Elvert Barnes, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
ANALYSIS – First, let’s be clear. I was at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, as a security contractor for a foreign TV news crew. I witnessed the chaos firsthand and was not happy about it.
I strongly condemned those who violently rioted there in an article the very next day.
In my piece, I even said they should go to jail, just like any other violent rioters.
And they should. But Joe Biden’s DoJ isn’t content with ‘hard time’ for some of these rioters. They want a much longer time.
To also be clear, at the Capitol that day I saw tens of thousands of peaceful protesters before the riot. And saw many ‘rioters’ who weren’t violent.
Meanwhile, I have written about how many peaceful Jan. 6 protesters have been persecuted unfairly, and how harshly many violent rioters have been treated compared to equally violent Black Lives Matter (BLM) rioters.
Some of it is due to the Biden Department of Justice (DoJ) being hyper-political and overzealous, and part of it is the fact that these folks are getting tried and sentenced in the ‘People’s Republic of DC.’
When I first read of the case of Stewart Rhodes, head of the Oath Keepers, I thought he was one of the few who should get serious jail time. He and his gang were part of an organized, violent cadre that went to the Capitol to create violent chaos.
This is why they were charged and convicted of ‘seditious conspiracy’ – the only ones to be found guilty of that serious charge.
But when I heard he had gotten 18 years, I was floored. Child molesters get less time. Repeat violent offenders get less time. Even convicted spies sometimes get less time.
Eighteen years is a lot of time.
Even so, federal prosecutors are not satisfied with the severity of the jail terms delivered by the federal judge overseeing the case.
In the case of Rhodes, they wanted 25 years.
U.S. District Court Judge, and Barack Obama appointee, Amit Mehta sentenced Rhodes, and his colleagues, harshly due what he characterized as a dangerous criminal conspiracy aimed at violently derailing the transfer of presidential power.
But even if you believe these knuckleheads were intent on blocking the certification of the Electoral College vote, their chances of ‘derailing the transfer of presidential power’ two weeks later, on Jan 20, were little to none.
This is why Mehta’s sentences, while harsh, were still less than the prison terms prosecutors recommended and years below an agreed-upon “guidelines range” based upon their charges.
Of the others convicted of seditious conspiracy, Florida Oath Keeper leader Kelly Meggs received a 12-year term instead of the 21 DOJ wanted. Roberto Minuta of New York was sentenced to 4.5 years instead of 17. Joseph Hackett of Florida got a 3.5-year sentence; DOJ sought 12 years.
Ed Vallejo of Arizona was sentenced to 3-years, while DOJ wanted 17. And David Moerschel of Florida was sentenced to three years instead of the 10 DoJ wanted.
All of these are significant sentences in federal prison. A few might be deserved, but Biden’s DoJ isn’t happy with that. They want these folks to suffer even more.
If only DoJ was that zealous with other political crimes, and criminals, Hunter Biden might actually be in jail.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – The Elon Musk ‘Twitter Files’ exposé, much-ignored and maligned by the establishment media, has shown a consistent effort by various U.S. government agencies, and several prominent Democrat lawmakers, to censor or cancel dissenting, mostly conservative views.
Under the guise of combating ‘misinformation,’ a wholly concocted concept to justify censorship, Big Tech slowly at first, but increasingly later, got cozily into bed with Uncle Sam… and Adam Schiff.
Fox News reports that journalist Matt Taibbi joined Joe Rogan’s podcast to break down how the federal government, including the office of Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the hyper-partisan former chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, frequently contacted Twitter to have the content removed from the social media platform.
It is important to note that Taibbi is not a right-wing conspiracy theorist. On the contrary, he is a left-leaning former contributing editor for Rolling Stone, and the author of several books, including ‘Insane Clown President,’ an unflattering portrayal of Donald Trump.
According to Taibbi, the relationship between our security agencies like the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and tech companies like Twitter and Facebook was a “little bit less formal” than he originally thought.
Rather than playing an advisory role, the feds and Twitter created a “really intense structure” cultivated over several years.
This structure included regular meetings and a system where the DHS handled censorship requests from the states while the FBI fielded international requests.
Taibbi said he was “especially shocked” by an email from a Schiff staffer who called for the suspension of journalists on Twitter who tweeted critically on the House Intelligence Committee.
Rogan replied that it was “bizarre” for someone in the government to openly call for censorship in unsecured, unclassified emails that could be disseminated publicly.
Taibbi said it represents a Big Government and Big Tech mentality of being “impregnable” without fear of oversight.
It’s not surprising, he added, because, “They’re so comfortable with the idea that the government should be involved in this censorship…”
But that’s not all. Fox News reports:
In a January installment of “The Twitter Files”, Taibbi indicated Schiff’s staff asked Twitter “quite often” to take down certain tweets. A separate batch of Twitter Files that same month revealed similar requests by Schiff’s office.
An example he shared was one sent in November 2020 by Schiff’s office, which contacted Twitter hoping the tech giant would take action regarding “alleged harassment from QAnon conspiracists” against Schiff’s staff, including aide Sean Misko. The latest batch indicates Schiff’s office even fought to have unflattering pictures removed.
“This important use of taxpayer resources involved an ask about a ‘Peter Douche’ parody photo of Joe Biden. The DNC made the same request,” Taibbi wrote, proving visual evidence.
“To its credit, Twitter refused to remove it, with Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth saying it had obvious ‘humorous intent’ and ‘any reasonable observer’ – apparently, not a Schiff staffer – could see it was doctored,” he added.
Meanwhile, as the New York Post reports, things only appear to be getting worse, with left-leaning Big Tech billionaires like Bill Gates promoting even more frightening ideas to control conservatives.
In a recent chilling interview, Microsoft founder and billionaire Bill Gates called for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to combat not just “digital misinformation” but “political polarization,” as well.
Gates wants to fight this feared “political polarization” by checking “confirmation bias,” the tendency of people to search for information in a way that confirms their own embedded beliefs.
While this can be applied to anyone, left, right, or center, including COVID-19 fear mongers, climate change extremists, or Trump-Russia-collusion fanatics, it is now being used exclusively by our self-appointed tech overlords to dismiss all those who oppose and accepted, established liberal mantras.
And like all Leftist agendas, fear of the end fuels their need for control.
First, it was the fear of the end of the planet due to climate change, now it’s the fear of the end of democracy due to conservative ideas.
To these technocratic leftists, robust, free-wheeling debate in a democracy is now considered “political polarization,” and must be quashed to save us from death.
If we don’t use Gate’s enlightened, benevolent AI to supply the solutions, Gates suggested, we could all die: “Political polarization may bring it all to an end, we’re going to have a hung election and a civil war.”
And many leading left-wing Democrats, including Joe Biden, agree.
As the New York Post explains, the Orwellian Leftist censorship landscape may only get worse, even as they use a book by Aldous Huxley for their metaphor:
Others have suggested a Brave New World where citizens will be carefully guided in what they read and see. Democratic leaders have called for a type of “enlightened algorithm” to frame what citizens access on the internet. In 2021, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) objected that people were not listening to the informed views of herself and leading experts. Instead, they were reading views of skeptics by searching Amazon and finding books by “prominent spreaders of misinformation.”
Warren blamed Amazon for failing to limit searches or choices: “This pattern and practice of misbehavior suggests that Amazon is either unwilling or unable to modify its business practices to prevent the spread of falsehoods or the sale of inappropriate products.” In her letter, Warren gave the company 14 days to change its algorithms to throttle and obstruct efforts to read opposing views.
Social media responded to such calls and engaged in widespread censorship of those who held opposing views of mask mandates, vaccine safety, school mandates, and the origin of COVID-19. Many of those criticisms and views are now acknowledged as plausible and legitimate, but scientists were banned and censored. There was no “polarization” allowed. The public never was allowed to have that full debate on social media because such views were declared disinformation.
President Biden joined in these calls for censorship, often sounding like a censor-in-chief, denouncing social media companies for “killing people” by not blocking enough. Recently, he expressed doubt that the public can “know the truth” without such censorship by “editors” in Big Tech.
Well, in this case the fear is justified.
But it’s not fear that far-left Democrats and Big Tech billionaires espouse; it’s the fear of losing our constitutional right to free speech, and the platforms to express them.
Not to mention your right to order any book you want from Amazon.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
Without a whisper, David Brock once again took his seat in that deep club chair, the one upholstered in battered oxblood leather and steeped in quiet menace. He reached for his tailor-crafted inner pocket, drawing from it a fresh Davidoff 702 Double R. The oily Ecuadorian leaf caught flame with practiced ease, releasing those same familiar notes of dark chocolate and café crema. Nearby, a Baccarat tumbler appeared in a silent ritual of service, filled just so with Pappy Van Winkle, as though it had always been there. This wasn’t just habit. It was stagecraft, and the man in the chair was directing a performance with constitutional consequences.
There was no need for preamble. Those in the room knew why they were there. Brock was about to reintroduce the legal profession to its own velvet-clad nightmare. His audience, a quiet circle of left-wing patrons and media barons, leaned in as he explained the next phase of his campaign, not against Donald Trump per se, but against anyone daring to offer him or his allies a legal defense. This wasn’t about winning court cases. This was about ensuring those cases were never filed at all.
The 65 Project, Brock explained, was not an electoral effort. It was not a messaging campaign. It was war. A war against the 6th Amendment, that slender but essential clause guaranteeing every American the right to legal counsel. Its aim? To deprive Republicans, particularly those challenging elections or government orthodoxy, of any capable legal defense.
Screenshot via X [Credit: @amuse]
Run through Brock’s network of nonprofits and housed under Law Works, the 65 Project deployed seasoned political operatives to file bar complaints, ethics charges, and sanctions motions against Trump-affiliated attorneys. The power of the model lay in its asymmetry. A single complaint, even meritless, could cost an attorney tens of thousands of dollars and a year or more in disciplinary review. And even if dismissed, the stain was permanent.
In 2025, this campaign has not slowed. In February, the 65 Project filed a high-profile complaint against Edward Martin, then the interim US Attorney for the District of Columbia. His offense? Alleged conflicts of interest tied to representing January 6 defendants before his federal appointment. The complaint cited violations of Rule 4-1.7 of professional conduct, a detail blasted across the headlines of friendly media outlets. As of June, there is no word on whether the complaint succeeded, but that isn’t the point. The accusation is the punishment.
Incredibly, the 65 Project also targeted the sitting Attorney General of the United States, Pam Bondi. On June 5, 2025, a coalition including the 65 Project, Democracy Defenders Fund, Lawyers Defending American Democracy, and Lawyers for the Rule of Law filed a 23-page ethics complaint with the Florida Bar, accusing Bondi of “serious professional misconduct.” The complaint alleged that Bondi threatened DOJ lawyers with discipline or termination for failing to pursue President Trump’s political objectives, particularly via a February 5 “zealous advocacy” memo. It claimed her actions led to resignations and firings in violation of DOJ norms and Florida Bar rules. Yet, on June 6, the Florida Bar summarily rejected the complaint, citing a policy against investigating sitting officers appointed under the US Constitution. It was the third such complaint against Bondi, and the third rejection. Critics like DOJ Chief of Staff Chad Mizelle called the filings “vexatious” and politically motivated. That the 65 Project would go after a sitting Attorney General at all illustrates the sheer audacity, and absurdity, of their campaign. They have announced they will be filing more complaints against Bondi.
Even more outrageous, the same coalition named two additional Trump administration officials in their June 5 complaint: Emil Bove, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General and Todd Blanche, Deputy Attorney General. The complaint accused them contributing to a culture of unethical conduct within the Justice Department by pressuring career lawyers to ignore professional responsibilities and instead pursue political objectives at the behest of President Trump. The goal was clear: not just to intimidate one leader, but to undermine the credibility of an entire legal team working within the bounds of the law.
This complaint, like so many others, underscores the project’s enduring mission: to ensure lawyers think twice before defending Trump or any of his associates. Public defenders and private litigators alike have been swept into the net. Whether you were in court for Giuliani, or simply filed an amicus brief on election integrity, the 65 Project likely has your name on a list.
This strategy, weaponizing legal ethics as a partisan bludgeon, would have made Boss Tweed grin from ear to ear. Backroom operators like Col. George Brinton McClellan Harvey would recognize it instantly. Harvey, managing editor of the Democratic Party’s press empire at the turn of the 20th century, orchestrated conventions from smoke-filled rooms in Chicago’s Blackstone Hotel, where policies were written not in law books, but on cocktail napkins between puffs of Havana cigars. Brock, in many ways, is his spiritual heir, using legal bureaucracy the way Harvey used ink and influence.
The Biden-appointed judiciary has not resisted. In Michigan, Democratic activists succeeded in convincing a federal judge to sanction every lawyer who filed election-related litigation for Trump in 2020. Among them: Lin Wood, Sidney Powell, and Stefanie Junttila. Each was ordered to pay legal fees to Democratic Party groups and attend re-education courses, under the euphemism of continuing legal education. The court referred them for possible disbarment, fulfilling Brock’s vision.
Michael Teter, managing director of the 65 Project, has filed complaints against more than 100 attorneys across 26 states. The targets include high-profile figures like Jenna Ellis, John Eastman, and Cleta Mitchell. And while many of these complaints were dismissed by mid-2023, the damage to reputations and client relationships lingers.
The project’s tactics have drawn sharp rebuke. Congressman Lance Gooden, in April 2025, called the 65 Project a “political hit squad” and demanded a Justice Department investigation. Others on social media have accused the group of colluding with establishment Republicans to kneecap Trump’s legal allies. Yet Brock’s defenders frame the group as guardians of democracy, protecting the legal profession from ethical collapse.
Such framing is dishonest. When Alan Dershowitz defended Al Gore in 2000, no one suggested he should be disbarred for challenging election results. But now, lawyers challenging questionable election conduct on behalf of Republicans face professional ruin. This is not accountability. It is ideological warfare.
Critics may point out that the 65 Project has not secured many disbarments. That may be true, but they have achieved some high-profile penalties. Jenna Ellis was publicly censured by a Colorado judge in March 2023. Rudy Giuliani had his law license suspended in New York and is facing permanent disbarment proceedings in Washington, DC. John Eastman was disbarred in California following a March 27, 2024, decision by State Bar Court Judge Yvette Roland, who found him culpable of 10 out of 11 disciplinary charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. His license was placed on involuntary inactive status days later, rendering him ineligible to practice law in California. Eastman has appealed, but as of June 15, 2025, no reversal has been reported. He was also suspended from practicing law in Washington, DC, on May 3, 2024, pending resolution of the California case. Lin Wood surrendered his law license in Georgia under pressure from multiple complaints. These results are rare but not insignificant. Still, the goal was never just disbarment. It was deterrence. It was a public display of consequence, a digital scarlet letter. No need to win in court when you can win in LinkedIn’s HR department.
The project has inspired imitators including the Democracy Defenders Fund, Lawyers Defending American Democracy, and Lawyers for the Rule of Law. The Lincoln Project also targets law firms, encouraging junior associates to pressure partners against accepting GOP clients. Shutdown DC and the Un-American Bar maintain lists of “insurrectionist” lawyers. Others push the American Bar Association to adopt rules banning election challenges altogether, cloaking censorship in the rhetoric of professionalism.
Marc Elias, the left’s court general, has taken the mission even further, seeking to disqualify GOP candidates under the 14th Amendment, resurrecting post-Civil War measures to bar Trump allies from holding office. Lawsuits against Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, and others reflect this broader ecosystem of lawfare. It is a constellation of coordinated attacks designed to render conservative legal advocacy untenable.
And what of the Constitution? The Sixth Amendment was never meant to be partisan. It exists not to protect the powerful, but the accused. In America, even pariahs have lawyers. Even the guilty deserve defense. The 65 Project’s perverse genius is to flip that premise, treating legal representation as complicity, and enforcing political loyalty through professional terror.
David Brock did not build this machinery alone. Melissa Moss, a Clinton veteran, helped architect the effort. She recruited Democratic grandees, Tom Daschle, ABA presidents, former state judges, to lend legitimacy. Their goal? To make conservative legal advocacy professionally radioactive.
And it may be working. Some lawyers are declining GOP clients outright. Others fear disciplinary complaints, X mobs, or worse. The chilling effect is real, and precisely what the architects intended. The War on the Sixth is a war on courage, a war on professional independence, a war on the idea that justice should be blind.
In the end, Brock’s smoke-filled rooms are not about cigars or cocktails. They are about control. They are about ensuring that when Republicans step into a courtroom, they do so alone.
The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Congressional investigators may soon have, and could reveal to the public, hidden government documents showing how then-Vice President Joe Biden used his office and taxpayer funds to boost his family’s alleged influence-peddling business.
U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-KY) is demanding the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) turn over records regarding how Biden’s activities as Vice President coincided with his middle-aged son Hunter’s activities in Ukraine.
“Comer is requesting all unredacted documents and communications in which then-Vice President Joe Biden used a pseudonym; Hunter Biden, Eric Schwerin, or Devon Archer is copied; and all drafts of then-Vice President Biden’s speech delivered to the Ukrainian Rada in December 2015,” a statement from the Committee announced.
“Joe Biden has stated there was ‘an absolute wall’ between his family’s foreign business schemes and his duties as Vice President, but evidence reveals that access was wide open for his family’s influence peddling,” said Comer.
“We already have evidence of then-Vice President Biden speaking, dining, and having coffee with his son’s foreign business associates. We also know that Hunter Biden and his associates were informed of then-Vice President Biden’s official government duties in countries where they had a financial interest,” Comer added.
“The National Archives must provide these unredacted records to further our investigation into the Biden family’s corruption,” Comer demanded.
“In August 2019, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden stated that when he was Vice President there was ‘an absolute wall between the personal and private, and the government’ and ‘that is why I have never talked with my son or my brother, or anyone else in the distant family about their business interests, period,’” the Committee noted.
But evidence, documents and eyewitnesses report otherwise.
“Witness testimony reveals then-President Biden spoke on speakerphone with his son’s foreign business associates over 20 times, dined with corrupt foreign oligarchs in Washington, D.C., and met with his son’s Chinese business associate for coffee in Beijing. Emails in NARA’s custody also reveal how Hunter Biden and his associates were copied on official government email,” the Committee revealed.
Below is the full text of the letter:
The Honorable Colleen Shogan
Archivist of the United States
National Archives and Records Administration
700 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20408
Dear Dr. Shogan:
The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is investigating President Biden’s meetings and communications with certain family members and their business associates during his tenure as Vice President. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has published the Biden Vice Presidential Records Collection, which contains information relevant to the Committee’s work. Many of these records have been redacted for publication pursuant to the Presidential Records Act (PRA) and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). To further our investigation, it is essential that the Committee review these documents in their original format.
The Committee seeks unrestricted special access under the PRA to Case Number 2023-0022-F, entitled “Email Messages To and/or From Vice President Biden and Hunter Biden related to Burisma and Ukraine,” which has been published on NARA’s website. These records have been redacted for public release pursuant to the PRA and FOIA. For example, an email bearing the subject “Friday Schedule Card,” is withheld in part under a “P6” and “b(6)” restrictions, denoting personal information regarding the subject under the PRA and FOIA respectively. Attached to this email, and made available on the NARA website, is a document that indicates on 9:00 a.m. on May 27, 2016, Vice President Biden took a call with the president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko. It is concerning to the Committee, however, that this document was sent to “Robert L. Peters”—a pseudonym the Committee has identified as then Vice-President Biden. Additionally, the Committee questions why the then-Vice President’s son, Hunter Biden—and only Hunter Biden—was copied on this email to then-Vice President Biden.
To further our investigation, the Committee needs to review these documents in their original format. The Committee also requests access to certain other documents and information described below. Please provide these documents no later than August 31, 2023:
Complete, unredacted versions of all documents from Case Number 2023-0022-F;
Any document or communication in which a pseudonym for Vice President Joe Biden was included either as a sender, recipient, copied or was included in the contents of the document or communication, including but not limited to Robert Peters, Robin Ware, and JRB Ware;
Any document or communication in which Hunter Biden, Eric Schwerin, or Devon Archer was included either as a sender, recipient, copied, or was included in the contents of the document or communication; and
All drafts from November 1, 2015 to December 9, 2015 of then-Vice President Biden’s speech delivered to the Ukrainian Rada on December 9, 2015.
Special access to presidential records may be granted “to…Congress” and “to the extent of matter within its jurisdiction, to any committee… if such records contain information that is needed for the conduct of its business and that is not otherwise available….” Furthermore, the PRA subjects Vice-Presidential records to its provisions “in the same manner as Presidential records.”
The Committee’s need for these Vice-Presidential records is specific and well-documented. The Committee seeks to craft legislative solutions aimed at deficiencies it has identified in the current legal framework regarding ethics laws and disclosure of financial interests related to the immediate family members of Vice Presidents and Presidents—deficiencies that may place American national security and interests at risk. The Committee is concerned that foreign nationals have sought access and influence by engaging in lucrative business relationships with high-profile political figures’ immediate family members, including members of the Biden family. For additional information regarding the Committee’s legislative purpose regarding its investigation of the Biden family’s international business, the Committee would direct you to three bank records memoranda it has released this year.
The Committee on Oversight and Accountability has specific jurisdiction over NARA under House Rule X. Additionally, the Committee on Oversight and Accountability is the principal oversight committee of the U.S. House of Representatives and has broad authority to investigate “any matter” at “any time” under House Rule X.
To schedule the delivery of responsive documents or if you have questions regarding this request, please contact Committee on Oversight and Accountability staff at (202) 225-5074. Thank you for your prompt attention to this important investigation.
Sincerely,
James Comer
Chairman
Committee on Oversight and Accountability
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – One of the most egregious efforts at election interference in 2020 was when the Joe Biden campaign successfully quashed the bombshell New York Post story of Hunter Biden’s laptop.
The laptop has proven to hold a treasure trove of incriminating evidence against the Bidens.
But it was effectively kept from the American people in the final weeks of the campaign through a concerted conspiracy between the Biden campaign, Big Tech social media companies, the major news networks, and a group of former spies.
And one of those who helped hide it from the public is now an on-air CNN analyst.
It has since been documented that Antony Blinken, then with the Biden campaign, now Biden Secretary of State, retained former senior U.S. intelligence officials to smear the laptop story as Russian disinformation.
As I have written about, 51 former spooks eventually signed a letter calling the laptop story likely Russian disinformation. This was then used as justification by the media to censor and ban the story.
One of the most senior of those partisan intelligence hacks was ex-Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper.
As a reward for his disservice, Clapper has now been hired by CNN as an analyst where he will be able to spew disinformation on all manner of national security and political topics.
And Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy made a big deal about this on a recent CNN appearance.
In a tense back-and-forth exchange with the reporter McCarthy ignored the question about Trump’s classified documents case and instead emphasized that Clapper had been one of dozens of former intelligence officials who signed the letter dismissing the Post’s October 2020 expose on Hunter’s laptop as a Russian disinformation.
He also threw in CNN’s hiring of discredited former deputy FBI chief Andrew McCabe who was fired for leaking classified information.
“Are you prepared to defend your network, CNN?” McCarthy said as they spoke over each other. “Even though your network hired Andrew McCabe, who was fired from the FBI for leaking classified documents, did you remove him from your network? No, you continue to put him on to give judgment against President Trump. You also hired Clapper …”
McCarthy later continued, according to Fox:
“So, your network hires Clapper, who literally lied to the American public – one of 51 other individuals that had briefings and used it politically to tell the American public that a laptop was Russia collusion, even though it had all this information about the Biden administration,” the speaker said.
“Are you prepared to get rid of those people from your network? Because my concern as a policymaker is that when [you] weaponize government, and now you’re weaponizing networks, that is wrong,” McCarthy continued. “I have a real problem that your network actually pays people who did classified information and then lied to the American public to try to influence a presidential election, and then you put them on your network to give an opinion.”
This line of attack against CNN and other major news outlets who hire ex-officials involved in partisan election interference is valid and should be continued.
This goes well beyond just being partisan.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
Katy Blackwood, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Former decorated Navy SEAL Chris Beck, who publicly announced his transition to look like a woman in 2013, has now said that this was a life-shattering mistake, and he is de-transitioning back to his biologically male gender.
Beck, who started going by the name Kirsten, was a poster child of the trans movement and was used aggressively by them to promote and impose their radical agenda in the U.S. military.
Beck earlier served in the Navy SEALs for 20 years, going on 13 deployments, including with the famed SEAL Team Six.
According to his speaker bio, he was awarded over 50 citations and medals, including the Bronze Star with valor and the Purple Heart.
But now Beck calls the trans movement a ‘cult’ that used, manipulated, and propagandized him into making this radical life change.
He is also speaking out to warn about the devastating effect of the trans agenda on children.
Beck made his explosive comments during an interview with political commentator Robby Starbuck.
Starbuck tweeted that “Navy SEAL Chris Beck came out in 2013 as transgender. @andersoncooper did a special on @cnn about it. His story was used as propaganda to allow trans people in the military and to popularize the issue. Now Chris is ready to expose the truth.”
Navy SEAL Chris Beck came out in 2013 as transgender. @andersoncooper did a special on @cnn about it. His story was used as propaganda to allow trans people in the military and to popularize the issue. Now Chris is ready to expose the truth. Watch here: https://t.co/ChbjE6Kglypic.twitter.com/wQbGPln9K3
He [Beck]told Starbuck that he is “not transgender” and used his confusion as an example of why psychologists should not “push their agenda” onto children. Beck claimed in the interview that it took a one hour long meeting at the Department of Veterans Affairs for him to be recommended hormones, which he has now been off for seven years. He went on to break down the effects of the hormones used for the gender transition on his body.
Beck was turned into a national figure when he came out as transgender in a 2013 CNN interview with Anderson Cooper. The interview came after he co-wrote the book “Warrior Princess” with psychologist Anne Speckhard. The book detailed him coming out as transgender. He warned viewers in the interview not to believe anything CNN said about him because he claims they “used [him]” and “destroyed [his] life” over the past decade.
Beck is also extremely concerned about the trans movement’s damaging effects on children.
Beck explained the dangers of medical professionals’ “automatic acceptance” of children who have self-diagnosed themselves as transgender. He added that doctors should require “a minimum number of sessions” before allowing children to undergo life-altering hormone therapy treatment or gender-mutilating surgeries.
“There’s a lot of complications with these surgeries,” Beck noted. “And that’s a part that they don’t really talk about.”
Beck told Starbuck that he came on the podcast to take “full responsibility” for promoting gender ideology and stated that, at the time, he was “naive.” He explained that he is concerned that children are “being talked into this.”
“I don’t want this to continue, and I don’t want these kids to get hurt,” Beck stated.
And this a growing concern, especially as Team Biden is pushing to have taxpayer-funded transition surgeries for kids.
The United States Department of Health and Human Services says that taxpayer funds should be used to cover the cost of body mutilating “gender transition” surgeries for minors. In written responses to Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra said that the Biden administration supports using taxpayer dollars to cover the costs of elective body-deforming surgeries on youth, such as mastectomies and vaginoplasties. His responses were submitted Tuesday to the U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
(Miami - Flórida, 09/03/2020) Presidente da República Jair Bolsonaro durante encontro com o Senador Marco Rubio..Foto: Alan Santos/PR
George Santos did not stretch the truth. He did not fudge numbers. He did not run afoul of technicalities in campaign finance law. He stole, lied, and exploited vulnerable people for personal and political gain. These were not victimless crimes, nor were they victimless lies. They were part of an elaborate scheme to build a fraudulent political career on a foundation of stolen funds, fictitious wealth, and unearned trust. It is time conservatives stop equivocating. If George Santos were not a thief, he might have been a talented, even promising political figure. But he is a thief, and a spectacularly cynical one at that. He stole from the old and the sick, he stole from donors, he stole from the US taxpayer. He is not a misunderstood maverick or a casualty of overzealous prosecution. He is a con man, and a criminal.
Let us begin, as the law did, with the false image he built. Santos, through deliberate lies to the Federal Election Commission and his own party, fabricated a story of fundraising success. In early 2022, he claimed to have raised over $250,000 in a single quarter from third-party donors, including a personal loan of $500,000 to his own campaign. These were lies. He did not have the money. He did not receive these donations. But this mirage of financial viability was just enough to secure his acceptance into the National Republican Congressional Committee’s “Young Guns” program, granting him financial, logistical, and strategic support. The GOP, believing they were backing a legitimate, self-sustaining candidate, diverted valuable resources to a fraud.
But Santos did not merely fake donor support. He invented donors. Using the identities and financial information of real people, Santos charged their credit cards repeatedly, funneling the proceeds into his campaign, other political committees, and even his own bank account. Nearly a dozen people were victimized, including individuals least capable of defending themselves. One woman, suffering from brain damage, had thousands of dollars withdrawn without her consent. Two elderly men in their eighties, each suffering from dementia, had their identities stolen and their cards charged. These were not passive accounting errors or clerical mistakes. These were acts of intimate, cold exploitation. Santos knew these people, spoke with them, thanked them for their support, and then used their vulnerability against them.
In one egregious instance, a donor who had already given the legal maximum found his credit card charged an additional $15,800 without authorization. Santos disguised this theft by attributing the funds to fabricated family members in his FEC reports, a maneuver that allowed him to continue the ruse while avoiding contribution limits. In another, he charged $12,000 to a donor’s account and deposited the majority into his personal bank. From there, it funded clothing, cosmetics, credit card bills, and gambling trips. The campaign, the candidacy, the public service, all were secondary to a lifestyle of luxury paid for by other people’s money.
Perhaps the most hypocritical of Santos’s frauds involved the pandemic. In 2020, he applied for and received over $24,000 in unemployment benefits from the state of New York. At the time, he was gainfully employed as a regional director at a Florida-based investment firm, earning over $120,000 a year. He did not miss a paycheck. He was not laid off. He did not qualify. And yet, each week, he falsely certified his jobless status, drawing taxpayer-funded aid designed for those hit hardest by COVID-19, the unemployed, the underemployed, the financially desperate. In an act of gall that would be laughable if it were not so despicable, Santos later sponsored legislation in Congress to crack down on pandemic unemployment fraud. The man who stole from the system claimed he would reform it.
Nor did the deception stop there. Santos lied on his congressional financial disclosures, the forms meant to ensure transparency for public officials. He claimed to have earned $750,000 in salary from a private company that paid him nothing. He reported receiving $1 to $5 million in dividends that never existed. He declared hundreds of thousands in bank holdings, when in fact his accounts were often in the low thousands, if not lower. In reality, his only actual income came from the investment firm and the unemployment checks he falsely obtained. The lies were not incidental. They were comprehensive, deliberate, and aimed at creating an illusion of wealth and competence.
Even more brazenly, Santos fabricated an independent expenditure group, a supposed political action committee called RedStone Strategies. He solicited two donors for $25,000 each, promising that the funds would be used for media buys and campaign efforts. They were not. Santos transferred the money into accounts he controlled and spent it on Ferragamo, Hermes, Botox, and credit card bills. This was not merely unethical. It was embezzlement. It was theft. It was a fraud perpetrated with full knowledge and intent.
In total, Santos stole or misappropriated approximately $578,750. The court ordered him to pay $373,749.97 in restitution and to forfeit an additional $205,002.97. These numbers were not speculative. They were calculated against real losses to real people, individuals whose credit was damaged, whose money was siphoned away, whose trust was obliterated. Santos’s 87-month sentence, or just over seven years, was not an outlier in the federal system. It was a typical penalty for this kind of sprawling, malicious financial fraud. Defendants with no political profile, who defrauded the government or private individuals out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, routinely receive similar sentences. That Santos was a congressman did not result in his being singled out. If anything, it spared him scrutiny longer than he deserved.
There is no serious argument for clemency here. Clemency is for excess, for injustice, for punishment that outstrips wrongdoing. Clemency is not for grifters who fake their way into office by stealing from pensioners and pandemic relief funds. One does not defend George Santos by invoking freedom, fairness, or limited government. To the contrary, every dollar Santos stole weakened the legitimacy of our electoral system, diverted support from legitimate candidates, and degraded the moral clarity conservatives must offer in a dishonest age. The true conservative position is to say plainly: this man is a crook.
Yes, Santos was charismatic. Yes, he had a knack for commanding attention. And yes, in another life, with honesty and principle, he might have served well. But we do not excuse embezzlement because the embezzler is clever. We do not overlook theft because the thief is funny. Our movement has spent decades insisting that character matters. If that is still true, then George Santos is not a man to be platformed or pitied. He is a cautionary tale.
Some will argue that Santos’s sentence was harsh. Perhaps. But that is not a reason to pardon him. It is a reason to scrutinize sentencing guidelines for all non-violent financial offenders. Santos should be treated like any other fraudster, no worse, no better. And by that measure, he has been.
Others say we should forgive him because the media was against him. But the media is against every Republican. What makes our side different, or should, is our insistence on personal responsibility. George Santos did what he did. He admitted it. He pled guilty. He is being punished in accordance with the law. He is not a martyr. He is a criminal.
Those who now seek to rebrand Santos as a political prisoner or conservative folk hero are doing damage not only to the movement, but to the truth. And that matters. For if we cannot call theft what it is, if we cannot call fraud what it is, if we cannot reject the normalization of criminality in our own ranks, then we are not a movement of principle. We are just another racket.
Expert election prognosticator and FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver called on President Biden to immediately resign and let Vice President Kamala Harris carry out the remainder of his term.
Silver’s argument came in response to a Washington Post article about Biden’s recent trip to Brazil that began like this:
MANAUS, Brazil — President Joe Biden was in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, unprotected from mosquitoes, fire ants and loud, squawking macaws. But there was another pest he did manage to avoid: the pack of reporters traveling with him.
For a short speech in front of about two dozen people, the journalists were initially instructed to watch Biden on a flat-screen television placed amid sand and lush trees as the president spoke about 50 feet away, though they were eventually moved closer. As Biden finished his remarks, maracas rattled by a local group prevented him from hearing reporters’ shouted questions about Ukraine.
During a six-day foreign trip to Peru and Brazil that wrapped up Monday, the president rarely spoke in public, answering almost no questions despite repeated efforts to engage him. One television producer took to writing messages on a large pad of paper, holding it up as Biden boarded and departed Air Force One.
The story went on to note that Biden has been conspicuously quiet about the results of the 2024 presidential election, which he “repeatedly called the most important election in history” and “warned would change the country forever if [Donald] Trump prevailed.”
Silver was unamused by Biden’s performance as described by the Post.
“Is there any particular reason to assume Biden is competent to be president right now?” he asked rhetorically on X. “It’s a very difficult job. It’s a dangerous world. Extremely high-stakes decisions in Ukraine. He should resign and let Harris serve out the last 2 months.”
Nate, you’re a little late to the game on this one.
