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Tucker, Elon Real Winners Of First GOP Debate Night

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Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr
The true winners of last night’s debate are former prime-time Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk, owner of X – formerly Twitter. If you’ve spent the last 24-48 hours under a rock – here’s what transpired last night. Eight Republican candidates running to be the next President of the United States took the stage in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to talk about their visions for the future of America – and how they are the proper alternatives not only to the babbling buffoon currently in the White House Joe Biden, but also to America’s 45th President Donald Trump – now running for the office for a third time. The Wisconsin event was moderated, albeit poorly, by Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. Of course, the debate in itself was probably somewhat staged. According to multiple reports, the candidates and their prep camps were given the questions in advance. While the debate was going on in Milwaukee, Tucker Carlson aired an opposing pre-recorded interview with America’s 45th President Donald Trump, who himself is set to be arraigned in a Fulton County, Georgia court on Thursday where he is expected to front up a bail payment of $200,000. (RELATED: Trump Agrees To Release Conditions, Including $200,000 Bond) Tucker Carlson has enacted fully-fledged revenge on his former employer and put millions of dollars in the pockets of a new corporate overlord, Elon Musk. X, formerly Twitter, has been working to position itself as the preeminent alternative to the mainstream media since the Musk buyout earlier this year. By the view numbers still rolling in on the video posted last night, they seem to have succeeded in doing that to a level even Musk himself may have never imagined. As of the writing of this piece, Tucker’s 46-minute long X video has been viewed over 186.4 million times. Mediaite noted the following in a piece published yesterday:
“The interview, which was taped this week and is dropping to coincide with the debate, is intended as additional salt in the wound for Fox executives wary that a Trump-less event will not bring in the major ratings typically expected from these kinds of nights.”
Notably, video-sharing platform Rumble which was the the first place to try and pitch itself as the free speech alternative to YouTube partnered with the RNC and probably boosted their own profits last night as well. The Rumble stream of the debate from the GOP’s channel has amassed 1.54 million views. Definitely a respectable number, but making up less than 1% of the views amassed by Carlson on X. For the record the Rumble stream via Roku is how I personally watched the debate, refusing to give my dollars to the Fox News machine. Fox News has yet to officially release numbers on last night’s debate but here are some viewership numbers reported by Mediaite from past presidential debates:
“In 2015, Fox’s primary debate – with Trump and nine other candidates – drew 24 million viewers, smashing previous records and earning the distinction of being one of the most-watched cable programs ever. Overall, 2016 was a blockbuster year for debate ratings: the 12 Republican primary events averaged 15 million viewers.”
Even if Fox’s numbers last night were close to their past viewership – which they are not expected to be without Trump – Carlson’s X video dwarfed those numbers as well. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Great America News Desk. This piece is republished with permission from American Liberty News.

Pentagon Warns Biden’s Offshore Wind Farms Are National Security Risk

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Joe Biden via Gage Skidmore Flickr

ANALYSIS – Joe Biden has made his radical ‘green’ climate agenda a centerpiece of his administration. He even had his Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the rest of his security team make it a national defense priority, superseding in some ways, China, Russia, and terrorism.  

A lot of Biden’s agenda is pushed by radical leftist activists, but the green energy industry is an increasingly wealthy and powerful lobby.

And they operate hand in hand.

And Biden’s ‘climate czar,’ John Kerry, is one of its biggest cheerleaders inside the administration.

Still, it seems reality is now seeping in at the Pentagon as the stuff is hitting the fan. 

The fan, in this case, is the wind turbine used in vast wind farms throughout the northeast coastal regions of the United States.

Coincidentally, this is also where a lot of military bases are located, and our air and naval forces operate. 

And the Department of Defense (DOD) is quietly expressing its frustration and concern with Biden’s expansive climate agenda’s impact on our military operations and American national security.

Especially the creation of massive wind farms on federally leased waters off the mid-Atlantic coast.

Some at the Pentagon are even referring to it as a national security risk.

And Congress must take note and take action.

Bloomberg reported on Monday that an Oct. 6, 2022 report produced by the U.S. Navy and Air Force, which includes maps highlighting sensitive military zones off the mid-Atlantic coast, was circulated with the energy industry and state officials earlier this month.

Non-political DOD officials are trying to raise the alarm even as their politicized leadership tows the Team Biden ‘green’ line.

Of course, political appointees at DOD will downplay any conflict between the Pentagon and Biden’s extreme climate agenda.

Pentagon spokesperson Kelly Flynn only told Fox News Digital that: “The initial assessment performed by DoD found complicated compatibility challenges with wind turbines near Navy and Air Force training.” 

“Compatibility challenges” is doublespeak for we can’t put wind farms offshore without damaging our military training and readiness across the entire eastern seaboard.

While this has been an issue since before Biden, the danger has just been supercharged by the current administration, which refuses to listen or doesn’t care.

Fox News Digital reminds us of the prior warnings: “The Pentagon’s warning late last year… came years after it similarly warned in 2019 that much of the North Atlantic wind lease planning area was an ‘exclusion zone.’ And a DoD map obtained by that was published in 2018 identified nearly the entire East Coast as “highly problematic” for leasing.”

Still, Biden and his radical climate cronies in the wind farm industry, such as the American Clean Power Association, a leading industry group representing wind developers, are plowing ahead.

Bloomberg explained that the new DOD maps show massive acreage cordoned off in federal waters near North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. 

At least four offshore wind lease areas proposed by the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) are described as “highly problematic” by DOD, while another two are identified as “requiring further study.”  

Fox News Digital continued:

“The Navy has said there is not an area in that whole east block that does not interfere with DoD missions. But BOEM is continuing ahead,” said Meghan Lapp, the fisheries liaison for Rhode Island-based fishing company Seafreeze. “And when I’ve asked them on webinars, ‘The Navy said that this is a problem. How can you still be leasing it?’ They’re like, ‘Oh, well, we’re just going to continue the discussions.'” 

Well, this is serious stuff, and if the administration won’t listen to its own Defense Department, Congress must get involved.

Gabriella Hoffman, a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum’s Center for Energy and Conservation, told Fox News Digital: “The Pentagon’s warning about national security implications stemming from offshore wind development on the Atlantic Coast, including proximity to critical Virginia military installations, shouldn’t be dismissed.” 

Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

FBI Retaliated Against Whistleblowers Who Exposed ‘Politicized Rot’

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ANALYSIS – Things at the FBI just seem to get worse. A new House report shows that FBI special agents, and other key employees, who exposed the “politicized rot” within the bureau were suspended or had their security clearances revoked.

The interim staff report from the House Judiciary Committee and the Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government describes that ‘rot’ as the deep partisan politicization of the FBI’s leadership and the concerted weaponization of the law enforcement agency against conservatives.

The report, released Thursday morning, also described the FBI’s alleged “retaliatory conduct” against the whistleblowers “after making protected disclosures about what they believed in good faith to be wrong conduct.”

The committee’s report likened the bureau’s actions to “engaging in a ‘purge’ of agents who hold conservative beliefs.”

The FBI has responded to the accusations in a letter discussed below.

The Bureau’s politicized rot spiked after the Capitol Riot in 2021, and the subsequent Democrat effort to highlight the alleged threat of Domestic Violent Extremism (DVE), also known as MAGA Republicans, pro-life Christians, and other traditional conservatives.

Among the whistleblower’s key accusations is that the bureau opened improper investigations into a large group of individuals who simply attended the pro-Trump political rally in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021. 

They claimed that the Bureau had “no specific indication” that 138 of the people “were involved in any way in criminal activity.”

“The only basis for investigating these people was that they shared buses to Washington with two individuals who entered restricted areas of the Capitol that day,” they explained in the report.

But it’s more than that.

The committees’ report reveals new whistleblower testimony from several current and former FBI employees that exposes other “abuses and misconduct in the FBI.”

The report states that:

Some of these employees—Special Agents Garret O’Boyle and Stephen Friend, Supervisory Intelligence Analyst George Hill, and Staff Operations Specialist Marcus Allen—have chosen to speak on the record about their experiences. The disclosures from these FBI employees highlight egregious abuse, misallocation of law-enforcement resources, and misconduct with the leadership ranks of the FBI.

It added that, in order to bolster the Democrat narrative that DVE was “organically rising around the country,” the FBI pressured staff to “reclassify cases as domestic violent extremism, and even manufactured DVE cases where they may not otherwise exist.”

Friend specified that the FBI’s handling of Jan. 6-related investigations “deviated from standard practice and created a false impression with respect to the threat of DVE nationwide.”

This is something I have argued and written about repeatedly.

The deliberate mishandling of these cases greatly inflated the number of alleged DVE cases in the country and has been used as an excuse to divert massive amounts of federal law enforcement funds and resources to this grossly exaggerated threat.

One of the whistleblowers called the bureau “cancerous” because it has “let itself become enveloped in this politicization and weaponization.”

Allen reportedly had his security clearance suspended for performing case-related research using open-source news articles and videos about the Capitol riot and sending his results to his task force colleagues for “situational awareness.”

Meanwhile, the FBI argued in a letter to the Committee Chairman, that the clearance suspensions and other disciplinary actions were taken purely out of security concerns or violations by the FBI employees.

However, among the counter allegations in its letter, the FBI said:

Specifically, the Security Division found Mr. Allen espoused alternative theories to coworkers verbally and in emails and instant messages sent on the FBI systems, in apparent attempts to hinder investigative activity.

The letter noted that despite multiple directives from his supervisor to “stop circulating these materials,” Allen “continued.” 

The report states that: “Because these open-source articles questioned the FBI’s handling of the violence at the Capitol, the FBI suspended Allen for ‘conspiratorial views in regard to the events of January 6th.”

To come to your own conclusions, I recommend reading the House report and the FBI’s letter linked above. 

Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

Amanda Head: Polls Change In Wake Of Potential Trump Arrest News

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Support for Donald Trump is surging after news broke that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg plans to indict the former president this week.

Watch Amanda explain the latest developments below:

Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

Pentagon Spying on Everything for Bad Comments About Generals

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David B. Gleason from Chicago, IL, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

ANALYSIS – Big Brother keeps growing – As part of the broader government war against free speech, the Department of Defense (DoD) is now using Orwellian means to search the internet, social media, and just about everything else, for things we say or post.

And it’s not just for legitimate physical threats against generals, it will also be looking for simple negative comments about our top military leaders.

And we should all be outraged. This really is scary stuff. This even goes beyond recent reports of the government buying our detailed personal information from data brokers, which I wrote about here.

The military runs a little-known outfit called the Army Protective Services Battalion under the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID). Think of it as the Pentagon’s Secret Service for generals.

Its mission specifically falls under CID’s Executive Protection and Special Investigations Field Office. And it has a lot of resources. Its new webpage notes:

With over 400 assigned special agents, police officers, analysts, physical security specialists, and professional support personnel spread across three continents, the Executive Protection Field Office is the largest office within CID providing worldwide dignitary protection for the Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of the Army, Chief of Staff of the Army, and over a dozen other protectees in domestic and overseas locations.

Executive Protection also protects foreign counterparts during official visits to the United States, along with designated former or retired Department of Defense officials. Army CID’s dignitary protection mission is supported by robust protective intelligence and threat management investigative capabilities. [Emphasis added].

This perfectly legitimate organization exists to safeguard our senior military brass, as well as foreign brass visiting our country. As part of its duties, it conducts legitimate ‘protective intelligence’ to identify potential physical threats to its protectees. 

I am very familiar with their mission having worked with some of these folks as a military attaché during high-level foreign visits by our Defense Secretary and generals. I also have professional experience with dignitary protection. 

All this is very good and vital stuff.

The problem arises when the scope of the protective intelligence mission expands to include things that it shouldn’t. In this case, the unit is tasked to protect current and former high-ranking military officers from “assassination, kidnapping, injury or embarrassment.” 

Yes, among the big threats is “embarrassment.” 

That’s bad enough since it opens the door to looking into things that they shouldn’t just because they might embarrass a general. 

But now, according to an Army procurement document from September 2022, reports the Intercept, the detachment’s mission has expanded to include monitoring social media for “direct, indirect, and veiled” threats and identifying “negative sentiment” regarding its protectees. 

And it’s hiring a technology contractor to do its dirty work.

“Negative sentiment” – that is almost as bad as “mean tweets.” It is beyond outrageous.

I have expressed ‘negative sentiment’ toward a few senior military leaders numerous times online and in published articles – including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley.

And I will continue to do so, as is my 1st amendment right.

The line should be when anyone makes veiled or direct physical threats against any political or military leader, not just says mean things.

As The Intercept reports: “There may be legally valid reasons to intrude on someone’s privacy by searching for, collecting, and analyzing publicly available information, particularly when it pertains to serious crimes and terrorist threats,” Ilia Siatitsa, program director at Privacy International, said.

“However,” he added, “expressing ‘positive or negative sentiment towards a senior high-risk individual’ cannot be deemed sufficient grounds for government agencies to conduct surveillance operations.”

Siatitsa rightly concluded: “The ability to express opinions, criticize, make assumptions, or form value judgments — especially regarding public officials — is a quintessential part of democratic society.”

Beyond that, what if the Army is protecting a Chinese general visiting the United States? Will they surveil or target Americans who are critical of this foreign adversary’s general or of China?

And according to the documents uncovered by The Intercept, the program the Army is procuring for its newly expanded intelligence mission is a dystopian surveillance nightmare. 

It will scour everything, everywhere, and then even pinpoint the location of the person making the comment.

This is extremely frightening.

The Army describes their surveillance system as “a reliable social media threat mitigation service” with an “Open-Source Web-based toolkit with advanced capabilities to collect publicly available information (PAI).”

Information is not only grabbed up from Twitter’s “firehose” but also from 4Chan, Reddit, YouTube, Discord, Telegram, private contractors like Dataminr, as well as smartphone apps and advertisers.

Combined with cellular location data the Army could also precisely pinpoint those who might make a mean tweet about current or former military officials. 

The Intercept adds that all this data, plus CCTV feeds, radio stations, personal records, and even webcams – would be available via a “universal search selector.” That means they can access just about anything.

The Army also wants the contractor to preserve the “anonymity and security needed” by “using various egress points globally to mask their identity.” This means they can conveniently make it look like the folks doing the snooping are in China or Russia.

This is a very scary domestic spying capability to use against Americans. Congress must investigate this Orwellian program immediately and remove elements that will infringe on our constitutional rights.

Or it will soon be used against you.

Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

Marines Urged by Woke Study to Use Gender-Neutral Terms in Boot Camp

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ANALYSIS – In the most glaring example of wokeness in the military, which the Marine Commandant recently claimed wasn’t an issue in our beloved Corps, jarheads are being urged not to use sir or ma’am in Marine boot camp.

According to the Marine Corps Times, this is seen as part of a sweeping effort to avoid ‘misgendering’ drill instructors. This is something all Marines know has been a huge and pressing issue at boot camp for decades, as we have so many non-binary and trans drill instructors.

Please note my sarcasm.

The recommendation is part of a massive, recently completed, 738-page academic report from the University of Pittsburgh, which was commissioned by the Corps in 2020.

Instead of sir or ma’am the 22 University of Pittsburgh Academics that concocted the study – headed by biologists Bradley C. Nindl and Mita Lovalekar, recommend aspiring privates call their superiors by their last names. 

The study notes that other military branches have made strides to “de-emphasize gender” by using other names instead. 

The Marine Corps Times reports:

Instead of saying ‘ma’am’ or ‘sir,’ recruits in these Services refer to their drill instructors using their ranks or roles followed by their last names. Gendered identifiers prime recruits to think about or visually search for a drill instructor’s gender first, before their rank or role.

The far-left report is riddled with other woke ideas and includes a detailed study on improving gender integration at boot camp.

One important figure who thankfully appeared hesitant about this gender-neutral proposal was Col. Howard Hall, chief of staff for Marine Corps Training and Education Command.

Hall and others maintain that even if the Corps implements the change at its training facilities, recruits will then need to re-adapt to again addressing senior officers by ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ when they enter the fleet, as Marines in the real world would likely not enforce the rule.

 Hall told the Marine Corps Times, in slightly mangled terms, and some big words:

Honestly, that’s not a quick fix. What are inculcating in our young recruits that will or will not be reinforced when they graduate and enter the fleet Marine force? So again, we want to avoid any quick-fix solutions that introduce perturbations down the line.

And yes, while we all want to avoid ‘perturbations’ down the line, more importantly we want to avoid sheer idiocy right now.

Maybe our Marine officers should learn to be blunter.

This study also shows why the military needs to stop relying so much on outside consultants and academics, and their idiotic, ideologically-driven studies, to guide its policies.

Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

Amanda Head: Is Bud Light Feeling Enough Pain?

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Mike Mozart, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Bud Light’s latest partnership with transgender activist and influencer Dylan Mulvaney has proved to be a public relations nightmare for the brand. Will Bud Light recover?

Watch Amanda explain the situation below:

Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

Amanda Head: My Thoughts on the Speaker Votes

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It’s been a long week in the House of Representatives. A tumultuous battle for House Speaker has put Congress on hold indefinitely.

Watch Amanda break down the ongoing situation below:

Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

CEO’s Vow To Blacklist Harvard Students Who Blamed Israel For Hamas Attack

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PaWikiCom, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

ANALYSIS – In the immediate wake of one of the most horrifying terror attacks ever filmed, a coalition of 34 leftist Harvard student groups stupidly and offensively circulated a letter that stated that they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”

This, as stomach-churning images, and reports surfaced hourly of the vile murders and atrocities committed by the Hamas jihadists against over 1,000 Israeli civilians, entire families, children, even babies. 

Not to mention over 25 Americans were killed and scores kidnapped.

Well, this time, things didn’t go as planned for the lefty Ivy League students accustomed to being coddled by woke corporate executives.

The response from Wall Street leaders, and soon other titans of corporate America was swift.

Bill Ackman the billionaire founder and CEO of hedge fund giant Pershing Square Capital Management, wrote on his X social media account on Tuesday: 

I have been asked by a number of CEOs if Harvard would release a list of the members of each of the Harvard organizations that have issued the letter assigning sole responsibility for Hamas’ heinous acts to Israel, so as to insure [sic] that none of us inadvertently hire any of their members.

“If, in fact, their members support the letter they have released, the names of the signatories should be made public so their views are publicly known.”

Ackman, a Harvard grad worth $3.5 billion, added: “One should not be able to hide behind a corporate shield when issuing statements supporting the actions of terrorists, who, we now learn, have beheaded babies, among other inconceivably despicable acts.”

Soon, other CEOs were joining him.

Jonathan Newman, CEO of salad chain Sweetgreen, quickly seconded Ackman in urging that the signatories of the letter be banned from future employment.

“I would like to know so I know never to hire these people,” Newman wrote in response to Ackman’s post on X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday.

“Same,” David Duel, CEO of health care services firm EasyHealth, wrote in response to Newman.

Many other executives posted agreement with Ackman, such as Stephen Ready, CEO of marketing firm Inspired who posted “this is a must” and Michael Broukhim, CEO of FabFitFun, who said to Ackman: “We are in as well.”

Meanwhile, as The New York Post reported, others signaled their approval of his post with a supportive emoji or a gesture of agreement. These included: Hu Montague, founder, and vice president of construction company Diligent; Art Levy, head of strategy at payments platform Brex; and Jake Wurzak, the CEO of hospitality group Dovehill Capital Management.

The Post added that after the online fusillade from so many potential future employers, many of the spineless lefties responsible for the letter quickly ran for the hills.

“The backlash and possible blacklisting has led to a flurry of backpedaling by four of the initial student organizations attached to the inflammatory statement — while board members of other groups have quit in an effort to distance themselves.”

Amnesty International at Harvard, Harvard College Act on a Dream, the Harvard Undergraduate Nepali Student Association, the Harvard Islamic Society, and Harvard Undergraduate Ghungroo, are among the groups that have since recanted according to the Harvard Crimson.

In fairness, many organizations didn’t know one of their representatives had signed on the group’s behalf.

To Harvard’s credit, many other student groups and faculty expressed outrage at the letter, and their fellow students and colleagues.

According to the campus paper, at least 17 other Harvard groups have joined 500 faculty and staff and 3,000 others in signing a counterstatement attacking the other groups’ letter as “completely wrong and deeply offensive.” 

This was followed by 160 faculty members bashing Harvard’s response to the scandal, writing in their own separate letter that it “can be seen as nothing less than condoning the mass murder of civilians based only on their nationality.”

Its good to see that some at Harvard still have common sense as well as decency and humanity. Its also good to see corporate America responding in the way it has to these snively terror enabling leftist college students and staff.

Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

Amanda Head: Hollywood Star Blasts Covid Inc!

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Hollywood actor Woody Harrelson is facing intense criticism after his recent Saturday Night Live appearance…

Watch Amanda break down the scandal below…

Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.