Police: Synagogue gunman said he wanted all Jews to die

PITTSBURGH — The suspect in the mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue expressed hatred of Jews during the rampage and told officers afterward that Jews were committing genocide and he wanted them all to die, according to charging documents made public Sunday.

Robert Gregory Bowers killed eight men and three women inside the Tree of Life Synagogue on Saturday during worship services before a tactical police team tracked him down and shot him, police said in an affidavit, which contained some unreported details on the shooting and the police response.

Officials released the names of all 11 victims during a news conference Sunday, all of them middle-aged or elderly. The victims included a pair of brothers and a husband and wife. The oldest was 97.

Mayor Bill Peduto called it the “darkest day of Pittsburgh’s history.”

Calls began coming in to 911 from the synagogue just before 10 a.m. Saturday, reporting “they were being attacked,” court documents said. Bowers, 46, shot one of the first two officers to respond in the hand, and the other was wounded by “shrapnel and broken glass.”

A tactical team found Bowers on the third floor, where he shot two officers multiple times, the affidavit said. One officer was described as critically wounded; the document did not describe the other officer’s condition.

Two other people in the synagogue, a man and a woman, were wounded by Bowers and were in stable condition, the document said.

Bowers, who was armed with an AR-15 rifle and three handguns, told an officer while he was being treated for his injuries “that he wanted all Jews to die and also that they (Jews) were committing genocide to his people,” the affidavit said.

Bowers was charged late Saturday with 11 state counts of criminal homicide, six counts of aggravated assault and 13 counts of ethnic intimidation in what the leader of the Anti-Defamation League called the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history.

Bowers was also charged Saturday in a 29-count federal criminal complaint that included charges of obstructing the free exercise of religious beliefs — a federal hate crime — and using a firearm to commit murder. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the charges “could lead to the death penalty.”

It wasn’t clear whether Bowers had an attorney to speak on his behalf.

The nation’s latest mass shooting drew condemnation and expressions of sympathy from politicians and religious leaders of all stripes. With the midterm election just over a week away, it also reignited a longstanding and bitter debate over guns.

Pope Francis led prayers for Pittsburgh on Sunday in St. Peter’s Square.

“In reality, all of us are wounded by this inhuman act of violence,” he said. He prayed for God “to help us to extinguish the flames of hatred that develop in our societies, reinforcing the sense of humanity, respect for life and civil and moral values.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman quoted Merkel on Twitter as offering her condolences and saying that “all of us must confront anti-Semitism with determination — everywhere.”

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier wrote in a condolence message to President Donald Trump that “this abhorrent crime reminds us all to do what is in our power to advocate against hatred and violence, against anti-Semitism and exclusion, and to counter with determination those who incite them.”

Trump on Saturday said the outcome might have been different if the synagogue “had some kind of protection” from an armed guard, while Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, up for re-election, noted that once again “dangerous weapons are putting our citizens in harm’s way.”

Calling the shooting an “evil anti-Semitic attack,” Trump ordered flags at federal buildings throughout the U.S. to be flown at half-staff in respect for the victims. He said he planned to travel to Pittsburgh, but offered no details.

In the city, thousands gathered for a vigil Saturday night. Some blamed the slaughter on the nation’s political climate.

“When you spew hate speech, people act on it. Very simple. And this is the result. A lot of people dead. Senselessly,” said Stephen Cohen, co-president of New Light Congregation, which rents space at Tree of Life.

Little was known about Bowers, who had no apparent criminal record but who is believed to have expressed virulently anti-Semitic views on social media. Authorities said it appears he acted alone.

Worshippers “were brutally murdered by a gunman targeting them simply because of their faith,” Bob Jones, head of the FBI’s Pittsburgh office, said Saturday, though he cautioned the shooter’s full motive was not yet known.

Scott Brady, the chief federal prosecutor in western Pennsylvania, pledged that “justice in this case will be swift and it will be severe.”

The gunman targeted a building that housed three separate congregations, all of which were conducting Sabbath services when the attack began just before 10 a.m. in the tree-lined residential neighbourhood of Squirrel Hill, about 10 minutes from downtown Pittsburgh and the hub of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community.

During the week, anyone who wanted to get inside Tree of Life synagogue had to ring the doorbell and be granted entry by staff because the front door was kept locked. Not so on Saturday — the Jewish Sabbath — when the building was open for worship.

The synagogue door was unlocked on the Sabbath “because people are coming for services, and the bell would be ringing constantly. So they do not lock the door, and anybody can just walk in,” said Marilyn Honigsberg, administrative assistant for New Light. “And that’s what this man did.”

Michael Eisenberg, the immediate past president of the Tree of Life, said synagogue officials had not gotten any threats that he knew of before the shooting. But security was a concern, he said, and the synagogue had started working to improve it.

___

Breed reported from Raleigh, North Carolina, and Lauer reported from Philadelphia. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Mark Gillispie and Gene Puskar in Pittsburgh, Eric Tucker and Michael Balsamo in Washington, Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Michael Kunzelman in Silver Spring, Maryland, and Michael Rubinkam in northeastern Pennsylvania.

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For AP’s complete coverage of the Pittsburgh synagogue shootings: https://www.apnews.com/Shootings

Mark Scolforo, Allen G. Breed And Claudia Lauer, The Associated Press

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Taxpayers Federation calling on BC Government to scrap failed Carbon Tax

Published on January 16, 2025

Todayville

From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

By Carson Binda

BC Government promised carbon tax would reduce CO2 by 33%. It has done nothing.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the British Columbia government to scrap the carbon tax as new data shows the province’s carbon emissions have continued to rise, despite the oldest carbon tax in the country.

“The carbon tax isn’t reducing carbon emissions like the politicians promised,” said Carson Binda, B.C. Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “Premier David Eby needs to axe the tax now to save British Columbians money.”

Emissions data from the provincial government shows that British Columbia’s emissions have risen since the introduction of a carbon tax.

Total emissions in 2007, the last year without a provincial carbon tax, stood at 65.5 MtCO2e, while 2022 emissions data shows an increase to 65.6 MtCO2e.

When the carbon tax was introduced, the B.C. government pledged that it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 33 per cent.

The Eby government plans to increase the B.C. carbon tax again on April 1, 2025. After that increase, the carbon tax will add 21 cents to the cost of a litre of natural gas, 25 cents per litre of diesel and 18 cents per cubic meter of natural gas.

“The carbon tax has cost British Columbians a lot of money, but it hasn’t helped the environment as promised,” Binda said. “Eby has a simple choice: scrap the carbon tax before April 1, or force British Columbians to pay even more to heat our homes and drive to work.”

If a family fills up the minivan once per week for a year, the carbon tax will cost them $728. The carbon tax on natural gas will add $435 to the average family’s home heating bills in the 12 months after the April 1 carbon tax hike.

Other provinces, like Saskatchewan, have unilaterally stopped collecting the carbon tax on essentials like home heating and have not faced consequences from Ottawa.

“British Columbians need real relief from the costs of the provincial carbon tax,” Binda said. “Eby needs to stop waiting for permission from the leaderless federal government and scrap the tax on British Columbians.”

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The problem with deficits and debt

Published on January 13, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Tegan Hill and Jake Fuss

This fiscal year (2024/25), the federal government and eight out of 10 provinces project a budget deficit, meaning they’re spending more than collecting in revenues. Unfortunately, this trend isn’t new. Many Canadian governments—including the federal government—have routinely ran deficits over the last decade.

But why should Canadians care? If you listen to some politicians (and even some economists), they say deficits—and the debt they produce—are no big deal. But in reality, the consequences of government debt are real and land squarely on everyday Canadians.

Budget deficits, which occur when the government spends more than it collects in revenue over the fiscal year, fuel debt accumulation. For example, since 2015, the federal government’s large and persistent deficits have more than doubled total federal debt, which will reach a projected $2.2 trillion this fiscal year. That has real world consequences. Here are a few of them:

Diverted Program Spending: Just as Canadians must pay interest on their own mortgages or car loans, taxpayers must pay interest on government debt. Each dollar spent paying interest is a dollar diverted from public programs such as health care and education, or potential tax relief. This fiscal year, federal debt interest costs will reach $53.7 billion or $1,301 per Canadian. And that number doesn’t include provincial government debt interest, which varies by province. In Ontario, for example, debt interest costs are projected to be $12.7 billion or $789 per Ontarian.

Higher Taxes in the Future: When governments run deficits, they’re borrowing to pay for today’s spending. But eventually someone (i.e. future generations of Canadians) must pay for this borrowing in the form of higher taxes. For example, if you’re a 16-year-old Canadian in 2025, you’ll pay an estimated $29,663 over your lifetime in additional personal income taxes (that you would otherwise not pay) due to Canada’s ballooning federal debt. By comparison, a 65-year-old will pay an estimated $2,433. Younger Canadians clearly bear a disproportionately large share of the government debt being accumulated currently.

Risks of rising interest rates: When governments run deficits, they increase demand for borrowing. In other words, governments compete with individuals, families and businesses for the savings available for borrowing. In response, interest rates rise, and subsequently, so does the cost of servicing government debt. Of course, the private sector also must pay these higher interest rates, which can reduce the level of private investment in the economy. In other words, private investment that would have occurred no longer does because of higher interest rates, which reduces overall economic growth—the foundation for job-creation and prosperity. Not surprisingly, as government debt has increased, business investment has declined—specifically, business investment per worker fell from $18,363 in 2014 to $14,687 in 2021 (inflation-adjusted).

Risk of Inflation: When governments increase spending, particularly with borrowed money, they add more money to the economy, which can fuel inflation. According to a 2023 report from Scotiabank, government spending contributed significantly to higher interest rates in Canada, accounting for an estimated 42 per cent of the increase in the Bank of Canada’s rate since the first quarter of 2022. As a result, many Canadians have seen the costs of their borrowing—mortgages, car loans, lines of credit—soar in recent years.

Recession Risks: The accumulation of deficits and debt, which do not enhance productivity in the economy, weaken the government’s ability to deal with future challenges including economic downturns because the government has less fiscal capacity available to take on more debt. That’s because during a recession, government spending automatically increases and government revenues decrease, even before policymakers react with any specific measures. For example, as unemployment rises, employment insurance (EI) payments automatically increase, while revenues for EI decrease. Therefore, when a downturn or recession hits, and the government wants to spend even more money beyond these automatic programs, it must go further into debt.

Government debt comes with major consequences for Canadians. To alleviate the pain of government debt on Canadians, our policymakers should work to balance their budgets in 2025.