President Joe Biden yesterday announced a pardon of his son Hunter. The decision comes after previously repeatedly saying that he would not do so. Read more here.
The 118th Congress is wrapping up, but it isn’t quite vacation time yet. Before the House and Senate depart for their Christmas break, they will have to pass crucial spending legislation to avoid a government shutdown on Dec. 20, when current government funding expires.
Government spending is almost always a contentious process.
Twelve appropriations bills must pass both chambers of Congress. The House has passed five, but none have made it through the Senate, all but guaranteeing that Congress will bring a stopgap funding bill to the floor during the lame-duck session.
A similar bill passed in September punted the funding deadline to Dec. 20.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has said he wants to pass another continuing resolution that puts the funding question off until 2025, giving incoming President Donald Trump and the GOP-held Senate and House control over spending priorities. Congressional leaders have not yet agreed to any spending plan.
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President Joe Biden on Nov. 18 asked Congress to approve nearly $100 billion in disaster relief, $40 billion of which is expected to go to FEMA. It’s likely to pass, but there are critics.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said, “We don’t have the money. We’re $2 trillion in the hole. Interest this year is going to be a trillion dollars.”
In the House, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told The Epoch Times the same, tying his concerns to government finances.
The Farm Bill, expected to cost $1.5 trillion, will also be hotly debated. A House-proposed version would cut $30 billion from SNAP, raising food security concerns.
The $883.7 billion National Defense Authorization Act also faces hurdles.
Schumer said the House version is “loaded with anti-LGBTQ, anti-choice, anti-environment amendments.”
An alternative bill requiring women to register for noncombat draft roles is another sticking point.
With no agreement, Congress risks a shutdown.
—Stacy Robinson, Joseph Lord
KASH PATEL: WHAT TO KNOW
President-elect Donald Trump announced on Nov. 30 that he would nominate Kash Patel to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI).
In a Truth Social post, Trump called Patel “a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter.”
The post is currently held by Chris Wray, who took the post after Trump fired James Comey—a fate expected to befall Wray if he doesn’t step down voluntarily.
Patel is a longtime ally to the incoming president, and has been outspoken in his denunciations of the agency he’s now primed to lead—and he’s promised big changes.
Here’s what to know about Patel.
He got his JD from Pace University School of Law in 2005, diverging from the Ivy League path many in Washington take. He went on to serve as a public defender first for Florida and then in the federal government.
Patel was later hired as a trial attorney in the Department of Justice National Security Division and as a legal liaison to the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).
Afterwards, Patel served in a senior role under House Intelligence Committee Chairman David Nunes, who used the influential panel to push back on then-emerging narratives that Trump colluded with Russia in 2016.
These and other positions give Patel a strong background in national security matters, as both his role in JSOC and his role under Nunes would have required security clearance.
Patel is also a best-selling author, having published several books.
Aside from a series of children’s books, Patel recently published “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy” on Aug. 1, 2024.
In the book, Patel targets what he describes as the deep state, the secret constellation of federal bureaucrats and law enforcement agents who make the day-to-day decisions of the government, and proposes ways they can be countered.
Given his long history of criticism for the FBI, it comes as little surprise that Patel has big plans for the agency he’s poised to lead.
Patel has indicated interest in making large-scale reforms to how the FBI conducts its business, with a focus on countering what he perceives as the weaponization of the agency in recent history.
Aside from that, Patel has also expressed interest in shrinking the agency dramatically in order to save taxpayer money.
In a recent interview, Patel indicated that he was concerned with what he called “personnel creep in the government,” referencing the vast increase in FBI and DOJ personnel stationed in Washington.
He said, “I'd shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopen the next day as a museum of the deep state. And I'd take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals.”
If he’s confirmed to the job by the Senate, Patel would also have access to information about the FBI’s actions over the past four years, which could be used as a basis for vast reforms to the agency.
Patel also hosted “Kash’s Corner” on EpochTV.
—Joseph Lord
BOOKMARKS
The incoming Trump administration has set itself an ambitious goal through the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which will be headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, of slashing federal budgets and even eliminating an agency or two, The Epoch Times’ Kevin Stocklin reported. But it remains to be seen whether the new government body will be able to achieve these ambitious goals after many past attempts failed.
President Joe Biden is traveling to Angola on Dec. 1, underscoring the U.S. commitment to strengthening ties with the African country amid increasing geopolitical competition with communist China, The Epoch Times’ Emel Akan reported. It comes in an effort to counter Beijing’s growing influence on the African continent.
California residents living northeast of Los Angeles have filed a lawsuit against a local landfill operator, The Epoch Times’ Beige Luciano-Adams reported. Val Verde, a community that borders the landfill, has been overrun by noxious odors and cancer-causing chemicals released from an ongoing chemical reaction at the nearby landfill. The landfill’s operator has denied wrongdoing.
The United States will not return nuclear weapons to Ukraine that the country gave up following the dissolution of the Soviet Union decades ago, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Dec. 1, The Epoch Times’ Jack Phillips reported. It comes after a New York Times article, citing anonymous sources, claimed that the outgoing Biden administration was considering the move.
