Free Republic

Some House Democrats and Biden administration officials appear to be souring toward Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler over his readiness to increase regulation on certain financial industries. An already frequent target of Republican attacks, Gensler has ended 2023 drawing sharp criticism over what some have called his "outsized influence" when it comes to rulemaking and enforcement. "Gary Gensler is a politician masquerading as a regulator," Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y. said, according to a November report by Fortune. Torres, a supporter of the cryptocurrency industry, has been increasingly critical of Gensler, who has attempted to exercise greater authority...

As a deadline to approve a spot bitcoin ETF nears, the marketing war has begun as issuers seek to win a share of a market some experts say will be worth billions of dollars. On Monday, Bitwise Asset Management kicked off the race to market to potential investors by showing its first video advertisement on X (formerly Twitter) featuring Jonathan Goldsmith, who tells the audience, “You know what’s interesting these days, Bitcoin.” The dialogue is a reference to Goldsmith’s notable role as the “Most Interesting Man in the World” in commercials for Dos Equis beer. About a dozen firms have...

To anyone who tracks the efforts of environmentalists, their policies often have an ulterior motive. They neither result in a better society nor do they produce better habitats. Their policy preferences also do not consider how using the land improves the land for man and wildlife. Instead, many environmentalists advocate for policies at the expense of farmers, miners, and others who create usable, tangible, societal benefits from the land. This often leaves observers to wonder: what are environmentalists really after? The answer is power and money. On September 29, the SEC, at the request of the NYSE, proposed a rule...

Treasurer Oaks opposes SEC proposal to allow for the creation of a new type of company designed to lock up private and public lands Proposal could cause significant harm to rural economies by removing land from productive use SALT LAKE CITY – December 11, 2023 – Utah Treasurer Marlo M. Oaks opposes a proposal under consideration by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that would allow for the creation and listing of a new type of company called a Natural Asset Company (NAC) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The proposal poses a significant risk to rural economies by...

An investigation has been launched into the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) after Democrat President Joe Biden’s administration was found to have sent billions of dollars in taxpayers’ money to a fraudulent solar company. Biden’s DOE recently gave a $3 billion award to a solar energy company that has been accused of scamming vulnerable customers. Republican leaders in the House and Senate are probing the DOE over the move. The investigations are being led by House Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Ranking Member John Barrasso (R-WY). In a letter to DOE...

Billionaire Warren Buffet believes he is special. He doesn't think he should be forced to inform the SEC when he is amassing shares in a stock because if people knew they might push up the price of additional shares. Everyone should pull out their violin. Sadly, the SEC, which is supposedly for transparency and equal administration of regulations, has allowed this nonsense, and in a sense, given him a huge kickback for almost thirty years by allowing him to amass bigger positions in secret. Here's a news item I found dating from 1997: Berkshire Trading Kept Secret Sec Grants Buffet...

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against a company and a business deal that directly involves President Joe Biden's brother, James Biden. The complaint was filed last week in the Southern District of Florida against Third Friday Management and a James Biden associate, Michael Lewitt. The Commission alleges the company and Lewitt participated in “fraudulent conduct and gross breaches of fiduciary duty” to their clients, investors and the fund. They said Lewitt failed to inform investors that he had taken $30 million from the fund and put it in companies that invest in distressed healthcare companies that...

Messiah Lutheran Church in Joliet, Illinois, received the shock of their lives after government officials ordered them to repay nearly $800,000 in tithes given to them over the last ten years, and the clock is ticking. A FAQ created by the church explains: An unexpected, devastating crisis threatens the permanent closing of Messiah in Joliet, Illinois, a large congregation that has served the community for over 120 years. And this despite no wrongdoing or accusation of wrongdoing by the church. In January of 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Receiver filed a federal lawsuit against Messiah demanding payment to...

A Christian ministry claiming it was "debanked" by Bank of America filed a consumer complaint this week to Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti to determine whether their accounts were closed due to religious discrimination. Indigenous Advanced Ministries – a Memphis, Tennessee-based nonprofit engaged in charitable efforts for orphaned children in Uganda through various partnerships – was warned without explanation by Bank of America in April that the organization was "operating in a business type we have chosen not to service at Bank of America" and would be closed within 30 days. In May, Bank of America sent another letter stating...

July 13 (Reuters) - Ripple Labs Inc did not violate federal securities law by selling its XRP token on public exchanges, a U.S. judge ruled on Thursday, a landmark legal victory for the cryptocurrency industry that sent the value of XRP soaring. XRP was up 75% by late afternoon on Thursday, according to Refinitiv Eikon data. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres was the first win for a cryptocurrency company in a case brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission -- though it did also give the SEC a partial victory. While the decision is specific to...

Yes, the ECB’s own Fabio … Panetta wants to ban any competition to Central Bank printing presses. Of course, like Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and SEC’s Gary “The Ghoul” Genslar, he wants to protect The Deep State’s monopoly on money printing by banning competition. According to Fabio Panetta, crypto volatility and aspects of blockchain technology made digital assets only suitable for gambling… Fabio Panetta, an executive board member of the European Central Bank (ECB), has suggested a dark future for cryptocurrencies, in which digital assets may be used for little more than gambling among investors. In written remarks for a panel...

The original idea of the “independent” administrative agencies was to place the details of governing a complex economy in the hands of wise experts. These experts would be removed from tawdry and corrupting political influences, and would straightforwardly apply neutral principles to achieve fairness and justice in our society. In the real world, every federal administrative agency, with especial emphasis on the supposedly “independent” ones, becomes larger, more power-hungry, and more corrupt with every passing year. Somehow, it’s in the nature of the job as federal bureaucrat to believe that you can perfect the world by seizing ever more power...

A federal judge sided Tuesday with families who sued over Florida’s ban on gender transition procedures for minors, declaring that “gender identity is real.”A group of families, backed by several LGBT activist groups, sued Florida in March shortly after the rule restricting minors from accessing surgical sex change procedures, puberty blockers and hormone therapy took effect. Northern District of Florida Judge Robert L. Hinkle, a Clinton appointee, granted a preliminary injunction against the law to prohibit it from being enforced against the plaintiffs, arguing that the “great weight of medical authority supports these treatments.”Hinkle repeatedly stressed the reality of “gender...

Take what happened in the past two weeks: Charlie Javice, the founder of the financial aid startup Frank, was arrested, accused of falsifying customer data. A jury found Rishi Shah, a co-founder of the advertising software startup Outcome Health, guilty of defrauding customers and investors. And a judge ordered Elizabeth Holmes, the founder who defrauded investors at her blood testing startup Theranos, to begin an 11-year prison sentence April 27. *SNIP* When Javice was trying to sell her college financial planning startup, Frank, to JPMorgan Chase, she told an employee not to share exactly how many people used Frank’s service,...

The Supreme Court on Friday dealt the administrative state another blow with a 9-0 decision holding that individuals and businesses harpooned by an independent agency don’t have to suffer a torturous government adjudication to challenge its constitutionality in federal court (Axon Enterprise v. FTC and SEC v. Cochran).

Many in the virtual currency industry have been confused and bedeviled by the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) gradual and ill-explained encroachment on their world, with frequent claims from SEC Chair Gary Gensler that most cryptocurrencies should be properly seen legally as "securities" that ought to be regulated by his agency. That would potentially make lots of legit businesses suddenly illegal dealers in "unregistered securities." In a decision last week in an ongoing bankruptcy case of Voyager Digital Holdings, U.S. bankruptcy Judge Michael E. Wiles in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York laid into SEC...

The United States Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission were investigating whether Signature Bank failed to prevent money laundering before the firm collapsed on Sunday. Federal investigators in Washington DC and Manhattan, New York were specifically looking into the bank's dealings with cryptocurrency clients, to assess if the institution took sufficient steps to detect potential money laundering, Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed sources. It is not clear what came of the investigation, but the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was forced to take over operations of the bank on Sunday when it could not meet the demands of customers withdrawing...

SEC Staff Consulted With Green Financial Firm Accused Of Selling ‘Fictitious’ Carbon CreditsJohn Hugh DeMastri on March 11, 2023 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officials met with representatives of a Swiss climate firm now under fire for allegedly selling “fictitious” carbon credits to discuss climate regulations, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation.Millions of dollars worth of carbon credits issued by the Swiss firm South Pole could not be reliably tied back to actual greenhouse gas reductions, according to a report by Dutch investigative journalism outlet Follow the Money.SEC officials met with a representative of South Pole in...

Politicians lean on the financial industry to target activities they don’t like.The first credit card processor to announce plans to track purchases at gun shops is Discover Financial Services. The company hints that its competitors, specifically Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, are on the same schedule to implement a controversial gun-specific merchant category code announced last year. Given that the ideologically charged bank behind the new code has big plans for targeting gun purchases you can expect more fireworks to follow. "Discover Financial Services, a provider of credit cards, told Reuters it will allow its network to track purchases at...

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its investment arm have been fined $5 million for using shell companies to obscure the size of its $32 billion portfolio, which was under church control, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced Tuesday. The faith, known as the Mormon church, maintains billions of dollars of investments in stocks, bonds, real estate and agriculture. Much of its portfolio is controlled by Ensign Peak Advisers, a nonprofit investment manager overseen by ecclesiastical leaders known as its presiding bishopric. The Mormon church was allegedly worried that the size of its portfolio, which reached...