Update: Shots were fired at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania. Trump appears to have been grazed near his ear, but he doesn’t seem to be seriously injured. There are no reports anyone else was shot. The shooter is, reportedly “down.”
Updates: One attendee was killed, and another seriously injured. Trump will be okay, according to all reports. Also the shooter is dead. The story now is that he was shooting from a rooftop outside the security perimeter. I’m surprised the Secret Service could get to him so quickly.
***
You may have seen some of this yesterday. Here’s the complete video of Biden’s rally in Detroit last night. Do watch at least some of it if you haven’t seen it already. They should just run bits of this rally as Biden campaign ads.
Bernie Sanders has an op ed in the New York Times endorsing Joe Biden for president. It has struck me that the MSNBC evening hosts have been supportive of Biden, even while cautiously holding a door open to the possibility of replacement. I’m sure there are exceptions, but from what I’ve seen the progressive wing is either behind Biden or sitting out the argument. Most of the naysayers appear to be centrists. One can understand how Democrats running for re-election in red and swing states are nervous about whether Biden on the top of the ticket will help or hurt them. And it’s the Usual Weenies at the New York Times and centrist pundits like Jonathan Chait who seem most certain Biden has to go.
I say anyone who is certain how Biden will do, or not, against Trump in November is blowing smoke. We are in new territory here. Old patterns may not fit. A lot can still happen that could push the contest in any direction. And now even People magazine is running articles on Project 2025 and tying it to Trump. Some awareness of it seems to be breaking through, finally.
With everything else going on I hadn’t realized that large parts of Houston lost power a few days ago, and lots of people are still waiting to get it back. Hurricane Beryl swept through on Monday, and 2.2 million people in Houston lost power. As far as I can tell, it’s still out for a few hundred thousand households. So no air conditioning. In Texas. In July. I understand people are sleeping in their cars. So far, only three heat-related deaths have been reported. I won’t be surprised if that number goes up.
And the power company’s tracking system failed and could not pinpoint where power was out. Houstonians figured out they could check where power might be by looking at their Whataburger apps, which showed which Whataburgers were in operation and which weren’t.
A lot of people do have backup generators, but they were having a hard time getting gas to power their generators. Solar panels with backup batteries, people. This should be a no-brainer in Texas. The solar panel industry people insist that the panels will survive hurricane force winds.
Note that this is the third time this year there has been a significant power outage in Houston. Hurricane season hasn’t peaked yet. So when will Texans get mad enough to vote in new politicians who will overhaul the energy system? Seems to me there’s no need for anyone to mess with Texas, since it does such a good job of screwing itself.
Texas is a heavily gerrymandered state; that's why the lot in charge aren't in the political dustbin.
Next to New Orleans, Houston has to be the city with the bleakest future. Hotter water and a higher sea level with huge increases in parking lots, roofs and nowhere for water to go and little slope to get it there is a disaster in the making. They know about all of this, and have for years, but they deny and lie and repeat. Pride goes before the fall, but extreme arrogance precedes a huge reality smack down. Reality does not bend to denial just bad politicians.
Let me get my tin foul hat. Stephen Miller!
So after 2 weeks of liberals foolishly calling for Biden to step aside for being old and frail Stump takes a bullet to the head and fist pumps his magat followers. You couldn't make this shit up!
https://youtu.be/a6otjCKg594?feature=shared
It certainly does seem scripted.
I commented tonight to a friend:
"If it was Seal Team Six, it was an official act."
Since then Joe has sent his wishes for a recovery and indicated that this is not how elections should be decided. (I paraphrase.) I do not think for a moment that the Deep State was involved. But I'd bet big money that Trump will say it was a hit laid on him by Biden,
It's worth mentioning that Trump probably believes it was a Biden hit. So the suggestion a Biden surrogate needs to raise as soon as Trump makes the accusation is: "If Biden DID order the hit, according to the USSC, it was perfectly legal, and so is the next one."
Most people are too stupid and self-absorbed to pay attention to the implications of any USSC decision. But is this incident concrete enough to sow doubt in the minds of voters that POTUS can do anything with no accountability?
There might be an attempt to say that Biden did not use Seal Team Six so it wasn't an "official act." OK. Rudy and John Eastman were NOT government employees and they spearheaded the scheme of the fake electors. So if it's not an "official act" if you use non-government actors, Trump is in deep shit for J6.
This was just as valid before Trump got an ear piercing. But ti's the new topic of discussion and it brings the legitimacy of criminal acts by the president to the fore. \
For the record, assassination is NOT how we settle elections or policy disputes. Much as I despise DJT, this is not how I want him to go down.
Looking just at the political dynamics…
How will the incident affect Trump rallies?
Will attendance go down? (Seems likely to me since spectators do get killed in a firefight and that's what Trump will say is expected.)
Will Trump be gun-shy about doing public events? If so, how much, what precautions will Trump take? How will those precautions make Trump look to voters on the outside?
How will the incident affect Trump rhetoric? Yeah, it CAN get even more unhinged. How might Biden be able to goad Trump into loony, paranoid accusations?
How will Trump do the Convention next week?
If Trump thinks Biden is trying to kill him, is Trump gonna do a second debate?
The vote so far: republicans blaming liberals, Biden, etc. Many
republicans blaming guns Zero
No air conditioning, no refrigerator – maybe some "illegals" could advise Texans on coping without everything you want.
I don't *know* anything in terms of facts, but something smells.
Back in whatever year that there were protests outside the WH, Trump hid in the bunker though the perimeter of the WH defenses had not (and were not) penetrated. He hid.
Yesterday, after what looked like an assassination attempt, Trump gets up and fist-pumps the crowd.
Granted, I detest the man so my objectivity is absent. But he doesn't have the balls he showed at the rally. So how could it be fake when a bystander (in the stands behind Trump?) was killed and others critically injured?
You need a shooter with a gun who has a grudge against Trump. He gets approached with an offer of a million dollars if he assassinates Trump. The group who will reward the shooter can put him in a vantage point with a clear shot at Trump but they did not identify themselves. They also supplied the weapon and ammo.
I expanded the picture of wounded Trump as far as I could. There's considerable "blood" but the ear does not seem to be injured. The scalp is not grazed which means the shot HAD to be exactly parallel to Trump's head for what? ten inches less than an inch from his head. Quite a shot. Reality TV quality.
What about the blood? Trump reached up to his ear after the first shot. I capsule of "blood" was attached to his fingertip(s) and slapped hard against his ear to burst. Instant blood. The assassin was firing blanks and did not know What about the dead and injured?
Here you have to be very cynical. A weapon (rifle, I assume matching what the shooter had) might have been hidden under the stage where Trump was speaking. One of the private security people on Trump's team, an ex-Blackwater killer, waited til the first shot was fired. He fired from under the stage into the crowd.
If this is true, there are several flaws to the scheme.
Trump's ear is undamaged. If they surgically injure the ear, it won't match the photos of Trump's bloody but intact ear. But, there's no way the courts will get access to Trump's ear. They might be able to subpoena medical evidence as part of a criminal investigation. Then the proof will be no proof, if Trump's ear is intact. (My opinion.)
Ballistics. If the USSS got the shooter, they got the gun. Ballistics of the gun will be matched to bullets recovered from the injured (and dead.) Rifles of the same make have a different ballistic signature, I think. If the FBI proves the rooftop shooter's gun didn't do in the spectators, Houston, we have a problem.
Now this IS conspiracy theory of the highest order. I offer not a shread of proof, other than the bravado Trump exhibited after supposedly a near-death experience. I don't think he has it in him. If that's true, the whole incident was a fake.
Other flaw: was Trump stupid enough to have begun rewriting the Convention speech BEFORE the PA rally? Can anyone call in Collumbo?
We – non-Magats, people who care about objective analysis of evidence – should be careful to avoid promoting low-probability scenarios just because they fit our prejudices and political biases.
Dave's scenario is extremely unlikely. It would require cooperation from several Secret Service agents who would be quite aware that they were actively participating in crimes, including murder. While I do suspect that many people in various US security agencies are sympathetic to right-wing causes, I find it hard to believe that they would go along with this plan.
Trump was on the ground – covered by SS agents – long enough for the SS to kill the shooter and assure Trump that it was safe to get back up. His one real skill is as a performer – he's a spoiled trust-fund kid having a grand time playing The Brave Hero of the People – so his fist-pumping and shouting make sense. OTOH, the resulting pix and vid are such perfect propaganda for Trump that it *is* hard to believe that it was just dumb luck that he was (1) not killed and (2) wounded exactly right to leave blood on the *right* side of his face so that it showed up just right as he was being hurried off the stage to safety (so I understand Dave's suspicion). Those pics are iconic; expect to see them all over the GOP convention (if you're masochistic enough to watch it).
The thing that I found most incongruous was that Trump's first words when he gets up are about getting his shoes back on. Getting shot in the ear would not knock one's shoes off; presumably, SS agents removed his shoe(s)? Is there a medical or security reason for that???
WHY would it require the cooperation of the USSS?
I saw no evidence that the USSS took out the shooter, established that all threats were neutralized AND informed Trump he was safe in the minute or two he was on the ground. If his ear was bleeding, he's have been crapping his pants when they got him vertical and potentially a target. He wasn't afraid. This screams Reality TV stunt.
We can be fairly certain Bush was not in on 9-11. Why? He had no idea what to do or where to go for hours after the second plane hit the tower and another hit the Pentagon.
I identified what I wrote as conspiracy theory "of the highest order." Let’s check the facts before we make a decision. My suggestion is that Trump is counting on nobody checking the details for things that don't add up. Like the shooter being a Republican.
Truth is consistent. If Trump was shot in the ear, medical evidence should prove the injury beyond any doubt. I'm saying I have doubts. Will Trump cough up the medical records promptly? If no, YOU should start to have doubts.
What was the path of the bullets in the bodies of the victims? Lateral, with a slight down angle (as from a roof) or upward from the wrong direction (if fired from under the stage Trump was on.)
My mind is not made up about the legitimacy of the killings. I'm confident of the dead and injured. But I'm not buying that it was a legitimate assassination attempt at the moment Trump is going to take the spotlight. It's incredibly convenient for Trump. That Trump thinks Reality TV does not prove this was fake. But we need to check the receipts.
What I'm hearing is that there were USSS snipers on another roof who killed the shooter very quickly after he started firing. This episode looks more like incompetence on the Secret Service's part than anything else, to me,
Maybe it was just a failure by the USSS. I've dealt with them and yeah, they have their failings.
All I'm saying is we need to check the inconsistencies in the evidence. A gun-nut Republican firing at Trump with a back-drop of MAGA people is… inconsistent. We know he was there with an AR and reportedly fired it in Trump's direction. If he thought he was participating in a fake assassination attempt on Trump's behalf, that's also what he would have done.
The Kennedy and Lincoln assassinations have this in common. The shooters were quickly dispatched so they could not implicate others. I'm immediately suspicious when the shooter dies before he can be questioned.
Yeah, a bystander also died. Two others are in critical condition. People are willing and eager to think that that eliminates the possibility that they were collateral damage to give legitimacy to the whole thing.
If it turns out it was legitimate and the kid just lost his marbles AND got lucky at the moment Trump needed a boost, OK. It could happen. I think Trump is depraved enough to murder his own supporters to help him win. That does not prove he DID. But the facts from a thorough investigation should drive this – not the snap decisions of the media.
Doug's scenario sounds fantastical if not improbable, though I admit my first reaction was similar, but it seems too crazy? That said I wouldn't put anything past Stump and Stephen Miller. Thing is it doesn't really matter if it was staged or not. We are 3 months from the election the media has latched onto a story, if it was staged it will take years. Stump is going to get traction for sure; our side pushing tin-foil stories only helps him. In today’s information environment it doesn't really matter anyway? I hope Biden puts his ads back up tomorrow, not time to play nice, he really needs a new Communication shop, sorry.
By tomorrow the republican party is going to figure out they could have been at a convention without a candidate and no one on the bench. No one warming up in the bullpen either, using a baseball phrase. An inch of windage and party has nothing close to a plan B. Really plan A is really sketchy, based on the whim, and ramblings of a cluster of back ward level mental patients and their leader? In my book they have no one left to go to as a person of stability. How do you put on a show with only a batch of sycophants? No experts on anything, No Henery Kissinger, No George Shultz, and not even a Liz Cheney. Larry Kudlow was never much of an economics guru, more just a cheerleader for burned out failed economists of the fringes. When Margaret Hoover is the best young mind you can present, and she often can't find a guest to make coherent conversation with on her show, your base is just way too base. An assembly of burned-out coke heads and alcoholics by in large.
And the republican party came within an inch of being totally leaderless. The convention would have made Bedlam look like a place of serenity. You can just see Mike Lindell, the pillow guy, trying to gavel up some semblance of order.
Keep on it, Doug. I think a past due payment to Putin and a collection agent might work. It would have been better if he had used an AK47 though. Can you work in a grassy knoll somehow?
Re: the Trump shooting, there's one thing that I haven't seen anyone speculate about, and it's making me feel a bit crazy.
If I were a young Republican, I would be confused, and hurt, by the actions of the national party, and I would probably find myself hoping Trump choked on his next KFC order, so the Republican Party could return to sanity.
I don't see it as unthinkable that the "second amendment remedies" party might go even further, hoping to save Republicans from themselves. (NB: that's me speculating on a motive, not suggesting it would be anything other than murder.)
I mean, I know "we" are supposed to pretend the Republicans are sane, but, they really aren't acting sanely in public. Trump's crimes are really amazing, and the RNC statement is "it's all partisan lawfare". That's not the position of sane people. The Supreme Court's immunity decision isn't the position of sane justice. What would armed people do in the face of such insanity? I don't know.
I wouldn't rule out doug's suggestion of a possible false flag/deliberate miss. I recognized it as a possibility, but it's not the sort of thing I'd bring up myself. For me, I find the "the RPUSA won't return to sanity while Trump is its figurehead, WHAT CAN I DO?" motive to be more believable, given the shooter was registered R.
Scary thing: if the Rs felt Biden was minimally competent, they'd *never* consider pulling a fake-attempt. "Dude, the President runs the Secret Service, and will see all results of the investigation!" But could they have convinced themselves he's a doddering old fool who won't find the truth?
I'll say one thing: I did have to grapple with "is political violence always wrong?" because we always have to think of that Austrian fellow with the bad mustache, and that's what made me think "this makes a sort of sense, for the right kind of Republican."
Republican plausibility = "this makes a sort of sense, for the right kind of Republican."
I think you're on to something here. It could be the path needed to find the motive for this shooting.
I'm bothered by the motivated reasoning in many of the comments here; it mirrors the motivated reasoning which is so common on the political right. I've been following Turcopolier again recently – formerly Sic Semper Tyrannis, started by the late Col Pat Lang – and most of the comments there have jumped to the conclusion that "the left" shot Trump, based on (1) a single contribution to Act Blue and (2) recent pix of the shooter looking scruffier than when he graduated HS a couple years ago.
I spent some time reading what I could find about the shooter. My (preliminary, non-professional) opinion is that he was a confused young man, lost in a world that didn't have a good place for him, who chose the same terrible shortcut to his 15 minutes of fame that too many other lost young men have chosen in the last couple decades.
It sounds like Crooks was a smart kid – he won a STEM prize, and I saw video of a former classmate saying that he knew a lot about American History – but lacked social connection ("loner", "bullied"). Another former classmate said that he tried out for the HS Rifle Team (that's a Thing???) but didn't even make the JV team, which could be evidence for both poor aim and/or low social status, (and perhaps led to an "I'll show them!" motivation for shooting Trump?).
Crooks graduated HS 2 years ago, but apparently did not go to college (why? money?). He has been living at home with his parents and working in the kitchen of a local rest home, likely with no prospects for a better life in the future.
The only public evidence of his politics so far is that he (1) donated $15 to Act Blue soon after Biden was elected (when he would have been in 11th Grade) and (2) that he registered to vote as Republican soon after he turned 18. I'm guessing that some girl in HS told him about Act Blue, and that his parents were Republican so he was too.
The gun he used was apparently bought by his father 6 months ago. Police said they found evidence of explosives in the car he used to get to the rally, and they blocked off the roads around his [parents'] house that night to check for explosives there. There was a picture of the police lines in the neighborhood, and I was able to locate the street on GoogMaps.
The picture was taken at the corner of Highland Rd. and Milford Dr. in Bethel Park, PA, and they were blocking the South side of that intersection, so Crooks apparently lived just South of there. Interestingly, looking at that block just now on GoogMaps, I see that one – and only one – of the houses in that block is missing the house number; I'd guess that's where he lived (and Goog is making it obvious by trying to hide it).
The neighborhood is a suburban development, nice but not at all fancy, 4-5 miles South of Pittsburgh; I'd guess it was built 1965-75, and originally populated by union workers moving out of the city. The houses aren't big (def *not* McMansions), but the lots are good-sized, with plenty of lawn for 2.2 kids.
The street-view images appear to have been taken a couple weeks after Christmas, as many houses still have decorations up, but all the inflatable Santas are deflated – which seems like the perfect metaphoric image for Middle America these days. We remember the beauty of the decorations, and the glee of getting all those presents, but our Middle Class is now deflated. The good Union jobs which made all those Pleasant Valley Sundaes (sic!) possible are gone; young people who don't get on a fast track by age 25 have little to look forward to.
IMO, that's the perfect recipe for a "lone wolf" shooter, who can be diagnosed ex post facto as "mentally ill" but would previously been just another Failure to Launch.