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Are Liberals Using Tax Exempt Groups To Promote Terrorism?

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Image via Pixabay free images

A top congressional chairman is leaning on the Internal Revenue Service to revoke the tax-exempt status of several left-wing or Islamist organizations for actively supporting deadly Islamist terrorist activity.

The U.S. House Ways and Means announced in a statement that Committee Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08) is calling on the IRS to “revoke the tax-exempt status of multiple organizations previously referred by the Ways and Means Committee for failing to operate within their stated tax-exempt purpose.

“The letter coincide(ed) with the anniversary of the October 7th terrorist attack on Israel and targets organizations with links to designated foreign terrorist groups, as well as organizations linked to violence and unrest in the United States,” the Committee reports.

“Chairman Smith previously demanded then-IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel revoke the tax-exempt status of eight organizations with ties to Hamas and terror-linked organizations, as well as entities fueling antisemitic protests on U.S. college campuses and violence in the U.S.

In the letter to the IRS, Chairman Smith wrote: “We write to request that the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) prioritize examinations into the tax-exempt status of tax-exempt organizations previously referred to the IRS for revocation during the 118th Congress. In light of the anniversary of the October 2023 violent attack on Israel, along with recent acts of political violence and the continued disruptive activities of previously identified organizations that have been sowing chaos in the United States and have links to designated foreign terrorist groups, it is imperative that action is taken to ensure tax-exempt groups are operating within their tax-exempt purpose.”

Smith’s letter continues, “From the international funding sources and activities of tax-exempt entities in the U.S., and the role of certain organizations in fostering antisemitism on college campuses, the Committee has remained steadfast in ensuring that all tax-exempt organizations are abiding by their exempt status.  In September 2024, the Committee on Ways and Means (“the Committee”) sent seven letters to the IRS requesting that the IRS investigate and revoke the tax-exempt status of the referenced organizations, while also highlighting the tax-exempt organizations’ ties to Foreign Terrorist Organizations, support of illegal activity in America, and failure to operate for stated exempt purposes.  Some of the organizations, such as Americans for Justice in Palestine Educational Foundation, American Muslims for Palestine, and Islamic Relief USA, are suspected of having terrorist ties to groups like Hamas, using those ties to actively support and funnel resources in support of terrorism. Other groups like the Alliance for Global Justice, WESPAC Foundation, and Tides Foundation instead fiscally sponsor projects that disrupt college campuses, incite violence and intimidation, and illegal riot across the United States—prominent projects include Students for Justice in Palestine and Samidoun. Together, this evidence strongly supported referring the groups to the IRS for revocation of their tax-exempt status.”

The committee notes “organizations for which Chairman Smith is renewing referral for revocation of tax-exempt status include: Americans for Justice in Palestine Educational Foundation, American Muslims for Palestine, Islamic Relief USA, Alliance for Global Justice, WESPAC Foundation, Tides Foundation, Peoples Media Project (also known as The Palestine Chronicle), and The People’s Forum.”

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Great America News Desk. 

‘Top Gun’ Blowback – Pentagon Won’t Help Hollywood if They Submit to China

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Austin Green, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

ANALYSIS – In an unexpected, but long overdue move, the Pentagon has stated it will no longer work with directors if their movies will be censored by Beijing. This follows directly on the heels of Vietnam banning the movie ‘Barbie’ over its inclusion of a China-friendly map of the South China Sea.

That movie’s producers apparently caved to Chinese pressure and included the map showing China essentially owning the South China Sea, which it does not, despite its claims. And Vietnam wasn’t happy.

But, as I previously wrote, this Chinese censorship problem really exploded with last year’s release of Tom Cruise’s blockbuster “Top Gun: Maverick.” 

And now the Pentagon, thanks to GOP Senator Ted Cruz, has made it clear it now bans any military assistance to directors who plan to comply (or will likely comply) with censorship demands from the Chinese regime in order to distribute their movie in China.

In trailers for the ‘Maverick’ film shown in 2019, the flags of Taiwan and Japan had been removed from Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell’s flight jacket worn by Cruise in the 1986 original “Top Gun” movie.

The flags were part of a Far East Cruise patch commemorating the 1963-64 deployment by the USS Galveston off Japan and Taiwan. In the preview clip for the movie in 2019, those two historically accurate flags were replaced by generic nonsensical symbols.

This shameless kowtowing was an apparent attempt to appease Chinese investor Tencent. But after serious blowback in the U.S. — and after Tencent reportedly dropped its investment in the film – the flags were restored in the final version of the film.

In another example, Chinese government censors actually pushed the producers of “Spider-man: No Way Home” to remove the Statue of Liberty, according to Puck. This, likely due to its association with the Tiananmen Square protests.

Thankfully, the studio did not comply, and that movie wasn’t shown in China.

The Defense Department updated its rules for working with movie studios after Cruz (R-Texas) inserted language, known as the SCRIPT Act. into the fiscal 2023 defense policy bill.

Cruz has strongly condemned Beijing’s censorship of Hollywood films.

“What does it say to the world when Maverick is scared of the Chinese communists?” he said at the time.

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The latest Top Gun movie also reportedly showed us a peek at what might be the SR-72 – the super-secret experimental hypersonic spy plane under development by Lockheed Martin. It was called the ‘Darkstar’ in the film.

Providing more context, Politico reported:

According to a new Defense Department document obtained by POLITICO, filmmakers who want the U.S. military to help with their projects must now pledge that they won’t let Beijing alter those films.

The DOD “will not provide production assistance when there is demonstrable evidence that the production has complied or is likely to comply with a demand from the Government of the People’s Republic of China … to censor the content of the project in a material manner to advance the national interest of the People’s Republic of China,” the document reads.

Hollywood and the Defense Department have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship for decades. The Pentagon has allowed filmmakers to shoot their projects on military bases, Navy ships, or other locations, and weighs in on filmmaking processes. The military benefits from positive portrayals of service members, and moviemakers benefit from authentic settings and technical expertise.

But as China’s ruling Communist Party has developed increasingly advanced censorship and surveillance tools, countless American companies — including Hollywood studios — have sought to comply with Beijing’s demands while attempting to dodge stateside pushback.

However, from now on, producers of films greenlighted by the Defense Department must notify the Pentagon “in writing of such a censorship demand, including the terms of such demand, and whether the project has complied or is likely to comply with a demand for such censorship.”

But not just that. DoD will also weigh any “verifiable information” from people not involved in the production who indicate that producers could comply with a censorship demand.

So, hopefully Hollywood will stop caving to China’s blackmail, or risk losing access to their much-loved Pentagon collaboration.

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

General Milley Stoops To Trump Lows With ‘Wannabe Dictator’ Jab

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Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) Michael J. McCord provide testimony at a Senate Armed Services Committee budget hearing, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., March 28, 2023. (DoD photo by Chad J. McNeeley)

ANALYSIS – General Milley’s comments were beneath him, even if Trump provoked him. As I wrote about earlier, former President Donald Trump made typically inappropriate remarks when he implied outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, due to his back-channel calls to China’s top general, deserved the ‘DEATH’ penalty for treason (all caps were in Trump’s post on Truth Social).

While no one should take Trump’s bombastic social media posts too seriously, I did say Trump was wrong to add fuel to an already flammable political environment in our country with his comments. I have also criticized Milley for his many overreactions to Trump’s words and deeds during his time in office.

In doing so, Milley made Trump out to be something he wasn’t, placed himself smack in the middle of the Democrat Party narrative of Trump, and undermined the commander-in-chief and the presidency.

In my view Milley has also been at the very least deliberately and willfully ignorant of the extreme woke policies the Pentagon has been pushing. Still, despite all my jabs at Milley, I respected his decades of service to the uniform and our country.

It’s a shame then, that Milley chose to take the low road on his way out of the DC swamp, demeaning himself and the institution, while himself politicizing the military against Trump.

As the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board wrote:

Gen. Milley retired this week after four years as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “We are unique among the world’s militaries,” the top military officer said at a retirement ceremony on Friday, noting that service members swear an oath to the Constitution.

“We don’t take an oath to a country. We don’t take an oath to a tribe. We don’t take an oath to a religion. We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or a tyrant or a dictator. And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator.”

Readers will catch the parting shot at Mr. Trump. The media certainly did. And who could blame Gen. Milley for loathing Mr. Trump? Casually floating the idea of harming a U.S. military officer is conduct unworthy of a wannabe Commander in Chief.

Yet it was still dispiriting to hear Gen. Milley’s remarks about a former President, in public, while wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army. Mr. Trump is the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. Like it or not, he commands political support in the country. That doubtless includes a large chunk of the enlisted ranks of the United States military services. The end-of-tour catharsis of a swipe at Mr. Trump isn’t worth polarizing the force over politics.

I agree wholeheartedly with the Journal. Milley knows better, and with his bitter and snarky jabs at Trump chose to take the low road rather than the high road on his way out. 

Despite my great misgivings about the truly woke new Joint Chiefs Chairman, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, I also concur with the Journal’s parting words: “We hope that turning down the temperature of politics in the U.S. armed forces is a priority for the new chairman—perhaps behind only the military threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party.”

Message to Brown: We need an apolitical military leadership no matter the provocations from any political leader. That also means being non-ideological and non-woke. 

It’s a shame Milley couldn’t see that while he was chairman, and also couldn’t just leave gracefully.

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

Amanda Head: Poll Shows Patriotism, Faith In Sharp Decline

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Have you seen the results of this poll? Are you concerned?

Watch Amanda explain the situation below:

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

UN Legal Body Normalizes Sex With Children – Crimes Against Humanity Next?

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U.S. Department of State from United States, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

ANALYSIS – No, this isn’t a story of a wacky conspiracy theory about global elites and pedophilia, it is real news. And this time the truth is close to the mark.

According to a shocking report produced by legal experts backed by the United Nations, children can consent to sex with adults.

This is not only despicable; it violates the very UN principles that protect children from sexual violence. 

The widespread raping of women and children is an especially serious concern in the world’s war zones, where the heinous acts are considered war crimes. 

And in other UN documents, allowing sex with children “may amount to grave breaches of international humanitarian law.”

The findings of these supposedly enlightened jurists only blurs the lines of perverse criminal behavior and will embolden those animals who abuse children.

And, in an insult to all women, the report was released on March 8 ‘in recognition of International Women’s Day,’ suggesting some sort of connection between women’s rights and the age of consent.

While the report does not specifically call for decriminalizing sex between adults and minors and doesn’t define an age of sexual consent, it states that children have both the mental ability and legal right to make sexual decisions.

We should note that while there is a difference between mature, sexually active older teenagers, and young children, these experts appear to simply reference all minors under age 18.

Listed under Principle 16 – ‘Consensual Sexual Conduct,’ the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists, aided by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, wrote: “Sexual conduct involving persons below the domestically prescribed minimum age of consent to sex may be consensual in fact, if not in law.” 

If that is true, then how long before the UN and ‘global elites’ do in fact decriminalize adults having sex with children?

Well, the commission answers that question when it added in its report, “In this context, the enforcement of criminal law should reflect the rights and capacity of persons under 18 years of age to make decisions about engaging in consensual sexual conduct and their right to be heard in matters concerning them.”

According to Influencer Ian Miles Chong, “This has been the plan all along.”

https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1647416022637629440

The perverse findings which seem to open the door to normalize sex with minors appears in a report with the esoteric and convoluted title: “The 8 March Principles for a Human Rights-Based Approach to Criminal Law Proscribing Conduct Associated with Sex, Reproduction, Drug Use, HIV, Homelessness and Poverty.”

The report is posted prominently on the Commission’s website.

Its deranged conclusions also clash directly with the reality the UN Human Rights Commission reports on the ground in many countries.

As noted by the UN’s own organization “Children and Armed Conflict:

Sexual violence against children during conflict is one of the six grave violations identified and condemned by the UN Security Council .  The six grave violations form the basis of the Council’s architecture to monitor, report and respond to abuses suffered by children in times of war. Ending and preventing these violations is also the focus of the Special Representative’s work and advocacy.

Sexual violence is increasingly a characteristic of conflict and is often perpetrated against girls and boys in a rule of law vacuum. In some instances sexual violence has been used as a tactic of war designed to humiliate a population or to force displacement.

The UN group clearly states:

Rape and other forms of sexual violence against children are human rights violations, and may amount to grave breaches of international humanitarian law. If committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population, sexual violence can constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

So, which is it, UN? Where do you draw the line? If children can consent to sex, when is it a humanitarian or war crime and when is it just fine?

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

Amanda Head: Biden Admin Leaves Americans In The Dark As Usual

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Joe Biden prefers to keep Americans in the dark…especially when it comes to his administration’s many many mistakes.

Watch Amanda break down the latest scandal below:

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

Senate Flies US Flag Upside Down Indicating ‘Emergency Distress’

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ANALYSIS – We still don’t know if it was an intentional call for help, a prank, or a broken clip as Senate officials claim, but the American flag did spend some time flying upside down over the U.S. Capitol. 

And considering it flew over the Democrat-led Senate building, the meaning and symbolism weren’t lost on many Americans.

A tweet by Rogan O’Handley, a political activist whose Twitter handle is DC_Draino, posted on May 16, 2023, showed a photo of the U.S. flag outside the Capitol flying upside down.

He tweeted: “NEW: US flag currently flying upside down over Senate building signaling distress and needing rescue.”

DC_Draino added: “Some believe it was flipped after Sen. Fetterman spoke with the sophistication of a drunk toddler in a hearing today.”

The tweet was viewed 4.3 million times by Thursday.

Under the U.S. Flag Code, turning the flag upside down should never be done “except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.”

Others noted that Congress, and indeed the entire country, is in distress and needs emergency assistance.

The upside-down flag display has also been used as a means of protest, mostly by conservatives.

Newsweek confirmed that the photo is real and the flag was at one point upside down, but reported that an official at the Capitol blamed the upside down flag on a broken clip, adding that the problem was later corrected.

However, many on Twitter questioned the explanation. One asked: “If it was a broken clip and the wind was blowing as it clearly is in the photo, why would it not appear to be attached by only one clip?”

“Science/physics, right?”

“If it was caused because a ‘clip broke’ wouldn’t the flag just streamer in the wind instead of still fluttering like a flag?” another user suggested.

DC_Draino also responded to the official explanation reported by Newsweek, and mocked those who bought it at face value:

Yes I know the article says a “clip broke” but the flag wouldn’t fly like that if it was hanging by 1 clip

Guarantee the reply guys in my comments taking the government’s PR answer at face value are vaccinated & boosted

The picture is clearly showing something different.


However, as symbolic and justified it may be to fly the American flag upside down over the Democrat-controlled Senate, this was still likely a case of human error and broken clip. 

Still, maybe it should become a regular thing until the Republicans retake the Senate.

America is definitely in emergency distress.

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

Biden Lied About Classified Documents Found at His Homes and Office

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Photo via Pixabay images

ANALYSIS – While much of the establishment media dutifully informed us that Special Counsel Robert Hur’s recent interview of Joe Biden regarding his alleged mishandling of classified materials signals the investigation is ending, ‘with nothing there,’ it could just be the beginning.

In a bombshell new discovery, it appears that Biden may have been lying about those classified documents all along.

I have previously noted that former president Donald Trump improperly held on to classified documents mostly out of vanity, gave multiple bogus justifications for having them, refused to give them all back, moved them around, and essentially dared the Biden Department of Justice (DoJ) to come after him – which it did.

Had he returned all the materials he had in his possession, I have argued, DoJ likely would not have raided his Mar-a-Lago home and found damning evidence to indict him. None of the charges against Trump in that case are tied to materials he earlier returned to authorities.

Biden, and former vice president Mike Pence, seemed to have behaved quite differently when they discovered classified materials. Both supposedly quickly returned documents they had held improperly at their homes or private offices. 

This was a big difference with Trump’s actions.

Well, that may be true of Pence, but not of Biden, who seems to have a much more tangled web of deceit surrounding his classified materials that date back to his time as vice president and even senator.

As Jonathan Turley, Professor of Public Interest Law at the George Washington University Law School notes in The Hill: “The most glaring problem [with Biden’s case] is that, after they were removed at the end of his term as vice president, the documents were repeatedly moved and divided up.”

That sounds a lot like what Trump did, but going back much farther, and for potentially far more sinister motives.

Turley added:

Biden made clear from the beginning that he expected the investigation to be perfunctory and brief. He publicly declared that he has “no regrets” over his own conduct and told the public that the documents investigation would soon peter out when it determined that “there is no ‘there’ there.”

Now, however, it appears that a critical claim by the White House in the scandal may not only be false but was knowingly false at the time it was made. The White House and Biden’s counsel have long maintained that, as soon as documents were discovered in the D.C. office, they notified the national archives. Many asked why they did not call the FBI, but the White House has at least maintained that, unlike Trump, they took immediate action to notify authorities.

However, it now appears that this was not true. One of the closest aides to Biden and a close friend to Hunter Biden is Annie Tomasini. She referred to Hunter as her “brother” and signed off messages with “LY” or “love you.”

Tomasini was once a senior aide to Joe Biden and, according to the Oversight Committee, inspected the classified material on March 18, 2021, two months after Biden took office — nearly 20 months before they were said to be found by the Biden team.

The Oversight Committee released a new timeline of when the classified documents were discovered.

As Turley notes, “the committee now alleges that the White House “omitted months of communications, planning, and coordinating among multiple White House officials, [Kathy] Chung, Penn Biden Center employees, and President Biden’s personal attorneys to retrieve the boxes containing classified materials.”

This is huge. It means Biden repeatedly lied about when his staff discovered classified materials in his private residences and offices, and Team Biden had 20 months to tamper with, hide or otherwise dispose of evidence.

While a sitting president can’t be indicted according to existing DoJ policy, that could be changed. Beyond that, this new information has already been added to an increasingly heated impeachment inquiry by the GOP-led House.

The question being asked now by House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) is: How many of the documents improperly kept by Biden related to the countries the Biden family engaged with as part of their alleged foreign influence peddling scheme?

If there were any, that could mean there is “a lot more ‘there,’ there,” than Biden claimed.

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: Marvel Comics Barley Surviving Woke Trends

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Amanda Head screenshot

Could the beloved world of Marvel Comics be done for?

Countless movies, superheroes, and battles have captivated audiences for decades but now the woke mob is threatening to run everything.

Watch Amanda explain the situation below:

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