Fireworks

I wasn’t going to comment on the attempted assassination of Cadet Bonespurs in July; I’m not really big on conspiracy theories. We actually did land on the moon—more than once, Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK and the hundreds of children and staff who have been murdered in mass shootings in the past two decades are not crisis actors.

But I have questions about the shooting at Butler, Penn., on 13 July. Well—I have an array of facts that I cannot seem to align.

When the news came across social media that someone had shot at the Kleptocrat, I was dismayed. Like most decent people, I don’t want him dead and martyred; I want him alive to lose the election, spend months in courts fighting the numerous cases brought against him and then serve his well-deserved prison time.

I also thought, “Well, what’s up, Secret Service? This does not seem good.”

But when video, photos and witness accounts started streaming, my spidey senses tingled. “Staged” was the word that came to mind, even though that seemed very unlikely, unless the USSS was in on it—and that seemed even less likely.

So I’m not going to propose a theory; I’m just going to posit some thoughts both for and against theatre.

Against:

The Kleptocrat is a physical and moral coward. I flat out cannot see him agreeing to any stunt for any purpose that involves someone firing live ammo anywhere in his vicinity. We’ve seen the video of him dodging an eagle on his desk and fleeing a bird that got into his rally. The guy dodged the Vietnam draft five times and has not acquired any courage in the decades since.

I don’t think he’d even agree to the notion of someone firing blanks because he might remember the incident on the set of Rust and all the tsuris that brought Alec Baldwin. We’ve never seen him firing a weapon of any type. He shills for the NRA, but he’s not comfortable around guns. At all.

For:

(Yes, that’s all I’ve got against.)

The Kleptocrat is a coward, as noted above. Were he to believe he was actually being fired on, he would collapse, fill his diaper and start crying. USSS would have to drag his whimpering ass off the stage.

Seemed like it took a while for his USSS detail to get on the stage and haul his ass down behind the podium. Time is relative, of course, and I am not an expert. But I’ve seen clips of real assassination attempts on Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan; this was different. It was almost as though…they might have thought it wasn’t urgent?

The alleged wound Cadet Bonespurs suffered: meh. I get it—if a piece of shattered glass Teleprompter or even the very edge of the bullet fired by the shooter nicked his ear, there might not be a big hole, but you’d expect something he'd show off—especially out of someone like him. There’d be close-up photos, which he would turn into NFTs and hawk for $99 per.

We have no medical records or information from the ER doctors who treated him. Yeah—HIPAA; fair enough. But you'd think if the ER report indicated some kind of wound, he'd be waving the papers all over Fox. What they did release was a letter from ex-White House disgraced and demoted physician Ronny “Candy Man” Jackson. He saw Klepto later in the day and described “a 2 cm wide wound that extended down to the cartilaginous surface of the ear. There was initially significant bleeding, followed by marked swelling of the entire upper ear.”

Huh. 

Klepto played golf the next day and a photo of his right ear showed no indication of either a 1.75”-wide wound or marked swelling. However, by the time he showed up at the Republican National Convention a few days later, his ear was covered by a white mattress to signal his suffering. Once the convention ended, the mattress came off and he was back on the golf course.

(Look—I get it: there were actual bullets being fired at the man. You don’t need to be hit for it to be an assassination attempt. But if you weren’t hit, why all the performative nonsense? And if it was performative nonsense, I do not believe he has the cognitive wherewithal to do this on the fly; he would have had to have been coached ahead of time.)

Despite all signs that there was at least one shooter getting off shots, the USSS detail allowed the Kleptocrat to stand up above their protective huddle, adjust his hair and stick his fist up in the air to shout, “Fight, fight, fight.” This is completely counter to protocol—for an example of how it’s supposed to be done, take a look at the video of how Reagan’s team reacted after he was shot by John Hinkley. They tackled him and then practically threw him into the limo. No letting head/chest above their body shields. The performance at Butler was just bizarre. But the photo was great for the campaign; very “Raising the Flag at Mount Suribachi”. And now I have to vomit in my mouth.

The Kleptocrat has been remarkably quiet about that event—he mentioned it at the beginning of his RNC speech, but then moved quickly on to other grievances and lies. In the past week, he’d started to bring it up more, as a way to turn conversations away from his disastrous debate performance against Kamala Harris. But given his proclivities, I’d have thought that if he had really felt in danger you wouldn’t be able to shut him up about how everyone’s out to get him. This really does seem out of character.

Moreover, in addition to not banging on about it, he’s been remarkably calm about it. Back in the last century, I worked in an office near LAX that had a parking garage for employees. One morning one of my office mates came in to recount an armed man trying to mug people going to their cars the previous evening. “He has a gun,” someone shouted. Jan and several other people ducked behind parked cars until the guy jacked someone’s vehicle and crashed through the exit barrier to escape.

I wasn’t even part of that incident but for weeks afterward I was jittery. Any normal human can’t help being visibly affected after being faced with violent crime—just the reality that it’s part of our world is unsettling. But the Kleptocrat? He screams and spits for weeks when someone laughs at him; do you really think that if he believed someone were shooting at him he wouldn’t be freaky as hell?

Neutral:

The rounds fired in his direction on 13 July were indeed live; one person was killed and two wounded—actual wounds requiring real treatment. You might think this would be an argument against the incident being staged, but that would be to ignore the Kleptocrat’s narcissism. Any collateral damage is okay with him if it serves his purpose. People hurt, people killed—actually, that helps prop up the narrative of him as the Chosen One going in harm’s way on behalf of his MAGA. The lives impacted and ended are immaterial to him. It’s just the cost of doing business, which—as per usual—someone else pays.

The performance of USSS and local law enforcement on the ground that day was, uh, suboptimal. I mean—it was actually like the Keystone Kops. A guy with a long rifle gets into the audience area, climbs up on a building, is pointed out to security and cops by many attendees; the building he’s on is actually full of local cops. And…he still gets off several shots before he is terminated by USSS snipers.

(I wonder if Bonespurs rethought his demands on 6 January 2021 that his security team remove the magnetometers that were screening the crowd for weapons. He didn’t like the fact that it was keeping some people out—“They’re not going to hurt me,” he whined. “Let them in.” Nah—no rethinking.)

Investigators have found remarkably little information about the shooter—two months out and there’s still no report on any motive for the 21-year-old registered Republican. That latter fact may be one reason why Republicans aren’t foaming at the mouth, although Senate Rs are planning an investigation to gin up turmoil in the run-up to the election.

So that’s what I’ve got: extraordinarily out-of-protocol performance by USSS, no documented sign of wounding, most likely coached performative reaction, out-of-character silence about it until recently. Versus him being a complete coward who’s extremely unlikely to be involved in anything that involves firearms and live ammo.

I dunno.

Yes—we had a second incident involving a Republican with a military-grade weapon that he bought legally purportedly attempting to take out the Kleptocrat. This one is harder to put in the “assassination” box, though.

First of all—saying it’s unusual for someone to be at a golf club in Florida with a long rifle is kind of silly. Given that state’s laws and politicians in the bag for the NRA, it’s not unusual. It’s actually mandatory. If you're going to start taking away White guys' guns before they play golf, the Kleptocrat's going to lose a lot of greens fees; maybe even members.

Second—there was no press release that TFG would be golfing that day and the perp hung out at the edge of the course for 12 hours. Now, I get it—it would be a good bet that on any day when the weather is good, the Kleptocrat would be on the nearest of his courses, cheating at golf and collecting cart fees from his protective detail. But we’re not talking KGB assassin material here.

Third—Republicans are getting shirty about people having guns taking pops at their leader. But not worried enough to do anything about stopping nutjobs from getting military-grade weapons and shooting up the landscape. Some things just never change.

Fourth—assuming actual assassination attempts, Melania’s going to have to consider doing the job herself if she wants it done.

 

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