DeMint Introduces Border Security Amendment To Derail Financial Regulatory Reform

Last week, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) said that President Barack Obama “thinks Americans are stupid” for trying to “convince” voters that Republicans are trying to obstruct financial reform. It turns out that DeMint is the one who is insulting the intelligence of the American people by suggesting that Republicans aren’t pulling every stop to try to derail a bill that has received widespread public support.
Today, DeMint announced that he will attach an amendment to the financial reform bill requiring the completion of 700 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border within one year. DeMint justified introducing an amendment that has nothing to do with financial regulation by stating that “It’s time we completed the fence and secured our borders to protect American citizens.”
This isn’t the first time DeMint has brought up the border fence to drive a wedge into a bill that he doesn’t like. Last summer, DeMint joined a group of Republican senators who swamped the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) $42.9 billion appropriations bill with a series of immigration enforcement-only amendments. DeMint’s latest amendment is virtually identical to the one he proposed in July. Despite the fact that it was approved, DeMint’s DHS amendment was stripped from the final bill last summer after seven border state congressmen asked the House leadership to do so.
Research has found that the border fence is more successful at keeping undocumented immigrants in the U.S. than in persuading them to not come in the first place. U.S. government investigators have additionally indicated that it will cost taxpayers $6.5 billion over the next 20 years to maintain the fencing already in place and the Congressional Research Service estimated in 2007 that building and maintaining a double set of steel fences along 700 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border would add up to $49 billion over the expected 25-year life span of the fence.
The reason the border fence hasn’t been completed is because DHS officials believe those billions of dollars would be better spent on more effective security measures. Instead, DHS has doubled both the number of personnel assigned to Border Enforcement Security Task Forces and border patrol agents; tripled the number of ICE intelligence analysts working along the U.S.-Mexico border; quadrupled deployments of border liaison officers; begun screening all southbound rail shipments for illegal weapons, drugs and cash, and employed additional canine teams. As a result, DHS has succeeded in seizing thousands of firearms, millions of kilograms of drugs, and millions of dollars in illicit cash. Though the drop in illegal immigration since Obama took office is largely attributable to the economic recession, the role DHS has played is hardly insignificant.
Democrats have put forth a framework for comprehensive immigration reform which stipulates a series of tough benchmarks that “must be met before action can be taken to adjust the status of people already in the United States illegally.” However, rather than working with Democrats to secure the border and reform the nation’s immigration laws, Republicans like DeMint conveniently prefer to deal with border security via financial regulatory reform.

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Traditional Values Coalition Asks Newly Minted ‘Tenth Amendment Task Force’ To Oppose ENDA

by Igor

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Earlier this week, a handful of conservative Republican lawmakers formed the Tenth Amendment Task Force to “uphold the principle that the will of the people is best served at the state and local levels, and that the federal government should not interfere in matters that are fully within the purview of the states.” While the group is most concerned about preserving Arizona’s immigration law and repealing the federal mandates in the health care law, its founders claim that it “can encompass many things.” “The task force is not issue-specific. … It’s about conserving the Constitution,” said Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price (GA) and co-founder of the task force.
Embracing the group’s broad mandate, conservative activists are now calling on the “task force” to oppose the Employer Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a bill now in front of the House Education and Labor Committee which prohibits public and private employers from using an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity “as the basis for employment decisions, such as hiring, firing, promotion or compensation.” In a new press release touting the task force, the Traditional Values Coalition cites ENDA as “one example of a violation of state sovereignty is the benign-sounding Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which will overturn the laws of 38 states by forcing them to make ‘gender identity’ a protected status“:

“If passed, all businesses with more than 15 employees and state and local governments, including schools, will lose all authority to determine whether they want to hire or continue to employ someone who undergoes a sex change operation, for instance. [...]
“Ultimately states, empowered by the 10th Amendment to make laws regarding hiring practices within their borders, will be stripped of their authority to decide for themselves whether they think the owner of Christian radio station, for example, should be forced to hire someone whose actions and lifestyle run contrary to his or her beliefs. We are grateful to the Tenth Amendment Task Force for working to restore the proper constitutional balance of power between the federal government and the states.”

Whether or not the task force will incorporate ENDA into its platform — the group did not mention the legislationat yesterday’s inauguary press conference — Republicans will undoubtedly attempt to defeat the legislation on 10th amendment grounds. Constitutionally, however, there is absolutely no difference between ENDA and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As one legal expert told me, “just substitute the word ‘black” for the word ‘gay’ or ‘transgendered.’ Since the ban on race discrimination is unquestionably constitutional, so would be a ban on discrimination against the GLBT community.”
“There is no plausible theory of the Constitution that would strike down ENDA that wouldn’t also strike down the ban on race discrimination,” he said, suggesting that when Republicans go down this road, we should very well ask them if they believe it’s constitutional for businesses to refuse employment to black people.

Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons The Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (G/TIP), led by AmbassadorLuis CdeBaca, provides the tools to combat trafficking in persons and assists in the coordination of anti-trafficking efforts both worldwide and domestically.

REPORT A TRAFFICKING VICTIM 1.888.3737.888

Action To End Modern-Day Slavery

The 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report on 175 nations is the most comprehensive worldwide report on the efforts of governments to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons. Its findings will raise global awareness and spur countries to take effective actions to counter trafficking in persons. The annual Trafficking in Persons Report serves as the primary diplomatic tool through which the U.S. Government encourages partnership and increased determination in the fight against forced labor, sexual exploitation, and modern-day slavery.

Photo Gallery

View more images in the photo gallery.Click on images above for larger photo and caption.

Question and Answer on Human Trafficking

Luis CdeBaca
Ambassador-at-Large, Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons

Washington, DC

May 10, 2010

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QUESTION: What is Human Trafficking?
AMBASSADOR CDEBACA: Human trafficking is kind of an umbrella term at this point? It came up in the late 1990s as a euphemism for all of the different things that happened involved with reducing somebody and holding them in a condition of servitude. It’s basically involuntary servitude. And as Secretary Clinton, we should just call it what it is – a modern form of slavery.

QUESTION:  The "3Ps": Protection, Prevention, Prosecution
AMBASSADOR CDEBACA: Fighting slavery is something that everyone can do. It’s not just for the government. It’s not just for international actors. It’s something that you can do by starting to ask questions. Is the shirt that I’m wearing made of cotton that was picked by a child slave somewhere in another country? Is the orange juice that I’m drinking something that was picked by a slave here in the United States? But then also by volunteering: there are plenty of shelters, there are plenty of organizations that are helping people both here and abroad that could use the help. Not just the financial assistance or the awareness raising, but actually going down and working with these victims. People who own businesses – probably the best thing they could do – give a job to a survivor. So in other words, there are a lot of things that you can do to fight slavery. It’s not something that should just be relegated to the police or the prosecutors.

QUESTION: Human Trafficking & The Impact on the American People
AMBASSADOR CDEBACA: Human trafficking affects Americans because not only is this a crime that happens in other countries, it’s also a crime that happens here at home. It’s in our own communities, whether it is farm workers out in the fields in parts of the southeastern United States; whether it is domestic servants in the homes right around the corner; or girls or women who are under control of a pimp being and being brutalized in our hometowns. It’s a problem not just overseas, it’s also a problem here at home.

QUESTION: Human Trafficking & The World
AMBASSADOR CDEBACA: The paradigm under which we’re operating in the Obama Administration is the “three p” approach. This is the world standard. It came out of the late years of the Clinton Administration. Basically, what is says is that you can’t do only one thing and fight trafficking. Slavery has to be fought on three different fronts: prosecution, prevention, and protection. You can’t just go out and arrest people and not help the victims and expect that something will change. You also can’t just help the victims and create a type of modern Underground Railroad; that wouldn’t put the traffickers out of business they’d continue to find more victims. Everything has to go inexorably towards the idea of preventing slavery in the modern era. And, so these three concepts prevention, protection, and prosecution have to be done simultaneously or else we’re going to fail in this fight against modern slavery.

QUESTION: Global Partners Working to Free Modern Slaves
AMBASSADOR CDEBACA: Well there are a number of things that the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking does throughout the year. We obviously put out the annual trafficking in report, which enables us to look at the countries of the world and see how their doing and we run programs around the world. But then, there is also an action oriented aspect to the office that many people might not be aware of. There are several instances where we can show some successes that are directly attributable to what we do in G/TIP. For instance a couple of years ago, a group of people in Pakistan started coming together to try to get themselves out of slavery they found a lawyer who had been willing to go to court and try to get them emancipated. They were in debt bondage, which means they were paying off debts that their even sometimes great grandparents had taken out in the 1920s. The response of the local, I guess for lack of a better word, warlords, was quick and it was dramatic. Last fall, they were rounded up and confined with guards. Their lawyers were arrested by the people who reported to these war lords, the feudal lords. And it was only because of the intervention of the Office to monitor trafficking and Ambassador Holbrooke working with the Pakistani government that we were able to get a raid put together and liberate almost 200 slaves in Pakistan. That was the kind of combating that we see from the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

QUESTION: Join the Anti-Trafficking Movement
AMBASSADOR CDEBACA: Human trafficking destabilizes governments, destabilizes communities. One of my friends that works over at the USDA said it probably the best. You can’t have food security if the hands that picked the crops are not free. So we are talking about a situation where you’ve got corruption that follows it in the wake of human trafficking, you’ve got organized crime, you’ve got destabilization of entire regions because the human traffickers have so much sway.

President’s Interagency Task Force Paves New Path of Engagement Against Trafficking in Persons

POSTED BY LUIS CDEBACA / FEBRUARY 03, 2010

About the Author: Ambassador Luis CdeBaca is a Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State and serves as the director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, which assesses global trends, provides training and technical assistance, and advocates for an end to modern slavery.

Today, Secretary Clinton chaired the President's Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the Department of State. Although there have been yearly meetings of this entity that includes other members of the Cabinet, this is the first gathering under the Obama Administration.

She was joined by the Attorney General, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Secretary of Labor, the Director of National Intelligence, and the USAID Administrator. Representatives from the White House, the Department of Defense, the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture, and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also participated in the discussion.

Secretary Clinton, who has been engaged on this human security issue since the 1990s, has played a key role in bringing human trafficking to the forefront of United States policy. As First Lady, she was instrumental in the development of the three "P" approach -- prevention, protection, and prosecution -- to combat this scourge. In the Senate, she fought to get resources for the fight against modern slavery. As Secretary of State, she is paving a new path of engagement on this issue to ensure that every person realizes the Constitution's promise of freedom.

To put this issue into broader context, human trafficking has cross-cutting implications throughout U.S. Government policy. In order to ensure the Obama Administration's response and vision is realized, there is a great need for interagency cooperation. For example, the Department of Justice investigates, arrests, and prosecutes traffickers, working with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security to dismantle trafficking rings. The Department of Health and Human Services provides much-needed victim services. The United States Department of Agriculture and Department of Labor work to achieve slavery-free supply chains. This is an interactive web of ongoing work and today's meeting was an important way to coordinate the collective United States Government's effort against trafficking.

Combating trafficking has not only policy implications, but most importantly, real life ones. As the President said in Tokyo, a young girl should be respected not for her body, but for her ideas. And, men, women, and children alike should be respected for their ideas and contributions to society that freely allows them to pursue their hopes and dreams. The United States commits to building on global partnerships and to working across borders and barriers to confront the traffickers. Strengthening our partnerships within the United States and throughout the world is integral to making progress against modern slavery and today's discussion signified another step forward in our efforts to eradicate it once and for all.

Related Content: Preview to Annual Meeting of the President's Interagency Taskforce to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons

The Progress Report

Abortion War Heats Up In The States

 

Since President Obama signed health care reform into law, a significant number of states have taken advantage of the law's carefully negotiated abortion provisions to restrict access to abortion coverage. The Nelson amendment attached to the health care bill not only prohibits public dollars from being used to finance abortions and requires insurers that choose to offer abortion coverage to collect a separate check from policy holders, it also specifically reasserts states' right to ban private insurers from providing abortion coverage to women within the state-based exchanges. As a result, states have used the Nelson language to reignite the abortion wars. As Center for American Progress Action Fund's Director of Women's Health and Rights Program Jessica Arons explained, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) "opened the door for them to legislate away private insurance coverage of abortion and the states are walking right through. This is no longer about public funding for abortion (and in fact, it never really was); this is about making abortion impossible to obtain for women of all means." The effort is being coordinated by Americans United for Life (AUL), a national anti-abortion group that released abortion opt-out legislation immediately after the law passed. "Currently, 29 have either introduced an opt-out bill, are planning to introduce a bill shortly, or are laying the ground work to introduce a bill as soon as their legislative calendars permit," AUL boasts on its website. "Some states, with our help, are going even farther than preventing insurance plans that cover abortions from participating in their state exchanges. One positive outcome from the 2009-2010 health care reform debate is that many more Americans are now aware that a large number of private insurance plans, even their own, cover elective abortions," the group argues. Indeed, moving far beyond merely restricting any coverage within the exchanges, states like Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Utah have used this political movement as an opportunity to foist further restrictions on abortion, even as millions of poor women are more in need of the procedure than ever before.

STRIPPING ABORTION FROM THE EXCHANGE: On April 24, Arizona became the first state to pass legislation prohibiting insurers in the state-run health care exchange "from providing coverage for abortions unless the coverage is offered as a separate optional rider for which an additional insurance premium is charged." The new Arizona law is a radical mini Stupak Amendment. It prevents insurers from offering abortion services, except under the most extreme circumstances, even if only private money were used to pay for those services. Most, if not all, women in the exchange would be able to purchase coverage only through an impractical, separate abortion "rider" or leave the exchange entirely and find coverage in the shrinking individual health insurance market. Since it's unlikely that many insurers will offer abortion riders or that women will purchase them in anticipation of needing an abortion -- in fact, "in the five states where abortion riders are currently required, no insurance company offers them" -- the Arizona law will severely disadvantage low income women who will likely have to pay out of pocket for abortion services and may not have the means to do so. Tennessee has passed a similar bill, which became law today, after Gov. Phil Bredesen (D) declined to either sign or veto the measure. The text of the bill "makes no mention of any exception for the case of rape, incest or if the mother's health is in danger," and many of the bill's supporters were confused about its text and intention. The bill prohibits all insurers from providing abortion coverage even if the woman pays for the insurance with private dollars, but lawmakers who voted for the measure "said they thought the bill was primarily intended to ensure that taxpayer dollars would not be used for abortion coverage in the state health insurance exchange." "My 'yes' vote was based on that it didn't change anything in Tennessee law...and that it's consistent with what we've been doing in the legislature for the past several years," said one legislator who voted for the bill. Lawmakers also said they only voted for the bill based on assurances "that the legislation does allow for exceptions, in keeping with federal law on federal funding for abortion" (federal law allows public funding for rape, incest, and life endangerment). At least eight other states, including Oklahoma, Missouri, Mississippi, and Florida, are considering similar legislation .

PET ABORTION PROJECTS: Health reform has opened a Pandora's box of state efforts to restrict abortion coverage, both by removing coverage from state exchanges and placing other new restrictions on abortion access. Most recently, the Oklahoma Senate overrode the governor's veto to pass a law that requires "women seeking an abortion [to] have a viewable ultrasound and listen to a detailed description of the fetus prior to the procedure." "Though other states have passed similar measures requiring women to have ultrasounds, Oklahoma's law goes further, mandating that a doctor or technician set up the monitor so the woman can see it and describe the heart, limbs and organs of the fetus. No exceptions are made for rape and incest victims," the New York Times observed. Oklahoma has also passed a law that protects doctors from being sued "if he or she chooses not to tell a woman that the baby she is carrying has a birth defect." "Under this new law, a doctor may withhold information, mislead or even blatantly lie to a pregnant woman and her partner about the health of their baby if the doctor so much as thinks that fetal test results would cause a woman to consider abortion." Similarly, the Florida state senate just voted 22-17 "in favor of a new government mandate that women seeking abortions must pay for ultrasounds -- which averages from $200 to $1,000 -- and, in most cases, view live images of the fetus." In Utah, a new law makes self-induced abortion a homicide, and in Nebraska, Gov. Dave Heineman (R) signed legislation "banning most abortions 20 weeks after conception or later on the theory that a fetus, by that stage in pregnancy, has the capacity to feel pain." Both the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologist disavow the "science" behind the claim that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks after conception, but the so-called "Pain Capable Unborn Child Act" is more of a political statement than a policy proposal. The bill is "created almost entirely as a vehicle for getting anti-choice legislation challenged and potentially reviewed by the Supreme Court" and grew out of an effort to push one of the nation's few remaining late term abortion providers out of the state.

POOR WOMEN IN NEED OF ABORTIONS: States are passing their new abortion restrictions as families struggle in the midst of an economic recession. A new survey from the Guttmacher Institute reveals that poor women are obtaining abortions in greater numbers than women from other income brackets. From 2000 to 2008, "the proportion of abortion patients who were poor increased 59%," as women found it more difficult to access affordable birth control during an economic recession. Fifty-seven percent of women who had abortions also paid out of pocket for the procedure, regardless of their insurance status. As Guttmacher observes, "We suspect that several factors contributed to the lack of reliance on private insurance among women who had it. First, some may have had health care plans that exclude abortion services. ... Others may have been unaware that their plan covered abortion. Some women may have been reluctant to have the abortion on their insurance records out of concern that an employer, regular health care provider or family member whom they did not want to know about the abortion would have access to this information." The results are fairly consistent with earlier surveys, which found that continued stigmatization of abortion -- treating it as something outside the bounds of normal health care -- forces women to pay out of pocket and disproportionately disadvantages poor women, who undergo the procedure at higher rates than their more affluent counterparts.

SAUDI-FUNDED FOX NEWS REJECTS AD ARGUING AGAINST MIDDLE EAST OIL DEPENDENCE: 

Last week, the progressive veterans organization VoteVets released an ad arguing that "a clean energy climate plan would cut our dependence on foreign oil in half and cut oil profits for hostile nations." The ad features a bedside alarm clock displaying an increasing dollar figure to symbolize the millions of dollars the U.S. spends making hostile countries like Iran "richer selling oil around the world and peddling hate." While CNN and MSNBC both aired the ad, Fox News refused to, claiming the ad was "too confusing." There is nothing confusing about the ad. In fact, VoteVets assertion that hostile nations profit from American dependence on foreign oil is based on a Progress Report analysis that finds that a strong cap on carbon would result in Iran losing $1.8 trillion of oil revenue over the next forty years -- or more than $100 million a day. "If the world moves away from oil dependence, Iran's regime will no longer be able to rely on petrodollars to stay afloat," the Wonk Room's Brad Johnson wrote. In a statement to The Progress Report, Richard Smith, a senior adviser to VoteVets who served in Afghanistan, said, "The only confusing thing here is why FOX News would reject an ad that calls on Congress to defund our enemies by finding new sources of energy." While Fox News' motivation for rejecting the ad is unclear, Media Matters notes that the network has consistently spread misinformation on clean energy reform. Interestingly, the largest stockholder outside the family of CEO Rupert Murdoch is Saudi oil tycoon Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who owns a 7 percent stake in Fox News' parent company News Corp. But Murdoch himself has supported a mandatory cap on carbon emissions and said he believes Fox News ought to cover the issue differently.

Pushing Wall Street Reform Across The Finish Line

Last week, after three successful efforts by Senate Republicans to block the beginning of the final debate on Sen. Chris Dodd's (D-CT) Wall Street reform legislation, the chamber unanimously agreed to begin the process of commencing a 30 hour debate, filing amendments, and ultimately holding a vote. On Wednesday, the Senate began voting on a series of amendments, some aimed at strengthening and some aimed at weakening the legislation. Since they were unable to use "Senate committee hearings and backroom negotiations among key lawmakers to remove or soften what the financial industry considers most objectionable in the bill," lobbyists for the biggest Wall Street banks were "on edge" as the Senate prepared to "consider populist amendments that spell even more heartburn for the banks." At the same time, lobbyists were hoping that the amendment process would allow their Senate allies to insert loopholes into the legislation that would protect the status quo. The voting started with general consensus as an amendment to eliminate a $50 billion resolution fund by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), which was the result of weeks of negotiations with Dodd, passed by a vote of 93 to 5. The fund had been the focus of unjustified GOP criticism that Dodd's bill would result in "permanent bailouts." The compromise to drop the fund emboldened progressive senators to "push aggressively for an array of proposals that could force some of the nation's biggest banks to reduce their size" and, as the Wonk Room's Pat Garofalo noted, forced Republicans to find other areas, such as consumer protection and derivatives reform, to focus their complaints.

PUSHING STRONGER PROTECTIONS: In April, the Senate Budget Committee held a vote on an amendment to the financial regulatory reform bill by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that would have broken up some of the nation's largest financial institutions considered "too big too fail." Though Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) paid lip service to the idea of limiting the size of the big banks, telling the Huffington Post that he preferred to make banks "smaller in order to avoid" the problems that arose during the financial crisis -- Cornyn voted against the amendment, helping to defeat it 10-12. Yesterday, the Senate took up a similar measure proposed by Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Ted Kaufman (D-DE) that would have limited "large banks by capping at 10 percent the share of the U.S. total insured deposits it can hold, and restrict limits on leverage." Brown and Kaufman's amendment was "among the most deeply dreaded by Wall Street" and considered by the New York Times to be "the liberal amendment that could be hardest to defeat," but it ultimately was defeated 33-61. "This is certainly a defeat for those who are concerned about the dangers of financial concentration in this country," Kaufman said in a statement after the vote. "Some causes are worth fighting for, and for me, the concern about the risks 'too big to fail' banks pose to the American economy and people is deep and profound given the economic tragedy millions of American have endured." There is a populist amendment that is faring better. Initially, the Obama administration opposed Sanders' amendment allowing the Government Accountability Office to audit the Federal Reserve. The measure, which has bipartisan support, is now expected to pass as Sanders struck a compromise limiting the scope of the GAO's one-time audit to "a thorough review of all the Fed's emergency lending, beginning December 1, 2007." "We appreciate the work of Senator Sanders and Senator Dodd to work together on a strong amendment that ensures full and open transparency regarding emergency lending programs, without compromising the Federal Reserve's full independence with respect to the conduct of monetary policy," Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin said in a statement.

GOP ATTEMPTS TO EXEMPT: Though not the stand-alone Consumer Financial Protection Agency proposed by the Obama administration and passed by the House of Representatives, Dodd's legislation creates a Bureau of Consumer Protection inside the Federal Reserve that would directly examine and enforce rules for all banks, non-bank mortgage lenders, and other "significant" non-banks regulated by the Federal Reserve with more than $10 billion in assets. According to Center for American Progress Associate Director for Financial Markets Policy David Min, "Dodd's Bureau as currently constructed is a good one, but if any of its key features are watered down, even a tiny bit, it will quickly become a bad proposal." Yesterday, Shelby, with the backing of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), offered a consumer protection amendment aimed at doing just that by exempting most of the financial system from oversight. Shelby's amendment, which was defeated in a 61-38 vote, would have moved the new consumer protection division to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. that would have enforcement power over only "large non-bank mortgage originators." Shelby's division would have been powerless to take action against commercial banks, investment banks, credit card companies, car dealers, payday lenders, and non-banks that sell financial products other than mortgages such as AIG. Shelby's amendment also would have gutted the pre-emption approach in the current legislation. Dodd's bill, like the reform effort passed by the House last year, allows states to write stronger consumer protection laws than those set by the federal government (creating a federal floor for regulation, instead of a ceiling). The bill gives federal regulators the ability to preempt state law on a case-by-case basis. States like Georgia and New Jersey tried to reel in predatory subprime lending in 2002 and 2003, but federal bank regulators stopped them in their tracks. The banks and Shelby want full federal preemption of the states, so that they only have to focus on watering down laws at the federal level. Though some conservative Democrats are also in favor of blanket pre-emption, "[s]tate attorneys general from Iowa, Illinois and elsewhere have joined consumer advocates in opposing" the industry's changes.

DERIVATIVES OUT OF THE DARK: In April, Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, introduced a comprehensive derivatives bill that was much tougher on Wall Street than originally expected. Lincoln's proposal not only brings derivatives -- famously called "financial weapons of mass destruction" by Warren Buffett -- out of the dark, but would also force commercial banks to spin-off their derivatives trading operations under a separate, independently capitalized roof. Lincoln's bill would place all standardized derivatives trades onto public exchanges, ending "over-the-counter" trades that occur between two parties without public information, thus allowing both investors and regulators to see what is going on in the market. Though this approach would help to avoid another AIG-type situation, in which a party makes derivatives trades with nothing to back them up, Republican senators, led by Sen. Saxby Chambliss (GA), have crafted an amendmentgets rid of the exchange trading mandate entirely, but gives regulators vast discretion to exempt trades from going through clearinghouses. Instead, Shelby says the bill will simply stipulate that "transactions will be 'made known' to regulators." According to the Wonk Room's Pat Garofalo, "At its core, the amendment is an attempt to leave the derivatives market as is: opaque, with a lack of information for investors looking for fair prices and regulators looking to enforce the rules." Even former Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson thinks this is the wrong approach. Speaking to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission yesterday, Paulson said that that derivatives should be standardized and put on exchanges, and anything that is not standardized should have onerous capital requirements. "Such regulations will encourage standardization, promote transparency, and penalize excessive complexity with capital charges, thereby restoring these products to their proper function -- mitigating, not enhancing, risk," he said. that not only

Way too much Time on their hands

movfR3ak — May 08, 2010 — University of Oregon's male a cappella group gives Gaga a run for her money