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    General Milley Stoops To Trump Lows With ‘Wannabe Dictator’ Jab

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    3
    Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) Michael J. McCord provide testimony at a Senate Armed Services Committee budget hearing, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., March 28, 2023. (DoD photo by Chad J. McNeeley)

    ANALYSIS – General Milley’s comments were beneath him, even if Trump provoked him. As I wrote about earlier, former President Donald Trump made typically inappropriate remarks when he implied outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, due to his back-channel calls to China’s top general, deserved the ‘DEATH’ penalty for treason (all caps were in Trump’s post on Truth Social).

    While no one should take Trump’s bombastic social media posts too seriously, I did say Trump was wrong to add fuel to an already flammable political environment in our country with his comments. I have also criticized Milley for his many overreactions to Trump’s words and deeds during his time in office.

    In doing so, Milley made Trump out to be something he wasn’t, placed himself smack in the middle of the Democrat Party narrative of Trump, and undermined the commander-in-chief and the presidency.

    In my view Milley has also been at the very least deliberately and willfully ignorant of the extreme woke policies the Pentagon has been pushing. Still, despite all my jabs at Milley, I respected his decades of service to the uniform and our country.

    It’s a shame then, that Milley chose to take the low road on his way out of the DC swamp, demeaning himself and the institution, while himself politicizing the military against Trump.

    As the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board wrote:

    Gen. Milley retired this week after four years as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “We are unique among the world’s militaries,” the top military officer said at a retirement ceremony on Friday, noting that service members swear an oath to the Constitution.

    “We don’t take an oath to a country. We don’t take an oath to a tribe. We don’t take an oath to a religion. We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or a tyrant or a dictator. And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator.”

    Readers will catch the parting shot at Mr. Trump. The media certainly did. And who could blame Gen. Milley for loathing Mr. Trump? Casually floating the idea of harming a U.S. military officer is conduct unworthy of a wannabe Commander in Chief.

    Yet it was still dispiriting to hear Gen. Milley’s remarks about a former President, in public, while wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army. Mr. Trump is the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. Like it or not, he commands political support in the country. That doubtless includes a large chunk of the enlisted ranks of the United States military services. The end-of-tour catharsis of a swipe at Mr. Trump isn’t worth polarizing the force over politics.

    I agree wholeheartedly with the Journal. Milley knows better, and with his bitter and snarky jabs at Trump chose to take the low road rather than the high road on his way out. 

    Despite my great misgivings about the truly woke new Joint Chiefs Chairman, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, I also concur with the Journal’s parting words: “We hope that turning down the temperature of politics in the U.S. armed forces is a priority for the new chairman—perhaps behind only the military threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party.”

    Message to Brown: We need an apolitical military leadership no matter the provocations from any political leader. That also means being non-ideological and non-woke. 

    It’s a shame Milley couldn’t see that while he was chairman, and also couldn’t just leave gracefully.

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

    ‘Deranged’ Leftist NY Judge Declares Trump Guilty of Fraud Before Trial Begins

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    15
    Gavel via Wikimedia Commons Image

    ANALYSIS – In what is only the latest weaponized, partisan legal action against former President Donald Trump, the far-left Democrat New York state attorney Letitia James and her leftist cohort Justice Arthur Engoron have just found Trump guilty of civil fraud before his trial even began.

    Never mind that the case is obscene to begin with and should not even exist. And the law it is based on is obscene as well and should not exist either. Andrew McCarthy explains in National Review:

    James, an ambitious progressive authoritarian who campaigned for office on a vow to weaponize the Empire State’s legal processes against Trump, decided to package the scraps [of leftover fraud charges no one else could prosecute] into a lengthy civil complaint. After all, she had a secret weapon: New York’s Executive Law 65(12), which empowers an abusive prosecutor to put partisan enemies out of business without having to prove anything. Although this provision purports to outlaw “repeated” and “persistent” “fraud” and/or “illegality,” in reality, as I explained last week in a column for The Messenger:

    “The law doesn’t require a showing of harm. The state need not prove the defendant even intended to defraud anyone, much less actually defrauded someone. It need not be established that any creditor or financial institution even relied on the defendant’s misrepresentations, that those misrepresentations were material, or that anyone was actually fooled by them. The state just has to show that a defendant made false claims with enough “persistence” and “repetition” that at least two persons were “affected” — which, whatever it means, is not a synonym for ‘harmed.’”


    Claiming Trump significantly overvalued his properties and assets when presenting his company’s financials to banks and lenders and that this somehow “affected” someone, James is seeking at least $250 million in penalties, a ban against Trump and his sons Donald Jr. and Eric from running businesses in New York, and a five-year commercial real estate ban against Trump and the Trump Organization.

    The accusations are that Trump inflated the value of assets by $1.9 billion to $3.6 billion annually between 2011 and 2021 to save hundreds of millions on loans and insurance.

    This, even though no one has been claimed to have been harmed, and all financial institutions take self-declared valuations like those made by Trump, with a grain of salt when making loans and other major financial decisions.

    Bankers and insurance executives have a fiduciary obligation to conduct their own due diligence to determine what they believe are fair market valuations of assets. And they always do.

    And as McCarthy further explains, everyone involved knew Trump exaggerated just about everything:

    …this was for political consumption and the burnishing of celebrity. In the league of sophisticated financial actors in which Trump plays, where corporate departments are dedicated to valuation analysis because that’s the bread-and-butter of finance, nobody took this nonsense seriously. Indeed, Trump even included a “worthless clause” in his SFCs which, in so many words, warned that they were apt to be, you know, somewhat less than perfectly accurate. Many of the financial institutions that did business with Trump did so for years, and knew exactly the cat they were dealing with. They made loans and indemnified Trump because they knew, based on their own expertise and experience with him, that he was quite wealthy (even if not as wealthy as he claimed) and that he would pay up.

    But that didn’t stop Justice Engoron, who ruled preemptively on September 26 that James had proven Trump and his co-defendants fraudulently inflated his assets. 

    Engoron, in his ruling, ordered the cancellation of certificates that 10 of Trump’s business entities need to operate some of his marquee properties — including Trump Tower and his golf clubs in New York — and said he would appoint independent receivers to oversee their “dissolution.”

    The judge thus essentially imposed the corporate death penalty on Trump’s businesses BEFORE the trial even began.

    Trump responded in a post on his Truth Social platform the day of the ruling, calling accusations that he committed fraud “ridiculous and untrue,” and hit back, calling Engoron a “DERANGED” judge.

    In this case, I must agree with Trump’s wording. The judge is deranged, but he is also a partisan hack and embarrassment in what is already a highly partisan and embarrassing New York judicial system.

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

    Did Trump Threaten to Execute Gen. Mark Milley for Treason?

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    4
    Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) Michael J. McCord provide testimony at a Senate Armed Services Committee budget hearing, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., March 28, 2023. (DoD photo by Chad J. McNeeley)

    ANALYSIS – Words matter. In a post on his Truth Social platform last Friday, former President Donald Trump suggested that outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley deserved to be executed after speaking with China’s top general during Trump’s final months in office. 

    Trump said Milley’s “treasonous act” was “so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”

    Clearly, Trump wasn’t threatening to do so but saying that Milley’s actions could have been punished by death in a prior era.

    I condemned Milley’s actions at the time because they seemed to give the Chinese Communist regime a promise that they would be given a warning prior to any attack under Trump.

    While Milley claims his actions were a normal part of his duties, I disagree. 

    They appeared to be more a normal part of the mission that he took upon himself, which was to counter Trump when Milley believed the president had crossed some line only Milley could see.

    Some argue that Milley’s actions were not only disloyal to the president but also borderline ‘treasonous.’

    Milley contends that he was behaving appropriately to avert an accidental war. He responded to Trump’s comments on CBS:

    He also assured viewers that he had adequate safety measures for himself and his family.

    The two backchannel calls to China’s top general, Li Zuocheng, that Milley made, and at the center of all this, were revealed in the 2021 book “Peril.”  

    As CNN reported:

    In October 2020, as intelligence suggested China believed the US was going to attack them, Milley sought to calm Li by reassuring him that the US was not considering a strike, according to the book. Milley called again two days after the January 6 riot at the US Capitol to tell Li that the US is “100 percent steady” even though “things may look unsteady.”

    How much of this reporting in the book was accurate, is hard to say. But Trump sees things very differently. 

    Trump said that Milley “turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States.”

    And Trump may be right. For Milley to do that could be seen as highly inappropriate, if not exactly ‘treasonous.’

    Still, Trump, a former president, and current front-runner for the Republican nomination for president, is way out of line. No American political leader should be using that kind of language against any American military official or political leader.

    In today’s volatile climate, it is extremely dangerous.

    Yet few in the GOP will condemn Trump’s statements. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson is one of those willing to take aim at the Republican frontrunner. Politico quoted Hutchinson as saying:

    To suggest that Gen. Milley should be executed is inexcusable and dangerous. While some will excuse this latest outrage as Trump just being Trump, the fact is that his statement endangers people and is an insult to those who serve in the military.

    Perennial Trump critic, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, had stronger words, calling Trump an “absolute child” for the “reprehensible” remarks. 

    But it is part of a disturbing pattern by both sides to use dangerously inflammatory rhetoric at the highest levels against the other side.

    Democrats raised the political temperature considerably against Trump, calling for, or at least condoning the calls for, his beheading and death on many occasions. 

    The demonization of Trump by the left and Democrat Party was more than I had ever seen in over thirty years in and around U.S. politics. 

    It was, and still is, outrageous.

    But Trump isn’t helping things with his own dangerous rhetoric.

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

    Trump Dominates GOP Presidential Rivals as Biden Approval Tanking

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    4
    Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    ANALYSIS – Even as the indictments pile up, or maybe because of them, a new national NBC News poll finds former President Donald Trump expanding his national lead in the Republican presidential nominating contest to 43 points over his nearest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

    Trump leads the first-choice field with 59% of national Republican primary voters. In comparison, Ron DeSantis gets support from 16% — followed by former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley at 7% and former Vice President Mike Pence at 4%.

    The poll also includes an all-time high disapproval of Joe Biden’s job performance. Fewer than 4 in 10 voters (37%) approve of his handling of the economy. This is huge.

    As NBC News reported: 

    Deeper inside those numbers, Biden is underwater among voters between the ages of 18 and 34 (46% of them approve of his job performance), all women (46%), Latinos (43%) and independents (36%).

    What’s more, the NBC News poll finds 37% of voters approve of Biden’s handling of the economy, and 41% approve of his handling of foreign policy.

    Biden is also taking a big hit for his open borders policy and unprecedented waves of illegal immigration on his watch, as also shown by a recent The Washington Post-ABC News poll. 

    Axios noted: 

    “A variety of factors may be at play,” [ABC News’ Gary] Langer writes in his analysis. “Biden’s poor performance ratings, the extent of economic discontent, the immigration crisis and doubts about his age clearly are relevant.”

    Axios added: “In the Post-ABC poll, 44% said they’re worse off — the most for any president in the poll since… 1986, ABC News’ Gary Langer said in his poll analysis.”

    “In NBC, Biden’s disapproval rating is the highest of his term for that poll.”

    NBC News also noted that: “Another 60% have major concerns (45%) or moderate concerns (15%) about Biden’s possible awareness or involvement in the business dealings of his son, Hunter, including alleged financial wrongdoing and corruption.”

    “This [NBC] survey is a startling flashing red light for an incumbent party,” said Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies. McInturff conducted the September 15-19 poll with Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt and his team at Hart Research Associates.

    “Yes, the numbers for Biden aren’t where he needs them to be,” said Horwitt. However, Trump and Republicans have challenges, such as the GOP front-runner’s unpopularity with the general electorate.

    Most polls show that both Trump and Biden have high unfavorability going into a general election.

    NBC News reported: “Three-quarters of voters say they’re concerned about President Joe Biden’s age and mental fitness, while nearly two-thirds have concerns about the multiple trials former President Donald Trump faces, a new national NBC News poll finds, casting a gloomy shadow over the upcoming 2024 presidential election.”

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

    ‘Bidenomics’ – U.S. National Debt Passes $33 Trillion for First Time

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    4
    Image via Pixabay free images

    ANALYSIS – In case some readers weren’t sure, this is a big reason the conservative GOP ‘Freedom Caucus’ is threatening a government shutdown. Thanks to Joe Biden’s massive spending orgy, the gross U.S. national debt has breached the $33 trillion mark for the first time.

    To be precise, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, as of September 18, 2023 (just 12 days short of the end of our fiscal year), the national debt has risen to $33,053,950,837,720 or $33.05 trillion.

    America’s runaway inflation, which is crushing everyone’s pocketbooks, is just one result of this part of ‘Bidenomics.’

    This unprecedented debt is also fueling concerns that another fight over federal spending may trigger the first government shutdown since 2019.

    Without drastic spending cuts, it’s only going to get worse, much worse.

    Even accounting for newly passed spending cuts, the U.S. national debt is on track to top $50 trillion by the end of the decade, impacted by mounting interest and the cost of the nation’s social programs.

    This is unsustainable; a looming catastrophe waiting to happen.

    And, yes, while Donald Trump clearly overspent, especially due to the COVID-19 epidemic, this current staggering debt, and the debt going forward, is mostly Biden’s fault.

    As David Winston explained in Rollcall back in April:

    The president [Biden] and his White House have taken the 2020 COVID-19, one-time-only crisis budget as his administration’s working baseline, rather than the pre-Covid 2019 budget, which had a significant $4.4 trillion price tag.

    In 2020, because of the pandemic, the budget jumped 47 percent to $6.5 trillion, as both Democrats and Republicans supported the need for emergency funding. That COVID funding was to sunset as the country returned to normal — as it did last year. Apparently, Biden decided to ignore that crucial point.

    Instead, he saw that supersized budget in 2020 not as a crisis, but an opportunity that could be exploited going forward to pay for what amounted to a historic spending spree that kicked off with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan and drove what became the worst inflation in 40 years. During Biden’s first two years in office, he oversaw spending that was 40 percent higher than the pre-COVID 2019 budget.

    According to the CBO, Biden is going to match Trump’s addition to the national debt in just three years, reaching a total of $7.1 trillion over his four years. That would be $1.5 trillion more than Trump contributed during his term, which included the 2020 one-time COVID emergency spending. If Biden’s 2024 proposed budget actually passed, he would add as much to the national debt as Trump and Bush 43 combined. House Republican leaders have made clear his budget isn’t going anywhere; but it illustrates just how out of control Biden’s spending policies really are.

    This is a big reason why the House Freedom Caucus is willing to shut down the government to try to impose some sort of fiscal discipline.

    While much of the news has focused on the ‘intransigent’ MAGA conservatives undermining Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the rest of the House Republicans on this issue, Biden refuses to even discuss the House majority’s proposals.

    Biden says he wants a “clean” debt ceiling vote without any provisions to control spending. This is not surprising since he just proposed a budget that will reach a record $10 trillion in spending by 2033. 

    As horrible as a government shutdown will be, allowing this massive debt to keep growing is unacceptable. Without massive cuts, everyday Americans will still be paying the bill, long after Biden is gone.

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

    Pro-Lifers Bash Trump ‘Terrible’ Abortion Comments – But Was He Wrong?

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    1
    Washington D.C., USA - January 22, 2015; A Pro-Life woman clashes with a group of Pro-Choice demonstrators at the U.S. Supreme Court.

    ANALYSIS – During his recent NBC interview, former president Donald Trump called Florida’s recently passed six-week abortion ban “terrible.” The ban was signed into law by his 2024 Republican campaign rival Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

    Trump believes that picking six weeks as the line to draw for abortion banning is not politically viable nationally. He argued that both liberals and conservatives should agree on a compromise solution — a compromise number of weeks.

    And to clarify, Trump said the six-week ban was: “terrible. A terrible mistake.”

    He was saying that, politically, passing a six-week ban was a mistake, because it charges up the pro-abortion activists, and alienates moderate women needed to win nationally.

    Like it or not, exit polls in 2022 showed that the rush to ban abortions outright by some states just after Roe vs Wade was reversed, scared away a lot of independents and moderate suburban women, contributing to the extremely weak results for Republicans in the last midterm elections.

    Trump, the ever-ready wheeler dealer, also predicted that: “both sides are going to like me,” adding, “What’s going to happen is you’re going to come up with a number of weeks or months, you’re going to come up with a number that’s going to make people happy.”

    Here I think Trump made a terrible choice of words. You don’t want the left to like you, even if you are trying to disarm them. But that’s the way he thinks and speaks.

    The former president also said that he would be “a mediator” between both sides to come up with a policy that is “good for everybody.”

    I take that to mean a compromise timeline on the number of weeks for banning abortion nationwide, and what exceptions to make.

    Some pro-lifers immediately bashed Trump for his comments. The Christian Post reported on the backlash:

    Trump’s criticism of Florida’s law that bans abortion once a heartbeat can be detected, usually around six weeks of gestation, did not sit well with pro-life activists

    Lila Rose, the founder and president of the pro-life group Live Action, took to X to describe the former president’s remarks as “pathetic and unacceptable.”

    “Trump is actively attacking the very pro-life laws made possible by Roe’s overturning,” Rose wrote. “Heartbeat Laws have saved thousands of babies. But Trump wants to compromise on babies’ lives so pro-abort Dems ‘like him.'” 

    And then there was conservative culture warrior Matthew Walsh, with whom I usually agree, who called Trump’s remarks as “an awful answer from a moral perspective” and “also stupid politically.” 

    In his post on X (formerly Twitter) Walsh said that “there is no compromise on abortion that everyone will like.”

    “It’s delusional to think otherwise. And contrary to Trump’s claims, almost all Democrats are indeed extreme on this issue,” he added. “You will be hard pressed to find more than maybe two or three on the national stage who don’t want abortion until birth or beyond. You can’t win over Democrats by going squishy on this issue. Republicans have tried that brilliant strategy for decades and accomplished exactly nothing by it.” 

    But is Trump wrong? 

    A six-week ban based on a fetal heartbeat sounds very reasonable to me. And is fine for Florida.

    But I know that won’t wash with many other folks across the country who aren’t extreme but prefer another timeline for banning abortion. GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley, who is staunchly pro-life, doesn’t believe a 15-week national ban is realistic either.

    As governor of South Carolina, Haley signed a 20-week ban, joining 12 other states back then with bans.

    Polls have shown that many, if not most, Democrats believe in some restrictions on abortion. Most, if not all Republicans will make exceptions for rape, incest, and health of the mother. Many would be happy with any reasonable ban, whether six, eight or ten weeks.

    And Trump isn’t the only one who argues that taking a strident no compromise stance on abortion will hurt Republicans nationally. As the Christian Science Monitor reported:

    At a closed-door conference meeting in the Capitol earlier this month, a super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell gave Senate Republicans a briefing that seemed intended to serve as a wake-up call. The Dobbs decision has “recharged the abortion debate and shifted more people (including some Republicans) into the anti-Dobbs ‘pro-choice’ camp,” the political action committee’s report stated. Some senators reportedly left the meeting brainstorming potential new labels, such as “pro-baby,” that could replace the increasingly fraught “pro-life.”

    Unlike in the past, when conservative candidates could simply identify themselves as “pro-life” without having to be specific, they are now being peppered with questions about real policy choices: Should abortion be banned at the state or federal level? After how many weeks? With or without exceptions? What about abortion pill restrictions?

    At one end of the 2024 spectrum are Vice President Mike Pence and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who have strongly leaned into an anti-abortion message. Both candidates have endorsed a national 15-week abortion ban.

    By contrast, Mr. Trump, in his “Meet the Press” interview, declined to explicitly endorse a 15-week ban, drawing a rare rebuke this week from Senator Scott. Ms. Haley has outright dismissed a national 15-week ban as unrealistic – one of the “hard truths” that she has been delivering to voters across New Hampshire and Iowa. She says the Supreme Court was “right” to send abortion back to the states.

    While I understand and appreciate the 100% pro-life stance, I also want to win the White House and Senate, and expand our lead in the House, so conservatives can keep pushing on this and other issues important to us.

    So, Trump may not be wrong. We need to be more tactically flexible to win the bigger war.

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

    Trump Vows Largest Deportation of Illegal Aliens in American History

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    7

    ANALYSIS – HALLELUJAH! – As Joe Biden’s radical open door border policies allow tens of thousands of illegal migrants to flood into the country weekly, former president Donald Trump is vowing to deport many, if not most of them.

    And that is one of the best things I have heard from Trump recently. This is the only way to reverse the massive foreign illegal invasion Biden has created.

    While other GOP presidential candidates have talked tough on the border, so far only Trump has promised massive deportations.

    There should always be exceptions, but in my estimation, most who have come here illegally under Biden must go.

    Trump’s comments come as the numbers of illegal aliens are again skyrocketing at the border. In the past five days alone, there have been over 45,000 migrant encounters both at the ports of entry and between them, including multiple days of over 8,000 illegal immigrant encounters.

    There were reportedly around 230,000 migrant encounters in August, though the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) have not provided official figures yet.

    This is unprecedented.

    Blasting Biden for the “nation-wrecking catastrophe on our southern border,” during a speech in Dubuque, Iowa Wednesday evening, Trump promised that, if elected, he would carry out “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”

    “Following the Eisenhower Model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” Trump said, as reported by Fox News.

    Trump also said he would “immediately” invoke the Alien Enemies Act — part of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 – a federal law granting the president unilateral power to detain and deport foreign aliens in the United States who are over 14 years old.

    As NBC News reported, the law says a president may order non-citizens “to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies” when he or she “makes public proclamation” than an “invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation.”

    And as I have pointed out repeatedly, this current crisis certainly counts as an “invasion or predatory incursion,” in many ways controlled and directed by Mexican drug cartels.

    Trump said he would use the Act to target suspected gang members, drug dealers and cartel members. 

    “I’ll…invoke immediately the Alien Enemies Act to remove all known or suspected gang members…the drug dealers, the cartel members from the United States, ending the scourge of illegal alien gang violence once and for all,” Trump vowed.

    Trump added: “Under my leadership, we had the most secure border in U.S. history. Now, we have the worst border in the history of the world.” 

    Of course, you can’t solve the problem solely by deporting two million or more illegal migrants, especially criminals and gang members, numerous other Biden policies must also be quickly reversed. 

    And Trump addressed that too, in Iowa, saying that in his second term he would begin by “immediately” terminating “every Open Borders policy of the Biden Administration.”

    At the top of his list, Trump promised to reinstate and “expand” the “travel ban” that he implemented during his first term. 

    The ban, which Joe Biden ended on his first day in office, barred most individuals from seven countries with high terrorism indices — including five Muslim-majority countries — from entering the United States.

    But he didn’t stop there, Trump added that he would expand his travel ban to “deny entry to all communists and Marxists to the United States.”

    “Those who join our country must love our country—and we are going to keep foreign Christian-hating communists, Marxists, and socialists the hell out of America,” Trump declared.

    That might be trickier to do, but I like how he is thinking.

    The former president also said he plans to “shift massive portions of federal law enforcement to immigration enforcement,” including some of the FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

    “I will make clear that we must use any and all resources needed to stop the invasion—including moving thousands of troops currently stationed overseas to our OWN southern border,” Trump said, emphasizing that “before we defend the borders of foreign countries, we must secure the border of our country.”

    This is the most clear and comprehensive response proposed to date by anyone, to counter Biden’s illegal immigrant catastrophe.

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

    Mexican Cartels Sending Migrant Mobs to Overwhelm US Border Agents

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    9
    President Donald J. Trump participates in a roundtable discussion on immigration and border security at the U.S. Border Patrol Calexico Station Friday, April 5, 2019, in Calexico, Calif. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

    ANALYSIS – Joe Biden’s border disaster is getting worse by the day as thousands of illegal immigrants swarm U.S. border entry points daily. And as I have repeatedly noted the Mexican drug cartels essentially control the border regions of Mexico.

    Across the entire southwest border, as many 9,400 migrants have crossed into the US in a single 24-hour period. That is tens of thousands a week or over 100,00 per month. Over a million a year.

    And now, thanks to Joe Biden and his band of merry leftists, the cartels essentially control the U.S. side of the border as well, flooding our border with illegal migrants to overwhelm our border patrol agents and divert them from the drug smuggling points.

    As the New York Post reported: “The way it’s being orchestrated through the cartels, I believe it’s meant to overwhelm the system. The [places] that are being impacted the most are border communities,” said former El Paso City Councilmember Claudia Rodriquez.

    The Post added:

    Cartels unleashed turmoil on the city before, stirring up rumors of the border being open to all back in March and again in April, prompting hundreds of migrants to storm one of El Paso’s international bridges.

    “If you’re at the border, go this morning,” a social media screenshot of the rumor said. “Don’t miss this opportunity.”

    Aid workers previously told The Post how migrants are particularly susceptible to tricks orchestrated by the cartel, as most are in a vulnerable position and in unfamiliar territory.

    “A lot of the folks that are waiting in Juarez [across the border from El Paso] are very desperate, and they’ll believe anything,” Crystal Sandoval of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center said in March.

    These waves of migrants egged on by cartel-driven misinformation online on social media overwhelms and distracts the Border Patrol, and diverts federal resources, when they are most needed to combat the smuggling of fentanyl into the U.S. 

    It also overwhelms the local communities.

    Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), who represents both Eagle Pass and El Paso, has warned about the raw numbers of illegal migrants.

    “Eagle Pass is completely overrun right now. El Paso is getting overwhelmed right now. Arizona is getting overwhelmed right now.”

    “The only way we can regain control of the southern border is by enforcing the laws that are on the books. That’s exactly what the administration needs to do. That’s exactly what Congress needs to focus on.”

    Meanwhile, as Fox News reported, things are getting so bad that a Mexican railway company has halted operations after a video showing migrants packed into freight cars riding into the U.S. went viral earlier this week.

    Note, the rail company didn’t halt the trains because the migrants were swarming into the U.S., but because some were getting hurt along the way, and it was becoming too public.

    According to Fox: “Migrants have long used the trains, known collectively as ‘The Beast,’ [or ‘train of death’] to hitch rides to the U.S. border, and a video of a Ferromex train out of Zacatecas, Mexico, packed with migrants — heading toward the U.S. southern border — went viral on Sunday.”

    As long as Biden continues his deliberately disastrous open border policy, the cartels will continue to push waves of illegal migrants into the U.S., overwhelm the Border Patrol, and send more deadly drugs into America across the Rio Grande.

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

    Mexico’s Hosts Russian and Chinese Military Units in Independence Parade

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    3
    Kremlin.ru, via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – In the ‘what the h*ll are you thinking’ category – a contingent of Russian soldiers marched in the annual Mexican Independence Day parade over the weekend. 

    Russian troops had participated before, but not since Moscow launched its war of aggression against Ukraine.

    This year marked 213 years since the end of Spanish rule in Mexico. 

    And even as deadly fentanyl precursor ingredients are entering Mexico, to then be made into the deadly drug and flood the U.S., a Communist Chinese military honor guard from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) also marched alongside Mexican troops.

    The presence of the Russian troops drew criticism because of the Russia’s brutal invasion of its neighbor. Mexico, which has long harbored bitterness against the United States for intervening militarily in Mexico in the 1800s, has condemned Russia’s invasion but has adopted a policy of ‘neutrality’ and has refused to participate in sanctions.

    Populist socialist Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known as AMLO) noted that a contingent from China also participated. “All the countries that Mexico has diplomatic relations with were invited,” he said.

    AMLO admitted the issue had become “a scandal,” but blamed it on the news media being against him.

    Ukraine’s Ambassador to Mexico, Oksana Dramaretska, posted online that “The civic-military parade in Mexico City was stained by the participation of a Russian regiment; the boots and hands of these war criminals are stained with blood.”

    But this is only the latest Russian flirtation by AMLO.

    As Arturo Sarukhan writes in his commentary for Brookings: “…it would seem that some in Mexico, unwittingly, or wittingly, seem intent on opening a ‘second front’ for Moscow from there.”

    What’s behind all of this? Given that Mexico trades in two days with the United States what it trades in a whole year with Russia, ideology seems to be paramount. The traditional left in Mexico — and throughout Latin America in general — tend to support policies that push back against “Western imperialism” but is also skeptical of liberalism and what it perceives as its institutions and stakeholders, which — like many authoritarian regimes — it considers to be tools of Western values and hegemony. 

    It should therefore come as no surprise that the Mexican left is inclined to swallow and regurgitate Russian disinformation and propaganda (“NATO aggression,” “denazification of Ukraine”), see sanctions as another form of “imperialism” and an attempt to corner Russia, and resort to RT and Sputnik as sources of valid information.

    The Kremlin, creating a contrast with U.S. troops on Russia’s borders, has also asked frequently, if rhetorically, what if Russian troops were stationed across the border in Mexico?

    Maybe this is one way for Moscow to make that point. But there is more to the story.

    As ABC News reported:

    Some members of López Obrador’s Morena party have publicly expressed affection for Russia even after the invasion, and López Obrador has frequently criticized the United States for sending arms to Ukraine.

    López Obrador’s administration has continued to buy Russia’s Sputnik COVID vaccine and intends to use it as a booster shot later this year, along with Cuba’s Abdala vaccine.

    Experts have questioned the use of those vaccines, along with Mexico’s own Patria vaccine, as a booster for new variants, because all of them were designed in 2020 to combat variants circulating at the time.

    Mexico would rather buy old and likely ineffective vaccines from Russia, than be on better terms with the United States. Under AMLO Mexico is also a helpful tool for Moscow in other ways.

    As Sarukhan wrote:

    …Viktor Koronelli, Russia’s ambassador to Mexico, who said during the recent launching of the Mexico-Russia friendship caucus that “Mexico will never join anti-Russian sanctions” and that “across the world, there are countries like China, like India, like Mexico, that will never say ‘Yes, Sir’ to Uncle Sam’s orders.”

    Despite all this Russian bravado and bluster, I would be just as concerned, or more so, about the Chinese military presence in the parade.  As AMLO noted, a contingent from  China also participated, and no one complained about that.

    But China’s influence in Mexico is likely far more significant than Russia’s, and far more threatening to the United States.

    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.

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