Politics & Stuff

[Vesper 30,090]

Trump golf course incident investigated as potential assassination attempt

Suspect in custody after fleeing golf course where Trump was playing, leaving behind a rifle

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/09/15/trump-golf-course-shooting-west-palm-beach-florida/

Republican nominee Donald Trump was unharmed Sunday in what authorities are investigating as another potential assassination attempt, after a man pointed a rifle into a Florida golf course where the former president was playing. Police have detained a suspect whose name has not yet been released.

Sunday’s incident occurred while Trump was golfing at his course in West Palm Beach, Fla. Following the usual security procedure, a Secret Service agent moved one or two holes ahead of the former president, 300 to 500 yards away, according to Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw.

At around 1:30 p.m., between the fifth and seventh holes, the agent noticed a rifle muzzle poking through the tree-lined chain-link fence surrounding the golf course, Bradshaw said. The agent opened fire and Trump’s detail rushed him to a holding room. The gunman fled in a black Nissan, leaving behind an AK-47-style rifle, two bags and a camera mounted to the fence to record, according to Bradshaw.

“With a rifle and a scope like that, that’s not a long distance,” Bradshaw said.

It was the second time in just over two months that a man had a high-powered rifle within range of Trump, renewing concerns about Trump’s safety in the height of the campaign leading up to Election Day on Nov. 5. The Secret Service has long viewed golf courses as especially challenging because they are open to parts of the public and near heavily trafficked areas. The agency repeatedly denied requests for the Trump campaign for additional security measures at his public events, with officials citing limited resources.

“The threat level is high,” Rafael Barros, special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s Miami field office, told reporters Sunday. “We live in danger times.”

As of Sunday evening, the FBI had not yet briefed Trump about the incident, according to Trump advisers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive situation.

The fleeing alleged gunman was observed by a witness who called the police to report the car and license plate number, Bradshaw said. Officers tracked down the car on the highway and intercepted it about 45 miles north, in neighboring Martin County.

Palm Beach County State Attorney David Aronberg said prosecutors are working on warrants and a motion for the suspect’s pretrial detention.

Bradshaw praised the agent who noticed the rifle and the law enforcement response. He noted that Trump received less security as a former president and candidate than as a sitting president.

“I would imagine the next time he comes to the golf course, there’ll probably be a little bit more people around the perimeter,” he said in a news conference Sunday. “But the Secret Service did exactly what they should have done. They provided exactly what the protection should have been.”

Trump had arrived back in Florida late Saturday night after a three-day swing, which culminated with a fundraiser held by former Apprentice producer Mark Burnett in Utah. He usually golfs daily while in Florida, and on Sunday he was with companions including Steve Witkoff, a close friend and adviser, according to two people briefed on the incident.

The Secret Service held Trump at the golf club for several hours to ensure his nearby primary residence, Mar-a-Lago, was secure before moving him there. Trump was in good spirits, telling one friend he wished he could have finished his round, and he took calls for much of the afternoon, said a person close to him, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private call. Trump said that during the round, they had no idea where the shots were coming from as they were rushed to safety, this person said.

Trump’s campaign quickly announced he was unharmed and followed up with fundraising appeals.

“I am safe and well, and no one was hurt,” Trump said in one of the campaign messages. “But, there are people in this world who will do whatever it takes to stop us.”

The White House said in a statement that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris had been briefed about the incident. The two are “relieved to know that he is safe,” the White House said, and they will be updated on the case.

Harris said in a post on X that she has been “briefed on reports of gunshots fired near former President Trump and his property in Florida, and I am glad he is safe. Violence has no place in America.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Trump told him the Secret Service had told the former president and his fellow golfers to “get down” and rushed him off the course. When they spoke, Trump said he was surrounded by “500 cops” and disappointed he couldn’t finish the round. “He said he was two-under after five,” Graham said.

Edited September 16, 2024 by Vesper

[Vesper 30,090]

Vance amplifies false claims about Haitian migrants in Ohio

Republican Gov. Mike DeWine rejected the storyline about Springfield, calling it “a piece of garbage that was simply not true.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/09/15/vance-springfield-haitians/

A week after his unsubstantiated comments on Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, sparked a national firestorm and spurred violent threats in the small town, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) doubled down on his baseless claims that Haitians are eating their neighbors’ pets “to draw attention to the Biden-Harris immigration policies.”

Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, rejected Vance’s claims, calling the storyline “a piece of garbage that was simply not true.”

In a contentious interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday morning, Vance said that if he has to “create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

Donald Trump’s running mate has repeatedly claimed that the media was not paying attention to problems in Springfield until he spread the false rumor and his allies started making racist memes about Haitians eating pets in the small town. But the New York Times published an in-depth piece on Springfield days before Vance raised his baseless allegations in a social media post that said people “have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.”

Trump repeated the claims Tuesday during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, even as the latest allegations about Springfield have been debunked at the local and state level, spurred violent threats against local Haitians — who are in the United States legally — and led to bomb threats that temporarily closed City Hall and schools. But despite those fact checks from local officials, Vance stuck to his claims and said he was simply passing along the concerns of his constituents.

But when Bash noted that Vance “just said you’re creating this story,” the senator quickly attempted to clarify his position.

“I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it,” he said. “I didn’t create 20,000 illegal migrants coming into Springfield thanks to Kamala Harris’s policies. Her policies did that.”

Harris is not directly responsible for Haitian immigration to Springfield. They arrived after being admitted to the United States legally under a program that grants them temporary protected status because of the violence and chaos in their home country.

“But yes,” Vance continued, “we created the actual focus that allowed the American media to talk about this story and the suffering caused by Kamala Harris’s policies.”

When asked for a response to DeWine’s comments and to the fact that the New York Times had published an in-depth story on Springfield’s Haitian immigrant population before Vance’s social media posts about it, Taylor Van Kirk, a spokesman for Vance, did not respond substantively to either question but said that coverage of Vance’s comments was “twisted” by the liberal media, which he said should instead focus on the Biden administration’s border policies. He also referenced a tweet from Vance calling coverage of his comments “a dishonest smear.”

Last week, the mayor of Springfield said a bomb threat Thursday that led to the evacuation of City Hall and other buildings “used hateful language towards immigrants and Haitians in our community.” More bomb threats and evacuations followed on Friday.

On Saturday, when reporters asked Trump about the threats, he said he didn’t know what had happened with them, but he asserted that the city was being “taken over” by migrants, even though most of the Haitians are here on legal visas. “Springfield was this beautiful town, and now they’re going through hell. It’s a sad thing. Not going to happen with me,” Trump told reporters.

If elected, Trump said Friday, he would effect “large deportations in Springfield. We’re going to get these people out,” and then indicated he would send Haitians to Venezuela. He baselessly inflated the number of migrants living there and accused them of destroying the town.

When Bash asked Vance on Sunday about the threats to Springfield, he countered that the CNN anchor “just accused me of inciting violence against the community when all that I’ve done is surface the complaints of my constituents, people who are suffering because of Kamala Harris’s policies. Are we not allowed to talk about these problems because some psychopaths are threatening violence? We can condemn the violence on the one hand, but also talk about the terrible consequences of Kamala Harris’s open border, on the other hand.”

Vance’s comments lie in sharp contrast to those made by DeWine, a fellow Republican who said Sunday that “the Haitians who are in Springfield are legal” and that “they came to Springfield to work,” praising their arrival as aiding “a great resurgence with a lot of companies coming in.”

DeWine said the companies have said “they are very good workers. They’re very happy to have them there. And frankly, that’s helped the economy.”

The governor allowed that the influx of an estimated 15,000 Haitians to a town of 58,000 created strains on municipal services that require more federal assistance. “Now, are there problems connected? Well, sure,” he said. “And we’re addressing those. We’re working on those every single day.”

But DeWine also decried the threats that have come to Springfield since Vance and Trump zeroed in on the town as a campaign talking point, including white nationalist groups hoping to capitalize on racial animus. “There are hate groups coming into Springfield,” DeWine said. “We don’t need these hate groups.”

But as much as DeWine condemned the false claims about Haitians in Springfield, he stopped short of criticizing Trump and Vance for spreading those claims, saying that the problems on the border are “legitimate” and ones where “the vast majority” of the American people “agree with Donald Trump.” But, he concluded, “what’s going on in Springfield is just fundamentally different. These people are here legally. They came to work. They are looking for good people. These are hardworking people.”

Late last week, the woman who penned a Facebook post claiming she had heard about Haitians eating pets said she had no direct knowledge of such an incident and regrets her role in spreading rumors about it.

“It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen,” Erika Lee, a Springfield resident, told NBC News on Friday. Lee’s original post claimed a neighbor’s cat had gone missing and that the neighbor believed the cat had been attacked by her Haitian neighbors.

But media and fact-checking watchdog NewsGuard interviewed both Lee and her neighbor, Kimberly Newton, and found that Lee had misstated her friend’s original story in her Facebook post, which she has since deleted.

Newton, who was not interviewed by NBC, said she heard about the purported attack from a third party and had not witnessed it directly, NewsGuard reported.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) said Sunday that Vance “should know better” than continuing to spread baseless claims. He said there is a “causal connection” between Vance’s spreading of the rumors and “the safety and security of the American people” — referencing the bomb threats in Springfield that came after Trump repeated the false allegations on the debate stage.

“He just doesn’t understand the power of his words, the power of his lies,” Shapiro said on CNN. “Those lies are putting people at risk.”

On Friday, President Joe Biden demanded that the attacks on the Haitian community in Springfield stop. “I want to take a moment to say something [about the] Haitian American community that’s under attack in our country right now,” Biden said during a White House event celebrating Black excellence. “It’s simply wrong. There’s no place in America. This has to stop, what he’s doing. It has to stop!”

Edited September 16, 2024 by Vesper

[Thor 2,689]

Democrat voters are crazy. Tried to assassinate Trump again.
 

Crazy that he’d want the job after all this lol.  

[Blue Armour 4,436]

1 hour ago, Thor said:

Democrat voters are crazy. Tried to assassinate Trump again.
 

Crazy that he’d want the job after all this lol.  

Wait. Was there proof that it was a Democrat voter?

Not picking sides here. Just asking.

[robsblubot 3,595]

1 hour ago, Blue Armour said:

Wait. Was there proof that it was a Democrat voter?

Not picking sides here. Just asking.

Does it matter?
100m people on each side is bound to have some crazies of all types.

He's apparently an Ukraine sympathizer, but does it really matter? the previous guy was a republican.. they are the ones who love guns.
A murderer always has a reason, and honestly I think the media gives too much emphasis on "the motive." Often the motive is, the guy is batshit crazy... and maybe he likes shooting people?!

An assassination attempt every 2 weeks, I'd be worried about the odds if I were Trump.

He's a very divisive figure, so this isn't super surprising to me at least.

Edited September 16, 2024 by robsblubot

[Thor 2,689]

1 hour ago, robsblubot said:

Does it matter?
100m people on each side is bound to have some crazies of all types.

He's apparently an Ukraine sympathizer, but does it really matter? the previous guy was a republican.. they are the ones who love guns.
A murderer always has a reason, and honestly I think the media gives too much emphasis on "the motive." Often the motive is, the guy is batshit crazy... and maybe he likes shooting people?!

An assassination attempt every 2 weeks, I'd be worried about the odds if I were Trump.

He's a very divisive figure, so this isn't super surprising to me at least.

Last guy was a democrat too. He registered republican to elect shit candidates in his region. 

[robsblubot 3,595]

1 hour ago, Thor said:

Last guy was a democrat too. He registered republican to elect shit candidates in his region. 

And? 🤷‍♂️you are talking about 4-5 times the population of Australia here. Sounds a bit silly to generalize 100m people like that. Besides, you do know Trump used to be a registered democrat and donor once, right?

comes with the territory with being a divisive figure and insulting everyone who opposes him. He makes a lot of enemies and not all are cat ladies.

this particular one apparently would “die for Ukraine” which evidently made Trump a target given that Russia wins as soon as Trump is elected.

Once again, Trump may be thinking about his odds at the moment.

Edited September 16, 2024 by robsblubot

[manpe 10,861]

On 14/09/2024 at 21:20, robsblubot said:

I’m not sure this is the root cause; the hunger has always been there. it’s missing the “what’s different now” question. Which is what is addressed in the Yuval interview I posted earlier: fiction is cheaper (to produce) and the algos treat all info the same. So, junk becomes abundant by sheer volume.

The true danger in my opinion, is that groups like QAnon distract from real conspiracies making the wider society view ANY conspiracy theory automatically as untrue and every theorist a loony bin candidate. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if movements like QAnon and others are purposefully fed lies with sprinkles of truth by real conspirators, in order to distract and diminish the credibility of anyone who might be onto them (lol, guess I just created a new conspiracy theory 😄). It gives them a nice safety net of "oh they're just right-wing conspiracy nutjobs" even when they sometimes actually touch a real subject, no-one will believe them.

In general it ties to the spread of misinformation like in every aspect of media. The point is to muddy the waters enough so that people wouldn't know truth from fiction anymore, and that is a very fertile breeding ground for corporate criminals.

[robsblubot 3,595]

9 minutes ago, manpe said:

The true danger in my opinion, is that groups like QAnon distract from real conspiracies making the wider society view ANY conspiracy theory automatically as untrue and every theorist a loony bin candidate. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if movements like QAnon and others are purposefully fed lies with sprinkles of truth by real conspirators, in order to distract and diminish the credibility of anyone who might be onto them (lol, guess I just created a new conspiracy theory 😄). It gives them a nice safety net of "oh they're just right-wing conspiracy nutjobs" even when they sometimes actually touch a real subject, no-one will believe them.

In general it ties to the spread of misinformation like in every aspect of media. The point is to muddy the waters enough so that people wouldn't know truth from fiction anymore, and that is a very fertile breeding ground for corporate criminals.

the vast majorly of conspiracy theory are false. Most are so far-fetched that they don’t even pass the plausibility test given how visible and obvious such things would be.

Ironically the only proven conspiracy of late was trump scheme to overturn the last election. That lawsuit will go away if he wins tho.

suggest watching the YouTube video with the Yuval interview I posted 2 pages back because his point about how social media became a conspiracy theory machine makes total sense (it’s how the ranking of info is done).

Edited September 16, 2024 by robsblubot

[Thor 2,689]

4 hours ago, robsblubot said:

evidently made Trump a target given that Russia wins as soon as Trump is elected.

 

What is this based off exactly? 

Genuine question. 

[robsblubot 3,595]

2 hours ago, Thor said:

What is this based off exactly? 

Genuine question. 

I think it’s a fair assumption: not one I myself make, but rather one I suspect the attacker did.

Perhaps due to Trump’s self-proclaimed (heard him say that multiple times) special relationship with Putin? https://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/juan-williams/4484909-trump-has-kept-up-his-old-creepy-affections-for-putin/amp/
 

or directly claiming that he will “end” the war https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-it-wont-accept-ultimatum-type-invitations-second-ukraine-peace-2024-07-18/

 

[Thor 2,689]

Seems a stretch. 

Regardless - the world is ugly these days. I couldn't give a shit about politics but its sad seeing people in my day to day, and on here, act completely loyal to people they don't know in politics and act as if one side is all wrongdoing and the other near perfect. Not only that - people ending relationships with people just because of differences in that opinion. 

World is truly sick, and people are thin skinned and pathetic. 

[robsblubot 3,595]

51 minutes ago, Thor said:

Seems a stretch. 

Regardless - the world is ugly these days. I couldn't give a shit about politics but its sad seeing people in my day to day, and on here, act completely loyal to people they don't know in politics and act as if one side is all wrongdoing and the other near perfect. Not only that - people ending relationships with people just because of differences in that opinion. 

World is truly sick, and people are thin skinned and pathetic. 

Yeah maybe, but like I said i wasn’t the one making the connection just trying to understand why the attacker may have done it.

i personally understand representation, so im totally OK with the notion that folks who disagree a lot with me exist in numbers and also deserve representation. Trump is a bit different than all politicians from the right I’ve seen before tho—personal experience.

Think much of what you talk about is caused by social media and the algos which is discussed in the long Yuval Harari interview I posted earlier. 

thought the interview was actually well conducted too: https://youtu.be/toF5PIClNZ4

Edited September 16, 2024 by robsblubot

[Vesper 30,090]

13 hours ago, Thor said:

Democrat voters are crazy. Tried to assassinate Trump again.
 

Crazy that he’d want the job after all this lol.  

this asshat was a Trump supporter in 2016

and the dead cunt who shot actually Trump was a right winger

do not try to gaslight here

it will never work

[MoroccanBlue 5,375]

Well the first bloke was a confusing one. Registered as republican yet donated to democrat causes the same year. 

As far as this new bloke, If he was an alleged Trump supporter in 2016 a lot of his activity these past several years is very contradictory. Pushing for the defunding of police, supporting Gubbard during her democrat period, posts expressing support for Biden/Harris, and all of his political donations since 2012 were for a committee that supported democratic candidates.