It's high time that Bobby Kennedy be given Secret Service protection. If you agree, write your representative in the House and Senate. Biden has been consistently denying him S.S. protection.
From what I understand, a candidate has to reach a certain level of support before being offered SS protection. But I am not certain of that. And I thought I had read somewhere months ago that Stein and West had been offered SS protection. My personal view is that all candidates should have protection, but the refusal to offer it to Kennedy is particularly galling. There's a meanness about that decision.
I don't think it's the SS's job to calculate which candidates deserve protection and which do not. It is naturally, their job to protect the POTUS. But if any protection should be given to any other challenger, it seems to me it should be available to all.
Edit: (I didn't answer your q., Dennis.). Yes, as it stands, I think the odds aren't high that Stein or West (or any other 3rd Party candidate) would be targeted by an assassin; at least not unless one of them represented a serious threat to the established order (i.e. the elites who see it as their responsibility to maintain the status quo).
Also, in a society like this one, wherein guns and violence are glorified and where extreme rhetoric about political figures seems relatively pervasive and rationality broadly compromised, ANYONE who gets the spotlight could become a target. Think, e.g. of John Lennon / Mark David Chapman.
Sadly that is true. And sadly, most of that violence has been perpetrated by D's on R's: Lincoln, Arthur, McKinley, T.R., Kennedy (a D, but a conservative D and anti-communist), Reagan, and now Trump. Those are the facts. Make of it what you will.
You are missing the point. It's not D's on R's, it Americans on everyone beginning with the colonists murdering indigenous peoples. Americans nearly annihilating buffaloes for sport. Whites murdering blacks, gang wars in every major city, at least one mass shooting every day. Not counting the military, there are more guns in American than people. What violence Americans don't perpetrate on other Americans, they perpetrate on other nations. In our entire history, we have known only 16 years without a war somewhere.
It has nothing to do with D's and R's, it is a sickness in this country that is epidemic.
My point was to look at who commits POLITICAL violence, which is a factual record of D's shooting at R's. I'm aware of the violence in general, but it's not as if violence hasn't taken place elsewhere: France, Soviet Union, China.
Read "Gunfighter Nation" by Richard Slotkin; it's the third volume in his series titled "Regeneration Through Violence" in which he studies the significance of the frontier in the American imagination. Things aren't always what they seem and in this case, popular culture maintains mythologies of our frontier experience.
I am a fan of the 2nd Amendment even though I do not own firearms, nor ever plan to. I am happy there are more firearms than there are people. And I'm not talking about our federal government's violence on other people, which I abhor. That's an entirely different part of our history, unrelated to the Second Amendment.
I used to hold your view until I woke up and realized that it's not the gun that is the problem, it's the person who shoots it. It's not surprising that households with guns would have more gun homicides. Without guns, assailants might well have poisoned their targets, drowned them, stabbed them, or planted an explosive in the car. We also have a huge number of people who take anti-depressants and are thus more likely to commit suicide or commit murder, even mass murder. Again, it's the shooter, not the gun. I'm no longer swayed by the arguments from the anti Second Amendment people. They are not rational and tend to overlook the level of mental illness, drug use, and poverty, particularly in Blue urban America. Out here where I live, I cannot tell you when the last gun murder took place. Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of gun owners are not dangerous. Let's blame the right cause.
Here's another "cut and paste Gotcha Questions" for You Dennis:
If You were Dictator of The United States and the Constitution and the 2d Amendment were null and void, what exactly would You do to deal with America's Gun Problem?
Well not sure about the left or conservative thing but in the event JFK was assassinated, LBJ took office, and he sent more troops to Vietnam. And after 10 years or so the US troops just left and S. Vietnam fell.
The military wanted JFK to escalate. Instead, he wrote a memo planning a troop withdrawal. Six weeks later, he was dead. Four days later. LBJ signed the escalation order.
My heart was warmed by all the good wishes coming from people like the Clintons, Obamas, Pelosi and Biden, because I'm sure they really mean it; especially Hillary Clinton. Remember when she said of Julian Assange in a State Dept. meeting: "Can't we just drone the guy?"
No goddamn way a fake attempt involves shooting Trump in the head, one cenimeter from certain death.
The fact that anyone is suggesting false flag is disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.
This is a space where I think most readers do not ascribe to left/right bs divisions.
Or at least I hope so.
I don’t care how much 30% of the country hates Trump, what I've seen makes me sick. News headlines that don't say "assassination"
Descriptions of the event by those 30% are absolutely gross. "Pops" heard. "No evidence of bullets".
People need to wake up. And I should not have to postscript this with "I'm not a Trumper". 40% of the country doesn't support either mainstream party. I'm one of them, if anyone needed it said.
We just saw Trump get very lucky. Since we all know the secret service is very capable, it begs the question why they were so very incapable here. TO BE BLUNT, I'm saying, the presumptive winner of the next presidential election just survived a kill shot in a situation that was utterly unsafe. I.e. Trump was actually almost murdered and it looks like the secret service ain't trying very hard to protect him.
THANK YOU Dennis. I was starting to get real sad and feel crazy. Thank you. And you know what? I'd actually consider voting for Trump now. If the bad guys want him dead that bad...
I know as much about guns as Antony Blinken knows about diplomacy, but I'd think if he was going to succeed in the deed he had one shot with a large caliber rifle and not an assault weapon. Regardless, another waste of life all around--for the 20-year-old shooter and his victims.
Been shooting since I was a kid. At 20 years of age I do not know how the kid could have enough range time to try a long shot, particularly with an AR. I don't know what optics he had.
Many years ago I had exposure to SS "setting up" a place for the president. How the kid got one shot off needs to be answered!
All good points, though it must be said, systematic incompetence abounds these days. When hearing the news last night, my immediate reactions was, "This is Hollywood 101. No one checked the roof tops!?"
The perimeter was ridiculously small. That is my understanding. The security perimeter was so small, the shot was not difficult. It's a miracle- or a highly unlikely scenario- that Trump lived. Just 1cm off and he'd be a dead man.
enough, jg moebus. your OCD acrimony against dennis is becoming tiresome. you seize the opportunity of instaurating a belligerati zeitgeist at every nexus w/ dennis. it triggers antediluvian memories of 'ad hominem' insults in my 7th-grade playground at recess. your chronic Qs are meant to insult rather than elucidate. a more diplomatic approach to your Qs would be welcomed, and i hope will be forthcoming in future BV comments.
Excellent observation and comment when Bill writes: "The usual cry of “violence has no place in America” was nonsensical, given America’s violent history and its ongoing facilitation of violence across the globe."
Lets not forget a Brother Firefighter protecting his Family died... Rest In Power!Thoughts and prayers for his friends and family...Shielding his family, and protecting his Daughters. That's what we do.
“There is one existential threat: It’s Donald Trump.”
Those are the words of President Joe Biden.
Maybe it’s time you re-familiarize yourself with what the term “existential threat” means.
And what the logical solution for such a threat is.
Biden green-lighted this assassination attempt.
And so have you, with your irresponsible rhetoric.
You and Biden are at the head of a political apparatus that has openly advocated for the termination of Donald Trump as a political force in America.
You pulled the trigger on the would-be assassins gun yesterday by the force of the words you use to describe Trump.
If you do not want to be the cause of the Republic you once led devolving into open Civil War, you must cease and desist on encouraging the demonization of Trump, and instead focus on healing a nation.
America can survive another four years of Trump.
We cannot survive a Civil War.
Be the leader you once were.
Heal a nation.
Stop the rhetoric of personal demonization that triggered the attempted assassination against former President Trump.
###
And followed it up on Telegram with:
The attempted assassination of former President Trump underscores the extraordinarily precarious situation America finds itself in at this point in time in history.
Political violence is tragically not unknown in America—the assassination and attempted assassination of American Presidents is a sad reality of the American experience.
That an estranged citizen would convert his personal demons into an action designed to end the life of the person he blamed for what haunts him is sadly a byproduct of a society conditioned to accept violence as a means of resolving disputes, regardless of the underlying legality of the action. The Second Amendment, and the Supreme Court’s current interpretation of its articulation and implementation, is the living manifestation of this reality.
BUT AMERICA HAS NEVER BEFORE EXPERIENCED A SITUATION WHERE THE POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT ITSELF HAS CONTRIBUTED SO HEAVILY TO AN ATMOSPHERE WHERE POLITICAL VIOLENCE IS OPENLY ADVOCATED BY A SITTING PRESIDENT AND HIS POLITICAL PARTY.
The depiction of Donald Trump by President Joe Biden as a criminal who represents a direct threat not only to democracy but also the existential survival of the American Republic creates a causal linkage that leads inevitably to the attempted assassination. Biden’s words have been echoed by the Democratic Party and anti-Trump activists on mainstream and social media in such a fashion that it constitutes a veritable green lighting of political violence against the former President.
At a time when the American people and nation are fundamentally divided on political issues for which it seems there is no middle ground, when these divisions are articulated in stark existential terms, and when the Democratic Party is already being accused—with good reason—of politicizing and weaponizing the apparatus of judicial power to prevent Donald Trump from successfully challenging Joe Biden in the upcoming presidential election, THE ARTICULATION BY BIDEN AND HIS SUPPORTERS OF TRUMP AS A THREAT TO THE SURVIVAL OF THE REPUBLIC THAT MUST BE STOPPED AT ALL COSTS IS LITTLE MORE THAT AN OPEN DIRECTIVE FOR POLITICAL VIOLENCE.
AMERICA HAS NEVER BEEN CLOSER TO CIVIL WAR AT ANY TIME SINCE 1861. THE ASSASSINATION OF THE FORMER PRESIDENT ON THE ORDERS—PERCEIVED OR OTHERWISE—OF A SITTING PRESIDENT AND THE ESTABLISHMENT HE DIRECTS WOULD LIKELY RESULT IN THE PERMANENT IRRECONCILABLE DIVISION OF THE NATION ALONG IDEOLOGICAL GROUNDS AND LEAD TO MASSIVE OUTBREAKS OF VIOLENCE AND THE POTENTIAL FRACTURING OF THE PHYSICAL UNITY OF THE NATION.
We live in a very precarious moment. The fever pitch of political rhetoric must be cooled down immediately. If both sides cannot walk back their respective political passions, then what happened in Bulter Pennsylvania yesterday will become the inevitable norm, and violence, not reason, will become the chosen means of ideological differences.
And if that is the direction America is heading, God help us all.
Dennis, Donald Trump is many things. I've described him as a con man because he is a con man. Take his sale of Bibles, or his "university," or his Trump vodka. I also believe he lacks core principles (other than the pursuit of profit and power, common to most U.S. politicians).
I've never argued he's an existential threat to America. Few people are more prototypically American than Donald Trump.
Don't forget his six casino and hotel bankruptcies between 1991 and 2009. Or his donations to Veterans.
And the primary existential threat to America is its Ruling Political Class and its Deep State.
As i have stated before, Trump is as owned, operated, commanded, and controlled by the RPC/DS as is Biden and was Obama, Cheney/Bush I, Clinton, Bush I and Reagan, Carter, and beyond.
And that makes him a existential threat to America, just like Biden.
So the choice in 2024 for American Voters is essentially: Between which of the two is the LEAST existential threat to the Experiment called The United States of America.
i didn't say Trump went personally bankrupt. i said his casinos and hotels went bankrupt. i assume You understand the difference since You brought it up in Your cut and paste.
So did Trump ever pay off his debtors from his bankruptcies? It not, that makes him con man in my book. And in a lot of other people's books, as well.
For example: How eager would You be to do business with or invest in somebody who has six bankruptcies to his managerial and leadership credit?
And as for Your Yawn response to my rant: Fart... .
Heh. i'm curious, Dennis: Is it a "Collector's Item" to BV's premier Atheist? If it's such a great "investment," how many have You bought for Yourself, Your Kids, and Grandkids?
And if he's making so much money on it and all his other crap, maybe he can pay back all those Creditors he stiffed with his bankruptcies, eh?
"More than a Bible," eh? Why is that? Because it has the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and so forth in it? Wow. That REALLY makes it unique.
Actually, that's kind of neat given Trumpatistas' tendency to wrap themselves in the Flag and wipe their asses with the Constitution, it should make great bathroom reading, eh?
Dennis: If You don't like being around folks who dislike ~ even to the point of hating ~ Trump, there are plenty of other blogspots, etc that You can hang out at that are just full of fellow Trump-worshippers like You.
And given that the United States is a Patriarchal, Autocratic, Plutocratic Oligarchy, Trump is no threat to "democracy," whatever that is. He can't be a threat to something that does not exist.
However, he and his owners, operators, commanders, and controllers are very definitely a threat to the 248-year old Experiment called The United States of America. Just like Biden, Obama, etc etc ad nauseum. [There's another "cut and paste" for You to add to Your scorecard.]
Like the Man says: "If You don't like the heat, stay out of the Galley."
If nothing else, the Trump Assassination Attempt has taken the Genocide in Gaza, the Carnage in Ukraine, and the Cognitive Disfunction of Joe Biden virtually totally and completely out of the News. Along with PROJECT 2025 and the Republican Party’s 2024 Platform.
And all this just before the GOP National Convention kicks off tomorrow.
“How conveeenient,” as SNL’s Church Lady once put it.
One wonders if the Democrats can come up with a way to take even further advantage of all that.
How about having Biden announce that he will not be the Party’s candidate for Election2024, and that he has released all committed Delegates to choose whoever they want to be the candidate at the Democratic National Convention next month? And do it the same day Trump gets officially nominated.
Think that would shake things up even further than the Assassination Attempt?
In any event, in time, July 13, 2024 and that day in Pennsylvania may come to be recognized as the beginning of The Second American Civil War. Or The First American Revolution.
Or the day the official “Decline” of The American Empire ended, and the official “Fall” began, taking with it the 248-year old Experiment called The United States of America.
read the final sentence of my text, jg; i said, "a more diplomatic approach to your Qs would be welcomed, and i HOPE [such] will be forthcoming in future BV comments". it is a suggestion, w/ the ultimate intent of achieving civility, if not concinnity. any fungible interpretations are yours to ruminate over, perhaps absorb, or do w/ as you please. it is not my purview to dictate orders to anyone, save the odd kid bullying or victimizing a younger, smaller, weaker, non-confrontational youngster.
Mrs. Astore: “We’re off our rockers." NYT: "The Attack on Donald Trump Is Antithetical to America."
Well, we know which of the two got it right.
Mrs. Astore is way smarter than the NYT.
LOVE IT!
She told him to say that. LOL
Seriously, my wife is far more grounded and commonsensical.
Well her comment rings true that's for sure.
We need to start a conspiracy theory that she's the real author of all my "bracing" views. :-)
It's high time that Bobby Kennedy be given Secret Service protection. If you agree, write your representative in the House and Senate. Biden has been consistently denying him S.S. protection.
I'm curious. Why only RFK Jr. and not Jill Stein, West and other '3rd Party' candidates?
From what I understand, a candidate has to reach a certain level of support before being offered SS protection. But I am not certain of that. And I thought I had read somewhere months ago that Stein and West had been offered SS protection. My personal view is that all candidates should have protection, but the refusal to offer it to Kennedy is particularly galling. There's a meanness about that decision.
I don't think it's the SS's job to calculate which candidates deserve protection and which do not. It is naturally, their job to protect the POTUS. But if any protection should be given to any other challenger, it seems to me it should be available to all.
Edit: (I didn't answer your q., Dennis.). Yes, as it stands, I think the odds aren't high that Stein or West (or any other 3rd Party candidate) would be targeted by an assassin; at least not unless one of them represented a serious threat to the established order (i.e. the elites who see it as their responsibility to maintain the status quo).
Also, in a society like this one, wherein guns and violence are glorified and where extreme rhetoric about political figures seems relatively pervasive and rationality broadly compromised, ANYONE who gets the spotlight could become a target. Think, e.g. of John Lennon / Mark David Chapman.
“violence has no place in America”
Bullshit! Violence IS America
Sadly that is true. And sadly, most of that violence has been perpetrated by D's on R's: Lincoln, Arthur, McKinley, T.R., Kennedy (a D, but a conservative D and anti-communist), Reagan, and now Trump. Those are the facts. Make of it what you will.
You are missing the point. It's not D's on R's, it Americans on everyone beginning with the colonists murdering indigenous peoples. Americans nearly annihilating buffaloes for sport. Whites murdering blacks, gang wars in every major city, at least one mass shooting every day. Not counting the military, there are more guns in American than people. What violence Americans don't perpetrate on other Americans, they perpetrate on other nations. In our entire history, we have known only 16 years without a war somewhere.
It has nothing to do with D's and R's, it is a sickness in this country that is epidemic.
My point was to look at who commits POLITICAL violence, which is a factual record of D's shooting at R's. I'm aware of the violence in general, but it's not as if violence hasn't taken place elsewhere: France, Soviet Union, China.
Read "Gunfighter Nation" by Richard Slotkin; it's the third volume in his series titled "Regeneration Through Violence" in which he studies the significance of the frontier in the American imagination. Things aren't always what they seem and in this case, popular culture maintains mythologies of our frontier experience.
I am a fan of the 2nd Amendment even though I do not own firearms, nor ever plan to. I am happy there are more firearms than there are people. And I'm not talking about our federal government's violence on other people, which I abhor. That's an entirely different part of our history, unrelated to the Second Amendment.
I rest my case.
Fwiw, my name is Mary Ann, not Mary.
I used to hold your view until I woke up and realized that it's not the gun that is the problem, it's the person who shoots it. It's not surprising that households with guns would have more gun homicides. Without guns, assailants might well have poisoned their targets, drowned them, stabbed them, or planted an explosive in the car. We also have a huge number of people who take anti-depressants and are thus more likely to commit suicide or commit murder, even mass murder. Again, it's the shooter, not the gun. I'm no longer swayed by the arguments from the anti Second Amendment people. They are not rational and tend to overlook the level of mental illness, drug use, and poverty, particularly in Blue urban America. Out here where I live, I cannot tell you when the last gun murder took place. Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of gun owners are not dangerous. Let's blame the right cause.
Here's another "cut and paste Gotcha Questions" for You Dennis:
If You were Dictator of The United States and the Constitution and the 2d Amendment were null and void, what exactly would You do to deal with America's Gun Problem?
How would You go about disarming America?
Neither of the Kennedys was conservative. At all.
He was very anti communist, lowered taxes on the wealthy, and sought peace. All of which were not really part of the left agenda at the time.
Wanting peace was absolutely against the conservative agenda. As was his push for civil rights.
Well not sure about the left or conservative thing but in the event JFK was assassinated, LBJ took office, and he sent more troops to Vietnam. And after 10 years or so the US troops just left and S. Vietnam fell.
The military wanted JFK to escalate. Instead, he wrote a memo planning a troop withdrawal. Six weeks later, he was dead. Four days later. LBJ signed the escalation order.
One of the narratives around JFK was that he was going to pull US troops out of Vietnam and was killed for it by one of "our" agencies.
Yep. See: L. Fletcher Prouty, "The Secret Team," among others.
My heart was warmed by all the good wishes coming from people like the Clintons, Obamas, Pelosi and Biden, because I'm sure they really mean it; especially Hillary Clinton. Remember when she said of Julian Assange in a State Dept. meeting: "Can't we just drone the guy?"
No goddamn way a fake attempt involves shooting Trump in the head, one cenimeter from certain death.
The fact that anyone is suggesting false flag is disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.
This is a space where I think most readers do not ascribe to left/right bs divisions.
Or at least I hope so.
I don’t care how much 30% of the country hates Trump, what I've seen makes me sick. News headlines that don't say "assassination"
Descriptions of the event by those 30% are absolutely gross. "Pops" heard. "No evidence of bullets".
People need to wake up. And I should not have to postscript this with "I'm not a Trumper". 40% of the country doesn't support either mainstream party. I'm one of them, if anyone needed it said.
We just saw Trump get very lucky. Since we all know the secret service is very capable, it begs the question why they were so very incapable here. TO BE BLUNT, I'm saying, the presumptive winner of the next presidential election just survived a kill shot in a situation that was utterly unsafe. I.e. Trump was actually almost murdered and it looks like the secret service ain't trying very hard to protect him.
Scary, that's for sure.
SCARY AF
THANK YOU Dennis. I was starting to get real sad and feel crazy. Thank you. And you know what? I'd actually consider voting for Trump now. If the bad guys want him dead that bad...
Secret Service anti sniper operation failed in front of the entire world!
Why?
I know as much about guns as Antony Blinken knows about diplomacy, but I'd think if he was going to succeed in the deed he had one shot with a large caliber rifle and not an assault weapon. Regardless, another waste of life all around--for the 20-year-old shooter and his victims.
I am pretty old!
Been shooting since I was a kid. At 20 years of age I do not know how the kid could have enough range time to try a long shot, particularly with an AR. I don't know what optics he had.
Many years ago I had exposure to SS "setting up" a place for the president. How the kid got one shot off needs to be answered!
Check out Brian Berletic on X. Interesting analysis. https://x.com/BrianJBerletic/status/1812372868971560960
All good points, though it must be said, systematic incompetence abounds these days. When hearing the news last night, my immediate reactions was, "This is Hollywood 101. No one checked the roof tops!?"
Brian expands on his X comments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6-z0PqTKeU
The perimeter was ridiculously small. That is my understanding. The security perimeter was so small, the shot was not difficult. It's a miracle- or a highly unlikely scenario- that Trump lived. Just 1cm off and he'd be a dead man.
enough, jg moebus. your OCD acrimony against dennis is becoming tiresome. you seize the opportunity of instaurating a belligerati zeitgeist at every nexus w/ dennis. it triggers antediluvian memories of 'ad hominem' insults in my 7th-grade playground at recess. your chronic Qs are meant to insult rather than elucidate. a more diplomatic approach to your Qs would be welcomed, and i hope will be forthcoming in future BV comments.
Is that an order?
Excellent observation and comment when Bill writes: "The usual cry of “violence has no place in America” was nonsensical, given America’s violent history and its ongoing facilitation of violence across the globe."
Lets not forget a Brother Firefighter protecting his Family died... Rest In Power!Thoughts and prayers for his friends and family...Shielding his family, and protecting his Daughters. That's what we do.
Scott Ritter posted this earlier today to his X/Twitter platform
[ https://x.com/realscottritter/status/1812443471266897954?s=46&%3Bt=vU5DeqWsyDgEK4vk5DewEA ] :
“There is one existential threat: It’s Donald Trump.”
Those are the words of President Joe Biden.
Maybe it’s time you re-familiarize yourself with what the term “existential threat” means.
And what the logical solution for such a threat is.
Biden green-lighted this assassination attempt.
And so have you, with your irresponsible rhetoric.
You and Biden are at the head of a political apparatus that has openly advocated for the termination of Donald Trump as a political force in America.
You pulled the trigger on the would-be assassins gun yesterday by the force of the words you use to describe Trump.
If you do not want to be the cause of the Republic you once led devolving into open Civil War, you must cease and desist on encouraging the demonization of Trump, and instead focus on healing a nation.
America can survive another four years of Trump.
We cannot survive a Civil War.
Be the leader you once were.
Heal a nation.
Stop the rhetoric of personal demonization that triggered the attempted assassination against former President Trump.
###
And followed it up on Telegram with:
The attempted assassination of former President Trump underscores the extraordinarily precarious situation America finds itself in at this point in time in history.
Political violence is tragically not unknown in America—the assassination and attempted assassination of American Presidents is a sad reality of the American experience.
That an estranged citizen would convert his personal demons into an action designed to end the life of the person he blamed for what haunts him is sadly a byproduct of a society conditioned to accept violence as a means of resolving disputes, regardless of the underlying legality of the action. The Second Amendment, and the Supreme Court’s current interpretation of its articulation and implementation, is the living manifestation of this reality.
BUT AMERICA HAS NEVER BEFORE EXPERIENCED A SITUATION WHERE THE POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT ITSELF HAS CONTRIBUTED SO HEAVILY TO AN ATMOSPHERE WHERE POLITICAL VIOLENCE IS OPENLY ADVOCATED BY A SITTING PRESIDENT AND HIS POLITICAL PARTY.
The depiction of Donald Trump by President Joe Biden as a criminal who represents a direct threat not only to democracy but also the existential survival of the American Republic creates a causal linkage that leads inevitably to the attempted assassination. Biden’s words have been echoed by the Democratic Party and anti-Trump activists on mainstream and social media in such a fashion that it constitutes a veritable green lighting of political violence against the former President.
At a time when the American people and nation are fundamentally divided on political issues for which it seems there is no middle ground, when these divisions are articulated in stark existential terms, and when the Democratic Party is already being accused—with good reason—of politicizing and weaponizing the apparatus of judicial power to prevent Donald Trump from successfully challenging Joe Biden in the upcoming presidential election, THE ARTICULATION BY BIDEN AND HIS SUPPORTERS OF TRUMP AS A THREAT TO THE SURVIVAL OF THE REPUBLIC THAT MUST BE STOPPED AT ALL COSTS IS LITTLE MORE THAT AN OPEN DIRECTIVE FOR POLITICAL VIOLENCE.
AMERICA HAS NEVER BEEN CLOSER TO CIVIL WAR AT ANY TIME SINCE 1861. THE ASSASSINATION OF THE FORMER PRESIDENT ON THE ORDERS—PERCEIVED OR OTHERWISE—OF A SITTING PRESIDENT AND THE ESTABLISHMENT HE DIRECTS WOULD LIKELY RESULT IN THE PERMANENT IRRECONCILABLE DIVISION OF THE NATION ALONG IDEOLOGICAL GROUNDS AND LEAD TO MASSIVE OUTBREAKS OF VIOLENCE AND THE POTENTIAL FRACTURING OF THE PHYSICAL UNITY OF THE NATION.
We live in a very precarious moment. The fever pitch of political rhetoric must be cooled down immediately. If both sides cannot walk back their respective political passions, then what happened in Bulter Pennsylvania yesterday will become the inevitable norm, and violence, not reason, will become the chosen means of ideological differences.
And if that is the direction America is heading, God help us all.
Source: https://t.me/s/ScottRitterource ; EMPHASES added.
Scott Ritter is a very trustworthy source. This is scary.
Dennis, Donald Trump is many things. I've described him as a con man because he is a con man. Take his sale of Bibles, or his "university," or his Trump vodka. I also believe he lacks core principles (other than the pursuit of profit and power, common to most U.S. politicians).
I've never argued he's an existential threat to America. Few people are more prototypically American than Donald Trump.
Don't forget his six casino and hotel bankruptcies between 1991 and 2009. Or his donations to Veterans.
And the primary existential threat to America is its Ruling Political Class and its Deep State.
As i have stated before, Trump is as owned, operated, commanded, and controlled by the RPC/DS as is Biden and was Obama, Cheney/Bush I, Clinton, Bush I and Reagan, Carter, and beyond.
And that makes him a existential threat to America, just like Biden.
So the choice in 2024 for American Voters is essentially: Between which of the two is the LEAST existential threat to the Experiment called The United States of America.
Reread what i wrote, Dennis.
i didn't say Trump went personally bankrupt. i said his casinos and hotels went bankrupt. i assume You understand the difference since You brought it up in Your cut and paste.
So did Trump ever pay off his debtors from his bankruptcies? It not, that makes him con man in my book. And in a lot of other people's books, as well.
For example: How eager would You be to do business with or invest in somebody who has six bankruptcies to his managerial and leadership credit?
And as for Your Yawn response to my rant: Fart... .
Heh. i'm curious, Dennis: Is it a "Collector's Item" to BV's premier Atheist? If it's such a great "investment," how many have You bought for Yourself, Your Kids, and Grandkids?
And if he's making so much money on it and all his other crap, maybe he can pay back all those Creditors he stiffed with his bankruptcies, eh?
"More than a Bible," eh? Why is that? Because it has the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and so forth in it? Wow. That REALLY makes it unique.
Actually, that's kind of neat given Trumpatistas' tendency to wrap themselves in the Flag and wipe their asses with the Constitution, it should make great bathroom reading, eh?
Dennis: If You don't like being around folks who dislike ~ even to the point of hating ~ Trump, there are plenty of other blogspots, etc that You can hang out at that are just full of fellow Trump-worshippers like You.
And given that the United States is a Patriarchal, Autocratic, Plutocratic Oligarchy, Trump is no threat to "democracy," whatever that is. He can't be a threat to something that does not exist.
However, he and his owners, operators, commanders, and controllers are very definitely a threat to the 248-year old Experiment called The United States of America. Just like Biden, Obama, etc etc ad nauseum. [There's another "cut and paste" for You to add to Your scorecard.]
Like the Man says: "If You don't like the heat, stay out of the Galley."
If nothing else, the Trump Assassination Attempt has taken the Genocide in Gaza, the Carnage in Ukraine, and the Cognitive Disfunction of Joe Biden virtually totally and completely out of the News. Along with PROJECT 2025 and the Republican Party’s 2024 Platform.
And all this just before the GOP National Convention kicks off tomorrow.
“How conveeenient,” as SNL’s Church Lady once put it.
One wonders if the Democrats can come up with a way to take even further advantage of all that.
How about having Biden announce that he will not be the Party’s candidate for Election2024, and that he has released all committed Delegates to choose whoever they want to be the candidate at the Democratic National Convention next month? And do it the same day Trump gets officially nominated.
Think that would shake things up even further than the Assassination Attempt?
In any event, in time, July 13, 2024 and that day in Pennsylvania may come to be recognized as the beginning of The Second American Civil War. Or The First American Revolution.
Or the day the official “Decline” of The American Empire ended, and the official “Fall” began, taking with it the 248-year old Experiment called The United States of America.
LBJ had the ability to see what was happening and declined to run again. I'm not sure what Biden can see beyond himself.
Whether or not Biden is the Democrats' candidate is not up to Biden. That is a decision that will be made for him, and he will comply completely.
The Biden Administration, creating chaos from order since 2021.
Oh gosh, Biden's going to give an Oval Office address tonight. I wonder if his speech was written a few days ago.
Alex is always worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gVfP3-FGbs
I'm going to post my anti genocide views on Facebook and see what happens. Please join me in the 'protest'.
read the final sentence of my text, jg; i said, "a more diplomatic approach to your Qs would be welcomed, and i HOPE [such] will be forthcoming in future BV comments". it is a suggestion, w/ the ultimate intent of achieving civility, if not concinnity. any fungible interpretations are yours to ruminate over, perhaps absorb, or do w/ as you please. it is not my purview to dictate orders to anyone, save the odd kid bullying or victimizing a younger, smaller, weaker, non-confrontational youngster.