Five of America’s most elite universities will pay over $104.5 million to settle claims they conspired to limit students’ financial aid.
The universities — Brown, Columbia, Duke, Emory, and Yale — were five of 17 institutions subject to a 2022 class-action lawsuit brought by eight former students claiming they were part of a “price-fixing cartel” that used a shared methodology to calculate financial need in a way that intentionally reduced aid for students from working- and middle-class families.
To settle the case, Columbia and Duke agreed to pay $24 million each, Yale and Emory will pay $18.5 million each, and Brown will pay $19.5 million — although the schools deny the charges against them. The University of Chicago, Vanderbilt University, and Rice University already settled the suit. The remaining nine institutions involved in the lawsuit are Georgetown, Caltech, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Cornell, Dartmouth, UPenn, MIT, and the University of Notre Dame.
The 17 colleges and universities named in the suit were part of the 568 Presidents Group, an association of elite institutions that collaborated on aid formulas. The plaintiffs’ attorneys estimate that roughly 200,000 students were affected by the ‘price-fixing’ practices over two decades.
America’s top universities have faced increasing criticism of late for their exorbitant costs, their role in indoctrinating students with radical left-wing beliefs, and their widespread tolerance of anti-semitism on campus. Last year, former President Donald Trump called for the establishment of an “American Academy” that would award free online degrees as an alternative to these institutions. “We spend more money on higher education than any other country, and yet, they’re turning our students into communists and terrorists and sympathizers of many, many different dimensions… We can’t let this happen,” Trump noted.
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Five of America’s most elite universities will pay over $104.5 million to settle claims they conspired to limit students’ financial aid.
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‘Never Trump conservative’ turned New York Times columnist David French has admitted to being not “just wrong” but “completely, embarrassingly wrong” about Donald Trump and the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.
While making clear that he is not coming around to the notion of putting America First, French explains in a new New York Times column that just before Trump burst onto the political scene, “The winds were shifting. I could sense it, but I didn’t fully understand it. Not until Trump made it all plain.”
French, who has now spent the best part of a decade bemoaning the 45th President, now acknowledges the “bond” between Donald Trump and most Republican voters and concludes:
“I don’t regret my arguments against Trump. I’d make them again, and I will continue making them. I do ask myself how I missed the sheer extent of Republican anger. And I’m deeply, deeply grieved by the thought that I did anything in my life before Trump to contribute to that unrighteous rage.”
‘Never Trump conservative’ turned New York Times columnist David French has admitted to being not “just wrong” but “completely, embarrassingly wrong” about Donald Trump and the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.
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Editor’s Notes
Behind-the-scenes political intrigue exclusively for Pulse+ subscribers.
Travis County Judge Jan Soifer, who on Thursday denied Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton‘s motion to halt his deposition in the ongoing whistleblower case against his office, is a far-left, partisan Democrat who even has a dog named “Joey Biden.”
Social media posts and FTC data reviewed by The National Pulse raise worrying questions about Soifer’s ability to be an impartial judge in the Republican Attorney General’s case. Her Facebook page features a profile picture of herself with Democrat President Joe Biden. The 81-year-old Biden also appears to be the namesake for the judge’s pet dog, “Joey Biden.”
In a now-deleted post on the anniversary of the January 6th U.S. Capitol riot earlier this month, Soifer encouraged her followers to back Biden’s re-election effort.
“In November 2024, democracy is on the ballot — and we must all vote for democracy and against autocracy,” she wrote, linking back to a January 6, 2021 entry stating: “What is happening on the streets of Washington, D.C., especially outside the U.S. Capitol, with the President’s urging, is no less than a lawless, violent insurrection.”
Soifer’s partisanship extends beyond social media posts, however. From May 2013 through September 2015, she served as the chairwoman of the Travis County Democrat Party. In that role, she claims to have “raised over a million dollars and ran a very successful coordinated campaign for the 2014 election.”
FEC data also reveals Soifer contributed $10,285.40 to Joe Biden’s re-election efforts and Democrat-aligned groups like the pro-LGBTQ Human Rights Campaign over the last year. Since 2016, when Soifer was first elected to the bench in Travis County, she has donated nearly $250,000 to Democrat candidates and organizations.
The Texas Supreme Court authorized the resumption of the whistleblower case after the State Senate acquitted Paxton on all 16 impeachment charges brought by the Texas House of Representatives in September of last year.
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Travis County Judge Jan Soifer, who on Thursday denied Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's motion to halt his deposition in the ongoing whistleblower case against his office, is a far-left, partisan Democrat who even has a dog named "Joey Biden."
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A Mexican national in the United States under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was arrested on human smuggling charges, according to a social media post by a U.S. Border Patrol official. Gregory K. Bovino, Chief Patrol Agent of the Border Patrol’s El Centro Sector, said the suspect was returned to his home country following apprehension. El Centro Sector covers 70 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border in Southern California’s Imperial Valley.
The DACA policy, introduced by former President Barack Obama in 2012, was declared illegal by a federal judge in September. The judge, however, issued no directive to cease the program. Serving roughly 830,000 individuals, the DACA program grants certain privileges to non-citizens as long as the recipient maintains lawful conduct.
United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data indicates that nearly 380,000 illegal immigrants were encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border within the first two months of fiscal year 2024, beginning on October 1, 2023. This follows 2,045,838 encounters in fiscal year 2023, 2,206,436 in fiscal year 2022, and 1,659,206 in fiscal year 2021. Former President Donald Trump has called the border crisis — ignored and arguably facilitated by the Biden government — an “invasion.”
Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Biden government, permitting Border Patrol officers to remove concertina wire installed along Texas’s border with Mexico. Texas Governor Greg Abbott erected the fencing in response to the Biden administration’s lack of border security enforcement.
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A Mexican national in the United States under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was arrested on human smuggling charges, according to a social media post by a U.S. Border Patrol official. Gregory K. Bovino, Chief Patrol Agent of the Border Patrol’s El Centro Sector, said the suspect was returned to his home country following apprehension. El Centro Sector covers 70 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border in Southern California’s Imperial Valley.
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The city of Seattle announced on Wednesday a $10 million settlement with a group of 50 BLM and Antifa rioters. The rioters sued the city and the Seattle Police Department (SPD) for injuries they claimed were a result of police actions during the 2020 riots following the death of career criminal George Floyd during an arrest in Minneapolis.
The personal injury law firm Stritmatter Kessler Koehler Moore represented the claimants. “Among the 50 Peaceful Protesters represented by Stritmatter Kessler Koehler Moore was Aubreanna Inda, who was standing still peacefully when a blast ball was launched directly at her chest, striking her and causing her to go into cardiac arrest,” the law firm said in a statement celebrating the settlement.
However, Stritmatter Kessler Koehler Moore’s description of Ms. Inda contradicts the available facts. According to AntifaWatch, an online database that tracks Antifa extremists and other left-wing domestic terrorists, Ms. Inda “placed herself as a meat shield between other rioters and police.” Ms. Inda was then “hit in the chest by non-lethal ammo when police were forced to use crowd control measures because rioters were throwing rocks and shining lasers in cop[s’] eyes.” Ms. Inda also claims she “participated in every Seattle riot up to the point she was shot.” She was arrested “in 2020 for unlawful weapon, obstructing an officer and failure to disperse.”
The lead plaintiff’s attorney, Karen Koehler, said the protesters “were engaged in a First Amendment speech and activity against the very police brutality which they were met with.” The facts do not support this description, however. In addition to assaults on police officers, rioters in Seattle caused millions of dollars in property damage when they took over portions of the Capitol Hill neighborhood, declaring it the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ).
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The city of Seattle announced on Wednesday a $10 million settlement with a group of 50 BLM and Antifa rioters. The rioters sued the city and the Seattle Police Department (SPD) for injuries they claimed were a result of police actions during the 2020 riots following the death of career criminal George Floyd during an arrest in Minneapolis.
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CNN commentator and former Obama official Van Jones panned President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy in an appearance on the news network on Tuesday, calling the jobs made available to the Black community “crappy.” Despite the Biden government touting improving employment numbers, Jones said “facts and feelings” among voters “are very different.”
“People keep telling me, ‘you’ve got great employment numbers in the Black community, and aren’t you happy?’ I’m like, yeah, but they’re crappy jobs,” Jones said.
The former Obama government official’s remarks come amidst President Biden’s push to boost support among Black voters. Recent polling numbers indicate a 57 percent disapproval of Biden’s handling of the economy and a 56 percent disapproval of his efforts to quell inflation. The polling data from Fox News also suggests a substantial decline in President Biden’s popularity amongst the Black community — with support declining 25 percent from 2021 to 2023.
Jones also warned that leaders in his political party are ignoring the border crisis to their peril. Democratic voters, particularly in New York City and other traditionally blue states, have begun to express concerns over the handling of immigration, which Jones described as “destabilizing” for the Democrat party’s internal politics.
Cumulative revisions to monthly jobs reports from January through November 2023 suggest that at least 443,000 fewer jobs were created in Joe Biden’s economy than the public was initially told.
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CNN commentator and former Obama official Van Jones panned President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy in an appearance on the news network on Tuesday, calling the jobs made available to the Black community “crappy.” Despite the Biden government touting improving employment numbers, Jones said “facts and feelings” among voters “are very different.”
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Religiously unaffiliated individuals, also referred to as “nones,” now account for 28 percent of U.S. adults — making up the largest single ‘religious’ group according to a new study by Pew Research. “Nones” include atheists, agnostics, and those who describe their religion as “nothing in particular.” Comparatively, 23 percent of U.S. adults identify as Catholics and 24 percent as evangelical Protestants. In 2007, only 16 percent of Americans identified as “nones.”
The study, titled “Religious ‘Nones’ in America: Who They Are and What They Believe,” revealed that “nones” do not represent a homogeneous group, with several claiming belief in God or a higher power without regular attendance at religious services. Lead Researcher at Pew, Gregory Smith, points out that while many “nones” believe religion has some merit, they also contend it can be harmful. Interestingly, they tend to view science with higher favor but deny its ability to explain everything.
A majority of “nones” do not view religion positively. Overall, 43 percent say religion does more harm than good in society and 41 percent say religion does equal amounts of good and harm. Only 14 percent of “nones” view religion as a positive social force.
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Religiously unaffiliated individuals, also referred to as "nones," now account for 28 percent of U.S. adults — making up the largest single 'religious' group according to a new study by Pew Research. "Nones" include atheists, agnostics, and those who describe their religion as "nothing in particular." Comparatively, 23 percent of U.S. adults identify as Catholics and 24 percent as evangelical Protestants. In 2007, only 16 percent of Americans identified as "nones."
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Multi-millionaire businessman Tim Sheehy, the Republican establishment’s anointed candidate to challenge Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) in 2024, appears to have built most of his wealth through corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) schemes, government contracts, and investments with companies linked to the Chinese Communist Party. Sheehy is expected to face off against conservative Congressman Matt Rosendale (R-MT) in the state’s Republican Senate primary — where the former Navy Seal’s investments and ‘woke’ business practices will likely draw attention.
Born in Shoreview, Minnesota, Sheehy relocated to Montana in 2014 after the end of his service in the U.S. military. With investments from his wife and family, Sheehy founded Bridger Aerospace — initially intending to provide aerial tracking support to Montana ranchers. However, Sheehy quickly pivoted to using his fleet of aircraft — now at 22 planes — to combat wildfires.
Cashing In On Corporate ESG.
Bridger Aerospace pitches its business as part of the fight against climate change, playing up its alignment with corporate ESG policies to draw in investors and secure federal government contracts. A public offering prospectus claims the company is uniquely suited to capitalize on a “market without a significant number of public-ready, fundamentally-driven ESG businesses.” Additionally, the document states: “Bridger’s Mission is to fight wildfires that cause hundreds of billions of dollars of economic damage and emit hundreds of millions of metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere annually.”
Since declaring his bid for the U.S. Senate, however, Sheehy has tried publicly portraying himself as a critic of ESG policies and has called President Joe Biden’s climate change agenda “disgraceful.” Early last year, Bridger Aerospace dropped references to climate change and ESG corporate governance from its website.
Bridger Aerospace officially went public in January 2023 with a valuation of $900 million.
Chinese Investments.
Aside from his involvement in the corporate ESG agenda, Sheehy — until recently — held investments in foreign companies with deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Throughout 2023, Sheehy sold off shares he held in the Chinese tech conglomerateTencent. The technology company that owns WeChat has deep ties to the CCP’s intelligence and propaganda apparatuses.
Former President Donald Trump signed an executive order in 2020 banning WeChat in the U.S. over national security concerns. A federal court ruling later blocked the order from taking effect.
Sheehy has tried to quietly dump investments in other companies with ties to Huawei, Alibaba, and Baidu — all Chinese-based firms with ties to the CCP. The U.S. State Department considers Huawei and Tencent “Communist Chinese military companies.”
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Multi-millionaire businessman Tim Sheehy, the Republican establishment’s anointed candidate to challenge Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) in 2024, appears to have built most of his wealth through corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) schemes, government contracts, and investments with companies linked to the Chinese Communist Party. Sheehy is expected to face off against conservative Congressman Matt Rosendale (R-MT) in the state’s Republican Senate primary — where the former Navy Seal’s investments and ‘woke’ business practices will likely draw attention.
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A new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows former President Donald Trump leading Joe Biden nationally by 6 points — 40 percent to 34 percent — in the wake of his historic victories in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.
The poll reveals significant national momentum for Trump — a similar Reuters/Ipsos poll taken earlier this month had he and Biden tied at 35 percent each. Trump maintained his six-point lead in the new survey even when those polled were given the option of voting for third-party candidates, and although 67 percent of respondents said they were “tired of seeing the same candidates in presidential elections and want someone new,” just 18 percent said they would not vote if the election came down to Trump v. Biden.
Voters are also far less happy with Biden being on the Democratic ticket than Trump becoming the eventual Republican nominee. Seventy percent of respondents, including roughly half of Democrats, agreed that Biden should not seek re-election. Only 56 percent of respondents believed Trump should not run.
The new poll also contains bad news for Nimarata ‘Niki’ Haley, whose future campaign hopes rest on a solid performance in the South Carolina primary on February 24. According to the poll, Trump maintains a 45-point lead over Haley — 64 percent to 19 percent. Haley has already seen significant donors abandon her campaign following her double-digit loss to Trump in New Hampshire, and the new data suggests she is unlikely to fair any better in the Palmetto State.
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A new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows former President Donald Trump leading Joe Biden nationally by 6 points — 40 percent to 34 percent — in the wake of his historic victories in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.
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Ukraine is demanding the United States government send an array of anti-infantry attack aircraft, including the legendary A-10 Warthog, to bolster its war effort against Russia. Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who mounted the defense of Kiev, claims deployment of anti-infantry and anti-tank aircraft like the A-10 attack jet could create new opportunities to break through Russian defense lines. He’s also asking the U.S. to send AH-64 Apache, AH-1 Super Cobra, and UH-60 Black Hawk attack helicopters.
“I would talk about A-10s as an option if they’ll be given to us … this is not a new machine, but a reliable one that has proven itself in many wars, and which has a wide array of weapons for destroying land targets to help the infantry,” Syrskyi told Reuters in a recent interview. The Ukrainian military leader implied his country is continuing to mount counter-offensives against Russian positions, though it appears these are only minor engagements.
The Counter-Offensive That Never Was.
Despite significant Western military aid, Ukraine’s attempt last year to launch a major counter-offensive against Russian positions failed, as predicted in early 2023 by The National Pulse Editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam.
By the late Fall of 2023, Ukrainian forces had only managed to advance about 10 miles after several months of intense fighting. Last November, General Valery Zaluzhny, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, concluded there would “most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.”
Zelensky Wants More U.S. Aid.
Last month, President Zelensky told members of the U.S. Senate that he may soon be forced to enact military conscription for men over 40. Responding to Zelensky’s request for additional financial and military aid, Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) argued Ukraine should sue for peace instead.
“What’s in America’s best interest is to accept Ukraine is going to have to cede some territory to the Russians, and we need to bring this war to a close,” Vance said, before adding: “But when I think about the great human tragedy here, hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans innocent have been killed in this conflict… The thing that’s in our interest and in theirs is to stop the killing.”
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Ukraine is demanding the United States government send an array of anti-infantry attack aircraft, including the legendary A-10 Warthog, to bolster its war effort against Russia. Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who mounted the defense of Kiev, claims deployment of anti-infantry and anti-tank aircraft like the A-10 attack jet could create new opportunities to break through Russian defense lines. He’s also asking the U.S. to send AH-64 Apache, AH-1 Super Cobra, and UH-60 Black Hawk attack helicopters.
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