He’d start a war to try to retain power. I’m certain of it.
— BernieBro’nt (@BernieBront) December 6, 2023
What we know about the deceased UNLV gunman, ABC News reports
ABC News reports that 67-year-old Tony Polito is the gunman who killed three and hospitalized 1 at UNLV.
LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — 67-year-old Tony Polito is the deceased gunman of the UNLV shooting that took place Wednesday afternoon, ABC News reports.
ABC has been able to verify a LinkedIn page and a website that is believed to have been operated by Tony Polito.
ABC says Polito is the gunman, armed with a handgun, who killed three and hospitalized one. The news outlet says there are multiple victims of the shooting. Reports came around 11:59 a.m.
Polito’s home is believed to be in the 300 block of Arroyo Grande, where the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department was granted a search warrant to continue investigating.
ABC says detectives have retrieved his phone and are now examining it for contents of clues about what could have motivated the killer’s attack. Since the victims killed were not students, it suggests to investigators that the rampage was not random and could have been targeting certain people because of some previous relationship or interaction.
AP reported that Polito unsuccessfully sought a job at the school.
Polito is said to have ties to North Carolina and Georgia, where he previously worked as a college professor.
On his personal website, Polito has published a 15-page document on the Zodiac Killer, claiming to have decoded some of the cryptic messaging from the Zodiac Killer. The website also lists the various courses he seems to have taught, with syllabi and schedules, the most recent one being a Business class from 2017 at East Carolina University.
On the website, Polito also has writing about Las Vegas; although it is not clear when these were written. He wrote that he had the pleasure of making more than two dozen trips to Vegas in the last 15 years.
He also shared numerous links to news articles and references to travel guides for Vegas on his website.
On LinkedIn, Polito describes himself as a “Semi-Retired University Professor” living in Las Vegas. His most recent and only listed position is an Associate Professor at East Carolina University, where he listed that he worked between 2001 and 2017. Polito has also listed his Ph.D. in Philosophy and his Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Georgia and Duke University, respectively.
He has numerous endorsements from his colleagues at East Carolina University for his skills in student affairs, public speaking and teaching.
Channel 13 is working to confirm additional information about the four known shooting victims.
Apple Reveals Governments Use App Notifications to Surveil Users
In a chilling revelation that feels all too familiar, Apple has confirmed that governments are using push notifications for the surveillance of users — an imposition on personal freedoms and a glaring example of state overreach.
This unsettling news was disclosed in response to Senator Ron Wyden’s urgent communication to the Department of Justice. Wyden highlighted that foreign officials have been pressuring technology companies for data to track smartphones via apps that send notifications.
These apps, he noted, put tech companies in a pivotal role to assist in governmental monitoring of app usage.
Senator Wyden urged the Department of Justice to alter or revoke any existing policies that restrict public discourse on the surveillance of push notifications.
In a reaction to this, Apple stated to Reuters that Wyden’s letter presented them with an opportunity to divulge more information about government monitoring of push notifications. The tech giant clarified, “In this case, the federal government prohibited us from sharing any information. Now that this method has become public we are updating our transparency reporting to detail these kinds of requests.”
The letter from Wyden reportedly stemmed from a “tip” about this surveillance activity. An informed source confirmed that both foreign and US agencies have been requesting metadata related to notifications from Apple and Google. This metadata has been allegedly used to link anonymous messaging app users to specific accounts on these platforms.
While the source, speaking to Reuters, did not specify which governments were involved, they characterized them as “democracies allied to the United States” and were uncertain about the duration of these requests.
“In this case, the federal government prohibited us from sharing any information,” Apple said in a statement. “Now that this method has become public we are updating our transparency reporting to detail these kinds of requests.”
Apple, meanwhile, has advised app developers to refrain from including sensitive data in notifications and to encrypt any data before it is incorporated into a notification payload.
However, this relies on the developers’ initiative. Importantly, metadata such as the frequency and origin of notifications remains unencrypted, potentially offering insights into users’ app activities to those who can access this data.
The news, which is hardly unexpected yet nonetheless deeply troubling, underscores the precarious path we seem to be treading, one that veers ominously towards policies that infringe on civil liberties.
The key cog in a functioning democracy, our judicial system, and its informed oversight exists precisely to prevent such oversteps. It endows a suspected individual with the crucial right to mount a robust defense against unwarranted infiltration by the state government. Alarmingly, the situation at hand eerily mirrors scenarios where private entities and individuals are strong-armed into being active partners in such covert operations, all the while being legally bound to cryptic silence.
Florida police officials vow to stop illegally seizing ammunition from the public
Florida City Police Chief uncertain how long illegal policy has been enforced.
Last April Fools’ Day, a 61-year-old Miami man had a defensive gun usage in Florida City, Florida, which is certainly no surprise. Florida City was once considered the most dangerous city in the Sunshine State.
The man, who did not want his name used in this story, was at a fast-food restaurant when he was accosted by an individual who he now believes was emotionally disturbed. The man was filling his water bottle at a soda machine when someone behind him said, “I’m from prison. Don’t’ touch my food or I’ll kill you.” He quickly left the restaurant.
The disturbed man followed the victim outside, screaming about how he was going to kill him for touching his food.
“He was reaching in his pockets, being aggressive, saying how he was going to kill me, reaching into his pockets. He then ripped off his t-shirt and started running toward me very aggressively. I pulled my 9mm and told him to stop,” the victim said.
The victim kept walking backward, telling the suspect to stay back. At one point he tripped over some rocks, fell back onto his butt and had a negligent discharge. Fortunately, the round went into the ground striking no one. The victim got up and continued backing away from the man.
“He kept being aggressive, telling me to go ahead and shoot him. I kept walking away — about an eighth of a mile. He followed me the whole way, screaming and telling me to shoot him,” the victim said.
Florida City Police officers finally arrived. After two hours of questioning, they confiscated the victim’s Taurus G2c and two loaded magazines and then let him go. They took the disturbed man to a local mental health facility, where he was admitted for a 72-hour psychiatric hold, which is known in Florida as a Baker Act.
The incident occurred three months before Florida’s unlicensed concealed-carry law took effect, but the victim had a valid Florida Concealed Weapon or Firearm license.
Federal Judge Halts Enforcement of New Mexico Governor’s Ban on Carry in Parks
BLUF
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Renewed Motion for Preliminary Injunction under the Governor’s Most Recent Orders (Doc. 10) is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the Court preliminarily enjoins only the limited portion of the Second Amended Public Health Order (Doc. 10, Ex. 1, at 2), issued by the New Mexico Department of Health Secretary Patrick Allen, which restricts the carrying of firearms in public Case 1:23-cv-00781-KWR-LF Document 19 Filed 12/05/23 Page 19 of 2020 parks in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County, New Mexico. No other portion of the public health order is enjoined.
The Blue Marble
‘I owe them’: At 103, Pearl Harbor survivor makes trip to honor comrades lost in Dec. 7 attacks
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Pearl Harbor survivor “Ike” Schab is back in Honolulu.
The 103-year-old was greeted with applause Sunday as he got off his flight from Portland.
Schab has returned for the 82nd commemoration of the Pearl Harbor attack. It’s a trip that almost didn’t happen because of an illness, but Schab was determined to make it to this year’s ceremony.
While it’s been more than eight decades since the Pearl Harbor attack, Dec. 7 still brings back his memories of being there. ”And they’re not necessarily pleasant,” he says.
“But I definitely don’t want to lose that memory.”
Schab was a Navy musician stationed aboard the USS Dobbin that was anchored off Ford Island.
During the bombing of Battleship Row, he helped load his ship’s anti-aircraft guns.
Asked what was racing through his mind, he says, “Disbelief. I couldn’t believe it was happening.”
Even at his advanced age, Schab looks forward to attending the annual Pearl Harbor commemoration ceremony to pay his respects alongside other December 7 survivors.
”There’s a certain feeling of comfort and at the same time obligation. That’s a good word,” he said.
”I owe them. Just like that.”
But this year’s trip almost didn’t happen.
”He got really sick earlier this year, almost left us, really scary,” said daughter Kimberlee Heinrichs.
”I’m talking to him saying, ‘Hey, it’s OK if it’s, you know.’ And he goes, and I quote, ‘Hell no! I’m going to Hawaii,’” she joked.
For a long time, Schab spoke very little about the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
His family says that gradually changed the older he got.
“Because I think I owe to the guys that were there that aren’t there anymore,” he said. ”Don’t forget it. Don’t forget it. Just keep it alive. It’s like a living thing.”
Schab is the last survivor from Navy Band 13 and among the ranks of a shrinking number of servicemembers who lived through one of the darkest days in America’s history.
AP: Las Vegas shooting suspect was a professor who recently applied for a job at UNLV
The man suspected of fatally shooting three people and wounding another at a Las Vegas university Wednesday was a professor who unsuccessfully sought a job at the school, a law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press.
The gunman was killed in a shootout with law enforcement, police said.
The suspect previously worked at East Carolina University in North Carolina, according to the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to release the information publicly.
Police didn’t immediately identify the gunman, the victims or a possible motive.
Reports of shots fired at about 11:45 a.m. sent police swarming onto the campus while students and professors barricaded themselves inside classrooms and dorm rooms.
Police said the shooting started on the fourth floor of the building that houses UNLV’s Lee Business School. The gunman went to several floors before he was killed in a shootout with two university detectives outside the building, said UNLV Police Chief Adam Garcia.
Authorities gave the all-clear about 40 minutes after the first report of an active shooter.
Meet the new FISA, same as the old FISA
Question O’ The Day
Wonder what dirt does the DOJ have on him?
Speaker Mike Johson (R-LA) backtracked and caved to the deep state and Democrats, moving to slip a deep state authorization into the defense bill.
Reports say that congressional leaders, including Johnson, agreed to put an extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The bill would extend Section 702 until April 19.
This frustrated many conservatives, including those who were supposed to be instrumental in crafting the final texts for the NDAA.
Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) released a video statement after she said that leadership asked conferees, which includes herself, to agree to the 3000-plus page NDAA, which is “being released behind closed doors without even getting time to read it!”
The Peach State conservative blamed Johnson for negotiating with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to “cut a deal” that would contain prohibitions against funding for abortion and “trans surgery prohibitions” that were in the House-passed NDAA under former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
She explained:
It also would pass a CLEAN FISA extension. Not to mention, more of your taxpayer dollars sent to Ukraine to fund the proxy war. No member of the NDAA conference had any influence on this process. It was done in secret meetings with no input from conferees. Now, we’re supposed to just grin and take it with no say in the final bill. Is the GOP really going to fund abortion vacations and trans surgeries, fund the Ukraine war, all with a CLEAN FISA extension under Speaker Johnson?
This was a total sell-out of conservative principles and a huge win for Democrats.
Congratulations to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, you should all be excited to vote for this!
I’m a HELL NO! [Emphasis added]
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene / X
The news comes as a shock to many of those who were most intimately involved in crafting solutions to reform Section 702, a controversial surveillance law that Republicans and Democrats, progressives and conservatives, want to reform.
Not to sound the conspiracy alarm, but I find it odd that this happened the day the Senate voted on the Assault Weapon Ban, Ethan’s Law, and Universal storage. https://t.co/DkqozauOVZ
— Midwest Ordnance (@realMWO) December 6, 2023
BREAKING SHOOTING: Active shooter reported on campus of Nevada University, Las Vegas (UNLV), police say there appears to be multiple victims pic.twitter.com/ooLalfmoZf
— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) December 6, 2023
Just in: Las Vegas shooting – full briefing with the Clark County sheriff, University Police head, and Clark County fire chief on the active shooter situation at UNLV. pic.twitter.com/XOuOc3UWAG
— AlphaFo𝕏 (@Alphafox78) December 6, 2023
Israeli Security Minister: We Are Approving ‘Up to 3,000’ Gun License Applications a Day
The Times of Israel quoted Ben Gvir saying, “When the war started, we knew that we were right when we said that every place that has a weapon can save a life.”
He went on to say, “My policy within the office was to permit as many people as possible to get a weapon…[and] in a short period of time, we were giving up to 3,000 approvals a day.”
Ben Gvir indicated over 260,000 gun license applications have been approved since October 7, 2023.
On November 15, 2023, Breitbart News pointed to a Times of Israel report which indicated over 236,000 gun license applications had been filed in Israel at that point in time.
In mid-November roughly 1,700 applications were being approved daily, and the number of daily approvals has nearly doubled since then.
Breitbart News noted that an armed civilian opened fire Thursday on terrorists who attacked a Jerusalem bus stop. Two off-duty soldiers opened fire as well and the terrorists were killed.
Speaker Mike Johnson Tables Move to Slip Deep State Reauthorization in Defense Bill
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Tuesday reportedly tabled a move to slip a deep state reauthorization into a defense bill.
“BREAKING NEWS —@SpeakerJohnson has nixed an extension of FISA authority as part of the NDAA,” Punchbowl News’s Jake Sherman wrote.
As Breitbart News has reported, Johnson and other congressional leaders have wanted to temporarily reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Section 702 is a controversial government surveillance law, and the proposed move received strong backlash from 54 bipartisan House lawmakers and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH).
“Keeping FISA out of the NDAA is a victory for the American people who demand the end of warrantless government surveillance. I applaud Speaker Johnson’s decision to not cave to the Biden admin, Christopher Wray, and the entire intel community,” Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) told Breitbart News in a written statement.
At one point, Johnson’s office refused to confirm to Breitbart News Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-FL) claim that there would be no reauthorization, temporary or otherwise, of Section 702.
Johnson said that they would allow for the different Section 702 fixes to be considered on the House floor:
During a closed-door conference meeting on Tuesday, Johnson said that he could bring Jordan’s and Turner’s two competing bills up for a vote in a rare procedural gambit known as “King of the Hill” if there isn’t a consensus over Section 702, according to two Republicans in the room.
Under that gambit, leadership can bring competing proposals to the floor as amendments, and whichever proposal is the last one that comes up for a vote and still gets a majority is the one that gets adopted. It allows leadership to try to influence the outcome by putting its preferred proposal last.
As recently as Tuesday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who cosponsored the Government Surveillance Reform Act with Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) to rein in Section 702, opposed an extension in the NDAA.
“We’re going the distance with reform. Business as usual is not going to be acceptable. When I started, it was pretty lonely. You could have meetings about 702 reform operations in a couple of phone booths. And I’m looking around now and I’m seeing a lot of allies,” Wyden said, noting that he does not see how a clean authorization could have been possible with the strong bipartisan opposition to such a move.
As Johnson and other congressional leaders no longer wish to include Section 702 in the NDAA debate, the Judiciary Committee will now consider the merits of their proposal to rein in the controversial surveillance law.
Senator John Kennedy grilled FBI Director Christopher Wray in the Senate on Tuesday, demanding to know why the agency did not come out and say that Hunter Biden’s laptop “was real” when it was reported on by the New York Post in October 2020. The FBI had known about the existence of the laptop for nearly a year before the contents were made public. Despite this, the FBI had warned Twitter execs to be on the lookout for potential Russian disinformation, such as a hypothetical Hunter Biden laptop.
“Why didn’t the FBI just say ‘hey, the laptop’s real?’ Why didn’t you just tell everybody ‘the laptop’s for real. We’re not vouching for what’s on it, but it’s real. This isn’t a fiction.'” Kennedy asked Wray.
“Well, I, as you might imagine,” Wray replied, “the FBI cannot, especially in a time like that, be talking about an ongoing investigation. Second, I would tell you that at least my understanding is that both the FBI folks involved in the conversations and the Twitter folks involved in the conversations, both say that the FBI did not direct Twitter to suppress that particular story.”
“But others were in government,” Kennedy said.
“Again, I can’t speak to others in government. That’s part of the point that I was trying to make because the—”
“You’re the FBI,” Kennedy interrupted, “you’re not part of the White House and part of Homeland Security. You’re not supposed to be political. You see all this controversy going on? Why didn’t the FBI say ‘timeout folks, we’re not getting in the middle of this but the laptop is real.'”
“Again, we have to be very careful about what we can say— especially in the middle of an election season— because that’s precisely some of the problems that led to my predecessor’s negative findings from the inspector general,” Wray said.
The laptop was widely derided as having been Russian disinformation. This messaging came from the Biden campaign, was disseminated from there to the intelligence community, and was picked up as fact by mainstream media outlets, many of which had to go on to eat their words as it was proven, again and again, that the contents belonged to Hunter Biden.
In addition to cracked-out photos of the younger Biden, his genitals, and his dates, the laptop contained potential evidence of influence peddling, information about the Biden family business, emails, correspondence, and more. This material has been used as a starting point for Republicans to investigate the Bidens’ relationship to foreign business partners and to insinuate that Joe Biden has been guilty of selling the power of his office during his time as Vice President in Barack Obama’s White House.
December 6
1240 – The city of Kyiv falls to invading Mongols under Batu Khan.
1492 – Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Hispaniola during his first voyage of exploration.
1534 – The city of Quito, Ecuador is founded by Spanish settlers led by Sebastián de Belalcázar.
1790 – The U.S. Congress moves from New York City to Philadelphia.
1865 – Georgia ratifies the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
1884 – The Washington Monument in Washington is completed.
1904 – In his State of the Union message, President Roosevelt gives his “Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, stating that the U.S. would intervene in the Western Hemisphere should Latin American governments prove incapable or unstable, forming the basis for the ‘Banana Wars’ in Central America.
1907 – Explosions at the Fairmont Coal Company No. 6 and No. 8 mines in Monongah, West Virginia, kill 362 workers.
1912 – The limestone bust of Nefertiti, the royal wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten is discovered by archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt in the Amarna excavations of the workshop of court sculptor Thutmose.
1917 – During World War I, the USS Jacob Jones is the first American destroyer to be sunk by enemy action, when it is torpedoed by German submarine SM U-53.
1923– President Coolidge’s address to Congress when it reconvened is the first presidential speech broadcast on radio.
1928 – The government of Colombia sends military forces to suppress a month long strike by workers of the United Fruit Company, resulting in an unknown number of deaths.
1933 – In the case of United States v. One Book Called Ulysses, Southern District of New York federal judge John M. Woolsey rules that James Joyce’s novel Ulysses is not obscene.
1941 – During World War II, Special Training School No. 103, nicknamed “Camp X”, located on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario between Whitby and Oshawa in Ontario, opens to train Allied personnel of the Special Operations Executive, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and American Office of Strategic Services, how to perform clandestine operations behind enemy lines
1957 – A launchpad explosion of rocket Vanguard TV3 at Cape Canaveral, thwarts the first U.S. attempt to launch a satellite into Earth orbit.
1967 – Adrian Kantrowitz performs the first human heart transplant in the U.S. but the patient only lives for 6 hours afterwards.
1973 – By terms of the 25th amendment, the U.S. House votes 387–35 to confirm Michigan Representative Gerald Ford’s nomination as Vice President of the United States and he is sworn into office.
1998 – Hugo Chávez is elected as president of Venezuela
2006 – NASA displays photographs taken by the Mars Global Surveyor suggesting the presence of liquid water on Mars.
2017 – Donald Trump announces the U.S. official recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
2022 –The last of 1,574 Boeing 747 jets rolls off the production line in Everett, Washington.
