AOC launches bid for top Dem on key House committee



Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York formally announced her bid to lead her party on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee in the 119th Congress on Friday.

Ocasio-Cortez is now set to run against Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia to replace the committee's current ranking member, Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland. Raskin is stepping down from the role and is instead vying for the top spot on the House Judiciary Committee in the upcoming Congress, replacing Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York.

"This is not a position I seek lightly," Ocasio-Cortez said in a letter to her colleagues. "The responsibility of leading Democrats on the House Oversight Committee during Donald Trump's second term in the White House is a profound and consequential one."

'I know firsthand how the Majority uses their chaos to confuse, disorient, and distract the public's attention away from their disastrous agenda.'

"Now, more than ever, we must focus on the Committee's strong history of both holding administrations accountable and taking on the economic precarity and inequality that is challenging the American way of life," Ocasio-Cortez continued.

Ocasio-Cortez made it clear that much of her work on the committee would be dedicated to curbing the agenda of the incoming Trump administration.

"In the 119th Congress, Oversight Committee Democrats will face an important task: we must balance our focus on the incoming president's corrosive actions and corruption with a tangible fight to make life easier for America's working class," Ocasio-Cortez said in the letter.

"I know firsthand how the Majority uses their chaos to confuse, disorient, and distract the public's attention away from their disastrous agenda," Ocasio-Cortez continued. "We cannot and will not allow that to happen. I will lead by example by always keeping the lives of everyday Americans at the center of our work."

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Thune works to smooth out rocky relationship with Trump



Newly elected Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune has made efforts to override his past comments criticizing President-elect Donald Trump, vowing to work alongside him.

Thune defeated Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida on Wednesday in the race to replace retiring Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Although Thune has emphatically promised to work alongside Trump in his newfound role, he has not always been so enthusiastic.

Despite this, Thune insisted that there was 'no daylight' between him and Trump just hours before he narrowly won his leadership position.

Thune had called for Trump to drop out of the 2016 race following the release of the Billy Bush tape, saying, "Mike Pence should be our nominee effective immediately.

Thune was also asked in a 2022 interview whether he would support Trump as the Republican nominee in 2024.

"I hope we have other options," Thune responded. "And I think we will have other options."

However, the jabs have gone both ways. The two also butted heads when Thune refused to block the certification of the 2020 election, prompting Trump to call him a "RINO" and "Mitch's boy," referencing his relationship with McConnell.

Even going into the congressional GOP leadership elections, Thune repeatedly urged Trump to stay out of the issue of the leadership election. Despite this, Thune insisted that there was "no daylight" between him and Trump just hours before he narrowly won his leadership position.

"The American people have loudly rejected the failed policies of the Biden-Harris-Schumer agenda," Thune said in a press conference following his leadership victory. "This Republican team is united. We are on one team. We are excited to reclaim the majority and get to work with our colleagues in the House to enact President Trump's agenda."

"We have a mandate from the American people," Thune continued. "A mandate not only to clean up the mess left by the Biden-Harris-Schumer agenda, but also to deliver on President Trump's priorities."

Along with implementing Trump's agenda, Thune had previously agreed to the president-elect's demand to allow recess appointments.

"We must act quickly and decisively to get the president’s nominees in place as soon as possible, & all options are on the table to make that happen, including recess appointments," Thune said in an X post from Sunday. "We cannot let Schumer and Senate Dems block the will of the American people."

Since then, Trump has made some bombshell Cabinet nominations. Most notably, Trump nominated Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) for attorney general, which sparked an onslaught of online hysteria, as well as hesitation from some Republican lawmakers.

Thune's office did not directly comment on whether the senator would work with Trump to ensure Gaetz's confirmation. Rather, Blaze News was redirected to Thune's earlier press conference in which he vowed to "enact President Trump's agenda."

In a confirmation battle after the incoming Senate class takes office on January 2, Gaetz can afford to lose only three Republican votes.

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The elites WANT you poor. Here's why



Democrat elites say they’re the biggest supporters of the poor, but in reality, they’re anything but.

“I’m looking at what the Western world, the elites, are doing to their own countries and our own civilization,” Glenn Beck says to "Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women" author Batya Ungar-Sargon. “They are impoverishing people.”

Ungar-Sargon agrees.

“There has been a massive plunder of the middle class by the elites,” she tells Glenn, noting that it began when they shipped good manufacturing jobs overseas to build up China and Mexico’s middle class.

“We’re never going to get those jobs back,” she says. “If you want the American dream, you have to go to college where you’ll become a card-carrying Democrat.”

Now, while a massive number of American youths have been indoctrinated through their leftist college curriculums, the Biden administration has opened up the border.

“15 million illegal migrants from failed social states to undercut the wages in the jobs that remained here,” Ungar-Sargon exclaims. “It’s because fundamentally to the elites, there’s no difference between being working-class and being poor.”

“They want everybody to be poor because they control the college-educated and the poor,” she continues. “That is why they’re trying to get everybody out of the middle class and either into the college-credentialed, leftist elites or to make them poor because that’s how the Democrats win.”


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