All posts tagged: Predatory

“Slap in the face”: Trump DOJ plans to settle predatory lending case without compensating victims

“Slap in the face”: Trump DOJ plans to settle predatory lending case without compensating victims

Published by Sam Flores

In December 2023, the U.S. Justice Department sued a Texas land developer it accused of duping tens of thousands of Hispanic residents into predatory mortgages, a landmark case for the Biden administration. Colony Ridge, which sold plots in massive subdivisions north of Houston, had become a “one-stop shop for discriminatory lending,” Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said at a news conference announcing the lawsuit. The developer targeted Hispanic applicants through false advertising and persuaded them to take out high-interest loans that many could not afford, then benefited when it foreclosed on their properties, the lawsuit alleged. “Our goal at the end of the day is to ensure that victims are compensated for their loss,” Clarke declared. Three years later, the Trump administration and Colony Ridge are on the verge of resolving the case. But the $68 million proposed settlement provides no money for victims of the alleged scheme. Instead, it sets aside $20 million for policing and immigration enforcement — a provision that may be used to target the very people who …

New NBA owner played key role at company accused of predatory lending

New NBA owner played key role at company accused of predatory lending

Published by Sam Flores

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek is on the verge of giving the Portland Trail Blazers a major gift: hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars to overhaul the team’s arena in an effort to keep the Blazers’ incoming owner, billionaire Tom Dundon, from moving the NBA franchise to a new city. The deal came together with little public discussion of how Oregon and other states in 2020 landed a $550 million settlement with the car loan company where Dundon built his wealth. The settlement followed an investigation into lending practices that Oregon’s then-attorney general, in a news release, described as “predatory and harmful.” Now, Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica have obtained documents that reveal the role Dundon played in pushing some of the key company practices that regulators later presented as problematic. Specifically, the documents show that Dundon, as the company’s CEO, was behind what regulators called an “aggressive push” at Santander Consumer USA in 2013 to waive requirements that car dealers prove borrowers had enough income to afford loans. The company would then charge more for …

Tiny predatory dinosaur weighed less than a chicken

Tiny predatory dinosaur weighed less than a chicken

Published by skeptic

Reconstruction of Alnashetri cerropoliciensis Gabriel Díaz Yantén, Universidad Nacional de Río Negro. An almost-complete skeleton of a dinosaur that weighed less than a small chicken has provided new insights into the evolution of alvarezsaurs, which are among the smallest dinosaurs that ever lived. The 95-million-year-old fossil of Alnashetri cerropoliciensis was found at the La Buitrera site in northern Patagonia, Argentina, in 2014. The first specimen of Alnashetri, found in 2012, was a set of incomplete hindlimb bones, says Peter Makovicky at the University of Minnesota, who was part of the study on the new fossil. With only fragmentary remains, it was impossible to say more than that it was probably an alvarezsaur. “We were not even sure if it was a juvenile or fully grown,” he says. “With a whole skeleton, we suddenly had all the information to understand how Alnashetri was similar or differed from other species, and a key to understanding how the unusual anatomy of alvarezsaurs evolved,” says Makovicky. The new fossil has very long, slender hind limbs and surprisingly long forelimbs …

The Islamic Republic’s Predatory Contract With Its People

The Islamic Republic’s Predatory Contract With Its People

Published by Daniella Wilson

Iran’s 86-year-old supreme leader, who believes that he represents God’s will on Earth, ordered what now appears to be one of the deadliest two-day mass slaughters in modern history. According to estimates provided by two anonymous senior officials in the country’s ministry of health, as many as 30,000 citizens may have been killed during this 48-hour rampage on January 8 and 9. If these estimates prove correct, Ali Khamenei’s January 2026 massacre—the climax of a decades-long reign of repression—will rank among modern history’s deadliest single episodes of state violence. Since the rise of the modern state in the 17th century, political legitimacy has come to rest on a social contract, in which the government provides security and sustenance in exchange for the consent of the governed. The Islamic Republic’s relationship with Iranians does not resemble a social contract, but a predatory lease signed in 1979 that has long since expired. The terms of this lease—imposed by the landlord upon the tenants—are nonnegotiable: You, the tenant, will live inside the religious fever dream of a man, …