The Federal Election Commission confirmed it opened an investigation into Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., for allegedly taking illegal campaign contributions and attempting to conceal them from required federal reporting. The FEC is responding to a complaint from conservative advocacy group the Coolidge Reagan Foundation based on a separate investigation done by an internal congressional watchdog. The complaint is under review and will be “referred to the Enforcement Division of the Office of the General Counsel,” wrote Wanda D. Brown, assistant general counsel for complaints examination and legal administration at the FEC, in an Aug. 19 letter to the foundation.  The FEC review is in addition to a pending House Ethics Committee probe of the Florida congresswoman stemming from the same internal congressional watchdog investigation.  “Money has moved around a web of entities with a bunch of family members on the boards [of those entities],” Dan Backer, a Washington lawyer representing the Coolidge Reagan Foundation, told The Daily Signal.  In its FEC complaint, the foundation alleges 12 violations against Cherfilus-McCormick.  “Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick appears to have accepted over $150,000 in illegal in-kind campaign contributions from a corporation and attempted to conceal this crime by failing to accurately report those illegal contributions,” the complaint says.  It continues: “The Office of Congressional Ethics has already issued a report and findings concluding ‘there is substantial reason to believe’ Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick committed these blatant violations of federal campaign finance law.” Most of the foundation’s FEC complaint is backed up by findings—released to the public in January—by the Office of Congressional Ethics, the staff agency that recommended the House Ethics Committee investigate the matter. “Documents obtained by the OCE show that a Florida company, Truth & Justice, Inc., made multiple payments to a printing and mailing vendor, Image Plus Graphics, on behalf of Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick’s 2022 re-election campaign,” the Office of Congressional Ethics’ report said. “These payments—made over the course of a few weeks in July and August of 2022—totaled $150,288.64.” The Florida secretary of state’s website says Truth & Justice Inc. was “administratively dissolved” in September 2023. The Daily Signal made numerous inquiries by phone and email to the office of Cherfilus-McCormick last week and this week. A spokesperson did not respond. However, earlier this year, Cherfilus-McCormick did comment on the findings of the Office of Congressional Ethics.  “As stated in the committee’s public statement, the investigative subcommittee has not concluded its review of the allegations, and the release of OCE’s findings is simply a result of the House investigative process,” Cherfilus-McCormick said in a statement published in several news outlets. “The fact that the allegations were referred for further review does not indicate any violation has occurred. I plan on continuing to collaborate with the committee and its investigative subcommittee.” The six-member FEC requires four members for a quorum but currently has three vacancies. The commission cannot make a ruling until it has a quorum. However, Backer notes, the FEC’s general counsel will still investigate the matter.  The House Ethics Committee probe could also be revealing, he said.  “I want to see every Democrat show as much indignation over this as when they attacked George Santos. This is much worse,” Backer said, referring to Santos, a former Republican U.S. House member from New York who was expelled from Congress after an ethics probe found he told numerous lies about his background and he was charged by authorities for using campaign money for personal expenses, misreporting his finances to Congress, and other crimes. Separately, the Coolidge Reagan Foundation also made a criminal complaint to Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier regarding the congresswoman’s company receiving a Florida state taxpayer-funded grant that was 100 times larger than it should have been.   The foundation alleges Cherfilus-McCormick entered into a contract in 2021 on behalf of her family’s company, Trinity Health Care Services, where she was the CEO, with the Florida Division of Emergency Management. The agency agreed to pay Trinity Health Care Services about $50,000 to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The state, because of an apparent clerical error, instead paid Trinity $5 million.  The complaint to the attorney general contends Trinity did not notify the state’s emergency management agency of the mistake.  The agency reportedly sued Trinity Health Care in December 2024 to recoup the payment. The two parties reached a settlement in May to allow the company to repay the money to the state over 15 years. Trinity Health Care did not respond to voicemail inquiries nor a phone message left with a receptionist for this story.  Spokespersons for Florida’s attorney general and the Florida Division of Emergency Management did not respond to phone and email inquiries for this story.   In its investigation, the Office of Congressional Ethics requested cooperation from the Florida Division of Emergency Management and Trinity Health Care. The report says Trinity Health Care was among the individuals and entities that refused to cooperate. The post Feds Launch Probe of House Democrat’s Campaign Spending appeared first on The Daily Signal.

In a Friday media blitz, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson confirmed that the “comprehensive crime bill” that President Donald Trump proposed earlier this week is in the works. “It is a very real possibility,” said Johnson, R-La., on Fox News. On Wednesday, Trump wrote on social media that “Speaker Mike Johnson and [Senate Majority] Leader John Thune are working with me, and other Republicans, on a Comprehensive Crime Bill.”  But Johnson quickly pivoted on Fox to discussing legislation to support Trump’s authority in Washington, D.C. “We’re going to be bringing legislation to the floor in the next few weeks to address that issue first—that city—to deal with juvenile crime … and to talk about these restrictive policing policies that have prevented law enforcement from maintaining the safety on the streets for residents and visitors,” the Louisiana lawmaker said. That may have been a reference in part to extending Trump’s authority to control D.C.’s law enforcement, which expires on Sept. 10, when it will require approval from Congress to continue under the District’s Home Rule Act of 1973. ?@SpeakerJohnson teases national crime bill and extending Trump's policing powers in D.C. on @FoxNews"[A crime bill] is a very real possibility. We cannot allow crime to destroy our great American cities, and it begins with the nation’s capital. We have to end the crime wave,… pic.twitter.com/sjpeDg0g6Q— The Daily Signal (@DailySignal) August 29, 2025 Johnson also said that he had promised Trump to “give [him] the resources and the authority necessary to complete this job because it is wildly popular.” In a separate interview on CNN, Johnson was pressed on whether it would be only a Washington crime bill, or if a national crime bill could be in the works. “It’ll be both. There will be components,” he said.  “We’re going to handle D.C. first, because that’s directly within our purview, and then look to other cities around America as well. We’ve got to also end these policing policies that have prevented law enforcement from actually keeping safety on the streets.” The post Comprehensive Crime Bill ‘a Very Real Possibility,’ House Speaker Says appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A federal judge ordered the University of Pittsburgh Thursday to let a pro-Palestinian activist group back on campus. U.S. District Court Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan instructed the school to lift its suspension of Students for Justice in Palestine at the university, saying the rules the school based the suspension on likely violated the First Amendment. The conflict between Students for Justice in Palestine and the university dates to December 2024, when the group staged a “study-in” at a library on campus, surrounding themselves with Palestinian flags, keffiyehs, and signs. That protest was shut down by university police officers. In January, the university brought disciplinary action against the group, saying it had failed to comply with instructions from school officials.  In February, after the group sent an open letter calling on the school to drop the charges, the administration filed additional charges, saying the group violated the school’s code of conduct, which bans attempts to “intimidate …, coerce …, [or] influence” people involved in university proceedings, as well as attempts to disrupt or “interfere … with the conduct process.” In March, the school issued a six-month suspension, which was set to expire on Sept. 18. In April, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania sued the school on behalf of the group, saying it violated the group’s First Amendment right to free speech.  On Thursday, Ranjan, a Donald Trump appointee, sided with the ACLU. According to Ranjan, the suspension infringed on the group’s “rights of association and speech” by preventing it from gathering or recruiting members. He said the school’s code of conduct rules—those banning intimidation and interference—swept “too broadly” and were likely unconstitutional. This isn’t the first Students for Justice in Palestine chapter to face disciplinary action or worse. Chapters across the country, including at Tufts University; Rutgers; and the University of California, Los Angeles, have faced similar consequences for anti-Israel activism. In March, Columbia University’s chapter was named as a defendant in a lawsuit brought by family members of those massacred in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, who alleged the group had prior knowledge of Hamas’ attack. After the Oct. 7 attack, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis asked the state’s universities to close their Students for Justice in Palestine chapters, citing a Florida law that bans knowingly providing “material support … to a designated foreign terrorist organization.”  Florida officials pointed to a National Students for Justice in Palestine “toolkit” that referred to the Hamas attack as “the resistance” and said that “Palestinian students in exile” were “PART of this movement” (emphasis in the original). Students for Justice in Palestine has around 350 chapters across the U.S., which are loosely affiliated with National Students for Justice in Palestine. The post Federal Judge Orders University To Let Pro-Palestinian Activists Back on Campus appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Microsoft is preparing to change how documents are saved in Word for Windows, shifting new file storage to the cloud by default. Instead of asking users to activate AutoSave or select a cloud location manually, Word will now store all newly created documents directly in OneDrive or another designated cloud service automatically. Raul Munoz, a product manager on Microsoft’s Office shared services and experiences team, described the change by saying, “We are modernizing the way files are created and stored in Word for Windows. Now you don’t have to worry about saving your documents: Anything new you create will be saved automatically to OneDrive or your preferred cloud destination.” Currently being rolled out to Microsoft 365 Insiders, this new setup is presented as a way to prevent lost work and provide immediate access to files across mobile platforms and browsers. However, for anyone working outside Microsoft’s cloud ecosystem, this change introduces additional steps to avoid online storage. The update also comes with adjustments to how documents are named. Rather than appending sequential numbers to new files, Word will now assign file names based on the date of creation. Users will have the option to set a preferred default save location or opt out of automatic cloud saves entirely, though doing so requires manual reconfiguration. Microsoft has been steadily nudging its user base toward cloud reliance. AutoSave already defaults to cloud storage, and persistent prompts in Windows have encouraged, or pressured, users to turn on OneDrive backups. These reminders have drawn complaints, especially from those who feel Microsoft is eroding straightforward local file access. This latest move by Microsoft reflects a broader trend among tech giants to steer users toward cloud-based ecosystems, often at the cost of individual choice and control. While the company already offers a fully online version of Word tailored for those who want cloud integration, many who rely on the desktop application do so precisely to avoid having their documents stored online. By turning local storage into a secondary option that requires extra effort, Microsoft is making it harder for users to keep their files on their own machines. Cloud storage may promise convenience, but it also introduces new risks. When documents are saved by default to servers controlled by corporations, users give up a measure of privacy and autonomy. Data stored in the cloud is subject to surveillance, data mining, and potential breaches, realities that are far less of a concern with locally stored files. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Microsoft Word To Save New Files to the Cloud by Default appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Memo From Bosses to Activist Employees: STFU or ...

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