HereTogether Oregon last week spearheaded an effort to "continue funding" an "Office of Equity and Inclusion" in Clackamas County, which sits just southeast of downtown Portland. While local leaders have considered slashing the more than $828,000 it will take to run that office in the upcoming fiscal year, arguing that the spending is wasteful, HereTogether Oregon disagrees. It rallied hundreds of other local groups to voice support for the equity office in a July 6 letter, arguing that the office is "essential" for the Portland area's "continued progress, unity, and success."

HereTogether Oregon's stated mission is to address the "Portland region's homeless crisis." That crisis has spiraled this year—in Multnomah County, which includes downtown Portland, the homeless count jumped 20 percent in 2023, and Oregon as a whole saw one of the nation's largest spikes in homelessness from 2020 to 2022.

HereTogether Oregon acknowledges that increased homelessness in Portland has created a "crisis on our streets," a crisis it hopes to combat through "inclusion." Its website boasts that the group places "equity at the center of our work," given that it says the homelessness crisis "is exacerbated by racism, homophobia and transphobia, sexism, ableism, classism, and xenophobia." It also pledges to "bring diverse voices to this work and create a culture of inclusion." Local groups that signed the HereTogether Oregon letter in defense of DEI spending include a climate change nonprofit, a guitar retailer, and a local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Clackamas County commissioner Mark Shull, who first proposed the motion to strike down the funding for the county's equity office, said HereTogether Oregon "should be focusing its efforts on building their ability to alleviate the dire homeless situation in Oregon."

"The woke ideology is about gaining political power, and [equity] is a tool for them to gain that power," Shull told the Washington Free Beacon. "The words equity, inclusion, and diversity are friendly words that naïve people are attracted to, but for the woke, the words really mean one thing: applying unequal standards to ensure preferential outcomes for individuals and groups based on race, color of skin, sex, or gender identity."

HereTogether Oregon defended its decision to rally local groups behind the equity office funding, insisting that the office would help "effectively address homelessness and housing insecurity."

"HereTogether's work is in line with the Office of Equity and Inclusion's vision: a Clackamas County that is healthy, safe, and welcoming for all," the nonprofit told the Free Beacon.

Oregon's homelessness population grew nearly 23 percent from 2020 to 2022, a figure that massively outpaces the national average of less than 1 percent, according to an assessment from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Oregon also outpaced many other West Coast states, the report showed, including California, which saw just a 6 percent increase in homeless individuals over the same two-year period.

While HereTogether Oregon says the local equity office will help solve this problem, its letter arguing in favor of the office does not mention the word "homeless."

Shull and other county commissioners are set to further discuss the equity funding during an August 1 policy session. Shull insisted that HereTogether Oregon's letter would not impact that process.

"In the past, Clackamas County has done a fine job in supporting the needs of its residents … without an 'equality department,'" Shull said. "The letter we received from HereTogether Oregon, with the many signatures, is nothing more than progressive left political pressure [from] a minority with a loud mouth."

The post Liberal Nonprofit Finds Solution to Portland's Homeless Crisis: A Million Dollars for 'Equity and Inclusion' appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

A Washington, D.C., fire department dispatch call on Sunday said the white powder, identified as "cocaine hydrochloride," was discovered in the "library" of the executive mansion. But a Secret Service spokesman later said it was found in the West Wing.

While the West Wing houses the daily work offices for President Joe Biden and White House staffers, the library is located in the White House living quarters below, where access is more restricted.

The location of the substance could provide clues to whether it was brought into the building by a White House staffer, a visitor, or a Biden family member. Hunter Biden, who pleaded guilty to tax and gun charges in June, has publicly struggled with cocaine addiction for years and was booted from the U.S. Navy in 2014 after testing positive for cocaine.

The discovery of cocaine at the White House is politically inconvenient for Biden, who has faced questions about his son’s rampant drug use and foreign business dealings. During Biden’s time in the Senate, he drafted a 1986 law that instituted significantly harsher prison sentences for crack cocaine possession as compared to powder cocaine. Critics have slammed the law as racist, arguing that it disproportionately targeted the black community.

The White House was briefly evacuated on Sunday after Secret Service agents discovered the suspicious substance during a sweep of the building. President Biden and his immediate family, including son Hunter, were not at the White House at the time.

The D.C. fire department was called in to test the substance. "We have a yellow bar saying cocaine hydrochloride," said a responder in a dispatch call published by the Daily Mail, adding that it was discovered in the library. Cocaine hydrochloride refers to the powder version of cocaine.

Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Secret Service, later said the substance was found in the "work area of the West Wing," according to the New York Times. Two law enforcement officials also told the Associated Press that the cocaine was found in an "area accessible to tour groups." A subsequent CBS report said the drug was found "near an entrance where visitors taking tours are directed to leave their phones."

But West Wing tours are not typically available on Sundays, according to the White House's website. Those tours are also expected to end at 12:30 PM.

A White House spokeswoman said it is "not accurate" to say tours are not given on Sundays. While the spokeswoman initially declined to answer a question on whether any outside guests or tour groups were invited into the White House the same evening the Secret Service discovered the bag of cocaine, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre later said during a Wednesday briefing that there was a White House tour on Sunday. Jean-Pierre refused to disclose what time the tour occurred.

It is not uncommon for senior White House staff to invite friends for unofficial visits to the West Wing. Former president Donald Trump instituted a crackdown on outside devices allowed into the premises in an attempt to stop leaks to the press. Two individuals who visited the White House during that time told the Washington Free Beacon they were instructed to leave their phones in a small cubbie outside of the West Wing for the duration of their trip.

Hunter Biden was rumored to be living at the executive mansion earlier this spring, but this has not been confirmed by the White House.

President Biden has publicly embraced his son since his guilty plea in June. Hunter Biden attended a state dinner with the Indian prime minister last month, and he joined the president and First Lady to watch July 4th fireworks from the White House balcony this week after the white substance was discovered. On Friday, shortly before the substance's discovery, White House pool reporters saw Hunter Biden depart the White House with his father to travel to Camp David.

While Biden has defended his scandal-plagued son, other presidents have moved to distance themselves from drug users. Former president Dwight Eisenhower, for example, was "so anti-pot" that he barred actor Robert Mitchum from the White House movie theater because the celebrity had been convicted of a marijuana charge, presidential historian Tevi Troy told the Free Beacon.

Update 2:55 p.m.: This piece has been updated to include additional information.

The post Who Left Cocaine at the White House? Shifting Stories Make It Difficult to Determine. appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

America's 20th president was born in a single-room log cabin, fatherless by the age of two (he was raised on the frontier by his mother), and employed early in life as, by turns, a mule driver, a carpenter, and a janitor. Nevertheless, he rose to become a minister, a college president, and a major general in the Union army. In his free time, Garfield could be found devising an original proof of the Pythagorean theorem, conducting agricultural experiments on his farm, and greeting German visitors to the property by quoting poetry in their native tongue. This is all before we get to him being the youngest member of Congress upon his election in 1862—or getting elected president in 1880 without so much as pursuing his party's nomination.

That litany alone makes Garfield seem primed for the kind of rehabilitation that recent biographies have given traditionally second-tier presidents like John Adams, Ulysses S. Grant, and Calvin Coolidge. Just one problem: James Garfield also had the second-shortest administration in American history, holding office for only about six months. Nearly 40 percent of his presidency was spent in an ultimately failed convalescence from an assassin's bullet.

As a result, any fair-minded reader of C.W. Goodyear's new biography, President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier, has to grade the project on a curve. Indeed, it's something of a misnomer to call this a presidential biography. Of the book's 28 chapters, only one deals with Garfield's abbreviated administration (two if you include the final chapter's stomach-turning account of his months-long march to the grave).

It's a wise choice. Garfield had only four productive months on the job, most of them spent—as was standard for presidents in the decades after the Civil War—trying to sift through the hordes of office seekers who poured into the White House, a task on which he is recorded to have spent 17 hours a day. Indeed, the work was so mind-numbing that the president confessed to battling depression, pining for his old job as minority leader in the House of Representatives, where he was "treating of the fundamental principles of government," rather than "considering all day whether A or B should be appointed to this or that office."

As a result of his parenthetical presidency, one question looms large over any account of Garfield's life: What would a Garfield administration have looked like if allowed to reach full flower? Goodyear, abiding by the boundaries of a sober historian, does not address it—at least not explicitly. The clues littered throughout the book, however, suggest that the conventional answer is likely wrong.

Like most presidents who hail from forgotten eras, James Garfield is today remembered mostly in caricature: the backwoods savant who could both lead men into battle in the wilds of eastern Kentucky and entertain visitors by simultaneously writing in Greek with one hand and Latin with the other (perhaps the most popular piece of trivia about Garfield, it is also, alas, apocryphal). This has given rise to an excessively romanticized notion that Garfield could have eventually become a kind of proto-Teddy Roosevelt, a soldier/scholar bringing epochal change to American politics by sheer force of will.

Yet Goodyear's thorough telling of Garfield’s nearly 18 years in the House—this is, in truth, much more a book about the Reconstruction-era Congress than about the presidency—suggests something quite different: Far from being a hard-charging visionary, Garfield's primary political assets were his amiability and his plasticity.

This was a Republican congressman who, based on an overwrought sense of fair play, would tip off Democratic colleagues to the content of his speeches so that they could prepare comprehensive responses. This was a defender of civil rights who nevertheless thought there wasn't much the federal government could do about the matter. This was an opponent of the spoils system who didn't think twice about handing out government jobs to his Ohio constituents. Indeed, this was a man who secured the GOP's presidential nomination in 1880 only because the balloting went on for 36 rounds and the exhausted delegates opted to order off menu and simply settle for the least objectionable choice.

The office of the presidency has, of course, made bona fide executives out of less. But even during his limited time in the White House it was widely suggested by both politicians and the press that Secretary of State James G. Blaine (one of the failed candidates from that deathless Republican convention) was leading Garfield around by the nose. Goodyear presents more evidence to support that thesis than to refute it.

None of which is to suggest that Garfield couldn't at least have wound up one of the better presidents of his era. His legislator's sense for which way the political winds were blowing would surely have represented an improvement upon his predecessor, Rutherford B. Hayes, a sort of 19th century Jimmy Carter figure who so badly misunderstood Washington that he had alienated even his fellow Republicans within days of his inauguration. Likewise, Garfield's instinct for accommodation marked him as a sharp contrast with the man who'd next be elected president, Grover Cleveland, perhaps the most stubborn chief executive in American history. Nevertheless, this was no aborning Teddy Roosevelt. If anything, Garfield—a House minority leader elevated to higher office on the basis of the fact that people found it impossible to hate him—resembles no one so much as Gerald Ford.

As it turns out, however, at least one man did hate Garfield: Charles Guiteau, the assassin who gunned him down at a Washington train station in the summer of 1881. At the risk of sounding macabre, it is somewhat surprising that Guiteau is not a larger figure in American history for the simple reason that no other presidential assassin trod a path quite as eerie nor possessed a backstory quite as resonant with modern anxieties.

Though he claimed a political motivation for the shooting (to elevate Vice President Chester Arthur, who differed with Garfield on the then-potent issue of civil service reform), the evidence is overwhelming that Guiteau's crime actually stemmed from a long history of mental illness. Nearly a decade before Garfield's murder, Guiteau had announced to an acquaintance that, lacking any means to attain the notoriety he craved, he had resolved that the best way to get attention was to simply "shoot some of our public men." That Garfield became the ultimate target owed only to the fact that he had infelicitously intersected with Guiteau's delusions of grandeur. The shooter had actually campaigned energetically for Garfield's presidential bid (read: given rambling speeches that no one much wanted to hear) and only soured on the new administration once he had been denied a diplomatic post he believed to be his just reward. Guiteau had even sent an unbidden note to the president's desk, in which he nonchalantly pronounced, "I think I prefer Paris to Vienna."

The reader's skin crawls as Goodyear describes the easy access a deranged Guiteau had to Garfield. He was able to walk into the White House and personally petition the president for a job (though his strange behavior would later get him barred from the executive mansion). He buttonholed the first lady at a social event. He stalked Garfield and Blaine on a nighttime stroll the evening before the assassination. He even once stood at the back of the room as Garfield attended church services, planning to shoot the president in the head as he worshipped.

Guiteau's plan finally came to fruition on July 2, 1881, though Garfield—who likely would have survived the attack had it not been for his incompetent medical care—managed to cling to life until September 19. Guiteau was marched to the gallows the following June and, insane to the end, was shocked by President Arthur's failure to issue him a pardon.

As a result of Guiteau's crime, any biography of Garfield has the odds stacked against it. How do you tell the story of a man remembered primarily for unrealized potential? Goodyear's answer to that question is to present Garfield as he was rather than as he could have been. The result is a richly detailed account of a too-neglected period in American history that is likely to remain the definitive Garfield biography for at least a generation.

President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier
by C.W. Goodyear
Simon & Schuster, 624 pp., $35

Troy Senik is a former presidential speechwriter and the author of A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland.

The post The Parenthetical Presidency of James Garfield appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Why wouldn't she? Liberal donors seem eager to keep giving her tens of millions of dollars to lose elections while enriching herself and her friends. There are few things Abrams's core supporters (rich white liberals) love more than hearing a black woman complain about racism and so-called voter suppression.

Until then, Abrams must content herself with raising money for her shady nonprofits, working for a dark money activist group lobbying to ban gan stoves, and going on MSNBC to talk about her new crime novel.

Rogue Justice: A Thriller is the second installment in a series starring the thoroughly obnoxious and improbable protagonist Avery Keene. The first installment, While Justice Sleeps: A Thriller, topped the New York Times bestseller list upon its release in May 2021. Several weeks earlier, Abrams helped engineer a corporate boycott of her own state that prompted Major League Baseball to move its All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver after Georgia enacted an election reform bill critics denounced as "voter suppression." NBCUniversal, the same company that paid Chelsea Clinton $600,000 a year for "journalism," immediately bought the television rights.

Your humble reviewer quickly realized that reading While Justice Sleeps would give him a better sense of whatever the hell is going on in Rogue Justice. For instance: How (and why) did the president of the United States commit "treason, murder, and genocide," and why is he still in office? In any event, it wasn't worth it. Abrams the politician is a cartoonishly corrupt charlatan. Abrams the author is a massive nerd with a fondness for bureaucratic acronyms and tedious exposition that made your humble reviewer long for the resplendent prose stylings of former FBI director James Comey.

Some liberal politicians and their supporters are easily caricatured as overly credentialed homework lovers who think all the world's problems could be solved through diligent research and expert analysis. Barack Obama, Pete Buttigieg, and Elizabeth Warren come to mind. Avery Keene is a caricature of this caricature. The preternatural genius started making money in middle school by "completing homework for overprivileged, lazy kids." She overcame her father's death and mother's addiction to graduate from Spelman College and Yale Law. (Abrams's alma maters, natch.)

In Rogue Justice, Avery is a 28-year-old Supreme Court clerk who excels at "copious and obnoxiously thorough research." Puzzles are her "happy place." She uses her "once-in-a-generation mind" and "eidetic memory" to uncover international criminal conspiracies and occasionally to win huge sums at blackjack that are "duly reported on her taxes." Avery is a notorious figure now, having exposed the genocidal traitor, President Brandon Stokes, who is obviously a Republican. Nevertheless, she is concerned that her heroic exploits have ruined her career prospects. (Some context: Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a bureaucrat no one had heard of until he testified against former president Donald Trump, was a guest on practically every talk show and starred in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.)

The hero is called into action once again when a federal court clerk in South Dakota stumbles upon a deadly conspiracy and (naturally) seeks out Keene, whom he has never met, for advice. He is gunned down on the streets of Washington, D.C., moments later. Homework assignment in hand, Avery embarks on a thrilling campaign of "copious and obnoxiously thorough research" to uncover the global conspiracy and the mastermind behind it. Indeed, most of the book's plot unfolds via Avery explaining her findings to various groups of supporting characters, from her "military-trained security expert" boyfriend to the entire U.S. intelligence community.

Avery must utilize her genius brain to figure out how FISC, FERC, NERC, OLEC, ERCOT, MISO, and the Feres Doctrine fit together in a mysterious scheme to wreak havoc on the United States for motives that remain unclear. The (confoundingly improbable) answer raises a number of annoying questions, such as, "WTF?" and "What if the villain is actually good (despite murdering innocent people), and the real bad guys are the racist Republicans?"

There's a #MeToo angle, obviously. Cryptocurrency makes an appearance, as does an ex-Mossad assassin Avery manages to subdue after watching some YouTube videos about judo locks and choke-hold escapes. She really is amazing. While conducting her research to save the world, Avery also finds the time to finish an actual homework assignment on ransomware for the chief justice of the Supreme Court and checks in on a friend she rescued from the throes of addiction.

Rogue Justice is a must-read for anyone interested in detailed explanations of the U.S. power grid and surveillance court system. Readers who enjoy characters who act "assiduously" and speak "sardonically" will be similarly thrilled. Observers of Stacey Abrams will be intrigued by the author's voluminous knowledge of tax havens and non-extradition countries. The book depicts a political world in which everyone is obsessed with money and luxury. Bribes are offered and accepted, earmarks deployed to rig elections, favors called in to get dumb relatives into exclusive universities, jealousy vented about former colleagues making higher salaries. Notwithstanding the impeccable protagonist, Rogue Justice is awash with shameless grifters trying to move up in the world and make their bag.

Write what you know.

Rogue Justice: A Thriller
by Stacey Abrams
Doubleday, 368 pp., $29

The post Write What You Know: Tryhards, Grifters, Frauds Star in Stacey Abrams's Crime Novel appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

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.

The post FACT CHECK: 'Extreme MAGA Republicans' Took Back the House Through 'Unlawful' Gerrymandering appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

• The 6-3 opinion argued that race-based admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina run afoul of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution because they "unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points."

Why it matters: Some have argued the Supreme Court faces a "crisis of legitimacy" because its opinions do not always reflect the views of the American public. By this standard, the Court's decision to strike down race-based affirmative action is laudably legitimate.

• The vast majority of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, oppose race-based affirmative action in university admissions, polls show.

By the numbers: More than two-thirds of Americans say colleges and universities should not use race as a factor in admission, according to the New York Times. Opposition to affirmative action is slightly higher when respondents are asked about public universities funded by taxpayers.

• Americans oppose affirmative action at public colleges and universities by an overwhelming margin of 74 percent to 26 percent.

• A solid majority of Democrats agree: Sixty percent said they oppose race-based admissions at public universities, while 58 percent said the same about private universities.

What they're saying: "The opinion today will serve only to highlight the Court's own impotence in the face of an America whose cries for equality resound," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion.

• Alas, the American public appears to have a different definition of "equality."

Bottom line: The Supreme Court's legitimate decision to end race-based affirmative action is an accurate reflection of the American public's views. Congratulations!

The post Legitimacy Restored: Supreme Court Ends Affirmative Action, Outcome Backed by Vast Majority of Americans appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

• Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Elizabeth Warren made the list, but Donald Trump did not.

What it means: Trump is the least racist, most anti-slavery president of the United States, according to the findings of the Reuters investigation.

• "President Joe Biden and every living former U.S. president—except Donald Trump—are direct descendants of slaveholders," the analysis found. "Trump's ancestors came to America after slavery was abolished."

•  Obama, the first mixed-race president in American history, is a descendant of slave owners on his white mother's side.

Why it matters: Being a slave owner is very racist. Obama and other privileged descendants of slave owners have benefited from the suffering and exploitation of slaves. In the interest of fairness, perhaps they should pay reparations to Trump's family and others who patiently waited for the United States to abolish slavery before immigrating.

Bottom line: Dumb investigations often yield dumb results. Nevertheless, we must respect the science.

The post Donald Trump Is Least Racist Living President, Historical Analysis Finds appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Beshear during a June 22 press conference attacked a GOP bill that bans the use of puberty blockers and hormones for anyone under the age of 18. While the American Academy of Pediatrics has acknowledged that those treatments can "be stressful and can lead to lower self-esteem and increased risk tasking" and may pose "long-term risks" to "bone metabolism and fertility," Beshear nonetheless defended his decision to veto the bill. "What they took away are basic medical decisions for parents to be able to make," Beshear said of Republicans who passed the legislation.

Beshear's veto did not stick—a Republican supermajority in the state legislature overrode the Democrat's attempt to block Senate Bill 150. Still, Beshear's decision to veto the measure puts the governor at odds with his Republican challenger, Kentucky attorney general Daniel Cameron, who in March said he would have signed the bill. Puberty blockers and hormone treatments, Cameron argued, put a child's "health and well-being" in danger.

"Even many liberal European countries are putting the brakes on these surgeries and gender therapies for minors. Meanwhile in America, Democrats call it extreme to oppose chemical castration and gender mutilation of minors," Cameron said at the time. "That is not care—it's irreversible and is the exact opposite of how we should support children experiencing gender dysphoria or mental health struggles."

Beshear did not return a request for comment. The Democrat during the press conference also accused Republicans of focusing on "some of the most extreme areas that don't happen." As Senate Bill 150 advanced through the state legislature, however, some Kentucky doctors revealed that they treat hundreds of patients under the age of 18 with puberty blockers and hormone therapy. Some pediatricians in Canada and the United Kingdom believe those treatments may artificially solidify feelings of gender dysphoria by halting the natural hormonal changes that occur during the teenage years.

Senate Bill 150 aligns Kentucky with other red states around the nation that are banning gender-transition treatments for children. Indiana, Florida, and Arkansas, for example, have all passed similar policies, though the laws have faced legal challenges. Kentucky is no different—the ACLU last month sued the state to block what it called a "ban on essential health care for trans youth."

Some blue states have taken the opposite approach, with California and Colorado signing laws that offer protection to minors who cross state lines to undergo gender transition surgeries. Those laws are also expected to face legal challenges, experts told the Washington Free Beacon in April. Beyond California's so-called safe haven law, Democrats in the state's legislature have also advanced a bill that would require any judge who hears a custody dispute over a trans-identifying child to side with the parent who "affirms" that child's preferred gender.

Blue-state Democrats have also argued that parents should not be informed when their child expresses a change in his or her gender identity while in school. New Jersey's liberal attorney general, Matt Platkin, recently sued four school districts for passing parental rights policies that require teachers to notify parents if their child decides to go by a different name or use a different bathroom or locker room. Those policies, Platkin argued, cause harm to a child's mental and physical health.

The son of Kentucky's 61st governor, Beshear rose to the governor's mansion in 2019 after he defeated Republican incumbent Matt Bevin—then the most unpopular governor in the country—by less than one percentage point. Cameron is expected to be a more formidable challenger as Beshear eyes reelection this November—both candidates are tied at 47 percent support, according to a Cygnal poll conducted in May.

The post Kentucky Governor Says Puberty Blockers and Hormone Therapy for Kids Are 'Basic Medical Decisions' appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Suarez's comments came during a Hugh Hewitt Show appearance, during which Hewitt asked Suarez if he would "be talking about the Uyghurs" during his campaign, a reference to the more than one million Muslims held in Chinese concentration camps. "The what? What's a Uyghur?" Suarez responded. When Hewitt told the Miami mayor he should "get smart" on the issue, Suarez promised he'd "look at—what was it? What'd you call it? A Weeble?"

Hewitt, of course, was not referring to the line of roly-poly children's toys known as Weebles, which Hasbro subsidiary Playskool produced in various egg-shaped sizes from 1971-2011. "The Uyghurs, you really need to know about the Uyghurs," Hewitt clarified. "You gotta talk about it every day." Suarez insisted he would do so, touting his status as a "fast learner."

'I'll look at — what’d you call it, a ‘Weeble?’"

— 2024 GOP presidential candidate Francis Suarez on Uyghurs pic.twitter.com/wAW8lGg0IK

— The Recount (@therecount) June 27, 2023

Suarez’s Tuesday faux-pas harks back to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson’s so-called Aleppo moment. During a 2016 MSNBC interview, Johnson was questioned about what he would do if elected regarding the embattled Syrian city that was at the center of a civil war between the government and several rebel factions. "What is Aleppo?" Johnson asked.

Suarez blamed the gaffe on a listening comprehension issue, telling the Washington Free Beacon he is "well aware of the suffering of the Uyghurs in China" but "didn't recognize the pronunciation my friend Hugh Hewitt used."

"That's on me," the Republican said in a statement. Hewitt, however, criticized Suarez over the exchange following the interview, calling it a "huge blind spot."

"‘What's a Uyghur?’ is not where I expect people running for president to say when asked about the ongoing genocide in China," the radio host tweeted.

Suarez, who is considered to be a centrist, has long sparred with his state's governor, fellow GOP presidential hopeful Gov. Ron DeSantis (Fla.). Suarez in 2021 lamented that DeSantis would not let him enact a "commonsense" mask mandate in Miami and months later said he would not direct his police department to enforce a state law that made it a felony to willingly transport an illegal immigrant. "We don't usually get involved in the federal immigration system," Suarez noted. Suarez has also attacked DeSantis on education, calling the governor's bill to limit sex education in kindergarten through third grade "excessive."

In 2018, meanwhile, Suarez publicly touted his vote for DeSantis's gubernatorial opponent, Democrat Andrew Gillum. After losing to DeSantis, Gillum was found vomiting in a Florida hotel room, alongside a gay escort and self-described "pornstar performer" who overdosed on methamphetamines. Gillum, who has been married to his wife since 2009, denied ever using drugs that night and came out as bisexual months after the ordeal.

The post Miami Mayor Francis Suarez Asks: ‘What’s a Uyghur?’ appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

• "I wanted our team to be younger, to be inspirational," Rush said during a newly resurfaced interview with Teledyne Marine, adding that submarine expertise was particularly necessary for the job. "We can train someone to pilot the sub," he said. "We use a [video-game] controller."

Context: Stockton Rush is a 61-year-old white guy.

Full quote: "When I started the business one of the things you'll find is there are other sub operators out there, but they typically have gentlemen who are ex-military submariners and you'll see a whole bunch of 50-year-old white guys. I wanted our team to be younger, to be inspirational, and [an old white guy is] not going to inspire a 16-year-old to go pursue marine technology."

The post WATCH: Missing Sub Boss Brags About Not Hiring Experienced 'White Guys' with Military Backgrounds appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

• For obvious reasons, Thunberg deleted her Twitter post from June 21, 2018.

Why it matters: We haven't stopped using fossil fuels in 2023. Humanity has not been (and will not be) wiped out as a result. That's a good thing!

Context: Harvard University professor James Anderson, the "top scientist" whose claims Thunberg promoted in 2018, insists his words were distorted by journalists at Grit Post, the site that published the (since deleted) article Thunberg linked to in her tweet.

• Anderson said he would "never" claim that humanity would be wiped out by 2023. He did, however, express support in 2018 for a "Marshall Plan-style endeavor in which all of the world takes extreme measures to transition off of fossil fuels completely within the next five years," according to Forbes. (Which is basically just as crazy a thing to say.)

• The scientist also suggested "there will be no floating ice remaining [in the Arctic Ocean] by 2022" absent major action on climate change. (The ice is still there, miraculously.)

Bottom line: If climate activists (of any age) want to be taken seriously, they should stop making hysterical predictions that never pan out.

The post It's Been 5 Years Since Greta Thunberg Warned Climate Change Would 'Wipe Out All of Humanity Unless We Stop Using Fossil Fuels Over the Next 5 Years' appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

James Comey, the former FBI director best known for investigating Hillary Clinton's emails (and their connection to Anthony Weiner's dick pics), is enjoying one of those perks right now. Having written what could be charitably described as a mediocre crime novel, Central Park West: A Crime Novel, the author's status as a #Resistance hero who stood up to Donald Trump has assured him a level of publicity and pomp not typically reserved for debut novelists who aren't very good at writing fiction.

MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace, for example, is among the most deranged of the #Resistance fanatics—a fiercely competitive category. She "loved" Comey's "smart, nuanced legal thriller," which is really all you need to know. "Could not put it down," wrote Wallace, who has three mediocre novels to her name, in a blurb for Central Park West. "It's a modern 'good guys vs the bad guys' story in which nearly all of the good 'guys' are actually strong, smart, steely women." Are you not enticed?

The story begins when Tony Burke, a disgraced sex pest and former governor of New York, is injected with a fatal dose of insulin. His estranged wife, Kyra, is charged with murder—in state court, something Comey is determined to clarify at length—after the plot to make it appear like a suicide is foiled by an ill-timed order of "coffee-rubbed Wagyu strip" from a "fancy steakhouse."

Meanwhile, a team of federal attorneys and investigators in Manhattan—not the same as state authorities in ways Comey is more than happy to explain—are working to convict Dominic D'Amico, a.k.a. "The Nose," a notorious gangster and "one of the few mob guys with a progressive view of immigration." A surprising revelation exposes a connection between the two trials and gives the feds reason to believe that Kyra, despite being caught on video entering her husband's apartment building shortly before his death, has been wrongfully accused.

Wallace was right about one thing. There is something very modern about a "good guys vs. bad guys" story in which the good guys are obnoxiously good (and sufficiently diverse) while the bad guys, especially the mafia goons, are only bad on paper. Deep down, they are honorable adversaries who respect the good guys for being so good at their jobs. Central Park West is the Ted Lasso of crime novels.

The main characters are all brilliant Ivy League grads from humble origins who just want to make the world a better place. Nearly all of them are women, but all that means is that Comey goes out of his way to identify the brands of fashionable clothing they are wearing on a given day. More than anything, they are the empty vessels Comey uses to convey his tedious explanations of FBI jargon and other law enforcement minutiae. Did you know the FBI can use cellphone data to pinpoint your exact location? Jim Comey does.

Kyra Burke is "a stunningly beautiful 39-year-old woman" with "high cheekbones framed by a long honey-blonde Jennifer Aniston bob" who overcame her humble origins to attend Yale (on scholarship) and Columbia Law School, married a successful politician, and "started mentoring programs for at-risk girls." Friends and colleagues suspect she suffers from "internalized white patriarchal self-loathing." She's glad her husband is dead but maintains her innocence.

Matthew Parker, Kyra's lawyer, has a "six-foot-two frame ... toned by hours on a Peloton bike and in the pool" and an abundance of earned confidence. "Yeah, bub, I'm a real fuckin' lawyer. How you like them apples?" he imagines telling the state prosecutor after orchestrating a cerebral legal maneuver. He's a brilliant and hardworking defense attorney, obviously, but is somehow shocked to learn that his client legally changed her name after graduating college.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nora Carleton has a daughter with her ex-husband. She commutes from Hoboken and occasionally splurges on nice clothes—"worth it because she represented the United States of America" and the eternal flame of justice or whatever. She has dedicated her life to pursuing the truth, but would leave it all behind in a second for a legal compliance gig at an ethical hedge fund in Connecticut. "The good ones always leave," Comey laments.

By far the most entertaining character is Nora's sidekick—the "Mr. Rough" to her "Ms. Smooth." Federal investigator Benny Dugan is a "mountain of a man"—"six-foot-five, 250 pounds of Brooklyn"—bullheaded, but in a brilliant way. He knows everything about the mob, but refuses to let work get in the way of asking his female colleagues about their feelings. Every character's dialogue, but especially Dugan's, reads like a parody of the snappy New York cop banter on Law & Order.

"Need to see their entire lives and how they mesh," Dugan says of two possible suspects in a murder investigation. "'Cause it sure looks from the picture I took that they have been doin' a whole lotta meshing. As they say: A picture's worth a thousand words." He is enthusiastically relieved when Nora assures him that a gay crush on a person of interest won't cloud her prosecutorial judgment. "There she is! Ms. Smooth is back," he booms. "Truth and justice is what we're all about! Excellent. Now I gotta get back to being a superhero."

Dugan supposedly has a drinking problem, prone to "wandering the streets looking for violence, to hit someone who deserved it, maybe kill someone who deserved it," but we never actually see it. There's hardly any violence depicted Comey crime novel, and barely any crime. It is utterly devoid of human conflict, unless one counts the internal jockeying among rival government agencies over who has jurisdiction. After using his epic brain to solve the crimes, Dugan reunites with his estranged sons and apologizes for being such a bad father. Everyone cries and forgives each other. Drama!

There is also a fair amount of passive-aggressive status anxiety—conveyed at various point by government employees whose six-figures salaries make them poor relative to private-sector peers—born of the bitter class rivalry between Ivy League liberals who had government jobs before going into corporate finance and the ones who went straight to finance. The noble bureaucrats are a different kind of Ivy League liberal. Truth and justice is what they're all about. They're just as comfortable in a pantsuit as they are in jeans and a Taylor Swift shirt. Write what you know.

Just as there are perks to being a minor #Resistance celebrity, there are drawbacks as well. These include a predisposition toward hubris. "I know I can write," Comey said before being heckled at a recent book tour event. "All good lawyers are great storytellers." He has already finished a draft of the sequel.

Central Park West: A Crime Novel
by James Comey
Mysterious Press, 384 pp., $30

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• "Leave our kids alone!" shouted a woman wearing a traditional headscarf who appeared to be the mother of one of the children.

https://twitter.com/ben_kew/status/1667199624539688960

Why it matters: Posting a video of Muslim children stomping all over the American flag would be considered "Islamophobic," but Muslim kids stomping on a Pride Flag is more challenging because it involves two "oppressed" minorities.

• Woke liberals are temperamentally ill-equipped to process this kind of situation. To feel morally superior, they convince themselves that white Christians are the only ones who disagree with their radical ideology.

• Remember when the New York Times in 2012 nonsensically described George Zimmerman, the Hispanic man who killed black teenager Trayvon Martin, as a "white Hispanic"?

Bottom line: You're a bigot.

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• Clinton responded to the news by asking for money. The failed presidential candidate posted a link on Twitter urging followers to buy "limited-edition" hats emblazoned with the #Resistance catchphrase, "But Her Emails."

• The hats are available for purchase via Clinton's political action committee, Onward Together, which purports to "strengthen democracy" and "fight for our shared progressive values."

Context: In 2016, FBI director James Comey excoriated Clinton's "extremely careless" handling of highly classified information but declined to prosecute her for endangering our national security.

Why it matters: No one wants to hear Hillary Clinton gloat about being above the law. She needs to go away.

Bottom line: Trump ended Clinton's lifelong dream of becoming president by defeating her in the 2016 election, which is (and always will be) extremely funny.

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• The mass execution is one of the options being considered by the Irish government as it scrambles to satisfy the European Union's draconian emissions targets by 2030.

Context: European libs aren't the only ones trying to erase cows from existence. In 2019, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) promoted the controversial Green New Deal legislation using a fact sheet promising to "fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes."

Why it matters: Liberal activists have long sought to alleviate their personality disorders, sometimes referred to as "climate anxiety," by killing innocent animals.

• Former president Barack Obama deployed solar farms, wind farms, and other "clean energy" murder machines to execute thousands of bald eagles on his watch.

• More recently, Democrats in New York and New Jersey have started slaughtering harmless whales in order to build a massive and unsightly offshore wind farm in the Atlantic Ocean.

Cows are next on the kill list. Can humans be far behind?

Bottom line: Libs want these adorable creatures to die.

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The legislation doesn't restore fiscal sanity to the federal budget—only changes to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid would do that—but it is a step in the right direction. Since becoming speaker in January, McCarthy has faced a test: Could he strike a fiscal bargain with President Biden that would earn Republican support and avoid a breach of the debt ceiling and a government shutdown? Well, the grade is in. He aced the exam.

Consider where the parties started. Biden spent much of this year demanding that Congress raise the debt ceiling without preconditions. He refused to negotiate with McCarthy. At one point the White House floated the idea of tax increases. The speaker, by contrast, said that he was willing to work with the president to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for cuts.

Now look at where the two sides ended up: The Fiscal Responsibility Act is much closer to McCarthy's original position than it is to Biden's. It doesn't hike taxes. It reduces spending. It contains measures the Left can't stand. The public supports the deal by a two-to-one margin. Most Republicans and Democrats voted for it.

The media, as usual, highlight McCarthy's internal critics. They are a distraction. The press is so obsessed with Republican infighting that it overlooks the real story: Kevin McCarthy is shaping up to be the most effective House GOP leader in decades. Biden, the Democrats, and the liberal culture have been unable to transform him into a bogeyman. To the contrary: His net approval rating has risen by double digits since January. Biden's numbers have dropped. Nor is McCarthy's favorability the result of playing to the media crowd and appeasing the Left. The Fiscal Responsibility Act is the latest piece of significant center-right legislation that the House has passed this year.

What, then, is McCarthy's secret? He succeeds because it pays to be underestimated. He's not the first Republican to surprise a Beltway media that holds him in low regard. The rap on McCarthy has long been that he's an amiable politician with no ideological core. This lack of substance was exposed, according to conventional wisdom, by the disappointing outcome of last year's midterm election. The same conventional wisdom took as a sign of weakness the unprecedented concessions McCarthy made to the House Freedom Caucus to end the agonizing, 4-day, 15-ballot vote for speaker in January.

All these assumptions were wrong. McCarthy's amiability and flexibility are not liabilities but assets. The narrow Republican majority hasn't stopped the House from moving bills on the floor. Nor have McCarthy's concessions to the Freedom Caucus hindered him. Putting Freedom Caucus members on the important Rules Committee gave figures such as Rep. Thomas Massie (R., Ky.) a stake in the legislative process. And the lowered threshold to remove the speaker is meaningless if a substitute is not waiting offstage.

McCarthy's superpower is his desire to be speaker. He likes and wants his job—a rarity for the GOP. He's the first public-facing Republican speaker since 1994 to be in sync with both his office and his conference. The talents that aided Newt Gingrich in his quest to build the first GOP House majority in 40 years did not necessarily translate to the speaker's office. Gingrich is a revolutionary, not an institutionalist. He's more interested in figuring out how America can ride the Third Wave into a technological utopia than in legislative detail and intra-party bargaining. His record of welfare reform and balanced budgets was impressive, but his tenure was chaotic.

Gingrich's successor, the disgraced Denny Hastert, avoided the limelight. President George W. Bush's compassionate conservatism and Freedom Agenda overshadowed Hastert, who delegated most of his authority to Tom "the Hammer" DeLay. By the time DeLay resigned over scandal in 2006, the Republican House majority was on the verge of collapse. Democrats took over Congress soon after. It fell to John Boehner to pick up the pieces.

Boehner became speaker in 2010, thanks in part to McCarthy's recruiting skills. The problem was that Boehner belonged to a different political era. He was a product of the 1990s and the early 2000s whose party was increasingly shaped by the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis, bank and auto bailouts, and Barack Obama's "New Foundation" for America. Boehner hated living in "Crazytown," and it showed. The Tea Party Republicans didn't care for him either. The mismatch made Boehner miserable. As soon as he brought Pope Francis to Capitol Hill, he left.

The next Republican speaker, Paul Ryan, had the title forced on him. Ryan is a supply-sider and wonk. He understands dollars and cents. He's a protégé of Jack Kemp who felt out of place in Donald Trump's Washington. His main priority was the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Once it had Trump's signature, Ryan was ready to leave. Democrats won the House the following year. Ryan was out.

McCarthy, unlike his predecessors, has no earth-shattering plans. Holding the speaker's gavel is enough. He doesn't shy away from the camera. He doesn't represent a faction of the GOP; he tries to enact the party consensus. He isn't at war with Tea Party (now MAGA) conservatives. He wants to be on the rostrum. He alone commands majority support.

Maybe McCarthy will lose his touch in upcoming fights over assistance to Ukraine. Maybe one day an alternative to McCarthy will emerge, someone who can unify the Freedom Caucus along with the rest of the GOP conference. Maybe Democrats will take back the House next year. For the moment, at least, Kevin McCarthy is the rare Republican who both understands and is satisfied by the role he's been given and the responsibilities it entails. He wants nothing more nor less. And he's winning.

The post The Secret to McCarthy's Success appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

The Senate voted 63-36 to approve the bill that had been passed on Wednesday by the House of Representatives, as lawmakers raced against the clock following months of partisan bickering between Democrats and Republicans.

The Treasury Department had warned it would be unable to pay all its bills on June 5 if Congress failed to act by then.

"We are avoiding default tonight," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Thursday as he steered the legislation through his 100-member chamber.

Biden praised Congress' timely action. "This bipartisan agreement is a big win for our economy and the American people," the Democratic president said in a statement, adding that he will sign it into law as soon as possible. He said he would make an additional statement on Friday at 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT).

Biden was directly involved in negotiations on the bill with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

While this bitter battle has ended, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell wasted no time flagging the next budget fight.

"In the coming months, Senate Republicans will continue working to provide for the common defense and control Washington Democrats’ reckless spending," he said in a statement.

McConnell was referring to 12 bills Congress will work on over the summer to fund government programs in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, which will also carry out the broad instructions of the debt limit bill.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, meanwhile, issued some pointed advice saying, "I continue to strongly believe that the full faith and credit of the United States must never be used as a bargaining chip," as Republicans did over the past several months.

Before the final vote, senators tore through nearly a dozen amendments - rejecting all of them during a late-night session in anticipation of Monday's deadline.

With this legislation, the statutory limit on federal borrowing will be suspended until Jan. 1, 2025. Unlike most other developed countries, the United States limits the amount of debt the government can borrow, regardless of any spending allocated by the legislature.

"America can breathe a sigh of relief," Schumer said in remarks to the Senate.

'TIME IS A LUXURY'

Republicans had blocked passage of any debt limit increase until they locked in some wide-ranging spending cuts in a move they said would begin addressing a rapidly escalating national debt.

Biden instead pushed for tax increases on the wealthy and corporations to help address the growing debt. Republicans refused to consider any sort of tax hikes.

Both parties walled off the sprawling Social Security and Medicare retirement and healthcare programs from cuts, and McCarthy refused to consider reducing spending on the military or veterans.

That left a somewhat narrow band of domestic "discretionary" programs to bear the brunt of spending cuts. In the end, Republicans won about $1.5 trillion in reductions over 10 years, which may or may not be fully realized. Their opening bid was for $4.8 trillion in savings over a decade.

Treasury technically hit its limit on borrowing in January. Since then it has been using "extraordinary measures" to patch together the money needed to pay the government's bills.

Biden, Yellen and congressional leaders all acknowledged that triggering a default for lack of funds would have serious ramifications. Those included sending shock waves through global financial markets, possibly triggering job losses and a recession in the United States and raising families' interest rates on everything from home mortgages to credit card debt.

The Republican-controlled House passed the bill on Wednesday evening in a 314-117 vote. Most of those who voted against the bill were Republicans.

"Time is a luxury the Senate does not have," Schumer said on Thursday. "Any needless delay or any last-minute holdups would be an unnecessary and even dangerous risk."

Among the amendments debated were ones to force deeper spending cuts than those contained in the House-passed bill and stopping the speedy final approval of a West Virginia energy pipeline.

COBBLED OVER WEEKS

Republican Senator Roger Marshall offered an amendment to impose new border controls as high numbers of immigrants arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border. His measure, he said, would "put an end to the culture of lawlessness at our southern border."

The Senate defeated the amendment, however. Democrats said it would strip away protections for child migrants and rob American farmers of needed workers.

Some Republicans also wanted to beef up defense spending beyond the increased levels contained in the House-passed bill.

In response, Schumer said the spending caps in this legislation would not constrain Congress in approving additional money for emergencies, including helping Ukraine in its battle against Russia.

"This debt ceiling deal does nothing to limit the Senate's ability to appropriate emergency supplemental funds to ensure our military capabilities are sufficient to deter China, Russia and our other adversaries, and respond to ongoing and growing national security threats, including Russia's evil ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine," Schumer said.

The bill was cobbled together over weeks of intensive negotiations between senior aides for Biden and McCarthy.

The main argument was over spending for the next couple of years on discretionary programs such as housing, environmental protections, education and medical research that Republicans wanted to cut deeply.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would save $1.5 trillion over 10 years. That is below the $3 trillion in deficit reduction, mainly through new taxes, that Biden proposed.

The last time the United States came this close to default was in 2011. That standoff hammered financial markets, led to the first-ever downgrade of the government's credit rating and pushed up the nation's borrowing costs.

There was less drama this time as it became clear last week that Biden and McCarthy would find a deal with enough bipartisan support to get through Congress.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan, David Morgan, Moira Warburton and Gram Slattery; Editing by Scott Malone, Alistair Bell, Diane Craft, Kieran Murray and William Mallard)

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While millennials overwhelmingly backed Obama, only half of those same voters—now in their 30s or early 40s—voted for Joe Biden in 2020, according to Times estimates. Exit polls show an even more drastic shift, with "Biden winning by just 51-45 among voters who were 18 to 27 in 2008," Cohn reported.

That same group of voters "preferred Democratic congressional candidates by just 10 points" in last year's midterms, according to Times/Siena College polling.

While Cohn wrote the findings may not seem "stunning," as "almost every cohort of voters under 50 has shifted toward the right" over the last decade, they cut sharply against a long-held Democratic article of faith. For at least 20 years, liberal academics and pundits have argued that a "coalition of the ascendant"—young voters, particularly blacks, Hispanics, and women—would enshrine Democrats as the eternal majority.

An influential 2002 book by Ruy Teixeira and John Judis, for example, argued for an "emerging Democratic majority," a prediction that many Democrats echoed after Obama's 2008 victory.

That prediction has not come to pass. Teixeira now says that "the Democrats and the Democratic brand are in deep trouble," as he argued in an essay last year for National Review. In addition to Cohn's findings, exit polls show Latino and black voters slowly but significantly shifting rightward.

Some of the issues that drew in millennials in 2008, such as "the Iraq war or same-sex marriage," are no longer issues at all, Cohn wrote. Meanwhile, Republicans have likely won voters by "colorblind messaging on race" and "becoming the 'anti-establishment' party."

Update 11:43 p.m.: This piece has been updated for clarity since original publication.

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Under House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's (R., Calif.) debt ceiling and spending limit agreement, which passed the chamber 314-117 on Wednesday, the Biden administration cannot extend a pandemic-era pause on student loan payment for a ninth time. Borrowers must begin payments 60 days after June 30, 2023, according to the bill. Also on Wednesday, moderate Senate Democrats joined Republicans to advance legislation that would revoke Biden's massive student debt cancellation program and nullify the pause on monthly payments.

The back-to-back legislation spells trouble for Biden's campaign promise to cancel student loans. Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Jon Tester (Mont.), as well as independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), voted against Biden's program, passing the measure on a 51-46 vote.

Released last August, Biden's student loan forgiveness plan, which would cancel up to $20,000 of debt per borrower, is projected to cost $400 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The plan is on hold as the Supreme Court reviews the program, which two lower courts blocked last year. The Court is expected to issue a decision this summer.

The Senate could pass the measure to repeal the spending package with a simple majority vote as early as Thursday, but the White House has already promised Biden would veto the bill.

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The House of Representatives has approved a debt ceiling and budget cuts package, as President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy assembled a coalition of centrist Democrats and Republicans against conservative blowback and progressive dissent. https://t.co/19JINreaD3

— The Associated Press (@AP) June 1, 2023

How many times has the media written House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's political obituary? They were doing so up until the moment on Wednesday evening when the House passed a plan—with an overwhelming majority of Republicans backing the measure—to suspend the debt ceiling for two years. 

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy attempted to strike a careful balance in negotiations over averting a federal default: he could lose conservatives’ votes but could not afford to reach a deal that so infuriated the far right that they would move to oust him. https://t.co/qgjNcekWTD

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 31, 2023

"Anger over House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's deal with President Biden to raise the debt ceiling is bubbling over, with some conservative members threatening to oust McCarthy as speaker."

• NPR, May 30, 2023.

"The compromise has drawn the ire of right-wing Republicans, leaving open the possibility that its passage could jeopardize Mr. McCarthy’s standing on Capitol Hill, where any one lawmaker has the power to call a snap vote to oust him thanks to a rule Mr. McCarthy agreed to while he was grasping for support from the far right to be elected speaker in January." 

• The New York Times, May 30, 2023.

"There were rumblings of a revolt against the agreement by House Freedom Caucus members shortly after it was announced on Saturday night. While conservatives likely can’t kill the agreement on their own, they can make McCarthy’s life miserable depending on how far they take their displeasure."

• Politico, May 28, 2023.

"House Speaker Kevin McCarthy helped secure a debt limit deal – now he has to secure its passage in the House, with little room for error and a looming threat to his speakership."

• CNN, May 30, 2023.

"The conservative unease with the agreement is raising the question of if McCarthy will soon face a vote to oust him as Speaker. During the drawn-out Speakership election in January, McCarthy agreed to lower the threshold to force a vote on ousting the Speaker — known as the motion to vacate the chair — from five members to just one."

• The Hill, May 28, 2023.

The narrative began, of course, with the 15-round vote in early January that made McCarthy speaker. 

Kevin McCarthy faces growing pressure to end the impasse over his imperiled speakership bid after two consecutive days of failed votes and patience wearing thin among lawmakers https://t.co/wQLstqOzkK

— CNN (@CNN) January 5, 2023

Breaking news: The House remained deadlocked as Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) failed to sway hard-right Republicans and lost his eighth vote for speaker over the course of three days.https://t.co/w9i6D7Dbj3

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 5, 2023

"As Kevin McCarthy muddles through the fourth day of his anarchic battle for the House speakership, it remains as unclear as ever if the California Republican can muster the votes to prevail."

• Politico, January 6, 2023.

Kevin McCarthy broke a century-long streak by losing the first round of the House speaker vote. Why, and what happens next? Here's what to expect:https://t.co/QLmuOW4OgO

— The Week (@TheWeek) January 3, 2023

In his five-month speakership, the press has assured us time and again that McCarthy’s speakership is on the verge of extinction.

First came the initial debt ceiling battle in April.

WATCH: Could McCarthy's speakership be in jeopardy with the debt ceiling fight?@GarrettHaake: "They've got to prove they can pass something. ... I think there will be questions if he can't get the vote through this week but I don't know that this would be the end of the road." pic.twitter.com/baR84uQgtI

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) April 24, 2023

"If Biden doesn’t come to the table, the country is at the mercy of an erratic Republican majority that the Speaker himself can barely control. If he does, the Republicans will have got him there through sheer bullying. And then what? No one expects hard-line House Republicans to give any ground. McCarthy would have to be willing to cut a deal that risks his Speakership"

• The New Yorker, April 28, 2023.

"There remain huge questions over whether McCarthy, presiding over a tiny majority that’s beset by ideological divides, can unite his troops behind his effort. And if he can’t pass even this preliminary messaging bill, his authority will be in tatters."

• CNN, April 24, 2023

"Why it matters: Unlike January's speaker election, in which GOP unity and McCarthy's personal ambitions were the main assets at stake, the House's vote 'in the coming weeks' could determine whether the U.S. economy averts a catastrophic default.

"That outcome will depend on McCarthy's ability to unite the fractious Republican conference around a plan — the full details of which have not been unveiled — to cut spending and lift the debt ceiling into next year.

"Failure to do so could cost McCarthy the job he spent four days, 15 ballots and massive political capital attempting to secure — and hand Democrats new leverage to pass a ‘clean’ debt ceiling hike." 

• Axios, April 17th, 2023.

But McCarthy united House Republicans behind a bill and forced President Joe Biden to the negotiating table.

In the end, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy lost just four Republicans — one less than he could afford — as the chamber voted 217-215 to pass his bill pairing a debt-ceiling hike with sweeping spending cuts.https://t.co/WvG1wxIlgA

— Axios (@axios) April 26, 2023

That success kicked off a new round of media analysis suggesting that McCarthy would be out of a job because he wouldn’t be able to negotiate a deal with Biden.

"A failure to pass the measure would have further dented McCarthy’s speakership after a farcical 15 rounds of voting that the Californian needed to win his dream job in January. But after days of intense bargaining with rebel lawmakers, he proved he can at least wield his tiny majority and unify his conference after the measure passed 217-215. Four Republicans – the maximum number that could defect for the bill to pass – voted against the measure…

"But the major concessions on issues like midwestern ethanol subsidies, which the speaker made to win the vote, suggested that he is hardly a feared leader on his own side of the aisle. It sent the signal that holdout lawmakers can extract big giveaways in return for their votes. And McCarthy’s position as speaker, already weak after he offered multiple concessions to hardliners to win the gavel, was further eroded after GOP leaders ruled out any changes to the debt ceiling bill and then changed it."

• CNN, April 27, 2023

"‘Gaetz or one of his allies now have the power to trigger a so-called ‘motion to vacate’ if McCarthy cuts a debt deal with Biden and the Democrats that they feel is too liberal. He was already one of four GOP lawmakers who voted against McCarthy’s debt ceiling package that narrowly passed the House 217-215 — with just one vote to spare.

"Gaetz and his camp believe they have the upper hand over McCarthy, said one Gaetz ally in Congress. ‘He didn’t get taken off one committee and he is right back in the news, and not in a negative light,’ the lawmaker said."

• NBC News, May 8, 2023.

Calmes: Kevin McCarthy's doomed debt ceiling deal https://t.co/e0NG87Bzqw

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) May 12, 2023

The countdown is on, the stakes are high – and there is still no debt limit deal.https://t.co/RM4hNV4IM6

— CNN (@CNN) May 22, 2023

The media reported that Democrats would need to jump in to "save his gavel."

Centrist Dems are plotting a save-McCarthy strategy for the debt fight https://t.co/FXNtFn9AVx

— POLITICO (@politico) May 16, 2023

But that wasn’t his undoing, either. 

Speaker Kevin McCarthy releases bill to raise the debt limit and cap spending, based on the agreement between the White House and House Republicans. https://t.co/xPdYHRaxXN

— CNN (@CNN) May 29, 2023

For the press, that set up a fresh crisis that would bring down the speaker: a negotiated bill that could unravel thanks to a GOP "rebellion." 

Top House Republican Kevin McCarthy said he is ‘not at all’ worried about losing his speakership as a result of the debt-ceiling deal he cut with President Joe Biden https://t.co/Cprx5k8q5A pic.twitter.com/wPXVylcyv1

— Reuters (@Reuters) May 28, 2023

"To become speaker, McCarthy worked hard to appeal to those same forces, agreeing to revive a House rule that allows any single member to call for a vote to oust the speaker. Forcing him from office would require a majority vote.

"That threat hangs over McCarthy at every step as he tries to manage a debt ceiling deal."

• Associated Press, May 28, 2023

"As criticism builds in Republican ranks over the debt ceiling deal struck by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and President Joe Biden, some hard-line conservatives have begun floating the idea of toppling the speaker."

"But as a former Republican White House official said over the weekend after the deal was announced: 'McCarthy is now on a clock.’"

• NBC News, May 30, 2023

Until next time, reporters!

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