Experts stress the urgency of installing the current update

'I saw plenty of reasons to believe there was cognitive decline happening as well'

'We are totally united'

Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe was directly involved in denying additional security resources and personnel, including countersnipers, to former President Donald Trump’s rallies and events—despite repeated requests by the agents assigned to Trump’s detail in the two years leading up to his July 13 attempted assassination, according to several sources familiar with the decision-making. Rowe succeeded former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who resigned last week after bipartisan calls following her widely panned testimony before the House Oversight Committee. But both Rowe and Cheatle were directly involved in decisions denying requests for more magnetometers, additional agents, and other resources to help screen rallygoers at large, outdoor Trump campaign gatherings. It was Rowe’s decision alone to deny countersniper teams to any Trump event outside of driving distance from Washington, these sources asserted. Rowe and FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate appeared Tuesday before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security and Government Affairs committees. Senators on both sides of the aisle have vowed to press for answers on the assassination attempt on Trump that took the life of rallygoer Corey Comperatore and wounded two others. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who chairs the Homeland Security panel, said he planned to grill Rowe and Abbate on the “litany of gaps and failures.” “There are monumental, critical questions that so far the leadership in these two agencies have failed to answer [for, and] even to begin to respond to,” Blumenthal said. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., a senior member of the Homeland Security committee, told Real Clear Politics he was initially impressed by Rowe’s willingness to answer senators’ questions late last week, but pledged to question him closely about the denying of resources to protect Trump. “I will also hold him fully accountable for being 100% transparent and honest in cooperating with our investigation and oversight,” Johnson said Thursday. Johnson and other members of the committee were expected to focus on Rowe’s role in the Secret Service’s repeated denials of extra security requested by agents assigned to Trump’s protective detail and about decisions regarding the number of placement of snipers assigned to some of Trump’s events. Assigning countersnipers based on the ability to drive to an event may sound far-fetched, but knowledgeable sources explained that there’s a limited number of these highly trained Uniform Division officers. It’s easier for countersniper teams to carry their guns and gear in a van they can all use to transport the teams to the site for advance work for the event and then use the same vehicles, referred to by the Secret Service as “push vehicles,” to return to Washington. The alternative is for countersniper teams to board commercial flights or Amtrak (if the event is in the Northeast corridor) with all their gear, find a rental vehicle once on the ground, and then do it all in reverse on the way home. It’s all possible under the “needs of the Service,” one source contends, but in reality, it’s much easier and far more cost-effective for countersnipers to drive to and from a site. “They can carry their guns and gear on airplanes—there’s an efficient process for that—but it’s going to be much easier, because they have all their gear with them, to drive, rather than fly, because then they have a push vehicle to take the whole team to and from a hotel to the site each day,” a source in the Secret Service Community told RCP. “They would always rather drive than fly.” The Secret Service has not responded to several questions from RCP about decisions to deny or limit security resources and personnel, including countersnipers, to Trump’s events. At first, the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13 had no Secret Service sniper teams assigned to it, but at the last minute, agency officials reversed course and decided to add two snipers to the outdoor event. It’s still unclear whether there were just two countersnipers or two two-man teams for a total of four individuals. (Two-man teams usually include one spotter and one sniper.) So far, there has been no explanation as to why agency officials made the late countersniper assignments to the Butler event, though it could be in response to the increased threat level Trump has faced in recent weeks. The Secret Service has said the agency increased security for Trump for an unknown time period before the Butler rally in response to an Iranian plot against the former president. As RCP previously reported, the late decision to add the two countersnipers cut short the time the team had to conduct a detailed on-site survey in advance of the Butler rally. Such a survey would usually take two to three days to complete, but the countersnipers had only one day to complete that critical advance work. Sources familiar with countersniper advance work also said an outdoor forum, such as the farm show site in Butler, should require at least three two-man countersniper teams. Instead, the Secret Service sent two countersnipers and then relied on a local law enforcement countersniper team to man the American Glass Research (AGR) building, placing that structure outside the official Secret Service perimeter. The decision to rely on local law enforcement to man the AGR building has come under scrutiny in the weeks after the shooting—especially as new details have emerged about local law enforcement’s tracking of gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks more than an hour and a half before he opened fire and its communications breakdown with the Secret Service. Local law enforcement snipers and their superior officers have said that they tried to keep the Secret Service informed about their concerns about Crooks, but their communications were siloed from the agency, even though they said they notified the site’s Secret Service command center of Crooks’ suspicious activity. The Secret Service command center is supposed to be manned with both senior Secret Service agents and local law enforcement bosses to facilitate coordination and “interoperability,” as Cheatle testified during last week’s congressional hearing. But a breakdown in communication occurred, and the Secret Service was tracking several suspicious persons that day and apparently never deemed Crooks a threat until he was crawling on top of the AGR roof with a rifle. The Secret Service countersniper killed Crooks as soon as he had him in his line of sight, Rowe told senators in a closed-door briefing last week. Johnson, the Wisconsin Republican, told Real Clear Politics, that Rowe told senators during the briefing that Crooks was hiding behind the lip of the edge of the building, and the Secret Service countersniper shot and killed him as soon as he could detect his forehead above that lip on the building’s roof edge. Several members of Congress have questioned the role poor communications played in allowing Crooks the opportunity to shoot at Trump and the crowd and why local law enforcement snipers were tracking Crooks as early as 4:26 p.m., more than 100 minutes before he opened fire. Lawmakers have repeatedly asked why, if local law enforcement was tracking Crooks so closely, didn’t the Secret Service agents detailed to Trump whisk him off the stage or prevent him from going on stage in the first place? But those familiar with Secret Service protocol under similar circumstances say there are always multiple suspicious persons being tracked at Trump’s rallies and they often do not rise to the level of alerting the president’s security detail, those five to 10 agents whose sole job is to provide immediate security for Trump and act as a human shield if and when a threat emerges. On the day of the rally, more than 100 people needed medical attention for heat exhaustion, and there were three other suspicious people besides Crooks that the Secret Service and/or local law enforcement were tracking, according to testimony by Christopher Paris, head of the Pennsylvania State Police, before the House Homeland Security panel last week. Even if Secret Service received notification that local law enforcement was tracking Crooks and considered him suspicious, Secret Service agents wouldn’t go into high alert unless they knew he was armed or on top of a roof, which texts show local law enforcement never observed or notified the Secret Service command center about—even though they appear to have flagged Crooks as engaging in suspicious activity, including pointing a range finder toward the stage at one point in the hour leading up to the shooting. “Use of the word ‘threat’ would have changed things, and Trump would not have been allowed on stage,” a source in the Secret Service community told Real Clear Politics. “A suspicious person on the far outer perimeter where eight cops are looking for him would not make 99% of agents keep the president offstage.” If that suspicious person were reported crawling on a roof before Trump went on stage, then most likely the Secret Service would have prevented Trump from beginning his rally. If Crooks was spotted with a gun, then Trump definitely would have been held back, the source asserted. If Crooks was reported as running from police, then it would be more a Secret Service judgment call in the moment. But Crooks apparently put the rifle together after scrambling up to the rooftop, leaving the Secret Service possibly only minutes or even just seconds to react once they learned that he had a gun and was crawling on the roof. Crooks’ position at the lip of the rooftop’s edge further hindered the Secret Service’s ability to shoot him before he opened fire, according to Rowe’s briefing with senators last week. At least one knowledgeable source blames the local law enforcement countersnipers for what appears to be at least one officer’s failure to remain in his position and keep an eye on the AGR rooftop. “The Butler ESU was told where to be and what their job was likely by a supervisor who had been in meetings with the Secret Service,” the source said. “They had one job. They should have kept their eyes on the rooftop they were assigned to man.” Several local law enforcement officers assigned to a building on the outer perimeter of the Butler rally appeared on ABC News over the weekend and accused the Secret Service of failing to coordinate with them or even meet with them before the rally. “We were supposed to get a face-to-face briefing with the Secret Service members whenever they arrived, and that never happened,” said Jason Woods, lead sharpshooter on the SWAT team in Beaver County, Pa. “So, I think that was probably a pivotal point, where I started thinking things were wrong because it never happened,” he added. “We had no communication.” The first communication between the local law enforcement group and the Secret Service, Woods said, was not until after the shooting. By then, he said, “it was too late.” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi declined to respond directly to the assertions by the Beaver County SWAT team. Instead, he said that the agency “is committed to better understanding what happened before, during, and after the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump to ensure that never happens again. That includes complete cooperation with Congress, the FBI, and other relevant investigations.” A timeline released by the office of Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, of local law enforcement’s activity in the 45 minutes before shots rang out sheds some light on their activity and efforts to keep track of Crooks. At 4:26 p.m., a Beaver County countersniper assigned to the AGR building left it after finishing his shift and spotted Crooks at a picnic table outside. The countersniper alerted the remaining Beaver and Butler snipers in the AGR building about Crooks’ presence, according to texts released by Grassley. At 5:38 p.m. a Beaver County sniper sent photos of Crooks to the Beaver, Butler, and Washington snipers in a group chat, with the Beaver sniper noting that Crooks was using “a range finder” looking toward the stage. He then recommended that the group notify Secret Service to “look out,” according to the texts. It’s unclear if that range finder information was ever conveyed to the Secret Service. Additional texts among local law enforcement officers and a timeline of local law enforcement activity Grassley made public Monday further detail that the local law enforcement officers called into a local Butler law enforcement “command” radio frequency at 5:41 p.m. communicating Crooks’ description. They also conveyed that Crooks had a range finder and was “lurking” near the AGR building. Then at 5:45 p.m. a Beaver County sniper sent photos of Crooks to a local law enforcement group chat with one Beaver law enforcement officer recommending that they alert “command,” though it’s unclear whether that reference is to the official Secret Service command center. The Grassley timeline, portions of which are redacted, indicates a text was sent at 5:45 p.m. to “Beaver ESU Command” about Crooks and “to relay to command.” A Beaver County after-action report released by Grassley also indicates that the local law enforcement officers lost sight of Crooks in the minutes before he climbed up to the roof, then spotted him again at 6:05 p.m. at “picnic tables” with a backpack.” Then from 6:06 to 6:12 p.m., a local law enforcement officer appears to have left his assigned post at a building to meet a local patrol “to let them know suspect is around the building on the side of fairgrounds,” according to the Grassley timeline. But by that time, Crooks was already crawling on top of the AGR building, and at 6:12 p.m. opened fire on Trump and the crowd. Originally published by RealClear Wire We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Acting Secret Service Chief Said to Have Played Key Role in Limiting Resources for Trump appeared first on The Daily Signal.

On the latest episode of “The Tony Kinnett Cast,” we examine a few key details about the escalation of conflict in the Middle East as missiles fly from Iraq and jets are seen flying north to Lebanon from Israel in apparent retaliation for the Hezbollah attack that killed 12 Israeli children. Young Voices state beat fellow Gary Frankel stops by to debate Kinnett on the presidential election as a binary choice or an “earned vote.” The full interview can be found on the podcast. Vice President Kamala Harris continues to lose relevance to independent voters with disturbing comments regarding criminal prosecution, gun confiscation via executive order, and taxpayer-funded racial reparations. Media headlines struggle to articulate Harris’ flip-flopping positions. In a bit of levity and contrast to the heavy news in this episode, we bring back the popular “Unnecessary Hot Takes” segment to remind everyone why your choice of summer ice cream brands and providers demands the utmost care. Catch the live radio show and livestream weeknights at 7 p.m. ET on The Daily Signal’s YouTube, X, or Facebook. The post WATCH: ‘US Leaderless as World Burns’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

I am a Jew, not a Christian. Yet I found loathsome the mockery of the Last Supper—one of the holiest scenes in the New Testament—during the opening of the 2024 Olympics in Paris. In fact, it is actually troubling to constantly read the words, “Many Christians are offended”—as if only Christians are offended by France’s and the International Olympic Committee’s mockery of Jesus’ Last Supper scene. Indeed, if only Christians were offended, there is little hope for civilization. But we live in the age of groupthink, in which only members of targeted groups are expected to be offended. To write that Christians were offended by what just transpired in Paris would be as if one were to write, “blacks were offended” by slavery, or “Jews are offended” by Islamic attempts to eradicate Israel, or “women are offended” by the rape of women. One assumes that moral individuals of every group would find men in drag, transwomen, and a naked man enacting Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper—on the world’s largest stage—offensive. In fact, “offensive” doesn’t do justice to how we all should view what the French and the Olympics did. What was done in the opening to the 2024 Paris Olympics was far more serious than “offensive.” It actually represented the greatest threat to Western civilization in the Western world’s history: the Left. You don’t have to be a Christian to understand that Christianity—more specifically, Judeo-Christian values and the Bible—made Western civilization. Without Christianity and the Bible, there would be no West. That is why contempt for Christianity and the Bible is synonymous with mockery for the West. The current civil war within Western civilization is a war between the Left and the Bible. It is also the reason the Los Angeles Dodgers not only allowed a group called Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence—a self-described “order of queer and trans nuns” that mimics and mocks Catholic nuns—to perform prior to a Dodgers game. The Dodgers actually honored them. It is the reason an “artwork” titled “Piss Christ”—a crucifix submerged in a jar of urine—toured museums throughout America. It is why the European Union Charter does not once mention Christianity. It’s why every left-wing group in America is apoplectic over Louisiana’s recent decision to require that the Ten Commandments be posted in Louisiana classrooms; and Oklahoma’s decision to make teaching of the Bible mandatory in public schools. And why the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, praised his country’s opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, posting on X: Thanks to Thomas Jolly (the artistic director) and his creative genius for this grandiose ceremony. Thank you to the artists for this unique and magical moment. … Thank you to everyone who believed in it. We’ll talk about it again in 100 years! WE DID IT! And there’s more bad news: As of this writing, the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, has said nothing about the Olympics’ degradation of the Last Supper. Perhaps he was too busy preparing another encyclical about climate change. It is crucial to note that the Left, whether in America or Europe, never mocks Islam. One would think that with virtually all religious violence in the world emanating from that religion, the Left would concentrate its antireligious fire against Islam, or at least fundamentalist Islam. Why doesn’t it? One reason is that leftists fear Muslims. If you mock Islam, you will have to spend your life in hiding or risk being beheaded. On the other hand, the Left has no fear of Christians. No matter how much the Left mocks and undermines Christianity, the Left assumes that not one of the world’s 2.5 billion Christians will hurt them. And the Catholic pope will not only not issue a fatwa against you, he won’t even speak out against you. Because he, too, is a man of the Left. The second reason is that fundamentalist Islam is the Left’s ally in attempting to destroy the West. That’s why the Left is allied with Islamic fundamentalists who seek to eradicate Israel and all its Jews. Israel is seen (correctly) as an outpost of Western civilization in the midst of the Muslim world. The Left does not hate religion. It hates Christianity, Judeo-Christian values, and the Bible. That is all you need to know to understand the opening of the 2024 Paris Olympics. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post You Don’t Have to Be Christian to Loathe the Opening of the Paris Olympics appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Live Results: Tuesday Night Primary Fight in Arizona!

NYT: The Problem With Venezuela Is Too Much Capitalism

On the Monday PBS News Hour, NPR White House reporter and PBS pundit Tamara Keith ripped into Sen. J.D. Vance having a "really terrible, no-good week" as the pro-Biden media endlessly rehash his 2021 comments to Tucker Carlson. Anchor Geoff Bennett began: "J.D. Vance is getting a lot of scrutiny now for his controversial comments about women without children. He called them childless cat ladies, said they're miserable with their own lives....he has not disavowed the comments, and he said in a podcast just the other day that he stands by the substance of what he said. There are lots of Democrats now who are more than happy to target J.D. Vance." Then he ran a soundbite from Sen. Charles Schumer: "Vance seems to be more erratic and more extreme than President Trump, and I will bet President Trump is sitting there scratching his head and wondering, why did I pick this guy? The choice may be one of the best things he ever did for Democrats."   Bennett asked Keith: "Has J.D. Vance become a liability for Republicans?" Keith replied:  He has had a really terrible, no good week. He has somehow galvanized people who own cats. At the — I went to — I covered Harris at this fund-raiser she went to. There were people outside of her fund-raiser holding up signs that said "Cat Ladies for Kamala Harris." This is after he — essentially, he has a long file of things that he has said back when it didn't matter what he said, because he wasn't going to be vice president. He was the author of a book and a guy running for the Senate in a Republican primary. And so at one point, he had said that people who — I think he called Harris, a woman without children, a cat lady, and others who don't have children, who should somehow have less political power than those who do. And that just set people off.... And what Trump now has is voters, everyone, the media, very focused on Vice President Harris and this huge amount of fund-raising she had, and then all the remaining oxygen is going to his vice presidential pick and his very bad, no good week and all the crazy things he's saying or said five years ago that have now become memes. You have to shake your head at "wow, Vance is so bad the pro-Kamala media is laser-focused on pro-Kamala messaging." The media love to think they allocate the "oxygen" of political attention. Bennett then turned to political analyst Amy Walter to confirm the problem:  "And it allows Democrats to settle on this new messaging, where it's not just offensive, it's also really weird. We keep hearing like the Democrats like Tim Walz and Brian Schatz and even Vice President Kamala Harris have said on the stump that the things that Trump and Vance and other Republicans have said are just weird. Dissect that as a strategy." Walter gave a conventional analysis, that the Vance pick doesn't go after some demographic Trump hasn't captured, he's more of a doubling-down on Trump's appeal. "So of course he's turned off swing voters, because he was never brought on to appeal to swing voters, and he's never had to [in Ohio]." This segment is a classic episode in political analysis. The framing was "What do Democrats need to do to win?" They don't want to focus on any political weakness for Democrats unless it's to address how do the Democrats get around this obstacle? It's like a sports show with a home team.

An Indiana woman is accused of drugging and raping a 12-year-old in her care and then forcing the child into prostitution, according to police. Naomi Floren, 21, was arrested and charged with numerous crimes related to the accusations outlined in court documents. Law & Crime indicated that the victim is a female.Officers found sexually explicit photographs of the victim on Floren's cellphone.Bloomington police said Floren was babysitting the victim and four other siblings from July 3 until July 9 at an apartment on South Walnut Street Pike in Bloomington. The abuse began when a 17-year-old male was invited to the apartment, and Floren told the male that the 12-year-old was 15 years old, the victim said. The male made sexual advances on the victim before he and Floren had sex in front of the child, according to police. The victim allegedly was given a pill and a THC vape before she was pimped out to a 54-year-old man known as the “Rat Guy" at his apartment. The next day, the victim was taken to another apartment and given an unknown orange pill, more marijuana, and alcohol before having sex with two males. When Bloomington police searched the suspect's residence, officers found sexually explicit photographs of the victim on Floren's cellphone as well as numerous prescription pills. Police said Floren initially denied any sexual abuse but later admitted to kissing and cuddling the victim before they took a shower together. Floren was booked into the Monroe County Jail on July 18. She was preliminarily charged with three counts of child molestation, a level 1 felony; two counts of vicarious sexual gratification with a victim under the age of 14, a level 4 felony; and sexual battery with a deadly weapon, a level 4 felony. Floren also was charged with two level 6 felony counts of neglect of a dependent, one level 3 felony count of promotion of child sexual trafficking, and a misdemeanor count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Police said the children she babysat knew Floren by her middle name, Bella. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!