Amber Duke

Just before the Christmas holiday in 2018, then-President Donald Trump canceled his planned vacation to his Mar-a-Lago resort, citing the partial government shutdown: 'I will not be going to Florida because of the Shutdown — Staying in the White House! #MAGA.'  The administration determined it would be poor optics for the president to spend 16 days in sunny Florida during a major political standoff. President Joe Biden has refused to take the same approach, even as his poorly planned withdrawal of troops in Afghanistan led to the Taliban's rapid ascent to power and the stranding of thousands of American citizens in Kabul. As I wrote previously, we did not see the President for nearly three days as the Taliban seized the capital city.

This evening, President Joe Biden finally addressed the American people from the White House on Monday after Afghanistan fell into the hands of the Taliban. The speech should have been given much sooner. We did not hear publicly from the President for three days as the Taliban seized Kabul, the US Embassy was evacuated, and Afghani president Ashraf Ghani fled the country. Biden finally left Camp David for the White House on Monday morning amid mounting pressure. He did not take questions from the press and will return to Camp David on Monday evening. Trotting out the President for a 10-minute scripted speech and then sending him back on vacation doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the commander-in-chief.

Kissimmee, Florida On Thursday morning as I boarded my plane at Reagan National Airport to fly to Orlando, I managed to drop an entire Dunkin iced coffee all over the floor near the cockpit. The unfortunate incident was a harbinger of things to come on my trip to a Young Americans for Liberty conference, the first since the start of the pandemic. I'm still not sure how, exactly, I was chosen to go to this conference, which was allegedly 'invitation-only'.  A 'deputy regional director' with the organization slid into my Instagram DMs offering to cover half of my travel expenses to attend. She assured me that the conference was not just for college students, and I am never one to pass up a cheap trip to the Free State of Florida.

Americans are not fans of Vice President Kamala Harris, but Democratic strategists are convinced it’s just a messaging problem. If they could only explain to those silly voters why they should like Harris, then her dreams of winning the presidency in 2024 would be realized. That was the elitist arrogance behind a ‘crisis dinner’ for the Vice President last month featuring a legion of female Democratic strategists. Axios’s Jonathan Swan, who broke the story, astutely noted ‘it's telling that so early in the Biden-Harris administration, such powerful operatives felt compelled to try to right the Vice President's ship.

Today New York attorney general Leticia James announced the findings of a five-month investigation into claims that Gov. Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women. The findings? Cuomo’s conduct was far worse than previously suggested in public allegations and the media. He sexually harassed, groped and retaliated against numerous women — then his office tried to cover it up. The AG's 168-page report tells of how Cuomo was found to have grabbed a staffer’s breast while giving her a hug, groped multiple women’s butts and even dragged his hand across the stomach and back of a female member of his security detail.

Imagine dining al fresco at a popular French brasserie in Washington DC. It’s a clear, summer night and the streets are buzzing with residents and tourists alike. You’re enjoying your Burger Americain, and suddenly gunshots ring out down the street. Diners duck and run for cover. You later hear that two men were injured just blocks away from where you were enjoying your meal. The stark realization hits: the heart of the nation’s capital is not safe. Thursday night’s shooting on 14th Street was just the latest shocking crime to occur in a well-populated and upscale area of DC. Three people were shot and wounded just outside of Nationals Park during a heavily attended baseball game last week.

The Supreme Court upheld two Arizona voting laws on Thursday in a case that could have major implications for election integrity across the country. The two Arizona laws at stake in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee prohibited ballot harvesting — which most commonly refers to political operatives collecting voters's ballots en masse and turning them in to polling places on their behalf — and tossed ballots that were cast in the wrong precinct. The DNC argued in its initial lawsuit that the laws violated the Voting Rights Act because they were discriminatory against minorities and did not appear to prevent voter fraud.

We did it, Joe! After weeks of pressure, Vice President Kamala Harris is finally going to visit the US-Mexico border. The administration's border czar will travel to El Paso, Texas, on Friday. 'Earlier this year, the President asked the Vice President to oversee our diplomatic efforts to address the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras,' VP spokeswoman Symone Sanders said in a statement Wednesday. 'As a part of this ongoing work, the Vice President traveled to Guatemala and Mexico earlier this month and will travel to El Paso on Friday.' Harris long resisted taking the trip down south, but her position became increasingly untenable with each disastrous interview and skyrocketing numbers of illegal border crossers.

The term ‘Florida man’ usually comes loaded with negative connotations, but not if you’re talking about Ron DeSantis. The first-term Republican governor’s approval ratings have reached 64 percent; a recent poll had him at 55 percent, still high for an unabashed conservative in a swing state. Enterprising apparel companies are already selling ‘DeSantis 2024’ gear — and a Trafalgar poll of likely contenders (excluding Trump) shows DeSantis leading the pack with 35 percent support among Republican voters. The Florida governor also bested Trump in a straw poll conducted during June's Western Conservative Summit in Denver. DeSantis’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has earned him adoration from the right.

The Biden administration has repeatedly refused to take its self-created border crisis seriously. Last week, they sent Vice President Kamala Harris to Guatemala and Mexico to address the 'root causes' of the recent surge in migration, one of which she identified as 'climate change’. Harris promised to throw more money at the problem and laughed at the idea that she should go to the border and see the crisis firsthand. Today, the White House sent out a press release insisting that they are taking serious action on what they call the 'border challenge’. The email starts out with a couple of factual whoppers. It claims that 'the trend of border apprehensions in May is a reduction of individuals (unique encounters) and families below the peak in 2019’.

Texas congressman Chip Roy is introducing legislation Friday to ban members of the Chinese Communist party from purchasing American land, The Spectator has learned. The bill, ‘called the 'Securing America’s Land from Foreign Interference Act’', aims to curb foreign influence gained through major land purchases throughout the United States, which Roy identifies as a major national security threat. A Chinese-based energy company recently purchased a 130,000-acre wind farm in Texas right next to a US Air Force base. Smithfield, one of the nation's largest meat producers, is owned by a Chinese firm and yet controls nearly 150,000 acres of US land.

It is no secret that James Murdoch, the son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and his wife Kathryn have supported Democratic causes. But a new report from CNBC reveals that the couple launched a massive spending effort ahead of the 2020 election that rivaled left-wing billionaire George Soros. Data released last spring indicated that James and Kathryn gave $11 million to political causes, including $2.5 million to Democrats. However, they also quietly gave a stunning $100 million to James's nonprofit foundation, Quadrivium, in 2019, a 'large chunk' of which went to political groups. 'The 2019 tax document shows that of the $100 million given to the foundation, over $25 million went toward grants, including for several political causes,' CNBC reported.

Vice President Kamala Harris embarked on her first foreign trip since taking office this week — and quickly proved herself to be as empty as the faces on the royally-iced cookies she handed out to reporters on Air Force Two. President Biden's 'border czar' traveled to Guatemala and Mexico in a futile attempt to solve an autogenic crisis and insulted the intelligence of each country's leaders and the American people along the way. It seems even Harris's plane knew the disaster that would unfold if she made it to Central America, developing a 'technical issue' to keep the Vice President grounded. Unfortunately for all of us, she was undeterred, switching planes to continue on her journey.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed two more pieces of major legislation on Monday, this time targeting Chinese Communist party influence in the United States. HB 1523 criminalizes 'trafficking in trade secrets', while HB 7017 aims to prevent foreign influence in America's higher education system. The latter implements strict vetting of foreign researchers to avoid espionage and requires state agencies to disclose certain donations from 'countries of concern', which consist of China, Cuba, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Venezuela. 'There is no single entity that exercises a more pervasive, nefarious influence across a wide range of American industries and institutions than the Communist party of China,' DeSantis said during a signing event in Miami, Florida.

Chris Matthews, the former MSNBC host who was unceremoniously canceled a little over a year ago thanks to a GQ article accusing him of sexual harassment, made his return to cable television this week. During an appearance on his old network, Matthews asserted that he takes 'ownership' of his behavior: 'I took ownership of it — using a nice modern phase — I have took complete ownership. I did not deny it. I lost my show over it. That’s it — so that’s the truth.' Matthews's not-so-triumphant comeback follows in the footsteps of other once-canceled personalities like former NBC News contributor Mark Halperin, who has been appearing as a guest on Newsmax, and comedian Louis CK, who is selling out live shows around the country.