Tag: secrecy

How colleges hide quotas, California’s deadly economic model and other commentary

Campus watch: How colleges hide quotas

“The demographic makeup of the class of 2028” — the first admitted after the Supreme Court’s racial-preferences ban — “suggests that at least some colleges were playing games rather than obeying the Court’s edict,” reports Naomi Schaefer Riley at Commentary.

At schools like Princeton, Harvard and Yale, the racial make-up changed only slightly or not at all, likely because they used proxies for race, such as information about the challenges applicants faced based on their schools and neighborhoods — info admissions offices get via Landscape, a tool provided by the College Board, the nonprofit that runs the SATs and AP exams.

“The College Board is colluding in the creation of a complex new system for schools to identify the race of a student without explicitly asking for it.” Universities need to be held “to account.” 

“Lots of well-intentioned political leaders . . . think it’s a great idea” to move city elections to “coincide with the year we pick presidential candidates,” but “I don’t,” warns New York magazine’s Errol Louis.

“National political dynamics would inevitably cause vital city issues unique to New York to get swallowed, distorted, or ignored.” “Imagine trying to help voters focus on strictly local matters . . . while national candidates are spending hundreds of millions of dollars” on “ads for and against sweeping” national proposals. This is exactly why city elections got moved to odd-numbered years in the first place.

“New York is better off deciding local issues without a lot of political noise coming from — or intended for — other places.”

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Court Orders Fani Willis to Provide New Information About Her Trump RICO Case and Collusion with Jack Smith

A Georgia state court ordered embattled Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to provide more information about her RICO case against Trump and collusion with Jack Smith.

The Fulton County Superior Court last year found Fani Willis in default for refusing to hand over documents in an open records lawsuit.

Fani Willis refused to answer a public records lawsuit seeking records of her communications with Special Counsel Jack Smith and the January 6 Committee.

Last year, conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch asked the Superior Court of Fulton County, Georgia to declare a default judgment against Fani Willis after she refused to respond to its lawsuit related to communications she had with Jack Smith and the sham January 6 Committee.

In 2022, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan launched an investigation into whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis coordinated with federal officials during her years-long probe into Trump and his associates.

Chairman Jordan in his letter to Fani Willis requested all documents and communications between or among the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office and DOJ and its components, including but not limited to the Office of Special Counsel Jack Smith, referring or relating to your office’s investigation of President Donald Trump or any of the other eighteen individuals against whom charges were brought in the indictment.

In referring to Jim Jordan’s letter to Fani Willis, Judicial Watch filed a Georgia Open Records Act request seeking records of her communications with Jack Smith.

According to Judicial Watch: The court ordered Willis “to conduct a diligent search of her records for responsive materials within five business days of the entry of this Order. Within that same five day period, Defendant is ORDERED to provide Plaintiff with copies of all responsive records that are not legally exempted or excepted from disclosure.” [Emphasis in original] Willis’ office responded with zero non-public documents.

On Monday, the court ordered Fani Willis to provide new information about her search for records related to her anti-Trump lawfare and collusion with Jack Smith.

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The Cost of Disclosure: How Intimidation Keeps UFO Witnesses Quiet

The first thing, Mike Herrera says, is the pressure. 

It arrives as a feeling before it becomes a fact: the sense that people asking the wrong questions are being watched, leaned on, or shut down.

Politicians, congressional staffers, and whistleblowers are facing threats and intimidation from Intelligence Community operatives and government contractors as they investigate covert Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) programs, according to the Marine veteran, who says he has briefed the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) and the Senate’s Intelligence and Armed Services Committees.

“Absolutely – it happens quite a bit,” Herrera told Liberation Times.

“Many feel the heat [investigating UAP allegations from whistleblowers and witnesses], and I personally know some, though I won’t name them. It’s a very common trend among staffers and even politicians to be threatened or intimidated in an effort to make them back off.”

The intimidation, he says, is meant to be unmistakable – more than whispers in corridors, closer to a performance of power. 

“They use surveillance to make people feel uncomfortable – helicopters are the big one. They’ll fly over someone’s residence or circle them, just as a reminder: ‘You’re on our radar.’ It’s happened to me personally, and it’s happened to many whistleblowers I know. Even staffers and some politicians have experienced it, over and over again.”

From pressure tactics, Herrera moves to structural allegations: efforts inside Congress that steer inquiries away from sensitive lanes, especially around alleged crash retrievals and reverse engineering. 

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FBI Raids Former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s Maryland Home

The FBI has raided the Maryland home of Trump’s former National Security Adviser, John Bolton.

On Friday morning, at 7 a.m., FBI agents raided Bolton’s Bethesda, Maryland, home in an investigation that FBI Director Kash Patel is leading.

The investigation is reportedly linked to a classified documents probe years ago, but was later shut down under the Biden administration.

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X Slams Brazil for Censorship, Secret Orders, and Free Speech Crackdown in USTR Trade Investigation

As part of an ongoing investigation by the US Trade Representative (USTR) into Brazil’s treatment of American digital platforms, X has filed a stark warning about what it describes as intensifying threats to freedom of expression and the rule of law in Brazil.

The USTR probe, focused on policies that may harm US companies, closed its comment period on August 18, with a hearing scheduled for September 3.

We obtained a copy of the comments for you here.

X’s submission outlines a series of aggressive measures by Brazilian authorities that the company says are undermining internet freedom and imposing extraterritorial censorship demands.

Among the most concerning developments, according to the platform, is a ruling from Brazil’s Supreme Court in June 2025 that gutted a core protection in the country’s 2014 internet law, the Marco Civil da Internet (MCI).

By declaring Article 19 partially unconstitutional, the ruling opened the door for tech platforms to be held legally responsible for user-generated content, without requiring judicial oversight.

This, X argues, has increased operational burdens and incentivized preemptive content removals.

The platform also warned that Brazil’s judiciary, particularly under Justice Alexandre de Moraes, has been issuing covert content removal orders targeting journalists, politicians, and even US users.

These directives are often enforced without any notice or opportunity to appeal, a practice X says raises serious concerns about due process and transparency.

Further, the company expressed alarm over Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice asserting jurisdiction beyond its borders. According to X, the court has ordered content to be removed globally, even when such content is legal in countries like the United States. The court has described this overreach as a “natural consequence” of the internet, a justification X contends disregards international legal norms.

X also highlighted what it sees as the Brazilian judiciary’s disregard for the US-Brazil Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT).

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California AG Bonta ‘running out the clock’ to stop parental rights initiative, appeals court hears

California law required Attorney General Rob Bonta to write a neutral title and summary for a 2024 ballot measure to mandate parental notification when children request to be identified as the opposite sex in school records, limit girls’ sports to females and prohibit puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and genital surgery for gender-confused youth.

Having just sued a school district for the same parental notification policy, the Democratic attorney’s title for the Protect Kids of California Act seemed predictable: “Restricts Rights of Transgender Youth.” 

His summary used the same framing, referring to males who identify as girls as “transgender female students,” claiming the parental notification mandate lacks an “exception for student safety” and referring to medicalized gender transitions as “gender-affirming health care.” 

Sixteen months after a trial judge upheld Bonta’s phrasing as “accurately and impartially” conveying the substance of the measure, which under Bonta’s language fell short of the required signatures for the ballot within the 180-day collection window, Protect Kids California’s crusade to give voters a direct say in the matter may founder on a technicality.

Polling suggests voters would approve the measure, with majority support for each of the three prongs, but an appeals panel repeatedly grilled the group’s lawyer at a hearing Monday on why the case wasn’t moot in light of Protect Kids California’s litigation choices.

The three judges essentially made Bonta’s argument for him as Liberty Justice Center counsel Emily Rae tried to redirect them toward Bonta’s “malfeasance,” for what its lawsuit called his “inaccurate, false, and biased” language. The panel, by contrast, asked deputy AG Malcolm Brudigam just a single question during the state’s argument.

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Judge Says Don’t Unseal Epstein Grand Jury’s Transcripts

Transcripts of grand jury testimony that led to sex trafficking charges against Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime confidante Ghislaine Maxwell shouldn’t be released, a judge ruled Monday in a stinging decision suggesting the Trump administration’s real motive for wanting them unsealed was to fool the public with an “illusion” of transparency.

U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer said in a written decision that federal law seldom allows the release of grand jury materials and that making the documents public casually was a bad idea.

The judge also belittled the Department of Justice’s argument that releasing grand jury materials might reveal new information about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes, calling that premise “demonstrably false.”

The decision was a blow to President Donald Trump, who had called for the release of transcripts as he seeks to dispel rumors and quell criticism about his long ago involvement with Epstein, who killed himself in jail in 2019.

Trump campaigned on a promise to release files related to Epstein, but was met with criticism — including from many of his own supporters — when the small number of records released by his Justice Department lacked any real bombshells.

In his ruling, Engelmayer wrote that after privately reviewing the grand jury transcripts, anyone familiar with the evidence from Maxwell’s 2021 sex trafficking trial would “learn next to nothing new” and “would come away feeling disappointed and misled.”

“The materials do not identify any person other than Epstein and Maxwell as having had sexual contact with a minor. They do not discuss or identify any client of Epstein’s or Maxwell’s. They do not reveal any heretofore unknown means or methods of Epstein’s or Maxwell’s crimes,” Engelmayer said.

He said the materials also don’t reveal new locations where crimes occurred, new sources of Maxwell and Epstein’s wealth, the circumstances of Epstein’s death or the path of the government investigation.

The best argument to release the transcripts might be that “doing so would expose as disingenuous the Government’s public explanations for moving to unseal,” Engelmayer wrote.

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School district must face ‘deliberate indifference’ claim by gender-confused girl alleging assault

AVirginia school district that allegedly socially transitioned a “gender-nonconfirming” 14-year-old girl into a boy’s identity, hid it from her legal parents, told her to use the boys’ restroom even after boys started threatening her, and “pressured her to recant” those threat claims, will have to defend itself again in trial court.

A split panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the lawsuit by Michele Blair, who with her husband adopted their granddaughter Sage at age 2 from foster care, where she had been placed after her father’s death and mother’s inability to raise her.

But it dismissed all but her Title IX “deliberate indifference” claim against the Appomattox County School Board, Superintendent Annette Bennett and its staff and contract counselors, and a dissent accused the majority of “push[ing] past the boundaries” set by the Supreme Court in student-on-student sexual harassment cases.

While the school board was “not entirely unresponsive” to Sage’s threat claims, giving her access to the nurse’s restroom, that falls short of “reasonably calculated” efforts to end her harassment, simply addressing it “in piecemeal,” wrote President Clinton-nominated Judge Roger Gregory, joined by President Biden nominee Judge DeAndrea Benjamin.

The court record shows “no indication” the board took action against the boys on the bus who allegedly “threatened her with sexual violence,” another group of males who “jacked” Sage against the wall and threatened her with violence, or students who “threatened to shoot” her “and told her they knew where she lived,” the majority says.

“In fact, the direct opposite happened” when school counselor Dena Olsen and deputy sheriff Daniel Gunter allegedly interrogated her and tried to get her to take back her claims that the boys were threatening her, Gregory wrote. Olsen had first told Sage to use the boys’ restroom and to go back when other girls reportedly complained about her in the girls’ restroom.

Even after being told to use the nurse’s restroom, Sage “continued to be so fearful for her and her family’s life that she ‘suffered a psychotic breakdown’ and opted to run away from home to save her family,” the majority said. 

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The move to conceal the flight data of a congressman’s SECRET $1.5 million helicopter

A congressman who represents one of the poorest districts in Pennsylvania appears to have gone great lengths to hide that he owns a $1.5 million helicopter. 

NOTUS reported on Friday that Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan owns a 2024 Robinson R66, a chopper that retails between $1 million and $1.5 million. 

Bresnahan has yet to list the helicopter on his congressional financial disclosure forms. 

He’s never spoken about it publicly and it’s unlisted on the popular flight tracking website FlightAware.

‘This aircraft (N422RB) is not available for public tracking per request from the owner/operator,’ a message reads, NOTUS found. 

The news site was able to get a spokesperson to admit Bresnahan was the owner by analyzing Federal Aviation Administration record, other congressional financial disclosures and commercial flight data made available by the ADS-B Exchange website.

The website found that he purchased the helicopter in late 2024 using a limited liability company called ‘RPB Ventures LLC.’ 

A spokesperson for Bresnahan told NOTUS that the Pennsylvania Republican bought the helicopter while he was campaigning for Congress last year. 

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Report: Fairfax County Public Schools Investigates Claims Staff Arranged Students’ Abortions Without Parents’ Knowledge

Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) in Virginia has opened an investigation into allegations school staff arranged abortions for students without parental notification and consent.

The investigation is based on claims from a report that school officials at Centreville High School in Union Hill arranged and paid for students’ abortions in 2021, including a 17-year-old girl, local news outlet WJLA reported.

“We learned yesterday of these concerning allegations from 2021,” FCPS told the outlet in a statement on Wednesday. “We are launching an immediate and comprehensive investigation as we take all concerns of student wellbeing very seriously.”

FCPS said “not to [our] knowledge” when the outlet pressed as whether staff have ever arranged abortions for students.

“We have launched an immediate investigation into these concerns as soon as we were made aware,” the district added.  

The district has a policy stating that ““every effort shall be made to encourage and support students suspecting pregnancy to discuss their concerns with their parents or guardians.” The policy does not require staff to tell parents, but it states: “In no case shall personnel commit themselves to maintain such information confidentially, keeping it from parents, guardians, or appropriate school authorities.”

The district told the outlet that district employees do not arrange abortions for FCPS students who are minors. When asked if FCPS employees inform students about abortions and where to get them, the district did not directly answer. 

“Students are referred to the public health nurse for any health-related matters. The public health nurses are Fairfax County Health Department employees,” the district told the outlet. 

Virginia state law requires parental consent and notification before a minor can obtain an abortion. 

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