Free Republic

The recent wave of violent protests and arrests at elite universities like Yale and Columbia have only confirmed for Scott Katz that he made the right decision to attend Elon University. The North Carolina college, where he is currently wrapping up his sophomore year, is a long way from his hometown of Lafayette Hill, the predominantly liberal Philadelphia suburb where the average home costs $610,000. Katz, who is Jewish, says the antisemitism that’s increasingly visible at colleges nationwide—especially in the Ivy League, and other elite institutions like Stanford and Berkeley—hasn’t even touched his campus. “I haven’t been affected by it...

Today, the New Civil Liberties Alliance launched a Complaint against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) challenging the agency’s unconstitutional “Consolidated Audit Trail.” The CAT is the largest government-mandated mass collection of personal financial data in American history. Without any statutory authority, SEC is forcing brokers, exchanges, clearing agencies and alternative trading systems to capture and send detailed information on every investor’s trades in U.S. markets to a centralized database, which SEC and private regulators can access forever. NCLA is asking the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas to stop this unlawful, unprecedented seizure and mass surveillance...

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is illegally collecting data of every citizen who invests in the stock market, according to a new lawsuit. The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) filed the suit Tuesday against the SEC claiming that the agency, through its “Consolidated Audit Trail,” or “CAT,” program, is collecting mass amounts of personally identifiable data by forcing brokers, exchanges, clearing agencies and alternative trading systems to capture and send detailed information on every investor’s trades in U.S. markets to a centralized database. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is illegally collecting data of every citizen who invests in...

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday announced it will stay implementation of its final rule requiring companies to disclose their climate-related risks pending the results of a legal challenge from GOP-led states. The SEC said in its ruling the stay does not indicate an abandonment of the rule, which it will continue to defend against a court challenge from Republican attorneys general. “The Commission has determined to exercise its discretion to stay the Final Rules pending the completion of judicial review of the consolidated Eighth Circuit petitions,” the agency said in its order. “[The] Commission will continue...

The Biden administration’s strategy of politicizing the justice system to knock former President Donald Trump out of the 2024 presidential race has repeatedly hit roadblocks, so an MSNBC panel on Tuesday called on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to wage its own lawfare campaign against Trump for having a successful trading day.Trump’s “Truth Social” app went public on March 25, with the company’s valuation reaching $13 billion, according to the Financial Times. The stock lost $4 billion in value by Tuesday, according to CBS News.Still, MSNBC seemingly had a meltdown that the current lawfare campaign against Trump has yet...

Across my career at the intersection of national security and our economy, I have witnessed firsthand several game-changing technological revolutions. From GPS to the internet and from smartphones to artificial intelligence, our nation’s unmatched capacity to innovate has created unprecedented benefits for the economy and security. Another wave is upon us: Blockchain and crypto offer America the chance to lead another generation of critical innovation, but policymakers must do their part, or this opportunity will slip away. If the Biden White House and Congress don’t provide the support and regulatory certainty this burgeoning industry requires, there is little doubt it...

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said the SEC is exceeding the authority Congress granted it to be a financial regulator. More than half the states in the U.S. filed lawsuits this month against the Securities and Exchange Commission over the climate disclosure rules it finalized last week. On top of state lawsuits, the SEC is facing legal challenges from companies, nonprofits and business advocacy groups. A U.S. appeals court on Friday temporarily paused the new rules. The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a request from Liberty Energy Inc. and Nomad Proppant Services LLC to put...

March 15 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Friday temporarily paused new rules issued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requiring public companies to report climate-related risks. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted request for an administrative stay of the rules roughly a week after oilfield services companies Liberty Energy Inc. and Nomad Proppant Services LLC filed a lawsuit challenging them. The rules aim to standardize climate-related company disclosures about greenhouse gas emissions, weather-related risks …

Many farmers and ranchers are breathing a sigh of relief after the Securities and Exchange Commission voted to remove language from a proposal that would have required them to report greenhouse gas emissions. For two years, the SEC has been working on regulations mandating public companies better report their greenhouse gas emissions. The proposal was divided into multiple scopes.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Wednesday adopted final rules regarding climate disclosures in a 3 to 2 vote. The final rules left out some of the more burdensome reporting requirements for greenhouse gas emissions that were in the proposed rule, but they still maintain many of the other climate-related reporting requirements that critics say will be costly to comply with. "Today, the SEC announced that it has allowed radical climate activists to hijack our capital markets. Unable to push their unpopular agenda through Congress, these leftists have found a willing partner in SEC Chairman Gary Gensler,” House Majority Leader...

Touting historically low approval ratings rivaling that of paper cuts and hay fever, one might think Joe Biden and his handlers cared enough about voter sentiment to address the more problematic areas of his administration serving to inflame his unpopularity. An obvious place to start would be to cut bait with the capricious, reckless, and rogue Chairman at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler. That Biden has yet to remove the haughty Gensler is an affirmation of all that is wrong with his presidency and the SEC itself, whose continued bungling has drawn the ire of millions of...

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved a merger of former President Donald Trump's social media platform, Truth Social, with Digital World Acquisition Corporation (DWAC), which is a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC). There were two years of delay leading up to the deal because of an investigation into the company by regulators. Now the SEC has approved the merger of approximately $10 billion after the long wait on Wall Street, according to reporting from OANN. The Trump Media & Technology Group, which owned both companies, intends to take Truth Social public in an initial public offering...

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission concluded its investigation into Rumble Inc. and said it will not recommend any actions against the video-sharing website, marking the latest regulatory clearance of a social media platform promoting free speech across the globe. "We have concluded the investigation as to Rumble Inc. Based on the information we have as of this date, we do not intend to recommend an enforcement action by the Commission against Rumble Inc.," SEC Assistant Regional Director Sarah Mallett told Rumble on Tuesday in a letter obtained by Just the News. The SEC still warned that the platform may...

One of the stranger political crusades of the past few years has been the Republican war on so-called woke capital, which has led GOP politicians across the country to adopt a kind of anti-corporate, pro-regulatory rhetoric that one normally associates with the left wing of the Democratic Party. And among the GOP’s favorite targets in this war has been ESG investing—investment funds that take “environmental, social, and governance” considerations into account. For Republicans, ESG funds are a Trojan horse, designed to smuggle progressive attitudes toward climate change, and diversity and inclusion, into executive suites and corporate boardrooms, all under the...

The SEC’s rule… [i]f finalized… could be the most ambitious and expensive mandate in the history of corporate finance regulation. This 500-page rule serv[ing] as the centerpiece for the SEC’s agenda on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing… exceeds the agency’s statutory authority. It also undermines the agency’s existing disclosure-based framework.

Company says it is cooperating with the SEC after receiving a document request.. Agriculture company Archer Daniels Midland ADM .. placed its chief financial officer, Vikram Luthar, on administrative leave as it investigates accounting practices at the company. The Chicago grain merchant and commodity trader said that the continuing investigation centers around ADM’s nutrition business and that it follows a voluntary document request by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. ADM said Luthar’s leave is pending an investigation by outside counsel and its board’s audit committee, focused on certain intersegment transactions in the company’s nutrition business. ADM said it is...

In a surprising development today, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has withdrawn its proposed rule change previously submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to allow “Natural Asset Companies” to be traded in the U.S. market. Idaho Dispatch explained in this article that Natural Asset Companies (NACs) were defined by the NYSE to be, “Corporations that hold the rights to the ecological performance of a defined area and have the authority to manage the areas for conservation, restoration, or sustainable management.” Also mentioned in the previous Dispatch article was the strong opposition to NACs by Marlo Oaks, the...

Today, House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chairman Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) led a letter to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler and Director Haoxiang Zhu, seeking information on a proposed rule change to permit the listing of Natural Asset Companies (NACs) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

The Biden administration's Securities and Exchange Commission recently confirmed to Wired that it is investigating free speech video platform Rumble. According to the Monday report, Wired filed a public records request in November seeking documents related to Rumble but was denied by the SEC due to the in-progress investigation. While the agency did not provide any information regarding the nature of the probe, it stated that the existence of the investigation was not an indication that Rumble had done anything illegal. The SEC's assistant general counsel for litigation and administrative practice, Melinda Hardy, told Wired, "We have confirmed with Division...

The SEC’s long-standing three-part mission—to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation—remains its touchstone. The core principles the agency has applied over the past 88 years to carry out this mission are timeless: requiring issuers raising capital to make full and fair disclosures to investors on a regular basis; placing heightened responsibilities on key market participants; and using SEC examination and enforcement resources to bolster those requirements and protect investors.