In Texas, ex-oil and gas workers champion geothermal energy as a replacement for fossil-fueled power plants
Texas has become an early hot spot for geothermal energy exploration as scores of former oil industry workers and executives are taking their knowledge to a new energy source.
Kangana Ranaut row: BJP hits back at Congress after Supriya Shrinate’s ‘derogatory remarks’ on actress
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Chennai South Lok Sabha constituency 2024: Check polling date, candidates list, past election results
Chennai South Lok Sabha Election 2024: All 39 seats in Tamil Nadu will go to the polls in the first phase on April 19.
Legal experts raise alarm on President Biden’s ‘plan B’ student loan handout
Legal experts interviewed by Fox News Digital are expressing concern that President Joe Biden’s ongoing efforts to cancel student loans may be pushing the limits of his executive authority. The experts said the Biden administration’s pursuit of mass student debt forgiveness may be more politically motivated than legally justified, warning that additional legal challenges may arise as a result. Biden’s first attempt to cancel student debt — which would have canceled roughly $430 billion in federal student loan balances and erased the debts of 20 million borrowers — was struck down last year by the Supreme Court. “At a fundamental level, Congress is the one who should be making these decisions,” Anastasia Boden, the director of the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “These are decisions that entail billions of dollars in forgiveness and really threaten the viability of the entire student loan program because we know that forgiveness programs like this just tend to drive up the prices of education.” BIDEN PLANS EVEN BIGGER STUDENT LOAN HANDOUT, DUMPING THE BILL ON YOU Shortly after Biden’s original student debt forgiveness program was overturned by the Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision in June 2023, the president blasted the high court and accused it of misinterpreting the Constitution. The ruling, the president remarked, is “snatching from the hands of millions of Americans thousands of dollars in debt relief that was about to change their lives.” However, the president has pursued a plan B strategy since the decision: a piecemeal approach, leveraging and expanding various existing Department of Education loan programs. Last week, Biden committed to “continuing to pursue an alternative path to deliver student debt relief to as many borrowers as possible as quickly as possible.” NATIONAL DEBT TRACKER: SEE WHAT AMERICAN TAXPAYERS (YOU) OWE IN REAL TIME “They’ve become more careful,” said Michael Poon, an attorney at the public interest law firm Pacific Legal Foundation. “Now, they’re doing things through a normal administrative process, a normal rulemaking process. But many parts of their student loan cancelation efforts are still unlawful in the same way. They still are not authorized by statutes that Congress has passed.” “It’s really just loan cancelation by another name,” Poon continued. “So, they’re expanding exemptions, they’re saying that certain parts of loans will just be forgiven outright. A lot of those parts of the program are still not authorized by statute. They’re just being a little more subtle about it and trying to keep it out of the court.” He noted that the Supreme Court’s ruling last year emphasized that Congress “has to speak really clearly” authorizing a federal program that is at the scale of Biden’s original student debt plan. Highly political programs, according to Poon, should be decided by the most responsive and most democratic branch of government: Congress. “I think we should all be concerned any time a president acts beyond the authority that’s granted to him by law, because the rule of law is what protects liberty and stops the country from becoming a dictatorship or a tyranny,” Poon continued. “I think that the Biden administration’s loan cancelation efforts are an example of what happens when a president tries to stretch his legal authority to accomplish aims that are not authorized by law.” BIDEN BRAGS SUPREME COURT ‘DIDN’T STOP’ HIM FROM CANCELING STUDENT LOANS: HE’S ‘HAPPY TO BREAK THE LAW’ Overall, using a wide range of Department of Education programs, the Biden administration has awarded $143.6 billion in student loan forgiveness to nearly four million Americans, a large slice of the $1.7 trillion in total student loan debt owed by Americans. The latest cancelation came last week when Education Secretary Miguel Cardona announced an additional $5.8 billion in student loan debt relief for 77,700 borrowers. The largest share of the overall total, roughly $62.5 billion, has been delivered by the Department of Education’s so-called Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. Under the president’s direction, the department recently “fixed” the PSLF, vastly expanding its scope and borrowers’ eligibility. Prior to those changes, just 7,000 borrowers had benefited from the PSLF. In addition, the Department of Education recently created Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan, the newest type of income-driven repayment plan that allows borrowers to modify their monthly student debt obligation based on their income. “Unlike what they did in August 2022, they weren’t forthcoming with a lot of heavy legal justifications for this,” Jack Fitzhenry, a legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told Fox News Digital. “The consistent refrain coming from the White House and the Department of Education is, ‘Oh, we are simply fixing past administrative mistakes so that borrowers get the credit that they deserve.’” CONSEQUENCES OF BIDEN’S PLAN TO CANCEL STUDENT LOAN DEBT, ACCORDING TO EXPERTS: ‘ENORMOUS CONSEQUENCES’ “I think the problem is that what they seem to be doing is not necessarily fixing past mistakes,” Fitzhenry said. “The bigger issue from a legal standpoint, seems to be that the Biden White House is reimagining what a qualifying repayment is.” He said that determination was already made by Congress — but the Biden administration has now effectively made its own rules. And Beth Akers, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who has researched the economics of higher education, warned of the broader implications of mass student debt relief. For example, she said the program will likely benefit wealthy Americans and may cause universities to raise prices even higher if they determine students are going to eventually have their debt canceled. BIDEN’S $1.2B STUDENT DEBT CANCELATION IS ABOUT ‘BUYING VOTES’ TO WIN RE-ELECTION, SAYS GOV NOEM She also said the administration’s efforts on the issue have largely been political, noting the president’s remarks during the 2020 presidential campaign that mass cancelation of student loan debt would be economically unfeasible. “I think Biden appreciates the economic challenge of creating a student loan bailout and why it doesn’t make
Left-wing activist who hired one of Farrakhan’s ‘top soldiers’ has visited Biden White House 7 times
FIRST ON FOX: A prominent social justice and environmental activist group with high-level access in the Biden administration employs one of the so-called “top soldiers” of the Nation of Islam, a Black nationalist religious organization with a long track record of antisemitism and racism. Terence Muhammad, the lead events and field coordinator for the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Hip Hop Caucus, has repeatedly praised the Nation of Islam and its current leader, Louis Farrakhan, according to a Fox News Digital review of social media posts. The Hip Hop Caucus, whose stated mission is to fight injustice and enact change, has been involved in key Biden administration policy decisions. And according to the White House visitor logs, Hip Hop Caucus President and CEO Lennox Yearwood has visited at least seven times since Biden took office, with six of those visits happening in 2023. In the most recent example, Yearwood and two other Hip Hop Caucus officials, Tanya House and Cynthia Swann, were hosted in the West Wing for a private meeting with White House Domestic Policy Council adviser Sofia Carratala. “Bless Minister [Louis Farrakhan] allowing one of his top soldiers [Terence Muhammad] 2 be w/ me for #MOW50. Much LOVE to the [Nation of Islam],” Yearwood wrote in a 2013 post during an event commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington. DEM DA’S STAFFER WHO PRAISED LOUIS FARRAKHAN PLACED ON LEAVE AFTER ANTISEMITIC REMARKS UNCOVERED In April 2015, during an event protesting police brutality, Muhammad posted a picture of Yearwood “with Malik Farrakhan and the brothers of the F.O.I.” The acronym “F.O.I.” appears to be a reference to the Fruits of Islam, the paramilitary wing of the Nation of Islam. Muhammad — who Yearwood described as a “dear brother and friend” in 2020 — has a long history of himself praising and, on multiple occasions, raising money for Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. “Just for the record AGAIN. I love [Louis Farrakhan]. He is my heart,” Muhammad said in a March 2018 post that included a picture of him with Farrakhan. FETTERMAN REJECTS HARRIS SUGGESTION THAT ISRAEL COULD FACE CONSEQUENCES FOR RAFAH INVASION: ‘HARD DISAGREE’ “I need the word (sic) to know that I love the Honorable Minister [Louis Farrakhan],” Muhammad said months later. “He saved and gives me life. He 1st loved me so that one day I can completely love myself. I love my people because of him.” The Hip Hop Caucus official went as far as to characterize himself as a “soldier” of the Nation of Islam in 2019. “I’m an EXTREMELY Proud, Active, and Known citizen/soldier of the Nation of Islam,” he wrote in March 2019, in a post tagging Farrakhan. ISRAEL LAUDS CONGRESS’ BLOW TO UN AGENCY WITH ALLEGED HAMAS TIES AS INVESTIGATIONS CONTINUE Two months later, Muhammad vociferously defended Farrakhan in a post in which he said Farrakhan is a “servant of God.” Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam have been heavily criticized by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which was founded to stop the defamation of Jewish people and by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The ADL has called Farrakhan “one of the most prominent antisemites” and SPLC has classified Nation of Islam as a hate group. WHITE HOUSE ‘DENOUNCES’ DC OFFICIAL’S PRAISE OF ANTISEMITE LOUIS FARRAKHAN In a statement to Fox News Digital, the White House said Biden fully denounces Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. It also pointed to Farrakhan’s recent criticism of Biden over his support for Israel. “For decades, President Biden has unequivocally condemned Louis Farrakhan and the repugnant Antisemitic hate he represents – including by co-sponsoring bipartisan legislation,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates told Fox News Digital. “He fully denounces any praise of Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam, or their values, as he does in this case. And as recent comments from Louis Farrakhan demonstrate, the feeling is mutual.” However, the most recent example of Biden himself condemning Farrakhan appears to be a Senate floor speech from 1984, four decades ago. Meanwhile, in addition to Yearwood’s visits to the Biden White House, the Hip Hop Caucus has been prominently involved in several Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) actions. Most recently, Yearwood was quoted by the EPA praising an announcement last month cracking down on fossil fuel-fired power plant emissions. “EPA appreciates the important on-going work of the Hip Hop Caucus and Reverend Yearwood to advocate for environmental justice across the country,” EPA spokesperson Timothy Carroll told Fox News Digital. “EPA condemns statements of hate or prejudice against any group or individual based on religion, race, or background.” The Nation of Islam and Hip Hop Caucus didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Legal experts say Trump’s whopping New York fee could be ‘excessive’ under Constitution: ‘unheard of’
After scoring a major win Monday in the New York civil fraud case against him, legal experts weigh whether former president Donald Trump can appeal the $454 million judgment as a violation of his constitutional rights. The 45th president and presumptive GOP nominee in the 2024 election had until Monday to pay a $454 million bond or face seizure of his assets by Attorney General Letitia James, in accordance with an order by Judge Arthur Engoron. But just hours before the deadline, the New York Appeals court slashed the bond by 60%, ordering Trump to pay $175 million while the case is appealed. Legal experts told Fox News Digital that one legal avenue Trump and his lawyers could and should pursue is trying to prove that the whopping half-billion figure violates a U.S. constitutional amendment that bans “excessive fines.” TRUMP’S $454M JUDGMENT BOND SLASHED BY MORE THAN HALF IN APPEALS COURT RULING James sued Trump under a New York State Executive law that gives broad investigative authority and that was designed to protect against consumer fraud. She accused him and his company of inflating the values of properties in order to secure better rates on loans from banks. In this unusual case, the state couldn’t prove obvious victims Trump had harmed that incurred major losses. Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Engoron in February sided against Trump, and imposed what’s known as a “disgorgement” — a legal remedy that requires someone who profited illegally to give back any profits made while engaging in the illegal activity. “It is unheard of to seek repayment of over $464 million when there was no identifiable victim and when the entities on the other side of all of these transactions were sophisticated investors who conducted their own due diligence,” John Malcolm, a former assistant U.S. Attorney in Atlanta, told Fox News Digital in an interview. Notably, bank executives who worked with Trump testified in court that they were happy with their business dealings with him, and even sought additional business with Trump, whom they viewed as a “whale of a client.” Engoron calculated what the banks would have profited from the loans to the Trump company had the values not been inflated over the course of several years. TRUMP VOWS TO FIGHT NEW YORK AG CASE ‘ALL THE WAY UP TO THE US SUPREME COURT,’ AS DEADLINE TO POST $454M LOOMS A disgorgement is not legally, technically, a fine. But legal experts say that the judgment could amount to what the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution bans. That amendment says “excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” “The issue of whether disgorgement is considered a fine is a complicated one,” Malcolm said. “However, if it is deemed to be a fine, it would certainly be an ‘excessive fine’ that would violate the Eighth Amendment.” Jim Trusty, former legal counsel for Trump and a former federal prosecutor, said that the argument for an Eighth Amendment violation “is not absurd, because the disgorgement is thinly veiled as punitive fines.” Punitive damages are what courts assess strictly as punishment for a crime, in addition to the losses assessed that are owed to the victim. “In this case, nobody lost anything. In fact, banks testified in court that they were clamoring to be back in business with Trump. It’s not the only argument or the strongest argument he has, but it’s a valid reach because the judgment smells punitive,” he added. “The issue boils down to whether the judgment reflects ill-gotten gains being retrieved by the court, or something more punitive, like a fine,” Trusty added. Mark Brnovich, a former prosecutor and the former Attorney General of Arizona, told Fox News Digital that James’ case is “more of a political vendetta” than having met the proper standards and application of justice. “Whether you’re suing a private company, whether it’s a criminal case, a civil case, — when you’re the government, you can take away people’s livelihoods, their life, liberty and property,” Brnovich remarked. “So with that comes an awesome responsibility. And that means you don’t just throw crap against the wall and see what sticks. You don’t measure success in terms of the number of years in prison someone may get or how many fines you can get against a company or an individual. You measure success at the end of the day is, has justice been done?” he said. The Eighth Amendment has historically only applied to criminal cases, and not civil cases. But Brnovich, who brought and settled a consumer fraud case against the infamous Elizabeth Holms and her company, Theranos, said he thinks that the Eighth Amendment “can apply in a situation where you have a fine that is essentially arbitrary and punitive.” “And I think that what Trump’s lawyers are doing — they’re preserving that argument on appeal,” he said. NEW YORK APPEALS COURT ALLOWS TRUMP, SONS TO CONTINUE RUNNING BUSINESS, DENIES REQUEST TO DELAY PAYMENT Brnovich, who has argued before the Supreme Court in three cases, noted the recent trend over the last decade in which the high court appears “definitely willing to at some point to step in and say that a civil fine essentially crosses the line” into excessive, in violation of the Eighth Amendment. In 2019, the Supreme Court determined for the very first time that the excessive fines’ clause can be used to challenge state-court judgments. In the majority opinion, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote, “For good reason, the protection against excessive fines has been a constant shield throughout Anglo-American history: Exorbitant tolls undermine other constitutional liberties.” “Excessive fines can be used, for example, to retaliate against or chill the speech of political enemies”, she said. More recently, the Supreme Court last term decided a case in favor of a 94-year-old Minnesota grandmother who claimed that the state violated her constitutional rights when they seized her condo over an unpaid tax debt, then sold the property and kept
Chandigarh Lok Sabha constituency: Check polling date, candidates list, past election results
The complete schedule for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections was recently released by the Election Commission.
Why MSNBC doesn’t want Ronna McDaniel–or Donald Trump–on its airwaves
To say that Ronna McDaniel has gotten a frosty reception as a new NBC contributor would be a grand understatement. The former chairwoman of the RNC has had the door slammed in her face, with planks nailed to keep it tightly sealed, then slathered in cement. It is a staff revolt of the kind that once played out in whispers and leaks, but now takes the form of on-air denunciations. McDaniel, of course, has been a close Donald Trump ally, and that makes her radioactive for the liberal nation-state of MSNBC. DECODING TRUMP: HOW HE ENGAGED, DEFLECTED OR DUCKED MY QUESTIONS AT MAR-A-LAGO That became acutely clear when the Wall Street Journal reported that Rashida Jones, the MSNBC president, told her staff that McDaniel would not be appearing on the cable network. It was simply unacceptable. Just yesterday, Joe Scarborough said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”: “We weren’t asked our opinion of the hiring, but if we were, we would have strongly objected to it for several reasons including, but not limited to, as lawyers might say, Miss McDaniel’s role in Donald Trump’s fake elector scheme and her pressuring election officials to not certify election results while Donald Trump was on the phone.” His wife and co-host, Mika Brzezinski, added: “To be clear, we believe NBC News should seek out conservative Republican voices to provide balance in their election coverage. But it should be conservative Republicans, not a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier. And we hope NBC will reconsider its decision. It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on ‘Morning Joe’ in her capacity as a paid contributor.” The moment that went viral was on Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” where McDaniel had been booked before she was hired as a contributor. NBC is reported to be paying her about $300,000. McDaniel, who was finally pushed out of the RNC when Trump soured on her, said there had been problems with the 2020 elections but did not deny that Joe Biden was legitimately elected. In the past she referred to MSNBC journalists as “primetime propagandists.” Chuck Todd, the program’s former moderator and now chief political analyst, was brought on as a guest, and told his successor, Kristen Welker, that “our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation… “Look, there’s a reason why there’s a lot of journalists at NBC News uncomfortable with this because many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the six years have been met with gaslighting, have been met with character assassination…She has credibility issues that she still has to deal with.” AOC MOCKED FOR WARNING ABOUT ‘RISK’ OF NOT SEIZING TRUMP’S ASSETS: ‘JUST PLAIN IGNORANT’ Now you might reasonably ask: Why can’t NBC executives just tell their cable unit to stop airing its dirty laundry in public? MSNBC has always enjoyed plenty of autonomy, and, like most news outlets, it plays to its audience. And its left-leaning viewers basically don’t want to hear from pro-Trump voices. Now it’s true that MSNBC employs a number of Republicans and former Republicans: Scarborough, Nicolle Wallace and Michael Steele among them. But with perhaps a couple of exceptions, they’re anti-Trump Republicans. NBC may have blindsided its cable outlet by hiring McDaniel, but the audience is on the side of MSNBC. The flip side of the argument is this: What exactly is MSNBC accomplishing by shielding those who tune in from a dissenting opinion or two? Given the stance of nearly everyone on the channel that Trump is a danger to democracy who must be stopped, wouldn’t someone like McDaniel be all but drowned out? Certainly no one bats an eyelash when such former top Biden aides as Jen Psaki and Symone Sanders-Townsend are given MSNBC shows and largely defend the president for whom they had just worked. (I’m not comparing their records to what McDaniel did in 2020, but the revolving door is well established at all the networks, including CNN and FOX) MSNBC’s approach to the former president was on display on the night of the Iowa caucuses, when uber-liberal host Rachel Maddow refused to air Trump’s victory speech, proclaiming that “there is a cost to us as a news organization of knowingly broadcasting untrue things.” When Trump won New Hampshire a week later, it seemed clear that Maddow had been overruled by NBC in the wake of fierce criticism. She did air Trump’s victory speech – saying “this is a decision that is one that we consider to be an open-ended, live decision” – but later cut away (as did CNN) to start fact-checking him. The two important legal decisions involving Trump yesterday underscore the point. WHY THE TRUMP BOND CRISIS LOOKS LIKE A CONCERTED EFFORT TO RUIN HIM On the deadline day when the ex-president was in danger of having his assets seized by New York Attorney General Letitia James, a federal appeals court unexpectedly reduced the draconian bond demand of nearly half a billion dollars to $175 million, giving him 10 days to pay it. And on the hush money charges brought by Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg, which Trump was trying to delay or get tossed, the judge set a trial date of April 15. MSNBC, which like the other networks had camped out at the Manhattan hearing that Trump was attending, was covering it virtually nonstop. Anything that Trump said would be news. But when Trump began to speak for about two minutes, talking about election interference, Andrea Mitchell (or whoever made the decision) immediately cut away, with the host saying his claim of election meddling was not true. That rebuttal couldn’t have waited a couple of minutes? CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Later, when Trump held a news conference at 40 Wall Street – one of his iconic properties that James could have seized without the appeals court ruling – MSNBC did air it, but soon broke away again and went back to its
Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal issues second order from jail, instructs Health Minister to…
The Chief Minister has instructed the Health Ministry to look into the medicine supply in the Mohalla clinics across the national capital, Cabinet Minister Saurabh Bhardwaj said.
Lok Sabha Polls 2024: Know significance of Mainpuri seat, will Dimple Yadav retain SP bastion again?
Mainpuri, situated in western Uttar Pradesh, has been a stronghold for the Samajwadi Party for a considerable period.