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    Should the Government Regulate Artificial Intelligence (AI)? Less is Best

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    6
    Image via Pixabay free images.

    ANALYSIS – Artificial Intelligence (AI) is basically self-learning software (algorithms) that grows smarter over time using the entire world’s ever-growing library of data as its teacher. It can learn to do myriad complex tasks in a fraction of the time humans could.

    It will revolutionize and upend entire economies, and dominate future warfare. It is also developing at an unprecedented rate. 

    Many are concerned AI will take away entire career fields and tens of millions of American jobs. AI advancements could eliminate up to 300 million jobs globally, according to Goldman Sachs.

    Fox News reported: “Up to 30% of hours currently worked across the U.S. economy could become automated by 2030, creating the possibility of around 12 million occupational transitions in the coming years, according to a McKinsey Global Institute study.”

    Others worry that it will make a few corporations extremely rich and powerful. 

    And then, many worry that Al may supersede human intelligence in just a few years and eventually make humans redundant.

    Few would deny that whoever dominates AI may dominate the world. China certainly believes this and is forging ahead to become the world leader in AI.

    The Pentagon is also looking closely at how it can use AI to more quickly make strategic or battlefield assessments and technologically leapfrog over our enemies.

    But what about our government? Should it regulate AI?

    Democrats tend to favor regulating everything. And they have shown the danger of doing so with social media. I recently wrote on how Joe Biden is already using executive power to weaponize Artificial Intelligence to be woke.

    I noted that: “The American Accountability Foundation (AAF), a government watchdog group, recently warned that Team Biden is actively using the federal government’s vast power to regulate AI to promote a “woke” ideology in the basic architecture of this revolutionary, powerful, and dangerous new technology.”

    “That ‘woke’ ideology promotes affirmative action under the guise of ‘anti-racism,’ and transgenderism as gender ‘equity.’”

    And that is a huge concern.

    Republicans tend to be more skeptical of regulation in general, especially in a dynamic, fast-moving technology that few lawmakers understand.

    “Let a bunch of guys up here that are wearing JCPenney leisure suits that still have 8-track tape players in their ’72 Vegas start talking about technology, then you got some problems,” Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., told Fox News when asked about regulation keeping pace with the AI sector.

    “The problem with AI is that it’s advancing so fast,” Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina said. “It’s very difficult to regulate because you don’t know what the next thing is going to be.”

    Republicans, like Burchett and Mace, also worry government regulation will stifle AI innovation and put the U.S. at a strategic disadvantage, especially vis a vis China.

    “I don’t know that we need regulation,” Burchett said. “You want to stifle growth; you start putting laws on it.”

    “If you overregulate, like the government often does, you stifle innovation,” Mace told Fox News. “And if we just stop AI, nothing is stopping China. We want to make sure that we are No. 1 in AI technology in the world and that it stays that way.”

    But we may be losing that race. As Time reported:

    “The country that is able to most rapidly and effectively integrate new technology into war-fighting wins,” Alexandr Wang, the CEO of Scale AI, told lawmakers on a House Armed Services subcommittee. China is spending three times more than the U.S. on developing AI tools, Wang noted. “The Chinese Communist Party deeply understands the potential for AI to disrupt warfare, and is investing heavily to capitalize,” he said. “AI is China’s Apollo project.”

    But Republicans in Congress aren’t doing anything to take away Biden’s power to regulate AI himself. And time is of the essence.

    As a former Democrat Senator, Kent Conrad, and ex-Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss wrote recently in Fox News:

    This comes at a pivotal moment. We are on the precipice of a new tech revolution—one in which a collection of next-generation capabilities—such as AI, quantum computing, and biotechnology—promise to fundamentally upend every facet of society.

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

    New York Times Pollster Warns That Shy Trump Voters Could Be Skewing Surveys — Again

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
    -
    2
    Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

    The silent red tsunami could be on the horizon…

    According to The New York Times’ chief political analyst and pollster Nate Cohn silent Trump supporters could skew poll results once again, leaving prognosticators scratching their skulls in the finals hours before Election Day.

    The Times reported in Arizona, Donald Trump leads Kamala Harris by four points, and in Michigan, he has a one-point advantage. Harris, on the other hand, is beating Trump by one in Georgia, and three in Nevada, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.

    On Sunday, the Times and Siena College released their final poll from the seven battleground states, and the results were inconclusive.

    In his write-up of the results, Cohn submitted that they don’t “point toward a relatively clear favorite” for a few reasons, even if Harris was perhaps slightly more pleased by its finding.

    “On average, Ms. Harris fared modestly better than our last round of surveys of the same states, but her gains were concentrated in states where she was previously struggling,” he wrote. “Meanwhile, the so-called Blue Wall (Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania) does not look quite as formidable of an obstacle to Mr. Trump as it once did. As a result, Ms Harris’s position in the Electoral College isn’t necessarily improved.”

    Cohn also warned that nonresponse bias from Republicans may be continuing to skew the results, just as they did in 2016 and 2020:

    It’s hard to measure nonresponse bias — after all, we couldn’t reach these demographically similar voters — but one measure I track from time to time is the proportion of Democrats or Republicans who respond to a survey, after considering other factors.

    Across these final polls, white Democrats were 16 percent likelier to respond than white Republicans. That’s a larger disparity than our earlier polls this year, and it’s not much better than our final polls in 2020 — even with the pandemic over.

    “It raises the possibility that the polls could underestimate Mr. Trump yet again,” he concluded.

    WE NEED YOU! If you want leaders who focus on jobs and keeping America safe instead of woke politics support Bernie Moreno for US Senate. Donate TODAY.

    Amanda Head: Cori Bush Is A Moron

    By
    Amanda Head
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    5
    Cori Bush via Wikimedia Commons

    Liberal member of “The Squad” Cori Bush is a moron. Plain and simple.

    Watch Amanda explain the controversy below:

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

    Biden Admin. Spied On Bank Accounts Of Trump Supporters

    By
    Donny Ferguson
    -
    1
    Image via Pixabay free images.

    Americans who purchased Bibles, sporting goods or products associated with former President Donald Trump were flagged for surveillance by a federal government spy program, U.S. House investigators reveal.

    After the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, FBI officials told banks that Americans who support President Trump or express religious views may be suspected terrorists, and demanded banks report customers whose transactions indicated they may be political conservatives.

    Such blanket surveillance is prohibited by the United States Constitution, which requires the federal government to secure a warrant, based on probable cause, specifically naming the person targeted.

    “New documents obtained by the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government reveal that the federal government flagged terms like “MAGA” and “TRUMP” for financial institutions if Americans used those phrases when completing transactions,” the U.S. House Judiciary Committee revealed in a statement.

    “Individuals who shopped at stores like Cabela’s or Dick’s Sporting Goods, or purchased religious texts like a bible, may also have had their transactions flagged. This kind of pervasive financial surveillance, carried out in coordination with and at the request of federal law enforcement, into Americans’ private transactions is alarming and raises serious concerns about the FBI’s respect for fundamental civil liberties,” the Committee stated.

    In response, the Committee is demanding senior government officials appear for questioning.

    “In light of these revelations, Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) has requested transcribed interviews from Peter Sullivan, Senior Private Sector Partner for Outreach in the Strategic Partner Engagement Section of the FBI, and Noah Bishoff, former Director of the Office of Stakeholder Integration and Engagement in the Strategic Operations Division of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN),” the Committee reveals.

    Jordan’s letter to Noah Bishoff reads, in part: 

    “The Committee and Select Subcommittee have obtained documents indicating that following January 6, 2021, FinCEN distributed materials to financial institutions that, among other things, outline the ‘typologies’ of various persons of interest and provide financial institutions with suggested search terms and Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) for identifying transactions on behalf of federal law enforcement. These materials included a document recommending the use of generic terms like ‘TRUMP’ and ‘MAGA’ to ‘search Zelle payment messages’ as well as a ‘prior FinCEN analysis’ of ‘Lone Actor/Homegrown Violent Extremism Indicators.’ According to this analysis, FinCEN warned financial institutions of ‘extremism’ indicators that include ‘transportation charges, such as bus tickets, rental cars, or plane tickets, for travel to areas with no apparent purpose,’ or ‘the purchase of books (including religious texts) and subscriptions to other media containing extremist views.’ In other words, FinCEN urged large financial institutions to comb through the private transactions of their customers for suspicious charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression.

    “In addition, the Committee and Select Subcommittee have obtained documents showing that FinCEN distributed slides, prepared by a financial institution, explaining how other financial institutions can use MCC codes to detect customers whose transactions may reflect ‘potential active shooters, [and] who may include dangerous International Terrorists / Domestic Terrorists / Homegrown Violent Extremists (“Lone Wolves”).’ For example, the slides instruct financial institutions to query for transactions using certain MCC codes such as ‘3484: Small Arms,’ ‘5091: Sporting and Recreational Goods and Supplies,’ and the keywords ‘Cabela’s,’ and ‘Dick’s Sporting Goods,’ among several others. Despite these transactions having no apparent criminal nexus—and, in fact, relate to Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights—FinCEN seems to have adopted a characterization of these Americans as potential threat actors. This kind of pervasive financial surveillance, carried out in coordination with and at the request of federal law enforcement, into Americans’ private transactions is alarming and raises serious doubts about FinCEN’s respect for fundamental civil liberties.

    “As the former Director of the Office of Stakeholder Integration and Engagement in the Strategic Operations Division, you engaged regularly with financial institutions following the events of January 6, 2021, including the distribution of material about how financial institutions could use private customer information to assist federal law enforcement. As such, your testimony will aid our oversight. In particular, your testimony will help to inform the Committee and Select Subcommittee about federal law enforcement’s mass accumulation and use of Americans’ private information without legal process; FinCEN’s protocols, if any, to safeguard Americans’ privacy and constitutional rights in the receipt and use of such information; and FinCEN’s general engagement with the private sector on law-enforcement matters.”

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

    Wave of Chinese Spy Craft or UFOs Over the US?

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    0
    President Joe Biden delivers remarks in National Statuary Hall on the one-year anniversary of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Thursday, January 6, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Cameron Smith)

    The U.S. military has now sh*t down four high-altitude aerial objects over the United States or Canada within a week.

    One object was the massive Chinese spy balloon downed off the coast of South Carolina Feb. 4 after it completed its eight-day journey conducting surveillance of sensitive military and nuclear sites across the entire United States.

    The three other objects remain unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) – the new term for UFOs.

    The Chinese spy balloon and UAPs are raising concerns over major gaps in North American security.

    On Sunday U.S. military jet fighters shot down its fourth high-altitude aerial object, an octagonal entity over Lake Huron, Michigan.

    Prior to that, on Friday, a second object was shot down over sea ice near Deadhorse, Alaska. And a third object was destroyed over Canada’s Yukon on Saturday, with investigators still hunting for the wreckage.

    The U.S. military used AIM-9X Sidewinder short-range heat-seeking, supersonic missiles to bring down all four airborne objects.

    One Sidewinder reportedly missed its target and landed harmlessly in Lake Huron.

    Fox News reported:

    “First shot missed. Second shot hit,” Milley told reporters. “We go to great lengths to make sure that the airspace is clear and the backdrop is clear up to the max effective range of the missile. And in this case, the missiles land, or the missile landed, harmlessly in the water of Lake Huron.”

    While the weapons are primarily manufactured for U.S. forces, the missile is also sold in large quantities to a range of American allies, including South Korea, the UAE and Indonesia.

    Canada, which is part of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) uses Sidewinders as well, but has not yet received its order of these latest, more capable, AIM-9X missiles.

    One ex Canadian Air Force general stated that the older Sidewinders still fitted on Canadian CF-18s could not take down these objects at that high an altitude.

    Canada’s Global News reported:

    Retired Canadian general Tom Lawson, who flew CF-18s before serving as Norad deputy commander and then chief of the defence staff, said Canada’s CF-18s currently use an older version of the AIM-9 Sidewinder.

    “When I was flying CF-18s, I did not have a weapon that would shoot down something over 40,000 feet if it was moving too slowly,” he said. “My radar wouldn’t have locked onto it. My heat-seeking missile, my AIM-9, would not have locked onto this thing.”


    Meanwhile, the downing of China’s alleged spy balloon by the stealth F-22 Raptor jet fighter marked the first time the 5th generation jet has shot down an airborne target, and may be the first time an AIM-9X was fired in anger since it debuted in combat in Syria and Iraq almost a decade ago.

    It was also likely the first time the missile was ever fired at the mind-boggling height of 60,000 ft, which is also near the top reported operational ceiling of 65,000 ft for the F-22.

    The rapid-fire series of shoot-downs over Alaska, Canada and Michigan beginning February 10, after the initial balloon downing near South Carolina on Feb 4, has raised pressure on the Biden administration to explain the nature of the high-altitude craft and whether they pose a threat to national security.

    From mid-October to December 2022, the National UFO Reporting Center catalogued some 1,255 new sightings of UAPs.

    One U.S. official attributed the rise in the sightings to boosted surveillance capabilities by the military and not a rush of new foreign objects flying over American airspace.

    However, later on Sunday, the U.S. Air Force general overseeing North American airspace said it still wasn’t clear how the objects were remaining aloft or being propelled through the air, or where they originated.

    He also said he had not ruled any explanation out – including extraterrestrial life.

    Since then, the U.S. government has announced that it suspects that three unidentified flying objects downed since last Friday were benign commercial or research craft and not linked to China’s alleged surveillance balloon program.

    The comments may ease concerns that China is conducting an even more aggressive surveillance effort against the United States than initially believed.

    They should also dampen fears of a UFO invasion.

    However, these sightings and downing of UAPs over North American airspace still appear to be generating far more questions than answers.

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

    GOP House Must Impeach DHS Secretary Mayorkas for Dereliction of Duty Over Border

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    4
    NEW YORK CITY (September 11, 2022) Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas lays flowers for USSS Master Special Officer Craig Miller and participates in the September 11th Anniversary Commemoration Ceremony at Ground Zero in New York City, NY. (DHS photo by Sydney Phoenix)

    ANALYSIS – During Joe Biden’s two-year term in office, the number of illegal migrants swarming into the U.S. has swelled to its highest number in decades. 

    Many of these illegals have serious criminal records and Team Biden can’t confirm how many or who they are.

    So, what does the administration do?

    Rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.

    Joe Biden’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Chris Magnus was forced to resign over the weekend by Department of Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas.

    While Magnus, an incompetent leftist ideologue, failed miserably as CPB chief, his firing was purely political, making him a scapegoat for Team Biden’s broader border and immigration disaster.

    Analysts believe Magnus was forced to resign to avoid him testifying at future GOP-led House committee hearings.

    The real villain here is Mayorkas who really needs to go. 

    As a Senate-confirmed cabinet official, he has been derelict in his constitutional duties to protect the U.S. homeland.

    He needs to resign or be impeached by the GOP House next year.

    As Senator Ted Cruz,( R-Tx.), told Fox News Digital: 

    The Biden administration found their fall guy for the chaos at the border. Responsibility for the border crisis lies with Joe Biden and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and real accountability starts with Mayorkas being impeached. Every moment the border continues to remain open only heightens the present humanitarian and national security crisis.

    Other GOP lawmakers echoed Cruz’s remarks. Fox News reported:

    “The Biden administration has completely failed to protect our borders, and now it’s trying to find a scapegoat,” Burchett said. “Mayorkas should be the one to resign.”

    “When Republicans take over the House, we’re gonna bring some rational thought back to our border security operations,” he continued.

    Texas Republican Rep. August Pfluger also called on Mayorkas to hit the road, telling Fox News Digital the DHS secretary tried to use Magnus’ departure as a cover-up of his own “failures.”

    And Texas congressman Lance Gooden tweeted about Magnus’s resignation: “Accountability would be DHS Secretary Mayorkas joining him.”

    Now, GOP lawmakers with the House Homeland Security Committee confirmed that Mayorkas cannot guarantee that no convicted criminals are among the roughly two million border crossers and illegal aliens who have entered the U.S. since Joe Biden took office.

    Breitbart News reported:

    During a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) grilled Mayorkas over the roughly 1.4 million border crossers and illegal aliens that have been released into American communities since February 2021, as well as the 600,000 illegal aliens who are known to have successfully crossed the southern border in Fiscal Year 2022.

    “Now can you answer definitively … that none of the 600,000 individuals who are now in the United States amongst our communities that got away are gang members or criminals?” Cammack.

    “Your question highlights precisely why we have sought to prioritize national security and public safety threats in our Immigration and Customs Enforcement apprehension and removal efforts,” Mayorkas said, evading the question.

    Breitbart continued:

    Mayorkas also did not provide data on how many of the nearly 30,000 convicted criminal illegal aliens apprehended in Fiscal Year 2022 went on to claim asylum after arriving at the southern border.

    Cammack pressed Mayorkas on whether criminal records exist for those released into the U.S. under the Biden administration thus far.

    “In Fiscal Year 2022, you have now released 1.4 million into the United States and my question to you now is can you guarantee that none of those people have criminal records?” Cammack said, to which Mayorkas did not answer directly.

    This failure to respond by Mayorkas, and failure to account for, and confirm the identity and whereabouts of a large number of criminal illegal aliens in the U.S. under his watch, is cause for impeachment.

    As Breitbart noted: “In April, Mayorkas failed to guarantee to lawmakers that none of the illegal aliens on the FBI Terrorism Watch List or No-Fly List, apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border at the time, had been released into American communities.”

    For all these reasons, and many more, Mayorkas has failed in his constitutional duties and he should be the first Biden cabinet official to go when the GOP takes over Congress in January.

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

    Pollsters Missed the Target – Overreacted to Favoring Dems by Favoring GOP in Midterms

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
    -
    0
    Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    ANALYSIS – ‘Red ripple.’ For at least the last several elections, pollsters have consistently oversampled Democrats and undercounted Republicans, wrongly skewing the polls in the Dems’ favor.

    This is something I have written about before, and the pollster errors include the ‘shy Trump supporter’ effect where conservatives simply shun pollsters or avoid giving their true views out of fear of retribution or being ‘canceled.’

    Frank Luntz, a political strategist said to The Hill: “We knew from 2016, 2018 and even 2020 that Trump voters tended not to respond to pollsters because they thought that the results would be used against them.” 

    This time around the pollsters seem to have screwed up in the opposite direction, overcompensating by overweighting Republican supporters and predicting a ‘Red Wave’ in the midterm elections that never materialized.

    I must admit, I too assumed that the pollsters would continue to err in favor of Dems and hence believed the polling was still undercounting Republicans.

    But as they say – you should never assume because then you make an ‘ass out of u and me.’

    And as Luntz added, “past errors caused pollsters to over-index Republicans.”

    The Daily Caller News Foundation just did a solid analysis on this latest pollster screw-up.

    As the Daily Caller reports:

    Weighting Republican respondents more heavily than Democratic respondents in polls led to an overestimation of GOP support, which created the mirage of a “red wave” this midterm season, polling experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

    In the House of Representatives, FiveThirtyEight, based on an aggregation of major polls, predicted a 228-seat GOP majority as the most likely outcome, while RealClearPolitics had projected at least 227 seats, with additions from 34 tossup races. In the Senate, FiveThirtyEight forecast 51 seats for the GOP, with 52 and 53 seats being as likely, while RealClearPolitics forecast 53 seats for Senate Republicans.

    The results were significantly different from these projections. Though some races are yet to be called, Democrats retained control of the Senate, having won 50 seats as of writing, while Republicans, though projected to win the House, will have a narrow majority close to the 218 seats necessary for one.

    The Daily Caller continues:

    In the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, former President Donald Trump significantly overperformed polling in several states that pegged him to lose, with his unexpected 2016 wins in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and North Carolina giving him an Electoral College majority to win. Though Trump lost the 2020 election, he still won states like Florida and Ohio and came close to winning races in Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania, which polling firms had estimated would be easily won by Joe Biden.

    In all, in 2020, polls underestimated the presidential popular vote, swing-state vote, Democratic House majority and the Democratic Senate majority. The American Academy of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) called it the “worst performance for polls since 1980.”

    And this appears to have caused the severe pollster overcompensation we saw leading up to the midterms.

    In artillery, you often fire beyond (long) and before (short of) a target to close in on it and ‘fire for effect.’ This is called ‘bracketing.’

    The idea is that on the third salvo you should hit the target close to spot on.

    Let’s see if these varied pollster results that undercounted GOP voters and then overcounted them were the ‘bracketing’ needed prior to their getting the 2024 polls right.

    I’m not optimistic. GAND

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

    Amanda Head: WHAT on Earth?! NHL Goes Woke!

    By
    Amanda Head
    -
    1

    Even more sports teams seem to be regressing into the painfully woke ideology, and this time the National Hockey League is on the hook.

    Watch Amanda break down the situation below:

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

    Top Democrat Senate Recruit in Free-fall After Being Caught Using Racist Slur

    By
    Donny Ferguson
    -
    1
    Ted Eytan from Washington, DC, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

    A top Democrat recruit for United States Senate has fallen behind his Republican opponent and is backing out of a Democrat debate after he used a racist slur in a congressional hearing.

    A planned April 23 debate between two Maryland Democrat candidates, Congressman David Trone and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, was canceled after Trone “refused to commit” in the wake of the incident.

    During a March 21 House Budget Committee hearing, Trone asked  about tax policy with Shalanda Young, who is both White House Director of the Office of Budget and Management, and black, “So this Republican j-gaboo that, it’s the tax rate that’s stopping business investment, it’s just completely faulty by people who have never run a business.”

    Trone says he meant to say “bugaboo,” but instead used a racial slur for black people when speaking to the black official.

    The incident could derail Trone, who is leading Alsobrooks in polls ahead of the May 21 primary to see who will succeed retiring three-term Democrat Senator Ben Cardin as the Democrat nominee.  Not only is Trone white and Alsobrooks black, in a state whose Democrat primary sees large black turnout.

    Trone, a millionaire businessman, has flooded TV with ads featuring black women supporting him. 

    Trone is still considered the favorite to win the Democrat nomination in the heavily Democrat state.

    But Trone’s expected easy win to claim the seat in November was upended when popular Republican former governor Larry Hogan jumped into the race.

    Hogan leads Trone by an average of 4.4% in polls of a hypothetical November matchup.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk. Article Published With The Permission of American Liberty News.

    Amanda Head: Protect Our Kids!

    By
    Amanda Head
    -
    3

    In the wake of the tragic Covenant Christian Elementary School shooting there has been a renewed push to employ school safety officers throughout the country…

    What do you think?

    Watch Amanda explain the controversy below:

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

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