Society's Child

Supervisor of "massive fraud" at Wells Fargo Bank leaves her job with $125 million bonus

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge
Mon, 12 Sep 2016 03:50 UTC

Carrie Tolstedt

There was a burst of righteous populist anger anger last week, when it emerged that Wells Fargo had engaged in pervasive, "massive" fraud since at least 2011, including opening credit cards secretly without a customer's consent, creating fake email accounts to sign up customers for online banking services, and forcing customers to accumulate late fees on accounts they never even knew they had. For this criminal conduct, Wells was fined $185 million (including a $100 million penalty from the CFPB, the largest penalty the agency has ever issued). In all, Wells opened 1.5 million bank accounts and "applied" for 565,000 credit cards that were not authorized by their customers.

As "punishment" Wells Fargo told CNN that it had fired 5,300 employees related to the shady behavior over the last few years. The firings represent about 1% of its workforce and took place over several years. The fired workers went to far as to create phony PIN numbers and fake email addresses to enroll customers in online banking services, the CFPB said. What was hushed away is that not a single employee will go to prison, and that ultimately it will be Wells Fargo's shareholders - such as Warren Buffett - who will end up footing the bill.

What Wells did not disclose publicly to anyone is that the head of the group responsible for Wells' biggest consumer fraud scandal in years, is quietly leaving the bank with a $125 million bonus, a bonus which as Fortune's Stephen Gandel writes today will not see even one cent clawed back as part of the dramatic revelations.

Bullied 7-yo handcuffed by school cop, ACLU files lawsuit against Kansas City Public Schools

RT
Mon, 12 Sep 2016 02:19 UTC

The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri has filed a lawsuit against Kansas City Public Schools in response to the 2014 handcuffing of a second grader who was crying and screaming in class while being bullied.

In 2014, Kalyb Wiley Primm, who was seven years old and less than four feet tall at the time, was being teased for having a hearing impediment inside a classroom at George Melcher Elementary School in Kansas City, Missouri, according to the lawsuit. He began to cry and scream. School resource officer Brandon Craddock heard the cries and pulled Primm out of the classroom to take the boy to Principal Anne Wallace's office.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the Primm family, alleges that Craddock pulled a "frightened" Primm by one arm through the hallway of the school. When Primm held on to a handrail with his free hand, Craddock twisted the boy's arms and handcuffed him.

"Instead of stopping or employing any de-escalation techniques, Defendant Craddock twisted (Kalyb's) arms and handcuffed ... his arms behind his back, and then led him to the front office in handcuffs," the lawsuit says.

Comment: Cops are being used in ever larger numbers to "control" students. SRO programs socialize students for an over-policed world, normalizing it to the point where students accept metal detectors, unannounced, suspicion-less locker searches and even the use of drug-sniffing dogs.

"Failed to eliminate threat": Brave cop fired for NOT killing a man who was attempting 'suicide by cop'

Matt Agorist
Free Thought Project
Mon, 12 Sep 2016 00:00 UTC

Ronald D. Williams Jr., Killed by police on May 6, 2016 — seen here holding son.

Weirton police officer Stephen Mader exhibited extreme bravery and restraint earlier this year when he chose not to kill a suicidal man. For displaying such courage and reserve, Mader's department fired him.

On May 6, 2016, Mader responded to a call about a domestic incident. When he showed up to the call, Mader confronted Ronald D. Williams Jr., 23, who was armed and in a diminished mental state.

Madar said that he began talking to the young man in his "calm voice."

"I told him, 'Put down the gun,' and he's like, 'Just shoot me.' And I told him, 'I'm not going to shoot you brother.' Then he starts flicking his wrist to get me to react to it.

"I thought I was going to be able to talk to him and de-escalate it. I knew it was a suicide-by-cop" situation.

Comment: Because Mader had been hired less than a year prior and West Virginia is an "at-will" employment state, he had no legal recourse in the matter.

Muslim tourist set on fire in New York City, just hours before 9/11 memorial service

Tom Boggioni
Raw Story
Mon, 12 Sep 2016 17:57 UTC

Police in New York City are searching for an assailant who set a Muslim woman on fire Saturday night, just hours before 15th anniversary memorial services for victims of the 9/11 attack began, reports the New York Daily News.

According to police, the woman — who is visiting from Scotland and was wearing traditional Muslim clothing — was window-shopping Saturday night when she felt heat on her arm and saw that her sleeve had been set on fire. "She saw [the suspect] pull a lighter away and walk away," a source explained. "He doesn't say anything."

Police state the woman was able to extinguish the flame as her assailant got away, with police labeling the attack a hate crime.

"I would obviously be concerned because it's symptomatic of the overall rise in Islamophobic sentiment in our society," said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "That's based on the spike across the country in hate crimes and hate incidents, in recent days and over the past year,."

Italian town devastated by earthquake sues Charlie Hebdo for its cruel cartoon

RT
Mon, 12 Sep 2016 19:20 UTC

© Stefano Rellandini / Reuters
A general view after earthquake that levelled the town in Amatrice, central Italy, September 1, 2016

The Italian town of Amatrice, devastated by an earthquake on September 24, has filed a lawsuit against French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo for "senseless" cartoons depicting quake victims as types of pasta.

"This is a grisly, senseless and unconscionable insult to the victims of the natural disaster," Mario Cicchetti, a lawyer representing the town hall of Amatrice, is quoted as saying by Italian news outlet ANSA.

Despite being an "inviolable right" in both France and Italy, not everything can be satire, the lawyer added.

Cicchetti has filed the legal complaint on behalf of the town's authorities at the magistrate in Rieti, near Amatrice. The lawsuit cites "aggravated defamation" by Charlie Hebdo, notorious for its provocative cartoons, Reuters reports.

According to the outlet, quoting Cicchetti, the legal case can be handled in Italy because the pictures "had been widely seen and shared there." The magistrate in Rieti is yet to decide how to proceed with the case. So far there has been no comment from Charlie Hebdo.

Comment: See: Charlie Hebdo's new caricature depicts Italian quake victims as pasta & lasagna

Glimpses inside ISIS courtroom, site of brutal sentences

Sophie Evans
Mirror
Sun, 11 Sep 2016 17:03 UTC

A look inside an ISIS courtroom with human cages where brutal sentences were handed out to terrified prisoners.

Defendants at the building in the Iraqi city of Fallujah were locked up in tiny, iron cages before being hauled before extremist 'judges' for trials.

Horrifically, these cramped cages were built in different shapes - so the men and women inside them were forced to either stand, kneel or curl up.

Comment: The footage shows the inside of an ISIS courthouse where some of the world's most brutal sentences were handed out to terrified prisoners.

Widespread food insecurity has driven US children to swap sex for food

RT
Mon, 12 Sep 2016 16:43 UTC

Hunger is driving desperate US teenagers as young as 13 to search for ways to feed themselves and their families, with many resorting to crime or providing sexual favors in exchange for food and basic supplies, according to a study published Monday.

Researchers from the Urban Institute, a Washington-based economic and social policy research group, paired up with Feeding America - a US network of food banks - in an attempt to find out "how food insecurity affects teenagers."

They created two focus groups - one male, one female - in the 10 poorest communities across the States, including those in major cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles, as well as in some rural towns. Researchers interviewed 193 boys and girls aged 13 to 18, all anonymously, over the course of three years - and were deeply concerned at the results.

"What emerged was a portrait of impossible choices imposed upon teenagers who are forced to transition into adulthood much too quickly," the report states.

"When faced with severe food insecurity, teens can begin to feel the weight of adult responsibilities. But like their parents, teenagers [from low-income communities] have limited jobs available to them within their communities. It's in these moments of need when some teens make the choice to help their families stock the pantry by earning money outside of the legal economy."

Comment: What a horrific sign of what the United States has become when its children are so hungry that they feel forced to sell themselves for food. This alone should shatter any remaining notions of the US as a great nation.

UK government to open 'safe houses' in London for child victims of sexual assault

RT
Mon, 12 Sep 2016 16:14 UTC

child sex assault victims, child on beach

Two 'safe houses' offering medical care, psychological support and protection for child victims of sexual assault are due to open in London next year as part of a joint project between London Mayor Sadiq Kahn and Home Secretary Amber Rudd.

The Home Office funded facilities, which were modeled on the success of the Icelandic 'Barnahus' policy, will help an estimated 400 vulnerable children each year.

"Child sexual abuse is a horrendous crime that this government is taking action to tackle, both by protecting children from abuse and ensuring that offenders are swiftly brought to justice," Rudd said in a statement.

Comment: A rather disingenuous comment considering that only low-level predators are brought to justice while elite pedophiles are protected. Investigations into sex abuse by the elites are routinely covered up and many have simply been shut down to protect those in power.

Children's Commissioner for England Anne Longfield was optimistic about the initiative, which is now used across Scandinavia.

Comment: Hopefully these will indeed be 'safe houses', where the UK's high-level predators won't have access to these vulnerable children.

Tent cities are booming all over the U.S. as poverty, homelessness spikes

Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse Blog
Sun, 11 Sep 2016 16:19 UTC

© Andy Jacobsohn/Dallas Morning News
A view of Tent City, the massive homeless encampment under Interstate 45, near downtown Dallas.

Just like during the last economic crisis, homeless encampments are popping up all over the nation as poverty grows at a very alarming rate. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, more than half a million people are homeless in America right now, but that figure is increasing by the day. And it isn't just adults that we are talking about. It has been reported that that the number of homeless children in this country has risen by 60 percent since the last recession, and Poverty USA says that a total of 1.6 million children slept either in a homeless shelter or in some other form of emergency housing at some point last year. Yes, the stock market may have been experiencing a temporary boom for the last couple of years, but for those on the low end of the economic scale things have just continued to deteriorate.

Tonight, countless numbers of homeless people will try to make it through another chilly night in large tent cities that have been established in the heart of major cities such as Seattle, Washington, D.C. and St. Louis. Homelessness has gotten so bad in California that the L.A. City Council has formally asked Governor Jerry Brown to officially declare a state of emergency. And in Portland the city has extended their "homeless emergency" for yet another year, and city officials are really struggling with how to deal with the booming tent cities that have sprung up:

There have always been homeless people in Portland, but last summer Michelle Cardinal noticed a change outside her office doors.

Almost overnight, it seemed, tents popped up in the park that runs like a green carpet past the offices of her national advertising business. She saw assaults, drug deals and prostitution. Every morning, she said, she cleaned human feces off the doorstep and picked up used needles.

"It started in June and by July it was full-blown. The park was mobbed," she said. "We've got a problem here and the question is how we're going to deal with it."

But of course it isn't just Portland that is experiencing this. The following list of major tent cities that have become so well-known and established that they have been given names comes from Wikipedia:

'Stop the Violence Peace Day' rally in Alabama ends with six people shot, one dead

PressTV
Mon, 12 Sep 2016 16:26 UTC

At least six people have been shot, one of them fatally, after a peace rally in the US state of Alabama. The shooting happened at around 8 pm on Sunday, around an hour after the "Stop the Violence Gate City Peace Day" peace rally ended at Gate City in Birmingham, police said.

Police said up to 60 shots were fired at the scene but the injured were expected to survive their gunshot wounds. Officers said they believe one person started the shooting and then the others joined in. According to Birmingham police spokesman Sergeant Bryan Shelton, all of the victims were innocent bystanders.

"The events of tonight are disheartening and troubling," Shelton said. "More lives could have been lost tonight due to reckless actions. We are working with our community to bring all responsible parties to justice."

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Society's Child

Supervisor of "massive fraud" at Wells Fargo Bank leaves her job with $125 million bonus

Bullied 7-yo handcuffed by school cop, ACLU files lawsuit against Kansas City Public Schools

"Failed to eliminate threat": Brave cop fired for NOT killing a man who was attempting 'suicide by cop'

Muslim tourist set on fire in New York City, just hours before 9/11 memorial service

Italian town devastated by earthquake sues Charlie Hebdo for its cruel cartoon

Glimpses inside ISIS courtroom, site of brutal sentences

Widespread food insecurity has driven US children to swap sex for food

UK government to open 'safe houses' in London for child victims of sexual assault

Tent cities are booming all over the U.S. as poverty, homelessness spikes

'Stop the Violence Peace Day' rally in Alabama ends with six people shot, one dead

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