It’s take two for Dave McCormick in battleground Pennsylvania.

McCormick, a former hedge fund executive, West Point graduate, Gulf War combat veteran and Treasury Department official in former President George W. Bush’s administration, on Thursday launched his second straight campaign for the Senate. 

His announcement gives national and state Republicans a high-profile candidate with the ability to self finance. McCormick had been courted to run against longtime Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, Jr. — a race that could ultimately decide whether the GOP wins back the Senate majority in 2024.

‘I have total faith and confidence in the people of Pennsylvania,’ McCormick said, but he stressed the need for leadership in Washington, D.C. ‘That is why today, I am announcing my candidacy for the United States Senate,’ McCormick said as he launched his Senate bid at Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh.

Asked why he was running again for the Senate, McCormick said in an interview with Fox News Digital that ‘the motivation is the same in the sense that I really feel that the country’s headed in the wrong direction.’

‘Whether it’s the immigration crisis or the economy or record high inflation, whether it’s the war on our domestic energy sector, I think the need to get great leaders into public life who can really make a difference and be independent and try to break the gridlock in Washington, which is failing us, is key,’ McCormick said.

And he took aim at Casey, tying the three-term Democratic senator and son of popular former Pennsylvania governor as well as President Biden, whose approval ratings remain well in negative territory.

‘Bob Casey is an 18-year senator. He’s been in politics 30 years and really hasn’t’ accomplished very much at all. He’s been a rubber-stamp for Joe Biden. He’s voted for Joe Biden 98% of the time,’ McCormick said. ‘If I can win this seat, I can really be a force for good in pushing back on Joe Biden’s policies.’

Casey, who served a decade as the state’s auditor general and then treasurer before winning election to the Senate in 2006, is not expected to face any serious primary challenge for the Democratic nomination.

McCormick may escape a crowded and combustible battle for the 2024 GOP Senate nomination similar to the one he faced last year. McCormick ended up losing the nomination by a race thin margin to celebrity doctor and cardiac surgeon Mehmet Oz, who secured a primary victory thanks to a late endorsement from former President Donald Trump. Oz ended up losing the general election last November to now-Democratic Sen. John Fetterman.

Asked about lessons learned from his first campaign, McCormick noted in his Fox News interview that he entered the race ‘a lot earlier this time.’

‘When you lose by 900 votes, there’s lots of lessons that you can learn. And so I’ve tried to learn all the things that came out of that last race and despite losing it was a great experience,’ he emphasized. ‘The most important thing is to get out there and be authentic.’

McCormick immediately won praise from the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), the campaign arm of the Senate GOP.

‘Dave McCormick has done a remarkable job of unifying the grassroots in Pennsylvania. A graduate of West Point, combat veteran and Pennsylvania job creator, Dave is exactly the type of candidate who can win both a primary and a general election in one of the most competitive states in the country. It’s great news that Dave is stepping up to serve our country once again.’ NRSC chair Steve Daines wrote in a statement shared with Fox News.

A race between Casey and McCormick could end up being one of the most expensive and closely watched Senate contests in the country next year, as the Democrats defend their fragile 51-49 majority.

Republicans need a net gain of either one or two seats in 2024 to win back the majority — depending on which party controls the White House after next year’s presidential election. 

The math and the map favor the GOP, as the Democrats are defending 23 of the 34 seats up for grabs, including three in red states and a handful in key general election battlegrounds such as Pennsylvania.

McCormick will likely once again come under attack — as both he and Oz did last year — over residency.

Oz was repeatedly criticized for relocating to Pennsylvania after living for decades in neighboring New Jersey. And McCormick, who grew up in northeast Pennsylvania and who’s the son of the Keystone state’s first state university system chancellor, was attacked for owning a home in an affluent part of Connecticut even buying a home in Pittsburgh ahead of his 2022 Senate campaign.

‘The real David McCormick is a mega-millionaire Connecticut hedge fund executive who is lying about living in Pennsylvania,’ the Pennsylvania Democrats charged in a release.

McCormick told Fox News that he is born and raised in Pennsylvania, lived most of his life there and ran a business in the state. ‘But like many Pennsylvanians, I’m divorced and remarried. My youngest daughter is finishing high school in Connecticut – she lives with her mom – and I’m going to go to Connecticut to see my daughter and to be a great dad,’ he said.

Attacks on his ties to Connecticut are a distraction, McCormick said.

Democrats are also blasting McCormick over the combustible issue of abortion.

Following the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade last year, abortion restrictions returned to individual states — making it a major election issue.

Republicans have played defense as Democrats point to polling that shows most Americans favor at least some form of abortion access.

‘Dave McCormick wants to ban abortions, even in cases of rape or incest,’ the Senate Majority PAC — the top super PAC backing Senate Democrats — said in a release hours before Thursday’s campaign launch.

But McCormick told Fox News that ‘my position hasn’t changed. I’m pro-life.’ And he reiterated that ‘any limits on this [abortion] should be for exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother. That’s what I consistently said throughout the campaign [last year]. So that position hasn’t changed.’

Asked about a 15-week federal ban that some Republicans in Congress and some GOP presidential candidates support, McCormick answered ‘I don’t support a national abortion ban.’

‘This is also an issue where I think we have to show a lot of compassion and look for common ground. Certainly, we can — and most Pennsylvanians and most Americans agree we should contraception and we have reasonable limits on late-term abortion. And that is a compassion position and a consensus position. And that’s the position I support,’ he emphasized.

And he claimed that ‘Bob Casey can’t name one limit on abortion he would support, even at eight or nine months. So, Bob Casey and the Democrats are supporting late-term abortions… I think that’s how I’ll talk about this on the campaign trail.’

In last year’s primary, Trump repeatedly criticized McCormick as ‘liberal Wall Street Republican,’ as he campaigned for Oz.

But if Trump secures the GOP nomination, the former president and McCormick would both be at the top of the GOP ticket in Pennsylvania.

‘It’s publicly documented that we’ve had our disagreements,’ McCormick said of his relationship with Trump. ‘There’s no doubt about that. We have different styles.’

‘But there’s a lot of things I said in the last campaign that I say in this campaign about the polices of President Trump that I think were great for the country, great for America,’ he added. ‘The country’s going in a terrible direction since Biden has been in office and that’s the case that I’ll make and I think many of the things that President Trump was advocating and put in place were taking us in the right direction.’

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Nevada’s pardons board will now consider requests for posthumous pardons in a limited scope, nearly six years after it voted to freeze such applications amid a backlog in cases.

The nine-member board voted unanimously Wednesday to begin accepting petitions for posthumous relief, but only those sponsored by a member of the board will be eligible for consideration.

The board consists of Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, Democratic state Attorney General Aaron Ford and the state’s Supreme Court justices.

Chief Justice Lidia Stiglich said Wednesday that she brought the matter before the board, in part, because of Tonja Brown, an advocate for prisoners who routinely speaks at meetings to bring attention to her late brother’s case.

‘At the very least,’ Stiglich said, Brown’s ‘tenacity deserves a discussion about whether or not we’re going to hear’ posthumous cases.

Brown believes her brother, Nolan Klein, was wrongly convicted in 1988 of a sexual assault and armed robbery outside of Reno and deserves a pardon.

‘He always maintained his innocence,’ she told The Associated Press after the meeting. Klein died in 2009.

Brown said she was grateful to the board and plans to submit an application on her brother’s behalf in the coming days.

In 2017, the board had voted it would not consider requests for posthumous pardons amid an ‘extreme backlog’ of applications for pardons and commutations, said Denise Davis, the board’s executive secretary. At the time, the board was required only to meet twice yearly, and only the governor had authority to bring a matter forward for consideration.

Nevada voters in 2020, however, passed a measure reforming the state’s pardons board. It now meets quarterly, and any member can place a matter before the board for consideration — including an application for posthumous pardons.

Davis said the board is still chipping away at the backlog, though it has improved.

Posthumous pardons are rare in Nevada — even before the board’s vote halting applications in 2017. Davis said she can’t recall the board granting a pardon posthumously since at least 2013, when she became executive secretary.

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FIRST ON FOX: Catholic Bishop Robert Barron and commentator Chris Rufo share a hope that the ‘extremism of a lot of the woke ideology’ is prompting a promising backlash despite dominating conservative fears.

‘My Hope Is that in what 20 years, 30 years, 40 years people will look back at this time and say ‘oh my goodness, that woke extremism was so unhealthy,’’ said Word on Fire ministries’ Barron during an hour-long conversation with Rufo on Bishop Barron Presents.

Barron, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Winona–Rochester in Wisconsin, discussed the ideological threat of critical race theory (CRT), Marxism and transgender ideology with Rufo, who is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute in an interview shared with Fox News Digital ahead of its Thursday release on Barron’s popular YouTube channel.

Rufo is among the most prominent activists against CRT and transgender ideology, and has been accused by critics of sparking widespread moral panic among conservatives. 

Barron, one of the most vocal Roman Catholic prelates in the U.S., faced criticism in recent years for speaking against ‘woke’ ideology. But his opposition to CRT is against the theory’s framing of fundamentally racist structures, collective guilt and revolutionary struggle.

Barron said the U.S. will be ‘on dangerous ground politically’ as culture moves away from the Declaration of Independence’s sense of inalienable rights. ‘Real equality is that we’re all children of God together our rights are going to even us because they’re dependent upon the Creator’s will,’ Barron said.

While many Republican politicians have joined the crusade against ‘wokeness,’ others have softened on the term. 

‘I don’t like the term ‘woke’ because I hear, ‘Woke, woke, woke,” said Republican primary frontrunner and former President Donald Trump during a campaign stop in Iowa this summer. ‘It’s just a term they use. Half the people can’t even define it, they don’t know what it is.’

In his book ‘America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything’ Rufo writes that the roots of CRT and wokeness are found in Marxism and nihilism, but presented in moral — even Christian — ‘marketing terms.’ 

Activists take ‘revolutionary literature and launder them through euphemism, passing them through the organs of legitimation — the academic journals and the university programs — into the K-12 School curriculum, into the diversity training curriculum in companies, into public policy using those same ideas,’ Rufo told Barron. 

At the university level, critical race theory began permeating academic institutions in the 1960s and ’70s, when according to Barron Catholic and conservative intellectuals ‘didn’t present our own point of view with confidence.’ 

‘Coming out of this very rich intellectual tradition there was kind of a hand-wringing quality to a lot of Catholic intellectual life and [that] opened the door too to the invasion of these other points of view that were not wringing their hands — they were evangelizing very effectively at a time when we had sort of stopped evangelizing,’ Barron said.

The success of what Rufo called the ‘cultural conquest’ has been pervasive, but not at every level. 

At the local level, Rufo sees promise in education movements away from public schools toward charter schools and homeschooling, often making drastic job or life changes to do so. 

In local and broader policy fights, Rufo also sees promise. 

‘This is not a conflict at heart between left and right,’ Rufo said. ‘This is a contest between the permanent bureaucracy and let’s say elite institutions that are seeking to impose these ideologies from the top down and then the broad middle class that opposes them.’

As more people contest the charters and funding for ‘woke’ programs, Rufo said more politicians will turn aside. 

‘That’s going to be a brutal it’s going to be a difficult and it’s going to be, in a metaphorical sense, a bloody fight,’ Rufo said.

In his 1993 book ‘Faces at the Bottom of the Well,’ Derrick Bell — hailed sometimes as the godfather of critical race theory — argued that ‘racism is an integral permanent and indestructible component of our society.’ 

‘If that’s true, if [racism is] so baked into our society then the only solution is a complete destruction of the society,’ Barron said. ‘It’s not a matter of reforming [society], calling it to conversion like in [Dr. Martin Luther] King’s case summoning its own best qualities,’ Barron said. The ‘only solution is a revolutionary violence that destroys the entire society, and that is a Marxist inspired strategy,’ he added.

Bell wrote that recognizing systemic racism throughout society should not cause ‘disabling despair.’ 

For Bell, resistance to the overarching structure helped achieve freedom at a human level, even if it never overturned structures ‘deeply poisoned with racism.’ Bell quoted 20th century psychoanalyst and Marxist Frantz Faron: ‘In the World through which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself.’

The self-creation, self-identification motif is something Barron called fundamentally anti-Christian, and he connected it to transgender ideology. 

‘Pope Francis — I can tell you this from direct experience — he told us when I was a bishop out in California ‘I want you to stand against the gender ideology,’ because it’s repugnant to the Bible and to our anthropology, and we’re on dangerous ground when we start playing that game of my existence completely trumps essence,’ Barron said.

A cross-party delegation of Australian politicians met with U.S. officials, members of Congress and civil rights groups in Washington, D.C., Wednesday to urge the U.S. government to abandon efforts to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is accused of publishing classified U.S. military documents.

The group of Australian lawmakers included former Deputy Prime Minister and National Party Leader Barnaby Joyce, Labor Party member of parliament Tony Zappia, Independent member of parliament Monique Ryan, Liberal Party Sen. Alex Antic and Greens Party Sens. Peter Whish-Wilson and David Shoebridge. 

Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, joined the delegation in Washington for its meetings with U.S. officials.

The delegation brought a letter signed by more than 60 members of parliament calling on the U.S. to drop charges against Assange, who is fighting against extradition to the U.S., where he could be sentenced to up to 175 years in an American maximum-security prison. 

He is facing 17 charges for allegedly receiving, possessing and communicating classified information to the public under the Espionage Act and one charge alleging a conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. Assange would face trial in Alexandria, Virginia, if he is extradited to the U.S.

Speaking at a press conference outside the Justice Department Wednesday evening, members of the delegation said they are optimistic a resolution can be reached with the U.S. to secure Assange’s freedom, but they remain committed to continuing to pressure the U.S. until the prosecution comes to a conclusion.

‘We did not come here to pick a fight,’ Joyce told reporters. ‘We came here to present a case and to lobby for an outcome. And this is part of the process of making sure that people are aware of all the facts and the wider facts as we also have grown to know over a number of years. So, the delegation has come from every corner of the political spectrum, but we have arrived in Washington at the one spot, and that is, after 11 years, enough is enough.’

Assange has been held at London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison since he was removed from the Ecuadorian Embassy April 11, 2019, for breaching bail conditions. He had sought asylum at the embassy in London since 2012 to avoid being sent to Sweden over allegations he raped two women because Sweden would not provide assurances it would protect him from extradition to the U.S. The investigations into the sexual assault allegations were eventually dropped.

The delegation said it attempted to speak with Assange at Belmarsh but was denied visits. Members of the delegation said they have been in contact with Assange’s family.

The charges against Assange came in response to the 2010 publication of cables U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning leaked to WikiLeaks that detailed alleged war crimes committed by the U.S. government in the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detention camp, Iraq and Afghanistan. The materials also expose instances of the CIA allegedly engaging in torture and rendition.

WikiLeaks’ ‘Collateral Murder’ video showing the U.S. military gunning down civilians in Iraq, including two Reuters journalists, was also published 13 years ago.

‘Literally, all sides of politics have come together and united on this one key message, which is that an Australian citizen, Julian Assange, should come home,’ Joyce said. ‘The only crime that we see that Julian Assange has been charged with is the crime of being a journalist, the crime of telling the truth. And the fact that it’s an Australian citizen that has been targeted by one of our closest friends and allies is a very real concern to us as politicians and to a growing part of the Australian public.’

U.S. prosecutors and critics of Assange have argued WikiLeaks’ publication of classified material put the lives of its sources and allies at risk. But, as members of the delegation stressed to Fox News Digital Wednesday, there is no evidence Assange’s work put anyone in danger.

Whish-Wilson told Fox News Digital after the press conference the case against Assange has already strained U.S.-Australian relations but stressed that U.S. officials have been receptive to the delegation’s concerns.

‘Julian Assange has suffered enough,’ Whish-Wilson said. ‘Regardless of what you think of his character or what he’s done, he’s already paid a heavy price. And I think from here on in, it’s going to be very interesting to see where that relationship goes. We are the closest friends, the closest allies of the U.S. That relationship should be based on mutual respect and mutual trust. So, while we have respect for the U.S., I think we expect the U.S. will also show respect for us by listening and acting.’

President Biden will host Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in late October, and the delegation said the prime minister is expected to bring up Assange’s case. Albanese has repeatedly called on the U.S. in recent months to end the prosecution of the Australian journalist.

The Obama administration decided not to indict Assange after WikiLeaks published the cables in 2010 because it also would have had to indict journalists from major news outlets who published the materials. Former President Barack Obama also commuted Manning’s 35-year sentence for violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses to seven years. 

But former President Donald Trump’s Justice Department later moved to indict Assange under the Espionage Act, and the Biden administration has continued to pursue his prosecution.

‘If you look at what’s actually transpired here, the person who was responsible, we understand, for the leak had their sentence commuted. That was Chelsea Manning,’ Antic told Fox News Digital. ‘We are dealing with a situation where the publisher is now still being pursued under those circumstances. We have been saying we find it puzzling. I can’t see how there wouldn’t be a chilling effect on the free press if this was allowed to proceed.’

Members of the delegation pointed to how Assange is the only journalist facing prosecution for publishing material that other news outlets also published. The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País worked with Assange on the publication of excerpts from more than 250,000 documents he obtained in the Cablegate leak. 

Last year, the editors and publishers of these U.S. and European outlets wrote an open letter calling for the U.S. to drop the charges against Assange.

‘Australians are very confused as to why you would pardon the whistleblower and then go after the publisher,’ Whish-Wilson told Fox News Digital. ‘We also know that other publications here in the U.S. have also published some of these large leaks as well, prior to WikiLeaks. And the Department of Justice is not seeking their indictment on criminal offenses, but they’re going after Julian Assange.’

The Australian politicians also cited polling Wednesday showing nearly 90% of Australians believe the charges against Assange should be dropped. 

‘Most Australians feel that, as a publisher and journalist, he hasn’t committed any crimes and feel that the charges that they laid against him by the Trump administration weren’t warranted and that the exhibition of the extradition proceedings by the U.S. should be dropped,’ Ryan told Fox News Digital.

‘We think that it’s really important that we speak to the representatives of the Department of Justice and the State Department, but also to politicians,’ she added. ‘But we need to make sure people understand how Australians feel. We’re not sure that people do. Obviously, there are situations that go on for a long time, and people are no longer particularly seeing them … in terms of having them aware of the nature of the charges against them.’

The State Department declined to comment to Fox News Digital. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

On Capitol Hill, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., led a letter to the Justice Department earlier this year demanding that it drop charges against Assange. Fox News Digital reached out to Tlaib’s office for comment about the Australian delegation but did not hear back in time for publication.

The delegation told Fox News Digital it met with a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers supporting its cause, and the delegation will meet with more U.S. officials and members of Congress Thursday. The Australian politicians are also meeting with representatives of civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders.

‘We’re in touch with Julian Assange’s family and legal team and look forward to continuing our conversations with them,’ FIRE General Counsel Ronnie London said in a statement to Fox News Digital. ‘We remain concerned about the threat to press freedom posed by the use of the Espionage Act in contexts like this.’

During the Trump administration, the CIA allegedly had plans to kill Assange over the publication of sensitive agency hacking tools known as ‘Vault 7,’ which the agency said represented ‘the largest data loss in CIA history,’ Yahoo reported in 2021. The CIA had discussions ‘at the highest levels’ of the administration about plans to assassinate Assange in London and allegedly followed orders from director Mike Pompeo to draw up kill ‘sketches’ and ‘options,’ according to the report.

The agency also had advanced plans to kidnap and rendition Assange and had made a political decision to charge him, according to the report.

‘It’s fascinating about this issue, not just in Australia. We’ve got some hard right politicians here. We’ve got some hard left politicians. We’ve got centrists, and that’s exactly what we’re experiencing in the U.S.,’ Whish-Wilson told Fox News Digital. ‘This is an issue that cuts.

‘It gets libertarians exercised. It gets social justice campaigners exercised. And I think that’s what makes it really unique. It’s not very often that you … it’s a conviction issue, right? So, if you’re a conviction politician, no matter what color or what political persuasion, it’s bringing people together. And I think that’s a good thing.’

WikiLeaks also published internal communications in 2016 between the Democratic National Committee and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign that revealed the DNC’s attempts to boost Clinton in that year’s Democratic primary.

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FIRST ON FOX: Former Biden administration officials are entangled in a Michael Bloomberg campaign to block petrochemical projects nationwide while some organizations in the effort have collected millions of dollars in taxpayer-backed federal grants, records reviewed by Fox News Digital show. 

The billionaire Democratic donor and former New York City mayor’s charity, Bloomberg Philanthropies, launched its $85 million Beyond Petrochemicals campaign last year in an effort to block the development of proposed petrochemicals projects in Texas, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. At the time, Bloomberg said the campaign would help combat emissions and the climate crisis broadly.

‘Petrochemical plants poison our air and water — killing Americans and harming the health of entire communities. And with many heavily-polluting new projects planned around the U.S., we’re at a critical moment for stopping them,’ Bloomberg said. 

‘Communities around the country are standing up to confront the petrochemical industry and defend their right to clean air and water,’ he continued. ‘This campaign will help ensure more local victories, support laws that protect communities from harm, and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are fueling the climate crisis.’

But the California-based Resources Legacy Fund — a left-wing dark money group with a history of funding environmental campaigns — has funneled money to Beyond Petrochemicals, according to Bloomberg’s group. Several individuals linked to the Resources Legacy Fund have served high-level stints in Biden’s administration, with one of them specifying petrochemicals as a primary area of concern.

For example, in early September, Gina McCarthy, President Biden’s former White House national climate adviser, joined the Resources Legacy Fund’s board of directors. The group’s president Avi Garbow lauded McCarthy and said she was among the ‘nation’s most respected voices on issues related to climate change.’

McCarthy’s former role likely affords her a pipeline to Biden’s White House. During her final days in the role, she met with environmental leaders, including at least three individuals at groups now involved with Bloomberg’s Beyond Petrochemicals campaign, such as the Environmental Defense Fund, EarthJustice, and We Act for Environmental Justice.

McCarthy also recently joined the Bloomberg-backed climate change advocacy group America Is All In as its managing co-chair, where she supports ‘cities, states, businesses and institutions to scale climate action across the country,’ the group wrote in August. 

The former Biden official has identified the petrochemicals sector as a primary focus area for America Is All In, including the ‘growth of plastics and dealing with plastic pollution,’ E&E News reported. 

In addition, Garbow, the president of the Resources Legacy Fund, has also previously served in the Biden administration. Garbow took a six-month role as senior counselor to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan in 2021.

On his LinkedIn profile, Garbow states he took a leave of absence ‘at the request of the White House’ to ‘help ensure that the Administration and EPA were positioned at the outset to successfully pursue an aggressive, protective, durable, and equitable environmental and climate agenda, and return EPA to its mission of protecting public health and the environment for all Americans.’

Under Regan’s leadership, the EPA has taken sweeping actions targeting the petrochemical industry in an effort to curb emissions and fight global warming. And, on behalf of the EPA, the Department of Justice has filed environmental litigation against petrochemical facilities in Louisiana.

‘For generations, our most vulnerable communities have unjustly borne the burden of breathing unsafe, polluted air,’ Regan said in April in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana, upon announcing a slate of new regulations targeting the petrochemical industry. 

‘When I visited St. John the Baptist Parish during my first Journey to Justice tour, I pledged to prioritize and protect the health and safety of this community and so many others that live in the shadows of chemical plants.’

Overall, the multibillion-dollar petrochemical industry is particularly prominent in Louisiana where it is a key driver of jobs and investment. The industry is also a central reason why the state is the third-largest consumer of petroleum and largest consumer of petroleum per capita in the nation, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Petrochemicals such as polyethylene, polypropylene, polymer and ethylene glycol are key components of products like cars, ropes, pipes, artifical turf, playground equipment and antifreeze.

However, the petrochemical industry has long been target of environmentalists who argue it is responsible for harmful emissions and pollution negatively impacting surrounding communities’ health.

Mark Kleinman, senior communications officer for Resources Legacy Fund, told Fox News Digital the organization is ‘proud to work with the nation’s leading thinkers and advocates to protect the health of communities and build a cleaner, more prosperous future.’

‘RLF serves as fiscal sponsor for the Beyond Petrochemicals Campaign, which means RLF provides administrative and grantmaking support,’ he added.

The group did not address questions regarding individuals associated with it having worked in the Biden administration. 

Furthermore, representatives from Beyond Petrochemicals attended a July meeting with Michal Freedhoff, who serves as the assistant administrator in the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, to urge them ‘to ban vinyl chloride,’ according to Ohio’s WFMJ.

Broadly, Beyond Petrochemicals seeks to leverage research, litigation, legislation, and stakeholder engagement to achieve its goals, which include blocking ‘the expansion of more than 120 proposed petrochemical and plastic projects’ in Louisiana, Texas, and the Ohio River Valley.’ 

It also seeks to establish ‘stricter rules for existing plants to safeguard the health of American communities,’ Bloomberg Philanthropies’ website states.

While Bloomberg Philanthropies says ‘over 50 partners’ are involved with the campaign, the website currently only identifies 18 by name. According to records, seven of those groups have garnered a combined $15.3 million in government grants from the Biden administration — with one group receiving a bulk of that sum. 

The EPA recently awarded a $13 million grant to the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, a Beyond Petrochemicals coalition member that seeks to develop ‘minority leadership in the areas of environmental, social, and economic justice along the Mississippi River Chemical Corridor and Gulf Coast Region,’ its website states. 

The group received the grant as part of an effort to help ‘underserved and overburdened communities across the country access funds from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda for a variety of activities to advance environmental justice,’ the EPA said in an August announcement.

Bloomberg Philanthropies did not respond to a request for comment.

FIRST ON FOX: New images obtained by Fox News Digital shed light on the Biden administration’s planned ID for illegal immigrants, as officials look for ways to track the volume of migrants being released into the U.S.

Fox News, along with other outlets, reported last year on the ICE Secure Docket Card program last year, which Immigration and Customs Enforcement said will ‘modernize various forms of documentation provided to provisionally released noncitizens through a consistent, verifiable, secure card.’

Migrants who arrive at the border illegally and are not removed but instead released into the interior are often given a number of documents depending on their situation. The images show a card with room for a photograph, a QR code and identifying information and security details, as well as the ICE logo in the top left corner.

ICE said the ID will have a photograph, biographic identifiers and ‘cutting-edge’ security features, with the aim being to ‘improve current, inconsistent paper forms that often degrade rapidly in real-world use.’ The agency said the program was still in development and would be considered for further expansion pending the outcome of the pilot. 

The card could be used to check in and schedule reporting meetings with ICE. The agency hopes that it can be used in the field to easily verify an alien’s identity and to see if they are deportable. But the program has alarmed conservatives, who see it as part of an agenda for welcoming, rather than removing, those in the country illegally.

‘ICE is a federal law enforcement agency, not the DMV. When will Congress wake up and put an end to these open-borders, anti-enforcement programs that defy the agency’s mission and enable the crisis?’ RJ Hauman, president of the National Immigration Center for Enforcement (NICE) and a visiting adviser at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital this week.

‘ICE should be arresting, detaining, and removing those who come here illegally, not doling out social services,’ he said.

That echoes concerns expressed by lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee last year, who said they feared that it is ‘yet another Biden Administration move encouraging illegal immigration by rewarding illegal immigrants for breaking our laws.’

They also fear that the card will include QR codes that link to court documents and other information that they say raises security concerns ‘as well as questions regarding the likelihood that significant taxpayer resources will be diverted from immigration enforcement to uploading documents into and maintaining a secure system.’

ICE has pushed back against those concerns, with a spokesperson telling Fox last year that the ID would not be an official form of federal identification and would only be used for DHS agencies

‘Moving to a secure card will save the agency millions, free up resources, and ensure information is quickly accessible to DHS officials while reducing the agency’s FOIA backlog. For provisionally released noncitizens, the digital modernization will provide ongoing access to important immigration documents through the secure card and connected portal.’

The program marks one of a number of efforts by the administration to tackle the ongoing crisis at the border, which has shown signs recently of escalating.

Officials have been overwhelmed at the border in recent weeks as numbers have shot up through August and September. Multiple border sectors have been overwhelmed and have resorted to street releases of migrants in Tucson and San Diego.

On Wednesday, thousands of predominantly Venezuelan migrants surged into Eagle Pass, Texas and gathered under a bridge in Eagle Pass in the hope of being processed and released into the U.S. 

Critics have blamed the crisis on the administration’s policies, including its moves to narrow enforcement priorities for ICE. The administration has said Congress needs to provide more funding and reform a ‘broken’ immigration system. 

An appointee on a committee advising Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg once declared ‘ALL CARS ARE BAD’ but has a long record of complaining about public transit on social media.

‘Even in late September a train car with no a/c is killer,’ Andrea Marpillero-Colomina posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, in 2011. ‘Smells like stale doritos.’

Marpillero-Colomina was appointed last month to the Advisory Committee on Transportation and Equity (ACTE), which focuses on advising Buttigieg on civil rights and equity. Her social media history criticizing cars was highlighted shortly after her appointment, but additional posts show she also has grievances about public transportation, including tourists, cleanliness, disorganization and safety. 

HOW CLIMATE ALARMISM IS MAKING PEOPLE CHILDLESS BY CHOICE:

‘There are tourists on my subway car and I am reminded how annoying and how bad at respecting personal space these people are…’ she posted in November 2021. 

Originally created under the Obama administration, ACTE is made up of 23 experts serving two-year terms, according to a press release. Marpillero-Colomina was selected from a pool of more than 240 applicants.

Marpillero-Colomina is also the sustainable communities program director for GreenLatinos. The nonprofit is made up of ‘Latino/a/x leaders’ working to ‘demand equity and dismantle racism’ and ‘resourced to win our environmental, conservation, and climate justice battles, and driven to secure our political, economic, cultural, and environmental liberation,’ according to its website.

In October 2022 Marpillero-Colomina posted about a ‘psychotic man’ on the subway and tagged New York City Transit.

‘We’d all be dead by now if he had decided to act,’ Marpillero-Colomina wrote in a follow-up post when asked for a description of the man.

‘I don’t know — tall, Black, wearing ill-fitting shoes and a green hat… generally I try not to look at people behaving insanely and suggest you don’t put your riders in danger by asking them to..’ she replied to the city transit’s account.

A few hours later, she asked the New York City Police Department to ‘do something one of these days about the mentally unwell people all over the subway system.’

In another post about the safety of public transit, she said her late night rules include using cars with other people — preferably women — and avoiding the first or last car on a subway ‘so you can’t get trapped as easily.’

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Marpillero-Colomina criticized passengers without masks.

‘I hope all the people who don’t wear masks on the subway enjoy the extra special hell they are all ending up in together,’ she posted in June 2022.

The next month, she she asked ‘why everyone who doesn’t wear a mask on the subway IS NOT DEAD YET.’

‘Ooh my favorite! A man on the subway who has not heard of headphones or wearing a mask,’ another July 2022 post read.

In other posts, Marpillero-Colomina complains about the subway’s cleanliness and disorganization, including one where she said she gets panicked when she sees people accidentally ‘dragging their coats on the floor of the subway.’ Another called service changes ‘nonsensical’ and ‘completely insane.’

She took a break from lambasting the New York City subway in July 2021 and turned to Amtrak.

‘THE ENTIRE AMTRAK SHOULD JUST BE A QUIET CAR,’ she posted.

But in March 2021, she said in another post that ‘Everyone’s crazy because they spend all their time alone in their cars.’

Marpillero-Colomina told Fox News she didn’t have time to comment, and the Department of Transportation responded only with unsolicited information about the 2021 infrastructure law.

FIRST ON FOX: Two veteran Republican congressmen are demanding answers from the heads of West Point and the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA) regarding a event they say ‘encouraged partisanship,’ promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and bashed conservative lawmakers.

Republican Reps. Michael Waltz of Florida and Jim Banks of Indiana sent letters to U.S. Military Academy (USMA) and USAFA superintendents Lt. Gens. Steven Gilland and Richard Clark regarding the event, and a cadet’s question to a panel at the USMA’s Annual Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Conference.

At the August 30 conference, a USAFA cadet in uniform reportedly asked how DEI teachings can be ‘safeguarded’ by U.S. military academies and their cadets. The cadet also ‘spoke contemptuously of Members of Congress for performing their constitutional oversight duties,’ according to Waltz and Banks.

‘So, the United States Air Force Academy has a diversity and inclusion minor that teaches classes on gender, race, and nationalism in the class, and these teachings have been incredibly controversial across the U.S. with an outright ban in Florida and the superintendent of the United States Air Force Academy being questioned for it in Congress and the video going viral,’ the cadet asked, according to a report of the incident.

‘Can cadets and service academies safeguard the teachings of these topics, or, if we get a particularly bad batch of congressmen, are these teachings like, screwed?’ the cadet said.

Banks, the chairman of the Anti-Woke Caucus and the Military Personnel Subcommittee, told Fox News Digital he disagrees ‘with the cadet’s remarks,’ but sees ‘why he thought they were appropriate, given he made them at a left-wing political conference.’

‘The issue is that the U.S. Military Academy is hosting partisan, DEI events in the first place,’ Banks said.

In the letter, Waltz — the chairman of the House’s military readiness subcommittee — wrote that the conference ‘was hosted by USMA and attended by personnel from the U.S. Air Force Academy, USMA, U.S. Army officers, U.S. Air Force officers, as well as USMA faculty, civilian professors, Veterans Affairs staff, NASA staff, and professional DEI speakers.’

The congressmen noted the audio recording of the cadet’s question and wrote that, per ‘the recording, the crowd in attendance erupted in laughter at the cadet’s comments, and it is not apparent that any senior officer attempted to correct or counsel the cadet, nor did anyone take the opportunity to educate the group of cadets regarding civilian oversight of the military or the constitutional duty of elected officials to conduct legislative oversight.’

‘As veterans, we find USMA and the U.S. Air Force Academy’s apparent acquiescence of demeaning statements aimed at Congress troubling and emblematic of the increasing politicization of our academies,’ the Republicans wrote.

‘The apparent failure of any senior officer to correct the highly inappropriate behavior of scorning lawful, civilian authorities amounts to turning a blind eye to conduct that could be a violation of Article 88 of the UCMJ,’ they continued.

Waltz and Banks added that ‘the recording reinforces and validates the statements of a number of cadets who have reached out to our offices over the last several years.’

The congressmen wrote that some cadets as well as their families ‘feared that voicing a dissenting opinion’ on DEI or critical race theory teachings ‘even in an academic setting or seminar’ will lead to ‘mockery by their peers, faculty, and would be detrimental to their fledgling military careers.’

‘As we discussed during a Congressional hearing this year, I hope you will ask yourselves as commanders, why these cadets are so uncomfortable sharing their concerns with their chain of command,’ the Republicans wrote.

The congressmen also torched USMA’s DEI speaker selection for its annual conference, writing that the speakers, ‘as well as the nature of the conference itself, suggests that USMA fostered an environment that encourages partisanship.’

‘One of the speakers on the panel titled ‘Diversity in National Security: Views from Academia and Practice’, Dr. Nakissa P. Jahanbani, has a history of divisive public statements,’ the lawmakers wrote, pointing to social media posts from the speaker attacking former President Trump.

‘On social media, she has blamed the ‘rise in anti-black, immigrant hate’ on former President Trump’s ‘bigoted opinions’ and stated that ‘white identity and grievances,’ explain his political success,’ the lawmakers wrote.

‘Another participant on that panel, Dr. Rachel Yon, has published ‘classroom exercises’ based on the work of Derrick Bell, who has been described as the ‘Godfather of Critical Race Theory.’ A third member of the same panel was Zainab Ahmad, a former federal prosecutor who worked on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s very controversial investigation into the Trump campaign, the premise of which was later discredited by the Durham report.’

‘Given the example that has been set at an official USMA event, it’s not surprising that a cadet felt it acceptable to attack elected officials while in uniform,’ the lawmakers added.

The lawmakers asked the superintendents if the cadet in question was counseled ‘on appropriate references to elected officials while in uniform’ and if the academies ‘condone the highly partisan statements of the conference’s guest speakers.’

Banks and Waltz are currently investigating race-based admissions to military service academies — which was a controversial exclusion in the Supreme Court’s recent overturn of race-based affirmative action in college admissions.

Though she appears on a schedule prepared prior to the event, Ahmad told Fox News Digital that she ‘did not attend the conference,’ 

Neither the USMA and USAFA nor the rest of the speakers highlighted by the congressmen in the letter immediately responded to Fox News Digitals’ requests for comment.

Pro-life groups are vowing to put pressure on former President Donald Trump after the leading Republican 2024 candidate did an about-face on abortion and began opposing some restrictions.

Trump turned on the pro-life movement over a matter of days this week, labeling Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ six-week ban ‘a terrible thing’ and abandoning a push for federal-level restrictions. Now, many within the pro-life movement are prepared to pressure Trump back into the fold.

‘Are pro-lifers going to allow themselves to be a cheap date?’ Patrick Brown, a fellow with the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Life and Family Initiative, told Politico. ‘Are they going to sit back and take it when candidates are denigrating the cause they dedicated their life to?’

‘He won’t feel pressure until it’s applied, and we’re willing to apply it,’ Kristi Hamrick, chief policy strategist with Students for Life of America, told the outlet. ‘You cannot ignore the human rights issue of our time and still get our vote.’

Lila Rose, president and founder of Live Action called Trump’s move ‘[p]athetic and unacceptable,’ saying the former president was ‘actively attacking the very pro-life laws made possible by Roe’s overturning.’

‘Heartbeat Laws have saved thousands of babies. But Trump wants to compromise on babies’ lives so pro-abort Dems ‘like him.’ Trump should not be the GOP nominee,’ she wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Trump GOP primary contenders have capitalized on his reversal, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warning pro-life voters that Trump is preparing to ‘sell you out.’

‘Anytime he did a deal with Democrats, whether it was on budget, whether it was on the criminal justice ‘First Step Act,’ they ended up taking him to the cleaners, and so, I think if he’s going into this thing, he’s gonna make the Democrats happy with respect to the right to life. I think all pro-lifers should know that he’s preparing to sell you out,’ DeSantis told Iowa Radio.

‘Protecting babies with heartbeats is not terrible. Donald Trump may think it’s terrible. I think protecting babies with heartbeats is noble and just, and I’m proud to have signed the heartbeat bill in Florida, and I know Iowa has similar legislation,’ DeSantis added.

WINDHAM, N.H. – EXCLUSIVE – Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina appears to be turning up the heat when it comes to taking on his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination.

Scott told Fox News Digital in an interview Wednesday that former President Donald Trump is ‘wrong’ on abortion and charged that Trump and two other rivals — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley — have ‘run away from protecting life.’

Trump, the commanding front-runner in the race for the GOP presidential nomination as he makes his third straight White House run, handed his rivals some ammunition over the combustible issue of abortion.

The blockbuster move last year by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority to overturn the landmark nearly half-century-old Roe v. Wade ruling, which had allowed for legalized abortions nationwide, moved the divisive issue back to the states.

And it has forced Republicans to play defense in elections across the country, as a party that is nearly entirely ‘pro-life’ has had to deal with an electorate that broadly supports at least some form of abortion access.

Trump declined to endorse a specific number of weeks after which abortion would be banned, with some exceptions, and he refused to say whether he feels the issue should settled at the state or federal levels, during an interview that aired Sunday on NBC News’ ‘Meet the Press.’

‘We’re going to agree to a number of weeks or months or however you want to define it,’ Trump said. ‘And both sides are going to come together and both sides — both sides, and this is a big statement — both sides will come together . . . I think both sides are going to like me.’

Trump also reiterated his criticism of Republicans who take too hard an abortion stance, saying, ‘You’re not going to win on this issue.’

And he called the six-week abortion ban DeSantis signed into law in Florida ‘a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.’

‘I think the former president is wrong on the issue,’ Scott said when asked about Trump’s comments. ‘He was a pro-life president. We need a pro-life president in the future.’

Scott, who was interviewed after headlining the New Hampshire Institute of Politics ‘Politics and Eggs’ speaking series, charged that ‘President Trump and Governor Haley, Governor DeSantis, have all run away from protecting life.’

DeSantis has repeatedly said, ‘I’m pro-life. I’ve been pro-life governor. I’ll be pro-life president,’ but he has not shared specifics on what he would do as president in terms of supporting a federal abortion ban. 

Haley has also showcased her ‘pro-life’ credentials but emphasized that without enough support in the Senate, passing a federal abortion ban is ‘not realistic.’

Scott, along with former Vice President Mike Pence and a couple of other Republican presidential candidates, supports a proposed 15-week federal abortion ban.

The senator’s criticisms of Trump, DeSantis, and Haley in his Fox News interview appear to be the latest indicator that he is sharpening his contrasts with his rivals for Republican presidential nomination.

Scott, a rising star in the GOP and the only Black Republican in the Senate, has been spotlighting an uplifting conservative message as he seeks his party’s presidential nomination. 

The senator was anything but the loudest voice at last month’s first Republican presidential nomination debate, a Fox News showdown in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And because he mostly avoided the numerous verbal fistfights at the first debate, he rarely enjoyed the glare of the primetime spotlight.

Scott’s campaign says the candidate will draw contrasts and distinctions with the rest of the field at next week’s second debate, a Fox Business hosted showdown at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California. 

‘Having an opportunity to talk about where we’re different. I think it’s important for the audience, frankly, at home to understand that there are real differences between the candidates on the stage, and we should have an opportunity to discuss those differences,’ Scott emphasized on Wednesday.

But he seemed to discount poor reviews from political pundits and prognosticators, who gave him a thumbs down.

‘I think you’ll see basically what I did last time. I’ll try to do that again. Frankly, I thought our performance was strong. I want to make sure that we do it again,’ Scott said.

Fox News’ Kirill Clark contributed to this report