DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—A whistleblower told Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri in a letter released on Tuesday that the Homeland Security Investigations agents assigned to former President Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, were “egregiously under-prepared.” The whistleblower told Hawley that the HSI agents were taken off child exploitation cases and reassigned in partnership with U.S. Secret Service to work security at the rally, according to the letter. Ahead of the event, the HSI agents received just a two-hour “webinar” that lacked substance and was “riddled with technical mishaps,” with the whistleblower claiming that the training is unchanged even after the assassination attempt. “In other words, all of these allegations together suggest that a significant number of personnel tasked with providing security for former President Trump at the July 13 rally were egregiously under-prepared by the Secret Service to carry out this mission,” Hawley said in the letter. The agents assigned to President Trump in Butler PA were pulled off child exploitation cases and thrown onto Trump’s protective detail with nothing more than a 2hr online training. And we know this ONLY because of brave whistleblowers pic.twitter.com/m8CY5eqmUl— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) September 4, 2024 “Imagine 1,000 people logging onto Microsoft Teams at the same time after being informed at the last minute that everyone needed to login individually,” the whistleblower said in the letter. “Once it got rolling, the Secret Service instructor couldn’t figure out how to get the audio working on the prerecorded videos (which I’m told are the same videos as last year). All told, they restarted the videos approximately six times …. The content was not helpful.” “Nothing new, nothing improved since the assassination attempt on former President Trump,” the whistleblower continued. Hawley previously addressed Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas about allegations that there were more HSI agents present on July 13 than Secret Service agents, according to the letter. Another whistleblower also alleged that some of the HSI agents at the rally had never worked a protective security detail before and were unaware of the proper procedures. One of the HSI agents working at the rally “only receive[d] one power-point presentation for training,” according to the letter. Due to these security lapses, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks was able to fire multiple shots from a rooftop positioned 130 yards away, wounding the former president, killing volunteer firefighter Corey Comperatore and injuring two attendees. Crooks was reportedly spotted by witnesses, flagged by Secret Service agents, and even identified by a local countersniper over an hour and a half before Trump went on stage. In the aftermath of the assassination attempt, then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle provided an evasive testimony on July 22 before the House Oversight Committee, which resulted in bipartisan scrutiny and calls for her resignation. Cheatle resigned from her post just a day after her testimony and 10 days after the assassination attempt. “The U.S. Secret Service respects the role of oversight,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “To date, we have provided over 1,500 pages of responsive documentation to Congress and have made employees available for transcribed interviews. These efforts will continue as our desire to learn from this failure and ensure that it never happens again is unwavering.” The U.S. Secret Service and Homeland Security Investigations did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily caller News Foundation. Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation The post ‘Woefully Unprepared’: Whistleblower Alerts Hawley That Security Agents at Trump Rally Lacked Proper Training appeared first on The Daily Signal.

ERIE, Pennsylvania — The chaser last Wednesday in Sen. JD Vance‘s, R-Ohio, trip to this all-important county in the northwestern corner of Pennsylvania came when the Republican vice presidential nominee said Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris can “go to hell” for her handling of the 2021 attack at Abbey Gate in the final days of President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. Harris, for her part, has claimed that she was the last person in the room when Biden made the decision that led to the death of 13 American soldiers. It was a decision that Harris pointedly said she was “comfortable with.” Vance said that if he was going to discuss any questions related to Abbey Gate, “It’s that Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won’t even do an investigation into what happened, and she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up. … She can go to hell.” His remarks came in response to a reporter’s question about an alleged incident that occurred when former President Donald Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery with family members of those who were killed in the attack. While the “go to hell” quip made headlines, it was all the other things Vance did last Wednesday and the groundswell of support he received that are important in understanding where voters’ sentiments lie toward either ticket. While the national audience read about Afghanistan, what was not written but will definitely be talked about by voters in Erie was Vance’s well-received off-the-cuff speech at Team Hardinger, a local logistics and trucking company, where he talked about the dignity of work and the importance of community. It was a speech that connected so well with those in attendance that one woman wondered out loud where the heck his teleprompter was, to which Vance quipped, “Ma’am, I don’t need a teleprompter. I’ve actually got thoughts in my head, unlike Kamala Harris.” There was also nothing written about his visit to Firestone’s Kitchen, located at Gordon’s Butcher Shop, where one of the cooks, Mark Spagel, gave the former Marine a beer after everyone around the bar asked Vance to join the group in a toast. An ice cold beer he downed to cheers. The standard narrative coming from the national media is that Vance is weird, that he doesn’t connect with Midwest voters, that Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., is everybody’s father and coach, and “Oh look, he wears plaid,” because that is what the national media is writing. Or they are writing about one incident in which a woman became uncomfortable when Vance walked into a bakery and there were dozens of cameras on her because he was there. These are the same blind spots in the media that were in place in 2016, and they really haven’t changed. If, by chance, Trump and Vance do win and the national media are again surprised, it is because they only wrote about Arlington and did not balance it out. What they do not understand is that the majority of people who were at the events in Erie will be talking about what they experienced and heard there, not what happened in Arlington, Virginia. The happy-warrior vibe Vance gives out comes from a place of gratitude, he told me in an interview. “I’m here, and I’ve been given this incredible opportunity, and I’m going to try to make something of it, and the way to make something of it is to actually get out there and talk to people,” he said. “And yeah, sometimes that’s mediated through a really hostile interviewer, but I’m not going to sit here and whine and complain because somebody asked me a tough question,” he said. “There are still a lot of people who are going to hear the answer. It’s very amazing to know that I get to make this case directly to the American people, and you should take every opportunity you get.” Vance said that on his drive into Hardinger, he was struck by how similar the post-industrial city was to Middletown, Ohio, where he was born. “I just think it is important to go where a lot of politicians often don’t go and make the case directly to people, and hopefully, they feel seen,” he said of places such as Erie. Once upon a time, the General Electric plant here employed 18,000 people. Just about everyone who lived here had an uncle, father, grandfather, sister or mother who worked there. Today, after being known as GE Rail, it is now called GE Transportation and owned by Wabtec. The most recent report by the Erie County Data Center found that Wabtec employed 2,240 people in the county. Like Middletown, Erie is a region left behind by globalization, automation and technology. The locomotive, tool and die shops, machine shops and factories that once prospered here have struggled to rebuild and rebrand the region. Voters here matter, and they want to hear what Vance and Trump have to say, as well as Walz and Harris. Whatever way Erie County goes, so goes Pennsylvania, and so go places such as Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Georgia. “Not everybody’s going to agree with me on every issue, not everybody’s going to agree with Donald Trump on every issue, but I hope that after the campaign, what they’ll at least be able to say is they cared enough to show up and they cared enough to take questions and they cared enough to come to the places where we work and where we live, because that’s what a person who wants to be our president or vice president should do,” Vance said. Christopher Borick, political science professor at Muhlenberg College, said it cannot be overstated how important Erie is. “It also cannot be overstated how important showing up and meeting people where they are and connecting with them on issues that impact their lives, like the economy, (is),” Borick said. Borick said that while Pittsburgh and Philadelphia have larger populations than Erie, “it is counties like this and Northampton, Luzerne, Cambria and Beaver who will decide the election because, as I say all the time, in our state, it is the margins in those places that matter.” Vance said one of the things he hears a lot from people he meets and talks to on the trail is the struggle to achieve the American dream of homeownership. “It is the most common complaint that I hear, and I hear the same exact complaint coming from younger people versus more elderly people, but the perspective on it is slightly different,” he said. Vance said he hears frustration from the young people and heartache from the elderly. “Young people tell me that when their parents were their age, they could work and as long as they played by the rules and did a good job, they could afford to buy a home,” he said. “They could put down some roots. They could send their kids to a nice school. And they can’t do that anymore. “When you talk to their grandparents they’ll say, ‘Well, we just want our kids to be able to have as good of a life as we did, and we’re worried they’re not going to.’ And we are worried that they have no prospects of homeownership, and they’d like to build a life down the street from us but they can’t because they can’t afford it. “It just makes you realize that we really have failed in a very big way in this country,” he added. Vance said one way to think about Trump’s presidency is that it was a brief respite from 25 years of things broadly going in the wrong direction. “And I think it’s always possible to overstate these things,” he said. “There’s still a lot of joy, and there’s still a lot of great things in this country, and people are still raising families, and it’s not all bad, but it’s a hell of a lot harder than it should be, and I think people feel that in a very acute way.” Vance said one of the things that has surprised him as he is going across the country trying to earn votes happened just the day before and involved his mother. “We were in Big Rapids, Michigan, and we go to this A&W root beer stand at Big Rapids — one of these places that’s open six months out of the year because the other six months out of the year, it’s way too cold — and the very first person wants to give my mom a hug,” Vance explained. “And the person said to Mom, ‘You’re such an inspiration, and a lot of us have struggled with addiction and the fact that you and your son kept at it, that’s an inspiration.'” He said with a smile, “When you come from a nontraditional or nonconventional background, I think there’s a certain tendency to want to hide it a little bit and not to tell the story. And obviously, I told the story in ‘Hillbilly Elegy.’ But even then, you don’t necessarily want to talk about it so much because it feels a little uncomfortable. You realize that there are a lot of people who take, not even from my story, but from my mom’s story, take some inspiration from that. “And that is definitely something that I’ve learned, and it’s been a very cool thing to watch it unfold.” After Vance’s speech and press conference, which included local and national press questions, he visited Gordon’s Butcher Shop, which, despite the power outage across the entire city block, was packed with people wanting to take a selfie, shake his hand or just say hello. Vance took the time to fulfill every request. On the 3-mile drive to the retail stop, people stood outside their homes, businesses and cars to wave at him. The same thing happened on the 7-mile drive through neighborhoods and business districts to the airport where his campaign plane was waiting to take him to Wisconsin. What mattered at this stop was the people of Erie and how they responded to Vance. That is the thing people will be talking about for weeks. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post What Really Happened to JD Vance in Erie appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Sign Up To Keep Reading This post is for Reclaim The Net supporters. Gain access to the entire archive of features and supporters-only content. Help protect free speech, freedom from surveillance, and digital civil liberties. Join Already a supporter? Login here If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post A Private, Self-Hosted Google News and Apple News Alternative That Syncs to all of Your Devices appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Walz Keeps Going AWOL

MSNBC’s Al Sharpton joined colleague Joy Reid on Tuesday’s edition of The ReidOut to allege that the reason why some people still support Donald Trump is because they seek to take the country back to a time when women and minorities had no rights. Reid led Sharpton with a completely unrelated statement. Discussing Lara Trump’s latest singing video, she declared, “I love people who have a dream. I am not knocking her having a dream. I'm saying Simon Cowell used to tell folks on American Idol this might not be your dream. That you can have a dream, but this might not be the appropriate dream for you.”     Sharpton used Lara’s singing to harken back to Donald Trump’s recent appearance at a Moms for Liberty event that Reid previously mentioned, “It might be a nightmare, and probably, though, when she looks at how their campaign is unraveling and Donald Trump, her candidate and relative, has become unhinged, you said it right. We would be demanding the 25th Amendment if Joe Biden said anything remotely as unhinged and just totally incoherent as that.  At the event, Trump claimed that schools were sending children to have gender reassignment surgeries without their parents’ knowledge. Trump overstated the matter, schools are not giving kids surgery, but some schools absolutely are keeping gender identity-related secrets, such as preferred pronouns, from parents. As it was, Sharpton continued, “But he is going around, still high in some polls, not where he was because Kamala Harris has certainly unseated him as the front runner, but he has certainly still being able to, for other reasons, have this grip on a lot of voters that think this is the only way to bring America back to the days before women had rights and blacks and browns and other people of color had rights. And now he's imagining, hallucinating that children are being made to change their gender.” After smearing millions of people, without evidence, of being racists and or sexists, the unserious Sharpton lamented, “We're acting like this is a serious candidate or like this is a serious threat to this country.” Sharpton further claimed, “I think that we are seeing a man absolutely becoming other than his best self and even his best self wasn't great. But he's lost the ability to even think while he's talking. It just comes out. It’s like a baby just spitting up. And I think that because of that, even his most ardent followers have to scratch their head.” Reid agreed, “You would think. And the fact he's even in the 40s is shocking given the stuff that he says." Here is a transcript for the September 3 show: MSNBC The ReidOut 9/3/2024 7:08 PM ET JOY REID: I love people who have a dream. I am not knocking her having a dream. I'm saying Simon Cowell used to tell folks on American Idol this might not be your dream. That you can have a dream, but this might not be the appropriate dream for you. AL SHARPTON: It might be a nightmare, and probably, though, when she looks at how their campaign is unraveling— REID: Yeah. SHARPTON: — and Donald Trump, her candidate and relative, has become unhinged, you said it right. We would be demanding the 25th Amendment if Joe Biden said anything remotely— REID: Yeah. SHARPTON: — as unhinged and just totally incoherent as that. But he is going around, still high in some polls, not where he was because Kamala Harris has certainly unseated him as the front runner, but he has certainly still being able to, for other reasons, have this grip on a lot of voters that think this is the only way to bring America back to the days before women had rights and blacks and browns and other people of color had rights. And now he's imagining, hallucinating that children are being made to change their gender. REID: In school. SHARPTON: In school, with the instruction of their teachers. We're acting like this is a serious candidate. REID: Right. SHARPTON: Or like this is a serious threat to this country. I think that we are seeing a man absolutely becoming other than his best self and even his best self wasn't great. But he's lost the ability to even think while he's talking. It just comes out.  REID: Yeah. SHARPTON: It's like a baby just spitting up. And I think that because of that, even his most ardent followers have to scratch their head. REID: You would think. And the fact he's even in the 40s is shocking given the stuff that he says.

The first hour of Tuesday’s CBS Mornings was dominated by two long segments (tallying roughly 13 minutes) and four teases swooning like kids from the 2010s at a One Direction concert for liberal Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on the heels of her memoir’s release. Co-host and Kamala Harris donor Gayle King did the interview and, along with a gentle wonderment why she hasn’t run for office, smeared Senate Republicans for grilling her in confirmation hearings, and joining her in expressing concern about racism in America given her interracial marriage. In the second tease, King made no apology for her partisan tilt: One of the reasons we’re excited, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, I just met her in the greenroom, and I’ve got to tell you, I’m floating. She is joining us for her first live broadcast interview about her new book. We’ll ask her about that. A lot of other things, news of the day, we call it. And, in the last tease, co-host and former NFL player Nate Burleson boasted of Jackson’s book Lovely One as a “tremendous, tremendous read”. King’s big moment finally arrived and gushed about how “we are very honored, Your Honor, to have you in the building” and that “[y]ou should have seen all the people, everybody dressed up a little” and “sitting up straighter in our chairs to have you in our presence”:     TWEET King eventually got to asking what it was like to finally be sworn in (click “expand”): KING: Applause, applause. Welcome back to CBS Mornings. That is Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. She was sworn in in 2022. We all know that she is the only Black woman ever to serve on our nation’s Highest Court, and now the justice is out with a memoir. I love this title, Lovely One. It’s the meaning of her first and middle names, Ketanji Onyika. She joins us for her first live broadcast interview about this book, and we are very honored, Your Honor, to have you in the building today. JACKSON: Well, thank you for having me. KING: You should have seen all the people, everybody dressed up a little. We’re all sitting up a little straighter in our chairs to have you in our presence but I want to go back to that video for a second — JACKSON: Yes. KING: Because it’s almost like dreams come true. On your Harvard application, you said one of the reasons you want to go is to hopefully fulfill your fantasy of being the first Black female Supreme Court justice. JACKSON: Yes. KING: So take us to that moment right there. JACKSON: Well, you know, I had always known about the court — KING: Yes. JACKSON: — when I was young, and I talk about this in the book, I learned about Constance Baker Motley. KING: Yes. JACKSON: She the first Black female judge, and I just thought being a judge would be amazing, especially because my father was a lawyer. KING: And he would cite cases at you at four. JACKSON: He was. KING: And he asked you for your opinion. JACKSON: We would sit at the dining room table at four years old, when I was four. King briefly made the insinuation she should have run for office: “But not politics? You always wanted to be in the law. Because your background also seemed suited for politics. But you chose the law.” King laid into race hustling by acting as though tough questions at Senate confirmation hearings must only happen to black women: Kamala donor/'CBS Mornings' host Gayle King spent 13 minutes salivating over far-left Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Here, she wondered why she didn't run for office, was upset about how Republicans were mean to her in confirmation hearings, and wondered why her biopic is coming. pic.twitter.com/ODXaImMpnC — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 3, 2024   I’m curious about your hearings, your confirmation hearings, because they seemed grueling to me. They seemed brutal to me. What did it feel — did it feel like that to you as you were sitting in the chair? Because I was very struck by Cory Booker’s words, but tell me what it was like for you sitting in that chair with a lot of incoming. After gushing that she’s “already envisioning the movie” about her life and dreaming about who will play the justice and her husband, King unsuccessfully tried to have Jackson weigh in on court-packing, the notion of term limits for justices, and even trying to have her attack a conservative colleague, Justice Neil Gorsuch (whom her colleague Major Garrett was less-than gentle toward last month): 'CBS Mornings' co-host Gayle King was so on-board celebrating Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson she tried to get her to knock Justice Neil Gorsuch's book about government bureauracy and fawned over her "drop the microphone" dissent in the Idaho abortion case. This isn't news. pic.twitter.com/8d7ybl3X9b — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 3, 2024 Time was running out before a break, but King snuck in a softball swooning over Jackson’s “a drop the microphone moment” in the form of a “fiery and searing” dissent penned in the Idaho abortion case. King even added “people are calling it a masterful opinion”, which is a way of saying King herself and her fellow Democrats. The second block started with this joke of a question: “I want to go back to right before the break where we were talking about, how do you prepare for 19-hour days?” King returned to the confirmation hearings, admitting she “was very touched” and “welled up at home watching” them when her personal friend and Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) said he wouldn’t be asking her any questions.  This went right into discussing her courtship with husband Patrick and the concern she had about how her world would react to dating a white man of privilege: Race is an obsession for the liberal media. CBS's Gayle King fawns over Democratic Senator Cory Booker -- a personal friend of Gayle's -- never asking Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson a question during her Senate confirmation hearing and instead invited her to talk about her… pic.twitter.com/s1vzwBlWz2 — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 3, 2024 “[Y]our parents said, we trust you. We trust Patrick. But this is America,” King noted as their answer detailed in the book. The interview was eventually brought to a merciful end, but nonetheless still dragged out (click “expand”): KING: And now that you are an official Supreme Court Justice of the United States, is it everything you hoped or thought it would be? Do you still like the job, Justice Jackson? JACKSON: It is such an honor to do this work. KING: Yes. JACKSON: I’m so privileged to have the opportunity to serve in this way, and very grateful. KING: Well, you should know so many people are cheering you on. We don’t normally have, you know, Secret Service agents in the studio. People who normally aren’t even at work at this time are here — JACKSON: Thank you. KING: — because we all wanted to see you and pay our respects, and I’ll see you tonight at the Apollo. JACKSON: Yes, ma’am. KING: We are doing a Q&A. And you’re doing Stephen Colbert. JACKSON: I am. I am. KING: You’ve got a busy day. JACKSON: I do. KING: You’ve got a busy day. Eat your Wheaties. JACKSON: Thank you so much. KING: Thank you so much. JACKSON: Thank you. KING: Thank you so much for having us. JACKSON: Thank you for having me. To see the relevant CNN transcript from September 3, click here.

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough vented against the rest of the mainstream media on Wednesday because he believes they are too worried about "being objective" toward former President Donald Trump to relay the true threat he is to the United States.Scarborough joined the chorus of Democrats who are trying to make a scandal out of Trump visiting Arlington National Cemetery last week at the request of the Gold Star families who lost loved ones in the Abbey Gate bombing during the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Scarborough's claim runs counter to real data that proves the opposite is true. "I mean, the shocking statements come every day, and not surprising, but still shocking, what he says. And, you know, in even Arlington, you’ve seen major newspaper outlets talk about, well, how will this impact Kamala Harris and the issue of Afghanistan? ... and [Trump] just acts like a brute and, you know, desecrates Arlington," Scarborough said.Scarborough lamented that the media still does not know how to properly cover Trump despite him being in presidential politics for over nine years."They still are engaging, even at this late hour, in moral relativism and saying, ‘Yeah, but, yeah, but.’ And again, they just — again, they have — they just don’t know how to put it in proper perspective because, as I said yesterday, they are so concerned about being objective that they’re treating this race like it was 1996 Clinton versus Dole or 2004 Bush versus Kerry," he continued. "And they’re objective, and I put that word in quotes, their objectivity actually is not objective at all. It ends up playing to Donald Trump’s advantage every day because they are so numbed by the hate, the hate speech that is spewed out of his mouth for the past nine years." - YouTube www.youtube.com Scarborough's claim runs counter to real data that proves the opposite is true. Just this year, the Media Research Center found negative news coverage of Trump was nearly 90%: "In just four weeks, these newscasts aired 158 negative statements (excluding partisan comments) about the former President, compared to just 19 positive comments, for a good press/bad press score of 89% negative."In contrast, the MRC found network coverage of Vice President Kamala Harris to be overwhelmingly positive since she was picked to replace President Joe Biden in the upcoming election: "Not only has Harris received 66% more airtime than former President Donald Trump, but the spin of Harris’s coverage has been more positive (84%) than any other major party nominee, even as Trump’s coverage has been nearly entirely hostile."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

One of the Catholic Church’s pre-eminent exorcists has written a special prayer consecrating the 2024 general election to the Virgin Mary in her role as patroness of America, asking that voters receive the grace to elect the right leaders and halt what he said has been a “slouching towards communism.” Father Chad Ripperger announced the consecration prayer Sept. 3 on the "U.S. Grace Force" podcast and urged everyone to recite the prayer daily through the Nov. 5 election. The stakes, he said in sobering words, are no less than the spiritual battle of good versus evil. Ripperger said calling upon the Virgin Mary as the most powerful intercessor can keep evil at bay and give people the grace to truly see how dire America’s political landscape has become. There simply might not be another chance to pull America from the brink of tyranny, he said. “God set her up as the antidote to the very problem that we’re actually having,” Ripperger told Grace Force co-hosts Fr. Richard Heilman and Doug Barry. 'They’re fighting to be able to maintain their immorality.' “The consecration was specifically to hand this over to our lady because she’s the one that’s going to be able to accomplish it,” Ripperger said. “… Our country is so foolish in all its decisions and all the things it’s doing. They’re not being governed by any sense of wisdom. We have to be willing to discern that.” The prayer acknowledges that society needs the divine help of Mary’s dearly beloved Son, Jesus Christ, and calls upon her special relationship to Christ as queen of heaven and earth. It asks for His grace to see the ascending evil and battle it through recitation of this prayer and the Rosary. - YouTube youtu.be The prayer reads: Mary Immaculate, living tabernacle of the Divinity, where the eternal Wisdom lies hidden to be adored and served by angels and men, Queen of Heaven and Earth beneath whose sway are subject all things that are lower than God, Patroness of the United States of America, sorrowful and mindful of our own sinfulness and sins of our nation, we come to thee our refuge and hope. Knowing that our country cannot be saved by our own works, and mindful of how much our nation has departed from the ways of thy Son, we humbly ask that thou wouldst turn thine eyes upon our country to bring about its conversion. We consecrate to thee the integrity of the upcoming election and its outcome so that what is spiritually and morally best for the citizens of our country may be accomplished and that all of those who are elected would govern according to the spiritual and moral principles which will bring our nation into conformity with the teachings of thy Son. Give grace to the citizens of this land, so that they will choose leaders according to the Sacred Heart of thy Son, that His glory may be made manifest, lest we be given the leaders we deserve, trusting in the providential care of God the Father and thy maternal care, we have perfect confidence that thou wilt take care of us and will not leave us forsaken. O Mary Immaculate, pray for us. Amen. Ripperger said he was inspired to write the prayer after taking a step back, as he sometimes does during an exorcism. “You’re in the thick of the battle, but sometimes you have to ... sit and look at the overall complexion of what’s really kind of going on,” Ripperger said. “And so I kind of do the same thing here in relationship to the election.” Ripperger said one side of the battle is literally fighting for immorality. “What I’ve started to notice is that when you listen to what certain sides of the battle, or the political spectrum, are fighting for, they’re fighting to be able to maintain their immorality,” he said. “It’s an actual battle over not just what’s good and evil, but the evil side is battling, they’re fighting to be able to ensconce and maintain the evil of their lives and their activities without anybody else getting in there and being able to block it and to stop it in the process.” Father Ripperger is the superior of the Colorado-based Society of the Most Sorrowful Mother — also known as the Doloran Fathers — who have a special ministry to serve the spiritually afflicted. He is a theologian, a Thomistic philosopher, an exorcist, an expert on spiritual warfare, and a popular speaker whose talks routinely get millions of views on social media. 'They do not hold themselves to any kind of moral standard whatsoever.' In today’s society, the demonic is pushing immorality and evil as far as it can as quickly as possible, Ripperger said. “And now that some people feel like they have their advantage, they’re pushing this stuff even further,” he said. Consecrating the election to the Virgin Mary keeps the diabolic at bay so that it doesn’t influence the election and places the outcome under her protective mantle, Ripperger said. “Without her protection, our country is toast,” he said. “I mean, we’re just simply not going to elect the proper people, we’re just not going to have the grace in order to elect those people … that hopefully would be elected.” Ripperger said the 2024 general election is “possibly the most consequential election that we’re going to have.” “What’s being proposed for the course of our country is actually very contrary to not just the history of this country and the identity of this country and its ethos, but just — it’s just so contrary to the common good in every single respect,” he said. The side that pushes evil does not operate with any moral compass, obeys no rules except perhaps Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals,” and uses sophistry to “answer” challenges without addressing the real issues, he said. The Virgin Mary depicted by an unknown artist, circa 1900.Library of Congress “They do not hold themselves to any kind of moral standard whatsoever, whether it’s telling the truth or being duplicitous or being hypocritical or just out-and-out lying,” Ripperger said. America is already in peril because free speech and the free exchange of ideas are already being suppressed. Those who push a communistic agenda do not want a populace that can think for itself and will eventually use force to impose their will. “We’re in a spiritual battle in relationship to this, because there’s such a heavy push,” he said. “This country is nothing like it was when Father Heilman and I grew up. It’s just 180 degrees around from what it was when we grew up. And it’s because it’s been slouching towards communism for quite some time.” Ripperger said the statement that you can vote your way into communism or socialism but you’ll have to fight or shoot your way out is borne out by history. Because communists have abandoned reason and natural law, “you can’t reason with them.” “And you can’t coexist with them, because they’re like the demons. They are constantly trying to get in and control everything,” Ripperger said. “And so in the end, the only way you can get rid of them is by brute force, unfortunately." “Let me put it to you this way. There has never been any country that, once [communists] gained power, that has kind of just slowly voted its way out of it,” Ripperger said. “It never happens that way.” Ripperger said voters need to understand the theological principle of the lesser of evils when approaching the 2024 election. Voters upset that former President Donald J. Trump has taken what some consider pro-abortion stances in the 2024 election or softened his previous statements on moral issues need to understand the issue, drawing on the works of St. Thomas Aquinas and Pope John Paul II, Ripperger said. “This is where people don’t get it right. They say, ‘But you’re still voting for evil.’ Actually, no, you’re not, morally,” Ripperger said. St. Thomas wrote of praeter intentionem, or something that is “aside from your intention,” Ripperger said. “What you’re doing is you’re not voting evil for evil. Technically speaking, what you’re doing is you’re voting to preserve the good that would otherwise be lost if you didn’t vote or if you voted for the person that was more evil,” Ripperger said. Because Americans have the right of the ballot, the church has taught that citizens have an obligation to vote for the sake of the common good and to preserve the good as best we can, Ripperger said. “It seems to me that you would be obligated to actually vote the lesser of two evils in the upcoming election in order to preserve the good that would otherwise be lost,” he said. “That’s just my own take on it. “I know other people have different positions, but it seems to me that if we don’t vote to the degree that is, in order to mitigate the evil, then it seems to me we’re partially responsible for it,” he said. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

UPDATE, 2:47 p.m. ET.: Four are dead and nine others have been taken to hospitals for treatment of injuries after this morning's high school shooting, according to a statement from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The GBI added that the suspect is "in custody and alive," and that reports that the suspect has been ‘neutralized’ are "inaccurate."Original story belowGeorgia police said one suspect is in custody after a high school shooting Wednesday morning that resulted in casualties and injuries.The shooting was reported at the Apalachee High School in Winder about 10:45 a.m. Winder is about an hour northeast of Atlanta.'I have directed all available state resources to respond to the incident at Apalachee High School and urge all Georgians to join my family in praying for the safety of those in our classrooms, both in Barrow County and across the state.'Administrators sent a message to parents saying the school was "currently in a hard lockdown after reports of gunfire." The message said law enforcement had arrived and cautioned parents against going to the school while officers worked to secure the area. “Casualties have been reported, however details on the number or their conditions is not available at this time,” the Barrow County Sheriff's Office said in a brief statement. Grady Hospital in Atlanta received at least one shooting victim from the high school, the Athens Banner-Herald reported, citing a USA Today report.Officials around 11:30 a.m. said the school had been cleared, and students were being released to their parents. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the FBI said on social media they were at the school to aid in the investigation."I have directed all available state resources to respond to the incident at Apalachee High School and urge all Georgians to join my family in praying for the safety of those in our classrooms, both in Barrow County and across the state," Republican Gov. Brian Kemp wrote on social media. "We will continue to work with local, state, and federal partners as we gather information and further respond to this situation," he added.Around 1,900 students attend Apalachee High School; Winder's population is about 18,000. It's one of two high schools in the Barrow County school system, the Banner-Herald reported, adding that the sheriff's office said other nearby schools were placed into lockdown as a precaution.This is a developing story and may be updated with additional information. - YouTube youtu.be Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Former President Donald Trump honored the thirteen service members who died in the botched Afghanistan withdrawal three years ago this past weekend when he joined the families of three of the fallen for a private event at Arlington National Cemetery. While Trump was honoring their lives, President Joe Biden was vacationing on the beach, and Kamala Harris stayed home — though both of them were invited. In addition, no military or other government officials lost their jobs over the disastrous withdrawal, and many of those who lost loved ones are understandably enraged. “Of course, that’s not how our kakistocracy works. That’s not how our bureaucracy works. You get to fail upward as long as you tow the line on progressive ideology, just ask Anthony Fauci,” Allie Beth Stuckey of “Relatable” comments. While Kamala didn’t show her respects at the ceremony, she did take the opportunity to bash Trump for “politicizing the ceremony” and disrespecting sacred ground. “She certainly has no moral high ground,” Stuckey says. “She has no place to criticize Donald Trump for being self-serving in any way. She’s just jealous that she decided to make this misstep that she was not there to honor these fallen soldiers even though she had the choice.” Kamala took to social media platform X to air out her criticism of Trump, and the former president’s response was a heavy hitter, to say the least. Trump quote tweeted Kamala’s original post with a video of the Gold Star families who lost loved ones that day. In the video, the families criticized the Biden administration for the actions it took that resulted in the tragic withdrawal. One man featured in the video said that each of the thirteen families affected have “been waiting over three years” and haven’t even received a phone call. “Where were you and Joe Biden on August 26, 2024? Nowhere near Arlington Cemetery,” another family member said in the video. In a letter of support for Trump from the Gold Star families, Kamala Harris was accused of “disgracefully twisting this sacred moment into a political ploy.” “Vice President Harris has repeatedly ignored us, showing a complete lack of empathy and accountability. Her actions both in the failure of the Afghanistan withdrawal and in her disgraceful politicization of this anniversary have shown that she lacks the judgment, compassion, and leadership required for commander-in-chief,” the letter continued. “That is very, very powerful,” Stuckey says. “Good for Trump for allowing them to use their words, because they speak volumes now.” Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.