Free Republic

JPMorgan Chase has engaged in "politically motivated de-banking" .... More than a dozen state financial officers are writing to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon to call on the bank to root out any internal political or anti-religious bias that may result in adverse decisions against clients of the nation’s largest bank. The letter addressed to Dimon was signed by a group of 14 Republican state auditors, controllers, and treasurers who wrote to "convey our concern that the bank is engaged in what appears to be politically motivated de-banking of certain industries, individuals, and groups." ... JPMorgan Chase has demonstrated political...

Arizona, Louisiana, Pennsylvania treasurers among those to sign.. A group of 26 financial officers from 21 states sent letters to 18 major financial institutions this week, warning them to abandon environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices if they wish to continue doing business with their states. The letters said ESG has undermined the traditional fiduciary duty that firms owe their clients, focusing solely on financial return, and instead prioritizes advancing political agendas. “Fiduciary duty has long been a critical safeguard that facilitated efficient capital allocation grounded in financial merit rather than political ideology,” the letter said. “But that clarity is...

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently proposed a new disclosure rule called “The Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors.” The proposed rule would require public companies to disclose their climate-related risks to investors. The reporting framework is the first significant step toward making environmental, social, and governmental (ESG) reporting a regulatory requirement.Twenty-three state financial officers sent a letter to the SEC outlining concerns with the proposed rule. The State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF) led the effort on behalf of its members and identified eight specific problems with the proposed rule:The SEC is not a climate regulator, and...

Matson surprised customers this week with an announcement that, effective immediately, it would suspend transporting battery-powered electric or plug-in hybrid electric vehicles due to the hazardous material classification of their lithium-ion batteries. The ability to ship cars between the mainland of the United States, Hawaii, Guam, and Alaska was an important service both for individuals and car dealers. In a letter sent to customers, the company writes, “Due to increasing concern for the safety of transporting vehicles powered by large lithium-ion batteries, Matson is suspending acceptance of used or new electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid vehicles for transport aboard...

A vehicle carrier transporting hundreds of Chinese electric vehicles (EV) sank in the Pacific Ocean after catching fire, fueling renewed concerns about the hazard associated with EV batteries, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The Morning Midas was carrying approximately 3,000 cars, including around 800 EVs, most of which were manufactured in China, according to the WSJ. While the exact cause of the fire is still under investigation, lithium-ion batteries used in many EVs are known to be highly flammable, and have been linked to similar maritime incidents in the past. The ship had been drifting in the ocean after...

The Supreme Court sided Friday with oil companies seeking to challenge California’s electric vehicle regulations. In a 7-2 ruling, the court allowed energy producers to continue their lawsuit challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to approve California regulations that require manufacturing more electric vehicles. “The government generally may not target a business or industry through stringent and allegedly unlawful regulation, and then evade the resulting lawsuits by claiming that the targets of its regulation should be locked out of court as unaffected bystanders,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the majority opinion. “In light of this Court’s precedents and the evidence...

City health officials say nearby residents should stay indoors as much as possible, wear a mask outside, avoid strenuous physical activity and close windows and doors. Decommissioned buses were burned during a fire at the SEPTA Midvale Depot in North Philadelphia on June 5, 2025. (Emma Lee/WHYY) From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know! A fast-moving fire erupted early Thursday at a transit bus lot in Philadelphia filled with dozens of decommissioned vehicles, sending a thick plume of black smoke into the sky but causing...

A cargo ship carrying 3,000 cars, including 800 electric vehicles, caught fire off the coast of Alaska and continues to burn. The Coast Guard says that all 22 crew members escaped the ship and were picked up by two nearby freighters. The ship, a Liberian-registered car-carrier named "Morning Midas," was on its way to Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico, from Yantai, China.. ... the Coast Guard is going to let the ship burn, since trying to put out a lithium-ion fire is nearly futile. ... In 2022, the Felicity Ace, a car carrier slightly larger than Morning Midas, sank in the Atlantic...

If fire departments on land have problems unleashing the torrent of water needed to extinguish a single burning EV, the crew of a ship doesn't stand a chance against hundreds of flaming lithium-ion batteries. A cargo ship carrying around 3,000 vehicles across the Pacific Ocean caught fire on Tuesday. The Morning Midas, a 600-foot cargo ship, was in the middle of a voyage from Yantai, China to Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico when the fire broke out. Zodiac Maritime, the ship's London-based operator, noted that smoke was first spotted on a deck carrying 800 electric vehicles. Once the blaze got out of...

General Motors is investing $888 million in its Tonawanda Propulsion plant in Buffalo, New York, "to support the production of the sixth generation of GM’s V-8 engines," the automaker announced Tuesday. The investment is a shift from a previously announced $300 million commitment to make electric-vehicle drive units at the plant, as the V-8 engines are used in GM's full-sized trucks and SUVs. GM says the newer engines will provide drivers better fuel economy and reduce emissions by utilizing "new combustion and thermal management innovations." "Our significant investments in GM’s Tonawanda Propulsion plant show our commitment to strengthening American manufacturing...

Sales of electric vehicles are on the rise in the United States, but the road ahead for charging infrastructure looks a whole lot bumpier. Despite growing interest in EVs, the pace of building high-speed chargers isn’t just lagging, it’s actively falling behind. Add in looming policy shifts under the Trump administration, and the gap between supply and demand could widen even further. It’s understood that the number of high-speed EV chargers being installed across the US dropped more than 21% through the first quarter compared to last year. With this in mind, BloombergNEF has cut its expectations for EV installations...

TULSA, Okla. — A north Tulsa home was damaged after an electric bike caught fire in a carport that then spread to the house. The fire happened at a home near East 56th Street North and Yale. According to Tulsa Police, a family member took the bike to the house to charge it and show it to another family member. A neighbor then later saw smoke in the area and called the fire in. The homeowners said everything inside the carport was destroyed. "Everybody's good," shared David Baxter, the owner of the home. "You know, pretty much everything lost that...

Congressional Republicans are making a last-ditch effort to gut the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) green energy subsidies via President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill.” The House Ways and Means Committee unveiled a draft bill Monday afternoon to repeal several IRA subsidies including those for electric vehicles and so-called clean hydrogen while preserving tax credits for carbon sequestration, biofuels and advanced manufacturing, which primarily benefit solar and battery storage projects. Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma’s Energy Freedom Act would take an even more aggressive approach by proposing a...

BURLINGTON, Vt. - Vermont’s consumers are not buying electric vehicles as fast as the state’s rules require, according to data collected by the Vermont Vehicle Distributors Association. “We’re between a rock and a hard place, quite frankly,” says Vermont Vehicle and Automotive Distributors Association representative, Matt Cota To meet goals in Vermont’s Global Warming Solutions Act, the Agency of Natural Resources set standards for the number of electric vehicles that should be on the road by 2035. “We’re showing exponential growth, but we’re not showing the type of growth as required by law. The law requires 35%, we’re only at...

Beijing instructed South Korea to halt rare material products such as transformers, EVs, aerospace and medical equipment.. Beijing has asked South Korean companies to cease exporting products containing Chinese-originated heavy rare earth metals to U.S. defense firms, warning that Seoul could face sanctions. China’s Ministry of Commerce sent official notices to at least two South Korean companies recently, the Korea Economic Daily reported on Tuesday, citing sources in the South Korean transformer industry. The outlet said the letters did not specify what type of penalties South Korean companies could face if the industry continues to export equipment to the U.S....

"How many deaths are we prepared to accept in order to rush through an EV transition that nobody wants?"

It’s become vogue on the right to trash electric vehicles. And, mostly, we’re right to. Most of them are garbage retrofits that rely on a garbage network of chargers which are made by garbage ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) manufacturers who have absolutely no idea what they are doing. What they are manufacturing is virtue-signaling, not cars with anything even remotely resembling good EV—or any other type of—engineering. And then there’s Tesla. There are EVs, and there are Teslas. And though they are both clearly electric cars, they are two completely different animals. This article aims to give you a permanent...

Whenever the far left in the U.S. loses an argument — called an election — it suddenly decides it’s time to take to the streets and get violent. Now is just such a time, as America experiences a new spasm of home-grown anti-Trump, anti-Musk terrorism. It shouldn’t be tolerated. Whether it’s taking pot shots at the president, violently demonstrating in support of murderous terrorists, “swatting” people they don’t like, or destroying cars made by a person they now despise, our country once again finds extremists threatening us and our liberty. And, no surprise, it’s nearly all from the far left...

Oh, the irony. And in progressive Seattle, no less! Thanks to the quick-thinking decision of a driver in the Pacific Northwest, the man who covered his face while terrorizing this woman for driving a Tesla should be rather easy to find. And perhaps he can answer why he feels justified in lecturing others abut vehicle choices when he drives a car that makes Gaia cry and Greta Thunberg snarl: ... A mother says she was harassed and cut off by another driver for driving a Tesla, an incident she described as terrifying and unprovoked. The confrontation, which was caught on...

The electric buses in question were made by a company called Proterra, which went bankrupt two years ago.. A city in Washington is selling nearly half of its electric bus fleet following reliability issues and difficulty getting replacement parts. The Everett City Council voted earlier this week to sell nine of the electric buses, of which only four are in service right now, because of reliability issues, including critical sensors and components that have been failing since they went into service. The city is now looking to purchase retrofitted diesel buses so there are no gaps in service. According to...