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‘So Proud to Be American’: Jack Hughes and the New Miracle on Ice

Posted in OP/Ed, Politics, Press Release, The Washington Free Beacon on February 23, 2026| 1 Comment »

MILAN, ITALY: Jack Hughes of Team USA celebrates after winning the Gold Medal hockey match between Canada and the United States on day 16 of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic games. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)

By Washington Free Beacon Editors

What an end to the 2026 Olympic Games for Team USA. On the final day of competition in Milan, Italy, the Americans defeated the Canadians in an overtime, sudden-death, gold-medal game. Twenty-four-year-old Jack Hughes scored the winning goal. It was particularly sweet, and amazing, because in the third period he had his face bashed in so brutally that the Canadian thug who did it was assessed a double penalty.

“I looked on the ice and saw my teeth,” Hughes said after the game. The picture of Hughes celebrating with an American flag and a smile with a dark, bloody gap where his central incisors used to be belongs on the cover of Sports Illustrated, Time magazine, a Wheaties box—whatever. It’s a new miracle on ice.

The phrase is, of course, reminiscent of 1980, when an American team of ragtag amateurs defeated the four-time consecutive gold medalist Soviet Union, a team composed of professional players, and went on to defeat Finland to take the gold. Canada isn’t as evil as the Soviet Union was, though there have been moments recently, such as the January 16, 2026, Canadian government press release from Beijing headlined, “Prime Minister Carney forges new strategic partnership with the People’s Republic of China,” when it has seemed ominously hostile. (For the record, the final medal count in the Winter Olympics had the United States with 33 medals total and China with 15.)

The hockey boys’ Milan medal is particularly resonant for America’s Jewish community. Jack Hughes and brother Quinn, also a member of Team USA, are Jewish. They were Bar Mitzvahed. Their mother, Ellen Weinberg-Hughes, was a member of the U.S. Women’s National Team and served as player development coach for the U.S. Women’s Team that also won gold in Milan. As Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire put it in a post on X, “For the last year there has been a whole lot of ‘just asking questions’ about Jewish Americans loyalty … Jack Hughes (Jewish) is the perfect metaphor. Taking a stick to the face to win Team USA gold against Canada. Then spouting pure patriotism.”

The reference was to Jack Hughes’s immediate postgame interview:

“This is all about our country right now. I love the USA. … I’m so proud to be American today. … Just a ballsy, gutsy win. That’s American hockey right there. … We’re USA. We’re so proud to be Americans. This night was all for our country. … We’re so proud to win for our country.”

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NFL’s Chicago Bears May Bolt to Pro-Growth Indiana

Posted in Economy, Elections, Entertainment, Girlie man, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Springfield, Taxes, The Washington Free Beacon, Topics Of Interest, Unions, Wall Street Journal on February 20, 2026| Leave a Comment »

J.B. Pritzker (Scott Olson/Getty Images), Chicago Bears play the Carolina Panthers (via Wikimedia Commons)

By Ira Stoll | Washington Free Beacon

The latest business to pick up and leave the high-tax, high-regulation, high-crime nightmare of Illinois may be its iconic professional football franchise.

The governor of Indiana, Mike Braun, announced Thursday morning that a “framework” had been reached for a final deal that would move the Chicago Bears about 20 miles south from Soldier Field to Hammond, Ind.

“Indiana is open for business, and our pro-growth environment continues to attract major opportunities like this partnership with the Chicago Bears,” Braun said. “The State of Indiana moves at the speed of business, and we’ve demonstrated that through our quick coordination between state agencies, local government, and the legislature to set the stage for a huge win for all Hoosiers. We have built a strong relationship with the Bears organization that will serve as the foundation for a public-private partnership, leading to the construction of a world-class stadium and a win for taxpayers.”

A statement from the Bears said in part, “We appreciate the leadership shown by Governor Braun, Speaker Huston, Senator Mishler and members of the Indiana General Assembly in establishing this critical framework and path forward to deliver a premier venue for all of Chicagoland and a destination for Bears fans and visitors from across the globe.”

Braun, Huston, and Mishler are all Republicans. The governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, is a Democrat and aspiring 2028 presidential candidate, and Democrats also control both houses of the State Legislature in Springfield. The mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, is a tax-raising leftist who was elected in 2023 over the more moderate Paul Vallas.

So many businesses and people have left the Prairie State that the Illinois Policy Institute, a center-right research group, calls it the “Illinois Exodus.” “One of the major factors pushing businesses away from the state is Illinois’ unfriendly tax climate,” the institute said in a 2025 analysis. Companies that have moved headquarters out of the state in recent years include Citadel, which moved to the Free State of Florida along with its founder and CEO Ken Griffin; Boeing, which moved to Virginia; and Caterpillar, which moved to Texas. When Griffin left in 2022, he told the Wall Street Journal that crime in Chicago was part of the reason: “I’ve had multiple colleagues mugged at gunpoint. I’ve had a colleague stabbed on the way to work. Countless issues of burglary. I mean, that’s a really difficult backdrop with which to draw talent to your city from.”

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Texas Dems Fight Gerrymandering By Taking 76-Seat Private Jet to Gerrymandered Blue State

Posted in Deception, Fat Bastard, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Springfield, The Washington Free Beacon on August 5, 2025| 1 Comment »

Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer (C) and Texas House Democratic Caucus chair Gene Wu (R) listen as Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker speaks to reporters | Scott Olson/Getty Images

The flight from Austin to Chicago likely cost tens of thousands of dollars, though it’s unclear who paid for it

By Collin Anderson | The Washington Free Beacon

When Texas Democrats left the state on Sunday to deny their Republican counterparts the quorum needed to pass a new congressional map, they said they were fighting a “rigged-redistricting process.” They had an odd way of showing it.

Most of the state legislators boarded a 76-seat private jet flown out of a “state-of-the-art” private terminal at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, a Washington Free Beacon review of flight logs and photos found. That jet left Austin around 5 p.m. on Sunday and landed in Chicago some two hours later, a flight that likely cost tens of thousands of dollars. Upon arriving in the Windy City, the lawmakers held a press conference alongside Illinois governor and billionaire Hyatt hotel heir J.B. Pritzker (D.), who said Texas Republicans are “attempting to cheat” by redrawing their state’s congressional boundaries to carve out additional districts likely to elect Republicans.

Pritzker is quite familiar with the concept.

Illinois suffered the second-largest population decline in the country from 2010 to 2020, causing it to lose a congressional seat following the 2020 census. Pritzker, who took office the year prior, responded by spearheading an aggressive redistricting process that saw his partymates in the legislature pack five Republican-held districts into three. The move meant Illinois Democrats picked up a congressional seat even as their state lost representation. They now hold 82 percent of the state’s congressional seats; Kamala Harris carried just 54 percent of the vote in Illinois in 2024. The state’s House map is widely regarded as one of the most gerrymandered in the country.

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Putting Self-Reflection on Paws

Posted in Animal Welfare, The Washington Free Beacon, Topics Of Interest on May 4, 2025| Leave a Comment »

REVIEW: ‘The Word of Dog: What Our Canine Companions Can Teach Us About Living a Good Life’ by Mark Rowlands | Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

By Kristen Soltis Anderson | The Washington Free Beacon 

In Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World, 14-year-old Sophie Amundsen begins receiving mysterious letters from a philosopher, encouraging her to consider deep questions about life, the universe, and what it means to be human. One day, she is tasked with considering the differences between humans and animals, and reflects on the differences between her cat and herself.

Sophie was convinced that her cat, Sherekan, could think. At least, it could be very calculating. But could it reflect on philosophical questions? … A cat could probably be either contented or unhappy, but did it ever ask itself if there was a God or whether it had an immortal soul? Sophie thought that was extremely doubtful.

Sophie is challenged throughout the book to explore these big questions, to not settle for the easy contentment of blissful ignorance, or what Socrates might call “the unexamined life.” And yet philosopher Mark Rowlands, in The Word of Dog: What Our Canine Companions Can Teach Us About Living A Good Life, suggests that it might just be that lack of examination that makes our lovable pups as capable of feeling joy at the simplest of things.

Americans are increasingly crazy about their pets. I don’t say this in a negative way—I count myself among the crazies. My old Golden Retriever Wally felt like the center of my universe during my years with him. Most American pet owners view their pet as part of the family “as much as a human member,” according to the Pew Research Center. For all the brouhaha over “childless cat ladies” in the last election, there is some evidence that suggests Millennial women without kids outright prefer the company of their pets to children.

Rowlands, too, is crazy about his beloved dog, Shadow, and it is initially through Shadow’s imagined experience of the world that Rowlands reflects on how we humans might learn a thing or two from dogs. Shadow is a German Shepherd, a 100-pound East German immigrant with an aggressive streak. Rowlands describes himself as the sort of dog owner who only really goes to dog-friendly restaurants, who brings his dog to his lectures at the university where he teaches, who can’t bear the thought of boarding his dog at a kennel to go on a vacation.

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Illinois Restricts Government Contracts to DEI Supporters, Propping Up Divisive Industry

Posted in BOHICA, Commodius Maximus, Deception, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Fat Bastard, Girlie man, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Springfield, Taxes, The Chicago Way, The Washington Free Beacon on March 17, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Pritzker-backed law requires contract bidders to ‘prioritize their diversity initiatives if they hope to be competitive’

By Andrew Kerr | The Washington Freedom Beacon 

A little-known law in Illinois requires private companies to finance the DEI industry if they wish to do business with the state—giving a lifeline to an unpopular industry that currently finds itself on the ropes as major companies across the country ditch their DEI programs and President Donald Trump works to eradicate its influence across the federal government.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D.) signed a bill into law in 2021 that essentially requires businesses that seek to do business with the state of Illinois to bankroll the DEI industry. The law, which went into full effect in 2024, established a “commitment to diversity” factor in all state contracts that grades companies in large part on how much money they donate to DEI nonprofits and how much time their leaders personally volunteer to promote DEI in their communities. The higher the score companies receive on Pritzker’s DEI factor, the more likely they are to secure contracts from his administration.

In practice, Pritzker’s “commitment to diversity” factor forces private businesses to provide a financial lifeline to an otherwise dying DEI industry. The Pritzker administration scores out of 100 possible points based on their answers to seven DEI questions. One question requires companies to disclose how much they spend financing the DEI industry. Another question asks how much time a business’s leaders volunteer to promote DEI in their community. Other questions probe companies on what percentage of their staff are women and minorities and whether or not bidders have entered into agreements with any female- or minority-owned businesses.

Since going into full effect last year, Pritzker’s DEI factor has had a major impact on the way Illinois does business. Some 44 percent of state contracts awarded in fiscal year 2024 went to the companies that scored the highest on DEI factor, as opposed to their technical competency or price, according to a report published late last year by the Illinois Chief Procurement Office.

That includes the renewal of a $4 billion contract from the Illinois Department of Corrections in December 2023 to Wexford Health Sources, a company that has faced allegations of neglecting Illinois inmates under its care, including one obese patient who was discovered with cockroaches crawling out of his abdomen, NPR reported.

Wexford Health Sources won the contract over the bid of another health care company that offered the same medical services to the state for $3.5 billion. The Illinois Department of Corrections selected Wexford for the contract in part because of its “commitment to diversity,” WTTW reported.

Pritzker’s office did not return a request for comment.

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Illinois Runs a Scholarship That Excludes White Applicants. It Could Get the State’s Top Universities Defunded.

Posted in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Education, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Springfield, Taxes, The Washington Free Beacon, Topics Of Interest, Unions on March 13, 2025| Leave a Comment »

L: Illionois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) R: Saieh Hall at the University of Chicago

By Aaron Sibarium | The Washington Free Beacon

The Illinois Board of Higher Education runs a scholarship program for graduate students that explicitly excludes white applicants, a move lawyers say is unconstitutional and could jeopardize the federal funding of more than two dozen participating universities, including Northwestern University and the University of Chicago.

The program, Diversifying Higher Education Faculty in Illinois (DFI), was established by state law in 2004 and provides financial aid to “members of traditionally underrepresented minority groups” pursuing masters or doctoral degrees. Those groups include “African American, Hispanic American, Native American, Asian American, Alaskan Native, and Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander,” according to the program’s landing page.

Students apply to the program through their universities, each of which has an “institutional representative” who helps “verify … that applicants for the fellowship meet all eligibility criteria.” That structure means that participating institutions, which include the top public and private universities in the state, are directly involved in an application process that violates federal law, according to five attorneys who reviewed the program requirements.

“This isn’t a hard one,” said Gail Heriot, a law professor at the University of San Diego and a commissioner on the U.S Commission on Civil Rights. “The program was illegal and unconstitutional since its inception.”

Illinois is already fending off a lawsuit over a similar program, the Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship, that provides financial aid to minorities pursuing teacher licenses. A separate lawsuit, this one focused on racial hiring quotas at University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), was filed last month by a former professor at the school.

The DFI program could be yet another liability for the state’s embattled education bureaucracy—one with the potential to bankrupt Illinois’s most prestigious universities in the event of litigation.

David Bernstein, a professor of constitutional law at George Mason University law school, said that any schools participating in the program “run the risk of losing all federal funding, including eligibility for student loans and other financial assistance.” William Trachman, the general counsel for Mountain States Legal Foundation, said that officials facilitating the program could be held personally liable for “violating clearly established law.”

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