Hanlon’s Ginsu Could Not Cut Through This
I usually rely on Hanlon’s Razor, the proposition that one should never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. And I am usually pretty generous in determining what is plausibly deemed incompetent. But as the facts pile up in the attempted Trump assassination–the failure of which was only plausibly due to the hand of God, and I do not say that lightly or blasphemously, but quite seriously–it is becoming harder and harder to conclude that what transpired on Saturday was within even the most generous possible drawing of the bounds of incompetence. Which leaves malice–and by whom and for what purpose.
Matthew Crooks was about as stealthy as a funny car out of the starting gate or an F-15 taking off. Everybody saw him doing obviously suspicious and threatening things, and being in places where he obviously should not have been and where he obviously posed a threat to Trump. Crucially, the Secret Service and local law enforcement saw him and did nothing until it was too late. Nothing. They all make the Uvalde, TX police look good by comparison.
All of that is incomprehensible. But what makes me conclude that Hanlon’s Razor doesn’t cut it is the series of bullshit excuses emanating from the Secret Service. Each is worse than the next. Some of the most outrageous ones:
- No sniper team was posted on the roof from which Crooks fired because it was too steeply sloped, which would have endangered a countersniper team’s safety. Which it wasn’t. Indeed, it was sloped less than the roof on which the countersniper team that eventually took him out is. And it obviously wasn’t too steeply sloped for Crooks to use as a shooting position. And is Cheatle the head of the Secret Service, or its OSHA manager?
- Trump’s security detail was staffed the way it was because he’s only the former president, and former presidents get less protection. For the love of God, this isn’t G.W. Bush, about whom no one GAF anymore, that we’re talking about here. We are talking about a man who is not just a former president, but a current candidate, and in the most febrile political environment since the 1850s. And one who has been labeled an existential threat, and who has been the subject of both assassination porn and assassination fears for years. Killing GWB or Obama would be horrible–but that would be nothing compared to what would occur to this country if Trump is killed.
- And here’s the best one, from the Secret Service’s loathsome official spokesfuck, Angelo Cangelosi (who is only slightly less loathsome than his boss, Kimberly Cheatle): “With counter snipers, you’re usually so far away, it’s not usually clear whether an individual is an imminent threat. It’s harder to discern. Once they discern whether that person is a threat to life or serious bodily injury, they can take the shot.”
- RUFKM? The countersnipers have optics that would have allowed them to count the hairs in Crooks’ nose from that distance. And for crissakes, U.S. military snipers routinely identify, evaluate, and take out threats from 1000 yards plus, not 100 yards plus. I mean seriously, you fuckwit, watch American Sniper. Or Blackhawk Down. Or watch the old History Channel show on snipers. Read about Carlos Hathcock or Chuck Mawhinney. Read about Marine Scout Snipers and their training. These men are trained to discern threats, at long distance and in seconds, and act without hesitation based on what they observe and what they know.
It’s hard to know whether these utterly bullshit excuses that would embarrass a toddler caught being naughty demonstrate their lack of intelligence or their opinion of ours. But the fact that they are unwilling or unable to come up with remotely reasonable explanations leads me to conclude that they have something to hide, and that something is far more sinister than mere incompetence.
The latest regime story makes things worse, not better. You see, Trump’s security had been beefed up because the US had detected an Iranian threat to assassinate Trump.
You people actually think that makes you look better? Mother of God, if that charlie foxtrot was beefed up security, how shambolic was it before?
I also note that when Iraq launched an assassination plot against G. H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton-yes, Bill Clinton-launched missiles at Baghdad. Any missiles headed to Tehran due to this alleged threat? Of course not.
Yes, I agree with el gato malo (whom you should all read regularly) that communications seams between the Secret Service and local LE with security responsibilities over different parts of the venue are a potential point of failure. But the point is that this is a very well known known (to steal from Rumsfeld, who stole it from psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham) and should therefore be a priority in planning. It’s such an obvious potential problem that it should never be an actual problem.
But the scope of the failure and the utterly farcical excuses offered up for it are such that I don’t believe Hanlon’s Ginsu could cut through it. Which again leaves us with malice.
If Trump had not turned his head this nation would now be in the grips of utter chaos at the very least and likely in outright rebellion. (Which, of course, the regime and its media lackeys would blame on the rebels, not on the regime’s failures or malicious acts that caused it). Trump–and we–literally dodged the most lethal bullet in American history. And yes, that counts those that did to Lincoln and JFK what Matthew Crooks intended to do to Donald Trump.
Chalk another one up for Bismarck: “God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.” If not, I doubt that there would be enough ruin in America to survive it (to paraphrase Adam Smith).
Americans deserve answers. Americans deserve scalps. And we are already 72 hours past the time we should have had them.
Who is going to raise hell to get them?
At least, the deep state learned from Dallas, shot the patsy quickly. Then, there’s no contradictions to your story. Pity for them, the locals aren’t playing the game.
Comment by The Pilot — July 17, 2024 @ 3:10 pm
@The Pilot. Yup. Dead men tell no tales.
Which should make the locals afraid. Very afraid.
Comment by cpirrong — July 17, 2024 @ 4:16 pm
Suppose it is incompetence. Hand offs and poor communications between multiple security agencies.
As Gato Malo explains, it’s plausible.
But it’s also a way of achieving deniability. Just a mistake…
I read somewhere that there are 40 (!) security bodies engaged to monitor the Milwaukee convention. That looks to me like a deliberate dilution of responsibility when a bomb goes off underneath the stage.
Moral of the story: don’t trust your enemies to keep you safe.
Comment by philip — July 17, 2024 @ 6:14 pm
Maybe the excuses are so lame because they didn’t plan for failure, and so must invent them on the spot.
The first shot was on-target. Is it known for a fact that it came from Crooks’ rifle? The other six or so were a wild spray.
The trajectory of the first bullet is known from a condensation trail visible in one of the pictures. Does it track back to the roof, or to somewhere else?
For the SS to become grotesquely incompetent coincidentally with an assassination attempt is all too convenient. To whom was Crooks talking in the days and weeks before July 14?
Given malignity, there’s no chance Crooks would have been allowed to survive, no matter promises made. Facilitating the ‘lone shooter’ postmortem deflection.
With that in mind, the hesitating police sniper needs to be questioned. Did he receive instructions to look for an intruder, and then withhold his shot until the too-late point?
None of it could have happened without Cheatle’s knowledge, unless she is just a hapless frontwoman for some éminence grise maligne behind the scenes. She needs to face an intensely adversarial committee.
I don’t doubt for a second anymore that it was an inside job. Here’s looking at DHS, kid, with a dash of HC on the side.
Comment by Pat Frank — July 17, 2024 @ 6:53 pm
“No sniper team was posted on the roof from which Crooks fired because it was too steeply sloped … And it obviously wasn’t too steeply sloped for Crooks to use as a shooting position.”
I would suggest an even bigger problem with this excuse: Was it so steep that they couldn’t post somebody somewhere else to just LOOK at the roof?
Comment by HibernoFrog — July 18, 2024 @ 1:59 am
Some context.
https://www.edwest.co.uk/p/brushes-with-death?utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=1pkplx&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Comment by dearieme — July 18, 2024 @ 6:05 am
Reportedly, Austin Private Wealth shorted the stock of Truth Social via a put option for 15 million shares on July 12…….
Comment by djm — July 18, 2024 @ 7:10 am
Word is that Austin Private Wealth LLC, shorted Trump Media & Technology Group Corp several million shares the day before the assassination attempt.
Austin Private Wealth LLC is majority held by George Soros’ Vanguard and BlackRock.
APW LLC is now saying that the put was accidentally inflated by 10,000x, and has since been corrected. Possible, but it seems unlikely that such an error would be caught only after the filing.
Similar suddenly-appearing short positions apparently occurred just prior to September 11, 2001, and October 7, 2023 (against Israeli firms).
Miraculous fore-knowledge proof-of-god, no doubt about it.
Comment by Pat Frank — July 18, 2024 @ 7:19 am
You gave me a good laugh Pat Frank! George Soros owns Vanguard? You may want to doublecheck that
Comment by [email protected] — July 18, 2024 @ 8:04 am
You gave me a good laugh Pat Frank. Are you positive George Soros owns Vanguard?
Comment by [email protected] — July 18, 2024 @ 8:05 am
Dear lord, Pat Frank, you really are credulous. Maybe double-check whether Vanguard is owned by George Soros?
Comment by [email protected] — July 18, 2024 @ 12:45 pm
@Prof – Yes, Trump’s surviving that bullet I think qualifies as God extending his special providence to the US once again; I sincerely hope it continues.
@dearieme – I remember the incident with Prince Charles. The young bloke ran at him full tilt firing a starter’s pistol into the air, and when he reached the stage he smashed into and spiflicated a glass-like podium – the footage is worth seeing for this alone. Charles was calm throughout, maybe because of superb self-control but maybe also because like everyone else he was surprised and he didn’t have much time to react. There was little security that day, the whole event had a real Sydney buzz and vibe of carefree goodwill and happiness, the perpetrator ruined what had been a complete success with his moment of madness. Looking back, you can’t imagine such a low-security event taking place these days, sadly.
Comment by Ex-Global Super-Regulator on Lunch Break — July 18, 2024 @ 4:18 pm
And I am also a subscriber to the belief that incompetence is more likely, but it is one thing for the security to have a major hole in it, it is another that a 20 year old pimple faced loser exploited that hole in plain site.
When you compare him to Lee Harvey Oswald, Oswald was a local. The Kennedy motorcade passed right by the window of the building he worked. He just needed to bring “curtain rods” to work, set up a sniper’s nest, and have a shot. This guy had to travel more than an hour away. He wasn’t a local. How did he have such information as to the set up of the event? How did he know that building would not be covered. Hell, I would assume that if I crawled up on a rooftop less than 200 yards from a protected speaker I would not last 15 seconds up there before my head would be blown off and would assume the only way possible to take out such a target with a sniper’s rifle is from at least 600 meters away.
Comment by MARK — July 19, 2024 @ 4:26 pm
Sorry but you’re all massively over-processing this. Just imagine for one second what it must have been like to have been a Secret Service agent at a Trump rally (quite possibly the most deadbeat, least-desired posting in the entire service, as will no doubt be alluded to in the upcoming investigation). How many millions of times must have they heard some nutjob crying wolf about some other nutjob acting suspiciously in an audience stuffed full of nutjobs?
I think what is needed here is yet another Razor, one which accounts for the impact of a absolute torrent of bullsh*t on the faculties of previously functional, sentient and well-meaning individuals. Any suggestions, anyone??
Comment by David Mercer — July 21, 2024 @ 3:02 pm
To put my previous in Pythonesque terms, remember the scene in Life Of Brian when the two factions planning to kidnap Pilate’s wife meet in the tunnel? The Secret Service are totally the guards who look on as the resulting melee, utterly bored out of their minds, totally inured to the idiocy they have to put up with day-in day-out.
Comment by David Mercer — July 21, 2024 @ 3:11 pm