Major Banks Put On Notice: “Stop Debanking Conservatives!”
The need for a Parallel Economy has never been more real than it is now…
Because Cancel Culture has never been as bad as it is right now!
And it’s one thing to get banned from Facebook — that’s bad enough, especially when you’re me with a community of 1.5 Million amazing people, and we all get deleted overnight. Poof! Gone!
That’s bad.
But it’s not AS bad as getting banned from Grocery stores!
Or getting banned from your Bank!
And that’s what’s coming next.
So I give incredible credit to Iowa’s fearless Attorney General who is leading the charge in a coalition of 22 state attorneys general to stop big banks from “debanking” conservatives.
Take a look”
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird leads coalition of 22 state attorneys general to stop debanking of conservatives!
— DailyNoah.com (@DailyNoahNews) December 7, 2023
Here is the letter:
And here is a full transcription of the letter:
BRENNA BIRD ATTORNEY GENERAL
IOWA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
1305 E. WALNUT ST. DES MOINES, IA 50319 515-281-5164 www.iowaattorneygeneral.gov
November 29, 2023
Gary Retelny, President and CEO Institutional Shareholder Services, Inc. 1177 Avenue of the Americas, 14th Floor New York, New York 10036 USA
Kevin Cameron, Executive Chairman Glass, Lewis & Co. 255 California Street, Suite 1100 San Francisco, CA 94111
Dear Mr. Retelny and Mr. Cameron,
Your companies, International Shareholder Services, Inc., and Glass Lewis & Co., provide proxy voting advice to many businesses and investors who are citizens of our States as well as to our States’ investment vehicles.
That voting advice directly impacts how our Nation’s largest companies operate. Your companies’ proxy advice shapes the choices and activity of businesses and ultimately the United States’ and global economy. And that is why you must realize with such important power comes important responsibilities. Responsibilities to advise in a manner consistent with your legal duties. And a responsibility to embrace transparency so that regulators and customers easily understand the recommendations you make and why you make them. Although other problematic areas exist, one major point of this letter is to clearly state our view that recommendations opposing shareholder resolutions to increase transparency in debanking run contrary to your duties, responsibilities, and policies.
We have expressed deep concern that ISS and Glass Lewis are prioritizing certain environmental, social, and governance initiatives and that doing so violates your contractual and statutory duties to issue advice consistent with your responsibilities as a fiduciary.
And our criticism has not been limited to ISS and Glass Lewis. In February, 19 States called on JPMorgan Chase to account for its troubling pattern of apparent debanking. As part of the general market rejection of prioritizing ESG over fiduciary duties, last year shareholders sought to hold financial institutions accountable for denying or restricting service to clients based on their political or religious beliefs through the resolution process.
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Politicized debanking harms businesses and their shareholders and undermines the freedom of every American to participate in the marketplace on equal footing.
Unfortunately, all available evidence shows that you oppose those resolutions—contrary to your claims to be apolitical and neutral. Indeed, your recommendations opposing those shareholder resolutions reflect the opposite of your stated commitment to fairness and diversity. Viewpoint discrimination has its own legal liabilities—but so does lying in publicly available policies and disclosures.
Your lack of transparency is troubling. And your voting recommendations on debanking proposals may breach your legal obligations. We seek more transparency and written assurance that you will cease any practice that violates the law, including your duty to act in the best interest of the citizens of our States, or your stated policies on recommendations.
To comply with federal and state law and its contract obligations, ISS and Glass Lewis must give sound proxy advice.
ISS’s and Glass Lewis’s disregarding federal law governing proxy advisors is illegal. Proxy-advisor recommendations must be free from false or misleading material information. See 15 U.S.C. § 78n(a)(1); 17 C.F.R. § 240.14a-9(a). And as the Investment Advisers Act’s implementing regulations explain, “[a]n adviser is a fiduciary that owes each of its clients duties of care and loyalty with respect to all services undertaken on the client’s behalf, including proxy voting.” 68 Fed. Reg. 6585, 6586 (Feb. 7, 2003). Our States contend, consistent with our previous letter, that ISS and Glass Lewis are subject to the Act and its accordant duties.
Moreover, ISS and Glass Lewis advise State-controlled entities, like State pension plans. Your advisory role here necessarily makes you a fiduciary that needs to adhere to fiduciary duties. Your agreements to provide proxy voting services to States’ investment vehicles warrant at a minimum that you will exercise duties of care and loyalty in providing advice. Indeed, the contracts themselves, along with some States’ laws, expressly impose fiduciary duties on proxy advisors. Fundamental to those duties are the requirements that you maximize economic value and avoid conflicts of interest. To the extent the advice you give relies on ESG considerations that conflict with your duty to maximize the financial return to our States, you are violating those duties.
And no matter what advice you give, proxy-advisor recommendations must be free from false or misleading information. See 15 U.S.C. § 78n(a)(1); 17 C.F.R. § 240.14a-9(a). Many States also have blue-sky securities laws prohibiting investment advisers from fraudulent or misleading practices and consumer protection laws prohibiting unfair and deceptive trade practices.
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Your advice that is contrary to supporting the economic interest of our States’ or your advisees in our States’ may violate both federal and state laws.
ISS and Glass Lewis may be violating their legal duties by opposing transparency-in-debanking proposals
Proxy Advisors have a responsibility to ensure that their recommendations concerning debanking proposals advance fiduciary interests. Some proposals calling for additional transparency or other information about debanking efforts, efforts which themselves may implicate financial concerns for an institution, follow the role of a proxy advisor. For example, one proposal calls for transparency on politicized debanking:
Shareholders request the Board of Directors . . . conduct an evaluation and issue a report within the next year, at reasonable cost and excluding proprietary information and disclosure of anything that would constitute an admission of pending litigation, evaluating how it oversees risks related to discrimination against individuals based on their race, color, religion (including religious views), sex, national origin, or political views, and whether such discrimination may impact individuals’ exercise of their constitutionally protected civil rights.
A bank, that is, would have to report on policies and practices that jeopardize customers’ civil rights and incubate litigation risk because of the growing tide of politicized debanking.
When JPMorgan Chase and PayPal tried to exclude it from the shareholders’ ballot last year, the SEC agreed that this proposal addresses a significant social policy issue. We expect that this proposal will be filed again this year at other financial institutions.
Despite the power of transparency and the likelihood of encouraging compliance with State laws, all evidence points toward your opposition to that proposal. Each of the debanking transparency resolutions—for example at JPMorgan Chase and PayPal—received 2% or less of the shareholder vote, a result that would not have happened had you recommended voting for it. That has already worried some of our State Financial Officers who have written to you about your opposition to these proposals.
Our States are particularly concerned with debanking. Non-economic debanking efforts by financial institutions appear to be on the rise. Pressure on financial institutions to reject neutrality on issues including the Second Amendment, oil and gas exploration, immigration, and prison reform is well-documented. Law-abiding citizens and companies should not have to fear political retaliation from banks motivated by activist investors.
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Debanking is also targeting religious and conservative groups. For example, Chase allegedly debanked the National Committee for Religious Freedom after demanding its donor list. And Indigenous Advance filed a complaint with the Tennessee Attorney General’s office contending that Bank of America debanked it for religious reasons. Greater transparency will provide clarity and assurances that banks are not targeting customers based on protected statuses like religious belief.
Financial institutions’ policies often stray from customers’ basic civil liberties. They use vague and subjective “reputational risk” policies or prohibitions on “hate” speech to debank political targets disfavored by activists with little concern or oversight. The Viewpoint Diversity Score Business Index which evaluates major companies’ respect for free speech and religious liberty found that 21 of the 44 largest financial institutions in the U.S. have those kinds of discriminatory policies.
Debanking presents significant legal, regulatory, and political risk—which is why measures intended to increase transparency around debanking help to limit those risks. Many federal and state laws prohibit discrimination based on religion, political ideology, and other protected statuses. So debanking may raise serious legal concerns. And already there has been serious regulatory backlash to debanking efforts across the country. States are passing legislation to ensure fairness in corporate decision-making and hold companies engaging in illicit ESG efforts accountable. Many of those laws apply to or include financial institutions—and many States may prefer to pass those laws if they believe viewpoint targeting is occurring. Transparency can limit political risks. And already there has been serious regulatory backlash to debanking efforts across the country.
Debanking also presents serious reputational risks. Even the appearance of politicized debanking can do serious financial harm. Many States are evaluating their relationships with banks and investment managers over concerns that those entities are denying service and capital to legal industries like firearms companies and fossil fuel producers. 57% of respondents would likely stop using service providers that do not respect their values, according to a Viewpoint Diversity Score Poll.
Proxy advisors cannot ignore these risks and still fulfill their fiduciary duties. Being transparent about politicized debanking is an opportunity to address these risks and rebuild the record-low trust consumers have in financial institutions. Opposing debanking proposals contradicts ISS and Glass Lewis’ other policies and practices. As many of our States noted, both firms have supported broad audits of how a company may be discriminating or otherwise hurting the “civil rights” of its stakeholders and the public.
Indeed, Glass Lewis appears to be speaking out of both sides of its mouth on this issue. It says it supports transparency on ESG issues—that
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insufficient oversight of material environmental and social issues can present direct legal, financial, regulatory and reputational risks that could serve to harm shareholder interests.” Yet it opposed the debanking-transparency proposal that would mitigate companies’ legal, financial, regulatory, and reputational risks. And while ISS claims that it is apolitical, ISS characterizes all conservative proposals as “anti-ESG” proposals, and votes against nearly every one of them.
This opposition reveals inconsistent or insufficient due diligence and appears to violate a proxy advisor’s duty of care. It also raises concerns about proxy advisors’ duty of loyalty, particularly given their otherwise full-throated support of transparency on economic, social, and governance issues.
We seek written assurance that ISS and Glass Lewis will cease this activity and affirm their commitment to uphold their legal duties as proxy advisors.
This letter should not be necessary. Americans should not have to worry that they will be denied critical financial services because of their religious and political beliefs. Your promises to the public and your clients to be impartial and viewpoint-neutral extend to these fundamental characteristics of American identity. Accordingly, please provide all relevant information and respond fully to these inquiries by December 13, 2023:
- Provide us all your voting recommendations for debanking proposals for the 2022–2023 proxy season.
- Explain your materiality analysis for recommending votes against shareholder proposals on debanking.
- Explain why you have opposed debanking resolutions that focus on the civil rights of customers but have supported proposals asking for much broader civil rights audits.
- Provide any analysis you conducted to determine whether to support debanking resolutions for the 2022–2023 proxy season.
- Explain how you have categorized debanking proposals, why you have done so, and provide any analysis you made to make that determination or consider alternative categorizations.
Respectfully Submitted,
[Signature]
Brenna Bird Attorney General of Iowa
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Steve Marshall Alabama Attorney General
Treg Taylor Attorney General of Alaska
Tim Griffin Attorney General of Arkansas
Ashley Moody Attorney General of Florida
Chris Carr Attorney General of Georgia
Raúl R. Labrador Attorney General of Idaho
Todd Rokita Attorney General of Indiana
Kris Kobach Attorney General of Kansas
Jeff Landry Attorney General of Louisiana
Andrew T. Bailey Attorney General of Missouri
Lynn Fitch Attorney General of Mississippi
Austin Knudsen Attorney General of Montana
Mike Hilgers Attorney General of Nebraska
John Formella Attorney General of New Hampshire
Drew Wrigley Attorney General of North Dakota
Gentner Drummond Attorney General of Oklahoma
Alan Wilson Attorney General of South Carolina
Ken Paxton Attorney General of Texas
Sean D. Reyes Attorney General of Utah
Jason S. Miyares Attorney General of Virginia
Patrick Morrisey Attorney General of West Virginia
Bridget Hill Attorney General of Wyoming
The problem goes back years…
Watch this testimony from a Chase customer:
The Daily Caller had more details:
Nearly two dozen state attorneys general signed onto a letter Wednesday demanding major firms that provide voting advice to corporate shareholders stop backing efforts to “debank” conservatives.
Republican Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird led 22 other state attorneys general in sending a letter to the two companies that control 97% of the proxy advisory services market, Institutional Shareholder Service (ISS) and Glass Lewis, whose advice they say shapes “the choices and activity of businesses and ultimately the United States’ and global economy.” The letter warns them against opposing shareholder resolutions to hold financial institutions accountable for restricting services based on clients’ religious and political beliefs, noting that viewpoint discrimination comes with “legal liabilities.”
“They have advised big banks to keep quiet about why they’ve closed people’s bank accounts,” Bird told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “We’ve seen banks targeting accounts for Second Amendment groups, like the NRA, or religious groups, including Christian nonprofits.”
“They say they want transparency, but when it comes to the fact that some of the big banks are debanking conservatives or conservative causes, they don’t want that transparency,” Bird said.
Banks often use “reputational risk” or “hate speech” policies to target customers based on politics, the letter states. Bank of America canceled the accounts of Indigenous Advance, a Tennessee-based Christian nonprofit, earlier this year because it “no longer aligns with the bank’s risk tolerance,” according to the Alliance Defending Freedom.
The attorneys general are concerned ISS and Glass Lewis are opposing resolutions that seek to hold banks accountable for such instances of “politicized debanking.”
“These firms support a vast majority of left-of-center, pro-ESG shareholder proposals and effectively block proposals from conservative shareholders seeking to hold companies accountable for the anti-free speech and anti-religious behavior that ESG demands,” ADF Senior Vice President of Corporate Engagement Jeremy Tedesco told the DCNF.
More here from Project Veritas:
BREAKING @Project_Veritas: DEBANKING: Chase Bank Says “moral character” a Reason Why They Don’t Do Business with “those types of people” Full #debanking video –> https://t.co/omrYL6FVkJ pic.twitter.com/EHUdCNYxQm
— James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) April 16, 2019
And do you remember this?
Earlier today I learned that @kanyewest was officially kicked out of JP Morgan Chase bank. I was told there was no official reason given, but they sent this letter as well to confirm that he has until late November to find another place for the Yeezy empire to bank. pic.twitter.com/FUskokb6fP
— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) October 12, 2022
On a related note, if you are looking to work with a CONSERVATIVE payment processor, may I introduce you to my friend Pepe?
My Exclusive Interview With Pepe Deluxe!
This was a FUN one!
This morning I went live on my Rumble Channel (make sure you Follow me here: https://rumble.com/c/DailyTruthReport) with a new friend, Mr. Pepe Deluxe.
Don’t know him?
I bet you do.
He’s been a MAGA Patriot and warrior for the White Hats since 2016.
I bet you’ve seen and shared his memes….
Followed his channels…
Read his posts and comments.
And you probably didn’t even know who he was!
He’s one of the original “Pepe” accounts.
I met him recently at an event and we instantly hit it off.
But I’m not the only good judge of character out there….he’s also friends with Kari Lake:
Look, I gotta admit that’s cool and I’m a little jealous!
I wish I had pictures hanging out with Kari Lake!
One day I will….
Oh and Ed Henry has had him on his show:
But bottom line?
He’s just a good guy.
Normal guy, like you and me.
Salt of the earth.
And dude can talk to ANYBODY about ANYTHING!
So I told him we had to do a show together and that’s what we did this morning when we went live.
So.
Much.
Fun!
I let him tell his story about how Social Media nearly took his business under (very similar to my story)…
And how he’s devoted to helping save this country!
I always say that the Christian Conservatives are the people with all the creativity!
We are the ones creating…
We are the ones bringing new stuff into the world….
We are the ones running small businesses and offering goods and services to the world!
We are the ones making our communities better!
We build, we create, we add value!
What does the left do?
Steal, Kill and Destroy.
Wait a minute, where have I heard that before?
Ah yes, it’s John 10:10:
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
Christians are supposed to be the salt of the earth.
We are supposed to bring life…
We are supposed to build up, not tear down.
I try and do that here with this website.
I know so many of you reading this try to do that too.
And when he’s not making memes, Pepe Deluxe is a small business owner just like a lot of us.
He helps people with their credit card processing machines, and when I learned that it was another reason I was so excited to get him on my show.
Full disclosure: I love what he’s doing so much I’ve partnered up with him to get the word out about what he does.
Why do I care so much about credit card processing?
Sounds like of boring, right?
Far from it.
In fact, it’s what the Far Left has identified as a “choke point”.
It’s another HUGE way they can silence us and limit speech they don’t like.
How’s it work?
Simple….
Did you post something online “they” don’t like?
Are you selling a product “they” don’t like?
Are you a Christian Conservative?
Are you a patriot?
What if we just shut off your ability to process credit cards?
POOF – your business disappears overnight.
Exactly like how they deleted me off of Facebook in 2019.
It’s a serious problem and I was so excited when I found a patriot who can offer a FREE SPEECH solution!
That’s what Pepe does, and he’s been in this business since the 1990s.
He knows all the tips and tricks.
And he’s GOOD at it!
Oh, and he can probably save you some serious money each month if you run a small business and process credit cards.
BOOM!
As I always say, who loves ya baby?
I’m always bringing you solutions!
His company is called OneSourceSolutions and he explains the meaning behind that name in our interview.
If you are interested in seeing whether they can help you, go here (https://uspaygate.com) and tell them Noah sent you!
Or use promo code WLT.
And they’ll hook you up with some extra freebie stuff!
Ok, please enjoy this one….I know you will.
From Rumble:
As promised in the video, here are the links I mentioned:
OneSourceSolutions 
https://uspaygate.com/
Pepe on Telegram https://t.me/PepeDeluxed
Pepe on Twitter https://twitter.com/deluxe_pepe
Help us get Ben Garrison back on Twitter!
https://wltreport.com/2023/07/13/exclusive-an-update-on-ben-garrison/
We all need to band together.
Even if you personally haven’t had your business shut down by a credit card processor, do you really want to keep giving your money to the Woke Big Corporations that hate you?
Let’s shift it.
Let’s support Patriots….who will support you right back and do all they can to keep your business OPEN and processing customers.
How’s that sound?
It starts with each of us.
By ourselves, we can’t do much….
But when we band together, we can give ’em the Bud Light treatment!
Noah 100PercentFedUp.com https://100percentfedup.com/
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