It’s not an exaggeration to say that conservative shareholder engagement is changing the corporate game. For years, Left-wing activists controlled the agendas at our largest companies, using not only their leverage as stockholders but their perpetual devotion to activism to get in the ear of America’s boards and directors. The result? Leftward drift in virtually every major company. But now conservative shareholders, from ordinary investors to major conservative nonprofits, are stepping into the game — and their engagements are bearing major fruit. The latest proof? IBM.
IBM’s track record on corporate bias and activism is notorious. The company was a member of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), a group created by the World Federation of Advertisers that worked to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-daily-wire-addresses-the-ad-industry-following-the-fall-of-garm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">keep ad revenue away</a> from conservative news sites like the Daily Wire to free speech-centric platforms like X. And that’s before all the DEI concerns surfaced. After IBM CEO Arvind Krishna was caught on a <a href="https://x.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1734374423124176944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1734374423124176944%7Ctwgr%5E42e55266e59ec08d85550be6ab044097866bd072%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdallasexpress.com%2Fbusiness-markets%2Fceo-of-tech-corp-ibm-enshrines-dei-hiring%2F">hot mic</a> discussing how the company uses quotas of ‘underrepresented’ minorities in determining their executive pay — in Krishna’s words, execs have “got to move both [race and gender] forward by a percentage point” in order to get a higher bonus. That means DEI. That means quotas. Following these snafus, the reputational, ethical, and (in the case of the Missouri AG who <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/missouri-attorney-general-sues-tech-giant-ibm-alleging-discrimination-against-whites-asians-men" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sued</a> IBM) legal scrutiny was swift in coming.
IBM’s motto since its early years has been “THINK,” referring to the innovative spirit with which the company solves problems. Yet when it came to political bias, that motto was missing in action — and shareholders took notice. In January, the firm I work for, Bowyer Research, began <a href="https://www.heritage.org/press/heritage-foundation-expands-efforts-hold-corporate-america-accountable-end-its-discriminatory" target="_blank" rel="noopener">work</a> with the Heritage Foundation to hold IBM accountable for the DEI quotas that Krishna described. The argument? Simple — use of non-meritocratic quotas based on race and gender aren’t just bad for reputation, but illegal on their face and bad for business. Shareholders, from major nonprofits to ordinary mom-and-pop investors, shouldn’t have their business returns impacted by IBM’s belief in identity politics.
As the shareholder engagement heated up on the internal front, pressure from <a href="https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5515346/the-ibm-red-hat-leaks-what-weve-learned-so-far" target="_blank" rel="noopener">journalists</a> and <a href="https://x.com/robbystarbuck/status/1910425361034383545" target="_blank" rel="noopener">influencers</a> like Robby Starbuck increased on the external front. That pressure built and built — and the release began earlier this month, when IBM announced the end of many of its DEI initiatives and related goals, including the elimination of its diversity council, the phaseout of its supplier diversity initiatives, and no longer participating in surveys put out by radical corporate <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-radical-intolerance-behind-woke-corporate-activism" target="_blank" rel="noopener">activist groups</a> like the Human Rights Campaign, which pressures companies to cover puberty blocker access for employees’ children in the name of “health care access.”
That would have been news enough — until several days ago, when IBM also <a href="https://www.heritage.org/press/heritage-foundation-secures-commitment-viewpoint-neutrality-ibm-encourages-company" target="_blank" rel="noopener">agreed</a> to include viewpoint neutrality as part of its advertising policy in response to Heritage’s shareholder engagement. That means that biased, activist-driven, political censorship that ad cartels like GARM perpetuate is now explicitly banned under IBM corporate policy. IBM listened to its shareholders, its employees, and its customers — and the result is another company willing to make commitments to political neutrality. This is what happens when authentic shareholder advocacy, championing political neutrality, merges with external pressure to drop corporate bias: change happens, and happens in the form of concrete policy commitments, not just boilerplate PR statements. It’s a praiseworthy step.
But is the scrutiny over? Absolutely not. IBM needs to demonstrate that they’re committed to actually staying the course on being politically-neutral and quota-free. Outstanding questions remain. During our engagement on behalf of Heritage, the company <a href="https://www.sec.gov/files/corpfin/no-action/14a-8/heritageibm3325-14a8.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">notably claimed</a> to the SEC that they couldn’t give a definition of DEI as grounds to ignore shareholder concerns — so how did they go from not knowing what DEI is to getting rid of it? (You can probably guess how.) The company holds its annual meeting of shareholders today, and if they’re savvy will make a point of focusing their messaging on business, not activism.
Achieving the commitment to neutrality at IBM was the result of a myriad of groups, from shareholders like Heritage to <a href="https://adflegal.org/press-release/sec-sides-with-adf-denies-absurd-attempt-from-govt-contractor-ibm-to-hide-from-shareholders-on-dei-proposal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">legal giants</a> like Alliance Defending Freedom to the courageous IBM employees willing to speak out about the bias behind the scenes. And it’s going to take all of those groups to be vigilant now — not paying attention to our boardrooms is what got us into the woke mess in the first place.
This is the next phase of rooting out bias and wokeness from corporate America — watching tirelessly to see whether companies that commit to ditching DEI are actually willing to put their messaging and money where their mouths are. Smart companies will be willing to commit to change. Foolish ones will hope to either avoid scrutiny altogether or reintroduce the same tired DEI policies under the guise of <a href="https://www.shrm.org/executive-network/insights/time-to-add-b-for-belonging-to-workplace-dei-strategy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">phrases</a> like “belonging.” It’s our job, as shareholders, as customers, and as Americans, to keep up the pressure for accountability with the leverage that we’ve been given. And above all, to make the case for what truly makes every company successful: the courage to resist activism and the fortitude to focus on business.
* * *
Isaac Willour is an award-winning journalist focusing on race, culture, and American conservatism, as well as a corporate relations analyst at Bowyer Research. His work has been featured at outlets including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Opinion, C-SPAN, and The Daily Wire. He is a member of the Young Voices contributor program and can be found on X <a href="https://twitter.com/IsaacWillour" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@IsaacWillour</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Traders On The Floor Of The New York Stock Exchange As Fed Chair Powell Holds New Conference

IBM Rolls Back DEI, Commits To Political Neutrality

Business

Diversity

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Dow Jones

GARM

Heritage Foundation

Human Rights Campaign

Opinion

Robby Starbuck

Stock Market

Wall Street

Woke Culture

Climate activists vandalized the iconic Wall Street Bull with green graffiti declaring &#8220;Greed = Death,” but quickly scrubbed it clean before police officers arrived at the scene.
Members of the environmental activist group Extinction Rebellion defaced the bronze statue early Monday during an Earth Day demonstration, the New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/04/22/us-news/wall-street-bull-painted-over-by-environmental-activists-who-cleaned-up-when-cops-came/">reported</a>.
The vandals spray-painted their organization&#8217;s symbol alongside the anti-capitalist messaging on the bull while hysterically reciting climate alarmist slogans.
The activists also attempted to create an image of the bull defecating on a cutout of Earth by hanging debris-filled brown stockings near the rear of the statue.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
NOW: &quot;Greed=Death&quot; tagged on the Charging Bull in NYSE by Climate activists with Extinction Rebellion, on the National Earth Day. <a href="https://t.co/qtEoZmD4jd">pic.twitter.com/qtEoZmD4jd</a>
&mdash; Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) <a href="https://twitter.com/ScooterCasterNY/status/1914662322397733103?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 22, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The group took credit for the act on X, <a href="https://x.com/XR_NYC/status/1914703015270879295">writing</a>, “Good morning from the resistance. We came to Wall Street to call out the bullshit. Bullshit told by the 1% who gamble with our futures. Bullshit to bailouts for those who wrecked our economy. #GreedIsDeath #ActNow.”
“We spoke the truth, we called them out — and the city&#8217;s elite laughed. But the joke isn’t so funny now, when it’s their stocks and wealth getting screwed.”
After one cop <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/04/22/earth-day-activists-deface-wall-st-charging-bull-then-clean-it-up/">ordered</a> an activist sitting on the bull&#8217;s neck to dismount, the activists seemed to panic, hastily scrubbing away their graffiti before more police officers even approached the scene, according to the New York Daily News.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Wall Street Bull painted over by environmental activists — who frantically cleaned it up when cops came <a href="https://t.co/ldkrDngmM4">https://t.co/ldkrDngmM4</a> <a href="https://t.co/rBPiqR3if2">pic.twitter.com/rBPiqR3if2</a>
&mdash; New York Post (@nypost) <a href="https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1914714834785960125?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 22, 2025</a></blockquote>
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As more cops arrived on the scene, they casually watched as the activists finished cleaning their graffiti off the bull, making no immediate arrests.
The 7,100-pound Wall Street Bull, installed in 1989, has long been a symbol of American financial prosperity and a frequent target for anti-capitalist protesters.
The bull has repeatedly been targeted by left-wing protesters, who see the statue as a symbol of corporate “greed” and the evils of capitalism.
In 2019, a Dallas man <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/2019/09/07/wall-streets-iconic-charging-bull-statue-bashed-by-angry-texas-man/">bashed</a> what appeared to be a heavy silver guitar into the statue while screaming “F**k Trump!,” damaging one of its horns before he was arrested by the NYPD.

Earth Day Protestors Vandalize Iconic Wall St Bull Statue

Climate Activists Deface Wall Street Bull — Then Panic And Clean It Before Cops Come

Climate Change

Earth Day

Environmentalism

U.S.

Vandalism

Liberation Day. April 2, 2025. The Trump administration announced reciprocal tariffs on nearly ninety nations across the globe. The stock market tanked, impacted nations retaliated, businesses canceled their guidance to Wall Street, and the mainstream media began to try to talk the nation into a recession.
Many wondered just what Trump was trying to achieve. Now, to be fair, the Trump administration sent mixed messages about the purpose of the tariffs. Some said the tariffs were designed to drive manufacturing investment in the United States, indicating that the tariffs were here to stay. Others claimed that the tariffs were a means to force other nations to drop their tariffs on the United States. While others said that the tariffs were meant to force all nations to drop tariffs on American goods, reduce their trade surplus with the United States, and to cease all non-tariff barriers to free trade. 
The confusion as to the purpose of the tariffs created doubt about the off-ramp and Trump’s end game.
This uncertainty contributed to a significant market selloff, with the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2025/04/09/stock-market-trump-tariffs-updates-wednesday/83002347007/">S&amp;P 500</a> shedding over $5.8 trillion in value by April 8.
Then, on April 9, President Trump dropped new tariff rates on <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/09/trump-announces-90-day-tariff-pause-for-at-least-some-countries.html">imports</a> from the majority of the United States’ trading partners to 10% for 90 days, allowing for trade negotiations to take place. Trump also announced that he was raising the tariffs on goods imported from China to 125%, “effective immediately.”
The market’s reaction was swift and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/08/stock-market-today-live-updates-.html">positive</a>. The S&amp;P rose more than 9.5%, its biggest one-day gain since World War II. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose nearly 7.9%, its biggest percentage gain since March 2020. The Nasdaq Composite rose 12.2%, its largest one-day increase since January 2001. Approximately 30 billion shares traded hands, making it the heaviest volume day on Wall Street in history.
Amid the market surge, one key development received little attention: Trump designated U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to lead the trade negotiations to resolve the tariff issues.
Trump is showing excellent leadership skills with the decision to allow Bessent to lead the negotiations instead of trying to lead them himself. Bessent is level-headed and a serious negotiator. He understands markets and the benefits of free trade. More importantly, it keeps the nuclear option of negotiating with Trump in the administration’s back pocket. Bessent can say, “you had better find a way to get a deal done with me, or you will have to negotiate directly with the president, and he will reinstate the tariffs during the negotiations.”
The tariff war of 2025 is barely a week old, and President Trump is poised to win but he needs to be disciplined enough to take the win.
<iframe style="width: 100%; max-width: 660px; overflow: hidden; border-radius: 10px;" src="https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/stocks-soar-as-trump-pauses-tariffs-4-10-25/id1576594336?i=1000702983065" height="175" frameborder="0" sandbox="allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"></iframe>
Secretary Bessent needs to be able to reach agreements in principle with the nation’s trading partners, extending the tariff freeze with any nation that drops their tariffs on the United States and agrees to negotiate in good faith to reduce other non-tariff trade barriers. These agreements are complex and thousands of pages long. Trump and the administration must be willing to use the carrot with the same vigor as they have used the stick.
The win for Trump and his team will come if Secretary Bessent can announce agreements in principle with a number of trading partners in the next week, Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam, for example. The tariff freeze with these countries must be extended indefinitely, as long as active negotiations are on-going.
This will signal to our trading partners, and more importantly, the market, that the United States is serious about getting deals done. The stock market will rise, interest rates will come down, and, most importantly, consumers will have the confidence to spend, avoiding a recession.
Trump’s book, &#8220;The Art of the Deal&#8221; was written decades ago, but the principles he espoused in the 1980’s still apply today.
* * *
Jim Nelles is a Navy veteran and supply chain consultant based in Chicago. His articles have appeared in the Washington Examiner, Newsweek, Foxnews.com, and the Daily Wire. He has served as a chief procurement officer, chief supply chain officer, and chief operations officer for multiple companies.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-TRUMP-RETURN

Don’t Doubt The Art Of The Deal

Don't Doubt The Art Of The Deal

China

Donald Trump

Economy

President Trump

Tariffs

Trade War

Speaking to bankers in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that President Donald Trump is focusing his policy &#8220;on Main Street,&#8221; adding that small businesses have been overlooked while &#8220;Wall Street has grown wealthier than ever before.&#8221;
Bessent made the <a href="https://www.c-span.org/program/public-affairs-event/treasury-secretary-bessent-remarks-at-bankers-association-summit/658349" target="_blank" rel="noopener">remarks</a> at the American Bankers Association Summit, discussing Trump&#8217;s economic policy and tariffs as global markets respond to the president&#8217;s tariff rollout. Following Trump&#8217;s &#8220;Liberation Day&#8221; tariffs announcement last Wednesday, U.S. stocks immediately dipped and have yet to recover as anxiety persists on Wall Street.
The treasury secretary began his speech by emphasizing the importance of Main Street over Wall Street, arguing that Trump &#8220;understands that national strength comes from the ground up, not from the top down, and this concept applies to good government just as it does to banking and capital coordination.&#8221;
&#8220;For too long, financial policy has served large financial institutions at the expense of smaller ones. No more,&#8221; Bessent said. &#8220;This administration aims to give all banks the chance to succeed, whether it&#8217;s JP Morgan or your local mortgage and loan.&#8221;
&#8220;For the last four decades, basically since I began my career in Wall Street, Wall Street has grown wealthier than ever before, and it can continue to grow and do well,&#8221; he added. &#8220;But for the next four years, the Trump agenda is focused on Main Street. It&#8217;s Main Street&#8217;s turn to hire workers. It&#8217;s Main Street&#8217;s turn to drive investment. And it&#8217;s Main Street&#8217;s turn to restore the American dream.&#8221;
In a Q&amp;A session following his speech, Bessent addressed Trump&#8217;s tariffs and their effect on the stock market, acknowledging that &#8220;there is a little uncertainty,&#8221; but he added that corporate executives he&#8217;s talked to say &#8220;the economy is very solid.&#8221;
&#8220;We are in pretty good shape,&#8221; Bessent said.
As trade deals remain up in the air and China doubles down on retaliating with tariffs on American goods, Bessent said that he believes the Trump administration &#8220;can probably&#8221; strike deals with its allies around the world, &#8220;and then we can approach China as a group.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;ve been overwhelmed with the response to come to D.C. and negotiate,&#8221; Bessent continued, adding, &#8220;I think we have about 70 negotiations lined up. I&#8217;m not planning on going anywhere for Easter.&#8221;

Scott Bessent

Scott Bessent Says Trump Is Prioritizing Main Street Over Wall Street In Speech To Bankers

Banks

Politics

On Tuesday, we saw a massive stock market dump. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged almost 900 points.
The stock market has been in a bit of a freefall over the course of the last couple of weeks, and I have been predicting this for a while. 
It turns out that when you mess with the market mechanisms, people don&#8217;t like it. Investors tend to take the money out of the market and wait for things to be a little calmer, a little steadier. If you think of the free markets essentially as an ocean, sometimes it&#8217;s pretty choppy out there. Right now, it&#8217;s choppy.
If this administration is blamed for the choppy waters, that will be quite bad — not just for this administration, but also for everything it represents in the public mind.
Today, Emerson released a new poll <a href="https://emersoncollegepolling.com/national-poll-at-50-days-trumps-honeymoon-fades-as-economy-becomes-key-vulnerability/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">showing</a> President Trump’s handling of the economy underwater by 11 points. His job approval rating remains at 47-45, which is largely due to the widespread and correct perception that he totally changed the game on immigration. We are experiencing the lowest levels of illegal immigration ever recorded in the United States, as far as I&#8217;m aware.
But when it comes to the economy, which is what most people base their vote upon, if President Trump is blamed for an economic downturn, the effects could be disastrous, not just obviously for the Trump administration, but for the many things that are important for the United States, including free markets more generally.
“But worries about a trade war, signs of flagging growth and splinters in the artificial-intelligence trade have taken some of the shine off that optimism,” The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/us-stocks-underperform-trade-war-9c68599d" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> yesterday. “President Trump over the weekend refused to rule out a recession this year, setting off a fresh wave of declines in U.S. stocks. The S&amp;P 500 fell 2.7%, while tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 4%. Bank stocks slid, along with shares of smaller companies perceived to be sensitive to the economy. Bonds rallied.”
When people are uncertain what to do, they start buying bonds because they feel like they&#8217;re at least going to get paid off at a certain point.
“While the U.S.’s strength is in question, other countries are ramping up efforts to revive their economies,” the Journal continued. “China has unleashed more stimulus to meet its economic growth target. Germany announced a spending splurge on its military and infrastructure.”
If you just borrow to spend, which is what the United States has been doing for a very long time, you end up with an artificially inflated economy. This has happened previously in the United States, but it&#8217;s far more true for Germany and China than for the U.S.
However, there is something else happening, something deeper. And that is a widespread perception that the Trump team is trying to reshape the global order in a way that will not be good for the American or the global economy. It is a widespread perception that is beginning to percolate into the markets.
I’ve been talking to many of the market makers. I&#8217;m having conversations with business people who have hundreds of millions of dollars invested in the markets. And they are all very, very wary of the signals that are being put out.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2155-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
When it comes to today’s economy, signals matter an awful lot. As I have explained before, if you&#8217;re a small business person, what do you want to make sure that you&#8217;re going to invest in your business?
You want a growing economy. You want to make sure the government doesn’t come and take your money or overregulate you; you want to know the conditions of tomorrow are going to be very similar to the conditions of today.
That&#8217;s how you engage in predictive decision-making. It&#8217;s how you decide whether to hire that extra employee. It&#8217;s how you decide whether to invest in more capital equipment. It&#8217;s how you decide whether to expand your holdings or contractor holdings in particular areas.
Predictability matters. Now, President Trump is not a predictable president. He has never been a predictable president. But the one area where he was always quite predictable was economics. President Trump liked tariffs. But what did he like more? He liked results.
What that meant was that during the first administration, when he talked about tariffs a lot, the total amount of tariffs put on the American economy effectually ended up totaling around $30 billion total. It was not a huge amount, and much of it was designed to leverage places like Mexico into signing a new version of the USMCA.
I think one of the reasons people in the markets are particularly perturbed by Trump&#8217;s attacks on Canada is the difference in cause. It&#8217;s one thing to say we&#8217;re going after Mexico to get them to close the border; that&#8217;s a piece of leverage. All right. Fine.
Similarly, it&#8217;s a second thing to say we&#8217;re going to put tariffs on China because China is stealing our intellectual property and building up their military at incredibly rapid rates. Completely agree. Fine.
But Canada. What did Canada do? The very notion that Canada is not a major trading partner with the United States is untrue. Canada is our number one trading partner. Canada has extraordinarily low-average tariff rates with the United States under a deal negotiated during President Trump&#8217;s first term, the USMCA.
Thus, the aim at Canada appears to the global markets to be a move away from America&#8217;s involvement in the world in total.
As I&#8217;ve addressed before, that doesn&#8217;t mean we need to be involved everywhere, either militarily or economically. However, the reality that America is the global hegemon is one of the reasons that the American economy continues to be the behemoth that it is. When you withdraw from what is a de facto financial empire, when you withdraw from providing global security and freedom of the seas, and when you appear to be attempting to draw inward, the rest of the world is less interested in investing in you, in buying your debt, and in funding your giant government expenditures.
The rest of the world is less interested in doing business with you if it&#8217;s harder to do business with you. And this has a detrimental effect on the economy, not just outside the United States, but also inside the United States. It turns out that autarchy — the notion that we should produce and consume everything in the United States — is a romantic idea, but it has ended with impoverishment of the population and generally been followed by expansionism everywhere it has been tried over the course of the last few centuries. That was true in Germany. It was true in China. It was true in Russia. It&#8217;s true virtually everywhere it&#8217;s been tried.
So, if the markets think that&#8217;s what you&#8217;re doing, even if you&#8217;re not, that&#8217;s not going to be good for the markets.
President Trump is saying he is implementing short-term pain for long-term gain. He has <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/03/sunday-shows-the-golden-age-of-america-is-here/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>, “What we&#8217;re doing is we&#8217;re building a tremendous foundation for the future.”
That’s fine, but he also needs to explain if that is the case, what is the tremendous foundation that is going to lead to future growth? How do we get from point A to point B in a way that doesn&#8217;t blow up?
More than half of Americans are heavily invested in the stock market, so this is not a “rich people problem.” This is an “everybody” problem.
I understand the notion that trade deficits, where we buy more from people than they buy from us, somehow reflects American weakness. But the reality is that there are many poor countries with trade surpluses, and there are many rich countries with trade deficits.
Trade deficits are not necessarily what they appear to be. The reality is that if we spend more money abroad than people spend here, those dollars come back, often in the form of governments either holding our dollars as the global reserve currency or other governments buying American bonds, which funds our growing national debt, which is out of control.
The reality is — as I have said and will continue to say — we are not solving our national debt problem unless we take a look at the very things no one on either side wants to take a look at: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security — means-tested welfare programs. Those are the massive drivers of the American national debt.
But the way the markets are increasingly reading President Trump’s actions on a global scale is that he wants to reshore everything and to withdraw from the world.
And that is not going to have beneficial effects for the American consumer, the American producer, and the American economy at large.

Traders Search For Havens As US Stock Selloff Rattles Nerves

Stock Market Plunges. What Happens Next?

Ben Shapiro

Money

California Democrat activist Joseph Sanberg, a multimillionaire who fashioned himself an anti-poverty crusader, was arrested Monday on suspicion that he conspired to defraud investors in his &#8220;green&#8221; finance company, Aspiration.
&#8220;Joseph Neal Sanberg, 45, of Orange, the co-founder and largest shareholder of the financial and sustainability services company Aspiration Partners, Inc., was arrested today on a federal criminal complaint alleging that he conspired to defraud two investor funds of at least $145 million,&#8221; Joseph McNally, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/joseph-sanberg-co-founder-aspiration-partners-arrested-conspiring-defraud-investment">said</a> in a statement.
Aspiration Inc. was backed by actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert Downey Jr. The <a href="https://www.aspiration.com/">“climate-friendly banking”</a> platform courted users through Democrat messaging, telling them that, unlike with traditional Wall Street firms, with Aspiration they could “do good” and “do well” because “clean rich is the new filthy rich.”
But a <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.955039/gov.uscourts.cacd.955039.26.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">plea agreement</a> signed by Aspiration board member Ibrahim AlHusseini, unsealed Monday, said that AlHusseini falsified financial statements &#8220;at Sanberg’s direction and with Sanberg’s assistance,&#8221; including one that claimed an account &#8220;held more than $199 million&#8221; when it actually &#8220;held a total of approximately $2,693.63.&#8221;
&#8220;Sanberg obtained $145 million in loans secured by AlHusseini, who Sanberg knew did not have sufficient financial assets to cover those loans if Sanberg defaulted. Sanberg hid this fact from investors, then defaulted on the loans, which resulted in at least $145 million in losses,&#8221; the Justice Department said.
Sanberg reportedly mulled <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-joe-sanberg-presidential-run-20190528-story.html">running for president</a> last year, and his website bills him as a &#8220;leader nationwide and in California on economic and social justice.&#8221; His <a href="https://www.joesanberg.com/advocacy/">platform</a> included &#8220;taxing the ultra wealthy&#8221; and &#8220;passing a Green New Deal.&#8221;
Sanberg, whose wealth came in a large part from an early investment in meal delivery company Blue Apron, also led the charge to raise the minimum wage to $18 in California, pouring $10 million into a ballot initiative that was narrowly voted down last year. Top Democrats have credited him for the successful initiative to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit in the state — a move that extended one of the most fraud-ridden programs in government to illegal immigrants.
AlHusseini donated more than $300,000 to Democrats, was on the board of anti-Israel group CodePink, and was cited by the environmentalist Sierra Club <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/yes-reversing-climate-crisis-can-be-profitable" target="_blank" rel="noopener">as proof</a> that “reversing the climate crisis can be profitable.”
The implosion of Aspiration, once the poster child for &#8220;green&#8221; finance, also raises questions about the billions of dollars the Biden administration sent to green groups, such as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/stacey-abrams-linked-group-received-2b-from-biden-admin-slush-fund-doge-finds">$2 billion</a> to a nonprofit connected to Stacy Abrams that previously had only $100.
The criminal complaint against Sanberg focuses on the same $145 million deal for which AlHusseini was arrested in October.  Investors agreed to lend Sanberg money because it was collateralized with Aspiration shares that AlHusseini agreed to buy from them in the event of a default. Sanberg never paid back the loan, and AlHusseini refused to buy the shares. The investors had relied on bank statements showing AlHusseini had plenty of money to buy the shares, but the FBI said in the AlHusseini complaint that those statements were fake. The complaint included a list comparing 24 allegedly fake bank statements to real ones.
<div id="attachment_881341" style="width: 500px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-881341" class="size-large wp-image-881341" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/fbi-490x576.png" alt="" width="490" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/fbi-490x576.png 490w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/fbi-255x300.png 255w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/fbi-768x903.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/fbi.png 1240w" sizes="(max-width: 490px) 100vw, 490px" />AlHusseini FBI complaint</div>
AlHusseini acknowledged in his plea agreement that the statements were fake, and said Sanberg put him up to it.  &#8220;At Sanberg’s direction, defendant made untrue statements,&#8221; it said. &#8220;Defendant and Sanberg knew that the falsified statements inflated the value of the assets in defendant’s accounts by tens of millions of dollars.&#8221;
AlHusseini was paid $12 million for agreeing to backstop the loan, some of which Sanberg wired to Saudi Arabia, according to the FBI complaint against AlHusseini.
The invoices&#8217; apparent falsity emerged through a civil lawsuit after the lenders sued Sanberg and AlHusseini in New York state court. That court issued a $78 million judgement against AlHusseini, and also a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25549820-652063-2023-clover-private-credit-v-clover-private-credit-decision-order-on-199/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$209 million</a> judgement against Sanberg.
On October 7, AlHusseini was arrested at the airport and held in jail as a flight risk — the civil lawsuit said he transferred $300 million to his native Saudi Arabia to avoid the judgment — before CodePink founder Jodie Evans and other liberal bigwigs put up their <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-green-investor-climate-change-activist-charged-with-securities-fraud" target="_blank" rel="noopener">homes as bail</a> in December. On January 10, the New York judge held him in contempt of court for spending money on luxuries and donations to Democrat politicians instead of paying his debt.
The Daily Wire reported that criminal complaint against AlHusseini was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/career-doj-prosecutor-dismissed-fraud-case-against-dem-megadonor-hours-before-trump-took-office">dropped</a> on January 21. A lawyer hired by AlHusseini, John Lambert, told The Daily Wire that AlHusseini&#8217;s “record has been dismissed pursuant to court order and all records related thereto have been destroyed.”
But McNally, the prosecutor, said in his statement that the complaint against AlHusseini was dismissed &#8220;to facilitate his cooperation in the prosecution of others, including Sanberg,&#8221; and that AlHusseini &#8220;pleaded guilty today to an information charging him with wire fraud for falsifying documents and information to assist Sanberg.&#8221;
AlHusseini had already signed a plea agreement at the time Lambert made that statement, which admits to his guilt and that his victim &#8220;had losses of approximately $145 million, and defendant personally received approximately $12.3 million.&#8221;
Court <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.955039/gov.uscourts.cacd.955039.37.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">papers</a> dated February 25 and unsealed Monday say that AlHusseini &#8220;began supervision by agents of the FBI&#8221; and &#8220;at the direction of the government, defendant could contact Aspiration, including Joe Sanberg&#8221; and board chair Nate Redmond.
<div id="attachment_886519" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-886519" class="size-large wp-image-886519" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-540880634-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-540880634-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-540880634-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-540880634-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-540880634-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-540880634-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-540880634-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-540880634-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Then-Chairman of the Jefferson Awards Foundation Joe Sanberg speaks in 2016. (Photo by Larry French/Getty Images for Jefferson Awards Foundation)</div>
McNally said “Our prosecutors and law enforcement partners have worked methodically to secure a guilty plea from one of the main offenders in this case and have now charged another member of the conspiracy. We will continue to ensure that markets and businesses receive an honest and level playing field in which to operate.”
Though Monday&#8217;s complaint against Sanberg focuses on the $145 million deal, the cooperation suggests that more charges could come, given a trail of red flags around Aspiration — a company which in some ways mirrors Sam Bankman Fried&#8217;s infamous FTX.
Aspiration offered big companies the opportunity to purchase “carbon credit” indulgences to offset their emissions. That&#8217;s big money with a hard-to-prove connection to actual value, but with hype and ideology potentially warping customers&#8217; judgements. Like FTX, Aspiration spent disproportionately on marketing, such as a partnership with the <a href="https://x.com/lukerosiak/status/1896766335704785083" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LA Clippers</a>. In 2021, as left-wing fervor peaked, Aspiration sought to go public at a $2 billion valuation — but there are indications it may have juiced itself with fake revenue to try to get that valuation.
A Bloomberg investigation in July suggested that Sanberg sought to inflate the company’s value through <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-07-10/questionable-deals-caused-a-climate-finance-startup-to-unravel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dubious deals</a> as it prepared to go public. Millions of dollars in purported income from customers were traced to an LLC called Day 12 that was once registered to Sanberg. In another case, a nonprofit was purportedly going to pay Aspiration 10 times its annual revenue. Yet another deal appeared to have a Colombian model pay $50,000 a month to Aspiration, after which a company tied to Sanberg would pay her the same amount. The company’s auditor refused to work with it any longer, Bloomberg said.
The effort to go public through a SPAC collapsed in 2023, but not before taking $300 million from investors including former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-18/doj-cftc-probe-carbon-credit-firm-aspiration-tapped-to-turn-la-nba-arena-green" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bloomberg</a> reported last January that “the Justice Department and Commodity Futures Trading Commission are looking into whether Aspiration misled customers about the quality of carbon offsets it was selling.” <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/the-celebrity-backed-green-fintech-company-that-isnt-as-green-as-it-seems" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ProPublica</a> reported in 2021 that Aspiration said it had “5 million passionate members” when it actually had half a million active customer accounts, and told customers that for a dollar, they’d plant a tree to help the climate, when it only cost a few cents to do so.
Sanberg has not responded to requests from The Daily Wire. Nor has Andrei Cherny, who founded the company along with Sanberg and was pushed out in 2021. Cherny worked for Bill Clinton and Al Gore, ran the Arizona Democrat Party, and ran for Congress in 2024. He sued Aspiration in December, saying it had not paid him money he was owed, but dropped the suit a few weeks later.
Aspiration did not return a request for comment, including asking whether Nate Redmond still chairs the board.
McNally said &#8220;If convicted of the charge in the complaint, Sanberg would face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. AlHusseini faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. The FBI and the United States Postal Inspection Service are investigating the case.&#8221;

Joe Sanberg

California Politico And ‘Anti-Poverty’ Activist Arrested For Alleged ‘Green’ Finance Fraud

California

Environment

Truth Social, the social media company founded by former President Donald Trump, is set to go public as soon as next week after shareholders voted Friday to approve a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-could-make-billions-from-truth-social-stock-as-company-looks-to-go-public" target="_blank" rel="noopener">merger</a> with a shell company.
The merger means those who hold stock in Digital World Acquisition, a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC), will now be shareholders of Trump Media &amp; Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/22/business/trump-media-merger-truth-social.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. The deal will also provide Trump Media with more than $300 million, and the company will replace Digital World Acquisition on the stock market under the ticker DJT, Trump&#8217;s initials.
Based on Digital World Acquisition&#8217;s current price of nearly $42 a share, Trump Media will hit the market with a value of around $5 billion, meaning Trump&#8217;s 60% stake in the company will boost his net worth by more than $3 billion. Thanks to Trump supporters turning Digital World Acquisition into a “<a href="https://www.investopedia.com/meme-stock-5206762" target="_blank" rel="noopener">meme stock,</a>” shares for the company have skyrocketed since January, moving up from around $17 to where it currently stands at around $42.
While the former president stands ready to make billions of dollars, the merger likely won&#8217;t result in an immediate windfall for him. The former president would have to hold his shares for six months before he could sell any of them unless Digital World Acquisition waives its agreement, The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/02/15/truth-social-trump-merger-sec/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. But even if the agreement were waived, the potential of the company’s largest stockholder dumping his holdings could tank the stock price.
The Truth Social deal, which could provide Trump with an extra source of cash, comes before the Monday deadline set by Judge Arthur Engoron for Trump to post bond in the $454 million civil business fraud judgment against him. However, some remain skeptical about Trump’s chances to rake in billions from the deal even with the Trump Media&#8217;s current valuation of over $5 billion.
University of Florida Finance Professor Jay Ritter told the Post that the current value of the merged company doesn’t line up with the actual performance of the company, Trump Media. Ritter called Trump Media “a money-losing company that generates less than $5 million per year,” adding that Digital World Acquisition appears to be “a classic meme stock, whose price is totally unrelated to the underlying fundamentals.”
Over the first nine months of 2023, Trump Media reported a net loss of $49 million on $3.38 million in revenue, according to <a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/03/22/trump-truth-social-dwac-merger-public" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Axios</a>.
Earlier on Friday, Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-says-he-has-nearly-500m-in-cash-as-bond-deadline-for-ny-civil-fraud-judgment-approaches" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> on Truth Social that he now has $500 million cash on hand ahead of the Monday deadline to post bond for the $454 million judgment.
&#8220;Through hard work, talent, and luck, I currently have almost five hundred million dollars in cash, a substantial amount of which I intended to use in my campaign for president,&#8221; Trump wrote. “The often overturned political hack judge on the rigged and corrupt A.G. case, where I have done nothing wrong, knew this, wanted to take it away from me, and that’s where and why he came up with the shocking number which, coupled with his crazy interest demand, is approximately $454,000,000. I did nothing wrong except win an election in 2016 that I wasn’t expected to win, did even better in 2020, and now lead, by a lot, in 2024. This is communism in America.”

Shareholders Approve Truth Social Merger; Trump’s Social Media Company To Go Public

Shareholders Approve Truth Social Merger; Trump's Social Media Company To Go Public

Social Media

What would the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) do if it learned that a company conspired with its Board of Directors to destroy the market value of the company by $50 billion, by alienating its customers and depressing its stock price? There would be an investigation. Perhaps fines would be levied, perhaps the company would even be delisted from the Stock Exchange. If the SEC learned that a company was making decisions that did not allow them to live up to its fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders, action of some sort would be taken.
The SEC’s Division of <a href="https://www.secatty.com/legal-blog/sec-investigations/#:~:text=The%20SEC's%20Division%20of%20Enforcement,common%20reasons%20for%20SEC%20investigations.">Enforcement</a> oversees the investigation of alleged breaches of securities law — including negligence and market manipulation. Would making a decision that the Board of Directors knows will lead to the destruction of corporate earnings and shareholder value meet the requirements of an investigation? Does purposefully destroying market valuation count as market manipulation?
Dick’s Sporting Goods was one of the first companies to go woke. Shortly after the Parkland School shooting in Florida in February 2018, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/10/business/dicks-sporting-goods-remove-guns-from-440-stores/index.html">Dick’s</a> announced that it would stop selling semi-automatic weapons. They also stopped selling guns to people under 21, who otherwise could legally purchase a firearm. When asked how much he estimated he’d lose following the decision to stop selling to people under 21, Dick’s <a href="https://www.pghcitypaper.com/news/dicks-sporting-goods-ceo-feels-fine-about-losing-250-million-following-gun-sale-restrictions-16002028">CEO</a> Edward Stack said, “a quarter billion dollars,” or $250 million. This does not include additional lost revenue that came from not participating in the surge in gun sales during the BLM riots in 2020. Was Stack acting on behalf of his beliefs or looking to maximize shareholder value?
Fast forward to 2023. Woke companies flaunt their values and their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) scores, knowing these positions will destroy the value of the company.  
According to <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12120649/Anheuser-Busch-lost-staggering-15-7-BILLION-value-Bud-Light-controversy-began.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Daily Mail</a>, Bud Light’s parent company Anheuser-Busch has seen its market value “plunge $15.7 billion since the disastrous campaign with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.” 
Target has lost $9 billion in market value since “angry social media users called for a boycott of the Minneapolis-based retailer over its rollout of the “PRIDE” collection featuring LGBTQ-friendly clothing for children,” according to <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/05/25/target-loses-8b-in-week-since-boycott-calls-over-pride-collection/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The New York Post</a>
Not to be outdone, <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/economy/disney-has-lost-50-billion-in-value-since-war-with-florida-began" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Washington Examiner</a> reports Disney’s “stock has lost nearly $50 billion in value since the start of March, when it took a political gamble to oppose Florida’s” education law, the so-called “don’t say gay,” bill. 
Shares of North Face’s parent company, VF Corp, dropped sharply on May 24, after “reporting Q4 2023 earnings and revenue that beat analyst estimates, just a day after <a href="https://finbold.com/north-face-shares-bleed-on-drag-queen-come-outad/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">VF Corp</a> was embroiled in controversy for releasing a ‘come out’ pride ad, featuring activist Pattie Gonia. In the past month, shares of VF Corp plummeted nearly 20%.”
Few people outside of the boardroom and the advertising agencies who pitched these ideas were surprised by the backlash from these corporate decisions. History has taught us this will happen. The <a href="https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture/515665-new-poll-says-nba-ratings-have-plunged-because-of/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NBA</a> and <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/nfl/article-11634405/NFL-announces-3-DECREASE-ratings-2022-regular-season.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NFL</a> saw declines in viewership, and subsequently advertising dollars, when they went “super-woke” during the BLM riots, allowing players to wear social justice messages on uniforms and painting social justice messages on the court and field.
John and Jane Public do not want politics in their sports. They do not want transgender activists selling them beer or outdoor clothing, and they certainly do not want to see “tuck-friendly” bathing suits at their local Target. And if by chance they can save the <a href="https://365atlantatraveler.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-go-to-disney-world/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$4,000+</a> to visit Disney World, they do not want to be “educated” about Florida’s laws about teaching sexuality and sexual orientation to its students. Joe and Jane Public go on vacation, watch sports, and drink beer to get away from the world, not to have the woke world shoved in their face.
So, when does a woke corporation open itself to class-action lawsuits from its shareholders for destroying value? Hang on sports fans, I think we will soon find out.
Jim Nelles is a Navy veteran and supply chain consultant based in Chicago. His articles have appeared in The Washington Examiner, Newsweek, Foxnews.com, and The Daily Wire. He has served as a chief procurement officer, chief supply chain officer, and chief operations officer for multiple companies.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

New York City Architecture And Monuments

Corporate Earnings And The High Cost Of Going Woke

Corporations

Readers Pass

Securities and Exchange Commission

One of the largest public state pension <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/stock-market" target="_blank" rel="noopener">funds</a> in the nation has routinely accepted <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/business" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shareholder</a> resolution advice from a woke proxy advisory firm based in San Francisco, effectively leveraging its nearly $100 billion in assets to push companies toward adopting leftist <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/esg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">priorities</a> that critics say contradict the conservative state&#8217;s values.
Officials at the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, also known as OPERS, and a senior elected Republican told The Daily Wire the fund is rightly concerned about &#8220;reputational risk,&#8221; but has not delegated its decision-making to Glass Lewis.
Glass Lewis advises investment entities on how they should employ their stakes in public companies to support or oppose various shareholder resolutions. OPERS, which currently <a href="https://www.opers.org/investments/Defined-Benefit/total.shtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">manages</a> more than $92 billion on behalf of retirees, survivors, and disabled citizens in Ohio, has accepted the firm’s recommendations to support equity audits, carbon emissions reports, and other progressive policies, according to a report created by the American Accountability Foundation and shared with The Daily Wire.
OPERS voted last year, for instance, in favor of proposals at Berkshire Hathaway which called for aligning greenhouse gas <a href="https://viewpoint.glasslewis.com/WD/MeetingDetail/?siteId=OPERS&amp;securityId=18692" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reductions</a> with the Paris Climate Agreement, as well as resolutions which endorsed the publication of climate and diversity reports. The fund also voted for the <a href="https://viewpoint.glasslewis.com/WD/MeetingDetail/?siteId=OPERS&amp;securityId=639499" target="_blank" rel="noopener">creation</a> of a gender and racial pay equity report at Disney, the <a href="https://viewpoint.glasslewis.com/WD/MeetingDetail/?siteId=OPERS&amp;securityId=21592" target="_blank" rel="noopener">release</a> of a net zero emissions analysis at Exxon Mobil, and the <a href="https://viewpoint.glasslewis.com/WD/MeetingDetail/?siteId=OPERS&amp;securityId=23100" target="_blank" rel="noopener">issuance</a> of a racial equity audit at Home Depot.
Similar votes related to social issues were cast at the recommendation of Glass Lewis for Meta, United Airlines, Walmart, and other public companies in which OPERS maintains a stake. Some votes from the fund <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/354950/000035495022000116/hd-2022proxystatement.htm#ic093c1edc810406d92fceac310f5482e_106" target="_blank" rel="noopener">supported</a> the “defund the police” movement and condemned contributions to police foundations, while others <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/732717/000119312522081678/d219457ddef14a.htm#toc219457_9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">opposed</a> political donations to entities which denounce abortion.
Senior managers at Glass Lewis are overwhelmingly progressive: Glass Lewis President Carrie Busch has made donations to the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ political lobbying organization; Glass Lewis Chief Operating Officer John Wieck has donated to a number of Democratic candidates; and Glass Lewis Chief Legal Officer lauded a move from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to ban the importation of handguns, according to another analysis from the American Accountability Foundation shared with The Daily Wire.
The controversial OPERS votes came even as a number of Republican state lawmakers, treasurers, and attorneys general across the nation severed ties with asset management companies which endorse the environmental, social, and corporate governance movement, also known as ESG, an investment philosophy which leverages funds to advance political and social agendas in a manner which critics say distracts from the maximization of profits.
“I&#8217;m troubled by the woke left&#8217;s hijacking and capture of the American corporate sector and OPERS proxy votes for resolutions attacking pro-life lawmakers, promoting abortions, and calling for defunding the police,” former Ohio Republican State Treasurer Ken Blackwell said in comments to The Daily Wire. “I believe OPERS should, exercising independent judgment, make decisions in the best fiduciary interest of its members. Clearly, this is not happening.”
American Accountability Foundation Executive Director Tom Jones emailed the conservative research group’s analysis of proxy votes to OPERS Executive Director Karen Carraher on March 29 but never received a response. “OPERS needs to explain how it has happened and what you are going to do to purge the corrosive influence of Glass Lewis and other woke activists from the system,” he told the official in an email seen by The Daily Wire.
OPERS Communication Strategist Michael Pramik confirmed to The Daily Wire that Carraher did not reply to the inquiry and claimed that the fund “does not permit ideologies to influence our investment or proxy voting decisions.” He insisted that the fund’s investment objective is merely to “maximize returns within a reasonable risk framework, thus supporting the system’s mission of providing secure retirement benefits to our members.”
Jones also contacted Ohio Republican House Majority Leader William Seitz on March 29 with his concerns about the proxy votes. Seitz responded to the email on April 10 with copies of the OPERS corporate governance and proxy voting guidelines, informing Jones that he found the documents to be “very reassuring that OPERS is totally committed to maximizing fund values for its pensioners without regard to pursuing strategies that exalt environmental and social concerns” over the fundamental objective of maximizing returns.
Seitz added that he met with OPERS authorities, who informed him that some of the votes were for policies that board directors for the portfolio companies had recommended, while other votes were executed because the fund was “concerned that reputational risk to the corporation in which OPERS was invested could lead to shareholder losses.”
“I recognize that there is a fine line between making decisions based on perceived reputational risks, many of which are simply ginned up by liberal activists, and treading further into supporting the ESG woke agenda,” Seitz told Jones. “However, as long as the lodestar of OPERS’ policy is as stated in the enclosed, I am fairly comfortable with what they have done.”
Jones responded to Seitz on April 14 with more detailed information about the politically charged shareholder resolutions which OPERS had supported. “I hope you are aware that the woke activists use the ‘risk’ framing as a tool to manipulate lawmakers, press, and investor relations,” Jones asserted, noting that describing resolutions in such a manner “is the cover they give to liberals who want to sound like they actually care about shareholder value but actually want to implement a liberal agenda and attack conservatives.”
Seitz confirmed to The Daily Wire that he did not respond to the second message from Jones, asserting that “at some point, we had to terminate the dialogue to further evaluate how we should regulate the pension funds’ independent proxy decisions.”
The lawmaker later told The Daily Wire through a spokesperson that he has a “legislative effort underway on the issue.” The proposed <a href="https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/135/hb4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bill</a>, which appears to currently be in draft form, will deal with “financial institutions and other businesses that conduct economic boycotts or discriminate against certain companies or customers based on certain factors.”
The Daily Wire asked Seitz whether the bill would address the votes undertaken at the direction of Glass Lewis. His office said that the bill will &#8220;most likely&#8221; allow Glass Lewis to &#8220;electronically vote the proxies but only in accordance with instructions issued by the pension funds&#8221; with &#8220;no discretion to deviate from what the pension funds instructed them to do.&#8221;
A spokesperson for Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine told The Daily Wire that the official is monitoring legislative proposals and “waiting to see which bill will ultimately be sent” to his desk. When asked whether the bills would impact the relationship between OPERS and Glass Lewis, the spokesperson said that “it is too early to tell what will be in any final bill on this topic.”
Editor&#8217;s Note: This article has been edited to clarify Ohio Republican House Majority Leader William Seitz&#8217;s position on Glass Lewis&#8217; relationship with OPERS.

Ohio Statehouse

Ohio Retirement Fund Votes For Leftist Shareholder Resolutions At Behest Of Woke Advisory Firm

Ohio

Republican

Sam Brownback, the chair of the National Committee for Religious Freedom, detailed how <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/jp-morgan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">JPMorgan Chase</a> suddenly cut ties with the nonprofit last year, an experience which occurred despite the financial services behemoth denying ahead of its upcoming <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/wall-street" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shareholder</a> meeting that they have <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/banks" target="_blank" rel="noopener">debanked</a> conservative and religious customers.
Chase Bank, the firm’s consumer and commercial subsidiary, drew backlash in recent months for abruptly ending its relationship with the National Committee for Religious Freedom, a “nonpartisan, faith-based nonprofit organization dedicated to defending the right of everyone in America to live one’s faith freely.” The bank account belonging to the entity was nixed three weeks after starting a relationship with Chase, which asked the nonprofit to provide a list of their major donors and their criteria for deciding which candidates they would support.
David Bahnsen, the founder and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group, accordingly filed a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hedge-fund-manager-will-confront-jpmorgan-chase-shareholders-on-moves-to-de-bank-conservative-and-religious-groups" target="_blank" rel="noopener">resolution</a> to be presented at the JPMorgan Chase annual shareholder meeting next week demanding that the firm publish an evaluation of how executives oversee risks related to discrimination against clients for their religious and political views.
Board directors for JPMorgan Chase <a href="https://www.jpmorganchase.com/content/dam/jpmc/jpmorgan-chase-and-co/investor-relations/documents/proxy-statement2023.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recommended</a> that shareholders vote against the measure and claimed the proposal is “based on allegations that are not true,” adding that the company does not “debank people because of their political views, ideas, or religious affiliation.”
Brownback, who formerly served as a senator and governor for the state of Kansas, as well as the United States ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, said in a Thursday <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/19617/000197687823000002/PX14A6G.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">submission</a> to the Securities and Exchange Commission that his experience “says otherwise.”
“Every American needs basic financial services. That is why the government has granted banks, particularly national ones like Chase, significant regulatory privileges,” Brownback wrote. “Politicizing financial services is contrary to those purposes and discourages Americans from exercising their rights to free speech and religious exercise.”
Brownback remarked that he learned the account for the National Committee for Religious Freedom had been shuttered on May 19, 2022, a move which the organization’s local branch could only say was a decision that came from the corporate office. He received a letter one week later, dated May 6, 2022, which said that the company had decided to “end our relationship with you” and did not provide a reason for the decision. Five months later, after Brownback wrote an opinion piece about his experience, Chase sent another letter claiming they had to ask the questions about donors and candidate support criteria in order to “comply with federal banking guidelines to prevent money laundering and terrorism.”
“On its face, this rationale is preposterous,” Brownback continued. “Yet even if the guidelines did apply, regulators do not require banks to do this screening at all.”
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Jeremy Tedesco, senior vice president of corporate engagement at the Alliance Defending Freedom, said in a statement provided to The Daily Wire that Chase “needs to rebuild trust with its shareholders and clients” and “assure its shareholders and customers that it respects everyone’s freedom to participate in the marketplace.”
Other conservative and religious entities have had similar experiences with Chase: several Republican state attorneys general noted in a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jpmorgan-chase-repeatedly-de-banked-conservative-and-religious-groups-republican-state-officials-say" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> last week that one credit card processor owned by Chase likewise terminated an account belonging to Family Council, a conservative organization that works to strengthen traditional family values, while another firm controlled by Chase refused to serve the political action committee Defense of Liberty.
JPMorgan Chase previously filed a <a href="https://adfmedia.org/press-release/jpmorgan-chase-loses-sec-challenge-must-allow-shareholders-consider-viewpoint" target="_blank" rel="noopener">motion</a> with the Securities and Exchange Commission to exclude the religious liberty resolution submitted by Bahnsen from the shareholder ballot, a move which authorities from the agency rejected.

Chase Bank

JPMorgan Chase Denies They Debanked Religious Groups. Head Of Impacted Nonprofit Responds.

JPMorgan Chase Denies They De-Banked Religious Groups After Accusation

First Amendment

JP Morgan

Religion

Religious Freedom

Portfolio manager David Bahnsen will introduce a resolution before the <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/wall-street" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shareholders</a> of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/jp-morgan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">JPMorgan Chase</a> next week regarding the company’s moves to <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/banks" target="_blank" rel="noopener">de-bank</a> organizations for their conservative and religious <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/free-speech" target="_blank" rel="noopener">viewpoints</a>.
Chase Bank, the consumer and commercial subsidiary of the financial services behemoth, has garnered controversy in recent months for nixing its relationship with the National Committee for Religious Freedom, a nonprofit that advocates for religious liberty, and asking the organization to provide a list of its donors. One credit card processor owned by Chase likewise terminated an account belonging to Family Council, a conservative organization that works to strengthen traditional family values, while another firm controlled by Chase refused to serve the political action committee Defense of Liberty.
The shareholder <a href="https://storage.googleapis.com/vds_storage/document/JPMorgan%20Chase%20Proposal%20-%20Bahnsen%20-%20Revised%2012-26-22.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">resolution</a> submitted by Bahnsen, the founder and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group, contends that the actions from Chase violate the liberties enumerated in the United States Constitution and the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. The resolution, which will be presented at the company’s annual shareholder meeting on May 16, would demand that JPMorgan Chase publish an evaluation of how the firm oversees risks related to discrimination against clients for their religious and political views.
“When companies engage in this kind of discrimination, they hinder the ability of individuals, groups, and businesses to access and equally participate in the marketplace and instead skew it to their own ends,” the resolution asserts. “Moreover, they risk giving fringe activists and governments a foothold to demand that private financial institutions deny service under the sweeping, unfettered discretion that such policies provide.”
JPMorgan Chase filed a <a href="https://adfmedia.org/press-release/jpmorgan-chase-loses-sec-challenge-must-allow-shareholders-consider-viewpoint" target="_blank" rel="noopener">motion</a> with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year to exclude the resolution from the shareholder ballot, a move which authorities from the agency rejected.
Bahnsen remarked in an interview with The Daily Wire that he does not expect the resolution to pass next week but said the intended impact “has already been achieved” because of the significant attention drawn by the company’s unsuccessful effort to nix the resolution.
“We have now had three extensive meetings directly with senior leaders at JPMorgan Chase and have been able to engage them in serious conversation about these matters,” Bahnsen commented. “I do not believe this would have ever gotten any internal attention apart from this effort, nor do I think senior leadership understood or appreciated that there were even people like us out there before this.”
Bahnsen, himself a conservative Christian and the son of influential late <a href="https://apologiastudios.com/lectures/bahnsen-u-course/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">apologist</a> Greg Bahnsen, said he does not believe actions against religious groups are emerging from senior executives, attributing the phenomenon to the “biases and prejudices” of “highly empowered” local and regional middle managers. “I am convinced these discriminatory things are happening, and that senior management is not behind it at all,” he continued. “I believe they have a breakdown at a more local and regional level causing this, and they internally are going to have to rectify it.”
Many accuse public and private actors of leveraging the financial system to oppose certain political perspectives, especially those held by conservatives. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-trudeau-announces-unprecedented-action-freezing-bank-accounts-of-freedom-convoy-protesters" target="_blank" rel="noopener">invoked</a> emergency powers last year to freeze the personal and corporate bank accounts of individuals involved with demonstrations against vaccine mandates, while PayPal <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-paypal-policy-lets-company-pull-2500-from-users-accounts-if-they-promote-misinformation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> that the firm would withdraw penalties from accounts deemed to be promoting racism or misinformation, a policy that the company later claimed was published by mistake.
The shareholder resolution comes as several Republican state attorneys general <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jpmorgan-chase-repeatedly-de-banked-conservative-and-religious-groups-republican-state-officials-say" target="_blank" rel="noopener">asked</a> JPMorgan Chase to participate in the survey component of the Viewpoint Diversity Score Business Index, an initiative from the Alliance Defending Freedom that evaluates prominent firms for their commitments to religious liberty and freedom of speech. JPMorgan Chase <a href="https://www.viewpointdiversityscore.org/company/jpmorgan-chase" target="_blank" rel="noopener">scored</a> 15% out of 100% due to “unclear or imprecise policies” which allow the bank to “deny service for arbitrary or politically biased reasons.”

JPMorgan Chase

Portfolio Manager Will Confront JPMorgan Chase Shareholders On Moves To De-Bank Conservative And Religious Groups

Portfolio Manager Will Confront JPMorgan Chase On Moves To De-Bank Religious Groups

Free Speech

The state of <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/oklahoma" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Oklahoma</a> banned more than one dozen <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/wall-street" target="_blank" rel="noopener">investment</a> and asset management <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/banks" target="_blank" rel="noopener">firms</a>, including <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/blackrock" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BlackRock</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/jp-morgan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">JPMorgan Chase</a>, from conducting business with state government entities over alleged efforts to boycott <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic-oil-and-gas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">energy</a> companies.
Recently enacted legislation enabled Oklahoma Republican State Treasurer Todd Russ to create a list of firms deemed on Wednesday to be engaged in an energy company boycott, defined by the <a href="http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/cf_pdf/2021-22%20ENR/hB/HB2034%20ENR.PDF" target="_blank" rel="noopener">law</a> as “refusing to deal with, terminating business activities with, or otherwise taking any action that is intended to penalize” fossil fuel companies “without an ordinary business purpose.” Companies from which state entities are now expected to divest funds also include Bank of America, State Street, and Climate First Bank.
&#8220;The energy sector is crucial to Oklahoma’s economy, providing jobs for our residents and helping drive economic growth. It is essential for us to work with financial institutions that are focused on free-market principles and not beholden to social goals that override their fiduciary duties,” Russ told The Daily Wire. “Our state&#8217;s financial partnerships should reflect our priorities and values, and it is our responsibility to partner with companies that share our vision for a strong and prosperous Oklahoma economy, and that includes our energy sector.”
The move from Oklahoma officials is the latest effort among conservative states to distance themselves from firms involved in the environmental, social, and corporate governance movement, also known as <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/esg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ESG</a>, a philosophy that skeptics say mingles political causes with core business objectives in a manner that compromises or distracts from profitability.
Several firms supportive of the ESG movement have discouraged portfolio companies from involving themselves with initiatives that rely upon fossil fuels: BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said in his most recent annual <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/climate-risk-is-investment-risk-blackrock-ceo-tells-corporate-america" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> to investors that “climate risk” is an “investment risk,” while JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said in his annual shareholder <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jpmorgan-chase-ceo-suggests-seizing-private-property-to-build-more-solar-farms" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> that the government should consider using eminent domain, the power to seize private land for public use, as one possible mechanism to accelerate the development of green energy resources.
State officials <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/states-have-pulled-nearly-12-billion-from-blackrock-this-year" target="_blank" rel="noopener">divested</a> some $12 billion from BlackRock last year, constituting a small fraction of the $9 trillion <a href="https://s24.q4cdn.com/856567660/files/doc_financials/2023/Q1/BLK-1Q23-Earnings-Release.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">managed</a> by the company even as broader market forces react against the ESG movement. The officials likewise recently called on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to prohibit Vanguard, another prominent asset management company, from purchasing shares in publicly traded utilities out of a concern that the firm’s climate activism would raise prices and decrease energy reliability across the nation. Vanguard subsequently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/vanguard-drops-out-of-climate-initiative-as-reaction-against-woke-investing-continues" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ceased</a> participation in the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, under which companies <a href="https://www.netzeroassetmanagers.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">commit</a> to seeking “net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner” using investment funds.
Increased economic tumult has heightened skepticism toward the ESG movement among some managers and investors. ESG funds <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/virtue-signaling-isnt-free-how-woke-investing-fell-apart-once-the-economy-got-bad" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suffered</a> amid last year’s underperformance among technology firms, which ESG investors tend to favor because of their emphasis on corporate social responsibility, and overperformance among energy companies, which ESG managers tend to disdain because of their dislike for industries with heavy carbon emissions.
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Republican presidential candidates are expected to make the ESG movement a central issue in the upcoming primary election. One recent <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/most-voters-still-do-not-know-what-esg-is-poll" target="_blank" rel="noopener">survey</a> from Harvard University’s Center for American Political Studies and The Harris Poll found that 64% of respondents have not heard of the investment philosophy, even as most voters agreed that investors should consider returns above other objectives. 56% of respondents backed a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/texas-subpoenas-schedules-hearing-for-blackrock-playing-politics-using-texans-hard-earned-money" target="_blank" rel="noopener">decision</a> from Texas lawmakers to blacklist “financial companies for allegedly using ESG considerations,” a policy that could force state pensions and other public entities to sell their shares.

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