Home » Open thread 7/16/24

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Open thread 7/16/24 — 39 Comments

  1. I can’t tell the difference between Mozart and whomever.

    The attack ads are up already against Vance. Must have had ads ready for any of Trump’s choices. Would it not be funny if Vance, upon shaking hands with Harris, said a few words in Tamil?

  2. Biden already has the Electoral College locked up. 270 is his floor:

    Left Coast + Hawaii, one-party states: 78
    Minnesota, Illinois, one-party states: 29
    Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania are “fortified for democracy”: 44
    Everything on the Atlantic coast from Virginia up (excluding PA): 104
    New Mexico, Colorado: 15

    And there’s Biden’s 270. He can do better (GA, NC) but I don’t see how he can do worse. I don’t think any of the states I mentioned will plausibly go for Trump–whatever Trump’s performance in the polls there, polls don’t have ballot harvesting, rule changes, and other shenanigans.

    They don’t have to cheat any more than they have already, or usually do. Wisconsin’s move to unattended drop boxes has clinched it.

    So I think it’s premature to start talking about what Trump and Vance are going to do to reform the Civil Service or whatever.

  3. In a way I’m relieved that Biden and his handlers are proving to be complete idiots by not modifying their messaging post assassination attempt. And it looks like Biden has survived Obama’s coup attempt. So now they’re fully committed to a course of dementia fueled angry, unrepentant belligerence and they’re dragging the rest of the Democrat party with them whether they like it or not. It’s probably the best possible outcome.

  4. Future bestsellers will be imitations of Charles Dickens written by AI and imitations of Jane Austen, Arthur Conan Doyle, Raymond Chandler, and Ian Fleming written (as now) by humans. Future literary prizes will be given to AI and its programmers.
    __________

    Trump isn’t conceding WI, MI and PA to Biden, and there’s a chance he could win MN, VA, or NH. The hope is that efforts to “fortify” the election will be detected in advanced and neutralized. That may not be a realistic assumption.

  5. Nonapod:

    I’m inclined to agree. However, if I were gaming the Democrat or Biden side, I’m not sure what I would recommend. They are heavily committed to the Trump/Hitler threat and they don’t have anything else other than abortion to run on.

    If they start singing civility and unity now, they look like hypocrites and they grant Trump respectability, which they obviously don’t feel and their base hates. Obama’s faction must be in disarray and frantically working to come up with strategy.

    I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of the dirty tricks.

  6. Nicketas:

    So why bother voting and why do the Democrats care if Brandon or Kamalla are sentient? It is after all, all sewn up in the Electoral College already.

    Thanks for sharing.

  7. Three law enforcement officers were stationed inside the building where a gunman shot former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally Saturday.

    Two days after the failed assassination attempt, BeaverCountian.com reported that an officer confirmed “there were three counter-snipers” stationed underneath the same roof where the assailant blew off part of President Trump’s right ear. Officers notified the “command center” about the threat before the gunman fatally shot a rallygoer and injured three others, including the Republican presidential nominee.

    “A Beaver County police officer warned a command center of seeing a man with a rangefinder before former President Donald Trump was shot on Saturday,” reported the website. “The officer had also warned the man was scoping out the roof of the building he was stationed in as a counter-sniper, and that the man returned with a backpack before ultimately scaling the building.”

    https://thefederalist.com/2024/07/16/report-three-counter-snipers-were-in-building-trump-shooter-used-took-photos-of-him/

    Cheatle said Monday, however, that she would not step down.

  8. Much breaking news about the total cluster-f of President Trump’s “protection”. Conservative talk radio says that the Secret Service was understaffed because Mayorkas and DEI hire SS director Chaitle refused the request for more resources so they had to rely on local law-enforcement.

    Reports: Police Were Stationed Below Trump Shooter, Who Was Allegedly Spotted Nearly 30 Minutes Before

    A local police counter-sniper team was stationed inside the building that Thomas Crooks crawled on top of to fire at and nearly kill former President Donald Trump, according to a shocking report.

    The building was a “watch post” for local police snipers to scan for threats, law enforcement sources told the New York Post.

    Sources told the Post that the local police sniper team was inside the building, but not on the roof — where Crooks climbed and waited for Trump to begin speaking before firing off eight shots, hitting Trump in the ear, killing a rally-goer, and wounding two others.

    It is not clear which local law enforcement agency was inside the building. The Post reported that the building was swept by cops before the event and that the local sniper team used the building as a staging and lookout post.

    According to the outlet, an officer from the Butler Township Police had climbed on a fellow officer’s shoulders to check out the roof of the building moments before the shooting, but backed away after Crooks pointed the rifle at him.

    According to the Washington Post, Butler County Sheriff Michael T. Slupe told reporters the officer was gripping the edge of the roof and was not able to access a gun so he had to drop down with the shooter aimed his weapon at him. “He lets go because he doesn’t want to get killed,” Slupe reportedly said.

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/07/16/reports-police-were-stationed-below-trump-shooter-who-was-allegedly-spotted-nearly-30-minutes-before/

  9. Secret Service director says the decision to leave the roof unguarded was deliberate, because it was unsafe to have snipers on a sloped roof.

    “That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point. And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof,” Cheatle said.

    The director of the U.S. Secret Service deliberately allowed the former and future president of the United States to be shot in the face because she didn’t want a Secret Service agent to be on a roof with a minimal slope.

    https://x.com/seanmdav/status/1813224466828177859?t=QU290dbnLshWadQ8AbCIhw&s=19

  10. Unbelievable, sdferr. We’ve got a roof portion with approximately that degree of slant or perhaps a little more. Before my husband got one artificial knee, with another not doing well, he thought nothing of going up there to clear leaves.

  11. I got 6 out of 6. Maybe lucky. But in my limited experience the real challenge of composing is not the short passages as in these excerpts, but the transitions between them and having a coherent whole. I’m guessing AI would have more trouble with that, and it would be even easier to tell the difference.

  12. On my belief Kate, that roof couldn’t have a much lower slope and remain within its design function to not leak. Which speaks to the absurd stupidity of Cheatle’s excuse making.

  13. I guess that the takeaway message for any would-be-assassin of a target who is under the “protection” of the USSS is this: always look for a slightly sloped roof. That will always be clear. After all, we wouldn’t want our heroic secret service agents at risk of developing plantar fasciitis due to having to stand on a mild grade for a couple hours.

  14. Karmi, the roof from which the shots were fired and where the shooter died was reportedly considered too dangerous for police to use.

  15. Kate, Karmi was making the point the pitch of the police snipers was the same as the one the assassin used.

    You’re both saying the same thing– bogus excuse.

  16. Re: Sniper roof

    Well, OK, even accepting the dangerous slope argument:

    (1) Crooks didn’t use a ladder, at least so far as I know, so presumably he got in through the building.

    How did he get into the building?
    Wasn’t the door locked?
    Wasn’t the building supposed to be a police outpost for handling their territory?
    Where were the police?
    We know only of one, who poked his head up to catch a glimpse of Crooks, then bolted back to the ground too late to do any good.

    (2) Why the long time gap after bystanders had seen Crooks and informed the police multiple times in no uncertain terms?

    We didn’t the police act promptly on this information?
    Why wasn’t anyone in the SS checking that roof occasionally?
    What was the SS overwatch doing?

  17. Bob Wilson: Hinderaker at powerlineblog.com uses what is apparently a more recent photo for the thumbnail of a couple of recent articles. Not particularly flattering.

  18. Great comment over at AT below an article that basically points out that Cheatle was given her position By Jill Biden pushing for her. I liked the comment so much I copied it entirely. Commenter is “general grant”

    “This was a humiliating performance for law enforcement. The Secret Service failed in it’s duty. There was no advanced SS team on the ground weeks before the event. Indeed, the team we all saw were only notified of their assignment the day before the event. The agents did react quickly but it was minutes before they had Trump in the car and more minutes before it drove from the scene. About the roof. Cheatle said things about the roof being “steep” and “safety factor.” WHAT! a 3/12 roof too steep for SS agents? One could have a picnic on that roof! There is no plausible reason why there wasn’t a pair of agents or police officers on every roof with a view of the event within a half mile. Absolutely no excuse. I could go on, I was a police officer and police chief for three decades. There is not an officer in the USA, the UK or anywhere outside the third world that doesn’t understand the stupidity of what happened at that event. It is a woke administration and it was a woke performance.”

  19. The roof with the snipers behind Trump appeared to be steeper than the roof that Crooks used.

    I suspect this was more callous disregard for Trump’s safety than an actual plot to have him assassinated, but that doesn’t make it much less sinister. The Republicans in Congress need to get this investigation done long before the election so the public understands what evils lurk in the Biden administration. I don’t care that much if Cheatle is fired or not, just that the truth comes out. Not firing her will look worse for Biden than keeping her on (or “him” on, as Biden referred to her when questioned whether he’d spoken with the head of the USSS).

  20. Matt Walsh showed footage of the snipers before the shot and after. Completely relaxed, not appearing to surveil. How can this be when they had lost track of a suspicious man earlier?

  21. Thanks, Brian E. I didn’t follow Karmi’s link. The complaint about the roof pitch is nonsense. They should have had a couple of armed officers on top of each roof, just to prevent a shooter from using it.

    The Secret Service boss appears to be an administrator without a deep understanding of the job under her command. This is analogous to Boeing being run by people who don’t intimately understand the product they make. It doesn’t turn out well.

  22. So the shooter had enough time to use a range finder, are you kidding me!

  23. She lies almost as well as her boss!

    (It must be a pre-requisite…to be accepted as a member of that illustrious administration….)

    I guess the good news, though, is that the command center wasn’t in the building’s basement…
    – – – – – – – –
    BTW, Crooks had a ladder , which he bought just prior to the assassination attempt. The receipt was reportedly in his pocket…

  24. There probably were drones Chases, we just haven’t seen their output yet, and may never.

  25. To my ear, some of the AI music sounded “better” than the original music of the era. AI or a modern human imitator can feel free to add little frills and details that wouldn’t have occured to people at the time or wouldn’t have been considered acceptable compositional practice.

  26. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is giving the speech of the night at the convention.

    “God spared Donald Trump because He is not done with President Trump.”

    We’re looking at the first female Republican President, someday.

  27. Jared Fogle’s confederate received 27 years in federal prison for taking pictures (through a peephole) of friends of his children using his bathroom and trading other pedo-pornographic images with Fogle (who received a 15 year sentence). Federal law enforcement used a no-knock raid and a battering ram in pursuit of a thumb drive of one Jesse Ryan Loskarn, a congressional aide who was known to have downloaded child pornography off a server in Canada. Mr. Loskarn was so humiliated that he hanged himself while out on bail.
    ==
    Yet, here we have a large commercial company devoted to promoting the sexual exploitation of youth and no one in law enforcement is the least bit interested. Amazing what doesn’t happen to Democratic donors.
    ==
    https://ace.mu.nu/archives/410622.php

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