The Lone Gunmen: Introduction

Back in 1981, I wrote an essay for The Humanist, "Scientists, Gamblers, and Magicians." I emphasized applying what I called a "Gamber's Perspective" in cases of paranormal claims. The example I gave went something like this:  If you are sitting at a poker table playing hold 'em, and your four of a kind is beaten by a straight flush, you shouldn't automatically or necessarily attribute that outcome to rigging of the deck or cheating, unless of course you see clear evidence of such. But if you continue at the table, and a half hour later the same thing happens, you should immediately get up from the table, politely say your goodbyes, and head home. It doesn't matter if you can't perceive a hint of questionable dealing or if no one at the table seems motivated to take your money. Just get up and leave. Your perceptions and your reasoning have limits, and your wallet and lifetime also have limits. It doesn't matter if you can't figure out what's happening. It doesn't matter if you have absolutely no clue. The odds against what just happened to you are impossible for all practical purposes. Just get up and leave.

I have tried to bring that same "Gambler's Perspective" to the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. I don't want to be a roiling, deafening Charybdis or a convinced, calm Scylla. These are, to beat an analogy to death, deep waters. A former and likely future president of the United States was almost killed. The stakes in figuring this out are enormous, and doing so dispassionately figures to be very, very difficult.

First Instincts

In this series, I'm going to slowly walk through various perspectives and key questions. My goal, as always and with all things, is simply to ask the right questions rather than worry about finding any right answers. This entry will set the stage for slowly, methodically plodding our way through this historic moment and historic mess. We'll get to my more novel observations in future entries. For now, let's start the plodding.

Silhouette Thinking

One of the first rules of both document analysis and behavior analysis is to ask, "What is missing?" I hate to bring up an overused cliche, but nothing spells out this perspective better than the exchange in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes short story, "The Adventure of Silver Blaze." 

Inspector Gregory: "Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"

Sherlock Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."

Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time"

Holmes: "That was the curious incident."

Usually, I submit, what isn't said tells you more than what is.

I watched much of former Secret Service Director Kimberley Cheatle's congressional grilling. I'd like to make a few points. 

First point. Days before, when asked why no agents were on the roof from which Crooks shot, she had responded with her line about the pitch of the roof being dangerous. It was an obviously ridiculous response, as the roof wasn't challenging at all, and the counter-snipers close to Trump were stationed on much more of a pitch. So why would the head of the Secret Service give such a response? She wasn't stammering. She had known the question was coming. She chose to give the answer she did, asinine as it was. My initial hypothesis as to why she said this is that she had no real choice. She was either (1) trying to fend off lawsuits that might find her culpable for the death and injuries or (2) she was told in no uncertain terms (and not by a lawyer) what her response would be. She was given an instruction, to quote the Don, that she couldn't refuse.

Cheatle knew her answer was ridiculous. Maybe there was some long-shot possibility that she could swear she had not seen photos of the roof, and that the angle of the roof had been misreported to her. Saying there had been a flawed roof description would have required pinpointing who reported it. A face and name would have to be attached to the misreporting. That would have extended legal culpability while not necessarily reducing Cheatle's legal exposure, so the Director avoided that response.

This was a lynchpin moment. Nobody in her right mind would voluntarily spew the line about the steepness of the roof being a danger to personnel. It was clear to me that when Cheatle made that comment, she knew she was done in her official capacity. And it was also clear to me that she was answering to people she feared more than any congressional committee.  

I don't think that she makes that particular roof pitch statement unless she's a dead man walking if she doesn't make the statement. The comment was too weird, to unattached to any reality, and it served to draw attention to her. She became an attention and responsibility magnet. Then she is subpoenaed and shows up a week later for the congressional hearing. She says that no, after a week she still doesn't have a timeline, she didn't bring pre-planning documents with her, and she refuses to answer the most basic questions, all of which she knew would be asked. She gives basic non-descript non-responses. Her manner is absolutely robotic. My take is that she's basically playing decoy, drawing public and media heat to herself. Frankly, she has the demeanor and self-presentation of someone who knows she herself is in crosshairs if she deviates from a self-immolating script.

The way she non-responded at that hearing suggested more to me than if she had been moderately forthcoming. Using a conspiracy perspective momentarily, I'd say her behavior suggested that a week after the assassination attempt, things were a mess for the folks who tried to kill Trump. They fully expected to succeed, and their clean-up efforts were going to be far more improvisational than they had anticipated. They had really screwed up, and the way forward did not have a clean flow chart.

Key Underreported Elements

1) A massive short sell of Trump's media company's stock occurred July 12, the day before the assassination attempt. I direct readers to seek out current reports covering this topic. Since I'm no stock trading expert, I won't attempt to parrot experts. I'll just say that this is a smoking Gatling gun, given the potential gains, which ran in the hundreds of millions of dollars, had Trump's stock crashed. Obviously, many people were involved in this enterprise.

2) The movement of Crooks' devices can be traced and has been outlined in various reports. One of Crooks' devices was in Washington, D.C., a block from the FBI building, on June 26. Although I am no expert on tracking devices, I carry a phone on me just a tenth of the time because I am aware of the tracking capabilities. I recommend that readers research the most current reports on the curious travels of devices that had been in Crooks' home.

3) Trump's Secret Service detail was understaffed in general for the Butler event and seriously understaffed with actual Secret Service personnel. It was not his usual detail. Jill Biden was in Pittsburgh simultaneously at an indoor function, which rostered a higher number of experienced Secret Service agents while draining from the pool available to Trump. Trump's event was outdoors with 20,000 people. Jill Biden's event was indoors with about 400. Trump had what amounted to a diluted Secret Service JV team. The timing of this personnel degradation was nothing short of miraculous. I want to save my personal observations regarding the date/location of the assassination attempt for a future entry, as I think it carries a lot of weight in terms of leaning to conspiracy or not.

Surveying Experts

I'm going to close this segment here. I have much more to report, and I do have a couple of my own observations (the gist of which I haven't read elsewhere), but we'll review them in later segments. I've tried to keep reasonably current on this story by putting in roughly 60 hours of research in the week after the shooting. What I discovered is that there is a clear correlation. The more experienced someone is vis-a-vis being a sniper, being in the CIA, or having served on serious security details, the more they lean to full-blown conspiracy. 

In other words, professional experience correlates heavily with the preliminary conclusion that this was a planned, organized assassination attempt that chose its location carefully and had a groomed patsy ready to go. Some of the most expert people refuse to go into details but just say "Something was really wrong." We'll expand on this in my next installment, and I'll recommend some experts to follow.

Bob Dietz

July 28, 2024

The (Attempted) Assassination of Donald Trump

I was six years old. I had walked to school that Friday morning in November. My first-grade classroom was two blocks from my grandparents' home, where my parents, siblings, and I all lived. At lunchtime, surprisingly, my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Jones, told us that school was finished for the day. We collected our belongings and headed home. When I reached my grandparents' house, my mother was crying. The president, she told me, had been shot.

That was 1963. Here we are, 61 years later, and an assassin attempted a similarly angled shot at Donald Trump. Another inch and the former and soon-to-be president would be dead.

Basics

I know very little about firearms and tactical shooting. My father and brothers were fine shots with rifles. A long-time boyhood friend was in charge of a prison SORT team for years. SORT teams are the prison equivalent of SWAT teams. He had sniper training and was a superb shot. 

The only factoid I'd like to impress on readers is that the weapon and distance employed by Trump's attacker made the shot more or less a lay-up. Unchallenging. A trained sniper should, at the least, put four of five rounds into a head-sized target at that 130-yard distance. Donald J. Trump is extremely lucky to be alive.

So Many Questions

I have no idea how someone toting an AR-15 could have managed that location unimpeded. As the shooting pundits all have said, the shooter had clear sightlines and a lay-up distance. Reality is messy, and slip-ups occur, but the shooter's location was prime assassin real estate. 

In terms of timing, it's the last stop before the Republican National Convention. The outdoor Butler location was the last, best opportunity to kill Trump. Hard to believe that there were obvious gaps in coverage. I have no brilliant conclusions, only speculation. When you realize that law enforcement had to account for all vulnerabilities out to a thousand yards, it makes the gaps in the hundred-yard coverage somewhat understandable. Just as egregious a mistake, but somewhat understandable.

Murky waters. It gave me X-Files chills when I was told that both parents of the shooter were licensed behavior training specialists. And the shooter, as is almost always the case, is dead.

Trump Uber Alles

Trump's real-time coping reactions were extraordinary. No moment too large. He seized the day and will be remembered by history for being in control no matter the context. 

The photos of the Secret Service agents enveloping him while he raised his fist, blood streaking down his face, American flag looming in the sky overhead, that photo will be a Pulitzer Prize winner and will be in every history book. 

I'm going to recommend a couple of articles that haven't gotten splashed on every media page. First is Tim Stanley's "Trump has become an unstoppable force" for The Telegraph. He frames these recent events in a historical context. For a factual, Joe Friday analysis of the Secret Service and counter-sniper response, check out Laura Italiano's Business Insider piece, "Ex-Secret Service agents explain why counter-sniper who saved Trump's life may have lost crucial seconds."

Takeaways

I have nothing yet. I am waiting on further information. I do not buy the shooter as "acting alone." I think that's a longshot starting point. He had no car. He had limited resources. There had been no indications that he was going to do this.

So we wait. The Republican National Convention is next week. It's going to bristle with more energy than any political convention in American history. 

Bob Dietz

July 14, 2024 

The Problem with Avatars

I'm not sure how many Americans have managed the combo parlay of not having seen director James Cameron's Titanic AND not having seen his Avatar. Very, very few Americans have evaded seeing either. I'm one of those few. I've seen Cameron's Terminator half a dozen times, so perhaps that makes up for it. Maybe, maybe not.

My point is, it's possible that NOT seeing something culturally ubiquitous is a good thing. Keeps one out of the groupthink a tad. Might even save you from a mad public dash over a cliffside.

Biden as Avatar

Whether it's a show like The View or a network like MSNBC, we Americans are being hammered with a theme. We are supposed to put aside the fact that none of us would trust a solo President Joe Biden to babysit our children or drive us around the block without our seatbelts firmly in place, and we are supposed to vote back into the office of U.S. President a man who is clearly mentally degraded. 

We are being coached to vote for, not a man and his actual abilities, but for a man as a symbol, a representative of a set of values. We are being asked to vote for Biden as an avatar. Why should American citizens do such a thing? Once we step over that line, voting for a representation instead of the human being, we have crossed into the territory of pretend leadership. We're voting for goals largely untethered to the skills of the person for whom we are voting. If we simply cast a ballot for symbols, why have primaries at all? Why have debates? Why not just stick cardboard cutouts of Trump and Biden behind lecterns for 90 minutes and see which impresses us most?

Mental Acuity

I don't much care how old a candidate is. I don't much care if he or she is ambulatory. I don't much care about incontinence. I'd have no issues with the late Stephen Hawking running for president. My mother, aunt, and uncle all spent the last decade of life at home as quadriplegics, still running their households. Physical disability is not a disqualifier for me. Mental disability, however, is. 

Mental acuity is a must. A heavy problem with Alzheimer's sundowner syndrome is a disqualifier. We cannot have a mentally debilitated version of a great politician running for office simply because at one time he was a great politician. That is madness. That's substituting a memory and hope for an actual person. Voting for a mentally unfit person is devotion to narcissism. You think you know the path forward, and the competence of who you're voting for is irrelevant.

Wimpy the Gerbil

In 1981, Penn State's Monty Python Society ran Wimpy the Gerbil for student president. Penn State's administration said Wimpy could not officially be on the ballot. Students would have to write him in. Wimpy agreed to run anyway. Wimpy made public appearances for months, at fund-raising showings of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and for student debates, each time in his bulletproof transport aquarium. Ray-Ban-wearing agents accompanied Wimpy everywhere.

When the election was held, Wimpy's write-in votes garnered 1432 of the 5802 total votes cast. He finished a strong second out of five candidates. 

My point is that Wimpy was an avatar. If you recognize this and want to vote for Biden anyway, then cast your vote accordingly. But understand the implications. Joe Biden has become not a person to you, but your personal avatar.

Bob Dietz

July 11, 2024

The Biden-Pocalypse (July 7): Trump's Responses

Donald Trump managed to bankrupt three Atlantic City casinos. Separately no less. With the odds stacked in his favor, with Atlantic City bending over backwards to finance and facilitate each casino's success, he managed to bankrupt them on three separate occasions. I'm not quite sure how he pulled that off, but hubris, an overreliance on expensive glitz, and stubbornness all undoubtedly had a role. He did, however, learn after the first bankruptcy that his personal finances shouldn't be baldly on the line with such endeavors. Other people bore the financial brunt of his second and third casino bankruptcies. The man might have failed, but he did learn.

Thirty-five years later, Trump put these lessons to good use both in last week's debate and his public follow-ups to the Biden-Pocalypse fallout. Trump's fans have touted him as "playing 3-D chess" while the opposition has been playing checkers. Perhaps that's true. Or perhaps the chair across from him at the table is more or less empty.

In the week following the Democratic Debate Debacle (henceforth known simply as the "DDD"), Trump did some things that I consider semi-brilliant. Plus he demonstrated a couple of qualities during that "debate" which surprised me. 

Debate Discipline

I have watched Trump's 2016 Republican debate debut many times. It was stunning, surprising, and yet 100% Trumpian. He was forceful, obnoxious, effective, and he won over the audience immediately. In last week's DDD, Trump was very, very different. He was, dare I say it, restrained. Disciplined, in fact. Biden struggled, and Trump (in part due to the "debate" rules in place) simply allowed it. He was almost gentle in his immediate responses to Biden's twisting in the wind. Trump could have discussed, focused on, or blathered about Biden's evident cognitive struggles. Instead, Trump more or less stepped back and allowed Biden himself to paint a picture with considerably less than the proverbial thousand mangled words. Trump's strategic reticence surprised me. It almost looked like, felt like, a kind of kid-gloves mercy. Whether it was strategy more than charity, I really don't know. But he let Biden's struggles take and hold center stage. Trump didn't distract from them by trying to frame or amplify them.

Trump took a page from narrative screenwriting. He allowed the characters' words and actions to guide the audience and define the characters. No need for much of a narrator.

Trump's Brilliance -- Three Quick Examples

(1) On July 4th, Trump publicly challenged Biden to a "no-holds-barred" debate with just the two of them on stage. In my mind, this was an absolutely brilliant idea, a strategy that basically check-mated the Biden campaign.

Trump made the offer "anytime, anywhere." The rest of Trump's speech regarding this offer is scathingly brilliant. It puts the Biden campaign in an untenable, pressurized position for the next two months, with this Trump offer/challenge an omnipresent Sword of Trumpian Damocles hanging over them every day until they meet again. It puts a constant day-to-day, hour-to-hour stress on Biden's campaign because the offer hangs there both as a reminder of the first "debate" outcome and as a looming threat for the next. Every press briefing, each Biden walk to a limo, could conceivably be met with the questions, "When will you debate Trump again? Why wait?"

Trump managed the perfect strategic response at the perfect time. It makes every campaign day that Biden doesn't accept Trump's debate invitation a serious and public problem.

(2) While Biden was huddled with family trying to sort out the "debate" debacle, Trump was golfing. A perfect public juxtaposition of health with lack of health. Whether planned or not, it was the best contrast money could buy without spending a cent. A mastery of optics that looked absolutely casual.

(3) Trump then unveiled his new nickname for Kamala Harris, ""Laughin' Kamala." He avoided my somewhat sexist preference, "Cacklin' Kamala." Trump was actually, perhaps superficially, gentle. He hit just the right Goldilocks zone with this new nickname. Not too overtly harsh, but effective. It almost forces Harris to go into a kind of hyper-masculine self-presentation in immediate public events, including any VP debate. Like a zone defense dictating which opponent shoots from where, it takes Harris out of her natural public presentation and comfort zone. She can't win. Her previous propensity to laughing is on tape dozens of times and can be pulled up anytime. If she goes all authoritative in her self-presentation, she appears to be play-acting or simply responding to her new nickname.

Summary -- It's All Trumpster

The last week has been a master class by Trump. He has spontaneously managed the Biden-Pocalypse to full personal advantage. And this is coming from me, who thinks only a moron could bankrupt three casinos. 

The other, somewhat hidden, aspect of Trump's actions this past week is that nobody (including me) believes that this has been anything but Trump thinking on his feet. Yeah, maybe some hired sages managed this all, but it seems more likely this was simply a result of Trump winging it like a blue-blood political bloodhound. He instinctively makes all the right moves. And some of those moves are now understated and at least semi-subtle.

The Biden campaign has been checkmated. And we'll never know if they were playing chess, checkers, or simply absent from their seat.

Robert Dietz

July 7, 2024

The Biden-Pocalypse: Part One (July 5)

Now that the initial Trump/Biden "debate" is a week in everyone's rear view mirror, I think I've processed most of the information, initial fallout, ongoing storylines, and institutional attempts to control narratives while said institutions assume minimal responsibility. This is Part One of what should be an entertaining and cynical exploration of the utter worthlessness and venality of American politics. Oops, did I give away the plot? My bad.

Welcome to Real-World "Weekend at Bernie's"

There's a scene early in the 1989 film Weekend at Bernie's that accurately foreshadows the 2024 Democratic Convention. Bernie is dead and our two young stalwarts are trapped in Bernie's beachfront abode as a rotating party descends on the premises, with Bernie sitting loosely and confidently on his couch as his beach home fills with a bevy of partiers who know Bernie well but fail to realize that he's dead. 

Talk about meta. Nothing echoes what the Democrats were hoping for in Chicago 2024 better than this scene. They were hoping that no one would notice that Biden has serious cognitive and behavioral shortcomings (I'm being kind with my language).

For months, we have been hammered with the repeated line that Biden is "sharp as a tack." I have no words to describe my utter disgust and disappointment with the Democratic Party. But hell, I'll give it a try.

What the Democratic Party has attempted to foist on the U.S. public is nothing short of horrible, manipulative to the nth degree, incredibly irresponsible and dangerous, and an insult to the intelligence of every American, deplorable or not. It is a goddamn travesty, and a sick, sadistic travesty at that.

Why the When of the "Debate?"

Clearly, the timing of the "debate" was an attempt to get Biden versus Trump in front of Americans at the earliest opportunity, featuring an unusually early, historically unprecedented date. The rules of the debate were as tailored to Joe Biden as they could possibly be. No audience, early microphone shut-offs, friendly questioners. I haven't seen anyone agree to such an unfavorable set of opponent-prescribed rules since Marvin Hagler agreed to fight Sugar Ray Leonard in a bigger ring for a shorter (12 versus 15 round) fight. Unlike Hagler, however, Trump had an advantage in his pocket. The "debate," out of sheer necessity, had to take place circa 10 PM Eastern time. When it comes to many people with dementia, timing is pretty much everything. Sundowner syndrome is something familiar to all of us who have dealt with friends and family suffering dementia. You're introduced to sundowner syndrome day one of dementia class.

Why was the debate scheduled for June? Well, my cynical side suspects that Biden had been wearing down for the last 18 months or so, and holding the event ASAP was an attempt to hustle before further evident decline. This was likely an attempt to get Biden under the limbo bar before he fell on his back. My suspicion is also that if the "debate" had gone well for Biden, a second one might have been canceled because, well, if these administration operatives are as bereft of integrity as I suspect, that's what they would likely attempt. But, honestly, there's no reason for me to speculate. No need for speculative moral overkill.

Headlines from Around the World

1) The Associated Press July 3rd headline, "Biden at 81: Often sharp and focused but sometimes confused and forgetful" is fascinating. Since the assumed default mode of an American president should be, one presumes, sharp and focused, why is that even mentioned in the headline? One could, if one were reporting sans spin, simply write, "Biden at 81: Sometimes confused and forgetful." But that headline wouldn't have the desired effect.

Conversely, since the thrust of the storyline regards Biden's cognitive deficiencies, why isn't the phrasing reversed, as in "Biden at 81: Sometimes confused and forgetful, but often sharp and focused?"

I have a real problem, a real burr in my saddle, with overly and obviously manipulative writing. The story is about cognitive decline, which every American sees plainly, but somehow "sharp and focused" has been presented as a kind of lead. These are flailing attempts at manipulation, as if an AI had been tasked with fixing the presentation problems by writing superglue headlines for a readership completely lacking in discrimination or the ability to smell manipulation.

2) CNN's Dr. Sonjay Gupta reported that doctors have been contacting him to request that Biden undergo cognitive testing. To Gupta's credit, he asked the pivotal question in Friday's CNN.com piece. That question is whether the debate performance was an "episode" or a "condition?" Gupta, by the way, is one of those broadcaster-scientists savvy enough to have been gung-ho for the Covid-19 mRNA shots early in the pandemic, but who have backed off into more neutral, nuanced, and largely unstated positions as concerns regarding those mRNA shots have risen.

3) New York magazine's Olivia Nuzzi finally decided to jump off the turnip truck and report on July 4th that Biden's cognitive decline has been evident for months to those close to him. After working on the story since January, Nuzzi evidently needed the cover provided by Biden's disastrous debate before feeling that she could report the truth. She would give Peter the disciple a run in a combo courage-and- integrity contest. I shouldn't pile on her too much; I'm sure her editors called the shots. She could have, however, gone public with her story at any time.

The SOP of the 2024 Democratic Party

The problem with the current incarnation of the Democratic Party is that they simply refuse to tell anything remotely resembling the truth. They evade reporting reality as long as possible. What they want are results, not a truthful process.

There was Hunter Biden's laptop. There was the entire institutional protection of Pfizer while refusing to make public key information regarding Covid-19 mRNA shots. There was Biden's obvious months-long decline. The commitment to lying is at every turn regarding crucial topics. The Dems make Donald Trump, a prevaricating bullshitter to end all bullshitters, look like the proverbial choir boy. At least we, the general public, have a damned good idea when Trump is bullshitting us. We have very little defense against a Democratic bullshit brigade flashing symbols of science on their shields when crusading for their own personal good.

Reading Recommendations and Wrap-Up

Today I'm recommending David Harsanyi's New York Post article, "Pro-Dem media's flip on Biden shows how they shamelessly make up rules as they go along." His piece summarizes most of my roiling disgust with the Democratic Party and the "mainstream media." I've tried to use the phrase "mainstream media" as little as possible over the years because it's too cheap and simple, too much a blanket cliche. But sometimes cliches are cliches because they're correct. 

The months ahead are going to be jam-packed with course reversals, switchbacks, and media manipulation. I'm going to try to report every few days on the worst of it. Unlike Russell Brand, who ends each podcast with "Stay Free," I'll substitute a different line.  

"Stay Sane." Or at least give it your best shot, because things in the US of A are going to get raggedy. I mean "more raggedy."

Bob Dietz

July 5, 2024