• The CFPB settled with Santander Consumer USA for $11.79 million ($9.29 million restitution, $2.5 million penalty) due to deceptive marketing of its S-GUARD GAP add-on product and unclear disclosures regarding loan extensions, violating the Consumer Financial Protection Act.

• The CFPB secured a $15.5 million settlement from USAA Federal Savings Bank ($12 million restitution, $3.5 million penalty) for violating consumer protection laws regarding stop-payment requests, error resolution, and unauthorized account reopenings.

• The CFPB secured a $25 million settlement ($20 million restitution, $5 million penalty) from Freedom Debt Relief for violating the Telemarketing Sales Rule.

• The CFPB secured a $30 million settlement ($25 million restitution, $5 million penalty) from TCF National Bank for violating overdraft consent rules.

• CFPB concluded a lawsuit against Navient, a former major student loan servicer, resulting in a $120 million settlement—a $20 million penalty & $100 million in borrower relief— for misleading about repayment plans, botching payments, & misrepresenting cosigner release and credit score improvement.

but it is hardly in the interest of either entrenched party to upend the status quo for its sake.

the uk's recent election, where the reform party fragmented the conservative base, enabled labour to capture a disproportionate share of seats relative to its vote share. what is needed is a system like ranked-choice voting,

there are simply too many partisans whose political fortunes are intertwined with the president's to ever reach a critical mass.

unfortunately, i don’t see it changing soon either. fear of vote splitting is well-founded.

- Kash Patel, Trump’s FBI Director nominee, vowed to “come after the people in the media”

- Threatened to impose 25% inflationary tariffs on both Canada and Mexico
- Routinely including Elon Musk on calls with foreign leaders

- Nominated Monica Crowley—another Fox News personality who had claimed “Obama was born to a Muslim father, which under Islam automatically made him a Muslim...Can he be both loyal to Islam and loyal to the United States?”—to be Assistant Secretary of State

- Appointed RFK Jr. to lead HHS despite a history of spreading vaccine misinformation that helped bring about a measles outbreak in American Samoa, infecting 5,700 and killing 83

- Appointed Tulsi Gabbard – whose foreign policy baggage includes casting doubt on heavily evidenced accounts of Assad gassing his own people – as Director of National Intelligence

- Only relented on his resistance to FBI vetting of nominees when it became clear the confirmations would otherwise stall
- Appointed his other daughter’s father-in-law as Middle East advisor

- Nominated Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary, despite Hegseth's inexperience and history of serial infidelity, alcohol abuse, a settled sexual assault case, and his own mother's condemnation of his treatment of women