The EU, under the control of the global elite, is systematically crushing agriculture through its policies, but this is happening not only in Europe but also across the wider West.
The European Commission and the member states that slavishly follow it, such as Germany, are taking one measure after another that can have no other result than to make traditional farming and livestock breeding impossible, an act that has been practiced for thousands of years.
EU policies threaten to destroy what has provided us with our daily bread and food and make it impossible for farmers to survive. The adage of “No farmers, no food” is apt. Without them, we will all ultimately starve to death.
Denmark has recently announced that it will introduce cattle, pig, and sheep taxes in 2030. They say (…) these animals cause huge damage, as they emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Behind this is the green ideology, the European Union’s Green Deal, which is based on the idea that global warming is caused by human carbon dioxide emissions, and agriculture is linked to this, since cows, for example, emit a lot of methane into the atmosphere.
The measures that the EU and individual Western countries are putting in place are diverse, but they all point in the same direction. First, forcing farmers not to cultivate certain areas, to clear land, and to stop their activities in order to protect the climate. This is what farmers in the Netherlands were forced to do a few months ago, and the measures put some 3,000 farmers in an impossible situation.
The release of Ukrainian agricultural products onto the European market is a concrete, tangible crime by Brussels, which poses a direct, clear, and present danger to European farmers, especially those in Eastern and Central Europe. It is well known that the standards for Ukrainian agricultural products are far more lax and permissive than those within the EU, and the quality of Ukrainian products (from cereals to foodstuffs) is far inferior to that of European products — but that is why EU farmers simply cannot compete with the prices of Ukrainian products.
It is clear, therefore, that every move by Brussels and the European leaders who serve the globalist elite in Brussels is deliberately destroying European agriculture. Normal leaders would not do this.
Behind it are the left-liberal and globalist aspirations. This is what they believe, and it is now manifested in the fact that global warming is increasing in a devastating way, that the earth’s climate is becoming unbearable, but they believe that this is due to one single cause: human activity, mainly and decisively anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions.
Morgan Stanley Starts Pitching Bitcoin ETFs To Clients Today
Morgan Stanley has officially begun pitching shares of two exchange-traded bitcoin funds – with some 15,000 financial advisors given the green light to recommend BlackRock’s IShares Bitcoin Trust and Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund to clients.
That said, the firm will only allow clients with a net worth of at least $1.5 million, a high risk profile, and an interest in speculative investments to take part in the ETFs, and will only be allowed in taxable brokerage accounts vs. retirement accounts, according to CNBC.
Morgan Stanley made the move in response to demand from clients and in an attempt to follow an evolving marketplace for digital assets, said the people, who declined to be identified speaking about the bank’s internal policies.
The bank will monitor clients’ bitcoin holdings to prevent ‘excessive exposure’ to the asset class.
In January, the SEC approved applications for 11 spot bitcoin ETFs, marking the arrival of an investment vehicle for bitcoin that’s far easier for normie boomers to access than figuring out how to directly own the digital asset.
Meanwhile, other major banks such as Goldman, JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo continue to restrict their advisers from pitching bitcoin ETFs – only allowing clients access if explicitly requested.
Morgan is also observing a slew of newly approved ETFs – which means the bank may also consider adding some of the new Ethereum offerings for clients if the BTC ETFs do well.
As Bitcoin Magazine notes, the bank’s decision marks a ‘significant step’ towards institutional adoption of bitcoin in traditional finance, and “Morgan Stanley made the move in response to demand from clients and in an attempt to follow an evolving marketplace for digital assets, said the people, who declined to be identified speaking about the bank’s internal policies.”
A group of religious Israelis have been pictured practicing the ritual of the red heifer, which is meant to herald the building of a new Jewish temple on the site of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
According to Jewish tradition, the ashes of a perfectly red heifer cow are needed for the ritual purification that would allow a third temple to be built in Jerusalem. That temple, say radical Jewish groups, must be constructed on the raised plateau in Jerusalem’s Old City known as the Temple Mount, where Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock shrine stand today.
Some believe this will herald the arrival of the messiah and possibly even the end of the world.
“Temple worshipers are now practicing the mitzvah [religious duty] of a red cow in front of the Temple Mount, which will enable the return of purity and the observance of all the temple mitzvahs,” posted journalist Yinon Magal on Tuesday, along with a picture of activists from the Temple Institute.
In 2022, five red heifers arrived in Israel from a Texas ranch and are now kept in an archaeological park next to Shilo, an illegal Israeli settlement near the Palestinian city of Nablus.
The Temple Institute imported the heifers for the eventual purpose of using them in a ritual after years of searching for blemish-free cows, without a stray white or black hair.
Their eventual slaughter on the Mount of Olives will – according to advocates – allow Jewish people to be purified so they can perform rites and worship on the site of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Research by a professor at Bar Ilan University estimated that the ashes of one cow could be made into enough cleansing water for 660 billion purifications. The cow being practiced upon in Magal’s image (below) does not appear to be one of the five red heifers from Shilo.
The traditional site of the ritual, the Mount of Olives, is seen in the background on the other side of Al-Aqsa Mosque, suggesting the practice run was performed within the Old City.
The status quo in Jerusalem has long maintained that Jewish prayer is forbidden on the raised plateau in occupied East Jerusalem.
The site is believed to be the location of two ancient Jewish temples. Jews are permitted to pray at the Western Wall, which runs along one side of the hill and is regarded as the last remaining part of the Second Jewish Temple that the Romans destroyed in 70 CE.
Restrictions on non-Muslims entering the mosque have been in place since the Ottoman status quo designating Jerusalem’s holy sites to its sects was established in 1757.
לקראת תשעה באב: דורשי המקדש מתרגלים כעת מול הר הבית את מצוות פרה אדומה, שתאפשר את חזרת הטהרה וקיום כל מצוות המקדש pic.twitter.com/hgwgKlongz
The Chief Rabbinate of Jerusalem has also, since 1921, officially banned Jews from entering the Temple Mount. It ruled that Jews are forbidden to enter the site unless “ritually clean”, which is impossible without the ashes of a red heifer.
Over the past century, religious Zionist groups – including the Temple Institute – have advocated for the return of Jewish prayer at Al-Aqsa, with some even advocating the demolition of the mosque and reconstruction of the temple.
US Hands Ukraine $3.9BN in ‘Budgetary Aid’ Through World Bank
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal announced early this week that his government had received $3.9 billion from the United States in the form of “direct budgetary aid” – which are funds given from the US and disbursed directly to Kiev through the World Bank.
“This is the first tranche of direct budget support from the United States in 2024. In total, Ukraine will receive $7.8 billion in direct budgetary assistance from the United States this year, which will allow us to confidently pass this financial period,” Shmyhal posted on Telegram.
It is part of the continued Western effort to keep the war-ravaged civic infrastructure and daily services of Ukraine afloat. Without the aid, external supporters fear the country could see civic services collapse, leading to societal unrest and collapse of rule of law.
This fresh budgetary aid infusion will finance ‘priority’ expenditures to include rescue workers, doctors, teachers salaries, public pensions and social benefits. Farmers could also see some of the funds.
The nearly four billion is being pulled from the $95 billion foreign military aid bill signed into law by President Biden back in April, which set aside $61 billion total for Ukraine.
And specifically, below is a CSIS description of the part of the package set aside for budgetary assistance, including sustaining basic governmental services for the civilian population:
Economic support to Ukraine ($7.9 billion) assists the Ukrainian government in sustaining essential government services, including law enforcement. This support is structured as a loan, not a grant (section 508), in response to pressure from Republicans and former president Trump. There are detailed procedures by which the president can forgive the loans, giving the president a lot of authority. Essentially, the president can forgive the loans unless Congress takes specific action to disagree. Describing the procedures for these grants takes up three of the fourteen pages in the bill.
A breakdown of the aid still being dolled out, which could yet take years more…
Of course, the majority of the money marked as “aid to Ukraine” is really going is to the US military industrial complex. As the WSJ pointed out months ago, the roughly $60 billion for Ukraine will see most flow to the U.S. defense industry for additional weapons such as ammunition and rocket launchers.
UK authorities have warned people that merely retweeting information about the riots could lead to criminal charges.
Yes, really.
Stephen Parkinson, the Director of Public Prosecutions, told Sky News that people do not even need to personally post the content themselves to be deemed to be committing an offence.
Parkinson said social media users could be guilty of “incitement to racial hatred” if they post “insulting or abusive” content that is “likely to stir up racial hatred.”
‘We do have dedicated police officers who are scouring social media to look for this material, and then follow up with arrests.’
“So if you retweet that, then you’re republishing that and then potentially you’re committing that offence,” he added, noting that dedicated police officers are “scouring social media” looking for such material.
“People might think they’re not doing anything harmful, they are, and the consequences will be visited upon them,” Parkinson warned.
Sky News clarified that “sharing online material of riots could be an offence.”
The public official also asserted separately that individuals who publish protest/riot locations, such as those outside immigration law firms, could be hit with terrorism charges.
“The fact that it’s organised groups that might be motivated by ideological reasons, the fact that they’re promoting potentially very serious offences – that’s the sort of instance where we might want to consider terrorism charges,” said Parkinson.
He even previously suggested that social media influencers who are currently located abroad like Tommy Robinson could be extradited and hit with terrorism charges in the UK on nebulous charges of inciting the riots.
As we highlighted earlier, numerous prominent people in the UK are now calling on the government to mimic Communist China by banning Twitter (X) altogether in the country to stop civil unrest.
Cambridge professor Sander van der Linden said the government could “geo-restrict access to a platform if the situation got so bad” and Twitter could also be “banned from the app store for violating policies.”
Keir Starmer proudly proclaimed the implementation of a “standing army” of riot police to deal with what he has called right-wing thugs, although the Prime Minister has failed to condemn similar violent attacks and riots by Muslim mobs.
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Cocoa Prices Rise As US Stockpiles In Exchange-Monitored Warehouses Hit Four-Year Low
Cocoa futures in New York remain range-bound within a symmetrical triangle pattern after peaking near $12,000 a ton in mid-April, finding support around $7,000. Futures are rising this morning as traders are concerned about dwindling stockpiles in US warehouses.
New data from ICE exchange-monitored warehouses shows US cocoa stockpiles have slumped to the lowest levels since December 2019. Given the global tightening of cocoa supplies theme, the bags held in US warehouse could extend declines in the coming weeks and or months.
The most-active contract rose as much as 5.6% in New York. Inventories of cocoa beans held in the US have fallen to the lowest in more than four years as tightness in the market force grinders to draw down inventories in exchange-monitored warehouses. -Bloomberg
Bloomberg noted that even though the “cocoa market is expected to flip to a surplus in the 2024-25 season,” there is still increasing concern among commercial users that shortages will persist due to West Africa’s previous poor harvests, adding, “Cocoa arrivals at ports in top grower Ivory Coast are still lagging behind the prior season by more than a quarter, the latest data shows.”
Higher cocoa costs are continuing to be passed along to cash-strapped consumers.
The iconic US chocolate maker Hershey reported last week that it slashed its sales and earnings outlook for the year as shoppers reduced purchases of higher-priced chocolates and candies. In other words, demand destruction is emerging.
Nothing to see here.
Besides consumer demand destruction fears, cocoa prices have been weighed down by expectations of better harvests in West Africa. Prices are still 116% higher than at the start of the year.
Despite these price swings, oil trader Pierre Andurand remains bullish on the view that the stocks-to-grinding ratio for the world at the end of the year will be at its lowest ever “and potentially run out of inventories late in the year.”
Russia is fighting to fend off Ukraine’s sneak attack its Kursk Region, though conflicting reports have emerged about the location of these clashes. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that all the fighting has taken place on the Ukrainian side of the border, while Rybar – which boasts nearly 1.2 million subscribers and functions as a think tank of sorts – said that it’s taking place inside of Russia’s borders.
Whatever the truth may be, this latest development is still immensely important.
Simply put, it might be Ukraine’s last hurrah since it represents a massive gamble to open up a new front inside of Russia’s pre-2014 borders with the intent of having its foes redeploy some of their troops to Kursk from Donbass, where they’ve continued gradually gaining ground this year. Russia had hitherto braced for yet another attack against neighboring Belgorod Region, ergo the difficult but necessary decision to impose a strict security regime there late last month, so it was taken by surprise.
Prior to that, there was serious concern that Ukraine might be preparing to launch an offensive into Belarus, which could have expanded the conflict and possibly served as a pretext for Polish involvement. Taken together in light of what just happened in Kursk Region, Ukraine’s moves in those two directions might have been meant in hindsight to “psyche-out” Russia, thus facilitating its latest attack. Unlike prior cross–border raids, this one also involves uniformed Ukrainian troops, not terrorist proxies.
Nobody took Ukraine seriously when it announced that it plans to launch another counteroffensive by sometime later this year, though what’s presently unfolding might be what its policymakers had in mind. That said, the scale isn’t anywhere near what last year’s failed counteroffensive was, and it’s not truly a counteroffensive since Russia wasn’t attacking Ukraine from Kursk. Nevertheless, it’s still the largest cross-border attack so far, and it was clearly planned for some time instead of being an impromptu raid.
These observations don’t imply that it’ll succeed, however, since the military-strategic dynamics have been trending in Russia’s favor for the entire year. After all, Ukraine is diverting limited troops and equipment from the Donbass front to the Kursk one, and this could easily backfire by creating an opening that Russia could exploit. Furthermore, they’re unlikely to hold whatever they might have captured in Kursk, thus precluding the possibility that they can “trade it back” during peace talks.
Even so, the very fact that what’s turned into a two-day-long battle at the time of this analysis’ publication could even happened in the first place shows that Ukraine still has some tricks up its sleeve, namely its continued ability to evade Russia’s surveillance, intelligence, and reconnaissance. Russia didn’t detect any notable buildup near Kursk’s border ahead of time, only Belarus’ and Belgorod’s, otherwise it would have launched preemptive strikes and imposed a security regime along the border.
That’s not to knock Russia but to draw attention to NATO’s impressive tactical capabilities in being able to successfully disguise its proxy’s sneak attack. This contributed to the growing number of civilian casualties that Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zakharova condemned as proof of Kiev’s terrorism. It might get a lot worse than even that before it gets better too if Ukraine is able to achieve a breakthrough in Kursk Region that leads to it threatening the eponymous nearby nuclear power plant.
The odds of that happening are low though according to Major General Apty Alaudinov, who’s the deputy chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ military and political department and commander of the Akhmat special forces unit according to TASS. Another point to make though is that Rybar’s earlier hyperlinked report claimed that Ukraine seized control of a gas pipeline transit station, which if true, could end up seeing that facility destroyed and thus cut off Russian gas to its Central European clients.
Kiev has an interest in punishing Hungary and Slovakia for their anti-war positions, hence why it recently sanctioned a Russian oil company that had an EU waiver to continue supplying those two, so it might accordingly want to inflict maximum damage against them by destroying the aforesaid gas facility. To be clear, Rybar’s report hasn’t been confirmed and might be untrue, but its importance and Alaudinov’s remarks about the nearby nuclear power plant rest in highlighting the huge stakes involved in Kursk.
For these reasons, it can be concluded that this was in the works for a while and is therefore likely to be Ukraine’s last hurrah, which it’s only attempting now out of desperation to receive some relief along the Donbass front where Russia continues to gain ground and might be on the brink of a breakthrough. Russia will likely soon regain its lost territory, if any has really been captured by Ukraine that is, and then make Kiev pay for this dastardly sneak attack.
“Christians, get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore.”
– Donald Trump
Politics has become our national religion.
While those on the Left have feared a religious coup by evangelical Christians on the Right, the danger has come from an altogether different direction: our constitutional republic has given way to a theocracy structured around the worship of a political savior.
For all intents and purposes, politics has become America’s God.
Pay close attention to the political conventions for presidential candidates, and it becomes immediately evident that Americans have allowed themselves to be brainwashed into worshipping a political idol manufactured by the Deep State.
In a carefully choreographed scheme to strip the American citizenry of our power and our rights, “we the people” have become victims of the Deep State’s confidence game.
Every confidence game has six essential stages: 1) the foundation to lay the groundwork for the illusion; 2) the approach whereby the victim is contacted; 3) the build-up to make the victim feel like they’ve got a vested interest in the outcome; 4) the corroboration (aided by third-party conspirators) to legitimize that the scammers are, in fact, on the up-and-up; 5) the pay-off, in which the victim gets to experience some small early “wins”; and 6) the “hurrah”— a sudden manufactured crisis or change of events that creates a sense of urgency.
In this particular con game, every candidate dangled before us as some form of political savior—including Donald Trump and Kamala Harris—is part of a long-running, elaborate scam intended to persuade us that, despite all appearances to the contrary, we live in a constitutional republic.
In this way, the voters are the dupes, the candidates are the shills, and as usual, it’s the Deep State rigging the outcome.
Terrorist attacks, pandemics, economic uncertainty, national security threats, civil unrest: these are all manipulated crises that add to the sense of urgency and help us feel invested in the outcome of the various elections, but it doesn’t change much in the long term.
No matter who wins this election, we’ll all still be prisoners of the Deep State.
Indeed, the history of the United States is a testament to the old adage that liberty decreases as government (and government bureaucracy) grows. To put it another way, as government expands, liberty contracts.
When it comes to the power players that call the shots, there is no end to their voracious appetite for more: more money, more power, more control. Thus, since 9/11, the government’s answer to every problem has been more government and less freedom.
Yet despite what some may think, the Constitution is no magical incantation against government wrongdoing. Indeed, it’s only as effective as those who abide by it.
However, without courts willing to uphold the Constitution’s provisions when government officials disregard it and a citizenry knowledgeable enough to be outraged when those provisions are undermined, the Constitution provides little to no protection against SWAT team raids, domestic surveillance, police shootings of unarmed citizens, indefinite detentions, and the like.
Unfortunately, the courts and the police have meshed in their thinking to such an extent that anything goes when it’s done in the name of national security, crime fighting and terrorism.
Consequently, America no longer operates under a system of justice characterized by due process, an assumption of innocence, probable cause and clear prohibitions on government overreach and police abuse. Instead, our courts of justice have been transformed into courts of order, advocating for the government’s interests, rather than championing the rights of the citizenry, as enshrined in the Constitution.
The rule of law, the U.S. Constitution, once the map by which we navigated sometimes hostile government terrain, has been unceremoniously booted out of the runaway car that is the U.S. government by the Deep State.
What we are dealing with is a rogue government whose policies are dictated more by greed than need. Making matters worse, “we the people” have become so gullible, so easily distracted, and so out-of-touch that we have ignored the warning signs all around us in favor of political expediency in the form of electoral saviors.
Yet it’s not just Americans who have given themselves over to political gods, however.
Evangelical Christians, seduced by electoral promises of power and religious domination, have become yet another tool in the politician’s toolbox.
For instance, repeatedly conned into believing that Republican candidates from George W. Bush to Donald Trump will save the church, evangelical Christians have turned the ballot box into a referendum on morality. Yet in doing so, they have shown themselves to be as willing to support totalitarian tactics as those on the Left.
This was exactly what theologian Francis Schaeffer warned against: “We must not confuse the Kingdom of God with our country. To say it another way, ‘We should not wrap Christianity in our national flag.’”
Equating religion and politics, and allowing the ends to justify the means, only empowers tyrants and lays the groundwork for totalitarianism.
This way lies madness and the certain loss of our freedoms.
If you must vote, vote, but don’t make the mistake of consecrating the ballot box.
USA Has More Millionaires Than The Entire Population Of Ireland
The world’s total millionaire count comes in at 15 million, more than all of Rwanda, the 28th most populous African country.
In this visualization, Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao shows the top 10 countries with the largest millionaire populations and compare each to a country with a similar total population.
Data for this graphic is sourced from Henley & Partners and the World Bank, current to 2024. Importantly, a millionaire is someone with liquid investable wealth of $1 million or more.
Millionaire Populations vs. Countries
At the top of the list, the U.S. has the most millionaires in the world, at nearly 5.5 million. For comparison, this is more than the entire population of Ireland.
Note: Figures rounded.
In just 10 years, the number of U.S. millionaires has jumped 62%, and in 2024, it accounts for more than one-third of all millionaires worldwide.
As the world’s largest economy, the U.S. draws millionaires from other countries, looking for opportunities in further wealth creation.
While no other country has such a high millionaire count, it’s interesting to contextualize just how many millionaires there are all over the world.
For example, China has 860,000 millionaires, more than the people in the South American nation of Guyana. And Germany has slightly over 800,000 millionaires and they could single-handedly replace all of Bhutan’s population.
Perhaps most interesting is Switzerland, whose millionaire population (428,000) could replace Iceland. Switzerland’s population itself comes in at around 8 million, which means one out of every 20 Swiss residents has over $1 million of investable wealth.
Are Local Police Deflecting Blame for Assassination Attempt?
Ahead of Tuesday’s Senate grilling of acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe, local Pennsylvania police released a curious diagram from the July 13 rally in Butler that ended in an assassination attempt of former President Trump, the death of rally-goer Corey Comperatore, and injuries of two others.
The aerial photo of the event site, the Butler Farm Show, contained labels for the locations of Butler County and Beaver County police assets, including two local law enforcement “snipers” assigned to cover the American Glass Research building, where shooter Thomas Crooks perched with his AR-15 rifle about 150 yards from Trump’s onstage performance and fired eight bullets at the former president and the crowd.
The diagram includes a narrow red triangle, clearly labeled “Beaver Sniper Line of Sight.” That line of sight is narrowly conscribed between the location of the snipers inside the AGR building to the stage and pointedly does not cover any area of the rooftop where Crooks ran across and then stopped to open fire.
The narrow scope of the red triangle’s purported “line of sight” immediately stood out to some sources within the Secret Service community as purposefully narrowly constructed so as to try to prove that the local snipers never had any portion of the AGR building rooftop in their line of sight and therefore were not at fault for failing to monitor that rooftop.
“Either the red vector was drawn deliberately to avoid responsibility, or it does not include any part of the roof by sheer accident,” one source told RealClearPolitics. “Either way, no one had eyes on the [AGR] roof.”
The shooter likely moved to his left to put a tree between himself and the Secret Service counter snipers who were positioned behind the stage, the source suggested after watching a recently released cell phone video from a rallygoer showing Crooks – in plain view from the stage – running along the rooftop before stopping and firing the eight shots.
But the narrow nature of the red-triangle line of sight doesn’t sit well with many law enforcement sources who asserted that a local police sniper would have had a much wider line of sight perspective that included most of the AGR roof, if sitting close to the window’s edge and constantly looking out.
In other words, he would have seen Crooks, if he had properly done his job, the sources argued.
“If you are handling your window post properly, you would have seen and maybe heard him on the tin roof,” one source remarked. “If local snipers weren’t supposed to cover the roof, then what could possibly have been their role? Covering grass?”
Acting Secret Service Director Rowe, during his Senate testimony on Tuesday, put out a more simplified diagram showing a direct line of sight, or view of the entire AGR rooftop from where the local snipers were positioned.
“Why was the assailant not seen when we were told that building was going to be covered?” Rowe angrily demanded during his Tuesday testimony. “That there had been a face-to-face that afternoon – that our team leads met.”
“This was the view,” Rowe said, pointing to a photo of the AGR building’s rooftop. “These were discussions that were had between the [Secret Service’s] Pittsburgh Field Office, the local counterparts, and everyone supporting that visit that day.”
Rowe went on to describe his visit to the Butler rally site and said he laid down on the AGR rooftop to recreate the line of sight that Crooks had.
“That’s why when I laid in that position, I could not, and I will not, and I cannot understand why there was not better coverage or at least somebody looking at that roofline when that’s where they were posted.”
Lawmakers and Secret Service officials and sources have repeatedly traded accusations over the failure to man or surveil the AGR rooftop in the 20 days since a bullet pierced Trump’s ear and killed Comperatore. Headlines have criticized Rowe for blaming local partners and not fully explaining whether the Secret Service assigned the local snipers to the AGR rooftop, instead of inside the building.
The Secret Service’s shifting narrative for that failure has been the butt of viral memes and jokes after former Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle told ABC News in her only media interview that it wasn’t manned because it was sloped and too dangerous to place Secret Service or local law enforcement on it. Instead, she said, “the decision was made to secure the building from inside.”
In her testimony before the House Oversight Committee nearly a week later, Cheatle was ridiculed over that explanation and several members of Congress said it was the final straw leading to their calls for her resignation, which she submitted one day after the hearing.
Local law enforcement officials have also cited a complete breakdown in communications, with local police who were tracking Crooks siloed from the Secret Service when they are supposed to have interoperability and coordinated communications through a joint command post. (They are never on the same radio frequencies because synchronizing them is technically impossible, but communications are supposed to be coordinated through the command post.)
It’s unclear if that joint command post with representatives from local law enforcement paired with senior Secret Service agents existed that day in its typical form.
Sources in the Secret Service community have privately brushed off accusations from the local police that senior special agents never showed up for a briefing for all local officers assigned to the Farm Show grounds that day. The sources told RCP that they don’t usually provide briefings for every local police officer but the top agents in charge of the site security do conduct a detailed walk-through with top supervisors of local police.
It wouldn’t hurt, some sources suggested, if the Secret Service starts to utilize a written legal agreement signed between the agency and local law enforcement laying out legal liability if one side or the other fails to properly carry out responsibilities.
The agency simply doesn’t have the manpower to fully staff the events themselves, and even if Congress were to immediately provide more funding for additional hires, it takes nearly a year for an agent to get hired and minimally trained.
Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, engaged in a heated exchange with Rowe during his testimony last Tuesday, demanding to know why no one at the agency had been fired yet over the failures.
Rowe, however, did confirm to Hawley that the Secret Service refused drones from local law enforcement, a detail brought to light by whistleblower allegations brought to Hawley’s office. Hawley also has said that whistleblowers told him that local police snipers were assigned to the AGR rooftop but abandoned their post and went inside because it was too hot.
Videos of alarmed rally-goers near the building pointing to Crooks and shouting that he was on the roof several minutes before the shots rang out have only heightened criticism of the Secret Service and law enforcement failures that day.
Pennsylvania State Police Col. Christopher Paris testified before Congress on July 23 that in a meeting before the shooting, “We were told that Butler ESU was responsible for that area, by several Secret Service agents on that walk-through.” Paris was referencing the AGR building.
Paris also said it was his understanding that ESU officers left their post to look for a suspicious person. He added that he was not sure if those officers could have seen Crooks if they had stayed at their post.
Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger, who would be responsible for defending at least one of the local snipers’ actions that day if criminal charges were ever brought against the police department, pushed back against Paris’ testimony amid the ongoing finger-pointing between local law enforcement and the Secret Service.
Goldinger said that Paris’ testimony “misstated” local law enforcement’s response after snipers first spotted Crooks 20 minutes prior to the shooting. He said the two local snipers snapped a photo Crooks, who was seated outside the AGR complex, and circulated it along with noting that he was a “suspicious individual” to the “command center” for the Secret Service and the local police.
Goldinger asserted that “at some point,” Crooks got up and moved to the other side of the building, spurring local law enforcement to move within the building in an “attempt to keep eyes” on the suspect.
One of the local snipers, from his location inside the building, noticed Crooks was sitting on a picnic table with a backpack in front of the building. It was only then that one of the officers ran outside to look for Crooks after seeing him run away. The other officer remained in his position on the second floor of the building, according to Goldinger.
The other sniper returned to their post inside the building after failing to locate Crooks outside.
“Neither officer could see Crooks on the other building due to the visual angle they had from their location to Crook’s location,” Goldinger said.
Both officers, he added, were at their predetermined posts when Crooks opened fire.
“Their post was the building,” Goldinger stressed. “While one of the officers did leave the building briefly, it was in response to a suspicious person who had not encountered law enforcement despite them notifying other law enforcement of the suspicious person. Even so, that officer returned to the post, and the post was never left vacant as the other officer remained in the building.”
“To say that these officers left their post is a misstatement,” he added.
“These ESU officers and all of the other ESU officers, volunteered their time to be present for the rally to assist the Secret Service. They performed the duties to which they were assigned.”
Yet, the Pennsylvania State Police told Fox News that the agency stands by Paris’ testimony.
According to a partially redacted timeline in an after-action report from the Beaver County police, the police first observed Crooks at 5:10 p.m., then took photos of him at 5:14 p.m., and then spotted him looking at news feeds on his cell phone, and getting out a range finder. The Butler police then called into “command” about a suspect, communicating the description and the range finder and reporting that Crooks was “lurking around the AGR building.”
At 5:45 p.m., there was a text sent to a Beaver ESU command about the suspect, and the person who sent it was told to relay it to “command,” although it’s unclear whether that means the Secret Service command. It wasn’t until 5:55 p.m. that someone on the local team acknowledged sending it to “command.” In a redacted section of the timeline, there’s mention of a redacted individual or entity asking for the direction of the suspect’s travel at 6 p.m., and it wasn’t until 6:05 p.m. that someone spied Crooks at picnic tables and moving with a backpack on.
Then in line with the timing from 6:06 p.m. to 6:12 p.m., one of the local snipers stationed at the AGR building went downstairs to meet “a patrol” and let them know the suspect was “around the building on the side of the fairgrounds.”
At 6:12 p.m., Crooks fired off the shots, and then at an “unknown time” the shooter was “down,” according to the timeline.
