Two weeks ago, Indiana police officer Rob Pitt was shot and killed by a homicide suspect during an exchange of gunfire.
WGNTV reports that Pitt’s son, Dakota, returned back to school Monday in touching fashion.
For his first day back to school, Dakota asked if one of his dad’s friends could drive him in his dad’s police car.
Upon his arrival, Dakota discovered 70 Terre Haute police officers and Vigo County sheriff’s deputies waiting to welcome him to school.
Dakota asked his mom if one of his dad’s friends could drive him to school for his first day back. Little did he know that would turn into 70 Terre Haute and Vigo County officers showing up in Sullivan. He was shocked ? pic.twitter.com/lbXquLdTJU
Those who have followed the liberal media’s negative coverage of President Donald Trump’s administration know that every few weeks, a story will emerge alleging chaos and near-resignations among key members of the cabinet and staff in an effort to sow discord among supporters and undermine the effectiveness of Trump’s team
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was the latest target of such stories, as reports late last week suggested she was close to resigning her position.
Politico reported Thursday that Nielsen had composed a resignation letter and nearly handed it in following a severe tongue-lashing by Trump at a cabinet meeting the previous day in regard to illegal immigration and border security.
The president was reportedly unhappy that border crossings by illegal immigrants had once again surged to unacceptable levels this year after they had fallen to historically low levels in 2017, and seemed to cast the brunt of the blame for that development on Nielsen’s supposed lax enforcement of border security.
Politico also reported that once Chief of Staff John Kelly and Vice President Mike Pence received word that Nielsen planned to quit after being berated by Trump in the meeting, they reached out and urged her to reconsider that decision. And it appears she did.
In a statement that neither confirmed nor denied the reports of a planned resignation, Nielsen said, “The president is rightly frustrated that existing loopholes and the lack of Congressional action have prevented this administration from fully securing the border and protecting the American people. I share his frustration.”
Are you happy that DHS Sec. Nielsen did not resign?
She said the complex issue of border security was of vital importance to America’s sovereignty.
“I will continue to direct the department to do all we can to implement the president’s security-focused agenda,” Nielsen said.
Despite multiple reports from several media outlets citing unnamed sources — initially reported by The New York Times — a spokesman for DHS denied that Nielsen had drafted a resignation letter or was on the verge of quitting.
The @nytimes article alleging that the Secretary drafted a resignation letter yesterday and was close to resigning is false. The Secretary is hard at work today on the President’s security-focused agenda and supporting the men and women of @DHSgov.
“The @nytimes article alleging that the Secretary drafted a resignation letter yesterday and was close to resigning is false,” tweeted Tyler Moulton. “The Secretary is hard at work today on the President’s security-focused agenda and supporting the men and women of @DHSgov.”
It would not be a surprise to find out the report of Trump delivering a frustrated message to Nielsen on the topic of increased illegal immigration and lax border security was accurate. The president has made clear countless times that those issues are top priorities for him.
However, he has been met with obstinate obstruction on those measures by Democrat resistance in Congress, as they refuse to fund the border wall or consider his proposals for immigration reform.
There was a lull in illicit border crossings last year while everyone waited to see what Trump would do with the border. But with little progress in terms of the wall or dramatically beefed up security, the lull has ended and normal levels of illegal crossings have resumed.
That turn of events would be frustrating to anyone intent on making progress on securing the border, and it’s possible that she may have considered resigning in light of the appearance of failure on her part to achieve and maintain Trump’s goals.
In the end, Nielsen did not resign, nor was she fired in a fit of rage by the president. The latest effort by the media to drive a wedge between Trump and his cabinet members in a bid to make his White House look chaotic and ineffective has thus far been a failure.
This will no doubt make liberals a bit “hot” under the collar.
A so-called “climate change monitoring system” has just been scrapped by the Trump administration, saving taxpayer money but sending backers of global warming theories into a tailspin.
According to the Washington Examiner, the proposed Carbon Monitoring System would have used satellites to study signs of climate change at a cost of $10 million a year.
However, the NASA-backed program is nowhere to be found in the federal spending deal signed last month, making it essentially grounded.
“NASA spokesman Steve Cole told (Science Magazine) that existing grants for the program will be allowed to finish but no new research will be supported,” according to the Examiner report.
“NASA declined to provide a reason for the cancellation beyond ‘budget constraints and higher priorities within the science budget,’” the news source said.
However, Phil Duffy, president of the famed Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts, made it clear that he blames the cuts on Trump.
Duffy told the Examiner the monitoring system is an obvious target for the Trump administration because of its association with the Paris climate change agreement and its work with other nations to help them understand their greenhouse gas emissions.
Should America continue funding global warming studies?
Trump drew applause from conservatives and boos from liberals when he withdrew from the Paris agreement last year.
“The Paris Climate Accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries,” Trump said about the decision to walk away from the accord last June.
“Thus, as of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris Accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country,” he said. “This includes ending the implementation of the nationally determined contribution and, very importantly, the Green Climate Fund which is costing the United States a vast fortune.”
Many liberals have sounded the alarm on global warming, although it is more often referred to by its updated nomenclature of “climate change.” Despite frequent claims that “the science is settled” on the issue, however, there are many mixed findings about man-made global warming.
“At least 400 scientific papers have been written this year alone that raise serious doubts regarding the theory that recent changes in the Earth’s climate are primarily caused by rising carbon dioxide emissions,” Conservative Tribune reported last year.
There is also evidence that global warming alarmists have made serious miscalculations in their climate models. One major study, for example, failed to properly take into account the CO2 spewed naturally by volcanoes, like the one currently erupting in Hawaii.
“Those eruptions happened relatively early in our study period, which pushed down temperatures in the first part of the dataset, which caused the overall record to show an exaggerated warming trend,” a scientist involved in that study found after pouring over the data.
In other words, climate alarmists were just wrong.
Scientists can, of course, conduct studies that help us understand our world better, but that research needs to be politically neutral — and make financial sense. Trashing the entire economy based on a limited understanding of the climate is foolish, and it’s about time a president pointed this out.
The Republican-led state of Iowa leapt to the forefront of the pro-life movement with a new law that would ban abortions once the baby’s heartbeat was discovered, which could occur as soon as six weeks after conception.
As incredible as that news is for those opposed to the wanton murder of unborn babies, Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds made it clear over the weekend that she isn’t content to rest on the laurels of that pro-life victory, according to The Hill.
Speaking Saturday to the annual gathering of the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, Reynolds celebrated the passage and her signing of what is known as the “fetal heartbeat” bill, but added, “We know that our work is not done.”
“We are No. 1 in the country when it comes to protecting life,” Reynolds told those in attendance, according to the Des Moines Register. “I believe all innocent life is precious and sacred, and as governor I pledge to you to do everything in my power to protect life.
“We know that our work is not done, that we must continue to work together to change the hearts and mind. But I’ll tell you what, we’re not slowing down, we’re not going to stop. It’s a fight worth fighting.”
Assuming it is not blocked by threatened legal challenges from abortion provider Planned Parenthood, the final version of the “fetal heartbeat” bill will become law on July 1.
It would require women seeking an abortion to first obtain an abdominal ultrasound from a physician.
If that physician detects a heartbeat, an abortion would no longer be permitted, save for certain instances such as officially reported cases of incest or rape, a partial miscarriage or significant health abnormalities for the baby.
Do you support the Iowa governor’s continued fight for the pro-life movement?
“I think it’s going to save a lot of lives,” Lynn Vogel, president of the Southern Iowa Republican Women, said of the new law. “That innocent child can’t help it, so I think it’s important to protect them.”
Other attendees at the event praised the new law as well as Reynolds for her leadership in signing it despite shrill cries of outrage from the left, which views the legislation as a direct challenge to the 1973 Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision.
Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas said, “I’m not kidding when I said that I hope and literally pray that this is the start and we will carry through.”
Fellow GOP Rep. Steve King of Iowa said his state “set the standard” with its pro-life law, adding that he was quite pleased with the legislation that had emerged from Iowa’s General Assembly over the past couple of years.
King’s remarks were echoed by Iowa state House Majority Leader Chris Hagenow, who said conservative legislators “were undeterred” in passage of the bill despite having to “deal with every nasty thing” said to and about them by their liberal counterparts.
He said that on the morning of the vote on that bill, he had shared a certain Bible verse with a fellow lawmaker, one that he viewed as motivation for the political fight: Acts 18:9, which reads: “One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: ‘Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent.’”
“You are the people,” Hagenow told the crowd. “You are the people who are with us, so we can keep speaking, and so we can keep on marching forward.”
The fact that this bill was passed and signed into law is a tremendous victory in and of itself for the pro-life movement.
The additional fact that Reynolds and other conservative lawmakers have vowed to not let up and to continue the fight to protect the lives of the unborn is awesome and incredibly hopeful news as well.
There is little doubt that the liberal media have invested themselves deeply into Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged Russian interference and collusion with the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.
In fact, some members of the media have all but joined with elected Democrats and liberals across the country in viewing Mueller as some sort of savior who will prove to be the ultimate downfall of President Donald Trump, uncovering evidence that will lead to his impeachment from office and even indictments and conviction for unspecified crimes.
As such, when CBS News recently conducted a poll with regard to the Mueller investigation, the results ran so counter to the prevailing media narrative of how the public views it that CBS declined to even report the results on its network broadcasts, only posting the results on its website.
The CBS poll found only 44 percent of Americans thought the Mueller investigation was “justified,” while 53 percent said it was “politically motivated.” That is a significant change since the same question was posed in December, when 46 percent believed the investigation was justified and only 48 percent thought it was politically motivated.
Republicans, not surprisingly, believed the investigation was politically motivated by a huge margin of 88-11 percent., while Democrats claimed the probe was justified by a margin of 72-23 percent.
Interestingly, independents leaned toward the right on that question, with 54 percent viewing the investigation as politically motivated versus 42 percent who believed it was justified.
Furthermore, while 76 percent of all respondents thought Trump should cooperate with Mueller and submit to an interview if requested, that is down from the 84 percent who thought Trump should cooperate in January — a clear sign that the American people are growing impatient with the ongoing probe into the alleged misdeeds of the president’s campaign and associates.
Newsbusters made light of the fact that while CBS failed to broadcast the results of its own poll — as it undercuts the pro-Mueller narrative — Fox News picked up the slack and reported the results on its network last week.
Is Mueller’s investigation of Trump and Russia politically motivated?
“Well, a new poll from CBS finds that the majority of Americans, 53 percent, now view special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation as a politically motivated operation,” Tucker Carlson reported on his May 8 program.
“And you can see why they might conclude that,” he added. “The Democratic Party seems to be agreeing with that interpretation and adding to it.
“Recent fund-raising emails from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have lied about the investigation itself. They have claimed that if the party can collect 1 million signatures, it will somehow force President Trump to give testimony to Mueller’s investigators … because that’s how it works.”
Sean Hannity also chimed in on the poll results.
“According to a brand-new CBS News poll, more Americans now think, rightly so, Robert Mueller’s witch-hunt is, in fact, politically motivated,” Hannity said during his May 8 program. “Now, this comes as the mainstream, destroy Trump media continues to do Mueller’s bidding.
“According to NewsBusters, get this, CBS, NBC spent a combined 30 seconds on the recent beat-down last Friday of the special counsel investigation from a federal judge,” Hannity added, referencing a judge who questioned the scope of Mueller’s authority in the increasingly wide-ranging probe.
“And meanwhile, President Trump’s poll numbers, they’re rising,” noted Hannity. “This despite a NewsBusters study showing that network news broadcasts in this country featured negative stories about the president 90 percent of the time. Wow.”
The most absurd part of the Newsbusters report is that CBS did, in fact, broadcast the results of a poll last week, though it was one from CNN which showed that first lady Melania Trump’s favorability had risen significantly over the past few months. No mention was made of CBS’ own poll which cast the Mueller investigation in a poor light.
The American people always want to see justice prevail against wrongdoing, but they hate seeing the search for “justice” perverted by blatant political motivations, which is increasingly what the Mueller investigation appears to be.
Hopefully this political witch hunt will soon draw to an acceptable conclusion.
POTUS Trump Puts White House Leakers on Notice “We Will Find Out Who They Are”
by Cristina Laila May 14, 2018
President Trump put White House leakers on notice Monday afternoon.
“We will find out who they are,” said the President after referring to leakers as “traitors and cowards.”
A recent leak from the White House about a Trump staffer’s disparaging remarks about John McCain set media ablaze.
Leaks from #NeverTrumpers and Obama holdovers have plagued his administration from day one.
It’s time to find out who these people are and hold them accountable.
President Trump put the “traitors and cowards” on notice from his Twitter account Monday.
Trump tweeted: The so-called leaks coming out of the White House are a massive over exaggeration put out by the Fake News Media in order to make us look as bad as possible. With that being said, leakers are traitors and cowards, and we will find out who they are!
The so-called leaks coming out of the White House are a massive over exaggeration put out by the Fake News Media in order to make us look as bad as possible. With that being said, leakers are traitors and cowards, and we will find out who they are!
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Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney decried the pastor that President Trump chose to pray at the historic ceremony for the opening of the U.S. embassy for Israel in Jerusalem.
Here’s what he said
Romney posted a tweet voicing his anger over Trump’s pastor pick.
Robert Jeffress says “you can’t be saved by being a Jew,“ and “Mormonism is a heresy from the pit of hell.” He’s said the same about Islam. Such a religious bigot should not be giving the prayer that opens the United States Embassy in Jerusalem.
“Robert Jeffress says ‘you can’t be saved by being a Jew,’ and ‘Mormonism is a heresy from the pit of hell,’” he tweeted. “He’s said the same about Islam.”
“Such a religious bigot should not be giving the prayer that opens the United States Embassy in Jerusalem,” he concluded.
“Neither bigoted nor newsworthy.”
Pastor Jeffress is a Southern Baptist, and the quotes attributed to him by Romney are accurate. Jeffress responded to the critique from Romney and defended his comments in his own tweet.
“Historic Christianity has taught for 2,000 years that salvation is through faith in Christ alone,” he said. “The fact that I, along with tens of millions of evangelical Christians around the world, continue to espouse that belief, is neither bigoted nor newsworthy.”
Historic Christianity has taught for 2,000 years that salvation is through faith in Christ alone. The fact that I, along with tens of millions of evangelical Christians around the world, continue to espouse that belief, is neither bigoted nor newsworthy.
— Dr. Robert Jeffress (@robertjeffress) May 14, 2018
The move of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem has been decided since 1995, but each president since then has postponed it.
Jeffress spoke about why the moment was so historic and significant while on Fox News.
“This is a historic moment because it represents the United States recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” he said, “something that the Bible and secular history has told us for three thousand years.”
“And what’s remarkable about that is simply this – if indeed Jerusalem has been the capital for three thousand years, it blows apart the myth perpetrated by the left that the Jews stole this land from the Palestinians 70 years ago,” he added. “The fact is, it has belonged to them for three thousand years. And that’s why this is so significant.”
Here’s Jeffress’ prayer at the dedication in Jerusalem:
On Monday, the virulently anti-Semitic icon of the Women’s March, Linda Sarsour, decided to attack the idea of President Trump as the greatest president for the Jewish people in American history in the most ironic way possible: by sanctimoniously citing someone else’s supposed anti-Semitism.
Sarsour’s odyssey into hypocrisy was precipitated by Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s simple homage to Trump:
Surveillance video shows a 9-year-boy with autism being tormented and abused by two adults on a school bus in suburban Chicago over the course of several months, WBBM-TV reported.
Criminal cases against the bus aide and bus driver were wrapped up in July 2017, but WBBM’s report Friday includes sad, shocking video clips recorded inside the school bus the year before.
What’s the background?
Nicky O’Toole — now 11 — has autism and struggles to communicate, the station said, adding that 2016 surveillance video shows school bus aide Joyce Jones threatening Nicky — and hitting him. A whopping 27 times in three months, WBBM said.
At one point she’s seen apparently punching Nicky, and the boy responded with a loud “Ow!” In another clip she told Nicky, “Stomp again, and I’ll stomp you.”
Image source: WBBM-TV video screenshot
The Chicago Tribune noted a clip during a bus ride home in which Jones told Nicky — with fist cocked above her head — “Let’s see who gets the biggest hit.”
Image source: WBBM-TV video screenshot
Video also caught bus driver Joseph Hamilton once yelling at Nicky, “You little monster! … I’m going to throw you out the window head first!”
“I hate him,” Hamilton also was heard saying on the video, as well as telling joking with Jones about slapping Nicky — “Give me five on that” — and remarking, “That little porky … He doesn’t know better.”
In another clip, Jones appeared to show remorse for slapping Nicky — “What I did today was wrong, very wrong. And it was not like me to do that.” — but she then told Hamilton they would need to cover up what had transpired, WBBM said.
“We need to write today up that he’s violent in order to protect us,” Jones also was heard saying on surveillance video. Hamilton’s response? “Alright.”
A worried mother
Nicky’s mother, Leslie O’Toole, told WBBM she couldn’t understand why her son for months was crying about going to school, which is in the Indian Prairie School District 204.
“I was noticing he didn’t want to go to school,” O’Toole recounted to the station. “He would be crying, ‘Mommy, I’m scared.’”
But because of Nicky’s autism, he couldn’t communicate what was going on — and his mother certainly didn’t expect the adults on the bus, who worked for First Student bus company, WBBM said.
“I never would have thought it, not once,” O’Toole added to the station. “I hugged the aide. I thanked the aide for taking care of Nicky.”
Image source: WBBM-TV video screenshot
But once she became suspicious, the district took a look at surveillance videos, WBBM said.
“They knew that he couldn’t tell his mom,” O’Toole explained to the station. She added that police have even more videos — and in one of them she said Nicky was asked, “What kind of mother would want a child like you?”
O’Toole also told WBBM that months of disturbing videos are in First Student’s possession.
“Nobody screens them,” she told the station. “This was over and over and over again.”
A ‘well-developed special-needs training program’?
While First Student’s contract with the school district said the bus company provides a “well-developed special-needs training program,” one of O’Toole’s attorneys beg to differ, WBBM reported.
“She got three days of training, but nothing of it had anything to do with special-needs children,” Michael Krzak of Krzak and Rundio Law told the station.
Image source: WBBM-TV video screenshot
“First Student failed my child,” O’Toole added to WBBM. “These two people failed my child.”
What did the former bus aide and former bus driver have to say?
The station said it couldn’t reach Jones for comment, adding that she was convicted of six counts of misdemeanor battery and given 30 days in jail.
Joyce Jones (Image source: Naperville, Illinois, Police Department)
In court last year Jones testified that it was necessary to sometimes hit the boy to stop him from striking her or from striking himself, which she said the boy would do when he became frustrated, the Tribune reported.
“I was protecting him from himself and protecting me from him,” Jones said, the paper added — although she also admitted smacking the boy in the mouth after he spat in her face.
A WBBM reporter caught up with Hamilton — who pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and received community service — as he was walking to his car, but he didn’t respond to any questions.
Image source: WBBM-TV video screenshot
Jones and the bus driver made the 30-minute ride home from school “a living hell for the child,” a judge at Jones’ trial said, the Tribune reported.
Here’s a statement from First Student, WBBM reported:
At First Student, the safe and reliable transportation of our student passengers is our highest priority. It is a responsibility we take very seriously. Certainly, we understand and appreciate the concern an incident such as this can cause. When this incident took place more than two years ago, our team immediately investigated the matter and moved to terminate each employee as soon as we were made aware of the specifics.
First Student’s monitors and drivers are highly trained. These actions of our former employees are completely at odds with our training and what we stand for as a company.
We are unable to comment further since the issue is currently in active litigation.
Google’s involvement in a Pentagon project that uses artificial intelligence to analyze footage taken by aerial drones has reportedly caused a dozen company employees to resign in protest.
Ethical concerns over the AI powering drone warfare, and Google’s involvement in the project clashing with its “do-gooder principles,” are among the reasons why the employees are departing, Gizmodoreports.
The resignations come as Google staffers have been circulating an internal letter, demanding that the company end its involvement with Project Maven, a Defense Department initiative to integrate AI into the US military.
Project Maven specifically seeks to tap computer vision technology to analyze countless hours of aerial drone footage for anything human eyes might have missed. The first goal of the project has been to help the Pentagon defeat the terrorist group ISIS in the hopes the AI system can enhance “military decision-making.”
However, Google’s involvement in the effort has triggered resistance within company ranks. Almost 4,000 employees signed an internal letter demanding Google pull out from the project, according to Bloomberg. For perspective, Google’s parent, Alphabet, has 85,000 employees.
On Monday, over 200 professors, scientists, and academics also signed an open letter, opposing Google’s participation in Project Maven, claiming that the technologies at stake could be easily weaponzied.
“We are then just a short step away from authorizing autonomous drones to kill automatically, without human supervision or meaningful human control,” the letter reads.
So far, Google hasn’t commented on the reported resignations. But the company previously said its participation in Project Maven has been focused on “non-offensive purposes.” The computer vision technology involved is also open-source and available to any Google Cloud customer.
Google also previously told PCMag: “The technology is used to flag images for human review and is intended to save lives and save people from having to do highly tedious work.”
Even so, Google’s arguments aren’t placating everyone. According to Gizmodo, the resigning employees were told that that company was fleshing out a new ethics policy on AI research, but that it had yet to materialize.
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