House Republicans introduce bill that would repeal the Dodd-Frank financial services reform law. This bill would repeal the Volcker Rule, which aims to prevent banks from engaging in risky financial speculation, and that should be disgustingly easy for Democrats to slam in campaign ads -- just show a bankster taking grandma's savings and blowing it at a casino, then show grandma losing her home, and say Republicans support this sort of thing. And they've actually called this monstrosity of a bill the Financial CHOICE Act -- forget that CHOICE is an acronym and ask yourself: are we going to have a "choice" about whether banksters shit on us or not? When I get action alerts, you'll get action alerts.
FAIR's Adam Johnson notes the irony of the "liberal" media asking Larry Summers, the "architect of the last recession," for his take on whether Donald Trump's election would create another one. You remember Larry Summers's greatest hits, right? Derivatives deregulation! Glass-Steagall repeal! Plus, I would add, his "advice" that we don't really need a financial transaction tax (a.k.a. the "Robin Hood tax" or "Wall Street sales tax") and his desperate shilling for "free" trade, including a lot of booga-booga about China. And another thing: should it really be "news" that someone opposes Donald Trump, like that's such a high moral bar to clear?
Adam Popescu, writing at The Guardian, profiles Cody Wilson, the "the face of open-source 3D gun design," who has sued our government for stopping him from selling gun blueprints over the internet. Mr. Wilson's arrogance is Trumpian ("I have developers for anything and everything, some of the best talent in the world. I know some of the world’s best hackers" yadda yadda yadda), but I hope he wins his case -- yes, these blueprints will be used to make guns, but guns are legal and their blueprints are legal, and if we taxed the rich as hard as we should, and used that tax revenue to provide real economic opportunity for Americans, we wouldn't be worrying about how much Cody Wilson might be contributing to gun violence.
Now Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is suggesting that prominent Republicans ought to rescind their endorsements of Donald Trump for President, since Mr. Trump has continued to bash the Mexican-American judge who's hearing the Trump University suit. But you may recall that not long ago Mr. Graham was privately telling Republicans to support Mr. Trump financially, in the name of party unity; the idea that Mr. Trump's continued bashing of Judge Curiel represents a sort of rubicon doesn't wash -- it may be hard to tell exactly how Mr. Trump is going to embarrass himself and his country next, but anyone with half a brain knows he's going to. So, no, I don't exactly trust Lindsey Graham's good intentions here.
Finally, John Oliver, star of HBO's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, buys up nearly $15 million in medical debt for a mere $60,000 and forgives it on his show. He's not the first to do it (cf. Rolling Jubilee), but comparing himself to Oprah Winfrey assures that debt forgiveness and regulatory oversight will get a lot more attention than they've received thus far, and that's how you leverage mass media to do good works.
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