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Thomas Sowell: Benghazi Just One of Many Obama Deceptions

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It was a little much when President Barack Obama said he was “offended” by the suggestion that his administration would try to deceive the public about what happened in Benghazi, Libya. What has this man not deceived the public about?

Remember his pledge to cut the deficit in half in his first term in office? This was followed by the first trillion-dollar deficit ever, under any president of the United States — followed by trillion-dollar deficits in every year of the Obama administration.

Remember his pledge to have a “transparent” government that would post its legislative proposals on the Internet several days before Congress was to vote on them, so that everybody would know what was happening? This was followed by an Obamacare bill so huge and passed so fast that even members of Congress did not have time to read it.

Remember his claims that previous administrations had arrogantly interfered in the internal affairs of other nations — and then his demands that Israel stop building settlements and give away land outside its 1967 borders, as a precondition to peace talks with the Palestinians, on whom there were no preconditions?

As for what happened in Libya, the Obama administration says there is an “investigation” under way. An “ongoing investigation” sounds so much better than “stonewalling” to get past Election Day. But you can bet the rent money that this “investigation” will not be completed before Election Day. And whatever the investigation says after the election will be irrelevant.

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Consumer Watchdog Fines Alec Baldwin’s Capital One for Deceptive Credit Card Practices

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Capital One, one of the nation’s biggest banks, will reimburse $150 million to more than two million customers for selling them credit card products they could not use or did not want, as the nation’s new consumer watchdog leveled its first enforcement action against the financial industry.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Wednesday hit Capital One with findings that a vendor working for the bank had pressured and deceived card holders into buying products presented as a way to protect them from identity theft and hardships like unemployment or disability.

The regulatory actions, totaling $210 million including fines to authorities, take aim at one of the financial industry’s growing profit centers and increasingly controversial practices. Several other banks, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and HSBC, were sued in June by the Hawaii attorney general, accused of improperly selling similar so-called add-on products, which consumer advocates typically regard as costly and ineffective.

“We know these deceptive marketing tactics for credit card add-on products are not unique to a single institution,” said Richard Cordray, the director of the consumer bureau. “We expect announcements about other institutions as our ongoing work continues to unfold.”

Capital One — known for its catchy television ads that ask, “What’s in your wallet?” — did not admit to or deny any of the findings. While it said the wrongdoing had occurred at outside call centers that “did not always adhere to company sales scripts,” the bank’s president for credit cards, Ryan M. Schneider, acknowledged that the company was “accountable for the actions that vendors take on our behalf.”

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Photo credit: david_shankbone