America is waiting…
When will Florida Governor Ron DeSantis officially throw his hat into the ring for the 2024 Republican nomination? Sources close to the governor are spilling the beans…
Watch Amanda explain the situation below:
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – Decades after the infamous Roswell incident captivated Americans, the House of Representatives has convened a landmark panel on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs), also known as Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs).
In what would have been unimaginable just a few years ago, the hearing is the most serious acknowledgment yet that the mysterious sightings require scrutiny at the highest levels of government.
The debate about UAP has become a hot topic in recent years following multiple leaked photographs and video recordings from the U.S. Navy showing UAP craft operating at high speed over American airspace, often with no visible propulsion and maneuvering in ways that baffle aeronautics experts.
A leaked navy video, captured in July 2019, for example, shows a sphere-shaped unidentified object flying over water near San Diego before apparently disappearing into the ocean.
At the hearing, three witnesses testified under oath about their experiences with UFOs. Significantly, former military and intelligence officials testified to the panel Wednesday that they have seen UFOs and said they could pose risks to national security.
All three witnesses said the UAP may be probing for weakness in the U.S. military system.
The highly credible former officials called for the U.S. government to share what it knows about the phenomena.
But the Pentagon’s UAP task force, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, says it hasn’t been able to substantiate claims that any federal programs have possessed or reverse-engineered extraterrestrial materials.
Still, during two hours of testimony on July 26, three witnesses shared their encounters with flying objects that they say defy explanation:
1) David Grusch, an ex-Air Force intelligence officer, claims the U.S. has been running a secret program to retrieve and reverse engineer UAPs for decades, and has been aware of “non-human” activity since the 1930s.
Grusch said he believes the U.S. government is in possession of UAP based on interviewing 40 witnesses over four years with direct knowledge of the program.
Perhaps more sensationally, in response to a question regarding aliens, he replied “biologics [life forms] came with some of these [UAP] recoveries.”
2) Ryan Graves, a former navy fighter pilot, testified his squadron repeatedly encountered mysterious flying objects which could remain stationary despite hurricane-level winds – claiming he saw them off the Atlantic coast “every day for at least a couple years.”
The Wall Street Journal reported on one sighting:
Graves said his aircrew saw UAP during a training exercise off the coast of Virginia Beach, Va. Two jets encountered “a dark gray or black cube inside of a clear sphere” and the object came within 50 feet of the lead aircraft, he said. It was estimated to be 5 to 15 feet in diameter, he said.
3) Retired U.S. Navy commander David Fravor recounted a 2004 encounter with a “Tic Tac” shaped UAP that moved in a way that baffled aviators. Fravor said it had no visible rotors or wings.
It was “moving very abruptly over the white water, like a ping-pong ball,” he added, noting that he flew his aircraft closer to get a better view of the UAP, but “it rapidly accelerated and disappeared.”
But this is only the latest and most significant public inquiry into the UFO threat.
In 2021 the U.S. intelligence agencies were called to deliver a report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) to Congress.
The first unclassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) made public what the Pentagon reportedly knows about UAP, renewing interest in the mysterious objects which have grown into a modern myth in American society.
ODNI produced a second UAP report in 2022.
Whether UAP is the result of advanced foreign technology or from a more otherworldly source, government officials are now demanding to know more about them. And so is the public.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
They say actions speak louder than words…
Former President Trump is stepping up as Joe Biden continues to let Americans down. Less than three weeks ago, a train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio in an event that could have a devastating impact on the environment and community.
Despite the ongoing chaos, the Biden administration has been slow to act…no surprise there.
Watch Amanda break down the situation below:
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – Every now and then you see a story that just hits home, and you know you need to write about it and spread the word. This one, reported by CBS News, is absolutely one of them.
Caleb Morse, 39, an Army combat veteran, set up Rustic Renegade, a gun shop and shooting range in 2018 in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Morse had served two combat tours in Iraq with the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division Special Troops Battalion, followed by service in the National Guard, and then worked as a military contractor in Iraq for four years.
One day an Army buddy Morse served with in Iraq showed up at his gun store with his car and his dog. Then he brought a lot of guns inside the store, Morse said, adding: “And I’m like, brother, what are you doing?”
Morse knew well that often when people, especially combat veterans, start giving away their things, they may be considering suicide.
But before Morse could have a chat with his buddy, the vet simply left. And for six months his buddy didn’t answer his phone.
Meanwhile, Morse decided to hold his friend’s guns at Rustic Renegade in case he ever came back.
Thankfully, as CBS News reported:
…his friend called and explained he had been in a bad spot and wondered where his guns were. Morse said he told him, “They’re your guns, man. They’re yours, you may want them back. And whenever you’re ready, they’re here for you.
“More than half of all gun-related deaths in the United States are suicides, according to the Centers for Disease Control. In 2022, the CDC reported that 26,993 people died by firearm suicide. Deaths by gun suicide are at an all-time high and have steadily increased, nearly uninterrupted, since 2006 according to researchers at John Hopkins School of Public Health.
In the veteran population the problem is acute; in its 2022 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Report, the Department of Veterans Affairs found that the suicide rate in 2020 was 57.3 % greater for veterans.
Guns are more commonly involved among veteran suicides, at 71%, than the rest of the population, at 50.3%, according to the CDC.
Soon after his first buddy chose to drop off his guns with Morse, another veteran came by to do the same, telling Morse that he was “in a bad spot.”
Morse, who had similarly been very depressed after returning from Iraq, accepted the vet’s gun and decided to set up a system to hold and track guns being left for storage by troubled vets in his store’s inventory, telling them to pick up their firearms when they felt better.
Within a year, other veterans dropped off guns “about a dozen times,” CBS reported. Since then, he has stored about 100 firearms.
Soon after the second vet asked for gun storage, Morse was contacted by Gala True, an associate professor at Louisiana State University School of Medicine who specializes in efforts to prevent veteran suicides.
According to CBS, she met with Morse in 2021 to work on a project she was coordinating with gun store owners who wanted to store firearm storage for those in crisis who, for a time, didn’t want their firearms in their homes.
The Armory Project was launched in Louisiana that same year with three different gun shop owners interested in providing storage for firearms.
Through a Veterans Administration (VA) grant, True and her team helped the gun dealers build local networks and partnerships.
Mike Anestis, a suicide prevention expert, professor at Rutgers University, and Executive director of the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center and a professor at Rutgers University, said that in a country with roughly 400 million guns, the solution can’t be about banning firearms or stopping people from buying them.
And Anestis is absolutely correct. Voluntary outside storage, like preventing drunk driving by “taking away the car keys,” is a far better solution for preventing suicide by gunshot, than bans that violate our 2nd Amendment rights.
However, storing guns as part of a gun store’s inventory can cause liability issues.
So, as CBS reported, in July 2023 the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) got involved (in a good way this time). It issued an open letter to Federal Firearms Licensees (FFL) and gun shops advising how to legally and safely store firearms for these individuals.
Providing gun storage lockers at the gun store that individuals can open themselves and put their firearms inside, is one option.
As the ATF letter states: “In this situation, an FFL does not “receive “or “acquire ” the firearm into its inventory, nor does the FFL assume control of the individual’s firearm.” This can reduce liability for gun shop owners like Morse, who want to provide outside storage for others in need.
This is a great idea, and a great story. Look up The Armory Project and see if you can help with the effort in your state, city, or locality.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse with Joe Biden, he goes and has a chummy sideline meeting with China’s communist leader-for-life, Xi Jinping, at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia.
While his partisan spinmeisters in the media dutifully reported the White House line that Biden was firm with Xi, the three-and-a-half-hour private meeting was muddled, absurdly naïve and dangerous.
At the summit, Biden stated that the U.S. aims to manage competition with China “responsibly” and that there is no need for a new Cold War.
Biden also strongly and foolishly reaffirmed China’s ‘One China’ policy regarding Taiwan, adding (against warnings from NATO and his own national security officials) that he didn’t foresee any Chinese military action against Taiwan any time soon.
Fox News reported Biden said during a press conference ahead of the G20 summit in Bali:
“[Xi] was clear and I was clear that we’ll defend American interests and values, promote universal human rights and stand up for the international order and work in lockstep with our allies and partners…”
“We’re going to compete vigorously but I’m not looking for conflict. I’m looking to manage this competition responsibly,” Biden said. “And I want to make sure that every country abides by the international rules of the road. We discussed that.”
Biden’s messaging was clear in one area though.
He believes climate change is more of a threat than a revisionist, expansionist, power-hungry, communist dictatorship with an economy almost the size of the U.S.
And Biden is willing to risk America’s sovereignty, independence, security and freedom to get China’s faux help with his extreme climate agenda.
GOP Senator Marco Rubio of Florida was rightfully livid over Biden’s meeting and statements.
Rubio said in a statement:
President Biden’s claim that ‘there need not be a new Cold War’ between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party proves that this administration dangerously misunderstands the CCP, which openly pushes for conflict with the United States and its allies…
Last week, while Xi appeared in a military uniform and called on the People’s Liberation Army [PLA] to prepare for war, Biden’s Department of Defense pulled an entire squadron of American fighter jets out of the Indo-Pacific. Not only is the United States unprepared to defend Taiwan against a PLA invasion, President Biden is now downplaying its likelihood.
This meeting should have held the CCP accountable for its rampant human rights abuses, ongoing theft of American intellectual property, and its refusal to investigate the origins of COVID-19.
Rubio added: “Instead, President Biden demonstrated that he is willing to sacrifice everything — including our national security and the security of our allies — for the sake of pursuing ill-fated climate talks with our nation’s greatest adversary.”
Former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen told Fox News on Monday that Biden’s diplomacy with China is “strategic insanity” that may only help the autocratic communist state accumulate power and global influence.
Fox News adds that “Biden reportedly has been pressuring China to essentially join him in his Green New Deal-style vision of non-petroleum power sources, which Thiessen said is one of the key areas the United States can apply pressure to Beijing if they invade their peaceable neighbor Taiwan.”
“The last thing we want China to do, quite frankly, is to start weaning itself off of oil,” Thiessen said.
“If they follow Biden’s advice and wean themselves off of oil and start embracing clean energy, we lose that leverage,” Thiessen said.
“So, you know, it’s not only a sign of weakness, it’s strategic insanity.”
As I recently reported, Xi has been increasingly adamant that so-called ‘reunification’ with Taiwan can no longer wait and China will use force if necessary to control the independent democratic nation.
Top U.S. commanders and senior intelligence officials have warned that China could take forceful action against Taiwan as early as next year, and increasingly likely by 2025 or 2027, at the latest.
Meanwhile, Biden is playing footsies with Xi, hoping China will join his radical green global agenda.
Because that is all he, and his leftist puppeteers, care about. GAND
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – Yes, this was election interference. Under the guise of combating ‘misinformation’ the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) led the effort that colluded with major universities and Big Tech to censor free speech leading up to the 2020 election.
As House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Monday, according to Newsmax: “This pressure was largely directed in a way that benefited one side of the political aisle: true information posted by Republicans and conservatives was labeled as ‘misinformation’ while false information posted by Democrats and liberals was largely unreported and untouched by the censors.”
How did they do this?
An interim staff report by the House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government explained that DHS, so-called disinformation “experts” at universities, Big Tech and others colluded through the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) to monitor and censor Americans’ online speech during the 2020 election.
“The federal government and universities pressured social media companies to censor true information, jokes and political opinions.”
Among the DHS targets was Newsmax, according to a summary of the report, titled “The Weaponization of ‘Disinformation’ Pseudo-experts and Bureaucrats: How the Federal Government Partnered with Universities to Censor Americans’ Free Speech.”
Newsmax reported: “The report revealed how the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Global Engagement Center (GEC) within the State Department coordinated with Stanford University and other entities to create the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) to censor Americans’ speech in the lead-up to the election.”
In a post on X, Jordan wrote, “according to one EIP member, the EIP was created ‘at the request of CISA.’ The head of the EIP also said that EIP was created after ‘working on some monitoring ideas with CISA.'”
Newsmax added:
It [the report] outlines how the EIP was created in the summer of 2020 to provide a way for the federal government “to launder its censorship activities in hopes of bypassing the First Amendment and public scrutiny.”
“The EIP targeted Americans across the political spectrum, but especially conservatives,” according to the report’s summary.
The House committee found that EIP, using Stanford, encouraged social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter, now known as X, to declare conservative news as “misinformation.”
Newsmax continued: “ EIP used a tactic known as “switchboarding” to refer to removal requests from state and local officials to Facebook, X and other social media sites, the New York Post reported Monday…the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana ruled in September federal officials colluded with Big Tech social media platforms to suppress speech.”
And they didn’t just censor everyday Americans, they also targeted Republican politicians ranging from former President Donald Trump, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., to former Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
Among the media, the report noted, in addition to Newsmax, this corrupt political effort targeted conservative commentators such as Candace Owens, Charlie Kirk, Michelle Malkin and Mollie Hemingway, and “an untold number of everyday Americans of all political affiliations.”
As an added note, I was permanently banned from LinkedIn, where I had a growing following in the tens of thousands, back in 2022.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
Former President Donald Trump is right: There’s no reason he should sign a GOP loyalty oath in order to participate in the candidates’ debates.
Such oaths, which the Republican National Committee employed in the 2016 presidential primary – only to see the last remaining candidates, including Trump, abandon it – aren’t just signs of a party’s weakness; they are also profoundly silly and even un-American.
Yes, we swear plenty of legally enforceable oaths – in court cases, for example, or declarations on tax forms and other legal documents. But oaths binding candidates to support someone who they’ve campaigned against, throwing elbows, mud and other rhetorical barbs at them for months to convince voters the guy was a bum?
I’ll defer to what Sen. Ted Cruz said of such an oath back in the 2016 presidential primary:
Cruz has dodged the question of whether the pledge still holds by insisting he will be the nominee. Though on Friday, in an apparent reference to Trump, Cruz said, “I don’t make a habit out of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my family.”
We all know that Cruz eventually did support Trump’s candidacy and became one of his biggest defenders in the Senate (which was amusing).
But the oath? Nah. The 2016 primary should have been instructive to party leaders that such commitments are transactional at best and unenforceable in fact. Which brings us to the state parties.
They have been long-time players in loyalty oaths, often attempting to bind voters to the party’s eventual nominees. While such pledges are even sillier and utterly unenforceable, that hasn’t stopped new ones from cropping up this year. Consider the case of Florida‘s pledge:
Christian Ziegler, the chairman of the Florida GOP, said in an email that the loyalty pledge is an effort to “ensure maximum unity” headed into the 2024 general election.
“The days of outlier party grifters – such as Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger – using Republican Party resources to secure a title and then weaponize that title against our own team must end,” Ziegler said, referring to two former House members, who are among Trump’s most vocal GOP critics.
“Contested primaries are part of the process,” he said, “but we must always remember that the Democrats are the true threat to the America we love and we must be unified to defeat every single one of them.”
The true threat to America is noxious oaths that bind us to men rather than pledges or oaths that bind individuals to uphold the law or tell the truth.
You know, like the only oath that should ever matter for a presidential candidate: the one the Constitution requires:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Every other partisan oath is legally dubious, intellectually suspect and, in the end, not worth the paper it’s printed on.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Great America News Desk. It first appeared in American Liberty News.
This is a new low.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has had enough of Trump’s insults and the gloves are coming off.
watch Amanda explain the situation below:
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
Within weeks of President Joe Biden’s announcement he is seeking re-election in 2024, his job approval ratings have cratered to a new low.
The latest Gallup poll finds only 37 percent of Americans approve of the job Biden is doing, the lowest number yet recorded for him.
“Biden’s latest approval rating is from an April 3-25 Gallup poll, which was completed the day he announced he will seek reelection, and marks a three-point dip from March and a five-point drop from February,” Gallup notes.
“Biden’s job approval has been in the low 40 percent range for most of the past 19 months, apart from the current reading and a 38 percent score last July,” Gallup adds.
Other than Ronald Reagan, no president has ever been re-elected with approval below 40 percent at this point in his first term.
Both Jimmy Carter and Donald Trump, who lost their re-election bids, had slightly higher approval at just over 40 percent.
In addition to widespread doubt Biden can physically and mentally handle a second term, Gallup finds Americans are unhappy with inflation under Biden.
“The drop in Biden’s job approval corresponds with Americans’ worsening evaluations of the U.S. economy. Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index for April is -44, down from -38 in March. It was last at this level in October,” Gallup reports.
“19 percent say the economy is getting better and 75 percent worse, compared with ratings of 23 percent and 72 percent, respectively, in March,” Gallup’s polling finds.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
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.
