Lawmaker at center of viral grocery store dispute suggested Parkland shooter was victim of 'the system'

State Democrat Rep. Erica Thomas

The Democrat Georgia state lawmaker who recently claimed in a tearful viral video that a white man told her to "go back where you came from" in a grocery store checkout lane -- then walked back her story, before doubling back down on it -- sounded a note of sympathy for high school mass shooter Nikolas Cruz last year on social media.
"My heart goes out to Nikolas Cruz!! Some don't know how to cope with being an orphan. I thank God everyday for getting me through the system in one piece. #FloridaShooting #mentalhealth #PrayforDouglas #prayfornik," State Rep. Erica Thomas wrote on Feb. 16, 2018.
Several journalists and commentators flagged and condemned the post late Monday, including Mike Cernovich, Harry Cherry, who called for Thomas' resignation, and Ryan Petty.
Cruz, a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who'd been expelled for disciplinary reasons, shot and killed 17 people there on Feb. 14, 2018. More than a dozen others were wounded.
On Monday, Thomas reiterated her viral claim that a white man told her to "go back where you came from" during a testy argument in a supermarket checkout lane, after walking back the claim over the weekend. The man has denied the encounter unfolded the way she described.
The episode, hot on the heels of a national controversy over President Trump's remarks directed at four progressive Democrats, quickly made the rounds on social media.
Multiple news organizations on Sunday portrayed the episode as a plausible instance of racism using the lawmaker's original claim, though she already had tried to clarify her accusations.
Thomas herself acknowledged in an interview with local media on Saturday that she did not recall exactly what the man, Eric Sparkes, had said to her.
"He said, 'go back,' you know, those types of words," Thomas said on Saturday. "I don't wanna say he said 'go back to your country,' or 'go back to where you came from,' but he was making those types of references, is what I remember."
"So, you don't remember exactly what he said?" a reporter pressed.
Thomas answered: "No, no, definitely not. But I know it was 'go back,' because I know I told him to 'go back.'"
That admission contradicted the tearful video Thomas posted to Facebook this past Friday, in which she said she was with her young daughter in the market and had more than 10 items in the supermarket's express lane.
"I decided to go live because I'm very upset, because people are getting really out of control with this, with this white-privilege stuff," she said. "I'm at the grocery and I'm in ... the aisle that says '10 Items or Less.' Yes, I have 15 items, but I'm nine months pregnant and I can't stand up for long, and this white man comes up to me and says, 'You lazy son of a b---h... You need to go back where you came from.'"
Thomas went on to accuse Trump of inciting hate. During the television interview Saturday, she said Sparkes "needs to be held accountable because people can't just go out and berate pregnant women."
However, in a press conference with her lawyer on Monday, Thomas doubled down on her original allegation.
"He said, 'Go back where you came from!'" Thomas insisted, saying the man "kept harassing me."
"I was embarrassed, and I was scared for my life," she said.
Sparkes has forcefully denied making the racially charged comment, and in a dramatic moment, showed up in the middle of a television news interview featuring Thomas outside the Atlanta-area Publix store where the initial confrontation had unfolded.
"Did I say that? Is it on video?" Sparkes asked Thomas in front of reporters. He acknowledged calling Thomas "a lazy b---h" because she had taken too many items to the express checkout lane, but he denied the incident had anything to do with race.
Sparkes later told WSB-TV that despite Thomas' claim he's white, he is of Cuban descent -- and, like Thomas, is a Democrat. Sparkes said Thomas' accusations were politically motivated.
Fox News' Louis Casiano contributed to this report.

Trump administration to propose rule that would cut 3.1 million people from food stamp program: report

The Trump administration is set to propose a rule Tuesday that would cut about 3.1 million Americans from the food-stamp program in an effort to save taxpayers about $2.5 billion a year, reports said.
The U.S. has seen low levels of unemployment, which is seen as a major factor in low levels of participation in the program. President Trump tweeted earlier this month that food stamp use is at a 10-year low. Politifact verified the claim.
Reuters, citing a U.S. Department of Agriculture, reported that residents in 43 states who receive help from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, automatically enroll in the food-stamp program, known as the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP.
The USDA intends to review these TANF cases to see if participants qualify for the program.
“This proposal will save money and preserve the integrity of the program,” Sonny Perdue, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, said in a conference call. “SNAP should be a temporary safety net.”
SNAP, which was formerly known as the Food Stamps Program, is a federal program that provides grocery assistance for people out of work or with low incomes living in the U.S. To qualify for the program, individuals must make 130 percent or less of the federal poverty level based on the household size.
The move was criticized by Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., who told The Washington Post that the move is another attempt by the Trump administration to “circumvent Congress and make harmful changes to nutrition assistance that have been repeatedly rejected on a bipartisan basis.”
Fox News' Andrew O'Reilly and the Associated Press contributed to this report

Ahead of second round of 2020 debates, Biden unveils sweeping criminal justice reform plan

Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden is the only candidate reliably polling in double digits who wants to expand Obamacare; Peter Doocy reports Sioux City.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Tuesday unveiled a wide ranging plan to reduce the country’s prison population, reform the nation’s criminal justice system and eliminate racial and income disparities in sentencing.
The former vice president’s campaign also highlighted that the proposal, officially titled the ‘Biden Plan for Strengthening America’s Commitment to Justice,’ would prioritize reform of the juvenile justice system - using $1 billion per year “to make sure we give more children a second chance to live up to their potential.”
Senior Biden campaign officials tell Fox news that the sweeping plan would be paid for using costs saved from reducing mass incarcerations.
Biden’s expected to spotlight his plan this week while addressing an NAACP presidential candidate’s forum Wednesday in Detroit, as well as the next day in Indianapolis when he speaks at the National Urban League’s annual conference.
And the release of the plan comes just eight days before Biden faces off against nine of his rivals – including Sen. Kamala Harris of California – on the second night of the second round of Democratic presidential primary debates.
Biden, the front runner right now in the race for his party’s 2020 nomination, has seen his once formidable lead in national and early voting state polling deteriorate following his less-than-stellar performance late last month during the first round of Democratic presidential nomination debates.
Senior Biden campaign officials emphasized that the criminal justice reform policy – as well as the former vice president health care proposal, which he unveiled last week – “is something we have really been talking about out there on the campaign trail. There are real differences in this race between Vice President Biden and a number of people on that stage. You can expect him to draw that contrast next Wednesday.”
Criminal justice reform’s a thorny issue for Biden.
As a senator from Delaware, he helped craft the 1994 crime bill that was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Biden has long highlighted his role in helping write the law, which at the time was the largest anti-crime bill in the nation’s history. The measure provided for thousand of new police officers, millions of dollars to fund prevention programs, and billions of dollars to build new prisons.
But the law’s been criticized in recent years by Democrats who blame the measure for spiking incarcerations, particularly among minorities, due to mandatory life sentence policy for repeat offenders.
Facing jabs from numerous rivals over the law, Biden has repeatedly defended the measure. He’s credited the law’s gun control provisions – including the assault weapons ban - which he said helped him “beat the NRA.”
Two of the 2020 Democratic White House hopefuls who've targeted Biden over the measure - Harris and Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey - will be standing next to Biden on the debate stage next week.
His new plan would create a new $20 billion competitive grant program to spur states to shift from incarceration to prevention. His campaign explained that “in order to receive this funding, states will have to eliminate mandatory minimums for non-violent crimes, institute earned credit programs, and take other steps to reduce incarceration rates without impacting public safety.”
The plan also aims to eliminate racial and income-based disparities in the country’s criminal justice system and “eliminate overly harsh sentencing for non-violent crimes.”
Biden would do that by expanding and using the power of the Justice Department to address systemic misconduct in police departments and prosecutors’ offices, resuming a practice from the Obama administration that’s been reduced the past two and a half years under the administration of Republican President Donald Trump.
Biden’s plan also calls for investing in public defenders’ offices to ensure defendants’ access to quality counsel, eliminating mandatory minimums, ending the federal crack and powder cocaine disparity, decriminalizing cannabis use and throwing out prior cannabis use convictions, and ending all incarcerations solely for drug use.
The former vice president would also call for the elimination of the death penalty, stop jailing people for being too poor to pay fines and fees, and stop corporations from profiteering off of incarceration ending the federal government’s use of private prisons. That would build off a policy implemented during his eight years as Obama’s vice president, but rescinded by the Trump Administration.
And as part of his proposals to reform the juvenile justice system, Biden’s campaign said the former vice president “would incentivize states to stop incarcerating kids and Expand funding for after-school programs, community centers, and summer jobs to keep young people active, busy, learning, and having fun.”

Poor Little Innocent Iran Cartoons

Trump says he wants to meet with Schumer on border issue

President Trump late Sunday said in a Twitter post that he intends to set up a meeting with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer after the New York Democrat recently toured a detention center and called the conditions there "inhumane."
Schumer joined a dozen Senate Democrats at the border on Friday. He called the tour “difficult.” He told the media that seeing the children held in such poor conditions pulls at your heartstrings.
He later tweeted a video from the tour, saying, “This is heart-wrenching. This is wrong. This is not who we are. This has to end now.”
Trump said on Twitter that while Schumer was touring a facility, a “large group of illegal immigrants” rushed border agents in an attempt to enter the U.S. He said some agents were injured.
The Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge, which connects the southern Texas city of Pharr to Reynosa, Mexico, was temporarily closed on Friday after a group of about 47 undocumented individuals tried to enter the U.S., KGBT reported, citing a Border Patrol statement.
Agents were forced to use tear gas to stop the group, the report said. Some agents were assaulted. Border Patrol did not immediately respond to an email from Fox News.
Trump seized on the incident to show the urgency to act.
“Based on the comments made by Senator Schumer, he must have seen how dangerous & bad for our Country the Border is,” Trump tweeted. “It is not a “manufactured crisis,” as the Fake News Media & their Democrat partners tried to portray.”
Schumer, along with other Democrats, criticized Trump in the past for using the issue at the border as a “manufactured crisis.” During the 35-day partial government shutdown, Schumer said Trump was manufacturing a crisis to divert attention from the turmoil in his administration,” according to The Hill.
Tom Homan, the former head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told Fox News the problem at the border is due to Congress’ ineptitude.
“Name one thing that Chuck Schumer has done to solve this crisis or address this crisis than vilify the men and women at Border Patrol,” he said.
He said Congress ignored earlier pleas from the agency for more funding to address the surge, but Congress has taken long to act.

Iran says it dismantled CIA spy ring, arrests 17, sentences some to death: report

Iran on Monday trumpeted the issuing of death sentences to several members of what it claims is a CIA spy ring that had been embedded in "sensitive" departments nationwide, a development that threatened to further inflame an already precarious staredown between the Islamic Republic and the United States.
The roundup of the alleged espionage cell ensnared 17 people during the past several months and was completed by the end of March, an Iranian official said at a news conference in Tehran. The official was identified only as the director of the counterespionage department of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, which is highly unusual in Iran, as officials usually identify themselves at press conferences.
"The identified spies were employed in sensitive and vital private sector centers in the economic, nuclear, infrastructural, military and cyber areas...where they collected classified information," said a ministry statement read on state television.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, while not commenting directly on the spy report, advised caution and noted Iran has a history of lying.
"It's part of their nature to lie to the world," Pompeo told "Fox & Friends" on Monday morning. "I would take with a significant grain of salt any Iranian assertion about actions they've taken."
Pictures of some of the alleged spies were reportedly shown on state TV, which also broadcast a documentary purporting to show a CIA officer recruiting an Iranian in the United Arab Emirates.
Tehran also announced in June the takedown of a CIA spy ring, but it was not immediately clear if those alleged spies were the same as those referenced Monday.
Iran's semi-official Fars news agency was the first organization to report on the matter, according to Reuters. The identities of those arrested were not immediately known.
The U.S. has increased its military presence in the Persian Gulf region in recent weeks after it alleged provocative moves by Tehran that included attacks on two oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, the downing of a U.S. drone and the seizure of a British tanker.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Liz Peek: Trump self-destructing? The one big bucket of ice water on Dems' smug assurance about the president

Liz Peek

Democrats are reaping what they have sown. What began as a trickle of cautionary advice has become a torrent, as Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, columnists Thomas Friedman and Frank Bruni, former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, BET Founder Robert Johnson, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and so many others warn Democrats that their far-left lunge is likely to reelect President Trump.
A recent piece in the New York Times analyzing the president’s polling in several important states brings home the high cost of Democratic extremism. Given Trump’s standing in the Rust Belt and other states key to his 2016 victory, the piece concluded that Trump’s "advantage in the Electoral College, relative to the national popular vote, may be even larger than it was in 2016."
The analysis concludes, "Trump could win while losing the national vote by as much as five percentage points." Why might this happen? Because "the major Democratic opportunity – to mobilize nonwhite and young voters on the periphery of politics – would disproportionately help Democrats in diverse, often noncompetitive states."
Simply stated, Democrats are playing too much to the progressive wing of their party, which is concentrated in blue states like New York and California that Trump lost in 2016 and will likely lose again in 2020. Meanwhile, in the Rust Belt, where more moderate voters prevail, the president is in pretty good shape. Further, his popularity in the Sun Belt battleground states, which Democrats hoped might be fertile ground, remains strong.
That is one big bucket of ice water on Democrats’ smug assurance that the president was day by day self-destructing, and that their attacks on him would bear fruit.
For four years, starting during the 2016 campaign, liberal politicians and media figures like those columnists now warning of their party’s likely defeat, have denounced Donald Trump in the most vulgar and salacious manner, calling him a bigot, misogynist, criminal and worse. They seem clueless that those insults also, by inference, targeted those who voted for Donald Trump.
Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, recently tweeted, "Trump and his ultra-right wing base have a symbiotic relationship. They feed his narcissism and he feeds their hatred of others. A match made in totalitarian heaven."
That kind of attack causes Trump voters to dig in their heels. Attacks on the president, after all, are attacks on them, and they don’t like it.
That’s one reason why 90 percent of Republicans, according to Gallup, approve of the job Trump is doing.
Hirono comes from a state which Hillary Clinton won by 62.2 percent, her highest vote percentage of any state. Moreover, it was one of only two states in which she won every county. Hirono does not have to worry that her slams against Trump and his supporters might offend some of her constituents. But others in her party do have to worry. Offensive smears like that ripple through the nation like a virus; for the embattled moderates in the Democratic Party, there is no cure.
After Democrats took the House in 2018, Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., tweeted: "We have tremendous unity in our caucus. That unity has been our strength, and it will continue to be as strong as ever in the 116th Congress."
Talk about wishful thinking. As I wrote at the time, numerous important issues divided Democrats, including gun control, the environment and health care. As it has turned out, the rift between progressive and moderate Democrats have only widened in the months since, leading to what is arguably now a split party.
President Trump’s spat with four freshmen progressive women in Congress, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., forced Democratic leaders to support a group that, like Hirono, has nothing to lose by attacking him, but that further alienates voters that Democrats need.
Trump’s call for "the squad," as that group is known, to go back to their "home" countries was widely condemned. But the women, who have in the past supported Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitism, have further roiled party politics by attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as "disrespectful" of "newly elected women of color."
Pelosi has tried to ignore and belittle the controversial group, but that dismissal has done nothing to keep their attention-seeking antics from sucking all the air out of her party. Instead of covering moderate campaigners like Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., or former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, liberal media outlets have devoted enormous ink and airtime to the Squad, making those four the face of the Democratic Party.
That is surely not helpful to moderates trying to win back blue-collar voters in the Rust Belt.
It has now been reported that Pelosi will meet with squad leader Ocasio-Cortez, the freshman progressive from the Bronx. That proposed get-together should have taken place months ago, away from the glare of the cameras. Pelosi should have privately encouraged AOC, as she is called, to use her celebrity and social media following to boost Democrats in other parts of the country, and to work for the good of the party. She should have enlisted her as a valued and valuable colleague.
Instead, the meeting is now a made-for-TV spectacle, following on the heels of incendiary charges of racism the progressive group has hurled at Pelosi. We’ll no doubt hear happy talk from both parties about reconciliation and partnership, none of which will be believable.
Democrats have only themselves to blame for this threatening divide. The constant thrashing of Trump has fed a years-long frenzy that has exalted the most extreme personalities and policies.
Now, as 2020 approaches, many ask: do Democrats want to win an election or are they content to win a popularity contest among liberal elites in California and New York? We shall see.

South Bend cops warn of ‘mass exodus,’ as morale tanks over Buttigieg handling of shooting

As South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg commands national attention with his media-savvy presidential bid, the firestorm back home over an officer-involved shooting shows no sign of settling soon -- with the mayor facing criticism not only from protesters but police who say his handling has crushed morale and risks a “mass exodus” from the force.
“Morale around here has been terrible. We do nothing,” one police officer, a 20-year veteran of the force, told Fox News. “We call ourselves firemen, we sit around in parking lots until we’re called and then we go to the call, because if you say or do something wrong, then you get hung.”
“At an all-time low,” another officer said of morale. “It’s been really demoralizing and hard to come to work lately.”
Officers requested not to be identified for this story in fear of retaliation by the mayor's administration. But they told Fox News that they know of multiple officers who are considering handing in their badges or taking retirement if eligible, in response to the mayor’s handling of the shooting.
“That's the big discussion ... is who's staying and who's going. I think you’re going to see a mass exodus, our administration is a joke,” one officer said.
South Bend Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) President Harvey Mills told Fox News that he has spoken to five or six officers who are “seriously” considering retiring or resigning because of the administration’s handling of the shooting. One officer told Fox News that he believes as many as 10 people will quit in the next year, and said he has also considered stepping away.
“It’s very discouraging that something I’ve always wanted to do, that God called me to do, that I’m questioning that and wondering, thinking about not being a police officer strictly because of politics and things that are going on that are completely out of my control,” he said.
Buttigieg has long had a strained relationship with the officers in South Bend, but that relationship has deteriorated considerably since the shooting death of Eric Logan -- who is black -- by white officer Sgt. Ryan O’ Neill.
According to investigators, O’Neill was called to a report of someone breaking into cars and encountered Logan O’Neill, who was allegedly carrying a knife. According to authorities, O'Neill shot Logan after he approached him with the knife and ignored repeated demands to drop it, the South Bend Tribune reported.
But O’Neill’s body camera was not on to confirm his account, and skeptics of the department's account have blasted city officials,  fueling a firestorm that repeatedly has pulled Buttigieg off the trail to deal with the crisis back home.
O’Neill resigned last week, with the FOP saying in a statement that “job related stress, the lawsuit, national media attention, and hateful things said on social media have been difficult for O’Neill and his young family.”
Buttigieg has claimed he has not taken sides, but amid angry protests back home, he has not challenged the narrative that the shooting is connected to police racism. At an NBC News-hosted presidential primary debate last month, Buttigieg described the shooting as “a black man ...killed by a white officer” and said he “could walk through all of the steps we took, from bias training to de-escalation, but it didn’t save the life of Eric Logan. And when I look into his mother’s eyes, I have to face that fact and nothing that I say will bring him back.”
“Until we move policing out from the shadow of systemic racism, whatever this particular incident teaches us, we will be left with the bigger problem of the fact that there is a wall of mistrust, put up one racist act at a time, not just what’s happened in the past, but from what’s happening around the country in the present,” he said.
Buttigieg has also come under fire from black residents who think he has not done enough to reform the police department and was pelted with criticism from angry residents last month.
But it was the repeated references to the "shadow" of racism in law enforcement (he said in June that "all police work and all of American life takes place in the shadow of racism") that particularly upset officers.
“To me, it’s like he kind of convicted Sgt. O’Neill before anything was even out, making comments like that,” one officer said. “It wasn’t based on the facts of what happened, because we don’t even have all the facts of what happened.”
“It’s like pouring gas on the fire,” the officer said.
"I feel like we're guilty until proven innocent," said another.
One officer warned that it will significantly affect the hiring of good, new officers to replace them: “When you see the politics and the way police officers are treated by the media and by politicians, it’s like, why would anyone want to sign up to do this job right now?”
Buttigieg's campaign did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News. The South Bend Police Department, in a statement, described officers as "professionals who regularly go above and beyond to serve the community."
"We do not comment on anonymous speculation and rumor," the statement said.
Officers have also bristled at what they see as the implicit blame by Buttigieg for O’Neill’s body camera being off, arguing that O'Neill followed police policy that Buttigieg would have signed off on as mayor. They say it didn’t turn on automatically because his car lights weren’t on, and he would have had little time to turn it on manually if Logan appeared and immediately moved toward him with a blade.
“If you’re put in that terrible situation, he reacted exactly like we’re trained,” one officer said.
Buttigieg has been pictured clutching the hand of Logan’s mother, and The Washington Post reported that he attended a "police accountability" march, but officers say that Buttigieg has had little interaction with them. Mills said that Buttigieg does not attend the annual fallen officer memorial services and called a recent gesture, in which he sent over a dozen pizzas, "lame."
"We have 240 officers that really need that support when every call we go to is already weighing on our minds and it’s a lot of stress and they don’t need the additional stress knowing the city administration doesn’t support them," he said.
As for what Buttigieg could do the fix the crisis with police officers, Mills urged him to back his officers, be more involved and see the good work they do: “Police work keeps the community safe, and if our officers are afraid to do their jobs because they might get fired or criticized and have media pounding on their door, it’s just, we just need that support even if it’s a small pat on the back every once in a while.”
Others see an unsalvageable situation. “I don't think he could ever fix the damage that he’s done,” one officer said.
One cop said, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that some of the officers were thinking of getting bracelets with "WWPD" on them -- standing for "What Would Pete Do?" -- so they can consider what the mayor wants them to do when they answer a call:  "Because that's who's ... going to be front and center outside our police department with a bullhorn on his shoulder again."
Officers also warned of increasing levels of crime as cops are less motivated. Mills feared that officers would hesitate in a crucial situation.
“They are less likely to defend themselves, and that scares me because we've got 15 officers on our memorial wall and I certainly don’t want to add a 16th,” Mills said.