Texas Weekly Online

Texas-trans-white
Menu
Menu

Year: 2025

DOJ sues Virginia school board over Christian students’ rights

DOJ sues Virginia school board over Christian students’ rights

The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit accusing a school board in Virginia of violating the constitutional rights of two Christian students by enforcing a gender-identity policy that officials say punished them for their religious beliefs. According to the DOJ, the Loudoun County School Board suspended two Stone Bridge High School boys for 10 days after they reported an incident in the boys’ locker room. A female student had allegedly entered the locker room and recorded audio and video of the boys inside. Several boys reported the incident, including the two Christian students whose religious beliefs require them to use biologically accurate pronouns and sex-segregated facilities, the lawsuit says. Loudoun County allegedly applied its Policy 8040 — a gender-identity rule that the DOJ says requires students and staff to “accept and promote gender ideology” regardless of religious beliefs. BOYS BRANDED SEXUAL HARASSERS FOR COMPLAINTS ABOUT TRANS CLASSMATE USING THEIR LOCKER ROOM GO TO FEDERAL COURT “Plaintiffs faced a choice: violate their consciences or stay true to their beliefs,” the lawsuit argues. School officials determined the two boys committed “sex-based discrimination” and “sexual harassment,” according to the suit. As punishment, the DOJ says the district suspended them for 10 days and ordered them to undergo a “Comprehensive Student Support Plan.” BOYS SUSPENDED IN TRANSGENDER LOCKER ROOM CONTROVERSY SPARK GOP BACKLASH IN VIRGINIA The Justice Department claims the school board violated the boys’ rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. “Students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. “Loudoun County’s decision to advance and promote gender ideology tramples on the rights of religious students who cannot embrace ideas that deny biological reality.” The Loudoun County School Board did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

HUD chief blames ‘unchecked illegal immigration’ pricing-out families amid new housing report

HUD chief blames ‘unchecked illegal immigration’ pricing-out families amid new housing report

EXCLUSIVE: Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner slammed the Biden administration for what he called an illegal immigration and refugee crisis that rattled the housing market – particularly for low-income renters – though some analysts dispute the findings. Every two years, HUD releases its “Worst Case Housing Needs Report” – considered the agency’s flagship assessment of the state of the housing market for low-income Americans – and how many lack affordable and adequate housing. The report serves as a nationwide barometer of housing stress and shows whether the availability of affordable housing is improving or worsening, and who may be being hurt by the current conditions, which Congress can then use to craft policy. Policymakers use it to gauge gaps in the supply of low-cost rentals, target federal housing programs, and understand trends in who is being left behind. In short, it’s HUD’s way of tracking the renters in the greatest need — and how the U.S. housing system is failing to meet them. TRUMP’S HOUSING CHIEF RIPS POWELL FOR BLOWING MILLIONS ON FED FACELIFT DURING HOUSING CRISIS HE PERPETUATES Turner told Fox News Digital there are damning findings in this year’s assessment that he places right on the policies of former President Joe Biden’s immigration crisis. “The unchecked illegal immigration and open borders policies allowed by the Biden administration continue to put significant strain on housing, pricing out American families,” Turner said. “These policies have plagued America’s housing market, but in President Trump, Americans finally have a leader fighting to restore sanity to American immigration policy.” TRUMP’S DHS TOUTS MASSIVE NUMBER OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS DEPORTED AS DEMS LASH OUT AT ICE But Jenna Stauffer, Global Real Estate Advisor at Sotheby’s International Realty of Key West, told Fox News Digital she didn’t think immigration was the primary driver of the “housing mess we are in.” “Housing affordability has been unraveling for years, and the problems we’re dealing with go way beyond any one factor,” she said. “We’ve really been under building for almost two decades. After the Great Recession, construction basically stalled, and it took years to recover. By some estimates, the U.S. is short four to seven million homes, and that long-term shortage is the core issue behind today’s affordability challenges.” HUD’s 2025 report found that increased immigration has driven up housing prices, and that the “unrestricted” nature of the influx has both strained the housing market and priced-out many American families. The report found that an estimated 15 million illegal immigrants constitute 30% of all foreign-born residents. Turner added in separate comments to Fox Business that HUD took away Federal Housing Authority-backed mortgages from illegal immigrants offered during the Biden administration, saying the former president “turned a blind eye” to the issue. In California and New York, immigrants have accounted for 100% of all rental growth and over one-half of all growth in owner-occupied housing in recent years, the report found – while nationally, the foreign-born population accounted for more than 60% of the growth in rental demand. KRISTI NOEM SAYS BIDEN USED DHS ‘TO INVADE THE COUNTRY WITH TERRORISTS’ Nationwide, the foreign-born population accounted for two-thirds of rental demand growth. HUD’s report contrasted that figure with the 13% growth attributed to noncitizens in 2019 and 2023’s lookbacks. “This further demonstrates that non-citizen households are playing an increasing role in the household growth that is straining the affordable housing supply,” the 109-page report said. NEW GOP BILL WOULD CUT OFF HOUSING FUNDS TO SANCTUARY CITIES DEFYING TRUMP DHS The agency found that without the migrant surge, housing inventory pressures would have been far lower and prices would not have climbed as sharply, noting roughly 784,000 fewer households would have formed over that period. Net additions to the housing market from 2015 onward have not kept up with “household formation among citizens” and non-citizen population growth has also inordinately affected rental markets. Worst-case housing reports have been released regularly since 1991, but the 2025 findings mark a sharper warning about the illegal immigration crisis’ impact on the numbers. BIPARTISAN PLAN AIMS TO MAKE THE AMERICAN DREAM AFFORDABLE AGAIN FOR MILLIONS OF FIRST-TIME HOMEBUYERS In August, Turner ordered an audit of every public housing authority, seeking data on verifiable citizenship of those living in subsidized housing. “No longer will illegal aliens be able to leave citizenship boxes blank or take advantage of HUD-funded housing, riding the coattails of hardworking American citizens,” Turner said. “Currently, HUD only serves one out of four eligible families due, in part, to the lack of enforcement of prohibition against federally funded assistance to illegal aliens,” he continued. TRUMP’S BORDER MIRACLE: FROM BIDEN’S CHAOTIC IMMIGRATION CRISIS TO ‘ALL QUIET’ IN RECORD TIME Vice President JD Vance highlighted a recent comment from Turner – who had been responding to a CNBC report that rents have dropped for four straight months. “Six months of zero illegals released into our country. Two million illegals removed. Rents dropped for the fourth straight month. Coincidence? I think not,” Turner said. Vance echoed what the agency ultimately would find in its report, remarking that the “connection between illegal immigration and skyrocketing housing costs is as clear as day.” SEC SCOTT TURNER: BLAME DRUGS AND MENTAL ILLNESS, NOT PRESIDENT TRUMP, FOR THE CHAOS GRIPPING OUR STREETS HUD’s findings, as expressed by Turner and others prior to the official report, also had other critics. Harvard Joint Center For Housing Studies senior research analyst Riordan Frost previously wrote that while the “surge in immigration” has affected the market, other factors like the coronavirus pandemic contributed to increases in housing costs during that time in history. “Immigrants play a role in household growth, sometimes to a substantial degree, but housing demand during the pandemic has been primarily shaped by native-born household growth in a time of constrained housing supply,” Frost said. BOMBSHELL REPORT ALLEGES BIDEN TEAM FORCED AIRPORTS TO HOUSE MIGRANTS, RISKING SAFETY Rep. Bonnie Watson-Coleman, D-N.J., also lit into Turner at a recent hearing, saying “you (Turner) are worsening the housing crisis with

‘Prices are coming down’: Trump hails his economy, blames Biden as voters say costs still sting

‘Prices are coming down’: Trump hails his economy, blames Biden as voters say costs still sting

President Donald Trump declared the U.S. economy is strong and holds an “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus” grade under his leadership despite inheriting a “mess” from the Biden administration.  “The word affordability… I inherited a mess,” Trump told Politico in a sit-down interview published Tuesday. “I inherited a total mess. Prices were at an all-time high when I came in. Prices are coming down substantially. Look at energy. You and I discussed before the interview, energy… energy has come down incredibly. When energy comes down, everything… ’cause it’s so much bigger than any other subject. But energy has come down incredibly. Prices are all coming down. It’s been 10 months. It’s amazing what we’ve done.” The Trump White House is facing a crisis over its economic messaging after Democrats swept a series of elections in November while campaigning on platforms focused on “affordability,” lowering the current cost-of-living prices skyrocketing from grocery store shelves to rent, while touting a vote for Democrats was a vote against Trump and his policies.  The Democratic election wins earlier in 2025 — which included the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia and the mayoral race in New York City — are viewed as a bellwether ahead of the 2026 midterms, lighting a spark among Republicans to fine-tune their messaging on the economy.  JEN PSAKI MOCKS TRUMP, GOP OVER ‘AFFORDABILITY’ MESSAGE DURING COLBERT APPEARANCE The White House and Trump increasingly have amplified blame for the current affordability woes on former President Joe Biden’s leadership as voters’ financial anxiety grows at peak holiday shopping season.  “Putting an end to Joe Biden’s inflation and affordability crisis has been a Day One priority for President Trump,” White House spokesman Kush Desai told Fox News Digital Monday morning when asked about the White House’s message on affordability.  “Every Trump administration official has been playing their part over the past year to deliver on this priority, from slashing costly regulations to securing historic drug pricing deals — efforts that have cooled inflation and raised real wages,” he continued. “Much work remains, but President Trump is highlighting the meaningful progress that his Administration has made and will continue to make to turn Joe Biden’s economic disaster around.”  VANCE ACKNOWLEDGES VOTERS ‘IMPATIENT’ ON AFFORDABILITY, REJECTS ‘TOTALLY BULLS— NARRATIVE’ Voters have reported they are spooked by the current state of costs in the U.S. Some 76% of voters, however, reported that they view the economy negatively, up from the 67% who reported the same in July, and the 70% who said the same at the end of Biden’s term, a November Fox News national survey found.  The survey found that voters overwhelmingly blamed Trump over Biden. About twice as many voters polled reported that Trump, rather than Biden, is responsible for the current economy, with three times as many voters reporting that Trump’s economic policies have hurt them, which is on par with their feelings during Biden’s final year in office.  Andrew Bates, who served as the Biden White House’s deputy press secretary, pointed to the voter survey when asked for response to the Trump administration’s heightened comments, pinning blame for economic concerns on policies held over from the Biden White House.  “Democrats and the Biden-Harris Administration warned Trump against making the biggest health care cuts in history so billionaires could get tax breaks; just like they warned against the tariffs that are a record-level tax hike on working people,” Bates said in an emailed comment to Fox News Digital. “Maybe Donald Trump can’t remember prices were lower last year. That’s what I wondered when he started building himself an assisted living ballroom.”   The White House on Tuesday told Fox News Digital: “The fact of the matter is that Joe Biden inflicted a generational economic crisis on the American people.  “Turning this crisis around has been a Day One priority for the Trump administration, which has already delivered cooled inflation, multi-year low gas prices, trillions in investments, and historic drug pricing deals to dramatically cut costs for American patients,” White House spokesman Desai said. “Biden flacks who insisted Biden was in absolute peak health and wasn’t dropping out of the 2024 presidential race just days before Biden did just that need to get a grip on reality.” Trump continued in his Politico interview that he grades the current economy as “A-plus.” “I do want to talk about the economy, sir, here at home. And… and I wonder what grade you would give your economy,” Politico asked Trump.  Trump: “A-plus.” Politico: “A-plus?” Trump responded: “Yeah, A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus.” The Biden administration oversaw the highest inflation to rock the nation in 40 years, 30-year mortgage rates that rocketed to roughly 8%, up from under 3%, and the sharpest rise in interest rates in decades. REPUBLICAN POPULISM CRATERS AS TRUMP STUMBLES, DEMOCRATS SURGE Trump hammered again in the interview that Democrats created the current affordability woes while stressing that they are the party that would bring prices down.  “You talk about affordability, the Democrats love to say affordability, afford… but then they never talk about it,” he said. “They’re the ones that gave us the high prices. I’m the one that’s bringing them down.” Trump is set to travel to Pennsylvania Tuesday, a key battleground state that helped deliver him his 2024 victory, to promote his administration’s economic policies and growth amid voters reporting financial anxiety.  TRUMP TORCHES DEMS’ ‘FAKE AFFORDABILITY’ PITCH – BUT GOP PANIC IN DEEP RED STATE HINTS VOTERS AREN’T BUYING IT White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt previewed Trump’s speech during an appearance on “Fox & Friends” Tuesday, which included taking shots at the Biden administration’s economic record.  “We greatly look forward to going to northeast Pennsylvania tonight,” Leavitt said. “And President Trump is going to give a positive, economic focused speech where he talks about all that he and his team has done to provide bigger paychecks and lower prices for the American people.” She added: “And don’t forget, a year ago, President Trump inherited the worst inflation crisis in modern American history from the Biden administration.