Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Sonia Sotomayor are once again at odds over a major case concerning the First Amendment.

In a landmark 6-3 decision that pitted the interests of LGBTQ non-discrimination against First Amendment freedom, the Supreme Court on Friday held that a Colorado graphic designer who wants to make wedding websites does not have to create them for same-sex marriages.

The nation’s highest court ruled in favor of artist Lorie Smith, who sued the state of Colorado over its anti-discrimination law that prohibited businesses providing sales or other accommodations to the public from denying service based on a customer’s sexual orientation.

‘In this case, Colorado seeks to force an individual to speak in ways that align with its views but defy her conscience about a matter of major significance,’ Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the court’s majority opinion. ‘But tolerance, not coercion, is our Nation’s answer. The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands. Because Colorado seeks to deny that promise, the judgment is reversed.’

Smith has maintained throughout the case that she has no problem working with the LGBTQ community, just not for gay weddings.

Sotomayor dissented from the majority, along with Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, calling the ruling ‘a new license to discriminate’ and arguing that the ‘symbolic effect of the decision is to mark gays and lesbians for second-class status.’

The dissenting opinion argued that there ‘can be no social castes’ in a free and democratic society, suggesting that the majority’s decision would create such a reality.

Sotomayor, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, went on to falsely claim that the 2016 mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, had been motivated by anti-gay prejudice. Court and phone records that emerged following the massacre revealed that anti-LGBTQ hatred had no apparent role in the gunman’s motivations.

Still, Sotomayor went on to mention various examples of anti-LGTBQ discrimination and violence in her opinion, seemingly arguing that the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday will create more hostility toward the LGBTQ community and lead to more hate crimes.

Gorsuch, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, lambasted Sotomayor’s dissent, saying it ‘reimagines the facts’ from ‘top to bottom’ and fails to answer the fundamental question: ‘Can a State force someone who provides her own expressive services to abandon her conscience and speak its preferred message instead?’

Gorsuch went on to say that the dissent ‘gets so turned around about the facts that it opens fire on its own position,’ adding that it is ‘difficult to read the dissent and conclude we are looking at the same case.’

Friday wasn’t the first time that Gorsuch and Sotomayor had something of a war of words over a First Amendment decision. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that a public school district couldn’t stop a football coach from praying on the 50-yard line after games.

In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the Supreme Court held that preventing someone from engaging in such prayer as a personal religious observance violated the First Amendment’s protections of free speech and the free exercise of religion.

Sotomayor took issue with Gorsuch’s portrayal of the facts in the majority opinion, even taking the unusual step of including photos in her dissenting opinion that, in her view, undercut his summary of the case. She also seemed to accuse him of using misleading information.

‘To the degree the court portrays petitioner Joseph Kennedy’s prayers as private and quiet, it misconstrues the facts,’ wrote Sotomayor. ‘The record reveals that Kennedy had a longstanding practice of conducting demonstrative prayers on the 50-yard line of the football field. Kennedy consistently invited others to join his prayers and for years led student athletes in prayer at the same time and location. The court ignores this history. The court also ignores the severe disruption to school events caused by Kennedy’s conduct.’

Gorsuch began his opinion by stating that Kennedy had lost his job as a high school football coach ‘because he knelt at midfield after games to offer a quiet prayer of thanks.’ The opinion argued that Kennedy had prayed ‘during a period when school employees were free to speak with a friend, call for a reservation at a restaurant, check email, or attend to other personal matters. He offered his prayers quietly while his students were otherwise occupied. Still, the Bremerton School District disciplined him anyway.’

Gorsuch argued that the evidence showed that Kennedy had demonstrated that ‘his speech was private speech, not government speech.’

The two justices sparred in their dueling opinions over whether students had felt pressured to participate in the prayers.

That dispute followed the emergence of reports from early last year claiming that Gorsuch’s refusal to wear a face mask at Supreme Court arguments due to COVID had created tensions between him and Sotomayor. However, both justices released an unusual joint statement last January rebutting such claims.

‘Reporting that Justice Sotomayor asked Justice Gorsuch to wear a mask surprised us,’ the statement said. ‘It is false. While we may sometimes disagree about the law, we are warm colleagues and friends.’

MANCHESTER, N.H. – It was an amusing moment on the presidential campaign trail that illustrates how influential a role Republican Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire is playing in the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

As he introduced Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley at a New Hampshire GOP summer cookout and fundraiser this week, Sununu repeatedly praised the former two-term South Carolina governor, who later served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in former President Donald Trump’s administration.

But Sununu, who just a few weeks ago announced that he’d pass on his own presidential run, added that he’s not endorsing anyone ‘yet’ in the state’s presidential primary, emphasizing ‘we’ve got a long way to go’ until state’s 2024 nominating contest. 

After exchanging a hug, Haley kicked off her comments to the crowd by saying, ‘You’ve got a great governor.’

With a joke that elicited plenty of laughter, she said, ‘Governor, I very much worry about your health. What I’m thinking is, I don’t want you to over-stress. I don’t want you to get out there and do too much. So I think what’s best is, go ahead and endorse me now.’

Haley was kidding about Sununu’s health — but not about hoping to land the popular governor’s support in the state that holds the first primary and second overall contest in the GOP presidential nominating calendar.

She and five other contenders are former or current governors who have all worked alongside of Sununu. They and the six other Republican presidential candidates who are also challenging Trump for the GOP nomination have been calling Sununu, or meeting with him when they’re campaigning in New Hampshire, asking for his advice and suggestions, and maybe even for his support down the road.

‘He’s a great friend. He’s a great governor, and he’s going to be an important person in this primary. And I think that he’s got a lot of knowledge about the people of New Hampshire, and I think he’s got a lot of knowledge of what it takes to win here, so I think he’s going to be incredibly important,’ Haley told Fox News at the NHGOP cookout.

Besides Haley, in recent weeks former Vice President Mike Pence, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, ex-CIA spy and former Rep. Will Hurd of Texas and environmental lawyer and high-profile vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who’s primary-challenging President Biden for the Democratic nomination — have all met with Sununu. And three other candidates — Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and former Governors Chris Christie of New Jersey and Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas — huddled in-person with Sununu earlier this year.

‘Gov. Sununu’s importance in the New Hampshire primary cannot be underestimated. His endorsement and his general being an ambassador for the primary is going to be critically important in 2024,’ longtime New Hampshire Institute of Politics executive director Neil Levesque told Fox News.

Sununu is more modest.

‘I try to be open and helpful to everybody. So, I don’t think I’m the man in demand. I think everyone knows that I’m willing to help and give good advice and guidance in terms of what they’re doing, next steps, who to meet, where to go, how to approach the state.’

Sununu, who’s in his fourth two-year term steering New Hampshire, added in a Fox Digital interview, ‘I do know how to win the state and be successful here, and I’m happy to share any advice I can with all the different candidates.’

‘They ask good advice. They ask good questions. How they should approach the state. How they should approach the voters,’ Sununu said of the Republican presidential contenders. ‘I’m kind of happy to give all the advice we can. I think we know how to do retail politics and retail management here and how it translates to the electorate.’

And he’s giving the candidates good grades at this point, saying, ‘I think so far, they’re doing it the right way. They’re going to the backyard barbeque, and they’re going to the diners to meet people on the citizens’ terms, not on the candidates’ terms, which is what I think defines New Hampshire really apart from everybody else.’

Unlike Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa, another popular chief executive who’s playing a similar role in the 2024 GOP nomination race in the first caucus state, Sununu has said he’s open to making an endorsement ahead of the primary.

Asked about his timetable, the governor said, ‘We haven’t even gotten to a debate yet. We’re just getting to see who all the candidates are. A lot of them are still getting in the race as of last week. There’s still a lot to play out in terms of endorsements and where that goes.’

One person Sununu won’t endorse, and who isn’t asking the governor for advice, is former President Donald Trump, who’s the commanding front-runner right now in the Republican race as he makes his third straight White House run.

Sununu has been highly critical of Trump dating back to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters who unsuccessfully tried to prevent congressional certification of President Biden’s 2020 election victory. Sununu has repeatedly predicted that the former president has no chance of winning back his old job in 2024.

As for his own political future, Sununu has yet to announce whether he’ll seek an unprecedented fifth term as governor.

Asked about his timetable to decide on a 2024 re-election run, the governor pointed to his wife, Valerie, and three children and told Fox News, ‘I’ll talk to Valerie and the kids and stuff over the holiday weekend and probably come to some sort of firm and public decision sometime in July, August, something like that.’

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham faced an onslaught of boos as he stumped for former President Donald Trump at a rally in his home state of South Carolina Saturday, with supporters giving him a thumbs down as he left the stage.

‘Let me tell you how you win an election, folks,’ Graham told the crowd of Trump supporters in Pickens, South Carolina. ‘You get people together that don’t agree all of the time to agree on the most important things.’

‘My hope is we can bring this party together ’cause he’s gonna be our nominee,’ Graham continued amid a stream of soft booing from many in attendance. ‘He will be the nominee of the Republican Party, and let me tell you what’s at stake. If they win in 2024, they’re gonna pack the Supreme Court. So we need to get off our butts and make sure Donald Trump wins. If they win in 2024… Puerto Rico and D.C. will be states. Four Democrats for the rest of our lifetime. They’ll abolish the electoral college, they will turn this nation upside down.’

‘There’s one person running for president as a Republican that has the ability to change this country. It is Donald J. Trump. He did it once, he can do it again,’ he said. ‘I’m gonna help him all over this country, and folks, I am from South Carolina. He is gonna win South Carolina. This is the pathway to the presidency. God bless you all. God bless President Trump. God bless America.’

Immediately after his remarks, Graham paced to the left of the stage and exited among a roaring crowd of disgruntled Trump supporters who booed at the senator and gave him a thumbs down.

Graham, who spoke for about five minutes at the rally, was also booed when first took stage.

Once at the podium, Graham paused as the booing drowned out what he had to say.

‘Welcome to Pickens. … Thanks a bunch,’ he said. ‘Well, you wanna find something in common?’

As the booing continued, Graham told the crowd: ‘Calm down for just a second. I think you’ll like this. Pickens County has more Medal of Honor winners per capita than any place in the nation. I was born in this county. I live 15 miles down the road.’

‘This is a place where people pay the taxes, fight the wars and tell you what they believe,’ Graham said over the booing. ‘How many of you believe that Donald Trump was a great president?’

The crowd cheered at Graham’s remarks about Trump, but went right back to shouting down the senator and his remarks.

‘Without Donald Trump, there are no Donald Trump policies,’ Graham said. ‘He did something nobody else could do.’

Taking the stage a short time after Graham’s comments, Trump attempted to rally support for the senator, telling his supporters, ‘We’re gonna love him.’

Amid additional booing from the crowd, Trump said, ‘I know, it’s half-and-half. But when I need some of those liberal votes, he’s always there to help me get ’em, okay?’

‘We got some pretty liberal people, but he’s good,’ Trump added of Graham. ‘We know the good ones. We know the bad ones, too.’

Trump referenced Graham at a later point in the rally and was met with another round of booing. ‘I’m gonna have to work on these people,’ Trump said. He also offered to campaign for Graham when he is up for re-election.

Graham, who’s represented South Carolina in the U.S. Senate since 2003, has faced criticism from Trump supporters in recent years for his positions on a number of issues.

In 2021, as he waited to board a flight from the Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., Graham was swarmed by roughly a dozen people who called him a ‘traitor’ over his comments about Trump following the 2020 presidential election.

‘You know it was rigged,’ the individuals shouted to Graham at the time.

Graham’s position on the Russia-Ukraine war, which has been ongoing for well over a year, has also not been popular among Trump supporters and hardcore conservatives.

An ardent supporter of Ukraine’s defensive efforts, Graham traveled with Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut to Kyiv last summer.

During the meeting on the 134th day of the war, Zelenskyy, according to his office, ‘called on senators to back the decision on providing Ukraine with modern air defense systems.’ 

‘First of all, we appeal to you so that the Congress supports Ukraine in the matter of supplying modern air defense systems,’ Zelenskyy said. ‘We must ensure such a level of sky security that our people are not afraid to live in Ukraine.’

Fox News’ Greg Norman contributed to this report.

A record number of 40-year-olds in the United States have never been married, and most of them are living alone, according to a new analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.

The Pew Research Center analyzed Census Bureau data from 2021 and found 25% of 40-year-olds that year had never been married, a sharp increase from 20% in 2010. Many of these individuals lived alone, with just 22% of never-married adults ages 40 to 44 reporting last year that they cohabitated with a romantic partner.

The 2021 data marks a new peak in what’s been a decades-long trend. The share of unmarried 40-year-olds has steadily been increasing since 1980, when just 6% of them had never been married.

According to the data, a higher share of men than women had never married, and Black 40-year-olds were much more likely to have never married than Hispanic, White, and Asian 40-year-olds. Education also seemed to play an important factor, as 40-year-olds without a four-year college degree were more likely to have never married than those who had completed at least a bachelor’s degree.

‘The overall decrease in the share of 40-year-olds who have married is especially notable because the share of 40-year-olds who had completed at least a bachelor’s degree was much higher in 2021 than in 1980 (39% vs. 18%),’ Richard Fry, a senior researcher for Pew, wrote in a summary of the findings. ‘More-highly educated 40-year-olds are more likely to have married, but the growth of this group has not reversed the overall trend of delaying or forgoing marriage.’

Pew conducted the analysis to examine how marriage rates have changed among 40-year-olds in the U.S. from 1850 to 2021. The data revealed a growing trend of delaying marriage or foregoing it altogether among people born during or after the 1960s.

Pew’s findings echo those of the University of Virginia’s National Marriage Project, which found in a report last year that the median age of a first marriage has increased over the last 50 years, ‘from 23 in 1970 to about 30 in 2021 for men, and from 21 in 1970 to 28 in 2021 for women.’

The study noted a later marriage doesn’t necessarily mean a better one, reporting that 81% of husbands who married earlier said they were satisfied in their marriages, compared to just 71% of those who married later. As for women, 73% of women who married earlier were satisfied, compared to 70% of later-married women.

Fry told CNN that the Pew report focused on 40-year-olds to reflect the fact that adults tend to ‘take stock of their lives at the start of a new decade of life,’ noting a connection between fertility and marriage. ‘Some women may want to have children in the context of marriage. Since fertility wanes after the age of 40, 40 is an appropriate age to document marriage outcomes.’

According to Census Bureau data, less than 1 in 5 adults had not tried marriage by age 40 in all prior generations of American adults.

However, Fry noted in Pew’s analysis that people do marry for the first time late in life.

‘To be sure, we can’t assume that if someone has not married by age 40, they never will,’ he wrote. ‘In fact, about one-in-four 40-year-olds who had not married in 2001 had done so by age 60. If that pattern holds, a similar share of today’s never-married 40-year-olds will marry in the coming decades.’

In a separate report from last month, Pew noted that young adults are reaching key life milestones later than earlier generations, such as achieving a full-time job, financial independence, independent living, and parenthood.

The report comes amid a decline in U.S. birth and marriage rates that’s been underway for decades. Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that just under 3.7 million babies were born in the U.S. last year, about 3,000 fewer than in 2021.

The CDC also found that birthrates for teens and young women hit record lows since peaking in 1991. Specifically, the U.S. teen birth rate fell by 3% from 2021 to an all-time low last year.

Former President Trump blasted President Biden’s failed student loan forgiveness plan Friday, calling him ‘crooked’ while celebrating a favorable Supreme Court decision in Biden v. Arkansas.

Trump addressed an enthusiastic crowd at the Moms for Liberty Joyful Warriors National Summit in Philadelphia. During his speech, he vilified Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, which would have forgiven upwards of $10,000 per federal loan borrower.

Earlier Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan was unconstitutional.

The plan would have canceled debt for borrowers making less than $125,000 a year. Pell Grant recipients would have been granted up to $20,000 in forgiveness.

‘[It] would have been very unfair to the millions and millions of people who paid their debt through hard work and diligence,’ Trump said during his speech. ‘Very unfair.’

‘We have a corrupt president. Very corrupt,’ the former president added. ‘But this was a way of trying to buy votes.’

The Supreme Court’s majority opinion discredited the notion that the HEROES Act would authorize loan forgiveness, dealing a significant blow to the Biden administration.

‘The Secretary’s plan canceled roughly $430 billion of federal student loan balances, completely erasing the debts of 20 million borrowers and lowering the median amount owed by the other 23 million from $29,400 to $13,600,’ Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the 6-3 majority. 

‘Six States sued, arguing that the HEROES Act does not authorize the loan cancelation plan. We agree,’ the justice added.

Trump also alluded to the 303 Creative LLC. v. Elenis decision, which gave a Christian web designer the right to deny services to same-sex couples.

‘They also gave religious liberty, as you know…a tremendous win. Religious liberty got a tremendous win today,’ the former president said.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for a statement, but did not receive a response.

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The U.S. Department of State released a damning formal evaluation of the United States’ chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, placing blame on both the Trump and Biden administrations.

The State Department conducted more than 150 interviews over a 90-day period to compile the report, which was publicized Friday. Notably, 13 American service members died in a suicide bombing at Kabul’s airport during the controversial withdrawal, which concluded Aug. 30, 2021.

The report found that both President Trump and President Biden had ‘insufficient senior-level consideration’ of what could go wrong during a withdrawal.

‘The decisions of both President Trump and President Biden to end the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan had serious consequences for the viability of the Afghan government and its security,’ the report stated. ‘Those decisions are beyond the scope of this review, but the AAR team found that during both administrations there was insufficient senior-level consideration of worst-case scenarios and how quickly those might follow.’

The report found that there was no clear point of contact at the State Department regarding the NEO, or non-combatant evacuation operation. The U.S. military plans for operations, but the State Department leads them.

‘U.S. military planning for a possible NEO had been underway with post for some time, but the Department’s participation in the NEO planning process was hindered by the fact that it was unclear who in the Department had the lead.’ the report described.

‘Naming a 7th floor principal to oversee all elements of the crisis response would have improved coordination across different lines of effort,’ the findings added.

On Friday, a senior State Department official discussed how lessons learned from the Afghanistan invasion could impact American response to the war in Ukraine.

‘We’ve already internalized many of these painful lessons and applied them in subsequent crises, most notably in how we manage the Russian invasion in Ukraine …and in some of the aspects of our response to the crisis in Sudan a couple of months ago,’ the official explained.

‘We’ve strengthened and increased staffing of the Office of Crisis Management Strategy in the operations center…we’ve also increased the number of people who are identified within a range of bureaus as most likely to be a nexus for a crisis in the near future to make sure we’ve got good on-call rosters as things might develop or unfold.’

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President Biden said that the Supreme Court ‘misinterpreted the Constitution’ after it blocked his student loan handout plan, and also announced changes being made to student loans.

Biden made the comments on Friday afternoon from the White House after the Supreme Court struck down his administration’s student loan plan.

The 6-3 decision held that the secretary of education cannot cancel more than $430 billion in student loan debt under federal law.

During his speech, Biden hit Republicans, who he says blocked his student loan handout plan from being implemented.

‘They said, no, no, literally snatching from the hands of millions of Americans thousands of dollars in debt relief that was about to change their lives. You know, these Republican officials just couldn’t bear the thought of providing relief for working class, middle class Americans. Republican state officials sued my administration attempting to block relief, including millions of their own constituents,’ Biden said.

He also touched on actions that his administration is taking on student loans, such as the creation of a new income-driven repayment plan and the initiation of a rule that would be aimed at ‘opening an alternative path to debt relief for as many borrowers as possible.’

‘The Secretary’s plan canceled roughly $430 billion of federal student loan balances, completely erasing the debts of 20 million borrowers and lowering the median amount owed by the other 23 million from $29,400 to $13,600,’ Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority opinion. ‘Six States sued, arguing that the HEROES Act does not authorize the loan cancelation plan. We agree.’

Biden’s plan aimed to cancel up to $20,000 in student loan debt for Pell Grant recipients in college and up to $10,000 for others who borrowed using federal student loans.

The Supreme Court on Friday also ruled in favor of web designer Lorie Smith, ruling in a 6-3 decision that she’s not legally required to make websites for gay marriages, with the majority opinion stating that doing so would violate her Christian beliefs and free speech rights.

‘Consistent with the First Amendment, the Nation’s answer is tolerance, not coercion,’ Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion. ‘The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands. Colorado cannot deny that promise consistent with the First Amendment.’

Fox News’ Anders Hagstrom, Chris Pandolfo, Bill Mears and Shannon Bream contributed to this report.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., don’t get along.

But if House Republicans try to impeach President Biden or a roster of other Biden cabinet officials in the coming months, a look at how Pelosi handled impeachment questions deserves attention.

Rewind the calendar to 2007. Democrats flipped control of the House in the 2006 midterms. Pelosi faced a wall of pressure from liberal Democrats to impeach President George W. Bush over the war in Iraq.

Pelosi resisted those calls. ‘Impeachment is off the table,’ Pelosi said at the time.

But Pelosi had a plan to wind down the U.S. commitment overseas. Pelosi instructed then-Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wisc., to start diminishing spending available for the war effort. Control of the purse strings is the ultimate power in Congress. Pelosi and Obey didn’t want to cut off troops in the field. But the plan was to dial back funding so the U.S. would leave Iraq sooner rather than later. 

Fast forward to the summer of 2019.

Pelosi had resisted calls to impeach former President Donald Trump for years over a host of transgressions. Pelosi often reminded House Democrats and her members she supported an investigation of alleged misdeeds and would ‘follow the facts’ wherever they may lead.

Democrats were disappointed in information provided at a summer 2019 hearing with former Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller was coy during his testimony and failed to produce a smoking gun. But some lawmakers observed that Mueller may have left a breadcrumb of clues in his report investigating Trump: impeachment may be an option.

Still, Democrats were reluctant to go there — even though many wanted to do so.

In fact, Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, regularly launched efforts to try to impeach former President Trump. While many Democrats admired Green’s gusto, they viewed his effort as an unserious sideshow.

Pelosi wouldn’t let the House be a part of such a carnival.

That was until word came of the phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Information surfaced that Mr. Trump may have delayed sending previously-approved assistance to Ukraine. But he first pressured Zelenskyy to launch investigations of President Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

No love was lost between the former president and Pelosi. But Pelosi was often a master of understanding where the votes might be on a given issue. She was also mindful of protecting her members from taking a tough vote. Pelosi didn’t appear ready for impeachment yet. Certainly after Mueller’s appearance. But the Trump/Zelenskyy phone call was another matter.

In mid-September 2019, a coalition of seven Democratic freshmen House members penned an op-ed in The Washington Post. They wrote that if the allegations against Trump were true, they would consider it ‘an impeachable offense.’

All seven authors flipped districts from Republican to Democratic control in the 2018 midterms. The seven had serious national security credentials. Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., served in the Army. Reps. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., and Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., worked for the CIA. Three served in the Navy: Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., along with former Reps. Elaine Luria, D-Va., and Gil Cisneros, D-Calif. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., was in the Air Force.

The op-ed signaled to Pelosi that centrist, Democratic freshmen from battleground districts were willing to potentially impeach the president. The speaker had protected them and others from what could become a career-defining vote. Pelosi greenlighted a formal impeachment inquiry a few days after the op-ed. The House voted on Halloween to design the ground rules for an impeachment inquiry. And just before Christmas, the House voted to impeach Trump again.

The Pelosi-led House moved to impeach Trump just hours after the Capitol riot in January, 2021.

The measure went to the floor swiftly — lacking the weeks and months of hearings which were a feature of the former president’s first impeachment. In fact, the House impeached Trump days before his term expired.

Pelosi didn’t hold back on impeaching Trump that time because she had the votes. She also wanted to impeach him while he was still in office.

What is past is prologue.

McCarthy may have temporarily circumvented an immediate push by Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., to impeach President Biden before the House abandoned Washington for the July Fourth recess. But this is far from the last time we will see or hear about this debate.

And the stark reality is that it may very well wind up in an eventual impeachment of President Biden.

Here are several scenarios which could unfold over the next few months:

The Judiciary and Homeland Security committees are already probing alleged misdeeds of Biden. Boebert’s resolution specifically calls for impeachment of the president because of how he’s dealt with the border. The House voted to send Boebert’s resolution to those panels, preventing an immediate up/down vote on impeachment on the floor. 

Watch to see how these committees move. If they amp things up, the House could be headed toward a true impeachment inquiry. That ultimately could result in an impeachment vote later this year. However, it is unclear if the House actually has the votes to impeach Biden.

By contrast, the Judiciary and Homeland Security committees could do nothing with the referral of Boebert’s impeachment resolution. Boebert indicated she’d force the issue on the floor again. This is a little like Al Green’s repeated efforts to impeach Trump. But if Boebert presses the issue, McCarthy could lack the ammo to again sidestep a direct confrontation over impeachment. 

That likely means Boebert reintroduces her special resolution to impeach Biden. Either the House votes on that or tables it. A straight vote on impeachment causes big problems among Republicans. Some conservatives truly want to impeach the president. Others like to talk about impeachment but don’t really want to tangle with it. Still, other GOPers see impeachment as political kryptonite and want to stay as far away from it as possible. Forcing a vote actually on an issue as explosive as impeachment ignites a GOP firestorm. Of course, voting to table it triggers a political maelstrom among a different set of GOP factions.

Here’s another possibility: The committees actually shelve the impeachment effort. The committees might address the impeachment question and conduct investigations. But some Republicans already view the move to send the Boebert plan to committee as an effort to euthanize the enterprise. Some Republicans will breathe a sigh of relief. Others will go nuclear — perhaps against the speaker.

The bottom line: While not yet a formal ‘impeachment inquiry,’ the committees have wide latitude to truly investigate allegations which could be potentially worthy of impeachment. The vote to send the Boebert impeachment resolution to committee may have been a fig leaf. But chances are that the House must address impeachment for President of the United States in some form later this year.

As we speak, there are various Republicans who hope to impeach Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves.

In an interview with Fox about impeaching Garland, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., noted that ‘Kevin McCarthy is not against impeachment at all.’ Greene observed that ‘if we’re going to do it, it needs to be successful.’

In other words, just don’t deposit a privileged impeachment resolution on the floor and expect members to vote on it, al a Boebert or Al Green.

‘The speaker of the House, whether it’s Nancy Pelosi, Kevin McCarthy or anyone … they want to make sure that they have the votes to pass it,’ said Greene.

That’s a calculus McCarthy may need to figure in the coming months — be it for Biden or the host of other figures listed above.

Pelosi moved the impeachments for Trump once she was confident she had the votes. But McCarthy only has a four-seat majority. It’s far from clear how he’ll handle similar impeachment calls on his watch.

U.S. Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Mark Milley on Friday said the United States military ‘needs to accelerate our modernization’ in an effort to compete with China as warfare technology continues to evolve and criticized Russia over its conflict with neighboring Ukraine. 

During his remarks at the National Press Club luncheon in Washington D.C., Milley accused Moscow of committing a ‘direct frontal assault’ on the rules-based international order with its ‘illegal invasion’ of Ukraine.

‘Our political leaders have said multiple times that our task is to ensure that Ukraine has the support it needs to remain free and independent and we’re doing that in order to make sure that rules-based international order holds,’ he said. 

He also said that China was looking to ‘rewrite’ those rules as it leverages its financial power to build up its military. The U.S. should counter Beijing’s military ambitions by focusing on what type of conflicts it will face in the future.  

‘I think the United States military needs to accelerate our modernization,’ he said. ‘And it’s not so much just the actual modernization, but it’s the acceptance of the idea that future war, the fundamental character of war, is actually changing in really significant radical ways. If we, the military, don’t adapt ourselves, our doctrine or tactics or techniques, our leader development, our training and talent management, but also the weapon systems. If we don’t do that, then we won’t have a military that’s capable of operating in that future operating environment.’

‘They want to exceed global U.S. military power by mid-century,’ he noted of China’s military goals. 

Milley has made the modernization of the military a primary effort of the Army, going back to his days as the branch’s chief of staff. 

While discussing Ukraine, he noted that an offensive against Russian forces has made slow but significant advances. The Biden administration has provided billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, which has surprisingly taken the fight to Moscow, frustrating Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. 

When asked about the potential supply of cluster munitions to Ukraine, Milley noted that the U.S. considers ‘all kinds of options.’

‘So that it’s going slower than people had predicted doesn’t surprise me at all,’ he said of Ukraine’s ongoing military offensive. ‘I had said that this offensive, which is going, by the way, it is advancing steadily, deliberately working its way through very difficult minefields, etc., you know, 500 meters a day, 1,000 meters a day, 2000 each day, that kind of thing. What I had said was this is going to take six, eight, 10 weeks. It’s going to be very difficult. It’s going to be very long and it’s going to be very, very bloody. And no one should have any illusions about any of that.’

‘Ukraine is fighting for its life,’ he added. ‘It’s an existential fight for Ukraine.’

When asked about the short-lived rebellion by Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhinn against Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month. Milley said the move is part of internal politics and said ti was too early to tell if Putin was weakened. 

Climate firebrand Greta Thunberg became the latest of several prominent world figures to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this week amid his nation’s ongoing war with Russia.

Thunberg traveled to Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital city, Thursday for the first meeting of the International Working Group on the Environmental Consequences of War. 

Thunberg was joined by other members of the working group, including co-chair Andriy Yermak and European Parliament Vice President Heidi Hautala in addition to a group of Ukrainian environmental activists.

‘Ecocide, the destruction of the environment, is a form of warfare,’ Thunberg remarked during the meeting. ‘Unfortunately, Ukrainians now understand this very well. Russia deliberately targets its actions against the environment, against the livelihood of people.’

‘I think we need to connect the dots: The danger, the threat of war, human suffering and ecocide are all connected,’ the Swedish activist added. ‘None of us should ignore the terrible things that are happening in Ukraine, the crimes that Russia is committing here.’ 

Following the meeting, Zelenskyy issued a video message saying the working group primarily discussed Russia’s suspected attack and ‘ecocide’ on the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant. Earlier this month, Ukraine officials blamed Russia for the destruction of the dam, which displaced hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and disrupted power supplies.

In addition, Zelenskyy said the working group will continue to address issues arising from the ‘destructive impact of Russian aggression on nature.’

A release from the president’s office Thursday highlighted the group will further develop recommendations ‘for finding mechanisms to bring the aggressor to justice for environmental crimes so that Russia pays in full for the destruction it has caused’ and focus on environmental restoration efforts.

‘I really hope that we will be able to collect assessments of what is happening from central and local authorities and environmental organizations to assess the environmental damage that Ukraine is experiencing,’ Thunberg added. 

‘We need to hold Russia accountable for its crimes, and the people who have suffered damage should be able to recover, just as Ukraine should be able to recover in a sustainable way.’

Yermak, the working group’s co-chair and head of the office of the president of Ukraine, said the group would also draft a Ukraine Environmental Treaty to create conditions for environmental protection.

The activists concluded by calling for ecocide to be a crime, for Russia to pay environmental reparations and for rapid governmental responses to eco crimes.

‘Ukraine is in the focus of attention, but we are also doing this to show the world that such environmental destruction and the terrible consequences of conflict and war should not go unpunished. There must be accountability,’ Hautala said.