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    ‘Top Gun’ Blowback – Pentagon Won’t Help Hollywood if They Submit to China

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    1
    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.

    tweet

    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.

    Amanda Head: Pam Anderson Is Uncomfortable With Nudity

    By
    Amanda Head
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    2

    Oh, the irony…

    1990s sex icon Pamela Anderson is releasing a new memoir where she describes an uncomfortable situation involving “Home Improvement” star Tim Allen.

    Let Amanda explain the controversy below.

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

    Biden Trades Russian Arms Dealer for Woke Female Basketball Player – Leaves Male US Marine to Rot

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    10

    ANALYSIS – Can’t say this was unexpected. Joe Biden just traded a convicted Russian arms dealer for a guilty woke basketball player, while leaving an innocent former U.S. Marine to rot in Russian jail. 

    And to make matters worse, Brittney Griner, who pled guilty to having cannabis vape oil in her luggage, was only in Russian jail for a few months while Paul Whelan, who was set-up and falsely convicted of espionage, has been imprisoned in a Russian labor camp for nearly four years.

    Whelan, 52, remains there where he is to continue serving out a 16-year sentence.

    Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout had been serving time in a U.S. federal prison since 2011. 

    It is clear Biden is playing favorites.

    Biden called Griner’s wife earlier this year to assure her of his commitment to securing her release. But no similar call was made to the Whelan family, despite multiple requests from Elizabeth Whelan for a meeting with the president. 

    After news reports about the snub emerged, Biden finally called Elizabeth Whelan in early July.  

    Of course, from day one, the liberal media has been constantly bombarding us with Griner’s sob story in her Russian jail, keeping her issue front and center for maximum PR leverage, while leaving Whelan on the back burner, if at all.

    While we read every minor detail of Griner’s travails, and she was allowed regular access to the outside world, Whelan was held in a cell at the notorious Stalin-era Lefortovo Prison for over a year, where initially he was denied things like toilet paper and soap, and guards threatened, abused and harassed him.

    Whelan also wasn’t allowed to make calls to his parents, his mail was censored, and visits from his lawyers and embassy representatives were extremely limited.

    Recall that Griner, who is a black lesbian, also refused to stand for the national anthem.

    To the left she checks all the super woke boxes.

    Meanwhile, Biden blamed Russia for his failure to include Whelan in the trade.

    “We’ve not forgotten about Paul Whelan,” Biden said Thursday morning. “This was not a choice about which American to bring home. … Sadly, for totally illegitimate reasons, Russia is treating Paul’s case differently than Brittney’s. … We will never give up.”

    Well, that’s patently false. 

    It doesn’t matter what the Russians say or want. It’s Biden’s job to make things happen. It should have been both released for Bout, or no deal. 

    Especially when one who is young and healthy, and had been arrested for drugs, had only been in jail for a few months, and the other one who was falsely accused, is over 50 and been in a labor camp for 4 years.

    However, being gracious, and perhaps in a bid to not alienate Biden, Whelan’s twin brother David Whelan, said Thursday:

    I am so glad that Brittney Griner is on her way home. As the family member of a Russian hostage, I can literally only imagine the joy she will have, being reunited with her loved ones, and in time for the holidays. There is no greater success than for a wrongful detainee to be freed and for them to go home. The Biden administration made the right decision to bring Ms. Griner home, and to make the deal that was possible, rather than waiting for one that wasn’t going to happen.

    But as the Detroit Free Press reports, this wasn’t the message the Whelan’s were sending a few months ago when the U.S. negotiated the release of Trevor Reed, another American wrongfully detained in Russia, in exchange for Russian drug trafficker Konstantin Yaroshenko. 

    At the time, Whelan’s brother David asked: “Is President (Joe) Biden’s failure to bring Paul home an admission that some cases are too hard to solve? Is the administration’s piecemeal approach picking low-hanging fruit? And how does a family know that their loved one’s case is too difficult, a hostage too far out of reach?”

    That last message is the more correct one. Biden clearly favored Griner to please his leftist base, while abandoning Whelan, a former U.S. Marine, to rot in A Russian jail. GAND

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

    Amanda Head: NPR Now Labeled “State-Affiliated” Propaganda On Twitter!

    By
    Amanda Head
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    0

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

    Biden’s Totally Intentional Open Border Disaster

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    7
    CBP Photography, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – I have long argued that Joe Biden’s border crisis is absolutely self-created, and it has become increasingly obvious that he in fact has essentially opened the border.

    And worse this is absolutely intentional.

    There can be no other explanation.

    Biden’s shameful denials that there is no border crisis show that he is either delusional or a pathological liar. 

    Or both.

    But his appointment of Kamala Harris, who can barely find Mexico on a map, as his border czar, also speaks volumes. 

    Neither has visited the border since coming to office two years ago.

    Yet the illegal migrant numbers and incidents are only mushrooming in magnitude. 

    And getting worse every day.

    The border is going from disastrous to cataclysmic.

    And it’s not just incompetence or bad policy.

    It is part of a plan. 

    Mark Morgan, former acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection says Team Biden “intentionally unsecured” the southern border because “they see a perceived political benefit from open borders.” 

    In a recent podcast with the Heritage Foundation, Morgan said of the border:

    It’s a total disaster, simply getting worse. And I think what’s important is we really need to compare it to the last year under the Trump administration. Now, look, this is not a Right or Left thing for me. This is about factual data.

    So if you look in the last fiscal year under the Trump administration, I think we were around 400,000 total encounters. What we saw the first fiscal year under the Biden administration, as you said, over 2 million. This last fiscal year, we had 2.7 million total encounters. In the first 23, now almost 24 months under this administration, we’ve seen over 4.7 million total encounters with another 1.2 million “got-aways.” So we’re actually getting close to 6 million total encounters, plus got-aways, in the first 24 months of this administration.

    Those data points, Virginia, alone are staggering. It’s the worst self-inflicted border crisis we’ve ever seen on our southern border and our lifetime and the data is undeniable.

    In response to a question about what the future may hold for the border under Team Biden’s remaining two years, Morgan said worst case things stay the same.

    Horrible.

    And that is unacceptable. As he added :

    It’s insanity. It’s absolutely unsustainable. And again, it’s jeopardizing every aspect of our nation’s safety and national security. We cannot allow this to happen.GAND

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

    Amanda Head: Hugh Jackman Goes Insanely Woke

    By
    Amanda Head
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    0

    Another Hollywood hero has gone woke!

    “X-Men” Actor and Broadway performer Hugh Jackman says that gender-specific awards are a thing of the past!

    Watch Amanda explain the newest controversy below:

    Potential Trump Arrest a ‘Manufactured Circus’ by ‘Weaponized’ Prosecutor

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    3
    Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    ANALYSIS – Former President Donald Trump announced on his Truth Social media Saturday that he was going to be arrested on Tuesday, March 21. 

    He also urged his supporters to protest.

    So far no other news media has confirmed his claim and Trump remains untouched.

    It appears that this announcement citing illegal leaks in the Manhattan DA’s office was Trump’s successful attempt to get ahead of the story.

    In part, he wanted to mobilize the GOP.

    Still, if or when, this does happen, an arrest of a former president, and current candidate, would be an unprecedented event in U.S. history.

    It would look like third-world criminalization of politics, and can only further alienate many of the 70 million Americans who voted for Trump in 2020.

    Most Republicans will see it as a politicized witch hunt. It would also only deepens the belief that there continues to be a years-long conspiracy to bring down Trump.

    It will seem that the Russia collusion hoax, the ‘resistance’ inside and outside of government, lawsuits, and two highly partisan, manufactured, and failed, impeachments against Trump by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn’t suffice.

    Provoking a reaction from potential GOP primary opponents was also a Trump goal. 

    And Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has not announced he is running for president, had a few things to say about the issue, even while claiming he wasn’t “going to be involved.”

    DeSantis called the whole prosecution a ‘manufactured circus.’

    The conservative governor focused on how the George Soros-backed New York City prosecutor Alvin L. Bragg, has seen major crime skyrocket in Manhattan while focusing on a relatively petty alleged crime to go after the former president.

    The petty prosecution is over alleged hush money payments to adult performer Stormy Daniels to, as DeSantis said dismissively, “secure silence over some type of alleged affair.”

    But it’s not even about the alleged payments made on his behalf by his then-attorney Michael Cohen (which wouldn’t be too different from the numerous illicit ways Bill Clinton tried to hide his many affairs while in office from the public. 

    This case is expected to actually focus on Trump’s role in recording the reimbursements he made to Cohen in the internal records of his company, the Trump Organization, which were entered as “legal expenses.”

    That’s even pettier. The DA calls it “fraud.” Others might call it “sloppy bookkeeping.”

    According to the Epoch Times (ET), DeSantis said:

    We are not involved in this. We won’t be involved in this. I have no interest in getting involved in some kind of manufactured circus by a Soros-funded DA. He’s trying to do a political spectacle. He’s trying to virtue signal for his base.

    He added: “I can’t spend my time worrying about things of that nature. So, we’re not going to be involved in it in any way.”

    Well, DeSantis is correct, even if he is getting somewhat “involved.”

    And DeSantis does know a thing or two about ideologically motivated, Soros-backed prosecutors.

    As ET reports:

    DeSantis removed Hillsborough County District Attorney Andrew Warren from office last year for stating he wouldn’t prosecute certain crimes. DeSantis’s action has so far survived a review by a federal judge.

    DeSantis added: “He [Bragg] is a Soros-funded prosecutor and, like other Soros-funded prosecutors, they weaponize their office to impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety.”

    The governor continued: “He has downgraded over 50 percent of felonies to misdemeanors. He says he doesn’t want to even have jail time for the vast majority of crimes. And what we’ve seen in Manhattan is, we’ve seen the crime rate go up and we’ve seen citizens become less safe,” DeSantis said.

    But it’s not just DeSantis who sees this as a politically motivated vendetta that could cause far more harm to the American system than good. The New York Times reported that some Democrats and legal experts have their own doubts as well:

    Charging former President Donald J. Trump in connection with a hush-money payment to a porn star would catapult Mr. Bragg onto the national stage. Already he faces second-guessing, even from putative allies, about the strength of the case and the wisdom of bringing it. 

    The Times continued:

    …Bragg has been in a difficult situation. Rebecca Roiphe, a professor at New York Law School and a former prosecutor in Manhattan, said that even though investigators do not target individuals for political reasons, politics does come into play in that “there is always a question of whether it is [in] the public interest to bring a certain charge or not.”

    If he does not bring a case even though there is clear evidence to prove it, Ms. Roiphe suggested, he could violate the longstanding principle that no person is above the law. But if he does indict Mr. Trump, who has begun a third presidential campaign, the choice could also be “incredibly destabilizing and harmful,” Ms. Roiphe said.

    Meanwhile, many Republicans will be getting very “involved” in this potential outrage. Speaker of the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy has already accused Bragg of “abusing his office to target President Trump.”

    He also is threatening to defund Bragg and is investigating whether federal funds were used by Bragg to pursue Trump.

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

    Why Secret Service Officers Missed Intruder at Biden Official’s Home

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    3
    The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    ALERT – If you’re reading this on your cell phone, and you are a Secret Service agent or officer on duty, please stop and put away the phone – immediately. 

    Otherwise, you can continue reading.

    Ok. Now that we got that out of the way, we can inform you of how an intoxicated intruder was able to enter the home of Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor – Jake Sullivan – back in April.

    While Sullivan isn’t particularly impressive (and I’m being gracious), he is one of Biden’s top national security officials. By virtue of his position, he is a very big deal.

    He has direct access to the president, the White House, and to the nation’s most classified intelligence and national security information.

    Terrorists or spies would love to get their hands on some of that stature, or just get into their homes undetected.

    And one unidentified person did just that. But how?

    Well, sadly the agents protecting Sullivan were distracted, at least in part, because they were using their personal cell phones while on duty.

     A scourge that is affecting most of society.

    This is according to an internal investigation by the Secret Service.

    The incident at Sullivan’s home occurred in the early morning hours. Sullivan reportedly confronted the intruder inside his home and later told investigators that he believed the person, who was later seen on surveillance video entering and exiting the property, was intoxicated and entered the home by mistake. 

    Sullivan made the confused man leave his home and then went outside to tell the agents what happened.

    Whether the intruder was really just a drunk nobody, or just pretending to be one, is still to be determined.

    Meanwhile, Sullivan and his family were unharmed, but the Secret Service officers won’t be so lucky.

    As CNN reported: “A law enforcement official familiar with the internal investigation said the agents on duty that night and their supervisors, are likely to be subject to disciplinary action, including an evaluation of whether they can maintain their federal security clearance, a requirement for their positions.”

    So, basically, they could lose their jobs over this. And they probably should.

    More importantly, the Secret Service, and all federal law enforcement agencies, and their private security contractors, must enforce rules limiting personal cell phone use while on duty.

    Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle appears to be doing just that when last week she ordered increased penalties for employees who violate agency policies while on duty, including the use of personal electronic devices on the job.

    According to CNN, Cheatle ordered “disciplinary penalties be increased to up to 21-day suspensions, and up to removal for infractions that lead to operational failure. Those include for the use of personal phones or the use of alcohol while on assignments.”

    Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi stated:

    We have zero tolerance for anything that jeopardizes operational success. While human errors may occur, what sets us apart is our unwavering commitment to maintaining very high professional standards and ethics. This includes enhanced penalties for incidents involving alcohol and a strict policy regarding personal cell phone use while on duty.

    Well, that’s a start. The Secret Service is our nation’s, and perhaps the world’s, leading dignitary protection agency. It simply can’t allow things like this to happen. 

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

    Amanda Head: Will Trump Be Arrested?

    By
    Amanda Head
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    1
    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.

    Biden’s Classified Materials Scandal Part of ‘Dark Money’ Nightmare – Will Dems Finally Turn on Him?

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    10
    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)

    ANALYSIS – The separate disclosures of highly classified materials found in three different locations tied to Joe Biden, and his delay in making public the first discovery in November seem to be souring even the most ardent Bidenistas.

    Per the New York Post, Biden’s loyal lap dog, Attorney General Garland, “solidifying his reputation as a bitter partisan hack, kept secret the first Biden document finding of Nov. 2 until after the midterm elections and seemed to be hiding each new finding until it was forced into the open.” 

    Biden’s prior harsh words about Trump “how could anyone be that irresponsible?” with classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago in August are now coming back to haunt him.

    And the president’s responses to questions about the documents, like dismissing the risk to national security, because, you know, they were in a locked garage next to his prized Corvette, have only made things worse.

    And so has his press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, whose avoidance, refusal to answer, dissembling, and nonsensical doublespeak, has become a serious sore spot among White House correspondents, not to mention the public at large.

    The New York Post reports:

    When reports emerged last Monday that multiple classified documents were found in an office Biden used after leaving the White House as vice president, the propaganda media circled the wagons around him by insisting he’s no Donald Trump. They had a point — up to a point. 

    But when reports two days later said a second batch of supposedly secret papers was found in Biden’s Delaware garage, the wall of media protection showed some cracks as the differences between the presidents’ cases narrowed. And when an additional classified page was found in Biden’s Delaware library, and a special prosecutor was appointed Thursday to investigate him, the defenders made a hasty retreat. 

    What makes this far more than just a mishandled classified documents scandal though, is the two locations where the materials were found. 

    Both connect to far bigger scandals — Chinese influence on the Biden family, corruption, pay-to-play schemes, and Hunter Biden.

    One – The Penn Biden Center – (well a closet in an office at this Center’s office space). This is the essentially made-up entity created to pay Biden $900,000 for doing almost nothing after leaving the White House as VP in 2017.

    But beyond the sleaziness of that deal, the University of Pennsylvania got $54.6 million in donations from Communist China from 2014 through June 2019, including $23.1 million in anonymous gifts starting in 2016.

    The Post reported: “The Penn Biden Center is a dark-money, revolving-door nightmare where foreign competitors like China donated millions of dollars to the university so that they could have access to future high-ranking officials,” said Tom Anderson, director of the Government Integrity Project at the Virginia-based National Legal and Policy Center.

    Was some of that money siphoned off to pay Joe? Was this a result of payoffs tied to Hunter’s Chinese business deals? And, did China gain access to the documents found there, or others ones not found?

    Two – Biden’s beach house. Hunter lives in the Delaware house, raising concerns he might have seen the documents, which were not secured beyond being in a locked garage next to Joe’s Corvette, while others were apparently found in the house itself.

    Did Hunter have access to these highly classified documents? Did he disclose the contents to his Chinese colleagues?

    We may soon have answers to these important questions. Especially since they have resurfaced now just the aggressive new GOP-led house begins its investigations into the Bidens.

    The timing could not be worse for Biden.

    As the POST writes: “Long before the document bombshells, GOP leaders vowed to follow the millions upon millions of dollars that Hunter Biden and Jim Biden, Joe’s brother, got abroad from selling access to Joe. Based on the contents of Hunter’s laptop, it’s certain that Joe benefited from foreign payments.” 

    As Rep. James Comer of Kentucky put it, “We’re not investigating Hunter Biden. We’re investigating Joe Biden.” 

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

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