Congress Must Stop Holding American Disaster Relief Hostage to Ukraine Aid

• Senate Republicans Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, both of Florida, have filed legislation to allow Congress to take separate votes on disaster relief for Americans and more U.S. aid to Ukraine.
• This is a timely and thoughtful response to the Biden administration's attempt to combine the two issues in the same funding bill, which would force members of Congress to support sending more aid to Ukraine if they want disaster relief for their constituents in Hawaii and elsewhere.
• The administration's strategy amounts to nothing short of hostage-taking—and Americans are the hostages. Congress should reject it out of hand by supporting Scott and Rubio's effort to disentangle disaster relief from Ukraine aid and consider them separately.
• Ukraine already has become one of the more contentious issues in U.S. politics, and the Biden administration's tactics aren't likely to improve the situation. If anything, they are likely to outrage Americans and make them even more skeptical of aid to Ukraine in the future.

Schedule an Interview: Alex Velez-Green and Victoria Coates

NJ’s Menendez Rejects Calls to Quit Senate Amid Corruption Indictment

• The U.S. Justice Department on Friday released an indictment, which accuses New Jersey’s senior Democratic U.S. senator, Bob Menendez—along with his wife and several others—of engaging in a corrupt scheme to benefit himself, potentially at the expense of U.S. national security interests.
• Some of the actions he allegedly took included indirectly providing non-public information about U.S. Embassy personnel to Egyptian authorities, helping to make sure ammunition sales bound for Egypt received approval, and providing advance notice to an Egyptian official about what questions he would likely face when testifying before a Senate committee.
• Based on the serious allegations in the indictment, many in Menendez’s own party have called for his resignation.
• Unless Menendez can show that the factual allegations in the indictment did not happen (which, given all the details set forth in the indictment, seems like a tall order), he is likely to continue facing these calls to resign, regardless of whether he is criminally convicted.

Schedule an Interview: Zack Smith and Cully Stimson

DEI Could Be Losing Its Hold on College Campuses

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) activists are still planning conferences nationwide to promote, as one organization describes it, “community, collaboration, learning, and inspiration” on DEI. But more and more employers, including colleges , are scuttling their DEI offices and eliminating staff.
• This is a good trend. DEI is indelibly linked to discriminatory concepts such as critical race theory. DEI has its roots buried in “social justice philosophy,” a euphemism for racial preferences.
• Now, after the Supreme Court ruled in June against the use of racial preferences in college admissions, more business leaders and college administrators are standing up for equality under the law and civil rights and discarding DEI’s cultish racial obsession.
• State legislators should take strong positions in favor of equality under the law and prohibit school administrators from using taxpayer resources to support DEI offices at colleges and universities.

Schedule an Interview: Jonathan Butcher