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Controversial Lefty-Feminist ‘Barbie’ Movie Tops $1 Billion at Box Office

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Barbie was released in cinemas worldwide on July 21. Since then, according to Warner Bros., the colorfully controversial, left-leaning, gender-bender, fantasy-comedy movie has drawn in $459m so far in the U.S. and $572m internationally.

That means it has already topped $1 billion overall. This is a huge global smash. But what does it say about us?

Oscar-nominated Barbie writer and director Greta Gerwig also became the first female filmmaker to surpass the billion-dollar benchmark as a solo director, Warner Bros. said.

Other female directors have helmed films that have surpassed the $1bn-mark, but they were working with others. Frozen, the animated blockbuster, and its sequel have generated more than $1.4bn in box office takings and were co-directed by Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck.

Meanwhile, Captain Marvel, starring Brie Larson and co-directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, generated more than $1.1bn at the box office.

But what is the very pink themed movie, starring Margot Robbie (the primary Barbie) and Ryan Gosling (the primary Ken), about? What is its messaging?  

The feminist comedy with a PG-13 rating’s plot hinges on Barbie leaving her fake but perfectly idealized world behind and, like Pinocchio before her, becoming “real.” 

That’s when it gets political and goes straight into lefty social issues like ‘the patriarchy,’ and gender confusion-fusion.

Elon Musk mocked the film on ‘X,’ formerly known as Twitter, saying: “If you take a shot every time Barbie says the word ‘Patriarchy,’ you will pass out before the movie ends.”

Conservatives have derided the Barbie movie’s anti-male themes, and inclusion of a trans-gender actor/actress playing one of the Barbies. The critics include journalist Piers Morgan and commentator Ben Shapiro. Newsweek reported:

“If I made a movie mocking women as useless dunderheads, constantly attacking ‘the matriarchy,’ and depicting all things feminist as toxic bulls***, I wouldn’t just be canceled, I’d be executed,” Morgan wrote in his columns for British newspaper The Sun and The New York Post after seeing the Barbie movie.

Shapiro meanwhile went as far as to burn a Barbie and Ken doll on Saturday, after seeing the movie the night before. The following Monday he claimed he had received death threats for his stunt.”

Writing for the New York Post, Morgan added: “the movie achieves exactly what it wanted to achieve and that is to establish the matriarchy as the perfect antidote to the patriarchy when in fact it’s just the same concept that they asked us all to detest in the first place.”

The movie “forgets its core audience of families and children while catering to nostalgic adults and pushing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender character stories,” wrote a contributor to Movieguide, a site with a conservative Christian bent.

Ginger Gaetz, wife of conservative Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz, posted on ‘X’ that at the premiere, she saw “disappointingly low T from Ken,” referring to testosterone, and she also called him a “beta” male, not an alpha. 

Less politically, Time said: “Barbie never lets us forget how clever it’s being, every exhausting minute.”

Mattel has a lot riding on its $100m Barbie movie, the first of a planned slew of films from the toy-making behemoth that include Masters of the Universe, Barney, Hot Wheels and Magic 8 Ball, to name but a few.

The Barbie doll was launched by Mattel in 1959, when the toy-maker itself was only 14 years old, and has sold over a billion units over six decades.

Today, Barbie is still considered Mattel’s crown jewel, driving about a third of its $5 billion annual revenue.

Since 2018, Mattel has been working on a strategy to license its intellectual properties to Hollywood, to reverse a sales decline over recent years. The new movie was a big gamble for Mattel Films.

A hit would boost toy sales, a flop would have done the opposite – threatening other projects currently in pre-production. But the gamble has clearly paid off.

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

Biden Stashed Highly Classified Docs at Beach Home Garage, Next to ‘Corvette TS/SCI’

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Joe Biden via Gage Skidmore Flickr

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.

Biden Admin. Blasted for Attending Event with Wanted Terrorist Who Killed US Soldiers

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President Joe Biden delivers remarks in National Statuary Hall on the one-year anniversary of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Thursday, January 6, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Cameron Smith)

Outraged members of Congress are demanding an explanation as to why senior Biden administration officials attended an event featuring a notorious and active Islamic terrorist who has killed dozens of American soldiers.

U.S. Representatives Doug Lamborn (R-CO), Jim Banks (R-IN), Carlos Gimenez (R-FL), Ronny Jackson (R-TX), and Robert Wittman (R-VA), are demanding the Biden State Department explain why senior U.S. officials attended a forum alongside Qais Hadi Sayed Hasan al-Khazali, designated by the State Department as an active Islamic terrorist currently under U.S. government sanctions.

“I am gravely concerned about the precedent this activity sets,” said Lamborn. “I insist the State Department take immediate action to ensure that its officials do not give credibility to events that feature enemies of the United States.”

“Qais Hadi Sayed Hasan al-Khazali, the terrorist prominently featured at this event attended by high-ranking U.S. Department of State officials, has served in various terrorist organizations since at least 2003 and is responsible for the death of dozens of American soldiers. He is known to have directed and coordinated the attack on American forces in Karbala on January 20, 2007, that resulted in five American soldiers dead and three wounded,” a statement from Lamborn’s office reveals.

“Qais al-Khazali is also responsible for the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on December 31, 2019. For these actions, among others, Qais al-Khazali was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department on December 6, 2019, for ‘involvement in serious human rights abuse in Iraq’ and designated as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist on January 3, 2020,” the statement adds.

Despite appearing at the same forum as Biden officials, Qais al-Khazali is still an active and designated terrorist and has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department.

“Currently, Qais al-Khazali is Secretary-General of Asa’id Ahl al-Haw (AAH), also known as the Khazali Network, a radical Iraqi Shi’a political party and paramilitary group that is funded, trained, and equipped by Iran’s Quds Force and Hezbollah. The AAH claimed responsibility for over 6,000 attacks on U.S.-led coalition forces between 2006 and 2011, including the roadside bomb that killed the last American soldier to die before the U.S. withdrawal in November 2011. This group was labeled a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) on January 3, 2020,” the statement concludes.

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

Jan. 6th Rioters Handed Down Longest Sentences Yet In This Week’s Hearings

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

ANALYSIS – Two Proud Boys leaders have been sentenced to more than a decade each in jail after being convicted of the rarely used ‘seditious conspiracy’ charge for storming the Capitol.

They tried to overturn President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, which they considered fraudulent.

A federal judge sentenced former far-right Proud Boys leader Joseph Biggs to 17 years in prison and his co-defendant Zachary Rehl to 15 years. (RELATED: Proud Boys Member Who Led Capitol Break-In Sentenced To 10 Years)

These sentences are much less than the three decades of jail time proposed by prosecutors but still very long prison terms for a few hours of rioting.

And yes, I understand that the rioting was at the U.S. Capitol and that the certification of the Electoral College vote was in process. I also understand these two guys and the two others convicted on this same charge were intimately involved in organizing what became violent chaos that day.

I was there, at the Capitol, as an observer with a TV camera crew. And I denounced the violence the next day. It was outrageous.

I believe any violent rioter who attacked police or media, or anyone else, on Jan. 6 should be put in jail – as should all the BLM rioters who earlier caused $2 billion in damages throughout the country and injured 2,000 cops months earlier.

But a decade or two behind bars for ‘conspiracy’?

Biggs and Rehl are the first Proud Boys convicted of the Civil War-era seditious conspiracy charge to be sentenced for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.

The sentences kicked off a series of hearings scheduled for this week and next, where punishment will be meted out against the former chairman of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio (who was not in D.C. on Jan. 6 but was unbelievably arrested earlier for burning a BLM banner!), and two other members of the group.

All were convicted of seditious conspiracy and other crimes at a landmark conspiracy trial this spring. But was what they did really as bad as the Biden Justice Department tries to portray?

As The Guardian noted:

Seditious conspiracy is a broad statute that concerns attempts to overthrow the government, levy war against it or prevent, hinder or delay the execution of any law. It also can be applied in cases where suspects seize any government property and carries up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Partly because seditious conspiracy allegations carry so much political weight, prosecutors have generally been hesitant to bring such charges in the past. “Seditious conspiracy charges are rarely used in American jurisprudence,” said Jeffrey Ian Ross, a criminologist and expert on political crime at the University of Baltimore. Prosecutors can be wary of issuing such charges, even in cases that may fall under its broad statute, he added.

In the only similar case in the 20th century, federal prosecutors secured a seditious conspiracy conviction against Puerto Rican nationalists who stormed the Capitol building in 1954.

These four armed Puerto Rican independence militants entered the House floor and fired dozens of bullets around the chamber, wounding five legislators.

The four shooters and co-conspirators were convicted of seditious conspiracy and spent over two decades in jail until Jimmy Carter commuted their sentence in 1979.

In that case, however, the perpetrators had firearms and used them to try to kill Congressmen. That’s a pretty big difference.

The last successfully prosecuted seditious conspiracy was in the mid-1990s, when authorities charged Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine Islamist co-conspirators for plotting to bomb the United Nations, the FBI building, and several other landmarks around New York City.

Again, this was very serious and involved planning mass murder and terrorism.

There is little or no evidence that any Jan. 6 rioters planned any offensive violence.

To date, of those charged in relation to Jan. 6, former Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes holds the record with an 18-year sentence, after he was convicted of seditious conspiracy earlier this year.

The Guardian reported in 2022 that:

Even Rhodes, who is not believed to have actually stormed the building, is alleged to have plotted to bring weapons to the area and coordinate militia movements.

In the weeks before the insurrection, Rhodes allegedly purchased tens of thousands of dollars worth of weapons and began communicating to other Oath Keepers in an encrypted group chat. “We aren’t getting through this without a civil war,” he messaged days after the presidential election. One Oath Keeper admitted as part of a plea deal last year that he brought an M4 rifle to a Comfort Inn hotel near the Capitol, while Rhodes and others allegedly discussed “quick reaction force” teams that could move into Washington DC with firearms. Once inside the Capitol, prosecutors state in their indictment that one group of Oath Keepers moved in a military “stack” formation and went in search of the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

And at first glance, this does seem serious.

But Rhodes claims that despite earlier texts about possible ‘civil war,’ Oath Keepers who entered the Capitol went “totally off mission” and that he was only there to prevent his militia members from getting into trouble.

He has also stated that the armed ‘reaction force’ in Virginia was there to respond if armed leftist antifa thugs attacked pro-Trump protestors.

In the largest manhunt in FBI history, more than 1,100 people have been arrested on charges related to the Capitol assault. Of those, 597 defendants have had their cases adjudicated and received sentences. About 366 of them have been given jail time.

The vast majority of these Jan. 6 defendants, though, accepted plea deals for minor, nonviolent offenses such as trespassing or obstructing an official function. Many of them still got jail sentences totally out of proportion to their alleged crimes.

And these four got the worst of it.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Great America News Desk. It was first published in American Liberty News.

Amanda Head: New Poll Reveals Depressing Facts

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The latest Rasmussen poll is reporting some unfortunate facts about the state of America. A plurality of those polled said that our country’s best days are behind it…Do you agree?

Watch Amanda break down the problem below:

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

FBI Director’s ‘Contempt of Congress’ is Part of Bigger Problem

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ANALYSIS – FBI Director Christopher Wray has steadfastly refused to provide the House Oversight and Accountability Committee an internal Bureau document that alleges Joe Biden took a $5 million bribe from Chinese sources. 

The committee issued a subpoena for it a while ago. Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has said he learned about the allegations from a whistleblower whom he declined to identify but has described as “very credible.”

With the committee’s deadline passing yesterday, Comer has said he will seek to hold Wray in contempt of Congress, rejecting Wray’s offer to allow lawmakers to view the FD-1023 form in a secure location instead of handing over the document.

A contempt vote would be the most significant confrontation between House Republicans and federal law enforcement since the GOP took control of Congress in January.

Wray insists that the FD-1023 form contains unverified claims from a single confidential human source (CHS), and that turning it over is irresponsible. Sources need to know their identities will be protected. 

And allegations shouldn’t be publicized without being corroborated.

Wray is right. 

In the past, neither party would push much on an issue like this because they understood that need. But they also trusted the Bureau to be nonpartisan.

As the National Review notes:

…the mere fact that a CHS may have alleged that Biden took part in a bribery scheme doesn’t mean it happened. It can’t be dismissed out of hand — there’s too much indication of Biden’s sleazy self-dealing and outright lying for that. But people in positions of authority get falsely accused of wrongdoing all the time. The FBI rightly keeps such allegations under wraps because those people are presumed innocent and the bureau can’t investigate without being discrete. Congress has traditionally given the FBI a wide berth because lawmakers know secrecy is a necessity for competent investigations — and it has assumed that the FBI is competent and non-partisan.

Unfortunately, those days are gone, and the FBI director can’t decide what part of a Congressional subpoena to honor or reject. Wray has no legal basis to keep it hidden.

And due to the recent history of partisanship and politicization at the Bureau, most egregiously the Trump-Russiagate hoax, this is only part of a much bigger problem.

The Bureau can no longer be trusted to be fair and apolitical. As the National Review explains:

[The FBI] is a contented cog of the progressive administrative state. In the Obama years, it was put in the service of the Democratic Party. It marched to President Obama’s beat, whitewashed and abetted Hillary Clinton’s malevolence, undertook to destroy Donald Trump’s presidency, spent years covering its tracks, and insulated his 2020 opponent from scrutiny. It has spent the Biden years helping Democrats craft a political narrative of a nation besieged by white-supremacist domestic terrorism — all the while slow-walking the investigation of the Biden family’s influence-peddling business.

National Review continues:

[FBI] abuses have proceeded under Wray’s stewardship — the FBI’s (a) illegal surveillance under FISA; (b) general participation in the suppression of political speech on social media; (c) specific complicity in the Democrats’ and the intelligence community’s suppression of the Biden influence-peddling scandal; (d) collaboration in the Democrats’ crafting of a political narrative that the country is overrun by white-supremacist domestic terrorists; and (e) retaliation against whistleblower agents who’ve reported to Congress about some of these issues (at least according to three of those agents, who testified under oath at a recent House hearing).

So, while normally, I would be understanding of the director’s arguments and attempts to limit dissemination of a form that could expose investigative sources and methods, in this case, the FBI simply can’t be trusted.

It needs to turn over the document to the committee, with minimal redactions, or Wray should be held in contempt. This is about a much bigger problem.

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.

Clueless Deputy Chief of Space Force Takes Sides in ‘Woke Wars’

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PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- Col. DeAnna Burt, 50th Space Wing commander, speaks to Airmen and civilians attending the Women's Leadership Symposium at the Peterson Club on Tuesday, Mar. 7th, 2017. Attendees came from a variety of bases, including Buckley, Peterson, Schriever, Vandenberg and Cheyenne Mountain. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Laura Turner)

ANALYSIS – You would think that a senior U.S. military officer would finally have figured out that they should stay out of the ‘woke wars’ 

Unfortunately, Lt. Gen. DeAnna Burt, deputy chief of space operations at the U.S. Space Force (USSF), appears to have not gotten the memo.

Even as the Pentagon cracks down on ridiculous Drag Queen shows, and the Congress pushes to eliminate woke policies like taxpayer-funded abortion travel, and ‘diversity’ programs that are more divisive than inclusive, Burt decided now was the time to rail against what she called “anti-LGBTQ+ laws” at the state level.

She made her speech at a Pentagon ‘Pride’ event last week.

Fox News reported that she “claimed that such laws affect her hiring and promotion decisions, sometimes leading her to choose a “less qualified” candidate because of a preferred candidate’s ‘personal circumstances.’”

Yes. She said that.

Fox said that Burt told those attending the event:

Transformational cultural change requires leadership from the top, and we do not have time to wait. Since January of this year, more than 400 anti-LGBTQ+ laws have been introduced at the state level. That number is rising and demonstrates a trend that could be dangerous for service members, their families, and the readiness of the force as a whole. 

Fox News explained:

The “anti-LGBTQ+ laws” Burt mentioned appeared to be referencing the legislation passed by more than 20 states restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, as well as numerous bills limiting the amount of time in which an abortion can be performed during a pregnancy.

Most of these GOP-led state laws are perfectly reasonable, and designed to protect unborn children, and their mothers, as well as protect kids being pushed into irreversible transgender medical procedures.

They are also totally outside her purview, and democratically established by state legislatures.

But to Burt, they are so dangerous she prefers to hire less qualified candidates due to their ‘personal circumstances,’ rather than subject them to these states’ laws. 

Fox News quoted her as saying:

When I look at potential candidates, say, for squadron command, I strive to match the right person to the right job. I consider their job performance and relevant experience first. However, I also look at their personal circumstances, and their family is also an important factor. 

If the good match for a job does not feel safe being themselves and performing at their highest potential at a given location, or if their family could be denied critical health care due to the laws in that state, I am compelled to consider a different candidate, and, perhaps, less qualified. 

Which part of ‘don’t get into partisan politics or the culture wars’ doesn’t she understand. And hiring less qualified people for a job based on ‘personal circumstances’ sounds like discrimination to me. 

Not to mention horrible leadership, dangerous to national security, and bad for America.

But it’s not just one senior leader at USSF. According to leaked emails, last month, two Navy officials derided critics of the service’s promotion of LGBTQ+ Pride as “bigots” and “a—holes.”

These two ‘Pride Pushers’ reportedly schemed on how to best post a “rainbow wingtip graphic” for LGBTQ+ Pride Month on the Navy social media accounts.

As I wrote about then, the Navy only had one Pride image up on social media for less than a day on June 1st, the start of ‘Pride Month,’ before removing it.

None of the other services posted Pride imagery this year, a stark difference from last year when ‘Pride Month’ began.

This is hopefully part of a broader Pentagon policy to pull out of the ‘woke wars’ and keep partisan, ideological, racial, and sexual politics out of our military.

I noted earlier: “Only the Coast Guard and the National Guard made posts for Pride Month, but neither service changed its profile pictures or header image. Hopefully, they will soon get the memo.”

Well, now I add – these navy officials and Lt. Gen. Burt should also get the memo, or even better, an invitation to a Congressional hearing to explain themselves.

It’s time to focus on real wars, not woke ones.

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

America Ascendant: The Golden Age Nobody Saw Coming

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Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

It is not hyperbole to speak of a golden age. The phrase has been cheapened by pundits and prematurely invoked by partisans, but now it fits. Something has shifted in the tectonic plates of American politics, culture, and global influence. And unlike prior inflection points, this one is not merely symbolic. It is empirical. Measurable. Concrete. We are not gazing at a mirage, but witnessing a renaissance. The agent of this change is President Donald J. Trump.

In 2019, the New York Times launched the 1619 Project with a simple proposition: that the true founding of America occurred not with the Declaration of Independence, but with the arrival of the first African slaves. What followed was a coordinated attempt to reframe the country as irredeemably racist, its history irreparably stained. Under the Biden administration, this view metastasized. Patriotic symbols were treated as threats. The FBI circulated training documents labeling common American flags as markers of “domestic extremism.” Catholics were surveilled, not for terrorism, but for attending Latin Mass. And over 800 January 6 defendants were held for years, many for crimes more symbolic than violent. Meanwhile, across the country, statues of Lincoln, Washington, and Jefferson were torn down by mobs or removed by local governments in the dead of night. Schools named after America’s founders were renamed for lesser figures more palatable to progressive tastes. Military bases, long-standing monuments to American history, were stripped of their names and given bland, ideologically approved replacements. The point was not justice. It was deterrence. It was ideological conformity enforced by state power.

Then Trump returned.

His re-election, certified on January 6, 2025, and his inauguration on January 20, marked not merely the return of a man, but the restoration of a nation. Within 100 days, Trump had secured the border, reversing years of open-border chaos. Migration flows dropped to levels unseen since the early 1990s. His decisive action became a global model. From England to Romania, political movements took note. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK surged. The AfD in Germany crept into double digits. Marine Le Pen’s party is now the frontrunner in France. Elites sneered, but voters saw results.

At home, Trump wielded his mandate like a scalpel. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, began a forensic audit of the administrative state. Within weeks, billions in funding were clawed back from useless programs and slush funds hidden in alphabet agencies. USAID, long a globalist piggy bank, is being dismantled. The FBI, purged of its partisan leadership, is now focused on actual crime. DEI offices, once metastasizing across government and corporate America like ideological tumors, were defunded. Wokeness, once a cultural juggernaut, is now a punchline.

The military, gutted by social engineering and recruitment failures under Biden, is now over capacity. Credit belongs not only to President Trump’s message of strength and national pride, but also to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who moved swiftly to eliminate identity-based promotions and reinstate merit as the lodestar of advancement. Hegseth’s decision to end the inclusion of transgender individuals in combat roles and restore a focus on unit cohesion and battlefield readiness was met with predictable outrage from progressive quarters, but it worked. Military service is now admired again. Recruiters have lines out the door. The stars and stripes, once seen as fraught, are fashionable again. The American flag, once viewed with suspicion on elite campuses, is now trending in TikTok videos of patriotic Gen Z influencers. Coolness, that elusive cultural currency, has shifted.

Internationally, Trump has turned the tide. China is back at the negotiating table, offering market access in exchange for tariff relief. For the first time in decades, Beijing blinked. Iran, isolated and bleeding economically, has returned to disarmament talks. The Abraham Accords have expanded to include Oman and Tunisia. Just today, Trump announced a new trade deal with the United Kingdom that will open British markets to American farmers, slash tariffs, and generate billions in revenue. It is the first of more than a dozen similar deals being negotiated with U.S. trading partners, all aimed at restoring prosperity and security to the American heartland. American prestige, once bartered away for UN resolutions and climate pledges, has been restored. Even the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church’s College of Cardinals seems to have acknowledged this new moral order.

On May 8, 2025, for the first time in 2,000 years of Catholic history, an American was elected pope. The symbolism is staggering. For a Church whose demographic heart now beats in the Western Hemisphere, the election of an American Pontiff signals a new center of gravity. It is not just Rome that looks to America. It is the world.

America’s 250th anniversary is now on the horizon. The semiquincentennial of 1776 looms not as a melancholy remembrance of faded glory, but as a celebration of resurgence. The events planned for 2026 reflect this. Trump has ordered a return to original principles: liberty, individual rights, national pride. Not apologies. Not guilt. Not equivocations. But more than that, he intends to use the anniversary as a global advertisement. A demonstration of American resolve. A reminder to our enemies that this is a nation of strength, unity, and enduring purpose. And a signal to our allies that America, once written off as declining or distracted, is once again the anchor of the free world. A nation built on the proposition that all men are created equal should not teach its children that they are born guilty because of their skin or their flag. Trump understands this, and his policies reflect it.

Consider economics. In just over three months, Trump has attracted over $8 trillion in foreign investment back to American shores, revitalizing the heartland. Factories are reopening in Ohio, chip manufacturers are building plants in Texas, and manufacturing is surging with new, higher-paying jobs for American workers. Trump’s commitment to the American farmer is unwavering, with policies boosting agriculture, creating robust farming jobs, and safeguarding rural communities. AI and crypto, once fields dominated by offshore interests and regulatory chaos, are now firmly within American jurisdiction. His administration is protecting America’s supply chains from global threats, ensuring self-reliance in critical industries. Trump’s policy is clear: innovation without apology, regulation with reason, and a fierce dedication to bringing back manufacturing, mining, drilling, and farming. He is not afraid of technology or competition but is resolute against decay, acting decisively to secure prosperity for American workers and farmers.

And yet, symbols matter. Culture matters. Which is why the upcoming twin spectacles of the FIFA World Cup and the Summer Olympics cannot be dismissed as fluff. Trump’s personal involvement in securing these events was not mere vanity. It was strategy. It was signal. During his first term, Trump courted FIFA President Gianni Infantino with unusual persistence. Infantino credited Trump’s enthusiasm as pivotal to the U.S. winning the bid. “You are part of the FIFA team now,” he said in the Oval Office. That statement, once treated as flattery, now seems prophetic.

The 2026 World Cup will be the longest in history: 104 matches across 16 U.S. cities. It will not be a tournament. It will be a coronation. The same applies to the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Trump personally engaged with the IOC before even taking office in 2016, offering federal guarantees for security and logistics. He met with IOC President Thomas Bach in 2017. The result? A winning bid. The message is clear: if America is back, it must also be seen. And what better global stage than the Olympics?

Critics will scoff. They always do. They did in 2016. They did in 2020. They did in 2024. They were wrong every time. Trump’s critics have spent years arguing that he is a fluke, a menace, an aberration. What they have missed, and what they still refuse to see, is that Trump is not the outlier. He is the correction. He is the pendulum swinging back. And this time, it is not swinging timidly. It is swinging with force.

What makes this era a golden age is not merely policy success or economic growth. It is coherence. It is the re-alignment of institutions with the people they purport to serve. It is the re-legitimization of patriotism. It is the death of the idea that to love one’s country is to be blind, or bigoted, or bitter. America, like Rome at its height, is asserting its identity not through conquest, but through clarity. Through excellence. Through example.

The left has spent years insisting America was founded on sin, sustained by oppression, and systemically incapable of redemption. Trump has answered not with theory, but with action. He has rebuilt the house while others argued about whether it deserved to stand. And now, the house is full again. Full of workers. Full of industry. Full of flags. Full of hope.

That is what a golden age looks like. And for the first time in a long time, the gold is real.

Sponsored by the John Milton Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to helping independent journalists overcome formidable challenges in today’s media landscape and bring crucial stories to you.

Chicago Teens Kill Baby with Stolen Car Last Week, Still No Serious Charges

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Image via Pixabay images

ANALYSIS – Is your city next? Democrat-run Chicago isn’t just a murder capital; it also has a car theft epidemic. It had more than 21,500 vehicle thefts last year, which includes violent carjackings. 

That is 55% more car thefts than last year.

Most of these crimes are committed by teens and gang members.

A recent “Teen Takeover” created violence and chaos as hundreds of teens mobbed Chicago streets and clashed with the police.

Meanwhile, Chicago’s far-left politicians and prosecutors continue to enable the young criminals.

And now it seems the Chicago Police Department is gun shy about charging juvenile delinquents with murder.

Last week, two teenage boys stole a Hyundai car and crashed it into another vehicle, a Ford pickup truck, killing a 6-month-old baby and seriously injuring his 34-year-old mother and her seven and fifteen-year-old daughters.

Both vehicles were demolished. The baby, Cristian Uvidia died in the hospital from damage to his skull.

“He suffered from an impact that fractured his skull, causing his brain to swell and eventually killing him,” Annelisse Rivera wrote on a GoFundMe page created for the family.. “We are devastated, and we are broken. We will miss his sweet smile, as he was a joy to everyone that he met.”

The New York Post reports that the juvenile criminals, ages 17 and 14, were each charged with just one misdemeanor count of “criminal trespassing” in the deadly April 16 crash in the city’s West Garfield Park neighborhood.

That’s an outrage.

Chicago police are saying that additional charges could be upgraded when the investigation is complete. But why haven’t they already charged the driver with murder, or at least vehicular manslaughter?

Everyone involved in this horrible crime where a baby was killed was immediately placed at the scene of the crash. How much investigation is needed?

As Hot Air notes:

Criminal Trespass to a Vehicle is a Class A Misdemeanor in Chicago. That carries a penalty of a fine of no more than $2,500 and less than a year in jail. Of course, since the gangbangers in this incident are all under 18, the charges will probably be kicked to the juvenile court, where they likely won’t even be sent to a day behind bars.

Jazz Shaw in Hot Air adds:

Also, what about the other two boys in the car? There are not yet any charges filed against them. I doubt they somehow wound up in the stolen car “accidentally.” It’s a safe bet that if those four haven’t already been indoctrinated into one of Chicago’s gangs, they had a gang contact waiting to buy the car from them if they managed to get away. And you can bet that the city’s gangbangers are watching this case closely and with approval.

Rivera, the injured mother who just lost her baby to these criminal punks, reportedly said the lack of serious charges was “disheartening.”

Chicagoans should be demanding that Kim Foxx, the Soros-funded State’s Attorney get involved, or at least say something. What about incoming Mayor Brandon Johnson?

Have Chicago’s residents become so inured to their city’s crime and the government’s response that they don’t care anymore?

Hopefully not. But without public outrage and political accountability, these soft-on-crime Democrat politicians will only ensure criminals will continue their murderous rampage across Chicago.

And your city may be next.

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