Attorney General Ken Paxton has joined a legal challenge against the Biden administration’s recent regulation targeting gas-powered water heaters.
On December 26, 2024, the Department of Energy issued a final rule that would prohibit the sale of non-condensing instantaneous natural gas water heaters. Paxton and a coalition of attorneys general from multiple states contest the move is unlawful.
The lawsuit, led by Georgia, Kansas, and Tennessee, argues that this regulation disproportionately affects seniors and low-income households by limiting market options and potentially forcing consumers to use products that may require more energy for the same performance.
Paxton strongly criticized the rule, stating, “It makes no sense to ban better performing instantaneous water heaters in the name of ‘green energy’ and force consumers to purchase more expensive and less efficient models. Beyond being ridiculous, it is an unlawful abuse of power.”
He has vowed to continue opposing overreach by the Biden administration, adding, “Until the final second of Biden’s tenure in Washington, I will defend Texas from the chronic lawlessness of his Administration.”
With President-elect Trump set to take office in a few days, it remains to be seen how these ongoing legal challenges and regulatory disputes will be resolved.
Fellow states joining Texas in the suit are Georgia, Kansas, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Plus a bunch of natural gas associations.
Hopefully today marks the end of federal regulatory overreach in the service of unlawful, pie-in-the-sky environmentalism and the beginning of an administration that actually cares about ordinary Americans.
The Biden economy is still sucking, the arsonist who helped set LA ablaze was (of course!) an illegal alien, a Tik-Tok triptych, Dan Patrick announces a staggering warchest, WaPo walloped, Stacey Abrams is busted, and Americans are told “no thanks” by Chinese RedNote users.
The bad news for American workers doesn’t end there. “1 in 5 postings on Greenhouse are ‘ghost jobs.'”
There were many reasons why they did it. Some did it for the same reason Biden’s administration did: To make their company look like it was doing better than it was. Some post them just in case there is a unicorn out there with magical qualifications.
But the most frustrating reason was the final one:
Some hiring managers even admitted they post fake jobs to keep their own employees on their toes, saying they want workers to feel ‘replaceable’ so they will work harder.
“LA County Arson Suspect is Illegal Immigrant Repeat Offender Protected By California’s Sanctuary State Policies.” Because of course he is. “The suspect, Juan Manuel Sierra-Leyva, is a Mexican national who has already been convicted of multiple crimes, but because California is a sanctuary state, he is unlikely to be deported, the New York Post reported.”
Just days after reports that she’d planned to can her fire chief, Kristin Crowley, after she publicly criticized the level of funding she’d received from the city, Bass is facing intense criticism yet again from a memo up on a city website, which shows that just months ago, the chief practically begged city hall to stop its budget-cutting spree on fire response.
The memo, which was dated Nov. 18, was written to the fire commissioners, according to the Washington Free Beacon. That’s a five-person board appointed by Bass.
In Crowley’s memo, she urged the commissioners to let Bass and the city council know how dire the situation was.
“In many ways, the current staffing, deployment model, and size of the LAFD have not changed since the 1960s,” Crowley wrote.
A federal judge in Texas has found that American Airlines violated both federal law and their fiduciary duty to their employees by using the company’s 401(k) plan to push ESG. Let a thousand lawsuits bloom.
Texas Republican Lt. Governor Dan Patrick is loaded for bear. “Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick posted ‘over $33.5 million’ cash-on-hand for his re-election campaign in 2026.”
Ron DeSantis continues to drive the enemy before him and hear the lamentations of their women. “United Teachers of Dade, Florida’s largest teachers union, failed to meet the requirements of a new state law that requires at least 60% of union members pay dues.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Keir Starmer’s Labour government has been trying to give away the Chagos Islands, despite them being the home to vital U.S. military base Diego Garcia. Fortunately, someone has slammed the breaks on the deal until Trump is in office.
Big drone attack from Ukraine against Russia, with reportedly over 200 drones used.
“WaPo’s Pulitzer-winning cartoonist, who portrays Republicans as groomers and predators, arrested for possession of child porn. Washington Post cartoonist Darrin Bell arrested for possession of child pornography.”
But it’s not all bad news for Bezos! TDS sufferer Jennifer Rubin quit.
Remember Stacey Abrams, the black female Georgian Beto? The mediocrity whose fawning media profiles never turned into actual election victories? Well, “Stacey Abrams Group Hit with Largest Fine in Georgia History for Violating Campaign Finance Law.”
A Democratic advocacy group founded by former Representative Stacey Abrams and once led by Senator Raphael Warnock were fined $300,000 on Wednesday for breaking Georgia’s campaign finance law.
Georgia’s ethics commission found that the New Georgia Project and its affiliated action fund raised $4.2 million and spent $3.2 million to support Abrams during the 2018 election cycle when she ran for governor. The groups failed to disclose those partisan contributions in violation of state campaign finance law. Abrams ultimately lost to Republican Brian Kemp, who defeated her again in 2022.
The two entities agreed to pay a $300,000 penalty, the largest fine in the commission’s 38-year history, in two $150,000 installments for 16 instances of illegal activity. The punishment is aimed at the groups, not Abrams and Warnock directly.
The New Georgia Project failed to register as an independent campaign committee and failed to file campaign finance reports of contributions and spending in 2018, showing their support for Abrams and other Democratic candidates.
In 2019, the groups committed the same offense without disclosing $646,000 in contributions and $174,000 in spending to support a voter referendum for Gwinnett County’s citizens to join the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority system. Despite the nonprofit’s efforts, voters rejected the referendum.
Just like Beto…
You didn’t expect Ken Paxton to let Biden leave office without one last lawsuit. “Texas Sues Biden Administration Over ‘Unlawful’ Methane Tax. Along with 22 other states, Texas is seeking to bar the final rule from taking effect on January 17.”
Turns out Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin didn’t bother to tell the chain of command that he was having major surgery. Or that he was hopped up on goofballs afterwards…
Not the Bee: “Asked what he’ll talk about at Mar-a-Lago, John Fetterman says, “I demand that I need to be made Pope of Greenland.” Fetterman seems to be the rare Democrat with a sense of humor…
Before social justice was the ruling religion/scam of the far left, The Church of Global Warming held sway in their hearts. They still mutter the catechisms, and lots of Democratic Party bigwigs still have their fingers in the green scam pie, but the world as a whole, freed from their bondage to Big Green thanks to shifting political sands, is jumping off the “carbon neutral” bandwagon while the jumping is good.
In Texas, scrutiny from Attorney General Ken Paxton has caused several big banks to pull out of NetZero pacts.
Attorney General Ken Paxton has revealed that three major United States-based banks have withdrawn from the United Nations-led Net-Zero Banking Alliance.
Launched in April 2021, the group comprises banks “committed to aligning their lending, investment and capital markets activities with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050,” according to the alliance’s website.
The group’s first commitment statement provides more details, pledging to “transition all operational and attributable GHG emissions from our lending and investment portfolios to align with pathways to net-zero by mid-century, or sooner.”
In October 2023, Paxton opened a review of the statuses of Bank of America, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, and other financial institutions pursuant to Senate Bill 13, first passed by the Texas Legislature in 2021.
The law prohibits governmental entities from entering into contracts with companies that boycott oil and gas companies. The financial institutions’ membership in the NZBA raised questions about their compliance with this law.
His review specifically focused on companies required to provide letters detailing their compliance with SB 13. Those already known to be a part of NZBA—like Bank of America, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo—are listed in the letter.
Other financial institutions listed are Barclays, DNT Asset Trust, Fidelity Investments, RBC Capital Markets, the Royal Bank of Canada, State Street, and TD Bank.
“Any company submitting a standing letter to us in the future must inform us if it or any affiliate is a Net Zero Alliance Member. To the extent we learn that a company with a current standing letter, or its affiliate, is a Net Zero Alliance Member, the company will be treated similarly to the companies identified on the attached list,” explained Paxton’s letter on the review process.
Wells Fargo announced it was leaving the alliance on December 20, followed shortly thereafter by Bank of America on December 31. Morgan Stanley left NZBA on January 2, and JPMorgan exited on January 7.
“More and more financial institutions are taking a major step in the right direction by leaving the radical and anti-energy Net-Zero Banking Alliance. The NZBA seeks to undermine our vital oil and gas industries, and membership could potentially prevent banks from being able to enter into contracts with Texas governmental entities,” explained Paxton. “I am glad that Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan have terminated their NZBA membership.”
In addition to the four banks pursued by Paxton, financial giant Citigroup left the alliance on December 31. Goldman Sachs left on December 10, kicking off the mass exodus.
It turns out that the vast majority of Americans are far more interested in such frivolous objectives as “feeding my family” and “paying rent” than paying $120 trillion to theoretically drop the temperature of the globe by 1.5°C three-quarters of a century hence. Banks, now free of having to curry favor with radical “environmental justice” warriors in Biden’s ghost administration, are following suit and backing away from pie-in-the-sky decarbonization goals.
Congratulations on making it to the end of a difficult but exhilarating 2024, and I hope you had a Merry Christmas! Christmas week is always slow, so this will be a smaller LinkSwarm than usual, and thank goodness for that. More Biden misdeeds, lots of Russian stuff blows up, two horrible gay pedophiles go to prison forever, and Democratic judges going out of their way to punish the victims. Let’s dig in!
President Joe Biden is transferring more student loan debt onto American taxpayers with only weeks left until he departs the Oval Office.
The Biden administration announced Friday that it is giving $4.28 billion of student debt relief to almost 55,000 more public service workers including teachers, nurses, and law enforcement officials.
“From Day One of my Administration, I promised to make sure that higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity,” Biden said in a statement.
“Because of our actions, millions of people across the country now have the breathing room to start businesses, save for retirement, and pursue life plans they had to put on hold because of the burden of student loan debt.”
The Department of Education is forgiving the debt through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, a policy that permits the forgiveness of remaining student loans for public employees who have made 120 monthly payments.
Federal bureacurats are simply more equal than mere citizens…
Remember how Biden commuted and pardoned some of the worst people in the world earlier this month? Well, he found worse ones still.
President Joe Biden on Monday commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 men on federal death row, reclassifying their sentences to prevent President-elect Donald Trump from allowing their executions when he returns to office in January.
The 37 men were all convicted of murder. Their sentences will be reclassified from execution to life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to the White House.
The men whose sentences are being reclassified include Shannon Agofsky, who murdered a bank president, dumped his body in a lake, and then killed another man in prison; Brandon Basham and Chadrick Fulks, who escaped from prison and killed two women while on a 17-day crime spree; Ricky Allen Fackrell, a white supremacist who killed a prison inmate; and Daryl Lawrence, who killed a police officer during a bank robbery.
“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden said in statement. “But guided by my conscience and my experience, . . . I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.”
Biden only left three men on federal death row: Robert Bowers, the gunman who shot and killed eleven worshipers at the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue in 2018; Dylann Roof, a white supremacist who killed nine people at a black church during a Bible study in 2015; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 2013 Boston Marathon bomber.
Biden’s so opposed to the death penalty he only refused to commute sentences for those criminals the public would pay attention to…
Do blue state Democratic officials think they can defy the federal government on deporting illegal aliens? A hard rain is gonna fall.
Hoover Institution senior fellow Victor Davis Hanson said Thursday that incoming border czar Tom Homan is starting with Democratic Chicago to deport illegal immigrants in order to set a precedent for other cities threatening to block his efforts.
Since President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Homan as border czar, the former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting director has warned Democratic mayors to step aside as some have threatened to refuse cooperation with ICE on mass deportations.
Snip.
Hanson argued that Homan’s focus on Democratic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson will set a precedent, emphasizing that the incoming border czar is listening to Democratic constituents concerned about illegal immigration in their city.
Snip.
I know the most obnoxious, the most crazy, the most nullification advocate in one of the second or third largest cities is Chicago, that crazy Mayor Johnson,’” Hanson continued. “‘So we’re going to tell him first, you try to stop the federal government and you think you’re South Carolina 1832 or you think you’re firing on Fort Sumner. You’re going to regret it because you were breaking federal law and we have a lot more federal laws that you would want us to follow in your interest than you do federal laws to break.’”
“That’s going to be interesting because what Homan is basically doing is talking over the mayor’s head to the black constituencies of Chicago and saying, don’t worry, your mayor doesn’t, he’s going to break the law, but I’m going to follow it and I’ll put him in jail for your benefit so that you don’t have to worry about Venezuelans and Colombians shooting you or taking over your social services,” Hanson added.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump plans to continue military support for Ukraine, the Financial Times reported on Dec. 20, citing undisclosed sources.
Three officials familiar with discussions revealed that Trump intends to keep supplying US military equipment to Ukraine after his inauguration.
Trump’s foreign policy team also informed European officials that he plans to push NATO allies to raise their defense spending to 5% of their GDP. NATO member states currently follow a goal of allocating 2% of their GDP to defense spending.
A Georgia couple was sentenced to 100 years in prison without parole after adopting two boys and sexually abusing them.
William and Zachary Zulock will each spend the rest of their lives behind bars, after pleading guilty to aggravated sodomy, aggravated child molestation, incest, and sexual exploitation of children. Each were sentenced on Dec. 19.
Sanders said he first encountered some of these services while investigating Kremlin-funded disinformation efforts in Ukraine, as they are all useful in assembling large-scale, anonymous social media campaigns.
According to Sanders, all 122 of the services he tested are processing transactions through a company called Cryptomus, which says it is a cryptocurrency payments platform based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Cryptomus’ website says its parent firm — Xeltox Enterprises Ltd. (formerly certa-pay[.]com) — is registered as a money service business (MSB) with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC).
Sanders said the payment data he gathered also shows that at least 56 cryptocurrency exchanges are currently using Cryptomus to process transactions, including financial entities with names like casher[.]su, grumbot[.]com, flymoney[.]biz, obama[.]ru and swop[.]is.
These platforms are built for Russian speakers, and they each advertise the ability to anonymously swap one form of cryptocurrency for another. They also allow the exchange of cryptocurrency for cash in accounts at some of Russia’s largest banks — nearly all of which are currently sanctioned by the United States and other western nations.
An analysis of their technology infrastructure shows that all of these exchanges use Russian email providers, and most are directly hosted in Russia or by Russia-backed ISPs with infrastructure in Europe (e.g. Selectel, Netwarm UK, Beget, Timeweb and DDoS-Guard). The analysis also showed nearly all 56 exchanges used services from Cloudflare, a global content delivery network based in San Francisco.
“Purportedly, the purpose of these platforms is for companies to accept cryptocurrency payments in exchange for goods or services,” Sanders told KrebsOnSecurity. “Unfortunately, it is next to impossible to find any goods for sale with websites using Cryptomus, and the services appear to fall into one or two different categories: Facilitating transactions with sanctioned Russian banks, and platforms providing the infrastructure and means for cyber attacks.”
“Wells Fargo Exits Net-Zero Banking Alliance After Texas Probe Into Anti-Energy Policies Attorney General Paxton has ended a review of the bank and allowed state governmental entities to do business with Wells Fargo again.”
Another day, another fake hate crime hoax. “A Tennessee college revealed that racist messages found written on campus were fabricated by a student in an apparent attempt to make Donald Trump supporters look bad. Rhodes College confirmed to Fox News Digital that a student had admitted to leaving the messages strewn about campus that were found over Thanksgiving break and were being investigated as a hate crime. Instead, it turned out to be yet another race hoax.”
Georgia woman arrested for evicting squatter from her house. And then the judge scolded her for her “privilege.” Sounds like a whole lot of people need federal equal protection lawsuits filed against them. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Ken Paxton is giving women in college athletics an early Christmas present this year: A lawsuit against the NCAA for allowing men to compete in women’s athletic competitions.
Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued the National Collegiate Athletic Association for allowing biological males to compete against women.
The lawsuit, announced Sunday, accuses the NCAA of “engaging in false, deceptive, and misleading practices by marketing sporting events as ‘women’s’ competitions only to then provide consumers with mixed sex competitions where biological males compete against biological females.”
Paxton argues that by allowing biological men to compete with women, the NCAA has violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act—a law that “protects consumers from businesses attempting to mislead or trick consumers into purchasing goods or services that are not as advertised.”
“The NCAA is engaging in false, deceptive, and misleading practices by advertising using logos and branding representing that the goods and services offered to consumers are for ‘women’s’ sporting events when, in fact, the sporting events are ‘mixed’ with both male and female participants,” the lawsuit reads. “The NCAA is further engaging in false, deceptive, and misleading practices by failing to disclose to consumers which participants in ‘women’s’ sporting events are women and which are men, leaving consumers who want to purchase goods and services associated with women in women’s sporting events confused and frustrated.”
As a result of the deceptive practices, Paxton is asking the court to grant a permanent injunction that will prohibit the NCAA from allowing biological males to compete in women’s sporting events held in Texas or that involve Texas teams. Alternatively, the NCAA could stop marketing its events as “women’s” if they involve mixed-sex competitions.
Paxton also said that by allowing men to compete in women’s sports, the NCAA is actively jeopardizing females’ safety.
Previous lawsuits seem to have been filed under equal protection clauses, or various Title IX passages, but the deceptive practices angle has the twin virtues of being both novel and true.
Trying to force transsexualism down America’s throats constantly polls as one of the Democratic Party’s least popular policies. People with XX chromosomes are female, and people with XY chromosomes are male. Everything else is genetic abnormality or sophistry. 2+2 does not equal 5 no matter how fervently The Party insists it must.
Hopefully Trump’s 2024 election victory will mark the end of transsexual madness, but an awful lot of social justice warriors will need to be sued before this particular reality-denying delusion is purged from our institutions.
A federal judge has blocked a Biden-Harris administration rule that required health insurance coverage for those brought across the border illegally as children.
Texas and 18 other Republican-led states sued the federal government over the rule, which allowed Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients to enroll in a federally run health insurance plan under the Affordable Care Act.
DACA is an Obama-era program that delays the deportation of those who arrived in the U.S. illegally as minors.
The 19 states argued that the Biden rule encourages illegal aliens to remain in the U.S. and forces legal citizens to contribute funds for their health care.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor agreed with the states and halted the rule, citing federal law that prohibits giving public benefits to those who are not legal citizens.
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, whose office spearheaded the lawsuit, called the decision “a big win for the rule of law.”
“Congress never intended that illegal aliens should receive Obama care benefits,” Kobach posted on X. “Indeed, two laws prohibit them from receiving such benefits.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton applauded the decision on social media.
Just as ObamaCare was a Trojan Horse to enable government takeover of health care, DACA “dreamers” were a Trojan horse to soften American opposition to the Democratic Party’s policy of importing illegal aliens in America. Of course, the Obama holdovers decided they didn’t need popular opinion on their side and just opened the floodgates to every illegal alien gang-banger who could make it across the border.
One by one, the illegal rules enacted by the Biden Administration to decontrol the border and normalize and subsidize illegal aliens are falling by the wayside. Let’s hope Trump47 kicks that process up into overdrive.
Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center (SHNC), a South Austin-based non-profit organization, alleging that it is “operating as a common nuisance in violation of Texas law.”
“In South Austin,” the lawsuit states, “a once peaceful neighborhood has been transformed by homeless drug addicts, convicted criminals, and registered sex offenders. These people do drugs in sight of children, publicly fornicate next to an elementary school, menace residents with machetes, urinate and defecate on public grounds, and generally terrorize the surrounding community.”
The suit goes on to say that it is SHNC “who is responsible” for the alleged issues.
“It permits this drug use on and around its surrounding property. And it then permits the homeless to linger in and around the community even if they are in an unstable state.”
Paxton’s suit also points out that the center “operates mere feet from an elementary school.”
The lawsuit is asking the court to stop the Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center from operating within 1,000 feet of schools, playgrounds, or youth centers, or in ways that disturb the surrounding community. Additionally, the state requests that the center be ordered to “close for one year.”
It’s my working thesis that the Homeless Industrial complex is a way to not only rake off graft and corruption for the left, but also launder money to donate directly to Democrats And what do you know? Search for Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center on Open Secrets yields 15 donations, all to Democrats, including Colin Allred and Kamala Harris this year.
Another thing: The Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center isn’t that large, yet they seem to have no less than 35 people on their board and payroll.
The Paxton lawsuit doesn’t delve into this, only the baleful effect importing drug addicted transients has had on the center’s neighbors. The new “social justice” approved “housing first” method of “fixing” homelessness is to just keep letting the drug-addicted transients continue using drugs. This actively prevents them from rejoining society as productive members, but is a great way for leftwing activists to keep farming them for government subsidies.
We have direct evidence of graft in previous Austin homeless programs, and this lawsuit by the state of Texas may turn up some very interesting tidbits in discovery…
Another day, another Ken Paxton lawsuit, this one against BlackRock over coal.
Texas and 10 other states have sued three of the world’s largest financial companies, alleging the trio violated antitrust laws to push coal power plants out of commission.
Attorney General Ken Paxton announced he and 10 other attorneys general sued BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street in federal district court in Tyler, Texas.
“Each Defendant has individually acquired substantial stockholdings in every significant publicly held coal producer in the United States,” the filing asserts.
“Each has thereby acquired the power to influence the policies of these competing companies and bring about a substantial lessening of competition in the markets for coal. And each has used its power to affect a substantial reduction in competition in coal markets.”
The suit then points to the Climate Action 100+ agreement onto which all three firms signed, a 2021 pact that laid out decarbonization commitments; BlackRock and State Street announced their withdrawal from the pact earlier this year.
The lawsuit continues, “Rather than individually wield their shareholdings to reduce coal output, therefore, Defendants effectively formed a syndicate and agreed to use their collective holdings of publicly traded coal companies to induce industry-wide output reductions.”
Paxton’s position seems to be: Pressuring coal companies by yourself is fine, but get together to pressure them collectively is forming an illegal, anti-competitive cartel.
The plaintiffs are asking the court for forced divestiture of each company’s coal plant holdings and to fine the defendants $10,000 per violation under the Texas Business & Commerce code, along with miscellaneous other requests.
In total, seven counts across the various states were brought against the financial titans.
“Texas will not tolerate the illegal weaponization of the financial industry in service of a destructive, politicized ‘environmental’ agenda. BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street formed a cartel to rig the coal market, artificially reduce the energy supply, and raise prices,” Paxton said.
“Their conspiracy has harmed American energy production and hurt consumers. This is a stunning violation of State and federal law.”
BlackRock responding that they’re as pure as the driven snow snipped.
Like many other places across the country, Texas’ main power grid — the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) region — has seen a reduction in its coal power fleet as aged plants retire and nothing new is built.
Coal has fallen out of fashion both politically and within the industry. Environmentalists push for wind and solar to replace it in the power portfolio, while the cheaper natural gas prices around the world have steadily forced coal generators out of commission.
ERCOT currently has 14,321 megawatts (MW) of installed coal and lignite capacity, though about half of that is usually operating at any given time; that’s down from around 20,000 MW of coal capacity in 2015.
This lawsuit is an extension of the fight over the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) movement in the world of capital — a generally politically progressive phenomenon that tries to push policies like decarbonization and pro-choice views in boardrooms.
Paxton might have difficulty prevailing should the issue come to trial, as there’s no shortage of U.S. agency declarations of “decarbonization” as an official government goal that BlackRock can point to. But I’m pretty sure neither side wants this in court. Especially BlackRock, who is on the wrong side of anti-woke culture shift with Trump II incoming and most of the rest of the corporate world backtracking on social justice and ecomadness.
Expect them and their co-defendents settle to avoid long, nasty bouts of discovery making its way into the news.
A group of states is suing the Security Exchanges Commission (SEC), claiming the commission is overstepping its authority in regulating digital assets like cryptocurrencies — arguing that the SEC’s actions stifle state-level innovation and impose federal control without congressional approval.
Eighteen state attorneys general have joined the lawsuit, one of which is Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, in addition to DeFi Education Fund, a nonpartisan research and advocacy group.
Along with naming the SEC directly in the complaint, it also lists SEC Chair Gary Gensler, among other officials.
The states want the court to stop the SEC from enforcing regulations and allow them to manage digital assets with their own laws.
“The SEC’s sweeping assertion of regulatory jurisdiction is untenable,” the suit states. “The digital assets implicated here are just that — assets, not investment contracts covered by federal securities laws.”
“They do not entail any traditional investment relationship, in which the investor invests capital and the promoter assumes an ongoing obligation to use that capital in a common enterprise to generate returns that the investor will share.”
The lawsuit goes on to explain that the laws defining what counts as an “investment contract” were written in a clear way, and past U.S. Supreme Court decisions support this definition. Because of this, the complaint asserts, the SEC does not have broad authority to regulate all digital asset transactions as if they were securities. The argument is that the SEC is overreaching beyond what these laws and past rulings allow.
The complaint, filed in Kentucky district court, is asking the court to declare that digital asset transactions are not considered securities if they don’t involve a promise to manage assets for profit. They also want the court to stop the SEC from forcing digital asset platforms to register as securities-related businesses if they don’t meet those conditions. Additionally, the states claim the SEC broke rules by not following proper procedures.
Snip.
While on the campaign trail, President-elect Donald Trump vowed to protect the blockchain industry, making a bevy of promises to crypto enthusiasts.
Trump took the stage at the Libertarian National Convention back in May, where he promised to stop “Joe Biden’s crusade to crush crypto.” In July he said he would “fire Gary Gensler” on day one of his new administration.
“No longer will your government sit by and watch as Bitcoin jobs and businesses flee to other countries, because America’s laws are too unclear and too tough and too angry and too stiff,” Trump said while delivering the keynote address at a Bitcoin conference. “We will keep each and every Bitcoin job in the United States of America, that’s what we’re going to be doing.”
Texas has become a major center of the crypto and Bitcoin industry in America. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is a vocal advocate for the emerging finance sector, and Gov. Greg Abbott signaled he will continue to be friendly to the crypto community, describing himself as a “crypto law proposal supporter.”
There’s a long-running debate about just what the hell cryptocurrencies are under federal law. Unlike other securities (say, a stock or bond), a unit of cryptocurrency is not a token that represents a tangible legal entity in the real world. It’s not a currency as traditionally understood, as it is not backed by specie or the power and authority of a government. It’s not a commodity, because what commodity can be moved across the world at the speed of light?
If it doesn’t actually fit the profile of anything that legislation has specified that the government regulates, then maybe, as Paxton et al assert, then the federal government shouldn’t regulate it. That would seem to be the proper constitutional interpretation under the Tenth Amendment.
While I’m still skeptical of the long-term usefulness of cryptocurrency (though with Bitcoin hovering around $90,000, I sure wish I had mined some back when it was easier to do), the Trump Administration is filled with very smart people who believe in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. History teaches us that it’s best to let new technologies shake out without government interference, so let’s hope Paxton and company’s lawsuit succeeds.
All of Ken Paxton’s lawsuits against the federal government have offered the possibility of notable revelations, but this one has the potential to be extra spicy.
Texas sued the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday attempting to preserve all records pertaining to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President-elect Donald Trump.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) complaint on November 8 requesting specific records from Smith’s investigation, including “all Communications from any current or former member of the Office of Special Counsel Jack Smith to any New York State governmental office since November 18, 2022,” as well as “documents memorializing the … final reasoning to request that a trial against President-elect Trump to start in January of 2024.”
Texas expressed concerns in court documents that the DOJ’s history with special counsels is “regrettably riddled with attempts to avoid transparency,” specifically referencing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s infamous Crossfire Hurricane incident in 2020. Mueller’s team allegedly repeatedly wiped their phones after an investigation into the DOJ’s handling of a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) probe into Trump’s purportedly unlawful links to Russia.
The suit filed on November 11 states that Paxton “fears that many releasable records — including those that he sought — will never see daylight. That is not because the DOJ has any legal reason to withhold them…”
“Rather, Attorney General Paxton has a well-founded belief as set forth herein that Defendants will simply destroy the records.”
Paxton states in the filing that since Trump won the election “it is clear that both Jack Smith’s office, and his prosecution of the President, will soon end.” The DOJ’s own policies do not permit bringing charges against a sitting President of the United States as it “would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.”
“I will not allow the corrupt weaponization of the United States government to be swept under the rug as Jack Smith and others who unjustly targeted President Trump attempt to avoid accountability,” Paxton said in a press release.
Texas’ suit was filed in the United States District Court Northern District of Texas, Amarillo Division.
Obviously I hope Paxton prevails and that Smith (and the entire Biden Administration)’s attempts to illegally wage lawfare against Trump to thwart the will of American voters gets exposed. However (and here we insert the usual I Am Not A Lawyer caveat), it appears that Paxton will have difficulty in establishing standing for the lawsuit to proceed. Trump is not a resident of Texas, and it may be difficult to establish that the State of Texas has suffered direct harm from Smith’s actions.
However, in this case I’m wondering if Paxton has filed the case on a timeline that either the Biden Administration doesn’t respond in time, or that the second Trump Administration can file the response, proving a mechanism by which the Trump Administration settles the lawsuit by releasing all requested documents that may otherwise be held up by claims of executive privilege, garden variety DOJ stonewalling, etc.
It’s an interesting gambit. We’ll see how it plays out…
