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Year: 2024

Protesters attempt to stop removal of hundreds of migrants from public-funded housing

Protesters attempt to stop removal of hundreds of migrants from public-funded housing

Activists and several elected officials gathered outside New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office in the Capitol in Albany on Monday to protest the closure of two hotels housing several hundred migrants in the state’s capital region.  New York City has a “right to shelter” law, requiring the city to provide shelter for anyone who asks for it and has no other options. Protest organizers said they were advocating for Hochul to intervene to prevent the migrants’ eviction and to provide new state funding to shelter the migrants.  Speaking during the protest, Angelica Perez-Delgado, president of the pro-migrant nonprofit Ibero-American Action League, said, “Our need right now is to ensure that people in our hotels are not evicted. We need leadership and money from Gov. Hochul right now to fund at least six months of housing and related services.” BLUE STATE TO SHUTTER OVER DOZEN MIGRANT SHELTERS AS TRUMP’S SET TO IMPLEMENT DEPORTATION AGENDA The migrants in Albany have been staying at a Ramada Plaza and Holiday Inn Express, both of which are being paid for by the New York City government and are set to close this month.  The hundreds in Albany are just a fraction of the 58,000 migrants being housed by the city of New York and the more than 223,000 migrants who have received taxpayer aid since 2022.  According to a report released this year by the New York City Comptroller’s Office, the city is projected to spend $987 million in two years on contracted hotels for tens of thousands of migrants. In total, the city is projected to spend more than $12 billion in responding to the migrant surge through fiscal 2025. Since the election of President-elect Donald Trump last month, however, the city has moved to scale back its shelter program, closing some 12 shelters by the end of the year. NYC HOME TO NEARLY 60K ‘CRIMINAL’ MIGRANTS: REPORT New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been behind many of the moves to crack down on services for migrants, saying, “We have been wasting taxpayers’ money for far too long.”  The city has already shuttered two hotels-turned-migrant shelters: the Hotel Merit in Manhattan and the Quality Inn JFK in Queens. Eight more shelters in Dutchess, Erie, Orange and Westchester counties are also set to close by the end of the year.  The protest against the closures was organized by a group called Columbia County Sanctuary Movement and a coalition of local nonprofits.  One of the protest leaders, Bryan McCormack, co-executive director of the Columbia County Sanctuary Movement, said migrant families “should not be forced to abandon their jobs or uproot their lives to return to New York City shelters.” MAYOR ADAMS CALLS FOR ‘INVOLUNTARY REMOVAL’ OF PEOPLE WHO ARE ‘A DANGER TO OTHERS’ ON THE STREETS Speaking with Fox News Digital after the rally, McCormack said it is important to quickly find the migrants shelter as the harsh New York winter approaches. He also said New York City has used the crisis and migrants as a “political football” and “mismanaged the whole process.”  He said the migrants being sheltered in the hotels have “already established gainful employment and a life here” and have “been a major contributor to New York’s communities, cultures and economies.” “As somebody from upstate New York, I see every day how the immigrant community has impacted our lives as New York residents, from the food that’s put on our table to the revitalization of our cities through construction to caring for sick and elderly folks throughout the pandemic and on to now,” he said. “So, we hope that they will be able to continue to contribute to the capital region’s culture and economy and make a full integration into our community.” New York State Assembly member Matt Slater, however, told Fox News Digital that the protesters outside Hochul’s office are “out of touch” with the real feelings of New Yorkers about the migrant crisis. TOP CONSERVATIVE GROUP REVEALS ROAD MAP TO REBUILD NEW US IMMIGRATION SYSTEM ‘FROM THE ASHES’ “New Yorkers have had it,” he said. “My constituents are demanding accountability. They want to make sure that we live in a state that respects the rule of law, that understands that illegal immigration is illegal. Hard stop.”  According to a Siena poll published this week, a majority of New York voters (54% to 35%) say the state should support rather than oppose the upcoming Trump administration’s efforts to deport illegal immigrants in the state. “It is a real concern for my constituents in the Hudson Valley,” said Slater. “If people are protesting the fact that we’re finally getting real about illegal immigration, they should open their own doors and welcome these people in. By all means, no one’s stopping them. But to sit here and say that taxpayers should be fronting billions of dollars to continue to incentivize those who are breaking our laws is madness and insanity.” Slater said that though he is hopeful about the Trump administration clamping down on the border, he said New York state and city governments must also do their part. According to Slater, New York, which is a sanctuary state, allocated $4.3 billion of taxpayer money in the latest budget to provide a host of services for migrants, like housing, clothing, food and cellphones. “We cannot continue to allow a state government, a city government, to continue to incentivize illegal immigration by utilizing taxpayer dollars,” he said. “It is wrong, and it must end.”

Biden could pardon these Trump adversaries amid Dem fears that ‘revengeful first year’ is looming

Biden could pardon these Trump adversaries amid Dem fears that ‘revengeful first year’ is looming

President Biden’s days in office are coming down to the wire, and amid President-elect Donald Trump’s transition into the Oval Office, the 46th president is reportedly considering pardoning high-profile allies and fellow Democrats who are viewed as Trump’s political foes. After Trump’s election win over Vice President Harris last month, Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Ed Markey said he expects Trump to act in a “fascistic way” as president and called on Biden to pardon Democrats and the party’s allies who could face prosecution under a second Trump administration. “I think that, without question, Trump is going to try to act in a dictatorial way, in a fascistic way, in a revengeful first year at least of his administration toward individuals who he believes harmed him,” Markey said during a local radio interview last month. “If it’s clear by Jan. 19 that that is his intention, then I would recommend to President Biden that he provide those preemptive pardons to people because that’s really what our country is going to need next year.” MOTHER OF HUNTER BIDEN’S DAUGHTER DEFENDS PARDON, SAYS HE’S ‘TARGETED BECAUSE OF WHO HIS DAD IS’ The comments were soon echoed by other Democrats and ​​some legal experts in a bid for Biden to sink any prospect of Trump getting “revenge” against his political enemies. “Biden should keep going with his pardons: Trump, Jack Smith & team, Mueller & team, and a blanket pardon for all on Trump’s enemies list for any and all political statements before December 25, 2024! Merry Christmas,” John Dean, CNN contributor and former President Nixon’s White House counsel during the Watergate scandal, posted to social media this month. “​​Take the wind out of retribution/revenge!” HOW BIDEN – AND TRUMP – HELPED MAKE THE PARDON GO HAYWIRE As Biden wraps up his final days, Fox News Digital compiled a list of prominent Trump antagonists who have been rumored to be among those considered for pardons. Cheney, the Republican former Wyoming congresswoman, and Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Jan. 6 House Select Committee chair, were the targets of Trump’s ire during a recent interview on NBC’s “Meet The Press.” “Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps,” he said in the interview. “They deleted and destroyed all evidence.” “And Cheney was behind it, and so was Bennie Thompson and everybody on that committee,” he continued. “For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail.” The Jan. 6 committee was founded in July 2021 to investigate the breach of the U.S. Capitol earlier that year by supporters of Trump ahead of President Biden officially taking office on Jan. 20. The Jan. 6 committee’s investigation was carried out when Democrats held control of the House. BIDEN’S PARDONING OF HUNTER INDICATES HE HAS ‘A LOT MORE TO HIDE’: LARA TRUMP Cheney slammed Trump’s remarks in a statement this week, saying they were a “​​continuation of his assault on the rule of law,” but she did not address a potential blanket pardon or whether she would accept such an offer. “There is no conceivably appropriate factual or constitutional basis for what Donald Trump is suggesting – a Justice Department investigation of the work of a congressional committee – and any lawyer who attempts to pursue that course would quickly find themselves engaged in sanctionable conduct,” Cheney said in her statement.  Thompson’s office also slammed Trump’s comment in a statement provided to Fox Digital this week, arguing that “no election, no conspiracy theory, no pardon, and no threat of vengeful prosecution can rewrite history or wipe away his responsibility for the deadly violence on that horrific day.” “We stood up to him before, and we will continue to do so,” he added. The former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, was a keystone of the nation’s pandemic response, including advising then-President Trump in 2020 on how to handle COVID-19 as it swept across communities. Fauci’s tenure under the first Trump administration, however, devolved with Trump slamming him and fellow pandemic task force adviser Dr. Deborah Birx as “two self-promoters trying to reinvent history to cover for their bad instincts and faulty recommendations.” FAUCI RIPPED OVER NEW PAPER CRITICIZING TRUMP ON CORONAVIRUS, PROMOTING NATURAL ORIGIN THEORY: ‘EMBARRASSMENT’ Conservatives, including lawmakers such as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., slammed Fauci for his promotion of mask mandates, vaccine mandates and strict lockdown orders that upended the day-to-day lives of Americans. “Dr. Fauci should be voluntarily removed from TV because what he says is such a disservice, and such fearmongering and almost all of what he says isn’t even matched by the science of his own institute,” Paul, who is a doctor, said in 2021 during an appearance on Fox Business. “It doesn’t obey the science,” he said at the time. “There is no scientific evidence that the lockdowns in Michigan have done anything or in California. In fact, the daily incidents of the disease in the last two months has been about almost one and a half times greater in California than it has been in Florida. The death rate is lower in Florida. So there is no real correlation between economic lockdowns, mask mandates or any of this.” Trump allies, including tech billionaire Elon Musk and Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, have endorsed calls to prosecute Fauci if evidence is found of any crimes during the pandemic, including the Wuhan lab leak in China. BIDEN, TRUMP BOTH RIP DOJ AFTER PRESIDENT PARDONS HUNTER “If there were crimes that he committed, of course I would tell the attorney general to prosecute him, not hold off,” Kennedy said on Fox News last year. Fauci has denied any wrongdoing amid the pandemic, and he told CNN this year, “I don’t know what one would prosecute me for. … I played a major role in the development of the vaccine that was responsible for the saving of millions

Democrats in a bind over defense bill that bans transgender surgeries for minors but boosts enlisted pay

Democrats in a bind over defense bill that bans transgender surgeries for minors but boosts enlisted pay

The House is set to vote Wednesday on its must-pass yearly defense bill that would give junior enlisted troops a significant pay bump and work to eliminate DEI programs at the Pentagon. The 1,800-page bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), details how $895.2 billion allocated toward defense and national security will be spent. It will be voted on more than two months after the start of the fiscal year.  The $895.2 billion represents a 1% increase over last year’s budget, a smaller number than some defense hawks would have liked.  A significant portion of the legislation focused on quality-of-life improvements for service members amid record recruitment issues, a focus of much bipartisan discussion over the last year. That includes a 14.5% pay increase for junior enlisted troops and increasing access to child care for service members while also providing job support to military spouses. The measure authorizes a 4.5% across-the-board pay raise for all service members starting Jan. 1.  The NDAA typically enjoys wide bipartisan support, but this year’s focus on eliminating “woke” policies could be hard for Democrats to stomach. PENTAGON ANNOUNCES NEW COUNTER-DRONE STRATEGY AS UNMANNED ATTACKS ON US INTERESTS SKYROCKET The policy proposal to prohibit Tricare, the military’s health care provider, from covering transgender services for the minor dependents of service members has raised concerns, prompting the leading Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, to reconsider his support for the bill. “Blanketly denying health care to people who clearly need it, just because of a biased notion against transgender people, is wrong,” he said in a statement. “This provision injected a level of partisanship not traditionally seen in defense bills.” The goal of that provision is to prevent any “medical interventions that could result in sterilization” of minors. Other provisions, like a blanket ban on funding for gender transition surgeries for adults, did not make their way into the bill, neither did a ban on requiring masks to prevent the spread of diseases.  The bill also supports deploying the National Guard to the southern border to help with illegal immigrant apprehensions and drug flow.  Another provision opens the door to allowing airmen and Space Force personnel to grow facial hair; it directs the secretary of the Air Force to brief lawmakers on “the feasibility and advisability” of establishing a pilot program to test out allowing beards.  US SCRAMBLES AS DRONES SHAPE THE LANDSCAPE OF WAR: ‘THE FUTURE IS HERE’ Democrats are also upset the bill did not include a provision expanding access to IVF for service members. Currently, military health care only covers IVF for troops whose infertility is linked to service-related illness or injury. But the bill did not include an amendment to walk back a provision allowing the Pentagon to reimburse service members who have to travel out of state to get an abortion. The bill extends a hiring freeze on DEI-related roles and stops all such recruitment until “an investigation of the Pentagon’s DEI programs” can be completed. It also bans the Defense Department from contracting with advertising companies “that blacklist conservative news sources,” according to an internal GOP memo. The memo said the NDAA also guts funding for the Biden administration’s “Countering Extremist Activity Working Group” dedicated to rooting out extremism in the military’s ranks. The annual defense policy bill also does not authorize “any climate change programs” and prohibits the Pentagon from issuing climate impact-based guidance on weapons systems. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., touted $31 billion in savings in the legislation that would come from cutting “inefficient programs, obsolete weapons, and bloated Pentagon bureaucracy.” The compromise NDAA bill, negotiated between Republican and Democrat leadership, sets policy for the nation’s largest government agency, but a separate defense spending bill must be passed to allocate funds for such programs.

A kinder, gentler Trump? President-elect taking a more moderate stance

A kinder, gentler Trump? President-elect taking a more moderate stance

Donald Trump is making a deliberate effort to soften his tone. Or is he? I’ve given this a lot of thought, having interviewed Trump twice this year, including two weeks before the election. He was focused and substantive, trying to reach a more independent audience, and while he took some campaign-style shots, he was relatively restrained by Trumpian standards. Now that he’s the de facto president, I saw a similar Trump on display in the “Meet the Press” interview. Kristen Welker’s follow-ups must have annoyed him, because he told her she had asked “nasty” questions. HOW BIDEN – AND TRUMP – HELPED MAKE THE PARDON GO HAYWIRE During the campaign, such episodes were overshadowed by Trump’s rock-n-roll rallies, where he’d ramble on about the great Hannibal Lecter or Arnold Palmer’s genitalia. But his declaration on NBC that he also wants to represent those who didn’t vote for him is a long way from his 2017 “American carnage” inaugural address. And yet, the president-elect has also mastered the art of saying things that can be interpreted two ways, or sending not-so-coded messages. The Washington Post editorial board, not a big fan, says Trump “tried to sound a conciliatory tone” with Welker, backed by substance. Trump declared he wouldn’t oust Fed chief Jerome Powell, and wants to work with Democrats to protect the Dreamers. Trump said he “would not restrict the national availability of abortion medication, and that the United States will ‘absolutely’ remain in NATO, as long as other member states spend what they have pledged on defense.”  And why shouldn’t he appear more reasonable? He’s got the job he believes was unfairly taken from him. He can’t run again. He knows his first term was savaged by the left-leaning media establishment. If he can have a more successful second term – after turning on some top aides in the last go-round – he could modify history’s verdict. And that brings us to the question of retribution. He said on NBC that the best retribution is success, the same line he used with me. On “Meet the Press” he even retracted a campaign declaration that he would name a special prosecutor to go after Joe Biden.  BIDEN, TRUMP BOTH RIP DOJ AFTER PRESIDENT PARDONS HUNTER When Welker asked whether he’d order the Justice Department, which he sees as having persecuted him, to investigate Biden and his administration, Trump gave a response that I doubt he would have offered in the first term. No, he said, that would be up to his attorney general and FBI director, which will definitely be Pam Bondi and probably Kash Patel. Would he tell them to do it? Nope. It’s called distancing. Now one could argue that he was in effect suggesting they do it by announcing it on national television. But I’m sure they knew his views anyway.  Trump’s one misstep on NBC was lashing out at members of the House Jan. 6 Committee. He said Liz Cheney “did something that’s inexcusable, along with [Bennie] Thompson and people on the Un-Select Committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps,” Trump told moderator Kristen Welker, arguing without proof that they “deleted and destroyed” testimony. “Honestly, they should go to jail.” So that was a gift to his critics, enabling most journalists to lead with him wanting the lawmakers behind bars. By the way, their investigation and hearings are protected by the Speech and Debate clause, which gives the members immunity. Trump senior adviser Jason Miller told CNN that his boss’ words had been taken “out of context,” that he “wants everyone who he puts into key positions of leadership … to apply the law equally to everybody,” mentioning Bondi and Patel. In a similar vein, Trump has mainly avoided attacks on individual journalists, this after saying he would reach out to even hostile outlets. But he made an exception and mocked Maggie Haberman of the New York Times when she co-authored a couple of stories he didn’t like. So will we be getting Trump 2.0, or Trump 1.0 with plenty of fancy packaging? SUBSCRIBE TO HOWIE’S MEDIA BUZZMETER PODCAST, A RIFF ON THE DAY’S HOTTEST STORIES Veteran Trump watchers know that he can slip off the high road when he gets angry, that it’s not just about mass deportations, slashing inflation and drill, baby, drill.  But I still believe we’re seeing a more disciplined, restrained and moderate Trump so far. He campaigned on shaking things up, so there are plenty of clashes to unfold. What’s fascinating is that he’s already essentially running the country while Biden has faded and, since the pardon fiasco, is refusing to talk to the press.