Thursday, October 4, 2012
Rosa Linda Mexican Cafe Receives Death Threats For Refusing Mitt Romney Visit
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/politics/2012-election/rosa-linda-mexican-cafe-receives-death-threats-refusing-mitt-romney-visit
The owners of Rosa Linda Mexican Cafe in Denver, Colorado have received death threats, hate calls and fake orders, all because they refused to allow Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney to make campaign stop.
The son of the owners, Oscar Aguirre, told told KMGH-TV New Media Producer Wayne Harrison: "One person who called said, 'Watch your back. We know where live and we're going after you. We just didn't want our business used as a campaign stop."
"We did say 'no' because we are not Republicans, nor are we Democrats. We will welcome any sitting President of the United States. But, we did not want to be a campaign stop."
Aguirre added: "Two people ordered $150 worth of food for lunch to be picked up today. They called later and said, 'Oh, you're the one who doesn't want Romney in your business' and they canceled their orders, even though the food had been prepared."
Aguirre said the fury began after an article in the Denver Westword reported that their mother had refused the Romney campaign's offer because "religion and politics don't mix."
.@limbaugh fat white sex addicted plutocrat calls POTUS an “affirmative action” hire #p2 #tcot
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/10/02/limbaugh-sides-with-george-will-and-calls-obama-an-affirmative-action-hire/
Reacting to a Washington Post op-ed published Tuesday by conservative columnist George Will, Republican shock jock Rush Limbaugh told his listeners that he just might have a point about "Obama being an affirmative action hire."
Will's column sparked a torrent of controversy because he suggested that Americans "seem especially reluctant to give up on the first African American president," implying that Obama's seeming political success is due to his race.
"He might have a point," Limbaugh said on his Tuesday show. "There might be some people with some guilt. 'We gotta give the guy a second chance!'… I still found it an interesting thing to consider."
Suggesting that Obama came into his current job through "affirmative action" is an clearly racial line of attack, the likes of which Limbaugh has launched against Obama for years. He's previously labeled the Harvard graduate and former U.S. Senator a "halfrican American" and an "affirmative action candidate." The Republican talker even once played a song on his show titled, "Barack the Magic Negro," set to the tune of "Puff the Magic Dragon."
Obama won the 2008 presidential election by a wide margin that included 43 percent of white votes — the most of any Democratic president since Jimmy Carter.
This audio is from "The Rush Limbaugh Show," broadcast Tuesday, October 2, 2012, as snipped by Media Matters.
Mitt Romney—he is a liar who is trying to take us back to the policies of George W. Bush
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/04/1140008/-Lying-liar-Romney-s-lies-about-his-tax-plan
Last night, Mitt Romney lied so much it is hard to know where to begin. I'll stick to his lies about his tax proposals. Romney said:
One is an idiot. The other is a liar. But they both have the same policies.
I don't have a $5 trillion tax cut. I don't have a tax cut of a scale that you're talking about.A bald-faced lie. The non-partisan and respected Tax Policy Center (PDF) has calculated the cost of Romney's tax cut proposal—yep, $5 trillion.
Romney said, "I've said is I won't put in place a tax cut that adds to the deficit." So where is the money going to come from to pay for Romney's $5 trillion tax cut? Romney said:
I want to bring down the rates down, at the same time lower deductions and exemptions and credits and so forth so we keep getting the revenue we need.But there are not enough "deductions and exemptions" available for cutting to make up for the $5 trillion tax cuts Romney is proposing. Unless, of course, you are going to raise taxes on most Americans. So Romney is either lying about not increasing the deficit or he is lying about not raising taxes on ordinary Americans. Again, the the respected non-partisan Tax Policy Center explained (PDF):
[I]f tax expenditures were completely eliminated for households above $200,000 and reduced across-the-board by 58 percent for taxpayers below $200,000 then taxpayers with children who make less than $200,000 would pay, on average, $2,000 more in taxes [under the Romney plan.]Romney is lying. As President Obama said:
[T]he fact is that if you are lowering the rates the way you [Romney] describe, Governor, then it is not possible to come up with enough deductions and loopholes that only affect high-income individuals to avoid either raising the deficit or burdening the middle class. It's -- it's math. It's arithmetic.But arithmetic has a liberal bias. Unskew the math!
Romney also lied about not giving huge record breaking tax cuts for the rich. Romney said, "I'm not going to reduce the share of taxes paid by high-income people." Bzzzt! Caught in a lie again. The Tax Policy Center calculated that under the Romney plan, even assuming elimination of all deductions and exemptions, under the Romney tax plan, the top 0.1 percent would see an average tax cut of $246,652. Now that may seem like nothing to a man of Romney's immense wealth, but in the world the rest of us inhabit, that is a huge tax cut.
Finally, Romney said, "[M]y plan is not like anything that's been tried before." Uh, what? It's exactly what George W. Bush DID before, only worse. As Derek Thompson explained, the Romney tax plan is the Bush tax plan on steroids. And it is not just tax policy. Ezra Klein deftly explained that everything Mitt Romney is proposing has been tried before, by George W. Bush, and failed:
Lower taxes, fewer regulations, more domestic energy production, promises of deficit reduction that are quickly overwhelmed by increased defense spending and reduced tax revenues, and glossy rhetoric about economic freedom pretty much defined the Bush administration's economic policy. And how did that economic policy work out? It was a disaster.George W. Bush was an idiot. Mitt Romney is a bald-faced liar. About everything. It's that simple. And his lying is a tactic to take the country back to the disastrous policies of the worst president of the last hundred years, George W. Bush. For all the flak the president has received for his debate performance last night, his answer on this was absolutely correct:
I think math, common sense and our history shows us that's not a recipe for job growth. Look, we've tried this -- we've tried both approaches. The approach that Governor Romney's talking about is the same sales pitch that was made in 2001 and 2003. And we ended up with the slowest job growth in 50 years. We ended up moving from surplus to deficits. And it all culminated in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Bill Clinton tried the approach that I'm talking about. We created 23 million new jobs. We went from deficit to surplus, and businesses did very well.That's why Mitt Romney is lying. He is trying to sell the failed Republican policies of George W. Bush against the successful Democratic policies of Bill Clinton. If he told the truth, he'd be run out of the country on a rail.
The country needs to know the truth about Mitt Romney—he is a liar who is trying to take us back to the policies of George W. Bush. The country can not afford Mitt Romney's lies.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Romney campaign has a train wreck of an excuse ready for losing the debate
This may be the lamest attempt ever to lower expectations ahead of a debate:
But Romney got virtually no sleep Monday night, an aide said, blaming a freight train that passed through a grade crossing near the hotel and blew it horn roughly every hour all through the night. The candidate's sleep deprivation so worried his staff that the campaign looked into switching hotels. The logistics were ultimately too tough, the aide said, and there was concern about how it would look.Seriously? If Romney goes out tonight and says something stupid (think $10,000 bets or "for Pete's sake"), it's because of a freight train? What, was it too much trouble to upgrade from Motel 6? Or spring for a pair of earplugs? Pathetic.
And cue the right-wing conspiracy that President Obama sent those trains through—in fact, consider this a preview of tomorrow's Rush Limbaugh show.
Romney to outsourced workers: Drop dead
FREEPORT, Ill. - Workers at the "Bainport" encampment outside the Sensata Technologies plant here are in Day 22 of their civil disobedience protest against the outsourcing of their jobs.
They want Mitt Romney to know, they say, that they will be watching closely everything he says during the presidential debate tonight. It has been months since they sent their first pleas to Romney to come to Freeport and stop the outsourcing of their jobs. They note that Romney continues to profit today from Bain investments in Sensata and from the scheduled December, 2012 outsourcing of their jobs.
Romney's response to the workers after repeated requests: silence
"We're camped out her 24/7," said 33-year plant veteran, Tom Gaulrapp.
The struggle reached a high point yesterday when trucks arrived at the plant to begin removal of machjnery from the plant.
"We saw them bringing in those trucks," said Gaulrapp. "We blocked them and stopped them for quite a while."
The workers complied when police arrived to escort the trucks out of the plant but vow to remain and repeat their efforts when the next trucks arrive. "We will do whatever we have to at this point," said Gaulrapp.
"That machinery is not just a pile of plastic and metal," he explained. "We have worked on and with those machines for many years, adjusting, taking car of them and using them to make equipment that keeps people safe." (The plant makes sensors for automobiles.)
"Your family, your friends, your pets, your hands, the machinery you use to create what you create - it's all part of who and what we are. We're not about to see that all carried out the door by some greedy investment company.
How Romney Uses Bad Math To Falsely Claim Obama Will Raise Middle Class Taxes
Ahead of tonight's debate, Mitt Romney and other Republicans have busted out a new talking point on the national debt and taxes, arguing that a new study from the American Enterprise Institute shows that President Obama's policies would make it necessary to raise taxes by $2,400 on middle class families in order to service the debt that will be accrued over the next decade. Adding in the debt from the past four years would push that number up to $4,000 a year, according to the report.
The first problem with Romney's talking point, of course, is that much of the debt accrued over the past four years is due to tax cuts, wars, and a recession that weren't "Obama's policies."
The real problem, though, is that Romney and AEI's Jim Pethokoukis, who originally pushed the report in a blog post yesterday, have their math wrong on the debt that will be accrued over the next 10 years, as the following two charts from the report illustrate. The first, Table 5, details the amount of each person's taxes that would go toward debt reduction under current policy — that is, all of the policies, including the full Bush tax cuts, current spending levels, and all war spending. Pethokoukis left this chart out of his post, but it's the one that debunks his entire theory. Under current policy, each person in the $100,000 to $200,000 bracket Romney cites would pay $3,742.62 out of their taxes to service the debt:
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
these @gop loons are sick: Todd Akin: Employers Should Be Allowed To Pay Women Less Than Men Because Of 'Freedom' #p2 #tcot
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/01/todd-akin-women-pay_n_1928534.html
Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.), the Senate candidate that drew criticism in August after making the inaccurate claim that the victims of "legitimate rape" can force their bodies to avoid pregnancy, also believes it's fair for employers to pay women less than men.
"I believe in free enterprise. I don't think the government should be telling people what you pay and what you don't pay," Akin said at a town hall meeting on Thursday. The comment came in response to a question about Akin's decision to vote against the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, which has made it it easier for women to challenge unequal pay.
"I think it's about freedom," Akin added. "If somebody wants to hire somebody and they agree on a salary, that's fine, however it wants to work. So, the government sticking its nose into all kinds of things has gotten us into huge trouble."
Closing the female pay gap has proved difficult in recent decades. In the second quarter of 2012, the median female worker's earnings amounted to just 80 percent of the median male worker's earnings, according to the Labor Department, not much more than the 75 percent they earned in 1989, according to a separate study.
Bear Stearns E-Mails: Executive Calls Mortgage Bonds "Dog," "Shit Breather," "Sack Of Shit" #p2 #tcot
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/01/bear-stearns-mortgage-bond-emails_n_1930731.html
"Piece of shit," you've been replaced by "shit breather" in the lexicon of dumb Wall Street emails. Because if there's a Wall Street scandal, you can bet there are some dumb emails involved.
The latest example is brought to you by the lawsuit New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed Monday evening against Bear Stearns (via JPMorgan Chase & Co., which purchased Bear during the crisis) alleging it knowingly stuffed mortgage-backed securities full of subprime garbage and then foisted them on unsuspecting investors.
Sure enough, there are emails. The AG's complaint says it has a bunch of emails showing how Bear Stearns employees and executives, even, were well aware of how ugly the loans they were stuffing into mortgage bonds were:
For example, according to a June 2006 internal Bear Stearns email, almost 60% of AHM loans that were purchased through the conduit were 30 or more days delinquent. After learning this information, Defendants went on to issue over 30 subprime and Alt-A securitizations that included AHM loans. ...Other internal communications reflect Defendants' awareness of the bad quality of loans that were being included in other securitizations.
In connection with the Bear Stearns Second Lien Trust 2007-1 ("BSSLT 2007-1") securitization, for example, one Bear Stearns executive asked whether the securitization was a "going out of business sale" and expressed a desire to "close this dog." In another internal email, the SACO 2006-8 securitization was referred to as a "SACK OF SHIT" and a "shit breather."
bankster says: Lloyd Blankfein: Dodd-Frank Reforms May 'Turn Out To Be Inadequate' #p2 #tcot
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/02/lloyd-blankfein-dodd-frank_n_1932453.html
Even Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein says there's a possibility some new financial rules may not be tough enough.
"A lot of the reforms contained in Dodd-Frank look good to me, and some of them look excessive, and some of them may even turn out to be inadequate," Blankfein saidin an interview with Marketplace on Tuesday.
He added that since the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 itself is so "skeletal," and because regulators have yet to finish implementing the rules, it's difficult to "make a judgment yet whether it's too much or not enough because we don't really know what it is."
Such a statement by a major Wall Street CEO surprises, given banks last year alone spent $61 million on political lobbying, largely to water down the rules, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. It is unclear how much Goldman Sachs spent on political lobbying last year, since the company is not listed in the Center for Responsive Politics' list of banks whose lobbying expenditures it examined.
Blankfein has been notably open to financial reform since the crisis. He said in Julythat he would not eliminate Dodd-Frank even if he could, according to The New York Times. "The vast bulk of it is good," he said, while adding that "some parts go too far."
Some critics have argued that Dodd-Frank does not adequately address the issue of too-big-to-fail banks. In the future, they say, banks may continue to receive government bailouts in times of panic.
Blankfein, who served as Goldman's CEO when it received federal bailout money in 2008, did not directly answer a question from Marketplace about specific Dodd-Frank criticisms, but did say too much regulation can constrain the economy.
wtf? More Than 2,000 Millionaires Received Unemployment Benefits In 2009 #p2 #tcot @drudgereport
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/02/millionaires-unemployment-benefits_n_1931837.html?utm_campaign=100212&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Alert-business&utm_content=FullStory
More than 2,000 people with household incomes of over $1 million per year received unemployment benefits in 2009, according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service.
Congressional Republicans have seized on the data, calling for an end to unemployment benefits for millionaires as a means of reducing the national debt, Bloomberg reports. They made a similar proposal last year.
But the 2,362 millionaires received a total of $20.8 million in unemployment benefits in 2009, accounting for just 0.02 percent of all unemployment benefit income and representing 0.02 percent of all recipients, according to the Congressional Research Service's report. Eliminating unemployment benefits for millionaires would do almost nothing to decrease the $1 trillion federal budget deficit.
Economists say that jobless benefits are important to give the recently unemployed enough time to find jobs that match their skills and experience. And in fact, unemployment benefits go mostly to people who are less than wealthy. More than nine in 10 unemployment benefit recipients in 2009 lived in households making less than $100,000 per year, according to the Congressional Research Service's report. These recipients received 90 percent of all unemployment benefit income in 2009.
Meanwhile, wealthy Americans receive a slew of other forms of assistance that Republican lawmakers are seeking to protect. For example, the capital gains tax rate is just 15 percent, less than half of the top income tax rate of 35 percent. As a result, many middle-class workers are taxed at a far higher rate than millionaires and billionaires receiving passive income from their investments.
In addition, the Bush-era tax cuts, which predominantly help the rich, would cost the U.S. nearly $1 trillion in revenue over the next decade if extended, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Overall, the U.S. tax system is not very progressive: The top 1 percent pays a total tax rate of 29 percent, while the middle 20 percent pays a total tax rate of 25 percent, according to Citizens for Tax Justice.
Republican politicians have proposed maintaining these low tax rates for the rich, including extending all of the Bush-era tax cuts. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has proposed further cutting taxes on investment income and eliminating the estate tax, which would disproportionately benefit the wealthy.
Congressman Steve Buyer, R-Ind Who Compared Cigarettes to Smoking Lettuce Becomes Lobbyist for R.J. Reynolds #p2 #tcot @gop
http://www.propublica.org/article/congressman-who-compared-cigarettes-lettuce-becomes-rj-reynolds-lobbyist
A former 18-year member of Congress who was a longtime friend of the tobacco industry while in office has become a paid consultant and registered lobbyist for tobacco giantReynolds American.
Steve Buyer, a Republican congressman from Indiana from 1993 to 2011, had been the beneficiary of over $100,000 in Reynoldsdonations over the years and pushed the company's legislative goals.
In 2009, he gave a famously colorful speechon the House floor endorsing smokeless tobacco: "You could have smoked that lettuce and you still end up with the same problems. You could cut the grass in your yard, dry it, and roll it up in a cigarette, and smoke it — and you're still going to have a lot of problems," he said. "It is the smoke that kills, not the nicotine."
Buyer revealed the new job for Reynolds American in little-noticed testimony Sept.19 before the Indiana General Assembly's Health Finance Commission. A federal disclosurefiling shows that Buyer and his former chief of staff, Mike Copher, registered to lobby for a Reynolds American subsidiary called RAI Services as of the beginning of September. (Buyer became a lobbyist immediately after leaving Congress in 2011, with a health care company his first client.)
At the Indiana hearing, Buyer said he is working as "an advocate of Harm Reduction Strategies" for Reynolds American, according to his prepared remarks.
"To be an agent of change you can do it from the outside and attack tobacco manufacturers like many anti-tobacco organizations do or you can do it from the inside," he said. "I have chosen to be an agent of change from the inside."
Buyer argued that the public is being "misinformed by the public health community about risks presented by tobacco in its various forms." He disputed statements by the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that smokeless tobacco — which include chewing tobacco and snuff — is not a safe alternative to smoking cigarettes. The CDC says smokeless tobacco products "can cause cancer, oral health problems, and nicotine addiction."
Messages to Buyer's lobbying firm, where Copher is now a partner, were not returned. Reynolds American declined to comment.
In the face of declining U.S. cigarette consumption rates, Reynolds American has beenaggressively marketing smokeless tobacco products such as its Grizzly and Kodiak snuff lines.
Buyer has long been an advocate of smokeless tobacco and an ally of Reynolds American.
The company gave $132,500 overall to Buyer's campaign committee, political action committee, and private foundation between 1997 and 2009, public filings show. More than $80,000 of that came Buyer's way in 2008-9 when proposed stricter tobacco regulations were before Congress and had to make it through the Energy and Commerce health subcommittee, on which Buyer sat.
Monday, October 1, 2012
.@AmericanExpress American Express Will Refund Some Consumers Because of Illegal Practices
http://www.consumerfinance.gov/pressreleases/cfpb-orders-american-express-to-pay-85-million-refund-to-consumers-harmed-by-illegal-credit-card-practices/
CFPB orders American Express to pay $85 million refund to consumers harmed by illegal credit card practices
Federal Regulators Fine American Express an Additional $27.5 Million
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) today announced an enforcement action with orders requiring three American Express subsidiaries to refund an estimated $85 million to approximately 250,000 customers for illegal card practices. This action is the result of a multi-part federal investigation which found that at every stage of the consumer experience, from marketing to enrollment to payment to debt collection, American Express violated consumer protection laws.
"Several American Express companies violated consumer protection laws and those laws were violated at all stages of the game – from the moment a consumer shopped for a card to the moment the consumer got a phone call about long overdue debt," said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. "Today's orders require the American Express companies to fully refund about $85 million to consumers and it requires them to make specific changes in their business practices. The American Express companies will identify the harmed customers, notify them, and make sure they get back their money."
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) together with the Utah Department of Financial Institutions discovered the illegal activities during a routine examination of an American Express subsidiary, the American Express Centurion Bank. The FDIC transferred portions of the investigation to the CFPB when the Bureau opened its doors last year and together the agencies pursued the matter. The CFPB later concluded that many of the same violations that occurred at American Express Centurion Bank also took place at American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. and American Express Bank, FSB.
The investigations found that the violations occurred at various points in time between 2003 and spring 2012. They occurred at every stage of the consumer experience, from shopping for cards, to applying for cards, to paying charges, and to paying off debt. More specifically, American Express subsidiaries:
- Deceived consumers who signed up for the American Express "Blue Sky" credit card program: Consumers were sometimes led to believe they would receive $300 in addition to bonus points if they signed up for this American Express Centurion Bank program. But consumers who met the qualifications did not receive the $300. This violates federal laws prohibiting deceptive practices.
- Charged unlawful late fees: American Express Centurion Bank and American Express Bank, FSB billed late fees on certain cards based on a percentage of the debt in violation of the Credit CARD Act.
- Unlawfully discriminated against new account applicants on the basis of age: American Express Centurion Bank used a credit scoring system that treated charge card applicants differently on the basis of age. For a period of time, the bank did not fully implement the system for applicants over the age of 35. This violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act because it requires credit scoring systems that take age into account to be properly designed and implemented.
- Failed to report consumer disputes to consumer reporting agencies: American Express Centurion Bank and American Express Bank, FSB failed to report the existence of certain customer disputes to credit bureaus, which is a violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
- Misled consumers about debt collection: All three of the American Express subsidiaries deceived consumers into believing there were certain benefits to paying off old debt. Consumers were wrongly told that if they paid off the old debt, the payment would be reported to credit bureaus and could improve their credit scores. In fact, American Express was not reporting the payments and the debts were so old that even if they had tried to report them, many of the payments would not have appeared on these consumers' credit reports or affected their credit scores. American Express also told some consumers that a portion of their debt would be waived or forgiven if they accepted certain settlement offers. But for customers who applied for a new American Express card, the company was not really forgiving or waiving the debt.
Enforcement Action
In accordance with the orders issued today, the American Express subsidiaries have agreed to correct their practices and refund consumers who were harmed by the illegal practices. Specifically, they have agreed to the following:
- End the illegal practices: American Express Centurion Bank will not deceive consumers with marketing for the Blue Sky credit card, or any other card, by falsely promising a rebate or points feature. The banking subsidiaries will not charge illegal late fees. They will properly report disputes to credit bureaus and will make sure that cardholders are told about their rights regarding such disputes. American Express Centurion Bank will not unlawfully discriminate based on age when it comes to credit decisions, and it will be required to certify that all qualified consumers who suffered unlawful age discrimination were given an opportunity to reapply for credit.
- Full repayment of an estimated $85 million to approximately 250,000 consumers: These American Express entities will be paying their customers full restitution, specifically:
- Consumers who were misled into paying old debt because they thought it would be reported to the credit bureaus will be reimbursed the money they paid plus interest.
- Consumers who were promised their debt would be forgiven and who were denied new credit cards because the debt was not really forgiven, will receive $100 and a pre-approved offer for a new card with terms the CFPB and the FDIC find acceptable. If the consumer already paid the waived or forgiven amount in order to get a new card, they will be refunded that amount plus interest.
- Blue Sky customers who were promised $300 for signing up will get their $300.
- Consumers who paid an illegal late fee will be reimbursed, with interest.
- Convenient repayment for consumers: These American Express companies are responsible for notifying the affected consumers. Consumers are not required to take any action to receive their credit or check. If the consumers are still American Express customers, they will see a credit in their account. If they no longer have a card account with American Express, they will receive a check in the mail. American Express expects that consumers who will be receiving payment will receive the payout by no later than March 15, 2013.
- Inform consumers of debt collection rights: These American Express subsidiaries will inform consumers when the debt they are seeking to collect will not be reported to a consumer reporting agency because it is too old. And they will not collect debt unless it has documentation evidencing the debt. Going forward, this will include, at a minimum, the complete terms and conditions of the account and a complete transactional history of the debt.
- Independent audit: These American Express subsidiaries will implement new procedures to ensure compliance with consumer financial protection laws. They will also use independent auditors to ensure compliance with the terms of today's orders.
- Pay civil monetary penalty of $27.5 million: Several federal government agencies seeking action against these American Express companies have ordered monetary penalties. With jurisdiction over the three subsidiaries, the CFPB's fine is $14.1 million; with jurisdiction solely over American Express Centurion Bank, the FDIC's fine is $3.9 million; with jurisdiction over American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. and American Express Company, the parent company, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System's fine is $9 million; and with jurisdiction over American Express Bank, FSB, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's fine is $500,000.
More information for American Express customers who think they may be victims.
The full text of the American Express Centurion Bank Consent Order is at: http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/2012-CFPB-0002-American-Express-Centurion-Consent-Order.pdf
The full text of the American Express Centurion Bank Stipulation is at: http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/2012-CFPB-0002-American-Express-Centurion-Bank-Stipulation.pdf
The full text of the American Express Bank, FSB Consent Order is at: http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/2012-CFPB-0003-American-Express-Bank-FSB-Consent-Order.pdf
The full text of the American Express Bank, FSB Stipulation is at: http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/2012-CFPB-0003-American-Express-Bank-FSB-Stipulation-with-e-signatures.pdf
The full text of the American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. Consent Order is at:http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/2012-CFPB-0004-American-Express-Travel-Related-Services-Company-Inc.-Consent-Order.pdf
The full text of the American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. Stipulation is at: http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/2012-CFPB-0004-American-Express-Travel-Related-Services-Company-Inc.-Stipulation-with-e-signatures.pdf
A factsheet on the Consent Orders and Stipulations is available at:http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201210_cfpb_AmEx_Enforcement_Factsheet.pdf
.@gop There is finally real evidence of voter fraud and the Republicans, all of a sudden, aren't interested #p2 #tcot @drudgereport
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/10/01/935451/florida-congressman-demands-bipartisan-investigation-of-gop-voter-registration-fraud-scandal/
In the wake of revelations that Strategic Allied Consulting, a controversial voter registration firm that has worked for the Republican National Committee, the Florida Republican Party, and the Romney campaign, is under investigation for turning in fraudulent voter registration forms in Florida, a Florida Congressman is calling for a bipartisan probe.
Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) wrote Monday in a letter to Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R):
In light of the large and apparently growing voter fraud scandal engulfing the Republican Party of Florida, I urge you to immediately appoint a bipartisan task force to investigate the accusations and ensure that the integrity of our voting rolls will not be compromised by Strategic Allied Consulting's deliberately fraudulent voter registration operations. I also urge you to ensure that that false registrations submitted by Strategic Allied Consulting do not remain on our rolls, and that you immediately investigative whether any employees involved in this scandal are still working for the Republican Party to register voters in Florida.
Deutch observes that Scott's silence and inaction on the scandal, to date, are "shocking and hypocritical" in light of Scott's Ahab-like attempts to purge suspected non-citizen voters from the state's voting rolls.
Scott has expressed a great deal of concern about potential voter fraud in Florida elections — even though state records indicate show Floridians are more likely to be struck by lightningthan to commit voter fraud. But voter registration fraud apparently does exist in Florida.
Scott signed an unconstitutional 2011 suppression law which put major new restrictions on groups who work to register new voters, requiring third-party voter registration groups like Strategic Allied Consulting to turn in completed registration forms 48 hours — to the minute — after completion, or face fines.
Scott's communications office did not immediately have any comment on the letter or the scandal.
photo: DRAFT DODGER @MITTROMNEY professed love for Ann in france while Tet offensive occurred and US troops died - not fit to be POTUS #pt #tcot
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/09/30/op-ed-one-veterans-reasons-for-rejecting-romney-as-president/
While millions of young American men were slogging it out in the jungles of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos–doing their duty for their country–Mitt Romney was biking around France on a religious deferment, preaching the 'virtues of Mormonism' to French Catholics. While young, able-bodied men and women of Mitt's age were risking their lives in an unpopular war, Mitt was lounging on a beach, proclaiming his undying love for Ann, as memorialized in this photo:
In a rather cynical attempt to 'humanize' Mitt, the Republicans are promoting his love for Ann through 1968 beach photos taken in France, right about the time of the brutal Tet Offensive in Vietnam (photo seen above), as his countrymen were fighting and dying by the thousands. In promoting this story of a loving, passionate Mitt Romney, all they have done–in my mind–is merely tear off a festering scab, revealing a hypocritical young man of privilege. Yes, there are those on the right who will draw a comparison between President Bill Clinton and Mitt Romney, both of similar age during the Vietnam War, but neither of whom served.
The big distinction for me, however–as a Vietnam Veteran–is that Bill Clinton was openly opposed to the war, while Mitt was not! That's where the hypocrisy comes in. There were tens of thousands of draft-age men who avoided the draft for reasons of conscience, some who risked ridicule and even prison. Many left the country in protest.
Mitt was not among them. Instead, Romney demonstrated in support of the draft and the war! And yes, there are those on the right who will also question Barack Obama's lack of military service. Of course, we cannot know what he might have done because he was a young child during Vietnam and when last there was a military draft. I would note, however, that he did publicly oppose the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld misadventure in Iraq, so I must give him some credit for that.
Like other military hawks and Neo-conservatives in the Republican Party—Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, etc.—who should have served and didn't, Mitt Romney has embarked on the same cowardly path of advocating sending other people's children to war, while his own five, able-bodied sons get to enjoy their wealth and status. I am likewise appalled that Republican veterans and soldiers like George H.W. Bush and John McCain can even endorse such a man.
For me there are many, many reasons to oppose Mitt Romney. His contempt for the 47%, as revealed in the now infamous 'secret video.' His 'vulture capitalist' business background, leveraging companies with debt in order to reap enormous profits while throwing the employees to the wolves. His refusal to show America his tax returns while hiding his wealth in foreign tax-shelters. His insistence that lower taxes on investment income (and hereditary wealth) and higher rates on worker wages are actually fair! His plans to 'voucherize' Medicare and cut programs for the poor and middle-class, while growing the military-industrial complex. I'm sure I missed a few here, but you get the point.
Yet, as I stated originally, my distaste for Mitt Romney starts with the hypocrisy and lack of character he displayed as a young man. I am Romney's age (65). I enlisted in the Air force and volunteered to serve in Vietnam. I come from a family where service in time of war is seen as a duty and a badge of honor. Maybe I'm a bit old-fashioned in that regard; less than one percent of Americans now serve for the rest. Nevertheless, I see neither duty nor honor in Willard Mitt Romney. I see only craven self-interest and unashamed hypocrisy.
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