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Republican lawmakers blasted Joe Bidens Wednesday executive order to forgive billions of dollars of federal student-loan debt, arguing that the scheme benefits the upper class, and transfers the cost to taxpayers, the majority of whom did not attend college.

Bidens order cancels $10,000 in federal student debt for individuals making under $125,000 annually and households making under $250,000 annually, as well as relieving $20,000 in debt for Pell grant recipients.

Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called Bidens decision a slap in the face to working Americans.

Democrats student loan socialism is a slap in the face to working Americans who sacrificed to pay their debt or made different career choices to avoid debt. A wildly unfair redistribution of wealth toward higher-earning people, the Kentucky senator said.

Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz said it was just a Hail Mary before the midterms, calling it insane and illegal and that the middle class will be stuck with the bill.

Republican Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse said Bidens order baptizes a broken system, and advantages college graduates over their blue collar countrymen.

The President can spin it however he wants with Pell window dressing, but at the end of the day his debt forgiveness scheme forces blue-collar workers to subsidize white-collar graduate students. Instead of demanding accountability from an underperforming higher education sector that pushes so many young Americans into massive debt, the Administrations unilateral plan baptizes a broken system. This deeply regressive action which fails even to acknowledge that most debt is held by folks with graduate degrees will do nothing to jumpstart the reform higher education desperately needs, Sasse said in a statement.

Other Republicans blasted Biden for not taking into account those that had already paid off their loans responsibly.

Who will be forced to pay for Bidens debt transfer scam? Hard-working Americans who already paid off their debts or never took on student loan debt in the first place, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said.

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What about Americans who already paid off their student loans? Republican Ohio Representative Jim Jordan said.

Republican Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton said, Biden owes Americans an explanation on why a truck driver who didnt go to college is now responsible for the student loans of a rich lawyer.

Cotton said colleges are the true culprits, calling them bloated and self-serving.

Ill be introducing a bill to hold these colleges accountable for debt, lower tuition, support non-college career paths, and save the taxpayers billions, Cotton added.

Republican Georgia Representative Barry Loudermilk said that the forgiveness is an insult to the American people who have worked so hard to pay off their student loans and other debts.

Not only does this decision raise legal concerns, it will also not help inflation and will cost American taxpayers an estimated $300 billion, he added.

The total estimated cost for Bidens one-time cancellation, not including the additional money for Pell grant recipients, is $300 billion, according to a study released Tuesday by the Wharton School of business at the University of Pennsylvania. The cost would increase to $330 billion if the program continues over the standard ten-year window, the study showed.

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EXCLUSIVE: GOP veterans in Congress who served in Afghanistan said President Biden's botched withdrawal is "haunting" Americans, while vowing that Republicans will "lead the charge" in ensuring Americans know that freedom, safety and security of the homeland came with sacrifice and that those sacrifices "will not be in vain."

The Republican National Committee partnered with Republican veterans in Congress including Rep. Tony Gonzales, a retired Navy master chief petty officer; Rep. Michael Waltz, a retired Green Beret and Army National Guard colonel; Rep. Brian Mast, a retired Army staff sergeant; Rep. Ronny Jackson, a retired Navy rear admiral; and Rep. Jake Ellzey, a retired Navy commander to highlight the impact of the Biden administrations "failure" in Afghanistan on the one-year anniversary of his withdrawal of U.S. troops and military assets from the country.

WHITE HOUSE DRAFTS MEMO DEFENDING AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL

"When Joe Biden became president, he took an oath to protect the safety of the American people," RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told Fox News. One year after breaking his promise, Biden doesnt have the decency to own up to his failures and take responsibility for his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan that resulted in the death of American service members and hundreds of Americans left behind enemy lines. To the men and women of Americas armed forces and their families, Americans will always honor the sacrifice that you and your loved ones made for our country."

The RNC on Wednesday premiered a new special titled "Not in Vain: One Year Later," featuring those lawmakers who served in Afghanistan.

"You can have the strongest, most forceful, most well-equipped military in the world, but if you have a weak commander in chief that our enemies don't respect and fear, it's all for naught,"Waltz told Fox News.

Looking ahead, Waltz said that "as long as I have a breath in Congress, we are going to get to the bottom of what happened and there will be accountability."

"When Joe Biden became president, he took an oath to protect the safety of the American people," RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told Fox News. (Bridget Bennett/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Gonzales told Fox News that Biden's "monumental failure" in Afghanistan is "a very personal issue" to anyone who served in the U.S. military.

"And we are not going to forget," Gonzales said. "Regardless of all the other distractions, all the other things that are happening, we will never forget this administrations debacle as they left Afghanistan."

Families board an Air Force C-17 Globemaster III during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 24, 2021. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Samuel Ruiz)

Mast, R-Fla., told Fox News that Republicans "will lead the charge in making sure that Americans know that that freedom, that safety, that security, it came with the sacrifice."

MCCAUL FIRES BACK AT WHITE HOUSE MEMO ATTEMPTING TO DISCOUNT AFGHANISTAN REPORT

"And for those that made that sacrifice, they will be taken care of, they will not be forgotten, and their sacrifices will not be in vain," Mast said.

And Ellzey said that the "longer this administration has gone on, things that Joe Biden said he would and wouldn't do are the exact opposite of what he's actually done as the president of the United States."

Evacuees wait to board an Air Force C-17 Globemaster III during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 23, 2021. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Isaiah Campbell)

"So, what do we know now after a year since the withdrawal of Afghanistan is when you show weakness, the bullies come out," Ellzey said.

Critics of the Biden administration have said that the withdrawal from Afghanistan emboldened U.S. adversaries like Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February, and China, with its ambitions to take Taiwan.

In the almost eight-minute video, the lawmakers hit on issues "haunting" the American people under Biden's leadership.

"There's so many other things that are haunting America because of this administration Afghanistan is one thing that's haunting Americans, but there's people back home that are saying, 'I can't get what I need at the grocery store,'" Mast says in the video. "'I can't fill up my car. I'm worried about what's going on with taxes and businesses and am I going to be targeted by the IRS.'"

BIDEN'S AFGHANISTAN DEBACLE BEGAN WITH THE FALL OF KABUL A YEAR AGO AND AMERICANS DESERVE ANSWERS

He added: "So, for everybody, we see things that we're concerned about with this administration, but there's so much to be concerned about it that [it's] hard to narrow down on one issue."

"The American people know it," Waltz says in the video, looking ahead to the midterm elections. "They see right through his spin that it was a great, fantastic success, and you're going to feel it in November."

A spokesperson for President Biden's National Security Council drafted a memo last week defending the administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan, writing that the president "refused to send another generation of Americans to fight a war that should have ended long ago," according to a copy of the document obtained by Fox News Digital.

The defense came as Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee released a report critical of the withdrawal, accusing the administration of failing to evacuate some U.S.-trained Afghan military personnel and potentially creating a major national security risk.

The White House memo called the Republicans' review a "partisan report" that is "riddled with inaccurate characterizations, cherry-picked information, and false claims."

"Bringing our troops home strengthened our national security by better positioning us to confront the challenges of the future and put the United States in a stronger place to lead the world," National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson wrote in the memo.

"It freed up critical military, intelligence, and other resources to ensure we are better poised to respond to todays threats to international peace and stability."

The Taliban quickly took over Afghanistan's capital of Kabul and other major cities 12 months ago as U.S. troops prepared to withdraw by the end of August 2021 on Biden's orders, timed for the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, which were largely planned on Afghan soil when the Taliban last controlled the country.

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Thirteen U.S. service members and 170 others were killed during the withdrawal after a suicide bomber detonated explosives near Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.

Fox News' Paul Best and Kelly Laco contributed to this report.

Brooke Singman is a Fox News Digital politics reporter. You can reach her at Brooke.Singman@Fox.com or @BrookeSingman on Twitter.

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Republicans say Afghanistan withdrawal is 'haunting' Americans, vow to 'lead the charge' in honoring sacrifice - Fox News

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Republicans are laying the groundwork to completely remake the U.S. Constitution through state legislatures, and theres a good chance they could succeed.

That makes it imperative for Democrats to focus their energies on strengthening the partys representation at the state level to stop this attack on our democracy.

According to recent reporting by Insider, GOP party leaders are making arrangements to amend the Constitution via Article V. In order to build a forever-conservative nation, Republican leaders want state legislators to start thinking long-term about what it takes to pass a constitutional amendmentand many GOP lawmakers from across the country met last month in Denver to discuss launching a constitutional convention.

American Students Barely Know Anything About Reconstruction

This plan, spearheaded by the group Convention of States Action (COS), has received millions from the Donors Capital Fund, as well as from numerous other high-profile Republican donors. COS is led by Mark Meckler, the interim president of the conservative-friendly social media site Parler, and Eric OKeefea longtime right-wing political operative. COS also has the support of high-profile conservatives and Republicans such as Sean Hannity, Ben Shapiro, Mark Meadows, and Ben Carson. Its even endorsed by prominent GOP elected officials, including Govs. Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott, as well as Sens. Rand Paul and Marco Rubio.

Article V lays out two ways to add amendments to the Constitution.

The first is through the federal government, which requires two-thirds of Congress to pass a joint resolution. By design, this rarely happens (were only at 25 amendments, 235 years after the Constitution was ratified). And in todays highly polarized Senate, where Democrats hold the slimmest of majorities, a new amendment any time soon is all but unthinkable.

But the second option, a convention called by two-thirds of the state legislatures in the nation, is a path Republicans are very close to making possible.

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Republicans already control 30 state legislaturestheyd only need three more to be able to call a constitutional convention. This means the upcoming November electionsespecially at the state levelmay be the deciding factor on whether the GOP has the power to radically remake the Constitution.

Sarah Palin waves to the crowd before speaking during the Tea Party of Americas Restoring America event at the Indianola Balloon Festival Grounds on Sept. 3, 2011, in Indianola, Iowa.

Justin Sullivan/Getty

And lest there be any doubt as to the motivation behind a state-driven constitutional convention, COS has stated that limiting the federal government's power is its main goal in a constitution amendment proposal.

Melissa Murray, a NYU Law professor and co-host of the Strict Scrutiny podcast, expressed serious concern over this idea. With amendments that only limit the power of the federal government, theres actually quite a lot Republicans could do, said Murray. Taking away power from the federal government could mean curbing some of the powers of the federal government to enforce the 14th Amendment, it could also mean expanding protections of the 2nd Amendment. This plan has been in the works for years, according to Murray.

With Republicans mounting egregious attacks in state legislatures on the right to vote and abortion accessas well as expanding partisan gerrymanderingit should not come as a surprise that a constitutional convention is now a part of the GOP playbook.

When we talk about these issues in silos, we fail to realize this is all joined together, said Melissa Murray. They (Republicans) are connecting everything under the same organizing principle: to consolidate Republican power in state legislatures. Its why we have gerrymandering and even why we have voter suppression laws.

This crisis has been over 10 years in the making. During the Obama administration, Democrats were singularly focused on advancing federal legislation, like the Affordable Care Act. Democrats assumed this would translate to similar victories in state legislatures. Ultimately, this strategy came with a cost, a major one: Democrats lost 13 governorships and 816 state legislative seats. Moreover, they didn't explain to their base of young, diverse, minority voters that the issues that played into local state elections were equally important as the election of the first Black president.

Republicans during this time launched effective organizing groups, such as the Tea Party, which vehemently advocated for a version of states rights that was in conflict with the American system of federalismthe idea that power should be shared between the federal government and the states. The GOP made sure its supporters understood that there was political power outside of Washingtonand that it existed in state and local government.

In the middle of Obamas first term, Republicans in 2010 were able to win control of the once-in-a-decade electoral map drawing process that defines competitive elections at the state level. This made the district maps easier for them to run candidates in races where it was nearly impossible for them to lose.

A group advocating for a convention of states to amend the Constitution participates at the Independence Day parade.

Paul Weaver/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty

Democrats now have to change their strategy. Instead of simply telling voters to give them control of Congress and the Senate, Democrats must emphasize to voters that Republicans still control most state legislatures, and if they remain in power, they can drastically change the Constitution. Furthermore, Democrats running for the state house must drive home the oft-forgotten political maxim that all politics is local. The people in state houses and city halls often have a lot more to do with the policies that affect your day-to-day life and the health of your community than whoevers in charge in Washington.

Amanda Litman, a senior political strategist and co-founder of Run for Somethingan organization that recruits and supports young, diverse progressives running for down-ballot officehas been working to get more progressives elected in state legislatures. Republicans have a longstanding infrastructure even in blue states that give their candidates a leg up. They have been investing in the local races for much longer.

Election Workers Are Under Attack. We Need to Fight for Them.

When asked what Democrats can do to fight back against the threat of a constitutional convention, Litman replied, "Democrats should take the threat seriously. Republicans always tell us what they want to do. We should believe them and think broadly and in the long term of where we should be working to stop this from happening.

There should be no doubt that Republicans are launching an all-out attack on American institutions, whether its the conservative Supreme Court majority removing Americans constitutional right to an abortion or state legislatures passing hundreds of measures to limit voting rights. Democrats cannot afford to waste time. This November, they need to invest heavily in every single state legislature race. Every American needs to understand the GOPs constitutional plans threaten our way of life.

The Constitution has never been a perfect document. In its origin, it permitted the gross inhumanity of slavery and fell short in granting women and all ethnic minorities the right to participate in the political process. But the Founding Fathers, flawed though they were, had the wisdom to create parameters that would allow the Constitution to change with the times.

If Republicans are permitted to run wild with Article V of the Constitution, decades of progress to make our country more fair, equitable, and just could be undone.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Democrats Need to Win State Elections to Stop Republicans From Rewriting the Constitution - Yahoo News

Republicans who support former President Trump more than they support the GOP climbed to 41 percent in August, up 7 points from May when 34 percent said they supported Trump more than the party, according to an NBC News poll released Sunday.

A slim majority of Republicans, or 50 percent, say they support the party more than they do Trump, the poll finds. But thats down from 58 percent in May.

The former president continues to wield immense influence over the Republican Party. He has heavily influenced the defeat of eight out of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, either by pressuring them to resign or backing primary challengers.

The most high-profile loss came last week, when Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), arguably his fiercest critic in the GOP, was defeated by more than 40 points from a Trump-endorsed challenger.

Trump saw Republicans rally behind him this month yet again after the FBI searched his home in connection to an investigation into whether he violated the Espionage Act, among other statutes, by taking classified documents home with him upon leaving the White House.

Republicans decried the unprecedented search of a former presidents home, calling it a politically motivated witch hunt.

Trump is also fending off a congressional investigation into the Capitol riot, which the panel of lawmakers has claimed was incited by the former president after he failed to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Most Americans, or 57 percent, say the investigations into Trump should continue, according to the NBC News poll.

Updated at 8:23 a.m.

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Number of Republicans who say they support Trump over GOP rises: poll - The Hill

Though the red-hot ire among conservatives over New Jerseys educational curriculum seems to have somewhat died down since last spring, state Republicans reignited the issue this week, holding a hearing yesterday on state educational standards and releasing a spoof video mocking the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA).

Yesterdays virtual hearing, hosted by State Sen. Joe Pennacchio (R-Montville) and several other Senate Republicans, focused on sex education in public schools. Sex ed has been a major source of contention since sample gender- and sexual orientation-focused lesson plans in Westfield, which were not intended for actual use, went viral last spring.

Under the guise of diversity, inclusion, and equality, we have seen what I view as a sexual indoctrination of our children as young as four and five years old, Pennacchio said at the beginning of the hearing. We would expect respect and tolerance for parents and their absolute rights, as parents, to determine what is in the best interests of their children.

Today, Republicans continued on that same tack with a video parodying a recent TV commercial from the NJEA, the states influential teachers union, that called those attacking the state standards extremists.

We should all agree that your kids belong to us, a robotic narrator intones in the GOP video. So stop resisting our agenda, and accept that you have no control over your childrens education. To all the radical extremist parents out there: back off. We are the NJEA.

Republican legislators have introduced a series of bills on the subject, including several limiting when and how sex education can be taught and another that symbolically opposes the state learning standards adopted in 2020. (The learning standards themselves contain little mention of the pornographic and age-inappropriate material Republicans cite, and there is already an option for parents to opt their children out of sex ed.)

Democrats have lambasted the Republican attacks as regressive and anti-LGBTQ, but some Democratic legislators have still taken steps to address parental concerns about transparency. A bill sponsored by State Sen. Vin Gopal (D-Long Branch) and Assemblywoman Linda Carter (D-Plainfield) increasing transparency in the sex ed curriculum passed legislative committee last spring over the vociferous objection of conservatives who said it didnt go far enough.

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Republicans rag on state education standards in hearing, ad spoof - New Jersey Globe | New Jersey Politics