Our Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (or CFPB) wants to shield its database of over 1.4 million consumer complaints from public view. Because we're not trying to be a Yelp for the financial sector, says CFPB acting director Mick Mulvaney, but, ah, three things: one, the CFPB has used customer complaints to pursue major actions against wrongdoers, like Wells Fargo; two, academics use this database for research about the financial sector, and three, banksters who can't face public accountability over their misdeeds really don't deserve any customers anyway. Regarding Mr. Mulvaney's assertion that complaints go public before they're "fully-vetted": corporations get to respond to the complaint before it goes public. Regarding bankster whining that some complaints are too "general" to be useful: people know how to read. Hence Consumer Reports helps you tell the CFPB to keep its customer complaint database both active and public.
Meanwhile, HUD Secretary Ben Carson has proposed tripling minimum rents for the poorest folks who get federal housing, and though the numbers might not seem oppressive -- from $50 to $150 monthly -- I assure you they are oppressive for folks who have families and make minimum wage and have other bills to pay. And if you're ready to respond that these people already get plenty of other federal assistance, keep in mind that our current Administration is trying to cut all of that, too. You don't pick on the poorest working families in America, particularly after giving the richest Americans another massive welfare handout in the form of tax "reform." Would it be piling on to remind you that Mr. Carson spent over $30,000 on new office furniture for HUD in violation of federal law and then blamed his wife for it? Americans for Financial Reform helps you tell your Congressfolk to reject the HUD minimum rent hikes Mr. Carson has proposed.
Finally, our Department of the Interior would like to overturn its ban on cruel wildlife killing methods in Alaskan National Park preserves. If that sounds a little esoteric to you, consider some of the things you can't do in these preserves that our new Interior Department would allow you to do: kill wolf pups and bear cubs in their own dens, using donuts and bacon to lure bears out to be shot, and shining super-bright spotlights on bears and cubs hibernating in their dens in order to shoot them. Our Interior Department Secretary loves talking about the importance of hunting in our culture, but I'd be hard-pressed to imagine actual hunters finding any of the things I've described above to be sporting. Killing animals and their children while they're sleeping seems, in fact, rather the kind of thing wannabe genocidal maniacs contemplate. So MoveOn helps you tell our Interior Department to stop its pro-animal cruelty rule-making process.
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