the Democrats?

Gessler: Absolutely not. Denver can’t do what it wants to do. It can do what it wants to do in a municipal election.

But in October, as he was running for office, Gessler said on a radio show that the large number of Democratic voters on the inactive voter lists concerned him, specifically because more Democrats than Republicans were on the inactive voter lists.

In fact, it concerned him so much that he implied that election officials in Democratic counties, which would include Denver, were managing their inactive voter lists in such a way as to favor the Democratic Party.

Gessler framed the issue in partisan terms, saying at the time that in counties with large numbers of Democrats, election officials are slow to clean up their lists of inactive voters.

“You have some heavily democratic counties that are less focused on cleaning up their databases than other counties,” Gessler told KOA’s Mike Rosen, Oct. 6, 2010, at 10:15 seconds in the podcast:

Rosen: I’ve got a report in front of me from the Secretary of State’s office, and it’s an official report. You can see  it online. And it has total registered voters by party affiliation and status. Among Republicans, we have 869,000 active voters and 199,000 inactive voters. Among Democrats, 825,000 active voters and 242,000 inactive voters….

Gessler: If they have not voted in the last general election they become inactive. And I think what you are seeing there, especially because of the heavy skew towards the large number Democrat inactive voters. I think that indicates variances in the counties and how focused they are. You have some heavily democratic counties that are less focused on cleaning up their databases than other counties. What you always look for to find out if there is a problem with the database is statistical anomalies. When there is something that pops out that seems a little unusual. Here there is something unusual there. You have two times, twice as many inactive Democrat voters as you do Republican voters. That is something that needs investigation. I am not saying there is massive fraud or anything there but that is very unusual to have those statistical anomalies.

I contacted Gessler’s office for a clarification. When he said, “less focused,” did he mean that clerks were deliberately putting less of a priority on cleaning up the inactive voter lists in order to promote Democrats?

Does he believe there’s a little bit of fraud going on here, even if there’s not the “massive” variety? Did his concern about the inactive voter lists play a role in his decision to file the lawsuit against Denver?

I’ll update this post when I get an answer.

UPDATE: Talking Points Memo picks up on the post below, adding, among other things, the quote from Lakey that it’s cruel to criticize Michelle Obama’s clothes, but “”It’s cruel for her to talk about my hamburgers that I want to eat all the time.”

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Colorado Springs talk-radio host Jimmy Lakey was sitting at a cigar club at some point, he didn’t say when, and he heard someone refer to Michelle Obama as “Chewbacca.”

He’d never used the word himself, he told his radio audience Aug. 14, but “at the cigar club, someone used the phrase Chewbacca, and everyone knew or assumed who this person was talking about.”

“I’ve tested it,” Lakey said on 740 KVOR, laughing. “I’ve done group testing, and I’ve said, if I say Chewbacca, what do you think? And, I’m telling you. I’m in so much trouble right now.”

In trouble, he said, with his wife, whom he told about the Chewbacca talk at the cigar club.

“She lectured me, and told me that was wrong, and that was crossing the line, and how rude that was,” Lakey said into his microphone for the world to hear.

But then one day Lakey showed his wife some photos from Facebook of Michelle Obama dressed in different outfits.

His wife, the “nice one,” he said,  told him she looked like a halfback.

“If you’re the First Lady, you shouldn’t wear things that make you look like a halfback,” she said to him.

Lakey replied to his wife: “What’s the difference between you saying she looks like a halfback and someone else saying the name Chewbacca? I don’t get the difference. I just don’t get the difference.” [Editor’s note: A halfback is a football player. Chewbacca is an ape-like character in Star Wars films.]

After he started telling this story on the radio, Lakey said he got a Facebook message from a listener. The caller claimed to be the guy from the cigar club, Lakey said, the person Lakey first heard using the name Chewbacca. The guy who started this whole thing.

It turns out, this guy’s wife gets mad at him, too, for referring to Michelle Obama as Chewbacca.

“I had a guy just post on my Facebook fan page,” Lakey told anyone who hadn’t turned off the radio yet. Then he read the Facebook post:

Hey Jimmy, I smoke cigars, and I referred to Michele Obama as Chewbacca since 2009 (laughs). I wonder if I’m the guy you heard call her that. …My wife has told me not to call her that in front of my kids. But my boys, got bless them, have picked up on it and they have marched forward with it…. I wanted to identify myself and state that I cannot stand the Obamas. I took my boys out of school to attend the Tea Party rallies, and they were magnificent.

Along the way, Lakey had told his audience that he thought calling Michelle Obama Chewbacca was “crass and a little bit much.”

But that didn’t stop him from saying everything he said, plus Lakey offered up this:

Chewbacca! I didn’t say it! (laughs) No! I will not take the heat on this. I did not call her Chewbacca.  No. I get in trouble. My wife, when I told her this, she yelled at me. I thought it was kind of funny.

After I listened to a recording of Lakey’s story last week, I sent him an email with this question:

You said on the radio Aug. 14 you thought it was “kind of funny” for Michele Obama to be called Chewbacca. You also said the comment was “crass and a little bit much,” but you went on to repeat the phrase and laugh repeatedly. Do you really think that using “Chewbacca” to describe Michele Obama is kind of funny?

I didn’t hear back from him.

Neither did he tell me a couple weeks ago why he laughed hysterically and grotesquely when a caller compared Michele Obama to a character in the Planet of the Apes.

And, as I explain here, Lakey deleted questions about his on-air behavior that I posted on his Facebook fan page, where he describes himself as “humanitarian & entrepreneur, and a former candidate for U.S. Congress in Colorado’s CD7 and…a frequent guest host for radio talk shows across the USA.”

I don’t take his brush-off personally, because he didn’t respond to the Colorado Springs Gazette either.

So that’s where the story ends for now.

If you want to ask him what the @?!!!** he’s thinking and why, here’s his email address: jimmy.lakey@cumulus.com. Lakey’s station, KVOR, was just recently bought by Cumulus Media, Inc, one of the biggest radio conglomerates in the U.S.

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Below are the segments of the show during which Lakey tells his Chewbacca story.

If you thought the written version above was scary or offensive, you’ll find the radio-show clips below even worse, because his laughter adds a creepy dimension that could not convey.

Lakey: “Chewbacca! I didn’t say it,” Part 1:

Lakey “Chewbacca! I didn’t say it,” Part 2 (later in the show):

In response to my questions about this, one of Lakey’s supervisors at KVOR emailed me that Lakey did not know “whether his laughter following her Michelle Obama observation was out of humor or simply discomfort.”

I’ve been trying to get a response from Lakey himself but to no avail.

Is he sorry? How could he not figure out if he was feeling uncomfortable or elated?

So I posted a question on Lakey’s fan page on Facebook Sept. 21:

Hi Jimmy — I’m a progressive blogger in Denver, and I heard you howl with laughter Aug. 21 when a caller told you that Michele Obama reminded you of a character in The Planet of the Apes. I admit that the left is sometimes too quick to condemn “insensitive” jokes, but I’m wondering why you were laughing Aug. 21. Here’s the audio clip.

Lakey didn’t respond, so I posted a second message the next day:

I’d like to conduct a poll of readers of Jimmy Lakey’s Facebook page. Do you think he should respond to my question below, posted on Sept. 21?

Within a couple days, my posts were deleted, and I was banned from posting further comments.

I had a feeling Lakey would expunge my queries from his page, so I made a screen grab of his Facebook page before he deleted my questions.

Here's BigMedia's post on Jimmy Lakey's fan page on Facebook before it was deleted.

In a post last week, I asked why Denver talk-show host Michael Brown airs, during the intro to his KOA radio show, the audio clip of Bush saying, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a Job.”

I asked if Brownie was actually proud of the disastrous federal response to Hurricane Katrina. And I quoted a recent radio show during which Brownie essentially said that anyone who did not evacuate from New Orleans got what they deserved.

Ugly stuff, and I tried repeatedly to get Brownie’s answers to my questions, but he ignored me.

But, to his credit, Brownie addressed some of the issues I raised for the Huffington Post, in a piece published Monday. He wrote:

Salzman asks in his essay, “is [he] proud of his claim to fame?” Jason, it doesn’t make any difference whether I am proud of the President’s phrase or not. It will stick with me for the rest of my life, giving people like you ample opportunity to continue to “blame Bush” for the ills of the world, regardless of the occupant of the White House. I am proud of my time at Homeland Security and FEMA.

So, yes, he’s proud, I guess, but he did say he made mistakes.

Bownie also wrote:

Salzman wrote in typical hatred fashion: “sadly enough…[Michael Brown] is easily the most famous media figure in Colorado.”

Really? Says who? What does it matter? And if it is true, why is it sad? To progressives like Salzman it really isn’t “sad” that I might be the most famous media figure in Colorado – it gives them great pleasure for now they have a target on the conservative side of the aisle they can attack. It gives Jason Salzman something to write about that makes him feel superior, better than others, while pointing out how “sad” it is that I might be, at least in his mind, the most famous media figure in Colorado.

I have to admit that Brownie is partially right. I liked writing about the fact that Brownie plays the heck-of-a-job clip every night and verbally assaults Katrina victims on his show. I wish he didn’t do this, and it’s ugly, but I like airing it out.

If Brownie were right, and I enjoyed having famous evil right wingers around Colorado to beat up on, then he’d say I’d love to have Dick Cheney move here, to sell his book that attacks everyone he knows. God no.

To paraphrase Fiddler on the Roof, god bless Cheney and keep him, far away from us.

No, sorry Brownie. I wish you weren’t the most famous media figure in Colorado. I wish you’d stop playing the “heck of a job” audio on your radio show every night.

I wish Colorado’s most famous media figure was known for doing something great, not for being the enduring symbol for an avoidable human catastrophe within our own borders.

Politico’s David Catanese posts Coffman’s Ponzi-scheme comment and writes:

Even as recent as today, Democrats are attempting to link GOP candidates to Perry’s Social Security position, but it appears some are willing to openly embrace it without prodding.

Right now it’s mostly a talking point, but if Perry continues to gain steam towards the presidential nomination, House and Senate candidates will inevitably be pressed on whether they hold the same view as the sharp-tongued Texan.

The question is how many of them fall into the Coffman camp and how many are forced into verbal gymnastics to show separation without seeming disloyal to the nominee.

On a Denver radio program, “Kelley and Company” Wed., Rep. Mike Coffman called Social Security a Ponzi scheme and aligned himself with Gov. Rick Perry over Mitt Romney and other candidates in the race to be the GOP presidential nominee.

That’s news, if you ask me, especially the Ponzi scheme part, but it has yet to be picked up by other media outlets. I think Social Security is a hot topic, being the third rail of politics and all, but journalists could spice up this angle on the topic by interviewing Ponzi scheme experts, like Bernie Madoff. (Maybe not him, but his ilk.) Do they think Social Security is a Ponzi scheme?

Here’s what Coffman told Steve Kelley, host of “Kelley and Company,” on KNUS-710 AM:

I am obviously going to support whoever the nominee is. But I have to admit to you philosophically I am closer to Perry. Obviously, I hope he gets better on the debate stuff. I think he did good. I think he did better on Social Security. I think obviously it is a Ponzi scheme, but he has to say he is going to fix it. And he did that in the last debate where he didn’t do that in the first debate. Now I think that was positive. [BigMedia emphasis]

Listen to the audio clip here:

The trouble with Coffman’s statement is, obviously, that Social Security isn’t a Ponzi scheme, and Kelley should have called him on this.

My online dictionary defines a Ponzi scheme as an “investment swindle in which supposed profits are paid to early investors from money actually invested by later participants.” Maybe that’s what Social Security sounds like to people who think government shouldn’t collect taxes and devise programs to help people, but if you’re not one of those people, you probably understand that Social Security is no swindle, but actually a successful government-run retirement system based on a funding formula that’s worked, with rational adjustments, for 76 years. It will continue to be a lifeline for many seniors for 25 more years with no changes at all. And with minor tweaks, it can be made to work indefinitely, as the LA Times pointed out Sunday in an editorial titled “Social Security Is No Ponzi Scheme.”

Why does Coffman think Social Security an investment swindle? Kelley should pose this question to Coffman next time he’s on his morning show. But it looks like Coffman is thinking less about Social Security and more about Rick Perry.

Coming before Thursday’s GOP presidential primary debate, Coffman may be illustrating that people (like him) believe in Perry so much that they’ll say that something (Social Security) is obviously something that it’s not (a Ponzi scheme) just to make it look normal for Perry to say it (when it’s not). And to help him connect with his core GOP audience.

Even while Gov. Mitt Romney has attacked Perry’s “Ponzi scheme” comments, he’s  on record supporting the George Bush plan for partial Social Security privatization and has been attacked by Perry for likening the funding mechanisms of the program to “criminal” activity.

This sentiment against Social Security, if not the same phrasing, was echoed by Perry supporters, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, who agreed with the arguments Perry was making while stopping short of going the Full  Ponzi.

Further complicating the storyline for Romney are recent polling data showing that Republicans are just as likely to be attracted to Perry’s Ponzi Scheme message as they are to be turned away, and may in fact break his way in the context of a conservative primary electorate.

And just yesterday came reports in Politico that Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, once a speculative candidate for president, came very close to the same wording in his upcoming book.

In Colorado Jane Norton did the same during her 2010 primary race against Ken Buck, but no one has resurrected this message at such a level in the presidential race.

In other words, the substance behind Rick Perry’s Ponzi scheme attack is in keeping with a broad range of Republican thinking. The question is whether his supporters will go once more into the Ponzi breach with him.

Coffman decided to do so.

Partial Transcript of KNUS morning radio program, “Kelley and Company,” Wed, Sept. 14, 2011.

KELLEY: Before we let you go, Congressman Coffman, the debate the other night I thought was excellent on CNN. It was a little more refined and a little opportunity to get a back and forth going. Of course Tim Pawlenty has backed Romney. Where do you stand right now, even 14 months out?

COFFMAN: I am obviously going to support whoever the nominee is. But I have to admit to you philosophically I am closer to Perry. Obviously, I hope he gets better on the debate stuff. I think he did good. I think he did better on Social Security. I think obviously it is a Ponzi scheme, but he has to say he is going to fix it. And he did that in the last debate where he didn’t do that in the first debate. Now I think that was positive. [BigMedia emphasis]

KELLEY: I see CNN really trying to blow up the HPV vaccination. The executive order he signed down in Texas. You don’t think that is going to haunt him?

COFFMAN: Not in the general election. I think it is certainly going to cost him some in the Republican primary. That is why I am interested in why CNN is weighing in on the issue. Because it is actually more a moderate position that he quite frankly took. I wouldn’t have done it. But that is probably more sympathetic with the general electorate than it is with a more conservative Republican primary voter.

KELLEY: With that, we thank you and will talk with you down the road, Congressman.

I don’t think too many people realize it, but Michael Brown is a regular weeknight talk-show host on Denver’s KOA radio.

That’s, Michael Brown of “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job” fame. And Hurricane Katrina fame. That’s not a little bit of fame. It’s a lot.

I mean, he’s easily the most famous media figure in town, when you think about it. Maybe he’s even an historic figure, thanks to W.

But what do you do with fame like that, if you’re Michael Brown?

If I were in his shoes, I’d run from it and be thankful that “Michael Brown” is an utterly generic name that won’t immediately be associated with the phrase, “heck of a job.”

In other words, you could probably move on and avoid your past.

But Brownie acatually plays the clip of Bush delivering the heck-of-a-job line every time he opens his radio show on KOA–and after most commercial breaks. It’s part of his intro, as you can hear here.

It made me wonder, what’s up with Brownie? You recall he was apparently forced to resign in 2005 from his post as Director of FEMA, after the disastrous federal response to Katrina, which was probably the beginning of the end for Bush. In the wake of Katrina, Brown was exposed as a political appointee, without proper qualifications to head FEMA in the first place.

So, is Brownie proud of his claim to fame? Proud of his response and W’s to Katrina? And whether he’s proud or not, why remind people of Bush’s embarrassment by playing the Brownie line over and over again.

I emailed Brownie and got this response:

Brownie: Hello, Jason. I just returned from Seoul and will get you a non-jet lagged response tomorrow.

After he sent this promising response, I emailed him five times but he never got back to me.

But Brownie’s response to a caller Aug. 29 gives us a hint that he likes listening to the Bush quote every night becaue thinks he did indeed do a heck of a job at FEMA, and he blames the victims. At least that’s what this exchange would have you belive:

Caller: And Katrina, I was actually down there a day before, two days before it happened. I was going through when I was driving cross country. And I went back a week later, or a few days later. You know, it’s hard to feel sorry for people when they were told to leave.

Brown: Bingo! (laughs)

Caller: I just find it difficult, you know, you were told this was going to happen and you wanted to take a chance. Well, you took the chance, and you lost.

Brown: And you lost.

Caller: And why….

Brown: Exactly, you took the chance and you lost. Thanks for the call. I appreciate it.

KHOW’s Caplis and Silverman show is drifting rightward these days, as Silverman talks about registering as a Republican so the GOP will select an electable prez candidate in 2012.

But Silverman, who leans right but says he’s an independent, can’t convince GOP-talking-point-machine Caplis that Rick Perry is unelectable. Caplis seems warm to Perry and is keeping an open mind.

Silverman put his sharp questioning skills to work on this topic Sept. 9, when GOP National Committee Chair Reince Priebus was on the show. Silverman was hoping Priebus would agree with him that Perry’s views on Social Security make him look more like a loser.

But Pribus wouldn’t bite. He rejected Silverman’s assertion in this exchange.

Silverman: Mitt Romney went on our KHOW colleague Sean Hannity’s show today and said, “If we nominate someone who the Democrats can correctly characterize as being opposed to Social Security, we will be obliterated as a party.” Romney’s read Perry’s book, Fed Up. So did I. I watched that debate the other night. Didn’t Rick Perry make himself unelectable or at least start down that road.”

Priebus: No. You know, first of all, refereeing between the candidates, that’s a pretty dicey spot for me to be in, and I try not to do that.

Maybe he tries not to, but Priebus turned against Romney here by disagreeing with Silverman. He sided with Perry, who obviously thinks his position on Social Security will not obliterate him from being POTUS.

When it comes to being insensitive toward minorities and women and others, sometimes the line between humor and insult is obviously in legitimate dispute, and, in any case, the best course for those offended is to ignore and move on.

But there are cases when, clearly, righties (and lefties) deliver racial slurs and other verbal assaults that I don’t want to sit there and accept as ok.

Here’s an example from the Jimmy Lakey Show, on KVOR-740 AM in Colorado Springs.

A caller says Michele Obama reminds her of “one of the main characters in Planet of the Apes.”

This comment sends talk-show host Lakey into complete hysterics, howling with laughter.

You really have to hear it to believe it. It’s only 30 seconds, and here it is if you’re interested:

I contacted Bobby Irwin, Operations Manager for Citadel Broadcasting, which owns KVOR, to find out if he agreed with me that Lakey’s behavior crosses the line.

Here’s Irwin’s response:

Thanks for the opportunity to respond for your blog.

Regardless of whether one is rightie or a leftie, the comment from the caller was unfortunate. Neither Jimmy nor the station could answer whether
his laughter following her Michelle Obama observation was out of humor or simply discomfort.

I know how I would have preferred him to respond, but our station can not dictate what callers say, and as long as our hosts are observing FCC
guidelines, we will not dictate how they are respond to callers.

Lakey could level some horribly indecent insults and remain within FCC guidelines, but Irwin is correct, isn’t he, that we don’t really know why Lakey is laughing. Maybe he’s uncomfortable. Or maybe he thinks it’s hilarious that Brenda said something so brazenly offensive. I mean, it’s possible.

The easiest way to know what he was thinking is to ask him. Maybe he’ll apologize.

I tried to contact Lakey, but he didn’t get back to me. Here’s an email address (jonathan@jimmylakey.com) and phone number (888-285-4669) I found for him, if you want to try your luck. Please forward any response you get to me.