In this episode of Firebrand Live, we discuss the ongoing fight between the Freedom Caucus and leadership in the House of Representatives regarding the need for recorded votes on matters before our legislative body. We also discuss the war in Somalia without Congress ever having voted on it, and the DOJ colluding with the White House to smear and smear a political movement they fear and even more information on the Biden administration's war on farmers. Firebrand LIVE is a production of the Firebrand Leadership podcast produced by Rep. Adam Kinzler (R-Illinois) and Firebrand Media, and is brought to you live from Congressman Adam's office in Washington, D.C. on Capitol Hill. Subscribe today using our podcast s promo code: "UPLEVEL" to receive 20% off your first month with discount code "FIREbrand" at checkout. You can also join the FREE FB group Firebrand. Learn more about your ad choices. Rate/subscribe in Apple Podcasts! Review, comment and subscribe to our new podcast, Firebrand Radio! Subscribe, Like, Share, and Subscribe to our other shows: Hustler, The Anthropology, The HYPEBEAST Radio and The HYPETALKS. The Dark Side Of Politics, The Renegade Report, The Root, and The Political Correctness Report, wherever you get your favorite shows, we'll be giving you the inside scoop on what's going on in the world of politics, entertainment, politics, culture, and culture, politics and culture. - including our new music, and much more! - featuring our newest original music, featuring our very own DJ and original original songwriter, John Rocha! . Featuring our own DJ, Jake Gyllen, AKA the DJ, Roddy McDade. Join us on Firebrand, aka Firebrand! - the man who makes it all the goods, R.A. ( ) and R.J. & R.YANKEES! and RICKY RYANCHEK ( ) joins us to bring you the best in the middle of it all. . . . , R. , and RYNNB, the guy who gives you the goods you need to know what you can do to make it all! , the truth you want to know about it all, the truth about it, the real story you're going to get, so you don't need to be there!
00:04:48.000Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.
00:04:55.000Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.
00:04:58.000He could cause a lot of hiccups in passing applause.
00:05:01.000So we're going to keep running those stories to get hurt again.
00:05:04.000If you stand for the flag and kneel in prayer, If you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground, then welcome, my fellow patriots.
00:05:41.000We are simulcast streaming out of my congressional office in Washington D.C. on Capitol Hill.
00:05:46.000We're going to get to the voting problems and the counting problems in Pennsylvania.
00:05:50.000We're going to delve into the war that's been reignited in Somalia without Congress ever having voted on it.
00:05:57.000The latest on January 6th and the DOJ and their collusion together to try to criminalize and go after a political movement they fear and even more information on the Biden administration's war on farmers.
00:06:10.000But first, there were some sharp words last night among some Republicans regarding the need for an all-night voting session regarding the matters before our legislative body.
00:06:23.000So, in fact, it's not just Pennsylvania.
00:06:30.000I bet you didn't know that millions, billions, sometimes trillions of dollars are spent, your money, without your representatives having to cast a vote either in favor or in opposition to the measure or the spending.
00:06:51.000Sometimes they require suspension of logic and reason.
00:06:54.000Leadership from both the majority and the minority negotiate a special portion of the legislative agenda each and every week where both agree not to call for a recorded vote.
00:08:15.000It's not like we have an unlimited number of tools.
00:08:18.000Demanding a recorded vote is one of the few things we can do to hold this corrupt administration and the Pelosi Democrats accountable.
00:08:25.000Now, moments ago, I spoke with former Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Biggs of Arizona and Texas Congressman Chip Roy about the fight brewing between the Freedom Caucus and the leadership on the matter of suspension voting and recorded votes.
00:09:01.000We can agree as a body to voice vote something, unanimous consent something, but it ought to be when there's general agreement, it ought to be when we're in the chamber, and we ought to have the time to vote, I mean, to review bills, look at them, have a debate over it before we're voting, and that's not the way this process works.
00:09:15.000It is designed by a cadre of leadership to jam bills through in order to Curry favors and to have power in this town instead of us being able to represent the people.
00:09:26.000And Andy, why do you think it's important for people to actually record a vote rather than simply allowing voice votes to be the imprimatur of approval of the body?
00:09:35.000You have to let the people know who you represent, how you're voting.
00:09:39.000You cannot just come up here and mask what you're doing behind This mob mentality of voice votes.
00:10:20.000But Chip, you were informing a number of members last evening on the floor of very substantive things that conservatives might reasonably have objections to.
00:10:31.000Yeah, I mean, first of all, just real quick, just the people know how this works.
00:10:34.000We go home to our districts on a Friday, some email goes out, and we're coming back in for votes on Monday.
00:10:40.000And if we show up for a vote that night at 6 o'clock, they've already voice voted a bunch of stuff on the floor of the House of Representatives with nobody in the chamber but like three people.
00:10:49.000So that's what the American people need to understand what we're actually talking about.
00:10:52.000All we're doing is having one of us volunteer to come in on a Monday, represent the rest of us to, you know, enforce our rights, and then say, hey guys, we're just demanding the yays and nays.
00:11:02.000Now, the kind of bills we're talking about, they say, oh, they're non-controversial bills.
00:11:05.000Well, there was one that was a naming of a post office, for example, in which an individual judge had been a part of a ruling of banning prayer in schools.
00:11:14.000Now, we have a debate about those things, but we wanted to say, hold on a second, should we be naming a federal courthouse after a judge that did something so directly out of line with the people?
00:11:21.000Or how about the literally, I think, $300 million worth of items that I know would have been attributed to our friend Thomas Massey, for example, If you compare how he voted actually voting versus voice votes, $300 million worth of stuff.
00:11:36.000There were a number of bills that had diversity, equity, inclusion.
00:11:39.000There was a, I think it was a veterans contraception bill, which, look, I'm pro-contraception, but it had some funding in there that was controversial.
00:11:47.000We ended up, that got passed by voice vote last Congress.
00:11:50.000This Congress, we ended up stopping it, and then they had to do a rule on it, which means you actually have to debate it on the floor.
00:12:16.000I think the American people would be shocked to know that $300 million was to be spent without members of Congress actually ascribing their name to that approval of dollars.
00:12:44.000So when we consider why do they not want a recorded vote, it's hard to get through everything.
00:12:51.000But one of the guys that was in my face last night, a Republican, was telling me he's got better things to do than be on the floor and voting.
00:14:00.000I think these people, by and large, they like the office, they like whatever perquisites they think they have in the office, but sometimes they just don't want to do the work.
00:15:20.000If it makes the establishment and the leadership and the lobbyists uncomfortable to have recorded votes on that Board of Truth, then so freaking be it.
00:15:31.000That's Chip Roy and Andy Biggs making the accusations of laziness, lack of accountability, leadership control, centralization of power and they're not making those accusations against the Democrats.
00:15:43.000They're making those accusations against the Republicans who We got the live stream.
00:16:01.000And on Facebook, Charlotte Currie saying the Democrats are evil, which may or may not be true, but certainly when Republicans are working in concert with the Democrats to prohibit the transparency and accountability and oversight of the Democrats.
00:16:14.000That must be central to the mission of the minority.
00:16:17.000We have a problem, not just with the Democrats, but with the Uniparty, with the corrupt collaboration that oftentimes leads the American people, but leaves them behind.
00:16:27.000And it's really unfortunate, and I completely stand with my colleagues Chip Roy and Andy Biggs and anyone that wants to make Congress actually get back to doing its job and not just trading favors with the leadership and doing the bidding of the lobby corps.
00:16:42.000Now, to get great representatives in order to do that, to have a body full of more folks like Chip Roy and Andy Biggs, we must have fair elections.
00:16:51.000A lot of folks in the comments talking about the 2,000 Mules documentary.
00:16:57.000We've already made a lot of hay about this film by putting some of the content out on our platforms, and I've been in discussions with Dinesh D'Souza, who's the producer of that film, Regarding the critical next steps to get Congress activated and informed and to find somebody in some state, in some law enforcement capacity, willing to take this evidence and then trace it back to these nonprofits that were laundering ballots.
00:17:23.000I mean, I'm good friends with Dinesh D'Souza.
00:17:25.000I think he's a great intellect, a great commentator.
00:17:28.000But if there's any criticism of 2,000 Mules, it's that it lets a lot of these ballot stash houses off the hook.
00:17:37.000We know that there were groups, for example, just in my state, like Andrew Gillum's group that he stood up to, you know, Stacey Abrams' eyes, the state of Florida.
00:17:47.000They were, in many cases, submitting fraudulent requests for absentee ballots that they were going to use to Taint the election.
00:17:58.000To give them the votes and then to drop them off at the ballot boxes that Mark Zuckerberg got a lot of government entities to put in as a condition for the funding that he wanted to provide.
00:18:11.000But another part is the total failure of the elections infrastructure in some states to actually be able to effectively Conduct elections, count the votes, and deliver a timely result.
00:18:23.000Check out this news report on what's going on right now in Pennsylvania.
00:18:28.000Let's begin our election coverage with the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race.
00:18:31.000It is too close to call between the top two candidates, and it may stay that way for some time with mail-in ballots still left to be counted.
00:18:38.000Here's where the race between Mehmet Oz and David McCormick stands right now.
00:18:42.000Both are at 31 percent, with Oz leading McCormick by just over 2,600 votes.
00:18:50.000They have exchanged the lead throughout the early morning hours.
00:18:53.000Some precincts waited until today to start counting mail-ins.
00:18:58.000And then there is the issue in Lancaster County.
00:19:00.000It could take days to process at least 21,000 mail-in ballots there that cannot be read by a machine due to an ID error.
00:19:07.000The department recommends the best practice of assigning two-person teams to hand-mark new ballots.
00:19:14.000One will read out the markings from the original ballot.
00:19:17.000The second party will mark the ballot.
00:19:19.000There is also an observer who watches the process to make sure that the remarked ballot is accurate.
00:19:26.000The tight race between Oz and McCormick could trigger an automatic recount if the winning margin is within half a percent.
00:19:32.000Acting Secretary of State Lee Chapman is required to order the recount no later than 5 p.m.
00:19:38.000on the second Thursday following the election.
00:20:37.000Where we fixed a lot of our problems with the elections.
00:20:40.000We count the votes as they come in by mail.
00:20:44.000So you have a manageable number of ballots and you have people that can verify the signatures, verify that the person is still alive, verify that the person is a citizen of the United States eligible to vote.
00:20:55.000And you can do that in small batch counts as the mail vote comes in.
00:21:02.000As the mail comes in, oddly, they stack up in boxes like hundreds of thousands of vote-by-mail votes, and they do nothing with them, leaving them vulnerable to fraud or tainting or infection or bad chain of custody until Election Day.
00:21:20.000And then only on Election Day do they actually open the mail and start counting the votes.
00:21:26.000And so, of course, then it's total pandemonium.
00:21:29.000And that's what they're counting on to execute on fraud.
00:21:58.000That's what the American people deserve.
00:22:00.000Another matter that has not been voted on but that's deeply troubling to me is Joe Biden's new war in Somalia.
00:22:07.000That's right, President Trump ended United States hostilities in Somalia and supported this decision with reason and the America First foreign policy.
00:22:17.000I counseled with the former president on this matter quite a bit in the final days of his first term.
00:22:23.000My suggestion was that we do everything we can to get those troops out of Somalia, close that down, and then my hope was that Joe Biden wouldn't reignite our hostilities there.
00:22:32.000Joe Biden has reversed the Trump decision on Somalia, and he is sending hundreds of American troops to Somalia with no approval from Congress.
00:22:43.000President Biden sends U.S. troops back into Somalia.
00:22:45.000Just quoting briefly from the piece, it says...
00:22:49.000The president has authorized the Department of Defense to return a small, persistent U.S. military presence in Somalia.
00:22:56.000It always starts with a small, persistent presence.
00:23:00.000We had a small, persistent presence in Syria under President Obama before our involvement there expanded well beyond what Congress had authorized or what the American people even wanted.
00:23:11.000It is foolish to re-engage in hostilities in Somalia.
00:23:14.000It is not in service of America's interests, and it is consistent with the Biden administration legacy of failure at home and embarrassment abroad.
00:23:24.000I objected to the Biden-Somalia unauthorized war yesterday in the House Armed Services Committee.
00:23:30.000I called out the progressives who acted like it was a big deal to flex congressional muscle on war powers during the Trump administration.
00:23:39.000But now, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.
00:23:45.000We learned through a New York Times leak last night that America is going to re-engage in the war in Somalia.
00:23:52.000This as we are sleepwalking into a war with Ukraine.
00:23:56.000And the authorization to go into Somalia is presumably linked back to the 2001 AUMF. And it just seems crazy to me that we would have a re-engagement of hostilities in Somalia after the Trump administration Withdrew us from that conflict, not just without a congressional vote, but without even really a clear statement from the administration as to our goals.
00:24:21.000But through New York Times leaks now, are we starting wars through New York Times leaks?
00:24:26.000I think there are fewer members of Al-Shabaab than there were like viewers of CNN Plus And yet, here we are re-engaging.
00:24:35.000We are at a briefing, I understand, on the Army's military modernization.
00:24:39.000Sadly, despite the good and needed efforts here, the Army that we've modernized the most is the Taliban's during this administration.
00:24:47.000I used to be able to count on progressives in the Congress, Who joined me in opposing a war in Yemen, who joined me in pushing back against presidential war powers with Iran, who agreed that it would be crazy to start World War III over the Kurds.
00:25:02.000But on the issue of Ukraine, the progressives are signed up for the $40 billion-plus to fund the war.
00:25:08.000We didn't hear a peep from them on Somalia.
00:25:12.000Progressives in the House were anti-war.
00:25:15.000On matters that related to the Middle East, but presumably not on similar matters that relate to Europe and Africa.
00:25:21.000And so I know it's not particularly pertinent to the modernization of the Army, but we are having to make zero-sum funding decisions.
00:25:29.000I think many of the projects we've been briefed on today are critically important to preserve our ability to fight our pacing adversaries.
00:25:36.000And when we get into these, like, skirmishes and sand dunes all across the world, I think that it deviates from the important work that the subcommittee is being briefed on today.
00:26:14.000We've got a lot of Pennsylvania viewers today.
00:26:17.000We've got Mike saying, I've seen them cheat with my own eyes.
00:26:20.000And a lot of people are actually saying that filling out fake ballots in Pennsylvania, we need to open our eyes to what's going on.
00:26:28.000And as Joe Biden is engaging in just the reckless utilization of our military, sending hundreds of America's best and bravest to Somalia, they are abandoning our own border here in the United States of America.
00:26:42.000Homeland Security Secretary Ali Mayorkas testified before the House Judiciary Committee that he has, quote, operational control of the border.
00:26:51.000If you have eyes and ears and can watch any type of news, you know that is obviously bullshit.
00:27:00.000234,088 people were encountered at the border just in April.
00:27:10.000It is the most in a single month in America's history.
00:27:33.000If we love this country as we should, we should love our border.
00:27:37.000And when we have these historic Invasions, when we have these numbers like we've never seen before, it shows that the word is out, not just in Latin America, but all over the world, that our border is a turnstile.
00:27:52.000If this is their definition of operational control, the most people ever in a single month encountered 117,000 released into our country, though by the way will like never have to go home, then they don't even know what operational control means.
00:28:09.000Another bad element of the week for the Department of Homeland Security has been the Ministry of Truth.
00:28:15.000You've seen Secretary Mayorkas testify about the need To have the U.S. government fight disinformation.
00:28:22.000And don't worry if you encounter something that isn't factual.
00:28:27.000The Department of Homeland Security, Ali Mayorkas, the person who cares nothing for our border, he's going to be there with his ministry of truth to save you from disinformation.
00:28:42.000That's right, Secretary of My Work is putting out word that the Disinformation Board, chaired by Nina Jankiewicz, is now officially on pause.
00:28:51.000And I want to thank the American people for this, because you see, What's going on with the Ministry of Truth and COVID disinformation and deplatforming and targeting political movements, it's all connected.
00:29:04.000But this Nina Jankiewicz was such a nut.
00:29:06.000And you all saw that and you amplified it and you exposed it.
00:29:39.000Terrible decisions that are being made.
00:29:41.000The people that are being given the empermata of government to harm our fellow Americans.
00:29:46.000And when we do that, we can actually get some wins for our people.
00:29:49.000It's a win that the disinformation board has been put on pause.
00:29:53.000It should be relegated to the dustbins of history and all the better for it.
00:29:58.000But don't think that the radical left is stopping there or giving up.
00:30:03.000There's been a whole lot of activity with the January 6th committee as they prepare for public hearings in the summer and fall to lead up to the midterms.
00:30:12.000Because the Democrats and their sad little Republican puppets, Cheney and Kinzinger, well, they know that there's not really an agenda or a narrative that the American people will run to to vote for Democrats in the upcoming midterms.
00:30:28.000And so they're trying to scare people.
00:30:29.000They're trying to act like anyone who is MAGA or ultra MAGA.
00:30:42.000Many in the media and on the political left have been calling for greater criminalization of political activity from January 6th and beyond.
00:30:50.000Frank Figluzzi is a frequent guest on MSNBC and admittedly, while they call him a former prosecutor, he's a total hack.
00:30:58.000But just listen to him today on Morning Joe.
00:31:01.000We'll break it down on the other side of the clip.
00:31:04.000NBC News has confirmed that the Justice Department asked the House Select Committee investigating the attack to share transcripts from their closed-door interviews.
00:31:14.000The committee's chairman, Congressman Betty Thompson, says his panel is willing to talk to the DOJ, but they cannot give investigators full access to their work just yet and labeled the request premature.
00:31:29.000The Justice Department has already charged nearly 800 people in connection with the attack.
00:31:34.000More than 280 have already pleaded guilty.
00:31:40.000Joining us now, former assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI and MSNBC national security analyst Frank Figluzzi.
00:31:49.000Frank, first of all, how big a development is this?
00:31:57.000All of this tension and frustration we've kind of sensed between the committee and DOJ may have been a deliberate effort by DOJ to stay out of the business of the committee, to avoid any public perception that the committee is dictating to DOJ or vice versa.
00:32:14.000DOJ is allowing the committee to do their investigative work for them.
00:32:42.000Very good note, and we'll keep you posted.
00:32:44.000But it leads into this discussion with Frank Figluzzi.
00:32:49.000You see, the January 6th committee has functionally been operating in secret with a large number of their depositions and investigation materials and review of documents.
00:32:57.000And they learned something during the Ukraine impeachment, during the failed, aborted Russia hoax impeachment.
00:33:04.000They learned that if all the information comes out, then we can dissect it, analyze it, Put it in context and make our reasonable argument fairly to the American people.
00:33:19.000They want to specially curate and select and basically put on legislative theater before the American people.
00:33:26.000But it's not just theater for theater's sake.
00:33:28.000The signal that you just got from Frank Vigluzy is that the January 6th Congressional Committee is actually hustling up evidence, making subpoena requests and demands, and then they're funneling that information to the Department of Justice to criminalize politics and political disagreement.
00:33:49.000So don't view the January 6th Committee and the Department of Justice as separate entities going about their own thing.
00:33:55.000What you just saw there from MSNBC, from Morning Joe, from basically the talking points of the radical left, is this effort to fuse the legislative activity with criminal investigations intended to crush people, to bankrupt people, and really to get people to self-censor.
00:34:14.000Oh gosh, I didn't You know, have a MAGA sign in my front yard.
00:34:18.000Oh no, gosh, I just donated to President Trump for his policies, not because I support him.
00:34:23.000You see, that's the whole thing, is to get people who think America first to retreat from their First Amendment rights, to be engaged and involved, and to drive change.
00:34:35.000One place the Biden administration is creating a lot of negative change is on America's farms.
00:34:48.000Recently, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced a new rule aimed at clenching its grasp on private industry in the name of, of course, climate change.
00:35:00.000Many people, including me, openly acknowledge that the earth is warming.
00:35:04.000You may remember my Green Real Deal legislation, which calls for free market solutions to address and mitigate carbon emissions.
00:35:11.000By contrast, the Biden SEC is attempting to transform the Securities and Exchange Commission, an independent federal regulatory agency charged with protecting investors and maintaining fair and orderly functioning marketplaces, facilitating capital formation, into the Scientific facilitating capital formation, into the Scientific Environmental Committee,
00:35:31.000This is the latest attempt by Joe Biden through this like, you know, appointed SEC chair, Gary Gensler, to politicize innocuous federal agencies and to convert them into arms of the Woketopia for enforcement.
00:35:49.000This climate rule harms businesses in America, especially the smallest businesses who don't have economies of scale to manage these extraneous and unnecessary burdens of reporting and greenhouse gas emissions and assessment of physical risks to their operations from natural disasters.
00:36:06.000They even want in this rule for businesses to assess their transition risks as a result of climate change.
00:36:15.000And again, this isn't just like the biggest companies.
00:36:17.000Oftentimes, smaller companies want to be in the position to be acquired, and so they have to start complying anyway.
00:36:22.000The SEC estimates that their plan will raise top-line compliance disclosure costs from $3.9 billion to $10.2 billion.
00:36:34.000That's an average of $420,000 a year for a publicly listed company.
00:36:41.000You know who stands to lose most from this rule?
00:36:43.000The farmers, who have already been the victim of increased tariffs on fertilizer imports and sanctions that they're oddly having to pay the price for.
00:36:53.000The increasing price of essential agricultural inputs has also been very damaging to our farmers.
00:36:59.000We did a segment on this with Shannon Nixon from Nixon Farms from our district.
00:37:04.000Now, as for reporting greenhouse gases, there are basically three scopes that are mandated in this new rule.
00:37:10.000Scope one would require reporting of direct emissions.
00:37:13.000I guess that would require our farmers to be out there sniffing the farts of their cows.
00:37:19.000Second, they're supposed to analyze the scope of requiring indirect greenhouse gas emissions from the generation of electricity and steam and heating and cooling reported by the company.
00:37:32.000So basically, you have to become like Sherlock Holmes to figure out the carbon footprint of the electricity you buy.
00:37:38.000Now, reporting of this would also be extended to include indirect emissions that occur both upstream and downstream, including on-farm data day-to-day operations.
00:37:50.000This would happen for all publicly listed agriculture companies of varying sizes, and the recording requirements are burdensome, costly, and unnecessary.
00:38:01.000Are they trying to push medium-sized small farms out of business?
00:38:05.000Are they trying to stop them from being able to be acquired?
00:38:07.000Are they stopping them from being able to exist and pass along from one generation to the next?
00:38:13.000Only the largest agricultural companies who are well equipped for compliance and reporting will make it out of this.
00:38:19.000It could lead to consolidation in agriculture that's already occurring at an alarming rate and that is harming our supply chain and that is really contributing greatly to inflation.
00:38:29.000The SEC has exceeded its regulatory authority, not to mention the farmers across America who already comply with crazy regulations from the Department of Agriculture and the EPA. Our farmers need feed, fuel.
00:38:44.000They need this to drive America, to feed America.
00:38:48.000Our farmers plant seeds and kill weeds.
00:38:52.000Bureaucrats in the grimy halls of D.C. and New York are great at inventing rules and restrictions, but I wouldn't count on any of them to make our food unless you want a diet of nothing but the Impossible Burger.
00:39:08.000We must push back against this war against our farmers for the sake of our great country.
00:39:15.000One other thing I wanted to note before we check out today, there's been an explosion in congressional podcasts, and I think that's a great thing.
00:39:21.000The reason we give you these reports is because we think that our constituents deserve a direct, unedited version of what the heck is going on in Washington, D.C. We're here to pull back the veil and let you know what's up.
00:39:35.000And so if more members of Congress, like Andy Biggs, who started the What's a Biggs Idea podcast, or Tim Burchett, who started Tennessee Talks, or Mike Johnson has a podcast with his amazing wife Kelly, you should check that out as well.
00:39:49.000If we have more of this, if we build up an ecosystem of congressional podcasts, well then you'll be able to see directly what your lawmakers are thinking and working on, and that will drive The accountability and transparency and oversight that we are fighting for every single day in Washington.
00:40:06.000Thanks so much for tuning into the show.
00:40:08.000Make sure you are subscribed, however you're participating today.
00:40:11.000Make sure you keep those comments coming.
00:40:13.000If you're listening on Apple or Spotify, a five-star rating is your way to make sure that our content gets to more people.
00:40:20.000Have the notifications turned on and join us for the next Firebrand.