Kerby Anderson
Major financial firms use ESG factors in their investment decisions, and the Biden administration has promoted ESG investment rules. According to major media reports, attempts to remove these requirements have failed. But the latest legislative scorecard shows that the anti-ESG movement is succeeding.
ESG stands for environmental, social, and corporate governance factors which have been used to push a leftwing agenda without asking Congress to implement what some have even called a “woke ideological agenda.”
Two years ago, the Texas legislature passed a law that bars the state from doing business with financial companies that favor renewable-energy firms over fossil fuels based on environmental reasons rather than financial reasons. Legislatures in other states have followed suit. More than two dozen states introduced anti-ESG bills. So far, eleven states have passed laws and implemented regulations.
The CEO of the State Financial Officers Foundation observed, “We’ve come in the last year and a half from nothing to having a quarter of the states passing stuff and half of the states engaging.”
You wouldn’t know this by reading articles in the mainstream press. A Washington Post article reported that the “conservative battle against woke banks is backfiring.” An article in another publication said the anti-ESG movement is full of hype but has “few big wins” in statehouses.
Now that Governor Ron DeSantis is running for the presidency, his Florida anti-ESG bill will probably get more attention. It prohibits the use of ESG criteria in investment decisions, government contracts, and local bonds. It also bars financial firms from discriminating against customers based on their religious, political, or social beliefs.
All of this suggests that the issue of ESG will become an important issue in the 2024 elections both at the national level and at the state level.

Kerby Anderson
Today is Juneteenth. You may know it as a recently declared federal holiday, but I have found that most Americans (outside of those who live in Texas) don’t know much about it, which is why I am talking about it today. Here’s a summary of the history
President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in 1863. But his action could not be enforced in many places in the South until the Civil War ended in 1865. That news didn’t travel fast because of the limitations of communications and an unwillingness of Southern leaders to proclaim it.
That news finally reached Galveston, Texas when Union Major General Gordon Granger and his troops arrived in the city on June 19, 1865. Six months later, the 13th Amendment was ratified by Georgia, thus permanently abolishing slavery in America.
The next year on June 19, there was a celebration of freedom in Galveston. This included concerts, parades, and a reading of the Emancipation Proclamation. Other celebrations, often in churches, spread around the state as Black Texans moved elsewhere. It has been a paid holiday for state employees in Texas and many other states since the 1980s. President Biden signed the bill from Congress making Juneteenth a federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.
Here are some key questions. How much do most Americans know about Juneteenth? For that matter, how much did you know about this federal holiday? Aren’t we missing an opportunity to educate Americans?
Unfortunately, most Americans don’t know much about many of the holidays like Memorial Day and the 4th of July. Juneteenth could be a teaching opportunity about human rights for churches and Christian organizations. Let’s not miss this opportunity.