Roberts court shuts door on tariffs but leaves room for Trump to prevail - Just the News

 

by Just the News

In a 6–3 opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court held that IEEPA does not grant the president authority to impose tariffs. The ruling struck down the tariffs at issue in the case.

 

The U.S. Supreme Court may have struck down President Donald Trump’s tariffs, but the fight is far from finished. While the Court closed one legal door, it left several others wide open – and the president has already signaled that he intends to step through them.

The Court’s Decision

On Friday, the Supreme Court issued its much-anticipated decision in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, a case about whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) authorizes the president to impose the challenged import tariffs. 

In a 6–3 opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court held that IEEPA does not grant the president authority to impose tariffs. The ruling struck down the tariffs at issue in the case.

Importantly, however, the court did not hold that the president lacks tariff authority altogether. Rather, it concluded only that IEEPA is not a valid statutory foundation for such measures. The opinion left intact the president’s ability to rely on other trade statutes enacted by Congress.

The Dissent’s Roadmap

Justice Brett Kavanaugh underscored that limitation in his principal dissent, and in doing so, he sketched a roadmap for future presidential actions. 

“Although I firmly disagree with the court's holding today, the decision might not substantially constrain a president's ability to order tariffs going forward,” Kavanaugh wrote. “That is because numerous other federal statutes authorize the President to impose tariffs and might justify most (if not all) of the tariffs issued in this case.”

Kavanaugh pointed specifically to the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (Section 232); the Trade Act of 1974 (Sections 122, 201, and 301); and the Tariff Act of 1930 (Section 338).

In doing so, the dissent read less like a dead end than a legal roadmap.

President Trump Doubles Down 

Trump wasted little time responding. In a lengthy Truth Social post, he condemned the ruling as “deeply disappointing,” thanked Justices Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito for their dissents, and accused members of the majority of acting for political reasons at the expense of American economic interests.

He also announced his next move: “Today I will sign an Order to impose a 10% GLOBAL TARIFF, under Section 122, over and above our normal TARIFFS already being charged, and we are also initiating several Section 301 and other Investigations to protect our Country from unfair Trading practices.” 

The message was unmistakable: the court’s ruling will not mark the end of the administration’s tariff strategy.

Alternative Statutory Authorities

Even before the high court ruled, Trump administration officials had publicly identified alternative legal authorities that could sustain new tariffs in the event of an adverse ruling. There are at least three statutory schemes that offer presidents varying degrees of tariff authority.

The Trade Act of 1974 

One is the Trade Act of 1974, signed by President Gerald Ford during the Watergate era. Section 122 authorizes tariffs of up to 15% for 150 days in cases involving large trade surpluses with the United States or other balance-of-payments concerns.

Section 201 allows the U.S. president to impose temporary, safeguard tariffs or quotas on imported goods that cause or threaten serious injury to a domestic industry. It requires an investigation by the International Trade Commission to determine if increased imports are a substantial cause of injury, and any actions are meant to facilitate positive industry adjustment.

Section 301 targets unfair, unreasonable, or discriminatory foreign trade practices that burden or restrict U.S. commerce, enabling tariffs or other remedies.

The Trade Expansion Act of 1962

Another option lies in the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, signed into law by President John F. Kennedy.

Section 232 authorizes the president to impose tariffs or other import restrictions if the secretary of Commerce finds that certain imports threaten to impair the national security of the United States. 

The statute directs the Commerce Department to consider not only traditional military needs, but also broader economic factors, including the health of domestic industries, employment, government revenues, and the capacity of U.S. producers to meet national defense requirements. Once the Commerce secretary submits a report finding a national security threat, the president has wide discretion to determine the appropriate response.

Trump relied heavily on Section 232 during his first term to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, arguing that foreign overcapacity and dependence on imports undermined U.S. national security. 

Those tariffs survived multiple legal challenges, including claims that Section 232 represents an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power. In 2020, the Supreme Court declined to review a challenge to these tariffs, allowing them to stand.

The Tariff Act of 1930

A third avenue comes from the Tariff Act of 1930, also known as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. This protectionist trade measure was signed into law by President Herbert Hoover in 1930.

Section 338 authorizes the president to impose discriminatory tariffs of up to 50% on imports from any country that discriminates against U.S. commerce. Unlike broader trade statutes aimed at systemic imbalances or national security, Section 338 is explicitly retaliatory. Its focus is not emergency powers or economic injury, but unequal treatment of American goods abroad.

The section is striking for both its breadth and its age. Enacted at the height of protectionist sentiment during the Great Depression, Smoot-Hawley is widely blamed for exacerbating global trade collapse. Yet Section 338 survived the postwar dismantling of high tariffs and remains embedded in the U.S. Code, a reminder of how much unilateral tariff authority Congress once contemplated – and never fully revoked.

Each of the provisions carries its own procedural requirements and political risks, but together they provide the president with a robust menu of options.

The Congressional Option

Another path always remains open: Congress itself. The president could seek explicit legislative authorization for a new tariff regime, either by expanding existing statutes or enacting new trade legislation.

That approach would be slower and politically more challenging. But it would also place tariffs on the firmest possible legal footing.

Not the End of the Tariff Wars

The Supreme Court’s ruling was a setback, but not a defeat. By narrowing one statutory tool while leaving many others untouched, the Court ensured that the battle over tariffs will now shift from the judiciary back to the political branches.

For the president, the question is no longer whether tariffs are possible – but which legal authority, and which political strategy, he will choose next. 

Just the News

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/john-roberts-leaves-room-trump-prevail

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CIA's historic retraction of intel reports exposes political bias in Obama-Biden spy agencies - Jerry Dunleavy and John Solomon

 

by Jerry Dunleavy and John Solomon

From Beria to Biden: Pushing DEI to targeting protesting parents, and anti-Catholic bias to pushing the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, the U.S. intelligence community has -- in what may be a first -- started to back away from politicized stances in the Obama/Biden regime that sounded more like political dictats than intelligence analysis.

 

First there were parents flagged at school board meetings. Then it was Catholics who preferred the traditional Latin Mass who were targeted for scrutiny. 

Now, the CIA's retraction of nineteen “politicized” intel reports on Friday — on the heels of the agency’s self-critique last year on its assessment of Trump-Russia collusion in 2016 — has put the sharpest light yet on the infection of political bias inside American spy agencies dating back to the Obama era.

Historic retractions: "No room for bias"

The CIA announced on Friday that it was retracting or revising nineteen different intelligence reports, dating from 2015 through 2023 — spanning the Obama administration, the first Trump presidency, and the Biden administration. The politicized assessments — many of them focused on DEI-related issues — included pronouncements by the CIA about white women, motherhood, violent extremism, LGBT issues, abortion, and others well beyond the remit of the agency's mission.

"The intelligence products we released to the American people today — produced before my tenure as DCIA — fall short of the high standards of impartiality that CIA must uphold and do not reflect the expertise for which our analysts are renowned," Ratcliffe said Friday. "There is absolutely no room for bias in our work and when we identify instances where analytic rigor has been compromised, we have a responsibility to correct the record.”

The CIA’s retractions on Friday are the latest examples of the politicized nature of the intelligence community over the past decade, including a Biden Justice Department  memo aimed at parents protesting at school board meetings, an FBI memo aimed at traditionalist Catholics, an intelligence community assessment that sought to link Trump to Russia, and more.

CIA rescinds nearly two dozen politicized intel assessments

"There is absolutely no room for bias in any kind of the CIA's work," a senior CIA official told Just the News on Friday. "So when we find instances where our tradecraft did not reach that high bar of impartiality, we must correct the record. And that's why we're taking steps to reinforce analytic integrity by ordering the public release, substantive revision or retraction of these products that do not meet CIA's tradecraft standards."

Of the 19 analytical reports, 17 have been permanently deleted and are no longer available for spy agencies to use in their work and two were recalled and revised and then re-released, the official said.

One of the retracted reports was made public by the CIA on Friday from the agency’s Counterterrorism Mission Center, while two of them come from the CIA’s World Intelligence Review (WIRe), which is described as a “daily publication” at the agency and as the “flagship product” of the CIA’s Directorate of Analysis.

“Under prior administrations, there was an inappropriate insertion of DEI issues and other distractions into aspects of CIA’s work, which undercut our mission of providing objective analysis on national security issues,” the senior CIA official said Friday.

One now-retracted intelligence assessment from the CIA from October 2021 – the first year of Biden’s presidency – was titled “Women Advancing White Racially and Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremist Radicalization and Recruitment.” The intelligence product was “produced under the auspices of the Chief of Analysis” at the “Counterterrorism Mission Center.”

The assessment cited a 2021 article by "An Injustice!" – a seemingly defunct radical website hosted by Medium that described itself as “A new intersectional publication, geared towards voices, values, and identities! […] We speak to the intersectionality of identity and share the stories of those who bring all their selves into all their spaces.”

Another retracted CIA intelligence assessment – this one from July 2020 during the final year of Trump’s first term – was part of the CIA’s WIRe reporting. The publication was titled “Worldwide: Pandemic-Related Contraceptive Shortfalls Threaten Economic Development” and took a seemingly pro-abortion tone – including citing pro-abortion sources.

The agency product cited an April 2020 article by the International Planned Parenthood Federation three different times, and the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute also had articles cited by the CIA product four times.

Another CIA intelligence assessment – from January 2015 during the Obama presidency – was written by the CIA’s “Office of North Africa Arabian Peninsula and Regional Analysis” and was also part of the agency’s WIRe reports. It focused on “Middle East-North Africa: LGBT Activists Under Pressure.”

The CIA analysis also twice cited a Daily Beast article from June 2014 claiming that Egypt was a worse place for gays under Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah El-Sisi than it had been under the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamist group that has since been designated a terrorist group by the United States.

The senior CIA official insisted Friday that these flawed analyses were “not representative of CIA analysis today.”

Garland’s schools boards memo gets tossed by Bondi

Attorney General Merrick Garland’s October 2021 school boards memo had alleged there had been a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff who participate in the vital work of running our nation’s public schools.” It said the DOJ will “discourage these threats, identify them when they occur, and prosecute them when appropriate.”

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, revealed whistleblower evidence in November 2021 which indicated that FBI counterterrorism assets and “threat tags” were involved in the investigation of parents protesting school policies. 

Jordan released an unclassified internal FBI email at the time showing that the bureau's counterterrorism chief sent instructions to FBI officials to use a "threat tag" to track any complaints involving parents and school officials.

Attorney General Pam Bondi used a little-noticed footnote to rescind Garland’s memo in February last year.

Bondi wrote that “for the avoidance of doubt, former Attorney General Garland's October 4, 2021, Memorandum is hereby rescinded.” Garland's directive was revoked with little fanfare in a memo the day after her confirmation by the Senate.

The Biden-era DOJ memo was prompted in part by a National School Boards Association letter from late September 2021 which had argued to then-President Joe Biden that “the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes” and called upon the DOJ to review whether the Patriot Act could be deployed.

Internal emails from NSBA itself that were released by the Parents Defending Education activist group show top members of the NSBA had been consulting with the Biden White House about the letter. NSBA President Viola Garcia and Interim Director and CEO Chip Slaven cosigned the letter to Biden.

While Garland’s memo did not mention the National Security Division, which deals with terrorism and other threats, the Biden DOJ’s press release at the time did, naming it as part of a new DOJ “task force” along with representatives from DOJ’s Criminal Division, the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, and the FBI.

The Biden DOJ also issued a follow-up directive later in October 2021 which pressured all U.S. Attorneys Offices to convene meetings with local law enforcement and FBI representatives to address the alleged threat posed by parents concerned with what their children were being told and taught.

After a widespread national outcry and amid internal pushback within the organization, the NSBA disavowed its own letter in late October 2021, saying that “we regret and apologize for the letter” and that “there was no justification for some of the language included in the letter.”

Garland initially testified to Congress later that month that the NSBA’s follow-up apology letter did not sway him: “The language in the letter which they disavow is language which was never included in my memo and never would’ve been. I did not adopt every concern that they had in their letter. I adopted only the concern about violence and threats of violence, and that hasn’t changed.”

It took the new Trump DOJ to withdraw Garland’s directive.

Grassley says Wray misled about the FBI’s anti-Catholic memo

An FBI intelligence product released in January 2023 by the bureau’s field office in Richmond, Virginia claimed that the office “assesses the increasingly observed interest of racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVEs) in radical-traditionalist Catholic (RTC) ideology almost certainly presents opportunities for threat mitigation through the exploration of new avenues for tripwires and source development.”

FBI Richmond said in January 2023 that it “makes this assessment with high confidence based on FBI investigations, local law enforcement agency reporting, and liaison reporting.”

But the FBI’s national press office admitted in February 2023 that “this particular field office product […] does not meet the exacting standards of the FBI” and claimed that “upon learning of the document, FBI Headquarters quickly began taking action to remove the document from FBI systems and conduct a review of the basis for the document.”

The field office’s intelligence product repeatedly cited the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center, including an article on “Radical Traditional Catholicism.” The Richmond field office also pointed to an Atlantic article on “How Extremist Gun Culture is Trying to Co-Opt the Rosary.” And the local field office had also cited articles by Salon, including “Traditional Catholics and White Nationalist ‘Groypers’ Forge a New Far-Right Youth Movement” and “White Nationalists Get Religion.”

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz wrote in 2024 that the FBI’s Inspection Division concluded that “there was no evidence of malicious intent or improper purpose” behind the local field office memo, but did note significant problems with it, including that it "failed to adhere to analytic tradecraft standards and evinced errors in professional judgment, including that it lacked sufficient evidence or articulable support for a relationship between RMVEs and so-called RTC ideology; incorrectly conflated the subjects’ religious views with their RMVE activities, creating the appearance that the FBI had inappropriately considered religious beliefs and affiliation as a basis for conducting investigative activity; and reflected a lack of training and awareness concerning proper domestic terrorism terminology.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, released FBI records last June which revealed that “the Biden FBI’s anti-Catholic Richmond Memo was widely distributed to over 1,000 FBI employees across the country before it was publicly disclosed by a whistleblower in 2023.”

Grassley’s office said that the senator also “found the FBI produced at least 13 additional documents and five attachments that used anti-Catholic terminology and relied on information from the radical far-left Southern Poverty Law Center.”

The senator also said that “a second FBI memo … was drafted by the FBI Richmond field office for Bureau-wide distribution” and that “the draft memo repeated the unfounded link between traditional Catholicism and violent extremism, but was never published due to backlash following the Richmond Memo’s public disclosure.” Grassley argued that “the existence of this second memo contradicts” testimony by now-former FBI Director Christopher Wray.

“The Richmond product — which was a single product by a single field office — which, as soon as I found out about it, I was aghast, and ordered it withdrawn and removed from FBI systems,” Wray had testified in July 2023.

Grassley sent a letter to current FBI Director Kash Patel in June 2025 raising this concern.

“My investigation has also focused on Director Wray’s misleading testimony on the scope of the memo’s distribution to other FBI field offices … I’ve since learned other field offices provided input into the memo’s production,” Grassley wrote, adding that “testimony calling it the work of a single field office was misleading at best, and appears to be part of a pattern of intentional deception.”

CIA’s “lessons-learned” review harshly criticized Brennan over Steele Dossier

Friday’s retraction of nineteen intelligence assessments by the CIA is not the first time the agency has critiqued its own products during the second Trump administration.

A “lessons learned” review released by the CIA last July criticized then-CIA Director John Brennan for joining the FBI in pushing to include British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s baseless anti-Trump dossier in the 2017 intelligence community assessment on Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 election.

The largely declassified eight-page “lessons learned” CIA review from last summer focused on the ICA about Russia and the November 2016 election. It was put together by the CIA's Directorate of Analysis at Ratcliffe’s direction and concluded that “the decision by agency heads to include the Steele Dossier in the ICA ran counter to fundamental tradecraft principles and ultimately undermined the credibility of a key judgment.”

The CIA review stated that “the ICA authors and multiple senior CIA managers — including the two senior leaders of the CIA mission center responsible for Russia — strongly opposed including the Steele Dossier, asserting that it did not meet even the most basic tradecraft standards.” 

The agency review memo also stated that the CIA’s Deputy Director for Analysis warned in a late December 2016 email to Brennan that including the dossier in any form risked “the credibility of the entire paper.”

Yet the CIA review revealed that “despite these objections, Brennan showed a preference for narrative consistency over analytical soundness” and that “when confronted with specific flaws in the Dossier by the two mission center leaders — one with extensive operational experience and the other with a strong analytic background — he appeared more swayed by the Dossier's general conformity with existing theories than by legitimate tradecraft concerns.” The CIA review memo stated that Brennan ultimately formalized his position in writing, arguing that “my bottomline is that I believe that the information warrants inclusion in the report.”

The CIA memo released last summer also stated that “ultimately, agency heads decided to include a two-page summary of the Dossier as an annex to the ICA” with an accompanying disclaimer stating that the dossier material was not used “to reach the analytic conclusions.” The CIA review memo, however, found that “by placing a reference to the annex material in the main body of the ICA as the fourth supporting bullet for the judgment that Putin ‘aspired’ to help Trump win, the ICA implicitly elevated unsubstantiated claims to the status of credible supporting evidence, compromising the analytical integrity of the judgment.”

Ratcliffe tweeted last summer, in announcing the review being made public, that President Donald Trump “has trusted me with helping to end weaponization of U.S. intelligence” and that “today's report underscores that the 2016 IC Assessment was conducted through an atypical & corrupt process under the politically charged environments” of Brennan and since-fired FBI Director James Comey.

Just the News reported earlier this week that federal prosecutors who are probing the weaponization of intelligence and law enforcement against Trump and his allies sent a secret and rare request for evidence from the Senate regarding former CIA Director John Brennan, signaling that they are zeroing in on his questionable testimony going back nearly a decade on his now-debunked efforts to tie Trump's 2016 campaign to collusion with Russia. 

Jerry Dunleavy and John Solomon

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/historic-cia-retraction-intel-reports-exposes-rot-political-bias-obama

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ICE ends surge in Minnesota, but the change, with local cooperation, has improved targeted efforts - Sharyl Attkisson

 

by Sharyl Attkisson

An ICE official says the changes allow agents to go out into the field and go after targets that "we had already missed."

 

The fallout continues after the end of the largest crackdown on illegal immigration in U.S. history: Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota.

"Full Measure" was on the ground in Minneapolis the week that White House border czar Tom Homan announced the close of the operation and accompanied agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, on one of their last official Metro Surge sweeps.

It began at 5 a.m. in St. Paul. 

“Some of these targets [will be] entering vehicles, exiting their homes, things like that, and then we’ll initiate a vehicle stop,” says Richard Tine, an ICE field office assistant director.

The first target of the day was an illegal immigrant previously arrested for DUI. Local law enforcement released him without notifying ICE, which would have deported him. Now, agents are trying to arrest him in the neighborhood where he lives.

As the ICE agents worked, protesters were on their heels, converging at ICE headquarters, tracking and following ICE vehicles, coordinating by phone, and blowing a whistle, potentially warning alleged criminal illegal immigrants. While "Full Measure" was on the scene of one arrest, a notification came that an apparent agitator had rammed into an ICE vehicle at another location.

Just a week prior, de-escalation signals emerged. The Trump administration pulled 700 agents from the force of several thousand, while Minnesota sheriffs committed to handing over illegal immigrants arrested for new crimes rather than releasing them.

“The changes were brought about because we were getting the cooperation that we were seeking, which was to go out into the field and go after targets that we had already missed,” Tine said. “And now we can focus on the targets that are going into the jail and getting them in a secure environment and then go out to get the ones that we missed when that wasn't happening with the cooperation.”

Homan announced Metro Surge’s end on Feb. 12 in Minneapolis.

In the end, it resulted in the removal of over 4,000 illegal immigrants from Minnesota’s neighborhoods.

Among them, 13 men alleged to be active gang members from Mexico, Laos, Guatemala, Cuba, Burma, Thailand and El Salvador. All were roaming Minnesota streets after allegedly committing drug crimes, arson, sexual and weapons offenses, robbery and kidnaping. Two of them were convicted of murder.

Nationally, since 2000, official data from the federal government and Texas indicates illegal immigrants have committed five million serious crimes including:

• 200,000 robberies
• 100,000 rapes or sexual assaults and
• 30,000 murders — equivalent to the population of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Some of the multiple murders by illegal immigrants include:

• A 2007 triple murder in Newark, N.J., by illegal immigrant gang members from Peru and Nicaragua.
• A 2008 triple murder of a father and two sons in California by an illegal immigrant gang member from El Salvador. He was shielded from deportation, after prior arrests, by San Francisco’s sanctuary city policies.
• The 2015 quadruple murder spree in North Carolina involving a gang member mistakenly granted amnesty under President Obama.
• The 2023 murder of five people in Cut and Shoot, Texas, by an illegal immigrant from Mexico deported five times.

In President Trump's second term, federal officials report about 540,000 deportations nationwide – coinciding with a remarkable drop in crime.

According to analyses from the Council on Criminal Justice, 2025 compared to 2024, declines include: violent crimes such as robbery (-23%), aggravated assault (-9%), gun assaults (-22%), and carjackings (-43%). Homicides plunged 21% – the largest single-year drop on record, and the lowest in at least 125 years (since 1900).

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt credits, in part, the crackdown on illegal immigration.

“This dramatic decline is what happens when a president secures the border, fully mobilizes federal law enforcement to arrest violent criminals and aggressively deports the worst of the worst illegal aliens from our country,” Leavitt said on February 5.

Operation Metro Surge had multiple casualties on both sides. Protesters were frequently documented becoming violent, assaulting ICE agents and injuring some of them. Two protesters were shot and killed by federal agents. Internal reviews in both cases are underway. Two ICE agents were recently put on administrative leave after their non-fatal shooting of a Venezuelan man who entered the U.S. illegally. Authorities say the agents allegedly gave false statements during the investigation, which is ongoing.

For more on this story, watch "Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson” Sunday. Attkisson's most recent bestseller is "Follow the $cience: How Big Pharma Misleads, Obscures, and Prevails."

 

Sharyl Attkisso

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/ice

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New FBI memo confirms 2022 JTN report on Biden involvement in raid of Trump's Mar-a-Lago property - Nicholas Ballasy

 

by Nicholas Ballasy

"This event is dependent upon the timeline of President Biden's brief, decision and coordination between WH Counsel and DOJ," reads a new memo obtained by JTN.

 

A new Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) memo confirms Just the News' 2022 reporting on former President Biden's involvement in the FBI raid of President Trump's Mar-a-Lago property.

"This event is dependent upon the timeline of President Biden's brief, decision and coordination between WH Counsel and DOJ, and in turn, Evan Corcoran's position on the override of privilege assertion and whether or not he seeks an injunction to prevent access," read a memo obtained by JTN.

FBI memo.pdf

According to a previous JTN report from 2022, the Biden White House had facilitated DOJ's criminal probe against Trump.

The memos showed that then-White House Deputy Counsel Jonathan Su had conversations with the FBI, DOJ and National Archives as early as April. Those conversations took place after the voluntary return of 15 boxes of classified documents and other materials, according to the previous report.

Su told the National Archives that Biden would not object to waiving his predecessor's claims to executive privilege that Trump might use to prevent DOJ from accessing additional documents, the memos cited in the report said. 

Nicholas Ballasy

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/fbi-memo-confirms-jtn-2022-reporting-biden-involvement-raid-trumps-mar

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Labor Dept deploys ‘strike team’ to California over $21B unemployment debt, fraud concerns - Charles Creitz

 

by Charles Creitz

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer says 'previous administration turned a blind eye toward failing Labor programs'

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Labor Department deployed a "strike team" to California to address federal findings of improper payments and alleged fraud within the state’s unemployment insurance (UI) program.

California has been found to have a depleted UI trust fund, along with $21 billion in borrowed federal funds to keep the system running — which federal officials say has led state employers to pay higher UI taxes to repay the debt.

In a statement, the department cited an 83-page California State Auditor report that determined the state’s UI system is high-risk, in part due to "inadequate fraud prevention and claimant service [in its employment development department (EDD)], as well as a high rate of overturned eligibility decisions in its Unemployment Insurance Program."

EXCLUSIVE: SENATE BILL TARGETS MINNESOTA-STYLE ‘RUNAWAY FRAUD’ TO FORCE SCAMMERS REPAY TAXPAYERS

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is seen. (Tayfun Coskun/Getty Images)

"Financial issues and potential fraud in California’s unemployment insurance program will be fully examined. The previous administration turned a blind eye toward failing Labor programs: This ends now," Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said.

"Immediately, we are engaging a specialized strike team to uncover any potential fraud or abuse and quickly moving to protect the American worker and taxpayers. I look forward to restoring the California UI program’s integrity and financial health."

Chavez-DeRemer added that the "strike team" will include Labor Department specialists from both its national and regional offices.

The secretary also wrote a letter to the EDD, citing increasing improper payment rates, insufficient timeliness, data accuracy and quality concerns, and questions about participants’ eligibility and the use of taxpayer funds.

California received about $290 billion in COVID relief, part of, part of which helped what the California Post described as "rapidly implementing expanded unemployment benefits."

FEDERAL PROSECUTOR CALLS NEWSOM 'KING OF FRAUD' AS TRUMP LAUNCHES CALIFORNIA CORRUPTION PROBE

Department of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is cracking down on reported H-1B abuse. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

At least one California UI steward was convicted of using her position to file nearly $860,000 in fraudulent UI claims, while some civilians were convicted of creating nonexistent businesses to claim UI.

Just prior to the strike team’s deployment, DOL Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito said he found nearly $1 billion in taxpayer funds "at risk" nationwide due to COVID-related UI fraud.

D’Esposito, a former NYPD officer and ex-congressman from Long Island, said in a statement that an analysis of 6.5 million prepaid debit cards used for COVID UI benefits still had $720 million loaded on them.

WALZ’S MINNESOTA MESS COULD SPARK THE TOUGHEST FRAUD REFORMS IN DECADES

"My office has warned that, absent swift action, U.S. taxpayers risk losing nearly a billion dollars in fraudulently obtained benefits," D’Esposito said in a statement.

"This is taxpayer money — and it demands immediate attention."

D’Esposito said fraud is not a victimless crime and that every misspent dollar is one that an actual needy family could use.

Quality Learning Center in Minnesota was found at the center of an alleged childcare fraud scandal in the state. (Madelin Fuerste/Fox News)

"When we root out fraud, we protect taxpayers and lower the real cost of living," he said.

Fox News Digital reached out to Newsom and the state Senate’s top Republican for comment.

 

Charles Creitz is a reporter for Fox News Digital. He joined Fox News in 2013 as a writer and production assistant. Charles covers media, politics and culture for Fox News Digital. Charles is a Pennsylvania native and graduated from Temple University with a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism. Story tips can be sent to charles.creitz@fox.com.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/labor-dept-deploys-strike-team-california-21b-unemployment-debt-fraud-concerns

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Is Mamdani’s socialist push for rent controls about to wreck the New York City housing market? - Nikolas Lanum

 

by Nikolas Lanum

Landlords and builders raise concerns about property taxes and the mayor's rent freeze in Part 2 of 'The Rise of Socialism' series

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

When Zohran Mamdani ran for mayor of New York City, he made one promise unmistakably clear: he would freeze the rent. Now that campaign tentpole is poised to collide with the complex economic factors exacerbating the Big Apple’s housing affordability crisis.

As his administration begins to take shape, that pledge, rooted in a democratic socialist vision of housing as a human right, is likely to be the first major political test for Mamdani. Supporters say it is an urgent lifeline for tenants battered by inflation and record rents. Critics warn it could destabilize the city’s fragile housing ecosystem, deepen building distress, and accelerate an exodus of small property owners.

"I have people walking away. I have two people selling their buildings right now. I have more people selling the buildings and leaving for Texas and Florida," Humberto Lopes, founder of the Gotham Housing Alliance, told Fox News Digital.

"People already came to me, and I have their buildings on the market already. Since January, my business in the real estate, I'm a licensed corporate broker, has doubled in the number of buildings we are selling."

MAMDANI'S 'PAINFUL' TAX HIKE THREAT MOCKED BY WASHINGTON POST FOR PROVING 'SOCIALIST UTOPIA IS EXPENSIVE'

Humberto Lopes recently started Gotham Housing Alliance to rally owners against Zohran Mamdani’s proposed rent controls and other policies that he believes are unfavorable to homeowners. (Nikolas Lanum/Fox News Digital)

Lopes’ interview, among others, is part of Fox News Digital’s "The Rise of Socialism" series, which examines how socialist ideas and policies are increasingly shaping political debates and public policy in major cities across the United States.

Roughly one million apartments in New York City are rent-stabilized. A rent freeze would apply only to those units, holding annual increases at zero down from 3% for at least a year.

Tenant advocates argue the move is overdue. Median rents in Manhattan hover around $5,000 per month, a figure that Carlina Rivera, president and CEO of the New York State Association for Affordable Housing (NYSAFAH), concedes is "absurd" and increasingly unsustainable for working- and middle-class residents.

STEVE FORBES: DON'T CRUSH HOMEOWNERS TO PAY FOR NYC'S OUT-OF-CONTROL BUDGET

Carlina Rivera served as a member of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Committee on Housing, as a part of his transition team. She is also president and CEO of New York State Association for Affordable Housing. (Nikolas Lanum/Fox News Digital)

Rivera supports voucher programs, such as CityFHEPS, which moved approximately 30,000 families from shelters into stable housing last year. About 135,000 New Yorkers rely on rental vouchers to remain in their homes. Even so, affordability pressures persist across boroughs.

Mamdani has framed the rent freeze as part of a broader affordability agenda that includes strengthening tenant protections, preventing homelessness, and accelerating housing production on vacant city-owned lots. His administration has signaled support for cutting red tape in environmental review and permitting processes, changes developers say could reduce costs by tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars per project.

But landlords and property owners argue the freeze targets only part of the market while ignoring underlying financial realities.

FREE BUSES, REAL COSTS. INSIDE MAMDANI’S SOCIALIST DREAM TO SHAKEUP TRANSIT FOR NEW YORKERS

"It’s impossible to freeze rents when expenses to operate housing continue to rise," said Ann Korchak, board president of the Small Property Owners of New York (SPONY), in an interview with Fox News Digital. "Revenue, which is rent in housing, needs to rise to cover rising expenses."

Across interviews with housing providers, from nonprofit developers to small "mom-and-pop" landlords, a consistent theme has emerged: Operating costs are climbing rapidly.

Video

Insurance premiums for residential properties have risen dramatically since 2019, in some cases more than doubling. Utility costs remain elevated. Property taxes — which often make up 40% to 50% of some small owners’ rent rolls — have increased steadily for years.

MAMDANI SIDES WITH TENANTS AS NEW YORK LANDLORDS GET CRUSHED BY RIGGED HOUSING LAWS

Lopes says property taxes on some buildings are projected to rise between 15% and 40% this year. He revealed that one of his buildings' tax bills will jump from $68,000 to nearly $100,000 while allowable rent increases remain capped at a fraction of that yearly jump.

"Where do you think that money’s going to come from?" Lopes asked.

Landlord groups argue that freezing stabilized rents doesn’t eliminate costs, it redistributes them. In mixed buildings, they say, commercial tenants or market-rate renters may shoulder a greater burden. In others, maintenance and capital upgrades may be deferred.

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"If you freeze the rent-stabilized housing," Korchak said, "the commercial rents are going to have to continue to go up to make up for that shortfall, or the free-market tenants will have to pay higher rents."

Affordable housing developers express similar concerns. Rivera said operational stress in rent-stabilized buildings is no longer anecdotal.

"The data is out there as to how people are really struggling," Rivera said. "Operational costs are up in the double digits. And that would be hard for anybody to maintain."

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Jan Lee, a third-generation Chinatown property owner, said that many landlords and tenants in his neighborhood have great relationships despite claims from politicians like Zohran Mamdani. (Nikolas Lanum/Fox News Digital)

Rivera supports tenant protections and acknowledges affordability challenges but warns that layering on a rent freeze and higher property taxes could risk foreclosures or bankruptcies, a worst-case scenario she says would be "bad for the city, bad for business."

Mamdani and his allies frequently describe housing as a human right. Critics counter that in New York’s current system, housing is also overwhelmingly a private enterprise.

"When people say housing is a human right," Korchak said, "the reality is most housing in New York is provided by private owners. We are supporting the city through the property tax collection attached to every rental building."

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Property taxes fund schools, police, fire departments, and hospitals. If large swaths of housing were converted to social or nonprofit models, owners argue, the city would lose significant tax revenue unless replacement funding were found.

Jan Lee, a third-generation Chinatown property owner, fears what he sees as increasing hostility toward private ownership.

"If we keep pushing small property owners over this cliff, and we don’t give them the tools that they need to maintain their units, we’re just going to leave New York City," Lee said. "And tenants will be left with a 1-800 number to a corporate entity."

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Landlords say that rising property taxes, insurance and other operational costs are forcing them to either increase rent or sell their properties. (Nikolas Lanum/Fox News Digital)

Lee and others also reject rhetoric that characterizes landlords as exploitative, arguing that many are immigrants or children of immigrants who built intergenerational wealth through property ownership.

"I fear that a lot of the rhetoric that was out of the campaign trail to get votes is actually going to solidify and calcify into something that will reflect true socialism, true socialist views toward housing," he said.

"I think when you start to lump all of us together. And say that we're all the bad thing that's keeping people out of housing, that's racist. I think that saying that [people's] history should be denied and that everything about home ownership is related to White superiority, [that's] racist. You know, this denies the history of how New York City was built. And I, for one, don't agree with it," Lee continued, referencing comments made by Cea Weaver, Mamdani’s new director of the city Office to Protect Tenants.

Weaver and the mayor's office did not return Fox News Digital's request for comment.

'ZOHRANOMICS': NYC MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI’S SOCIALIST MATH DOESN’T ADD UP

Ann Korchak, Board President of Small Property Owners of NY (SPONY), says her organization is willing to work with the new administration despite concerns about anti-landlord rhetoric Zohran Mamdani displayed on the campaign trail. (Nikolas Lanum/Fox News Digital)

Those deeply embedded in New York City’s housing hub argue the current system has failed tenants for decades. They point to chronic underbuilding, restrictive zoning, and the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act, which strengthened rent regulations but, critics say, also limited incentives to renovate vacant stabilized units.

Tenant groups contend that rent stabilization has kept millions housed and that without intervention, market forces alone would push rents even higher.

Any conversation about socialism and housing in New York inevitably turns to NYCHA, the New York City Housing Authority, which houses nearly 400,000 residents. Long plagued by underfunding and deteriorating conditions, NYCHA stands as both a testament to large-scale public housing and a warning about chronic neglect.

MAMDANI ANNOUNCES $2.1M SETTLEMENT WITH MAJOR LANDLORD AS TENANTS DESCRIBE 'NIGHTMARE' CONDITIONS

Rivera argues NYCHA should be treated like other essential infrastructure, akin to the MTA or public hospitals, with sustained investment and conversation rather than episodic crisis management.

"When you see the bad landlords in New York City and the conditions of some of these units, you certainly want to hold them accountable," she said. "When you look at NYCHA, who's the biggest landlord and arguably really responsible for some of the worst conditions, it's a really hard line to walk as to how do you hold an agency accountable in which the government is in charge of when there's also been decades of neglect."

Mamdani has signaled support for stronger public investment and faster housing production, including building on vacant city lots and streamlining bureaucratic processes. But even ambitious construction timelines would take years to materially increase supply.

MAMDANI SAYS HE ‘OBVIOUSLY’ DISAGREES WITH AIDE’S OLD VIEWS LINKING HOMEOWNERSHIP TO WHITE SUPREMACY

Video

 

New York’s housing crisis was decades in the making. Vacancy rates hover near historic lows. Homelessness remains elevated. Insurance and construction costs are rising nationally. And political polarization has hardened.

A rent freeze may offer immediate relief to stabilized tenants. But its long-term impact will depend on whether it is accompanied by property-tax relief, subsidy expansion, faster production, or deeper structural changes.

For now, the city stands at a crossroads.

To Mamdani’s supporters, this moment represents a long-overdue correction. To critics, it risks repeating the fiscal and housing distress of the 1970s, when disinvestment and abandonment scarred neighborhoods across the five boroughs.

The outcome may determine not only whether New York becomes more affordable, but also what kind of city it chooses to be: one driven primarily by market incentives, or one increasingly shaped by a socialist vision of housing as a public good.

 

Nikolas Lanum is a Video Editor for Fox News Digital.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/media/mamdanis-socialist-push-rent-controls-about-wreck-new-york-city-housing-market

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US moves dozens of F-35, F-15 fighter jets to Jordanian airbase - report - Goldie Katz

 

by Goldie Katz

More than 60 jets were pictured parked on the Muwaffaq Salti base in central Jordan, which is three times more than the usual number of US attack aircraft present on the base.

 

Satellite image shows F-15E, A-10 Thunderbolt, and C-130 Hercules at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, in Al Azraq, Jordan, February 2, 2026.

(photo credit: 2026 PLANET LABS PBC/Handout via REUTERS)

 

The United States military has moved dozens of fighter jets to a Jordanian air force base, according to satellite imagery and flight tracking data analysed by the New York Times on Friday.

More than 60 jets were pictured parked on the Muwaffaq Salti base in central Jordan, which is three times more than the usual number of US attack aircraft present on the base, according to the Times.

According to the Times report, at least 68 cargo planes have additionally landed on the base since Sunday, and several US drones and helicopters were seen in the area.

Soldiers were spotted installing new air defenses, systems that the Times theorized would be used to protect the base from potential Iranian strikes.

A live map of US Central Command (CENTCOM) movements, created by Tel Aviv University-affiliated think tank the Institute for National Security Studies, showed that as of Saturday afternoon, 30 F-35 fighter jets and 36 F-15 fighter jets were present at the Muwaffaq Salti base.

US troops, defense agreements in the Middle East

Jordanian officials, speaking to the Times on the condition of anonymity, stated that the deployment of US aircraft and equipment is a part of a larger defense agreement with the US.

The officials additionally shared that they hoped negotiations between the US and Iran would lead to a deal and prevent war in the region, as tensions between the two nations intensify.

According to an additional Times report on Friday, US troops across the Middle East have been shuffled around as the possibility of US strikes on the Iranian regime looms.

Troops from the Al Udeid base in Qatar and bases in Bahrain were moved for unspecified missions and operations, the Times reported, citing US military officials.

Iranian MP urged Jordanian forces to seize Muwaffaq Salti base

Earlier in February, Mojtaba Zarei, a pro-regime Tehran MP and member of Iran’s Foreign Policy Commission, urged Jordanian forces to attempt to seize the Muwaffaq Salti base.

In a post on X/Twitter on February 2, Zarei claimed that the base was used “in protecting Tel Aviv and the Zionist cannibals” during the 12-day war in June, during which US and Israeli forces destroyed much of Iran’s nuclear weapon manufacturing infrastructure.

“Prepare yourselves to seize it and take American soldiers captive,” Zarei pleaded, stating that the base “has turned into the most important American base in the world-devouring empire and a partner of Israel.”

Tzvi Jasper, James Genn, and Tobias Holcman contributed to this report.

Goldie Katz

Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-887388

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Trump Is Allowing China to Take Over Critical U.S. Tech - Gordon G. Chang

 

by Gordon G. Chang

In general, Commerce has shifted its tech-security efforts away from China. Reuters states that late last year "leadership instructed staffers in the office charged with policing foreign tech threats to 'focus on Iran and Russia.'" Last month, Commerce replaced the head of this office with a political appointee.

 

• The U.S. Department of Commerce has decided to allow American data centers to buy Chinese equipment, thereby permitting Beijing to steal as much as it wants and perhaps remotely control or take down these critical facilities. Moreover, Commerce recently has not implemented a number of other obviously needed restrictions on Chinese technology and Chinese companies.

• In general, Commerce has shifted its tech-security efforts away from China. Reuters states that late last year "leadership instructed staffers in the office charged with policing foreign tech threats to 'focus on Iran and Russia.'" Last month, Commerce replaced the head of this office with a political appointee.

• Similarly, last year the administration did not, as it was contemplating, place critical export controls on software.

• Trade-surplus countries, such as China, have little ammunition in trade wars. They are the ones with everything — their surpluses — to lose. Trump should remember that the next time he refuses to keep out China's Trojan Horse products and services, such as the internet services above.

The U.S. Department of Commerce has decided to allow American data centers to buy Chinese equipment, thereby permitting Beijing to steal as much as it wants and perhaps remotely control or take down these critical facilities. Commerce has also decided not to impose a ban on the U.S. operations of Chinese state-owned China Telecom. (Photo by Cheng Xin/Getty Images)

The U.S. Department of Commerce has decided to allow American data centers to buy Chinese equipment, thereby permitting Beijing to steal as much as it wants and perhaps remotely control or take down these critical facilities. Moreover, Commerce recently has not implemented a number of other obviously needed restrictions on Chinese technology and Chinese companies.

The Trump administration's effort to protect American infrastructure from China has collapsed. It now appears Beijing has a veto on American tech policy.

On February 12th, Reuters reported the Trump administration "has shelved a number of key tech security measures aimed at Beijing."

The Commerce Department, in addition to not barring Chinese equipment from data centers, has decided not to impose a ban on the U.S. operations of Chinese state-owned China Telecom.

Other measures, the news site noted, that have been put on hold include a proposed ban on the internet businesses of two Chinese giants, China Unicom and China Mobile. Moreover, the administration will not prohibit Chinese electric trucks and buses from U.S. roads.

In general, Commerce has shifted its tech-security efforts away from China. Reuters states that late last year "leadership instructed staffers in the office charged with policing foreign tech threats to 'focus on Iran and Russia.'" Last month, Commerce replaced the head of this office with a political appointee.

Similarly, last year the administration did not, as it was contemplating, place critical export controls on software.

The Commerce Department says it is using its authority to "address national security risks from foreign technology, and we will continue to do so."

Commerce, as many report, is following President Donald Trump's apparent orders to go easy on China.

"At a moment when we are desperately trying to remove ourselves from Beijing's leverage over rare-earth supply chains, it is ironic that we're actually letting Beijing acquire new areas of leverage over the U.S. economy—in telecoms infrastructure, in data centers and AI, and EVs," said Matt Pottinger, deputy national security advisor during Trump's first term, to Reuters.

As a result of the administration's inaction, America's data centers could become "remotely controlled islands of Chinese digital sovereignty," according to David Feith, who served in both Trump administrations. The administration, he says, is building "strategic vulnerabilities into our AI and energy backbone."

There is no secret why this is happening. Trump does not want to rile Chinese leader Xi Jinping before his coveted April summit in Beijing.

More important, Beijing has weaponized its position in a critical supply chain. "The United States today is in a supplicant position to the People's Republic of China because the Chinese have fixated on dominating the strategic resource bottlenecks of the global economy, specifically in rare earth mineral resources," said Brandon Weichert, senior national security editor at 19FortyFive.com, to Gatestone. "So long as modern technology relies upon these resources—and China continues to dominate them—the United States government will accommodate Beijing at all costs."

There are two solutions to reduce this critical vulnerability.

First is to end China's near-monopoly in rare earths. As Weichert says of America's failure to protect its technology, "This trend will continue until Congress and the Pentagon and Wall Street wake up, realize the old globalized system is dead, and embrace a Manhattan Project for securing rare earth minerals of our own."

To the president's credit, his administration has embarked on such a project with multiple initiatives. For instance, Trump is moving at "Trump speed" in signing rare-earth deals with others, most notably the $8.5 billion pact inked October 20 when Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited the White House, the agreements with Thailand and Malaysia signed October 26, and the one in Japan two days later. The G-7 announced a production alliance on October 31.

Moreover, America is working on technologies, such as those being developed at the University of Texas at Austin, that "increase domestic supply and decrease reliance on costly imports." James Tour and Shichen Xu of Rice University are working on recycling.

These new methods could crack Beijing's firm hold on processing: China processes 92% of the global output of these minerals.

Because of these and other developments, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent could say late last year that China's leverage would last no more than 24 months.

The second solution involves hitting the Chinese regime harder. China has never been more trade-dependent in its history. Xi's only viable plan to rescue a quickly faltering economy is to export more, so he is critically reliant on the American market.

American consumers account for about 34% of global household consumption. In 2024, America accounted for 29.8% of China's merchandise trade surplus of $992.2 billion. Last year, this almost certainly declined — China's exports to the U.S. fell 25.2% during the first 11 months — but China's reliance on America is still so large that its economy could not survive without the profits from American trade.

Trade-surplus countries, such as China, have little ammunition in trade wars. They are the ones with everything — their surpluses — to lose. Trump should remember that the next time he refuses to keep out China's Trojan Horse products and services, such as the internet services above.

Trump does not have to allow Chinese penetration of the critical infrastructure of this century. He just needs to play the high cards.

• Follow Gordon G. Chang on X (formerly Twitter)

Gordon G. Chang is the author of Plan Red: China's Project to Destroy America, a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22288/china-take-over-us-tech

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