"... was also known to be very competent working with technical stuff and computers. But he was also kind of isolated and quiet. People say he did not have a large circle of friends and he had virtually no social media presence.... He was online playing video games. And also he did a lot of searches.... he searched famous politicians. He, in addition to President Trump, he searched Joe Biden, but he also searched Merrick Garland, the Attorney General and Christopher Wray, the FBI director. And he looked up the dates of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago along with dates of Trump rallies. And he also seems to have looked into the British royal family.... They have not found a manifesto and they didn't even find any sort of political paraphernalia in his room. So there's a sense, I think, among investigators that he was really interested in famous people more than pursuing any kind of a partisan path.... With the caveat that investigators might find some connection, he looks a lot like the alienated young men that have been responsible for school shootings and other mass shootings.... In many of these shootings we've learned to accept some level of ambiguity. It's less about finding one cut and dried motive than a set of circumstances in a person's life. And I think that's where we're headed on this one."
Says Glenn Thrush, interviewed on today's episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "How the Secret Service Failed to Protect Trump."
Thrush does have that caveat — he says it twice in the interview — that investigators may find something more, but you see how a lone gunman theory emerges: He was another one of those isolated, alienated young men. It wasn't about ordinary political partisanship. He was looking for famous people, looking for fame. We'll probably never really know and will need to accept some level of ambiguity... that's where we're headed on this one.
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He was online playing video games.
So tell us who he was messaging with on these gaming systems. They record everything. They are the number one way groomers make contact with children they seek to exploit, so maybe someone was grooming Crooks for another purpose. This short sentence is a huge key to unlocking the unanswered questions.
Many of us no longer trust government actors to tell the truth…and on a percentage basis, an untrustworthy percentage of the statements from government bolster narratives favoring Democrats. Like 100 percent…
He was another one of those isolated, alienated young men. It wasn't about ordinary political partisanship.
Taking these in reverse order:
He hated politicians of all stripes according to a classmate in video interviews, but he had an exceptional hatred for Trump. His expressions of hatred for Clinton and Trump extend at least back to the 2016 race when Crooks took a liking to Bernie. Funny, wasn't it another Bernie Bro who shot Republicans at a baseball game? Does any "news" person ever ask Bernie why he inspires such hatred for Republicans?
Crooks was less isolated than indicated here. As mentioned already video games are a group event online and include messaging within and outside actual games. Second, phone data shows that phones regularly in Crooks' home and place of work also visited "near FBI locations" in DC over the last year, according to the Heritage Foundation's journalists. And the gun range where Crooks practiced is also the training range for local, state and federal law enforcement. Assumptions about his isolation based on DNC media sources may not stand the test of time.
Oh brother. Name one male school shooter or mass shooter where we don't know the motivation? Alienated young men? We might never know? Baloney.
Back in high school, I knew several guys who fit Crooks' description. But they never went out and shot anyone. Crooks used a gun, and the Yooper used an ATV -- and then a gun.
The same FBI that played a key role in hatching and disseminating the Russia collusion hoax is diligently investigating the attempted assassination of Trump.
I’ll bet they get to the bottom of it!
The narrative must always point to something - anything - that can be useful to anybody but conservatives:
- He used an AR-15. Meat for anti-gunners
- He's an "isolated and lonely young men". Meat for the feminists
- He played video games. Meat for the anti-tech needs
- He was obsessed with famous people. Meat for academics in psychology departments
- It was the drugs that made her shoot up that Christian school...not trans-rage!
Etc etc etc. At no point can any acknowledgement conforming to Occam's Razor - that X person did Y because of hatred for Z motivated by nonstop coverage of W - be posited or thought of...
...unless of course he had taken a shot at Nancy Pelosi at which point of course it was all those things and more silly goose!
"He was another one of those isolated, alienated young men."
Are there no "isolated, alienated young women"? Old men? Old women? Why not?
100+ Movies about Isolation and Seclusion
This list includes movies where a key factor in the storyline is isolation and seclusion.
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Glenn thrush was another meetoo hack that escaped accountability
Crooks had no political motive, it's just random coincidence that he took shots at the guy the left has been vilifying as the greatest threat humanity has ever seen. It could have been anybody; Trump was just nearby.
His search history isn't just about Trump? Yeah, that's important because all our searches are done with the same intent and intensity.
The ratchet of probable causes always moves in one direction and one direction only, towards something that can vilify conservatives and conservative positions and absolve progressives and progressive positions. It's Stalinesque perfection.
I think a certain kind of disturbed mind enjoys having a secret, fooling people, especially someone who is really intelligent, maybe it's part of the pathology? wanting there to be confusion and mystery. You think you know me but you don't actually know anything, that kind of thing.
Did Crooks care if people knew? Why he did it I mean. Did he accept that there was a very high possibility he wouldn't survive to be able to tell anyone why he did it? Maybe he imagined some kind of big reveal after it was over. Or that he would not be caught at the scene and he didn't want to leave any evidence that might lead the police to him.
Man, Glenn Thrush (and the rest of the "Israel Lobby") has a desperation to sell the idea that we will never know what motivated the assassination of Donald Trump.
Mmhmm. Personally, I think there is credence to talk about a second shooter- a second Matthew.
"...investigators may find more."
Investigators employed by the Biden Administration are strongly motivated to find less.
Thrush is a NYT lifer. He's on double secret probation, ousted from the WH beat after me too accusations. He collaborates frequently with the Pope of TDS, Maggie Haberman. As the NYT guy now assigned to the DOJ beat, he is Merrick Garland's most reliable megaphone and stenographer.
All of this is ad hominem, of course. But if what he says is true, it's an accident.
I'm sure I read that he communicated regularly with others in his video game sessions. And, it is a known path for skirting around social media, to get to someone. On the other hand, there is so much that is coming out on this, and what I see that's most obvious is a huge gap in competency from the Secret Service.
But what lingers in my head is that this is not, historically, an incompetent division. It just seems so random, almost like it was on purpose, to leave that roof outside of the area of coverage by the secret service. Seems too pat that there was a local officer assigned to that roof who left because it was too hot outside. ?? Seems just impossible to believe that the shooter had a drone fly over of the area earlier in the day, was spotted an hour prior to the shooting with a range finder, again crawling up the building. And yet Trump was allowed to remain on stage, allowed to stand as a target.
Would a functioning Secret Service allow that? So...there's so much more at play than a scenario offered up by Glenn Thrush, which has the smell of something handed to him to offer up.
I wonder what the "big think" result of this will be. One possibility is the, oh so predictable, "males are awful, with their guns and violence." The problem is males. Another takes the opposite tack, "There is something wrong with the society that young males grow up in. They are treated poorly." Kind of a male equivalent of 1960s feminism.
It’s about who dangled the bait, not which fish bit.
He sounds a lot like a boy I went to high school with. I was one of two people who signed his yearbook.
He went on to get a PhD in Chemistry and had a successful career as a researcher for a Fortune 500 chemical company.
"So tell us who he was messaging with on these gaming systems."
He probably was wearing a mic and headphones to communicate in game, which to my knowledge is not recorded.
So, he was a far-left acolyte, a neo-National Socialist or was it a Democrazi? With abortive ideation indoctrinated in progressive sects, exercised with liberal license.
I think Crooks thought he would climb down from the roof and walk away unimpeded just as easily as he walked up to the building and climbed on top of it. Why did he think that? There had to be a reason. I believe somewhere on his phones and in his interactions on gaming or other sites the answer is available. If only the investigators were willing to look. Who was he talking to while on his phone that day? Has that info been released? I believe the chances he acted alone is close to zero. The SS words and actions since that day only confirms that feeling.
The truth has only one story. The constantly changing stories of SS and other LEO agencies tells me that something is being covered up in regards to July 13th.
Well, now you can see the wisdom of the Democrats' efforts to get rid of Science and Math in our government schools.
also searched his employers Merrick Garland, the Attorney General and Christopher Wray, the FBI director
fify!
He went on to get a PhD in Chemistry and had a successful career
The majority will overcome their ideological dysphoria and transition from a green state to adulthood. A minority, however, will be captured by a progressive cult, and be prone to entertain abortive ideation (e.g. Planned Presidenthood, self-abortion).
I know I'm in tin foil hat territory, but I just can't bring myself to believe that he was just some quirky loner who pulled this off by himself. This cascade of failures but the Secret Service seems too perfect to be anything but deliberate, but just barely plausible enough that intelligence agencies will be able to lie to us about it. It has been 50 years and they still haven't told us what happened to JFK, and I have no faith that the FBI will be any more forthcoming about this.
cfs said...
Crooks thought he would climb down from the roof and walk away unimpeded just as easily as he walked up to the building and climbed on top of it. Why did he think that?
WHY would he think he could climb UP unimpeded? Because he was TOLD?
“He probably was wearing a mic and headphones to communicate in game, which to my knowledge is not recorded”
Funny thing was that the top FBI and DOJ people involved in RussiaGate moved to a gaming channel after the Strzok/Page text messages from Summer and Fall of 2016 were made public. And then those comms were made public. They were very likely scooped up by the NSA and stored in their huge storage facility in UT.
I don't believe any of them at anytime. From newscasters to politicians to academics to government officials (Rand Paul excepted). If they told me 2+2=4 I wouldn't believe them. And it's not that they are right or wrong. That's beside the point. The point being is that I don't believe them and will find the truth elsewhere.
“I know I'm in tin foil hat territory, but I just can't bring myself to believe that he was just some quirky loner who pulled this off by himself. This cascade of failures but the Secret Service seems too perfect to be anything but deliberate, but just barely plausible enough that intelligence agencies will be able to lie to us about it. It has been 50 years and they still haven't told us what happened to JFK, and I have no faith that the FBI will be any more forthcoming about this.”
What’s wrong with tin foil hat territory? The same DOJ and FBI organizations who drove the RussiaGate “investigation) against Trump are still after him in the SDFL Special Counsel prosecution of him. It’s been at least eight years and maybe a month now, and only three of the perps ever paid any price for it, even after having the balls to electronically surveil Trump and his inner circle in the White House.
There have been legit crazy attackers, like the guy who shot Gabby Gifford's or Paul Pelosi's attackers. In those cars, though, the mental illness was obvious. We haven't seen any such signs from Crooks. Clearly, though, the investigation is going to conclude, "well, I guess we'll never know."
this is not, historically, an incompetent division.
There are stories of the Secret Service acting like knuckleheads back to the Obama administration. Going nuts while on advance work overseas, letting intruders jump over the White House fence, allowing gate-crashers into a state dinner.
The fact that no manifesto has been found argues strongly against Glenn Thrush. Consider the patterns seen in other assassinations and assassination attempts:
John Hickley, Jr. was obsessed with Jody Foster and Taxi Driver. He left volumes of love letters and poetry that clearly delineated his identification with the character Travis Bickle.
Mark David Chapman was obsessed with the character Holden Caulfield and sought to become the embodiment of his hero. Like Hinckley, he kept hundreds of pages describing his fantasy life.
Arthur Bremer kept what he called his Assassin's Diary. The opening words were, "It is my personal plan to assassinate by pistol either Richard Nixon or George Wallace. I intend to shoot one or the other while he attends a campaign rally for the Wisconsin Primary."
The motivation of Leon Czolgosz to murder William McKinley was clear enough by his own admission at the scene of the crime and at the scene of his execution. "I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good people – the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime," he said. Though Czolgosz wrote very little, he had acquired a considerable collection of anarchist literature.
Before Charles Guiteau killed James Garfield he wrote dozens of evidently delusional letters addressed to the President demanding a consulship in return for his largely imaginary exploits on Garfield's behalf.
And John Wilkes Boothe made no secret of his sympathies for the Confederacy and his antipathy toward Lincoln and his key associates.
Nor did Lee Harvey Oswald make any secret of his admiration of and devotion to Marxism-Leninism.
Of all the assassins, only James Earl Ray had no clear and direct motive to kill his specific victim. Ray was a racist, but not to the degree that he joined the KKK or collected racist literature. He kept a very low profile, wrote virtually nothing, and had few associations. Prior to murdering M.L. King, Ray was just another drifter with a record of larceny convictions and imprisonment. Ray eventually related a story involving his recruitment as an assassin by a mysterious figure he knew as Raoul. Though the tale he told was almost certainly a tissue of lies, the fact that he maintained a virtually undocumented existence jibes well with the profile of a killer for hire.
Gee Whiz, here we have a national crisis, a narrowly-averted national tragedy, and when we turn to the experts, we get the upraised palms and Gallic shrug. Maybe if the NSA and FBI are incapable of producing results when they're needed, maybe we should just dissolve them, and live with all the mysteries - since that's what we're getting anyway.
I'll go along with the observation that Crooks was intelligent. He really thought things through. I don't think he was directed to go to that particular building by anyone. He did reconnaissance of the area, including the use of a drone before he chose that venue. It's a low bar, but he was smarter than the agents tasked with protecting the candidate.....There are lots of people who hate Trump. They read of Crook's attempt and take heart. Trump will continue with his campaign, but with the chilling knowledge that the Secret Service agents aren't all that competent.
The day this happened, the local news channels tracked down a couple of kids for interviews. 'Sure, I knew him' 'Sure, he was a quiet strange kid, relentlessly bullied'. I was thinking, sure kid, and you look like just the type to do it and brag about it, to make the news.
Now, it turns out, he wasn't really bullied, but he was a loner. I'm of the school that believes the NSA's capabilities haven't so much grown, but metastasized, since 9/11. I think most people accept that if their privacy isn't routinely violated, it is at least accessible when so directed, to an alarming degree, and in the worst opaque extra-legal ways imaginable. They already know all about Crooks, and they don't care if you are aware, but uninformed.
Nothing here makes sense, yet. I can't see how someone can go from normal gamer to a political assassin. Killing someone in that way requires a lot of conditioning. Being politically aware and looking up politicians from both parties or other famous politicians is not enough. If he was looking for fame, he would be looking up famous assassins. They would be his model. Killing requires a mindset. It is not something we do casually. It is either a heated event or a "working up.": There is no sign of a "working up." It also requires some level of sophistication to plan. And then there are the bombs, which suggest a greater engagement with supporters, not just the candidate himself. This level of engagement has a trail. The lack of trail is what is suspicious.
Gaming is not enough. No one plans an assassination or does radicalization with voice chat during on-line games. Unless. Unless the person he talked to was radicalizing him. but their is a trail there too. Not a conversation trail, but one can easily find who his common gaming partners were. you usually do your voice chat while logged and grouped together in games.
The FBI has a track record of incitement. We need an external agency to investigate this.
Crooks has more of a school shooter profile rather than that of a political assassin.
Among a whole lot of Orwellian claims we've heard this year, the top of the list is the suggestion that Crooks was not "anti-Trump".
It's a low bar, but Crooks demonstrated more intelligence than the SS agents charged with protecting Trump. He is said to have used a drone to recon the area, and there are pictures of him walking around the rally area to pick out a spot. I don't think he had any kind of privileged knowledge of the site. He most likely did this on his own.....There are lots of people who hate Trump and hate him enough to take a shot. Now Trump as well as all the would-be assassins have the certain knowledge that his Secret Service protection is sub par. This will have a chilling effect on Trump and his campaign.
Howard: "Crooks has more of a school shooter profile rather than that of a political assassin."
Your "word" as a biden.......supporter?
I have seen a fair amount of discussion about Crooks' peer-group relationships ... what I haven't seen anywhere is a dissection of his family environment. Now, we do know some things, largely due to the media's Iron Rule of Identity Omission -- that is, "we will NEVER mention anything to do with a media-protected group/perp unless our staring omissions would reflect so badly on us that we are forced into the absolute minimum of disclosures." So, we can fairly adjudge that his parents (ID'd as counsellors and therapists, ie Very Caring People) are hardline Lefties, lifelong registered Democrats and significant lefty cause contributors. Because if they were anything else the media would have been on it like a pack of rabid hyenas and bellowing every detail of their lives by every means available. Why was he living with his grandparents and why did they kick him out? Dunno. Why was he living at home? Dunno. Why did his father report his absence to the FREAKING POLICE (subquestion: when your 20y0 leaves the house for a couple hours on a Saturday, why do you check your gun collection?) And then report him to law enforcement? There is a huge amount we're not being told, and the media has no interest in exploring even the most obvious questions. Obvious conclusion: he and his family are protected entities and the only disclosures about them will be those the media are absolutely FORCED to make.
"[Thomas Matthew Crooks] was a straight A student. He participated in class discussions. He truly excelled in science and math and...."
"... was also known to be very competent working with technical stuff and computers. But he was also kind of isolated and quiet. People say he did not have a large circle of friends..."
So basically, he was a bright boy who went through the state schooling system. But the "education system" inculcates that "you are a loser" into any student who is not middle of the road conformist or an athlete. Straight As means he was bullied, teachers incentivize such bully by grading on a curve and drawing attention to the A student boys.
He certainly didn't look like he was a high school athlete nor the student council type. The exact type the American schooling system has denigrated for over 50 years.
I'd be interested to know if he was taking any medications, and if so, what were they?
"Okay, that didn't work. Let's go with the WOC."
Who cares about Crooks - unless the rumors of overseas accounts play out. The real issue is whether the Secret Service failure was incompetence or deliberate. It's a tossup isn't it.
Am reading the new Greg Iles novel "Southern Man", which has a radio-host/budding politician-character who manipulates an angry white "left-behind" young small-town gun-nut guy to become a political assassin to manipulate media narrative, for express purpose to make that radio-host an immediate national hero-leader figure, as his grand presidential-bid political campaign tactic. Book set within context of racial strife in Mississippi, but could be set anywhere in US today. Plot is timely.
I’d like to know if he was a recreational drug user.
I think we are headed for decades or generations of conspiracy theory around this assassination attempt.
There's one thing many of the experienced shooters hav failed to call out (to my attention): A 20 year old kid is spotted by a police officer, points his gun at the officer, officer drops, then the kid spins around and within seconds at most takes a perfectly aimed headshot at Trump from a distance of ~140 yards. That's the official story I've heard now multiple times.
Experienced shooters (myself included) say: Hey, 140 yards with a rifle is not a difficult shot. Well, no, its not.
Now ask an expert marksman if a 140 yard headshot with iron sights is a difficult shot? Well yes, yes it is. In fact it's extremely hard.
Now ask an expert marksman if a 140 yard headshot where you have seconds to spin around from a different position, in mortal danger, put iron sights on target, and achieve a headshot is a difficult shot? They would say that is a practically impossible shot.
...
So a 20 year old kid did that, with snipers on him already, and then managed to get off ~5+ additional shots.
And then he was shot in what appears to be the side of the head - possibly the back of the head at an angle. Which raises the question of what sniper took him out, because if the snipers were facing him at all they would have most likely penetrated his face (since he was face on to Trump aiming a rifle). So to hit from the side or back makes no sense to me from the other platforms that had snipers, again to my knowledge.
....
There is simply a lot here that does not tie-in, does not make sense, and on top of that the director of the S.S. saying they deleted the recorded comms? That's NOT SOP - so they violated SOP?
What the actual fuck?
Shorter Thrush: No need to stop calling Trump "Hitler".
Credit for "cut and dried," and not "cut and dry," which I've been seeing far too much lately.
I don't know enough about ballistics, etc. to judge whether the hypothesis that the burst of shots that Crooks fired was cover (though he didn't know it) for the real killing shot that supposedly came from the water tower. That seems plausible to me, but I just don't have that kind of expertise to plot trajectories, etc.
However, as I posted in the thread about the head of the USSS resigning, the official story that is crystalizing right now has the same feel that the Russia hoax had: that it was put together in a kind of creative-writing workshop by people who think they know what "Republicans" think.
And I do have sufficient experience--way too much experience--with how creative-writing workshopping works and what it is likely to produce to recognize a product.
The Russia hoax was created when someone in the "writing workshop" in the Clinton campaign said "Republicans hate the Russkies, so let's say Trump's in bed with the Russkies." Except that Republicans don't hate Russians, they hate Communists, and so they didn't react with reflexive disgust but looked at the (ridiculous) evidence.
This story feels exactly the same: "Republicans think the government is incompetent, so let's blame government incompetence. They'll totally buy it." But again, these people don't know any actual Republicans, so they don't know that Republicans did not consider the front-line, weapon-carrying members of the Secret Service Protective Detail incompetent. In fact, they tended to think of them as elite.
There is a subtle falseness to the story, and it's the same kind of falseness as the Russia hoax. The problem with creative-writing workshopped stories is that all the surprising, quirky, weird, individual detail that is essential to good stories (and actually gives the impression of reality) has usually been bled out of workshopped stories because there are always a couple of less-talented writers who have nothing interesting to say and so will jump on some seemingly stray detail, odd plot-twist, or weird coincidence and say "that took me right out of the story," and so the writer will delete / avoid such things--even when they are drawn from their own experiences--and the resulting stories have a subtle blandness that most people only recognize unconsciously.
The official narrative of the assassination attempt has this same subtle blandness, which is another reason to believe that it was created by a committee rather than being a recounting of actual events.
I want to know the real story.
(the key to our learning the real story is the person who gave the order to leave that building outside the perimeter--that is the thread that needs to be pulled on, and I'm hopeful someone gives that name to Hawley so that he can unravel this latest fraud).
The leftwing MSM doesn't want to look too closely when the assassian (or would be assassian) shoots a populist, rightwinger, or Republican. We mustn't jump to conclusions. We mustn't say its a leftist or someone influenced by the MSM. That wouldn't be responsible.
Just a lone nut.
When the victim is a Democrat or Leftist, every stone is overturned to see if some connection to the Rightwing can be made.
There is nothing to solve here,The shooter is dead, the registered republican perp who took the shots aint telling nothing,like trump said after IOWA shootings,,you just got to move on.FBI and SECRET SERVICE(lost all J6 phone records,how unfortunate huh?) aint solving nothing. Just move on it was said , although didn't hear it at RNC rally?
Blogger RCOCEAN II said...
The leftwing MSM doesn't want to look too closely when the assassian (or would be assassian) shoots a populist, rightwinger, or Republican. We mustn't jump to conclusions. We mustn't say its a leftist or someone influenced by the MSM. That wouldn't be responsible.
Dopey Dau just confirmed your point.
@Tree Joe said, 10:59: "... So to hit from the side or back makes no sense to me from the other platforms that had snipers, again to my knowledge.."
From early on, I heard it was one of the long-range snipers stationed further out, that took out the sniper with one shot. It wasn't the team positioned on the rooftop near Trump - one of whom, in one of the crowd videos, I saw ducking down at first instead of immediately going into target acquisition & response, as his partner did. I hope he has been relieved.
Aggie:
I just found this: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/23/us/trump-shooting-gunman-snipers.html
Let's assume this is accurate. There was simply a massive blind spot and my guess is that one of the four sniper teams had to move out of position in some way to get line of sight on the shooter and take the shot, possibly at 1000 feet.
Credit to NYT on a good article there - good reporting and analysis overall.
Their commenters, on the otherhand, are dissapointing.
I remain of the opinion that the official story requires an incredible - or incredibly lucky - shot. I don't know about you all, but hitting a head size target with iron sights at 100 feet becomes hard to see clearly. At 200 feet becomes blurry. And at ~450 feet, as is expected here, I can't even understand. We're talking 1.5 football fields. And with barely time to move, get into position after being interrupted by local police, settle, breathe, and let it out?
No, I'm sorry, but I would expect a professional sniper to miss a shot like that in those conditions.
"He was another one of those isolated, alienated young men."
Seems to be the new go-to explanation even when there is no reason to think it's true. All the commentary about the would-be assassin suggests that this fellow was quiet, smart and nerdy. Probably also right to add 'nuts' to that list. But people -- even 'young men' -- who do crazy stuff are not all crazy in the same way, and may not even be crazy in any clinical sense.
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