National News: The Appropriations Bill
Republicans in the House inserted a poison pill into the Appropriations Bill written almost entirely by CityBank and gutting the Dodd-Frank financial reforms.
In 2008 taxpayers were forced to bail out the Wall Street banks during the worst economic crash since the Great Depression because banks had been gambling on derivatives and securitized loans with FDIC insured deposits. Letting the banks go belly up would have wiped out the taxpayer-insured deposits.
This came about from the repeal of Glass-Steagall. Glass Steagall (implemented after the Great Depression) required investment (gambler) banks to be separate from banks which took deposits. Dodd-Frank partially restored this rule in that it required banks to use funds other than deposits to finance their derivative gambles.
House Democrats managed to remove some of the noxious provisions of the CityBank poison pill but the ability of banks to continue gambling with tax-payer insured deposits was still in the bill when it passed. This is the proximate cause of the taxpayer bailout of Wall Street banks and sets us up for another crash and bailout.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren led the insurrection with a speech on the Senate floor, calling the $1.01 trillion spending bill “the worst of government for the rich and powerful.” and Progressive Change Campaign Committee members made 50,000 calls to congresspeople asking them not to pass the bill as long as this risky provision remained.
The bill is now in the Senate and it appears that Democrats are more worried about the threat to shut down the government than they are the threat that Wall Street could once again torpedo the economy.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest signaled that President Obama would sign the appropriations bill even with the poison pill.
“I don’t think the vast majority of Democrats or even Republicans are going to look too kindly on a Congress that’s ready to go back and start doing the bidding of Wall Street interests again,” Earnest said. But he later added: “We certainly don’t want to see a government shutdown.”
The GOP has inserted another goody for the 1%: a wealthy couple could give as much as $3.1 million to political parties, three times the current limit.
Elizabeth Warren blasted the derivative gambling provisions saying that if Congress passes the appropriations bill with these intact
“then we’ve simply confirmed the view of the American people that the system is rigged. “This is a democracy and the American people didn’t elect us to stand up for CitiGroup. They elected us to stand up for all the people”
National News: Torture…er….”Enhanced Interrogation”
In an amazing move that only happened once before after the CIA gave false information on Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, the CIA Director John Brennen gave a press conference defending the agency’s use of torture under Bush. This is in response to the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on torture, revealing…you guessed…the CIA lied about the nature and extent of the torture. After much questioning he backed off on his assertion that it produced useful information. But this circumvents the problem. The international prohibition of torture is absolute. People who torture are war criminals regardless of whether they produced any intelligence.
The news media continues to use the term “enhance interrogation” as if calling it something else (doublespeak straight out of 1984) will somehow remove the stigma of war crime and violation of the United Nations Convention Against Torture from the CIA’s actions. And their emphasis on discussing whether torture produced good intelligence distracts from the question: “Why aren’t those involved with torturing brought to trial?”
Hawaii: EPA opens investigations into Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company (HC&S)
For decades Maui residents have objected to the choking smoke and ash that falls on their homes, schools and businesses from the 240 days per year sugar cane burning by HC&S (a division of Alexander & Baldwin). The last sugar plantation left operating in Hawaii appears to keep itself alive by burning coal at their mill and selling electricity to Maui Electric Company. In 2014 there were over 1,000 complaints made to the Department of Health which grants HC&S their burn permit. According to former Gov Abercrombie, smoke complaints form the highest category of complaints his administration received…which makes one wonder why he did nothing about the problem.
The situation has been aggravated because A&B which is primarily a property development company has converted cane fields to subdivisions surrounding its active farming. Thus homeowners whose houses back up to fields are innundated with smoke and over-sprayed with herbicides including Ametryn, Pendimethalin, Diuron, Hexazinone , Dicamba, and 2,4-D.
Trades have become lighter and less frequent and most burn plumes – even those by Paia, eventually collapse on Kihei, one of the fastest growing towns in Hawai’i. With the addition of Vog from the Big Island eruption, Kihei is hit with a double whammy on Kona wind days.
On Wednesday, December 10th, those frustrated with the state’s lack in protecting health held a sign waving in Kahului. More cane burning sign waves are planned for Kihei in an attempt to pressure the Department of Health to start actively enforcing bans on smoke entering people’s homes and businesses.
Meanwhile the EPA appears to be dissatisfied by the Dept of Health’s poor job in protecting air quality and has opened investigations into both the coal operation at the mill and the cane burning.