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    Woke Pentagon Brass and Media Cheer Tucker Carlson’s Exit

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    2
    Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    ANALYSIS – I rarely watch TV news. And I didn’t always agree with Tucker Carlson. Sometimes I strongly disagreed – such as on Russia. 

    But I often did agree. 

    And he challenged the left AND the GOP establishment every night on Fox.

    He will be missed.

    He also challenged the woke leadership at the Pentagon. And for that he should be greatly applauded.

    Carlson was never anti-military. 

    On the contrary, he was opposed to its current emasculation by Joe Biden and his team. Carlson was also opposed to the divisive, destructive, and subversive neo-Marxist ideology being imposed on our troops.

    Sadly, the lefty spinmeisters in the media and those same leftist ideologues, partisan hacks, and simply misguided folks at the Department of Defense (DoD) keep trying to paint a different picture.

    Politico’s Lara Seligman tries to paint Carlson as anti-military by conflating his criticism of the woke brass with the entire armed forces. In her piece, ‘Good riddance’: Pentagon officials cheer Tucker Carlson’s ouster, she writes:

    From maternity flight suits to diversity policies to Ukraine aid, the military was a favorite punching bag for Tucker Carlson. Now that he’s off the air, some Pentagon officials are quietly cheering his departure.

    Her flawed journalism is also obvious as she mostly quotes a couple of unnamed (likely Biden Pentagon appointee) sources.

    Per her two “DoD officials”: 

    “We’re a better country without him bagging on our military every night in front of hundreds of thousands of people,” said one senior DoD official, who like others interviewed for this story was granted anonymity to discuss a politically sensitive topic.

    “Good riddance,” said a second DoD official.

    Seligman goes on to quote these unnamed sources, writing:

    Carlson “made a mockery” of the free press and “repeatedly cherry-picked department policies and used them to destroy DoD as an institution,” said the first senior DoD official.

    What nonsense. The leftist ideologies in charge are the ones destroying DoD, not a cable TV talk show host.

    Still, she voids most of her own reporting when she admits that most of the American military agreed with Carlson, and it’s the Pentagon leadership that is grossly out of touch:

    Carlson’s criticism of Biden-era personnel policies appealed to many of the rank-and-file, which has a large bloc of conservative members. But at the upper levels of the Defense Department, news of Carlson’s firing from Fox News on Monday was met with delight and outright glee in some corners.

    Then there is the un-self-aware liberal executive editor of Defense One, Kevin Baron, who never served in the military, who absurdly claimed “Tucker Carlson Helped Turn Americans Against the Military.”He writes: “For all the ways Tucker Carlson left his mark on U.S. politics, few are as startling as helping to turn right-wingers against the troops they once revered.”He also ignorantly called the notoriously independent Carlson a “partisan firebrand” when he criticized GOP establishment politicians almost as much as the left.

    Well, I can tell Baron that, as one of those ‘right wingers’ who still reveres the troops – and was once one of them – he is a lefty ideologue. 

    And sadly, Baron doesn’t realize it.

    That makes him a biased, partisan journalist who tries to appear not to be.

    Every point he makes is suffused with his anti-Trump rancor and lefty disdain. And many of his arguments are unsupportable, false, or make the opposite case.

    Baron writes:

    Right-wing scholars and editorial boards interpreted the data to say that Biden’s “woke” policies were to blame, noting that half of respondents said it was a contributing factor. But that ignores the partisan cross-section: 68% of Trump voters were more upset about wokeness, while just 44% of Biden voters were. That’s the Carlson effect.

    Well, that gives a cable TV talk show host with 3 million viewers a lot of sway in a country of 330 million and a dozen liberal media outlets that reach many tens of million.

    But Baron best undermines his own case most when he concludes:

    The most recent Reagan Forum poll found that 80% of Biden voters and 83% of Trump voters said they still have either “a great deal” or “some” confidence in the U.S. military. That shows that even his audience knows the difference between the performance art of partisanship and the apolitical service to one’s country. 

    Yes, Mr. Baron, we absolutely understand. Sadly, you clearly don’t.

    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

    By
    Amanda Head
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    0

    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.

    CNN Blasted for Hiring ‘Spy Who Lied’ About Hunter Laptop

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    0
    Jay Godwin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – One of the most egregious efforts at election interference in 2020 was when the Joe Biden campaign successfully quashed the bombshell New York Post story of Hunter Biden’s laptop. 

    The laptop has proven to hold a treasure trove of incriminating evidence against the Bidens.

    But it was effectively kept from the American people in the final weeks of the campaign through a concerted conspiracy between the Biden campaign, Big Tech social media companies, the major news networks, and a group of former spies.

    And one of those who helped hide it from the public is now an on-air CNN analyst.

    It has since been documented that Antony Blinken, then with the Biden campaign, now Biden Secretary of State, retained former senior U.S. intelligence officials to smear the laptop story as Russian disinformation.

    As I have written about, 51 former spooks eventually signed a letter calling the laptop story likely Russian disinformation. This was then used as justification by the media to censor and ban the story.

    One of the most senior of those partisan intelligence hacks was ex-Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper. 

    As a reward for his disservice, Clapper has now been hired by CNN as an analyst where he will be able to spew disinformation on all manner of national security and political topics.

    And Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy made a big deal about this on a recent CNN appearance. 

    In a tense back-and-forth exchange with the reporter McCarthy ignored the question about Trump’s classified documents case and instead emphasized that Clapper had been one of dozens of former intelligence officials who signed the letter dismissing the Post’s October 2020 expose on Hunter’s laptop as a Russian disinformation.

    He also threw in CNN’s hiring of discredited former deputy FBI chief Andrew McCabe who was fired for leaking classified information.

    Fox News reported:

    “Are you prepared to defend your network, CNN?” McCarthy said as they spoke over each other. “Even though your network hired Andrew McCabe, who was fired from the FBI for leaking classified documents, did you remove him from your network? No, you continue to put him on to give judgment against President Trump. You also hired Clapper …”

    McCarthy later continued, according to Fox:

    “So, your network hires Clapper, who literally lied to the American public – one of 51 other individuals that had briefings and used it politically to tell the American public that a laptop was Russia collusion, even though it had all this information about the Biden administration,” the speaker said.

    “Are you prepared to get rid of those people from your network? Because my concern as a policymaker is that when [you] weaponize government, and now you’re weaponizing networks, that is wrong,” McCarthy continued. “I have a real problem that your network actually pays people who did classified information and then lied to the American public to try to influence a presidential election, and then you put them on your network to give an opinion.”

    This line of attack against CNN and other major news outlets who hire ex-officials involved in partisan election interference is valid and should be continued. 

    This goes well beyond just being partisan.

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

    Amanda Head: Done With Bud Light? Buy This Instead!

    By
    Amanda Head
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    1

    Are you boycotting Bud Light and looking for a new beer to support? Look no further!

    Watch Amanda explain the situation below:

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

    Pelosi Knew – Tucker Carlson Interviews Capitol Police Chief Again over Jan 6

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    3
    Nancy Pelosi via Gage Skidmore flickr

    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.

    Like the FBI, Politicized DHS Running ‘Shady’ (Likely Illegal) Domestic Intelligence Program

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    2

    ANALYSIS – It isn’t news that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has proven to be vulnerable to political pressure. Just look at the threat assessments produced in 2020 that single out ‘white supremacists’ as the ‘most lethal domestic terror threat’ in the U.S., despite their numbers being minuscule.

    According to that report, self-described ‘white supremacists’ were responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks spread across more than a decade and a half – from 2000 to 2016.

    Yes, that’s more murders than any other specific domestic extremist group but let’s get real. 

    There are more murders in Chicago in one weekend than the entire number of white supremacist killings nationwide in those sixteen years.

    This DHS report, though produced under the last year of Trump’s term, like many others recently by different federal agencies, like the FBI, is part of a wider political campaign that conflates the relatively small number of white supremacists, and other so-called right-wing extremists, with the tens of millions of mainstream conservatives and Trump supporters.

    And we can now add traditional Catholics to the feds’ “most wanted” list.

    The FBI recently produced a memo by its Richmond, Virginia, Field Office that was leaked on Jan. 23, 2023. 

    That memo, according to a group of 20 GOP state attorney generals, “identifies ‘radical-traditionalist Catholic[s]’ as potential ‘racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists.’”

    In their letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, Fox News reported, the AGs told the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) to “desist from investigating and surveilling Americans who have done nothing more than exercise their natural and constitutional right to practice their religion in a manner of their choosing.” 

    The AGS also asked that the DOJ and the FBI “reveal to the American public the extent to which they have engaged in such activities.”

    The AGs letter notes that the FBI memorandum deploys “alarmingly detailed theological distinctions to distinguish between the Catholics whom the FBI deems acceptable, and those it does not.”

    It’s in this context of politicized and weaponized federal law enforcement agencies, that this latest report of DHS malfeasance deserves special attention.

    Specifically, we are talking about the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis (OIA), whose leadership, according to Politico, was called “shady” and run “like a corrupt government.” 

    For years it has been operating a secretive domestic-intelligence gathering program that many DHS employees have complained may be illegal.

    The OIA’s Overt Human Intelligence Collection Program allows DHS officials to bypass lawyers and seek intelligence interviews with individuals being held in local jails, federal prisons, and immigrant detention centers.

    While most law-abiding U.S. citizens may not care much about this DHS target group, remember this is just another example of how elements of DHS appear corrupt, and play fast and loose with the law, and all our civil liberties.

    But the Department’s politicization is probably the biggest danger according to documents obtained by Politico.

    As the New York Post reports:

    The ability of DHS to be impartial and withstand caving to political pressure was also a major concern, documents show. 

    An internal analysis during the Trump administration found a “significant number of respondents cited concerns with politicization of analytic products and/or the perceptions of undue influence that may compromise the integrity of the work performed by employees. This concern touches on analytic topics, the review process, and the appropriate safeguards in place to protect against undue influence.”

    The document adds that “a number of respondents expressed concerns/challenges with the quality and effectiveness of I&A senior leadership” such as the “inability to resist political pressure.”

    “The workforce has a general mistrust of leadership resulting from orders to conduct activities they perceive to be inappropriate, bureaucratic, or political,” the document continues.

    It is clearly time to rein in rogue elements at DHS and FBI, but also to clean house at the top levels of both organizations, and DOJ.

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

    Hunter Biden’s Sweetheart Criminal Plea Deal ‘Implodes’ – Twice

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    2
    Gavel via Wikimedia Commons Image

    ANALYSIS – After reportedly imploding earlier Wednesday, Hunter Biden’s sweetheart criminal plea deal then appeared to be ‘back on’ after being revised. 

    But then the revised deal imploded again when it was blocked by the federal judge overseeing the case.

    It now may be on life support.

    Prosecutors said in court that Hunter Biden failed to pay between $1.1 million and $1.5 million in taxes when they were due.

    Questioning from Judge Maryellen Noreika, a Trump appointee, during Biden’s hearing, uncovered that the Department of Justice (DoJ) and Biden’s legal team were not on the same page regarding the scope of the deal.

    Biden’s team believed it was more sweeping than it was intended.

    Hunter Biden had been expected to plead guilty to 2017 and 2018 misdemeanor tax charges Wednesday in a Delaware court, in part it seemed, to avoid jail time on a separate felony gun charge.

    Under an earlier agreement with federal prosecutors in Delaware, the First Son has entered a pretrial diversion program for the gun charge, which allows defendants to avoid a conviction or prison time.

    Noreika said she had “concerns” about the parties seemingly linking the tax plea agreement to resolving a felony gun charge.

    However, the deal was then revised.

    The new deal was going to cover Biden’s drug use and tax-related conduct from 2014 to 2019 (not just 2017-2018) but would not cover Biden for any other matters or crimes.

    This is critical since the GOP-led House Oversight Committee is currently investigating Biden’s shady foreign business dealings and how Joe Biden is connected to the money that came to Hunter from overseas sources including Ukraine and China.

    News of the sweetheart deal in June sparked accusations of favorable treatment for the president’s son from Republicans who have accused the younger Biden of a myriad of crimes and improprieties, including influence-peddling abroad.

    Under the revised deal the DoJ could now charge Biden in the future for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) since he lobbied on behalf of foreign governments without registering as a Foreign Agent under FARA.

    America First Legal (AFL) is suing the DoJ for allegedly failing to require the president’s son to register for FARA during the Obama administration.

    Republican Sen. Josh Hawley told CNN that court proceedings today on Biden’s plea deal shows that the deal was always flawed and that additional charges could be coming. 

    CNN reported:

    “It’s very telling that the judge intervened here and said basically, ‘No, I’m not going to approve some sweeping blanket deal,’” the Republican from Missouri said. “I mean, that tells you the court has serious concerns about other potential charges here, and also the scope of the deal, which has seemed outrageous from the beginning.” 

    He added, “This, I think, signals that they’re still very much as potential for prosecution forward.” 

    Hawley said that Biden should not receive special treatment, as whistleblowers have alleged. “He should be treated like any other person under the law. That’s my view on him.”

    But the judge wasn’t satisfied with the revised deal either. “What if it is unconstitutional?” Judge Noreika asked. “I’m trying to exercise due diligence and consideration to make sure we don’t make a misstep.”

    The tax charges could carry a sentence of up to 18 months, but Hunter Biden is unlikely to face prison time because he lacks a criminal history and has accepted responsibility for his actions.

    As part of the deal, prosecutorsare recommending probation, but ultimately the judge has the sole authority to decide his punishment.

    The hearing ended with Biden pleading not guilty ‘for now’ with the judge asking both sides to file additional briefs explaining the plea deal’s legal structure. 

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

    UN Legal Body Normalizes Sex With Children – Crimes Against Humanity Next?

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    4
    U.S. Department of State from United States, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – No, this isn’t a story of a wacky conspiracy theory about global elites and pedophilia, it is real news. And this time the truth is close to the mark.

    According to a shocking report produced by legal experts backed by the United Nations, children can consent to sex with adults.

    This is not only despicable; it violates the very UN principles that protect children from sexual violence. 

    The widespread raping of women and children is an especially serious concern in the world’s war zones, where the heinous acts are considered war crimes. 

    And in other UN documents, allowing sex with children “may amount to grave breaches of international humanitarian law.”

    The findings of these supposedly enlightened jurists only blurs the lines of perverse criminal behavior and will embolden those animals who abuse children.

    And, in an insult to all women, the report was released on March 8 ‘in recognition of International Women’s Day,’ suggesting some sort of connection between women’s rights and the age of consent.

    While the report does not specifically call for decriminalizing sex between adults and minors and doesn’t define an age of sexual consent, it states that children have both the mental ability and legal right to make sexual decisions.

    We should note that while there is a difference between mature, sexually active older teenagers, and young children, these experts appear to simply reference all minors under age 18.

    Listed under Principle 16 – ‘Consensual Sexual Conduct,’ the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists, aided by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, wrote: “Sexual conduct involving persons below the domestically prescribed minimum age of consent to sex may be consensual in fact, if not in law.” 

    If that is true, then how long before the UN and ‘global elites’ do in fact decriminalize adults having sex with children?

    Well, the commission answers that question when it added in its report, “In this context, the enforcement of criminal law should reflect the rights and capacity of persons under 18 years of age to make decisions about engaging in consensual sexual conduct and their right to be heard in matters concerning them.”

    According to Influencer Ian Miles Chong, “This has been the plan all along.”

    https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1647416022637629440

    The perverse findings which seem to open the door to normalize sex with minors appears in a report with the esoteric and convoluted title: “The 8 March Principles for a Human Rights-Based Approach to Criminal Law Proscribing Conduct Associated with Sex, Reproduction, Drug Use, HIV, Homelessness and Poverty.”

    The report is posted prominently on the Commission’s website.

    Its deranged conclusions also clash directly with the reality the UN Human Rights Commission reports on the ground in many countries.

    As noted by the UN’s own organization “Children and Armed Conflict:

    Sexual violence against children during conflict is one of the six grave violations identified and condemned by the UN Security Council .  The six grave violations form the basis of the Council’s architecture to monitor, report and respond to abuses suffered by children in times of war. Ending and preventing these violations is also the focus of the Special Representative’s work and advocacy.

    Sexual violence is increasingly a characteristic of conflict and is often perpetrated against girls and boys in a rule of law vacuum. In some instances sexual violence has been used as a tactic of war designed to humiliate a population or to force displacement.

    The UN group clearly states:

    Rape and other forms of sexual violence against children are human rights violations, and may amount to grave breaches of international humanitarian law. If committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population, sexual violence can constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

    So, which is it, UN? Where do you draw the line? If children can consent to sex, when is it a humanitarian or war crime and when is it just fine?

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

    Amanda Head: WHAT on Earth?! NHL Goes Woke!

    By
    Amanda Head
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    1

    Even more sports teams seem to be regressing into the painfully woke ideology, and this time the National Hockey League is on the hook.

    Watch Amanda break down the situation below:

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

    False AP Report About Russian Missiles Hitting Poland Could’ve Triggered WWIII

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    0
    Main Directorate of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Kyiv, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – Last week the world was hit by the purported news of a Russian missile strike into NATO member country, Poland. 

    And now the award-winning AP reporter who wrote it has been fired.

    Based only on a single, unnamed ‘senior U.S. intelligence official,’ the initial Associated Press (AP) story by James LaPorta, a former U.S. Marine who served in Afghanistan, was widely disseminated and quickly caused a barrage of other reporting.

    Most of it was alarmist and panic-causing, with many in the news media and blogosphere quickly demanding harsh action against Russia.

    As the Blaze reports:

    Fox News and the Daily Mail similarly carried the AP reporter’s suggestion, the former running a piece entitled, “Russian missiles cross into NATO member Poland, kill 2: senior US intelligence official,” and the latter stating, “‘Russian bombs’ kill two in POLAND.”

    CBS Evening News tweeted “RUSSIAN MISSILE STRIKE: Two Russian missiles crossed over the Ukrainian border into Poland, a NATO country, killing two civilians.”

    A Russian attack on Poland could have triggered articles 4 and 5 of the NATO charter, potentially putting the U.S. into direct conflict with nuclear power.

    Article 4 requires full consultation at the North Atlantic Council, the alliance’s political decision-making body, while Article 5 requires joint NATO action to repel an attack.

    As MSN explains: “Article 5 states that the parties to the NATO treaty ‘agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.’”

    Article 5 also states that each NATO member must take “such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”

    This of course would make the U.S. a direct combatant in this war and could escalate to a nuclear exchange.

    As such, I wrote about the ‘errant’ strike the same day, albeit in more careful ways.

    My headline was more matter-of-fact and far less alarming, and it didn’t mention a direct Russian missile strike: “Escalation in Russia-Ukraine War Leads to Emergency Crisis Meeting.”

    In the piece I did note the ramifications of any foreign missiles crashing into Poland, writing: “In what might be the greatest (albeit perhaps accidental) escalation since Russia invaded Ukraine, the war just crossed the border into a NATO country.”

    And, yes, I like to say ‘albeit.’

    I added:

    According to a senior U.S. intelligence official, as Russia pounded Ukraine’s energy facilities Tuesday with the largest barrage of missile strikes to date, some reportedly ‘stray’ Russian missiles crossed into NATO member Poland and struck a site in Poland about 15 miles from the Ukrainian border.

    The allegedly errant strike killed two persons in the Polish village of Przewodów and provoked an emergency crisis meeting of Poland’s national security team, which will be held Tuesday evening.

    While I did refer to a Ukrainian Air Force spokesman who said Russia used X-101 and X-555 cruise missiles in the latest attacks against Ukraine, and reports that expressed the belief that “one or more of these cruise missiles were the ones that struck Poland,” I was very careful in how I reported all this.

    Note the extensive use of the words “accidental,” “allegedly,” “reportedly,” “errant,” and “stray” missiles in my report. I also explained that the incident had provoked an “emergency crisis meeting” in Poland.

    The rest of my piece focused on the confirmed, massive Russian barrage of missile strikes against Ukrainian energy and infrastructure targets throughout the country.

    In the end it appears that the missile that struck Poland was a Russian-made Ukrainian air defense missile that missed its mark and fell back to earth rather than self-destructs.

    And even after its country of manufacture was known, outlets like CNN kept calling it a ‘Russian-made missile’ without adding that Ukraine uses lots of Russian-made missiles.

    Of course, in my view, Russia is still to blame for this, albeit indirectly, since no one would be firing armed missiles near a NATO country if it weren’t for the unprovoked Russian invasion, and its reckless and dangerous strikes near NATO’s borders.

    The Blaze added that:

    After having updated the initial report several times, the AP indicated [November 16] that a new assessment from three U.S. officials “contradicts information” in the original article. Shortly thereafter, the article was reportedly taken offline.

    The AP issued a retraction later that day…

    On Nov. 21, LaPorta was fired.

    But let’s use this incident as a teachable moment. 

    Lesson one – as sophisticated news consumers, be circumspect with the news you read until it is fully verified.

    Lesson two – be wary of reports using only one or two anonymous sources.

    And lesson three – journalists, and social media posters, should use words like ‘reportedly’ a lot more, and make it clear that there is room for doubt or questions when the reports are still fresh and early.

    The most important rule I’ve learned in journalism, and in intelligence, and also during my stint on Wall Street, is that – it’s never as good (or as bad) as first reported. 

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

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