Sanctuary city, meet sanctuary campus: Student Workers of Columbia, the Ivy League school’s graduate student union that boasts roughly 3,000 members, is in active contract negotiations with university administrators. At the same time, it’s demanding those administrators establish a “sanctuary campus” to protect foreign Hamasniks. The university’s response will provide another test of its backbone. An internal document obtained by our Jessica Schwalb indicates they are pressing for the following:

• Shield foreign students from “threat of deportation or detention” by refusing to provide information “to immigration authorities or any federal agency” without a subpoena.
• Stop “surveilling the student body” by barring public safety officials from “patrolling departamental [sic] and organizing spaces on campus” and destroying all protest-related records that include “personally identifying information.”
• Expand the international students’ office to cover legal fees and housing for “students whose Visas and Green Cards have been revoked.”
• Take on the Trump administration through a lawsuit targeting its executive order aimed at countering campus anti-Semitism.

READ MORE: In Internal Documents, Columbia Grad Student Union Spells Out Demands for ‘Sanctuary Campus’ Free From Public Safety Patrols and Protest Records

Was that wrong? LaVar Charleston, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s longtime chief diversity officer, has a long rap sheet. He was accused of assaulting a police officer and engaging in a decades-long pattern of research misconduct. Now, he’s out as the school’s King of DEI for gross financial mismanagement. What a stand-up guy!

Charleston displayed “poor financial judgment” as head of the Division of Diversity, Equity and Educational Achievement, doling out hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses “without consultation” and showing an overall “thoughtless attitude in decision-making,” finance administrator Rob Cramer wrote in a letter to university officials. That’s one way to put it.

As a result, Charleston is no longer “vice chancellor for inclusive excellence” but remains a university instructor and researcher, albeit one with a much lower salary.

“The letter is the latest in a string of embarrassing revelations about Charleston, who in 2011 was charged with attempting to strangle a police officer,” writes the Free Beacon‘s Aaron Sibarium. “The financial scandal comes as the Trump administration is investigating UW-Madison, along with 50 other schools, for sponsoring race-based fellowships and scholarships.”

READ MORE: University of Wisconsin Axes Chief Diversity Officer, Previously Accused of Plagiarism, for Gross Financial Mismanagement

Grifters gonna grift: The anti-Trump activists over at the Lincoln Project are six years into their plan to achieve “generational wealth.” Alas, they’re still trying to keep the gravy train rolling, and their elderly fans are not thrilled.

The group, our Andrew Stiles reports, started a new media venture on Substack, Lincoln Square, and asked subscribers to pony up between $100 and $500 for an annual subscription. Fans “weren’t pleased,” writes Stiles, “with some starting to suspect that the Lincoln Project might be a massive grifting operation.” Gasp!

One commenter, Sherri L., said she “can’t watch because me and my husband live off his social security alone.” Another identified himself as an “older but EXPERIENCED resistor” who was “feeling left behind.”

Founders Rick Wilson, Stuart Stevens, and Joe Trippi justified the cost by touting “an array of perks, including ‘advance access to commentary from leaders in the fight against the sweeping Christo-fascist, authoritarian movement in America,'” writes Stiles. “You can’t put a price on that, can you?”

READ MORE: ‘Starting to Feel Like a Grift’: Lincoln Project’s New Subscription Service Unaffordable, Elderly Fans Complains

Away from the Beacon:

• Israel kept the strikes on Gaza rolling late Tuesday into early Wednesday—and threatened Hamas terrorists that if they harm Israeli hostages in response, Israel will annex territory in Gaza, according to Israeli journalist Amit Segal.
• Chuck Schumer is down so bad he’s taking hits from Kamala’s bestie Gayle King, who interrupted Schumer during an interview on Tuesday to say, “Senator, people don’t have faith in the Democrats.” Ouch.
• Bucking the trend: The Democratic Party has long thrived in high-turnout elections. No more, according to a new Vox analysis, which found that “if all registered voters had turned out, then Donald Trump would’ve won the popular vote by 5 points [instead of 1.7 points].”

The post Inside the Columbia Grad Student Union’s Fight for a ‘Sanctuary Campus.’ Plus, Wisconsin’s Chief Diversity Officer Gets the Axe. appeared first on .

Democrats are relying on a recent memo from the Government Accountability Office to argue that President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans can’t pass a bill repealing a Biden-era waiver allowing California to mandate electric vehicles in the state. But legal experts say the memo—whose authors include a prominent DEI activist—isn’t legally binding and relies on dubious reasoning.

The Government Accountability Office—which conducts audits and analyses for Congress but has minimal legislative authority—published the memo earlier this month just two weeks after Democratic senators Adam Schiff (Calif.), Alex Padilla (Calif.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) asked it to investigate the issue. Media outlets then reported that the memo determined a bill to reverse the Biden-era action is “illegal” and that the office, therefore, “blocks” such a bill.

The office’s memo presents a potential roadblock to Trump’s energy agenda, a key tenet of which involves revoking electric vehicle mandates. Democrats, who cheered the opinion immediately after it was published, may request that the Senate parliamentarian weigh in on the issue and consult the Government Accountability Office’s opinion.

If Democrats are successful in using the opinion to block the bill, the California electric vehicle mandate can only be overturned through a formal Environmental Protection Agency rulemaking process that would take years to complete and likely attract legal challenges.

But experts say there are key legal deficiencies in the Government Accountability Office’s opinion. “It’s just sloppy work,” Michael Buschbacher, a former counsel at the Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, told the Washington Free Beacon. “I think the goal of what they were doing was to insert themselves in this process.”

And the quick turnaround on the document raises questions about the level of involvement from the Democratic lawmakers who requested the opinion—the office usually takes months to complete analyses, not a couple of weeks.

Notably, one of the coauthors of the Government Accountability Office’s memo is Shirley Jones, the office’s managing associate general counsel. Jones is an outspoken DEI activist who recently served as the president of the advocacy group Blacks in Government, once applauded former president Joe Biden’s executive order on DEI in the federal workforce, and said in a 2021 interview that women who work in the government face “microaggressions” and are often subjected to “mansplaining.”

In December, in one of its final actions during the Biden administration, the Environmental Protection Agency granted California a waiver under the 1970 Clean Air Act that allows it to issue vehicle emissions regulations that are stricter than federal emissions standards, an action that green-lit the state’s electric vehicle mandate that will kick in later this year. The waiver allows other states to adopt California’s rules, something 12 states have opted to do.

According to the Government Accountability Office’s memo authored by Jones, the Biden administration’s action is not subject to a Congressional Review Act resolution because it is a waiver, not a rule or regulation. The Congressional Review Act allows Congress to pass resolutions via a simple majority floor vote to reverse actions finalized by federal agencies.

A successful Congressional Review Act resolution would immediately overturn the Biden-era waiver and California mandate, meaning the Trump EPA wouldn’t have to overturn it through a formal rulemaking process, which could take years and attract legal challenges.

Such a resolution is the Trump administration’s preferred course of action—in February, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin submitted the waiver to Congress for review. One month earlier, Rep. John Joyce (R., Pa.) introduced the Preserving Choice in Vehicle Purchases Act, a Congressional Review Act resolution that would overturn the waiver and is poised to receive a floor vote in the near future.

Buschbacher, the former Justice Department official, noted that the Government Accountability Office’s opinion fails even to acknowledge Section 177 of the Clean Air Act, the provision that allows other states to adopt California’s standards. That, according to Buschbacher, makes an EPA waiver a “rule of general applicability” since it has far-reaching nationwide impacts, a bar that it must clear to be considered a “rule” under the Congressional Review Act.

Buschbacher and Jimmy Conde, who are both partners at the law firm Boyden Gray, wrote a paper this month that argued in favor of Congress’s authority to use the Congressional Review Act to overturn EPA waivers. The paper states that the Government Accountability Office, an unelected part of the federal bureaucracy, does not have the authority to restrict Congress from making law, that it is longstanding precedent that all actions an agency submits to Congress are treated as rules, and that EPA waivers have nationwide impacts.

“What GAO has previously said is that submission of a rule or an action to Congress—any action to Congress, even when the agency thinks it’s not a rule and submits it only out of an abundance of caution—gets treated as a rule,” Buschbacher said in reference to the Government Accountability Office’s past opinions.

Ultimately, Buschbacher said the memo should have little impact on Congress’s ability to pass a bill overturning the waiver green-lighting California’s mandate—”it’s like they wrote an op-ed basically,” he told the Free Beacon.

The Senate parliamentarian has no formal role in the process but has historically advised Congress based on the Government Accountability Office’s opinions. Since the EPA hasn’t overturned its prior positions, that should not pose an obstacle, Buschbacher said. If the parliamentarian were to conclude otherwise, however, “that would essentially change the rules in the middle of the game and put things into uncharted territory.”

“The plain text of the [Congressional Review Act] is very clear that once an agency action is submitted to Congress for review, Congress has the unreviewable power to consider and, if desired, disapprove of that action,” said Kenny Stein, the vice president of policy at the American Energy Alliance. “There is no provision in the [Congressional Review Act] that GAO must first signal approval prior to Congress acting under the [Congressional Review Act].”

Mike McKenna, a Republican energy lobbyist who worked in the White House during the first Trump administration, said he gave the Government Accountability Office an “A-minus for creativity. D for execution.”

“It’s like they’re trying to confirm the idea that the deep state is a legit threat,” he told the Free Beacon.

“You have clear agreement between the executive branch and legislative branch,” an energy industry source told the Free Beacon. “That’s sort of the deep state, the blatantly political angle that you have here. Three Democratic senators said, ‘Hey, GAO, what do you think, even though you don’t have a role to play?’ And lo and behold, they miraculously had a pre-baked 10-page memo.”

The post Democrats Turn to Legally Dubious Ruling Coauthored by DEI Activist To Protect California’s EV Mandate appeared first on .

Columbia University’s graduate student union is demanding the Ivy League institution establish a “sanctuary campus” where public safety officers are barred from patrolling “organizing spaces, including classrooms.” The union, which is embroiled in active contract negotiations with Columbia, also wants the school to provide free “legal support” for student visa holders, destroy “all records” related to campus protest participants, and sue the Trump administration “and other anti-immigrant actors.”

Student Workers of Columbia, which boasts roughly 3,000 members and is affiliated with the United Auto Workers, shared an internal document outlining the demands during a Saturday Zoom meeting, which the Washington Free Beacon attended. The document, written by a “working group” of the union’s international members, cites the “unprecedented detainment of former student-worker Mahmoud Khalil by the Department of Homeland Security while in a Columbia University apartment building and the ongoing presence of ICE around campus” before making “immediate demands of Columbia University.”

First, the union calls on Columbia to establish a “sanctuary campus in which every student is protected from threat of deportation or detention” and “refuse to provide information to immigration authorities or any federal agency on Columbia affiliates without a subpoena.” It then demands Columbia “cease collecting personally identifying information of Columbia affiliates in relationship to First Amendment protected activity and protests on campus” and “destroy all records” including such information.

From there, the union calls on Columbia’s public safety officials to “stop patrolling departamental [sic] and organizing spaces on campus, including classrooms.” It demands the school’s international students office cover legal fees for “students whose Visas and Green Cards have been revoked.” It also calls on Columbia to “defend the non-US citizen students on our campus” by suing the Trump administration over its executive order aimed at protecting Jewish students.

The demands come as the union negotiates with Columbia over its collective bargaining agreement, which is set to expire in June. It’s unclear whether the union has presented the demands as part of the negotiating process or whether it would refuse to sign a contract that does not include them. It would not, however, be the first UAW campus union to strike in solidarity with anti-Israel protests—UAW chapter 4811, which serves the University of California, launched a strike last year to obtain amnesty for graduate students who were arrested for their roles in illegal campus demonstrations.

The union held its first bargaining session with Columbia on Friday. One day before, on March 13, Columbia expelled the union’s president, Grant Miner, for storming and occupying Hamilton Hall last April. In addition to his role in the Hamilton Hall storming, Miner, the son of a veteran California lobbyist, was photographed two days after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack holding a sign that read, “Resistance against occupation is a human right.”

Miner has driven the union’s anti-Israel activism in the wake of the attack. During a November 2023 meeting, the union voted to formally affiliate itself with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the anti-Semitic student group that organized the illegal encampment that plagued campus last spring. Miner personally lobbied union members to join the group during the vote, one Columbia student who attended the meeting told the Free Beacon.

Miner has stuck around campus—and continued working with the union—in the wake of his expulsion.

On Friday, he led a New York City protest that coincided with the union’s negotiations, calling on keffiyeh-clad attendees to “fight back” against Khalil’s arrest. Khalil, he said, was a “former member” who “has been abducted” due to his support for “Palestinian liberation.”

He also attended the union’s Saturday Zoom call. On it, union members discussed how to coordinate a “pressure campaign” aimed at compelling Columbia and other universities to sue the Trump administration.

“I think it’s crucial just to create an actual democratic campaign right now that pushes Columbia, as a unified stance, in a certain direction that we want,” said Noam Chen-Zion, a union member and graduate student in the School of Arts and Sciences who has endorsed Columbia University Apartheid Divest, accused Israel of “genocide” and “war crimes,” and accused the school’s anti-Semitism task force of “alleging antisemitism against anyone opposing Zionism.”

Another attendee, sociology Ph.D. student Emily Mazo, suggested contacting other Ivy League graduate student unions “to do a pressure campaign for the UAW where all of our universities sue.” Mazo in November shared a “start guide for organizing against genocide in your tech workplace” that calls for “workplace solidarity with the broader cause of Palestinian liberation.”

Other union leaders have played a central role in pro-Hamas protests on and off Columbia’s campus.

Johannah King-Slutzky, a doctoral student studying “theories of the imagination and poetry as interpreted through a Marxian lens,” is the union’s “Sergeant-at-Arms,” according to a since-deleted webpage touting the union’s executive board. She was widely mocked in the wake of the Hamilton Hall takeover for demanding “humanitarian aid” for those inside. Union “steward” Lexy Pryor, meanwhile, spoke on a June 2023 panel alongside Omar Barghouti, the cofounder of the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, and Hasan Piker, the anti-Semitic “content creator” best known for saying “America deserved 9/11.”

Neither Student Workers of Columbia nor a spokeswoman for Columbia responded to requests for comment.

Though the UAW rose to power representing a once-thriving auto industry, it is now undergoing a seismic shift. Roughly 100,000 of its registered members—about 25 percent of the union’s total membership—are academic workers. The graduate students have helped the UAW withstand significant membership reductions, with the union going from 1.5 million members in 1970 to 370,000 in 2023.

The UAW’s national leadership has rallied behind Miner and its Columbia chapter. In a Thursday press release, it called Miner’s expulsion an “assault on First Amendment rights.”

“The shocking move is part of a wave of crackdowns on free speech against students and workers who have spoken out and protested for peace and against the war on Gaza,” the statement read. It did not mention Miner’s arrest in relation to the Hamilton Hall storming.

The post In Internal Documents, Columbia Grad Student Union Spells Out Demands for ‘Sanctuary Campus’ Free From Public Safety Patrols and Protest Records appeared first on .

The anti-Trump activists behind the Lincoln Project, one of the most ineffective political action committees in history, are still coming up with new ways to deplete the retirement savings of their loyal followers, mostly Democrats aged 75 and above. The group launched a new media venture on Substack this week, Lincoln Square, that requires a paid subscription to access the vast majority of content. Its elderly fans weren’t pleased, with some starting to suspect that the Lincoln Project might be a massive grifting operation.

“Yet more pay-to-play?” one commenter wrote on the Lincoln Square website. “No can do. Sorry, but all this content that requires a paid sub is starting to feel like a grift.” Another fumed: “So you’re launching a brand new program and are CHARGING for it?” The comment was accompanied by an eye-roll emoji, symbolizing disdain and disbelief.

The new site launched Tuesday with a series of “not to be missed” livestream interviews with former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan, liberal activist Ben Meiselas, MSNBC host Katie Phang, Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg, and liberal journalist Tim Miller. The comments section quickly filled up with frazzled seniors unable to access the livestream, while others complained that the greedy founders were asking them to fork over even more of their precious retirement incomes.

“This is a sad day,” wrote Sherri L. “I have watched everything you guys do! Sorry I can’t watch because me and my husband live off his social security alone.” Another user offered a similar lament: “Cannot afford the subscription, I’m on a senior fixed income.” Another complained that he was among the many “older but EXPERIENCED resistors” who was “feeling left behind.” Michelle P. explained that her retirement would be better spent on “household necessities.” Another user, Elaine S., remarked that she would only consider a paid subscription if former MSNBC host Joy Reid was added to the lineup of partisan entertainers.

Pamela S., a 77-year-old grandmother, vented in response to another user who said he didn’t think a Lincoln Square subscription, which runs between $100-$500 annually, was worth the money. “I’m constantly being hit with a request to donate [to the Lincoln Project and other Democratic groups],” Pamela complained. Her adult grandchildren “aren’t paying attention,” she added, which was why she often felt compelled to “interject truth” to correct their dangerous opinions.

Lincoln Media was founded by Lincoln Project goons Rick Wilson, Stuart Stevens, and Joe Trippi, the former Democratic strategist who has advised some of the party’s most prominent perverts including former senators Ted Kennedy and John Edwards. The new site is described as a “collaborative effort” with the anti-Trump PAC, which was denounced by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and many others as a “scam” designed to enrich its founders after raising almost $100 million during the 2020 election amid suspicions of financial shenanigans. The Lincoln Project is best known for producing “edgy” videos that make mentally unwell Democrats feel good about themselves, but often fail to persuade voters who don’t already hate Trump with a passion.

Related: Lincoln Project Pays Six-Figure Legal Settlement to Cofounder Who Quit Over Sex Pest John Weaver

The founders urged their elderly fans to purchase a subscription, which would unlock an array of perks, including “advance access to commentary from leaders in the fight against the sweeping Christo-fascist, authoritarian movement in America.” In case that wasn’t enticing enough, subscribers will also get access to a “constantly updated and expanding ‘Fascism Fighters’ Toolkit,’ packed with videos, images, and infographics to share across social media or download and email to your network.”

You can’t put a price on that, can you?

The post ‘Starting To Feel Like a Grift’: Lincoln Project’s New Subscription Service Unaffordable, Elderly Fans Complain appeared first on .

Minnesota governor Tim Walz (D.) accused Republicans of misogyny for questioning his masculinity during his 2024 vice presidential run.

“We buy their frame on these issues of sexuality, you know, but their whole thing was is that they spent all their time, these guys on Fox News, [saying] that ‘Walz is gay, he’s not masculine, you know, he doesn’t coach football the way he should,'” Walz told California governor Gavin Newsom (D.) Tuesday on Newsom’s podcast. “There’s misogyny in here that’s happening.”

“Not that I spend much time thinking about this, and it just baffled me how much time they spent trying to attack me, that I wasn’t, like, masculine enough in their vision,” Walz said before detailing criticisms of his masculinity.

“I saw Fox News did, like, a couple days because I used a straw, and I’m, like, ‘Hell, man, what am I—how else do you drink a milkshake?’ type of thing. But they focused on it obsessively, which I think again is their obsession, their weirdness,” Walz continued.

Fox News’s Jesse Watters questioned Walz’s masculinity over the Minnesota governor’s straw use.

“Women love masculinity, and women do not love Tim Walz, so that should just tell you about how masculine Tim Walz is,” Watters said on The Five. “The other day you saw him with a vanilla ice cream shake. Had a straw in it. Again, that tells you everything.”

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R., Ala.) in November criticized Walz, a former high school football coach, for calling the last days of the 2024 presidential race “the final quarter.”

“We call it the 4th Quarter, ‘Coach,'” said Tuberville, who received multiple Coach of the Year awards in 2004 after leading Auburn University to a 13-0 season, a Southeastern Conference title, and a Sugar Bowl victory.

Walz during his Tuesday appearance on This is Gavin Newsom also claimed he could take down his critics in a fight.

“I think I can kick most of their ass,” Walz said. “I don’t know if we’re going to fall into that place where we want to [say an] ‘Okay, we challenge you to a, to a, you know, WWE fight’ type of thing.”

Walz, who is in the midst of a town hall tour of GOP districts, has said he would “certainly consider” a 2028 presidential run.

The post Tim Walz Tells Gavin Newsom: Republicans Questioned My Masculinity Because They’re Misogynists appeared first on .

Before he was stripped of his role as the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s chief diversity officer, LaVar Charleston had been accused of assaulting a police officer and engaging in a decades-long pattern of research misconduct. Now he can add financial mismanagement to his rap sheet.

In a letter to university officials last week, the school’s top finance administrator, Rob Cramer, said that Charleston had displayed “poor financial judgment” as head of the Division of Diversity, Equity and Educational Achievement, which became the subject of an internal probe in January after concerns surfaced about the division’s finances.

The probe found that Charleston engaged in a pattern of profligate spending that strained the university’s budget. In 2023, for example, he doled out over $200,000 in bonuses, “without consultation,” to the university DEI staff.

“Dr. Charleston did not discuss his plan with anyone in senior leadership, and the timing of this decision, in the context of the 2023 [budget], shows a thoughtless attitude in decision-making,” Cramer’s letter reads. “This lack of consultation and disregard for the broader financial context highlights a significant lapse in leadership and fiscal responsibility.”

The letter also states that Charleston, a professor in the university’s education school, “lacked important documentation to support many of these decisions,” which included pay raises as well as bonuses. He was removed from his DEI role in January as the probe got underway. While Charleston is no longer “vice chancellor for inclusive excellence,” he is still employed by the school, albeit at a lower salary.

“Under the terms of his appointment and consistent with state law, Dr. Charleston is able to remain an employee as an academic staff instructor and researcher, a separate, non-administrative position,” said university spokesman John Lucas. “His salary in this position has been reduced by two-thirds.”

The letter is the latest in a string of embarrassing revelations about Charleston, who in 2011 was charged with attempting to strangle a police officer—an incident that only became public in 2022 after the MacIver Institute, a conservative think tank, published documents showing that Charleston had sought to conceal his arrest by enrolling in a program that expunges the records of first-time felons who agree to do community service work.

Two years later, Charleston was hit with a research misconduct complaint that implicated eight of his publications. The complaint alleged that Charleston had not only plagiarized other authors but also recycled his own research without attribution, presenting it as new work—a form of résumé-padding that can result in retractions and is considered a serious scholarly offense.

“It is academic misconduct to publish essentially the same paper twice with no acknowledgment of the duplication,” Alexander Riley, a sociologist at Bucknell University, told the Washington Free Beacon at the time. “It seems fairly clear that Charleston is gaming the system in order to get more on his CV than is merited by the amount of research he has actually done.”

The university did not discipline Charleston over that complaint. Lucas, the UW-Madison spokesman, said review of the allegations “concluded with no finding of research misconduct.”

The financial scandal comes as the Trump administration is investigating UW-Madison, along with 50 other schools, for sponsoring race-based fellowships and scholarships. The university is also the target of a separate probe related to its handling of anti-Semitism, which was announced days after the Education Department cut $400 million in grants and contracts to Columbia University over what it described as the school’s failure to protect Jewish students.

“The Department is deeply disappointed that Jewish students studying on elite U.S. campuses continue to fear for their safety amid the relentless antisemitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life for more than a year,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement announcing the probe, which covers 60 universities. “U.S. colleges and universities benefit from enormous public investments funded by U.S. taxpayers. That support is a privilege and it is contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal antidiscrimination laws.”

The post University of Wisconsin Axes Chief Diversity Officer, Previously Accused of Plagiarism, for Gross Financial Mismanagement appeared first on .

Israel assassinated four senior Hamas members and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror organization’s spokesman in a series of airstrikes launched early Tuesday. It was Israel’s first major military foray into Gaza since a ceasefire was enacted two months ago and signals that both the United States and its closest Middle East ally will no longer wait for Hamas to agree to an extension of that deal.

Hamas confirmed that four of its leaders were killed when Israel conducted “extensive strikes” across the Gaza Strip following consultations with the Trump administration. They include: Issam al-Da’alis, head of Hamas’s administrative committee; Ahmad al-Khatta, the director general of its justice ministry; Mahmoud Abu Watfa, director general of the interior ministry; and Bahjat Abu Sultan, who runs Hamas’s domestic security agency.

Naji Abu Saif, a spokesman for the PIJ terror group that works alongside Hamas, was also killed with his wife and other family members when Israel struck his Gaza home. Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry claimed that more than 400 people had been killed during Israel’s strike, though these figures are notoriously unreliable. They were nonetheless cited by the likes of the Associated Press, which referenced “Gaza’s Health Ministry” but did not disclose Hamas’s control over it.

A White House National Security Council spokesman confirmed the United States was aware of Israel’s operations and blamed Hamas for stalling weeks of negotiations aimed at extending the ceasefire and securing the release of 54 hostages, both living and dead, who still remain in captivity.

“Hamas could have released hostages to extend the ceasefire but instead chose refusal and war,” the spokesman, Brian Hughes, said in a statement shared with the Washington Free Beacon.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News on Monday evening that “all hell will break loose” if Hamas continues to stall peace talks.

“As President Trump has made clear, Hamas, the Houthis, all those who seek to terrorize not just Israel but also the United States of America, will see a price to pay,” Leavitt said. “All hell will break loose.”

Israel’s military operation was meant to achieve “the war goals as determined by the political echelon, including the release of all our hostages—living and dead,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said early Tuesday. Last week, Hamas rejected a U.S.-backed plan to extend the ceasefire’s first phase beyond Ramadan and Passover, drawing a sharp rebuke from both the White House and Israel. Military operations are likely to continue so long as Hamas delays the release of the remaining hostages.

Hamas “is making a very bad bet that time is on its side,” Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said on Friday. “It is not. Hamas is well aware of the deadline, and should know that we will respond accordingly if that deadline passes.”

Prior to that statement, the terror group claimed that it was willing to release the last living American hostage, Edan Alexander, as well as the bodies of four other dual citizens the terror group murdered in captivity.

Netanyahu subsequently accused the terror group of “manipulation and psychological warfare,” saying that it was making empty promises while rejecting a firm ceasefire.

Israel has already formulated a plan, first reported in the Free Beacon, to resume war in the Gaza Strip and fully “eradicate Hamas.” It signaled the start of that plan earlier this month, when it halted any entry of goods into the Gaza Strip in response to Hamas’s rejection of Witkoff’s phase one ceasefire extension. With Tuesday’s strikes in Gaza, it appears that portions of this plan are already being carried out.

The post Israeli Strikes in Gaza Take Out 4 Senior Hamas Terrorists, Palestinian Islamic Jihad Spokesman appeared first on .

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) is struggling to contain intraparty backlash over his decision to vote with Republicans to avert a government shutdown, as Democrats intensify calls for his resignation.

Schumer and his aides have recently reached out to Indivisible, an anti-Trump progressive organization, and other Democratic groups, individuals familiar with the conversations told Politico. Schumer’s team urged Indivisible’s New York leaders not to sign a statewide letter demanding his resignation, but they did so anyway on Monday. One source told Politico that Schumer’s talks with the organization were “tense and unproductive.” Schumer on Monday confirmed the meetings.

The Politico report comes less than a day after Schumer stopped all promotional events this week for an upcoming book, with a spokeswoman citing “security concerns.” Democratic activists had planned to protest his multi-city book tour over his vote to advance the Republican-proposed government funding bill.

Another progressive group, MoveOn, has also relayed “our members’ concerns about the lack of strategy and message around the Republican funding bill vote” to Schumer’s office, spokeswoman Britt Jacovich told Politico.

A petition to withhold donations to Senate Democrats until they oust Schumer as minority leader, meanwhile, has amassed around 25,000 signatures. The Democratic operative behind the petition, Charlotte Clymer, said that Schumer “doesn’t want to face the music over his caving to Trump and Elon Musk.”

Several House Democrats have even privately called on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) to launch a primary challenge against Schumer. Some centrist Democrats are “so mad” at Schumer’s defection that they are “ready to write checks for AOC for Senate,” a Democratic lawmaker who spoke with Ocasio-Cortez told CNN.

The post Schumer’s Damage Control Falls Flat as Democrats Push for His Ouster appeared first on .

Unlawful law firms: Perkins Coie and Morrison & Foerster are two of the most prestigious law firms in the country. For years, they operated illegal diversity fellowships that excluded white applicants or explicitly favored minorities. Now, they’re staring down the barrel of a federal probe.

The Trump administration’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, our Aaron Sibarium reports, sent the two firms—and 18 others—letters on Monday “requesting information about their diversity, equity, and inclusion policies” and “arguing that many of the firms’ practices appear to violate civil rights laws.” The letters ask the firms to provide details on their diversity programs and explain how they managed to overhaul their demographic makeup without turning to discrimination. One firm that received the letter, Cooley LLP, boasted in a now-deleted portion of its website that it increased the diversity of its lawyers by 9 percentage points in just two years.

“Trump has promised to root out unlawful DEI policies in the private sector, in part by instructing agencies like EEOC to assemble lists of targets for investigation,” writes Sibarium. “The letters to the 20 firms, which are among the most prestigious in the legal world, could mark the beginning of a crackdown on institutions that have long seemed above, or indifferent to, the law.”

READ MORE: Trump Admin Launches Probe Into Big Law DEI Policies

Something to declare: Lebanese national Rasha Alawieh is an assistant professor of medicine at Brown University. She’s in the United States on an H-1B visa. Last month, she left the country to visit Lebanon. When she came back, she ran into some trouble.

Alawieh told Customs and Border Protection officials that she had attended the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s funeral. She described Nasrallah as “the head of Hezbollah” and a “religious figure” who is “highly regarded in the Shia community.” When an agent asked her why she had photos of Hezbollah fighters on her phone, she said, “I have a lot of WhatsApp groups with families and friends who send them.” Don’t we all.

After the interview, CBP determined Alawieh was “inadmissible to the United States” and canceled her visa. Initially, the move prompted outrage: NBC News reported that Alawieh’s deportation was carried out “without any justification” and came “despite [her] having [a] valid visa.” Then the full story came to light, and attorneys representing Alawieh’s family withdrew from the case “as a result of further diligence.”

READ MORE: Deported Brown University Professor Attended Hezbollah Chief’s Funeral

Clean up on aisle Columbia: Mariano Torres and Lester Wilson are longtime janitors at Columbia University. They were working overnight shifts at Hamilton Hall when Hamas-supporting rioters stormed the building last April. Nearly one year later, they’ve got a story to tell, and it’s not flattering to the Ivy League institution.

In federal complaints filed to the EEOC, Torres and Wilson detailed signs of danger they witnessed at Hamilton Hall before students broke in. Dozens of demonstrators “ran riot” through Hamilton Hall, carpeting the floors with leaflets and scrawling “obscene graffiti, including swastikas, throughout the building.”

The janitors reported the incidents to Columbia, which did nothing, according to the complaints. When it came to the swastikas, public safety officials declined to follow up “because the graffiti was ‘free speech'” and “was written in chalk and could be erased.” The EEOC is now investigating.

READ MORE: Columbia Declined To Investigate Swastikas Scrawled Throughout Hamilton Hall Because They Were ‘Written in Chalk and Could Be Erased’: Complaint

Away from the Beacon:

• The ceasefire is over: Israel carried out “extensive” strikes against Hamas early Tuesday, with Benjamin Netanyahu saying the IDF is fighting “with the aim of achieving the war goals as determined by the political echelon, including the release of all our hostages—living and dead.” Hamas had rejected U.S.-brokered deals to extend the ceasefire.
• Some Democratic donors are refusing to give money to the party until Chuck Schumer is ousted Senate leader. “Given the lack of leadership and strategy, it’s becoming harder by the day to keep supporting the party,” one said. “Until I see real change, my wallet is closed.” Go off!
• The Center for American Progress is hosting a panel today on “how the Trump administration is harming working people and the path forward.” Its featured guest? J.B. Pritzker, the billionaire heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune.
• The Council on American-Islamic Relations may soon face a federal investigation after a watchdog group accused it of financial irregularities. CAIR reportedly funneled a more than $7 million grant to a Los Angeles chapter that is not registered to receive charitable donations. Oops.

Check out our full Tuesday lineup below.

The post Trump Takes Aim at Big Law, Brown University Loses a Hezbollah-Loving Professor, and Hamilton Hall Janitors Expose Columbia appeared first on .

Federal authorities found evidence Rasha Alawieh, an assistant professor of medicine at Brown University, attended Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s funeral in Lebanon before deporting her on Friday.

Alawieh admitted to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents that she was present at the Beirut funeral, claiming she followed his teachings “from a religious perspective,” according to court documents the Justice Department filed Monday morning.

“CBP questioned Dr. Alawieh and determined that her true intentions in the United States could not be determined,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Sady wrote. “As such CBP canceled her visa and deemed Dr. Alawieh inadmissible to the United States.”

“Last month, Rasha Alawieh traveled to Beirut, Lebanon, to attend the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah—a brutal terrorist who led Hezbollah, responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over four decades. Alawieh openly admitted to this to CBP officers, as well as her support of Nasrallah,” the Department of Homeland Security added in a statement Monday afternoon. “A visa is a privilege not a right—glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be denied. This is commonsense security.”

The funeral Alawieh attended drew tens of thousands of mourners dressed in black. They filled the streets of Beirut chanting “Death to Israel, death to America” while pledging allegiance to Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist organization. Hezbollah initiated attacks on Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in support of its ally Hamas, which had carried out a brutal massacre of Israeli civilians the previous day. In retaliation for Hezbollah’s aggression, Israel invaded Lebanon and killed Nasrallah on Sept. 27, 2024.

Nasrallah’s funeral now:

“Death to America, Death to Israel,” pic.twitter.com/nrr2fnS1Hc

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) February 23, 2025

Alawieh also had “sympathetic photos and videos” of prominent Hezbollah figures in the deleted items folder of her cell phone, according to the court filings. Several major news outlets, including Axios and CNN, haven’t reported Alawieh’s attendance at Nasrallah’s funeral or mentioned the Hezbollah media on her phone.

Attorneys for Alawieh’s family withdrew Sunday, telling the court the decision was “a result of further diligence.”

Authorities detained Alawieh—an H-1B visa holder and 34-year-old Lebanese national—on Thursday at Logan International Airport in Boston after returning from her home country. During her interview with CBP officials, she acknowledged attending Nasrallah’s funeral the previous month, describing it as “a purely religious thing.” She emphasized Nasrallah’s significance, noting, “He’s a very big figure in our community. For me it’s not political.”

On Friday, Leo Sorokin, who has served as a judge for the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts since 2014 following his nomination by President Barack Obama, ordered Alawieh not be deported without advance notice to the court. By the time authorities received notice of Sorokin’s court order, however, Alawieh was already on a flight bound for Paris. She arrived in Lebanon on Sunday morning.

In response to Monday morning’s revelations, Sorokin postponed a hearing, granting the government an additional week to submit further information regarding the circumstances surrounding Alawieh’s deportation.

Alawieh began her assistant professorship at Brown’s division of nephrology in July 2024, with the Ivy League institution sponsoring her H-1B visa, according to a petition her cousin, Yara Chehab, filed on Friday. Alawieh first moved to the U.S. in 2018 when she was awarded a student visa to participate in a two-year nephrology fellowship at the Ohio State University. She then attended a similar program at the University of Washington before moving to an internal medicine program at Yale University, which she completed in June 2024.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman halted the immediate deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Hamas Columbia graduate student. The Trump administration revoked Khalil’s student visa and green card, but Furman’s intervention put a temporary stop to their efforts, ensuring Khalil remains in the United States as legal proceedings unfold. Furman is a prolific Democratic donor, having contributed over $20,000 to Democrats, including Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic National Committee. He also once threw out a terrorism lawsuit against the Palestine Liberation Organization.

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