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Grieving parents slam Dems for opposing bipartisan fentanyl bill using claims parroted by Soros-backed group

Grieving parents slam Dems for opposing bipartisan fentanyl bill using claims parroted by Soros-backed group

Democrats in Congress are facing backlash for their opposition to bipartisan legislation aimed at closing loopholes in U.S. drug laws taken advantage of by fentanyl traffickers. The HALT Fentanyl Act, which would make the temporary Schedule I classification for fentanyl analogs permanent, has been opposed by a George Soros-backed drug policy nonprofit that claims the bill will exacerbate mass incarceration and limit research on these types of opioids. Democrats, such as Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, have pushed the same arguments while also seeking to impede the bill’s passage with various amendments and procedural maneuvers.  During comments Tuesday from the Senate floor, as he called for extending the temporary scheduling of fentanyl analogs, Booker claimed that the HALT Act will implement “harsher penalties for drugs” and that he would “not stop working until this body does more than just scheduling.” Other Democratic senators, including Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, have said the HALT Act will impede research on fentanyl analogs and exacerbate mass incarceration among minority communities. ‘OVERDOES EPIDEMIC’: BIPARTISAN SENATORS TARGET FENTANYL CLASSIFICATION AS LAPSE APPROACHES Booker cited testimony Tuesday from parents who lost their children to fentanyl overdoses during his remarks, but the same grieving parents he pointed to are calling on Congress to quit stalling the move to permanently schedule fentanyl analogs as Schedule I substances.  “Continuing resolutions to accommodate the scheduling aspect of fentanyl analogs is simply a method of kicking the can further down the road,” Jaime Puerta, who lost his son, Daniel, in 2020 to a fentanyl overdose, wrote in a letter to Booker on Wednesday and obtained by Fox News Digital. “Fentanyl and its analogs have been the leading cause of overdose deaths in the United States, with synthetic opioids accounting for over 74,000 fatalities in 2023 alone. Your reluctance to support the HALT Fentanyl Act disregards the escalating death toll and the devastating impact on families and communities nationwide.” Another parent who lost their child to fentanyl in 2014, Lauri Badura, wrote in a separate letter to the top members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that if they cannot pass the HALT Act, “how can the public hold out hope Congress will fix the larger problem of illicit fentanyl crossing our borders every single day?” “I am not alone in urging passage of the HALT Fentanyl Act,” Badura wrote. “Families across America – in your states! – who have lost a child or loved one to fentanyl poisoning want this bill passed. Our kids did not want to die.” The arguments put forth by Democrats against this bipartisan bill mirror those of the Soros-backed Drug Policy Alliance, a New-York-based 501(c)3, which declined to provide comment for this story.  FENTANYL’S FINANCIAL GRIP ON US SKYROCKETED TO $2.7T AT HEIGHT OF BIDEN ADMIN: STUDY Earlier this month, after the House passed the HALT Act with a vote of 312-108, the nonprofit responded with a statement warning the bill would “create new mandatory minimum sentences for fentanyl-related substances” and block “potential research that could uncover new overdose medications.” Stanford University’s Keith Humphreys, a former senior policy adviser in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, argued that claims the HALT Act’s scheduling permanency will increase incarceration rates among minority communities – similar to the impact of crack cocaine laws during the War on Drugs – are likely unfounded.  “I don’t think [the HALT Act] is going to make a big difference,” Humphreys said. “It’s illegal now, you can’t go around doing fentanyl analogs … also the market size is just not comparable to the number of players that we had with crack.”  BIPARTISAN BILL PROMISES MORE RESOURCES AT PORTS TO FIGHT FENTANYL SMUGGLING, SPEED UP WAIT TIMES  Humphreys added that while it can be “hard” to get the approval to study Schedule I substances, it is “not impossible.” However, there are ways to schedule fentanyl analogs as Class I substances to remove these barriers, he noted. “You want to start scheduling drugs for use and for science and let them have two indicators.”  According to its sponsors, the HALT Act would serve to reduce bureaucratic hurdles by streamlining the registration process for Schedule I researchers, opening up the door for more scientists to study fentanyl analogs.   “Law Enforcement needs permanence. It needs a definitive change to combat the opioid crisis and to go after the criminals flooding communities with deadly drugs,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy, R–La., a former physician who introduced the HALT Act alongside Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. “Congress’ inaction only emboldens China, drug cartels and other criminals who exploit our communities.” However, some Democrats, like Booker, want more done.  CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP “This can’t be all Congress does. The whole bill cannot be our only response, because the whole bill permanently schedules what we have already scheduled temporarily,” Booker said Tuesday. “I’ve watched now, for at least three congresses that I’ve worked on trying to get a larger approach to meet the fentanyl crisis,” he continued. “And three congresses, this body has failed to rise to the challenge. I’m dying to be here when my colleague tells me, ‘I told you so” – and I give him permission to do that – that this body will do something beyond just scheduling.” Fox News Digital reached out to Booker and other Democrats for the purposes of this story, including Whitehouse and Markey, but did not receive any responses by publication time. 

House DOGE subcommittee chair Greene threatens criminal referrals over foreign aid spending

House DOGE subcommittee chair Greene threatens criminal referrals over foreign aid spending

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., chair of the House Oversight DOGE subcommittee, threatened potential “criminal referrals” during a hearing Wednesday on the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).   “This committee, based on this hearing and witness testimonies, will consider recommending investigations and criminal referrals,” Greene said, beginning a line of questioning after several witnesses made opening remarks to the committee. The congresswoman reiterated that Hunter Biden was on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma when his father, Joe Biden, was vice president.  “The prosecutor general of Ukraine at the time, Viktor Shokin, was investigating Burisma for corruption. Biden threatened, and it’s on video, to withhold 1 billion of USAID grant to Ukraine if Shokin wasn’t fired,” Greene said, before questioning one of the witnesses, former USAID official and Heritage Foundation senior research fellow, Max Primorac. MUSK TELLS CABINET THAT DOGE EMAIL WAS ‘PULSE CHECK’ FOR WORKERS, WARNS US WILL ‘GO BANKRUPT’ WITHOUT ACTION “Is USAID supposed to be used as leverage by a president to protect his son?” she asked.  Primorac responded, “No, we call that corruption.”  “In your estimation, roughly what percentage of USAID funding is doled out to bad actors or to efforts that don’t have the best interests of Americans in mind?” Greene added.  Primorac said it was discovered through the work of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that USAID has been paying out over 50% to overhead charges and the inspector general of USAID “criticized the agency for not knowing the overhead charges being handed out to all of these actors for $142 billion of disbursements.”  “That is extremely troubling,” he added.  Another witness, Middle East Forum Executive Director Gregg Roman, said in his opening statement that he was there to testify “because there’s a fox loose in the henhouse of our foreign aid system – a system intended to uplift lives abroad that instead has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to radical and terrorist-linked organizations.”  “If we don’t fix these fences now, we risk fueling violence against our allies, our troops, and potentially ourselves,” he said, later adding: “I urge this committee to make a formal criminal referral to the Department of Justice regarding USAID’s systemic failure to prevent taxpayer dollars from reaching terrorist organizations. USAID’s reckless bureaucrats should be dragged not just in front of this committee, but before a criminal court judge who can get to the bottom of this travesty and lock up any government official who risked the lives of innocent people around the world to advance these radical anti-American pet projects.”  HOUSE DOGE HEARING ERUPTS OVER DEMOCRAT DEEMING TRUMP ‘GRIFTER IN CHIEF,’ REFERRING TO ‘PRESIDENT MUSK’ Greene did not specify who would potentially be the recipients of the criminal referrals.  The chairwoman said that the “Democrat-run USAID should not get to use our federal government – our U.S. taxpayer dollars – as their party piggy bank to push their radical agenda in countries that we have no business giving money to.” Greene said 95% of all political contributions from USAID employees go to Democratic Party candidates or PACs.  “The revolving door between USAID employees and NGOs that receive USAID funding is undeniable. Maybe we should consider investigating whether USAID funding has made it back to Democrat campaigns?” she later asked.  In her closing remarks, Greene again posed bringing criminal referrals in connection to USAID funding.  “What we have heard today is that USAID has been used as a tool by Democrats to brainwash the world with globalist propaganda to force regime changes around the world,” she said. “But if USAID funded terrorism that resulted in the death of Americans,” Greene added, “then this committee will be making criminal referrals.” Committee Democrats spent the hearing arguing that the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID was illegal, and is “reordering the global stage” to favor foreign adversaries and “undermining global democracy.” 

Top conservative group vows to ‘work closely’ with Trump on 2026 GOP primaries despite past clashes

Top conservative group vows to ‘work closely’ with Trump on 2026 GOP primaries despite past clashes

EXCLUSIVE – A leading conservative organization that is already a big spender in Republican primary politics is looking to up its game in the 2026 election cycle as it aligns with President Donald Trump and his political team. “Our goal is going to be even bigger and do more,” Club for Growth President David McIntosh emphasized in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital. The Club for Growth is a political advocacy organization which pushes a fiscally conservative agenda, including a focus on tax cuts and other economic issues.  Its political arm, the Club for Growth Action super PAC, has been a major player in GOP primary showdowns. THIS TOP REPUBLICAN SENATE RECRUIT HINTS AT WHEN HE’LL MAKE A 2026 DECISION Club for Growth Action says it and its affiliated super PACs raised $163 million in the 2024 election cycle, and touts that it won 73% of the races where it made political investments. The group says it aims to up the ante in the 2026 cycle, and it works to strengthen the Republican majorities in the House and Senate. McIntosh said that when it comes to increasing its investments this year and next year, “a lot of that depends on the members. We’re dependent on our donors to help us fund these races.” However, he added, “we’ve got some very good, generous people who support us in that.” SENATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN CHAIR REVEALS HOW MANY SEATS HE’S GUNNING FOR IN NEXT YEAR’S MIDTERMS “One of the key factors,” McIntosh emphasized, “is going to be President Trump and his endorsement. That literally trumps everything else. So what we would do is recommend to him and his political team what candidates that we think would support his agenda, the free market, limited government conservatives that we could support together.” McIntosh and the Club have had an up-and-down relationship with Trump. They opposed Trump as he ran for the White House in 2016 before embracing him as an ally. In the 2022 cycle, Trump and the Club teamed up in some high-profile GOP primaries but clashed over combustible Senate nomination battles in Alabama, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Additionally, the Club was on the outs with Trump as the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race got underway. Trump repeatedly criticized McIntosh and the Club, referring to them as “The Club for NO Growth,” and claimed they were “an assemblage of political misfits, globalists, and losers.” However, Trump and McIntosh made peace about a year ago, with Trump saying in March 2024, as he was wrapping up the GOP presidential nomination, that they were “back in love” after the protracted falling out. TRUMP, CLUB FOR GROWTH, MAKE PEACE AHEAD OF 2024 ELECTIONS “I think you’ll see Club for Growth PACs work closely with President Trump, his political team,” McIntosh told Fox News. “We’re definitely going to be working closely with his policy team to get the tax bill through, a lot of the legislation that we both agree is really important for turning things around in the country.” Club officials say that they are planning an eight-figure federal advocacy campaign to support what they call the pro-growth, free-market initiatives proposed by the Trump administration. A top item their campaign will spotlight is the push to expand and permanently codify the Trump tax cuts passed during his first term in the White House. The group is also advocating for federal school freedom legislation, which would allow parents “to use federal tax dollars to send their students to the public, private, charter, or homeschool that best fits their learning needs.” Club for Growth Action last year teamed up with allied groups to target and defeat 10 GOP incumbent state lawmakers in Texas who had opposed the so-called school choice legislation. The group also spent big bucks in Tennessee on a similar mission, and this year is continuing its crusade in five other states where school choice bills are being considered. The Club on Thursday kicks off its annual donor retreat for top-dollar contributors, which is held each year at an exclusive beachfront resort in the upper crust seaside community of Palm Beach, Florida. Some of the best-known names on the right will be speaking at the confab, as they mingle with big-pocketed donors. Among the politicians attending are Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Tim Scott of South Carolina (who is the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate GOP’s campaign arm), Rick Scott of Florida and freshman lawmaker Bernie Moreno of Ohio. Among the House members attending are House Speaker Mike Johnson and Reps. Byron Donalds, who is moving towards a 2026 run for governor in Florida, and Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who is also mulling a gubernatorial bid. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is also attending, as is Vivek Ramaswamy, who earlier this week launched a 2026 campaign for Ohio governor.

Trump administration cutting 90% of USAID foreign aid contracts, documents show

Trump administration cutting 90% of USAID foreign aid contracts, documents show

The sheer scale of cuts the Trump administration is looking to carry out at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has been revealed, with nearly 15,000 grants worth $60 billion set to be eliminated, according to internal documents. The grants amount to about 90% of foreign aid contracts and come after a review on spending by the State Department.  USAID aid became an early target of the Trump administration, with the president being a longtime critic of overseas spending, arguing that it does not benefit the American taxpayer and going so far as to call those who run the top agency “radical lunatics.” USAID INSTRUCTIONS FOR FIRED EMPLOYEES GIVES THEM 15 MINUTES TO GATHER BELONGINGS FROM SHUTTERED DC BUILDING Republicans argue it is wasteful, promotes liberal agendas and should be enfolded into the State Department, while Democrats say it saves lives abroad and helps U.S. interests by stabilizing other countries and economies. In all, the Trump administration said it will eliminate 5,800 of 6,200 multi-year USAID contract awards, for a cut of $54 billion. Another 4,100 of 9,100 State Department grants were being eliminated, for a cut of $4.4 billion, according to a State Department memo reviewed by the Associated Press. The State Department memo described the administration as spurred by a federal court order that gave officials until the end of the day Wednesday to lift the Trump administration’s monthlong block on foreign aid funding. “In response, State and USAID moved rapidly,” targeting USAID and State Department foreign aid programs in vast numbers for contract terminations, the memo said. The memo said officials were “clearing significant waste stemming from decades of institutional drift.” More changes are planned in how USAID and the State Department deliver foreign assistance, it said, “to use taxpayer dollars wisely to advance American interests.” U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts on Wednesday paused a federal judge’s order that required the Trump administration to pay around $2 billion in foreign aid funds to contractors by midnight.  SECRETARY OF STATE RUBIO CONFIRMS BECOMING ACTING USAID CHIEF The ruling comes after the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court for an emergency order to block the release of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funding, which the federal judge had required by midnight. Officials had said they would not be able to comply with the judge’s order. USAID was set up in the early 1960s to act on behalf of the U.S. to deliver aid across the globe, particularly in impoverished and underdeveloped regions. The agency now operates out of 60 nations and employs some 10,000 people, two-thirds of whom work overseas – though most of the on-the-ground work is contracted out to third-party organizations funded by USAID, according to a BBC report. But the agency has come in for considerable criticism as Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) look to root out waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.  Musk likened the agency to “not an apple with a worm in it,” but “just a ball of worms.”  “You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair,” Musk wrote on X earlier this month. Trump has moved to gut the agency after imposing a 90-day pause on foreign aid. The Trump administration plans to gut the agency and intends to leave fewer than 300 staffers on the job out of the current 8,000 direct hires and contractors. He has also appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the acting director of USAID. The news comes as thousands of staffers were notified weeks ago about pending dismissals. Some were seen leaving Washington, D.C., offices for the last time on Friday carrying boxes scrawled with messages that seemed to be directed at President Donald Trump. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the Senate DOGE Caucus Chairwoman, recently published a list of questionable projects and programs she says USAID has helped fund over the years, including $20 million to produce a Sesame Street show in Iraq.  Several more examples of questionable spending have been uncovered at USAID, including more than $900,000 to a “Gaza-based terror charity” called Bayader Association for Environment and Development and a $1.5 million program slated to “advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities.” Fox News’ Bill Mears, Andrew Mark Miller, Aubrie Spady, Deirdre Heavey, Caitlin McFall, Morgan Phillips and Emma Colton as well as Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.