Far-Left Activist Advising Kamala Harris on Immigration Policy

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Far-Left Activist Advising Kamala Harris on Immigration Policy

(Headline USA) A leftist activist who has advocated open borders is reportedly advising Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign.

Frank Sharry, an immigration policy expert who most recently worked with the United Kingdom’s far-left Labour Party, is working with Harris to develop her immigration strategy, according to Politico.

Sharry has praised Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, arguing at the time of his appointment that he was the right man to “undo Trump’s cruelties, advance fair and humane policies, and deliver on the bold change the American people strongly support.”

In a statement, Sharry went on to call Mayorkas “an architect of the popular and successful DACA program, the Cuban-born son of a Holocaust survivor, and a refugee himself,” who  “understands intuitively what America at its best stands for and how these values need to be operationalized in law, regulation and policy.”

He has also applauded the Biden administration’s refusal to enforce immigration law, calling Biden’s agenda “the right idea, the right vision, the right strategy.”

His role with Harris’s campaign confirms the vice president’s immigration policy would be much more radical than what she has tried to present to voters in recent weeks.

“Donald Trump has been talking a big game about securing our border, but he does not walk the walk,” she said at a campaign rally earlier this month.

“He tanked the bipartisan deal because he thought it would help him win an election, which goes to show Donald Trump does not care about border security,” the current border czar claimed. “He only cares about himself. And when I am president, I will actually work to solve the problem.”

Contrary to Harris’s false statement, Republicans refused to back a Democrat border security bill because it failed to provide meaningful measures, such as deportations, and instead would have simply reallocated the funds to Mayorkas to continue his deliberate importation of illegal immigrants.

Harris has not explained why she has not already taken action on immigration as the sitting vice president or the official appointed by President Joe Biden to take lead on the migrant crisis.

But former President Donald Trump has made that point repeatedly, reminding voters that Harris has been “terrible” at everything she’s been told to do.

“Kamala Harris has been the ultra-liberal driving force behind every single Biden catastrophe,” the former president told supporters in North Carolina.

Study: Conservatives Show More Empathy Toward the Left than Vice Versa

Jacob Bruns
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Study: Conservatives Show More Empathy Toward the Left than Vice Versa

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) A recently published study indicates that right-leaning people may ultimately be more humanitarian and “empathetic” in their outlook than leftists, conservative commentator Chris Brady wrote for Glenn Beck’s website.

According to the study, titled “Empathic Conservatives and Moralizing Liberals: Political Intergroup Empathy Varies by Political Ideology and Is Explained by Moral Judgment,” conservative-leaning people tend to be more sensitive to the humanity of their political opponents, even those that they strongly disagree with.

Researchers, led by the University of Queensland’s James Casey, understood empathy to mean “sympathy for and understanding of another person’s suffering, with an aim to reduce that suffering,” a trait that they argue has the capacity to “bridge political divides.”

With that definition in mind, they found that “conservatives consistently showed more empathy to liberals than liberals showed to conservatives,” meaning that those on the left tended to sow political division.

Empathy, according to researchers, has some link to a lack of clear-cut moral convictions.

The reason for the left’s lack of empathy, researchers therefore speculated, is the “harsher moral judgments” that they tend to pass on others, particularly their conservative opponents who stand in the way of perceived moral progress.

Despite conclusions being somewhat favorable for conservative empathy, however, researchers were quick to qualify their findings by noting that leftists may have good reasons for passing harsh judgment on conservatives.

“We have argued that much of the difference in empathy is because of differences in perceptions of harm caused by the opponent’s political group,” they wrote, noting that leftist concerns may not be “unfounded or without reason,” because a “victimized group may have good reason to be upset at another group that has harmed them.”

Thus, they concluded, the Left may be justified in its current moral crusade, because victims have the right to feel hurt, even if “the perpetrator group is sometimes sympathetic and benevolent.”

Ferguson Police Release Footage of Suspect Charging Black Officer on Riot Anniversary

Editor 1
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Ferguson Police Release Footage of Suspect Charging Black Officer on Riot Anniversary

(Headline USA) Police in Ferguson, Mo., on Tuesday released officer-worn body camera footage showing a protester knocking a black police officer to the ground on the 10th anniversary of Michael Brown’s death, leaving the Missouri officer with a life-threatening brain injury.

Police Chief Troy Doyle, speaking at a news conference, said the body camera footage shows that the suspect—28-year-old Elijah Gantt of East St. Louis, Illinois—had charged at Officer Travis Brown on a sidewalk outside the police station after protesters attempted to pull down a perimeter fence.

Video played at the news conference from two different angles shows that a man, identified by Doyle as Gantt, had a running start and flattened the officer, whose head violently struck the pavement.

Officer Brown was unconscious and prone on his back with the suspect lying on his chest as other officers quickly arrived and jumped on the suspect.

Many of the 150 or so people at the news conference—including at least three dozen police officers and mayors from several St. Louis-area cities—gasped when they saw it.

“If you look at the video, the officer is standing up, waiting to catch this guy,” Doyle said. “This guy tackled my guy like he’s a football player.”

Police said the injured officer remained in critical condition. A prayer vigil was planned Tuesday evening outside the police station.

“If you haven’t condemned this act, if you haven’t condemned what happened to my officer, then you are part of the problem,” Doyle told protest leaders.

None of the video shown at the news conference was from Officer Brown’s body camera. Doyle said police also had footage from surveillance cameras from businesses in the area.

Gantt, who was already charged with assault, faced a new assault charge for allegedly kicking another officer in the head, St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell said.

All eyes may be on Bell, who recently defeated radical “Squad” Rep. Cori Bush to represent the district in Congress, although some have cautioned that he is no less radical, and maybe even more so.

Another defendant was charged with property damage for damaging the fence, as well as assault, he said. Three others were charged with various other crimes. Bell said restraint by the police kept the situation from being worse and that police “did a tremendous job” of allowing protests that were originally peaceful.

“Now we have an officer who is fighting for his life and I have to ask: For what?” Bell said.

Ferguson became synonymous with the national Black Lives Matter movement after Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old, was killed by Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson while he was preparing to charge toward Wilson in a similar fashion as Gantt.

Three separate investigations found no grounds to prosecute Wilson, who resigned in November 2014. But Michael Brown’s death led to months of often violent protests. It also spurred a U.S. Department of Justice investigation that required anti-discrimination changes to Ferguson policing and the courts.

Many criticized Attorney General Eric Holder for getting involved in the hot-button case and for failing to show his support for law enforcement, effectively stoking the existing racial tensions. Holder would later resign largely as a result of the embarassment over the failure to indict Wilson.

Bell said during Tuesday’s news conference that if protesters were still angry that Wilson wasn’t charged, they need to understand that isn’t going to happen unless new evidence emerges.

Travis Brown, 36, is the son of a retired St. Louis city police officer and the father of two young daughters. Soon after graduating from college, he joined the St. Louis County Police Department, in 2012. He joined the Ferguson police force in January.

A former supervisor for the St. Louis County department, Lt. Ray Rice, said Travis Brown became a police officer to make a difference.

“Everybody says, ‘Where are all of the good police officers?’” Rice said. “Travis is one of those people.”

Gantt is charged with assault of a special victim, resisting arrest and property damage. A judge on Monday set a bond hearing for Aug. 19 and a preliminary hearing for Sept. 11. Gantt is jailed on a $500,000 cash-only bond. He does not yet have an attorney.

The violence that resulted in Travis Brown’s injury drew an angry response from Doyle and from several people in Ferguson, a community of about 18,000 where roughly two-thirds of residents are black. Many wondered what protesters were so angry about given the changes in Ferguson over the past decade.

“Let’s recognize the good that has taken place in our police department. Let’s recognize the reform,” Doyle said at the news conference on Tuesday.

In 2014, the Ferguson department had around 50 white officers and only three black officers. Today, 22 of the 41 officers are bElijah Gantlack, including Travis Brown.

Officers today also undergo frequent training on crisis intervention, avoiding bias and other areas. Officers now also wear body cameras. Doyle even changed the look of uniforms, patches and badges after residents said the old look was “triggering.”

“We stand here today in solidarity with our police department, our police chief,” Ferguson Mayor Ella Jones said. “Ferguson has made a lot of strides, and this one act is not going to stop us from moving forward.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

GOP Veterans from Texas Call Out Walz over Stolen-Valor Scandal: ‘A National Disgrace’

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GOP Veterans from Texas Call Out Walz over Stolen-Valor Scandal: ‘A National Disgrace’

(Bethany Blankley, The Center Square) Of Texas’s nearly a dozen veterans serving in Congress, several are weighing in on a military service controversy surrounding the presumed vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who served in the Army National Guard for 24 years.

Questions and criticisms about Walz’s military record have existed since he first ran for Congress in 2006, and they resurfaced after he was chosen by Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumed Democratic presidential candidate, as her running mate.

At a 2018 event, Walz claimed his goal was to ban Americans from purchasing “weapons of war that I carried in war,” bringing criticism from veterans nationwide because he never fought in combat.

Walz served in the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery. In 2003, he was deployed to Vicenza, Italy, to support Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. He was never in Afghanistan and never saw combat there.

On Friday, a Harris campaign spokesperson said Walz “misspoke;” neither Harris nor Walz have issued a statement or provided any clarification.

Walz also claimed that in 2005, before his unit deployed to Iraq, he retired from the Guard to run for Congress and his rank was command sergeant major. Military records show that Walz finished his service at master sergeant, retiring before he could complete academy requirements to achieve the higher rank.

Responding to criticism of his claims in 2006, Walz said he didn’t mislead anyone, retired one year before his battalion was deployed to Iraq, and was proud of his military service.

Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, the first to recently criticize Walz, argued he was still “lying” about when and why he says he retired and his rank.

Vance—the first veteran of the Marine Corps to be featured on a presidential ticket—also asked why Harris chose as her running mate “a person who has lied about their military service? I think that is a serious lapse in judgment. I don’t want to hear from a campaign spokesperson of Kamala Harris. I want to hear from Kamala Harris herself.”

Agreeing with Vance, Navy veteran U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson, a Republican from North Texas, called Walz a “fraud” and “a lying coward who … was NEVER in harm’s way. He never deployed to Iraq. He never deployed to Afghanistan.”

Jackson added that Walz’s “‘war stories’ disgust me and disgust most other veterans thatactually deployed in defense of this country! SIMPLY PUT, YOU ARE PATHETIC AND A NATIONAL DISGRACE!!!”

Jackson, who served as the former White House physician for presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, has called for President Joe Biden to step down, citing his failing mental and physical health. He has also repeatedly called on Harris to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him from office and, because she won’t, argues both Biden and Harris are unfit for office.

U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., agrees, arguing Harris has breached the public trust by hiding Biden’s health problems. He recently filed articles to impeach her.

In a series of social media posts, U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Houston, an Army combat veteran and West Point graduate,

“You DON’T have to lie about your service and if you’re running for VP you SHOULDN’T be lying about your service,” Hunt said.

“Tim Walz chose NOT to go combat. I deployed to combat. I lost friends and classmates in combat. The veteran community is outraged and for good reason,” he continued. “If you did not serve in a combat zone and you claim that you did under any capacity, that’s a lie. A slap in the face to all of us who actually did…and those that didn’t make it back.”

Referring to Walz’s remarks about AR-15s, Hunt said, “If Tim Walz is claiming that a civilian made AR-15 is a weapon a war then it just proves he’s NEVER been to war. I’m so tired of the wordsmiths in the Democrat party gaslighting half the country on guns when they know absolutely NOTHING about them.”

Navy Seal and wounded veteran U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, offered a slightly more toned-down rebuke that more broadly criticized the problem of stolen valor in politics.

“Since running for Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz has been caught in controversy for exaggerating his military record,” Crenshaw said, noting that “many veterans in politics embellish their military career” when using the word “combat,” which “is plagued by purposeful misdirection.”

However, even among those who find themselves in conflict zones, he noted that only a select few actually encounter what could be considered “combat.”

“It’s often [expletive]. Very few of us actually leave the safety of the base, whether in Iraq or Afghanistan,” Crenshaw said.

“But everyone who deploys is technically deployed in a ‘combat zone,’and so they advertise ‘combat experience’ on their resumes,” he added. “Nothing wrong with serving in a role that doesn’t require combat. It’s more than most people have done. But if you’re trying to run for office and using ‘combat’as a way to gain credibility, that’s wrong.”

He also said Walz “shouldn’t be talking about ‘carrying weapons into combat’ when he did no such thing,” and it appears that Walz “lied about his rank of Retired Command Sergeant Major,” noting that “the Harris campaign had to scrub his rank from their website.”

Air Force veteran August Pfluger, a Republican from west Texas, shared his observations from serving with Walz in Congress.

When they served on the House Veterans Committee, Walz “opposed the most important pro-veteran legislation passed in decades just because it was President Trump’s,” Pfluger noted.

“The Mission Act was very bipartisan, but Walz opposed giving our veterans better access to health care because he didn’t want to give President Trump a win,” he added. “Keep in mind, this is the same guy who wants to give illegal aliens free health care and driver’s licenses. Walz is bad for our veterans and horrible for our country.”

No Democratic members of Texas’s congressional delegation are U.S. military veterans.

Johnson/Jeffries Trump Shooting Task Force to ‘Supersede’ Other House Investigations

Ken Silva
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Johnson/Jeffries Trump Shooting Task Force to ‘Supersede’ Other House Investigations

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The task force appointed by House Speaker Mike Johnson and ranking member Hakeem Jeffries, D-NY, to investigate the Trump assassination attempt began requesting documents this week from the Justice Department, FBI, Homeland Security and the Secret Service.

In letters sent Monday, task force chairman Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., requested all Trump shooting documents and information that’s been produced to the House or Senate. He also asked for a closed-doors briefing on the DHS, Secret Service and FBI investigations by this Friday.

Perhaps more significant than Kelly’s requests was his disclosure that the Johnson/Jeffries task force will “supersede” other House investigations into the July 13 shooting.

“The Task Force’s requests for documents and information henceforth supersede all other requests from House Committees and Members, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) should produce documents and information directly to the Task Force from this point forward, including any documents and information that are in process in response to pending requests,” Kelly said in his letter to the DHS and Secret Service.

Additionally, Kelly noted that the resolution creating his task force requires all other House committees to transfer their Trump shooting records to be transferred to him.

The Johnson/Jeffries task force has been criticized since its inception, including by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who blasted Johnson for leaving off former Navy Seals sniper Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., and decorated combat veteran Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla. Both and Crane have accused the federal agents at the July 13 rally of criminal negligence.

Instead, the Johnson/Jeffries task force is comprised of six Democrats and seven Republicans—a mix of RINOs and MAGA-leaning lawmakers.

The Democrats on the Task Force are Reps. Jason Crow, D-Co., Lou Correa, D-Calif., Madeleine Dean, D-Penn., Chrissy Houlahan, D-Penn., Glenn Ivey, D-Md., and Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla. Crow, who helped spearhead the impeachment attempts against Trump, is the ranking Democrat.

Along with Kelly, the Republicans are Reps. Mark Green, R-Tenn., David Joyce, R-Ohio, Laurel Lee, R-Fla., Michael Waltz, R-Fla., Clay Higgins, R-La., and Pat Fallon, R-Texas.

Along with its composition, the task force has been criticized for setting a Dec. 13 deadline to produce the results of its investigation.

Kelly did reportedly say this week that he expects to put out interim results sooner than that.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Leftists Claim Trump Lisped, Slurred Words in Musk Event; Possible PTSD Symptom

Ben Sellers
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Leftists Claim Trump Lisped, Slurred Words in Musk Event; Possible PTSD Symptom

(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) For years, members of the leftist media attempted to gloss over President Joe Biden’s obvious cognitive disabilities by claiming he had developed a late-onset stutter.

The problem, which Biden said had plagued him as a boy, disappeared for much of his five-decade political career, only to return with the arrival of his second childhood.

Now, many of the same leftist shills are inventing a speech impediment for former President Donald Trump, as well.

Only, this time, they are not concocting it to protect the GOP presidential nominee from criticism.

Instead, it is part of a sad and desperate effort to ridicule Trump—in much the same way that they previously invented the “Project 2025” boogeyman and a bizarrely bogus claim that Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, engaged in sex acts with a sofa.

THE TWEETER-IN-CHIEF RETURNS

During Trump’s casual conversation with Elon Musk via the X Spaces platform on Monday, many on the Left planned a “blackout.”

Nonetheless the pair of affluent, red-pilled ex-liberals, both on a mission to “Make America Great Again” while staving off a socialist takeover, drew in a record-breaking audience of around 73 million, which has since been amplified to yield a reach of more than a billion people, according to Musk.

It was a notable feat for the nearly two-hour event—which was admittedly more subdued than many of Trump’s rallies, debates, interviews and press conferences—made all the more impressive by virtue of the fact that an apparent hacker attack nearly derailed the much-hyped chat and delayed the start by roughly an hour.

Trump’s campaign subsequently recapped nine key moments from the “historic” meetup, which marked a rare return to the platform that he relied on for much of his first presidential term to bypass the media gatekeepers and take his message directly to the people.

The highlights included Trump’s candid discussion of last month’s assassination attempt and his reflections about his relationships with hostile world leaders such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

MEDIA MELTDOWN

Predictably, Trump-bashing leftists in the media, who have undertaken an all-hands-on-deck propaganda push to astroturf newly anointed Democrat candidate Kamala Harris into public favor, opted to viciously attack Trump’s appearance with hot take after hot take.

Although most of these attacks homed in on some superficiality while making no note of the substance of the discussion, none seemed as petty as the attempts to claim that Trump was speaking throughout the interview with a lisp.

The same group that collectively insisted Biden was “sharp as a tack” has now persuaded itself through the power of groupthink that Trump was either channeling a Looney Tunes character or plagued by loose dentures.

Meanwhile, the Kamala Harris campaign appeared to pounce on another strategy altogether, suggesting Trump—who does not drink—was “slurring” his words.

The projection was likely an effort to get in front of the widespread rumors regarding Harris’s own alleged alcoholism and substance-abuse issues, using a popular Saul Alinsky tactic to accuse her rival of her own vulnerabilities in order to neutralize any future opposition research on the matter.

According to the BBC, the terms “slurring” and “dentures” both trended during the feed, generating thousands of comments on X as Democrats who had vowed to boycott the site came forward to confess they had secretly been listening in.

The Trump campaign, however, dismissed the purported lisp as an audio issue, the Daily Mail noted.

“Must be your s****y hearing,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung told the Huffington Post’s S.V. Dáte. “Get your ears checked.”

Indeed, the audio illusion may call to mind the famous “Yanny” versus “Laurel” debate that took place in 2018, where listeners heard something entirely different depending on the frequency range their ears were attuned to.

WILLING AND ABLEIST

Regardless of whether the Democrats’ lisp assertion was valid or simply the latest example of mass formation psychosis triggered by Trump Derangement Syndrome, the response underscored left-wing hypocrisy by making impedimented Americans the butt of their joke.

It marked a sharp contrast with the feeding-frenzy response to Trump allegedly imitating New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who suffers from the joint disease arthrogryposis.

Many Democrats continue to push the talking point that Trump was poking fun at Kovaleski’s disability, although there is no evidence to support the baseless claim.

But only a few in the leftist press, including the Independent’s Marc Burrows, warned that the move to mock Trump’s supposed lisp may backfire.

“Those of us on the political left often pride ourselves in being the ‘good guys.’ We think we’re better than the other side: They’re nasty. We’re nice,'” Burrows contended.

“Yet here we are, mocking a man for his speech patterns rather than engaging with the substance of his words,” he added. “It’s a dangerous game, one that not only distracts from the real issues at hand … but also reinforces harmful stereotypes about those with speech differences.”

Not only might the attacks on lisps be seen as a pernicious form of ableism, but they might also promote ageism and homophobia, victimizing even more identity groups that Democrats are relying on to drag them across the finish line in November.

“We’ve championed inclusivity and fought against stigma,” chided Burrows. “To turn around and mock someone for a speech impediment—regardless of who that person is—undermines those efforts and exposes a troubling double standard.”

RELIVING THE TRAUMA

The mockery seemed particularly sinister given the recent attempt on Trump’s life by an unhinged Democrat donor during a rally last month in Butler, Pa.

Although Trump survived the assassination attempt relatively unscathed, execpt for a mangled and bloody ear, he is likely still processing the internal trauma.

According to the world-renowned Mayo Clinic, dysarthria—a weakening of the speech muscles that “often causes slurred or slow speech that can be difficult to understand” may be brought about by “head injury.”

Others have linked stress and trauma to language development in children, and some have cited stuttering as a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Instead of allowing the person to heal, the memories serve only to re-arouse the person to a level that they feel they must defend against them, and the avoidance begins,” wrote researchers Woody Starkweather and Janet Givens. “Eventually the defensive avoidance behaviors become habitual, and the person’s life is fundamentally altered.”

During the Republican National Convention, Trump acknowledged that he was continuing to come to grips with the terrifying experience, which resulted in the death of rallygoer Corey Comperatore.

“I will tell you exactly what happened, and you’ll never hear it from me a second time, because it’s actually too painful to tell,” he said at the time.

Yet, during recent rallies and in the conversation with Musk, he proceeded to recount the “surreal” moments in vivid detail, revealing that his miraculous survival had helped to strengthen his faith in God.

“A lot of people don’t believe in God … Now, I’m more of a believer,” Trump confided to Musk.

Just last week, the beleaguered candidate—who has been subjected to repeated lawfare attacks and even media smear campaigns accusing him of being “weird”—endured another death-defying experience as his plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Montana.

Despite quietly suffering the slings and arrows of the remarkably brutal campaign—without bowing out mid-race as Biden did—Trump continues to put the American people ahead of his own well-being.

“This is so much more important than me or my life,” he poignantly told Musk. “We’re gonna save this country.”

Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/realbensellers.

Trump Shooting 1 Month Later: Sequence of Events Emerges, But Many Questions Remain

Ken Silva
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Trump Shooting 1 Month Later: Sequence of Events Emerges, But Many Questions Remain

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) It’s the one-month anniversary of the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, and it’s still not clear what happened at that deadly July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Most of the primary evidence about the event—body camera footage, audio recordings, text messages and operations plans—has come from local police and event attendees. On the federal level, whistleblower disclosures have contradicted congressional testimony from top FBI and Secret Service officials. Federal and local authorities have also contradicted each other.

Still, the available evidence can provide a guide for investigators to ask the right questions.

What We Think We Know: Not Much
  • A Rough Sequence of Events

Based on text messages from the Butler and Beaver County Emergency Services Units, it looks like local law enforcement first spotted Trump shooter Thomas Crooks by 4:26 p.m.

More than 40 minutes later at 5:38 p.m., local counter snipers saw Crooks again, this time right beneath their second-story perch on the AGR building. It was at this point when they photographed Crooks and let the Secret Service know about him.

Officers then allegedly “lost track” of Crooks for about 20 minutes, according to reports on their radio communications. At 6:02 p.m., Beaver County sniper Greg Nicol again spotted Crooks on the side of the building facing away from the Trump rally.

How Nicol and the other local cops lost Crooks after that isn’t quite clear. But according to their radio comms, Nicol told his fellow officers that Crooks was headed to a Sheetz gas station about a quarter-mile outside the rally site.

Nicol, who shot himself in a “freak accident” last December, was wrong. Instead of going all the way around the AGR building to the Sheetz gas station, he instead made his way to an HVAC unit next to the AGR building—using that equipment to gain access to the roof of the building.

It wasn’t until 6:08 p.m. that Crooks was finally spotted on the roof.

“Someone’s on the roof,” a local officer radioed at 6:08 p.m., according to The Post. “I have someone on the roof with white shorts.”

At 6:09 p.m., Sgt. Ed Lenz, the tactical commander for the Butler County mobile unit, reportedly relayed the information that Crooks was on the rooftop to a state police officer at the Secret Service command center.

Two minutes later, Crooks fired eight times—an initial volley of three shots, followed by another five. A ninth shot reportedly came from a local officer, with a final tenth coming from a Secret Service counter sniper an entire 10 seconds after the ninth shot—and 15 seconds after Crooks opened fire.

What We Don’t Know: A Lot
  • How many times was Crooks shot, when, and by whom?

Initial reports stated that law enforcement shot Crooks multiple times. However, Butler County coroner William F. Young III reportedly said last week that Crooks was only hit once.

Young’s statement begs many questions, including: Who actually shot Crooks, and when?

If the local cop was the one to hit Crooks, then the Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe and former Director Kim Cheatle perjured themselves. But if the Secret Service counter sniper indeed hit Crooks an entire 15 seconds after he opened fire, then why did Crooks stop firing after his initial eight shots in the first five seconds?

Meanwhile, officials are refusing to release Crooks’s autopsy records. The coroner, Young, released a one-page report on Aug. 2, but has suppressed the underpinning records—including exam photos, toxicology reports and scene images.

Bizarrely, Crooks’s body was reportedly kept on the rooftop until 6 a.m. the day after the shooting. There, Young examined Crooks’s body before sending him to the Allegheny County Medical Examiner for the autopsy.

The Allegheny County Medical Examiner denied Headline USA’s records request for Crooks’s autopsy records, saying that the “case is under the jurisdiction of the Butler County Coroner and any reports or information must be approved by that agency.” Butler County’s coroner also denied a request, saying the records are exempt from disclosure.

  • Were There Others Involved?

The question of who shot Crooks is closely related to the question of how many shooters there were in total.

Some online sleuths initially proffered the theory that Crooks was a patsy, and that the real would-be Trump assassin shot from the direction of the water tower. But those online sleuths have seemingly moved on from that theory, and are now pushing the idea that there was another shooter inside the building, underneath Crooks.

In the opinion of this writer, the evidence for a second shooter remains speculative.

But that doesn’t mean Crooks acted alone.

Perhaps the most convincing evidence of others’ involvement is Crooks’s online presence. Initially painting him as a loner who didn’t communicate with anyone, the FBI has since admitted that Crooks had at least two cell phones, three encrypted messaging apps and a Discord account—along with possible accounts on social media.

Those accounts might explain how Crooks was able to build explosive devices designed to be detonated remotely. Headline USA has documented numerous cases where bad actors share explosives manuals online—one of the more recent cases being an apparent U.S. intelligence contractors sharing them in a militia chat group.

Other evidence suggesting others involved includes geolocation data showing phones travelling to and from Crooks’s home—and to places such as Washington DC, near an FBI office. Sign-in records from the gun range Crooks trained at further suggest that he may have had company on some of his trips.

Additionally, law enforcement hasn’t explained the multiple vehicles linked to Crooks.

According to investigators Crooks drove a Hyundai Sonata to the event. But officials haven’t explained how that squares with reports that a van linked to Crooks was also near the site. Nor have they explained how Crooks’s purported bicycle came on the scene.

• Who Was Responsible for the Rooftop?

All of the abovementioned controversies might have been rendered moot if law enforcement secured the rooftop used by Crooks.

But that catastrophic security failure has led to a bitter and public feud between local law enforcement and the Secret Service over who’s to blame.

The dispute over who left the rooftop open began days after the incident, when disgraced then-Secret Service Director said she didn’t have agents on the building because of its “sloped roof”—leading to widespread mockery.

Later in July, Sen. Josh Hawley revealed whistleblower allegations of an alternative theory: A local cop was supposed to be on the rooftop, but abandoned his or her post due to the hot weather. That whistleblower allegation didn’t sit well with the local law enforcement, who denied it to the local news.

“The assignments received by local Emergency Services Units were to be inside of the building at windows to begin with,” one unnamed local officer told the BeaverCountian.

“The purpose of being in the building was to have a vantage point to scan for suspicious persons in the crowd. When a suspicious person was identified, command was notified. That suspicious person ended up shooting Trump. No one was told they were supposed to be on the roof.”

Tensions between the locals and feds only worsened after the testimony of Secret Service Acting Director Rowe on July 30, when he asked why the local counter snipers didn’t see Crooks on the rooftop from their perches inside the building’s second floor.

Rowe’s accusatory question prompted Det. Pat Young, commander of the Beaver County SWAT team, and the Beaver County District Attorney, Nate Bible, to come to their officers’ defense. Last Friday, Young told CNN that the Secret Service hasn’t even met with his officers in the wake of the shooting. Young also said his snipers would have had to lean out of their windows to see Crooks on the rooftop.

Moreover, on Thursday additional body camera footage and audio were released, in which a Butler Township police officer stating: “I f—ing told them they need to post the guys f—ing over here… I told them that… the Secret Service. I told them that f—ing Tuesday. I told them to post f—ing guys over here.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has asked Rowe to explain the conflicting allegations of who had responsibility for the rooftop.

“Do the photographs and diagrams referenced above conflict with Secret Service records regarding how local snipers were supposed to be positioned and how the AGR building was supposed to be covered? Please explain and provide all records,” Grassley asked Rowe in an Aug. 9 letter.

Grassley seeks information from Rowe about the rooftop security plans by this Friday.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan House task force also began its investigation this week.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Not-So Secret Service: Trump Security Agent Reportedly Probed for Social Media Posts

Ken Silva
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Not-So Secret Service: Trump Security Agent Reportedly Probed for Social Media Posts

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Journalist Susan Crabtree reported Monday that a Secret Service agent involved in security preparations for the deadly July 13 Trump rally is under investigation for posting work-related content on social media.

“The agent is now under the microscope not only for her role in devising the security plan for the rally. She’s also facing internal scrutiny for posting videos and photos from her protective assignments to social media,” Crabtree reported.

Crabtree, who didn’t identify the agent out of concerns for her safety, said some of the social media posts came from Mar-a-Lago.

“A sunset to be grateful for …” one of the agent’s post reportedly stated, including a heart and sunset emojis and the hashtags “#nofilter #southflorida #thankful #workmode …”

According to Crabtree, the agent in question served as the official site agent for the July 13 Butler event that ended in an assassination attempt wounding Donald Trump in the ear and killing rally-goer Corey Comperatore in front of his family.

“As a member of Trump’s 60-member regular detail, the agent was responsible for helping formulate the security plan for the event, although she was mostly focused on the inner perimeter,” Crabtree reported.

“She also joined forces with the event’s lead agent, a woman from the Secret Service’s Pittsburgh Field Office, in conducting a walk-through of the security with supervisors. The lead agent typically oversees security at the entire event from airport arrival to event to hotel stay to airport departure.”

Crabtree also reported that there is rampant dissatisfaction among Trump’s security detail. One member committed suicide last year, she said.

Crabtree’s report makes similar allegations to those made public by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who has Secret Service whistleblowers talking to his office. Hawley revealed last week that those whistleblowers view the lead site agent—the one who apparently worked with the social media poster identified by Crabtree—as “lacking competence and experience.”

Citing a separate whistleblower, Hawley listed some of the agent’s terrible decisions that led Donald Trump almost being assassinated, a firefighter being murdered and two other attendees being hospitalized.

First, Hawley said, campaign material such as flags were permitted to be placed around the stage and catwalk used by the former president, despite the fact that these items were typically prohibited because of how they blocked agents’ line-of-sight.

Second, Hawley continued, the Secret Service did not check IDs when issuing credentials that authorize access to restricted areas of the site, contrary to typical practice.

“Third, the whistleblower alleges that Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents at the July 13 event told campaign officials that they had never staffed a rally before and did not know proper procedure,” Hawley added in a letter to Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe.

Hawley has demanded the lead site agent to be removed from duty.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Many Countries Turning to Gold as a ‘Stateless Currency’

Money Metals News Service
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Many Countries Turning to Gold as a ‘Stateless Currency’

(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) Many central banks are opting for a “stateless currency” – gold. That’s how a recent article published by Nikkei Asia put it, noting that “central banks are diversifying away from the dollar and yuan.”

The article notes that the proportion of greenbacks in foreign reserves has dropped significantly from over 70 percent in the early 2000s to a historic low of around 58 percent today.

Meanwhile, central banks are loading up on gold. Central banks globally added a net 483 tons of gold through the first six months of this year, 5 percent above the record of 460 tons in H1 2023.

Last year, central bank gold buying fell a mere 45 tons short of 2022’s multi-decade record.

Last year, central banks’ net gold purchases totaled 1,037 tons. It was the second straight year central banks added more than 1,000 tons to their total reserves.

Central bank gold buying in 2023 built on the prior record year. Total central bank gold buying in 2022 came in at 1,136 tons. It was the highest level of net purchases on record dating back to 1950, including since the suspension of dollar convertibility into gold in 1971.

A Stateless Currency 

Why are so many countries turning to gold? 

Because it is a stateless currency. In other words, gold isn’t controlled by any government. That means countries holding gold maintain a higher level of independence than those holding dollars or other government fiat currencies. 

The U.S. has hastened de-dollarization by aggressively using the greenback as a foreign policy tool.

The United States projects power around the world with its mighty military, but that’s not America’s only source of strength. It also uses the dollar to achieve foreign policy goals.

The U.S. government utilizes a “carrot-stick” approach. It showers billions of dollars of foreign aid on its friends. But enemies can have access to their dollars cut off, as Russia recently learned.

As the Nikkei Asia article pointed out, the U.S. and other Western countries aggressively sanctioned Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine. America and her allies locked Russia out of the SWIFT financial system and froze around $300 billion in Russian central bank assets. The U.S. even threatened to sell frozen Russian assets and give the money to Ukraine.

Other countries were paying attention. Nikkei Asia said U.S. policy persuaded emerging economies to “accumulate gold, and “the shift from currency holdings reflects global fragmentation.”

This is a classic example of people responding to incentives.

Think about it; if you recognize something makes you vulnerable, what do you do?

You take steps to eliminate or at least minimize the vulnerability.

So, if you’re worried that the U.S. and its allies might cut off your access to dollars, what would you do?

Minimize your dependence on dollars.

In other words, if you are concerned that the U.S. could pull the “dollar rug” out from under you, why not pull out from the dollar system first?

As a stateless currency, gold is the perfect reserve asset. Its value is recognized around the world, it’s liquid, and most importantly, it exposes the owner to very little counterparty risk.

What exactly is counterparty risk?

In simple terms, it is the possibility that the party on the other side of a transaction might not fulfill its obligation or will change the terms of the deal.

For instance, if I loan you $200, there is always a chance that you won’t pay me back. That possibility represents the counterparty risk that I’m taking on.

When you own physical gold and store it safely at home, there isn’t another party involved. Nobody can default on gold. Its value will never go to zero. It remains liquid under virtually any market conditions. And gold will likely increase in value if there is a significant economic collapse because it is real money.

This is precisely why so many countries are turning to this stateless currency and bringing their gold home.

Mike Maharrey is a journalist and market analyst for MoneyMetals.com with over a decade of experience in precious metals. He holds a BS in accounting from the University of Kentucky and a BA in journalism from the University of South Florida.

Another Month, Another Massive Biden Budget Deficit

Money Metals News Service
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Another Month, Another Massive Biden Budget Deficit

(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) A couple of weeks ago, the national debt blew past $35 trillion. There were a few articles bemoaning the ballooning debt, but no substantive calls to rein it in. Meanwhile, the Biden administration continues to spend America into oblivion.

The July deficit came in at $243.7 billion, according to the latest Treasury Statement. That ran the fiscal 2024 deficit to $1.52 trillion with two months remaining. 

Keep in mind that the Biden administration is running this massive budget shortfall despite what is supposed to be a “strong and resilient” economy.

The Treasury reported $330.4 billion in receipts in July. That was a 19.6 percent revenue increase compared to July 2023.

Last month’s year-on-year revenue increase wasn’t an anomaly. To give you an idea of how well the Treasury is doing, in April, Uncle Sam ran a surplus thanks to tax day. Tax receipts came in at $776.2 billion in April, a 22 percent increase over last year.

This obliterates the idea parroted by Democrats that the deficits are because of tax cuts. The real problem is on the spending side of the ledger.

Case in point: The Biden administration blew through another $574.1 billion last month alone.

Remember how the Biden administration promised that the [pretend] spending cuts would save “hundreds of billions” with the debt ceiling deal (aka the [misnamed] Fiscal Responsibility Act)? 

That never happened. 

Spending in July was up 15.5 percent over last year.

So far, the Biden administration has spent a staggering $5.6 trillion.

Don’t think I’m just picking on Biden and the Democrats. They just happen to be the ones currently driving the car toward the cliff. Things weren’t much better when Trump was at the wheel. 

Before the pandemic, the U.S. government had only run budget deficits of over $1 trillion four times — all by the Obama administration in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

The Trump administration almost hit the $1 trillion mark in 2019 and was on pace to run a trillion-dollar deficit in fiscal 2020 before the pandemic, even as the U.S. supposedly enjoyed the “best economy” ever. The economic catastrophe caused by the government’s response to COVID-19 gave policymakers an excuse to spend with no questions asked and we saw record deficits in fiscal 2020 and 2021.

This reveals the ugly truth; borrowing and spending is a bipartisan sport. No matter who is in power or what you hear about spending cuts in Washington D.C., the federal government always finds new reasons to spend more and more money. Whether it’s a disaster, an emergency, or somebody else’s war, the spending train never reaches the station.

The Interest Problem

Spiraling debt and higher interest rates are creating a double whammy that is on the verge of overwhelming the federal budget.

Last month, the U.S. government spent $88.5 billion just paying interest on the national debt. This number is lower than the average in recent months because some of July’s interest was paid in June due to calendar effects. Even so, interest expense was more than national defense ($71 billion) and nearly as much as Medicare ($92 billion). 

So far in 2024, Uncle Sam has forked over $956.3 billion to pay interest. That’s over 23 percent of all taxes collected this year. The only spending category bigger than interest on the debt is Social Security. 

And interest expenses will only continue to climb.

Much of the debt currently on the books was financed at very low rates before the Federal Reserve started its hiking cycle. Every month, some of that super-low-yielding paper matures and has to be replaced by bonds yielding much higher rates.

Anybody who says “deficits don’t matter” is deluded.

And the only way out of this fiscal death spiral is significant spending cuts and/or major tax hikes.

I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Mike Maharrey is a journalist and market analyst for MoneyMetals.com with over a decade of experience in precious metals. He holds a BS in accounting from the University of Kentucky and a BA in journalism from the University of South Florida.

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