In DC Reshuffle, Citigroup-er Lew Eyed for Treasury, of Barney Frank, FOIA & Rendition

By Matthew Russell Lee

WASHINGTON, January 9 -- Alongside President Barack Obama's nominations of John Kerry, Chuck Hagel and John Brennan, the post of Treasury Secretary is said to be slated for former Citigroup-er Jack Lew.

  Given Citigroup's role in predatory lending and the global financial meltdown, some are asking how could a senior Citigroup official during the critical time from 2006 through 2008 be considered for Treasury Secretary?

  Others counter-argue that Lew worked for Tip O'Neill, the Speaker of the House from Massachusetts, albeit in 1979.

  Meanwhile, former Congressman from Massachusetts Barney Frank has let it be known he'd like to be appointed as temporary fill-in Senator for John Kerry, nominated instead of Susan Rice to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.

  One wag suggested, if MoveOn is proposing Paul Krugman to replace (non) tax man Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary, why not Barney Frank? Why not Daniel Tarullo?

  Lower down the financial food chain, the name of Nicholas Retsinas has been floated for FHFA. And in anti-Freedom of Information Act news, now that Lisa Jackson who created fake e-mail accounts to evade FOIA has stepped down, should compliance with Government in the Sunshine laws be a criteria for the Environmental Protection Agency and all other top appointments?

  On Chuck Hagel's nomination as Defense Secretary, now Elliot Abrams has been disavowed by his current employer, the Council on Foreign Relations (whose chief, Robert Haas, makes $800,000 a year, it has emerged).

  It's John Brennan's nomination for CIA Director that may face most opposition, on what are diplomatically called enhanced or "unique" interrogation techniques and rendition. Watch this site.

Protests of JPM Chase on Wall St, of Predatory Loans and Mining, Laissez Faire Lobbying

By Matthew R. Lee
www.innercitypress.com/jpmc1agm051810.html

WALL STREET, May 18 -- Of the Big Four American bank, JPMorgan Chase has perhaps benefited more than any other from the financial meltdown. While having securitized many and made some of the most predatory mortgage loans, it was given Bear Stearns, and then Washington Mutual on the cheap. It proceeded to close scores of WaMu branches.

Tuesday in lower Manhattan outside JPMorgan Chase annual shareholders meeting, environmentalists sang songs about the bank's support of mountain top removal mining. As Inner City Press has reported, JPMorgan Chase pays former UK prime minister Tony Blair as an environmental consultant.

The bank's security officers handed out leaflets about less than living wages from Chase's subcontractors Allied Barton and Summit Security. A protest of predatory lending by Chase was right around the corner. "What do we want? No redlining! When do we want it? Now!"

Fair Finance Watch got an early copy of JPM Chase's 2009 mortgage lending on disk. Its analysis, the first in the country, found that in 2009 JPMorgan Chase was even more disparate to Latinos, confined them to higher-cost mortgage loans as defined by the Federal Reserve 1.98 times more frequently than whites, almost as pronounced as its disparity between African-Americans and whites, 2.17.

Still Chase and its CEO Jaime Dimon lobby against regulatory reform, and call it unfair that they are tarred with the stigma of the bailout they accepted. Dimon's speech last weekend at Syracuse University was protested, although some spun it as a success, with cheers for his commencement speech about free thinking. Laissez faire is more like it. Private profits, socialized risk.

JPMorgan Chase helped cause the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holding Inc. by demanding more collateral and changing guarantee agreements, the bankruptcy examiner said last week. “The demands for collateral by Lehman’s lenders had direct impact on Lehman’s liquidity pool,” said Anton Valukas, the U.S. Trustee-appointed examiner, in a 2,200-page report filed in federal court, also in lower Manhattan.

Footnote: Simultaneous with the protest and shareholders' meeting, Chase's previous Community Reinvestment Act officer organized a CRA breakfast talk. At least two activists were asked to skip the protest in order to speak, but declined. Willis is known to oppose any legislation to expand CRA to cover, for example, investment banking including the securitization of subprime mortgages.

Rather, he is promoting a more limited regulatory fix to CRA, on such matters as expanding the areas in which banks are assessed. Whether legislators like House Banking Committee chair Barney Frank, who argued CRA should not be under the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, will now move forward with the CRA modernization bill is not yet known. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/jpmc1agm051810.html

At UN, Ban Stands By as Ali Treki Stands Behind Anti-Gay Comments, U.S. Yet to React

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/un1gay100209.html

UNITED NATIONS, October 2 -- Despite a vote in the UN last December supporting the decriminalization of homosexuality, not only the Libyan President of the General Assembly Ali Treki, but now also Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, refuse to follow through on that vote.

On September 18 in the UN briefing room, Ali Treki said homosexuality is "not acceptable." Inner City Press wrote the first, and for a time only, story about his comments, online with video links here. Soon, however, the quotes were picked up and denounced in the U.S. Congress, not only by Barney Frank of Massachusetts but also Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, and by newspapers as far away as Australia.

On October 2, Treki held his next press conference, and Inner City Press twice asked him to respond to the criticism of his remarked. "I answered before," Treki replied, I have no need to answer again. Video here. Then, speaking of the Goldstone report, he said that "a violation of human rights in any country concerns the whole of humanity."

As Inner City Press told Treki, this is (for) news. Disparities between human rights pronouncements and their application to particular situations or groups of people seem newsworthy.

When Ban Ki-moon's Associate Spokesperson Farhan Haq took questions later on October 2, Inner City Press asked if the Secretariat had anything to say about homosexuality and human rights, whether there is a UN position on gay rights, and whether Ban Ki-moon thinks Treki's comments reflect well on the UN system. Video here, from Minute 18:52.

The UN has no specific position expressed by member states, Mr. Haq said. And he and the Secretary General will have no comment on the President of the General Assembly's publicly stated position. Haq added that Ban supports the human rights of everyone.

Afterwards, it was explained to Inner City Press that the Secretariat's Office of Legal Affairs had provided Ban with a memo that last December's meeting on the decriminalization of homosexuality, sponsored in the first instance by France and the Netherlands but supported by Argentina and others, is just "a declaration by a member state in a formal meeting" and does not have the legal status of a resolution of the General Assembly.

Even if one accepts this legal(istic) argument, nothing precluded or precludes the UN Secretariat from taking a position of principle. Nothing has been said for two weeks. And now?

To some, the UN Secretariat's dodging of the issue is reminiscent of Ban Ki-moon's first day as Secretary General, when in response to a question about the execution of Saddam Hussein, Ban said that the UN has no position on the death penalty. He later amended that answer. It is noted that Ban travels the globe, city after city, including those with significant gay populations.

Others wonder why, for example, not only the French but also U.S. Missions to the UN have had no response to Treki's public comments two weeks ago. One wonders if, from the left and right, Frank and Ros-Lehtinen are asking the U.S. Mission to the UN to say or do anything. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1gay100209.html