Trump makes major endorsement in crucial Senate race in key battleground state
Former President Donald Trump is backing Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania – after throwing his support to a different candidate during McCormick’s first run for the Senate two years ago. “I am officially giving my endorsement to David McCormick tonight. He’s a good a man. He wants to run a good ship. He’s a smart guy, who was a very successful guy. He’s given up a lot to do this,” Trump declared on Saturday, as he spoke at a large rally in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania. McCormick, a former hedge fund executive, West Point graduate, Gulf War combat veteran and Treasury Department official in former President George W. Bush’s administration, launched his second Senate bid last year. He’s running unopposed in the crucial battleground state’s April 23 primary and will face off in November against longtime Democratic Sen. Bob Casey Jr. “I’ll tell you what: He’s the nominee of the Republican Party, David McCormick. Go out and vote for him because Casey doesn’t do a damn thing,” Trump emphasized. FIRST ON FOX: MCCORMICK SHOWCASES MAJOR FUNDRAISING HAUL IN KEY SENATE SHOWDOWN Casey, the son of a popular former governor, served a decade as Pennsylvania’s auditor general and then treasurer before winning election to the Senate in 2006. The Senate race in Pennsylvania is one of a handful across the country that will likely decide if the Republicans win back the majority in the chamber. Democrats currently control the U.S. Senate with a 51-49 majority, but Republicans are looking at a favorable Senate map this year, with Democrats defending 23 of the 34 seats up for grabs. Three of those seats are in red states that Trump carried in his 2020 election defeat to President Biden — Ohio, Montana and West Virginia, where Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin is not running for re-election. And Pennsylvania is one of five key general election battlegrounds where the Democrats are defending seats. Democrats may also have to worry about holding the open Senate seat in blue Maryland, where former GOP Gov. Larry Hogan is running. TRUMP, BIDEN, MAKE DUELING TRIPS TO THIS CRUCIAL BATTLEGROUND STATE McCormick was not at Saturday’s rally. His campaign told Fox News the candidate had a previously scheduled family commitment that he made long before Trump recently announced his rally in Schnecksville, which is located in the Lehigh Valley, a highly competitive part of the northeastern swing state. Following the rally, McCormick thanked Trump for the endorsement in a social media post. “Thank you, President Trump,”, he said. “Together we will deliver a big win for Pennsylvania and America in November.” McCormick was part of a crowded and combustible battle for the 2022 GOP nomination. He ended up losing the nomination by a razor-thin margin to celebrity doctor and cardiac surgeon Mehmet Oz, who secured a primary victory thanks to a late endorsement from Trump. Oz ended up losing the general election to Democrat John Fetterman. “I don’t know David well, and he may be a nice guy, but he’s not MAGA,” Trump said of McCormick at the time, as he referred to his legions of Make America Great Again loyalists and supporters. This time around, McCormick faces no major opposition in the GOP primary. He is backed by longtime Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and the Pennsylvania GOP, and was encouraged to run by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is the party’s Senate campaign arm. McCormick endorsed Trump early last month after the former president scored major victories in the coast to coast Super Tuesday contests and Nikki Haley – Trump’s last remaining rival for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination – dropped out of the White House race. Trump’s visit to Pennsylvania is his third this year. He made a Feb. 9 stop in Harrisburg to address NRA members gathered at the group’s Great American Outdoor Show. Days later, he made an unusual stop in Philadelphia at ‘Sneaker Con’ – a major trade show – to hawk new Trump-branded sneakers. Pennsylvania is one of six battleground states where Biden narrowly edged Trump in the presidential election four years ago to capture the White House. Most of the latest public opinion polls in Pennsylvania suggest a close contest between Biden and Trump for the state’s 19 electoral votes. The president returns to the state where he was born on Tuesday, for three days of events in Pennsylvania, where his political advisers say Biden aims to spotlight his plans to raise taxes for the wealthiest Americans and corporations as he paints contrasts with Trump on economic issues. Biden kicks off the three-day swing with a speech in Scranton, where he spent part of his childhood. The president has repeatedly returned to the working-class city in northeastern Pennsylvania as he’s made populist pitches to Americans. The president will head to Pittsburgh on Wednesday, followed by a campaign event Thursday in Philadelphia. Biden’s swing through Pennsylvania will come as Trump makes history as the first current or former president in the nation’s history to go on trial. Trump’s hush-money trial will get underway Monday in a New York City courtroom. The former president – who is being tried on 34 state felony charges – is accused of falsifying business records in relation to hush-money payments during the 2016 election he made to Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about his alleged affair with the adult film actress. Trump has repeatedly denied falsifying business records as well as the alleged sexual encounter with Daniels. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub
Expert warns of ‘chilling reality’ TikTok threat poses: ‘China’s greatest asymmetric advantage’
China’s “infiltration” of civil discourse in the United States poses an “immediate” threat to Democracy and is one of the “greatest threats we face today” in terms of national security, according to an expert on China. “TikTok is not just a technological concern, it is not just a social media problem, TikTok is today China’s greatest asymmetric advantage against America,” Michael Sobolik, author of the new book “Countering China’s Great Game: A Strategy for American Dominance,” told Fox News Digital. “It represents the most immediate threat to American democracy that the Chinese Communist Party poses.” China’s role in “infiltrating our civil discourse” through TikTok represents one of the “most important problem sets in US-China relations,” Sobolik explained, because “you have about half of America on one app that the Chinese Communist Party controls, and they can manipulate public opinion and spread propaganda.” MASSIVE PRO-DEMOCRAT TIKTOK ACCOUNT THAT SUPPORTED BIDEN IN 2020 HAS ‘SOURED’ ON PRESIDENT “It’s a huge problem.” Sobolik, a Senior Fellow in Indo-Pacific Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, told Fox News Digital that 170 million Americans are on the social media platform with 150 million of them on the site for at least an hour a day. A large chunk of those users, Sobolik said, rely on the platform for news, which the Chinese government is using to its advantage. “The Chinese Communist Party controls TikTok, because TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is domiciled inside of China,” Sobolik said. “As such, they must comply with any requests that they receive from Beijing to turn over U.S. user data, to censor content, or to boost content. They have no recourse of saying no to the CCP. There have already been documented instances of TikTok surveilling U.S. journalists to try to figure out who they were talking to inside of the company. ByteDance has already pledged its cooperation to work with Beijing to hone its algorithm to advance the CCP’s interests.” TAYLOR SWIFT’S SONGS REAPPEAR ON TIKTOK AHEAD OF POP STAR’S NEW ALBUM RELEASE DESPITE DISPUTE Members of Congress have been debating over the past several months whether to ban TikTok in the United States or force the sale of the company to an entity outside of China. Opponents of the bills on the Republican side have argued that banning the popular social media app “goes against the First Amendment.” Sobolik flatly rejected that idea. “None of this is a mystery,” Sobolik said. “This is documented. There are instances of TikTok’s censoring content about Tibet, the Uyghurs, Tiananmen Square and other sensitive issues to the Chinese Communist Party. The concerns with TikTok have nothing to do with free speech. The concerns for TikTok are that an adversarial nation controls one of the biggest pillars of information in the United States today. And if you think that’s only a theoretical concern, imagine if China goes to war with Taiwan. And then, as that is happening, floods TikTok with pro-CCP messages, with disinformation about what’s happening, and tries to push a public opinion campaign that America should stay out and not do anything to help Taiwan.” “China has one of the strongest abilities to manipulate U.S. public opinion in its grasp today. This should be a chilling reality. This should send a shiver down the spines of every American.” MOST AMERICANS SUPPORT HOUSE PLAN TO BAN TIKTOK IF IT ISN’T SOLD, POLL FINDS Sobolik continued, “The content you see on TikTok may feel unique to you, but you are being fed content from an algorithm that is controlled by America’s chief adversary. This is a Trojan horse inside of the United States, and it is high past time for members of Congress to take this seriously. To put the country first and to kick this Trojan horse out of America’s walls. We cannot allow this app to continue to function under the control of the Chinese Communist Party.” “America has a gun pointed at its head every single day in the information realm. We have to take care of this issue and we must do it now. There are no constitutional concerns of any meaning here. This is a national security concern, and it is one of the greatest concerns that we face today.” It remains unclear whether Congress has the necessary political appetite to ban or dissolve TikTok, and Sobolik told Fox News Digital that he believes that question is “going to be one of the biggest tests for America.” “If we can fix this TikTok problem, that will be one of the most encouraging signs that we’ve seen in decades about our seriousness with protecting our liberty and our freedom and for opposing tyranny,” Sobolik said. “If we let this problem go, if we don’t fix it, we may as well go home and get out of the great power competition altogether. “Because again, remember, protecting yourself is the bare minimum. Good defense might win NBA basketball championships, but good defense is the bare minimum. It’s good housekeeping. You don’t get a gold star for taking care of your own homeland. You get a gold star for going out in opposing authoritarian regimes. Cold wars are won by seizing the initiative and going on the offensive. If we cannot sever TikTok from CCP control, we have much bigger problems.” In a statement to Fox News Digital, a TikTok spokesperson said “multiple media outlets have reported” that “there is not a shred of evidence” to the “outlandish claims” that TikTok is a vessel of the Chinese government. “The reality is the ban bill would trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and devastate 7 million small businesses nationwide,” the spokesperson said.
Fox News and other news outlets urge presidential candidates to ‘publicly commit’ to debates
FOX News Media and eleven other national news organizations released a joint statement Sunday urging the presumptive Democratic and Republican presidential nominees to “publicly commit” to general election debates prior to the 2024 election. “With the contours of the 2024 general election now coming into clear focus, we – the undersigned national news organizations – urge the presumptive presidential nominees to publicly commit to participating in general election debates before November’s election,” the news organizations stated in the joint statement. “General election debates have a rich tradition in our American democracy, having played a vital role in every presidential election of the past 50 years, dating to 1976. In each of those elections, tens of millions have tuned in to watch the candidates debating side by side, in a competition of ideas for the votes of American citizens.” “Since 1988, the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates has sponsored all presidential general election debates. The Commission has previously announced dates, times, and eligibility criteria for 2024 debates. Though it is too early for invitations to be extended to any candidates, it is not too early for candidates who expect to meet the eligibility criteria to publicly state their support for – and their intention to participate in – the Commission’s debates planned for this fall,” the group of a dozen news organizations continued. TRUMP CAMPAIGN DEMANDS BIDEN DEBATE HIM ‘MUCH EARLIER’ AND MORE OFTEN “If there is one thing Americans can agree on during this polarized time, it is that the stakes of this election are exceptionally high,” the organizations added. “Amidst that backdrop, there is simply no substitute for the candidates debating with each other, and before the American people, their visions for the future of our nation.” The other news organizations that joined FOX News Media in signing on to the statement include ABC News, The Associated Press, CBS News, CNN, C-SPAN, NBCUniversal News Group, NewsNation Noticias Univision (Univision Network News), NPR, PBS NewsHour and USA TODAY. The nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), which has been responsible for organizing presidential and vice presidential debates in the U.S. for more than 30 years, announced in November the sites and dates for three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate during the 2024 general election. The scheduled presidential debates are slated to take place at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, on September 16; at Virginia State University in Petersburg, Virginia, on October 1; and at The University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah, on October 9. The sole vice presidential debate is scheduled to take place on September 25 at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. In announcing the debate locations last year, the CPD noted that each debate will begin at 9 p.m. ET and last for 90 minutes without commercial interruption. Last week, former President Donald Trump’s campaign called for additional 2024 presidential debates and for them to take place “much earlier” than initially proposed by the debate commission. Trump told Fox News Digital that he is “totally committed” to debating President Biden “anytime, anywhere, anyplace.” In a Thursday letter to CPD co-chairs Frank Farenkopf Jr. and Antonia Hernandez, Trump co-campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita told the commission they were writing “in agreement with the pending letter,” reported by The New York Times, “from television networks advocating for presidential debates to occur in 2024.” BIDEN SAYS DEBATING TRUMP ‘DEPENDS ON HIS BEHAVIOR’ “While the Commission on Presidential Debates has already announced three presidential debates and a vice-presidential debate to occur later this year, we are in favor of these debates beginning much earlier,” they wrote in the letter, which was obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital. Citing their reasoning for requesting earlier debates, Wiles and LaCivita argued that “voting is beginning earlier and earlier, and as we saw in 2020, tens of millions of Americans had already voted by the time of the first debate.” In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital on Thursday, Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said it is “very important to have the debates now, because the country is doing so badly.” Last month, following his State of the Union address, Biden was asked whether he would debate Trump ahead of Election Day. “Depends on his behavior,” responded Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. Earlier this year, Biden addressed previous calls for earlier debates with Trump. “If I were him, I would want to debate me, too,” Biden told reporters in Nevada when asked about Trump wanting to debate him earlier in the election cycle. “He’s got nothing else to do,” Biden added. Though the Biden campaign has not yet committed to any of the scheduled debates, it previously fired back after Trump’s invitation that he would debate the president “anytime, anywhere, anyplace.” “I know Donald Trump’s thirsty for attention and struggling to expand his appeal beyond the MAGA base — and that’s a conversation we’ll have at the appropriate time in this cycle,” Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler told Fox News Digital. “But if he’s so desperate to see President Biden in prime time, he doesn’t have to wait!”
Thiruvallur Lok Sabha constituency: Check polling date, candidates list, past election results
On April 19, the first phase of the election will take place, where Thiruvallur, one of 39 Lok Sabha constituencies in Tamil Nadu, will cast its vote.
Madurai Constituency Tamil Nadu Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Know polling date, candidates and past results
The Madurai Lok Sabha election will be held on April 19, 2024, the results will be announced on June 4, 2024.
Mandla Constituency Madhya Pradesh Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Know polling date, candidates and past results
This April, there will be elections in the Mandla Lok Sabha constituency. Voting begins on April 19 (Phase 1), and results are announced on June 4.
California’s green agenda is targeting every mode of transportation, despite wide opposition
California’s state government, under the leadership of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, is pursuing a wide-ranging climate agenda targeting the transportation sector — actions that could have major economic implications. The California Air Resources Board (CARB), the state’s main environmental regulator, has finalized new rules mandating a rapid transition from traditional petroleum-powered modes of transportation to zero-emissions alternatives as it pursues a sweeping climate agenda. CARB has identified passenger cars, heavy-duty trucking, freight trains and harbor vessels for the changeover. “We can solve this climate crisis if we focus on the big, bold steps necessary to cut pollution,” Newsom remarked in August 2022. FEDERAL COURT STRIKES DOWN BIDEN’S CLIMATE RULE FOR STATES The governor’s comments came shortly after CARB finalized regulations phasing out new gas-powered cars, and mandating 100% electric vehicle sales by 2035. Nearly 20 other states have since adopted those rules, meaning more than 40% of the country will be impacted by the mandate to some extent. Environmentalists nationwide have set their sights on transportation because of its high carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions, which they say are contributing to global warming. According to the latest state data, the transportation sector accounts for 39% of California’s carbon emissions, the largest share of any sector and more than the industrial and power sectors combined. The state’s broad effort to electrify its transportation sector is part of the California Climate Commitment unveiled by Newsom two years ago. Under the plan, the state is phasing out reliance on fossil fuels, deploying green energy, cutting greenhouse gas emissions 85% by 2045 and decreasing oil demand by a staggering 94%. TRUCKERS CHALLENGE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION OVER CLIMATE CRACKDOWN ON ELECTRIC BIG RIGS The new regulations have received widespread criticism from Republicans, Democrats, consumer groups and industry associations, which argue such a plan is unworkable and not feasible. In a recent federal filing, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents major automakers and supports a transition to EVs, said it had “continued concerns with the feasibility” of the plan. “CARB has an ideological commitment to reducing emissions from transportation,” said Diana Furchtgott-Roth, the director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment. “They particularly don’t seem to like personal mobility, where people can go around anywhere they want in whatever kind of vehicle they want. “So, they say people are just going to have to get used to electric vehicles, whether they like them or not, and go where the charging stations are. This seems to be an ideological, semi-religious, cultish viewpoint.” FORMER AG WILLIAM BARR’S FREE MARKET GROUP SUES CALIFORNIA OVER EV TRUCK MANDATE In 2023, 9.5% of new, light-duty vehicle sales were EVs, up from 7% in 2022 and 4.3% in 2021, according to data from the Alliance for Automotive Innovation. California’s regulations kick in next year, requiring 35% of model year 2026 car purchases to be electric and, one year later, requiring 43% of model year 2027 cars to be electric. In addition to that mandate, CARB adopted the nation’s most aggressive truck electrification plan in April 2023 and, shortly thereafter, regulations targeting freight train emissions. The former mandates wide swaths of the heavy-duty vehicle sector to be electrified by 2035, and the latter requires locomotives to begin transitioning to zero-emissions technology in 2030. The American Trucking Associations blasted the heavy-duty vehicle rule, saying it sets “unrealistic targets and unachievable timelines.” And the Association of American Railroads — which is suing California over the freight train regulations — said “there is no clear path to zero emissions locomotives.” “Commerce is the lifeblood of the economy and transportation of goods — most of which is by trucks and a lot of it also by train,” Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said in an interview. “An efficient economy would be one where the costs of transport are as low as possible, consistent with safety and real environmental concerns.” FEWER AMERICANS WANT TO BUY AN EV — EVEN AS BIDEN PUSHES FOR STRONGEST-EVER CLIMATE CHANGE RULES Lewis criticized CARB’s rules targeting trucking and freight trains, saying it would have negative economic consequences and potentially lead to higher consumer prices. The American Trucking Associations estimates that trucks transported a whopping 11.5 billion tons of freight in 2022, equivalent to about 72% of total tonnage shipped nationwide. But less than 1% of new truck sales in the U.S. are zero emissions, according to the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association. And those electric trucks remain far costlier than diesel-powered models, they say. Additionally, freight railroads haul another 1.6 billion tons of raw materials and finished goods every year, data from the Association of American Railroads shows. “At a qualitative level, this is going to increase the cost of national transportation services — private, commercial, industrial — enormously. There’s just no doubt about that,” said Benjamin Zycher, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “Even if you assume and make wild assumptions about the benefits in terms of climate phenomena and all the rest, there’s just no way the benefits exceed the cost. It’s just impossible,” he added. MAINE REJECTS SWEEPING ELECTRIC VEHICLE MANDATE IN BLOW TO GOVERNOR’S CLIMATE AGENDA In addition, CARB recently amended its Commercial Harbor Craft regulation, requiring a wide array of vessels, including tugboats, towboats and barges, to install cleaner upgrades and newer technology. In particular, vessels must install diesel particulate filters, a major retrofit that has some groups concerned about safety. The American Waterways Operators (AWO), which represents the tugboat, towboat and barge industry, has opposed the regulation over concerns about diesel particulate filters (DPFs) catching fire. In her opinion piece in the DC Journal, Jennifer Carpenter, president and CEO of the AWO, wrote: “While a truck driver can run from a fire, a vessel crew’s only option may be to abandon ship, which is hazardous and always a last resort. Introducing new fire risks to heavily trafficked ports with combustible cargoes is also dangerous — imagine the threats to safety, the environment and property
Supreme Court to debate ‘sleeper’ case that could affect Trump federal prosecution
It is the “sleeper” case that could upend the most closely watched criminal prosecution in the nation. And how the U.S. Supreme Court decides the fate of an obscure Capitol riot defendant will have immediate legal and political implications for the former and perhaps future president. The justices on Tuesday will hold oral arguments in the appeal of Joseph Fischer, one of more than 300 people charged by the Justice Department with “obstruction of an official proceeding” in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection in Washington. That charge refers to the disruption of Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory over Donald Trump. Special counsel Jack Smith has also brought an obstruction charge against Trump, which is among four counts the 2024 presumptive Republican presidential nominee faces. His trial in that case was slated to begin March 4, but the Supreme Court’s decision to hear this case and a separate dispute over Trump’s claim of presidential immunity has delayed proceedings indefinitely. THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO MAYORKAS’ IMPEACHMENT TRIAL A federal judge earlier dismissed the obstruction offense against three Jan. 6 criminal defendants, ruling it did not cover their conduct on the Capitol grounds. Those defendants are onetime police patrolman Fischer, Garret Miller of the Dallas area and Edward Jacob Lang of New York’s Hudson Valley. Fischer’s appeal was the one the high court accepted for final review. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a 2019 Trump bench appointee, determined prosecutors stretched the law beyond its scope to inappropriately apply it in these cases, ruling a defendant must have taken “some action with respect to a document, record or other object” to obstruct an official proceeding under the law. He concluded the statute in question focused on tampering with evidence and did not apply to those allegedly engaged in “assaultive conduct” like participating in a riot. The Justice Department challenged that ruling, and a federal appeals court in Washington agreed with prosecutors that Nichols’ interpretation of the law was too limited. “The vast majority of courts interpreting the statute have adopted the natural, broad reading” of the provision, the three-judge appellate panel wrote, “applying the statute to all forms of obstructive conduct that are not covered” specifically under that provision. Other defendants, including Trump, are separately challenging the use of the charge, but not as part of the current Supreme Court appeal. The relevant statute — 18 U.S. Code Section 1512(c)(2) — of the Corporate Fraud Accountability Act, part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, states: “Whoever corruptly … obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.” Congress passed the law in 2002 after the Enron financial and accounting scandal. Executives at the Texas-based energy company were charged with fraud, and the company eventually went bankrupt. Judge Nichols in his ruling in the Miller case cited then-Sen. Biden, who referred to the new provision at the time as “making it a crime for document shredding.” Both the government and Fischer, who was a North Cornwall Township Police officer in Pennsylvania at the time, offer contrasting accounts of his actions on Jan. 6, 2021. His lawyers in their high court appeal say Fischer “was not part of the mob that forced the electoral certification to stop; he arrived at the Capitol grounds well after Congress recessed.” And while he admits entering the Capitol building and pushing his way through the crowd, Fischer claims he also helpfully returned a pair of lost handcuffs to a U.S. Capitol Police officer. After being pepper-sprayed by law enforcement, the defendant then says he left the complex just four minutes after entering. But the Justice Department says Fischer “can be heard on the video yelling ‘Charge!’ before pushing through the crowd and entering the building. Once inside, petitioner ran toward a line of police officers with another rioter while yelling” a profanity. And the government points to text messages he sent just before attending the “Stop the Steal” rally where President Trump spoke and the subsequent march to the Capitol. “Take democratic congress to the gallows,” he said in one post, and, “Can’t vote if they can’t breathe.. lol.” Fischer has pleaded not guilty to several charges, including disorderly and disruptive conduct; assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement officers; civil disorder; and the obstruction count. His trial is pending. His legal team argues hindering or affecting an official proceeding is too ambiguous, as applied to Fischer’s conduct on the Capitol grounds. “That definition encompasses lobbying, advocacy, and protest, the very mechanisms that citizens employ to influence government. These are all forms of political speech that the First Amendment protects.” But the government says Congress in enacting the statute meant it to be applied widely, to include “corruptly engaging in conduct to obstruct court, agency, and congressional proceedings.” MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE’S RED LINE ON SPEAKER JOHNSON “The proof in this case would show that on January 6, 2021, petitioner and other rioters corruptly sought to prevent Congress from counting the certified votes of the Electoral College in the joint session,” said government lawyers. Some legal scholars say the conservative high court may be wary of giving the government too much leeway. “Prosecutors love obstruction statutes, and they love conspiracy statutes, because those statutes are so broad and can be applied in a variety of circumstances to encompass all sorts of conduct,” said Thomas Dupree, a leading appellate attorney and former top Bush Justice Department official. “The Supreme Court is going to look at what was Congress trying to do when it criminalized these things? Did Congress really intend these laws to sweep so far? And can you take a statute that was enacted to address, for example, corporate crimes and apply it to what happened on Jan. 6?” How a Supreme Court ruling in the Fischer case would affect Trump’s separate prosecution for alleged election interference is unclear. If Fischer prevails, the former president could then ask the federal courts to
Biden lawsuit ‘subverting states rights’ to regulate abortion heads to Supreme Court
The Supreme Court is set to consider a second abortion case this term, this time dealing with claims by a Republican-led state that the Biden administration is attempting to wield a 40-year-old federal law as an “abortion mandate.” On the heels of a debate over the Federal Food and Drug Administration’s regulation of an abortion pill, the high court will consider later this month whether the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) pre-empts the state of Idaho’s newly enacted Defense of Life Act – which makes it a crime for any medical provider to perform an abortion with exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. The Justice Department argued that the state’s law does not go far enough to allow abortions in more medical emergency circumstances. However, proponents of the state law say that the administration’s lawsuit against Idaho is attempting to use a federal statute as an “abortion mandate” to benefit the president ahead of the 2024 elections. WHY TRUMP IS DEFERRING TO THE STATES, AFTER WEIGHING AN ABORTION BAN AT 15 WEEKS “Construing EMTALA as a federal abortion mandate raises grave questions under the major questions doctrine that affect both Congress and this Court,” Idaho argued in legal filings. In an interview with Fox News Digital, Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador said, “The Supreme Court made it clear that it’s up to the states to decide what our laws should be and that it’s not for the federal government.” “But Joe Biden and his administration decided to come straight and sue us in federal courts. We are excited to go before the Supreme Court to show that the state should be deciding these issues and not the federal government,” he said. The DOJ said in its response to the high court that while Idaho’s law makes it a felony for a doctor to terminate a pregnancy unless doing so is “necessary” to prevent the patient’s “death,” that exception is “narrower” than EMTALA, which by its terms “protects patients not only from imminent death but also from emergencies that seriously threaten their health.” However, Idaho accused the administration of “construing the spare phrase” in the federal law “as a blank slate to be filled with the Executive Branch’s preferred abortion policy collides with multiple statutory provisions guaranteeing emergency medical care for a pregnant woman and her unborn child.” “It’s clear that the administration is just manipulating EMTALA and that both laws should be able to coexist,” John Busch, senior litigator at civil rights firm Alliance Defending Freedom and co-counsel in the case, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “If a woman’s life is in danger, Idaho’s Defense of Life Act makes it clear that the women should be treated and helped. Because in that instance, when the mom’s life is in danger, it’s not an abortion in Idaho or any of the other 49 states,” he said. But the White House says that the 21 states enforcing abortion bans are causing “chaos and confusion.” “These extreme state laws have caused chaos and confusion, and women are being denied the essential care they need. But these dangerous state laws do not change the responsibility that health care providers have to their patients in emergencies covered by the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act,” White House spokesperson Kelly Scully told Fox News Digital. “The Biden-Harris Administration has long been clear that federal law requires hospitals to offer health and life-saving care to patients in an emergency. The Administration remains focused on working with doctors, hospitals, and patients to make these federal requirements clear while the Department of Justice defends that understanding in the Supreme Court. No woman should be denied the care she needs,” she said. PRO-LIFE CONSERVATIVES ARE ‘DISAPPOINTED’ IN TRUMP’S NEW ABORTION POLICY, BUT STICK BY HIM: ‘ONLY ONE OPTION’ EMTALA is a federal statute signed by then-President Reagan in 1986 after earning bipartisan congressional support, designed to prevent hospitals from turning away indigent patients who are in critical need of medical care and offer the same “stabilizing” care they would to a patient who could pay or is covered by insurance. After the Dobbs decision in 2022, which overturned Roe v. Wade and left states to decide their own abortion limitations, Bursch said the Biden administration, for the first time in the law’s history, used it to impose an “abortion mandate.” A district court sided with DOJ and ordered a preliminary injunction of the state’s law. The Ninth Circuit affirmed that decision, which Idaho then appealed to the Supreme Court. Oral arguments are set for April 24. “What the Biden administration wants to do is take this law and turn it into an abortion enclave in emergency rooms,” Bursch said. “And to the point where even if a patient came in, and they said that they were in critical condition because of a mental health problem, like depression, or anxiety, that would give doctors a carte blanche ability to ignore laws like Idaho’s and take the life of the innocent child, and EMTALA doesn’t say anything like that.” REPUBLICANS LARGELY QUIET AS DEMOCRATS HAMMER SCOTUS ABORTION PILL CHALLENGE Bursch added that what he believes is “so ironic” is that following the Dobbs decision, President Biden himself said that he disagreed with the decision, but that he understood that states operating through the democratic process would get to decide what abortion laws would control each state. “And it was only a matter of weeks later that he changed course and said, ‘oh no, the federal government is just going to impose this new requirement by reinterpreting EMTALA in a way that it’s never been interpreted in its nearly four-decade history.” “It is subverting states’ rights. It’s pushing abortion on states that don’t want it, and it’s all blatantly illegal,” he said. Stephen Billy, vice president of state affairs for SBA Pro-Life America, said the administration’s novel legal challenge to a state’s abortion law looks politically motivated ahead of the November elections amid
BJP Manifesto Lok Sabha polls 2024: ‘Sankalp Patra’ focuses on gareeb, yuva, annadaata and nari schemes
The BJP election manifesto promised a ‘One Nation One Election’ and a ‘single electoral roll’.