Free Republic

Cash is dead. Speech is scored. Freedom is conditional.. ... Mark Carney didn’t rise through politics. He was not elected. He was installed — by the very institutions that profit most from technocratic control and public obedience. Goldman Sachs. The Bank of Canada. The Bank of England. The Financial Stability Board. The World Economic Forum. Bilderberg. The Trilateral Commission. The Council for Inclusive Capitalism. This is a man who has spent his entire adult life inside the machinery of global finance and elite governance. Now, he’s running a country. Carney is no fool. He speaks in the hushed tones of...

We just covered how Fannie Mae fully dismantled its ESG team and program. Now it appears that Freddie Mac has followed suit. Freddie Mac’s main ESG (environmental, social, and governance) webpage and a recent ESG-related article have been taken down from the website... When we first reported on ESG policies for the Fortune 100 in early April, all 100 companies had an active ESG policy... With Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dismantling their teams, that number is now at 98. Will this move trigger a cascade of similar changes?

Neela Rajendra said deadlines are an obstacle to ‘inclusion.’. NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory has parted ways with its top diversity officer, Neela Rajendra, after the Washington Free Beacon reported that the lab had changed her title in an effort to keep her. "Neela Rajendra is no longer working at [the Jet Propulsion Laboratory]," lab director Laurie Leshin said in an all-staff email on Thursday. "We are incredibly grateful for the lasting impact she made to our organization. We wish her the very best." ... Leshin added that the newly formed Office of Team Excellence and Employee Success—intended to replace the...

Germany's Allianz Global Investors has dropped two exclusions blocking its sustainable funds from investing in defence, becoming one of the first major European asset managers to change their policies to help finance the region's rearmament. AGI wrote to its clients late last week to advise that its sustainable funds could now buy into companies that earned more than 10% of their revenue from military equipment and services. AGI, part of insurer Allianz (ALVG.DE), opens new tab, manages about 570 billion euros ($615.77 billion) in assets. The changes come amid a broader drive by European investors to reconsider their policies on...

ESG has never been anything but World Economic Forum (WEF) strategies to allow “the right sort” to take control of world affairs without the ugliness of earning it. The exact fit of ESG’s main goals to Biden Administrations chief priorities was a win for the WEFfers who have coopted the 21st Century Democrats – or had so far. Illegal combinations of government power abuse and gross misuse of money entrusted to glorified managers came far horrifically near wrapping up the Long March through the Institutions successfully for the Mao-modeled bad guys. That’s a terrifying near miss, and just-about-pulling-it-off will not...

Those zany female pilots are at it again—only this time, they’re clipping wings and careening down the runway. The latest DEI disaster in the skies is just another example of what happens when identity politics trumps qualifications. But before we nosedive into this latest catastrophe, let’s rewind to a recent “girl power” moment that ended in flames. You probably remember the Endeavor Air runway fiasco—not just a near-miss, but a full-on crash landing. The plane, proudly manned by an all-female crew, touched down upside down and skidded down the tarmac in a fiery spectacle. Passengers were no doubt reliving their...

Millions of taxpayer dollars were poised to be completely wasted, going toward efforts to drive “social and behavior” changes in Uganda and develop “socially responsible” behaviors in Colombia, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced this week.“US taxpayer dollars were going to be spent on the following items, all which have been cancelled,” DOGE announced, providing a list of several ways the U.S. government was poised to waste hard-earned taxpayer dollars. For example, $42 million was expected to go to Johns Hopkins to “research and drive ‘social and behavior change’ in Uganda.” Another $25 million was set to “‘promote biodiversity...

Big news: I reached out to Accenture in December to let them know we were considering a story on their woke policies in the early part of this year. Today, they’ve announced an end to their DEI policies and that they’ll stop working with the @HRC ’s woke CEI social credit scoring system. I can’t do a video today like we usually do where we go into more detail because I’m out sick but we are winning and we won’t stop until corporate America is sane again. ... Accenture was a founding member of CEO Action, the largest business-led initiative...

If the legacy media wanted to prove that the movement for diversity, equity, and inclusion is a smokescreen for the Left’s woke priorities, it couldn’t do much better than USA Today’s response to President Donald Trump’s statement about Wednesday night’s horrific aircraft collision over Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Trump blamed DEI for the crash, suggesting that misplaced priorities in the previous administration had contributed to an environment where officials cut corners on safety in order to achieve left-wing goals. USA Today reported that “civil rights leaders” slammed Trump for the remarks, but the paper led its coverage with one...

State AGs urge Costco to 'ditch DEI' as other companies jump ship from progressive HR efforts.. Attorneys general in 19 states are warning Costco "to end all unlawful discrimination imposed by the company through diversity, equity, and inclusion" policies to reflect President Donald Trump's recent executive order booting DEI out of federal agencies and warning private sectors to do the same. "Racial discrimination is both immoral and illegal. Race-based employment hiring violates state and federal law, and as the chief law enforcement officer of Kansas, I intend to enforce the law vigorously," Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach .. Trump's executive...

‘A lot of companies got way out over their skis on this, but the law hasn’t changed,’ Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said.. After years of applying the progressive environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ideological framework to their corporations, executives appear to now be realizing that these programs could be driving their companies into a legal and financial wall. The past year has seen a growing list of Fortune 500 companies announcing that they are dropping race- and gender-based programs for their employees and pulling out of global net zero climate clubs. Companies that have announced they are canceling or...

Retail giant swats back at a conservative activist group ... In a steady parade of companies retreating from their diversity efforts, Costco Wholesale is standing out by holding fast. Ahead of its annual meeting next week, the warehouse retailer has urged its shareholders to reject a proposal .... Major companies from McDonald’s to Meta Platforms have faced pressure to reconsider diversity, equity and inclusion policies. That pressure has been amplified by anti-DEI boycott threats and ... In Costco’s case, a conservative activist group is pushing the company to compile a report on the risks posed by its initiatives. “It’s clear...

A federal judge in Texas ruled against American Airlines after the company centered employee retirement plans on environmental, social, and governance factors, also known as ESG. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor concluded on Jan. 10 that American Airlines failed to exercise its fiduciary duty to make investment decisions for retirement accounts based on the best interests of the beneficiaries, according to a report from Reuters. O’Connor added that American Airlines had inappropriate ties to BlackRock, the asset management behemoth which has long been a leading advocate for the ESG investing movement. ... The evidence made clear that [American’s] incestuous relationship...

ESG investments tend to underperform traditional funds by approximately 10 percent, the judge observed.A district court has ruled that American Airlines failed to prioritize the financial interests of its employees’ retirement funds by enabling fund managers to pursue environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investments.The judgment came as part of a 2023 lawsuit filed against American Airlines and the company’s Employee Benefits Committee. The class action alleges that the defendants violated their duty of loyalty under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which states that fiduciaries managing retirement investments must act in the best financial interest of the participants.The defendants are...

Blackrock Inc. is the latest to announce it has left a United Nations-backed Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), among several within one month and not soon after Donald Trump was elected president. It did so as it and roughly 60 companies are being investigated by Congress for allegedly colluding as a “woke ESG cartel” to “impose radical environmental, social, and governance goals on American companies.” Last month, Goldman Sachs was the first to withdraw from the alliance, followed by Wells Fargo, The Center Square reported. Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan next announced their departure. According to the "bank-led...

Another ESG rat jumps ship: @MorganStanley leaves the illegal Net Zero Banking Alliance . .. @Citi and @BankofAmerica abandoned ship earlier this week. .... What's melting: The illegal ESG cartel. Citigroup and Bank of America drop out of the Net Zero Banking Alliance. ... After ESG and DEI are abandoned, what will be the next grift? ... Music to my ears! Climate change isn't something that can be controlled by human hands, and Net Zero is just a money-making scam. It's that blazing ball of exploding gas in the sky causing it dum dums, and there's nothing we can do...

Argentina has enjoyed a 10% reduction in the murder rate of women. ... 2024 saw a 10% increase in un-murdered women even though the defunct ministry had an Undersecretariat of Special Programmes against Gender-based Violence, if you can imagine such a thing. The since-fired Undersecretariat must be incredibly disappointed to learn that her job had been phony-baloney all along. What did happen after Milei closed the Ministry was that he also adopted a tough-on-crime posture. .. By some stroke of luck, cracking down on crime resulted in less crime. Lefties worldwide are scratching their heads at the news. ... Ministry...

The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee took aim at a group of US asset managers over their involvement with a “woke ESG cartel” — adding pressure against environmental efforts by large investors. The committee, chaired by Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, sent letters to 60 firms — including BlackRock, State Street and JPMorgan Asset Management — that are members of the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, or NZAM, an international group of investors that signed on to a pledge to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. The letters, sent Friday, made claims in line with a committee report released on Dec. 13...

Not soon after the general election, and within two weeks of each other, two major financial institutions have left a United Nations Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA). This is after they joined three years ago, pledging to require environmental social governance standards (ESG) across their platforms, products and systems. According to the "bank-led and UN-convened" NZBA, global banks joined the alliance, pledging to align their lending, investment, and capital markets activities with a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, NZBA explains. Since April 2021, 145 banks in 44 countries with more than $73 trillion in assets have joined NZBA, tripling...

According to the lawsuit, the three asset managers acquired substantial stockholdings in coal companies, and then used their influence to pressure the companies to adopt ESG goals and reduce output. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, along with 10 other state attorney generals, have filed a lawsuit against BlackRock, State Street Corporation, and Vanguard Group, three of the largest institutional investors in the world. The lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges the firms conspired to artificially constrict the market for coal through anti-trade practices. “Texas will not tolerate the illegal weaponization of the financial industry in service of a destructive, politicized ‘environmental’ agenda....