2024-07-15
Horseshit
Obit
Musk
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Shooting conspiracies trend on X as Musk endorses Trump - The Verge
Conspiracy theories about the shooting at a rally for Donald Trump began surfacing on X shortly after the news broke this afternoon, with the platform promoting topics including “#falseflag” and “staged” to users. X owner Elon Musk has staunchly advocated for “free speech” on social media platforms — which can include misinformation like the above.
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Musk endorses Trump after shooting at rally
Elon Musk endorsed former President Trump minutes after Trump was ushered off stage by Secret Service agents at a rally in Pennsylvania following apparent gunshots. Why it matters: Musk is one of the richest men on the planet and controls of one of the world's biggest social media platforms. Trump has reportedly considered offering an advisory role to Musk, who has moved sharply to the right of the political spectrum in recent years. Musk's tweet endorsing Trump came a day after Bloomberg reported that he had donated to a pro-Trump PAC.
Trump / War against the Right / Jan6
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Trump Gunman Reported To Be Thomas Matthew Crooks | ZeroHedge
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Can we hold the demagoguery at least until we know the shooter’s motives?
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Fears of unrest in convention host Milwaukee after Trump assassination attempt
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Butler County, where Trump was holding his rally, is a stronghold for his campaign : NPR
Last night, former President Trump was shot during a rally in Butler, Pa. The area, north of Pittsburgh, is known for it's strong support for Trump.
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AP Photographer Evan Vucci Spills on Historic Trump Rally Shooting Pic
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Media Rushes to Blame Trump For Assassination Attempt
It is both disgusting and remarkable that, within minutes and hours of the attempt on Donald Trump’s life, the media was blaming Donald Trump. Jamie Gangel on CNN lamented that, in the thirty seconds after Donald Trump got shot, he did not urge people to tone down the rhetoric, instead choosing to show the crowd he was okay by raising up his fist and yelling, “Fight.” Margaret Brennan on CBS, after Trump released a statement mourning the dead and praising law enforcement, lamented he did not urge people to tone down the rhetoric.
Frankly, the media’s rhetoric, not just the politicians, has been to attack Trump as a threat to democracy, a would be dictator, and an autocrat unless someone stops him. MSNBC ran an entire series called “American Autocracy” about what life would be like under Donald Trump. Now, the press is blaming Trump for not toning down the rhetoric. The press won’t be happy until Trump is killed.
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Assassination Porn and the Sickness on the Left
in a wider sense, if the common referent day after day on the Left is that Trump is another Hitler (cf. a recent The New Republic cover where Trump is literally photoshopped as Hitler), then it seems reckless not to imagine an unhinged or young shootist believing that by taking out somewhat identical to one of the greatest mass murderers in history, he would be applauded for his violence?
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Donald Trump survives. - by Techno Fog - The Reactionary
Reports are still coming in fast. There’s a lot of rumor and speculation and patently false information out there. We know that one innocent bystander, a Trump supporter in attendance, was killed. Witnesses described a shot to the head. Video footage showed authorities pulling his lifeless body from the stands, a towel covering the damage. Those who rushed to his aid were covered in blood. Others were hit. Truly heartbreaking. There are differing accounts as to Trump’s injuries: some say his his right ear was grazed by the bullet, and other sources say his injuries were caused after the bullet hit a nearby teleprompter, sending shards of glass towards Trump. It seems, at least from the pictures we’ve seen, that none of the teleprompters were damaged. (If it wasn’t from broken glass, then these purported “sources” might have their own motivations.)
Making matters worse for the Secret Service (and for local police), witnesses were notifying the authorities of the shooter. One group of Trump supporters saw the shooter climb up to the roof with his rife. This witness was waving down Secret Service who were on another roof. He was warning the police for 2-3 minutes: “There’s a guy on the roof with a rifle.” And next thing he knew, shots were fired.
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Trump shot at election rally: former Obama advisor warns of retaliation
After the attack on Donald Trump, a former advisor to Barack Obama spoke out, warning of the "real danger" of retaliatory attacks. However, that is not all, as he also warned of the risk of retaliatory acts, especially given the rhetoric used by both sides of the political spectrum.
I think there is a real danger here that we could see retaliatory acts of violence and then the Trump campaign, those in the MAGA movement, really ought to reflect and reassess their rhetoric so as not to incite more attacks or violence - he stated.
Bruen emphasized that both Trump's team and the MAGA ("Make America Great Again") movement should reconsider their language to avoid inciting further aggression. He pointed to the need to reflect on the communication style that contributes to the escalation of political tensions in the country.
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Suspect in Trump assassination attempt registered as Republican, but motive unknown
The FBI early on Sunday identified the suspect, who was killed at the scene, as Thomas Matthew Crooks, of Bethel Park. Crooks had been registered as a Republican voter, according to state records. He graduated from high school in Pennsylvania in 2022, district officials said. The FBI did not "currently have an identified motive, although our investigators are working tirelessly to attempt to identify what that motive was," FBI Special Agent in Charge Kevin Rojek said.
Officials had said during that press conference that they were using the suspect's DNA to confirm his identity, because the suspect had not been carrying anything that would have identified him. "It's a matter of doing biometric confirmations," Rojek said. "So, there was no identification on the individual, for example, so we're looking at photographs right now and we're trying to run his DNA and get biometric confirmation."
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Investigators were working Sunday to gather more information about Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, who they say opened fire at the rally before being killed by Secret Service days before Trump was to accept the Republican nomination for a third time. An FBI official said late Saturday that investigators had not yet determined a motive. Two spectators were critically injured, authorities said. Relatives of Crooks didn’t immediately respond to messages from The Associated Press. His father, Matthew Crooks, told CNN late Saturday that he was trying to figure out “what the hell is going on” but wouldn’t speak about his son until after he talked to law enforcement.
Crooks’ political leanings were not immediately clear. Records show Crooks was registered as a Republican voter in Pennsylvania, but federal campaign finance reports also show he gave $15 to a progressive political action committee on Jan. 20, 2021, the day President Joe Biden was sworn in to office.
Public Pennsylvania court records show no past criminal cases against Crooks.
The roof where the person lay was less than 150 meters (164 yards) from where Trump was speaking, a distance from which a decent marksman could reasonably hit a human-sized target. For reference, 150 meters is a distance at which U.S. Army recruits must hit a scaled human-sized silhouette to qualify with the M-16 rifle. Investigators believe the weapon was bought by the father at least six months ago, two law enforcement officials told The Associated Press.
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A law enforcement official said early Sunday that the Secret Service and the FBI are investigating the suspect's background and speaking with his family. The FBI has secured his home and federal law enforcement is searching the premises of his family's residence in suburban Pittsburgh, the law enforcement official said. A law enforcement source confirmed Sunday that suspicious devices were found in the gunman's vehicle.
Crooks' political leanings were not immediately clear. Records show he was registered as a Republican voter in Pennsylvania but previously made a $15 donation to a Democratic-aligned group, CBS Pittsburgh station KDKA reported. Bethel Park School District confirmed to KDKA that Crooks was a 2022 graduate of Bethel Park High School. School officials pledged to work with law enforcement investigating the shooting, and offered condolences to those affected by the attack.
Trump's Secret Service detail was given additional assets that is part of the protocol for the presumptive nominee due to his heavy campaigning, which includes additional manpower, counter-sniper, drones and robotic dogs, the law enforcement official said. On Saturday, there were four counter-sniper teams on site, the official said. Additionally, Trump's teleprompter is protective and the flag and podium banners are made of steel, the law enforcement official said.
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Trump Rally Shooting Is the Secret Service’s Nightmare - WSJ
Rep. James Comer (R. Ky.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said within hours of the shooting that his panel was opening a probe, and he called on the Secret Service’s director, Kimberly Cheatle, to appear on July 22.
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Civilian fatality identified as Corey Comperatore, age 50
The man who was k*lled at Trump's Pennsylvania rally has been identified as former fire chief for Buffalo Township, Corey Comperatore. Rest in peace. Comperatore's last act on this planet was shielding his daughter from the bullets.
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Explosives Found in Car of Would-Be Trump Assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks | National Review
Explosives were found in the car of would-be Trump assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks after he was killed in a failed attack on the former president during a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, according to multiple reports.
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In a strange twist that has the Alex Jones and Laura Loomer types buzzing, Crooks appears to be featured in a BlackRock ad filmed at Bethel High School.
Despite all of this, no one has uncovered any social media accounts definitively connected to Crooks. No motive has been given. We have no details about how Crooks gained access to his sniper position, or why police and Secret Service didn't respond sooner.
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While little is known so far about the shooter and his motivations, the incident was a grim reminder of the new era of intensified political violence in which we are living.
Trump’s own authoritarian politics have been accompanied by bigotry, virulent political tribalism, and a willingness to allow his preferences to be enforced and his enemies punished through physical violence. His rallies, for instance, have been sites of violence since his first campaign for the presidency in 2016, when supporters would frequently attack protesters and members of the media. Trump supporters have long taken it upon themselves to enact vigilante political violence against his enemies. In 2018, a Florida-based Trump supporter, Cesar Sayoc, conducted a terror campaign in which he mailed bombs to critics of President Trump, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, Robert De Niro, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Joe Biden. And in 2022, a deranged Trump supporter, David DePape, broke into then House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home and beat her husband, Paul Pelosi, in the head with a hammer.
All that is not including the January 6 attack on the Capitol, in which an angry, violent mob of Trump supporters stormed Congress in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election – where they threatened to kidnap and attack members of congress and chanted that they would hang Trump’s own vice-president Mike Pence. Trump’s influence – and, at times, his express direction – has arguably made political violence more central, more frequent, and more bloody a force in American politics. What has changed now, with this shooting at a Trump rally, is only that it seems to have been the first time that this kind of violence has been directed at him.
What happens next could be very dangerous. After Trump ducked to avoid the bullets, he was immediately surrounded by Secret Service agents, who closely surrounded him as a human shield. But he rose from the stage, apparently in defiance of their wishes, to raise a fist in the air and yell “Fight!”, Trump was defiant, and calling for revenge. The risk of vigilante violence by Trump supporters, meant to avenge their leader or punish his perceived enemies, will be high. There is no sign that Trump or his surrogates will disavow this, or make any effort to call it off. And why would they? They never have before.
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Massive Secret Service Failure Led To Nearly Successful Assassination Of Donald Trump? | ZeroHedge
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After refusing to use the word 'assassination' for most of Saturday, the MSM is now blaming Trump for the shooting - with ABC News' Martha Radatz saying "We were just looking back this morning at some of the things that former President Trump has said, he warned last March of potential death and destruction if he were charged by the Manhattan District Attorney."
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Bill Maher Reacts On Stage to Trump Assassination Attempt
“Whoever did this, the shooter has done so much damage to the Left,” Maher continued. “[The Left] has lost a lot moral high ground in the ‘you’re the violent people’ and the ‘liberals don’t shoot people, liberals don’t solve it that way.'”
It should be noted the politics and motive of the shooter are currently unclear. The would-be assassin has been identified by the FBI as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. According to CNN, he was registered to vote as a Republican while records show he gave $15 to a Democratic-aligned political action committee in 2021.
Continued Maher: “When I say ‘moral high ground’ … the 2025 Project, the sort of plank of the Republican Party, which starts their convention tomorrow in Milwaukee, I’ll be there — to go to the strip clubs. The guy who wrote that said ‘this is our new plank,’ he said ‘this is our new revolution for America,’ which I’ve heard a thousand times … everybody says there’s a new revolution. But they don’t always say what this guy said, which is, he added, ‘It’ll be bloodless, as long as the liberals let it happen.’ Okay, that’s not cool either. This shit has got to stop, because none of this violence happens in a vacuum.”
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Wading Into the Fray - by Jeffrey Carter
The culture in the Democratic Party is corrupt and reprehensible. It is worse today because many of them are full-throated socialists. Democrats crave and need power to take taxpayer dollars and funnel them to their patronage machines. If they don’t have the power, the money dries up and they can’t keep their machines in line. Trump is a gigantic threat to their machines given his plans to strip the bureaucracy of power and funding. He is the most lethal threat since Reagan. If the bullet had killed Trump yesterday, it would have been worse than the Kennedy assassination since our country is significantly more divided. There are speculations that it could start a new Civil War. Maybe. But, so far when faced with violence, Republicans have never retaliated.
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Top Democratic strategist pushed reporters to consider ‘staged’ shooting
The top political adviser to Democratic mega-donor Reid Hoffman suggested that the attack on Donald Trump could have been “staged,” even as Hoffman was criticized for joking before Saturday’s attack about Trump becoming a “martyr.” The adviser, Dmitri Mehlhorn, apologized for his remarks after Semafor published this story, and said his email laying out his claims was “drafted without consultation from team members or allies.”
In an email Saturday at 7:34 pm that appeared to be addressed to sympathetic journalists, and which was also sent to Semafor, Mehlhorn wrote that one “possibility -- which feels horrific and alien and absurd in America, but is quite common globally -- is that this ‘shooting’ was encouraged and maybe even staged so Trump could get the photos and benefit from the backlash. This is a classic Russian tactic, such as when Putin killed 300 civilians in 1999 and blamed it on terrorists to ride the backlash to winning power. Others who have embraced this tactic of committing raw evil and then benefitting from the backlash include Hamas on October 7. If any Trump officials encouraged or knew of this attack, that is morally horrific, and Republicans of decency must demand that Trump step down as unfit.” The other possibility, Mehlhorn wrote, “is that some crazy anti-Trumper in this chaotic moment decided to assassinate the former President.”
Mehlhorn, who co-founded a fund called “Investing in US” with Hoffman, made clear his impulse was toward the false flag theory. “I know I am prone to bias on this, but this is a classic Putin play and given the facts seems more plausible. Look at the actual shot. Look at the staging. Look at how ready Trump is to rally; this pampered baby shit his pants when an eagle lunged at his food. Look at how quickly Trump protects himself at the expense of others, but showed few of those lifelong instincts in this moment. And consider how often Putin and his allies run this play.”
- comment:
Wasn't Alex Jones ordered to pay over a billion dollars for suggesting the same thing for a different shooting? I say sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander...
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BlackRock Says Gunman From Trump Rally Appeared in Firm’s Ad
Crooks was one of several students who appeared in the background of the 2022 ad and was unpaid, BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager, said in a statement. The ad was filmed at Bethel Park High School, where Crooks graduated in 2022, and featured a teacher, the company said.
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Democrats fret about the political fallout from the Trump rally shooting
undecided voters may “be more likely to vote for him out of sympathy” and that “especially with the upheaval in the Democratic Party, you know, more and more people I think are a little bit confused as to who to vote for.” At a time when President Joe Biden has been struggling to shore up support with fellow Democrats following a miserable June debate performance and shaky cleanup effort, some professional Democratic political operatives said Saturday’s shooting will end up sealing the incumbent’s electoral fate.
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Donald Trump and America’s dark history of presidential assassinations
The image of Donald Trump with his fist in the air and blood on his cheek will be an enduring one. Whatever happens next, it is likely to consolidate this man’s extraordinary power over the course of modern US politics. Some are responding by saying the attack was “un-American”, but in reality the history of the United States is one of deep, roiling political conflict that has frequently turned violent. The attack on Trump, a former president and Republican nominee, echoes many previous episodes.
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The Trump Shooting Conspiracies Show Us Why We All Believe Lies - Adam Grant
I want to show you an example that came up recently in the assassination attempt by Donald Trump. There was an extreme right-wing newspaper that I will leave unnamed with a headline claiming the secret service were instructed to stand down when the shooter was spotted. The claim is false of course. Yet as it happens, you might see this description coming to life if you review the footage. We do see a sniper fully positioned looking through their scope, pointing outwards well before the shots begin. That's what I mean by being close to the truth. It's important to have this for a conspiracy theory to spread.
if in my reality, Republicans are good and Democrats are bad, then when something bad happens to the leader of my tribe, I need to see information that’s going to fit my perception: The left is bad and the right is good. And the narrative that the left is the villain and the right is the victim is just ripe for the taking. So there is very little mental effort needed for me to read something like, "why did the sniper allow it to take place?" And fill in the easy conclusions that have been teed up for me from the beginning.
- "by Donald Trump."
Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
TechSuck / Geek Bait
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
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A.I. Needs Copper. It Just Helped to Find Millions of Tons of It in Zambia.
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Neo-Nazis Are All-In on AI | WIRED
The report found that AI-generated content is now a mainstay of extremists’ output: They are developing their own extremist-infused AI models, and are already experimenting with novel ways to leverage the technology, including producing blueprints for 3D weapons and recipes for making bombs. Researchers at the Domestic Terrorism Threat Monitor, a group within the institute which specifically tracks US-based extremists, lay out in stark detail the scale and scope of the use of AI among domestic actors, including neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and anti-government extremists.
- oo. "3D weapons". ohdear.
Crypto con games
Economicon / Business / Finance
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
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Ocasio-Cortez Loses the Democratic Socialists’ Endorsement Over Israel - The New York Times
In a a lengthy statement on Wednesday, the group took particular issue with her sponsorship of a recent event with Jewish leaders focused on combating antisemitism, calling it a “deep betrayal.”
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FEC grants Pence campaign’s request for public matching funds to pay off debts • OpenSecrets
one presidential candidate in the 2024 cycle surprised everyone by enrolling in the public funds program in his bid for the Republican nomination — former Vice President Mike Pence. Pence formally announced the launch of his campaign in June 2023 but quickly fell behind other GOP candidates in fundraising and polling. By October, Pence publicly announced the end of his campaign. “As we leave this campaign we do so with grateful hearts,” he said at the time.Months after dropping out of the race, Pence’s presidential campaign committee pulled a rare move by applying retroactively to the public campaign finance matching program. Once the decision is approved by the Treasury Department, Pence will receive $100,000 to pay off outstanding campaign obligations. Pence’s campaign has been silent on the FEC’s decision, and will now be responsible for paying off most of its debts.
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Joe Biden Sparks Confusion With Vow To Cap Rent Hikes at 5%
President Joe Biden appeared to announce new plans to crack down on rent hikes at his press conference following the NATO summit in Washington, DC, on Thursday. During the wide-ranging press conference, Biden sought to allay fears that his reelection campaign is unviable after a disaster debate performance against Donald Trump last month. While commenting on the economy, Biden slipped in the apparent campaign vow. “It’s time — for example, if I’m reelected, we’re going to make sure that rents are kept at 5% increase, cor- — corporate rents for cor- — apartments and the like and homes are limited to 5%,” he said, according to the official White House transcript.
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Biden holds ‘tense’ call with centrist Democrats
A source on the Zoom call with members of the centrist New Democrat Coalition described it as “tense,” and said lawmakers felt “really dismayed” with the president’s presentation and lack of strategy, and felt he was not prepared for questions he was asked. The source characterized Biden’s answers to questions as rambling. The source said the most notable exchange occurred when Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) referenced voter concerns about Biden being “at the helm when they go to sleep at night.” At that point, the source added, “Biden ripped him.” “The exchange with Jason Crow was hard to watch,” the source said.
Biden got particularly animated towards a question from Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) about slipping public confidence in his leadership as commander-in-chief, according to several members in the meeting. "That was a complete disaster. We saw the same Joe Biden from the debate," said one House Democrat on the call. "It was awful," said another lawmaker. A third told Axios: "Members were not holding back ... it got tense with Crow for sure."
I don’t want to hear that crap,” Biden said in response to Crow’s suggestion that voters did not have confidence in his national security credentials, raising his voice in a forceful defense of his foreign policy record, including the rebuilding of NATO, according to three people familiar with the remarks granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting. But Crow spoke up again to say Biden’s accomplishments weren’t breaking through to voters.
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Bernie Sanders backs Biden and urges Democrats to ‘stop the bickering’
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Biden campaign pausing communications, taking down TV ads after Trump rally shooting
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Trump rally shooting upends Democrats' crisis over Biden candidacy
Congressional Democrats' all-consuming angst over President Biden's candidacy has taken an abrupt backseat in lawmakers' minds in the wake of an assassination attempt against former President Trump. Democratic lawmakers say their immediate focus is on their personal security and that of their staffs, not on their party's political woes, helping to allow a crucial cooldown period for the embattled president. "We're all just focused on expressing condolences ... and keeping our teams safe," said one House Democrat who has been fiercely critical of Biden. But the second senior House Democrat offered one reason for why it might: "We've all resigned ourselves to a second Trump presidency."