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    Keeping Track of the Criminal ‘Witch Hunt’ Against Trump

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    1
    Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    ANALYSIS – If you can’t beat him, charge him. As I wrote earlier: “From the four-year Hillary Clinton-manufactured ‘Russia collusion’ hoax to corrupt investigations to ‘deep state resistance’ within his administration to a partisan impeachment – no [other] president has been so unfairly hounded in U.S. history.”

    But the persecution clearly didn’t end with Donald Trump leaving the White House. The absolute fear he could return to office has since resulted in multiple prosecutions from idiotic nonsense such as his bookkeeping regarding hush money to a porn actress, to sexual assault that reportedly happened 30 years ago.

    But that was just the beginning, and those cases were brought by partisan local prosecutors. Now the prosecutorial floodgates have opened wider, with Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DoJ) being weaponized to go after Trump.

    While I have blamed the ex-president for bringing the classified materials charges upon himself – see my earlier piece – there is no doubt that politics is playing a big part as well.

    And it is getting hard to keep up with all the charges and case and court timelines. His most recent indictment being related to his words and actions leading up to and during the January 6 Capitol Riot.

    “Not guilty,” Trump stressed the first word of his plea on Thursday (August 3) before Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya.

    The arraignment — U.S. special counsel Jack Smith’s second DoJ indictment against the former president — charges Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction, conspiracy to obstruct the Electoral College vote certification, and conspiracy against voter rights. 

    Charges that could carry serious prison time if convicted.

    With the latest four charges, Trump now faces 78 criminal counts.

    The 45-page indictment says Trump “pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results.”

    Trump’s next court date will be August 28, when U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, a harsh critic of January 6 defendants, and Obama-appointee, sets a trial date.

    “This is a very sad day for America,” Trump told reporters after the hearing, portraying the indictment and the other three criminal cases against him as a “witch hunt” intended to derail his 2024 presidential campaign.

    Among the criminal charges that special counsel Jack Smith released; media identified six of Trump’s former lawyers as unnamed co-conspirators in his bid to rig the elec­tion.

    They possibly are Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s former personal attorney; White House lawyer John Eastman; Trump attorney Sidney Powell; former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark; and attorney Kenneth Chesebro.

    The description of the sixth co-conspirator is a “political consultant” and is not immediately apparent — the indictment gives few details. 

    The consultant identified attorneys who could help carry out a scheme to present fake Electoral College votes to Congress as lawmakers certified the election results.

    According to the indictment, co-conspirator No. 2 is a lawyer who drafted a plan to have Vice President Mike Pence throw out Joe Biden’s Electoral Votes in Congress.

    Speaking publicly for the first time since Trump’s indictment, Pence told reporters he had hoped it wouldn’t come to a charge.

    “Sadly, the president was surrounded by a group of crackpot lawyers that kept telling him what his itching ears wanted to hear,” said Pence.

    Of the 78 charges across three criminal cases, 44 are federal and 34 state charges, all felonies, in three jurisdictions. Trump has denied wrongdoing in every case.

    However, Trump’s legal woes have done little to damage his status as a Republican front-runner. A New York Times/Siena College poll between July 23-27 showed a landslide lead of 37 percentage points over Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, his closest competitor in the Republican primary.

    Trump’s best defense against these mostly politicized prosecutions may be winning the White House in 2024.

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

    Amanda Head: Debunking Leftists’ Lies About Thanksgiving

    By
    Amanda Head
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    3

    Every year as families and friends gather to give Thanks a coalition of left-wing woke harpies descend on the holiday to remind you to make sure to politicize every aspect of your life. In recent years liberals have targeted the controversial story of Thanksgiving as a way to attack White colonizers and sing a song of sympathy for Native Americans.

    Watch Amanda de-dunk the biggest lies peddled by the left about Thanksgiving.

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

    CEO’s Vow To Blacklist Harvard Students Who Blamed Israel For Hamas Attack

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    7
    PaWikiCom, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – In the immediate wake of one of the most horrifying terror attacks ever filmed, a coalition of 34 leftist Harvard student groups stupidly and offensively circulated a letter that stated that they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”

    This, as stomach-churning images, and reports surfaced hourly of the vile murders and atrocities committed by the Hamas jihadists against over 1,000 Israeli civilians, entire families, children, even babies. 

    Not to mention over 25 Americans were killed and scores kidnapped.

    Well, this time, things didn’t go as planned for the lefty Ivy League students accustomed to being coddled by woke corporate executives.

    The response from Wall Street leaders, and soon other titans of corporate America was swift.

    Bill Ackman the billionaire founder and CEO of hedge fund giant Pershing Square Capital Management, wrote on his X social media account on Tuesday: 

    I have been asked by a number of CEOs if Harvard would release a list of the members of each of the Harvard organizations that have issued the letter assigning sole responsibility for Hamas’ heinous acts to Israel, so as to insure [sic] that none of us inadvertently hire any of their members.

    “If, in fact, their members support the letter they have released, the names of the signatories should be made public so their views are publicly known.”

    Ackman, a Harvard grad worth $3.5 billion, added: “One should not be able to hide behind a corporate shield when issuing statements supporting the actions of terrorists, who, we now learn, have beheaded babies, among other inconceivably despicable acts.”

    Soon, other CEOs were joining him.

    Jonathan Newman, CEO of salad chain Sweetgreen, quickly seconded Ackman in urging that the signatories of the letter be banned from future employment.

    “I would like to know so I know never to hire these people,” Newman wrote in response to Ackman’s post on X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday.

    “Same,” David Duel, CEO of health care services firm EasyHealth, wrote in response to Newman.

    Many other executives posted agreement with Ackman, such as Stephen Ready, CEO of marketing firm Inspired who posted “this is a must” and Michael Broukhim, CEO of FabFitFun, who said to Ackman: “We are in as well.”

    Meanwhile, as The New York Post reported, others signaled their approval of his post with a supportive emoji or a gesture of agreement. These included: Hu Montague, founder, and vice president of construction company Diligent; Art Levy, head of strategy at payments platform Brex; and Jake Wurzak, the CEO of hospitality group Dovehill Capital Management.

    The Post added that after the online fusillade from so many potential future employers, many of the spineless lefties responsible for the letter quickly ran for the hills.

    “The backlash and possible blacklisting has led to a flurry of backpedaling by four of the initial student organizations attached to the inflammatory statement — while board members of other groups have quit in an effort to distance themselves.”

    Amnesty International at Harvard, Harvard College Act on a Dream, the Harvard Undergraduate Nepali Student Association, the Harvard Islamic Society, and Harvard Undergraduate Ghungroo, are among the groups that have since recanted according to the Harvard Crimson.

    In fairness, many organizations didn’t know one of their representatives had signed on the group’s behalf.

    To Harvard’s credit, many other student groups and faculty expressed outrage at the letter, and their fellow students and colleagues.

    According to the campus paper, at least 17 other Harvard groups have joined 500 faculty and staff and 3,000 others in signing a counterstatement attacking the other groups’ letter as “completely wrong and deeply offensive.” 

    This was followed by 160 faculty members bashing Harvard’s response to the scandal, writing in their own separate letter that it “can be seen as nothing less than condoning the mass murder of civilians based only on their nationality.”

    Its good to see that some at Harvard still have common sense as well as decency and humanity. Its also good to see corporate America responding in the way it has to these snively terror enabling leftist college students and staff.

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

    New Poll Reveals Democrats Are Losing All Hope

    By
    Donny Ferguson
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    2

    A new major poll finds most Americans are growing more optimistic about the nation’s future – but Democrats are plunging new depths of despair.

    The Associated Press reports the latest AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds “overall, the public has become less pessimistic about the state of politics and the system of choosing leaders. In July 2024, 66% were pessimistic about the state of politics in the country. Now 59% of the public are pessimistic.  Forty percent are pessimistic about how the country’s leaders are chosen, down from 47% last July.”

    “Republicans have grown slightly more optimistic about the future of the Republican Party than they were last summer. In July 2024, 47% said they were optimistic about their party. Now, three months into Donald Trump’s second term, 55% are hopeful about their party’s future,” the AP reports.

    “While half of Republicans are pessimistic about the state of politics in the United States, that is down from 73% last July.  And they have grown slightly more optimistic about the way our leaders are chosen under the country’s political system,” the AP adds.

    But not everyone is happy, with Democrats almost in total despair.

    “In contrast, Democrats have become more pessimistic about their party’s future, the state of the country’s politics, and the country’s process for choosing political leaders. Only 35% of Democrats say they are optimistic about the future of the Democratic Party, down sharply from 57% in the July 2024 poll,” the AP reports.

    “About 7 in 10 Democrats are pessimistic about the state of politics in this country, up from 60% last summer. And 55% of Democrats are pessimistic about the way our leaders are chosen under our political system, up from last summer when Joe Biden was still in the White House,” the AP adds.

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

    Hunter Biden Used FBI Mole to Tip Off Chinese Partners of Investigation: Israeli Source

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    4

    ANALYSIS – The establishment media continues to mostly ignore the constant drip of information on the Biden family’s deep China ties and corruption. But the evidence keeps coming in. 

    Now, an explosive claim by an Israeli source says Hunter Biden used an FBI mole named ‘One-Eye’ to tip off his Chinese business partners that they were being investigated.

    The high-level Israeli had his own dealings with Hunter’s Chinese partners.

    But this one FBI informant Hunter used is only part of the bigger story.

    The New York Post reports:

    The House Oversight Committee is investigating the explosive claims by Dr. Gal Luft, a former Israel Defense Forces lieutenant colonel with deep intelligence ties in Washington and Beijing, who says he was arrested to stop him from revealing what he knows about the Biden family and FBI corruption — details he told the Department of Justice in 2019, which he says it ignored.

    And the claims sound quite plausible. 

    Luft is just anyone. 

    He is a respected intelligence expert in DC, where he runs the Institute for Analysis of Global Security, a think tank, with former CIA Director James Woolsey and former national security adviser Robert McFarlane as advisers.

    The Israeli defense expert reportedly contacted the Department of Justice (DOJ) and federal investigators flew to Brussels to interview him between March 28 and 29, 2019.

    This was less than four weeks before Joe Biden announced he was running for president.

    Luft never heard from the DOJ again.

    And now Luft has been arrested in Cypress and is being detained in Israel as he fights extradition to the United States. He is being charged with ‘gunrunning’ by the Biden Justice Department.

    Luft says the charges of arms trafficking to China and Libya, and violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act are trumped-up to discredit him and keep him quiet.

    The Jerusalem Post quotes Luft’s attorney in Israel, Mordechai Tzivin as saying Luft’s arrest was “a good way to shut him up because he knows a lot of information on Hunter.

    And some of this information will help the GOP-led House better grasp the enormity of the Biden corruption.

    The Post continues:

    Through his American lawyer, Robert Henoch, Luft said he tried four years ago to inform the DOJ that Chinese state-controlled energy company CEFC had paid $100,000 a month to President Biden’s son Hunter and $65,000 to Joe’s brother Jim, in exchange for their FBI connections and use of the Biden name to promote China’s Belt and Road Initiative around the world.

    Luft reportedly learned about the corrupt scheme through his own relationship with Hunter’s Chinese business partners, Patrick Ho and Ye Jianming, the chairman of CEFC.

    According to Henoch, Ye confided to Luft that Hunter had an informant in the FBI “or formerly of the bureau, extremely well placed, who they paid lots of money to [provide] sealed law enforcement information.” 

    “The DOJ had this information in March 2019 and did nothing,” Henoch said.

    The attorney is currently in Israel where he is fighting Luft’s extradition to the United States.

    The Post adds:

    The House Oversight Committee released bank statements last week, showing an additional $1,065,000 was funneled from a Chinese company affiliated with CEFC to Hunter, Jim, and Hallie Biden, Hunter’s former lover, and widow of his late brother, Beau. The payments were made in increments over three months through Biden associate Rob Walker, whose wife, Betsy, had been personal assistant to then-second lady Jill Biden.

    Luft’s U.S. attorney concluded: “Congress has the Biden bank records but it doesn’t know the reason for the payments. Now it does. The information that the whistleblower Dr. Luft gave the DOJ four years ago is the missing link for the reason behind the China-Biden money transfers. Clearly, this is explosive stuff.”

    Explosive stuff indeed. Now when will the establishment media begin reporting on all this?

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

    Biden’s DHS Misinforms Congress About its Orwellian ‘Disinformation’ Board

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    4
    The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – As Republican senators try to conduct oversight over, and gain insight into, the outrageous, and supposedly now defunct, ‘Disinformation Governance Board’ at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Team Biden is blocking the senators at every step.

    The board was dismantled under pressure in August following the recommendation of the Homeland Security Advisory Council. 

    However, many are concerned that DHS will continue with its dangerously un-American efforts under a different name.

    And now they are clearly afraid of what nefarious collusion with Big Tech the senators might uncover. 

    So, as always, covering up is the next step when faced with hard questions and the great disinfectant called sunlight.

    In this case, Team Biden is censoring its own documents which may describe its actions ‘prodding’ social media companies to censor conservative Americans under the guise of controlling ‘disinformation.’

    Biden’s DHS essentially ‘misinformed’ Congress by totally redacting (censoring) large portions of documents requested by Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Josh Hawley of Missouri back in June.

    These documents mostly related to the ‘Truth Board’s’ cozy relationship with social media platforms.

    This issue is particularly critical now in light of recent revelations of collusion between the FBI and these same platforms, and the obscene partisan censorship done at Twitter in apparent coordination with the White House, as revealed by Elon Musk.

    In a letter sent Thursday to embattled DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Grassley and Hawley said the Department of Homeland Security heavily redacted documents they had requested six months ago.

    The letter read: 

    Based on our review of this material, it appears that many of the redactions are applied to pre-decisional and deliberative process material. We remind you that the oversight letters we send to the Executive Branch are signed in our capacity as sitting members of Congress, a separate and co-equal branch of government.

    Newsmax reported:

    Grassley and Hawley then said they would formally renew their requests to the department, as it is still “impossible to know the full extent to which various DHS components and offices are engaged in DHS’s ‘burgeoning’ counter-disinformation efforts.”

    “Please provide full and complete responses to all questions contained in our June 7, 2022, letter,” the two wrote, adding that they would also like “a detailed description of DHS’s policy for responding to congressional oversight requests.”

    The letter comes months after the White House canned the project due to substantial backlash, officially citing a recommendation from the Homeland Security Advisory Council, according to a press release.

    “With the HSAC recommendations as a guide, the Department will continue to address threat streams that undermine the security of our country consistent with the law while upholding the privacy, civil rights and civil liberties of the American people and promoting transparency in our work,” the statement read.

    Let’s hope that these senators will soon get the unredacted documents, so we can all learn what was really going on inside Biden’s dark attempt to create its own Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’ 

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

    Investigators Warn FBI Director Faces Charge For Hiding Biden Bribery Memo

    By
    Donny Ferguson
    -
    8

    The top Republican investigators in the House and Senate warn America may face a constitutional crisis, with the Director of the FBI facing possible Contempt of Congress charges for refusing to turn over a government document alleging a foreign national offered a $5 million bribe to then-Vice-President Joe Biden.

    Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-KY) blasted FBI Director Christopher Wray for defying a congressional subpoena for an unclassified record “alleging a criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national.” 

    “The document, an FBI-generated FD-1023 form, allegedly details an arrangement involving an exchange of money for policy decisions. In a new letter to Director Wray, Comer warns that if the FBI fails to produce the record by May 30, 2023, the Oversight Committee will initiate contempt of Congress proceedings,” Grassley reports in a statement. 

    “The FBI has continued to tie itself in knots to ignore a legitimate subpoena from Congress, which has a constitutional duty of oversight. The Bureau’s developed a serious reputation problem through its spate of failures and overreach, and leadership is doing it no favors by attempting to stiff-arm Congress.  The FBI knows exactly what document Chairman Comer and I are seeking, and if they know us at all, they know we will get it, one way or another. If FBI leadership truly cares about protecting the agency’s reputation, they’d cooperate. These needless delays only harm the Bureau,” Grassley said.

    “The FBI’s refusal to provide this single document is obstructionist. Whistleblower disclosures that Joe Biden may have been involved in a criminal bribery scheme as Vice President track closely with what we are seeing in our investigation into the Biden family’s influence peddling schemes. Congress and the American people need to know what, if anything, the FBI did to verify the allegations contained within this record. If Director Wray refuses to hand over this unclassified record, the Oversight Committee will begin contempt of Congress proceedings,” Comer said.

    “Comer issued a subpoena for the unclassified FBI record on May 3, 2023 with a return date of May 10, 2023. After the FBI failed to produce the record, Oversight Committee counsel have attended two in-person meetings with FBI officials where they again refused to produce the FD-1023 form or offer any reasonable accommodation that would allow the Committee to review the document,” Grassley reports.

    On May 16, 2023, Grassley and Comer requested a phone call with Director Wray to discuss the subpoena, but despite repeated requests the FBI has not scheduled a phone call.

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

    Biden NSC Spokesman Drops Israeli War ‘Truth Bomb’ On Lefty Reporters

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    0

    ANALYSIS – As most of my readers know, I’m not a big fan of Joe Biden, or any of his lefty White House minions. This includes retired Rear Admiral John Kirby, the oftentimes Democrat hack, previously Pentagon press secretary, and currently coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council (NSC).

    Watching this former senior military officer try to spin ridiculous and dangerous Biden foreign and defense policies is often stomach churning.

    But, if nothing else, I try to be fair and honest, and can applaud my opponents when they occasionally get something right.

    And this time Kirby not only got things right, but he surprisingly dropped a major ‘truth bomb.’ And even Biden played a part.

    On Wednesday Biden correctly responded to a lefty reporter’s loaded question about Israel causing civilian casualties in Gaza by saying he can’t trust the civilian casualty numbers disseminated by the Gaza Ministry of Health, controlled by Hamas. They are, essentially, terrorist propaganda.

    In his response the elderly Biden referred to Hamas as “the Palestinians,” but it’s clear what who was talking about.

    “What they say to me is I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed. I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war,” Biden said. 

    “But I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.”

    And that was spot on. The figures coming from Palestinian Hamas officials in Gaza are worse than worthless, they are lies.

    Biden’s accurate observation was followed on Thursday by a question from another lefty reporter asking Kirby if Biden would apologize for his remarks since they had angered the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), who called his comments “shocking and dehumanizing.”

    Referring to Biden’s remarks, the reporter asked Kirby:

    Don’t you think it is insensitive? There [is] very harsh criticism about it. For example, the Council of American-Islamic Relations said it was deeply disturbed and called on the president to apologize. Would the president apologize, and does he regret saying something like that?

    To provide some background here, we need to note that while CAIR pretends to be a Muslim human rights group, it often traffics in anti-Jewish rhetoric. 

    CAIR’s Executive Director has claimed that ‘Zionist organizations’ in the U.S. are “enemies of the Muslim community” and that “Zionist organizations make up the core of the Islamophobia network in the United States.” 

    He has also used the trope that pro-Israel groups have “corrupted” the U.S. government and that Israel doesn’t have a right to exist. It’s really just another front group for promoting Islamism and antisemitism in the U.S.

    So, it was refreshing to hear Kirby provide the biased reporter a firm and simple “no,” Biden won’t apologize.

    Kirby then dropped the major ‘truth bomb’ about the Israeli-Hamas conflict. As Blaze Media reported:

    “What’s harsh is the way Hamas is using people as human shields. What’s harsh is taking a couple of hundred hostages and leaving families anxious, waiting, and worrying to figure out where their loved ones are. What’s harsh is dropping in on a music festival and slaughtering a bunch of young people just trying to enjoy an afternoon,” he said.

    “That’s what’s harsh. And being honest about the fact that there have been civilian casualties — and that there likely will be more — is being honest, because that’s what war is. It’s brutal. It’s ugly. It’s messy,” he continued. “I’ve said that before. President also said that yesterday. Doesn’t mean we have to like it. And it doesn’t mean that we’re dismissing any one of those casualties — each and every one is a tragedy in its own right.”

    Kirby, moreover, revealed that the U.S. government is helping Israel minimize civilian casualties but highlighted how Hamas is making that difficult.

    “It would be helpful if Hamas would let [Gazan civilians] leave,” he pointed out. “We know that there are thousands waiting to leave Gaza writ large, and Hamas is preventing them from doing it. That is what is harsh.”

    BOOM! That truth bomb was a direct hit and must have caused some casualties among the leftist press corps. Well done, Admiral Kirby. Now can you tell the truth about Iran, the border, etc., etc.?

    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?

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    0
    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.

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

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    2

    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.

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