Sidenote: The NYT is writing "acting strangely" again. We just talked about this grammar error 2 days ago, here. The NYT had "acting strangely" in a headline 2 days ago — "People Around President Trump Are Acting Very Strangely." Please, editors, learn about copulative verbs (AKA linking verbs). You should be writing "acting strange" (for the same reason you'd write "The sky looks blue" and not "The sky looks bluely").
Now, what can we learn about Thomas Crooks? Let's see...
His father noticed his mental health declining in the year before the shooting, and particularly in the months after graduation. He later told investigators that he had seen his son talking to himself and dancing around his bedroom late at night, and that his family had a history of mental health and addiction issues....
About a week before the shooting, Mr. Crooks’s internet searches became especially focused, the F.B.I. said. On July 6, he registered for Mr. Trump’s rally at the fairgrounds in Butler, Pa., and searched, “How far was Oswald from Kennedy?”
In his remaining days, he looked up where Trump would be speaking on the site.
“Why do we still know nothing about that guy in Butler?” Elon Musk asked in February in front of a large crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington.
“Kash is going to get to the bottom of it,” he added, referring to Mr. Trump’s F.B.I. director, Kash Patel. The crowd cheered.
But in a recent interview on Fox News, Mr. Patel at his side, Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the F.B.I., said there was simply no “big, explosive there there.” He added, “If it was there, we would have told you.”
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66 comments:
So. Just a normal guy.
A lone gunman. It always is. With apologies to Sara Jane Moore and Squeaky Fromme.
The thing of it is, I no longer believe a word from the NYT.
What about all his phones? And there’s lot more to his internet history.
The thing of it is, I no longer believe a word from the NYT.
I know that, you know that, and the NYT knows that.
That's why they cite Fox news and Kash Patel. Screw the NYT. I believe him.
“How far was Oswald from Kennedy?”
Lee Harvey Oswald had been a Marine and was trained by them. Considering the ineptitude of Trump’s Secret Service detail that day, it’s good that Crooks was not nearly as well trained.
All you have to do is watch the Secret Service AFTER they get Trump trundled to the car.
They slowly, less than 1 mile per hour, drive away. They don't even spin up the tires.
They knew there was no longer a threat. Now how do you suppose they knew that?
It's not what they do ... it's what they DON'T do. They weren't surprised. And they had Thomas Crooks in their sniper sight the entire time he was squeezing off 8 shots at Donald Trump.
Joe Biden tried to murder him.
The posthumous plea of insanity is essential for the exculpation of the left.
"... it’s good that Crooks was not nearly as well trained."
Crooks was trained well enough to climb up the side of a building carrying a heavy rifle, on top of the only roof not secured by the Secret Service, in broad daylight, while witnesses around him were yelling out to the Secret Service: "Hey, who's that guy with the gun climbing up to the roof."
Crooks was then trained well enough to get off at least 1 head shot on the principal and hitting the target ... and at least 7 other shots off, killing one and injuring two more.
All the while being observed in the sniper scope of a trained FBI sniper.
That's pretty good training.
Strange that now the NYT decides to do a bio of the assassin. The anniversary of the event is next month, so why run the story today?
…any mention of the contact he had with the political/government sponsored psy op that green lighted him? Didn’t think so… but do correct their grammar…
Next week the Trump Administration will announce that "We guess COVID was caused by eating bat mear after all."
What a joke. I guess the deep state beat Trump pretty easily. Maybe Elon was on to something. The Deep State will always have Donnie by the balls because they are black mailing him about Epstein and Diddy (and probably a ton of porn stars we don't even know about yet).
Grok, on the actions of the US Secret Service that day:
"There is video evidence of people in the crowd pointing out Thomas Matthew Crooks to authorities before he opened fire at the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. Multiple sources confirm that cellphone footage captured rally attendees attempting to alert police and Secret Service to Crooks' presence on a rooftop approximately two minutes before the shooting began.
"For instance, a witness named Greg Smith told the BBC he saw a man with a rifle on the roof and was pointing at him while Secret Service observed through binoculars. Additionally, cellphone video reported by CBS News shows attendees shouting and pointing toward Crooks, with some yelling, "He's got a gun!" moments before the shots were fired. ABC News also verified a video showing Crooks crawling across the roof 111 seconds before the shooting, with bystanders attempting to alert an off-screen police officer.
"These videos indicate that crowd members noticed Crooks' suspicious behavior and tried to warn authorities. The footage has been widely discussed in media reports and is part of the ongoing investigation into security failures at the event."
“If it was there, we would have told you.”
Try using that verbal flourish in your everyday conversations. See how long it takes before your wife/husband gets outraged or laughs in your face.
E.g., "If I were having an affair, I would have told you."
Why are they still lying about things that we thought would be revealed if Trump and his people swept in?
Options:
1. They weren't lying before. Turns out the Biden people were telling the truth.
2. There are reasons to lie that transcend the partisanship we may have thought was the cause of the lying.
3. There are different reasons driving the Trump people that also require lying.
I was of the opinion that high level terrorists were in this country thanks to the Biden border which was as porous as his mind. I thought that these agents were being directed to people who were searching terrorist sites by other agents collecting info on people making those searches. I thought that when they found people who were losing their minds or their girlfriends they focused on them just as the FBI focused on those militia guys in Michigan and made them worse.
But now Kash Patel seems to be saying that losers in America will move into terrorist action on their own if inflaming events in their lives coincide with inflaming reading on social media. That, for example, they'll burn elderly, unarmed Jews if they think that makes them seem to be a hero in someone's ideology - in the case in Colorado, the Nazi-type wanted to be a hero to the followers of the settler-colonial ideology. In short, attackers can glide into being the same as the Nazis while thinking they are world-heroes, just by being on the wrong social media as they go delusional.
Well, perhaps. That would make exposing the dangers of ideology very important but we don't have the media or the universities to do that.
Howie Carr: "You can trust me; I'm not like the others."
Althouse: “If it was there, we would have told you.”
Try using that verbal flourish in your everyday conversations. See how long it takes before your wife/husband gets outraged or laughs in your face.
E.g., "If I were having an affair, I would have told you."
That's a pathetic analogy, worded to support your take.
HOWZABOUT THIS: "If there was evidence other than a mentally-ill lone gunman, we would have disclosed it by now. The idea that this administration would coverup or be less forthcoming about the details regarding an assassination attempt on our president is ludicrous and speaks to the conspiracy-mongering by the Left in the Russian Collusion hoax."
There are several if not dozens of Crooks-type would be assassins who cluster around every presidential appearance. The Secret Service knows about them, expects them, and does whatever is necessary to neutralize the threat ahead of time. It may be a visit ahead of time, denial of access, "preventive" detention- whatever it takes to preserve safety without too much violation of a citizen's rights.
The Secret Service did not know anything particular about Crooks, only that he or someone like him was very likely to take advantage of that rooftop that so coincidentally happened to be left unguarded. Once they were informed of his presence, they made sure that he would be eliminated immediately after he took the shot.
I have read from several sources that this was the only Trump rally that CNN attended. If true, was it because they were tipped off that something big was expected? I find it hard to believe that anyone at CNN has a sharp enough news intuition that it was deemed worthwhile to have a camera crew attend this particular event. Did the SS ever have an on-the-record discussion with anyone at CNN about this?
The above is pure speculation, based on nothing but common sense and an awareness of how things have unraveled over the past few years.
Well, there's this.
“Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
“Joe Biden tried to murder him.”
How did Crooks get in a BlackRock Ad?
It occurred to me that the NYTimes may consider stating that someone is acting strange as overly judgmental, implying an objective standard of behavior. It wouldn't be the first time grammar rules have been broken in the name of Woke sentiment.
I don't think that a young man who lives with his parents talking to himself and dancing late at night is particularly unusual, "strange" or alarming. Especially if he has earbuds. Is that all they got? Was there any other observable behavior indicating that he was mentally ill?
The truth - Top secret FBI/CIA found this kid -and knew he'd be perfect. They disposed of him very quickly.
“If it was there, we would have told you.”
“In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” Jesus.
Perhaps the FBI leadership prefers King James style syntax now.
"That's my story and I'm sticking to it." That's what I hear.
There's nothing wrong with "acting strangely"; it seems more correct to me than "acting strange," which I'd normally say but not write. The category of copulatives, like many grammatical categories, has fuzzy boundaries. "Seem" or "remain" are very solid copulatives (you'd never say "He seemed/remained strangely"), but "act" is, after all, active (I mean not grammatically but semantically)--it's almost a synonym of "behave"--so it's more natural, if you're paying attention to nuances like these, to use an adverb of manner rather than a predicate complement.
"Acting strangely" is essentially the same as "behaving oddly." You wouldn't say "behaving odd." You could say "behaving in an odd manner" or "Acting in a strange way." Indeed, "acting strange" could mean "pretending to be strange". "Acting strangely" conveys, correctly, that you mean "acting (behaving) in a strange manner."
I offer no opinions regarding copulation at this time.
The left love threats and bribes. They are the mob.
Dancing ... omg - so strange.
What about the left's big lie that he was a "registered republican"?
The collective liar left used that same lie on the second Mar-a-Lago golf shooter.
Turned out to be another LIE.
"These videos indicate that crowd members noticed Crooks' suspicious behavior and tried to warn authorities."
Secret Service agents have cited a communications failure. They didn't know whether the man on the roof with the rifle was local law enforcement. Obviously a bad failure, but if correct, then not a conspiracy.
Never underestimate the banal power of incompetence. We always suppose that the Secret Service is a premium and masterful practitioner of its craft. But it has far too many protectees, most of whom would be better off with a triple A rated executive protection service. The folks in the detail assigned to a despised candidate are not the Ryan Reynolds or Samuel Jackson characters. They are what is leftover after the good ones are placed with the president and his family. Even the VP’s spouse detail is likely a HR hellhole assignment.
You don’t send Oscar Peterson to play background piano at a club wedding in Paducah.
- Krumhorn
This whole new millennium has been acting strangely these last 25 years. A Fourth Turning halfway through its evolution. It's akin to hiding your eyes so you don't see anything but still peeking between your fingers. Can't decide if I need a Xanax or a joint.
"They are what is leftover after the good ones are placed with the president and his family."
Good observation. Consider also the advance teams, sent to a foreign country to assess security before the President arrives. Those are the ones that generate the news stories one sometimes sees, of Secret Service agents caught overseas with prostitutes and cocaine.
Which psychiatric drug(s) was he suffering the side effects of? The media will not dig into this as long as Big Pharma is providing the majority of their advertising revenue.
If it was there, we would have told you.”
The moose out front seems to have more information.
It looks to me like they are trying to get out in front of a bunch of revelations.
"Crooks was just a crazy kid."
It is bullshit and the bug eyed Patel is freaking out because his friends were naughty while he was out of the FBI.
The truth must be pretty bad for DC in general.
Tom T. said...
"These videos indicate that crowd members noticed Crooks' suspicious behavior and tried to warn authorities."
Secret Service agents have cited a communications failure. They didn't know whether the man on the roof with the rifle was local law enforcement. Obviously a bad failure, but if correct, then not a conspiracy.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
This is so ignorant I can't believe a human actually typed this.
There is zero chance the Secret Service did not know Crooks was on that roof with a Rifle. They were in that building. It was less than 200 meters from Trump. Many people were pointing at him.
I want to make this clear. People on Trump's Secret Service team tried to get Trump killed. Crooks was guided and supported in his efforts to get to that spot by people working with the Secret Service.
I have explained this all in thorough detail going into the tactics involved.
There is no chance this was incompetence.
“If it was there, we would have told you.”
I guess that's what the FBI career seniors told the new bosses and that's what the new bosses are telling us. The alternative is telling us they're pretty much impotent.
Ann: Number 3.
A lot of people talk to themselves when they’re using voice to text transcription like I am right now. It means nothing to over the potatoes I was using voice to text. Oh no how did the potatoes get into this? Meade is commenting on the potatoes and intruding on my voice to text….
There is no chance this was incompetence.
Except for the fact that they employed a sniper who was known to be a bad shot (couldn't even make his high schools rifle team). If your wild conspiracy is true, seems like the most likely explanation is that they deliberately chose someone who would miss (and didn't care if a member of the audience was accidently killed).
Don't believe a word of what the NYT publishes.
He was at an age when certain mental health issues commonly manifest.
"I don't think that a young man who lives with his parents talking to himself and dancing late at night is particularly unusual, "strange""
Depends on the kid. For one kid, a person might think nothing of it. For another, it could be reason enough to make a doctor's appointment.
I think Trump's Secret Service team was extremely incompetent and I suspect that his team was deliberately made so by one of Biden's appointees with the hope that, perhaps, an assassin would succeed. I doubt Crooks was picked out by anyone to be an assassin- he was just a lunatic.
as pointed out who was specially picked to head the bureau and the staffing choices she made,
The NYT's motive in implying that Thomas Crooks is crazy is so they don't have to address or think about all the insane rhetoric that came from the left, and the NYT, in the 2024 campaign. Trump is a Nazi. Trump is a threat to democracy. Trump must be stopped.
If any of that shit was true, then Thomas Crooks would be Claus von Stauffenberg.
So when the NYT reduces him to that crazy guy who was waving his arms around and talking to himself, what they're really saying is that what they were peddling about Trump was a bunch of lies and falsehoods, and only a crazy person would act on it.
Acting strangely is correct, as it is in behaving strangely. "Are" is part of the present progressive, not copulative.
I like potatoes.
he was sane enough to scout out a location, to wait patiently, and take his shot, a professional shooter, no, but a gifted amateur,
“ Please, editors, learn about copulative verbs (AKA linking verbs). You should be writing "acting strange" (for the same reason you'd write "The sky looks blue" and not "The sky looks bluely").”
So…when Musk called Trump a pedophile, you would say Trump reacted angry? I’d say he reacted angrily, but of course I’m not Grok.
Apparently the NYT can't do any part of it's job well, but it's still considered a valid source by some. You could call that acting naively.
- One open, uncovered rooftop with a gentle slope, easy access, and optimal range to target, head on, no obstructions. Not covered by SS or police security, who had a lookout post 50 ft away and a water tower unoccupied, with commanding view of the entire venue.
- A SS detail comprised of inexperienced staff, many of them women, many of them not actually with the SS, but drawn from other departments and pressed into duty - for the leading presidential candidate, a former president.
- CNN appearing to cover a relatively plain-vanilla rally, not large, in Pennsylvania. The only time during the entire campaign they organized to be there.
- After the incident, the victim was slow-driven out of the venue with little support cover and no assurance that the plot was a lone-wolf attack.
- Perp immediately killed after the first salvo of shots, body then cremated shortly thereafter.
- Missing silverware and a stripped domicile, no investigation results released, no Congressional investigation or Summary report issued
Too many coincidences that are evidentiary, pointing to a concerted effort to ensure minimal history was preserved and as little as possible left behind to discover. All organized and pulled off by a kid a few years past high school working in an old-age home.
I don't need to know things that are classified Top Secret and understand the need to preserve the value of intelligence, but I do require our leaders to find ways to express what they're doing when it comes to investigating assassination attempts on a popular political leader of Trump's stature. They don't get to treat us as if we're stupid and occupying the lower reaches of their contempt.
Right now the midterms are looking to me like the kind of election results that Conservatives just enjoyed in the UK, by electing Keir Starmer: Political Suicide by an electorate that is so completely fed up with their politics that they choose -decisively - to end their political system and return it to an Islamic stone age.
I agree with those who are suspicious of the official narrative about Crooks, but there's no proof that there was some kind of set-up -- at least there's no proof YET. If it was a set-up, I'd expect someone to blow the whistle before long.
the tory crack up came after 14 years of broken promises,
the scenario with crooks resembles that in delillo's libra, his meditation on what happened in dallas,
- CNN appearing to cover a relatively plain-vanilla rally, not large, in Pennsylvania. The only time during the entire campaign they organized to be there.
This keeps coming up, but I've yet to see some actual proof. Not doubting you, but do we really know this for sure? That this was the only one they covered up to that point?
The only time during the entire campaign they [CNN] organized to be there.
Well, it was two days before the start of the Rep convention, so there was some chance Trump would announce his VP pick. But why not the rally before it?
Much of the rest is deliberate negligence and its coverup.
I'm hoping Patel/Bongino knew, before they were appointed, some tolerably competent and trustworthy agents to do real investigations. They can't all be like Strzok, can they? Trump may have directed them against fentynal and other crimes before tackling the enemy within.
Maybe he did it to impress the Jodie Foster du jour.
If his parents were worried about his mental health, why did they let him have a firearm?
Freder Frederson said...
There is no chance this was incompetence.
Except for the fact that they employed a sniper who was known to be a bad shot (couldn't even make his high schools rifle team). If your wild conspiracy is true, seems like the most likely explanation is that they deliberately chose someone who would miss (and didn't care if a member of the audience was accidently killed).
The sniper absolutely waited until he thought Trump was dead on the stage.
His only purpose was clearly to make sure Crooks didn't say anything.
He had the shooter clearly under scope for at least 30 seconds with people on the ground pointing an yelling for over a minute. As soon as crook's head popped over the crest of the roof that was the easiest shot in the world. But somehow he waited for the shooter to take his shots then killed him.
People just need to stop pretending.
"We stand behind the findings in our report" said Earl Warren in 1964. "We found no evidence of any assassin other than Mr. Oswald". Oh okay when you put it that way...
CNN appearing to cover a relatively plain-vanilla rally, not large, in Pennsylvania. The only time during the entire campaign they organized to be there.
So, why would people conspiring to commit murder call up CNN and bring them into the planning?
wildswan @(I think) 7:47 - The Instability of Truth book again (MAN, audiobooks take a long time to get through): there was a week back in the late aughts when Facebook ran an experiment. They altered the news feeds of almost 700,000 users to make them anywhere from 10% to 90% "more negative" than they'd been previously, and then monitored their postings to see whether a pattern of increased negativity could be discerned. It could - it was a small effect, but statistically significant.
The book doesn't mention whether they looked at second-order effects - whether the posts and comments of people with whom they interacted on Facebook also got more negative.
They didn't tell these users they were running an experiment on them, but they did publish the results - and then launched their IPO. (I think I've got that timeline right. Another problem with audiobooks: how do you revisit specific things you heard? You can't just flip back or, as with an e-book, search for a keyword.) What they seemed to be getting at was, "Look! We can affect people's emotional states! Buy our stock!"
(Everyone knew emotions are "catching" in face-to-face situations. But it was unclear whether you could "catch" an emotional state purely through text - and especially through text that was not from someone you know.)
Some users protested: did they screen their unknowing subjects for mental illness? (One user, at least, said she had no way of knowing whether she was a subject, but during that week she attempted suicide. She added that she did suffer from mental illness.)
So yes, exposure to the "right" social media at a vulnerable time in a person's life can theoretically spur her to action.
Craig Mc said...
Maybe he did it to impress the Jodie Foster du jour.
--
He was a Swifty?
That would explain the dancing..
But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I've changed
Well, something's lost, but something's gained
In living every day.
Joni knew.
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