Meet the Taxpayer-Funded Activist Group that Teaches Kids US Is ‘Occupied’ Territory
Plus, Mamdani 'economic justice' official blamed Israel for Oct 7 in since-deleted social media post
A congressionally chartered nonprofit that receives millions in federal funding is teaching students that the United States sits on “occupied” land and is also helping children process “climate change emotions,” the Free Beacon’s Alana Goodman reports.
The National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF), whose board is appointed by the EPA, has published guides that urge public events to begin with so-called land acknowledgments describing America as territory “seized” from Native Americans and offers classroom tools for managing climate-related “panic,” “despair,” and “shame.” Its materials also encourage students to pressure their parents to buy electric vehicles and adopt green policies at work. The guides are coauthored with a nonprofit that has labeled President Donald Trump a “fascist.”
NEEF is nonetheless slated to collect substantial federal support through at least 2027 because an environmental law passed in 1990 gives the group an annual appropriation from Congress funneled through the EPA. “Permanently ending NEEF’s funding,” then, “would require that Congress amend the 1990 law, but the Trump administration has used other tools to prevent taxpayer dollars from ending up in the hands of left-wing activist groups since January of last year,” writes Goodman. “Trump has signed executive orders to halt funding issued through different pieces of legislation, and the administration has repeatedly argued in favor of its ability to impound money appropriated by Congress.”
But it hasn’t taken action on this organization yet.
“Deputy communications director for economic justice” is a real job in Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral administration—and it’s being filled by an outspoken anti-Israel activist who blamed Israel for Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack and defended the anti-Semitic slogan “From the River to the Sea” as an aspirational call for freedom, our Jon Levine reports.
Mamdani tapped Waleed Shahid, a former spokesman for the “Justice Democrats”—the group behind the rise of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar—to serve in the “economic justice” role on Monday. Hours after Hamas carried out the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust, Shahid said it was “a byproduct of Israel’s violent policies of occupation and the second-class status of Palestinians.” Weeks later, he defended Tlaib’s use of the phrase, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.” Shahid says the phrase is not a call to eliminate the Jewish state but rather an expression of “freedom” from “Palestinians living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.” Both remarks came in posts that Shahid has since scrubbed from social media.
Mamdani’s move to hire Shahid comes after the mayor appointed several anti-Israel and anti-Semitic advisers to his cabinet and transition team. His director of appointments, Catherine Almonte Da Costa, resigned after old social media posts—including one in which she bemoaned “Money hungry Jews”—came to light. A top adviser on Mamdani’s transition team, Hassaan Chaudhary, used the word “Jew” as a slur and praised former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for saying Israel is a “cancer which will be eliminated very soon.” Indeed, aside from police commissioner Jessica Tisch, does Mamdani actually know anybody who’s not an anti-Semite?
Anti-ICE rioters smashed up a Minneapolis hotel late Sunday night. Their target was on a list of hotels housing ICE agents created by the left-wing group Sunrise Movement, which is funded by some of the country’s toniest nonprofit organizations, including George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation.
The list, reviewed by our Jessica Costescu, catalogs nearly 70 hotels across the Twin Cities area. It was updated ahead of the attack—in which anti-ICE rioters smashed windows, destroyed its façade, and lit fireworks—and includes hotel names, addresses, phone numbers, as well as the “suspected” number of ICE agents housed at each hotel. Sunrise recently hosted a virtual training titled “No Justice, No Sleep,” which instructed attendees on how to “kick ICE out of your city” and “shut down hotels that are housing ICE.”
“Like many of the radical groups organizing anti-ICE protests, Sunrise is funded by the Left’s premier foundations and dark money networks,” Costescu writes. “Open Society Foundations has sent it $2 million since 2019, according to its grant database. Half of the money supported general ‘social welfare activities.’ The Ford Foundation contributed $150,000 in 2024 and $550,000 in 2025, while the MacArthur Foundation—the 12th-largest private charity in America—gave $250,000 in 2024, according to tax filings and grant disclosures.”
READ MORE: Minneapolis Hotel Smashed by Anti-ICE Rioters Was on Soros-Funded Group’s Target List
Additional reading:
Nearly 850 days after Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack, Israel recovered the remains of its final hostage, 24-year-old Ran Gvili, who died fighting the terrorist invaders after he learned of the attack and drove 50 minutes on his motorcycle to help defend a kibbutz in southern Israel. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is now prepared to enter the second phase of the ceasefire plan, which calls for disarming Hamas.
The U.S. Holocaust Museum rebuked politicians for comparing illegal immigrants targeted by ICE to Anne Frank after Tim Walz did just that during a press conference on Sunday. It’s the sort of rhetoric from left-wing officials in Minnesota that has egged on anti-ICE agitators, though cooler heads may prevail: Donald Trump said he had a “very good call” with Walz, and later with Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey, on Monday, and some Border Patrol agents, including Commander Greg Bovino, are reportedly leaving the state as border czar Tom Homan heads there to lead immigration enforcement operations.
Calling to abolish ICE isn’t just for the left-wing “Squad” anymore: Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, is now calling to get rid of the agency, joining the likes of Rashida Tlaib and Zohran Mamdani.
The USS Abraham Lincoln and its accompanying warships are now in the Middle East, “giving President Trump additional offensive and defense capabilities should he choose to move forward with an attack on Iran,” per the Wall Street Journal. Trump referred to the military assets as a “big armada” in a Monday interview with Axios but said his thinking on whether to strike is “in flux.”
Washington Post reporters like the Al Jazeera veteran Louisa Loveluck—known for her error-ridden, anti-Israel reporting—spent Monday begging Jeff Bezos to “#SaveThePost” by putting a stop to planned layoffs. It didn’t appear to work: Editors informed reporters in a Monday meeting that the cuts will impact up to 300 people. The foreign desk—where Loveluck works—is expected to be hit particularly hard, along with the sports desk.
Check out our full Tuesday lineup below.
Minneapolis Hotel Smashed by Anti-ICE Rioters Was on Soros-Funded Group’s Target List
IDF Recovers Body of Last Israeli Hostage In ‘Large-Scale’ Gaza Retrieval Operation
Holocaust Museum Rebukes Tim Walz for Likening Minnesota’s Illegal Immigrants to Anne Frank
Potential 2028 Democratic Hopeful JB Pritzker Joins Squad Radicals in Call To Abolish ICE
University of Wisconsin Fans Cheer Woke Chancellor’s Departure for Columbia
I'm quite enjoying the spectacle of anti-fa-ice-civ brownshirts picking up where they left off a few years ago, on the noble quest to make every productive enterprise in Minneapolis, perhaps all of MN, not merely unprofitable but entirely uninsurable. My understanding is that very little picked back up after the Saint Floyd frolics. If it weren't for the staggering fraud, how much would have already ground to a complete halt?
Burn it all down, you morons. Keep posting videos, typing up your conspiracy records, blowing off your fingers, and wasting WEF blood money. The piper will be paid.
Alphabet media goes bankrupt and lays off hundreds. Women and minorities hardest hit.