Regulations

Evil GOP bastards vote to gut Dodd-Frank banking regulations

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Remember those terrifying days in September 2008 after the housing bubble had collapsed, the world’s financial system teetered on collapse, and the economy was in a free-fall?

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Yeah, Tea-Publicans in Congress hope you suffer from short-term memory loss and that you have forgotten all about those dark days.

The evil GOP bastards want to return to what they view as those halcyon days when the banksters of Wall Street ran wild in unregulated casino capitalism — speculation, fraud and theft — that nearly destroyed the world’s financial system. Not one bankster of Wall Street was ever convicted for the greatest financial crime in history, but the GOP is OK with that … the banksters are the “masters of the universe” whom the lickspittle servants of the GOP serve in Congress.

While You Were Paying Attention To Comey, House Republicans Voted For Everything Big Banks Want:

While much of the political world was watching the fallout from former FBI Director James Comey’s Senate testimony Thursday, House Republicans were jamming through a bill that would largely gut the financial regulations in Dodd-Frank, the landmark banking legislation passed in 2010 after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

But instead of quietly sneaking the legislation through, Republicans were loudly touting the bill ― which passed, 233-186, with all Democrats and one Republican (Walter Jones of North Carolina) voting no ― as a major victory.

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Sen. Jeff Flake’s bill wipes out the FCC’s landmark rule for Internet privacy protection

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Arizona Senator Jef Flake does not believe in your privacy on the Internet. In fact, he believes that everything you do on the Internet, from your personal information, browsing history, the apps you use, etc. is fair game for your Internet service provider (ISP) to compile a personal profile on you and to use that information for their profit, as well as to sell to third parties.

Senn. Flake introduced S.J.Res. 34, a joint resolution of congressional disapproval of the FCC rule relating to “Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services.”

Last week the Senate voted on a party-line vote of 50-48 to undo landmark rules covering your Internet privacy:

U.S. senators voted 50 to 48 to approve a joint resolution from Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) that would prevent the Federal Communications Commission’s privacy rules from going into effect. The resolution also would bar the FCC from ever enacting similar consumer protections.

Flake’s measure aims to nullify the FCC’s privacy rules altogether.

Today, House Tea-Publicans voted overwhelmingly, by a margin of 215-205, to to wipe out the FCC’s landmark Internet privacy protections:

The resolution marks a sharp, partisan pivot toward letting Internet providers collect and sell their customers’ Web browsing history, location information, health data and other personal details.

The measure, which was approved by a 50-48 margin in the Senate last week, now heads to the White House, where President Trump is expected to sign it.

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About that EPA ruling … it’s not what you have read in the paper

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The Rush Limbaugh of The Republic, Doug MacEachern, once again misinforms and misleads readers of The Republic with his opinion today. Justice Kagan wrong about EPA and costs. Rush Doug takes exception to Justice Elena Kagan’s comment in her dissent:

That is a peculiarly blinkered way for a court to assess the lawfulness of an agency’s rulemaking. I agree with the majority — let there be no doubt about this — that EPA’s power plant regulation would be unreasonable if ‘[t]he Agency gave cost no thought at all.’ … But that is just not what happened here. Over more than a decade, EPA took costs into account at multiple stages and through multiple means as it set emissions limits for power plants. And when making its initial ‘appropriate and necessary’ finding, EPA knew it would do exactly that — knew it would thoroughly consider the cost-effectiveness of emissions standards later on. That context matters.

carbon-emissionsThis has been long-standing practice in environmental regulation, previously upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. This is why the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which oversees federal regulatory cases, upheld the EPA regulations — the EPA had followed established practice. Scalia’s opinion in Michigan v. EPA marks a departure from prior Supreme Court precedents.

Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog provides an Opinion analysis: Power plants stymie smokestack controls:

When Congress orders an agency to begin regulating an industry, but says it should do so only if “appropriate and necessary,” the agency must take costs into account before it issues any orders, according to the ruling in a group of cases under the name Michigan v. Environmental Protection Agency.

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FCC approves net neutrality, Providers, GOP vow to block it

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First, the good news today. FCC approves strict rules on Web providers:

FCCThe Federal Communications Commission approved strict new rules for Internet providers Thursday in a historic vote that represents the government’s most aggressive attempt to make sure the Web remains a level playing field.

The rules would dramatically expand the agency’s oversight of the country’s high-speed broadband providers, regulating them like a public utility. They were adopted by a 3-to-2 margin with the commission’s Republican members voting against them.

Under the rules, it will be illegal for companies such as Verizon or Cox Communications to slow down streaming videos, games and other online content traveling over their networks. They also will be prohibited from establishing “fast lanes” that speed up access to Web sites that pay an extra fee. And in an unprecedented move, the FCC could apply the rules to wireless carriers, such as T-Mobile and Sprint, in a nod to the rapid rise of smartphones and the mobile Internet.

“This is no more a plan to regulate the Internet than the First Amendment is a plan to regulate free speech,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. “They both stand for the same concept: openness, expression and an absence of gatekeepers telling them what they can do, where they can go and what they can think.”

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It is also a significant victory for consumer advocates, grass-roots organizers, Internet companies and Democrats, all of whom spent months pressing for what President Obama called “the strongest possible rules” on net neutrality.

President Obama sent a thank-you note to the millions of people who urged the FCC to write tough rules. Obama’s thank you note to net neutrality supporters .

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Arizona needs a public bank – support SB 1395

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I was reading the Denver Post over the weekend, and this op-ed caught my eye because Pamela Powers Hannley who blogs here, and her husband Jim Hannley, are active in the public banking movement in Arizona. Colorado needs a public bank:

After we bailed out the “too-big-to-fail” Wall Street banks in 2008 and 2009, things appeared to have improved. Today, Wall Street is rebounding and the job market is looking up. But the folks on Main Street working for low hourly wages or Coloradans paying tens of thousands of dollars in student debt with no end in sight, who lost their homes, or are working part time jobs with no benefits are not so sure.

Colorado entrepreneurs seeking green energy solutions and small business start-ups scramble for funding. Needed infrastructure projects like repairing our state bridges are not keeping up with civil engineers’ recommendations. Meanwhile, the marijuana industry has no place to bank its cash.

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public-banking-institute-mapThis year, North Dakota celebrates its 96th year of having a state-owned bank, the Bank of North Dakota, and is the only state that has one. Arguably, as a result of its bank, North Dakota was the only state not to suffer budget deficits or declining employment as a result of the 2008 crash. Its unemployment rate was and remains the lowest in the nation at 2.8 percent. And it has had larger budget surpluses each year since 2008, no bank failures, and has remitted $900 million in taxes to the people of North Dakota. Critics attribute North Dakota’s success to its increased oil revenues, but its big increase in oil income did not occur until 2010, and Alaska and Montana have had more oil but still had budget deficits and high unemployment. Today, North Dakota has one of the lowest rates of home foreclosures, and consistently has the lowest rate of credit card default and student loan default in the United States.

[Image: The Case for a State-Owned Bank (April 2012).]

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