Free Republic

What a difference a year made for Joseph Alcoff. On Monday, the 37-year-old has a court date in connection with charges he’s facing in Philadelphia that include aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation for allegedly being part of an Antifa mob in November that attacked two Marines, Alejandro Godinez and Luis Torres, both Hispanic. Alcoff and two others charged in the attack have pleaded not guilty. ANTIFA FIGURE CHARGED IN MARINE ATTACK But while Democratic officials are distancing themselves from Alcoff now, until recently he was a well-connected, aspiring political player in Washington who may have even had a hand in...

This week could’ve been a terrible one for millions of low-income American consumers. If Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rules set up in 2017 had been allowed to proceed, lenders that provide short-term cash to help struggling Americans cover unexpected expenses would had to have cleaned out their offices by August 19 and shut their doors forever. Fortunately, the Trump administration reversed course and made sure that 19 million vulnerable Americans weren’t stripped of the vital financial services they desperately rely on. By trying to eliminate these much-needed financial services, the CFPB demonstrated just how out-of-touch elite bureaucrats are with...

Banking: The Consumer Financial Protection Board has proposed new rules that will needlessly put tens of thousands of people out of work, all but ruin a $40 billion industry, deny many low-income families access to credit, increase bankruptcies and turbocharge the loan shark industry. Yet it’s being heralded as a great advance for society.

Operation Choke Point, the Obama administration’s under-the-radar project involving the Department of Justice, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) whose goal is to shut down industries it does not like by “choking off” their banking relationships, is taking aim at another business. Brian Lynn, CEO of a Jacksonville, Florida based payday lending company that operates 26 stores in Florida, Georgia and Alabama under the Speedy Cash and Lending Bear brands, has been in business for more than 20 years. He confirms to Breitbart News that two major banks closed his company’s accounts with...

SunTrust Bank is cutting ties with three types of legal businesses in the latest evidence of the Obama administration’s secretive crusade against “objectionable” enterprises. SunTrust, which counts more than 400,000 small business clients, cited “compliance requirements” as its reason for closing accounts with “payday lenders, pawn shops and dedicated check-cashers.” “It is consistent with long-standing industry practice to review relationships to ensure they satisfy a range of business and risk considerations,” the bank said in a little-noticed press release dated Aug. 8. In the same blanket notice, however, SunTrust underlined its support for maintaining bank relationships with licensed gun sellers....

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