Everyone was wondering what the ethnic background of this guy would be. So
now that we know that he's Turkish, what fantasies will the media and the
politicians weave, to tie this assault into a looming therrorist threat?
Make no misstake. Every time a person of color with any sort of connection
to the Mid East, attacks people, Donald Trump gets an increase in votes.
There's an interview with Robert Sheer and David K Johnston on Truthdig
today. Johnston wrote, The Making of Trump. The interview is interesting
and informative, particularly if you didn't read the book.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, September 25, 2016 12:47 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Democracy Now has excerpts of Senator
Elizabeth Warren grilling John G. Stumpf
Despite an eye witness report that the gunman was Hispanic looking, he
turned out to be from Turkey. No idea as to why he gunned down five people,
but more important to me is why the average citizen seems to think they need
an assault weapon in their home.
Years back I worked with a young Egyptian. If anyone had identified him to
the police, they most probably would have said he was a Latino or a Mexican.
We tend to lump people into familiar categories. I had a friend who was
Filipino. People often thought he was Mexican because of his darker skin
and straight black hair.
One of the Para Legals in my wife's office self identified as, "Black",
although he looked quite European...maybe French.
I'd have no concern regarding lumping people, except we tend to do it with
those who "look different" than us, and then we turn our prejudices on them.
Carl Jarvis
On 9/24/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
And they're not calling the shooter a terrorist, at least not thatmore on "protecting"
I've heard. Most likely it's because he is white and didn't say
anything about Allah when he shot those people. I wonder if they'd
call a white man a terrorist who said something about this being the
will of God or Jesus when he shot, people?
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, September 24, 2016 6:53 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Democracy Now has excerpts of Senator
Elizabeth Warren grilling John G. Stumpf
Wells Fargo, City Bank and so many others are the beneficiaries of the
Laws of this Great Nation. The same Laws that are in place to crush
the Edward Snowdens' of the nation. I see that five people were
gunned down in Burlington, Washington yesterday. The man, still on
the loose, used and assault rifle. Meanwhile we are spending more and
Americans from Terrorists. The truth is that we cannot protect alloffice.
Americans from Terrorists. We only protect the very wealthy and their
financial holdings around the world.
And of course, guess who is profiting from this War on Terror.
Carl Jarvis
On 9/23/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I have had my own personal experience with Wells Fargo when I sold my
house and purchased my apartment. With encouragement from my real
estate agent and her associate from Wells Fargo and my own stupidity,
I was lured into borrowing hundreds of thousands of dollars and I
paid incredible amounts of interest to Wells Fargo and City Bank. But
even though I was vulnerable and stupid, I managed to say no to the
Wells Fargo person's urging to take on an even more detrimental loan.
When it was all over, Wells Fargo was urging me to pay an annual fee
to keep my credit line from the repaid loan open in case I needed
more money. As far as I'm concerned, the whole bank should be dismantled.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl ;
Jarvis
Sent: Friday, September 23, 2016 10:36 AM
To: blind-democracy
Subject: [blind-democracy] Democracy Now has excerpts of Senator
Elizabeth Warren grilling John G. Stumpf
I would actually like to listen to the entire Hearing, but the
excerpts on this morning's Democracy Now, with Senator Elizabeth
Warren questioning John G. Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo, warmed my
heart. Too bad something good won't come of it. But it's no secret
that John G. Stumpf is a member of the Honest to Goodness Real First
Class Corporate Americans, and as such he is protected from the very
laws which he loves to hammer the rest of us with.
following is part of an article by Michael Hiltzik:
Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf offers a clinic in how to weasel out of
real accountability Wells Fargo Chairman and CEO John G. Stumpf, who
has been described as "the Mr. Clean of banking," took his
unflappable and well-groomed mien Tuesday to a hearing room on
Capitol Hill to defend the bank against allegations that it had
massively defrauded millions of its customers.
Amazingly, he made himself and his bank look worse. This underscores
the question we asked just a day ago:
Why does he still have a job?
The context of this question is the disclosure that Wells Fargo
bankers opened as many as 2 million fake accounts in the names of
existing customers and others, without their knowledge and
permission, and stonewalled their inquiries and complaints. The scam
went on from at least 2011 through 2015, though Stumpf revealed that
the bank is now reexamining accounts from as early as 2009. On Sept.
8, it announced an agreement to pay $185 million in fines and
penalties to two federal regulators and the Los Angeles City Attorney's
Commission."
You should resign. You should give back the money that you took while
this scam was going on, and you should be criminally investigated.- Sen.
Elizabeth Warren confronts Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf
The bank's explanation has been that this was all a scheme
mysteriously concocted by "rogue" employees coast-to-coast, of whom
5,300 have been fired. Stumpf denied on the stand, as he has in
interviews, that the root cause of the outbreak of dishonesty was
Wells Fargo's relentless pressure on low-level bankers to "cross-sell"
products - push credit cards, personal loans and other deals - upon
all customers. He stoutly denied that the company's "culture"
contributed to the problem.
The company's sales goal was as high as eight accounts per customer,
vastly more than rival banks thought reasonable, and it ceaselessly
boasted to investors of its cross-selling success as evidence of its
expertise in retail banking. Let's call this by its proper name, as
did committee ranking member Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio): "I call it fraud
because I got tired of the euphemisms a long time ago."
On the whole, Stumpf's performance Tuesday followed the standard
playbook for beleaguered CEOs: He mechanically offered contrite
apologies, swore to rectify the fraud and not let it happen again,
and vowed personally to "accept full responsibility for all unethical
sales practices in our retail banking business."
The hollowness of this pledge was promptly punctured by Sen.
Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Here's how that went:
"Since this massive years-long scam came to light, you have said
repeatedly,
quote: 'I am accountable,' " she observed. "But what have you
actually done to hold yourself accountable? Have you resigned as CEO
or chairman of Wells Fargo?"
He started to reply, "The board - "
"Have you resigned?"
"No, I have not."
"All right. Have you returned one nickel of the millions of dollars
that you were paid while this scam was going on?"
"Well, first of all," Stumpf blustered, "this was by 1% of our
people, and- and - "
"That's not my question," Warren interrupted. "My question is about
responsibility. Have you returned one nickel of the millions of
dollars that you were paid while this scam was going on?"
"The board will take care of that."
"Have you returned one nickel of the money you earned while this scam
was going on?"
"The board will - "
"I will take that as a 'no,' then."
Warren further probed whether Stumpf had fired a single senior
executive over the scam. The answer was no.
"OK. So you haven't resigned, you haven't returned a single nickel of
your personal earnings, you haven't fired a single senior executive.
Instead, your
definition of accountable is to push the blame to your low-level
employees who don't have the money for a fancy PR firm to defend
themselves. It's gutless leadership."
She concluded her questioning with the bluntest assessment of the day:
"You should resign. You should give back the money that you took
while this scam was going on, and you should be criminally
investigated by both the Department of Justice and the Securities and
Exchange
fraud,"
As Warren and other committee members on both sides of the aisle
pointed out, Wells Fargo didn't seem to take serious steps to rectify
the damage done to customers, first revealed in 2013 by The Times,
until it started to face pressure from regulators. Stumpf touted the
bank's decision to hire consultants at PricewaterhouseCoopers to help
determine the scope of the problem - but that happened in August
2015, years after it knew a problem existed.
Under Brown's questioning, Stumpf revealed that it took that step not
on its own, but "in consultation" with federal regulators and the L.A.
City Attorney's
office, which was investigating. In other words, Wells Fargo had to
be goaded into seeking outside help.
"It never occurred to you to bring in somebody?" Brown asked.
"It was early in 2015," Stumpf replied, "that we finally connected a
dot."
Nor has the bank ever disclosed in its public filings to the SEC that
its activities were under investigation. Stumpf explained that it
considered the problem immaterial. In strictly financial terms, that
may be true: The bank collects revenue of about $90 billion a year
and profits of more than $20 billion.
But the damage to its reputation and future profitability may be
enormous; treating this as "immaterial" and sweeping it under the rug
was clearly a bad and dishonest call. But Wells Fargo still wishes to
trivialize the matter. "I disagree with the fact that this is a
massive
Stumpf said.
The questions from Senate Banking Committee members that Stumpf
refused to answer directly may have outnumbered those to which he did
offer a response.
Asked whether he thought fraud had been committed, he pleaded that he
is not a lawyer. He was vague about when he first learned of his
bankers'
"unethical"
conduct, although he met weekly with Carrie Tolstedt, the much-lauded
executive who led the division where the conduct occurred.
