Tag: banks

JPMorgan Chase Is Up To Its Old Tricks…

At about the same time, it appears, Chase debanked, without warning, Drs. Syed Haider and Joseph Mercola. Wait, no. Not just them, but also Dr. Mercola’s employees – and his and their families. All without explanation.

These debankings don’t come without context.

You may recall that last fall Chase debanked Senator, Ambassador and Governor (so, you know, pretty well respected) Brownback’s religious liberty organization, after having debanked General Flynn and a series of other conservatives. Chase got called on the Brownback debanking and first stonewalled and then lied, a half dozen times, about the reasons for the debanking, and then went back to stonewalling.

That’s relevant again because, whaddya know, the debanked doctors turn out to be conservatives, too – or at least they’re sufficiently opposed to the woke big government/big business monolith that they were willing to question the efficacy of the lockdown regime. In fact, the New York Times wrote a story about him in the summer of 2021 calling him “The Most Influential Spreader of Coronavirus Information Online.”

Why? Because he’d dared to “publish[] over 600 articles on Facebook that cast doubt on Covid-19 vaccines since the pandemic began, reaching a far larger audience than other vaccine skeptics, an analysis by The New York Times found.” He also published “posts often ask[ing] pointed questions about [the vaccines’] safety and discuss[ing] studies that other doctors have refuted.”

Oh, the horror. Disagreement about scientific questions? Can not have. Especially if the right scientists have refuted some underlying positions.

You know, the way the right scientists refuted the lab-leak theory.

Mercola also helped to publicize a study that claimed that the “covid vaccines were ‘a medical fraud’ and said the injections did not prevent infections, provide immunity or stop transmission of the disease.”

Wait. That all turned out to be right, didn’t it? Wasn’t he right? Haven’t the Times and Mercola’s detractors been refuted about those claims of misinformation? Weren’t they the misinformants?

Haider similarly questioned the efficacy of the vaccines, and documented the slow admissions that he and other skeptics had been correct in their claims.

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Multiple Banks Filed Over 170 Suspicious Activity Reports on the Bidens

As the evidence for at least an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden keeps pouring in, our friends at Twitchy highlighted another example: the suspicious activity reports (SARs) from six banks, to the tune of 170, in fact. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and co-host Ben Ferguson discussed these reports on their podcast with House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) as their guest. Not only has Comer been looking into the Biden family as part of fulfilling promises to the American people, he already is familiar with SARs, since, as he told Cruz, he was the director of a bank. 

These SARs are submitted and sent to the Treasury Department when banks “have a strong suspicion” that a crime has been committed, so as to protect the bank. As Comer emphasized, these are submitted “very seldom.” If someone were to have two, the chairman explained, it would be hard for that person to open up a bank account. Submitting an SAR, Comer added, also is “inviting the regulators to come in and regulate,” which is the last thing banks want. The 170 reports are thus quite significant. 

To paint the scene here, Comer explained that what might trigger an SAR is “a large transaction that comes out of the blue.”

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Mastercard moves to ban cannabis purchases on its debit cards

Mastercard (MA.N) has told financial institutions to stop allowing marijuana transactions on its debit cards, dealing a blow to an industry already on the fringes of the financial system in the United States.

Most banks in the country do not service cannabis companies as marijuana remains illegal at the federal level despite several states legalizing its medicinal and recreational use.

“As we were made aware of this matter, we quickly investigated it. In accordance with our policies, we instructed the financial institutions that offer payment services to cannabis merchants and connects them to Mastercard to terminate the activity,” a spokesperson for the company said on Wednesday.

“The federal government considers cannabis sales illegal, so these purchases are not allowed on our systems,” the spokesperson added.

Sunburn Cannabis CEO Brady Cobb said in a statement that “this move is another blow to the state-legal cannabis industry and patients/consumers who want to access this budding category.”

Pot firm Verano’s (VRNO.CD) President, Darren Weiss, said “We will continue to advocate for cannabis reform in Washington through further dialogue with elected officials and stakeholders to advance conversations supporting the growth of safe, legal cannabis across the U.S.”

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The Politicization of Banking and the End of Freedom

A major leader of the Brexit movement, Nigel Farage, has just had his decades-old bank accounts closed, allegedly for “commercial” reasons, while seven additional banks have apparently refused to have him as a customer.

Until we have independent evidence of what is really going on with Farage’s accounts, we cannot definitively rule out the possibility that the bank has closed his accounts for legitimate commercial reasons. But even if this particular account closure had nothing to do with political prejudice, there is no denying that the past couple of years have produced more than one isolated incident of banking services penalising customers for political or ideological reasons.

For instance, in Canada, we saw banks instructed by the Trudeau administration to freeze the accounts of protesters against vax mandates. In the United States, we saw PayPal briefly introduce a policy authorising it to close the accounts of customers it found guilty of “misinformation.” Among the victims of their new policy was Toby Young, founder of the Free Speech Union, who saw three of his PayPal accounts abruptly suspended in 2022. A church minister recently reported on GB News that his bank account had been suspended for objecting to the transgender ideology being propagated by his bank.

These worrying precedents suggest that some providers of commercial services like credit cards and loans seem to think it is their job to make sure their customers have the “right” opinions on transgender ideology, the politics of vax mandates, and God knows what else.

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US Government Sued for Allegedly Seizing $100,000,000 in Cash, Gold and Jewelry From Citizens Without Explanation

The US government won’t specify why it abruptly seized more than $100 million from people’s safety deposit boxes in California, according to a new lawsuit.

The nonprofit Institute for Justice says it’s seeking to halt forfeiture proceedings for a group of citizens who’ve had their assets confiscated by the FBI with little to no explanation.

The case is centered on a Los Angeles-based couple who says the FBI abruptly seized $40,200 of their life savings from a safety deposit box.

Linda and Reggie Martin want to know why the FBI took their cash, along with the contents of hundreds of other people’s safety deposit boxes, from a financial storage company in Beverly Hills in March of 2021.

The couple says the agency seized their money without providing any evidence of illegal activity.

Attorney Bob Belden says the FBI’s move is plainly immoral and violates the Martins’ rights as American citizens.

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United Nations Policy Brief Talks of a Digital ID Linked To Your Bank Account

The United Nations – or at least some in the United Nations effectively pulling the strings – must feel they are falling behind with pushing controversial ideas like Digital ID compared to the likes of the World Economic Forum (WEF) – even if they’re pushing in the same direction.

And now we have the UN making a case of not only introducing Digital IDs, but also making sure central authorities link them with people’s bank or mobile bank accounts.

This shows up among a flurry of proposals and initiatives described by opponents as “chilling,” included in three policy briefs titled, “A Global Digital Compact, Reforms to the International Financial Architecture, and The Future of Outer Space Governance.”

The purpose of the briefs is to work out what’s known as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ “vision for the future” – “Our Common Agenda” – that should be given the green light in September 2024 during an event dubbed, “The Summit for the Future.”

From the report:

“Digital IDs linked with bank or mobile money accounts can improve the delivery of social protection coverage and serve to better reach eligible beneficiaries. Digital technologies may help to reduce leakage, errors and costs in the design of social protection programmes.”

Not unlike their unofficial counterparts over at the WEF, the UN also speaks about basically regulating global digital future, and uses phrases such as international cooperation and many stakeholders, who will advance principles, objectives and actions, in other words, rules – for – wait for it – “an open, free, secure and human-centered digital future.”

Critics, however, firmly believe, and continue to make their case, that the digital future as envisaged by these groups – official or informal – is going to be quite the opposite of open, free, or human-centric.

As far as the UN’s “vision” for a future global financial system, it is supposed to be harmonized with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and would be governed by something called “the apex body” that is yet to be set up.

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JP Morgan agrees to settle with Jeffrey Epstein’s sex abuse victims

Megabank JP Morgan has agreed to a settlement with victims of deceased billionaire sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

The New York Times reports that the bank and attorneys representing the victims announced the settlement on Monday after what the paper describes as “weeks of embarrassing disclosures about the bank’s longstanding relationship with him.”

The victims filed a lawsuit against JP Morgan this past November in which they alleged that the bank continued doing business with Epstein despite having full knowledge of his history of sexually abusing underage girls.

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SCOTUS Allows IRS to Carry Out Secret, Warrantless Searches of Innocent Taxpayers’ Bank Accounts

In a unanimous opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court is allowing the IRS to go on secret, warrantless fishing expeditions through innocent taxpayers’ bank records in order to identify and collect unpaid taxes from family members and associates who have no legal interest in those bank accounts.

Despite acknowledging that “the authority vested in tax collectors may be abused, as all power is subject to abuse,” and that “Congress has given the IRS considerable power,” the Supreme Court’s 9-0 ruling in Polselli v. IRS declined to restrict the IRS’s authority. Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute and Cato Institute had filed an amicus brief in Polselli arguing that the sweeping investigatory power wielded by the IRS—to circumvent the Fourth Amendment by carrying out warrantless searches of the bank accounts and records of innocent people, who are given no notice or right to object to the search, merely because they may be associated with a delinquent taxpayer—offends every constitutional sensibility on the right to privacy.

“This practice of investigating the bank records of innocent taxpayers because they may have family members or associates who are delinquent on their taxes is merely a perverse form of guilt by association,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “At a minimum, Fourth Amendment protections should not disappear just because sensitive information is shared with third parties, such as banks and attorneys.”

The case arose after an IRS Revenue Officer, seeking to collect underpaid federal taxes by Remo Polselli, served summonses on the banks of Polselli’s wife and attorney in order to find account and financial records concerning Polselli. The IRS agent did not notify Polselli’s wife or attorney of the summonses, but the banks voluntarily did so. Polselli’s wife and attorney subsequently filed motions in federal district court to quash the IRS’s summonses. In siding with the IRS, the district court held that Polselli’s wife and attorney are not entitled to notice of the summons and have no right to even be heard on their motions to quash the summonses.

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FBI Whistleblower Report: Bank of America Gave Americans’ Banking Info to FBI Around January 6

A House Judiciary Committee report on FBI whistleblowers found that Bank of America provided the FBI a list of anyone who used their services in the D.C. area regardless of if they participated in the events of the January 6 protests.

The House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released an interim report on the government’s abuse, misallocation of resources, and retaliation.

Among the Judiciary Committee’s many revelations, FBI whistleblowers Garret O’Boyle, and retired FBI supervisory Intelligence George Hill testified about how Bank of America (BoA) gave the FBI’s Washington Field Office a list of individuals who had made transactions in the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area with a BoA credit or debit card between January 5 and 7, 2021.

Hill also testified that individuals who had previously purchased a firearm with a BoA product were elevated to the top of the list provided to the FBI Washington Field Office, which was reported by Breitbart News’s Ashley Oliver.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), a member of the weaponization subcommittee, emphasized during the subcommittee’s Thursday hearing that Hill testified that there was no geolocation fencing regarding the datamining of Americans’ purchasing of firearms.

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Big Banks, Corporations Getting 90 Percent Of Biden’s Green Energy Credits: Congressional Study

Most of the green energy tax benefits provided by President Joe Biden’s $750 billion Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 are going into the coffers of big banks and billion-dollar corporations, according to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.).

“While President Biden’s supercharged IRS is warming up to target working Americans, his administration is getting ready to spend those tax dollars to subsidize special interest green energy projects of billion-dollar companies,” Smith said in a statement based on a new congressional analysis issued by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT).

Smith was referring to the Biden administration’s controversial plan to double the size of the IRS workforce by adding 87,000 new tax investigators and auditors. House Republicans want to defund the IRS expansion plan.

“Many of the same companies getting a green corporate welfare check have shed their American identity to do business with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and, as a result, our tax dollars are being funneled to Chinese entities that manipulate our key supply chains,” Smith continued.

“While House Republicans are fighting for working families struggling to pay their gasoline and utility bills, House Democrats are prioritizing foreign nations and sending as many taxpayer-funded handouts to corporations as possible. With big banks pocketing three times more of these special interest tax breaks than any other industry, it’s clear Democrats are rewarding their friends on Wall Street that push their partisan ESG agenda,” the Missouri Republican said.

The JCT includes members from both the Senate and House of Representatives, and the chairmanship and vice chairmanship positions are rotated between the two chambers from one Congress to the next. Smith is the chairman this year, while Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the most senior senator on the panel, is the vice chairman.

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