Banking While Muslim: Update
What looked at the end of last year like a disturbing underground trend now has at least one proud adherent, or so a lawsuit filed in Colorado alleges.
Qusair Mohamedbhai claims that not only was he denied a checking account at a bank, but that a bank officer later went on to boast -- at a bank safety conference -- that she had stopped a terrorist and cited Mohamedbhai, a lawyer, by name.
Among the impeccable reasons witnesses say the banker gave explaining this conclusion -- the fact that Mohamedbhai had a Social Security number from Florida, home base to 9/11 attackers and that he had tried to open an account while in the company of a white woman.
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You know I really hope we do help build liberal democracy in the Mideast 'cause it ain't happenin' here!
Sure the guy's going get a huge settlement, but good luck depositting it anywhere!
The IRS will no doubt try to get a piece of his settlement, but he can just tell them that he's pulling their feeding tube! 😉
"i stopped a terrorist from getting a checking account!"
what lab dish did this bank grow their managers in?
And why isn't the victim filing a lawsuit against the federal government?
All of the bank imposed profiling is required by law but it's illegal to discriminate as you profile, and we're especially concerned about discrimination against people who look like Muslim extremists.
Great headline BTW, I LOL before I even read what went with it.
I've had several innocent clients get caught up in this bullshit. Some even had IRS agents with guns show up at their offices for the crime of electronically moving money from account to account too quickly. And we're not talking about currency either. All because some minimum wage clerk decided that there was something "wrong" about the transaction and pushed the big red button that the feds had installed in his/her pathetic little cubicle.
Forgot to mention that none of the clients were Muslims or extremists although one guy did grow up in the barrio and has dark skin.
it seriously may be time for the "minorities" to consider evacuating for their own safety, a la the flight from europe in the 30s. this is a hysterical majoritarian country. there is no longer any law that can protect your rights if the majority decides its time to punish you.
This piece of dry white toast is probably the type who watches the ticker on Fox News and actually says to herself, "Oh my God, we're at 'Elevated' today! I'd better be on the lookout for suspicious Arab men opening checking accounts, especially at our local branch of East Bumblefuck Savings and Loan! No free toaster for YOU, Habib!"
There seems to be a recent rash of nut-jobs who think they've saved Western civilization by preventing someone from doing something that shouldn't raise an eyebrow... Usually by someone who has a little more melanin or a little more rhythm than they do. (Like the dance club raid a few items below this one.)
Next they'll be claiming that overdue library book fines are the first step to stopping future Ted Kaczynski's and that Pez dispensers are a gateway drug!
Whenever my mom wires me money to buy myself or one of my siblings a birthday or other present, I always wonder if I?ll get the ?sketchy Arab money laundering? flag. My dad actually calls the local FBI office every time he gets a wire transfer from overseas, just to be safe. I think they officially hate him now.
Mo-
As a White Woman in good stading, I've just figured out a FABULOUS way we can sue ourselves into a huge windfall. Send me an email and we'll talk.
Before I get all hot and bothered over this, I just want to make sure the guy had valid ID, a SS card and other things. The only way I can see there being any reason whatsoever he didn't get a bank account was he couldn't provide the manager with Patriot Act stuff. (I'm not saying the Patriot Act requirement is right--as a lender, I hate it--but right now it is the law.)
cdunlea,
If he passed the bar in two states AND has excellent credit, my guess is the only thing he didn't have was a non-arab sounding name.
Assuming the recounts in the lawsuit are correct, the only Patriot Act stuff out of order was the Patriot Act-ing like a moron.
Check on that, madpad.
Watch (listen?) now as all the talk radio assholes come oyut of the woodwork to paint this banker as a true American hero.
RUSH: The liberals are destroying America! I've got a nice little story right here where an activist judge - listen up people, this is serious - has agreed to hear a lawsuit by international terrorist Muhomed bu-High...
HANNITY: I just don't believe these liberals. Someone stops a real live terrorist and they're all "we've violated his civil rights." He's a terrorist, don't they understand that? He knew the 9/11 hijackers. Everyone knows Muhomed Bahai's a terrorist. The only reason he's not in jail...
COULTER: This is why we need to ship everyone without an English last name back to where they came from and start over with America the way it was intended to be. Then we need to carpet-bomb them until they take up Chrstianity. Then we'll be able to deal with them because then they'll hate liberals too and we can convince them to kill just liberals instead of anyone who's not muslim...
O'LEILLY: Tonight a brave girl from Colorada who faced up to an actual terrorist and now...she's being sued - by the terrorist. And it's happening right here in America, folks...
SAVAGE: The red diaper doper babies are filthy 'uman vermin. This terrorist...
COLMES: Zzzzzzzzz....wah? Huh?
Got a friend of mine from Ghana - everytime he sends money back to his mother he (and she back in Africa) have to go to the local money transfer guy and show picture ID.
"RUSH: 'The liberals are destroying America! I've got a nice little story right here where an activist judge - listen up people, this is serious - has agreed to hear a lawsuit by international terrorist Muhomed bu-High...'"
MIKE GALLAGHER: "The liberals are destroying America! I've got a nice little story right here where an activist judge - listen up people, this is serious - has agreed to hear a lawsuit by international terrorist Muhomed bu-High..."
LARS LARSON: "The liberals are destroying America! I've got a nice little story right here where an activist judge - listen up people, this is serious - has agreed to hear a lawsuit by international terrorist Muhomed bu-High..."
MICHAEL SAVAGE: "The liberals are destroying America! I've got a nice little story right here where an activist judge - listen up people, this is serious - has agreed to hear a lawsuit by international terrorist Muhomed bu-High..."
RUSTY HUMPHRIES: "The liberals are destroying America! I've got a nice little story right here where an activist judge - listen up people, this is serious - has agreed to hear a lawsuit by international terrorist Muhomed bu-High..."
HOWARD STERN: "Today's guest is Bambi, a foot-fetish model..."
O'Reilly will use this as another example of the moral rot in Colorado.
Terrorists! Trying to open accounts! In Colorado! Is Ward Churchill involved? We'll find out, tonight in the all spin zone.
I think Jim nails the talk radio hierarchy. Rush sets the agenda and the me-toos are happy to continue the bullshit to keep the audience locked on the station. Too bad Rush is deaf to new ideas.
It's important that bank officers know what a terrorist is.
"It's important that bank officers know what a terrorist is."
It's the fuckers charging 30% interest. That's a terrorist.
Fight the terroristic bastards with our 2.9% rate on balance transfers. This offer is good for a limited time only, so don't let the terrorists win.
Defeat the terrorists before April 1 and you get this toaster oven free. Don't miss out on this great chance to defeat terrorism and lower your credit card rate.
COULTER: This is why we need to ship everyone without an English last name back to where they came from... - madpad
Great idea, Ann! Get ready to pack your bags!
Coulter, o Coltarain, o Coltair
A Gaelic sept whose territory was in the parish of Ballycolter in Down. Also a Scottish surname of territorial origin from Lanarkshire, and from Aberdeenshire.
In 1890 the surname was principally found in Antrim, Down and Fermanagh, and the estimated number of bearers was 2,020.
In the United States it is the 1,586th most numerous surname with an estimated 22,000 bearers. [copyright Sean E. Quinn 2002, 2003, all rights reserved] From Surnames In Ireland
Link
Luckily for me, my Irish grandfather's family had the good sense to adopt a sassenach surname some generations ago. 🙂
Kevin
kevrob,
You hit upon the irony of my statement nicely. One could rationally debate the etymology of English surnames all the way back to and before the Roman Empire...
In the case of my Coulter crack, I have assumed (as she probably would) a certain liberty extended to anyone with an etymology going back to the British Isles (though I wince at the notion that she and I share a Gaelic heritage.)
British Isles!!!!!???? Ireland ain't no British isle, boyo. 🙂 Skye, Anglesey and such might be British, but Eire, the Arans, etc, aren't.
OK, to be non-PC, people do regularly consider everyone from The Celtic Isles who ever fell under perfidious Albion's grip to be "English", if only because they were usually native-English-speakers upon arriving on our shores. Someone with a good Gaelic name, Patrick Buchanan, has suggested that, to the extent that the USA allows immigration, it is better off letting in an English-speaking Protestant from Africa than a Spanish-speaking Mexican. The idea that American culture is threatened by non-Anglospheric influences is out there.
Personally, I don't see any conflict between our culture of liberty and, say, Taoism or Confucianism. That Catholicism is inimical to a democratic republic is an idea that I would have hoped had died with the examples of post-WWII Western Europe, post-Cold War Central Europe and the recent revival of elected governments in Latin America. That a Catholic like Patty-Patty-Buch-Buch would parrot old Know Nothingism is another hunk of irony.
Kevin
My...we're certainly getting a lot of anglo-esoterica today. With all due respect, kevrob, I do hope you're just having fun.
Certainly, prior to 1948 (or 1921 or 1917 or 1051 depending on your slant) what WAS commonly refered to as the British Isles arguably included the whole of Ireland.
Of course, one might not be able to consider him(or her)self a loyal son and true of the Land of Ire if he even admitted THAT much
As relates to my deliberate slams of Ann Coulter, I should have (perhaps) said "anyone who speaks native english" rather than "anyone with an English last name.
If you're going to get on me for including Irish descendants simply because the Gaelic language is promoted by much of Ireland (bi-lingual street names and some such), I would humbly beseech thee that in the sprit of the '88 Good Friday Accords (and this being Good Friday) we hoist a Half & Half and simply say "Cede Mile Failte"
?ireann go Br?ch!
It's shite being Scottish. We're the lowest of the low. The scum of the fucking Earth. The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some people hate English. I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. Can't even find a decent culture to be colonized by. We're ruled by effete arseholes. It's a shite state of affairs to be in, Tommy. All the fresh air in the world won't make any fucking difference.
I can tell the meaning of a word like serene
I got some "O" grades when I was sixteen
I can tell the difference between magarine and butter
I can say "Saskatchewan" without starting to stutter
But I can't understand
Why we let someone else rule our land
...cap in hand
I could get a broken jaw from being in a fight
I know it's evening when day turns to night
I can understand why Stranraer lie so lowly
They could save a lot of points by signing Hibe's goalie
But I can't understand
Why we let someone else rule our land
...cap in hand
We fight! ... when they ask us
We boast! ... then we cower
We beg .... for a piece of
What? What's already
What? What's already
What? What's already ours!
Once I thought I could make God a bribe
So I said I was in His "lost tribe"
Getting handouts can be so frustrating
Get in line, son -- there's five million waiting!
But I can't understand
Why you let someone else rule your land
...cap in hand
No, I can't understand
Why you let someone else rule our land
...cap in hand
I can't understand
Why we let someone else rule our land
...cap in hand
"Cap in Hand" by The Proclaimers
(Best of the Proclaimers is a kick-ass CD, by the way.)
Twba,
Some say the Scots are Irish who left home and never returned.
I'm aware of an old story about where Scotland derives it's name. It's told that an Egyptian princess named Scotia (or Scota) married a Gaelic King named Melisius (or a greek king named Niul) and migrated there at least a millenium before Christ.
A little 'Googling' indicates has also been occassionaly used to support notions that Afrikan Blacks once conquered and ruled Scotland AND to suggest a migration place for a lost tribe of Isreal.
Some might say that lineage to Pharoic royalty (or one of the afforementined groups)would be considered a plus. As to whether this comforts you or gives you further dispair, well...
In the case of the former, you're welcome.
In the case of the latter, I'm sorry
Slainte math, madpad!
Kevin
Slainte math as well, Kevin!
BTW...good post by Stevo D!
I'm aware of an old story about where Scotland derives it's name. It's told that an Egyptian princess named Scotia (or Scota) married a Gaelic King named Melisius (or a greek king named Niul) and migrated there at least a millenium before Christ.
I love mythical bullshit stories like that. The Merovingians are supposedly decended from Jesus and Mary Magdalene, who was descended from King David as well as the Trojans. Queen Elizabeth II is descended from Cedric of Wessex, descended from Hengist, descended from the god Wodin. Everyone with black hair in Ireland the result of Spanish shipwrecks of the Armada.
But the best one of all is that the Mayans invented television.
There's also a (not very popular) legend that the Anglo-Saxons of the British Isles are actually the descendents of a Lost Tribe or Tribes of Israel. There's a movement, British Israelism. They say "Saxon" is derived from "Isaac's son" or something like that.
I believe this is what the "lost tribe" reference in the Proclaimers song posted above is referring to -- a Scotsman trying to get ahead by "passing" as a member of the Anglo-Saxon British culture.
They have another song with a similar theme -- "Throw the R Away" -- about pressure to become more successful by suppressing their thick Scottish accents.
[First singer]
I've been so sad
Since you said my accent was bad
[Second singer]
He's worn a frown
This Caledonian clown
Some days I stand
On your green and pleasant land
How dare I show face
When my diction is such a disgrace?
I'm just going to have to learn to hesitate
To make sure my words on your Saxon ears don't grate
But I wouldn't know a single word to say
If I flattened all the vowels
And threw the "R" away
You say that if I want to get ahead
The language I use should he left for dead
It doesn't please your ear
And though you tell it like a leg-pull
I think your still full of John Bull
You just refuse to hear ....
It's sung in a very thick Scottish accent, too -- "frown" sounds like "frone," "clown" sounds like "clone" (which confused me for a while) and "diction" sounds like "dection."
PS: The Proclaimers are best known in the USA for the song "500 Miles (I'm Gonna Be)" in the early 1990s. I think it was in the movie "Benny and June."
cdunlea,
My heartfelt thanks for a link to quotes from one of my favs.
Regarding the "mythical bullshit stories", to each his own. I enjoy them as whistful fancies and don't worry too much beyond that.
As for Stevo's posts on thick Scottish accents, I'm remembering another fav, "Trainspotting".
twba: Look at it this way: if the Irish are the "blacks" of Europe, that makes the Scots...it makes them...er...never mind...
(Apologies to Roddy Doyle)
Jim:
Here's one rung lower: Irish-Catholic Glaswegians.
Up Celtic! 🙂
Kevin