MORNING MESSAGE
Again
and again we hear about corporations doing bad things so they can make more
money: polluting, selling contaminated food or otherwise harming people’s
health, selling products that injure people or just don’t do what they
advertise, tricking and scamming people out of their money, selling banned goods
or providing financial services for terrorists or drug cartels, and so many
other things that are not good for people or society. Wouldn’t it be great if
there were some entity that was more powerful than these corporations, whose
purpose is to protect us, reign these corporations in, make and enforce rules,
prosecute offenders and put a stop to this stuff?
Pope Addresses Congress Today
Pope
addresses Congress at 10 AM ET. NYT: “… both sides of the aisle will be
looking to his words for moral support for their arguments. Democrats were
already cheered by his backing of immigration and climate change regulation
during his visit to the White House on Wednesday. Republicans were hoping to
hear Francis speak to the sanctity of life for the unborn and a traditional
definition of marriage.”
The
pope’s address today “poses a threat to the current economic order,” argues W.
Post’s Harold Meyerson: “Where Francis has departed from his predecessors is
that he has moved from talking the talk to walking the walk … Conservatives are
right to fear and despise him.”
Sanders Embraces Papal Message
Sen.
Sanders greets Pope with Facebook message: “He is asking us to create a new
form of society where the economy works for all, and not just the wealthy and
the powerful. He is asking us to become a different kind of person, where our
happiness and well-being comes from serving others and being part of the human
community – not by spending our lives accumulating more and more wealth and
power while oppressing others.”
Hillary
Clinton teams up with Lena Dunham and Amy Schumer. Politico: “…Hillary
Clinton will appear in an interview opposite Girls star Lena Dunham, set to post
online Tuesday, POLITICO has learned. The already-taped segment also includes
comedy sketches filmed at Clinton’s Brooklyn campaign headquarters, including a
cameo by comedian Amy Schumer.”
Clinton
proposes energy infrastructure plan that doesn’t involve Keystone. The Hill:
“Clinton’s plan focuses on a few key areas: improving the safety of oil, natural
gas and propane pipelines, making oil transport by rail safer, upgrading the
electric grid to better accommodate renewable energy and working with Canada and
Mexico toward greenhouse gas emissions cuts.”
Trump
turns on Rubio, Fox. Politico: “… Trump announced that he was temporarily
putting Fox News in the penalty box, tweeting ‘.@FoxNews has been treating me
very unfairly & I have therefore decided that I won’t be doing any more Fox
shows for the foreseeable future.’ … He twice knocked the Florida senator’s
spotty attendance record and called him a ‘lightweight’ … in pushing back
against Rubio’s criticism that Trump has not delved into foreign policy
specifics.”
Breakfast Sides
Bill
to increase transparency of Wall Street fraud settlements clears Senate.
Vox: “The US Senate today passed a bill by Elizabeth Warren that will force
federal regulators to fully disclose the terms of any settlement or deferred
prosecution agreement that they reach in a major case … There’s little
indication the bill has a chance of passing the House [but] like many recent
Warren initiatives she is trying to dramatize a point — the regulatory cops on
the beat, she feels, are simply not aggressive enough in penalizing financial
misconduct.”
Some
investors betting on further China currency devaluation. NYT: “At the root
of this investment thesis is the belief that China’s 3 percent currency
devaluation last month was not a one-time event … these investors think that
after a borrowing and investing frenzy — much of which was financed by
dollar-based lenders — China is experiencing a run on the bank similar to what
happened to Asian countries in 1997 when their semi-pegged currencies
collapsed.”
Louisiana
Gov. Bobby Jindal runs mystery deficit. AP: “Gov. Bobby Jindal’s
administration is notifying legislative leaders that Louisiana closed the books
on the past budget year with a deficit, but is not saying publicly how large it
is. The announcement of the deficit’s size is expected in mid-October, when
details are to be given to the Legislature’s budget committee.”
Progressive
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