Most disturbing is how supposedly intelligent people in our Federal government can rise to leadership of organizations with thousands of employees, yet seem so out-of-touch during a lifetime event under their jurisdiction. "roof too steep to cover" .... "maybe NOT a bullet" REALLY? This is because they rose to the top, not by continuous use of superior skills, but their political prowess, being the first to see which way your boss is thinking and supporting that direction. The same occurs in the private sector in big corporations, but eventually the Peter Principle kicks in and the then senior exec retires with a golden parachute. I wonder what Cheatle and Wray's will be?
The Peter Principle may work fine at the local McDonald's. The fastest burger flipper is made store manager, then fails at it and is demoted back to burger flipper. An organization that adopts the Peter Principle such as Boeing, or the United States government, is another thing, a very dangerous policy altogether.
The assassin's motivations are irrelevant - and unknowable. There have always been and will always be extremists with weapons. To paraphrase the prayer, "God grant us the wisdom to know the difference between those things we can and cannot change". There was no wisdom in the preparedness for the 7/13 rally. From Chris Wray's testimony, there were eight shell casings found on the rooftop. How many rounds had to be fired before the 'suspect' became a 'threat'? None.
Crooks was the right age for the onset of schizophrenia. My wife's brother went from relatively normal to launching Molotov cocktails at the neighbor's house (decades ago, and no one was hurt) in the space of a few days. Impossible to make a post-mortem diagnosis, of course, but this explanation benefits from simplicity. No conspiracy theory required.
Very true, and an interesting idea. Only problem is, Crooks' attack was meticulously and rationally planned and executed. Schizophrenics are very bad at planning and carrying out such complicated tasks. Lack of volition, motivation, disorganized thinking, etc. Doesn't seem to be a likely candidate.
This is the best, or most likely hypothesis. The other possibilities all call for a vast conspiracy or network “vib” involving the selection of a successor to Biden .
My take: failed attempt by the Deep State to get Trump out of the picture. Republicans would have been is disarray, any other candidate they had to choose would not have the draw Trump has. Biden would have been shot full of amphetamines and given 12-hour naps long enough to make it to November. He would resign after the inauguration. So now the MSM has had to go to plan B. Back to Trump is Evil, Vance is just another evil white man. Etc., etc.
This hapless shooter is a symptom of a problem sociologists have been screaming about for years--and we have been willfully closing our ears. It's not complicated: young people (esp. white men) wandering around a wasteland of meaninglessness. More than a "good paying job", a healthy culture must offer these people a purpose-or at least point out the need to find their own and the means of finding it. We have become Jules Henry's "Culture Against Man" by creating "progress" that is actually regress. If guns give you a short term frisson, you will suffer. If social media brings you short term joy, you will suffer. For all our technology and flying machines, we keep forgetting what Aristotle knew: do not confuse means and ends.
When it got beyond survival-level needs, what was there to try for anymore? (that's an exaggerated leap of logic, but it seems to me if some young people don't think they can strike out on their own or that it's worthwhile to have children, the logic of how to do something important gets twisted.)
Spiked. The Cheatle/Wray "testimonies" indicated that the Order of the Day is to spike all info on the attempt, the shooter, and the investigation. Period. The Ship of State is like a ghost ship for the next 179 days.
Andrew Torba released the shooter's Gab account, and he was very left-wing. Presumably, he had other social media (Twitter, Facebook/Insta, Reddit, maybe TikTok), which we don't know about. All we have is 11 posts about how much he supported Biden's border policies. He also apparently had a YouTube channel where he did some awful black-and-white animations in MS Paint.
I find it strange that the only photo of this guy being released by the media, is him in a patriotic looking shirt. Showing a recent photo would probably remove any doubts about his political beliefs.
This has also puzzled me. He was 20 years old, but they are showing his yearbook photo? I don't know if a more recent photo would clarify his political beliefs, but it is just weird to use such a youthful photo.
You are super clever with quite a command of the language. Please stick to this approach and you’ll get your infantile point of view across just fine. Everyone will know exactly who you are. You fit right in with the MAGA crowd. Good luck with that.
I was hoping for a bit more journalism, less pontificating. Yeah, we all know that the shooting has been politicized. Despicable comments have been posted ("too bad he missed!"). One head has rolled.
But many questions remain. When, if ever, did the Secret Service finally figure out there was a threat? Why were they so nonchalant? Why were communications between police and SS so poor and how is it possible that a police sniper had the gunman in his sights and was ordered not to shoot (allegedly)?
It's come out that the SS was aware of a suspicious person 20 minutes prior to the shooting; Why didn't they err on the side of caution and secure the area?
It's come out that Crooks' parents called the police at some point leading up to the rally. Why? What did the police do about it? I wonder if they (the parents) were just covering their rears, in case their psychopathic son was up to something bad. Did he live at home, by the way, and if so, what suspicious behavior had they noticed, like for example building bombs?
To my knowledge, the powers that be are trying to memory-hole the entire event, put it behind them, so they can go back to focusing on Trump the Felon, the Evil Hitler who will End Democracy. That narrative loses some power when it turns out that the real enemies of democracy are the Deep State denizens who may have orchestrated an attempted assassination, which if it had succeeded would have truly overturned our democracy.
Permitting a psychotic easy access to guns plus placing a Bullseye on "Hitler" isn't really helpful. Thus both political parties are at fault. Add to the mix an incompetent Secret Service which is an extension of the Ringling Bros., Biden & Harris Circus & you're looking at a potential disaster! It's simply cause & effect.
FINALLY - a piece related to a topic that we’ve been interested in for WEEKS! You are the reason that folks might forget Trump’s shooter. The Free Press started covering events that —please, go ahead and read comments — readers do not care about in the DNC. We don’t even care about Vance; this isn’t about a party preference.
We have had our questions.
You failed us, The Free Press.
You are one of (our only?) hopes for seeing competent journalism around those questions.
Instead, you got swept up in the same noise that bad journalism is already loud about!
Fix it! We love this publication too much (I promise, even though I initially paused my subscription); don’t fail us.
"I understand the appeal of this mindset, which suggests not only that acts of violence are within our capability to prevent, but that the way to prevent them, conveniently, is to silence a group of people whose voices you already hated hearing in the first place."
This is a great point, and truly the refrain after every tragic event i can think of since Columbine. These are Rorschach tests, where people see their own issues in the ink blots, and use them to validate what they already believed to be true.
Most disturbing is how supposedly intelligent people in our Federal government can rise to leadership of organizations with thousands of employees, yet seem so out-of-touch during a lifetime event under their jurisdiction. "roof too steep to cover" .... "maybe NOT a bullet" REALLY? This is because they rose to the top, not by continuous use of superior skills, but their political prowess, being the first to see which way your boss is thinking and supporting that direction. The same occurs in the private sector in big corporations, but eventually the Peter Principle kicks in and the then senior exec retires with a golden parachute. I wonder what Cheatle and Wray's will be?
The Peter Principle may work fine at the local McDonald's. The fastest burger flipper is made store manager, then fails at it and is demoted back to burger flipper. An organization that adopts the Peter Principle such as Boeing, or the United States government, is another thing, a very dangerous policy altogether.
As so often is the case with TFP, it is the comments that are valuable.
The assassin's motivations are irrelevant - and unknowable. There have always been and will always be extremists with weapons. To paraphrase the prayer, "God grant us the wisdom to know the difference between those things we can and cannot change". There was no wisdom in the preparedness for the 7/13 rally. From Chris Wray's testimony, there were eight shell casings found on the rooftop. How many rounds had to be fired before the 'suspect' became a 'threat'? None.
Crooks was the right age for the onset of schizophrenia. My wife's brother went from relatively normal to launching Molotov cocktails at the neighbor's house (decades ago, and no one was hurt) in the space of a few days. Impossible to make a post-mortem diagnosis, of course, but this explanation benefits from simplicity. No conspiracy theory required.
Very true, and an interesting idea. Only problem is, Crooks' attack was meticulously and rationally planned and executed. Schizophrenics are very bad at planning and carrying out such complicated tasks. Lack of volition, motivation, disorganized thinking, etc. Doesn't seem to be a likely candidate.
This is the best, or most likely hypothesis. The other possibilities all call for a vast conspiracy or network “vib” involving the selection of a successor to Biden .
My take: failed attempt by the Deep State to get Trump out of the picture. Republicans would have been is disarray, any other candidate they had to choose would not have the draw Trump has. Biden would have been shot full of amphetamines and given 12-hour naps long enough to make it to November. He would resign after the inauguration. So now the MSM has had to go to plan B. Back to Trump is Evil, Vance is just another evil white man. Etc., etc.
Stop it.
This hapless shooter is a symptom of a problem sociologists have been screaming about for years--and we have been willfully closing our ears. It's not complicated: young people (esp. white men) wandering around a wasteland of meaninglessness. More than a "good paying job", a healthy culture must offer these people a purpose-or at least point out the need to find their own and the means of finding it. We have become Jules Henry's "Culture Against Man" by creating "progress" that is actually regress. If guns give you a short term frisson, you will suffer. If social media brings you short term joy, you will suffer. For all our technology and flying machines, we keep forgetting what Aristotle knew: do not confuse means and ends.
When it got beyond survival-level needs, what was there to try for anymore? (that's an exaggerated leap of logic, but it seems to me if some young people don't think they can strike out on their own or that it's worthwhile to have children, the logic of how to do something important gets twisted.)
Spiked. The Cheatle/Wray "testimonies" indicated that the Order of the Day is to spike all info on the attempt, the shooter, and the investigation. Period. The Ship of State is like a ghost ship for the next 179 days.
The guy's name was Crooks. How do you forget that?
Andrew Torba released the shooter's Gab account, and he was very left-wing. Presumably, he had other social media (Twitter, Facebook/Insta, Reddit, maybe TikTok), which we don't know about. All we have is 11 posts about how much he supported Biden's border policies. He also apparently had a YouTube channel where he did some awful black-and-white animations in MS Paint.
I agree. Political rhetoric does not create psychotic behavior nor does it arm a person tormented by such with a gun.
I find it strange that the only photo of this guy being released by the media, is him in a patriotic looking shirt. Showing a recent photo would probably remove any doubts about his political beliefs.
This has also puzzled me. He was 20 years old, but they are showing his yearbook photo? I don't know if a more recent photo would clarify his political beliefs, but it is just weird to use such a youthful photo.
You are super clever with quite a command of the language. Please stick to this approach and you’ll get your infantile point of view across just fine. Everyone will know exactly who you are. You fit right in with the MAGA crowd. Good luck with that.
I was hoping for a bit more journalism, less pontificating. Yeah, we all know that the shooting has been politicized. Despicable comments have been posted ("too bad he missed!"). One head has rolled.
But many questions remain. When, if ever, did the Secret Service finally figure out there was a threat? Why were they so nonchalant? Why were communications between police and SS so poor and how is it possible that a police sniper had the gunman in his sights and was ordered not to shoot (allegedly)?
It's come out that the SS was aware of a suspicious person 20 minutes prior to the shooting; Why didn't they err on the side of caution and secure the area?
It's come out that Crooks' parents called the police at some point leading up to the rally. Why? What did the police do about it? I wonder if they (the parents) were just covering their rears, in case their psychopathic son was up to something bad. Did he live at home, by the way, and if so, what suspicious behavior had they noticed, like for example building bombs?
To my knowledge, the powers that be are trying to memory-hole the entire event, put it behind them, so they can go back to focusing on Trump the Felon, the Evil Hitler who will End Democracy. That narrative loses some power when it turns out that the real enemies of democracy are the Deep State denizens who may have orchestrated an attempted assassination, which if it had succeeded would have truly overturned our democracy.
Sounds to me like you know who orchestrated it. Please share.
I have my suspicions but I’m not an investigator, just an observer.
Permitting a psychotic easy access to guns plus placing a Bullseye on "Hitler" isn't really helpful. Thus both political parties are at fault. Add to the mix an incompetent Secret Service which is an extension of the Ringling Bros., Biden & Harris Circus & you're looking at a potential disaster! It's simply cause & effect.
99% of the problem is the politicized, equity-suffused Secret Service.
FINALLY - a piece related to a topic that we’ve been interested in for WEEKS! You are the reason that folks might forget Trump’s shooter. The Free Press started covering events that —please, go ahead and read comments — readers do not care about in the DNC. We don’t even care about Vance; this isn’t about a party preference.
We have had our questions.
You failed us, The Free Press.
You are one of (our only?) hopes for seeing competent journalism around those questions.
Instead, you got swept up in the same noise that bad journalism is already loud about!
Fix it! We love this publication too much (I promise, even though I initially paused my subscription); don’t fail us.
Thanks.
"I understand the appeal of this mindset, which suggests not only that acts of violence are within our capability to prevent, but that the way to prevent them, conveniently, is to silence a group of people whose voices you already hated hearing in the first place."
This is a great point, and truly the refrain after every tragic event i can think of since Columbine. These are Rorschach tests, where people see their own issues in the ink blots, and use them to validate what they already believed to be true.