Showing posts with label MICK MULVANEY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MICK MULVANEY. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 3, 2024

***PROTECT YOURSELF****** Musk Wants to Abolish Consumer Agency That Has Been a 'Model of Efficiency' CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU

ELON MUSK: THE BRAIN DEAD WEALTHY CLOWN WHOSE $$$ ORIGINATED FROM EXPLORTATION, APARTHEID & ABUSE IN SOUTH AFRICA SEEKS TO CREATE SIMILAR ABUSE IN THE US! ELON MUSK BOUGHT EXISTING PROFITABLE COMPANIES...OTHERWISE HE'S JUST A LAUGHABLE CLOWN PROFITING FROM THE GENIUS OF OTHERS!

CFPB was created by SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN because NO OTHER AGENCY acted to protect CONSUMERS - YOU - from ABUSE. 

REPUBLICANS & WEALTHY HAVE REPEATEDLY CHALLENGED CFPB & FAILED TO DESTROY IT! 

REVIEW THEIR WEB SITE TO UNDERSTAND THE ACTIONS THEY'VE UNDERTAKEN - THEY WORK FOR YOU! 

NO SINGLE INDIVIDUAL COULD TAKE ON THE ABUSE OF THESE ORGANIZATIONS! CONSUMERS NEED CFPB....BUT THEY DON'T NEED THE SCAMMER MUSK! 

CFPB



President-Elect Donald Trump Meets With Biden, Congressional Leaders In Washington

Elon Musk listens during a House Republican Conference meeting on Capitol Hill on November 13, 2024 in Washington, D.C.

 (Photo: Allison Robbert-Pool/Getty Images)


Musk Wants to Abolish Consumer Agency That Has Been a 'Model of Efficiency'

"This is systemic corruption at a grand and intolerable scale," one advocate said of the billionaire's call to "delete" the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

President-elect Donald Trump's billionaire appointment to help lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency said Tuesday that he wants to eliminate an agency that one consumer advocate described as "a model of efficiency and cost-effectiveness."

Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote on X, the social media platform he owns, that he wants to "delete" the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which has returned nearly $20 billion to members of the U.S. public in the form of monetary compensation, canceled debt, and other relief since its creation in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

"There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies," Musk declared.

Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, countered in a statement that the CFPB "was created specifically because none of the overlapping financial regulatory agencies prioritized consumer protection."

"But there's no reason to think facts or evidence have anything to do with Musk's views," said Weissman. "Asking the world's richest person, with a direct interest in a wide range of business lines, to run a project to review the federal government's overall operations is absurd and fundamentally corrupt—and this issue highlights exactly why."

Weissman noted that Musk has "reportedly obtained money transmitter licenses for X in more than three dozen states and still appears determined to turn X into an 'everything app' based around a payment service," an effort that "would be subject to regulation by the CFPB."

"In fact, the CFPB has just finalized a rule to supervise large tech companies offering digital funds transfer and payment wallet apps," he continued. "In short, Musk is calling for elimination of the consumer protection regulator over a business line he seems poised to enter... This is systemic corruption at a grand and intolerable scale."

The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) also spoke out in defense of the consumer bureau.

"You want to talk about efficiency? For every $1 spent funding the CFPB, more than $4 have been put back in working people's pockets," the CPC wrote on social media. "It's only 'inefficient' to predatory corporations and billionaires with conflicts of interest."

The CFPB has been a target of Republican lawmakers and their corporate allies since its inception in 2011.

During Trump's first White House term, he attempted to gut the bureau from the inside by installing an opponent of the agency, Mick Mulvaney, to lead it. Mulvaney later backed a failed effort to challenge the constitutionality of the CFPB's funding structure.

But the CFPB has been active in defending consumers and combating corporate abuses under the leadership of Rohit Chopra, a consumer champion picked by President Joe Biden to lead the bureau.

Under Chopra, the American Economic Liberties Project noted in a recent report, "the CFPB has returned billions of Americans' hard-earned money to their bank accounts; fought back against Wall Street and Big Tech's discriminatory and anti-competitive behavior; ensured violating the law can no longer be written off as just a 'cost of doing business'; shuttered corporate scams; and restored financial freedom to millions of Americans held hostage by the credit reporting cartel."

"This is a test for MAGA types and the populist right to see whether they allow themselves to be lied to flagrantly by elites trying to manipulate them."

***NOTICE HOW THE WEALTHY CLOWNS GO ON WHACK-A-DING PROGRAMMING TO SPEW THEIR LIES? JOE ROGAN? DON'T BELIEVE THEM! PROTECT YOURSELF FROM THE LIES*****

Musk's call to eliminate the agency came after fellow Trump-supporting billionaire Marc Andreessen, a venture capitalist, claimed in an appearance on the "Joe Rogan Experience" podcast that the CFPB's primary purpose is to "terrorize financial institutions."

Andreessen went on to falsely describe the CFPB as Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-Mass.) "personal agency that she gets to control" and suggest the bureau is involved in efforts to "debank" people over their political views.

But observers pointed out that Chopra has explicitly condemned politically motivated debanking and worked to prevent companies from unlawfully denying consumers access to financial accounts and services.

"This is a test for MAGA types and the populist right to see whether they allow themselves to be lied to flagrantly by elites trying to manipulate them," Drop Site's Ryan Grim wrote in response to Andreessen's comments. "The CFPB put out a legitimately good rule that went after banks over debanking users based on political views. Yes, a populist left-wing CFPB head stood up for the rights of conservatives."

"Now VCs and Musk, who don't like the CFPB for other reasons, are straight up lying to whip people into a frenzy and defang the CFPB," Grim added. "The message: They think you are stupid and can't read and are going to make your life worse in order to enrich themselves."


COMMON DREAMS


Monday, June 24, 2024

​Watchdog Memos Show a Trump 'Utterly Indifferent to the Public Interest' in First Term

 

​Watchdog Memos Show a Trump 'Utterly Indifferent to the Public Interest' in First Term

The group's leader said the media should "cover the Biden vs. Trump election as a comparison between how each president administered the immensely important executive branch."

The Revolving Door Project on Monday released a set of reports on corruption and mismanagement in executive agencies during the Trump presidency, calling on the media to focus on presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump's poor governing record as he campaigns to retake the Oval Office.

The new reports, called "retrospective memos," show that Trump's executive branch was rife with cronyism and corporate influence from 2017 until 2021. RDP, a watchdog group focused on the executive branch, released the reports as a way to fight "Trumpnesia" and focus the political discussion on the governance records of Trump and President Joe Biden, a Democrat seeking reelection.

"Donald Trump's most important legacy as president wasn't what he said, or even what bills he signed, but how he turned the federal government into a favor machine to benefit his family and cronies," Jeff Hauser, RDP's executive director, said in a statement. "The media should not focus on the aesthetics of this week's presidential debate but rather cover the Biden vs. Trump election as a comparison between how each president administered the immensely important executive branch."

"It's important to revisit how poorly he ran the executive branch his first time round."

RDP issued eight memos, covering disaster management, the environment, financial regulation, housing, immigration, labor, education, and transportation.

Each provides evidence of a Trump administration that was "utterly indifferent to the public interest," as Timi Iwayemi, RDP's research director, said in the statement.

In many cases, Trump appointees were hostile to the original aims of the agencies. they served.

Mick Mulvaney, Trump's choice to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, tried to roll back rules limiting predatory payday lending—a practice that "preys on the working poor," the financial regulation memo says.

Mulvaney—who's now suggesting a "revenge-a-thon" against Trump's foes—also appointed political cronies and failed to undertake the enforcement actions against companies that were the CFPB's raison d'ĂȘtre. A 2019 feature in The New York Times Magazine was titled, "Mick Mulvaney's Master Class in Destroying a Bureaucracy From Within."

Trump's National Labor Relations Board was led by Peter Robb, a management-side lawyer who was the Reagan administration's lead attorney on litigation dealing with the air traffic controllers' strike of 1981, in which the federal government fired about 11,000 workers and banned them from being rehired. Like Trump's Department of Labor, which was ultimately run by the son of former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the NLRB under Robb was pro-management—and reportedly dysfunctional.

Other federal agencies were hardly more committed to serving the public interest in the late 2010s.

"Trump's Interior Department advanced the interests of extractivist industry on public lands while refusing to account for how its actions would worsen climate change," according to RDP's environment memo. "The Trump administration auctioned off over 10 million acres of land and water to oil and gas drilling, including by drastically reducing the size of national monuments like Bears Ears in Utah, a sacred homeland to five tribal  nations, in order to open them up to development."

The Department of Housing and Urban Development, run by former presidential candidate Ben Carson, was plagued by "handouts to friends and family," a series of "deadly budget cut proposals," and a "war on fair housing," according to the RDP's housing memo.

Trump's disaster management choices were particularly consequential. The Federal Emergency Management Agency " horrifically" mismanaged the response to two consecutive hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico in 2017, which got minimal—and very delayed—relief compared to Texas communities that were hit by a hurricane during that period.

RDP's catalog of Trump administration failures is designed to clarify the stakes of the 2024 election.

"The series serves as a reminder to the public that the president's primary responsibility is to direct the vast apparatus known as the executive branch of the federal government," RDP said. "Sadly, former president Donald Trump either neglected this responsibility or wielded it in favor of corporations throughout his four years in office."

Iwayemi said "Even as current conversations wisely focus on Project 2025 and Trump's promise to leverage executive power to harm political enemies, it's important to revisit how poorly he ran the executive branch his first time round as a cure to the public's apparent Trumpnesia."

​Watchdog Memos Show a Trump 'Utterly Indifferent to the Public Interest' in First Term

Then-President Donald Trump spoke to reporters in the Oval Office in July 2020. 

(Photo: Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images)



Thursday, April 21, 2022

RSN: Robert Reich | Why Did CBS News Hire Mick Mulvaney?



 

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'CBS News, like every news outlet, has a cardinal responsibility to protect American democracy from this growing menace.'(photo: Getty)
Robert Reich | Why Did CBS News Hire Mick Mulvaney?
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
Reich writes: "CBS News was once the home of legends like Edward R Murrow and Walter Cronkite. Why is it now hiring Trump conspirators and enablers?"
READ MORE



Russia's 'Satan 2' Missile Changes Little for US, Scholars Say
Lateshia Beachum, Mary Ilyushina and Karoun Demirjian, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Wednesday that his military successfully test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile with the potential to carry a large nuclear payload, but the Pentagon said it was not a significant threat to the United States."
READ MORE


Ukraine War: World Bank Warns of 'Human Catastrophe' Food CrisisVolunteer distribute food to local residents in the village of Zalissya, northeast of Kyiv, Ukraine. (photo: AFP)

Ukraine War: World Bank Warns of 'Human Catastrophe' Food Crisis
BBC
Excerpt: "The world faces a 'human catastrophe' from a food crisis arising from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, World Bank president David Malpass has said."
READ MORE


US Welcomes Ukrainians at Border, Uses Title 42 as A Ukrainian family stands by the pedestrian entrance at the San Ysidro Port of Entry on Wednesday after U.S. officials turned the four away. (photo: Alejandro Tamayo/San Diego Union-Tribune)

US Welcomes Ukrainians at Border, Uses Title 42 as "Political Tool" to Block Other Asylum Seekers
Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "The U.S. has hit a record number of apprehensions at the border shared with Mexico, arresting over 1 million asylum seekers in the past six months alone."
READ MORE


A Connecticut Trooper Who Shot a Black Driver to Death Is Charged With ManslaughterThis Jan. 15, 2020, still image from dashboard camera video released by the Connecticut State Police shows Trooper Brian North after discharging his weapon and fatally shooting Mubarak Soulemane following a high-speed chase. (photo: AP)

A Connecticut Trooper Who Shot a Black Driver to Death Is Charged With Manslaughter
Associated Press
Excerpt: "A Connecticut state trooper who fired seven gunshots into a car and killed a man in 2020 after a high-speed chase has been charged with manslaughter after a more than two-year investigation found the shooting not to be justified, officials said Wednesday."
READ MORE



Starbucks Keeps Firing Pro-Union EmployeesHoward Schultz visits Fox & Friends (left) and people hold signs while protesting in front of Starbucks on April 14, 2022 in New York City (right). (photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty)

Starbucks Keeps Firing Pro-Union Employees
Paul Blest, VICE
Blest writes: "At least 18 pro-union employees have been fired since February, in what workers say is an attempt to stop an increasingly popular union campaign."
READ MORE


The 'State of the Air' in America Is Unhealthy and Getting Worse, Especially for People of ColorA family wears face masks as they walk through the smoke filled streets after the Thomas wildfire swept through Ventura, California on Dec. 6, 2017. (photo: Mark Ralston/Getty)

The 'State of the Air' in America Is Unhealthy and Getting Worse, Especially for People of Color
Kristoffer Tigue, Inside Climate News
Tigue writes: "The American Lung Association annual survey found distressing trends due to climate change and, particularly, increases in fine soot pollution linked to wildfires across the West."

The American Lung Association annual survey found distressing trends due to climate change and, particularly, increases in fine soot pollution linked to wildfires across the West.

Millions more Americans are breathing unhealthy air compared to just a few years ago, in large part due to climate change, which is also widening the nation’s health disparities, a new study from one of the country’s leading public health organizations has concluded.

On Thursday, the American Lung Association released its latest annual “State of the Air” report, which evaluates county-level air quality data across the nation over three-year periods. This year’s report—which looked at 2018, 2019 and 2020—found that 137 million Americans were exposed to unhealthy levels of air pollution. That’s 2.1 million more people than recorded in the association’s report last year, and nearly 9 million more when looking specifically at exposure to fine soot pollution, or PM2.5. Those increases were driven largely by a surge in wildfires across the West, the study’s authors said.

The study also found that despite overall decreases in ground-level ozone pollution, which consists of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds, people of color not only continue to face disproportionate exposure to unhealthy air and the associated health impacts, but that those disparities have actually grown slightly.

Counties were graded by the levels of exposure to ozone pollution and both daily and annual exposure to PM2.5—all of which have been linked to increased health risks, including greater risk of asthma attacks, cardiovascular and lung diseases and even premature death. In the United States, for example, PM2.5 is linked to more than 50,000 premature deaths every year, according to recent research.

People of color were nearly two-thirds more likely than white people to live in a county with a failing grade for at least one pollution measure, and 3.6 times as likely to live in a county with a failing grade for all three pollution measures, the study found. That’s up from about 3 times as likely, recorded in last year’s report, nearly a 20 percent increase.

“A consistent theme we find is that the disparities remain, and, I think we show this, are being exacerbated,” said Paul Billings, senior vice president for advocacy at the American Lung Association. “We know that we can’t achieve our vision of a world free of lung disease and reduce the health burden of lung disease unless we address the systemic racism and the burden that imposes on people of color.”

The study adds to a growing body of evidence that has long suggested that people of color and low-income households are not only disproportionately harmed by industrial pollution, but are also first and foremost experiencing the consequences of climate change. It’s also the latest example of the climate crisis worsening inequality, a trend researchers warn could continue if more deliberate action isn’t taken to slow warming and mitigate its consequences.

The Biden administration is currently reviewing national standards both for PM2.5 and for ground-level ozone pollution, commonly referred to as smog.

The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to draft a proposal for new standards under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, which regulates PM2.5, by this summer, with a final rule expected to go into effect sometime next spring.

“The Lung Association has long called for the strengthening of both those standards,” Billings said. “That’s really our call to action in this year’s report, to support a significant strengthening of PM National Ambient Air Quality Standards.”

A Push for Rapid Electrification

Environmental and health advocates, including the American Lung Association, are also pushing for a rapid electrification of the transportation and power generation sectors as a way to mitigate air pollution and reduce the nation’s health inequalities.

A separate Lung Association report, published last month, found that a widespread, rapid shift to zero-emission transportation and electricity generation could yield tremendous financial benefits by reducing the cost to public health from air pollution and climate impacts by trillions of dollars over the coming decades. By ensuring all passenger vehicles sales are electric by 2035 and all medium- and heavy-duty trucks by 2040, coupled with a full transition of the country’s power plants to renewable energy sources, the United States could prevent 110,000 premature deaths and avoid $1.2 trillion in health-related costs and $1.7 trillion in climate-related costs by midcentury, the study said.

That study also found that communities of color would benefit the most from such a transition. The U.S. counties with the highest percentage of people of color could experience 40 percent of the health benefits—translating to $487 billion in avoided costs through 2050—despite being just 16 percent of the total counties analyzed, the report said.

Several states, led by California, have already implemented rules that would expedite the sales of electric vehicles by ensuring auto sellers carry an increasing stock of EVs in their stores by certain dates. One rule, known as the Advanced Clean Truck rule, has been adopted by six states so far and is expected to have an outsized benefit on communities of color, which are often located near highways and other major transit corridors.

Last summer, President Biden also announced a new goal of getting 50 percent of the vehicles sold in the United States to be zero-emissions by 2030. With the Build Back Better Act effectively dead, however, it’s unclear how the president will achieve that goal without the billions of dollars in electric vehicle tax incentives that were included in that legislation.

Health experts and environmental justice advocates also say that focusing on new vehicle sales isn’t enough and that more should be done to replace the nation’s existing fleet of cars, trucks and buses with both electric versions, as well as newer models with cleaner emissions.

Older diesel trucks, for example, make up a small fraction of the nation’s total truck fleet but contribute to the majority of the harmful air pollution, research has shown.

A study published last week by the TRUE Initiative, a coalition of clean energy advocacy groups, found that diesel trucks manufactured before 2007 make up just 6 to 10 percent of the total truck fleet that operates in New York City but are responsible for up to 83 percent of the fleet’s PM2.5 emissions. People of color living in New York City are also exposed to 17 percent more PM2.5 from diesel vehicles than non-Latino white residents, the study found. Similar conclusions have been produced in nationwide studies as well.

One thing that would help would be assisting smaller trucking companies in replacing their older models sooner, said Dan Greenbaum, president of the Health Effects Institute, a Boston-based research lab.

“A lot of the big trucking companies that truck across the country have already upgraded their fleet; they have cleaner trucks operating,” Greenbaum said. “But a lot of the mom and pop delivery groups, they’re not going to do that. And those are the ones who are in and out of cities, in and out of disadvantaged neighborhoods.”

Recognizing the Legacy of Systemic Racism

Environmental justice advocates have long blamed America’s history of racist laws and practices, such as redlining, for the myriad socioeconomic and health disparities that exist in the United States today. But many prominent scientific institutions, such as the American Lung Association, have failed to publicly recognize that until recently, activists say.

For decades, research has shown that low-income neighborhoods with higher percentages of people of color are far more likely than mostly white and affluent neighborhoods to be located next to industrial pollution and waste management sites, which led to increased risk of cancer, lung disease and other health conditions.

“Much of this inequity can be traced to the long history of systemic racism in the United States,” the American Lung Association wrote in its latest “State of the Air” report.

“Practices such as redlining, the discriminatory outlining of riskier neighborhoods by mortgage lenders, institutionalized residential segregation in the 20th century, impairing the ability of many people of color to build wealth and limiting their mobility and political power,” the institution added. “Over the years, decision-makers have found it easier to place sources of pollution, such as power plants, industrial facilities, landfills and highways, in economically disadvantaged communities of color than in more affluent, predominantly white neighborhoods.”

That language stuck out to Juan Declet-Barreto, a senior social scientist for climate vulnerability with the Union of Concerned Scientists and a former air quality official for the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.

“There are these very clear indicators of the effect of racist and discriminatory policies in terms of land use, in terms of systemic racism, that show up very clearly in data,” Declet-Barreto said. “And the ALA report is recognizing the legacy of that. I think that’s incredibly important. I don’t think I can overstate the importance of that.”

Greenbaum agreed, saying the Lung Association’s reputation for sound science helps convey the gravity of environmental injustice regarding industrial pollution and air quality regulation.

Billings said the association has made a concerted effort over the last three years to update its policies to better reflect the reality systemic racism has played in the country’s health inequalities. “We have tried to be more explicit, more clear,” he said. “And hopefully, that will then reinforce the urgent need for change, but also work to close the gap.”


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Thursday, March 31, 2022

Trump ensnared in new 1/6 coverup scandal

 

Today's Top Stories:

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Trump used White House phone for call on January 6 that was not on official log

Trump used an official White House phone to place at least one call on 1/6 that was not in the internal presidential call log, raising questions of official record tampering.



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VIDEO OF THE DAY: The White House just called out Trump BY NAME over his request from Putin

The disgraced ex-president's appeal to his dictator buddy raised some serious heat at today's press conference.


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Republicans put interracial marriage on the chopping block in stunning move

No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen: Unbelievable.


Madison Cawthorn walks back GOP cocaine orgy story after meeting with GOP Leader McCarthy
The pushback for Cawthorn's allegations has been suspiciously severe, considering the other things he and his fellow Trump disciples have done...



CBS News sparks furious backlash for hiring Trump's chief of staff, the liar Mick Mulvaney
The disgusting, self-serving cynicism of the for-profit media was put on full display as leaked audio revealed executives hired Mulvaney because they thought Republicans would win in 2022 and wanted to have "access."


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Hero Black college football player disarms gunman in San Jose taqueria and is immediately shot by police

Witnesses say the police opened fire on 20-year-old K'aun Green "within less than a second." Green has been hospitalized and is expected to recover.



FEC fines Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC over Trump-Russia dossier research
The Clinton campaign's efforts to hide their payments to the opposition research firm behind the infamous and ultimately fake "pee tape" dossier earned an exceedingly rare rebuke from the FEC, which usually cries impotence when faced with serious violations.


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Marjorie Taylor Greene, Madison Cawthorn, and Lauren Boebert's extremism costing them support from their voters

OD Action partner: New extremists in Congress are taking their districts for granted while delivering nothing for them. United Rural Democrats is organizing on the ground to shock Republicans by winning back Middle America. But they need your help!


Federal investigation of Hunter Biden heats up
While the Republican smear campaign remains complete BS, the investigation higlights how the scions of the elites benefit from unethical practices.


Russia intensifies shelling of Kyiv and Chernihiv after pledge to withdraw forces
The Russian invaders' noises about peace talks appear to have been just a diversion.


American teachers call out a broken education system that criminally underpays and humiliates them
"The system is clearly broken when we have highly qualified professionals needing to supplement their income to survive, who are one catastrophe—one paycheck—away from complete ruin."


New audio shows Louisiana cop admitting to "beating the ever-living f*ck" out of Black motorist in the head with a flashlight
The officer is believed to have killed himself six days after he murdered Ronald Greene, but serious questions remain for the half-dozen other officers involved.


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Creeping Republofascism

All the Bruce that's fit to print

Hope...





WATCH: Sen. Booker questions Jack Smith on Trump investigations

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