Morning, quite the day yesterday. Before I’ve even touched my phone I know it’s going to be almost impossible to find anything that isn’t about Trump, so we might as well lean in to it. For those you who have paid to subscribe there might be some of this stuff you’ve heard me say yesterday in the WhatsApp group.
Ok let’s just start with the obvious.
Ok I know there’s been lots of people giving their 10 pence worth and getting criticised for ‘armchair quarterbacking’ etc. Now sometimes that’s valid and sometimes it’s a way of trying to discourage criticism and gaslight you into thinking the very simple thing you see with your eyes is actually very complex and you just don’t understand. The most striking part about yesterday comes under the second category. Imagine it’s the 80’s and Disney are still making those films where by some quirk of fate a 13yr old ends up having to be recruited by Delta Force, it’d be called something like ‘Delta Kid’, but in this case it’s the Secret Service. They tell the kid that Donald Trump the ex and potential next President is coming to his town to give a speech and they need him to handle security for X reason. They give him a load of cash and tell him good luck. He’s a kid, he knows absolutely nothing about this task, but he does play Call Of Duty online with his mates. The most obvious thing he would do is ring his mates and get enough people together so that he had people on or restricting access to the rooftops surrounding the venue (there can’t be more than 10-15 rooftops in that immediate area and many overlook one another). He’d also buy himself at least one drone and cover the area from the air. Yesterday, the actual Secret Service didn’t do that. I find it incredibly hard to believe that they’re THAT incompetent. Now this morning the SS are saying that the rooftops were the responsibility of local law enforcement. That makes sense and is normal for the outer ring of security to be handled by locals, but it’s not their overall responsibility, they report to you, you’re going to have an liaison supervising them, they’re just extra manpower, a local face and local knowledge on a job you’re responsible for.
Note:I think either this photo or the video below is reversed/mirrored - or the circled area for the shooter is incorrect.
Lot’s of people pointing to the above and asking how did he carry a ladder and his rifle and put it up without being seen or who planted the ladder for him? The rifle question is valid, but though I’ve not seen it up close, it could just be a roof access ladder that’s attached to the building. BUT if it is, maybe if I’m a manpower strapped SS or local law enforcement, I either remove all roof access ladders that day, or temporarily restrict access to them/disable them. That’s obvious isn’t it? Manpower issues have been thrown up as one of the main issues that contributed to what happened. Ok let’s take that as fair and true, you don’t have enough eyes to see everywhere at once. The problem with that is there are multiple videos and witness accounts that talk of the public telling local police (some say SS also) that there was a guy on the roof, for at least 5 minutes prior to the shots. You’d think at a minimum someone would be on the radio (I don’t buy that that comms link doesn’t exist) to the inner cordon and counter sniper team to tell them they’ve had reports of a man on one of the overlooking rooftops.
LINK TO VIDEO - DEFO CLICK THIS ONE
Apparently a local Police Officer eventually climbed the ladder to go and get him, but the shooter turned and pointed his rifle at the Officer, so they retreated. Soon after the shooter started engaging Trump.
I think anything else that happened yesterday matters less than the rooftops.
So let’s talk about the CS team. We’re in much more speculative territory now, the roof stuff is obvious and solid, I’d say this not so much. I’ve shot things, they’ve been quite far away, but I’m not a sniper and I’ve not done anything I’d consider close enough to this job. I’ll defer to Hugh as he’s at least a sniper. As you can see in the tweet above, there’s been a lot of talk about the team having eyes on the shooter for a relatively long period of time in the circumstances and only firing once the shooter engaged Trump.
Watch the video and the body language/reaction of the guy closest to the camera - the guy next to him actually does similar. You’ll see he’s looking through his sights like he’s looking at/for something. He then abruptly looks away from the sight, looks over the site, readjusts and then (at least seems to with the video pulling away) looks back through his sites. That to me looks like one of the following:
Scanning, scanning, WTF was that? Shit that’s a guy on the roof closer than I’ve been scanning, readjust, aim.
I’ve had a call that there’s a guy on the roof (so perhaps that call did in fact happen from the public warning), shit there he is closer than I’ve been scanning, readjust, aim. - This and the 3rd option would point to the CS team assuming that the closest rooftops wouldn’t be somewhere a shooter could get, because obviously no one would be allowed on them.
I’ve had a call that there’s a guy on the roof/I’m just scanning the area further out, shit there’s a shot, pull away from sights, reorientate, see the shooter, readjust, aim.
This last one is the tin foil hat. I’m in on what’s about to happen, watching the shooter waiting for the shot, then I engage. Obviously the shocked body language and readjusting of the rifle count that one out.
There’s also some stuff knocking around that could be potential bullshit about the ROE. That they were watching the shooter but had to wait for permission to fire, they asked and were told not to without being engaged first. That seems so retarded and in the circumstances of the actual mission at hand so counterproductive that I’d be amazed if that’s true. The body language in the video above doesn’t back that up either.
We could go into the inner SS stuff, but I don’t think that’s why this happened, it’s just put a spotlight on some obvious deficiencies. Just look at the two videos below see what you think. (I’m sympathetic to the captions of the tweets in this case, but it’s not why I’ve used these posts, they’re just the first versions of the vids I could find)
The shooter seems to be your off the shelf reject loser that seemingly manages to commit everything like this or mass shootings. There’s a lot of people on the left pointing out that the guy was a registered Republican, whist failing to also point out that many Democrats in that state and others, re-registered as Republicans so they could vote to keep Trump from being selected to run. But he apparently donated to Biden, I don’t think any of that matters though really.
When you’re weighing up whether this was a deliberate attempt by those in power in the US to assassinate Trump as their last card to play to stop him from winning, but you discount that because tin foil hat, make yourself familiar with the term Stochastic Terrorism
So once you’ve digested that, consider that Trumps security detail is understaffed and has been under pressure to be removed entirely now he’s a convicted felon. Think again about everything that’s so obviously wrong with everything I’ve laid out above. Remember that the FBI and CIA have previous form with enabling gullible/radicalised people on US soil (aside from the fact that this is literally part of their job description overall). Then add to that the rhetoric coming from left wing media, Democrats and President Biden himself about Trump being a threat to democracy and to America itself. Saying he’s a wannabe dictator who won’t give up power if he gets it again and even comparing him to Hitler. You’ve very publicly done everything you can to stop him from being able to run again, including trying to put him in prison.
You do not have to select, train and directly enable an assassin, you just have to set the conditions where you make it statistically so likely that what you would like to occur, does. Perhaps you do give them a bit of a covert psychologically manipulative push, but you see my point.
That’ll do for today, hopefully we can talk about something else tomorrow!
UPDATE - Just found this vid - worth a watch 👇🏻
These scrolls are boss 👌