What's surprising is the surprise - words like "surreal" bandied about - expressed at the attempted take-down of the mango Mussolini.
Assassination and attempted assassination is as American as apple pie. No need to repeat the list of well-known efforts. The shooter's weapon of choice - allegedly an AR-15 - is also as American as cherry pie, it being a military grade weapon approved by SCOTUS and the NRA and freely available for anyone wanting military mayhem in a civilian setting. Why not make it available to 20 year olds?
The culture itself, not to mention recent political campaigning and rhetoric, is saturated with violence.
Why, there's even a YouTube channel dedicated to celebrating killer head shots in the movies. Nor is it surprising that the shooter was so inept. The pond was never a great shot, but the alleged 130 yards should have been easy for anyone with a decent long arm, but this is America, where gun culture is worshipped, but it's easier in the movies ...
No need to hammer the obvious point ...
The one thing that's certain is that the orange Jesus will receive a big bounce, with martyrdom and conspiracy theories already rampant... and with one snap of the moment destined to a kind of perverse Iwo Jima glory ... and being a cunning marketing and media man, he'll milk it for all its worth ...
Naturally the lizard Oz was full of it this morning ... talk about a chance for a gabfest and violent rhetoric...
The pond appreciated the way that the Major had filed his copy early, and so was intent on a bit of black and media bashing.
The pond will turn to the usual reptile suspects in due course, but first to help cool things down a bit, here's the Major ...
Back to 1994 with the Major, still carrying a chip on his shoulder, but alas and alack, still unable to find that missing Order of Lenin medal.
There were plenty of visual distractions in the Major piece, videos and snaps ...
Then it was on with the usual Major rhetoric ...
For anyone interested in a mild form of comedy, please hold that talk about "no action by government-appointed bureaucrats" fixing such issues in the head. It will in due course suggest that the Major is such a lightweight and so completely clueless that he forgets what he types a nanosecond after the typing ...
Yes, thar he blowed. The income management scheme was by definition an action by government-appointed bureaucrats intent on fixing the issue. What's more, the Major is infatuated by other ideas for actions by government-appointed bureaucrats intent on fixing the issues.
On the upside, it's not the assassination attempt ... but still there's time to blame the ABC and the Graudian ...
What a pity the reptiles helped kill off an Aboriginal Voice where such issues might have been discussed by Aboriginal people with policies implemented by Aboriginal people with Aboriginal approval, and instead we have the Major blathering about the 1990s and Noel Pearson, with the Major apparently unaware that the lizard Oz helped break Pearson's heart ...
The pond does appreciate the Major's offer to show the benefits of income management by having his income managed.
No doubt he'd welcome government paternalism into his life with open arms ... and if you believe that, you might have an Opera House lined up to sell to the Major ...
And so to doing the hard attempted assassination yards.
The pond doesn't like to do it, doesn't want to do it, but that's how the bullets landed this day.
First up is the Caterist, offering insights only a Caterist could ...
History might urge caution, but when has the Caterist ever paid attention to history or for that matter to science? How else could he have become a floodwaters in quarries whisperer of the first water?
There were the usual distracting snaps to hand ...
... but nothing could distract from the Caterist showing he had a screw or two decidedly loose in the noggin ...
From history urging caution to western radicals and Chairman Mao?
That was beyond the valley of caricature to which the pond usually assigns the Caterist, and just to rub it in, the reptiles even offered a snap, sublimely removed from current events ...
It is of course just an interim report, but it's also a long way from Mao, and much closer to American apple pie ...(oh FFS, spare the cinnamon please) ...
Ah, he liked to play chess and video games and was learning to code. Why not immediately leap to Chairman Mao?
There were a couple more Caterist gobbets, but he'd reached his comedy peak, and so he settled for blather, feebly attempting and purporting balance, but strangely only finding alleged left and black radicals to scribble about...(he might at least have mentioned the Oklahoma City bombing) ...
At this point, the pond's instinct, honed over the years of reading Caterist rhetoric, was to reach for a 'toon ...
Indeed, indeed, liberty and justice for all 20 year old AR-15 gun owners ...
Experience shows that it's possible to survive Caterist rhetoric with a 'toon or two, as he blathers on about other media, without the slightest awareness of the irony involved in him pulling Chairman Mao off the shelf ...
You mean the initial hesitancy to sound like a loon sounding off about Chairman Mao?
Then it was on to the bromancer ...
This time there was space for a gif style graphic recreating the shooting ...
... and there was also a gabfest podcast embedded in the story ...
The pond can see where the bromancer is heading with this ...
The bromancer has always been a closet Trumpian. That's how "vermin" and "hang Mike Pence" can get turned into "intemperate rhetoric".
Well yes, there's a nice both siderist account of the situation, but you won't find much both siderism in the bromancer ...
You will find some distracting snaps ...
... and you will find the rhetoric of blame ... you know, it's all the fault of CNN and the NY Times for reporting on things such as Project 2025 and its authoritarian, fascistic inclinations ... and the obvious lie that the orange Jesus had nothing to do with it ...
Not to mention a woman's right to control her body, SSM, the demonising of trans people, etc. etc, on and on and on, even including pornography,
with obvious political intent...
You know ...
It's worth running the bromancer's final three gobbets together so that the bromancer can end his journey by celebrating the mango Jesus arriving in the White House, no doubt still intent on turning the country full white Xian nationalist ... and blaming it on the Democrats ...
Hitler's core brand was core strength too ... here, have a Rowe to celebrate ...
Finally there was "Ned", doing his usual hand wringing and Chicken Little impression, together with another recycling of that podcast and the attempted assassination graphics..
The pond only notes the upselling of the podcast - screen caps fortunately render it inert - and will avoid the reptiles' feeble attempted assassination graphics to cut back to the "Ned" chase ...
Cool the rhetoric? While in the lizard Oz pages the Caterist rants about Mao and the bromancer rants about CNN and the NY Times? And blames it all on the Democrats?
What hope of sanity in the reptiles given this blame-laden response? It's been extremely ugly for years - long before the mango Mussolini embarked on his full page ads to have the (innocent) Central Park Five hung, or his quixotic mission to label Obama a Kenyan Muslim incapable by law of running the United States.
Anyone who thinks he won't seize the opportunity to make the most of it is delusional. Per that Balz piece, already the talk has turned to eradicating the nest of weevils ...
Oh yeah, the nest of weevils.
The pond should allow "Ned" his feeble hand-wringing last word ...
Uh huh. So many warnings, so many guns, so much verbal and actual violence, so little time.
An enfeebled, inclined to follies, missteps and malarkey Joe will attempt to seize the moment and stay in place; the mango Mussoliini will seize the chance to march to victory, Kraft durch Freude, as the bromancer would have it, and the war on the nest of weevils will begin ...
This is America baby. Burn, baby, burn ...
Courtesy of an unnamed reptile:
ReplyDelete"Donald Trump's would-be assassin was seen 'bear-crawling' across the rooftop he fired from. The police were told, but failed to act in time."
Well it's obvious that they're all Democratics then.
"The image the world will forever recall"? Huh, it reminded me more of Julian Assange being bungled out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
ReplyDelete"Nick Cater ...a visiting fellow at the Danube Institute" Did I miss NickC's elevation to the ranks of the Hungarian Bumkissers League ?
ReplyDeleteBut hey: "...the reaction of his [Trump's] opponents and their ability to suspend their extraordinary sense of fear and loathing." Oh my, how the reptiles boast about their state in the universe.
Thanks for noting that GB. Irritating that it fell into the Blogger spam trap, as too many regular comments do ...
DeleteThere it was bold as brass and proud as punch ...
"Nick Cater is a senior fellow at the Menzies Research Centre and a visiting fellow at the Danube Institute"
That puts him in the company of other lickspittle Orban fellow travellers of the onion muncher kind, with the "think tank" (the pond uses the words ironically) receiving a substantial amount of funding from the Hungarian government.
It also puts the Caterist in other august company:
...The firm introduced the younger Mr. Carlson to the Hungarian ambassador, arranged an interview on Mr. Carlson’s show in 2019 with Hungary’s minister of foreign affairs and trade, and helped to arrange meetings with Hungarian officials for a Fox News producer who traveled to Budapest in 2019 to research Mr. Orban’s agenda.
Asked about the lobbying firm’s efforts, Mr. Carlson said in a text message that “none of this is relevant to anything,” adding that he interviewed Mr. Orban because he was impressed by the Hungarian leader’s immigration policies.
Another organization that has received funding from the Hungarian government, the Danube Institute, has provided fellowships for Western conservatives and also arranged and paid for a speech in Budapest in September by Mr. Sessions, who said he was promised a modest fee...
Etc.
New York Times Oct 2021/Jan 2022:
Hungary’s Leader Fights Criticism in U.S. via Vast Influence Campaign
Viktor Orban, the country’s far-right prime minister, has spent millions on lobbying, support for think tanks and cultivating allies in Washington.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/04/us/politics/hungary-orban-lobbying.html
The local authoritarians just loves themselves some of their fearless despotic Xi and Putin-loving Hungarian leader and his cash ...
Lobbyists.
Delete"Nick Cater is a senior fellow at the Menzies Research Centre and a visiting fellow at the Danube Institute"
"Any lobbyist who acts on behalf of third-party clients for the purposes of lobbying Australian Government representatives must be registered on the Australian Government Register of Lobbyists and comply with the requirements of the Lobbying Code of Conduct."
https://www.ag.gov.au/integrity/publications/australian-government-register-lobbyists
"Nick Cater, ia senior fellow at the Menzies Research Centre and a visiting fellow at the Danube Institute, was unable to land today for his Danube Institute address due to"...
Delete"Runway melts at Hungary’s number two airport hub due to scorching heat ... "Temperatures on Sunday hit a record 41 Celsius, and the heat wave will continue in the first days of the week.
"The state acquired a 51% stake in the company operating Debrecen International Airport in early 2022, while the airport property and facilities remained in municipal ownership"
[the private equity spivs are guffawing]
https://www.intellinews.com/runway-melts-at-hungary-s-number-two-airport-hub-due-to-scorching-heat-333691/
Bromancer: "Liberal America has become wildly more extreme." Sure it has, Bro, sure it has. As exemplified by a 20yo 'kid' who is a member of the Republican Party toting his father's AR15 and taking potshots in Trump's general direction. And missing by just so very little - maybe "a couple of millimetres" ?
ReplyDeleteAnd then: "Some people seem to forget that Trump is a human being at all." Unlike the reptile brigade who don't understand just how inhuman Trump really is."
On the shooter GB:
Deletehttps://www.inquirer.com/news/pennsylvania/thomas-matthew-crooks-trump-shooting-bethel-park-20240714.html
Why Thomas Matthew Crooks tried to assassinate Donald Trump is a mystery to investigators and his ex-classmates
The thought that their mild-mannered ex-classmate would try to kill former President Donald Trump was difficult to process in this tight-knit community near Pittsburgh.
Inter alia:
The slight traces of public information Crooks left behind leave few clues about his political ideology.
Federal campaign finance records show he made a $15 donation to progressive political action committee in 2021 after President Joe Biden’s election, but later registered as a Republican, according to Pennsylvania voter data. His father was a registered Libertarian, his mother a Democrat.
Crooks’ body was found on the rooftop of an agricultural tool manufacturing plant a few hundred feet from the rally with an AR-style semiautomatic rifle — legally purchased by his father. The shooter was wearing a T-shirt promoting “The Demolition Ranch,” a YouTube channel for gun enthusiasts.
If Crooks maintained any personal social media presence, it went largely undetected on Sunday. Discord, an instant messaging platform mainly used by video gamers, released a statement acknowledging Crooks held a “rarely utilized” account that contained no information relevant to the shooting.
Sigafoos did not recall Crooks making political overtures in class, but rather as someone interested in how government works, and “not trying to insert his own beliefs into it.”
Another former classmate did not share this view.
Max R. Smith recalled taking an American history course with Crooks as a sophomore. He did recall Crooks making political statements — but they shed no light on his actions Saturday.
“He definitely was conservative,” he said. “It makes me wonder why he would carry out an assassination attempt on the conservative candidate.”
Smith recalled a mock debate in which their history professor posed government policy questions and asked students to stand on one side of the classroom or the other to signal their support or opposition for a given proposal.
“The majority of the class were on the liberal side, but Tom, no matter what, always stood his ground on the conservative side,” Smith said. “That’s still the picture I have of him. Just standing alone on one side while the rest of the class was on the other.”
The former classmate also recalled Crooks as generally kind and intelligent, if reserved.
“Everybody is in shock,” Smith said. “He was so quiet, I wouldn’t imagine him doing that. But I guess that was the same deal with Columbine.”
“Shocked would be an understatement,” Sigafoos added. “None of my friends can fathom that a dude we knew would try and kill Trump.”
Etc
It's almost a pattern for some, isn't it: the quiet mouse who suddenly breaks out with one of his father's (usually many) guns and starts blasting away for no apparent reason whatsoever.
DeleteAt least Kehoe, for instance, was rankled by losing reelection as treasurer of the Bath Township school board before he murdered his wife and then blew up the local school killing plenty of kids.
But Crooks ? Nothing.
But Crooks?
DeleteRelentlessly bullied.
The rest is just history.
At last, Ned: "Both Biden and Trump have a responsibility to ensure this event [campaigns] is not the prelude to more violence." And how exactly does Ned expect them to achieve that ? Neither of them knew Thomas Matthew Crooks who also was entirely unknown to the security forces. So when some junior nutcase grabs his father's AR15 and takes a ping, how exactly would either or both of them be able to prevent it ? Or prevent any other nutcase act of violence ?
ReplyDeleteBob Dylan:
ReplyDelete"Democracy don't rule the world,
You'd better get that in your head;
This world is ruled by violence,
But I guess that's better left unsaid."
https://youtu.be/ukLtIRw71tE
:) ³
DeleteFrom Broadway to the Milky Way
That's a lot of territory indeed
And a man's gonna do what he has to do
When he's got a hungry mouth to feed
Please excuse Chadwick from comment on any aspect of very recent political events in the USA. The wall of confected outrage against almost everyone BUT the one who apparently fired the shots, fed by lines of reasoning so specious that I had not thought the reptiles - on print or broadcast - could not compose, is a reminder that, well - life is too short.
ReplyDeleteI was amused by the nigh perennial discussion of 'income management' - for the benefit of families, of course. I have no doubt it will continue to recycle, but I do not expect to see anyone on the 'right' ever so much as hint that, if it is such a good idea - it should apply to white fellas, not just THOSE people. I had three candidates who worked in my organisations. I could find no problem with their actual performance of duties, but was aware of their deep domestic problems and that they were very much at risk of being compromised because they were, always, barely leaving enough from their indulgences for their family even to eat regularly, while supposedly, in two cases, seeking compliance with legislation where the possible penalty for serious offences could run to $millions, when a $ was worth something.
First principle of avoiding corruption - do not put susceptible people where they can be tempted. My biggest challenge in simply getting them out of compliance work was with the 'Human Resources' agencies.
Looking over this, I realise I have 'shouted' twice. Will try not to make that a habit.
Please also excuse the double negative - I had not thought that the reptiles could compose such lines of reasoning.
ReplyDeleteSlang for double negative now...
DeleteOne Trump.
Half a Dutton