Unheeded warnings: The shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers outside the Jewish museum in Washington, D.C., is not an isolated act—it’s the latest incident of left-wing, frequently anti-Israel radicalism that academic administrators and law enforcement officials have been treating with kid gloves, writes our Washington Free Beacon editors. “The 30-year-old assailant, steeped in the radical anti-Israel and anti-Western ideology in which our universities are awash, is just past college age. So were his two victims.”
Just one microcosm: Harvard never disciplined two graduate students charged with assaulting an Israeli classmate. Law enforcement let them off with community service and an anger management class. It’s an obvious precursor for what unfolded Wednesday evening, and “the domestic terrorism unleashed in the nation’s capital is just a foretaste of what we can expect if universities and law enforcement, both local and federal, don’t change their approach,” the Beacon’s editors warn.
“Americans of good conscience, including those in the federal government, can act now—pressing for the death penalty in this case and scrutinizing every group with which the perpetrator was affiliated—or live to regret it later.”
READ MORE: Terror in DC: Where We Go From Here
Nonprofit but pro-Hamas: The man accused of Wednesday’s terrorist act worked until the middle of last year at a “nonpartisan” nonprofit funded by the Ford and MacArthur foundations, reports our Jessica Costescu and Jessica Schwalb. Elias Rodriguez, the left-wing activist who shouted “Free Palestine” before his arrest, was employed as a researcher at The HistoryMakers, a group that has received at least $1 million from the Ford Foundation since 2024 and partnered with PBS on public programming.
The HistoryMakers, which claims to be “committed to preserving and making widely accessible the untold personal stories of both well-known and unsung African Americans,” presents itself as a nonpartisan effort. But, as Costescu and Schwalb note, its work suggests a left-wing political bent, to say the least. “Clarence Thomas, the second black Supreme Court justice, is omitted, but Anita Hill, who accused him of sexual harassment, is included. The renowned economist Thomas Sowell is omitted, but Al Sharpton is present. Its biography of Nation of Islam chief Louis Farrakhan omits any mention of his long history of anti-Semitism, noting instead that he’s ‘at times a controversial figure’ who pushes a ‘message of a unified community,’” they write.
Rodriguez also has a history of anti-Israel radicalism. An X account apparently tied to him promoted Hamas, shared calls for “Death To Israel” and “De@th 2 Amerikka,” and praised “armed action” as “the only sane thing to do.” He also previously belonged to the Chicago chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which frequently organizes anti-Israel protests.
Trump targets ESG: The Trump administration is backing a lawsuit that accuses BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard of using their influence in the financial sector to distort energy markets and drive up costs for American consumers, reports our Thomas Catenacci. The Federal Trade Commission filed a brief Thursday in support of the suit, which claims the three asset management giants may have violated U.S. antitrust law by coordinating efforts to limit coal production through environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives.
The case, filed by 12 Republican-led states, alleges the asset managers used their substantial ownership stakes in major coal companies to push left-wing climate goals, including a 50 percent reduction in coal output by 2030. The FTC’s filing marks the first time the Trump administration has intervened in an ESG-related case.
“Critics of the ESG movement say it seeks to improperly boost politically favored green industries that aren’t profitable at the expense of more profitable energy industries. In doing so, they argue, ESG policies harm American investors—asset managers that have a legally mandated fiduciary duty to promote the wellbeing of clients whose money they manage,” Catenacci writes.
READ MORE: Trump Admin Throws Weight Behind Lawsuit Alleging Wall Street Embraced ESG To Shut Down Coal
In other news:
- CNN’s Jake Tapper has hired former Biden-Harris campaign staffer Nate Evans to run crisis PR for his book Original Sin, which details the very cover-up Evans once participated in, our Jon Levine reports. “It’s hysterical,” a former Biden aide said. “It’s a book that the Bidens don’t want anyone to read or believe, but now a former Biden admin official is doing the flacking for the book.”
- In a quintessentially New York Times headline, the paper of record announced that the FBI “seeks motive” in the Wednesday killing of two Israeli embassy staffers. We may never find out! The Times notes that the suspected gunman shouted “Free Palestine” during his arrest.
- The Senate on Thursday voted to overturn California’s electric vehicle mandate, dealing a major blow to climate activists and green energy advocates. President Donald Trump is expected to sign the resolution, which would nullify one of Biden’s final climate acts and halt plans to ban new gas-powered cars by 2035.
- Former Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips, one of the few Democrats to sound the alarm about Joe Biden’s cognitive decline in the run-up to the 2024 election, said this week that MSNBC banned him from appearing on the network after he launched a primary challenge against Biden. “I was one of the Democrats that, for years, just saw Fox News as a mechanism of the Republican Party,” Phillips told News Not Noise’s Jessica Yellin. “Little did I know that MSNBC is exactly the same, probably, frankly, even more directly tied.”
This article was originally published at freebeacon.com
