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Year: 2023

Texas lawmaker John Whitmire tops Sheila Jackson Lee in runoff election for Houston’s next mayor

Texas lawmaker John Whitmire tops Sheila Jackson Lee in runoff election for Houston’s next mayor

Texas state Sen. John Whitmire is projected to be Houston’s next mayor after beating his opponent, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, in a special runoff election on Saturday.  Whitmire inherits a city facing many challenges, including crime, crumbling infrastructure, and potential budget shortfalls. But despite these issues, booming growth over the last decade has turned the nation’s fourth-largest city into an expanding stronghold for Texas Democrats. Jackson Lee and Whitmire, both Democrats, made it to Saturday’s runoff after breezing past a crowded field of nearly 20 candidates in the Nov. 7 general election. Jackson Lee, 73, has represented Houston in Congress since 1995. Before that, she served on Houston’s City Council. VA DEMOCRAT FEATURED IN STREAMED SEX ACTS ONLINE SAYS SHE’S THE VICTIM: ‘MY ENTIRE LIFE WAS ROCKED’ On the campaign trail, Jackson touted her years of experience bringing federal funding to Houston for flooding relief, job training programs, and education. “I want people to have confidence that as soon as I hit the ground running, I will have solutions coming, programs coming, answers coming,” she said.  Whitmire, 74, is one of Texas’ most powerful Democratic lawmakers in the state Legislature, where he has helped drive tough-on-crime policies while also casting himself as a reformer during his 50 years in office. SWING DISTRICT DEMOCRAT COMPLAINS SHE WON’T RUN FOR RE-ELECTION BECAUSE IS ‘RIGGED’ AGAINST HER His campaign focused on reducing crime, improving streets and reaching across the political aisle. “It’s going to be a tough job. It’s going to be challenging, but I’m going to reach out and bring people together, and we’re going to fix our infrastructure,” Whitmire said. Whitmire heavily outspent Jackson Lee in the campaign. Her campaign also had to deal with fallout from the release in October of an unverified audio recording that purported to capture her profanely berating her staff. Whitmire will replace Sylvester Turner, who has served eight years and can’t run again because of term limits.

UPenn Jewish students feared for their safety under ousted president

UPenn Jewish students feared for their safety under ousted president

A growing body of Jewish students at the University of Pennsylvania have voiced their concerns about campus life in the wake of now-former university president Liz Magill’s controversial testimony earlier in the week.  UPenn student Kevin Bina told FOX 29 that his fellow fraternity members “don’t even feel comfortable walking outside our house wearing their kippahs just because they don’t know if they’re going to be harassed.”  Another student, Leah Weinberger, said many Jewish students are reconsidering their application to UPenn after Magill’s testimony.  “Even people who are thinking of applying — Jewish students from the Northeast, from where I’m from, and all around — are not even applying,” Weinberger told the outlet. “They’re choosing other schools because of, just, fears.”  UPENN PRESIDENT LIZ MAGILL STEPS DOWN AFTER CONTROVERSIAL TESTIMONY ON ANTISEMITISM Another student, Eyal Lubin, said Magill did not show “humanity what really is behind what’s going on here at Penn.”  Their comments come after controversial congressional testimony from Magill and her counterparts at Harvard and MIT concerning antisemitism on campus. Such incidents have proliferated in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.  During a heated line of questioning, Magill was grilled during a five-hour hearing, along with Harvard President Claudine Gay and MIT President Sally Kornbluth, on how their institutions have responded to antisemitism on campus.  STEFANIK APPLAUDS RESIGNATION OF UPENN PRESIDENT LIZ MAGILL: ‘ONE DOWN. TWO TO GO’ Much of the blowback centered on questioning from Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who repeatedly asked Magill whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” would violate each university’s code of conduct.  Magill said that whether hate speech crossed the line into violating Penn’s policies depended on context.  “If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment,” Magill said.  BILL MAHER DECLARES HARVARD, UPENN ‘TEAM HAMAS,’ DERIDES ‘IDIOT’ STUDENTS ARE ATTACKING ISRAEL  Her comments — and similar ones by Gay — drew swift international backlash. On Wednesday, Magill apologized and walked back some of her comments, but calls for her resignation — including from high-profile donors — quickly mounted. The university’s board of trustees held an emergency meeting Thursday and on Saturday, Magill resigned.  “I write to share that President Liz Magill has voluntarily tendered her resignation as President of the University of Pennsylvania. She will remain a tenured faculty member at Penn Carey Law,” Board of Trustees Chairman Scott L. Bok wrote in a statement. Fox News Digital has reached out to UPenn for comment.  FOX Business’ Adam Sabes and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Stefanik applauds resignation of UPenn President Liz Magill: ‘One down. Two to go’

Stefanik applauds resignation of UPenn President Liz Magill: ‘One down. Two to go’

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., applauded the resignation of University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill on Saturday. Magill resigned Saturday after days of criticism following her appearance at a Congressional hearing Tuesday, where she failed to give a clear answer to Stefanik’s question asking if calls for the genocide of Jews would violate university conduct. “One down. Two to go,” Stefanik posted to X Saturday. “This is only the very beginning of addressing the pervasive rot of antisemitism that has destroyed the most “prestigious” higher education institutions in America. This forced resignation of the president of @Penn is the bare minimum of what is required. These universities can anticipate a robust and comprehensive Congressional investigation of all facets of their institutions negligent perpetration of antisemitism including administrative, faculty, funding, and overall leadership and governance.” “@Harvard and @MIT do the right thing. The world is watching,” she added. UPENN PRESIDENT LIZ MAGILL STEPS DOWN AFTER CONTROVERSIAL TESTIMONY ON ANTISEMITISM Board of Trustees Chairman Scott L. Bok wrote in a statement Saturday that Magill has resigned. “I write to share that President Liz Magill has voluntarily tendered her resignation as President of the University of Pennsylvania. She will remain a tenured faculty member at Penn Carey Law,” Bok wrote. UPENN DONOR WITHDRAWS $100M DONATION AFTER PRESIDENT’S CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY ON ANTISEMITISM Stefanik on Tuesday asked Magill if “calling for the genocide of Jews violate[s] Penn’s rules or code of conduct? Yes or no?” “If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment, yes,” Magill responded, later adding, “It is a context-dependent decision.” “This is unacceptable. Ms. Magill, I’m gonna give you one more opportunity for the world to see your answer. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn’s code of conduct when it comes to bullying and harassment? Yes or no?” Stefanik then asked.

Hunter Biden’s memoir comes back to haunt him as California indictment references it repeatedly

Hunter Biden’s memoir comes back to haunt him as California indictment references it repeatedly

Hunter Biden’s 2021 memoir, “Beautiful Things,” was cited repeatedly in a California indictment detailing tax charges against him this week, outlining how he talked about lavish spending at a time when prosecutors say he should have been paying taxes. Biden is facing nine charges alleging a “four-year scheme” when he did not pay his federal income taxes from January 2017 to October 2020 while also filing false tax reports. The charges break down to three felonies and six misdemeanors related to $1.4 million in owed taxes that have since been paid. The special counsel alleged Hunter “spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills,” and that, in 2018, he “stopped paying his outstanding and overdue taxes for tax year 2015.” “[W]hen he did finally file his 2018 returns, [he] included false business deductions in order to evade assessment of taxes to reduce the substantial tax liabilities he faced as of February 2020,” Weiss alleged. DEFIANT HUNTER BIDEN SAYS REPUBLICAN ‘MOTHERF—ERS’ ARE TRYING TO ‘KILL ME’ The indictment describes how, in 2019, he began writing the memoir, “Beautiful Things,” and received approximately $140,625 from January to October 2020, which was deposited into his wife’s bank account. The indictment also said that, in 2018, he claimed approximately $388,810 in business-related travel. While he was making those claims to accountants, he was working on the memoir but did not share it with them, the document says. That memoir outlines the extensive drug use that he was involved in at that time, undercutting claims about his business expenses. WATCH: BIDEN IGNORES REPORTERS WHEN PRESSED ON HUNTER’S NEW INDICTMENT “Unbeknownst to the CA Accountants, in his memoir, the Defendant described 2018 as being dominated by crack cocaine use ‘twenty-four hours a day, smoking every fifteen minutes, seven days a week,’” the indictment says.  “In fact, the Defendant never told the CA Accountants about his extensive drug and alcohol abuse in 2018 which might have prompted greater scrutiny of his claims of hundreds of thousands of dollars in business expenses.” Separately, the indictment cites the memoir’s recollection of how, in 2018, Hunter says he paid for an entourage of “thieves, junkies, petty dealers, over-the-hill strippers, con artists, and assorted hangers-on, who then invited their friends and associates and most recent hookups.”  “They latched on to me and didn’t let go, all with my approval. I never slept. There was no clock. Day bled into night and night into day,” the president’s son says in the book. The indictment also highlights how Hunter described stays in luxury hotels and private rentals and the related expenses. It quotes the memoir at length in reference to his stays in Malibu, Beverly Hills and Hollywood. “An ant trail of dealers and their sidekicks rolled in and out, day and night. They pulled up in late-series Mercedes-Benzes, decked out in oversized Raiders or Lakers jerseys and flashing fake Rolexes. Their stripper girlfriends invited their girlfriends, who invited their boyfriends,” Hunter is quoted as saying. “They’d drink up the entire minibar, call room service for filet mignon and a bottle of Dom Pérignon. One of the women even ordered an additional filet for her purse-sized dog.” FROM SEX CLUBS TO STRIPPERS: HERE ARE THE 5 MOST SALACIOUS DETAILS FROM THE HUNTER BIDEN INDICTMENT The indictment then notes there was no indication of any business taking place at the luxury hotels at which Hunter stayed. Later in the indictment, it mentions expenses “specifically identified in the Defendant’s memoir” but that he never disclosed that his time spent there was not for business purposes. The indictment says Lamborghini rentals, luxury hotel stays and the flying of an exotic dancer from LA to New York were not for business. “Instead, they were personal expenses generated during what he described in his memoir as a ‘bacchanal’ in 2018,” the document says, later saying that some of the hotels were used to meet up with his girlfriend for “constant partying.” Hunter’s defense attorney, Abbe Lowell, attacked special counsel David Weiss over the charges, accusing the special counsel of “bowing to Republican pressure.” “Based on the facts and the law, if Hunter’s last name was anything other than Biden, the charges in Delaware, and now California, would not have been brought,” Lowell said in a statement. Biden’s son also lashed out at his critics, saying they were trying to get to his father. “They are trying to destroy a presidency. And so, it’s not about me. In their most base way, what they’re trying to do is they’re trying to kill me, knowing that it will be a pain greater than my father could be able to handle. And so, therefore, destroying a presidency in that way,” he said. Fox News’ Houston Keene contributed to this report.

UPenn’s Wharton board attempts to increase pressure on Magill to resign: report

UPenn’s Wharton board attempts to increase pressure on Magill to resign: report

The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton business school’s board sent a letter to the board of trustees on Friday, which comes after sending a letter to embattled university President Liz Magill on Thursday calling for her to resign, according to a report. The letter, obtained by Axios, argues that five trustees can call for a special meeting to vote for the removal of Magill, who has come under fire after her congressional testimony on antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war. Five people on Wharton’s board also serve as trustees. “The Board will, of course, vote based upon each member’s beliefs and only the Board of Trustees, as the University’s fiduciaries, can determine the actions that are in the best interests of the University. However, University inaction cloaked in statements of intent and informational meetings has fostered the current climate of fear on campus and has resulted in Government inquiries, Title VI litigation, and declarations by numerous media outlets that our beloved university is ground zero for antisemitism on college campuses,” the letter from Wharton’s board states. A Sunday meeting is scheduled for the UPenn Board of Trustees, and comes after it held an emergency meeting on Thursday. The meeting was previously scheduled, but Board of Trustees Chair Scott Bok extended the length from one to two hours. UPENN BOARD MEMBERS TELL PRESIDENT TO ‘RESIGN’ IF SHE CAN’T PERFORM ROLE EFFECTIVELY: REPORT Following the meeting, somewhere between six and eight members of the board of trustees called on Magill to think “long and hard” over whether she can effectively function as president of the university. “If the answer is you can’t [function], we need to know that, and you ought to resign,” the trustees told Magill, according to the outlet’s source. The trustees fell short of explicitly calling for Magill to resign. Backlash continues to pour in following Tuesday’s Congressional hearing after Magill gave a non-answer to New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik’s question asking if “calling for the genocide of Jews violate[s] Penn’s rules or code of conduct? Yes or no?” 74 HOUSE MEMBERS ISSUE LETTER CALLING ON MIT, HARVARD, UPENN BOARDS TO ‘IMMEDIATELY REMOVE’ PRESIDENTS “If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment, yes,” Magill responded, later adding, “It is a context-dependent decision.” “This is unacceptable. Ms. Magill, I’m gonna give you one more opportunity for the world to see your answer. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn’s code of conduct when it comes to bullying and harassment? Yes or no?” Stefanik then asked. Magill would later walk back her comments in a video posted to X on Wednesday evening. “There was a moment during yesterday’s congressional hearing on antisemitism when I was asked if a call for the genocide of Jewish people on our campus would violate our policies. In that moment, I was focused on our university’s long-standing policies aligned with the U.S. Constitution, which says that speech alone is not punishable,” Magill said. “I was not focused on, but I should have been, on the irrefutable fact that a call for genocide of Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence human beings can perpetrate.”