luna, anna p Rep

2ND 7 26 VP VEEPSTAKES DC DRAINO

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NO MERRI

florida woman trifecta

C2 26 VOTER SUPPRESS SAVE ACT

see stock act

beck deep state pipe bomb

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odd issue fir her?

8 26 an

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an 8 26

Foreign countries are paying online influencers in the MAGA world, but new reporting revealed it's no longer only about elections.

Politico Playbook reported Monday that the influencer campaign has now taken a turn where foreign money is flowing into MAGA influencers who, in turn, have their own online lobbying campaign targeting Cabinet officials.

After previously caring little, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fl.) wants to do something about it and Democrats are eagerly joining her effort.

“Being an influencer right now is kind of like the Wild West,” Luna said, speaking to Politico Playbook. “There’s a lot of things laws haven’t caught up to.”

The report cited bipartisan support from Democratic Reps. Jared Moskowitz (Fla.) and Vicente Gonzalez (Texas) and Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden (Wis.).

Luna said that the Foreign Propaganda Registration Act would be an amendment to the Foreign Agents Registration Act that would mandate influencers disclose when they're being paid by a foreign government to promote political commentary to their followers.

Luna had a briefing that cited foreign influence efforts and she spoke with government agencies that heard about payments coming "on the back end" of the influencer world.

“I have a number of those people,” Luna said when asked whether she knew there were specific influencers scoring foreign cash. “I’m not going to put anyone on blast. That’s not my job.”

“Some of your biggest profile names ... a large portion of them, in some way, shape or form, have been approached at one point to push a certain position that’s probably tied to a foreign country,” Luna added.

She said she's seen contracts that go into the millions of dollars.

Luna also said that she thinks Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) will be open to the idea, but if he isn't, she said she'd simply do a "discharge petition" and move it forward anyway. In the past several months, Republicans have sidestepped the leadership on bipartisan legislation that Johnson refused to push by using a discharge petition. It requires that 218 lawmakers sign on to support a bill or resolution to be pushed out of committee and voted on by the full House.

Sometimes, it can be difficult to use because members’ signatures are public and can carry political consequences. Though in the last two years, all of the discharge petitions have been in part due to public pressure.

"The fight ballooned in recent months inside MAGA, where the sprawling influencer ecosystem that fueled Trump’s political rise faces growing accusations within its own ranks that foreign governments and other well-funded interests are trying to manipulate it," said Playbook. "Allegations have been leveled against influencers targeting JD Vance, Tucker Carlson and recently that Laura Loomer’s trip to Ukraine was funded by the country — which she vehemently denied."

In April, Alex Bruesewitz, who is in Trump’s inner circle and is also closest to the MAGA influencer world, has been advocating that influencers stamp out such foreign campaigns.

"Bruesewitz has begun flagging suspected paid pressure campaigns as high up as Cabinet officials, warning them who may be behind efforts to influence their agencies," Politico reported, citing two people familiar with the effort.

“If you get paid to promote a swimsuit, you have to say ‘paid partnership.’ If you get paid to tell the president to pull tariffs off of India, you don’t have to disclose,” Bruesewitz told Playbook. “The American public deserves to know what content that is going out on the accounts of their favorite social media personalities is bought and paid for by foreign interests.”

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rww

07/20/2026

Sophia Tesfaye @ Salon: MAGA’s influencer class is breaking Trump’s White House

As the failure of Trump’s domestic agenda demoralizes his base, the defining currency of MAGA has shifted from ideology to access.

FOr years, Donald Trump benefited from an informal court of influencers, podcasters and self-appointed power brokers who claimed unusual access to the former reality TV star. During his presidential campaigns and midterm election cycles, that ecosystem amplified Trump’s message and bypassed traditional Republican institutions. Now it’s colliding with the basic mechanics of governing and embarrassing the administration by creating a parallel power structure of clout chasers around the presidency.

This week alone offered multiple remarkably different examples of the same phenomenon. In one, alleged pardon brokers sold access to Trump’s orbit as a luxury service. In another, one of Trump’s most influential MAGA personalities allegedly converted that proximity into a payday on the prediction markets. And in another example, a freshman Republican congressman threatened to derail House business over a feud with one of Trump’s favorite influencers.

It’s not just that MAGA has grifters. It is that the grifters now help define the terms of power.

Each of these scandals is about a White House surrounded by people who have figured out that proximity to power is the only product worth selling, and who are now cashing in on it badly enough to blow up their own party’s agenda. It’s not just that MAGA has grifters. It is that the grifters now help define the terms of power.

The clearest way to see the problem is the way Trump World now treats information. In MAGAland, insider information is something to be teased, reposted and traded on. On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reported that over lunch at a members-only social club in Tampa, Florida, GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna confided in associates that she already knew Trump would pick JD Vance as his running mate in 2024. According to a person familiar with the conversation, she revealed she had passed the tip on to Rogan O’Handley, the MAGA influencer known to millions of followers as “DC Draino,” so he could place a winning bet on Polymarket, and she later teased him for not placing a bigger wager.

O’Handley had reportedly been quietly campaigning on social media to get Trump to consider Luna herself for the ticket, and when she told him Vance had gotten the nod instead, he cashed in on the correct pick anyway. Another account described a former investment banker saying he received the same kind of early tip through a conservative Heritage Foundation associate and used it to profit as well. Both Luna and O’Handley deny any wrongdoing, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is reportedly examining the allegations.

As the failure of Trump’s domestic agenda demoralizes his base, the defining currency of MAGA has shifted from ideology to access. So now the administration is completely besieged by unelected influencers who treat proximity to the Oval Office as a monetization strategy.

To understand how deep the transactional rot at the heart of modern conservatism goes, look no further than the spectacular saga of Torrence Hatch, rapper Boosie Badazz’ legal name. Facing a federal sentencing hearing for possessing a firearm as a felon, Hatch did what many desperate people do in the orbit of the current administration: He looked for a monetary shortcut. For the cool sum of $600,000, Hatch hired JM Burkman & Associates — a firm run by Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, a pair of notorious right-wing grifters. The deal was supposed to help him secure a Trump pardon after a federal gun case, but the pardon never materialized, and Boosie is now trying to recover part of the money through arbitration.

MAGA wants to launder political donations — through God

The Trump administration’s second-term clemency process has become so informal that a handful of White House aides and outside allies can shape who gets attention, while people outside the administration sell themselves as if they can guarantee access.

Boosie’s case reads like a perfect MAGA parable because Wohl and Burkman allegedly pitched him with the confidence of people who knew how to sound close to the center. These are the same convicted felons who pleaded guilty over an illegal robocall campaign targeting Black voters during the 2020 election and later faced millions in civil penalties. Yet in the MAGA economy, past disgrace is a premium credential. The two reportedly invoked a network of conservative influencers and Republican officials — including influencer and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, far-right media personalities Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec, MAGA activist Erika Kirk, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and Reps. Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Andy Biggs of Arizona — as if name-dropping alone could grease the machinery of the presidency. Several of those figures denied involvement once the story went public, which only sharpened the point: the MAGA ecosystem is so saturated with pseudo-access that it is hard to tell where the con ends and the governing begins.

If the Boosie affair illustrates how MAGA influencers are monetizing the White House from the outside, a crisis that emerged this week on the House floor shows how they are breaking the government from within as that same competition for influence is now spilling directly into the legislative process.

Alex Bruesewitz is not a Cabinet official and holds no Senate-confirmed position. He serves as an outside political adviser to Trump. Yet a sitting Republican congressman spent this week threatening to gum up the GOP’s agenda in the House until Bruesewitz is removed from the president’s orbit.

Florida Rep. Randy Fine’s break with his party over a routine procedural rule might look minor in isolation, but in a chamber of Congress Republicans control by a bare 218 to 212 margin, even one defection changes the math. On July 14, Fine did something almost unheard of for a modern Republican and voted no, the only member of his party to do so, on a 215-211 procedural rule tying the long-stalled Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act to a State Department funding bill.

The strange part is that Fine had spent months publicly begging Senate Republicans to attach the SAVE America Act to exactly this kind of must-pass legislation. He’d even co-signed a letter in March alongside Reps. Andy Harris of Maryland, Chip Roy of Texas, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and others, pledging to vote no on any Senate bill until it moved. So when House leadership finally gave him what he’d demanded, he voted no anyway, telling reporters only that he was working out “disputes inside the family,” a line he delivered, word for word, to both the Daily Caller and TMZ, which tells you it was a rehearsed answer.

The real family dispute has nothing to do with voter identification. Fine has reportedly told White House officials he intends to vote against every rule that reaches the House floor until Trump fires Bruesewitz. The feud apparently traces back to Bruesewitz’s appearance on Tucker Carlson’s podcast, where Carlson, discussing Trump’s own endorsement of Fine, described the congressman on air as “that creepy fat guy from Florida who endorsed genocide.” Bruesewitz piled on, telling Carlson that Fine “has tweeted some ugly things, really ugly things,” and he promoted Fine’s primary challenger, celebrity gambler Dan Bilzerian.

Fine, who is Jewish, has built much of his political identity around confronting antisemitism on the right, once calling Carlson “the most dangerous antisemite in America” for platforming white nationalist Nick Fuentes. The Florida congressman retaliated on X, accusing Bruesewitz, Carlson and Candace Owens of spreading a “mind virus” that seeks to “pit Jews and Christians against each other.” He has since taken the fight off social media and turned his own vote into a weapon, threatening to freeze the House floor until Trump and Bruesewitz waved the white flag.

That a sitting member of Congress was willing to shut down his own party’s legislative business over a personal and ideological vendetta involving a Fox News alumnus and an outside political adviser is landing at the worst possible moment for House Speaker Mike Johnson, who needs something close to unanimity just to function. He’s already seen what a handful of defections can do: Weeks earlier, a separate bloc of conservative holdouts, several of whom had signed Fine’s own SAVE America letter, tanked a defense authorization rule. Suddenly Johnson was faced with a member willing to burn down the floor schedule indefinitely because the party’s most influential unofficial adviser called him fat on a podcast.

When clout brokers can provoke lawmakers into obstructing their own party’s agenda, the White House is no longer directing the coalition — it is being dragged around by it. It’s clear that Donald Trump’s unofficial MAGA court is becoming a liability.

---

OVERSIGHT MKULTRA WINGNUTTERY LUNA BURCHETT ELI CRANE MACE

The House Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets convened a hearing on June 30, 2026, titled "Mind Control and Accountability: Uncovering the Truth of the CIA's MKULTRA Project." [1, 2, 3]

Quick Summary

Led by Chairwoman Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), the committee investigated the CIA's Cold-War era covert mind-control operations. Members scrutinized the intelligence community's history of destroying project records and their current reluctance to declassify remaining documents. , 2, 3, 4]

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AN 4 26

President Donald Trump’s media ecosystem for a long time depended on major online brands like The Daily Wire and Blaze Media, but as one of their fellow conservative publications pointed out, Trump’s coalition is dissolving — and with it, the base of support upon which many of these media outlets once stood firm.

“Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire is in trouble on YouTube, losing significant numbers of subscribers—with Shapiro himself down a whopping 80,000 in the first quarter of the year, according to a new survey of political channels by researcher Kyle Tharp,” wrote The Bulwark’s Will Sommer on Monday. “It’s more proof that dissident and increasingly anti-Trump voices like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson have the energy in right-wing media. Shapiro, by contrast, is stuck defending an unpopular war with Iran.”

Sommer noted that even Shapiro’s attempts to offset losses to his political brand by crafting mainstream motion pictures has failed.

“Deadline reports that the set of the Daily Wire’s upcoming film Run Hide Fight Infidels is in chaos, with black mold on the site, a tree branch hitting a crew member, and actor Jonathan Majors falling out of a window during a recent shoot,” Sommer wrote. “Undeterred by crew complaints, producers say they won’t negotiate on safety ‘with communists.’ By communist, they mean unionized crew members.”

Sommer also took shots at Blaze Media, an outlet owned by Glenn Beck, which is facing problems because of a journalist associated with them who spread an incorrect story about the January 6th coup attempt.

“Back in November, the conservative media outlet the Blaze claimed that reporter Steve Baker had the scoop of the century: compelling evidence that the pipe bombs planted outside Republican and Democratic headquarters on January 6th were laid by a Capitol Police officer,” Sommer wrote. “Blaze founder Glenn Beck declared it would be ‘the biggest scandal of my lifetime, maybe in the last hundred years.’ Republican members of Congress like Anna Paulina Luna and Thomas Massie championed the story, saying it was proof the deep state was behind January 6th.”

Yet the story proved not to be true, with Blaze Media retracting it in December, and Sommer wrote that Baker “was fired on Wednesday morning, as the publication faces the possibility of a massive libel judgment over the story.”

Beck has a long history of extravagant behavior, perhaps becoming most famous for dramatically crying during many of his speeches. Beck remains a stalwart in the conservative movement, although Shapiro has wavered somewhat at times. In a recent interview with the New Yorker, Shapiro admitted to David Remnick that he does not believe Trump is entirely honest and that he has concerns about the Trump family’s involvement in cryptocurrency schemes.

"I raised red flags on my show, consistently, about how I thought this was wrong. If the name were Biden instead of Trump, people would be screaming bloody murder," Shapiro told Remnick. "And this was not beneficial to President Trump’s agenda, either. So, sure, that concerns me."

Speaking with this journalist for Salon Magazine in 2019, Shapiro also admitted that he has been singled out for hate by some of his own far right supporters because of his Jewish background.

“I’ve gotten enormous amounts of hatred from the alt-right, and while folks on the far left try to lump me in with the alt-right, that is the height of absurdity on every possible level,” Shapiro said. “I mean, it’s honestly one of the most reprehensible things that I’ve experienced personally, people trying to lump me in with people who have legitimately threatened to kill my children … so that’s always a party.”

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AN 2 26

Republicans on social media are admitting the truth behind Democratic accusations about the SAVE Act — namely, that they want to pass the SAVE Act requiring proof of citizenship and photo ID to disenfranchise Democratic voters.

“The writing on the wall,” tweeted Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida in a message in which Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is tagged. Luna attached a flowchart which showed two paths from “Gain majority”: The first, in which the SAVE Act is not saved, equals “lose majority,” “resist other team’s agenda” and needing to fundraise “back to gain majority.”

The flowchart also shows, as an alternative if the SAVE Act fails, is a “one-party state.” This, perhaps not coincidentally, is what historians and political scientists observe could occur to Republicans’ advantage if Trump nationalizes the 2026 midterms. Because Americans with low incomes, disabilities and other disadvantages often struggle to obtain citizenship documents and photo ID despite being legitimate citizens and voters, scholars are concerned the SAVE Act would disproportionately target Democratic constituencies.

Conservative commentator Tomi Lahren, who once said “I don’t care if someone is a liberal, conservative, an atheist, or whatever: don’t be the mean girl,” tweeted “Yep” in response to Luna’s flowchart post to Thune. In a similar spirit, conservative activist Scott Presler posted on Twitter/X and told Thune that “if you do not bring the SAVE America Act to the Senate floor and ultimately pass the bill into law, Republicans will lose both the House and Senate this November.” After threatening that Republicans will not vote unless the SAVE Act is passed, Presler ordered Thune to “either wield power and be remembered as a hero in the majority or lose it all with a democrat takeover as the minority.”

According to one veteran political journalist, this is Republicans “quiet part out loud.”

“The quiet part out loud,” tweeted New York Times congressional correspondent Annie Karni on Wednesday morning while sharing Luna’s flowchart. “Fail to pass Save Act -> lose majority.”

In a similar vein as Karni, Politico columnist Jonathan Martin pointed out in regard to Presler’s tweet that there were “14K likes for arguing Repubs will lose midterms if they don’t pass a voter ID and citizenship bill. Not, ya know, bc the president is hovering at or below 40% and Dems have a massive off-year turnout advantage in this era.”

He concluded, “Preposterous, sure, but is only gonna put more pressure on Sen Rs bc many of their voters are swallowing this nonsense.”

Martin posted his tweet on Tuesday at 9:18 PM Eastern Time. As of the time of this writing, at 1:10 PM ET on the following Wednesday (roughly 16 hours later), it has 54K likes.

In addition to political journalists, some of Trump’s fellow Republicans are alarmed that the president is planning on stealing the upcoming midterm elections.

“This is the first instance in which I could begin to believe that something truly spectacular is going to happen in which our 2026 midterm elections are not administered like past elections have been,” Stephen Richer, a former Republican county recorder of Maricopa County when Trump attempted to steal the 2020 election, recently told The Atlantic’s David Frum.

“I am worried, as I have said and others have been pointing out, about whether we will even have free and fair elections in 2026, let alone in 2028,” conservative historian Robert Kagan recently told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “I think Trump has a plan to disrupt those elections, and I don't think he's willing to allow Democrats to take control of one or both houses as could happen in a free election.”

Former Republican consultant and Pulitzer Prize winner George F. Will summed up Trump’s midterm schemes by comparing them to his failed efforts to prove the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

“Trump’s batting average?” Will wrote “.016. In Arizona, the most exhaustively scrutinized state, a private firm selected by Trump’s advocates confirmed Trump’s loss, finding 99 additional Biden votes and 261 fewer Trump votes.” As such Will wrote of Trump, “The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”

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February 3, 2026, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room

STEVE BANNON (HOST): Democrats are saying this is the greatest voter suppression movement in history. Here's the reason, Minnesota shows you this, New York City shows you this, if they don't have illegal aliens voting, if they don't have these phony migrants that are here on these phony programs that are at the polls — and you're damn right we're gonna have ICE surround the polls come November.

We're not gonna sit here and allow you to steal the country again. And you can whine and cry and throw your toys out of the pram all you want, but we will never again allow an election to be stolen. And that's why I'm so proud of what President Trump is doing and people are doing. Caroline Wren, your thoughts on that before I go to Brad?

CAROLINE WREN (GUEST): I think what you said about ICE is very much related to this, because in fact, Senator Mark [Warner] said in an interview, he said, we don't want ICE agents showing up at the polling stations. That's what this is all about. That's why they're trying to defund ICE, that's why they're trying to, you know, go after and target ICE and shut it down.

Why would you care if ICE shows up to polling stations because illegal aliens are not allowed to vote in this country. Except for the problem is they do, and they do in these, they're not blue states, I was gonna say blue states. Minnesota is a deeply red state that is held hostage by illegals voting and it is — the minorities have taken over there, and by minorities I mean the minority party, the Democratic Party there, and that is due to allowing illegals to vote. And so that is what this outrage by the left is against ICE.

They're desperately trying to shut down the DHS funding bill. They don't want ICE funded because they don't want ICE at the polling stations to stop illegals from voting.

BANNON: The ask here on the Save Act, and Make Elections Great Again Act are pretty basic. A legitimate ID to show who you are to vote. It is to clean up the voter rolls. We've had Tom Fitton on here, there are millions, there are tens of millions, particularly in places like Georgia, but all over the nation there are tens of millions of people on voter rolls that should not be, they have to be cleaned up, and the blue states are the ones that are fighting the Justice Department.

And then the last is, you've got to go back to the basic law. If you're gonna have mail-in ballots, you have to have signature verification, you have to have the double envelopes, you have to have everything so we can't have a 2020 and the Democrats don't want to play with that because they know how to steal elections.

Let's just, let's put you on notice again. ICE is going to be around the polls in the 2026 midterm elections because we are never again going to allow your business model because — I think Jesse Kelly is right, 20% of the country probably votes for Democrats, you know, the credentialed class and of course the abject poor that they keep on these social welfare programs and never let them off it. That's the Democratic Party base with a handful of oligarchs, the super wealthy, that's who controls the Democratic Party.

The way that they continue to win elections is they cheat. If they don't cheat, they can't win. And now they're sitting there saying President Trump is a fascist. These are very basic things, and they're not — we're going to find out today, Chip Roy is going to come on. As hard as Anna Paulina Luna and people have been working I'm not so sure the Save Act even comes to a vote.

---

[### THE USAID BETRAYAL

Congress.gov

https://www.congress.gov › event › house-event › text](https://www.congress.gov/event/119th-congress/house-event/LC74289/text)

The purpose of today's hearing is to discuss the misuse of public trust through USAID's woke programming and explore ideas for reorganization.Read more

...

The chair now recognizes Representative Luna.

Mrs. Luna. Chairman, for the record, I would like to submit

this letter saying that PEPFAR funding was actually resumed. I

know there has been a lot of push saying that the Trump admin

had actually cut it, but----

Chairman Mast. So ordered.

Mrs. Luna. Thank you.

You know, I want to start off by saying initially I think

the idea behind USAID was done with a good intention. However,

we have come to find out that the Agency has indeed, to a

certain extent, operated in a rogue capacity. And USAID has

absolutely broken the trust with the American people and not

been transparent about where our taxpayer dollars are going.

There is an individual by the name of Mike Benz. He

actually served over at the State Department for a while, and

he has been going on to expose a lot of what USAID has been

doing, which being a member of Oversight and being on this

committee I wanted to verify and see if he was telling the

truth, which much to my disappointment he was.

And I say that because I am disappointed that our taxpayer

dollars are funding some of these items. I mean, to just put

this in perspective, in 2021, the Special Operations Command

under Mark Milley as chairman of the Joint Chiefs put out an

instruction manual, ``A Vision for 2021 and Beyond,'' that

contained instructions and examples on how the military could

work with the State Department, intel services, and USAID using

race riots--here are examples of some of the instruction

manuals here, one and two--in order to destabilize nations.

In addition to that, they advocated for setting up job

fairs near some of these riots so that disaffected workers

could gain employment.

Now, as a Member of Congress, I ask myself, did anyone in

USAID get elected? To Congress? How about to a Presidency? When

you are acting in the shadows and you are destabilizing nations

using race wars to do it and then advocating that the military

does it, in my opinion, not only do you put the future

generations that would have to fight in those wars in jeopardy,

but at the end of the day, you are operating without any

oversight.

So I guess the question for you guys is, Mr. Natsios, is

that something that you were aware of? Are you aware that that

instruction manual is being promoted not just with the military

under Milley but that USAID may be operating in this capacity?

Because, in my opinion--and I am sure I speak on behalf of many

of my constituents--I don't think that is where our taxpayer

dollars need to be going.

Mr. Natsios. Well, I completely agree with you. Personally,

I doubt very much that what you have been told is accurate, but

let me just say----

Mrs. Luna. Well, look, I am telling you right now I brought

the receipts. Okay. And the reason--I am not trying to argue

with you, but I find this disturbing----

Mr. Natsios. Very disturbing.

Mrs. Luna [continuing]. On so many capacities. And I would

like to also just, if I can, sir, Mike Benz, what he is

exposing and bringing receipts, I have confirmed it, thank you

for doing that on behalf of the American people because I

understand that when you take on the intelligence agencies, we

are also now finding that apparently in this manual that they

are also advocating for social media campaigns illuminating

controversy to a global audience. I mean, using disinformation

campaigns. Is this happening here in our own country? Where is

the oversight?

Mr. Natsios. Just to ask you, who in the Agency, what

bureau----

Mrs. Luna. I just sent you--you can actually find that

instruction in this manual that Milley approved.

Mr. Natsios. Military manual, is it?

Mrs. Luna. Yes, but Milley approved it. You have it right

here. USAID working with government agencies. I mean, this is

not----

Mr. Natsios. Wait a second. Did AID say that or did the

military say AID should----

Mrs. Luna. Well, that would be the question for you, sir.

Mr. Natsios. Well, I don't think AID wrote that.

Mrs. Luna. I mean, these operations--sorry to interrupt

you. These operations that are taking place without government

oversight, without the authority of the President, without the

authority of Congress, real men and women serve and they die

because of stuff like this. When you destabilize nations

without any oversight, we have to fight those wars. You have

our chairman right here that literally risked his life----

Mr. Natsios. I----

Mrs. Luna. No. I am sorry to interrupt you. I am

frustrated. I know it is not necessarily your fault.

Mr. Natsios. But I am telling you it is nonsense.

Mrs. Luna. But as the head of the Agency----

Mr. Natsios. I am telling you what Benz told you is

nonsense.

Mrs. Luna. That is not nonsense. These are the information

and forms----

Mr. Natsios. AID didn't write that.

Mrs. Luna [continuing]. And Benz put this out to the

American people.

Mr. Natsios. AID did not write that.

Mrs. Luna. Sir, I disagree with you on so many levels, and

I appreciate you being----

Mr. Natsios. How do you know they wrote it?

Mrs. Luna. How do I know what?

Mr. Natsios. Any person can write AID's name into a manual.

It goes on all the time.

Mrs. Luna. Sir, they are advocating that the U.S. military

work with taxpayer-funded State Department USAID funds to

destabilize nations. That is unacceptable. I don't care who

wrote it. USAID needs to come down and condemn it. They need to

provide oversight to Congress on exactly where our tax dollars

are going.

And I know I might be at 17 seconds with our time, but,

sir, I hope that you agree--yes or no. Do you agree that this

is wrong, period? Should this be happening?

Mr. Natsios. I think the military should be held

accountable. I think it is nonsense that----

Mrs. Luna. And should USAID condemn it?

Mr. Natsios. It is nonsense to suggest that AID wrote that.

Mrs. Luna. Should USAID condemn it? Should they condemn it?

Mr. Natsios. The military should.

Mrs. Luna. Should USAID also condemn this?

Mr. Natsios. Of course. We don't comment----

Mrs. Luna. Thank you.

Mr. Natsios. AID does not comment on military manuals.

Mrs. Luna. Chairman, I yield my time back.

Thank you.

Chairman Mast. The gentlewoman's time has expired.

Mr. Natsios. It is none of our business

---

mma

December 11, 2025, edition of The Benny Show, posted to YouTube

BENNY JOHNSON (HOST): Mr. Attorney General, thank you so much for being on the show today. Those are, like, we just had Barry Loudermout on. He's running the January 6 committee. It's just like a complete barn burner. I know that you're here serving as our state AG. But if you don't mind, can I ask you about an a national issue, which is some of the concurrent investigations that are going on, whether it be Thomas Crooks, or Tyler Robinson, or the pipe bomber? What would be your advice in order to get the American public read in on so many of these issues that seem to be kind of fraying the country right now? Right?

JAMES UTHMEIER (FLORIDA'S ATTORNEY GENERAL): My advice would be to investigate to the fullest. Ask every question. Thank you, Benny, for continuing to ask these questions. I think the American people have lost faith and credibility in law enforcement. They hear about inquiries, investigations that don't actually go anywhere. Things just get swept up the rug. We stop asking questions. And at the end of the day, we don't give the American people the answers they need. The questions you're asking are the right ones. There's a lot that doesn't make sense. People can call us conspiracy theorists, but I think you're on to something that's massively important, for our country and its history.

JOHNSON: There's no such thing as a conspiracy theory. I mean, that's a slur.

That's a slur that was made up after JFK was shot. And what did we learn just a month ago based on Anna Paulina's investigation here from the great state of Florida? Well, we found out that the CIA has been withholding a document that proves that they bumped into Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico, that they were working — at the very least, they were working in tandem with him on various operations. This has been proven. We have the documents now. And so it's actually — you're a conspiracy theorist if you don't think that there was some type of intel involvement and at least the operation — operability of Lee Harvey Oswald. They've now just completely admitted it. The records are there. The documents are there. And so, yeah, who was right all along? Right?

UTHMEIER: Yeah. The deep state for decades has been hoping that people at home will not ask questions, that they are not smart enough to figure out the truth. And, again, God bless you for digging into it. Representative Luna is doing a great job on many fronts. And, here in Florida, where we see wrongs that need to be righted, we will dig in, and and we will absolutely investigate and prosecute to the fullest. You got my word on that.

---

mma

December 11, 2025, edition of The Benny Show, posted to YouTube

JOHNSON: There's no such thing as a conspiracy theory. I mean, that's a slur.

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an 11 25 try to build on antifa bs?

A right-wing media outlet's exposé on what it claimed was the likely identity of the January 6th pipe bomber has been proven to be more of a bomb than a bombshell, reports The Bulwark.

The Blaze, founded by conservative commentator Glenn Beck, reported that "a female former Capitol Police officer who joined the CIA shortly after January 6th was 'a forensic match' for the individual caught on camera footage the night before."

The report said that they used "gait analysis" to compare the walk of the ex-officer to the alleged bomber.

Loyalists of President Donald Trump immediately picked up on the report, including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna(R-FL), who wrote on X that “a capitol police officer placed a pipe bomb at the RNC on J6,” adding that the Blaze story was proof that Republicans would “all be in the gulag” if it wasn't for Trump.

“This woman was the Capitol Hill pipe bomber,” wrote Women for Trump co-founder and January 6 Ellipse rally organizer Amy Kremer on X.

The Justice Department, however, remained uncharacteristically silent about the report, The Bulwark notes, and Rep. Luna deleted her post.

"Instead of uncovering the likely identity of the pipe bomb-dropping suspect, the Blaze may have a legal mess on its hands," The Bulwark says.

"The mystery has loomed especially large for conservatives, who see the FBI’s failure to catch the perpetrator as proof that the laying of the bombs — and perhaps the Capitol riot itself — was an inside job orchestrated by federal law enforcement to entrap Trump supporters," they write.

Like the promised release of the Epstein files, when Trump took office, MAGA expected answers on the pipe-bomber, but "frustratingly for the right, the installation of Trump diehards like Kash Patel and Dan Bongino as the leaders of the FBI hasn’t turned up any more information," they note.

For the Blaze founder Beck, the story represents “the biggest scandal of my lifetime, maybe in the last hundred years,” he exclaimed a few days before the story ran.

The pipe-bomb suspect, according to Beck, was “at the highest levels of government.”

Steve Baker, one of the story's reporters, posted on X that the investigation had uncovered “the biggest scandal and conspiracy in American history.”

The Bulwark points out that Baker "was himself a January 6th defendant; he pleaded guilty to his role in the riot late last year."

"Perhaps more important, though, is that right-wing media outlets have gotten more gun-shy about implicating non-public people of crimes," they write, pointing to lawsuits resulting in rulings against InfoWars and Fox News.

And while Baker named and published photos of a specific person, giving "the impression that he might actually have the goods," The Bulwark says, "the actual reporting was not definitive."

Baker and his co-author Joseph M. Hanneman apparently used "years-old footage" of their accused bomber playing soccer to compare to the footage from January 5, 2021.

"Instead of using suspect footage released by the FBI, however, the Blaze claims it used footage 'from another source' the article doesn’t name," The Bulwark notes.

The Blaze didn't release the video to prove their claims, instead citing the work of a “video sleuth,” whom The Bulwark deems "a little-known X user named Armitas whose online profile image is a picture from the 1998 role-playing video game Xenogears."

The woman who was identified by the Blaze "was already a target of the MAGA right," photographed as one of the officers firing pepper balls at January 6th rioters, and later testified against January 6th participants in at least two cases, according to court records, The Bulwark says.

As the article started to gain traction, it suffered "an immediate blow to its credibility," they report.

"While the article initially claimed that the woman now works on CIA director John Ratcliffe’s security detail, the article was corrected after the CIA clarified that she worked as a security guard on CIA property," they write.

Julie Kelly, "a right-wing media figure who has become the dean of the MAGA January 6th counternarrative," has investigated the pipe bomber herself, and slammed The Blaze's story.

“I am shocked at the weak evidence cited in The Blaze article and nonexistent evidence contained in the piece itself,” Kelly tweeted.

"High-ranking Justice Department official Ed Martin appeared to support the article before it came out, tweeting sequentially 'P' 'I' 'P' 'E?' before deleting the posts containing the letters. At the same time, Martin tweeted out that neither he nor the FBI had made a determination of the pipe-bomb suspect’s identity," The Bulwark notes.

Following the story, the FBI put out a statement saying they are still investigating the case, and right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson used it to quash the story on his show.

“There’s no other way to accept this statement, other than they’re saying the Blaze has it wrong," he said.

Even Beck seems to be walking away from the story, The Bulwark says.

"Despite the Blaze publishing the officer’s name on Saturday, Beck refused to name the woman on his podcast, saying 'a match is not guilt.'"

“This person of interest is still a citizen whose life carries the same dignity and presumption of innocence as yours and mine,” Beck said. “I can’t tell you what is true in this story yet.”

---

an 8 25

Axios reports "a schism is emerging between members of Congress who want to ban their colleagues from trading stocks over how best to accomplish their shared goal."

Congressional stock trading is the topic that Congress has long stalled as representatives grow wealthy from what looks to critics like insider trading.

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) admitted in April that she purchased between $21,000 and $315,000 in stocks the day President Donald Trump sent stocks soaring by pausing his sweeping tariffs. Numbers also showed she dumped between $50,000 and $100,0000 in Treasury bills the day the bond market selloff badly rattled investors.

U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Penn.), meanwhile, sold up to $50,000 in Alibaba stock on March 4, the same day Trump doubled the tariff on Chinese imports. In fact, there are trading companies that buy and sell based upon the reliability of U.S. politicians’ market transactions.

IFrame Content

Axios reports House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) have expressed support for a ban, but talk appeared to stall until Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) announced last month that she plans to introduce a discharge petition on a bill to ban lawmakers, spouses and dependents from trading or owning stocks.

“Luna's going to force it, and I think we need to do that, because I'm sick of messing around," Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) told Axios, adding that he was certain "some" Democrats would sign on to a discharge petition that bypasses House leadership and forces a floor vote.

Axios reports Burchett is part of a bipartisan group that includes Reps. Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.), Chip Roy (R-Texas), Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.).

Luna tells Axios she is suspicious of the bipartisan group, however, claiming members don’t actually want to bring forward a bill because they don't "want to hurt their friends.”

A senior House Democrat told Axios the bill “is causing problems and being sorted."

Read the full Axios report at this link.

---

NO LNX

‘I miss lynch mobs’: The secretary of retribution's followers are getting impatient

Retired Lt. Col. Ivan Raiklin and self-styled "secretary of retribution" Ivan Raiklin at the Republican National Convention

(Jordan Green / Raw Story)

Jordan Green March 09, 2025

A recent X post by Ivan Raiklin, a retired Army lieutenant general who bills calls the “secretary of retribution,” prompted a flurry of comments endorsing violence and vigilantism directed at four mayors who testified before Congress on Wednesday.

Raiklin, who last year circulated a so-called “Deep State Target List” against President Trump’s enemies while calling for “livestreamed swatting raids,” re-posted a video of Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, delivering a fiery lecture to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and New York City Mayor Eric Adams, all Democrats.

“One of you said you’re willing to go to jail; we might give you that opportunity, good mayor,” Higgins said, likely referring to Johnston, the Denver mayor.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) declared that she intended to refer the four mayors to the Department of Justice for prosecution, while holding up papers that she said would be delivered to Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Raiklin wrote in his post re-sharing the video of Higgins’ remarks: “If these mayors are not arrested, WeThe People [sic] will be compelled to reconsider our relationship with government.”

The two men appear to be acquainted: Last July, Raiklin posted a photo on X that showed him clasping hands with Higgins outside Fiserv Forum during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

Higgins did not respond to an email from Raw Story for this story.

As of Friday evening, Raiklin’s post had been viewed more than 50,000 times, and had been reshared almost 900 times while garnering 168 comments. Raiklin’s follower count on X has grown to almost 235,000.

The comments from X users responding to Raiklin’s post include calls for vigilante justice and violence mixed with irritation directed at Bondi for not taking enough action in their view. The Department of Justice has filed lawsuits against Johnson, the Chicago mayor, and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzer and against New York Gov. Kathy Hochul over laws that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. Pritzger and Hochul, both Democrats, have scorned the lawsuits, with Pritzger calling it “garbage” and Hochul deriding it as “worthless.”

Among the responses to Raiklin’s post, some X users called for outright violence, while others proposed some form of extrajudicial process along the lines of sovereign citizen activity.

“I suggest we organize and go to war against our government like our forefathers did,” one user wrote.

Another user posted a meme of George Washington, accompanied by an imagined quote by the first American president reading: “Me and my homies woulda been stacking bodies by now.”

“A real insurrection is still possible,” yet another wrote.

One user asserted incorrectly that “citizens can form their own grand juries.”

“Why wait?” he wrote. “Start now.”

Another asserted: “We the people have the right to form and exercise trained militias. Now is the time for these militias to be on standby awaiting deployment.”

Much of Raiklin’s influence among Trump’s more extreme followers rests on his experience as a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former civilian employee of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, not to mention his seemingly unflagging zeal, prolific social media presence and hypermasculine presentation.

“I am ready, Ivan!” one X user wrote. “You make the call and millions will follow. Our patience are running increasingly thin [sic]. For me, I’ll give it 6 months max.”

Another user wrote: “I didn’t suffer for four years to hear empty promises. The first [arrest] might be the hardest, but they get easier as you go. Let’s get going. Be like a serial killer and become a serial arrester.”

Another simply wrote: “I miss lynch mobs.”

While declining to specifically address the comments under Raiklin’s post, the FBI said in a statement provided to Raw Story that the agency “takes all potential threats seriously and works with our law enforcement partners to determine their credibility, share information, and take appropriate investigative action.

“As always, we encourage members of the public to remain vigilant and immediately report anything they consider suspicious to law enforcement,” the statement continued.

Raw Story reached out by email to Raiklin for comment. He said a transcript of 42-minute video depicting him walking around Washington, D.C. and talking about a supposed Jan. 6 coverup by Republican House members would constitute his response to this story.

The comments about Bondi, who Trump appointed to lead the Department of Justice — roughly a dozen in all — were uniformly disparaging.

“Arrest them what the f--- dumb blondie @AGPamBondi,” one user with the screen name “ClownPuncher” wrote in response to Raiklin’s post. Another baselessly accused the attorney general of “actively protecting Democrats.”

An inquiry submitted to the Department of Justice by Raw Story seeking comment from Bondi for this story went unreturned.

Comments about other Trump administration officials were similarly negative, with one calling FBI Director Kash Patel a “disappointment” and another belittling Border Czar Tom Homan by writing, “If Tommy Boy doesn’t have it in him, Trump needs to get someone who can do it.”

Other X users variously suggested that even Trump and Raiklin himself are not truly committed to arresting the president’s political enemies.

“They’re not going to be, Ivan,” wrote a user with the screen name “Truth Seeking Vet.” “I’m afraid POTUS ‘made a deal’ with the demonrats to get back into Office. I hope and pray I’m wrong, but time will tell.”

One deeply paranoid user suggested Raiklin is an infiltrator who is in league with Democrats and federal law enforcement.

Another called Raiklin out for claiming last year that all he needed to carry out a plan to arrest Trump’s enemies was sympathetic prosecutors and sheriffs, and volunteers.

“I thought you were doing it, deputizing sheriffs, didn’t even need Trump to win,” the user wrote. “What/who is stopping you?”

Raiklin serves on the board of directors of America’s Future, a nonprofit led by retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who formerly led the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency under President Barack Obama and briefly served as national security advisor during Trump’s first term.

Raiklin and Flynn jointly shared master of ceremonies duties at an awards ceremony held by America’s Future at Mar-a-Lago on Feb. 18.

On Friday, Raiklin published a video of the awards ceremony in an X post where he tagged President Trump to publicly thank him for “opening up Mar-a-Lago” to Flynn’s organization.

Trump did not respond.

NOW READ: 'The Hard Reset': Here's how the U.S. is exporting terrorism around the world

===

an 2 25

Attorney General Pam Bondi allegesan FBI field office is withholding thousands of documents related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, The Independent reports. Bondi released documents on the case Thursday, but they did not contain any major revelations — and right-wing Donald Trump supporters allege the “evil deep state” is responsible for purportedly concealing information.

The documents that were released included flight logs, which had been made available previously in court cases, and his book of contacts, which has been in circulation for years. Epstein died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking charges. He was previously convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor.

“I repeatedly questioned whether this was the full set of documents responsive to my request and was repeatedly assured by the FBI that we had received the full set of documents," Bondi wrote in a letter to FBI director Kash Patel. "Late yesterday, I learned from a source that the FBI Field Office in New York was in possession of thousands of pages of documents related to the investigation and indictment of Epstein. Despite my repeated requests, the FBI never disclosed the existence of these files…There will be no withholdings or limitations to my or your access."

“If there are gaps, we will find them,” Patel said in a statement Thursday. “If records have been hidden, we will uncover them.”

“I nor the task force were given or reviewed the Epstein documents being released today” Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), a member of the House Oversight Committee, posted on X. “A NY Post story just revealed that the documents will simply be Epstein's phonebook. THIS IS NOT WHAT WE OR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ASKED FOR and a complete disappointment. GET US THE INFORMATION WE ASKED FOR!”

“We’re talking recordings, evidence, etc," conservative commentator Liz Wheeler posted on X. "The juicy stuff. Names. These swamp creatures at SDNY deceived Bondi, Kash, and YOU. Be outraged that the binder is boring. You should be. Because the evil deep state LIED TO YOUR FACE."

“Be very, very angry that deep state agents in the swamp at the [Southern District of New York] are at this very moment defying President Trump & AG Bondi & you who voted him into office, lying, and hiding the truth about Jeffrey Epstein because they don’t want their own corruption & weaponization of govt exposed,” she added.

Conservative commentator Glenn Beck called the files a joke. “Who is subverting POTUS?" he posted on X. "The#Epsteinfiles are a total joke. I know Kash, Pam B and The President. This is not the file. WH tells me that they believe the usual suspects FBI/SDNY has the actual#EpsteinClientList and are refusing to turn it over. THIS IS AN INTERNAL CIVIL WAR if true."

--==

===---

an 12 24

In today's politically polarized United States, food choices are among the many things that can become part of identity politics. Healthy eating is viewed with suspicion in some MAGA circles.

But in an article published on December 13, NOTUS reporters Evan McMorris-Santoro and Ben T.N. Mause describe a trend of "granola conservatives" or "granola Republicans" who, they say, are growing in numbers.

"One of the toughest tension points in the incoming GOP trifecta could be the Republican identity crisis when it comes to food," the journalists explain. "A growing number of Republicans who, for decades, have been staunch allies of the corporations who create and market what we eat are starting to feel like it's up to them to regulate what those corporations sell."

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-North Dakota) told NOTUS, "It’s not a fad. It’s a growing trend. People are taking their own health into their own hands. They're learning more about nutrition, educating themselves. And so, my wife and my two daughters and their families, they are very into it."

McMorris-Santoro and Mause cite:{ Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida) as a Republican who has "introduced bills to ban certain food dyes and high-fructose corn syrup in food."}:

The reporters note, "She's about as conservative as they come, but she sounds like a Prius owner in line at Whole Foods when it comes to warnings about food regulations."

NOTUS asked S**en. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) if the "granola conservative movement" is "growing," and he responded, "It’s hard to give a short answer to that. but yes."

9 24 rww

In 2020, a group of Donald Trump’s religious-right supporters announced the “50 Day Fight,” a spiritual warfare project to defeat “the enemy” and ask God to perform “a second miracle” by giving Trump another victory. This year’s version of the “50 Day Fight” kicked off Sunday night Sept. 15, with anti-equality dominionist Jim Garlow as keynoter and a number of Florida politicians as speakers, including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna.

The 50-day concept refers to both the 50 days before the election and the 50 states. A promotional video for the project says that participants will be praying “state-by-state for candidates we believe will uphold our biblical values once in office.” Last night featured prayers for Alaskan congressional candidate Nick Begich.

“Tonight, we begin 50 days of getting our country back to its Christian foundation,” said Daniel Bernard, president of Somebody Cares Tampa Bay and organizer of the 50 Day Fight. “It’s going to take the church to be God’s army,” he said, adding that he expected God to show up as captain of the army of angels.

Garlow gained national prominence by organizing against marriage equality among California’s evangelical churches during the 2008 Prop 8 campaign. He is listed as a “facilitator” on the 50 Day Fight website. He told the audience at Community Bible Baptist Church in Pinellas Park, Florida, that Florida was the only state with a chance to defeat an abortion rights measure on the ballot this year “unless we see God move in a miraculous way.”

Garlow was not the only speaker to urge attendees to mobilize against Amendment 4, which would provide state constitutional protection for access to abortion before fetal viability and when a woman’s doctor believes it necessary to protect her health. But Luna, locked in a competitive race, has been _dodging questions_ about how she will vote on the measure, even though, as the New York Times has noted, she “has previously referred to herself as a ‘pro-life extremist'” and said last year that she does not believe in exceptions for “terrible circumstances.”

In his remarks, Garlow equated social justice with Marxism and warned that the United Nations and World Health Organization are out to destroy American sovereignty. He said “globalism is always associated with the spirit of antichrist” and that people with an antichrist spirit hate Trump “because he’s blocking the globalist agenda.”

Garlow also promoted his latest book, “Re-Versed: From Culturally Woke to Biblically Awake,” which claims to cover “biblical foundations” for 60 topics, including climate change, critical race theory, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Garlow offered discounts to people who would buy his book by the case, and announced that he has produced a coloring-book version for kids.

Rep. Luna declared, “We are in a spiritual battle for our country.” Luna confidently predicted that Trump would win this year’s election, saying that “come this November, we will have a praying man again in the White House.”

Florida State Rep. Berny Jacques touted actions taken by the legislature to fight “indoctrination” in education and teacher training, adding, “we also passed the law that allows chaplains now to go into our schools, taking us a step further to bringing God back into our schools.”

Also highlighted were candidates for school board, a judgeship, the St. Petersburg City Council, and Pinellas County Commission.

The project’s website lists a number of religious-right groups as partners and sponsors, including WallBuilders, the Florida Faith & Freedom Coalition, voter turnout operation My Faith Votes, and Intercessors for America. A representative of the Pinellas County-based Florida Faith Foundations asked that their prayers would “pull down these demonic strongholds that have asserted themselves into the atmosphere of the United States of America.”

Tags: Anna Paulina Luna Jim Garlow Christian Dominionism Christian Nationalism Election 2024 Faith and Freedom Coalition Fifty Day Fight Florida Faith Foundations Intercessors for America My Faith Votes Wallbuilders

---

luna only intro 6 bills total 5 ~ schiff?!

an 6 23

House GOP resolution seeking to censure Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) for supposedly making false statements about former President Donald Trump's association with Russia in 2016 ended in defeat this week as 20 Republican representatives voted with Democrats to sink the measure.

One of the resolution's key proponents, freshman Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), vowed to try again on Twitter. "20 Republicans voted against the recommended fine, censure, and investigation of Schiff," she wrote. "I don’t think they read the bill in entirety. Next week, we will be filing a motion to censure and investigate Schiff. We are removing fine as that seems to be what made these Republicans uneasy."

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), however, quickly smacked her down — and pointed out there's no evidence Schiff lied about the Russia affair in the first place.

"A few suggestions for you," tweeted Goldman, an attorney who formerly worked on Trump's second impeachment. "1) Read the Mueller and OIG reports, both of which explain that the Steele dossier was irrelevant to opening the Russia investigation or the convictions of Trump campaign members. 2) do some research about what 'evidence' means. 3) Stop lying."

This is not the first move Republicans have made to single out Schiff, the former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, for punishment since taking a narrow majority last year. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) removed him from the committee after taking the gavel, ostensibly for lying about whether he knew the identity of the whistleblower who triggered Trump's first impeachment — although there's no actual evidence Schiff lied about that.

The 20 House Republicans who voted against censuring and fining Schiff came from all sides of the caucus, from vulnerable swing-district incumbents like Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ), to far-right Freedom Caucus figures like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who said, "The Constitution says the House may make its own rules but we can’t violate other (later) provisions of the Constitution. A $16 million fine is a violation of the 27th and 8th amendments."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Family and early life:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

Anna Paulina Mayerhofer was born in 1989 to George Mayerhofer, an architect, and Monica Todd, an elementary school teacher and stay-at-home mother, in Santa Ana, California.^[1][2][3] Her mother has Mexican-American ancestry and her father has Mexican and German ancestry. Her paternal grandfather was born in Germany and, according to family, drafted into the Wehrmacht during World War II and two of her maternal great-grandparents also served in the United States Armed Forces during the same war. Her maternal great-grandfather was an American immigrant to Mexico.^[4]

Luna's parents never married; her mother married another man when Luna was about eight years old. Luna was raised in the California cities of Santa Ana, Irvine, Aliso Viejo, and Los Angeles, and has called Santa Monica her hometown.^[5] She attended high school in Los Angeles.^[1][4]

Luna has a brother and sister.^[6]

Early career and education[

Luna served as an airfield management specialist in the U.S. Air Force from 2009 to 2014, first at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and then at Hurlburt Field in Florida. While enlisted, she appeared in 2013 in SI.com's Friday's P.M. Hot Clicks and briefly worked as a cocktail waitress^[7] at the Red Rose Gentlemen's Club, a strip club in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. She later appeared as a "Hometown Hottie" for Fort Walton Beach in Maxim in 2014.^{[1][4][8][9][10][11]} Luna gained a following as an Instagram influencer.^[4][12]

In 2017, Luna earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from the University of West Florida.^[1]

Luna became the Director of Hispanic Engagement for Turning Point USA in 2018.^[13] In a November 2018 Fox News segment, she compared Hillary Clinton to herpes, leading the network to cut the segment short and host Rick Leventhal and anchor Arthel Neville to apologize to viewers.^[14] In 2020, Luna was featured in the PragerU documentary-style series Americanos.^[15] Later that year, she appeared at a We Build the Wall event as vice president of Bienvenido, an organization dedicated to conservative Hispanic outreach.^[16] In March 2021, Luna became the chief correspondent for the conservative digital media platform El American English.^[17]

U.S. House of Representatives:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

Elections:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

2020:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

Main article: 2020 United States House of Representatives elections in Florida § District 13

Luna decided to run for Congress in 2018. She entered the Republican primary for Florida's 13th congressional district in September 2019, and Matt Gaetz endorsed her in November 2019.^[18] She was also endorsed by Charlie Kirk, Elise Stefanik, Students for Trump, and former St. Petersburg, Florida mayor Bill Foster.^[19][20] In July 2020, she and her husband purchased a house in St. Petersburg, near MacDill Air Force Base, where her husband was stationed.^[1] Luna won the Republican primary, but lost to incumbent Charlie Crist in the general election.^[21][22]

2022[

Main article: 2022 United States House of Representatives elections in Florida § District 13

Luna was elected as the U.S. representative for Florida's 13th congressional district in the 2022 election, defeating Democratic nominee Eric Lynn, a former senior advisor for Barack Obama. Before the Republican primary, another Republican candidate privately threatened to have her assassinated by a hit squad.^[23] In June 2021, Luna was granted a temporary stalking injunction against her primary opponent, William Braddock, after a friend of Luna's recorded Braddock threatening to make Luna "disappear" and claiming he had "access to a hit squad, too, Ukrainians and Russians". Braddock dropped out of the race after the judge granted the temporary injunction. The judge dismissed the request for a permanent injunction, saying she found one instance of harassment when the law required two.^[24]

Donald Trump endorsed Luna,^[25] and Marjorie Taylor Greene campaigned for her in Florida.^[26] She is the first Mexican-American woman elected to Congress from Florida.^[27]

Tenure[

During the 2023 Speaker of the House election, Luna voted against Kevin McCarthy on the first 11 ballots, instead nominating Representative Jim Jordan and later Representative Byron Donalds.^[28]

In May 2023, Luna co-sponsored resolutions by Marjorie Taylor Greene to impeach Attorney General Merrick Garland,^[29] FBI Director Christopher Wray,^[30] Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas,^[31] and U.S. Attorney for D.C. Matthew M. Graves.^[32]

H.Res.405 - Impeaching Matthew M. Graves, United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, for endangering, compromising, and undermining the justice system of the United States by facilitating the explosion of violent crime in the Nation's capital". Congress.gov. United States Congress.

In May 2023, Luna sponsored a resolution to have Adam Schiff removed from Congress and fined $16 million.^[33]

Caucus memberships[

Freedom Caucus^[34]

Committee assignments[

For the 118th Congress:^[35]

Political positions[

2020 presidential election[

In June 2022, Luna said of the 2020 United States presidential election, "I believe that President Trump won that election, and I do believe that voter fraud occurred." The previous month, she attended a red carpet event and screening of 2000 Mules, a film that claims to show evidence of widespread electoral fraud in the 2020 election.^[36]

Abortion[

Luna has said she favors abortion bans, and has called herself a "pro-life extremist".^[37][38] She has said her anti-abortion stance originates from having dissected a chicken egg in college and seeing the chick react to a scalpel blade: "God was using that opportunity to really wake me up."^[3]

Economy:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

In an August 2022 interview, Luna said that she would support a ban on U.S. oil exports in order to increase the domestic oil supply, saying, "The United States has literally one of the biggest supplies of cleanest oil in the entire world. There's no reason why we need to be going to places like Saudi Arabia or even Venezuela to get those oil sources." She said this view belonged to an "America First" platform, adding, "If it means not selling to other countries so that here in the United States, we can literally lower the gas prices, that's what I agree with."^[39]

Luna has said tourism is one of her highest priorities due to its importance in her district.^[40]

Luna was among the 71 Republicans who voted against final passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 in the House.^[41]

Education[

Luna's website states that she opposes "radical left-wing gender theory being pushed on our kids".^[42][43]

Gun control[

Luna appeared on the February/March 2020 cover of Ballistic magazine, which called her "DC's Next 2A Warrior".^[44] In February 2023, she was one of several members of Congress seen wearing AR-15 rifle lapel pins.^[45]

Twitter[

In September 2020, Luna threatened to sue Twitter because the company refused to verify her account, alleging "political prejudice" and calling it "election meddling",^[46] and in October 2020, Luna's campaign said it filed a complaint with the FEC over Twitter's refusal to verify Luna's account. The FEC complaint said that Twitter violated the equal time rule by verifying Charlie Crist but not Luna and asked the FEC to force Twitter to verify Luna's account.^[47]

During a combative House of Representatives Oversight Committtee hearing on February 8, 2023, Luna alleged that Twitter, the federal government, "leftist nonprofits", and potentially the Democratic National Committee had acted jointly to censor Americans in November 2020 through the Jira project management platform, and that it violated the First Amendment.^[48][49]

Foreign policy[

In 2023, Luna was among 47 Republicans to vote in favor of H.Con.Res. 21, which directed President Joe Biden to remove U.S. troops from Syria within 180 days.^[50][51] That same year Luna was among 52 Republicans who voted in favor H.Con.Res. 30, which would remove American troops from Somalia.^[52][53]

Luna is a cosponsor of H.Res.113 - Ukraine Fatigue Resolution, sponsored by Florida Representative Matt Gaetz. The bill would suspend all US foreign aid to Ukraine for the War in Ukraine and demand that all combatants in this conflict reach a peace agreement immediately.^[54]

Disputed biographical claims[

Religious and Ethnic background[

Luna has claimed she was raised as a Messianic Jew, a Protestant Christian movement for Jewish people, by her father and that she is "a small fraction Ashkenazi".^[55][56] But members of her extended family have said her father was Catholic, and that "they were not aware of him practicing any form of Judaism while Luna was growing up". Her mother has said that Luna's father was a "Christian that embraced the Messianic faith" after getting clean from drug addiction. Her grandfather, Heinrich Mayerhofer, identified as Catholic when he immigrated to Canada in 1954.^[4]

Mexican heritage:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

In 2020, Luna claimed in a PragerU documentary that her "entire mother's side of the family and father's side of the family on both sides are from Mexico".^[6] Her paternal grandfather, however, was German.[

Difficult childhood[

Luna has said that she "grew up in the welfare system" and was raised by her mother on government assistance with "no family to rely on". Her father was a drug addict, and she has said that at the age of 10 she found his bag of meth and was raised in a "broken home mentality".^[57][58] She has said that her grandmother died of AIDS due to heroin use.^[1][6] Luna has claimed that she and her mother lacked "a strong extended network of people" who could help care for them, and that she had attended "over six high schools" before graduating.

Luna's cousin has said, "The whole family kind of raised her—my dad was a part of her life when she was younger and we all kind of coddled her ... She was always a part of everything, all these family gatherings and activities". Luna's aunt said, "She had everything. What she needed and more ... And not only did [Luna's mother] provide for her, but [Luna's grandfather] did, too".

Luna has disputed these accounts, saying she "barely spent any time with them in her entire life". Luna's mother said she had to rely on welfare for periods of time, especially while she was putting herself through college at the University of California, Irvine and then at the UCLA School of Law, and that she was the only source of meaningful financial support for the family.^[59]

Air Force members who served with Luna in Missouri said she wore designer clothing and that she had mentioned having nannies as a child.^[2] Luna's mother said she owned a designer coat she bought at a thrift store and was known to wear it frequently, and that the idea of her having had nannies is "preposterous".^[59]

In August 2014, Luna wrote that she had set a goal to travel to 20 countries by her 25th birthday and that she was set to achieve it by December of that year.^[5]

Father's incarceration[

Luna's campaign website biography says that throughout her childhood and teenage years, her father "spent time in and out of incarceration", and that she communicated with him "through letters to jail and collect calls".^[2] Luna's mother and aunt said that he served several short stints in jail for not paying child support. Luna's mother also said that he spent at least one year in jail for a drug-related charge.^[2]

A dismissed misdemeanor drug possession case indicated that Luna's father was in custody around the time of two court appearances, but the case information did not specify the length of his confinement, and court proceedings lasted only about three months.^[59]

Home break-in[

In 2019, Luna said that she suffered "enduring trauma" after experiencing a "home invasion" by her landlord at 4 a.m.while stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base: "Had my friend Jeremy not been there to protect me, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be standing right here in front of you guys right now."

Luna's roommate said she did not remember such an incident. Instead, the roommate recalled a daytime break-in when Luna was not home. A Warrensburg Police Department report described the July 2010 incident as a "burglary not in progress". The report states that Luna and her roommate had reported to their landlord that the home's rear door had repeatedly been left open, so the landlord installed new locks, deadbolts and latches, but the problem persisted. Police records indicate that no suspect was arrested or charged in the case.^{[4][60][61][62}]

Conflict with uncle[

During her first campaign for Congress, in 2020, Luna sought a stalking injunction request against her uncle, Edward Mayerhofer, after he questioned her biography on social media.^[2]

Electoral history:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

Total	%	P.	Total	%	P.	P.	P.	P.	P.	P.	P.	P.	P.
2020	U.S. House		Republican	22,941	36.14%	1st	190,713	46.95%	2nd	Lost		Hold	^[63]^
2022		Republican	37,156	44.48%	1st	181,487	53.14%	1st	Won		Gain	^[64]^	^[64]^
Source: Secretary of State of Florida	Election Results	Election Results	Election Results	Election Results	Election Results	Election Results	Election Results	Election Results	Election Results	Election Results	Election Results	Election Results	Election Results

Personal life[

Luna is married to Andrew Gamberzky,^[4] a U.S. Air Force combat controller.^[1] After marriage, she changed her surname to Gamberzky.^[1] In 2019, she took her grandmother's maiden name, Luna, to represent her Hispanic heritage.^[1] She did this after her mother changed her name to Luna after a divorce.^[59] Luna identified herself as Hispanic in 2019.^[4]

Luna announced she is expecting her first child in August 2023.^[65]

Books:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

Luna has authored two books:

Marrying the Beret: The Untold Stories of US Special Operations, Post Hill Press, 2018, ISBN 978-0578432755
Bringing them Home: The Untold Cost of Putting Missions First, Post Hill Press, 2021, ISBN 978-1637580189

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bare midriff 2 ar

https://www.alternet.org/anna-luna/

Another newly elected Republican House member has had doubt cast on her backstory after a deeply-reported Washington Postprofile found several discrepancies.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) has described herself as a Hispanic conservative who grew up poor, survived a home invasion and lost her grandmother to HIV/AIDS due to heroin use. But those details have come as a surprise to family members and friends who knew her before she entered politics about five years ago, reported the Washington Post.

“She had everything, what she needed and more,” said her aunt Jolanta Mayerhofer, "and not only did [her mother] Monica provide for her, but my father-in-law did, too.”

Luna grew up in Los Angeles and joined the U.S. Air Force in 2009, at age 19, the Post reported. Friends who knew her then, when she used her given last name of Mayerhofer, say she described herself variously as Middle Eastern, Jewish or Eastern European and supported then-president Barack Obama. She was a registered Democrat as recently as August 2017.

“She would really change who she was based on what fit the situation best at the time,” former roommate Brittany Brooks, who lived with Luna for six months and was a close friend during her military service, said in the report.

Luna graduated from the University of West Florida in 2017 with a degree in biology following a six-year stint in the Air Force, where she met her husband Andrew Gamberzky. After leaving the military she works as a model, a cocktail waitress at a gentleman’s club and an Instagram influencer.

She was ushered into politics by Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirkafter making online statements about human trafficking and the Second Amendment, and she was named that conservative group's director of Hispanic engagement. She ran unsuccessfully for Congress against Rep. Charlie Crist (D-FL) in 2020.

Luna started publicly embracing her Hispanic heritage around that time, and she changed her last name to Luna at age 29, the same year she updated her ethnicity on voter registration records to Hispanic after identifying herself as "White, not of Hispanic origin" in 2015, the Post reported.

Her mother Monica Luna disputed to the Post that her daughter had only recently identified her Mexican ancestry, although she herself only recently took steps to make her own mother's family name part of hers.

“Anna has never not identified as being Hispanic as far as I know,” she wrote in an email, adding thatLuna’s father spoke Spanish around her when she was a child. “Anna can check both boxes. She’s bicultural and biracial. It’s not easy to figure out what box to choose.”

Luna's campaign website claims her father was incarcerated off and on throughout her childhood, but the Post was unable to find any public records of felony charges or prison sentences for George Mayerhofer in California, where she lived in those years. Monica Luna and Jolanta Mayerhofer told the newspaper that he was jailed several times for failure to pay child support.

Monica Luna said Mayerhofer, who she never married, served at least a year on a drug-related charge in Orange County, but corrections officials say they have no record of that.

Luna has claimed her father raised her as a Messianic Jew, which her mother corroborated, but her extended family say Mayerhofer was Catholic and they had no recollection of him practicing any form of Judaism.

Her paternal grandfather, Heinrich Mayerhofer, emigrated in 1954 to Canada from Germany, where he served in the Nazi Army as a teenager, though relatives told the Post he had no choice and did not harbor antisemitic views.

“It hurt for him to talk about it,” Jolanta Mayerhofer, who was married to one his sons, told the Post. “He said, ‘You getting the letter, you need to show up, otherwise your life is over. … He did not like it, but that’s what life was.”

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At least three House Republicans this week began wearing pins in the shape of an assault weapon on their clothing. U.S. Rep. George Santos (R-NY), U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), and U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) were all caught on camera with the pins, leading some to express outrage.

U.S. Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA) was among the first to circulate images of the two Republicans wearing the pins.

“Where are these assault weapon pins coming from? Who is passing these out?” he asked.

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Many Never Trump conservatives have lamented that in MAGA World, extremists are quick to turn against other extremists and accuse them of not being MAGA enough. Former Nancy Reagan speechwriter Mona Charen and former GOP strategist Tim Miller both made that argument after “Never Kevin” Republicans voted against making Rep. Kevin McCarthy House speaker on Tuesday, January 3. No matter how much McCarthy pandered to the MAGA movement, Charen and Miller argued in articles published by The Bulwark, it wasn’t enough for the far-right “Never Kevin” Republicans who rejected him as House speaker.

One of the “Never Kevin” Republicans who voted against McCarthy on January 3 was Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, a self-described “pro-life extremist” who has promoted the Big Lie and made the false, totally debunked claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. But as far-right as Luna is, she isn’t without her adversaries in MAGA World. One of them is Michael Tito, an ally of veteran GOP operative and self-described “dirty trickster” Roger Stone who has accused her of practicing witchcraft.

In an article published by the Daily Beast early Wednesday morning, January 4, journalist Zachary Petrizzo describes Luna’s bitter rivalry with Tito and her battle against his accusations.

“Rep. Anna Paulina Luna came to Congress on her first day in office ready to do battle — not just with Democrats, but also, with her own party, as she became one of the 20 Republicans to vote against electing Kevin McCarthy speaker,” Petrizzo explains. “But back home in her conservative Florida district, Luna is waging a very different kind of war: a legal fight with political enemies who say she is a literal witch.”

Petrizzo reports that a letter obtained by the Daily Beast “reveals that” Luna has “retained the high-powered law firm Holland & Knight to go after” Tito because he “leveled a series of outlandish allegations against” her during a fall appearance on the “Bubba the Love Sponge Show.”

According to Petrizzo, “The letter demands thatMichael Tito, a pal of Roger Stone who mulled challenging Luna in a primary, apologize on video for his accusations, which include claims that Luna was fired from a job — and that she had a sexual liaison with Rep. Matt Gaetz.”

In that letter, attorney David J. Lisko wrote, “I am sending you this letter because of the defamatory statements you made about Ms. Luna on the Show…. You said that Ms. Luna (a devout Christian) practices witchcraft. You are hereby demanded to publicly and immediately retract each and every defamatory statement you made about Ms. Luna on the show.”

But Tito, according to Petrizzo, has consulted an attorney and has “said he isn’t backing down from any of his claims about” Luna.

Tito told the Beast, “I didn’t wake up one morning when I was going on ‘The Bubba the Love Sponge Show’ and say I am going to pull a bunch of stuff out of my a** and talk about it.”

The Stone ally alleges that it was Paloma Zuniga of Hispanics for Trump who told him that “Luna practices witchcraft.” Tito said, “That is where I heard that from. She puts spells on people.”

Luna has made plenty of accusations herself. In 2021, according to the Tampa Bay Times, she accused her political rivals of plotting to kill her.

The 33-year-old Luna, who is originally from Southern California, first ran for Congress via Florida’s 13th Congressional District in 2020, losing to Democratic then-Rep. Charlie Crist (a former Republican) by 7 percent. In 2022, Crist decided not to seek reelection and ran for governor of Florida instead; incumbent Gov. Ron DeSantis defeated Crist by 19 percent.

Luna ran for Congress again in that congressional district in 2022, when she was endorsed by former President Donald Trump. That time, she won, defeating Democratic nominee Eric Lynn by 8 percent and taking over the seat formerly held by Crist.