History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

I Wish That This Was Implausible

39 Comments

At the very least, it’s beyond incompetence, to the point at which it at least appears to be malicious.

[Wednesday-morning update]

It is now an article at The Federalist.

We need something like a Warren Commission to investigate this. Not sure who today’s equivalent of Earl Warren would be, though.

[Late-morning update]

I’m kind of where he is, given the current state of knowledge. Somewhere between 2 and 3.

39 thoughts on “I Wish That This Was Implausible”

  1. If you start with the premise that many of them (Adam Schiff, Joy Reid, Maddow, Chris Hayes, Pelosi, Schumer etc.) purport to believe about Donald J. Trump (Hitler, “devil”, racist, dictator, etc.) then it is possible that actions like what he describes become in their eyes “morally acceptable”. Deliberate (consciously or otherwise) engineered neglect resulting in a “tragic” outcome. It is all “for the best” you’ll see.

    1. Throw in they wanted to strip Trump of his protective detail going as fast as sponsoring legislation to do so. Add in the refusal to provide protection to RFK Jr. It sure seems they didn’t give a damn about the life of any would be competitors.

      Sean Davis leap isn’t that far.

      1. Same thing they did to SCOTUS when organizing protests at their homes. Then Kavanaugh was almost assassinated. They got lucky because his sister ratted him out.

  2. For now I am going to stick to my slightly amended version of “Hanlons razor”:

    “Never attribute to malice, or conspiracy, that which is adequately explained by stupidity and/or total incompetence.”

    1. “Never attribute to malice, or conspiracy, that which is adequately explained by stupidity and/or total incompetence.”

      Normally I would agree with you this being one of my favorite expressions (along with “the explanation requiring the fewest number of assumptions is usually the correct one” i.e. Occam’s razor). However in this case the mountain evidence that is not supportive of the merely incompetence explanation is rapidly exceeding my ability to buy that as the answer.

      1. Me too. Especially in light of a credible assassination threat from a terrorist nation, the massive and ever-growing, number of incompetent/inexplicable decisions is stretching credibility past the breaking point.

        I also note that government agencies usually try to hide the worst parts of the story when they screw up, and what we know so far mainly comes from official admissions, so my hunch is this mess is much worse than we currently know.

      2. Was going to post this here as well.

        I wouldn’t put it past some folks to want to get rid of Trump no matter what, I can’t believe that the SS and Biden’s team actively participated in this debacle.

  3. I’d have dismissed any “conspiracy” theories out of hand yesterday, due to their failing on the obvious point; they’d have required foreknowledge of the attack.

    But, today, several news outlets are reporting that Trump’s SS detail was alerted to an assassination threat from Iran.

    If true, that, to me, makes it plausible that the security was weakened intentionally by orders from the top. It’s one way to explain the manifest incompetence. There are, of course, other ways to explain it, but to me, the mounting evidence of multifaceted blundering, plus the known threat from Iran, do make a conspiracy not impossible.

    I think it’d be worthwhile to look into whether there was any meddling from DC with Trump’s security that day.

    1. “I’d have dismissed any “conspiracy” theories out of hand yesterday, due to their failing on the obvious point; they’d have required foreknowledge of the attack.”

      You wouldn’t necessarily need “foreknowledge of the attack”; deliberately engineered neglect would sooner or later have produced a situation like this. Better that way with no clear link between said decision(s) and the inevitable attack/incidence. When Benny Thompson proposed legislation to strip ex-presidents of their secret service protection if they are convicted of a felony:

      https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2024/04/21/trump-secret-service-protection-could-be-removed-under-rep-bennie-thompson-legislation/73406474007/

      There would be no specific connection between said action (if it became law) and any subsequent attack(s) on Trump; if a convicted/sentenced Trump later got stabbed in prison and died I am sure Benny and (Merchan) would offer their “sincere heartfelt condolences” to his family.

      1. Good points, Tim.

        And, IMHO, it’s especially telling that the reason they’d have a shot at getting away with it is we’ve come to expect incompetence from government.

        Still, the threat from Iran certainly raises the danger of attack, so it’d make these kind of actions even more tempting.

        I’m also in no way buying the SS director’s “sloped roof!” excuse as to why the sniper team was inside, rather than on top of, the building the shooter used. Looks to me like the sloped roofs the other sniper teams were on were about the same pitch (and even if not, they could have lain prone). And, it begs the question, just how would a sniper team inside the building be of much use (except maybe via a window, thus limited to a narrow and highly obstructed field of fire) and how, exactly, did no one inside the building or near it notice a guy with a rifle approaching the building and climbing up on top of their position?

    2. Telling that Iran wants to assassinate Trump and not Biden. One is a threat. The other a giant bag of money with nuclear weapons as a kicker

  4. The USSS head said there were no agents on that roof, because it was sloped.

    The agents that took the shot, were on a sloped roof.

    NEXT LIE?

  5. After he’s elected, Trump needs to put Vance to work combing the rot out of the entire federal workforce starting with top-down polygraph testing of the political and career management of every three-letter agency. Anyone who fails is instantly fired, their pensions terminated and they are placed on a lifetime “Do Not Hire” blacklist anent any form of government employment.

    1. Fire ’em all, whole departments, then rehire the ones you want to keep around. Much faster and more efficient.

      And polygraphs are pseudo-scientific 20th Century phrenology, used to justify subjective opinions of the operators.

  6. With sniper rifles, scopes, and ammunition available to a nation like Iran, if they wanted trump dead, he would be. they could be taking potshots of him at 1000 yards every time he is outside.

    70% First Hit Sniper Accuracy at 1,000 Yards! – GunsAmerica.com
    http://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/trackingpoint/

    As far as lax security, if trump was worried couldn’t he afford additional private security?

    We live in a country where any lunatic can access firearms so why are we surprised a lunatic took a shot at a public figure.

    48,830 people
    According to 2 sources
    How many people die from gun-related injuries in the U.S. each year? In 2021, the most recent year for which complete data is available, 48,830 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S., according to the CDC.
    What the data says about gu…
    pewresearch.org

    That equals 133 people per DAY are getting shot by firearms.. let crazies have guns and guess what?

    I am a firm believer in gun rights.. I am also in a firm believer (and i am willing to do this myself) we make people dance a little harder before they get access to a firearm and that mental well being should be apart of background checks. There is no reason that obtaining should be made extremely hard to get and maintaining that access. Also all the roadblocks to gun injury and death data by the firearms and ammunition lobbying.

    1. There are plenty of current roadblocks for preventing people from getting guns. Here’s a statistic for you to research:

      1 – How many gun buys are prevented each year by background checks? Many thousands.

      2 – Of those many thousands, how many are prosecuted? Single or low double digits.

      Now ask why people who are actually caught trying to illegally buy a gun are not charged? Because creating the anti gun laws is great for virtue signaling but actual enforcement costs money and might actually help solve the problem which would remove it as a political football and the left doesn’t want that.

      1. I propose that Mr. Trump announce that if elected, he will 1) pardon Hunter Biden and 2) ask Congress to repeal the laws under which Hunter Biden was convicted.

        If anything, it would be worth it to see how many heads explode (metaphorically speaking, metaphorically).

    2. How many of those gun-related deaths were suicides?
      How many were gangbangers or their victims?

      If you eliminate just a few US cities from those gun-related death statistics, the US ranks among the best in the world. Those cities have a few things in common. What might they be?

      Yes, at any given time, there are some people who want to get into the history books for committing an assassination. If they’re willing to die in the attempt, there are few security measures good enough to stop them.

      1. As illustrated by the shooter going through the effort to make his own explosives (according to the FBI)

    3. How many of those deaths are inner city gangbangers and drive-by shootings? They kill one a day or so in Chicago on the South Side, and injure 3-5 more…plus an innocent bystander or three. Most of those guns are not legally owned by the shooters, nor are they legally purchased.

      Take those away and your statistics drop by over 65%.

      Or are you just repeating the gun grabber twisted statistics and lies for fun?

    4. Most people murdering others are Democrat constituents and yet gun laws just target Democrat’s perceived political opponents, aka Jim Crow laws. By all means, lets take on gang violence in Chicago, Seattle, and other Democrat run cities. We have been calling for that for ages.

      Freedom of speech and voting cause a lot of damage to the country and yet we still let Progressives exercise those rights. Should we require mental evaluations of Progressives before allowing them to speak or vote? Would a party made up of majority mentally ill people like that? Outside of crime, gun violence is rare and yet you want to collectively punish the people who are the least likely to engage in it.

      You should educate yourself beyond the left wing talking points on guns, here is a primer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69-sRe_nPBU

  7. Frankly I have no doubt Trump drew the short straw on his security package. Seems fair to request swapping security teams with Biden.

  8. Biden’s Team Deliberately Kneecapped Trump’s Security To Allow An Assassination Attempt

    This is on the same level as the notion that it was all staged by the Trump campaign to make Trump look heroic.

    RFK, Jr. has been refused Secret Service protection. It doesn’t follow that Biden wants someone to kill him.

      1. No, that one is utter lunacy

        They both are. Do you really expect Trump to end his Secret Service protection because he suspects that they are abetting assassins like the article you linked claims?

    2. “RFK, Jr. has been refused Secret Service protection. It doesn’t follow that Biden wants someone to kill him.”

      Good point.

      To believe that the Biden administration’s actions with regard to presidential candidate security aren’t explainable by incompetence alone greatly underestimates the Biden administration’s capacity for incompetence.

    3. The Democrats refused SCOTUS security and then organized protests outside their homes. One of the Justices would have been assassinated if the potential assassin hate not been turned in by his sister.

      Did Democrats want a Justice killed? I don’t know but it is clear they wanted to intimidate them with violence.

  9. It doesn’t matter to me. The Secret Service failed. DHS also failed. The heads of the SS and DHS should resign. I have no confidence in either of them.

    If neither of them do so during the remainder of the Biden regime, Trump has the right to refuse SS protection and replace them with private security. Might be worth consideration. Also they should both be impeached. Not that that it will stand a chance of conviction but it would make for interesting hearings in an election year.

    If Trump wins, the day after his inauguration they should both be fired if they are still around. Not a big fan of Christopher Wray either…

    1. If Trump wins, the day ten minutes after his inauguration they should both be fired if they are still around.

    1. I’d really, really like to know a few things about the assassin; what kind of explosives did he have, and how were they obtained or made? And, likewise, what kind of detonators did he have, and how were they obtained or made? And if he made them, where?

      The SS seems to have said (Might have been the fBI, I don’t recall) they found no records of searches for instructions on how to make explosives, so that indicates to me that they explosives might have been made by him or others. If so, what kind? What’s the skill level needed? And, seeing as how the assassin was reported to be pretty knowledgeable about computers (that’s from former classmates) did he have one? If so, do the authorities have it? And, why do the authorities seem to think he only had his phone, and that they’d see his searches?

      I’ve yet to be convinced that that assassin was definitely working alone. That was true even before I heard about the Iranian plot. I think it’s *possible* that the assassin had help. (To be clear, I’m thinking foreign help here)

      I’ll Also opine that the car bomb, plus the fact he drove to the site and then placed his bicycle near the roof, look to me like he planned to at least try to escape. So, yep, that kinda fits a hired killer IMHO. I’m not saying I think he was, just that I think it’s possible. I’d definitely be looking long and hard for any foreign contacts (or trips) he may have had.

      Also, I’ll mention that is we accept that manifest and systemic incompetence is the sole reason for all the security failures that day, then we must perforce also accept that said incompetent agencies aren’t competent to investigate the assassin, either.

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