“Wasserman wants state pre-emption of payday lending rules. What this means functionally is no payday lending rules. This is because payday lenders can work online and from Native American reservations or charter in states with weak consumer protection laws and operate in other states. This is the EXACT reason the CFPB was created. Federal oversight…

“Polarization pulverizes parties and alters the political landscape. This is a lesson of the 2016 election season. A sharply divided Congress stuck for years in stalemate and inertia; the ever-deepening chasm between the top 1 percent and other Americans; warring Super PACs — these and other polarizing factors have shaken the party system to the…

“The vicious drug war that has raged throughout Mexico and spread to parts of Central America over the last decade — claiming a staggering 164,000 lives in Mexico alone — is a direct product of the economic devastation caused by NAFTA and is also a major cause of immigration to the U.S. without legal permission.”

“Knowing even a little of James Comey’s post-9/11 background, it becomes rather hard to believe the FBI Director is sincerely leveling with the American public in his latest quest to compel Apple (and other encrypted communication companies) to create a mechanism for government access, that he is solely motivated by his desire to ‘look the…

The key takeaway from the fuss over the projected growth effect of Senator Bernie Sanders’ economic program is that it doesn’t matter. Sanders’ reforms for health, public education, investment, and for social fairness stand on their own. Whether they would produce economic growth at 3 percent or 5 percent, for five years or 10 years,…

“Sanders has been in Congress for 30 years, but hasn’t developed meaningful relationships with many black elected officials. The way he’s approached South Carolina is largely to bring in outside black, northern intellectuals who are all men. And Killer Mike — a rapper. Women are 60 percent of the black electorate here. He has events…

“Over 100 years after the U.S. killed tens of thousands of people in the Philippines, if Trump tried to walk around there without armed guards, he’d get killed. Unfortunately, such policies continue under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Currently, President Obama — with CIA director John Brennan — is engaging in a drone assassination program.…

“Washington-based reporters tell us that one potent force in Syria, al-Nusra, is made up of ‘rebels’ or ‘moderates,’ not that it is the local al-Qaeda franchise. Saudi Arabia is portrayed as aiding freedom fighters when in fact it is a prime sponsor of ISIS. Turkey has for years been running a ‘rat line’ for foreign…

“For years the administration barely even tried to close the prison. All the while, men detained there suffered physical and psychological abuse, including by forced-feeding. Right wing demagogues repeated the vicious lie that all the prisoners are ‘worst of the worst,’ and erected legislative barriers to closing Guantanamo.”

“The new generation of Republican leaders appear to be as willing to rewrite history as the older generation. Sen. Marco Rubio’s claim that at the time of the March 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein was ‘in open violation’ of U.N. resolutions and that the international community refused to act is completely false.”