Huge surprise: The Religious Right and anti-gay groups are unhappy about Obama appointing a transgender individual to be senior technical adviser for the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry. Amanda Simpson (who is a male-to-female) has worked in the field for over 30 years. Despite that she's qualified, these groups say she was appointed because of a "transgender quota" (the Obama administration is going crazy overboard with that transgender quota. It was zero and now it's one. They are out of control!). And the associate dean of Jerry Falwell's Liberty University just does not get it: "This isn't like appointing an African-American in order to try to provide diversity and right some kind of discriminatory wrong. This is about political correctness." So, in his mind, it's ok for African-Americans to be appointed to provide diversity and to help with discrimination...but gay and transgender individuals are completely different? And it sounds like he assumes African-Americans are only appointed because of affirmative action... On the other side, transgender rights supporters applaud Obama for not letting fear of bigotry affect his decision. (Full Story)
An annual survey from The Conference Board research group found that only 45% of workers are happy with their jobs, dropping from 49% in 2008. The group said this was the lowest level of job satisfaction they have recorded in twenty-two years. The group says that the recession was only party to blame. Instead, workers were dissatisfied because incomes were not keeping up with inflation and because fewer workers were finding their jobs interesting. (Full Story)
The situation in southern Somalia is getting so bad that the UN food agency (the World Food Program) has suspended aid there. The UN decision to leave and the lack of aid affects up to one million people. The UN agency left because of their safety. Between January 2008 and Fall 2009, 43 aid workers were killed. Four humanitarian workers are still being held captive. The agency said that armed groups had demanded they remove women from their teams. Other agencies, including CARE International and Doctors Without Borders, have already pulled out of southern Somalia because of the attacks and kidnappings. The UN agency is moving their staff and supplies to northern and central Somalia.
Southern Somalia is mostly controlled by the al-Shabab Islamist group, which is believed to have ties to al-Qaeda. In southern Somalia, the people face hunger, drought, and daily violence and fear caused by the Islamic militants. There has not been a stable, effective central government in Somalia for 20 years. Aid agencies estimate that 3.6 million Somalians (out of the country's population of 8 million) now need food and other aid. (Full Story)
Senate Republicans are very much against the idea of creating an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Legislation to create a consumer protection agency was proposed in response to the financial crisis. This agency would look out for consumers -- for example, making sure financial products like mortgages and credit cards are fair, more transparent, and easily understood. Currently, the Federal Reserve is technically responsible for consumer protection, but their primary purpose is to protect the safety of the financial industry. Consumer protection has often been ignored.
Initially, Republicans pushed for total elimination of the CFPA, but they say they are now willing to agree to it if the CFPA is made subservient to a larger financial regulatory agency. This larger agency could modify or eliminate any protections deemed hurtful to business -- or, in other words, they can override the CFPA. Bob Bennett (R-Utah, who moonlights as Skeletor) said, "That doesn't mean we're opposed to consumer protection, but a single agency whose sole purpose is consumer protection would be really bad news." In other words, 'Oh, we're fine with consumer protection...we just don't want someone that will focus on it or make it a priority. We don't want it to have any teeth.' Yeah, it sounds like you're really in favor of consumer protection... The only time Republicans are in favor of regulation, it's when they want regulation to be regulated.
Consumer advocates say that the CFPA must have strong, independent authority to create and enforce rules. A policy counsel with Public Citizen's Congress Watch explained, "For reform groups, this effort will not be successful without a stand-alone consumer agency. Putting consumer protection into a new, larger banking agency takes the failed structure of the Fed and the other existing banking agencies and consolidates it. These regulators repeatedly prioritized banks' business practices over consumers' financial security, and this proposal is a recipe for more of the same." (Full Story)
When did consumer protections become such a horrible thing? How long can consumer protections be ignored or overrode because it's "hurtful to business"? What about the people? Republicans argue that tight consumer protection regulations can result in businesses closing and jobs being lost. That is just a sensational scare tactic. The same things were said when worker protections groups fought for 40 hour work weeks, fought against child labor, and fought against harmful work conditions. Companies didn't all collapse once these things were instituted (unless it was a company relying on child labor, which should have collapsed) -- it was a minor setback. And now these working conditions are "normal". If companies actually go out of business because they're required to put out a fair, transparent product that gives the person what they paid for...then that company deserved to fail and shouldn't be selling things to consumers in the first place. The companies that would go out of business because of consumer protection regulations are those that have a business model built on being unscrupulous. Consumer protections should already be a given; it's sad these things have to even be instituted (or even be debated on being instituted).
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