Tag: joe biden

Republicans accuse Biden of having ‘no shame’ as he cancels student debt for 813,000 people in ‘re-election ploy’ that will force taxpayers to saddle billions of dollars extra

The leading Republican opponent of student loan forgiveness on Wednesday slammed President Joe Biden‘s plan to cancel student debt for 813,000 people as a clear effort to buy his way to reelection next year.

Hundreds of thousands of former students will receive emails from the president in the coming days telling them that their debt has been forgiven.

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy posted the president’s message on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, including a request for beneficiaries to share the good news. 

‘Couldn’t make it any clearer that Biden’s ploy to force taxpayers who didn’t go to college to saddle hundreds of billions of someone else’s student debt is a ploy to gain political support for his reelection,’  wrote.

‘No shame.’

Biden’s move means he has forgiven a total of $127 billion for 3.5 million borrowers, despite the fact that his plan to cancel $400 billion in debt was rejected by the Supreme Court in June.

Aides and supporters see it as nothing but good news, with their social media feeds filling with details. 

Even Republicans who complained that it meant ordinary taxpayers were footing the bill kept largely quiet after the latest announcement. 

The email – making clear that the help has come from Biden – read: ‘Congratulations — your student loan has been forgiven because of actions my administration took to make sure you receive the relief you earned and deserve.’ 

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Internal Docs Show Biden Admin Waived Taxpayer Safeguards to Boost Offshore Wind Project

The Biden administration quietly granted a request from an energy firm developing an offshore wind project off the coast of Massachusetts to waive development fees designed to safeguard taxpayers, according to internal documents reviewed by Fox News Digital.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) informed Vineyard Wind that it had waived a financial assurance for decommissioning costs fee in a June 15, 2021, letter obtained by watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT). Federal statute mandates that developers pay that fee prior to construction on their lease, a potentially hefty fee designed to guarantee federal property is returned to its original state after a lessee departs its lease.

“At the same time the Department of the Interior was looking at forcing greater and more expensive bonding requirements on holders of long-standing oil and gas leases, they were relaxing these requirements on the nation’s first utility-scale offshore wind energy producer, one that just coincidentally happened to be a client of their incoming #2,” PPT Director Michael Chamberlain told Fox News Digital.

“If you want to talk about bad optics, I don’t see how they could be any worse than right here,” he said. “For an administration touting itself as the most ethical in history, this represents yet another incident in which Secretary Haaland’s Interior appears to have a tough time living up to that standard.”

Chamberlain noted that former Deputy Interior Secretary Tommy Beadreau, the second-highest ranked official at the Department of the Interior (DOI) which houses BOEM, had, according to his 2021 financial disclosure form, previously represented Vineyard Wind on legal matters while serving as a partner at the firm Latham & Watkins.

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Federal Court Strikes Down Maryland’s Handgun License Law as Unconstitutional

The Biden administration that pushed efforts to limit citizen’s gun rights suffered another in a series of legal setbacks.

On Tuesday, a federal appeals court judge ruled that Maryland’s handgun license law violated the Second Amendment.

Democratic Maryland legislatures passed a law requiring potential handgun orders to first secure a “handgun qualification license.” The law required a background investigation and a waiting period of up to 30 days.

Critics of the law argued the criteria to be approved for a “license” was vague and arbitrary.

On Tuesday, the Fourth Circuit ruled the law was not “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

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Every family is entitled to FREE Covid tests ahead of Thanksgiving get togethers as part of $600million Biden project to prevent wave of cases

Every family in the US will be entitled to order up to eight free Covid tests this winter to help avoid spreading the virus to loved ones.

Families were offered four tests per household in late September, but this has now been expanded to another four swabs — which are worth $12 per package.

The tests — made available through a $600million grant to test suppliers — can be ordered online from CovidTests.gov and take at least two weeks to arrive.

They are being offered ahead of the Christmas and New Year vacations, but the update comes too late for Thanksgiving — with orders needing to have already been placed to guarantee the swabs’ arrival.

Covid cases are rising again at present, with wastewater surveillance showing a five percent uptick in the concentration of Covid particles over the week to November 8. Flu cases are also ticking up, with the number reported rising 60 percent in the week to November 12, the latest available.

A total of 14.5million homes have ordered free Covid tests so far, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services told DailyMail.com. 

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Biden Judicial Nominee Appears Stumped by Basic Legal Terms at Nomination Hearing

A nominee for a district judgeship in Oklahoma struggled during her nomination hearing on Wednesday to define basic terms for orders issued regularly by judges.

Sara E. Hill, who is nominated by President Biden to be the district judge for the Northern District of Oklahoma, was grilled by Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., on the Senate Judiciary Committee about basic legal and Constitutional terms and definitions — a practice that’s become usual for him in recent months after several nominees have struggled to pass his tests.

When Kennedy asked Hill the difference between a “stay” order and an “injunction” order — two orders frequently issued by federal courts — Hill stumbled through her answers.

“A stay order would prohibit, um, sorry. An injunction would restrain the parties from taking action. A stay order … I’m not sure I can, actually can, can give you that,” she said.

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Biden’s Justice Department Says Marijuana Consumers Are ‘Unlikely’ To Store Guns Properly In Latest Defense Of Federal Ban

The Biden administration has once again found itself in federal court defending a ban preventing people who use marijuana from buying or possessing firearms, arguing that historical precedent “comfortably” supports the restriction and that cannabis consumers with guns pose a unique danger to society, in part because they’re “unlikely” to store their weapon properly before using marijuana.

In a brief submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on Wednesday, attorneys for the Justice Department responded to a series of prompts from the judges, asserting that the firearm ban for marijuana consumers is justified based on historical analogues to restrictions on the mentally ill and habitually drunk that were imposed during the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification in 1791.

The federal government has repeatedly affirmed that those analogues, which must be demonstrated to maintain firearm restrictions under a recent Supreme Court ruling, provide clear support for limiting gun rights for cannabis users. But several federal courts have separately deemed the marijuana-related ban unconstitutional, leading DOJ to appeal in several ongoing cases.

For the case before the Third Circuit, the government is defending the ban against Erik Matthew Harris, who was convicted of violating the federal statute prohibiting the possession of a firearm by a person “who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance.” As the Daily Caller first reported, Harris’s legal representation also submitted a supplemental brief to the court on Wednesday that broadly disputes both the substance of the conviction under the statute, as well as the idea that there are relevant historical analogues to uphold the existing ban.

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Indonesia’s President Urges Biden To Lift FDA’s Kratom Import Restrictions, Advocacy Groups Say

In a meeting with President Joe Biden this week, the president of Indonesia urged the administration to lift a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) alert that broadly restricts imports of kratom to the U.S., according to a pair of advocacy groups.

Indonesia is one of the primary international exporters of kratom, a plant native to Southeast Asia that’s used for pain relief, managing the symptoms of opioid withdrawal and other purposes. The plant is currently unscheduled under U.S. law, but FDA issued an import alert in July that has seriously limited kratom imports from Canada, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo met with Biden for a bilateral meeting at the White House on Monday. According to the American Kratom Association (AKA) and the Kratom Coalition, Widodo used the opportunity to request administrative action to remove the FDA restrictions, emphasizing the economic and environmental consequences of the current kratom import policy for Indonesia.

The White House referred Marijuana Moment’s request for comment to the National Security Council (NSC). A spokesperson for NSC said they have “nothing to add on the Leaders’ conversation beyond the joint statement and fact sheet released on Monday” that do not explicitly mention kratom.

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Gun Hobbyists (and Liberty) Win Big in Court

The Biden administration’s scheme to threaten the public with tightened gun-control regulations by reinterpreting laws to mean what they never meant in the past is running into some speed bumps. Stumbling over one of those obstacles is an attempt by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to define unfinished firearm frames and receivers—functionally, paperweights—as firearms for the purpose of regulating homemade “ghost guns.” The courts aren’t buying the government’s argument and on November 9 delivered another slap to regulators and the White House.

“The agency rule at issue here flouts clear statutory text and exceeds the legislatively-imposed limits on agency authority in the name of public policy,” wrote Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt for three judges of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in ruling on VanDerStok v. Garland. “Because Congress has neither authorized the expansion of firearm regulation nor permitted the criminalization of previously lawful conduct, the proposed rule constitutes unlawful agency action, in direct contravention of the legislature’s will.”

Specifically, the court addressed portions of the ATF’s new “frame and receiver” rule which reinterpreted existing law, particularly elements of the Gun Control Act of 1968. The rule would extend the ATF’s reach and allow the government to restrict home construction of firearms in ways that the Biden White House wants as part of a crusade against so-called “ghost guns” but hasn’t been able to get through Congress.

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First photos reveal the COCAINE found in the White House: Images of the baggy in cubby hole that sparked White House investigation – and the culprit has still not been found

Photos of cocaine found in a phone locker in President Joe Biden‘s White House this summer can be revealed by DailyMail.com for the first time. 

The Secret Service included images of the bag of white powder that was found in a cubby hole used to store personal belongings near the White House’s West Executive entrance in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. 

Cocaine was found on Sunday, July 2 while the Biden family – including son Hunter – was spending the weekend away at Camp David ahead of the Fourth of July holiday.

The discovery prompted an evacuation of the West Wing and street closures surrounding the White House and then triggered an 11-day investigation once the substance was identified as the illicit drug. 

Documents obtained by DailyMail.com also show the Deputy Director of the FBI was involved in the investigation, which clouded the Biden administration in scandal this summer. 

The Secret Service closed the investgation in less than two weeks due to a ‘lack of evidence.’ 

The list of suspects had been narrowed down to 500, but security footage wasn’t able to determine the owner as cameras do not face the locker area. 

It is unclear if any suspects were interviewed during the short investigation. 

There also weren’t usable fingerprints or other DNA evidence on the ‘dime-sized’ zipper-lock bag that contained less than a gram of the drug. 

It had been sent to the FBI’s lab at Quantico for this analysis, the documents show. 

The Secret Service said the cocaine was sent for ‘destruction’ on July 14, a day after the probe wrapped up. 

Initial reports about the incident said the cocaine was discovered in the White House library, then the West Wing lobby and then finally the cubbies by the West Executive entrance.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s initial response to questions about whether the cocaine could belong to a Biden came in the form of pointing out that they weren’t home. 

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U.S. WEAPONS TRANSFERS TO ISRAEL SHROUDED IN SECRECY — BUT NOT UKRAINE

ONE MONTH SINCE Hamas’s surprise attack, little is known about the weapons the U.S. has provided to Israel. Whereas the Biden administration released a three-page itemized list of weapons provided to Ukraine, down to the exact number of rounds, the information released about weapons sent to Israel could fit in a single sentence.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby acknowledged the secrecy in an October 23 press briefing, saying that while U.S. security assistance flows to Israel “on a near-daily basis,” he continued, “We’re being careful not to quantify or get into too much detail about what they’re getting — for their own operational security purposes, of course.”

The argument that transparency would imperil Israel’s operational security — somehow not a concern with Ukraine — is misleading, experts told The Intercept.

“The notion that it would in any way harm the Israeli military’s operational security to provide more information is a cover story for efforts to reduce information on the types of weapons being supplied to Israel and how they are being used,” William Hartung, a fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and expert on weapons sales, told The Intercept. “I think the purposeful lack of transparency over what weapons the U.S. is supplying to Israel ‘on a daily basis’ is tied to the larger administration policy of downplaying the extent to which Israel will use those weapons to commit war crimes and kill civilians in Gaza.”

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