FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL – Bank of America will not conduct a review regarding customer data policies highlighted by a congressional investigation on weaponization of government, the Securities and Exchange Commission determined.  As The Daily Signal first reported in December, the National Legal and Policy Center submitted a shareholder proposal seeking an internal review by the company “concerning the legality and judgment of management’s decision-making” to provide customer credit card transactions to the FBI and other agencies after the Jan. 6, 2021 protest at the Capitol.  “If President Trump wants to get rid of weaponization against political foes, he should know that his SEC let Bank of America off the hook for assisting in weaponization of government,” Paul Chesser, the director of the Corporate Integrity Project for the NLPC, told The Daily Signal.  In a March 5 memo provided by both the watchdog group and Bank of America’s law firm, the SEC states: “In our view, the Proposal relates to the Company’s ordinary business operations. Accordingly, we will not recommend enforcement action to the Commission if the Company omits the Proposal from its proxy materials in reliance” on a rule that allows corporations to exclude shareholder proposals that relate to ordinary business operations.  Bank of America didn’t have an immediate response, but a spokesperson referred the Daily Signal to a Dec. 20 letter from Bank of America attorney Ronald Mueller, with the firm of Gibson Dunn, seeking to strike the shareholder proposal, citing the aforementioned rule. “In managing customer accounts and customer account information, the company is required to comply with the vast array of laws, rules and regulations applicable to the company and its subsidiaries,” Mueller wrote. “… Decisions regarding customer accounts, including the handling of customer information, involve legal, regulatory, operational, risk management and financial considerations that implicate detailed and extensive policies and procedures and are fundamental to the company’s day-to-day operations.” In reported statements in November 2023, Bank of America said it followed all applicable laws in interacting with the Treasury Department and federal law enforcement regarding Jan. 6, 2021.  The initial shareholder resolution followed the House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government report critical of numerous financial institutions, Bank of America among them. The report was titled,  “Financial Surveillance in the United States: How the Federal Government Weaponized the Bank Secrecy Act to Spy on Americans.” The probe was prompted by Bank of America.  “The committee and select subcommittee began this investigation into government-led financial surveillance after a whistleblower disclosed that following the events of January 6, 2021, Bank of America (BoA), voluntarily and without legal process, provided the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with a list of names of all individuals who used a BoA credit or debit card in the Washington, D.C. region around that time,” the House report says. “In response to these allegations and corroborating testimony from FBI officials, the committee and select subcommittee requested documents from BoA and six other national financial institutions about the provision of Americans’ private financial information to federal law enforcement without legal process.” In its February response letter to Mueller’s assertion, Chessar told the SEC that the House findings should mean the matter transcends ordinary business and is related to a significant policy issue.  “What could be more important than the weaponization of government for political purposes?” Chesser told The Daily Signal. “President Trump referenced weaponization in his address to Congress. We based our shareholder proposal on Congressman Jim Jordan’s panel on weaponization report.”  He added, “The Bank of America just vomited up D.C. area credit card transactions in the Jan. 6 timeframe. Even if you bought a hot dog in the D.C. area [with a credit card] your name was turned over to the FBI.” The post ‘Off the Hook’: SEC Sides With Major Bank on Government Weaponization Inquiry appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. I’d like to talk about some hypocrisy that’s been in the news lately. And it tends to be mostly on the Left and mostly by very elite people that we wouldn’t expect because we were told, of course, they were populists and men and women of the people. Let’s take Rachel Maddow. She’s on MSNBC. Her audience has declined drastically. She typically works one day out of five, per week. I think, after the election, she was coming in a little bit more often and that’s going to terminate and she’ll go back to her one day. She took a pay cut from $30 million to $25 million. MSNBC is a money-losing operation. They are firing entire swaths of news presenters and readers and also staff. But here’s my point. She went on MSNBC this week and blasted them for firing Joy Reid and especially treating, she said, their shared staff poorly. And they laid them off and she was very angry. But if you look at the size of her audience, about a million, more or less, and you look at the size of her salary, and you look at—unlike her Fox counterparts, who come in five days a week—she only comes in one day. And you look at how long she’s had this sweetheart deal. Don’t you think you could say to this woman of the people, this socialist, Rachel, you probably made $100 or $200 million. If you really are upset about the firing of poor Joy Reid and the firing of the staff, I have a polite suggestion for you. You make now $25 million. Let’s say that those staffers were making $100,000. Do you realize, if you just said, “I, Rachel Maddow, tonight promise that I will work my 52 days this year for free, given the ample compensation I have received, and I will fund 250 staffers at MSNBC for $100,000 a year, given what I make, $25 million.” Let’s just try that. As far as Joy Reid goes, she had an audience of about [150,000]. I live about 20 miles from Visalia, California. That’s about 150,000 residents. In other words, we’re a nation of 335 million people. Joy Reid was talking to one moderate-sized city of about 150,000. In other words, to the people of Visalia. Everybody else had no idea what she—who she was or what she was saying. She was getting at one point $3 million. She’s always attacked. She cannot finish a sentence without using the word “white, ?white, white, white.” And she’s very liberal, liberal, liberal. But you remember in 2018, all of these tweets surfaced from her, where she called Governor Charlie Crist “Miss Cristie” and suggested he was gay. She suggested that Ann Coulter was of ambiguous sex. Then she started saying that gays kissing themselves made her sick. And of course, she was in danger because she had presented this persona to us that she was so progressive and liberal. And then she said she was hacked. The FBI was on the case. The FBI was on the case and found nothing. And then she said, “They didn’t find hacking, but I don’t remember writing—that’s not me.” It’s like me saying, “Joe Biden is not coherent.” And then that causes a storm. And then I say, “I don’t think I ever said that.” “Well, here’s the tape, Victor, you said it.” “Well, I didn’t. It’s not me.” She has never—she’s apologized for saying it, but she’s never said that she’s said it. Let me just finish with one other example of what we’re dealing with. Remember Sheldon Whitehouse? He is the one, the senator—I think he’s a senator from Rhode Island. And he gives these soapbox speeches about conflict of interest, conflict of interest, that Elon Musk—who’s getting no money for running this DOGE program, the Department of Government Efficiency—is crooked, he’s conflicted, he shouldn’t be there. And then we learned that he has been voting on federal legislation to allot monies to an oceanic group, which counts on an oceanic advocacy group, which is run by Sheldon Whitehouse’s wife. And since 2008, her advocacy for this particular oceanic group has rewarded them with $14 million in funds. Her take is somewhere between $1 and $2 million, over this period. My point is this, I don’t know whether Sheldon and you don’t know whether Sheldon Whitehouse did anything improper. But given the standards that he has set in his accusations about other people, you would think that his wife wanted to avoid any, ANY hint of impropriety. In other words, why doesn’t Sheldon Whitehouse do this? “I am voting on federal legislation to allot monies for oceanic research and the preservation of oceans. My wife, since 2008, has run a consulting group that consults with various oceanic groups. And then, she bundles money and her advocacy from legislation that I vote on. And then, she parcels it out and gets a fee for that. And therefore, because I have a conflict of interest, I’m going to recuse myself.” Did he ever do that? No. So, let me just finish. One of the ironies of the DOGE project and this reexamination of federal monies and the reexamination, since the election, of the media in general, especially on the Left, is we have a weird phenomenon with very powerful people. Very wealthy people, very politically connected people have one rule, one protocol, one value judgment for all of us. And they have no intention of following it themselves. They’re never subject to the consequences of their ideology. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post MSNBC Is a ‘Money-Losing Operation’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Republicans in Congress are pushing back on what some consider another front on the surveillance state–in this case Security and Exchange Commission collection of investors’ personal data.  Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., is the lead sponsor of the Protecting Investors’ Personally Identifiable Information Act, which would restrict the SEC’s automatic collection of investors’ personal identifiable information, with a goal to eliminate the potential for breaches. “We’ve had extreme government overreach from the SEC,” Loudermilk, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, told The Daily Signal. “The agency has violated the 4th and 5th Amendments. Any stock transfer from a Robinhood account has to go to this brokerage report.”  Robinhood is a commission-free electronic trading company.  The SEC established the Consolidated Audit Trail, or CAT, in 2021, designed to track order and trade activity in U.S. markets. The audit trail is a joint project of the securities exchanges and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. The audit trail links specific transactions to individuals using information like their full name, address, and date of birth. The audit program is not funded through Congress and not subject to congressional oversight, Loudermilk said.  He recalled his surprise when President Joe Biden’s SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said data is broadly collected to monitor for oddities. “If a sheriff went by a local bank to say he wanted to peruse all bank customer records just to see if something unusual pops up, the bank president would tell him to get a warrant,” Loudermilk said.  The SEC estimated in 2019 about 3,000 individuals would have access to the CAT. Loudermilk’s office said that’s more than the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with about 1,600 employees. Further, Loudermilk contends that adversarial state actors such as China could benefit from having access to each individual investor’s entire market history.  I'm convinced the Consolidated Audit Trail has the potential to become another warrantless surveillance program. As we know, if you extend the government power, that power will inevitably be abused, as we saw with the FISA courts – especially if the power does not have direct… pic.twitter.com/zuZbH8dcw2— Rep. Barry Loudermilk (@RepLoudermilk) September 27, 2023 Neither the SEC nor FINRA immediately responded to inquiries for this story.  Gensler addressed the program during House testimony in September 2023, saying, “It’s only allowed to be used, this Consolidated Audit Trail, at the SEC and the self regulator organization.”   At that hearing, Loudermilk asked if the audit trail can be used for enforcement purposes. Gensler replied, “We have already. We anticipate we will in the future.” Loudermilk responded: “You’re saying the Consolidated Audit Trail is a comprehensive database of transactions used for federal enforcement purposes but it is not subject to congressional oversight or through appropriations. This is shaping up to be another surveillance program without any restraint.” Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Mo., is another House sponsor of the bill.  Sen. John Kennedy introduced a Senate version.  “Americans assume their private information is secure when they invest money in the U.S. stock market,” Kennedy said in a public statement. “However, the SEC’s unlawful Consolidated Audit Trail could put their data in jeopardy. My bill would protect American investors from foreign enemies and bad actors by preventing the SEC from collecting personal information it doesn’t need and storing it on a dangerous database.” The post ‘Surveillance State’: Bill Would Tackle Government Collection of Investor Data appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus opened up to The Daily Signal about their meeting with President Donald Trump to discuss avoiding a government shutdown and passing the Trump agenda. The caucus met with Trump on Wednesday to discuss the plans to continue to fund the government while the president implements his reforms of the federal workforce and policies. Congress is moving to pass a continuing resolution by March 14 to avert the shutdown. House Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., explained that the continuing resolution would help the president and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, to continue with their reforms of federal expenditures.  “You know, in the meeting with the president yesterday, I think he made it clear, and [Office of Management and Budget Director] Russ Vought made it clear, that in order to keep Elon Musk and DOGE operating and functional, we need to keep the government funded. We need to keep it open, keeping in mind, of course, that the president is willing to withhold funds under a yearlong continuing resolution that is not consistent with the administration’s agenda,” Harris explained.  The Maryland lawmaker pointed out that the continuing resolution was fiscally responsible because it prevented increases in federal spending by keeping funding at current levels.  “This continuing resolution is absolutely fiscally responsible, because it actually freezes funding,” Harris told The Daily Signal. The previous funding levels were largely determined by Democrats‘ priorities, given that Republican leaders failed to properly use their leverage to curb spending and given that President Joe Biden was in the White House. Despite this and their big loss in the November elections, Democrats still think they’re in a position to make demands. “If we have to negotiate this with Democrats, it will cost us well over $100 billion in the 10 year window,” Harris said. “I’m 100% behind the president’s request. I think, by next week, I’m hoping that we can get, like we did last week, again, almost the entire Republican conference to back Mr. Trump’s agenda on this,” Harris concluded.  Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., explained that in his view, there were really only two options before Congress: a government shutdown or passing a continuing resolution.  “We can be as critical of the speaker as we want to about this, but he doesn’t have a partner to work with if there’s not going to be a commitment on the Senate side to get these appropriations bills done. So, we’re left with a circumstance of either a shutdown or the continuing resolution, right?” he said.  “So, there’s policies in the [continuing resolution] that I don’t love and would [not] support if given the opportunity. At the same time, at least, if nothing else, at least the CR freezes the spending level, which—you know Washington, D.C. That’s a win by any standard whatsoever,” Perry continued.  The Pennsylvania congressman also praised DOGE head Musk’s efforts at reforming the spending of the federal government.  “Let’s face it, we’ve also got the advent of this new thing called DOGE, which is identifying all this fraud, waste, and abuse by name,” he said.  Perry said he thinks Congress needs to find savings and get itself back on the path to fiscal solvency.  “I agree completely with the president’s effort and ambition to balance the budget, and it begins with recognizing that you’re spending way too much money on things that we can’t afford, and that spending is the reason why prices across the board for consumers have gone up and have stayed up,” the Pennsylvania lawmaker said.  Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., told The Daily Signal that he did not think he had enough information yet to make an informed decision.  “I come to this from a perspective of being opposed to a continuing resolution. I’m open to hearing out the plans from the Trump administration. I don’t know that we got to enough detail that I feel comfortable with [it] yet, and so, I’m going to continue to have conversations with the Trump administration. I want to support the president. I just also need to, I need to make sure that I’m representing my district,” Burlison said.  The Missouri lawmaker also stressed the need for bringing federal spending under control.  “I think that when it comes to a lot of our policies, we need to get back to pre-COVID-era policies. When it comes to Medicaid, when it comes to our SNAP [food stamp] program, all of our welfare programs that were dramatically expanded under Joe Biden, we need to just bring [them] back to reality in the way they were before COVID happened, and so we need to do structural changes,” the Missouri congressman explained.  “It’s unfortunate, but it’s true. Trump is only going to be president for four years. We need to win,” Burlison argued.  Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga. told The Daily Signal he had not made up his mind yet about supporting the continuing resolution.  “Whether I will support [the continuing resolution] or not remains to be seen, based on the text of the legislation. I need to read it first, but kind of at a very top-line level, I believe that we need to go forward and maintain the government funding so that the president can continue his work, the DOGE can continue their work, that the executive branch can continue complying with the executive orders of the president, and we will continue moving forward and putting our country back on the right track,” Clyde said. The post Inside the House Freedom Caucus’ Meeting with President Trump appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Payton McNabb, the former high school volleyball player whose sports career was ruined after a male spiked the ball in her face, also faced punishment from her sorority for the crime of confronting a man who was using the women’s restroom. McNabb’s story has gained more attention after President Donald Trump invited her to his speech to Congress Tuesday and after Senate Democrats voted against a bill to exclude men from women’s sports Monday. While the president noted McNabb’s tragic backstory, her sorority’s move against her has yet to be reported. The sorority Delta Zeta expelled McNabb on May 20, 2024, finding her guilty of violating the sorority’s “Anti-Bullying Policy” and of engaging in “Moral-Prejudicial Conduct.” The bullying violation involves any activity “reasonably perceived as being dehumanizing, intimidating, hostile, threatening, or otherwise likely to evoke fear of physical harm or emotional distress.” The prejudicial conduct violation involves conduct that may bring the sorority “into disrepute.” Her offense? Calmly confronting a man in a dress in a women’s restroom, recording him out of fear for her safety, and posting the video on X to warn other young women. You can judge for yourself whether this involved any “bullying” or brought disrepute on the sorority. “What are you doing?” McNabb asks the man. “Going to the bathroom,” the man responds. “Why are you in the girls’ bathroom?” she asks. “Because I’m a trans girl,” the man says. “I pay a lot of money to be safe in the bathroom,” McNabb notes. The man calls her “rude.” As he walks away from McNabb, the female student asks, “Do you think that’s okay?” A man using the girls bathroom at Western Carolina University. Unreal pic.twitter.com/yPXXBN8Aqd— Payton McNabb (@paytonmcnabb_) May 2, 2024 Delta Zeta’s chief learning officer, Will Frankenberger, a man who publicly espouses left-wing gender ideology, led the disciplinary hearing and all procedures. At one point, he said, “We’re just sorority sisters having a chat,” though he immediately added, “Well, not me. I think I’m a Delta Zeta, but I’m not.” During the hearing, Frankenberger dismissed McNabb’s concerns about violations of her right to religious freedom and refused to answer her question about whether men who claim to be women can join the sorority. “We’re not talking about any criminal statutes or civil statutes, we’re talking about Delta Zeta policies, which, on like the poll of priority, is way down here compared to criminal, civil or constitutional statutes,” he said. Frankenberger noted McNabb’s question about “sincerely held religious belief exemptions to the disciplinary policy.” He flatly responded, “Nope, because Delta Zeta’s not a religious-based organization, nor are we a political-based organization; we are a group of girls that are friends, that’s it. So, some of those statutes in terms of constitutional right or things like that aren’t strict adherent.” He also noted her question, “Does Delta Zeta allow men to identify as women to be members of the sorority?” “I pulled the language of the constitution for membership eligibility it says, ‘Membership in Delta Zeta may be obtained only by initiation into a college chapter and it is only open to women who are matriculated students, former students and faculty of colleges and universities of recognized standing,’” Frankenberger said. He declined to define the word “woman.” Delta Zeta expelled McNabb, despite overwhelming support from her local sorority chapter and despite her sincerely held religious beliefs that men are men and women are women. This happened after McNabb, a talented volleyball player, was severely injured at 17 when a man who identifies as a woman spiked a kill shot directly to McNabb’s face, leaving her unconscious. She suffered a concussion, two black eyes, a traumatic brain injury, a brain bleed, and symptoms including partial paralysis and loss of peripheral vision on her right side, ongoing memory loss, confusion, loss of balance, and severe headaches. This injury ended her dreams of playing college sports, but she found her college home and community in Delta Zeta. In the expulsion, Delta Zeta showed no tolerance of McNabb’s views, and the leadership did not stand up for a sister or for basic biology—ensuring a man’s personal subjective feelings would prevail. Frankenberger told her that her religious beliefs were irrelevant, cementing only Frankenberger’s and the Left’s highest “religious” virtue-signaling tenets are tolerated: All Genders are Whole, Holy, and Good. What Orwellian nonsense. The man McNabb encountered in the women’s restroom filed a Title IX complaint against her at her college—an ironic misuse of the law, which was written in 1972 to protect women. McNabb prevailed and was cleared of all charges. McNabb is fighting back. She has been a guest on numerous national news outlets, advocating for women’s sports and single-sex spaces. She recently stood alongside President Trump as he signed his executive order “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports,” and she was Trump’s honored guest Tuesday night. “I have seen firsthand a failure of leadership by individuals who are unable to define what a woman is,” McNabb told The Daily Signal. “I was forced to play sports against a man who ended my collegiate career. And then I was kicked out of my sorority when I objected to a man invading what should be a private place for a woman, a woman’s bathroom.” “It is unfortunate that sororities have decided their mission is to serve a left-wing ideology and not a sisterhood,” she added. McNabb is an outstanding example of a strong sorority woman: a courageous leader and woman of high character who stands up for women and freedom, no matter the obstacles. Delta Zeta could be celebrating their sister as an advocate for women’s rights on the national stage. Instead, they chose to cower to the woke mob and take away sisterhood from a brave young woman who is so deserving. Unfortunately, gender ideology has not only taken over Delta Zeta, but also the National Panhellenic Council. The NPC, the umbrella organization over fraternities and sororities across the country, allows men who identify as women to join female-only sororities, forcing radical and dangerous policies onto chapters who disagree. Take note, NPC and national sorority leadership: it’s time for you to stand with women. Together, let’s return sororities to their founding principles—creating supportive, lifelong bonds of sisterhood among women. Delta Zeta and Will Frankenberger did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Signal. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post It Wasn’t Enough for Payton McNabb to Be Permanently Injured by a Male in Women’s Sports. Her Sorority Also Kicked Her Out. appeared first on The Daily Signal.