The Equifax data breach and the Wells Fargo fake accounts scandal have given America a peek into business practices at some of America's biggest financial institutions. In both companies, a related practice popped to the surface: forced arbitration clauses.

These little clauses, often buried in a fog of fine print, are a way for the companies to slither out of accountability when they cheat their customers. And Senate Republicans are on the verge of ramming through a resolution that will allow companies like Equifax and Wells Fargo to continue using these tricks to get away with even more misconduct.

Here's how the trick works: Let's say you discover an unexplained $20 fee on your credit card statement. You call, spend a long stretch on hold, get shuffled from person to person, and, finally, learn that your credit card company won't remove the fee. What now? If your credit card company cheated you out of $20, there's a good chance it cheated a lot of other customers out of $20. So you can join -or start -a class action, which gives you the chance to go to court and get your money back. It's not a lot of money, but add up all the people in the class action, and the company feels some real heat if they cheat a lot of their customers.

But if your credit card contract contains a forced arbitration clause, you can't go to court. Instead, your only option is to pony up $200 to file an arbitration claim. No one is going to pay $200 to try to recover a $20 fee -and your credit card company knows it. That means it can get away with cheating you on small fees forever. And it can juice its profit by cheating millions of its other customers too.

Forced arbitration is bad for consumers. That's why the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a new rule earlier this year that limits the use of forced arbitration clauses in financial contracts and lets consumers join class action lawsuits if they get cheated.

Bank lobbyists hate the CFPB's new rule, and they're pushing Congress hard to reverse it. So far, Republicans have been happy to oblige. While Democrats in the House of Representatives voted unanimously against a resolution to repeal the CFPB rule, House Republicans voted in lock step to pass it. If Senate Republicans follow suit, the rule -and protection for customers who get tricked -will disappear. The Senate vote on the resolution could happen this week.

Equifax, Wells Fargo and other giant financial institutions use forced arbitration clauses. But the new CFPB rule would stop them in their tracks. Any senators who vote to reverse the CFPB rule are saying loud and clear that they side with those companies instead of with their constituents.

A broad coalition of groups representing consumers is fighting hard to keep the new CFPB rule alive. The Military Coalition, which represents more than 5.5 million veterans and servicemembers, supports the rule because "our nation's veterans should not be deprived of the Constitutional rights and freedoms that they put their lives on the line to protect, including the right to have their claims heard in a trial." AARP, which represents nearly 38 million American seniors, says the rule "is a critical step in restoring consumers' access to legal remedies that have been undermined by the widespread use of forced arbitration for many years." And the Main Street Alliance, which represents thousands of small businesses, says the rule will help small businesses fight against big financial firms that try to drive up their fees.

Despite overwhelming public support for the CFPB rule, financial industry lobbyists are prowling the halls of Congress, claiming that the rule is bad for consumers because consumers fare better in arbitration than in class actions. That claim is laughable. According to a CFPB study, consumers recovered an average of $540 million annually from class actions settlements, while receiving less than $1 million annually in the arbitration cases the agency reviewed. It's not even close.

And if consumers prefer arbitration, that's their choice -the CFPB rule doesn't prevent consumers from choosing arbitration. The rule simply says that consumers should also have the option to go to court if that's what they want.

Senate Republicans should listen to service members, veterans, seniors, and small businesses -not bank lobbyists. As we continue to find out how much damage Equifax and Wells Fargo have inflicted on American consumers, the last thing Congress should be doing is reducing customers' rights to hold financial companies accountable.
(c) 2017 Elizabeth Warren is an US Senator representing Massachusetts.

Ze'ev Begin, the son of Menachem Begin, is a very nice human being. It is impossible not to like him. He is well brought up, polite and modest, the kind of person one would like to have as a friend.

Unfortunately, his political views are far less likeable. They are much more extreme than even the acts of his father. The father, after leading the Irgun, sat down and made peace with Anwar al-Sadat of Egypt. Ze'ev is closer to Golda Me'ir, who ignored Sadat's peace overtures and led us into the disastrous Yom Kippur war.

Begin jr. is a strict follower of the "revisionist" Zionist creed founded by Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky. One of the characteristics of this movement has always been the importance it gave to written texts and declarations. The labor movement, headed by David Ben-Gurion, didn't give a damn about words and declarations and respected only "facts on the ground."

Last week, Ze'ev Begin wrote one of his rare articles. Its main purpose was to prove that peace with the Palestinians is impossible, a pipe-dream of Israeli peace-lovers (Haaretz 9.10). Quoting numerous Palestinian texts, speeches and even schoolbooks, Begin shows that the Palestinians will never, never, never give up their "Right of Return."

Since such a return would entail the end of the Jewish State, Begin asserts, peace is a pipe dream. There will never be peace. End of story.

A SIMILAR point is made by another profound thinker, Alexander Jakobson, in another important article in Haaretz (9.26). It is directed against me personally, and its headline asserts that I am "True to Israel, but Not to the Truth." It accuses me of being tolerant towards the BDS movement, which is out to put an end to Israel.

How does he know? Simple: BDS confirms the Palestinians' "Right of Return", which, as everybody knows, means the destruction of the Jewish State.

Well, actually I object to BDS for several reasons. The movement to which I belong, Gush Shalom, was the first (in 1997) to declare a boycott of the settlements. Our aim was to separate the Israeli people from the settlements. The BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement, by boycotting all of Israel, achieves the opposite effect: it pushes the Israeli people into the arms of the settlers.

I also don't like to call on people to boycott me.

But of all the points in the BDS platform, the one that bothers me the least is the demand that the State of Israel recognize the Palestinians' Right of Return. It is simply ridiculous. Not in a thousand years will the BDS compel Israel to do so. So why bother?

LET' US FIRST throw some light on the issue.

When the British withdrew from Palestine in 1948, there were in the country between the Mediterranean and the Jordan about 1.2 million Arabs and 635,000 Jews. By the end of the war that ensued, some 700,000 Arabs had fled and/or were driven out. It was a war of what was (later) called "ethnic cleansing". Few Arabs were left in the territory conquered by Jewish arms, but it should be remembered that no Jews at all were left in the territory conquered by Arab arms. Fortunately for our side, the Arabs succeeded in occupying only small slices of land inhabited by Jews (such as the Etzion bloc, East Jerusalem et al.), while our side conquered large, inhabited territories. As a combat soldier, I saw it with my own eyes.

The Arab refugees multiplied by natural increase, and today number about 6 million. About 1.5 million of them live in the occupied West Bank, about a million in the Gaza Strip, the rest are dispersed in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and all over the world.

Would they all come back, if given the opportunity? Let us consider this.

YEARS AGO, I had a unique experience.

I was invited to give a lecture in New York. To my pleasant surprise, in the front row I saw a good friend of mine, the young Arab poet Rashid Hussein. Rashid was born in a village near Nazareth. He begged me to come and visit him in his New Jersey apartment.

When I arrived, I was flabbergasted, The small apartment was crowded with people - Palestinian refugees of all kinds, young and old, men and women. We had a long and extremely emotional discussion on the refugee issue.

When we drove home, I told my wife: "You know what I felt? That only a few of them really care to return, but that all of them were ready to die for their right to return!"

Rachel, a very keen observer, replied that she had the same impression.

TODAY, DOZENS of years later, I am convinced that this basic truth is still valid: there is a huge difference between the principle and its implementation.

The principle cannot be denied. It belongs to the individual refugee. It is safeguarded by international law. It is sacred.

Any future peace treaty between the state of Israel and the State of Palestine will have to include a paragraph saying that Israel affirms in principle the Right of Return of the Palestinian refugees and their descendents.

No Palestinian leader could possibly sign a treaty that does not include this clause.

Only after this obstacle has been removed from the table, can the real discussion about the solution start.

I can imagine the scene: after agreement has been reached on this at the peace conference, the chairperson will take a deep breath and say, "Now, friends, let's get to the real issue. How shall we solve the refugee problem in practice?"

The six million Palestinian refugees constitute six million individual situations. There are many categories of refugees. No single solution can apply to all.

There are many refugees - perhaps most of them - who during the last 50 years have built for themselves a new life in another country. For these, the right of return is - well - a principle. They would not dream of going back to their ancestral village, even if it were still there. Some of them are well-to-do, some are rich, some very rich.

One of the richest is my friend (may I call you so?) Salman Abu Sitta, who started life as a barefoot boy in the Negev, fled in 1948 with his family to Gaza and later became an immensely successful contractor in Britain and the Gulf. We met at a peace conference, had a long and emotional private dinner afterwards and did not agree.

Abu Sitta insists that all refugees must be allowed to return to Israel, even if they are to be settled in the Negev desert. I do not see the practical logic in this.

I have had hundreds of discussions about solutions with Palestinians, from Yasser Arafat down to people in the refugee camps. The great majority nowadays would sign a formula that seeks a "just and agreed solution of the refugee problem" - "agreed" includes Israel.

This formula appears in the "Arab Peace Plan" devised by Saudi Arabia and officially accepted by the entire Muslim world.

How would this look in practice? It means that every refugee family would be offered a choice between actual return and adequate compensation.

Return - where? In a few extraordinary instances, their original village still stands empty. I can imagine some symbolic reconstruction of such villages - say two or three - by their former inhabitants.

An agreed number must be allowed to return to the territory of Israel, especially if they have relatives here, who can help them to strike roots again.

This is a hard thing for Israelis to swallow - but not too hard. Israel already has some 2 million Arab citizens, more than 20% of the population. Another - say - quarter million would make no real difference.

All the others would be paid generous compensation. They could use that to consolidate their lives where they are, or emigrate to places like Australia and Canada, which would gladly receive them (with their money).

About 1.5 million refugees live in the West Bank and Gaza. Another large number live in Jordan and are Jordanian citizens. Some still live in refugee camps. For all of them, compensation would be welcome.

Where will the money come from? Israel must pay its share (at the same time reducing its huge military budget). The world organizations will have to contribute a large part.

IS THIS feasible? Yes, it is.

I dare say more: if the atmosphere is right, it is even probable. Contrary to Begin's belief in texts written today by demagogues to serve today's purposes, once the process starts rolling, a solution like this - more or less - is almost unavoidable.

"The Congressional Black Caucus is "the heart and soul of the resistance movement in Congress," said California Rep. Barbara Lee, speaking at a "State of Black America" panel at Laney College, in Oakland, last week. Lee's right. She and her Black corporate Democratic colleagues are in the forefront of a kind of "resistance" -- but not resistance to the routine murder of Blacks by police, or the economic race to the bottom led by the Caucus's patrons on Wall Street, or to gentrification, hyper-militarization and war. Instead, the Black Caucus has been waging a desperate resistance to the incipient grassroots movement that emerged in Ferguson, Missouri, three years ago.

This perversion of "resistance" now speaks in anti-Russia tirades, but that's only the CBC's latest diversionary tactic, as it scrambles to reclaim its squandered legitimacy.

Like the rest of the Black Misleadership Class, the Caucus feared that a revival of movement politics might unleash forces that could not easily be contained. The Black elite's job is to keep the lid on Black protest -- the real resistance -- so that the dispersal, disempowerment and demoralization of Black communities can be accomplished with as little disruption as possible. The rebellions in Ferguson and Baltimore threatened the carefully constructed arrangement between corporate power and the Black political class -- a deal forged and mediated largely through the structures of the Democratic Party. The Black political class lives and feeds within the institutional confines of the Democratic Party, which has colonized most of the Black community's civic groups and churches. For the Black elite, "resistance" means defense of the Democratic Party against all challengers -- including independent political challenges from grassroots Black America, which is decidedly to the left of the Democratic Party

Ferguson thus created a crisis, not just for the ruling order in general, but also for the corporate-dependent Black Misleadership Class, rooted in the Democratic Party. The first casualties were the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, as well as lesser lights of their ilk, whose legitimacy as Black leaders was rejected by a new cadre of activists. The Democratic National Committee's attempt to absorb #BlackLivesMatter was also rebuffed - for the time being, at least - in the late summer of 2015, when #BLM leaders declared:

"The Democratic Party, like the Republican and all political parties, have historically attempted to control or contain Black people's efforts to liberate ourselves. True change requires real struggle, and that struggle will be in the streets and led by the people, not by a political party."

Two years later, when all of Black America was in mourning or engaged in outraged action over the police murders of Alton Sterling, in Baton Rouge, and Philando Castile, in Minnesota, the Congressional Black Caucus tried to change the subject, staging a diversionary sit-down on the floor of the U.S. House demanding gun control - as if that had anything to do with mass police killings of Black people.

With the defeat of corporatist Democrat Hillary Clinton by the overt racist Donald Trump, the Black Caucus exited from reality-based politics altogether. Atlanta Congressman John Lewis forgot all about Republican voter suppression, which had stolen at least two presidential elections in this century and surely played a decisive role in Trump's 2016 victory. Instead, the first thing out of Lewis' mouth after the Electoral College verdict was "...Russians!" And that's all the Black Caucus has talked about, ever since.

Barbara Lee and Maxine Waters, who were among the eight Black Caucus members that voted to halt the Pentagon's wholesale militarization of local police in 2014, have now made common cause with the rest of the Caucus in demanding that Facebook, Google and other social media gatekeepers censor their pages to prohibit "promotion of division and racial animosity and racial hatred." Google was eager to interpret this as a mandate to censor the Left. The corporation openly brags that it has altered its algorithms to suppress "controversial" subject matter, resulting in dramatic declines in visitation to a whole range of left-wing web sites, especially those singled out by the Washington Post, right after the election, as giving aid and comfort to Russia. (Black Agenda Report is the only Black site targeted by the Post.)

The Black Caucus has found its comfort zone, in the heat of battle against ... Russia (and China, Venezuela, Cuba, Syria and everybody else on the imperial hit list). The CBC motto: My master's enemy is my enemy. They have taken the meaning of "House Negro" to a new level. Having nothing to offer their constituents, the Black Caucus has become the War Party's rhythm section, beating the drums of the New McCarthyism.

On November 4 and 5, the Black Is Back Coalition will hold its annual conference and march on the White House, under the theme, "The Ballot AND the Bullet: War and Peace in the Era of Donald Trump." There is a consensus among the Coalition that the ballot can be useful in conjunction with struggles for social and economic justice, Black self-determination, and peace. But, the Black Misleadership Class, which includes the vast bulk of Black Democratic office holders, is loyal to nothing but its own class fortunes and personal careers.

Well I don't know, but I been told
If the horse don't pull you got to carry the load
I don't know who's back's that strong
Maybe find out before too long

One way or another
One way or another
One way or another
This darkness got to give ...

-- Robert Hunter

This may only be a minor accent in the vast symphony of outrage we are confronted with on a daily basis, but it is worthy of note. You are aware, I'm sure, of the ongoing shouting match Donald Trump is having with the NFL over players standing for the national anthem. Well, Trump found himself last week at the Air National Guard Base in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, with Fox fiend Sean Hannity. By tradition, "Retreat" was bugled on the base as the flag was lowered for the day.

The same tradition requires all military personnel and civilian leadership to stand at attention out of respect for the flag. Neither Trump nor Hannity stood, flouting that tradition. Laughing as the bugle call filled the air, Trump asked Hannity, "Are they playing that for you or for me?" Referring to Hannity's show, Trump then addressed the crowd with, "They're playing that in honor of his ratings."

Remember when President Obama once saluted a member of his Marine guard with a coffee cup in his hand, and people like Sean Hannity reacted as if Obama had just offered the Sixth Fleet to Kim Jong-un as a birthday present? I do, and once upon a time, such brazen, televised hypocrisy would have captured my full attention. You're going on and on about the football players and the flag but just insulted your own armed forces, and on a base no less?

Once upon a time, yeah.

Those days are over. When the president of the United States of America tells all the residents of Puerto Rico he's basically sick of hearing about them being wet, hungry and in the dark all the time, when he threatens to cut them off completely despite the fact that the island was thoroughly scourged by a massive hurricane, and oh, by the way, they are also US citizens, it's hard to get worked up over "Retreat-gate" in the proper fashion.

This is what he said in a string of tweets before dawn on Thursday morning:

"Puerto Rico survived the Hurricanes, now a financial crisis looms largely of their own making." says Sharyl Attkisson. A total lack of accountability say the Governor. Electric and all infrastructure was disaster before hurricanes. Congress to decide how much to spend. We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!

Got that, everyone? The storm was Puerto Rico's fault. This US territory with no voting power in Congress seems to have quite the influence over earth, wind and fire these days, not to mention infrastructure and debt. The president sure thinks so, anyway.

This from the guy who was throwing rolls of paper towels at storm victims last week while lowballing the death toll as he talked about "a real disaster like Katrina." For the record, the current official number stands at 36, but the people running Puerto Rico's funeral homes know different. The people who buried their parents days after the storm passed because there was no power for their life support machines know different. The uncounted dead know different.

From the Guardian last Wednesday: "Officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) say that the government and its partners are only providing 200,000 meals a day to meet the needs of more than 2 million people. That is a daily shortfall of between 1.8 million and 5.8 million meals. 'We are 1.8 million meals short,' said one senior FEMA official. 'That is why we need the urgency. And it's not going away. We're doing this much today, but it has to be sustained over several months.'"

Not if the president has his way about it. Sure, the US government enjoys Puerto Rico when the Navy needs to test its ship-to-shore firepower and showers Vieques with artillery, the remnants of which are likely to blame for the region having the highest disease rates in the Caribbean. What's a little depleted uranium, cardiovascular disease and cancer between fellow citizens, right?

But, you see, Puerto Rico has debt. A "financial crisis looms largely of their own making," Trump said. He is so adamant about Puerto Rico's debt that Congress, at his request, has made $5 billion of the aid package it's crafting a loan to Puerto Rico, which will also have to be paid back. Why? Because Puerto Rico's debt is owned by Wall Street, and Wall Street is Trump's people.

Sarah Jaffe recently spoke with Jonathan Westin, director of New York Communities for Change, who provided some truly revelatory information on who actually owns Puerto Rico's debt:

[Seth] Klarman is the hedge fund manager ... [Klarman] is generally seen as kind of a 'progressive' Wall Street guy, but has hid himself in very intentional ways from being discovered as one of the biggest bond-holders of Puerto Rican debt. The way the debt was acquired by many of these hedge fund managers was they bought it for cents on the dollar when they took over debt from Puerto Rico, and are now trying to extract as much as possible out of the island to pay that debt back, even though they bought it for cents on the dollar.

There is a reason they are called vulture funds; it is because they prey on very downtrodden folks. They buy up debt from places that most people believe they won't be able to recover [their money], but then they do everything in their power to extract blood from a stone. Puerto Rico is not the only instance where hedge fund managers have gobbled up debt. They have done it in Argentina. They have done it in Greece. They have done it in many other places.

Hardly a surprise, I suppose, coming from the humanitarian who wants so many more nuclear weapons that his own secretary of state reportedly called him a "fucking moron." There is a rumor going around that Kelly and Mattis have agreed to bodily tackle Trump if he ever lunges for the political "football." It sounds farfetched, but I believe it.

You see, the president of the United States is a vacant hole posing as a person, and there has been a lot of talk about the 25th Amendment because of it. Unless Trump leaves office voluntarily, the only mechanism for his lawful removal is found in section 4 of that amendment. It's a doozy.

To make use of it, the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet must tell Congress the president is unable to perform the duties of his office. The president can challenge this and immediately retain his powers, but if the vice president and the Cabinet reaffirm their claim of presidential incapacity, the matter goes to Congress for what amounts to a trial. For removal, both the House and the Senate have to agree with the vice president and the Cabinet by a two-thirds majority in each chamber. Otherwise, the president stays put.

In short, the 25th isn't coming to rescue us any time soon. It makes for a fine hashtag to deploy whenever the monster behaves monstrously, but that's about as far as it goes. Leaving aside the pan-dimensional improbability of Mike Pence and the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari actually turning on Trump for any reason, there is the simple, sorrowful fact of Congress itself.

Let me tell you a little something about these people. Last week, the House passed legislation banning abortions after 20 weeks. They did so, according to a GOP caucus blog post, because the massacre in Las Vegas combined with the summertime shooting of GOP Rep. Steve Scalise reminded them "just how precious life is." Got that? Don't figure out what to do about the manufacture and distribution of the military-grade guns that killed all those actual people. Cough up a Senate-doomed sop to the GOP base to commemorate the sanctity of "life."

One of the GOP representatives who voted for this was Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania. A real bear for the sanctity of life is Tim, who enjoys a spotless "pro-life" voting record that was ever so slightly marred early this month when it came to light that he had urged his mistress to get an abortion. Rep. Murphy will be retiring at the end of his term.

Even Scalise, who (please pardon the all-caps) GOT SHOT this summer and almost died, is still dutifully hauling water for the NRA. We need more guns to keep us safe from all those guns. Seemingly in defense of his pro-gun stance, Scalise told Fox News last Tuesday, "When there was a shooter, luckily we had Capitol Police there with their own guns." Right, Steve, that would be the (pardon again) WELL-REGULATED MILITIA we read about in that 2nd Amendment you love so much.

Two-thirds of these people are not going to vote to remove Trump from office even if he lights the Capitol dome on fire. He is the last, best hope they have for making their proto-fascist Biblical nation fantasies a reality. A great many of these people are human vacancies just like the president, and they share a characteristic with him that happens to be their greatest collective strength: They are incapable of shame.

And so much for the 25th. For now.

"There comes a time," said free-speech activist Mario Savio, "when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop."

That is where we're at, I believe. This is not normal, this is not healthy, this is not safe, this is not right. It has to be stopped before Carl Sagan's pale blue dot becomes just another puff of dust in the long dark. The corporate "news" media won't help us. They love this stuff; hell, the country hasn't turned off the television since November. Our so-called leaders in Congress may as well be cardboard cutouts of themselves for all the good they do.

No, this falls to us, to as many of us as can be summoned, and there are a great, great many of us. Something simple. Everyone takes the same day off from work and idles the nation. Everyone participates in a tightly focused boycott until the entity in question ceases to exist. Then do it again. Everyone goes to Washington, DC, sits down in front of the White House, and waits. A flexing of muscles too many of us have forgotten we have, indicating to those in power during this ongoing calamity that it's sure been a laff riot, you guys, but enough is too much. We are stopping the machine until this is fixed.