Rural providers, advocates push Texas Legislature to “rescue” maternal health care system
Almost half of Texas counties have nowhere to get prenatal care, let alone deliver a baby. This plan offers legislative proposals to shore up what’s left.
Kerala Lottery Result Today December 3: Sthree Sakthi SS-444 winners to be announced shortly
Participants can expect the results to be announced at 3 PM, and those eager to find out if they have won can check the official website or follow live updates from various news sources.
Cyclone Fengal: Rain-hit Tamil Nadu districts battle with flood woes, PM Modi assures CM Stalin of ‘all possible help’
As per an estimate by the Tamil Nadu government, Cyclone Fengal caused unprecedented devastation in 14 districts, extensively damaging roads, and electricity lines and causing heavy inundation.
Hunter Biden’s ex-biz partner reveals Trump DOJ blueprint he would like to see after last-minute pardon
FIRST ON FOX: A former longtime friend and business partner of Hunter Biden reveals the blueprint he would like the Trump Department of Justice to implement after President Biden announced on Sunday that he was giving his son a full pardon. Devon Archer, who served on Ukrainian energy company Burisma’s board alongside Hunter, says he is looking ahead to the future and is optimistic about the Trump DOJ. When Fox News Digital asked Archer about the elder Biden’s pardon, he sidestepped addressing the pardon and instead called for the Trump DOJ to be “an impartial institution again.” “I look forward to the Trump Administration restoring the Justice Department to an institution that reflects the founding principles of justice and adheres to federal laws akin to its inception on July 1, 1870,” Archer told Fox News Digital. “The DOJ needs to be an impartial institution again rather than being driven by personal or political agendas as witnessed in recent years,” he continued. TRUMP PREVIOUSLY PREDICTED BIDEN WOULD PARDON SON HUNTER Archer has faced his own legal troubles related to his criminal conviction for his alleged role in defrauding a Native American tribe. A federal judge sentenced Archer to prison in 2018 for allegedly defrauding the tribe by fraudulently issuing $60 million in tribal bonds after he was convicted by a jury. However, his conviction was thrown out in late 2018 by U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams in Manhattan because she was “left with an unwavering concern that Archer is innocent of the crimes charged,” according to Reuters. Archer’s conviction would then be reinstated by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals a month before the 2020 election and he received a one-year and one-day prison sentence in February 2022. Despite the sentence, Archer’s lawyer, Matthew Schwartz, has maintained his innocence and said they intended to file a series of appeals, which has delayed Archer serving his sentence. “Mr. Archer is obviously disappointed with today’s sentence, and intends to appeal. It is unfortunate that the judge, who has previously expressed concern that Mr. Archer is innocent of the crimes charged and reiterated that belief today, felt that she was constrained not to act on her independent assessment of the evidence,” Schwartz said in February 2022. President Biden announced on Sunday that he had pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, after the first son was convicted in two separate federal cases earlier this year. The announcement was made by the White House on Sunday night. The pardon applies to offenses against the U.S. that Hunter Biden “has committed or may have committed” from Jan. 1, 2014 to Dec. 1, 2024. This decade-long window covers Hunter’s Burisma tenure, among several other shady foreign business dealings. “Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter,” Biden wrote in a statement. “From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.” ‘IT’S A SETBACK’: DEMOCRATS CRITICIZE BIDEN OVER HUNTER PARDON Hunter Biden’s pardon has incensed Republicans who have alleged for years that Hunter Biden’s business dealings while his father was vice president were not legitimate. Archer spoke before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee last year and detailed the business connections between Joe and Hunter Biden. Archer said Biden was put on the phone to sell “the brand,” according to a transcript of the hearing. These phone calls included a dinner in Paris with a French energy company and in China with Jonathan Li of BHR Partners, a state-backed private equity firm. Archer also testified that there was value in adding Hunter Biden to Burisma’s board as “the brand,” a source previously told Fox News Digital. The argument was that then-Vice President Joe Biden brought the most value. Archer also stated that Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, would have gone under if not for “the brand.” The president, his 2020 campaign staff and top White House aides previously claimed at least 20 times that Biden “never discussed” his son Hunter’s business dealings with him, which Archer’s testimony directly contradicted. Democrats have maintained that Hunter Biden did nothing wrong with his businesses and the president defended his son in his Sunday statement. “Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form,” Biden said. “Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently.” Biden also referenced his son’s battle with addiction and blamed “raw politics” for the unraveling of Hunter’s plea deal. “There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution,” the 82-year-old father wrote. “In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.” “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision,” Biden’s statement concluded. Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton and Joe Schoffstall contributed to this report
Senate Democrats to hold leadership elections after losing chamber majority
Democrat senators are scheduled to hold an internal leadership election to fill their top posts in the chamber less than two months after losing the Senate majority to Republicans in the 2024 election. The election is expected to take place on Capitol Hill on Tuesday morning, with a focus on who will fill the No. 3 position held by a retiring longtime lawmaker. Last month’s election cost Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a job he has long held: Senate majority leader. But it will only amount to a demotion for Schumer, who will assume the position of Senate minority leader in 2025. Majority Whip Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., is also expected to remain the No. 2 Democrat in the chamber as minority whip, a position he has held for nearly two decades. SENATE CONFIRMING KASH PATEL AS FBI DIRECTOR IS A ‘BIG QUESTION MARK,’ EXPERT ARGUES However, the third ranking Democrat, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., did not seek re-election this cycle, leaving her policy and communications committee chair position up for grabs. ‘CONVEYOR BELT OF RADICALS’: GOP SLAMMED OVER SENATE ABSENCES THAT HELPED BIDEN SCORE MORE JUDGES IN LAME DUCK Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., were reportedly both competing for the No. 3 position in the chamber. However, Axios reported Monday that the Minnesota Democrat is in line to fill the coveted leadership post. Booker will reportedly take on the No. 4 position in the Senate, though it is unclear as to what that will entail, according to an Axios report ahead of the leadership election. Booker spent the campaign season making himself known around the country with appearances in Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina and Wisconsin, per the New Jersey Globe. Senate Republicans recently held leadership elections as they gear up for their six-seat majority in the chamber next Congress. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., was elected via secret ballot in November to serve as Senate majority leader in the 119th Congress, replacing Schumer in the No. 1 position in the chamber.
Hunter Biden’s pardon sets troubling precedent, risks politicizing Justice Department, critics say
President Biden faced mounting criticism Monday for the “sweeping” pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, with critics citing fears that it could be used by Trump to further his views of a “politicized” Justice Department and erode the role of the judiciary as an important check on executive power. In a statement announcing the pardon, Biden took aim at what he described as a politically motivated investigation. “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong,” the president wrote. That Biden used his final weeks as a lame duck president to protect his only living son from prosecution was met with less shock among legal analysts than was the sheer breadth of the pardon itself, which spans a nearly 11-year period beginning in January 2014, the year Hunter was appointed to the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, and ending on Sunday, the day that the White House announced the pardon. While that time frame includes both the federal firearm and tax evasion convictions that Hunter was convicted of this year, experts say the scope of the pardon could go much further by extending to any actions committed for more than a decade, virtually ensuring the president’s son cannot be held accountable for any activity conducted during that period. In terms of both length and scope, the Hunter Biden pardon “could really could not be more sweeping, to be honest with you,” Trey Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor and member of Congress, told Fox News Digital in an interview. The time frame included in the pardon covers “almost all federal statutes of limitations,” Gowdy said. “For the vast majority of federal crimes, this covers this time period and means that charges cannot be brought.” SPECIAL COUNSEL, IRS WHISTLEBLOWERS SAY DON’T BUY BIDEN ‘SPIN’ ABOUT HUNTER BIDEN LEGAL SAGA Critics note that Biden broke his own repeated declarations that he would not pardon Hunter earlier this year. First, after he was found guilty in June on three felony firearm charges, and then in September after he pleaded guilty to separate federal charges of tax evasion. “I am not going to do anything,” Biden said this summer. “I will abide by the jury’s decision.” This week, Biden did the opposite. White House officials insist that Biden still backs his contention this summer that “no one is above the law.” “As he said in his statement, he has deep respect for our justice system,” a spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “And as a wide range of legal experts have pointed out, this pardon is indisputably within his authority and warranted by the facts of the case.” “The pardon power was written in absolute terms, and a president can even, in my view, pardon himself,” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley wrote in an op-ed for Fox News Digital. “However, what is constitutional is not necessarily ethical or right,” Turley said, adding that in his view, Biden’s decision to pardon Hunter is “one of the most disgraceful pardons even in the checkered history of presidential pardons.” “His portrayal of his son as a victim stands in sharp contrast to the sense of immunity and power conveyed by Hunter in his dealings,” Turley said. BIDEN PARDONS SON HUNTER BIDEN AHEAD OF EXIT FROM OVAL OFFICE Some lawmakers and legal analysts separately cited fears that the pardon could further erode public trust in the Justice Department, giving more credence to Trump’s frequent complaints that the Department of Justice is a political apparatus capable of being “weaponized” rather than a department that strives to act independently and largely without political influence. In granting the pardon, Biden is “essentially endorsing Trump’s long-held opinion that the Department of Justice is politicized and isn’t acting impartially,” longtime GOP strategist and communicator Ryan Williams told Fox News in an interview. Gowdy said Biden’s pardon reflects his longtime view that the Justice Department has been too politicized in recent years and needs to be reformed, citing a swirl of investigations during recent administrations, including probes that were led by House committees, and which looked into the actions of both Biden and Trump family members. “When I was a prosecutor, politics had nothing to do with the job,” Gowdy said. “I didn’t know the politics of a single one of my co-workers.” The focus, he said, should be shifted back not to “targeting people, but targeting fact patterns.” “Prosecuting your political enemies, involving family members, all of this stuff is new, and all of it’s really dangerous.” Special Counsel David Weiss, who brought both cases against Hunter Biden, has defended his actions against claims that the prosecutions were politically motivated, noting in a court filing Monday that Hunter Biden’s team had filed “eight motions to dismiss the indictment, making every conceivable argument for why it should be dismissed, all of which were determined to be meritless.” Weiss added, “There was none and never has been any evidence of vindictive or selective prosecution in this case.” PRESIDENT BIDEN’S PARDON OF SON HUNTER A POLITICAL GIFT FOR TRUMP GOING FORWARD Still, some have objected to the intense investigation surrounding Hunter Biden, noting that if not for his father’s presidency, he likely would not have faced charges in the gun case. Gowdy, a former Republican House member, said he ultimately agreed with that contention. “I prosecuted gun cases for six years,” Gowdy told Fox News Digital. “I would not have taken this case.” “There’s a lot of really serious federal violent crime out there, and I would not have wasted the resources on the gun part of this,” Gowdy explained. But the former South Carolina lawmaker also said that doesn’t mean he would have let Biden’s son off the hook. “I definitely would have gone forward on the taxes and allegations of corruption,” Gowdy said of the other allegations against Biden. Ultimately, the Justice Department and FBI need to be “significantly reformed,” Gowdy said. “They
Sambhal violence: LoP Rahul Gandhi, Akhilesh Yadav and others stage walkout in Lok Sabha
Some of the Congress members also rose to their feet and the Leader of the Opposition in the House Rahul Gandhi came to the isle in support of the protest. While the protest was on, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju reached out to Yadav to discuss the issue.
Biden, Trump both rip DOJ after president pardons Hunter
There is no other way to put it: Joe Biden lied. Over and over. After repeatedly promising, pledging, vowing not to pardon his son Hunter, the President of the United States did exactly that. The move amounted to a devastating vote of no confidence in his own Justice Department, matching Donald Trump’s own denunciations of that very department. PRESIDENT BIDEN PARDONS SON HUNTER, SPARING HIM POSSIBLE PRISON SENTENCE Trump, who also pardoned several political allies during his first term, was quick to react on Truth Social: “Does the pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!” And prominent Republicans are calling Biden a liar, with ample justification. I think most people assumed that a father wouldn’t let his son go to jail. And if the president had explained it in those terms, he might have garnered some public sympathy. But he did not. You know how the president often talks about “my word as a Biden”? I mistakenly assumed that he wouldn’t promise again and again not to pardon his son or commute his sentence if he had thought there was any possibility he would get Hunter off the legal hook. But what is anyone going to do? He leaves office next month, his political career is over and the story will quickly fade. MEDIA ADMITS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IS TOO ‘WOKE’ AFTER KAMALA HARRIS’ 2024 LOSS Biden sounded very much like Trump as he accused the DOJ, which he had long defended, of treating his son unfairly – swinging the political door wide open for the president-elect to retaliate against Justice, in part by naming longtime confidant Kash Patel to run the FBI. Biden said his son had been “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,” and he blamed political pressure on the special counsel named in the case. “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong. There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been 5-1/2 years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.” But that bolsters the Trump argument that he too was singled out for selective prosecution by the DOJ – and will be in a position to do something about it. Hunter put out his own statement after the Sunday pardon: “I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction — mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport.” The feeble attempts by some in the media and in Democratic politics to defend Biden are just sad, because they only tell half the story. Let’s say Hunter Biden was in fact singled out for prosecution, that the case would have been routinely disposed of if his last name was Jones. (Hunter had already been convicted in one case and pleaded guilty in another to tax and gun-related charges.) But as Hunter admitted in one email, it was his last name, when his father was vice president, that enabled him to land all those buckraking contracts from around the world. It’s why the Ukrainian energy giant Burisma hired him, why he was able to get money from China. TRUMP HIT FOR HIRING LOYALISTS LIKE PAM BONDI: DOESN’T EVERY PRESIDENT DO THAT? Hunter had no expertise in any of these areas. What he had was a connection to a powerful father. The pardon is so sweeping that it covers everything Hunter may have done from Jan. 1, 2004 through Sunday – which could be a way of his father protecting himself as well. Karine Jean-Pierre also told reporters on several occasions that Biden would not pardon Hunter. Hunter Biden on Sunday night released a statement noting his recovery from addiction and his sobriety: “I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction — mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport.” Mark Halperin argues that Biden put his son in jeopardy by running for president, knowing the full range of Hunter’s addiction problems – and lied about Hunter not getting money from China and not helping his business clients (even if he just made small talk at a couple of group meetings). TRUMP NOMINATES KASH PATEL TO SERVE AS FBI DIRECTOR: ‘ADVOCATE FOR TRUTH’ Meanwhile, Trump’s choice of Kash Patel for the FBI (who would replace his own appointee, Chris Wray, who replaced the fired Jim Comey) has sparked a media backlash. One thing no one can argue is that Patel lacks experience. He has been chief of staff at the Pentagon and a deputy assistant to the president. In fact, he was a national security prosecutor in the Obama Justice Department, before Trump got into politics. But on Steve Bannon’s podcast last year, Patel said: “Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminally or civilly.” Patel has also said that on day one he’d shut down the FBI headquarters in Washington – ironically named for J. Edgar Hoover – and turn it into a museum on the “deep state.” Its 7,000 employees would be dispersed around the country. One thing Biden never did was put any family members on the government payroll, as Trump did in naming Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, to top White House positions in the first term. Now Trump is continuing that tradition by naming Charles Kushner, Jared’s father, as ambassador to France. SUBSCRIBE TO HOWIE’S MEDIA BUZZMETER PODCAST, A RIFF ON THE DAY’S HOTTEST STORIES
SAD President Sukhbir Singh Badal to wash utensils, clean shoes, bathrooms at Golden Temple, know why
Former SAD President Sukhbir Singh Badal on Tuesday morning arrived at the Golden Temple in Amritsar on his first day of penance. He was seen wearing a plaque around his neck while sitting in a wheelchair because of a fractured leg. This comes after he was declared a ‘tankhaiya’ by Akal Takht.
Musk’s $101bn Tesla pay package again rejected by US judge
Judge says Tesla’s ‘unprecedented theories’ do not support argument to reverse previous ruling scrapping pay deal. A judge in the United States has upheld a decision to deny Tesla CEO Elon Musk a multibillion-dollar pay package despite shareholders voting to restore the compensation deal. The decision by a Delaware judge on Monday reaffirmed an earlier ruling to void the pay deal on the basis that Tesla’s board was too close to Musk and had not sufficiently protected shareholders’ interests. Chancellor Kathaleen St Jude McCormick of Delaware’s Court of Chancery found that there was no legal precedent to reverse her earlier ruling and that if courts condoned “the practice of allowing defeated parties to create new facts for the purpose of revising judgments, lawsuits would become interminable”. “The large and talented group of defense firms got creative with the ratification argument, but their unprecedented theories go against multiple strains of settled law,” McCormick wrote in a 103-page opinion. McCormick also found that Tesla had made “material misstatements” to shareholders about the effect of their vote to reinstate Musk’s pay deal. Advertisement Tesla shares dropped 1.4 percent in after-hours trading following the ruling. McCormick also rejected a request for $5bn in fees sought by the lawyers of plaintiff Richard Tornetta, a Tesla shareholder who brought the original lawsuit accusing Tesla’s board of not acting independently of Musk, instead granting the amount of $345m. After McCormick’s decision to block the deal earlier this year, Tesla shareholders in June overwhelmingly voted to reinstate the package. Tesla on Monday said the court’s decision was “wrong” and that it would appeal the decision. “This ruling, if not overturned, means that judges and plaintiffs’ lawyers run Delaware companies rather than their rightful owners – the shareholders,”’ the electric car company said on X. Musk on X said that “shareholders should control company votes, not judges,” and described McCormick as an “activist posing as a judge”. Under the terms of his 2018 pay deal, Musk agreed to be paid in Tesla stock options each time the company reached certain goals instead of receiving a salary. Musk hit all of the targets, which focused on metrics including market capitalisation, earnings and sales, helping make him the world’s richest man. Musk’s compensation package was initially worth $56bn but is now valued at more than $101bn after Tesla’s stock price surged more than 40 percent following Donald Trump’s US presidential election win on November 5. Adblock test (Why?)