Obama administration wants more warrantless surveillance of Americans, Daily Kos, July 29, 2010, by Joan McCarter, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

As Yglesias says, “The End of Probable Cause.” WaPo reports:

The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual’s Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation.

The administration wants to add just four words — “electronic communication transactional records” — to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge’s approval. Government lawyers say this category of information includes the addresses to which an Internet user sends e-mail; the times and dates e-mail was sent and received; and possibly a user’s browser history. It does not include, the lawyers hasten to point out, the “content” of e-mail or other Internet communication.

This power would be conferred upon the same FBI whose agents have “cheated on tests on how to legally conduct domestic surveillance cases.” Maybe this is just the administration’s way of making sure these people won’t have to cheat on future tests–not they won’t have to worry about the pesky details of conducting domestic surveillance legally, since they won’t have to worry about warrants.

Matt raises the question of “misused work resources . . . for personal purposes.” The larger concern, and anybody who lived through Nixon and is old enough to remember it will share it, is the very real potential for the systematic misuse of information for political purposes. It’s happened before and will happen again, and our government should at least have to go through the niceties of taking actual legal steps in order to spy on us. As Matt also points out, it’s not that hard. All it takes is “some kind of cause—probable cause, let’s say—to suspect someone of involvement in terrorism, [is to] just get a warrant.”

Probable cause and warrants. The stuff of democracy. The stuff, in fact, of the Constitution, the fourth amendment to be precise.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

See ‘Private’ Browsing Sessions Not As Private As You Think, The Huffington Post, July 29, 2010, by Catherine Smith, excerpt quoted verbatim:

Surfing the Internet with a web browser’s “private mode” enabled may not keep users’ information as safe as they think, Switched reports, citing research conducted at Carnegie Mellon University.

Carnegie Mellon’s Collin Jackson told New Scientist that some sites may leave data on a computer’s hard drive, even if they were accessed while private browsing was enabled, effectively providing traces of what sites you’ve visited.

As Jackson and his team note, “sites visited while browsing in private mode should leave no trace on the user’s computer.” And yet, Jackson tells New Scientist that a hacker could “guess what sites you’ve been to based on traces left behind.” Switched summarizes the dilemma: “when your average surfer turns on the private mode in a browser, they expect their tracks to be erased, and erased they’re not.”

See Breaking a Promise on Surveillance, N.Y. Times Editorial, July 29, 2010, excerpt quoted verbatim:

It is just a technical matter, the Obama administration says: We just need to make a slight change in a law to make clear that we have the right to see the names of anyone’s e-mail correspondents and their Web browsing history without the messy complication of asking a judge for permission.

It is far more than a technical change. The administration’s request, reported Thursday in The Washington Post, is an unnecessary and disappointing step backward toward more intrusive surveillance from a president who promised something very different during the 2008 campaign.

In a 1993 update to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, Congress said that Internet service providers have to turn over to the F.B.I., on request, “electronic communication transactional records.” The government says this includes the e-mail records of their subscribers, specifically the addresses to which e-mail messages were sent, and the times and dates. (The content of the messages can remain private.) It may also include Web browsing records. To get this information, the F.B.I. simply has to ask for it in the form of a national security letter, which is an administrative request that does not require a judge’s signature.

But there was an inconsistency in the writing of the 1993 law. One section said that Internet providers had to turn over this information, but the next section, which specified what the F.B.I. could request, left out electronic communication records. In 2008, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion saying this discrepancy meant the F.B.I. could no longer ask for the information. Many Internet providers stopped turning it over. Now the Obama administration has asked Congress to make clear that the F.B.I. can ask for it.

Jay Rockefeller — “It would have been better if the internet had never existed” – CSpan2 — 2:45 Amazing.

See Gates Assails WikiLeaks Over Release of Reports, July 29, 2010, by Charlie Savage.

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Obama v. Rockefeller on EPA carbon regulations, Daily Kos, July 29, 2010, by Joan McCarter, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

While the energy bill won’t do much in the way of carbon regulation, the EPA still can. That is, if coal state Senators can be stopped.

Via David Dayen, earlier this week the White House vowed to veto legislation that would block the EPA from writing new climate change rules.

Coal-state Democrats, led by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (W. Va.), Reps. Rick Boucher (Va.) and Nick Rahall (W. Va), are trying to limit the federal government’s ability to control greenhouse gases from power plants.

The coal-state proposals, which would block the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority for two years, would undercut what is widely seen as Obama’s alternative climate policy, now that Congress has punted on cap-and-trade legislation for the year. The Obama aide said the proposals won’t win the president’s signature if they managed to pass on Capitol Hill. Rockefeller’s bill is expected to reach the Senate floor at some point this year.

Back in 2007, a Supreme Court ruling mandated that the EPA regulate greenhouse gasses, and the administration is determined to follow that law.

And Jay Rockefeller is determined to try to stop it, possibly by attempting to amend the energy bill on the floor next week. One way to circumvent him, without forcing a veto of the entire bill, would be for Reid to refuse amendments to the bill, something he has indicated might happen.

Which would hamper efforts to strengthen the bill in other ways. One of the most popular proposals in committee was the Renewable Electricity Standard, which would mandate that utilities get a certain percentage of their power from renewables. There’s an effort afoot now to get this amendment allowed on the floor.

Meanwhile, Republicans have introduced an alternative bill, that would basically let BP off the hook by not applying a liability cap in it retroactively to apply to the Gulf spill.

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Reid Leads in Nevada Senate Race – Democracy NOW! — 9:50.

Harry Reid to Bloggers at Netroots Nation: “I’m Proud of You for Taking On The Tea Party” — 9:29.

Uncertain Future for Reid Despite Rebound in Nev., ABC News Politics, July 25, 2010, by MICHAEL R. BLOOD AP Political Writer (Associated Press, quoted verbatim:

Despite Reid’s rebound in Nev. against GOP foe, Dems worry poor economy could drag him down.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid’s chances for six more years in Washington may be like tossing dice in a casino, even if he has made headway against Republican challenger Sharron Angle in a state with the nation’s highest rate of joblessness.

The four-term Reid holds a slight lead over Angle in the latest polling, thanks in part to her unsteady performance since winning the June primary and to Democratic ads portraying her as an extremist. Video of Angle scurrying away from reporters has mixed with television commercials of older voters upset about her call to phase out Social Security and Medicare.

But an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press says Reid has a “a serious problem” with voters frustrated with the economy and “receives a great deal of blame.” The July 15 memo is based on polling research conducted for Patriot Majority, a union-funded group that is running TV ads against Angle.

How did Sharron Angle blow an 11-point lead on Harry Reid in seven weeks?

How did Sharron Angle blow an 11-point lead on Harry Reid in seven weeks?, Christian Science Monitor, July 28, 2010, by Brad Knickerbocker, excerpt quoted verbatim:

Just a few weeks ago, Senate majority leader Harry Reid seemed headed for political flameout.

Nevadans were down on their senior senator, according to the polls. The “tea party” movement was zeroing in on him as representative of all that’s wrong with big-government politics back in Washington. And it looked like any of his likely GOP opponents could beat the four-term incumbent in November.

Shortly after Nevada Republicans chose former state assemblywoman Sharron Angle to run against Reid, the beleaguered Democrat was trailing his opponent by 11 percentage points in a Rasmussen Reports poll of likely Nevada voters.

But things can change in a hurry.

Reid has moved ahead of Ms. Angle in the polls – by as much as seven points in the latest Mason-Dixon Polling & Research survey for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The Angle campaign – with help from an increasingly worried national party – is having to beef up its campaign staff with outside professionals. And Angle is scrambling to change the subject regarding her earlier controversial positions and assertions.

“Reid has gone from being a very heavy underdog to being a slight favorite,” says Ted Jelen, a political scientist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “The fact that Sharron Angle won the primary was a major break for him.”

Meanwhile, Republicans “are growing increasingly frustrated with Sharron Angle and her lackluster campaign … fearing she is jeopardizing what they had long viewed as a sure pickup and costing them a chance to reclaim the majority,” reports CQ Politics.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), acknowledges the challenge his party faces in Nevada.

“While running for election is not rocket science, it does require knowledgeable people, it does require some discipline, and that’s always a struggle for every first-time candidate,” Senator Cornyn told CQ Politics.

See and watch Majority Leader Reid, live from Netroots Nation, Daily Kos, July 24, 2010, by Jed Lewison, video and transcript with updates. (we gave you the audio of Reid’s comments at Netroots Nation, above.

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Bernie Sanders: they are “Hell bent on destroying the middle class and creating an Oligarchy”, Daily Kos, July 26, 2010, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

Class War 101. Bernie Sanders is THE MAN.

Senator Bernie Sanders calls it what it is, fabulously wealthy families and their multinational corporations are hell-bent on destroying the middle class and determined to create an Oligarchy.

. . . While the middle class disappears and poverty increases the wealthiest people in our country are not only doing extremely well, they are using their wealth and political power to protect and expand their very privileged status at the expense of everyone else. This upper-crust of extremely wealthy families are hell-bent on destroying the democratic vision of a strong middle-class which has made the United States the envy of the world. In its place they are determined to create an oligarchy in which a small number of families control the economic and political life of our country.

TheNation.com

Bold text and italics added by the diarist

Crossposted at The Progressive Electorate.com

More from Bernie Sanders . . .

The truth is that working families have been experiencing a decline for decades. During the Bush years alone, from 2000-2008, median family income dropped by nearly $2,200 and millions lost their health insurance.

Today, because of stagnating wages and higher costs for basic necessities, the average two-wage-earner family has less disposable income than a one-wage-earner family did a generation ago. The average American today is underpaid, overworked and stressed out as to what the future will bring for his or her children. For many, the American dream has become a nightmare.

TheNation.com

Bold text and italics added by the diarist

The average two-wage-earner family has less disposable income than a one-wage-earner family did a generation ago. And the rich are richer than ever. Anyone guess why? Because when the rich get richer, the EVERYBODY ELSE gets poorer. There is only so many ways you can slice a pie, and if a few people get most of it, everyone else must go hungry.

And, as Bernie Sanders so points out, the richest 400 families in America are richer than ever. Under Bush they raked in the cash while the average media American family saw their income drop by nearly $2,200 a year while the social safety net was slashed and defunded. And why? So very rich people could pay less in taxes and shirk their civic duty to their nation.

Now, I would argue that we already have an Oligarchy now, but certainly Bernie Sanders is already aware of that. I think Senator Sanders is alluding to something worse, like an Oligarchy on steroids. Citizens United fueled, out of control, a Too Big to Fail Oligarchy that would recall to my mind these words written by George Orwell.

So what happens when a few people have more money than medium sized countries? I mean that literally, what happens? Or better, what is happening?

From Forbes.com, where Billionaires are applauded as the Randian heroes they imagine themselves to be.

George Lucas, the famed Hollywood director behind the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises and ILM, the world’s most bankable special effects shop, has a $3 billion fortune, making him worth as much as the GDP of Guyana.

Forbes 400 members with net worths just under $1 billion still possess fortunes that could operate the economies of significant fractions of the globe. Gary Magness, who owns water rights in Colorado through his ranch holdings, has a net worth of $990 million, which barely exceeds Vanuatu’s GDP ($988.5 million).

If this year’s three poorest Forbes 400 members were to combine their wealth (a combined $2.9 billion), their amassed fortune would be worth more than the workings of Belize’s entire economy.

George Lucas? WOW! But George Lucas is a storyteller who brings joy to the world, where as investor John Paulson is worth twice as much as Lucas (6.8 Billion) and all he had to do is profit off the real estate bubble and then short sell the subprime market. John Paulson’s wealth equals all the wealth in Montenegro. And these guys aren’t even in the Top Ten wealthiest people in America. If a few people have wealth equivalent to entire nations is it not possible that a few wealthy people can bribe and manipulate entire nations, thus circumventing and overthrowing the Democratic process? Of course! Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Here is yourTop Ten wealthiest plutocrats in America circa 2009

1   William Gates III 50,000 Million   (Microsoft)
2   Warren Buffett        40,000 Million   (Birkshire Hathaway)
3   Lawrence Ellison 27,000 Million   (Oracle)
4   Christy Walton & family 21,500 Million   (Wal-Mart)
5   Jim C. Walton        19,600 Million    (Wal-Mart)
6   Alice Walton        19,300 Million    (Wal-Mart)
7   S. Robson Walton 19,000 Million    (Wal-Mart)
8   Michael Bloomberg 17,500 Million    (Bloomberg)
9   Charles Koch        16,000 Million    (Energy, FreedomWorks, finances Tea Parties)
9   David Koch         16,000 Million   (Energy, FreedomWorks, finances Tea Parties)
11   Sergey Brin         15,300 Million    (Google)

Did anyone notice that the owners of WALMART are 4 of the top 10 richest people in America? Did Walmart eat the middle class? Is Walmart Too Big To Fail? Looks like it.

And as for the people who work for Walmart and earn just enough to go into debt for the rest of their lives, well, it doesn’t seem that anyone is worried about them does it? If they lose their jobs they are called lazy by rich people who never break a sweat or worry about homelessness, if they keep their jobs and struggle to survive and ask for help they are chided for wanting “handouts”.

For the people who work for Walmart and other huge Corporations the American dream has become a nightmare according to Bernie Sanders, and as someone who has lived that nightmare all my life, I entirely agree with him. The game is rigged, rigged for rich people, and if rich people NEVER lose money, everyone else can never earn enough to prosper.

We must level the paying field and STOP giving a huge advantage to the super rich and multi-national corporations. One way our Democratically elected officials can do this is by progressive taxation. And Bernie Sanders has a plan.

That is why I have introduced the Responsible Estate Tax Act (S.3533). This legislation would raise $318 billion over the next decade by establishing a graduated inheritance tax on estates over $3.5 million retroactive to this year. This bill ensures that the wealthiest 0.3 percent of Americans pays their fair share of estate taxes, while making sure that 99.7 percent of Americans never have to pay a dime when they lose a loved one. It also makes certain that the overwhelming majority of family farmers and small businesses never have to pay an estate tax.

This legislation must be passed because, with a $13 trillion national debt and huge unmet needs, we cannot afford more tax breaks for millionaire and billionaire families. But even more importantly, it must be passed because the United States must not become an oligarchy in which a handful of wealthy and powerful families control the destiny of our nation. Too many people, from the inception of this country, have struggled and died to maintain our democratic vision. We owe it to them and to our children to maintain it.

TheNation.com

Bold text and italics added by the diarist

So who is lazy? The person struggling to find a job after free market corporatists shipped their jobs overseas? Or the person who inherits millions of dollars from a dead relative without earning that money and then refuses to pay taxes on it?

The Responsible Estate Tax proposed by Senator Sanders may not seem much, but it is a start. More importantly, it frames the debate in a way that Progressives can win. Because the truth is, billionaires and all of their wealth are the cause of our societies economic problems, not immigrants or unemployed people or Government spending. All of that is a strawman, they shrieks of anguish over “socialism” is a red herring, designed to shift the conversation away from the fact that this form of multi-national corporate capitalism is driving 95% of the world’s population into poverty, and the few who prosper have enough wealth to corrupt the Democratic process in such a way that they are, in reality, an Oligarchy.

Whether we can curb their absolute power and preserve the notion of a Democracy of a majority of The People, and not a Oligarchy based on who controls the majority of the wealth, is what is at stake. Will we starve and exploit our fellow man for profit, or allow all people to prosper? That is the question. What is your answer?

Because I know what the Billionaires, the “Economic Royalty” as F.D.R. named them, I know what they want. It is obvious if you know where to look, and look hard enough.

Greed is NOT good. Greed is destroying America.

Listen to the Chilling words of Wall Street’s Gordon Gekko:

Gordon Gekko: "Greed is Good!"

And Greed is all the Conservative movement has, greed and hate and lies and fear.

Because they serve the Oligarchy and themselves and no one else.

“Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”

~ George Orwell, 1984

And so we must FIGHT BACK, and the truth is your greatest weapon.

Peace and love to all.

You can follow me on Twitter @JesseLaGreca Thanks to Ministry of Truth for allowing Evans Liberal Politics to republish his works on an ongoing basis.

See Pres. Obama: On issue after issue, we try to move forward and they try to take us back, Daily Kos, July 26, 2010, by Blackwaterdog: about the DISCLOSE Act vote in the Senate tomorrow. Watch President Obama: Limiting the Influence of Special Interests.

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Taking Your Message to the World

John Kerry on the WikiLeaks Afghanistan leak, Daily Kos, July 26, 2010, by Joan McCarter, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

John Kerry released this statement on the Wikileaks document release:

Statement By Chairman Kerry On Leaked Documents On Afghanistan And Pakistan

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) released the following statement this evening in response to the New York Times story on the leak of classified documents concerning Afghanistan and Pakistan:

“However illegally these documents came to light, they raise serious questions about the reality of America’s policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan. Those policies are at a critical stage and these documents may very well underscore the stakes and make the calibrations needed to get the policy right more urgent.”

This statement, as Clemon points out at the link, is in stark contrast to the White House reaction, and coming from a Senator with the stature that Kerry has on issues of war, indicates that this could be the beginning of an important discussion about, as he puts it, “the reality of America’s policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan.” The country needs and deserves a serious policy discussion on this war. Hopefully Kerry intends to start one.

TUESDAY UPDATE: See U.S. Hunts For Leaker Of Afghan War Documents, Reuters on The New York Times, July 26, 2010, by Reuters, excerpt quoted verbatim:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon said on Monday it was launching a manhunt to find whoever leaked tens of thousands of classified documents on the war in Afghanistan, one of the largest security breaches in U.S. military history.

U.S. defense officials said the person behind the release of some 91,000 classified documents appeared to have “secret” clearance and access to sensitive documents on the Afghan war.

More leaks were possible, officials acknowledged.

“We will do what is necessary to try to determine who is responsible for the leaking of this information,” Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said.

“Until we know who’s responsible, you have to hold out the possibility that there could be more information that has yet to be disclosed. And that’s obviously a concern.”

TUESDAY UPDATE: See Dennis Kucinich Announces Two Important House Votes, Kucinich.us: Cleveland, Ohio (July 26, 2010) – Congressman Dennis Kucinich announces that he and Congressman Ron Paul are joining in a cause focused at compelling the removal of U.S. military forces from Pakistan. Later this week, Congressman Kucinich will also support ending the War in Afghanistan by cutting off funding for the war.

See WikiLeaks Data Seem to Show Pakistan Helped Attack American Troops, ABC World News, July 26, 2010, by Nick Schifrin, excerpt quoted verbatim:

Documents Accuse ISI, Pakistan’s Intelligence Service, Of Aiding Insurgency; Senior ISI Official Dismisses Leaks

Perhaps the single most damming collection of data in a massive trove of secret documents from Afghanistan released by the website WikiLeaks is some 180 files that seem to show Pakistan’s premiere intelligence service, the ISI, helping the Afghan insurgency attack American troops.

See WikiLeaks Bombshell on Afghan War: What You Need to Know, AlterNet, July 26, 2010, by Greg Mitchell, excerpt quoted verbatim:

On Sunday, WikiLeaks not released more than 90,000 docs that paint of damning picture of the failing war effort in Afghanistan. Here’s a guide.

Despite advance claims of secret documents coming soon, it still felt like this bombshell arrived almost out of nowhere Sunday afternoon: WikiLeaks not only released more than 90,000 docs related to the United States and the war in Afghanistan, but the New York Times played it for all it was worth (as it turns out, quite a lot). In fact, the Times, The Guardian in London and Der Spiegel had been studying the documents and preparing for this for weeks.The Times highlighted it as “The War Logs” — Pentagon Papers, anyone? — with the subhed, “A six-year archive of classified military documents offers an unvarnished and grim picture of the Afghan war.” It also raises questions about the media coverage of the war to date.

See Afghanistan war logs: whose side is Pakistan on?, The Guardian, July 26, 2010, by Guardian.co.uk, excerpt quoted verbatim:

The storm of controversy raised by the accounts of alleged collusion between Pakistani intelligence and the Taliban in the war logs has resurrected one of the most vexed questions of the nine-year Afghan war: whose side is Pakistan on?

The reports have galvanised the opinions of some Americans who view the Pakistani military, which runs the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, as a double-dealing entity that accepts $1bn a year in US funding while quietly helping Afghan insurgents.

Although the quality of evidence against the ISI in the logs is low – and the spy agency has rejected it as “malicious and unsubstantiated” – experts say there is strong evidence to suggest collusion elsewhere.

See WikiLeaks and AfPak: What “Everyone” Knows, The Atlantic, July 26, 2010, by James Fallows, excerpt quoted verbatim:

1) “Everyone” knows this already. People who have been very close to this story say that little of the information is “new,” in a fundamental sense. See the Atlantic Wire’s summary here, Mother Jones here and here, and (splenetically and amusingly) Andrew Exum here. Fine.

2) But not everyone actually did. Notwithstanding #1, information that may be old news to insiders may seem a revelation to the broader public. Whether from George W. Bush or Barack Obama, presidential speeches about Afghanistan have not emphasized the mixed loyalties of the Pakistani security services, the frustrations of dealing with tribal leaders and corrupt officials, the extent of civilian casualties, and other items that, according to insiders, “everyone” already knows. At this stage it’s impossible to say whether a vast, somewhat hard-to-digest compilation of raw reports, released in the middle of summer, will mean that “everyone” in a broader sense comes to share this insider perspective.

3) And that’s the possible similarity to the Pentagon Papers. Afghanistan is different from Vietnam, Barack Obama is different from Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, the raw battlefield intel from WikiLeaks is different from the inside policy memos of the Pentagon Papers, and so on. But the basic similarity of the cases involves the question of what “everyone” knows. By 1971, anyone who had been really following the Vietnam war already “knew,” or could guess, much of what was in the Pentagon Papers. The Papers mattered because of (a) the confirmation that the government had known about the problems for a very long time, and (b) the spreading of that understanding to the broader public. If the WikiLeaks documents, coming during what is already the deadliest month ever for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, really do mark a shift in mainstream opinion about the war, it will be because everyone [general public, press, and politicians] will now recognize what “everyone” [insiders] already knew.

Comment by Evans Liberal Politics Owner Paul Evans: On the Dylan Ratigan show today on MSNBC, Dylan was suggesting that there is certainly an “openness” (shall we say) towards welcoming conservative opposition against continuing to cooperate with Pakistan as we are. Michael Steele’s recent comments that we should rethink the extent of our involvement with Afghanistan (and Pakistan) are a case in point. Even a Republican Party opposing to any extent our continued involvement in Afghanistan and with Pakistan (out of purely partisan considerations) would spur liberals and progressives within the Democratic Party to rethink their lockstep support of the President’s wrongheaded policy. Afghanistan-Pakistan is eventually going to wind down in a similar way to that of Vietnam. The only question is, how many more years of terrible conflict, and how much grievous loss of American treasure and lives will have to be suffered before we ACTUALLY negotiate with the Taliban, or will we have to suffer being actually expelled with horrendous casualties. Or will the war just wind on in it’s terrible course for years before America comes to its senses.

See Pakistani Spy Agency Denounces Leaked US Intelligence Reports, The Huffington Post, July 26, 2010, by Munir Ahmed.

See WH: No attempt to stop WikiLeaks news reports, Antiwar Newswire, July 26, 2010, by AP News Staff.

See Pentagon scrambles to assess Wikileaks damage (AP), A Minute News, July 26, 2010, by AP News Staff.

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Banks Cannot Wait For Warren’s Appointment As CFPB Chair!, Daily Kos, July 23, 2010, by Bob Swern, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

From a snarky comment I made in a diary yesterday…

“The banking community cannot wait for Elizabeth Warren to be appointed Chair of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. They long for the day when more than half of their profitability will be questioned! They cannot wait for the time when they’ll wake up every morning to be challenged about the fairness of their egregious charges. And, they look forward with great anticipation to their bank’s quarterly Board of Directors’ meetings where they’ll be continually threatened about their jobs being on the line due to their diminished profits caused by having a true consumer watchdog advocating for a public that has been ravaged by Wall Street’s greed for decades.Yes, the banks cannot wait for Liz Warren to assume the chair of the new CFPB!”

For more on this, I ‘d suggest this thought-provoking read: “The Real Reason Geithner is Afraid of Elizabeth Warren.”

Meanwhile…

#            #            #
(Diarist is authorized, in writing, by Naked Capitalism Publisher Yves Smith to reproduce her blog’s diaries in their entirety.)How HAMP Makes Elizabeth Warren The Only Choice For Consumer Protection »  New Deal 2.0

Naked Capitalism
Crossposted from New Deal 2.0.
By Mike Konczal, a Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute.
July 23rd, 2010

No one else has been a stronger advocate for public disclosure. There’s a debate going on about who should be nominated to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at the Federal Reserve. One side says Elizabeth Warren, while another says someone from Treasury, likely Michael Barr. At a quick glance you might not see a big difference. As Felix notes, Michael Barr is very strong on consumer finance. But I think Warren would be a far superior choice. There are many reasons why, but I want to discuss a very specific one here that distinguishes her from anyone in Treasury. The biggest: she is a strong critic of HAMP, Treasury’s largest intervention into the massive foreclosure crisis hitting millions of regular Americans, and she demands accountability on behalf of the people.

HAMP As Failure

The Home Affordability Modification Program is widely considered to be a failure. Here is Shahien Nasiripour reporting on the latest numbers from June. They haven’t remotely hit the numbers they projected. Homeowners continue to suffer from a lack of modifications due to servicer problems and the overvaluation of their books. I wrote here about how the creator of the mortgage bond instrument in the early 1980s said in 2007 that a major market failure was coming. There was need for government action.

HAMP is such a failure that it is a bit of a game among the financial bloggers as to who has the best write-up of how bad it is each month and what the killer statistics are that prove it. I’m calling Stacy-Marie Ishmael over at FT Alphaville this month’s winner with BarCap vs HUD on HAMP.

Evidence shows that there are principal increases for 80% of the people who go through HAMP. That is the exact opposite of what you’d like to see! It lowers interest rates, but it also increases the length of the loan.

Figure 16: Loan Modifications By Principal Reduction

And for those who don’t have principal reduction, there is a massively high redefault rate. People lose their homes anyway, even after jumping through cumbersome hoops.

Figuree 17: Redefault Rate for Modified Loans

Predatory lending is hard to define, but a product is predatory that sinks people deeper into debt without the expectation that they can pay it off. And that is exactly how HAMP functions. For millions of people HAMP is their main interaction with the government and embodies what the government is capable of, and this creates disillusionment and discredits the liberal state in a profound way.

And Warren Demands Accountability

The Congressional Oversight Panel, lead by Warren, has been in the lead at making information public and bringing the complaints of the people straight to those in power. (It falls under her jurisdiction because HAMP uses TARP money.) When you see the fights on youtube between Warren and Geithner, the biggest ones, the ones that make Geithner cringe the most, it is about how HAMP isn’t working. Click through on that link to watch a video that gets straight to this. She demands accountability from the government and from the banking sector on the single most important issues facing Americans right now.

This is important. There’s pressure to be quiet, to hope that a quick housing and economic recovery will just make this whole foreclosure crisis go away. But Warren has demanded answers. COP released a report in early 2009 about the problems with HAMP, data collection and foreclosure, a report that still stands up. She’s done that at every step of TARP, but it matters here specifically for consumer protection.

And this is exactly how the CFPA should work. They fight to get good information disclosed to the public about how the banks and the Treasury department are failing the American people, reporters and wonks explain the information to the public, Treasury is held accountable. Treasury is currently working overtime to make HAMP work better; every month they are putting pressure where they can to make it better. That’s how a healthy government is supposed to work, but it can only be done if the tone is set by an outsider. And Elizabeth Warren is the one qualified candidate with a proven track record of standing up to the banks and to the Treasury.

And as Steve Clemons wrote: “It’s about time that at minimum, the White House got a `team of rivals’ on economic policy rather than just a `Team of Rubins.’”

#            #            #

HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP…

Support the Bold Progressive’s appeal to our senses and sign the petition to appoint Liz Warren to that position.

And…

Take this letter from Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney and, leaving the signature space blank, send it along to YOUR congresscritter for their John Hancock.

Or…

Just get in touch with the White House and tell ‘em: “To hell with the Senate confirmation…please, just get it done, Mr. President!”

Evans Liberal Politics would like to thank Bob Swern for permission to republish his work on an ongoing basis. Bob is our favorite progressive economics writer. More than even Paul Krugman, Mr. Swern fleshes out his articles with lots of details and links, and so provides real grist for liberals and progressives to learn from. You are invited to email Bob Swern here.

See Obama, GOP spar over how to revive ailing economy, MSNBC, July 24, 2010, by Associated Press: President says plan by GOP leader repeats job-killing policies of the past.

See 22 Statistics That Prove The Middle Class Is Being Systematically Wiped Out Of Existence In America, July 15, 2010, by Michael Snyder.

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Taking Your Message to the World

Tobacco Giant Philip Morris is Hooked on Child Labor, In These Times, July 16, 2010, by Michelle Chan, (Photo by Moises Saman for Human Rights Watch), excerpt quoted verbatim:

Everyone knows smoking is a costly habit, taking a toll on your health and your wallet. What you probably didn’t know is that the tobacco industry extracts a much dearer price from children laboring in the remote fields of Central Asia.

Despite some legal and political troubles in recent years, the Philip Morris empire is still squeezing handsome profits from a vast migrant labor regime in Kazakhstan. A report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently shamed the company by revealing that migrant tobacco harvesters, many of them young children, are regularly subjected to abuse, wage theft, and even physical captivity. (Video below.)

Of course, labor abuse in the cultivation of tobacco is as old as the industry itself. In the colonial era, the tobacco crop gave rise to a thriving international trade in the Chesapeake, leading to environmental destruction, the displacement of indigenous communities, and political clashes. Over time, the great tobacco plantations helped institute the chattel slavery system that came to define the Southern economy.

Today, tobacco is still king in Kazakhstan, a major destination for migrant labor from relatively impoverished neighboring countries.

HRW interviewed scores of workers and family members, primarily in the Enbekshikazakh district of Almaty province. Migrants and their children typically cross the porous border from Kyrgyzstan in search of temporary work. Landowners here directly contract with Philip Morris Kazakhstan, part of the Philip Morris International network that serves international brands like Marlboro, Parliament, and Virginia Slims. The tobacco harvested in Kazakhstan, however, is used for small regional brand cigarettes.

An ordinary workday might include up to eighteen hours of “planting, watering, weeding, fertilizing, harvesting, stringing and drying tobacco.” A nine-month season might include just 14 days of rest. Workers are exposed to hazards like toxic contamination from pesticides and the tobacco leaves themselves.

Debt bondage is apparently common, as workers arrive at the fields already indebted due to the costs of being transported by middlemen. They often must work the entire season before seeing any wages, and their vulnerability is deepened by the common practice of bosses confiscating  passports. For children in the fields, work takes precedence over school. While some child workers are native Kazakhs, migrant children face especially severe educational barriers due to their marginal status.

A bad harvest could wipe out the entire season’s earnings and more, since landowners skim wages for food and other expenses. One family’s story traces the debt cycle that chains migrants to the farm:

When the family first came in April 2007, the landowner paid an exorbitant fee to the intermediary who brought Ulkan U. and her children from Kyrgyzstan and expected her to repay this and other expenses, such as food costs, at the end of the season. After a modest harvest, Ulkan U. found herself in debt, and the employer demanded she remain another season in order to repay him. Although she repaid her debt at end of 2008, she still did not have sufficient funds to return home and worked with her children during the 2009 tobacco season as well. Her children have not attended school since 2007.

Such practices clearly violate both international labor standards and Kazakh law. But the HRW reports that formal redress is nearly impossible for isolated, poor and transient noncitizens. Despite mandates under international human rights law, “in most cases the government of Kazakhstan has not fulfilled its obligations in its treatment of migrant workers: it has neither provided sufficient legal protections nor made existing protections effective.”

Kazakhstan hosts anywhere from 300,000 to one million migrant laborers, according to HRW. Under the country’s quota system, most seek only informal employment, especially since the government recently restricted the importation of guestworkers in response to high domestic unemployment. As with immigration restrictions elsewhere in the world, the migrants who find themselves stuck in the country illegally are in the worst bind, since, as HRW states, “workers with irregular status have no rights.”

HRW says Philip Morris Kazakhstan and Philip Morris International have, in light of the group’s findings, “committed to taking measures to address the abuses and exploitative practices.” But company executives contended that their own inspections “did not find evidence of some of the worst abuses documented by Human Rights Watch, such as forced labor or debt bondage.”

Nonetheless, they promised to cooperate with Kazakhstani authorities and non-governmental organizations to deal with migrant children’s education issues. The company also plans to engage an independent monitoring organization to track future reform programs.

While Philip Morris may seek to demonstrate good corporate citizenship, the report suggests that the exploitation of migrants in Kazakhstan is just a regular part of doing business in this part of the world. (Meanwhile, the ongoing conflict in neighboring Kyrgystan portends further regional destabilization and mass migration.)

Read the full article here.

In Other Human Rights and Social Justice News:

Slavery in Our Time

See Slavery in Our Time, In These Times, July 21, 2010, by Michelle Chen, excerpt quoted verbatim:

For the first time, the U.S. government acknowledges modern-day slavery in the United States.

One-hundred-and-fifty years after the abolition of slavery, the State Department has acknowledged that people in the United States continue to be bought and sold as property.

The department’s 2010 "Trafficking in Persons" (TIP) report, a global review of human trafficking and civic and legal responses to it, lists the United States for the first time among the nations that harbor modern-day slavery.

Watch Modern Slavery – Human Trafficking, YouTube video – 5:14. In the heyday of slavery, as MOST people think, 150 years ago, the value in today’s dollars of a strong male agricultural slave was the equivalent of about $40,000 U.S. dollars. Today, you can buy that same agricultural worker for about $300. There are more slaves today than at any time in modern history. This video is a real eye opener you really need to see.

BP Hides Use of Mostly Black Prison Labor For Oil Gusher Cleanup, Daily Kos, July 23, 2010, by Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, excerpt quoted verbatim:

When the BP oil gusher mess first began, BP hired prison labor in order to reap tax benefits instead of hiring coastal residents whose livelihoods crashed with the explosion of the wellhead. When the community expressed their outrage, BP did not stop the practice of using phttp://evans-politics.com/wp-admin/post-new.phprison labor. No, apparently BP simply tried to literally cover-up the use of prison labor by changing the clothing worn by the inmates to give the appearance of a civilian workforce. Big surprise.

Grave Errors as Undead Rework Loans, The Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2010, by Ruth Simon, excerpt quoted verbatim:

Sarah Larson had been trying for months to get a break on her mortgage payments when a letter from her bank arrived in March. Sitting at the dining-room table of her Minneapolis house, the 33-year-old acupuncturist ripped open the envelope and pulled out a list of important documents demanded by Bank of America Corp.

Bank statements. A utility bill. Her death certificate.

See also Chicago Teachers Laid Off in Droves, In These Times, July 23, 2010, by Kari Lydersen.

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SIGTARP REPORT: Taxpayer Support Of Wall St. = $3.7 Trillion, Daily Kos, July 21, 2010, by Bob Swern, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

The next time someone tries to sell you the Wall Street propaganda–you see it in diaries on the Rec List around here, from time to time, as well–that the banks are paying off their bailouts, and our deeply-captured (by the status quo) government is going to, somehow, miraculously make a profit on this ongoing historical fleecing of its citizens, show them this just-published chart from Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky’s office (from the SIGTARP report linked in the LA Times story, below): Incremental Financial System Support By Federal Agency Since 2007.

In fact, just 12 days ago, when it was noted by yours truly that another diary on the Rec List was reprinting a story that falsely claimed that taxpayers were going to make a profit from the Wall Street bailout, a lot of people here were quite dismayed by this inconvenient reality.

The truth is that, as of the end of June (according to the Special Inspector General’s Office), the bailout (ex-housing) has put taxpayers on the hook for over $2 trillion. If you include housing/mortgage industry supports, the number almost doubles to $3.7 trillion.And, if anyone thinks the support of the mortgage industry is providing massive benefits to homeowners, the reality is the primary beneficiaries of those related programs are the large mortgage underwriters, taking their vig these days, and then selling through their mortgages to…us–at last check, the government was the ultimate underwriter of 96.5% of all mortgages in this country. (In another diary posted the day prior to the one linked, above, I pointed out a Federal Reserve white paper that was published in 2004 which discussed the concept of the Fed providing mortgage underwriting services directly to consumers,  bypassing the traditional middlemen/banks, entirely, and saving U.S. homebuyers a significant chunk of cash, as a result of that new effort.)

Also, about that other Wall Street meme that the FDIC is supported by the banks, I would imagine that by sometime around 2030 or 2040, the banks may get around to digging themselves out of their FDIC hole; but, until then, taxpayers are holding those notes, too. (But, that’s just my opinion, right?)

Here’s the truth…and, as we all know, no matter how much some might try, ultimately, you cannot hide from that…

Report: Housing aid boosts total U.S. financial-system support to $3.7 trillion
Tom Petruno
LA Times
July 21, 2010      11:41 am – Despite the winding-down of most of the government’s aid programs for the financial system this year, total federal support for the system now is 23% greater than it was a year ago, the Treasury’s watchdog for bailout plans said in a report to Congress on Wednesday.

Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, said the government was on the hook for $3.7 trillion in support as of June 30, up from $3 trillion a year earlier.

Even as banks have been repaying the money the Treasury invested in them under one of the main TARP programs approved in 2008, U.S. aid to the housing market has ballooned, Barofsky’s report said. The increase has mainly come in the form of more capital for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and loan guarantees for various federal mortgage programs such as those of the Federal Housing Administration.

Barofsky “Notwithstanding [the] scaling back of TARP, an examination of the broader context demonstrates that the overall governmental efforts to stabilize the economy have not diminished,” the report said.

Thanks to Bob Swern for permission to republish his articles on an ongoing basis. You can see his blogroll at Daily Kos here. Email Bob Swern here.

See Bernanke Unleashes the Bears: No Fed Plans to Give More Support, Bernanke Says, The New York Times, July 21, 2010, by Sewell Chan:

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Federal Reserve, in saying that it had no immediate plans to provide additional support to the economy, dashed the hopes of some economists and executives who have been pushing for action to add momentum to the sluggish recovery.

See The Wall St. Bill Doesn’t Protect Us From Banker Abuse: 5 Essential Reforms Are Still Needed, AlterNet, July 21m 2010, by Zach Carter.

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BIG NEWS on Elizabeth Warren!, Daily Kos, July 21, 2010, by Forrest Brown. Mr. Brown has no means to contact him but we knew he would want you to get this news, with apologies for simply republishing without permission:

BIG NEWS: 39 Democratic Reps have signed Rep. Carolyn Maloney’s letter supporting Elizabeth Warren’s nomination to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — over the objections of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and big banks.

We need to keep the momentum going to send a strong signal to President Obama.

Can you help us get to 50 members of Congress by calling your representative and asking him or her to sign on to “The Maloney Letter”?  Click here for the number and a script.

The National Journal describes this as a “major lobbying battle over whether to appoint Elizabeth Warren” — and it’s all due to you.

In less than a week, over 140,000 people joined together to urge President Obama to appoint Warren — making waves in the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. Together with our friends at Credo Action and MoveOn we’ve made thousands of calls to Democratic members of Congress — and it’s working with 39 reps signing the Maloney Letter supporting Warren. Sen. Tom Harkin launched his own letter supporting Warren’s nomination, and yesterday, SEIU and the AFL-CIO piled on, publicly announcing their support for Warren’s nomination.

But Wall Street isn’t backing down. On Monday, Sen. Chris Dodd suggested Warren was too controversial. David Sirota explains that’s step one in “marginalizing an agent of change”.

This morning TPM reports that key Senate Democrats are hesitant about Warren — we need to act fast before they scare President Obama out of nominating Warren. Tell your Rep to fight back by signing the Maloney Letter.

This congressional letter will be a major boost for Warren if more House members sign it — so your call today is very important.

Can you take a minute to call your Representative? The number and a script are here.

(Forrest Brown is the senior organizing fellow for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee)

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