Quote:Erik Prince is an American entrepreneur, former U.S. Navy SEAL Officer and founder of the private military company Blackwater. Returning as a guest and fan favorite on SRS, Erik joins Shawn for an in-depth exploration of the recent assassination attempt on former President Donald J. Trump. Together, they delve into unresolved security and operational issues surrounding the tragic event, speculating on how the situation might evolve as new information emerges. Leveraging their backgrounds, Shawn and Erik offer distinctive perspectives rarely found in mainstream media coverage.

(08-01-2024, 11:35 AM)727Sky Wrote:

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Quote:Erik Prince is an American entrepreneur, former U.S. Navy SEAL Officer and founder of the private military company Blackwater. Returning as a guest and fan favorite on SRS, Erik joins Shawn for an in-depth exploration of the recent assassination attempt on former President Donald J. Trump. Together, they delve into unresolved security and operational issues surrounding the tragic event, speculating on how the situation might evolve as new information emerges. Leveraging their backgrounds, Shawn and Erik offer distinctive perspectives rarely found in mainstream media coverage.

Quote:BUTLER, Penn. – FIRST ON FOX: Police bodycam footage obtained by Fox News Digital on Thursday through a records request shows two officers attempting to intercept Thomas Matthew Crooks on a roof seconds before he allegedly tried to assassinate former President Trump at a campaign rally last month.

The footage is taken from two officers from the Butler Township Police Department who made a desperate attempt to stop Crooks moments before he fired his DPMS AR-15 rifle, striking Trump in the ear, killing Corey Comparatore and injuring two others. 

"F---ing this close, bro. Dude, he turned around on me," the officer who was hoisted can be heard saying later on in bodycam video released Thursday.

The footage captures Crooks toward the end as officers surround his body after countersnipers fatally shot him.

"I'm f---ing p---ed. We couldn't find him," another officer can be heard saying in the bodycam footage.

"Before you motherf---ers came up here, I popped my head up there like an idiot by myself, dude," the officer who was boosted onto the roof says. "Then he turned around and I f---ing dropped, and I started f---ing, I was calling out, ‘Bro, f---ing on top of the roof.’ F---ing, we’re not on the same frequency?"

Butler Township PD Lt. Matthew Pearson told a local outlet that the officer was unable to draw his weapon since he was hanging from the building.

In other bodycam video, officers are clearly confused about why the roof of the American Glass Research (AGR) building, where Crooks shot from, was unmanned.

"I thought you were on the roof?" one officer says.

There also appears to be confusion about whether the shooter was neutralized and why the shooter wasn't taken out before he opened fire.

"If you’d all had a gun up there … I’d have shot him. He wouldn’t have ripped out a gun up there," one officer says in the bodycam.

Quote:

Something Crooked This Way Comes

A mystery inside an enigma wrapped in a conundrum

“As I have said, every question will be answered, every theory explored, and every doubt erased. The American people deserve the full truth on the attempted assassination of President Trump,” said Louisiana Congresscritter Clay Higgins in a pronouncement intended for public consumption. “Our investigative efforts are moving forward in good faith. The release of my preliminary investigative report is reflective of my desire to deliver transparency and reassurance to the American people.”

That’s what the Warren Commission promised, too. I guess it all depends on which questions you allow to be asked.

For better or worse, I’ve been putting a lot of thought into the Trump assassination attempt. I’ve been examining what little we actually know about that moment, the behavior of the Bumbledicks and the GeezerMedia, and looking at all the characters in this kabuki theatre.

I know a number of readers think Trump was in on the show, and that may or may not be so. However, before we can assign blame, we have to unravel the curtain behind which all of this is hiding. The FBI, Secret Service and local police (donut eaters) are all tools for the trick, and are meant to misdirect us from the perpetrator(s). All three of those groups serve a master, and that’s who we need to find.

The key figure in this illusion is Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old male, who ostensibly graduated from Bethel Park High School with good grades and a clean record. I can’t find anything about his grade school. He is reported to have been a loner with little or no social media footprint, and his one major public achievement was winning the National Math & Science Initiative’s $500 award for math.

Crooks worked as a nursing home aid and didn’t attend university, despite an apparently strong math aptitude. It seems that Crooks appeared in a BlackRock ad that has since been memory-holed. It also seems that Crooks spent some time at a local shooting range, but nothing I can find attests to his skill level and he didn’t compete.

We are told his parents are both social workers (!), but there is precious little information about them. I have found no interviews with, nor photos of them. LinkedIn lists a Matthew and Katie Crooks in Bethel Park, in jobs related to social work, but there are no photos and the bios are sparse. I won’t link the accounts, since I haven’t confirmed that these accounts are related in any way. There is a listing for a second Matthew Crooks as Owner of GiftsandMore Superstore in the same town. All three accounts together show only 4 connections. There is a listing for a Matthew Crooks, social worker, in California that appears wholly unrelated to any of this.

In the aftermath of the assassination attempt and killing of Thomas Crooks, the roof where he was shot and the home where he “lived” have apparently been scrubbed clean. This would seem to be an effort to hide any DNA evidence connecting Thomas’ home to the person on the roof. Furthermore, his body was cremated after being claimed by fed types, and if there was an autopsy with toxicology assay, that information has not been made public.

It’s interesting to note that the National Math & Science Initiative (NMSI) is a non-profit NGO (!) set up by Dr. Bernard Harris, a former astronaut, to promote Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) in local and national school systems. Fair enough, though we note that NASA is a military organization, despite its public agency trappings. This all looks fairly innocuous, until you look at the top donor list:

1. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation - A major supporter of educational initiatives, particularly in STEM fields.
   
2. ExxonMobil - A long-time partner that has invested heavily in NMSI’s programs to improve STEM education across the U.S.
   
3. Department of Defense - Provides significant funding, particularly for programs that benefit military-connected schools.
   
4. Howard Hughes Medical Institute - Supports initiatives related to science education.
   
5. Texas Instruments - Contributes to NMSI’s efforts to enhance STEM education.
   
6. Dell Foundation - Focuses on innovative educational solutions and supports NMSI’s goals.
   

Though the entire list is connected to government in a web of “public-private partnerships,” the two that immediately caught my eye were the Gates Foundation and the Department of Defense. On its face, this means nothing and I wouldn’t have bothered to look it up in normal circumstances, but this is far from a normal circumstance, and our pile of dots keeps growing.

When we get to the GeezerMedia, we find more curious dots in their behavior. They’ve been unusually silent and uninterested in this whole matter. After a brief firestorm, the story was allowed to fade away and not one single GeezerMedia personality has pursued this matter — no interviews with friends, neighbors and relatives; no probing investigations into the “officials” on hand; no outrage on behalf of the public they supposedly serve. They put more effort into covering the local liquor store robbery.

Congress held a brief flurry of hearings, with nothing much coming from them. We saw a lot of tongue wagging and finger pointing, and there was a sacrificial lamb in the form of Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle “resigning”. In the wake of the “resignation,” Congress turned to more pressing matters, like handing out tax money to foreign nations. Not that any of this is unusual — stonewalling, sandbagging and gusts of hot air are pretty much Standard Operating Procedure for the stuffed shirts.

Meanwhile, the FBI, Secret Service and donut eaters have been busy painting themselves as incompetent boobs. To a man (and breastfeeding woman), they are all digging their toes in the dirt and doing the whole “golly gee whiz ah shucks” routine. It’s as if the entire “security” detail was staffed by Sargent Schultzes. If they do this act long enough, the GeezerMedia will steer attention away, Congress will distract themselves, and no one will ever be punished. Rest assured Cheatle got an platinum parachute on the way out the door to take one for the team.

So let’s pull these dots together and see what picture they make. Bear in mind that what follows is completely speculative and I have no specific proof of this scenario. However, it does seem to align all the known facts in a coherent narrative. Readers are encouraged to add their two-cents’ worth in the comments.

The Crooks family is/was a government sleeper cell. They were created whole cloth, with back story in tow, and as such were not allowed to have too much of a footprint, but just enough to look like an Average American Family. They were cut-outs operated by the CIA/FBI/DOJ (see Witness Protection Program) to be put into action when the time came. The character we know as Thomas Matthew Crooks does not really exist. It was only his identity, and some poor schmuck, who were killed on that rooftop in July. When the whole thing has blown over, the “parents” will quietly move away and disappear into history, going on to their next assignment. “Thomas” has already been reassigned, and is probably in Idaho or Montana under a completely new identity.

Some kid was recruited, maybe on a gaming platform, and tempted with the chance to play a real-life first-person shooter game. The game was to drive a van-full of “explosives” and park in a particular location. He seems to have gotten a pretty good parking spot, despite tens of thousands of attendees. He was then to wander around the fair grounds looking vaguely suspicious with the toys he was given as part of his “gear”. The kid was promised a nice paycheck and assured that it was all a “drill” and nothing would happen to him.

On the day, the kid played his part and the local donut eaters were told he was part of a Secret Service/FBI training exercise, and that Trump was aware of the whole thing, so no need to “protect” him. Everything was kosher.


We note the donut eater, who supposedly severely injured his ankle falling off a pallet, ran to his car for a bigger gun and a radio (!). Playing his part?

The kid probably had live rounds, though he was told they were blanks/dummies. Since none of the official types gave him any trouble, he figured it was all good and he really was part of a “drill”. He got into position and was ready to do his thing, when three shots rang out. He panicked, thinking he had missed his cue, and popped five (or was it six) caps. Then he conveniently got his head blown off. Who shot him and from where is one of those things hidden behind a dense fog.

The local donut eaters were allowed to reach the body first, to make it all seem more legit and to enhance the Keystone Kops routine planned for the fed types. It made the bodycam recordings sound more authentic, with real reactions, adrenaline and fear in their voices.


After the operation, the bleachers were quickly torn down to eliminate ballistics analysis, and the rooftop was scrubbed and the Crooks’ home was sanitized to remove any DNA evidence of real identities and connections. Crooks’ body was quickly collected by fed types, cremated, and the autopsy and toxicology reports were diverted by the fed types. Again, ballistic evidence and DNA scrubbed. I’m starting to get a Pulp Fiction clean-up vibe here.

The official narradigm, identifying Crooks within minutes, went out to the six board rooms that control 95% of the GeezerMedia. The talking points were distributed to the talking heads and affliliates, and “reporters” were assigned their parts. Only the points on the official script were allowed. No investigations, interviews, or deep dives were to be tolerated without clearance from the top. Assignment editors kept strict control on their minions.

Congress didn’t need to be involved in the plot, because they never achieve anything anyway. Let them have their hearings and get their sound bites. Congress was a toothless dog and the agencies just had to stonewall, giving non-answers and assurances that”something would be done”. It would all blow over in a month or two. If any of the Congresscritters got out of hand, well there was plenty of “insurance” documentation to shut them up.

And here we are.

Crooks’ life sounds very milquetoasty and low-profile. He seems to have blended into the background and didn’t draw much attention to himself if he could help it. We’re told he was teased/bullied in school, but not why. Was it because he had a big glowing red nose, or because he didn’t join in any reindeer games? We’re told he donated $15 to ActBlue, but given the exposé done by James O’Keefe, that is highly suspect.

When chickens find a flaw on one of the other chickens, they will all peck at it till the victim dies. Did Crooks have a flaw of some sort? In all, he sounds like someone ordered to keep his head down. The chances of a 20-year-old American kid having no social media footprint are almost nil. We know nothing about his religious affiliations that might account for lack of a digital trail.

Who ordered all this is a mystery. It’s like an Agatha Christie novel — the train hasn’t stopped, no one has gotten on or off, and everyone on board has a motive, including Trump. It’s far too convenient to say “the butler did it” (pun intended).

We’ll probably never know the complete, unvarnished truth. In 30 or 40 years, a document may slip out that sheds new light on this event, but by then it will be an academic curiosity, as everyone involved will likely be dead of old age, or excessive scrubbing. We can be assured no one will ever stand trial. The “shooter” is dead, the sacrificial lamb is gone (heard from Cheatle lately?), and anyone with the authority to dig deeper is compromised. A little hand-washing and away we go with the next crisis.

My scenario is completely circumstantial and speculative, but I’ll lay odds I’m in the ballpark. There are no moral boundaries with the suspects, they all have the motivation and ample opportunities, and all the pieces fit neatly in to place.

Maybe I’ve read too much Agatha Christie and P. D. James, but I doubt it.

Today’s movie selection on topic is Arlington Road (1999), featuring some very creepy performances by Joan Cusack and Tim Robbins, and one of Jeff Bridges’ finest turns as the paranoid professor, in this reworking of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934/1956). As Yoda would say, “If paranoid you are not, you will be…you will be.”

Fade to black.

(08-29-2024, 08:35 AM)727Sky Wrote: like I said inside job .. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Uj_AWLV9_7A?feature=share

Quote:Sen. Josh Hawley said he’s been informed by whistleblowers that most of the agents assigned to protect Donald Trump during the assassination attempt at his Butler, Pa., rally in July were Homeland Security personnel who had minimal protective training.

Instead of having dozens of Secret Service agents on his detail for the July 13 rally, Trump was mostly guarded by Homeland Security agents who only received online webinar training before the event, Hawley (R-Mo.) said in an interview on “Jesse Watters Primetime” Tuesday evening.

“A two-hour, online webinar. And I’m told that half the time, the sounds to the webinar didn’t even work,” Hawley claimed.

“So think about this: The former president of the US … is sent out on stage, most of the people there are not trained, they’re not qualified. They only got a webinar training and even that didn’t work,” he scoffed.

“It is absolutely outrageous.”

The Homeland Security agents were supposedly pulled off child exploitation cases and other investigations in order to serve on Trump’s protective detail — which was something they did not normally do, Hawley added.

Hawley also called out the Secret Service and FBI for not sharing more information about the rally, where Trump narrowly avoided an assassination attempt by shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks.

“The only reason we have this information is because of whistleblowers,” he told Watters.

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) recently revealed that a Butler SWAT team actually got off the first shots that damaged Crooks’ rifle and halted the shooting spree before the Secret Service finally jumped into action.

When acting Secret Service director Ronald Rowe Jr. testified before Congress about the incident on July 31, he did not mention the local SWAT team’s action, Watters noted.