Chris Hedges's Blog, page 270

Why Twitter Won’t Ban White Nationalists

Facebook announced in March that it would ban white nationalist and white supremacist content on its social media platforms, a departure The New York Times describes as “[bowing] to longstanding demands from civil rights groups who said the tech giant was failing to confront the powerful reach of white extremism.” Twitter did not follow suit, despite being a platform that white supremacists use “with relative impunity,” as a  2016 study from George Washington University’s Program on Extremism found.

Experts who study online extremism, including the authors of the 2016 George Washington University study, have observed Twitter’s success with using artificial intelligence to suspend ISIS-linked accounts—approximately 360,000 by 2016—and its unwillingness to use the same methods to combat white nationalism. A new story from Motherboard by Joseph Cox and Jason Koebler suggests that Twitter fears those algorithms risk catching Republican politicians.

The question of why Twitter won’t use the same methods to target white nationalists as it does for ISIS members came up in an all-hands meeting on March 22, Motherboard reports. After a staff member, who remains anonymous, asked the question, an executive answered that Twitter simply follows the law.

Another employee, who works on machine learning, explained the trade-offs involved with any content filter, how sometimes non-extremist accounts can be swept up in attempts to ban ISIS ones, but as Motherboard paraphrases the machine learning employee, “Society, in general, accepts the benefit of banning ISIS for inconveniencing some others.”

Apparently, this example doesn’t apply to inconveniencing Republicans. Cox and Koebler continue:

In separate discussions verified by Motherboard, that employee said Twitter hasn’t taken the same aggressive approach to white supremacist content because the collateral accounts that are impacted can, in some instances, be Republican politicians.

Cox and Koebler emphasized that this isn’t an official Twitter position. A spokesperson from Twitter told Motherboard that their source’s comments are an “accurate characterization of our policies or enforcement—on any level.”

Twitter has been under fire from civil rights activists for its unwillingness to ban many white nationalists. David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, retains a Twitter account. Shortly after the mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, Slate found that President Trump has amplified multiple white supremacist accounts, liking and retweeting their content. In March, Motherboard found that even when web hosting platforms have shut down neo-Nazi sites, they still found a home on Twitter, despite the site’s rules against “abuse and hateful conduct.”

Twitter did not comment on why it is able to more effectively police ISIS than white supremacists on the platform.  Outside experts suggested to Motherboard that it’s possible the public is more willing to accept that innocent accounts might be banned in a broader attempt to get Islamic extremists off the site, but that doing so in the name of white supremacy would more likely spark backlash.

A  2018 VOX-Pol report was blunt about the difficulties of battling white supremacy versus ISIS online: “The task of crafting a response to the alt-right is considerably more complex and fraught with landmines, largely as a result of the movement’s inherently political nature and its proximity to political power.”

Macron Offers Tax Cut to French Workers to Quell Anger

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron announced tax cuts for middle-class workers and plans for a more representative parliament Thursday as part of a promised response to the weekly yellow vest protests that damaged his presidency.

In a nationally televised speech followed up by a news conference, the French leader also said France and Europe must do more to fight illegal migration.

Macron spoke to the nation from the presidential Elysée Palace after he convened nationwide meetings where communities could debate how to address economic concerns raised by the yellow vest movement, including high taxes, unemployment and stagnant wages.

He unveiled measures to boost pensions under 2,000 euros ($ 2,226) and said he would propose an overhaul of France’s retirement system during the summer. But he said the “best solution” for financial disparities is “to cut taxes for a maximum number of citizens and especially those who are working, especially the middle-class.”

The president also vowed to introduce “deep changes” to France’s system of democracy. One is easing the rules for organizing public referendums so people have another outlet for grievances besides the street protests that have convulsed the country for five months.

He pledged to reduce the number of lawmakers in parliament by about 30% and to change how seats are filled so the national legislature better reflects the diversity of France’s political parties. France’s parliamentary election system currently is designed to give the winning party a strong majority, putting smaller parties at a disadvantage.

But Macron warned that there comes a time for hard choices. He said he thinks illegal immigration is weighing on Europe. The European Union should be “strong” by both protecting its borders and taking in some asylum-seekers from countries where their lives are at risk.

“To be welcoming, you need to have a house. So we need borders, we need borders to be respected, we need rules,” he said.

In a move to counter the yellow vest movement’s portrayal of him as elitist, Macron said he decided to do away with France’s Ecole Nationale d’Administration, the influential college that trains top civil servants and politicians.

The centrist Macron, a former investment banker, is himself an ENA graduate.

Macron apologized for some comments that were perceived as arrogant, such as his telling an unemployed man he could find a job if he “crosses the street” and advising a retiree not to complain.

“I may have given the impression to give orders all the time and be tough. Which I regret,” he said.

At the same time, he said he would keep pushing pro-business policies opposed by labor unions and the yellow vest movement.

“I asked myself, ‘Were we wrong?’ I think the total opposite. I think the ongoing changes, the necessary changes we have to do in our country mustn’t be stopped,” Macron said. “They haven’t been quick enough for some, not radical enough, not human enough.”

Some activists who have been involved in the yellow vest movement said they were disappointed with Macron’s response to their demands for economic relief for the country’s working classes.

Paris region activist Thierry-Paul Valette tweeted after Macron outlined his proposals that the president spoke like “a supreme chief and doesn’t seem to understand that he should show modesty.”

Once-prominent yellow vest activist Ingrid Levavasseur, who scaled back her participation amid the movement’s internal divisions and protest violence, told The Associated Press she found Macron’s response “not at all satisfactory.”

Levavasseur cautiously welcomed his proposed measures to decentralize decision-making but said the overall plan wasn’t ambitious enough.

“The expectations are so enormous that it was bound to be disappointing,” she said.

The yellow vest movement started to oppose a fuel tax increase and was named after the fluorescent jackets French motorists are required to keep in their cars. Attendance at protests has dwindled, but movement activists are organizing the 24th straight weekend demonstrations for Saturday.

Leaders from Macron’s party and government plan to meet Monday to develop a timetable for implementing the new measures. Macron made some concessions to the protests earlier, such as abandoning the fuel tax hike. He also scrapped a tax increase for retirees and introduced monthly bonuses of 100 euros ($113) for people earning the minimum wage.

But Macron has repeatedly refused to meet one of the protesters’ main demands: reintroducing a wealth tax for France’s richest people, He refused again Thursday, saying he was aiming to keep investments in the country.

Ex-Officer Sentenced to 25 Years in Black Motorist’s Killing

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A former Florida police officer was sentenced to 25 years in prison Thursday for the fatal on-duty shooting of a black musician whose SUV had broken down after a late-night concert.

Former Palm Beach Gardens officer Nouman Raja was the first person in Florida in nearly 30 years to be convicted and sentenced for an on-duty killing — and one of only a few nationwide.

The 41-year-old defendant was sentenced by Circuit Judge Joseph Marx as family and friends of the 31-year-old victim, Corey Jones, looked on in a hushed courtroom jammed with supporters on both sides.

Raja was convicted last month of manslaughter and attempted murder in Jones’ death. Marx on Thursday imposed a sentence of 25 years on each count, to be served concurrently.

Prosecutors had said Raja had escalated what should have been a routine interaction into a deadly confrontation in 2015 when he encountered Corey, a housing inspector and part-time drummer whose SUV had stalled on a dark highway ramp.

Raja had faced a possible sentencing range from 25 years to life in prison, and both Prosecutor Adrienne Ellis and the father of the victim had urged the judge to impose the maximum.

Previously, Marx has rejected motions by Raja’s attorneys to throw out the verdicts. They argued the evidence didn’t support his conviction and that Marx should have instructed jurors to consider whether Raja’s use of force was justified under Florida’s “stand your ground” law. They plan to appeal.

At Thursday’s hearing, Clinton Jones Sr. told the judge he still has his son’s number programmed into his cellphone because he can’t stand the finality of deleting it. He said he wanted Raja to receive a life sentence, not out of hatred but because of the pain he had caused the Jones family.

“It was painful for us to go through this because I knew the kind of son we had raised,” Jones said.

Raja, of Asian descent, was in plain clothes as part of an auto burglary investigation team when he spotted Jones’ SUV at 3:15 a.m. Oct. 18, 2015. Jones was headed home from a nightclub performance by his reggae band when his vehicle stalled. He had a concealed-weapons permit and carried a handgun, purchased days earlier to protect his $10,000 drum set, which was in the SUV.

Raja, wearing jeans, a T-shirt and a baseball cap, drove an unmarked van the wrong way up an off ramp and stopped mere feet from the broken-down vehicle.

Prosecutors said Raja never identified himself as an officer and acted so aggressively that Jones must have thought he was about to be carjacked or killed. Raja’s supervisor testified the officer had been told to don a police vest if he approached a civilian. He didn’t. Prosecutors also questioned why Raja didn’t pull his badge from his pocket.

What police didn’t know at first was that Jones had been talking to a tow-truck dispatcher on a recorded line. That recording shows Jones saying “Huh?” as his door opens. Raja yells, “You good?” Jones says he is. Raja replies twice, “Really?” with Jones replying “Yeah.”

Suddenly, Raja shouts at Jones to raise his hands, using an expletive. Jones replies, “Hold on!” and Raja repeats his demand.

Prosecutors believe Jones pulled his gun and tried to get away. Raja fired three shots; Jones ran down an embankment. Prosecutors said he threw his gun, but Raja fired three more times, 10 seconds after the first volley. Jones was killed by a bullet through his heart.

Prosecutors said Raja, not knowing of the tow-truck dispatcher recording, tried to deceive investigators. He claimed he said “Police, can I help you?” as Jones jumped from the SUV. He also told them Jones leapt backward and pointed his gun, forcing him to fire. Raja said Jones ran but turned and again pointed his gun, forcing him to fire the second volley.

Prosecutors charged Raja with manslaughter, saying his actions created the confrontation and showed “culpable negligence.” They also charged him with attempted murder, saying that although they couldn’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt which of Raja’s six shots killed Jones, the second volley was a conscious effort to kill him as he fled.

The last Florida officer sentenced for an on-duty killing was Miami’s William Lozano in 1989. The Hispanic officer fatally shot a black motorcyclist who he said tried to hit him. A passenger died when the motorcycle crashed, setting off three days of rioting.

Lozano was convicted of two manslaughter counts in a Miami trial and sentenced to seven years, but he never served it. State appellate court justices dismissed the verdict, saying the case should have been moved from Miami because of racial tensions. Lozano was acquitted at a 1993 retrial in Orlando.

Putin Says Kim Is Ready to Denuclearize, With Conditions

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia — President Vladimir Putin says he’s willing to share details with the United States about his summit on Thursday with Kim Jong Un, potentially raising Russia’s influence in the stalemated issue of North Korean denuclearization.

The two leaders’ first one-on-one did not indicate major changes in North Korea’s position: Putin said Kim is willing to give up nuclear weapons, but only if he gets ironclad security guarantees.

However, Putin said Kim urged him to explain the nuances of North Korea’s position to President Donald Trump. Such an interlocutor role could be meaningful in light of Trump’s apparent admiration of the Russian leader.

Trump has said he “fell in love” with Kim, possibly indicating a proclivity to being swayed toward accommodation with the North Korean leader, although that declaration came before the Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi in February that collapsed in disagreement.

After Thursday’s summit in the Pacific port city of Vladivostok, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) from the North Korean border, Putin stressed that Moscow and Washington both want North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons. But, he said, the security guarantees Kim demands in exchange should be underwritten by multiple countries, hinting at an arrangement like the six-nation talks Russia participated in until their collapse in 2009.

Putin later headed for a two-day trip to Beijing, where he said he will inform the Chinese leadership about the summit.

“And we will just as openly discuss this issue with the U.S. leadership,” Putin said. “There are no secrets. Russia’s position always has been transparent. There are no plots of any kind.”

Putin’s remarks reflect Kim’s growing frustration with Washington’s efforts to maintain “maximum pressure” until the North commits to denuclearization.

But his characterization of Kim’s comments also suggests there have been no major changes in North Korea’s basic position.

North Korea has all along contended that it needs its nuclear arsenal to defend itself against what it sees as U.S. hostility and wants concrete reassurances of its safety — including the removal of the American nuclear threat as an integral part of the denuclearization of the entire Korean Peninsula.

Trump has made clear that he is eager to work out a deal with North Korea and has already indicated that he thinks he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Russia’s involvement in the issue could bolster his confidence, though some analysts think Washington and Moscow are too far estranged.

“For Russia, I don’t think it will deliver any leverage with the U.S. simply because the relations between Russia and the United States are at such a low level,” Vasily Kashin, a researcher at Russia’s Higher School of Economics, told The Associated Press.

Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house of the Russian parliament, saw the summit as burnishing Russia’s credentials.

“The fact that Kim Jon Un asked Vladimir Putin to brief the Chinese and U.S. leadership on the results of the summit attests to Russia’s significant role as a guarantor of security in the Asia-Pacific region,” he was quoted as saying by state news agency Tass.

It wasn’t immediately clear what other agreements the leaders might have struck.

Along with a statement of political support, Kim was believed to be looking for some kind of economic support and possibly even a workaround to sanctions that will force more than 10,000 North Korean laborers in Russia to leave by the end of the year. The laborers are a major source of income for Pyongyang.

Putin said they discussed the issue and would find a solution taking into account “humanitarian” factors, though he didn’t say what that would be.

On the economic front, both sides share an interest in enhanced cooperation if sanctions are eased.

Russia would like to gain broader access to North Korea’s mineral resources, including rare metals. Pyongyang, for its part, covets Russia’s electricity supplies and investment to modernize its dilapidated Soviet-built industrial plants, railways and other infrastructure.

For Putin, the summit was also seen as an opportunity for Russia to emerge as an essential player in the North Korean nuclear standoff.

Moscow has kept a relatively low profile as Kim embarked on what has been an audacious diplomatic journey over the past year.

The Putin summit follows four summits with Chinese President Xi Jinping, three with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and two with Trump. Despite the current stalemate, Trump has said he would like to meet Kim again.

Moon said Thursday he will try to hold a fourth summit with Kim and facilitate the resumption of U.S.-North Korea talks.

Since Kim’s latest talks with Trump, in Hanoi, ended without any sign of progress, North Korea has expressed its open anger with what it calls an excessively hard-line position by Trump’s top advisers in the deadlocked negotiations.

Last week, it demanded U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo be removed from the talks and strongly criticized national security adviser John Bolton. There have been reports that Kim has done some internal shaking up as well, possibly firing one of his own main negotiators.

Though Kim appeared confident and respectful as he and Putin met for the first time, he comported himself formally — creating a scene reminiscent of old Soviet-style meetings and a sharp contrast with his more cordial summits with Moon and, at times, even Trump.

Moscow was part of six-nation talks on the North Korean standoff that fell apart after Pyongyang’s withdrawal in 2009. Putin said Thursday he wasn’t sure if the talks could be revived, but he emphasized that international involvement will be needed to discuss guarantees for Pyongyang.

Vladivostok, a city of more than half a million on the Sea of Japan, faced gridlock on its roads as traffic was blocked in the city center due to Kim’s visit. The authorities also temporarily closed the waters around Russky Island to all maritime traffic.

Kim was expected to return to Pyongyang on Friday.

___

Talmadge, the AP’s Pyongyang bureau chief, reported from Tokyo. Associated Press writers Hyung-jin Kim and Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, and Jim Heintz in Moscow, contributed to this report.

Would Warren Prosecute the Perpetrators of the Great Recession?

What follows is a conversation between professor and author Bill Black and Marc Steiner of the Real News Network. Read a transcript of their conversation below or watch the video at the bottom of the post.

MARC STEINER Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Mark Steiner. Great to have you all with us. Senator Elizabeth Warren is attempting to make waves with her bold pronouncements during her bid for this presidency. She’s introduced two bills into the Senate. The first is called the Corporate Executive Accountability Act, which will hold corporate executives of million-dollar corporations criminally liable for negligence with potential prison time. The other is called The Too Big to Jail Act, creating a corporate crime strike force. In the wake of the 2008 meltdown, where there were no criminal prosecutions of note despite ruining millions of lives in our country, it’s led to a roiling discontent in America. Why has it been so difficult to prosecute bankers and corporate leaders and executives in our country? Why has the government been so reluctant to do so? And in the unlikely circumstance that Warren’s bills will get passed in the Senate, what would be the result and complications if they did? Joining us once again to sort through all of this is a man who knows a thing or two about white-collar crime. Bill Black— Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, white- collar criminologist, former financial regulator, the author of the book The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One, and a regular contributor here at The Real News. Bill, welcome back. Good to have you with us. Thank you. So this has obviously been building since 2008. People have been wanting some answer, but I think most folks don’t know really what that means. I’ve been reading a lot of pieces that are pro and con about what Elizabeth Warren is suggesting. Let’s go through what she’s suggesting and get your initial read and analysis of that.

BILL BLACK Okay. So as you said, there are two different acts. She just rolled one of them out a couple of days ago and they fit together. One is addressed more directly to the financial crisis and the other one is prompted by the financial crisis, but broader than it. That second one would propose to change the requirement to get a guilty verdict to a demonstration of negligence on the part of officers when they commit the really serious crimes. The other act would basically provide more resources to go after elite, white-collar criminals.

MARC STEINER In the New York Times, there was a quote from Lanny Breuer who is a Justice Department, Criminal Division official former head. He said on Frontline, “when we can’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there was a criminal intent, then we have a constitutional duty not to bring those cases.” And Attorney General Eric Holder told the Senate committee that some banks would become “too big,” that prosecuting them would have negatively affected the economy. In other words, they’ve become too big to jail. And then, in Britain there it was said that if you start prosecuting these people, then it threatens the very foundations of the free enterprise system. So Bill, what’s the problem here?

BILL BLACK So the problem is the people at the top in both the United States and the United Kingdom. For example, Prime Minister Blair complained at a time when the Financial Supervisory Authority— which is referred to over there as the Fundamentally Supine Authority [laughter]— was absolutely not regulating anything, that it was outrageous overregulation, and how dare they treat bankers as potential criminals. We have the combination of Breuer and Holder where the only issue is, which of them was more moronic on this subject, and it was a dead tie.

MARC STEINER So tell me why do you use the word “moronic?”

BILL BLACK Because it’s a family show.

MARC STEINER [laughter]

BILL BLACK So seriously, to go through these things, let’s recall that in much more difficult cases in the savings and loan debacle, we oriented the prosecutions entirely towards the most elite defendants. And here’s the first thing: There is never a problem to the financial system from prosecuting individual criminals. It is not good for a financial system to be run by criminals. You strengthen the financial system when you convict and remove criminals from running the largest bank. [laugher]

MARC STEINER Let me just ask you a question about that. But is the nature of the competition among banks and the competition to make as much money as humanly possible— like the scandal that happened in 2008 that tanked our economy for a while and put millions of people into huge financial jeopardy— that seems to me to be the daily workings of those institutions. And the issue…

BILL BLACK No, no.

MARC STEINER Go ahead. Tell me why you say no.

BILL BLACK Banks don’t do anything.

MARC STEINER The people in them do, though.

BILL BLACK The bankers do things and bankers shape the institutions, so institutions matter enormously. And that’s the first big thing in a critique of Senator Warren. If anybody is close to Senator Warren, please send her this link. [laughter] We can really help. She’s got exactly the right ideas, but she isn’t an expert in criminology. She wasn’t part of the efforts to prosecute folks successfully that I’m about to describe. We can really, really help her be effective and we’re willing to help any candidate be effective on these issues. Two enormous institutional changes have made the world vastly more criminogenic. Those changes are: we got rid of true partnerships where you had joint and several liability. Therefore, it really paid to make sure that you didn’t make a partner, someone who was super sleazy, because then they could sue you— not them, not the sleazy partner, but you and it was absolutely no defense that you had nothing to do with it. Your entire net worth could be taken. That’s what a true partnership was. We got rid of true partnerships throughout the financial world. The second thing is modern executive compensation. Modern executive compensation not only creates the incentives to defraud, because you can be made wealthy. It provides the means to defraud. This allows you to convert corporate assets to your own personal wealth in a way that has very little risk of prosecution and it allowed you to suborn the controls but also [allowed] the lower officers and employees to actually commit the fraudulent acts, which are usually accounting for you in a way that you’d have plausible deniability. We can change both and we must change both of those incredibly perverse incentives if we want to deal with fraud successfully. So that’s the missing part of her plan and I think she would agree with everything I’ve said. Now we have a detailed plan— we being the bank whistleblowers united— that we put out two years ago in the election, two and a half years ago. We’ll put this on the website, or at least the links to it for folks who want to know the kind of institutional steps you need to start changing this. But even with what I’ve said about this much more criminogenic environment, it remains true that we could have prosecuted successfully elite officers and every one of the major participants that committed these frauds. Indeed in many ways it would have been easier than during the savings and loan debacle, because unlike the savings and loan debacle, we have superb whistleblowers— literally hundreds of whistleblowers who can say explicitly that these frauds occurred. And then we do it the old-fashioned way. That would give us the ability to prosecute midlevel officials and we can take it up the food chain by flipping them so that they give us information on the more senior folks. In some cases, our whistleblowers were right there in the C-suite and that would have included for example, a dead to rights prosecution against Robert Rubin. That’s as senior as you can get at city, a dead to right prosecution of Mozilo at Countrywide. And we have other institutions like Wells Fargo where the following happened, so it’s easy to look at liar’s loans. Liar’s loans again had a fraud incidence of 90 percent— nine-zero. So the only entities doing liar’s loans as a significant product are fraudulent. Similarly, if they’re doing appraisal fraud, extorting appraisers to inflate appraisals, that only occurs at fraudulent shops. So Wells actually checked and it’s easy to check and that’s an important point. The fact that the Department of Justice never did this, and the banking agencies never did this, is a demonstration that they didn’t want to actually conduct investigations. Here’s how you check: so in a liar’s loan, you don’t verify the borrower’s income, but the borrower signs at the same time a permission that says you can check this against my I.R.S. forms. And here’s a hint: none of us deliberately inflate our income on our income tax returns because we’d have to pay more taxes. [laughter] So in the case of both Countrywide and Wells Fargo, we know that senior management who was given the results said, these kinds of loans, liar’s loans, are majority frauds. And we know that senior management in both cases said, you know what we should do? Many, many more of those. That is a great criminal case. At J.P. Morgan, we have a great criminal case.

MARC STEINER Let me just interrupt you for a second, Bill. I want people to understand this because everything you’re reading in the press right now, almost every article, whether they seem to like what Elizabeth Warren is suggesting, or oppose it, have questions about it. Almost everybody to a person I’ve read has said, it’s almost impossible to prosecute these cases. We don’t have a law to do it, that prosecuting somebody for, as she’s suggesting, for negligence would not get the job done even if her bill ever passed. And so, talk a bit about that though. I’m very curious since clearly, you’re going against the common wisdom that most people would have and anything they read— whether it’s The New York Times or anywhere else— that we don’t have the laws to make prosecutions work, which is one of the reasons why we’re not prosecuting people.

BILL BLACK Okay so everybody you’ve read, has never been involved in these successful prosecutions.

MARC STEINER No, but if they’re journalists and they’ve studied it, they should know what they’re talking about.

BILL BLACK Seriously? [laughter]

MARC STEINER You would think, right? Well I would hope so. Anyway, but go ahead. [laughter].

BILL BLACK No, I would not think so. I don’t think that at all because otherwise, they would have talked to people like us who actually did it. So let’s go back. Under the same laws in the savings and loan debacle, we were able to hyper-prioritized prosecutions against the most elite folks. So we’re going after folks in the C-Suite— the C.E.O.s, the chief operating officers, the boards of directors, and such. We got over a thousand convictions in these cases, just the ones designated as major. We did over 600 prosecutions of the most elite of the elite, against the best criminal defense lawyers in the world with the same laws, and we got over a ninety percent conviction rate. So can it be done? Of course it can be done. We’ve shown that it can be done. Maybe our cases were just simple because it was just savings and loans and these are big banks. Actually, the prosecutions in many of these cases were easier. The loans in the savings and loan debacle, were actually much more complicated than home loans. They were commercial construction loans, $80-90 million dollars at-a-pop often. That’s far more complex to explain to a jury, than a home loan and something as easy as a liar’s loan and extorting an appraiser. In addition, there are massively more whistleblowers. I cannot remember the name of a significant whistleblower in the savings and loan debacle that was critical to prosecutions. I’m sure there were a couple, but again we have literally hundreds of whistleblowers who came forward in this crisis. This crisis occurred because first the Bush administration and then the Obama administration, were unwilling to investigate, unwilling to prosecute. And here’s again the key. There are about two F.B.I. white-collar specialists per industry in the United States— not per firm, per industry. So that means they don’t have expertise in individual industries and they don’t walk a beat, or they’d never find it. They only come when there’s a criminal referral. Our agency, our much tinier agency back in the savings and loan debacle, made over thirty thousand criminal referrals. All of the federal banking regulatory agencies, much bigger in the great financial crisis, made fewer than a dozen criminal referrals, 30,000 to under a dozen. That means that the banking regulatory agencies basically ceased functioning in terms of criminal referrals. And why? That’s the third big change and the third big change is ideological. What you saw is, both under the Republicans and under Bill Clinton— the Democratic Party, the due Democrats, the Wall Street wing of the party— they were simply unwilling to even think of bankers as criminals. I got out of the regulatory ranks when under Bill Clinton we were ordered, and I witnessed personally, to refer to the industry as our customers. Not the American people as our customers, the industry as our customers. Well do you make criminal referrals on your customers?

MARC STEINER So we’re here talking to Bill Black and we’ve been covering some of the history of this. What we are going to do is we’re going to take a break here and come back with another segment shortly and really probe into what Elizabeth Warren has said she wants to make into law. Would that make a difference? Does it fall short and it could lead to more prosecutions? We’re going to come back to that. So you want to hit the next segment with Bill Black and Marc Steiner. Bill, thank you once again for being with The Real News. It’s always a pleasure to have you with us.

BILL BLACK Thank you.

MARC STEINER And I’m Mark Steiner here for The Real News Network. Take care.

Thank These Climate Activists for Resisting Our Extinction

At just 16 years old, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has made waves all over the world for her plain-spoken, no-holds-barred chastising of world leaders over their inaction on climate change. Thunberg’s signature calm and the profound magnitude of her quietly delivered warnings were on full display this week as she addressed members of the U.K. Parliament after a weeklong series of militant actions by Extinction Rebellion. “Is my microphone on? Can you hear me?” she asked several times, with a palpable anger.

Thunberg called out Britain for claiming that it has lowered its emissions but leaving out of its calculations major sources of carbon emissions. She also blamed lawmakers for championing such new fossil fuels as fracked oil and gas. “This ongoing, irresponsible behavior will no doubt be remembered in history as one of the greatest failures of humankind,” Thunberg said, as Members of Parliament watched and listened in silence. Secretary of State for Environment Michael Gove later said he felt “great admiration, but also responsibility and guilt.” Labour MP Ed Miliband admitted, “You have woken us up.”

Thunberg is used to hearing such platitudes and reportedly “listened attentively, applauding only when a member of [the] audience criticized the government for pushing ahead with fracking.” She is correct that politicians have wasted decades of precious time with “beautiful words and promises.” The annual Conference of Parties climate meetings hosted by the United Nations routinely brings together thousands of delegates from hundreds of nations to take action on the climate. But until the 2015 Paris Accord, there was almost nothing to show, almost no progress made year after year. And even in Paris, the climate accord championed by world leaders lacked the necessary strong language urging drastic action and enforceable pledges to reduce or stop emissions. And even that modest agreement was then tossed out by the U.S.—one of the most egregious carbon-emitters in the world.

Nothing matters anymore except for action. That is what thousands of people, young and old, have expressed in London over the past several days. On April 15, members of Extinction Rebellion occupied key landmarks across the city: Parliament Square, Marble Arch, Oxford Circus, Waterloo Bridge and Piccadilly Circus. They articulated a simple set of three demands to the government: declare a climate and ecological emergency, enact policies to become carbon-neutral by 2025, and declare a citizens assembly to deepen democracy, given how spectacularly our existing governments have failed us.

Over eight days of actions, more than 1,000 people were arrested in London as they engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience in the form of sit-ins, road blockages and die-ins—the largest number of arrests resulting from any coordinated set of actions in the city. Activists super-glued themselves to the front of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s home, to the top of a train carriage, and also to a train window. They brought London to a standstill and made clear that climate action is a nonnegotiable demand. One business executive complained to the BBC that his company lost 12 million pounds (roughly $15.5 million) in trade, remarking, “Everyone has a right to peaceful protest. But this is really disruptive.”

As any organizer knows, disruption is the point—especially when humanity’s future, which is worth far more than any business losses, is at stake. And it worked. The Labour Party announced—after more than a week of actions—that it will endorse Extinction Rebellion and move toward declaring a climate emergency. Just as Thunberg managed to shame MPs with her speech, Extinction Rebellion pushed the political needle in the right direction.

While the British media were forced to cover the coalition’s climate actions because of the scale of disruption, American media outlets barely covered the movement. They certainly did not give Extinction Rebellion a coveted front-page spot. There were smaller-scale actions in the U.S. in conjunction with London’s, but they received hardly any coverage either. On April 16, activists launched the “climate games” “hosted” by the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C. In Portland, Ore., 11 activists were arrested for building a garden across the train tracks to protest the expansion of an oil terminal. In Los Angeles, four people glued themselves to the top of the Universal Studios globe, demanding that NBC Universal improve its coverage of climate change.

Where political inaction, particularly at the global and national level, has failed, local victories are quietly offering the only sources of hope. Unrelated to the nonviolent civil disobedience actions Extinction Rebellion launched last week, New York City activists celebrated the passage of a slate of city-wide resolutions labeled #ClimateMobilizationAct. As Patrick Houston, an associate at New York Communities for Change, explained to me in an interview, “We’re calling it a ‘Green New Deal for New York,’ ” because it addresses issues of climate change and racial and economic inequality. Among the resolutions passed is that of commissioning a study on how to transition the city’s power plants from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. Another focuses on a plan to fill the city’s rooftops with gardens, along with other green initiatives.

The centerpiece of the bill addresses what Houston calls “New York’s largest source of climate pollution, and that is buildings.” The city’s high-rises will need to retrofit their windows, insulation and other infrastructure to be more energy-efficient. The buildings most affected make up a tiny percentage of all the city’s structures—“the large luxury buildings, like Trump Tower, like Kushner buildings,” Houston explained. He called New York’s #ClimateMobilizationAct “the largest climate pollution cut on the municipal level in the world.”

In other words, if one of the world’s largest cities can address climate pollution in 2019, so can every other city in the U.S. and the world. This week, the city of Los Angeles also voted unanimously to pass its own version of a “Green New Deal.” One report explained that such a plan could “dramatically reduce environmental pollution in some of the city’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods, and stimulate the creation of green jobs and infrastructure through a $100 million, 10-year program.” Maine is also considering such a plan, as is Minnesota.

There is no time to waste. As Thunberg explained, “The fact that we are speaking of ‘lowering’ instead of ‘stopping’ emissions is perhaps the greatest force behind the continuing business as usual.” She is correct. Every step—even those in the right direction—seems paltry in comparison to the scope of the climate emergency. Each bill passed and every resolution debated speaks of future cuts, more studies, better data and a plan to make a plan to someday—maybe, perhaps—reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That is simply not enough.

“Now we probably don’t even have a future any more,” Thunberg told the British MPs. “Because that future was sold so that a small number of people could make unimaginable amounts of money.” We all need to see the writing on the wall as starkly as the truth-telling teen activist sees it. Her future, and the future of all our children, depends on it.

Is America Finally Waking Up to the Student Debt Crisis?

The revolution to end the burden of student debt continues, with a recent proposal from presidential contender Elizabeth Warren to cancel $50,000 in loans for households making less than $100,000 a year, with lower amounts for those making up to $250,000. Following the Democratic wave, which was driven in part by a surge of youth turnout, it’s more important than ever for Democrats to embrace an ambitious progressive agenda aimed at benefiting the rising American electorate. An ideal policy would be total student debt cancellation.

Earlier this year, Freedom to Prosper and Data for Progress fielded a nationally representative survey analyzing support for repealing Trump’s tax cuts and using the proceeds to cancel outstanding student debt. Across the full sample, 47 percent of respondents supported and 36 percent of respondents opposed the proposal. Contrary to Republicans’ hopes, not only are Trump’s corporate tax handouts unpopular generally, but they are especially so when voters are given the chance to cancel them in favor of a major national debt cancellation program.

According to our analysis of the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) 2018 survey, a gold standard political science resource, Democrats won 65 percent of the two-party vote (excluding third-party candidates) among student debt holders, compared with only 50 percent of the vote among non-student debt holders.

The policy is particularly popular among Democrats who support it by a 68-13 margin.

Going into the 2020 election, the key question for Democrats is how to maintain the youthquake that delivered them the House. A war on student debt could do so.

Overall, Millennials support the policy by a 53-24 margin. Generation X respondents back it by a 43-33 margin. Baby Boomers are narrowly split, supporting the policy by a 45-42 margin. Only Silent Generation respondents opposed the policy, by a 39-47 margin. Respondents who are closer in age to the college experience are more likely to support assistance with student debt, as one might expect.

Previously, Freedom to Prosper and Data for Progress had fielded a survey containing the same item. Support increased more than five points since then, from 41 percent in 2018 to 46 percent in 2019.

First, the change in overall opinion is likely driven by Millennials, who are growing as a share of the electorate and are the voters most directly affected by the burden of student loans. Their mean level of support for student debt relief rose by six points from July 2018 to January 2019.

In addition to age, self-reported household income predicted support for supporting student debt relief, when controlling for other factors. As the Democratic Party struggles to appeal to the voters who turned out in 2012 but stayed home in 2016, student debt relief stands out as an issue. Indeed, one in four Americans who voted in 2018 but did not vote in 2016 are student debt holders (the analysis only includes individuals old enough to vote in both elections). Sixty-four percent of these voters supported Democrats.

Student debt has the potential to help Democrats to make inroads with a broad array of voters. As previous Freedom to Prosper research showed, one in five people responsible for paying off a student loan is over the age of 50. Perhaps surprisingly, more than half of individuals over the age of 26 who were responsible for paying off a student loan do not have a college degree, according to the CCES 2016 survey.

We should expect growing support for this item for a few reasons: Younger voters of all political stripes are being exposed to the status quo student loan system. Younger voters are also less likely to accept the toxic brand of “conservatism.” Because party ID and ideology are good predictors of support for student loan relief, and because party ID and ideology are clearly favorable to Democrats among the next generation of voters, we should be prepared to push the issue of student loan forgiveness.

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Joe Biden Is Already Courting Big Money Donors

Hours after officially entering the 2020 Democratic presidential field Thursday morning, former Vice President Joe Biden is expected to head to the Philadelphia home of Comcast executive David Cohen for a big-dollar fundraiser that will reportedly be attended by Democratic lawmakers, the CEO of insurance giant Independence Blue Cross, and other high-powered party players.

Biden launched his presidential bid with a video condemning President Donald Trump’s response to the 2017 neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville and calling the 2020 election “a battle for the soul of this nation.”

“The core values of this nation, our standing in the world, our very democracy, everything that has made America America is at stake,” Biden said. “That’s why today I’m announcing my candidacy for president of the United States.”

As Politico reported on the eve of Biden’s 2020 announcement, the former vice president “raised the alarm about fundraising” in a conference call with top donors, expressing the need to have a big first-day haul.

“The money’s important,” Biden reportedly said during the call, according to a anonymous participant who recounted the remarks to Politico. “We’re going to be judged by what we can do in the first 24 hours, the first week.”

While Biden has vowed to join most other 2020 Democratic candidates in rejecting campaign contributions from lobbyists, HuffPost‘s Kevin Robillard pointed out that Biden’s planned fundraiser with corporate executives Thursday evening “shows the limitations of such a pledge.”

Though Cohen is technically not a registered lobbyist, he directs Comcast’s lobbying operations—a distinction that critics said allows him to skirt federal lobbying regulations.

According to the Philadelphia Business Journal, “Cohen sent an email to potential contributors Wednesday soliciting donations of $2,800, the maximum federal primary contribution for the event.”

Politico first published the invitation for the large-dollar fundraiser:

As Sludge‘s Donald Shaw reported, Comcast “has been a leading voice in the telecommunication industry’s efforts to oppose net neutrality rules, spending millions on lobbying against laws at the federal and state levels that would prohibit internet service providers (ISPs) from giving priority treatment to certain types of traffic.”

“In 2006, when he was a senator from Delaware serving on the Judiciary Committee, Biden said that he did not think net neutrality rules were needed,” Shaw noted.

The list of executives and other wealthy donors expected to attend Biden’s first fundraiser as a 2020 presidential candidate sparked concern:

Folks helping Biden launch his Presidential run:

David Cohen: Comcast executive.

Dan Hilferty: Medical Insurance Company CEO (Independence Blue Cross).

Steve Cozen: Union Buster.@mad4pa and @marygayscanlon do they represent you? https://t.co/DBqaSLGHQf

— BuxMont DSA

Even Millionaires Are Ashamed of Their Absurdly Low Tax Bills

Fats Domino sings: “I found my thrill, on Blueberry Hill.” Maybe, but America’s richest corporate powers know precisely where to find their thrill: On Capitol Hill.

They rushed there in 2017 with a passion hotter than high school love, spewing the pheromones of campaign cash into the Republican congressional caucus. Sure enough, the GOP Congress came through for the corporations, satisfying their lust to have their tax rate lowered from 35 percent to 21 percent — lower than a modest-income working stiff pays.

Actually, the corporate elites hadn’t been paying anywhere near 35 percent, since they used dozens of loopholes to cut their average rate to about 13 percent. Yet Republican lawmakers coddled these privileged giants with a rate cut — plus, they kept intact most of those gaping loopholes. Thus, many corporate behemoths paid $0 in federal taxes this year. Or less!

How is it possible to pay less than zero? By riddling the tax code with so many special deductions and gimmicks that the government owes you money.

On tax day this year, the watchdog Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy issued a report documenting that 60 of America’s biggest corporations used the GOP’s tax cut and special breaks to avoid paying a dime in taxes on the $79 billion in profits they’d hauled in.

Indeed, they were given millions of dollars in rebates from our public treasury. For example, Amazon, which had $11 billion in profit last year, paid $0 in federal income tax, instead plucking $126 million in rebates from us. Likewise, Chevron, John Deere, GM, and Prudential grabbed more than $100 million.

This plutocratic ripoff is so shameful and un-American that a group of embarrassed rich people are calling for its repeal.

Joe Biden Formally Enters the 2020 Presidential Race

WASHINGTON — The Latest on former Vice President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential bid (all times local):

4:25 p.m.

Bernie Sanders’ campaign is raising money off Joe Biden’s announcement that he is entering the 2020 Democratic presidential race.

In an email with the subject line “Joe Biden,” Sanders’ campaign manager Faiz Shakir called Thursday “an important moment to show that we are the ones who can beat Trump and transform this country.”

Shakir says that while there are many candidates running for president, “there is only one Bernie Sanders.”

Sanders is so far Biden’s leading rival in the race for the Democratic nomination, and the senator from Vermont was able to generate more than $6 million in his campaign’s first 24 hours, as did former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke. Their big first 24-hour fundraising hauls will be the metric against which Biden’s first day total will be measured.

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3:40 p.m.

Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke says he’s glad former Vice President Joe Biden has joined the race.

The former Texas congressman told reporters during a campaign stop in Reno, Nevada, on Thursday that Biden brings “some extraordinary experience in public service” to the competition for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination. He said it’s good for Democrats and good for America.

O’Rourke says Biden is joining an “extraordinary field of candidates with amazing diversity and backgrounds,” experience and life stories.

He said after a speech to the University of Nevada Young Democrats at a coffee shop on the edge of the Reno campus that it’s up to voters, not to him, to decide whether Biden should be considered the front-runner in the race or whether he’s too much of a centrist candidate.

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2:45 p.m.

A top aide to Joe Biden says the former vice president has spoken with Anita Hill, whose treatment during Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court confirmation hearing has been a source of criticism for the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.

In a text message Thursday to The Associated Press, Biden’s deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield says, “They had a private discussion where he shared with her directly his regret for what she endured and his admiration for everything she has done to change the culture around sexual harassment in this country.”

Biden was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991, when Hill came forward with allegations that Thomas had sexually harassed her.

Hill has not responded to multiple requests for comment by the AP.

Biden has said he wishes he could have avoided what called questioning that was “hostile and insulting.”

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2:15 p.m.

Former Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Cedric Richmond is supporting former Vice President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential bid. He says Biden “has always been in the corner of working people and minorities.”

The Democratic Louisiana congressman told The Associated Press on Thursday that he encouraged Biden to run soon after President Donald Trump’s 2016 election.

Richmond said he called Biden and urged him to run. He said Biden is “genuinely concerned about where we’re going as a country. I think that played a large role in his decision.”

Ahead of his decision to enter the race, Biden has leaned heavily on Congressional Black Caucus members, who represent millions of black voters in early primary states.

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11:55 a.m.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has dismissed a reporter’s question about why he wasn’t endorsed for 2020 by former President Barack Obama, who issued a statement calling his choice of Biden as a running mate in 2008 “one of the best decisions” he’s ever made.

Biden arrived in Wilmington, Del., on Thursday to a crowd of reporters anxious to talk to him after he announced his candidacy for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

At a train station en route to Philadelphia, Biden said he “asked President Obama not to endorse” and “Whoever wins this nomination should win it on their own merit.”

Asked what separates him from the rest of the massive Democratic field, Biden said, “That will be for the Democrats to decide.”

Before walking away, Biden cheerily says, “Welcome to Delaware.”

Biden has said the “soul of this nation” is at stake if President Donald Trump wins re-election.

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9:45 a.m.

Former Vice President Joe Biden will hit the road campaigning first thing next week.

Biden is scheduled to begin in Pittsburgh, the working class heart of his childhood home state of Pennsylvania. He’ll receive the endorsement of the International Association of Fire Fighters and speak about rebuilding the middle class.

Then it’s off to Iowa, home of the leadoff nominating caucuses. That will be followed by a trip to South Carolina, where Biden is seen as having to do well among the state’s sizable blocs of African American voters and military veterans.

Biden is scheduled to visit other early-voting states Nevada and New Hampshire in early May, before holding a national event in Philadelphia on May 18.

Biden joined the crowded Democratic presidential contest on Thursday, declaring the “soul of this nation” at stake if President Donald Trump wins re-election.

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9:25 a.m.

Former Vice President Joe Biden is running into immediate headwinds from some progressive Democrats from the party’s left wing as he launches his 2020 presidential bid.

A group aligned with New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called Justice Democrats says in a lengthy statement that Biden is a centrist Democrat who could “divide the party.” It says Biden could squelch progressive enthusiasm for policies like single-payer health care and a Green New Deal.

The group said Thursday the “old guard” already failed to defeat President Donald Trump in 2016 and cannot be counted on to excite the base in 2020. But the statement still notes that Justice Democrats will support whoever wins the Democratic nomination next year.

Biden joined the crowded Democratic presidential contest on Thursday morning, declaring the “soul of this nation” at stake if Trump wins re-election.

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8:30 a.m.

President Donald Trump is welcoming former Vice President Joe Biden to the 2020 race with a taste of his acerbic Twitter commentary.

Trump tweets Thursday: “Welcome to the race Sleepy Joe,” one of his nicknames for Biden, a fellow septuagenarian. He adds: “I only hope you have the intelligence, long in doubt, to wage a successful primary campaign.”

Trump predicts that the race to face him in the general election will be “nasty” but says if Biden wins the nomination, “I will see you at the Starting Gate!”

Biden formally announced his candidacy on Thursday, entering the crowded 2020 Democratic field as a front-runner.

___

7 a.m.

Senate Democrats from Joe Biden’s twin home states of Delaware and Pennsylvania are endorsing him for president.

Delaware Sen. Chris Coons and Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey quickly issued written statements supporting the former vice president after Biden posted a video declaring his 2020 candidacy.

Coons, who holds Biden’s old Senate seat, says in the statement, “Joe Biden doesn’t just talk about making our county more just, he delivers results.”

Casey says, “At this make-or-break moment for the middle class, our children and our workers, America needs Vice President Joe Biden to be its next President.”

Biden was raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, but has lived most of his life in Wilmington, Delaware. Biden represented Delaware in the Senate from 1973 to 2009.

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6:40 a.m.

President Barack Obama is weighing in on Joe Biden’s entry into the 2020 presidential race, saying through a spokeswoman that selecting Biden as his running mate in 2008 was “one of the best decisions he ever made.”

Obama did not endorse Biden, nor is he expected to endorse any candidate early in the Democratic primary. But the fact that he released a statement — something he has not done after any other candidate announcements — underscores his close personal bond with Biden.

Obama spokeswoman Katie Hill says Obama relied on Biden’s “knowledge, insight, and judgment throughout both campaigns and the entire presidency.”

The former president has met with multiple Democratic presidential contenders and is said to welcome the large 2020 field and believe it will make the eventual Democratic nominee a stronger White House contender.

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6:01 a.m.

Joe Biden has formally entered the 2020 race for president.

The vice president under President Barack Obama made the announcement in a video released Thursday morning.

The move marks what will likely be the 76-year-old’s final opportunity to seek a job he has eyed for more than a generation. He struggled in two previous campaigns.

One of the most recognizable names in U.S. politics, Biden leads most early Democratic primary polls. But as an older white man who spent a half-century in Washington, it’s unclear if he will be embraced by today’s increasingly liberal Democratic Party.