July 17, 2024

"There are basically four competing narratives or theories about what led to the assassination attempt against Donald Trump."

Writes Sean Davis (at X):
1) Through a combination of incompetence and innocent mistakes and garden-variety bureaucratic ineptitude, a gunman was able to penetrate security and take multiple shots at Trump. 
2) The right hand of the Biden security regime deliberately starved Trump’s security detail of resources and assigned a squad of C-team rejects to his detail knowing it would make Trump vulnerable. 
3) Includes all of option 2, but also includes the left hand of the Biden security regime independently but deliberately inciting and weaponizing, and potentially even hand-holding, mentally unwell freaks to take matters into their own hands and eliminate Trump (analogous to what the FBI did when it created and led the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping and murder plot). 
4) The Biden regime itself explicitly attempted to assassinate Trump via its own shooter(s), and the named assassin is all deliberate misinformation and misdirection.

Go to the link to see where Davis says he is, but first take my survey:

Which of the 4 options seems most likely?
 
pollcode.com free polls

209 comments:

1 – 200 of 209   Newer›   Newest»
doctrev said...

I'm surprised no one said 4 yet, but to be fair this scheme was so harebrained everyone with five brains cells would think it was an op. If an "elite cyberninja" offers me a shot at Bloomberg, I'd decline it.

Michael Steele at MSNBC is saying Trump was struck by glass from the teleprompter (?!?!). Aside from the pure BlueAnon meltdown, contradicting a widely available video like an imbecile is going to drag down the Biden campaign further. Independents will run full tilt from these freaks. Pure joy, from the miss to the pending collapse of Team Biden.

D.D. Driver said...

I will operate under the reasonable assumption that the FBI groomed this kid and made sure he used the kind of gun they want to ban.

tim maguire said...

It seems nutty to me to go with anything other than 1. There were massive screw-ups in the secret service which they need to answer for, but the idea that they deliberately put their own agents at risk is absurd.

Wa St Blogger said...

I went with 2 because I don't wan to believe 3, but I have not seen enough exculpatory evidence to eliminate that as a possibility.

There is too much malfeasance to think it was innocent failure.

Bob Boyd said...

@ Achilles

Have you seen this? May explain the discrepancy between reports saying shooter bought a 5' ladder and the much larger ladder seen in photos that have come out.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1813595907042210115/photo/1

doctrev said...

D.D. Driver said...
I will operate under the reasonable assumption that the FBI groomed this kid and made sure he used the kind of gun they want to ban.

7/17/24, 4:43 PM

If an average farmboy was using an average hunting rifle and aiming center mass, President Trump would be dead now. When you see the power of such excessive retardation, all I can say is Deus Vult.

tim maguire said...

doctrev said...Michael Steele at MSNBC is saying Trump was struck by glass from the teleprompter (?!?!).

Given that even under their scenario, the glass was shattered by a bullet, it just shows how desperate and craven they are that they pretend it would matter.

Hassayamper said...

There were massive screw-ups in the secret service which they need to answer for, but the idea that they deliberately put their own agents at risk is absurd.

To reiterate my comment from yesterday, there are people in our society, including in our government, who would do anything to wet their beaks in even a tiny fraction of the $7 trillion in revenue that flows through our Federal government every year.

ANYTHING.

RideSpaceMountain said...

Lucky #3!

JK Brown said...

He did not penetrate security. He did take advantage of clear shot roof top that was a football field away from the stage outside the security perimeter that did not have a guard posted.

He also was seen, reported by private citizens while maneuvering into position.

The only thing unusual is that he was apparently a much better shot than he was three years earlier. Or he shot rapidly, after the police officer popped his head up and was "lucky" in their paths.

Officer observed, shooter pointed rifle at officer, officer pulled head down, then shooter opened up on Trump. Then...apparently, the counter-snipers felt they must act or lose their phoney baloney jobs.

RideSpaceMountain said...

"I went with 2 because I don't wan to believe 3, but I have not seen enough exculpatory evidence to eliminate that as a possibility.

There is too much malfeasance to think it was innocent failure."


The exculpatory evidence you're looking for will never appear because it never appearing is the whole point.

Bad people do bad things because they can, and the world is filled with bad people.

PackerBronco said...

I'll take Option 1.5. They went through the motions, but really didn't care enough to make sure they did a great job.

Original Mike said...

2, though I could believe 3. I don't believe 1 (just look at the shooting position they left available).

They denied RFK protection. They'd have denied Trump if they could have, but doing a sloppy job was the next best thing (and maybe even better, because it put them in charge of his security).

And I 100% believe they wanted him dead. Their question was, what could they expect to get away with?

Mary Beth said...

but the idea that they deliberately put their own agents at risk is absurd

More absurd than putting Trump at risk?

Mason G said...

Butler Township commissioner says the SS claim that local police were responsible for security is not true.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/butler-pa-township-commissioner-our-local-police-duties-were-strictly-about-traffic/vi-BB1qam3z#details

Kate said...

Tim Kennedy lays out an astonishing level of incompetence. We all accept at least choice 1, which is really sad.

The way Team Biden denied Bobby SS protection all this time tells me that they are quite willing to manipulate the SS for political ends. Choice 2 is also easy to accept.

doctrev said...

tim maguire said...
Given that even under their scenario, the glass was shattered by a bullet, it just shows how desperate and craven they are that they pretend it would matter.

7/17/24, 4:48 PM

Mmhmm. BlueAnon is insisting "the truth will come out. In reality, Josh Shapiro and the FBLie would only make themselves look like utter tools for backing up the MSNBC stance. It's actually a good reason to downgrade Rat performance considerably in the Senate races.

I really thought the hard left would have some shame, but no. They're collapsing into full on hypercult mode. I've never seen anything like it.

Kathryn51 said...

tim maguire said...
It seems nutty to me to go with anything other than 1.

I'm with Tim on this and Sean Davis is spouting off so much false info on Twitter that I probably need to mute him - he's still repeating things that were speculated on Saturday but now clearly false. He's as bad as Michael Steele and the BlueAnon cabal.

Apparently the kids parents were concerned when he didn't return home as expected - I don't blame the parents but I'm thinking there was someone somewhere that was orchestrating this - the total absence of social media is the tell.

Original Mike said...

"Michael Steele at MSNBC is saying Trump was struck by glass from the teleprompter (?!?!)."

What is with that guy? And I'm not just talking about this.

Quayle said...

"Butler Township commissioner says the SS claim that local police were responsible for security is not true."

Local means County and State, not the exact town.

RCOCEAN II said...

Sorry, I couldn't figure out what Davis meant by option 3. He seems to be saying that the FBI/DHS undercover agents were encouraging people to go take a shot at Trump. If so, that's absurd.

Alex, I'll take door number 2. They couldnt' deny Trump SS protection, like they did to RFK, so they gave Trump untrained 2nd raters and not enough of them.

But again, the involvement of the Secret Service higher ups is unknown at this point. How many decisions were made by them and not the team on the ground?

Fafnir said...

Leaning toward #3 because while I can understand and appreciate the potential for greivous mistake, the lack info on Crook is too unbelievable.

Mason G said...

"Local means County and State, not the exact town."

Commissioner says that the SS is saying his township police were responsible for security, commissioner says they have an operational plan assigning township police to traffic duty only. Go to the link and listen for yourself.

doctrev said...

RideSpaceMountain said...
The exculpatory evidence you're looking for will never appear because it never appearing is the whole point.

7/17/24, 4:51 PM

Never say never. Look at the documented minutes of the Wannsee Conference of 1942. Interestingly, it was only in 1947 that Americans secured actual notes of the meeting, well after the total defeat of Nazi Germany.

It can be argued the Biden drones will hard wipe all their devices, but all it takes is one Hunter to cause major explosions after these people suffer a similarly total defeat.

ga6 said...

Was Max Boot somehow involved?

https://instapundit.com/661214/#disqus_thread

Wa St Blogger said...

but the idea that they deliberately put their own agents at risk is absurd

Collateral damage. The people knew what they signed up for, except for the fact that it is possible the on the ground security team were not normally in the personal protection role.

The use of a C-team might be the reason they would acceptable losses for a bigger goal of eliminating a Hitler-like despot.

Captain BillieBob said...

I want to know how he concealed a long rifle and ladder to get them on to the site.

doctrev said...

RCOCEAN II said...
Sorry, I couldn't figure out what Davis meant by option 3. He seems to be saying that the FBI/DHS undercover agents were encouraging people to go take a shot at Trump. If so, that's absurd.

7/17/24, 5:00 PM

Who is Ray Epps? You're brighter than that.

There is zero public proof of #3, of course, but the speed with which the FBI wiped Crook's social media (possibly before the event??) combined with the January 6th instigators are certainly points in favor of the windup toy argument.

RCOCEAN II said...

We'll have to find out where the killer got the explosives he had in his car. And the remote to denonate them.

His plan, wasn't just to kill Trump, but a whole bunch of Trump supporters. Maybe that was plan B, if he couldn't take a shot. Plan A: SHoot Trump , then denonate the explosives. Plan B: Just denotate the Explosives.

Assassin plus mass killer.

LIke the Killer in Las Vegas, the FBI/DHS don't seem to releasing any data on the Killer and his motives. Funny dat.

Sheridan said...

Pretty sure that JFK was Option 4. The Intelligence Community (IC) was already up and operating (Think Dulles brothers, et al). What makes you think the IC wouldn't do it again given the possibility that Trump would start to un-wind the power of the IC nest of vipers.

rhhardin said...

It's a news silo effect. John McWhorter hoped somebody would kill Trump, a result of not hearing any analysis but his own side, the memes in his air.

The rest is just incompetence found in any bureaucracy. They've been finding Secret Service agents whoring around forever, but unlike Tailhook, it's not a sign of male competence.

Plus they added women.

Lawnerd said...

I went with 4 because Thomas Crook doesn’t make sense to me.
He is described as being very smart. Bethel Park is a lower-middle class, blue collar community. The parents push their kids to excel at school and move up the ladder. Tiger Moms and Dads in every house. The school district is very good- people move there so their kids can go to this school. Being described as very smart in Bethel Park means something given this competitive environment. Many of the top students go to MIT or Ivy schools or at least Penn State as a minimum. But Crook goes to a shitty local community college. He has no internet presence. This just doesn’t make sense to me. It’s as if he stayed there, under the radar for a reason, like a ghost.

Yancey Ward said...

I am not unwilling to believe that someone in the FBI had this kid on their radar and was actively trying to induce him to "do something". It would fit with a lot of what the FBI seems to be taking pride in these days- getting people who never would have acted but for the encouragement of "law" enforcement. I find it very suspicious that no social media footprint exists for Crooks- it sounds like the dog that didn't bark to me.

Right now I am at #2- malicious negligence on the part of Mayorkas and Cheatle.

Enigma said...

I went with #2 because Biden's handlers aggressively placed 10,000 incompetent DEI hires in every management role possible. They do not want to believe in "C" teams and want "A" teams perform on parity. Everyone gets an E for Excellence. Everyone gets a gold star. Everyone gets an equity box to stand on, and they are **commanded** to perform at the same level as everyone else. Women can be men, men can be women, and everyone must use the same bathroom. And so they want to believe, as incompetent, uncompetitive, and/or deranged DEI hires tend to fail at everything they do and bring along a bad attitude too.

The backlash against DEI is going to be harsh in the next 10-20 years...

Keystone Kops
Idiocracy

"You drink water? Like what's in the toilet?"

Dave Begley said...

If 2, 3 or 4 turn out to be true, we have a major problem as a country and the people behind this are guilty of attempted murder. Death penalty.

"Any time you try a decent crime, you got fifty ways you're gonna fuck up. If you think of 25 of them, you're a genius. And you ain't no genius." Mickey Rourke in "Body Heat."

doctrev said...

Sheridan said...
Pretty sure that JFK was Option 4. The Intelligence Community (IC) was already up and operating (Think Dulles brothers, et al). What makes you think the IC wouldn't do it again given the possibility that Trump would start to un-wind the power of the IC nest of vipers.

7/17/24, 5:06 PM

I'd say competence- but it is the CIA. Though I wouldn't be surprised if this came right from the top of the failure pyramid, and used no operatives who might be tempted to sell out to Trump/ have patriotic feelings. That is to say, Epstein-owned soyblobs who wouldn't know a Winchester from a polyester.

reader said...

I agree with PackerBronco at 4:52. Sadly, we have earlier evidence of the state of the Secret Service. Remember in April a secret service officer (a female?) had to be disarmed for medical issues.

The sloped roof argument by Cheatle is beyond ridiculous. How many of us who were between the ages of 5 to 18 during the 60’s and 70’s were sent up on sloped roofs by our parents? I was 6 the first time I went on the roof. My sister and I assisted our dad in putting up Christmas lights, cleaning gutters, pruning trees that hung over the roof, adjusting our tv antenna…

I remember the first time I went on the roof because it was all a bunch of fun until you had to make the transition off of the roof onto the ladder.

RMc said...

It seems nutty to me to go with anything other than 1. There were massive screw-ups in the secret service which they need to answer for, but the idea that they deliberately put their own agents at risk is absurd.

This.

Options 1, 2 and 3 are running neck-and-neck-and-neck. If none of them gets 50%, we're gonna need a run-off!

pacwest said...

2.7

gilbar said...

i picked "3". but honestly, "4" seems MOST LIKELY

Valentine Smith said...

Orders from Dr. Jill to Cheatle: relax as much as possible without raising suspicion. Awww fuck it just get it done.

Lawnerd said...

If 3 is correct, I would expect there to be more. A trail of his madness. A manifesto. A social media presence aligned with his unwell thoughts. But none of this has been found yet.

Dave Begley said...

Someone on X has posted a chart that shows a big increase in the short position of $DJT stock. If true, the names of these shorters must be uncovered.

$DJT stock would collapse if Trump had died.

Vance said...

To me, the whole "Why would the Secret Service go along with it being their necks on the line!" is curious... since apparently none of the agents there were the normal ones?

They were the peons, so they were expendable.

Which leads to more incompetence (the lady who can't put her gun back in the holster!) and thus leans towards option 1.

But it also leans towards "Yeah, we are running an op. If he kills an agent, no one we care about--just a drone from accounting!"

Another old lawyer said...

I'd take a combo of 1 and 2, and would need an org chart to draw a line to divide where 1 applies from where 2 applies. Might not be straight line.

Quaestor said...

tim maguire writes, "It seems nutty to me to go with anything other than 1. There were massive screw-ups in the [Secret Service] which they need to answer for, but the idea that they deliberately put their own agents at risk is absurd."

It's no more absurd than a commander putting his troops at risk to win a war.

Please reconsider.

Kevin said...

How many SS agents are sad the shooter missed?

It’s not zero.

narciso said...

the second option sounds more viable, without any other info, the malice of the apparat in so many small and large ways rules out option one,

gilbar said...

WHY did they allow President Trump on stage.. KNOWING that
a) there was a threat..
b) the threat was IN the park..
c) the threat was SEEN climbing up onto the SLOPING! roof..
d) the threat had a gun, and was aiming AT The President of The United States
??
Hmmm? WHY?
oh! we were stupid!
and we were busy talking about makeup and dresses and stuff!
and we were SO MAD at each other, that we weren't talking to each other!!!

or..
we were WAITING for President Trump to be murdered, so that we could THEN kill the suspect
(before he blabbed)


Also.. HOW did the kid imagine that he'd be able to climb up there? WHO TOLD him to?

Wa St Blogger said...

How did a 20 YO with no training or background plan a successful attack on a heavily guarded target? How did this person gain the skill to make remotely detonated explosive devices?

Why is there no trail on his research for such capabilities?

Fafnir said...

There is now some insight from Crook’s friends. Short version: not a Trump fan. So his R voter registration seems to have been strategic.

Beyond that, I must say he looks VERY immature.

doctrev said...

Dave Begley said...
Someone on X has posted a chart that shows a big increase in the short position of $DJT stock. If true, the names of these shorters must be uncovered.

$DJT stock would collapse if Trump had died.

7/17/24, 5:17 PM

You MUST be kidding me. Stock shorting is extremely heavily regulated. If you aren't an institution, or someone with the assets to cover a failed short, you can't even do it. And what fries my bacon is that the greedy fools will have definitely painted targets on themselves. US Marshals under a Trump Administration dragging them back for enhanced interrogation until they say who their "hints" came from, while freezing their assets.

Prof. M. Drout said...

I think the word of 4 is too strict. I might pick 4 if it said "People WITHIN the Biden Administration." Just like I'm pretty sure Obama and/or Hilary didn't tell Strzok and Rat-Face exactly what to do--thus just did it, I'm pretty sure Jill didn't make a phone call and whisper "Depends" to someone and hang up. But that doesn't rule out a small group of mid-level people at the FBI, DOJ, or Secret Service taking matters into their own hands. I'll bet you wouldn't need very many to pull this off.

A couple points that I made in the older thread, but more succinctly here (I hope):

The biggest thing is still his knowing which roof to get on. He was in a perfect spot to still see Trump between the trees but to have himself screened from one of the sniper teams by the trees. Impressive tactical awareness.

There were explosives in the killer's car, and there are pictures of a garage door remote sitting next to the assassin's phone on the roof. So he turned his car into an IED. Grabbing a gun and trying to shoot someone is one thing, making a car-bomb is another. Where did he manage to get the explosives? Where did he learn to rig a garage door opener as an IED? Before you say "Internet," I've been told that finding instructions to make IEDs that aren't in Russian or Arabic is extremely difficult to impossible--it is one of the things Homeland Security actually tries to keep tabs on.

He set off the metal detector because he was carrying a RANGE FINDER in his backpack but security let him in. I don't see THAT as a likely conspiracy, since he could say that he was using the range-finder like binoculars. But because he brought the range-finder in and then went back out through security, it sure LOOKS like he had been trained to get the right distances so he could dial them into his scope.

I know people who have tried to erase their internet presence, and it is NOT easy to do thoroughly even over several weeks, but this kid appears to be the only human being in the United States under the age of 25 who doesn't have a social-media presence. Really?

He got interrupted by the agent coming up the ladder, pointed the gun at him, then turned and got off a bunch of accurate shots. That's fairly impressive, especially since he didn't know if another guy would come up behind him.

The loose battery next to the remote is an Energizer, not the off-brand batteries that usually come with cheap electronic goods. Does a lone-wolf 20-year-old confused kid have the foresight to replace the batteries when the cheap Chinese ones work perfectly fine for a few weeks.

Where's the second remote? Was somebody else supposed to detonate it if for some reason Crooks bailed on the assassination attempt?


So I would not go all the way to 4 if the implication is that there was a cabinet meeting in which it was decided to assassinate Trump, but I would NOT be shocked (just disgusted) if someone was running this kid and someone was deliberately opening security vulnerabilities at Trump rallies. And that means there very well could be others doing the same, but the "investigators" aren't interested in finding that--they're trying to do a bureaucratic cover-your-ass "investigation."

It is terrifying and disgusting that we have come to this point. There need to be consequences, and even more there needs to be a massive purgation of the Federal Government.

narciso said...

the second option sounds more viable, without any other info, the malice of the apparat in so many small and large ways rules out option one,

Prof. M. Drout said...

*wording of 4, not "word of 4" Doh!

doctrev said...

Dave Begley said...
Someone on X has posted a chart that shows a big increase in the short position of $DJT stock. If true, the names of these shorters must be uncovered.

$DJT stock would collapse if Trump had died.

7/17/24, 5:17 PM

You MUST be kidding me. Stock shorting is extremely heavily regulated. If you aren't an institution, or someone with the assets to cover a failed short, you can't even do it. And what fries my bacon is that the greedy fools will have definitely painted targets on themselves. US Marshals under a Trump Administration dragging them back for enhanced interrogation until they say who their "hints" came from, while freezing their assets.

Rabel said...

The fact that the shooter lived in the town where the rally was held bumps into the groomed assassin theory. Doesn't preclude it, but that would be fast work.

I went with number 1 as "most likely."

For now.

robother said...

If Option 3 is reaIity, I would've thought they'd try to cover their tracks by discovering a lone gunman manifesto on his computer or cell phone. But the investigation is young, and these things don't write themselves. Under any of these options, though isn't the most pressing question, how should Trump/Vance proceed with live campaign events? Only indoors? Small venues? How do you trust anyone in your Secret Service team to vet sites and protect you? Can you have private security that doesn't have to defer to Secret Service orders?

Swede said...

But the slopes!
I'm sorry to report that what actually almost killed the future President of the United States was a roof pitch.
It defeated the highly competent and totally not a stupid bitch Secret Service Director.
There just wasn't anything that could be done people, I'm sorry.

Rabel said...

The tall agent standing by Trump after the shooting - I've seen him on international assignments guarding Biden. I may have mentioned him here.

They weren't all B Team.

Spiros said...

I also think sending (moderately) obese women who don't look like SS agents was also meant to trigger a very image conscious man.

Narayanan said...

I have not seen anyone addressing what Erik Prince claimed The only positive action was an apparent 488yd shot by one USSS sniper which despatched the assasin but after the assassin launched at least 5 rounds, wounding DJT and killing and severely others in the crowd.

489 yds for counter sniper suppression shot that is way outside distances shown in videos with Trump at podium, SS sniper team behind him and shooter on roof to the side.

reports that there were 4 SS sniper teams - where were they positioned? which of them killed shooter?

The Secret Service has said there were four counter-sniper teams: two from the agency and two from local law enforcement on the ground.

Temujin said...

I agree with Dave Begley. Anything other than Option 1 and that democracy being in danger that they've been warning you about is already gone.

And, of course, it also lends credence to the questions surrounding the 2020 election. I mean- if these guys could arrange this near assassination in front of the entire world, those extra 100,000 ballots, or accessing poorly secured voting machines is kids play. Nothing- from November 2020 on- has seemed copacetic. And as the world has now seen (and many of us saw going into the last election) Joe Biden has not been in charge of much of anything.

The best we can hope for is utter incompetence in virtually every direction. Such is the state of the Union.

Rabel said...

The fact that we just now learned from local LE that the parents called in just amplifies the probability of a cover-up, if not a plan.

Prof. M. Drout said...

Blogger tim maguire said...
. . . but the idea that they deliberately put their own agents at risk is absurd."

But it wouldn't be their "own," and "The Secret Service" wouldn't be the actor. It would be maybe 1 person in the detail who could just as easily be a 3-letter agency embed. And now we know that most of the people in the detail weren't the usual ones--would someone who is willing to facilitate the MURDER of Trump be hesitant to risk the lives of some Secret Service personnel he's barely met?

I think it's also likely--if there really was a conspiracy--that the person on the Secret Service side would deliberately not know any details about the shooter or even precisely what was planned.

Skeptical Voter said...

I went for Option 2--but there's a lot of 3 that is correct. If you scream for 6 or 7 years that the Bad Orange Man is "literally Hitler", or a Fascist Authoritarian, and you "urge people to get in their face" or say that he's "a threat to our democracy" well you create an environment where somebody will 'hear the dog whistle" and out and shoot the sumbuck.
And despite all their bleating about the need for civility now, the Dims do deserve some of the responsibility for a kid taking them up on their "dog whistle".


And Rabel at 528--the kid supposedly lived in Bethel Park which is 40 miles or so from Butler. Now it's true that both places are exurbs of Pittburgh--but the shooter didn't live in the same town,.

pacwest said...

We'll have to find out where the killer got the explosives he had in his car. And the remote to denonate them.

No record of him doing a search on Google, because who needs that info. Everyone already knows how to build a remotely controlled explosive. Nothing of consequence on his phone my ass.

Krumhorn said...

I waver between 2 and 3. We all know that the bug-eyed lefties are ugly nasty little shits. And that combined with their conviction that they have the unassailable moral high ground, it is not out of the question that reliance on the stochastic effect of their rhetoric combined with a small and lower grade security detail would ultimately produce the desired result. They are, of course, appalled by political violence…unless they believe it completely justified. Which they do.

They are, after all, Marxists. Anything goes so long as they have their dachas and hard currency stores.

- Krumhorn

Rabel said...

"which of them killed shooter?"

Damn good question. One ABC report said the sniper who shot Crooks was on the building on Trump's rear left.

And for God's sake why don't we know this by now.

Virgil Hilts said...

Why I chose 1 (though this could be consistent with 2) - if a local police guy had arrested this guy before he shot, which should have happened (I think this would have happened in 96% of scenarios if you could have run this through a simulation), they would have found the bomb and the weapoon and any third party inducment of the guy to do this would have quickly come out (he would have cracked within minutes). Who the heck risks that happening? Isn't that the most likely result - pre-shooting apprehension and arrest and interrogation. He's a 20 year old nerd!

Kevin said...

the idea that they deliberately put their own agents at risk is absurd.

The SS agents were out of the way when Trump was being shot.

They only had to get around him because the shooter didn't finish the job.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Lawnerd said...

I went with 4 because Thomas Crook doesn’t make sense to me.

He makes sense if you know people on the Autism spectrum. I've got a kid that is mildly on it. IQ is 150, has a BS in Mathematics, works in a warehouse. I doubt he has much social media history other than a YouTube history.

Original Mike said...

"but the idea* that they deliberately put their own agents at risk is absurd."

How were they at any significant risk?

*I will forevermore hear Joe Biden's voice in my head when I read this phrase.

Sheridan said...

For fun I sometimes re-read Tom Clancy's books. His "Clear and Present Danger" is a good example of plausible deniability. Winks, nods, innuendos and voila! Something bad happens. The principals are covered because they can say, if asked, that they didn't wink, they blinked. "It was the little people who did this terrible thing!!" they can say. And get away with it. I was in the Service and totally lost my faith in government in the early 70's when the military came undone (race riots and murders - think the Army in Germany) after Vietnam. What a shit show that was and the instigators of that disaster went on to live-out their lives of power and privilege. God how I hope McNamara is burning forever in some lava lake. My ancestors on my father's side were Calvinists and showed up in N. America with the Winthrop Fleet. The Calvinistic call of "obey God not men" calls to me more and more often as I get older.

Original Mike said...

Oh, I see, the agents on the dais.

But Crooks was already dead at that point.

Rabel said...

"the kid supposedly lived in Bethel Park"

True but still one Hell of a coincidence if he was a plant. Do they have them all over the country?

Lilly, a dog said...

Blog Goes Maximum Crackpot

Virgil Hilts said...

I picked Option 1 (though Option 2 is possible). The most likely outcome of this (if you played the scerio through a simulator 100 times) is that 97%-98% of the time the kid is grabbed, alive, before he takes a shot. They find the bomb, the weapon and then seueeze everything out of him in a few minutes as he cracks. That is the most likely outcome, not the freakish near killshot that heppened. If you're planning to assasinate DT through this nerd you are a complete imbecile.
I do consider this whole thing completely bizarre. Weirdly, it reminds me of the Jonbenet Ramsey case, where not a single one of the 50 or possible scenarios seemed more than 2% likely, but we know for a fact one of them happened.

FullMoon said...

Obviously media brainwashed him, same as it has brainwashed other haters.

Was the bomb functional? Was itsimple pipe bomb made with gunpowder? Remote control devices available on Amazon for less than fifty bucks.

There are hunters among the commenters. How many, as a teenager, feel they could have pulled this off with a little bit of luck, and a lot of incompetence by SS?

Had the shooter been to the scene before? Did he Googlemap drone view the farm to get a layout?

Rumor says he made several trips in and out of area. Did he scope it out and find security lax enough to proceed?

Personally think many average hunters or gun guys could pull it off. Only thing needed average skill, luck, hate, and crazy.

Also, same old question, was he on psych drugs?

And, first reports said Grandma kicked him out due to drug usage. Was he a speed freak? Couple of days on that, without sleep will affect your thinking.

Sally327 said...
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Sally327 said...
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Sally327 said...

I picked no. 1 on the basis that Trump continues to accept USSS protection not only for himself but also for his family.

Static Ping said...

I'm going with #2, which seems reasonable given that the Biden administration has refused any protection for RFK, Jr. for reasons which I can only describe as malicious.

That said, the fact that the shooter appears to be such a blank slate that it would seem more likely than not that he was working for an intelligence agency or equivalent is extremely suspicious. The fact that we will be getting our further information from the FBI, which is corrupted and untrustworthy, gives me no confidence that this will be cleared up. We are still waiting for information on the Las Vegas shooter, which I assume will never come to light as it is inconvenient for someone.

Could he just be a nutter wanting to go out in a blaze of glory? Sure. But that's exactly the sort of person that nefarious organizations would recruit to do their bidding.

Prof. M. Drout said...

Blogger Temujin said...
The best we can hope for is utter incompetence in virtually every direction. Such is the state of the Union.

I think the only things that have been saving us (beyond whatever caused Trump to turn his head at precisely the right millisecond) is that they have riddled all of their own organizations with incompetence, and--possibly even more important--they are not as smart as they think they are.

And I don't know how, given what we now know about covid, the Russia hoax, the embedded FBI people on Jan 6, etc., etc., etc., people can cling to the belief that there wasn't massive election fraud in Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Phoenix in 2020.

So we were brazenly lied to by both government and media about all those other things, but when it comes to election fraud, everything is on the up and up? We'll lie about EVERYTHING else and keep lying even when caught, but about the election we suddenly become an army of little George Washingtons?

Narayanan said...

Beyond that, I must say he looks VERY immature.
=================
sundance has thoughts on presenting HS photo instead of recent one

Dixcus said...

I'm not going to play this game. Here's what I saw and what the evidence unequivably shows:

The Secret Service and local police were monitoring the specific actions of this specific person for up to an hour before he took the first shot. People in the crowd were too. They did nothing. This shooter was able to scale an unguarded building (despite its massive slope) and was followed up there by local cops who saw the threat, but did nothing to stop the threat. Some minutes pass while the shooter sets up his sniper position, all the while being watched by Secret Service snipers on another building who let him do it. He then murders a volunteer firefighter, and injures 3 other people including the former President of the United States - up to 8 shots ... all before the Secret Service or any other law enforcement officer did SQUAT about it.

I don't need to know the motivation. Or if the Secret Service was "involved." They let it happen. And for that, they should be in prison. And then I watched the head of the Secret Service make up a completely BS story about how they wanted a sniper team up on that roof, but it was too sloped to safely do it.

They LET the thing happen. I don't care why, or how. It doesn't matter why or how. I don't need to prove why or how. They LET it happen.

That is enough for me to conclude that Donald Trump is still in very grave danger because the United States Secret Service is LETTING ASSASSINATIONS HAPPEN.

Is that not obvious?

Gusty Winds said...

We landed here at assassination attempt because we didn't deal with the very real voter fraud in 2020. America allowed a President to be installed, not elected via legitimate voting, and the Electoral College...which protects the structure of our Constitutional Republic.

Some of us knew...but they created so much fear, many who know didn't want to deal with it. COVID, BLM Summer violence, censorship... which lead to J6, holding political prisoners, a kangaroo J6 committee, a lawfare against Trump. The unplanned wildcard was Elon Musk buying Twitter.

Without the backdrop of COVID, perhaps the absentee voter fraud machine is weaker. They KNOW Trump won in 2020. And they know they can't beat him in 2024. What are their options?

Because they ain't gonna pick stand by and lose.

Achilles said...

I am begging people to convince me I am wrong. I understand more than almost everyone here what Hell is waiting for you people if I am right.

Please everyone that voted for the top 3 options tell me how I am wrong.

I will give you numbered points. Please refute any of these.

1. Someone handled that kid. He was clearly told where to go and when to be there.(FBI)

He took the most obvious avenue of approach. He carried a 10 foot orange ladder through a parking lot in broad daylight with an AR 15 in his back pack to the side of a building less than 200 meters from the president. He climbed that ladder more than once. This ladder was placed less than 20 meters from the front door of a building that had dozens of LEOs and security in it. He had no social media profile. They are using a middle school picture of a grown man.

Now for the Secret Service:

2. They clearly sabotaged communications between local LEOs and the SS teams. LEO's called out the threat multiple times and that was never relayed to the Asset Protection team. They circulated a picture of the shooter. They had eyes on the shooter when he was on the roof for 3 minutes before he shot. Donald Trump should never have been on that stage. Someone siloed the comms and controlled everything from a command position to keep Trump on that stage, let the shooter shoot, then kill him to keep him from talking. This is probably 1-4 people in the SS team.

3. The security perimeter was so obviously flawed that there is no way it happens. Even an 80 IQ DEI retard will put a team on both roofs and a patrol in the parking lot/trees/water tower area covering black side. Period. End of Story. Probably 1-2 people in the SS team.

Like I said above. I am begging you to actually copy and paste these points I posted and tell me how I am wrong.

Big Mike said...

Michael Steele at MSNBC is saying Trump was struck by glass from the teleprompter (?!?!)

And thanks to wonders of AI the teleprompters were able to seamlessly reassemble themselves afterwards. There’s nothing AI cannot do

The teleprompters were in front of his speaking stand. He was looking 90 degrees to his right, which put the teleprompters on his left. He was hit on his right ear so any fragments from the teleprompters would have had to circle around his head. Michael Steele may or may not believe in “science,” but he obviously does not believe in physics.

Obviously physics is white supremacy.

Real American said...

I chose option 1, but don't really think the mistakes were innocent. Mistakes were caused by idiotic rules of engagement set up by a bunch of DEI hires. Maybe that is just bureaucratic ineptitude but it feels worse than that.

I like option 2, but I don't think they much knew or cared whether it would make Trump vulnerable. They don't like him, so they gave him a garbage detail.

I like option 3, but I don't think the Feds did any handholding or entrapped the shooter. They did all of the inciting, though.

I don't like option 4 because I don't think the Biden people have it in them, despite all their rhetoric about SCOTUS given assassinations a green light.

Gusty Winds said...

Didn't the FBI do the same thing with the fake Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping?

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

The correct answer is #1

Michael K said...


Blogger pacwest said...

We'll have to find out where the killer got the explosives he had in his car. And the remote to denonate them.

The most common detonator of IEDs is a garage door remote. He had one with him.

Google botched this 3 times so far.

Big Mike said...

Davis put himself between #2 and #3. So did I, but I’m closer to #3 and that was my vote.

I see that Biden has supposedly contracted COVID. Did he not get vaccinated when he was ordering everyone else to get the jab?

Quaestor said...

I am seeing numerous examples of the no one can convince me that _____ isn't true comment lead-in nearly everywhere I look. Some truly brain-rotting conspiracy theories are rapidly taking root, particularly among Democratic loyalists who may be faced with a reality that utterly shatters the entire foundations of their lives. When an idealist's assumptions are negated, the reaction is often a fuck everything, burn-it-all-down nihilism. Next stop, psychotic violence. On the other hand, there are people on the right who long for an apocalypse. They see the left as irredeemably wicked and iniquitous, fit only for a swim in the Biblical lake of fire. Neither destiny looks appealing to me.

Many volumes of data and analysis regarding this heinous deed are waiting to be written, and though it seems highly unlikely that Crooks could have gotten himself and a rifle into that nearly ideal sniper's position without the cooperation of a person or persons in a position of authority and trust, can we not withhold judgment? Can we not hold onto the unalloyed good of that image of a bloody but defiant Donald Trump triumphantly alive beneath Old Glory until the day when a much darker history becomes inevitable?

Gusty Winds said...

2, 3, and 4 combined are dominating the poll, vs #1 (incompetence).

2, 3, and 4, all suggest to gov't wants Trump dead before the election.

"Whoops, we have not idea how those brake lines failed. A shame the car went over a cliff"

Bill, Republic of Texas said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Quaestor said...

"I see that Biden has supposedly contracted COVID."

How convenient.

natatomic said...

The fact that this kid has/had ZERO internet footprint in today’s world reeks of a coverup. Someone is hiding something, and it’s gotta be BAD.

I chose #3

Jupiter said...

"It seems nutty to me to go with anything other than 1. There were massive screw-ups in the secret service which they need to answer for, but the idea that they deliberately put their own agents at risk is absurd."

The idea that they deliberately put themselves at risk might be hard to swallow.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...


I'm sitting at Number 1 right now.

I hate, Hate, HATE saying this but the abuses and crimes committed by the Dems and their deep state accomplices in the past eight years leaves me believing 2 and 3 (The Fed-napping of Gretchen Whitmer) are possible. Option four is civil war.

But I despair that even if the facts supporting an attempted assassination of Trump slowly roll out, no one will pay a price and most people will just shrug it off.

Achilles said...

Bob Boyd said...

@ Achilles

Have you seen this? May explain the discrepancy between reports saying shooter bought a 5' ladder and the much larger ladder seen in photos that have come out.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1813595907042210115/photo/1


I hadn't seen that yet. It makes sense he would have a shorter ladder.

Ladders are heavy. We hated carrying those things.

But it changes little.

In fact it means he walked even farther on a metal/TPO roof in broad daylight with 2 sniper teams staring at him with zero cover with an AR 15 and a bomb trigger device after being photographed by local LEOs less than 200 meters from the President while people all around the building were screaming about a guy on the roof with a gun.

There is no world where this approach works.

Eva Marie said...

“He carried a 10 foot orange ladder”
An orange ladder for an orange leader

boatbuilder said...

No internet presence seems really, really unlikely.

You feel strongly enough about Trump and/or the state of the world (as you see it) to try to assassinate him, in a manner which you must know will resulting you either being killed (most likely) or spending the remaining 70 years of your life in a maximum security cell, but you don't express that on the internet? You don't express anything?

Why is the press buying the FBI "nothing important" line? What the hell?

n.n said...

Affirmative action or empathetic affirmation. Either way, all's fair in lust and abortion.

Option four is civil war.

Both rhyme and reason.

Leland said...

Riffing on DD Driver and number 4, one comment about using the kid as a shooter was he failed shooting class. Maybe they were not really expecting an assassination, but a mass shooting of a Trump rally to discourage people wanting to attend the rally, and they pushed a weapon they wanted to ban.

I voted 2 and there at the moment.

Gusty Winds said...

@Achilles.

Options 2, 3, and 4 all basically agree with your premise. Dominating the poll.

Allow people their fear. You've seen battle. Most haven't. The idea that one side wants their challenger dead before the election is hard to swallow.

Except for Kamala Harris...lol. Ba-dump..pssss....

OSU '92 said...

Over 2/3rds of the votes are options 2-4. These are not fringe conspiracy theorists, most believe that something malicious happened. It all just depends to what degree. I simply don’t see how the known facts allow for option 1. I wish this was not the case, but here we are anyway.

Achilles said...

Quaestor said...

Many volumes of data and analysis regarding this heinous deed are waiting to be written, and though it seems highly unlikely that Crooks could have gotten himself and a rifle into that nearly ideal sniper's position without the cooperation of a person or persons in a position of authority and trust, can we not withhold judgment? Can we not hold onto the unalloyed good of that image of a bloody but defiant Donald Trump triumphantly alive beneath Old Glory until the day when a much darker history becomes inevitable?

I am hoping and praying to be wrong. Will you try?

But lets be honest with ourselves.

If Mayorkas and the FBI come out with a report that says mistakes were made what does that change? You know that is all we are going to get.

Are the people who voted for the top 3 options going to be good with that? I am still waiting for anyone to even attempt to deal with the facts and events I have posted.

Very few here seem to be willing to face up to what we are up against or even discuss that possibility.

Narayanan said...

he failed shooting class.
==============
is this 1000% true?
he and his father are members of shooting club
he went shooting the day before == why not retrieve the targets and scores

do I have to show how to do a job?

FullMoon said...


Blogger boatbuilder said...

No internet presence seems really, really unlikely.


Has to be on reddit. Loners get attention through upvotes. Trump haters especially popular.

n.n said...

Bobby Kennedy III
@bobbykennedyx

Unsecured rooftop 150 yards away. Multiple witnesses saying they were screaming at secret service and cops for 3-4 minutes as they watched the guy with the rifle crawl to the spot and line up his shot. Take your secret service and shove it up your ass. Prayers to Trump and his family.


How would Kennedy vote?

Iman said...

At this point, I go with number 2. But I also can’t discount anything at this point. These people are capable of just about any perverted act you can name… they’d murder their own mothers to hang on to power, so they wouldn’t think twice about facilitating the murder of a political opponent.

How can one live with people that are that off the rails?

JaimeRoberto said...

I'm at #2 with a dash of #3. I don't think they would go full Whitmer so I'm not fully in the #3 camp, but ramp people up on fascist, Hitler, existential threat to Our Democracy, and if someone slips the the cracks of the B-team's security, well what are you gonna do?

rehajm said...

The stretch to 3 is easy since government actors already ran/run several ops with impressionable Americans. See J6 and Whitmer kidnapping…

wild chicken said...

I voted #2 on X. I really feel like it's #1 but the fact we can even suspect #2 is damning in itself. You know, Caesar's wife and all that.

I mean there should be no question.

Achilles said...

Gusty Winds said...

@Achilles.

Options 2, 3, and 4 all basically agree with your premise. Dominating the poll.

Allow people their fear. You've seen battle. Most haven't. The idea that one side wants their challenger dead before the election is hard to swallow.


Ok. That is acceptable. But we need to dig into Option 3 and Option 4 a little more carefully in my opinion because I think the true forces behind this is not being included in the Poll.

I will actually change my vote to #3.

#4 is wrong because the Biden Regime is also a flunky. Almost all of the people that are in positions of power in DC are low rent corrupt gold diggers and grifters that do not understand what the consequences of their actions are. They are barely smarter than the average democrat voter that doesn't realize how close they were to hell. This includes the average democrat talking head media and the rest of the propaganda machine.

There are a relatively small number of actually intelligent and evil people like Victoria Nuland who are smart enough to slip and slide around and find a new job when congress calls them up to testify. You only see them because of the wake of blood they leave as they swim past. These people are closer to the people who actually pull the levers and I think they would have been just fine with a hot civil war. I believe that they think they will escape the consequences of their actions because they most likely have an idea what they need to do.

But there was definitely an organized and connected cell that made this assassination attempt happen and they almost certainly have contingencies lined up.

Mason G said...

"They clearly sabotaged communications between local LEOs and the SS teams. LEO's called out the threat multiple times and that was never relayed to the Asset Protection team."

This is the sticking point for me. Identifying threats is the #1 job of a security presence, is it not? You see a threat and somehow, it just falls through the cracks? How can anyone so badly fuck this up?

If there's a good reason that a report of "There's a guy with a gun" doesn't get immediately relayed to whoever's in charge and action immediately taken on this info, I'd like to hear it.

OldManRick said...

Right now I'm at 2 3/4. 2 because the the security team was staffed with obvious 3d stringers. Another 1/2 because the "threat to democracy", as bad as Hitler rhetoric was designed to not only close people's minds to what Trump was saying (their excuse for it) but to also stir up the 4 sigma, mentally unwell freak, and Antifa types who might act on it. In addition, there is a significant population either calling for his death or saying they would be pleased by it. The fact that anyone could actually say that is a vile sickness of the left that needs to be purged from the discourse. Any official who expresses that should be dismissed. Yes, you have free speech but I have the right of free association and your free speech should not be without consequences.

The last 1/4 is based on a 50/50 split of the difference between 2 1/2 and 3. If when checking previous rallies we would find similar vulnerabilities than it drops to 2 1/2 - sloppiness and rhetoric setting up opportunities. If this is the only time there was a vulnerability then I drift towards 3. There are too many things that went right for the shooter to get his shot off.

Hassayamper said...

There are hunters among the commenters. How many, as a teenager, feel they could have pulled this off with a little bit of luck, and a lot of incompetence by SS?

A 140 yard shot from a prone position is a chip shot. A free throw. First and ten on the 5 yard line.

I would expect to put it inside a 4" circle 10 times in a row, even with iron sights. Yes, I could have done this as a 20 year old.

Gusty Winds said...

Whatever happened to JFK it's comforting to know Lyndon Johnson had NO IDEA it was going to happen on his home turf in Dallas, TX.

Narr said...

Michael Steele has ever been a nincompoop.

I voted for 3, but don't rule out 4.

Someone mentioned the CIA getting involved. That happened in '96, a few months before the elections, when TWA-800 had it's unique fuel-tank explosion and zoom-climb last flight; the FAA and NTSB etc were all bigfooted out of the picture very soon after it happened. See Thomas Cahill's book for details; his conclusion is--a conspiracy of concealment to protect a Navy missile test.

The Organs will investigate the matter and conclude that they are blameless.

(Blogger ate my first try, over an hour ago.)

William said...

Definitely number one. Also number two, but perhaps for reasons different than those given. It is the view of many thoughtful Democrats that Trump is rather a worse person than Hitler. Hitler, for all his faults, never haunted the dressing rooms of high end department stores in order to rape women. They were not enthusiastic about providing protection to this Nazi sex fiend and thought he should be offered the minimal amount of protection consistent with the law.

William said...

I think 3 and 4 are also possibilities. I would like someone on the investigating committee to ask as many sharp and knowledgeable questions as some here have asked....I note, however, that history offers far more examples of catastrophic blunders than of successful conspiracies.

Gusty Winds said...

Achilles said...

But we need to dig into Option 3 and Option 4 a little more carefully

Notice Althouse made #4 state "The Biden Regime" not "President Biden" himself. I think that's purposeful as nobody believes Biden is running the country. Even his loyal supporters.

Althouse uses words very carefully. #3 and #4 are almost the same option.

Mikey NTH said...

I wonder if Crooks' online presence isn't on video game forums.

JIM said...

The agency tasked with protecting current and former Presidents got a cream pie in the face by a 20 year old without formal training in ambush or snipering. Let that sink in. Why the head of that agency hasn't resigned is baffling. But to be fair, few in the Biden administration were picked for their expertise, they were picked because "feelings".

Bob Boyd said...

"He carried a 10 foot orange ladder through a parking lot in broad daylight"

How do we know the 10' orange ladder was the shooter's ladder and not a ladder placed there by the cops to access the roof after the shooter was down?

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

#3 is breaking away.

I want to change my vote.

Achilles said...

Apparently the shooter's parents reported him "missing."

Why do a 20 year old man's parents report you missing in the middle of the day on Saturday?

The cracks in this cover up are already a mile wide.

walter said...

Teleprompter lives matter,

Original Mike said...

I've read the Biden Administration was providing Trump protection commensurate with a "former President" rather than a "Presidential candidate", which commands more protection.

I'm sorry, but that's a deliberate, cynical decision. That scores a #2 all by itself.

Yancey Ward said...

"I'm sorry, but that's a deliberate, cynical decision. That scores a #2 all by itself."

Yep.

Quaestor said...

"He failed shooting class."

Using iron sights is a skill set, and using a telescopic sight, particularly one with a calibrated 5.56x45mm BDC reticle is a different skill set. One can be a total bungler with irons and totally deadly with optics. It depends on having the proper 'scope for your weapon and caliber that properly zeroed, knowing the range, and knowing how to compensate for it.

Jon Ericson said...

The leftists here so far, aren't dignifying this post with a reply.
Members of the democrat party believe what they're told.
That their party is a force for good.
That they raise up the downtrodden and so forth.
Obviously, therefore, they're not the baddies.

#2

traditionalguy said...

Excuse me for being rational, but #4 is being avoided because DJT is alive and we all want peace. But that’s 90% likely what happened.

Remember the CIA guys have done #4 all over the earth calling it Rainbow Revolution work. But starting with Mistress Hillary’s defeat it all came back home targeting the Putin loving traitor, or so they say.

Haters gonna hate and CIA guys gonna assassinate. So far DJT has shakin it off. But the head of the snake has not yet been cut off.

Bob Boyd said...

Why do a 20 year old man's parents report you missing in the middle of the day on Saturday?

They were worried because he'd been spending a lot of time with his "new friends".

Achilles said...

Bob Boyd said...

"He carried a 10 foot orange ladder through a parking lot in broad daylight"

How do we know the 10' orange ladder was the shooter's ladder and not a ladder placed there by the cops to access the roof after the shooter was down?

He may have carried a 5' ladder across a parking lot in broad daylight instead of a 10' ladder and walked a hundred meters on top of a building with a white roof instead of 30 meters with hundreds of people screaming about him to the security officers and 2 snipers pointing guns at him several minutes before he took 5-8 shots and was summarily killed after Trump was safe before he could be interrogated.

Bob Loblaw said...

Why do we still call these "conspiracy theories" and not "next week's news"?

Bob Boyd said...

Option 5:
Hillary has been casting spells again.

Yancey Ward said...

"The leftists here so far, aren't dignifying this post with a reply.

They are in a tough position- the only argument against malicious intent is jaw-dropping incompetence of Cheatle, Mayorkas, etal.

I wouldn't try to defend them either.

Narayanan said...

has any body spoken to Tom Cruise aka Ethan Hunt?
or to Jason Bourne about Treadstone Corporation?

or to writers in Hollywood about scenarios credibility?

Gusty Winds said...

Blogger Bob Boyd said...

They were worried because he'd been spending a lot of time with his "new friends".

Bob, you nailed it. Isn't that every parents worry?

Yancey Ward said...

And as we write tonight, Joe Biden is about to die from COVID.

William said...

Historical footnote: I guess the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand is an example of a successful conspiracy. It should be noted, however, the young man who killed the Archduke was given a huge assist by happenstance and the stupidity of the people charged with protecting the Archduke.

boatbuilder said...

The ladder thing is sort of bizarre. Did he bring the ladder on the top of his car?

If he did carry it through the lot and set it up, maybe that was enough to cause the security people to think that he was there to repair the A/C--sort of an Ocean's 11 thing.

But was he really that cool/clever?

None of this makes much sense. Which sort of points to #3.5, at least until we find out what really is/was on that phone (which content is being created as I type this, I suppose).

Original Mike said...

"has any body spoken to Tom Cruise aka Ethan Hunt?
or to Jason Bourne about Treadstone Corporation?"


Are you kidding? Did you see that roof?
No way Ethan Hunt is getting on that baby.

Narayanan said...

Achilles said...
Bob Boyd said...
======
there are 2 different size ladders positioned at the buildings/structures against roofline of differing heights.

Achilles said...

Gusty Winds said...

Achilles said...

But we need to dig into Option 3 and Option 4 a little more carefully

Notice Althouse made #4 state "The Biden Regime" not "President Biden" himself. I think that's purposeful as nobody believes Biden is running the country. Even his loyal supporters.

Althouse uses words very carefully. #3 and #4 are almost the same option.


I don't even think Mayorkas or Harris or anyone officially officed in the white house had any part in this. I don't think Cheatle or whatever her name was had anything to do with this. She has functionary stooge DEI written all over her.

There were actually intelligent people who set up the security failures, the comms disorganization, and delivered the shooter with a minimal plan.

We have no way to find the person who delivered the shooter without a miracle. That is an easy slip.

The person ultimately responsible for SS security/comms conop was Cheatle but she probably counted on someone with actual skills to handle that. People like her let white males do the actual work for them all of the time and she is probably cursing that person. But they are already slipping away. It looks like she is going to take the blame and protect them and in compensation she gets to keep her pension and not go to jail forever.

The Counter Sniper team is the key point of exposure here. Either they delayed the shot or they were told to delay the shot. Their pictures and video are all over the place. The questions they have to answer are unavoidable.

Ralph L said...

He makes sense if you know people on the Autism spectrum.

Other students complained about his BO and hygiene, which sounds petty but it may be all they remember of him. I'm told that's not uncommon on the Spectrum.

Bob Boyd said...

He may have...walked a hundred meters on top of a building with a white roof instead of 30 meters

The building in question is not a hundred meters on any dimension. The shot he took was only about 130 meters. Realistic numbers would be he crossed an additional 20' of roof.

A 5-foot ladder would have been all that was necessary to access the roof, much easier to transport with a Hyundai Sonata, much easier to handle, and much less obtrusive.
This might be a picture of it.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1813595907042210115/photo/1

Achilles said...

I usually don't do this but those counter snipers had some really thin arms.

Body armor does have a tendency to make your arms look smaller than normal.

But if I am at a CONOP and I am checking out my team mates we judge. I am not looking for Arnold in my snipers.

But...

Smilin' Jack said...

They were watching the shooter through telescopic sights. He took at least three shots, hitting three onlookers in the crowd, before he hit Trump. They waited until they saw Trump flinch. Then, assuming the mission was accomplished, they took Crooks out. I’m going with 3.

Michael Fitzgerald said...

I'm frigging flabbergasted by everyone who just can't believe that there's a conspiracy to kill Trump. Get off your fainting couches ladies, there was a whole list circulating recently of the dozen or more criminal conspiracies the USA federal government pulled on Trump and USA citizens just within the last ten years. Trump's life has been threatened directly by numerous powerful Party members, Schumer, Pelosi, Biden, Waters, and many others. They are telling you!


Brace yourselves, because they're going to do it.

Megaera3 said...

Achilles: having spent some time in another thread trying to provide additional backing for your analysis, on THIS particular question with THIS particular wording it seemed to me that #3 was the best choice but only because 4 was worded exclusively. My choice would have been for 4 if only it had said in effect 3 AND 4.
I agree, with great sorrow for my country and countrymen, that the accumulated details we know right now (let alone what surfaces sooner or later) absolutely support 3, but no reason dictates that 3 and 4 can't be true. IOW, use the nonentity as a stalking horse/cover for a professional who never got to take his shot when Crooks panicked at the deputy's arrival and took his own shots in a hurry. As it was he almost, almost got the job done; he just didn't understand that win or lose, he was a dead man. And the person from option 4 exited stage left -- and he's still out there.

Bob Boyd said...

If the shooter bought a 5 foot ladder in advance as reported, he must have done some scouting in advance too...or been given the information by his new friends Mitt and Liz.

Achilles said...

Bob Boyd said...

He may have...walked a hundred meters on top of a building with a white roof instead of 30 meters

The building in question is not a hundred meters on any dimension. The shot he took was only about 130 meters. Realistic numbers would be he crossed an additional 20' of roof.

A 5-foot ladder would have been all that was necessary to access the roof, much easier to transport with a Hyundai Sonata, much easier to handle, and much less obtrusive.
This might be a picture of it.


Fair. I am counting the distance by parking spaces. I want to say 4 meters per parking space. So 30-40 meters on the roof using probably a 4' aluminum ladder is what is usually sold at home depot. He carried that across the parking lot in broad daylight.

But he did not successfully ninja his way in. He was spotted 30 minutes before the shooting by dozens of people. People were yelling about him for several minutes while he was on the roof.

He took the most obvious avenue of approach that is covered by a black side team in 100 out of 100 situations.

He occupied an obvious white side over watch position that is not just covered, but occupied 100 out of 100 times. There were CS teams actually inside that building ironically.

Jersey Fled said...

I’m going with no. 1 as a starting point because my belief in the stupidity and incompetence of our federal government is almost limitless.

But I’m ready to move further down the list as more information becomes available.

Achilles said...

Bob Boyd said...

They were worried because he'd been spending a lot of time with his "new friends".

I am curious if this will open up another point of exposure.

But unfortunately the shooters parents did not sound like healthy individuals and they are probably prone to suicide.

MadTownGuy said...

doctrev said...

"Michael Steele at MSNBC is saying Trump was struck by glass from the teleprompter>"

Were the teleprompters damaged or intact? Seems like the answer would either eliminate that theory, or lead to other facts that would make it impossible, as stated by Big Mike.

Bob Boyd said...

Judging the distance by the parking spaces is a great idea. I didn't think of that. I googled how wide they are, it said 8 to 9 feet, so that gives a pretty good scale.

I'm certainly not arguing with you that this whole thing stinks to high heaven.

Achilles said...

FullMoon said...

There are hunters among the commenters. How many, as a teenager, feel they could have pulled this off with a little bit of luck, and a lot of incompetence by SS?

I am going to post this from the POV of someone who snuck around on roofs using ladders to get on top of buildings and get over alleys and occupy compounds in order to capture/kill people a fair number of times. This would be from the shooter's POV.

You approach in cover if at all possible. You stay low and behind things.

At night you only get up on the roof if at all possible when you know it is clear and fairly close to the target and the moon is not out. We did the batman thing using ladders to cross alleys every now and then. It was not ideal or preferred.

During daylight ops you do not use the roof. For anything. You are just too exposed. Sometimes there are buildings with a half wall around the roof and you can use those. But almost never just a flat roof. If you have a two story building you use a second floor window for over watch. Most of the time you take turns moving as teams behind and below.

The shooters approach was pure stupidity. He walked through wide open areas in broad daylight. He had no cover on that roof. He was soft compromised 30 minutes ahead of the op. He was hard compromised several minutes before he took the shots.

This shooter should never have gotten anywhere near taking those shots. But he sure acted like he knew something.

Bob Boyd said...

Were the teleprompters damaged or intact?

You can see in photos both are intact.

Narayanan said...

The Counter Sniper team is the key point of exposure here. Either they delayed the shot or they were told to delay the shot. Their pictures and video are all over the place. The questions they have to answer are unavoidable
=================================================================
if you are talking about team we saw behind the podium you would be wrong.
according to Erik Prince on X the shot that got Crooks was from 480+ yards away.

Achilles said...

Edit above: He was hard compromised 20 minutes before the shots.

Megaera3 said...

Leland, Narayanan: As I understand Crooks' shooting background, the known event is not a shooting class, as such -- he showed up for high school rifle team tryouts and demonstrated at best irresponsible assholery so he wasn't selected for the team. Rifle team coaches tend to be conservative (and queasy) about open and obvious liabilities, and that's how the kid was reported to have presented. Taking the piss, I think the Brits call it.

That said, his father had a substantial number of guns and he and Dad did a lot of regular shooting together, plus Crooks had his own range membership. Not a tyro.

effinayright said...

I'm having a VERY HARD time believing the FBI and SS would hire a screwed-up 20 year old kid to assassinate Trump.

All you guys who keep pointing at movie scenarios, can you produce any where a kid who apparently never shot at ANYONE would be trusted to kill a former president?

All the experienced firearms users say it was an easy shot---yet the kid missed, three times!

DEI-induced, shocking full-frontal incompetence is the necessary and sufficient condition for this flusktercuck.





Mason G said...

"Not a tyro."

You'd never guess from the pictures the media are using. Looks more like a seventh grader than a 20 year-old.

effinayright said...

Stage 4 stupid Willain said:

"Hitler, for all his faults, never haunted the dressing rooms of high end department stores in order to rape women."

Neither did Trump. ONE woman claimed, with no evidence of time,date or place, that he sexually assaulted her, but her CIVIL case was based on sexual assault, not rape.

But please, please tell us how Trump was able to "haunt" women's dressing dressing rooms and repeatedly rape women in them. How's that work?

S N O R T

effinayright said...

D.D. Driver said...
I will operate under the reasonable assumption that the FBI groomed this kid and made sure he used the kind of gun they want to ban.
***********

Without a scintilla of evidence to back up your assertion, it is NOT "reasonable".

Cameron said...

The more information that comes out, the more I drift to 4. I mean we now find out that there was a sniper team in the building under the actual shooter. Given what we know about the government running operations such as the kidnapping of the governor, is it really beyond belief their own sniper team fired the shots and the kid was the patsy ? I would lean towards incompetence rather than misfeasance, but there comes a point where even incompetence becomes unbelievable.

Its pretty much fact now that Trumps secret service detail was deliberately weakened by having both FLOTUS and VPOTUS having events in the area that drew on SS resources and both were given priority over Trumps needs. And rather than have Trump's team take leave or be cycled off during the week, the whole team except the Field Agent in charge were on leave and the C team recruited from the dregs of the local field offices ?

Short staffing meant the advance team work wasn't done till the day before rather than a week before, and done by a single team instead of multiple teams ?

At what point does the incompetence just become unbelievable ?

effinayright said...

Narr, there was NO evidense of an external excplosion bringing down TWA 800.

Yeah, you can claim the FAA, the NTSB, the CIA and all the other spooks hid it, but you then wandere into Big Tinfoil territory.

Even though blowing a whistle on the Navy for an errant miussile test would net that person millions, NO ONE has ever come forward from the ships supposedly launching that missile.

effinayright said...

Hassayamper said...
There are hunters among the commenters. How many, as a teenager, feel they could have pulled this off with a little bit of luck, and a lot of incompetence by SS?

A 140 yard shot from a prone position is a chip shot. A free throw. First and ten on the 5 yard line.

I would expect to put it inside a 4" circle 10 times in a row, even with iron sights. Yes, I could have done this as a 20 year old.
*************

Yet, the kid MISSED!! Three times, firing wildly into the crowd behind Trump.

Sure, you can say Trump changed his head profile at the last second, but wouldn't a really adept shooter account for that?

It looks more like the kid had no trigger disipline and kept firing rapidly hoping for a lucky shot. Definitely not "hit Man" material.

As for him being groomed by the Feds: who on this Earth would trust a pimply, disturbed 20-year-old to keep his mouth shut?

Do you think the agents sang that old Beatles song to him:

"Listen, do you want to know a secret
Do you promise not to tell...

SNORT

LBJay said...

With all the changing stories and a few out right lies from the government on the Trump shooting, is it any wonder a myrid of conspiracy theories are being hatched.

But maybe that's what the government wants.... 🤔

Oso Negro said...

Response to Achilles, Pt 1.

Blogger Achilles said...
I am begging people to convince me I am wrong.

1. Someone handled that kid. He was clearly told where to go and when to be there.(FBI)


There is no direct evidence of this. We can infer that his marksmanship improved since high school. Presumably local news carried information pertaining to Donald Trump's rally. So not a big deal to learn.

He took the most obvious avenue of approach.

Well, to some degree, yes, he had to pass through some sort of checkpoint at some point in the day, but then he may have just wandered around until he notices an apparently unguarded roof.

He carried a 10 foot orange ladder through a parking lot in broad daylight with an AR 15 in his back pack to the side of a building less than 200 meters from the president. He climbed that ladder more than once. This ladder was placed less than 20 meters from the front door of a building that had dozens of LEOs and security in it.

Not clear a) that he brought his own ladder or b) if so, what size it was. Have heard he scrambled up AC unit, which seemed plausible. Please advise if there is a factual report on reportedly purchased ladder

He had no social media profile.

None that existed by the time his name came out, but does not prove there never was one. He may have deleted stuff or the Feds may have. In either case, the Feds are unlikely to have informed the public about it by now or possibly ever. (Las Vegas shooter, Nashville tranny)

They are using a middle school picture of a grown man.

Yes, but proves nothing. It's not like he is a black teenager killed by a white person, so there is no value to press narrative to infantilize him.

Now for the Secret Service:

2. They clearly sabotaged communications between local LEOs and the SS teams. LEO's called out the threat multiple times and that was never relayed to the Asset Protection team. They circulated a picture of the shooter. They had eyes on the shooter when he was on the roof for 3 minutes before he shot. Donald Trump should never have been on that stage. Someone siloed the comms and controlled everything from a command position to keep Trump on that stage, let the shooter shoot, then kill him to keep him from talking. This is probably 1-4 people in the SS team.


I think we can infer a few things about the Secret Service team. First, there must be one and only one decider in controlling team actions. That person has not been named. But someone on the team was the agent in charge. If a sinister entity wanted to alter the performance of a security team, that would be THE person to influence. But we have no clue who that person is at this point or what they have to say. Maybe they are simply incompetent at that role. But if you want a real conspiracy, the participation of that person alone is sufficient to create the opportunity for an assassin. A second thing we can infer is that they were merrily rolling down what we disaster afficionados call an "error chain". The cascade of events might have been recognized by team members, but we may infer that NO ONE, whether they recognized it or not acted forcefully to correct the situation. If they had, Trump would not have been on that stage to be shot at. Note - this is a valid point whether it was incompetence or malfeasance by the SS.

Oso Negro said...

Response to Achilles Pt 2

3. The security perimeter was so obviously flawed that there is no way it happens. Even an 80 IQ DEI retard will put a team on both roofs and a patrol in the parking lot/trees/water tower area covering black side. Period. End of Story. Probably 1-2 people in the SS team.

Reports are that it WAS identified by the advance team. There was apparently a plan to cover it, but it wasn't for "reasons". There is no way that the SS does not use checklists of some sort to verify all risks are addressed. In my industry, checklists are unfortunately "pencil whipped" on occasion. This might have happened here. Or perhaps the required work process for addressing risks was never completed. Again, this falls in the lap of whoever was the onsite team leader. And, I will note again, that it only takes ONE corrupt or incompetent team leader to facilitate the error chain.

The entire operation could have been managed by TWO sinister entities. The onsite team lead and a handler for the kid. We are unlikely to ever know if there was a handler. But look for information and possible future testimony from and about the team leader and their behavior that day.

Oso Negro said...

Response to Achilles Pt 3

I focused on the day of the incident and only to address your points. There are many more explanations for incompetence, if that was the sole cause, and if the SS as an organization was unprepared, that falls on the Director and her senior staff. But if it was actual malfeasance, a corrupt Team Leader could take all necessary actions to create the opportunity for the shooter. Team members would notice errors and probably did. These may or may not come out in a future investigation, but I would bet against "an agent of integrity" stepping forward. I am sorry to say that, but we waited in vain for an FBI agent of integrity to step up on their tricks against Trump. I am also not clear what level of approval is needed before a counter-sniper team pulls the trigger. I would have that they have somewhat liberal ROE. But perhaps not. Too many levels of approval would slow the process substantially.

Jim Gust said...

The correct answer is number 4, and that we will never have satisfactory proof.

Pauligon59 said...

option 1 seems most likely to me. The current Administration has proven itself incompetent in many things; leading me to think a tragedy of non malicious errors is most likely.

Lance said...

I'm seeing a lot of "sources say", "on condition of anonymity" and "so and so reportedly told investigators". I'm willing to believe the Bidens and DHS are capable of anything, but until we get hard sources I stick with #1.

Rosalyn C. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Rosalyn C. said...

Blogger effinayright said... "As for him being groomed by the Feds: who on this Earth would trust a pimply, disturbed 20-year-old to keep his mouth shut?"

A: Crook obviously did not tell anyone his plans, regardless if he was an asset or acting alone. If he had said, "I'm going to go and shoot Donald Trump" people would have thought he was crazy. He would have been arrested or institutionalized. If he said he was a secret agent being trained to kill Trump they would have definitely thought he was crazy. He wasn't that stupid. And he was never a big socializer and people who keep to themselves don't have a need to tell people what they are doing. And then after his assassination attempt he was immediately eliminated thanks to government agents, guaranteeing he would never tell anyone. So somehow after a day or weeks of screw ups and complete incompetence the Secret Service finally became operationally efficient and effective.

As far as why someone would pick a kid to do this: he looked unprofessional whereas a mature man would definitely raise suspicions. It would be assumed he was working for someone if he had exactly what the 20 year old had accomplished. Or a mature man would have to be certified mentally ill. But a person with serious mental health problems couldn't have pulled this off because this was not just running up and shooting someone getting into a car, etc. They would not have been able to handle this assignment. A 20 year old looks like an amateur, yet somehow was able to evade capture for an hour after he had been detected. He also was able to plan out the best place to shoot from and had constructed remotely detonated bombs without consulting anyone. He never had done anything like any of that before but somehow he worked all this out on his own and outwitted the US Secret Service. What's weird for me are the number of people who can't imagine he did all that even after it has happened. Somehow he did that with no training at all, succeeded in shooting and narrowly missed killing an ex-president, killing and injuring others, all by accident and due to the inconceivable incompetence of our security forces.

The problem I had with this poll is that it implied that Crook were acting on his own or under someone's direction from the Biden administration. That's not true or accurate. We know that there are employees of agencies who are permanent civil service employees, CIA, FBI, etc., and also there are people who cycle in and out of those agencies into private sector lobbies and industries and think tanks which are dependant on government contracts. DC people are networked and connected to use their influence to help themselves, their friends and their children. Donald Trump vowed to drain that swamp.

Senator Schumer pointed out in 2017 that Trump was foolish, even dumb, for taking on the intelligence agencies, part of that DC establishment. They would get back at him, Schumer warned, regardless of the fact that Trump was the president at that time, even though they were technically working under his administration. Exposing corruption on that level would be a bit much, wouldn't it? I doubt that will ever happen.

Rosalyn C. said...

Sorry for all the typos and editing errors.

chuck said...

I'm between one and two. Two need not be a conscious choice, it could easily be dilatory action due to animus.

Gospace said...

The Secret Service has all kinds of plans for almost any emergency situation. The most basic and most drilled: What do we do if the asset is shot at or even hit after being shot at?

Easy answer- cover the asset and transport to evacuation vehicle.

Apparently one of the female agents is heard asking " Where are we going? What are we doing?" Again- they drill on this. It's basic. Why would she ask that?

And one person I know speculates it's because (some of them) were told to be prepared for a deceased asset... and he wasn't deceased.

Yeah, nothing adds up. A comedy of errors only goes so far before you are forced to suspect that the errors aren't really errors...

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

The kid must’ve had help.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

I started out at 1, now I’m in between 2 & 3.

Oso Negro said...

Name the Secret Service agent who was in charge on the ground that day. On that name hinge your conspiracies.

Christopher B said...

Like a lot of other folks commenting here I'm at about a 1.7. I voted 2 since I'm closer to that than 1.

I would at least like to continue to believe there was no deliberate plan to relax security around Trump to facilitate an assassination attempt but I think there was a deliberate laxity. The political reasons have been stated frequently and you can add in the DEI focus (which often appears to become job #1 in any organization that commits to it) and quite possibly a more general 'going through the motions' attitude from the almost four decades since there's been an active attempt on a President or Presidential candidate. The entire culture of 'violence from the right' over nearly the last decade has probably had an impact on Secret Service intel gathering and analysis as well.

I certainly could be persuaded to ramp it up to 3 but I don't know if we'll ever get any evidence for that. I agree with many, though, that Crooks is the very model of the kind of patsy you would expect to be groomed to make an attempt, right down to the 'registered Republican' obfustication. Even if he didn't kill Trump (thank God he didn't) the results that we've seen from the almost-successful attempt were probably not what anyone would predict.

I also wouldn't put Crook receiving assistance and grooming from a foreign power outside the realm of possibility. Their just as capable of recognizing the security situation and using it to their advantage.

Christopher B said...

*I also wouldn't put Crooks receiving assistance and grooming from a foreign power outside the realm of possibility. Those organizations are just as capable of recognizing the security situation around Trump and using it to their advantage.*

Amadeus 48 said...

The rally was announced 10 days before. Not enough time for a big plot and long-term recruitment. Occam's razor says giant dose of incompetence and poor communication on site. I am staying with incompetence.

It starts at the top.

Narayanan said...

And one person I know speculates it's because (some of them) were told to be prepared for a deceased asset... and he wasn't deceased.
=================
something else to chew on

if Trump had not got up and shown his face to crowd what opportunity of showing up alive again?

smart man that oraange SOB

Robert Cook said...

"I will operate under the reasonable assumption that the FBI groomed this kid and made sure he used the kind of gun they want to ban."

Hahaha! "Reasonable," he says.

No wonder you guys think Trump was a great president and is a great man. You see the irrational as "reasonable." I didn't realize the problem of lead leaching into municipal water systems was prevalent in so many areas throughout our country.

Amadeus 48 said...

So, Robert Cook, you are going with extreme incompetence?

Rusty said...

"A 140 yard shot from a prone position is a chip shot. A free throw. First and ten on the 5 yard line."

A lot of people make this mistake. It's one thing to put holes in paper at 150 yards. Putting a hole in something living is a whole different scenario. Just ask anybody who has shot their first deer. Your not at the range where you can choose the conditions you shoot in.
The longest shot LHO had was 90 yards and it took him three trys.

Rusty said...

Cook
Said the guy who believes in socialism.

Curious George said...

If it is #4, you have to have incompetent security with a shit plan to best ensure that the plan succeeds. Few if any agents can be in on it or the secret get out. So #1 and #2 are a prerequisite.

"tim maguire said...
It seems nutty to me to go with anything other than 1. There were massive screw-ups in the secret service which they need to answer for, but the idea that they deliberately put their own agents at risk is absurd."

This is laughably stupid.

Curious George said...

"Rusty said...
"A 140 yard shot from a prone position is a chip shot. A free throw. First and ten on the 5 yard line."

A lot of people make this mistake. It's one thing to put holes in paper at 150 yards. Putting a hole in something living is a whole different scenario. Just ask anybody who has shot their first deer. Your not at the range where you can choose the conditions you shoot in.
The longest shot LHO had was 90 yards and it took him three trys."

But a moving target....25mph or so.

Amadeus 48 said...

So, Robert Cook, you go with extreme incompetence?

William said...

@effenayright: I did not claim that Trump was a Nazi rapist who lurked about the dressing rooms of high end department stores to rape women. I claimed that there are Democrats in high positions who think that way about Trump and that this thinking colors their efforts in providing security for him. There is malice that underlies their negligence. I was exaggerating for effect, but it's impossible to exaggerate the loathing that many Democrats feel for Trump. Well, for all Republicans, but there's more topspin with Trump. That loathing has real world consequences.

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