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    Outrage Grows After Woke Navy Launched Drag Queen ‘Recruiter’

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    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.

    Biden’s DHS Misinforms Congress About its Orwellian ‘Disinformation’ Board

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    4
    The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – As Republican senators try to conduct oversight over, and gain insight into, the outrageous, and supposedly now defunct, ‘Disinformation Governance Board’ at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Team Biden is blocking the senators at every step.

    The board was dismantled under pressure in August following the recommendation of the Homeland Security Advisory Council. 

    However, many are concerned that DHS will continue with its dangerously un-American efforts under a different name.

    And now they are clearly afraid of what nefarious collusion with Big Tech the senators might uncover. 

    So, as always, covering up is the next step when faced with hard questions and the great disinfectant called sunlight.

    In this case, Team Biden is censoring its own documents which may describe its actions ‘prodding’ social media companies to censor conservative Americans under the guise of controlling ‘disinformation.’

    Biden’s DHS essentially ‘misinformed’ Congress by totally redacting (censoring) large portions of documents requested by Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Josh Hawley of Missouri back in June.

    These documents mostly related to the ‘Truth Board’s’ cozy relationship with social media platforms.

    This issue is particularly critical now in light of recent revelations of collusion between the FBI and these same platforms, and the obscene partisan censorship done at Twitter in apparent coordination with the White House, as revealed by Elon Musk.

    In a letter sent Thursday to embattled DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Grassley and Hawley said the Department of Homeland Security heavily redacted documents they had requested six months ago.

    The letter read: 

    Based on our review of this material, it appears that many of the redactions are applied to pre-decisional and deliberative process material. We remind you that the oversight letters we send to the Executive Branch are signed in our capacity as sitting members of Congress, a separate and co-equal branch of government.

    Newsmax reported:

    Grassley and Hawley then said they would formally renew their requests to the department, as it is still “impossible to know the full extent to which various DHS components and offices are engaged in DHS’s ‘burgeoning’ counter-disinformation efforts.”

    “Please provide full and complete responses to all questions contained in our June 7, 2022, letter,” the two wrote, adding that they would also like “a detailed description of DHS’s policy for responding to congressional oversight requests.”

    The letter comes months after the White House canned the project due to substantial backlash, officially citing a recommendation from the Homeland Security Advisory Council, according to a press release.

    “With the HSAC recommendations as a guide, the Department will continue to address threat streams that undermine the security of our country consistent with the law while upholding the privacy, civil rights and civil liberties of the American people and promoting transparency in our work,” the statement read.

    Let’s hope that these senators will soon get the unredacted documents, so we can all learn what was really going on inside Biden’s dark attempt to create its own Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’ 

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

    Amanda Head: RNC Blows YOUR Donations On Makeup, Flowers, Lululemon, Alcohol and More!

    By
    Amanda Head
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    13

    The Republican National Committee’s (RNC) spending is out of control.

    Watch Amanda break down the disaster below:

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

    Top Democrat Senate Recruit in Free-fall After Being Caught Using Racist Slur

    By
    Donny Ferguson
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    1
    Ted Eytan from Washington, DC, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

    A top Democrat recruit for United States Senate has fallen behind his Republican opponent and is backing out of a Democrat debate after he used a racist slur in a congressional hearing.

    A planned April 23 debate between two Maryland Democrat candidates, Congressman David Trone and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, was canceled after Trone “refused to commit” in the wake of the incident.

    During a March 21 House Budget Committee hearing, Trone asked  about tax policy with Shalanda Young, who is both White House Director of the Office of Budget and Management, and black, “So this Republican j-gaboo that, it’s the tax rate that’s stopping business investment, it’s just completely faulty by people who have never run a business.”

    Trone says he meant to say “bugaboo,” but instead used a racial slur for black people when speaking to the black official.

    The incident could derail Trone, who is leading Alsobrooks in polls ahead of the May 21 primary to see who will succeed retiring three-term Democrat Senator Ben Cardin as the Democrat nominee.  Not only is Trone white and Alsobrooks black, in a state whose Democrat primary sees large black turnout.

    Trone, a millionaire businessman, has flooded TV with ads featuring black women supporting him. 

    Trone is still considered the favorite to win the Democrat nomination in the heavily Democrat state.

    But Trone’s expected easy win to claim the seat in November was upended when popular Republican former governor Larry Hogan jumped into the race.

    Hogan leads Trone by an average of 4.4% in polls of a hypothetical November matchup.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk. Article Published With The Permission of American Liberty News.

    Radical Army Secretary Doesn’t Want White Men from ‘Patriot’ Families

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    6
    The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – In one of my earlier PDBs I asked if the Pentagon’s ‘Wokeness’ was a deliberate effort to keep straight, white Christian males from joining the military. Of course, I knew the answer was ‘yes.’ 

    I even said, “this may be the left’s goal – to deliberately alienate [straight] white Christian men from joining, so they can expand efforts to recruit non-religious, non-white, woke LGBT lefties instead.”

    But now Joe Biden’s Army Secretary, Christine Wormuth, a lefty civilian bureaucrat who never served a day in uniform, is saying the quiet part out loud. And she is going even farther. Much farther.

    Wormuth doesn’t just want to alienate white Christian men, so they won’t join, she specifically wants to keep out recruits from what I call ‘patriot families’ – those who have a history of serving our country going back up to seven generations. 

    Most of these patriot family recruits would be white Christian men. Many of them are from the South.

    Since the end of the draft in 1973 at the close of the Vietnam War, notes the Wall Street Journal, the Army has relied “heavily on veterans and military families to develop the next generation of recruits, especially in the region known in the military as the ‘Southern Smile,’ a curving region from the mid-Atlantic and down across the southern U.S.”

    But we now also have multi-generational Hispanic service members and a few others. The children of all these military families make up most new recruits in the U.S. military. 

    The Journal added:

    Today, nearly 80% of all new Army recruits have a family member who has served in uniform, according to the service. That can be a good thing, said Col. Mark Crow, director of the Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis at West Point, because “people who know the most about it stick around.” 

    But to the far-left Democrats, including Wormuth, all these patriots are dangerous and must be purged from our fighting forces. That’s what the Pentagon’s wokeness is really about.

    As the Wall Street Journal reported:

    Depending too much on military families could create a “warrior caste,” Wormuth said. Her plans seek to draw in people who have no real connection to the military and to broaden the appeal of service.

    What does that nonsense mean in real terms?

    Well, Daniel Greenfield says it very well in Frontpage Magazine:

    There is a ‘warrior caste’ insofar as you have families who have fought for this country since the War of Independence. They showed up, they bled, and now they’re to be replaced by drag queens and identity politics quotas.

    And Wormuth’s radical plan to replace our ‘warrior caste’ is being finalized. 

    According to the WSJ, “Wormuth said she expects within weeks to begin drafting a proposal for a recruiting overhaul so sweeping that Congress might need to pass legislation to enact all of it.”

    While not going into details, Wormuth has stated that: “The Army is strategically deploying recruiters to communities across the country based on demographics, ethnicity, race, and gender.” 

    How does this translate into policy? 

    Greenfield writes in another Frontpage piece that: “Rather than getting the best people or even adequately qualified people, the goal is to match the force to the census data in a completely senseless exercise so that the people they do get are 20% black, 7.2% Asian, and 0.6% American Indian, or develop a plan to get those Asians.”

    He adds:

    That’s what deciding that the military should “look like America” really means in the ranks. You can’t have too many white men, but too many black men could also become a problem. If the goal is to match the census, then you can’t have too few minorities or too many. Come on in Jiang, we haven’t met our Chinese quota yet, sorry Jose, we have too many Hispanics already.

    But as the Pentagon’s annual June ‘Pride’ festivities highlight, it’s not just about racial quotas, it’s also about sexual identity politics. Greenfield concludes:

    Who needs a few good men when you can have a few good trans-men of color? And who cares if they speak English? No Habla Ingles? No problemo! Having HIV  is not a problem. Being from an enemy nation is not a problem. Being a man who believes he’s a woman is not a problem.

    Being white, especially a heterosexual male, is a very big problem. We need a military that looks like America and white heterosexual men look nothing like America.

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

    Amanda Head: Everything You Need To Know About The Hunter Biden 1023!

    By
    Amanda Head
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    0
    Amanda Head

    The never-ending drama surrounding Hunter Biden just keeps getting better.

    Watch Amanda explain the controversy below:

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

    Veteran Gun Store Owner Saves Lives by Storing Other Vet’s Firearms

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    1
    Police image via Pixabay free images

    ANALYSIS – Every now and then you see a story that just hits home, and you know you need to write about it and spread the word. This one, reported by CBS News, is absolutely one of them.

    Caleb Morse, 39, an Army combat veteran, set up Rustic Renegade, a gun shop and shooting range in 2018 in Lafayette, Louisiana.

    Morse had served two combat tours in Iraq with the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division Special Troops Battalion, followed by service in the National Guard, and then worked as a military contractor in Iraq for four years.

    One day an Army buddy Morse served with in Iraq showed up at his gun store with his car and his dog. Then he brought a lot of guns inside the store, Morse said, adding: “And I’m like, brother, what are you doing?”

    Morse knew well that often when people, especially combat veterans, start giving away their things, they may be considering suicide. 

    But before Morse could have a chat with his buddy, the vet simply left. And for six months his buddy didn’t answer his phone.

    Meanwhile, Morse decided to hold his friend’s guns at Rustic Renegade in case he ever came back. 

    Thankfully, as CBS News reported:

    …his friend called and explained he had been in a bad spot and wondered where his guns were.  Morse said he told him, “They’re your guns, man. They’re yours, you may want them back. And whenever you’re ready, they’re here for you.

    “More than half of all gun-related deaths in the United States are suicides, according to the Centers for Disease Control. In 2022, the CDC reported that 26,993 people died by firearm suicide. Deaths by gun suicide are at an all-time high and have steadily increased, nearly uninterrupted, since 2006 according to researchers at John Hopkins School of Public Health. 

    In the veteran population the problem is acute; in its 2022 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Report, the Department of Veterans Affairs found that the suicide rate in 2020 was 57.3 % greater for veterans.  

    Guns are more commonly involved among veteran suicides, at 71%, than the rest of the population, at 50.3%, according to the CDC.

    Soon after his first buddy chose to drop off his guns with Morse, another veteran came by to do the same, telling Morse that he was “in a bad spot.”

    Morse, who had similarly been very depressed after returning from Iraq, accepted the vet’s gun and decided to set up a system to hold and track guns being left for storage by troubled vets in his store’s inventory, telling them to pick up their firearms when they felt better. 

    Within a year, other veterans dropped off guns “about a dozen times,” CBS reported. Since then, he has stored about 100 firearms.

    Soon after the second vet asked for gun storage, Morse was contacted by Gala True, an associate professor at Louisiana State University School of Medicine who specializes in efforts to prevent veteran suicides.

    According to CBS, she met with Morse in 2021 to work on a project she was coordinating with gun store owners who wanted to store firearm storage for those in crisis who, for a time, didn’t want their firearms in their homes. 

    The Armory Project was launched in Louisiana that same year with three different gun shop owners interested in providing storage for firearms.

    Through a Veterans Administration (VA) grant, True and her team helped the gun dealers build local networks and partnerships.

    Mike Anestis, a suicide prevention expert, professor at Rutgers University, and  Executive director of the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center and a professor at Rutgers University, said that in a country with roughly 400 million guns, the solution can’t be about banning firearms or stopping people from buying them.

    And Anestis is absolutely correct. Voluntary outside storage, like preventing drunk driving by “taking away the car keys,” is a far better solution for preventing suicide by gunshot, than bans that violate our 2nd Amendment rights.

    However, storing guns as part of a gun store’s inventory can cause liability issues.

    So, as CBS reported, in July 2023 the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) got involved (in a good way this time). It issued an open letter to Federal Firearms Licensees (FFL) and gun shops advising how to legally and safely store firearms for these individuals. 

    Providing gun storage lockers at the gun store that individuals can open themselves and put their firearms inside, is one option.

    As the ATF letter states: “In this situation, an FFL does not “receive “or “acquire ” the firearm into its inventory, nor does the FFL assume control of the individual’s firearm.” This can reduce liability for gun shop owners like Morse, who want to provide outside storage for others in need. 

    This is a great idea, and a great story. Look up The Armory Project and see if you can help with the effort in your state, city, or locality.

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

    GOP Bill Says Only US Flags Will Fly Over Our Embassies Abroad – But What About Fed Buildings at Home?

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    2

    ANALYSIS – As a former Marine Corps officer and military attaché who served at several embassies overseas in the 1990s, it has infuriated me to see partisans and ideologues impose their radical agendas on our foreign embassies during Joe Biden’s tenure at the White House.

    Flying extremely divisive, and to many host countries, offensive, flags representing controversial sexual agendas (LGBTQ+), which includes the extreme ‘trans’ movement, and private groups which espouse hate toward one race and law enforcement (Black Lives Matter – BLM), has been an egregious abuse pushed hard by the Biden State Department since last year.

    Our embassies and consulates are official extensions of the United States. They are even considered sovereign U.S. territory. 

    They are there on behalf of the entire U.S. nation, as represented by our national flag, not sectarian views, or radical and controversial agendas. 

    This is true, even when these same radical agendas are being forced on our executive branches of government. 

    Thankfully, the new GOP House is proposing to quickly change that abuse.

    The Old Glory Only Act, introduced Monday by South Carolina Republican Rep. Jeff Duncan would prohibit any flag other than the American flag to be flown over U.S. embassies and consulates.

    Newsmax reported:

    “Our beautiful flag, Old Glory, should be the only flag flying and representing our country over our diplomatic and consular posts worldwide,” Duncan said in a press release announcing the bill’s introduction in the House Monday. “The American flag is a beacon of liberty, and no other flag or symbol better portrays our shared values than the Stars and Stripes. It is important to ensure that Old Glory only is flown at American embassies to represent our ideals abroad.”

    The New York Times previously reported that Biden Secretary of State Antony Blinken authorized U.S. embassies to fly ‘gay pride’ flags in April 2021, prior to May 17, which is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, and to continue displaying the flag through the end of the month.

    The push to fly the rainbow ‘gay pride’ flag actually began in 2014, under the Obama-Biden term. That flag has flown over U.S. embassies in more than a dozen countries since then, including Russia, Spain, Sweden and South Korea.

    President Trump’s Secretary of State banned the ‘pride’ flags from being flown but his order was quickly  reversed by Blinken.

    In May, another cable from Blinken’s State Department authorized flying Black Lives Matter flags at U.S. diplomatic facilities worldwide, Foreign Policy reported at the time.

    The BLM flag has been flown at U.S. embassies in Brazil, Greece, Spain, Bosnia, Cambodia and South Korea, according to Duncan’s office.

    This, even though violent BLM rioters had spent months attacking the federal courthouse in Portland and laying siege to dozens of cities nationwide just months earlier in 2020.

    The BLM riots caused over $2 billion in property damage, more than any other similar event in U.S. history, injured over 2,000 local and federal police officers, and resulted in numerous deaths of civilians. 

    According to the NYT, a cable from the State Department at the time gave the chiefs of missions (COMs), who lead our overseas diplomatic stations, a “blanket written authorization” to display the flags if it was “appropriate in light of local conditions.” 

    While the Times noted this was an “authorization, not a requirement,” few COMs will ignore the pressure to follow the boss’ lead, and the more woke embassies and consulates quickly started flying these unofficial flags.

    Republicans are optimistic the new GOP leadership will hold a vote on the bill since there is broad GOP support for the idea.

    But why stop there? Why not ban these divisive flags from being flown over any federal buildings, period – including all of the ones here at home?

    According to the General Services Administration (GSA), More than 40 federal buildings across the country opted to raise the Pride Flag to show their support of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in the federal workforce.

    What they are actually doing is flying the flags of exclusive, divisive and radical private groups on federal property paid for by the U.S. taxpayer.

    This too must end. 

    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
    -
    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.

    Chinese Drones May Be Spying All Over DC

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    3
    Ted Eytan from Washington, DC, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – We have recently heard a lot about UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) and the newer UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena).

    The Pentagon has even weighed in on their myriad interactions with military pilots and astronauts.

    Some analysts have concluded many of these UAP sightings are simply aerial or space debris. 

    While enemy spy aircraft account for many of the incidents as well.

    In that vein, experts and lawmakers are now raising the alarm over what are likely large numbers of Chinese Communist (Chicom) drones on spy missions over DC.

    This more down-to-earth threat needs to be addressed quickly and forcibly.

    POLITICO reports:

    Hundreds of Chinese-manufactured drones have been detected in restricted airspace over Washington, D.C., in recent months, a trend that national security agencies fear could become a new means for foreign espionage.

    The recreational drones made by Chinese company DJI, which are designed with “geofencing” restrictions to keep them out of sensitive locations, are being manipulated by users with simple workarounds to fly over no-go zones around the nation’s capital.

    …officials say they do not believe the swarms are directed by the Chinese government. Yet the violations by users mark a new turn in the proliferation of relatively cheap but increasingly sophisticated drones that can be used for recreation and commerce.

    Still, lawmakers are concerned.

    …DJI has secured funding from investment entities owned by the Chinese government — a fact that DJI reportedly sought to conceal. And the ease with which recreational users can evade the flight restrictions means that their high-definition cameras or other sensors could also be hacked into for intelligence-gathering.

    POLITICO adds:

    “Any technological product with origins in China or Chinese companies holds a real risk and potential of vulnerability that can be exploited both now and in a time of conflict,” Sen. Marco Rubio, vice chair of the Intelligence Committee, said in an interview about the potential threats posed by foreign-made drones. “They’re manufactured in China or manufactured by a Chinese company, but they’ll put a sticker on it of some non-Chinese company that repackages it so you don’t even know that you’re buying it.

    And the highly restricted airspace above DC is a prime drone target.

    POLITICO continue:

    …data recently shared with Congress highlights more than 100 incursions in a recent 45-day period but the sources requested that specific numbers, locations and frequency not be published for security reasons.

    But it’s not just potential spying. 

    FBI Director Christopher Wray recently warned  that the Bureau has seen within the U.S., attempts to weaponize drones with homemade [improvised explosive devices].”

    So, what can be done?

    In February, GOP U.S. Senator Marco Rubio introduced legislation to add DJI to a Federal Communications Commission list designating it as a national security threat. 

    This would restrict DJI drones’ ability to link to U.S. telecommunications systems.

    This measure was adopted after it was reported that the company sought to conceal its funding by the Chinese government.

    Unfortunately, the bill has been stalled and hasn’t gone anywhere in Congress.

    It’s time to implement this bill and turn it into law.

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

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