Six months ago I said to a well-known public figure that the US intelligence agencies had destroyed Trump’s first Presidency and that, in a second chance, he would have to uproot their entire leadership or simply let them continue to run the country and concentrate on making money for himself.
My contact replied that they had recently been told by Tucker Carlson that Trump was very aware of the danger that the intelligence services would have him assassinated. Trump was therefore likely to go for the second option. The last sentence was the musing of my contact, not of Tucker Carlson.
I am not suggesting that the intelligence services were behind the assassination attempt this weekend. I have no idea. I am however wondering what thoughts are currently flitting through Trump’s head about his near-death experience.
I was incidentally trying to calculate what fraction of a degree the rifle was mis-aimed by, to miss his brain by one inch at a range of 120 yards. My maths were not up to it, but it is a margin of the tiniest tremor of the hand on the trigger.
I think it is almost certain that Trump has wondered whether the security lapse were not, at the least, caused in part by a lack of zeal and enthusiasm on the part of those state actors co-ordinating his security.
That is no criticism of Trump’s immediate bodyguards, who acted admirably. It is also fair to note that Trump’s own defiance was courageous. He could not have known if other shooters were around, nor how seriously he had himself been hit already.
That personal bearing has almost certainly increased his election chances. Even more so is the fact that, by some strange political alchemy with little relationship to logic, it appears to be accepted wisdom that this incident makes it much more difficult for Democrats to make Joe Biden stand down.
In his address from the White House, Biden did not mistake Trump for Frank Sinatra or forget why he was there. It is thus touted as restoring his position. It was however a typical Biden performance, snide and partisan, particularly in restating his 6 January narrative as though that were a serious threat to democracy and not a stupid, isolated riot.
That democracy in the United States is meaningless is plain from the choice offered to the electorate between two incredibly flawed individuals. It is a scenario you could not make up.
If you were to put Donald Trump and Joe Biden into an entirely random yoga class in Oklahoma, neither Trump nor Biden would be the person in that yoga class best suited to be President of the United States.
There is however one sense in which democracy in the United States is more alive than in the United Kingdom. Here the Establishment got the operative they wanted in Keir Starmer elected, but had no argument with the Tories other than over competence.
In the United States the Establishment is worried that Trump’s isolationist tendencies and lack of enthusiasm for starting wars, may damage the never-ending gravy train of the military industrial complex.
In particular Trump sees both China and Russia as potential trading partners with whom money can be made to mutual benefit. He does not see them primarily as a military threat.
Trump is in short not on board for the whole propaganda narrative that requires designated enemies to fuel massive defence spending, and justify the continuous series of invasions of other countries.
This is not ideological opposition to war on Trump’s part. It is simply that, like China, he realises that trade, finance, investment and soft power are ultimately much more lucrative than the classic western imperialist model of armed conquest.
Trump’s problem is that the powerful vested interests who make money from the western imperialist model include the intelligence services. That is why they ruthlessly undermined his first Presidency.
We saw the utter empty nonsense that was the “Russiagate” hoax, on which I have written extensively, but the simple fact remains there has never been any evidence whatsoever of Russian involvement in leaking the DNC, Clinton or Podesta emails.
We saw the hounding from office of Trump’s National Security Officer General Michael Flynn for conversations with the Russian Ambassador which, when finally released in full, turned out to be entirely proper. We saw the jailing of Roger Stone for lying to the FBI, which the mainstream media disgracefully failed to reveal was for claiming to have links with Wikileaks that he did not in fact have.
We had the famously putrid Guardian front page claiming Manafort/Assange meetings that never happened.
Then to cap it all we had the CIA co-ordinated monstering as fake of the Hunter Biden laptop revelations two weeks before the 2020 election.
That this laptop – which all concerned knew was genuine – was proclaimed false was perhaps the most significant example of fake news in the history of the world. That lying narrative was coordinated between security services, and mainstream media all over the western world and undoubtedly affected the election result.
Even more significantly, both Facebook and Twitter cooperated to suppress Hunter Biden laptop stories and to boost the narrative that the laptop was fake. There was therefore the perfect alliance – security services, state and corporate media, alternative media corporate gatekeepers – working together to promote a lie and ensure Biden’s election.
It says something about the world in which we live that the most important and successful fake news in history was set up precisely by those who claim to be the arbiters of fake news.
Which brings me back to the start of this article. What does Donald Trump do about it if he gets back in to power?
I think Trump is quite right to fear that were he to negotiate a reasonable settlement of the Ukraine war, rather than continue the multi trillion dollar bonanza of weapons, death and high energy prices it now is, then he might be assassinated by his own security services.
For Trump to really run the United States would require an unprecedented cleanout of the Clintonite leadership throughout the security establishment, going much deeper than a normal change of administration. I think Trump always did understand that but found it impractical to “drain the swamp”.
With the ailing Biden, it is obvious to everybody he is not actually in charge of anything. I predict that, if we get a Trump administration, Trump will not actually be in charge either but will settle for an easy life while allowing the Establishment to continue to run the country.
When Peter Cook founded the Establishment Club, nobody scoffed at him and said “what a silly conspiracy theorist, there is no such thing as the Establishment”. I prefer to use that word rather than Deep State. But it is the same thing.
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For small angles, the angle IN RADIANS (a RADIAN ~ 57 degrees) is almost the same as the tangent itself (never forget!)
Therefore, equating 120 yards with 108 meters, one inch with 1/40th of a meter, the tangent in this case is 1/40 divided by 108, and the degrees is this value multiplied by 57.
Considering this, we round 57 degrees to 60, and arrive at the approximate value of 60/40 divided by 108 which gives us the answer of approx. 0.014 degrees.
Further observation:
If we set the length of the gun barrel at 1 yard and assuming the aim pivots at the gunman’s end of the barrel, it follows that he should have raised the barrel’s far end by 1 inch divided by 108 meters, i.e. approx. 25mm divided by 108 meters, i.e. 1/40 divided by 108, which amounts to 0.23 millimeters.
Please recalculate and correct me where I am wrong.
The figure of 0.014 degrees is correct as an approximation. To 3sf the angle is arctan(36*120) = 0.0133 degrees.
Good stuff.
For comparison, and to get an idea, I might have added that the Moon (and the Sun) have an apparent angular diameter of 0.5 degrees, which means the angle we are talking about is (roughly) 1/30 of the diameter of the Moon.
I wonder if the shooter had a scope, and if so, what magnification it had. In the average binoculars (magn. 7x), 1/30 of the Moon (2 arcseconds) is actually quite noticeable.
Sorry — 1/30 of 0.5 degrees is of course 1 arcminute.
BJ
Really love you guys, if you apply all those maths to my golf game it fully explains why I can’t hit a cows arse with a double base.
I’m not sure why people don’t understand that Trump just couldn’t “drain the swamp” in a single term. Partly it was because of Russiagate and all the other underrmining of his presidency perpetrated by the DEMs and the Deep State.Then there was the Covid that sucked the rest of the air out of the room for a long time. And partly it was because so much of the corruption had to be showcased to the populace at large before it would be believed. He knew he would need at least 2 terms to install the right people in the right places, and he wouldn’t get a second term if he simply tried to wipe out people who had been esconced in positions of power & control too soon.. Or if he pardoned Assange at the end of his first term.
But now, it’s pretty obvious to all who are willing to look where much of the corruption lies, and he has tested many people for roles in a 2nd term cabinet, etc. I guess most people are hoping that RFKJr will join him there, as he will know how to clear out some really terrible stuff – re the environment and health, at a minimum. RFK Jnr is awful on Israel, / Palestine, but then so are the other options,
If Trump has a second term he could go for broke on “draining the swamp” because he doesn’t need to worry about getting re-elected. That definitely frightens the swamp.
I do not believe that any occupant of the office of president of the US could drain the swamp no matter how sincere his intentions to do so. The corruption is so deeply embedded in so many aspects of US society, academia, business, law, media and politics ……
If Trump really wanted to drain the swamp then why did he appoint some of the worst fools and swamp creatures during his term (e.g. Pompeo, Bolton, Haley, Gina Haspel, etc.)? He is a carnival barker, compulsive liar, and narcissist who doesn’t have the first clue about draining a swamp.
I find this video amusing
https://news.sky.com/video/trump-rally-shooting-moment-gunman-takes-position-on-roof-minutes-before-attack-13178272
How is that the shooter gets on the roof, makes himself comfortable and people watch him, and film him, and… Isn’t it the police who must have checked the roofs? Trump is the ex-president, he must have some state-guaranteed protection, right? I mean, not a simple protection as a citizen. All ex-presidents have some extra state protection.
Also, Trump said he’d declassified docs on Kennedy, 9/11 and Epstein if he gets elected. Our news reported this on June 2, referring to Trump’s interview for the Fox News
https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/20972425
Adds up to some conspiracy theories, eh?
There will be hundreds of appointment he needs to make. If he has had a team working on them over the past year then he might be serious about it. I like the idea that RFK could tackle graft and political corruption in the legal system and the agencies as Attorney General. VP pick seems to be newsworthy. AG better than poncing around, getting pished and stealing money which seems to be the VP role.
Trump name his running mate:
Meet J.D. Vance, Trump’s VP pick: Hawk on Israel, critic of foreign aid
Vance is an “America First” firebrand who opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq and military funding for Ukraine, but is a staunch supporter of Israel and backs normalization agreements with Arab states.
https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2024/07/meet-jd-vance-trumps-vp-pick-hawk-israel-critic-foreign-aid
Potential Trump VP pick JD Vance has received >$167,000 from the Israel lobby.
https://x.com/TrackAIPAC/status/1812908501464936761
What is it with the alleged american-firsters and their blind spot for Israel foreign influence? Iraq war for example that Vance was allegdly against, was very much pushed by Israel/Netanyahu himself and the pro-israel like PNAC, AIPAC and other neocon organizations.
Israel have only brought harm upon american interests in the region, world.
“What is it with the alleged american-firsters and their blind spot for Israel foreign influence?”
Perhaps they see Israel as part of the USA, so Israeli influence isn’t “foreign” to them.
Nothing new about Vance. He is a fossile fuel man, former Peter Thiel employee, against gay rights, used to call Trump an idiot (before he himself became a public persona), now obviously loves him, doesn´t care about Ukraine because he is a racist but doesn´t know it (UKR=RU=Commies), cares about ISRAEL because he is a racist but doesn´t know it (ARABS=terrorists) and because not to be would upend his career, and the last time he said anything honest was probably at his high school prom when he was complaining that he had drunk too much.
That´s the level of Senators in God´s greatest country.
Fuck me.
oh, and the Popular Front in France might break up. So no surprises today. And yes, I wouldn´t be surprised if the shooting kid was employed to boost Trump.
(If Jan. 6th was not the real thing, neither was this a serious assassination attempt. If you want to kill someone you can do that. The only difficulty is not to get caught.)
seriously I am getting tired of the US…pestering our daily lives
Long essay on Vance from 1 year ago:
“J. D. Vance Changes the Subject – A senator from the unconscious”
by Gabriel Winant
https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-45/politics/j-d-vance-changes-the-subject-2/
https://archive.is/eNyrn
with this short excerpt:
“(…)
In this sense, Vance’s form of far-right politics is so ominous because it responds in a primal, perverted way to something actual. We are caught under a heap of wreckage, an accumulation of social and historical trauma that we are largely without means of getting out of. Millions are dead, and millions more permanently sick, from a pandemic that everyone now pretends didn’t happen, and even more vigorously pretends is not still happening. This massive new collective burden was piled on a society already stumbling under the weight of organized abandonment, environmental racism, for-profit health care, and mass incarceration. Vance, in the end, cannot abide the idea that what he suffered has to do with any of that disabling stuff. He will torture the rest of us until we agree to make him President to prove that there is nothing wrong with him. “Remembering,” as Freud says, “gives way to acting out . . . the patient brings out of the armoury of the past the weapons with which he defends himself.” First Vance tried to remember — this was the book. But there was a market for his memories, an audience that wanted to hear that the poor are to blame. Having a poor person to blame ready to hand — his mother — he supplied this market, but it warped his account of himself. The remembrance succeeded commercially, but failed utterly to access any real truth. So he went looking for weapons, and now he posts pictures online of himself pointing machine guns at the sky.
(…)”.
This is actually the inverted personification of the bad conscious of the American working class.
French director Louis Malle had made a couple of documentaries during his US years.
One is “God´s Country” from 1979/1985 where he is seeing friends who are farmers.
imdb.com´s summary sounds like a precursor to the US of today. Not by coincidence it was the MAGA years under Reagan.
If politicians start calls to make a country “great again” you know you are in trouble.
“(…)Original footage of the prosperous farming community of Glencoe Minnesota, 60 miles west of Minneapolis, was filmed in 1979 for a PBS documentary. But for the next six years Malle was too busy with other projects to finish this work. He returned in 1985 for a follow-up and found the community reacting to the mid-eighties crisis of overproduction in farm country. With weekly foreclosures on family farms and many families moving to the south, Malle documented a sense of frustration and apprehension from the same participants he had befriended in better times half a decade earlier.(…)”
Vance is nothing more than any 19th century novel social climber. Take Balzac´s pitiful male heroes and you see the dark, unrealistic side of that story. Unrealistic because in the real world J.D. Vances once on top stay on top. Otherwise the system wouldn´t work.
So I suggest take Vance as hollow as he is. Which would be true for 90% of the GOP of course.
I don’t believe that an amateur Antifa rebel could fire that shot. The real snipers would have been well aware of his presence, but they needed a fake motive, so hired Crooks.
The Ukrainian Khazar Nazi Neocons have made enough MIC bounty from Ukraine and Palestine.
They are massively exposed as war criminals and there is a genuine risk of starting WW3 in the process of counting their casino chips.
Trump provides a four year breathing space and an excuse not to have WW3. So this was a warning shot.
We are still Boss. It just happens to suit us not to take humanity to the brink. To all those tamed Atlantacists, Islamists, Russophobes, Chinaphobes, Islamophobes, keep your covenant with us and we’ll be back in 2028.
Not one hydrogen bond will break in the swampy swamp. Trump will only dare do what we allow him to do. He is after all himself a creature of our swamp..
I wish it wasn’t the case.
You don’t need a “sniper” at 150 metres with an AR-15. Ordinary recruits are supposed to be able to hit a human-sized target at that range with the corresponding military rifle, the M16, after minimal training.
A specially-trained sniper can guarantee a hit at 300 metres and usually up to 800 metres. Depending on weather, snipers have killed people at even longer ranges; I believe the record is over 2km.
At that distance, the entire length, all the way round in a full circle, that the shooter could cover is the circle’s circumference, 2πR = 2 x 3.14 x 110 = 690 metres.
The angle of that full circle is 360 degrees. So one degree represents 690/ 360 = 1.91 metres. One inch = 0.0254 metres would therefore be represented by 0.0254/ 1.91 = 0.013 degrees, or one 75th of a degree.
Very nice!
I don’t know much about the guy.
Former US President Donald Trump has announced Ohio Republican Senator J.D. Vance will be his running mate in the 2024 Election.
Seems incredibly suss to me.
He once called Trump ‘America’s Hitler’ and was part of the ‘Never Trumper’ movement, but he claims he’s reassessed his positions after befriending the Trump family. He’s clever by US political standards. Personally, I’d be extremely wary of any recent convert to a cause who was previously a bitter critic of it; politics being what it is and as dirty as it is. We saw in the UK, with Starmer, how the UK establishment had no qualms about using trickery and deception to achieve their objectives.
On which :
It looks like Lammy, who’s in Israel, has promised the UK will continue with the Tory initiated legal objection with regards to the ICC’s role : https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/labour-backtracks-decision-drop-objection-icc-arrest-warrants
If the report is correct, that’s unfuckingbelievable.
Note that Lammy just days ago lamented when ukrainian civilians were killed by russian strikes and said:
“We must hold those responsible for Putin’s illegal war to account.”
https://x.com/DavidLammy/status/1810269716914602290
But when Israel kill palestinian multiple times more civilians there is apparently no urge to hold “those responsible for” Netanyahu’s “illegal war” according to Lammy.
And once again, just like Keir, this guy is…a lawyer!?
Lammy would do well looking into how people of color are looked upon and discriminated against in Israel, what a useful idiot.
Goose
This page didn’t exist until today.
Some sites say he doesn’t support aid to Ukraine, maybe Trump picked him as an insurance policy, if they assassinate Trump, Vance will become POTUS and aid to Ukraine will stop, however I don’t really believe that to be the case. Vance is a politician and we know that what they often say isn’t what they often do.
“Vance received a record-breaking amount of money from deep state actor Peter Thiel to win the seat as Senator from Ohio. Thiel had already donated support J.D. Vance in the Ohio Republican Senate primary, in total investing $15 million to bolster Vance — the largest amount ever given to boost a single Senate candidate.
With a political presentation as a “social conservative”, he seems in reality to be a front man for Peter Thiel and the Paypal Mafia.”
Vance is a strong supporter of U.S. support for Israel.”
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/J._D._Vance
“If the report is correct, that’s unfuckingbelievable.”
Sadly, given the people involved, it’s only too believable.
Even after Hunter Biden’s laptop was used as evidence to find him guilty last month, those 51 spooks showed no regret for their allegation of Russian manipulation.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/former-obama-official-one-word-answer-asked-retract-attack-hunter-biden-laptop
Of course, the real interference by American officials in that story was hardly mentioned in the mainstream media, unlike the way it had reported the alleged Russian interference.
Re Margin of error. As I understand it, the semi-automatic AR-15 fired 5 bullets of one squeeze of the trigger. It was not a sniper gun, the shooter was 20 years of age. Trump who was reading his speech from two tele-prompters turned from looking straight forward to looking to his extreme right and ended up almost facing the shooter. If he had continued to look forward the bullet, which grazed his ear would have blown his brains out. I believe this is what saved his life.
If it fired 5 (or 6) bullets with one squeeze of the trigger it would be a fully automatic weapon. The register for fully automatic weapons was closed in 1986 so no new ones can be sold but ones registered prior to 1986 can still be owned and traded. He might’ve had a bump stock, a crude way of converting a semi- into a fully automatic although Trump himself made these illegal in 2018, or had the weapon illegally modified but otherwise he’d have to have worked the trigger for each shot.
I wonder if Trump will change his mind on gun laws after this.
The military version of the AR15 can fire bursts with one pull of the trigger, the civilian version needs one trigger pull per shot.
An AR15 fitted with a bump stock can achieve rates of fire similar to that of a full automatic but involves multiple trigger pulls. Recoil against the bump stock moves the trigger away from the trigger finger allowing the firing mechanism to reset, then the spring in the bump stock pushes the whole gun forward and the trigger against the trigger finger to fire the next shot. There is an automatic firing mechanism consisting of 3 parts, the rifle, the bump stock and the users trigger finger held in a fixed position. Multiple firing terminates when the user relaxes his trigger finger.
Who the hell is Dan Sabbagh and what is The Guardian doing printing a story of his on its front page that Tolkien would reject as far fetched?
Do you mean this?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/16/uk-and-its-allies-face-deadly-quartet-of-nations-says-defence-expert
It is indeed somewhat comical to think that the four countries named as posing serious danger to UK have never in recent memory been an aggressor against Britain whereas three had been the subjects of previous British military aggression and regime change. As to Ukraine, why do the very clearly stated aims of Russia’s action constitute a danger to the UK or any other European countries? Also why is the Ukrainian flag flying on Buckingham palace?
I name checked Lord George Robertson last week and lo and behold, he has emerged as one of the ‘experts’ for the Defence (sic) Review.
I think you’ll find that all four have been either suffered from military aggression or regime change from the Britain.
Cornudet, it’s called reminding us who we are supposed to hate.
This is an extremely important article. But the question remains for me, and I have long wanted to ask this to Peter Ford when I next have the chance: what is a principled American citizen to do, abstain from voting, or vote for Trump? My instincts have always focused on their awareness of the fact that the establishment very clearly have been taking an all hands on deck panic response type of approach to keeping trump out of office, and then opted for flippantly celebrating trump both to thwart the establishment and simultaneously to spite and trigger their liberal/TDS tools.
And I think this is, sad as it is, ultimately perhaps still the correct way. You ask exactly all the right questions, and pose exactly the right dilemma. And frame it the most accurately of anyone else’s perspective I’ve encountered yet. But I think the fact that trump actually stands a chance of making it into office, and also stands some small chance as well of remaining somewhat true to his own ultimate lack of enthusiasm for endless mega war (see the lack of certainty in your own unfortunate prediction), combined with the fact that others who may be more opposed to war for reasons of ideological principles sadly yet simply just don’t stand any chance of getting into office, mean that he is still ultimately our best hope of some positive influence getting into office.
But then on the other hand, I wonder what you make of RFK and his own total cooption by Zionist forces despite seeming to be somewhat principled when it comes to nearly all of the other hot button issues. What do you make of him, Craig?
Is the “monstering” (as fake of the of the Hunter Biden laptop revelations) perhaps a typo in place of I am not quite sure what – demonstrating, mounting, …?
“to criticize someone severely or to treat someone very badly” – Cambridge Dictionary (Google)
Thank you. My web & dictionary search was less successful. (It turned up nothing but nominal monsters and derivatives.)
Craig:
“Trump was very aware of the danger that the intelligence services would have him assassinated”
Then Craig’s one contribution to the comments:
“Indeed, the ever convenient dead lone gunman”
Not like he’s trying to encourage the tinfoil hat brigade, or the blog’s reputation a den of conspiracy theories…
If you want to suggest something then just suggest it, and back it up. But innuendos without any evidence whatsoever don’t help at all. Yes, looks like there were security service failings in not securing that rooftop, but putting that into a plot to leave access open or worse is several steps beyond. I would guess Trump himself would also have some responsibility insisting on doing these rallies, with such frequency, visibility and challenging-to-secure venues. Obviously it’s a political decision to go ahead with that and it’s paying off, perhaps even more so now he’s been shot at, but the risk as a high-profile figure in a country known for nutters with assault weaponry would be quite clear. Come to think of it, the person who’s gained most from the shooting as it turns out must be Trump himself, and his backers…
The US Establishment and security state have not kept their animus towards Trump a secret – read the article. All history (and now Gaza) shows you these people are capable of anything. Why would Craig or anybody else want to rubbish the speculation they were behind it?
“ the blog’s reputation a den of conspiracy theories…”
Can I ask who holds this opinion concerning the reputation of this blog James?
I don’t hold that opinion. Not sure why you think I do?
V sorry James I meant DavidH
I could offer excuses like while posting this I was reading 700 and counting (lol) comments on Moon of Alabama miscellaneous thread which turned into a Trump current situation thread but my capacity for self-deception is flagging and it was just a basic error on my part. A lot of “gun experts” discussing the arcana of guns and ammo as it applies to Trump and his ear. One thing did stick in mind reading the MofA thread – someone mentioned that flags waving in the wind are an aid for shooters to calculate wind effects lol
No worries Will
Perhaps the commentator meant to make a compliment, since the ‘conspiracy theorists’ today is the name for people who don’t always unconditionally accept the version of the authorities.
You know, asking questions is common behavior for people with good education, experience, logical thinking skills and a broad outlook. Previously, when freedoms were not suppressed, pluralism of opinion, criticism and debate were welcomed. Now there is only a ‘true official version’ vs. conspiracists and Putin’s agents. Black and white.
So, I think the commentor regrets the loss of speech freedom and is happy to be in the ‘den’ to know different opinions. Must be tired to be among government cultists, who punish opponents for disagreement.
The daily assassination of Palestinian children after being herded into so-called safe zones with their mothers via leaflets from the sky, is the worst of genocidal Zionist evil. It’s called kettling, creating a pool of people and then hitting them with missiles from F16s.
This occupying state, without declared borders, forever stealing territory by violent means and denying Palestinians the right to live in their own country, indoctrinating young and old with dangerous, inhumane tropes, hate and superiority of race above all others, must have its UN rights removed, its statehood denied – in a reversal of the Balfour declaration.
They have treated peaceful UN staff with disdain, killed them as well as the journalists who reported their inhumane evil.
It’s time for the US, UK, Germany and all those who act in contravention to the Geneva Convention, the judgement of the ICJ, and against massive popular dissent in many countries of this world, to stop all arms sales, clandestine training and support of any kind to this evil entity, in this country and abroad.
It’s time to do the right thing; there is only one Palestine and it is for all people!
Question: has there been an official statement, i.e. a statement by a public official such as a police commander or at the White House or in the US Secret Service, saying that Trump was shot, meaning that he was hit by a bullet?
Even some of the private sector media are saying he was shot at, that he was injured, or that he says he was struck or glanced by a bullet. They are avoiding saying he was, as a matter of fact, hit by a bullet. Strange, that.
Craig is now recycling MAGA talking points.
Just bizarre to criticise Biden for being “snide and partisan” while dismissing Jan 6 as a “stupid, isolated riot”.
Spent too much time with Galloway etc al.
Sad.
What?
Biden when coherent, *is* snide & partisan. He used to be a tiresome & a blowhard.
The events on the capital, were a stupid isolated riot. Unless you think that MAGA crowd, swarming with feds mind you, was going to seize state power.
People like JK redux consider George Galloway to be a greater criminal than Joe Biden. That is Establishment-ruling class commonsense so it must be embraced.
The Maga mob were seeking to delay the peaceful transfer of power to Biden, the elected President.
As were (?)100+ Republican members of Congress.
Trump lobbied then VP Pence to reject some State electors.
Fake electors etc would have thrown the vote back to Congress on a State by State basis, resulting in a Trump win.
The mob was a mob – manipulated by Trump’s sidekicks.
If true, that’s like shitting in a cesspit. The US’s elections, and its politics in general, are filthy & corrupt, to the core.
So gaming the system any which way is normal.
The MAGA mob was swarming with feds, so manipulation came from multiple sources.
Craig..”This is not ideological opposition to war on Trump’s part. It is simply that, like China, he realises that trade, finance, investment and soft power are ultimately much more lucrative than the classic western imperialist model of armed conquest”. This may be true, but since the leadership of BRICS led by Russia and China are beating the ‘West’ in all the economic indices available, it is not possible for the US to remain the Hegemon, there lies the problem, what to do about it? The US has a big stick, why not use it? That is what the NATO led US is doing now in Ukraine and the Middle east.
I am reminded of a talk Richard D Wolff gave when he said Janet Yellen [US Treasury Sec] visited China three times in short order to tell the Chinese [China over the past 30 years has brought one billion people out of poverty and is the fasting growing economy in the world] how they should do things more the way the US [the losers] do things. He finished by saying, after hearing Yellen, they must have gone to a local restaurant and could not eat because they were laughing that much, such is the hubris of the US, exhibited in no small measure by Biden and Blinken.
US Hegemony has been stopped by the economic rise of China, US capital has done what capital always does, it goes where the profit is greatest, the Chinese offered US capitalists Cheap labour and the fastest growing economy in the world, whats not to like, the US capitalists invested in China and even agreed to share technology, they were not forced to do so, they willingly went to China to make profit. Corporations like Apple, Ford and General motors are making a fast buck. US Sec Treasury Yellen complained that the Chinese were cheating because they had ‘excess capacity’, of course they do, all large Corporations have excess capacity its called economies of scale, the more you produce the cheaper it can be sold, that’s economics 101. Because the US led west cannot compete they are imposing ever more tariffs and sanctions on the rest of the world, which of course the rest of the world is not taking lying down, hence BRICS.
Professor Richard Wolff is fantastic.
I loved overcapacity explanation!
The idea that one can look at an event and determine with certainty the cause is absurd.
One can only give a list of possible causes that with varying degrees of probability could be the actual cause.
In the case of the apparent Trump assassination attempt there are at least 3 possibilities:-
1/ A sincere assassination attempt by agents of the deep state that failed by accident;
2/ A sincere assassination attempt by a loan nut that failed;
3/ An intended fake assassination attempt organized by Trump partisans that came perilously close to being real;
4/ ……….
In my opinion 1/ is the most probable and 3/ the least. Aiming at the ear and hoping not to hit the brain is absurd. If the gunman intended to miss and hit the ear his aim was dangerously off.
We know the CIA experimented with truth serums and brainwashing; we do not know that they did not succeed. It is possible that the CIA at any time have a stable of pre-brain-washed individuals who at short notice can be tailored for a particular purpose either as convicted assassins or scapegoats. The 3 convicted or killed alleged perpetrators of the assassinations of the sixties appear to have been prearranged scapegoats.
Agreed, but sadly, the world is full of people who Know The Truth.
OTOH, the following is, at least, possibly, if not likely: the gunman wasn’t supposed to be sending bullets anywhere near Trump, but he wasn’t a good shot and wanted things to look realistic. However, when he not only nearly hit Trump (the bullet that was photographed missing Trump by inches) but also started hitting people in the crowd, the secret service sniper took him out. That would also explain why the snipers were told not to shoot him before he started firing. The “hit ear” was faked.
Sry but this gives you an idea of the level of idiocy of the US culture elite.
Katrina Vanden Heuvel of all people in a text on the Trump case:
“(…)I was on the phone with my daughter when e-mails started streaming through. “Trump has been shot.” She teared up, asking in a fearful and trembling voice: “What does this mean for our country?”(…)”
“Trump Deserves Sympathy—but Not Support for His Candidacy
Getting shot does not ennoble the target or transform victims into moral leaders.”
by Katrina vanden Heuvel
https://archive.is/DBYTr
Good god. How stupid is that woman? Did she seriously react that way? Because if she didn´t it would not be smart by her mother of making this up. But that´s about what we may expect from the US “elite”. Cry baby.
The rest of the article is about as analytical as a left mainstream democrat can get in 2024.
Not a single word about the 24/7 obsession by the “liberal” media with their scaremongering over evil orange man.
If there is one single reason why Trump became so popular it´s the media who made a hell of a profit by demonizing him (the other one being the “pro-Trump” media.)
p.s. Vanden Heuvel is the widow of noted US-RU historian Stephen Cohen. Which is a bit odd since she has done some good stuff on Russia.
That individual (KVdH) is a nasty piece of work, the dictionary definition of a “cold fish”. There are several joint interviews with her and the late SC online where one is left wondering what the hell the latter saw in her. In fact, there is a panel discussion involving SC, the Russian-American POS Julia Ioffe and others (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0rtr-I0Zjc) where Ioffe’s treatment of SC is only marginally more hostile than his wife’s.
Re the young shooter:
They wouldn’t let him join the school rifle club because he was such a lousy aim they thought he might be a liability, but he was a member of a different shooting club. He was intelligent, quiet, kind, and lonely, and you can see him in the Black Rock investment advert which filmed his school economics class. He declared he was Republican, for the record.
Black Rock stands to control the rebuilding of infrastructure in Ukraine. The investment fund is for this purpose. Black Rock also wanted to buy the London Underground but Khan refused, and Farage tried to say Khan was refusing money for London rather than that he is defending the service from hedge fund sharks who have taken over so much of our infrastructure and essential services under the Tories.
He built computers but didn’t have a media profile. There was a ‘rudimentary object’ in his car, and another in his home.
Best guess says he was influenced to be somebody’s hero.
Selling the Underground, I didn´t know about that. What a brilliant, brilliant idea.
When visiting Edinburgh many years ago I was speechless to see that the city had sold its bus lines to competing services so that the same stops were serviced by different companies each using its own incompatible ticketing and price system.
But apparently stupidity knows no boundaries.
p.s. German trains have become even worse since Craig last rode them.
Thank you Sir,
It is imperative readers indulge Mike Benz, whose Internet Freedom Foundation clarify secrecy agency propaganda regarding events described herein:
https://rumble.com/v4dxvjo-ep.75-tucker-carlson-interviews-mike-benz.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTwRZW00Krk
(from those already censored)
Matt Taibbi has a somewhat enigmatic piece on the US establishment possibly preparing to arrange with a new pro-Trump era after what apparently many behind the scenes regard as “inevitable”, a Nov. defeat of Biden.
He mentions the fact that Secret Service now has granted security to RFK, that META has announced to treat Trump equal to Biden and that MSNBC was not airing its “Morning Joe” out of respect or something like that.
The piece would be here:
https://www.racket.news/p/the-surrender
I had the impression Taibbi himself is not quiet sure what he means and what IT all means.
More an instinct he is following.
However observing from afar this shooting does look more fishy every day offering a more than convenient pretext to carry out what they had intended for some time now, behind closed doors.
(sry to all those fish out there in our oceans.)
Matt Taibbi was asked last month about his view on the Gaza genocide and repeatedly declined to give an answer, saying he doesn’t like to comment on the subject because it’s “complicated” and “I don’t know anything about it”.
https://x.com/PostLeftWatch/status/1801130033643413865
Not saying Taibbi is perfect. I read Seymour Hersh and yet I am sure there are things in his world view which I would strongly disagree with.
I even disagree on things with Chomsky.
If I were to give Taibbi the proper scholarship as an acquaintance, which I´m not, and he would read it, I guess he would learn from it.
(He is friends with Hedges. Wonder how that plays out.)
It could be he is weary due to his 450.000 subscribers? (He lost some important sources of income.)
It could even be that he is not telling the truth and only claims to not know.
Trust me, these things happen all the time.
In academia, in journalism, in entertainment, in politics.
Besides he is being observed by some powerful people in Washington.
Not to be underestimated.
p.s. The guy who is running Substack´s “FOIA Undead” and has unearthed the most important documents on Russiagate so far started out as an American believing the rubbish on RU being behind Russiagate. Those were his own words. And then he discovered odd things and started to dig.
Remember: Don´t take things as they appear since life is a complicated creature, as we all know probably too well. And not everyone is as crazy as Craig Murray always telling the truth . (Crazy in a good way like Chomsky, like Assange, like Finkelstein, like Ellsberg. All of them brought themselves into various forms of trouble.)
Complicated, huh? Taibbi’s sole selling point is that he is a fearless truth telling journalist. That’s the only reason anybody knows who he is. Yet he cannot bring himself to go as far even as John Kirby or Matthew Miller in acknowledging what Israel is doing.
Maybe you´re right. I don´t know.
But I really would be curious what Chris Hedges could tell us about that.
Since those two are in contact.
I certainly asked myself the same question you did.
Eventually I came up with what you rightly address as “Complicated, huh?”.
As I said it´s all just a scheme to stop any meaningful change.
Branko Marcetic now confirms reports that 2020 Biden only became the nominee because he would be the only one who could stop SANDERS not Trump. Latter was of minor concern to the DNC. Of course.
“Democrats Now Openly Admit They Pushed Biden to Block Bernie”
https://archive.is/hXyvh
The same line of “reasoning” is true now when Marcetic unsurprisingly writes:
“Democrats are now explicitly saying they’re ready to accept a second Trump term, and that they don’t actually think his reelection is as existential as they’ve been saying”
Well this was the case already 2016. And that´s why serious people call it “uniparty”.
So yeah, perhaps orange man and hillbilly kid gonna strike some deal with Putin.
But that´s about it. The West will be back at square one at best.
The real problems only having gotten worse in 2,5 years.
But this too is mere speculation.
Yet again, the presumption that Donald Trump is choosing to run for President in order to make money.
He doesn’t need more money nor does he need to be President again to make more.
The narrative that he is after revenge is, to me, more compelling than any particularly altruist or reformist goals but the outcome is not necessarily that much different in Trump’s case.
Equally dismal is your contact’s failure to associate Trump’s demonstrated courage under fire with an asserted cowardice in the face of threats. What part of Russiagate, the ongoing lawfare, the constant mainstream media attacks and the opprobrium of pretty much the entire Western liberal establishment demonstrates that Trump is afraid of conflict?
Dislike for the man due to his is one thing – failure to accurately assess and credit Trump’s positive qualities is inexcusable.
“Joe,” DeLaria declared (referring to the current President of the United States), “you’re a reasonable man. You don’t want to do this. But here’s the reality: This is a fucking war. This is a war now, and we are fighting for our fucking country. And these assholes are going to take it away. They’re going to take it away. Thank you, [Supreme Court Justice] Clarence ‘Uncle’ Thomas. Joe, you now have the right to take that bitch Trump out. Take him out, Joe. If he was Hitler, and this was 1940, would you take him out? Well, he is Hitler. And this is 1940. Take him the fuck out!”
From a Scott Ritter piece on his substack page:
https://scottritter.substack.com/p/the-dead-zone-revisited
Political rhetoric has escalated to a worrying level. It’s tribalist.
Hearing that Trump’s Deputy has said that Britain is the first Muslim country to have the atomic bomb shows he is unaware of Pakistan, and that he thinks Sunak is Muslim. Trump also saying that he will not support Ukraine is another sign of a bumpy road ahead. General Petraeus said that Trump cannot unilaterally pull the US out of Nato but he does seem pretty cross with Europe as a whole, and Britain in particular
It was a joke (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhE8qDp2CK0), he cited Pakistan and he is a graduate of both Ohio State University and Yale Law School.
Hope that helps for those who don’t read joined-up writing.
Vance used the undefined expression” Islamist” country rather than Muslim country and implied that he himself did not term Pakistan Islamist but that Britain might well be.
Having read the article and comments I am surprised that you are accepting this event as told to you by the state and the media.
The story as told by the state and the media of the Salisbury Poisonings has been taken apart by this site and the comments.
So why believe this story. The first thing you must do is use your eyes and not your ears. Examine the video and photos and see if they show what you would expect. If you cut me do I not bleed. I expect most men have at some time cut them selves when shaving if you have ever nicked your ear that you know it bleeds a lot. The reason is that the ear has a lot of capillaries carrying blood. So what would you expect to see if some of these capillaries were cut. You would expect to see bleeding. But this is not what you see instead you see areas that had possibly bled but were no longer bleeding. You also se that the shirt collar has no blood on it. The shirt has no blood on it. Why is this. Why is there no active bleeding were they able to staunch the bleeding. The best way would be to use tissue or cloth with pressure. But they would not be able to remove any blood stain from his shirt. So either he bled but without getting any on his shirt or he did not bleed. The basis of Science is observation and recording those observation then experimentation to repeat the observation under controlled conditions. Experience is a gathering up of evidence of observation. My Experience is when I cut myself shaving I bleed
If I do not staunch the bleeding completely then when I put on a white shirt I can end up with a spot of blood on my shirt.
My eyes and brain and experience tell me the pictures that I can see do not match the story we are being told.
Well, of course, it could have been a put-up job that nearly went badly wrong in that the gunman wasn’t supposed to be sending bullets anywhere near Trump, but he wasn’t a good shot and wanted things to look realistic. However, when he not only nearly hit Trump (the bullet that was photographed missing Trump by inches) but also started hitting people in the crowd, the secret service sniper took him out. That would also explain why the snipers were told not to shoot him before he started firing.
If you think the photo of the bullet in flight is real then I have the London bridge for sale.
There was no bullet that went anywhere near trump; he just ducked down then they added the blood but forgot to add it to his collar or that the blood should be flowing everywhere.
Those in the crowd were probably shot at close range to help sell the gig.
It is just a simple magic trick a little distraction with some firecrackers.
The Actor on the roof did not figure out his starring role would also be his curtain call.
They would never of risked Trump sticking his head out when he came back up if it was real.
It was all on a stage and it was just theatre.
Same as JFK no doubt. Or MLK. Or RFK. Just theatre. Nothing to see, let’s move on.
BS: Are you even trying to be serious here? Or are you saying funny things just for a laugh?
You seriously think nobody would have noticed, or filmed, ‘them’ adding blood?
Nobody noticed ‘them’ running up and shooting a couple of people at close range – your words – to add to a narrative, sorry, ‘the gig’?
Btw, English requires that you say “They would never have“, not “They would never of“, but I’m sure this doesn’t detract in any way from your position as you weigh in as a really serious commentator.
Yes, it was all “on a stage” – that’s what politicians do when addressing a crowd at organised events. Musicians do it too, suspiciously enough.
I’m always amazed that conspiracy nuts can’t see the most obvious conspiracy – that hundreds of millions of guns are in the possession of people of questionable mental health. But while there are billions of dollars to be made, nobody is going to question it.
You mean when Trump was below the podium covered by security and every one was distracted and panicking by the sound of what some described as as sounding like firecrackers . They would not have been watching or be able to see what was happening below the podium. If the people in the crowd were shot from close or far I can not know, But I know that Ears have blood capillaries that when cut they bleed. They will continue to bleed until the bleeding is staunched or natural blood clotting occurs but this takes time. The lack of bleeding and that there is no blood on Trumps collar near his ear or on his shirt cuff or even on the inside or outside of his hand that he put to his ear needs explaining
The security should not have let Trumps head be visible after the shooting.
https://i.postimg.cc/BQSn46BX/trump.jpg e
https://i.postimg.cc/CL8XWbzj/trump2.webp
A rational reply is welcome
The security guards, when they finally started doing their jobs, were doubtless given through their radios the all clear, so they should hurry Trump out of there without further delay. I heard one such recording, but doubtless it was faked after the event.
One of the guards might well have covered Trump’s head with their arms or even their body. That might have wiped away blood. Not saying it did, but it’s hardly impossible. Likewise, his hand could have been wiped the same way.
These are tiny details that people like you wish to grasp onto, for reasons best known to themselves. None of them make, or add up collectively, to a “OMG! That couldn’t have happened!”
Your story, on the other hand, would require a lot of coordination, rapid work and all the cameras and mobiles recording the event to fail to capture a single thing you mentioned. And no eye witnesses noticing odd goings on, like someone shooting members of the audience dead at close range, just for good effect.
The most obvious explanation is the proliferation of powerful guns in the hands of nut-cases not fit to be in charge of a paperclip, wound up in a desperately polarised country (ironically enough by the MAGA/tea-baggers themselves) with little or no access to mental health services.
But that is just too boring, and doesn’t put the conspiracy theorists on that exclusive ‘inside track’ of deep knowledge and understandings that elevates them above the sheeple.
“Those in the crowd were probably shot at close range to help sell the gig.”
You were doing so well up to that point. Trump may be unscrupulous, but even he does not arrange for two people to be killed and two injured just to try and boost his popularity. Yes political forces have had people killed in the past, but not for that purpose.
It’s perfectly possible to draw a line between the known position of the gunman and the known position of the spectators who were shot and see just how close to Trump the bullets passed. I am sure that if that showed the bullets went nowhere near him, someone would have pointed that out by now.
I think you’re deeply mistaken to believe that Trump wants rapprochement with China. It’s much more likely that he will continue the aggressive policy towards that country that started with the Obama administration and has never stopped since.
I highly recommend the writings of Daniel Larison on Trumpian foreign policy.
Regardless of whether Biden or Trump is President next year, we will still be at the precipice of an all-out nuclear war waged by idiots.
Yes as other commentators have pointed out, one should not glorify Trump, I have myself given him credit where credit is due, but he is no angel and there is no telling what might happen if he actually is elected – one should not get one’s hope up too much in my opinion. Trump, if elected, could become more emboldend, radicalized if he is once again framed as “weak” on the russians etc by the msm. Then we have his hatred for Iran and his apparent love for Israel:
“The Pro-Israel Donor With a $100 Million Plan to Elect Trump”
https://archive.is/KxODW
Vance, on Iran: ‘If you’re going to punch the Iranians, you punch them hard’
https://jewishinsider.com/2024/07/vance-on-iran-if-youre-going-to-punch-the-iranians-you-punch-them-hard/
Jewish organisation having a celebration for JD Vance after he was elected to become a VP on the Trump team
Video: https://x.com/Khaleesicorleo/status/1812974952326570055
Vance seems like a loose canon too, just 39 years old without any real experience. A trump-hater now turned allied. That relationship will be shaky on par with the sour Trump/Pence relationship.
If it was A bullet..Trump’s Ear hardly would have stopped it…Where did it go .. Why is someone behind Trump not dead, or Badly wounded.
Here is a Sniper of 14 years telling Clayton Morris, that the “The Trump Shooter Didn’t Act Alone” Sniper Dallas Alexander is one who would know. very good educational Interview
“The Trump Shooter Didn’t Act Alone” Sniper Dallas Alexander Reveals | Redacted w Clayton Morris – 14 mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi6bywhJa2U
“Why is someone behind Trump not dead, or Badly wounded.”
What about the one dead and two wounded spectators, any of which could have been hit by the bullet that nicked Trump’s ear? Had you already forgotten them?
Not from One Shot..and Not from the Original So called First shot..