Amusingly , that song is the one currently playing in my background.
It wouldn’t take that much and it wouldn’t have to be planned. A 78 y.o. man’s skin is thin and ears, like scalps, bleed profusely. A pen, a long fingernail, a lapel pin could all cut an ear in the blink of an eye.
And while I don’t credit him with much skill in planning, he does have a conman’s cunning, especially for optics and playing a crowd.
That blade cuts both ways. We’re talking about a conman who bullshits like breathing. The simplest explanation for what happened has to include some kind of deceit, because everything T**** says or does is deceitful. The discussion isn’t really about whether something is fishy - it’s about what is fishy.
And the next mf’er who compares this train of thought to Qanon can go jump in a lake. 
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Right? I don’t see what’s wrong with discussing what’s possible. I guess I do see what’s wrong with doing so in a roomful of people who just don’t wanna hear it. Thanks for what amounts to reassurance at least that I’m not alone in considering such possibilities interesting and worthy of discussion. Tromp is an incredibly decietful con man who thrives like a professional-- oops, almost stopped reading the room again! 
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Which there is no evidence right now that he staged all this. The preponderance of ACTUAL evidence points to him having been shot, if only grazed. The fact that he was able to make a moment out of it right after it happened isn’t some evidence of this shit being staged. 
If you have evidence of that, by all means, post it. but him being a successful conman doesn’t necessarily indicate that this is staged. it just means he knows how to spin shit to his advantage with his faithful.
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I fully agree with you. I’m just imagining if Biden were shot at, and then seeing a conversation in the comments section of Fox News (which I know of only by reputation…) about how Biden had staged his own bleeding.
I totally get the impulse. Yes Trump is definitely a conman and a liar. But that can’t be the only evidence we use, or we quickly devolve into conspiracy theories. Because where would this one end? We’d soon be implicating the secret service for deliberately murdering a patsy, etc etc.
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And that’s not what I’m saying.
Maybe? Or hit by shrapnel like some of the security around him seems to have been.
That’s pretty much what I (and others like @milliefink) are saying - that the oversized bandage, lack of medical report, fist pumps, etc. stink of deceit. What form that takes - overplaying his injury; that the injury wasn’t from a bullet but rather debris; or that he inflicted an injury on himself in a moment of opportunistic cunning - is up for debate. But the odds that there isn’t some bullshit going on are vanishingly small.
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I think people have forgotten just what a dishonest sleaze Bush Jr. was. That doesn’t make it any more sensible to speculate that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job, it just means that we he did taking advantage of them was something we should all be skeptical about.
Likewise, I don’t think there is anything about “person tries to shoot US presidential candidate, grazes him” that requires a deeper look. These people have security details in the first place because it’s completely normal. Trump being completely dishonest means I can totally believe something like him playing up his injury now, but there’s no reason to project it into him coming up with something at that unplanned moment.
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What do I know.
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A lot. Multitudes.
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I guess HCR is in on this “conspiracy theory?’
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Doesn’t feel like that matters much.
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Just because others have a take or angle or perspective on things that differs from yours?
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As I think I said upthread here, I caught that too. Esteemed presidential historian that she is, she doesn’t come right out and say that there’s something fishy about it all, but by my reading, she sure does imply it.
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I’m pretty sure that if the 14th century even had dedicated razors, they were single edged. Which might sound like a bit of glib sophistry, but the whole point of a philosophical razor is that it provides one rule that is true in most circumstances. The logical conclusion of having seen a shooting where the person being shot at emerges with blood on their ear is that they were injured by the bullet, directly or indirectly.
Obviously Trump is a deceitful piece of s…, but he also doesn’t have the presence of mind, or the hidden razorblades to stage an injury after a genuine assassination attempt. Almost nobody would. And if we’re saying he staged the whole thing, we’re crediting him with even more evil genius than that. Not to mention that I don’t believe he has the stomach to have people killed in his direct vicinity. He prefers to kill people through inaction and vague policies far away, where he can’t see them or where they’re such a mass that they’re essentially anonymous.
You’re right, that’s unfair. It’s not even in the same league. Qanon isn’t a conspiracy theory, it’s a cult based in an entire conspiracy mindset. It’s more like 9/11 trutherism.
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i would say it’s not a conspiracy theory to want to see his medical records. ( especially given the fixation on biden’s )
it’s also not a conspiracy theory to wonder if he got hit by shrapnel. to me that seems much more likely than getting grazed by a bullet. but both seem possible
likewise, does he need that bandage? hard to weigh the odds because we have no information other than: he was hurt, and he’s a con man. it’s impossible to say without medical records.
when people start talking about staged shootings, and secret service hit lists… or even that he was so clever as to hurt himself. there’s just not even a shred of evidence for that. ( and he is not a clever man ) so, to me, all that is conspiracy theory territory. ( although, i’d love to see his original birth certificate… 
)
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Oh for–
No one here is saying that. Okay?
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Shrapnel is an extra step — anything we think is unlikely from a bullet is even more unlikely from a glass shard launched by a bullet 
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OK, for that you can just jump in a pond.
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I think you are both deeply underestimating him. His path to the presidency wasn’t random. And his ambition is not bounded by morality.
