Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., is under federal criminal investigation … again. The voters of New Jersey reelected Menendez despite his accepting lavish gifts from a businessman who was later convicted of fraud. Menendez was also charged but the case was dismissed after a jury hung on the verdict. As I noted at the time of the trial, Menendez was a “juror” in a trial that I handled in the Senate and he maintained a position completely at odds with his own later defense.
In the prior case against the Senator, prosecutors accused Menendez of accepting close to $1 million in contributions and lavish gifts in exchange for political favors. The trial ended with a hung jury and the charges were dismissed in 2018.
That history did not prevent the Democrats making Menendez the chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
ABC and other outlets have confirmed the new investigation. Reports indicated that the investigation raised similar allegations to the 2018 case.
In 2018, I noted that the most poignant and powerful case against Menendez was made in his own words.
It was 2010, and Menendez was voting against my client federal Judge Thomas Porteous in Porteous’s impeachment trial.
The charges were laid out plainly before U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.):
“… engag[ing] in a corrupt relationship [and] as part of this corrupt relationship … solicit[ation] and accept[ance] of numerous things of value, including meals, trips, home repairs, and car repairs, for his personal use and benefit while at the same time taking official actions that benefitted [his friend].”
Menendez was resolute. He stood up in front of his colleagues and declared that receiving gifts ranging from free meals to wedding gifts was, plain and simple, corruption.
Notably, while many of his colleagues voted “not guilty” on Dec. 8, 2010, to Count Two (which focused on the gifts and travel benefits) against Judge Porteous, Menendez did not. He voted “guilty” on that and all of the other counts.
Menendez ultimately escaped conviction based on the very arguments that he rejected when another man stood accused in the well of the U.S. Senate. In his own trial, he called a couple dozen witnesses, including Cory Booker, New Jersey’s junior Democratic U.S. senator, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who spoke to his good character.
The one witness who did not appear was Menendez himself.
Gitmo’s Oldest Detainee Freed After 20 Years With No Charges
The United States on Saturday released the oldest prisoner who was held for two decades at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – after his arrest in Thailand in 2003 soon after the so-called “Global War on Terror” was launched.
75-year old Saifullah Paracha was transferred to his home country of Pakistan. Amazingly, he spent nearly 20 years in US detention at the high-secure military prison without trial, nor was he ever formally charged. He was suspected of being an al-Qaida financier.
“The Foreign Ministry completed an extensive inter-agency process to facilitate the repatriation of Mr Paracha,” Pakistan’s government said in a statement soon after his release. “We are glad that a Pakistani citizen detained abroad is finally reunited with his family.”
The US Department of Defense said Paracha’s transfer is part of broader efforts to close down the secretive Gitmo prison, saying on Saturday: “the United States appreciates the willingness of Pakistan and other partners to support ongoing U.S. efforts focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantanamo Bay facility.”
Businessman Paracha was arrested in 2003 in Thailand and accused of financing the armed group, but he has maintained his innocence and claimed a love for the US.
In May, the US approved Paracha’s release concluding only that he was “not a continuing threat” to the US.
It remains that most inmates who spent years at the notorious facility were never actually charged or saw trial, with international outlets noting that out of a total 780 inmates held there throughout the post-9/11 war on terror, 732 have been ultimately released without charge.
Authorities claimed he helped two of the September 11 conspirators with a financial transaction as an Al Qaeda “facilitator” for the organization. However, despite having a number of illnesses, such as diabetes and heart disease, Paracha has denied any involvement in terrorism, claiming he was unaware the persons he was interacting with were members of Al-Qaeda.
However, the US has long claimed that under international laws of war, it is allowed to detain people without trial for an endless period of time. Paracha’s son had also been arrested on the charge of helping suspected militants to get into the US through faulty documents months before his father’s arrest.
He was sentenced to 30 years in jail in 2005 by the federal court in New York, however, a judge threw out witness accounts in March 2020.
The oldest detainee in Guantánamo Bay, Saifullah Paracha, 75, has been released today after almost two decades of being held without charge, trial, or conviction.
A human rights group who helped work on Paracha’s case, Reprieve, had this to say following his Saturday release: “Saifullah is returning to his family as a frail old man, having been taken from them in the prime of his life. That injustice can never be rectified.”
Europe has relied on U.S. LNG imports to offset the loss of Russian gas, with nearly 70% of U.S. LNG exports heading to Europe in September.
In the long term, Europe will have to find other sources of natural gas as its inventories are likely to drain over the upcoming winter.
Ultimately, Europe will have to reduce demand for natural gas going forward as there is very little available supply left.
Europe cannot rely solely on imports of U.S. LNG to offset the pipeline gas supply it will have lost from Russia when it starts rebuilding inventories after the end of this winter, according to BloombergNEF.
So far this year, American LNG has been crucial in meeting demand in Europe, which is scrambling for gas supply and willing to pay up for spot deliveries, outbidding most of Asia.
The United States is shipping record volumes of LNG to Europe to help EU allies and nearly 70% of all American LNG exports were headed to Europe in September, according to Refinitiv Eikon data cited by Reuters.
However, the significant drop in Russian gas supply this year occurred only in June, meaning that Europe could still stock up on some Russian gas earlier this year.
Ahead of the 2023/2024 winter, however, the gap in gas supply in Europe will be much wider without Russian gas. Europe will not be importing much Russian gas—or none at all if Russia cuts off deliveries via the one link left operational via Ukraine and via TurkStream—compared to relatively stable imports from Russia in the first half of this year, before Moscow started gradually cutting volumes via Nord Stream in June until shutting down the pipeline in early September.
“The year-on-year increase is not sufficient to offset a total cut in Russian piped supply with under half of these volumes met by LNG increases,” BNEF analyst Arun Toora said.
“The good news is that Russia looks close to having played its last card in terms of gas leverage over Europe. However Europe’s challenges will not disappear with the daffodils next spring,” London-based consultancy Timera Energy said in a winter gas market outlook at the beginning of October.
Without most of the Russian gas supply, Europe will likely need to offset around 40 bcm of additional lost Russian flows next year. LNG alone cannot meet this volume, considering a lack of new global liquefaction capacity in the short-term, including in the U.S., limited further demand elasticity in Asia, and European regasification capacity constraints. Therefore, European demand will need to fall, Timera Energy said.
The Coordinator of Strategic Communications for Washington’s National Security Council, John Kirby, said on 28 October that the US has no plans to either ease the Caesar Act sanctions against Syria or to withdraw its illegally occupying forces from the country.
The Caesar Act, passed by Congress in 2019, imposes harsh sanctions against Syria and targets any state, business, or individual involved with the Damascus government.
In an attempt to justify the US presence in Syria, Kirby said that “only a thousand American soldiers” were stationed there, whose mission he claimed was solely to combat ISIS.
The US official also claimed that Washington does not wish to shift “the balance of power” in Syria, suggesting that it has abandoned its regime change policy against Damascus.
Despite this claim, the US continues to support and arm militant groups in the country, including the CIA-trained, anti-government Maghawir al-Thawra (MaT) faction, which holds positions within the Al-Tanf base. Last month, a Russian official claimed that MaT was planning an indiscriminate, false flag operation against civilians in order to pin the blame on the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).
Despite also claiming that its presence in Syria aims to deter ISIS, US forces only carry out superficial strikes and operations against the extremist group, killing civilians in the process, while the SAA continues to pursue the organization thoroughly.
Instead, US troops in Syria are preoccupied with their persistent and illegal oil-looting operations, the latest of which took place on 26 October. Lately, Washington has even stepped up its looting of Syrian oil in order to alleviate the man-made energy crisis it faces, as well as to ease the effect of the latest decision by OPEC+ to cut output production levels.
According to the Syrian Oil Ministry, US forces have stolen more than 80 percent of the country’s daily oil output. Damascus and Moscow have both repeatedly and strongly condemned the US occupation, as well as its sanctions and policy of looting Syria’s natural resources.
Russian ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzya, said on 10 August that a US withdrawal from Syria would facilitate the end of terrorism in the country.
“Chief Twit” Musk Reportedly Orders Job Cuts Across Twitter
Twitter’s workforce is expected to be gutted as soon as today, four people with direct knowledge of the matter told NYTimes. Managers of the social media platform have been asked to create lists of employees to cut.
Billionaire Elon Musk, who became “Chief Twit” on Thursday after finalizing the deal to purchase Twitter for $44 billion, immediately ordered company-wide cuts. The people in the know weren’t entirely sure about the scale of the layoffs.
Musk has recently said that he planned to cut 75% of the company’s 7,500 employees, leaving a workforce of approximately 2,000.
The layoffs would occur before Nov. 1, when employees are scheduled to receive stock grants as compensation. Musk could avoid paying the grants by laying off workers before that date.
On Wednesday, Musk walked into Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters carrying a kitchen sink in preparation for his takeover. He tweeted: “Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!”
The percentage of Americans who think local crime is getting worse hit the highest level in five decades, according to a Gallup poll released on Oct. 28.
A record 56 percent of respondents said they believe there is more crime locally now that there was a year ago.
Nearly four in five (78 percent) said crime increased nationwide since last year, a 33-year-high, according to Gallup, which has conducted the survey every year since 1972.
The Oct. 3-20 random-sample survey of 1,009 adults living in all 50 states and the District of Columbia also found that concern about being a victim of crime has sharply increased since 2021.
The 56 percent who believe there is more crime where they live is 5 percentage points higher than results from the same Gallup poll conducted last year, and 2 percentage points above the previous record set in 1972. More than 28 percent said crime has decreased locally, while 14 percent believe it was the same as last year.
Partisanship and Polls
There are significant variations in the results by partisan affiliation, with 73 percent of respondents who identified as Republicans maintaining they believe local crime has increased, with 51 percent of independents and 42 percent of Democrats in agreement.
The 78 percent who perceive crime is increasing nationwide is 8 percentage points higher than 2021 and matches 2020’s Gallup poll results. The 2022 and 2020 results are the highest since 1992, when 89 percent believed crime had increased the previous year nationwide. About 13 percent said there was less crime and 7 percent believe crime nationwide remained the same from 2021 to 2022.
The same partisan spread is evident in beliefs regarding national crime. More than 95 percent of Republicans—the highest percentage of any group recorded in the annual surveys—said crime is increasing nationwide. Nearly 75 percent of independents and 61 percent of Democrats agreed.
That gap between how more Americans believe crime is increasing nationally than locally is consistent with Gallup polls since it began conducting annual statistical surveys on crime in 1965.
Over that near-60 year span, on average, 44 percent perceive crime has increased locally while an average 67 percent believe crime increased nationwide over the previous year.
Frequent or occasional worry about being a victim of six types of crimes in the survey has increased in the last year, including computer hacking (75 percent) and identity theft (73 percent).
Poll respondents worry least about being assaulted or killed by a coworker on the job (9 percent) or being the victim of terrorism (27 percent).
Separating perception from reality in determining if crime has increased over the last year has not been made any easier by the FBI, which has adopted a new system to replace its Uniform Crime Report (UCR), which had been the most comprehensive annual snapshot of crime nationwide since 1930.
When the FBI released its new version of the UCR, the 2021 Crime in the Nation Report, in early October, only 63 percent of the nation’s more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies had submitted their 2021 data, the lowest participation since at least 1979.
Only 52 percent of all agencies submitted a full year’s worth of data, the FBI said. Among those that did not provide any information for the agency’s annual report was the New York City Police Department (NYPD), Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE).
The reason cited by agencies for not submitting data for the FBI’s annual report—which has always been voluntary—is the adoption of its new National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) data-reporting system, which requires greater detail, technical proficiency, and time-consuming effort. This was the first year NIBRS became the only way to submit data to the agency.
After the 2021 data documented across-the-board increases in crime, including a nearly 30 percent increase in homicides in 2020 from 2019—the highest year-over-year increase recorded in FBI history—the FBI has attempted to fill the gaps in a lack of verified data regarding 2021 crime statistics with estimates.
The 2021 Crime in the Nation Report estimates an overall decline in violent crime by 1 percent in 2021 from 2020, driven largely by reductions in the robbery rate, which it estimates declined by 8.9 percent.
The FBI also estimates a 4.3 percent increase in homicides between 2020 and 2021, after the near-30 percent hike between 2019 and 2020.
The Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ), a Washington-based nonprofit that studies criminal justice policy, published a January 2022 study of crime trends across 27 major U.S. cities that found homicides rose by 5 percent and aggravated assaults by 4 percent between 2020 and 2021.
In its mid-year 2022 report published in July, CCJ found homicides had declined 2 percent, but aggravated assaults were up by 4 percent and robberies up 19 percent, from 2021.
AH Datalytics, a New Orleans, La.-based analytics firm which maintains an updated survey of murders U.S. cities with 100,000 or more residents, reported similar findings, documenting 5.7 percent increase in murders between 2020 and 2021. In its mid-year report, AH Datalytics reported a 4.5 percent decrease in murders across the cities it surveys.
The perception that crime is increasing will be on voters’ minds when they cast midterm ballots and the fact that respondents across a slate of October surveys say they believe Republicans are better suited to reduce crime has many GOP candidates highlighting the issue in closing campaign pitches.
Arizona Republican governor frontrunner Kari Lake lashed out at the legacy media for spreading “fake news” about her alleged involvement in a burglary of Democratic rival Katie Hobbs’ campaign headquarters on Oct. 25, without providing evidence.
In a 30-minute press conference the day after the break-in, Lake claimed that the only reason Hobbs accused her was that she was losing in the polls.
“Guys, we’re going to do a tutorial on how fake bogus, defamatory news is made,” Lake told a gauntlet of legacy media outlets in Phoenix.
“We know the world is watching us.”
Lake said while meeting with police officers and firefighters, “my desperate opponent, who is sinking like a lead weight in water, pulled a stunt, and you guys fell for it. She put out a defamatory statement, and you all ran with it.”
“You didn’t do your journalistic duty. It was malpractice in journalism like I’ve never seen before. And it was an effort, I believe, to influence this election.”
Burglary Claims
On Oct. 26, the Arizona Democratic Party, without any supporting evidence, said the burglary was a “direct result” of Lake and “Republicans spreading lies and hate.”
“Make no mistake—this is a direct result of Kari Lake, and fringe Republicans spreading lies and hate and inciting violence—and it is despicable,” the Democratic Party affiliate said in a statement on Twitter.
In a statement, Hobbs’ campaign manager, Nicole DeMont, echoed those remarks without evidence of Lake’s alleged involvement in the burglary.
“Let’s be clear: for nearly two decades, Kari Lake and her allies have been spreading dangerous misinformation and inciting threats against anyone they see fit,” DeMont said.
“The threats against Arizonans attempting to exercise their constitutional rights and their attacks on elected officials are the direct result of a concerted campaign of lies and intimidation.”
Police have arrested a man in connection with the break-in but would not release his identity. Nor would they say whether the crime was politically motivated.
Lake, who leads Hobbs in a Fox10 news poll 54-43 percent, accused many in the legacy media of being “an arm of the Democrat Party.”
“Many of you are propagandists. And you all should be ashamed.”
“She [Hobbs] knew darned well I had nothing to do with it. So she puts out a statement, and right away, your gatekeepers here at the Democrat Party jump on it. And they put out a statement, which was the cue to you to start running with it.”
Twin Bombings In Somali Capital Leave “Scores Of Casualties”
Twin explosions rocked the center of Somalia’s capital of Mogadishu on Saturday, killing as least 30 people and wounding dozens more.
Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre blamed the al-Qaeda linked terrorist group al-Shabab by name, which has a history of conducting large-scale bombings in urban centers; however, the group didn’t claim responsibility in the immediate aftermath.
Two car bombs detonated at a busy roadway in the center of the city, leaving “scores of civilian casualties” – and among them children, according to a national police statement. A hospital official said at least 30 bodies were present at the scene of the blasts.
According to The Associated Press, “The attack in Mogadishu occurred on a day when the president, prime minister and other senior officials were meeting to discuss combating violent extremism, especially by the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Shabab group that often targets the capital. It also came five years after another massive blast in the exact same location killed over 500 people.”
The bombings appeared planned to result in as many civilian casualties as possible, given the second car bomb went off at the moment emergency responders arrived, with an ambulance destroyed by that follow-on explosion.
“I was 100 meters away when the second blast occurred,” a Somali eyewitness Abdirazak Hassan, was quoted in AP as saying. “I couldn’t count the bodies on the ground due to the (number of) fatalities.”
The major terrorist attack comes months after last Spring President Joe Biden approved the re-entry of US forces into Somalia. The Pentagon has since deployed some 500 troops in order to advise and assist Somali national forces in fighting al-Shabab terrorists.
#SOMALIA ATTACK: Devastating scenes of carnage in #Mogadishu. Today’s horrific bombings at the education ministry in a crowded and bustling area in the capital is a grim reminder of how deadly the country’s armed conflict remains for ordinary Somalis. pic.twitter.com/llwIZcYeNp
US Africa Command (Africom) described the force as a “small, persistent US military presence” – however which could increase in the wake of this new terror bombing.
Liberation in the real world is the result of self-reliance and investing in our own well-being.
Liberation has many contexts. It can mean being freed from imprisonment or servitude, freedom from gnawing want or oppression, or being liberated from prisons of the mind.
Note that the first form of liberation is external / material, the second is internal / psychological / spiritual. Many confuse the two, blaming an oppressive system for their unhappiness rather than their internal acquiescence to the system’s narratives and values.
For many, liberation depends on the actions of others. If only we had different leaders, a different financial financial system, a different energy system, a different constellation of media, and so on–if only the powers that control our world were liberating rather than extractive.
The other approach is to accept responsibility for our own liberation within the system as it is. Demanding those benefiting so handsomely from the system as it is currently configured relinquish their wealth and power is not going to re-order the system when those benefiting from the system 1) have every incentive to devote all available resources to maintaining it as it is and 2) have an unshakeable belief that the system is so powerful (the state, the party, the central bank, etc.) that nothing could possibly destabilize their comforts, conveniences, wealth and power.
In other words, their belief in the permanence and immutability of the system is equally immutable. That their belief is nothing more than hubris pushed to extremes of denial and delusion doesn’t register.
In this mindset of unbreakable faith in the god-like powers of the system as it is, the faithful benefiting from the system will favor destabilizing policy extremes rather than give up any of their perquisites and power.
They might push the system into collapse because they believe collapse is impossible. There is no arguing with true believers in any ideology or arrangement in which the self-interest of those in power is the organizing principle of the system.
Rather than rail at the Powers That Be for being self-serving and thinking liberation is only possible if the entire system is reset, the alternative is to liberate ourselves from the prison of the mind generated by the system’s media, narratives and values.
Simply put, stop consuming “news” and “opinion” designed to polarize, addict and derange. Once we stop paying attention, we stop reacting, and our time and energy revert to our own use rather than making somebody else money in the Attention Economy.
My Credo of Liberation summarizes this process of detaching oneself from the narratives and values that support the power structure of exploitation (from my book Resistance, Revolution, Liberation):
I no longer care if the power centers of our society–the distant, fortified castles of our financial feudal system–are changed by my actions, for I am liberated by the act of resistance. I am no longer complicit in perpetuating fraudulent feudalism and the pathology of concentrated power. I no longer covet signifiers of membership in the Upper Caste that serves the plutocracy. I am liberated from self-destructive consumerist-State financialization and the delusion that debt servitude and obedience to sociopathological Elites serve my self-interests.
This self-liberation from prisons of the mind is only the first step of real-world liberation. The second step is to understand how the vulnerabilities of the system as it is can affect our lives, and work to decouple our well-being from the system as it is.
The core dynamics that deserve our careful study are 1) scale 2) dependency chains and 3) stability. The problem with the global economy as it is is that it is an unstable tangle of long dependency chains of globalization and financialization that must operate at massive scales with just in time perfection.
This system appears robust when everything is working perfectly, but it’s actually on the edge of instability at all times. Any disruption beyond the trivial threatens to unravel all the interconnected dependency chains.
Path dependency also matters. The system as it is is the result of decisions made long ago in different times and circumstances. Yet the decisions made then still define how the system functions. Put another way, modest policy tweaks can’t reduce the instability of the system.
If we reduce our dependence on the system, we decouple our own well-being from the system’s incoherence and fragility. This decoupling is called self-reliance, the topic of my book Self-Reliance in the 21st Century.
Liberation in the real-world is not a false either-or polarity; it’s a matter of degrees. By developing local sources of essentials and trusted personal networks, we reduce our dependence on long global supply chains and the debt-leverage of financialization.
Once we stop consuming and fretting over “news” and “opinions” we have no control over, we free up the time and energy needed to invest in our own self-reliance.
The question of our own well-being boils down to: what are we buying into? What have we bought into in terms of wants and needs, in what props up our identity and self-worth, and in the sources of inspiration, goals and purpose in our lives?
If all that boils down to making more money to buy more stuff or make even more money, that’s not decoupling, that’s total dependence on an incoherent, fragile, exploitive, unstable, unsustainable system that isn’t going to change because we want it to change.
Ideologies are the walls and chains of the prisons of the mind. Ideologies lead to the idea that if only everyone agreed with me, all our problems would be solved. Self-reliance doesn’t need anyone’s consent or “likes” on social media. Self-reliance values trust, integrity and performance, not canned opinions spouted as “solutions” once everyone agrees with me, or is forced to agree with me in public.
Liberation in the real world is the result of self-reliance and investing in our own well-being. Opinions and “news” don’t create well-being, they tear it down.
A coalition of 19 state attorneys general from across the country launched a formal investigation into six major U.S. banks last week citing legal concerns about banks’ “ESG” investing and their involvement with a United Nations alliance fighting CO2 emissions.
The banks “appear to be colluding with the U.N. to destroy American companies” and undermine the nation’s best interests, one of the AGs warned in a statement e-mailed to The Epoch Times.
Another AG argued that these U.N.-inspired banking policies were resulting in jobs being sent to communist China as the regime there continues building coal-fired power plants to ensure low-cost, reliable energy.
The new investigation is the latest salvo by Republican-led states amid growing nationwide concerns about the “woke” policies of financial institutions and other powerful business interests.
Multiple attorneys general who spoke to The Epoch Times about the probe said it was their job to enforce consumer protection laws and protect citizens in their states from potentially illegal activity by companies.
In particular, officials are investigating the banks’ involvement in the controversial United Nations Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA). The global network of banks, convened and overseen by the U.N., pledges to eliminate emissions of so-called “greenhouse gases” by 2050 by transforming their lending and investment practices.
Numerous AGs sounded the alarm about the U.N.’s involvement in targeting key American industries as banks cede policymaking influence to the global organization.
The top law-enforcement officers for the group of mostly Republican-controlled states said they have reason to believe the banks being investigated agreed to align their investing and loan portfolio with U.N. emissions goals.
The goals, outlined in the U.N. Paris Agreement on climate change, call for a transformation of the economy away from traditional energy sources. Government and business leaders in developed nations including the United States and Western Europe agreed to pursue significant reductions in CO2.
The effect of these policies, the AGs warned, would be to starve key industries of credit—especially companies in the energy and agriculture sectors that are critical to the prosperity and even the national security of the United States.
The banks being scrutinized by the top lawmen for their states include Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup.
Each of the companies was served last week with civil investigative demands, essentially acting as a subpoena, demanding that they turn over documents related to their involvement in the U.N. NZBA.
The banks are also expected to provide records of all “Global Climate Initiatives” in which they are participating, and how these U.N.-backed agendas are being incorporated into their businesses, civil investigative demands reviewed by The Epoch Times show.
In addition, the banks are being asked to give details on the involvement of their CEOs in the process and how the decisions were made.
Also under scrutiny are banking actions related to “Environmental, Social, and Governance” (ESG) investing. The controversial metrics take into consideration environmental and social policies in making business decisions, rather than simply the traditional metrics of risk and return.
Critics say ESG investing is being used to impose unpopular and economically harmful ideas on Americans while forcing businesses across the economy to adopt them. The term is increasingly being linked by opponents to a woke mentality, “social justice” ideas, and radical left-wing politics.
AGs Speak Out
“We got involved in this investigation because this is another attempt by the liberal woke left to shove their ideas down our throats, and since they can’t change the laws using the political process, they want to do it by weaponizing business,” said Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen. “They are doing this out of some misplaced desire to advance their liberal agenda.”
But it may not be legal, Knudsen and many other state AGs say.
“This seems to run afoul of our consumer protection laws that I’m in charge of enforcing,” Knudsen continued in a phone interview with The Epoch Times, saying his office and elected officials at all levels were under growing public pressure to address the issue and potential legal violations.
“It gets cold here in Montana,” the attorney general added. “We need a robust energy sector to keep our homes warm—and we certainly can’t do that using wind and solar.”
Knudsen, who is also working with a coalition of state AGs focusing on investment behemoth BlackRock, said this was essentially a continuation of the same issue: Powerful banking and financial interests seeking to improperly impose their views on the public.
“You have corporate banking and the investment industry trying to flex their muscle and pressure businesses into a political direction and political action,” he said. “But that’s not their function. Their job is to provide credit and earn profit for shareholders.”
“This is a continuation of the woke ESG garbage that we’re having to deal with more and more,” the Montana AG added.
Going forward, Knudsen said “everything is on the table,” depending on the outcome of the investigation. Under consumer protection laws, the state has the authority to levy civil fines.
Knudsen said Montana lawmakers, who are also under growing public pressure, intend to take strong legislative action when the state legislature reconvenes next year.
The effects of these banking policies are hurting numerous legal industries, he continued, pointing to firearms businesses as examples of those “being pinched” by financial services and even insurance companies.
“These companies need to be held accountable, so we are all looking at what authorities are available,” Knudsen said. “All options are definitely on the table.”
In Oklahoma, Attorney General John O’Connor said his office joined the investigation for two primary reasons: “America is not run by the U.N.,” and “these banks are attacking Oklahoma fossil-fuel producers and consumers as well as Oklahoma jobs.”
“The Net-Zero Banking Alliance, overseen by the U.N., will destroy companies that are engaged in fossil fuel-related activities or depend on them for energy or these lenders for capital,” he explained in a statement emailed to The Epoch Times. “It is unacceptable that these banks are pushing an investment strategy designed to impose a leftist social and economic agenda.”
The subpoenas sent to the banks by O’Connor’s office include requests to explain how NZBA objectives are being incorporated into the banks’ operations and what actions they have taken to eliminate hydrocarbon energy from the economy.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita sounded the alarm about what his office described as an “apparent conspiracy” involving the U.N. and the banks being probed.
“These banks appear to be colluding with the U.N. to destroy American companies that specialize in fossil fuels or otherwise depend on them for energy,” Rokita said. “They are pushing an investment strategy designed not to maximize financial returns but to impose a leftist social and economic agenda that cannot otherwise be implemented through the ballot box.”
Blasting ESG investing as a “scheme,” the Indiana AG vowed to protect the people of his state.
“This new woke-ism in the financial sector poses a real threat to everyday Hoosiers,” he continued. “Indiana’s farmers, truck drivers, and fuel-industry workers are hurt when the radical Left attacks whole segments of our economy. And it’s troubling that these banks in the Net-Zero Banking Alliance are taking marching orders from U.N. globalists all-too-eager to undermine America’s best interests.”
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt warned that the Net-Zero Banking Alliance was a major threat to key industries in his state.
“Missouri farmers, oil leasing companies, and other businesses that are vital to Missouri’s and America’s economy will be unable to get a loan because of this alliance,” Schmitt warned in a statement e-mailed to The Epoch Times.
Missouri last week became the latest state to divest from BlackRock over its woke policies, announcing that it would withdraw some $500 million of pension fund investments held with the increasingly controversial financial giant.
Blasting the banks for “ceding authority to the U.N.,” the Missouri AG said these actions would result in the “killing of American companies that don’t subscribe to the woke climate agenda.”
“These banks are accountable to American laws—we don’t let international bodies set the standards for our businesses,” added Schmitt.
The Missouri lawman has become increasingly vocal about the threat he believes these trends pose to the nation, sounding the alarm about how these woke policies benefit communist China and its economy at America’s expense.
This summer, Schmitt’s office also sent civil investigative demands involving ESG investing to Morningstar and Sustainalytics.
Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas vowed to get to the bottom of the relationship between the U.N. and the banks’ potential legal violations.
“The radical climate change movement has been waging an all-out war against American energy for years, and the last thing Americans need right now are corporate activists helping the left bankrupt our fossil fuel industry,” the Texas AG said.
“If the largest banks in the world think they can get away with lying to consumers or taking any other illegal action designed to target a vital American industry like energy, they’re dead wrong,” he continued. “This investigation is just getting started, and we won’t stop until we get to the truth.”
Other states that are investigating include Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Tennessee, and Virginia. At least five other states have joined but cannot be named due to state confidentiality policies.
In August, a similar coalition of state AGs warned BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, a board member of the World Economic Forum and the powerful Council on Foreign Relations, that his company’s policies may be illegal.
“Our states will not idly stand for our pensioners’ retirements to be sacrificed for BlackRock’s climate agenda,” they warned, pointing to several potential legal violations involving the politically connected firm’s ESG investing.
Effects and Implications
Bloomberg, a media outlet that has vocally supported the U.N. climate agenda and was founded by Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) co-chair Michael Bloomberg, complained this month that Fink and other key financial leaders would not be at the upcoming U.N. COP27 climate conference in Egypt.
“With more than $135 trillion in assets, GFANZ was supposed to be the planet’s ticket to a more climate-friendly form of finance. But a year later, it’s unclear how members will live up to their promises,” Bloomberg writer Alastair Marsh reported, pointing to GOP states’ efforts as part of the reason.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is among the Republican political leaders aiming to stop woke policies at banks. He is asking lawmakers to pass legislation in the 2023 session to rein in ESG policies.
