The Metropolitan Police Department announced on Monday that a man named Glynn P. Neal was arrested for stabbing a senior staffer from Sen. Rand Paul’s (R., Ky.) office, and charged with assault with the intent to kill. Court records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show the victim, whose name is being withheld, suffered from a punctured lung, a head wound that went through the skull causing hemorrhaging in the brain, a lacerated ear, and other puncture wounds throughout his body. 

The 42-year-old Neal had been released from federal prison just a day earlier on Friday, Federal Bureau of Prisons records show. Neal in March 2011 was convicted on eight charges, including for pimping, felony threats, and obstruction of justice, court records show. The charges could have sent him to prison for 18 years, however, the judge sentenced him to a reduced 12 years, with five years of supervised release after serving his sentence.

In the 2010 case that sent Neal to prison, he acted as a pimp, forcing his girlfriend and her friend to prostitute themselves and give him the profits. Neal threatened to kill the women or "beat them bloody" if they didn’t follow his orders, according to a Department of Justice memo detailing his crimes.

The stabbing follows another high-profile assault that took place in February, when Democratic Rep. Angie Craig (Minn.) was attacked in her apartment building just blocks away from the Capitol. The suspect in that case had a long criminal background, and was, like Neal, in custody just a short time before his alleged assault on Craig. 

According to an affidavit filed by a detective with the Metropolitan Police Department, Neal was residing with his sister the day of the attack. He allegedly jumped the victim from around the corner while he and a friend were walking down a popular street in northeast D.C. Neal told authorities after the attack that "a voice was telling him that someone was going to get him for all the things he done."

Paul released a statement on Monday evening confirming that his staffer was "brutally attacked in broad daylight in Washington, D.C."

"We are relieved to hear the suspect has been arrested," the Kentucky senator said.

The Metropolitan Police Department and U.S. attorney's office for D.C. did not respond to a request for comment.

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The principal of Eliot K-8 Innovation School in a Thursday letter to parents acknowledged the "many concerns" over the survey, which was administered on Wednesday to some sixth- and seventh-graders.

A copy of the survey shows it inquired about the pre-teens' risk behavior, with several questions asking about their sexual history. "Have you ever participated in oral sex?" one question asked. "Oral sex is when a person puts their mouth on another person's genitals or private area," the survey explained.

Another question asked students if they are "transgender ... someone who does not feel the same inside as the sex they were born with."

The controversy over the explicit survey comes as schools across the country have faced scrutiny from parents over inappropriate content in the classroom. In 2021, thousands of parents in the Worcester, Mass., public school district pulled their children out of the district's sex education classes over content they called "dangerous."

The Youth Risk Behavior Survey administered to students at Eliot is part of a district-wide survey project by Boston Public Schools. The school's principal in the Thursday letter said Eliot would direct parents' concerns about the appropriateness of the survey to the school district.

Deirdre Hall, a mother of a sixth-grade student at Eliot who received the survey, told the Washington Free Beacon in an interview that the content of the questions was "entirely inappropriate." She said she found out about the survey when her daughter came home and told her about the "really weird survey" she took during history class.

Hall said she had concerns over who has access to the students' responses and whether the information is truly anonymous. She also took issue with her daughter being exposed to the explicit concepts before students had had "a single ounce of sex education."

"She said half her class didn't even know what any of this stuff meant," Hall said. "Now they're coming home and asking their parents and their friends, 'What's oral sex?'"

Other survey questions asked the pre-teens about the number of sexual partners they've had, whether they've considered committing suicide, and whether they've taken diet pills to lose weight.

Another mother of a student at Eliot, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Free Beacon she was "outraged" that the school district would ask young children explicit sexual questions. She said "parents had no idea these questions would be asked."

"To go on field trips the district has parents sign permission slips, but for the district to ask our children private explicit sexual questions they are able to do so without consent?" the mother said. "This makes no sense."

A staff member for Eliot directed the Free Beacon to a spokesman for Boston Public Schools, who did not return a request for comment by press time.

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In a city hall ceremony in January, Newark mayor Ras Baraka (D.) and other officials met with delegates of the fake country to sign an agreement of partnership.

"I pray that our relationship helps us to understand cultural, social, and political development and improves the lives of everybody in both places," Baraka said at the time.

After city hall realized "Kailasa" doesn't exist, however, Newark Democrats were forced to admit they were duped and resort to damage control.

The city of Newark in a statement told CBS News the fraud was a "regrettable incident" but insisted no money was exchanged in the agreement. Councilman Luis Quintana (D.) said, "This is an oversight, cannot happen any longer."

"Kailasa," the made-up country, has a website describing itself as the "greatest Hindu nation on Earth," but it is recognized by no nation and controls no territory. The concept of the fake nation was created by Indian cult leader Swami Nithyananda, who claims to have supernatural powers, including the ability to see through walls.

Nithyananda has been a fugitive from Indian law enforcement since 2019. The swami has faced charges of raping a former disciple.

Newark residents expressed frustration at their city government for falling for their scam. "I'm really sorry for the city that they got duped in that way," Newark resident Amaris Mitchell told CBS News.

"Whose job was it to do a simple Google search?" asked resident Shakee Merritt. "Not one person said, 'Let me go and Google and figure out this was a fake city.'"

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The price of grocery store food surged 10.2 percent in February from the year before. Several energy services were also elevated from last year, with electricity up 12.9 percent and utility gas up 14.3 percent.

Instead of addressing the explosion in prices of those goods over the last year, Biden highlighted the decrease in the inflation rate from months ago, saying in a statement that "annual inflation is down by a third from this summer ... the slowest annual increase since September 2021."

While inflation has fallen to 6 percent since the summer, when it exceeded 9 percent and reached 40-year highs, price increases are still outpacing wage growth. According to the Labor Department, real average earnings in February decreased by an annual rate of 1.3 percent.

While Biden has touted his efforts to rein in inflation, some experts have pointed to the president's policies, including his $2 trillion American Rescue Plan, as playing a major role in creating record inflation. Rep. Jim Clyburn (S.C.), then the Democratic House majority whip, in October said the Democratic caucus knew Biden's legislation would lead to inflation when they passed them.

As annual inflation has eased slightly in recent months, Americans remain pessimistic about the economy. A February Gallup poll found 68 percent of Americans believe the economy is getting worse.

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"Our position is the bill is not before Congress any longer," said council chairman Phil Mendelson (D.). He said the council would reassess the criminal code reform and consider changes to give it a greater chance of success under congressional review.

The council attracted controversy in January when it passed the reform, which would reduce the maximum sentence for a violent felon caught with an illegal gun from 15 years to just 4, even as D.C. in recent years has faced a rash of murders and carjackings.

Under the legislative process for D.C.'s council, legislation must be sent to the U.S. Congress for review before it can go into effect. The Republican-controlled House voted in February to overturn the law, and after several Democratic senators appeared likely to join Republicans in voting against it, Biden on Thursday said he would sign a congressional resolution killing the D.C. bill.

"I don’t support some of the changes D.C. Council put forward over the Mayor’s objections—such as lowering penalties for carjackings," Biden said. "If the Senate votes to overturn what D.C. Council did—I’ll sign it."

Despite Mendelson's announcement withdrawing the bill, the Senate is still expected to vote this week on the reform, a Senate aide told Punchbowl News. The aide said "the statute [does] not allow for a withdrawal of a transmission," and the Senate will vote on the House's resolution to overturn the bill.

Council member Charles Allen (D.), who spearheaded the criminal code reform, called Biden's announcement "an absolute travesty for statehood."

D.C. pushed the criminal reform as the city has faced skyrocketing crime over the last several years. Homicides in 2021 reached 226, more than double the 88 murders the city faced in 2012. The city has also seen high-profile crimes that have led to calls for tougher police enforcement—a candidate for city council had his car stolen at gunpoint, a doctor was murdered in March 2022 by a carjacker, an NFL rookie running back for the Commanders was shot in August during an attempted carjacking, and a gunman killed a transit worker at a Metro station last month.

During debate over the legislation in November, Allen rebuffed critics who said the council should be increasing penalties amid the spike in crime, saying he saw no evidence that doing so would reduce crime.

"I hear you saying we need to raise penalties to meet this moment, to send a message. But I ask you to show your work," Allen said. "At some point, this council needs to reckon with what it means to have one of the highest incarceration rates per capita in the free world and yet endure this kind of violence."

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One New York father, Steve Hammes, told ABC News he has stressed over planning out how his daughter will be able to recharge her electric Hyundai Kona during her drive from Albany to college in Pennsylvania.

"It makes me a little nervous," Hammes said. "We want fast chargers that take 30 to 40 minutes—it would not make sense to sit at a Level 2 charger for hours. There isn't a good software tool that helps EV owners plan their trips."

Other drivers reported similar anxieties to ABC News, recounting stories of struggling to find fast charging stations on road trips and being stranded for hours as they deal with lines and broken chargers. The logistical challenges come as the Biden administration is pushing to transition the public away from gas-powered cars to electric vehicles, setting a target of 50 percent of all auto sales to be electric vehicles by 2030.

The ABC News report detailed the various challenges involved in charging electric vehicles. Even when a driver can reach chargers, they may be less advanced models, like Tesla's Level 2 chargers, that take hours to power a car. One frustrated driver told ABC News he's seen charging spaces occupied by gas cars, charging cords that won't reach his vehicle, broken chargers, and hours-long wait times to use the charger.

The challenges are made more daunting during extreme weather temperatures, as the electric cars' range falls when using the heat.

"You use the luxuries … and the range plummets," one driver told ABC News. Another reported being stuck at a station in the cold for hours when the charging plug got stuck in her Tesla.

The Biden administration's electric vehicle push has taken criticism not just for the logistical difficulties but also for how green policies would benefit China, which dominates manufacturing of electric vehicle batteries. The Washington Free Beacon reported last week that the administration's green subsidies, passed last summer, will fund Chinese technology and workers in manufacturing electric vehicles.

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Abrar Omeish, who was elected to the school board in 2019, said Iwo Jima "unfortunately happened" and "set a record for really what, I hate to say, human evil is capable of."

Here's video of the above quoted (mis?)statement from Ms. Omeish. pic.twitter.com/D05eJfuVAH

— Fairfax County Parents Association (@FFXParentsAssoc) February 24, 2023

The remarks are not the first time Omeish has come under scrutiny. The school board member has a record of anti-Israel rhetoric and has candidly acknowledged anti-Asian bias in the district's admissions policy.

Omeish in her Thursday comments made reference to the Day of Remembrance, a Feb. 19 day of observance for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II that occurs on the same calendar day as the first U.S. landings on the island of Iwo Jima in 1945.

"Just a few days ago was Japanese Day of Remembrance," Omeish said. "Something for us to certainly reflect on … the days when, you know, Iwo Jima unfortunately happened and set a record for really what, I hate to say, human evil is capable of."

When asked by the Washington Free Beacon to clarify why she called Iwo Jima an example of human evil, Omeish in an emailed statement backtracked from her framing of the battle.

"There is no reason to warp what was said and reading more into it merely reflects biases forced in by the listener," Omeish said. She said Iwo Jima "happens to fall on the same day" as the 1942 executive order issued by then-president Franklin D. Roosevelt to incarcerate Japanese Americans and noted that the order remained in effect "even after Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945, three years later." She did not explain why in her comments at the meeting she said Iwo Jima was evil and "unfortunately happened."

The battle of Iwo Jima saw the United States capture the heavily defended island from Japan in one of the most famous engagements of the war. In the bloody weeks-long battle, nearly 7,000 Americans were killed. The U.S. victory allowed for American fighter planes to take off from the island and escort bombers attacking mainland Japan.

Omeish has attracted controversy for her comments in the past. The Free Beacon in May 2021 reported on a series of anti-Israel social media posts the school board member made, in which she called Israel an "apartheid" state that "kills Palestinians." In private text messages revealed through a federal lawsuit, Omeish also acknowledged anti-Asian bias in the admissions process for the district's elite Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.

"I mean there has been an anti asian feel underlying some of this, hate to say it lol," Omeish texted a fellow board member in fall of 2020. "They're discriminated against in this process too."

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Giant Eagle, which has more than 410 stores in states across the Midwest and East Coast, said it would pull its gallon-size and larger water bottles manufactured in a plant in Salineville, Ohio, 25 miles southwest of East Palestine, the Akron Beacon Journal reported Tuesday. The chain said testing had not indicated any issues with the water from the plant, whose source of water is just outside East Palestine.

Giant Eagle said it would pull the products and offer refunds "while we continue to evaluate ongoing testing and potential impacts to the spring source."

The grocery chain's move comes as residents of East Palestine have complained of health ailments following the Feb. 3 derailment of a train carrying the toxic chemical vinyl chloride. The Environmental Protection Agency has said testing shows the air and municipal water in East Palestine are safe.

The disaster has raised scrutiny on Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has taken criticism from residents and the mayor of East Palestine. Buttigieg on Monday said he would visit the town "when the time is right."

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Who said it: The Guardian, in a series of tweets and an article headline that have collectively been viewed nearly 300,000 times.

Why it matters: Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, Democrats and liberal media outlets like the Guardian have spread alarm that police may seize data from women's period-tracking apps to target and prosecute women seeking abortions.

Context: A bill passed by the Virginia state Senate that would have prohibited search warrants for menstrual data on electronic devices died in a state House subcommittee on Monday, after Youngkin's deputy secretary of public safety expressed opposition to the bill.

The Youngkin official argued the bill would be "problematic" because it would represent the first legislation in the nation to limit certain information from being obtained through a search warrant.

Analysis: Youngkin this week played a role in defeating a bill that would have imposed an unprecedented limitation on law enforcement's power to issue search warrants. He did not, as the Guardian declared, help pass a bill, let alone an "extreme" one that would permit police to seize women's menstrual histories.

The Guardian headline got the facts of the case wholly wrong. In any case, panic over Youngkin's role in tabling the state Senate bill is undermined by the fact that state law does not permit law enforcement to prosecute patients who violate abortion restrictions, so menstrual data would be of little use for police looking to target women. And Youngkin has explicitly ruled out pursuing women for prosecution, with his spokeswoman telling the Washington Post, "The governor will not support any measures that seek to prosecute women."

More than just bungling the facts, the Guardian committed the serious offense of disseminating misinformation in the public sphere. The outlet's four tweets featuring the false headline have not been deleted, and the Guardian did not issue a correction after stealth-editing the headline in the original article.

Sadly, the damage was already done. Celebrities, including comedian and recently canned TBS host Samantha Bee, amplified the Guardian's false headline, perpetuating a vicious fake news cycle that puts our democratic institutions at risk.

The post FACT CHECK: No, Glenn Youngkin Did Not Empower Police To Seize Women's Menstrual Histories appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

President Joe Biden's ambassador to France, Denise Bauer, announced on Feb. 3 that she had replaced the portraits of her predecessors displayed in the embassy's atrium with pictures of modern Hispanic-American celebrities.

"Proud that the entrance to our embassy now better reflects the incredible diversity of my country," said Bauer, a Democratic fundraiser. "A value that I carry wherever I go in France."

Among the portraits Bauer banished was that of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who served as minister to France in 1796. A portrait of Pinckney, a signer of the Constitution and general in George Washington’s Continental Army, was replaced by a photograph of transgender activist Sylvia Rivera, who claimed to have played a prominent role in the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City.

"I have been given the credit for throwing the first Molotov cocktail by many historians but I always like to correct it," Rivera said of the riots in 2001. "I threw the second one, I did not throw the first one!"

The embassy’s focus on diversifying its portraits comes at a crucial moment in U.S.-France relations. A few months before Bauer assumed her post, France recalled its ambassador from the United States for the first time in history in protest over a military sale. The Biden administration now faces the challenge of rallying France and other European countries to provide support to Ukraine and enforce sanctions against Russia amid its invasion of the country.

Bauer’s preoccupation with diversity in the embassy is consistent with Biden’s directives for the executive branch. The president on his first day in office issued an executive order to all cabinet-level agencies ordering they assess their commitment to "racial equity" and develop an "action plan" with the objective of "embedding equity in the everyday business of government."

Bauer’s redesign saw figures who played consequential roles in early American history lose their prominent position on the atrium wall. John Armstrong Jr., minister to France from 1804 to 1810, was a major during the revolution who eventually became a U.S. senator and secretary of war. Swiss-born Albert Gallatin, known as "America's Swiss Founding Father," was minister to France as well as secretary of the Treasury and founder of New York University.

In their place, the embassy has installed pictures of a new set of historic figures, including Dolores Huerta, a labor leader and former honorary chair of Democratic Socialists of America. Huerta was a frequent speaker at conferences and rallies allegedly linked to the Communist Party USA from the 1960s through the '90s, and in the 2000s was an outspoken advocate for the release of five Cuban spies arrested while operating in the United States.

The other Hispanic-American figures whose portraits were installed are labor leader Cesar Chavez, Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor, novelist Sandra Cisneros, and Hall of Fame baseball player Roberto Clemente.

A spokesman for the State Department described the atrium wall where the new portraits hang as a "temporary exhibition space" and said they were installed in recognition of National Hispanic Heritage Month, which takes place in October.

The spokesman said the portraits of former ambassadors are now in another public area of the embassy but did not respond to follow up questions asking which area they are in and when they would be restored to their original homes at the embassy.

Bauer is a prolific Democratic Party fundraiser whom Biden nominated for the ambassadorial role in July 2021.  A former California cable news producer, Bauer raised more than $4.3 million for former president Barack Obama during his two presidential campaigns and served as ambassador to Belgium during Obama's second term. She was executive director of Women for Biden in 2020.

Bauer pulled a similar stunt last March, replacing the atrium's ambassadorial portraits with photos of women, including Biden interior secretary Deb Haaland, to commemorate Women's History Month.

"In this #WomensHistoryMonth, our teams are investing in diversifying the portraits in our embassy," the U.S. embassy said at the time.

https://twitter.com/USEmbassyFrance/status/1507032509145571328?s=20&t=DfINedgsowEdqgCpQupiVA

A review of the embassy's social media posts shows the ambassadorial portraits had been a fixture on the atrium wall for years. Embassy photos from December 2020 and February 2018 show the portraits hanging in the same position they were in prior to their removal during the Biden administration. A guide to the embassy's portraits put together in 2011-2013 describes the atrium as presenting ambassadors' portraits in chronological order.

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"I have real concerns about why the administration is not being more forthcoming with everything that it knows," said Rep. Jim Himes (D., Conn.), a member of the "Gang of Eight" lawmakers briefed on classified intelligence, during a Sunday appearance on NBC News.

Himes said he was troubled that the shoot-downs of objects over the last week, including over Alaska, Canada, and Lake Huron, has led to "massive speculation about alien invasions and, you know, additional Chinese action or Russian action."

"I do hope that very soon the administration has a lot more information for all of us on what's going on," Himes said.

Himes's request for greater transparency comes as President Joe Biden has not yet publicly addressed the shoot-downs of unidentified objects. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby gave a press conference on Monday in which he said China has a "high-altitude balloon program for intelligence collection" but did not identify the origin of the objects shot down.

Biden's silence on a potential national security threat has spurred calls for the president to reassure the public.

"The president owes the American people an explanation, direct and on camera, of what we know about these 'objects' and what steps he's taking to protect America's sovereign airspace," Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) said Monday. "No commander in chief should hide behind press secretaries and anonymous sources in a time of crisis."

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Majid Khan was released in Belize roughly one year after the end of his sentence. His release from the Guantánamo detention center, where he was a "high-value" prisoner, was delayed because of difficulty finding a country willing to resettle him, the Washington Post reported.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Thursday described Khan's release as part of the administration's "deliberate and thorough process, focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population" at Guantánamo Bay.

The Saudi Arabia-born Khan lived in Maryland before moving to Pakistan and working with al Qaeda. Khan dealt with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, and participated in the logistics of terrorist plots—couriering $50,000 to terrorists who killed 12 in a 2003 hotel bombing in Indonesia, the Post reported. He was captured in Pakistan in 2003.

Khan expressed contrition for his participation in terrorist plots, saying through a statement released by his lawyers, "I have been given a second chance in life and I intend to make the most of it."

The Biden administration in October released another Guantánamo prisoner, Saifullah Paracha, who was accused of aiding al Qaeda's financial operations and allegedly met with Osama bin Laden before the 9/11 attacks. The administration in 2021 said it was committed to permanently closing the Guantánamo Bay detention center before President Joe Biden leaves office.

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Eunice Dwumfour, elected to the Sayreville council in 2021, was shot by an unidentified assailant Wednesday night while she was in her car outside her home. Police said they believe Dwumfour was the intended target of the gunman, ABC7 reported, but they did not identify a motive in the attack.

Local residents told RLS Media the shooter was seen running from the crime scene toward the nearby Garden State Parkway.

Gov. Phil Murphy (D.) expressed shock at Dwumfour's killing, and Sayreville mayor Victoria Kilpatrick praised Dwumfour as a "dedicated member of our borough council."

The murder comes as Democrats, including President Joe Biden, have accused Republicans of fomenting a climate of political violence against their opponents. While Democratic lawmakers have received death threats, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi's (D., Calif.) husband was attacked by a man who sought to kidnap the Democrat, numerous conservatives have faced violent threats as well.

A gunman seeking to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh was arrested outside the justice's home in June. In October, a shot was fired into the family home of a North Carolina Republican candidate. And in September, a North Dakota man who ran over a teenager with his car, killing the teen, told police he did so because he thought his victim was "part of a Republican extremist group."

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Omar was ejected along party lines in a 218-211 vote. No Republican joined Democrats in opposing her removal from the committee, though Rep. David Joyce (R., Ohio) voted present.

The anti-Israel Democrat has a history of using anti-Semitic rhetoric and tropes that has earned her censure from within her own party. In 2012, Omar said that "Israel has hypnotized the world." Criticizing the pro-Israel lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee in 2019, she said, "It's all about the Benjamins baby." In 2021, she compared the United States and Israel to the terrorist organizations Hamas and the Taliban, saying they all have committed "crimes against humanity."

Asked about her anti-Semitic rhetoric during a CNN interview on Sunday, Omar claimed she "wasn't aware" there were "tropes about Jews and money."

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), a member along with Omar of the "Squad" of far-left House members, broke down in tears ahead of Thursday's vote, telling Omar, "I am so sorry, sis, that our country is failing you today."

The Republican Jewish Coalition celebrated the Democrat's removal Thursday, saying "Omar will no longer be in a privileged position to influence legislation regarding US policy toward Israel and the Middle East."

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.), who has led the charge to remove Omar and other controversial Democrats from committees, withstood an early test to his leadership from Republicans who opposed demoting Omar. It looked like McCarthy's bid to remove the Democrat from the Foreign Affairs Committee might be in peril this week after several Republicans said they might vote to protect Omar's place on the committee.

Reps. Victoria Spartz (R., Ind.), Nancy Mace (R., S.C.), and Ken Buck (R., Colo.) criticized Omar's removal on procedural grounds, with Spartz saying McCarthy's effort to strip her committee assignments denied Omar "proper due process." Spartz on Tuesday reversed course, saying she would vote with McCarthy after receiving a commitment from the speaker to address procedural concerns regarding the removal of members from committees.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.) on Tuesday said he was "undecided" on removing Omar and praised Omar's opposition to "neoconservative" foreign policy.

Spartz, Mace, Buck, and Gaetz all changed their minds by Thursday, voting to eject Omar.

McCarthy rebuffed accusations from Democrats that the vote represented retaliation against his political enemies. Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) had pointed to controversial comments from House Republicans such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) as evidence that McCarthy's expulsion of Omar was hypocritical.

"Is [Greene] on Foreign Affairs? Is she on Intel?" McCarthy said Thursday. "OK, I make my case."

Omar during the Sunday CNN interview attributed the Republican bid to eject her to "Islamophobia."

"These people are OK with Islamophobia," Omar said. "They're OK with trafficking in their own ways in anti-Semitism. They are not OK with having a Muslim have a voice on that committee."

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A Gallup poll conducted from Jan. 2-22 found 21 percent of respondents said "the government/poor leadership" is the United States' most important problem, up from 15 percent in November and December. In the latest poll, poor leadership beat out inflation, the economy, and immigration as the top issue on Americans' minds.

The rise in concern about government and leadership comes as the Biden administration faces a scandal over the discovery of classified documents improperly stored at Biden's offices at the Penn Biden Center and in the garage at his Wilmington, Del., home, where Hunter Biden likely had access, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

A Rasmussen poll last week shows most Americans fault the president for mishandling the documents, with 72 percent of voters and a majority of Democrats calling it a scandal.

At least 25 classified documents have been found at the Penn Biden Center and Biden's home, and FBI officials are reportedly considering searching more properties linked to the president. Even as some Democrats have criticized Biden over the scandal, he has not taken responsibility for retaining classified information, saying he has "no regrets."

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The Communication Workers of America in December celebrated its successful effort to convince a supermajority of workers at Proletariat, a studio belonging to video game developer Activision Blizzard, to unionize. After the union announced this week it had given up on plans to hold a unionization vote, it became clear that there were cracks in the union's support, as Proletariat employees took to Twitter to explain that many developers were unconvinced by the union's pitch.

The union blamed the studio's management for the failed effort, accusing them of "confrontational tactics" such as holding meetings that "demoralized and disempowered the group, making a free and fair election impossible."

But studio engineer Dan Ogles challenged the Communication Workers of America's characterization of the unionization effort's failure as the result of union-busting, saying "the union campaign was extremely contentious and divisive within the group of workers from the start."

"Managers did not discuss unionization with their employees unless requested," Ogles said. "There were no threats or attempts at intimidation that I'm aware of; if the CWA thought otherwise they could have filed a charge of Unfair Labor Practices, as they have done many times in other campaigns."

Another Proletariat employee, Kat Dolan, told Axios the union's accusations against the studio's management were "laughably fabricated," that meetings held by management were "neutral and supportive." Dolan suggested it was the union's failure to win over roughly 20 of her coworkers concerned about the union's impact that doomed the unionization effort.

The post Union's Attempt to Organize Video Game Developers Falls Flat appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Klain, who plans to step down next month, has been hands-on as chief of staff in dealing with politics and legislative outreach, according to Politico. But White House sources told the outlet they expect Klain's successor, Jeff Zients, to cede responsibility over those matters to former Weinstein adviser Anita Dunn and other senior aides.

"Zients will likely defer to top Biden aides Anita Dunn, Jen O’Malley Dillon, Steve Ricchetti and others ... while he focuses on the West Wing’s operations and processes," Politico reported.

Dunn, who served as a communications director under the Obama administration, in 2017 helped disgraced Hollywood producer and Democratic megadonor Weinstein strategize ahead of the release of a New York Times report on accusations of sexual harassment against Weinstein. Dunn was not paid for her assistance.

After classified documents from Biden's time as vice president were discovered in his offices at the Penn Biden Center, Dunn reportedly urged the White House to keep information on the discovery from the public. Her husband, Bob Bauer, is Biden's top lawyer leading his legal strategy in the documents scandal.

Dunn, whom NBC News described as a "confidant whom [Biden] often turns to when his fortunes look bleak," is not the only Biden aide with a controversial record who could see their political power grow with Klain's departure.

Dillon, who founded a political advising firm linked to dark money groups and was presidential campaign manager for Biden and Beto O'Rourke, has advocated confiscating AR-15s and was accused by Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D., Ill.) of making an "incredibly insulting" offense by referencing Vice President Kamala Harris's Asian heritage.

Ricchetti has faced scrutiny from ethics watchdogs due to his brother's lucrative position lobbying the White House. Before joining the Biden administration, he briefly served as managing director of the Penn Biden Center, where Biden's classified documents were discovered in November.

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"Since Biden nominated public-interest champion Gigi Sohn to fill the fifth tie-breaking seat at the FCC, she has faced anti-Semitic, homophobic, and deceitful attacks," Free Press said in a Thursday fundraising letter, "including anti-Black dog whistles from a police union."

Biden's nomination of Sohn stalled in committee in January 2021, after which the president renominated her for the position. Senators, including some Democrats, have opposed Sohn for her comments calling on the FCC to investigate conservative networks and describing Fox News as "state-sponsored propaganda."

The Fraternal Order of Police has opposed Sohn for endorsing calls to defund the police and for her role at an organization that has fought to hinder police in obtaining users' encrypted communications. The union said Sohn's record demonstrates her "serious animus towards law enforcement officers and the rule of law."

Free Press said in its fundraising call that the union's accusation was an "anti-Black dog whistle that's often levied against public-interest advocates."

Free Press did not return a request for comment on how the Fraternal Order of Police's criticism of Sohn amounted to a dog whistle.

The media advocacy group was founded in 2002 by socialist professor Robert McChesney, who praised Venezuela under former dictator Hugo Chávez and called for "remov[ing] brick by brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles." Free Press has also received millions of dollars from far-left billionaire George Soros's Open Society Foundations.

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An investigative team the Court commissioned to probe last year's leak "has to date been unable to identify a person responsible by a preponderance of the evidence," the Court said in a statement accompanying the team's findings. The team analyzed forensic evidence and interviewed nearly 100 employees in an effort to determine which employee gave Politico the draft copy.

When Politico in May published the leaked draft, a month before the Court issued its final decision overturning Roe, the news triggered nationwide protests from pro-choice activists, including demonstrations outside the Court and the homes of conservative justices. A gunman, who told authorities he planned to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh, was arrested in June outside the justice's house.

The Court in its Thursday statement called the Dobbs leak "one of the worst breaches of trust in its history" and "a grave assault on the judicial process."

The investigative team said it would continue to probe how the draft decision got into Politico's hands and outlined recommendations to prevent a future leak. The team suggested lowering the number of employees who have access to sensitive documents and upgrading the Court's security technologies to more effectively track when files are accessed and printed.

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Sports betting site Bovada is taking bets on 14 possible locations where a possible third batch of classified documents linked to Biden might be found. The most likely location, according to the site's oddsmakers, is the Biden family's holiday home in Rehoboth Beach, Del. But the site is taking bets on far more unlikely locations for classified documents to turn up, including the Washington, D.C., Metro, a private jet, and Disney World.

The site weighed in on the documents scandal after the White House on Monday revealed that classified documents were found at offices of the Penn Biden Center in D.C. Then, on Thursday, the administration confirmed that another set of classified documents was kept in the president's garage at his home in Wilmington, after which Attorney General Merrick Garland announced he would appoint a special counsel to investigate the matter.

Biden, who criticized former president Donald Trump as "irresponsible" for keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home, said he was "surprised" to learn government documents were found in his D.C. office.

Other long-odds locations for Biden document troves Bovada accepts wagers for include Buckingham Palace, the Grand Canyon, and in an envelope at the Oscars.

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