April 19, 2015

Bill Black: The Media Fall for Hillary Clinton’s Gensler Gambit

By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Jointly published with New Economic Perspectives

Richard Cordray (former Attorney General of Ohio), the head of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPG) and Gary Gensler (a former disaster under Bill Clinton and Goldman Sachs) have been the two great appointments by President Obama in the field of finance. Obama’s other appointments at Treasury, the financial regulatory agencies, and the (non) prosecutors who are supposed to specialize in financial prosecutions have been nightmarishly bad.

Gensler was another Rubinite from Goldman Sachs who, under Bill Clinton, helped destroy Brooksley Born’s effort to protect the nation from the financial derivatives that blew up AIG and much of the financial world through passage of the infamous Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. As Obama’s appointee to chair the Commodity Futures Trade Commission (CFTC), however, Gensler justly earned praise for attempting to restore effective regulation. Gensler was a grave disappointment to Obama’s administration, which thought it was sending a reliably pro-finance Rubinite to run a fairly obscure agency he had helped emasculate.

When Gensler showed a spine Obama refused to reappoint him and replaced Gensler with Timothy G. Massad, a Timothy Geithner minion noted for his pro-industry views. Massad’s claim to fame was being one of the principal unprincipled architects of the failed homeowner relief programs. As I pointed out in my first Bill Moyers interview, failing (for the right political reasons) proves you are a reliable “team player” and gets you promoted in Washington, D.C. As Gensler found out, succeeding gets you your walking papers. Jesse Eisinger, as his norm, wrote a great piece about Massad when Obama nominated him in November 2013. An alternative view can be found in the American Banker, which gave prominently space to an op ed praising Massad’s nomination written by the head of a firm that trains CFTC staff.

Massad’s tenure represents a regulatory retreat at the CFTC, but in fairness, as bad as Obama is on financial regulation the Republicans are vastly worse. They are trying to force the wholesale repeal the Dodd-Frank protections on financial derivatives and they have waged an unholy war on the CFTC’s budget to try to make it impossible for the agency to protect the public. The GOP also fought hard to prevent Cordray’s appointment because they (more precisely, their donors), rightly, feared his integrity and skills.

.....(snip)

Just One Little Catch

But here’s the catch. Gensler is being hired for a job that will take 150% of his available time given H. Clinton’s ability to raise money and the obscene rules that make modern campaign finance a sport in which both parties routinely devise “black box” funding devices to allow the wealthy to rule American politics secretly. This has two critical implications. Gensler will not be working to block the power of the secretive wealthy – he will be doing the opposite, at least 16 hours a day. It also means that he was not hired to advise H. Clinton on the crimes of Wall Street banksters and the vital need for vigorous regulation and prosecutions. Even if he had the desire to fill that role he will have no time to do so and he will be busy secretly catering to the needs of the wealthy and politically dominant criminal class. .......................(more)

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/04/bill-black-media-fall-hillary-clintons-gensler-gambit.html

April 19, 2015

Greg Palast: Chelsea Manning and the Deepwater Horizon Deaths

from truthdig:


Chelsea Manning and the Deepwater Horizon Deaths
Posted on Apr 19, 2015

By Greg Palast


Five years ago Monday, 11 men died on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig—despite Chelsea Manning’s effort to save their lives.

Let me explain.

The BP drilling rig blew itself to kingdom come after the “mud”—the cement used to cap the well—blew out.

The oil company, the federal government and the industry were shocked—shocked!—at this supposedly unexpected explosion in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

But BP knew, and Exxon and Chevron knew, and the U.S. State Department knew, that just 17 months earlier another BP offshore rig suffered an identical, disastrous blowout halfway across the planet in the Caspian Sea.

.....(snip).....

But Pvt. Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning tried to warn us. The details of the Caspian Sea blowout off the coast of Baku, Azerbaijan, were revealed in the secret State Department cables Manning released in December 2010 through WikiLeaks. Cables from the U.S. ambassador relayed a summary of confidential meetings in which BP’s top Azeri executive confided that the big Caspian offshore rig suffered a “blowout” in September 2008, leading to the “largest such emergency evacuation in BP’s history.” Its likely cause: “a bad cement job.” ................(more)

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/chelsea_manning_and_the_deepwater_horizon_killings_20150418

April 18, 2015

Monte Carlo masters SPOILER

Djoker smoked Rafa pretty easily ..... on clay.

April 18, 2015

Thom Hartmann: Are Pay To Play Cops in Your City?

Published on Apr 17, 2015

Sheriff Richard Mack, The Constitutional Sheriffs & Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), joins Thom Hartmann. New reports suggest that Robert Bates - the volunteer Tulsa - Oklahoma police officer who's been charged with manslaughter for killing an unarmed black man - may not have had the proper training to be in the field. Is this true of other "pay to play" cops all across the country?

April 18, 2015

"Fight for $15" Movement Continues to Grow

Published on Apr 16, 2015

http://democracynow.org - Low-wage workers in the United States have staged their largest action to date to demand a $15-an-hour minimum wage, with some 60,000 workers walking off the job in more than 200 cities. The "Fight for $15" campaign brought together fast-food workers, home-care aides, child-care providers, Wal-Mart clerks, adjunct professors, airport workers and other low-wage workers. Organizers say the action was held on Tax Day to highlight the taxpayer funds needed to support underpaid workers. A new study says low wages are forcing working families to rely on more than $150 billion in public assistance. We speak with Steven Greenhouse, former labor and workplace reporter for The New York Times, who has been covering the "Fight for $15" movement.

April 18, 2015

Did NBC Cover Up Role of U.S.-Backed Free Syrian Army in 2012 Kidnapping of Richard Engel?

Published on Apr 17, 2015

http://democracynow.org - NBC News is at the center of a new controversy, this time focused on its chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel. Back in 2012 he and five other members of an NBC News team were kidnapped by armed gunmen in Syria. They were held for five days. Just after his release Engel spoke on NBC News and said this about his captors: "This is a government militia. These are people who are loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. They are Shiite." Well, earlier this week, a New York Times investigation prompted Engel to revise his story and reveal he was actually captured by Sunni militants affiliated with the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army. In an article published on Wednesday, Engel said the kidnappers had "put on an elaborate ruse to convince us they were Shiite shabiha militiamen." According to the Times investigation, NBC knew more than it let on about the kidnappers. We speak to As’ad AbuKhalil, professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. He runs the Angry Arab News Service blog. He expressed serious doubts about the circumstances surrounding Engel’s captivity and release when the story first broke in December 2012.

April 18, 2015

No More Cheating: Restoring the Rule of Law in Financial Markets

No More Cheating: Restoring the Rule of Law in Financial Markets

Friday, 17 April 2015 00:00
By Simon Johnson, The Baseline Scenario | News Analysis


The political debate about finance in the US is often cast as markets versus regulation, as if "more regulation" means the efficiency of private sector decisions will necessarily be impeded or distorted. But this is the wrong way to think about the real policy choices that - like it or not - are now being made. The question is actually what kind of markets do you want: fair and well-functioning, with widely shared benefits; or deceptive, dangerous, and favoring just a relatively few powerful people?

In a speech on Wednesday, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., MA) laid out a vision for better financial markets. This is not a left-wing or pro-big government agenda. Senator Warren's proposals are, first and foremost, pro-market. She wants - and we should all want - financial firms and markets that work for customers, that encourage innovation, and that do not build up massive risks which can threaten the financial system and bring down the economy.

Senator Warren puts forward two main sets of proposals. The first is to more strongly discourage the deception of customers. This is hard to argue against. Some parts of the financial sector are well-run, providing essential services at reasonable prices and with sound ethics throughout. Other parts of finance have drifted, frankly, into deceiving people - on fees, on risks, on terms and conditions - as a primary source of profits. We don't allow this kind of cheating in the non-financial sector and we shouldn't allow it in finance either.

The unfortunate and indisputable truth is that our rule-making and law-enforcement agencies completely fell asleep prior to 2008 with regard to protecting borrowers and even depositors against predation. Even worse, since the financial crisis, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Justice Department, and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors proved hard or near impossible to awake from this slumber. ................(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/30281-no-more-cheating-restoring-the-rule-of-law-in-financial-markets

April 17, 2015

The Drought Isn’t California’s Only Water Problem

(Wired) WHETHER YOU LIVE in or out of California, you are probably looking for something, anything, just one dang thing that will help you understand this impossibly complicated drought.

You’re not going to find it. No Central Valley almond, Los Angeles swimming pool, Palm Springs golf course, Fresno lawn, Nestle water bottle, Napa wine, Humboldt pot farm, or Merced River salmon is going to satisfy your craving for a culprit. Instead, allow me to divert your attention to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a massive estuary to the east of the San Francisco Bay that is the heart of a story that will at least explain why you’ll never get a satisfying explanation.

Actually, it’s not about the Delta, exactly; the real story is 200 feet below it, where the governor of the Golden State wants to dig huge tunnels that will make it easier for southern California to get northern California’s water.

Officially known as Conservation Measure 1 of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan—but commonly known as the Delta Tunnels—the idea is to dig two 35-mile tunnels, each 40 feet in diameter and capable of pumping 67,000 gallons of water per second from the Sacramento River to the California Aqueduct. The tunnels are supposed to fix the plumbing that delivers water to two-thirds of the state: every coastal city from San Francisco to San Diego, and millions of farms along the way. The plan is controversial, and has been in talks for a decade. If approved, the tunnels would take about ten years and an estimated $25 billion dollars to build. ................(more)

http://www.wired.com/2015/04/drought-isnt-californias-water-problem/

April 17, 2015

"A Corporate Trojan Horse": Critics Decry Secretive TPP Trade Deal as a Threat to Democracy

Published on Apr 16, 2015
http://democracynow.org - Senate Finance Committee leaders Republican Orrin Hatch and Democrat Ron Wyden are expected to introduce a "fast-track" trade promotion authority bill as early as this week that would give the president authority to negotiate the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and then present it to Congress for a yes-or-no vote, with no amendments allowed. On Wednesday, more than 1,000 labor union members rallied on Capitol Hill to call on Democrats to oppose "fast-track" authority. We speak with two people closely following the proposed legislation: Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, and Rep. Alan Grayson, a Democrat from Florida.

April 17, 2015

Welfare Queen (cartoon)

http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/welfare_queen_20150417