[Politics] Trump under fire.

[Zeberdi]

It doesn’t apply to you. I was using your comment about de-escalation to illustrate my comments.

Phew - I’m sorry then.

(In that case I agree with you wholeheartedly )

 

[marlowe]

Without wanting to diminish the seriousness of this, and whatever our views on the politics and personnel - I think we have to admit that this is some photo. I can see this being regularly shown for decades to come.

View attachment 185612

Unfortunately it will become an iconic photo. If I'd taken it the sense of achievement I'd feel would be severely tainted by how it has enabled Trump to portray himself.
There's even something of the iconic Iwa Jima photo about it, the flag, the huddled group, the raised hand...

 

[Triggaaar]

If you're going to get shot anywhere then the top of the ear is perfect place. I'd like to see the wound. Very suspicious and could've easily cut his ear with a razor when he hit the deck

My guess is that his ear got bashed against something when he dived to the ground, and that's why it was bleeding. It wouldn't be from the bullet of a powerful sniper rifle, because if it was, he wouldn't have got up.

 

[drew]

Trump’s words undoubtedly encouraged participation, but every individual who took part in that protest and the riots took that decision individually.

Trump’s words were heard by millions and amplified by press reports and social media. There are those who chose to participate in the manner of a peaceful protest, and there are those who participated seeking violence in a spirit of aggression against their own state.

It’s really important not to conflate those who attended in a spirit of peaceful protest, believing that a wrong had been committed, with those who committed acts of violence and criminal damage. Not everyone there committed criminal acts.

You have to stand up for the right to protest, even when you fundamentally disagree with the POV of those doing the protesting.

You and I would be the first to complain if a protest for a cause we believed in had a couple of hundred dickheads smashing windows and fighting the police, as it would pull focus from the legitimacy of the protest, and instead the reporting would all be about the crowd control.

It was disappointing at how little Trump did to cool things at Capitol Hill, he seemed to me to revel in the outright show of “strength”, but Americans have seen that as well as we did and still seem to want to vote for him.

Do I think that’s a sane or sensible choice? No. However it is still a choice. Trump is undoubtedly aided by the fact that the alternative candidate appears to be in the throes of a marked physical and cognitive decline.

If I were an American citizen I would be looking for a candidate outside of both major parties. I’m not, and Americans have to sort their own mess out. I can’t imagine how exhausting it must be to stay that angry for that much of the time. America pretty much owns us, we are effectively renting our own country back from them, so I hope for an outbreak of cordiality, goodwill and sanity soon, but I’m not holding my breath.

TLDR - f***ing hell

Firstly, I'm all for the right to peaceful protest. And, I agree that there were probably plenty there peacefully but you have to accept that they were there because of the false rhetoric of Trump. He was/is in a very high position of influence and he misused that for his own agenda. It is an unbelievable understatement to say 'It was disappointing at how little Trump did to cool things at Capitol Hill' when you consider that some were seeking out Mike Pence with a view for retribution.

 

[Sam Ovett]

Probably staged

You’d trust anyone on Earth to graze your ear while you’re moving your head around on stage?

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Meanwhile

At least 4 people killed, 9 others injured in shooting at Birmingham nightclub, police say | CNN

At least four people were killed and nine others were wounded in a shooting at a Birmingham, Alabama, nightclub late Saturday night, police said.

amp.cnn.com

 

[The Rattler]

Disney set to make a movie out of the Trump assassination attempt. “Donald, Duck”

 

[BBassic]

My guess is that his ear got bashed against something when he dived to the ground, and that's why it was bleeding. It wouldn't be from the bullet of a powerful sniper rifle, because if it was, he wouldn't have got up.

I think you can see in the footage he appears to swat at his ear, like you would if a mozzie was buzzing around.

You can see the sequence here actually

EDIT - sorry removed, copyright image

EDIT THE SECOND - Google image search on 'doug mills nyt trump photo' will show it

 

[Pavilionaire]

The odious Farage giving an awful interview on Sky about this, managing to move in the same sentence from an assassination attempt on the former president to the throwing of a milkshake and other drinks at him in the recent GE campaign, and highlighting how "our politics" is tainted.

No Nigel, the USA is f*cked because they have guns. People only throw things at you in the UK - no one else - and that's because you are a c*nt.

 

[marlowe]

My guess is that his ear got bashed against something when he dived to the ground, and that's why it was bleeding. It wouldn't be from the bullet of a powerful sniper rifle, because if it was, he wouldn't have got up.

No, he put his hand up to his ear before he dived to the ground.... or maybe that's when he took the opportunity to slice his ear with the small razor blade he'd deftly secreted in his palm on queue with the sound of the gun shot he'd been waiting for....

 

[Algernon]

My guess is that his ear got bashed against something when he dived to the ground, and that's why it was bleeding. It wouldn't be from the bullet of a powerful sniper rifle, because if it was, he wouldn't have got up.

I've only watched the clip once and can't be arsed to go back to find it but doesn't he reach for his ear prior to ducking?
Unless that's "part of the act" of course.

 

[BBassic]

The odious Farage giving an awful interview on Sky about this, managing to move in the same sentence from an assassination attempt on the former president to the throwing of a milkshake and other drinks at him in the recent GE campaign, and highlighting how "our politics" is tainted.

No Nigel, the USA is f*cked because they have guns. People only throw things at you in the UK - no one else - and that's because you are a c*nt.

Hate to defend Farage here but I can see his point. A gun and a milkshake are very different but MPs here have been killed before.

He is indeed a c**t. But he's not far wrong. It was a milkshake last time - next time it could very well be something more serious.

 

[Guinness Boy]

The odious Farage giving an awful interview on Sky about this, managing to move in the same sentence from an assassination attempt on the former president to the throwing of a milkshake and other drinks at him in the recent GE campaign, and highlighting how "our politics" is tainted.

No Nigel, the USA is f*cked because they have guns. People only throw things at you in the UK - no one else - and that's because you are a c*nt.

Yep.

Astonishingly gun crime is quite frequent in the States because guns are freely available. Incredible really.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

Yep.

Astonishingly gun crime is quite frequent in the States because guns are freely available. Incredible really.

There obviously weren't enough guns readily available to innocent bystanders as more guns would have solved the problem.

 

[sparkie]

Putin might as well have pulled the trigger.

A Trump win is his only hope in Ukraine. Trump loses and Putin is forced to withdraw.

And now Champagne is being opened in the Kremlin.

Still, there is still time for things to change.

 

[Zeberdi]

Hate to defend Farage here but I can see his point. A gun and a milkshake are very different but MPs here have been killed before.

He is indeed a c**t. But he's not far wrong. It was a milkshake last time - next time it could very well be something more serious.

Indeed it could be but thank goodness he is only a c**t and not a c**t with any real power

Nigel Farage calls for UK gun laws to be relaxed

Ukip leader says ban on handguns brought in after Dunblane massacre is 'ludicrous'

www.theguardian.com

 

[Whitechapel]

Has a wayward firework been ruled out?

And yet all they managed to do was make his ear bleed

I’m only halfway down page 4 of this thread and I already can’t tell what is parody or not. What an incredible thread.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

That photo wins him the election.

I feel he was going to win anyway, Biden’s a mess.

You really do have to question anyone who votes for this goon, especially a second time.

 

[Quebec Seagull]

To think this was the first thoughts of some posters is incredibly concerning.

This is what social media has done to us.

Trump and his party have engaged in stochastic terrorism for years. They mock liberals who are killed (BLM demonstrators, policemen guarding the Capitol on Jan. 6) or are the objects of assassination attempts (e.g. Paul Pelosi). Their mostly racist, Christofascist, gun-owning cult members live in a self-perpetuating propaganda bubble that brainwashes them into thinking that progressives pose an existential to their country -- to refute facts. Any evidence that runs contrary to their beliefs, to their very own eyes, is called fake, a deep state conspiracy.

Sorry, but as a junkie of American politics and an upstairs neighbour of the "meth house" below, as Canada is often called, I know too much of today's Republican party, its no-holds-barred, no-means-are-too-low, anti-democratic politicians, practitioners and operatives to take anything they say and do at face value. I'm left of centre, but mostly follow conservatives who have renounced the GOP for their descent into ethnocentric, theocratic fascism. They are judges, constitutional lawyers, believers in law and order -- not populism and the constant banging of the drums of hatred and fear.

As of this writing, the shooting appears to have happened, and the shooter seems to have been a registered Republican. Which isn't surprising, because there are right-wing extremists who have recently turned on Trump for not being sufficiently extreme -- for instance, for equivocating on Project 2025, the GOP's version of Mein Kampf. The party has become a cult, and its members believe in violence and see themselves as the harbingers of a new American revolution. If the shooter is indeed a gun-loving RWNJ and you think the Republicans won't stoop to claiming far and wide that the shooter is actually a "left-wing liberal fanatic", you'd be mistaken -- it's happening already.

As for projection, GOP politicians are always accusing the Dems, on every media platform, of controlling the "deep state", of committing voter fraud, of condoning abortions after birth (?!?), of carrying out school shootings in order to pass stricter gun legislation, of being racist against "whites", etc. etc. etc. In other words, liberals are guilty of everything they have been doing for so long. Typical misdirection, because the Supreme Court and red states are doing all they can to disenfranchise minorities, subjugate women and return the country to its pre-Civil Rights (and even antebellum --. pre-Civil War) "roots". They are quite consciously following the authoritatians' playbook -- Putin, Orban, Erdoğan, Kim, XI-- and *praising* those men and citing their regimes as their own ultimate goal.

So yes, violence is inherent in the GOP's system. Yes, they firmly believe that the end justifies the means. Yes, stoking hatred and fear of "the other" is at the heart of their strategy to assume power and install an illiberal democracy, as the dictators euphemistically call their countries. And I will never ever put past them the basest acts and strategies until these power-hungry populists are ousted and their followers break their fever.

.

 

[dejavuatbtn]

Lucky escape. Just missed his brain by a matter of yards.

Probably nearer three feet.
Some photo opportunities that do seem too good to be true.