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Retired Generals Bash West Point for Betraying Core Values, Instilling Socialism

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Daniel Ramirez from Honolulu, USA, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

ANALYSIS – Two retired generals, and a retired colonel, all three graduates of the U.S. Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, have signed a statement, nominally representing the long list of West Point graduates known as the ‘Long Gray Line,’ accusing the academy of violating its core values.

And also of imposing socialist, anti-American indoctrination.

When you wonder why so many of our military commanders are involved in scandals, and accused of moral and ethical lapses, and even crimes, look no further than West Point, and the other national military academies. 

In their August 17 missive emailed to a long email list and posted on the website of the MacArthur Society of West Point Graduates, the senior officers, LTG Thomas McInerney, USAF (Ret), MG Paul E. Vallely, US Army (Ret), and Col Andrew O’Meara, US Army (Ret), argue that the academy no longer truly enforces the proud institution’s Cadet Honor Code. 

Despite West Point’s motto being “Duty, Honor, Country,” and that motto forming the basis of the Cadet Honor Code, it is now enforced less than half the time.

Rather than resulting in expulsion as in the past, the officers note that “today, the Academy’s website makes the casual web disclaimer that over 50% of convicted violators [of the honor code] are excused and allowed to graduate.”

But the rot goes far further and deeper than just letting unethical cadets graduate to form the backbone of the Army’s officer corps. These cadets are increasingly being indoctrinated in neo-Marxist socialist ideology “that runs counter to the noble principles of the Constitution.”

They add that: “The corruption of cadet instruction with socialist doctrine is further demonstrated by a pronounced bias in selecting guest speakers, who have been almost exclusively liberal.” 

[I would argue they are leftist not liberal]

“We could not identify any conservative speakers in recent years,” they noted. The officers continue:

Specifically, they argue, the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) at the Academy, or ideas derived from that theory, “severs the ties of every cadet to the defense of the Constitution, thereby nullifying the oath cadets have sworn to uphold.”

They explain that: “Critical Race Theory now replaces Duty, Honor, and Country,” at West Point.

And CRT is a cancer.

Critical Race Theory considers the founders evil, the Constitution illegitimate, and the Republic systemically racist. It abolishes the Declaration of Independence that declares all men are created equal. It brands the population as racist, privileged, and unfit to enjoy citizenship rights.

The writers add: “Officers and enlisted troops must sit through leftist indoctrination sessions that portray America as an inherently racist nation, white troops as genetically bigoted, and minority troops as hopeless, lifelong victims.”   

And the authors specifically single out Joe Biden and his team of leftists for accelerating this indoctrination and subversion at the academy, and throughout our military:

The Biden Administration seeks to divorce military service from the defense of the Constitution by replacing allegiance to the Constitution with Critical Race Theory. This prepares the military for its role in support of an overthrow of the government and the Constitutional order. By forcing the military to undergo liberal socialist indoctrination, they sever the linkage between US military service and support for the Constitution. 

To these senior retired officers, the goal is nothing less than the overthrow of our Constitutional system from within. 

Using the manufactured threat of ‘white extremism,’ as the excuse, the left is forcing Critical Race Theory indoctrination on our military to prevent any internal military opposition to the increasingly anti-constitutional actions of this, and other, far-left administrations.

Ultimately, they note: “The cumulative impact of these changes has so altered the Military Academy that USMA betrays the purpose for which it was founded in 1802 – defense of our Constitution and maintenance of individual freedom.”

And I will add – If we don’t remove this rot very quickly, our Republic is truly doomed.

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

Investigators Swoop in on Documents that Could Show Joe Biden was in on Influence Peddling Scheme

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The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Congressional investigators may soon have, and could reveal to the public, hidden government documents showing how then-Vice President Joe Biden used his office and taxpayer funds to boost his family’s alleged influence-peddling business.

U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-KY) is demanding the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) turn over records regarding how Biden’s activities as Vice President coincided with his middle-aged son Hunter’s activities in Ukraine. 

“Comer is requesting all unredacted documents and communications in which then-Vice President Joe Biden used a pseudonym; Hunter Biden, Eric Schwerin, or Devon Archer is copied; and all drafts of then-Vice President Biden’s speech delivered to the Ukrainian Rada in December 2015,” a statement from the Committee announced.

“Joe Biden has stated there was ‘an absolute wall’ between his family’s foreign business schemes and his duties as Vice President, but evidence reveals that access was wide open for his family’s influence peddling,” said Comer.

“We already have evidence of then-Vice President Biden speaking, dining, and having coffee with his son’s foreign business associates. We also know that Hunter Biden and his associates were informed of then-Vice President Biden’s official government duties in countries where they had a financial interest,” Comer added.

“The National Archives must provide these unredacted records to further our investigation into the Biden family’s corruption,” Comer demanded.

“In August 2019, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden stated that when he was Vice President there was ‘an absolute wall between the personal and private, and the government’ and ‘that is why I have never talked with my son or my brother, or anyone else in the distant family about their business interests, period,’” the Committee noted.

But evidence, documents and eyewitnesses report otherwise.

“Witness testimony reveals then-President Biden spoke on speakerphone with his son’s foreign business associates over 20 times, dined with corrupt foreign oligarchs in Washington, D.C., and met with his son’s Chinese business associate for coffee in Beijing. Emails in NARA’s custody also reveal how Hunter Biden and his associates were copied on official government email,” the Committee revealed.

Below is the full text of the letter:

The Honorable Colleen Shogan

Archivist of the United States

National Archives and Records Administration

700 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, D.C. 20408

Dear Dr. Shogan:

The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is investigating President Biden’s meetings and communications with certain family members and their business associates during his tenure as Vice President. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has published the Biden Vice Presidential Records Collection, which contains information relevant to the Committee’s work. Many of these records have been redacted for publication pursuant to the Presidential Records Act (PRA) and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). To further our investigation, it is essential that the Committee review these documents in their original format.

The Committee seeks unrestricted special access under the PRA to Case Number 2023-0022-F, entitled “Email Messages To and/or From Vice President Biden and Hunter Biden related to Burisma and Ukraine,” which has been published on NARA’s website. These records have been redacted for public release pursuant to the PRA and FOIA. For example, an email bearing the subject “Friday Schedule Card,” is withheld in part under a “P6” and “b(6)” restrictions, denoting personal information regarding the subject under the PRA and FOIA respectively.  Attached to this email, and made available on the NARA website, is a document that indicates on 9:00 a.m. on May 27, 2016, Vice President Biden took a call with the president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko. It is concerning to the Committee, however, that this document was sent to “Robert L. Peters”—a pseudonym the Committee has identified as then Vice-President Biden. Additionally, the Committee questions why the then-Vice President’s son, Hunter Biden—and only Hunter Biden—was copied on this email to then-Vice President Biden.

To further our investigation, the Committee needs to review these documents in their original format. The Committee also requests access to certain other documents and information described below. Please provide these documents no later than August 31, 2023:

Complete, unredacted versions of all documents from Case Number 2023-0022-F; 

Any document or communication in which a pseudonym for Vice President Joe Biden was included either as a sender, recipient, copied or was included in the contents of the document or communication, including but not limited to Robert Peters, Robin Ware, and JRB Ware;

Any document or communication in which Hunter Biden, Eric Schwerin, or Devon Archer was included either as a sender, recipient, copied, or was included in the contents of the document or communication; and

All drafts from November 1, 2015 to December 9, 2015 of then-Vice President Biden’s speech delivered to the Ukrainian Rada on December 9, 2015.

Special access to presidential records may be granted “to…Congress” and “to the extent of matter within its jurisdiction, to any committee… if such records contain information that is needed for the conduct of its business and that is not otherwise available….” Furthermore, the PRA subjects Vice-Presidential records to its provisions “in the same manner as Presidential records.”

The Committee’s need for these Vice-Presidential records is specific and well-documented. The Committee seeks to craft legislative solutions aimed at deficiencies it has identified in the current legal framework regarding ethics laws and disclosure of financial interests related to the immediate family members of Vice Presidents and Presidents—deficiencies that may place American national security and interests at risk. The Committee is concerned that foreign nationals have sought access and influence by engaging in lucrative business relationships with high-profile political figures’ immediate family members, including members of the Biden family. For additional information regarding the Committee’s legislative purpose regarding its investigation of the Biden family’s international business, the Committee would direct you to three bank records memoranda it has released this year.

The Committee on Oversight and Accountability has specific jurisdiction over NARA under House Rule X. Additionally, the Committee on Oversight and Accountability is the principal oversight committee of the U.S. House of Representatives and has broad authority to investigate “any matter” at “any time” under House Rule X. 

To schedule the delivery of responsive documents or if you have questions regarding this request, please contact Committee on Oversight and Accountability staff at (202) 225-5074. Thank you for your prompt attention to this important investigation.

Sincerely,

James Comer

Chairman

Committee on Oversight and Accountability

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

Final Bit of Democrat Insanity at End of 2022

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Pixabay free images

ANALYSIS – As we end yet another crazy year, we have a new report on how Democrats continue to be the crazy party. 

Despite substantial scientific evidence to the contrary, a majority of Democrats still favor masking toddlers to battle the spread of COVID.

A recent I&I/TIPP Poll showed this mass insanity when 56% of Democrats said they believed masking children under the age of 5 is still a good idea.

In contrast, only 24% of Republicans and 31% of independents believed that masking toddlers is a good idea.

When asked if masking toddlers was a bad idea, as much of the scientific evidence now shows, 58% of Republicans and 38% of independents said they think it is a bad idea.

And only 24% of Democrats thought the same way.

But the divide goes deeper, with ideology, race, and ethnicity playing big roles as well.

The Blaze reported:

When respondents were grouped by ideology rather than party, there was a similar divide: 56% of conservatives thought it was a bad idea; 31% of alleged conservatives supported the initiative. Liberals again majoritively (54%) supported covering children’s faces.

Ideology and party were not the only differentiators.

Only 33% of white Americans said it was a good idea, whereas 48% of black and Hispanic respondents supported masking kids. On the other hand, 44% of white respondents and 28% of black and Hispanic respondents were opposed.

When it came to opposing the idea, 39% of women were opposed — two points higher than their male counterparts.

The Blaze continued:

I&I intimated that what might partially account for the significant ideological split between the right and the left on the matter of masking kids is media and activist suppression of legitimate medical studies putting the efficacy of masking children in doubt.

Numerous studies questioned the effectiveness of masking in protecting from serious COVID effects.

As The Blaze explains, these studies highlight the adverse impact masks have on toddlers’ communication skills and the relative unlikelihood of children becoming severely sick from COVID.

The Blaze also notes that neither the World Health Organization (WHO) nor the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control recommends masking little kids.

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

Biden Lied About Classified Documents Found at His Homes and Office

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Photo via Pixabay images

ANALYSIS – While much of the establishment media dutifully informed us that Special Counsel Robert Hur’s recent interview of Joe Biden regarding his alleged mishandling of classified materials signals the investigation is ending, ‘with nothing there,’ it could just be the beginning.

In a bombshell new discovery, it appears that Biden may have been lying about those classified documents all along.

I have previously noted that former president Donald Trump improperly held on to classified documents mostly out of vanity, gave multiple bogus justifications for having them, refused to give them all back, moved them around, and essentially dared the Biden Department of Justice (DoJ) to come after him – which it did.

Had he returned all the materials he had in his possession, I have argued, DoJ likely would not have raided his Mar-a-Lago home and found damning evidence to indict him. None of the charges against Trump in that case are tied to materials he earlier returned to authorities.

Biden, and former vice president Mike Pence, seemed to have behaved quite differently when they discovered classified materials. Both supposedly quickly returned documents they had held improperly at their homes or private offices. 

This was a big difference with Trump’s actions.

Well, that may be true of Pence, but not of Biden, who seems to have a much more tangled web of deceit surrounding his classified materials that date back to his time as vice president and even senator.

As Jonathan Turley, Professor of Public Interest Law at the George Washington University Law School notes in The Hill: “The most glaring problem [with Biden’s case] is that, after they were removed at the end of his term as vice president, the documents were repeatedly moved and divided up.”

That sounds a lot like what Trump did, but going back much farther, and for potentially far more sinister motives.

Turley added:

Biden made clear from the beginning that he expected the investigation to be perfunctory and brief. He publicly declared that he has “no regrets” over his own conduct and told the public that the documents investigation would soon peter out when it determined that “there is no ‘there’ there.”

Now, however, it appears that a critical claim by the White House in the scandal may not only be false but was knowingly false at the time it was made. The White House and Biden’s counsel have long maintained that, as soon as documents were discovered in the D.C. office, they notified the national archives. Many asked why they did not call the FBI, but the White House has at least maintained that, unlike Trump, they took immediate action to notify authorities.

However, it now appears that this was not true. One of the closest aides to Biden and a close friend to Hunter Biden is Annie Tomasini. She referred to Hunter as her “brother” and signed off messages with “LY” or “love you.”

Tomasini was once a senior aide to Joe Biden and, according to the Oversight Committee, inspected the classified material on March 18, 2021, two months after Biden took office — nearly 20 months before they were said to be found by the Biden team.

The Oversight Committee released a new timeline of when the classified documents were discovered.

As Turley notes, “the committee now alleges that the White House “omitted months of communications, planning, and coordinating among multiple White House officials, [Kathy] Chung, Penn Biden Center employees, and President Biden’s personal attorneys to retrieve the boxes containing classified materials.”

This is huge. It means Biden repeatedly lied about when his staff discovered classified materials in his private residences and offices, and Team Biden had 20 months to tamper with, hide or otherwise dispose of evidence.

While a sitting president can’t be indicted according to existing DoJ policy, that could be changed. Beyond that, this new information has already been added to an increasingly heated impeachment inquiry by the GOP-led House.

The question being asked now by House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) is: How many of the documents improperly kept by Biden related to the countries the Biden family engaged with as part of their alleged foreign influence peddling scheme?

If there were any, that could mean there is “a lot more ‘there,’ there,” than Biden claimed.

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

Amanda Head: DeSantis Flailing; Ramaswamy Surging!

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

Did you expect this?

Popular Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is flatlining in the polls while another Republican candidate for president is surging ahead.

Watch Amanda explain the situation below:

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

Congress Reveals Stunning New Information on January 6 Attacker

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Members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee investigating the federal government’s response to the January 6, 2021 incidents at the U.S. Capitol now reveal that a pair of pipe bombs planted at the Capitol Hill offices of the Republican and Democrat parties may have been a diversion to distract law enforcement from other events.

They also reveal that while the bombs contained live explosives, it does not appear the timers were operable, and the FBI may not even have interviewed the witnesses who discovered them.

In response, Chairmen Thomas Massie (R-KY), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray “revealing new information surrounding the FBI’s investigation into pipe bombs placed near the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Republican National Committee (RNC) on January 5, 2021,” the Judiciary Committee reports.

“On June 7, 2023, the Committee on the Judiciary conducted a transcribed interview of Steven D’Antuono, the former Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI Washington Field Office (WFO),” the Committee announced.

“In that role, Mr. D’Antuono oversaw the WFO’s investigations into the events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, including the placement of pipe bombs near the headquarters of the DNC and RNC on January 5, 2021. Mr. D’Antuono’s testimony provided new information about the FBI’s investigation into the pipe bombs and reinforces our concerns about the FBI’s handling of this matter,” the Committee revealed.

In his transcribed interview, Steven D’Antuono “suggested that the FBI could not even determine whether the placement of the pipe bombs was a ‘diversionary’ tactic for the events of January 6,” the Committee also revealed.

D’Antuono testified:

MASSIE: Are you familiar with the diversion thesis, that these were set up to be a diversion?

D’ANTUONO: Yeah, I’ve heard people say that, but if you watch – I’ve done a lot of media reports. I was trying to get the information out there, tips and stuff like that, right. I will not speculate. I’m not going to speculate on that. I think that’s speculation, at best, when people say that it’s a diversionary tactic. We’ll never know until we find the person that actually did – or persons that actually did it. So I can’t speculate on that. Could it have been? Yes, that’s one theory. Obviously, it’s one theory. But is it the only theory? I don’t – I really don’t know.

MASSIE: It looks like the head Capitol Police [sic] believes it was a diversion.

D’ANTUONO: So Steve Sund, chief of police, yes. I believe he wrote that in his book. Again, it’s pure speculation. There’s no intelligence – look, I ran the investigation for 2 years until I stepped out. We don’t know. We don’t even know the gender at this point as to – we could speculate, and there’s a lot of people that are speculating as to the gender.

MASSIE: How confident are you that the individual depicted in the surveillance footage on January 5th set both of those pipe bombs in place?

D’ANTUONO: So the video that we saw, I feel confident that by the video that we have, that that person planted those. 

D’Antuono also testified on the “viability of the pipe bombs, which, according to reporting, were deemed to be ‘inoperable,’” the Committee reports.

“D’Antuono referenced a report from the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, that the pipe bombs were viable, and ‘they could explode, and they could cause harm or death,’” the Committee notes, adding. “D’Antuono also acknowledged that the timer used on the pipe bomb could not have detonated the pipe bomb given the time already elapsed between placement and discovery.”

He testified:

MASSIE: Well, let me ask you this: Do you think it was technically possible for a kitchen timer . . . that has [a] 1-hour duration . . . to detonate a bomb 17 hours later?

D’ANTUONO: No, I don’t. And I saw the same kitchen timer as you. I agree. I don’t know when they were supposed to go off. Maybe they weren’t supposed to go off. We can’t—we don’t know. We honestly don’t know, and that’s some of the pain . . . .

D’Antuono’s testimony “provided additional details about the FBI’s use of geofencing technology to identify the pipe bomb suspect,” the Committee revealed.

He testified:

D’ANTUONO: So the – there’s a lot of phone data that came in. Yes, I’ve seen the same video. I’ve watched the same video. We put out the same video. It looks like a phone. Was it a real phone, a not a real phone, was it a ruse? Was it a – you know, I picked up my phone several times at meetings going, oh, yeah, I got to take this call, and walk out, right. The phone’s not on, right. So was the person just sitting there trying to pretend like they’re on a bench taking a phone call? We don’t know until we find the person, right, and ask them those questions.

We did a complete geofence. We have complete data. Not complete, because there’s some data that was corrupted by one of the providers, not purposely by them, right. It just – unusual circumstance that we have corrupt data from one of the providers. I’m not sure – I can’t remember right now which one. But for that day, which is awful because we don’t have that information to search. So could it have been that provider? Yeah, with our luck, you know, with this investigation it probably was, right. So maybe if we did have that – that data wasn’t corrupted – and it wasn’t purposely corrupted. I don’t want any conspiracy theories, right. To my knowledge, it wasn’t corrupted, you know, but that could have been good information that we don’t have, right. So that is painful for us to not to have that. So we looked at everything.

D’Antuono also testified that he did not definitively know if the FBI had interviewed the individual who discovered the pipe bomb at the DNC.

He testified:

MASSIE: So just to . . . put a fine point on it, you do not know whether they interviewed the person that discovered . . . the [bomb] at the DNC?

D’ANTUONO: I don’t know.

The Committee notes “D’Antuono conceded that it would be ‘investigation 101’ to interview the individuals who discovered the bombs, yet he was unable to confirm whether the FBI had taken this basic investigative step.”

He explained:

MASSIE: So – but the person who found – you either haven’t identified the person who found the second pipe bomb, or did you?

D’ANTUONO: I – honestly, sir, I don’t know the granularity of everything my agents and analysts did in that matter. It’s just – it’s a whole host of stuff that’s going on. As the [Assistant Director in Charge], as like any senior leader, I’m getting briefed on things, and that part never came up, so –

“D’Antuono’s testimony raises concerns about the FBI’s handling of the pipe bomb investigation, more than 890 days following the placement of the pipe bombs. To date, the FBI has failed to respond to the Committee’s requests for a briefing regarding the investigation,” the Committee concludes.

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

Anti-Woke ‘Radical Libertarian’ Wins Argentine Election, Trump Plans Visit

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Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

ANALYSIS – In another extremely positive political development overseas, a ‘far-right’ populist, better called an anti-woke radical libertarian, has won the presidency in Argentina.

The leftist-hating, free market advocate, Javier Milei, hopes to shake up South America’s highly statist second-largest economy and its extreme socialist politics.

While Argentina and the U.S. are very different political animals, and former President Trump and Milei don’t share similar views on a lot of things, Trump congratulated Milei on his landslide victory, saying he would “Make Argentina Great Again!”

According to a statement by Milei’s press office after the two spoke on Thursday, Trump will also visit Buenos Aires to meet with the Argentine president-elect.

One thing they do have in common is their hatred of the left and love of incendiary language (read to the end).

A hundred years ago Argentina was one of the six wealthiest countries in the world, but thanks to the socialism of Juan and Evita Perón, and their Peronist party, the beautiful country has dropped to a dismal to 66th place, below Mexico and just above Russia.

Milei, who leads the country’s La Libertad Avanza (Liberty Advances) party, won the presidential run-off with some 56% of the vote, well ahead of left-leaning Peronist Economy Minister Sergio Massa’s 44%. Milei will take office Dec. 10.

The self-described anarcho-capitalist is pledging economic shock therapy, by among other things, slashing bloated government spending, shuttering the central bank, and ditching the thoroughly devalued peso for the U.S. dollar.

These potentially painful reforms resonated with voters angry at the economic malaise. Still, as Fortune noted, Milei’s “party controls only a handful of seats in congress, and policies like dollarization would be an incredibly complex undertaking even with broad political support.”

Meanwhile, many “investors think Milei is the best shot at salvaging the economy after years of market pain.”

Fortune added:

While Milei gained attention for quirks that were atypical for a potential head of state — his unusual hairdo, love of his cloned dogs and a penchant for campaigning with a chainsaw — he won fans among investors for his promise to usher in a business-friendly era for Argentina. Economic growth is elusive, the peso has lost more than 90% of its value in four years, and around 40% of the population lives in poverty.

John Fund writes in National Review:

Milei, a free-market economist, is an ally of both the U.S. and Israel and a sworn adversary of China and Latin American leftists. His plan to dollarize the Argentine economy will blunt China’s effort to undermine the U.S. currency. As analyst Juan P. Villasmil puts it: “Argentina’s economy is the second most powerful in South America, so having it led by an openly pro-US leader in a continent filled with socialists isn’t bad news.”

Milei describes himself as an Austrian economist, but there is also some Chicago School influence. He named two of his dogs after Milton Friedman and Robert Lucas, and a third after Murray Rothbard.

Elon Musk and other U.S. business leaders are already looking forward to an open and more free Argentine economy. Milei has a strong team of advisers from free market think tanks and has forged an alliance with establishment conservative parties to help him govern.

And Milei is a firebrand and fighter much like Trump. Expect him to take a wrecking ball to the socialists. The UK’s Express quoted Milei as saying:

“You can’t give s**t leftards an inch. All collectivists, all kinds of collectivists. […] They are s**t!

“If you think differently from them they will kill you. This is the point. You can’t give s**t leftists an inch, if you give them an inch they will use it to destroy you.

“You can’t negotiate with leftards. You don’t negotiate with trash because they will end you!

Milei added: “And since they can’t beat us with real arguments, they just use the repressive apparatus of the state with loads of taxpayer money to destroy us and yet they’re still losing!”

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

Amanda Head: Bar Association Goes Idiodically Woke

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Law schools across the country are abandoning their decades-long principles going woke and the move could prove disastrous for attorneys, current law students, and prospective law students across the nation.

Let Amanda break down the situation in the video below.

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

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

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Image via Pixabay free images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bon voyage. No smoking aboard.

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

‘Deranged’ Leftist NY Judge Declares Trump Guilty of Fraud Before Trial Begins

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Gavel via Wikimedia Commons Image

ANALYSIS – In what is only the latest weaponized, partisan legal action against former President Donald Trump, the far-left Democrat New York state attorney Letitia James and her leftist cohort Justice Arthur Engoron have just found Trump guilty of civil fraud before his trial even began.

Never mind that the case is obscene to begin with and should not even exist. And the law it is based on is obscene as well and should not exist either. Andrew McCarthy explains in National Review:

James, an ambitious progressive authoritarian who campaigned for office on a vow to weaponize the Empire State’s legal processes against Trump, decided to package the scraps [of leftover fraud charges no one else could prosecute] into a lengthy civil complaint. After all, she had a secret weapon: New York’s Executive Law 65(12), which empowers an abusive prosecutor to put partisan enemies out of business without having to prove anything. Although this provision purports to outlaw “repeated” and “persistent” “fraud” and/or “illegality,” in reality, as I explained last week in a column for The Messenger:

“The law doesn’t require a showing of harm. The state need not prove the defendant even intended to defraud anyone, much less actually defrauded someone. It need not be established that any creditor or financial institution even relied on the defendant’s misrepresentations, that those misrepresentations were material, or that anyone was actually fooled by them. The state just has to show that a defendant made false claims with enough “persistence” and “repetition” that at least two persons were “affected” — which, whatever it means, is not a synonym for ‘harmed.’”


Claiming Trump significantly overvalued his properties and assets when presenting his company’s financials to banks and lenders and that this somehow “affected” someone, James is seeking at least $250 million in penalties, a ban against Trump and his sons Donald Jr. and Eric from running businesses in New York, and a five-year commercial real estate ban against Trump and the Trump Organization.

The accusations are that Trump inflated the value of assets by $1.9 billion to $3.6 billion annually between 2011 and 2021 to save hundreds of millions on loans and insurance.

This, even though no one has been claimed to have been harmed, and all financial institutions take self-declared valuations like those made by Trump, with a grain of salt when making loans and other major financial decisions.

Bankers and insurance executives have a fiduciary obligation to conduct their own due diligence to determine what they believe are fair market valuations of assets. And they always do.

And as McCarthy further explains, everyone involved knew Trump exaggerated just about everything:

…this was for political consumption and the burnishing of celebrity. In the league of sophisticated financial actors in which Trump plays, where corporate departments are dedicated to valuation analysis because that’s the bread-and-butter of finance, nobody took this nonsense seriously. Indeed, Trump even included a “worthless clause” in his SFCs which, in so many words, warned that they were apt to be, you know, somewhat less than perfectly accurate. Many of the financial institutions that did business with Trump did so for years, and knew exactly the cat they were dealing with. They made loans and indemnified Trump because they knew, based on their own expertise and experience with him, that he was quite wealthy (even if not as wealthy as he claimed) and that he would pay up.

But that didn’t stop Justice Engoron, who ruled preemptively on September 26 that James had proven Trump and his co-defendants fraudulently inflated his assets. 

Engoron, in his ruling, ordered the cancellation of certificates that 10 of Trump’s business entities need to operate some of his marquee properties — including Trump Tower and his golf clubs in New York — and said he would appoint independent receivers to oversee their “dissolution.”

The judge thus essentially imposed the corporate death penalty on Trump’s businesses BEFORE the trial even began.

Trump responded in a post on his Truth Social platform the day of the ruling, calling accusations that he committed fraud “ridiculous and untrue,” and hit back, calling Engoron a “DERANGED” judge.

In this case, I must agree with Trump’s wording. The judge is deranged, but he is also a partisan hack and embarrassment in what is already a highly partisan and embarrassing New York judicial system.

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