Yea, I've never thought it would be *impossible* to shoot or attack the president because of security, what seems nearly impossible to me is not getting killed yourself in the process. The only people are gonna try are people prepared to die themselves, and most people, even violent ones, aren't suicidal and prepared to trade their lives for something as stupid as mainstream partisan politics.
Obviously. But let's not spoil the mindless circle jerk. For me, what's striking about all of this is how little traction it has. 10-20 years ago, this would still be the lead story every night. Hell, it isn't even the lead story at the RNC. Amazing how short our collective attention spans have become.
it’s long been known in security circles that someone willing to die and plan accordingly can be difficult to defeat unless we became a body double N Korea or Libya style as you jokingly mentioned earlier. But that’s not what happened here. This was such as colossal F up it’s almost incomprehensible. As I wrote initially that this even borders on bad Jamie Foxx movie fiction where you leave saying “ the secret service would never do rhat….. and that ……..and that”. But in this case they really did.
I am trying to get there. But man it is hard when looking at what we know. If incompetence we are talking multiple heads need to publicly roll.
A guy that had bombs in his car was prepared to die even if he managed to leave the scene, so how is that not what happened here?
technically you are correct and that’s it’s exactly what happened. Nobody climbing on that rough could reasonably believe he was ever climbing back down. But I don’t believe thats the reason he got shots off.
Seems very plausible to me that SS prepares very competently for the evil genius shooter with a masterplan, but can be easily be thwarted by a suicidal idiot who gets a little lucky and has no plan. I don't know why people see that as so implausible. Its born out in all kinds of war games and simulations, where people do things outside of what the simulation or informal rules expect, and it just makes the whole thing look poorly constructed.
Story turned into a boring depressed school shooter kid we’ve seen dozens of times and know that there is no will to address so we are ready to move on to the outrage of the day. Trump or Biden will mix up someone’s name today.
you are limiting this to a prison of 2 ideas. This was complacency and incomprehensible incompetence. They train for all threats not just Iranian ninjas with 2 mile sniper range and sharks with lasers
Not discounting what appear to be lots of mistakes, but your post made me think of the line from Godfather II. "TOM, you know you surprise me -- if anything in this life is certain -- if history has taught us anything -- it's that you can kill anybody."
Has anyone watched the Smithsonian series "Air Disasters"? While catastrophic aviation accidents and the failure by the Secret Service fulfilling its mission of presidential may not appear to have anything in common they do share single cause or actually multiple causes. It's usually not a single error or omission that results in a plane crash but more often a combination and convergence of multiple errors and omissions and that's essentially what happened with the Secret Service at Trump's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania including but no means limited to its designation of an inner security perimeter that was too small, inadequate coordination with local law enforcement, the failure to secure the building where Crooks placed himself, failure to at least question him when he was observed with a range finder, and many more.
In all fairness to this poor woman, she had zero to do with Trump being shot in the ear and if she had been in charge, it probably never happens. But that would apply to just about anybody who had a few hours of general training.
Agree but that’s not how SS traditionally handles these things. They are very insular and close ranks tightly. I suspect the Director is toast and an official announcement will be made at some point. But as for the individuals responsible for on site security and planning there might be quiet reassignment of duties especially if one or two are near retirement age. If their history is a guide, There will not be a big splash of firings save for 1-2 at the top
Well, this is interesting if not "fake news"!! Trump Shooter's Classmate Drops Bomb on Media, Says 'Signs Were There' Years Before Attack - 'Not Severely Bullied' (westernjournal.com) "A former high school classmate of Thomas Crooks said the young man who tried to kill former President Donald Trump showed contempt for Trump years before Saturday’s rally. “I brought up the fact that I’m Hispanic and, you know, I’m for Trump. And he said, ‘Well, you’re Hispanic, so shouldn’t you hate Trump?'” Vincent Taormina told Fox News Tuesday. “And I was like, no. He’s great. He’s a great president. He called me stupid – or insinuated that I was, like, well, that’s kinda stupid.”
