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Chinese Drones May Be Spying All Over DC

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Ted Eytan from Washington, DC, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

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.

Amanda Head: Leftists On Twitter Meltdown Over Trump Account Reinstatement

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Twitter CEO Elon Musk has reinstated former President Donald Trump’s access to his infamous Twitter account which was notoriously blocked following the Jan. 6th Capitol riot.

While the former President has yet to make his re-entrance to the Twitter sphere, instead opting for his own TRUTH Social platform, the idea is enough to make liberals’ blood boil over.

Watch Amanda break down the situation below.

Judge Judy Labels Trump Hush Money Case ‘Nonsense’

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Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

A waste of time and taxpayer dollars…

“Judge Judy” Sheindlin called Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s (D) hush money case against former President Trump “nonsense” in a recent interview.

“You gotta twist yourself into a pretzel to figure out what the crime was. [Bragg] doesn’t like him — New York City didn’t like him for a while,” Sheindlin said of Trump in a “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?” interview streaming Friday on Max.

“I would be happier, as someone who owns property in Manhattan, if the district attorney of New York County would take care of criminals who were making it impossible for citizens to walk in the streets and use the subway, to use his efforts to keep those people off the street, than to spend $5 million or $10 million of taxpayers’ money trying Donald Trump on this nonsense,” the longtime TV judge told Wallace.

Watch:

“I, as a taxpayer in this country, resent using the system for your own personal self-aggrandizement,” the “Judy Justice” personality said of Bragg.

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Asked by the CNN anchor what she thought of Trump, the 81-year-old former Manhattan Family Court judge replied, “I think he was a good businessman, a real estate guy. And he was certainly terrific on ‘The Apprentice.’”

The celebrity judge’s comments come as the Manhattan DA seeks an extension of the restraining order against former President Donald Trump. (RELATED: Manhattan DA Seeks Extended Gag Order Against Trump Amid Death Threats To Bragg)

They argue that Trump’s public statements have increased tensions and led to threats against Bragg and his team before Trump’s July 11 sentencing.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office charged Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records as part of a hush-money scheme to prevent porn star Stormy Daniels from speaking out about her alleged extramarital affair before the 2016 presidential election.

Before Trump, no sitting or former president ever faced criminal charges. This is the lowest level felony in New York, any potential sentence will more than likely be served after the 2024 election.

As The New York Times reports:

The order, issued before Mr. Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial began in mid-April, bars him from attacking witnesses, jurors, court staff and relatives of the judge who presided over the trial, Juan M. Merchan.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers have sought to have the order lifted since Mr. Trump’s conviction in late May. But in a 19-page filing on Friday, prosecutors argued that while Justice Merchan no longer needed to enforce the portion of the gag order relating to trial witnesses, he should keep in place the provisions protecting jurors, prosecutors, court staff and their families.

Article Published With The Permission of American Liberty News

Amanda Head: Raise The Voting Age? This Poll Indicates Yes!

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Amanda Head

Could it be time to amend the U.S. Constitution?

Watch Amanda explain the situation below:

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

Democrat House Intel Committee Chief Pressured Twitter to Ban Journalists and Critics

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ANALYSIS – In the ‘yes, we were right all’ along category, it is crystal clear that leading Democrats politicos held enormous sway over the woke peons at Twitter, and still do at other Big Tech social media companies. 

And, in clear violation of the First Amendment, and press freedom, these top Democrats use that power to pressure these companies to suspend and ban journalists and critics alike.

In the latest bombshell drop from Musk’s Twitter Files we learn that by 2020, Twitter was inundated with requests and demands from elements of the government to censor various personalities and narratives.

The most egregious example is that of Adam Schiff, his position as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee gave him credibility to push false narratives, and then push Big Tech to censor any contrary views.

Significantly, Schiff’s office wanted Twitter to shut down one of the most effective journalists pushing back on his phony Russia collusion narrative.

Fox News reports:

Published Tuesday, the latest round of the Twitter Files – internal documents revealing how Twitter engaged in censorship and promoted disinformation in tandem with government agencies for the past few years – revealed that Schiff’s office asked Twitter to remove journalist Paul Sperry and others from the site. 

Taibbi, who published the Twitter Files post-by-post to Twitter at the behest of Musk, provided documentation showing that “the office for Democrat and House Intel Committee chief Adam Schiff” asked “Twitter to ban journalist Paul Sperry.”

The document Taibbi shared featured correspondence between the “House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee” – Schiff’s office – and Twitter, which included a request to “Suspend the many accounts, including @GregRubini and @paulsperry, which repeatedly promoted false QAnon conspiracies and harassed [REDACTED].”

In the article [Schiff wanted banned], Sperry said then-CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella was overheard talking in the White House with Sean Misko, a holdover staffer from former President Barack Obama’s administration.

A former official who reportedly heard the conversation told Sperry, “Just days after [Trump] was sworn in they were already trying to get rid of him.”

Paul Sperry is a senior staff writer for RealClearInvestigations and has also penned pieces for the New York Post, the Federalist, and other publications.

RealClearInvestigations senior writer Mark Hemingway tweeted, “Of course, Sperry’s real crime was doing vital reporting exposing the mistruths about Russia collusion, a subject Schiff lied about for years.”

The New York Post explained:

Sperry’s reporting clearly showed the partisan motives behind the leaks, and how they were partly manufactured partisan CIA hacks to bring down the former president.

Schiff’s outrageous demands and pressures were solely intended to crush that news from ever being seen.

Thankfully, not all the Twits at Twitter were as easy to manipulate as others. 

In response to the last Schiff request, another unidentified Twitter employee wrote, “no, this isn’t feasible/we don’t do that.”

But the fact that Schiff and other partisan Democrats succeeded many other times is the real issue. 

It’s also a good reason to have Schiff not only removed from the intelligence committee as the new GOP leadership intends, but to also remove him from Congress entirely for gross abuse of power and other ethical breaches.

FBI Finally Raids Communist China’s Illegal Police Outpost in NYC

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ANALYSIS – The fight against China’s growing global network of illegal police outposts has finally heated up here in the United States with the FBI raiding the large Chinese station in New York City (NYC).

This is the mission the FBI should be focused on, rather than raiding pro-life activists or colluding with Big Tech to censor Americans.

I’ve written about these extraterritorial Chinese police stations several times, highlighting the ones in NYC, as well as those in Canada and Europe.

Beijing says these outposts aren’t doing any police work, only helping Chinese citizens abroad, but Chinese state media reports that they in fact “collect intelligence” and solve crimes far outside their jurisdiction.

But they do far more than that. 

They are accused of conducting illegal surveillance on legal U.S. residents and citizens of Chinese extraction and intimidating, threatening, and coercing them.

In some cases, they have reportedly even kidnapped people outside of China.

According to the New York Times (NYT), the FBI raided the suspected Chinese police outpost, hidden in New York City’s Chinatown last fall, seizing materials from one of the secretive operations for the first time.

The Chinatown outpost was on the third floor of a six-story office building on a busy street. It was raided by FBI counterintelligence agents working on a criminal investigation with the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

Of course, as the NYT reports, the Chinese Embassy in Washington downplayed the outposts, claiming they are staffed by volunteers who help Chinese nationals perform routine tasks like renewing their Chinese driver’s licenses.

Despite the official Chinese denials, the NYT reports, “Western officials see the outposts as part of Beijing’s larger drive to keep tabs on Chinese nationals abroad, including dissidents. The most notorious such effort is known as Operation Fox Hunt, in which Chinese officials hunt down fugitives abroad and pressure them to return home.”

In October, prosecutors in Brooklyn — the same office that searched the New York office — charged seven Chinese nationals with harassing a U.S. resident and his son, pressuring the man to return to China to face criminal charges.

As reported by the NYT, “It’s outrageous that China thinks it can come to our shores, conduct illegal operations and bend people here in the United States to their will,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in 2020.

At least 102 such outposts have been documented in 53 countries in recent months by the human rights group Safeguard Defenders. Wray said in November that he’s “very concerned” about the outposts, which he called “police stations.”

“It’s a long-arm power to show their own citizens inside China that their government is so strong,” said Safeguard Defenders researcher Chen Yen-ting. “We have the power to reach globally, and even if you go out, you’re still under our control.”

These outposts are ostensibly set up by local Chinese municipalities or regions. At least four Chinese localities — Fuzhou, Qingtian, Nantong and Wenzhou — have reportedly set up dozens of foreign police outposts in Japan, Italy, France, Britain, Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and other nations.

These don’t include the ones in Canada and the U.S.

Let’s hope the FBI keeps up the pressure on illegal Chinese police activity in the U.S., and the State Department gets involved in controlling any Chinese entities and personnel it has allowed to enter and operate on U.S. soil.

Communist Chinese influence and subversion in the U.S. is the greatest domestic threat we face, not Americans exercising their constitutionally protected right to free speech.

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

IRS Whistleblower Testimony Could Derail Hunter Biden Plea Deal

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President Joe Biden hugs his family during the 59th Presidential Inauguration ceremony in Washington, Jan. 20, 2021. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took the oath of office on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol. (DOD Photo by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Carlos M. Vazquez II)

Stating that judges must take all testimony into account before deciding to accept a plea deal, one congressional leader is calling on U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to release testimony from two Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers alleging President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden was given preferential treatment by the agency and is being protected from the true consequences of his crimes.

Biden has pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges, as well as federal firearms charges, as part of a deal with federal prosecutors.  He awaits a July 26 plea hearing.

But U.S. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) is now calling on U Garland and U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware David Weiss to submit to court allegations from Gary Shapley, previously the supervisor of the investigation at the IRS, and a second anonymous whistleblower alleging that investigators were pressured to go easy on Biden, ignore some crimes.

“Over the course of a single week in June, the existence of a plea agreement in this matter became public, a plea hearing was scheduled, and the Committee submitted whistleblower testimony to the full House,” said Smith in a letter to Garland and Weiss.

“Given the abruptness of the plea agreement announcement shortly after it became public that whistleblowers made disclosures to Congress, the seriousness of the whistleblower allegations, and the fact that multiple congressional investigations into the matter are ongoing, we ask that you file this letter and the attached information in the docket…,” said Smith.

“Placing the attached materials into the record is critical because the testimony provided by the two IRS whistleblowers brings new and compelling facts to light, and because it is essential for the Judge in this matter to have relevant information before her when evaluating the plea agreement,” wrote Smith.

“In his letter, Smith also highlights precedent where judges have rejected plea agreements for a variety of reasons, including situations where the judge finds that such deals were inadequate or deficient given the crimes committed or the motivation of the accused, or the plea deal was not in the best interest of the country,” a statement from the Committee reads.

Smith points out that plea agreements can be thrown out if it can be shown the plea agreement was reached improperly.

“In one state court proceeding, a judge rejected a plea agreement because ‘[i]t is contrary to justice. Justice in this society cannot be seen as being able to buy oneself out of a felony conviction.’ The Judge also went on to say, ‘[m]any in our community steal much less and go to prison or to jail…They steal much less and they don’t get a deferred judgment because they don’t have any money,’” wrote Smith.

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

Leonard Leo Pledges $1 Billion To Combat ‘Liberal Dominance’ In Corporate America, Media

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Image via Pixabay free images

Leonard Leo, a billionaire activist often credited as the architect of the conservative supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court, has announced a $1 billion investment aimed at countering what he calls “liberal dominance” in corporate America, the media and entertainment sectors.

In a rare interview with the Financial Times, Leo detailed his plans through his nonprofit group, the Marble Freedom Trust, which will focus its resources on the private sector. “We need to crush liberal dominance where it’s most insidious,” Leo said, explaining that the initiative will build talent and capital pipelines in industries where he believes left-wing extremism is most pervasive.

Leo also emphasized targeting companies and financial institutions that he claims are influenced by “woke” ideology. “Expect us to increase support for organizations that call out companies and financial institutions that bend to the woke mind virus spread by regulators and NGOs,” he said, vowing that these entities would face consequences for prioritizing “extreme left-wing ideology” over consumers:

Leo has spent more than two decades at the influential Federalist Society, guiding conservative judges into the federal courts and the Supreme Court itself. In 2018, conservative justice Clarence Thomas joked that Leo was the third most important person in the world.

Leo’s efforts culminated under Trump’s presidency, when three Federalist Society-backed judges were appointed to give conservatives on the Supreme Court a 6-3 supermajority, and profound influence over US law. The court has since then ruled to overturn the right to an abortion, among other long-sought rightwing causes.

In 2020, after Trump lost the election, Leo stepped back from running the daily operations of the Federalist Society, while remaining its co-chair.

The following year, Leo founded Marble, with a $1.6bn donation from electronic device manufacturing mogul Barre Seid, to be a counterweight to what he said was “dark money” of the left. He spent about $600mn in its first three years, according to public financial disclosures.

During the interview, Leo identified several potential targets for his campaign, including banks, China-friendly corporations and companies that have institutionalized diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) frameworks, as well as those adhering to environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing principles.

He added that his goal is to find “very leveraged, impactful ways of reintroducing limited constitutional government and a civil society premised on freedom, personal responsibility and the virtues of Western civilization.”

Article Published With The Permission of American Liberty News.

Supreme Court Shuts Down ‘Progressive’ Candidate’s GOP Primary Play

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Missvain, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The Supreme Court just put a hard stop to a political stunt in Ohio.

A self-described progressive candidate tried to game the system — running as a Republican in a deep-red congressional district — and it didn’t work.

Samuel Ronan, a former Democratic candidate, filed to run in the GOP primary against Rep. Mike Carey. To get on the ballot, he signed a legal declaration swearing he was a Republican.

Problem: he’d already said publicly that the whole thing was a strategy — running Democrats as Republicans in “deep red districts” to “get a foot in the door.”

That didn’t sit well with actual Republican voters.

One of them filed a formal protest, pointing to Ronan’s own words as proof he was trying to mislead voters. The local elections board split along party lines, and Ohio’s Secretary of State stepped in to break the tie — kicking Ronan off the ballot.

Ronan sued, claiming the state violated his First Amendment rights by using his political speech against him.

A federal judge wasn’t buying it.

You can change parties, the court said. You can say whatever you want politically. But you can’t sign a legal document under penalty of fraud and expect the state to ignore clear evidence you didn’t mean it.

Or, as the judge put it: the First Amendment doesn’t give you a free pass to lie on official paperwork.

Ronan made a last-ditch appeal to the Supreme Court.

The justices declined — no explanation, no lifeline.

Bottom line: if you’re going to run in a party’s primary, you actually have to belong to it — at least on paper and in practice.

Trump Appeals To Supreme Court Over Colorado Banning Him From Ballot

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Duncan Lock, Dflock, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

ANALYSIS – This could be huge. Donald Trump is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court – which he helped shape as president – following a ruling in Colorado to bar him from its presidential primary ballot over his engagement in an “insurrection.”

Colorado’s all Democrat appointed, left-leaning Supreme Court has ruled 4 to 3 that former President Donald Trump is disqualified from holding office again because he engaged in an “insurrection” over the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

Republicans see the Colorado court’s decision as yet another egregious example of the Democrats’ ongoing campaign of election interference against Trump.

The majority justices’ decision reversed a Denver district judge’s finding last month that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment did not apply to the presidency.

The three justices who dissented did so on procedural grounds. In three separate dissenting opinions, each based on different legal arguments, they all concluded that the Colorado Supreme Court had overstepped its authority.

Colorado’s decision will go into effect on Jan. 4, 2024 – the eve of Colorado’s March 5 Republican primary.

In the wake of the decision, Team Trump came out swinging. As The New York Times reported:

“Unsurprisingly, the all-Democrat appointed Colorado Supreme Court has ruled against President Trump, supporting a Soros-funded, left-wing group’s scheme to interfere in an election on behalf of Crooked Joe Biden by removing President Trump’s name from the ballot and eliminating the rights of Colorado voters to vote for the candidate of their choice,” a campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, said. “We have full confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court will quickly rule in our favor and finally put an end to these un-American lawsuits.”

Similar challenges in New Hampshire, Michigan and Minnesota have all been dismissed in court, because the idea is nonsense. The courts there also decided that the Constitution is unclear about whether Section 3 of the 14th Amendment applies to the president.

As Trump’s lawyers have already said he will appeal the verdict. The shock ruling will put an exceptional case before the U.S. Supreme Court – possibly being forced to decide the question for all 50 U.S. states.

The U.S. Supreme Court is made up of nine justices, six of whom are conservatives, or “constitutionalists,” three of whom were appointed by President Trump.

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

This article was republished with permission from American Liberty News.