Item 1: Tech stocks fall a lot on Trump comments .
It’s interesting how there are now effectively two presidents: Biden, president de jure, and Trump, the de facto and presumed future president given Biden’s recent spiraling decline. So this means Trump’s comments carry the same weight as if he was president. This works to Trump’s advantage became he can throw populist meat to his base, like against China, but then also Biden gets the blame as the stock market falls. So win-win.
Item 2: The Trump assassination attempt aftermath
If elected, Trump needs to get to the bottom of this. He ought to turn this into part of his campaign, as evidence of the ineptitude or even corruption or abetting of the ‘deep state’ that that allowed such a close call.
The assassination attempt works to Trump’s favor because he comes off as looking heroic and it makes the dems look worse or complicit, although Crook’s motive was not deemed politically motived. But at the same time, it works to Biden’s advantage. The media, after nearly 2 weeks after his disastrous debate, has finally shifted to other topics, not that Biden is a bumbling, senile mess.
Item 3: Trump’s would-be assassin had little time to prepare – and left little trace of plot
Some details seem odd or do not add up , like this:
Hours before the shooting, Crooks stopped at a Home Depot in his hometown of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, and purchased a ladder, CNN and NBC reported.
So this meant he presumably had knowledge or forewarning that the particular building would be unpatrolled? I am not ruling out the possibility he was tipped off. Had he bought the ladder during the rally, after observing after the rally had commenced that the building was unmanned and seeing an opening, that would make more sense. Why this rally, too? Why was the only assassination attempt at a Trump event, one of many thousands of public appearances over the years, was also within a hair’s inch of being successfully carried out and also had the fortuitous alignment of so many factors? My guess is Crooks was tipped off by someone who had the itinerary and Trump’s security detail.
Item 4: From Freddie deBoer: Violence is Its Own Party
. He was definitely and existentially a doofus, a bumbling and unimpressive product of the internet era and several different bad models for modern masculinity…
Nah, a doofus is someone who pulls a fire alarm or something, not tries to make Taxi Driver a reality. I agree with the rest of his assessment. There are levels of gradation of loserdom or degrees of social antipathy or nihilism. His was more along the lines of mental illness than just an inability to get it together in life.
…He missed widely, wildly, unthinkably, caught a piece of an ear, killed an innocent person, and maybe changed the course of American politics forever.
Missed widely? Are we talking about the same event here? He came within an inch and only missed a kill shot because Trump abruptly turned his head. The other shots killed a bystander, but one did hit. He was no Chris Kyle, but it was not a wild miss. It’s possible to both believe he was a POS but still landed that shot.
Item 5: And now something more lighthearted: After 12 Years of Reviewing Restaurants, I’m Leaving the Table.
Given the obesity epidemic and that food is the leading cause of obesity, maybe the NYTs ought to discontinue its food section? I mean this half-jokingly, but these critics, whose job it is to eat this food for a living, report serious negative health effects. What more evidence do you need that the NYTs is promoting an unhealthy lifestyle. If the NYTs had a section for reviewing tobacco products, readers, rightfully, would accuse the NYTs of promoting unhealthy habits, but food gets a pass.