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    China Raids US Corporate Due Diligence Firm in Beijing – Retaliation or Crackdown?

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    3
    Joe Biden via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    ANALYSIS – The communist regime in China raided a private U.S. investigations company’s office in Beijing on March 20. 

    This brazen, and likely unlawful, act against the New York-based due diligence firm, the Mintz Group, follows the FBI raid last fall of an illegal Chinese overseas ‘police station’ in New York City.

    And some see it as a heavy-handed, and non-symmetrical retaliation.

    But the raid in Beijing is also likely tied to Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s draconian security crackdown on the information inside China.

    “Red alerts should be going off in all boardrooms right now about risks in China,” said one source in the New York Post.

    The same U.S. business person also said that the Mintz Group raid sent a “remarkable signal” that Beijing will suck up foreign money and technology but won’t accept credible U.S. firms conducting research and investigations on Chinese partners or the country’s business environment.

    Reuters reported that the company confirmed that “Chinese authorities have detained the five staff in Mintz Group’s Beijing office, all of them Chinese nationals, and have closed our operations there.”

    The detained employees are reportedly being held somewhere outside Beijing. The company has not been able to contact the employees since they were detained.

    Unlike the official police status of the Chinese outposts raided in NYC, the Mintz Group is a purely private company.

    The firm describes itself as “a corporate investigations firm that gathers information before hiring, before transactions, during litigation disputes and after frauds, all over the world.”

    According to its website, the company has over 450 investigators in 18 offices worldwide, but its Beijing office is the only one in mainland China. It has a second office in Hong Kong.

    It also does background checks, asset tracing, and fraud and corruption investigations for businesses planning acquisitions or other large investments. 

    This corporate mission will likely be used by Chinese authorities to accuse the company of being spies.

    And it wouldn’t be the first time western due diligence companies have gotten into trouble with Chinese authorities. 

    British corporate investigator Peter Humphrey and his American wife Yu Yingzeng, who ran a risk advisory firm, ChinaWhys, were detained in 2013 for work they did for a giant British pharmaceutical firm.

    They spent two years in jail.

    But there is an added twist to this latest raid.

    While there may not be a direct link, the New York Post reported that: “Randal Phillips, a partner at the firm [Mintz Group] who heads its Asia operations but is based outside of China, is listed on its website as the Central Intelligence Agency’s former chief representative in China. Phillips worked in Beijing for years after leaving the CIA.”

    Even though the raid can be seen as a response to the FBI raid against Beijing’s illegal NYC police outpost, one of 100 stations around the world, the additional motive is also clear. 

    As the New York Times reports:

    …the move [also] highlighted the risks that firms involved in due diligence face in China as Xi Jinping, the country’s top leader, has repeatedly called for a greater emphasis on security and has tightened the ruling Communist Party’s grip on information.

    The firm stated that it “has not received any official legal notice regarding a case against the company and has requested that the authorities release its employees.”

    Perhaps not coincidentally, reported the Wall Street Journal, the Mintz Group raid is putting foreign companies in China on alert just as the country hosts an international economic conclave called the ‘China Development Forum’ set for this weekend.

    The high-profile event is expected to be attended by Apple CEO Tim Cook, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, Ray Dalio, who founded the world’s biggest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, and other top executives.

    According to a survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in China, with increasing tensions between the U.S. and China, U.S. businesses already operating in China are increasingly pessimistic about their prospects.

    Maybe this latest Chinese act will make more U.S. firms think twice about investing there.

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

    Amanda Head: NPR Now Labeled “State-Affiliated” Propaganda On Twitter!

    By
    Amanda Head
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    0

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

    Trump’s Much-Needed ‘Radical’ Second Term Agenda

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    3
    Gage Skidmore Flickr

    ANALYSIS – Former President Donald Trump is thinking bigly. In his bid to return to the Oval Office, Trump and his allies have promised a sweeping transformation of the federal government.

    And while the left and their mass media puppets decry these plans as radical, they are mostly a much-needed corrective after four years of truly extreme and disastrous Biden policies.

    If he returns to the White House in 2024, Trump is planning to root­ out polit­ical foes (dismantle the hyper political and leftist ‘deep state’), deport millions of illegal migrants who have invaded the U.S. under Joe Biden, slap tar­iffs on imports and scal­e back involvement in over­seas wars.

    I’m hoping that the last pledge doesn’t mean misguided global retreats, but instead ‘recalibrating’ to force NATO allies to do more in Europe, while we focus on China, for example.

    And though no longer talking about a ‘wall,’ Trump says he would “fully secure” the southern border, ending mass unskilled illegal immigration through Mexico.

    Trump’s allies are also working on executive orders and studying the Constitution in anticipation of legal challenges.

    As CNN reported:

    The goal is to have executive orders prepared – on everything from immigration to the removal of government protections for civil servants – for Trump to sign on day one of a potential second administration.

    Meanwhile, ‘Project 2025’, a significant effort run by the conservative Heritage Foundation, has brought many of these groups together to “pave the way for an effective conservative administration.”

    Trump’s plan includes asserting more White House control over the Department of Justice (DOJ), which he says he would use to pursue his relentlessly weaponized persecutors, plus reigning in the increasingly politicized FBI and Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

    The former president has also promised to issue pardons to “a large portion” of the nonviolent rioters jailed after the January 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol. Too many of them have received obscenely long sentences for minor, nonviolent crimes.

    And he isn’t giving Biden a pass. CNN noted:

    “I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Trump also said in June after his arraignment in Florida.

    “I will totally obliterate the Deep State.”

    One of Trump’s more sweeping, and welcome, proposals is ‘Agenda 47’: The large-scale arrest, detention, and mass deportation of illegal immigrants. Trump also plans to end automatic citizenship for children born to illegal migrants.

    Additionally, Trump vows to revive many of his effective first-term immigration policies to restrict both legal and illegal immigration – including reinstating and expanding a travel ban on predominantly-Muslim countries.

    He has also vowed to designate deadly Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) and to impose the death penalty at the federal level on drug dealers and human traffickers.

    But there’s more. As Barrons reported:

    Trump says he would also deploy the National Guard “to restore law and order” in liberal cities and would investigate “radical Marxist prosecutors” refusing to punish disorder.

    Trump has weighed in on most of the so-called “culture war” issues that polarize Americans, from abortion, transgender rights and gun control to the teaching of America’s racist history.

    The candidate says he would crack down on doctors providing gender-affirming care to minors and “pink haired communists” pushing critical race theory or “inappropriate” political material in schools.

    Trump would also create a new tax credit, he said, to reimburse teachers for concealed carry firearms and training…

    While some of these plans do hold the potential for abuse, the current system is already being abused in an unprecedented manner. 

    To quote the Joker played by Jack Nicholson in the 1989 Batman movie: “this town needs an enema.” And Trump may be the one providing it.

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

    Investigators Swoop in on Documents that Could Show Joe Biden was in on Influence Peddling Scheme

    By
    Donny Ferguson
    -
    6
    The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    Congressional investigators may soon have, and could reveal to the public, hidden government documents showing how then-Vice President Joe Biden used his office and taxpayer funds to boost his family’s alleged influence-peddling business.

    U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-KY) is demanding the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) turn over records regarding how Biden’s activities as Vice President coincided with his middle-aged son Hunter’s activities in Ukraine. 

    “Comer is requesting all unredacted documents and communications in which then-Vice President Joe Biden used a pseudonym; Hunter Biden, Eric Schwerin, or Devon Archer is copied; and all drafts of then-Vice President Biden’s speech delivered to the Ukrainian Rada in December 2015,” a statement from the Committee announced.

    “Joe Biden has stated there was ‘an absolute wall’ between his family’s foreign business schemes and his duties as Vice President, but evidence reveals that access was wide open for his family’s influence peddling,” said Comer.

    “We already have evidence of then-Vice President Biden speaking, dining, and having coffee with his son’s foreign business associates. We also know that Hunter Biden and his associates were informed of then-Vice President Biden’s official government duties in countries where they had a financial interest,” Comer added.

    “The National Archives must provide these unredacted records to further our investigation into the Biden family’s corruption,” Comer demanded.

    “In August 2019, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden stated that when he was Vice President there was ‘an absolute wall between the personal and private, and the government’ and ‘that is why I have never talked with my son or my brother, or anyone else in the distant family about their business interests, period,’” the Committee noted.

    But evidence, documents and eyewitnesses report otherwise.

    “Witness testimony reveals then-President Biden spoke on speakerphone with his son’s foreign business associates over 20 times, dined with corrupt foreign oligarchs in Washington, D.C., and met with his son’s Chinese business associate for coffee in Beijing. Emails in NARA’s custody also reveal how Hunter Biden and his associates were copied on official government email,” the Committee revealed.

    Below is the full text of the letter:

    The Honorable Colleen Shogan

    Archivist of the United States

    National Archives and Records Administration

    700 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

    Washington, D.C. 20408

    Dear Dr. Shogan:

    The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is investigating President Biden’s meetings and communications with certain family members and their business associates during his tenure as Vice President. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has published the Biden Vice Presidential Records Collection, which contains information relevant to the Committee’s work. Many of these records have been redacted for publication pursuant to the Presidential Records Act (PRA) and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). To further our investigation, it is essential that the Committee review these documents in their original format.

    The Committee seeks unrestricted special access under the PRA to Case Number 2023-0022-F, entitled “Email Messages To and/or From Vice President Biden and Hunter Biden related to Burisma and Ukraine,” which has been published on NARA’s website. These records have been redacted for public release pursuant to the PRA and FOIA. For example, an email bearing the subject “Friday Schedule Card,” is withheld in part under a “P6” and “b(6)” restrictions, denoting personal information regarding the subject under the PRA and FOIA respectively.  Attached to this email, and made available on the NARA website, is a document that indicates on 9:00 a.m. on May 27, 2016, Vice President Biden took a call with the president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko. It is concerning to the Committee, however, that this document was sent to “Robert L. Peters”—a pseudonym the Committee has identified as then Vice-President Biden. Additionally, the Committee questions why the then-Vice President’s son, Hunter Biden—and only Hunter Biden—was copied on this email to then-Vice President Biden.

    To further our investigation, the Committee needs to review these documents in their original format. The Committee also requests access to certain other documents and information described below. Please provide these documents no later than August 31, 2023:

    Complete, unredacted versions of all documents from Case Number 2023-0022-F; 

    Any document or communication in which a pseudonym for Vice President Joe Biden was included either as a sender, recipient, copied or was included in the contents of the document or communication, including but not limited to Robert Peters, Robin Ware, and JRB Ware;

    Any document or communication in which Hunter Biden, Eric Schwerin, or Devon Archer was included either as a sender, recipient, copied, or was included in the contents of the document or communication; and

    All drafts from November 1, 2015 to December 9, 2015 of then-Vice President Biden’s speech delivered to the Ukrainian Rada on December 9, 2015.

    Special access to presidential records may be granted “to…Congress” and “to the extent of matter within its jurisdiction, to any committee… if such records contain information that is needed for the conduct of its business and that is not otherwise available….” Furthermore, the PRA subjects Vice-Presidential records to its provisions “in the same manner as Presidential records.”

    The Committee’s need for these Vice-Presidential records is specific and well-documented. The Committee seeks to craft legislative solutions aimed at deficiencies it has identified in the current legal framework regarding ethics laws and disclosure of financial interests related to the immediate family members of Vice Presidents and Presidents—deficiencies that may place American national security and interests at risk. The Committee is concerned that foreign nationals have sought access and influence by engaging in lucrative business relationships with high-profile political figures’ immediate family members, including members of the Biden family. For additional information regarding the Committee’s legislative purpose regarding its investigation of the Biden family’s international business, the Committee would direct you to three bank records memoranda it has released this year.

    The Committee on Oversight and Accountability has specific jurisdiction over NARA under House Rule X. Additionally, the Committee on Oversight and Accountability is the principal oversight committee of the U.S. House of Representatives and has broad authority to investigate “any matter” at “any time” under House Rule X. 

    To schedule the delivery of responsive documents or if you have questions regarding this request, please contact Committee on Oversight and Accountability staff at (202) 225-5074. Thank you for your prompt attention to this important investigation.

    Sincerely,

    James Comer

    Chairman

    Committee on Oversight and Accountability

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

    Outrage Grows After Woke Navy Launched Drag Queen ‘Recruiter’

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    6
    Daniel Ramirez from Honolulu, USA, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – America’s Navy is sinking fast – last year, the world’s premier maritime combat service launched, then apparently scuttled, a new recruiting campaign led by an active-duty ‘non-binary’ sailor drag queen.

    And our nation’s enemies are likely quaking in their boots at the promise of even more drag queens being recruited to fight on the front lines by our armed forces.

    The Navy’s appointment of a gay cross-dresser as its first ‘digital ambassador,’ while struggling with recruitment, has sparked outrage, disbelief and mockery of the Navy and the entire Department of Defense.

    A Navy spokesperson told Fox News that the now defunct program was “designed to explore the digital environment to reach a wide range of potential candidates” as the Navy battles “the most challenging recruiting environment it has faced since the start of the all-volunteer force.”

    Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley, whose stage name is Harpy Daniels, has a large following on TikTok (of course). He announced his role in November but has only recently been discovered by mainstream news sources.

    (NOTE: I don’t use preferred pronouns. He is either a ‘he’ or she is a ‘she,’ regardless of how they ‘identify.’ And ‘they’ is only used to refer to two or more individuals.)

    Kelley calls himself an ‘advocate’ for those who ‘were oppressed for years in the service.’

    Many have compared him to Dylan Mulvaney, the biologically male trans activist whose association with Bud Light sparked a PR crisis for the brand and sent sales plummeting.

    Rep. Jim Banks, a Republican from Indiana, tweeted that “Biden DoD’s [Department of Defense] recruitment is as good as Bud Light’s marketing.”

    Jesse Watters said on his Fox News show on Wednesday: “What’s wrong with the Navy? They looked at Bud Light and said: ‘Hold my beer?’ Harpy is the Navy’s Dylan. Dylan killed Bud Light sales. What do you think Harpy’s going to do to recruitment?”

    Kelley is not the Navy’s only digital ambassador (he is one of five). The Navy says that the ‘digital ambassador’ was a pilot program that ended in March 2023.

    According to surveys, only 13 percent of 18-29-year-olds in the U.S. are ‘highly willing’ to join the Navy, while 25 percent are ‘somewhat willing.’ Critics like me can’t see how a man made up to look like a caricature of a woman will help convince more of our youth to serve in a warfighting role.

    Unless the plan is to recruit even more cross-dressing young men with possible gender dysphoria to serve aboard warships, planes and tanks.

    Robert J. O’Neill, a decorated combat veteran who served as a member of SEAL Team Six, and was on the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, said on Twitter he “can’t believe [he] fought for this bulls**t.”

    “Alright. The U.S. Navy is now using an enlisted sailor Drag Queen as a recruiter,” he tweeted. “I’m done. China is going to destroy us.”

    His tweet quickly gained 1.1 million views and thousands of likes and retweets. 

    “Not this Navy veteran. I’m ashamed of the Navy,” wrote another veteran. “It’s an insult to every veteran. The army kept making me go to trans EO-type classes before I retired. Nope. Didn’t go.”

    Another veteran responded: “As a Navy veteran, I am ashamed on behalf of the US Navy. I hope that goes over as well as Bud Light did.”

    But another person – who can’t distinguish between freedom of expression in the civilian world and pushing a bizarre, fringe sexual agenda in our armed forces – mockingly commented:

    “Local man angry he fought for freedom of expression.”

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

    Amanda Head: ‘Clueless’ Star Bares All for Magic Mushrooms

    By
    Amanda Head
    -
    2

    “Clueless” star Alicia Silverstone stripped all the way down for another campaign for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

    Watch Amanda explain the latest controversy below.

    Amanda Head: Huge Milestone for Conservative Films

    By
    Amanda Head
    -
    0

    Liberals aren’t happy about this…

    The new movie “Sound of Freedom” is dominating the box office and Democrats are scratching their heads as to why…

    Watch Amanda explain the situation below:

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

    Amanda Head: Vax Pusher Bruce Springsteen Cancels 3rd Concert This Week Over Illness

    By
    Amanda Head
    -
    0

    His fans have had enough…

    Watch Amanda explain the latest controversy below:

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

    Amanda Head: Are You on the #TrumpTrain for 2024?

    By
    Amanda Head
    -
    0

    Donald Trump officially kicked off this third presidential campaign while delivering a speech Tuesday evening from his Mar-a-Lago resort.

    Are you all in on Trump 2024 or keeping your options open?

    Watch Amanda break it down below.

    Congress Reveals Stunning New Information on January 6 Attacker

    By
    Donny Ferguson
    -
    7

    Members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee investigating the federal government’s response to the January 6, 2021 incidents at the U.S. Capitol now reveal that a pair of pipe bombs planted at the Capitol Hill offices of the Republican and Democrat parties may have been a diversion to distract law enforcement from other events.

    They also reveal that while the bombs contained live explosives, it does not appear the timers were operable, and the FBI may not even have interviewed the witnesses who discovered them.

    In response, Chairmen Thomas Massie (R-KY), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray “revealing new information surrounding the FBI’s investigation into pipe bombs placed near the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Republican National Committee (RNC) on January 5, 2021,” the Judiciary Committee reports.

    “On June 7, 2023, the Committee on the Judiciary conducted a transcribed interview of Steven D’Antuono, the former Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI Washington Field Office (WFO),” the Committee announced.

    “In that role, Mr. D’Antuono oversaw the WFO’s investigations into the events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, including the placement of pipe bombs near the headquarters of the DNC and RNC on January 5, 2021. Mr. D’Antuono’s testimony provided new information about the FBI’s investigation into the pipe bombs and reinforces our concerns about the FBI’s handling of this matter,” the Committee revealed.

    In his transcribed interview, Steven D’Antuono “suggested that the FBI could not even determine whether the placement of the pipe bombs was a ‘diversionary’ tactic for the events of January 6,” the Committee also revealed.

    D’Antuono testified:

    MASSIE: Are you familiar with the diversion thesis, that these were set up to be a diversion?

    D’ANTUONO: Yeah, I’ve heard people say that, but if you watch – I’ve done a lot of media reports. I was trying to get the information out there, tips and stuff like that, right. I will not speculate. I’m not going to speculate on that. I think that’s speculation, at best, when people say that it’s a diversionary tactic. We’ll never know until we find the person that actually did – or persons that actually did it. So I can’t speculate on that. Could it have been? Yes, that’s one theory. Obviously, it’s one theory. But is it the only theory? I don’t – I really don’t know.

    MASSIE: It looks like the head Capitol Police [sic] believes it was a diversion.

    D’ANTUONO: So Steve Sund, chief of police, yes. I believe he wrote that in his book. Again, it’s pure speculation. There’s no intelligence – look, I ran the investigation for 2 years until I stepped out. We don’t know. We don’t even know the gender at this point as to – we could speculate, and there’s a lot of people that are speculating as to the gender.

    MASSIE: How confident are you that the individual depicted in the surveillance footage on January 5th set both of those pipe bombs in place?

    D’ANTUONO: So the video that we saw, I feel confident that by the video that we have, that that person planted those. 

    D’Antuono also testified on the “viability of the pipe bombs, which, according to reporting, were deemed to be ‘inoperable,’” the Committee reports.

    “D’Antuono referenced a report from the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, that the pipe bombs were viable, and ‘they could explode, and they could cause harm or death,’” the Committee notes, adding. “D’Antuono also acknowledged that the timer used on the pipe bomb could not have detonated the pipe bomb given the time already elapsed between placement and discovery.”

    He testified:

    MASSIE: Well, let me ask you this: Do you think it was technically possible for a kitchen timer . . . that has [a] 1-hour duration . . . to detonate a bomb 17 hours later?

    D’ANTUONO: No, I don’t. And I saw the same kitchen timer as you. I agree. I don’t know when they were supposed to go off. Maybe they weren’t supposed to go off. We can’t—we don’t know. We honestly don’t know, and that’s some of the pain . . . .

    D’Antuono’s testimony “provided additional details about the FBI’s use of geofencing technology to identify the pipe bomb suspect,” the Committee revealed.

    He testified:

    D’ANTUONO: So the – there’s a lot of phone data that came in. Yes, I’ve seen the same video. I’ve watched the same video. We put out the same video. It looks like a phone. Was it a real phone, a not a real phone, was it a ruse? Was it a – you know, I picked up my phone several times at meetings going, oh, yeah, I got to take this call, and walk out, right. The phone’s not on, right. So was the person just sitting there trying to pretend like they’re on a bench taking a phone call? We don’t know until we find the person, right, and ask them those questions.

    We did a complete geofence. We have complete data. Not complete, because there’s some data that was corrupted by one of the providers, not purposely by them, right. It just – unusual circumstance that we have corrupt data from one of the providers. I’m not sure – I can’t remember right now which one. But for that day, which is awful because we don’t have that information to search. So could it have been that provider? Yeah, with our luck, you know, with this investigation it probably was, right. So maybe if we did have that – that data wasn’t corrupted – and it wasn’t purposely corrupted. I don’t want any conspiracy theories, right. To my knowledge, it wasn’t corrupted, you know, but that could have been good information that we don’t have, right. So that is painful for us to not to have that. So we looked at everything.

    D’Antuono also testified that he did not definitively know if the FBI had interviewed the individual who discovered the pipe bomb at the DNC.

    He testified:

    MASSIE: So just to . . . put a fine point on it, you do not know whether they interviewed the person that discovered . . . the [bomb] at the DNC?

    D’ANTUONO: I don’t know.

    The Committee notes “D’Antuono conceded that it would be ‘investigation 101’ to interview the individuals who discovered the bombs, yet he was unable to confirm whether the FBI had taken this basic investigative step.”

    He explained:

    MASSIE: So – but the person who found – you either haven’t identified the person who found the second pipe bomb, or did you?

    D’ANTUONO: I – honestly, sir, I don’t know the granularity of everything my agents and analysts did in that matter. It’s just – it’s a whole host of stuff that’s going on. As the [Assistant Director in Charge], as like any senior leader, I’m getting briefed on things, and that part never came up, so –

    “D’Antuono’s testimony raises concerns about the FBI’s handling of the pipe bomb investigation, more than 890 days following the placement of the pipe bombs. To date, the FBI has failed to respond to the Committee’s requests for a briefing regarding the investigation,” the Committee concludes.

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

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