Tthe changes are meant to put more information in the hands of consumers who often struggle to understand language written by lawyers in the fine print of their statements. Here are some changes that will surely be welcomed by consumers.

- Eliminating universal default. Pay one account late and the interest rate on your other accounts zooms up? Not any longer.

- Limiting interest rate hikes. For example, the APR you have on a new account can’t increase during the first year unless you have a “teaser rate,” the rate is tied to an index, or you’re more than 60 days late on a payment.

- No more pay to pay. You can’t be charged to pay your bill over the telephone, electronic transfer or any other method of getting your money in on time.

- Total payout disclosure. Clearly written on your statement will be how long it will take to pay the account if you only make the minimum required payments – and how much it will ultimately cost.

- 45 days notice of significant changes to terms. If your credit card company is going to hike your APR or fee charges, you now have plenty of notice. Even better: you can opt out of the increase by suspending the card and concentrating on repaying the balance.

Also, according to the WSJ,

“Customers can only exceed their credit limit if they agree ahead of time to pay a penalty fee. And unless a cardholder misses payments for more than 60 days, interest-rate increases will affect only new purchases, not existing balances.”

While the changes appear to be positive, the flip side is that they are likely to elicit a backlash from banks in the form of drawing down on credit lines, higher interest rates and all sorts of fees. These regulations on credit card lenders are estimated to cost the industry $12 billion annually. While these rules may stem from a desire to protect consumers, they may result in a diminishing of credit lines at a time when millions of Americans are struggling and might have planned to tap into their lines of credit. As Newton’s law reminds us, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and this case is no exception to the rule. As the WSJ warns, “get ready for higher annual fees, higher balance-transfer charges, and growing charges for overseas transactions.”

So it turns out that these regulations may turn out to be less helpful for consumers than they appear on the surface. This is what the current administration and majority in Congress can’t seem to understand; overreaching in the private sphere via this kind of regulation is not a foolproof formula for helping consumers. Sure, lenders operate according to a profit motive, but people run their own budgets similarly. The government should focus on providing incentives for businesses to expand and hire if they’re worried about people’s ability to pay off their debt, not on strangling lenders. And with lenders already hard-hit by the economic crisis and customers defaulting on their debts, they will look to make up lost profits elsewhere or decrease lending, which is bad for lenders and consumers alike.

Back in May of 2009, I wrote that Congress should tread lightly on credit card reform for this very reason. Erecting obstacles to the extension of credit is no way to get yourself out of a credit crunch. Here we are in 2010, and the Obama administration still hasn’t gotten this message. And once again, consumers will be stuck footing the bill for  their mistakes in the form of new fees soon.

The past six months have been filled with good times celebrating on the one hand, and on the other, working hard to wrap up my legal work before the baby comes. The good news is that when I don’t have my hands full with the baby, I hope to spend more time focusing on my writing. And, with a little one on the way, it gives me a new angle from which to think about many of the political issues I often discuss on my blog. Government policies on spending, taxes, health care and the overall level to which government is (or isn’t) willing to reach in to the private sphere not only affect me today, but will have a direct impact on the kind of world in which my son or daughter will grow up.

That said, I am looking forward to catching up with all of you in the blogosphere and talking politics!

-Despina

1. Paint the loss of a red state Senate seat as a continuation of the problems that fueled President Obama’s candidacy to begin with. “The painstaking campaign for change over two years in 2007 and 2008 has become a painstaking effort in the White House too.”

2. But you might say, the Democrats control the White House AND Congress, so how can this be a continuation of the same frustrations with the new administration and Congress holding all the cards? They have an answer for this too: “It’s not as if having 60 votes in the Senate has made life a walk in the park.”

3. When all else fails, blame capitalism. Whose side are you on? Greedy bankers? Corrupt oil companies? Inhumane insurance companies? Or, do you stand with us (Democrats) on the people’s side? Castigate profit generators, job generators while simultaneously touting that the bottom line is jobs, jobs, jobs.

This worked for the administration for a good part of 2009. Take the stimulus as an example. After all, the Democrats still have not been held accountable for spending nearly $800 billion on a program that failed to stimulate anything but the expansion of government. This strategy of distraction has worked so far for Democrats, so why fix something that isn’t broken?

This strategy is so shallow that were it not so arrogant and offensive, it would be laughable. It implies that the American people are uninformed and obtuse — that despite continuing job losses, a constantly ballooning deficit and continuing government intervention in the private sector, Americans’ desire for ‘change’ from the previous administration is going to perpetually buy this White House time to push forward their agenda — at whatever the cost.

It’s difficult to miss the irony here that the very same Democrats that painted former President Bush and his administration as out of touch with the American people, simply cannot understand that the debate taking place in the public arena for the last year, arguably since the passage of the stimulus and the onset of the tea party movement, cannot be won by simply switching up their PR strategy.

“[The person in charge of Palin's debate prep]  told us that the debate was going to be a debacle of historic and epic proportions. He told us she was not focused, she was not engaged, she was really not participating in the prep.”

He also said, that there were many instances in which Palin couldn’t keep her facts straight, and that this continues to add to the perception many have of Palin today, namely, that she is unlearned and inarticulate.

What has always interested me about this issue is why these McCain strategists were so quick to throw Palin under the bus. The obvious reason is that she is an easy scapegoat; bringing down Palin allows them to escape all responsibility for running a poor campaign. But, a recent comment by Democrat strategist Paul Begala on this issue has peaked my curiosity about the Palin-bashers, particularly Schmidt, once again. Politico quotes Begala as saying,

“I don’t think he has anything to gain from it. It’s not going to get Schmidt a whole lot of clients in Republican Party and he’s not selling a book. So it just may be that he is telling the truth.”

Begala’s certainly right that Schmidt’s coming out to trash Palin in the public arena can’t possibly help him with conservatives. Even former McCain supporters will likely wish to distance themselves from an individual they can’t trust to keep behind-the-scene problems out of the public arena. And, given the popularity of Palin’s populist conservatism and the rise of the tea parties, the odds are against Schmidt if he was banking on a Republican party that would reject Palin. That certainly doesn’t seem to be the direction conservatism is taking.

Begala thinks Schmidt might simply be telling the truth. I’ve followed Palin closely and read her book, and I haven’t seen any compelling evidence of the Palin that Schmidt describes. So I have to wonder if Schmidt’s goal might just be to make friends in the Democrat party? Is it possible he’s setting himself up for a Dick Morris-type jump to the other side of the political aisle? Otherwise, to what end is he putting himself out there and making these allegations? If it’s not going to further his career in the Republican party, and it’s not going to benefit him financially, what’s his purpose?

If it turns out that my imagination is just getting the best of me and this isn’t the case for Schmidt, it will certainly be interesting to watch the unraveling of this relationship and how Palin continues to handle this kind of negative attention as she moves forward in her political career. As for Schmidt, he seems to be on a losing streak, first the campaign and now the war on Palin.

But, despite his vow and the media and public disapproval of the current process, this will not be the first time that the President has broken this particular promise. Back in February of 2009, the same issue was brought up as it related to the negotiations of the stimulus package. Note in the following line of questioning, Gibbs’ answer that the President was pleased with the product and with the process.

Q I just wanted to try again on the issue of the open conference committee question. We just didn’t really resolve it the other day. I mean, on the transition website it said explicitly that the President wanted the conference committee process to be open to the public. In light of that, how does he feel about the conference committee process this week on the stimulus which was, even to apparently some members of the conference committee, not open? And going forward, does he intend to fulfill that promise?

MR. GIBBS: Well, I haven’t seen the particular comments. Obviously the President hopes for greater openness and transparency in government. Whether it’s the transparency that’s part of this bill or transparency that’s part of conference committees, whether that transparency — obviously there’s a lot of things that he believes can be improved. And I think that’s something that we’d like to continue to see.

We talked about — and something that we’re struggling to implement that we talked about during the campaign, which was putting legislation on the web — non-emergency legislation on the web for five days before it’s signed. The White House is struggling with trying to figure out how to do that in a way — when do you do it, how do you do it, what do you put up.

So I think all this is a work in progress. And as I said, it will take probably longer than a few weeks to change how this place works.

Q Was he satisfied with the process this week?

MR. GIBBS: Ask me that when the Senate finishes and we have something.

Q I mean the conference –

MR. GIBBS: Yes, I think the President is happy with the product that Democrats and Republicans put together.

Q The process, not the product.

MR. GIBBS: The process and the product.

Q Robert, some White House aides participated in that conference committee process, meeting, negotiating behind closed doors, in some sense, I guess, validating that process. I mean, could they not have been insisting upon a more open process where C-SPAN cameras come in and record that, as the President promised to do on health care negotiations?

MR. GIBBS: Unclear if Rahm could satisfy some FCC requirements. (Laughter.) But I think the President is, as I said, pleased with the –

Q Cable. (Laughter.)

MR. GIBBS: Yes, the FX channel, unfortunately, is what we’re going to do. (Laughter.)

He’s pleased with the process and the product that has come out. And I think when the process is done, I think the American people will be proud of the product that we believe and we hope will begin to stimulate the economy, get people hired, back to work, and moving things forward, and putting people — putting money back in their pockets.

You don’t have to know much about politics to note how Gibbs dodges this line of questioning from the get-go. First, he states he’s unfamiliar with any complaints about the process. Then, he emphatically states that the President was proud of the process. Then, when directly confronted with the President’s promise to allow C-Span cameras to record and broadcast negotiations, after making a few quips, he repeats the President’s satisfaction with the process and posits that despite the lack of sunshine along the way, Americans will be happy with the end results. In other words, the means justify the ends.

After all, what’s one pesky broken promise? Except that this was one of the cornerstones of the President’s campaign, ushering in a new era of openness and transparency. But now that he’s at the helm, he didn’t just break his word, he urged Democrats to push the bill through and quickly behind closed doors. In the era of Obama, speediness trumps open dialogue about legislation. When public support isn’t on your side, the need for speed to get a bill on the President’s desk becomes priority number one, taking a backseat to bothersome details like cost and a piece of legislation’s effect on personal liberty, taxes, the deficit and our health care system in general. It’s get the bill through at all costs and preferably before the State of the Union. And some of us thought things couldn’t get any worse…

Dropping the exam would bolster minority hiring and avert legal battles, according to one source, while others confirm that the exam could be scrapped to open the process to as many people as possible.

According to the article, this is the CPD’s second attempt to increase minority hiring. Their first effort involved offering the exam on the internet.

In another article on race, the Wall Street Journal reports that the country’s most liberal appellate court in the 9th Circuit recently overturned a 2000 court decision that found that preventing felons from voting did not violate the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The issues the ruling raises about racial bias in the justice system aren’t unique to Washington state, said Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C., group promoting sentencing reform. “They are issues that permeate the justice system and are relevant in every state,” he said.

In the 2-1 decision, the appellate judges concluded that “disparities in the state’s judicial system “[could] not be explained in any race-neutral way.”

In both these situations, the race card is being used as a ploy to get around the law. It is absolutely shameless. For now, let’s set aside the issue of the propriety of seeking to increase minorities in the police force to begin with. The question that remains then is, is there really no other way to increase the number of minority cops in Chicago short of entirely eliminating the entrance exam that screens potential cops on issues pertinent to their future position? And how insulting is it to suggest that the only way to help minorities is to not hold them to the standards everyone else is held to?

The same goes for Washington. The issue of whether people who have committed heinous crimes should be allowed to participate in the political system has no connection to race at all. To make it about race is to skirt around the issue. The lead attorney in the case, made the following statement.

“In this case, we have proved that the criminal justice system in this state is biased against African-Americans, and the impact has been a violation of their voting rights,” said Larry Weiser, a law professor at Gonzaga University School of Law who is the lead attorney in the lawsuit.

So, what’s the real problem here? That the system is biased against African-Americans? Or that it is a violation of prisoners’ rights to keep them from voting? These are two very separate issues that each raise their own questions, some of which have merit, but wrapping them in the cloak of the race card is futile.

In truth, neither of these situations is really about race. Making them about race just deflects attention from the real issues. It doesn’t help to get to the root of the problems, nor does it help the plight of minorities which just goes to show that no one wins by casually throwing around the race card.

Later in the afternoon, still not having read the article, I tuned in to Michael Medved to hear him praising David Brooks and agreeing wholeheartedly with his sentiments about the tea partiers — specifically citing Brooks’ comments on the tea partiers being opposed to everything the so-called educated class stands for.

Having finally read the article, I’m left astounded at Brooks’ disconnected, absurd article. The article itself just doesn’t make sense. It starts out tearing apart the tea partiers and ends with a sort of nod of respect to them that is entirely out of place given the tone of the article.

After opening with how disenchanted the public is with their government, he posits that the country is moving to the right and most importantly, that that change involves a moving away from ideas associated with the “educated class.”

He then counts off a number of issues and cites the liberal positions as those of the “educated” elite. Brooks is somehow under the impression that the 50% of the country, or at the very least the 40% that considered themselves conservative in 2009, are unschooled. Not only are they lowbrow cretins, they are defined by this opposition to their educated superiors.

“The tea party movement is a large, fractious confederation of Americans who are defined by what they are against. They are against the concentrated power of the educated class. They believe big government, big business, big media and the affluent professionals are merging to form self-serving oligarchy — with bloated government, unsustainable deficits, high taxes and intrusive regulation.”

Perhaps Brooks thinks he can get away with libel if he mixes it with a bit of truth. True, tea partiers are generally against big government, high deficits, taxes and regulation. But, tea partiers are against government intrusion in the private sector, not against business, the private sector or those who reap its benefits as he suggests. As for the media, he seems confused as to conservatives’ grievances against major news outlets which they see as biased, not because their offices are filled with the enlightened, well-educated class as he suggests.

After all this, he ends the article with a nod to the tea party, acknowledging its success and potential future influence. In what is perhaps the most bizarre of the piece, he suggests the movement could become a major force in politics; after all, it “represents arguments that are deeply rooted in American history.” I have to wonder what sort of spin Brooks himself would put on this if confronted with these statements — that the tea partiers are ignorant, yet their ideas are deeply rooted in U.S. history?

Brooks then ends the piece by pointing to “the angry direction” tea partiers could pull voters toward and states, “I’m no fan of this movement.”

I came away from the article understanding that David Brooks abhors the tea parties and nothing more. Other than that, the only thing I can surmise is that Brooks senses that the tides are changing, and he fears that this group of everyday Americans turned activists, with their ideas “rooted in American history” are on to something, and New York Times elites like Brooks may no longer be as influential as they once were.

Like many other conservatives, the 2008 election inspired me to do more than follow politics from the sidelines. I wanted to get involved, and before I found my niche blogging, I began to get involved with various conservative organizations in the area — such as the Chicago Young Republicans and the Chicago Republican Women’s Network.

After doing my own research on each of the conservative candidates running in the primary, I lent my support and my time to Greg. Greg is a fellow attorney who was new to the political scene. Having spent time living in France, he knew what it was like to live under a socialized system of health care and had experienced the problems with that type of system first-hand. He understood that those problems are widespread; they don’t just end with health care.

My focus during the campaign was to research and analyze the critical issues of the election and hone in on the most effective ways of getting our conservative message out in a tough, partisan environment. Many Chicagoans have no idea what conservatives stand for; they just know it’s not what they want. We had quite a long road ahead of us.

From the start, I personally did not see any of the other candidates as serious contenders. Aside from Greg, there was only one other candidate that I could see giving the Democrats a run for their money. I’m all for citizen activists getting involved in politics, but many of the other candidates just didn’t do their homework, weren’t well versed in the facts and pandered to whatever audience was in front of them.

In February of last year, our hard work was recognized when the Chicago Tribune endorsed Greg. The other city paper, the Chicago Sun-Times, didn’t bother endorsing a candidate with conservative leanings — writing us out of the election off the bat.

Working on the campaign itself was a wonderful experience. Interacting with Chicagoans was satisfying, especially when people opened up and actually gave us a chance to relate our positions to them — something that unfortunately, didn’t happen often enough. At other times, it was disheartening to witness hard-working people, even veterans, who spent their lives paying into a system that has done nothing for them, shut us out completely. Instead, they chose to endorse the same life-long politicians, the same party, whose policies had left Illinois with an $11.5 billion budget, who caused Illinois to be ranked the 48th state in terms of economic growth by the Illinois Policy Institute, only doing better than Michigan and Ohio.

Of course, being the political geek that I am, the candidate forums were a blast. Finding flaws or misinformation in opponents’ answers, noting our candidates’ (and conservatives’ general) strengths and weaknesses and watching citizens participate in the political process — what could be better?

But, even on a small, local level, I also witnessed the dark side to political parties and the positioning and kowtowing that comes with it. Until I participated in campaigning, I didn’t fully realize the extent to which parties care more about the initial following politicians’ name, than they do their positions, background, qualifications or morals. The local party leaders put a big emphasis on having the different campaigns come together at the end of the primary to support whichever ‘R’ won. But not all ‘Rs’ are created equal. And there was at least one in particular, that not only fell short of being a serious candidate, but whose positions and the way she articulated them, were offensive.

I kept asking myself, is this really the Republican party that these leaders want to showcase? We had taken enough of a beating in the 2008 elections. Having some of those candidates represent conservatives in this heavily Democrat area, would only serve to further cement that the Republican party in the city of Chicago would become extinct.

The night that Greg lost the primary, I found myself sneaking out of the venue where all the Republican candidates had gathered, avoiding conversing with those people to whom the future of the party was far more important than the future of our city, state, country. When Greg’s race was done, I was done. There was no way I could support the candidate that won the primary.

Of course, when it came down to my personal vote, I would vote for the candidate whose votes would align with my views the most. But, voting for the lesser of two evils and actively working to get them elected are very different.

It was after the campaign that I started writing. The satisfaction I got from writing along with the experiences I had campaigning, made me realize that I like engaging in politics on a different level. I’d rather spend my time understanding and analyzing the facts than playing the game and jumping through the hoops it requires to campaign or work in government.

Unfortunately, as I saw firsthand, those that stand up to their party risk losing the support they need to get their message out. In a way, this was what 2009 was about, with everyday Americans who lean conservative joining the tea parties and starting a movement with no allegiance to any one political party. In 2010, with the mid-term elections coming up, we’ll begin to see what effects this new wave of activists will have on our political system. And maybe a year from now, we’ll look back on 2010 as a year of real ‘hope and change.’

Where is the media on this one? The anger? If Baucus had an ‘R’ after his name, this would be plastered all over the morning news shows. I have yet to see it on the air though.

The San Francisco Chronicle Blog insists that he wasn’t drunk and goes on to praise the substance of his babbling. He was just tired. Poor Max. I wonder if they’d be so quick to give Sen. DeMint a break? Or Sen. McConnell? Or is this a perk reserved for Democrats? Must be nice to be part of the elite untouchable Democrats in Washington who have immunity from the media’s scorn.

The gist of the WSJ article by Michael Petrilli is to point out that in order for the GOP to make progress among young, college-educated and often urban-dwelling voters, it must embrace those who live a progressive life but disagree with progressive politics. Petrilli begins an interesting discussion here that takes us back to the whole debate over whether the GOP should be a big-umbrella party or not. The problem is that his take on how the party should embrace this group of potential voters is inherently negative and exclusive.

Here’s where I agree with Petrilli:

What’s needed is a full-fledged effort to cultivate “Whole Foods Republicans”—independent-minded voters who embrace a progressive lifestyle but not progressive politics. These highly-educated individuals appreciate diversity and would never tell racist or homophobic jokes; they like living in walkable urban environments; they believe in environmental stewardship, community service and a spirit of inclusion. And yes, many shop at Whole Foods, which has become a symbol of progressive affluence but is also a good example of the free enterprise system at work. (Not to mention that its founder is a well-known libertarian who took to these pages to excoriate ObamaCare as inimical to market principles.)

What makes these voters potential Republicans is that, lifestyle choices aside, they view big government with great suspicion. There’s no law that someone who enjoys organic food, rides his bike to work, or wants a diverse school for his kids must also believe that the federal government should take over the health-care system or waste money on thousands of social programs with no evidence of effectiveness. Nor do highly educated people have to agree that a strong national defense is harmful to the cause of peace and international cooperation.

Next, he brings up examples of what the GOP must do to show these potential conservatives that there is a place for them in the party.

So how to woo these voters to the Republican column? The first step is to stop denigrating intelligence and education. President George W. Bush’s bantering about being a “C” student may have enamored “the man in the street,” but it surely discouraged more than a few “A” students from feeling like part of the team.

The same is true for Mrs. Palin’s inability to name a single newspaper she reads. If the GOP doesn’t want to be branded the “Party of Stupid,” it could stand to nominate more people who can speak eloquently on complicated policy matters.

Even more important is the party’s message on divisive social issues. When some Republicans use homophobic language, express thinly disguised contempt toward immigrants, or ridicule heartfelt concerns for the environment, they affront the values of the educated class. And they lose votes they otherwise ought to win.

This is where we disagree. According to Petrilli, to woo young, granola conservatives, the GOP must not extol the virtues of people who may not have been the brightest in school (President George W. Bush and Gov. Sarah Palin according to Petrilli) despite having real-world business and governing experiences to bring to the table. Why can’t the GOP embrace street and school smarts? Degrees from fancy schools don’t ensure effectiveness and success at governing — the Obama administration’s lack of accomplishments is evidence of this.

Then, he goes on to suggest that many Republicans are homophobic and perhaps racist or anti-immigrant. He doesn’t provide any evidence of this. He just makes these generalizations about Republicans and moves on.

If he’s referring to Republicans’ stance on gay marriage or immigration, one would think that ‘educated’ voters, whether they’re self-educated or college graduates, should be keen enough to dig deeper into these issues and understand what the fundamental arguments are over gay marriage and immigration. Petrilli casually brings these issues up as evidence that Republicans are “divisive on social issues” and therefore unappealing to young voters and leaves it at that. His discussion of how the GOP can appeal to this younger group of people is an interesting and important one for the future of the party, but he loses conservatives the moment he starts Bush and Palin-bashing and furthers these negative stereotypes of Republicans.

What I liked about his article is that he identified a group that I consider myself a part of — young, educated, urban-dwelling, politically sensitive (but not overly politically correct), organic buying and yet conservative voters. At some point, for younger generations, it stopped being ‘cool’ to be conservative. But after living in cities like Chicago and New York for a while, many of these young people become fed up with their city’s inefficiency and bureaucracy and start to understand the drawbacks of giving too much of your money and power to the government. And to build the party up and make a lasting effect on policy, the GOP needs to tap into this segment of the population. But it must do so in a positive way; bashing the more conservative side of the party like Petrilli does isn’t the way to get there.