Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is shedding more light on his policy ideas as he makes campaign stops in Iowa.
On Wednesday, the White House hopeful announced his plans to address the country’s massive student debt- which currently stands at a whopping $1.6 trillion according to CNN and his plan to boost military morale.
While speaking in Salix, Iowa, DeSantis declared that universities should have to pick up the tab if a former student can’t pay back their loans.
“If somebody defaults, the university should pick it up,” he said. “If they were on the hook for it, they would make sure the curriculum was designed to produce people that can be very productive. You’d have a heck of a lot less gender studies going on.”
DeSantis added that “we do believe in universities, but they got to be done in a good way,” meaning “rooted in the traditional mission of the university classical education.”
During another stop in Council Bluffs, the Florida Governor said that if elected he would offer back pay to veterans who reenlist after leaving the military due to Covid-19 vaccine requirements.
Later in the day, while touting his time in the US Navy as a JAG officer, DeSantis argued the US military is “indulging woke ideology” that negatively impacts recruitment.
“They’ve driven off some of our greatest warriors not just through that culture, but also through dumb policies like forcing m-RNA Covid shots on our service members,” DeSantis said.
“Why would you want to drive them off by doing things like forcing them to take a shot that they don’t want and sure enough, many people left,” DeSantis said at the second of four stops across Iowa. “As president, we will restore everybody back who wants to come back and we will give them back pay as a result.”
In January, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin rescinded the military’s Covid-19 vaccination mandate for troops after the shot was made mandatory in 2021.
Swisher and Galloway were discussing the decline of television in the wake of Kimmel’s suspension from ABC when the conversation turned to podcasters.
“I think, look, we got to just burn those ships and move on. That’s the thing, because this is how Trump lives. He lives in the 80s in his head, so CBS, ABC, and NBC are the be-all and end-all,” Swisher argued.
“But they’re not. They’re not influential anymore. We should just move along and make our stuff. We should grow and conservative outlets should grow, whatever it happens to be. I was, although I think Tucker Carlson’s really– something’s going on with him. When he’s articulated, it was absolutely right,” Swisher added.
“We both have our issues with Tucker. I think Tucker right now is the most likely nominee for the Republican nomination. I think he has been very good lately,” Galloway replied — referring to Carlson’s warning against any kind of free speech crackdown following Kirk’s murder.
“Well, he’s consistent at least,” Swisher agreed.
“About housing, for young people, he comes across as intellectually honest. He comes across as courageous, not afraid to go against his own party. And I realize I’m talking our own book here,” Galloway continued, adding:
Our downloads are up 10 percent in the last 30 days. And guess what? Everyone from Megyn Kelly to Joe Rogan, you’re going to see a lot, increasingly people turn to podcasts like The Daily, because The New York Times is fearless and does the work.
You’re just going to see media that is not scared of Brendan Carr, or can’t be controlled by Brendan Carr. Boom, because people are really interested in what’s going on, and they like fearless. You know, I’ll give you an example, Don Lemon.
Thursday morning, Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance announced he has accepted Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s debate challenge.
“The American people deserve as many debates as possible, which is why President Trump has challenged Kamala to three of them already,” Vance posted in response to Walz. “Not only do I accept the CBS debate on October 1st, I accept the CNN debate on September 18th as well. I look forward to seeing you at both!”
The American people deserve as many debates as possible, which is why President Trump has challenged Kamala to three of them already. Not only do I accept the CBS debate on October 1st, I accept the CNN debate on September 18th as well. I look forward to seeing you at both! https://t.co/63FyI99dKU
The Oct. 1 vice presidential debate will take place after the first planned debate between Harris and former President Trump, which is currently scheduled for Sept. 10 and will be hosted by ABC News.
Vance told Fox News host Laura Ingraham on “The Ingraham Angle” Wednesday that CBS News had reached out to his team hours before. CBS said in a statement that it offered the two running mates four dates: Sept. 17, Sept. 24, Oct. 1 and Oct. 8.
“We want to actually look at the debates, look at the moderators, talk about the rules a little bit,” he said.
“I strongly suspect we’re going to be there on October the 1st, but we’re not going to do one of these fake debates where they don’t actually have an audience there, where they don’t actually set the parameters in a way where we can have a good exchange of ideas. In other words, we’re not going to walk into a fake news media garbage debate. We’re going to do a real debate, and if CBS agrees to it, then certainly we’ll do it.”
“I think it’s important for the American people to actually see us discuss our views. If you look at the way that we’ve run this campaign, Donald Trump and I are giving every media interview. We’re talking to every audience that we can get in front of because our vision is so clear,” he told Ingraham.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) called Vice President Kamala Harris the clear winner of Tuesday night’s presidential debate.
“Oh, Kamala definitely won the debate,” Sununu said during a Wednesday morning appearance on CNN. “There’s no question about that. So the question is, what does it mean, right? And it’s not just, what does it mean to everybody? What’s going to do that 10 percent of swing voters?”
“I think if you poll those swing voters, they want results,” he said. “They’re results-driven. It’s the cost of living, it’s the border, it’s public safety, those types of issues, you can be the change agent to make that better in their lives.”
The outgoing New Hampshire governor, who considered a presidential run of his own, praised Harris’s debate strategy Tuesday night.
“She kind of talked confidence in her answers, and then she took the last 30 seconds of almost every question and hit him with a personal attack, knowing that that would get under his skin,” Sununu said. “It was a very effective measure, and I give her a lot of credit on that. It kept him on the defensive, to be sure, and it’s ultimately, definitely, stylistically, why she openly won the debate.”
Sununu said the debate would move the needle “a little bit,” but argued neither candidate explained to voters how they would help lower costs for average Americans. The GOP governor added Trump failed to take advantage of openings to go on the offense over the economy.
“He should have talked about price controls,” Sununu said. “He should have talked about the cost of living more. I think he went like an hour, not even talking about inflation and those are real issues.”
Sununu said the ex-president should also draw a bigger contrast on foreign policy with Harris, saying on CNN there “was clearly more peace when” he was in office.
“That is a strength that he has, that he has not exploited in this campaign,” he said. “There is chaos in Ukraine, chaos in Israel. You know, there’s a lot of pressure going on in Taiwan. Let’s not forget about that. Let’s not forget about Afghanistan.”
A jury has reportedly reached a verdict in the trial of Ryan Routh, the man accused of attempting to assassinate then-candidate Trump on his golf course.
Routh was found guilty on all charges. Routh attempted to stab himself in the neck with a pen after learning the verdict. Multiple court marshals were needed to de-escalate the situation and temporarily removed Routh from the courtroom.
🚨 HOLY CRAP. After Ryan Routh was found guilty of trying to assassinate President Trump, he tried to STAB HIMSELF in the NECK "with a pen."
Then, 4 Marshals dragged him out of the room, shackled him, and brought him back into the courtroom.
The case was heard by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who denied a motion from Routh’s defense team seeking her recusal. A Trump appointee, Cannon was randomly assigned to the case.
Today’s guilty verdict against would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh illustrates the Department of Justice’s commitment to punishing those who engage in political violence.
This attempted assassination was not only an attack on our President, but an affront to our very nation…
Federal prosecutors alleged Routh camped near Trump’s golf course for 12 hours with a rifle and aimed at a Secret Service agent before being forced to drop the weapon. Investigators later discovered a letter in which Routh expressed regret that he failed to kill Trump, as well as evidence he sought anti-aircraft weapons and surveillance of Trump’s flights weeks before his arrest.
Routh was found guilty of the attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer, and multiple gun violations — crimes carrying potential life sentences.
Routh faces up to life in prison. Routh pleaded not guilty to all charges.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
ANALYSIS – The term ‘equity’ has seeped into every aspect of U.S. domestic, and even foreign, policy. We hear the term everywhere.
Most recently VP Kamala Harris used it to describe how hurricane relief funds should be distributed in Florida based in part on skin color, and ‘communities of color’ should receive priority.
This outrageous claim from Harris provoked a backlash from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, many conservatives, and others.
On his first day as president, Joe Biden also issued an “Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities.”
This made promoting ‘equity’ a centerpiece of his administration – a highly damaging proposition.
But to many Americans it’s a totally innocuous term, which sounds a lot like equal or equality.
And aren’t Americans supposed to be ‘equal under the law?’
So, what is the big fuss?
Well, the fact is the term ‘equity’ is just the latest effort in a long line of leftist code words intended to mask their true intent.
Equity is not only not similar to equality; it is the polar opposite. It is an evil code word for socialism.
It means ignoring individuals and favoring some groups over others.
The ultimate goal of ‘equity’ is not to ensure equal opportunities, it is to achieve equal outcomes.
That is just a new brand name for the oldest program of social and economic leveling ever invented – socialism.
Harris admitted as much in a tweet and video, posted before the election and viewed well over 6 million times: “There’s a big difference between equality and equity.”
But the left tends to not highlight the true impact of this huge difference.
Instead, they argue that some people simply need a hand to help them reach the same level playing field.
However, promoting “equity” means ending America’s traditional guiding ideal of “equal treatment under law.”
It enshrines reverse discrimination as policy.
It is a mandate to discriminate based on skin color, economic standing, or other standards such as gender identification.
And it is undermining America’s bedrock principle that people should be treated equally and judged as individuals, not as members of groups.
As Charles Lipson wrote in “Equity” is Socialism by Another Name” in the Wall Street Journal last year:
Those who push for equity have hidden these crucial differences for a reason. They aren’t merely unpopular; they challenge America’s bedrock principle that people should be treated equally and judged as individuals, not as members of groups.
He adds:
Hidden, too, are the extensive measures that would be needed to achieve equal outcomes. Only a powerful central government could impose the intensive—and expensive—programs of social intervention, ideological re-education and economic redistribution. Only an intrusive bureaucracy could specify the rules for every business, public institution and civic organization. Those unhappy implications are why advocates of equity are so determined to hide what the term really means.
Lipson, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Chicago, who founded the Program on International Politics, Economics, and Security, continues:
One measure of how unpopular these unequal programs are is how often their proponents need to rename them. “Quotas” were restyled as “affirmative action.” The goal was still to give special benefits to some groups to achieve desired outcomes. Now “affirmative action” has also become toxic, rejected most recently by voters in deep-blue California. Hence, the new name, “equity.”
Instead of making their case openly and honestly, advocates of equity twist and turn to avoid revealing their radical goal of re-engineering society through coercion.
This is the ultimate goal of the left – using the term ‘equity’ to mask a coercive socialist agenda intended to ‘fundamentally transform’ American society – to quote Barack Obama in 2008.
Americans must challenge the concept and the term at every turn. We believe in equality not ‘equity.’ And we must fight to defend it.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
Ted Eytan from Washington, DC, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
ANALYSIS – Two Proud Boys leaders have been sentenced to more than a decade each in jail after being convicted of the rarely used ‘seditious conspiracy’ charge for storming the Capitol.
They tried to overturn President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, which they considered fraudulent.
These sentences are much less than the three decades of jail time proposed by prosecutors but still very long prison terms for a few hours of rioting.
And yes, I understand that the rioting was at the U.S. Capitol and that the certification of the Electoral College vote was in process. I also understand these two guys and the two others convicted on this same charge were intimately involved in organizing what became violent chaos that day.
I was there, at the Capitol, as an observer with a TV camera crew. And I denounced the violence the next day. It was outrageous.
I believe any violent rioter who attacked police or media, or anyone else, on Jan. 6 should be put in jail – as should all the BLM rioters who earlier caused $2 billion in damages throughout the country and injured 2,000 cops months earlier.
But a decade or two behind bars for ‘conspiracy’?
Biggs and Rehl are the first Proud Boys convicted of the Civil War-era seditious conspiracy charge to be sentenced for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.
The sentences kicked off a series of hearings scheduled for this week and next, where punishment will be meted out against the former chairman of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio (who was not in D.C. on Jan. 6 but was unbelievably arrested earlier for burning a BLM banner!), and two other members of the group.
All were convicted of seditious conspiracy and other crimes at a landmark conspiracy trial this spring. But was what they did really as bad as the Biden Justice Department tries to portray?
Seditious conspiracy is a broad statute that concerns attempts to overthrow the government, levy war against it or prevent, hinder or delay the execution of any law. It also can be applied in cases where suspects seize any government property and carries up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Partly because seditious conspiracy allegations carry so much political weight, prosecutors have generally been hesitant to bring such charges in the past. “Seditious conspiracy charges are rarely used in American jurisprudence,” said Jeffrey Ian Ross, a criminologist and expert on political crime at the University of Baltimore. Prosecutors can be wary of issuing such charges, even in cases that may fall under its broad statute, he added.
In the only similar case in the 20th century, federal prosecutors secured a seditious conspiracy conviction against Puerto Rican nationalists who stormed the Capitol building in 1954.
These four armed Puerto Rican independence militants entered the House floor and fired dozens of bullets around the chamber, wounding five legislators.
The four shooters and co-conspirators were convicted of seditious conspiracy and spent over two decades in jail until Jimmy Carter commuted their sentence in 1979.
In that case, however, the perpetrators had firearms and used them to try to kill Congressmen. That’s a pretty big difference.
The last successfully prosecuted seditious conspiracy was in the mid-1990s, when authorities charged Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine Islamist co-conspirators for plotting to bomb the United Nations, the FBI building, and several other landmarks around New York City.
Again, this was very serious and involved planning mass murder and terrorism.
There is little or no evidence that any Jan. 6 rioters planned any offensive violence.
To date, of those charged in relation to Jan. 6, former Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes holds the record with an 18-year sentence, after he was convicted of seditious conspiracy earlier this year.
Even Rhodes, who is not believed to have actually stormed the building, is alleged to have plotted to bring weapons to the area and coordinate militia movements.
In the weeks before the insurrection, Rhodes allegedly purchased tens of thousands of dollars worth of weapons and began communicating to other Oath Keepers in an encrypted group chat. “We aren’t getting through this without a civil war,” he messaged days after the presidential election. One Oath Keeper admitted as part of a plea deal last year that he brought an M4 rifle to a Comfort Inn hotel near the Capitol, while Rhodes and others allegedly discussed “quick reaction force” teams that could move into Washington DC with firearms. Once inside the Capitol, prosecutors state in their indictment that one group of Oath Keepers moved in a military “stack” formation and went in search of the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
And at first glance, this does seem serious.
But Rhodes claims that despite earlier texts about possible ‘civil war,’ Oath Keepers who entered the Capitol went “totally off mission” and that he was only there to prevent his militia members from getting into trouble.
He has also stated that the armed ‘reaction force’ in Virginia was there to respond if armed leftist antifa thugs attacked pro-Trump protestors.
In the largest manhunt in FBI history, more than 1,100 people have been arrested on charges related to the Capitol assault. Of those, 597 defendants have had their cases adjudicated and received sentences. About 366 of them have been given jail time.
The vast majority of these Jan. 6 defendants, though, accepted plea deals for minor, nonviolent offenses such as trespassing or obstructing an official function. Many of them still got jail sentences totally out of proportion to their alleged crimes.
And these four got the worst of it.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Great America News Desk. It was first published in American Liberty News.
The Fox News team is defending former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany after she became the subject of Trump’s
“Kayleigh ‘Milktoast’ McEnany just gave out the wrong poll numbers on FoxNews,” Trump wrote in a Tuesday post on Truth Social, “I am 34 points up on DeSanctimonious, not 25 up. While 25 is great, it’s not 34”
“She knew the number was corrected upwards by the group that did the poll,” he claimed. “The RINOS & Globalists can have her. FoxNews should only use REAL Stars!!!”
Shortly before Trump’s post, McEnany — a co-host of Fox News’ Outnumbered — had appeared on Fox News’ Jesse Watters Primetime, where she said that Trump’s 2024 Republican primary rival Ron DeSantis appeared to be closing in on the former president in Iowa.
“The DeSantis team would say, you know, ‘We just had polling come out that shows we closed the gap by 9 points since we announced in Iowa.’ Still, Trump’s hugely ahead, but they say they’re closing the gap. That’s their argument,” said McEnany, who served as Trump’s press secretary between April 2020 and January 2021.
“If you look at the polling now, it was Trump 34 in Iowa, it’s now Trump 25,” she continued. “That’s double digits.”
On Wednesday, Brian Kilmeade didn’t hold back from criticizing Trump’s decision to lash out at his former press secretary.
“Three shots at common weaknesses of the president,” Kilmeade said while discussing “some subtle shots at Trump,” he saw the Florida Governor make during a Tuesday stump speech in Iowa.
“They see you make things up. They say he’s he flies off the handle. For example, attacking Kayleigh McEnany is insane. She was one of the best press secretaries ever. Dana Perino, as Ari Fleischer watching to say she was fantastic, but she’s an analyst now. She doesn’t work for any campaign.”
A number of Fox News officials also knocked Trump for his attack on McEnany.
Imagine being so immature as to attack your former press secretary, who was nothing if not loyal, for allegedly misquoting a poll number. pic.twitter.com/7zEiAUnGyx
Kayleigh was one of the only voices defending Trump on CNN when he ran in 16. I often disagreed with her, but she was prepared, relentless & unafraid of being heavily outnumbered. She then served Trump as chief spokesperson when he was president. She also likes DeSantis. Result: pic.twitter.com/ZwToHGOvpm
“This is pathetic. I don’t care who you are. This is unacceptable and unhinged,” reacted Blaze TV host Chad Prather. “[McEnany] took bullets for this man. We have a guy in the White House destroying the country and you go after her?!?!? It’s becoming an absolute joke.”
Looking east towards 6th Avenue along north (48th Street) side of Fox News building on a snowy afternoon. [Photo Credit: Jim.henderson, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons]
A progressive veterans organization is pushing to ban the airing of Fox News on U.S. military bases.
According to The Hill, a new ad by the group VoteVets hones in on recent revelations made as part of a legal fight the network faces over its coverage of the 2020 election.
A narrator for the ad says Fox engaged in “information warfare that divides the troops, hurts unit cohesion, weakens our readiness, and threatens our national security.”
“There’s no excuse for allowing anti-American, anti-democracy anti-military disinformation in the barracks, in the chow hall or anywhere our troops serve,” the ad says.
Watch the ad here below:
Fox News is currently embroiled in a 1.6 billion defamation suit against Dominion Voting Systems. The company has argued Fox intentionally aired false claims about the company regarding the 2020 election.
Fox has so far unsuccessfully moved to have the case dismissed on First Amendment grounds.
Fox released the following statement on the ongoing legal matter:
“Dominion’s lawsuit has always been more about what will generate headlines than what can withstand legal and factual scrutiny, as illustrated by them now being forced to slash their fanciful damages demand by more than half a billion dollars after their own expert debunked its implausible claims,” the network said in its most recent statement about the case.
“Their summary judgment motion took an extreme, unsupported view of defamation law that would prevent journalists from basic reporting and their efforts to publicly smear Fox for covering and commenting on allegations by a sitting President of the United States should be recognized for what it is: a blatant violation of the First Amendment.”
Recent court documents from the ongoing dispute revealed some network executives and prime-time lineup privately doubted former President Donald Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud after losing reelection. However, some of them expressed fear that any fact-checkers might alienate their audience.
American Liberty News previously reported that at one point, Laura Ingraham’s producer messaged network management, saying her “BS” about the election would wind up giving him “a f*cking aneurysm.”
Around the same time, Tucker Carlson wanted Fox News’ prime-time hosts to pressure network execs to fire reporter Jacqui Heinrich for fact-checking Trump.
“Please get her fired,” Carlson messaged Sean Hannity. “Seriously… What the f*ck?”
Jenna Ellis, a former attorney for Donald Trump, has agreed to a three-year suspension of her law license in the state of Colorado due to her felony guilty plea in the Georgia election case.
Ellis is among the nearly 20 co-defendants indicted in Georgia for their alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election in that state.
Ellis pled guilty in October and offered an apology for her actions as part of the deal.
“If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post-election challenges,” she continued according to Mediaite, claiming she “look[ed] back on this whole experience with deep remorse.”
On Tuesday afternoon, a Colorado state bar disciplinary judge approved a settlement between Ellis and Colorado’s Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel to suspend her license for three years, reported local Denver NBC affiliate 9News.
In the court’s opinion, the judge wrote that Ellis’ actions included multiple examples of “significant actual harm,” especially by how she “undermined the American public’s confidence in the presidential election process.”
In a letter submitted to the court as part of the deal to let her avoid disbarment, Ellis wrote that she was “choosing to take responsibility for my actions and my association with the harm caused to the nation by the post-election activities of 2020 on behalf of then-President Donald Trump.”
Since my involvement in the Trump Campaign’s challenges to the election results, I have learned of the bad faith dealing and outright illegality of some actors involved. For example, I did not know at the time of the Campaign’s commissioned investigation into the 2020 election results, or that the President was notified in December 2020 that he had lost. A lot of new information has come out, which I encourage the public to consider.
…The harm of my participation in the Georgia Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing is painfully evident to this day. Millions have been misled by the cynical “Stop the Steal” campaign, and otherwise responsible leaders are still publicly maintaining that these false claims have merit. The lies were repeated, thereby becoming “true” to a large segment of the populace. For democracy to function and thrive, the people have to believe that their votes count and that the electoral system is fair. This is what “election integrity” should mean, rather than what it has become for many: a political statement of “loyalty.” This faith in the integrity of our elections was damaged. That is the harm. While I do not doubt that this mindset would still prevail even if I didn’t play a part in it, I am ashamed and remorseful that I was involved to the extent that I was. Had I known then what I know now, I would not have been involved.
…I will hopefully encourage others who may still believe that the election was “stolen” to consider changing their position. Everything that has come out since has not proven that claim.
Ellis’ suspension will reportedly begin on July 2. She is also required to pay $5,000 to the Georgia secretary of state, roughly $1,700 in fines and costs to the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel, complete 100 hours of community service, and write an apology letter to the residents of Georgia for her actions.
If she wishes to reinstate her Colorado law license in 2027, the court’s order says she must first “prove by clear and convincing evidence that she has been rehabilitated, has complied with all disciplinary orders and rules, and is fit to practice law.”
