A federal judge on Friday blocked subpoenas issued by the Justice Department as part of its criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s handling of renovations of the central bank’s Washington headquarters. U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, an appointee of Republican President Donald Trump whose office is spearheading the investigation, promised to appeal Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s decision. Powell, a frequent target of Trump’s ire, disclosed the investigation on Jan. 11, calling it a threat to the Fed’s political independence. The Fed’s Board of Governors made a motion to quash the subpoenas, which sought information about the renovations of two historic buildings that have led to cost overruns as well as Powell’s July 2025 testimony before the Senate Banking Committee. The ongoing project, initially estimated to cost $1.9 billion, has cost $2.5 billion. Powell has called the probe a pretext for Trump to pressure the Fed into cutting interest rates. The judge agreed, saying a “mountain of evidence” suggests the investigation was to pressure the Fed chair to lower rates or resign.  “The Government has produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime; indeed, its justifications are so thin and unsubstantiated that the Court can only conclude that they are pretextual,” Boasberg wrote. The ruling for now will make it difficult for the Justice Department to proceed in its investigation of Powell. Prosecutors said they are examining whether Powell made false statements to Congress and committed fraud, according to court documents made public on Friday. Boasberg concluded the subpoenas were issued for an improper purpose and as a result were not legally valid. “The Government has offered no evidence whatsoever that Powell committed any crime other than displeasing the President,” the judge wrote. “The Government might as well investigate him for mail fraud because someone once saw him send a letter,” Boasberg wrote. Pirro told a news conference that the judge “has neutered the grand jury’s ability to investigate crime.” “The American public is fed up with public monies that seem to go into a black hole, especially in D.C., where no one is held accountable,” Pirro said. She called a grand jury subpoena “one of the age-old tools” used to investigate crimes that include “cost overruns,” and referred to Boasberg as an “activist judge.” “As a result, Jerome Powell today is now bathed in immunity,” Pirro told reporters. A Fed spokesperson declined to comment. Friday’s developments mean Trump’s nomination of former Fed governor Kevin Warsh to succeed Powell as Fed chair remains in limbo. Powell’s leadership term is up in mid-May. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., has vowed to use his spot on the Senate Banking Committee to block any Fed nominee while the investigation stays open, effectively freezing the Warsh confirmation process.  Tillis on Friday said a Justice Department appeal of the ruling “will only delay the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed Chair.” Trump has heaped pressure on the central bank to cut interest rates and has lashed out at Powell for not doing so more quickly.  Reuters contributed to this report The post Judge Blocks Subpoenas Against Fed Chair Powell; DOJ to Appeal appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Amid concern that radical Islam is influencing violent attacks across America in the wake of President Donald Trump’s Operation Epic Fury in Iran, a Muslim reformer warns that Americans can expect more attacks in the short term, though he expects a positive result in Iran will bring the threat to an end. “In the next few weeks, we need to be vigilant, there’s probably going to be more attacks,” Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim reformer who founded the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview Friday. Jasser draws a clear distinction between political Islam or Islamism—the movement dedicated to imposing Islamic law, Sharia, on the broader society—and the practice of Muslims who stand for American values and religious freedom. A White House official told The Daily Signal that the administration is closely monitoring intelligence regarding threats. “The entire Trump administration is closely monitoring all intelligence and remains vigilant to deter potential threats if they arise,” the official said in a statement Friday. “This situation underscores how critical our efforts have been to deport criminal illegal aliens, institute travel restrictions from various countries, and restore integrity to America’s law enforcement organizations – even before any military action in Iran.” Jasser, a primary care doctor and military veteran, noted that the people carrying out attacks in the U.S. “are not getting orders from Tehran, it’s just part of the Jihadi brand as they have a final opportunity to act out with the propaganda that’s coming out as a result of the war.” Jasser, a Republican candidate for Congress in Arizona’s 4th Congressional District, predicted that Trump’s joint operation with Israel will give cover for the Iranian people to pursue their freedom and defeat “one of the primary global hive minds of radical Islam, which is Tehran.” Violent attackers don’t represent the beginning of a new threat, but the last gasp of a long-term one, he argued. “Many of these Islamists that have been waiting for that time in which they get to be soldiers and to the Jihadi ‘cool’ thing, which is to end their lives in what they feel is going to heaven but ultimately is a genocidal act… it’s their last opportunity to do so,” Jasser said. Their violence “proves that they are an internal threat to our democracy and our freedoms, and that we’re doing the right thing in Iran.” The Muslim reformer spoke after America experienced at least four violent attacks seemingly motivated by Islamism after Operation Epic Fury began. 1. Texas Shooting A gunman later identified as Ndiaga Diagne opened fire at a bar in Austin, Texas, early Sunday morning, about 24 hours after President Trump announced Operation Epic Fury. Diagne, a naturalized citizen who had been born in Senegal, killed two people and wounded 14 before police shot and killed him. He had been wearing a shirt with an Iranian flag and a hoodie reading “Property of Allah.” The FBI is investigating the shooting as an act of terrorism, possibly tied to the war. 2. Gracie Mansion Bombing On Saturday, March 7, Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, attempted to detonate two improvised explosive devices, targeting protesters outside Gracie Mansion, the residence of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The protesters had been opposing radical Muslims. According to the Justice Department, both men expressed their support for the Islamic State, or ISIS. 3. Old Dominion University On Thursday, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, 36, shouted “Allahu Akbar” before opening fire inside a classroom for the Reserve Officer Training Corps at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, according to an FBI special agent. Jalloh killed an Army ROTC instructor and injured two others. Jalloh, who died of stabbing injuries after the ROTC students responded in self-defense, had previously been convicted of attempting to provide material support to ISIS. 4. Temple Israel Synagogue Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, a Lebanese-born naturalized citizen, rammed a vehicle into the building of Temple Israel Synagogue in West Bloomington Township, Michigan, on Thursday. He damaged the building and engaged in gunfire with armed security, who killed him. The FBI has described the attack as a targeted act of violence against the Jewish community. A source in Michigan’s Lebanese American community told CBS News that an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon killed the suspect’s two brothers and other family members. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which bills itself as the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights organization but has faced criticism for historic ties to terrorist funding networks and for condemnations of Israel’s war in Gaza, condemned the recent acts of violence in the U.S. “Regardless of whether the recent attacks were motivated by opposition to the U.S.-Israel bombing of Iran or motivated by ideological extremism, they are unacceptable crimes that the American Muslim community condemns,” a CAIR spokesperson told The Daily Signal in a statement Friday. “American Muslims will, God willing, continue speaking out against all forms of criminal violence, whether terrorism and hate crimes here at home or ethnic cleansing and genocide overseas,” the spokesperson added. Jasser attributed some of the threat to lax border enforcement under the previous administrations of Barack Obama and Joe Biden. He warned of the “unvetted invasion” of the Obama and Biden years, where many crossing the border have been “known to be adherents to the ideologies of radical Islamism, be it on the Sunni side of ISIS, Hamas, or the Shia side of Hezbollah, the IRGC, and others.” The post ‘NEED TO BE VIGILANT’: More Attacks Are Coming in the Next Few Weeks, Muslim Reformer Warns appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—A House committee will likely pass a bill to reform a taxpayer-funded scholarship that critics call a “talent pipeline for the Democratic Party and liberal activist organizations,” a committee spokesperson told The Daily Signal. The spokesperson for the House Committee on Education and the Workforce predicted that the bill will pass the committee “rather easily.” It is scheduled for markup on Tuesday. The upcoming vote comes after congressional Republicans and scholars spent years denouncing the Truman Scholarship, which Congress created in honor of former President Harry Truman in 1975. “My legislation would finally reform the Truman Scholarship Foundation to promote an ideologically diverse class of recipients and ensure that only law-abiding students receive these scholarships,” Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., said about her Truman Scholarship Clean House Act in a statement to The Daily Signal. Stefanik’s bill would repeal and replace the scholarship’s current board of directors and executive secretary, allowing President Donald Trump to appoint new directors who will then have to be confirmed by the Senate. The bill would also require candidates to receive the approval of a supermajority of the board in order “to prevent highly biased individuals from serving as an interviewer.” The bill’s history traces back to testimony from Jennifer Kabbany at The College Fix last December. Kabbany told the committee that only 29 out of the 653 scholarship recipients from 2015 to 2025 had been conservative. “The Truman Scholarship Foundation seeks regional diversity in its selections and tries to award its scholarships to students from every state,” Kabbany wrote in her testimony. She noted that The College Fix’s research showed winners chosen from Republican-leaning states end up working for “progressive causes or Democratic politicians.” “The decade-long data reveals a taxpayer-funded program that, in practice, functions as a talent pipeline for the Democratic Party and liberal activist organizations,” Kabbany added during her testimony. In the same hearing, NAACP Legal Defense Fund Senior Policy Counsel Ashley Harrington accused the Trump administration and its allies in Congress of engaging in “viewpoint discrimination” by condemning the scholarship’s bias. “The recent calls for interference in the selection process for Truman Scholars represent just another attempt by the administration to influence individuals from taking on viewpoints that it disfavors,” Harrington wrote in her testimony. “This amounts to classic viewpoint discrimination.” President Harry Truman in Florida, December of 1947. (Getty Images) Stefanik condemned the scholarship’s bias as “unfortunate and inappropriate” and claimed that the Truman Scholarship Foundation “continues to award scholarships to radical left-wing students and even criminals.” “Multiple data analyses have revealed the systemic underrepresentation of conservative scholarship recipients,” the congresswoman continued. The Truman Scholarship did not immediately respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment. The post EXCLUSIVE: Bill to Dismantle Taxpayer-Funded Democrat ‘Talent Pipeline’ Expected to Pass House Committee appeared first on The Daily Signal.

An appeals court determined that biological men should be permitted to enter an all-female spa for ages 13 and up in Washington state–prompting a federal judge to issue a blunt dissent. In the case of Olympus Spa v. Armstrong, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that Washington state can enforce an anti-discrimination law to allow a biological man to enter the spa if he identifies as a woman.  The facility in question is a Korean-inspired women’s spa that limits admission to females only, because its services involve full nudity for Korean scrubs, communal bathing, saunas, and massages, according to the Pacific Justice Institute.  The Washington State Human Rights Commission alleged the spa violated the state’s public accommodation law and the Washington Law Against Discrimination. A three-judge panel for the 9th Circuit dismissed the spa’s First Amendment arguments for free exercise of religion and freedom of association in a May 2025 ruling. The 9th Circuit this week denied a rehearing in the case by the full bench, prompting a fiery dissent from one of the judges. Judge Lawrence VanDyke, appointed to the 9th Circuit by President Donald Trump, used colorful language in his dissent that he acknowledged was not traditional.  “This is a case about swinging d****. The Christian owners of Olympus Spa—a traditional Korean, women-only, nude spa—understandably don’t want them in their spa,” VanDyke wrote. “Their female employees and female clients don’t want them in their spa either. But Washington State insists on them. And now so does the Ninth Circuit.” He added, “as much as you might understandably be shocked and displeased to merely encounter that phrase in this opinion, I hope we all can agree that it is far more jarring for the unsuspecting and exposed women at Olympus Spa—some as young as thirteen—to be visually assaulted by the real thing.”  He said that “supposed adults in the room have collectively lost their minds.”  Judge Mary Margaret McKeown issued a response that was joined by 28 of the 51 judges on the circuit.  “That language makes us sound like juveniles, not judges, and it undermines public trust in the courts,” McKeown wrote. “The lead dissent’s use of such coarse language and invective may make for publicity or entertainment value, but it has no place in a judicial opinion.” VanDyke issued a response to the critique.  “Yes, the introduction to this dissent intentionally uses indecorous language. But that is quite literally what this case is about,” he wrote in the response. “Male genitalia is precisely (and only) what the Spa, for religious reasons, objects to admitting into its female-only space. The fact that so many on our court want to pretend that this case is about anything other than swinging d**** is the very reason the shocking language is necessary.”  The case could move to the Supreme Court. In the case of 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, justices found in 2023 that the First Amendment protects a designer from compelled speech. Similarly, the high court ruled in the 2018 case of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission that designing a cake a certain way could be compelled speech.  However, the 9th Circuit panel acknowledged those rulings but determined that a massage is not free expression. “Women and girls are not publicly available goods or services,” Pacific Justice Institute Chief Legal Counsel Kevin T. Snider said in a statement. “It is an abuse and perversion of public accommodation laws to give biological males access to the intimate spaces of unconsenting females when in a state of full or partial undress. In a decent society, it is common sense that women and girls require privacy in their intimate spaces.” The post ‘Collectively Lost Their Minds’: 9th Circuit Backs Access for Biological Men at Women’s Spa appeared first on The Daily Signal.

America’s “War on Poverty,” launched by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, has expanded into a vast array of federal social welfare programs that today exceed $1 trillion per year. Upon signing the Economic Opportunity Act, Johnson stated: “This is not in any sense a cynical proposal to exploit the poor with a promise of a handout” but rather a means to “help our people find their footing for a long climb toward a better way of life.” While poverty has declined significantly over the past half century, however, recent reports indicate that these programs simultaneously reduced the share of private income for America’s poorest, locking them into long-term dependency and limiting their ability to move up into the middle class. A recent study by economists Kevin Corinth and Richard Burkhauser, which analyzed poverty rates before and after America embarked on the War on Poverty, concluded that, while poverty decreased substantially since 1964, this was achieved largely by welfare supplanting “market” income such as wages, investments and profits. In addition, before the 1960s, market income had succeeded in reducing poverty at similar rates to what the War on Poverty achieved. “Our new research shows that the United States made strong progress in reducing poverty during the quarter century before the War on Poverty began, and that this progress was entirely accounted for by increases in market income, not government transfers,” Corinth told The Daily Signal. “In other words, there was a lot of benefit and not much cost during this earlier period.” Before the War on Poverty, poverty reduction was achieved across racial groups. Economist Thomas Sowell wrote in 2004 that the poverty rate among black families fell from 87% in 1940 to 47% in 1960, without government assistance. According to Corinth and Burkhauser, “During that 1939–1963 period, it was the growth of market income rather than government transfers net of taxes that reduced poverty rates. In fact, poverty fell no faster in the 24 years after the War on Poverty was declared than in the 24 years before, even when applying the same initial poverty rate to both periods.” And while some claim that government spending has reduced poverty by as much as 90% since 1964, it may have also built a barrier to upward mobility for America’s poorest. A 2007 study of income mobility by the Internal Revenue Service that tracked individual earners (rather than income aggregates) found that Americans who occupied rich or poor income categories usually didn’t stay there long. The report found that between 1996 and 2005, 55% of taxpayers in the lowest income quintile had moved up to a higher group within 10 years. Similarly, only 25% of those in the top (1/100 of one%) income category remained there a decade later. The IRS found similar results during the prior decade. However, more recent studies indicate that income mobility is declining in America and that expansive welfare programs appear to be trapping more people in government dependence. A January report by the Congressional Budget Office found that, for the poorest 20% of Americans, government payments increased from 26% of total income in 1979 to 42% in 2022. And as welfare programs expanded, market income for America’s poorest declined as a share of total income. Whereas in 1979 welfare payments were only about half the amount of private income sources for the lowest quintile, the two income sources were roughly equal by 2022. According to a February report in The Daily Economy by analyst Tyler Turman, based on this Congressional Budget Office data, “despite historically unprecedented economic gains for low-income Americans, more of them are dependent on government assistance than at any point in the country’s history.” The “welfare state’s perverse incentives” often discourage recipients from taking the steps that typically move Americans into higher income categories, such as pursuing higher-paying jobs, accumulating wealth and property, or getting married, Romina Boccia, director of entitlement policy at the Cato Institute, told The Daily Signal. “Government anti-poverty programs have succeeded in alleviating material poverty by pushing low-income families above the poverty line, but they have done little to make them independent or self-sufficient to the point of not needing to relyon government assistance, which, ostensibly, was the entire goal of LBJ’s War on Poverty in the first place,” Boccia said. “Instead, they have merely created a growing share of Americans who rely on Washington more than their own wages.” She cited a 2022 study from the University of Chicago and the Atlanta Fed regarding the penalties for welfare recipients who breach income thresholds. It showed that a family’s wage increase from $54,000 to $55,000 could cause them to lose more than $25,000 in childcare benefits. “For working age adults and their children, dependency tends to make it more difficult to rise out of poverty through increases in their own earnings, because they are the most at risk or losing substantial amounts of government aid by doing so,” Corinth said. If the goal of the War on Poverty was to boost Americans’ self-sufficiency, it appears to have fallen short. What it has achieved, rather, is a costly expansion of government, long-term dependency for the poor, and a perennial voting bloc for politicians who feed the addiction. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post ‘War on Poverty’ May Have Created a Permanent Underclass, Economists Say appeared first on The Daily Signal.