It's Butler County. There's always shots somewhere.
We can't even get people to not to through airport security without their guns, usually with a round in the chamber. Of course there's going to be some fuck in the parking lot almost shooting his dick off.
Scott Adams says it's Biden's fault. I have to say if Biden can squeeze one off and graze trumps ear he doesn't seem cognitively impaired to me.
Someone is going to argue that martial law is now justified because of this. They'll wait until Trump is president to make that argument.
for FUCK'S sake
https://x.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1812253182556307596
I just saw the partial headline "Trump rushed off stage..." and was so excited for him to have had a heart attack.
If I were a conspiracy theorist I'd say this was straight WWF. Firecrackers in the stands, Trump has a razor blade to draw blood.
seems there is a dead shooter and another crow death. I think shooter on roof of a building.
7: That is a picture you are going to see the rest of your life.
Reports are a bystander is dead though, hard to fake that.
Reports are that glass fragments hit his ear not a bullet.
I suppose the Trump Secret Service are all crazy MAGA people who are terrible at their actual job, but I would have thought that the Secret Service would have someone on every nearby roof.
19: the shooter is dead so they probably did!
Did y'all see the BBC interview with the guy who said he saw the shooter and was trying to get the Secret Service's attention with no luck? Definitely not on every roof.
And even if that guy's wrong, there's footage of the shooter alone and dead on the roof. Certainly seems like he was shot by Secret Service on a different rooftop.
21: Do you have.a link to the video?
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cljy6yz1j6gt?post=asset%3Af88c1daf-9e5f-4329-b540-8766997ff778#post
Now they're saying it really was a bullet that hit his ear. Three shots before he ducked, the first one hits his ear and the next two miss.
21: Butler can't have that many buildings.
Before today, when was the last time the Secret Service had reset their "X days since someone got shot while under our protection" sign? Hinckley?
That interview in 24 is really something. Obviously news is always chaotic right afterward and this guy could always be mistaken or lying, but in his retelling it seems like a pretty stark example of a bystander legitimately trying to raise attention and getting ignored by authorities.
Full interview. https://x.com/SharpFootball/status/1812265909727396107
22: I hadn't seen that the shooter was on the roof! Whoa.
False flag. Crisis actors. Planted gun.
The only time I was in Butler, a rooster bit at my finger. I think it was trying to eat my wedding ring. Anyway, there's a history of bad luck about the place.
This wouldn't have happened if Biden wasn't so old.
The rooster thing happened when Biden was much younger.
I cannot stop darkly daydreaming about how it might have gone.
I don't think it could have taken my whole finger off.
A turkey bit my finger at the MN Zoo once, when Biden was younger than I am now. I think it was not a cock turkey though. Probably a jive turkey.
I guess there's budget issues, but have some self respect and dye the hair of a domestic cat so you can call it a dwarf ocelot or something.
You don't want to go too far though. Like the zoo that dyed dogs to look like pandas but didn't think ahead to the kind of attention you get by claiming to have pandas.
As the resident optimist, I submit that:
1. Trump is a coward;
2. Therefore, any subsequent rallies will have ludicrous levels of security;
3. Therefore, he will hold significantly fewer rallies;
4. Therefore, he is more likely to lose.
... with a clip of ammunition for me little Armalite
Greg Doucette on Twitter: Senate Dems should take one of their assorted gun control bills off the shelf, rename it something like "Trump Assassination Prevention Act," and force Rs to do a talking filibuster to block it.
It is quite something to shoot from the prone with a rifle at a static target 130 yards away and miss three out of three.
43- someone suggested the "emergency assassination remedy (EAR) act"
Some posts in my FB feed are going to have aged poorly once their authors wake up and hear the news that the shooter was a registered Republican.
He was clearly encouraged to do it by the media. Specifically this media: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Miss-Me-Yet-Trump-2024/dp/B0B1Z8D624
46: It is just a check box on a form/website so more info needed.
44: Timeline is something like: first shot hits his right ear, then he drops his head almost immediately, which would force the shooter to resight, then a second shot, then he decisively ducks. That's Donald there saving himself, rather than any of his goons / secret service agents helping him, so yeah, HR will be in touch. All over in a handful of seconds. Don't have a lot of range experience, but couldn't call the shooter's task easy, exactly? Might have been some wind, also, I'd wonder.
Political violence is never good, but there's only one side here that consistently uses the rhetoric of violence for political gain. Then again, JFK never used violent language - afaik - and the same thing happened to him. There's just a certain level of 'political' gun use in America.
I say 'drops his head'; it's somewhat complex. Maybe better described as: he changes his head's position slightly while raising his hand to his ear.
There's just a certain level of 'political' gun use in America.
Less than you might expect given how many guns we have (more than people!). What's really surprising is how rare this kind of political violence is.
"Don't have a lot of range experience, but couldn't call the shooter's task easy, exactly? Might have been some wind, also, I'd wonder"
At 170 yards wind barely affects the fall of shot. In a strong wind you'd aim maybe six inches upwind? In any case, I don't think there was wind - there are flags in the background and they're barely moving. Aiming for the centre of the target would have been perfectly fine.
Static target at 170 yards, shooting a decent-ish rifle from the prone, that is not a difficult shot to make.
Unclear now as to whether there should be more rifle training held for people generally, or less.
From the photos Trump didn't seem to be wearing any body armour, and it would have had to be heavy to stop a rifle round that close anyway. The lectern is pretty small and probably not armoured either.
54: in this case poor marksmanship got an innocent person killed.
I had written a whole comment out last night about how it was going to end up being some kind of QAnon splinter cell, and then thought better of it.
44: The NRA's civilian marksmanship program is over 120 years old and has received significant government support in the form of surplus ammunition, as well as the NRA's overall tax-exempt status. I am calling for immediate hearings to determine how it has failed so completely in its aims.
Yeah, this is an easy shot to make
This is how you know that dumbass shooter was not a US Marine
Gunman is from my hometown, which I believe still has a rifle team. Probably wasn't on it.
61 was my thought. Oswald scored two hits on a target that, while closer, was moving laterally and fairly rapidly, with a bolt action weapon.
If one of mine had missed that target three times out of three, I would be thinking there was something wrong with their sights.
Initial reports were that the teleprompter broke? Maybe it was blocking the shot and deflected the first bullet?
So an individual with no military training or previous history of violence was able to drive 35 miles from his home, and while openly carrying a rifle, find and access a shooting position less than a city block from where a former president and current presidential candidate with active and engaged Secret Service protection was speaking at a planned event, and then get three shots off at a static target, one of which did the absolute minimum damage that could be considered an injury, before the Secret Service was in turn able to shoot him? And it's supposed to be plausible that he did this with no outside assistance or collusion with the security forces, just completely on his own? Meanwhile the Secret Service was so incompetent that not only had they not secured the sniper's conveniently located perch, but they ignored reports of a civilian carrying a rifle in that context until after the shooting started?
This all looks like complete bullshit to me. Even given the rudimentary nature of the investigation and reporting so far, this all sounds like exactly the sort of conspiracy set-up that Mike Flynn and Seb Gorka jerk off to every night, eagerly anticipating the backlash they hope will follow. And it seems like the kind of thing that would be trivially easy for elite "counter"-terrorist operatives in the government to plan and execute.
Anyway, the person who did it was almost certainly a isolated crazy person. But I did find myself thinking that if the attempt had been successful, it plausibly would have turned into a big advantage for the Republican Party.
I don't think an unsuccessful attempt like this changes much politically (although god knows I don't know much). Trump has lots of people who really love him, and lots of people who really hate him, and while this probably excites his fans they were voting for him anyway. But if he'd been killed, his fans would be all revved up in support of his replacement, and his replacement might be someone who was capable of appealing to other people who weren't already Trump fans. I don't think there'd be any other way to replace him that would make that happen.
I strongly disagree. There's no one else who can whisper to the masses like Trump. It would have been disheveled chaos, worse than the Dems trying to figure our if anyone can replace Harris.
Whoops. Replace Biden. Clearly I'm senile.
All they'd have to do is nominate Hawley-Vance and the media would fete them as a return to sanity.
That doesn't seem like a foregone conclusion to me - that voters would respond in any way to H-V and that the media would upsell them.
This is the same media that tried feebly to praise Trump's inauguration speech as him turning a corner and being Presidential, and the same group that seems to think Biden is way older than Trump. It would be a two second pivot.
Yeah, I don't know at all. All I was thinking is that Trump has huge positives and huge negatives for his party, and the problem for the party is that the positives aren't transferable to any other candidate because he would definitely start attacking another candidate savagely. Someone who could say "vote for me because we both loved Trump" without Trump alive to knife him, and who could be a normal candidate otherwise, seems like they might clean up. But I don't really know anything about how something like that would work in practice.
Furthermore, the two things it would be easy for a lone actor to do (buy an adequate sniper rifle, practice with said rifle) the sniper allegedly didn't do, whereas the difficult things he did do (successfully develop a location to shoot from, infiltrate himself into that location unmolested, have enough time to fire several rounds) he managed to do without any assistance?
Look at previous US presidential assassinations and attempts: the overwhelming majority have been a person with a handgun approaching the president in a crowd and firing at close range. The only successful rifle attempt is Oswald, who happened to have ongoing, unrestricted access to an ideal shooting location. The Lincoln attempt occurred before the president had any comprehensive security plan. And was also in the context of an ongoing war.
False flag all the way.
Well, I was mentally rehearsing some scenarios where the orange one gains popularity from this, or loses it, and decided that data is just far too scarce, almost non-existent. Even counting Trump as an incumbent president for this purpose, there is only Reagan?
In terms of method, it's not much better, I reckon. Also, the simplest explanation _by far_ is that somebody local just decided to bring a gun to this one, like Oswald. They might have scouted a location the day before, who knows. It's all in the common sense category. Maybe they should have checked their sights (if we are looking to score on success criteria). There are a lot of AR15s out there, and hence many, many ways of attempting to use one.
Ford got either shot or at least shot at -- don't remember if Frome hit him. Didn't make him popular but he was a freak situation anyway, given that not only wasn't he elected president, he wasn't even elected VP.
Nope, I'm wrong, she pointed a gun at him and pulled the trigger but didn't have a round chambered. No actual shot was fired.
Paranoid grievance is Trump's whole schtick. In itself, I don't see how the shooting can't help him.
I think the most predictable positive result is that it gooses (or at least firms up) turnout among the emotionally-committed but not necessarily very political MAGAs. And by "most predictable" I mean hardly predictable at all. Also many month left, with surely some number of twists and turns.
I was thinking about all the grotesquely obsequious crazed renderings of Trump triumphant, muscled and what have you. And now there's a real one.
62: I think the Tree of Life murderer was from your town too.
80 was wrong. It's all just "south hills" to me.
How on earth they lucked into that Raising The Flag on Iwo Jima picture is amazing. Ira Hayes must be spinning in his grave.
64: good point. Teleprompter screens aren't armoured but they are toughened glass, and of course angled, so that would work very well. Car windscreens are a bugger to shoot through from the inside for the same reason.
That's why the guy they thought was the Jackal shot through the wing mirror.
I'd imagine that Bethel Park feels itself superior to Baldwin.
I was due for some personal grooming and the trimmer slipped so now I have my own replica of Trump's ear. Lot of blood vessels in certain parts of the body. I hear it's the latest fashion statement.
If this guy really hated Trump, he would have shot Biden.
65: remember how incompetent most local police forces are, though. (And Trump's SS detail sre presumably selected for loyalty not competence.)
Are we thinking that someone else deliberately shot him in the ear? Or that Crooks did? Because I don't know anyone who would willingly take that shot and I know people who shoot at Olympic standard. The head moves around quickly and unpredictably when you're speaking, and at that range your shots will land in a circle an inch wide at best (with an AR15, more like three inches). You're aiming for an earlobe. If you miss it completely it's a fail. If you go half an inch too far the other way he's dead.
So this was literally just some yutz barely out of high school just sitting visibly on a roof? That's the kind of thing that could create a bad incentive structure for the troubled loner social group.
"Look at previous US presidential assassinations and attempts: the overwhelming majority have been a person with a handgun approaching the president in a crowd and firing at close range. The only successful rifle attempt is Oswald"
True, but that is a very small sample! Martin Luther King was shot with a rifle, so was Zoran Djindjic, so was the King of Portugal.
I think he invented the metal still used for cymbals.
20 years old is prime age for schizophrenia to erupt. This was the 16th mass shooting in the US in the last week. Might not have been any coherent political motive beyond "all the news cameras will be there".
That's more likely to be it than anything. Now that she's not a child, it's less creepy to be trying impress Jodi Foster too.
I didn't think he had that kind of composure in him. Still a coward though. We'll know it was a false flag if he does more outdoor rallies. (It wasn't a false flag. Outside chance the secret service was deliberately incompetent.)
I read an unsourced tweet citing on a local reddit that says the shooter was bullied in high school. So we should probably do whatever we did after Columbine.
I haven't yet seen a "Biden ordered the secret service to fuck up" claim but I'm sure it's out there.
Secret Service agent in charge of watching the roofs was having a flashback to when Biden's dog bit him.
89: we only have the security forces' word for it that trump was struck in the ear by a bullet fired from an AR-15. He may not have been shot at all, or he could have been hit by some other projectile. An airgun could do that much damage to his ear with minimal risk of serious injury.
Nowadays it seems like the average Secret Service agent is a drunken philanderer who gets into fights with other agents, so perhaps I am being too suspicious and this is all just incompetence.
Also, if there's rogue elements in the SS, it does seem more likely that they'd be taking orders from Trump to shoot Biden than the other way around.
Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky: Biden will have a stroke, Harris will take over and win the election, Keith Ellison will be confirmed as USAG and we'll finally get to the bottom of all the pro-Trump conspiracies in the FBI
102: oh, he was definitely hit. There are photos of him immediately after the shooting with a visible hole in his earlobe. Could have been glass or other secondary, of course. But someone was shooting actual bullets because there is someone in the crowd actually dead.
If you die in Pennsylvania, you die in real life.
Right, somebody was definitely shooting some kind of live, lethal rounds, that's for certain.
The moral arc of the universe needs to shift a couple inches to the right.
My current theory is that the shooter was a time traveler sent from the future to kill Trump, but he failed because the 2024 election is one of those fixed points in time that is so consequential that it can't be changed. I guess that doesn't bode well for our future.
Everyone knows time travelers go after babies before they're famous. Suspicious baby shooting at a political rally? Then I'd be a believer.
I am only disappointed that Trump did not attempt to use a baby as a human shield. Probably none were available. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zcZJF81jt4w
There's also literally a photo of the bullet as it zips by Trump at bullety speeds (or, I suppose, slower speeds if it's longer than a bullet. A javelin, for instance.).
Babies are kind of small for a shield. It would be more of a human buckler.
96: apparently one of the Infowars guys was saying that Trump being assassinated would be a net good, because then it would be open season on Democratic politicians, and when everyone at the top is dead, the Republican bench is deeper than the Dem bench. Maybe violent shirt kiddo was listening.
86: in general, yes. Inferior to Upper St. Clair and Mt. Lebanon.
I think he's likely to have been listening to his neighbor's dog as much as anything.
Everyone is inferior to USC. Those posh bastards.
It's America. Everybody thinks everything can be solved by shooting somebody. A whole bunch of people are going to get shot today because someone said the wrong thing or knocked on the wrong door or just cause they weren't quick enough to dodge when someone decided it was time to start shooting.
And he can see no reasons
'Cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to die?
So we should probably do whatever we did after Columbine.
This is all Marilyn Manson's fault.
Hmm, AP report seems to have a policeman going up a ladder to confront the gunman and retreating in defense just before the shots. So may have been a bit rushed.
Someone coming up a ladder after you is a lot of pressure. That's why Donkee Kong was always just tossing the barrels without aiming.
And from local TV station.
NEW: Thomas Crooks was rejected from the high school rifle team, per @CBSNews A former member of the team who graduated with Crooks said he tried out freshman year. "He never returned to tryouts for the remainder of high school." Classmate said Crooks was a bad shot.
Wow, are there any local cops who do their fucking job or is it Uvaldes all the way down?
Not long before shots rang out, rallygoers noticed a man climbing to the roof of a nearby building and warned local police, according to two law enforcement officials.
One local police officer climbed to the roof and encountered Crooks, who pointed his rifle at the officer. The officer retreated down the ladder, and Crooks quickly took a shot toward Trump, and that's when Secret Service snipers shot him, said the officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
I wouldn't expect a local cop to take a bullet for Trump.
The job, in this case, was not climbing the ladder to confront thr rifleman, but manning a proper cordon so the dude couldn't just walk in there with his rifle and climb on the roof in the first place.
I'm no hero but I'd like to think I would quietly retreat back down the ladder too.
I don't know who the coaches are now, but when I was in high school, one got cut from the rifle team only for being a jackass around guns, not for being a bad shot. Perhaps it's become a more popular sport? Or the guy was one of those kids a coach couldn't trust with a firearm.
125: I think the cordon was set by the Secret Service and the shooter was outside of it.
Maybe he was kicked out of the rifle club and joined the sneaking past cordons club?
As they say in France, Cordon Blew.
It isn't a real Cordon unless it occurs in the Cordon region of France.
I bet the guy's parents are having a really bad day.
It's probably going to get worse for them once the FBI or whoever leaves.
We definitely did not have rifle shooting in high school.
I actually testified against JROTC (proposed for a different HS in my district) when I was in HS. Pistol team would have made a lot more sense where I went to school. Like, seriously, a guy who was a year behind me is doing life in Stillwater or Oak Park Heights because he accidentally shot the gas station attendant he was sticking up a few years after graduation. Better trigger discipline probably would have saved a couple lives there.
125;: looking at the map of the venue, it seems really bizarre that there weren't SS/FBI snipers already on that particular roof. I've been to peaceful anti-war demos that had a more complete set of encircling sniper teams than this rally must've had.
I mean, there could also be a false sense of security that the lunatic distribution is so lopsided that Trump himself is safe. Coupled with a dash of leadership from the fine folks that booked the Four Seasons Landscaping gig.
The Butler Fairgrounds should rename itself.
Unfairgrounds? Far grounds? Ear grounds?
137: These hands have to be registered as lethal weapons in 22 states, laydeez. Pew pew pew!
140: Wry Cooter is still available, right?
I'm drinking with a Butler County native.
I'm not allowed to drink vinous, spiritous or malt liquors anymore, but happily I got to drink diet Coke while watching "Princess Mononoke" on the big screen, accompanied by my niece. We're going to take her to see "Pom Poko" too when that screens later this year, in hopes of fully cementing her commitment to radical ecological liberation ideologies.
I don't know what that is, but for reasons I can't understand, I have two Pokemon on the same gym. The one that was on first, and was knocked off, is listed as having been on the gym for 19919 days. I put it there before i started drinking, maybe three and a half hours ago. The other one says it's been there for 40 minutes, which is when I walked by the same gym on the way home.
Don't accept drinks from strangers.
Another wrinkle is the nuts who will presumably turn out to protect future events. So, four months of brownshirts waving guns. I don't know what that does for red turnout, but it might good for blue.
148: we watched Pom Poko a few weeks ago and were very struck by a) how long the film went on and b) quite how central to the plot the testicles were.
It is a film all about nuts who turn out to protect future events, in fact, just to draw the topics back together.
Definitely watch out for nuts with wrinkles.
The one that was on first, and was knocked off, is listed as having been on the gym for 19919 days. I put it there before i started drinking, maybe three and a half hours ago.
Moby says he started drinking three-and-a-half hours ago. Pokemon says 19,919 days. I know who I believe.
Maybe it was a time traveling Pokemon that shot Trump.
156 the balls get really huge in the evolved form
We're still talking about nuts with wrinkles?
https://x.com/kyledcheney/status/1812848096914690190?s=46&t=YPDlhKIAkz6frSdUpGBO_g
Cannon dismissed the Trump documents case.
I keep thinking about the contingent nature of history. The world changes with a few more votes in a few places, with a slightly more effective assassin, with the random assignment of an honest judge to a criminal case.
Patriarchy all the way down though.
162: Tribe said DOJ should appeal, but what reason do we have to believe that the Supreme Court would overrule her? He makes a legal argument about only Thomas agreeing with that position, but I think it's more of a political question.
It's sort of a self-evidently ludicrous decision... Ludicrous enough to assume that you don't convince Roberts and Kavanaugh. The only reason it has a partisan valence is because Barack Obama wasn't a crook. Wouldn't it also affect the Hunter Biden conviction?
165: That was my assumption, but maybe her bad reasoning messes up so much else if let stand that the SCOTUS six duck the issue by denying certiorari? Assuming the circuit reverses. Worth trying, for sure. Some legal analyst types are suggesting that could happen even in the current environment, but even in that scenario they wouldn't make her recuse.
Maybe it helps a little that when Thomas gave her that guidepost two weeks ago in a concurrence, no other Justice signed on to it?
168: It seems that Roberts is making a habit of signing on to things that were previously unimaginable, e.g. absolute immunity for official acts.
Is it possible that Cannon is not corrupt in legally actionable ways? I know she's an ideologue and a Trump acolyte, so wouldn't necessary need under-the-table incentives, but that doesn't stop people from being corrupt anyway. On the other hand, I'm not sure it's possible to be corrupt anymore, according to the Supreme Court.*
*Some non-Republicans excepted, of course.
Would it not go to 11th Circuit before the SC?
172: Initially, yes, of course, it would.
169: I get that, of course. I don't know the law well enough to guess whether Roberts could twist himself into supporting this. The special counsel regulations have been in place for 25 years and nobody thought this was a colorable argument before now. I assume this could overturn the convictions of Scooter Libby, Paul Manafort and Hunter Biden. The first two have already been pardoned, so the net effect would be letting Trump and Biden off the hook.
Since this is a (supposedly) constitutional/administrative issue, and not prosecutorial misconduct, could another DOJ attorney pick up the case and bring charges on the same facts?
174: Some other legal types were saying yes, absolutely. I don't know how they're sure it doesn't violate double jeopardy - and even if it doesn't, that seems like the kind of thing where SCOTUS could easily carve out a new exception.
It would not let Hunter Biden off the hook because unlike Jack Smith, the Special Counsel in that case is also a Senate-approved US Attorney which neatly gets around the issue she dismissed over. Never underestimate the corruption of Republicans.
So John Durham is legit, but not Robert Mueller or Jack Smith? It's kind of wild they found a way to finesse that. It's like if blue eyes were unconstitutional.
You don't pull off a coup without being clever.
Prescience! Someone actually wrote a paper in 2018 on the circumstances in which the 11th circuit both reversed and remanded to a different judge. Apparently they have not only required the high standard of obvious bias we are used to for recusal motions, but have in several cases remanded without casting aspersions on the judge, for reasons like saying it would be hard for the judge to put their previous findings and conclusions aside in accepting the circuit reversal. Not common, but it has happened! https://repository.law.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4546&context=umlr
179: It's like an all new and exciting form of gerrymandering!
JD Vance! As a representative of the great state of Ohio I apologize to the nation.
I suspect Cannon's ruling was equal parts protecting Trump and a personal "fuck you too" to Smith.
Plot twist: Kamala Harris also picks J.D. Vance to be her running mate.
Backsies! I call backsies!
Kennedy/Vance 2024!
VP pick a great victory for the phonies of America.
Yale law grad who worked in venture capital:
Serious question: I have to go to New York soon and I'm trying to figure out where to stay. I have heard it's disgusting and violent there. But is it like Walking Dead Season 1 or Season 4?
What a craven piece of shit Vance is, selling what passes for his soul to Dons Sr and Jr for the chance at a job he's not remotely prepared for. OTOH National Deport Your In-Laws Day should be fun!
Kinda weird how little we know yet about the shooter. Just not used to people without social media I guess.
They put up the "white murderer"-style picture locally. He looks like a child.
So, its getting into election sign season and I was driving past a place where a lot of political signs are usually posted. It had recently been mowed by the city and all the signs cleared out. The only sign that was there already was one sign for a Republican running for Governor.
And I though, "sweet, I'll go grab a prime spot" and I went home and took a sign from the stack of old political signs in my basement and went back to the place and stuck my sign in a prime spot. The sign said "Democrats: Working for the Common Good"
The sign didn't last four hours.
Oddly, the sign for the Republican gubernatorial candidate was left untouched.
Yeah, I suppose I could just hide a Go-Pro in the bushes with timelapse thing going.
Or I could hide up in a tree wearing a gorilla suit.
I supposed I'd probably get shot anyway.
What a craven piece of shit Vance is
The neat thing about this sentence is how you can substitute the name of any sitting Congressional Republican for "Vance" and it still works.
Odd (and yet completely understandable) that this year appears to be breaking LGM.
Hadn't looked at LGM in a while. Sidestepping that post, I can't imagine following a blog that posts a dozen times in two days on current politics, especially if it includes lots of commentary on day to day polling.
I called out Campos for posting a factually inaccurate statement about Biden and Parkinson's that I don't believe he ever corrected. Maybe he did in comment 773 of 1281. He stated that the Parkinson's doctor serving the Wh for 10 years hadn't ever visited the WH prior to 2022 which was just completely untrue but served his narrative. If that's what they're calling "attacking the front page posters" then fuck that.
The thing that drives me nuts is the complete certainty that all these pundits have about the outcome of the race and the impact of their favorite Biden replacement. Yglesias is the worst- I stopped reading him regularly mostly because he's still on Twitter, but I saw one link where he just takes it as a given that Biden is losing in a landslide. It wasn't even the point of the post, just an aside like "After Trump's landslide victory, x will be affected so and so". God grant me the confidence of a white political pundit.
I don't know about pundit certainty, but I do think we're hovering in this limbo where all the main options are very risky. Keep Biden; switch to Harris; switch to someone else. All have real obvious downsides and we don't actually know the real odds of any of them. It is completely plausible to see any of them as the risk-minimizing option, especially because of the real obvious downsides of the others, and then, I suppose, argue ferociously for it forever
I don't know about pundit certainty, but I do think we're hovering in this limbo where all the main options are very risky. Keep Biden; switch to Harris; switch to someone else. All have real obvious downsides and we don't actually know the real odds of any of them. It is completely plausible to see any of them as the risk-minimizing option, especially because of the real obvious downsides of the others, and then, I suppose, argue ferociously for it forever
199: and yet no one can say, who? No one seems to be excited about Harris. Dumping Harris? Who is the 40- or 50- something politician who wants to step up and likely blow their career in the chaos (convention fights go so well?). We need a name and there just isn't one.
Campos and Loomis have always been prone to bullshit. The decision of Lemieux and Farley to join them is surprising, but I suspect that's our future: The liberals fail and blame each other for it. LGM is in the vanguard.
I do think we're hovering in this limbo where all the main options are very risky. Keep Biden; switch to Harris; switch to someone else. All have real obvious downsides and we don't actually know the real odds of any of them.
Well said.
We need a name and there just isn't one.
I believe (with minimal certainty) that the only workable scenario in which Biden steps down from the top of the candidate is everyone agreeing on Harris. If people can't agree on Harris then, as far as I'm concerned, stick with Biden.
I don't know whether people are excited about Harris, but I don't remember anyone being excited about Biden last time. (I wasn't but have been pleasantly surprised.) I'd say that excitement for someone is less important when Trump is the opponent. But also, if someone halfway decent were chosen, we could all retcon enthusiasm for them. I could find enthusiasm just from being released from the gerontocracy.
205 was mine.
There is also the possibility of large groups (Black women, SE Asians) that I don't spend enough time with being very excited for Harris and I just don't encounter that enough.
I could be talked into being excited about Harris. Middleaged government attorney who wears Chuck Taylors -- what's not to like?
It is completely plausible to see any of them as the risk-minimizing option
This is true, and the dump-Biden crowd, from what I've seen, has been in absolute denial about it. Yglesias and LGM are two obvious examples.
Chait here talks about the willingness to keep Biden as being characterized by "defeatism," but of course, that could just as easily be said about the move to replace him.
I don't know what's going to happen, and I don't like Biden's chances, but I still think he's the best available bet.
I don't know what's going to happen, and I don't like Biden's chances, but I still think he's the best available bet.
FWIW I had believed that and have switched to thinking that Harris is probably a better bet. But I don't have much confidence in that statement, and much would depend on how we could get there from here.
Even a month ago, we didn't think anyone had enthusiasm for Biden. We were (mildly anxiously) riding out 'well, he's old but he's been fine and he is the incumbent and it's a vote against Trump anyway'. It was only after he descended into fucking disaster that we all freaked out. So I don't think we need sky-high enthusiasm for anyone else. The anti-Trump enthusiasm will do most of that work. It is just that the person needs to not be so bad that they override the not-Trump enthusiasm.
I think Harris would generate excitement simply by virtue of being a new shiny object for the media. But my record predicting elections is so random that what I think doesn't matter.
Biden, Shapiro, Whitmer, Harris. I am enthusiastic about all of them. If I have to, I believe I could work up genuine enthusiasm for Newsom, but I sure hope I don't have to.
One thing about Biden that gets lost in all of this talk: He's the absolute fucking best.
212: Oh yeah, the media would love Harris as the nominee. Fresh blood! You can already see they are starting to get bored with beating up on Biden.
214: He really is pretty great some ways.
Nationwide rent control in some form? I doubt it will penetrate the fog of media angst, but that's pretty unprecedented as a proposal from the president, I think. (Suggested to perhaps be fruits of Bernie/AOC standing by him.)
On the shooting itself, it is interesting how marginal the actual act and potential motivations have become. That could change with some big revelation of course, but you know, rather than Dems needing to cool their rhetoric maybe there should be some media commentary and questions around how a seemingly barely competent kid nearly assassinated the presidential candidate of the wildly pro-gun party during their motherfucking convention!!!!?? But no, it's unity and strength and the courage and serenity of the intended victim.
It is clear a rather conservative, gun-wielding household. Trump signs reported, 11 or 12 guns in total. And do not know details, but father apparently contacted police after hearing about the shooting and kid not home (need details on last to truly understand father's concern in doing so).
But a guessing it will end up in the bucket with the Las Vegas shooting and the guy who tried to blow up downtown nashville.
218> Discussion during the convention. Badly constructed sentence. I blame rage and age.
The most convincing theory I've seen so far about the shooting is that the kid was being bullied by people in his very Trumpy, gun-heavy world so he decided to lash out by killing their idol, Trump. Very much more a school-shooting type scenario than a typical political assassination attempt. (Still entirely speculative as far as I know.)
It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
I'm getting too many texts from Democratic candidates and organizations. But I got my first Republican one. I replied with "Fuck Off" and they unsubscribed me.
220: Yeah, sounds like something like that. Re: the scene from "Parenthood" but with the kid yelling "You cut me from the rifle team!" rather than "You made me play second base!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn5ayQd7Y0Q
He is pretty obviously in the school shooter mode, at least in my lay opinion. I've actually made progress with a person or two by pointing out that we've seen this same movie literally hundreds of times before over the past few decades and that the school shootings weren't about education, the mall shootings weren't about retail pricing, the church shootings weren't about theology, etc.
I've actually made progress with a person or two by pointing out that we've seen this same movie literally hundreds of times before over the past few decades and that the school shootings weren't about education, the mall shootings weren't about retail pricing, the church shootings weren't about theology, etc.
That is a good way to frame it.
Jesus said not to stab people. He didn't mention shooting.
Apparently, the local cops where in the build where the shooter was on the roof. Which I guess makes some sense it's a lot easier to stand there.
Basically a school shooter, I think, but why Trump and not a school? My guess is that the shooter is marinating in the kind of Infowars-lite far right speculation. The one that says the U.S. is headed for a race war, and that all it would take is someone shooting Trump, fr'ex. Probably from that one uncle, you know, too out there for BP but not for Peters Township but still gets invited over for dinner. Kid is interested in guns but coaches think he's a liability (almost assuredly not for being a bad shot, imo, but probably for chatter suggesting he ought not to have access to guns. Coaches clamped down on that shit thirty years ago and that was before Columbine.)
He's 20 working in nursing care in a town where 95% of kids go on to higher education or the military. The town is fine enough, but very little has changed in 30 years -- it's not an area of growth. Shooting Trump would give him fame, and his dad keeps an AR-15 or similar, probably for protection from the total lack of crime.
Trump is like a school in summer. No class.
>why Trump and not a school
If you're looking to commit suicide by cop and go from being nobody to a name the entire world knows in the process, you could hardly find a bigger stage.
228: me
227: this is going to turn out to be something like the Secret Service and the local sheriff miscommunicating about who had to watch the back doors.
230: sure, but the rest of them shoot schools and churches and Targets and etc.
probably for protection from the total lack of crime
Over the last 10 years, there has not been a year when more than 1% of the high school graduating class went on to shoot at a former president.
A political rally was one of the few remaining public gatherings that hadn't experienced a mass shooting, probably due to the relative level of security present and the relative scarcity of them compared to Targets. It's possible that something really different is happening here, or maybe it would have been a Target if the (assumed) mental health crisis had happened six months ago. Shrug.
It feels monumental because of the target, but making rational sense of what's driving irrational behaviors is never easy.
Wasn't there a thread here many years ago, later removed(?), that speculated about whether a political candidate who has run in the past three elections (but who was new back then) might be assassinated? I distinctly remember suggesting it was more likely to be a supporter (or one time supporter) than an opponent.
But accelerationist motives are certainly a possibility. Everything is weird now.
It's like when all the orcs got greedy and fearful and stabbed each other, but Frodo knew they had to stay hidden because all intra-Mordor struggles will be put aside if there was a hobbit seen.
I would be positively over the moon for a chance to vote for Harris for president and not someone who has been enabling an ongoing genocide. I know a lot of other people who feel the same.
222- See you in the 2025 deportation camp, comrade.
228: He's 20 working in nursing care in a town where 95% of kids go on to higher education or the military
I noted this as well given that he received a $500 math/science award (not that exclusive, I think 20 per year, but not nothing). Plus various classmates saying he did well.
Father contacting police is a clue as well.
239: Sometimes I wonder if making political donations is really worth it. One thought that keeps coming back to me is that it is tangible, written (on a website) proof that I was on the other side.
Father contacting police is a clue as well.
"Did anyone get shot at, but probably not hit?"
214 and 216: Ellie Mystal thinks it won't work unless we expand the Court.
Further to 191, I subsequently put up a home-made sign that says "Unite Against Trump" and it lasted the whole day.
, AP report seems to have a policeman going up a ladder to confront the gunman and retreating in defense just before the shots
In fairness, if this is true, getting back on target and very nearly hitting under that stress is actually pretty good.
Certainly better than the Secret Service:
US officials received information about an Iranian threat to former president Donald Trump, prompting the Secret Service to increase security around him ahead of last weekend's assassination attempt, according to people familiar with the matter. There are no indications that the attack on Trump by Thomas Crooks was connected to the Iranian plot, said US officials.https://www.ft.com/content/ba1e02f6-21e9-4ebf-adc8-8765af6eba62
247: Yes, that was an amazing story to leak. This was heightened security!
It's funny because if you had asked me why there haven't been any Presidential assassinations since Kennedy, and near-misses since Reagan, I would have guessed that it must be because of better protection. I can't believe there were more people desperate to kill Gerald Ford than there were to kill George W. Bush or Barack Obama.
197: this line really caught my eye: "I love this place; I've put my heart and soul into it. When I meet my Maker and have to explain myself, I'll cite my children first as justifications of my time on this earth and LGM second."
I mean, Unfogged is great, don't get me wrong, and I still sincerely hope that it isn't in the top two of anyone's lifetime achievements.
But LGM???
I can't believe there were more people desperate to kill Gerald Ford than there were to kill George W. Bush or Barack Obama.
Ford is still ahead, but there have been a couple of near misses since Reagan.
There was one fairly serious attempt on Bush - some Armenian guy threw a hand grenade at him. It missed by about sixty feet (clearly the Armenians are not a cricketing nation), and didn't detonate anyway, but still. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Arutyunian
And Bin Laden tried to assassinate Bill Clinton with that great Irish invention, a culvert bomb, in 1996.
Those are the only two attempts since Reagan that have actually got to the point of getting ordnance close to the target.
It probably helps avoid scrutiny if you look like a high school student from Bethel Park and not like what a suburban law enforcement officer thinks an Iranian looks like.
Another speculative theory I've seen is that, given the family house was one of those festooned with Trump signs etc, if you're a disturbed kid that's really angry with your father, how better to cause him maximum pain than to shoot his idol with his gun and then get killed for it.
I heard he wanted to derail the Tenacious D tour.
My grandfather achieved the feat of being both a communist and owning a factory, where they made the little metal kiss-lock piece on the top of purses. There were two Cuban employees who decided to assassinate Eisenhower. They did not come anywhere close before being discovered, but they came close enough that my grandparents were to be interviewed by the FBI. So one warm day in the summer, my dad came home and found his mother had a fire in the fireplace, where they could burn all their communist documents, and they'd set up finances to transfer to Canada if they needed to go in a hurry. He was coached on what to say when he was interviewed: "Tell the truth but nothing more." He was probably around 10-11 years old? They survived the interview with their capitalist facade intact, and continued to earn a healthy free-market living like good Communists.
My grandfather achieved the feat of being both a communist and owning a factory,
There's precedent. Communism was invented by a guy who owned several factories.
My supposition is that we don't learn of assassinaion plots that fail before shots are fired. By plotters.
257: we learn about quite a lot of them because the plotters are arrested and tried. I suppose there could be any number of people whose plots fail without ever attracting the attention of the authorities.