In our latest edition, we have interviews with Sen. Deb Fischer and Kari Lake, confidential documents about the Biden-Harris administration’s failed Afghanistan withdrawal, an op-ed from Rep. Tom Emmer on crypto, and much more!
By: Matthew Foldi
“Go big red” is University of Nebraska’s slogan, and the de facto motto of the Nebraska Republicans, who face uncharacteristically competitive Congressional elections.
Sen. Deb Fischer (R., Neb.) is running against an self-described independent opponent in Dan Osborn, who receives heavy financial backing from Democrat donors, and whose Senate campaign was launched by socialist activists.
“It’s vital that Nebraskans know who this guy is, and that he’s not who he pretends to be,” Fischer said in an interview with the Washington Reporter. “He’s not an independent. He is a Democrat on all of his positions…What we hear from him is that he’s going to be with Bernie Sanders, he has those leanings, whether it’s on abortion or immigration.”
Osborn has not yet said who he will back for president or if he supports American allies abroad, but Fischer is eager to fill in the gaps for him.
Click HERE to read more from Sen. Deb Fischer about why she’s the candidate Nebraskans should send to the Senate next month.
What are the stakes of this election next month? What does it mean for Nebraska if Democrats win the Senate majority?
Matthew Foldi
Editor in Chief of the Washington Reporter
Every election cycle, you hear that it’s the most important election in your lifetime, that it has huge consequences, but this one does, and I hear it from Nebraskans all the time, who are worried what’s going to happen on the national level, obviously, if we see a continuation there of the Biden-Harris administration, and they’re worried about here at home in Nebraska too. They’re they’re worried about higher prices, they’re worried about inflation. They just don’t know what their future is going to hold.
Sen. Deb Fischer
(R., NE)
By: Matthew Foldi
In one of the most closely-watched Senate races in America, Republican Kari Lake is running against Rep. Ruben Gallego (D., Ariz.), whom she referred to as “Nancy Pelosi with a beard” in an interview with the Washington Reporter.
Gallego, Lake said, is on the wrong side of virtually every issue facing Arizonans. The top issues she hears from voters are “border, border, border,” she said. “You might say, ‘well, what about the economy?’ Well, the border is affecting our economy as well. What about crime? Well, the border is affecting crime. If we secure the border, we stop the invasion at the border, and we take the people who’ve poured in to our country in the past three and a half, four years, and we send them back to their homeland, repatriate them back, we’re going to see our economy boom…We can actually start doing better things for our own citizens.”
Lake’s opponent has a muddled record on the issue of border security. “He called the border wall dumb and stupid, and he said he would never, ever, ever build it,” she said. “Now, with his rebrand, he’s trying to say, ‘well, maybe we need it.’ People aren’t falling for it. He has rubber-stamped every terrible policy…One of the crazier things that they’re pushing for is making taxpayers pay for sex changes for illegal immigrants who are behind bars. This is insane.”
Click HERE to read more from our interview with Kari Lake about why Arizonans should vote for her, not for “Nancy Pelosi with a beard,” for Senate.
What we’re hearing from people we trust on and around the Hill – please send us more tips!
By: Matthew Foldi
The security and vetting failures that allowed an Afghan man to allegedly plot an Election Day suicide attack are under scrutiny, according to a leaked confidential document, obtained by the Washington Reporter.
“U.S. officials processing Afghans with ID cards stated they lacked any training to identify fraudulent Afghan documents,” the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs (HSGAC) Republican staff said in a previously unreported October 2021 memo. “Federal officials identified minimum requirements for an Afghan evacuee to enter or travel to the United States, even with no identification.”
Following Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, HSGAC staff interviewed “staffers with federal agency officials tasked with screening, vetting, or processing Afghan evacuees” in America, Spain, and Germany, the memo noted.
Read the document HERE.
“It appears the standard security screening and vetting process that the U.S. Government conducts for refugee or visa applicants, which includes validating identification documents and an in-person interview by a trained official, is not being followed for the Afghan evacuees,” the memo said. “In fact, federal officials relayed information about the process to Committee staff that raised a number of questions about the adequacy of the screening and vetting being conducted.”
Click HERE to read more about the Biden-Harris administration’s failures to prepare for the aftermath of America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
By: Matthew Foldi
Iowa Democrat Christina Bohannan is facing attacks from voters in her own party, who are frustrated with what they call her “silence” over Israel’s war against Palestinian terrorists.
A voter held up a sign reading “if no Israeli arms embargo, no vote” at a recent meet-and-greet hosted by Bohannan. Enough anti-Israel demonstrators showed up that Bohannan, who was supposed to mingle with the audience after her remarks, left immediately, according to the Daily Iowan. The outlet noted that the protesters gathered “to speak out against Democratic Congressional candidate Christina Bohannan’s silence on the Israel-Hamas war.”
“I am having an internal moral quandary over whether I can vote for anyone who supports what is being done to Palestinians,” one attendee said.
Despite the barbarism of Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israeli civilians, and the continued illegal hostage-holding by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza, Bohannan is adamant that there is no “consensus” in Iowa’s 1st District on the issue.
Click HERE to read more about how a Democratic candidate’s silence on Israel is costing her votes from the far left.
By: Matthew Foldi
The Biden-Harris administration’s environmental policies are “killing species, hurting the economy, and proving counterproductive to the green energy revolution and carbon emissions reductions that the environmental Left claim they want,” a new report from Power the Future says.
The “Green Fail” report was first obtained by the Washington Reporter, and Power the Future warns about the “fistful of [your] dollars” that is wasted on “bad” and “ugly” programs.
One of the core issues the “Green Fail” report cites is the amount of spending from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that has gone to liberal activist groups — an issue lawmakers such as Rep. Brett Guthrie (R., Ky.) have discussed before.
“Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Ranking Member Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) is doing the Lord’s and taxpayers’ work by exposing how millions of dollars in Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grants provided by the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are flowing to organizations that are overtly anti-American and anti-Semitic,” the report says.
Click HERE to read more from Power the Future’s latest report about how the Inflation Reduction Act has been funneling money to left-wing climate groups.
By: Matthew Foldi
Even though polls and prognosticators show that Rep. Nick LaLota (R., N.Y.) leads New York Democrat John Avlon, Avlon is still set on “swindling donors,” Republican strategists told the Washington Reporter.
“He’s got no shot in this race, and he’s basically lighting donors’ money on fire,” a top GOP strategist said of Avlon The Democrat certainly has raised more than $2 million between various pro-Avlon efforts.
Despite Avlon’s lead in the money race, polling shows LaLota leading Avlon by at least 8 percent, well outside the margin of error. Avlon’s multi-million dollar war chest and high-level media profile have kept the race competitive.
Click HERE to read more about how Democrat John Avlon’s fundraising advantage and media presence isn’t translating to success on the campaign trail against Rep. Nick LaLota.
By: Rep. Tom Emmer
Less than a month before Election Day, Kamala Harris is sweating bullets. And nothing proves it more than her pathetic, last-ditch effort to pay lip service to the digital asset industry. Look no further than her ignorant attempt to turn crypto into a race-based issue, or her inability to provide details on specific digital asset policy positions.
Week after week, Harris continues to demonstrate how little she knows about this sector of our economy, and why she is wholly unfit to lead our country in the financial space race. Technology is neutral. Digital assets are for all Americans, but the more we learn about Kamala Harris, the more we realize that she misses that fundamental point.
Harris recently rolled out her “opportunity agenda for Black men” which included a provision to “protect cryptocurrency investments so Black men who make them know their money is safe.” Not only is this point disturbingly racist and vague, but it also shows that she in no way understands the digital asset space. The beautiful thing about cryptocurrency is that it’s neutral. It’s not about race or gender. It’s about providing equal opportunity for all.
For years, Congress has worked in a bipartisan manner to unlock that opportunity for all Americans, while the Harris-Biden administration has been working overtime against us. Identity politics kneecaps progress when we’re building a peer-to-peer digital economy, and it’s clear the only presidential candidate who understands that fact is Donald Trump.
Click HERE to read more from Rep. Tom Emmer about how Donald Trump and congressional Republicans will “make America the crypto capital of the world.”
By: Dan Eberhart
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is challenging oil and gas mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in unprecedented ways, a dangerous political move that threatens the competitiveness of the U.S. energy industry.
For the second time this year, the FTC has put an oil and gas CEO in its crosshairs, this time barring John Hess, the CEO of Hess Corp., from joining the board of Chevron, the U.S. major oil company that agreed to acquire Hess Corp. for $53 billion last October as a condition for its approval of the deal.
The FTC alleges that John Hess held private talks in the past with officials from OPEC, the Middle East cartel that manages its members’ production policies to support oil prices and keep supply and demand in balance.
The Biden administration’s FTC did the same thing with Scott Sheffield, the CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources, as a condition for approval of Pioneer’s sale to Exxon Mobil earlier this year.
FTC Chair Lina Khan has suggested that Hess and Sheffield’s informal discussions with OPEC officials — mainly on the sidelines of industry conferences in recent years — risked advancing the cartel’s priority of inflating oil prices to the detriment of U.S. consumers.
Click HERE to read more from Dan Eberhart about the FTC’s witch hunt targeting the oil industry.
By: Zach Lilly
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D., N.Y.) took a brief respite from cosplaying as a “regular old Democrat” and returned to the more familiar role of toxic firebrand earlier this week. You see, Lina Khan, the scandal-mired Chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), had just fielded criticism from capitalist, and exceptionally effective Kamala Harris surrogate, Mark Cuban.
Cuban argued that Khan should be replaced as FTC chair in a theoretical Harris administration, in part due to her obsession over breaking up American companies to the great benefit of European and Chinese competitors. These comments inspired AOC to threaten her “fellow” Democrats with a “brawl.” Vermont Socialist, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), also joined in Khan’s defense. The dual monarchy of the Progressive Left has spoken: shut up and get in line.
It’s a disturbing sentiment, but if Khan is so good at her job, one wonders why her allies routinely feel the need to pounce when she isn’t handled with kid gloves. Perhaps it is that they see in her a kindred spirit. After all, what Khan, AOC, and Sanders all have in common is a remarkable ineffectiveness at their actual jobs — serving more as political celebrities than effective policymakers. The governing equivalent of Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian in 2004 — exceptionally famous for…something.
Click HERE to read more from NetChoice’s Zach Lilly about the risks of having the FTC regulate online speech.
By: Senior Senate Judiciary counsel
A constant refrain of the Harris-Walz campaign has been to criticize President Donald Trump for derailing the border legislation negotiated by Sens. James Lankford (R., Okla.), Kyrsten Sinema (I., Ariz.), and others late in 2023 and early in 2024. It seems like Vice President Kamala Harris’s only response when asked about her failures on the border and the unprecedented rate of extreme illegal migration on her watch is to point to the Lankford-Sinema bill and to accuse President Donald Trump of undermining a bipartisan effort to solve the problem.
But a lie repeated a thousand times is still a lie. Vice President Harris’s accusation against President Trump is both false and insulting, and as a senior Senate staffer on the Republican side, I would like to set the record straight.
Click HERE to read more about Kamala Harris’s “stolen valor” on immigration policy.
