COVID cash meant to get kids back on track took surprising detour in blue-state school district
Hundreds of thousands of dollars in pandemic-era federal relief funding, including money intended to help students recover from learning loss, instead went toward “anti-racism” training for teachers and administrators in Albuquerque Public Schools. The district approved $336,500 in American Rescue Plan funds in 2021 for training tied to the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB), while accounting records obtained by America First Legal show APS ultimately spent nearly $700,000 on the training program. School district officials told Fox News Digital they could not confirm the spending or how much came from federal COVID relief funds because they did not have immediate access to the records. PISAB, which has received grants from George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, has distributed training materials instructing “White folks” to “learn how [they] became white” and defining race as a “specious classification of human beings created by Europeans (whites)” to assign human worth and social status and maintain “power and privilege.” GEORGIA DISTRICT QUIETLY TRAINED TEACHERS TO BLAME ‘WHITENESS,’ ‘DECOLONIZE’ UNDER FEDERAL CRACKDOWN: REPORT At APS, the programming included “Community Conversations,” an introductory course centered on “core equity and anti-racism principles,” as well as “Introduction to Undoing Racism” and a multi-day “Undoing Racism” workshop. The training was delivered through the Anti-Racism Training Institute of the Southwest (ARTI), which had a 23-year relationship with PISAB. The effort reached hundreds of district employees after initially focusing on school leadership. During the 2020-21 school year, APS principals and assistant principals participated in “Community Conversations,” a course ARTI “specifically designed” for the district which incorporated PISAB’s organizing principles. By July 2022, at least 721 APS staff members, ranging from teachers to senior district officials, had attended an ARTI training, according to records obtained by AFL. “Leftist groups infiltrate schools because they know that they will have the opportunity to shape and control children’s minds and social behavior,” Bobby Crossin, counsel at America First Legal, said in a statement. “Here, the Albuquerque Public Schools took money intended by Congress to help students harmed by government lockdowns, and spent it on critical race theory indoctrination sessions.” EXCLUSIVE: SPLC’S ‘FAR-LEFT’ ‘ANTI-RACISM’ CURRICULUM FOUND IN CLASSROOMS AS EARLY AS KINDERGARTEN: WATCHDOG Julie Levin, senior counsel at America First Legal, said the group’s concerns centered in part on the use of pandemic relief money at a time when schools were trying to help students recover from COVID-era disruptions. “You had all of this money that Congress was giving to school districts to get children back on track after the COVID pandemic,” Levin told Fox News Digital. “Instead of using that money to help the students, they were using it to pay for these anti-racism trainings.” “What was happening was taxpaying dollars were being used to pay for training sessions that were supposed to be espousing anti-racism, but were actually being used to indoctrinate the teachers and administrators with respect to racism,” Levin continued. The records show APS had even bigger plans for the program, proposing nearly $1 million in DEI training through 2024 that would reach nearly 2,000 people each year. District officials later considered extending the effort beyond employees and directly to students. In fall 2022, APS officials proposed adding “a student component to our equity/anti-racism model,” which would have involved 20 to 30 students per school at up to 10 middle and high schools, according to internal memos obtained by AFL. TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TOUTS ‘HARD RESET’ FOR AMERICAN SCHOOLS, VOWS TO PUT PARENTS ‘BACK IN CHARGE’ The proposal envisioned first introducing participating students to “foundational equity/anti-racism principles” before having them develop projects of their own. APS, however, told Fox News Digital the student component was never implemented. The district’s relationship with ARTI continued after the student proposal. In 2023, ARTI provided APS with a $27,000 estimate for in-person “Undoing Racism” training. APS defended its use of PISAB and ARTI trainings, saying the programs were intended to help improve student outcomes. “We haven’t received criticism about this,” a spokesperson for the district wrote in an email to Fox News Digital. “But generally speaking, we used the program to help with attendance and academic achievement for students.” The training highlighted in Albuquerque is also part of a greater effort, according to Levin, who said PISAB continues to offer classes in cities including Seattle, Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Brooklyn, “The People’s Institute to this day is offering these classes throughout the United States,” Levin said. “All you have to do is go to their website and see that month by month there’s the calendar of these training classes that they are offering either directly in person, virtually, or through third parties.” “America First Legal will continue exposing where public-school dollars are being diverted away from our children’s education toward ideological programs that divide Americans by race and reshape our schools around an insidious political agenda,” Levin said. Fox News Digital reached out to PISAB for comment.
Dem House candidate settles yearslong $55K debt fight with former mother-in-law weeks before election
Bob Brooks, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District, settled a long-standing financial disagreement with his former mother-in-law earlier this month. According to court filings, Brooks and Carol Wiley, the mother of his former wife, Jennifer Brooks, have settled a dispute surrounding a $55,500 debt he incurred in 2004. The judgment finalizes the family dispute that entered the public eye amid one of the most competitive congressional races in the country as Brooks looks to unseat Rep. Ryan Mackenzie but leaves behind questions of how he managed to close out the saga. FIREFIGHTERS UNION BOSS WINS HOTLY-CONTESTED DEM PRIMARY IN A KEY PENNSYLVANIA SWING DISTRICT Although statements from his lawyers hinted at some form of payment, it’s unclear whether Brooks paid the original amount — and tens of thousands more in interest — or what the terms of the agreement were. When asked about the case, Brooks’ campaign declined to fill in the picture. “This old family dispute has officially been resolved by an agreement between the two parties. Bob is glad that this personal matter was resolved amicably and is now behind him and his family. Out of respect for everyone involved, we won’t be commenting further,” Ryan Moore, an attorney for Brooks, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. Brooks’ case began in 2008 when Wiley claimed that he had never paid her and her husband $55,500 for a subdivision of land they had transferred to Brooks in 2004. According to court filings, the two parties had agreed that Brooks would eventually pay back the amount. “In 2008, at the request of Michael Wiley, Carol Wiley had a promissory note drafted which memorialized Defendants’ debt, and provided that Defendants were jointly and severally liable to pay Carol Wiley $55,500 at 6.5% interest, in 120 monthly payments of $630.19, beginning July 1, 2008. On July 12, 2008, Wiley and Defendants executed the promissory note in the presence of a notary,” a 2021 filing reads. But, even after the creation of the note — and the penalties that it outlined if Brooks failed to hold up his end of the contract — the money never came. BERNIE-BACKED DEM’S PRO-GUN CLINT EASTWOOD POST, KAEPERNICK CRITIQUE SPURS APOLOGY IN BATTLEGROUND RACE “Defendants never made any of the payments prescribed in the promissory note,” the filings state. As a result of having breached their contract, Brooks was required to pay $130,386, according to the terms of the note. But Brooks pushed back on the verdict, arguing that the notary had run its course, that a statute of limitations prevented it from being binding almost 15 years after its creation. Additionally, he argued that because he hadn’t received anything new when he signed the 2008 promissory agreement, it lacked consideration, a legal component that indicates an exchange of value. Despite his arguments, the court sided with Wiley. “The absence of consideration does not render an agreement unenforceable where the agreement contains an express statement of the signatories’ intent to be bound,” the court ruled. Reacting to the case, at least one Republican onlooker blasted Brooks’ record. “Scumbag Bob Brooks tried to rip his family off and then lied about it because he cares about one thing: enriching himself. If Books is willing to go this far to screw over his own family, imagine what he would do to Pennsylvanians if he gained power,” Reilly Richardson, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. BERNIE-BACKED DEM’S PRO-GUN CLINT EASTWOOD POST, KAEPERNICK CRITIQUE SPURS APOLOGY IN BATTLEGROUND RACE Having cleared the state’s Democratic primary, Brooks now heads to the Nov. 3 general election.
‘Fur Lives Matter’ case turns heads as DOJ’s ‘Fraud Week’ targets taxpayer swindlers
A nationwide business-aid fraud crackdown — highlighted by a bizarre Missouri scheme involving alleged stolen corporate identity — is among the enforcement actions being highlighted during the federal push dubbed “Fraud Week.” The announcement is part of the Department of Justice’s National Fraud Enforcement Division’s nationwide summer surge. It netted more than 160 criminal defendants and approximately $245 million in intended losses to taxpayers, according to DOJ, as the agency announced busts from Los Angeles to Philadelphia. “This is the problem of our day,” said U.S. Attorney Matt Price of the Western District of Missouri, whose office was one of 44 involved in the greater “Heartland Fraud Surge” that encompassed June through Sept. 1. “And this is a response to what happened over the previous four years,” WHITE HOUSE PUSHES ‘WATERSHED’ FRAUD-FIGHTING REFORM IN CONGRESS AS VANCE CONVENES TASK FORCE “After 9/11, there was a huge lean-in, [an] all-of-government approach to national security issues,” Price said, comparing the Bush-era interagency pivot to terror threats with the coordinated response to the current push against fraud in taxpayer-funded programs. Price headlined the extensive Small Business Administration (SBA) and COVID-19-related fraud probes under division chief Colin McDonald. In the “Fur Lives Matter” case, a Missouri man allegedly claimed to operate 19 separate businesses, including some focused on pet care like “Fur Lives Matter,” “Fur Lives Matter LLC,” “Chows & Pals” and “God’s Chow Chow.” MINNESOTA FRAUD MASTERMIND GETS NEARLY 42 YEARS IN PRISON IN MASSIVE $250M ‘FEEDING OUR FUTURE’ SCHEME There was one glaring problem: “Fur Lives Matter” was a real company in another state — and prosecutors say it had no connection to Gray. Using “Fur Lives Matter” and the other purported companies, Jamie Gray allegedly sought to fraudulently obtain nearly $56 million in Paycheck Protection (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster (EIDL) funds from the Small Business Administration through 29 applications. BRAZEN SOCIAL MEDIA FRAUD SCHEMES WREAK HAVOC AS TRUMP OFFICIAL ISSUES STARK WARNING FOR ‘FRAUDFLUENCERS’ Most cases involved entirely fictitious businesses, and only “Fur Lives Matter” was operational at the Feb. 15, 2020, eligibility cutoff. “Gray effectively stole this company’s identity,” the DOJ said in a statement, alleging the legitimate business had no knowledge of him and that his claims about ownership, employees, revenue and operations were fabricated. Gray nevertheless received about $820,000 in SBA funds, prosecutors said. The case stood out even among a summer surge of alleged fraud schemes for its unusual details. JUDGE SENTENCES FEEDING OUR FUTURE FRAUDSTERS WHO FAKED RUNNING CHILD NUTRITION SITE “If you screwed the American taxpayer, the federal government is now going to say you’re cut off, no more,” Vice President JD Vance said this week on the matter of the larger administration crackdown. “You shouldn’t be applying anymore, and if you do apply, you’re no longer able to get those benefits.” VANCE-LED TASK FORCE CUTS OFF $1.4B FROM HOME HEALTH, HOSPICE PROVIDERS SUSPECTED OF FRAUD Price said the effort is expanding beyond Operation No Doze, the SBA-focused enforcement action conducted as part of the broader Heartland Fraud Surge. His office and Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, along with other state officials, have also launched Operation Show-Me the Money, a new state-federal effort targeting fraud in state benefit programs. REPUBLICANS DECLARE WAR ON ‘ORGANIZED THEFT’ WITH GOVERNMENT FRAUD CRACKDOWN “No fraud is too small to prosecute, but leveraging all state resources in the state of Missouri from the top down [is believed to be] a first-of-its-kind collaboration between the state and the feds, working to identify and prosecute this type of fraud,” he said Saturday. Price also credited SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler with “leading from the front” as the agency is suspending suspected fraudulent borrowers and sending demand letters seeking repayment. SIGN UP TO GET THE POLITICS NEWSLETTER He said the Heartland Surge depicts a new approach to countering fraud, characterizing the Biden administration’s attempts to recoup lost dollars as a “pay and chase” model. Attorney General Todd Blanche has instructed prosecutors to charge fraud cases of all sizes, in that the smaller cases send the message to bigger scofflaws that, no matter the amount of money involved, “if you ripped off the American taxpayer… we will find you, we will identify you, we will hunt you down, we’ll prosecute you,” said Price.
Justice Department charges 16 across multiple states with alleged illegal voting, election crimes
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced charges against 16 people in multiple states in connection with alleged illegal voting, voter registration and other election-related crimes, including cases involving noncitizens accused of casting ballots in federal elections. DOJ followed the announcement with a warning on social media, saying some of those charged allegedly voted in the 2022 and 2024 elections, and warning others against attempting to illegally participate in U.S. elections. “Let this be a warning to ANYONE trying to cheat and undermine our elections,” the DOJ wrote. “Spread the word!” According to DOJ, eight non-citizens residing in Texas were charged, while the other cases involved defendants in Idaho, Georgia, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, New Jersey and Michigan. SKID ROW FORGERIES, ILLEGAL VOTES AND A MAYORAL CANDIDATE: ELECTION FRAUD CASES PILE UP NATIONWIDE The allegations include noncitizens voting in federal elections, false claims of U.S. citizenship to register or vote, and false statements related to naturalization. During the investigations, the DOJ said authorities also uncovered alleged passport and identification fraud, wire fraud and firearm-related offenses. The cases are part of a broader Trump administration enforcement effort targeting alleged illegal voting and election-related crimes. WATCH: ILLEGAL ALIEN BUSTED IN BATTLEGROUND STATE AFTER ALLEGEDLY COMMITTING VOTER FRAUD In Georgia, DOJ said Analiea Milliscent Eccles, a Venezuelan national and DACA recipient, voted nine times between 2008 and 2024. She was charged with voting as a noncitizen and falsely claiming U.S. citizenship to vote. Avila Gomez, a Mexican national residing in Idaho, is accused of falsely claiming U.S. citizenship to register to vote and then voting in May 2022 and November 2024. The indictment also includes wire fraud, passport, identification-document and firearm-related charges. DOJ said Santana Coulibaly, a lawful permanent resident in New Jersey, registered to vote in 2016, voted in federal elections in 2018 and 2020 and submitted a provisional ballot in the 2024 presidential election. She also faces allegations involving statements made in her naturalization applications. Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the DOJ’s Fraud Division told Fox News that the Trump administration has now charged 50 non-citizens with illegal voting. ICE ARRESTS PERUVIAN NATIONAL ACCUSED OF ILLEGALLY VOTING IN 2024 ELECTION AS DHS CITES SIMILAR CASES “America’s elections are for Americans,” McDonald said. In a separate interview, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin said a broader investigation was underway. Mullin said officials have more than 1,620 open cases and have made 151 arrests. He also said authorities are looking into more than 300,000 suspected cases, a figure he said continues to grow. ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT ARRESTED IN INDIANA FOR ALLEGEDLY VOTING IN FEDERAL ELECTION: DHS Mullin asserted that “every single vote that was at the hands of an illegal [immigrant], canceled out a citizen that was legally registered and able to vote.” “One is too many, but the fact that we have 300,000 cases we’re looking into right now and 1,620 cases that are under investigation, and 151 arrests is unacceptable,” Mullin said. The Justice Department noted that the charges announced Friday are accusations and that all defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
NORAD F-16 intercepts aircraft that violated restricted airspace over Camp David with Trump present: officials
A NORAD F-16 fighter jet intercepted an aircraft that violated restricted airspace over the area of Camp David Saturday morning while President Donald Trump was there, according to officials. There is a permanent no-fly zone over Camp David in Maryland, with additional restrictions when the president is there. NORAD dispensed flares during the intercept to get the pilot’s attention and was able to safely escort the aircraft out of the area, the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) said in a release. NORAD F-16S INTERCEPT MULTIPLE AIRCRAFT VIOLATING TEMPORARY FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS OVER NEW JERSEY “Should NORAD aircraft intercept a general aviation aircraft, the pilot should immediately come up on frequency 121.5 or 243.0 and turn around to reverse course until receiving additional instructions on one of those frequencies,” the release said. NORAD F-16S INTERCEPT MULTIPLE AIRCRAFT VIOLATING FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS OVER NEW JERSEY Turmp left for Camp David Friday evening. “Pilots! @NORADCommand fighter aircraft intercepted an aircraft violating restricted airspace over Thurmont, MD, resulting in flares being deployed,” the First Air Force, part of NORAD, wrote on X Saturday. “Make sure to check NOTAMs before takeoff to ensure you have current information about TFRs in your area. Stay Safe, Fly Informed!” A plane was last intercepted over Camp David in June when Trump was staying there. That pilot was also safely escorted away.
Trump announces new ‘AI Force,’ vows to protect industry as AI czar announcement nears
President Donald Trump announced Saturday that he is creating an AI Force and plans to name an artificial intelligence czar as his administration pushes to accelerate the growth of AI in the U.S. Trump said in a lengthy Truth Social post that his administration would resist efforts to restrict the rapidly developing technology while using the existing criminal and civil justice systems to address potential wrongdoing. “We will not in any way hinder or stifle the Growth of this incredible Industry,” the post said. “Rather, we will cherish it, help it, and watch over it, as it grows!” GOP LAWMAKERS SMELL SOMETHING ELSE BEHIND BIG TECH’S AI DOOMSDAY WARNINGS: ‘SOMETHING ELSE GOING ON’ Trump added that the government would also be “looking for BAD” and said existing criminal and civil laws could be used to address problems with the technology. “For this purpose, I am forming the AI Force, much like I did Space Force, which has been a tremendous SUCCESS, in my First Term,” the president’s post continued. “To that end, I will be announcing, in the near future, the AI ‘Czar’ — Only High I.Q. individuals need apply!” Trump did not provide details about the structure, authority or membership of the proposed AI Force or identify potential candidates to serve as its czar. POWERFUL COLD WAR-ERA TOOL TRUMP COULD USE IN AN AI EMERGENCY IS SET TO EXPIRE IN DECEMBER Trump’s announcement comes as lawmakers grapple with whether and how to regulate the rapidly developing technology. Some Republicans have questioned calls for additional government oversight, while others have pushed for safeguards after AI industry leaders raised concerns about increasingly capable models. Earlier this week, Trump joined the debate by rejecting calls for additional government regulation of the industry, arguing that restrictions could hinder the U.S. in its competition with China. In Saturday’s post, Trump compared criticism of AI and data centers to several other political controversies and argued that opposition to data center construction had largely failed. RAND PAUL CLASHES WITH FELLOW REPUBLICAN OVER AI ‘KILL SWITCH’ AS SENATE GRAPPLES WITH ‘TERMINATOR’ FEARS Trump also predicted that AI could eventually account for as much as 25% of U.S. gross domestic product, though he did not cite a source for the estimate. “AI is the next Industrial Revolution, or Internet, but will be even larger and more impactful, possibly as much as 25% of our Country’s GDP,” he wrote. “We are leading China, and the rest of the World, and I intend to keep it that way!” In a separate Truth Social post, Trump asked people to choose within the post on what to call AI. “Many people think that the words “Artificial Intelligence” are inaccurate, and very ineloquent, relative to AI, or Artificial Intelligence. A far more elegant and accurate description of this new phenomena would be Superior Intelligence (SI) or, Extreme Intelligence (EI) or, Supreme Intelligence (SI),” he wrote. “This is a Poll, and I would appreciate everybody voting! Which is the best name for this ever growing “Revolution?” President DONALD J. TRUMP”
LA homelessness fraud cases expose deeper problem than stolen millions, oversight hawk warns
Federal charges alleging that millions of dollars were siphoned from Los Angeles homelessness programs are exposing what one lawmaker told Fox News Digital is a deeper failure in the way Washington funds and measures such programs. The latest cases out of Los Angeles fuel the concern of Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, that not only are corrupt providers stealing taxpayer money, but that the programs aren’t meeting their goal of getting people off the streets. “The only people really getting upward mobility in these programs, it would seem, is the people running the programs,” Cloud told Fox News Digital after a House Oversight hearing examining federally funded homelessness programs in Los Angeles, Seattle and elsewhere. “And that’s not really what the program’s supposed to be about.” LA REAL ESTATE VET COMES AT MAYOR BASS WITH RECEIPTS OVER DAMNING HOMELESSNESS REPORT: ‘SHE DOESN’T GET IT’ Federal prosecutors charged three defendants Wednesday in separate homelessness fraud cases involving alleged misuse of taxpayer funds, including money allegedly spent on a nightclub and adjacent bingo hall and bribes allegedly tied to fake housing referrals. Los Angeles’ homelessness agency paid one of the suspect nonprofits more than $75 million, according to federal prosecutors, leading Cloud to seek out the real culprits blazing the money trail. WHITE HOUSE PUSHES ‘WATERSHED’ FRAUD-FIGHTING REFORM IN CONGRESS AS VANCE CONVENES TASK FORCE Cloud said the fraud itself is only one piece of a broader problem and that the system appears to reward spending and program activity without adequately measuring lasting outcomes. Government too often judges success by “how much money we send out the door” instead of whether the spending is “actually helping people” or whether safeguards are in place to ensure taxpayer dollars are being used properly, Cloud said, describing the system as having been “incentivized for fraud.” “We’ve got to take those incentives out and get back to making sure that all these programs have incentives for oversight and that the dollars are managed well.” LETITIA JAMES FACES SCRUTINY AFTER NEW YORK CITY SPENDS $81,700 PER HOMELESS PERSON AMID SHELTER SCANDALS Some programs can keep a person “kind of in a cycle of dependency so that the program manager has job security, in a sense, and gets to live off the government dime,” Cloud said. “You [are seeing], as we begin to look into waste, fraud and abuse, why is it that these Democrat-led states are saying, ‘No, we don’t want the controls in place,’” he said, pointing to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ decision to step down from the LAHSA commission. Los Angeles is not alone, he said, citing what has been called the feds’ “Housing First” philosophy, generally prioritizing placing homeless in housing with less immediate regard for sobriety, mental health treatment or overall stabilizing services. WATCH: DR. OZ SAYS NEWSOM, OTHER BLUE STATES HAVE TURNED MEDICAID FRAUD INTO A ‘FEATURE’ Cloud did not use the term “housing first” during the interview, but he described the concern behind that critique, arguing that some homelessness programs define success in ways that leave people dependent on government rather than moving toward independence. Housing First is distinct from HUD’s “Continuum of Care” framework, which is the local funding and coordination structure through which nonprofit providers, state and local governments and other organizations receive federal homelessness money. WALZ ADMINISTRATION IGNORED FRAUD WARNINGS AS BILLIONS VANISHED, HOUSE OVERSIGHT REPORT ALLEGES In Los Angeles, LAHSA leads the local Continuum of Care, which HUD says received nearly $1 billion in taxpayer dollars over the previous five years. Under Secretary Scott Turner, HUD moved to suspend LAHSA this year, citing alleged failures involving financial management, internal controls and safeguards against conflicts of interest. LAHSA has challenged the federal action in court. “The ‘housing first’ experiment failed Americans by warehousing the vulnerable without results,” Turner said in June when HUD announced a $4.04 billion Continuum of Care funding opportunity. SIGN UP TO GET THE POLITICS NEWSLETTER “This ideology promised to end homelessness. Instead, billions of taxpayer dollars were spent while homelessness increased to record levels.” That funding will focus on organizations aiding treatment and recovery, while setting aside $1.3 billion for new projects prioritizing transitional housing and supportive services and adding measures intended to prevent fraud, waste and abuse.
Congressman Tom Barrett: ‘Being a socialist should disqualify him for people’s consideration in my district’
Control of Congress may very well run through Michigan’s seventh district. Anchored by Lansing, the state capital, it features a large blue city, surrounded by reddish suburbs, and deep red rural areas. It is consistently described as one of the closest swing districts in the country. Freshman Congressman Tom Barrett narrowly won the district in 2024, and is now locked in a tight race with William Lawrence, an activist and founder of the climate change-focused Sunrise Movement. Barrett is a 21-year Army veteran helicopter pilot, who served numerous deployments overseas, before returning to Michigan and spending nearly a decade in the state legislature. 7 REPUBLICANS REBEL AGAINST TRUMP, VOTE WITH DEMS TO REIN IN IRAN WAR POWERS The race has recently been roiled by a series of controversial social media posts. In some of them, Lawrence called the nuclear family “an isolating, violent way of organizing society” and praised campaigns to abolish the police. He now claims that his views have changed. Barrett argues that the newfound shift is about political expediency, not genuine conviction: “I think we got to take him at his word that this was his absolute true ideology and it wasn’t just this one statement that he made. He made repetitive statements against police, calling to not just defund but abolish the police altogether. He wanted to throw open the borders. He said if we’re a humane country, we’ve got to throw open the borders and redistribute all of the wealth. “He called the nuclear family a violent way to organize society, as you said. Countless other statements that he’s made and other things that he has done that show a pattern of behavior that this is not an isolated incident. “And obviously it’s clear to any neutral observer that he is doing this because he is running in a competitive district trying to get elected to Congress. He’s not running in Rashida Tlaib‘s district or AOC’s district where they’re far more sympathetic to these DSA-aligned socialist candidates. He’s running in the district that I live in where I’m raising my own nuclear family.” Barrett contends that the implementation of Lawrence’s border and immigration policies would pose a clear and present danger to the safety of Americans: “Well, the foremost obvious risk of these open border policies of my opponent is just starting with the public safety threat. So take out all of the other economic factors: just the physical threats to our communities are substantial. “There are criminal gang activities. We have cartels that were freely operating both ways across the border under the Biden administration. We had upwards of ten or even fifteen million illegal immigrants that came into our country completely unvetted.” Barrett also argues that the fentanyl crisis is directly tied to border and immigration policies as well. “The leading cause of death of Americans my age wasn’t cancer, wasn’t heart disease, it was fentanyl overdose deaths. People that I served with in the military that came home and survived combat and died of fentanyl overdose…because of drugs that were pouring across our border. “For the first time in my life, we have seen a significant decline in fentanyl overdose deaths, really because of the efforts…to secure our border, and my opponent, William Lawrence, would entirely reverse that, throw the border open again, abolish the police at the same time. “And we can only assume the outcome of that would be far more Americans dying of fentanyl deaths, as well as gang activity and other tragic circumstances that arise when you have an open border and no public safety to protect Americans.” William Lawrence is also a longtime member of the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America), but recently claims that he let his membership lapse. Barrett argues that Lawrence remains a fervent believer in socialist ideology, but is merely trying to downplay his true beliefs to win a competitive race: “Well, I think being a socialist should disqualify him for people’s consideration in my district. You look at the tenets of socialism and what they want to do and the endorsement of that. MICHIGAN DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE TRIES TO JUSTIFY DELETED POSTS THAT REVEAL FAR-LEFT BELIEFS “My opponent…cleverly claims that he let his membership lapse, I don’t know, two weeks before the primary election on the eve of him winning…to face off against me in one of the most competitive congressional races in the country that will arguably decide control of the House of Representatives. “So he doesn’t disavow the democratic socialists…He has embraced all of their positions, gathered all of their support, really benefited from the support of the democratic socialist movement. “And then when the time comes to defend those positions, he wants to say, well I let my membership lapse so you can’t hold me accountable for all their positions. But I didn’t leave under any actual disagreement with them. I’m simply leaving for political reasons because he’s so focused on trying to win this election in a desperate attempt to not be accountable to his own record, but to distract away from the devastating effects of socialism and what that would mean for our country if he were to be elected.” Perhaps the most controversial of Lawrence’s statements involved a post expressing frustration and outrage with politicians on climate policy. Lawrence, specifically targeting West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, wrote: ‘Hurry up and die so that we can get started.” Barrett believes that this type of rhetoric should put the voters of the seventh district on high alert: “Obviously that’s entirely inappropriate, something that should really raise the attention of every single reasonable American to say that that’s not how we go about our rhetoric here in our country. Politics is a full contact sport…but I’ve never in my political life, in any campaign, called on political figures to ‘F you and hurry up and die.’ “And that shows the radicalization…He was a founding member of the Green New Deal Alliance in Michigan, calling to ban gasoline-powered vehicles that
Lawyer says 250-foot Trump arch disrupts historic sightlines cherished by veterans seeking burial at Arlington
President Donald Trump’s proposed 250-foot arch at Memorial Circle in Washington, D.C.—which he said would be the largest in the world—is being opposed by three Vietnam veterans who say the project would block views between the Lincoln Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery, and Arlington House, some of the most well-known views in and around the city. Veterans Michael Lemmon, Shaun Byrnes, and Jon Gundersen—along with architectural historian Calder Loth—have been engaged in a months-long legal battle with the Trump administration over the “Great Triumphal Arch”. “Our plaintiffs are three Vietnam veterans and an architectural historian. All of them have a deep personal relationship with Arlington National Cemetery,” Nicolas Sansone, an attorney with the Public Citizen Litigation Group representing the plaintiffs, told Fox News Digital. “Two of our veteran plaintiffs hope to be buried there.” DEMS UNLOAD ON TRUMP’S LATEST DC UPDATE WITH ‘CHRISTIAN NATIONALIST’ BROADSIDE, LEGAL PUSH Trump has said the arch should be built near Arlington National Cemetery, which serves as the final resting place for more than 400,000 military service members. Critics of the project contend that the planned structure is disrespectful to the solemn character of the cemetery. In addition, the Trump administration acknowledged in a planning document that the project will have “adverse effects on historic properties”. “Such adverse effects cannot be fully avoided while retaining the location-dependent purpose of the undertaking,” the National Park Service wrote in the document. The nation’s capital was designed to keep historic landmarks from being obscured by other structures, Sansone said. LINCOLN MEMORIAL’S HIDDEN 15,000-SQUARE-FOOT UNDERCROFT OPENS TO THE PUBLIC AFTER A CENTURY UNDERGROUND “One of the sort of central design features is that the capital has been laid out in a very deliberate way to create this uninterrupted view between the Lincoln Memorial on the east side of the Potomac River and Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial, on the west side in Arlington National Cemetery,” he said. “So our plaintiffs… are really sort of concerned about the impact that this sort of enormous structure is going to have on that sort of historic symbolic view that each of them finds really meaningful,” he added. GOLDEN EAGLES, LIONS AND A WINGED LADY LIBERTY TOP TRUMP’S PROPOSED 250-FOOT DC TRIUMPHAL ARCH DESIGNS Earlier this month, the administration announced that excavation work for the project would begin within the next two weeks. The plaintiffs have asked a federal judge to issue a temporary restraining order to keep the project from moving forward, saying it can’t be built without authorization from Congress. TRUMP SIGNS ACT CLEARING THE WAY FOR MEDAL OF HONOR MONUMENT ON NATIONAL MALL The Trump administration has cited a 1925 law that originally authorized a pair of 166-foot columns in Washington, D.C., that were never built. Administration officials argue that past congressional approval grandfathers the triumphal arch project and allows them to avoid authorization from Congress. “The idea is that really it’s just an institutional question of who gets to decide: Is it one person, the person sitting in the White House, or should it be a sort of democratic deliberative process to sort of figure out what these monuments should look like, where they should be situated, what they should commemorate, and the like,” Sansone said. “Congress’s authorization to have a particular project built at a particular time subject to a specific price cap by a now-disbanded commission can’t reasonably be relied on to authorize a totally different independent project that’s going to cost way more money centuries into the future,” he added.
Who is Dario Amodei, the Anthropic CEO pushing independent AI oversight?
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei believes artificial intelligence (AI) companies need the help of independent outside watchdogs to safeguard their developing technologies. But one of the organizations he believes could do the job, METR, is closely connected to the same AI safety community that has ties to Anthropic’s start. Many of its leading figures have ties to a movement called “effective altruism (EA)” — the belief that evidence and careful reasoning can help maximize the good that companies and people can do with their time and resources. METR describes itself as an AI safety testing laboratory. ANTHROPIC CEO LIKENS AI FIGHT WITH CHINA TO COLD WAR, SEEKS ‘DISARMAMENT NEGOTIATIONS’ “METR evaluates frontier AI models to help companies and wider society understand AI capabilities and what risks they pose,” its website reads. Although its website and public materials don’t make mention of effective altruism, its founders have used it as a framing for their work. Beth Barnes, METR’s founder and CEO, worked at OpenAI alongside Amodei as the company developed early versions of ChatGPT. At an Effective Altruism Global event, she laid out her vision for how to maintain AI safety. “Our overall plan is — it sort of seems like it would be good if it was someone’s job to look at models and decide if they’re going to kill us, think through the ways that that might happen, anticipate them, figure out what the early warnings would be, that sort of thing,” Barnes said. Similarly, Paul Christiano, who led the research around OpenAI’s efforts to ensure its models followed acceptable strategies for delivering requested results, later founded the first iteration of METR. He too has framed parts of his approach to AI safety as a form of effective altruism. “My suspicion is that it is more important for the ‘effective altruism’ movement to have a fundamentally good product and to generally have our act together than for it to grow more rapidly,” Christiano said in a 2014 article. Figures like Barnes and Christiano provide informal links to Anthropic — a company that received funding from effective altruism’s largest supporters when it emerged as a way of thinking among tech moguls. Barnes and Christiano also both worked on evaluations involving Anthropic models, providing safety checks for Anthropic’s flagship AI, Claude. Most notably, Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, led Anthropic’s 2022 Series B financing round before his company collapsed and he was convicted in a multibillion-dollar fraud case. Before FTX’s downfall, Bankman-Fried was one of the highest-profile proponents of the Effective Altruism movement, publicly saying it shaped his approach to earning and giving money. ANTHROPIC’S MORAL COMPASS ARCHITECT SUGGESTED AI OVERCORRECTION COULD ADDRESS HISTORICAL INJUSTICES RUTHLESS EXCLUSIVE: PENTAGON CTO REVEALS REASONING FOR ANTHROPIC REMOVAL Similarly, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn led Anthropic’s 2021 Series A financing round. Tallinn has been one of the Effective Altruism movement’s most prominent supporters, speaking at Effective Altruism Global conferences, helping found the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and the Future of Life Institute, and donating more than $1 million to the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, an organization focused on AI safety and alignment research. Amodei isn’t calling for the rest of the industry’s leaders to submit to the thinking of METR, specifically. But in a recent letter, he used them as an example of the guidance he believes the industry needs. Amodei proposed a plan: accountability could come through “embedded evaluators” that would supervise AI development companies. “Each frontier AI company commits to giving ongoing, employee-like access to a team of embedded third-party evaluators (such as METR) whose role it is to verify adherence to safety practices and commitments, report incidents and help assess the alignment of not just completed AI models but training pipelines and processes. “Regardless of what commitments we make, the public deserves to know what is going on. We are still the ones choosing what to include and omit. Embedded evaluators will change this dynamic,” Amodei wrote. Few figures in the AI space are as well known for their efforts on AI safety as Amodei. Amodei originally studied biophysics, earning a Ph.D. from Princeton in 2011. He would go on to become a postdoctoral scholar at the Stanford University School of Medicine. After his studies, Amodei worked for a series of technology companies like Baidu, Google Brain, and, in 2016, OpenAI — the company that developed ChatGPT .During his time at Baidu, Amodei worked to develop speech recognition through machine learning, a kind of pattern identification. And at Google, he began working on safety while helping develop the company’s neural-net research, computer models that loosely mimics brain function. At OpenAI, Amodei continued those themes, eventually becoming vice president of research as the company developed its ChatGPT 2 and ChatGPT 3 models. In its early stages, the GPTs were asked to fill in blanks to sentences like: “Today, I went to the ______ and bought some milk and eggs,” and “I knew it was going to rain, but I forgot to take my ______.” But just as the company began to discover that it could amplify the power of its models through larger and larger language models, Amodei left OpenAI in 2020. He believed the company wasn’t doing enough to install guardrails on what he saw as a budding reality of the technology he had long theorized about. He also didn’t know if he could trust the company to set aside its financial interests. “When you feel that you can’t trust someone, when you feel that their values are not what they say they are, when you feel that they’re not honest, when you feel that they’re not in it for the reasons that they say, when you see disturbing patterns of behavior, dishonesty, that makes it very hard to continue to work with a company, to continue to trust the company,” Amodei said in an interview with Bloomberg earlier this year. Since leaving OpenAI, Amodei helped start Anthropic, a company that has made AI safety a