Tag Archives: regulatory affairs

There’s a Pitched Battle Being Fought Over the Phrase “Added Sugars”

by HarrietCooke Posted on July 2, 2014

Mother Jones

What do the following organizations have in common?

American Bakers Association
American Beverage Association
American Frozen Foods Institute
Corn Refiners Association
National Confectioners Association
American Frozen Food Institute
Sugar Association
International Dairy Foods Association

Answer: they are all furiously opposed to an FDA proposal that would add a line to the standard nutrition facts label for “Added Sugars.” Big surprise, eh? Roberto Ferdman explains here why it’s probably a good idea anyway.

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There’s a Pitched Battle Being Fought Over the Phrase “Added Sugars”

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The EU’s “Right to be Forgotten” Starts to Take Concrete Shape

by JustinYQON Posted on July 2, 2014

Mother Jones

A few days ago, Google announced that it was beavering away on the 41,000 requests it had gotten from people demanding that it remove links to unflattering articles about themselves. So just what kind of people are making these requests? Brad DeLong directs me to the BBC’s Robert Peston, who gives us a clue:

This morning the BBC received the following notification from Google:

Notice of removal from Google Search: we regret to inform you that we are no longer able to show the following pages from your website in response to certain searches on European versions of Google:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/legacy/thereporters/robertpeston/2007/10/merrills_mess.html

What it means is that a blog I wrote in 2007 will no longer be findable when searching on Google in Europe….Now in my blog, only one individual is named. He is Stan O’Neal, the former boss of the investment bank Merrill Lynch.

My column describes how O’Neal was forced out of Merrill after the investment bank suffered colossal losses on reckless investments it had made.

Is the data in it “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant”?

Hmmm.

I wonder if there’s a way to make this backfire? How hard would it be to create an automated process that figures out which articles Google is being forced to stuff down the memory hole? Probably not too hard, I imagine. And how hard would it then be to repost those articles in enough different places that they all zoomed back toward the top of Google’s search algorithm? Again, probably not too hard for a group of people motivated to do some mischief.

Maybe someone is already working on this. It wouldn’t surprise me. And I wonder if Google’s surprisingly quick response to the EU decision isn’t designed to spur exactly this kind of backlash. That wouldn’t really surprise me either.

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The EU’s “Right to be Forgotten” Starts to Take Concrete Shape

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Obama Goes Off on Mass Shootings

by MiquelCuriel Posted on June 13, 2014

Mother Jones

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It was easy to miss this week, eclipsed by major news including Eric Cantor’s stunning defeat and the mounting chaos in Iraq, but on Tuesday, President Obama made some of his starkest comments yet on America’s epidemic of gun violence. In an hour-long Q&A with the CEO of Tumblr at the White House—an event focused on education, student debt, and related issues—the president was at one point asked a question about the massacre in Santa Barbara and other incidents in the latest flurry of high-profile gun rampages. He went off for almost eight minutes. In the nearly six years of his presidency, he said, “My biggest frustration so far is the fact that this society has not been willing to take some basic steps to keep guns out of the hands of people who can do just unbelievable damage.”

See all of Mother Jones‘ reporting on guns in America.

Below read the full transcript of Obama’s remarks on gun violence:

TUMBLR CEO: This one was sent in a few days ago: “Mr. President, my name is Nick Dineen, and I attend school at the University of California-Santa Barbara. I was the RA for the floor that George Chen lived on last year as a first-year college student. I knew him. Elliot Rodger killed him and five more of my fellow students. Today, another man has shot and killed at least one person and injured three others at a private Christian school in Seattle. What are you going to do? What can we all do?” And of course, another mass shooting this morning.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I have to say that people often ask me how has it been being president, and what am I proudest of and what are my biggest disappointments. And I’ve got two and a half years left. My biggest frustration so far is the fact that this society has not been willing to take some basic steps to keep guns out of the hands of people who can do just unbelievable damage.

We’re the only developed country on Earth where this happens. And it happens now once a week. And it’s a one-day story. There’s no place else like this. A couple of decades ago, Australia had a mass shooting similar to Columbine or Newtown. And Australia just said, well, that’s it—we’re not seeing that again. And basically imposed very severe, tough gun laws. And they haven’t had a mass shooting since.

Our levels of gun violence are off the charts. There’s no advanced, developed country on Earth that would put up with this. Now, we have a different tradition. We have a Second Amendment. We have historically respected gun rights. I respect gun rights. But the idea that, for example, we couldn’t even get a background check bill in to make sure that if you’re going to buy a weapon you have to actually go through a fairly rigorous process so that we know who you are, so you can’t just walk up to a store and buy a semi-automatic weapon—it makes no sense.

And I don’t know if anybody saw the brief press conference from the father of the young man who had been killed at Santa Barbara. And as a father myself, I just could not understand the pain he must be going through and just the primal scream that he gave out—why aren’t we doing something about this?

And I will tell you, I have been in Washington for a while now and most things don’t surprise me. The fact that 20 six-year-olds were gunned down in the most violent fashion possible and this town couldn’t do anything about it was stunning to me. And so the question then becomes what can we do about it. The only thing that is going to change is public opinion. If public opinion does not demand change in Congress, it will not change. I’ve initiated over 20 executive actions to try to tighten up some of the rules in the laws, but the bottom line is, is that we don’t have enough tools right now to really make as big of a dent as we need to.

And most members of Congress—and I have to say, to some degree, this is bipartisan—are terrified of the NRA. The combination of the NRA and gun manufacturers are very well financed and have the capacity to move votes in local elections and congressional elections. And so if you’re running for office right now, that’s where you feel the heat. And people on the other side may be generally favorable towards things like background checks and other commonsense rules but they’re not as motivated. So that’s not—that doesn’t end up being the issue that a lot of you vote on.

And until that changes, until there is a fundamental shift in public opinion in which people say, enough, this is not acceptable, this is not normal, this isn’t sort of the price we should be paying for our freedom, that we can have respect for the Second Amendment and responsible gun owners and sportsmen and hunters can have the ability to possess weapons but that we are going to put some commonsense rules in place that make a dent, at least, in what’s happening—until that is not just the majority of you—because that’s already the majority of you, even the majority of gun owners believe that. But until that’s a view that people feel passionately about and are willing to go after folks who don’t vote reflecting those values, until that happens, sadly, not that much is going to change.

The last thing I’ll say: A lot of people will say that, well, this is a mental-health problem, it’s not a gun problem. The United States does not have a monopoly on crazy people. Laughter. It’s not the only country that has psychosis. And yet, we kill each other in these mass shootings at rates that are exponentially higher than anyplace else. Well, what’s the difference? The difference is, is that these guys can stack up a bunch of ammunition in their houses and that’s sort of par for the course.

So the country has to do some soul searching about this. This is becoming the norm, and we take it for granted in ways that, as a parent, are terrifying to me. And I am prepared to work with anybody, including responsible sportsmen and gun owners, to craft some solutions. But right now, it’s not even possible to get even the mildest restrictions through Congress, and we should be ashamed of that.

For more of Mother Jones‘ award-winning investigative reporting on guns in America, see all of our latest coverage here, and our special reports.

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Obama Goes Off on Mass Shootings

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Verizon Says It Wants to Kill Net Neutrality to Help Blind, Deaf, and Disabled People

by PearlXHKPliajoj Posted on June 13, 2014

Mother Jones

Verizon lobbyists are canvassing Capitol Hill with a curious new argument against net neutrality—it hurts disabled people.

The odd pitch comes as the Obama administration is mulling a plan to scrap net neutrality—the idea that Internet service providers should treat all websites equally—and instead allow ISPs to create Internet “fast lanes” for companies that can afford to pay for speedier service. The proposal, which is under consideration by the Federal Communications Commission, has sparked a massive public outcry, including an “Occupy the FCC” protest and a letter signed by 150 tech companies, including Google, Amazon, and Netflix, opposing the plan.

Three Hill sources tell Mother Jones that Verizon lobbyists have cited the needs of blind, deaf, and disabled people to try to convince congressional staffers and their bosses to get on board with the fast lane idea. But groups representing disabled Americans, including the National Association of the Deaf, the National Federation of the Blind, and the American Association of People with Disabilities are not advocating for this plan. Mark Perriello, the president and CEO of the AAPD, says that this is the “first time” he has heard “these specific talking points.”

There’s no doubt that blind and deaf people, who use special online services to communicate, need access to zippy Internet. Similarly, smartphone-based medical devices that are popular with disabled people require fast Internet service. Telecom industry lobbyists have argued that, without a fast lane, disabled Americans could get stuck with subpar service as Internet traffic increases. AAPD’s Perriello says this rationale could be genuine but seems “convenient.”

Defenders of net neutrality are more cynical. The Verizon lobbyists’ argument is “disingenuous,” says Matt Wood, a policy director at Free Press, an Internet freedom advocacy group. The FCC says that even if the agency doesn’t go through with its fast lane proposal, companies that serve disabled people would still be able to pay internet service providers for faster service.

A spokesman for Verizon wouldn’t confirm that Verizon lobbyists have used the disabled access pitch, but he says the company’s position on the FCC’s proposal is “not disingenuous.” (Verizon has not taken a public stance on the FCC’s proposed fast lane rule.) An FCC spokesman says the agency is evaluating the industry’s disability argument.

The roots of the net neutrality fight go back more than a decade. In 2002, the George W. Bush-era FCC decided to classify the internet as an “information service” instead of a public utility, protecting internet services from the stringent regulations that land line phones fall under. For years, free Internet advocates urged the FCC to reclassify the internet, but the commission resisted.

Last month, the FCC dealt a major blow to net neutrality by proposing new rules that would allow Internet service providers to charge online content providers such as Facebook and Netflix higher rates for faster service. The move caused a national outcry. Last week, the FCC’s website crashed after comedian John Oliver urged Internet “trolls” to comment at the agency’s website. In response to public ire, the FCC has said it will reconsider classifying the Internet as a common utility.

The telecom industry is striving to ensure that the agency doesn’t do that. In 2014 alone, Internet service providers have spent close to $19 million lobbying on net neutrality, according to Senate lobbying records:

Overall, ISP lobbying has exploded over the past decade:

This is not the first time the industry has cited the needs of disabled people as it sought to influence FCC rules. Verizon made this argument five years ago when the commission was drafting new regulations for ISPs. In a 2009 speech, former Verizon Communications CEO Ivan Seidenberg said that if his company was not allowed to prioritize certain medical data over internet traffic like email and spam, then people with health conditions might not benefit from life-saving technological advances.

The decision the FCC makes in the coming months could “change the course of the Internet for a long time to come,” says Michael Copps, who served as an FCC commissioner from 2001 to 2011, “perhaps in ways that will be impossible to reverse.”

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Verizon Says It Wants to Kill Net Neutrality to Help Blind, Deaf, and Disabled People

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Obama’s EPA Regs Reward Republican Obstructionism

by KiraRosales Posted on June 4, 2014

Mother Jones

Jamelle Bouie thinks Republicans are shooting themselves in the feet with their mindless obstructionism:

If Republicans are outraged by the announcement, they only have themselves to blame….In 2009, President Obama threw his support behind climate legislation in the House, and the following year, a group of Senate Democrats—including Kerry—began work with Republicans to craft a bipartisan climate bill. The process fell apart, a victim of bad management from the White House, election year politics, an embattled and fearful Sen. Lindsay Graham—the South Carolina senator at the center of the negotiations—and the growing tide of Republican anti-Obama sentiment, which would culminate that fall with a huge GOP victory in the House of Representatives.

….With a little cooperation, Republicans could have won a better outcome for their priorities. They could have exempted coal from more stringent spectrum of regulations, enriched their constituencies with new subsidies and benefits, and diluted a key Democratic priority. Instead, they’ll now pay a steep substantive price for their obstruction, in the form of rules that are tougher—and more liberal—than anything that could have passed Congress.

I think this misreads Republican priorities. Sure, they care about the details of the regulations. And sure, they knew perfectly well that Obama had threatened to act via the EPA if Congress failed to pass a bill. But neither of those were things they cared all that much about.

Note the bolded sentence above. What Republicans really care about is winning elections.1 They were pretty sure that cooperating on a cap-and-trade bill would hurt them in the 2010 midterms, and they were probably right about that. It wasn’t a popular bill, and they would have been forced to take partial credit for it if it had passed. Instead, they were able to run a clean, rage-filled campaign against Obummercare, cap-and-tax, and the pork-ocrat “stimulus” bill. As I recall, that worked out pretty well for them.

And what price did they pay? Well, now the EPA is proposing regs that are….maybe slightly worse than the original cap-and-trade bill, but not all that much, really. Policy-wise, then, they’ve lost at most a smidgen but no more.2 And guess what? There’s another midterm coming up! This is all perfectly timed from the Republican point of view. They get to run hard against yet another lawless-Obama-job-killing-socialist-war-on-coal-executive-tyranny program. What’s not to like?

1Democrats too, in case you’re keeping score at home. Libertarians not so much.

2It’s worth noting that they have Obama’s relentless technocratic pragmatism to thank for this. If Obama had really wanted to punish Republican constituencies for opposing the cap-and-trade bill, he could have proposed a bunch of command-and-control mandates that would have hit red states and the coal industry in the gut. If Obama were truly the business-hating socialist tyrant of their fever dreams, that’s what he would have done. Instead, he proposed regulations that were as flexible and efficient as possible within the restrictions of the Clean Air Act. That’s why, in the end, Republican obstructionism didn’t really hurt them that much.

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Obama’s EPA Regs Reward Republican Obstructionism

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Tim Geithner on Why Obama Passed Over Elizabeth Warren to Head the Consumer Protection Bureau

by hoseawilder7387 Posted on May 12, 2014

Mother Jones

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There is no love lost between Tim Geithner, the former US treasury secretary, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Geithner and Warren memorably clashed during hearings over the $700 billion bank bailout (Warren at the time chaired Congress’ bailout watchdog panel), and many progressives believed that Geithner denied Warren her rightful place as the full-time director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

In his new book, Stress Test, Geithner denies blocking Warren and describes his relationship with the progressive favorite as “complicated.” He praises her “smart and innovative” ideas about consumer protection, which, over dinner in Washington with Warren, he discovers are “more market-oriented, incentive-based, and practical than her detractors realized.” In the same breath, though, Geithner jabs Warren for running her bailout oversight hearings “like made-for-YouTube inquisitions rather than serious inquiries.” (Geithner’s not the only one to point out Warren’s embrace of the viral video clip: Listen to Buzzfeed reporter John Stanton’s comments in this MSNBC roundtable.)

So why did the Obama administration pass over Warren to run the new bureau? Geithner writes, “There was a lot to be said for making Warren the first CFPB director, but one consideration trumped all others: The Senate leadership told the White House there was no chance she could be confirmed.” Warren’s eventual gig—a presidentially-appointed acting director charged with getting the new bureau up and running—was Geithner’s idea, he says:

Chief of staff Mark Patterson and I thought about options, and after a few discussions with Rahm, I proposed that we make Warren the acting director, with responsibility for building the new bureau, while we continued to look for alternative candidates. This would give her a chance to be the public face of consumer protection, which she was exceptionally good at, and the ability to recruit a team of people to the new bureau right away, which she wouldn’t have been allowed to do if she had been in confirmation limbo.

What stands out in Geithner’s retelling is the depth of President Obama’s admiration for Warren, and how much Obama agonized over what to do with Warren and the consumer bureau. The bureau was, after all, her idea. Here’s what Geithner writes:

The President was torn. Progressives were turning Warren into another whose-side-are-you-on litmus test. The head of the National Organization for Women publicly accused me of blocking Warren, calling me a classic Wall Street sexist. Valerie Jarrett, the President’s confidante from Chicago, was pushing hard for Warren, too, and she was worried I would stand in the way. At a meeting with Rahm and Valerie, I told the group that if the President wanted to appoint Warren to run the CFPB, I wouldn’t try to talk him out of it, but everyone in the room knew she had no chance of being confirmed. The president, who almost never called me at home, made an exception on this issue. It was really eating away at him. He had a huge amount of respect for Warren, but he didn’t want an endless confirmation fight, and he was hesitant to nominate someone so divisive that it would undermine the agency’s ability to get up and running, as well as its ability to build broader legitimacy beyond the left.

As soon as Warren got to the CFPB, she began trying to lure away Geithner’s own staffers. “She was unapologetic when my team finally confronted her about it,” he writes, “and you had to respect her determination to get things done.”

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Tim Geithner on Why Obama Passed Over Elizabeth Warren to Head the Consumer Protection Bureau

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Big-Bank Insider: Obama’s “Operation Choke Point” Isn’t Forcing Us to Close Porn Stars’ Accounts

by MarthaMunson Posted on May 8, 2014

Mother Jones

If this were a Hardy Boys book, it would be The Hardy Boys and the Mystery of the Porn Stars’ Disappearing Bank Accounts.

Last month, porn star Teagan Presley told Vice that JPMorgan Chase & Co. closed her account because the bank considered her “high-risk.” Then, on Wednesday, porn director David Lord told the Daily Beast that Chase sent him a letter notifying him that the bank was going to close his account on May 11. The Beast and Vice suggested that a secretive Justice Department program, “Operation Choke Point,” was behind the account closures. But a Chase insider familiar with the matter says that the initiative has nothing to do with the termination of these accounts.

“This has nothing to do with Operation Choke Point,” the source told Mother Jones. “There’s not a targeted effort to exit consumers’ accounts because of an affiliation with an industry and we have no policy that would prohibit a consumer from having a checking account because of an affiliation with this industry. We routinely exit consumers for a variety of reasons. For privacy reasons we can’t get into why.”

The porn stars’ allegations play into a narrative—pushed by banks and congressional Republicans—that the Obama administration is overstretching its authority by forcing banks to police the free market. Here’s the real story:

What is Operation Choke Point? Operation Choke Point is a federal initiative that aims to crack down on fraud by honing in on banks and payment processors—the companies that serve as middlemen between merchants and banks on credit card transactions. Financial institutions are not supposed to do business with companies they believe might be breaking the law. But Justice Department officials suspect that some payment processors ignore signs of fraud—like high percentages of transactions being rejected as unauthorized—in transactions they process, and banks go along for the ride, earning massive profits.

The Justice Department has already filed one lawsuit under the program. In January, the government sued Four Oaks Bank in North Carolina, charging that it “knew or was deliberately ignorant” that it was working with a company that processed payments for merchants who were breaking the law. According to the lawsuit, Four Oaks worked with a Texas-based payment processor that processed about $2.4 billion in transactions on behalf of fraudulent payday lenders, internet gambling entities, and a Ponzi fraud scheme. The processor then allegedly paid Four Oaks more than $850,000 in fees. (In April, Four Oaks reached a $1.2 million settlement with the government, but did not admit wrongdoing.)

President Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, headed by the Department of Justice, is behind the program. Michael Bresnick, who runs the task force, made the program public last March. He says that the aim is to “close the access to the banking system that mass marketing fraudsters enjoy—effectively putting a chokehold on it.”

Is this the first time that feds have asked banks to keep an eye on their customers? No. The Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 requires financial institutions to assist the feds in preventing money laundering, which includes scrutinizing customers. However, banks argue that Operation Choke Point goes further than that law.

Does Operation Choke Point include a “blacklist” of businesses or individuals the government is requiring banks to target? Not exactly. Last September, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation issued updated regulatory guidelines noting that “facilitating payment processing for merchant customers engaged in higher-risk activities can pose risks to financial institutions.” A footnote in the guidelines linked to a list of products and services, published in 2011, that the feds say have been associated with high-risk activity, including get-rich products, drug paraphernalia, escort services, firearm sales, pornography, escort services, and racist materials. But the September guidance makes clear that financial institutions that “properly manage these relationships and risks are neither prohibited nor discouraged from providing payment processing services to customers operating in compliance with applicable law.” In other words, the guidance requires banks to perform due diligence to prevent fraud, but does not require banks to go on a porn-star witch hunt.

Why are some people saying Operation Choke Point discriminates against low-income Americans? As part of the program, the feds are scrutinizing payday lenders, which offer short-term loans at high interest rates. Critics of these lenders say they take advantage of low-income Americans, while defenders note that they’re often the only option for Americans unable to get loans elsewhere. Some states restrict or ban payday loans. But as payday lenders move online, they’ve been able to skirt state rules, according to the Justice Department. The feds hope to crack down on payday lenders that are not complying with state and federal regulations. “This effort is focusing on ensuring that lenders are not using electronic payment networks to commit fraud or offer products that would not otherwise be permitted,” says Tom Feltner, director of financial services at the Consumer Federation of America, a national association of nonprofit consumer advocacy groups.

Who opposes the program? Banks, payday lenders, gun owners, conservatives, and some Democrats have expressed opposition to the program. Frank Keating, president and CEO of the American Bankers Association, wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal last month accusing the Justice Department of “forcing banks to make judgments about criminal behavior and then holding them accountable for the possible wrongdoing of others.” Jason Oxman, chief executive of the Electronic Transaction Association, which recently released guidelines for payment processors, told the Washington Post that Operation Choke Point shouldn’t target entire industries, and should instead focus on specific bad actors. A new lobbying group, the Third Party Payment Processors Association, opposes Operation Choke Point, and an activist group called “StopTheChoke.com” is running an online campaign against the program. The NRA, after receiving concerns from gun owners that the DOJ is using the program to take away their guns, said last week that “it will continue to monitor developments concerning Operation Choke Point.”

On January 8, Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sent a letter to the Justice Department arguing that “the extraordinary breadth of the Department’s dragnet prompts concerns that the true goal of Operation Choke Point is not to cut off actual fraudsters’ access to the financial system, but rather to eliminate legal financial services to which the Department objects.”

Who supports it? Quite a few Democrats support the program. On February 26, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) sent a letter to the Justice Department recommending that the program continue. The letter, cosigned by 11 other Democrats, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), said: “The Department plays a critical role in ensuring system-wide compliance with anti-fraud, anti-money-laundering, and related laws, especially as they apply to the unique risks associated with our payments system, and we urge the Department to continue its vigorous oversight.”

Diane Standaert, senior legislative counsel for the Center for Responsible Lending, notes that eradicating fraud is also a win for consumers. “Banks should have a vested interest in making sure their own customers accounts aren’t being abused or unnecessarily drained,” she says. “By complying with this existing guidance, it’s a win-win.”

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Big-Bank Insider: Obama’s “Operation Choke Point” Isn’t Forcing Us to Close Porn Stars’ Accounts

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Ted Cruz: Conservative Darling. Grandstanding Senator. Campaign-Finance Reform Ally?

by KristinaEllzey Posted on May 1, 2014

Mother Jones

For the first time since the McCutcheon v. FEC decision, the Supreme Court’s latest ruling further rolling back restrictions on the flow of money in American politics, members of the Senate on Wednesday tackled the onslaught of “dark money” washing through 2014 races and the future consequences of McCutcheon. (Short answer: More wealthy Americans pumping more money into political races in 2014 and beyond.)

Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens headlined Wednesday’s hearing, organized by Sen. Angus King (I-Maine). Stevens took a decidedly progressive tack in his remarks, declaring that “money is not speech” and calling on Congress to write campaign-finance rules that “create a level playing field” for all political candidates. But perhaps the more revealing set of comments came from an unlikely source: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the self-styled populist always trying, as he reminds us, to “make DC listen” to the little guy.

In short, Cruz, who’s as conservative as they come, may have more in common with the campaign-finance reform crowd than he realizes.

He raised eyebrows, for instance, as he described his vision for America’s campaign finance system. “A far better system,” he said, “would be to allow individual unlimited contributions to candidates and require immediate disclosure.” The unlimited contributions part of that statement is standard conservative fare: If billionaires like Tom Steyer or Sheldon Adelson or Michael Bloomberg want to underwrite their preferred candidates with bottomless dollars, go ahead and let them. But the latter half—”require immediate disclosure”—is significant. It’s a break from GOP leaders including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus who’ve soured on the idea of disclosure. Angus King later said he was so struck by Cruz’s comments that he’d scribbled them down. Might Senate Democrats have an unlikely ally in Cruz if and when the DISCLOSE Act gets another vote?

At the hearing, Cruz went on to assail his fellow members of Congress for caring more about hanging onto their seats than pursuing real legislative solutions. “Our democratic process is broken and corrupt right now because politicians in both parties hold onto incumbency,” he said. “We need to empower the individual citizens.” Funny thing is, that’s what Democrats who support the Government By The People Act and other fair elections programs want as well. Fair elections backers say candidates spend too much time raising money from wealthy individuals, which not only shrinks the field of people who can run for office but arguably makes those candidates who do run more receptive to well-heeled funders. Give candidates a reason to court lots of small donors—say, offering to match donations of $150 or less with six times that in public money—and you expose them to a diverse array of people. Meanwhile, your Average Joe, without his Rolodex full of well-to-do friends, can now mount a competitive bid for office. If Cruz wants to “empower the individual citizens,” fair elections is one way to do it.

Not that Cruz hung around long enough on Wednesday to hear these kinds of ideas. He high-tailed it out of the hearing after delivering his remarks. Maybe he had a fundraiser to get to.

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Ted Cruz: Conservative Darling. Grandstanding Senator. Campaign-Finance Reform Ally?

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Should You Be Worried About Your E-Cigarette Exploding?

by al36olu Posted on April 17, 2014

Mother Jones

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Last week, an 18-year-old bartender in North Yorkshire, England, was serving drinks when a colleague’s electronic cigarette exploded, setting the bartender’s dress on fire. This was not the first reported incident of an e-cigarette exploding—over the past few years, there have been more than a dozen similar reports.

Specifically, it’s e-cigarettes’ lithium-ion batteries that combust. These batteries are also found in laptops and cellphones. But with e-cigarettes, the batteries are especially prone to overheating because smokers use incompatible chargers, overcharge the e-cigarettes, or don’t take sufficient safety precautions. For example, many e-cigarettes are made to plug into a USB port, which smokers may take to mean the devices can be safely charged with a computer or iPad charger. But if left too long in a common USB port, some e-cigarette batteries can fry.

The industry acknowledges that explosions are a possibility. “I’m aware of 10 failures in the last year,” Thomas Kiklas, who represents the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association, told NBC Chicago last October. “When you charge them, they are 99.9 percent safe, but occasionally there will be failures.”

The Food and Drug Administration, which oversees tobacco products, does not currently regulate e-cigarettes. An FDA spokesperson says the agency is working to change that.

Here is a brief history of notable e-cigarette explosions and fires:

Niceville, Florida, February 2012
A 57-year-old Vietnam veteran was smoking an e-cigarette when it exploded in his face, knocking out his teeth and part of his tongue, according to ABC News. A fire chief told the news outlet that the accident was most likely caused by a faulty lithium battery, which exploded like a “bottle rocket.”

Muskogee, Oklahoma, April 2012
Shona Bear Clark bought an NJOY e-cigarette from Walmart to help her cut back on smoking half a pack a day. Clark says it exploded when she tried to remove it from its package. “It was as loud as firing a gun, but a gun fired right in your face,” she recalled.

Corona, California, March 2013
Jennifer Ries and her husband, Xavier, were driving to the airport, with their VapCigs e-cig charging in the car. “I looked around and I saw the battery to the e-cigarette dripping,” she told CBS Los Angeles. “I went to unscrew it and the battery started shooting fire toward me and then exploded and shot the metal pieces onto my lap…A blowtorch type of fire and then an explosion.” Ries suffered second-degree burns, and the the couple later sued the e-cig manufacturer.

Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 2013
Kyle Czeschin’s e-cig was plugged into his laptop. Guess what happened next? “Everything was on fire, my laptop was on fire, my lamp was on fire, the shades,” he told News On 6.

Sherman, Texas, July 2013
Wes Sloan wanted to kick his habit, so bought what he assumed would be a safer, electric alternative to cigarettes. “The battery was into about a two-hour charge and it exploded and shot across the room like a Roman candle,” he said. Sloan was charging the e-cig in the USB port of a Macbook. He says he suffered second- and third-degree burns, and that he and his wife, Cathy, were treated for smoke inhalation.

Mount Pleasant, Utah, September 2013
A Utah mom was charging her e-cigarette in her car when she said there was “a big bang, and kind of a flash, and smoke everywhere,” according to Fox 13 News. The e-cigarette reportedly released a hot copper coil that landed in her son’s car seat, burning the boy. The mom was finally able to put the fire out with an iced coffee. A fire marshal told the news outlet that the mom’s charger was standard and factory-issued, and it was a “catastrophic failure of the device.” He also noted this was the second e-cigarette explosion he’d investigated recently in the region.

Atlanta, September 2013

A woman in Grant Park plugged her e-cigarette into her computer to charge it, according to WSB-TV Atlanta. Fortunately, she was home when she says it began to shoot four-foot flames across the living room. (A screenshot in the above link shows the rag that the woman used to unplug the e-cigarette as it was burning.) “If I hadn’t had been home, I would have lost my dogs, I would have lost my cats, I would have lost my house,” she told the news station.

La Crosse, Wisconsin, September 2013
The La Crosse Fire Department explains how they’re learning to deal with e-cig fires:

Blaine, Minnesota, October 2013
A man was charging his e-cigarette through his computer when his wife noticed that it was “sparking like a fountain firework,” according to KMSP Fox 9. The device then “shot out like a missile” from the computer, she said. The owner of a nearby e-cigarette business told the news outlet that the battery didn’t have overcharge protection, and that’s likely why it overheated.

Kootenai County, Idaho, November 2013
An e-cigarette started a fire in an Idaho household’s living room while the family of four slept. The device, which was charging through a laptop, overheated and exploded. “If that smoke alarm didn’t go off, none of us would have woken up, you know, none of us would have been able to get to the door, ’cause it would have been blocked by the flames and we would have all died,” the son said.

Queen Creek, Arizona, November 2013
Just four days after Kyler Lawson bought his Crown Seven Gladiator e-cigarette, it exploded while charging. “It shot out like a bullet, hit the window, dropped from the window to the carpet,” he said. “Caught the carpet on fire…If you’re going to charge it, be there. Be present when you’re charging it because you never know what can happen.”

Eugene, Oregon, November 2013
Judy Timmons had been charging her e-cig in her car for two hours when it exploded. “I’m just glad my grandkids weren’t in the backseat because it could have exploded at any time,” she said. “It had enough power and momentum to shoot all the way to the backseat,” Larry, her husband, said.

Colorado Springs, Colorado, November 2013

KRDO

A man in Colorado Springs was charging his e-cigarette when it exploded, setting his bed on fire, according to KRDO NewsChannel 13. He used a blanket to smother the flames, suffering burns on his body and face. The manufacturer of “Foos” e-cigarettes told the news outlet that this was the first time he’d heard of their products malfunctioning. The man said that nonetheless, “I’m back on normal cigarettes now.”

Sneads Ferry, North Carolina, January 2014
A North Carolina man who spent over 20 years working as a firefighter was injured after his e-cigarette exploded in his face. He described the incident to the Jacksonville Daily News as feeling like “a bunch of hot oil hit my face.” After spending the night in the hospital, the newspaper reported that he continues to suffer from the incident: “The bottom of his left eyeball is sensitive to light, hard to see out of, and will need to be looked at by an optometrist.”

Springfield, Missouri, January 2014
Last Christmas Eve, Chantz Mondragon was sitting in bed with his wife when his e-cig overheated and burst into flames. The device was charging via a USB port on his laptop. He described the explosion as “a searing hot blinding light like a magnesium sparkler, like whenever you see a person welding.” Mondragon also said the fire burned through his bed, and caused second-degree burns on his leg and foot.

North Yorkshire, England, April, 2014
Eighteen-year-old Laura Baty was serving a customer at the Buck Inn Hotel when her coworker’s charging e-cigarette exploded behind the bar. “I started crying hysterically and my arm was all black,” she told the Press. “My dress caught on fire as I ran away, and I just didn’t know what was happening.”

London, April 2014

A woman who used an incompatible charger to charge her e-cigarette caused a major fire that took about 40 minutes to get under control, according to the London Evening Standard. A member of the London Fire Brigade told the paper that, “As with all rechargeable electrical equipment, it’s vitally important that people use the correct type of charger for their e-cigs to prevent fires which can be serious and could even result in death.”

Continued here – 

Should You Be Worried About Your E-Cigarette Exploding?

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Rick Perry Dismantled Texas’ Public Integrity Unit. Now He’s Facing a Grand Jury.

by EdmundHinson Posted on April 16, 2014

Mother Jones

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Rick Perry—Republican Texas governor, failed 2012 presidential candidate, and potential 2016 retread contender—is battling legal trouble at home, thanks to his controversial veto that demolished the state office tasked with investigating political scandals. On Monday, a Texas judge convened a grand jury to probe Perry’s decision last year to axe funding for the state’s Public Integrity Unit. The special prosecutor investigating the case, Michael McCrum, has not filed any charges. But earlier this month he said, “I cannot elaborate on what exactly is concerning me, but I can tell you I am very concerned about certain aspects of what happened here.”

Perry’s troubles started when he attempted to to displace the government official in charge of the Public Integrity Unit, a state-funded watchdog agency that investigates charges of public corruption. The unit is led by whoever is serving as the Travis County district attorney, who is based in Austin. The Current DA is Rosemary Lehmberg, a Democrat. Last April, she was arrested for drunk driving.

After Lehmberg’s arrest, Perry called for her resignation, claiming that the public could no longer place its trust in an official who herself ran afoul of the law. But the governor has no direct control over her job, a locally-elected position, and a grand jury rejected a former opponent’s attempt to have Lehmberg removed from office. For her part, Lehmberg refused to resign, though she said she won’t run for reelection in 2016. That wasn’t enough for Perry. With Lehmberg holding on to her job, the governor decided to cut off the two-year $7.5 million in state funding for the watchdog unit with a line-item veto. “Despite the otherwise good work the Public Integrity Unit’s employees,” a Perry statement said after the veto, “I cannot in good conscience support continued State funding for an office with statewide jurisdiction at a time when the person charged with ultimate responsibility of that unit has lost the public’s confidence.”

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Rick Perry Dismantled Texas’ Public Integrity Unit. Now He’s Facing a Grand Jury.

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