Octopus Overlords

Paingod wrote: Tue Jan 29, 2019 10:12 am What we need is more Ranked Choice voting. It works in other countries, and worked in Maine recently. Pissed off the Republicans, sure, but anything that makes more votes count generally does.

I think it would really encourage more than two parties to run consistently and give independents a fighting chance to get more votes. We really need a third option, but can't afford to support one.

As [Sanders] jousted with the assembled media, however, CNN did something it doesn’t routinely do: It stayed away. CNN host Jake Tapper opened his show with an extensive discussion of the 2020 presidential candidacy of Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), with whom Tapper held a CNN town hall in Des Moines on Monday night. Moments later, the network aired a prepared package by White House reporter Kaitlan Collins on the first White House briefing of 2019 — complete with footage of Sanders, moments earlier, telling reporters that Trump doesn’t want to do another government shutdown.

But it didn’t go live from the White House briefing room.

The practice of cable-news networks to broadcast these sessions live has become a recent obsession of the Erik Wemple Blog. Last year, we wrote about how MSNBC led the pack in blowing off full live coverage of these sessions and grabbing only the newsworthy moments for subsequent clipping and commentary.
...
CNN’s move on Monday appeared to the Erik Wemple Blog to be a programmatic démarche. As a close watcher of these things, we’ve seen the network routinely uproot its regular coverage to take the feed from Sanders in the briefing room. Better said, the briefings have been part of CNN’s regular coverage — as they had been for all three cable-news networks for much of the Trump presidency. Looking back over Sanders’s “recent” briefings, it’s pretty clear that CNN defaulted to live and comprehensive coverage of these sessions

Trump’s CFPB Fines a Man $1 For Swindling Veterans, Orders Him Not to Do It Again

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau penalized a man $1 this week, for illegally exchanging veterans’ pensions for high-interest “cash advances.”

LawBeefaroni wrote: Tue Jan 29, 2019 10:18 pm CFPB website with announcement of this harsh punishment.

Corbett is permanently banned from brokering, offering, or arranging agreements between veterans and third parties under which the veteran purports to sell a future right to an income stream from the veteran’s pension. Corbett must also pay a civil money penalty of $1, an amount that accounts for Corbett’s inability to pay more based on sworn financial statements that he provided to the Bureau and Corbett’s ongoing cooperation with the Bureau’s investigation.

A top U.S. bank regulator has decided not to fine Citigroup for discriminating against minority mortgage borrowers, dropping the public rebuke that some officials had sought, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The decision is sure to be watched by consumer advocates who have questioned whether the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) will enforce fair lending rules under the leadership of Joseph Otting, an appointee of President Donald Trump and former banker who has pledged to be friendlier to the industry.

Reuters reported in October that the OCC was mulling sanctions against Citi for failing to give minority customers mortgage discounts that were available to many other borrowers.

Instead of a fine, the OCC issued a warning after Citi assured the regulator it had repaid borrowers and fixed faulty lending policies, the people said this week.

A spokesman for the OCC declined to comment, and a Citi spokesman declined to comment for this story.

Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Jan 30, 2019 3:06 pm Compliance and redress are great, and honestly should be the point.

In 2014, Citi identified “errors” implementing the program, the bank said in October. Sources familiar with the issue said some minority borrowers who qualified for the mortgage rate discount had not received it.

Citi flagged the issue to the OCC, saying the discrepancies were inadvertent and it had taken steps to resolve them. Following a review, OCC staff agreed in early 2017 that the loans were racially skewed and recommended public sanctions, according to the sources.

Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Jan 30, 2019 3:21 pm How harshly do you punish those that self-report?

In 2014, Citi identified “errors” implementing the program, the bank said in October. Sources familiar with the issue said some minority borrowers who qualified for the mortgage rate discount had not received it.

Citi flagged the issue to the OCC, saying the discrepancies were inadvertent and it had taken steps to resolve them. Following a review, OCC staff agreed in early 2017 that the loans were racially skewed and recommended public sanctions, according to the sources.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed Jan 30, 2019 3:37 pm

Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Jan 30, 2019 3:21 pm How harshly do you punish those that self-report?

In 2014, Citi identified “errors” implementing the program, the bank said in October. Sources familiar with the issue said some minority borrowers who qualified for the mortgage rate discount had not received it.

Citi flagged the issue to the OCC, saying the discrepancies were inadvertent and it had taken steps to resolve them. Following a review, OCC staff agreed in early 2017 that the loans were racially skewed and recommended public sanctions, according to the sources.

More than zero. Less than if hadn't self-reported.

What were the recommended sanctions mentioned in the quote?

LawBeefaroni wrote: Tue Jan 29, 2019 10:35 am

Michael Bloomberg wrote:Last fall I spent over $100 million of my own money to elect Democrats to the House...

That he leads with that and that it's supposedly a good thing is mind boggling.

"I single handedly bought several seats..."


Yay?

Mike Bloomberg has bigger plans for 2020 than running for president. The billionaire and former New York City mayor has been openly dreaming of the White House for 25 years, and spent huge amounts of time and money now four times over the last 10 years trying to figure out a way to get him there.

But he has hesitations about this race, too. He’s not sure there is a realistic space in the Democratic primaries for his centrist record. And he almost certainly won’t run if Joe Biden does, members of his team believe.

While no final decision has been made, his aides have nonetheless been working on a fallback that only a man worth $40 billion can afford, whether he runs or not. Bloomberg is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a data-centric political operation designed to assure one goal: Crush Donald Trump.

Though a budget has not been set, this effort would almost certainly become the biggest and most powerful political organization in the country overnight. It would also be the only real counter to the operation that Trump’s campaign put together in 2016, which allowed it to reach out to millions of voters in a more targeted, under-the-radar way, and helped deliver the election to Trump by shaping their thinking for months and then activating them on Election Day.

The goal, as it’s been put at points in private meetings: “all the data.”

It was heralded a year and a half ago as the start of a Midwestern manufacturing renaissance: Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics behemoth, would build a $10 billion Wisconsin plant to make flat-screen televisions, creating 13,000 jobs. President Trump later called the project “the eighth wonder of the world.”

Now that prospect looks less certain.

Pointing to “new realities” in the market, the company said Wednesday that it was reassessing the plans, underscoring the difficult economics of manufacturing in the United States. “The global market environment that existed when the project was first announced has changed,” Foxconn said in a statement.

Company officials had signaled for months that their emphasis was increasingly on research and development rather than large-scale production, dampening the potential for blue-collar job creation.

That turn runs counter to Mr. Trump’s vision for the project, which he had cited as a milestone in reversing the decline in factory jobs. The twist also brought new friction in Wisconsin, where the initiative has been politically fraught from the start because of its billions of dollars in tax subsidies.

Foxconn said that it remained committed to creating 13,000 jobs in Wisconsin and that it was “moving forward with plans to build an advanced manufacturing facility.” But it did not address the share of jobs to be devoted to production, and economists questioned how such a large work force could be created if the plant’s focus was on other areas.

A White House spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.

stessier wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 12:09 pm I kind of wonder how much of it is due to the Huawei situation as well.

Pyperkub wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 1:36 pm

stessier wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 12:09 pm I kind of wonder how much of it is due to the Huawei situation as well.

I would doubt is is anything - Foxconn is Taiwanese, not Chinese, and China *hates* Taiwan.

Pyperkub wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 1:36 pm

stessier wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 12:09 pm I kind of wonder how much of it is due to the Huawei situation as well.

I would doubt is is anything - Foxconn is Taiwanese, not Chinese, and China *hates* Taiwan.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 1:47 pm

Pyperkub wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 1:36 pm

stessier wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 12:09 pm I kind of wonder how much of it is due to the Huawei situation as well.

I would doubt is is anything - Foxconn is Taiwanese, not Chinese, and China *hates* Taiwan.

They don't hate them enough to kick all their factories out of China.

Enough wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 1:50 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 1:47 pm

Pyperkub wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 1:36 pm

stessier wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 12:09 pm I kind of wonder how much of it is due to the Huawei situation as well.

I would doubt is is anything - Foxconn is Taiwanese, not Chinese, and China *hates* Taiwan.

They don't hate them enough to kick all their factories out of China.

You mean their 12 factories?

stessier wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 12:09 pm I kind of wonder how much of it is due to the Huawei situation as well.

malchior wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 2:10 pm

stessier wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 12:09 pm I kind of wonder how much of it is due to the Huawei situation as well.

Probably none. Foxconn has done this several times already to different governments (here in the states and at least once in Brazil). Their playbook is to butter up the pols with big promises to get a tax break. The actual plan is usually way more modest and once they get the tax break they execute the original plan. It is a bait and switch.

The theory I've seen is that they really wanted to set up a tech R&D hub outside California since wages are high there. Foxconn likely posited that Wisconsin wouldn't give them tax breaks to bring the estimated 500-1000 R&D jobs versus 13K factory jobs. So they made up the factory story to get the break codified then say...take the 1000 jobs or you get nothing.

The evidence for this? The fact that they've pulled this routine before. In fact, people predicted this outcome when Trump announced it. The Foxconn explanation for the change is that after further analysis they concluded they couldn't be competitive building LCDs in the US. That doesn't hold any water. What changed? Absolutely nothing. Some modest wage increases. One of the CNBC analysts this morning was laying into Walker and Trump for falling for this garbage again.

malchior wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 2:10 pm One of the CNBC analysts this morning was laying into Walker and Trump for falling for this garbage again.

President Trump later called the project “the eighth wonder of the world."

Skinypupy wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 5:52 pm I’m heading completely off the grid for 4 days.

I fully expect us to be at war with Mexico (or some other predominantly brown country) by the time we get back.

Holman wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 5:42 pm So whistleblowing is now "insubordination."

Smoove_B wrote:With his repeated insistence for funding The Wall (tm), I'm beginning to think the Trump family has some shell companies tangentially involved in general construction or concrete. Here's hoping some forensic accountants can figure it out.