Did you ever expect this?
Less than one week after Fox News settled a major defamation suit against Dominion Voting Systems the network has parted ways with one of its biggest stars…
Watch Amanda explain the controversy below:
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
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.
The latest polls show why liberalism sucks…
It’s unavoidable and now more Americans are sick and tired of Biden’s leadership has resulted in nothing but an epic failure.
Let Amanda break down the latest situation below:
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
A former IRS consultant who stole the tax returns of President Donald Trump and thousands of wealthy individuals, then leaked them to liberal media outlets to campaign for tax hikes, has pleaded guilty to a single count of “unauthorized disclosure of tax return and return information,” despite confessing in court to committing the crime thousands of times.
The decision to charge Charles Littlejohn with a single minor crime, while seeking decades in prison for Trump and many of his supporters, has many claiming it is yet another example of a politicized Justice Department.
Littlejohn faces a maximum of five years in prison, but will almost certainly serve far less than that, if any, time.
Littlejohn used his access to confidential information to steal the tax returns of Trump and wealthy individuals, often saving the electronic files to personal devices like an iPad, then leaking the documents to the New York Times and the liberal activist outlet ProPublica.
The illegal leaks set off a feeding frenzy in the media, who used the illicit disclosures to attack Trump and falsely campaign for tax hikes.
The DOJ’s decision to give Littlejohn a sweetheart plea deal, while targeting Trump supporters with harsh charges, has some in Congress calling out what they see as a biased and two-tier justice system.
“The defendant admitted to making two separate disclosures to two separate news outlets impacting over a thousand taxpayers, and further admitted to impeding or obstructing the investigation — yet the Department of Justice inexplicably only pursued one count of unauthorized disclosure,” the House Committee on Ways and Means Committee fumed in a statement.
“Ways and Means Committee Republicans have pushed federal investigators for years to get to the bottom of who stole and leaked the taxpayer information of thousands of Americans – including those of former President Donald Trump. Finally, the thief has been identified, charged, and now has pled guilty to this unprecedented crime,” said Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.).
“Unfortunately, the Department of Justice elected to charge only one count despite the more than a thousand disclosures he admitted to in open court. To restore trust in the justice system and the IRS – and to deter future thefts – there need to be significant consequences for this type of illegal, politically motivated activity,” Smith added.
ANALYSIS – News coverage of Joe Biden’s border disaster has dropped considerably since the drama surrounding the end of Title 42 faded. But we still have a border crisis.
Not only is the border still effectively open, but foreign criminal elements are taking full advantage of it.
And it’s not just Mexican drug cartels.
The expected tsunami of illegal border crossers never fully materialized once Biden allowed Title 42 to expire, partly because Team Biden had already let in so many, and because it more effectively pushed through others without the mobs piling up at the border.
The drug cartels, human traffickers, and migrants themselves, also began considering new strategies to enter the United States and operate here with impunity.
Foreign criminal groups have been at the forefront of exploiting Biden’s chaotic open border. It is well-documented that Mexican drug cartels control certain border regions.
But it’s not just cartels from Mexico that are coming through undaunted. Criminal gangs from El Salvador, such as MS-13 have been known to operate lucrative and deadly cross-border criminal operations.
And now we are hearing about Romanian mobsters infesting America.
According to the Daily Caller: “Romanian migrants in the country illegally, some of whom are known to have crossed the southern border, are suspected of crimes across the country, according to internal law enforcement alerts…”
The Caller added:
The law enforcement alerts, which span from Florida to Pennsylvania and New York, warn of Romanians who are suspected of financial crimes and are known to be in the country illegally, and have deportation orders. Border Patrol recorded 5,895 encounters of Romanian migrants in fiscal year 2022 at the southern border, up from … 266 in fiscal year 2020.
The huge influx of Romanians appears to be organized and they focus on defrauding Americans. One senior Border Patrol official told the Daily Caller that many of them have criminal histories that mainly include theft, larceny, fraud, and domestic violence when they’re arrested.
And it’s often a family affair.
“They all have criminal records when they show up. Rarely single adults. They usually show up in family units…” explained the Border Patrol official, adding: “it’s a pain in the ass to get approval for family separation, so that we can house, prosecute the offender.”
“They all claim asylum/credible fear, just like everyone else. Hoping that we’ll process them and release them to the NGOs,” the official added.
Once inside the U.S. they fan out and operate nationwide.
The Caller continued:
In April, Florida law enforcement stopped a vehicle with two Romanian nationals they discovered were in the U.S. illegally who allegedly possessed “fraudulent passports, fraudulent credit cards, $4,000 in U.S. currency, covert cameras concealed to hide (for possible ATM PIN harvesting), (3) skimming devices, a thumb drive, and an ATM pin pad cling device,” an official alert stated.
A device seized from the vehicle allegedly possessed bank information of “thousands of victims.”
An international law enforcement alert in February warned of three Romanians with “open cases with ICE for deportation.” They were allegedly installing credit card “skimming devices” in Pennsylvania Walmart self-checkouts.
So next time your identity is stolen, your credit card hacked, or your bank account emptied, the criminals who did it may just be Romanians who entered the country illegally under Biden.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
Could it be time to amend the U.S. Constitution?
Watch Amanda explain the situation below:
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – While the establishment media continues to ignore the disturbing ‘Twitter Files’ released by Elon Musk showing how Twitter censored the Hunter Biden laptop story, more information now indicates it was worse than we first thought.
As Musk noted, it’s not a direct First Amendment violation for a private company to censor the news, but it absolutely is if it’s done at the behest of our government.
And while I will argue that as the nation’s new ‘public square,’ Big Tech does violate the First Amendment when it censors news, there is now no denying that in the Hunter laptop case it did so with input from the FBI.
I will save the public square censorship discussion for another time.
These new disclosures provide more evidence that under the purported guise of stopping Russian election interference, the FBI ended up being guilty of employing its own U.S. election interference.
And Twitter (like Facebook and LinkedIn, et al.) took the ball and ran with it.
Based on the Twitter emails recently released by Elon Musk and reported by former Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi, the Daily Caller reports:
The FBI explicitly warned Twitter about a potential “hack-and-leak” operation involving Hunter Biden shortly before the platform censored the New York Post’s story based on emails from Biden’s laptop, according to a signed declaration by Twitter’s former head of Site Integrity, Yoel Roth.
The FBI, along with several other agencies, warned Roth that “state actors” might attempt to leak hacked materials shortly before the 2020 election in a bid to influence its results, according to the declaration filed with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) in December 2020, two months after the platform censored the NYP’s story. Roth stated that the conversation occurred during weekly meetings with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, in which they warned him of potential threats to election security.
“These expectations of hack-and-leak operations were discussed throughout 2020. I also learned in these meetings that there were rumors that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden,” Roth wrote.
As Taibbi notes, Twitter, like all of Big Tech, including Twitter, is staffed by leftists and hence skewers its policies and actions to favor the left.
This system wasn’t balanced. It was based on contacts. Because Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right.
The Daily Caller continues explaining the background to the Bureau’s own ‘election interference’ events:
Roth’s revelations about the meetings with intelligence agencies are similar to those of Mark Zuckerberg, who said in August that Facebook censored the Hunter Biden story after federal law enforcement officials asked him to restrict “misinformation” and “Russian propaganda” ahead of the 2020 election.
The FBI agent overseeing these weekly meetings was Supervisory Special Agent Elvis Chan, according to the NYP; however, Chan claimed not to recall whether the topic of Hunter Biden came up at these meetings in a deposition for a lawsuit filed by Republican attorneys general that alleged collusion to censor speech by federal agencies and Big Tech. Chan was also one of two FBI agents who met with Zuckerberg to warn him of potential Russian election interference before Facebook censored the story.
However, while the FBI insinuated and influenced Twitter and Facebook and other platforms, like LinkedIn, indirectly to censor the laptop story, it never explicitly provided Big Tech any evidence or statement claiming officially that the laptop info was hacked.
And this only makes Twitter’s decision more egregious.
As the Daily Caller concludes:
Taibbi tweeted an email indicating that Twitter’s trust and safety team initially explained to other employees that it made the decision to suppress the story — the company even went so far as to prevent it from being sent in private messages — because it violated Twitter’s policy for sharing “hacked materials.” Typically, such a ruling would require an official statement from law enforcement identifying the material as hacked, something that Twitter never received, according to Taibbi…
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
The showdown between former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has America hooked.
Have you already made up your mind or are you waiting for a fight?
Watch Amanda below:
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
WASHINGTON — Time magazine is facing backlash over its latest cover photo of President Donald Trump, after online critics and media outlets pointed out a visual similarity to a portrait the magazine used 60 years ago featuring convicted Nazi industrialist Alfried Krupp.
The image, shot by photographer Stephen Voss, shows Trump looming over the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, dramatically lit from below. According to a report by The Daily Beast, the composition bears a striking resemblance to a 1963 photo of Krupp taken by the Jewish photographer Arnold Newman — a photograph widely studied for its chilling and deliberate framing of a man convicted of facilitating some of history’s most heinous crimes.
Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach inherited control of the Krupp industrial empire from his father, Gustav Krupp, who had supported Adolf Hitler and helped finance the Nazis’ rise to power. Under Alfried’s leadership during World War II, Krupp factories supplied the Third Reich with armaments and heavy machinery vital to its war efforts, including tanks, submarines, and artillery.
After Germany’s defeat, Krupp was tried by the U.S. Military Tribunal in the Nuremberg Krupp Trial (officially The United States of America vs. Alfried Krupp, et al.), which took place from 1947 to 1948.
He was convicted primarily for:
He was sentenced to 12 years in prison and had his property confiscated.
Newman’s portrait of Krupp is iconic in photographic circles. In the image, Krupp is seated at a desk under harsh lighting, his posture and setting portraying him as both powerful and ominous, reminiscent of a devil or a fiendish creature. Critics argue that Time’s Trump cover bears such a resemblance to Newman’s portrait that it cannot be a coincidence.
Voss, the photographer behind the Trump image, has not publicly commented on the comparison. However, he reportedly “liked” social media posts highlighting the resemblance — a move many interpret as a subtle acknowledgment of influence.
A spokesperson for Time magazine rejected the claims outright, telling The Daily Beast that “any suggestion of an intentional reference is completely untrue.”
The controversy cuts across political and cultural lines:
This episode adds fuel to a long-running debate over how the media portrays political leaders — especially those it opposes editorially. It also highlights the power images have in shaping public perception.
In an era when symbolism is parsed as carefully as language, even a magazine cover can carry profound consequences.
ANALYSIS – Conservatives are finally fighting back against the trans agenda being imposed on our children at public libraries and bookstores via ‘Drag Queen Story Times.’
This bizarre and offensive program sends outrageously outfitted cross-dressing men into public libraries to read stories to small impressionable children.
The goal? To indoctrinate, if not groom, these children into accepting and exploring the trans lifestyle.
The secondary effect, exposing children to sexual themes, including mock stripping, they have no right to be exposing them to.
In some cases, these grown men dressed as women have been caught fondling children or acting inappropriately.
And yet, our taxpayer-funded public libraries across the country allow these bizarre events.
And too many ignorant, brainwashed, horrible parents allow their children to attend.
They are also increasingly occurring at other venues as well. But the goals are always the same.
Thankfully, conservatives are finally fighting back.
One way has been by loudly and publicly calling out examples of sexual abuse, and inappropriate touching or sexual behavior by these drag queens, and by protesting their presence in front of small children.
In early December one Trans-friendly venue, The Starlighter, in Texas was forced to cancel a slew of drag queen story hours after a public outcry over the outrageous antics of some of these cross-dressing men.
Most of it was due to video and images taken at an event and widely shared by conservative critics.
The Christian Post reported that this event featured a showing of the 1960s TV classic “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” while a rainbow flag with the number “666” hung on the walls.
What was worse, a video taken at this event showed a young girl no older than 7, who appeared unattended, with these men in drag dancing suggestively and singing lyrics such as, “Under the mistletoe/ Yes, everybody knows/ We will take off our clothes.”
One of the cross-dressing men was also recorded touching and stroking the young girl’s hair. The little girl is also seen handing money to one of the drag performers, as if at a strip club.
Another video clip, reports the Christian Post, “showed the young child visibly shrink back as a drag queen in all black leather, devil horns and face makeup as the man in drag sings, ‘Get your tickets to the freak show, baby / Step right up to watch the freak go crazy.’”
Another way conservatives are fighting back is protesting loudly and aggressively like the Left does, constantly, and at the drop of a hat.
But doing so peacefully.
In one case in early December reported NBC News:
The hosts of a “Drag Queen Story Hour”-style event for children in Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday pulled the plug because of what they described as the intimidating presence of right-wing demonstrators.
The scheduled holiday themed “Holi-Drag Storytime” at the First Unitarian Church of Columbus, which runs the K-5 institution behind the event, Red Oak Community School, was canceled at the last-minute Saturday morning following internal discussions, organizers said.
Members of Ohio’s Proud Boys organization and other right-wing groups made good on promises to make waves outside the venue Saturday. More than 50 demonstrators, including members of the Proud Boys, gathered near the church Saturday morning and shouted, chanted and held up signs. Some were armed with long guns.
This appears to be a very effective technique, learned from the Left. Speak loudly, and carry a big stick.
But then there is another way to counter this insidiously harmful movement’s efforts targeting our children.
That way is to promote a wholesome, Christian, family-focused counter-narrative and events at these same venues. And threaten legal action if they discriminate against you, or refuse to allow it.
As Newsmax reported, actor and author Kirk Cameron said recently: “Conservatives need to stop being on defense against the culture and start going on offense to take it back.
He added:
Just complaining about the culture doesn’t change the culture. We’ve got to get off the defense, to get on the offense. And I think for decades, we as concerned citizens, as people who understand the importance of faith and morality, have been asleep. And when we’re asleep, we’re unaware and we’re unengaged.
Cameron added that now that we’ve woken up, if we remain unengaged, “that’s on us.”
Newsmax continued:
Cameron then called on every parent and grandparent to take their favorite children’s book that has wholesome values, good and godly morals, and call their library if it has hosted a Drag Story Hour and ask if they can read their book during story hour.
“If they say ‘no,'” Cameron said, “they’re likely breaking the law; and you can contact us at Bravebooks.com. We’ll show you how to host your own story hour, will donate to you a free book with all the instructions and guidance.
“And I personally put some of these libraries on notice with a public letter that says, ‘I hope you’ll reconsider; here’s a free book. But if you double down, I’m prepared to assert my constitutional rights in court,'” Cameron stated.
So, the peaceful fight against depravity continues. Pick your fighting style, and get engaged. GAND
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
