Like it or not Donald Trump is still popular…
The 2024 Republican frontrunner recently attended a UFC fight and the night’s events were interesting, to say the least.
Watch Amanda explain the situation below:
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ALERT – In what appears to be an idiotic attempt to supposedly kill Joe Biden, a 19-year-old man repeatedly rammed a U-Haul truck into the barriers around the White House at Lafayette Park on Monday night.
To be clear these barriers (or bollards) are designed to stop large vehicles and are a substantial distance from the White House perimeter fence.
There was no mention of explosives or other dangerous materials aboard the truck. Had there been this would be an entirely different story.
Still, the incident prompted the evacuation at The Hay-Adams Hotel on the 800 block of 16th Street.
The driver, Sai Varshith Kandula of Chesterfield, Missouri has reportedly been arrested and charged with multiple crimes, including threatening to kill, kidnap, or inflict harm on the president, vice president or family member.
He was also charged with assault with a dangerous weapon and reckless operation of a motor vehicle.
A man who said he was walking home from his run on the mall videotaped a driver in a U-Haul truck repeatedly ram the barricade at Lafayette Park near the White House.
“I decided it was time to get the hell out of there” he says
See the video below.
According to a United States Park Police statement, the driver “intentionally crashed into the bollards on the outside of Lafayette Park.”
Ya, that looks about right.
The Secret Service spokesman also tweeted:
Shortly before 10:00 p.m. Monday, Secret Service Uniformed Division officers detained the driver of a box truck after the vehicle collided with security barriers on the north side of Lafayette Square on 16th Street. There were no injuries to any Secret Service or White House personnel and the cause and manner of the crash remain under investigation.
Seems to me that the cause and manner of the crash are pretty obvious – the guy kept trying to ram through the barricades.
In a follow-up tweet, the spokesman said: “Charges will be filed by the United States Park Police with investigative support from the #SecretService.”
In the photo below the truck can be seen more clearly after the driver was secured and removed. The bollards can also be more clearly seen.
Meanwhile, is that a swastika flag on the pavement at the police officer’s feet?
The location of the crash is noteworthy since it lies at the south end of 16th St where it is now known as Black Lives Matter (BLM) square. Fox 5 reported:
Had the barriers been breached, two fences providing additional layers of security would have been in-between the driver and the White House. Lafayette Square has long been one of the nation’s most prominent venues for demonstration near the Executive Mansion. The park was closed for nearly a year after federal authorities fenced off the area at the height of nationwide protests over policing following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, but it reopened in May 2021.
What the news outlet doesn’t say is that during those violent BLM riots at Lafayette Park in 2020 numerous officers were injured, cars and property burned, and the thin blue line of police at the park between the rioters and White House fence were almost overrun.
During the height of the rioting on May 31st, President Trump was also briefly rushed to the underground bunker by the Secret Service.
These barriers are designed to stop vehicles, not mobs of angry rioters.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – While the establishment media has tried to spin France’s recent wave of rioting as a response to unfair or racist French policing, like the Black Lives Matter (BLM) riots of 2020 in the United States, they really aren’t.
For both, that is only the pretext. But they are very similar in other ways.
As I wrote before, both were about much more. In the case of BLM, it was part of a bigger far-left agenda.
In the case of France, it is an uprising of racial, cultural and religious resentment with Islamist overtones.
Both also caused substantial physical damage ($1-2 billion) and injured many hundreds of police.
The damages and injuries to police from the BLM riots across multiple cities in the U.S. were larger and spread over a few months.
In France, the first protests occurred in Nanterre, but then spread to other towns and cities, including Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Strasbourg and Lille.
And in France, they only lasted about a week. France is also smaller in terms of population and its economy. So, overall, the impact was greater, and impossible to downplay as it was in the United States.
The response to the rioting though has been very different in each country.
The damage following a week of violence in France is expected to cost more than $1.1 billion, excluding damage to public buildings.
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has promised support as thousands of insurance claims pour in. Insurers have received 5,900-plus claims worth some $305 million, according to the chair of the insurance industry lobby group ‘France Assureurs.’
Rioters lit an estimated 23,000 fires and damaged 273 buildings belonging to the security forces, along with 168 schools and 105 mayor’s offices. In total, more than 1,100 buildings and 5,850 vehicles have been damaged or destroyed.
More than 800 French law enforcement officers have been injured.
According to Fortune, “The videos of the riots that circulated around the world hurt the image of France,” Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, the outgoing head of the French employers’ lobby Medef, told Le Parisien newspaper.
“It’s always difficult to say if the impact will be long lasting, but there will certainly be a drop in reservations this summer.”
France’s Interior updated senators on the destruction carried out by primarily teenage mobs in ‘multi-ethnic’ areas of French cities. He said about 90 per cent of the 3,502 people arrested during the riots were French nationals.
That doesn’t change the racial or demographic facts that most of the rioters were young Muslims of Arab and North African descent. They were born in France as part of the most recent immigration wave.
The average age of the French rioters was 17.
“What’s happening there is the consequence of a failure to integrate the country’s Muslim immigrant population,” Alan Mendoza, co-founder and executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, told Fox News Digital.
President Macron sparked controversy on Wednesday by suggesting social media could be “cut off” if “things get out of control,” according to media reports.
Macron singled out platforms like Snapchat, TikTok and encrypted messenger Telegram for their role in helping organize and spread images of the violence.
Fox News reported:
Macron has provided a mixed response to the crisis, initially describing the shooting as “inexplicable” and “unforgivable” but then decrying the protests and blaming everything from social media to video games for the increasing violence.
Macron argued that social media platforms, including TikTok, Snapchat and others, helped fuel the riots, especially after the personal information of the officer who shot Nahel ended up circulating on the platforms. He said his government would work with social media sites to take down “the most sensitive content” and identify users who “call for disorder or exacerbate the violence.” Macron also denied there was systemic racism within the country’s law enforcement services.
Meanwhile, as I wrote last August, in a few months in the United States, the BLM riots caused $2 billion in damages and injured 2,000 police officers nationwide. 19 people were killed during just 14 days of BLM rioting – none by police.
The killing of police officers nationwide, though, surged 28% in 2020 during the BLM riots and protests.
Unlike the muted judicial response to BLM rioters, France’s Justice Minister issued an order on Friday that demanded a “ strong, firm and systematic” judicial response.
And unlike the United States, where President Donald Trump was attacked and vilified for trying to send federal officers to quell the violence – in France, Macron eventually deployed 45,000 officers and armored vehicles to control the riots.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – Just months after the Department of Justice (DoJ) opened an investigation on her for posting leaked Pentagon intelligence on Ukraine, a US Navy veteran-turned-pro-Russian propagandist is back online.
Sarah Bils, a divorced 38-year-old New Jersey native, and former Navy technician, was unmasked in April after falsely posing as a Russian Jew reporting from occupied Ukraine. And deplatformed shortly thereafter by X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube.
But the attractive Bils, who had a security clearance while in the Navy, is back online on both platforms, as well as Telegram, spewing anti-American and pro-Putin propaganda under the name ‘DD Geopolitics.’
She has repeatedly posted since the relaunch faithfully parroting the Kremlin line. Bils has also encouraged followers to donate to the Russian army and the brutal Wagner Group mercenaries.
In a bizarre rant on September 4, she lashed out at the United States, blaming it for ‘constant meddling’ and provoking the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Pekka Kallioniemi, an expert on Russian disinformation at the University of Tampere in Finland, questioned how Bils was able to restart her pro-Kremlin operations so soon after the opening of that DOJ probe.
‘I find it surprising that the FBI appears to be turning a blind eye to the online activities of people who are clearly working on behalf of America’s enemies,’ he said.
Well, it is called freedom of speech, and as we have seen under the Joe Biden regime, one person’s disinformation is another’s strongly held political convictions.
The best way to combat false information in a free society is with truth, not government or social media censorship.
Meanwhile, as the Daily Mail reported:
It comes after a ten-month investigation into her online activities by volunteers from the pro-Kyiv open-source intelligence group, ‘The UnIntelligence Agency.’
She has already garnered more than 200,000 followers across X – formerly known as Twitter – YouTube, and the social media messaging platform, Telegram, which draws in a wide range of guests.
They include Moscow’s envoy to the UN and Alexander Dugin, a far-right political philosopher, described as the Russian president’s ‘brain’ on foreign policy.
‘Donbass Devuskha hasn’t pulled a disappearing act, she’s just had a fabulous makeover,’ Bils wrote earlier this summer.
Bils began her rise as the preeminent English-language pro-Russian disinformation queen just eight months before she was demoted and discharged from the Navy in November 2022. She had been serving since 2009.
While the Navy hasn’t provided reasons for her demotion and discharge, divorce papers filed in the state of Washington show that prior to her discharge she had been suffering from a variety of health problems.
Still, many suspect that her pro-Russia postings, and possible connections to Jack Teixera, the ex-U.S. Air National Guardsman who leaked a treasure trove of highly classified materials online, were related to her being demoted and dumped from the Navy.
Soon thereafter, DoJ opened an investigation into Bils earlier this year when she distributed stolen, classified documents about U.S. arms deliveries to Ukraine.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
A congressional committee is now investigating allegations that the Biden White House tried to sway a major workplace unionization vote in favor of the United Auto Workers union bosses.
U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) “probed senior Biden administration officials for their attempts to sway the outcome of a Mercedes-Benz unionization election,” the Committee announced in a statement
“In a letter to Jake Sullivan, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, Chairwoman Foxx is demanding information regarding the Biden administration’s attempts to influence the outcome of a unionization vote at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Alabama, as voting was underway,” the statement reads.
The UAW is a major donor and political supporter of Democrats, spending a reported total of $22.64 million on politics in the 2020 election cycle, according to OpenSecrets.
“On May 17, Mercedes-Benz employees at a plant in Vance, Alabama, voted not to join the United Auto Workers (UAW). In this election, 56 percent of the workers cast their ballots against UAW membership, with more than 90 percent of eligible workers voting in the election. Simultaneously, the UAW became the first U.S. union to file charges using a new German supply chain law. The Committee on Education and the Workforce (Committee) is concerned about recent reports of unusual and inappropriate communications between you and German government officials in what appears to be an attempt to impact the outcome of this election,” Foxx writes in in the letter.
“On May 6, a news report stated that U.S. government officials had a phone call with German government officials and raised concerns over the Mercedes-Benz representation election in Alabama. … A later report regarding the call also indicated that you prodded Germany to examine the UAW’s allegations against Mercedes-Benz at the direct request of UAW President Shawn Fain. On May 16, the UAW announced that the German government was investigating Mercedes-Benz as a result of charges filed by the UAW in Germany. … It appears the Biden administration, through your actions, sought to put its thumb on the scale to benefit the UAW as the Mercedes-Benz election in Alabama was pending,” Fox continues, adding “It also suggests the UAW sought to use your influence and the White House’s bully pulpit to impact a union representation election.”
Foxx asked the White House for answers to the following questions:
Did you raise concerns with German government officials over the Mercedes-Benz representation election in Vance, Alabama, at the request of the UAW?
In your call with German government officials, did you or any other White House official ask Germany to initiate an investigation of Mercedes-Benz before the Mercedes-Benz union representation election in Alabama concluded?
Was the purpose of the call with German government officials to discuss the Mercedes-Benz union representation election in Alabama? Were other labor issues or representation elections discussed?
When did the call with German government officials take place? Provide any White House call logs related to this call.
Did you discuss your call with German government officials with any employees of the Department of Labor or the NLRB? If so, who?
Is a local union representation election a national security issue? Why is a local union representation election occupying the time of the U.S. National Security Advisor?
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
A group of United States senators and representatives are demanding answers after United States military servicemembers received anti-terrorism training that included instructions to consider pro-life Americans as potential terrorists.
It is unclear why the military would be training for combat against Americans on American soil.
Senators James Lankford (R-OK) and Ted Budd (R-NC), along with Representative Richard Hudson (R-NC) and their colleagues, “sent a letter to Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth demanding answers after an anti-terrorism training conducted at Fort Liberty, North Carolina depicted Pro-Life Americans as terrorists,” Lankford’s office reports.
“We write regarding social media reports that anti-terrorism training conducted at Ft. Liberty, North Carolina depicts Pro-Life Americans as terrorists. Specifically, the slides identify National Right to Life, ‘Choose Life’ license plate holders, and anyone who opposes the Supreme Court’s rightfully overturned decision in Roe v. Wade, which was rightfully overturned by the Supreme Court, as members of terrorist groups. Smearing Pro-Life Americans is despicable and emblematic of the ongoing politicization of the military under the Biden-Harris Administration,” the Members wrote.
The National Right to Life Committee is a peaceful mainstream conservative organization. The training did not mention pro-abortion groups such as “Jane’s Revenge,” which have been engaged in a nationwide campaign of domestic terrorist attacks on pregnancy centers and Catholic churches.
“It is no wonder that the Army is struggling to recruit young men and women to join its ranks when it appears the service attacks their values and promotes a woke agenda rather than improving readiness and lethality…The American people deserve to be assured that these slides truly do not reflect the Army’s views, that a full investigation will be conducted, and that any offending employees will be properly held accountable. Finally, we must be assured that similar materials are not being utilized at other installations across the Army,” the Members continued.
Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC), John Barrasso (R-WY), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Steve Daines (R-MT), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Todd Young (R-IN), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Eric Schmitt (R-MO), Mike Braun (R-IN), Jim Risch (R-ID), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Mike Crapo (R-ID), and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) also signed the letter.
The letter is supported by Catholic Vote, National Right to Life Committee, Family Research Council, Americans United for Life, Concerned Women for America, Students for Life Action, SBA Pro-Life America, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, and ACLJ Action.
The letter reads:
Dear Secretary Wormuth,
We write regarding social media reports that anti-terrorism training conducted at Ft. Liberty, North Carolina depicts Pro-Life Americans as terrorists. Specifically, the slides identify National Right to Life, “Choose Life” license plate holders, and anyone who opposes the Supreme Court’s rightfully overturned decision in Roe v. Wade,which was rightfully overturned by the Supreme Court, as members of terrorist groups. Smearing Pro-Life Americans is despicable and emblematic of the ongoing politicization of the military under the Biden-Harris Administration.
The American public expects the Department of Defense and its personnel to defend the homeland from actual terrorists, not Americans who seek protections for children in the womb. Labeling Pro-Life organizations as threats challenges servicemembers’ moral obligation to defend and protect even the smallest among us. In fact, around half of all Americans identify as Pro-Life. It is no wonder that the Army is struggling to recruit young men and women to join its ranks when it appears the service attacks their values and promotes a woke agenda rather than improving readiness and lethality.
We understand that the anti-terrorism slide was in fact briefed to a group of soldiers as recently as July 10th. What is unclear is how long these slides have been utilized at Ft. Liberty and whether similar briefings have been used at other installations. We also understand from a statement released by Ft. Liberty that these slides were not vetted by appropriate approval authorities.
While Ft. Liberty’s statement asserts that the slides “do not reflect the views of the … US Army or the Department of Defense”, the American people are rightfully concerned that training of this kind is being disseminated in the first place and possibly at other military installations. The American people deserve to be assured that these slides truly do not reflect the Army’s views, that a full investigation will be conducted, and that any offending employees will be properly held accountable. Finally, we must be assured that similar materials are not being utilized at other installations across the Army.
Therefore, we request responses to the following questions no later than July 29, 2024:
Is it official Army policy to identify Pro-Life Americans and Pro-Life Organizations as “terrorist groups”?
How long have these slides been briefed to soldiers and how many soldiers have been briefed with these slides?
What is the current process by which the Army reviews anti-terrorism training materials disseminated on Army bases?
Who are the appropriate approval authorities charged with vetting training materials disseminated to soldiers across the Army?
What action is the Army taking to investigate the distribution of training materials depicting Pro-Life Americans as terrorists?
What statutes or Army regulations were potentially violated and what action is the Army taking with regard to any offending employee?
Will you commit to an installation-by-installation review to ensure that these or similar materials are not being disseminated elsewhere and that Army anti-terrorism training aligns with DoD anti-terrorism standard guidance and training?
Will you commit, in writing, that these slides will no longer be used and all future training materials reviewed will align with current DoD anti-terrorism guidance?
We look forward to your prompt attention and response.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – The original interview Tucker Carlson did with former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund about the Capitol Riot never aired on Fox News because Tucker was fired just before. Still, a lot about that interview has leaked.
I wrote about some of Sund’s claims earlier in August.
In that piece, I note that the Jan 6 riot was not a false flag operation, and most of the rioters were confirmed Trump supporters. However, in many ways, it was allowed to happen.
But to put the entire thing on the record, Carlson did the interview again – and posted it to X, formerly known as Twitter. And it is damning to those Democrats who benefited from the Capitol Riot.
Much of what Sund has said coincides with or dovetails with facts I have written about previously, especially how the Sergeant at Arms for both the House under Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate under Democrat Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, both declined National Guard support until it was too late.
The same occurred with the Democrat Mayor of Washington, DC, Muriel Bowser who specifically stated that troops not be deployed unless the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) approved.
She added that she believed her police department was “well trained and prepared to lead the way” to ensure Jan. 6 unfolded safely. They weren’t. And they didn’t.
This despite President Donald Trump offering the National Guard to them more than once.
*(Note that the graphic above is incorrect in one detail – Officer Brian Sicknick was NOT killed defending the Capitol. He died later of natural causes (a stroke) unrelated to the riot.)
In the case of Pelosi, Carlson is direct: “So this is an event that Pelosi herself has likened to Pearl Harbor and 9/11 — you know, the worst thing that’s ever happened on American soil — and she’s in charge of allowing the National Guard to come in and respond but she doesn’t for 71 minutes? What is that?”
But Sund adds more details and perspective to the event that makes the lead up even more damning for the Democrats.
The Blaze reported:
In the interview, Sund indicated critical intelligence pertaining to possible threats ahead of the Jan. 6 protest was withheld from the Capitol Police and that the absence of such intelligence was cited by the congressional sergeants at arms — who were reporting to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at the time — as cause not to reinforce the Capitol in advance with the National Guard and federal assets.
However, the outlet added the former Chief now understands that the intelligence was there. It just wasn’t provided to his department:
According to the former chief, “We now know FBI [and] DHS was swimming in that intelligence. We also know now that the military seemed to have some very concerning intelligence as well,” adding that the FBI field office in Washington and other outfits “didn’t put out a single official document specific to January 6. That’s very unusual.”
During a conference call on Jan. 5, 2021, with the leaders of the Metropolitan Police Department and the FBI Washington field office along with National Guard, military officials, and others, “not one person on that call talked about any concerns from the intelligence … that was out there.”
“This was handled differently. … It’s almost like they wanted it to be watered down, the intelligence to be watered down for some reason,” said Sund. “It wasn’t right the way the intelligence was handled and the way we were set up on the Hill.”
The question is – did these federal security agencies make the decisions not to forward this intelligence on their own, or where they told not to send it?
In the interview, Sund noted that then-acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley had “both discussed locking down the city of Washington, D.C., because they were so worried about violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6.”
Sund added: “On Sunday and Monday, they had been discussing locking down the city, revoking permits on Capitol hill because of the concern for violence.”
He continued: “You know who issues the permits on Capitol Hill for demonstrations? I do. You know who wasn’t told? Me.”
This deserves much more investigation. The Jan 6 Committee was a partisan circus and designed only to blame Trump.
I have argued that the Pentagon leadership was extremely wary of bringing in the National Guard or any federal assets to DC due to the extreme overreaction by Democrats over Trump sending federal officers to quell riots in Portland a few months earlier.
Democrats also were apoplectic with rage at Trump’s actions to stop violent rioters outside the White House on June 1st.
There was also the incessant talk in the media about Trump using the military for a ‘coup,’ which Miller has stated as a constraint several times. These all remain valid explanations for the Pentagon’s preferred inaction.
And maybe for the Mayor’s decision to initially reject Guard troops.
But what about Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer? What did they know and when did they know it? And why did they veto reinforcing the Capitol till the chaos had already begun?
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – We have recently heard a lot about UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) and the newer UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena).
The Pentagon has even weighed in on their myriad interactions with military pilots and astronauts.
Some analysts have concluded many of these UAP sightings are simply aerial or space debris.
While enemy spy aircraft account for many of the incidents as well.
In that vein, experts and lawmakers are now raising the alarm over what are likely large numbers of Chinese Communist (Chicom) drones on spy missions over DC.
This more down-to-earth threat needs to be addressed quickly and forcibly.
POLITICO reports:
Hundreds of Chinese-manufactured drones have been detected in restricted airspace over Washington, D.C., in recent months, a trend that national security agencies fear could become a new means for foreign espionage.
The recreational drones made by Chinese company DJI, which are designed with “geofencing” restrictions to keep them out of sensitive locations, are being manipulated by users with simple workarounds to fly over no-go zones around the nation’s capital.
…officials say they do not believe the swarms are directed by the Chinese government. Yet the violations by users mark a new turn in the proliferation of relatively cheap but increasingly sophisticated drones that can be used for recreation and commerce.
Still, lawmakers are concerned.
…DJI has secured funding from investment entities owned by the Chinese government — a fact that DJI reportedly sought to conceal. And the ease with which recreational users can evade the flight restrictions means that their high-definition cameras or other sensors could also be hacked into for intelligence-gathering.
POLITICO adds:
“Any technological product with origins in China or Chinese companies holds a real risk and potential of vulnerability that can be exploited both now and in a time of conflict,” Sen. Marco Rubio, vice chair of the Intelligence Committee, said in an interview about the potential threats posed by foreign-made drones. “They’re manufactured in China or manufactured by a Chinese company, but they’ll put a sticker on it of some non-Chinese company that repackages it so you don’t even know that you’re buying it.
And the highly restricted airspace above DC is a prime drone target.
POLITICO continue:
…data recently shared with Congress highlights more than 100 incursions in a recent 45-day period but the sources requested that specific numbers, locations and frequency not be published for security reasons.
But it’s not just potential spying.
FBI Director Christopher Wray recently warned that the Bureau has seen within the U.S., attempts to weaponize drones with homemade [improvised explosive devices].”
So, what can be done?
In February, GOP U.S. Senator Marco Rubio introduced legislation to add DJI to a Federal Communications Commission list designating it as a national security threat.
This would restrict DJI drones’ ability to link to U.S. telecommunications systems.
This measure was adopted after it was reported that the company sought to conceal its funding by the Chinese government.
Unfortunately, the bill has been stalled and hasn’t gone anywhere in Congress.
It’s time to implement this bill and turn it into law.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – Tucker Carlson’s misguided attempt to use cherry-picked moments of the newly released video of Jan. 6 to argue that nothing bad happened at the Capitol that day, is horribly timed and very dumb.
As I wrote the day after I personally observed events at the Capitol that day, January 6 was neither a deadly coup, insurrection nor peaceful guided tours of the Capitol.
It was a mixture of some of those things, none of those things, and everything in between.
And Tucker would have been far more effective, and credible had he used the video to show that the Left’s Jan. 6 narrative was incomplete, distorted, and totally one-sided, rather than trying to say it was totally false.
Because the truth is that Jan 6 was like the story of the blind men and the elephant, each one grasping one part of the animal, like the leg, tail, or trunk, and describing the giant beast as something totally different.
On Jan. 6 what began as a massive peaceful rally of tens of thousands of pro-Trump protesters, soon degraded when smaller elements (a few hundred) of the much larger peaceful crowd broke off and did conduct a violent attack on parts of the Capitol.
Hundreds more just stupidly followed the initial ‘attack mob’ inside.
In the first group, some had military training, used stack formations, and were very organized and intent on forcefully breaching the building.
While none were found with, or used firearms, during the riot, there was violence with sticks, flagpoles, and pepper spray.
I called these violent rioters, thugs, and criminals.
They were similar to the violent BLM rioters who had violently attacked police at the White House in the summer of 2020 or besieged the Portland Federal Courthouse for months.
On Jan. 6 police officers were similarly attacked and beaten, and the Capitol was ultimately breached unlawfully.
Inside, one non-violent protester, Ashley Babbitt, an Air Force security forces veteran, was shot by a Capitol Police Officer. Likely, unjustly.
She was the only person killed during the riot.
All this occurred in the span of just a few hours.
But the Capitol complex is massive, and what was happening violently on one end was not being replicated at other parts of the Capitol.
As much of the Tucker video showed truthfully, in many places and entrances, Capitol Police had allowed protesters inside, in some cases escorted them around.
In other cases, the police simply stood by as the ‘tourist’ protesters milled around and took selfies or acted stupidly.
Still, ever since then, there has been a profound narrative battle pitting those fanatics on the right who said nothing at all happened and the fanatics on the left who claim Jan. 6 was worse than Pearl Harbor or 9/11, and an insurrection that risked the essence of American democracy.
Sadly, neither side is correct, but only the most extreme one-sided ‘insurrection’ narrative was put forward by the left and last Congress’ Democratic-run Jan. 6 committee, and repeated daily by the partisan, anti-Trump media.
The insurrection narrative was pushed by cherry-picked videos and photos of the same short-lived Capitol violence from different views and angles, repeated in a nearly constant loop for the most distorted and dramatic effect possible.
But now Tucker has done the same.
Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger wrote in an internal message to officers that Carlson’s Monday night primetime program “conveniently cherry-picked from the calmer moments of our 41,000 hours of video” to incorrectly portray the violent assault as more akin to a peaceful protest. He added that Carlson’s “commentary fails to provide context about the chaos and violence that happened before or during these less tense moments.”
And many Republican leaders agreed.
The timing is also horrible.
As Politico reported:
“It’s definitely stupid to keep talking about this … So what is the purpose of continuing to bring it up unless you’re trying to feed Democrat narratives even further?” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) said in an interview, noting the videos didn’t show “anything we don’t already know.”
“I don’t really have a problem with making it all public. But if your message is then to try and convince people that nothing bad happened, then it’s just gonna make us look silly.”
So how should we view the events of the January 6 riot accurately and fairly?
Probably the best description was provided by Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) when he said he has “a hard time with all of it.”
He added that Jan. 6 “was not a peaceful protest. It was not an insurrection. It was a riot that should have never happened. And a lot of people share the blame for that. The truth is always messier than any narrative.”
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – Yes, Donald Trump took scores of highly classified materials to his home at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, but at least he didn’t stash them next to his old sports car in a garage.
Mar-a-Lago is also protected by the Secret Service.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden may be the only POTUS to own a very sweet, racing green, 1967 Chevy Corvette Stingray – TS/SCI Edition.
Who knows what’s in the glove compartment?
The latest find by government investigators has shown former Vice President Biden apparently took a second batch of highly classified materials after leaving office in 2017 and stashed them in his Delaware beach home’s garage.
The first batch found in a closet of a private office in DC Biden used relating to his shady relationship with the Penn Biden Center, including Top Secret/SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information) which requires extraordinary security measures to protect.
In fact, since they include intelligence sources and methods (people and processes) they must only be viewed, used, or discussed in a highly secure Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF).
As far as we know, Biden’s garage where he keeps his Corvette is not a SCIF.
But that didn’t keep Biden from arguing his garage was still somehow secure, because, well, it is locked.
In the White House’s South Court Auditorium, Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked the president, “Classified materials next to your Corvette? What were you thinking?”
“My Corvette’s in a locked garage, OK? So, it’s not like they’re sitting out on the street,” Biden responded.
“People know I take classified documents and classified materials seriously.”
Ummm… LOL.
Of course, you do, Joe. And we take you seriously as well.
Continuing the patterns denial and obfuscation, on Wednesday, Doocy, along with other White House correspondents, had a tense encounter with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about the classified documents.
“On these documents, how could anyone be that irresponsible?,” Doocy asks, reiterating Biden’s question about Donald Trump after boxes of classified documents were found in former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort last year.
Despite the barrage of intense questions about the documents over the past two days, Jean-Pierre has frustrated reporters by repeatedly dodging the questions.
The Blaze reported:
CBS anchors Errol Barnett and Lana Zak slammed Jean-Pierre for having “not answered a single question” about the discovery of the documents.
“For a second straight day now, the White House struggling to answer any questions related to classified documents discovered at locations associated with President Biden, citing Karine Jean-Pierre, the press secretary, simply reading a statement, where she says the president was surprised by the discovery, takes this matter very seriously, the documents were inadvertently misplaced, and he doesn’t know what’s in them,” Barnett began.
“She has not answered a single question outside of a prewritten statement by the president’s lawyers,” he said.
Thankfully, reporters are now directly questioning Team Biden’s narrative about being “transparent” and forthcoming about the classified documents.
One big question that also remains unanswered is why Biden failed until now, to disclose the finding of the first batch of his mishandled classified documents, which occurred not long after the unprecedented August FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, and only days before the 2022 midterm election in November.
Hopefully, many other unanswered questions, such as did Biden use any of this classified material while writing his 2017 book, “Promise Me, Dad,” will be addressed soon.
According to an order signed by the attorney general, Merrick Garland has appointed Robert K. Hur as special counsel, a veteran prosecutor, to examine “the possible unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or other records discovered” at Mr. Biden’s think tank in Washington and his residence in Wilmington, Del.
But this independent counsel should not preclude the media and the GOP-led House from continuing to push for the full truth on this issue.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
