With national attention focused Tuesday morning on a mushrooming feud between President Donald Trump and Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., followed by a feud in the afternoon between Trump and Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., the Senate gift-wrapped the biggest present Congress has so far bestowed upon Wall Street in the Trump era.
With a razor-thin margin, the Senate passed a resolution to nullify a signature regulation from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which banned forced arbitration provisions. Such clauses, tucked into the fine print of contracts that nobody reads, deny consumers the ability to contest claims through a class-action lawsuit and can allow banks and other financial institutions to rip off their customers with virtual impunity.
Both Corker and Flake, along with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., joined in the effort to give Trump a major win, even if it will hurt many of their own voters. Consumer advocates had hoped that moderate Republicans Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine would block the GOP effort. They did not.
Only GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Kennedy of Louisiana bucked their party — but a no vote when the measure passes is not much of a bucking. In a sign of how far the Democratic Party has come in recent years, all 48 members of the Senate caucus voted to keep the arbitration rule.
The vote was split 50-50, which required Vice President Mike Pence to break the tie.
To secure his victory, Trump enlisted an ex-Wells Fargo attorney, Acting Comptroller of the Currency Keith Noreika, and a former bank CEO, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, to do the dirty work. The Senate vote came a day after the Treasury entered the fray with guns blazing.
The House passed its version of the resolution within just a couple weeks of the CFPB finalizing the rule in July. But continuing reports of petty consumer fraud at Wells Fargo and a data breach of over 140 million customer accounts at the credit reporting bureau Equifax made it difficult for the Senate to proceed. Both Wells Fargo and Equifax have attempted to use arbitration clauses in their financial contracts to force victims out of class-action litigation.
The scandals put a human face on the practice of companies forcing customer disputes through a secret, non-judicial process. Days before the vote, Americans for Financial Reform addressed this directly in a video featuring a woman with disabilities and a veteran, who were ripped off by Wells Fargo and then prevented from a day in court because of an arbitration clause.
To pursue such cases, which typically involve small amounts of money, through arbitration, victims need to spend heavily on legal representation and hearings. As federal Judge Richard Posner of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals once wrote in a ruling, “The realistic alternative to a class action is not 17 million individual suits, but zero individual suits, as only a lunatic or a fanatic sues for $30.”
And consumers typically don’t fare well in arbitration. An Economic Policy Institute report showed that consumers only win 9 percent of arbitration cases, and banks almost always win when they issue counterclaims, with the consumer paying $7,725 on average.
This is why corporations like the arbitration process — it prevents those wronged from pursuing their legal rights and, in practice, alters the law by making small claims virtually unenforceable. In other words, arbitration clauses are a license to steal. And it contributes to a fundamental breakdown of the justice system, in which complaints can only be heard in a privatized setting.
So in July, in a rare instance of the government using an outright ban instead of requiring disclosure or some other half-measure, the CFPB finished a rule preventing arbitration agreements in financial contracts from stopping consumers who band together with other victims in a class-action lawsuit. But Republicans managed to twist the issue into one in which corporations needed to be protected from greedy trial lawyers.
First, Noreika, a former defense lawyer for Wells Fargo who tried to push class-action suits into arbitration, argued the rule posed “safety and soundness” concerns for banks and would raise the cost of credit. Then this week, the Treasury Department, relying heavily on a discredited claim that plaintiff attorneys routinely shake down corporations with meritless claims, published a 17-page report attacking the CFPB rule.
The attacks from Trump’s executive agencies on a fellow regulator gave senators the cover they needed to side with Wells Fargo and Equifax over their customers. The Senate first tried to sneak in a vote on the resolution when the political world was distracted by the health care debate, but that didn’t work. It took shifting the framing of the rule from being about victims to being about trial lawyers for Senate Republicans to succeed.
Supporters of the CFPB rule, like Public Citizen’s Robert Weissman, called the vote a choice “between corporate donors and constituents.” Amanda Werner, who gained notoriety for dressing as the Monopoly Man during Senate hearings on Wells Fargo and Equifax, notes that lawmakers opposing the arbitration rule received over $100 million in campaign contributions from the financial industry during their careers. “These contributions help explain why lawmakers are willing to aid and abet big banks in ripping off their own constituents despite overwhelming bipartisan support for the rule,” Werner said in a statement to The Intercept.
Conservative groups, like the Heritage Foundation, made the resolution a “key vote” on its legislative scorecard, something Republicans pay a lot of attention to. That helped bring wavering senators on board.
The Chamber of Commerce and other financial lobbyists had joined together to sue the CFPB over the rule, but with the Senate’s successful vote, that will no longer be necessary. Trump is expected to sign the resolution. Not only would that nullify the arbitration rule, but the CFPB would be unable to work on any “substantially similar” regulation without express consent from Congress.
The Congressional Review Act, established in 1996, allows Congress to reverse regulations finalized by federal agencies with just a majority vote. This year, Congress has used CRA 14 times to kill rules completed during President Barack Obama’s tenure. This is the first resolution to kill a rule finalized in Trump’s term, albeit one from the CFPB, an independent agency that has retained its Obama-era director and senior leadership.
The vote was the first major conservative hit on the agency that was Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s brainchild. That appeared to be the unifying factor that enabled Republicans to side with Wells Fargo and Equifax. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., summed up the debate: “I know [Republicans] hate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau like the devil hates holy water.”
Capitalists have a tendency to get their own way until it puts them out of commission. Think of the British opium smugglers who fought two wars, eventually forcing China to legalize opium in a treaty … promptly putting them out of business in that country due to domestic competition and setting off the international war on drugs as a rear-guard action to prevent losing further markets.
Now that big corporations have won the right to cheat customers, there is a real chance they will cheat so many customers that people will stop doing business with them. Nobody needs a smart phone, nobody needs PayPal, nobody needs most of this crap they push. There’s a Dark Age on the way and we just got a little closer to it, but a consolation is that maybe it’s not all bad.
Yeah…Hillary would have been just as bad.
Keep telling yourselves this fools while tRump signs this piece of shit.
It’s Sen.Durbin (D) who warns DEMS not to be PROGRESSIVE, or they’ll lose elections.
Yet another stick in the eye of the American Public by the ultra-rich.
WHEN oh WHEN are we going to rise up and stick these ultra-rich assholes in the eye!
VOTE PROGRESSIVE EVERY TIME! NEVER vote for the lesser evil! Vote in ALL primaries for the most progressive choice on the ballot. If there are none running who are progressive, consider running yourself!
Once we are in political control, I say tax the ultra-rich out of existence! Cap all inheritance at some uncomfortably high level like, oh, $50M, and tie it to inflation so it won’t ever “need fixing” again. Tax capital gains as if it were ordinary income and have a top income tax bracket that takes, oh, 98% or so of income over some point – heck, maybe make it 99%!
This is something we must do. Anybody with me?!
Exactly. So perfectly well put. We cannot sit idly by.
The supposed “rift” is nothing more than well-orchestrated FedGov coreography.
FrankenTrump is hated for personal reasons, not policy
This story hightlights that the repulsion of FrankenTrump is purely personal and not based on policy. Congress is still following its normal discourse for creating policy, but it’s only when FrankenTrump attacks someone personally is when the objections and talk of either impeachment or 25th amendment is brought up.
The Republicans have spent years race-baiting, outright lying and denial of facts that has created FrankenTrump.
This hightlights what these two groups really find objectionable is his personal behavior and not other such policy items such as mass surveillance of the US population, starting the Iraq war based on lying to the American public, torture, the 2008 financial collapse or attacking civilians with drone strikes or any of the other myriad horrendous policy engaged in for the last 16 years. So, these events are somehow not debasing, yet, acting like a petulant child is and using Twitter for name-calling is what bothers them?
Can’t you understand that we can’t have debased people like Trump witnessing the debasement of democracy and of the citizens of this country? It’s not what we’re used to. Soaring rhetoric and scorecards tracking personal vendettas, however, are obviously allowed, because they take our minds off our wretchedness. We do have standards. I’m sorry to see that you can’t get on the wagon with the rest of us and show that you have “standards” also.
We’re already talking about the “next election”?? When, of course democracy “will be re-instated”? This is like some Pavlovian Experiment. Yeah right, go ahead and vote. Then complain about the “sinister goings on”. For the next four years and how our representatives don’t really represent us? Here’s the lesson: voting is like deciding which STD you’d like to have.
Don’t be an idiot.
We need good candidates to vote for, that is what this last cycle should have taught everyone. And to get good candidates, We, The People have to find them and fund them and prevent the ultra-rich from winning due to default (by The People not having anyone on the ballot to represent them).
And for heaven’s sake vote in EVERY primary as progressively as is possible.
We have to throw the bums out.
But no, you’d rather sit there and take it like a poor broken down old dog. … If you’re not helping the cause, you’re hurting it.
Let’s rewind to the 2000 Presidential election Art. Did you vote for Bush? Neither did a vast majority of voters. Yet he won. Fast forward to the 2016 election. Hillary. Or Trump. Perhaps we should vote the question is does it matter? Remember we can only vote for the choices we’re offered. We don’t make those choices the Democratice Party and the Republican Party tell us. Then..when we vote..lobbyists tell them what to do.
“But there is also something serious and consequential going on here, something that goes beyond the daily Twitter wars. Corker, liberated by his decision not to seek reëlection in 2018, is breaking the vow of pettifogging that most Republican leaders have adhered to in talking about this rogue President. He is a senior Republican speaking plain truths that no amount of vitriol from Trump and his supporters can obscure. And he is doing the country, and perhaps even the world, a service.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/bob-corkers-powerful-words-about-donald-trump
“no amount of vitriol from Trump” should be changed now to “… from Trump or his neo progressive apologists”.
“In a sign of how far the Democratic Party has come in recent years, all 48 members of the Senate caucus voted to keep the arbitration rule.”
What?
Who do you think CREATED the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? And whose rule was it that the GOP barely managed to override, with Pence as tie breaker?
Reading below makes me feel I’m in fog of past lives. It’s over folks Fascism wins. Flakes message was the last hurrah of the last republican. We are now a Fascist State ruled by the MIC or did you miss Kelley’s speech? Take a look at the New Yorker if you did.
A fascist state. Read all about it in The New Yorker. Does anyone else see how ridiculous the use of the word “fascist” is here? If you don’t, I suggest five minutes of reading the history of Germany in 1933.
I’ve spent a lot more than five minutes “reading the history of Germany in 1933″ and think Gilbert is not far from the mark. So why don’t you tell us “how ridiculous” his comment is. Use one syllable words please.
It’s readily apparent you don’t know what the word “fascism” means.
Here’s a suggestion – first made, that I know of, by (the real) Benito Mussolini: replace the word “fascism” with “corporatism”, and, of course, related forms of these words (eg fascistic = corporatistic, etc). Maybe then you’ll understand.
I suggest you read a dictionary
Fascism is the conflation or merger of state and business power, however achieved.
Racists / nationalist trappings are not required.
The USA is a fascistic state TODAY, unfortunately. Why just yesterday the Senate voted to remove the prohibition of using binding arbitration in financial services agreements…
At this point in our passage through this nightmare, it might be more productive to note the many parallels between what is happening here and what happened in Germany than to insist on 100% correspondence before characterizing it as fascism. Fascism is a common, not a proper, noun.
Always fun to see protesters at rallies protesting “fascism” waving communist flags. That level of ignorance of history isn’t even worthy of comment.
I suggest you read a dictionary.
Way to remember the forgotten man, Trump, and way to drain the swamp.
but no worries, you will be re-elected by the american idiocracy…..
But wait.. can this be true? I mean, I didn’t see anything about this on the TV news today.
(that was sarcasm).
When did I sign a contract with Equifax? Or any credit gathering group? I don’t recall anyone asking my permission to gather my information, nor myself agreeing to such action. So how am I barred from suing them?
I think its great that the retarded democratic party keeps the focus on nonsense like Russia and race baiting. Trump is doing great things for this country that is going beneath the radar and not being reported on because of all of the liberal nonsense.
Really? Name one “great thing” the fascist, russian operative tRump has done for this country. Just one.
Trump has helped to reinvigorate Twitter. They are even talking about doubling the strength of their platform, to 280 characters. In our lifetimes, we may even see 560 character Tweets.
You can’t argue with progress.
Especially in a nation of axiomatic geniuses. The bon mot is the atomic structure for our everyday language. With everyone being Jacque Joubert’s and La Rochefoucald’s, how can we be expected to be able to find Kansas on a map? Or not treat Christianity as the religious basis for a consumerist society?
Trump has destroyed two political dynasties and is full engaged in destroying his own, good, good. The raw “wealth” agenda and power grab in on full display, their emboldened not even hiding in plain sight, “Anna Rand” Ryan Speaker. The swing voters who want a different America, Constitutional Republic for ALL, will be looking for better 2020. It will be difficult to field a candidate less appealing than Trump but it is possible, it has been done. I hope a third centrist party develops for none now represent a Republic or its people. Some “radical” centrist policy could off set decade of inequality and sedition.
Trump is a lot of horrible things, but “russian operative” isn’t one of them.
All this hype over Russia is a ruse to keep the masses engaged in a new “cold war.” Don’t fall for it.
Stocks are up, economy is better, housing is up and unemployment down….very good news for people who aren’t inclined to victimhood status and blaming everyone else for their problems.
So, what you’re saying is; the ultra-rich are getting richer – what’s the problem?!
Attacks on our civil liberties, our natural landscapes, increases in taxation on middle and lower income people, reduced protections from predation by the ultra-rich – what’s not to like?!
-face-palm-
Yeah, some people just have no clue what their own self-interests are and actively applaud when they are shat upon. If you want to see a good example of someone like that, look in a mirror.
Nice personal attack there….you are not gonna get away with that “ultra-rich” oppressing everyone else BS that goes on non-stop on the website. Comparatively, f you are a wage-earner in the US making $10/hr, you are in the top 3% of all wage earners in the world. You are much better off than the other 97% of the world who really have it tough…that is if you ever got outside of this country and didn’t just read about the rest of the world from a textbook. There are plenty of people outside of this country that would GLADLY CHANGE PLACES WITH YOU!!!!! Its all a matter of perspective. I feel sorry for no one in this country that has a roof over their head, food every day and most likely a cell phone. A good economic climate makes it possible for people to move in and out of poverty, which is not possible in the majority of countries. Go cry some more. Get me a beer while youre at it.
Sorry, I’m not the type who says “thank you” to someone who’s robbing me, which is what you advocate.
It’s really pathetic for a non-ultra-rich person like you to defend the ultra-rich’s stealing from the rest of us.
BTW, if there were statistics kept for such things as the % of Americans who have spent time abroad and how much time that is, I’m sure to be among those most well traveled, having spent over 4. 5 years visiting so many countries I’ve lost count. Virtually all of the first-world countries have higher standards of living than those in the USA, and you want to shout “USA! USA! USA! for being at the bottom of the heap of first-world countries. Pathetic.
Sounds like you have some very deep-seated anger issues against the USA…I’m glad you are at least honest about it and not trying to hide it. Like I said earlier…..THERE ARE LITERALLY BILLIONS WHO WOULD LIKE TO TRADE THEIR LOT IN LIFE WITH YOURS!!!!!!!!! Where is this hypothetical Utopia that people like you are always comparing the US to? BTW…the term “First World Country” is a rather condescending and racist term as if they are somehow “better” than all the other countries of the world. You racist pig.
FUNNY!
“First world” (as well as “second” and “third world”) refers to economic development / industrialization and has nothing to do with “race” of course.
Pity we have boot lickers of the ultra-rich out there trying to tell us we shouldn’t mind being robbed and controlled by the ultra-rich. … I guess there are always those who think they belong at the bottom – hope you see the light someday.
If you weren’t paid to write that, boy, are you very confused!
I guess if someone thinks different from you, they must be confused right? I will say it once more….all economic indicators are up…..for those not trapped in the victimhood narrative and wallowing in their own pity or blinded by their own resentiment to anyone doing better for them it is good news.
I don’t think Trump has ever done anything “beneath the radar” in his entire life.
This is what Republican voters wanted to happen.
Don’t listen to what they say.
Look at what they do.
It took decades, but I have lost all respect for conservatives and conservative thought.
What we have now has little to do with conservative or liberal policy and nothing to do with values or valor, just Money is speech” bought and payed for policy from both sides.
Pretty much spot on…that why all of this Trump bashing is more or less pointless.
Like ’em or not, elect Democrats if you want yo have some leverage.
I used to agree with sentences like that, but not any more.
I used to say that maybe half the Dems were on the side of We, The People and the other half were for the ultra-rich.
THEN I said that the ratio had shifted and the ultra-rich part was about 80%.
In recent times, at the federal level, it’s pretty hard to pick out any who represent We, The People at least some of the time – there are a few, but they’re rare.
Then, they stole the primary from Bernie in an attempt to install that horrific candidate Hillary. What was our choice then? Two shit sandwiches, both bad choices, both with well over 50% DIS-approval ratings, and the one you would have us vote for was for war with Russia and therefore ready to risk thermonuclear war AND was for the monstrous Trans-Pacific Partnership, etc. During the primary, We Told The Hillary Supporters she was the worst Democratic Candidate in history and was going to lose, did they listen?
You can’t today say that electing any Democrat is a good move. SOME Democrats are OK, but the vast majority are unreliable at representing the interests of The People.
What we need is to build up a Progressive “third” party. If the Democratic Party doesn’t then move left, we must replace the Democratic Party with that Progressive Party.
Open season, and it’s only the beginning. Brace yourselves.
Yep!
No doubt you’re right. Get ready for new “consumer” products that kill your family and leave you broke and desperate. All we can do is create means to forewarn and forearm ourselves. We should keep ourselves informed of actions by those corporations taking advantage of this decision. If that fails? I hear heads on pikes are often gently ornamental against the bright colors of autumn.
Agreed, though it will be a bit of a challenge to get all the best ones – these days the ultra-rich like to hide. Maybe we need a new superhero from within our MILC / deep state to covertly make some drone strikes on behalf of the people!
Unlikely, I know, but a guy can dream, can’t he? I mean, Snowden came out of nowhere…
Typical. Flake goes out and makes a soaring speech about the meanness of our politics and our president, then votes to hurt people. And all the while the media will go on making him a hero. The same for Corker.
This is what happens when social & mainstream media spends an exorbitant amount of time distracted by bullshit tweets and other drama created by those of power. Stuff gets done under the cover of drama.
Democrats have not had a counter narrative to the conservative agenda since Reagan. Rush Limbaugh distracted huge portions of the population long before twitter and facebook appeared. The conservatives have controlled the narrative since the early 80s while the liberals have sat around with their hands in their pockets and a far away look in their eyes.
Americans need to sit back and reflect on what they truly want. Maybe it is time for a referendum on how Americans really think. Get rid of code words and media, chase away the smoke and mirrors and simply find out the soul of America.
I bet many Americans would be surprised to find that we have much more common cause between us than we do divisions.
1,000 times this.
What would that referendum look like? In this day and age everyone just finds the poll or online news outlet that confirms their beliefs and chooses to believe that this must also be the majority of Americans belief too. I agree about common cause between Americans, but how do you forsee people finding a way to look past their social media echo chambers to realize this?
It looks like an impossible mountain to climb at this point. Slowly, though, I have been receding use of any social media. I doubt most people will do this. But it has made me a more productive and less angry human being.
El_Pinguino, Cameron, soulstatic Thoughtful comments.
It only takes one good Man or Woman with a reasonable agenda that would now seem radical, five decades of inequity and sedition comes at a cost. America has gotten a “Great President” that appoints and attracts effective people to achieve their agenda once in a life time on average, we are over due. Obama had the message and momentum Trump had the hype neither were up to the task both appointments. Hillary and probable Bernie more of the same failures waiting to happen.
IT should hire writers to explore what such an common “addenda” might look like, they could still do the divisive BS on the side.
Some points that might find common ground if the right person and polices shows up.
1. Day one the President revokes all Presidential Directives that have given the Office power beyond control of the Constitution, congress and people and even the president. These often cause more trouble than political and practical success.
2. First sixty days, submits to congress a bill that outlines ever military action in every country and demands congress quite dial for dollars long enough to vote funding and/or for larger extended engagement to declare war or not. Peripherally all making profit from said engagements and related in country deals must be published.
3. First year, “hybrid” universal healthcare with cost containment.
4. Year Two, education from cradle to grave for ALL program with college and job training paid for by hybrid government, industry and individual contributions, cost controls, everyone has skin in the game.
5. Infrastructure program planned year one executed year two, decade long program “Rebuild America” urban & rural, green energy, new technology and an eye on watch AI and technology will do for and to US.
6. Year three, Immigration reform generous but controlled.
This agenda covers a half century of neglect and greed, missed opportunity. If your personal divisive agenda is missing, this is purposefully. We can get back to pulling against each other on divisive issues next administration, this is how they kept US down for a half century.
This is a sound, doable program. Use can be made of what we have come to call deficit spending for all costs to the federal government. Decades of misleading terminology and metaphor have led us to hesitate over what is just normal spending for a sovereign government that creates its own fiat currency.
Mobilization for WWII led to unparalleled government spending that resulted not in impoverished grandchildren but a newly strengthened economy. Inflation had to be guarded against because we were at full employment and many resources were becoming scarce. That is not our problem now.
EL Pinguino, VIVA TRUMP AMERICA GREATEST PRESIDENT!
People like you and El_Pinguino and others who understand what is happening will use social media to lead opinion. We can’t give up.
Why would Dems have a counter-narrative? Schumer, Pelosi, and every other Establishment Dem make $$ off donations from the finance industry.
They obviously don’t give a crap about the citizenry.
I think the person who has best articulated “how Americans really think” in recent years has been Barack Obama. The problem was, his ethnicity made him an easy target for the forces of reaction. Not only that, his moderate message has proven tragically easy for the opposition to repackage as weakness.
Surely, America is very progressive – even “conservatives” like progressive ideas if they are presented to them without dog-whistle cues raising their ire before hearing the proposals.
As for, “Democrats have not had a counter narrative to the conservative agenda since Reagan. “, no, that’s false; Democrats – on whole – BECAME Republicans, at least at the federal level. Look at Bill Clinton; destroyed welfare, knocked the last nails in the coffin known as anti-trust legislation, permitted massive media consolidation, contributed mightily to the Prison-Industrial-Complex – the list of Republican ideas he followed through on is long indeed. Then, look at Obama – his signature legislation, “Obamacare”, is a thoroughly REPUBLICAN idea, and he didn’t push AT ALL for single-payer or even the so-called “public option”. And, Obama not only didn’t reign in the wars, he greatly expanded them… I could go on and on about Obama’s Republican credentials.
What happened was that once the Clinton Democrats – called themselves “New Democrats” – had subsumed the Republican political position, the Republicans in turn moved farther right. Now, they’re so far right, they’re falling off the edge…
Look at Democrats after Hillary’s failure – what do you see? Excuses and NOT moving left. That’s because most of them represent the ultra-rich, not, We, The People – they’re just better at hiding it than the Rs are.
What we need is a truly Progressive Party at a national level. If the Democrats won’t then move left, it’s time to abandon them and let that party fall into the dustbin of history, like the Whigs.