Three county supervisors in Loudoun County, Va., including board chair Phyllis Randall, traveled to Africa in June to sign a sister city agreement with the mayor of Tema, Ghana. Receipts and travel documents obtained by ABC affiliate 7News reveal a lavish set of expenses from Randall, supervisors Sylvia Glass and Koran Saines, and two staffers. The group spent most of their time sightseeing, according to the itinerary.

In an interview with Randall, 7News asked the board chair why the officials and staffers flew business class, drawing a contrast to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, who says he usually flies economy on commercial flights.

When asked about the comparison, Randall told 7News, "Pete Buttigieg is not the chief elected official of the federal government. I am the chief elected official of the county."

The report comes after Randall was found to be associated with members of a controversial Facebook group, "Loudoun Love Warriors." Members of the group doxxed and threatened Loudoun County parents who spoke at school board meetings, according to 7News. The county sheriff’s office opened an investigation into the group in May. Randall has condemned the group’s behavior.

On top of the $7,300 spent per business class ticket, taxpayers paid Saines's $200 overweight bag fee and a room upgrade for Randall that doubled the cost of her hotel stay. Randall confessed the county "shouldn’t have paid for" the upgrade and said she would "write a check" to cover the difference.

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The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), and the New York Common Retirement Fund are the three largest retirement funds for millions of public employees, including librarians, teachers, and firefighters. The funds have publicly committed to promoting environmental, social, and governance (ESG) values when investing, including the protection of human rights.

The funds, however, invest millions of taxpayer dollars in companies identified by the U.S. Department of Defense as "Communist Chinese military companies," according to a review of asset listings. The holdings belie commitments by these states to promote ESG values when investing and highlight a failure by the federal government to stop U.S. taxpayer money from funding the Chinese military-industrial complex.

New York’s retirement fund, for instance, invests in BGI Genomics, which in 2020 said it would build a gene bank and a "judicial collaboration" center in the Chinese province where Uyghur Muslims were being arrested and sent to internment camps. The projects were part of a larger effort by China to "document the genetic material of ethnic minorities," according to an Axios report. Chinese government treatment of Uyghurs has included political reeducation, slave labor, and forced sterilization. The Defense Department has identified BGI as a "Communist Chinese military company" for its role in the Uyghur genocide.

CalPERS, the largest state pension fund in the United States, and the New York retirement fund invest nearly a million dollars in 360 Security Technology, a self-described Chinese "internet security" company that was placed on an economic blacklist in 2020 for its role in "high-technology surveillance against Uyghurs." Both funds also hold stock in Zhejiang Dahua Technology, a partly state-owned company that manufactures video surveillance equipment and is also subject to the U.S. blacklist for its involvement in Uyghur surveillance.

A Free Beacon review of ESG risk scores for Chinese military companies found that they receive high ratings from the industry, which has been rocked by accusations of political bias. The risk scores, which measure a company’s exposure to unethical activity, calculated by Morningstar company Sustainalytics rated BGI Genomics, 360 Security Technology, and Zhejiang Dahua Technology more ethical than Tesla.

New York and California hold millions in these companies’ stock as they tout their commitments to ethical investing. A 2020 "ESG Strategy" document from the New York comptroller’s office pledges to consider "human rights," "supply chain labor standards," and "privacy and data security" when investing. The fund also pledges to tackle "climate change risks," "labor rights," "disability inclusion," and "factory safety in Bangladesh." The California funds make similar promises. A 2019 CalPERS "Government & Sustainability" document vows to make investments aimed at the "elimination of human rights violations in all countries" and the "development of basic democratic institutions and principles."

The state pension funds also invest millions in companies blacklisted for attempting to steal U.S. military technology. CalPERS and the New York retirement fund both invest in multiple subsidiaries owned by the Aviation Industry Corporation of China. AVIC, a state-owned aerospace and defense conglomerate, has been on the Defense Department’s list of "Communist Chinese military companies" since June 2021.

Last month, the U.S. blacklisted an AVIC subsidiary for "attempting to acquire US-origin items in support of China’s military modernization," according to a Commerce Department press release. The AVIC 612 Institute was among entities with "demonstrable ties to activities of concern, including hypersonic weapons development" and the "design and manufacture of air-to-air missiles," the statement said.

"Decades of unmitigated engagement between the United States and China have intertwined Americans' personal finances with PLA-affiliated companies," Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow in Indo-Pacific Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, told the Free Beacon. "Multiple state-managed retirement accounts invest in companies directly and indirectly linked to China's military. In effect, Americans are underwriting the defense and technological buildup of the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army. Policymakers have no excuse for allowing this reality to continue."

Both California funds also invest in the holdings firm for the China State Shipbuilding Corporation, which produces warships for the Chinese Navy and controls more than a fifth of the global commercial shipbuilding market. The country became the world shipbuilding leader when it combined its commercial and military shipyards.

This merger represents a broader strategy the government has adopted in recent years. China has recently adopted a strategy of "military-civil fusion" that integrates the country’s public and private sector resources. This move aims to accelerate production and innovation and give the government and military easier access to new technologies. From surveillance technologies to aircraft engines, the country’s private companies have become more deeply intertwined with the Chinese military. This development has made American companies more liable to indirectly support the military’s efforts by working with or investing in Chinese companies.

Beyond complicity in genocide and support of the Chinese military, U.S. tax dollars go to companies working to strengthen ties between China and allies like Iran.

All three funds invest nearly $30 million in China Railway Group, which has come under scrutiny from state pension funds before for ties to Iran. In 2016, the company signed a $2 billion contract with Iran to build a high-speed rail line that National Geographic reported would give the state "military access to hard-to-control parts of the country." The same year, CalSTRS announced its stock holding of the company was "under review" and reportedly dumped it in 2020. But a Free Beacon review found CalSTRS quietly returned China Railway Group to its portfolio sometime before July 2022.

The two countries announced a 25-year cooperation deal last year. China has pledged to invest $400 billion in Iran in exchange for continuous access to Iran’s oil supply. It’s the latest investment abroad by China in a bid to advance its global influence. The communist regime’s broader strategy, labeled the "Belt and Road Initiative," has pledged trillions in new infrastructure to countries in Africa, South America, and the Middle East.

New York’s state pension fund last year divested $238 million from 21 fossil-fuel companies that state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office said "failed to show viable transition strategies." In March, the fund announced a $1.3 billion "sustainable investment program" to "capitalize on climate solution opportunities." In 2018, DiNapoli sent McDonald’s a letter "in his capacity as trustee of the $209.2 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund," according to Bloomberg, chiding the fast-food chain for its treatment of chickens.

Neither the comptroller nor any other spokesperson for the fund has made public statements or investment changes surrounding BGI Genomics, 360 Security Technology, or Zhejiang Dahua Technology, despite their blacklisted status. The New York comptroller's office and CalPERS declined to comment. CalSTRS told the Free Beacon the fund "manages a highly diversified portfolio" and "complies with the sanctions issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control."

California last year divested from two private prisons in the United States, citing its "environmental, social, and governance" policy that pledged to respect human rights.

This comes as U.S. officials soften their rhetoric toward China and retreat from the term "decoupling," as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen did during her visit to China last week. Instead, Yellen said the United States should focus on less sweeping policy moves such as "diversifying critical supply chains or taking targeted national security actions."

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The Justice Department on Monday said 18-year-old Davin Daniel Meyer "pledged an oath of allegiance to the leader of ISIS and intended to travel to serve as a fighter for ISIS in Iraq," according to an affidavit supporting the charges.

The criminal complaint stated the FBI was alerted by an individual who observed Meyer develop "radical Islamic beliefs" as he "sought out ... extremist videos and content online and openly discussed his violent intentions." Meyer communicated about his travel plans with an FBI informant whom he believed to be an ISIS facilitator.

Since 2011, more than 300 Americans have tried to join ISIS, according to a 2018 report from George Washington University's Program on Extremism. In one 2016 case, a Mississippi couple who met in college were both convicted of attempting to join ISIS, masking their trip abroad as a honeymoon. The report noted Americans accounted for less than 1 percent of all foreign fighters who joined the terrorist group, with most coming from the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe. A dozen of the Americans returned home, according to the report.

While ISIS has lost nearly all of its Middle Eastern territory, cells of the terrorist group remain in the region. Conflict arose last year at a Syrian prison after ISIS terrorists attempted to free their fellow militants but were defeated by a Syrian militia.

The FBI Denver Field Office is investigating Meyer’s case and an assistant U.S. attorney from the Colorado district is prosecuting.

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"I regret that this committee continues to hold hearings on things that do not exist, like a bogus ban on gas stoves, while ignoring the real economic and energy issues affecting people across this country," Brown said.

Brown’s claim ignores a proposed regulation and comments made by the Biden administration. A cooking appliance efficiency rule proposed by the Department of Energy in February, the department admitted, would effectively ban half of all gas stoves on the U.S. market. The Biden administration acknowledged the sweeping impact in an analysis published that month, but the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers says the proposed rule would prohibit a much larger proportion of gas stoves from being sold.

U.S. Consumer Product Safety commissioner Richard Trumka Jr., a Biden appointee, in February questioned the safety of gas stoves and said a ban was "on the table."

New York in May passed a ban on gas stoves and heating systems in new buildings by 2026, while San Francisco regulators voted in March to eliminate gas furnaces and water heaters by 2027.

Brown suggested congressional Republicans’ push to prevent the Biden administration’s ban is "part of an effort by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to distract from the numerous wins of the Biden administration."

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"How concerned are you that James Comer—the chairman of the committee—was, knowingly, unknowingly, working with, co-opted by a foreign agent?" Psaki asked Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) during her MSNBC show Inside with Jen Psaki.

Psaki was referring to Gal Luft, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen who was recently indicted by New York prosecutors for acting as an unregistered foreign agent, brokering arms deals for Chinese companies, and violating sanctions against Iran, among other charges. Republicans in the Oversight Committee under Comer's leadership had pointed to Luft as a key witness, saying he had damaging information on corruption in the Biden family.

Both Raskin and Psaki pushed unfounded allegations that former president Donald Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. Raskin argued for revoking the security clearance of Jared Kushner, who was a senior adviser to then-president Trump, while Psaki tweeted in 2017 there was "a lot we know" about Trump-Russia connections.

Raskin did not answer Psaki's suggestion directly, saying instead that he is "concerned that the House Oversight Committee, which has a very proud history ... is suddenly being compromised in a really serious way. Our legitimacy is being eroded by the tactics adopted by Chairman Comer."

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"Anybody who’s watched the movie Django—just watch Stephen and you see Clarence Thomas," Ellison said. "Clarence Thomas has decided that his best personal interest is siding with the powerful and the special interests regardless as to who they’re going to hurt."

In the movie Ellison referenced, Django Unchained, the antagonist character Stephen, played by Samuel L. Jackson, is a house slave who considers himself above the other slaves and is loyal to the cruel plantation owner.

Ellison has made similarly inflammatory comments before. The Minnesota attorney general in 2022 blamed the police for damage from the 2020 George Floyd riots, saying their misconduct made them responsible for the "cost of civil unrest." A law school classmate in 2017 recounted Ellison saying Jews wanted to "oppress minorities all over the world," calling them "slave traders."

Ellison and other Democrats have criticized Thomas for his recent votes on key cases before the High Court, including last month's ruling ending the use of race in college admissions. Thomas wrote a concurring opinion emphasizing the importance of "equality under the law" and seeing "individuals as individuals."

"It’s a lesson to us as African Americans," Ellison said. "What is the lesson? We all thought, ‘Well, he’s a black man raised in the deep South. He knows what racism and segregation is. He knows what affirmative action is. He’s going to come around one day. Understand that it's not a matter of pigment. It’s not what’s on your skin—it’s what’s in your mind."

Ellison said Thomas is "abdicating his responsibility" and called for him to be impeached.

"Clarence Thomas is illegitimate and has no basis in the job that he is in," Ellison said.

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A provision of the budget that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D.) signed on Monday will revive the Industrial Welfare Commission, a labor regulatory board that the Legislature defunded in 2004. The board, whose five members will be appointed by Newsom, will have the power to set wages and hours for fast-food restaurants and other franchises. Critics say Democrats are using the commission to push unsustainable minimum wage hikes under the guise of improving workplace conditions.

"To put it bluntly, this commission could micromanage the operations of every small business franchise in California," Assemblyman Vince Fong (R.) told the Washington Free Beacon.

Fong, the top Republican on the Assembly's Budget Committee, said the provision could "destroy jobs and businesses in California."

"The business climate in California was already bad," Fong said, "and this makes it worse—if that's even possible to imagine."

A combination of regulation and rising crime has driven companies out of the Golden State. More than 350 businesses left California between 2018 and 2021, according to the California Globe. The 127-year-old Anchor Brewing this month joined a growing number of businesses to depart San Francisco.

California labor unions in 2004 pushed to defund the original iteration of the Industrial Welfare Commission, to stop then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R.) from deploying the commission in ways Big Labor found objectionable. The commission was dead until earlier this year, when California Democrats quietly inserted a budget item reviving the Commission.

Opponents say the revival is an attempt to circumvent a referendum blocking the creation of a 10-member board to regulate labor rules for fast-food restaurants, nicknamed the "Fast Food Council." The Legislature approved the new board last August, but a ballot initiative collected more than a million signatures, temporarily freezing the law's effect and putting the proposal to the voters in 2024.

Tom Manzo, the president and founder of the California Business and Industrial Alliance, says that California Democrats are reviving the commission specifically to get at fast-food franchises.

"I think that's the whole reason they're talking about kick-starting the [Industrial Welfare Commission] and I think that'll be the first thing on their agenda," Manzo said.

Rebekah Paxton, the research director at the Employment Policies Institute, told the Free Beacon that the commission could enact "skyrocketing" minimum wage increases.

"Thirty years of economic research shows that this would reduce employment for fast-food workers," Paxton said. "It would cause fast-food businesses—whether small or larger chains—to close down or even leave California. It's going to limit business opportunities in California, shut down livelihoods for California's employees, and make the fast-food industry a less competitive place for people to start business."

The law directs the commission to "prioritize" industries with more than 10 percent of workers living below the federal poverty line, which can include a wide range of industries at any time.

The state's Chamber of Commerce, Restaurant Association, Retailers' Association, and other business groups in a joint statement last week denounced the proposal, saying the commission's focus on low-wage industries would "only create unnecessary confusion, create layered burdens on employers, and subject businesses to more frivolous litigation."

David Huerta, the president of SEIU California, praised the governor for "listening to workers and taking the bold action needed to make progress against a growing tide of inequality and poverty experienced by low-wage workers and people of color."

Supporters of the crackdown on fast-food franchises, including the SEIU, claim the restaurants commit a disproportionate number of wage violations. But data from an Employment Policy Institute study last year show that the industry accounted for 1.6 percent of wage claims in the past five years while employing 3.2 percent of all workers in California.

The post California Dems Can Now Set Wages for Private Businesses. Critics Say This Will 'Destroy Jobs.' appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

"What these buoys will allow us to do is to prevent people from even getting to the border," Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said last month.

The first buoys hit the water Monday afternoon, Houston Chronicle reporter Jeremy Wallace said. A spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety said setting up the barriers could take up to two weeks, according to the Associated Press. The outlet said the buoys and netting, anchored to the riverbed, will cover 1,000 feet of the river near Eagle Pass, where Border Patrol has seen the second-highest migrant crossing numbers this year.

The new measures come as border states remain overwhelmed by the migrant crisis. More than 4.6 million migrants have been apprehended crossing illegally since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, according to Reuters, though the number includes repeat crossers. Border Patrol reported more than 67,000 apprehensions and 15,780 gotaways in one week in May alone. Migrant detentions at the border have decreased since the pandemic-era Title 42 immigration restriction was lifted on May 11.

Texas governor Greg Abbott (R.) tweeted a video of the buoys on Friday, saying the "new marine barrier installation on the Rio Grande begins today."

"Abbott putting buoys & nets in the middle of the Rio Grande, almost certainly illegal & increases likelihood of drowning in addition to ecological damage," said former Democratic congressman and failed presidential and Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke in a Monday tweet. "So bad, the idea was even rejected by Trump administration. Now it’s actually happening. Where is Biden administration?"

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Thirty-seven percent of the U.S. Navy’s attack submarines—18 out of 49—are out of commission for repairs, up from 12 boats a decade ago. The Congressional Research Service said the backlog was due to "insufficient numbers of workers and facility constraints" at naval shipyards as well as "supply chain issues," saying that the delays have cut the "force’s capacity for meeting day-to-day mission demands and potentially putting increased operational pressure" on active boats.

The statistic demonstrates the extent of U.S. naval unpreparedness for a potential war with China. The U.S. Naval Institute said in May that China’s Navy is the largest in the world and is expected to grow to 440 "battle force" ships by 2030, while the United States will sit at 290 battle force ships the same year. Dozens of Pentagon war games published last month revealed the United States is unprepared for a "horrifically bloody" war with China.

Gatestone Institute senior fellow Gordon Chang said last month the United States is "not prepared to fight China."

"It’s not just a question of having a larger Navy than ours," Chang told Fox Business. "It’s also a question that they have types of weapons that we don’t have and which right now we have no defenses for."

The Biden administration’s 2024 budget proposal asked for sharp budget cuts to the Navy and the premature retirement of eight ships and two combat vessels, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Sending these ships to an early retirement would remove more than 600 vertical missile launch systems.

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"There is no guarantee that such [a] shocking accident as [a] downing of the U.S. Air Force strategic reconnaissance plane will not happen in the East Sea of Korea," a statement by a North Korean defense ministry spokesman published by the Korean Central News Agency read.

North Korea claimed several U.S. reconnaissance planes and drones flew around the Korean peninsula for "eight straight days" to "conduct provocative aerial espionage."

"In particular, a strategic reconnaissance plane of the U.S. Air Force illegally intruded into the inviolable airspace of the DPRK over its East Sea tens of kilometers several times," the statement read. South Korea’s military told Reuters the airspace violation claims were untrue and that the United States routinely conducts reconnaissance flights.

The threat comes amid increased tensions in the region as North Korea continues to develop its nuclear arsenal. The country’s military unveiled nuclear warheads in March that experts say could reach the United States. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister earlier that month warned interference with nuclear weapons testing would be considered a "declaration of war." An April watchdog report found the North Korean nuclear arsenal has nearly doubled since 2017. The United States has repeatedly failed to upgrade its missile defense systems, a May report by the Government Accountability Office found.

North Korea also said the presence of a U.S. nuclear submarine near the peninsula was "the most undisguised nuclear blackmail" and "proves that the situation of the Korean peninsula is coming closer to the threshold of nuclear conflict due to the U.S. provocative military action."

The United States deployed a nuclear-powered submarine that can carry 150 Tomahawk missiles to South Korean waters last month, according to the Associated Press.

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Excerpts from the book, Resistance Stories from Black History for Kids by Rann Miller, starkly resemble passages from news articles and books by other historians. According to his website, Miller taught in K-12 schools and now serves as "program director for a local school district, a professional development facilitator and also a public speaker."

When describing ancient African civilizations, for example, Miller states that "evidence of the oldest recognizable monarchy (government ruled by a single person) in human history, preceding the rise of the earliest Kemetic kings by several generations, has been discovered in objects from ancient Nubia." The quote mirrors the text of a 1979 New York Times article, which reads, "Evidence of the oldest recognizable monarchy in human history, preceding the rise of the earliest Egyptian kings by several generations, has been discovered in artifacts from ancient Nubia in Africa."

The book espouses hallmark critical race theory beliefs, including that American society was "instituted by racist ideas and maintained by racist policies," according to National Review. Miller said in an article last month that he was recently hired to help create "a Black history and social justice course curriculum for high school students." He told the organization he would want students to "leave this class understanding the United States is a white settler colonized state, built by way of racial capitalism to enrich ‘white people’ of European descent above everyone else."

Simon & Schuster did not respond to National Review's emails about the book, which is still featured on the publishing company's website.

Princeton University took no action last year after becoming aware of plagiarism allegations against one of the school’s star progressive professors, the Washington Free Beacon reported. After receiving an email from a faculty member with evidence that Princeton historian Kevin Kruse plagiarized passages in his book, the school’s dean of faculty never responded.

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Data from the Fairfax County Police Department reveal an increase of more than 1,000 cases of shoplifting compared with this time last year, when there were 2,592 after just over six months. Fairfax County commonwealth’s attorney Steve Descano announced in 2020 his office would not prosecute a slew of misdemeanors, including shoplifting valued up to $1,000.

Descano came into office in 2020 with other candidates promising progressive criminal justice reforms, riding a wave of funding from left-wing billionaire Soros. Soros-affiliated organizations donated more than half a million dollars to Descano’s primary campaign. Descano's decision to not prosecute many misdemeanors came under fire, even from the left-leaning Washington Post Editorial Board.

Descano downgraded abduction and burglary charges that could have landed a man in prison for more than 26 years, according to the Washington Free Beacon. Instead, the man walked free after only five months in prison and was arrested less than a year later after allegedly killing two homeless men and wounding three others during a nine-day shooting spree.

The Fairfax prosecutor won the Democratic primary last month with about 55 percent of the vote, all but assuring him a second term as top prosecutor in deep-blue Fairfax County.

Organized retail theft in the county has spiked in recent years, according to local law enforcement. Fairfax County Police Department’s Tysons Urban Team—a group of officers focused mostly on retail crime—recovered more than $930,000 in stolen merchandise last year, according to Annandale Today. By mid-June this year, they had already recovered over $530,000, compared with a full-year average of about $400,000 over the past 10 years.

Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin (R.) signed a bill in March making organized retail theft—stealing more than $5,000 in value with intent to sell—a Class 3 Felony, earning the thief at least five years in prison and up to an $100,000 fine.

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At about 4 a.m. local time, an Iranian warship approached a Bahamian-flagged oil tanker within a mile and hailed the tanker to stop. As seen in video released by U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, the personnel on the Iranian ship fired on the tanker with "multiple, long bursts from both small arms and crew-served weapons." No crew members on the tanker were harmed and the ship did not sustain significant damage, according to a statement from Central Command. The statement said, however, "several rounds" hit the tanker’s hull, near crewmember living areas.

The USS McFaul, a guided missile destroyer, headed toward the tanker at maximum speed. When the U.S. destroyer arrived in the area, the Iranian ship left.

Only three hours earlier, an Iranian Navy vessel approached a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker. The Iranian ship left the area when the USS McFaul, an MQ-9 Reaper drone, and a P-8 Poseidon patrol plane entered the area to prevent the tanker from being seized.

The incident comes roughly a month after allies called on the United States to strengthen its deterrence against Iranian seizures of oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. After the Islamic Republic seized two tankers in two months, the United Arab Emirates asked the United States to help restore confidence in the security of the Persian Gulf, where one-third of the world’s oil passes through.

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Dmitry Peskov, press secretary for Russian president Vladimir Putin, said at the briefing "there are certain contacts" related to a possible prisoner exchange, and that discussions "must continue in complete silence." Gershkovich was arrested by Russia in March on charges of espionage that he denies. The United States considers Gershkovich "wrongfully detained," which obligates the government to seek his release.

The statement comes six months after the White House secured the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner after the player was arrested for attempting to bring vape cartridges with cannabis oil into the country. In exchange for Griner, Russia received Viktor Bout, known also as the "Merchant of Death" and described as "one of the most dangerous men on earth" by Michael Braun, former chief of operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Bout was sentenced to prison by the United States in 2011 for attempting to sell arms to Colombian terrorists to use against American troops.

While Griner walked free, former Marine Paul Whelan was left in Russia to begin his fifth year in Russian prison. Whelan was arrested in 2018 on espionage charges and has since been sentenced to 16 years in a labor camp.

A White House official said Tuesday, "While we unfortunately do not have a breakthrough to share, we continue to pursue every avenue to secure the release of Evan Gershkovich and fellow American Paul Whelan."

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Here are the 10 must-read quotes from the justices on the case.

1. Chief Justice John Roberts: "Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it."

2. Justice Clarence Thomas: "Justice Jackson would replace the second Founders’ vision with an organizing principle based on race. In fact, on her view, almost all of life’s outcomes may be unhesitatingly ascribed to race. ... This lore is not and has never been true. Even in the segregated South where I grew up, individuals were not the sum of their skin color."

3. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson: "With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces 'colorblindness for all' by legal fiat. But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life. And having so detached itself from this country’s actual past and present experiences, the Court has now been lured into interfering with the crucial work that UNC and other institutions of higher learning are doing to solve America’s real-world problems."

4. Justice Neil Gorsuch: "The words of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are not like mood rings; they do not change their message from one moment to the next."

5. Thomas: "Justice Sotomayor apparently believes that race-conscious admission programs can somehow increase the chances that members of certain races (blacks and Hispanics) are admitted without decreasing the chances of admission for members of other races (Asians). This simply defies mathematics."

6. Jackson: "For high-risk Black newborns, having a Black physician more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live, and not die." FACT CHECK: FALSE

7. Roberts: "While the dissent would certainly not permit university programs that discriminated against black and Latino applicants, it is perfectly willing to let the programs here continue. In its view, this Court is supposed to tell state actors when they have picked the right races to benefit."

8. Thomas: "After siloing us all into racial castes and pitting those castes against each other, the dissent somehow believes that we will be able—at some undefined point—to 'march forward together' into some utopian vision."

9. Thomas: "Justice Jackson uses her broad observations about statistical relationships between race and select measures of health, wealth, and well-being to label all blacks as victims. Her desire to do so is unfathomable to me. ... it is an insult to individual achievement and cancerous to young minds seeking to push through barriers, rather than consign themselves to permanent victimhood."

10. Thomas: "While I am painfully aware of the social and economic ravages which have befallen my race and all who suffer discrimination, I hold out enduring hope that this country will live up to its principles so clearly enunciated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States: that all men are created equal, are equal citizens, and must be treated equally before the law."

The post Top 10 Quotes from the Supreme Court’s Affirmative Action Decision appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

In a 6-3 decision authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court skewered the Biden administration's claim that the Education Department had the authority to forgive loans under the HEROES Act, a 2003 law meant to provide debt relief to soldiers "in connection with a war or other military operation or national emergency." The Biden administration argued that the coronavirus pandemic constituted such a "national emergency."

Roberts wrote that the HEROES Act gives the Education Department the power to "‘waive or modify’ existing statutory or regulatory provisions applicable to financial assistance programs under the Education Act, not to rewrite that statute from the ground up."

"Under the Government’s reading of the HEROES Act, the Secretary would enjoy virtually unlimited power to rewrite the Education Act," Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.

The liberal trio of Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented in the case, which stemmed from a challenge led by a coalition of six Republican-led states to the Biden administration's proposal to forgive up to $20,000 in student loan debt for eligible borrowers. In her dissent, Kagan argued the Court exceeded its authority "in every respect," both by taking up the case and striking down the loan forgiveness plan.

"The statute provides the Secretary with broad authority to give emergency relief to student-loan borrowers, including by altering usual discharge rules," Kagan wrote. "What the Secretary did fits comfortably within that delegation."

To defend her reasoning, Kagan deployed a hypothetical disaster in which "a terrorist organization sets off a dirty bomb in Chicago" and millions of residents "must find new housing, probably new jobs."

"Still their student-loan bills are coming due every month," Kagan wrote. "To prevent widespread loan delinquencies and defaults, the Secretary wants to discharge $10,000 for the class of affected borrowers. Is that legal? Of course it is; it is exactly what Congress provided for."

In a separate case challenging the loan forgiveness program, Justice Samuel Alito wrote for a unanimous court that a separate group of petitioners did not have standing to challenge the Biden administration’s plan.

The decision brings an end to another landmark term for the Court. Minutes earlier, the Court ruled in favor of a Colorado web designer who refused to design websites for same-sex weddings. On Thursday, the Court overturned decades of affirmative action precedent in a pair of cases challenging race-based admissions policies. It is the latest in a series of decisions from the Court reining in broad executive rulemaking. The Court last month curbed the EPA's use of the Clean Water Act, and last year ruled that executive agencies must have "clear Congressional authority" to regulate on "major questions" of "economic and political significance.

Roberts echoed that standard in his opinion, saying "the ‘economic and political significance’ of the Secretary’s action is staggering by any measure."

The Biden administration’s plan would have forgiven debt for 40 million borrowers, according to Education Department estimates. Borrowers making less than 125,000 as an individual or less than 250,000 as a couple were eligible to have $10,000 in debt forgiven. Pell Grant recipients could have been given as much as $20,000 in loan forgiveness.

The Washington Free Beacon reported earlier this year the HEROES Act authors in an amicus brief rejected the Biden administration’s reading of the 2003 law. Former House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) and former Reps. Howard McKeon (R., Calif.) and John Kline (R., Minn.) said the law was intended to provide relief for service members still paying off college debt, not for all borrowers.

A provision in the debt ceiling package passed last month requires the Biden administration to end its pandemic-era pause of student loan payments. Those payments must resume August 29, 2023, according to the law.

President Biden earlier this month vetoed legislation repealing his student loan forgiveness program. The House of Representatives failed to override the veto last week.

Democrats championed the plan in the 2022 midterms as a boon for the working class, while Republicans argued Americans were footing the bill for the pricey education of their wealthier peers. While the Biden administration claimed almost 90% of relief would go to individuals earning less than $76,000 per year, a JPMorgan study found more than half of the $549 billion in relief would go to earners making more than $76,000 per year.

This is a breaking story and will be updated with further developments.

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In a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the Court ruled Colorado cannot compel website designer Lorie Smith to create a website celebrating same-sex marriage. The Court ruled websites are artistic expressions and that a law forcing her to design same-sex wedding announcements that clash with her religious beliefs infringed on her right to free expression.

"The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands," Gorsuch wrote for the majority.

In a dissent joined by Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan, Justice Sonia Sotomayor took issue with the majority's reasoning.

"As I will explain, the law in question targets conduct, not speech, for regulation, and the act of discrimination has never constituted protected expression under the First Amendment," Sotomayor wrote. "Our Constitution contains no right to refuse service to a disfavored group. I dissent."

The decision clarified questions surrounding religious liberty and free speech left by the Court’s decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, a similar case involving baker Jack Phillips’s refusal to bake a cake celebrating a same-sex wedding. In 2018, the Court ruled in Phillips’ favor but sidestepped the fundamental First Amendment issues in the case. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, focused on the Colorado anti-discrimination board’s animus toward Phillips, instead of his rights to free exercise and free expression.

Smith's case originated in the same state, challenged the same law, and was argued by the same legal representation, the Alliance Defending Freedom.

What changed was the ideological makeup of the Court. Although Masterpiece Cakeshop was a 7-2 decision, three of the conservative justices—Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch—argued in concurring opinions that the Court should have based its ruling on broader constitutional principles. With the replacement of Justice Brett Kavanaugh by Justice Kennedy later that year, and the addition of Justice Amy Coney Barrett in 2020, the conservative justices gained the votes to form precedent on free speech grounds.

The decision is a victory for free speech advocates, Kristen Waggoner, who represented Smith in oral arguments at the High Court, said after the ruling.

"​​The government should no more censor Lorie for speaking consistent with her beliefs about marriage than it should punish an LGBT graphic designer for declining to criticize same-sex marriage," Waggoner tweeted Friday.

Sotomayor further argued that the Court disregards the value of public accommodation law.

"The unattractive lesson of the majority opinion is this: What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is yours," Sotomayor wrote. "The lesson of the history of public accommodations laws is altogether different. It is that in a free and democratic society, there can be no social castes."

Gorsuch wrote that Sotomayor’s dissent "reimagines the facts of this case from top to bottom" and that it is "difficult to read the dissent and conclude we are looking at the same case."

"In some places, the dissent gets so turned around about the facts that it opens fire on its own position," Gorsuch said.

Sotomayor cites the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting as an example of how "a social system of discrimination created an environment in which LGBT people were unsafe." But sources across the political spectrum eventually concluded the Pulse nightclub shooter was driven by a desire to seek revenge for America's involvement in the Middle East, not anti-gay hatred.

This is a breaking story and will be updated with further developments.

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"It is basically saying that whatever caste system we have right now—that should stay intact," said American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten in a conversation with National Education Association president Becky Pringle. Weingarten said the decision is "as bad as Dobbs," the Supreme Court's ruling last year that there was no constitutional right to abortion.

"It is 2023, and we are having Supreme Court decisions that are taking us further backwards in the progress that we've made," Pringle said.

The union leaders' reactions come after the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, on Thursday struck down the use of race-based affirmative action in college admissions. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, wrote that "eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it." Weingarten and Pringle echoed dissents from Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Both unions filed amicus briefs urging the Court to allow colleges to continue using race as a factor in college admissions. With more than three million members, the National Education Association is the largest teachers' union in the country, followed by American Federation of Teachers with 1.7 million members, according to the organizations.

Angela Morabito, a spokeswoman for the Defense of Freedom Institute and former Education Department press secretary, told the Washington Free Beacon that union leaders should be supporting the Supreme Court's decision.

"If teachers' union bosses truly wanted what's best for students, they would be celebrating the end of race-based discrimination in college admissions," Morabito said. "The best thing Randi Weingarten and Becky Pringle could do to help minority students is to stop trapping them in failing government-assigned schools and get out of the way of school choice programs that students need and parents deserve."

During a Thursday live-streamed conversation, Weingarten described what she would say in class if she were a civics teacher.

"If I was teaching this decision tomorrow in class, what I would be doing is I would be actually pulling together … the arc of the moral universe," said Weingarten, "what we have tried to do from the Civil War, the end of the Civil War, to the Civil Rights Movement and how this just throws a wrench into all that progress."

Weingarten questioned whether she would be allowed to teach about the decision if she were a teacher in Florida because of the state's "restrictions on the teaching of honest history."

"I might be really in trouble in teaching about this decision—in trouble in teaching about the dissents of this decision," Weingarten said.

Florida's "Stop WOKE Act," signed last year by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R.), explicitly requires the teaching of the "history of African Americans," including "the enslavement experience, abolition, and the contributions of African Americans to society."

The Court's opinion was part of the continuing backlash to former president Barack Obama's election, Pringle said.

"We knew when President Obama was elected there was going to be a backlash—we knew that," Pringle said. "I don't think we quite grasped the depth of it until we started to see that the highest court in the land is totally rejecting the notions, the ideals, on which this country was founded."

Weingarten cited Alexis de Tocqueville's description of America, saying Tocqueville recognized the country's "diversity and how that made us stronger."

"We're going back to 'Is America a salad bowl, a melting pot?'" Weingarten said. "Or is it what this decision is saying, which is we can all be in our separate fiefdoms and tribes and never any one of us meet?"

Weingarten said the Court's majority opinion advocated ignorance of racial inequities in today's America.

"What this decision does is basically ignore the original sin of slavery and the effects of that original sin and pretends that there is no longer an effect to it," Weingarten said. "It basically says that equal protection means that whatever the dominant power play is right now, that's what should be happening in America."

Roberts's opinion and other justices' concurrences presented a different view of American history and the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his concurrence that the "great failure of this country was slavery and its progeny" but presented an optimistic view of the nation's future.

"While I am painfully aware of the social and economic ravages which have befallen my race and all who suffer discrimination," Thomas wrote, "I hold out enduring hope that this country will live up to its principles so clearly enunciated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States: that all men are created equal, are equal citizens, and must be treated equally before the law."

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Who said it: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) in a Monday tweet.

Context: Gerrymandering, the practice of drawing congressional districts for political reasons, is done by partisan leaders to tilt political power toward one party even when that party doesn't have the votes. Republicans won the national popular vote in the 2022 House elections by nearly 3 points, picking up 50.6 percent to Democrats' 47.8 percent.

The Democratic Party's own attempt last year to gerrymander districts in New York—where Jeffries represents the squiggly Eighth Congressional District—backfired when the courts threw out maps drawn by Democrats in the New York Legislature. The New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, said the maps violated a set of anti-gerrymandering state constitutional amendments that passed in 2014. All judges on the state's Court of Appeals were appointed by Democrats, according to Ballotpedia.

Gerrymandering by Democrats last year would have given their party an advantage in 22 of 26 districts in the state, according to Politico, even though Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin pulled in 46.8 percent of the vote. Jeffries decried the ruling to throw out Democrat-drawn maps, saying the Court of Appeals had "hijacked" the redistricting process.

The court chose a neutral expert to draw the map. The new map split half as many counties as the Democratic map and created eight competitive races compared with the Democrats' three. With the politically neutral map, Republicans flipped four seats in New York.

Analysis: Both parties gerrymander. In the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans had the votes to deliver the narrow majority they now enjoy. One major factor, however, was the failure by New York Democrats to deliver gerrymandered districts that could be accepted by the courts.

Ultimately, gerrymandering was not the key factor for Republicans to retake control of the House of Representatives.

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