Elections 2023 and 2024 (Part 1)

Trump Rally Gunman Was ‘Definitely Conservative,’ Classmate Recalls

‘STANDING ALONE’

AJ McDougall

(AJ McDougall - The Daily Beast)
Breaking News Reporter

Published Jul. 14, 2024 8:36PM EDT

REUTERS/Aaron Josefczyk

A former classmate of the 20-year-old man who tried unsuccessfully to kill former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday recalled him being staunchly to the right of the political spectrum. “He definitely was conservative,” Max R. Smith told The Philadelphia Inquirer of Thomas Crooks. “It makes me wonder why he would carry out an assassination attempt on the conservative candidate.” Smith shared an American history class with Crooks, and remembered a mock debate where their teacher made students stand on one side of the classroom or another to signal their allegiance. “The majority of the class were on the liberal side, but Tom, no matter what, always stood his ground on the conservative side,” Smith said. “That’s still the picture I have of him. Just standing alone on one side while the rest of the class was on the other.” Crooks died in the assassination attempt.

(perhaps the would be assassin had some sort of conservative purity mental derangement ala the classic Emo Philips joke …? -sigh-)

3 Likes


Source

https://knowledgefight.com/

5 Likes

if uvlade proved anything it’s that cops definitely need more money for training. why haven’t we learned our lesson? /s

7 Likes

8 Likes

We know who did it; and he’s already dead. Are you going to shoot his corpse?

And - it’s an ear for an ear.

16 Likes

Ivan Raiklin has a list of traitors to be assassinated in revenge, starting with Biden. It will be a glorious wave of “cleansing” after Trump is killed. He doesn’t want Trump to die, but at the same time he does because the “cleansing” can’t happen otherwise. See the post I replied to.

ETA: When he went on InfoWars Railkin and Alex Jones were sad because Trump had to die to make the “cleansing” possible. Now Raiklin seems to have decided that an attempted assassination is good enough as a green light for revenge killing.

9 Likes

I hope the secret service visits him on a regular basis.

Also - the kind of guy red flag laws were meant for. His guns should be confiscated for making threats to kill people.

13 Likes

He should be prosecuted for incitement to murder.

10 Likes

One of Flynn’s pals. Hopefully former Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Raiklin.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-military/

10 Likes

The Media Still Hasn’t Learned the Lessons of 2016

https://link.motherjones.com/public/36044066

All this reminds me of 2016. Ever since, the phrase “But her emails” has become shorthand for criticism of the media coverage of that election that hyper-fixated on the controversy over Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state. At the time, I believed that the email business was worth press attention. But the intensity of the coverage was out of sync with other aspects of this important contest. Most notably, Donald Trump’s background, with his long history of misconduct, did not spur a similar media uproar. And there was so much there: his past ties to organized crime; his sleazy business dealings; his supersized conflicts of interests; his advocacy of noxious right-wing conspiracy theories (and his praise of conspiracist Alex Jones); his multiple lies about himself and just about everything else; and more. (We at Mother Jones covered these subjects, but it was usually a lonely ride.) The novelty of Trump and the spectacle of Trump (those rallies!) drew all the notice. Not until the Access Hollywood “grab ’em by the pussy” video emerged did Trump face a media firestorm.

And then came another big media failure.

As soon as that video (seemingly) blew up the election, WikiLeaks began releasing Democratic material that had been swiped from the inbox of John Podesta, the chair of Clinton’s campaign, by Russian hackers. The leaks continued almost daily over the final four weeks of the campaign. The political press went gaga over transcripts of Clinton’s private speeches, internal emails, and other material. These leaks were indeed newsworthy at times. But the media missed the bigger story that was hiding in plain sight: Russia was attacking the 2016 election to help Trump become president. Worse, Trump was aiding and abetting this assault by echoing Vladimir Putin’s false claims that Moscow was not covertly intervening in the US race. He was betraying the nation he sought to lead.

Think about it. What’s more important? Reporting on the transcript of what Clinton had said during a speech to bankers (which was not that controversial) or focusing on the fact that a foreign adversary was undermining an American election to put its preferred candidate into the White House, with that candidate lending this regime a helping hand? Put that way, it’s a no-brainer, right? But that’s not how it played out. There was no media furor about the Russian operation and Trump’s exploitation of it.

This past week, the Justice Department announced it had disrupted the efforts of “Russian actors to create an AI-enhanced social media bot farm that spread disinformation in the United States and abroad. The social media bot farm used elements of AI to create fictitious social media profiles—often purporting to belong to individuals in the United States—which the operators then used to promote messages in support of Russian government objective.” This Moscow endeavor was aimed at reducing support in the United States for military assistance for Ukraine, but it easily could have pivoted to an attempt to influence the election.

The day after the Justice Department announcement, officials with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told reporters that Moscow has initiated a plan to mess with the 2024 election to aid Trump. “It’s all the tactics we’ve seen before, primarily through social media, efforts using influential US voices to amplify their narratives and other tactics,” an official said. “And as far as who they’re targeting, what we can say today is, Russia is sophisticated enough to know that targeting swing state voters is particularly valuable to them.” I saw this reported in a few media outlets: the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Al Jazeera, CNN, ABC, NBC, and Fox News. (Yes, Fox News.) But I didn’t catch anything in the New York Times or the Washington Post. And, most important, there was no overall hullabaloo about the United States being attacked yet again by Putin. Where are all the stories demanding that Trump denounce this and pressuring Republicans to address the matter?

Fixating on a liability of the Democratic candidate, letting Trump slide, and not making a fuss about a clandestine Russian operation to boost Trump. It’s déjà vu all over again. We all know that old saying: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. It seems we—or the conventional media—haven’t learned much from 2016. This year, a repeat of that media performance could well lead to another Trump presidency, but one far more dangerous and threatening to the survival of American democracy than the first.

15 Likes

I honestly don’t think it is even a little bit coincidental either.

A significant portion of our media conglomerates are helmed by people who are actively trying to install Trump. That is another plainly true thing we know based on fact or else lawsuits wouldn’t matter for little things like telling a big lie to overthrow a country.

Consider that it only got uncovered and reported on at all because another company was able to sue successfully for damages.

I honestly think these assholes like Carlson and Murdoch and ilk go off to party in Moscow and are just basically like jealous of the other oligarchs collections of teenage slaves. So they come back to bring their vision to us here. Nothing bigger. Nothing deeper. But they’d kill every one of us for their vanity I’m sure of that much.

14 Likes
7 Likes

Not to mention, of course, a significant portion of our judicial system.

15 Likes

And never assume that rich people who own media will break left – right. They’ll always vote rich.

10 Likes

I honestly think the clear lines of political ideations of schisms that lead to civil war come after some time.

Like a generation or more after sometimes even, at the cost of resolution.

7 Likes

My reaction upon waking up and hearing this news

Do The Right Thing Reaction GIF by Bounce

This fucking guy really is untouchable isn’t he?

11 Likes

Right? Even when a bullet hits him, it merely nicks his ear.

3 Likes

If he was, he wouldn’t be a convicted felon right now.

4 Likes

But he’s not in prison and his conviction doesn’t seem to affect his life in any way.

4 Likes

Because registering more voters is bad.

11 Likes