Her real sin to them is speaking truth to Wall Street’s power
Here’s a 🧵 1/16
Omarova was born in Kazakhstan and emigrated to the US as Communism collapsed. Smart as they come, she went from a small town in central Asia to an American PhD, law degree, banking law firm of @DavisPolkReg, Bush Treasury and academia. Wow. 2/16
A senior Republican and bank lobbyists slimed her with McCarthy-style tactics.
@SenToomey, the top R on the Senate Banking Committee demanded her undergraduate thesis from a Moscow university
@PatrickMcHenry, top R on House Financial Services Committee, joined in too
3/16
Now, back when Trump appointed Jelena McWilliams, immigrant from formerly Communist Serbia, to run the FDIC, Republicans fawned over her.
Why no similar admiration for Omarova? Because she won't do favors for Wall Street. 4/16
Right-wing ideologues went nuts.
Richard Viguerie pioneered direct mail fundraising by conservatives, starting a long tradition of grift. He laid into Omarova.
He’s also a flat-out racist who made common cause with the White Citizens’ Council, a rebranded KKK. 5/16
Bank lobbyists joined the “stop the Commie nonsense,” per @FlitterOnFraud.
People like Greg Baer (@baerheel) head of the Bank Policy Institute (@bankpolicy), which reps big banks. This alum of @jpmorgan and @WilmerHale is a red-baiter now. 6/16
Wall Street lobbies, @ABABankers, ICBA, @bankpolicy, are in some interesting company on the extremist Internet.
Are these the junkyard dogs that the bank lobby has hired? Or do they come by this nuttery naturally? 7/16
Randal Guynn of the big banking law firm @DavisPolkReg has also engaged in red-baiting in public in response to Omarova, e.g. “Well that may be how they do it in Kazakhstan …”
Maybe because she totally owned him at a Senate hearing, as @iamjohnoliver reported. 8/16
Community banking does a lotta good when done right, so it was a shame to see the incoming ICBA, partake in the crazy.
Their incoming chair joined in, apparently without absorbing how much Omarova is an ally of small banks! 9/16
As head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the agency that oversees big banks, Omarova would be in a position to do something about biggies that community banks dislike so much.
She calls out #WallStreet BS, something one financial analyst noted 10/16
Without saying “Commie,” he grabs a single phrase from a 60-page paper among the thousands of pages Omarova has written to suggest she’d behave like one. 11/16
What’s happening to Omarova here is horrifying, but all-too-common.
It’s an incendiary racializing and gendering of someone who is not a white guy, and willing to speak truth to (financial) power.
The word “currency” is in the title of the agency, so expect some confusion re what the OCC does. Name has historical reasons but it’s a bank regulator.
The National Review, fancying itself intellectual, illustrated its tirade with a picture of dollar bills. Minor oops. 13/16
Behold sheer stupidity from disgraced Fox Newser Bill O’Reilly. Says that Biden has:
➡️ Already “appointed” her (has to be confirmed) Omarova
➡️ That she’s “in charge of the currency” (nope)
➡️ That she's “not a capitalist” (wrong)
➡️ & can’t pronounce “Kazakhstan”
14/16
So why do the bankers like @ABABankers and @bankpolicy so dislike Omarova? Simple: she knows where Wall Street buried the bodies.
She knows and calls out the misdeeds of big banks that have made them so rich, and is ready to do something about it. 15/16
Lobbyists have embraced the cruel, toxic mixture of xenophobia, racism, red-baiting, and the sexism that lurks, at least, when a woman gets up in Wall Street’s grill (Elizabeth Warren, anybody?), to stop her nomination.
Today, we will be clipping videos from the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committee hearing on “How Private Equity Landlords are Changing the Housing Market.”
@SherrodBrown opens: "in plain English, that meant take advantage of the foreclosure crisis... to give Wall Street billionaires the chance to buy up homes for less than they're worth and rent them out at a steep profit."
@SherrodBrown "It's a variation on the same theme no matter the industry.... PE profits depend on squeezing every last nickel from workers and renters, without any kind of real investment in their employees or their communities."
Today, we will be clipping videos from the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs subcommittee hearing on “Protecting Companies and Communities from Private Equity Abuse.”
Shirley Smith, former sales manager at Art Van Furniture and leader with @forrespect opens: "working at Art Van was like my own little slice of the American Dream, until the PE firm T.H. Lee came in and broke up our family."
Shirley Smith continues: "I am here today to show you the human toll of Wall Street's greed. Our elected leaders... I have to ask you why billionaires should be allowed to do this and destroy the fiber of America?"
@ItsLisaRice opens: "There are over 4 million instances of housing discrimination that occur each year"
Richard Rothstein of @NAACP_LDF explains how the racial wealth gap is built on and exacerbated by yesteryears's racist policies based on exclusion in housing
"Cancelling student loan debt is the single most effective executive action that @POTUS can take to kick start this economy, help close the racial wealth gap, and lift the economic prospects of tens of millions" --@SenWarren#CancelStudentDebt
"Our resolution has over 50 co-sponsors in the House. We are joined by over 325 grassroots groups. The momentum is building, the coalition is growing. With the stroke of a pen, @POTUS can provide relief to tens of millions of families." -- @RepPressley#CancelStudentDebt
"Student debt prevents Americans from building & creating wealth, contributing to the wealth gap. This is felt most acutely by Black & Brown Americans who have historically been denied by their country the privilege of financial freedom" --@RepAdams#CancelStudentDebt
After #PirateEquity🏴☠️ firm Francisco Partners bought technology company Sandvine, they fired staff, replaced leadership and started dealing with surveillance states & dictatorships
Between 2018-20, Sandvine raked in $100M from countries with horrible human rights track records
Last year, Belarus used technology provided by Sandvine to shut down the news websites, block social media platforms, and ban messaging apps while torturing protestors nationwide.
Sandvine asked for the product back too late — the damage had been done.
Under @BankersPrez Rob Nichols, American Bankers Assn gave $1.3 million to the 147 Republicans who voted to overturn a fair election after a violent assault on the U.S. Capitol