Ideology Over Integrity: National Bank's ESG Strategy Undermines Its Fiduciary Duty

By David McGruer and Tom Harris

Earlier this year Canada's National Bank Investments (NBI) proudly released its 2024 Report on Responsible Investment, touting its climate commitments, ESG integration (Environmental, Social, and Governance investment practices), and alignment with the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals. But beneath the polished language and corporate optimism lies a troubling reality: NBI has apparently embraced ideology at the expense of science, economics, and its fiduciary responsibility.

The report opens by declaring climate change an "unavoidable reality" and makes "net-zero" alignment a central tenet of its investment strategy. But such declarations are unsupported by scientific rigor. Nowhere does the report reference scientific findings relating to our climate in any nuanced form. Instead, NBI accepts worst-case climate scenarios as fact, without acknowledging that many experts, including physicists William Happer of Princeton University, and Richard Lindzen of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, challenge the reliability of climate models and warn against the misuse of science in policymaking.

Carbon dioxide (CO2‚), the NBI report's primary villain, is a non-toxic gas essential to plant life, and thus to animal and human life. Increasing atmospheric CO2‚ has coincided with global greening and record agricultural yields. It is not, as NBI implies, an existential threat. Yet they use this false premise to justify a radical reorientation of capital away from energy-intensive industries, regardless of their economic utility or technological innovation.

There is no evidence that NBI performed independent scientific due-diligence before building its strategy around climate catastrophe narratives. Their report references no serious scientific reviews or consultations with dissenting experts. Instead, NBI leans entirely on ESG industry groups and regulatory-driven frameworks such as the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and the Canada Climate Law Initiative. In other words, NBI apparently did not verify whether the "climate risk" it fears is real, probable, or material; it simply assumed it.

On the economic side, NBI's embrace of ESG mandates risks undercutting returns and distorting capital allocation. Political scientist and president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, Bjorn Lomborg estimates that global net-zero pledges could cost trillions of dollars annually with minimal impact on global temperatures, money that could address far more urgent issues such as hunger, sanitation, and basic health care. Furthermore, NBI's blanket exclusions of companies involved in thermal coal, oil sands, and Arctic exploration reflects moral judgment, not financial prudence.

This is not responsible investing. It is social engineering through capital markets. Investors are being nudged, or shoved, into portfolios optimized for ideological compliance, not risk-adjusted performance. Climate risk is grossly exaggerated in NBI's report, while the grave risks of energy scarcity, regulatory overreach, and economic stagnation are ignored.

The human costs of these policies are profound. Across Canada, rising energy prices already strain households and companies. Globally, the consequences are even starker. Billions of people in developing nations rely on affordable hydrocarbons to fuel economic growth, build infrastructure, and achieve basic living standards. When Western financial institutions strangle energy investment, they don't just inconvenience multinational oil firms, they sabotage efforts to eradicate poverty. Restricting energy access delays clean water projects, reduces food security, and condemns millions to lives of needless hardship.

By prioritizing abstract and arbitrary CO2‚ emission targets over concrete human needs, NBI's ESG framework perpetuates real-world harm under the guise of virtue.

What is most absent from the report is any genuine commitment to human flourishing. Energy is the foundation of modern life. Instead of vilifying emissions, investment leaders should champion innovation in reliable, affordable energy, including oil, gas, coal, and nuclear. A truly responsible investment framework begins with a clear-eyed, unbiased, full-context view of science, economics, and ethics, not ESG orthodoxy.

The deeper concern is NBI's apparent breach of fiduciary duty. Canadian fiduciaries, under both common law and securities regulation, are bound to prioritize the financial interests of clients, not to champion external political and social causes. NBI's decision to embed ESG into manager compensation and portfolio construction compromises this duty. A fiduciary's primary obligation is to safeguard capital with sound, objective judgment, not to leverage client assets for social experiments.

At its core, NBI's approach reflects a moral inversion: treating human industry and energy abundance as threats, rather than as achievements that have lifted billions out of poverty. As Alex Epstein, founder and director of the Center for Industrial Progress, argues in his book Fossil Future, the environmental and investment success of a project should be measured by how well human flourishing is advanced, not by how minimally it impacts the atmosphere. Energy is not our enemy; it is the enabler of clean water, abundant food, medical care, and global resilience.

If NBI truly wishes to lead, it must reject climate alarmism, scrutinize its assumptions, and re-anchor its investing philosophy around objective inquiry and the advancement of human well-being. That would be leadership worth investing in.

Dave McGruer is an Ottawa-based independent researcher. Tom Harris is Executive Director of International Climate Science Coalition -Canada.

State Street Retreats From Woke, Denies Existence of ESG Committee

By CFACT May 15th, 2025 @ CFACT 11 Comments 

This Wednesday morning, State Street convened its annual shareholder meeting. They streamed it live online for investors to view and participate. State Street, a global financial services and bank holding company, has been a major player in American and international markets for decades. Until recently, however, the firm—like many of its contemporaries—shifted its executive focus toward political posturing at the expense of delivering strong returns for shareholders.

Prior to 2025, the company’s investment management arm, State Street Global Advisors (SSGA), enforced proxy voting policies that penalized companies lacking at least 30% gender diversity and at least one racial or ethnic minority on their boards. In addition, the company regularly supported shareholder proposals advocating for climate-related corporate disclosures and heavily promoted internal DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) hiring initiatives.

However, in response to shifting political headwinds, State Street appears to be retreating from its “woke” governance model. According to the company’s 2025 Proxy Statement, it has eliminated its 30% gender diversity quota, removed explicit references to ESG criteria in proxy voting decisions, and—most pertinent to this article—SSGA has restructured its internal governance, renaming the “ESG Committee” as the “Global Fiduciary and Conduct Committee.”

CFACT’s Nate Myers sought to zero in on this internal reorganization, asking State Street’s CEO and Chairman Ronald O’Hanley,

“Why has State Street simply rebranded its ESG Committee instead of eliminating it? Isn’t this just a cosmetic retreat—keeping the same activist policies under a more politically palatable name? ”

Unsurprisingly, Mr. O’Hanley denied the committee’s existence altogether, seemingly suggesting that the rebranding erased the committee’s original purpose. He responded:

“We actually don’t have an ESG committee, at either the board or management level. Management does a very keen focus on its talent. We’re in the services business of attracting, motivating, and containing the very best talent is quite important to us. So, we have series of different management committees that focus on that.

Though his answer was vague and arguably evasive, CFACT is nonetheless encouraged by State Street’s—and other major companies’—recent retreats from policies broadly viewed as ideologically driven.

CFACT will continue to monitor State Street’s corporate activities at the national and international level, making sure to keep our donors and the public at large informed of any major updates.

How to Really End ESG

Russell Greene September 13, 2024 @AIER, Tags: Daily Economy, Environmentalism, Capitalism, Books

 

Eleanor Roosevelt holds a poster of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Lake Success, NY. 1949. Courtesy FDR Presidential Library & Museum.

ESG investing poses a grave threat to the principles that lifted billions out of poverty. It neither does much good nor performs very well. Therefore, it must end.  

So asserts Ending ESG, a collection of essays edited by Phil Gramm and Terrence Keeley. Gramm, a former Republican senator and economics professor, and Keeley, a former managing director at Blackrock, are well-suited to make the case. The book’s lengthy introduction is co-authored by Gramm and Keeley. It traces the Environmental, Social and Government (ESG) investment movement back to the United Nations. Not to the Kofi Annan era of the late 90s and early 2000s, that is, but all the way back to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  

The authors do not dwell upon this early history, but it is worth briefly unpacking. Eleanor Roosevelt chaired the drafting committee of the UN Declaration. She explained that many of its members “thought that lack of standards for human rights the world over was one of the greatest causes of friction among the nations, and that recognition of human rights might become one of the cornerstones on which peace could eventually be based.” This was a pressing priority in the wake of World War II.

Jacques Maritain, a French Philosopher who provided intellectual inspiration for the document, explained how consensus was achieved: “we agree on these rights provided we are not asked why. With the ‘why’ the dispute begins.” History has since tested the stability of agreeing not to ask why.

Over the next 75 years, the UN’s declaration of rights eventually led to ESG. Inspired by the declaration, the UN launched development goals (eradicating poverty, gender equality, environmental sustainability, etc.). Then, the UN released investment principles based on these goals, to be adopted by major asset managers, banks, public pensions, and regulatory bodies. To the shock of anyone familiar with other UN efforts, the UN’s work on ESG has paid off.  

ESG has been adopted by major institutions over the world, in word if not always in deed. The result is that “the private economy is increasingly being coerced into meeting a growing number of environmental and social goals that Congress never mandated.”  

The cost of such coercion is high. For one, it undermines the legal and ethical basis of economic progress. Whereas the economic Enlightenment was “founded on the principle that people own the fruits of their own labor and thrift,” ESG is a “throwback to the medieval concept of communal property.” Throughout 14 essays, mostly penned by Gramm and/or Keeley, Ending ESG argues against such an ESG-inspired return to medieval economics.

ESG might seem high-minded and noble compared to the hard-nosed alternatives of fiduciary responsibility and shareholder primacy. But appearances are deceiving. When it comes to results, the economic enlightenment enabled 128,000 individuals to escape abject poverty every single day. In contrast, it’s not clear if the ESG movement has accomplished anything of note, other than lowering the popularity of Wall Street and Corporate America among conservatives, contributing to the anti-business turn on the right.

And though the ESG movement claims to care about eradicating poverty and protecting the environment, we should not take these claims too seriously. Keeley cites a research finding that there is “no evidence that socially responsible investment funds improve corporate behavior.” Moreover, it’s difficult to even assess the impact of ESG strategies since “ESG scores among leading rating agencies correlated only 54 percent of the time.”  

The evidence is compelling, but it raises a puzzling question: if ESG does “neither much good nor very well,” why do so many people seem to believe it does both? Where did ESG critics go wrong? Why did it take nearly two decades for ESG to face substantial backlash?  

One problem is that the defenders of fiduciary responsibility failed to provide adequate moral foundations for their view. Keeley cites Milton Friedman’s classic 1970 New York Times piece, “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits.” There, Friedman argued:

In a free‐enterprise, private‐property system, a corporate executive is an employee of the owners of the business. He has direct responsibility to his employers. That responsibility is to conduct the business in accordance with their desires, which generally will be to make as much money as possible while conforming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom.

Friedman, a committed positivist, did not found his concept of social responsibility on a universal ethical standard, other than the need for business executives to defer to shareholder desires. And, in his view, this will usually mean to seek profits while conforming to existing laws and customs. These laws and customs will vary from time to time, and from place to place. And so, apparently, will the social responsibilities of businesses.

In his essay “How Conservatives Can Get ESG Right”, Keeley endorses Friedman’s analysis. Yet it suffers from two major flaws, flaws that also weaken Keeley’s arguments. First, businesses and investors are not just passive recipients of laws and ethical customs. Business leaders are norm-makers, not just norm-takers.  

The most successful business leaders are able to cast a compelling long-term vision, one that includes but goes beyond making money, and to persuade their investors to remain focused on the long-term. That is, business leaders lead their investors, they don’t merely respond to investor preferences. Further, policymakers depend on the counsel of industry to respond to technological innovations, as we are now seeing with artificial intelligence. And business leaders seek to influence both the law and public opinion, such as through lobbying, public relations, media, and publishing their own thoughts.  

This is understandable. To survive, businesses cannot merely conform to the basic rules of society — they must influence them. But how, and in which direction? For example, should they oppose crony subsidies and regulations, which may help their profits, at least in the short term, but undermine economic dynamism and the very legitimacy of their businesses? Friedman’s positivism does not provide much guidance here.  

After all, the ethical customs and laws of a society may grow increasingly hostile to private enterprise. Indeed, they seem to be doing so now. Business leaders cannot be expected to stand by as activists assault the legal and ethical foundations of economic progress, or as government agencies violate their constitutional rights. While Ending ESG recommends that business leaders “keep politics out of the boardroom,” this is no longer an option for major corporations, if it ever was.

Moreover, activist shareholders increasingly are advancing shareholder proposals that are harmful to the long-term interests of the very corporations in which they own shares. This means businesses increasingly have to defend themselves against their own shareholders. Complicating matters further, the nature of business ownership has radically changed since 1970, with the rise of passive index investors and pension-fund activism. It’s no longer safe to assume that major investors will all agree on maximizing the long-term value of a particular firm, especially if that firm is engaged in ESG-unfriendly lines of business. What most investors do, and should, prioritize is very much up for debate.

Keeley claims “there is no practical alternative to shareholder primacy.” But clearly, there is. For one, many American states now have the option of “benefit corporation,” an option that replaces shareholder primacy with responsibilities to an array of stakeholders. And in Europe, the concepts of double materiality and co-determination override any commitment to shareholder primacy.  

Now, it’s true that such stakeholder governance often comes at a cost. On the other hand, stakeholder advocates will claim the cost is worth it, whether to save the planet, or to advance “equity.” It’s incumbent, therefore, upon ESG critics to advocate an alternative vision, not merely to fall in line with convention.

Without casting a bold vision for the future of free enterprise, there is no hope of ending ESG. Keeley himself recommends that “Republicans need a road map that would enable society to get all the good out of ESG without the bad.” He also refers approvingly to “growing numbers of shareowner resolutions seeking lower carbon emissions or increased workforce diversity.” But why defer to the United Nations, of all institutions, as a moral authority? Why grant any moral worth to counterproductive Western divestment from fossil fuels? Why pay even lip service to skin-deep diversity metrics?  

Just as Friedman recommended business leaders “conform” with convention, Keeley accepts ESG’s goals, while challenging its methods on pragmatic grounds. This is not a sustainable division of labor. It makes no sense for capitalists to legitimize the NGOs, global institutions, and academics working to delegitimize capitalism and advance the “religion of humanity.”

In the words of Argentine President Javier Milei,

Milton Friedman used to say that the social role of an entrepreneur is to make money. But that’s not enough. Part of their investment must include investing in those who defend the ideals of freedom, so the socialists can make no further advances. And if they don’t do it, they [the socialists] will get into the State, and use the State to impose a long term agenda that will destroy everything it touches. So we need a commitment from all of those who create wealth, to fight against socialism, to fight against statism, and to understand that if they fail to do so, the socialists will keep coming.

Fortunately, there are reasons for hope. 

Some business leaders are taking a more active role in advocating for the principles of economic enlightenment. In 2023, prominent Silicon Valley investor Marc Andreesen published the Techno-Optimist Manifesto. Andreesen’s manifesto defended free markets and attacked ESG as part of a “mass demoralization campaign.” Tech founder Brendan McCord launched the Cosmos Institute. Cosmos is bringing together philosophers with technologists in an Oxford University seminar, to discuss how technology can promote human flourishing. Elon Musk, of course, been scathingly critical of ESG, calling it a scam. And Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright releases an annual Bettering Human Lives report that argues for prioritizing the elimination of energy poverty over ESG goals.

Beyond business leaders themselves, the Alliance Defending Freedom recently released a “Statement of Principles on the Purpose of a Corporation.” The statement declares that “the proper purpose of business is to advance human flourishing by creating economic value through excellence in the provision of goods and services.” And the Abundance Institute has been making the case for “long-term tech optimism.”

To be sure, no particular one of these efforts is definitive. Nor, combined, will they be sufficient to defend the “economic enlightenment” against illiberal assaults. Yet if more affirmative visions for free enterprise are paired with reasonable, evidence-based critiques of ESG, such as those offered by Gramm and Keeley, ESG’s days might, indeed, be numbered. 

 

Russell Greene is a Senior Fellow for the Economy at Stand Together Trust, where he manages a grant making portfolio focused on federal regulatory affairs and strategic litigation. Prior, he worked for CrossFit Inc., directing the company’s brand defense and government affairs efforts. He has a BS in International Politics from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, where he learned both Classical and Modern Standard Arabic. He studies Ancient Greek and Latin in his spare time. Russ has published a number of articles on classical liberalism, ESG and related issues. 

 

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ESG Is Dead, Long Live DEI?

It’s death by a thousand cuts for the progressive acronyms. 

By Andrew Moran Apr 18, 2024 @ Liberty Nation News, Tags: Articles, Politics

Over the past two years, conservatives have been close to declaring victory against woke investing, also known as ESG (environment, social, and governance). Across the country, Republican-led states have successfully pummeled ESG disciples into submission as they refuse to engage in an indirect boycott of the fossil fuel industry that keeps the power on and millions employed. But while ESG is hanging on for dear life, is DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) next on the grim reaper’s list?

The ESG Brand Is Dead

West Virginia announced that it has restricted four major financial institutions from participating in multi-billion-dollar state contracts regarding these entities’ environmental positions. Riley Moore, the state treasurer, confirmed that Citigroup, HSBC, The Northern Trust Company, and TD Bank have been added to the Mountain State’s Restricted Financial Institution List. Officials determined that these banks engaged in oil and gas sector boycotts.

This means that the four organizations, in addition to the current crop of financial institutions, would be prohibited from bidding on approximately $22 billion worth of state transactions in the future. Moore recently told Fox Business:

“We are absolutely going to stand by our industries here in fossil fuels. Last year, the world burned more coal than any time in human history. The consumption of coal is not going down. That is a myth that is proliferated by the climate-activist left. So, why would we put ourselves in a position to not be part of that? I applaud both of these institutions for working with us in a cooperative way to ensure the free market remains free and our state’s critical industries are treated fairly.”

ESG, an attempt to wokify Corporate America, was born nearly a decade ago. The concept, according to the Corporate Finance Institute, was designed to serve “as a framework that helps stakeholders understand how an organization is managing risks and opportunities related to environmental, social, and governance criteria.” Up until recently, the idea captured the imaginations of Wall Street giants, a group desperate to bolster its reputation and attract capital by pretending to save the planet, fight racism, and carry rainbow flags.

But rather than generate good publicity, the ESG has generated immense financial backlash. As Liberty Nation has reported over the years, several states have resisted companies that have reduced investments in the sectors that are the backbone of their local economies. From Florida to Oklahoma to Texas, a large number of red states have divested from companies that desire to boycott traditional energy firms, for example.

While conservatives appear to be winning the war on ESG, the next target is the DEI initiative.

Die, DEI, Die?

DEI is another woke tool in the progressive arsenal. Like ESG, DEI has been marketed as a benevolent endeavor to foster a climate of diversity and inclusivity. Instead, it has transformed into a punchline that even left-leaning individuals have shrugged off. During his recent appearance on The Daily Show, host Charlamagne tha God called DEI efforts “mostly garbage,” asserting that they are merely for “good vibes” to enhance “corporate PR.”

Despite the plethora of evidence that DEI is a quota-based tool, many insist that it is for the greater good and is an excellent system to ensure equality. Billionaire Mark Cuban engaged in extensive arguments on X with various accounts, including Elon Musk. He was given proof that corporations and universities have embraced the dirty deeds of quotas, reverse racism, and incompetence. As the popular X account, The Rabbit Hole, recently noted, “If it weren’t for the double standards, DEI wouldn’t have standards at all and it often doesn’t.”

Because it has metastasized into a dirty acronym – Dilbert creator recommended calling the term “Didn’t Earn It” – corporations are scaling back their DEI campaign, be it slashing budgets or terminating chief diversity officers. This year, Bloomberg and CNBC reported that Alphabet, Meta Platforms, and Zoom Video Communications approved cuts to DEI programs. Meanwhile, at the governmental level, Texas is leading the charge in the crusade against DEI. This past summer, Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation prohibiting DEI and its clubs, organizations, and programs from involvement in the University of Texas ecosystem.

Leftists should not worry as the virtue signalers are trying to build a BRIDGE. Described as a social impact movement, it stands for benchmarking race, inclusion, and diversity in global engagement. It is still in its infancy period, but the conformists will rush to latch onto the next feel-good campaign. To paraphrase the Bard, wokeism by any other name would be just as rotten. ESG, DEI, or BRIDGE – it all derives from the epicenter of leftism.

 

Read More From Andrew Moran

ESG is Irrational, Misanthropic and Morally Defective

By Rich Kozlovich

Editor's Note:  Originally published in the past, but the thoughts in these pieces need to be said over again.  RK

On Dec 19 2020 Jordan Schachtel published this piece, Exclusive: Davos 2023 will feature BlackRock & TikTok CEOs, with WEF demanding more censorship and tyranny, on The Dossier, his web site listing some of the speakers and themes for that meeting saying:

The World Economic Forum (WEF) will host its annual meeting in Davos next month, and for the second year in a row, The Dossier the first publication to publish a list of speakers attending the invite-only, ruling class gathering in Switzerland. The World Economic Forum is a fanatical political organization masquerading as a neutral entity, with specific policy goals that involve centralizing power into the hands of hand-picked global elites as the only means to save the earth from a claimed climate emergency. The annual Davos conference acts as an ultra exclusive in-person narrative and ideas exchange for this hand-picked ruling class. The WEF is led by frontman and president Klaus Schwab, who advocates for a “green transition” through his misleadingly named “stakeholder capitalism” agenda, which amounts to technocratic tyranny..........Movements such as The Great Reset, Build Back Better, and the ESG agenda were pieced together by WEF “stakeholders” at previous Davos confabs................

And what is on the agenda according to Jordan Schachtel, "Davos 2023 will feature BlackRock & TikTok CEOs, with WEF demanding more censorship and tyranny."

• “Why We Need Battery Passports”
• “Leading The Charge Through Earth’s New Normal” (Featuring Al Gore)
• “A Living Wage For All”
• “Enabling An Equitable Transition”
• “Beyond The Rainbow: Advancing LGBTQ+ Rights”
• “Advancing Racial and Ethnic Equity” (Moderated by CNN)
• “Decarbonizing Supply Chains” (Moderated by Chinese state television)
• “Finding The Right Balance For Crypto”
• “Tackling Harm In The Digital Era”

For some time I, along with a great many others, have pointed out there's an international conspiracy to destroy the American Constitution, the only thing standing between a feudal socialistic neo-pagan form of global governance and a free world.  As the Canada Free Press states, "Because without America, there is no free world."

• So, what happens when a "conspiracy theory" is not a theory?  
• What happens when but fact that "theory" is reality?  
• What happens when the nation's leaders are part and parcel of that conspiracy to destroy the traditional Judaic/Christian values of the western world and replace those values with abject  secular tyranny?   
• What happens when the law enforcers are the law breakers?  

These Twitter exposes give definitive proof the FBI has been illegally spying on people, working to overthrow elections and even conspire to illegally attack a sitting President and put globalist misanthropic puppets in place, and corrupting the voting system of the entire nation in order to do it. 

There are three areas of the Constitution that are the most seriously being attacked.  The First Amendment regarding the Freedom of Speech, and Freedom of Religion, and the Second Amendment, The Right to Bear Arms.  All of which are foundational to a free people standing between insane leftist mandates, regulations, unconstitutional laws, out of control elitist leadership and an out of control federal bureaucracy. 

Remember, the First Amendment" is about freedom of speech and religion, and there's a reason it's the "First Amendment".  Apparently the Founding Fathers believed, and rightly so, those were the most important philosophical rights to establish a free nation, ergo, destroying them is the driving force for the left, and crashing the American economy is the tool they're using to do it.  No matter how badly their actions impact the economy, they're not going to stop, as this article states:

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, will continue to push for leftist environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies when it engages with companies and exercises its voting rights — despite backlash from Republicans.

Since all these leftist schemes are financial losers their actions are a failure of their judiciary responsibilities to the stockholders.  To keep doing what their doing requires censorship, making sure they can censor anyone who dares question or challenge their cleanly illegal activities.  

All of what's discussed here is just the tip of the iceberg, and these misfits won't stop until they've driven humanity back into a dark age of modern feudalism begging at the table for crumbs and handouts from government. 

Here are the 45 Communist Goals to Destroy America as Listed in the 1963 Congressional Record.  Communism and fascism are two sides of the same coin, socialism!  And much of what these socialists have been working to achieve for the last 125 years has come into being, and America is in Crisis.

To Have Clarity We First Need Definition!

One of the problems with the left is their penchant for redefining words to fit the narrative of the moment.  Words mean things but are constantly being warped and twisted by radicals to obfuscate reality.  

We absolutely must grasp this:  Everything we are told, everything we read in the newspapers or see on the news is filled with lies. Mostly lies of omission, and on occasion, more so recently, outright lies, but the end result humanity is being duped by prominent people, i.e., leaders in every area of influence in every institution of the world.

We really do need to get that.

In John Hawkins article, 10 Concepts Liberals Talk About Incessantly But Don't Understand, he starts out with two quotes. One from Ronald Reagan:

"It isn’t so much that liberals are ignorant. It’s just that they know so many things that aren’t so."

The other by the character Inigo Montoya portrayed by in The Princess Bride: 

“You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means”.

Which is a great lead in to the 10 clarifications about terms in his article that are being redefined so often that they are becoming somewhat indefinable. He covers the difference between how conservatives and liberals define the following terms:  Open Mindedness, Racism, Fairness, Greed, Hate, Investment, Charity, Patriotism, Tolerance and Diversity. 

Well, here's my take on all that.  

They want open mindedness to the point our brains fall out of our heads.  Then there’s racism, hate, tolerance and diversity.  First off, diversity without accomplishment is incompetence without consequences, and as for the rest, that's a one-way street, irrespective of the facts or reality.  Racism, hate, and intolerance is just fine as long as it's blacks against whites or even Asians, and since Obama, Biden and their gang of race baiters have done so much to foul race relations, race relation in America is now a disaster.

Fairness, now that's a real winner.  Who wrote "The Book of Fair"?  No one!  There is no accepted defining concept.  As a result, fairness can be twisted and warped unendingly.   Who decides what's fair?  And if "fair" becomes codified, and administered by government bureaucrats, which is the real goal of the left: I can guarantee you very real unfairness will be rampant and destructive.  As for patriotism, well, Lenin was a Russian patriot, so that can mean anything these days.  

So, why has this become so complicated? That's the easy part! 

As long as we are incapable of defining words and terms properly, we can be led in directions that we may not have been willing to go otherwise. This has been a tactic on the left since the French Revolution, refined and promoted by Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao.  But they never perfected or practiced as well as has the mainstream media, green activists, statists and leftists who are insatiable in their drive for power and money.  They unendingly work to keep society off balance in order to destroy us with our own values.  

Remember When Anyone Who Criticized Sanctuary States and Cities Was a Racist Xenophobe?  Not Anymore!!!

 The Inevitability Factor. When Reality Reaches Its Apex.  And Reality Bites.

Over the years I've read a lot about why New York goes Democrat based on the dominance of NYC with it's over eight million voters.  Is this really true though?

In NYC Democrats outnumber Republicans almost two to one, but if you add in those with no party affiliation, it becomes around three to one. But what about the rest of the state? It turns out the numbers are also about two to one, and with those with no party affiliation, it's about two and a half to one statewide.  Okay, so, what's the point of all this.  

 (11 Sanctuary States:  California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington.)

There are eleven sanctuary states, and New York is one of them, and they chose the nitwits who made New York a sanctuary state.  It isn't like they didn't know their views and policies.  They were quite clear about their views, so since the people of New York voted for these halfwits, we can now reasonably conclude after all that virtue signaling and finger pointing, they're just xenophobic racists after all. 

Remember all that virtue signaling claiming illegal immigration was a huge benefit for America?  Well, the border states, especially Florida and Texas, decided it was unfair for them to horde all those benefits for themselves, so they decided to share them with the Sanctuary cites and states, and shipped them off to places like New York City.  They also sent a bunch to Martha's Vineyard.  Who shipped them out just as fast as they could.  Apparently they, like Texas and Florida, felt it was unfair to hoard all those benefits illegal aliens brought to their "sanctuary" city and decided to let others reap those rewards instead. So, they sent them on their way, just as quickly as they could.   

Now, before we proceed, let's properly define who these people really are.  They're criminals.  They've entered this nation illegally, and that makes them criminals.  

That brings me back to New York City, a Sanctuary City, and their remarkable new Mayor, Eric Adams who apparently thinks these illegal aliens aren't beneficial after all, in fact, he claims they're a problem, and it's "unfair" for NYC to bear such a burden.  It seems NYC Mayor Adams has opened a migrant camp that will cost the taxpayers of New York City a mere twenty million dollars a month, and Gov. Kathy Hochul has created a jobs program for these criminals even though over 380 thousand New Yorkers are unemployed.

Wow! Reality bites and all that virtue signaling has turned into a self made immigration crisis.  They've put them up in hotels to the tune of three hundred dollars a day, where many of these criminals are out of control, city services are being slashed in order to pay for all this, and the city is ignoring all the crimes being committed by these criminals, and again, they are criminals as they entered this country illegally, and now Adams says they've no place to put them.  

So now Mayor Adams, a political and intellectual giant standing tall amongst ordinary mortals, has an idea.  Have the people of New York City house them, along with owners of vacant property, by force of law if necessary by changing zoning restrictions that would allow commercial office space to be converted into apartments, and force the owners to accept them, whether the owners like it or not, and do it in spite of the fact these criminals have trashed the hotels they were housed in. 

Let's keep this in perspective, the number he's dealing with is a fraction of what the border states are facing, and it turns out all that virtue signaling is breaking them.  Adams claims all these illegal aliens  are destroying the city, and eventually that will include the neighborhoods.  Wow!  It's clear Adams was really great at talking the talk, but he's incapable of walking the talk, and one can only conclude, Adams must not be a giant among men after all.  He must be a racist. 

In Guy Benson's August 15, 2023 article, What Exactly Do They Think 'Sanctuary' Means?, he says:

We've covered the subject of hypocrisy and virtue signaling among Democrat-led "sanctuary" jurisdictions pretty extensively in recent years.  It's basically been impossible not to notice the yawning, political disconnect between leaders' preening rhetoric and policy preferences during the previous administration, and their incoherent meltdowns when directly confronted with the consequences of their stated preferences and alleged principles throughout the Biden border crisis.  We've seen this in places ranging from Martha's Vineyard, to Chicago, to California, and beyond.  But ground zero for this phenomenon might be New York City, where officials' 180 degree heel turn has been quite a sight to behold. 

A taste of their own medicine August 28, 2023 by J.R. Dunn. 

There is yet another beneficial aspect to the bussing of illegals to welcoming, open-armed blue destinations that hasn’t yet been mentioned. A large part of the purpose in allowing illegals into the country involves using them to punish and harass the working and middle classes – particularly the White elements. So there’s no mystery as to why illegals have been brought into the country and then deliberately dispatched to blue-collar and middle-class towns across the U.S. Things like that don’t just happen, comrades – they’re made to happen

Let's move on to another virtue signally sanctuary state, New Jersey, where Gov. Chris Murphy in 2017 is quite clear saying this about Trump's policy on illegal immigration: 

“We will stand up to this President. If need be, we will be a sanctuary not just city but state.”

But now, wait for it, here it comes, it turns out now, they don’t want to be a Sanctuary State after all.  It turns out reality bites, and they don't have the resources and can't afford it. Amazing, so, by their own standards, he too is a blatant racist!

Then we have Chicago, where residents, black residents, are upset they plan to house 300 of these criminals in a Hyde Park area motel.  Are they racists also? When black residents complained about this, far left Alderman Andre Vasquez called them racists who are dividing the Democrat party. So apparently Democrats, black Democrats, are also xenophobes and racists.

The federal government under the Biden Administration is spending hundreds of millions of dollars promoting this insanity,  and that's the tip of the iceberg"

Illegal immigration imposes an enormous burden on American taxpayers. Annually, the 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living in the U.S. costs taxpayers more than $143 billion. That amount, though, does not include any of the social and economic costs — such as higher housing prices, depleted wages, lost jobs, increased crime, and strained public resources at hospitals and schools — associated with illegal immigration.

Immigration is destroying America, both legal and illegal.  Immigrants bring their own values with them, and with many of these immigrants those values are antithetical, and destructive to American values.   Biden's bringing disaster to America, and it's clearly intentional.

What are Americans doing about it?  Running away from these cities, and states, just as fast as they can.  But where can people go where this national policy disaster won't catch up to them?  Even here in Ohio, where we're not a sanctuary state, illegal immigration has become an issue, and people are saying we've had it, and enough is enough.   

That needs to be a national consensus.