Welcome back to DumptyTrumpty. This is episode number 17, and I’m calling it Backlash because we’ve got some backlash from the Secret Service, some backlash from Kamala Harris and then I’ve experienced a backlash on social media. Before we get started, looks like the sports world is slowing down. The National League lost to the American League 5 to 3 in the All-Star Game (Booooo!). There were no major tennis or soccer championships, but Slovenia’s (Melania Trump home country) Tadej Pogačar won his third title for the United Arab Emirates team at the Tour de France. Pogačar is spelled POGACAR, but he’s got that downward pointing arrow over the c, which makes it a chhh sound. Makes me wonder. If you’re a Slovenian Banker and he brings in a check made payable to him but that downward arrow, the hacek, is missing. How do you know it’s really him? It could be a fake. Should I cash it or should I ask for I.D.? “Sorry, sir. That last, the last names don’t match. Well, one good thing about English in that one regard, our alphabet makes communicating simpler.
The Phillies continue to be the best team in baseball, while Florida is the worst of the National League and in the American League, there is a first place tie between Cleveland and the Orioles. Although I have not checked scores today, the miserable White Sox have won only 27 out of 104 games.
The Olympics begin Friday, but soccer started already before the ceremonies because there are so many games. The USA lost to France in the group opener Wednesday night and Group B chaos overwhelmed the opener between Morocco and Argentina. Drama!! Morocco went up two to nothing then Argentina made it 2 to 1. In the additional time after the 90 minutes of play, Argentina scored a goal while one of their players was offside and the ref scored it 2 to 2. Moroccan fans were livid! They ran onto the field. Bottles were thrown. Fans were tackled. The game was paused for 2 hours. Fans were told to leave and finally, play resumed. The video referee reversed the goal and Morocco scored a major upset over the World Cup champions 2 to 1.
New to the Olympics this year, breakdancing. Are you going to watch?
Another bomb hit the sports world yesterday when the NBA announced they have agreed to replace ESPN and ABC/TNT with Amazon Prime as the exclusive provider for the next 11 years, beginning with the 2025-26 season. The contract covers the WNBA as well as international airings. That’s pretty cool.
Switching our focus from sports before we get into presidential politics, a tragedy with national implications occurred in Springfield, Illinois. A sheriff’s video was released of a white country boy deputy shooting a black woman 20 feet away while she was in her kitchen in her home. The deputies were responding to her call for help, suspecting a prowler intruder. He shot her while his partner went room to room through the house checking for an unwelcome bandit. The murdering cop is in jail and has been arrested for murder. The video is online and I refuse to watch it. The 32 year old woman’s name was Sonya Massey, and she deserves to have her name known by all of us.
Now it’s time for some Trump silliness.
TRUMP: “China has total respect for Donald Trump and for Donald Trump’s very, very large brain.”
Lucky for Trump, the would-be assassin missed his brain on July 13th, which takes us into this week’s top topics of drama in soccer, drama in politics.
What another week, huh? After the failed assassination, it took Joe Biden some time to do the heroic thing, releases delegates and like George Washington in 1797, decide to relinquish power. When is the last time America has seen such a selfless act from a president? The outcome was heading that way, being forced out but unlike Nixon, whose options were impeachment or resignation, Biden’s choice had no legal consequences. He was facing nothing punitive. Then he endorsed Kamala Harris quickly. And a point, I want to point out that her name is pronounced Kah-muh-lah, not Ka-mal-a. And before we get into Biden-Harris, I’m going to address the assassination and the Secret Service.
There was an incredible lack of responsibility in this attempt. I’ve had several of my advisors recommend I discuss the total failure in security. It’s not a hot button for me, but I’ll address it.
It’s been 43 years since we had an attempt on a president. 56 years since a candidate was assassinated. And 61 years since a president has been killed. the previous president killed was McKinley in 1901, 62 years before JFK.
123 years. Two presidents. One candidate. Since 1901, we’ve had five assassination attempts against presidents. Two successful. McKinley, Again 1901. John F Kennedy, 1963. Gerald Ford had two attempts on him within a month in 1975 by two different females. Ronald Reagan survived the attempt in 1983. There have also been three attempts on candidates former President Teddy Roosevelt in 1912. Who survived. Then President Kennedy, his younger brother Bobby, was killed in 1968 by a Palestinian nationalist, and now Donald J. Trump in 2024. All eight attacks were with firearms. Eight attempts, three deaths. That’s a 62.5% survival rate for presidents or candidates. Over 123 years. For comparison, there have been over 300 people killed in the ten largest bridge collapses since 1967. The point of the comparison? Living is dangerous. So why do I make such a comparison? Because they were irresponsible failures in security in the July 30th attempt. And all across America, liberals and Trumpers alike suspect evil motive and sources at play. I understand conspiracies can be fun, but it’s rare. Very rare. Very rare for them to be true. As with all assassinations, stories of all kinds develop. I’m not going to detail the intricacies of the theories, but will say the Secret Service and their supporting efforts dropped the ball. They burnt the toast. They spilled the milk.
What disgusted me more was listening to Kimberley Cheatle, the director of the Secret Service, testify before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. Now, I was an officer in the United States Army and we lived, led by the dictum “Leaders are responsible for everything their soldiers, (people) do or fail to do.”
Leaders are responsible for everything their people do or fail to do. There’s no “I don’t know how or why it happened.”
Director Cheatle’s mandated appearance before the committee amounts to what we used to call “getting called on the carpet”. I got called on the carpet many times, not before Congress, and I knew I better anticipate the questions I was certain to face. And more importantly, I better know the answers. Director Cheatle looked uninvolved. Details were beneath her. “Director, did the Secret Service have an agent on top of that roof?” Her response, “Sir, I’m sure, as you can imagine, that we’re just nine days out from this incident and there’s still an ongoing investigation.” Let’s listen to some of the questions and testimony:
“Was the Secret Service alerted about a suspicious person at the July 13th campaign event prior to the first shot being shot?”
“I don’t have an exact number to share with you today, but. ..”
To another question.
“I do not have all of those details at this time.”
One of the biggest sidestepping entries you can make is this:
“Director Cheatle, The shooter was set up on the roof of HCR International Building, as we know. Was the roof identified as a potential vulnerability days before the rally?”
“To my knowledge, yes, it was.”
She answered like a bureaucrat trying to shield the truth, hoping the listeners will see it her way. She didn’t, as we used to say, “grabthe bull by the horns” and by the time her painful testimony ended, almost every American knew she should resign. Thankfully.
CLIP: “Good morning. I’m Philip at ABC news headquarters in New York. We are coming on the air because ABC news has learned that Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle has resigned her post.”
There was some powerful backlash there. And now we have another, that appears to be the anointing of Kamala Harris as President Biden’s replacement nominee. As expected, a 20 year younger candidate fired up thousands of donors, 62% of whom were first time donors to hand over 123 million in three days. That backlash of enthusiasm is good to see. One thing I’ve experienced with backlash and here’s the story, surprises me. I’ve posted in public my observation that Biden has been a good president for the last four years, suggesting perhaps even a better one than Obama. It’s what my podcast is focused on in large measure. After Biden’s dramatic performance during his last debate, I sent him a letter requesting he withdraw and that although I believe he has a great legacy of accomplishment, I was not going to vote for his reelection and from that view, I could not be persuaded. My previous podcast number 16, Schism II The Clash I asked, “Should he stay or should he go?” I began posting comments on social media that finding a younger non-Biden surrogate would launch a honeymoon period for anti-Trumpers, would re-energize youth and independents. It would make gigabytes of Trump’s anti-Biden ads obsolete. A very expensive loss and it would send the Trump thugs scurrying to produce attack ads in just four months. There was no hatred, no anger, no suggestion I thought Biden was terrible. BUT people began accusing me of switching to Trump. Of Getting my info from Fox News and being a right wing crazed extremist. I get that people don’t like change, but that kind of behavior is precisely a major complaint we have of the Trump cultists. People react without thinking first. Recently, after hammering Trump for months about his marital infidelities with five women while married to three, I said that was an indicator of his character.
CLIP: You have the morals of an alley cat.
I forwarned people that at age 29, Kamala Harris had an affair with a 60-year-old married man who was California speaker of the House. I never said don’t vote for her because of that. I simply said, “When you go after Trump for his adultery, don’t pretend Kamala is completely innocent, that doing so makes your judgment and credibility questionable.” I didn’t deserve the rebukes I’ve received. If I were lying, I’d understand their anger. The point? We’re human! When I’m critical of Trump his idolaters call me a godless Marxist traitor. I’m disappointed when people from the same side respond similarly when I’m not all in for Biden-Harris. So this week’s podcast is a cautionary for us, and it is consistent with what we’ve been saying all along: Think before responding.
I get it. It’s easier to react with a jerk of a knee than it is to pause, let the feelings recede and think. I’m working on that in my own personal life relationships. And I believe the people around me will be happier as a result. I like knowing you’re out there wanting to work on this inclination also.
Okay, that’s it for this week. I can’t predict next week’s topic with the rate of political drama we’ve experienced recently. When you get a chance, turn on the Olympics. With Paris 7 hours ahead, we’ll get to watch more than when they were in Japan last time. Share this podcast with your friends. I’m CPTScott@DumptyTrumptyorg.
Thanks for your time this time. Until next time and have another great week