(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) David Atkins, a Christian man who was detained for reading a Bible verse at a Pride event, may pursue legal action against the police officers who wrongfully detained him.
The disturbing arrest, captured on video by a bystander, took place in Reading, Pennsylvania. It involved a police officer aggressively arresting and throwing Atkins, a peaceful protester. The charges against Atkins were later dismissed by the Berks County District Attorney.
In a press release, the Berks County District Attorney stated, “After a review of the incident which took place on June 3, 2023, in the 800 block of Washington Street in the City of Reading, the District Attorney’s Office has withdrawn the charges of disorderly conduct filed against Damon Atkins.”
After a review of the incident which took place on June 3rd in the 800bl of Washington St in Reading, our office has withdrawn charges of disorderly conduct filed against Damon Atkins. The charges were withdrawn after we reviewed the videos of the incident & applicable case law.
Berks County Commissioner Christian Leinbach commented that the dismissed charges could potentially expose the Reading police department to legal action from Atkins. In an email obtained by The Lancaster Patriot, Leinbach, expressed his belief that the arrest was unlawful, stating, “From what I have seen thus far I believe this was an unlawful arrest and could open the City of Reading and their police department to legal action.”
Officer Bradley T. McClure’s affidavit, which led to Atkins’ arrest for alleged “disorderly conduct,” was contradicted by video footage of the incident. The footage, which has since gone viral, shows Atkins attempting to recite a Bible verse, 1 Corinthians 14:33, to LGBTQ community members attending the pride event.
In the video, three officers can be seen forcefully apprehend Atkins, pushing him against a wall and escorting him away while chants and shouts from the crowd filled the air. Prior to the arrest, Officer McClure had demanded Atkins to leave the scene and let the LGBTQ members have their day.
In a recent interview with Dan Andros, managing editor for the Christian Broadcasting Network, Atkins expressed his shock and disappointment over the incident. He recalled the officer approaching him and demanding that he be silent, despite his belief that he had the constitutional right to be there and spread his religious message.
Atkins remains resolute in his belief, now backed by the dismissed charges, that he was not being disrespectful or disruptive, but merely sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.
It is currently unclear whether Atkins intends to take legal action against the Reading Police Department.
Watch Atkins described the full account of the disturbing arrest below:
(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) President Joe Biden has faced criticism for displaying the LGBTQ Pride flag at the White House on Sunday.
The incident occurred during a Pride celebration on the South Lawn, where the backdrop featured both the American flag and a pride flag.
Biden took to Twitter to tout the Pride event, claiming, “Today, the People’s House – your house – sends a clear message to the country and to the world. America is a nation of pride.”
Today, the People's House – your house – sends a clear message to the country and to the world.
However, this act appears to violate the U.S. Flag Code, according to various political commentators and Republican lawmakers.
Tom Fitton, President of Judicial Watch blasted Biden’s combination of the American flag with the Pride flag, saying, “To advance revolutionary transgender agenda targeting children, Biden violates basic tenet of US Flag Code and disrespects every American service member buried under its colors.”
Fitton also cited U.S. Flag Code 7 (e), which supposedly states, “The flag of the United States of America should be at the center and at the highest point of the group when a number of flags of States or localities or pennants of societies are grouped and displayed from staffs.”
Sen. Dr. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., echoed Fitton’s sentiments, describing the incident a “disgrace.” Marshall added, “Not only is it in breach of US Flag Code, but it’s a glaring example of this White Houses’ incompetence and insistence on putting their social agenda ahead of patriotism.”
Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., criticized Biden, saying, “Pursuing his twisted agenda, Biden dishonors the American flag and breaks federal law.”
Similarly, Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., accused Biden of replacing the American flag with “leftist imagery.”
Anyone wondering why drag shows and other woke nonsense dominate our government? Here it is: orders are coming directly from the top.
Shameful that our flag is being replaced by leftist imagery at the White House. https://t.co/ziuA93WIQU
(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Former Attorney General Bill Barr has found himself in the crosshairs of former President Donald Trump and several conservative personalities after voicing support for the Biden Department of Justice’s decision to prosecute Trump over alleged mishandling of classified documents.
Trump took to Truth Social to blast Barr as “Gutless Pig” and urged his supporters to turn off Fox News whenever he appears. “Barr’s doing it because he hates ‘Trump’ for firing him,” the former president said on Sunday. “He was deathly afraid of the Radical Left when they said they would Impeach him.”
Trump’s fired-up remarks came in response to Barr’s interview with Fox News’s Shannon Bream on Sunday, during which Barr referred to the DOJ’s indictment as “very damning.” Barr dismissed Trump’s defense, claiming, “This idea of presenting Trump as a victim here, a victim of a witch hunt is ridiculous.”
Barr agreed with the general consensus that the DOJ persecuted Trump, saying, “Yes, he’s been a victim in the past. Yes, his adversaries have obsessively pursued him with phony claims, and I’ve been at his side defending against him when he is a victim.” Barr claimed, however, this was not the case.
Barr’s remarks were not well received by several conservative personalities who took to Twitter to criticize the former attorney general.
Fox News contributor Leo Terrell labeled Barr a “RINO” and “an embarrassment to the Republican Party.”
Newsmax Host Eric Bolling echoed Terrell’s sentiments, stating, “With over 70 years of legal experience between them, I can’t wait to remind America how foolish #BillBarr and @glennkirschner2 look when these two prove to be nothing more (or less) than having a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
Hey Bill Barr aka RINO: You are an embarrassment to the Republican Party!
Fox News Host and renowned author Mark Levin joined in, calling Barr “a disgrace” and accusing him of “campaigning for Trump indictment” while providing cover to the DOJ.”
In a subsequent tweet, which has surpassed over half a million views, Levin highlighted the lunacy of prosecuting a case involving classified documents. “Hey, Bill Barr, did you ever read classified information when you were driven back and forth from DOJ and your house?” Barr asked. “That’s a violation of the Espionage Act. […] You’re appearing on TV more than Michael Avenatti did because of your hate for Trump but nobody grills you.”
Bill Barr is a disgrace, campaigning for Trump indictment, giving cover to DOJhttps://t.co/RbezJ5g1YD
(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) An attorney representing former President Donald Trump has announced his client’s response to potential plea deals in relation to the 37-count indictment issued by the Department of Justice over the alleged mishandling of classified documents.
During an interview with Fox News’ Shannon Bream on Sunday, Alina Habba made a bold declaration, stating that Trump would not accept any plea offers from the Biden-led DOJ.
When Bream asked whether Trump would prefer to focus on his bid for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidency, Habba firmly responded, “No, I could never imagine, I know I would never advise that especially when he’s not done anything wrong. You take a plea deal to make something go away. That’s an admission of guilt. He would never admit guilt because there was nothing wrong with declassifying documents, taking documents with you and negotiating with NARA.”
Habba blasted the FBI for raiding the Trump Mar-a-Lago estate and voiced discontent with the DOJ’s reluctance to prosecute alleged crimes of high-profile Democrats.
“The only thing that was done was the raid on his home and the complete dual-tier system of justice that we’re seeing here when the Biden family is being treated completely differently than the Trump family,” Habba emphasized. “To plea is exactly what they would want, right?”
Habba’s defense comes amidst mounting suggestions from leftist personalities, who argue that Trump should drop out of the presidential race and plea the charges.
“This is very simple, we saw Rachel Maddow say it on MSNBC, or MSDNC as he calls it, ‘Maybe he would just say, ‘I won’t run for office’ and plea out that way,’” Habba added. “No way, it makes sense. You plea when you’ve done something wrong or when you have no shoot, we have strong defenses.”
Trump-Russia conspiracy theorist @Maddow says "you have to wonder" if the DOJ would drop Trump's case in exchange for him never "running for office again." @Lawrence reminds her that this is exactly what Trump accuses the DOJ of trying to achieve: pic.twitter.com/ivP9pGSCSJ
Habba’s reference to a stunning exchange between Maddow and MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell on Friday highlights the DOJ’s intention to prevent Trump from running for president by taking the unprecedented step of prosecuting a former president and leading presidential candidate.
Trump himself took to Truth Social to label the indictments as election interference and torched his former Attorney General, Bill Barr, for suggesting otherwise. “Barr’s doing it because he hates ‘TRUMP’ for firing him,” the former president said on Sunday. “He was deathly afraid of the Radical Left when they said they would Impeach him. He knows the Indictment is Bull…. Turn off FoxNews when that “Gutless Pig” is on!”
According to the Daily Wire, in August 2022, the ballots were discovered in a storage locker in Thetford Township but just disclosed after the town’s supervisor, Rachel Stanke, filed a freedom of information request and discussed the findings at a municipal meeting this week.
Michigan State Police stated that the ballots, which were found in a locker owned by the deputy town clerk, appear to mostly be spoiled.
It was important to bring the discovery to light so citizens could trust future elections, according to Stanke, who was tipped off in 2021 that some absentee ballots might be missing.
“That’s why I want to bring this to their attention,” she said. “And I want them to be able to make sure that their elections are run fairly and smoothly.”
Voters could be sent a new one or go pick one up if their absentee ballot is spoiled.
“Say they didn’t receive their ballot or they lost it or their dog ate it. They would have to come into the township and write a letter I believe show their ID and be issued a new ballot,” Stanke said.
She also said that the ballots had been accidentally stored at the facility by a former city employee.
“She was not aware when she was asked to store them in there. She thought they were old township documents,” Stanke said.
Members of the community want to make sure that future elections will be fair, Katie Hicks, a candidate for township clerk in 2020 who lost by just 19 votes, said.
“Now this is all coming out and… I’m kind of happy that it’s coming out because the election is right around the corner again,” she said. “And it concerns me that this will take place again in 2024.”
(Headline USA) An elevated section of Interstate 95 collapsed early Sunday in Philadelphia after a vehicle caught fire, closing the main north-south highway on the East Coast and threatening to upend travel in parts of the densely populated Northeast, authorities said.
Transportation officials warned of extensive delays and street closures and urged drivers to avoid the area. Early reports indicated that the vehicle may have been a tanker truck, but officials could not immediately confirm that. The fire was reported to be under control.
Video from the scene showed a massive concrete slab had fallen from I-95 onto the road below in northeast Philadelphia. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
The northbound lanes of I-95 were gone, and the southbound lanes were “compromised” due to heat from the fire, said Derek Bowmer, battalion chief of the Philadelphia Fire Department. Runoff from the fire or perhaps broken gas lines were causing explosions underground, he added.
Mark Fusetti, a retired Philadelphia police sergeant, said he was driving south toward the city’s airport when he noticed thick plumes of black smoke rising over the highway. As he passed the fire, the road beneath began to “dip,” creating a noticeable depression that was visible in video he took of the scene, he said.
He saw traffic in his rearview mirror come to a halt. Soon after, the northbound lanes of the highway crumbled.
“It was crazy timing,” Fusetti said. “For it to buckle and collapse that quickly, it’s pretty remarkable.”
Officials were also concerned about the environmental effects of runoff into the nearby Delaware River.
“Today’s going to be a long day. And obviously, with 95 northbound gone and southbound questionable, it’s going to be even longer than that,” said Dominick Mireles, director of Philadelphia’s Office of Emergency Management.
Heavy construction equipment would be required to start to remove the debris, he said.
Officials planned to launch a drone to assess the damage.
The fire was strikingly similar to another blaze in Philadelphia in March 1996, when an illegal tire dump under I-95 caught fire, melting guard rails and buckling the pavement.
The highway was closed for several weeks, and partial closures lasted for six months. Seven teenagers were charged with arson. The dump’s owner was sentenced to seven to 14 years in prison and ordered to pay $3 million of the $6.5 million repair costs, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
More recently in Atlanta, a massive fire collapsed an elevated portion of Interstate 85, shutting down the heavily traveled route through the heart of the city in March 2017. A homeless man was accused of starting the blaze, but federal investigators said in a report that the state transportation department’s practice of storing combustible construction materials under the highway increased the risk of fire.
(Headline USA) Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, the Harvard-educated mathematician who retreated to a solitary shack in the Montana wilderness and ran a 17-year bombing campaign that killed three people and injured 23 others, died Saturday. He was 81.
Branded the “Unabomber” by the FBI, Kaczynski died at the federal prison medical center in Butner, North Carolina, Kristie Breshears, a spokesperson for the federal Bureau of Prisons, told The Associated Press. He was found unresponsive in his cell early Saturday morning and was pronounced dead around 8 a.m., she said. A cause of death was not immediately known.
Before his transfer to the prison medical facility, he had been held in the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, since May 1998, when he was sentenced to four life sentences plus 30 years for a campaign of terror that set universities nationwide on edge. He admitted committing 16 bombings from 1978 and 1995, permanently maiming several of his victims.
He forced The Washington Post, in conjunction with The New York Times, to make the agonizing decision in September 1995 to publish his 35,000-word manifesto, “Industrial Society and Its Future,” which claimed modern society and technology was degrading human capacity and dignity.
But it led to his undoing. Kaczynski’s brother, David, and David’s wife, Linda Patrik, recognized the treatise’s tone and tipped off the FBI, which had been searching for the Unabomber for years in nation’s longest, costliest manhunt.
Authorities in April 1996 found him in a 10-by-14-foot (3-by-4-meter) plywood and tarpaper cabin outside Lincoln, Montana, that was filled with journals, a coded diary, explosive ingredients and two completed bombs.
Kaczynski hated the idea of being viewed as mentally ill and when his lawyers attempted to present an insanity defense, he tried to fire them.
Kaczynski eventually pleaded guilty rather than let his defense team proceed with an insanity defense.
“I’m confident that I’m sane,” Kaczynski told Time magazine in 1999. “I don’t get delusions and so forth.”
He was certainly brilliant.
Kaczynski skipped two grades to attend Harvard at age 16 and had published papers in prestigious mathematics journals. His explosives were carefully tested and came in meticulously handcrafted wooden boxes sanded to remove possible fingerprints. Later bombs bore the signature “FC” for “Freedom Club.”
The FBI called him the “Unabomber” because his early targets seemed to be universities and airlines. An altitude-triggered bomb he mailed in 1979 went off as planned aboard an American Airlines flight; a dozen people aboard suffered from smoke inhalation.
Kaczynski killed computer rental store owner Hugh Scrutton, advertising executive Thomas Mosser and timber industry lobbyist Gilbert Murray. California geneticist Charles Epstein and Yale University computer expert David Gelernter were maimed by bombs two days apart in June 1993.
The Washington Post printed the Unabomber’s manifesto at the urging of federal authorities, after the bomber said he would desist from terrorism if a national publication published his treatise.
The investigation and prosecution were overseen by now-Attorney General Merrick Garland, during a previous stint at the Justice Department.
David Kaczynski wanted his role kept confidential, but his identity quickly leaked out and Ted Kaczynski vowed never to forgive his younger sibling. He ignored his letters, turned his back on him at court hearings and described David Kaczynski in a 1999 book draft as a “Judas Iscariot (who) … doesn’t even have enough courage to go hang himself.”
Ted Kaczynski was born May 22, 1942, in Chicago, the son of second-generation Polish Catholics — a sausage-maker and a homemaker. He played the trombone in the school band, collected coins and skipped the sixth and 11th grades.
He learned to garden, hunt, make tools and sew, living on a few hundred dollars a year.
(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Although former President Donald Trump’s speaking schedule was booked weeks in advance, one could be forgiven for thinking he was determined to prove that the news of yet another politically motivated criminal indictment would do little to derail him in his mission to regain the White House.
Back-to-back appearances Saturday at two separate state Republican conventions (Georgia and North Carolina) hearkened back somewhat to the final stretch of the 2020 race, when Trump at one point maxed out at five rallies in a single day, going all the way from Florida to Michigan.
Of course, as Trump pointed out in his second rally on Saturday, at the North Carolina Republican Convention in Greensboro, the 2024 campaign season has barely even begun.
Nonetheless, Trump noted massive crowds of supporters at every stop he made along the way.
“You’ve never seen the streets, tremendous crowds at the airport waiting… people all along the roadway, and this is not really the campaign season,” he said at the NCGOP convention.
“People are disgusted by what’s going on in the our country,” he added. “They want America back.”
His speech capped off a busy weekend for the North Carolina Republicans that also featured appearances from two former-allies-turned-rivals, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence—in addition to a party vote to censure RINO Sen. Thom Tillis.
True to form, Trump was both epic and unwieldy, often discursive in his roughly 90-minute talk, ranting on some of his favorite grievances, reminiscing about his first-term accomplishments and outlining a bold agenda that makes up in ambition for what it might, in some instances, lack in feasibility.
Among his proposals, for example, was a mass-deportation initiative on a scale never before seen to correct the open-borders policies of the Biden administration, which Trump estimated will have resulted in more than 15 million illegals by the end of Biden’s third year—more than the population of New York state.
The proposal is likely to see the same resistance, however, from so-called sanctuary cities that Trump’s earlier efforts to enforce immigration law encountered, even if many of those cities themselves now complain bitterly about the migrant situations being forced upon them.
Trump also proposed an executive order that would end birthright citizenship for illegals—something he previously floated during his first term that is, once again, likely to run into legal issues based on the 14th Amendment.
He failed to elaborate on how he would navigate such a plan through the courts.
Like DeSantis and Pence, Trump also promised to crack down on woke cultural affronts, such as the promotion of transgenderism and critical race theory in schools, and the assaults on parents’ rights and women in sports—all of which have emerged as top GOP concerns in the coming election season.
Even as conservatives’ leading champion in cultural warfare, Trump seemed surprised at the speed at which these issues had emerged at the forefront of American politics and the passion that Republicans felt when he brought them up.
“It’s amazing how strong people feel about it. I talk about cutting taxes, people go like that,” he said, mimicking a light applause. “I talk about transgender, everyone goes crazy. Who would’ve thought? Five years ago, you didn’t know what the hell it was.”
Trump also said that he would end the war between Russia and Ukraine within his first 24 hours as president, if it had not already happened by then, and that he was the only leader capable of preventing a full-fledged global war from breaking out due to his diplomatic experience and relationships.
“I’m the only candidate who can make this promise: I will prevent World War III,” he said.
“And we’re much closer than you think, right now, to having it,” he continued. “And at some point, it will happen. I will prevent it. … I know ’em all, I know how to deal with them, I deal with them—and I’m not saying I know how, but I will get it done.”
Trump also appealed to his experience in dealing with politics in the Washington, D.C., swamp, acknowledging what many consider to be one of his greatest first-term mistakes in choosing high-ranking officials who were more loyal to the administrative state than to their duly-elected leader.
He pledged that he would be able to create a far more functional administration early on.
“I’ve been through it. I know the good people, I know the bad people. I know weak people and strong people,” he said. “I know the people that are losers that we don’t want, I know the people that are winners that a lot of people don’t know or understand.”
Having strong allies will be essential to fighting an unprecedented internal threat from the Left, which Trump said he no longer refers to as the “deep state.”
“I’m using Marxist, I’m using fascist, I’m using communist because ‘deep state’ is far too soft,” he said.
He specifically name-checked Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco and special counsel Jack Smith (along with his ideologue wife) as being among the most vicious.
However, somewhere between Georgia and North Carolina, Trump’s legal team may have suggested he tone it down some in discussing his ongoing lawsuits and investigations.
During his earlier speech at Georgia’s GOP convention, Trump reportedly had much more to say about the lawfare attacks against him, including a pledge to investigate the corrupt prosecutors themselves if re-elected. But some media outlets, such as the Atlanta Journal–Constitution, speculated that Trump’s remarks might be used against him in his ongoing criminal cases.
Several times when he began to discuss the recent indictments at his North Carolina speech, he abruptly pivoted back into an entirely different subject altogether.
Still, Trump made clear, as he has for the past seven years, that he had no intention of backing down or being muzzled—particularly now, with the stakes as high as they’ve ever been both for him personally and for the country.
“At the end of the day either the communists destroy America or we destroy the communists,” he said.
“…What’s happening to our country is a disgrace,” he continued. “But I promise you this: If you put me back in the White House, their reign will be over and America will be a free nation once again.”
As Sen. Tillis has gained influence in Congress for being a RINO, his caving on social issues has cost him the support of many state Republicans.
Several delegates in Greensboro criticized Tillis, for his work last year on the Respect For Marriage Act, which enshrined protections for sodomite marriages in federal law.
Both the state and national GOP platforms oppose sodomite marriage. But Tillis, who had opposed it earlier in his political career, was among the early supporters of the law who lobbied his GOP colleagues in Congress to vote in favor of it.
Still others lambasted Tillis for supporting a measure that provided funds for red flag laws.
The North Carolina senator was also slammed for opposing Trump’s plan to use military construction dollars to build a wall along the nation’s southern border.
While the vote Saturday, which took place behind closed doors, cannot remove Tillis from office, supporters said they hope it sends a firm message of dissatisfaction.
A two-thirds majority of the state party’s 1,801 voting delegates was needed for the resolution to pass, party spokesperson Jeff Moore said.
“We need people who are unwavering in their support for conservative ideals,” said Jim Forster, an 81-year-old delegate from Guilford. “His recent actions don’t reflect the party’s shift to the right — in fact, they’re moving in the exact wrong direction.”
(Headline USA) China has been operating a spy base in Cuba since at least 2019, as part of a global effort by Beijing to upgrade its intelligence-gathering capabilities, according to an anonymous American official.
The official said the U.S. intelligence community has been aware of China’s spying from Cuba and a larger effort to set up intelligence-gathering operations around the globe for some time.
The existence of the Chinese spy base was confirmed after The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that China and Cuba had reached an agreement in principle to build an electronic eavesdropping station on the island. The Journal reported China planned to pay a cash-strapped Cuba billions of dollars as part of the negotiations.
The U.S. intelligence community had determined Chinese spying from Cuba has been an “ongoing” matter and is “not a new development,” the administration official said.
Joe Biden‘s national security team was briefed by the intelligence community soon after he took office in January 2021 about a number of sensitive Chinese efforts around the globe where Beijing was weighing expanding logistics, basing and collection infrastructure as part of the People’s Liberation Army’s attempt to further its influence, the official said.
Chinese officials looked at sites spanning the Atlantic Ocean, Latin America, the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa and the Indo-Pacific. The effort included looking at existing collection facilities in Cuba, and China conducted an upgrade of its spying operation on the island in 2019, the official said.
Tensions between the U.S. and China have been fraught throughout Biden’s term.
The relationship may have hit a nadir last year after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to democratically governed Taiwan. That visit, the first by a sitting House speaker since Newt Gingrich in 1997, led China, which claims the island as its territory, to launch military exercises around Taiwan.
U.S.-China relations became further strained early this year after the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon that had crossed the United States.
Beijing also was angered by Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s stopover in the U.S. last month that included an encounter with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The speaker hosted the Taiwanese leader at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in southern California.
