17 Takeaways From America’s Biggest Conservative Conference

The Daily Signal was at all three days of the Conservative Political Action Conference, the largest annual national gathering of conservative activists, in National Harbor, Maryland, just outside Washington, and we’ve rounded up some of the highlights of our coverage.

1. Vice President Mike Pence Speaks Out Against the ‘Culture of Death’

“Life is winning in America. For all the progress we’re making, tragically, at the very moment more Americans are embracing the right to life, leading members of the Democratic Party are embracing a radical agenda of abortion on demand,” Pence said Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Pence called President Donald Trump the “most pro-life president in history,” noting that Trump revoked U.S. tax dollars from funding abortions abroad and signed legislation allowing states to defund Planned Parenthood.

“Democrats are standing for late-term abortion, infanticide, and a culture of death,” Pence said. “I promise you, this president, this party, and this movement will always stand for the unborn and stand for the inalienable right to life.”



Pence also said the people of Venezuela are embracing freedom against the embattled socialist regime of dictator Nicolas Maduro.

“Freedom is more generous, more helpful, and more humane than any other social or economic model ever attempted because it is the only philosophy that respects the dignity and worth of every single life and sees every man, woman, and child as made in the image of God,” Pence said.

2. Lindsey Graham Praises Trump for Kavanaugh Nomination

“I want to thank the president for nominating Brett,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said at CPAC. “He did something not everyone does. He had somebody’s back when it really mattered. There were a bunch of people saying we need to move on, and the president said, ‘No, thank you.’ That’s truly called draining the swamp.”

Graham asked the CPAC audience to imagine what would have happened if Democrats had been able to block Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

Qualified prospective nominees would be reluctant to step forward if the tactics employed against Kavanaugh had prevailed, he said.

3. Parkland Student: ‘Government Failed at All Levels’

Kyle Kashuv, now director of high school outreach for Turning Point USA, a nonprofit youth organization, was a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a gunman opened fire Feb. 14, 2018, killing 14 students and three staff members. Seventeen others were wounded.

“What happened at Parkland wasn’t a gun issue,” Kashuv said during a session on gun control at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Kashuv, 17, pointed to statistics that show crime rates have declined as gun ownership has gone up.

He also expressed frustration that law enforcement officials received multiple reports about earlier behavior by the young man responsible for the shooting, but did nothing.

“Government failed at all levels,” Kashuv said. “Every single level of government knew this could happen. I’m targeting individuals who allowed this to happen. A gun is an inanimate object without someone pulling the trigger.”

4. Cabinet Secretaries Call for Senate to Confirm More Nominees

“One thing that has slowed us up a little bit is getting the nominations [through the Senate],” Energy Secretary Rick Perry said at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “Our friends on the Democratic side have not been quite as helpful as we’d like for them to be from the standpoint of getting nominations through.”

Perry said seats on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates the energy industry and approved projects, should be filled.

FERC still has a couple of openings [and it] could be really important to get those done,” Perry said. “Billions of dollars in projects are going to get approved at FERC … that will allow our natural resources to be moved all around the world.”

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao stressed that this isn’t the fault of the Senate majority leader—her husband, Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

“It’s not the Senate majority leader’s fault. I want to make that very clear. It’s not his fault,” Chao said. “It is the deliberate policy of the Senate minority leader [Chuck Schumer] to slow up the nominations of this administration by invoking cloture at every single step of the nominations process on the floor.”

5. Activist Assaulted at UC Berkeley Describes What Happened

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Signal podcast, Hayden Williams, who was attacked in February when recruiting students for a conservative group at University of California, Berkeley recounted what occurred:

As soon as I pulled out my phone, one of them said, ‘You guys are promoting violence,’ and then out of nowhere my phone gets smacked out of my hand. I go to pick it up off the ground and then the table gets flipped over and I turn around and this guy is just looking at me with flames in his eyes and he starts telling me, ‘Get out of my face, get that camera out of my face,’ and he starts pushing me and punching at me. It was just a really scary situation.

I’ve got most of it on film but he swatted my phone down about three times in total and the third time he got it I think the video stopped for whatever reason and he took my phone from me.

Luckily there was a third-person angle, some student who was walking by and realized what happened, basically, just took it upon himself to record.

So we have this angle, and if you actually look closely at the video, you can see my phone in this guy’s right hand when he punches me and knocks my hat off my head and then it looks like I’m tussling for his sweater or something, but really I’m just trying to retrieve my phone from him. Fortunately, he drops it and it lands between my legs and I go to pick it up and he kind of walks away, but he’s still yelling.

I look down at my phone and I realize that he was coming back and I didn’t know if it was still recording or not, my phone. He just gets in my face and starts yelling and I’m like, ‘Oh, wow, this is a really tense situation.’ And I look down at my phone again after he’s done yelling and right then is when he just throws the hardest punch I’ve ever taken in my life.

The really disturbing part though was the people around us that were egging him on. … Some guy was saying, ‘I’m on your side, you’re winning this fight.’ It was just really demented. I don’t care who you are, what you believe, if I see you in a distressed situation like that and you’re being attacked, I’m going to do everything I can to help you out. I wouldn’t even think about mocking you.

Zachary Greenberg was arrested and charged Friday for allegedly attacking Williams.

6. Van Jones Defends Working With Conservatives on Criminal Justice Reform

Van Jones, a former Obama administration official and...

Shooting Survivor Steve Scalise: Democrats Will Not Let Me Testify Against Gun Control

Shooting survivor and U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) says the Democrats refused his request to testify against the gun control currently being pushed in the House.

Steve Scalise says Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) asked Democrats to let Scalise give testimony before the House Judiciary Committee and they told him no.

Fox News reports that Scalise decided to make public the testimony he would have given, testimony that explains why universal background checks will not reduce gun violence or make Americans safer.

Scalise referenced the June 14, 2017, Congressional baseball shooting in which he was nearly killed. He noted that the gunman acquired his guns via background checks, just as nearly every mass shooter of the 21st century has done. Because of this means of acquisition, Scalise notes that universal background checks would not have stopped the shooting from taking place.

The same can be said about the November 5, 2009, Fort Hood shooting; the July 20, 2012, Aurora movie theater shooting; the May 23, 2014, Santa Barbara shooting; the October 1, 2015, Umpqua Community College shooting; the June 12, 2016, Orlando Pulse shooting; the October 1, 2017, Las Vegas shooting; and the February 14, 2018, Parkland high school shooting, to name but a few. In each of these crimes, the guns used were acquired via background checks.

Would-be mass shooters can pass background checks because they have no criminal record. They have criminal intent, but background checks look backward not forward.

As for career criminals, they do not shop for guns in a retail store. Rather, they buy them on the black market or steal them. Scalise pointed out that “a DOJ study of federal inmates found that only seven percent who possessed a firearm while committing the crime they were serving time for purchased it legally from a firearms dealer under their own name.”

Again, universal background checks would do nothing to deter such criminals because they are avoiding the places where...

Virginia House Panel Smacks Down Democrat Governor's Gun Control Bills

Virginia’s Democratic governor just knew he was going to get gun control passed in his state. That was clear from his comments.

Of course, politicians usually think their measures are going to pass. Otherwise, why bother proposing most of them, right?

Well, Gov. Ralph Northam has got to be disappointed. It seems a GOP-majority subcommittee smacked down each gun control bill brought before it.

A Republican-led subcommittee in the Virginia House of Delegates voted down more than a dozen Democratic gun control bills Thursday, including a red-flag proposal endorsed by President Donald Trump’s school safety committee.

In a packed hearing room, Republicans on a House Militia, Police and Public Safety subcommittee used their 4-2 majority to methodically defeat the gun bills over the course of more than two hours.

For the first time, the panel heard arguments about a bill to create extreme risk protection orders, which would allow authorities to take guns from people whose behavior gives law enforcement reason to believe they may hurt others or themselves.

The idea gained bipartisan support after last year’s school shooting in Parkland, Fla., but Thursday’s vote indicates Virginia won’t join the 13 states that have risk protection laws.

“I had hoped that this bill would show itself as one that could break the partisan logjam that we seem to be stuck in when it comes to gun safety bills,” said Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax, the bill’s sponsor. “This is a bill that Republicans all across the country support.”

It’s not a gun safety bill. It’s a gun confiscation bill.

As it stands, they’re looking at taking guns from a few people, but when the barriers are so low to get an order issued and no penalties for doing so falsely, only a fool would support...

Florida governor suspends terror-tied Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel for disastrous lack of response in Parkland shooting

Terror-tied CAIR Sheriff Scott Israel, whose deputies did nothing during the Parkland school shootout, yet he provided weapons training to a notorious radical mosque, has finally been suspended.

…several deputies stayed outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., during the response to the mass shooting instead of immediately going inside. Already, Sheriff Scott Israel has said the first deputy there, the school’s resource officer, did not go inside even though the gunman was actively shooting.

The investigation became public after several media reports, citing unnamed officials in the nearby Coral Springs Police Department, said officers who responded to the Feb. 14 shooting were concerned because Broward deputies did not immediately enter the building to help those who had been injured inside.

Longtime Geller Report readers were warned about Sheriff Israel and his terror-tied department for years.....

The Top Fake News Stories of 2018

Dan Bongino goes over the Daily Caller’s list of the “Most Egregious Fake News Stories of 2018.”

All of the usual suspects are among the top winners, including the Washington Post, CNN, and the New York Times.

We’ve listed the top ten of over 30 fake news stories that made it into the Daily Caller’s list:

1. Washington Post blamed the death of a 7-year-old migrant girl on Border Patrol

The paper disgracefully blamed U.S. Border Patrol for the death of the little girl, despite the fact that her own father praised the agency for doing everything they could to help her. The full timeline of events also paint a different picture than what the Post portrays.

2. CNN and the Hill both reported on a sexual assault claim against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh without mentioning that the claim had been quickly retracted.

The Hill eventually deleted a tweet about the claim and CNN updated its story.

3. The Boston Globe had to correct it’s story about Elizabeth Warren and admit she’s even LESS Native American than they had thought.

The paper initially stated that the Massachusetts senator was between 1/32 and 1/512th Native American, but had to issue a correction stating she was actually between 1/64th and 1/1,024th Native American.

4. The New York Times shamefully reported that former U.N. 

Ambassador Nikki Haley purchased expensive curtains for her New York apartment.In reality, the $52,000 curtains were approved in 2016 and the ambassador had no say in the matter.

5. The media still blames Republicans for the Steele dossier.

The Daily Caller points out that so-called reporters such as CNN’s Jim Sciutto, MSNBC’s Katy Tur, and MSNBC’s Ari Melber all perpetuated the falsehood that the GOP was responsible for the salacious, unverified, anti-Trump dossier. In reality, the research conducted by ex-British spy Christopher Steele and eventually compiled into the dossier was solely paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign.

6. A CNN analyst published a “dubious” report about more unsubstantiated Brett Kavanaugh claims.

The DC points out, “CNN political analyst and Sentinel editor Brian Karem published a report in September claiming that ‘Montgomery County investigators’ were looking into an additional allegation of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.Local police disputed that they were investigating any claims, and Karem later updated his reporting to indicate that his sources were not police, but rather random ‘investigators in Montgomery County.'”

7. Just one day after Sen. Ted Cruz did a 15 minute interview with CNN, the network claimed he was “scared” to appear on their channel in the wake of the Parkland, Florida school shooting....

Florida Paper Confirms What Dana Loesch Said During CNN Townhall: Sheriff Israel Failed Parkland Students

It's no secret that the shooting that took place on Valentine's Day at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida has had a profound impact on the country. The issue of gun control and law enforcement intervention in school shootings has been at the forefront of this discussion.

Since the tragic shooting took place, gun rights advocates, including National Rifle Association (NRA) spokeswoman Dana Loesch have said that the Parkland shooting took place, not because of lax gun laws, but because of the failed leadership under Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel.

Remember this discussion that took place during the CNN Townhall? Loesch reminded Israel that law enforcement officials were called 39 times on Nikolas Cruz. And guess what? Absolutely nothing was done.

"They [Parkland students] were threatened with death. They were threatened that they were going to bleed. They were threatened that they were going to be killed," Loesch told Israel. "And [Nikolas Cruz] had already taken bullets and knives to school. He'd already assaulted people. He assaulted his parent. His assaulted other students. 39 visits and this was known to the intelligence and law enforcement community. Look, I'm not saying you can be everywhere at once, but this is what I'm talking about. We have to follow up on these red flags. Doesn't that meet the standard?"

The South Florida Sun Sentinel dug deeper into what occurred on that tragic February day. And guess what they discovered? That the Broward County Sheriff's Office failed to protect students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School...and that was a direct result of Sheriff Scott Israel's leadership...

THE DEMOCRATS’ BIGGEST EXPERT ACCUSING REPUBLICANS OF RUSSIAN TROLLING WAS A RUSSIAN TROLL

They invented the Russian conspiracy, then they faked the crimes.

When the Democrats and the media wanted to prove that Russian trolls were everywhere, and supporting Republicans, they turned to Jonathon Morgan and Renee DiResta.

Morgan and DiResta had originally been part of Obama’s futile effort to fight ISIS on social media, before discovering a much more lucrative field. ISIS was losing on the battlefield and the Democrats were losing elections. The Hillary campaign had hatched a conspiracy theory blaming its loss on Russian trolls. And Morgan and DiResta soon became the experts providing the data linking Republicans to Russian trolls.

Every time there was a story on Russian election interference, Morgan would show up on CNN or NBC. And his message was the same, the Russian bots were everywhere and they were a major threat.

Morgan and DiResta soon had a company name, New Knowledge, and were brought on board by the Senate Intelligence Committee to produce a report on Russian influence operations in the 2016 election. Despite the fact that a second report found that most of the Russian trolling efforts had been directed at African-Americans, the New Knowledge report claimed that this was a Russian conspiracy to aid Trump.

The New York Times, which frequently promoted and published New Knowledge conspiracy theories, all but credited DiResta for having exposed the whole Russian-Republican troll conspiracy, and wrote that, “Senate and House staff members, who knew of DiResta's expertise through her public reports and her previous work advising the Obama administration on disinformation campaigns, had reached out to her and others to help them prepare for the hearings.” They seemingly included Senator Warner’s office.

And it wasn’t just the 2016 election. Morgan, who made no secret of his loathing for conservatives, claimed that the Russian bots were everything and aiding Republicans.

When the #ReleasetheMemo hashtag went viral, Morgan, now running his own company, New Knowledge, was there suggesting it might be Russian bots. The debates about gun control after the Parkland school massacre? More Russian bots. The migrant caravan? Obviously a fake news conspiracy.

"That whole news cycle was dominated by this type of conspiratorial fear-mongering," Morgan sniffed, even though his current career is based around conspiratorial lefty fear-mongering.

And the midterm elections?

"Russians Meddling in the Midterms? Here’s the Data," Morgan and Ryan Fox, a New Knowledge employee, warned. “Our company is currently detecting more overall activity in real time from continuing Russian online influence operations targeting the midterm elections than has been disclosed by social media platforms or detected by researchers during the same period before the election in 2016.”

The Russians were even going all the way into Alabama. “Russian trolls tracked by #Hamilton68 are taking an interest in the AL Senate race. What a surprise,” Morgan tweeted.

It wouldn’t have been much of a surprise to him because the “Russian trolls” supporting Roy Moore in Alabama were actually his trolls.

A New York Times story was forced to reveal that Morgan had participated in what a report described as...

Dick’s May Have To Close Stores Due To Anti-Gun Decisions

by Tom Knighton
I’ve written more about Dick’s Sporting Goods in 2018 than I ever thought I would. When the year started, we thought the company would have gotten the message that taking anti-gun stances wasn’t conducive to profits, but it didn’t.

So Dick’s doubled down after Parkland and purged the rest of the AR-15s from its stores and then instituted a discriminatory policy against legal adults.

And it’s biting it right in the kiester, too.

In remarks made to the Goldman Sachs Retailing Conference and first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, CEO Edward Stack explained that the 3.9 percent decline in the company’s sales during the third quarter could be partially attributed to its ban on the sale of assault-style rifles and on the sale of all firearms to customers under 21 years old — both of which were implemented in the wake of the Parkland shooting in February.

“Well I think it’s definitely a factor, and it’s nothing that we didn’t anticipate,” Stack said of the sales downturn during the call. “As we put out kind of our guidance for the year and our earnings guidance for the year, we knew this would happen when — we’ve made some decisions on firearms in the past and we’ve had a pretty good idea of what these consequences were going to be. We felt that was absolutely the right thing to do. We would do the same thing again if we had a mulligan, so to speak, to do it again.”

In addition to the firearm-purchasing restrictions, Dick’s also hired a number of Washington, D.C. lobbyists in May to advocate for more-stringent gun-control regulations. Taken together, the restrictions and the lobbying effort led the National Shooting Sports Foundation to expel Dick’s and caused a number of major gun manufacturers to sever ties with the retailer — developments that Stack admitted were detrimental to its third-quarter performance.

I’d say, “Who cares?” but the truth is, I do.

Schadenfreude is a kind of caring, right?

Honestly, it couldn’t happen to a...

Florida Gun Grabbers Launch ‘Assault Weapon Ban’ Petition

Florida has long been unofficially known as the “Gunshine State” for its generally pro-gun status. While it wasn’t as pro-gun as many places–waiting period, I’m looking at you–it’s still a state with a pro-gun attitude. This is despite the knee-jerk legislation passed through in the emotional wake of the Parkland massacre.

However, anti-gun groups appear to believe the emotional wake is still taking place. Why else would they launch a ballot initiative to ban so-called assault weapons?

The groups, Americans for Gun Safety Now and the unambiguously-named Ban Assault Weapons Now, said in a joint statement released this week that they were formed during the advocacy wave that surged following the Marjo

ry Stoneman Douglas High School shooting that left 17 dead in the state in February. Working together, they hope to gather enough signatures to put the initiative in front of voters for a yes or no vote that, if successful, would enact a statewide ban.

“The assault rifle, and its ability to fire approximately one hundred rounds a minute, can be purchased legally with no proof of training, no background check, and no regulations what so ever,” said Gail Schwartz, BAWNs chair, and the aunt of Alex Schachter who was killed at Parkland. “Our goal is to take military-style firearms off the shelves thus saving the lives of innocent people.”

Both organizations, with a small social media footprint and few independent events under their belt, are facing an uphill battle. The groups would need to gather 766,200 signatures from registered Florida voters through an approved petition process to put the amendment on the state’s 2020 ballot. Once there, state law requires that a constitutional amendment has to gather 60 percent of the vote to become law, rather than a simple majority.

The media footprint is only one of the challenges creating an uphill battle for their effort.
Another is the fact that now that things have settled down after Parkland, it’s unlikely that all that many people will want to sign the blasted things.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m quite sure that you can find 766,200 anti-gunners in a state the size of Florida. The problem will be getting the petition in front of them.

Even if that happens, though, I’d be shocked to see 60 percent of the electorate–in a presidential election year, mind you, which means a greater turnout than normal–decide to ban a class of firearms after all...

Broward County Florida...

Home Of:

Rick Scott
Marco Rubio
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Sheriff Israel
Parkland High School Shooting 
Mike Miles
Roger Stone
The Rock

Rush Limbaugh Lives Just North In Palm Beach County With

Our President
The Kennedy Compound
Bill Clinton's Billionaire Friend Jeffrey Epstein, Owner of "Orgy" Or "Pedo" Island
Tiger Woods

Florida Man Is A Transient And Can Turn Up Anywhere! Stories Of His Demise Are Not True!

...I'm sure there is more...

‘Blue Wave’ Fizzles As Gun Control Appears To Fail

Ever since 2016, Democrats have predicted a Blue Wave to sweep through the halls of Congress and put President Trump in check. This was echoed by allies in the news media and it didn’t hurt them that history was working on their side. After all, the president’s party tends to lose a lot of ground in the midterm elections.

Over the last few weeks, some experts worked to temper expectations. They weren’t so sure the Blue Wave was going to materialize, but others were convinced that it was a foregone conclusion.

Then last night happened.

The “Blue Wave” Became “Red Dead Redemption” as the supposedly dead-in-the-water Republicans pulled out a huge upset all across the country in what has to be taken as a partial rebuke of gun control policies.

One of the biggest examples has to be the failure of Beto O’Rourke to unseat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz despite running the most expensive Senate campaign in American history. While O’Rourke was already being mentioned as a possible candidate for president in 2020, he still failed to win a statewide race to get into the Senate, at least in part due to his radical anti-gun views.

Republican Rick Scott, who may still be on the naughty list with many Florida voters after signing a host of gun control bills into law following the Parkland shooting, managed to pull out a win in that state. While many pro-gun voters were still upset with Scott, that didn’t stop many from holding their nose and voting for him over Bill Nelson.

However, Scott’s win over Nelson wasn’t the only rebuke of gun control Florida voters gave. Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum campaigned at least in part on dismantling the series of laws that led to Florida earning its “Gunshine State” moniker, yet he fell to former Congressman Ron DeSantis.

Amusingly enough, it looks like candidates caught on video supporting gun control they wouldn’t support publicly had a rough night as well.

Sen. Claire McCaskill will now be former Senator McCaskill, probably at least partially due to a Project Veritas video showing her says she wants more gun control. In New York, congressional candidate Tedra Cobb fell to Elise Stefanick as well.

While Arizona’s still too close to call, Krysten Sinema’s own brush with Project Veritas doesn’t seem to be doing her any favors as she’s trailing Martha McSally.

Another race that’s too close to call is here in my home state of Georgia, where Republican Brian Kemp is leading the anti-gun Stacey Abrams who is refusing to concede as of this writing. She’s convinced the absentee ballots will kick this one to a runoff election. I’m a little skeptical that she’ll make up the two-plus points she’s trailing just by absentee ballots unless something hinky is going on.

Even John Tester, who the polls had as a favorite going into yesterday’s voting is currently trailing Matt Rosendale. Don’t think Tester’s support for universal background checks didn’t play a role in Montana voters’ minds.

Overall, gun control crashed and crashed hard.

Today, many Democrats are wondering just what the hell happened. Now, to be fair, they did gain control of the House, which isn’t going to be helpful for President Trump and it’s not very helpful for us. It means there’s absolutely no chance of the SAFE Act, which would in part legalize suppressors, will make it to the floor for a vote. Even if it did, there’s no way it would pass now.

But because the GOP held onto the Senate and even looks to have made some gains, it also means gun control...

David Hogg, gun control advocates march on Smith & Wesson headquarters, demand $5 million donation

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Student gun control advocates and one of the survivors of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting are finishing a 50-mile, four-day march in Massachusetts to the headquarters of gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson.

The group is gathering outside company headquarters Sunday in Springfield.

The marchers have condemned Smith & Wesson for making the rifle used in the February mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. The group wants the company to donate $5 million to gun violence research.

The Boston Globe reported David Hogg, a Parkland shooting survivor, called the march empowering and said Massachusetts shows how commonsense gun laws work.

Another group held signs across the street from Smith & Wesson supporting the gun-maker and the Second Amendment.

Smith & Wesson hasn’t responded to...

FULL VIDEO: Nikolas Cruz interrogation after Parkland school shooting

Sheriff: Investigation Shows Armed Teacher Could Have Stopped Parkland Shooter

New York Times Miami Bureau Chief Patricia Mazzei

It is said that some law enforcement officials do not believe that citizens should own guns.

Pinellas County, Florida, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri is not one of them.

While gun control groups chant that arming teachers and school staffers would not stop school shootings, this sheriff appointed by the Florida state government to investigate the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School disagrees.

As reported by New York Times Miami Bureau Chief Patricia Mazzei, Gualtieri concluded that the shooter could have been stopped by an armed school employee.

The sheriff based this on the reload time required for the AR-assault rifle used by the shooter:

SWAT swarms home of Parkland student David Hogg after a prank call to police

A phone call about a possible hostage situation in Parkland on Tuesday morning led police officers to swarm the home of one of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School's most outspoken student activists.

It turned out to be a prank called "swatting" — an illegal hoax call increasingly employed as a harassment tactic.

The Broward County Sheriff's Office said the target of call was the Parkland home of Stoneman Douglas senior David Hogg. The 18-year-old has emerged as one of the leading voices at the high school since a Feb. 14 massacre by a former student who opened fire with an AR-15-styled rifle and killed 17 students and staff on campus.

"They said there was someone in the home with a weapon," said Broward Sheriff's Office public information officer Gina Carter. "SWAT responded. They cleared the home. It was a hoax and we will be investigating."

The call came in at 8:39 a.m. When police arrived there was no one in the house.

Hogg was one of the leaders of anti-gun march in Washington in March and has been pushing elected leaders in Tallahassee and in the nation's capitol on gun control measures. At the end of May, Hogg led a sit-in at a supermarket after learning Publix had donated a large chunk of money to a state legislator who prides himself of being pro National Rifle Association. The giant supermarket chain caved and said it would no longer make political contributions.

Hogg is also one of several student leaders who will take part in a bus tour this summer to several cities in a get-out-the-vote campaign.

The continuing campaign has lead to social media attacks against many students, including Hogg, from many conservative and pro-gun commentators.

In 2015, dozens of Miami Beach police officers and SWAT members raced to the home of rap icon...

Four years later, alleged assault by Sheriff Israel's son becomes a news story...

In mid-February of 2014, two 17-year-old Marjory Stoneman Douglas students assaulted a 14-year-old baseball player near the high school stadium. They kicked the boy, a police report said, held him to the ground and simulated a sexual assault through the teen's clothing with a baseball bat.

One of the assailants was Broward Sheriff Scott Israel's son, Brett Israel, according to the incident report.

When the attack was reported to authorities, Brett Israel and the other 17-year-old, Anthony Broderick, were not arrested. They were suspended from the Parkland high school for three days based on the school's conclusion that they had committed a simple battery, and that the suspension was consistent with the Broward County School District's discipline "matrix."

The victim's parents approved the sanction, saying the suspension was the appropriate punishment and that any law enforcement action would have put their son through unnecessary trauma.

But then Nikolas Cruz took an assault rifle to the school on Feb. 14 of this year, and killed 17 students and educators, wounding 17 others.

The 2014 incident, long since forgotten, has emerged anew as copies of the report have circulated among parents and reporters for weeks. As a result, the incident has been published, first on a right-leaning news site, then on more traditional outlets.

Parents of some of the Feb. 14 victims, understandably upset with the Broward Sheriff's Office's response to the massacre — at least one deputy failed to enter the school even as Cruz pumped bullets into mortally wounded teens — are demanding that Israel and his son be held accountable, along with the deputy who wrote up the report of the assault. He is Scot Peterson, the same deputy who quit in disgrace after it was learned he never went inside the school to confront the shooter.

The sheriff's office is investigating — how the report got leaked.

A week ago, the hard-right website Gateway Pundit referenced the four-year-old report on the "brutal assault," and pointed out that the incident had been investigated by the in-school deputy. It asked: "Did Broward County Sheriff Israel's Son Get Special Treatment After Brutal School Crime?" The website then answered its own question: "It Sure Looks That Way."

WPLG Local 10 investigative reporter Bob Norman contacted the parents of several of Cruz's victims, and reported that they are demanding an investigation into...

FAKE NEWS: Associated Press Deletes Tweet That Spread Lie About NRA

On Monday, the Associated Press was forced to delete a factually inaccurate tweet that promoted a lie about the NRA which originated from far-left Parkland activists.

In a now-deleted tweet, The Associated Press wrote: "NRA bans guns at President Trump, VP Pence speeches during it's annual meeting in Dallas."

ap_lie.jpg

The lie started when far-left activist Cameron Kasky tweeted a photo of an NRA announcement that stated that firearms would not be permitted at the convention due to the attendance of Pence, and then proceeded to mock the gun rights organization over the statement.

The media then promoted the lie as several news organizations and far-left activists attacked the NRA over the apparent hypocrisy. The Secret Service and the NRA both responded to the claims by saying the NRA did not have jurisdiction over the event and it was the Secret Service's call to prohibit weapons at the event where Trump and Pence were speaking.

The Associated Press quickly deleted their tweet and issued a correction stating: "AP has deleted a tweet that incorrectly said the NRA had banned guns during Trump and Pence speeches at its annual meeting. The ban was put in place by the Secret Service. A corrected tweet is coming."

The Associated Press

✔@AP

AP has deleted a tweet that incorrectly said the NRA had banned guns during Trump and Pence speeches at its annual meeting. The ban was put in place by the Secret Service. A corrected tweet is coming.

3:53 PM - Apr 30, 2018

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Twitter Ads info and privacy

The new tweet from the Associated Press correctly stated: "NRA members can bring their guns during most of the annual meeting in Dallas – but not while Trump and Pence are speaking. The Secret Service has barred them during their speeches."

The Associated Press

✔@AP

NRA members can bring their guns during most of the annual meeting in Dallas – but not while Trump and Pence are speaking. The Secret Service has barred them during their speeches. http://apne.ws/8CyzDBW 

3:55 PM - Apr 30, 2018

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Parkland Activist David Hogg And His Sister Just Signed A Book Deal

The March for Our Lives rally in Washington, D.C. received wall to wall coverage. But afterward, the high school activists and the gun control fervor seemed to die down. It’s been a while since David Hogg, Cameron Kasky, and Emma Gonzalez have appeared for a TV interview in primetime. Though their voices haven’t been too loud as of late, the young activists are still working to advance their agenda.

According to the Associated Press, David Hogg and his sister, Lauren, just signed a book deal, which in all likelihood will find itself on the best-sellers list.

Two students who survived the deadly mass shooting this year at a Florida high school have a book deal.

Siblings David and Lauren Hogg are working on #NEVERAGAIN: A New Generation Draws the Line. Random House announced Wednesday that the book would come out June 5 and that the Hoggs were donating their proceeds to charity and community organizations.

The Hoggs and other students at the Parkland, Florida, school have become leading gun control advocates since the Feb. 14 tragedy that left 17 people dead.

Random House is calling the book “a moving portrait” of a new political movement. The publisher will make a donation to Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit organization founded in 2014.

I don’t know about you, but I, for one, will not be buying the book.

While the charity and community organizations are not named, it makes me wonder if the organizations are ones that will further the leftist gun control narrative. Random House’s donation will be purely political, as Everytown for Gun Safety’s mission is to promote gun control legislation.

Random House is calling the book a “‘moving portrait’ of a new political movement,” but that is inaccurate. As Tom wrote before, this gun control movement is nothing new,despite what progressives and gun control advocates want to say about it. The tactics are the same. The talking points are the same. The only difference is the political left has...

Student Journalist Says Discipline Policies Weakened School Safety Before Parkland Shooting

While the media continues to focus on gun control in the wake of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, one area student has dug into his school’s policies and found them wanting.

Kenneth Preston, a 19-year-old student journalist who attends high school in Broward County, Florida, has done an in-depth investigation of the superintendent and school board.

Preston’s thorough report, released on Tuesday, says that Broward Superintendent Robert Runcie and the school district failed to spend over $100 million of federal money intended for school safety upgrades.

Runcie once worked under former Obama Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in the Chicago Public Schools system.

Preston’s report says that the school had been sitting on this money since 2014, and that only about 5 percent of it had been spent.

“The findings of our investigation is [sic] two-fold. First off, a $100 million which superintendent and the school board had access to. Since 2014, roughly 5 percent of that money has been spent,” Preston said in an in-depth interview with Sirius XM host David Webb.

Preston said that Runcie gave him a “long-winded runaround” about what happened to the money.

In addition, Preston has called into question the school district’s use of the PROMISE program.

This program was aligned with a 2014 Obama-era federal initiative, which aimed at ending the “school to prison pipeline” as well as racial disparities in discipline by focusing on counseling and “restorative justice” instead of using law enforcement to correct on-campus misbehavior.

Preston spoke at a Broward County School Board meeting on Tuesday, but said during his remarks that just before the meeting started, his allotted time to speak was cut to three minutes.

The seven panelists Preston had lined up were removed from the schedule.

On the day before the hearing, Preston said he was forced to attend a two-hour meeting with...

Media Darling David Hogg Ducks Debate With Gun Rights Backer Kyle Kashuv

Kyle Kashuv, a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, emerged as the most prominent pro-Second Amendment voice among students there after the shooting at the school that left 17 dead.

Kashuv, 16, who has been embraced by many conservatives, hopes to debate David Hogg, 17, a Stoneman Douglas senior.

Hogg is one of the most visible liberal voices among the Parkland students in the media spotlight. The son of an FBI agent, he has been lionized by the left as he advocates more gun control.

By contrast, Kashuv does not get nearly as much media exposure as Hogg or other liberal-leaning Parkland students. His appearances typically are limited to Fox News Channel among the larger media outlets.

Charlie Kirk, founder and executive director of Turning Point USA, argues that Kashuv is a worthy opponent for Hogg and other young liberals.

In an email to The Daily Signal, Kirk said:

Kyle is absolutely brilliant and deserves a chance to debate David Hogg in an open forum. David has insulted us gun owners enough, and Kyle deserves a chance to get his ideas out to the most amount of people possible.

CNN recently canceled a segment with Kashuv, apparently after someone there took offense to one of the teen’s retweets on Twitter.

Stoneman Douglas junior Cameron Kasky agreed in an appearance on “Fox News Sunday” to debate Kashuv, but later backed out.

Kasky is credited with being a main organizer of the anti-guns March for Our Lives held March 24 in Washington, D.C.

Kashuv and other conservative voices were not given the opportunity to be heard at the march and rally in the nation’s capital.

These excluded voices included Hunter Pollack, 29, whose sister Meadow, an 18-year-old senior, died in the shooting. Their father, Andrew Pollack, has become a...