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I did not want to write this diary. Mostly because I feel stupid for being forced to make the argument. I feel dumber for having to explain something so self-evident. 

What happened yesterday was NOT an assassination attempt. It was a security breach. Trump was never in any actual danger at any point. The Secret Service stopped the guy before he attempted anything. To put in words Trump will understand, it wasn’t an assassination attempt, it was “the concept of an assassination plan”. 

Why does this matter? Well, for one thing, this specific framing makes Trump seem brave for “surviving” a situation he was in no actual danger during. This has been a bad news week for Trump, and calling it an assassination attempt is giving him positive coverage in the minds of both the viewer and the reader. I understand the legacy media pulling this shit. I even understand the AP polluting the Front Page of Daily Kos with this shit. But actual Daily Kos paid writers as well as well-known diarists on the rec list are using a damaging frame that did not turn out to be true. 

To be honest, yesterday people calling it that were probably well-intentioned. Because we had no information to go on. Now that we know that the only shots fired were by the Secret Service, there is no fucking reason for us to call it that. 

Biden and Obama routinely went through similar security breaches, and Biden probably will again. Nobody called them assassination attempts, and the news media (rightly, in my mind) always shrugged. Why? Because the Secret Service believed sensationalizing every plot or false alarm inspires copycats. Every single media article repeating this was an assassination attempt is going to get somebody killed, not necessarily Trump. 

An insightful commenter brushed back against me when I said this, pointing out they don’t care about what happens to politicians, dead kids will be the thing they’ll save their outrage over. But don’t you see? That’s the point! The guy never should have had access to a gun to begin with, and our gun situation, especially in Florida, is out of control. There is actually a big story here about how scarily easy it is to get access to a gun, and the media, and yes, Daily Kos, has turned it into a story about Trump’s safety instead. The puzzle pieces are there for genuine outrage and everyone is putting the picture together wrong. 

Stop it, okay? Trump was never in any real danger. The Secret Service did their jobs. Every single person who is giving this “concept planner” ink and attention is making those jobs harder and more dangerous. Knock it off. And maybe talk a little more about how easy it is for people who should NOT have access to guns to get them instead. 

UPDATE:

Per Mark Lippman in the comments: 

In court today, the suspect wasn’t charged with any sort of attempted murder/assassination. He was charged with two counts of unlawful firearms possession which is ironic given the Republican’s absolutist position on 2A rights.

Lying in wait with a high-powered firearm in close proximity to a Presidential candidate certainly looks like an attempt and, on an internet comment blog, we can say it was an attempt, but to be charged, there needs to be some evidence as to intent.

It may seem like splitting a hair but it isn’t in a system based on the presumption of innocence and the burden of proof. It’s especially important when the supposed target is a fascist who would do away with those principles. And especially when the supposed target and his running mate are contradicting the Secret Service in the statements they’re making about what happened, to score political points.

As I said, if he isn’t even being CHARGED with that, why should we CALL it that?

Update 2

These are HOLDING charges and chances are he’ll be charged with something else if he’s guilty of it. But until then I’m not even entertaining the notion of calling it that. 

____________

If you enjoy my writing check out my free online comic book ,Gilda And Meek And The Un-Iverse!

gildaandmeekandtheuniverse.blogspot.com/...

Over 3000 pages on the site, 67 issues (and counting), free, and ad-free! What do I get out of it? Every person who reads an issue of my comic will understand me a little better. For a person on the spectrum, that’s all the payment I need. 

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IKR? At first I was reading even longer distance than that. 

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Having fired both AR’s and AK’s in the military (scope or not), you’re exactly right on accuracy of the weapon at those distances.    Thanks for “dialing in” the facts.

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You can blame the FBI. Here’s the “press release.”

September 15, 2024

FBI Statement on Incident in West Palm Beach, Florida

The FBI has responded to West Palm Beach, Florida, and is investigating what appears to be an attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

Yep, that’s it. So da media repeats it. (You can also Gurgle the press conference and the various headlines by various outlets. I’m not bothering.)

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Some person (probably not on site) typed up the statement released.  That sham is a shame.

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So it was only a security breach in an effort to attempt to attempt to assassinate Trump.  Well, now I feel much better about the safety of our presidential candidates.

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The media loves to make trump look like a victim and after the 9 years he has been around harming everyone in this country they have no plans to stop. Let’s not forget that the guy who actually shot at him, since this one didn’t, was over 400 yards away, and he too was a trump supporter who fell out of love with him. Encourage violence and having it come back to trump is just desserts.

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I get that about them. Can maybe WE decide to not do that? Please? 

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Not do what? Tell the truth about it? Maybe you want to let it wall slide but I will not.

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I mean let it ALL slide, not “wall”

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Wall slides are for ketchup.

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I was speaking generally about the site using the “assassination attempt” frame, not correcting you. I recced your comment. 

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It was not an “assassination attempt” at all. It was one of his nutters and the article is right. It was a security breach and the SS stopped it before it even began.

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Yes. I agree with you.  I’m the Author of the article!

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Ok, then I was confused about what you replied to me. I love the article btw and couldn't agree more!

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We’re all good! 

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I love a happy ending!

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I like it so much that I shared it on my blue political page on FB that has 52,000 page likes. Keep up the good work!

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Awesome! Thanks! 

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So, the it was just a shot, to an ear, that bled a mess, then quickly was super ear healed, and fine, to make it heal miraculously fast, ok…

This is too much like the jfk rfk debates that got diversionary fast…

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He heh, yeah, except for the fact that the shooter missed and the intended target had widdle booboo. 

All the arguments just come back to that anyway, so it really is pretty much a waste of time. 

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Or it was a staged scene to make it look like Democrats have stooped to his level and he is a poor oppressed victim

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Maybe the media can be  accused of an assassination attempt by over hyping the security breach such  that it inspires others to do a more credible job and get that coveted media coverage. Which comes first — the media coverage or the crazy coveting of media coverage?

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The Butler shooter was only 450 feet away (at max) on a 2 story roof.
The golf course non-shooter over 400 yards at ground level. FYI. 

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Interesting though how quickly they arrest and take into custody one whom may or may not have actually anticipated harming as no shot from him was fired but how long it took to charge those involved in J6 where both harm to people and property were effected.  To this day the conspirators who organized that J6 have not been arrested or prosecuted.

And the MAGA’s including the man who claims victimization daily have done nothing BUT make sick jokes and laugh at Paul Pelosi.  In fact, TFG stands only with constant protection and security doing nothing brave while Mr. Pelosi a senior had to cleverly call police while under attack and was nearly killed.  I see only one clever and brave individual and it was not a maga, not a FG at all.

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Thanks for this. As more facts came out about the incident I was getting increasingly annoyed by stories calling it an "assassination attempt." I did see some in the media calling it an "apparent" assassination attempt early on, so there is that.

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I get the Legacy Media. They are unfathomably correct. WE should not be doing it. Especially not Daily Kos Front Pagers or rec-list diarists. 

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Thanks, I like a good dose of sarcasm, just before I can eat my dinner! 😎😆👍👍✌️✌️

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You need to learn to accept the things you can’t control. This kind of messaging is one of those things. You can’t overpower it by brute force, because you can’t control the much larger brutes in our society. You have to ride this wave and find ways to surf yourself to safety within the confines of how the wave has already formed.

The only reason we sometimes lose these rhetorical battles is because we try to fight against that wave instead of maneuvering through it as it already actually exists in the real world. “But it’s so unfair that the wave formed that way.” Or “we never should have let that wave form in the first place.” These are all wastes of time and aggravation.

Failed assassination attempt, security breach, blah blah blah. It doesn’t matter anymore, cat’s out of the bag.

Focus your time on other messages in my view… messages we can actually still form to our advantage. If the conservatives want to kill off their own candidate in our gun crazy country, us liberals are pretty powerless to stop them. That’s how I see all of this.

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I’m not suggesting the Legacy Media change their frame. They are all in on dishonesty and corruption. I’m suggesting WE take care about how we speak about it. That is not unreasonable if only because it is actually in our power to do. 

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I’m personally skeptical that is what will move this story in the proper direction. At this point, the reality that crazies are trying to kill (assassinate) Trump because he’s made himself more than famous is just baked in. I personally think it’s more useful for us to just admit that’s the case and then point out that they’re all Republican crazies, so far.

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It’s time liberals stopped accepting rightwing framing on its own terms. That doesn’t just apply to this story. It applies to EVERYTHING. We need to put our own framing and terms out there and get people comfortable with them. It’s bigger than just this, and yes, it will be hard. 

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In general I agree, but I guess I just don’t see the kind of distinction that you see between a security breach and an attempted assassination… and I sort of feel like most Americans don’t have the literacy to care once they’re already familiar with the actual events that occurred.

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It’s part of a broader strategy of taking back our language. On its own, it will do little. But if we starting framing things from the left, and normalizing that language, the Overton Window will move in that direction. 

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And…..how do u get from HAWAII to S.E. Florida with a mental nut job history and  long gun, scope, and ceramic tiles for a bulletproof vest?  Train? Boat, surfboard, hot air balloon, bicycle, roller skates.  It is @ halfway around the world. We spend a bunch of taxes on “security.” This sucker is alive. Can we use truth serum! Promise him a nice vacation in a shooting war like his pixels seem to crave?   
 

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If you accept Rethug framing of any issue, you have already lost.

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You seem to be missing Matt’s point here.

Which is we here on KOS should be more thoughtful about using expressions like “assassination attempt” without by default buying into the implicit coloring and interpretations of the MSM.

Understand that these are media corporations that have a first goal of ratings and profits.  When given a choice between accuracy with nuance or profit generating sensationalism, cynicism and profit wins every time.  This also contributes to the vast anxious tangle of language serving only power instead of truth.

The truth here, after sifting through the BS, is:

A peripatetic nut who with a gun hid in the bushes bordering El Golfo’s links in Miami.  He was spotted by the Secret Service, who shot at him. He never fired his “AR-15 style” gun but dropped his gear and fled in his own car. His car including the license plate was photo'd by a citizen witness.  He was arrested a short while later.  Trump was never shot at; an “attempt” never occurred.

Here please, let’s stop adding fuel to the craziness by using sensationalist rhetoric which in this case only serves to keep the crazies crazy.

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Reading this particular exchange, it did seem to me that a more impactful response might be “yeah, this is what happens when you block sensible gun control”.

I don’t disagree with Matt’s point, but this might be a better way to get positive mileage out of it. “We strongly oppose what has happened to Trump. With our policies, these culprits would never have had guns in the first place.”

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Matt Z, the author of this article is CORRECT! WE can control the words we use here at Daily Kos. He’s not trying to control any other articles at any other sites

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We can’t control those things. We can control ourselves. That’s all I’m asking we do. 

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But the way I see it, evidence was altered. The ear bled, then it disappeared, to a place where everyone acts as if the bleeding never took place.

Isn’t that weird, and to me too convenient. Maybe it doesn’t matter, but I can’t get over that visual freak city…

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You need to learn to accept the things you can’t control

Words that are absolutely toxic on a forum for activists.

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History seems to call every planned attempt to kill a president or candidate an “assassination attempt.” Taft is one of the examples most similar to what just happened to Trump—Taft was getting near, and the gunman was attacked before he could get a shot off—and that event is called an assassination attempt. Nothing I could find called any of these things “security breaches.”

I get it that it would be nice not to inflate shit that happens to Trump, but this seems like tilting at windmills. The common terms used for such things are assassination “plots” or “attempts,” and Routh was clearly positioned and ready to shoot at Trump. It was way beyond plot. 

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But this shit happened to Obama and Biden a bunch of times. Nobody called them assassination attempts, or gave the people who climbed the White House fence this amount of coverage, or Obama and Biden this amount of sympathy. It’s foolish. 

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Someone was actively lying in wait, positioned to shoot Obama and Biden “a bunch of times”? No, that never happened. If it had happened, it would have been called an assassination attempt. 

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Can they even prove this guy was planning to shoot Trump? I mean, I know he was, I know he was a felon, and violated his parole, but outside of him confessing, can they prove it? I’m not talking about either common sense or reality. I’m talking about a court of law. 

There don’t appear to be any violent anti-Trump manifestos associated with this guy, which was never true of the people with the truck loads of guns headed to the White House, or the group of people who planned to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer. He was a lone nut that was caught before Trump was ever in any danger. 

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I hereby rescind this above comment and am lowering my head for 50 lashes with a wet noodle. I am repeatedly talking in the diary about framing definitions rather than legal ones, and like a dumbass, I’m making a legal argument in the above comment. Feel free to make fun of me. 

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You seem awfully sure of yourself. “Assassination attempt” means someone tried to murder someone else. Is that what happened here? Since no shots were fired and the guy never got a glimpse of trump, how is it possible to be certain he tried to murder trump? Law enforcement has not made that claim. 

I will wait and see if there is any evidence of “attempted murder”, which kind of sounds like it requires some definitive action I am not aware of.

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Well, I actually was interested to see if any prior one of these things was called something different, so I spent some time trying to find anything … and it turned out from a cursory search that most historians and political commentators appeared to call any event where there was a gunman near a political target an “assassination attempt.” And I don’t find that very weird or overly pedantic, it seems more like common sense. 

Listen, there isn’t even an “assassination attempt” law. There isn’t going to be any “proof” of a term that isn’t legally defined, and Routh is never going to be charged with assassination attempt. But we know that Routh was apparently lurking around the Trump golf course for 12 hours with food and a rifle. Do you really believe it’s going to turn out that he wasn’t trying to shoot Trump?

I think this business trying to absolve Routh because “Trump was a whole hole away” from where Routh was hiding, or that LE “hasn’t announced that he was actually targeting Trump” is twaddle to put it plainly. But the world is strange. It might turn out that Routh has some other explanation. Does that seem likely? Right now, absolutely not. 

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I haven’t seen anyone trying to absolve the gun nut. He seems to have spent his life playing with guns and obviously regards them as totems and ultimate problem solvers — something he shares with millions of mostly right wing Americans.

I agree with the idea that ”assassination attempt” goes way too far given what we know. Will he be charged with attempted murder if he never got within sight of trump? We’ll see what the DA, the judge, the jury, and the defendant have to say about that. (Will he “confess” in a display of self-aggrandizement? He seems like a loon.

As usual, any legal eagles with any professional insight are most welcome.

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NWTerriD is here and adding some important points. 

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Mayhap it was a CONCEPT of go pro filming of DonOld to see if he can bend down far enough to place his own ball. The rifle was just for its sight to focus on the correct old fart? Exercise for elders tapes for sale? /s

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Protecting trump from geese, or alligators?

Maybe he has done this before? His stakeout seems mostly well organized.

Police have discovered a/his cell phone was there for 12 hours.

Dude sounds exactly the profile of an unstable zealot perfectly suited to become a stochastic terrorist or even manipulated to take action as a patsy or for some calculated publicity.

Suicide by SS might seem an attractive way out as well.

We will see if he gets the Jack Ruby treatment.

Trump is sure useing it to advantage, distracting from his more negative issues, playing unhinged blame game,  and working the sympathy grift.

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Exactly, we’ve seen this movie, in America, before. And, Lone Wolf Assassin shoots a bloody ear, then the injury disappears! These similar weird tricks in US history we’ve seen, before, too.

Thanks, for your insightful, historical assessment!

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Yes, it's all Kamala's fault. And Biden's, of course

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There is attempted murder and the only reason some murders are call assassinations is because once in a great while the person killed is a political figure. We don’t need a separate law for every other word ever used for murder.

They may call mob hits executions but the hit man is charged with murder. (or if the cop get there before the shot is fired, attempted murder).
 

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He was, "on the fence" about it? 

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Attempted murder requires that some action be taken in furtherance of a plan. Lying in wait for someone, or being in their vicinity with a weapon, is exactly the kind of “action” that would fulfill this requirement.

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In court, wouldn’t that require evidence of a plan? I mean, the state would have to prove their case based on something.

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This is true, but I don’t want to get into legal arguments. I feel like that’s a trap. I think it’s fairer to talk about the fact that whenever Obama had close calls like this they were never referred to assassination attempts by the media or breathlessly reported as nonstop coverage. 

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Obama never had a close call like this.

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Yeah, he did. After January 6.

www.nbcnews.com/…

The “A” word is entirely absent in the article. 

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I don’t think President Obama was five minutes away from getting shot when they caught the guy.

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I don’t think Trump was either. 

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Really?  What do you think the guy was planning to do?  Wave hi?

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You said he was five minutes away from getting shot. I doubt it. The Secret Service caught him well before that. 

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Trump was one hole away on the golf course.  About five minutes or so by golf cart.

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With Trump’s bloated ass? You obviously have more confidence in his speed on the course than I do, golf cart or not. 

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JFC, it’s a golf cart.  Go ride one, see how long it takes to drive to the next hole.  Have you ever actually golfed?

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I was making a joke. Trying to lighten the mood. 

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You’re not doing well.

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And you appear to be deliberately starting shit to hurt me. I’m not going to engage further. 

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Don’t feed the troll.

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I don't know why it didn't occur to me before, but his golf cart is ballistically tolerant. I know it does make sense, but it's still funny to me. 

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Routh wouldn’t have known Trump was going to be there unless he had inside info.  It’s not like it’s a stretch to assume Trump’s going golfing but the trip wasn’t on his public schedule.  He wasn’t in a position to have a line of sight on Trump as well as a few hundred yards away.  That's why they haven’t yet charged the guy with attempted assassination. 

Right now they have a guy in bushes next to golf course with a gun who shouldn’t have one.  They’re looking for something more concrete with which to charge him.  Presumably he could have wanted to kill him but at this point it’s an assumption.  If they thought it was slam dunk they would have charged that by now.  My guess is we see how they charge that or not over the next week or so.

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Yep, the current charges (needed to hold him) may not be the charges that get through the grand jury. 

And sometimes it is what you can prove vs what you know to be true.  Depends on what evidence will hold up and sometimes how reliable the witnesses are and will they hold up to cross examination. Yeah he talked to me on his way over there, but I was high/stoned/drunk so they can easily impeach that witness.

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A closer call, one could argue.

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I wouldn’t.

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Mazel Tov!

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Cut the author some slack. Not worth a tiff argument, over trivia & golf carts.


Golf carts are pretty funny anyway…🥳😎😉😤🤠🤡👏🏼👏🏼🤝🤝👏🏼👏🏼🫶👇✌️🤘✌️✌️

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There have been attempts by individual to breach the WH while a President was in the building. 
 

I actually thought the diary was too cute by half as there was someone clearly prepared to take a shot at TFG.  That seems to fit the general definition. If some blew up house thinking someone was inside, but the person was never really in danger because they were on vacation, we would still call that an assassination attempt.  So I don’t think taking the final action with someone is in proximity are the only criteria. 
 

With that said, I don’t the the WH breaches are called attempted assassinations.  They are call security breaches.  
 

So based on this past history, I’ve been flipped and think that it is appropriate to question why this language is being used especially since charges haven’t been filed.  This is SS and FBI language that they on intentionally amplify for a variety of reasons. 

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Planning an assassination is different than an actual attempt. Security breaches are distressingly common for Presidents. Acting like this specific thing was the same as somebody taking a shot at Trump at the rally is not how security breaches have been discussed in the past. 

Before this weekend, the rule seemed to be, if the person got off a shot at the politician, it’s an assassination attempt. If they were prevented from doing so, it’s a security breach. The media is changing the language rules to favor Trump and we should not play along. 

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Before this weekend, the rule seemed to be, if the person got off a shot at the politician, it’s an assassination attempt. If they were prevented from doing so, it’s a security breach.

As a former attorney, that has never been my understanding of the distinction. A security breach is when there’s someone in a place where they shouldn’t have been able to get in. An assassination attempt is when they plan to kill an important person and they take substantial steps toward doing that. If someone is where they’re not supposed to be, and they have a gun & ammo & a kevlar vest with them because they were planning to kill a political leader while they were there, then it’s both.

“Assassination attempt” is parallel to “attempted murder,” which doesn’t require that a shot be taken; it just requires a “direct step” in furtherance of a plan:

In order to be convicted of attempted murder, a prosecutor must show that the accused took a "direct step" towards killing the targeted victim. . . . The kinds of actions that are enough to be a direct step differs from case to case, though there are a range of actions that can qualify, such as:

  • Stalking, tracking, or ambushing. This includes hiding out in waiting, tracking the victim down, or following the victim, hoping for an opportunity to commit the murder.
  • Luring. Includes trying to convince the victim to come to a specific place or take specific actions that will make it possible for the victim to be murdered.
  • Breaking-in. For example, unlawfully sneaking into a home, property, or other place where the victim is or thought to be.
  • Constructing. This might include collecting all the materials necessary for the murder, such as the parts of a bomb, and starting to put them together.
  • Soliciting. For instance, paying or convincing someone else to commit the murder, or even convincing an unknowing person to carry out a key part of the crime, such as unknowingly planting a bomb.

Bolding mine.

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I’m not really concerned with the legal definitions. In fact what you are saying is accurate. I’m questioning why when similar things happened to Obama and Biden THOSE weren’t referred to as assassination attempts. And if they weren’t, then the media shouldn’t be calling this that. 

I’m not talking legal definitions. I’m talking media framing. That’s it. 

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1. When was there ever someone with a military-grade weapon lying in wait for Obama for hours, at a location where Obama was actually going to be? The time someone shot at the White House when Barack and Michelle weren’t there is the only time I can think of. And guess how that was “framed”?

Dec 2, 2011

Pittsburgh CNN  — An Idaho man who acquaintances say called President Barack Obama “the anti-Christ” was charged Thursday with trying to assassinate him in a shooting incident outside the White House, federal authorities said.

2. You’re not just talking about media framing. You stated:

What happened yesterday was NOT an assassination attempt.

It absolutely was an assassination attempt. 

3. The media “framing” something in legally accurate terminology isn’t “framing”; it’s reporting. You’re advocating for framing by eschewing that accurate terminology for something more innocuous.

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From diderotwasright below

www.nbcnews.com/…

Even worse scenario for Obama, AFTER January 6, AFTER Trump posted his address. The “A” word is not used in the article. Noticeably. 

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I agree. Ryan Wesley Routh was a registered Democrat who also expressed support Ukraine. He had tried to recruit volunteers to join the Ukrainian ground forces. Trump’s support for Russia appears to be his motivation for the assassination attempt.  I had heard in the media he did once support Trump, but had been supporting Biden than Harris. Routh had been waiting in the bushes for about 12 hours, but never had been in Trump’s line of sight.

For a profile about Routh see www.newsweek.com/...

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Let's see what he gets charged with. Right now attempted murder looks like a stretch.

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Yeah ok. The only thing I care about is the ear bleeding, then all healed up fast! 

I only cared about the Zapruder film forever, because Oliver stone proved it mattered more than anything else, in terms of the initial 1963 coup detat we all endured forever…

Reagan did 20x more coup detats than the jfk assassination did to us. So did GWB, he almost destroyed us, & our country, for forever. Thank god for the Clintons, Obama, Biden, Harris, Walz, and too, all our brothers & sisters in all our great civil rights, queer rights, disabled rights etc etc etc movements…!

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Then surely the armed J6er that "attempted to evade the Secret Service and was looking for 'entrance points' along the street to enter the restricted area" around Obama's DC home should also have been described as an assassination attempt as well?  Yet it wasn't: abcnews.go.com/…

It really does seem that the MSM have applied totally different standards--not just with this but in SO many other areas.

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There was a very long range “shots fired” at White House, Obama years. As far as I know, never solved. Another breach of security where man got inside but was intercepted by dog. Where is he now? Strange lurches over and a young kid through the White House fence, multiple times. Cars run at the barricades during Biden. One person died. And that standoff on Capitol Hill and a few others who rammed cars. Wasn’t a Capitol Policeman killed from a deliberate car ramming, not too long after J6? I briefly looked at Carol Leonnig’s book on secret service, shortly after Butler PA, library copy. The incidents are there; I may have misstated some. One sees the conclusions writ large: the SS is greatly understaffed and underfunded.

If a kid’s father gets visited for his violent threats online, why isn’t a self-published Amazon book writer for encouraging assassinations?

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Conspiracy to murder is a defined crime in most jurisdictions in the United States, and normally does not require a murder actually occurring.[10] Federally, it is punishable under Title 18 by up to life imprisonment.[11]

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Can someone  acting alone be charged with conspiracy? I thought it implied a group activity. 

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It doesn’t just imply it.  It’s the legal definition.  It takes two or more.  As far as we know now it’s a lone wolf.

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But this shit happened to Obama and Biden a bunch of times. Nobody called them assassination attempts

Please cite a few cases so we can be clear about the similarities or lack of.

Lying in wait at the right place with the necessary tools for 11 hours and having the target get within your weapon's outer range - not saying accuracy or line of sight - is for me right on the valid side of "an assassination attempt."

And as an anonymous internet denizen, I'm not buying the argument that he was just there getting a suntan and hence the weaker (current) charges.

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Totally agree. How can it be an “attempt” when the alleged attempter apparently never fired his weapon?

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See above.  If someone sets a pipe bomb that fails, it that an attempt?  
 

I am not sure, but I am convinced the media is not being consistent in terminology. 

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Attempted murder doesn’t require that a weapon be fired; why would attempted assassination require that?

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I’m not talking legal definitions. I’m talking media framing. Obama and Biden had similar close calls (the Obamas in particular) and the media didn’t call them assassination attempts or drop everything and turn it into a week long frenzy. I’m applying their previous framing standards to what happened this weekend. Not the legal standards. And I’m suggesting people on this site should take note of the double-standard and not feed into it themselves. 

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The only “similar close call” I’m aware of was the one where a shooter got on the White House grounds and shot at the White House when Barack and Michelle weren’t there. And he was in fact charged with an assassination attempt.

It may not have been discussed in the media that way at the time before the charge was filed, but it also wasn’t just a few weeks after someone else had actually shot at Obama. If it had been, I have no doubt that the White House incident would have been widely discussed as a 2nd assassination attempt. I get that you see a massive double standard here, but I don’t see it.

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What about the freaking ear. He shot the ear…

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