Around 1,000 people attended the Monday funeral of 72-year-old Joseph Walker in Killeen, Texas, a man with no surviving family who had served in the Vietnam War, CBS News reported.

Walker was almost buried in a service attended by no one, but a call was put out by a state agency prior to the service that requested somebody, anybody, show up at the funeral service.

That call was heeded by plenty of patriotic Americans — so much so that there was a massive line of cars waiting to get into the cemetery for the service.

Killeen, Texas: A line of cars stretching for miles to attend the funeral of an Air Force Veteran with no family.. after fears he would be buried with no one attending. pic.twitter.com/IC5z7IlDjh

— Janet Shamlian (@JanetShamlian) January 28, 2019

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One of the attendees, Marc George of the Christian Motorcyclists Association, told CBS, “Today we are not strangers. Today we are family. I don’t have a whole lot of information but it doesn’t matter because once upon a time like a lot of other vets, he signed a blank check for our nation.”

That group of bikers reportedly rode for over 50 miles to attend the service of a veteran they never met, and there was even a flyover by three planes during the service.

Walker was laid to rest with full military honors, including having an American flag draped over his casket and then carefully folded into a triangle for presentation.

Joseph Walker’s funeral was a special moment for Americahttps://t.co/ufl2pGS6ny pic.twitter.com/wNkp6XCK9b

— Jazz Shaw (@JazzShaw) January 29, 2019

As noted, word had initially been spread among the local community about the impending funeral of Walker, which would likely have been held with nobody in attendance.

However, the story was soon noted and shared online by Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who tweeted, “Air Force Veteran Joseph Walker will be laid to rest Monday, and no one is expected to attend. The cemetery said they do not know where his family is and they do not want him to be laid to rest alone, so they are asking the public to attend.”

Air Force Veteran Joseph Walker will be laid to rest Monday, and no one is expected to attend.

The cemetery said they do not know where his family is and they do not want him to be laid to rest alone, so they are asking the public to attend. https://t.co/ydf39wwrBn

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 26, 2019

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In a subsequent tweet from Cruz, the senator shared the date, time and location of the service, which was also widely shared among his more than 3 million followers on the social media platform.

Those tweets from Cruz prompted a cascade of retweets and separate tweets from others about the funeral, which ultimately led to the large crowd of strangers showing up of their own accord to pay respects to the late veteran.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

In October of 2017, a man named Stephen Paddock opened fire on a packed country music festival below him from a perch in the high-rise Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, killing 58 individuals and wounding hundreds more.

Nearly 900 people were wounded in the attack, though not all injuries sustained came from gunshots. Almost immediately, a number of questions were raised about the shooter and what could have motivated him to commit such a terrible atrocity.

Now more than 15 months after that horrifically frightening mass shooting event, the FBI has finally wrapped up its investigation, but the final report really doesn’t include any additional information that wasn’t already known and there remain many unanswered questions.

The Associated Press reported that the FBI said in the report that they were incapable of determining any sort of “single or clear motivating factor” behind the deadly shooting, other than the possibilities that the shooter was dealing with failing health issues and had a desire to become criminally infamous, as his bank-robber father — a fugitive who ended up on the FBI’s Most Wanted list — had been.

Aaron Rouse, FBI special agent in charge of the Las Vegas field office, told the AP, “It wasn’t about MGM, Mandalay Bay or a specific casino or venue.”

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Instead, Rouse said, “It was all about doing the maximum amount of damage and him obtaining some form of infamy.”

The three-page FBI report noted that, aside from the aforementioned desire for infamy and his declining mental and physical health, there were several other “potential motivating factors” that could have prompted the attack, though none are all that satisfying to understanding why the attack was carried out.

Unfortunately, “This report comes as close to understanding the why as we’re ever going to get,” Rouse told the AP.

The report’s findings dismissed the notion that the shooter had any sort of ideological, political or religious motivations for the shooting. It also found that he had acted alone in his commission of mass murder.

The report also noted that, despite there being no “manifesto, video, suicide note or other communication” explaining his reasoning or extensive planning behind the attack, it was determined that the shooter had intended to commit suicide with the one handgun he brought along with the dozens of semi-automatic rifles he used to perform the mass shooting.

All of those rifles, by the way — many of which were equipped with “bump stock” attachments to simulate rapid fire, as well as actual high-capacity magazines, bipods and scopes — were all purchased legally in the year prior to the assault, as was the ammunition used.

The report concluded that the shooter was a private and impersonal man with declining health issues who wanted to go out on his own terms in an infamous blaze of inglorious murder, which in the view of the FBI analysts was “consistent with his personality” and similar to what has been observed in other active shooter situations studied by the FBI.

“He acted alone. He committed a heinous act. He died by his own hand,” Rouse said. “If he wanted to leave a message, he would have left a message. Bottom line is he didn’t want people to know.”

It may very well be true that the shooter committed his murderous atrocity simply because he felt like doing so, but that rather unspecific line of reasoning could be applied to just about every mass shooter who has ever opened fire on a crowd of innocent and vulnerable people.

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Nor is that explanation satisfying in light of the fact that the FBI is widely regarded as the premier investigative agency in the world, and has an all but unlimited pool of resources to pull from. Yet, none of that appears to have helped the bureau determine a specific motive for this attack.

The American people have demanded answers in what is believed to be the worst mass shooting attack in American history, but it appears those answers won’t be coming from the FBI or Las Vegas Police Department, ever.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview on Wednesday that President Donald J. Trump ought to declare a national emergency as well as deploy the military to the southern border to save American lives from the deleterious effects of illegal immigration.

During a Tuesday House Armed Services Committee hearing with Under Secretary of Defense for Policy John Rood, Rood confirmed to Brooks that President Trump could use United States Code 10 (USC) § 284 to build a wall along the border using the military.

Brooks joins a growing number of Republicans, such as Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Mark Meadows (R-NC), and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in  calling for President Trump to use national emergency powers to build the wall, especially if Congress fails to find a way to fund a border wall by February 15.

The Alabama conservative told Breitbart News how this specific code would enable the president to build a barrier along the southern border without declaring a national emergency or obtaining funds through Congress.

Brooks told Breitbart News, “We have a national emergency at the border, the President of the United States ought to declare a national emergency to save roughly 50 American lives per day, or, over 15,000 American lives per year. I encourage the President to use the United States Code 10 Section 284, which empowers the President of the United States to order America’s military to the border, to assist law enforcement agents in the fight against drugs and transnational crime. Interestingly, 10 U.S.C. 284 which has already been approved by Congress, which has already been signed by a president, empowers the Pentagon to deploy both active military and national guard troops to transport personnel, supplies and equipment, establish and operate bases of operation, detect and monitor surface traffic in Mexico. And, within 25 miles of the border in the United States, to construct roads, fences, lighting, to block drugs and smuggling corridors in the aerial and ground reconnaissance.”

Brooks continued, “For emphasis, if you look Webster’s dictionary, Oxford Dictionary, and the like, the word ‘fences,’ it includes barriers, and that is exactly what we need on the southern border, a barrier that will stop illegal aliens and drug traffickers from crossing our southern border.”

Brooks also emphasized to Breitbart News that that, unlike current stipulations in the Continuing Appropriations Act of 2019, 10 USC 284 would allow the president to build any type of barrier on the southern border. Previous appropriations bills such as the Continuing Appropriations Act of 2019 limits the president to building a steel slat or steel bollard-style barriers along the border.

“It can be any type of barrier that is necessary to prevent people that we don’t want coming into our country, intruding into our country,” Brooks said. “Now, keep in mind that the primary function is to stop drug trafficking and to stop transnational organized crime but it has the incidental benefits of stopping illegal aliens.”

Brooks conceded that using 10 USC 284 gives Trump a limited budget, however, Brooks also suggested that the president to use the National Emergencies Act of 1976, which would allow to the president to unlock more federal spending, such as the Military Construction (MILCON) budget.

Breitbart News Legal Editor Ken Klukowski has illustrated how President Trump has the legal authority under the National Emergencies Act of 1976 to reappropriate funds to build a wall along the southern border.

The Alabama congressman said, “10 USC Sec. 284 empowers to deploy the United States military at our border to do things such as constructing barriers, to prevent drug traffickers and incidentally illegal aliens from entering the United States. The President of the United States doesn’t need any more authority from Congress to dop that, on the downside is its funding limitations. There are smaller dollars available when you use this provision of the United States code versus the dollars that are available should the President of the United States declare a national emergency. I urge President Trump to do both.”

To justify the use of a national emergency power to build the wall, Brooks pointed towards the loss of American live through illegal immigrants as well as illicit drugs pouring through the southern border.

“We lose a minimum of 15,000 American lives every year at the hands of illegal aliens and because our porous southern border allows heroin, fentanyl, cocaine, and other dangerous poisonous drugs into our society that result in overdoses and then result in tens of thousands of dead Americans,” Brooks said. “Now, 2,000 illegal aliens are apprehended each year by federal law enforcement officers, for the commission of homicides, killings of Americans on American soil, that to me justifies the president’s deployment of troops on the southern border and that to me justifies the declaration of a national emergency.”

Further, instead of protecting other countries with foreign deployments, Brooks said that the United States’ military should protect Americans at the southern border.

Brooks asked rhetorically, “What are we doing with our military now? Gosh, we’re defending the people on the border’s of South Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, a dozen or so European nations, wouldn’t it be nice if our military was defending Americans who are being killed on American soil? In that vein, I think it’s very important that we deploy our military as necessary to protect our country. That is a primary function of our military. It’s not just protecting foreigners in foreign lands, it’s also protecting Americans on American soil.”

Congressman Brooks told Breitbart News that he remains skeptical of Congress’s ability to come to a compromise in its conference committee that would fulfill Trump’s request for a substantial down payment on a border wall.

“Just the three weeks that the Democrats have forced us to wait has resulted in a thousand dead Americans,” Brooks said.

Brooks said that Democrats put far greater value their quest for power than their desire to protect the American people.

Rep. Brooks said, “For Democrats, it’s clear that their lust for political power outweighs their desire to save Americans from death at the hands of illegal aliens or the poisonous drugs that so freely cross our southern border.”

Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.

A California State University professor who also leads the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter might be headed to jail after being charged with eight criminal counts related to her anti-police activism, including battery on an LAPD officer.

“This is about so much more than me,” wrote Dr. Melina Abdullah, who could spend more than a year in jail if convicted. “It’s an attempt to criminalize Black protest. We ain’t having that!”

The charges stem from Abdullah’s behavior at LAPD Commission meetings, which have become notorious for being disrupted and shut down by police abolitionists affiliated with Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles (BLM-LA). She has justified her conduct by claiming to advocate on behalf of families who have lost loved ones to police brutality and officer-involved shootings.

Abdullah, 46, is receiving pro bono legal counsel from an assortment of progressive lawyers led by Carl E. Douglas, a protégé of the late Johnnie Cochran, who became nationally known decades ago as a member of O.J. Simpson’s “Dream Team” of defense attorneys. Douglas has referred to Abdullah as “One Badd (sic) Sister!!!”

“He volunteered to represent me,” Abdullah said. “This is the way that he contributes to our movement.”

The National Lawyers Guild and ACLU are also part of Abdullah’s legal squad.

Prosecutors from the L.A. City Attorney’s Office affirm that 17 police officers are prepared to testify that Abdullah’s tactics have gone far beyond free speech and peaceful protest, crossing a boundary to “obstructing and intimidating” LAPD commissioners.

Following a pretrial hearing last week, Abdullah and Douglas addressed activists and other supporters who had packed the courtroom as a sign of solidarity.

“They are killing our people, and then they are criminalizing us for having the audacity to push back,” Abdullah told allies over a megaphone. “What kind of backward world do they think we live in? We’re not the criminals. They are.”

Abdullah then called on the crowd to march to LAPD headquarters nearby, where a police commission meeting was underway.

“Fill up that room,” Abdullah said.

“Scare the shit out of them.”

Activists went on to disrupt the meeting, which was ultimately adjourned and moved into a closed session after an attendee appeared to threaten LAPD Commission President Steve Soboroff. Soboroff’s son, Jacob, is a reporter with NBC News.

My News LA reports that Abdullah is charged with eight misdemeanor counts involving crimes that allegedly occurred during three separate meetings that date back to 2017. The charges include one count each of battery on a public officer, resisting arrest, refusing to disperse and interfering or obstructing a public business establishment; three counts of unlawfully disturbing and breaking up an assembly and meeting; and two counts of unlawfully and intentionally interfering with the lawful business of the LAPD Commission.

The battery charge originated from a meeting last May when Abdullah was arrested along with Sheila Hines-Brim, a fellow BLM-LA comrade whose niece, Wakiesha Wilson, died in police custody in 2016. At that meeting, Hines-Brim threw what she claimed were Wilson’s cremated remains at then-LAPD Chief Charlie Beck.

As theLAnd recently reported:

Detective Jason Curtis…had placed Hines-Brim’s hands behind her back and was escorting her through a crowd to the hallway. Near the rear exit of the room, Curtis told investigators, he felt a tug at his arm, turned around and saw Abdullah standing there. “Get Melina,” witnesses remember hearing an officer say shortly before Abdullah was arrested.

Abdullah told detectives that she did not remember grabbing Curtis’ arm.

Most of the charges against Abdullah focus around confrontations that occurred during two police commission meetings in the summer of 2017. In July of that year, Abdullah refused to leave the podium during public comment after her allotted time to speak had elapsed.

“I don’t give a fuck about getting arrested,” she told police commissioners at the time.

Although Abdullah was not detained, the meeting was moved to a closed session away from the public.

Three weeks later Abdullah had disrupted another meeting. She attempted to restructure its agenda, dared officials to have her arrested, then refused to vacate the room after being ordered to leave.

Abdullah’s next court date is next Thursday, February 7, at the Criminal Courts Building in downtown L.A.

“I give you my word that there will be no plea to an assault on a police officer,” Douglas told supporters. “If we cannot reach a resolution that satisfies my client, there will be a trial. And at that trial, we will expose the corruption of the LAPD.”

Follow Jeffrey Cawood on Twitter @Near_Chaos.

The president of the Santa Barbara City College Board of Trustees has stopped reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at board meeting over its ties to “white nationalism.”

According to a report from Campus Reform, President Robert Miller of the Santa Barbara City College Board of Trustees says that the board will no longer cite the Pledge of Allegiance because it is racist.

“I decided to discontinue use of the Pledge of Allegiance for reasons related to its history and symbolism,” Miller said in an email correspondence with a professor at the college. “I have discovered that the Pledge of Allegiance has a history steeped in expressions of nativism and white nationalism.”

But that’s not all. Miller said that the Pledge of Allegiance violates the separation of church and state principle upon which America was founded.

“I also object to the phrase ‘one nation under God,’” Miller added in the email. “The First Amendment not only protects freedom of speech and religion [but] it also expressly prohibits laws that establish a religion.  The U.S. Supreme Court has expressly extended those rights to those who express no belief in God. Thus, I disagree with the 1955 act of Congress to add this phrase to the Pledge of Allegiance.”

Professor Celeste Barber is not a fan of Miller’s decision to ban the pledge at board meetings. When she appeared before the board to criticize Miller’s ban, a group of student protesters began shouting at her, attempting to drown her voice out.

“You are an elected body at a public institution at a public institution serving a community college,” Barber said during the board meeting. “When you recite the Pledge of Allegiance, you are recommitting your oath to uphold and defend this country’s constitution.”

A former student at Santa Barbara City College told Campus Reform that Miller’s decision is proof that the college does not care about American values.

“All it really was is proof in print that they officially disregard America,” the student said. “[Miller] says in his email that he would rather pledge allegiance to the Constitution and that’s great and all that but if that really was the case, why [does] he and the rest of Santa Barbara City College embrace removing different aspects of the First Amendment? Why do they not openly embrace the Second Amendment if they’re so enamored by the Constitution?”