Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 on X - "Criminal. Cheatle admits USSS does not have radio comms recordings from July 13. Unbelievable"
Sean Davis on X - "I didn’t believe until right now that a specific stand down order was given by the Secret Service to leave the assassin alone. But now that we know Cheatle refused to record or archive the comms (or potentially even deleted them), I don’t think there’s any other conclusion to draw."
Collin Rugg on X - "JUST IN: Bodycam footage released by Senator Chuck Grassley from the Trump Pennsylvania rally on July 13th. The video was obtained from the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit. In the footage, the men were discussing how they had noticed Thomas Crooks earlier before the incident unfolded. "Beaver County sn*pers saw him and sent the pictures out. This is him.""
Secret Service director steps down after assassination attempt against ex-President Trump at rally - "Cheatle’s resignation comes a day after appeared before a congressional committee and was berated by hours by both Democrats and Republicans for the security failures. She called the attempt on Trump’s life the Secret Service’s “most significant operational failure” in decades and said she took full responsibility for the security lapses, but she angered lawmakers by failing to answer specific questions about the investigation... The 20-year-old shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was able to get within 135 meters (157 yards) of the stage where the former president was speaking when he opened fire. That’s despite a threat on Trump’s life from Iran leading to additional security for the former president in the days before the July 13 rally. Cheatle acknowledged Monday that the Secret Service was told about a suspicious person two to five times before the shooting at the rally. She also revealed that the roof from which Crooks opened fire had been identified as a potential vulnerability days before the rally. But she failed to answer many questions about what happened, including why there no agents stationed on the roof... “The assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump on July 13th is the most significant operational failure at the Secret Service in decades,” Cheatle told members of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee... Details continue to unfold about signs of trouble that day and what role both the Secret Service and local authorities played in security. The agency routinely relies on local law enforcement to secure the perimeter of events where people it is protecting appear. Former top Secret Service agents said the gunman should never have been allowed to gain access to the roof. Two days after the shooting, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said he supported Cheatle “100%.”... In an interview with ABC News two days after the shooting, Cheatle said she wasn’t resigning."
Lulu Cheng Meservey on X - "Imagine the kind of instincts it takes to pause amid the chaos, tell the Secret Service agents "wait, wait," and raise a fist to the crowd Whatever your politics, this is a once-in-a-generation political talent"
Meme - "Trump has more presence of mind after being shot in the head *Trump triumphant*
than Biden at his best. *Biden gesturing to empty stage*"
Meme - *Anime version of Trump triumphant after assassination attempt*
Meme - "TRUMP VS BULLET *fist in air, triumphant*
BIDEN VS STAIRS *stumbles*"
Meme - CNN: "JFK falls really, really hard at rally in Dallas" *John F Kennedy getting shot*
Melissa Chen | Facebook - "At this iconic moment that is memorialized on film, Trump is not at all aware of the actual status of the threat. He has no idea if the threat has actually been neutralized. He doesn’t even know where the shooter is. They are in an open-air venue surrounded by a morass of people. As far as he knows, the shooter is still out there and yet he did not scramble off stage. After laying low on the ground to regroup, he did not remain there, letting Secret Service officers give him cover. He insisted on standing up tall and pumping his fist in the air, exposing his head (the target) high above, defiant in the face of danger. I’m almost sure that in the jawbones of death, despite the fact that Secret Service had declared “shooter down,” you don’t actually know that you’re fully out of danger yet. Your eyes are watching intensely and taking in everything. Time slows down, but your ears process a lot less. And even if you did hear it, every fiber of your being is instructing you to believe the threat isn’t over. This is a basic survival program. Because it’s better to make a Type II error (false positive) than make a Type 1 error (false negative) and so you are predisposed to activate the fight or flight system far longer than the duration of the actual threat. In near-death experiences, you are on pure autopilot. There’s really no thinking involved. That’s instinct. To say that this photo is evidence of Trump as a Machiavellian showman scheming to strike a pose for optics is to reveal you have no clue about human psychology and human nature. His instinct to override the fear of death - and not just the appearance of the fear - is astounding and cannot be denied. This is a reflex, his System 1 was activated, not System 2 (in the Dan Kahneman sense). One can make a lot of inferences based on this about his natural abilities as a leader and decision-maker (even if you don’t like his politics) from this act alone. The symbolism of this is red meat for Americans for whom strength and courage are valorized above all the other virtues. Its juxtaposition with the images of an ailing opponent just made that contrast infinitely sharper. The aesthetics of this moment sums it up: we are getting four more years."
Meme - *Shinzo Abe keychain with hole in heart*
*John F Kennedy keychain with hole in head*
*Trump keychain with hole in ear*
Aishah Hasnie on X - "Source familiar with Secret Service briefing w/Senators tells me a timeline shared with them reveals SS was aware of a threat about 10 minutes before TRUMP walked on stage and still let him on stage."
Alberta premier calls on ‘progressive’ politicians to ‘dial down’ rhetoric after attack on Trump : r/alberta
Naturally, the left wingers were upset. One tack was whataboutism, as if "Fuck Trudeau" was a call for his assassination
Comment (elsewhere): "If you've spent the last 3 years in moral outrage over Jan 6th and the first words out of your mouth tonight are "too bad he wasn't a better shot" you really need to take a long, hard look in the mirror."
It's only a threat to democracy if it hurts the left wing agenda
Top Democratic strategist pushed reporters to consider 'staged' shooting - "The top political adviser to Democratic mega-donor Reid Hoffman suggested that the attack on Donald Trump could have been “staged,” even as Hoffman was criticized for joking before Saturday’s attack about Trump becoming a “martyr.” The adviser, Dmitri Mehlhorn, apologized for his remarks after Semafor published this story, and said his email laying out his claims was “drafted without consultation from team members or allies.” Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, whose net worth is reportedly $2.5 billion, joked at last week’s billionaire confab in Sun Valley that he wished he had made Trump “an actual martyr.”...
Mehlhorn isn’t alone. “Staged” was trending last night on X, indicating the baseless conspiracy is becoming widespread... We’re used to conspiracy theories festering in the bowels of the internet behind animated profile pictures, and to hearing crazy theories in random conversations. But these views also spread widely in elite circles, like the big money Silicon Valley wing of the Democratic Party that Mehlhorn represents. Educated Democrats like to sneer at the “disinformation” spread on the American right, but the same patterns of thinking seem to affect all parts of American politics."
Comment (elsewhere): "The most common refrain among leftists that I am reading is that the assassination attempt was clearly "staged" because of Trump's triumphant fist pump as they pulled him away. Yes, he paid a guy to shoot a bullet from a high calibre rifle centimeters from his skull from 350 meters away because he knew the photo would look super cool lol, and the "proof" is in his reaction. So there ya have it, folks. The contemporary left literally can not wrap their heads around the concept of bravery. It is so alien an idea to them, that they are legitimately baffled when they see it. Ballsiness is incomprehensible"
ErikDPrince on X - "Hopefully after the tragedy yesterday in Butler PA we can all recognize that unaccountable bloated bureaucracies continue to fail us as Americans. Donald J Trump is alive today solely due to a bad wind estimate by an evil would be assasin. As the graphics show the full value wind of just 5mph was enough to displace the unconfirmed but likely light 55 grain bullet two inches from DJT's intended forehead to his ear. DJT was not saved by USSS brilliance. The fact that USSS allowed a rifle armed shooter within 150yds to a preplanned event is either malice or massive incompetence. Clearly there was adequate uncontrolled dead space for a shooter to move into position and take multiple aimed shots. Watching the newsreel one can hear how proximate the shooter is by the very short time lapse between the crack of arriving bullet (supersonic) to the boom of muzzle blast (sonic). The law enforcement sniper (unclear if USSS) in newsreels was clearly overwhelmed as his face came off his rifle instead of doing his job to kill the shooter. Clearly they were watching the shooter but apparently have a no "first shot" policy. 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. In my old business of providing Diplomatic Security in two active war zones we were expected to execute the basics or we would be fired. Clearly USSS failed at the basics of a secure perimeter and once shots were fired their extraction was clumsy and left DJT highly exposed to follow on attacks. It looked like they had never drilled together because those responses should be effectively autonomic. Will there be accountability? That's not the Washington way. Unserious and unworthy people in positions of authority got us to this near disaster. Merit and execution must be the only deciding factors in hiring and leadership, not the social engineering priority of the day. Sadly nothing in Washington reflects that any longer. DJT is right to question the competence of those protecting him because yesterday they failed in almost every way. Nature abhors a vacuum and there are always other options. Most importantly, as Americans let's come together and run a proper valid election so we can get back to what matters a merit based society that judges on character and skill. Nothing else. (Images from a SEAL sniper instructor at Red Sky LLC)"
He is a white man so his opinion is invalid. We need a black transwoman to tell us how more DEI would make the Secret Service even more effective
The FBI Agent Who Wants Donald Trump Dead - "Joe Biden spoke today about unity, which is a joke in of itself. He said we should “let the FBI do their jobs” since the FBI is there “for you.” People posted numerous examples online as to why the FBI isn’t there for the people. It’s politicized. The best example is probably this one about FBI agent Jenna Howell. She wanted to see Donald Trump dead and doesn’t like gun owners... The runners-up might be these three gals on the presidential detail who looked like Mo, Larry, and Curly or the Three Amigos, clueless about what to do. Anything is acceptable to get the girl Secret Service in place."
Meme - Kyle Seraphin @KyleSeraphin: "Jenna Howell, an @FBI employee who works in the NICS firearms background check unit, posted her disappointment @realDonaldTrump survived an assassination attempt. Jenna has a Top Secret clearance. This is a typical #FBI support employee. And she hates gun owners. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System is a background check system in the United States created by the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993. The act was named for James Brady - who was wounded in an assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan. Ironic? Jenna is a typical “pro-Palestine,” rabid “LGBTQIA+ ally,” and hater of conservatives across the board. She is confrontational and insulting to veterans with total impunity. The @FBI culture encourages and empowers these low level Leftists."
Michael Yon: Callsign BIG HONEY 6 on X - "Secret Service Humiliated Note and video from intel guy: Absolute humiliation for this gaggle of female Secret Service Agents. Look at the disorder:
- Can’t holster weapons
- Gear falling to the ground
- Erratic, fearful movements
- No show of force, composure
DEI Secret Service make Presidents LESS Safe"
i/o on X - "A 2009 study found that the average adult male is physically stronger than 99.9% of adult females."
Costs and benefits of fat-free muscle mass in men: relationship to mating success, dietary requirements, and native immunity
0.1% of adult females are stronger than the average adult male. Therefore it is a generalisation and wrong to say that men are stronger than women
Meme - i/o @eyeslasho: "Female trainees in the Secret Service are held to lower physical standards than male trainees. All applicants to the Secret Service must pass a physical test that includes four elements: Pushups, sit-ups, chin-ups, and a 1.5 mile run. (The chart below refer to pushups. Males are on the left, and females are on the right.) Trainees receive points for their performance on each of those elements. Shockingly, a total of only 6 points is required to pass the four-element test. And even if you don't score 6 points, you can still be admitted upon "further review and recommendation." I'm a good deal older than 20-29 years of age, and don't consider myself to be in excellent physical condition, but even I can do more than 55 pushups (which is considered "excellent" for males in their 20s). Overall, I'm not impressed by what is physically required of those who enter the Secret Service."
Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlog: "If there's a woman doing a job like this, it 100 percent means that a more qualified male was passed over."
Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ on X - "The Secret Service has affirmative action programs for "Womens," "LGBT," "Indigenous Nations," and "Persons with Disabilities." Is the president safer when he is protected by a strong, nonbinary Latinx womxn?"
Joe Biden's campaign pulls adverts describing Donald Trump as a dictator following shooting at rally - "staff said they were “pausing all outbound communications”."
I'm flying to America to support Trump in this desperate hour - "It’s only a comment. It’s only a joke. It’s only a milkshake. So the Left squawk each time someone drenches me with a drink, or a so-called comedian suggests people should throw battery acid at me on the BBC. It’s just a joke. If you’re a politician, it’s part of the job description, right? Well, that is not true. The words deployed by the Left are, I believe, encouraging people. Rocks were thrown at me during the election campaign, and last night Donald Trump was shot... The “be-kind” brigade must now realise that their language has an impact. It has become commonplace among the media elite to view Trump as an authoritarian fascist – it is now so normal to hear that those of us on the Right, who care about our countries, are somehow authoritarian dictators. Take the last week – Biden has declared that Trump should be “in a bullseye” and that he is a “dictator”. It’s not just in the US. David Aaronovitch, the former Times columnist, once tweeted – then deleted – that if he were Biden he’d “have Trump murdered”. He has since claimed that it was “clearly satirical but deliberately misinterpreted”. Yet the rot that it is somehow acceptable to demonise and marginalise elected figures, even in jest, in such inflammatory terms has become our normal – these aren’t words spoken by lonely men in their mother’s basement but by people in serious jobs, working in national institutions. We don’t know the motives of the 20-year-old shooter. But we do know that as our political discourse becomes more febrile; and as the Left become more desperate to attack those of us who stand up for what we believe, the more violent it becomes. It shouldn’t be normal to throw cement, rocks or drinks at me. And yet, for many on the Left, the language of violence has become their last resort. And we’re now seeing the consequences"
Trump has now become an unstoppable force - "Today a grace period descends over politics in which even people who’ve labelled him Hitler and called for him to be removed must grit their teeth and say, “I-guess-he’s-kind-of-admirable.” Try awesome. Like Moby Dick or the Terminator, Trump is an unstoppable force. Think of all this man has gone through in eight years. He’s been been impeached (twice), accused of rape, arrested, condemned in court, labelled a traitor, survived Covid and now shot in the ear. Who can doubt he will win in November?! In the United States, every assassination attempt is a tragedy but every near-miss is a triumph – because Americans are schooled in what could’ve been. Lincoln. Kennedy. King... American patriotism is not defined by easy success but victory over adversity, the survival of the pioneer wagon against mighty odds. Remember: Rocky lost in the first movie, he didn’t win till the second. And in the fourth he single-handedly brought down the Soviet Union... Another time he said he’d like to take him behind the gym and, by implication, beat him up. Nancy Pelosi labelled the Trump machine “domestic enemies”; Hillary Clinton called them “deplorables.” Madonna imagined blowing up the White House. Kathy Griffin, a comedian of minimal talent, was photographed holding a mock-up of Trump’s severed head. And all this hate for what? Trump stands out as one of the better presidents of our lifetime, a man who created jobs and kept the peace, who let a significant number of unjustly imprisoned people free and got Israel and the Arabs talking again. After two terms of Trump and Biden, this is not a bad time to be an American – there’s no recession or war – yet the country seems determined to hate itself, to take offence, pick fights. It’s been said that the bullet that nicked Trump’s ear came within an inch of starting a civil war. Now Trump has it within his power to avert one, by telling his people to stand down, to use his convention to lower the temperature and reach across the aisle. This also has precedent. Ronald Reagan responded to his assassination attempt with reassuring humour. Harry Truman commuted the death sentence of the man who attacked him. George C Wallace, paralysed by Arthur Bremer’s gun in 1972, repented of his own racism, found God and wrote to Bremer asking if they might be friends. “I love you,” he said. “I hope we can get to know each other better.” It would be nice – highly unlikely but nice – if the weekend’s violence leads to its repudiation. Sadly, the historical record tilts the other way. Political violence follows like the ancient Furies, tit or tat, making unimaginable horrors feel inevitable. Words have consequences. I’ve long wondered, if people say Trump is that much of a threat to their way of life, if they really think he’s evil, why don’t they try to kill him? My first thought on Saturday night was: “so they finally did it.” They, to be clear, are on Left and Right (yes, the far-right does hate him) and are not some clandestine conspiracy of lizards or communists who meet every Thursday in the public library."
Weird. Why would the far right try to kill the person who will usher in fascism?
Trump shooting: UBC professor celebrates, then deletes social media - "A UBC professor is in hot water after posting a tweet that appeared to celebrate the assassination attempt of former U.S. president Donald Trump, and another which lamented its failure. “Damn, so close. Too bad,” wrote Karen Pinder, a professor at UBC’s medical school on X. “What a glorious day this could have been!” The tweet was published early Saturday. Pinder almost immediately deleted her account, but not before another user named @IR_AMauntie replied, “I reeeeeally wish the person had better aim.”... “This is why so much hate and violence occurs in British Columbia,” wrote Conservative party candidate Chris Sankey in reference to Pinder’s tweet."
Damn violation of academic freedom and chilling effect on freedom of speech!
Clearly she deleted her account because of harassment from the violent far right. Time to put conservatives in jail for causing violence
Meme - ""We need DEI in the Secret Service" *tall male agents protecting President, who is protected*
DEI in the Secret Service *mostly tall agents protecting President, with one shorter woman who leaves President exposed*"
Meme - Female Secret Service Agent 1: "I think there's a man on the roof. Let's wave to him."
Female Secret Service Agent 2: "Did you just assume his gender?"
Ken: "Barbie, are these agents qualified?"
Barbie: "They're better than qualified, they're diverse"
*Crying Ken on stretcher with gunshot wound to face*
Meme - "The "fuck your feelings" crowd sure is having a lot of feelings."
Someone shared this in the wake of the assassination attempt, again showing the left's poor comprehension skills. For one, it's “facts don’t care about your feelings”. Also, you don't make public policy based on feelings - it's not that you're not allowed to have feelings
Mehdi Hasan on X - "Someone just said on CNN that "both sides" need to tone down the rhetoric. Absurd. There is no Democratic/liberal equivalent to the nonstop incitement of violence from Trump, MTG, Gaetz, Gosar, Kari Lake, and others. The next few days of 'both sides' BS is going to kill me."
He's a terrorism supporter, so this kind of bad take is to be expected
Forbes pulls op-ed that said Trump may use shooting to gain Black voters - The Washington Post - "Forbes removed an opinion article Sunday that in its headline asked whether former president Donald Trump would consider using “surviving gunfire” to appeal to Black voters after an apparent assassination attempt. The piece by University of Southern California professor and self-described diversity, equity and inclusion expert Shaun Harper, who is Black, drew swift backlash online and a rebuke from the Forbes editorial union"
Will Surviving Gunfire Be Donald Trump’s Next Appeal To Black Voters?
Trump shooter flew drone over venue hours before attempted assassination, source says : r/technology - "More organized than the secret service lol. Crazy"
"Gent had a range finder at the gate to begin with, this triggered a security warning against him. But they couldn’t find him as he disappeared into the crowd."
"“Where’s the guy with the range finder?”
“I dunno, he’s gone, hey look the guy on the roof over there is flying a drone, these Trump fans eh?”"
"He was spotted again looking through the rangefinder at a counter-sniper team member, who was also looking right back at him with his rangefinder. They were looking right at each other through their rangefinders wtf"
End Wokeness on X - "SS Director Kimberly Cheatle wants 30% of agents to be female. Meanwhile, this is her security detail: *almost all white men*"
Benny Johnson on X - "LISTEN: Rep. Fallon recreated the scene from the Butler, PA rally showcasing how easy the Secret Service made it for the assassin:
"Do you know what the result was? "15 out of 16 kills shots and the one I missed would have hit the President's ear that's a 94% success rate!.. It's a miracle President Trump wasn't killed!"
"I believe your horrifying ineptitude and your lack of skilled leadership was a disgrace.. You should be fired immediately and go back to guarding Dorito's""
Secret Service Director Suggests Roof Used by Shooter Was Too Dangerous for Agents to Stand On
Poilievre doubles down in face of criticism over deceased Trump shooter statement : r/Canada_sub - "I’m happy he is dead too. r/canada will ban you for saying that."
"r/askto will ban you too. They banned me this morning for saying criminals are not punished strictly, and the catch and release system should be changed."
"So will the Ontario sub"
"These subs are definitely not run by adults. They get offended by the silliest of things. He gave me the reason that my comment was dehumanizing criminals. Calling criminals, the criminals, is dehumanizing for them. I got a permanent ban directly, lol It is hilariously sad."
"I once got a suspension for saying homeless instead of houseless. It's utterly fucking bizarre. Note; I've been fucking homeless. This softening of words does nothing to help anybody but the terminally online feel better with their useless activism."
"I got a warning for excessive abuse, hate and harassment because I called someone a "plank" lol. As in, a plank of wood. This person had been accusing me of a zillion different things (all made up) and called me homophobic. I said; 'I'm gay, you ___." HARASSMENT AND HATE. And if the subreddit Mods don't get you, Admin will. They follow divergent gays around because they cannot let the heretics know there are a lot of gays and lesbians who aren't following their dogma."
"Go to r/Law if you want to see a complete shit show. The whole sub is anti Trump and zero about law"
Poilievre doubles down in face of criticism over deceased Trump shooter statement : r/Canada_sub - "CBCs version of the event seems to be, "Trump and his supporters brought this on themselves". And worse is some people are upset that Trump wasn't murdered.. So, 100% Pierre Poilievre should stand his ground, that coward deserved what he got, and the world should not forget that violence such as this has no place in a western democracy."
"Well in their own terminology, that's victim blaming. But shouldn't CBC also come out as pro gun ownership now based on their support of this incident?"
