Don't get me wrong here, But I LIKE Donald Trump.

[Marty_d]

Watch the tin-foil hat brigade leap on that as proof that the secret service are part of the "deep state" and wanted the assassination to succeed.

[old man emu]

There is a clear demarcation dispute in the allocation of responsibilities for security at that rally. From what I heard, the Protection Detail was responsible for security within the confines of the meeting and the local police were responsible for outside them. I would expect that there had been liaison between both bodies, with the Protection Detail offering advice to the locals. Although there is a Butler City Police Department, the incident occurred outside of the Butler city jurisdiction. The Butler County Sheriff's Office would have been responsible for policing the outside of the venue.  There is also probably a State Trooper unit located in the city. So really not a lot of police, and certainly not a lot familiar with  the protection of dignitaries.

 

Also consider this.  Assassination attempts since 1964 have been launched from close range using a handgun. I suspect the the Protection Detail would have been more focused on monitoring the crown at the rally for possible handgun and other short range weapon attacks. 

 

The way the USA organises its policing is really stupid. Firstly, it must be terribly uneconomic since each city, county and State force would be buying equipment at prices that were not as low as they might be if the purchases were in bulk. Also there is the communication breakdown, both immediate operational communication and incident recording. If a meeting like Trumps was held in a rural location in Australia, you could be sure that there would be a lot of joint planning between the AFP and the State police. The State police would be bringing in both specialist and General Duty police to bolster the safety of the dignitary, and to handle the  job of getting people into and out of the site.

[red750]

Trump's only criteria for picking Vance as his running mate:

 

“And originally, JD was probably not for me but he didn’t know me,” the former president continued. “And then, when we got to know each other, he liked me, maybe more than anybody liked me."

 

Cringe.

[red750]

Trump Calls Harris ‘Dumb as a Rock’ in Unhinged New Attack

 

Donald Trump called Vice President Kamala Harris “dumb as a rock” in a post on Truth Social this afternoon, part of the former president’s pivot from campaigning against President Joe Biden to attacking the favorite candidate to take his place.

 

“Wow, just watching the Fake News, and they’re doing their very best to turn the Worst President in the History of our Country into a “Brilliant and Heroic Leader” (He was heroic because he quit!), and to turn “Dumb as a Rock” Kamala Harris from a totally failed and insignificant Vice President into a future “Great” President.” he wrote.

 

“No, it just doesn’t work that way!”

 

Just a few hours later, a new memo circulated by Trump senior campaign advisors Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles outlined exactly how the former president plans to challenge Harris, who began raking in endorsements from Democratic leaders and donations after President Joe Biden announced he would suspend his campaign Sunday afternoon.

 

“Just as Donald Trump fired Joe Biden, he will demonstrate to the world he can fire Dangerously liberal Kamala as well,” the memo reads.

 

Trump’s advisers attacked Harris on her record as the “border czar,” blaming her for “the border invasion, which has resulted in nearly 100 terrorists roaming the United States, hundreds of thousands of Americans dead due to Fentanyl, a child trafficking epidemic resulting in killings and kidnappings.”

 

Although Customs and Border Patrol agents recorded a record high of more than 250,000 migrant encounters in 2023, migrant crossings on the southern border have begun to plunge in recent months—with total crossings falling 23% in June, according to the agency. The Biden administration also signed an executive order in June that allows the government to close the border after CBP encounters over 2,500 crossings in one day.

 

According to the most recent data released by CBP, agents have encountered a total of 94 migrants on the Terrorist Screening Dataset—better known as the terror watch list.

 

They also blamed Harris for “a spread of a new type of crime, a crime directly linked to Harris’ own beliefs, and backed by her actions, released migrants who prey and kill innocent Americans,” echoing Trump’s frequent campaign rallying cry of “migrant crime” after high profile incidents, such as the murder of Georgia college student Laken Riley.

 

The memo claimed that Trump was leading Harris in the polls, citing a HarrisX/Forbes poll conducted after he accepted the Republican nomination but before Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday, which shows the former president leading by nine points.

 

The memo also cited “Democrat polling released just today” showing Trump leading in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin, but did not specify which polls or when they were conducted. Morning Consult released polling results on Monday after Biden’s withdrawal showing Harris only trailing Trump by 2 points—a gain from their last poll, which showed Biden losing to Trump by 6 points.

 

A Quinnipiac University poll that ended on Sunday found the race was too close to call, with Trump winning 49 percent of the vote to Harris’s 47 percent.

[old man emu]

Wednesday afternoon's news had Harris two points ahead of Trump.

 

1 hour ago, red750 said:

migrant crossings on the southern border have begun to plunge in recent months

The refugees aren't stupid. A Trump win won't make the "American Dream" look as good as it's been made out to be.

 

I suppose that if he wins he'll have someone take the plaque on the Statue Of Liberty that has these words:

“Give me your tired, your poor,

your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

 

Here's the full text of the poem https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46550/the-new-colossus

[rgmwa]

Or more likely just add a line: " And send the ba****ds home once more"

[red750]

[red750]

FBI Director Christopher Wray has raised doubts as to whether or not Donald Trump was struck by a bullet during the assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally earlier this month.

 

Wray testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday about the ongoing investigation into the attempt on the former president’s life and the response of law enforcement agencies that day.

 

When questioned by committee chairman Jim Jordan as to whether the FBI had accounted for all of the bullets at the scene, Wray said that eight spent rounds were recovered from the rooftop of the building from which the gunman opened fire.

 

“With respect to former president Trump, there’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” the FBI chief added.

“As I sit here right now, I don’t know whether that bullet… in addition to causing the grazing, could have landed somewhere else.”

 

He added: “But I believe we’ve accounted for all the shots in the cartridges.”

 

Gunman Thomas Crooks fired a volley of eight rounds towards Trump using an AR-15 rifle while the former president stood on stage speaking to rallygoers in Butler, Pennsylvania, killing one rallygoer and wounding two others.

 

Former White House physician Ronny Jackson has said that Trump was shot in the ear creating a 2cm-wide wound, according to a memo shared with Axios.

 

The former president has also repeatedly said that he was struck in the ear by a bullet.

[facthunter]

How would he KNOW what struck him? Originally he thought it was a Bee.. Most people don't have a lot of experience of being struck by bullets of which there are many kinds and they are hard to see. because they go as fast as a bullet. Nev

[onetrack]

I've been struck by a flying chip of steel dislodged from a hammer head. It was the equivalent of taking a bullet. It went straight through my chest wall, bounced off a rib and lodged against the wall of my lung. I only felt a light level of pain - but the blood squirting out of my chest in spurts in front of me, from a severed artery, was a good indication I was injured!

 

I managed to stop the blood spurting with pressure - but a short while later, the swelling created by the bruising in my chest region started to make it painful to breathe, and I was gasping with short breaths.

Luckily, my brother was with me and he drove me to hospital, some 40kms away. I must've really alarmed him, laying back in the corner of the cabin, taking gasping breaths!

Of course, I had to ask, "can't you go any faster?" - and his reply was, "I'm sitting on 160kmh", I've got nothing left!" 😮

 

We got to the hospital and not long after arrival, the swelling started to subside and the breathing became easier. They sent me to another hospital about 135kms away to get an X-ray, because the small hospital we initially went to, had no X-ray facilities. They did the X-ray and kept me in overnight for observation. The next day, the doc came around and said, "You're one lucky bloke, a little bit either way and you'd be dead".

"The steel chip is lodged against your lung wall and will have to stay there, because it's the equivalent of open-heart surgery to remove it! It will almost certainly pose no major problem, because the body will build some scar tissue around it, and that will likely prevent any movement of it".

 

He was right in one respect, it's been there over 50 years and it has never affected me. But when I got an ultrasound recently, they told me there was no scar tissue buildup around it, it was just sitting there. I can't have an MRI because they're afraid the strong magnetism will pull the steel chip through the wall of my lung.

[facthunter]

Yeah, NO MRI'S for you, unless it rusts away. Bit's of bone dissolve if they are floating.   Nev

[willedoo]

One of my dad's mates copped a bullet from a Jap machine gun when they were in Borneo and he lived with it lodged in his spine until he died aged in his late 80's. I think it was too risky to remove it and it didn't cause much trouble throughout his life. He spent most of his post war working life as a screen printer. The bullet hit him in the arm, spun 90 degrees around the humerus, went between two ribs cracking them, straight through the lung and ended up in the spine. Someone picked his slouch hat up and gave it to my dad as he had lost his, so he saw out the war and the post war service period with his mate's hat.

 

 

[willedoo]

A photo that circulated from day one of the shooting shows a symmetrical vapour trail next to Trump of a type consistent with a bullet and not of a shrapnel piece. Whether or not the photo is manipulated is another thing. Another photo showed a piece missing from an onstage piece of equipment that looked like a teleprompter. That lead to some public speculation that shrapnel from it hit Trump's ear, but again, the photo might have been shopped. As far as I know neither photo has been proven to be genuine.

 

Edited July 26 by willedoo

[old man emu]

2 hours ago, willedoo said:

symmetrical vapour trail next to Trump

D'err! Wrong side and wrong direction. I reckon it's a vapour trail from a commercial jet. 

 

I still want to see a diagram that shows the relative positions of Trump, the people who got shot and the shooter's position on the roof.

[rgmwa]

How about this:

 

Trump was on the square stage in front of the the stands at the end of the walkway and was facing toward the gunman at the time. The person who was killed was reported as being behind Trump, but I don't know whether that means the stand directly behind the stage or more likely the angled stand lower down.

 

Here's another view the day after:

 

Edited July 26 by rgmwa

[willedoo]

From the photos I've seen, the deceased was on the smaller angled stand which is consistent with the trajectory from the shooter to Trump. But maybe not, it's a bit hard to figure out.

Edited July 26 by willedoo

[willedoo]

21 minutes ago, rgmwa said:

In this photo the position of the gunman is just generalised to that rooftop. He was over on the far left hand side as you look down on the roof. That narrow position enabled him to get a line of sight past the first angled seating stand closest to him.

[red750]

From other images I've seen, if I remember correctly, these are the respective positions, Click to enlarge.

 

[willedoo]

6 minutes ago, red750 said:

From other images I've seen, if I remember correctly, these are the respective positions, Click to enlarge.

 

That looks about right.

[willedoo]

Originally I thought the crane that got hit resulting in a blown hydraulic line was a ricochet. After looking at these photos you can see it was directly in the line of fire. I've marked the yellow crane (red arrow) and the line of fire as the green line and you can see the crane was directly in line. In the early videos released you could see a big spray of hydraulic oil and the boom contracting as it lost hydraulic pressure. The gunman was rushing his shots. Trump would have had no chance if it was a professional job, and certainly if there was a second shooter after the SS bungled their duty for Trump's photo op with the clenched fist thing. I think most assassinations and attempts on presidents have been done by amateurs.

 

[willedoo]

The FBI have now said it was a bullet or bullet fragment that hit Trump. My money is on a fragment ricochet given the appearance of the injury to the ear (photo attached). Even though an ear is flexible, the kinetic energy of an unhindered bullet would have taken a fair bit of his ear off. Fragments can still give a nasty cut depending on a lot of factors. If a hard bullet fragment comes off steel it can have razor sharp edges. Possibly the fragment (if it was a fragment) broke off a bullet that hit something on stage or the metal on the spectator stand. If it was a fragment, Trump is lucky it didn't hit him in the eye. I've been hit on the cheekbone with a sizeable bounceback, about half a projectile, and it felt like getting punched by someone and that's a lot less momentum than a ricochet.

 

I used to accompany my dad to his 2/9th. AIF Battalion annual reunions and have seen some of the damage on diggers from bullet strikes and you could see how much extra damage the kinetic force did to them. One old bloke I spoke to had been hit twice with machine gun bullets at Shaggy Ridge. One went through the front of his helmet and left a big groove across the top of his head. The other one hit him in the left collar bone area and left a hole the size of a cricket ball in the top of his shoulder.

 

 

Edited July 27 by willedoo

[old man emu]

Just looking at those two streaks across his cheek, I wonder if two pieces of something came from the front. The higher line looks like it can be followed to the ear, and the lower one just clips his lower cheek and carries on past him. I would imagine that in subsequent appearances, he would have any scar or mark on his cheek covered with makeup to support the story that it was a bullet, and not debris as it seems it might be.

[willedoo]

13 minutes ago, old man emu said:

Just looking at those two streaks across his cheek, I wonder if two pieces of something came from the front. The higher line looks like it can be followed to the ear, and the lower one just clips his lower cheek and carries on past him. I would imagine that in subsequent appearances, he would have any scar or mark on his cheek covered with makeup to support the story that it was a bullet, and not debris as it seems it might be.

Those streaks have run down his cheek when he was lying prone on the deck covered by agents.

 

 

 

[willedoo]

It's healed well. A small dent in the top of the ear is the only visible effect.

 

[rgmwa]

If that’s all that ‘Taking a bullet for Democracy’  involves, it doesn’t much to be a selfless hero.