Hunter Biden pardon will be ‘dark mark’ on Biden legacy: historian
President Biden’s decision to go back on his word and pardon his son will be a permanent stain on his legacy, a presidential historian said Thursday. Douglas Brinkley, a professor at Rice University argued to USA Today that there is “nothing positive” about Biden’s decision. The pardon has already drawn criticism from Republicans and even Biden’s allies in Congress. “The problem that President Biden has legacy-wise is he said he wouldn’t pardon his son,” Brinkley said. “He gave his word, crossed his heart, and then, alas, he ended up doing it. It will strike some people as unfair and other people will say it’s a father doing what he had to.” He added that the pardon will only serve to be a “dark mark” on Biden’s term moving forward. PRESIDENT BIDEN’S PARDON OF SON HUNTER A POLITICAL GIFT FOR TRUMP GOING FORWARD Brinkley also noted the trouble Hunter has caused for his father’s presidency since gaining office. Investigations into the first son have resounded through Congress and the media, providing a counterpoint to then-ongoing criminal investigations into President-elect Trump. SPECIAL COUNSEL, IRS WHISTLEBLOWERS SAY DON’T BUY BIDEN’S ‘SPIN’ ABOUT HUNTER BIDEN LEGAL SAGA “Hunter Biden’s been an albatross around his father’s neck for the entire presidency,” Brinkley said. Brinkley goes on to argue that Trump’s victory in November may have been the deciding factor, with Biden fearing that the incoming administration would target his son with more investigations. Nevertheless, the move won him no allies. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, typically a staunch ally of the president, said he was “disappointed” in the decision and that he “cannot support it.” Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., who chairs the Congressional Democratic Caucus, also said he was “disappointed” in the decision Wednesday. He went on to note that Biden had gone back on his word. Biden had vowed multiple times that he would not intervene in his son’s case, first in June when his son was convicted on three felony firearm charges, and then in September after Hunter pleaded guilty to federal charges of tax evasion. “I am not going to do anything,” Biden said this summer. “I will abide by the jury’s decision.”
Eknath Shinde confirmed to take oath as Maharashtra Dy CM, announces Shiv Sena leader Uday Samant
Shiv Sena leader Uday Samant’s announcement in the afternoon ended the uncertainty over Eknath Shinde’s role in the new Mahayuti government.
ISRO’s PSLV rocket carrying ESA satellites Proba-3 lifts off, WATCH here
Proba-3 mission, consisting of two satellites, will study the Corona, the Sun’s outer atmosphere.
At this Fort Worth charter school, Texas adults are getting a second chance at a diploma
The Texas Legislature has prioritized getting high school dropouts the skills they need to enter the workforce.
Texas weighs social media bans for minors as schools and police face challenges
A Texas lawmaker has introduced a bill prohibiting minors from using social media accounts as school districts become a “hunting ground” for online dangers.
BJP alleges LoP Rahul Gandhi ‘traitor of highest order’, trying to destabilise India
BJP MPs K Laxman and Sambit Patra cited a report in the French media outlet ‘Mediapart’ to target Gandhi after the ruling party raised the issue in the Lok Sabha, which was adjourned amid noisy interventions by both sides.
Senate DOGE leader Ernst to take on government telework abuse at first meeting with Musk, Ramaswamy
EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Joni Ernst is rolling out a proposal for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that would reduce government employee telework and sell empty government office space. Ernst, R-Iowa, is the chair of the Senate DOGE Caucus and has been working with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy since President-elect Trump tapped them to lead the new agency. Musk and Ramaswamy will visit Capitol Hill Thursday to meet with Republican lawmakers to discuss ways to reduce government waste. MUSK, RAMASWAMY TO DISCUSS DOGE PLANS WITH GOP LAWMAKERS Ernst will roll out her new proposal and a 60-page report during her first Senate DOGE Caucus meeting Thursday morning, which Musk and Ramaswamy are expected to attend. House Speaker Mike Johnson will then hold an event with Musk and Ramaswamy Thursday afternoon for all Republican legislators in the House and Senate, which Ernst will attend. Ernst has been investigating telework abuse for two years and based her recommendations to DOGE on her findings. First, Ernst proposes the federal government relocate Washington’s workforce across the country. Ernst suggested legislation that would relocate the headquarters of non-security-related government departments and agencies outside Washington to areas with “existing expertise for carrying out the mission and goals of each.” MUSK AND RAMASWAMY LAY OUT DOGE VISION IN WSJ OP-ED: 5 TAKEAWAYS She also proposed legislation to relocate at least 30% of the employees from Washington, D.C., headquarters of non-security-related government departments and agencies to field offices in communities across the country. Ernst also suggested that the White House and executive branch agencies consider relocating some staff, without any congressional directive. Next, Ernst is proposing Congress set a goal for all federal government agencies to achieve a 60% daily occupancy at their headquarters, while noting that, currently, not a single agency sees even half capacity occupancy. “There are thousands of other government buildings around the country sitting totally vacant and unused,” the report states. “Much of this is leased space. “There is a simple answer,” the report continues. “Use it or lose it!” Ernst proposed that the General Services Administration auction “vacant, unneeded, and underutilized buildings and property without unnecessary strings and conditions.” She said agencies should “immediately cancel or allow to expire the $15 million worth of underutilized leased office space and property.” “Not a single headquarters of a major agency or department in the nation’s capital is even half full,” Ernst’s report said. “Government buildings average an occupancy rate of 12%.” According to the report, maintaining and leasing government office buildings costs approximately $8 billion every year, with another $7.7 billion spent on the energy to keep them up and running. Ernst said the government owns 7,697 vacant buildings and another 2,265 that are partially empty. She proposed that Congress pass a bipartisan bill, the Federal Assets Sale and Transfer Act (FASTA) Reform Act to extend the Public Buildings Reform Board’s mission identifying unused properties for the government to sell. She also proposed Congress pass legislation that requires the “reduction and consolidation of unused space to ensure all buildings achieve a utilization rate of 60 percent or more.” Meanwhile, Ernst is proposing that performance determine whether a federal employee may work from home. Ernst proposed that Congress pass nearly half a dozen bills that would “make telework transparent and accountable.” COMER TO CREATE DOGE SUBCOMMITTEE CHAIRED BY MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE TO WORK WITH ELON MUSK, VIVEK RAMASWAMY Ernst also noted that federal employees have been “padding their paychecks” by claiming to be working in areas with higher pay rates, while actually living elsewhere. “My audits are finding as many as 23-68% of teleworking employees for some agencies are boosting their salaries by receiving incorrect locality pay,” she said. “Some employees live more than 2,000 miles away from their office, and one ‘temporary’ teleworker collected higher locality pay for nearly a decade.” Ernst will introduce her proposal to Musk and Ramaswamy during Thursday’s meeting, after the two said they are largely focused on how DOGE could assist in identifying waste and regulations that could be eliminated through the executive branch. Republicans will control the White House and both chambers of the legislature when President-elect Trump returns to office in January.
Trump assassination attempt task force holds final hearing; Secret Service director to testify
The House task force on the two assassination attempts of President-elect Trump will gather for its final hearing Thursday ahead of the release of its highly anticipated report. U.S. Secret Service (USSS) Director Ronald Rowe will testify before lawmakers. Task force members will then huddle behind closed doors to consider their final report. Chairman Mike Kelly, R-Pa., said the hearing was about restoring confidence in federal law enforcement. “What we’re working on more than anything else is the public has to know what happened that day because there’s still a lot of confusion about it,” Kelly told Fox News Digital Wednesday. TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT TASK FORCE SAYS ATF ‘FAILED TO PRODUCE’ REQUESTED MATERIALS “When we look at Secret Service, that’s always the elite of the elite. So, I think what we’re trying to do is establish the situation where … we can restore that confidence.” Trump held a rally in Kelly’s district July 13, when a 20-year-old gunman opened fire on the event from just outside its security perimeter, injuring Trump and others. One rally attendee was killed. Later in September, USSS agents opened fire on a 58-year-old man who had a rifle aimed at Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, golf course where the president-elect was out for the day. TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: SECRET SERVICE FAILURES MAY WARRANT DISCIPLINE, AGENCY REPORT SAYS The incidents prompted heavy scrutiny of the USSS and its security practices and led to the ouster of USSS Director Kimberly Cheatle. And while Kelly admitted he “would have rather had” Cheatle testify before his task force, he praised Rowe’s handling of the situation since succeeding her. “From the very start, he said, ‘Look, it was entirely our fault. This is the worst state the Secret Service has ever had,’” he said. SECRET SERVICE KNEW AIRSPACE PROTECTION WOULD END WITH FORMER PRESIDENT ONSTAGE Kelly said he anticipated the final report being released around Dec. 13, the task force’s “due date” for producing the results of its investigation. The panel released an interim report in late October detailing “a lack of planning and coordination between the Secret Service and its law enforcement partners before the rally.” USSS personnel at the event “did not give clear guidance” to state and local authorities about how to manage security outside their hard perimeter, nor was there a central meeting between USSS and the law enforcement agencies supporting them the morning of the rally, according to findings presented as key failures in the 51-page report.
House Ethics Committee to meet with vote on releasing Gaetz report looming
The House Ethics Committee is expected to meet Thursday after the panel failed to come to an agreement last month on whether to release its report about former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. The report could still be made public, however, even if history repeats itself. Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., moved to force a vote on releasing the report via a measure known as a “privileged resolution” Tuesday. Designating a resolution “privileged” gives House leaders two legislative days to consider it, putting that deadline on Thursday. The House Ethics Committee has been conducting a years-long investigation into accusations against Gaetz that involve sex with a minor and illicit drug use. HACKER OBTAINS HOUSE ETHICS TESTIMONY ON MATT GAETZ AS TRUMP MAKES CALLS FOR AG NOMINEE Gaetz has consistently denied any wrongdoing, and a parallel federal investigation into the Florida congressman ended without him being charged. The House Ethics Committee’s investigation came to an abrupt halt last month after he resigned from Congress, hours after President-elect Trump tapped him to be his attorney general. Gaetz dropped out of consideration amid quiet but steady GOP opposition, but the committee lost jurisdiction over the probe when Gaetz left the House of Representatives. His resignation came just before the committee was expected to meet to consider releasing the report. That meeting wound up taking place roughly a week later and ended on a tense note. GET TO KNOW DONALD TRUMP’S CABINET: WHO HAS THE PRESIDENT-ELECT PICKED SO FAR? Chairman Michael Guest, R-Miss., told reporters there was no agreement on releasing the report, while the remainder of the normally secretive committee said little to journalists crowded outside the meeting room. His comments prompted Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pa., the top Democrat on the committee, to return and criticize Guest for discussing the meeting at all. “We just concluded a two-hour meeting of the ethics committee, and it was not my intention to make any comment. I walked out of this committee without making one and walked back to my office,” Wild began. “We had agreed that we were not going to discuss what had transpired at the meeting. But it has come to my attention that the chairman has since betrayed the process by disclosing our deliberations within moments after walking out of the committee, and he has implied that there was an agreement of the committee not to disclose the report.” She called it “untrue to the extent that that suggests that the committee was in agreement or that we had a consensus on that.” But with Gaetz now out of the running for attorney general, there is likely not as much pressure on Republicans to consent to releasing the report. A significant number of GOP lawmakers who suggested they would be open to it argued it was in the public’s best interest to see the report if Gaetz were to lead the Department of Justice, a factor no longer in play.
Musk, Ramaswamy visit Capitol Hill to discuss Trump’s DOGE vision for cutting government waste
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are expected to visit Capitol Hill Thursday morning to meet with Republican lawmakers in both chambers of Congress to discuss ways to reduce waste in the federal government just weeks after the creation of the Trump-created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and Ramaswamy, a former presidential candidate and biotech entrepreneur, are the co-heads of the new agency created by President-elect Trump to root out government waste. The two will visit Washington, D.C., for meetings with top lawmakers in the House of Representatives and the Senate, signaling they will work alongside Congress to slash abuse of taxpayer money. MUSK, RAMASWAMY TO DISCUSS DOGE PLANS WITH GOP LAWMAKERS Musk and Ramswamy are expected to attend the first Senate DOGE Caucus meeting Thursday morning. The caucus is chaired by Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa. Later, the pair will cross to the other side of the Capitol for a bicameral event hosted by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who invited legislators from both the House and Senate to the event. Johnson, in his save-the-date announcement, said he plans to discuss “major reform ideas” with Musk and Ramaswamy to “achieve regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions, and cost savings,” while also reviving “the principle of limited government.” Johnson declared that Trump “has made this possible.” Musk and Ramaswamy are wasting no time laying out their vision for slashing government bloat through DOGE. The pair penned an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal last month, explaining how the outside-government agency will operate to determine suggestions for cuts. The entrepreneurs have vowed to scrap entire government agencies through the DOGE initiative, which they intend to wrap up by July 4, 2026. MUSK AND RAMASWAMY LAY OUT DOGE VISION IN WSJ OP-ED: 5 TAKEAWAYS In their op-ed, Musk and Ramaswamy largely focused on how DOGE could assist in identifying waste and regulations that could be eliminated through the executive branch. Republicans will control the White House and both chambers of the legislature when Trump returns to office in January, and many GOP lawmakers have already expressed interest in assisting the agency. In the House, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said he will establish the Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee, which will be chaired by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., to work with DOGE. The subcommittee is expected to investigate wasteful spending, examine ways to reorganize federal agencies to improve efficiency and identify solutions to eliminate bureaucratic red tape. COMER TO CREATE DOGE SUBCOMMITTEE CHAIRED BY MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE TO WORK WITH ELON MUSK, VIVEK RAMASWAMY Sources told Fox News Digital Comer and Ramaswamy have already met to discuss how best to work together. Trump said last month he hopes DOGE will become the “Manhattan Project of our time,” a reference to J. Robert Oppenheimer’s secretive atomic bomb endeavor during World War II. “Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of DOGE for a very long time,” Trump said.