January, 17 2024, 01:14pm EDT
CFPB’s Proposed Overdraft Rule Would Protect Consumers
The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) today released a proposal to close the bank overdraft loophole that costs consumers billions of dollars each year. Candace Milner, racial equity policy associate for Public Citizen, released the following statement:
“The new overdraft rule will ensure that banks are no longer using predatory overdraft fees to profit from consumers. Most overdraft fees are taken from low-income households when they can least afford it. Commonsense regulations on these fees would protect consumers from surprise charges and fees that often exceed the amount borrowed. Enormous overdraft fees that burden low-income consumers should no longer line the pockets of bank CEOs.”
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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Groups Sound Alarm Over Trump Plot to Install Nominees Without Senate Approval
"If you're trying to ram through nominees without Senate and public scrutiny, it's a pretty good guess that you have something to hide."
Dec 04, 2024
Dozens of civil rights and pro-democracy organizations teamed up Wednesday to express opposition to President-elect Donald Trump's push to use recess appointments to evade the Senate confirmation process for his political nominees, many of which have
glaring conflicts of interest.
The 70 groups—including People For the American Way, Public Citizen, the Constitutional Accountability Center, and the NAACP—sent a letter to U.S. senators arguing that Senate confirmation procedures provide "crucial data" that helps lawmakers and the public "evaluate nominees' fitness for the important positions to which they are nominated."
"The framers of the Constitution included the requirement of Senate 'Advice and Consent' for high-ranking officers for a reason: The requirement can protect our freedom, just as the Bill of Rights does, by providing an indispensable check on presidential power," reads the new letter. "None of that would happen with recess appointments. The American people would be kept in the dark."
Since his victory in last month's election, Trump has publicly expressed his desire to bypass the often time-consuming Senate confirmation process via recess appointments, which are allowed under the Constitution and have been used in the past by presidents of both parties. The need for Senate confirmation is already proving to be a significant obstacle for the incoming administration: Trump's first attorney general nominee, Matt Gaetz, withdrew amid seemingly insurmountable Senate opposition, and Pentagon nominee Pete Hegseth appears to be on the ropes.
"Giving in to the president-elect's demand for recess appointments under the current circumstances would dramatically depart from how important positions have always been filled at the start of an administration," the groups wrote in their letter. "The confirmation process gathers important information that helps ensure that nominees who will be dangerous or ineffective for the American people are not confirmed and given great power, and that those who are confirmed meet at least a minimum standard of acceptability."
"The American people deserve full vetting of every person selected to serve in our nation's highest offices, and Trump's nominees are no exception."
Scholars argue recess appointments were intended as a way for presidents to appoint officials to key posts under unusual circumstances, not as an exploit for presidents whose nominees run up against significant opposition.
The Senate could prevent recess appointments by refusing to officially go on recess and making use of pro forma sessions, but incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has said that "we have to have all the options on the table" to push through Trump's nominees.
"We are not going to allow the Democrats to thwart the will of the American people in giving President Trump the people that he wants in those positions to implement his agenda," Thune said last month.
Trump has also previously threatened to invoke a never-before-used provision of the Constitution that he claims would allow him to force both chambers of Congress to adjourn, paving the way for recess appointments.
Conservative scholar Edward Whelan, a distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, denounced that proposed route as a "cockamamie scheme" that would mean "eviscerating the Senate's advice-and-consent role."
Svante Myrick, president of People For the American Way, said in a statement Wednesday that "if you're trying to ram through nominees without Senate and public scrutiny, it's a pretty good guess that you have something to hide."
"The American people deserve full vetting of every person selected to serve in our nation's highest offices," said Myrick, "and Trump's nominees are no exception."
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Humanitarian Groups Dread 2025 Aid Shortfall as Trump Term Looms
"At a time when the richest people on Earth can go to space as a tourist," said one advocate, "it is incomprehensible that we as an international community are unable to find the necessary funding to provide displaced families with shelter."
Dec 04, 2024
As the United Nations humanitarian agency and its partner organizations launched the annual Global Humanitarian overview on Wednesday to appeal for aid ahead of 2025, officials shared sobering numbers: 305 million people in dire need of assistance, 190 million people the agencies believe they can help next year if funding demands are met, and $47 billion that's needed to help the people facing the greatest threats.
Tom Fletcher, under-secretary-general at the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said governments, particularly those in wealthy countries like the United States, face "a choice" as the world bears witness to starvation, increasingly frequent climate disasters, and other suffering in Gaza, Sudan, Yemen, and elsewhere.
"We can respond to these numbers with generosity, with compassion, with genuine solidarity for those in the most dire need on the planet—or we can carry on," said Fletcher at a news briefing. "We can choose to leave them alone to face these crises. We can choose to let them down."
Fletcher and other humanitarian leaders noted that as of last month, just 43% of the $50 billion funding appeal made for 2024 had been met.
Food assistance in Syria has been cut by 80% as a result of the large funding gap, while protection services in Myanmar and water and sanitation aid in Yemen have also been reduced.
Fletcher said that with another major funding shortfall expected in 2025, OCHA and its partners are expecting to be forced to make "ruthless" decisions to direct aid to those most in need—likely leaving out 115 million people.
Fears that funding needs will be far from met in 2025 are arising partially from the election last month of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who pursued significant cuts during his first term to agencies including the U.N. Population Fund, UNAIDS, the World Health Organization, and the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
"America is very much on our minds at the moment, we're facing the election of a number of governments who will be more questioning of what the United Nations does and less ideologically supportive of this humanitarian effort that we've laid out in this report," said Fletcher. "But it's our job to frame the arguments in the right way to land and not to give up. And so I'll head to Washington. I'll spend a lot of time in Washington, I imagine, over the next few months, engaging with the new administration, making the case to them, just as I'll spend a lot of time in other capitals where people might be skeptical about the work that we are doing."
Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) Secretary-General Jan Egeland, who led OCHA for three years, toldAl Jazeera that U.S. funding under the Trump administration is "a tremendous question mark."
"Should the U.S. administration cut its humanitarian funding, it could be more complex to fill the gap of growing needs," said Egeland.
The U.S. is the largest humanitarian donor in the world, contributing $10 billion last year—but its donations pale in comparison to its military spending, which was budgeted at more than $841 billion in 2024, and the earnings of its top corporations.
As NRC noted, Facebook parent company Meta earned $47.4 billion—about the same amount humanitarian agencies are requesting this year—before income taxes in 2023.
Without naming billionaire SpaceX CEO Elon Musk—a Trump ally and megadonor who's expected to have a role in his new administration—Camilla Waszink, director of partnership and policy at NRC, called out the widening gap between the world's richest people and those in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.
"At a time when the richest people on Earth can go to space as a tourist and trillions of U.S. dollars are used annually on global military expenditure, it is incomprehensible that we as an international community are unable to find the necessary funding to provide displaced families with shelter and prevent children from dying of hunger," said Waszink. "There is an urgent need for a revamp of global solidarity. Existing donor countries must ensure assistance keeps pace with needs and inflation, and emerging economies should compete to become among the most generous donors in the same way they compete to host expensive international sports events."
"It is devastating to know that millions of people in need will not receive necessary assistance next year because of the growing lack of funding for the humanitarian response. With a record number of conflicts ongoing, donors are cutting aid budgets that displaced and conflict-affected people rely on to survive," she added. "Conflicts and a blatant disregard for protection of civilians are driving massive humanitarian needs. It is essential that donors provide funding, but they must also invest in ending conflicts, bringing violations to a halt and preventing new needs from developing."
Fletcher noted that in addition to conflicts like Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and the civil war in Sudan, the climate crisis is a major driver of growing humanitarian needs.
"2024 will be the hottest year on record," said Fletcher. "Presumably 2025 will then be the hottest year on record. Floods, droughts, heatwaves, wildfires affecting millions. We're on the brink of surpassing the 1.5°C in warming, and that will hit hardest in the countries that have actually contributed least to climate change. It wipes out food systems. It wipes out livelihoods, it forces communities to move from their homes and land. Drought has caused 65% of agricultural economic damage over the last 15 years, worsening food insecurity."
In conflict zones and in regions affected by the climate emergency, said Fletcher, "it's our mission to do more."
"My people are desperate to get out there and deliver because they really are on the frontline," he said. "They can see what is needed, but we need these resources. That's our call to action. And we also need the world to do more. Those with power to do more—to challenge this era of impunity and to challenge this era of indifference."
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CEO of UnitedHealthcare—Largest Private Insurer in US—Killed in Apparent Targeted Attack
"This does not appear to be a random act of violence," according to the police commissioner.
Dec 04, 2024
The CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, was fatally shot early Wednesday outside of a hotel in midtown Manhattan.
During a press conference, New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch said that Thompson was killed "in what appears, at this early stage in our investigation, to be a brazen, targeted attack. This does not appear to be a random act of violence." Thompson was taken to Mount Sinai West hospital before being pronounced dead.
Thompson, 50, was believed to be on his way to attend the company's annual investor conference, which was set to take place at the New York Hilton Hotel. Thompson, according to his LinkedIn page, has worked for UnitedHealth Group for 20 years and was named CEO of UnitedHealthcare in April 2021. He was a resident of Minnesota, according to the NYPD.
According to the NYPD, it appears the suspect was "lying in wait for several minutes" before approaching Thompson from behind and firing and striking Thompson multiple times. "Many people passed the suspect, but he appeared to wait for his intended target," said the commissioner.
The shooter, who a detective with the NYPD said appears to be male, then fled the scene, first on foot, and then on an e-bike, and was last seen in Central Park early this morning. There is currently a search underway for the shooter.
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