1678: Stolen Cookies

And she paid for it dearly, with her career and health.

'The most incredible thing was that I happened to not only turn, but to turn at the exact right time and in just the right amount,' he added, saying he survived 'by luck or by God'.

Link

Gentlemen,

With all the talk

of the shooter setting up on the building where the Local Counter Sniper

Team was setup in the building facing the crowd, I thought I would

relay my experience. Along with the SS Counter Sniper Team we had

several, maybe as many as 10 Counter Sniper Teams in the wood line

around the field where the crowd and stage were set up. They were

dressed in Ghillie suits and were not to leave their post. I told the SS

attendees would be walking through the woods and would probably step on

the snipers. We had officers just outside the woods to get the Freaked

out civilians who had a sniper grab them before they were stepped on.

We

also had several story buildings lining the field with windows which

were not able to be opened and roof access hatches for maintenance. I

took the SS Counter Sniper Team up on the roofs so they could get a look

at the line of sights. We secured those hatches with new locks and the

keys were maintained by restricted personnel. The SS initially stated

civilians could look out the windows of the buildings but just before

Obama arrived they changed their minds and we had to run everyone out of

the classrooms, close the shades, and lock the doors. Their were just

too many windows and too many people for the SS Counter Sniper Team to

maintain watch over.

We had every SWAT team sniper in the surrounding Charlotte area to pull from so we had no shortage of manpower.

Regarding

the female SS agent who was the butt of jokes and memes. That was

probably the first time she had an actual event which required her to

draw her weapon for defense. When one is in such a situation the

adrenaline dump is massive and one's fine motor skills and out the

window, you may get tunnel vision, and loss of or muted hearing. Plus

when you are getting pushed around things on your belt move and are not

in the places you are used to. Yes I am sure she trained for all this

when she went through initial training before she was assigned a detail

and I don't know how often SS recertification and training is but I

assume like most LEO departments it is not often enough or as through or

detailed as it should be due to finical restrictions. Don't get me

wrong I laughed at the memes just like everyone else but I had also been

in her shoes and had to look for my holster, luckily my embarrassment

was not videoed.

TYFYC

Baron of Belmont and the Catawba River Basin

Adam,

Please keep my name anonymous.

In the morning. I wrote you late last year and I figured it was time again to supplement my monthly donation with some additional value, as I experienced a mouth opening incident while I am in Milwaukee attending the RNC for work. Yea I am a lobbyist, (maybe when I become a knight I can be the official No Agenda lobbyist!) but I digress.

The amount of security and police presence in Milwaukee for the RNC is shocking, and actually very impressive. I work for an organization who put on a party for attendees after the convention last night, Tuesday July 16th. (If you don’t know these political conventions, they are one week of partying from lunch time till the early morning hours.)

Just outside the front of our event building are barriers to stop vehicles from proceeding into the hard security zone. There are two security zones around the Fiserv Forum soft and hard, which span multiple blocks in all directions. Vehicles are allowed in the hard security zone but must pass through a designated check point where a bomb check on the vehicle is performed, in front of our event building was not a designated vehicle check point. At the barriers in front of our event building Secret Service was stationed in an unmarked patrol vehicle, and the building next to our event building was actually housing Secret Service officers for the week of the convention.

During set up of the event, in broadly sunny day light, I was in the front of the building assisting with various tasks to prepare for the party, a man on a moped managed to speed through the security barrier into the hard zone unabated by the barrier as it was designed to stop cars not mopeds. WHOOPS. As soon as the moped got through the barriers, a Secret Service officer popped out of his duty vehicle, which I mentioned before was stationed in one lane with the barriers adjacent. He walks over and asks if we saw the man on the moped. “Yes” we said, with some additional trivial comments. The Secret Service officer then says “Well I didn’t want to kill the guy so I let him through”, I let out an automatic dark laugh as I COULD NOT believe what I just heard. The officer then proceeds to request if we see the man on the moped to please “alert him” to it. Once again, I am shocked, this time into concerning silence. After a few more minutes of chit-chat we introduce the officer to our private security for the event and let the “professionals” handle it from there. A completely shocking moment, and if the events of July 13th didn’t happen maybe I would brush this off, but I can not do that with this incident.

I am sure there is a lot of great men and women serving in the Secret Service but in my opinion something has gone awry with one of the highest budget security agencies on the planet.

I apologize about the lengthy note. Love is lit, connection is protection, thanks for all you do, and may you never find an exit strategy.

-Anonymous

Crowd saying all 13 names

Biden lied about not losing a single service man or woman on 'his watch'

Adam—Things are moving quickly. And the M5M will be in a foul mood today—expect much lashing out at Judge Cannon, who’s presiding over the Trump classified-documents case. (She’s a Trump appointee, so the vitriol will be extra pungent.)

Remember Justice Thomas’s concurrence in the Trump immunity case, in which he questioned whether Jack Smith’s appointment was valid under Article II’s Appointments Clause? His thesis was that attorneys general can’t just appoint officials willy-nilly. There must be some law that establishes the office. Without such a law, any appointment is invalid—making the appointee nothing more than a “private citizen” lacking any power to prosecute anyone for any crime.

This morning, Judge Cannon adopted Justice Thomas’s approach and dismissed the classified-documents case against Trump. (Highlighted opinion attached.) Judge Cannon found that Smith was not properly appointed under the Appointments clause, which means that his every action, including the current indictment, is invalid and the whole case must therefore be tossed.

She also found that _Smith’s operation is unlawfully funded_ because his budget was never Congressionally appropriated. Depriving a lawyer of his fee is what hurts the most. Judge Cannon did not decide on a remedy for this funding snafu, other than dismissal; so I suppose that Smith won’t have to disgorge the pay he’s already received. (Two side notes: (1) There is _no limit_ on how much Merrick Garland was willing to let Smith spend—and for this case alone, he has already spent $24 million even though the case has a long way to go. (2) Although the opinion doesn’t mention it, Garland may have violated the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits spending money that Congress had not specifically earmarked. This was one of the things we had to be very careful about in the Air Force—spending un-earmarked money can get a lot of people in big trouble.)

So what about Jack Smith’s other case—the J6 case pending in DC? Once the case makes its way back from SCOTUS to the district court (which will probably take a few weeks), I fully expect Trump’s team to file an identical motion. I also expect the DC district court to part ways with Judge Cannon’s extremely detailed and well-supported analysis and find that Smith’s appointment is just fine.

If these cases proceed to appeal, the Eleventh Circuit (covering Florida) and the DC Circuit (covering DC) will have to rule on these issues, possibly reaching conflicting decisions. But the election will effectively determine what happens, since DOJ does not prosecute sitting presidents and a Trump DOJ would quietly euthanize these cases. The Eleventh Circuit will come first, and I don’t think it’ll be in a big hurry to get involved before the election, especially since six of the 21 sitting judges are Trump appointees, and 11 are Republican appointees. So expect a slow briefing and oral-argument schedule.

You probably have a question about double jeopardy: Could the Government obtain a fresh indictment on the classified docs and proceed on that? Barring the statute of limitations expiring, sure—jeopardy does not “attach” until the trial begins and evidence is presented, which hasn’t happened here. But the odds of another indictment happening are slim and none because of the political costs it would now involve.![[1858000-1858082-trump indictment dismissed-fla.pdf]]

Quick

update: Jack Smith filed his notice of appeal in the Trump classified

case yesterday—three days after the case was poured out. He had 30 days

to file it, but it appears he’s in a big hurry. Expect the Trump team

to slow his roll.

An appeal here will extend way past the election. According to the latest available court statistics,

the median time from a notice of appeal to disposition in the 11th

Circuit is 9.5 months (pretty average among the Circuits). Criminal

appeals generally get priority treatment, but for various reasons, I

don’t think that’ll shorten the time frame very much here since no one

is incarcerated.

Whoever

loses at the 11th Circuit will petition SCOTUS; and if SCOTUS accepts

the case, it’ll drag out for many, many months after that. And if Trump

were to lose the appeal, the case would have to go back to the District

Court and start where they left off. Trump’s team would pull out all

the stops to defeat Smith.

But if Trump is elected in November, DOJ policy requires that the case stop when he’s inaugurated in January.

So I have no idea why Jack Smith is in such a hurry, other than perhaps a sense of wounded pride.

Richard Shaw, president of Milwaukee Inner-City Congregations Allied for Hope (MICAH), which organized the "rally for democracy" Sunday, said it was important to the diverse organizers to come together as a "group of religious leaders who do not stand for white Christian nationalism."

“It's necessary because the group who's meeting here in Milwaukee, they pushed an ideology that separates us,” said Shaw, a pastor at St. Matthew CME Church. “But we want to show that regardless of our race, regardless of our religion, regardless of our origin, our sexual origin, our gender, that we come together.”

Link

Spiritual warfare is a central theme of Christian nationalist movements that are reshaping the GOP by preaching that the country’s theological identity is under attack and in urgent need of a revolution to put the faithful in charge. Their rhetoric has been galvanizing crowds at conservative gatherings all year, and is likely to be woven into messaging at the Republican National Convention, which starts Monday.

The movements’ biblical references, extremism monitors warn, soften violent and racist messaging, and offer plausible deniability should believers turn into vigilantes, as hundreds did during the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“You are either on the side of God or the side of the Devil,” said Miranda Zapor Cruz, a theologian at Indiana Wesleyan University, summing up the rhetoric. “If you are on the side of the Devil, then just about anything can be justified to cast you out, to eradicate your influence. And, for some people, that ‘just about anything’ would include physical violence.”

Religion scholars say Christian nationalism ranges from those who believe in a metaphorical battle of ideas against the left to a more militant subset willing to engage in actual combat over the soul of America. The ideology courses through Trump’s MAGA movement, with proponents worshiping with, stumping for and giving policy advice to the former president and his inner circle.

Trump allies in Congress have openly advocated for Christian nationalism.

Link

Police Officer in Chicago here and in Chicago for both Police and Fire Departments for the last 4-5 years has had a large quantity of people passing up the opportunity to take the job and a lot of people in chicago have mentioned when the economy is good people don’t want to be cops or fireman because money is loose and there’s plenty of jobs.

I am roughly 35 years old and I’ve had at least 3 people that are around my age ask my advice on becoming a police officer in Chicago. One of them works in finance but stated it’s too boom and bust and the market is brutal.

I am also noticing alot of people in my age group 28-35 moving back home with parents. I think we can assume 2020/2021 was this generations 2008 but covered up by covid like has been discussed on the show. If the cycle is following we are currently in 2012 and I was a college grad around that time and there were NO GOOD JOBS, and in 2013 30k people took the chicago police test at one time, now they can barely get 1k to take the test they administer every month.

I’ll continue tracking and give a report about how the DNC goes here.

When you fly allot, you can read allot - Helen or Troy - ("HOT") - included this in its latest earning report:

“Consolidated net sales declined 12.2%, driven by a decline in sales of hair appliances, prestige hair care products and humidifiers in beauty and wellness, and a decline in home and outdoor driven by lower replenishment orders from retail customers and a global slowdown in outdoor.”

“the macro environment and the health of consumers and retailers has worsened. Consumers are even more financially stretched and are even further prioritizing essentials over discretionary items. Specific to our business, we have seen some areas become more challenged over the last three months. For example, an unexpected slowdown in the global outdoor category impacted sales of our packs and accessories. There was also more pressure in the specialty beauty channel and mass beauty overall, especially in beauty tools under $100.”

“for several quarters now that the, you know, kind of the energy in the category has been at the high end of hair tools. I would say at the low end, there's that -- that's where the pressured consumer is kind of not making purchases of discretionary items like new hair tools. And so we're seeing more pressure there. I will say, we do still have a strong presence there as we look at the filled-out shelf stuff that we have in mass retailers…”

“But the category overall at that under $100 is more depressed as consumers in that shopping that range are looking to spend their money more on the essentials and less on the discretionary items.”

The guidance, which is can be found on the royal college’s website, also tells doctors to work from home on non-clinical shifts and offer remote consultations “where clinically appropriate” to cut emissions from commuting.

They should remain alert to “eco-distress”, depression or anxiety a patient may be suffering because of the changing climate, the document adds.

Link

A world-renowned Norwegian professor has raised the alarm over data showing surging sudden and unexpected deaths among Covid-vaccinated young people.

Jarle Aarstad is a professor at HVL Business School, Western Norway University of Applied Science.

The celebrated scientist recently had a letter to the editor published in Germany’s prestigious EXCLI Journal.

Aarstad reported on his empirical analysis of cohorts of young people in England.

In a study, Aarstad uncovered data showing soaring sudden deaths in people aged 12-29 years, during 12 weeks after their first, second, and third injections with the COVID-19 mRNA shots.

The data reveals in this younger aged cohort that deaths increased significantly (95 % CIs) in the 10 or 11 weeks after COVID-19 vaccination compared to the first week.

Professor Aarstad said early on in the pandemic he started to significantly question some of the measures taken by his and other governments.

He noted that in Norway by the first several months of the pandemic, the case fatality rate was not much higher than a bad flu.

Link

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Archived Version

Thu, 18 Jul 2024 15:40

Max Boot - a big fan of 'forever wars' who laundered Trump-Russia conspiracy theories through the Washington Post - is married to a South Korean spy who used to work for the CIA, and is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (now on 'administrative leave) - according to a new indictment revealed on Wednesday.

Boot's wife, Sue Mi Terry, 54, a native of Seoul living in Manhattan, used her position as a foreign policy expert to trade access to top US officials in exchange for luxury goods and 'high-end sushi dinners,' according to the indictment.

Terry allegedly began spying for South Korea in October 2013, five years after she left the CIA, and three years before Boot began calling Donald Trump a Russian asset.

Max Boot, spy hunter. pic.twitter.com/asdKE2R46d

'-- Chad West (@Chad_WestReal) July 17, 2024Max Boot, one of the chief purveyors of the "Russian asset" narrative, is married to an unregistered foreign agent? And she has been indicted for selling access, accepting bribes, sharing non-public info with South Korean officials, etc.?That ... you couldn't write that. https://t.co/7gkfFVbWD6

'-- T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) July 17, 2024Terry is accused of having "disclosed sensitive US government information to South Korean intelligence and used her position to influence US policy in favor of South Korea" over the course of a decade, in exchange for "money and luxury gifts," FBI Acting Assistant Director in Charge Christie M. Curtis said in a statement.

From 2001-2011, Terry served in a range of US government positions - including as a CIA analyst, as well as Director for Korea, Japan, and Oceanic Affairs for the White House National Security Council, the Post reports.

According to the indictment, a South Korean spy bought Terry a Dolce & Gabbana coat from a Chevy Chase, Maryland store in November of 2019 - which she returned days later for a $4,100 Christian Dior coat.

The spies also funneled over $37,000 to a public policy program on Korean affairs run by Terry - who never registered as a foreign agent with the DOJ, and had been warned by the FBI in 2014 that she could be a target for illegal foreign influence.

Meanwhile, she was passing intelligence to her South Korean handler according to the indictment:

For instance, Terry delivered handwritten notes about a private North Korea-related June 2022 meeting with the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to her South Korean intelligence handler who picked her up in a car minutes later, according to the indictment unsealed Tuesday.

Weeks after that, Terry hosted a happy hour '' at her handlers' behest '' where she allowed the South Korean spy to mingle with congressional staffers while posing as a diplomat, the filing charges. -NY Post

The indictment also details how Terry was "visibly nervous" in a voluntary interview with the feds, and eventually admitted to having met with her South Korean handler after initially claiming she did not know his name.

Terry was released after posting a $500,000 bond during her initial appearance in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, and faces up to five years in prison if convicted.

"What are all these meetings and phone calls with South Korean officials about? Also, where are all these designer handbags coming from? There are no charges on our cards. It's probably nothing. Anyway, here I go national securitizing again!"

'-- T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) July 17, 2024What's more, Boot and Terry co-published South Korean propaganda in the Washington Post...

Today we found out via an indictment that one of the Washington Post's columnists, Max Boot, published a piece with his wife about South Korea based on talking points from that government while his wife was allegedly acting as a foreign agent for them.https://t.co/m3PoNODIVO pic.twitter.com/8l1COr43ny

'-- AG (@AGHamilton29) July 17, 2024Max Boot co-wrote and WaPo published a column on US Korea relations with his wife who is also a Korean spy. pic.twitter.com/NzDxayA2MS

'-- Jarvis (@jarvis_best) July 17, 2024Boot also had the back of Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), who allegedly banged a Chinese spy.

Today we found out via an indictment that one of the Washington Post's columnists, Max Boot, published a piece with his wife about South Korea based on talking points from that government while his wife was allegedly acting as a foreign agent for them.https://t.co/m3PoNODIVO pic.twitter.com/8l1COr43ny

'-- AG (@AGHamilton29) July 17, 2024Amazing...

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣ðŸ‚ðŸ‚🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣ðŸ‚Max Boot was married to a foreign agent'... https://t.co/OV1ptWc5lh

'-- Jeff Carlson (@themarketswork) July 17, 2024Loading...

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Archived Version

Thu, 18 Jul 2024 15:33

Navigating student loan relief

Navigating student loan relief 04:16 The Biden administration on Thursday said it is forgiving $1.2 billion in student debt for 35,000 borrowers who work in public service, ranging from teachers to firefighters. The announcement marks the latest round in government loan relief after the Supreme Court last year blocked President Joe Biden's plan for broad-based college loan forgiveness.

With the latest student loan forgiveness, the Biden administration said it has waived $168.5 billion in debt for roughly 4.8 million Americans, according to a statement from the Department of Education. That represents about 1 in 10 student loan borrowers, it added.

The people who qualify for forgiveness in the latest round of debt cancellation are part of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, which is designed to help public servants such as teachers, nurses and law enforcement officers get their debt canceled after 10 years of repayments. While PSLF has been around since 2007, until recently very few borrowers were able to get debt relief due to its notoriously complex regulations and often misleading guidance from loan companies.

But the Biden administration has overhauled the program's rules, enabling more public servants to qualify for forgiveness.

"The additional Americans approved for PSLF today are hardworking public servants who will finally receive the financial breathing room they were promised '-- and all PSLF recipients can easily track and manage the process through StudentAid.gov," U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in the statement.

Who qualifies for loan forgiveness? The Biden administration said borrowers receiving student loan relief in this latest round are people enrolled in the PSLF program through a limited waiver, as well as regulatory changes made by the administration.

The " limited Public Service Loan Forgiveness waiver " was designed by the Biden administration to allow public-sector workers to apply to receive credit for past repayments that hadn't previously qualified for loan relief. The deadline for signing up for the waiver was October 2022.

"These 35,000 borrowers approved for forgiveness today are public service workers '-- teachers, nurses, law enforcement officials and first responders who have dedicated their lives to strengthening their communities," President Joe Biden said in a statement. [B]ecause of the fixes we made to Public Service Loan Forgiveness, they will now have more breathing room to support themselves and their families."

Is the Biden administration planning more debt forgiveness? Yes, the Biden administration said it continues to work on a plan for broad-based student loan relief through the Higher Education Act.

How higher interest rates affect student loans 01:50 Some parts of the Biden administration's plans to provide more relief were thrown into turmoil last month when two courts issued temporary injunctions against the Biden administration's flagship student loan repayment plan, called the Saving on a Valuable Education , or SAVE, plan, which currently has about 8 million enrollees.

Despite the injunctions, student borrowers can still continue to enroll in the program, according to the Education Department.

More from CBS News

In: Biden Administration Student Debt Student Loans Aimee PicchiAimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.

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Archived Version

Thu, 18 Jul 2024 12:53

Thomas Matthew Crooks apparently teased an attack online days before he climbed onto a roof and opened fire at a Pennsylvania campaign rally, killing one and injuring others, including former President Donald Trump, Fox News has learned.

Secret Service and FBI officials told U.S. senators during an all-members briefing on Wednesday, July 17, that Crooks, 20, wrote a threatening message on the gaming platform "Steam" days before the attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, Fox News' Jacqui Heinrich reported.

According to the officials, Crooks allegedly wrote: "July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds."

"Steam" is a popular platform where tens of millions of gamers purchase games and communicate. The discovery was made as investigators continue to review Crooks' technological devices, including his cell phones and laptop.

SECRET SERVICE CONTINUES TO FACE QUESTIONS AS FBI INVESTIGATES TRUMP SHOOTER THOMAS MATTHEW CROOKS

Trump shooter Thomas Crooks' transmitter and cellphone, obtained by WPXI. (WPXI/ AFP handout/ AP's Gene J. Puskar)

When investigators reviewed the laptop, they found a few searches in July of: Trump, Biden, when is the DNC convention, and the July 13 Trump rally, America's top security officials told the senators on Wednesday.

The investigators found no evidence of a particular ideology on the laptop, which the FBI believes is notable, and nobody in interviews reported Crooks discussing politics, according to senators who spoke with Fox News after the meeting.

The senators also learned that the suspect had two cell phones. The primary phone was recovered from the scene along with a remote transmitter.

TRUMP SHOOTER'S PARENTS CALLED POLICE HOURS BEFORE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

A second cell phone found at the home had only 27 contacts. The FBI is in the process of tracking down and interviewing those people, they told the senators.

Former President Trump is surrounded by Secret Service agents at a campaign rally on Saturday, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The development comes just hours after it was learned Crooks' parents contacted law enforcement on Saturday hours before the attempted assassination.

The would-be assassin's mother and father told local police that Crooks was missing and that they were concerned about his welfare, a source told Fox News.

FBI agents canvas Thomas Matthew Crooks' neighborhood in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, on Monday, July 15, 2024. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital )

It remained unclear if they knew that he was in possession of an AR-15 rifle that belonged to his father.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Police have not said what actions they took after they were contacted.

Fox News' Rebecca Rosenberg, Jake Gibson and David Spunt contributed to this report.

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Archived Version

Wed, 17 Jul 2024 22:51

Image caption, Jon Lord co-wrote many Deep Purple hits including Smoke On The Water

Jon Lord, the former keyboard player with heavy rock band Deep Purple, has died aged 71.

Lord co-founded Deep Purple in 1968 and co-wrote many of the group's songs including Smoke On The Water. He also played with bands including Whitesnake.

He had been receiving treatment for pancreatic cancer since last August.

He died at the London Clinic on Monday, surrounded by family, a statement said. "Jon passes from Darkness to Light," it added.

Lord was influenced by classical, blues and jazz but played his Hammond organ with a rock attitude and helped Deep Purple become pioneers of progressive and heavy rock.

Tributes have been paid by musicians including one-time Deep Purple bandmate Joe Satriani, Iron Maiden and Anthrax.

Ex-Rage Against the Machine star Tom Morello wrote on Twitter: "RIP the great Jon Lord, Deep Purple's cornerstone/keyboardist. So many great great songs and that incredible SOUND of his! Thankyou."

Former Yes keyboard player Rick Wakeman was a friend and said he was "a great fan".

Image caption, Lord's Concerto for Group and Orchestra was performed at the Royal Albert Hall in 1969

"We were going to write and record an album before he become ill," he said. "His contribution to music and to classic rock was immeasurable and I will miss him terribly."

Born in Leicester, Lord learned classical piano at an early age before being seduced by watching early rock 'n' roll star Jerry Lee Lewis and jazz organist Jimmy Smith.

He could have chosen a career as an actor after receiving a drama school scholarship, but started playing in pub bands including short-lived outfits with future Rolling Stones star Ronnie Wood and his brother Art.

He also worked as a session musician and played piano on The Kinks' hit You Really Got Me.

Media caption, Scott Rowley, Classic Rock magazine: "He was... still the life and soul of the party"

After meeting guitarist Ritchie Blackmore through another project, the first incarnation of Deep Purple was born.

Lord's classical influence surfaced when Lord composed Concerto for Group and Orchestra, which the band performed with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall in 1969.

But the group refined their heavy rock sound and found mass success at the start of the 1970s with albums including Deep Purple in Rock and Machine Head.

In their classic years, the band also included Blackmore, singer Ian Gillan, drummer Ian Paice and bassist Roger Glover.

Lord continued to compose classical works alongside the group's output and, when they split in 1976, he joined other groups Whitesnake and Paice, Ashton and Lord.

Image caption, Lord continued to compose classical works after leaving the group in 2002

Deep Purple reformed in 1984 and resumed at the height of their commercial prowess, playing to tens of thousands of fans around the world.

They sold a total of 150 million albums and Lord remained an ever-present amid numerous line-up changes until he left in 2002.

Still composing, he had signed to a classical music label and performed a concert to mark the 30th anniversary of Concerto for Group and Orchestra.

"Thirty years later the piece came back and changed my life again... It gave me the courage to step outside and carve a career for myself outside the band," he told an interviewer.

He broke the news of his cancer diagnosis on his website last year, telling fans he would continue to write music as part of his therapy.

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Archived Version

Wed, 17 Jul 2024 21:01

When Bob Iger returned to Disney in late 2022 for his second tour as CEO, the company was in dire straits. It had just reported poor earnings, was scrambling from unpopular business moves, and was left reeling from previous CEO Bob Chapek's bad press.

Just a year later, Iger began to put the Mouse House back in order: He delivered a strong earnings report in February, announced partnerships with Epic Games and Taylor Swift, and trumpeted a sports streaming platform. "We have entered a new era," Iger effused to investors during his February earnings call, a nod to the news that Swift's "Eras Tour" film would stream exclusively on Disney+. In response, the company's stock price got a much-needed boost, and investors rejected a public challenge by the activist investor Nelson Peltz to exert control over the company.

Investors' celebration, however, was short-lived. Amid the declining TV business, dismal box-office numbers, and the need to name a successor, Iger continues to face significant problems. Perhaps most concerning of all: Disney is losing its monopoly on kids.

The Disney Channel, once a gateway to all things Disney, plummeted from a top-10 network with nearly 2 million average daily primetime viewers in 2014 to No. 80 with a measly 132,000 in 2023. Kids are now getting their TV fix on streaming, which accounts for two-thirds of TV watch time for children 2 to 11, per Nielsen estimates. There, YouTube has become king. Kids increasingly prefer to zone out for hours watching free short-form videos instead of full-length TV episodes and movies. In April, Nielsen estimated, kids 2 to 11 watched three times as much YouTube as Disney+ content. Meanwhile, Disney said in 2022 that over 60% of Disney+ subscribers were adults without kids at home.

"YouTube is their primary platform of choice," said Alexia Raven, a former Warner Bros. Discovery research vice president who cofounded the consultancy Maverix Insights & Strategy, where she studies kids' viewing behavior. "It meets them where they are and meets their passions in nuanced ways. It really has shifted the entertainment landscape."

Media companies have increasingly incorporated YouTube into their distribution strategies by releasing shorts and trailers there, but it's not an ideal setup. Companies don't control the distribution or revenue from their content, and it's not clear whether YouTube works as an on-ramp to their own properties in the same way the Disney Channel did for Disney. Kids watching Disney clips on YouTube may have no need for Disney+.

Meanwhile, the movie theater is also faltering. The company had a string of box-office bombs and has focused more on creating content just for its streaming service. But by reaching for streaming dominance, Disney seems to be missing kids in a big way.

In some ways, Disney has the same challenges as other long-standing media and entertainment companies like Comcast and Paramount. For years, the conventional wisdom was that they had to get bigger to compete with the tech giants like Google and Netflix. But streaming, advertising, and the box office aren't panning out the way they were supposed to. For Disney, the problem is existential. Without a steady stream of kids growing up on Disney content, the downstream effects for the other arms of its business '-- such as theme parks and merchandise '-- look grim. Unless it can recapture the hearts of Gen Alpha, the House of Mouse risks losing its next generation of fans to other brands.

Over the course of a century, Disney transformed a quaint cartoon about a mouse into a sprawling $185 billion empire. It became synonymous with wholesome entertainment for millions of children around the world.

Now, not so much. The most popular kids show for the past two years was "Cocomelon," a show made by Moonbug Entertainment that airs on Netflix. Moonbug '-- which was acquired in 2021 by two former Disney execs '-- has quickly gained on giants like Disney, Paramount, and Comcast, clinching the No. 5 spot for kids' entertainment on YouTube in 2023, according to Tubular, a social video analytics company. On YouTube, shows featuring child stars reign supreme '-- channels like "Kids Diana Show" (123 million subscribers) and "Ryan's World" (37 million) have each captured the attention of millions of children.

"Kids are growing up seeing themselves on these platforms; they're seeing kids like themselves creating the content," Liz Huszarik, a former research executive vice president at WarnerMedia who is now a managing partner at Maverix, said.

It's a trend that parents like Nick Macknight, a streaming media executive who lives in Dallas, knows firsthand. He used to try to get his daughters, ages 2 and 4, to watch his favorite Disney movies from childhood over top YouTube shows like "Kids Diana Show." "I tried desperately because I love 'The Lion King' and 'Aladdin,' but they will just say, 'I'd rather watch something on YouTube,'" he said.

This drift toward YouTube threatens a foundational gateway to the wider world of Disney. The Disney Channel, which started in 1983, used to be a marketing juggernaut for all things Disney '-- kids were introduced to stars like Justin Timberlake and Zendaya and hit TV movies like "High School Musical." But it's become just another casualty of cable's erosion.

By reaching for streaming dominance, Disney seems to be missing kids in a big way. Disney is certainly trying to meet kids where they are. To promote "Disney Junior's Ariel," it released a series of shorts on YouTube. And earlier this year, it launched a short-form Winnie the Pooh series on YouTube to test interest in a long-form version. In Disney's biggest games investment ever, Iger bought a $1.5 billion stake in Epic Games to bring Disney characters to mega-popular games like "Fortnite," where kids and young adults are increasingly spending their time and money. The bet is that efforts like these will entice kids to seek out more content on Disney's own platforms. But while Disney is now the top media company on YouTube, gaining traction on other companies' platforms isn't really a solution to its problem. (Disney declined to comment on the record for this story.)

Kids are known to watch things on repeat and play a key role in keeping their families subscribing to streaming services, which makes them especially valuable to media companies. But it can take a long time to develop new franchises that stick in order to realize that lifetime value. Another problem is that the number of kids in the US is rapidly shrinking. Increasingly, media companies are throwing in the towel. When Netflix's growth hit a speed bump in 2022, it and other streamers pulled back on kid programming as they promised investors to make streaming profitable.

In some ways, Disney has followed suit. It's branched out beyond kids into sports, news, and general entertainment, moving to acquire the remaining third of Hulu that it didn't own in 2023. It is also investing more in the growing "Disney adult" market, which makes up about half of its theme-park visitors '-- a figure that an insider said had gradually increased over time.

Diversifying, though, has had its challenges. Like the rest of traditional TV, Disney's TV business is in decline. The highly profitable Experiences arm, which houses its theme parks and resorts along with merchandise tie-ins, has grown more important over time, contributing 70% of the company's operating income in 2023 compared with less than 25% a decade prior, per Bernstein. But those figures can be misleading. For the past decade, the division has increasingly relied on higher spending per guest rather than increased attendance, Bernstein found. While park and resort attendance has stayed relatively flat, spending per guest grew 7%, raising questions on Wall Street about how much growth is left in parks.

In theory, going after adult audiences '-- which, unlike kids, advertisers can freely target '-- could help Disney get its streaming business in the black, but it also puts Disney up against a bigger field of competitors like Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery's Max '-- platforms that have a head start since they aren't seen as "just for kids" the way Disney is. Iger himself has acknowledged that general entertainment content tends to be undifferentiated compared with Disney's franchises.

For Disney to secure its future, it needs to replenish its pipeline of young fans. Unfortunately, it doesn't have any easy fixes. When he first became CEO of the company in 2005, Iger went on a massive buying spree, snapping up Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm. But today, there's no big equivalent company for it to buy to shore up its kid appeal. Disney already distributes the global kids phenomenon "Bluey," but it doesn't have the merchandising or theme-park rights to it.

It's far too soon to count Disney out, though.

The company has survived plenty of challenges over the decades, from the Great Depression to expensive flops like "The Black Cauldron" and "Mars Needs Moms" to criticisms over its portrayal of minority groups and a surreal public battle with Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis over what critics dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" law.

Kids preferring short-form videos on YouTube over full-length episodes and movies is a problem that Disney doesn't seem to be able to solve. One silver lining is the strength of Disney's franchises. The company had six of the top 10 streaming movies of 2023, including 2019's wildly popular "Moana," "Encanto" (2021), and "Elemental" (2023), according to Nielsen. And it's still captivating fans with "Star Wars" and Marvel spinoffs like "Andor" and "Ahsoka," which dominate Disney+. After a string of box-office flops, Iger has been public about his plan to course-correct, starting with making fewer titles and leaning on sequels over original titles. In June, Pixar's "Inside Out 2" became the year's biggest-grossing box-office hit, just a week and a half after its release. Its other highly anticipated films of the year are also sequels or spinoffs, like "Moana 2" and "Deadpool & Wolverine." Disney is also shifting resources from digital series to theatrical releases that can make a big splash, as evidenced by recent Pixar cuts that targeted teams focused on streaming.

Disney's reliance on franchises comes with risk, though. When Marvel releases stumbled last year, it cast a pall on the company and left Iger vulnerable to losing control of the company. To regain its dominance in the future, Disney will need some fresh stories.

Whether all this can help Disney get ahead of changing consumer behavior is an open question. Kids preferring short-form videos on YouTube over full-length episodes and movies is a problem that Disney doesn't seem to be able to solve.

When Macknight, the Dallas media executive, sat his kids down to prepare them for a family trip to Disneyland, he showed them a video about the famed theme park. The platform they watched it on? YouTube, of course.

Lucia Moses is a senior correspondent at Business Insider.

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Wed, 17 Jul 2024 20:46

(Image credit: Google)As part of the wider tech industry's wider push for AI, whether we want it or not, it seems that Google's Gemini AI service may now reading private Drive documents without express user permission, per a report from privacy activist and current Facebook Privacy Policy Director Kevin Bankston on X.com embedded below.

Update (7/16, 7:33 AM): We've updated this story with Google's response.

Bankston goes on to discuss reasons why he believes that this may be glitched for users like him in particular. And, if he is correct, the apparent lack of control being given over his sensitive, private information would be concerning. Google, however, disputes these assertions.

Just pulled up my tax return in @Google Docs--and unbidden, Gemini summarized it. So...Gemini is automatically ingesting even the private docs I open in Google Docs? WTF, guys. I didn't ask for this. Now I have to go find new settings I was never told about to turn this crap off.July 10, 2024

''Our generative AI features are designed to give users choice and keep them in control of their data. Using Gemini in Google Workspace requires a user to proactively enable it, and when they do their content is used in a privacy-preserving manner to generate useful responses to their prompts, but is not otherwise stored without permission," a Google spokesperson wrote to us.

So, what exactly is going on here? Kevin Bankston has some theories, after providing much more detail in the full thread. Contrary to the initial posting, this is supposedly happening within the larger umbrella of Google Drive and not Google Docs specifically, though it seems like the issue could apply to Docs as well.

But what caused this issue? According to Google's Gemini AI, the privacy settings used to inform Gemini should be openly available, but Bankston says that they aren't.

What's more, Bankston did eventually find the settings toggle in question... only to find that Gemini summaries in Gmail, Drive, and Docs were already disabled. Additionally, it was in an entirely different place than either of the web pages to which Gemini's bot initially pointed.

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For Bankston, the issue seems localized to Google Drive, and only happens after pressing the Gemini button on at least one document. According to him, the matching document type (in this case, PDF) will subsequently automatically trigger Google Gemini for all future files of the same type opened within Google Drive. He additionally theorizes that it may have been caused by him enabling Google Workspace Labs back in 2023, which could be overriding the intended Gemini AI settings.

We heard from Google after initially publishing this article and the company pointed us to a blog post about how it protects Google Workspace data. It notes that Workspace data is not ingested or used for training and that, if the feature is enabled, content from an open doc can be summarized but is not retained. The company also suggested that Bankston may have used Gemini via the side panel in Drive and that closing the panel might solve the issue.

Christopher Harper has been a successful freelance tech writer specializing in PC hardware and gaming since 2015, and ghostwrote for various B2B clients in High School before that. Outside of work, Christopher is best known to friends and rivals as an active competitive player in various eSports (particularly fighting games and arena shooters) and a purveyor of music ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Killer Mike to the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack.

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Wed, 17 Jul 2024 20:27

Donald Trump is weighing tapping JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon as his next Treasury Secretary.

Prime Day: The first half of Amazon's 48-hour sales event led to the biggest U.S. e-commerce day so far in 2024

After a meeting with top U.S. executives last month, the Republican presidential candidate said in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek published Tuesday that he would consider Dimon for the cabinet position.

''I have a lot of respect for Jamie Dimon,'' Trump said.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, whom Trump threatened to fire during his first term, also seems to have some job security. If elected, Trump said he would allow Powell to complete his four-year term as chair, which is set to end in May 2026.

Trump has continued to position himself as an overwhelmingly business friendly candidate. The former president told the group of more than 70 CEOs, which included Apple chief Tim Cook, Citigroup's Jane Fraser , Bank of America's Brian Moynihan, and Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf, that if re-elected, he would lower the corporate tax rate to 20% .

The corporate tax is currently set at 21%, which Trump lowered from 35% during his first term in the White House '-- a move that was praised by executives at the time, including Dimon .

He would, however, ultimately want to lower the rate all the way down to 15%, Trump told Bloomberg, ''because that would put us in the absolute lowest in terms of incentive.'' And his promises to the CEOs seem to have gone over well, at least according to Trump.

''That was a lovefest, and I will tell you when I'm not loved because I feel that better than anybody,'' he said.

In a memo to JPMorgan employees Sunday, Dimon called on Americans to ''stand firmly together against any acts of hate, intimidation or violence that seek to undermine our democracy or inflict harm,'' following the assassination attempt on Trump at a Pennsylvania campaign rally on Saturday.

Dimon, who has helmed the nation's biggest bank for two decades, has repeatedly denied having aspirations to run for office, despite calls bouncing around for years. Most recently, Pershing Square CEO Bill Ackman singled out Dimon as an ideal candidate following the first presidential debate.

Despite the encouragement, the 68-year-old executive says he's happy where he is, although he hasn't entirely ruled out holding public office down the line.

''I love my country, and maybe one day I'll serve my country in one capacity or another,'' Dimon told Bloomberg last year . ''But I love what I do. I think JPMorgan do a great job for helping Americans, for helping countries around the world. And this is my job. This is what I'm gonna do, and I'm quite happy doing it.''

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Wed, 17 Jul 2024 19:22

Butter made from air instead of cows? A California-based startup claims to have worked out a complex process that eliminates the need for the animals while making its dairy-free alternative taste just as good.

Savor, backed by the Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, has been experimenting with creating dairy-free alternatives to ice-cream, cheese, and milk by utilising a thermochemical process that allows it to build fat molecules, creating chains of carbon dioxide, hydrogen and oxygen. The company has now announced a new animal-free butter alternative.

Reducing meat and dairy consumption is one of the key ways that humanity can reduce its environmental impact, as livestock production is a significant source of greenhouse gases, and Savor says its products will have a significantly lower carbon footprint than animal-based ones. The ''butter'' could potentially come in at less than 0.8g CO2 equivalent per calorie. The standard climate footprint of real unsalted butter with 80% fat is approximately 2.4g CO2 equivalent per calorie.

Kathleen Alexander, Savor's chief executive, said: ''We are currently pre-commercial and working through regulatory approval to be able to sell our butter. We are not expecting to be able to move forward with any kind of sales until at least 2025.''

Meat and dairy alternatives have become more and more popular in recent years, but some fall short in terms of flavour. Savor says the flavour of its butter is more exact.

''So far, we had informal taste panels with tens of people,'' Alexander said. ''We expect to perform a more formal panel as part of our commercialisation and scale-up efforts.''

The question now is whether buyers will take to such synthetic fats. Getting people to give up their favourite dairy and meat items for more ''experimental'' foods may pose a challenge.

Advocating for the initiative in an online blogpost, Gates wrote: ''The idea of switching to lab-made fats and oils may seem strange at first. But their potential to significantly reduce our carbon footprint is immense. By harnessing proven technologies and processes, we get one step closer to achieving our climate goals.

''The process doesn't release any greenhouse gases, and it uses no farmland and less than a thousandth of the water that traditional agriculture does. And most important, it tastes really good '' like the real thing, because chemically it is.''

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the livestock industry, which encompasses all dairy and meat agricultural farming, accounts for 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

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Wed, 17 Jul 2024 17:00

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of MissouriThe medical landscape surrounding youth gender transitions has become a hotly debated and increasingly controversial topic in recent years.

As countries around the world, including the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, have moved to restrict or curb these practices, the Biden administration appears to be taking a vastly different approach '' one that has drawn the ire of Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).

In a scathing letter addressed to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, Hawley has condemned the Justice Department's prosecution of Dr. Eithan Haim, a whistleblower who exposed illegal child sterilization surgeries being conducted under the guise of transgender healthcare at Texas Children's Hospital.

Read: Ex-TMZ Personality Says Black Voters Shifting To Trump Because He Represents 'American Dream'

The senator alleges that this legal action is a blatant attempt to silence dissenters, deter future whistleblowers, and allow deceptive medical practices to continue unabated.

''This prosecution is intended to silence Dr. Haim, deter future whistleblowers, and allow deception and medical malpractice to continue apace. The Biden Administration is obviously doing this at the behest of far-left activists, whose views on youth gender medicine are wildly out of step with scientific evidence and the emerging medical consensus,'' wrote Senator Hawley.

''Accountability is coming. You both must immediately take steps to preserve all documents related to this case, in anticipation of future investigation,'' he concluded.

As the Tampa Free Press reported, Dr. Haim had uncovered evidence that Texas Children's Hospital was secretly performing gender transition surgeries on underage children, despite publicly assuring lawmakers that it had ceased such procedures. By obtaining redacted hospital records, the whistleblower was able to document these abuses, including the sterilization of minors, without revealing any confidential patient information.

Read: DOJ Unseals Indictment Of Texas Surgeon Who Blew Whistle On Child Sex Changes

However, the Biden administration's Justice Department has now indicted Dr. Haim, threatening him with up to 10 years in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for alleged violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Notably, the charges do not stem from the disclosure of any protected patient data, but rather from the manner in which the doctor obtained the incriminating evidence.

The prosecution of Dr. Haim has thrust the broader debate surrounding youth gender transitions into the national spotlight.

While proponents argue that these procedures are necessary to alleviate gender dysphoria and support the well-being of transgender youth, critics contend that the long-term effects and risks are not yet fully understood, particularly for young patients with underlying mental health conditions.

The case of Dr. Haim underscores the critical role that whistleblowers can play in exposing potential medical malpractice and holding healthcare institutions accountable.

By shedding light on the alleged unlawful practices at Texas Children's Hospital, the doctor has brought a matter of significant public interest to the forefront, raising important questions about the need for greater transparency and oversight in the realm of youth gender medicine.

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Wed, 17 Jul 2024 16:58

Project 2025 would all but dissolve the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Getty.July 16, 2024, 8:31 AM ET

Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

In the United States, as in most other countries, weather forecasts are a freely accessible government amenity. The National Weather Service issues alerts and predictions, warning of hurricanes and excessive heat and rainfall, all at the total cost to American taxpayers of roughly $4 per person per year. Anyone with a TV, smartphone, radio, or newspaper can know what tomorrow's weather will look like, whether a hurricane is heading toward their town, or if a drought has been forecast for the next season. Even if they get that news from a privately owned app or TV station, much of the underlying weather data are courtesy of meteorologists working for the federal government.

Charging for popular services that were previously free isn't generally a winning political strategy. But hard-right policy makers appear poised to try to do just that should Republicans gain power in the next term. Project 2025'--a nearly 900-page book of policy proposals published by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation'--states that an incoming administration should all but dissolve the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, under which the National Weather Service operates. Donald Trump has attempted to distance himself from Project 2025, but given that it was largely written by veterans of his first administration, the document is widely seen as a blueprint for a second Trump term.

NOAA ''should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories,'' Project 2025 reads. The proposals roughly amount to two main avenues of attack. First, it suggests that the NWS should eliminate its public-facing forecasts, focus on data gathering, and otherwise ''fully commercialize its forecasting operations,'' which the authors of the plan imply will improve, not limit, forecasts for all Americans. Then, NOAA's scientific-research arm, which studies things such as Arctic-ice dynamics and how greenhouse gases behave (and which the document calls ''the source of much of NOAA's climate alarmism''), should be aggressively shrunk. ''The preponderance of its climate-change research should be disbanded,'' the document says. It further notes that scientific agencies such as NOAA are ''vulnerable to obstructionism of an Administration's aims,'' so appointees should be screened to ensure that their views are ''wholly in sync'' with the president's.

The U.S. is, without question, experiencing a summer of brutal weather. In just the past week, a record-breaking hurricane brought major flooding and power outages to Texas amid an extreme-heat advisory. More than a dozen tornadoes ripped through multiple states. Catastrophic flash flooding barreled through wildfire burn scars in New Mexico. Large parts of the West roasted in life-threatening temperatures. Facing any of this without the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would be mayhem. And future years are likely to be worse.

Read: Hurricane Beryl is a terrifying omen

The NWS serves as a crucial point of contact in a weather crisis, alerting the public when forecasts turn dangerous and advising emergency managers on the best plan of action. So far in 2024, the NWS has issued some 13,000 severe-thunderstorm warnings, 2,000 tornado warnings, and 1,800 flash-flood warnings, plus almost 3,000 river-flood warnings, according to JoAnn Becker, a meteorologist and the president of the union that represents NWS employees.

NOAA is also home to the National Hurricane Center, which tracks storms, and the Office of Marine and Aviation Operations, whose pilots fly ''hurricane hunter'' planes directly into cyclones to measure their wind speed and hone the agency's predictions. NOAA even predicts space weather. Just this past May, it forecast a severe geomagnetic storm with the potential to threaten power grids and satellites. (The most consequential outages never came to pass, but the solar storm did throw off farmers' GPS-guided tractors for a while.)

Privatizing the weather is not a new conservative aim. Nearly two decades ago, when the National Weather Service updated its website to be more user-friendly, Barry Myers, then executive vice president of AccuWeather, complained to the press that ''we work very hard every day competing with other companies, and we also have to compete with the government.'' In 2005, after meeting with a representative from AccuWeather, then-Senator Rick Santorum introduced a bill calling for the NWS to cease competition with the private sector, and reserve its forecasts for commercial providers. The bill never made it out of committee. But in 2017, Trump picked Myers to lead NOAA. (Myers withdrew his nomination after waiting two years for Senate confirmation.)

Funding for many of NOAA's programs could plummet in 2025, and the agency already suffers from occasional telecommunications breakdowns, including a recent alert-system outage amid flooding in the Midwest. It is also subject to political pressures: In 2019, the agency backed then-President Trump's false claim (accompanied by a seemingly Sharpie-altered map) that Hurricane Dorian was headed for Alabama. Private companies might be better funded and, theoretically, less subject to political whims. They can also use supercomputing power to hone NOAA's data into hyperlocal predictions, perhaps for an area as small as a football stadium. Some, including AccuWeather, use their own proprietary algorithms to interpret NWS data and produce forecasts that they claim have superior accuracy. (Remember, though: Without NWS data, none of this would happen.)

Read: NOAA politicized the weather report

But this is not the vision that Project 2025 lays out. It proposes a dramatically defunded NOAA whose husk is nonetheless hyper-responsive to the administration's politics. And commercializing the agency's underlying data risks creating a system of tiered services. One could imagine a future where private outfits charge subscriptions for their weather reports, and only some municipalities are able to pay for the best forecasts. Private companies are also subject to commercial conflicts of interest; do we want flood-risk predictions sponsored by a flood-insurance company, or heat advisories from an air-conditioning conglomerate?

The NWS also has perks that a private system would be hard-pressed to replicate, including a partnership with the World Meteorological Organization, which allows the U.S. access to a suite of other countries' weather models. International collaboration proved crucial in 2012, when Hurricane Sandy was still churning in the Atlantic Ocean. Initially, the American model predicted, incorrectly, that the storm would turn away from the East Coast. But the European model accurately forecast a collision course, which bought emergency managers in the U.S. crucial time to prepare before Sandy made ferocious landfall in New Jersey.

Violent storms like Sandy make clear that America's national security is only as strong as our ability to accurately predict the weather, especially as natural disasters and extreme weather rise in our warming climate. In fact, NOAA's existence is one of the reasons we know that the climate really is warming. The agency is home to one of the most significant repositories of climate data on Earth, which includes information on shifting atmospheric conditions and the health of coastal fisheries, plus hundreds of thousands of years' worth of ice-core and tree-ring data. Scientists around the globe use all of this information. Its collection is proof of human-induced global warming. It's fitting, then, that the agency would be a target of hard-right activists and the Heritage Foundation, which has received fossil-fuel funding.

Democrats have seized on Project 2025 as an anti-Trump talking point. The Democratic National Convention is running ads urging voters to simply ''Google it,'' presumably in the hopes that voters will be alarmed by proposals to eliminate the Department of Education and limit access to emergency contraceptives. But Project 2025's robust sections on how the next administration could whittle away climate-change research have also caught the attention of lawmakers. ''Every non-billionaire American should dread this plan,'' Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who has been raising alarms about NOAA's fate since Trump first took office, told me in an email.

Read: The open plot to dismantle the federal government

The politicization of the weather exasperates JoAnn Becker. Most of her colleagues in meteorology, she said, are living their childhood dreams, which have nothing to do with politics. In 1976, when Becker was a little girl, Typhoon Pamela left much of her native Guam without power for months, and reshaped her life. She wanted to be part of a team that gave people a chance to prepare for something like that. ''We're not pushing an agenda. We're looking objectively at the changes in our climate overall,'' Becker said.

The solution to weather-related polarization, though, is not to eliminate the means by which the United States understands the climate. An ever-growing number of American lives now depend on the country's ability to respond quickly to weather emergencies. Eliminating or privatizing climate information won't eliminate the effects of climate change. It will only make them more deadly.

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Wed, 17 Jul 2024 16:39

It's quite a striking image, I admit, though I've already seen it enough times. Still, I find the response to it puzzling and disturbing. Writer Philippe Lemoine posted on X that he would be "judging people based on their ability or inability to put aside their opinion about Trump and acknowledge that this picture goes extremely hard." Even people who have a sophisticated approach to interpreting images and generally a realistic view of politics'--for example The New York Times columnist Ross Douthat and (for heaven's sake) The Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones'--have been deeply moved and deeply impressed by Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci's shot of a bloodied and defiant Donald Trump from below. Way too deeply moved and impressed, I'm thinking.

The political power of images is'--or ought to be'--proverbial. Almost all politicians attend consciously to the images that depict them and understand that they have political effects. Many still shots of Biden looking bewildered or blank have been devastating for his campaign, the effect multiplied now through endless social media posts. This sort of image interpretation, alteration, and reproduction is the basic purpose of Instagram, for example, and Vucci's photo might already be approximately the most reproduced thing in the history of the world.

The power of images can be used to inspire and uplift, or to obscure the truth and encourage people to oppress themselves. Often, the goal is both of these at once. If that photo sends you into a mystical ecstasy, if it seduces you toward some kind of worship of Donald Trump, it is having bad effects. Were we searching for a word, we might just call this approach to images "idolatry."

Political idolatry is a problem. On the other hand, I wouldn't blame the worshiped image, which just sits there, really. I wouldn't blame the photographer either, who did his job, showing what happened from the angle he had. It's the worshiper who's responsible.

Admittedly, the line between religion and politics has worn thin. But when people are literally worshiping images of a leader, or are engaged in political idolatry, oppression and war are predictable corollaries.

"People like to think they are rational and in control," says Steven Hassan, renowned cult expert and the author of The Cult of Trump , "but the lessons of history and social psychology demonstrate, time and again, that simply isn't so. We go about our days, and our lives, using unconscious mental models. When cult leaders manipulate those models, in subtle and overt ways, we can be persuaded to believe and do things we might never have considered without such systematic psychological influence."

I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't read it, but Jones' July 15 article about the image starts by making clear that Jones (still?) disagrees with Trump's positions and doesn't want the man to be president. But he can no longer resist the cult, it appears. "[Trump] uses the rhetoric of struggle and division he always has," writes Jones, "but with a new urgency as he calls on America to fight in his name, over his body. And he has instantly thought out how to communicate this visually." He's attributing a sort of intuitive image-making genius here, and we can begin to feel Jones' own visual seduction in process.

The heart of this picture's meaning can be summed up in one word: blood. And the connotations of that go deeper than politics or patriotism. Christian supporters of Trump won't be slow to see his survival as mystical. And they will be right, at least from the perspective of art history. Whatever else this scene may be, it is, at the iconographic level, religious. It is almost literally a resurrection. Trump has risen up from below the podium where he'd hidden, as if he were Christ rising from the tomb. In great paintings of that central Christian moment, such as Matthias Gr¼newald's spooky, perturbing vision of a triumphant Jesus in the Isenheim altarpiece, there is blood. Gr¼newald's risen Christ shows the bloody spear wound in his side, the bloody nail holes in his hands, just as in this picture we can see Trump's gory ear and the crimson blood on his cheek.

Trump truly appears to be giving his blood here, a sacrifice for America. Like Jesus, he survives the sacrifice and rises again.

This strikes me as astonishing, as directly expressing the beginnings of a cult to which Jones enthusiastically, or perhaps involuntarily, submits himself. "Yet it actually happened. It is happening." "Look at the blood," demands Jones. "It's real blood caused by a real bullet that shaved a real man's ear. That man really raises his fist in defiance in a mystically patriotic instant myth of resurrection." He finishes by predicting that Trump will win the 2024 election'--he should have finished by claiming that the religion of Trump will persist for millennia. "Yet it actually happened!"

The cult is apparently making inroads even at the opinion section of The New York Times , where Ross Douthat gives us these remarkable sentences.

I feel comfortable making one sweeping statement about the moments when Trump shifted his head fractionally and literally dodged a bullet, fell bleeding and then rose with his fist raised in an iconic image of defiance. The scene on Saturday night in Pennsylvania was the ultimate confirmation of his status as a man of destiny, a character out of Hegel or Thomas Carlyle or some other verbose 19th-century philosopher of history, a figure touched by the gods of fortune in a way that transcends the normal rules of politics.

In Hegel's work, the great man of history is understood as a figure "whose own particular aims involve those large issues which are the will of the World Spirit." Hegel's paradigm was Napoleon, the Corsican adventurer whose quest for personal power and military glory spread the ideas of the French Revolution, shattered the old regimes of Europe and ushered in the modern age.

For people who oppose Trump to be saying things like this is quite striking. One thing the Times and The Guardian are comfortable saying, evidently, is that Donald Trump is a man of destiny, a great man, "mystical," a figure touched by the gods.

Perhaps the Times and The Guardian (and CNN and many others) shouldn't have tried to inflate Trump into an Adolf Hitler and a Satan all these years. They were making ready the abyssal cult into which they've now tumbled. What I want to say is that really ( really ) that thing is just a picture. Trump conducted himself courageously, and Vucci got the angle. Admirable, but it has no tendency to show that Trump is divine, the Chosen One, or whatever Jonathan Jones and Ross Douthat now take him to be.

Authoritarian leaders use images to try to produce a cult of themselves, as Saddam Hussein loomed over Baghdad or Ferdinand Marcos over Manila or Mao Zedong over Beijing. But they usually have to force the critics and polemicists to buy in by threatening their families or something else dear to them. Here, the idolaters are volunteers.

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Wed, 17 Jul 2024 16:34

Axios is reporting that an unnamed editor of a 'major news outlet' is advising the media not to use the now iconic image of Trump defiantly raising his fist after the attempt on his life this weekend.

This editor recognizes the inherent power of the image and believes that it helps Trump.

This is the way progressives in news rooms across the country think. They are terrified of anything that can be seen as helping Donald Trump. It's an important reminder that our media is full of Democrat activists posing as journalists.

From Axios:

After the Trump rally shooting, three images stood out immediately. They've come to be known in newsrooms as the ''Evan photo'' by AP's Evan Vucci, the ''Anna photo'' by Getty's Anna Moneymaker, and ''the bullet photo'' by the New York Times' Doug Mills.

The big picture: Each photo covering Saturday's shooting that's being investigated as both an assassination attempt on former President Trump and domestic terrorism is an example of technical know how, on-the-ground experience, and a deliberate curation process'...

Zoom in: Multiple photographers worried privately in conversations with Axios that the images from the rally could turn into a kind of ''photoganda,'' with the Trump campaign using them to further their agenda despite the photographers' intent of capturing a news event.

'' None would comment on the record for fear of losing future work.

'' A photo editor and photographer from a major news outlet said the ''amount that publications have been using Evan's photo is kind of free P.R. for Trump in a way, and its dangerous for media organizations to keep sharing that photo despite how good it is.''

This is an amazing admission of media bias.

Axios: a "photo editor" at a "major news outlet" suggests media should bury the photo of Trump raising his fist because it's "kind of free PR for Trump in a way, and it's dangerous for media organizations to keep sharing that photo despite how good it is." pic.twitter.com/pLcrLi6mnH

'-- Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) July 16, 2024

If reality is bad for Dems, reality should be suppressed.

'-- John Sexton (@verumserum) July 16, 2024

Saw that coming. Mainstream media had to run the Trump photos because they were so damn good and newsworthy. But now they realize they are too good and want to bury them to save Biden and the Democrats.

'-- Kristinn Taylor (@KristinnFR) July 16, 2024

Do you think the media would say this if the photo was of a Democrat? Not a chance.

Mike LaChance has been covering higher education and politics for Legal Insurrection since 2012.Since 2008 he has contributed work to the Gateway Pundit, Daily Caller, Breitbart, the Center for Security Policy, the Washington Free Beacon, and Ricochet. He has also written for American Lookout, Townhall, and Twitchy.

You can email Mike LaChance here, and read more of Mike LaChance's articles here.

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Wed, 17 Jul 2024 16:33

Adam Button Wednesday, 17/07/2024 | 12:59 GMT-0

17/07/2024 | 12:59 GMT-0

Xi Jinping

There are unconfirmed rumours on Chinese social media that Chinese leader Xi Jinping suffered a stroke during Third Plenum meetings.

These rumors have gotten some traction so keep an eye on them. That said, these kinds of rumours always seem to perk up, including persistent rumours that Vlad Putin has died.

These reports, evidently originated from a YouTube blog from dissident Jennifer Zeng, who has previously floated rumours about a coup and Xi's arrest before. Despite that, they have been doing the rounds in Chinese and Russian social media for a few hours. I'm reluctant to even report on them but there is a chance that Chinese markets move on them. I certainly don't believe them.

Back in the world of real news, we're waiting on news from the Third Plenum and how China can dig its way out of deepening pessimism about economic prospects, especially among young people.

The meetings will end on Thursday with a broad-strokes plan China's policy direction for the next five years and beyond.

Yesterday, the IMF upgraded its China forecasts for this year and next year to 5.0% and 4.5% respectively but at the same time, this week's Q2 GDP data disappointed.

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Archived Version

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 22:34

To his most zealous Christian supporters, Donald Trump's campaign is a crusade against ''evil'' liberal forces that must be vanquished by any means necessary to save the republic.

Democrats aren't opponents, but enemies to be ''smited.'' Vice President Harris is depicted as Jezebel, the epitome of womanly wickedness who meets a grisly end. Teachers, librarians, drag queens '-- all perceived as introducing dangerous ideas to children '-- are condemned to drowning with millstones around their necks, a la Matthew 18:6.

Spiritual warfare is a central theme of Christian nationalist movements that are reshaping the GOP by preaching that the country's theological identity is under attack and in urgent need of a revolution to put the faithful in charge. Their rhetoric has been galvanizing crowds at conservative gatherings all year, and is likely to be woven into messaging at the Republican National Convention, which starts Monday.

The movements' biblical references, extremism monitors warn, soften violent and racist messaging, and offer plausible deniability should believers turn into vigilantes, as hundreds did during the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

''You are either on the side of God or the side of the Devil,'' said Miranda Zapor Cruz, a theologian at Indiana Wesleyan University, summing up the rhetoric. ''If you are on the side of the Devil, then just about anything can be justified to cast you out, to eradicate your influence. And, for some people, that 'just about anything' would include physical violence.''

Religion scholars say Christian nationalism ranges from those who believe in a metaphorical battle of ideas against the left to a more militant subset willing to engage in actual combat over the soul of America. The ideology courses through Trump's MAGA movement, with proponents worshiping with, stumping for and giving policy advice to the former president and his inner circle.

Trump allies in Congress have openly advocated for Christian nationalism.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has urged supporters to embrace the term: ''I say it proudly '-- we should be Christian nationalists.'' Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) similarly claimed the label at a conservative conference this month, telling the crowd: ''Some will say now that I am calling America a Christian nation. So I am. And some will say that I am advocating Christian nationalism. And so I do.''

Longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone told a podcast that a ''demonic portal'' had opened above the Biden White House. Another MAGA stalwart, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, says the nation is in the throes of a spiritual war and has called former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) a demon.

Despite never being particularly religious, Trump in recent years has played to the hard-right Christian view of him as a beleaguered defender of the faith, including comparing his legal troubles to the trials of Jesus. He declared the Nov. 5 election ''Christian Visibility Day'' and promised a faith advisory group that he would ''create a new federal task force on fighting anti-Christian bias.''

''No one will be touching the cross of Christ under the Trump administration,'' Trump pledged in February, drawing loud cheers from a crowd of hundreds at a Christian media convention in Nashville. ''I swear to you.''

In sermons and on podcasts, hard-right Christians reason that Trump's utility in pushing a more conservative national agenda on issues such as abortion outweighs hesitation over his history of lying, his 34 felony convictions, or the accusations against him involving sexual assault and other crimes. They depict flaws as chances for redemption and stay laser-focused on the broader mission: Beating back the diabolical forces they call ''Demon-crats.''

''If everything is cosmic combat, you never compromise,'' said Matthew Taylor, who researches Christian nationalism at the Baltimore-based Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies. ''Who wants to compromise with demons?''

Millstones and swords

In 2022, Kimber Glidden was fighting for her job as a library director in northern Idaho after refusing to cave to the book-banning demands of hard-right Christian parents who smeared her as a danger to children.

At one public meeting, Glidden recalled in a recent interview, a woman looked her in the eye while quoting Matthew 18:6, which describes a lethal punishment for anyone harming the young: ''It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.''

''It's like, 'I'm not actually threatening you '-- I'm just quoting scripture at you,''' said Glidden, who eventually resigned because of the attacks. ''You can threaten people and you can intimidate them, as long as you have a Bible tract in your hand.''

Religion scholars say Christian nationalists are skilled at plucking scripture out of context to justify intolerant or conspiratorial beliefs, literalist readings that can be used to persuade worshipers that violence is a biblically sound response to perceived existential threats to their country and faith.

Such cherry-picking distorts the text to suggest that ordinary Christians should be carrying out punishments that traditionally are interpreted as being meted out by God, said Kaitlyn Schiess, a theologian at Duke University and author of ''The Ballot and the Bible,'' which tracks how scripture is used in political speech.

''It gives them a sense of belonging to some kind of exciting drama '-- the fight between good and evil,'' Schiess said. ''And that can have really disastrous effects.''

To explain why it's permissible to engage in fiery partisan fights while simultaneously recounting the peaceful examples of Jesus, some turn to Mark 12:17: ''Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.'' To legitimatize militancy against leftist opponents, Christian hard-liners quote a verse from Matthew that proclaims, ''I came not to send peace, but a sword.''

Millstone references pop up regularly in calls for retribution against librarians, teachers, abortion providers, racial justice activists, LGBTQ advocates and anyone else some members of the religious far right deem a threat to the project of a White Christian nation.

At a Proud Boys protest outside a drag event in Maryland last year, one man wearing the far-right group's yellow-and-black insignia held a sign that quoted Matthew 18:6 above the words, ''It's millstone time!''

In April, anti-fascist activists in Miami criticized the singer Jimmy Levy, a MAGA favorite who has performed at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, for warning President Biden in lyrics that he was ''coming for your neck like a milly,'' a millstone reference. Levy suggested the outrage was alarmist, writing on social media: ''I never threatened Biden. I referenced what God says about those who hurt little ones.''

Republican lawmakers in states including Oklahoma, Texas and South Carolina have introduced versions of what they call a ''Millstone Act,'' legislation seeking to ban gender-affirming care for young adults. Civil rights groups say the proposals are part of a bigger right-wing campaign that uses religion to vilify transgender people with unfounded accusations of grooming and pedophilia.

Speaking in a small-town church last month, Mark Robinson, the Trump-endorsed GOP nominee for governor in North Carolina, told the audience that ''some folks need killing.''

''It's time for somebody to say it. It's not a matter of vengeance. It's not a matter of being mean or spiteful. It's a matter of necessity!'' Robinson, the lieutenant governor, said, according to a video of the speech surfaced by the New Republic.

The recording shows Robinson shouting about ''wicked people,'' including liberals, socialists and communists. He was introduced at the event by a local pastor, the Rev. Cameron McGill, who told the audience: ''Who's behind President Biden, and that administration? Is it Obama. Is it Clinton? Read your Bible. It is the Devil.''

Mike Lonergan, Robinson's campaign spokesman, said on X that the candidate's words referenced World War II enemies and were taken out of context in a ''gutless and dishonest smear.''

In Arizona, Jeff Durbin, a far-right ''abortion abolitionist'' and influential Christian nationalist, has said that women deserve to be executed if they have an abortion '-- a stance he recently reiterated is ''the historical position of the Christian church.''

''You forfeit your right to live,'' Durbin said last month in a New York Times podcast.

After receiving backlash for the remarks, Durbin doubled down in a post on X: ''We make no apologies for God's Word and affirm that capital punishment is a just response from the state for the crime of murder.''

'The end of democracy'

The growing prominence of Christian nationalism within the GOP has led to a scramble among pro-democracy groups to raise awareness about the risks it poses to elections and security '-- a threat that's hard to recognize when it's dressed in religion.

Christians opposed to a nationalist ideology are among the leaders of the pushback, speaking in churches and at universities, countering spiritual warfare language with other biblical verses that emphasize compromise and peacemaking.

''We must stand up to and speak out against Christian nationalism, especially when it inspires acts of violence and intimidation,'' read a statement by Christians Against Christian Nationalism, a campaign organized by the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, which supports the separation of church and state.

Schiess, the Duke theologian, said she encourages Christians to run through a checklist when they hear powerful figures making biblical references: ''Where is the language coming from and is this an appropriate use of it? Is this being used either to incite violence or anger or fear? Or, is it being used to make me feel comfortable and powerful and secure?''

The idea that Christian identity is under assault resonates with high-profile conservatives, among them House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who displays the ''Appeal to Heaven'' flag, a Christian nationalist symbol, outside his office in Washington. Johnson is among many politicians on the right who recite Ephesians 6:11 about putting on ''the full armor of God'' to face the Devil's schemes.

''Obviously, this is an increasingly hostile culture,'' Johnson told the audience at a Christian women's conference in 2022 where he quoted the verse. ''We all know that. We need to understand why that is, and we need to commit to do our part to confront it. The kingdom of God allows aggression.''

At the recent Conservative Political Action Conference, a right-wing conclave now dominated by pro-Trump factions, far-right conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, onstage with Trump ally Stephen K. Bannon, welcomed the crowd ''to the end of democracy.''

''We're here to overthrow it completely. We didn't get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this,'' Posobiec told the audience, holding up a cross.

''Amen,'' Bannon said.

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Archived Version

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 15:52

Amy Ramsey, chief operating officer of national nonprofit group Defense for Democracy, holds a sign alongside protesters outside of the Fort Worth Botanic Garden on July 13, 2024. (Alberto Silva Fernandez | Fort Worth Report)Sign up for essential news for the Fort Worth area. Delivered to your inbox '-- completely free.

Armed with rainbow flags, cardboard signs and megaphones, almost 90 demonstrators stood Saturday morning on the corner of University Drive to protest a private event inside the Fort Worth Botanic Garden that included sessions on Christian nationalism and ''The War on White America.''

Amy Ramsey, chief operating officer for the national nonprofit Defense of Democracy, said the protest was a show of community and solidarity against the Tarrant County-based True Texas Project's 15th anniversary celebration.

Demonstrators at the protest, co-organized by Defense of Democracy and local advocacy group Justice Network of Tarrant County, said the city should not have allowed True Texas Project to reserve the botanic garden. The organization started as the Northeast Tarrant Tea Party and appeared on the Southern Poverty Law Center's national list of extremist groups in 2022.

''We came to get the word out and show up and show Fort Worth that there are a lot of people in this community that are not going to stand for Christian nationalism in our public spaces,'' Ramsey, a Fort Worth native, said after leaving the protest.

True Texas Project's event reservation was for the group's anniversary party the evening of July 12, followed by an all-day conference July 13 that included sessions on ''Multiculturalism & The War On White America,'' ''The Case For Christian Nationalism'' and ''Great Replacement Theory,'' a conspiracy theory claiming there is a plot to diminish the influence of white people through immigration and lower birth rates among white populations than non-white populations.

Robin McCubbin, left, and Ryan McCubbin walk into the Fort Worth Botanic Garden, where the True Texas Project was celebrating its 15th anniversary with a conference on July 13, 2024. They declined to comment. (Alberto Silva Fernandez | Fort Worth Report)The conference featured several conservative activists, including Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot and killed two people during a 2020 racial justice protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Since his 2021 acquittal, Rittenhouse has formed a nonprofit foundation in Texas focused on gun rights and other conservative causes.

True Texas Project did not respond to a request for comment on the protests but posted photos of protesters on the group's X account. The event was sold out, according to the post.

''Everyone here is having a fantastic time except for these losers,'' the group wrote.

Botanic garden officials previously canceled the event reservation after The Texas Tribune published an article detailing the event's agenda, but the city later reinstated the reservation, citing the group's right to speech under the First Amendment. While the Botanical Research Institute of Texas runs the garden through a public-private partnership agreement, the city owns the property.

Patrick Newman, CEO and president of the garden, declined to comment to the Report and pointed to the city and botanic garden's previous joint statement.'''‹'‹The city's legal department directed that the True Texas Project event be reinstated, as the city cannot restrict access based solely on a potential renter's viewpoint,'' the June 14 statement read in part. ''The city and (Botanical Research Institute of Texas) do not endorse or condone the beliefs, opinions, or viewpoints of groups or individuals who may rent its facilities.''

City leaders have maintained that allowing ''different viewpoints'' on government property protects an individual's constitutional right to free speech. Reyne Telles, the city's chief communications officer, declined to offer additional comment on the protests.

Bryan Frasier, 48, and Shelly Frasier, 43, who attended the conference, told the Report they support demonstrators' right to protest the event. However, they believe the True Texas Project has just as much of a right to host their event, and they're glad the city and Mayor Mattie Parker ''did the proper thing'' by allowing the event to take place, Bryan Frasier said.

''The city has a responsibility to let anyone who's not violent have a space to talk,'' Bryan Frasier said. ''In order to support free speech, you have to support free speech that you don't like.''

Activists call on mayor to take stance on True Texas Project The backlash over True Texas Project's conference comes as city staff review policies regulating how organizations may book city-owned venues for private events. Assistant City Manager Jesica McEachern previously told the Report it is ''very likely'' that language prohibiting discriminatory speech will be removed from the policies.

Staff expect to have a draft of the policy update on community center reservations completed by July 15. A review of policies regulating facilities like the botanic garden and zoo will come later this summer.

A man holds a flag reading ''anti-fascist action'' in German, outside of the Fort Worth Botanic Garden on July 13, 2024. (Alberto Silva Fernandez | Fort Worth Report)Timeline of Fort Worth's controversies over event reservation policies

April 19: The Fort Worth Report published a story after the city canceled an event titled ''The Dangers of Transgenderism'' hosted by Texas Latinos United for Conservative Action, known as LUCA, at the Forest Park Community Center.April 23: LUCA published correspondence from Mayor Mattie Parker stating that she disagreed with staff's handling of the event and that '''... it is a slippery slope when government restricts free speech.'' Parker also instructed staff to ''clean up the process'' to prevent similar incidents in the future.May 30: The city released a statement, which said the LUCA event was canceled because of an incomplete application. After receiving a new and complete application from LUCA, the city approved their request to host an event at the Fire Station Community Center on June 8. June 8: LUCA hosted its event, which included a panel discussion on the ''impact of LGBT ideology,'' ''the social contagion of transgenderism'' and the dangers of pornography. Residents simultaneously held a LGBTQ pride event at the adjacent park.June 12: The Texas Tribune reported that the Fort Worth Botanic Garden will host an event for the True Texas Project.June 13: Speakers Todd Bensman, Ammon Blair and former state Sen. Don Huffines pull out of the conference, and the botanic garden cancels the True Texas Project's reservation, according to the Texas Tribune. June 14: The City of Fort Worth released a statement about reinstating the event, citing the First Amendment. The statement also said the city and botanic garden ''do not endorse or condone the beliefs, opinions, or viewpoints of groups or individuals who may rent its facilities.''July 4: In an article published by the Fort Worth Report, Assistant City Manager Jesica McEachern said that language banning discriminatory events is ''very likely'' to be removed from the city's event booking policies. Staff expects to complete part of its review by July 15. July 10: After sending a letter urging city leaders to revoke the True Texas Project's event registration, members of Defense of Democracy and Justice Network of Tarrant County told the Report that they planned to protest the True Texas Project's event at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden.Leading up to the Saturday protest, local activists and community members called on Parker to take a firm stance on the event and denounce white supremacy. Parker has not spoken publicly about the True Texas Project, and has declined requests for comment on the matter.

Laken Rapier, the chief spokesperson for the mayor's office, told the Report on July 12 that True Texas Project did not invite Parker to their event. If the group had, Parker would not have attended, Rapier said. The mayor's office declined to offer additional comment until she and the rest of City Council receive a full briefing on the updated event policy, which is expected to happen in August.

Everyone should know where the mayor stands on these issues, Ramsey said.

''It's one of those situations where you do have to pick a side,'' Ramsey said. ''One of them is the side of fascism, and one of them is the side of 'We just want to exist in Fort Worth without fear.'''

Nan Terry stands on University Drive outside of the Fort Worth Botanic Garden protesting the True Texas Project event on July 13, 2024. (Alberto Silva Fernandez | Fort Worth Report)Roy Hill, 81, said he understands and supports the right to free speech, but believes the sessions on True Texas Project's agenda fall into a gray area.''I think it's pretty close to crying out fire in a movie theater because they're promoting hate and violence,'' Hill said. ''Anyone that stands up to these types of people gets death threats. They have to get security. I don't think this country can persist while living in fear of one another.''

The city needs to go beyond issuing a statement that it does not necessarily share the views of groups that book their facilities, Hill continued, and, instead, have the mayor call a press conference.

''They need to stand up and get them and say something, advocacy that is in plain direct language that will get on local news, so people will actually know where they stand,'' Hill said. ''Statements get read by maybe a tenth or 1% of the people in this city.''

Sabrina Ball holds up a sign outside of the Fort Worth Botanic Garden on University Drive protesting the True Texas Project event happening there on July 13, 2024. (Alberto Silva Fernandez | Fort Worth Report)Police on site; Houston group brings firearms to protestFort Worth Police Lt. Paul Genualdo declined to give a count of officers on site, but more than a dozen squad cars were visible inside the garden, and a handful of officers stood near the protesters. Genualdo said the police presence was intended to ensure safety for everyone, as the department had been informed of the possibility of counter-protesters.

''They have every right to peacefully protest,'' he said. ''We just want to make sure they don't obstruct the roadway.''

Police vans and cruisers are stationed inside of the Fort Worth Botanic Garden on July 13, 2024. Police said their presence was due to concerns of possible counter-protesters and ensuring people could get in safely. (Alberto Silva Fernandez | Fort Worth Report)Genualdo said four off-duty officers were deployed inside the botanic garden building as security for the event. Assistant City Manager Jesica McEachern previously told the Report True Texas Project would be required to pay the cost to contract the off-duty officers.

Outside the garden, protesters chanted ''No TTP, no KKK, no fascist USA.'' Several demonstrators held cardboard signs bearing handwritten messages such as ''True Texans love Democracy,'' ''Kyle Rittenhouse is a racist murderer,'' ''Nazis get out now,'' ''Y'all means all'' and ''Christians against Christian nationalism.''

Protesters placed signs outside of the Fort Worth Botanic Garden to protest the True Texas Project event. Signs reading ''Christians against Christian nationalism'' lined University Drive on July 13, 2024. (Alberto Silva Fernandez | Fort Worth Report)Although Defense of Democracy and the Justice Network of Tarrant County discouraged their members from bringing firearms to the event, a handful of people with the group Houston United Front Against Facism attended bearing long guns.

''When we think we might face armed fascists, we bring weapons,'' David Michael Smith of Houston United Front Against Facism said. ''You'll notice today a number of people open with very long guns, short barrel rifles, handguns, pepper spray. Oh, and there are other folks who are carrying concealed. '... Frankly, we hope not to see armed fascist counter-protesters over there.''

Roughly a dozen members of the group carpooled from Houston to Fort Worth, and Smith said some members of his group felt it was important to be armed.

A man stands outside of the Fort Worth Botanic Garden with a rifle and cable ties in his hand protesting the True Texas Project 15th anniversary event and conference on July 13, 2024. (Alberto Silva Fernandez | Fort Worth Report)Linda Hanratty, 77, said the presence of guns on the protest line made her uncomfortable.''It's scary,'' Hanratty, a member of the Justice Network, said. ''I don't like it. It just fuels violence and escalation.''

The True Texas Project event coincided with the botanic garden's monthly Dog Days weekend series, when patrons are allowed to bring their dog with them to the venue. Leigh Ann Martin and her new rescue dogs, Eevie and Ozzy, were unaware of any protest or event before heading to the garden.''There's a lot going on, Martin said, ''but thankfully there was a lot of police presence, so I felt safe driving in.''

Protesters and conference attendees cite importance of free speech, disagree on platformsA man fixes the leash on his dogs at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden, which hosts Dog Days, an all day event for people to enjoy the Botanical Gardens with their pups, on July 13, 2024. The previously scheduled event carried on despite protesters on University Drive. (Alberto Silva Fernandez | Fort Worth Report)Laurie Duke, 47, wearing rainbow-striped sunglasses, stood among the protesters lining University Drive.

''They're not my enemy,'' Duke said of the conference attendees. ''I don't agree with them. I don't agree with preaching hate. But that, to me, is very dangerous.''

Kathy Johnstone, 77, attends the True Texas Project's monthly meetings because they align with her Christian values. She was also in attendance at the Saturday conference.

''We're not what they say we are,'' Johnstone said of her fellow True Texas Project members. ''They need to just look into us instead of just going by the titles of our meetings.''

A ''Pray for America'' sign is displayed inside of the Fort Worth Botanic Garden's Garden Center. The True Texas Project held its 15th anniversary event and conference at the garden's event center. Keynote speakers included Kyle Rittenhouse, John Guandolo, C. Jay Engel and Paul Gottfried on July 13, 2024. (Alberto Silva Fernandez | Fort Worth Report)As the city reviews its events policy, protester Laurie Duke said she hopes the city will look at what other places have done to protect free speech and citizens in marginalized groups.

''I think there's a reason that Europe and Germany, they have a no Nazi, no tolerance (policy) for that because of what we learned from World War II,'' Duke said. ''People are allowed to have their opinions, and that's part of democracy. You might disagree. Yeah, but they can do it in a private place, on the street. Not a public forum.''

Dan Chandler sits outside of the Fort Worth Botanic Garden's event center before entering the True Texas Project 15th anniversary conference on July 13, 2024. (Alberto Silva Fernandez | Fort Worth Report)Ramsey, the Defense of Democracy leader, said she feels good about the turnout at the protest and hopes city leaders take note of the community's stance against the event. She's prepared to continue making her voice heard in opposition to what she described as hate speech in Fort Worth.

''I don't know how to measure the success or failure of a protest because this is a marathon, and it's not a sprint. It's a war, it's not a battle,'' Ramsey said.

Cecilia Lenzen is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at cecilia.lenzen@fortworthreport.org or @bycecilialenzen.

Marcheta Fornoff covers arts and culture for the Fort Worth Report. Reach her at marcheta.fornoff@fortworthreport.org.

At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.

Republishing is free for noncommercial entities. Commercial entities are prohibited without a licensing agreement. Contact us for details.

Cecilia Lenzen is a local government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Prior to the Report, she covered local government in Dallas for a hyperlocal newspaper chain and freelanced for several...More by Cecilia Lenzen

For just over seven years Marcheta Fornoff performed the high wire act of producing a live morning news program on Minnesota Public Radio. She led a small, but nimble team to cover everything from politics...More by Marcheta Fornoff

Building with connection to Fort Worth history could be demolished Fort Worth-based pizza brand heats up with Walmart deal North Texas school districts are challenging Biden Title IX changes. What comes next?Made in Tarrant: Two brothers band together to form a mariachi band for big and small occasionsChristian nationalism event in Fort Worth Botanic Garden draws protest, police presence

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Archived Version

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 15:51

Moral superiority: The Constitution or Christian NationalistsRe: ''Christian Nationalist Movement: Your religious values are not American values,'' July 7 commentary

I read Pamela Paul's column concerning the Christian Nationalist Movement with great interest. I agree with everything she wrote. However, I wish she had mentioned Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, which states, ''no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.''

I wonder how many of the Christian Nationalists have read the Constitution and are familiar with Article VI.

'-- Rick O'Connell, Centennial

When did it become more important to focus on the Establishment Clause of the Constitution in our children's schools than on the current education of Gender Dysphoria, Woke, and DEI, which is far more destructive to social survival than the Commandments? Our children are treated like pawns with limited questionable education in English, mathematics, and sciences, providing little allowance for critical thinking and individual achievements.

Only the Louisiana residents who pay the school taxes should decide this issue. Any other non-Louisiana U.S. citizen should consider their own state and its morals.

'-- Barb Zrubek, Windsor

Thank you for running Sunday's commentary by Pamela Paul. I agree with the entire article, but especially the first paragraph. Whenever some Christians mention values or morals, it implies that their morals and values are superior to everyone else's and must be acknowledged and respected, as if the rest of us are immoral and reprobates, etc.

'-- Michael Wear, Denver

The price tag on influence costs citizens dearlyRe: ''Lobbyists were paid nearly $70M,'' July 7 news story

The front page article on Sunday has Adam Smith's ears perked.

' ''The more money you have usually translates to a louder voice in politics '... ''

' ''Then there's the lobby and special interests that spend a bazillion dollars '... to try to prevent progress and prevent what we all really know is the right thing to be doing.''

' ''Special interests are able to exercise an undue amount of influence on the legislators '...''

' ''Unfortunately, there's a power imbalance, just given the wealth and political capacity '...''

Smith, the named ''Father of Capitalism,'' wrote in his book ''Theory of Moral Sentiments'' his concerns regarding inherent moral flaws. One such flaw is found in the quoted sentences above, which describe the inherent behavior in capitalism towards corruption.

'-- Steve Morrow, Denver

For 36 consecutive days in June and July, there was not a single day when the air quality was rated as ''good'' in the Denver Metro area, as reported by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Many of the days were declared ''unhealthy for sensitive groups.'' The area's air quality has been in ''severe'' violation of EPA's standard for ozone pollution since 2022, leading the American Lung Association to find that Denver has the seventh worst air quality in the nation. In the last legislative session, oil and gas polluters killed comprehensive legislation to address Denver's long-standing air quality problems, and the governor and legislature kicked the ozone can down the road until at least 2030.

While the politicians cower, we can all help improve air quality by not letting our cars idle while we check emails, texts, or the most recent social media posts. The alternative '-- opening the windows without the engine running '-- avoids needlessly emitting harmful pollutants into the atmosphere. This modest action will benefit all of us, especially our neighbors who suffer from asthma or cardiovascular disease and those whose allergies are worsened by air pollution.

'-- Ronald L. Rudolph, Golden

Trails are not race coursesI'm writing to express my deep concern about the behavior of some cyclists on Colorado's Cherry Creek Trail and Highline Canal Trail.

These beautiful public paths are meant for everyone's enjoyment, but unfortunately, a minority of riders are turning them into dangerous speedways. Recently, I've witnessed cyclists racing at breakneck speeds, refusing to yield to pedestrians or slower riders. This reckless behavior puts everyone at risk, especially families with children and elderly walkers.

The trails have a 15 mph speed limit for good reason, yet some cyclists blatantly ignore it. These trails are not private racetracks. They are shared spaces meant for the enjoyment and recreation of all Colorado residents and visitors. Cyclists must remember that they are required by law to yield to pedestrians and announce their presence when passing.

To those who insist on treating our public trails like their personal Tour de France course: Slow down, show respect, and remember that your actions have consequences. A moment of caution could prevent a serious accident.

I urge local authorities to increase patrols and enforcement of trail rules. Additionally, I call on the cycling community to self-police and remind their peers about proper trail etiquette. Let's work together to ensure our trails remain safe and enjoyable for everyone.

'-- Gregg S. Hayutin, Denver

Supreme Court not as divided as portrayedRecent articles and Open Forum letters regarding the Supreme Court show a considerable lack of understanding of the Court's decisions. Before making accusations, a person should review the facts. Calling the Supreme Court ''rogue'' simply because they disagree with the results is poor judgment at best and shows a lack of understanding of the Constitution and our judicial system.

If you are going to criticize the Court, at a minimum, study the statistics. The Wall Street Journal reported that for 2023, about 45% of the cases were unanimous. For example, nine justices agreed that Colorado could not remove Donald Trump from the ballot and that pro-life doctors did not have the standing to sue the FDA.

Yet, I do criticize Justice Sonia Sotomayor's fearmongering. Her implication that the Armed Forces will be used to assassinate members of the opposing political party is especially offensive. Specifically, she owes an apology to SEAL Team 6.

When I joined the military, I swore to defend and protect the Constitution (as my son, my father, my brother, and my uncle), not a person. We were all trained that there are unlawful orders that it was our duty not to obey per the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and federal law. Just because a president cannot be prosecuted for official actions does not mean the members of the armed forces will blindly follow a presidential order. We are not automatons. We can be prosecuted for violations. We simply cannot use the Flip Wilson defense: ''The Devil made me do it!''

'-- Jos(C) M. L"pez, Centennial

Remembering when physicians got personal with patientsWhatever happened to our Primary Care Physicians (PCP) '' the family docs that personally answered your phone calls (not texts), took care of your minor cuts and fractures, delivered your babies, and took care of them as they grew, personally examining you prior to ordering expensive tests, and spent more time interacting with you than a computer screen?

The answer: Nearly 80% of physicians are now employed by corporations and hospitals, according to a study sponsored by the Physicians Advocacy Institute (PAI). Corporate control over our medical care includes replacing physicians with lesser-trained non-physicians to maximize profits, while moral injury and burnout among physicians are at unsustainable levels.

Kelly Kenney, CEO of PAI, said, ''Physicians have an ethical responsibility to their patients' health. By contrast, corporate entities have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders and are motivated to put profits first.''

Corporate family docs, especially in urban areas, are now instructed to refer the patients they previously administered care to, i.e., simple fractures, gynecology, multiple complaints, etc., to specialists. Time perhaps doesn't allow returning to the old paradigm of the beloved 1970s TV doctor Marcus Welby, M.D.; however, allowing common sense patient/doctor relationships to replace profit-driven corporate medicine is in the best interest of both the physicians and their patients.

'-- Glenn M. Cosh, Wheat Ridge

Editor's note: Cosh is a board-certified family physician and a currently licensed pro bono medical doctor.

''Preoccupied with football''Re: ''University of Colorado football: It's not your daddy's Big 12,'' July 7 sports story

Your dissing of the newly constructed Big 12 Conference in a front-page Sunday Post article hit a nerve in me, a West Virginia native and Mountaineer fan now residing in Denver.

I admit to your accuracy in noting that every athletic program not in the Big Ten or SEC desires the excessive and harmful riches those two conferences deliver to their constituent schools. But I suggest you're far too preoccupied with football.

Kansas, Arizona, Houston, and Cincinnati, for example, each possess a glittering history in men's basketball '-- likewise Oklahoma State in equestrian. My West Virginia Mountaineers, inexplicably, excel in baseball. And I won't belabor the success of today's Big 12 in track and field, volleyball, and other so-called ''minor'' sports. CU by itself has won recent multiple national championships in skiing and men's and women's cross country.

In conclusion, I ask The Post for a measure of forbearance as the CU Buffs battle in the ''not-your-Daddy's'' Big 12. It's a conference that reflects the realities of today's economic and practical circumstances and'' dare we hope '-- evokes the positive achievements of young athletes.

'-- David E Stauffer, Denver

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Tue, 16 Jul 2024 15:50

As some Milwaukeeans looked to the sky Sunday to glimpse the arrival of former President Donald Trump, waiting to hear what message he will share after an apparent assassination attempt, a coalition of local faith congregations gathered in an east side performing arts center to send their own message while their city has the spotlight.

Ahead of the Republican National Convention, Milwaukee faith leaders drew more than 500 supporters to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Zelazo Center to condemn Christian nationalism, a movement that seeks to set government policy based on Christian values.

Speakers referenced Project 2025, an initiative by RNC-sponsor Heritage Foundation, which has been characterized as a Christian nationalist platform that would gut federal agencies, set laws based on conservative Christian beliefs and give the president more power.

Richard Shaw, president of Milwaukee Inner-City Congregations Allied for Hope (MICAH), which organized the "rally for democracy" Sunday, said it was important to the diverse organizers to come together as a "group of religious leaders who do not stand for white Christian nationalism."

''It's necessary because the group who's meeting here in Milwaukee, they pushed an ideology that separates us,'' said Shaw, a pastor at St. Matthew CME Church. ''But we want to show that regardless of our race, regardless of our religion, regardless of our origin, our sexual origin, our gender, that we come together.''

Civil rights activist and minister Al Sharpton had been scheduled to speak at the rally but canceled after being asked to offer eulogy for D'Vontaye Mitchell, who died after being held down by security guards outside a Milwaukee hotel June 30.

The MICAH coalition, which has been organizing social justice campaigns for 36 years in Milwaukee, represents 42 congregations, including Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Unitarian, Buddhist, Quaker and other groups.

Janan Najeeb, who serves as director of the Milwaukee Muslim Women's Coalition and is the first non-Christian chair of MICAH's religious leaders caucus, said the caucus' work is to build ''beloved community that believes in the intrinsic worth of all people.''

Najeeb condemned Trump's choice to call Biden a "bad Palestinian" during the June 27 debate, a remark that some felt seemed to be employed like a slur.

"I am a proud, proud Palestinian-American Muslim, and you can call me a bad Palestinian until you're blue in the face, because I know, like the communities of color that dealt with this before me, that my existence is resistance," Najeeb said to applause.

At the five-hour gathering Sunday, the performing arts center felt at times like a church and at times like a lecture hall, featuring a lineup of singers, dancers, preachers, and scholars who discussed the history of white Christian nationalism.

Dennis Jacobson, a founding pastor of MICAH, cited surveys by the Public Religion Research Institute that found about 30% of Americans qualified as Christian nationalism adherents or sympathizers, agreeing with questions like whether the U.S. should be declared a Christian nation or whether laws should be based on Christian values. Jacobson said the ideology posed an urgent threat to democracy.

''To privilege Christianity would destroy our multicultural democracy and kill the dream of a beloved community for which so many people are striving,'' Jacobson said. ''If white Christian nationalism prevails, you may soon know what it's like to live in an authoritarian society.''

As part of the event's call to action, organizers urged attendees to get involved in voter-turnout drives through Souls to the Polls and 100 Women on the Move.

''Preachers, where are you?" asked Brenda Jackson, a member of MICAH and 100 Women on the Move. "It's time to come out the pulpit and hit the pavement."

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Tue, 16 Jul 2024 15:49

Last week, Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley admitted something that might have once shocked his party.

''Some will say I'm calling America a Christian nation,'' Hawley told an audience at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington. ''And so I am. Some will say I'm advocating Christian nationalism. And so I do. My question is: Is there any other kind worth having?''

Conservative Christian supremacy is on the march.

In Oklahoma, the state's top education official has ordered the public schools to put a Bible in every classroom and incorporate its teachings into their lessons.

In Louisiana, officials have decreed that every public school classroom must display the Ten Commandments.

What is going on in our nation, which was founded on the principles of religious freedom and separation of church and state?

''Josh Hawley would not have said that a year ago,'' said Stephen Ujlaki, producer and director of the stunning new documentary ''Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism's Unholy War on Democracy.'' But these days, he said, Christian nationalists ''are feeling more empowered. Their goal is to act as though they have already won and cow everyone into going along with it.''

Six years ago, Ujlaki, who was ending his term as dean of the Loyola Marymount University School of Film and Television, decided to figure out how Donald Trump '-- adulterer, sexual abuser, compulsive liar '-- could become president with the rabid support of voters who claim to espouse Christian values.

What he came to understand is that Trump's presidency and enduring popularity among the most extreme religious conservatives are the products of a 50-year-old political movement. Christian nationalism aims to turn back the clock on a century of American social progress by exploiting white conservatives' anxiety over the demographic and political shifts that are changing the country.

Christian nationalists don't exactly identify with Trump; rather, he is their vessel and their wrecking ball, and he's been wildly successful in that sense. Who would have imagined years ago that a Supreme Court reshaped by the real estate mogul would obliterate half a century of reproductive rights?

Indeed, a Republican member of Congress said on the floor of the House Thursday that the country should ''work our way back'' to 1960 if Trump is elected, decrying the emasculation of men by an ''angry feminist movement.''

Christian nationalism is a white supremacist political ideology masquerading as religion.

''They are pretend Christians,'' said Christianity Today editor Russell Moore, who left the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission over its support for Trump in 2016.

The movement did not arise, as is widely believed, in response to the Supreme Court's landmark 1973 decision legalizing abortion. It formed years earlier in response to decisions ending the tax-exempt status of racially segregated schools such as Bob Jones University. Abortion simply became a more palatable cover than racism.

''The big idea of Christian nationalism is that God made America for a particular kind of white Christian with a particular ideology and worldview,'' said Eboo Patel, the founder of Interfaith America, which promotes religious diversity. ''That group is supreme and everyone else is subordinate, and they need to be kept subordinate with violence if necessary.'' (See: Jan. 6.)

On the advice of his friend and fellow documentarian Ken Burns, Ujlaki takes a chronological approach in ''Bad Faith,'' going back to the 1981 founding of the secretive, extremely well-funded Council for National Policy by archconservative Christian activists. Among them was Heritage Foundation co-founder Paul Weyrich, who once said, ''I don't want everybody to vote. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.''

The Washington Post described the council in 2021 as ''the most unusual, least understood conservative organization'' in the capital. It bars the press from its events, and its members, including former Vice President Mike Pence and insurrection supporter Ginni Thomas, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' wife, ''agree to remain silent about its activities.''

One of the council's many interconnected allies is the Heritage Foundation, whose more than 900-page Project 2025 is considered a blueprint for a second Trump administration. The document espouses the goals of Christian nationalism: dismantling the administrative state by replacing civil servants with Trump worshipers, slashing regulations, gutting protections for gay and transgender people, abolishing the Department of Education, requiring all pregnancies to be carried to term, making it harder for some people (guess who?) to vote and shrinking the social safety net (because if you're poor, that's on you).

''This is not Jim Crow,'' the Rev. William Barber II, who founded the Yale Divinity School's Center for Public Theology & Public Policy, says in ''Bad Faith.'' ''This is James Crow, Esq. He went to school, got a law degree and has come back to take out every progressive voice in this nation.'' (Exhibit A: Hawley, Stanford '02, Yale Law '06.)

A February Pew Research Center poll found that less than half of U.S. adults said they had ever heard or read anything about Christian nationalism. ''Most Republicans,'' Pew reported, ''say they have never heard of Christian nationalism.'' It's scary that Americans know very little about the movement that is trying to wrench them into the past.

No one has captured the warped ethos of the Christian nationalist movement better than the white supremacist homophobe Nick Fuentes, who appears briefly but memorably in ''Bad Faith.''

''F'-- democracy,'' Fuentes says. ''I stand with Jesus Christ.''

Except, you know, he really doesn't.

@robinkabcarian

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Archived Version

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 15:48

BETHAL PARK, Pa. '' The parents of the 20-year-old who unleashed a barrage of gunfire toward former President Trump are licensed professional counselors through the Pennsylvania social work board.

Mary Elizabeth Crooks and Matthew Brian Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, are licensed as professional counselors, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State Licensing System Verification service.

The 20-year-old attempted assassin's parents both have active licenses, the service said.

Both Mary and Matthew's licenses expire in February 2025, and they have been professional counselors since 2002, the records showed.

BREAKING INTO TRUMP SHOOTER'S CELLPHONE COMPLICATED BY MODERN TECHNOLOGY: EXPERT

An undated image of Thomas Matthew Crooks. (Handout via AFP)

Licensing information on Thomas Crooks' parents (Pennsylvania Department of State)

Thomas' family home is now the subject of an ongoing FBI investigation after the shooting on Saturday at a Trump rally in Butler County, Pennsylvania.

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Crooks' motive in the shooting remains unclear.

Records showed Crooks was registered as a Republican voter, but campaign finance reports also showed he gave $15 to a progressive political action committee on Jan. 20, 2021, the day President Biden was sworn into office.

An unidentified man answers the door at the home of 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, named by the FBI as the "subject involved" in the attempted assassination of former President Trump, in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, on July 15, 2024. (REUTERS/Aaron Josefczyk)

Crooks' bullet grazed Trump's right ear and left firefighter Corey Comperatore dead.

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Crooks' was stationed approximately 130 yards away in an "elevated position."

Sarah Rumpf-Whitten is a breaking news writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business.

She is a native of Massachusetts and is based in Orlando, Florida.

Story tips and ideas can be sent to sarah.rumpf@fox.com and on X: @s_rumpfwhitten.

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Tue, 16 Jul 2024 14:29

By telling the world about his impoverished upbringing, Trump's vice presidential pick made a small fortune'--and planted seeds for a political future.By Kyle Khan-Mullins, Zach Everson and Leo Kamin, Forbes StaffDonald Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, come from two different Americas. In Trump's, fathers start passing down real-estate fortunes to their kids when they are toddlers. In Vance's, fathers don't even leave kids with their last names.

Raised mostly by his mother's parents, the Vances, J.D. Vance catapulted himself from Rust Belt poverty to coastal high society with a degree from Yale Law School, a marriage to another lawyer and the publication of ''Hillbilly Elegy,'' a memoir about Vance's upbringing. The book came out in the summer of 2016 just as Donald Trump was surging in the polls, leaving liberals searching for something, anything, to explain Trump's popularity in Middle America.

''Hillbilly Elegy'' made Vance rich'--it reportedly sold more than three million copies'--and turned him into a national figure. Today, he is worth an estimated $10 million. Given where he started, it's a remarkable sum, one that solidifies Vance's place in circles that might have made his younger self uncomfortable.

Vance wrote in his book about how odd he found a particular kind of charity'--wealthy families picking out gifts for low-income kids, not knowing what those kids actually wanted or needed. ''I grew up in a world where everyone worried about how they'd pay for Christmas,'' he wrote. ''Now I live in one where opportunities abound for the wealthy and privileged to shower their generosity on the community's poor.''

Vance's maternal grandparents moved from Jackson, Kentucky to Middletown, Ohio as part of the 1950s mass migration to industrial centers. His grandfather worked in an Armco steel plant his whole career, and they raised three kids. That included Vance's mother, who had Vance, her second child, in 1984, at age 23, with her second husband. By then, the Steel Belt had begun to rust, eventually leaving Middletown ''little more than a relic of American industrial glory,'' as Vance put it.

His childhood was chaotic, laced with dropouts, alcoholics and violence, problems he chalks up to both structural factors'--economic insecurity, a culture that ''encourages social decay'''--and individual bad decisions. Vance's father was largely out of the picture early, and his mother cycled through husbands, abusive episodes and rehab stints. A product of his environment, moving between homes, sometimes Vance was dysfunctional, too. The only relative stability he had came from his grandparents, who stressed education, but Vance racked up so many unexcused absences from class at one point that the school district threatened his divorced parents with prosecution. He finished his freshman year of high school with a 2.1 grade-point average.

Life changed when Vance moved in with his grandmother as a sophomore. (His grandfather had died a few years earlier). He got a part-time job as a cashier, and his grades improved. Vance contemplated college, balked at the price and instead enlisted in the Marines, earning about $1,000 a month after taxes. He served in Iraq and used extra money he won from playing online poker to pay for his grandmother's health insurance. He also learned how to save money, balance a checkbook and invest. ''The Marine Corps,'' Vance wrote, ''taught me how to live like an adult.''

He finished his service in 2007 and enrolled at The Ohio State University. Vance excelled, graduating in less than two years, then went to Yale Law School in 2010. Military service and financial aid helped Vance avoid accruing massive debt'--and high-paying gigs at elite law firms during his Yale years helped, too. He graduated in 2013, and today, Vance has no student debt.

Equipped with a law degree, Vance and his girlfriend, Yale classmate Usha Chilukuri, both clerked in Cincinnati for a year, then married soon after, changing their last names to ''Vance.'' The newlyweds moved to Washington D.C., where Usha clerked for then-circuit court judge Brett Kavanaugh and Vance started at a corporate law firm. They purchased a home east of the Capitol building in August 2014 for $590,000, borrowing just over $600,000 to pay for it. The home is worth about $850,000 today, and they owe an estimated $480,000 against it'--the only debt they appear to have on their balance sheet.

Vance and his wife, Usha, appeared on the floor of th Republican National Convention Monday night, where he was acclaimed Trump's VP nominee.

AP Photo/Carolyn KasterNext, the couple headed to the Left Coast, where Usha started at the San Francisco office of Munger, Tolles and Olson. J.D. pivoted to tech, finding like-minded conservative circles in Silicon Valley. He worked at a biotech outfit, then joined Mithril, a venture capital firm founded by Paypal billionaire Peter Thiel.

In 2016, Vance published ''Hillbilly Elegy,'' which launched him onto the national stage, turning a poor kid from Ohio into a more genteel spokesperson for the white working class than the rich guy from New York. Vance appeared on CNN and graced the pages of The New York Times, but he didn't always enjoy his new role, unsettled by his proximity to what he now terms ''the liberal establishment.''

In 2017, Vance announced that he was moving back to Ohio and starting an organization to fight the opioid epidemic. It didn't go well. Our Ohio Renewal raised $220,000 in 2017 and spent $45,000 on a survey, $71,000 on salaries and wages, $63,000 on management and $11,000 on advertising and promotions. His wife, meanwhile, left her law firm in 2017 to clerk for Chief Justice John Roberts, then returned to private practice in D.C. at the same firm. J.D. pivoted back to startups, joining AOL billionaire Steve Case in his efforts to invest in VC-starved Middle America.

In 2018, Vance and his wife bought a $1.4 million home in Cincinnati's left-leaning East Walnut Hills'--his neighborhood voted for Joe Biden in 2020 by 40 points. Forbes estimates that the house, now owned by an LLC, is worth about $1.8 million. Online listings say the property contains 5 bedrooms and 4,700 square feet, offering plenty of room for Vance, his wife and their three kids.

A year after buying the Cincinnati home, Vance started his own venture firm, Narya. His investments hinted at his political inclinations. He bet on Rumble, a right-leaning YouTube competitor that now serves as a key partner to Trump's Truth Social platform. His firm also invested in Strive Asset Management, the fund provider that former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, another Ohioan, founded to take on the likes of BlackRock and Vanguard.

By 2021, with somewhere between $3 million and $10 million of venture holdings and liquid assets, Vance moved on to a new challenge, politics. Thiel, his old venture partner, seeded a U.S. Senate run with $10 million, then pitched in another $5 million as the race heated up. Other billionaires who had crossed paths with Vance in the business world declined to donate anything. Something had changed about Vance. Once a ''never-Trump'' Republican, he began bowing down to the former president, ultimately winning Trump's endorsement. It was enough to beat former Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan, and Vance stayed loyal to Trump after winning. On Saturday, he blamed Joe Biden for the assassination attempt that nearly killed Trump.

As a Senate candidate, Vance leaned hard into right-wing messaging on immigration, Ukraine and support for former president Trump.

AP Photo/Michael ConroyVance's triumphant return to Washington D.C. came with another real estate investment in a blue area'--in early 2023, he dropped $1.6 million on a 2,500-square-foot home in Alexandria, Virginia, which voted by huge margins for Biden in 2020. Asked if Vance has friends in the area, one neighbor said, ''No, God, no, no,'' before noting that Sean Spicer lives nearby. Forbes estimates Vance's home is worth about $1.8 million today, bringing his total real estate holdings across three homes to around $4 million.

He may not need the house in Virginia for long. If Vance becomes vice president, as polls currently suggest he will, he and his family will be able to move into the Naval Observatory, the official vice presidential residence, 10 minutes from the White House and hundreds of miles from hillbilly country.

With additional reporting by Dan Alexander.

MORE FROM FORBES Forbes Here Are Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Richest Donors By Forbes The Curious Rise Of Silicon Valley's Trump Whisperer - A Former Biden Donor Pushing A Free-For-All AI Policy By Forbes Why The Next President Might Be The Worst-Paid In U.S. History By Forbes The True Story Of Trump's $75 Million Backer By Forbes Here Are Trump's 10 Biggest Billionaire Donors By

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Mon, 15 Jul 2024 17:53

A world-renowned Norwegian professor has raised the alarm over data showing surging sudden and unexpected deaths among Covid-vaccinated young people.

Jarle Aarstad is a professor at HVL Business School, Western Norway University of Applied Science.

The celebrated scientist recently had a letter to the editor published in Germany's prestigious EXCLI Journal.

Aarstad reported on his empirical analysis of cohorts of young people in England.

In a study, Aarstad uncovered data showing soaring sudden deaths in people aged 12-29 years, during 12 weeks after their first, second, and third injections with the COVID-19 mRNA shots.

The data reveals in this younger aged cohort that deaths increased significantly (95 % CIs) in the 10 or 11 weeks after COVID-19 vaccination compared to the first week.

Professor Aarstad said early on in the pandemic he started to significantly question some of the measures taken by his and other governments.

He noted that in Norway by the first several months of the pandemic, the case fatality rate was not much higher than a bad flu.

However, the response in that nation, including lockdowns and shutting schools down would have severe long-lasting impacts.

He would ask questions to himself like, ''Why are we imposing such severe measures in Norway, such as keeping children from school, lockdowns, and such given the actual threat faced?''

During the pandemic, there were various points in time along the way that he felt something was just not right.

One game changer from his standpoint, however, was reporting from independent media outlets.

Early on, he started listening to various sources both in Norway and in broader Europe and England.

Professor Aarstad and his family decided that they would not be opting to receive COVID-19 vaccination.

Using his own critical facility, intuition, and education in economics and business Aarstad started crunching numbers.

He found that in most advanced economies after the first waves of vaccination by 2022 a curious observation: heavily vaccinated nations had higher excess death patterns.

A striking observation: the Norwegian professor submitted multiple papers based on data he accessed from Eurostat and other sources.

However, his studies were all rejected by the ''settled-science'' establishment journals.

Early on during the pandemic and after the first substantial waves of vaccination, nations around the world began reporting a disturbing trend of surges in COVID-19 deaths among the vaccinated.

With Aarstad's quantitative observations, it seemed like no journal wanted to discuss such a phenomenon.

Then by late 2022, he noticed substantial excess death tolls in Norway.

Aarstad found it curious that an academic speaking in affiliation with the Norwegian Institute of Public Health declared that the excess deaths had nothing to do with the Covid mRNA shots.

Citing a Nature Medicine paper Nafilyan et al. Aarstad would go on to analyze that paper and found that if the authors had extended the time horizon to several weeks they would have come to the opposite conclusion.

The professor's analysis of this British data was finally accepted by a German journal called EXCLI Journal a gold open access journal listed in DOAJ, Web of Science, EBSCO, Pubmed, and PubmedCentral; and a backup of the data is kept on the server ELDORADO at Technical University Dortmund.

The Analyses of young people in England aged 12-29 revealed that deaths increased significantly in 10 of 11 weeks after COVID-19 vaccination compared to the first week (blue color in the figure where 95% confidence intervals indicate the probability within the given range).

In three of those weeks, the death rate was at least doubled.

The tendency was the same for each dose.

For example, the probability of death was 1.95 and 2.67 times higher four weeks after vaccination with the first and second doses and 2.67 higher six weeks after the third dose.

Explaining the findings of his research, Professor Aarstad notes:

''The findings deviate from a study by Nafilyan et al. claiming that COVID vaccination did not increase deaths among young people in England.

''By referring to it, Hanne Gulseth at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health has argued that, amid an above 50% excess mortality rate from diseases among young in Norway, 'There is no evidence the covid vaccine has induced a generally increased mortality.'

''However, a limitation of Nafilyan et al.'s study is that they compared mortality in the first 12 weeks after vaccination with mortality after that.

''Not ruling out increased long-term mortality, i.e., after 12 weeks, it can have masked increased mortality also in the first 12 weeks, which I show.''

Covid vaccination, therefore, cause deaths to soar.

Aarstad continued, ''As I find increased mortality after the first week despite this, therefore, indicates that the substantial mortality due to the vaccination is even higher.

Lastly, it is worth mentioning that Nafilyan et al. also found increased mortality from the 25th week after vaccination and forward, compared to the 24 first weeks.

This finding is particularly disturbing as it indicates that Covid injections among the young particularly appear to increase long-term mortality.

''Unfortunately, it may, along with my findings, explain increased mortality among young people in Norway,'' the professor notes.

Aarstad warns that sudden deaths caused by the deployment of the countermeasure response across nations clearly demonstrates a disturbing signal, one that should raise alarm.

Professor Arstad explained that independent news outlets, such as Slay News, along with credible authors on Substack such as John Campbell, are absolutely vital for more veracity on life and death topics.

With no political agenda, Aarstad doesn't profoundly question vaccines generally and he remains cognizant of the importance of pharmaceutical breakthroughs in a modern society.

Yet the pragmatic Norwegian academic is nonetheless raising concerns about the mRNA injections and the measures imposed to supposedly tackle Covid during the pandemic.

READ MORE '' Covid-Vaxxed Suffer Staggering Loss of Life Expectancy

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Mon, 15 Jul 2024 16:37

Editor's Note: Sign up for CNN's Meanwhile in China newsletter, which explores what you need to know about the country's rise and how it impacts the world.

Hong Kong CNN '--

China has unveiled wide-ranging measures to rescue its property sector, including asking local governments across the country to buy unsold homes from beleagured developers and easing rules on purchases.

Even though China's economy expanded faster than expected at the start of this year, growth is being weighed down by the all-important real estate sector, which once accounted for as much as 30% of economic activity.

He Lifeng, vice premier and the Communist Party's top economic official, said Friday that municipal governments should buy unsold homes and convert them into affordable social housing, in a plan that has been trailed as a major solution for the country's crisis-ridden property sector.

In a coordinated move, the People's China of China (PBOC) announced that it will set up a nationwide program to provide 300 billion yuan ($41.5 billion) in loans to fund state purchases of unsold homes.

Tao Ling, deputy governor of the central bank, said at a press conference in Beijing that it will encourage commercials banks to support local state-owned enterprises to buy unsold homes and turn them into social housing. The 300 billion yuan provided by the central bank could eventually underpin 500 billion yuan ($69 billion) worth of credit to support such purchases, she estimated.

Expectations that Beijing was preparing a plan to have local governments across the country buy millions of unsold homes have successfully buoyed China stocks. Investors have been steadily pouring money back into Chinese shares since last month.

China Real Estate Business, a newspaper run by the country's housing ministry, described the measures as ''heavyweight policies'' that marked a ''significant historic moment'' for the real estate sector.

Larry Hu, chief China economist at Macquarie Group, said the move to buy unsold homes was ''positive'' for the industry, but that the plan was missing key details such as how much would be funded.

''Looking ahead, the key is when and at what scale the central government can provide a funding source,'' he wrote in a Friday research note.

China's local governments have already racked up $15 trillion in debt, much of it hidden, having borrowed heavily in recent years to cover the cost of pandemic-related spending and infrastructure projects.

Over the past two years, the Chinese authorities have introduced many measures to revive the depressed real estate sector '-- to little avail. Analysts have long been calling on them to do much more.

Friday's sweeping rescue measures come as new data suggested the property downturn worsened in April.

Government data published Friday showed that property investment declined 9.8% in the first four months of 2024, accelerating from the 9.5% fall recorded in the first quarter.

New property sales plunged 28.3% in the January-to-April period, compared with a 27.6% drop in January-March. New home prices fell for a 10th consecutive month by 0.6% month-on-month in April, the fastest decline since November 2014, according to Reuters.

''All this bad news seems to have finally triggered a sense of urgency that's strong enough to force material action,'' analysts from Soci(C)t(C) G(C)n(C)rale wrote in a note on Friday.

The analysts were referring to the government's announcement, PBOC cuts to mortgage rates and the first batch in the sale of one trillion yuan ($138 billion) of ultra-long Treasury bonds on Friday.

On Friday, He also urged local governments to buy back or directly purchase land that has been sold to developers but not yet used. The move would help ease financial difficulties of property companies.

In China, land is mostly owned by the state. The government can sell the rights to use the land to property developers, which is a significant source of fiscal revenue.

The PBOC also made major additional moves to rescue the housing market.

It effectively allowed banks to set their own mortgage rates, removing a nationwide minimum; cut the minimum down-payment ratio for first-time buyers to 15% and 25% for second-home buyers; and lowered the interest rates for housing provident fund loans by 0.25 percentage points, according to three separate statements by the central bank.

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Mon, 15 Jul 2024 16:34

China has the firepower to end its housing crisis at a high-stakes policy meeting, including with a ''big-bang solution'' that involves pumping money like the Federal Reserve. But it's unlikely to pull the trigger.

That's according to Bloomberg Economics, which said if the People's Bank of China printed money on a scale similar to the Fed during the global financial crisis, it could finance the purchase of about 70% of the unsold property stock.

''That's a big-bang solution that would result in significant collateral damage '-- we don't think Beijing would go that far,'' economists David Qu and Chang Shu said. ''Still, it shows the potential for policy solutions.''

The Third Plenum, set for July 15-18, is one of the most important political meetings of the

Chinese Communist Party

. It's expected to unveil a series of economic reforms and policies aimed at addressing long-standing issues that have impeded growth and recovery. Property polices are a key area of focus, as the real estate downturn remains the biggest threat to the economy.

The

PBOC

in May announced a $41 billion program to help state-owned firms buy unsold housing stock. ''That's a promising approach, but so far insufficient to address the scale of the problem,'' the Bloomberg economists wrote in a note. This would pay for less than 1% of unsold housing inventory, they said.

Bloomberg Economics looked at three scenarios for how much money the PBOC could print to help local governments buy up unsold houses.

If the PBOC expanded its balance sheet by about 24 trillion yuan ($3.3 trillion yuan) '-- similar to what the Fed did from 2008 to 2014 '-- it would pay for around 70% of the unsold housing stock in China.

An expansion of 13 trillion yuan '-- similar to the European Central Bank from 2009 to 2012 after the European debt crisis '-- would finance the purchase of about 40% of the inventory.

The flip side is that quantitative easing of this scale would come at the cost of rapidly rising debt, pressure on the yuan to fall, faster inflation and much heavier debt loads for state-owned firms and local governments, Bloomberg Economics said.

The most likely option would resemble China's ''shanty-town redevelopment'' program from 2015 to 2018, which tore down older homes nationwide and replaced them with new apartments. A repeat of this program, with the central bank providing 3.6 trillion yuan to banks, would finance the purchase of 10% of the stock of unsold homes.

It could also provide low-cost homes for 1.6% of China's population, Bloomberg Economics said. This would raise growth by 0.2 percentage points this year and a full percentage point in both 2025 and 2026, they estimate, as banks make more loans and confidence would increase due to the support.

''Of course, quantitative easing is not a free lunch,'' the economists wrote. ''Adding to yuan depreciation pressure, renewing moral hazard and zeroing out future policy space are among the costs.''

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Mon, 15 Jul 2024 16:14

Donald Trump has given his first in-depth interview after miraculously surviving an assassination attempt at his Pennsylvania rally Saturday, insisting 'I'm supposed to be dead'.

Trump revealed how turning his head away from the crowd to look at a video screen may have saved his life at the Butler, Pennsylvania rally and how he wanted to keep talking after gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks struck him in the right ear.

He said Sunday: 'I rarely look away from the crowd. Had I not done that in that moment, well, we would not be talking today, would we?'

Trump noted that he had turned slightly to the right so that he could read a chart on illegal immigrants.

'The most incredible thing was that I happened to not only turn but to turn at the exact right time and in just the right amount,' he added, saying he survived 'by luck or by God'.

Donald Trump is speaking publicly for the first time after a would-be assassin fired from an AR-15 rifle at his Pennsylvania rally Saturday

Trump, pictured on Sunday arriving at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, is set to rewrite his speech

'If I only half-turn, it hits the back of the brain. The other way goes right through [my skull]. And because the sign was high, I'm looking up. The chances of my making a perfect turn are probably one tenth of one percent, so I'm not supposed to be here.'

'I'm not supposed to be here, I'm supposed to be dead,' Trump told the New York Post. 'I'm supposed to be dead.'

'Because the thing was an eighth of an inch away. That I would turn exactly at that second, where he [the gunman] wouldn't stop the shot is pretty amazing. Pretty amazing. I'm really not supposed to be here.'

Trump turned his head at the vital moment and ended up with a bloody ear. He was hustled off stage by his Secret Service detail, but not before giving his supporters a clenched fist salute.

The former president addressed the now-iconic moment where he raised his fist and mouthed 'fight' to the stunned audience.

'A lot of people say it's the most iconic photo they've ever seen,' Trump said. 'They're right and I didn't die. Usually you have to die to have an iconic picture.'

He said he wanted his fans to know he was alright 'and that America goes on, we go forward, that we are strong.'

'The energy coming from the people there in that moment, they just stood there; it's hard to describe what that felt like, but I knew the world was looking. I knew that history would judge this, and I knew I had to let them know we are OK,' Trump added.

'I said, I've got to walk out, I have to walk out,' Trump said during his flight to Milwaukee, according to the Examiner. 'I did not want to be carried out. I've seen people being carried out, and it's not good. And I had no problem with walking.' \

Trump was full of praise for his adoring audience, citing how they reacted to the situation.

'A lot of places, especially soccer games, you hear a single shot, everybody runs. Here there were many shots and they stayed. I love them. They are such great people.'

Trump accepted Joe Biden's phone call after the shooting, calling it 'fine' and saying the president was 'very nice.'

He added that the 'reality is just setting in' with him regarding the shooting and the chaotic aftermath. Trump pointed to his nose and said they killed Crooks 'with one shot right between the eyes.'

Despite the controversy over the Secret Service for allowing the shooting to happen, he praised the speed and strength of his security.

Following the shooting, Trump put out a statement thanking the Secret Service for their 'rapid response' and offering his condolences to Comperatore

He said he received a bruise on his arm just from a secret service member keeping him on the floor.

'That's just from a guy grabbing me,' Trump said. 'You know how strong you have to be to do that?'

'They did a fantastic job,' he added. 'It's surreal for all of us.'

Trump also saw the bizarre side of the incident, including one moment where he can be seen saying that he wants to get his shoes.

'The agents hit me so hard that my shoes fell off, and my shoes are tight,' he said.

Trump, ever the showman, added that he wanted to try and go back to the podium and keep speaking.

'I wanted to keep speaking - I wanted to keep speaking, but I just got shot. It's a very surreal experience, and you never know what you're going to do until a thing like that happens.'

Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old would-be assassin who shot Donald Trump, opened fire at the former president with an AR-style rifle from a roof 130 yards from the rally stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday at 6.15pm.

He spoke to journalist Salena Zito, who was photographed at the rally following the gunfire, hiding behind a speaker.

Zito said that Trump reached out to her on CNN Sunday, where they began an interview about the shooting, his reaction and his plans for his speech on Thursday at the RNC.

'The speech I was going to give on Thursday was going to be a humdinger,' he told the Washington Examiner.

Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old would-be assassin who shot Donald Trump, was once rejected from his high school rifle club and considered a danger

Police stand over the body of Donald Trump gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks after he was shot and killed by Secret Service

'Had this not happened, this would've been one of the most incredible speeches aimed mostly at the policies of President Joe Biden.

'Honestly, it's going to be a whole different speech now,' he added.

'I think it would be very bad if I got up and started going wild about how horrible everybody is, and how corrupt and crooked, even if it's true. Had this not happened, we had a speech that was pretty well set that was extremely tough. Now, we have a speech that is more unifying.'

Trump, who has often cut a divisive figure in American politics, now plans a Thursday speech that could unite the nation.

'It is a chance to bring the country together. I was given that chance. This is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together. The speech will be a lot different, a lot different than it would've been two days ago,' he said.

It seems to be part of an attempt by both sides to tone down the rhetoric following the shooting.

'I've been fighting a group of people that I considered very bad people for a long time, and they've been fighting me, and we've put up a very good fight,' he said.

'We had a very tough speech, and I threw it out last night, I said I can't say these things after what I've been through.'

As Trump pumped his fist to the crowd, some were heard cheering his name and chanting 'USA' and 'Make America Great Again'

He still appeared skeptical but hopeful that he could bring Americans of all political stars and stripes together.

'I'd love to achieve unity if you could achieve unity, if that's possible. There are many good people on the other side '... But there are also people who are very divided. Some people actually want open borders and some people don't want open borders,' he said.

'The question is can those two sides get together? Can sides where you have people who want to see men play in women's sports, and you have a side that doesn't understand even the concept of allowing that to happen [get together]?'

A member of the crowd was killed in the deadly shooting, while two others who were wounded are in critical condition. All three are males, according to law enforcement officials.

Trump was left bloodied and hurt during the assassination attempt as he was seen to suddenly grab hold of his ear as loud bangs rang out and whizzed by before he ducked to the floor.

The Secret Service swarmed around the 45th US President as piercing screams were heard from the MAGA crowd.

He then got to his feet with blood pouring down his cheek and raised his fist in the air and defiantly shouted 'fight' while the audience shouted 'USA' as he was dragged off stage and bundled into a vehicle.

Secret Service agents could be heard shouting 'the shooter is down' in the ensuing chaos and the gunman was later confirmed dead.

Trump is also re-thinking his speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week

A member of the crowd was killed in the deadly shooting, while two others who were wounded are in critical condition. All three are males, according to law enforcement officials

Trump was taken to hospital for treatment before being later released.

Spokesman Steven Cheung said Trump is 'fine' and being checked out at a local medical facility while the former president's eldest son Donald Trump Jr said his father 'is in great spirits'.

Trump flew back to New Jersey ahead of his spending the night at his golf resort in Bedminster.

In a post to his Truth Social network, Trump thanked the Secret Service and other law enforcement 'for their rapid response'.

'I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin,' he said on social media.

'Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening.

'I want to thank The United States Secret Service, and all of law enforcement, for their rapid response,' Trump added.

'Most importantly, I want to extend my condolences to the family of the person at the rally who was killed, and also to the family of another person that was badly injured.

Donald Trump appeared to be shot in the ear as shots were fired at the former president at a rally in Pennsylvania

Trump is seen surrounded by Secret Service agents in the moments after the shooting. He raised his fist to indicate that he was okay in an image that has since swept the globe

'It is incredible that such an act can take place in our country.

'GOD BLESS AMERICA!'

President Biden said in a statement that Americans 'must unite as one nation' in response to the horrific scenes.

Biden called for a peaceful return to politics but his Oval Office address Sunday night contained a few errors as he attempted to bring down the political temperature in the wake of an assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

'Politics must never be a little battlefield or, god forbid, a killing field,' Biden said in the Sunday evening speech. 'No matter how strong our convictions, we must never descend to violence.'

He reminded Americans the place to take out their differences was at the ballot box and, as he prepares to restart his re-election campaign, he called on voters to 'cool it down.'

But the president made a few glaring errors in his six-minute address, including calling the ballot box 'the battle box' and referring to former President Donald Trump as 'former Trump.'

His overall message came through, however.

President Biden said in a statement that Americans 'must unite as one nation' in response to the horrific scenes

'Tonight I'm asking every American to recommit,' Biden noted. 'Hate must have no safe harbor.'

For his remarks, the president used the Oval Office to add a sense of weight and formality to his words. He spoke from the Resolute Desk, an American flag and the presidential seal behind him. Oval Office addresses are usually rare and used to give greater heft and sense of state to the occasion.

Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old would-be assassin who shot Trump, was once rejected from his high school rifle club and considered a danger.

The registered Republican and 2022 high school graduate opened fire at the former president with an AR-style rifle from a roof 130 yards from the rally stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday at 6.15pm.

Now, disturbing anecdotes have emerged from those who knew Crooks dating back to his days at Bethel Park High School.

Crooks tried out for the school's rifle team but was turned away because he was a bad shooter, said Frederick Mach, a current captain of the team who was a few years behind Crooks at the school.

Jonathan Myers, a member of the team around the time Crooks auditioned, said there was something ominous about him back then.

'He didn't just not make the team, he was asked not to come back because how bad of a shot he was, it was considered like, dangerous,' Myers told ABC News.

Trump spoke to journalist Salena Zito, who was photographed at the rally following the gunfire, hiding behind a speaker

Fellow classmate Jameson Murphy added: 'He tried out'...and was such a comically bad shot he was unable to make the team and left after the first day.'

Many are also questioning the Secret Service and how they allowed the president to get so close to a bullet.

The Secret Service's primary responsibility is to protect current and former presidents, a job they have been accused of failing spectacularly.

It is perhaps the worst lapse in security since President Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded at a Washington hotel in 1981.

They now face a torrent of questions of how the first assassination attempt in 43 years was allowed to happen.

Politicians, law enforcement and critics are demanding answers on how Crooks managed to get so close to a rally that was surrounded by such vast security.

Top Republicans and Democrats have demanded an urgent investigation.

There are suggestions that routine checks would have eliminated all potential threats.

In a damning statement on Saturday night, FBI Special Agent Kevin Rojek said it was 'surprising' Crooks managed to fire off so many shots.

There are also allegations that Trump's team asked for more protection on the campaign but was rebuffed.

The Secret Service has since denied those claims, but are still under immense scrutiny for what has been called an 'absolute failure'.

And Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., became the first lawmaker to say that the director of Secret Service Kimberly Cheatle 'needs to go.'

President Joe Biden, addressing Americans from the White House Sunday, promised an 'independent review' into what happened at the rally.

'I'm directing an independent review on national security [at] yesterday's rally to assess exactly what happened, and we'll share the results of that independent review with the American people as well,' Biden stated.

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Mon, 15 Jul 2024 14:59

All 3 of the major mainstream news networks saw MASSIVE declines over the last week. Yes, it was a holiday week, but these double digit drops in viewers speak to something more. People are literally sick of the news. The national news. I, for one, have tuned out of most cable news, limiting myself to Lawrence O'Donnell (who I think is the Walter Cronkite of 2024), Joy Ann Reid and Jim Acosta.

Why those three? Because they are focusing on the REAL news - Project 2025, the threat Donald Trump poses to our country and avoiding the bs crap being fed to us about Joe Biden needing to drop out.

Here are the stats on the viewership drops from Adweek.

Compared to the week prior:

FOX: Primetime was down total viewers by 30% and down 41% in the 25-54 age range. TOTAL viewers was down 12% and down 16% for 25-54.

MSNBC: Primetime was down total viewers by 29% and down 47% in the 25-54 age range. TOTAL viewers was down 26% and down 33% for 25-54.

CNN: Primetime was down total viewers by 61% and down 76% in the 25-54 age range. TOTAL viewers was down 29% and down 47% for 25-54.

Just a year before, the numbers were very different!

FOX was up 41% in total viewers and up 60% in age 25-54!

MSNBC was only down 5% in total viewers and down 10% in age 25-54!

CNN was only down 5% in total viewers and down 17% in age 25-54!

While we cannot attribute it all to the Bash Biden coverage, since even FOX is down, I am sure it is contributing to the drop for CNN and MSNBC. Viewers are tired of the same old garbage. We want to hear something new. And if the news channels aren't listening to us, maybe they will listen to ratings and advertisers.

For now, I will stick with my 3 favorites and fill in the gap with my local FOX 5 DC news (not the same as FOX national!)

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Mon, 15 Jul 2024 14:50

Guest Essay

Credit... Illustration by The New York Times; Images by Maximum Film, via Alamy, and RobinOlimb, via Getty Images By Elizabeth Spiers

Ms. Spiers, a contributing Opinion writer, is a journalist and a digital media strategist.

Ever since President Biden's debate performance sucked Democratic leaders and political operatives into a looping vortex of panic, people have been debating how we got here and who is responsible. The president himself? His handlers? The media? All of the above, but I'd like to focus on a different factor: Aaron Sorkin.

A whole generation of political professionals is so enamored of ''The West Wing,'' Mr. Sorkin's show about the travails of White House occupants, that they now suffer from what I think of as Terminal West Wing Brain.

The show, which ran from 1999 to 2006, portrays politics and policy not as ruthless powermongering pursued by nihilists (that's ''House of Cards'') but as a higher calling that flawed but idealistic people engage in from a place of civic pride. It depicts America as a place that is divided but that yearns for consensus, for the good of the country. Jed Bartlet, the fictional Democratic president, is often reaching across the aisle to a wrongheaded but often well-meaning Republican. It's an attractive fantasy that bears little relation to the world we live in, where partisan animosity is about more than policy disagreements and is rarely resolved via civil debate.

Most voters will go to the polls in November not to vote for their guy but to vote against the other guy, a phenomenon known as negative partisanship. Voters say they want Americans to be unified, but Republicans mean they want everyone to be a Republican, and Democrats want everyone to be a Democrat. And partisan obstructionism in Congress has deadlocked policymaking in ways that appear to be getting worse. Working across the aisle isn't easy when your colleagues are telling their constituents that you're demonic, and pushing conspiracy theories about child sex trafficking in pizza parlors. Bipartisan cooperation requires a shared idea of reality that exists in ''The West Wing'' but not in the real world.

Adherence to this fantasy is preventing the Democrats from functioning effectively in the current political climate. In response to Project 2025 '-- the Heritage Foundation's road map for a second Trump presidency, which includes agenda items so extreme they would be sent back to the writers' room in Sorkin-land '-- Mr. Biden offers mostly dry policyspeak. On reproductive rights, the president defaults to talk of rights and reason, while Donald Trump makes utterly false but compellingly graphic statements like, ''They will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month and even after birth.'' The Democrats talk about facts and analyses. The Republicans talk about a holy war in which civilization hangs in the balance.

In the ''West Wing'' paradigm, problems can be workshopped and strategized, sometimes into platitudes that neither offend nor inspire. In President Bartlet's White House, the very busy characters dispatch tasks with ruthless efficiency. They're smart, the issues they work on are important and everyone means well. But Democrats are not going to be able to diligently and efficiently workshop their way out of the current dilemma or test all of the potential scenarios. There is no way to meaningfully poll alternatives to Mr. Biden and clinically weigh costs and benefits. There's no precedent for this crisis, we don't know what the contextual environment will look like in November, and if the leaking is any indication, not everybody means well.

''The West Wing'' is built on a belief that America is an inherently noble force for good as opposed to a nation that, like every other, seeks to amass and preserve power. This is also an organizing principle in the way many real Democrats talk about foreign policy, and it doesn't hold up in a 24/7 media environment where the consequences of our actions are broadcast for the world to see. For many, it's hard to reconcile the idea of an intrinsically good America with, for example, civilian deaths in Gaza enabled by American money and American bombs. Voters are grown-ups. They want to view their country positively, but they also want some recognition of what they can see with their own eyes, and they want leaders who are responsive.

Today's Democrats have been caught off guard by Mr. Trump's willingness to overturn democracy for personal gain, the corrosion of ethical norms and the tectonic decisions that have come out of the Supreme Court in the last few weeks. And they were caught off guard by a debate so disastrous that it sent leaders into a tailspin.

Instead of watching ''The West Wing,'' Democrats should have been taking to heart the lessons of ''Veep,'' Armando Iannucci's very different White House series in which everything dumb and disastrous that can happen does happen. A dark and devastating comedy, it depicts Washington as staffed by petty, venal people who are too busy tripping over themselves to successfully advance their own interests.

A college mentor of mine who was a Republican member of the National Security Council liked to say that somewhere in a dusty box in a closet in the Pentagon, there's a plan for what the United States will do if we're invaded by Canada. This plan exists not because we think such a thing will really happen, but because we have intelligence professionals who are paid and trained to think about how every possible thing could go wrong. As it would on ''Veep.''

It's not clear to me that Democrats have enough invasion-of-Canada plans for all of the dumb and disastrous things that could await, even now, when you can say ''former reality star turned president Donald Trump suggested that America buy Greenland'' and not be wrong.

It does seem that there was no plan for what would happen if Mr. Biden bombed at the debate, but it doesn't matter now. Democrats need to stop overthinking it and now need to ruthlessly commit to a plan. Which option they pursue '-- Mr. Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris or someone else '-- matters less than that they do it. This is not an election with a wrongheaded but well-meaning Republican. It's an all-out war with an illiberal megalomaniac who will happily destroy American democracy if it buys him one more ounce of power and keeps him out of prison.

In ''The West Wing,'' Jed Bartlet is censured for not disclosing a medical condition. He slips in the polls. But he wins re-election by a landslide anyway because voters vote with their better selves '-- and his fictional opponent accepts the results. It's a pretty fantasy, but here in real life, people often vote out of fear and anger and align with a party as much as a specific candidate. Whether Mr. Biden stays or goes, this is an opportunity to articulate to voters that Democrats understand that the world we all live in is less ''West Wing'' than ''Veep'' '-- and to demonstrate that they're capable of adapting to it.

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Mon, 15 Jul 2024 14:44

As The Gateway Pundit reported, President Trump was nearly assassinated Saturday night during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, by a 20-year-old Democrat donor named Thomas Matthew Crooks.

Trump immediately grabbed his neck after being shot while bleeding profusely from his ear. Video recordings of the scene also show Trump ducking down immediately after the initial gunshots were heard.

Secret Service agents promptly shielded Trump and guided him away from further harm. Despite being injured, a defiant Trump raised his fist and yelled ''Fight!'' multiple times toward the crowd.

Now, Susan Crabtree of Real Clear Politics has revealed more infuriating details about that fateful day. It turns out the Secret Service decided to shift critical resources to guard Jill Biden's campaign event in Pittsburgh and away from the 45th President's rally. Both were held on Saturday

Two sources told her this was because they were following the agency's protocol of treating Trump as a former president. This is despite the fact this ''former president'' is the frontrunner to become the next president of the United States and has the largest political following in the country.

She also poses a critical question: who decided to divert these resources to Dr. Jill's paltry event?

From Crabtree:

Secret Services resources were diverted to Jill Biden's event and away from Trump's because they followed agency protocol applying to Trump as a former president, according to two sources within the Secret Service community. There were also many supplemental agents from different field officers (not Trump's regular detail) providing security at the rally because Trump's regular detail has been overworked (some working 7 days straight), and only two counter-snipers.

But Trump is not just a former president '-- he is the first in modern history to have run for president again '-- and he has been the focus of several prosecutions and controversies (understatement intentional).

Who made the decision to divert the resources to Jill Biden's event?

This is the problem that my Secret Sources have cited: Secret Services resources were diverted to Jill Biden's event and away from Trump's because they followed agency protocol applying to Trump as a former president, according to two sources within the Secret Service community.'... pic.twitter.com/9MzmS6Bia7

'-- Susan Crabtree (@susancrabtree) July 14, 2024

Crabtree also noted that Trump's detail was so overworked that several agents assigned Saturday were TEMPORARY replacements from multiple field offices. Again, Trump was treated as just some random ''former president.''

Trump's usual protective Secret Service detail was worked so hard (working 7 days a week with no days off) that many of agents assigned Saturday were temporary replacements from different field offices.

This is not the usual protocol for sitting presidents and vice presidents but ''typical'' for former presidents, (although no former presidents have run again in modern history.)

''Trump has a permanent detail, however it's much smaller in the amount of bodies,'' the source said. ''His detail has been worked so hard with all the travel that they're working 7 days a week with shift changes. so HQ sends in temp agents to supplement '' not a good scenario. Mission Failure, IMHO.''

New info from a source in the Secret Service community '-- Trump's usual protective Secret Service detail was worked so hard (working 7 days a week with no days off) that many of agents assigned Saturday were temporary replacements from different field offices.

This is not the'...

'-- Susan Crabtree (@susancrabtree) July 14, 2024

This blatant disrespect toward Trump likely played a role in him almost getting killed. Heads better roll across the agency.

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Thu, 18 Jul 2024 14:47

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Este art­culo se ofrece en

Espa±olPresident Joe Biden has tested positive for COVID-19 and is experiencing mild symptoms, according to the White House.

UnidosUS CEO Janet Murgu­a had also announced the diagnosis from the podium where the president was set to speak at a conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

BBiden, 81, tested positive for COVID-19 earlier Wednesday, following his first event in Las Vegas, according to the White House.

"He is vaccinated and boosted and he is experiencing mild symptoms," the White House said in a statement. "He will be returning to Delaware where he will self-isolate and will continue to carry out all of his duties fully during that time."

The White House said it will provide regular updates on the president's status "as he continues to carry out the full duties of the office while in isolation."

President Joe Biden walks up the steps of Air Force One at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, Wednesday, July 17, 2024.

AP Photo/Susan Walsh

The White House also shared a note from Biden's doctor, who said the president had upper respiratory symptoms -- including a running nose and cough -- and "general malaise" Wednesday afternoon.

"He felt OK for his first event of the day, but given that he was not feeling better, point of care testing for COVID-19 was conducted, and the results were positive for the COVID-19 virus," his doctor said, according to the White House.

Biden has received his first dose of Paxlovid, according to his doctor, who noted that the president's respiratory rate, temperature and pulse oximetry are normal.

The president gave a thumbs-up to reporters as he prepared to depart Las Vegas when asked how he was feeling and responded, "Good. I feel good," according to the pool.

He was seen maskless boarding Air Force One in Las Vegas on Wednesday afternoon to head to Rehoboth, Delaware.

Biden also shared his COVID-19 diagnosis on X later Wednesday night, writing, "I am feeling good and thank everyone for the well wishes."

"I will be isolating as I recover, and during this time I will continue to work to get the job done for the American people," he said.

Biden previously tested positive for COVID-19 in 2022 and took Paxlovid then, the White House said at the time.

The president was slated to deliver remarks Wednesday afternoon at the annual conference for UnidosUS, the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization, when Murgu­a announced from the stage that he would no longer be able to appear.

"Regrettably, I was just on the phone with President Biden and he shared his deep disappointment at not being able to join us this afternoon," Murgu­a told the crowd. "The president has been at many events as we all know, and he just tested positive for COVID. So, of course, we understand that he needs to take the precautions that have been recommended, and he did not obviously want to put anybody at risk."

"He said to tell my folks that you're not going to get rid of him that quickly," Murgu­a continued. "We're going to have a chance to hear from him in the future directly. He's just really sorry he couldn't be with us."

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Copyright (C) 2024 ABC News Internet Ventures.

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July 17, 2024 | Part Of Washington Journal 07/17/2024 Washington Journal2024-07-17T09:41:29-04:00 https://ximage.c-spanvideo.org/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJwaWN0dXJlcy5jLXNwYW52aWRlby5vcmciLCJrZXkiOiJGaWxlc1wvMjhjXC8wMDFcLzE3MjEyMjQxNDVfMDAxLmpwZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJmaXQiOiJjb3ZlciIsImhlaWdodCI6NTA2fX19 Viewers commented on the third day of the Republican National Convention.Viewers commented on the third day of the Republican National Convention.

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NEW YORK (WABC) -- Could a meteor be the cause of a loud boom that was heard in parts of New York City and northern New Jersey?

New York City officials began checking out reports in Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens of a loud noise heard Tuesday morning. There were also similar reports in New Jersey.

New York City Emergency Management Department received an update from NASA, who estimated that a meteor entered the atmosphere and disintegrated above the New York City metropolitan area earlier on Tuesday.

Preliminary analysis indicates the meteor passed over the Statue of Liberty before fragmenting high above midtown Manhattan. No meteorites were produced by the event.

Emergency Management says they received no reports of damage or injuries related to this event.

The American Meteor Society of amateur spotters listed up to 20 possible sightings between 11:16 and 11:20 a.m.

Lee Goldberg has the latest on the loud boom.

"Based on this data, we estimate that the fireball was first sighted at an altitude of 49 miles above Upper Bay (east of Greenville Yard). Moving a bit east of north at 34,000 miles per hour, the meteor descended at a steep angle of 18 degrees from vertical, passing over the Statue of Liberty before disintegrating 29 miles above midtown Manhattan," said Bill Cooke, lead for NASA's Meteoroid Environments Office.

Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office explains the meteor that was spotted soaring over New York City.

Chief Meteorologist Lee Goldberg said the heat and high temperatures could have helped the sound travel.

There was a tiny inversion -- where temperature increases with height -- on Tuesday morning which may have helped the sound travel further. Sound waves do in fact travel faster in warm air than in cold air, which can make sound louder.

Air molecules at higher temperatures have more energy and vibrate faster, allowing sound waves to move more quickly.

Judah Bergman told Eyewitness News he was working at his desk in Lakewood when he saw the fireball shoot across the sky.

"It was long and really, really fast," he said. "It looked like a flaming, long rod or something on fire and flying through the sky."

Cooke said the fireball was a small meteor, about a foot across, traveling at 34,000 miles an hour.

"Something when it's moving that fast it heats up," he said. "You expect to see meteors at night not during the day, so this was a rare daylight fireball."

Cooke said it's not entirely clear if the loud booms people heard at the time they saw the fireball was from the fireball itself or from military activities happening simultaneously in New Jersey.

"So, if the fireball produced a boom it's kind of lost in all the stuff generated by military activity to your south," he said.

He said that people should not be worried because they happen all over the earth all the time, but to see one during the daytime over a populated area like New York City is "pretty rare." Cooke said the last occurrence was a year and a half ago.

Steven Bradley, of Park Ridge, recalled hearing the boom.

"Then, less than a second after that, there was a tremble of the house as if something had hit my roof," he said.

Bradley said the sound and rumbling was enough to scare his pets.

"The golden retriever jumped out of his skin and the cat just darted under the sofa," he said.

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Authored by Matt Margolis via PJMedia.com,

On Monday, MSNBC pulled "Morning Joe'' off the air. Sources told CNN that the network pulled the broadcast to "avoid a scenario in which one of the show's stable of two dozen-plus guests might make an inappropriate comment on live television that could be used to assail the program and network as a whole.''

In other words, MSNBC didn't trust the ''Morning Joe'' team to be adults.

An MSNBC spokesperson later denied what sources had told CNN.

''Given the gravity and complexity of this unfolding story, NBC News, NBC News NOW and MSNBC have remained in rolling breaking news coverage since Saturday evening,'' the spokesperson said.

''As we continue to cover this story into the week, the networks will continue to cross simulcast, alternating between NBC News, NBC News NOW, and 'MSNBC Reports', so there is one news feed covering this developing situation.''

However, there was no simulcast. The only show MSNBC pulled was ''Morning Joe.'' That was no mistake. Of course, that was likely a smart decision, though it leaves me wondering why the network didn't just get rid of all of its on-air talent for the day and just broadcast reruns of "Saved by the Bell." It probably would have given MSNBC a boost in viewership.

To further show just how significant the decision to pull ''Morning Joe'' was, even ABC's ''The View'' aired as scheduled.

As my PJ Media colleague Stephen Green noted, ''Morning Joe'' is "reportedly Presidentish Joe Biden's favorite morning show, but he'll have to wait until at least Tuesday to get his daily fix."

Tuesday's return of ''Morning Joe'' didn't disappoint. In fact, Scarborough had a small hissy fit about the network's decision to take his show off the air.

"We were told, in no uncertain terms, on Sunday evening, that there was going to be one news feed across all NBC News channels yesterday," Scarborough said Tuesday.

"That was going to be one news feed across all NBC News channels. That we were going to stay as a network in breaking news mode throughout all day yesterday. That did not happen."

"We don't know why that didn't happen,'' he added.

"Our team was not given a good answer as to why that didn't happen, but it didn't happen."

"We were very surprised," Scarborough continued.

"We were very disappointed. And if we had known that there wasn't going to be the one news feed from NBC News across all NBC News channels, Willie [Geist], we obviously would have been in yesterday morning."

Scarborough then threatened to quit if the network ever pulled him off the air again.

When his wife and co-host Mika Brzezinski attempted to change the topic, Scarborough cut her off and said, ''Let me just say, next time we're told there's going to be a news feed replacing us, we will be in our chairs,'' Scarborough warned. ''The news feed will be us, or they can get somebody else to host the show.''

WATCH: Joe Scarborough claims MSNBC lied to him when the network pulled Morning Joe off the air on Monday.CNN reported ''the show was pulled to prevent one of its dozens of guests from making an inappropriate comment while live that could paint the show and network in a bad'... pic.twitter.com/d2Lu1i1huX

'-- Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) July 16, 2024Loading...

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U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said Monday during an ABC interview that she would not be stepping down from her position and called the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump ''unacceptable.''

Cheatle sat down with ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas for her first interview since Saturday's Pennsylvania rally attack as the agency has received backlash over the potential security failures. Following the news of the attack, Cheatle stated she had been shocked and concerned for the former president, before noting it was an ''event that should've never happened.'' (RELATED: Authorities Reportedly Spotted Trump's Would-Be Assassin Nearly 30 Minutes Before He Opened Fire)

''Who is most responsible for this happening?'' Thomas asked.

''What I would say is the Secret Service is responsible for the protection of the former president,'' Cheatle said.

Thomas continued to press the Secret Service Director by asking if the ''buck'' then ''stops'' with her.

''The buck stops with me. I am the director of the Secret Service, and I need to make sure that we are performing a review and that we are giving resources to our personnel as necessary,'' Cheatle said. ''It was unacceptable and it's something that shouldn't happen again.''

WATCH:

Since the attack, Republican lawmakers have demanded answers from Cheatle on how the agency failed to prevent the attack, while Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and billionaire Elon Musk have called for her to step down. However, Cheatle told the outlet that she does plan to stay despite the concerns.

Cheatle confirmed the agency had been working with local law enforcement on securing the area during the Pennsylvania rally Saturday, with Secret Service in control of the inner perimeter.

''In this particular instance, we did share support for that particular site and that the Secret Service was responsible for the inner perimeter,'' Cheatle said. ''And then we sought assistance from our local counterparts for the outer perimeter. There was local police in that building '-- there was local police in the area that were responsible for the outer perimeter of the building.''

The shooter, who has been identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was reported to have been located on an elevated platform seated upon a shed which was outside of the Secret Service's security perimeter, using an AR-style rifle just 200-300 feet away, according to CBS News.

Thirty minutes prior to the attack local law enforcement personnel reportedly spotted Crooks before he was able to shoot multiple rounds at Trump and the crowd, according to WPXI, citing anonymous law enforcement sources. Multiple pictures allegedly had been taken of the shooter and reported in prior to the incident, however, at the time it was unclear if Crooks was armed.

Additionally, an officer later reached the building by the time Crooks was positioned and had climbed up the ladder to the roof, but reportedly retreated after Crooks had pivoted his weapon towards the officer, according to The Association Press.

The attack resulted in the death of former volunteer fire chief Corey Comperatore and two other crowd members, 57-year-old David Dutch and 74-year-old James Copenhaver, who are in stable condition.

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Joe Biden did an interview with Complex's Speedy Morman on his show "360 with Speedy" on July 12, and it was just released on Monday, July 15. In other words, it was recorded the day before the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.

The interview was just a mess of lies and Biden confusion.

As Biden tries to claim now he wants to cool rhetoric. Yet even here the day before, he was claiming that Trump was a "real danger to the country."

Biden '-- days after an assassination attempt on President Trump '-- calls him "a real danger to the country" pic.twitter.com/PCnJrZempZ

'-- RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 15, 2024Biden said he didn't plan on running for president. Listen as he explains how Barack Obama asked him "in 2020" to be his Vice President. Yikes.

BIDEN: "In 2020, when Barack asked me to be vice president..." (not true)"After that I became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania" (also not true)

ðŸ"ðŸ"ðŸ" pic.twitter.com/Bz7q3nA1JR

'-- RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 15, 2024He then also repeated the "fine people" lie. But he can't even keep it straight anymore, saying he said "good people on both sides."

Morman asked him a good question about inflation, noting how his shoes have gotten more expensive as have eggs. How could Biden reassure people it's not going to go up even higher if he gets back in? Biden then lied his head off saying that inflation was 9 percent when he came in.

Biden once again absurdly claims inflation "was 9%" when he took office.It was 1.4%. pic.twitter.com/x5aVxQG8Fh

'-- RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 15, 2024Biden then bragged about defying SCOTUS again on student loan debt.

Biden again brags about defying the U.S. Supreme Court on his unilateral student loan debt bailout: "The Court tried to stop me, but I found away to do it!" pic.twitter.com/VUeG8jDtgh

'-- RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 15, 2024Morman asks about hip-hop artists' allegiance to Donald Trump and he refuses to even accept that as a reality. Then Biden talked about his involvement in the civil rights movement which he himself has debunked.

Biden completely malfunctions when he's asked why so many "hip hop artists" support President Trump.Then Biden again falsely claims he "got started in politics" when he "got involved in the [civil rights] movement." pic.twitter.com/7vNyycObtb

'-- RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 15, 2024Among the outrageous lies he told was this whopper, claiming all the programs he initiated saved money. This is a wild claim.

CHRONIC LIAR JOE BIDEN: "All the programs that I've initiated have saved the government money" ðŸ¤-- pic.twitter.com/qhFBHqpUqw

'-- RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 15, 2024The interviewer didn't push back on any of the lies and there were a lot of edits in the interview.

He said that he was going to be on the ballot "1000 percent" unless he got "hit by a train."

QUESTION: "We will 1,000% see you on the ballot this November?"BIDEN: "Unless I get hit by a train, yeah" pic.twitter.com/EmkchHQqBL

'-- RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 15, 2024When he was asked about what he would say to people who were going to vote for Trump instead of him now, this is so Joe Biden, he hates being challenged. He insulted them with a weird expression that only he seemed to say. "Lots of luck in your senior year," he said.

"There are some people who have made their mind up and they've decided that they are voting for former President Trump. What do you say to those people?"BIDEN: "Lots of luck in your senior year" 🬠pic.twitter.com/8o1v5a47sP

'-- RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 15, 2024Pro tip? Insulting people really isn't a good way to convince people to vote for you. Hillary Clinton found that out. It shows a lack of respect for the voter. But that's Joe Biden.

What has he done, Biden says about Trump?

What has he done? Improved life, cut taxes, helped HBCUs, improved the economy, secured the border -- and that's just off the top of my head. And the problem is that Biden has done the opposite. He's made everything more expensive and more chaotic.

Biden's done a lot -- virtually all of it bad, and people remember how much better they had it under Trump.

SEE ALSO:

WATCH: Joe Biden Is Asked About His Inciteful 'Bullseye' Trump Comment, His Answer Just Doesn't Cut It

Biden Video After His Trump Remarks Raises Even More Concerns About What Is Going on With Him

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Tue, 16 Jul 2024 19:38

NBC News anchor Lester Holt grilled President Joe Biden on Monday about his disastrous performance in CNN's first presidential debate last month, telling the president he ''appeared to be confused.''

''In your last TV interview, you were asked if you had watched the debate. Your answer was, 'I don't think so, no,''' noted Holt during an interview with Biden on Monday evening. ''Have you since seen it?''

Biden replied, ''I've seen pieces of it. I've not watched the whole debate.''

Holt then questioned, ''I guess the question is, are you on the same page? Are you seeing what they saw, which was moments of, frankly, you appeared to be confused?''

''Lester, look. Why don't you guys ever talk about the 18'' the 28 lies he told?'' shot back Biden. ''Where are you on this? Why don't the press ever talk about that? Twenty-eight times it's confirmed he lied in that debate. I had a bad, bad night. I wasn't feeling well at all. I screwed up.''

Holt responded, ''I just ask the question because the idea that you may or may not have seen what some of these other folks have seen, you're not on the same''''

''I didn't have to see, I was there!'' interrupted Biden, before bursting into laughter. ''I didn't have to see it, I was there, and by the way, seriously, you won't answer the question, but why didn't the press talk about all the lies he told?''

After Holt insisted, ''We have reported many of the issues that came up in that debate,'' Biden replied, ''No you haven't.''

''We'll provide you with them,'' Holt concluded.

Watch above via NBC News.

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Tue, 16 Jul 2024 19:35

Former President Donald Trump appeared at the Republican National Convention on Monday, just two days after being shot in the ear by a would-be assassin. The moment prompted CNN's Chris Wallace to say it was perhaps the ''most electric'' one he has seen at a convention.

A bandaged Trump entered the arena in Milwaukee to raucous applause and Lee Greenwood singing ''God Bless the U.S.A.'' on the convention's opening night. Just over 48 hours earlier, the former president was shot in the ear during a rally in Pennsylvania by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was shot dead by Secret Service. One rally-goer was killed and two others were wounded.

Just hours before, Trump announced he had selected Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) to be his vice presidential running mate, and Vance accompanied Trump in the VIP box on Monday night.

Though Trump will not address the convention until Thursday, Wallace said Trump's entrance was ''extraordinary'':

Winston Churchill famously said nothing in life is so exhilarating has to be shot at without effect, and you can see that today. The idea that just hours ago, few days ago, this man, an assassin's bullet, whizzed by him, hit him in the ear inches from his temple. Just by the slightest fraction of an inch he survived, shot at without effect. And you can see that the joy of this crowd.

I got to tell you, as somebody who's been covering these conventions since 1964, that may have been the most electric moment I ever saw. That was quite extraordinary.

CNN's Jake Tapper responded, ''These are tens of thousands of people who love Donald Trump and they almost lost him, this figure that figures so prominently in their lives.''

Watch above via CNN.

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ST. LOUIS (First Alert 4) -- Some Missouri faith leaders are speaking out on what they said are the dangers of Christian Nationalism and its impact on the nation's democracy and government.

The concern follows U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley's speech where he called himself an advocate for Christian nationalism to a crowd at a national conservative convention in Washington, D.C., on July 8.

These religious leaders told First Alert 4 that their biggest fear is violence in the aftermath of Hawley's speech.

''Some will say that I am advocating Christian Nationalism. And so I do,'' Hawley said last Monday.

It's a stance met with applause that has religious leaders across Missouri and the nation calling for accountability.

Rev. Molly Housh-Gordon with the Unitarian Universalist Church in Columbia, Missouri, said religious freedom is essential to other freedoms and you cannot have one without the other.

''Sen. Hawley your fantasies of tyrannical control are not welcome. Missourians love our neighbors. Missourians know better,'' Housh-Gordan said.

Rev. Nathan Empsall is an Episcopal Priest who is also the executive director of Faithful America.

''First of all - which Christianity? Christianity is two billion people across the world. It's a diverse religion. When they say a Christian nation, they mean a specific form of mostly white, mostly evangelical conservative straight patriarchal Christianity that becomes often white nationalism,'' Empsall said.

Progress Missouri, branded as Missouri's progressive communications hub, brought a handful of religious leaders from across the state for a virtual town hall Monday. They say Sen. Hawley's words are dangerous for Missourians.

Last week, Hawley spoke with First Alert 4 about his controversial speech. He insists his motive is keeping the political left from destroying the First Amendment and religious liberty that makes the foundation of the U.S.

''It is a fact of history and not open to debate, a fact that we were founded by Christian believers and that our fundamental ideals including those in the Constitution of the United States, Declaration of Independence, and Bill of Rights all come to us from a Christian tradition,'' Hawley shared. ''That is just a fact and I think that's something worth preserving.''

The common message from the leaders of the faithful Monday was possible violence to happen as a result of increased talks of Christian nationalism.

Empsall points to a recent Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) study on the threat to Christian Nationalism. The report's data shows Christian nationalism adherents are nearly seven times more likely than Christian nationalism rejectors to support political violence.

When it comes to adherents who completely agree, nothing surprising is revealed. 75% of adherents said the U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation. 81% of adherents said U.S. laws should be based on Christian values. 84% of adherents said if the U.S. moves away from our Christian foundations, we will not have a country anymore. 77% of adherents said being Christian is an important part of being truly American.

But just 50% of adherents said God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society.

The PRRI examined how Christian nationalist views ''intersect with white identity, anti-Black sentiment, support of patriarchy, antisemitism, anti-Muslim sentiments, anti-immigrant attitudes, authoritarianism, and support for violence.''

''I just don't know why Senator Josh Hawley does not wish to stand with all Missourians,'' Senior Minister of Brentwood Church in the Ozarks Phil Snider explained. ''His rhetoric undermines values held dear and threatens the fabric of our democracy. we must stand united against any ideology that seeks to divide and alienates and champion a faith that calls for justice and equality for all.''

Empsall told First Alert 4 his concern is the line after that viral clip from last week. The full paragraph reads, ''And some will say now that I am calling America a Christian nation. And so I am. And some will say I am advocating Christian nationalism. And so I do. Is there any other kind worth having?''

Sen. Josh Hawley: America Founded on 'Christian Nationalism' (dailysignal.com)

''Christian Nationalism is not compatible with religious tolerance or religious freedom because it's saying we will have a Christian nation, sorry Jews, Muslims, atheists, this nation is not for you the same way it is for others,'' Empsall explained. ''At best we will tolerate you here, but you will not get the same level of rights as others.''

This group of religious leaders did not have any action steps beyond encouraging Missourians to vote in the upcoming elections.

Hawley was not available for an interview or comment Monday.

Copyright 2024 KMOV. All rights reserved.

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Tue, 16 Jul 2024 15:42

CNN '--

In the 48 hours before he opened fire on former President Donald Trump, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks made a series of stops in and around his suburban Pittsburgh hometown.

On Friday, he went to a shooting range where he was a member, and practiced firing, a law enforcement official told CNN. The next morning, Crooks went to a Home Depot, where he bought a five-foot ladder, and a gun store, where he purchased 50 rounds of ammunition, the official said.

Then, Crooks drove his Hyundai Sonata about an hour north, joining thousands of people from around the region who flocked to Trump's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. He parked the car outside the rally, with an improvised explosive device hidden in the trunk that was wired to a transmitter he carried, the official said. Then, investigators believe, he used his newly-bought ladder to scale a nearby building, and opened fire on the former president.

As investigators continue to search for a motive behind the attempted assassination, they are scrutinizing Crooks' movements before the attack and trying to piece together a timeline of his actions leading up to it.

Yet nearly 48 hours after the shooting, investigators are struck by the lack of leads they're finding about Crooks' mindset and possible motives. Even after successfully breaking into his phone and searching his computer, scouring his search history and bedroom, and interviewing his family and friends, agents still haven't found evidence that would suggest political or ideological impetus for the shooting, law enforcement sources told CNN.

Instead, the evidence they have found appears to show typical online activities including an interest in computer coding and gaming, the sources said '-- and that has raised more questions.

In a sign that his attack could have been even more destructive, Crooks had a remote control detonator on his body, and his car's trunk contained a metal box of explosives that was connected with wires to a receiver, the law enforcement source said.

That suggests the gunman may have been planning to set off an explosion remotely, and investigators are considering the theory that he may have been planning a distraction during the shooting.

It's unclear how Crooks assembled the explosive devices found in his car. Investigators parsing through his online search history haven't found any indication of him researching how to make home-made explosives, law enforcement officials said.

The AR-style rifle Crooks used to fire on Trump was legally purchased by his father, Matthew Crooks. It was one of more than 20 firearms registered to the elder Crooks, which were kept at the family's home, according to Pennsylvania State Police records reviewed by investigators, the official said. All of the guns were legally purchased.

The gunman and his father were members of Clairton Sportsmen's Club, a gun club about a 25-minute drive from his house, and enjoyed going shooting there together, according to law enforcement officials. Rob Bootay, a lawyer for the club, confirmed in a statement that the younger Crooks was a member.

The club, which has about 2,000 members, features a rifle shooting range that is roughly 200 yards long, according to a CNN analysis of satellite images '' longer than the distance between Crooks and Trump when he fired at the former president while perched on a nearby rooftop. The range is tucked into 180 acres of woodlands in the hills south of Pittsburgh.

''The Club fully admonishes the senseless act of violence that occurred,'' Bootay said, adding that he could not ''make any additional commentary in relation to this matter in light of pending law enforcement investigations.''

Crooks purchased the 50 rounds of ammunition on the morning of the attack at Allegheny Arms and Gun Works, a local gun store in his hometown of Bethel Park, a senior law enforcement official told CNN. Bruce Piendl, the store's owner, said in a statement that ''we are thankful that President Trump was not assassinated and our hearts and prayers go out to all victims of this horrible incident.''

A spokesperson for Home Depot, where Crooks bought the ladder, said in a statement that ''we condemn the violence against former President Trump, and our thoughts are with him, the other victims of Saturday's horrific events, and their families.''

It's not clear whether Crooks used the ammunition or the ladder that he bought on Saturday during his attack later that day.

Matthew Crooks did not respond to requests for comment from CNN on Sunday and Monday. On Saturday evening, before officials had publicly confirmed his son's role in the attack, he told CNN that he was trying to figure out ''what the hell is going on'' but would ''wait until I talk to law enforcement'' before speaking about his son.

FBI investigators succeeded in accessing the younger Crooks' cell phone, the agency said Monday afternoon. While investigators had hoped that breakthough would help them understand what drove him to attempt to assassinate Trump, they're still struggling to make sense of it, law enforcement officials said.

The shooter's parents, who have been cooperating with law enforcement since the shooting, have told investigators that Crooks did not appear to have friends and did not appear to have any political leanings, a law enforcement official told CNN. But they didn't seem to know much about what was going on in his life recently, law enforcement sources said.

CNN's Isabelle Chapman, Majlie de Puy Kamp, Curt Devine, Kyung Lah, Jamiel Lynch, Gianluca Mezzofiore and Anna-Maja Rappard contributed reporting.

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