Tag: Assassination

  • 2nd Trump Assassination Attempt: What We Know So Far

    2nd Trump Assassination Attempt: What We Know So Far

    As you know (or should know) there was a second assassination attempt of President Trump yesterday. I held off writing anything about it until I had some actual facts in hand. Welp, some of those facts are in hand and here’s what we know so far.

    The Setup

    Trump took an unscheduled day off from the campaign and went to Mar-A-Lago for the weekend. He decided to play a round of golf some time late Sunday morning.

    Shortly before 1400 yesterday, USSS agents on Trump’s detail noticed the barrel of a long gun poking through the fence surrounding the Trump gold course in Palm Beach. This happened at the 6th hole while Trump was approaching the green at the 5th. The agents exchanged shots with the shooter who escaped and drove off.

    A passerby noted the licence plate number and gave it to local law enforcement. A BOLO was issued and the vehicle was spotted and stopped in neighboring Martin County. The shooter was taken into custody and is in the Palm Beach County jail.

    A press conference was held by the Palm Beach County authorities.

    https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1835424438612906131

    The shooter used a scoped AK pattern rifle – It looks to this editor to be a Norinco 386 Sporter – and had hung bags with ceramic tiles around his hide. He also had a GoPro mounted to the fence.

    https://twitter.com/MosheReports/status/1835435620354666919

    The Shooter

    The shooter, who we will not be naming here, is a lefty, a convicted felon, and oddly, has been featured in several large media outlets for his support of Ukraine and Taiwan.

    His criminal history in North Carolina includes convictions between 2002 and 2010 of possession of weapons of mass destruction, carrying a concealed gun, hit and run, possession of stolen goods and resisting law enforcement, among other charges. The weapons of mass destruction charge stems from an incident where he barricaded himself inside United Roofing and then faced charges including having a “weapon of mass destruction” because they said he had a “fully automatic machine gun.” 

    He made 19 donations to ActBlue since 2019, including for individual 2020 Democratic presidential primary candidates including former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), Andrew Yang, Tom Steyer, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

    A Few odds and ends

    Big props to Martin Co. Sheriff William Snyder. He released the name of the shooter before the feds could intervene and get his socials scrubbed.


    It’s beginning to look like Florida law enforcement is going to be doing their own investigation into the assassination attempt and the shooter. Governor DeSantis made a statement to that effect last night.

    https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/1835476568212201744

    Now, I have a few questions about this whole thing. I’m sure there will be more later on, but lets start with these;

    • How did the shooter know Trump was going golfing?
    • Did he have inside information?
    • How did he get that close?
    • What motivated the shooter?

    Will we get the answers? I sure hope so, but I’m not holding my breath. We still don’t know squat about the previous assassin.

  • Choose one: Law enforcement was…

    Choose one: Law enforcement was…

    Choose one: Law enforcement at Trump shooting was either incompetent or complicit

    By: Ryan McMaken for Mises.org

    Within minutes of the July 13 attempted assassination of Donald Trump, observers were asking how the assassin managed to gain a clear shot of Donald Trump at the Butler Farm Show Grounds near Butler, Pennsylvania. Since then, the question remains unanswered, but many allegations about the shooting have emerged. For example, multiple sources plausibly contend that both local police and the Secret Service had spotted the armed shooter—on a nearby roof with a rangefinder and a gun—several minutes before the shooting occurred. Law enforcement officers and agents chose to do nothing. 

    Videos of the event show bystanders vocally warning both police and federal agents of the shooter’s presence. Again, law enforcement did nothing. The New York Post reports that a “counter sniper team” staffed by local law enforcement were actually inside the building below the shooter himself. Again, law enforcement officials couldn’t be bothered with controlling access to this roof which offered an ideal position for a potential assassin. 

    Meanwhile, a variety of former snipers and those with anti-sniper training—i.e., former Navy SEALS and Green Berets—noted repeatedly in both social media and mainstream media outlets that it would be impossible for any competent law enforcement agents to so blatantly botch security in this way. 

    New information continues to flow in but virtually all of it forces us to one of two conclusions: the police officers and federal agents at the Butler rally were either (1) disastrously incompetent or (2) complicit in the assassination attempt. 

    Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine the truth of the matter given how little information we have right now. Certainly, the Secret Service (USSS) will not be providing any honest assessment of the situation. Local police will close ranks to protect themselves and their jobs—as is standard practice. We can expect investigations to go on for years with law enforcement officials stonewalling Congress every step of the way. Moreover, FBI agents will likely be called into conduct much of the investigation, and we know how that will go. As Thomas Massie wrote a few hours after the shooting, the FBI is “The same bureau that investigated the Las Vegas shooting and the January 6th pipe bombs is now investigating the attempted assassination of Trump. …This is also the same bureau that raided Mar-a-Lago. … I’m sure they’ll get to the bottom of this soon.”

    Option 1: Law Enforcement Was Complicit in the Assassination Attempt

    Local law enforcement—namely, the Pennsylvania State Police—and the USSS partnered up to screen the area for weapons and for potential areas from which an assassin might operate. Clearly, neither of these agencies performed these tasks properly. The Secret Service’s failure is especially damning given that the agency’s primary mission—apart from investigating counterfeiters—is to protect their assigned subjects from assassination.

    So, was the USSS intentionally “forgetful” when it came to securing the area? Was the slowness of the USSS’s agents in confronting the shooter part of a conspiracy to “allow” the assassin access to Trump? At this point, one can only guess, but we do know there are many reasons to suspect the idea. After all, the Secret Service is your typical federal agency, and its members are your typical federal bureaucrats who do quite well for themselves under the status quo. They have every reason to oppose any political figure who is seen—rightly or wrongly—as one who threatens the current establishment in any way. After all, it became abundantly clear during the Trump years that FBI agents had no qualms about illegally spying on Trump. FBI agents also cooked up the narrative of “Russian collusion” in an effort to cripple the Trump administration. 

    It’s easy to see why federal agents would be opposed to a Trump presidency. Federal agents enjoy large salaries, high levels of prestige, and the promise of a long, cushy, well-funded retirement—all paid for by taxpayers. There’s good reason for USSS agents to actively oppose any candidate seen as a significant threat to the status quo. Moreover, federal agents handling presidential security are part of the Washington, DC culture. They are, to use modern parlance, “swamp creatures.” 

    Yet, one might question the “complicity” charge on the grounds that it would be exceptionally difficult to keep an assassination conspiracy quiet among any sizable number of law enforcement agents. That’s true enough, but in this case, it would only be necessary for those in positions of leadership to be part of the conspiracy. 

    The conspirators would only need to ensure complacency and a reluctance to speak up among the rank and file.

    This is not hard to achieve. The conspirators—assuming they are in positions of leadership—could simply ensure that the event is understaffed or staffed with less-experienced agents who rely on more direction from above. Then, the conspirators need only issue orders to stand down at critical times, and to hem and haw long enough to allow “the plan” to play out. 

    Moreover, experience has shown that law enforcement officials are not ones to speak up against the powers that be. Federal agents in this case would be shielded from prosecution by a friendly Justice Department. Meanwhile, local police are largely bought and paid for by the Department of Homeland Security which funnels billions to state and municipal police departments. 

    We should not expert much at all in the way of whistleblowing or critical thinking from any state law enforcement personnel or from any lower-ranking USSS agents. Recent years have made it abundantly clear that state and local police are far more concerned with keeping their jobs and pensions than with opposing even the most blatantly immoral or unconstitutional assaults on the people. 

    After all, how many police officers resigned in protest during the covid lockdowns? During that period, police were tasked with closing churches, arresting churchgoers, and closing down private businesses for the “offense” or peacefully assembling or engaging in commerce. Police arrested mothers who visited playgrounds closed for fear of a virus. Police beat up ordinary people who didn’t wear masks. 

    Through it all, we heard only a tiny number of police voices protesting these assaults on the Bill of Rights. It is apparent that most police officers were willing to carry out virtually any order from their government masters. 

    So, it would be pure naivete to think that any local law enforcement officers would oppose any of the USSS’s questionable orders that might have come down on July 13. In other words, USSS officials were free to do whatever they wanted. 

    Option 2: Law Enforcement Officers Were Incompetent 

    The other option is that the USSS and local police really are just incompetent. Laziness, of course, is a type of incompetence, and it is entirely possible that the unguarded roofs, the lack of concern about the assassin’s rangefinder, and the general slowness of response were all motivated by mere laziness. Of course, it is also possible that law enforcement was not lazy so much as it was simply too ignorant to even know the correct way to control access to the president during the rally. 

    The “incompetence” narrative rose to near-comical levels on Tuesday when USSS director Kimberly Cheatle claimed that the rooftop on which the shooter perched was left unguarded because the roof was too dangerous for agents. As Cheatle put it, “That building in particular has a sloped roof … so, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof. And so, the decision was made to secure the building, from inside.” (According to the New York Post, it was local police who were responsible for securing the building.)

    Clearly, the building was not secured from “inside” or anywhere else, and it is laughable that the USSS would think this explanation about a dangerously sloped roof would deflect criticism of the agency. 

    But, what if Cheatle is telling the truth? What if the decision to leave the roof unguarded was simply a byproduct of incompetence on the part of the USSS and local police? This would certainly jibe with the dogma of “officer safety” that is so prevalent among law enforcement agencies nowadays. After all, we saw this philosophy at work at the school shootings at Uvalde and Parkland. In both cases, police elected to run away and hide rather than confront a shooter who was slaughtering children. Police looked to their own safety first. 

    It’s not beyond belief that USSS brass might decide that it would be overkill to put personnel on every roof, especially when it’s hot and uncomfortable and potentially dangerous up there. It wouldn’t be the first time law enforcement officials substituted safety and ease—for themselves—in place of public service. 

    “Mistakes Were Made”

    For obvious reasons, the USSS itself has decided that the “incompetence” narrative is preferable to the “complicity” narrative. We can expect law enforcement officials to die on the “incompetence” sword since to admit complicity would rock the foundations of the regime’s legitimacy. Thus, claims about the “slopey roof,” although humiliating, will be offered as evidence that the USSS and local police “did their best” but failed. In other words, we will hear that “mistakes were made,” but it won’t happen again. 

    This is complicated by the fact that law enforcement officials can’t even claim that no one was seriously hurt in the assassination attempt. Spectator Corey Comperatore was killed, and two others were critically injured. Federal and Pennsylvania law enforcement officers are to blame for allowing that to happen. 

    But don’t expect any heads to roll. Indeed, if this story follows the usual narrative that accompanies federal screw-ups, we can expect higher budgets for the agencies that fell down on the job. After 9/11, for example, the CIA and FBI, who utterly failed in their jobs that day, received more taxpayer money as a result. No one lost their jobs, and there was no accountability. With the possible exception of Cheatle herself, it’s extremely unlikely that anyone at the USSS or the Pennsylvania state police will face so much as an official reprimand. 

    Image source: US Secret Service via Wikimedia. 

  • The Trump Assassination Attempt: What We Know So Far

    The Trump Assassination Attempt: What We Know So Far

    As you’re all aware, there was an attempted assassination of former President Trump yesterday at a campaign rally in Butler PA. Here’s what we know so far.

    https://twitter.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1812251296327676270

    The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, shot Trump from the roof of a building 130 yards from the podium. Trump was hit in the ear, Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old firefighter was killed and two others injured, though their identities have not been released at the time of this writing. Secret Service overwatch snipers shot and killed Crooks almost immediately after he opened fire.

    Crooks resided in Bethel Park, a suburb of Pittsburgh in Allegheny County, according to public records. Bethel Park borders Butler County, where Trump’s rally took place. Crooks had no identification on him at the time of the shooting, Kevin Rojek, special agent in charge of the FBI Pittsburgh office, said during a news conference early Sunday morning.

    There is reporting that the FBI found explosives in the shooters vehicle. The FBI also searched the shooters home.

    https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1812509775365865497

    In a statement posted on Truth Social Saturday night, Trump said he “was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear. I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening.”

    https://twitter.com/MELANIATRUMP/status/1812492817068945437

    Those are the facts as we know them. Now on to a bit of analysis. As many of you know, this editor was involved in a fair bit of dignitary protection, both in the military and as a security contractor and I have some questions.

    Let’s start here:

    The shooter was positioned on a rooftop about 130 yards from the podium. Had I been in charge of the security detail, a raised vantage point like that roof would have had coverage, whether it was local law enforcement or Secret Service. It should have been within the security perimeter.

    While we don’t know much about the shooter, we do know he did not have any military training and that’s a Good Thing. If he had, we’d be having a very different conversation right now. He attempted, and barely missed, a head shot. Had he shot center-mass Trump would likely be dead right now.

    Then there’s this:

    https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/1812273630702952543

    I would take that with a grain of salt, mainly because I haven’t seen any independent verification. However, given the state that guy is in, I tend to look at it in a favorable light. If, and it’s a big if, what he says is true, there are going to be major repercussions for any and all agencies involved.

    I’m seeing calls for ‘investigations’ from all the major R players today. That isn’t good enough. For the first time since 1981, there has been an assassination attempt on a President. A congressional inquiry where some mid-level SS staffer gets thrown under the bus isn’t gonna cut it this time. If what I’m seeing about Mayorkas personally denying additional Secret Service assets for Trump are true, he needs to be put in prison.

  • BREAKING: Man Arrested Outside Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s House in Apparent Assassination Attempt

    BREAKING: Man Arrested Outside Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s House in Apparent Assassination Attempt

    Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool

    Bonchie | RedState

    A man has been arrested outside Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home. He had a gun and told police he was there to kill Kavanaugh.

    That’s according to Karol Markowicz, who broke the story, which is now being reported by other outlets, including The Washington Post.

    Other information suggests that the man was picked up before actually getting to Kavanaugh’s house, though details are sketchy. What we do know is that he’s from California, and what we can speculate with essentially 100 percent accuracy is that this has to do with Kavanaugh’s leanings on the court.

    In fact, those familiar with the investigation are saying the would-be assassin specifically cited the leaked draft overturning Roe v. Wade as his motivation.

    https://twitter.com/BecketAdams/status/1534541126534893568?s=20&t=tU-RORWSqPgsqqIJ_vcdJQ

    The man had a weapon but also burglary tools, which suggests this wasn’t just some crazy person walking around running his mouth. Apparently, he had a plan to enter Kavanaugh’s home to kill him, and law enforcement intervened before the plot was carried out.

    As a slight aside, this is why you enforce the laws regarding protesting outside the homes of judges. Thus far, the DOJ has refused to do so. That leads to things like this.

    Original Here

    This is a developing story, we will keep you updated as more information becomes available.

  • Iran Assassinates…

    Iran Assassinates…

    Iran Assassinates Mossad Chief in Downtown Tel Aviv

    It is being reported that Fahmi Hinavi, operational chief of Israel’s Mossad, was killed by an Iranian team inside Tel Aviv on Thursday night. 

    Reports have confirmed that Hinawi was hit in a hail or bullets and that there may have been other attacks as well.  Confirmation has been provided by Arab News, Sputnik News in Russia and the Iranian media.

    https://twitter.com/TVI_PK/status/1335807045015130112?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1335807045015130112%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.veteranstoday.com%2F2020%2F12%2F07%2Fbreaking-exclusive-iran-assassinates-mossad-chief-in-downtown-tel-aviv%2F

  • Another One Bites The Dust

    Another One Bites The Dust

    It’s beginning to look like the last quarter of 2020 is not a good time to be a senior member of the Islamo-facist regime in Tehran.

    Muslim Shahdan, a senior leader in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps got taken out in a drone strike near the Iraqi/Syrian Border late Saturday/early Sunday. This comes days after the killing of top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

    Shandan was traveling in a convoy delivering weapons and munitions into Syria when his vehicle was targeted by a drone.

    “Iraqi security sources told Saudi-based al-Arabiya News that a drone killed Muslim Shahdan, a senior commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, in a targeted strike on his car,” The Times of Israel reported. “The reports did not say who was behind the strike”. 

    I mentioned here that I thought some scores would be settled before the Biden camp takes over. Looks like I was correct. There will be more, and I expect some Hezbollah and Hamas heads to roll.