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HR 6305 IH

To clarify the authorities for the use of certain National Park Service properties within Golden Gate National Parks and San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, and for other purposes.

http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d104:HR02399:@@@R

Nomi Prins remarks on this act on Democracy Now! on July 9, 2008:

"The second thing that happened also in the ’90s, in ’94, was the Truth in Lending Act, which was a 1968 original act. It was put together to create a situation where lenders had to disclose—and not only disclose all of their potential alarms that could go off within a loan to a perspective borrower, they had to also be accountable. And that’s a situation we’ve come a long ways away from, is the accountability of lenders, that they could actually be brought to court, be brought to trial, be brought to be accountable for hidden problems in their loans.

"In 1994, that Truth in Lending Act was amended, and it was amended because there started to be a lot of lawsuits, starting in Florida, then flowing through the United States, which basically said, 'You know what? If lenders go outside of their responsibilities, they can be sued. They can have to pay out. They can lose certain amounts of money that they have counted on.' And the lenders were like, you know, 'We don’t like that. We don’t like to be accountable for what we’re doing,' so they lobbied for the amendments, and that happened in the ’90s."

8/5/1993:

Referred to the House Committee on Banking, Finance + Urban Affrs.

8/16/1993:

Referred to the Subcommittee on Consumer Credit and Insurance.

Nomi Prins, on Democracy Now! on July 10, 2008, comments on the beginnings of the mortgage crisis that is currently gripping the nation:

"It really goes back to the ’90s. There was an act passed in 1994 that was trying to actually help homeowners get protection from abusive lending, in other words, lending at a very, very high interest rate. And it was passed, and it was advocated by consumer advocates, and it had aspects of being a good bill. However, what it did was cap them after a certain rate, after a twelve-and-a-half percent rate, after a certain rate over treasuries, and it didn’t cap all of the abuses that could happen in between. So what it did, in fact, was create the beginning of the subprime situation, where lenders could say, 'All right, we don’t want to come under this regulation'—it’s called the HOEPA law, H-O-E-P-A, Home Owners Equity Protection Act of 1994. Lenders said, 'Alright, you know what? We won’t come in there at the high rates. We don’t want to get on the radar screen in that respect. We’ll just come right under, and we’ll start to look for ways to make loans with lots of bells and whistles and lots of fees attached to them, where we can come under the radar screen and start to create this kind of market of potential problems.' "

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/9/five_ways_wall_street_and_washington

(We cannot find the roll call vote on this act to determine how Nancy Pelosi voted.)

HCON 362 IH

Expressing the sense of Congress regarding the threat posed to international peace, stability in the Middle East, and the vital national security interests of the United States by Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and regional hegemony, and for other purposes.

Congressman Gary Ackerman (D-Queens) is the sponsor of this resolution.  Two-hundred and twenty other representatives are co-sponsoring the resolution, including the following California Democrats: Bob Filner, Jane Harman, Loretta Sanchez, Adam Schiff, Brad Sherman, Mike Thompson, and Henry Waxman.  Keep an eye out for Nancy Pelosi -- will she permit this to come to a vote in the House of Representatives?  If she does, will participate in the vote or duck the matter by exercising her perogative as speaker not to vote.