“Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin!” Apart from introducing the president of Ukraine as the president of Russia and referring to Kamala Harris as “vice-president Trump”, Joe Biden got through the NATO summit just fine.
The Democrats have got themselves into a bit of a pickle, haven’t they? It is not as if there were no warning signs. Why, the Guardian’s Washington Correspondent, David Smith, compiled a long list of them called “Warning signs: a history of Joe Biden’s verbal slips” only a week ago.
Only a week ago. That is the problem. The first item on the list of warning signs dates from March 2021. The Guardian‘s article attempts to explain why it took so long:
Biden’s team came down hard on reporters who questioned whether the oldest president in American history – now 81 – was still fully capable of doing the job. Journalists also wanted to avoid the accusation of ageism or that they were helping to elect Trump.
“It is simply astounding for the entire country, including its most seasoned reporters, to be as shocked as everyone was by the ugly and painful reality of Biden’s debate performance,” Jill Abramson, former executive editor of the New York Times, wrote on the Semafor website this week.
While it was a “super hard story to report”, she said it could have been done. Instead, Abramson said, the American press failed in its duty to hold those in power accountable. Here are some of the dots that, with the benefit of hindsight, could have been joined sooner:
Or you could have read a proper newspaper like the New York Post or the Daily Mail and learned about them at the time. The Guardian‘s selection of “gaffes” is skewed towards things that, although they happen to Biden more frequently than average, could happen to anyone, such as Biden’s literal stumbles and his accidental substitutions of one word for another. The only really damaging items in the list compiled by David Smith are Biden calling out “Jackie, are you here?” to the recently deceased Jackie Walorski, and one of several claims he has made that his son died in Iraq. None of the charming anecdotes that he habitually makes up out of whole cloth were included. The New York Post was flagging this habit of his back in 2021. Nor does the Guardian‘s list include any of Biden’s frequent descents into meaningless gabble. Remember how he came out with “I’ll lead an effective strategy to mobilise trunalimunumaprzure” at a campaign stop in Luzerne County, PA, back in October 2020? Of course you do, because you read a proper newspaper, such as Canada’s National Telegraph, from where I got the link. The article by Gerry Kaur, includes a line saying that we need to talk about the “massive problem” of Joe Biden’s “lowering cognitive agility”. It was published on November 3rd, 2020. The Democrats, their friends in the media, and the left in general could have started that conversation four years ago and been in a much better position now, but they preferred to suppress the story. The trouble with hiding the truth from other people is that you end up hiding it from yourself as well.
It was not just the Guardian – and it was not just the mental decline of Joseph “Joe the Big Guy” Biden.
Basically the entire media, including the Wall Street Journal (owned by Rupert Murdoch), spread lies and covered up the truth – even covering up blatant election fraud in Arizona and other States, and viciously insulting honest people who tried to expose election rigging as recently as 2022 (so it was not “just in 2020” or “just about getting Trump”).
As for the Guardian – it was covering up the murder of millions of human beings, and dismissing any journalist on its staff who tried to expose what was happening, 90 years ago.
Why was Ukraine not important in the 1930s? And it was not “just Ukraine” – millions of people were slaughtered all over the Soviet Union and the Manchester Guardian (as it then was), the New York Times, and-so-on did not give a damn.
And THEY KNEW – THEY KNEW. Even my father, just an ordinary person in the East End of London at the time, knew what was going on in the Soviet Union – so anyone who says that the “liberal” elite did not know, is a God damned liar.
The first action of the New Dealers (those history book heroes – who were scumbags in real life) was to get rid of the Russian Section of the State Department – but they did not succeed in destroying all its files, so it is clear that the American government knew about the murder of millions of human beings in the Marxist Soviet Union – and the reaction of President Roosevelt and co was to rush in 1933 to recognise the regime (full diplomatic relations – making Soviet intelligence operations in the United States so much easier) and to set up “Friendship societies” (such as the one led by Mrs Roosevelt – the “First Lady”) with it.
They also used the IRS (the tax police) against political opponents, and they put pressure on private radio companies (via the FCC – the Federal Communications Commission) to turn themselves into propaganda arms of the regime. That is why the 1936 election turned out the way it did – turn on any radio station and the only real criticism of “FDR” was that he was not Collectivist enough, that he, and the rest of the Administration, should be even more Collectivist than they were.
The “Progressive” elite did not become evil last week – they have always been evil. The academic elite have been evil since Richard Ely and co (his Orwellian named academic freedom campaign was really about purging any anti Collectivist from the universities) – and that led the political and media elite (and, eventually, the Corporate elite as well) to be what they now are.
Everyone in the media and political elite has known, for many years, that Joseph “Joe 10% for the Big Guy” is a crook, they have known about his bribe taking (including from foreign powers) for many years before the Hunter Biden laptop – which the lying scum of the CIA, FBI, and-so-on declared “Russian Disinformation”.
And they watched in 2020 as Joseph Biden said (from a prepared script) in a televised “Townhall” that he supported “Trans-Rights” for eight-year-old-children.
Eight-year-old-children.
The media supported, and covered up massive election fraud for, a person who supported the most vicious form of child abuse of our age.
In order for Obama to have realised a third Presidential term, he, and his cohorts, realised they needed a figurehead who would not complain, and happily go along with what he was told. Obama had 6 years to cultivate the media, FBI, and other 3 letter organisations to fall in line with his policies, so it was only natural they would continue to follow those policies, being aware that he
still had the power. Whether Jill was planted into the Biden household in the early days, is not known, but as these people plan way ahead, it would not surprise me.
Up until now, the most dangerous job in the world, was working for the Clintons. Perhaps there is someone more dangerous, especially if you are a surfboarding chef?
To the collectivist mind the ends justify the means – and since a Socialist Utopia is the greatest ‘end’ it follows that the harshest means are justified and piles of corpses alongside the route of the march to the glorious Utopia may be disregarded.
A Biden presidency (cognitive decline and all) would be preferable to a Harris presidency, or any other Dem candidate that I can think of. It’s not Biden’s incapacity that is worrying Democrats. It’s the prospect of a Trump presidency.
At this point I pronounce my full support for Biden.
In my opinion, this was apparent during the last campaign. Biden was being carefully stage managed, to the extent of one instance I recall, he was on stage, waving to the crowd, but when the camera ‘accidentally’ panned to the auditorium, there was no one there, ( a bit like Biden, in fact ).
So, my question, is any of Biden’s presidency, legitimate, obviously he’s not in charge, but who is ?
Whom-ever that person is, there is at least a question mark over his/her exercise of lawful constitutional authority.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9x8w9pxwllo
11 July 2024
Sir Keir Starmer has described the US president as being “on really good form” after meeting Joe Biden at the Nato summit in Washington DC.
Asked whether the president was senile, as an increasing number of people are implying, Sir Keir answered “no”, and praised the president’s understanding during their bilateral meeting.
The prime minister said his US counterpart had “shown incredible leadership”.
Note that date.
Seriously Prime Minister?????
The problem here John is – to be far far more charitable than events warrant – our shiny new PM cannot say out loud what is abundantly true.
To admit in public that the de jure head of the most powerful military the world has ever seen is a gibbering senile mess is to invite every bad actor in the world to have at it.
The corresponding issue is that the “compliant” media is putting him in that position.
So for the next five years our country is in the hands of a man with principles that mirror the teachings of Marx (Groucho not Karl) who believes that a woman can have a penis and that an incoherent senior with probable dementia is a capable leader of the western world.
@John
Note that date.
I’m confused John. I checked the date twice and it is July 12th not April 1st.
Fraser,
Sir Keir is nothing if not careful with his choice of words:-
incredible
/ĭn-krĕd′ə-bəl/
adjective
So implausible as to elicit disbelief; unbelievable.”gave an incredible explanation of the cause of the accident.”
Astonishing, extraordinary, or extreme.
“dressed with incredible speed.”
Not credible; surpassing belief; too extraordinary and improbable to admit of belief; unlikely.
Biden’s team came down hard on reporters who questioned whether the oldest president in American history – now 81 – was still fully capable of doing the job. Journalists also wanted to avoid the accusation of ageism or that they were helping to elect Trump.
Surely this is the most terrifying part of this quote. Whatever happened to democracy dies in darkness? Whatever happened to “speak truth to power”? When the newspapers are afraid of the government we are in deep shit. I don’t remember who, but a journalist from a major news channel was banned from the Whitehouse for eight months because they didn’t like his questions. I mean I’d like to say “imagine if Trump had done that”, but it is such a tired out comparison it is hardly even worth making.
It used to be that when the government started punishing the press the whole press pulled together regardless of their political inclinations — because the one thing they shared was a passion for freedom of the press. Now? They are just propaganda mouthpieces. They are only running the Biden story because their political masters have decided they should.
Where are the Daniel Ellsbergs? Perhaps the world’s journalists have learned the lesson of Asange and Snowden.
The Newspapers aren’t afraid of the government, they are part of the government.
“To admit in public that the de jure head of the most powerful military the world has ever seen is a gibbering senile mess is to invite every bad actor in the world to have at it.”
I think the bad actors already know the truth, and have done for years, from before Biden won even. They haven’t been sat around waiting to have it confirmed by Sir Kneel.
The Guardian article, and the attendant cris-de-couer of the media, would be laughable if it wasn’t so bloody serious. It all reminds me of nothing so much as the plaintive cries of a million German civilians when the Allies came a’knocking in 1945. We had no idea! Captain Renault assured us that everything was on the up-and-up! We were Shocked! We never knew! Camps? Ovens? Gas chambers? Not Us!
The speed with which these solons of the journalistic craft have both pled total ignorance and at the same time assumed the mantle of innocent victimhood is just so much bullshit. Look, everyone knew that Biden was somewhat demented in 2020, and he’s been getting worse ever since. Plenty of real journalists, both here and abroad, mostly outside the cozy self-referential Washington/New York media bubble, have been reporting on it, the whole time. It’s just that you decided that, instead of being proper journalists, you were going to be a mixture of spokesmen for the Democratic party at large and court stenographers for the Obama and then the Biden administrations specifically. Real journalists, the likes of H. L. Mencken, would sneer in disgust at the pitiful lapdogs you have made yourselves.
Jill Abramson whines like a teenager that the story of Biden’s advancing dementia was ‘super hard to report’, but that again is the merest bullshit. The leader of the free world is sliding into fantasy and dementia – with hundreds of video clips going back 40 years to illustrate – is the easiest story in the world to report. It practically writes itself – as the steady stream of Trump campaign ads consisting solely of video clips of Biden show. But ‘the fact of the matter is’ (to coin a phrase) that the story was the easiest thing in the world to report – what was ‘super hard’ was deciding to report it, because you were, and are, 100%-totally in the bag for one party and one candidate, and you just couldn’t bring yourself to report anything that might contradict his narrative, question his veracity, or hurt his chances of re-election. You’re not even a journalist – you’re nothing more than an unpaid press secretary for the administration you’ve chosen to support. You don’t have even the basic self-respect of the honest whore, who at least charges for pleasing her client – you did it for nothing. ‘Useful idiot’ about sums it up.
‘Biden’s team came down hard . . . ‘ on journalists who questioned the narrative? Don’t make me laugh. What, did nasty White House intern say bad words on poor widdle journalist? You dumb f**ks, it’s when the flak is heaviest that you know you’re getting closer to the target. Aren’t you supposed to be ‘speaking truth to power’, and finding out the truth regardless of the attempts of those in power to prevent your from finding it out? But no, you folded like an airmail envelope, and for what? So you would keep getting invited to White House pressers, and riding on Air Force One, and basking in the approval of your like-minded colleagues and the soi-disant ‘elites’ on the Left and Right coasts?
‘For Biden? Why Richard, it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. . . but for Biden!’
And right now, we’re watching what parts we can see of a literal coup. It won’t be a banana-republic style coup, with AK-47s going off and bloody corpses on display in dusty courtyards. But the process has begun to remove a duly-elected nominee for the election, and replace him with someone else. Sure, he’s halfway-demented, and will soon require to be watered twice a week, but the fact remains that he’s the duly-elected nominee of his party, and unless he dies or steps down of his own accord, there’s no legal way to remove him as the nominee and replace him with somebody else. Note that this has nothing to do with the 25th Amendment or any other Constitutional provisions – this is about the Democratic nomination. Again, there’s no legal way for this to happen – but if he won’t step down, they’ll replace him anyway, by any means necessary. That’s my definition of a coup. And it bears little relationship to my ideas of ‘a democracy’.
And, as contributor Kirk has noted previous, in circumstances like these, things can change for the very worse, very quick. I wouldn’t be in New York, or Chicago, or Los Angeles, or Portland, on the day after election day, not for any money. I think we’re going to get a rough lesson in what a real ‘insurrection’ looks like.
llater, I hope,
llamas
Oh, and if you’re still in two minds as to just how far Biden’s mind has collapsed in on itself – do a little Googling and find video of him speaking at an event in Detroit today, in the company of Representative Debbie Dingell (D – Dynasty). It’s hard to watch.
In the middle of some rambling but anodyne remarks, he spots a little girl of maybe 9 or 10 years in the audience. He stops his remarks, starts talking to her directly, and before you know it, he’s telling her how old she needs to be before she starts dating.
It’s literally toe-curlingly creepy – an 81-year-old man giving dating instructions to a 9-year-old girl.
In what universe this sort of behaviour even exists in the next zip-code across from being acceptable, I do not know.
And yet a spot more Googling will show that Biden has said this exact same sort of thing to pre-pubescent girls, with more-or-less identical wording, many, many times, over the past decade or more. I’m frankly amazed that some outraged father hasn’t hauled off and punched his lights out for talking to his daughter that way.
And yet nobody in his staff has apparently seen fit to take him into a quiet corner and tell him, in no uncertain terms, to stop perving on little girls in public. Or, if they have, he just ignores them and keeps on doing it. He thinks it’s fine – he probably thinks it’s funny. That’s how far gone his mind is. An actual paedophile would be smart enough not to say things like that in public – and yet he just keeps right on doing it.
llater,
llamas
In some ways things are not new.
Election rigging? Done in the 1960 Presidential election – for example by Mayor Daley in Chicago (who justified his actions to himself on the standard “Social Teaching” we-have-got-to-this-to-help-the-poor grounds – and, indeed, the Kennedy Administration introduced “Food Stamps”, which have done great harm to society, in 1961). As for Texas – even the leftist biographer of Johnson (Kennedy’s running mate in 1960 and later President himself) admits that Johnson and the other leftist Democrats used to rig elections in Texas, sometimes so blatantly as to have people vote “LBJ” for the United States Senate in-alphabetical-order (the alternative candidate for the Democrats was a racist – so election rigging was acceptable, according to Progressive morality).
Biased media? The media have been insanely biased since at least the 1930s – first the radio then (later) the television stations (especially after the Kennedy Administration’s change to FCC rules – which turned entertainment shows into a de facto monopoly for the three leftist stations, preventing any outside company having editorial control over entertainment shows), the newspapers were taken over long ago by “School of Journalism” types – who are taught (this was the very reason that “Schools of Journalism” were created) that government must have a progressive-role-in-society “helping the people”.
So what has changed?
What has changed is not the elite (who have been scumbags for a very long time indeed) – what has changed is ordinary American society.
American society used to be strong (very strong) – it could prop up an academic, media and political (and so on) elite of scumbags.
But American society is now weak (tragically weak) the “Social Revolution” or “Cultural Revolution” has roots that go back long before the 1960s – but it was in the 1960s that the decay became obvious.
And that was 60 years ago – the decay is vastly more advanced now. American society no longer has the strength to sustain the elite – including the corporate elite (who are Credit Money parasites – hello Cantillon Effect).
The United States, and the rest of the Western world, is now approaching the “end game”.
Will the, already tragically decayed and corrupted, West survive?
I do not know.
Reminders of what freedom and democracy are:
Freedom includes (must include – or it is not freedom) the right of opposition media (including opposition television stations) to say “hateful” things – if there are “Hate Speech” laws, or if opposition television stations (and so on) do not exist at all, then you do not have freedom (you have a situation like Russia or France – where all the television stations are on the same side, and where if people say things the rulers detest the dissenters are punished for “Hate Speech” or whatever – for example in Germany a politician was recently punished simply for reading out government statistics that showed that immigrants were far more likely to commit rape, rape by the migrants was not considered the problem by the German establishment – but freely talking about it was a problem, indeed a crime to be punished). And freedom must (must – or it is not freedom) include allowing churches that do not take a “Progressive” line – the idea that “we have freedom of religion – as long as the churches support the Progressive State” is not freedom of religion at all.
And democracy means having free (not rigged – as in the United States in 2020) and fair (fair as in opposition is allowed to say what it wants – and be heard) elections. And not staying in power after your term has expired – without fresh free and fair elections, the excuse “we can not have free and fair elections – so we will have no elections at all” being utterly insane.
Russia is not a democracy because its elections are not free and fair – and countries that do not even bother to have elections are not democracies either.
Countries that do not allow freely dissenting (including “Hate Speech” media – what Ofcom would call Mark Steyn) media and dissenting churches are not free countries, and countries that do not have elections are not democracies.
Pointing out all of the above should not be controversial.
It has been suggested that there are dissenting “right wing” television stations in France – but if they are subject to “Hate Speech” laws (forbidding the expression of opinions that the powerful do not like) then their dissent is crippled.
“I detest what you say but I will defend, to the death, your right to say it” (Voltaire) is the correct definition of Freedom of Speech.
I always thought that it was obvious. I’ve never seen an image or video of him when he doesn’t have a gormless vacant expression on his face.
Mr Trump called Mr Biden “sleepy Joe” 5 years ago.
There are reasons why so much of the media is despised. Mr Biden’s cognitive decline has been evident for years.
“‘I detest what you say but I will defend, to the death, your right to say it’ (Voltaire) is the correct definition of Freedom of Speech.”
Even daffy old Noam Chomsky got it right:
“If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.“
Natalie, you yourself seem to be confused. Did Biden really claim that the President of Ukraine is the President of Russia, or that Putin is the President of Ukraine?
” Did Biden really claim that the President of Ukraine is the President of Russia, or that Putin is the President of Ukraine?”
Well it could be either I suppose. He was bringing Zelensky on stage at the NATO summit and introduced him as President Putin. He did catch himself immediately afterwards and correct his ‘miss-speak’, so its not like he was literally thinking Zelensky was Putin but he definitely had a momentary brain fart over what his name was.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/ce78zklp77wo
Remember how “President Biden” was created in the first place.
The courts refused to enforce election laws – for example the courts in Pennsylvania refused to enforce the election laws against unlimited mail-in ballots.
And the United States Supreme Court refused to even hear “Texas V Pennsylvania” – even though many States filed in support of Texas.
The regime then went after protestors against the rigged election – the left had been rioting in Washington D.C. for months, looting and burning, and they were not punished (indeed they even got a pay out).
But some J6 protestors have been in prison for three years – waiting for their corrupt trials for trespassing. The juries in D.C. being as corrupt as the juries in New York and other big cities (the big cities being, in the main, no longer major manufacturing centres – now the big cities are mainly Credit Bubble).
As for “they will only do it to Trump” – the despicable (utterly despicable) Wall Street Journal was up to its neck in the cover up of election fraud in Arizona in 2022 (2022 – nothing to do with “Trump”).
All the establishment “right” care about is the flow of Credit Money – as long as Wall Street keeps getting its Corporate Welfare handouts, the Wall Street Journal (and the rest of them) could not give a damn about election fraud.
As Tim Pool points out – this general situation, rigged elections and weak or corrupt courts (and a “media” which is just sickening) is leading in the direction Civil War.
Nothing is honest – no institution is any longer worth a cup of spit.
llamas:
“I wouldn’t be in New York, or Chicago, or Los Angeles, or Portland, on the day after election day, not for any money.”
Well said.
We got a taste of it in the mostly peaceful “George Floyd” demonstrations in 2020. 3 months of mayhem and destruction.
The USA has a choice between two old codgers. The sort of elderly fuckers in the queue in front of you who don’t grok contactless cards and in Joe Biden’s case probs can’t put their own shoes on unaided.
It comes down to a choice beteween two derelicts and the only defining difference is one does nothing but shout spite whilst the other spouts shite.
It is a pitiful state of affairs. There are 330 million Americans and this is the best they can come up with…
So, there is a choice between an senile cunt and a cunt.
Jesus fucking wept.
@NickM – I don’t think anyone would quibble with your assessment that Trump is an abrasive and divisive personality, although I’m not a fan of your choice of epithet. But the question is not whether he’s a likeable chap who would get his transaction in the grocery store completed to your liking. The question is whether either of them is physically and mentally fit to be President. I don’t care what their personalities are – they’re not coming to dinner, or babysitting, or walking my dogs. Can they do the job, and do they promise actions and policies I favour, and do they have a track record of at least attempting to follow through on those promises?
Biden – fails on all three measures. Completely. Three ‘F’s.
Trump – he gets a C, a B, and a C, respectively, in my book.
Are they both old? Sure. But Trump is ageing a whole lot better than Biden, who is rapidly descending into babbling senility and has to be helped up stairs. Trump shows no signs of that sort of decline, either mental or physical.
That’s the defining difference between them. You may not like what Trump says, but you can at least understand it, and he has some past history of actually doing, or at least trying to do, what he promises. At this point, Biden’s just babbling, and you can’t have much confidence that he even really knows what he’s saying (it changes by the minute and has to be clarified daily by his staff), never mind having any confidence that he can actually fulfil any of what he promises.
llater,
llamas
@llamas, right on for all your comments on this thread. One of the rhetorical tricks that the media has tried has been to say that “Biden is too old” because that is a set up for “Trump is old too.” The problem is not Biden’s age it is the fact that he can’t string a sentence together, doesn’t seem able to synthesize facts or keep his mind on one subject for more than a minute. To think he is capable of being president is laughable. It is the same reason that it enrages me that John Fetterman was elected as a Senator, despite being a perfectly reasonable age for that job.
Trump isn’t, in my opinion, a particularly nice person. But he has a mind like a steel trap. A level of focus that is rarely seen, an Elon Musk level work ethic, and a charm, winning personality that makes him good at diplomacy and he is the world class deal maker.
I don’t think he is coming from a point of patriotism or truly “Make America Great Again”. There is definitely a bit of that in there, but it is mainly ego as far as I can see. But the fact that his ego aligns with slightly better policies is an advantage. He has a lot of really bad policies, but the Democrat polices on the same thing are substantially worse. So what are you going to do?
I was discussing the Biden debacle with a leftie friend of mine and something struck me: The democrats did everything in their power to prevent Trump from winning: smear stories in the press, outrageous lawfare, trying to get him kicked off the ballot, having nearly all the news media line up against him, and on and on. They tried everything they could to prevent Trump from winning except one thing: running a good candidate.
I’m not a fan of schadenfreude, I think it is generally a toxic feeling, more damaging to the person who feels it than anyone else, but it is hard not to feel it here when they are so thoroughly hoist on their own petard of arrogance, deception, dishonestly and mendacity. And especially so for Biden, who has spent his life portraying this false avuncular “ole joe” image, hiding his insatiable lust for power; that this reputation would be completed destroyed because of his own narcissism, arrogance and self deception. I mean the irony of being stuck with DEI Kamala because of their own internal dishonest moral code — I mean it is hard not to laugh at.
To hear all these “Joe served his country with honor but…” statements make me throw up in my mouth a little. He is the perfect example of arrogance, corruption, and self interest that, to me, is encapsulated by the word “politician.”
Trying to look with detachment, away from the heat and smoke, it seems to me that it is correct to describe Trump as a moderate. He only looks extreme because he does not pander to the Establishment, unlike every other Republican candidate since 1988.
BTW I’d like to reiterate that i approve of Trump because his policies would make the US “more like Europe” — in areas where i think that Europe is better than the US: voting integrity, political corruption (or lack thereof), immigration & integration, abortion laws, corporate taxes… I might think of other areas later on.
Almost equally important is that Trump did not make the US more like Europe in areas where the US is better than Europe.
And how long before the Left say Mr Trump organised his own shooting as a false flag?
It was immediate enough that I suspect they had it canned and ready to go. Note the framing on CNN and the other MSM sources. None of them said anything about what actually happened, just that Trump had been “rushed” from the stage…
If he’s alive on Election Day, I’m going to be amazed.
I can almost guarantee that they’re going to double-down on all of this. Frankly, if I were Trump? I wouldn’t trust the Secret Service or the FBI; that shooter got up on that roof in clear sight of the overwatch team, and the crowd noticed him before Trump’s security did… What does that tell you…?
Option “A”: Staged by the Trump campaign. Possible, not likely.
Option “B”: Controlled asset meant to kill him, with collusion by his security team. I cannot see the normal Secret Service security precautions allowing anyone to get up on a roof that close to a protectee without taking action, and since the shooter got off one or two shots before being shot himself? I suspect that there was a convenient “failure” of security…
That roof should have been secured, and it should have been under overwatch. For that guy to get where he was? It’s unlikely as hell.
Kirk:
One inch to the right and Trump was dead. It was that close.
We will find out a lot more about this shooting in the coming days, and it will be interesting to see how much they try to hide. As you say, it seems like a big security failure. Plenty of people in Dealey Plaza on 22nd November 1963 said they saw two men in the window of the 6th floor of the book depository. Now there are reports of two shooters. Let’s see how this unfolds.
This is what you do if you want more Tim McVeigh’s.
There are a whole lot of questions about all this that need to be raised. One thing, why wasn’t that roof secured, as in “Someone there to make sure nobody can get on it…”? Secondly, that whole response on the podium was nuts… They didn’t cover Trump; I’m used to seeing the Secret Service cover the protectee with their bodies until he’s behind cover, and they’re basically holding him up above their heads as a better target? WTF?
There are tons of issues with this event. I’m not, at this point, ruling anything out: It could be an attempt at DOJ/Homeland Security trying to “help” someone along, or it could be a staged effort by the Trump campaign. Either way, there are obvious deficiencies with the whole security effort at that site. Ones I’m not used to seeing… The last time I was anywhere near a Presidential campaign venue, there were enough security personnel around to make your eyes water, and they had every possible angle covered. Every rooftop within weapon range, and that’s “weapon” to include things like freakin’ guided anti-tank missiles, would have been covered and secured. For that venue, that they didn’t have that rooftop from where the shooter fired secured? Something smells to high heaven, and I don’t know what.
This should have been impossible. Either it was staged by someone, or someone deliberately relaxed security protocols to the point where it was virtually invited.
I really hope Trump is paying his private security for better service, after this, and not relying on the Secret Service. From this event, whether they’re suborned or not, it’s very obvious that they can’t be relied upon for much of anything. This, I repeat, never should have been able to happen. At. All.
I’m going to vote for, a few people who are not all that good at their jobs have been getting lax and have been regularly royally screwing up coverage assignments, and this was the time it reared up and bit them.
USSS is not currently held in the same high esteem that it once was. But it’s like Biden’s dementia: everyone knows, but tiptoes around it. Now we’ll watch tomorrow and see if Dir Cheatle quits, or if they toss someone else as a sacrifice.
The same media who kept a running list of “lies” and “gaffes” of the previous president, most of which taken out of context and some just completely made up.
A media who stirred up hatred, and now someone has had a pop, the very thing they accused the previous president of doing.
bobby b said:
This is all of a piece with what they’ve deliberately done elsewhere in the national security sphere… Cheatle is on record with a policy and actions to bring the Secret Service up to at least 35% female, and they’re doing that by sidelining competent male applicants and allowing incompetent female ones in. Do remember that female agent that had a breakdown on the Vice President’s detail a few weeks ago…
At some point, it doesn’t matter whether it was done deliberately with an eye towards getting people killed or done deliberately so that you could point and say “Look at ME! What a good girl I am, I’ve got all these other girls jobs!!!”
This kind of crap is why I’ve increasingly got zero belief in any of this crap. When you allow ideologists whose agendas are to “get more girls” onto the agency roles, and who do that to the exclusion of all else, including mission accomplishment? You’re an incompetent who should be fired. Out of a cannon. Against a wall.
I loathe the mentality, frankly. You saw the same thing in the military over “women in combat arms”. Precisely none of that was being pushed by any of the enlisted women, because they knew better. It was all a coterie of pushy careerist bitches who wanted to “enhance their career prospects” by getting “combat time” punched into their tickets. None of them had the best interests of the institution or the mission in mind; if they had, all those Marine Corps tests they did would have at least given them pause. The data produced by the Marines, who were the only service to do any realistic research on the matter, indicated significant drops in performance in any combat arms formation with integrated females. None of those useless twats cared; all they were worried about was getting their tickets punched in order to be able to compete for promotion.
Which should have been taken as evidence that they were unfit to be wearing the uniform.
Unfortunately, nobody cares about that. Up is down, black is white, and girls are just as good as boys for fights.
There’s an odor of unreality all across the board, with these things. Someone in the Presidential security detail dropped a whole series of balls, for whatever reason, and enabled an event which should have been unthinkable. If you were to tell me that they’d left a rooftop like that accessible, let alone effectively unsecured…? I’d have called you a damn liar, up until Trump’s term in office. Now? I figure that they’re doing everything but leaving the bomb-building materials there along his travel route. It’s that blatant, that obvious.
Every time I’ve been near one of these things, the security was all-encompassing and covering everything. This time? WTF?
None of this is likely to be accidental or an oversight. That does not happen in the security realm, in my observation.
So, yeah… Given the near-perfect optics and imagery coming out of this, there’s a part of me screaming “This has to be staged!!!”, but there’s another part of me saying “Yeah, but…”
No idea what the real deal is, and I await either evidence or performance to tell me what the hell is going on, here. It’s a weird, weird situation we’re being presented. I mean, the shooter is supposedly a registered Republican, donates to extreme left-wing causes, and was wearing a Demolition Ranch t-shirt, when killed? WTF?
The physical and mental reactions of Donald J. Trump after he was shot, show that Nick M.s description of him is mistaken.
As Nick knows – when the data comes in one must allow it to inform our judgements (that is science).
Donald J. Trump is clearly a brave man – and has quick physical and mental reactions.
I don’t doubt Trump is in remarkable shape for his age and lifestyle. I have problems with other things. He is grossly combative. He flirts with Christian Nationalism despite hardly living a particularly Christian lifestyle himself. He is not to be trusted on foreign policy and will throw Ukraine under the bus if there is a “deal” in it for him. He has very few redeeming features other than not being senile. That was essentially my point. That it is a tragic state of affairs when the USA comes down to a choice between those two…
Folks, let’s observe the sensible rule that any ‘first news!’ or ‘breaking report!’ within the first 24 hours of an event like this is almost-certainly wrong in some major way. A split-second event does not imply a split-second explanation.
On another note, probably completely inappropriate, I am stunned and amazed that an NYT photographer has released a digital photograph showing the time-frozen image of a bullet in flight past President Trump’s head. Not that he captured the image but that he got his data post-processed and realized what the image shows, and got it out to the world within a couple hours of the event. In the words of Jack Aubrey, what a wonderful modern age we do live in, to be sure.
llater,
llamas
I did not notice such a disconnect from reality in NickM before — and please note that i am neither Christian, nor a nationalist, nor a Putinist or an appeaser.
Most definitely, not an appeaser: I am inclined to the Chinggis Khan view of international relations.
@bobby b
USSS is not currently held in the same high esteem that it once was. But it’s like Biden’s dementia: everyone knows, but tiptoes around it. Now we’ll watch tomorrow and see if Dir Cheatle quits, or if they toss someone else as a sacrifice.
Maybe, but looking at a map of the scene:
Trump was in front of those three buildings in the middle (that’s the backdrop of the video you see), and the shooter was on the southern most of the group of buildings due north, 150 yards away. How is it possible that those buildings were not secured? I know nothing about securing a protectee but I know that those roofs have to be cleared and protected. I don’t know all the facts but from what I can see, this is a cataclysmic failure on the part of the Secret Service. I don’t see how the director cannot resign in disgrace.
And if, as the news sites seem to be reporting, the Biden administration rebuffed the Service’s request for considerable more resources on Trump’s team… Majorcas has to resign too, and the Biden admin will get a taint of “this was their fault”, because it sure looks like it was. The only realistic explanation for why that rooftop was not secure is inadequate personnel. And if the DHS rebuffed requests for more resources, it does not look good for the Biden administration.
It is nothing short of a miracle that Trump is not dead today.
Although a bit unseemly, it also seems worth discussing the political consequences of this. There is a saying that if you are going to try to kill the king you had better not miss.
This is a disaster for the Dems in many ways:
* The “Biden has shit for brains” story will be buried for a while, making it almost impossible for the Dems to get rid of him, and that is definitely to Trump’s advantage (though who they’d replace him with is just not clear even if they could). I think they are stuck with him now
* They will absolutely have to tone down the extremely inflammatory rhetoric they have been using — the public will not like it. For a while now even criticizing Trump will be verboten, “Trump is a threat to democracy” is the only thing they have to run on
* If it comes out that their funding decisions are responsible for this — I mean that is game over
* Of course Trump comes out a hero — master of media — with this iconic photo that I think will be in every American history book for the next two hundred years.
* Trump goes from vilified insurrectionist to defiant, all conquering American. Again, that photo, OMG they couldn’t have got better advertising had they spent a billion dollars. Perfectly framed with blood on his face, the American flag in the background, fist defiantly pumped in the air. FFS, all they need is some apple pie in there to make it perfect.
* In terms of money? The amount of money he will raise here will be insane.
* And next week’s conference — it’ll be “Trump the conquering hero” and there is not much the media can do except grudgingly play along.
It is hard to imagine that things would get worse for the dems than it was Friday the 12th, but Saturday the 13th made things far, far worse for them. How can Pennsylvania not vote for Trump now? And if PA votes Trump isn’t that game over?
Had this attempt actually succeeded the country would be in absolutely chaos today.
In terms of electoral effect, I don’t know what this is going to do. Crowds are fickle, public perceptions can pivot on a dime in microseconds. That shot of Trump pumping his fist? It argues either that the man is brave and defiant of the odds, or it argues that it was all part of a staged event that he knew was coming. It’s too pat, too narrative-like. I can’t make up my mind about what is going on here, at all…
Like I said, this whole thing is indicative of a breakdown in the Secret Service protocols. It’s also an indicator for how the coterie of clowns around Biden and Obama have driven a lot of their followers mad through their constant demonization of Trump, along with the lawfare. I mean, why do they need to have Jack Smith perse… Err… Prosecute Trump, if they can get someone out in the crowd to eliminate this “turbulent candidate”, and all they need to do is starve his Secret Service detail of personnel and assets?
This whole thing stinks to high heaven, but what the odor is coming from? I’ve got no idea. The incident itself is so picture-perfect that you want to yell “Staged!!!! Fraud!!!! He had to know it was coming…”, but… I can’t see anyone sane allowing that sort of planned shenanigans to take place. I mean, OK… Say it was staged: The shooter ain’t someone I’d trust to be taking shots anywhere near me, and he got off one that came close enough to have either the projectile itself or fragments from something it hit to cut Trump’s ear. That’s nuts; I wouldn’t put myself in that situation willingly for any purpose, and if it was staged, then that’s precisely what Trump did, and that indicates a level of nuttiness I can’t even wrap my head around, so while I can’t discount the possibility that this was staged, I also find it highly unlikely.
But…
I gotta say, I’ve never been able to really rid myself of the idea that Trump might be a stage-managed bit of legerdemain, run by the inner party. His 2016-17 transition does not argue for saying he was either prepared for or expecting a win, which points to the idea that he may have at least started out as Hillary’s stalking horse, the preferred candidate for her to defeat easily…
Shadows and mirrors… You can’t trust a damn thing with this crew of arseholes, and I do hate that.
@Kirk – while I share your scepticism about aspects of this event, I’m afraid I don’t agree with your assessment of the quality of the USSS response, especially on the podium.
You know better than I that dynamic, kinetic and unexpected events like this diverge from the plan and the training virtually immediately. No plan survives first contact. Under the circumstances, I thought the plainclothes agents did a good job, regardless of gender – they dogpiled him in seconds, checked him for other wounds (note his tie removed and shirt open) then got him off the podium and into a secure vehicle in well-under a minute. Were there some flubs? I’m sure there were. But I don’t think your comments about the agents are warranted. I saw male agents fumblejacking sidearms and flailing around, too. I’d give them a B+.
What amazed me was the lack.of backup. Isaw previsely 2 USSS/FPS uniforms with long guns on the podium, plus a couple of what seemed to be deputies. I would have thought that there’d be dozens of uniforms hiding under the bleachers. I suspect that what we saw was not a failure of will or operational arts, but simply a lack of bodies.
YMMV.
llater,
llamas
llamas:
I broadly agree with your assessment of the reaction of the Secret Service detail (w/o committing myself on whether they should have secured the roof from which the shooting took place).
I have a quibble, however:
Trump had no tie on, before he was shot.
As shown by the BBC.
Snorri Godhi – Good catch. I did not grok that.
However, the protocol must include a basic check for injuries. I heard 7 or 8 shots, all those bullets went somewhere. If he was hit in the spine, for example, the bum’s rush to the Tahoe might kill him.
I think they did better than OK. I share the
bemusement that a rooftop 150 yards away was unsecured and unsurveilled. Helicopter footage shows an extension ladder set up in one of the breezeways between the buildings, this is obviously how he got on the roof. Passing civilians saw him on the roof and law enforcement did nothing? A $50 drone would have spotted him in seconds. It’s unbelievable.
llater,
llamas
I think the close protection people did fine. And the sniper who got the guy did an excellent job, he had him within seconds (remember he was covering an arc 180 degrees out to a thousand yards.) The problem was the prep work. It is inconceivable that they didn’t clear those roofs or have at least a cop up there. This looks like lack of bodies as llamas says, but also, even with lack of bodies just shocking planning.
If they really requested more resources, then this should be hung around Biden’s neck. That along with the decision on RFK Jr. makes you think are they REALLY using the Secret Service to impact their political rivals? It is hard to believe, but so is a lot of the shit they do.
llamas:
Yeah, these are the things you notice when you are on an Agatha Christie binge!
Biden or Trump? Who cares? They are both are big government statists.
Fraser Orr said:
I think the close protection people did fine. And the sniper who got the guy did an excellent job, he had him within seconds (remember he was covering an arc 180 degrees out to a thousand yards.)
They did not “do fine”.
I’ve actually seen and been involved with the periphery of a presidential security mission. Number one, the perimeter of that site should have been secured, with every roof either covered or the access blocked in such a way that someone would have to spend hours bypassing the security. When President Bush showed up at Fort Lewis back in the day, they didn’t screw around at all… Every building was either guarded or had someone doing overwatch on the roof. The entire perimeter out to about a thousand meters was secured that way, if not further. Christ, they had guys out on prominent terrain features to prevent someone from using a missile…
I know that because we were tasked for providing troops to do the work on the event, and we got a copy of the general operations order for it. I was extremely curious, and went over it while we had it… Were you to template from that to what happened in PA, then the shooting should have been utterly impossible.
Another thing about it was the fact that I know for a fact that the Secret Service detail basically told the press pool that if something went down, and they moved… They were probably going to get shot. A dumbass with a camera jockeying around to get that “perfectly framed shot” looks a lot like an assailant trying to get another crack at the target, or the second stage of a multi-stage attack. An acquaintance of mine was a PAO NCO, and she was briefed with the rest of the press that if they budged from where their little press corral was, they’d probably be shot if something happened. The way the agent put it, they didn’t have time to separate the sheep from the goats, and if you look like a bad guy, you’d get treated like one. They were very up front about that fact…
You saw the shambolic response to the shooting on Saturday. You can see the press pool idjits moving around to take better pictures. The “perfect shot” taken of Trump with that flag behind his left shoulder and his fist raised? If the assholes on that security detail were doing their jobs properly, then that picture should never have been taken. It wouldn’t exist, because either they would have briefed the press pool not to move, or they would have shot the stupid sumbitch when he did.
From that? I think we can surmise that something is very wrong here, and stinks to high heaven. This was too perfect a moment for Trump, and from the optics, his enemies have passed him an easy victory through sheer incompetence and malice.
I am not saying that this was a planned false flag thing, or that Trump or his people were behind it, but… Jesus. The awe-inspiring level of deliberate malfeasance/incompetence on display, and everything else, here? I know the miraculous when I see it, and I’m extremely, instinctively suspicious of it. I mean, when I saw that picture of Trump…? I’m like “No. Just… No ‘effing way was that not a posed shot, or a photoshop…”
It’s too f*cking perfect. That picture is likely going to be in history books, and it “just happened”, when a thousand and one things militate it even existing. By rights, that idiot photographer ought to be laying on a mortuary slab somewhere, because even though he meant well, a Secret Service agent had no way of knowing that. Dude’s got a camera? He can swap that for a weapon, or the camera itself might conceal one. That’s why they tell the idiots in the press pool not to budge when things go down, and not to move until the protectee is out of the venue entirely. A guy maneuvering with a camera looks just like a guy maneuvering to get another shot at the target…
This is truly Sarajevo-level “unlikely chain of circumstances” that’s probably going to hand Trump the White House. It’s too ‘effing perfect; I’m unable to suspend my disbelief or incredulity. None of this should have happened, and the more details come out, the more it looks like the arseholes running the Secret Service deliberately made it happen…
Which is a real mind-boggler. Among so many other things.
Well now they are going to use Covid as a justification for Mr Biden dropping out – thus avoiding questions about how far back the cover-up of his senility goes.
Did Mr Biden catch it by accident? Or did they give it to him? I doubt we will ever know.
And what about all these Covid “vaccinations” Mr Biden has had – six of them.
According to what Mr Biden (and so many establishment figures) said, repeatedly, in 2021 – these injections prevent people getting Covid or passing it on.
That does not appear to be the truth.