Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called on Tuesday for an investigation into oil price manipulation. He also proposed a 30-day deadline for federal regulators to use emergency powers to curb excessive speculation in crude oil markets.

“We must do everything that we can to make sure that oil and gasoline prices are transparent and free from fraud, manipulation, abuse and excessive speculation,” said Sanders, a member of the Senate energy committee.

Over the past five months, the national average price for a gallon of gasoline has gone up by more than 41 cents. The price hikes come at a time when U.S. oil inventories reached a three-decade high while demand for gasoline is lower than four years ago when prices averaged less than $2.30 a gallon.

Sanders spoke about rapidly rising gas prices during a Senate floor speech on two amendments he proposed to the farm bill.

“The skyrocketing cost of gasoline and oil is causing tremendous hardship to the American consumer, small businesses, truckers, airlines and fuel dealers. In fact, as we struggle to claw our way out of this terrible recession, high oil and gas prices are enormously detrimental to the entire economic recovery process,” Sanders said.

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Is Jamie Dimon a ruthless and intimidating banker, or are his suits made of Teflon? The chairman of JPMorgan Chase and his shareholders successfully killed an investors’ proposal to strip him of his title and split the job between two people, sources said Tuesday. While the final tally of the vote has yet to be released, several shareholders who have seen the total confirmed that Dimon did in fact defeat the campaign. It’s not the first time investor groups have tried to oust the silver-haired chief executive officer. A similar proposal was brought to the table in 2011, but failed to pass, garnering only 40 percent of the vote.

Dealbook:

Jamie Dimon and the 10 other directors of JPMorgan Chase were all re-elected at the bank’s annual shareholders meeting in Tampa, Fla., today.
...

Even if JPMorgan shareholders had accepted the proposal, the bank would not have been required to act. But the board will likely make changes to derail future calls for a shake-up. The possibilities include reshuffling the bank’s risk committee or giving its lead director more power.

Oh, yeah give him more power. That'll teach him to be more cautious with other people's money.

According to The Washington Post, the Department of Justice examined Fox News reporter James Rosen’s personal emails, phone records, and visits to the State Department in order to investigate a leak of classified information. Rosen came to the attention of the DOJ after writing an article about CIA analysis of how North Korea might respond to sanctions. The DOJ traced the leak back to State Department worker Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, who now faces charges for leaking intel. Unlike the AP investigation, however, it was thought that the reporter may also face charges as a “co-conspirator.” However, statements made Tuesday by White House spokesman Jay Carney indicate that the Fox News reporter is likely off the hook.

WaPo:

The Kim case began in June 2009, when Rosen reported that U.S. intelligence officials were warning that North Korea was likely to respond to United Nations sanctions with more nuclear tests. The CIA had learned the information, Rosen wrote, from sources inside North Korea.

The story was published online the same day that a top-secret report was made available to a small circle within the intelligence community — including Kim, who at the time was a State Department arms expert with security clearance.

FBI investigators used the security-badge data, phone records and e-mail exchanges to build a case that Kim shared the report with Rosen soon after receiving it, court records show.

In the documents, FBI agent Reginald Reyes described in detail how Kim and Rosen moved in and out of the State Department headquarters at 2201 C St. NW a few hours before the story was published on June 11, 2009.

“Mr. Kim departed DoS at or around 12:02 p.m. followed shortly thereafter by the reporter at or around 12:03 p.m.,” Reyes wrote. Next, the agent said, “Mr. Kim returned to DoS at or around 12:26 p.m. followed shortly thereafter by the reporter at or around 12:30 p.m.”

The activity, Reyes wrote in an affidavit, suggested a “face-to-face” meeting between the two men. “Within a few hours after those nearly simultaneous exits and entries at DoS, the June 2009 article was published on the Internet,” he wrote.

Rosen and Kim used coded signals in emails to communicate, “One asterisk means to contact them, or that previously suggested plans for communication are to proceed as agreed; two asterisks means the opposite.”

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by Peter Sleeth, Special to ProPublica

The top Republican and Democrat on the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs are demanding more information from defense Secretary Chuck Hagel about lost Army field records from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the subject of a ProPublica investigation last year.

In an unusually detailed letter sent Friday to Hagel, Reps. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., and Michael Michaud, D-Maine, said the Defense Department's response to an earlier request about why records are missing — and what the military is doing about it — didn't go far enough.

"Congress must have a clear understanding of the extent  of the lost records in order to safeguard the best interests of our service members and veterans,'' the letter says.

The 12 questions posed to Hagel in the letter focus largely on the Army because it has the largest records deficit. Among other things, the congressmen want to know what happened to operational records for the 1st Armored Division and the 82nd Airborne Division and what is being done to reconstruct them.

In November, ProPublica and the Seattle Times reported that they were among numerous Army units that had lost or failed to keep battlefield records as required, making it harder for some veterans to obtain benefits and for historians to recount what actually happened.

"Operational records can be used to track the history of our nation's military, plan for future operations and support innovative medical research,'' Miller and Michaud wrote to Hagel.

In addition to chairing the veterans' panel, Miller sits on the House Armed Services Committee, which has direct oversight responsibility for the Defense Department and service branches.

The department did not return a phone call seeking comment. 

On Tuesday morning, homeowners facing foreclosure and housing rights activists from across the country -- including the Home Defender's League and Occupy Our Homes (an off-shoot of Occupy Wall Street) -- rallied outside the U.S. Department of Justice to demand Attorney General Holder hold the Wall Street Banks that ravaged America’s economy accountable. Dozens of struggling homeowners are prepared to risk arrest in non-violent civil disobedience or set up an ongoing occupation outside the Department of Justice until demands for Wall Street accountability and relief for their communities are addressed.

The action at the DOJ began on Monday, and although they were supported by over 500 allies, the DOJ decided they would rather jail these everyday Americans than step up to help resolve the ongoing foreclosure crisis. Some of those arrested were even tasered -- 17 arrests in all, with two being tasered by police.

WaPo:

According to D.C. police, 17 people were arrested. Ann C. Wilcox, an attorney who represents protesters, said several were tased during the scuffle. A D.C. police spokeswoman said D.C. police were not involved in the tasing. Federal law enforcement officials on the scene declined comment.

Police also closed Constitution Avenue for much of the afternoon, leading to traffic backups downtown.

As of 4:45 pm, about 50 protesters were standing in the street or sitting on the sidewalk, and police were preparing for more arrests. Officers equipped with crowd dispersal agents guarded the entrance to the Justice Department. A police helicopter circled overhead.

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A female former staffer for the Iowa state Senate Republicans says she was fired only hours after she reported sexual harassment by male lawmakers.

In an interview on Sunday, Kirsten Anderson told WHO-TV that she had worked as the communications director for the state Senate Republican Caucus until Friday when she was fired after providing documentation about the sexual harassment.

"When you go to the workplace, you should have a safe environment," she explained to WHO-TV's Dave Price. "Women especially should not have their body parts scrutinized, objectified. People should not be ridiculed or mocked for simply the color of their pants that they are wearing, and those sorts of things were taking place at the Capitol."

"Things that would make you blush," she recalled. "Things that you don't want your daughter, your mother, your sister having to put up with. And that sort of attitude about women -- objectifying women -- it has to change."

Anderson said she was told that the senators "had the authority to terminate me at this time."

Pressed by Price, the former staffer said that she was not prepared to name names because her complaint "was more about changing the work environment."

Ed Failor Jr., a top assistant to state Senate Republican Leader Bill Dix, on Sunday insisted that Anderson had been fired for failing to improve her work performance.

"I can assure you that under Senator Dix’s leadership, sexual harassment is not and will not be tolerated," Failor told the Des Moines Register. "She was given an opportunity to improve her work performance and it did not improve."

(h/t: Talking Points Memo)

Good morning, today is Tuesday, May 21, 2013. A very Happy Birthday to Senator Al Franken!

Your morning open thread begins below...

This is your Moment of Clarity #235: The Pentagon's funding of memory erasing pills raising a difficult moral question. Do you think anyone at the Pentagon thinks so?

Keep fighting,

Lee

In this spoof documentary, Bankwatch with Bill Oddie, the naturalist protests against HSBC's illegal logging by entering the den of a creature closely related to humans: the banker. HSBC has made nearly £100m bankrolling some of the world's most destructive logging companies in Sarawak Malaysia, and is at risk of violating international money laundering rules, according to NGO Global Witness.

Via The Guardian.

It's time to March Against Monsanto!

Why do we march?

• Research studies have shown that Monsanto's genetically-modified foods can lead to serious health conditions such as the development of cancer tumors, infertility and birth defects.

• In the United States, the FDA, the agency tasked with ensuring food safety for the population, is steered by ex-Monsanto executives, and we feel that's a questionable conflict of interests and explains the lack of government-lead research on the long-term effects of GMO products.

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