May 16, 2024

"The perpetrator was not a member of any radicalized group.... He was not left or right — he was interested in politics, that’s all."

"The only group he was a member of was the association of Slovak writers," according to Interior Minister Matus Sutaj-Estok, who said that "the suspect had expressed antigovernment sentiments, including attending protests over the last year, but had been 'radicalized recently, after the presidential election.'"

From "Slovak officials call the shooting suspect a ‘lone wolf’ who had recently been radicalized" in "Suspect Is Charged in Attempted Killing of Slovakia’s Leader/The authorities did not identify the suspect in the shooting of Prime Minister Robert Fico but described him as a 'lone wolf.' Politicians called for calm as Mr. Fico’s condition appeared to stabilize" (NYT).

We're told the suspect was a "71-year-old amateur poet" and he "did not 'agree with current politics.'" But what were the current politics that the suspect did not agree with?
Slovakia was already sharply divided between supporters of Mr. Fico, who back his right-wing nationalist and anti-immigration policies, and opponents who accuse him of eroding democracy.

So the Prime Minister who was shot is right-wing, but the suspect is "not left or right." He's a lone wolf, a poet... interested in politics... but that's all, not right or left. Noted.

66 comments:

Joe Smith said...

is 'Lone wolf' another way of saying 'CIA'?

Yancey Ward said...

Fuck the media and fuck the government apparatchiks who feed them information. When you read "not Left or Right" it means the shooter was a left-wing nutjob, full stop.

Aggie said...

If he was neither 'left' nor 'right', then under what motivation was he 'recently radicalized'? Radicalized in what - Poetry?

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"When you read "not Left or Right" it means the shooter was a left-wing nutjob, full stop."

Or a Muzzie...

Drago said...

Assassinations of populist leaders that wont go along with the globalist vision are simply Rapid Color Revolutions.

See Abe of Japan.

mikeski said...

You know who else was a "Lone Wolf"...

Lenny, of Lenny & Squiggy fame.

He had "Lone Wolf" on the back of his jacket. The L was an extra one of Laverne's.

Darkisland said...

Your source calls him an "amateur poet"

A report I saw this morning called him a "Published poet"

No reason he could not be a published amateur poet.

But what does his being a poet have to do with it at all?

John Henry

n.n said...

A rhetorical radical. We had a contemplative cuckoo. I blame the gun.

Dave Begley said...

World War III. Big War interested.

Big Mike said...

Howard said...

Probably anti-Putin.

Hassayamper said...

Of course he was a filthy commie. The fact that the government scum instantaneously leaped to assert otherwise, before any but the most cursory investigation, is all the evidence needed to convince me.

Just as they instantaneously assure us that there is no evidence that the bearded guy screaming "Allahu Akbar" as he slits the throats of children and old ladies is a radical Muslim terrorist.

Leftist scum and government scum (if I may be redundant) are the same everywhere. Every single thing they do and say is calibrated to advance the looting and destruction of Western civilization without arousing normal people to react as normal people have always reacted to enemy attacks.

But their façade is beginning to crack. People are noticing things and waking up to the threats we face. A day is coming when the government scum in this country and around the world will pay an astronomically costly price for their treason and lies and wars upon their own citizens.

Rusty said...

Anybody seen Howard? This is right up his alley.

gspencer said...

Take nothing from government at face value. Assassination attacks on politicians are not easily planned or executed. There's a lot more here.

gilbar said...

always Remember!
it is neither illegal, immoral, or wrong for a leftist to perform ANY action
it is always illegal, immoral, or wrong for a non-leftist to perform ANY action

right-wing people, by definition, are BAD! and should (and MUST BE) eradicated.. by Any Means necessary

Narr said...

I've been thinking for a while that we haven't heard much from the Illumina--

walter said...

Ouch!
"A member of the Rainbow Literary Club in Levice told Reuters she knew the suspect.
She said he was one of the club's founding members and had been its chairman for a time.
In a statement, the club condemned the attack and said as a strictly apolitical group it had revoked the suspected attacker's membership "with immediate effect"."
https://news.sky.com/story/what-we-know-about-the-slovakia-shooting-suspect-13137019

JaimeRoberto said...

Fico is not a right wing nationalist. He is a former communist and then was a member of the left wing party in Slovakia in the 90s. He is not big on supporting Ukraine and the shooter was present at a pro-Ukrainian protest against Fico last month according to the local news. That's probably the source of the shooter's "disagreement".

Joe Smith said...

"Your source calls him an "amateur poet"

A report I saw this morning called him a "Published poet"

No reason he could not be a published amateur poet.

But what does his being a poet have to do with it at all?"

Maybe he was a published poet and didn't know it...

RCOCEAN II said...

The shooter is a leftist, who hated the President because he wasn't an open borders, pro-EU fanatic. Supposedly, he was 71 years old. Which means he grew up under communism, and was 35 when the Berlin Wall fell.

Here's CNN's write up the Interior ministers comments:

the suspect told law enforcement officers that he disagreed with Fico’s policies and that he decided to act after the recent presidential election, which saw a Fico ally – Pellegrini – emerge as the winner.

“The reasons (the suspect gave) were the decision to abolish the special prosecutor’s office, the decision to stop supplying military assistance to Ukraine, the reform of public service broadcaster and the dismissal of the judicial council head,” Šutaj Eštok said.

He said the suspect is not a member of any extremist group, calling him “a lone wolf” who had in the past attended anti-government protests.

Achilles said...

This story is bullshit.

The shooter was a leftist and an Ukraine war supporter. He was 100% aligned with the pro-war EU and was a part of the opposition party that the Biden Regime and EU support in Hungary.

This information is known and widely available.

RCOCEAN II said...

The man who killed Pim Fortuyn, the Dutch rightwinger, was a leftist.

Sara Jane moore who tried to kill Ford was a leftist.
The man who shot Wallace was a leftist
The man who killed JFK was a leftist
The man who Killed RFK was a Leftist
The man who tried to Kill reagan was a liberal Democrat
A leftwing Puerto Rican gang tried to Kill Truman
An anarchist tried to kill FDR in 1932
An anarchist tried to kill TR in 1912
An leftwing man killed McKinley in 1901.

Its ALWAYS the Liberal/left. They feel the ends justifies the means. And the rich/powerful liberal/leftist run cover for them.

Achilles said...

So the Prime Minister who was shot is right-wing, but the suspect is "not left or right." He's a lone wolf, a poet... interested in politics... but that's all, not right or left. Noted.

There are many outlets that are not Regime Propagandists reporting the truth about what politics he was interested in.

Take a wild guess who he was aligned with.

Heartless Aztec said...

Well at least it's not minor royalty in some Balkan country.

Mason G said...

"We're told..."

By the NYT? Wouldn't it be better to get info from a news source?

Yancey Ward said...

So, apparently Apple is going to remove the clown emoji from their software because the Left is being mocked with it too much. Clown emoji is a hate symbol. It makes sense, though- telling a moron that he is a moron is hurtful.

RideSpaceMountain said...

Word's out on the street...get down with Brussels and you can have silver, don't and you'll get lead. The European Union is among the worst and shadiest rackets on the planet.

Cappy said...

I bet.

n.n said...

A lyrical radical. We had a contemplative cuckoo. I blame the gun.

tommyesq said...

"Lone wolf" but also "recently radicalized" - seems kinda contradictory to me.

tommyesq said...

But what does his being a poet have to do with it at all?


Suggests he is already a nutjob?

Achilles said...

A decent place to start if you want to see what is really happening in Hungary.

The Biden Regime is trying to destabilize and undermine the lawfully elected government in Hungary.

This would be assassin was working on the same side as our Regime.

The US government is in Georgia doing the exact same thing right now. Georgia’s legislature passed a bill forcing foreign NGOs to register with a veto proof majority. The people of these countries are sick of the US/Globalist Regime fucking around in there countries.

These international NGOs are what funded the 2014 coup in Ukraine and they are shipping people over our border en mass.

And the US is responding with paying millions to fund “protests” in these countries.

It is time for all of this warmongering bullshit to be revealed to everyone.

BUMBLE BEE said...

In my best "Johnny Strabler"...."What Have You Got"?

mikee said...

I recall from reading Tom Clancy and WEBGriffin that writing poetry is sometimes a euphemism for homosexuality in Warsaw Pact Eastern Europe. I provide my sources, I make no further claim, and I come to no conclusions. Just a data point to add to the details.

I also note in passing that a 71 year old shooter would have been 43 when Slovakia became independent in 1992. Grudges are a thing, perhaps.

Rocco said...

"71-year-old amateur poet

71 year old amateur Gavrilo Princip.

Leland said...

Lone wolf perhaps but a kindred spirit of those on the left.

Achilles said...

Darkisland said...

No reason he could not be a published amateur poet.

But what does his being a poet have to do with it at all?


You have to offer something that isn’t Soros funded Biden regime ally.

Ampersand said...

We can't yet know whether there was a conspiracy.

Still, if we postulate a conspiracy, we must realize that any assassination conspiracy has to assume that the assassin will be apprehended. The assassin will be given a legend that exculpates the plotters, or that at least points investigators in the wrong direction. Often, conspiracies of this sort include the killing of the original assassin as an element.

The first take on the identity and motivations of the assassin will either be uninformative, or a misdirection. It's unlikely that Fico's notorious hostility to iambic pentameter was the motive.

walter said...

This can happen when a poet meets the challenge of rhyming with orange.

Drago said...

Rusty: "Anybody seen Howard? This is right up his alley."

Hardly.

Over-compensating Non-combat "vet" Howard likes to stay far away from any real action.

Tina Trent said...

I used to have a Slovac friend. Her family fled Tito. Years later, she visited them, and they werE virulently anti-American and pro-collectivist.

You reap what they sow.

narciso said...

https://twitter.com/TheNatPulse/status/1791107289132208180

Mason G said...

Your source calls him an "amateur poet"

A report I saw this morning called him a "Published poet"


An amateur poet the size of a published poet, maybe?

Joe Smith said...

"I recall from reading Tom Clancy and WEBGriffin that writing poetry is sometimes a euphemism for homosexuality in Warsaw Pact Eastern Europe."

Some say

Poetry is gay

Big Mike said...

When you read "not Left or Right" it means the shooter was a left-wing nutjob, full stop.

@Yancey Ward, +1

Is Althouse still having trouble accepting that the New York Times and Washington Post lie to her with great frequency?

Narr said...

Obviously a Pisces, working for scale.

Howard said...

It's always the Spanish Inquisition with you guys. Your like NPCs in a Monty Python sketch.

Narr said...

Fun fact: Gavrilo Princip (who was the answer in Final Jeopardy today--and I knew it) was a minor when he killed Franz and Sophie, ineligible for the death penalty.

He died of tuberculosis in prison not long before the end of the war his action triggered.

As to this incident, everybody seems to be mapping it to their own prejudices. That happens a lot with stories from places a lot of commenters couldn't find on a map . . .

Narr said...

An interesting bit from Martyn Rady's book "The Middle Kingdoms": Warsaw Pact governments kept stocks of pornography available for distribution when their peoples got restless.

Dave64 said...

Where was Victoria Nuland?

Joe Smith said...

'Obviously a Pisces, working for scale.'

Why is it good to hire elephants?

They work for peanuts...

Rich said...

Whatever one thinks about Fico, it was a horrifying and despicable attack on a politician, and hence the whole democracy. For once, the whole Slovak political scene was united in condemning it.

It is revealing though, that the coalition politicians from Smer and SNS, even under these tense and precarious circumstances, could not stop attacking opposition and the press. Their often dehumanizing and vulgar language undoubtedly had a major influence on creating the very polarized and aggressive atmosphere, which contributed to this tragedy.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Eastern Europe, birthplace of world wars, playground of our beloved three-letter agencies. I guess they’re losing faith in the potential of Ukraine to gin it up.

Dr Weevil said...

I don't know whether the almost-assassin was left-wing or right-wing, or even what that means in the Slovakian context. People calling Fico a right-winger seem not to have noticed that he's a long-time Communist (see JaimeRoberto 12:54pm) and has been saying nice things about Putin, who wants to rebuild the Soviet Union. Of course, some try to put Putin on the right-hand end of the spectrum, but some people are idiots.

I do know that the shooter has been seen at pro-Ukraine demonstrations, and, further back, was hanging around with some very nasty pro-Russian para-military thugs trained by Russian Spetsnaz agents. See this Newsweek story (link) which quotes the Hungarian journalist and shows his Tweet that was the first place I heard. Did the shooter start out pro-Putin and turn anti-Putin and pro-Ukraine? Maybe, but there are other possibilities.

People have been known to show up at demonstrations for causes they personally oppose: sometimes to check out what the opposition is up to, sometimes to fool people into thinking they're on the opposite side of the spectrum from where they actually are. Establishing a cover story, as it were: particularly useful if you're thinking of shooting someone.

For those who think this guy couldn't possibly be pro-Putin if he shot Fico, who's also pro-Putin, there's this story (link): that Fico recently assured Ukraine that his pro-Putin statements were all done to win votes and he was not going to do anything to oppose Ukraine joining NATO or cut off arms exports from Slovakian businesses. Would that be enough to make Putin put out a contract on him? Putin has had people murdered in more than one country.

To sum up, we don't know, and we may never know, why the guy did it, and who sent him to do it, if someone did send him. Maybe he is just a homicidal crank.

Quaestor said...

Slovakia was joined to the Czech lands in the wake of the dissolution of the Hapsburg empire, chiefly because it was not deemed economically viable on its own, and thus unfolded its unhappy existence in the 20th century -- first the Nazis then the Communists. So, what's their beef? Why dissolve Czechoslovakia? Nearly everyone is a three-way polyglot. For centuries they needed Czech and especially German to get by. Since the fall of the Soviet empire, the third language is now English. An American will probably understand the average citizen of Bratislava more clearly than the average Dubliner.

It's probably religion, though the official press says it's politics, it's likely to be religion. The Slovaks are old hands at mixing the two. They've been nursing a quiet resentment of those unorthodox Czechs since Jan Hus. Lately, the Italians and the Spaniards have been leaning French in their church attendance, leaving the Slovaks as one of the more sectarian nationalities in the EU. When the official spokesman says, neither left nor right, religion is what remains. Smer-SD is strongly atheist and troglodyte/progressive on all other matters. Ten to one the would-be assassin is an observant Catholic. Five to one he's Ukrainian Orthodox.

Mr. Majestyk said...

Since the victim didn't die, maybe the NYT should have called it a mostly peaceful assasination attempt.

Yancey Ward said...

Rich doing himself some victim blaming.

imTay said...

Some interesting history about Slovakia and WWII, and why the people of Slovakia don't support Ukraine in this war. It has to do with the fact that there was an uprising against Nazi rule in Slovakia, and who was sent to put it down? Ukrainian nationalists, and put it down they did, quite brutally. Many of the leaders of that army that Hitler sent to Slovakia to do his dirty work are considered national heroes by Ukraine. One of the funniest things that the Russians did in this war was a missile strike on a museum dedicated to honoring a Holocaust collaborator, and wow did those Ukrainians whine about it.

Anyway, the assassination of Fico would have been very convenient for the US, the EU, and Ukraine. Basically the Slovak press is united in their hatred for Fico, who they see as a "populist" and against whom they run nonstop agitprop. There are a lot of articles in the Western press implying that he deserved it, even as he won his election fair and square, but one thing that's not allowed is for the voters to get what they want. You can think of Fico as Trump, and the attempted assassin as a Racheal Maddow viewer, and you will have the gist of what happened. It's stochastic terrorism.

In Spain, the party that opposed arming Ukraine won the plurality of the votes, but was not allowed to form a government, same happened in Poland, if they had an election in Germany right now, it would be very interesting. Basically the EU's game is to thwart the will of the voters at every turn, and a well-timed assassination has benefited many an empire.

imTay said...

BTW, Blinken just gave Ukraine permission to attack Russia proper with American supplied missiles. We made a huge mistake by driving Russia and China into each other's arms, so it looks like the US is going to try to provoke a nuclear confrontation in which they are hoping that Russia will back down. We will see. Joe Biden is the most reckless President the US has ever had.

Tina Trent said...

Thank you, imTay. Good background.

All of the men here who solemnly claim to read only non-fiction WWII books: maybe finish them.

And Howard, just try reading any book.

Christopher B said...

Just piling on to say while the reality is likely far more complicated, it's not hard to believe that if there was any way to spin the guy as pro-Putin that would be the narrative we'd be getting.

rastajenk said...

Gavrilo Princip was answer to a Final Jeopardy question this week. Or vice versa.

Political Junkie said...

Lone Wolf McQuade - 1983 - Chuck Norris, David Carradine, Barabara Carrera (hubba hubba). Cheezy movie, but enjoyed as a teenager. Sset around El Paso, TX, which makes me think of Fort Bliss. Blissful, it was not.

Cheers!

Narr said...

The old joke says that the Balkans produce more history than can be consumed locally, but I have to wonder why that doesn't apply to Europe generally.

And an old proverb says that all politics is local.

As for well-timed assassinations benefiting many an empire (according to imTay above), I'd like some examples. The famous one in Sarajevo in 1914 certainly didn't.

Dr Weevil said...

imTay (8:23pm):
Blinken may have told Ukraine in Kyiv they could strike Russia with American weapons, but the Pentagon spokesperson is saying just the opposite (link). This idiotic and evil restriction is killing Ukrainians and making it far less likely that Putin will back down and more likely that he will be emboldened to widen the war by invading one of the Baltics or bombing Poland or . . . lots of other possibilities.

Dr Weevil said...

Christopher B. (5:47am):
". . . if there was any way to spin the guy as pro-Putin that would be the narrative we'd be getting."

Really? Did you follow my 6:46pm link to the Newsweek story? Here's a direct link to the Hungarian journalist's tweet copied there. The fact is that the shooter was palling around with a heavily-armed group of pro-Putin militants less than ten years ago. No spin needed: there is a connection, and the Interior Minister's claim that he was an apolitical loner is an obvious lie. As noted in my 6:46 comment, it's possible that he moved from pro-Putin to anti-Putin over the years, but it's possible that he only went to pro-Ukraine rallies as a 'cover'. I don't know, but I do know that your statement quoted above is false.