WilliamPitt
WilliamPitt's JournalElizabeth Warren Comes Out Swinging Against Banks
Elizabeth Warren Comes Out Swinging Against BanksBy Sahil Kapur
TPM
March 11, 2013
Progressives fell in love with Elizabeth Warren because they saw in her a fighter — someone who would break from Washington’s longstanding tradition of cozying up to big banks and instead hold them accountable for bad behavior. She hasn’t disappointed.
Just two months into her new job as Massachusetts senator, the former consumer advocate has used her perch to publicize and rail against shady practices by financial institutions and what she views as leniency from the regulators tasked with overseeing them.
The latest example came last Thursday during a Banking Committee hearing, when Warren demanded answers from a panel of federal regulators as to why the multinational bank HSBC got off with a fine for money laundering for Mexican drug cartels — along with violating international sanctions against several countries, including Iran and Libya — when people caught with drugs go to jail for life.
“No one individual went to trial, no individual was banned from banking and there was no hearing to consider shutting down HSBC’s activities here in the United States,” Warren said. “So … what does it take? How many billions of dollars do you have to launder for drug lords and how many economic sanctions do you have to violate before someone will consider shutting down a financial institution like this?”
The rest: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/elizabeth-warren-comes-out-swinging-banks-regulators.php
One of the best votes I've ever cast in my life, if not the best.
And she's just getting started.
The sky this morning...
Haven't seen uninterrupted blue like this in a long, long while.
Spring is coming, too.
Jameson Shovelpocalypse II: It Was Supposed To Be Three Inches
The boys and me digging out.
10 MoJo Profiles of Fierce Women on International Women's Day
Political satirist Lizz Winstead, graphic novelist Marjane Satrapi, and Antarctic explorer Felicity Aston
10 MoJo Profiles of Fierce Women
Happy International Women's Day. Here are some women worth reading about.
By Maddie Oatman
Mother Jones
Fri Mar. 8, 2013
In the early '90s, a guy at Sony told a female singer that she was "too black, too fat, too short, and too old." Lucky for us, she stuck with music, and twenty years later America finally discovered singer Sharon Jones. Now known as the "Queen of Funk," Jones recently played with Prince in Madison Square Garden. (We interviewed her in 2011). In honor of International Women's Day, we're taking a moment to highlight ladies like Jones, who, whether in politics, show biz, or coding, have managed to defy or ignore expectations. Below, a sampling from Mother Jones' archives of smart, fearless, and "sassy" women.
Jack Hitt takes on the Rorschach-blot-like figure of Hillary Clinton, in which Americans see many things. "More than any other public figure," writes Hitt, "Hillary forces us to acknowledge that the path to power for American women is not all that clear, more an odyssey than a march."
New Yorker writer George Trow once described Jamaica Kincaid as "our sassy black friend," a moniker Kincaid seemed to delight in when she talked to Mother Jones about her beloved Obama T-shirt, juggling motherhood and writing, and her newest semi-autobiographical novel.
Jen Pahlka left behind rock-star status in the computer-gaming world to launch Code for America, which places fellows in broke cities so they can build apps to conquer civic problems. We caught up with Pahlka last year to talk about breaking down barriers between the public and private sectors and solving Silicon Valley's sexism problem.
The rest: http://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/03/10-mojo-profiles-fierce-women-international-womens-day
Happy IW Day!
2014 2014 2014 2014 2014 2014 2014 2014 2014 2014
I see so many threads about who is or isn't or should or shouldn't run for president in 2016.
The fuck I give about who's running for president in 2016 is so small, it cannot be measured by any means known to science. The fuck I give is so small, it only exists in theory, like a quark or a superstring.
2014, people. Get your heads in the game.
90% of the reason shit is so fucked up right now is because everyone - well-meaning people, too - get all "Ermahgerd, presidential race!" and completely forget that almost all the government we have to deal with gets elected during the midterms...and 30% turnout (with 80% of that coming from far-righties who ALWAYS VOTE) = the current miserable situation in the House of Representatives = the current miserable state of the nation.
Fuck 2016. It'll come when it comes.
In the meantime, all politics is local, and happening next year.
Heads in the game, folks.
Granny Kay, the heart and soul of the Crawford Peace House, has passed.
Anyone who spent time in Crawford TX with Cindy Sheehan and the rest of the activists involved in that will remember her.
Granny Kay was the heart of that place, and maintained the Peace House for as long as she could. Her journey ended, and began again, on Sunday.
She will be missed.
Critical Part of Keystone Report Done by Firms with Deep Oil Industry Ties
Source: Inside Climate News
The State Department's recent conclusion that the Keystone XL pipeline "is unlikely to have a substantial impact" on the rate of Canada's oil sands development was based on analysis provided by two consulting firms with ties to oil and pipeline companies that could benefit from the proposed project.
EnSys Energy has worked with ExxonMobil, BP and Koch Industries, which own oil sands production facilities and refineries in the Midwest that process heavy Canadian crude oil. Imperial Oil, one of Canada's largest oil sands producers, is a subsidiary of Exxon.
ICF International works with pipeline and oil companies but doesn't list specific clients on its website. It declined to comment on the Keystone, referring questions to the State Department.
EnSys president Martin Tallett said he couldn't talk about the proposed pipeline, but he pointed out that in addition to working for the oil industry, his company also works for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy and the World Bank.
(emphasis added by me)
Read more: http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20130306/keystone-xl-eis-state-department-transcanada-oil-tar-sands-industry-ensys-energy-koch-brothers-exxonmobil-bp-obama
Don't mind the noise. I'm just breaking shit.
The Sequester is Good for You, and Other GOP Lies
House Speaker John Boehner.
(Photo: Jonathan Ernst / The New York Times)
The Sequester is Good for You, and Other GOP Lies
By William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed
Thursday 07 March 2013
Let me see if I have this right.
A generation of GOP trickle-down economic thievery depth-charged the American economy and set the nation trembling on the edge of collapse, combined a decade ago with massive GOP-supported tax cuts and two brutally expensive GOP-supported wars that eviscerated the Clinton budget surplus. This was followed by five years of the GOP filibustering everything and the sink in the men's room in order to thwart any genuine economic recovery, because they did not want the president to get the credit, and be damned to the people. Today, that same GOP has forced the country into this sequester nonsense because, according to their bastard gospel, closing tax loopholes for rich people and corporations in order to curb the debt they accrued makes the Baby Jesus cry.
The teeth of the sequester have not yet fully sunk in - most workers facing furloughs receive a 30-day notice before getting booted off the job - but the pain is on the way. Before too much time passes, there will be fewer air traffic controllers in the towers, so if you plan on flying later in the year, make sure your will is up to date...and bring a good book, because fewer controllers means less flights, and long delays for everyone, everywhere.
Looming cuts and furloughs at the Environmental Protection Agency will, among other things, hinder that agency's ability to warn people when smog levels in cities become dangerous to children, the elderly and the infirm. But pollution isn't really a problem, because climate change is a myth, right? Just take shallow breaths, and think happy thoughts.
The cuts and furloughs slated to affect the US Department of Agriculture will make things interesting during barbecue season, when a dearth of food inspectors will force the closure of meat and poultry plants all across the country. But hey, lower inspection rates and the inevitable food shortages to follow are the price we pay for this glorious new smaller government, yes? Keep those damn government hands off your hamburger, and if you get an e-coli infection and your organs start to fail, there's always Obamacare to catch you before you fall. Oh, and remember: the GOP is the party of small business, so if you own or work at a restaurant that loses business because the food shortages are screwing the inventory, just remember that this is all for your own good.
The rest: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/14983-the-sequester-is-good-for-you-and-other-gop-lies
The ULTIMATE Anti-Gay Marriage Ad (trust me)
The look on the little girl's face at the end is beyond priceless.
RELEASED: State Dept. Keystone XL assessment
It's here: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2013/03/205548.htm
WaPo: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/keystone-xl-pipeline-will-not-have-huge-impact-on-climate-draft-analysis-says/2013/03/01/715491b0-82a5-11e2-b99e-6baf4ebe42df_story.html
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(previous post)
...in the mother of all Friday news dumps, it seems. Doesn't bode well.
US State Dept. to issue assessment of Keystone XL on Friday
The U.S. State Department will release on Friday a long-awaited draft environmental assessment of the Keystone XL pipeline, a project that would link Canada's oil sands to Texas refineries, several government sources said.
The State Department will release the assessment of TransCanada Corp's pipeline, which will examine a new route in Nebraska as well as emissions associated with the pipeline, the sources said.
The department declined an official comment.
The rest: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/01/usa-keystone-idUSL1N0BTD8120130301
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Name: William Rivers PittGender: Male
Hometown: Boston
Member since: 2001
Number of posts: 58,179
