The alleged second Trump assasination attempter, Ryan Routh, appears to be a vocational flake. Multiple news organizations have checked him out. He has no affiliations with any political activist group, left or right. He was a Trump supporter in 2016 but changed his mind at some point.
He did spend time in Ukraine, where he claimed to be recruiting foreign soldiers to fight against the Russian invasion. He also claimed to have somehow obtained a lot of drones for the cause. But it appears he mostly just hung out near the Kyiv hotel where most of the journalists stayed and occasionally got himself interviewed. The Ukrainians made him out to be a crank with several loose screws and wouldn’t work with him. In truth he recruited nobody and apparently obtained nothing.
What’s more interesting to me is this story in Public Notice by Lisa Needham. Although by all appearances Routh intended to shoot someone on the golf course — presumably Donald Trump — all he’s been charged with are weapons charges. And it’s probably the case that’s about all the law can hang on him. And even that is mostly because he has a prior felony conviction and is not supposed to possess firearms. If he’d been a genuine “law-abiding citizen,” he’d be down to one count, of possessing a firearm with a scraped-off serial number.
Under Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida got rid of even the most meager safety requirements, such as requiring a permit or undergoing training and a background check. Sure, it’s still against the law for a person with a felony conviction to have a gun, but what guardrails are left to stop him from getting one or two or a dozen?
None of this is stopping DeSantis from demanding that Florida take the investigation away from the federal government, not just because he’s sure the Deep State will bury the truth or whatever, but also so that Routh could be charged under state law with attempted murder and potentially serve life in prison. Good luck, buddy. Routh didn’t get a shot off and was roughly 300-500 yards from Trump when he was spotted. He wasn’t even trespassing, as he was on the public side of the golf course fence.
To get to life in prison, Florida would have to charge Routh with attempted first-degree felony murder and prove that he was attempting to kill Trump in the course of committing a different underlying crime like arson, burglary, or carjacking. DeSantis thinks he’ll get there by exploring “red flags” about Routh’s “associations, his motivations, and his ideology,” but even if Routh was a card-carrying Marxist who had been volunteering for the Harris campaign for months, it doesn’t make his behavior attempted murder.
Regarding the scraped-off serial number, Needham points out that “In 2022, a federal judge in West Virginia concluded that since there were no serial numbers at the time of the Founding Fathers, it’s unconstitutional to ban people from obliterating serial numbers or possessing a gun with an obliterated serial number.” That decision was reversed, but with dissents. One of the dissenters was a Trump appointee.
And this is what happens when gun laws are written by a crazy gun-worshiping cult. If Routh made no declarations that he intended to kill Trump that day, he could argue in court he was just on the lookout for alligators, or something. As far as Routh’s “red flags” are concerned, they seem to say that like Trump himself, Routh is mentally miswired and obsessed with seeking glory. According to several news stories he was smiling and laughing during his arraignment, and why not? He was finally getting what he wanted — attention.
And I’m certainly not saying the law should let Routh go. He’s not a stable person. If it could be guaranteed he wouldn’t have access to guns he might be harmless enough, but this is America. Anyone can always get a firearm, somehow. But he’s probably not psychotic, just flakey. So I’m not sure he could be committed to a mental hospital under present law. I don’t know what anyone’s going to do with him.
Routh sounds a bit like Charles J. Guiteau, who assassinated President James Garfield in 1881. Guiteau was an obscure man who had supported Garfield in the 1880 election. He published and distributed a badly written essay about Garfield to help him get elected, and then when Garfield won Guiteau became obsessed with the belief that Garfield owed him. He spent some time loitering near the White House, accosting State Department officials on the streets, demanding to be assigned to the consul in Vienna or Paris. And eventually he got tired of waiting and decided God wanted him to shoot Garfield, and he did. Flakes with guns can be dangerous.
OT. Bible thumping anti LGBTQ Christian nationalist GOP candidate for NC Governor caught commenting on a p@rn site that he's a black Nazi and that he loves the tranny porn! I'm shocked, shocked I tell you!
Yeah, and Dems have their fingers crossed he doesn't drop out of the race.
Yeah I'm pretty sure he only had until 12am today to drop out and best I can tell he did not. So he was already 10 points down I don't think this will help but who knows with today's low info magat, he's saying it's a "badge of honor"? Hopefully he goes down hard and takes Diaper Don with him!
He's being defiant! Oh yeah Marky baby, that's just what we like, mmm, c'mon give us some more darling!!!
And what will they do when he wins?
Robinson? Not a chance. He was already trailing his opponent by double digits in the polls before the new reporting came out.
If it was false, he'd already be suing CNN. He won't (I think) because he'd potentially get even more damage with disclosure. I'm not sure what CNN could ask for from banks, phone companies, or credit cards. But I'm pretty sure Robinson does not want to go through disclosure.
I'm not sure how this will affect the rest of the ticket in NC. It certainly is not good for the GOP. IF Harris wins PA (A recent poll has Harris up by 4 points.), I think she carries WI and MI. That's 270 on the nose (probably.) If she also carries NV and NC, it's a bloodbath. Not many voters have to sit out the election for this to happen. IMO, Harrris should continue to push for a second debate. Even if Trump refuses, Harris wins by making Trump look afraid.
The conclusion of the race will have everything to do with momentum and turnout. Trump stripped the DNC of funding to put together a ground game. We ought to have a robust GOTV organization at the home stretch. If occasional voters who previously liked Trump see him as a weak loser, they might not turn out. Not voting for Trump is a vote for Harris. (My wife could not stand the stench ot HRC corruption and did not vote. IMO, that happened a lot and it put Trump in the WH.)
If Trump really wants to shut down government before the election, I think it will happen. Johnson will lose his job, possibly his seat in Congress, if he crosses Trump. Trump will never accept that Johnson saved Trump by preventing a shutdown (and Trump won.)
We're a ways out from the election but all the breaks Trump is getting are bad breaks.
The big question is how Routh knew that Trump was going to decide to play golf that day. It was reported that decision was unscheduled. Routh was there hours ahead and set up to escape. It was not an apparent suicide mission. But for the person who got pictures of his car and license plate, I understand he would still be at large. His plan was to get away. But did Routh set this all up on a hunch? That is possible but not likely.
Then you have the DeSantis meddling. That too is odd. Both Desantis and Trump like political theater. It is hard to rule out the possibility this was a staged event.
Knowing that Trump set up the Lez Parnas et al in a plan to take out Biden as a potential political opponent, a lot of things become more probable.
Not enough dots to work with.
No one is suggesting that the Secret Service was out of line in firing in self-defense. When someone points a gun at you on private property one can assume bad intent and act accordingly it seems. Is that enough evidence for other charges? I guess we will see.
No doubt tRump did quickly learn to enjoy all the attention and sympathy he received as almost a real victim and a martyr, a living/surviving martyr that is. Yes, I hope someone is examining the dots, looking for more.
The Onion used satire to show how easy it is for these loons to get weapons:
WEST PALM BEACH, FL—In the wake of the second attempt on Donald Trump’s life in the past three months, sources confirmed Monday that the man who allegedly attempted to shoot the 45th president of the United States, Ryan Wesley Routh, was buying AR-15s nonstop while in custody. “Somehow, despite being detained and under strict police watch, the would-be assassin still managed to purchase several more semiautomatic weapons, as well as hundreds more rounds of ammunition,” said Secret Service agent Jeffrey Walters, who added that just hours after targeting Trump on his golf course with an SKS-style rifle, Routh was in his jail cell ordering, receiving, and signing for dozens of packages filled with military-grade weapons. “We’re in the middle of an interrogation when suddenly, some guy from Bass Pro Shops shows up and hands the suspect a Springfield Armory Saint AR-15, which he immediately takes and fires into the wall. Then, once we take that away, some guy from a local gun show drives up, pops open his trunk, and gives him 10 more.” At press time, Routh reportedly had to be moved to a high-security holding cell after he was spotted using a 3D printer to print off several rifles, silencers, and bump stock patterns he downloaded off the dark web.
Well, at least the Secret Service did a whole lot better against that flake with a gun, than the notorious “100 good guys with a gun” did at Uvalde against that other flake. Was the former the better “well-regulated militia”? I’ll let wiser minds decide.