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New Plan for Old Biden: Tennis Shoes and Baby Stairs on Air Force One

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The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

ANALYSIS – In case you missed it, Joe Biden tripped again recently going down the stairs of Air Force One. And these weren’t the normal tall stairs used by proud Commanders in Chief, that rise all the way to the top of the majestic presidential aircraft, but the very short baby stairs that are used by ‘the help’ that go into the lower bowels of the plane.

That is the new normal for our aging and decrepit occupant of the White House. That and tennis shoes worn with business suits and seeing a physical therapist. All to avoid tripping, slipping, or falling, and not being able to get back up.

This latest slip occurred just hours after Axios reported Biden’s campaign is “working on a critical project for his re-election bid: Make sure he doesn’t trip.”

‘Operation Don’t Let Biden Fall’ would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. But as Axios notes: “Biden’s team is betting that any mockery he receives over using the shorter Air Force One steps and wearing tennis shoes will be worth it to avoid another public stumble.”

Many Democrats worry about Biden having a bad fall like Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole, 73 at the time, had in September 1996, when he fell off a stage at a rally weeks before the election.

Democrats already had been knocking Dole about his age compared to the 50-year-old Bill Clinton running for re-election.

Biden has repeatedly stumbled and tripped in public, including, most dramatically on stage at the Air Force’s graduation in June. 

Biden’s physician has diagnosed Biden’s stumbles as likely caused by “a combination of significant spinal arthritis” and “mild post-fracture foot arthritis.” 

Folksy old Biden might just say he is getting long in the tooth.

Biden, the oldest-ever serving U.S. president, turns 81 in less than two months. Three-fourths of Americans see Biden as too old for office, according to an AP-NORC poll last month.

Another poll from the Washington Post and ABC News in late September found that 3 out of 5 Democrats would prefer someone else be the party’s 2024 nominee.

The president’s doctor has recommended special exercises for balance, which he called “proprioceptive maintenance maneuvers.”

Unfortunately, Axios noted, no one has ever heard of these “maneuvers.”

“I have never heard the term ‘proprioceptive maintenance maneuvers.’ It is not a clinical term in standard use,” said Professor James Gordon, associate dean and chair of the Division of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy at the University of Southern California.

Biden’s doctor is just as good as Biden at using made up words or as good as the White House Press secretary is at blowing smoke.

As bad as his obvious physical frailty is, Americans should be just as concerned, or more so, about Biden’s severe mental decline. 

And it must be bad, when even the establishment media has noticed. NBC News reported in July:

Apparent to anyone paying attention is that the Biden they may remember from the Robert Bork Supreme Court confirmation hearings of 1987, or the vice presidential debate with Sarah Palin in 2008, is a different man today. His gait is less steady, his speech not as fluid. He has confused Iraq with Ukraine and Rolling Fork, Mississippi, with “Rolling Stone.” At a conference last year, he looked out at the audience and called for a congresswoman who had recently died in a car crash.

The outlet added that Biden is “relying on “extra-large font on his teleprompter and note cards to remind him of the points he wants to make in meetings.”

I must note that I’ve seen the extra-large font on his teleprompter, and it is embarrassingly HUGE.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reported in June that Biden’s “staff schedules most of his public appearances between noon and 4 p.m. and leave him alone on weekends as much as possible.”

But there is only so much you can do to hide the fact that this man should be in a rocking chair with his grandkids, not leading the free world. 

It is doubtful that Team Biden can keep their man from falling during the camapign, it is even more doubtful that – barring keeping him isolated in a soundproof bubble – they can keep him from babbling incoherently.

Either way, we definitely don’t want Biden answering what Hillary Clinton in 2008 called “the 3am phone call” to the White House in a major crisis. And I can see a lot of those calls coming in over the next four years.

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

Trump Appeals To Supreme Court Over Colorado Banning Him From Ballot

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Duncan Lock, Dflock, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

ANALYSIS – This could be huge. Donald Trump is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court – which he helped shape as president – following a ruling in Colorado to bar him from its presidential primary ballot over his engagement in an “insurrection.”

Colorado’s all Democrat appointed, left-leaning Supreme Court has ruled 4 to 3 that former President Donald Trump is disqualified from holding office again because he engaged in an “insurrection” over the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

Republicans see the Colorado court’s decision as yet another egregious example of the Democrats’ ongoing campaign of election interference against Trump.

The majority justices’ decision reversed a Denver district judge’s finding last month that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment did not apply to the presidency.

The three justices who dissented did so on procedural grounds. In three separate dissenting opinions, each based on different legal arguments, they all concluded that the Colorado Supreme Court had overstepped its authority.

Colorado’s decision will go into effect on Jan. 4, 2024 – the eve of Colorado’s March 5 Republican primary.

In the wake of the decision, Team Trump came out swinging. As The New York Times reported:

“Unsurprisingly, the all-Democrat appointed Colorado Supreme Court has ruled against President Trump, supporting a Soros-funded, left-wing group’s scheme to interfere in an election on behalf of Crooked Joe Biden by removing President Trump’s name from the ballot and eliminating the rights of Colorado voters to vote for the candidate of their choice,” a campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, said. “We have full confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court will quickly rule in our favor and finally put an end to these un-American lawsuits.”

Similar challenges in New Hampshire, Michigan and Minnesota have all been dismissed in court, because the idea is nonsense. The courts there also decided that the Constitution is unclear about whether Section 3 of the 14th Amendment applies to the president.

As Trump’s lawyers have already said he will appeal the verdict. The shock ruling will put an exceptional case before the U.S. Supreme Court – possibly being forced to decide the question for all 50 U.S. states.

The U.S. Supreme Court is made up of nine justices, six of whom are conservatives, or “constitutionalists,” three of whom were appointed by President Trump.

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

This article was republished with permission from American Liberty News.

Fighting Back Against Trans ‘Drag Story Time’ Imposed on Our Kids in Public Libraries

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ANALYSIS – Conservatives are finally fighting back against the trans agenda being imposed on our children at public libraries and bookstores via ‘Drag Queen Story Times.’ 

This bizarre and offensive program sends outrageously outfitted cross-dressing men into public libraries to read stories to small impressionable children. 

The goal? To indoctrinate, if not groom, these children into accepting and exploring the trans lifestyle. 

The secondary effect, exposing children to sexual themes, including mock stripping, they have no right to be exposing them to. 

In some cases, these grown men dressed as women have been caught fondling children or acting inappropriately.

And yet, our taxpayer-funded public libraries across the country allow these bizarre events.

And too many ignorant, brainwashed, horrible parents allow their children to attend.

They are also increasingly occurring at other venues as well. But the goals are always the same.

Thankfully, conservatives are finally fighting back.

One way has been by loudly and publicly calling out examples of sexual abuse, and inappropriate touching or sexual behavior by these drag queens, and by protesting their presence in front of small children.

In early December one Trans-friendly venue, The Starlighter, in Texas was forced to cancel a slew of drag queen story hours after a public outcry over the outrageous antics of some of these cross-dressing men.

Most of it was due to video and images taken at an event and widely shared by conservative critics.

The Christian Post reported that this event featured a showing of the 1960s TV classic “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” while a rainbow flag with the number “666” hung on the walls.

What was worse, a video taken at this event showed a young girl no older than 7, who appeared unattended, with these men in drag dancing suggestively and singing lyrics such as, “Under the mistletoe/ Yes, everybody knows/ We will take off our clothes.”

One of the cross-dressing men was also recorded touching and stroking the young girl’s hair. The little girl is also seen handing money to one of the drag performers, as if at a strip club.

Another video clip, reports the Christian Post, “showed the young child visibly shrink back as a drag queen in all black leather, devil horns and face makeup as the man in drag sings, ‘Get your tickets to the freak show, baby / Step right up to watch the freak go crazy.’”

Another way conservatives are fighting back is protesting loudly and aggressively like the Left does, constantly, and at the drop of a hat.

But doing so peacefully.

In one case in early December reported NBC News:

The hosts of a “Drag Queen Story Hour”-style event for children in Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday pulled the plug because of what they described as the intimidating presence of right-wing demonstrators.

The scheduled holiday themed “Holi-Drag Storytime” at the First Unitarian Church of Columbus, which runs the K-5 institution behind the event, Red Oak Community School, was canceled at the last-minute Saturday morning following internal discussions, organizers said.

Members of Ohio’s Proud Boys organization and other right-wing groups made good on promises to make waves outside the venue Saturday. More than 50 demonstrators, including members of the Proud Boys, gathered near the church Saturday morning and shouted, chanted and held up signs. Some were armed with long guns.

This appears to be a very effective technique, learned from the Left. Speak loudly, and carry a big stick.

But then there is another way to counter this insidiously harmful movement’s efforts targeting our children. 

That way is to promote a wholesome, Christian, family-focused counter-narrative and events at these same venues. And threaten legal action if they discriminate against you, or refuse to allow it.

As Newsmax reported, actor and author Kirk Cameron said recently: “Conservatives need to stop being on defense against the culture and start going on offense to take it back.

He added:

Just complaining about the culture doesn’t change the culture. We’ve got to get off the defense, to get on the offense. And I think for decades, we as concerned citizens, as people who understand the importance of faith and morality, have been asleep. And when we’re asleep, we’re unaware and we’re unengaged.

Cameron added that now that we’ve woken up, if we remain unengaged, “that’s on us.”

Newsmax continued:

Cameron then called on every parent and grandparent to take their favorite children’s book that has wholesome values, good and godly morals, and call their library if it has hosted a Drag Story Hour and ask if they can read their book during story hour.

“If they say ‘no,'” Cameron said, “they’re likely breaking the law; and you can contact us at Bravebooks.com. We’ll show you how to host your own story hour, will donate to you a free book with all the instructions and guidance.

“And I personally put some of these libraries on notice with a public letter that says, ‘I hope you’ll reconsider; here’s a free book. But if you double down, I’m prepared to assert my constitutional rights in court,'” Cameron stated.

So, the peaceful fight against depravity continues. Pick your fighting style, and get engaged. GAND

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

Is Vivek Ramaswamy The GOP’s New Trump ‘Lite’?

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Vivek Ramaswamy speaking with attendees at the 2022 AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona.

ANALYSIS- Who is this skinny guy with the funny-sounding name? (That was his opening line at the debate). Vivek Ramaswamy wasn’t supposed to be at the center of the first Republican presidential candidate debate in Milwaukee.

Ron DeSantis was supposed to be the viable GOP alternative to Donald Trump. A two-term governor of the third most populous state in the union, DeSantis, a Navy veteran who served in Iraq, is as conservative as they come.

And he has a proven track record of fighting the left in Florida – and winning.

But despite his solid bona fides and resume, DeSantis has a personality problem. He just doesn’t exude charm or confidence, and that’s hurting him – a lot.

Meanwhile, Ramaswamy the 38-year-old Trump-defending, Cincinnati-born, biotech billionaire (worth at least $950 million), son of Pakistani immigrants, kind of stole the show at the debate.

According to former FBI agent and body language expert, Joe Navarro: “[Ramaswamy] consistently looked the most comfortable on stage.”

He was also the most openly and unabashedly pro-Trump. He was the first candidate to raise their hand when asked who would support the former President as the party nominee even if he is convicted on felony charges that he’s facing.

He has also promised to pardon Trump if elected. But he went even farther than that.

“President Trump, I believe, was the best president of the 21st century,” Ramaswamy said in a clip from the debate Trump posted on Truth Social.

And Trump loved it.

“This answer gave Vivek Ramaswamy a big WIN in the debate because of a thing called TRUTH. Thank you, Vivek!”

The ever-smiling political newbie Ramaswamy, who seemed to be having a blast on stage, was also the target of many of his GOP rivals.

As TIME reported:

Maybe it was Ramaswamy’s consistent and confounding defense of All Things Trump. Maybe it was his smooth talk and culture-war acumen. Maybe it was just the fact that Ramaswamy frankly does not care how things were done before and might just have enough self-made money to go the distance.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie snarled that he had “had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT,” an A.I. battery. He then dismissed Ramaswamy as someone on the same level as a political figure universally loathed in the GOP. “The last person in one of these debates… who stood in the middle of the stage and said, ‘What is a skinny guy with an odd last name doing up here?’ was Barack Obama. And I am afraid we are dealing with the same type of amateur standing on the stage tonight,” Christie said.

But the quick witted Ramaswamy’s riposte to Christie was a zinger: “Give me a hug like you did to Obama, and you’ll help elect me just like you did to Obama. Give me the damn hug, brother.”

Ramaswamy was referring to the 2012 incident when Christie was accused of “hugging” Obama during his visit in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy which hit days before the 2012 presidential election.

It’s a claim that Christie has been denying since then, saying: “I didn’t hug him.”

Photos at the time seem to back up Christie, but the zinger still worked.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN under Trump, and ex-South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley, who is of Indian descent, hit Ramaswamy too: “You have no foreign policy experience, and it shows.”

I would agree with that assessment and believe he has made a few deeply flawed important national security statements – including on Ukraine and Israel.

But he is super smart and can learn quickly.

Then Vice President Mike Pence took a Christie-like jab at Ramaswamy, attacking the very same quality that originally helped raise Trump in the GOP base – that he is not a politician.

“Now it’s not the time for on-the-job training,” retorted Pence. “We don’t need to bring in a rookie. We don’t need to bring in people with no experience.”

AS TIME noted: “Attacks during debates are the norm but this was different. Ramaswamy’s competitors really don’t like him. Not even a little.”

However, there is one important GOP rival who seems to like Ramaswamy – Donald Trump. And that could be all that matters.

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

New House Subcommittee Takes Aim at ‘Weaponized’ Federal Agencies

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Joe Biden via Gage Skidmore Flickr

ANALYSIS – LONG OVERDUE – The new Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government will soon be investigating federal agencies that have abused their power and violated Americans’ rights.

The spotlight should be especially focused on those federal agencies in the law enforcement and intelligence arenas. 

As I have repeatedly argued, this subcommittee is long overdue and badly needed, as the always growing behemoth that is our federal government has in recent years been fully weaponized for partisan gain and abused citizens of all stripes.

The active partisan involvement by the FBI in helping cover up Hunter Biden’s laptop, along with current and retired senior officials in the intelligence community working to discredit the laptop, should be front and center of these investigations.

As should the entire Hillary Clinton campaign contrived Trump-Russia-collusion hoax.

More recently, new bombshells of this vast federal overreach and abuse have been dropped by Elon Musk’s ‘Twitter Files’ expose’.

These files show a deep unconstitutional collusion between the FBI and a multitude of federal agencies and Big Tech, especially Twitter to censor and block online content posted and read by millions of Americans.

This illegal activity violating Americans’ first amendment rights is also a huge concern.

According to The Epoch Times:

For now, the subcommittee will specifically look at abuses by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI, the legality of vaccine mandates, disinformation about conservative-sponsored election security laws, and censorship by big tech firms under government pressure, according to subcommittee members.

While created by Republicans the new select subcommittee has a broad mandate. It will be chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

Since its creation, some Democrats have called the panel a Republican ploy to deflect from ongoing investigations into the Jan. 6 Capitol breach and former President Donald Trump.

On January 10, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) using every leftist talking point and incendiary partisan term he could muster, called it “nothing more than a deranged ploy by the MAGA extremists who have hijacked the party and want to use taxpayer money to push their far-right conspiracy nonsense.”

Republican subcommittee members dismissed these allegations, with one congressman saying that this vast federal overreach which they will be investigating represents “the signature abuse of power of our time,” in much the same way Watergate defined another era.

ET adds:

The new panel will examine how these abuses happened, how to correct them, and how to make sure the abuses won’t happen again, subcommittee member Rep. Mike Johnson told The Epoch Times.

“Since the beginning of the Biden administration, some federal agencies designed to serve and keep Americans safe have instead been turned against them,” he said.

“This fact is beyond dispute. The Biden Administration has used counterterrorism resources against the parents of school children, raided the homes of political opponents, targeted conservative states over their election integrity laws, inflated domestic extremism statistics, and instituted illegal vaccine mandates, just to name a handful of examples,” he added.

However, the members emphasized that the subcommittee won’t be limited to investigating specific abuses, like the Russian collusion hoax or specific agencies.

“We have a very broad charter. We’re not limited to [investigating the] DOJ and FBI,” said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.).

That is a good thing, because the abuse and corruption at our federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies extends far beyond the DOJ and the FBI.

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

Amanda Head: My Thoughts on the Speaker Votes

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

Watch Amanda break down the ongoing situation below:

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

Democrats Give Their Media Green Light to Go After Bidens

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CNN Headquarters via Wikimedia Commons

ANALYSIS – It seems that the Democrat establishment has given its media the green light to start reporting real news about the Bidens. Some will see it as them going after Joe and Hunter Biden, but most will see it as something long forgotten by these organizations – journalism.

Either way, as Hot Air asked: “Who let the dogs out?” 

And more importantly, why now?

White House Press reporters not from Fox News, or other conservative outlets, are finally asking Joe Biden tough questions, including whether he was involved in his son’s shady business deals.

And CBS Evening News did an entire national broadcast piece interviewing the senior IRS whistleblower about how the agency held back in its investigation into Hunter Biden.

The segment was only three minutes long, but that’s a lifetime in broadcast news, especially when the topic has literally been banned from the establishment media since Biden launched his campaign in 2020.

In the CBS segment reporter Jim Axelrod interviewed IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley in a professional manner and allowed him time to fully answer his questions.

The segment included reporting “…the stunning claim he [Shapley] was blocked from pursuing leads that could have led to the president himself.”

This follows another CBS News story on the two whistleblowers last Thursday that included transcripts of their interviews with GOP lawmakers.

That story noted that: “Two IRS whistleblowers allege sweeping misconduct, including interference in the Hunter Biden tax investigation, according to the GOP House Ways and Means Committee chairman and newly released transcripts of congressional interviews with the whistleblowers.”

This can only start building to a bigger deluge of actual reporting on the Biden scandals. The question is why now? David Catron explained his view of the Democrat intrigue in the Spectator:

Something changed last week inside the Beltway that suggests the people who run the Democratic Party now realize President Biden’s tenure in office is not sustainable beyond 2024. The “tell” was not, however, the latest revelation by IRS whistleblowers about his corrupt administration. It was instead the sudden awakening of the White House press corps. The same “reporters” who snored through more than two years of preposterous claims by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and her predecessor simultaneously woke up Friday. Correspondents from media outlets CNN, CBS, NBC, and even the New York Times aggressively questioned Jean-Pierre about the metastasizing Hunter Biden scandals. 

This wasn’t spontaneous. The word has gone out that regime change is coming [emphasis added].

So, it seems Democrats want Biden out. And Kamala Harris too. And can you blame them?

I have long predicted that Biden would not finish the 2024 race. Too old. Too frail. Too demented. Too scandal plagued. And Harris is just plain dumb. And unelectable.

But what now? Conservative commentator Chad Prather notes in The Blaze:

“They’re gonna really run Joe down, and it’s gonna get to a point where basically, Jill’s gonna come along and pull Joe and say, ‘You know, Joe and I have decided that we have fixed everything Trump messed up. We’ve done our job; it’s time to pass the mantle on to the successor.’”

Prather adds that Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 race will allow him to avoid any criminal liability and believes he and Jill will sign a very big book deal, and as part of a bigger deal, will likely let Harris be president, briefly.

 “She’ll get to be the first female president — just for a second. That’ll keep her from running her mouth too much later on, because they’ll throw her that bone,” Prather adds.

“She’ll go down in history as that.”

I must admit this scenario sounds plausible to me. The only remaining question is, who will be the real Democrat candidate for president in 2024?

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

Many in Gen Z ‘Love Big Brother,’ Want State Surveillance in Homes

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Image via Pixabay free images.

ANALYSIS – Be afraid, Be very afraid. 1984 is almost here. A recent poll by the Libertarian CATO Institute showed that a big chunk of our latest and brightest Generation Z (Gen Z or Zoomers) actually favors having the government watch them 24/7.

Including surveillance in their homes and bedrooms.

Zoomers are officially those under the age of 26. And come right after Millennials.

After the horrors of World War Two showcased the brutal dangers of modern totalitarian dictatorships such as Nazi Germany and Communist Soviet Union, George Orwell penned his classic dystopian tale titled ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (1984).

In the novel, written in 1949, the pervasive government of the fictional nation Oceania was known as ‘Big Brother,’ and it watched its citizens incessantly via two-way video devices called ‘telescreens.’ 

This was of course before the advent of television or modern surveillance.

Government agents known as the ‘Thought Police’ were able to monitor everyone at home, at work, on public streets, in shops, even in bathrooms. It was a terrifying existence.

The book and term ‘Big Brother’ have since been widely referenced when warning about government overreach and expanding state control. 

Sadly, it seems that almost 30 percent of Gen Z (and some Millennials) haven’t read the book or understand the danger.

CATO’s Blog notes that

In a newly released Cato Institute 2023 Central Bank Digital Currency National Survey of 2,000 Americans, we asked respondents whether they “favor or oppose the government installing surveillance cameras in every household to reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity.”

Fortunately, the poll shows that 75 percent of Americans oppose or are strongly opposed to this insane idea.

However, CATO also notes that the younger you get, the less concerned Americans are about state surveillance and control:

…Americans under the age of 30 stand out when it comes to 1984‐style in‐home government surveillance cameras. 3 in 10 (29 percent) Americans under 30 favor “the government installing surveillance cameras in every household” in order to “reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity.” Support declines with age, dropping to 20 percent among 30–44-year-olds and dropping considerably to 6 percent among those over the age of 45.

Support for 24/7 surveillance was especially high among those younger than 30. Almost a third of those born after 1993 said they would welcome round-the-clock monitoring by the government. 

Those respondents in their 40s, 50s, and 60s were almost totally opposed. That is a terribly disturbing trend that bodes ill for liberty in America in the next decades.

In his Boston Globe Email Newsletter, Jeff Jacoby provides his explanation for this sad state among Zoomers:

…perhaps, [it] is that Generation Z has been indoctrinated to regard safety, not freedom, as the highest good — so much so that many would rather be under the nonstop watch of the state than face the possibility of being abused or endangered.

If so, they are in for a fearful awakening. What little protection they might gain from being under the authorities’ constant watch is nothing compared with the peril they would face. Benjamin Franklin’s famous admonition is as relevant as ever: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Inviting Big Brother into your home will not keep Gen Z-ers safe. And by the time they realize what they have given up, it will be too late to get it back.

Jacoby adds that the protagonist of Orwell’s novel, Winston Smith, is a weak man who resents the regime — and is ultimately broken for it. And the must-read book’s final words are haunting: “He loved Big Brother.”

Yet, after all we have seen and know about tyranny, almost a third of Generation Z is still prepared to love Big Brother too. Yes, we must be afraid. Very afraid.

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

Amanda Head: Biden Admin in Cahoots with Big Media to Hide the Truth!

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The truth is finally coming out!

Watch Amanda explain the controversy below:

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

Like the FBI, Politicized DHS Running ‘Shady’ (Likely Illegal) Domestic Intelligence Program

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ANALYSIS – It isn’t news that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has proven to be vulnerable to political pressure. Just look at the threat assessments produced in 2020 that single out ‘white supremacists’ as the ‘most lethal domestic terror threat’ in the U.S., despite their numbers being minuscule.

According to that report, self-described ‘white supremacists’ were responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks spread across more than a decade and a half – from 2000 to 2016.

Yes, that’s more murders than any other specific domestic extremist group but let’s get real. 

There are more murders in Chicago in one weekend than the entire number of white supremacist killings nationwide in those sixteen years.

This DHS report, though produced under the last year of Trump’s term, like many others recently by different federal agencies, like the FBI, is part of a wider political campaign that conflates the relatively small number of white supremacists, and other so-called right-wing extremists, with the tens of millions of mainstream conservatives and Trump supporters.

And we can now add traditional Catholics to the feds’ “most wanted” list.

The FBI recently produced a memo by its Richmond, Virginia, Field Office that was leaked on Jan. 23, 2023. 

That memo, according to a group of 20 GOP state attorney generals, “identifies ‘radical-traditionalist Catholic[s]’ as potential ‘racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists.’”

In their letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, Fox News reported, the AGs told the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) to “desist from investigating and surveilling Americans who have done nothing more than exercise their natural and constitutional right to practice their religion in a manner of their choosing.” 

The AGS also asked that the DOJ and the FBI “reveal to the American public the extent to which they have engaged in such activities.”

The AGs letter notes that the FBI memorandum deploys “alarmingly detailed theological distinctions to distinguish between the Catholics whom the FBI deems acceptable, and those it does not.”

It’s in this context of politicized and weaponized federal law enforcement agencies, that this latest report of DHS malfeasance deserves special attention.

Specifically, we are talking about the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis (OIA), whose leadership, according to Politico, was called “shady” and run “like a corrupt government.” 

For years it has been operating a secretive domestic-intelligence gathering program that many DHS employees have complained may be illegal.

The OIA’s Overt Human Intelligence Collection Program allows DHS officials to bypass lawyers and seek intelligence interviews with individuals being held in local jails, federal prisons, and immigrant detention centers.

While most law-abiding U.S. citizens may not care much about this DHS target group, remember this is just another example of how elements of DHS appear corrupt, and play fast and loose with the law, and all our civil liberties.

But the Department’s politicization is probably the biggest danger according to documents obtained by Politico.

As the New York Post reports:

The ability of DHS to be impartial and withstand caving to political pressure was also a major concern, documents show. 

An internal analysis during the Trump administration found a “significant number of respondents cited concerns with politicization of analytic products and/or the perceptions of undue influence that may compromise the integrity of the work performed by employees. This concern touches on analytic topics, the review process, and the appropriate safeguards in place to protect against undue influence.”

The document adds that “a number of respondents expressed concerns/challenges with the quality and effectiveness of I&A senior leadership” such as the “inability to resist political pressure.”

“The workforce has a general mistrust of leadership resulting from orders to conduct activities they perceive to be inappropriate, bureaucratic, or political,” the document continues.

It is clearly time to rein in rogue elements at DHS and FBI, but also to clean house at the top levels of both organizations, and DOJ.

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