The amount of irony here is astounding. Leftist liberal and former attorney general Eric Holder’s firm was enlisted by the leftists over at Facebook to investigate the social media giant’s bias against conservatives. There couldn’t be a more humorously ironic story than this one.
At first, it seemed like Facebook might be trying to do the right thing: investigate the bias against those who aren’t leftists using the social media platform.
The tech company enlisted a team from law firm Covington and Burling to advise them on combating perceptions of bias against conservatives. But there’s one minor detail that Breitbarthappened to pick up on: Covington and Burling is the firm of Barack Obama’s left-wing former attorney general, Eric Holder.
In issuing an “apology” to the clients represented by the ACLJ, the IRS admitted that it was wrong to use the United States tax code simply because of an entity’s name. They also admitted the bombshell fact that this discrimination happened specifically because of the applicants’ political viewpoints. Keep in mind the fact that the mainstream media has spent years telling the American people that this didn’t happen.
In other words, outlets such as The Washington Post, CNN, and The New York Times directly lied to their readers and viewers to protect a Democratic president whose administration was openly breaking the law. –SHTFPlan
After the apology from the Department of Justice, Eric Holder flat out said that the DOJ should not have apologized to conservatives for using the IRS as a weapon against their political enemies.
Former Attorney General Eric H. Holder said the Trump administration was wrong to have apologized to tea party groups snared in the IRS’s targeting scandal, saying it was another example of the new team undercutting career people at the Justice Department who’d initially cleared the IRS of wrongdoing.
“That apology was unnecessary, unfounded and inconsistent, it seems to me, with the responsibilities that somebody who would seek to lead the Justice Department should have done,” Mr. Holder said. –The Washington Times
Holder had ordered a criminal probe into the IRS’s handling of tea party applications after the 2013 revelation by an inspector general that the tax agency had subjected conservative groups to intrusive and inappropriate scrutiny when they applied for nonprofit status.
And not surprising in the least, that probe eventually cleared the IRS, saying that while there was bungling, there was no ill intent. The probe specifically cleared former IRS senior executive Lois G. Lerner, saying rather than a problem, she was actually a hero, reporting bad practices when she spotted them.
The good news is that The Heritage Foundation will also be working with Facebook on the same issue.According to Axios, the conservative think-tank will “will convene meetings on these issues with Facebook executives.” Klon Kitchen, a former adviser to Senator Ben Sasse who now works as a tech policy expert at Heritage, has reportedly hosted an event with Facebook’s head of global policy management.
The American shopping mall – that centerpiece of the 1980’s big-box retail model – has fallen on hard times in recent years as the growing dominance of e-commerce has finally started to take a toll on brick-and-mortar retailers – a subject that we’ve frequentlydiscussed.
Shifting consumption patterns (i.e. the dawn of e-commerce), years of underinvestment by mall owners, and a seemingly unceasing stream of retailer bankruptcies are the factors that have been responsible for most of the damage to Mall REITS, particularly products tied to lower quality malls.
Emptying storefronts and malls have only exacerbated a glut of American retail space. The country now has roughly 24 square feet of retail space per capita, more than twice that of Australia and 5 times that of the UK.
And as if all that weren’t enough, mall-management companies are swiftly discovering that e-commerce is impacting their businesses in ways that they did not anticipate. For example, the increase of customers returning items to the nearest big box retailer location (instead of returning an item purchased online through the mail) has allowed for a quirk in how retailers report sales that is making it even more difficult for these mall owners to placate their Wall Street overlords.
As Simon Property Group Inc. CEO David Simon explained to Bloomberg, this trend has led a “significant number” of tenants to underreport their sales figures as many of these stores have begun deducting the returned items from their total sales.
Often, this total sales figure is used by mall owners to calculate rent increases – so stores have every incentive to maintain the status quo. Unsurprisingly, mall owners are agitating for change and accusing stores of effectively underreporting their sales. This hurts malls twice: Once when they collect the rent, and again when Wall Street views the mall as less financially healthy than it truly is.
The issue Simon is flagging arises from rents that are based on how much a retailer sells in its physical store. It’s common for a tenant to pay a base amount and then give the landlord a cut of sales that exceed a set threshold. Occasionally a retailer has no base rent and is obligated to pay only a percentage of sales rung up at the property.
“We are getting dinged by internet returns,” Simon said on a conference call with analysts Friday. “Every retailer is different, and there is not a standard response yet. It needs to be addressed in future leases.” He declined to quantify the problem but said it was “material,” telling the analysts that “we have audit rights, and in our normal procedure we saw some anomalies about sales.”
The tension adds to a growing list of troubles for retail property owners as the rise of internet shopping erodes brick-and-mortar revenues. Landlords are dropping big sums to reconfigure their shopping centers with attractions customers can’t enjoy online, such as restaurants and gyms.
[…]
“As the big chain tenants close, they’re replaced more often with newer, more entrepreneurial independent owner-operators, who can be more casual in terms of responsibly reporting,” Flickinger said.
The problem will only get worse as online sales grow. Items purchased online are four times as likely to be returned than an item purchased in-store. And online sales are projected to grow to 24% of all retail sales by 2027, according to RBC Capital Markets data obtained by Bloomberg.
Devising a standardized solution to this problem is proving difficult, because returns affect retailers in different ways depending largely on how the customer behaves (do they take the money and leave? Do they trade it in for a different item? Or a similar item of a different size?).
It’s hard to parse how the various parties to an internet sale and subsequent return are affected, said Daniel Hurwitz, CEO of retail real-estate consultant Raider Hill Advisors and the lead director of GGP Inc., the second-largest U.S. mall owner. For example, if a consumer trades in an item for one of a different size or color, the inventory at that location is reduced even though no money has changed hands at the cash register, Hurwitz said.
“The mall business has become obsessed with sales per square foot as an absolute measure of success,” Hurwitz said. “The reporting of sales has become less pure because there are so many moving parts with online returns. As an industry, it would be prudent to come up with a way to deal with this.”
Fortunately for mall owners, returns aren’t always a bad thing, as the owner of a business that charges customers to handle in-store returns pointed out to Bloomberg, if consumers are coming to the mall to return an item, that foot traffic should improve sales at a mall’s ancillary businesses.
Managing returns is a critical issue for both landlords and retailers, and e-commerce has only made it more complicated. Anybody who has bought a pair of shoes or a sweater online can attest that shoppers are far more likely to take back apparel they bought on the internet than picked out in person at a store. The rate of returns for online purchases is estimated to be as much as four times the rate for physical-store sales, according to David Sobie, CEO of Happy Returns Inc., which operates in malls and other shopping venues, taking online returns from consumers for retailers that don’t have a lot of physical stores.
Bad for both store and landlord, right? Not necessarily. When it comes time to seek a refund, people prefer to get it in person instead of printing up a label, making a trip to the post office and waiting weeks for the cash to show up in their bank accounts, Sobie said. That typically works in the landlord’s favor, since anything that triggers a trip to the mall can drive additional purchases.
“Returns from internet purchases as a source of foot traffic are valuable,” Sobie said. “Of course you’re going to browse, and maybe get something to eat.”
Of course, a shift in perspective is hardly what desperate mall owners are looking for…after all, the Wall Street analysts responsible for rating those mall REITS will probably tune out the minute they hear a CEO say “you’re looking at it all wrong.”
These days, it appears that being a man means you’re crazy. You’re a rapist waiting for a woman to rape. You’re a misogynist, just looking for a woman to oppress. You’re a brute, looking for a woman to punch in the face. You are violent, domineering, and angry.
At least according to the University of Texas at Austin.
They’ve rolled out a program called MasculinUT that treats men as though they are violent rapists just waiting for a woman on whom to force themselves. And, you know, slap around a little, because apparently, that is what men do. The project praises a poster of a black man with a flower crown, but mourns that masculinity “should go further than that.”
This makes me curious about what “further than that” would look like. Curious in a morbid, car accident on the side of the road kind of way, where you want to see it but you don’t want to see it all at the same time.
Outrage about the mental health aspect
The program is a project of the Counseling and Mental Health Center, and many media outlets immediately objected to this, stating that they were treating traditional masculinity as though it was a mental health issue. American Thinker and PJ Media both voiced their outrage.
In response, UT has rewritten their webpage about the MasculinUT program. (Emphasis mine)
The MasculinUT program does not treat masculinity as a “mental health issue,” and any such statements are simply not accurate. It was established to bring more men to the table to address interpersonal violence, sexual assault and other issues.
Like other UT programs related to sexual assault and interpersonal violence, MasculinUT is housed administratively in the university’s Counseling and Mental Health Center. Its goals include helping men explore ways to reduce sexual violence, helping students take responsibility for their actions, and fostering healthier relationships on campus and beyond.
These are important goals that we strongly stand behind. It has become clear that some of the communication and discussion surrounding MasculinUT did not convey this fully or clearly and was not effective at reaching the broad audiences the program envisioned. As a result, we will be reviewing the website and other content to ensure that it serves the program’s goals and will make any appropriate changes as we receive feedback from stakeholders.
Earlier this year, the UT System Board of Regents approved funding for mental health, student safety, and alcohol-related initiatives including efforts to reduce sexual assaults on campus. The new staff position that will oversee this program, and coordinate with other UT System schools, is part of those efforts funded by the Regents. (source)
I dunno. I mean, maybe it’s just me, but it still sounds kind of mental health-ish, doesn’t it?
And this thing at UT is only the tip of the iceberg in this war on men.
This is part of a war on men.
I hate to sound melodramatic, but this seems to me like another part of the ongoing war on men. Lately, there is little that a man can do without the Social Justice Warriors taking him to task. God help them if they dare to hold the door for the wrong woman. (Not me, though. I’m going to be ticked off if you don’t hold the door, because MANNERS.)
Let me be absolutely clear. Men who behave like Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby are accused of doing are indefensible. Harassment as part of a job should never happen and should be harshly punished when it does. Secretly drugging a woman or coercing a woman to have sex is wrong. Treating women like they are stupid is wrong. Paying them less for the same performance at the same job is wrong.
But most men, at least the ones I know, are not like that. My dad was kind, generous, loving, and armed to the teeth. He was a veteran and a healthcare professional. He showed me the best of both worlds. He would never have let anything bad happen to me, he treated me like a lady so that I knew how I should be treated, and he encouraged me that I could do anything I wanted if I put in the work. He was a gentleman, and that is a wonderful thing for which to strive.
We now live in a world in which some people who promote “gender equality” feel that men should have to cater to women, step aside and let them have the promotions just because they have female parts (or say that they’re female), and refrain from speaking in meetings so that the women can do all the talking. This article has 100 helpful hints for men to help make women’s lives more “bearable.” (I do have to agree with the one about the word “feisty.” Call me feisty and risk getting punched in the throat. But I digress.)
In what possible world is that EQUAL? I personally don’t want some kind of vagina handicap and I’m delighted to compete against men fairly in the workplace because I sincerely believe that my skills, intelligence, and talents put me on equal footing with them. I wouldn’t feel any sense of accomplishment if someone treated me like that. In fact, it’s so condescending that it would infuriate me.
And this isn’t all. There are numerous examples of women discriminating against men. Words like mansplaining and manspreading, for example, are pretty offensive, Tell them to shut up or move over instead of making up words for it. Heck, I have been known to sprawl a bit too much on the subway too, but a polite “excuse me” is all it takes for me to make more room.
One author even went so far as suggesting we don’t need to “redefine” masculinity, but instead, completely “get rid” of it:
It might sound rash, getting rid of masculinity. But it’s really not a crazy thought. We only have to look back a little over 100 years to understand that, in America, the concept of masculinity was constructed to defend white supremacy and white male dominance over black men and women of all races. (source)
To me, the idea of a world so unisex that we can’t tell the women from the men sounds very dull indeed. The differences between us are the things I enjoy the most.
I don’t have to hate women to like men, I don’t have to hate men to support women. Why is everyone insisting that it’s either/or?
-Not being able to be a mother
-Not suppost to cry
-Not allowed to be a cheerleader
-Suppost to do all the work
-Suppost to like violence
-Suppost to play football
-Boys smell bad
-Having a automatic bad reputation
-Grow hair everywhere
Boys who are just average kids, you know, the ones who are active, enjoy bugs and have trouble sitting still for an entire day when they’re 6 years old, end up getting drugged and treated for ADHD. Popular culture is urging us to encourage our boys to be girlie. And while I certainly don’t think we should shame little boys if they want to play with a doll, I also think that boys need to be able to embrace being boys and have positive male role models.
The war on men will hurt everyone eventually.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a man who is manly and boys shouldn’t be taught that there is. We’re screwing up an entire generation here. We’re politically correcting ourselves into extinction. Many women prefer men that are masculine, and men enjoy being appreciated for who they are. How do you think birth rates are going to be in a generation of soft, sensitive men wearing eyeliner and a pink shirt, and brash, angry women who constantly point out what they’re doing wrong? Think I’m exaggerating? Birth rates among millennials have hit historic lows, and they’re having less sex than any generation in 60 years.
I for darn sure don’t want to be the “guy” in the relationship, going downstairs to check out the source of the crash in the kitchen while my man stays upstairs and calls 911. I mean, I can do it, but I’m not going to have much respect for him after that. To win my heart, bring me flowers and then open the car door for me when we go to the shooting range for a hot date. Then, let’s talk about politics, philosophy, and the state of the world. I don’t have to have someone to defend me or pay my bills, because I have been a single mom for a lot of years. I want my abilities to be respected, but, the idea that someone would want to do that doesn’t make me angry. I think it’s nice.
And what about defending our nation in a generation or two? These kids being raised to be terrified of guns and violence. They will be completely at a loss if we’re invaded. I shudder to consider the military of the generations to come. To become so weak and homogenous puts our very future is at risk.
It seems like men can’t act like men without the risk of a lawsuit lately, but you guys should know that not all women stridently condemn you for being your wonderful selves.
Once upon a time, feminism was about equality. Now, it’s about anything BUT equality. It’s about denigrating half of the population and forcing them to behave in a way that is completely unnatural to them.
Not all masculinity is “toxic.” Men and women are different, and this is biology. There’s nothing wrong with this. It happens in every single species. And to try and stamp this out is a dangerous experiment that will not end well.
A Soros-funded “open borders” group has developed a smartphone application to assist illegal immigrants by sounding the alarm if they have been apprehended by US authorities – tipping off anyone from immigration attorneys to friends and family.
The app, Notifica (Notify), allows users to program a set of automated messages to alert a pre-selected group of individuals with the press of one button. It is available on the Google and Apple app stores.
So when an illegal immigrant is in the process of being apprehended by US authorities, they will frantically dig around in their pockets to whip out their phones and activate the app – hopefully without being mistaken for drawing a gun.
The group which developed the app, United We Dream, describes itself as the country’s largest immigrant youth-led community – boasting over 400,000 members nationwide. They claim to “embrace the common struggle of all people of color and stand up against racism, colonialism, colorism, and xenophobia.” The group advocates for protections and rights for illegal immigrants – including defending against deportation, obtaining education and acquiring “justice and liberation” for undocumented LGBT “immigrants and allies,” according to Judicial Watch.
United We Dream started as a project of the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), according to records obtained by Judicial Watch. Between 2008 and 2010, NILC received $206,453 in U.S. government grants, the records show. The project funded was for “immigration-related employment discrimination public education.” Headquartered in Los Angeles, NILC was established in 1979 and is dedicated to “defending and advancing the rights of immigrants with low income.” The organization, which also has offices in Washington D.C. and Berkeley, California claims to have played a leadership role in spearheading Barack Obama’s amnesty program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which has shielded hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens from deportation. “Ultimately, NILC’s goals are centered on promoting the full integration of all immigrants into U.S. society,” according to its website. –JW
Adrian Reyna, director of Membership and Technology Strategies for United We Dream says the app was designed “precisely to have a plan of action at your” fingertips.
“My mom doesn’t have documents, so I want to make sure that we are prepared and know what to do if something happens,” said Damaris González, an organizer with United We Dream who was brought to the US illegally in 1985 when she was nine-years-old.
Homeland Security‘s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division has arrested 42% more illegal immigrants from President Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2017 to the end of Sept. 30 vs. the same period if 2016 according to Pew Research Center‘s analysis of ICE data.
ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations made a total of 143,470 arrests in fiscal 2017, a 30% rise from fiscal 2016. The surge began after President Donald Trump took office in late January: From his Jan. 20 inauguration to the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, ICE made 110,568 arrests, 42% more than in the same time period in 2016. –Pew
Notifica offers users information and guidance on the rights of immigrants, along with tips on how to get through different scenarios. United We Dream says they are working on a second version of the app, which will include the ability to use more languages than just Spanish and English. A Summer upgrade will include Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese – as well as the ability to determine the location of where a detained individual is being held.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has hilariously blamed the United States for Canada’s illegal immigration of asylum seekers. The announcement that the US was to blame provoked a lot of questions for Trudeau in his country’s Parliament yesterday.
Trudeau thinks the US is to blame because Nigerians are requesting and obtaining visitor visas to come to the United States. Once in the US, they are promptly heading to an obscure, unofficial border crossing on the northern end of New York state. Once there, they cross into Canada illegally and request refugee status.
More than 26,000 asylum seekers have crossed illegally into Canada from the United States to file refugee claims in the past 15 months, walking over ditches and on empty roads along the world’s longest undefended border.
According to Hot Air, up until now, the Canadians have claimed it as a point of pride to quickly accept and resettle the new arrivals while bashing President Donald Trump for his “immigrant unfriendly” policies. But now Canada is running out of room and resources to take them all in and the Prime Minister would like the US to do a better job of screening them.
Of course, once Trudeau announced that he was blaming the US and their visitor visas for his problems, it provoked a lot of questions for Trudeau in his country’s Parliament yesterday. People were demanding answers as to how the situation has gotten so far out of hand and what Trudeau planned to do about it. All he seemed to have for an answer is that it’s the fault of the United States. There’s currently no plan to solve the problem Trudeau is complaining about.
Trudeau wants the legal authority to turn back thousands of asylum seekers crossing the border illegally. According to Reuters, Canada wants to amend a bilateral agreement to allow it to block border-crossing refugee claimants however, they say that the United States is not cooperating.
Under the Safe Third Country Agreement or STCA, asylum seekers who arrive at a formal Canada-U.S. border crossing going in either direction are turned back and told to apply for asylum in the first country they arrived in. Now Canada wants that agreement rewritten so that it would apply to the entire border, and not just formal border crossings.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has said it is reviewing Canada’s proposal but has not made a decision.
This could be a little awkward for the virtue-signaling crowd.
Amazon has halted development of a new 17-story building in Seattle (that will create 7,000 jobs), threatening to ditch the plans altogether unless the city withdraws a proposed new tax to fund help for homelessness programs.
Drew Herdener, vice president of the e-commerce behemoth, also said the firm may not occupy space in another skyscraper currently in development in the city, choosing instead to sublet it to another firm.
“I can confirm that pending the outcome of the head tax vote by City Council, Amazon has paused all construction planning on our Block 18 project in downtown Seattle and is evaluating options to sub-lease all space in our recently leased Rainer Square building.”
The Daily Caller’s Kyle Perisic notes that the so-called “head tax” would charge 26 cents per employee per hour for Seattle-based companies with $20 million or more in annual sales, affecting 585 of Seattle’s largest businesses.
There are more than 45,000 Amazon employees in Seattle.
As RT reports, Seattle expects to raise an extra $75 million under the plans, the majority of which would go to affordable housing, in an effort to combat the rampant homelessness which has reached crisis point in the city, with 169 deaths recorded across the King County area last year.
It is estimated that Amazon’s tax obligation under the proposal would be around $39 million.
The council will vote on the proposal on May 14.
As a reminder, Amazon has come under fire in recent times over its rates of pay as well as the standard of work conditions for the company’s employees. A 2017 investigation by the Daily Mirror found that workers at the retail giant are treated “like animals” and forced to work in warehouses without air-conditioning. The company is also said to have had paramedics on call during the summer months for those who fainted at work. As RT notes,it remains to be seen if Amazon will actually shelve the development entirely, or if the pause is simply an attempt to rattle Seattle’s politicians. The move undoubtedly has placed the city council between a rock and a hard place.
A new seminar at Cornell University is determined to shut down “climate denialism,” claiming that there is “mounting evidence” that “global warming is real.”
The course description asserts that “climate denialism is on the rise,” suggesting the increase is related to the rise of “reactionary, rightwing [sic] politics in the United States, UK, and Germany.” The proposed solution to combat such denialism and assumed ignorance is “climate justice,” even though over 30,000 scientists reject global warming alarmism.
Richard Lindzen, MIT emeritus professor of meteorology and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, found the course “an insult to the intelligence of the students.”
He clarified to Campus Reform that many scientists do not argue against slight warming of the Earth after the Little Ice Age (the unusually cool period of the Earth around the 1700s A.D.), nor do those critical of anthropogenic climate change argue that humans have made no impact on the planet, merely that the effect has been small and largely beneficial.
“The point of such courses as are proposed for Cornell, is to replace science with belief,” Lindzen argued, adding that students are “encouraged to replace understanding with virtue signaling.”
Course readings will focus on the question of “authority” in the field of climate science, exploring “climate research, popular environmentalist texts, and industry campaigns aimed at obfuscating evidence of ecological collapse.”
The class is also influenced by Amitav Ghosh’s 2016 book Great Derangement, which, according to the course description, “suggests that the world’s collective failure to meet the challenges of climate change stems from an ongoing crisis of culture and, more fundamentally, of the imagination.”
“More fundamentally, the course moves the question of how our own senses of environmental authority are grounded in ordinary life, shaped by our respective social positions as well as our everyday practices,” the description adds.
While the course aims to push for scientific discourse, it will also teach students to recognize indigenous “ecoauthority” so that they can “become familiar with models for ecological resiliency that do not conform to scientific or ‘expert’ discourses of climate remediation.”
The course is part of the Society for the Humanities’ general theme for the 2018-2019 school year, Authority. Courses under this theme will focus on the consequences of authority in science, law, the arts, and politics.
“In the age of a superabundance of information, what differentiates ‘real’ (authoritative) information from ‘fake news,’ and how one can be interchanged with the other as an ‘equal’ source of authority?” the description of the theme reads.
Stacey Langwick, the director of Undergraduate Studies in the Anthropology department, told Campus Reform that the class is a “one-time opportunity,” and “will never be taught again” because Carlson is a visiting fellow.
Hopefully putting to an end for at least a few months any still latent confusion over whether there “coordinated global growth” ended some time ago, Goldman reports that the Y/Y growth of its proprietary headline Global Leading Indicator (GLI), supposedly a more accurate proxy of the economy than GDP, growth decreased to 2.62% in April, down from the bank’s March estimate of 2.87%.
On a month-over-month basis the move was even more pronounced, with March GLI momentum decreasing to 0.026% in April from 0.041% in February, the lowest level since 2011.
Here, Goldman’s Charles Himmelberg writes that this signal “is consistent with the moderation in global growth evident in our other activity indicators”.
Digging through the assorted components that make up Goldman’s GLI, half of the ten underlying GLI components strengthened in April. The two financial, i.e. market driven, variables showed the largest increases as the GS industrial metals index and the AUD & CAD TWIs increased by half a standard deviation.
That was the good news. The bad news is that the components that weakened, weakened more significantly. The Japan IP inventory/sales ratio fell one and a half standard deviations while both the Belgian and Netherlands manufacturing surveys and Korean exports softened by half a standard deviation.
Putting it all together, here is Goldman’s infamous swirlogram.
Finally, for those who haven’t read our previous posts tracking the evolustion of the FLI, Goldman explains that the GLI is a Goldman Sachs proprietary indicator “that is meant to provide an early signal of the global industrial cycle on a monthly basis.” It was introduced in 2002 and has been revised twice since then, in 2006 and 2010.
The Las Vegas Police Department has released nearly three hours of footage from the October, 2017 shooting at Mandalay Bay, in which Stephen Paddock, 64, killed 58 and wounded over 500 more.
The footage shows a group of officers as they prepare to enter Stephen Paddock’s 32nd floor room, when one shouts “Breach, breach, breach,” before a loud explosion can be heard nearby.
The footage is the first peek into the actions of the LVPD on the fateful evening of October 1.
Officers move slowly and quietly out of the 32nd floor stairwell as a fire alarm blares – due to the explosive charge that blew the door of Paddock’s room. As one officer rounds a corner, he spots one of the 23 rifles strewn about Paddock’s suite.
“On the ground, with a bipod, to the right,” the officer says, describing the weapon.
The first officer to enter the suite, Levi Hancock, did not activate his body camera, so the public will never see those first few seconds inside the room from which Paddock wreaked much of his havoc.
Instead, the footage comes from two K-9 officers — Sgt. Joshua Bitsko and David Newton. Both entered Paddock’s rooms a short time after Hancock. Paddock’s body already had been found on the floor.
The videos, released in eight segments – four for each officer, begin with a race to the scene starting at each officer’s respective squad car shortly after the shooting began.
In one clip, through an officer’s windshield, the golden glow of Mandalay Bay grows brighter and brighter as he races closer and closer to the scene. In the background, police radio traffic describes the mass shooting scene as it grows progressively more dire.
Once inside the hotel, the officers walk the casino floor, guns drawn. They can be heard directing people to take cover and lock doors.
Keep looking at these people coming out,” one says to another officer. “Watch for weapons. Watch for weapons of the people coming out.” Shortly after, the police in the casino coordinate with the teams before beginning their ascent on a guest elevator to the 28th floor.
No broken windows?
Strangely, officers in the video above can be heard contradicting the official narrative, reports Intellihub.
“We do not have a broken window,” one of the officers named Cory clearly states after making entry into room 32-135.
“Standby, we’ve got curtains open on a window that’s not broken,” another voice can be heard saying in the video as officers frantically pull back the curtains.
“It’s not, it’s not, it’s not [broken] — Corey it’s not,” one officer makes clear.
Additionally, another officer makes a rather odd statement which alludes to the fact that the shooter had merely set something up by the window. –Intellihub
“There is another one [gun] over here by the window he was setting up with,” he stated, as if no shooting took place from the room which may have just been some type of command center to control the air assault via helicopters.
Online conspiracy theorists began focusing on the windows in the aftermath of the attack, suggesting that an inverted photograph of police at the scene of the shooting shows no broken windows – however others have pointed out that the broken windows would not be obvious due to the fact that the dark spots on the building are actually lights inside of rooms. Paddock’s darkened suite therefore may not have been visible.
That said, reports of no broken windows are sure to fuel a new round of analysis.
Tense confrontation between police
The released body cam footage reveals that as officers worked to clear floors and evacuate guests, two teams of police confronted each other as one team rounded the hallway of the 29th floor, running into another team of Metro officers with their guns drawn.
“Metro police, Metro police, Metro police!” an officer from the first team shouts. “Police, police, police! Guns down, guns down!”
“Friendly, friendly, friendly,” another officer says, indicating that the group they encountered was in fact made up of other officers.
“OK, it’s friendly, friendly!” another shouts.
“Friendly,” another clarifies.
After the brief moment of tension, an officer from the first team instructs the other team to stay on the 29th floor and finish clearing rooms “so we’re not aiming guns at each other.”
“Copy that!” another says.
Then the first team heads to the 32nd floor. –LVRJ
Following the first breach of Paddock’s door, police then set off a second explosion on the connecting door between Paddock’s suite and a second room he rented. After the breach, the first officer on the scene, Hancock, fires what police described as a “negligent three-round burst” from his rifle – which can be heard on the body cam footage.
“Where did that other shot come from?” an officer asks. “Was that us?”
As an aside, one of the SWAT officers involved in the breach of Paddock’s room was arrested in February on counts of sexually assaulting a child and kidnapping. Bret Thiel, 38, was jailed on four counts each of sex assault against a child under 14, sex assault against a child under 16, six counts of kidnapping, five counts of lewdness against a child under 14, and two counts of child abuse or neglect.
(h/t anon)
The two-hour police scanner audio feed for the shooting can be heard below:
In March, CCTV footage from the Mandalay Bay of Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock finally emerged, showing the gunman who killed 58 people casually gambling, walking around, buying snacks, eating and chatting with staff – reported the New York Times.
The footage spanning several days also shows Paddock checking in and bringing several bags of luggage.
“In the interest of providing greater context around Stephen Paddock’s actions in the days leading up to October 1, MGM Resorts has released these security videos and images,” MGM Resorts in a statement. “As the security footage demonstrates, Stephen Paddock gave no indication of what he planned to do and his interactions with staff and overall behavior were all normal.”
And yet, as we wrote in March, despite the CCTV footage of Paddock “acting normal” before to the shooting, we still don’t know what his motive was – a vacuum which several conspiracy theories have filled, including speculation that Paddock was actually an arms dealer in a sale gone wrong. As the theory goes, this might explain the 23 firearms he had in his hotel room. When the deal went sideways – Paddock’s buyers killed him, staged his body, and opened fire on the crowd.
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Others have noted that Paddock’s death certificate – made public in February, indicates his date of death as October 2, the day after the shooting.
Why was Paddock’s autopsy conducted six days after the massacre and not sooner?
Why didn’t Clark County Coroner, John Fudenberg release Paddock’s autopsy report immediately when ordered by the judge to do so on January 30?
Why did it take so long to send Paddock’s brain to Stanford University Medical Center since the autopsy was performed on October 6 and SUMC state they did not receive it until November 27?
How can the coroner’s office make a monumental mistake and list the date of Paddock’s death as for Monday, Oct. 2, 2017 at 12 o’clock noon (1200 hours)?
Paddock is the worst mass shooter in American history and once again an official report from the authorities involved in the investigation indicates false information.
Did anybody even proofread the autopsy report at the coroner’s office before it was released or was it thrown together in haste because the coroner believed it would never be made public?
Then again, authorities said that the 64-year-old high-stakes gambler had lost a lot of “significant amount of wealth” since September 2015, and had suffered from “bouts of depression,” according to Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo.
Investigators found 23 firearms in Paddock’s room – several of which were outfitted with “bump-fire” stocks, a large quantity of ammunition, high capacity magazines, a handgun, a bulletproof vest and a “breathing apparatus” in Paddock’s room. 1,600 round of additional ammunition along with 50 pounds of explosives and ammonium nitrate – often used to manufacture explosives, were found in his Hyundai Tucson SUV. Investigators say he planned to survive the assault and escape, and had set up several surveillance cameras in various locations throughout the room, the peep hole of his door, and in the hallway outside.
Primary findings from the LVPD’s report:
Paddock acted alone. Thousands of hours of digital media were reviewed and after all the interviews conducted, no evidence exists to indicate Paddock conspired with or acted in collusion with anybody else. This includes video surveillance, recovered DNA and analysis of cellular phones and computers belonging to Paddock.
No suicide note or manifesto was found. Of all the evidence collected from rooms 32-135 and 32-134, there was no note or manifesto stating Paddock’s intentions. The only handwritten documentation found in either room was the small note indicating measurements and distances related to the use of rifles.
There was no evidence of radicalization or ideology to support any theory that Paddock supported or followed any hate groups or any domestic or foreign terrorist organizations. Despite numerous interviews with Paddock’s family, acquaintances and gambling contacts, investigators could not link Paddock to any specific ideology.
Paddock committed no crimes leading up to the October 1st mass shooting.
Nothing was found to indicate motive on the part of Paddock or that he acted with anyone else
Upon searching Paddock’s Mesquite, NV home, police recovered approximately 18 firearms, more ammonia nitrate, several pounds of the explosive tannerite, several rounds of ammunition, and “electronic devices” – while a “large quantity of ammunition and multiple firearms” were recovered from Paddock’s Reno residence.
Paddock also reportedly attempted to buy a large quantity of tracer ammunition in the month prior to the attack, however the dealer he approached did not have any in stock.
As we reported in January, Paddock seemingly emailed himself discussing firearms, as revealed in an unsealed warrant;
“Investigators have been unable to figure out why Stephen Paddock would be exchanging messages related to weapons that were utilized in the attack between two of his email accounts. Conversely, if the Target Account was not controlled by Stephen Paddock, investigators need to determine who was communicating with him about weapons that were used in the attack,” according to a warrant.
In an email sent from Paddock’s Microsoft Live email account, “centralpark1@live.com” to “centralpark4804@gmail.com,” Paddock wrote “try and ar before u buy. we have huge selection. located in the las vegas area.” The “centralpark4804” account wrote back “we have a wide variety of optics and ammunition to try.” Paddock emailed back “for a thrill try out bumpfire ar’s with a 100 round magazine.
While breaching Paddock’s room at approximately 10:55 pm, an officer accidentally fired one round from his sidearm, reportedly not hitting anyone. Paddock, meanwhile, was found laying awkwardly over a rifle with what investigators reported to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Recordings of the incident do not contain Paddock’s final “suicide shot.”
Sadly, we appear to be no closer to an answer in the largest mass shooting in U.S. history.
Kanye West’s outspoken support for President Trump appears to be having an impact on popular opinion, much to liberals’ chagrin.
Democrats vehemently slammed West in April after he reaffirmed his support for President Trump in a series of tweets published after a one-year absence from Twitter. During his infamous “MAGA Meltdown”, where he showed off his signed “MAGA” hat. Later, he published texts sent by none other than singer-songwriter John Legend wherein Legend was begging him to rethink his vocal support for the president.
But though they failed to change West’s mind, it appears that his support (and the subsequent backlash, which only served to amply West’s message) is having an impact.
According to a Reuters poll (a media organization that can hardly be described as “pro-Trump”), support for President Trump among black men doubled in the course of a week, the Daily Caller reports.
The president also saw a bump in support among black Americans more broadly.
A poll taken on April 22, 2018 had Trump’s approval rating among black men at 11 percent, while the same poll on April 29, 2018 pegged the approval rating at 22 percent. It should be noted that Reuters only sampled slightly under 200 black males each week and slightly under 3,000 people overall.
Trump experienced a similar jump in approval among black people overall, spiking from 8.9 percent on April 22 to 16.5 percent on April 29.
Still, the number of black voters who say they have “mixed feelings” about Trump climbed following West’s remarks.
On the 22nd, 1.5 percent said they had mixed feelings, while 7.1 percent said the same on the 29th.
While some liberals have called for West to be institutionalized, not everybody agrees. Indeed, another high-profile rapper, West protege Chance the Rapper, affirmed that “not all black people need to be Democrats.”
Chance – real name Chancellor Bennett – is the son of a former Obama staffer. He first met President Obama and his wife Michelle Obama when he was “13 or 14”.
Of course, black men who followed the West drama might’ve noticed that black unemployment briefly touched 6.8% in December – an all time low.
And at 48.2, black consumers are the most content with their take home pay and personal finances since early 2015, according to the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index.
Unfortunately for West – who must now be on the look out for gang assassins coming after him – not all black men have had such a positive reaction to his comments.
