Joe Biden Answers Question about Preemptive Pardons for Anthony Fauci and Liz Cheney

Ken Silva
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Joe Biden Answers Question about Preemptive Pardons for Anthony Fauci and Liz Cheney

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Outgoing President Joe Biden told USA Today that he’s still considering whether to preemptively pardon the likes of Dr. Anthony Fauci and Liz Cheney before Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

Biden’s remarks came in response to a question specifically about whether he’ll “issue preemptive pardons to people like Liz Cheney and Anthony Fauci.”

“Well, a little bit of it depends on who he puts in what positions,” Biden responded.

The lame-duck President said he spoke about the issue when he met with Trump at the White House last month.

“I tried to make it clear that there was no need, and it was counterintuitive for his interest to go back and try to settle scores,” Biden said in an interview USA Today published Wednesday.

According to Biden, Trump didn’t give a direct response to his advice. “He didn’t say, ‘No, I’m going to…’ You know. He didn’t reinforce it. He just basically listened,” Biden told USA Today.

Cheney faces allegations of witness tampering and suppressing evidence in the politicized Jan. 6 investigations that she oversaw in 2021 and 2022, while Fauci has been under scrutiny for years for lying about his role in funding dangerous gain-of-function research—along with lying about the effects of the COVID-19 vaccine and numerous other pandemic-related issues.

Politico reported last month that senior Democrats are pushing Biden to issue preemptive pardons.

“Biden’s aides are deeply concerned about a range of current and former officials who could find themselves facing inquiries and even indictments, a sense of alarm which has only accelerated since Trump last weekend announced the appointment of Kash Patel to lead the FBI,” Politico reported.

Talks of preemptive pardons follows Biden issuing a broad and blanket pardon to his embattled son, Hunter Biden—the first time a president ever used the power of his office to pardon their children.

USA Today also asked Joe about pardoning his son. Biden admitted he initially promised not to pardon Hunter, but said new information changed his mind.

“I meant what I said when I was asked whether I was going to pardon my son. But then I found out two factors. Number one, that he had paid all his taxes. He paid them late … He should have paid it on time. And that he was in a court throughout a plea deal that was agreed to,” Biden said.

And then the second thing I found out was that on this purchasing a gun, at the time, you have to sign a form if you’re under the influence of anything. Well, I don’t even know whether they got straight on the signing of the form. But the point was, no one’s ever been tried on that. Nobody,” he added.

“And they potentially put him in jail for X number of years for that. He had it for 10 days. Two days in his possession. No weapon, no bullets, no movement, no leave. And it got returned. And no one’s ever been tried for that.”

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.

EXCLUSIVE: Cruz Predicts Texas Victory, Dares Vance w/ Food and Football Bet

Julianna Frieman
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EXCLUSIVE: Cruz Predicts Texas Victory, Dares Vance w/ Food and Football Bet

(Julianna Frieman, Headline USA) Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, publicly challenged Vice President-elect J.D. Vance on Tuesday to a bet on Friday’s College Football Playoff semifinal between the University of Texas and Ohio State University at the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium.

Vance, a former senator from Ohio, accepted Cruz’s storied wager, in which the winner receives beer and food from the loser’s home state—delivered by the loser wearing the jersey of the winning team.

“Hey @JDVance — care for a wager on the UT-Ohio State game?” Cruz wrote on X. “Loser brings beer & food from his home state & delivers it wearing the winning jersey?”

Vance responded by asking, “Alright which Texas ice cream should I have Ted bring when the Buckeyes win?”

Cruz told Vance that “the only possible answer” is Blue Bell ice cream, adding that he prefers Texas BBQ & Shiner Bock beer.

However, the Texan followed up by saying his recommendations “won’t matter because the Horns are gonna win!”

The senator brought up the buzz generated by his bet with Vance on Wednesday’s episode of his Verdict with Ted Cruz podcast. He predicted, “The Horns are going to win Texas by five.”

Cruz reflected on his history of sports betting with members of Congress, including with Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and ex-Sen. Krysten Sinema on the 2023 World Series, Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey on the basketball in June 2024 and Sen. Maria Cantwell on ice hockey in May 2023.

“I can’t wait for the Buckeyes to travel to the Cotton Bowl, enjoy some Texas hospitality, and get their asses kicked by the Horns. Then, I’ll discover what the heck Ohio beer is, while J.D. enjoys being decked out in burnt orange. Hook ‘em!” Cruz told Headline USA in an exclusive comment.

Contrary to mainstream media’s “Cruz curse” narrative, which unfairly argues that the Texas senator’s attendance at sports games leads to a loss, Cruz was spotted attending various victorious matchups for his home state throughout the years.

He previously slammed the “dishonest press” on social media by revealing his years-long attendance at Astros home games, requesting “credit” for the teams’ two World Series Championships and seven consecutive American League Championship Series.

Not only that, but Cruz has a history of winning his traditional sports bets, including one in 2017 against Vice President Kamala Harris.

On Verdict, Cruz reflected on Harris, then a senator from California, serving him chocolate and California red wine after the Houston Astros won against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

“I’ll tell you, particularly on the World Series, I’ve made these bets every time the Stros have been in the World Series, and I’ve won them and lost,” Cruz told co-host Ben Ferguson, mentioning the “fun” of winning.

“When the Astros beat the Dodgers, actually, I made the bet with Kamala Harris, and Kamala showed up in my office,” the Texan continued. “She had seized chocolate and California red wine that she brought but she was wearing Astros gear, and she actually Facebook live streamed it as she went to deliver it.”

Cruz also made past baseball bets against Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and former Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa. He lost to Kaine and won against Toomey.

When asked what Vance will serve Cruz if he wins, the Texan told Ferguson on Verdict, “Beats the heck out of me.”

Julianna Frieman is a freelance writer published by the Daily Caller, Headline USA, The Federalist, and the American Spectator. Follow her on Twitter at @JuliannaFrieman.

Canadian Libs Say Trump’s Talk about Canada Becoming 51st State Isn’t Funny Anymore

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Canadian Libs Say Trump’s Talk about Canada Becoming 51st State Isn’t Funny Anymore

(Headline USA) Canada’s finance minister complained Wednesday that President-elect Donald Trump’s comments on Canada becoming the 51st state were no longer a joke and were meant to undermine America’s closest neighbor.

“It’s becoming very counterproductive,” said Dominic LeBlanc, the country’s point person for U.S–Canada relations.

Trump was smiling when he first made the comment in late November during a dinner at Mar-a-Lago with then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, LeBlanc noted.

“The joke is over,” said LeBlanc. “It’s a way for him, I think, to sow confusion, to agitate people, to create chaos knowing this will never happen.”

The radical leftist Trudeau, who leaned into adversarial rhetoric criticizing U.S. voters for failing to elect Democrat Kamala Harris, was forced out of office himself this week under pressure as Trump made clear that his administration would not be toyed with.

Trudeau announced Monday he would resign as prime minister but will stay on until a new Liberal leader is chosen.

With an election coming up in October, other members of Canada’s Liberal Party are now panicking that they will suffer a similar fate, while being forced to stake the interests of their country up against their own political careers and ideologies.

That Trump’s goading comes as Canadian Liberals already feel particularly vulnerable about a political reckoning of their own only seems to add insult to injury.

“The timing is awful for sure,” said Liberal lawmaker Judy Sgro of the leadership change. “But we will do what we have to do to ensure that Canada stands strong.”

Asked about Trump’s comments, Sgro said “He should focus on his own issues in his own country, because he’s got lots of them.”

Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Miller also fired back, dismissing Trump’s comments as “ridiculous.”

“There is no chance of us becoming the 51st state. I think that this is beneath a president of the United States,” Miller ranted. “I said a few weeks ago that this whole thing was like a South Park episode.”

The long-running satirical cartoon series also has been known to lampoon Canadians, even garnering an Oscar nomination for the song “Blame Canada.”

Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said she never takes Trump’s threats lightly.

“At the same time we can’t take the bait,” Joly said. “We have to show we have a strong economy and we are strong and we are not going to be annexed.”

Trump’s pre-inauguration rhetoric has stirred considerable speculation about his true intentions and whether he is truly intent on land acquisitions or simply trying to leverage a stronger hand at the negotiating table.

At a press conference on Tuesday, he roiled Mexico’s president by suggesting that the Gulf of Mexico be renamed the Gulf of America, and he refused to rule out acquiring Greenland and the Panama Canal by military force.

Trump ruled out the use military force to invade Canada, a founding NATO partner. Instead, he said he would rely on “economic force,” arguing that the United States largely subsidizes its northern neighbor.

The Republican president-elect has said the U.S doesn’t need anything from Canada, including automobiles, lumber and dairy products.

Canadians counter that they are rich in natural resources and provide the U.S. with commodities like oil.

“I don’t know who is misinforming him,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said. “Right now we ship 4.3 million barrels of crude oil into the U.S. 60 percent of their energy imports are coming from Canada.”

The U.S. imports approximately 60% of its crude oil from Canada, with Alberta alone supplying 4.3 million barrels per day. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the U.S. consumes about 20 million barrels a day, while domestically producing about 13.2 million barrels a day. This means about quarter of the oil the U.S. consumes every day is from Canada.

However, Trump has been clear on his intention to once again foster U.S. energy independence through offshore drilling and other energy development projects that the Biden administration has been hostile toward.

Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the U.S. and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing in for national security.

Moreover, Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states. Nearly $3.6 billion Canadian worth of goods and services cross the border each day.

LeBlanc has been talking to incoming Trump administration officials about increasing border security in an effort to avoid a sweeping 25% tariff that Trump has threatened to impose on all Canadian products.

LeBlanc, recently appointed to the role after the abrupt resignation of the previous finance minister, also announced he won’t run to replace Trudeau so he can focus on the tariff threat.

Ford said Canada will retaliate if Trump imposes tariffs, saying that a wide range of U.S. products shipped to Canada will be targeted, but he declined to specify which ones.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

‘RESIGN!’: DEI Lesbian Lets California Burn as Los Angeles Mayor Jets Back from Africa

Julianna Frieman
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‘RESIGN!’: DEI Lesbian Lets California Burn as Los Angeles Mayor Jets Back from Africa

(Julianna Frieman, Headline USA) Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley, the first female and lesbian to lead the department, failed to stop California’s raging wildfires Wednesday as the city’s mayor jetted back from Africa.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass returned to the U.S. on Wednesday after ignoring meteorologists’ warnings of blaze-blowing winds to travel to Ghana on Tuesday for the African country’s presidential inauguration.

The fast-moving fires burned through multiple football fields worth of California neighborhoods, multiple outlets reported as more than 30,000 were put under evacuation in Los Angeles.

Photos and videos posted on social media show the “apocalyptic” state engulfed in the inferno.

Bass posted a blitz of updates to social media Tuesday night, writing on X that hundreds of firefighters were “working tirelessly” to contain the fires that caused several Californians to abandon their cars on roadways.

One video showed a bulldozer push empty cars out of the way as the Palisades Fire wrecked havoc.

Social media users blasted Bass for her negligence, including an appalled X user who commented on one of Bass’s updates, “RESIGN! WHY ARE YOU IN GHANA?!”

The wildfires hit home for several celebrities and high-profile businessmen, striking the Pacific Palisades where A-listers like Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Jennifer Lopez own property.

Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt announced their home was “burned to the ground,” according to Page Six.

Ben Affleck was also among the Hollywood stars forced to evacuate—TMZ reported he fled to ex-wife Jennifer Garner’s residence.

Billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso likened California’s fires to a “third world country,” noting that no water would come out of fire hydrants.

He added in a jab at the city’s leftist government by saying, “If you’re wondering, ‘Where is LA Mayor Karen Bass?’ She has been in Ghana, so she’s apparently on her way back. That’s why we have not seen her.“

Actor James Woods blamed “liberal idiots” for the Los Angeles wildfires, torching Democrats’ climate change narrative.

“This fire is not from ‘climate change,’ you ignorant asshole. It’s because liberal idiots like you elect liberal idiots like Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass. One doesn’t understand the first thing about fire management and the other can’t fill the water reservoirs,” Woods wrote on X.

Others took aim at diversity, equity and inclusion hire Crowley, who took the helm at the Los Angeles Fire Department in March 2022.

In a previous news interview, the proud LGBT woman said there are “never enough” diversity hires when explaining her priority to create a DEI culture at work.

“Another DEI disaster,” popular meme account and political X influencer @catturd2 wrote.

In New Orleans on New Years’ Day, an ISIS-inspired terrorist killed 14 in a vehicular attack. Americans were outraged as police chief Anne Kirkpatrick, an elderly woman who lost her job in Oakland, Ca. for diving over pedestrians, briefed the press.

Outrage hit a fever pitch when a black female FBI agent wearing a nose ring falsely said the massacre on Bourbon Street was not a terror attack.

Special agent Alethea Duncan, who many online slammed as an incompetent DEI employee, was reportedly left to brief the press as top FBI brass Lyonel Myrthil—like Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass—was traveling abroad.

Myrthil was reportedly vacationing in Italy with his family as his DEI colleague haphazardly addressed the tragedy.

Hawaii suffered a similar tragedy to California’s wildfires in 2023 when its own wildfires devastated the community of Lahaina in Maui.

President Joe Biden faced backlash that August after her compared the blaze to a small kitchen fire in his home—and later for his administration’s lackluster disaster response.

Julianna Frieman is a freelance writer published by the Daily Caller, Headline USA, The Federalist, and the American Spectator. Follow her on Twitter at @JuliannaFrieman.

JetBlue Passenger Suddenly Opens Exit Door as Flight Taxies for Takeoff at Boston Airport

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JetBlue Passenger Suddenly Opens Exit Door as Flight Taxies for Takeoff at Boston Airport

(Headline USA) A person on board a plane at Boston Logan International Airport that was taxiing for takeoff suddenly opened an exit door and was quickly restrained by other passengers, authorities said.

The JetBlue passenger was expected to face charges and be arraigned Wednesday, Massachusetts State Police spokesperson Tim McGuirk said in a statement Tuesday night. The passenger’s name was not released.

The door was opened about 7:30 p.m. “suddenly and without warning,” McGuirk said.

The opening of the overwing exit door caused an emergency slide to deploy aboard JetBlue flight 161 from Boston to San Juan, the airline said in a statement.

Some passengers panicked.

“They were like freaking out,” passenger Fred Wynn told WCVB-TV. “They were like, ‘Stop, stop’!”

Wynn said the passenger was seated behind him and was arguing with his girlfriend over a cellphone, then “the the guy got up and ran down the aisle” toward the door.

JetBlue said the flight was eventually swapped to another aircraft and landed in San Juan.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Mark Hamill Among Obnoxious Celebs Displaced by Newsom Wildfires … But So Are Good People

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Mark Hamill Among Obnoxious Celebs Displaced by Newsom Wildfires … But So Are Good People

(Headline USA) Conservatives witnessed the wildfire devastation in far-left Los Angeles with a mix of sorrow, horror, outrage and a healthy dose of Schadenfreude as insufferably woke figures including Star Wars one-hit wonder Mark Hamill and washed-up pop singer Mandy Moore abruptly went from D-list celebrities to join the ranks of California’s skyrocketing homeless population.

“Evacuated Malibu so last minute,” wrote Hamill in an Instagram post Tuesday night, adding that he and wife Marilou York had fled with their dog, Trixie, to the Hollywood home of his daughter Chelsea.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Mark Hamill (@markhamill)

About 30,000 residents were under evacuation orders and more than 13,000 structures were under threat in L.A.’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood.

The fire burned down Temescal Canyon, a popular hiking area surrounded by dense neighborhoods of multimillion-dollar homes.

Flames jumped famous Sunset Boulevard and burned parts of the Palisades Charter High School, which has been featured in many Hollywood productions—including the 1976 horror movie Carrie, the 2003 remake of Freaky Friday and the TV series Teen Wolf.

In addition to Hamill and Moore, the devastation was likely to displace obnoxious lefties such as Ben Affleck, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Keaton, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, the New York Post reported.

However, well known conservatives including James Woods, Adam Sandler and former acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell also were impacted.

Woods posted footage Tuesday of flames burning through bushes and past palm trees on a hill near his home. The towering orange flames billowed among the landscaped yards between the homes.

“Standing in my driveway, getting ready to evacuate,” Woods said in the short video on X. Later, he added: “It tests your soul, losing everything at once, I must say.”

Grenell, who is due to become a special envoy in the incoming Trump administration, said he was “pissed off” by the “far left policies” that were “literally burning us to the ground.”

 

The fires were the direct result of negligence by Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, both Democrats, who reportedly cut funding for the fire department, ignored critical water shortages that were the result of woke regulations, and failed to take preventative measures to mitigate the spread of fires.

Officials from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works reported Tuesday morning that fire hydrants had run out of water during the overnight firefight due to an overwhelming demand on the municipal water system not designed to fight wildfire.

President-elect Donald Trump, who previously had urged Newsom to engage in timber-clearing measures, issued a statement via Truth Social saying that he held the governor directly accountable.

“Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way,” Trump wrote.

“He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California,” Trump added. “Now the ultimate price is being paid.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

SCOOP: Gov’t Proceeding w/ Sex Change for Baby-Killing Inmate Despite Medical Advice to Contrary

Ken Silva
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SCOOP: Gov’t Proceeding w/ Sex Change for Baby-Killing Inmate Despite Medical Advice to Contrary

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Last September, a federal judge ordered the Indiana Department of Correction to provide “gender‐affirming surgery” to self-purported Muslim transgender inmate Jonathan C. Richardson, who now goes by the name “Autumn Cordellionè” and is serving a 55-year sentence for killing Richardson’s infant stepdaughter.

But in December, psychologist Dr. Kelsey Beers filed a report recommending against surgery for Richardson. Dr. Beers said in her Dec. 11 report that Richardson’s clinical symptoms are attributable to co-morbidities of borderline and antisocial personality disorders—not gender dysphoria.

Despite that, the Indiana DOC is pushing for the surgery anyways.

“IDOC is requesting that you accept a surgical consultation notwithstanding the lack of referral letters, based on the enclosed court order,” DOC chief legal officer Anna Quick said in a letter to Dr. Joshua Roth’s office.

Dr. Roth’s office has yet to make a decision on the matter, according to a Monday status report. His office did not respond to an email inquiry from this reporter. The DOC didn’t respond to an email asking why it’s moving forward with the surgery against the advice of Dr. Beers.

In her report, Dr. Beers noted Richardson’s long history of faking mental illnesses.

“She has referred to herself as a ‘master manipulator’ throughout her incarceration. She frankly admitted to feigning mental illness symptoms for secondary gain, including obtaining specific medications and receiving certain diagnoses,” her report said.

“She denied genuinely experiencing symptoms of schizophrenia or psychosis despite having a serious mental illness in her chart for years. The psychotic specifier of depression was only resolved after she began seeking a gender dysphoria diagnosis … This diagnosis no longer served a purpose for her and inhibited her newest goal of pursuing life as a woman,” the report continued.

“She feigned psychotic symptoms across multiple prisons and clinicians, which highlights her advance ability to manipulate even the highly trained and educated.”

Dr. Beers concluded that because Richardson’s clinical picture is “convoluted with overt manipulation and poorly controlled symptoms of personality disorder,” she does not recommend surgery.

Richardson, who was convicted of strangling an 11-month-old stepdaughter to death in 2001, claims to still suffer negative, and at times debilitating, symptoms of gender dysphoria.

“At times, I have soiled myself rather than go to the bathroom, as I just do not want to see or deal with my genitals,” the inmate has said.

The baby-killer’s lawsuit is being litigated by the ACLU, and last February the DOJ filed a brief in support of Richardson.

The DOJ’s support of Richardson followed a similar move in Georgia, where DOJ prosecutors filed a brief in support of a transgender inmate who—ironically—allegedly tried bombing the DOJ.

Additionally, the DOJ settled a lawsuit in June 2023 from a federal inmate—former Neo-Nazi bank robber Pete/Donna Langan—who sued the Bureau of Prisons in late 2021 to obtain a sex change. Langan became the first federal inmate in history to receive a sex change in January 2023, but continued to sue the BOP to also cover facial hair removal surgery.

The details of Langan’s settlement have not been made public.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.

Biden Implies He Would Have Handed Presidency to Kamala in 2nd Term

Julianna Frieman
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Biden Implies He Would Have Handed Presidency to Kamala in 2nd Term

(Julianna Frieman, Headline USA) Outgoing President Joe Biden implied in an interview published Wednesday that he would have handed the presidency to Vice President Kamala Harris in the middle of his second term if the Democrats refrained from forcing him off the 2024 ticket.

Biden told USA TODAY that he could have defeated President-elect Donald Trump if he had stayed in the race beyond July 21, 2024—but expressed uncertainty about his ability to be president at age 85.

“It’s presumptuous to say that, but I think yes, based on the polling,” the 82-year-old Democrat told the outlet of battling Trump at the ballot box following Harris’s historic loss of the popular vote, Electoral College and all seven battleground states.

Biden appeared to acknowledge his cognitive decline in aging as he admitted to USA TODAY’s Washington Bureau chief Susan Page that he does not know if he would be fit for office in three years.

The lame duck president, who Democrats pressured to back out of his reelection bid after a June 2024 debate that made mental fitness concerns indisputable, said, “Who the Hell knows” if he would be able to perform his duties as president at age 85 or 86.

“I don’t know,” Biden said, mentioned he had “no intention” of running for president after his son, Beau, died. “And then when Trump was running again for reelection, I really thought I had the best chance of beating him.”

He continued his comment by saying he has no idea where he would be in a couple years from now.

“But I also wasn’t looking to be president when I was 85 years old, 86 years old. And so I did talk about passing the baton,” he continued. “But I don’t know. Who the hell knows? So far, so good. But who knows what I’m going to be when I’m 86 years old?”

Additionally, Biden opened up about his Nov. 13 post-election White House meeting with Trump. He said Trump was warned not to “settle scores” upon taking office, a plea the Republican “didn’t reinforce.”

Biden claimed Trump praised some of his policies during their two-hour talk.

“He was very complimentary about some of the economic things I had done,” Biden, who many Americans assume has a form of dementia, claimed. “And he talked about—he thought I was leaving with a good record.”

Julianna Frieman is a freelance writer published by the Daily Caller, Headline USA, The Federalist, and the American Spectator. Follow her on Twitter at @JuliannaFrieman.

Fetterman Blasts His Own Party Over Opposition to ‘Common Sense’ Laken Riley Act

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Fetterman Blasts His Own Party Over Opposition to ‘Common Sense’ Laken Riley Act

(Headline USA) Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., blasted his own party this week over its refusal to get behind the Laken Riley Act, arguing their opposition to the immigration measure shows why they lost to President-elect Donald Trump in November.

Fetterman became the first Senate Democrat to co-sponsor the Laken Riley Act this week.

The bill, named after the 22-year-old Georgia nursing student who was murdered by an illegal alien last year, would make it easier for federal immigration authorities to take into custody and deport illegal aliens charged with, arrested, or convicted of crimes in the U.S.

During an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Fetterman said he doesn’t know why anyone finds it controversial that illegal aliens who commit crimes “need to go.”

“For me it’s … really common sense,” he said. “And I’d like to remind everybody that we have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of migrants here illegally that have [been] convicted of crimes. Who wants to allow them to remain in our nation?”

In order for the bill to pass the Senate, a number of Democrats will have to vote for it, Fetterman pointed out. 

“There’s 47 of us in the Senate and if we can’t pull up with seven votes, if we can’t get at least seven out of 47, if we can’t, then that’s a reason why we lost,” he added.

The Laken Riley Act will now head to the Senate after the Republican-controlled House passed it this week. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of House Democrats voted against it. Just 48 Democrats joined Republicans in supporting it.

Seven of those House Democrats ended up flipping their votes to “yes” on the measure. Reps. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., Val Hoyle, D-Ore., Lucy McBath, D-Ga., Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., and Terri Sewell, D-Ala., initially voted against the Laken Riley Act when it was first introduced last year, but voted “yes” this week.

Biden Defends Pardoning Hunter, Admits It Could Set Bad Precedent

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Biden Defends Pardoning Hunter, Admits It Could Set Bad Precedent

(Headline USA) President Joe Biden insisted in an interview published this week that he did not lie to the American public when he pledged not to pardon his son Hunter, but admitted his decision to do so could set a bad precedent.

Late last year, Biden issued a sweeping pardon for his son, exonerating him from a decade’s worth of potential crimes, including the federal tax and gun crimes he was convicted of last summer.

The pardon came despite Biden’s frequent assurances that he would not pardon his son.

The move outraged even some of Biden’s own supporters, who argued it was an abuse of the pardon power.

However, speaking with USA Today, Biden defended the pardon, suggesting he does not regret going back on his promises.

Asked whether he has any “concerns” about the pardon, specifically in regards to whether it could set a “precedent for future presidents,” Biden replied, “I hope not, because I meant what I said when I was asked whether I was going to pardon my son.”

Biden claimed he changed his mind for two reasons. 

“Number one, that he had paid all his taxes. He paid them late. He was fighting a drug problem. And he beat it. He’s been square and sober for almost six years now. This was back in ’80, I mean excuse me, in 2000 and … What year was it? Anyway, long time ago. And that he paid it all,” he said.

Hunter Biden “should have paid [his taxes] on time,” the president acknowledged, but being charged for the tax evasion amounted to an unfair double standard, he claimed.

The federal gun charges against Hunter Biden were also unfair, the president insisted.

“The second thing I found out was that on this purchasing a gun, at the time, you have to sign a form if you’re under the influence of anything,” he explained. “Well, I don’t even know whether they got straight on the signing of the form. But the point was, no one’s ever been tried on that. Nobody. And they potentially put him in jail for X number of years for that. He had it for 10 days. Two days in his possession. No weapon, no bullets, no movement, no leave. And it got returned. And no one’s ever been tried for that.”

Biden then hinted that he is still mulling additional pardons, including preemptive pardons for anti-Trump critics such as former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Dr. Anthony Fauci.

“A little bit of it depends on who he puts in what positions,” Biden said of President-elect Donald Trump.

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