Woke Hollywood has gone too far…
Watch Amanda explain the controversy below:
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Give the Bidens money…get dinner with the big guy!
The Biden family is in hot water as Republicans probe heats up.
Watch Amanda explain the controversy below:
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
On Thursday, former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty via his attorneys in a second court appearance after Justice Department lawyers brought additional charges in the Mar-a-Lago case.
The arraignment follows a superseding indictment in the case that named Trump as a central figure in an attempt to delete surveillance footage captured at Mar-a-Lago.
According to reports from The Hill, Trump’s co-defendant in the case Walt Nauta, Trump’s valet, pleaded not guilty. Another co-defendant, Carlos De Oliveira, a property manager at Mar-a-Lago, entered no plea as he has not yet secured a Florida-based attorney.
The indictment notes a lengthy call between Trump and De Oliveira shortly after the Justice Department indicated its interest in the security tapes. The indictment also prompted another Espionage Act charge.
De Oliveira then allegedly set about determining how long security footage was stored on the Mar-a-Lago system. It says he later told another Mar-a-Lago employee that “‘the boss’ wanted the server deleted.”
The indictment also described De Oliveira and Nauta organizing their plans secretly, apparently walking among the bushes around the IT office where the security footage was managed.
At another point, De Oliveira and Nauta “walked with a flashlight through the tunnel where the storage room was located, and observed and pointed out security cameras.
ANALYSIS – Artificial Intelligence (AI) is basically self-learning software (algorithms) that grows smarter over time using the entire world’s ever-growing library of data as its teacher. It can learn to do myriad complex tasks in a fraction of the time humans could.
It will revolutionize and upend entire economies, and dominate future warfare. It is also developing at an unprecedented rate.
Many are concerned AI will take away entire career fields and tens of millions of American jobs. AI advancements could eliminate up to 300 million jobs globally, according to Goldman Sachs.
Fox News reported: “Up to 30% of hours currently worked across the U.S. economy could become automated by 2030, creating the possibility of around 12 million occupational transitions in the coming years, according to a McKinsey Global Institute study.”
Others worry that it will make a few corporations extremely rich and powerful.
And then, many worry that Al may supersede human intelligence in just a few years and eventually make humans redundant.
Few would deny that whoever dominates AI may dominate the world. China certainly believes this and is forging ahead to become the world leader in AI.
The Pentagon is also looking closely at how it can use AI to more quickly make strategic or battlefield assessments and technologically leapfrog over our enemies.
But what about our government? Should it regulate AI?
Democrats tend to favor regulating everything. And they have shown the danger of doing so with social media. I recently wrote on how Joe Biden is already using executive power to weaponize Artificial Intelligence to be woke.
I noted that: “The American Accountability Foundation (AAF), a government watchdog group, recently warned that Team Biden is actively using the federal government’s vast power to regulate AI to promote a “woke” ideology in the basic architecture of this revolutionary, powerful, and dangerous new technology.”
“That ‘woke’ ideology promotes affirmative action under the guise of ‘anti-racism,’ and transgenderism as gender ‘equity.’”
And that is a huge concern.
Republicans tend to be more skeptical of regulation in general, especially in a dynamic, fast-moving technology that few lawmakers understand.
“Let a bunch of guys up here that are wearing JCPenney leisure suits that still have 8-track tape players in their ’72 Vegas start talking about technology, then you got some problems,” Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., told Fox News when asked about regulation keeping pace with the AI sector.
“The problem with AI is that it’s advancing so fast,” Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina said. “It’s very difficult to regulate because you don’t know what the next thing is going to be.”
Republicans, like Burchett and Mace, also worry government regulation will stifle AI innovation and put the U.S. at a strategic disadvantage, especially vis a vis China.
“I don’t know that we need regulation,” Burchett said. “You want to stifle growth; you start putting laws on it.”
“If you overregulate, like the government often does, you stifle innovation,” Mace told Fox News. “And if we just stop AI, nothing is stopping China. We want to make sure that we are No. 1 in AI technology in the world and that it stays that way.”
But we may be losing that race. As Time reported:
“The country that is able to most rapidly and effectively integrate new technology into war-fighting wins,” Alexandr Wang, the CEO of Scale AI, told lawmakers on a House Armed Services subcommittee. China is spending three times more than the U.S. on developing AI tools, Wang noted. “The Chinese Communist Party deeply understands the potential for AI to disrupt warfare, and is investing heavily to capitalize,” he said. “AI is China’s Apollo project.”
But Republicans in Congress aren’t doing anything to take away Biden’s power to regulate AI himself. And time is of the essence.
As a former Democrat Senator, Kent Conrad, and ex-Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss wrote recently in Fox News:
This comes at a pivotal moment. We are on the precipice of a new tech revolution—one in which a collection of next-generation capabilities—such as AI, quantum computing, and biotechnology—promise to fundamentally upend every facet of society.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
Former President Donald Trump is in it to win it.
On Wednesday the former President and current GOP frontrunner said he will not sign the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) pledge required to participate in the first debate.
The RNC has said for candidates to participate in the first primary debate hosted by Fox News they must sign a pledge stating that they will support the eventual party nominee in 2024.
“I wouldn’t sign the pledge. Why would I sign a pledge if there are people on there that I wouldn’t have. I wouldn’t have certain people as somebody that I would endorse,” Trump told Eric Bolling on Newsmax, declining to specify who he would not endorse.
The former president told Bolling that he would announce next week whether he will attend the debate. So far Trump has been adamant he will skip the debate due to his commanding lead in the polls.
“I’ve already decided, and I’ll be announcing something next week,” Trump said.
“I haven’t totally ruled it out,” he added.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who is running in second place behind Trump in most polls, signed the loyalty pledge earlier Wednesday.
On Thursday, GOP presidential candidate Nikkie Haley signed the “Beat Biden” pledge as well but with one importnent change. Haley crossed out President Biden’s name in the pledge and wrote, “President Harris,” signaling that she believes this race is not against Biden in the long run and instead against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Fox Business Network announced it will host the second Republican presidential debate.
Recently unsealed court filings show Special Counsel Jack Smith subpoenaed and obtained a search warrant related to former President Trump’s account on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
The case, which was decided in July, ordered X to turn over the documents sought by Smith and also fined the company $350,000 for a three-day delay in complying with a court order of the records.
According to reports from The Hill, The Justice Department (DOJ) first sought the records in January.
The filing details a months-long battle between X and the special counsel’s office over the efforts to get information tied to Trump’s account, with an appeals court backing a lower court ruling “in all respects.”
“The district court found that there were ‘reasonable grounds to believe’ that disclosing the warrant to former President Trump ‘would seriously jeopardize the ongoing investigation’ by giving him ‘an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior, [or] notify confederates,’” the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. noted in its ruling.
The lower court’s March ruling also found probable cause to search Trump’s Twitter account “for evidence of criminal offenses.”
ANALYSIS – If you can’t beat him, charge him. As I wrote earlier: “From the four-year Hillary Clinton-manufactured ‘Russia collusion’ hoax to corrupt investigations to ‘deep state resistance’ within his administration to a partisan impeachment – no [other] president has been so unfairly hounded in U.S. history.”
But the persecution clearly didn’t end with Donald Trump leaving the White House. The absolute fear he could return to office has since resulted in multiple prosecutions from idiotic nonsense such as his bookkeeping regarding hush money to a porn actress, to sexual assault that reportedly happened 30 years ago.
But that was just the beginning, and those cases were brought by partisan local prosecutors. Now the prosecutorial floodgates have opened wider, with Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DoJ) being weaponized to go after Trump.
While I have blamed the ex-president for bringing the classified materials charges upon himself – see my earlier piece – there is no doubt that politics is playing a big part as well.
And it is getting hard to keep up with all the charges and case and court timelines. His most recent indictment being related to his words and actions leading up to and during the January 6 Capitol Riot.
“Not guilty,” Trump stressed the first word of his plea on Thursday (August 3) before Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya.
The arraignment — U.S. special counsel Jack Smith’s second DoJ indictment against the former president — charges Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction, conspiracy to obstruct the Electoral College vote certification, and conspiracy against voter rights.
Charges that could carry serious prison time if convicted.
With the latest four charges, Trump now faces 78 criminal counts.
The 45-page indictment says Trump “pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results.”
Trump’s next court date will be August 28, when U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, a harsh critic of January 6 defendants, and Obama-appointee, sets a trial date.
“This is a very sad day for America,” Trump told reporters after the hearing, portraying the indictment and the other three criminal cases against him as a “witch hunt” intended to derail his 2024 presidential campaign.
Among the criminal charges that special counsel Jack Smith released; media identified six of Trump’s former lawyers as unnamed co-conspirators in his bid to rig the election.
They possibly are Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s former personal attorney; White House lawyer John Eastman; Trump attorney Sidney Powell; former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark; and attorney Kenneth Chesebro.
The description of the sixth co-conspirator is a “political consultant” and is not immediately apparent — the indictment gives few details.
The consultant identified attorneys who could help carry out a scheme to present fake Electoral College votes to Congress as lawmakers certified the election results.
According to the indictment, co-conspirator No. 2 is a lawyer who drafted a plan to have Vice President Mike Pence throw out Joe Biden’s Electoral Votes in Congress.
Speaking publicly for the first time since Trump’s indictment, Pence told reporters he had hoped it wouldn’t come to a charge.
“Sadly, the president was surrounded by a group of crackpot lawyers that kept telling him what his itching ears wanted to hear,” said Pence.
Of the 78 charges across three criminal cases, 44 are federal and 34 state charges, all felonies, in three jurisdictions. Trump has denied wrongdoing in every case.
However, Trump’s legal woes have done little to damage his status as a Republican front-runner. A New York Times/Siena College poll between July 23-27 showed a landslide lead of 37 percentage points over Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, his closest competitor in the Republican primary.
Trump’s best defense against these mostly politicized prosecutions may be winning the White House in 2024.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
Barbie was released in cinemas worldwide on July 21. Since then, according to Warner Bros., the colorfully controversial, left-leaning, gender-bender, fantasy-comedy movie has drawn in $459m so far in the U.S. and $572m internationally.
That means it has already topped $1 billion overall. This is a huge global smash. But what does it say about us?
Oscar-nominated Barbie writer and director Greta Gerwig also became the first female filmmaker to surpass the billion-dollar benchmark as a solo director, Warner Bros. said.
Other female directors have helmed films that have surpassed the $1bn-mark, but they were working with others. Frozen, the animated blockbuster, and its sequel have generated more than $1.4bn in box office takings and were co-directed by Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck.
Meanwhile, Captain Marvel, starring Brie Larson and co-directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, generated more than $1.1bn at the box office.
But what is the very pink themed movie, starring Margot Robbie (the primary Barbie) and Ryan Gosling (the primary Ken), about? What is its messaging?
The feminist comedy with a PG-13 rating’s plot hinges on Barbie leaving her fake but perfectly idealized world behind and, like Pinocchio before her, becoming “real.”
That’s when it gets political and goes straight into lefty social issues like ‘the patriarchy,’ and gender confusion-fusion.
Elon Musk mocked the film on ‘X,’ formerly known as Twitter, saying: “If you take a shot every time Barbie says the word ‘Patriarchy,’ you will pass out before the movie ends.”
Conservatives have derided the Barbie movie’s anti-male themes, and inclusion of a trans-gender actor/actress playing one of the Barbies. The critics include journalist Piers Morgan and commentator Ben Shapiro. Newsweek reported:
“If I made a movie mocking women as useless dunderheads, constantly attacking ‘the matriarchy,’ and depicting all things feminist as toxic bulls***, I wouldn’t just be canceled, I’d be executed,” Morgan wrote in his columns for British newspaper The Sun and The New York Post after seeing the Barbie movie.
Shapiro meanwhile went as far as to burn a Barbie and Ken doll on Saturday, after seeing the movie the night before. The following Monday he claimed he had received death threats for his stunt.”
Writing for the New York Post, Morgan added: “the movie achieves exactly what it wanted to achieve and that is to establish the matriarchy as the perfect antidote to the patriarchy when in fact it’s just the same concept that they asked us all to detest in the first place.”
The movie “forgets its core audience of families and children while catering to nostalgic adults and pushing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender character stories,” wrote a contributor to Movieguide, a site with a conservative Christian bent.
Ginger Gaetz, wife of conservative Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz, posted on ‘X’ that at the premiere, she saw “disappointingly low T from Ken,” referring to testosterone, and she also called him a “beta” male, not an alpha.
Less politically, Time said: “Barbie never lets us forget how clever it’s being, every exhausting minute.”
Mattel has a lot riding on its $100m Barbie movie, the first of a planned slew of films from the toy-making behemoth that include Masters of the Universe, Barney, Hot Wheels and Magic 8 Ball, to name but a few.
The Barbie doll was launched by Mattel in 1959, when the toy-maker itself was only 14 years old, and has sold over a billion units over six decades.
Today, Barbie is still considered Mattel’s crown jewel, driving about a third of its $5 billion annual revenue.
Since 2018, Mattel has been working on a strategy to license its intellectual properties to Hollywood, to reverse a sales decline over recent years. The new movie was a big gamble for Mattel Films.
A hit would boost toy sales, a flop would have done the opposite – threatening other projects currently in pre-production. But the gamble has clearly paid off.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
Retired federal judge J. Michael Luttig says that America’s democracy is at risk due to the current state of the Republican Party.
Luttig, a conservative-leaning former judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals, joined CNN This Morning on Wednesday to discuss the “decay” of the Republican Party under Donald Trump’s leadership.
“What do you think has happened to your party?” Harlow asked Luttig.
His answer:
Frankly, I don’t care about the Republican Party at all, except to the extent that the two political parties in America are the political guardians of democracy in our country. American democracy simply cannot function without two equally healthy and equally strong political parties. So, today, in my view, there is no Republican Party to counter the Democratic Party in the country. And for that reason, American democracy is in grave peril.
“There is no Republican Party?” Harlow asked him. Luttig explained by outlining his view that “a political party is a collection, an assemblage of individuals who share a set of beliefs and principles and policy views about the United States of America.”
“Today there is no such shared set of beliefs and values and principles, or even policy views, within the Republican Party for America,” Luttig determined. “Until or unless the Republican Party can pull itself together into a credible Republican political party, we simply don’t have two competing parties in America.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence announced he will join the stage for the first round of Republican debates as the presidential campaign cycle ramps up.
On Monday, Pence’s 2024 presidential campaign said that earlier in the day they crossed the 40,000-donor threshold – one of two criteria set by the Republican National Committee for GOP White House hopefuls to reach the debate stage. Pence had already passed the polling threshold mandated by the RNC, according to Fox News.
The former vice president’s political team said they reached out to inform the RNC that Pence had qualified and spotlighted that they were the first campaign to submit their numbers for the national party committee’s verification process.
Pence becomes the eighth Republican presidential candidate to announce they’ve passed the thresholds to qualify for the debate. The other contenders who’ve already reached the criteria are former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, former ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, South Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, and entrepreneur and best-selling author Vivek Ramaswamy.
Trump has yet to say if he’ll attend the first debate.
Recently, Trump has upped his attacks against his former running mate over recent comments he made regarding Trump’s ongoing legal battles from Jan. 6th.
“WOW, it’s finally happened! Liddle’ Mike Pence, a man who was about to be ousted as Governor Indiana until I came along and made him V.P., has gone to the Dark Side,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday.
“I never told a newly emboldened (not based on his 2% poll numbers!) Pence to put me above the Constitution, or that Mike was ‘too honest.’ He’s delusional, and now he wants to show he’s a tough guy,” Trump added, denying information that was contained in the indictment. “I once read a major magazine article on Mike. It said he was not a very good person. I was surprised, but the article was right. Sad!”
During a campaign stop in New Hampshire over the weekend, Pence was greeted by pro-Trump hecklers who derided the former vice president as a “traitor” and a “sellout.”
