A court’s ruling earlier this year that the way Pennsylvania funds public schools is unconstitutional helped make education spending one of the thorniest issues in state budget negotiations.

Along with a partisan divide over spending taxpayer money to help students attend private and religious schools, education funding has left the state’s 2023-24 spending plan incomplete.

The state government is approaching a second week without full spending authority, with the final OK on a $45 billion spending plan stymied over a dispute about creating a $100 million program to allocate state subsidies for students in the lowest performing districts to attend private or religious schools.

Complicating matters is the judge’s ruling, which ordered the Legislature and governor to fix the system but with no guidance about how — or how quickly — it should be done.

The budget still in limbo includes about $800 million for public education, significantly less than what Democrats wanted. The state’s poorest districts will split $100 million through a program designed to help them close some of the gap between them and more affluent districts.

‘Schools were unconstitutionally underfunded last year, this year, and they will be unconstitutionally underfunded next year,’ said Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, senior attorney for Public Information Law Center, which successfully pursued the school funding case.

Education advocates were hoping to see a significant down payment — about $2 billion — to start addressing the system’s shortcomings, as well as a plan to overhaul how the state funds its schools. The lawyers hoped to see it as planning begins for the next fiscal year.

‘We dug a hole for a number of years. It’s going to take us a number of years to dig out,’ Urevick-Ackelsberg said.

Some districts are ‘deeply in the hole, thousands of dollars per pupil short of where they need to be,’ and the $100-million split won’t get at the real change needed, said Bruce Baker, a University of Miami education professor who researches public school financing.

In other states with similar court rulings, action has not always been swift. But some states have managed to make sustained investments, said Maura McInerney, legal director for the Education Law Center, which also was involved in the funding lawsuit.

‘I think it takes a lot of political will and leadership,’ she said. ‘There is no reason to wait here.’

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro cautioned it would take time, and he said fully funding public schools was a priority. But he also voiced his support behind the Republican-controlled Senate’s school voucher program. And even if the vouchers don’t pass this cycle, the budget still gives increases for private education through a tax credit that largely benefits private schools.

House Republicans described the vouchers as a potential solution to the court’s decision, saying that the court left reform open to a variety of paths.

The voucher would give up to $10,000 to families to use for private school. An eligible student must attend one of the state’s 15% lowest-performing schools, based on standardized test scores, and come from a family that makes under 250% of the federal poverty level, or $75,000 for a family of four.

‘Its inclusion as part of this budget would lead to the most ambitious and beneficial school reform measure in decades,’ Minority Leader Rep. Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster, said in a statement.

Cutler and the House Republicans took a lead role in defending the school funding case, litigating it for years before the judge ruled against their side.

Increasing public education funding alone ‘will leave many Pennsylvania students trapped in failing schools,’ Cutler said.

While Shapiro said he would use his line-item veto to kill the voucher program to keep from hitting an impasse last week, he pushed House Democratic leadership to considering alternatives, like vouchers and the tax credit program while working to reach constitutional compliance.

Even with that promise, Senate Republicans have called on Shapiro to sign the budget bill without nixing the program. They’re not without some leverage.

The chamber has adjourned until September, with key pieces of the budget unresolved. There is still legislation needed to direct how the money in the budget can be spent — including for some of Shapiro’s and House Democrats’ priorities.

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FBI Director Christopher Wray said during a contentious House committee hearing on Wednesday that it is ‘somewhat insane’ for anyone to suggest that he harbors a bias against conservatives.

‘Well, first off, I would disagree with your characterization of the FBI and certainly your description of my own approach,’ Wray said in response to a grilling from Wyoming Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman over accusations that the FBI has become ‘weaponized’ against conservatives.

‘The idea that I’m biased against conservatives seems somewhat insane to me, given my own personal background,’ Wray, a registered Republican, added.

Hageman referenced in her line of questioning the Twitter files, Missouri v. Biden disclosures, the Durham investigation and the ‘exposure and collapse’ of the ‘Russian collusion hoax’ as examples of why the American people distrust the FBI.

‘The American people fully understand that there is a two tiered justice system that has been weaponized to persecute people based on their beliefs and that you have personally worked to weaponize the FBI against conservatives,’ Hageman told Wray.

‘Neither you nor the FBI have any legal authority to circumvent the First Amendment by using a surrogate to do your dirty work,’ Hageman said, referring to the Missouri court ruling against the Biden administration, which was accused of strong-arming social media companies to push its desired coronavirus agenda. ‘Yet that is exactly what you’ve been doing.’

Wray told Hageman that he has not taken part in any weekly meetings with social media companies and was unsure if they took place but if they did they would be on hold due to the injunction.

‘Does the FBI intend to continue to have such meetings leading up to the 2024 election to police election-related speech?’ The Wyoming Republican asked.

‘Well we’re not going to be policing,’ Wray began to say before Hageman interjected. 

‘That’s what you previously did,’ Hageman said.

‘That’s not, I do not agree with that description,’ Wray responded.

Wray told Hageman that he does not believe that the Biden administration violated the First Amendment rights of Americans by working with social media companies.

‘Do you really expect the American public to believe that you were not involved in the decisions related to using social media companies to suppress the First Amendment rights of American citizens?’ Hageman asked.

‘I can’t help what people believe or not,’ Wray answered. ‘I can only speak to what the facts are.’

Hageman asked Wray if any disciplinary action has been taken against any FBI employees as a result of the court ruling, but he declined to speak about ‘personnel matters’ and said, ‘We have not made any such determination at this stage.’

Wray insisted that he is committed to establishing procedures and safeguards to ensure that the agency is doing the ‘right thing in the right way.’

In a statement to Fox News Digital following the exchange, Hagemen slammed Wray for ignoring bias in the FBI. 

‘What is insane is the Director denying bias in his organization after repeated factual examples demonstrated by the Missouri v. Biden decision, Twitter Files, and multiple whistleblowers,’ Hageman said. 

 ‘If Christopher Wray wanted to do things the ‘right way’, he’d start by following the Constitution and stop suppressing the rights of American citizens. It was on Director Wray’s watch that the Foreign Influence Task Force, which sounds more like a KGB program than something that should exist in America, was formed. This task force is at the heart of the censorship and suppression of conservative voices today.’

The FBI published a press release on Wednesday as Wray was testifying outlining his position on a wide range of issues including social media censorship.

‘The FBI is not in the business of being the ‘truth police’ or telling any social media company to censor an account, and we don’t moderate content,’ the press release explained. ‘

‘The FBI is, as a law enforcement and intelligence agency, responsible for working with companies, in a fully lawful way, to protect our communities from child predators and terrorists, as well as hostile foreign countries like China, Russia, and Iran, looking to exploit social media platforms to commit crimes and threaten national security.’

MANCHESTER, N.H. – EXCLUSIVE – Republican Larry Elder is resolute that he’s running for the White House in order to win.

But the former nationally syndicated conservative radio talk show host, who was the top finisher behind Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in California’s 2021 gubernatorial recall election, says if his presidential bid falls short, he’d consider serving as running mate on the GOP’s 2024 ticket.

‘The only time this VP thing comes up is when reporters ask me about it,’ Elder said Wednesday in an exclusive national interview with Fox News Digital. ‘I’ve never once said I’m running to be vice president, I’m running for a cabinet position. But I’ve been asked about it. And what I said was, ‘In the unlikely event that I’m not the party nominee and the phone rings and the nominee asks me to join him or her as vice president, I won’t let the call go to voicemail.’’

Elder’s hovering at or just below 1% in the latest Republican primary polls as he faces an uphill climb to win the GOP nomination.

Right now, his main effort is to make the stage at the first Republican presidential primary debate, which Fox News is hosting on Aug. 23 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. One of the thresholds Elder needs to clear in order to qualify for the showdown is contributions from 40,000 individual donors. 

‘The goal right now is to get to 40,000 individual donors,’ he said. After speaking with Fox News on Wednesday in New Hampshire – the state that holds the first primary and second overall contest in the Republican nominating calendar – Edler was scheduled to make another round of fundraising calls, as he worked to make the debate stage.

Asked how he can pump up his poll numbers and increase his contributions, Elder said, ‘My goal is not to run against Republicans. My goal is to run against the Biden-Harris administration.’ And he charged that the Biden administration’s ‘a direct threat to this country. They have reversed everything that Donald Trump did successfully in his very short four years.’

Elder appeared to add that he could achieve his goals even without winning the nomination.

‘I’m running to put in front of the American people… the lie that America’s systemically racist, the epidemic of fatherlessness, the need for school choice, the need to get rid of these soft George Soros DAs, and a need for an amendment to the Constitution to fix spending to a certain percentage of the GDP,’ Elder argued. ‘If I do that and get those issues front and center, I will feel that I’ve done a service to my party and more importantly to my country. That’s why I’m in this race.’

Elder launched his presidential bid on April 20. He touted that he’s ‘getting a real good reception’ on the campaign trail as he talks about the issues people care about, which he said are ‘mostly notably the economy, gas prices, the borders, and crime.’

‘I’m also bringing to the forefront some issues that other candidates are not bringing – most notably there’s an epidemic of fatherlessness in America that’s been caused by the welfare state that was pushed in the mid-’60s by the Democrats. There’s a huge issue with the Democrats repeatedly referring to America as systemically racist,’ Elder argued.

EXCLUSIVE: Half a dozen Republican secretaries of state say Secretary of State Antony Blinken should resign if he played a role in the creation of the letter signed by 51 ex-intelligence officials to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop story as Russian disinformation.

In a letter to lawmakers, the officials said Blinken should ‘resign immediately’ if he was involved in the letter that surfaced before the 2020 election. They said the effort to dismiss the laptop story conflicts with their efforts to protect ‘free and fair elections’ across the nation.

‘We are particularly concerned with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s role in the operation while he served as a senior member of President Biden’s campaign,’ they wrote. ‘Should the Congressional investigation confirm Secretary Blinken’s leading role as stated in the report, we call on Secretary Blinken to resign immediately.’

‘These former intelligence officials and the presidential campaign actors contributed to the undermining of the American people’s confidence in elections,’ the secretaries of state added.

Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston, Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin, Ohio Secretary of State Franke LaRose, Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner and Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray signed the letter to members of Congress that was first obtained by Fox News Digital.

Thurston and Warner met with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan Wednesday to discuss the matter.

The secretaries of state referenced the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees’ April report, which found that former intelligence officials and the Biden campaign coordinated efforts to ‘intentionally influence the 2020 presidential election by spreading disinformation.’

In October 2020, weeks before the presidential election, 51 ex-national security officials signed onto a letter claiming that Hunter Biden’s laptop had ‘all the classic hallmarks of a Russian information operation.’

The former officials included former Obama CIA Director John Brennan, former Obama DNI James Clapper, and former CIA director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

The House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees determined that Blinken, while serving as a senior Biden campaign adviser, was ‘the impetus’ for the statement and organized officials to sign onto it.

Blinken has denied having a role in the creation of the letter, and has stressed that he doesn’t ‘do politics.’ Blinken has said the letter ‘wasn’t’ his idea, and said he ‘didn’t ask for it’ or ‘solicit it.’

Three days after the letter from the former intelligence officials was made public, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden used it as a talking point in the final 2020 presidential debate to rebut criticisms made by then-President Donald Trump.

‘There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what this, he’s accusing me of, is a Russian plan,’ Biden said during the debate.

At the time, then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said Hunter Biden’s laptop was not part of a Russian disinformation campaign. The FBI concurred.

The FBI first took possession of the laptop in December 2019. At the time, FBI officials knew that the laptop was not manipulated and contained credible evidence related to its investigation into Hunter Biden, according to whistleblower testimony.

The secretaries of state told Congress that ‘the full weight of the U.S. government should be used to ensure free, and fair elections in the future.’

‘To cast informed ballots, Americans need transparency into actions by former, and perhaps current, federal government officials to weaponize false information for political purposes,’ they wrote. ‘Congress should hold perpetrators accountable and consider all available corrective measures to provide transparency to the public of any improper actions set forth in the report.’

‘Congress must act to prevent and deter such interference in the future,’ they said.

The House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees are still investigating the matter.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ attempt to explain artificial intelligence (AI) to a group of labor and civil rights leaders on Wednesday instead became her latest word salad gaffe, something she’s become increasingly known for during her time in the role.

‘I think the first part of this issue that should be articulated is AI is kind of a fancy thing,’ Harris said during the roundtable at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C. ‘First of all, it’s two letters. It means artificial intelligence, but ultimately what it is, is it’s about machine learning.

‘And so, the machine is taught — and part of the issue here is what information is going into the machine that will then determine — and we can predict then, if we think about what information is going in, what then will be produced in terms of decisions and opinions that may be made through that process.’ 

‘So to reduce it down to its most simple point, this is part of the issue that we have here is thinking about what is going into a decision, and then whether that decision is actually legitimate and reflective of the needs and the life experiences of all the people,’ she said.

Harris continued her wordy statement by discussing the need for ‘transparency’ in the process of AI technology and its impact on decision-making. 

Her gaffe comes just one day after she was ridiculed for more ‘nonsense’ comments during a roundtable discussion on transportation.

‘This issue of transportation is fundamentally about just making sure that people have the ability to get where they need to go! It’s that basic,’ she said in an obvious statement.

In April, Harris made more puzzling comments during a pro-abortion rally about the ‘importance of the moment.’

‘So I think it’s very important — as you have heard from so many incredible leaders for us at every moment in time and certainly this one — to see the moment in time in which we exist and are present, and to be able to contextualize it, to understand where we exist in the history and in the moment as it relates not only to the past but the future,’ she said.

FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination says they ended the second quarter of 2023 fundraising with over $21 million cash-on-hand in their coffers.

Scott’s campaign, which shared its fundraising figures first with Fox News on Wednesday, reported bringing in $6.1 million during the second quarter, from April-June. 

TIM PAC – the super PAC supporting Scott’s White House bid – in a separate announcement told Fox News that they hauled in $19.28 million in the second quarter and had over $15 million cash on hand at the end of June.

Scott’s campaign highlighted that the vast majority of their fundraising came in the six weeks since the senator formally declared his candidacy on May 22. The only Black Republican in the Senate and a rising star in the GOP officially launched his presidential campaign at Charleston Southern University – his alma mater – in his hometown of North Charleston, South Carolina.

Scott’s aides noted after the campaign launch that the senator, who’s known as one of the top fundraisers on Capitol Hill, hauled in $2 million in the first 24 hours after declaring his candidacy for the White House.

The campaign said on Wednesday that the vast majority of the funds raised are solely for use in the GOP presidential primary campaign.

‘There is one candidate who has shown steady, upward momentum from the moment he entered this race and who has the resources and strategy to execute in the months ahead. He is the strongest messenger in the field with the most consistent conservative record to match,’ Scott campaign manager Jennifer DeCasper wrote in a memo detailing the fundraising figures. 

DeCasper spotlighted in her memo that ‘we can also proudly confirm Tim will be on the debate stage for months to come thanks to over 75,000 donations from over 53,000 unique donors across all 50 states.’

The Republican National Committee has set 40,000 individual contributions as one of its thresholds for candidates to make the stage at the first GOP presidential nomination debate. The showdown will be hosted by Fox News and held in Milwaukee on Aug. 23. The donor thresholds rise each month for the ensuing Republican presidential primary debates.

Scott, who’s been spotlighting an uplifting conservative message as he seeks the GOP nomination, is currently in the single digits in the latest Republican presidential primary polls. 

TIM PAC is supporting Scott with an ongoing $7.25 million ad blitz in Iowa and New Hampshire – the states that vote first and second in the GOP nominating calendar – that the super PAC launched in late May as the senator entered the race. 

‘We’ve seen tremendous enthusiasm for Tim since he launched his campaign and he’s well positioned to make the case against Joe Biden and the failed Democrat agenda,’ TIM PAC co-chair and former Sen. Cory Gardner said in a statement. ‘His conservative values and message focused on all that is good in America resonates well among Republican voters across the early primary states. TIM PAC will have all the resources necessary to make sure that support continues to grow.’

Former President Donald Trump, who’s making his third straight White House run, is the commanding front-runner in the GOP surveys.

Trump’s team said last week that the former president’s campaign and Save America, his political action committee, combined raised $35 million the past three months. Trump’s massive haul appears to be an indicator that the former president’s mounting legal troubles have helped fuel his 2024 White House campaign. 

During the second quarter of fundraising this year, Trump become the first sitting or former president in U.S. history to be charged with a crime, as he was indicted and arraigned in New York City by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in April and again in June in federal court in Miami.

As Fox News first reported on Thursday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis reported raising $20 million from his presidential campaign launch in late May through the end of June. And Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting the Florida governor’s presidential run, in a separate announcement told Fox News that they hauled in $130 million in fundraising since the committee launched in early March.

DeSantis is second in the latest polls, trailing Trump by double digits but ahead of Scott and the rest of large field of contenders, who are all in the single digits.

Nikki Haley’s Republican presidential campaign and two aligned political committees brought in $7.3 million during the April-June second quarter of 2023 fundraising, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

The figures from the former two-term South Carolina governor who later served as ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration were shared first with Fox News on Monday.

Candidates have until July 15 to file reports with the Federal Election Commission.

Fundraising, along with polling, is a key metric to gauge a candidate’s popularity and a campaign’s strength. The money raised can be used for travel, ads and to build voter outreach efforts. 

The IRS whistleblowers who alleged political interference in the federal investigation into Hunter Biden will testify before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee next week.

The committee announced that IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, who served as the supervisor of the investigation at the IRS, and the second anonymous whistleblower leveling the accusations are set to appear before the panel on July 19 at 1:00 p.m. ET.

‘These whistleblowers have provided information about how @TheJusticeDept refused to follow evidence that implicated Joe Biden, tipped off Hunter Biden’s attorneys, allowed the clock to run out with respect to certain charges, and put Hunter Biden on the path to a sweetheart plea deal,’ the committee announced Wednesday on Twitter.

The whistleblowers alleged that officials at the Justice Department, FBI and IRS interfered in the investigation into Hunter Biden, and said decisions in the case seemed to be ‘influenced by politics.’ They also alleged federal prosecutors blocked lines of questioning related to President Biden, and said the U.S. attorney in charge of the probe, David Weiss, did not have full authority to bring charges.

Their testimony comes as the committee, led by Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., investigates the Biden family’s business dealings.

‘Since taking the gavel in January, the Committee on Oversight and Accountability has made rapid progress in our investigation into the Biden family’s domestic and international business dealings to determine whether these activities compromise U.S. national security and President Biden’s ability to lead with impartiality,’ Comer said in a statement. ‘From the thousands of financial records we’ve obtained, we know the Biden family set up over 20 shell companies, engaged in intentionally complicated financial transactions with foreign adversaries, and made a concerted effort to hide the payments and avoid scrutiny.’

Comer said the whistleblowers have confirmed ‘many findings of our investigation.’

‘Additionally, these whistleblowers provided information about how the Justice Department refused to follow evidence that implicated Joe Biden, tipped off Hunter Biden’s attorneys, allowed the clock to run out with respect to certain charges, and put Hunter Biden on the path to a sweetheart plea deal,’ Comer said. ‘Americans are rightfully angry about this two-tiered system of justice that seemingly allows the Biden family to operate above the law.’

Comer stressed the importance of hearing from the whistleblowers, and other witnesses about this ‘weaponization of federal law enforcement power.’

‘This hearing is an opportunity for the American people to hear directly from these credible and brave whistleblowers,’ Comer said. ‘I look forward to their testimony as the Oversight Committee, along with the House Judiciary Committee and Ways and Means Committee, work to deliver transparency and accountability.’

The testimony comes amid a joint-congressional investigation with the Oversight Committee, Judiciary Committee and House Ways and Means Committee into the federal probe into Hunter Biden, and whether prosecutorial decisions were influenced by politics.

House Republicans are demanding more than a dozen federal officials, including the U.S. attorney in charge of the investigation into Hunter Biden, appear before multiple congressional committees for transcribed interviews regarding allegations of politicization and misconduct at their agencies throughout the years-long probe into the president’s son.

The Justice Department announced last month that Hunter Biden had entered a plea agreement that would likely keep him out of prison. As part of the deal, the president’s son will plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax and to one charge of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance.

Hunter Biden is set to make his first court appearance on July 26.

The Justice Department has denied the investigation was influenced in any way. U.S. Attorney David Weiss from Delaware, who is in charge of the probe, has said the investigation is ‘ongoing.’