WASHINGTON, July 1 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that his acting spy chief has wide permission to declassify records, including any tied to the 2020 election, even though his close ally is only at the intelligence helm for a short time.
Trump appointed Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence last month, elevating a political loyalist with no national security experience at a time of war and global tensions.
Following a political backlash over his pick, Trump subsequently nominated Jay Clayton, the top U.S. attorney for Manhattan. But he then abruptly postponed Clayton’s confirmation hearing in an effort to force Congress to pass a strict voter identification bill.
“Bill’s there, just, you know, for maybe a month or two months or something,” Trump told reporters as he departed Joint Base Andrews for an event in North Dakota. “But while he’s there, I said, ‘You can declassify whatever you want’.”
Asked if that included any records related to the 2020 election, Trump added: “I told him you could do it, it’s fair. You got to ask him.”
Trump, who won a second White House term in the 2024 election after losing in 2020, long has falsely claimed widespread fraud in U.S. elections and continued to push debunked claims ahead of November’s midterm contests as part of his pressure campaign to pass a strict voter identification law.
His comments come as NBC News reported that a White House task force was gathering documents related to the 2020 election with the aim of declassifying some of them.
“As the most transparent president in history, President Trump is totally committed to sharing as much information with the public as possible,” said a White House official who requested anonymity.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the office of Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton did not respond to requests for comment on Trump’s remarks.
The ODNI oversees the 18-agency U.S. intelligence community that includes the premier foreign spy service, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency, the massive agency that eavesdrops on foreign communications and helps defend the United States against cyberattacks.
It was not clear when lawmakers would act on Clayton’s nomination, but Trump told reporters there would be a hearing in two weeks.
A source familiar with the situation, on condition of anonymity, said Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, was “targeting” July 15.
Pulte currently leads the Federal Housing Finance Agency but will also remain as ODNI until Clayton is confirmed by the Senate. Pulte has reportedly already moved to cut hundreds of intelligence jobs.
Trump has said legislation known as the SAVE Act would deliver his fellow Republicans a “guaranteed” win in November as they seek to maintain their slim control of Congress. Democrats are hoping to capitalize on Trump’s low approval ratings to recapture at least the House of Representatives or the Senate.
Democrats and voting-rights advocates say the measure could hinder voter registration for millions of eligible Americans.
On Tuesday, Trump in a social media post said he had met with Tina Peters, a former county elections clerk in Colorado who was convicted of illegally tampering with voting machines in pursuit of Trump’s false claims over the 2020 race.
Representatives of Peters did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Jonathan Landay; editing by Michelle Nichols and Bill Berkrot)
USA Today recently offered readers an “in-depth” investigation of the life of Michelle Obama and her relationship with her famous husband. Forcing myself to read this bilge made me aware that one would have to turn to the Soviet press under Comrade Stalin to find anything quite so cloying. The fact that this national newspaper and others like it cannot discuss their puffed-up heroes and heroines without nauseating exaggeration has left me feeling even more depressed about American journalism than ever. Michelle’s life has been made “fuller,” USA Today assured me, because it’s been associated with a truly great man. And let’s not forget that a C-SPAN sponsored historians’ survey revealed Obama to be one of our 10 greatest presidents. Furthermore, he was edging toward the pantheon of the five greatest when his illustrious term came to an end.
Of course, Michelle is presented as great in her own right. She’s been married to a demigod for 33 years; and these two extraordinary luminaries just continue to enrich one another:
“He made me think more broadly about what I could do with this Harvard law degree besides be a lawyer. He gave me the courage,” she continued. “He was my ballast. He was like, ‘I got you.’ And however hard it’s been, the ups and downs, he’s got me.”
For his part, Barack Obama’s life is simply richer with Michelle in it, even three decades later.
“Just being with her made me better, and she still does. And that she would [give] our kids a foundation that would pay off for them,” he said. “That’s in fact what’s happened. And she grounds and anchors me.”
This is entirely typical of the intellectual depth and objectivity of that paper’s treatment of their favorite leftist couple. Quite predictably, the article about this pair goes on to relate how magnificently they have raised their two daughters. That was followed by an announcement of the “star-studded event” that took place at the opening of the Obama Library in Chicago “on the day before Juneteenth.”
Equally revealing of USA Today’s bias was an exploration of “Obama hate” by reporter Josh Peter on June 23. In his impassioned commentary, we are told about all the untold suffering that’s been visited upon our former First Couple because of the malice pouring out of the right. Peter is particularly outraged that a UFC fighter commented on the mannishness of Mrs. Obama, a remark that supposedly shows the irrepressible cruelty of the Obamas’ enemies. But as fate would have it, I chanced upon a very unfavorable reference to Mrs. Trump in USA Today about a week before reading this fluff piece on the Obamas, a double standard that I’ve detected in the newspaper several times before. Apparently, malice is only a factor when its target is someone whom leftist journalists are trying to protect.
Being perfectly objective about this matter, it is hard to see how Melania Trump, whom USA Today invariably treats as an empty-headed mouthpiece of her demagogic husband, is less attractive or less intelligent than Michelle. In fact, one would have to be blinded by ideology to come to that bizarre conclusion. Unlike Michelle, Melania is multilingual, physically attractive, gracious, and tactful in conversation. Michelle is often irascible, accuses her opponents invariably of racism and sexism, and (not to be too blunt about this matter) noticeably plain-looking.
As I observed a few years ago, it is hard to buy the idea that Michelle is greatly honored across media because she is an outstanding role model to young black woman. Why isn’t Candy Carson, the thoroughly accomplished wife of Ben Carson, a former cabinet official and renowned neurosurgeon, a media celebrity? In fact, it is hard to find a couple of any race who seem more impressive than the Carsons. Mrs. Carson is a gifted violinist, educator, Protestant theologian, and the head of many serious philanthropies. She also speaks intelligently on many subjects and has never played the victim card. Unlike Mrs. Obama or the former president but like her husband, Ben, Mrs. Carson grew up in poverty in Detroit and worked her way up to professional distinction, without a lift from the Chicago Democratic machine.
What makes Mrs. Carson less appealing to the media and black organizations than Michelle is her lack of leftist politics. Racial and gender grievances have been Michelle’s calling card, and that is precisely why USA Today, People magazine, and other mass publications celebrate the Obama family nonstop. She fits their political narrative. I also don’t accept the notion that the Michelle-adulation gushing from the mainstream media is attributable to her being the wife of our first black (or half-black) president. Is anyone thick enough to believe that if Clarence Thomas or Ben Carson became our second black president, that person’s wife would be showered with similar Stalinoid praise? The latest puff piece about Michelle and her heavenly family is most definitely politically motivated.
A spate of rulings from the Supreme Court couldn’t be more of a mandate if they were handed down, gift-wrapped, and sealed with a kiss by God: The mass deportation of illegal aliens is legal and imperative if there’s any hope of saving this country.
One ruling declared it within the president’s authority to interpret the word “temporary” as the opposite of “permanent” with regard to migrants who have been permitted to live within the U.S. for what is understood to be a finite period. He can order their removal. (Good!) A separate ruling, on the other hand, affirmed automatic American citizenship to babies born to migrants who have illegally entered the country. (Bad!) Yet a third ruling deemed it legal for states to count voter ballots that arrive after Election Day, thus rendering the whole concept of “Election Day” void. (Very bad!)
Taken together, if the president has expansive authority to remove illegal aliens, who otherwise might just pop out a baby immediately deemed “American” (a new Democrat voter mailing in ballots on a whim), the situation is clear. Migrants need to be sent home with haste and by any means necessary.
This country cannot survive if anyone from anywhere — China, Guatemala, India, etc. — can lock themselves inside by giving birth, securing themselves citizenship and welfare entitlements, and then vote in our corrupted elections. And yes, they’re voting. That’s not up for debate.
The Supreme Court just affirmed the possibility of a person raised for essentially his whole life in Communist China becoming president of the United States. It’s criminal.
And so, the Trump administration, and every administration that succeeds it, should recognize the only way forward is to severely restrict all forms of immigration: Ban the entry of pregnant women, reduce the duration of legal residency to less than nine months, and, of course, deport as many foreigners as possible.
By extension, our primary target for removal should no longer be “the worst criminals.” It should be women. All of them. There’s not a moment too soon. If they’re actively giving birth, hurl them into Mexico. Or, if they’re not so lucky, Canada.
That’s the position the court has put us in with this series of rulings. Mass deportations or bust.
“This is one of the most important decisions in the history of the Court, and in my judgment, the Court has made a serious mistake,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his dissent to the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision to insert birthright citizenship into Americans’ Constitution.
He continued in plain language to show how the decision endorses birth tourism, which would automatically grant full citizenship to foreign adults who have never lived a full day in the United States:
The Court’s interpretation is not only contrary to the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, it produces grotesque results. While foreigners who wish to immigrate lawfully must sometimes wait for many years, a child born here to a birth tourist is automatically a citizen.
The Court’s interpretation also has national-security implications… Suppose that a person’s only connection to this country is that he was born here to a mother who was present just long enough to give birth and then quickly returned to her native country. Suppose that country is a strategic adversary or enemy of the United States. Suppose the child never visited the United States while growing up and was inculcated with hatred of this country. According to the Court, that person is a citizen of the United States. He can enter and leave the country as he pleases. He can travel the world on a United States passport. Even if he plots to harm this country, he cannot be deprived of his status as a citizen, at least under current precedent.
“We should not adopt an erroneous interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment simply out of fear of the consequences of ‘rocking the boat’ or as a reaction to current immigration policy,” he wrote.
Many children are born to foreign parents who are “subject to a foreign power,” which should make their children ineligible for citizenship, Alito noted:
A great many persons who are born here to illegal immigrant parents fail this [subject to foreign power] test because at birth they are automatically made nationals of their parents’ native country and, as a result, incur duties to that country. This means that they are “subject to a foreign power” and are thus not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.
This is illustrated by the laws of countries on the list of those from which the greatest number of illegal immigrants come. Mexico is at the top of that list, and under Mexico’s constitution, the child of a Mexican parent can become a Mexican national at birth and acquires certain duties to the government. See Political Constitution of the United Mexican States… Among these are the obligation to receive military training and to join the National Guard.
Alito explained his views:
Careful analysis of the text of the Fourteenth Amendment and the process that led to its adoption shows that it does not degrade the concept of United States citizenship in this way. Instead, the Fourteenth Amendment confers citizenship on only those children who, at birth, owe allegiance solely to this country.
Respecting this interpretation would not require uprooting the millions of children who were born here to mothers who entered or remained in this country illegally. Those children are not responsible for their parents’ violation of our immigration laws, and their plight is the result of a long period during which a coterie of actors — Executive Branch officials, States and cities, and a variety of private groups — sent the message to would-be immigrants that our dissenting immigration laws should not be taken too seriously.
Alito’s dissent echoed the dissent of Justice Clarence Thomas, who argued that the court’s majority’s imposition is a “political project” built on medieval feudal laws from pre-modern Europe. Alito similarly wrote:
United States citizenship is precious. Anyone who has attended a ceremony where citizens are naturalized can see that message on the faces of those who take the citizenship oath. Before saddling the Nation with a medieval rule, we had better be certain the Constitution requires it.
…
This theory of monarchical power and the status of the people provided the foundation on which the rule of birthright subjecthood stood. Just as a person automatically acquires at birth all that is entailed by the relationship between parent and child, a person born within the King’s dominion automatically became the King’s subject.
…
The Court does not confront these problems because it pays little attention to the constitutional text. Instead of performing its own textual analysis, the Court leans on precedent that glosses the text.
Recent U.S. governments have allowed mass illegal migration and abuse of the birthright citizenship clause by refusing to enforce the nation’s immigration laws, Alito said, adding:
Congress’s failure to act, the Executive Branch’s enforcement policies and frequent opposition to state solutions, and some jurisdictions’ policies have resulted in a massive increase in the number of illegal immigrants living in this country… Between July 2023 and March 2024, the overall foreign-born population of the United States increased from 48.5 million to 51.6 million — “an unprecedented increase of 3 million immigrants in nine months. Much of this growth was driven by the admission of unauthorized immigrants with temporary deportation protections.”
As a result of the events of the past 50 years, the United States now has a huge contingent of people who entered or remained in this country illegally, as well as a large group of people who were born here to such parents. The Court’s interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment makes all the members of this latter group citizens.
“The Fourteenth Amendment does not include the rule the Court now imposes on the country,” Alito wrote, adding, “In my judgment, the Court has made a mistake that will seriously affect the country’s future.”
In an interview with FOX News host Laura Ingraham, Vice President J.D. Vance said communism is the result of the Democratic Party being run by universities and professors.
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS: You’ve been following what’s going on with the Democrat party and the rise of socialism. The president calls it communism and says this is this is really the biggest threat to the country now, an internal threat, and you’ve seen what happens when the base of the party, a party, turns on its establishment beginning with the Tea Party in 2009, ultimately resulting in President Trump’s election twice. So my question to you is are these DSA types really in your estimation going to dominate the entire party?
VICE PRESIDENT J.D. VANCE: I unfortunately fear that’s the direction the Democrats are headed, and it is communism, Laura. This is not, you know, this is not raising taxes a little bit, however much we might disagree with that. This is abolishing the police.
This is let criminals run amok in your cities. This is flood your country with low-wage third-world immigrants, and importantly it’s confiscating wealth, not because we want to make anybody’s life better, but purely out of resentment, out of an attack on the people who have that wealth to begin with. It really is something we haven’t seen in the United States of America in the history of our politics, and Laura, I think that it actually is a consequence of the fact that the Democrat party has become run by the universities and by the professors.
This is not working-class Union Democrats. This is not socially conservative people who just want a fair shake at life. This is fundamentally a view that the United States is an evil country that must be dismantled from the ground and then built back up.
That’s communism at its core, and you see more and more momentum in that direction from the Democrat Party. Frankly, Laura, I would love it if Democrats were willing, you know, not that they are going to agree with Republicans all the time, but if they were willing to work with us on lowering housing prices, on lowering gas prices, on actually making the lives of American citizens better, you know, we could have some real bipartisan compromise. That’s not what they’re talking about.
They’re talking about abolishing the police and letting criminals rule our cities. That is a fundamental transformation of the Democrat Party. It’s very bad for our country.
It’s bad for Democrats, and it just drives home why we have to keep these people from getting close to power.
Sunday at the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize event, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) told Fox News that the “dirtbag left” are “clearly anti-America,” referring to the two members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) who won primaries in New York and Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner.
Fetterman said, “And in like it. It was a really it was a really big night for the dirtbag left. You know, last week, without a doubt. And some of the crazy things that they’ve said. You know, like clearly anti-America, you know, anti Western civilization. And they actually one of them was even part of the groups they wanted to end all Western civilization.”
He added, “So, overall, that is a wing of the party without a doubt. But they’re not Democrats. They’re not socialists, several of them, many of them have actually are an avowed communist. So between P hustle in Maine and some of the other winners, you know, in New York, that’s, you know, they should form their own party and run on all the things that they’ve had to do on, on social media.”
Comedian and host of HBO’s “Real Time,” Bill Maher, received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in a star-studded ceremony.
The insurgent left just shook New York. Colorado Democrats increasingly think they could be next.
Democrats in the Centennial State are bracing for an anti-establishment earthquake of their own. Tuesday’s primary election will test the left’s momentum beyond the five boroughs — and whether the anti-incumbent fever will topple Sen. Michael Bennet and Rep. Diana DeGette, a pair of longtime fixtures of state Democratic politics.
Bennet allies acknowledge his primary for governor race is far closer than they expected, a startling position for one of the state’s best-known Democrats, while DeGette is facing similar anti-Washington headwinds, as internal polling in recent days has set off alarm bells for the 30-year incumbent.
The primaries come after several Democratic incumbents and establishment-backed candidates have already fallen this year, including in New York City last week, where Reps. Adriano Espaillat and Dan Goldman lost to challengers from the left, as well as in Maine, where Gov. Janet Mills was forced from her Senate race by controversial progressive Graham Platner.
“There’s a lot of anti-establishment momentum because voters are so angry,” said Doug Friednash, a longtime Colorado Democratic strategist and former gubernatorial chief of staff to moderate-leaning Sen. John Hickenlooper, who’s facing a progressive challenge of his own from state Sen. Julie Gonzales. “They want to take it out on someone. They want fighters.”
Bennet, a two-term senator and one-time presidential candidate, faces Attorney General Phil Weiser in an unusually volatile contest.
While Bennet allies maintain they still believe he has the slight edge, two Democratic strategists familiar with his campaign said internal polling has shown a tighter contest than they expected, raising concerns that voter anger toward any close association with Washington has made even the well-known statewide figure vulnerable. A recent public survey conducted by the liberal pollster PPP showed him trailing outside the margin of error.
“There may be only a slight Bennet advantage at this point,” said a Democratic strategist close to the Colorado governor’s race, granted anonymity to candidly discuss the campaign, adding that private polling has been “all over the place.”
Despite serving as attorney general for eight years, Weiser has increasingly worked to cast himself as the anti-establishment alternative by portraying Bennet as the Washington insider, a message several Democratic strategists close to the Bennet campaign said has found traction.
The race has increasingly become a contest over who has fought President Donald Trump harder, reflecting what many Democrats describe as the defining mood of this year’s primary electorate: anger with Washington, frustration with Democratic leadership and a desire for candidates who project an ability to fight.
“Coloradans trust Phil’s people-powered campaign — not Michael Bennet’s establishment, Washington-style campaign backed by out-of-state billionaires, corporations, and special interests,” Weiser spokesperson Nate Jackson said.
Bennet’s campaign has sought the change mantle, as well.
“Michael has a track record of rejecting the status quo and delivering real results for Coloradans — and that’s exactly why he’s running for Governor,” Bennet campaign spokesperson Jordan Fuja said. “As we close out this campaign, the difference between the candidates couldn’t be more clear: Michael’s offering a vision for a bolder, stronger Colorado and his opponent is relying on the same, tired politics-as-usual.”
The anxiety may be even greater around DeGette. The 68-year-old is facing her most serious primary challenge of her three decades in Congress from democratic socialist Melat Kiros, who at 29 years old was born just a few months after DeGette first won her seat.
People close to DeGette’s campaign say the warning signs have been there for months. But her team’s concern ratcheted up in recent weeks as the campaign’s internal polling found the race also narrowing to within the margin of error, according to two political strategists close to DeGette’s campaign. The tightening, coupled with New York’s insurgent sweep that took out a pair of congressmen, set off a panic and helped to finally convince skeptical donors and allied groups that the threat was real after DeGette’s team had spent weeks warning national Democrats they were facing a far more competitive race than many appreciated. National groups have poured in money in the race’s final week in a desperate attempt to save the Congress member, even as some DeGette allies privately grumble that she had not done nearly enough to stave off her challenger.
“It’s not looking great,” said one prominent Colorado Democratic strategist familiar with DeGette’s polling and granted anonymity to discuss private campaign data. “It’s very tough when you’re fighting against a wave.”
That strategist said they’d also seen a recent private survey that showed Hickenlooper in a dead heat with Gonzales in Denver. The most recent public poll of the race, conducted in late May, Hickenlooper led Gonzales by 41 percent to 34 percent, though it had an unusually high number of undecided voters.
DeGette and her allies are racing to blunt Kiros’ momentum. Outside groups have poured roughly $3 million into the race over the past month, including about $2.3 million backing DeGette or opposing Kiros, including $1.3 million in spending since just Monday, mostly for DeGette. Her side has had a nearly 3-to-1 spending advantage down the final stretch.
DeGette has also rolled out a last-minute endorsement video from Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a move that drew quick backlash from some progressives given Kiros’ support from Sen. Bernie Sanders and other national progressive leaders.
“It’s been hard, I would say, to get outside groups and funders, as well as even within the city, to understand this was a real race, because people like [DeGette] always won,” the Colorado Democratic strategist close to the campaign added.
Kiros told POLITICO last week that she had more than 5,000 volunteers. Her campaign said she’s seen a surge of support since New York’s results, including more attention, donations and volunteers and is trying to capitalize on that momentum with more than 60 canvasses planned across the city in the lead up to Tuesday, an endorsement from Progressive Change Campaign Committee and planned march in Denver’s Pride parade this weekend.
“We feel very confident that the program that we’ve built, the movement that we’ve built, is going to be able to combat any amount of money that they throw at us in this final week,” Kiros said in an interview. “This is the people organizing and making it abundantly clear that they are no longer accepting the status quo and are demanding the change.”
Kiros’ supporters say they’re trying to recreate the organizing model that helped propel democratic socialists to sweeping victories in New York. National DSA chapters are hosting phone banks for Kiros nearly every day through Tuesday, while Denver organizers say they expect to knock on just shy of 100,000 doors before polls close.
The effort has accelerated since Tuesday’s victories. Denver DSA has added hundreds of members this month.
Popular Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who became one of the most visible outside organizers in New York by hosting marathon livestream phone banks and campaigning alongside DSA candidates on primary day, told POLITICO he plans to try to replicate that effort in Colorado and intends to host another phone-bank marathon for Kiros. He is also aiming to campaign in the state on primary day.
Several Colorado Democrats cautioned Denver is not New York. The city is not as liberal, its DSA infrastructure is significantly smaller, and DeGette still benefits from decades of name recognition and relationships across the district. But they also acknowledge Denver has become younger, more progressive and increasingly receptive to anti-establishment candidates.
“Everybody now knows this is a race. This is no longer sneaking up on everybody,” one longtime Democratic strategist close to the DeGette campaign said. “I think DeGette should be very concerned.”
Friednash said he still believes DeGette has a chance.
But if Kiros wins, Friednash said, “that’s a massive game changer in Colorado politics.”
This school year about 108,000 Pennsylvania students from poor and working-class families received K-12 tuition assistance scholarships to find a non-public school that works — funded entirely by charitable contributions from individuals, small businesses and corporations. About 80,000 more students wanted this tuition assistance, but the funding ran out.
They voted unanimously to destroy this program. Because it works.
If you’re a teachers union boss, you hate all competition. But you have three additional headaches. A Commonwealth Foundation report details Pennsylvania’s shrinking public school student population, and stagnating or falling test scores — deposits historic spending increases. Plus, education choice has never been more popular.
Last week when Democrats were about to vote on the original bill destroying the program, Democrats learned just how popular. Thousands of parents, students, and donors flooded legislators with calls, emails, and personal visits.
Sadly, as dutiful toadies of the teachers union, legislators tried to fool parents. While appearing to remove the language reducing the money for tuition assistance, they kept the other cuts, program reductions and new red-tape crushing the program. Instead of the “death penalty,” they decided “merely” to put on handcuffs and starve the program.
Worse — they’re cowards, and fools — or they think parents and principals are.
House Democrats have spent the last week denying what they did — some angrily — in phone calls to school principals, donors, Catholic bishops and pastors, Jewish Day school leaders, and parents. Some have taken their vitriol to social media with lengthy, arrogant, angry posts — fighting with supporters and parents.
For the benefit of legislators who may not know any better — and to underscore how the Danielle Friel Ottens (D-Chester) and Frank Burnses (D-Cambria) of the House have been lying to parents, donors and clergy, here’s a sample of how they voted to ruin the program serving 108,000 students.
They imposed a tax on the money raised — taking away $15 million in tuition assistance annually. The program has two tiers (one for all students, plus one for the poorest students in the poorest communities): the bill would prohibit poor students from getting the extra aid, effectively forcing them to leave their schools — and putting those lifeline schools in danger of closing.
And they would require the Auditor General to audit every non-profit scholarship organization and every participating school — every single year. That does not happen to one public school district, where taxpayers spent $41 billion this year.
Suppose the issue wasn’t charitable donations for students; but fighting cancer. Imagine if House Democrats changed Pennsylvania laws so the Cancer Society had to start paying taxes on money raised; could only offer poor families medical or rehabilitation support — not both; and told middle-income families they were no longer allowed to be helped. Imagine if every Cancer Society chapter, every hospital, clinic, research facility, doctor and every support center had to undergo costly government audits every year.
Then, imagine telling constituents in calls, emails — and vitriolic posts on social media — that your vote didn’t do anything to “harm” the Cancer Society or patients; rather, your goal was to “strengthen” fighting cancer.
Ask yourself: Are the House Democrats clueless as to what they did? Do they think parents, donors and principals don’t know how the plan works? Or are they so brazen that they think they can get away with lying to us?
Pennsylvania’s Educational Improvement Tax Credit program (EITC) is in its 25th year. Donors have assisted over one million Pennsylvania students. Because of these income-based scholarships, those families have been given the gift of school choice — the gift of being able to find a non-public school that works for their children.
Parents, students and taxpayers all win. In 2001 when the EITC became law, it was overwhelmingly bipartisan legislation — passing the House 135-64. Now, the teachers union wants to stop school choice for many families.
The reality is that families who are economically successful already have school choice: they can afford tuition for non-public schools. Those families can move out of “bad districts” with failing or unsafe schools and move to a “good district.” And the kids of the politically connected get in to good schools.
After all the vitriol, double-speak, and misdirection, the truth is clear.
The success of Pennsylvania’s program — the model for the new federal “education freedom tax credit” — is why the teachers union is so selfishly against it. And they’ve used their outsized influence to pressure Democrats to hurt students and the schools whose mission it is to serve them.
Governor Shapiro has school choice for his kids.
You can put an end to this cruelty, Governor. Or your silence will tell us where you honestly stand.
Guy Ciarrocchi is a Senior Fellow with the Commonwealth Foundation. He writes for Broad + Liberty and RealClear Pennsylvania. Follow Guy at @PhilaFreedomGuy.
In Germany, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler orders a bloody purge of his own political party, assassinating hundreds of Nazis whom he believed had the potential to become political enemies in the future. The event became known as the Night of the Long Knives.
The leadership of the Nazi Storm Troopers (SA), whose four million members had helped bring Hitler to power in the early 1930s, was especially targeted. Hitler feared that some of his followers had taken his early “National Socialism” propaganda too seriously and thus might compromise his plan to suppress workers’ rights in exchange for German industry making the country war-ready.
the early 1920s, the ranks of Hitler’s Nazi Party swelled with resentful Germans who sympathized with the party’s bitter hatred of Germany’s democratic government, leftist politics, and Jews. In November 1923, after the German government resumed the payment of war reparations to Britain and France, the Nazis launched the “Beer Hall Putsch“—their first attempt at seizing the German government by force. Hitler hoped that his nationalist revolution in Bavaria would spread to the dissatisfied German army, which in turn would bring down the government in Berlin. However, the uprising was immediately suppressed, and Hitler was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison for high treason.
Sent to Landsberg jail, he spent his time dictating his autobiography, Mein Kampf, and working on his oratorical skills. After nine months in prison, political pressure from supporters of the Nazi Party forced his release. During the next few years, Hitler and the other leading Nazis reorganized their party as a fanatical mass movement. In 1932, President Paul von Hindenburg defeated a presidential bid by Hitler, but in January 1933 he appointed Hitler chancellor, hoping that the powerful Nazi leader could be brought to heel as a member of the president’s cabinet.
However, Hindenburg underestimated Hitler’s political audacity, and one of the new chancellor’s first acts was to use the burning of the Reichstag building as a pretext for calling general elections. The police, under Nazi Hermann Goering, suppressed much of the party’s opposition before the election. The Nazi Party joined forces with the German National People’s Party (DNVP), to gain a bare working majority in the Reichstag. Shortly after, Hitler took on absolute power through the Enabling Acts. In 1934, Hindenburg died, and the last remnants of Germany’s democratic government were dismantled, leaving Hitler the sole master of a nation intent on war and genocide.
From the man who led the evacuation of USS Arizona to the fighter pilot who took to the skies in his pajamas, learn the stories of eight of the many servicemen who distinguished themselves on one of the darkest days in American military history.
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For most Americans, the American Bar Association is merely a professional guild that publishes ethics opinions, hosts conferences, and occasionally weighs in on public policy. But in legal education, the ABA has long occupied a far more consequential role as de facto gatekeeper to the profession.
That status helps explain why the ABA’s recent move to suspend—and purportedly, to eliminate—two of its controversial diversity mandates for law schools represents more than an internal procedural dispute. It signals a potentially significant recalibration in the balance between accreditation authority, constitutional law, and ideological conformity in higher education.
To understand why the fight over ABA Standards 206 and 303(c) matters, one must first understand the extraordinary leverage the ABA possesses. For many law schools, losing ABA approval is tantamount to institutional death.
The ABA has served as the sole federally recognized accreditor of American law schools since 1952. In practical terms, accreditation determines institutional survival. Graduates of non-ABA-accredited schools are often barred from taking state bar examinations or face severe restrictions in licensure mobility. Federal student loan eligibility also hinges on accreditation. For many law schools, losing ABA approval is tantamount to institutional death.
That power has allowed the ABA to shape not merely the quality of legal education, but increasingly the ideological and cultural priorities of law schools themselves. The organization’s standards govern everything from faculty resources to admissions practices to curricular requirements.
For decades, one of the most controversial of those standards was Standard 206: the ABA’s “Diversity and Inclusion” requirement.
The modern version of Standard 206, adopted in 2016 during the height of institutional DEI expansion, required law schools to demonstrate “by concrete action” a commitment to diversity and inclusion in student admissions, faculty hiring, and staff recruitment. More specifically, schools were expected to maintain diversity “with respect to gender, race, and ethnicity.”
The language was notable not simply for its aspirational tone, but for its enforceability. “Concrete action” was not accidental phrasing. ABA site evaluation teams regularly assessed whether schools were satisfying the standard during accreditation reviews. Administrators understood the message clearly: schools were expected to produce measurable diversity outcomes or risk scrutiny of compliance. Schools were expected to produce measurable diversity outcomes or risk scrutiny of compliance.
Critics argued that the standard functioned less as a nondiscrimination policy than as a de facto pressure campaign for race-conscious admissions and hiring practices. Law schools thus devoted enormous resources to DEI bureaucracies, racial preference programs, diversity statements, and faculty initiatives designed to satisfy accrediting expectations. And because the ABA controlled accreditation, schools had powerful incentives to comply—even in the face of contrary state and federal law.
That tension became increasingly untenable after the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which held that race-conscious university admissions programs violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The ruling fundamentally altered the legal landscape surrounding affirmative action in higher education.
Suddenly, the ABA’s diversity mandates faced a collision with federal constitutional doctrine.
The pressure intensified after the Trump administration issued executive orders targeting DEI initiatives across higher education and placed accreditors under direct scrutiny. The Department of Education was instructed to review whether accrediting agencies—including the ABA—were imposing unlawful diversity requirements as conditions of institutional approval.
The ABA quickly recognized the danger.
In February 2025, the ABA Council suspended enforcement of Standard 206 and in May 2026, the ABA Council voted to eliminate Standard 206 altogether, sending the repeal to the ABA House of Delegates for final consideration. At the same time, the Council initiated a review of Standard 303(c), a comparatively newer but equally controversial rule requiring law schools to provide education and training on “bias, cross-cultural competency, and racism” to aspiring attorneys at least twice during law school.
If Standard 206 governed institutional behavior, Standard 303(c) reached directly into the classroom itself. Critics saw something quite different: compelled ideological instruction masquerading as professional training.
Adopted in 2022, Standard 303(c) required every ABA-accredited law school to provide students with “substantial opportunities” for instruction related to bias, racism, and cross-cultural competency as part of the professional formation curriculum. The rule was framed by supporters as necessary preparation for modern legal practice in an increasingly diverse society. But critics saw something quite different: compelled ideological instruction masquerading as professional training.
The controversy surrounding 303(c) stemmed not merely from its subject matter, but from its vagueness and practical implementation. The ABA never clearly defined what constituted adequate “cross-cultural competency” instruction, leaving schools to interpret compliance broadly—and often aggressively. In practice, many institutions responded by embedding mandatory DEI seminars, implicit bias workshops, identity-based programming, and race-conscious curricular modules into already crowded academic schedules.
For law students paying six-figure tuition bills to master constitutional law, civil procedure, contracts, evidence, and trial advocacy, the mandate raised obvious concerns. Every hour devoted to compulsory ideological programming was an hour not spent developing substantive legal skills. Critics argued that aspiring attorneys were increasingly being trained less to think rigorously about the law and more to internalize fashionable sociological frameworks about power, privilege, and systemic bias.
That concern was amplified by the inherently subjective nature of “bias” training itself. Many of the programs adopted under Standard 303(c) relied heavily on contested theories of implicit bias and systemic racism—concepts that remain deeply debated within both the social sciences and legal academia. Yet students often had little practical ability to dissent from the premises underlying the instruction, particularly in environments where disagreement could carry reputational or professional consequences.
The irony, of course, is difficult to ignore. Legal education has traditionally prized adversarial reasoning, skepticism, and analytical rigor. But under mandates like 303(c), law schools increasingly encouraged ideological conformity on some of the most politically charged issues in American life.
Nor was the concern merely theoretical. Some state supreme courts and lawmakers began questioning whether the ABA was exceeding its proper role as an accreditor by imposing politically infused curricular requirements unrelated to minimum competency in legal practice. Others warned that mandatory bias instruction could itself create constitutional problems at public institutions, particularly where students were effectively compelled to affirm contested viewpoints as part of their professional education. Once constitutional scrutiny sharpened and federal pressure mounted, the accrediting regime had to recalculate.
For years, diversity mandates were treated within legal education as morally untouchable and administratively irreversible. Yet the ABA’s abrupt retreat illustrates how dependent DEI enforcement always was on legal permissibility and political insulation. Once constitutional scrutiny sharpened and federal pressure mounted, the accrediting regime had to recalculate.
Importantly, however, the repeal of Standards 206 and potentially 303(c) will not suddenly transform law schools into ideologically neutral institutions.
Most elite law schools remain deeply committed to diversity initiatives as matters of institutional identity and prestige. Many universities have embedded DEI offices, faculty hiring priorities, affinity programming, and admissions philosophies into their broader bureaucratic structures. Our own reporting has revealed as much. Those efforts are unlikely to disappear merely because the ABA no longer requires them.
What may change instead is the coercive dimension.
Without Standard 206, schools that choose not to emphasize race-conscious diversity policies—or that wish to scale back DEI bureaucracies—may enjoy greater institutional flexibility. Without Standard 303(c), law schools may also regain discretion over how precious instructional time is allocated and whether ideological training should be mandatory at all. Public law schools in states hostile to DEI mandates may feel less vulnerable to accreditation pressure. Faculty dissent from prevailing orthodoxy may become marginally less professionally hazardous. And schools seeking viewpoint diversity may find more room to pursue it.
Equally significant is what this episode reveals about the nature of accreditation itself.
Accreditors wield immense power while operating largely outside public accountability. The ABA’s standards shape the legal profession indirectly but profoundly. Through accreditation, ideological preferences can become professional obligations without legislative debate or judicial review.
That reality has increasingly drawn scrutiny from policymakers concerned about the broader role of private accrediting bodies in American higher education. Several Republican-led states, including Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and Ohio, have already explored avenues to reduce the ABA’s monopoly influence over bar eligibility and law school approval.
The fight over Standards 206 and 303(c), then, is not merely about diversity policies. It is about who governs professional education in America—and whether accreditation should serve as a mechanism to enforce contested ideological commitments.
The ABA’s retreat does not end legal education’s culture war. Far from it. But it does represent a rare acknowledgment that even the most entrenched institutional orthodoxies remain vulnerable when they collide with constitutional limits, political accountability, and public skepticism.
For an organization long accustomed to setting the terms of debate, that may be the most consequential development of all.
Sarah Parshall Perry is Vice President and Senior Legal Fellow at Defending Education. Former Senior Counsel at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, and former Senior Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, she focuses on parental rights, civil rights, and constitutional law. Perry chairs the Federalist Society’s Education Law executive committee, is a Trustee of Florida Gulf Coast University, and is the mother of 3 children.
