Never heard the word "woke" used as a pejorative until cocky Clerk of Courts and Comptroller BRANDON J. PATTY, erstwhile St. Johns County Republican Executive Committee used it. (What a waste of a good education -- George Washington University and London School of Economics) Still not sure why Me-pubiblicans use "woke" as a pejorative, other than that it's standard operating procedure for devious deceptive mean Dull Republicans in DeSANTISTAN. Yawn. From Florida Phoenix:
Bird defends states’ laws that prevent banks from considering ‘woke politics’
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody appearing at FDLE headquarters in Tampa on July 18, 2023. (Photo by Mitch Perry/Florida Phoenix)
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird led a coalition of attorneys general in a letter responding to the U.S. Treasury Department’s opposition to state laws that restrict banks from considering social or environmental factors when investing.
The Treasury Department’s letter, obtained by The Associated Press, warned that these banking laws could hurt national security efforts to counter money laundering and terrorism financing.
The letter, which was sent directly to Treasury Department Secretary Janet Yellen and signed by 20 Republican state attorneys general, dismissed those concerns and accused the department of trying to stoke opposition to these laws.
“All of us oppose this latest attempt by the Biden-Harris Administration to fearmonger and stoke confusion about state laws to advance activists’ extreme agendas,” the letter reads.
The Treasury Department’s letter singles out a recently passed lawin Florida but other states like Iowa, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, and South Dakota have similar laws.
These laws generally prevent banking institutions from denying financial services over non-measurable risks associated with social, environmental, or governmental concerns.
Proponents of these laws argue they are necessary to prevent banks from discriminating against those they politically oppose.
“The Biden-Harris administration has pushed a radical agenda since its first day in office,” Moody said in a press release.
“From open borders, to attacking gas stoves and washing machines, they now are attempting to use the power of the Treasury Department to accuse states, that seek to protect their citizens from unjustified radical de-banking, of being a national security threat. This is nothing more than another attempt to leverage the power of the federal government to achieve this administration’s destabilizing, activist agenda,” she continued.
The Treasury Department wrote that these laws heighten “the risk that international drug traffickers, transnational organized criminals, terrorists and corrupt foreign officials will use the U.S. financial system to launder money, evade sanctions, and threaten our national security.”
Bird said in a press release that laws like Iowa’s or Florida’s ensured banks couldn’t use “woke politics” when determining who to work with and demanded that the department stop its fearmongering.
The letter from the attorneys general stands by those laws and alleges the department is using the concern over national security to promote “woke” political agendas.
“The Treasury Department has once again forsaken its statutory role and instead chosen to intervene on behalf of activists seeking to hijack the financial system for their political ends,” the letter reads. “It is even more disappointing that the Treasury Department would use ‘national security’ as cover for large banks’ abuse of power to achieve those ends.”
States with attorneys general who signed the letter include Florida, Iowa, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
A version of this story first appeared in the Iowa Capital Dispatch, a member with the Florida Phoenix in the nonprofit States Newsroom network. Michael Moline in Tallahassee contributed.
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"Woke" is just the bare minimum of how people should treat each other in a civilized society. Bigotry and irrational ideology isn't. That's no good for society or human progress.
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