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Harold Hutchison
Daily Caller News Foundation
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia cited Germany’s struggles to avoid blackouts Thursday to defend his vote to scrap a proposed rule that would allow Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria to be used for retirement funds.
ESG, also known as “sustainable investing,” according to the Corporate Finance Institute, can factor in corporate policies on gun control, environmental issues, abortion or other issues in addition to or instead of strictly looking at a corporation’s profitability.
“Don’t you think the geopolitical risk you’re taking when you make these decisions to make sure these programs stay solvent, should be considered too?” Manchin told Fox Business host Neil Cavuto. “If you don’t, basically, if you’re not sure, look at what happened at the EU. Ask Germany how well it worked for them.”
WATCH:
Germany, which faced an energy crisis that put the country at risk of economic collapse after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, announced a $220 billion plan to shift all of its energy production to renewable sources. Germany’s decision to phase out other forms of fuel, like coal, led to Germans stocking up on candles to save electricity, while the country reportedly needs the equivalent of 43 soccer fields of solar panels every day along with over 30 wind farms a week according to Bloomberg News.
Manchin and Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana voted with 48 Republicans to overturn regulations from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that would allow the use of ESG by retirement fund managers. The House of Representatives voted to scrap the rule Tuesday, but the bill faces a veto threat from President Joe Biden.
Critics of ESG pointed to crises in Sri Lanka, which banned chemical fertilizers that resulted in a 50% drop in crop yields in 2021, and Ghana, which suffered blackouts.
Missouri announced it was pulling all assets from BlackRock Oct. 18, claiming the company’s push for ESG was a “massive fiduciary breach,” while Florida removed $2 billion from the company in December. Four other states announced they were pulling their assets, the Financial Times reported in October.
This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Long the world’s most Christian nation, America today is being taken over by a new “official” national religion, one being imposed on the entire populace by every major societal institution, from government, media and big tech, to academia, entertainment and business.
This new state religion is Wokeism. “Going woke” conjures up visions of someone claiming to be acutely sensitive (“awake”) to “systemic social and political injustice.” And not just alleged bigotry against blacks, but toward every other “minority” as well, from LGBT folk – especially everything transgender and “nonbinary” – to “undocumented immigrants.” All of them, being VICTIMS, intrinsically more virtuous than the shameful oppressor class: primarily heterosexual white males.
This new “woke” consciousness has turned America upside-down – from the nationwide Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots in 2020, to tearing down of historic monuments, to demanding multi-million-dollar reparation payments for blacks, to appointing transgenders as top government officials, to rampant reverse discrimination in every area of life, to the U.S. military imposing mandatory “diversity training” and transgender pronoun use on all personnel, causing recruitment to disastrously plummet.
Yet there is hope. Being “saved” – which in Wokeism is called being “woke” – is largely a matter of worshipping victimhood by becoming an “ally” and “defender” of all the many victim classes, and a determined enemy of the straight white male oppressor class. Thus, “joining the righteous” as an ally – even if one is cursed to be a straight white male – opens the door mercifully for salvation, even to the most wretched.
That is the power of the religion of Wokeism. And it’s explored as never before in the February 2023 issue of WND’s critically acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine. If you’ve ever wondered, for example, exactly how the most radical elements in American society are successfully pressuring the biggest corporations into adopting the most outrageous and immoral policies imaginable, even when doing so permanently damages and devalues the company, the stunning answers are in this issue of Whistleblower, titled “WOKEISM: AMERICA’S OFFICIAL STATE RELIGION.”
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