Tag: joe biden

US In ‘Direct Contact’ With Designated Terror Group HTS, Blinken Admits

The US has made “direct contact” with the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) under Abu Mohammad al-Jolani which now holds Damascus and most major Syrian cities in the wake of Assad’s fall.

“We’ve been in contact with HTS and with other parties,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said following talks with Arab diplomats in Aqaba, Jordan.

This is the first official acknowledgement that the Biden administration is interacting with HTS, which has long been an officially US-designated terror organization, as it originated as Syrian al-Qaeda. Jolani also was once the personal envoy of ISIS terror leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

NBC News has underscored, “The U.S. designates HTS a terrorist organization, making it legally impossible to work with the group, but contact underscores ongoing efforts to change that designation as the U.S. and its allies look to support Syria’s transition from Assad rule.”

A statement from Blinken’s meetings in Aqaba and signed by representatives of the US, EU, Turkey and several Arab countries called for a “a more hopeful, secure and peaceful future”. It urged the protection of women and all ethnic and religious minorities, and for the preventing of “the reemergence of all terrorist groups.”

Also, Jordan’s foreign minister stressed that regional powers don’t want to see post-Assad Syria “descend into chaos”. Given that it remains formally listed as a terror group, HTS was not represented in the Jordan meeting.

The EU has also listed HTS as a terror group. Jolani still has a $10 million bounty on his head. Ironically he has been seen openly at well-known areas of Damascus, and the US could target him if it wanted to – but is clearly not.

“As we see Syria move in that direction and, in a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned process, take these steps, we in turn will look at various sanctions and other measures that we’ve taken and respond in kind,” Blinken said from Aqaba.

Blinken affirmed the US position on Syria has been “communicated” to the new HTS leaders. Ironically, this comes after years of the US refusing to engage diplomatically with Bashar al-Assad, who was a secular ruler.

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“Crazy”: Trump Weighs In On Biden SELLING OFF Border Wall Sections For $5 Each

President Trump has called for a stop to be put to the Biden Administration selling off vast swathes of unused border wall sections at auction for as little as $5 a piece, calling it “crazy.”

As we highlighted last week, the wall sections, which have been laying on the ground unused for years due to Biden halting construction, are being hauled away on the back of flatbed trucks from a section of the border just south of Tucson.

Up to half a mile of unused wall is being moved every day, according to a Border Patrol agent.

“Joe Biden keeps talking about a smooth transition and unified government, and yet he races to sell desperately needed border wall for pennies on the dollar,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Friday.

He continued, “It will cost the U.S. a fortune, and time, to get the exact same wall to replace what has been sold, and the new wall will cost triple the price.”

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Here’s Why We Can’t Trust the Biden Administration Over ‘Drone-Gate’

Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Security, recently appeared on CNN to address the growing concern over the mysterious drone sightings across New Jersey, New York, Maryland, and near Washington, D.C. His comments, however, were a striking display of government ineffectiveness. When Wolf Blitzer pressed him on what Americans should make of the sightings, Mayorkas repeated the same dismissive response: “We have not seen anything unusual. We know of no threat or of any nefarious activity.” Rather than addressing the concerns with urgency, Mayorkas suggested that many sightings were “mistaken identity,” implying that people were confusing drones with small aircraft, and blamed multiple reports of the same drone for inflating the problem.

Mayorkas seemed focused on downplaying the situation and ignoring legitimate concerns of the public. He mentioned that experts have been in touch with the New Jersey State Police “every day,” and boasted of deploying “state-of-the-art technology” to confirm drone activity. Yet he admitted, “That’s not to say that there aren’t drones, you know, flying in the air, but we have no concern at this point with respect to a threat or any nefarious activity.”

Mayorkas continued, “The reality is you can have a 15-year-old kid who buys a drone off the shelf and puts it up in the sky. We have not seen drones turn their lights off in the dark. We have not seen drones penetrate restricted airspace. Those are two indicia that would give us a cause for concern.”

Does anyone believe this is caused by some kid with a store-bought drone? Mayorkas himself doesn’t seem to have a clue, either; he’s just trying to convince the public that nothing sinister is going on. But, clearly, they don’t know one way or the other, and if the government cannot determine what is flying above some of the nation’s most densely populated and strategically important areas, how can they claim there’s no threat?

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Biden grants clemency to ex-doc sentenced to 20 years for diluting cancer patients’ chemotherapy drugs

President Joe Biden granted clemency to nearly 1,500 Americans this week, including to a former doctor convicted of Medicare fraud for providing diluted chemotherapy drugs to cancer patients.

The commutations, which the White House is lauded as “the largest single-day grant of clemency in modern history,” has drawn significant criticism as some of those on the list have been reported on. According to a report from The Washington Free Beacon, several recipients were involved in serious offenses.

Meera Sachdeva, a Mississippi doctor, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2012 for defrauding Medicare and was required to reimburse $8.2 million to her former cancer facility. Sachdeva provided cancer patients with diluted chemotherapy drugs. She also provided them with old needles, which resulted in one patient claiming to have gotten HIV from a needle used by her clinic.

The White House announced that the individuals who received clemency had demonstrated rehabilitation and “a strong commitment to making their communities safer.” In addition to commuting sentences for nearly 1,500 individuals on home confinement, Biden pardoned 39 people convicted of non-violent offenses.

“Together, these actions build on the President’s record of criminal justice reform to help reunite families, strengthen communities, and reintegrate individuals back into society,” the White House said in its announcement. “The President has issued more sentence commutations at this point in his presidency than any of his recent predecessors at the same point in their first terms.”

Other recipients of clemency included Daniel Fillerup, an Alabama physician sentenced to 10 years in prison for illegally distributing fentanyl that resulted in a fatal overdose. The Department of Justice said that Fillerup “directly contributed to the opioid epidemic.” Also included was Wendy Hechtman, who was serving 15 years for leading a drug ring linked to a surge in overdose deaths in Nebraska in 2017.

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Biden’s Education Dept Spent Over $1 Billion On DEI Grants; Report

A new report claims that the Biden Administration’s Department of Education has spent over $1 billion on grants that force the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) agenda in hiring practices, programming, and mental health training in public schools.

According to Fox News, the report from the watchdog group Parents Defending Education (PDE) claims that this DEI spending has been ongoing since 2021. PDE researchers found a total of 229 such grants across 42 states, plus Washington D.C., during the roughly four-year time period.

With the spending broken down along specific criteria, nearly $490 million was spent for grants that demanded more racial bias in hiring practices, while $343 million was spent on general DEI programs, and another $170 million was spent on mandating DEI-based mental health training. This amounts to just over $1 billion, at approximately $1,002,522,304.

This spending “incorporates both awarded (committed) and disbursed dollars, as most of the grant money is distributed [a] period of several years,” the report reads.

One of the researchers who worked on the report, Rhyen Staley, said it was likely that the report does not even account for every single grant that may be considered pro-DEI, as the report narrowed down their search to a handful of criteria. This led to the researchers ignoring many other grants that they determined to be simply using “buzzwords” rather than actively promoting DEI.

“The only people or groups to benefit from the enormous amount of grant funding are the universities, administrators, and DEI consultants, at the expense of children’s education,” said Staley.

“This needs to change by placing children’s learning at the forefront of education, instead of prioritizing race-based policies and DEI.”

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Biden slammed for commuting sentence of notorious ‘Kids-for-Cash’ judge convicted of imprisoning juveniles for $2.1M kickbacks

The corrupt former Pennsylvania judge convicted of funneling juveniles to for-profit detention facilities in exchange for $2.1 million in kickbacks had his lengthy prison sentence commuted Thursday by President Biden. 

Former Luzerne County Judge Michael Conahan, the jurist at the center of the so-called “Kids-for-Cash” scandal, was among 1,499 commutations the 82-year-old lame-duck president granted in the largest presidential act of clemency on a single day in modern history, according to the White House. 

The mother of a victim of Conahan’s disturbing crime fumed upon hearing of his commutation. 

“I am shocked and I am hurt,” Sandy Fonzo, whose son committed suicide after he was locked up as part of the scheme orchestrated by Conahan and former judge Mark Ciavarella, said in a statement.  

“Conahan‘s actions destroyed families, including mine, and my son‘s death is a tragic reminder of the consequences of his abuse of power,” she added, according to The Citizen’s Voice. “This pardon feels like an injustice for all of us who still suffer.”

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White House Caught in Dronegate Cover-Up? — White House Spokesman Kirby Denies Drone Incursions Despite NJ Military Base Confirming 11 Breaches

Biden’s White House is downplaying reports of unauthorized drone activity over military installations in New Jersey. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby categorically denied any confirmed incursions, dismissing over 3,000 reports of “car-sized drones” as mistaken sightings of helicopters or airplanes.

Kirby’s assurances, however, directly contradict statements from military officials at New Jersey’s Picatinny Arsenal and Naval Weapons Station Earle, both of which have confirmed unauthorized drone breaches in recent weeks.

During a press briefing on Thursday, Kirby claimed:

“We have no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or a public safety threat, or have a foreign nexus.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI are investigating these sightings, and they’re working closely with state and local law enforcement to provide resources using numerous detection methods to better understand their origin.”

Using very sophisticated electronic detection technologies provided by federal authorities, we have not been able to, and neither have state or local law enforcement authorities, corroborate any of the reported visual sightings.

To the contrary, upon review of available imagery, it appears that many of the reported sightings are actually manned aircraft that are being operated lawfully.

The United States Coast Guard is providing support to the state of New Jersey, and has confirmed that there is no evidence of any foreign-based involvement from coastal vessels. And importantly, there are no reported or confirmed drone sightings in any restricted airspace.”

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Biden Admin Claims It “Cannot Corroborate” Mystery Drone Sightings

White House National Security Advisor John Kirby claimed Thursday that the government has “not been able to corroborate any of the reported visual sightings” of mystery drones over the east coast.

As we highlighted yesterday, video footage of the drones, predominantly over several New Jersey counties, have gone viral online.

Republican Congressman Jeff Van Drew has claimed that intelligence insiders have told him that Iran is behind the drones and has a “mothership” lurking off the east coast launching the drones.

The Pentagon has rubbished the claim, but has not provided any further explanation of who is operating the car sized aerial vehicles.

Kirby claimed there is no evidence to suggest the drones are a national security threat, but also seemed to dismiss that they are even real.

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Number of immigrants with Temporary Protected Status under Biden jumped 240% since 2021, data shows

The Biden administration’s liberal use of a the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) led to 240% surge of foreign nationals protected from deportation and granted interim legal status in the United States, according to the most recent data from the research arm of Congress. 

The data, which showed consistent increases in immigrants granted “TPS” status since President Joe Biden took office in early 2021, make up just part of the largest illegal and legal immigration surge in American history. 

Critics say the Biden administration’s expansion of the number of immigrants protected with the status has worsened the migrant crisis and granted de facto amnesty to illegal immigrants.  In raw numbers, TPS recipients increased from 320,000 at the beginning of Biden’s administration in April 2021 to 1,095,115 in the waning months of Biden’s term in December 2024, according to the most recent data gathered and published last week by the Congressional Research Service.

This is a 240% increase in TPS immigrants and occurred after the administration extended protections to several new countries. 

You can read the most recent report from the CRS below: 

CRS Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure.pdf

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Biden releases Chinese prisoner arrested with 47,000 child sex abuse images

President Joe Biden has commuted the sentence of a Chinese national convicted of possessing child pornography after 47,000 files of child pornography were found on the man’s computer. The commutation was part of a prison swap between the United States and China. This comes as the Biden White House announced its “largest single-day grant of clemency” in America

According to the Financial Times, three Chinese nationals were part of a prisoner swap between China and the US last month. Two of these foreign nationals were convicted of espionage while the third pleaded guilty in 2021 to child pornography charges after 47,000 files of child sexual abuse material were found on his computer, per the Dallas Morning News.  

Jin Shanlin was set free in the uncommon prisoner swap and during his Texas trial, an FBI agent testified that his family was “connected to influential members of the Communist party in China.” 

Shanlin had been convicted and was sentenced to 97 months in prison with five years of supervised release, according to the grant of clemency issued by the Biden administration on November 22. Police found the child sex abuse material on Shanlin’s computer when they raided his home, and the material included “videos involving infants and toddlers.” 

When Shanlin was released, Chinese foreign ministry representative Mao Ning said, “This once again demonstrates that China will never abandon its compatriots under any circumstances, and the motherland will always be their strong support.” 

The two spies Xu Yanjun and Ji Chaoqun were convicted on charges related to espionage. Ji had been sentenced to 8 years in prison and had been caught trying to gather defense technology for China’s state department with Xu as a co-conspirator. 

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