Claims And Issues

COMMENTS ON OVERDRAFT RULE ARE DUE BY JULY 1.

I left the following Comments on the overdraft rule earlier today.  Comments are due by July 1.  The overdraft rule is being examined by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau because the CFPB is required to review the rule by the Regulatory Flexibility Act.  Reviews and revisions of rules by the CFPB since 2017 have not been favorable to consumer financial protection.  If you want to leave Comments on the overdraft rule that advance consumer financial protection, your time grows short.  Go to www.regulations.gov, input “overdraft rule,” and click on “Comment Now!”  Comments do not have to be as long or as complicated as books or articles.  They can be short and to the point, which if I had it to do over again, I would make my own Comments even shorter and even more to the point.

Here are the Comments I left on the overdraft rule earlier today:

I would like to leave these comments on improving and strengthening the overdraft rule.

First, as I understand the present situation, banks may charge fees without getting a customer's prior approval whenever the customer overspends her or his account by using a paper check.  As it is currently written, the overdraft rule applies to most electronic transactions.  Paper checks may not be as prevalent as they once were, but prevalence of electronic transactions is no excuse for this inequity.  (This would be true in any case, but today it is especially true because electronic transactions are required by the very banks who benefit from the rule's failure to regulate transactions involving paper checks.)  This is unfair and unequal.  The overdraft rule should now be updated and strengthened by extending its application to the customer's use of a paper check.

Further, I understand that some banks still reorder debit transactions so that one tiny shortage in the customer's account becomes an automatic trigger of overdrafts and fees charged by the banks.  The banks that indulge themselves in this practice and that continue to inflict it upon their customers apparently rely on disclosure to their customers of what they do, usually in small inconspicuous type in a disclosure document.  Disclosure is no excuse for predatory practices.  Customers often have little or no choice of banking options in their communities.  This practice of reordering debit transactions, usually by processing them from the highest amount to the lowest amount, must be barred completely.  The overdraft rule should be updated and strengthened accordingly, with a complete prohibition on any practice of reordering debit transactions that has the result of charging the customer with overdraft and any other associated charges.

Thank you for your consideration.

Dennis Wall

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Download CI and IBF 06.27.19.

PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM U.S.: WHO THOUGHT THEY WOULD HAVE TO, ...

 UNTIL NOW?

 

This may be a world in which children suffer, but we can lessen the number of suffering children.

 If you do not help with this, who will?

Albert Camus

 

In the name of the United States, children are being cared for by other children.  Although Border Patrol says they have the money in their budget, the  United States does not provide tooth brushes to the children it keeps in custody at a Border Patrol station in Texas.

The Border Patrol says that they have enough tooth paste too.  They already bought it out of their budget.  But the United States does not provide tooth paste to the children in custody, either.

The Border Patrol is indignant at the thought that it does not have enough soap to go around.  Despite some politicians who say otherwise, the people who actually work at the Border Patrol say that they have enough soap, thank you.  Yet the United States does not provide soap to the children.  See, e.g., Arturo Rubio and Caitlin Dickerson, Children Returned to Texas Shelter That Set Off An Outcry, New York Times, Wed., June 26, 2019, p. A1 (the New York Times may charge for online access).

This is evil.  And it is all in the name of the United States.

If you do not help in this effort to protect children in the custody of the United States, who will?

And did you ever once in your life in this country think that you would be needed to help protect children in the custody of the United States, until now?

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Download CI 06.26.19.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY: "OUR ANSWER IS THE WORLD'S HOPE....

It is to rely on youth, not a time of life but a state of mind."

Hong Kong is relying on the world's hope. Youths are in the forefront of protests against new laws that would allow China to extradite people to be tried in China's courts controlled by the Communist Party.

The Hong Kong protests hold other lessons for the United States in 2019. They do not have a knight on a white horse. There is no single leader among the protestors this time. They have learned from past experiences. The last time a major protest erupted in Hong Kong, it had an identifiable, single leader. He was identified all right, by the government authorities and he was sentenced to prison for six years.

Returning to the main point, the protestors in Hong Kong are not waiting to be delivered from injustice. They do not expect anyone else to come and save them. They are all they have, and in their eyes that is their strength, not a weakness.

Organizers are announcing their activities and gatherings "through social media, word of mouth and secure messaging apps[.]" They absolutely believe in the importance of what they are doing. For the people of Hong Kong, the fight is existential. If China can deport them to China's prisons for activities frowned on by the ruling Party, they may never be heard from in the future. To say again, their fight is existential. See Mike Ives and Katherine Li, For Hong Kong's Youth, Marching is 'a Matter of Life and Death,' New York Times, Tues., June 18, 2019, p. A10 (there are no guarantees of quality hyperlinks or access to the New York Times which may charge for online access).

Those in the United States who have eyes to see with and ears to hear with, let them draw the lessons of Hong Kong. The people in Hong Kong today were in Tiananmen Square in 1989. In many cases, the protestors of Tiananmen literally moved south to Hong Kong to escape oppression. In their journey, they did not leave their courage behind.

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Download CI 06.24.19.

SECRET EVIDENCE: IS AMERICA CHANNELING ITS INNER SAUDI ARABIA?

The United Nations just issued a report into the grotesque dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi Arabia. The Saudis say that they are putting the people who committed these atrocities on trial.

However, it is just that no-one knows who is being tried. Or where. Or on what charges.

The Saudi secrecy is so great that if "international observers" selected by the Saudis attend the trial they must not write or film anything.

The New York Times describes the Saudi secrecy this way:

    Although representatives of some foreign governments have been invited to attend the trial in Saudi Arabia, the report said, they have been required to commit to nondisclosure agreements, preventing them from reporting or commenting on the proceedings.

    “A shadowy presence of international observers cannot, although clearly meant to, lend credibility to eminently problematic proceedings,” the report said. It argued that the presence of foreign diplomats could make them complicit in the “miscarriage of justice.”

See David D. Kirkpatrick & Nick Cumming-Bruce, Report Reveals Chilling Details Behind Murder / Saudis Called Writer a 'Sacrificial Animal,' New York Times, Thursday, June 20, 2019, p. A1 (New York Times may charge for online access).

Federal Courts in the U.S. also operate with secrecy although perhaps not quite so easily as the Saudi courts if any. Nondisclosure agreements are very popular in the U.S. as well as in Saudi Arabia , particularly with the current U.S. Federal Government. See, e.g., Dennis J. Wall, § 2:19, Post-Claims Handling Practices Issues--The Presumption of Public Access vs. Stipulated Secrecy Orders, and §§ following including 2:19.50 - 2:24 inclusive, in CATASTROPHE CLAIMS: Insurance Coverage for Natural and Man-Made Disasters (May 2019).

Is the United States secretly channeling its inner Saudi Arabia?

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Download CI 06.23.19.2

 

WHO EXACTLY IS "A DEVOUT CATHOLIC" IN THE CORPORATE MEDIA?

The New York Times calls Ms. Carrie Lim, the "top leader" of Hong Kong, "a devout Catholic." She is also the person who called out the police who attacked the protestors recently.

She also famously said that the protestors were behaving like children. She was describing two million people. The entire population of Hong Kong is seven million. See Javier C. Hernandez, Christians Chip in and Drive Protests Against the Mainland, New York Times, Thursday, June 20, 2019, p. A12 (the New York Times may charge for online access).

The corporate media similarly describes six of the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court as devout Catholics. Four of them voted to take your healthcare away under the Affordable Care Act.

Calling out the police who attack people is not being a devout Catholic.

Neither is describing two million people as acting like children when they are showing how devoutly they oppose begin sent to mainland China for secret trials in courts controlled by the Communist Party.

And neither is voting to take away your healthcare.

Being a devout Catholic in 2019 involves none of these things. You shall know them by what they do, and not what they say. They may say that they are Catholics, but what they say about themselves certainly does not make them devout.

It is apparently beyond the capacity of the corporate media in 2019 to know enough to know that what a person says they are is not necessarily what they are.

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Download CI 06.23.19.1

THAT’S NOT OPPO RESEARCH.

Oppo research (opposition research) has been given a bad name lately. The corporate media and some candidates for high office have equated oppo research with committing crimes.

It is not oppo research to steal emails from the party of your opponent (or to steal emails from your opponent for that matter, which hasn't happened yet). It’s a crime.

It is not oppo research to meet with foreign government agents to get dirt from them on your opponent. It’s a crime.

It is not oppo research to manipulate social media such as Fakebook to show your opponent in a false light. If that’s not a crime, it is a disgrace.

So before we believe what the corporate media and some candidates say in 2019 is opposition research, we ought to stop and think for ourselves.

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Download CI 06.19.19.

MUSIC IN MY SOUL.

This is a short article about a big subject.  The subject is music.

Or, rather, the subject is the differences among people in how they make or hear music.

Or both.

Music is important to some and not as important to others.

My wife for example lives for music.  She is often unstructured about other things, but she is a perfectionist when it comes to music.

Music is central to her life.

For me, writing is the important thing to do.  Music is not something at which I strive to excel.  Music for me is not something at which I even want to try to excel.

Music is a pastime for me.  For her, it is how you fill time in the best possible way.

For me, the focus is story.  For her, the focus is melody.

And as the saying goes, "If life be a melody, play on."

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Download CI 06.17.19.

SPEAK, MR. BARR, SPEAK.

A guest article by John K. DiMugno, Esquire, a California attorney, legal educator, and the author or coauthor of multiple legal treatises and legal periodicals published by Thomson Reuters.

William P. Barr, Attorney General of the United States, recently spoke at the American Law Institute’s Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. The ALI likely extended the invitation shortly after Mr. Barr’s confirmation when there was hope that he would play a role similar to that of the departed General Mattis and General McMaster and place guardrails on the President’s more authoritarian instincts. By the time of the Annual Meeting, those hopes had evaporated. Mr. Barr’s dissembling about the contents of the Mueller Report raised serious concerns about the Attorney General’s complicity in administration efforts to undermine the rule of law.

This Blog highlighted the incongruity between Mr. Barr’s conduct in office and the core mission of the ALI. Notably, Mr. Wall’s post made no attempt to silence Mr. Barr, a solution that would have satisfied the wishes of many in the ALI who were rightfully appalled by Mr. Barr’s transparent attempt to mislead the American public. But barring Mr. Barr from speaking would have entangled the ALI in partisan politics, something the organization scrupulously avoids for good reason. Staying above the political fray insulates the ALI’s Restatements of the Law against charges of political bias and broadens their influence on courts and legislatures around the country.

Mr. Wall’s proposed solution—letting Mr. Barr speak while contributing the ALI’s earnings from the speech to legal aid societies around the country—perfectly balanced those competing concerns. It had the salutary effect of simultaneously benefitting public interest groups that desperately need the money while drawing attention to questions about Mr. Barr’s integrity.

Mr. Barr’s penchant for making transparently misleading and often contradictory statements has left some wondering what he hopes to achieve other than aggrandize power and influence in the Trump administration. Sharon LaFraniere, Charlie Savage and Katie Benner, People Are Trying to Figure Out William Barr. He’s Busy Stockpiling Power, New York Times on line, June 9, 2019. 

He misled the American public about the contents of the Mueller Report knowing full well that when the report was released several weeks later his lies would be evident to everyone.

When Mr. Barr sought confirmation as Attorney General, he told the U.S. Senate that he had known Robert Mueller for years and did not believe that Mr. Mueller would engage in a “witch hunt.”  Yet, shortly before his confirmation hearings, he sent a memo to the Justice Department characterizing the obstruction of justice charges against the President as “asinine” and sent an e-mail stating he saw far less reason to scrutinize the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia than to investigate whether donations to Hillary Clinton’s family foundation had influenced her actions as secretary of state. Once he was confirmed, he enabled the President’s attempts to distract from the contents of the Mueller Report by opening an investigation of those who investigated him.

When Mr. Barr was seeking confirmation, he told the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee that he was willing to reconsider the Justice Department’s decision not to defend the Affordable Care Act (ACA).  But, when he became Attorney General, he put the resources of the Justice Department behind litigation in Texas federal district court seeking to invalidate the entire Affordable Care Act.

As the song goes, “There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear.” Buffalo Springfield, For What It’s Worth.  I say let Mr. Barr speak. Listen closely to what he says and watch what he does. Only then will whatever is happening start to become clear.

Download John DiMugno 06 13 19 Blog Article for IC Also (2)

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NEW IMMIGRATION POLICIES ALSO EXPLOIT DOCTORS AND NURSES.

The first article I posted this week featured Dr. Danielle Ofri,  The Business of Health Care Depends on Exploiting Doctors and Nurses / One Resource Seems Infinite and Free:  The Professionalism of Caregivers, New York Times online Saturday, June 8, 2019 (The New York Times may charge for online access).

New immigration policies also exploit doctors and nurses.  The new immigration policies include armed agents following immigrants who face no criminal charges into examining rooms.  Even local police do not do that in most cases. 

Agents have also taken up residence in obstetrics wards keeping an eye on pregnant immigrants about to give birth.

They observe medical examinations and listen in on conversations.

One agent even stared at a 15-year old woman breast-feeding her child.  He had to be persuaded by a doctor to leave the room during that time.

Further, immigrants are presenting illnesses and medical conditions they did not have until they were detained, such as a pregnant woman who was exposed to chickenpox, and an 8-year old child who died of influenza and sepsis, all arising out of being in the custody of the current federal government.

For all these things, see Sheri Fink, Doctors Say Immigration Policies Endanger Migrant Health, New York Times, Monday, June 10, 2019, at A15 (again the New York Times may charge for online access).

How much pressure are caregivers expected to put up with?

It ought to be possible to provide medical care without imposing medically harmful practices.  In fact, the only practices that caregivers should be forced to follow are the practices that caregivers themselves find appropriate and necessary to give medical care to people that need it.

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"BUSINESS OF HEALTH CARE DEPENDS ON EXPLOITING DOCTORS AND NURSES."

I am going to turn today's column over to Dr. Danielle Ofri of New York City.  A physician at New York University, she also practices at Bellevue Hospital in New York.

She is a wonderful writer.  She wrote this in a recent op-ed piece for The New York Times about practicing medicine in 2019, putting words together in ways that cannot easily be improved upon:

    The health care system needs to be restructured to reflect the realities of patient care. From 1975 to 2010, the number of health care administrators increased 3,200 percent. There are now roughly 10 administrators for every doctor. If we converted even half of those salary lines to additional nurses and doctors, we might have enough clinical staff members to handle the work. Health care is about taking care of patients, not paperwork.

Danielle Ofri, The Business of Health Care Depends on Exploiting Doctors and Nurses / One Resource Seems Infinite and Free:  The Professionalism of Caregivers, New York Times online Saturday, June 8, 2019 (The New York Times may charge for online access).

Dr. Ofri put those words together in ways that cannot easily be improved upon.  No-one should try.

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ELAINE CHAO McCONNELL AND THE SHIPPING COMPANY FINANCED BY CHINA.

Elaine Chao has been married to Mitch McConnell, the Majority Leader of the United States Senate, for 26 years.  Ms. Chao McConnell is the Transportation Secretary of the current Federal Government.

She has reportedly tried -- unsuccessfully, so far -- to slash the funding that shippers in the U.S. maritime industry receive through her Transportation Department.

Slashing funding provided through the Transportation Department to U.S. maritime shippers would hurt her family company's competitors.

It would not hurt her family's shipping company.  Her family's company is financed by China.

The story is bigger than an article posted on a blog, even this one.  See Michael Forsythe, Eric Lipton, Keith Bradsher and Sui-Lee Wee, A Cabinet Official, a Firm and a 'Bridge' to Beijing / Ethics Questions Focus on Chao's Close Ties to Her Family's Shipping Business, New York Times Monday, June 3, 2019, p. A1.

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, now is the time to investigate this affair.  The American public deserves answers; we deserve to know the truth of the matter.  If press releases are ever enough, they are not enough now.

If Ms. Chao McConnell is innocent of these treacherous allegations, then there is no provable corruption there and that should end the matter, maybe even restore public confidence that the government of the United States acts in the best interests of the people of the United States.

I just telephoned the office of my own Member of Congress, Ms. Stephanie Murphy.  She is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee.  As the House Committee that considers the current federal government's budget requests and proposed budget cuts, she is in a perfect position to investigate.

Have you contacted your Member of Congress?  The actions of Elaine Chao McConnell may or may not be impeachable as they say, but they call for an investigation into her administration of our tax dollars and where exactly she intends to spend them if not on the interests of the American people.  If her name is good, we have to do everything we can to clear her good name -- and the name of Mitch McConnell.  Do you think differently?

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GINIA BELLAFANTE CAN WRITE. THANK GOD FOR GINIA BELLAFANTE.

Ginia Bellafante can write.

And she writes about things that count.  See, e.g., Ginia Bellafante, Are We Fighting a War on Homelessness?  Or a War on the Homeless?, New York Times online Friday, May 31, 2019.

Thank God for Ginia Bellafante.  Read her stuff and give thanks for her.

 

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