Authored by J.B. Shurk via American Thinker,

Are all cultures equally worthy of our respect? Globalists say, “yes.”

Are all religions equally worthy of our respect? Globalists say, “yes.”

Are all nations equally worthy of our respect? Globalists say, “yes.”

Globalists speak of “multiculturalism” as if it were a virtue and equate Western civilization with “white supremacy,” “patriarchy,” and “imperialism.” They believe Christians should celebrate Islamic holidays. They believe national borders are “racist.” They believe that anybody who rejects globalism promotes “hate.”

If everything is true, though, then nothing is true. If there are no borders, then there are no nations. If there are no nations, then national governments represent nobody. In other words, the globalist worldview is meaningless, contradictory, self-hating, and infuriating.

Recently, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the Bronx shot an illegal immigrant gangbanger from the Dominican Republic when the criminal tried to avoid arrest by driving his vehicle directly at officers (presumably without a valid license or proper registration). Instead of leaping to support the cops who defend the public every day, the Islamic, communist mayor of New York City declared that he was “angry” that ICE agents had shot a “New Yorker.” The illegal alien in question broke into the U.S. only a few years ago and has already been arrested multiple times – including for armed robbery and drug-dealing – but Mayor Mamdani somehow considers the foreign criminal more of a “New Yorker” than the arresting officers or civilian bystanders whom he endangered.

Mamdani is originally from Uganda and became a U.S. citizen only eight years ago. So a foreigner who now runs the financial center of the United States has more in common with a violent criminal from the Dominican Republic than with anyone born in America. If everyone is a New Yorker, then nobody is a New Yorker. If everyone is an American, then no-one is American. Yet globalists demand that we treat Mamdani, the foreign gangbanger, and multi-generational American citizens as if they were all the same.

This nonsensical demand occurs all over the West. Military-aged Muslims invade the United Kingdom each day. Their belief system is so incompatible with that of native Brits that the U.K.’s Home Office hands out instruction manuals informing the foreign invaders that raping women and children is illegal in their new “homeland.” Yet British politicians and BBC news pundits preposterously claim that the invaders are every bit as British as the folks whose families have resided in the British Isles for a thousand or more years.

For over a decade, globalists in Europe and North America have insisted that we Westerners call illegal immigrants “newcomers.” It’s a not-so-subtle form of indoctrination meant to condition the feebleminded into believing that it’s perfectly normal for our uninvited “countrymen” to defecate in the streets, molest young girls, beat up Jews, burn down Christian churches, mow down white people with their cars, eat cats and swans in public parks, and commit welfare fraud on an industrial scale. If the cultural habits of these strange “newcomers” appear grotesque, that’s probably because you’re a “hater,” a “white supremacist,” and most likely both!

This is all so absurd, isn’t it? I’m a follower of Jesus Christ. Islam is incompatible with my beliefs. Muhammad was a raping, murdering pedophile and certainly no prophet of Almighty God. But if I point any of this out in Canada, the U.K., or most of Europe, I get in trouble with the law. If I pray silently outside an abortion clinic, I risk arrest. If I quote passages from the Bible, certain Western governments will charge me for criminal “hate speech.” If I acknowledge on social media that Christian churches are being mysteriously burned to the ground throughout the West, my speech will get flagged as “misinformation.” When being a Christian in public and defending the faith are impermissible in the West, there is no place on the planet where Christians are truly safe.

Culture, religion, and national identity matter. It matters whether someone moves to the United States because that person wants to assimilate and become an American, or whether that person wants to create a foreign nation inside America. It matters whether our fellow countrymen possess moral virtue and recognize God as the source of our natural rights. It matters whether the members of our society trust each other enough to work and live together. It matters whether we are united by shared values, traditions, history, and beliefs. Without these common connections, we are nothing to each other. We are strangers, or worse, we are enemies.

Of all the destructive philosophies that have plagued our species, globalism must surely rank among the most noxious. It clothes itself in the camouflage of virtue-signaling, false empathy, and fake compassion. It disguises ideological conformity as “open-mindedness.” It preaches “coexistence” while subjugating dissenters. It robs people of their heritage in the name of “tolerance.” It rewrites history when convenient. It replaces merit and equality with entitlement and privilege. When possible, globalism recycles Western civilization into foreign worldviews, and when that’s impossible, globalism tosses everything we hold dear straight into the garbage disposal.

If all civilizations are “Western” civilizations, then the West means nothing. If all nations are the same, then no country is worth defending. If all creeds are merely “social constructs,” then civic virtue is no better than antisocial vice. Nihilism does not inspire heroic sacrifice. It invites cultural suicide.

Whenever I listen to political pundits in Europe, they are breathless about war with Russia. They are certain that Vladimir Putin is going to conquer the continent at any moment. They talk about the necessity of military conscription. They describe the looming conflict as some kind of moral defense of “democracy” against “authoritarianism.” They invoke phrases such as “patriotic duty.” Yet these same political pundits never address the civic breakdown in their own societies, including growing crime rates, decreasing levels of patriotism, and a metastasizing sense of hopelessness killing the youngest generations.

The West’s talking heads genuinely seem to believe that people will go to war to save government bureaucracy, of all things! They think that unelected European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is somehow a symbol of “democracy.” They think that King Charles III will inspire Christians even though Britain’s monarch no longer declares himself the “Defender of the Faith” but rather an amorphous protector of “a multi-faith nation.” Globalists think they can rally Westerners around patriotic flags when they’ve spent the last decade arresting Westerners for being patriotic or waving their national flags. They think that they can talk Westerners into protecting sovereign borders when globalists have kept national borders open for decades. You simply cannot invite foreigners from all over the world to remake the West in their image and then expect Westerners to fight and die for a home that is no longer theirs.

Nobody runs up a hill to defend “multiculturalism.” Nobody sacrifices his life for “diversity, inclusion, and equity.” Nobody defends the Christian world by surrendering to Islam. Nobody goes to war in order to save the “rules-based international order” from destruction. It is utterly ridiculous to suggest otherwise.

The future belongs to those who are unafraid of making moral, cultural, and religious judgments. Only those who are willing to state the obvious – that Western civilization is worth defending – will be able to lead the West in the decades ahead.

Big Government is a fake religion. Political correctness is a toxic ideology. Moral relativism invites depravity. Borderless nations are easily conquered.

Globalists have made the world more dangerous because they stand for nothing. We are returning to an age when civilizational convictions matter more than anything. In this era, only committed societies will survive. Any nation unwilling to defend its way of life will perish.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of ZeroHedge.

America’s Gulf allies have raised the possibility of an Iranian military ground invasion of their territories in the event of a major renewed US bombing campaign, which President Trump has threated to restart against Iran after the November midterm elections.

It’s an oddly specific, and perhaps unlikely, threat being communicated by Gulf officials, and was reported on in the pages of The Wall Street Journal on Monday. Tehran is only too happy to signal it’s ready to inflict massive counter-pain on US and allied assets across the region.

The publication cites “informed sources” who say Islamic Republic officials have been warning that this is among current options being mulled to escalate and spread the war beyond, into the broader region.

IRGC operatives could penetrate neighboring countries as part of efforts to both deter a US and assault and ‘punish’ Washington and its frontline allies, the report indicates.

Such a scenario would take things a big step further, also as the potential for resumption of Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks on Gulf energy sites remains on the table.

Kuwait has especially been under assault, with even its civilian airports targeted in the last few summer rounds of tit-for-tat between US and Iranian forces.

Amid a heightened state of Iranian alert, the WSJ writes that “Satellite images show Iran is strengthening sensitive locations, including nuclear sites and border areas, to make them more resilient to attacks.”

“The government is also preparing Iranians for renewed war, sending paramilitary forces to read war stories to kindergartners, advertising training in firing shoulder-mounted antiaircraft missiles and holding rallies,” the report continues.

This also comes amid a well-publicized push of the Islamic Republic to arm and train broader elements of the Iranian citizenry to join paramilitary efforts which work in tandem with the armed forces.

Read our: Iran’s Army Chief Offers $30K Reward For Kill Or Capture Of American Troops

“In an attempt to deter a potential attack, some Iranian officials have hinted that their forces could conduct land incursions into neighboring countries, according to people familiar with the warnings,” WSJ observes further. “Iran’s top national-security official, Mohsen Rezaei, said on Sunday that Tehran could target the United Arab Emirates, which has largely escaped being attacked since late spring, as well as data centers and internet cables across the region.”

State media sources have been circulating ‘warning messages’ like the following:

IRGC Ground Forces commandos train with snipers, machine guns, and DRONES ‘at western borders’ of Iran ‘Our message to invading enemies is clear: set foot on this soil, and we will scatter your ASHES to the wind’ https://t.co/HabaUsuMTb

— RT (@RT_com) October 8, 2026

However, so far there’s been a pause of sorts since Trump backed off a decision to resume major bombing raids in July. Instead, Iran has steadily ramped up assaults on international vessels seeking to transit the Strait of Hormuz, with October being a record in terms of frequency of these attacks.

Each side is not only ‘waiting out’ the other, but seeking to impose as much pain on the other as possible, hoping for a defeat, or for the other to give in to serious concessions and make compromise.

Crude prices have reacted to the likelihood of more serious escalation vibes in the air and potentially around the corner…

Who will blink first remains the big open-ended question, also as Washington is belatedly worried about getting bogged down in an other Mideast ‘forever war’.

Authored by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times,

Gun Owners of America and members of Congress are renewing their call for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to destroy approximately 1.4 billion ATF records that they call an illegal gun registry.

ATF Director Robert Cekada and President Donald Trump say ATF databases comply with federal law while providing an important crime-fighting tool.

Cekada tells a story about the widow of a former ATF employee who wanted the agency to generate a list of her husband’s firearms so she could account for them.

“I said, ‘Ma’am, I’m sorry, we can’t do that.’ And she was shocked because she thought, like everyone thinks, that we have this ability. We just don’t,” Cekada told The Epoch Times.

In a 2022 report, Gun Owners of America Director of Federal Affairs Aidan Johnston wrote that the ATF has a database ready to be converted into an “illegal gun owner registry.”

In 2021, the gun-rights advocacy group revealed an ATF internal document that showed the Biden administration had processed and digitized more than 50 million “out of business” records from Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) that had closed.

1.4 Billion Records Stored, Estimates Show

Combining those with the files the agency already had, plus files surrendered since, makes the current total about 1.4 billion, Gun Owners of America stated.

The documents are ATF Transaction Record 4473 forms completed by customers during firearms transactions with FFLs, such as retailers or manufacturers. The 4473 contains customer identity information necessary for legally mandated criminal background checks by the FBI.

ATF also holds completed Acquisition and Disposition records. The Acquisition and Disposition record, commonly known among FFLs as the bound book, traces the life of a firearm from its manufacture to a wholesaler, then on to its first retailer and first purchaser.

FFLs are typically required to hold records for 20 years or turn them over to the ATF if the retailer goes out of business before the 20-year deadline.

Gun Owners of America posits that there should be no retention period because there should be no records. A Gun Owners of America spokesperson said the danger to Americans’ constitutional rights outweighs any benefit claimed by the government.

“This is a ticking time bomb for the Second Amendment,” Ben Hyun Sanderson, Gun Owners of America’s deputy director of federal affairs, told The Epoch Times. “Allowing a government to know exactly who owns firearms and how many they have, where they live, is the complete opposite of what the Second Amendment was intended by the founders to be.”

But Cekada said the files serve an important law enforcement function.

Thousands of Traces Requested

The ATF director said more than 660,000 traces were requested by U.S. law enforcement in 2026. It’s unclear which traces played a significant role in criminal investigations. The ATF is actively involved in relatively few cases, and each law enforcement agency has policies and laws regulating how they release case information.

“I can tell you the anecdotal evidence is there. They depend on what we call crime gun intelligence tracing,” Cekada said.

Still, there are concerns. On Nov. 22, 2021, 52 members of Congress wrote to Marvin G. Richardson, then ATF’s acting director.

“This gives us serious cause for concern that the Biden administration is intent on creating a federal gun registry by circumventing the legislative process,” the letter states.

On Sept. 29, 2026, U.S. Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) and Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) sent a letter to Trump and Vice President JD Vance, requesting an investigation into the tracing program.

“We ask for your decisive leadership to end this registry and prevent its expansion,” the letter states.

But the Trump White House stands firmly by the ATF.

In an email to The Epoch Times, a White House spokesperson stated the records retention program was inspected by the Government Accountability Office and found to be in compliance.

“Every step is governed – and limited – by federal law,” the email states.

The Government Accountability Office reviewed four of the 16 ATF programs that contain transaction data in 2016. Inspectors found issues in four programs, which the ATF addressed at that time.

The Firearms Owners Protection Act (FOPA) and the Tiahrt Amendment set limits on how data gleaned from the files can be stored, who can access it, and why.

Legal Limits

FOPA prohibits the consolidation of transaction data in a government-controlled device or facility as well as the registration of firearms.

An FFL’s transaction records stay with the FFL for 20 years, unless the business closes. Then the records are turned over to the ATF’s Out of Business Records Imaging System.

Federal agents can access a dealer’s records only during criminal investigations.

In 2003, U.S. Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) introduced the Tiahrt Amendment, and its provisions have been attached to Department of Justice appropriations bills ever since. They restrict the release of gun trace data to law enforcement for criminal investigations.

The records can be searched only by serial numbers, make and model, and manufacturer.

Cekada said the prohibitions protect individuals’ rights while providing information that law enforcement can use. The White House stands by the ATF.

“ATF trace information solves thousands of crimes per year while obeying strict legal boundaries to protect gun owners’ privacy,” the email states.

In the Gun Owners of America report, Johnston described a system in which paper records were first converted to microfilm and microfiche records. Computer technology enabled the paper records to be stored as digital PDF files.

Security Is a Concern

Cekada said the files are stored as pictures, not readable documents.

When an ATF agent begins a trace, it first must be determined which FFL handled the first sale of the gun in question. This is done by checking the Acquisition and Disposition files. Once the first retailer is found, the agent must call or visit the FFL and ask them to check their files.

If the retailer is out of business, the agent must check the Out of Business records. If the record hasn’t been digitized, this means manually searching paper files.

The Gun Owners of America report noted that hundreds of ATF employees have access to the data, as well as many state-level agencies that also keep the data. The report states that even the files that have been digitized are not completely safe.

In 2017, hackers stole the names of about 16,000 concealed weapon permit holders from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services’ online registration program. But hackers aren’t the Second Amendment advocates’ biggest concern.

In 2012 – during Barack Obama’s presidency – The Journal News of Westchester, New York, published an interactive map on its website with the names and addresses of all handgun permit holders in Westchester and Rockland counties.

The paper got the information in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, despite the Tiahrt Amendment restrictions.

North Carolina’s WRAL-TV published an article in July 2012 sharing a database of gun owners searchable by address. At the time, station management defended the story, saying the information was part of the public record.

The story is still available on the station’s website, though the database has since been scrubbed. A note states the information was removed because it is not public information under a state law that took effect after the story’s publication.

Gun control proponents say the information should be public. Everytown for Gun Safety and the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence say access enables law enforcement, researchers, journalists, and educators to keep the public informed about violent crime involving guns.

“These records are most useful when they are collected in a central database and retained permanently. In California … handgun sales records are permanently retained. As a result, law enforcement agencies in the state are able to quickly trace the ownership of handguns recovered in crime,” the Giffords website reads.

Everytown has taken a similar position and calls for repeal of the Tiahrt Amendment.

“Blocking this data from disclosure protects corrupt gun dealers and hinders localities from enacting effective, targeted gun crime solutions. Repealing the Tiahrt Rider would help address gun violence nationwide,” the Everytown website states.

Sanderson says making the data public would make the Second Amendment a “second class” right by infringing on the rights of law-abiding Americans.

Cekada acknowledges there are those who want to see the data used to build a registry. While steadfastly denying this is a Trump administration plan, he said concerns about future administrations are valid.

“Congress needs to strengthen Tiahrt, and frankly, they need to ensure that the Firearms Owners Protection Act covers any potential gap that somebody could find in the future,” Cekada said.

“Depending upon what happens in the years to come, there could be an administration that would be helping Congress, who has control to make new laws, to try and develop a registry.”

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

A Philadelphia city employee with a long rap sheet ambushed police responding to a call, killed one officer and critically wounded another, then told investigators he did it because they were white.

Eric Lewis, 35, a trades helper for the Philadelphia Water Department, walked up behind Officers Shane Seiber and his partner on a West Philadelphia porch early Saturday morning, demanded to know why they were there, and opened fire.

Seiber, a 40-year-old Air Force veteran and father of two, was shot three times and died hours later. His partner, a 33-year-old father of five, was hit 12 times and remains hospitalized. Lewis then fired at nine more officers before hiding in a tree, where SWAT took him into custody. He faces 76 charges including murder and is held without bail.

🚨 OMG. The thug who ambushed police officers in Philadelphia just admitted he targeted them because they are WHITEIf this were reversed, it would be wall-to-wall coverage on every network as a hate crime.Eric Lewis, who m*rdered one of the officers, JUST TOLD INVESTIGATORS: He did it because they are whiteBecause. They. Are. WHITE.THIS IS INFURIATING! ?Lewis has a major rap sheet, a known criminal. He saw white officers then opened fire. Because of their skin colorThis is what anti-white hatred does when it’s provoked in the media for years.Rest in peace, Officer Shane Seiber ??Seiber was a 40-year-old Air Force veteran and a father of two little kids.

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 12, 2026

According to the arrest report obtained by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Lewis stated he shot the officers because they were white. He told a Black female officer at the hospital, “if it was you that responded we would have just had a conversation.“

The report further noted he said, “if the cops were black he would not have shot them,” made racist remarks to white officers, and claimed they “automatically grabbed me” because of their race.

He also said, “I did what I did because they did what they did,” and insisted, “They had guns, so I had every right to defend myself.“

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said of Seiber, “He fought valiantly, but he lost his life today.” District Attorney Larry Krasner called the attack a “brutal, senseless, horrific killing.”

Seiber, a 10-year veteran, leaves behind a wife, a 7-year-old son, and a 3-year-old daughter. He had served in the Air Force before joining the force.

Lewis’s criminal history stretches back more than a decade. In 2012 he was convicted of theft and receiving stolen property and sentenced to two years’ probation. In 2013 he faced charges including carrying firearms in public and simple assault; he received up to five years’ probation. In 2018 he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct involving fighting and again received probation. Krasner noted Lewis had no felony convictions that barred him from possessing a firearm. He has worked for the city since 2024.

This is not an isolated failure. Just days earlier in Pittsburgh, District Judge Dan Butler released 19-year-old Delvin Dobbins on a non-monetary bond the same day he was arrested for stabbing a man so severely that officers found the victim’s intestines protruding.

Eight days later Dobbins was the prime suspect in another stabbing at an East Liberty bus station and has since been charged with attempted homicide.

Pittsburgh Police Chief Jason Lando reacted with disbelief: “How can that be? He just stabbed someone in the stomach a week ago. Surely he would still be in jail.”

Lando added that a non-monetary bond means “you basically promise that you’re just going to show up to court. You don’t put up any money.“

Sources told WPXI that Butler should not have granted the release. Dobbins already had a history that included an earlier burglary arrest (released because juvenile detention space was unavailable) followed by a charge of shooting a convenience store clerk.

In so many of these cases, the system prioritizes release over public safety. Lewis accumulated probation after probation while remaining free to obtain guns and, ultimately, ambush officers. Dobbins walked out after a near-fatal stabbing and struck again within days.

Krasner’s office has long favored progressive charging and bail policies; Allegheny County’s district judges operate under similar soft-on-crime pressures that treat non-monetary promises as sufficient for violent offenders.

Police in both cities are left responding to calls only to confront people who should never have been on the street. Officers are expected to risk their lives while the courts treat prior violence as a paperwork issue.

When the shooter then openly cites race as the reason, the disparity in how such motives are covered becomes impossible to ignore.

Reverse the races and the networks would treat it as a national emergency. Here the admission sits in a police report while the broader pattern of releases continues.

Communities pay the price in dead officers, wounded fathers, and victims left bleeding on sidewalks. The judges and prosecutors who sign the release orders keep treating it as routine. Until that stops, more cops and more civilians will keep paying for it.

These repeat offenders keep being enabled in blue cities:

Seattle’s mayor reached for new gun laws while repeat offenders stayed on the street.

A man who stabbed a father 30 times in front of his children was out after four years.

A career criminal fired a shotgun through a front door and murdered a 19-year-old on her own porch.

Illinois Democrats lost track of hundreds of violent criminals.

A judge admitted taking a chance on a violent criminal who then went on a shooting spree.

Another repeat offender was freed early and went straight back to it.

Another left an elderly American dead.

The file keeps growing, and the excuses stay the same.

Chicago has run the same experiment longer than almost anyone. A man fresh out of jail threatened to kill white people with hammers and a train torcher had 72 prior arrests.

Until judges in these cities start handing out proper punishments, this endless doom loop is set to continue indefinitely.

Most banks spend the night before their earnings call polishing the NII slide and fudging the reserve release calculations. Bank of America will be spending it reading a Treasury press release about itself.

Just after the close on Tuesday, Treasury announced more than $1.21 billion in penalties against BofA for violating anti-money-laundering and sanctions laws. Treasury calls it the third-largest penalty in its history, and the OCC calls its piece the largest it has ever handed out. The bank admitted it willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act. It did not report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions on time, and more than $1 billion of that was tied to what Treasury calls “priority” national-security risks, including Chinese money-laundering networks and illicit finance along the southwest border.

Here is how the money breaks down, per Treasury’s press release:

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) assessed a $1.2 billion penalty for the Bank’s failure to mitigate and report priority national security risks, including Chinese Money Laundering Networks and illicit finance along the southwest border.

The OCC assessed a $750 million civil money penalty for the Bank’s deficient and ineffective BSA/AML (anti-money laundering) compliance program.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced an $11.6 million settlement agreement with the Bank over apparent violations of numerous sanctions programs, including on Iran, Russia, narcotics, and global terrorism.

The penalties don’t simply add up. Per CNBC, the OCC’s $750 million is credited toward FinCEN’s $1.2 billion, which gets you to about $1.21 billion once OFAC’s change is added. In other words, it is a $1.2 billion fine with a record attached.

“Prioritized Its Revenues”

The details are where it gets awkward. Treasury did not say BofA was simply overwhelmed. It said this:

As these issues arose, Bank of America prioritized its revenues and minimized the impact on its required compliance resources. The nature and extent of the Bank’s resulting reliance on law enforcement inquiries, requests by other financial institutions, and similar interventions over its own internal, automated controls… meant that the Bank effectively outsourced to third parties a substantial portion of its proactive detection and reporting obligations.

Translation: BofA’s money-laundering detection system often amounted to waiting for a subpoena.

Treasury also says the bank “allowed suspicious activity to accumulate uninvestigated for extended periods.” That meant SARs arrived too late to help law enforcement much. Its customer due diligence also “failed to account for customers’ extensive reliance on payments from unknown third parties,” and the bank didn’t act on red flags that included “potential ties to narcotics trafficking proceeds,” even after its own compliance staff raised concerns about trade-based money laundering and fraud.

The OCC’s language was harsher. Its release says the bank’s transaction monitoring “resulted in the Bank failing to properly monitor trillions of dollars in transactions,” that “the Bank knew for years” it was failing to escalate potentially suspicious activity, and that its BSA Officer and staff “lacked sufficient skills and expertise.” Comptroller Jonathan Gould said:

“The second largest bank’s egregious and continued BSA violations warrant the OCC imposing its largest [civil money penalty] ever assessed against a bank.”

https://t.co/f5Z7atptce

— Comptroller Jonathan Gould (@USComptroller) October 13, 2026

OFAC, for its part, found 475 apparent sanctions violations. They included payments routed through blocked banks and designated individuals who were allowed to withdraw funds “due to poor sanctions alert calibration.” OFAC called the violations “non-egregious,” which is the regulatory version of “could have been worse.”

About That 2024 Order

None of this came out of nowhere. On December 23, 2024, the OCC issued a cease-and-desist order against BofA for BSA and sanctions deficiencies, “including a failure to timely file suspicious activity reports and failure to correct a previously identified deficiency related to its Customer Due Diligence processes.” The order itself described a “systemic failure” to set proper transaction-monitoring thresholds. That order came with no fine, a point American Banker noted at the time. As we reported back in October 2024 (Oct 30, 2024), barely two weeks after TD’s guilty plea, BofA disclosed in a filing that it was in talks with several federal regulators over its

Bank Secrecy Act/anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance programs… including transaction monitoring, training, governance, and customer due diligence… resolution of these discussions may include one or more public orders by the regulators.

At the time we wondered which of the big US banks would be “named next” after TD. It took two years and an extra cease-and-desist, but we can now cross that question off the list.

(The same filing also disclosed a separate CFPB inquiry into payments on the Zelle network, which BofA said it might fight in court. Nothing in today’s Treasury, OCC or OFAC releases mentions Zelle. That was a different matter with a different regulator.)

This time there is a fine, and the reason is what happened afterward. Per Treasury:

After agreeing to the 2024 Order, the Bank still failed to prioritize BSA/AML compliance… For example, more than a year after the 2024 Order, the Bank still failed to escalate potentially suspicious activities to investigators for review.

Put differently, the first notice was free. The follow-up came with a bill.

The TD Comparison

The obvious benchmark is TD Bank. In October 2024 TD pleaded guilty to BSA and money-laundering conspiracy charges and agreed to roughly $3 billion in total penalties across agencies, according to the DOJ. That included a $1.8 billion criminal resolution, a $450 million OCC penalty, and an asset cap on its US operations. We flagged back in May 2024 that the AML mess risked sending TD into a “lost decade.”

BofA’s settlement differs in a few important ways:

• About 40% of TD’s total: $1.2 billion versus about $3 billion.
• Admission, not a plea: BofA admitted willful BSA violations to FinCEN. No source we’ve seen mentions criminal charges or a DOJ resolution. 
• No asset cap: Instead of a growth restriction, BofA gets a third-party lookback and independent reviews of its monitoring, CDD and correspondent-banking due diligence. Those reviews focus on the southwest border and cartels, Iran and Russia.
• OCC records: BofA’s $750 million beats TD’s $450 million OCC penalty by a wide margin.

In other words, a record fine, but nothing like TD’s sentence.

Some Napkin Math

BofA told CNBC the penalties mean a $1.2 billion non-tax-deductible charge in Q3 results (perfect timing for tomorrow’s Adjusted EPS to miss net of “one time almost criminal items”, cutting net income by about 17 cents per share. Against the roughly $1.11 consensus EPS, that is about 15% of the quarter’s expected earnings gone before the call starts.

Another way to measure it: $1.2 billion against “over $5 billion” in suspicious transactions not reported on time works out to about 24 cents per unreported dollar. As compliance budgets go, the cheaper option was always going to be the compliance budget.

The bank says remediation costs are “already reflected in its current expense base,” so the hit should be one-time, at least on paper.

The Stock

The timing was unusual. BAC closed Tuesday at $53.94, down 1.2% in concert with a broader bank selloff (after what were good, if not great earnings by JPM, Citi and Goldman) but the news came out around 4:09pm ET, right after the bell. In other words, regular-session weakness came alongside a soft tape for financials and can’t be pinned on the fine, and sure enough BofA sold off another 2% after hours once the news hit. That leaves BAC down about 3.6% YTD, and well below its 52-week high of $65.22.

TL/DR: the $1.2 billion is not the story. BofA can cover it with about a week of NII (6 days when the 10Y hits 6%); the story is that Treasury, the OCC and Bessent all used the same phrase about the second-largest US bank: it “prioritized its revenues” over compliance. And BofA kept doing so for more than a year after signing a cease-and-desist. For a CEO who has built his tenure on “responsible growth,” that phrase will be hard to escape. The independent reviews and lookback will likely produce more late SARs, and possibly more findings, over the coming quarters.

Next catalysts:

1. Q3 results, Wednesday before the open; call at 8:30am ET. Consensus is about $1.11 EPS on about $30.6–30.7 billion revenue, with FTE NII of about $16.55 billion (Zacks). BofA guided 2026 NII growth to the upper end of 6–8% in July. A Q3 NII print of $16.3 billion or more keeps that credible, per one preview.
2. On the call, listen for whether management reports results excluding the 17-cent charge (it will). Also listen for any change to remediation spending or the expense outlook, whether more regulatory or DOJ exposure remains (a “no comment” will say a lot), whether buybacks are affected, and NII guidance after the September Fed move.
3. Moynihan on CNBC at 10:20am ET, where “responsible growth” is likely to come up more than he’d like.

Going into the quarter, Goldman’s desk said it wanted BofA to show “any NII upside updated for the rate curve and can this flow into operating leverage?” Operating leverage is easier to show without a $1.2 billion penalty line item.

Still, the main lesson for anyone thinking of skimping on AML: it costs about 24 cents on the dollar to make your (allegedly criminal) clients extra happy, and the bill eventually arrives.

Much more in the full Goldman Desk Bank/Fins EPS Preview note, available to pro subs.