September 30, 2024
In this edition
A strong national defense is essential to protecting our American way of life.
Veterans On Duty continues the fight back at home, advocating for military and national security policies that will keep America safe, strong, and free. |
In our latest edition, we have an interview with Rep. Brett Guthrie about why he wants to chair the Energy and Commerce Committee, op-eds from Sen. Ron Johnson and Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, a story on how a liberal billionaire is lobbying to weaken American intellectual property, and more.
| [1] | Interview: Rep. Brett Guthrie’s case to chair Energy and Commerce
By: Matthew Foldi
Rep. John Dingell (D., Mich.), the former longtime chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, explained his committee’s jurisdiction by pointing to a map of the earth: “If it moves, its energy, and if it doesn’t, its commerce,” he said.
Congressman Brett Guthrie (R., Ky.), who is running to chair the Energy and Commerce Committee, has a similarly broad vision for the committee, which has recently acted on wide-ranging legislative topics such as the divestment from Chinese Communist Party-owned TikTok and divisive child data privacy bills. “What happens in the House of Representatives affects people in their houses,” the Kentuckian told the Washington Reporter in an extensive interview.
Several of his priorities build off of his work from this Congress, like advancing permitting reform, and becoming energy independent, which he says affects Americans across the nation: “whether it goes across the country on a truck or arrives the last mile on a truck, every product someone buys makes it somewhere on diesel fuel, and that just continues to add to the expense,” he said.
Click HERE to read more from Rep. Brett Guthrie about why he is running to chair the Energy and Commerce Committee, his thoughts on the futures of KOSA and COPPA, and what he wants to accomplish as chair.
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[2] |
Heard on the Hill
What we're hearing from people we trust on and around the Hill – please send us more tips!
- “MAGA fans in the deep state”?: Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released data on Friday showing a massive number of illegal aliens with violent crime convictions had been released into the U.S. during the Biden administration. What was especially noteworthy was that this data was released at all — especially the same day of Kamala Harris’s border visit. A Senator told us, “there must be some MAGA fans in the deep state.”
- John Thune’s recess travel: Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.), a top contender to lead Senate Republicans, is joining a Kari Lake fundraiser in New York City as a special guest tomorrow morning, per an invitation obtained by the Washington Reporter. A source familiar with Thune’s travel added that he is also doing events for Senate candidates Bernie Moreno, Sam Brown, Dave McCormick, and Mike Rogers while he’s in the Big Apple. Read the Reporter’s interview with Sen. Thune here.
- John Cornyn’s recess travel: Fresh off of announcing that he’s raised almost half a billion dollars — “$406,874,101 to be exact,” he told donors — Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas), a top candidate to lead the Senate GOP next year, plans to “visit multiple battleground states across the country to campaign with candidates over the October recess and raise valuable hard dollars as he’s done for the last two decades,” a source familiar with his political operations told the Reporter. Read the Reporter’s interview with Sen. Cornyn here.
- Rescuing the Republic: A Senator, a Christian rock band, several former presidential candidates, a Hollywood icon, and some of the internet’s most-banned individuals descended on the National Mall. What sounds like the beginning of a joke was actually a joint concert and rally, where Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) rocked and rallied with Skillet, Rob Schneider, Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and a motley crew of mostly to “RESCUE THE REPUBLIC!” An attendee told the Reporter about the “heavily tatted hippies and libertarians who loved Johnson and treated him like a celebrity.” We have back stage photos and videos HERE.
| | | [3] | Exclusive: “Republicans for [Jon] Tester” is stacked with Democrats
By: Matthew Foldi
Sen. Jon Tester (D., Mont.)’s campaign is relying on an odd strategy in the days leading up to the 2024 election.
Tester recently rolled out a “Republicans for Tester” coalition, which includes several prominent Republicans, such as former Gov. Marc Racicot (R., Mont) — who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 — but several of the other members, including ones relied on for campaign ads, sound, vote, and donate, like partisan Democrats.
One of the Montanans in Tester’s recent “Republicans for Tester” ad, Bob Beckley, has donated dozens of times to national and Montana Democrats, campaign finance records reveal. Another is state Sen. Terry Vermiere, a Republican legislator — albeit one whose voting record in the legislature shows that 72 percent of his votes were “cast on side taken by most Democrats”; the average for Republicans is 57 percent.
Click HERE to read more about the last-minute moves by Sen. Jon Tester to gaslight Montanans into voting for him.
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[4] |
Scoop: Ted Cruz on Kamala Harris’s border visit: “Democrats are pretending they support border security”
By: Matthew Foldi
Vice President Kamala Harris’s first trip to the southern border in over three years isn’t helping her campaign, her critics told the Washington Reporter.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), who represents over 1,000 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, told the Washington Reporter that border problems will plague Democrats up and down the ticket in November, including his opponent, Rep. Colin Allred (D., Texas).
“The Biden-Harris administration inherited policies that had resulted in the lowest level of illegal immigration in 45 years,” Cruz said. “They rolled back those policies from the very beginning, with the support of the radical Democrats like my opponent Colin Allred, who said the border wall is racist. Now, 40 days before an election, Harris, Allred, and other Democrats are pretending they support border security.”
Click HERE to read more about how Kamala Harris’s “photo op” of a border visit isn’t going to pay off in November.
| | | [5] | Scoop: Concern grows from Republicans about Arnold Ventures’s push to weaken intellectual property
By: Matthew Foldi
John Arnold’s recent appointment to Meta’s board is raising eyebrows on Capitol Hill, as Republicans describe billionaire Arnold as “an energy trading savant,” who “started out as a skeptic of big government, but now shells out tens of millions to keep it large and in charge,” a senior Republican staffer told the Washington Reporter.
While lawmakers like Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.) said that Arnold’s addition to the board “should make every patriotic American nervous about Big Tech interfering in the 2024 presidential election, just like they did last cycle,” Arnold’s work to undermine American intellectual property has been increasingly noted in Congress.
A former senior House Judiciary Committee staffer told the Reporter that “Arnold is more of a sneaky character, because he occasionally throws money to Republicans. But it is all a front, he has pushed left-wing causes on criminal justice, intellectual property, and censorship. Conservatives are catching on to his tactics.” Arnold Ventures partnered with Facebook, bankrolling liberal groups that focus on “disinformation.”
Click HERE to read more about Arnold Ventures’s recent work to undermine American intellectual property, and how it’s fallen on deaf ears with House Republicans.
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A strong national defense is essential to protecting our American way of life.
Veterans On Duty continues the fight back at home, advocating for military and national security policies that will keep America safe, strong, and free. |
| [6] | Op-ed: Sen. Ron Johnson: Make America Healthy Again
By: Sen. Ron Johnson
On January 24, 2022, I held a public event in the historic Senate Kennedy Caucus room titled, Covid-19: A Second Opinion. It was held two years into the Coronavirus pandemic — a pandemic that was used to frighten and control the public on a global scale. The result was a stunning loss of life and freedom for individuals, trillions of dollars of economic devastation, but billions of dollars of profit, and the accumulation of enormous power by those in control.
Fortunately, what happened during the pandemic opened the eyes of untold numbers of people around the world to the corruption and capture of government agencies, the media, medical journals, and the medical establishment by large corporate interests. Now that our eyes have been opened to that reality, it is impossible to ignore that the same dynamic has occurred throughout governments and industries worldwide.
On Monday, September 23rd, I held another event in the same historic room titled: American Health and Nutrition, A Second Opinion. The purpose of that event was to ask questions we haven’t been allowed to ask, and to provide a foundational and historical understanding of the changes that have occurred over the last century within public sanitation, agricultural, food processing, and health care industries that impact our current state of national health.
Click HERE to read more of Sen. Ron Johnson’s prescription for Making America Healthy Again.
| | | | [7] | Op-ed: Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks: We must enhance mental health care access for veterans
By: Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks
As we close out September, and Suicide Prevention Month, I wanted to highlight the No Wrong Door for Veterans Act, which I introduced with fellow veterans Reps. Jen Kiggans (R., Va.) and Jack Bergman (R., Mich.).
Our bill reauthorizes the Fox Grant Program for three years to provide community-based mental health organizations grant funding to increase access to mental health care, support, and suicide prevention services for veterans in the communities where they live.
The Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program (Fox Grant Program) was authorized by the passage of the Commander John Scott Hannon Veterans Mental Health Care Improvement Act of 2019. The Fox Grant Program aims to provide community-based mental health organizations grant funding to increase access to mental health care, support, and suicide prevention services for veterans in the communities where they live.
Click HERE to read more from Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks about her legislation to provide mental health care services to our veterans.
| | | | [8] | Op-ed: Alison Esposito: New Yorkers deserve better leaders than Eric Adams
By: Alison Esposito
For over twenty-five years, I proudly put on my uniform every day to protect and serve the great people of New York. Rising to the rank of Deputy Inspector and Commanding Officer of the 70th Police Precinct, I dedicated my life to keeping our city safe. Like my father before me, I joined the force to help those who could not help themselves, and I spent my career doing exactly that.
I was a member of the Anti-Crime team, a plain clothes unit that worked to target violent street crime. After taking down some of the worst criminals, I joined the NYPD’s Emergency Services Unit (S.W.A.T. Rescue Team) and served in various other roles, including as the Commander of Detective Squads, in the NYPD’s Gang Unit, and as the Commander of a Forensics Unit.
Ultimately, my career culminated as a Precinct Commander. I know first hand how important it is to create a culture of law and order but even more so, a culture that instills trust in their police, and that goes for our elected officials as well.
Click HERE to read more from Alison Esposito about why New Yorkers need better leadership, from City Hall to Washington, D.C.
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[9] |
Op-ed: Veterans on Duty: Suicide prevention awareness doesn’t end in September
By: Veterans on Duty
Whether it be directly or indirectly, every veteran knows a brother or sister in arms who has taken their own life, been impacted by suicide, or who has struggled themselves with the toll serving in the armed services takes on mental health. It’s shockingly simple — as veterans, our tour of duty does not end when we take off the uniform; the weight of battle lingers with us — and for some, sadly, that weight becomes too much to bear.
According to the Department of Veterans Affairs’s (VA) annual suicide prevention report from 2023, nearly 17 veterans die by suicide each and every day in America. In 2022, that number was 492 Active, Reserve, and National Guard servicemembers who took their own life.
As veterans of the Global War on Terror, we are particularly alarmed by the research conducted by Brown University in 2021 that found that at least four times as many active duty personnel and veterans of post-9/11 conflicts have died of suicide than in combat. This is staggering, unacceptable, and yet, completely preventable.
Click HERE to read more from the leadership of Veterans on Duty about the year-round importance of mental health care for our veterans. | | | | [10] | Op-ed: Jim Byron: Nixon now — more than ever
By: Jim Byron
Just over 30 years ago, when the Soviet Union collapsed and many in the West celebrated the so-called “end of history,” one American strategist was not jubilant. Richard Nixon, a stalwart practitioner of realpolitik, saw the situation quite differently. His warnings to America’s leaders then bear even more relevance now, as the world he envisioned becomes a harsh reality. Such challenges require the development of a new American grand strategy for the 21st century.
The Richard Nixon Foundation launched the Grand Strategy Summit in 2022, a platform for senior officials in and out of government, business leaders, and media influencers to discuss and debate American foreign policy, develop actionable objectives, and coalesce ideas into a comprehensive grand strategy for the 21st century.
This year’s summit was held on September 25 at the Ritz Carlton in Washington, DC. Across four sessions and two one-on-one interviews, participants discussed strengthening America’s alliances, AI and energy policies, and the state of great power competition in the world.
Click HERE to read more from the Richard Nixon Foundation’s president, Jim Byron, about how America could benefit from Nixonian foreign policy today.
| | | | [11] | Op-ed: Daniel Turner: Capitalism and fossil fuels remain essential, even if the United Nations disagrees
By: Daniel Turner
Imagine my surprise during an otherwise pleasant day when a youth envoy to the United Nations’s “Climate Week” started calling me names on Twitter.
In fairness to this youth envoy, I started it. I reposted her remarks on climate, albeit with no commentary. For all she knows, I agreed. But, alas, I was not given such leniency, as is the case with the left.
Here’s how it started: this U.N. climate envoy, who immigrated to America, now lives in my home city of New York, which hosted the United Nations’s “Climate Week.” This gathering is the latest in a long list of glamorous, multi-thousand attendee conferences held around the globe.
I wrote about this, mockingly of course, at the beginning of the year. Climate activists are extremely well-traveled. Heck, next month the “World Conference on Climate Change and Sustainability” will be held in Barcelona, followed by the “Global Summit on Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability” in Rome just days later. Both cities require a lot of carbon emissions to arrive at.
Click HERE to read more from Power the Future’s Daniel Turner about how capitalism and fossil fuels continue to play an essential role in our future, even if the United Nations may wish otherwise.
| | | | | | | [12] | What we're reading
Washington Free Beacon: Kamala Makes a Run for the Border — And Away From Her Past, by Andrew Stiles and Thaleigha Rampersad.
New York Post: Jake Sullivan boasted exactly a year ago about how quiet the Middle East was — as it now sits on cusp of all-out war, by Ryan King.
Washington Examiner: House committee requests IRS revoke tax-exempt status of terrorism-linked groups, by Gabe Kaminsky.
National Review: Covid Panel Releases Evidence of Witness Tampering, Obstruction by Andrew Cuomo, by James Lynch.
Wall Street Journal: China’s Newest Nuclear Submarine Sank, Setting Back Its Military Modernization, by Michael Gordon.
Washington Free Beacon: Travel, Golf, Campaign Donations: How a Chinese EV Subsidiary Tried To Woo Local Michigan Officials, by Thomas Catenacci.
The Spectator: Israel’s campaign to kill Nasrallah, Hezbollah and Hamas, Charles Lipson.
Washington Examiner: Alex Soros’s White House access under Biden hits two dozen visits, by Gabe Kaminsky.
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