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Biden Under Pressure to Fire Energy Secretary After Alleged Ethics Violations

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Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm should be removed from her position amid a “litany” of alleged ethics violations, a group of conservative leaders report.

More than a dozen conservative leaders, including Media Research Center President Brent Bozell, sent a letter to President Joe Biden requesting Granholm’s resignation “based on a series of violations of federal ethics laws and regulations,” the MRC reports.

“In light of the repeated ethical lapses, as well as the apparent tolerance of a lax culture of ethical compliance at the Department of Energy, it is crucial for ensuring the trust of the American people that Secretary Granholm be immediately relieved of her duties,” the letter to Biden states.

The letter lists a “litany of abuses of public trust,” including:

Failure to accurately report financial holdings

Participating personally and substantially in matters directly benefiting a company in which she had a financial interest

Inappropriately using her official position to promote products for multiple companies in which she had a financial interest or covered relationship

Abusing her position of authority and misusing government resources to advance partisan activities in violation of the Hatch Act

Signaling to career civil servants and senior political leadership under her command that policy objectives take priority over basic compliance with ethics and legal obligations.

The letter also accuses Granholm of using her office to boost the value of her stock in Ford Motor Company.

“The recent revelations about Secretary Granholm’s continued financial ownership of Ford stock while acting to enrich – and at times even publicly endorse – the company is egregious,” the letter read. “However, it is simply the latest incident evidencing recklessness at best and intentional disregard for the law at worst.”

The leaders also demand Granholm’s resignation for engaging in prohibited partisan political activity noting the Office of the Special Counsel found Granholm violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits government employees from using their positions to engage in some forms of political activity, in an October 2021 interview.

“Taken together, these episodes cast serious doubt on the Secretary’s fitness to hold a cabinet seat,” the letter reads.

“You often speak of maintaining the highest standards for your administration’s appointees. It is past time that you demonstrate that this promise holds some meaning,” the letter concludes.

Granholm would not the first Biden administration Energy Department official to resign in disgrace.

Former Acting Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Kelly Speakes-Backman amid allegations she used her office to benefit a former employer.

Senior DOE official Samuel Brinton was also fired and later arrested for stealing womens’ luggage from airports.

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

Amanda Head: Even AI Agrees – Conservative Women Are More Attractive and Happier

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Amanda Head

Who would ever want to be a liberal?

A new study found women who identify as conservatives are often more attractive and happier than their liberal counterparts…but is it true?

Watch Amanda explain the situation below:

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

Biden Pentagon ‘Diversity’ Push is Part of Radical Leftist Agenda, Harms US Warfighting

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Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III speaks during the 2023 U.S.-Japan Security Consultative Committee meeting co-hosted with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken hosting Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa and Japanese Defense Minister Hamada Yasukazu, at the Department of State. Washington, D.C., Jan 11, 2023. (DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jack Sanders)

ANALYSIS – The ‘Woke Wars’ at the Pentagon will be heating up now that Republicans have taken over the House of Representatives, but few know how bad the problem is.

And what exactly do we mean by ‘woke.’

Well, to me, woke is a catchall term invented by the left to describe a full spectrum of leftist and socialist agendas. Among them are diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), better described as DIE.

DIE includes Critical Race Theory (CRT), anti-white racism, extreme feminism as well as the radical transgender agenda. 

All flow from the Frankfurt School of modern socialism and intend to radically transform our institutions and society along socialist lines.

Not only are these policies wrong, but in many cases, they are illegal and unconstitutional; they simply codify reverse discrimination and racism in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Many of these concepts have thoroughly infected our colleges and universities and are being pushed down to even our high schools and grammar schools.

Some of this goes back to the 1980s, but most recently they have been pushed hard at the Pentagon by hardcore leftists with Team Clinton, Team Obama and now the same radicals with Team Biden.

This aggressive push for ‘diversity’ and the obsession with race totally undermines our military culture, where our troops are supposed to think less about our differences, not more.

As Michael Washburn of The Epoch Times writes:

The U.S. military’s increased push for diversity and inclusion, as reflected in the far-reaching National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) signed by President Joe Biden on Dec. 23, 2022, aims to remake the military’s culture and ethos along the same lines as left-wing policies that have been put to use at elite colleges and other areas of the private sphere, defense experts say.

While efforts to diversify the armed forces along racial and gender lines at the expense of traditional standards, aren’t new, the NDAA signals dramatically increased civilian input on and oversight of a culture once deemed to be the domain of professional soldiers, the experts told The Epoch Times.

Provisions of the NDAA that aim to boost diversity are so similar to policies enforced by private institutions, such as Harvard University, that an organization opposing the “woke” agenda in the armed forces, and supporting traditional standards and requirements [Veterans for Fairness and Merit- VFM], has gone so far as to lend its expertise in a lawsuit over Harvard’s admissions policies, in the form of an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) filing (pdf), obtained by The Epoch Times. The filing argues that diversity and inclusion policies have harmed the military and aren’t a good idea in either the public or private spheres.

Part of Biden’s NDAA pushes illegal racial preferences in training and recruitment.

Scott McQuarrie, president of Veterans for Fairness and Merit (VFM), explains how bad this is: “[advocates of diversity] make this assertion that it’s a national security imperative that the military be allowed to use racial preferences in order to meet that high bar. Most people being candid with you would say that’s a very far-fetched argument.”

“In fact, our military has operated over the last few generations effectively without having to suspend the Constitution. In Bosnia, Panama, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the military did quite well, and we don’t need to violate the Constitution for the military to execute its mission,” he added.

The Pentagon’s aggressive push for diversity and inclusion, as reflected in Biden’s far-reaching NDAA signed on Dec. 23, aims to radically transform the military’s culture and ethos along the same lines as left-wing policies that are ruining many colleges, corporations and civilian institutions.

They can’t be allowed to destroy our military, as they are destroying everything else. The GOP House needs to focus like a laser beam on these issues at the Defense Department, and private groups like VFM need to continue and ramp up their legal battle against DIE.

This is a war for the soul of our armed forces and our Republic.

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

Amanda Head: Cori Bush Is A Moron

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Cori Bush via Wikimedia Commons

Liberal member of “The Squad” Cori Bush is a moron. Plain and simple.

Watch Amanda explain the controversy below:

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

Amanda Head: Leftists Get Taste Of Own Medicine And They’re Going BERSERK!

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Justice is sweet.

Radical leftists on Twitter have managed to turn the app into something akin to the wild West over the years but Elon Musk’s recent takeover has brought some major changes these liberals aren’t happy with. After managing to go relatively unchecked leftists have doxxed and harassed conservatives for years but now they’re getting a taste of their own medicine.

Watch Amanda break down the controversy below:

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

Congress Investigating Alleged Biden Attempt To Rig Election For Campaign Supporter

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Missvain, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

A congressional committee is now investigating allegations that the Biden White House tried to sway a major workplace unionization vote in favor of the United Auto Workers union bosses.

U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) “probed senior Biden administration officials for their attempts to sway the outcome of a Mercedes-Benz unionization election,” the Committee announced in a statement

“In a letter to Jake Sullivan, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, Chairwoman Foxx is demanding information regarding the Biden administration’s attempts to influence the outcome of a unionization vote at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Alabama, as voting was underway,” the statement reads.

The UAW is a major donor and political supporter of Democrats, spending a reported total of $22.64 million on politics in the 2020 election cycle, according to OpenSecrets.

 “On May 17, Mercedes-Benz employees at a plant in Vance, Alabama, voted not to join the United Auto Workers (UAW). In this election, 56 percent of the workers cast their ballots against UAW membership, with more than 90 percent of eligible workers voting in the election. Simultaneously, the UAW became the first U.S. union to file charges using a new German supply chain law. The Committee on Education and the Workforce (Committee) is concerned about recent reports of unusual and inappropriate communications between you and German government officials in what appears to be an attempt to impact the outcome of this election,” Foxx writes in in the letter.

“On May 6, a news report stated that U.S. government officials had a phone call with German government officials and raised concerns over the Mercedes-Benz representation election in Alabama. … A later report regarding the call also indicated that you prodded Germany to examine the UAW’s allegations against Mercedes-Benz at the direct request of UAW President Shawn Fain. On May 16, the UAW announced that the German government was investigating Mercedes-Benz as a result of charges filed by the UAW in Germany. … It appears the Biden administration, through your actions, sought to put its thumb on the scale to benefit the UAW as the Mercedes-Benz election in Alabama was pending,” Fox continues, adding “It also suggests the UAW sought to use your influence and the White House’s bully pulpit to impact a union representation election.”

Foxx asked the White House for answers to the following questions:

Did you raise concerns with German government officials over the Mercedes-Benz representation election in Vance, Alabama, at the request of the UAW?

In your call with German government officials, did you or any other White House official ask Germany to initiate an investigation of Mercedes-Benz before the Mercedes-Benz union representation election in Alabama concluded?

Was the purpose of the call with German government officials to discuss the Mercedes-Benz union representation election in Alabama? Were other labor issues or representation elections discussed?

When did the call with German government officials take place? Provide any White House call logs related to this call.

Did you discuss your call with German government officials with any employees of the Department of Labor or the NLRB? If so, who?

Is a local union representation election a national security issue? Why is a local union representation election occupying the time of the U.S. National Security Advisor?

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


Pollsters Missed the Target – Overreacted to Favoring Dems by Favoring GOP in Midterms

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Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

ANALYSIS – ‘Red ripple.’ For at least the last several elections, pollsters have consistently oversampled Democrats and undercounted Republicans, wrongly skewing the polls in the Dems’ favor.

This is something I have written about before, and the pollster errors include the ‘shy Trump supporter’ effect where conservatives simply shun pollsters or avoid giving their true views out of fear of retribution or being ‘canceled.’

Frank Luntz, a political strategist said to The Hill: “We knew from 2016, 2018 and even 2020 that Trump voters tended not to respond to pollsters because they thought that the results would be used against them.” 

This time around the pollsters seem to have screwed up in the opposite direction, overcompensating by overweighting Republican supporters and predicting a ‘Red Wave’ in the midterm elections that never materialized.

I must admit, I too assumed that the pollsters would continue to err in favor of Dems and hence believed the polling was still undercounting Republicans.

But as they say – you should never assume because then you make an ‘ass out of u and me.’

And as Luntz added, “past errors caused pollsters to over-index Republicans.”

The Daily Caller News Foundation just did a solid analysis on this latest pollster screw-up.

As the Daily Caller reports:

Weighting Republican respondents more heavily than Democratic respondents in polls led to an overestimation of GOP support, which created the mirage of a “red wave” this midterm season, polling experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

In the House of Representatives, FiveThirtyEight, based on an aggregation of major polls, predicted a 228-seat GOP majority as the most likely outcome, while RealClearPolitics had projected at least 227 seats, with additions from 34 tossup races. In the Senate, FiveThirtyEight forecast 51 seats for the GOP, with 52 and 53 seats being as likely, while RealClearPolitics forecast 53 seats for Senate Republicans.

The results were significantly different from these projections. Though some races are yet to be called, Democrats retained control of the Senate, having won 50 seats as of writing, while Republicans, though projected to win the House, will have a narrow majority close to the 218 seats necessary for one.

The Daily Caller continues:

In the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, former President Donald Trump significantly overperformed polling in several states that pegged him to lose, with his unexpected 2016 wins in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and North Carolina giving him an Electoral College majority to win. Though Trump lost the 2020 election, he still won states like Florida and Ohio and came close to winning races in Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania, which polling firms had estimated would be easily won by Joe Biden.

In all, in 2020, polls underestimated the presidential popular vote, swing-state vote, Democratic House majority and the Democratic Senate majority. The American Academy of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) called it the “worst performance for polls since 1980.”

And this appears to have caused the severe pollster overcompensation we saw leading up to the midterms.

In artillery, you often fire beyond (long) and before (short of) a target to close in on it and ‘fire for effect.’ This is called ‘bracketing.’

The idea is that on the third salvo you should hit the target close to spot on.

Let’s see if these varied pollster results that undercounted GOP voters and then overcounted them were the ‘bracketing’ needed prior to their getting the 2024 polls right.

I’m not optimistic. GAND

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

France’s Riots are Like our BLM Riots – Not Really About the Police

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ANALYSIS – Another summer of rage erupts in Paris, this time sparked by the police shooting several days ago of a 17-year-old Muslim man of North African origin. Many liken the fiery French riots to our own Black Lives Matter (BLM) riots of 2020. 

And in many ways, they are similar.

They both used the police killing of a man of color to justify violence, arson, looting, and spreading chaos. Their initial stated agenda was to highlight police brutality and police racism, then just racism. 

Then a bunch of other stuff.

In the United States, a lot of the BLM rioting was targeted at President Donald Trump. In France, some of the rage is directed at Jews. 

Meanwhile, both violent rampages were quickly co-opted, if not initially instigated, by extremist ideologies and agendas. In the U.S., BLM was run by the far left and often became dominated by issues totally unrelated to the police or even racism. 

In Paris, the riots are as much about a growing unassimilated Arab/North African Muslim minority bringing radical Islam to France, as it is about the police or race.

It’s also about being anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic, and anti-French.

Just as BLM often disparaged all of white America as being racist while targeting cops, many French Muslims see the entire French system as evil.

And part of that ruling system includes French Jews.

The Times of Israel reported that “perpetrators did vandalize a monument for Holocaust victims in Nanterre, the Paris suburb where the 17-year-old, identified in the French media only as Nahel M., was killed. The perpetrators spray-painted the words ‘Police scum’ on the monument.”

Antisemitic chants have also  been heard during the riots, “part of a well-documented sentiment among some Muslims who see Jews as part of an oppressive power structure.”

While Jews haven’t been attacked directly yet, these riots remind many French Jews of 2014, when Muslim rioters singled out Jewish-owned shops in a Paris suburb nicknamed “little Jerusalem” due to its large Jewish population.

That anti-Jewish violence, which also targeted several synagogues, was partly spurred by Muslim anger toward Jews amid the 2014 Gaza war between Israel and Hamas and other terrorist groups.

Today we have Israel engaged in a major military operation in the West Bank against Palestinian terrorists using the Jenin refugee camp as a base for attacks against Israelis. This operation began Monday, and we have yet to see its impact on the riots in France.

If the conflict extends in the West Bank, expect things to heat up more in Paris.

But as The Times of Israel also noted, this violent uprising in Paris is far more widespread than ever before. And might be a turning point for how the French view their suicidally insane immigration policies.

“In 2014, I was afraid as a Jew. This time, I’m afraid as a Frenchman,” said Jonathan C., noting that he does not have a Middle Eastern appearance.

The Times added:

Police and firefighters are common targets of violence by rioters whom many believe are acting out of resentment of French society, where the anti-immigration far right is the second-largest political force.

Other incidents are seen by some as reflecting a religious dimension of the riots, which are occurring in heavily Muslim areas.

On Thursday, two unidentified individuals beat up and robbed a priest in Saint-Etienne near Lyon. Disagreements exist on whether the assault, the second attack of a priest in the region in three weeks, was part of the riots.

Hate attacks against Christians are multiplying in France, where in 2021 the interior ministry recorded 1,052 anti-Christian hate crimes, nearly double the assaults on Jews. It meant that Christians were, in absolute numbers at least, the religious group that was most targeted that year.

This worries many in France. They see the huge number of antisemitic and anti-Christian attacks, as well as attacks against police, as part of a resurgence of radical Islam in unassimilated migrant communities.

Even if these riots subside, the bigger danger remains. And that should be a concern for not just Paris, but other major European cities as well.

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

Liberal City Hit With Class Action Lawsuit Over Reparations Scheme

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A left-wing city council faces a class action lawsuit from concerned citizens over a scheme to give an average $25,000 in financial assistance to citizens based on their skin color.

The non-profit public interest law firm Judicial Watch announced in a statement a hearing in its “class action civil rights lawsuit filed against Evanston, Illinois, on behalf of six individuals over the city’s reparations program.”

“To date, Evanston has awarded over $6,350,000 to 254 individuals based on their race. The city must be stopped before it spends even more money on this clearly discriminatory and unconstitutional reparations program,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

“The court ordered the in-person hearing for oral argument on Evanston’s pending motion to dismiss the lawsuit,” Judicial Watch reports.

Judicial Watch reports it “filed the lawsuit over the city’s use of race as an eligibility requirement for a reparations program, which makes $25,000 direct cash payments to black residents and descendants of black residents who lived in Evanston between the years 1919 and 1969.”

According to The New Republic, program will also reportedly give financial assistance to their descendants, who never experienced racism in Evanston.

Judicial Watch alleges “that the program violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”

In its response to the city’s motion to dismiss, Judicial Watch states:

[T]he program’s use of a race-based eligibility requirement is presumptively unconstitutional, and remedying societal discrimination is not a compelling government interest. Nor has remedying discrimination from as many as 105 years ago or remedying intergenerational discrimination ever been recognized as a compelling government interest. Among the program’s other fatal flaws is that it uses race as a proxy for discrimination without requiring proof of discrimination. 

Feeling ‘Trans’ Disproportionately Affects This Group: Poll

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Joe Biden via Gage Skidmore Flickr

ANALYSIS – The bizarre transgender fad being pushed by the far left on our nation’s children, and globally, isn’t very diverse. In America it mostly affects a specific type of person. 

According to a recent survey by a pro-transgender support group, that type of person is primarily a young white teenager, who is very smart but has a history of mental illness, and/or emotional issues.

The survey could have added (but did not), that they are likely liberal, middle class, and might drive a Prius.

This, according to a survey of parents who believed their children had ‘rapid onset gender dysphoria.’ The poll was conducted by Parents of ROGD kids.com, which has a support group for families with gender dysphoric children.

The Christian Post reports:

The survey results, which collected responses over nearly four years, were compiled into a report by website creator Suzanna Diaz and J. Michael Bailey of Northwestern University’s Department of Psychology on Wednesday. The 1,774 responses to the survey were collected from Dec. 1, 2017, through Oct. 22, 2021.

Examining the demographics of youth who developed rapid onset gender dysphoria reveals that three-quarters of the children (75%) were female, while just 25% were male. Additionally, the overwhelming majority (78.9%) were of European descent, while much smaller shares were ethnically mixed (16.2%), Asian (2.8%), Indigenous (0.8%), African American (0.6%), Middle Eastern and East Indian (0.4%).

The results of the survey measured the average age when children first experience gender dysphoria as 14.8 years old. The report details how, on average, girls began to develop gender dysphoria at 14.1 years, while boys were an average of 16 years old when they first began to experience discomfort with their sex.

Significantly, a majority of parents (57%) said their gender dysphoric children had a history of “mental health issues.” Almost 60 percent of parents of girls were more likely to report a mental health history in their children.

Fifty-one percent of the parents of boys reported mental health issues in their kids.

Not surprisingly, on average, mental health issues first began to arise almost four years before gender dysphoria appeared.

So, interestingly, 75 percent of Americans who suddenly think they are trans are young female teenagers, and almost 80 percent are of white European heritage. Almost 60 percent of the girls and half the boys have a history of other mental illnesses.

So much for ‘trans diversity’ in America.

The Post continued:

The most common mental health issues experienced by females with gender dysphoria were anxiety (47.3%), depression (33.2%), difficulty socializing with peers (26.5%) and difficulty coping with stressful situations in general (23.2%). Among males, the most frequently reported mental health issues included anxiety (35.2%), difficulty socializing with peers (28.1%), depression (25.1%) and difficulty coping with stressful situations in general (19.2%).

Of those parents who answered a question about whether they felt pressure from a “gender clinic or specialist” to ‘transition’ their child to the opposite sex, just over half (51.8%) reported experiencing pressure. 

An additional 23.6% said they were “unsure” if they felt pressured.

One could argue that if you don’t know, you probably were.

And let’s be clear, physically and medically ‘transitioning’ kids (or anyone) to the opposite sex is a horrific process.

As The Post explains, it involves a life-long regimen of hormones and extended genital mutilation surgeries.

The puberty blockers for teens have side effects such as “osteoporosis, mood disorders, seizures, cognitive impairment.

When combined with cross-sex hormones, they can cause “sterility.”

Potential long-term impacts of cross-sex hormones include “an increased risk of heart attacks, stroke, diabetes, blood clots and cancers.”

And then there are the sex-change surgeries which “include chemical and surgical castration, double mastectomies on girls, orchiectomy (removing testicles) for boys, the construction of a fake vagina (vaginoplasty) for boys, and removal of skin and tissue from girls’ forearms or thighs to create a fake, flaccid penis that doesn’t function.”

All this for mostly white, ‘exceptionally intelligent,’ young teenage girls, with histories of mental illness. 

Adding to the argument that social pressure pushes vulnerable confused kids to identify as something other than heterosexual, the share of the American population ‘identifying’ as LGBT has doubled over the past decade as the rabid pro-LGBT agenda has intensified.

According to a new Gallup survey, the latest Generation Z is more likely than older Americans to identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or something “other” than straight. 

The Christian Post earlier reported:

The share of Americans who identify as LGBT reached a record of 7.2% in 2022 after hitting 7.1% in 2021, up from 5.6% in 2020 and 3.5% in 2012, the year Gallup began collecting data on LGBT identification.

Of course, those on the left will argue that society’s greater acceptance of alternative sexuality has simply allowed more kids to come out of the closet. And maybe there is some validity to that.

But how many are simply confused and vulnerable children looking for a different type of acceptance?

There is also a not-so-fine line between being ‘accepted’ and being pushed.

And the left, the establishment media, and now the deranged transgender medical industry, are doing a lot of pushing.

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