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Amanda Head: Is Bud Light Feeling Enough Pain?

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Mike Mozart, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

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

Watch Amanda explain the situation below:

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

Amanda Head: Will Trump Be Arrested?

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Arrest image via Pixabay

Will authorities arrest former President Donald Trump this week?

Watch Amanda explain the controversy below:

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

Amanda Head: Lauren Boebert Election Update!

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Pro-Trump superstar Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (CO-3rd) has faced a contentious post-Election Day battle as she fights for another term in Congress.

Watch Amanda explain the ongoing ballot fiasco below.

Tucker, Elon Real Winners Of First GOP Debate Night

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

Amanda Head: CNN Stabs Biden!

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Is the mainstream media finally waking up? Not so fast…

However, tensions between the press and the Biden administration are definitely heating up after what has been widely regarded as a friendly relationship…

Let Amanda explain the rising feud below:

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

Judge Again Blocks Biden From Violating 1st Amendment

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Gavel via Wikimedia Commons Image

ANALYSIS – Even when presented with overwhelming evidence that Team Biden colluded intimately with Big Tech social media companies to censor conservative Americans, the White House doubled down on violating the 1st Amendment. 

As I wrote last week, on July 4th a federal judge blocked “federal agencies from communicating with Big Tech firms to censor posts.”

This, after a lawsuit against the Biden administration by three Republican state Attorney Generals (AGs).

According to the judge, Terry A. Doughty, the AGs “have produced evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content.” 

“If the allegations made by plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States history,” Doughty wrote in his preliminary injunction against more than 40 administration officials. 

“In their attempts to suppress alleged disinformation, the federal government, and particularly the defendants named here, are alleged to have blatantly ignored the First Amendment’s right to free speech.”

Please note – ‘disinformation’ is any information the left and Team Biden don’t like.

This is serious constitutional stuff. One would think the White House might say, “ok, we overstepped a bit.”

But not Team Biden.

Using the Orwellian doublespeak, the left always uses to hide the truth, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “We are going to continue to promote responsible actions.” 

She added: “That is something that we’re going to continue to do to make sure we protect public health and make sure there is safety and security.”

Using similar verbiage, the Department of Justice announced later that same day that it would appeal the decision, to protect public health, safety, and security.

Basically, Team Biden said, we don’t care, we want to keep violating the Constitution and censoring our opponents. And we are going to request an emergency order from the judge to do it.

The Daily Caller reported:

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and Louisiana Attorney General Jeffrey Landry opposed the Biden administration’s attempt to stop the injunction in a court filing Sunday, writing the administration was essentially asking to “continue violating the First Amendment.”

“In essence, Defendants argue that the injunction should be stayed because it might interfere with the Government’s ability to continue working with social-media companies to censor Americans’ core political speech on the basis of viewpoint,” they wrote in the court filing. “In other words, the Government seeks a stay of the injunction so that it can continue violating the First Amendment.”

Thankfully, on Monday the same federal judge blocked Biden again, denying the administration’s attempt to pause the injunction. 

The Washington Post reported that Judge Doughty noted again that the plaintiffs (the state AGs) would likely succeed in proving the government colluded with social media companies “to engage in viewpoint-based suppression of protected free speech.”

Responding to the hysteria surrounding his initial injunction, Doughty also wrote:

Although this Preliminary Injunction involves numerous agencies, it is not as broad as it appears. “It only prohibits something the Defendants have no legal right to do—contacting social media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner, the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social-media platforms. 

Rejecting the administration’s argument that the order could chill law enforcement activity to protect national security, the judge added that It also contains numerous exceptions for communications related to criminal activity, explicit dangers to national security, and foreign election interference.

Meanwhile, this important battle will continue as the AGs’ lawsuit works its way through the legal system.

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

Forget China, You Can Now Take a Balloon to Edge of Space

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Image via Pixabay free images

ANALYSIS – Until now, only billionaires could afford to enter sub-orbital space. And it needed to be by high-powered rocket (think Jeff Bezos in his Blue Origin, or Richard Branson in his Virgin Galactic). 

Star Trek actor William Shatner also did a flight on a Blue Origin’s rocket.

But now you too can see the earth from 20 miles high. It will cost you just over $120,000 and it’s by a high-altitude balloon.

And, no, it’s not aboard a Chinese spy balloon. These will be private companies running the trips.

The billionaires in rockets still have one treat we can’t get – they can briefly experience weightlessness. They also go twice as high.

Space officially starts at the Karman line, 62 miles above the earth’s surface. But for most people there won’t be that much of a difference.

And at half the price, no training required, and a much softer, smoother ride, these edge-of-space balloons will be far more accessible and may become popular among the slightly less rich.

And unlike the rockets, these balloons will give you a much longer ride, with luxury amenities, food, and drink.

There now appears at least two companies on the verge of launching these space balloon trips. One is American and the other is French.

Both seem to avoid mention of the 1937 Hindenburg hydrogen-filled dirigible disaster.

The French company Zephalto with its Celeste balloon will provide Michelin-starred fine dining. It is partnered with France’s national space agency.

These balloons filled with helium or hydrogen will depart from France with two pilots on board and six passengers and rise 15.5 miles into the stratosphere.

Once at peak altitude, the balloon, carrying a pressurized capsule, will stay aloft for three hours, giving guests a chance to take in views previously seen only by astronauts. While in the air, passengers will be served high-end French food and wines.

These near-space rides will start at €120,000 ($132,000) per person in 2025, Bloomberg reports.

The other option will be Florida-based Space Perspective, which is testing its own passenger balloon, designed to reach the edge of space.

Eight civilians and a pilot will be able to comfortably travel up 100,000 feet (19 miles) to near space in a reusable pressurized capsule carried by a gigantic hydrogen-filled balloon called Spacecraft Neptune – because Neptune’s atmosphere is predominantly hydrogen.

The company operates out of leased facilities at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, but plans to expand to Alaska and Hawaii, and then possibly to other countries around the world.

Flight will cost about $125,000 per person. And it plans to launch a year earlier than the Celeste.

Neptune’s ride will be similar to the Zephalto balloons, ascending at a sedate 12.5 miles per hour. It will give passengers two full hours to observe 360° views of Earth rotating beneath them and space above.

The overall ride will last six hours – two hours to ascend, two hours to float along the stratosphere, and two hours to descend into the Atlantic Ocean, where a recovery ship will be waiting.

The capsule comes complete with luxury seating, refreshments, a restroom, and Wi-Fi (so you can post to Instagram or live stream on Facebook as you fly – because – of course). The company plans to offer flights for weddings, corporate events, and scientific excursions.

Its flights are scheduled to begin in 2024, but the first batch of 600 tickets is already sold out.

Bon voyage. No smoking aboard.

Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views 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.

Is One of America’s Most Powerful Liberal Groups Illicitly Lobbying for this Foreign Billionaire?

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Image via Pixabay free images

Members of Congress want to know if one of America’s most powerful liberal political groups is evading federal laws requiring them to report lobbying on behalf of foreign billionaires.

U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-AR) and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chairman Paul Gosar (R-AZ) want League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski to answer questions about LCV’s fundraising, lobbying, and political activities, and whether it is complying with the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

The League of Conservation Voters, a radical environmentalist group, is one of the nation’s most powerful political organizations.

OpenSecrets reports the LCV donated $15,129,989 to federal political candidates in 2020.  They also spent $42,272,125 on ads supporting or opposing federal candidates in 2020, making them the nation’s 15th-biggest political spending.

But members of Congress want to know if the LCV is lobbying lawmakers at the behest of Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, a radical leftist who opposes American energy independence.

The members write:

“Following ‘intense lobbying’ from LCV and related groups that led to passage of the [Inflation Reduction Act,] you met then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi who told you Democrats ‘passed what you wanted’ and asked whether LCV would ‘have our backs’ in the 2022 election. Following the election, in an end-of-year memo on December 19, 2022, LCV detailed how the ‘LCV Victory Fund and affiliated entities invested more than $100 million’ to elect Democrat candidates that align with LCV’s eco-agenda agenda in the 2022 elections. Previously, in the 2018 cycle, LCV spent $80 million on candidates that support its eco-agenda.  

“LCV has registered to lobby on several activities within the jurisdiction of the Committee, including issues like opposing offshore drilling plans, supporting a ‘pause and review of the federal oil and gas program,’ and supporting the restoration and expansion of a number of national monuments. The Committee is concerned that LCV’s relationship with foreign donors, such as Swiss national Mr. Wyss, who are prohibited from contributing, either directly or indirectly, to domestic political campaigns may impact LCV’s political and lobbying activities relating to America’s ability to achieve energy independence. As you are aware, such political and lobbying activities may require compliance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act.   

“The central purpose of FARA is to ‘promote transparency with respect to foreign influence within the United States by ensuring that the United States government and the public know the source of certain information from foreign agents intended to influence American public opinion, policy, and laws.’ Hence, FARA requires any person or entity, including non-profits, to register with the Department of Justice (DOJ) if they act as an agent or at the request ‘of a foreign principal or of a person any of whose activities are directly or indirectly, supervised, directed, controlled, financed, or subsidized in whole or in major part by a foreign principal.’ Registration under FARA is also required for any entity that attempts, on behalf of a foreign principal, to influence any section of the U.S. public or a U.S. government official in ‘formulating, adopting, or changing the domestic or foreign policies of the United States.'”

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

NYC to Pay BLM Rioters Nearly $14 Million for Mass Arrests – What About Jan 6 Rioters?

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Elvert Barnes, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

ANALYSIS – In what is again an egregious example of disparate treatment for rioters with different political views, New York City has agreed to pay violent Black Lives Matter (BLM) rioters $13.7 million after being sued over the mass arrests in 2020. 

If approved by a judge, it would reportedly be one of the most expensive payouts ever over mass arrests.

Each BLM rioter can receive a payout of nearly $10,000 ($9,950 to be exact) as part of the settlement, whether they were arrested or not if their First Amendment rights were found to have been suppressed or infringed on by police.

The settlement applies to protestors at 18 marches or demonstrations in Brooklyn and Manhattan between May 28 and June 4 of 2020.

Meanwhile, many nonviolent Jan. 6 Capitol rioters are still in jail pending trial after a massive nationwide FBI manhunt. And others are receiving outrageous prison terms.

The message here is – if you are a left-wing rioter in a left-wing city you can expect to be rewarded, but if you are a conservative rioter in the ‘People’s Republic of DC,’ and Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DoJ) oversees prosecutions, you will get fried.

Attorneys from the left-leaning National Lawyers Guild accused the NYPD of violating rioters’ First Amendment rights by being excessively violent and making illegal arrests.

However, the riots in NYC were far more violent, and damaging, and lasted far longer than the few hours-long Capitol riot in DC.

During the two years of litigation, NYC attorneys argued police tactics had been appropriate to the situation and noted that rioters had thrown projectiles at police and torched police cars.

As the Daily Wire reported:

In New York, police arrested just over 2,000 people between May 28, three days after Floyd’s death, and June 7, according to the New York State attorney general’s office.


Thousands of people protested in New York City, some violently. Rioters injured dozens of police officers, damaged dozens of police cars — setting some of them on fire and graffitiing them — and looted or damaged at least 450 businesses.

In one instance, two NYPD officers in Brooklyn were shot and one was stabbed in the neck as they tried to prevent looting during a protest.

The mayor placed the city under a curfew for the first week of June, the city’s first curfew in 75 years, but the curfew was frequently violated by protesters.

Overall, at least 10,000 people were arrested across the country during the summer 2020 BLM riots. They caused nearly $2 billion in damages, the largest from riots in U.S. history.

According to court documents, the NYC did not admit fault in the lawsuit, but settled to avoid rehashing the events at trial and “resolve the issues raised in this litigation without further proceedings.”

On a positive note, violent BLM rioters who were arrested for trespassing, property destruction, assaulting police, arson, weapons charges, and perhaps those who blocked police from arresting other rioters, will not be eligible for a payout.

The settlement must still be approved by a judge. 

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