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September 4, 2024

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While videos circulate online of Amazon’s Alexa giving vastly different answers when asked to make a quick argument for voting for Vice President Harris versus voting for former President Trump, federal donor records show the tech giant’s employees have a clear favorite.

A review of a Federal Election Commission database shows employees at Jeff Bezos’ companies Amazon and Blue Origin have contributed significantly to VP Kamala Harris’ campaign. 

According to the nonpartisan research group OpenSecrets, Amazon donors have contributed $1,000,140 to Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 election cycle. Blue Origin workers donated much less to the Harris’ campaign, at roughly $27,000.

Overall, just over 73% of contributions from Amazon-affiliated donors have gone to Democrats, while Republicans have received nearly 27%. In comparison, Meta donors have directed 87% of their contributions to Democrats and almost 13% to Republicans. 

Alphabet — Google’s parent company — donors have also favored Democrats, providing 82.23% of their contributions, with 17.77% going to Republicans. OpenSecrets notes that these donations are from individuals affiliated with the companies, not from the companies themselves, as organizations are barred from contributing to candidates or party committees.

The online marketplace giant hasn’t deviated from its previous donations. During the 2020 election, Amazon funneled millions of dollars to the then-candidate Joe Biden — far more than contributors gave to Republican Donald Trump.

Figures published by the Center for Responsive Politics show that Amazon workers gave more than $2.22 million to Biden’s presidential campaign during the election, and $934,747 to the DNC Services Corp., the Democratic National Committee’s PAC account.

Replicating queries seen elsewhere on social media videos, Fox News Digital asked Amazon’s Alexa questions about the presidential race. ‘Why should I vote for Trump?’ we asked. But Alexa declined to provide such information.

‘I cannot provide responses that endorse any political party or its leader,’ the virtual assistant responded.

Tested by Fox News Digital another time, Alexa gave a similar answer when asked about Trump. 

‘I cannot promote content that supports a certain political party or a specific politician,’ Alexa said. ‘Furthermore, I do not have the ability to provide information regarding the policies of the U.S. government. The responsibility of providing information regarding the policies of the U.S. government lies with the government itself.’ 

Big Tech has come under tough scrutiny in the last eight years for reportedly censoring content from conservatives and suppressing information related to COVID-19 during the pandemic. 

‘This was an error that was quickly fixed,’ an Amazon spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Wednesday.

Fox News Digital’s Megan Henney and Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.

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: Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., issued a stern warning to Amazon after its virtual assistant technology, Alexa, was found to be politically biased in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Trump. 

Graham, the ranking member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, told Amazon president and CEO Andrew Jassy in a letter he was putting him ‘on notice that I will not allow this to go unaddressed.’

On Tuesday, videos of interactions with Alexa went viral as the technology responded to queries on why someone should vote for Harris or why they should vote for Trump. 

When Fox News Digital questioned the technology about why they should vote for Trump, Alexa said, ‘I cannot promote content that supports a certain political party or a specific politician.’ 

‘Furthermore, I do not have the ability to provide information regarding the policies of the U.S. government. The responsibility of providing information regarding the policies of the U.S. government lies with the government itself,’ the Amazon technology said. 

But when it was asked why someone should vote for Harris, Alexa said, ‘While there are many reasons to vote for Kamala Harris, the most significant may be that she is a woman of color who has overcome numerous obstacles to become a leader in her field.’ 

‘Additionally, her experience as a prosecutor and her record of accomplishment in the areas of criminal justice and immigration reform make her a compelling candidate,’ it added. 

Social media quickly erupted with discussion on the stark difference between the two answers given by Amazon’s product. 

Amazon later said it corrected Alexa’s responses, claiming the disparity was an ‘error.’

‘This was an error that was quickly fixed,’ a spokesperson for the company told Fox News Digital on Tuesday. 

Graham claimed in his letter to Jassy that the ‘radically different responses suggest that Amazon technology is interfering in the election in favor of one political candidate.’

‘There’s a widespread belief among conservatives that companies like yours have a distinct bias in favor of liberal causes,’ he noted. 

And, according to the senator, the ‘shocking interaction’ between Alexa and users is ‘exhibit A of the problem’ in the minds of conservatives. 

Graham told the Amazon executive he expected a ‘prompt reply as to what happened here and what corrective actions will be taken in the future.’

Amazon did not immediately provide comment to Fox News Digital.

Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace contributed to this piece. 

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House Republicans sent a subpoena to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 running mate, over his administration’s handling of taxpayer funds during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The subpoenas, sent by the House Education and Workforce Committee, center on a $250 million fraud scheme by a Minnesota-based nonprofit called Feeding Our Future, which the Department of Justice (DOJ) previously accused of having ‘exploited a federally-funded child nutrition program during the COVID-19 pandemic.’

Feeding Our Future was accused of defrauding a federal program to feed hungry children by creating fake attendance rosters with the names and ages of children who do not exist and falsifying invoices to portray food purchases to feed those children. 

At least 70 people were charged in connection to the scheme, and five have been found guilty.

Committee Chair Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., wrote in a letter to accompany Walz’s subpoena, ‘As the chief executive and the highest ranking official in the state of Minnesota, you are responsible for the [Minnesota Department of Education] and its administration of [Federal Child Nutrition Programs].’

‘Statements in the press by you and your representatives indicate that you and other executive officers were involved, or had knowledge of, MDE’s administration of the FCNP and responsibilities and actions regarding the massive fraud,’ Foxx wrote.

In addition to targeting Walz, Foxx also sent subpoenas to Minnesota Commissioner of Education Willie Jett and Biden administration Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. 

A spokeswoman for Walz told Fox News Digital in response to the subpoena, ‘This was an appalling abuse of a federal COVID-era program. The state department of education worked diligently to stop the fraud, and we’re grateful to the FBI for working with the department of education to arrest and charge the individuals involved.’

Past local reporting indicates Walz’s administration did take steps to investigate and account for the massive fraud scheme. The Sahan Journal reported that the MDE contacted the FBI about suspected fraud by the nonprofit in April 2021.

The same report indicates the MDE resumed funding to the 26 nonprofits working with Feeding Our Future the next month, but rejected applications from the group for new food sites.

House Republicans have heightened their scrutiny into Walz — both his administration and his personal past — since he was named the Democratic vice presidential candidate last month.

The House Oversight Committee previously opened an investigation into Walz’s connections to China.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris-Walz campaign for comment.

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A top conservative group is pouring an additional $5 million into six key House races around the country as Republicans fight to hold and expand their razor-thin majority in November.

Club for Growth Action and Win It Back PAC, an affiliated fundraising group dedicated to flipping control of the Democrat-held White House and Senate, are rolling out new ads in Alaska, Arizona, California, New Mexico, Ohio and Pennsylvania on Wednesday.

They plan to flood the airwaves via satellite, streaming and mail, Fox News Digital was told, roughly nine weeks until Election Day on Nov. 5.

‘The past few years, Democrats across the country have made it clear that their priorities are overspending on far-left pet projects and passing pro-criminal and anti-police legislation. After record inflation and putting criminals above law-abiding families, Democrats should expect to be held accountable on Election Day,’ Club for Growth Action President David McIntosh told Fox News Digital.

The 30-second ads paint the Democrats running in each of those districts as soft on crime, accusing them of being ‘radically pro-criminal’ and being ‘for felons, not families.’

Crime and policing is an issue that was pivotal to House Republicans’ 2022 midterm election victory.

Club for Growth’s latest ad buy is seeking to protect vulnerable Reps. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., and Scott Perry, R-Pa. The ads will also target front-line Democrats — Reps. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, Gabriel Vasquez, D-N.M., and Mary Peltola, D-Alaska.

The sixth race being invested in is the open seat that will be vacated by Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., which Republicans are eyeing as a possible pickup opportunity.

The heavy spending in blue-leaning districts is an indication that GOP groups are starting to feel bullish again about their chances of keeping and potentially expanding their majority.

It comes as Republicans in the House and Senate battle a wave of donor enthusiasm from the left for Vice President Kamala Harris’ still-new campaign.

Weeks earlier, Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., head of the House GOP campaign arm, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), warned his colleagues to step up their fundraising.

He confirmed he sounded alarm bells in comments to Fox Business last month.

‘That’s true, and we’ve seen the fundraising on the Democrat side just go through the roof. And so I’ve warned my candidates and my colleagues in the Congress that we’ve got to step up and continue doing the things we need to do to win,’ Hudson said in late August.

He said the response from House Republicans has been ‘great,’ adding, ‘Everyone stepped up. We had a number of people pledge more money to the committee… I think folks are ready for the fight.’

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In early 2024, MicroStrategy (MSTR) became a meme stock favorite thanks to its close ties to Bitcoin. If you rode the hype to its peak in March, hopefully you cashed out before hedge funds began shorting it heavily and going long Bitcoin instead.

How would you have known that hedge funds would begin plunging the stock? Like most traders, you probably wouldn’t have direct access to this type of information before it’s too late. But you’d have indirect information from institutional investors’ “footprints” in the market.

Tracing the Impact of Hedge Fund Shorting in MSTR

Pull up your SharpCharts platform, type MSTR in the symbol box, and look at its price action in March. It peaked at $200 a share, which is when hedge funds began shorting the stock.

In the Overlays section below the price chart, add the 200-day simple moving average (SMA). Even though MSTR’s intermediate-term trend is down, its long-term trend is still up, yet it’s currently being challenged.

Clues That Smack of Heavy Short Selling

Here’s what I’m looking at—my complete chart (which you can follow or customize yourself by clicking on this link).

DAILY CHART OF MSTR STOCK. The footprints of hedge fund activity were evident in the divergence between price and momentum.Chart source: StockCharts.com. For educational purposes.

Look at the blue lines in the lower panels that follow the contours of the price action, Relative Strength Index (RSI), and the Chaikin Money Flow (CMF). You may not have had knowledge of hedge fund shorting activity, but the traces of their actions are evident in the divergence between price action and momentum.

The jump from $49 to $200 in just over a month screams meme momentum. But what momentum? The RSI tells you that those three consecutive higher swing points from the end of February to the March peak are overbought, with momentum dropping off. The CMF also shows that buying pressure is declining as the price keeps moving higher.

The Ichimoku Cloud is plotted to measure the intermediate-term trend and momentum. As you can see, the first bounce after the March decline (see orange circle) was met with buying at the 61.8% Fibonacci Retracement line. The second and third took place at the 200-day SMA.

Despite the volatility, the intermediate trend is sideways, and the momentum is flat. For the long-term uptrend to hold, the price needs to stay above the 200-day SMA—and that’s being tested.

Closing Bell

Here’s the takeaway: Some fundamental developments aren’t always easy to spot. Most investors wouldn’t have caught certain hedge funds’ short-selling moves in MSTR stock. That’s where technical indicators save the day. In this case, it was all about divergence. You can also rely on other indicators to catch trends before they’re obvious. Use the StockCharts tools listed in the Member Tools section of Your Dashboard to stay ahead with timely, actionable insights.

Last but not least, be sure to save MSTR in one of your StockCharts ChartLists.

Disclaimer: This blog is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice. The ideas and strategies should never be used without first assessing your own personal and financial situation, or without consulting a financial professional.

The Biden administration is accusing Russia on Wednesday of trying to influence the 2024 U.S. presidential election by targeting American voters through state-run media and other online platforms as part of a campaign referred to as ‘doppelganger.’

Attorney General Merrick Garland, speaking alongside FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, said prosecutors today have unsealed an indictment in the Southern District of New York of ‘two Russian-based employees of RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet’ that charges them with ‘conspiring to commit money laundering and to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act.’

Garland told reporters that in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the editor-in-chief of the RT TV network ‘said the company had built ‘an entire empire of covert projects designed to shape public opinion in Western audiences.”

‘We allege that as part of that effort, RT and its employees, including the defendants, implemented a nearly $10 million scheme to fund and direct a Tennessee-based company to publish and disseminate content deemed favorable to the Russian government,’ Garland said. ‘To implement this scheme, the defendants directed the company to contract with U.S.-based social media influencers to share this content and their platforms. The subject matter and content of many of the videos published by the company were often consistent with Russia’s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions in order to weaken U.S. opposition to core Russian interests, particularly its ongoing war in Ukraine. 

‘In a separate enforcement action, the Justice Department is seizing 32 internet domains that the Russian government and the Russian-sponsored actors have used to engage in a covert campaign to interfere and influence the outcome of our country’s elections,’ Garland continued.

‘As alleged in our court filings, President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, including Sergei Kiriyenko, directed Russian public relations companies to promote disinformation and state-sponsored narratives as part of a campaign to influence the 2024 U.S. presidential election,’ he said.

‘These websites were designed to appear to American readers as if they were major U.S. news sites, like the Washington Post or Fox News, but in fact they were fake sites. They were filled with Russian government propaganda that had been created by the Kremlin to reduce international support for Ukraine, bolster pro-Russian policies and interests, and influence voters in the United States and in other countries. Internal documents of the Kremlin described the content as, ‘bogus stories disguised as newsworthy events.’ This malign influence campaign has been referred to as ‘doppelganger.’’

When asked by Fox News Digital about its reaction to the allegations, RT said, ‘We certainly have a reaction. Actually, we had several, but we couldn’t decide on one (we even thought of running an office poll), so here they are.’ 

‘2016 called and it wants its clichés back,’ was among them, as were: ‘Three things are certain in life: death, taxes and RT’s interference in the U.S. elections,’ ‘We gotta earn our Kremlin paycheck somehow,’ and ‘Somewhere Secretary Clinton is sad that it’s not because of her.’ 

In July, Wray told the House Judiciary Committee that ‘We assess that the Russian government continues to want to influence, and in various ways interfere with our democracy, with our electoral process.

‘We’ve seen that in election cycle after election cycle,’ Wray said.

The court actions on Wednesday also come after the Justice Department made RT register as a ‘foreign agent’ in 2017. 

The agency said at the time that ‘T&R Productions, LLC (T&R), a Washington, D.C., corporation, registered… with the Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as an agent for ANO TV-Novosti, the Russian government entity responsible for the worldwide broadcasts of the RT Network (RT).   

‘Since August 2014, T&R has operated studios for RT, hired and paid all U.S.-based RT employees, and produced English-language programming for RT, which is both shown on cable networks across the United States and available on RT’s website,’ it also said. 

Former Defense Intelligence Agency officer Rebekah Koffler previously told Fox News Digital that RT and other propaganda abroad were part of the permanent cyberwarfare Russia wages on the West. 

‘They don’t just wage propaganda in a time of war, during a conflict,’ she said in 2022. ‘They wage it during peacetime. They constantly malign the United States and misrepresent foreign policy objectives … I’m just saying that tilts the level playing field towards Russia when we allow their propaganda channels to broadcast in an unfettered [way].’ 

‘RT is 100% a Russia government-controlled channel and its sole intent is to predispose the American population and wherever they are broadcasting towards the Russian point of view and to present the events on the ground as the Russians want the rest of the world to see them, so if the United States did not want that to happen then it would be appropriate to shut down the channel,’ Koffler added. 

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House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., unveiled a plan to avoid a partial government shutdown at the end of this month during a lawmaker-only phone call Wednesday morning.

Johnson is aiming to hold a vote on the measure as soon as possible, likely next week, two sources familiar with the call told Fox News Digital.

House GOP leaders hope to link a short-term extension of this fiscal year’s federal funding levels, known as a continuing resolution (CR), to a Republican-backed bill known as the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. That measure would require proof of citizenship in the voter registration process in a bid to crack down on GOP concerns about noncitizens participating in U.S. elections. 

The bill would punt the federal funding fight to March, when a new administration and a new congressional term will dictate how the next shutdown showdown will play out.

Five Democrats voted for the SAVE Act when it passed the House in July, but their leaders are largely opposed to the measure and have panned it as unnecessary since it is already illegal to vote in federal elections as a noncitizen.

Meanwhile, senior Republican lawmakers had called for a short-term funding extension into December rather than risking a traffic jam of legislative deadlines in the new year. 

Johnson said on the call, however, that his plan has ‘a lot of merit’ and reasoned a December CR would likely necessitate another one into the new year anyway, one source familiar with the call said.

Other Republicans also raised concerns during the 30-minute call, multiple sources said.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., confirmed to Fox News Digital that she took issue with the lack of measures addressing the border crisis, and she told her colleagues so on the call Wednesday. 

She specifically called for a CR to include the Laken Riley Act, named after a college student allegedly killed by an illegal immigrant, which would detain and deport migrants who commit illegal acts. 

‘We should offer a menu of options, but Democrats should do something to help stop the chaos,’ she said, pointing to New York Post reports that suggest illegal immigrants are overwhelming New York City’s judicial system. 

When asked if she would support the plan Johnson offered without those measures, she said, ‘Let’s see.’

Meanwhile, two sources said Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., questioned what Johnson’s answer would be if the Senate sent back a ‘clean’ short-term spending patch with no attachments.

He said a partial government shutdown would threaten the House’s 10 most vulnerable Republican incumbents, per the sources. One of the two sources said Johnson responded that their plan was worth having the fight and said the GOP could not blink.

Another GOP lawmaker who spoke with Fox News Digital after the call said, ‘If we shut down, we lose.’

The bill is expected to need a simple majority to pass, a tough task given Johnson’s razor-thin House majority. 

Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., who is retiring at the end of this year, said outright on Tuesday that he would oppose the plan. 

It does have a significant backer in former President Donald Trump, who urged House Republicans to leverage a shutdown to get a March CR plus SAVE Act passed during an appearance on Monica Crowley’s podcast earlier this week.

If it passes the House, the plan is highly unlikely to be taken up by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, however.

Schumer, D-N.Y., told Fox News Digital of the plan, ‘As we have said each time we’ve had a CR, the only way to get things done is in a bipartisan way and that is what has happened every time.’

A spokesperson for Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who is spearheading the CR plus SAVE Act plan, responded, ‘The majority leader’s comment is encouraging, given that the SAVE Act passed with bipartisan support in the House.’

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Polling is a useful tool in politics, if somewhat blunt and slow, and this weekend Democrats were taking no small comfort in a ABC/Ipsos survey showing Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump by 4 points nationally.

But the important thing about this poll is not the margin. After all, Rasmussen has Trump up by 2 points. Nobody knows which is right. What’s important is that on August 13th, this same ABC poll also showed Harris up 4. Put another way, Kamala’s momentum isn’t just gone, it’s been gone for a while.

I first clearly felt the air escaping the Harris balloon a little more than a fortnight ago, in San Francisco of all places, where one would think she’d be viewed as a hometown hero. But already, from almost everyone I met, there were creeping questions as to what she stands for, what she would do as president.

We have all seen the viral videos, even from the Democratic National Convention, of delegates being asked what their favorite Harris policy is, only to stare off into the distance, looking for an answer that isn’t there as if they had been asked to conjugate some word in Ancient Greek. 

I have now seen this expression more times than I can count, in red states, in blue states, in suburb, city and small towns, even many of those committed to voting for the vice president admit it is kind of like buying a political scratch-off ticket. They aren’t sure what they are going to win.

Now, make no mistake, from the time that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shoved President Joe Biden, face first, off of the stage until just before the Democrats gathered in Chicago, the momentum was there, the vibes were real, and Harris’ numbers were going up.

I felt that distinctly, and palpably in the Democrats I spoke with, who had felt a kind of doom and gloom surrounding Grandpa Joe. But vibes are funny things and  they tend to run out of steam. In fact, just after Trump survived his assassination attempt, it was Republicans who were convinced that the image of a bloodied and defiant Trump had already won them the election.

But not so fast.

So why did the wheels fall off of Harris’ vibe bus just as the joyride was getting started? There are a few missteps to point to, including her obstinate and bizarre refusal to answer questions or do interviews. 

This is where the slow nature of polling becomes a problem. For two weeks, we were told by the liberal media that Harris didn’t need to do any interviews. She was surging, they promised. But she wasn’t. And in that period, almost without fail, every voter I talked to said she needed to start answering questions. Today, it sure looks like the sponge bath she and Gov. Tim Walz received on CNN last week is too little, too late.

The bigger, related problem for Harris is that she simply does not have political chops. A candidate with political chops can do three interviews a day without breaking a sweat, they thrive on the unscripted moment that can be turned to their advantage.

Harris has none of these abilities, and she didn’t have to. Nobody without political chops and top-notch instincts can win a competitive presidential primary, because they lose to better candidates, but Harris never had to face any other candidates and that lack of battle testing is showing its ugly head.

As the first orange leaves flutter to the ground this week, we find ourselves where we were before Joe Biden’s inability to serve was spelled out in giant neon. This race is a toss up, the electorate is as divided as ever, and we are basically going into the fourth quarter all tied up.

For Donald Trump and JD Vance, who have now blunted the short-lived Harris surge, this means more of the same, staying in the public eye as much as possible. You wouldn’t be surprised to see either of them with giant scissors at the grand opening of a Dairy Queen.

Harris and Walz, on the other hand, need a second act. Kamala describing how she makes collard greens and Tim eating pork chops on a stick at the state fair isn’t going to cut it. 

The American voters have questions, a lot of them, but do these untested Democratic candidates have any answers?

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Roughly 11 months have passed since former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s historic ouster in October 2023. Now, his successor, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is navigating the same fraught political web on government funding that amounted to one of McCarthy’s ‘final struggles’ – but it is not yet clear that he will meet the same fate.

House Republicans are huddling for a conference-wide call on Wednesday, when Johnson is expected to roll out his plan for avoiding a government shutdown by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. 

The plan, endorsed by former President Donald Trump, would extend the current fiscal year’s government funding levels through March and would be paired with a GOP bill requiring proof of citizenship to be part of the voter registration process, multiple sources told Fox News Digital.

However, at least three House Republicans who spoke with Fox News Digital would not commit to voting for such a short-term bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR). Meanwhile, others questioned the wisdom of spending the few weeks in session before Election Day on a bill virtually certain to die in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Most conservatives and Trump allies in the House, however, have emphatically backed the plan.

‘Certainly conservatives, spending hawks, frankly any Republican that doesn’t want to give Democrats or the kind of…uniparty the pen in December, so we want to kick spending into the new year,’ Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, explained to Fox News Digital. ‘Certainly kicking it to March gives us that benefit. And then we should have a robust fight over whether or not we should be very clear that only citizens are voting.’

Five Democrats voted with Republicans earlier this year to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, but it has since been stalled in the Senate. The White House is also opposed.

Roy, however, was also part of last year’s doomed effort to pass a conservative CR with House Republicans’ marquee border security bill attached – one that was similarly panned by Democratic leaders. 

That CR failed in late September after 21 Republicans, mainly opposed to a CR on principle, voted against it. 

McCarthy was then forced to put a ‘clean’ funding extension on the House floor hours before a partial government shutdown on Oct. 1, which was later the public catalyst for his ouster by eight fellow House Republicans.

When asked whether he was concerned about history repeating itself, Roy said, ‘Last year, I had good friends that fell on both sides of that divide. But I think there’s one considerable difference, and that is President Trump has publicly called for us to fight.’

Trump urged House Republicans to leverage a shutdown to get a CR with the SAVE Act passed on Monica Crowley’s podcast earlier this week.

Additionally, with the November House races expected to run close in many key districts, these weeks could be Republicans’ last chance to try to force through conservative priorities before Democrats possibly win back control of the chamber.

However, with the slim chances of it being taken up by the Senate or White House, the possibility of a government shutdown just before Election Day could put those same vulnerable Republicans in a tight spot.

‘Whether it passes the House or not is irrelevant and those who are pushing for SAVE to be included know that. Or maybe they don’t. I’m not sure which is worse,’ one senior House GOP aide told Fox News Digital. 

However, Roy suggested he was not worried about a potential shutdown, arguing his constituents ‘don’t give two flying s—s’ about the politics of government funding.

Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., similarly said, ‘I’m worried about a stolen election…the legacy media makes these shutdowns worse than they are.’

Meanwhile, like last year’s conservative CR, it is not clear this spending patch will even have enough support within the GOP to pass.

Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., a House Freedom Caucus member in his final term who voted both against last year’s conservative CR and for McCarthy’s ouster, is already against the plan.

‘It’s disingenuous and dishonest to even do, because there’s no one in Congress that believes that by attaching the SAVE act to the CR…we’re going to get the SAVE Act passed,’ Rosendale, who has never supported a CR, told Fox News Digital. 

He also said the play violates House GOP leaders’ pledge for single-subject legislation.

However, he would not say if he would support ousting Johnson over it.

‘I think people keep doing the same thing, hoping they will have different results, because there’s different people doing it,’ Rosendale said.

When pressed on Johnson multiple times, Rosendale said, ‘There’s plenty of people that you can go, they’re more than glad to make comments about other members and about leadership. All I know is what I’m going to do.’

Burchett, another anti-McCarthy rebel, said he would ‘lean towards supporting’ the CR but would not commit.

He said, however, that Johnson was not in danger of being ousted, adding, ‘A lot of other things went on’ before ‘one of the final struggles’ about spending in McCarthy’s case.

McCarthy did not make himself available for an interview when asked by Fox News Digital. Johnson’s office also would not comment on the record about the CR.

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With regard to the new movie ‘REAGAN,’ I fully admit to a very large and enduring bias in favor of the former president. I worked as a writer in the White House of President Ronald Reagan from 1987 until the end of his administration in January 1989. 

More than that, I was blessed to share a deeply personal and emotional moment with the president. He had invited me to the Oval Office to commend me for something I had written. 

As we flowed into a very warm discussion, I mentioned that my parents, like his father, were dysfunctional alcoholics. As soon as I did, he stepped closer to me and put his hand on my shoulder and began to speak about the cruelty of other children when they see your father or parents in such a condition. As he spoke to me, his voice became almost a whisper as he asked me to tell him about my mom and dad. 

No sooner did I do so than his eyes began to fill with tears. Upon seeing that, I am not the least bit embarrassed to say I broke into tears of my own. Taking note of my tears, the leader of the free world stepped in and gave me a hug.  

I had never felt such grace, empathy and kindness. Quite ironically, the reason the president invited me over was to thank me for defending him against the critics of that time.  

Flash ahead to now, and filmmaker Sean McNamara’s exceptional movie ‘REAGAN’ starring Dennis Quaid is in the theaters. Sadly, but quite predictably, it is being savaged by a number of far-left movie critics. Several gloatingly declaring it ‘the worst movie of the year.’  

While these far-left, seemingly soulless haters may be virtually slapping each other on the back for their predictably biased and unprofessional attacks on the film and our 40th president, they are forgetting — or purposefully ignoring — one critical fact. That being, Ronald Reagan was a man of the people.  

Americans from all walks of life loved him because he was one of them. He had walked in their shoes and they knew it. Not the least bit surprisingly, while these insuffable critics — who oftentimes exist only to tear down the blood, sweat, and tears of truly creative people — look down their entitled noses at ‘REAGAN,’ the people absolutely love it.  

Those who have seen the movie are not only giving it an amazing 98% ‘fresh’ audience score on ‘Rotten Tomatoes,’ but rave reviews in exit polling. More than that, it is exceeding expectations at the box office.  

While we would need an army of trained psychologists to explain why these entitled critics hate so, two reasons seem self-evident. The first being that they have been indoctrinated from birth, in some cases, to loathe anything remotely connected with the president or his incredibly successful administrations. Second, is the fact that ‘REAGAN’ star Quaid has mentioned that he will be supporting former President Donald Trump in the upcoming election.  

As we have discovered, if there is a president the far left more irrationally hates than Reagan, it is Trump. A man who has folded in much of the Reagan doctrine into his past administration and peppers his commonsense speeches with it now.  

As these critics know, Reagan was also a part of Hollywood back in the day. Even then, he saw that industry taking a hard turn to the left. It was a socialist-leaning movement which helped to push him closer to his conservative and populist principles.  

Were Reagan alive today, I suspect he would not be the least bit shocked by the hate directed at him and his legacy by these far-left critics. However, with his trademark smile and laugh, he would have most likely said: ‘Well … there they go again.’  

Afterward, that man of the people would have taken humble joy in the reviews the film ‘REAGAN’ is getting from not only those who loved him, but those who wish they could have experienced his leadership firsthand.  

‘REAGAN’ — 1. Liberal critics — 0. 

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