While Equifax Victims Sue, Congress Limits Financial Class Actions

While Equifax Victims Sue, Congress Limits Financial Class Actions (marketwatch.com) 161

Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday October 29, 2017 @02:34PM from the cause-and-no-effect dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a local NBC news report: Stories are starting to pour in about those impacted by last month's massive Equifax data breach, which compromised the private information of more than 140 million people. Katie Van Fleet of Seattle says she's spent months trying to regain her stolen identity, and says it has been stolen more than a dozen times. "I kept receiving letters from Kohl's, from Macy's, from Home Depot, from Old Navy saying 'thank you for your application,'" she said to CNN affiliate KCPQ. But she says she's never applied for credit from any of those places. Instead, Van Fleet and her attorney Catherine Fleming say they believe her personal data was stolen during the massive Equifax security breach... Fleming has filed a class-action lawsuit against Equifax, saying they were negligent in losing private information on more than 140 million Americans... "Countless people, I mean, I've really, truly lost count, and the stories that like Katie's, the stories I hear are heart-wrenching," Fleming said.
But are things about to get worse? Marketwatch reports: It will become harder for consumers to sue their banks or companies like Equifax... The Senate voted Tuesday night to overturn a rule the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau worked on for more than five years. The final version of the rule banned companies from putting "mandatory arbitration clauses" in their contracts, language that prohibits consumers from bringing class-action lawsuits against them. It applies to institutions that sell financial products, including bank accounts and credit cards. Consumer advocates say it's good news for companies like Wells Fargo or Equifax, which have both had class-action lawsuits filed against them, and bad news for their customers... Lisa Gilbert, the vice president of legislative affairs at Public Citizen, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., said the Senate vote shouldn't impact cases that are already ongoing. However, there will "certainly" be more forced arbitration clauses in contracts in the future, and fewer cases brought against companies, she said.

rest at https://goo.gl/DzrazT

Portuguese ISP Shows What The Net Looks Like Without Net Neutrality

"In Portugal, with no net neutrality, internet providers are starting to split the net into packages," argues a California congressman -- retweeting a stunning graphic. An anonymous reader quotes BoingBoing's Cory Doctorow: Since 2006, Net Neutrality activists have been warning that a non-Neutral internet will be an invitation to ISPs to create "plans" where you have to choose which established services you can access, shutting out new entrants to the market and allowing the companies with the deepest pockets to permanently dominate the internet... the Portuguese non-neutral ISP MEO has mistaken a warning for a suggestion, and offers a series of "plans" for its mobile data service where you pay €5 to access a handful of messaging services, €5 more to use social media; and €5 more for video-streaming services.
The congressman notes this arrangement offers "a huge advantage for entrenched companies, but it totally ices out startups trying to get in front of people, which stifles innovation."

rest at https://goo.gl/CgXXj8

America's F-35s Can't Fly 22% of the Time, Repair Facilities Six Years Behind Schedule

"[N]early 200 F-35s might permanently remain unready for combat because the Pentagon would rather buy new aircraft than upgrade the ones the American people have already paid for," according to one defense news site. And now Bloomberg reports: The Pentagon is accelerating production of Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F-35 jet even though the planes already delivered are facing "significantly longer repair times" than planned because maintenance facilities are six years behind schedule, according to a draft audit. The time to repair a part has averaged 172 days -- "twice the program's objective" -- the Government Accountability Office, Congress's watchdog agency, found. The shortages are "degrading readiness" because the fighter jets "were unable to fly about 22 percent of the time" from January through August for lack of needed parts.

The Pentagon has said soaring costs to develop and produce the F-35, the costliest U.S. weapons system, have been brought under control, with the price tag now projected at $406.5 billion. But the GAO report raises new doubts about the official estimate that maintaining and operating them will cost an additional $1.12 trillion over their 60-year lifetime.
Slashdot reader schwit1 writes, "This is akin to buying an exotic car you can barely afford, without also budgeting for insurance, repairs, and tuneups."

rest at https://goo.gl/yW6Kio

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) suing Trump over EMOLUMENTS

from http://www.citizensforethics.org/press-release/crew-sues-trump-emoluments/


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 22, 2017 CONTACT: Jordan Libowitz
202-408-5565 | jlibowitz@citizensforethics.org  

CREW SUES TRUMP OVER EMOLUMENTS

Washington, DC—Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is bringing a federal lawsuit to stop President Trump from violating the Constitution by illegally receiving payments from foreign governments. The lawsuit will be filed in the Southern District of New York when the court opens at 9 AM on Monday.

The foreign emoluments clause of the Constitution prohibits Trump from receiving anything of value from foreign governments, including foreign government-owned businesses, without the approval of Congress.

"We did not want to get to this point. It was our hope that President Trump would take the necessary steps to avoid violating the Constitution before he took office," CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said. "He did not. His constitutional violations are immediate and serious, so we were forced to take legal action."

Since Trump refused to divest from his businesses, he is now getting cash and favors from foreign governments, through guests and events at his hotels, leases in his buildings, and valuable real estate deals abroad. Trump does business with countries like China, India, Indonesia and the Philippines, and now that he is President, his company's acceptance of any benefits from the governments of those countries violates the Constitution. When Trump the president sits down to negotiate trade deals with these countries, the American people will have no way of knowing whether he will also be thinking about the profits of Trump the businessman.

"President Trump has made his slogan 'America First,'" said Bookbinder. "So you would think he would want to strictly follow the Constitution's foreign emoluments clause, since it was written to ensure our government officials are thinking of Americans first, and not foreign governments."

CREW is represented in the case by an all-star team of top constitutional scholars, ethics experts and litigators who have combined to argue 45 cases before the Supreme Court. The lawyers on the case include CREW's board chair and vice-chair Norman Eisen and Richard Painter, the top ethics lawyers for the last two presidents, Constitutional law scholars Erwin Chemerinsky, Laurence H. Tribe and Zephyr Teachout, and Deepak Gupta of Gupta Wessler PLLC.

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Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is a non-profit legal watchdog group dedicated to holding public officials accountable for their actions. For more information, please visit www.citizensforethics.org or contact Jordan Libowitz at 202-408-5565 or jlibowitz@citizensforethics.org.

rest at http://www.citizensforethics.org/press-release/crew-sues-trump-emoluments/

CPA Charged With Threatening Former President Obama's Life on Facebook

from http://goingconcern.com/post/cpa-charged-threatening-former-president-obamas-life-facebook


"New Jersey man has been charged with threatening now-former President Obama's life on Facebook. A report in the Philadelphia Inquirer has the details:

Federal prosecutors say William Peterman Jr., 33, of Medford Lakes and Beaufort, S.C., posted two death threats on his Facebook page last week, including one addressed to "President Barack Hussein Obama II" that stated "I will kill you."

According to court filings, Peterman later told U.S. Secret Service agents that he believed Obama admitted the affair during his Jan. 10 farewell speech in Chicago. In doing so, Peterman allegedly told agents that the president had given him "permission to kill him."

"I typed the words and posted them," he said, according to his arrest affidavit. "He [Obama] wronged me. He got sex for himself.""

rest at http://goingconcern.com/post/cpa-charged-threatening-former-president-obamas-life-facebook

An Obama staffer takes stock of his accomplishments

from http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/1/20/1622772/-An-Obama-Staffer-s-Parting-Note-to-Progressives

"When Obama passed the Recovery Act, a bigger stimulus than the New Deal, the infrastructure spending, the investments in clean energy manufacturing, and the Making Work Pay tax cuts were for working people.

• When we passed the ACA, that was aimed straight at working people—white working people, black working people, Hispanic, Asian, and tribal—and Republicans are now finally having ‎to face up to that fact. Not just the 20+ million who got coverage, but the ~150 million with preexisting conditions and the vast majority of Americans who get their coverage through work who were always at risk of getting screwed by some insurance company loophole. It was for people like my parents who are self-employed and could never afford real insurance for our family while I was growing up.
• When we passed the CFPB, that was for working people who were getting screwed every which way by predatory financial industries.
• When Obama executed the auto bailout, despite shudder-inducing unpopularity at the time, a million working people kept their livelihoods.
• When Obama ended the Bush tax cuts for millionaires, even as he ‎extended working class tax cuts like the Child Tax Credit, Earned Income Tax Credit, and the new American Opportunity Tax Credit, that was for working people.
• When we repealed DADT, and helped make marriage equality a reality, that was for working people who wanted to live free of discrimination in a loving relationship or serving their country.  
• When we implemented DACA, that was for working people who just wanted‎ to come out of the shadows and contribute to this country in the light of day.
• When Obama signed the law to reduce crack/cocaine sentencing discrepancies, and pushed the sentencing commission for reform, and made a cause out of his presidential commutation power, and pushed to "ban the box" on employment forms, that was for working people who wanted to ‎make a living for themselves and their families, and not have their lives destroyed by some drug offense for which a wealthy kid might have gotten a slap on the wrist.
• When the president brought more than 90 percent of our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, stayed out of a full-blown ground war quagmire in Syria despite constant criticism, ‎and used diplomacy to block Iran's nuclear program and avoid another war, that was for the working people who make up America's military—white working people, black working people, Hispanic, Asian, and tribal—who want to serve their country and get an education they might not otherwise be able to afford, and who are treated like cannon fodder by Washington's war "hawks."
• When Obama took on toxic pollution on things like mercury‎ and countless other rules, that was for working people, who are the ones who bear the brunt of that toxicity, saving tens of thousands from sickness and death.
• Setting aside the fact that climate change will destroy the planet that working people work on, he has also pushed against widespread skepticism, constant political criticism, and even mockery,‎ to make clean energy a source of manufacturing jobs for working people for decades ahead, and there is now widespread agreement that the clean energy revolution has begun—and can't be reversed.
• When Obama took major executive actions and pushed to make fair pay and paid leave central to the political debate, to recognize them as economic issues and not solely gender equality issues, that was, obviously, about working people.
• Executive actions on overtime pay, payday lenders, crooked retirement brokers: working people.
• And when Obama pushed for the American Jobs Act, for immigration reform, for universal background checks, for universal pre-K and free community college and for minimum wage increases, and was blocked by Republicans, that was all for working people.

Obama wasn't perfect; with any president you can find shortcomings, and more people that could have or should have been helped; we owe it to those people to learn lessons and do better in the future. But I honestly believe he will be remembered as one of our greatest presidents, precisely because fighting for working people is literally what got him (and his staff) out of bed in the morning, what made him love and cherish the job up to the very last day. And the Democratic Party, which buckled down and sacrificed huge numbers of its members for the sake of insuring tens of millions of people, and which in vast majority stood strong to stop war in Iran, has been a party I can believe in as a vehicle for change, for all its warts. "

rest at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/1/20/1622772/-An-Obama-Staffer-s-Parting-Note-to-Progressives

Obamas seek public input on upcoming Presidential Center for Chicago https://goo.gl/kxuJsb

from http://chicago.curbed.com/2017/1/20/14337646/obama-presidential-center-foundation-chicago?utm_campaign=issue-51424&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Curbed+Chicago

"the Obamas launched a new website for the Obama Foundation and spoke to their plans to create a library and community center on Chicago's South Side. The splash page features a video of Barack and Michelle briefly describing their intentions and asking for input on the new Obama Presidential Center, stating that "this will be your presidential center just as much as it is ours.""

rest at http://chicago.curbed.com/2017/1/20/14337646/obama-presidential-center-foundation-chicago?utm_campaign=issue-51424&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Curbed+Chicago

President Obama Awards Vice President Biden Presidential Medal of Freedom

here http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/davidbadash/watch_president_obama_awards_vp_biden_highest_civilian_honor_the_presidential_medal_of_freedom?utm_campaign=td_01_12_17&utm_medium=email&utm_source=thenewcivilrightsmovement

Obama's legacy: eight years of not holding executives criminally responsible for their companies' misdeeds

from http://boingboing.net/2017/01/11/obamas-legacy-eight-years-o.html

"...Holder believes that jailing executives -- and exacting other forms of significant criminal justice against criminal corporations -- is fundamentally unjust, because of all the collateral damage to investors, employees and customers. Instead, Holder preferred to fine companies very large sums (but not so large that the companies were jeopardized), effectively turning criminal lawbreaking into a predictable line item, one of the costs of doing business. Meanwhile, the collateral damage from the jailing of poor people -- damage to their families and their communities -- was considered an unavoidable and tolerable result of a functional criminal justice system.

It's thanks to Holder than not one banking exec went to jail for the mass fraud that led to the collapse of the global economy in 2008 -- ironically, the Holder doctrine's rise coincides with the peak of extreme prison sentences for minor crimes -- as Matt Taibbi documents in his amazing book The Divide, which begins with two sentencing hearings, in the same building, on the same day: in the first, a man gets years in prison for possessing a small amount of marijuana; in the second, HSBC executives are allowed to walk free after being convicted of laundering literally billions of dollars for barbaric Mexican drug cartels -- despite having ordered the construction of wider teller-windows to accommodate the enormous sacks of cash that drug cartel bagmen brought into HSBC branches (that's not a metaphor -- that actually happened).

The Too-Big-To--Fail bankster is a creation of the Obama DoJ, and it's a significant contributor to the widespread perception that the "system is rigged," and the election of Donald Trump -- who knew exactly how rigged the system is, because he is a major beneficiary of that rigging.

Holder left the DoJ job in 2015 and started drawing a $3M/year salary as a finance exec; it was his successor, Loretta Lynch, who began jailing executives for ordering crimes. Her Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, author of the "Yates Memo," advocated for the zealous prosecution and jailing of executives, and the prosecution of VW executive, Oliver Schmidt, is a case study in how devastatingly effective the application of normal criminal justice procedures to big companies can be."

rest ta http://boingboing.net/2017/01/11/obamas-legacy-eight-years-o.html

Look back on the best White House photos of 2016

here http://boingboing.net/2017/01/03/look-back-on-the-best-white-ho.html