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Boebert Says She Won’t Support McCarthy Speaker Bid Without This

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Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert is on the fence about supporting Kevin McCarthy but one condition could push her over the edge.

Boebert, who recently won a razor-thin re-election bid, says that she will only support the California Republican if there is a mechanism to easily remove him from the top post.

According to The Hill, while at a Turning Point USA conference in Phoenix, Boebert said, “We have to have an accountability mechanism on the Speaker of the House.”

“This is third in command for the presidency of the United States of American,” she said in an interview with “Real America’s Voice,” a conservative channel. “And we are going to strip away the one check-and-balance that members of Congress have?”

Some House Republicans have expressed the desire for any lawmaker to call a motion to vacate the Speaker chair to make it easier to remove someone from the leadership post.

Earlier this month, House Freedom Caucus member Rep. Scott Perry along with six other Republicans released a list of conditions for the next Speaker.

The requests in the letter include:

  • Restore any member’s ability to make a “Motion to Vacate the Chair” and force a vote on removing the Speaker. Former Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a founding Freedom Caucus member, helped propel former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) toward retirement by making a motion to vacate the chair in 2015.
  • Require at least 72 hours from release of final bill text before it gets a vote on the House floor.
  • Bar House GOP leadership and leadership-affiliated PACs from getting involved in primaries. The McCarthy-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund was active in many House primaries boosting McCarthy-friendly candidates in the 2022 cycle.
  • Increase the number of Freedom Caucus members in committee chairmanships and on the House Rules Committee.
  • Decline to raise debt ceiling without a plan to cap spending and balance the federal budget in 10 years.
  • Do not “return to the blind embrace of earmarks.” The practice of directing federal spending to a specific recipient or project was brought back in this Congress as “community project funding” after a decadelong ban. The House Republican Conference last month overwhelmingly voted against an internal proposal to ban the practice.
  • Use “must-pass” bills like the annual defense authorization bill and the farm bill as leverage to secure conservative priorities and “check the Biden administration.”
  • Create a “Church Committee”-style panel to target “weaponized government.” While McCarthy and House Republicans have promised extensive investigations into the Biden administration and alleged politicization of federal agencies, some, like Roy, think the plans do not go far enough.

“Negotiations after that are just a wish list,” she said. “There’s no accountability attached to the promises.”

Leftist Protestors Charged After Violent Protest

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Arrest image via Pixabay

Five young leftist protestors were charged with domestic terrorism stemming from a violent protest at the planned site of a police training center.

Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) revealed in a press release that the individuals have been arrested and charged after protesters threw rocks at police cars and attacked EMT workers with rocks and bottles at a fire station near the site.

The string of arrests comes after an attempt to stop the construction of the police training site, which has been dubbed “Cop City,” by camping out in the woods and building entrenchments. 

“Task force members used various tactics to arrest individuals who were occupying makeshift treehouses,” the release said, adding that police found “explosive devices, gasoline and road flares” after clearing out the protest site. 

Francis Carroll, a 22-year-old from Maine, was charged with criminal trespass, domestic terrorism, aggravated assault, felony obstruction, interference with government property and possession of tools for the commission of a crime.

Nicholas Olson, a 25-year-old from Nebraska, was charged with domestic terrorism, aggravated assault, interference with government property and obstruction.

Serena Hertel, a 25-year-old from California, was charged with criminal trespassing, domestic terrorism, aggravated assault, obstruction and inciting a riot. 

Leonardo Vioselle, 20, from Macon, Georgia, was charged with criminal trespass, domestic terrorism, and possession for tools of the crime. 

Arieon Robinson, a 22-year-old from Wisconsin, was charged with criminal trespass, obstruction and domestic terrorism. 

“They were shooting pepper balls, tear gas at people who were peacefully holding the forest space right now,” one of the protesters at the scene told WAGA-TV. “I think it’s truly abhorrent.” 

“The City of Atlanta has leased 381 acres of Weelaunee Forest, stolen Muscogee land, to the Atlanta Police Foundation for a police military facility funded by corporations,” the Stop Cop City organization states on its website. “Cop City will never be built. #StopCopCity #DefendWeelaunee.”

Report: New Fetterman Chief of Staff Co-founded Org to Push Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax

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Senator-elect John Fetterman’s (D-PA) new chief of staff helped launch an initiative to promote the since-debunked Trump-Russian collusion hoax.

According to Fox News, Adam Jentleson co-founded The Moscow Project, an initiative launched by John Podesta’s Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAPAF) and headed by Max Bergmann, a former John Kerry speechwriter. 

The Moscow Project routinely accused the Republican president of colluding with Russia and endorsed the since-debunked Steele Dossier as credible.

On March 23, 2017, Jentleson tweeted that he was “very excited” about The Moscow Project and linked to a since-deleted copy of the infamous Steele dossier that was annotated by the project.

“If you’ve been wondering how much of the Steele dossier is backed up by fact, we annotated it here. (Hint: a lot.),” Jentleson wrote at the time.

The dossier by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele – controversially published in its raw form in 2017 by BuzzFeed News – alleged that Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election over Hillary Clinton and claimed that the Kremlin had blackmail material on the former president, including a tape of prostitutes urinating on him in a Moscow hotel.

The dossier served as the basis for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Trump campaign aide Carter Page, and it was originally commissioned by a research firm hired by Hillary Clinton’s campaign lawyer Marc Elias. The 35-page dossier has since been repeatedly discredited and debunked, including by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s two-year investigation, which found no evidence of collusion.

“The Moscow Project helpfully annotated it for you,” Jentleson wrote of the dossier in April 2017. “Steele is former MI6 head of Russia desk.”

Republican Senator Announces Bid for Indiana Governor

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On Monday, Mike Braun officially kicked off his campaign to become Indiana’s next governor.

According to The Hill, the first-term Indiana senator made his decision official during a luncheon at an Indianapolis steakhouse on Monday.

Braun’s announcement came just hours after another Indiana Republican, Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, jumped into the gubernatorial race. Eric Doden, a former appointee of former Gov. Mike Pence, has been in the contest since May. 

Holcomb cannot seek reelection because of term limits.

Last month, Braun officially filed the paperwork for his gubernatorial run.

Braun’s announcement is likely to trigger a competitive Republican primary for his Senate seat. Among those eyeing a run for Braun’s seat is Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.). Banks’s office told The Hill late last month that the Indiana congressman is “very seriously considering running for the U.S. Senate.”

“Indiana deserves a proven conservative to continue Senator Braun’s work in the United States Senate,” Banks said in a statement. “I am strongly considering running for the open Indiana Senate seat in 2024, and I will spend the upcoming holidays praying and talking with my wife, family and close friends about how I can best serve Indiana.”

Trump Special Master Request Rescinded: Report

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Marine One lifts-off after returning President Donald J. Trump to Mar-a-Lago Friday, March 29, 2019, following his visit to the 143-mile Herbert Hoover Dike near Canal Point, Fla., that surrounds Lake Okeechobee. The visit was part of an infrastructure inspection of the dike, which is part of the Kissimmee-Okeechobee Everglades system, and reduces impacts of flooding for areas of south Florida. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian) [Photo Credit: The White House from Washington, DC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]

The federal judge in Florida who initially granted former President Donald Trump’s special master request has dismissed his lawsuit, marking a sudden end to the monthslong chronicle since the FBI’s search of Trump’s residence.

Following the FBI’s unprecedented search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, the former president requested a third party to oversee the Justice Department’s investigation into the documents seized from the Florida estate.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, an appointee of the former president, affirmed an appeals court’s decision that she lacked jurisdiction to appoint a special master to oversee documents taken from his estate and lifted an injunction that blocked investigators from using them in a criminal investigation in the meantime.

By dismissing the lawsuit, titled Trump v. United States, all scheduled hearings over the dispute in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida are canceled, and all pending motions are “denied as moot,” according to a court order.

The Washington Examiner reports:

Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled that Cannon never had the jurisdiction to assign U.S. District Senior Judge Raymond Dearie, a semiretired jurist based in Brooklyn, to serve the role of the special master.

“We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant,” Judge William Pryor, an appointee of George W. Bush, wrote for a unanimous panel ruling. “Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so. Either approach would be a radical reordering of our caselaw limiting the federal courts’ involvement in criminal investigations. And both would violate bedrock separation-of-powers limitations.”

Dearie had expected to complete his review by Friday. The 11th Circuit’s decision came less than two weeks after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed special counsel Jack Smith to oversee the investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the unauthorized transfer of about 100 classified documents to Mar-a-Lago after he left the Oval Office.

This story is developing. Check back with Great America News Desk for the latest updates.

Michelle Obama Among Those who Pressured Twitter to Ban Trump: Report

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FLOTUS at Fayetteville, N.C. -The Arts Center speech Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian

The latest installment of the bombshell “Twitter files” reveals more details on how the platform planned and executed its infamous ban on the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump.

The latest file released by free speech advocate and Twitter CEO Elon Musk shows that high-profile Democrats like former first lady Michelle Obama pressured platform executives to ban the president from the social media platform.

“Now is the time for Silicon Valley companies to stop enabling this monstrous behavior—and go even further than they have already by permanently banning this man from their platforms and putting in place policies to prevent their technologies from being used by the nation’s leaders to fuel insurrection,” Obama wrote in a lengthy statement posted to Twitter on Jan. 7.

Journalist Michael Shellenberger released the fourth batch of documents that show internal communications by the company’s executives between Jan. 6-8, 2021, including and shortly after the riot at the Capitol Building, according to Fox News.

The files also showed Twitter maintained a policy — called “Public-interest exceptions” — where elected officials were not banned as there was a great public interest in their comments, even if they seemed to violate other policies.

While Trump’s temporary suspension was lifted, this second policy was specifically and intentionally ignored in Trump’s case, Shellenberger reported. Dorsey was also on vacation at the time of Trump’s ban.

“Dorsey was on vacation in French Polynesia the week of January 4-8, 2021,” Shellenberger reported. The chief executive delegated much of the responsibility to senior executives, including former Twitter Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth and former Head of Legal, Policy, & Trust Vijaya Gadde, who Shellenberger points out were “overwhelmingly progressive.”

“Twitter employees recognize the difference between their own politics & Twitter’s Terms of Service (TOS), but they also engage in complex interpretations of content in order to stamp out prohibited tweets,” Shellenberger also pointed out.

Trump Responds to Brittney Griner’s Release

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Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

Former President Donald Trump reacted to news the U.S. has agreed to release Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, commonly known as “the merchant of death.”

In a message published to TRUTh Social, Trump called the prisoner swap terms “unpatriotic,” noting U.S. Marine Paul Whelan still remains wrongfully detained.

“What kind of a deal is it to swap Brittney Griner, a basketball player who openly hates our Country, for the man known as “The Merchant of Death,” who is one of the biggest arms dealers anywhere in the World, and responsible for tens of thousands of deaths and horrific injuries. Why wasn’t former Marine Paul Whelan included in this totally one-sided transaction? He would have been let out for the asking. What a “stupid” and unpatriotic embarrassment for the USA!!!!” Trump wrote.

Mark Levin Goes Nuclear Over Andy Biggs Speakership Challenge

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Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Conservative radio host Mark Levin didn’t hold anything back when he hosted Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs on his show this week.

Shortly after Rep. Biggs announced in an op-ed his plan to challenge House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy for the Speakership in January Levin accused him of being a fraud.

“A phony, a fake, and a fraud, in my humble opinion!” Levin said of Biggs.

The conservative pundit didn’t shy away from insulting the House Freedom Caucus chair while introducing him to the audience.

“He appears on cable from time to time with that goofball look. He’s barely able to complete sentences,” Levin said.

Levin noted that while he considers himself a “strong critic” of McCarthy, slammed Biggs as a minor lawmaker attempting to “create drama” to win himself attention. 

“I don’t know if McCarthy will turn out to be the greatest Speaker in American history or the worst Speaker in history. That can dealt with after the fact, but right now Biggs is deceiving his constituents, deceiving the American people that he has some plan to go forward,” Levin continued.

“We’re losing our country. It’s unraveling, and Andy Biggs is not the answer and he doesn’t have any answers. He’s a moron. He’s an imbecile,” he said.

Levin later topped all his Biggs insults by throwing out the whopper: “He’s a bleeding hemorrhoid on the body politic!”

The barbs didn’t end after the radio program though, the two conservatives clashed in a Twitter spat too, with both competing to see who could brand the other a bigger a “fraud.”

What do you think of Biggs’ latest challenge? Tell us in the comments below!

Arizona Republican Reveals New Plan to Become House Speaker

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Ted Eytan from Washington, DC, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

House Freedom Caucus chairman Rep. Andy Biggs (Ariz.) announced on Tuesday that he plans to challenge Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for the Speakership on the House floor in January.

“We cannot let this all too rare opportunity to effectuate structural change pass us by because it is uncomfortable to challenge the Republican candidate who is a creature of the establishment status quo, or because the challenge is accompanied by some minimal risk,” Biggs wrote in an op-ed for The Daily Caller. 

The Arizona Congressman previously mounted a challenge to McCarthy last month but Biggs was defeated by a margin of 188 to 31.

This story is breaking. Stay with Great America News Desk for the latest updates.

Former Trump Campaign Legal Adviser Announces Bid for RNC Chair

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On Monday night, Harmeet Dhillon officially announced her plan to challenge Ronna McDaniel to lead the Republican National Committee. (RNC)

Dhillon, who previously worked as a legal adviser to Trump’s campaign in 2020, made the announcement during an evening appearance with Fox News’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

“Republicans are tired of losing and I think that that we really need to radically reshape our leadership in order to win,” Dhillon told Carlson. “We can’t keep running elections like we did in the 90’s and the 2000s and we really have to modernize to compete with the Democrats dollar for dollar in the ways they fundraise, the way they deliver their ballots to the ballot boxes.”

She also added the need to revamp messaging to be “fresh and positive and not just reactive to news cycles and what the Democrats are doing.”

Dhillon is already an RNC committee member.

McDaniel has served as RNC chairwoman since 2017, however, Republicans’ recent failures in the midterm elections have triggered a cascade of infighting within the party.

Dhillon is entering into a growing field of challengers seeking to outs McDaniel. Outgoing New York Congressman Lee Zeldin has strongly hinted at pursuing the role. Pro-Trump businessman, Mike Lindell is also challenging McDaniel for the position.

On Monday, Lindell said that if elected as RNC chairman he would not collect a paycheck, instead, he would choose to reinvest the funds into the organization.

“I would not take a paycheck from the RNC, I’d put all the money back into it. If I’m running it, the money that goes to it will actually go to doing good,” Lindell said. “I believe I can run the RNC and fix their problems, and it’s not going to take years and years.”