Yet More Dribbles Out On The Rouths

Yesterday had two headlines, first, that Routh's son, Oran, was arrested on child pornography charges following an FBI search of his phone related to the investigation of his father. Second, via Politico, US officials looked at Americans traveling to Ukraine to fight. Ryan Routh fell through the cracks. Both raise separate sets of questions.

Regarding the child pornography arrest, leaving the specific charge aside, what we're being told in the corporate media narrative contradicts earlier parts of the media narrative -- for starters, just the puzzle of what Oran had been telling reporters about his father. For instance, as of September 15,

Routh's son, Oran Routh, reached by DailyMail.com shortly after Sunday's shooting, said this was the first he'd heard of the alleged assassination attempt.

'This was the first I heard about it,' the 35-year-old exclusively told DailyMail.com. 'Was my father shot or injured?'

. . . 'He's my dad and all he's had is couple traffic tickets, as far as I know,' the son said. 'That's crazy. I know my dad and love my dad, but that's nothing like him.'

. . . Routh moved to Hawaii a few years back and was living with his longtime girlfriend. He said he didn't know his father was even in Florida.

'He said he was at the beach, but I thought that meant the outer banks in Hawaii,' he said. 'I didn't ask him for more information because we've had a falling out. We've grown apart.'

He wouldn't explain the nature of their 'falling out,' but still spoke highly of his father.

'He's not a violent person,' he said. 'He's a hard worker and a great dad. He's a great dude, a nice guy and has worked his whole f**king life.'

This is at varianmce with the actual record:

Court records showed Routh has a long history of breaking traffic laws, not paying his taxes on time and writing bad checks. But it was in 2002 that he lost his right to own a gun when he pleaded guilty to a felony in North Carolina for possessing an illegal explosive device in April.

Months after his arrest in that case while released on a bond, Routh fled from a traffic stop by a police officer near his home in Greensboro, North Carolina, and barricaded himself inside his roofing business for several hours before police were able to arrest him for having a concealed handgun without a permit, according to court records and a 2002 news article by the Greensboro News & Record.

A few days later, Routh pleaded guilty to possession of what court records described as a "binary explosive with a 10-inch detonation cord and a blasting cap," which is defined in North Carolina law as a weapon of mass destruction and is a felony punishable by up to 59 months in prison, according to the county district attorney's office and the Guilford County Superior Court clerk's office. He was sentenced to probation.

Eight years later, he again pleaded guilty to felonies after he was charged with possession of stolen goods: a blowtorch, a pull-cart and a power cord, according to the district attorney's office. As the owner of several roofing companies, he has been repeatedly sued by people accusing him of not paying his bills.

Oran Routh has apparently been living in Greensboro, NC:

Oran Routh was arrested this week after authorities searched his Greensboro, North Carolina, home “in connection with an investigation unrelated to child exploitation,” an FBI official said in court papers.

Greensboro had also been the Routh family's home town, where Oran's father, Ryan, had been well known to police:

The man accused of pointing a rifle into the golf course where former President Donald Trump was playing last weekend was known in his hometown as something of a bad actor.

“Weird” is how one of Ryan Routh’s former neighbors in Greensboro described him. She told reporters he once had a horse in his house and that he also kept guns.

. . . But if Routh’s neighbors didn’t know him well, the police sure did.

“We were on a first-name basis,” said Eric Rasecke, a now-retired Greensboro police officer whose beat included the areas where Routh lived and worked.

Although on September 15, Oran told the Daily Mail he thought Ryan was back in Hawaii, federal prosecutors said in court Monday:

Routh’s cellphone data shows that he “traveled from the Greensboro, North Carolina, area, to West Palm Beach, Florida,” on Aug. 14, according to the filing in U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach.

It's hard not to think Oran knew his father was in town, despite what he'd been telling the press. Even before his child pornography arrest, I have a sense we can't trust a thing he says.

But let's look at the other issue: Ryan, who should have been on a watch list -- as various commentators have pointed out before now -- somehow "fell through a crack". At the Politico link above,

The Department of Homeland Security in 2022 launched an interagency effort to scrutinize Americans returning from Ukraine’s war zone. The previously unreported effort aimed to identify Americans who might turn violent upon their return, according to five people familiar with the plans. Officials worried the Russia-Ukraine war would attract American extremists who would learn combat skills on the battlefield and then attack their fellow Americans when they returned.

Given the mindset of "officials", it's hard to avoid thinking the likely "extremists" would be of the right-wing Trumpist variety, and as long as Routh was anti-Trump, he was fine. But even so, he'd been caught with a "binary explosive with a 10-inch detonation cord and a blasting cap", which you'd think would put him on some kind of list -- you sure you're OK with him getting on a plane? -- and then in 2019, the FBI decided not to follow up on a tip:

Jeffrey Veltri, special agent in charge of the Miami field office, said at a news conference Monday [September 16] that the bureau was tipped off that Routh was a "felon in possession of a firearm."

"In following up on the tip, the alleged complainant was interviewed and did not verify providing the initial information," Veltri said. "The FBI passed that information to local law enforcement in Honolulu."

The investigation was then closed due to lack of additional information.

Apparently the follow-up didn't include finding out about the possession of a weapon of mass destruction charge. Regarding the potential investigation as a returnee from Ukraine, the Politico piece continues,

The episode raises questions about whether the U.S. government is applying the right criteria to assess the risks of Americans who have tried to join the war. Experts say most of the Americans who have fought are U.S. veterans concerned about protecting the fledgling democracy from Russia’s invasion.

Routh, however, was a different story.

“He probably should have been subject, based on his behavior, to some type of threat assessment,” said John Cohen, a former top DHS official who described the effort to POLITICO.

But he was anti-Trump, so not a problem, huh? Sundance observes at The Last Refuge,

As you take off your shoes and undergo extensive scrutiny as a result of the Patriot Act, the subsequently formed DHS and the TSA, it’s worth remembering, as initially sold, the creation of the DHS was specifically intended to stop domestic terror threats, ie. EXACTLY the activity that Ryan Routh was engaged in.

The justification to create the DHS and subsequent intrusive activity of the United States security apparatus, was to stop unstable and sketchy people from carrying out violence internally within the homeland. However, as many voices warned at the time, the mission of the agencies created by The Patriot Act, actualized with DHS and FBI conducting surveillance of parents at school board meetings, monitoring white men in the U.S. military, tracking pastors, preachers and Christian congregations, and registering law-abiding gun owners while the sketchy and unstable simply run amok.

The whole record of Routh's adult life says he was precisely the kind of person who should have been on some kind of watch list.

More Dribbles Out About Ryan Routh

There's been a certain amount of anxiety over the US Justice Departmebnt's release of a handwritten letter from wannabe Trump assassin Ryan Routh offering $150,000 to anyone who can "complete the job" -- except that it was found in a box Routh left with an unnamed contact months before his September 15 arrest. In many ways, the letter raises the least of the new questions. Here is more of what came out in yesterdays bail hearing, via USA Today:

Routh allegedly left the handwritten letter in a metal box with someone, who wasn’t named in the court filing from prosecutors, months before the incident at the golf course. The witness opened the box after hearing about Routh's arrest, and law enforcement visited the person Sept. 18. The box also contained ammunition, a metal pipe, building materials, four phones and several letters, prosecutors said.

“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you,” said the letter, a picture of which appears in the court filing. “I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster. It is up to you now to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job.”

. . . The FBI’s analysis of Routh’s phone showed that he traveled from the area around Greensboro, North Carolina, to West Palm Beach, Florida, on Aug.14. On multiple days and times from Aug. 18 to Sept. 15, Routh’s phone accessed cell towers near Trump International Golf Club and the former president’s residence at Mar-a-Lago.

After local authorities pulled Routh over in a black Nissan Xterra seen leaving the golf course, officers discovered license plates didn’t belong to the vehicle. FBI agents found two additional license plates inside, along with six cellphones, 12 pairs of gloves, a Hawaii driver’s license, a passport and a handwritten list of dates in August, September and October where the former president had been or was expected.

One of the cellphones contained a search query asking how to travel from Palm Beach County to Mexico.

Via NBC Los Angeles,

Cell site records from two of the phones indicated Routh had traveled from Greensboro, North Carolina, to West Palm Beach on Aug. 14.

Further, on “multiple days and times from Aug. 18, 2024, to Sept. 15, 2024, Routh’s cellphone accessed cell towers located near Trump International and the former president’s residence at Mar-a-Lago,” the filing said.

His defense attorney said Routh’s sister is a licensed attorney in North Carolina and was willing to house him if he was released on bail. Ultimately, U.S. Magistrate Judge Ryon M. McCabe ruled Routh would be held pending his trial.

A web search tells me the Nissan Xterra was discontinued in 2015, so this is probably not a rental. The fake license plates suggest it could be stolen, or it might belong to Routh's sister in North Carolina. A web searchfor "Routh sister" comes up empty. A search on the North Carolina bar site brings up a Ms Kelly R Routh in Charlotte. The Routh Law web site says it specializes in family law, but there is nothing to indicate any connection to a Ryan Routh. However, this same attorney Kelly R Routh is listed as receiving a 5-year disciplinary suspension in 2022 for mishandling entrusted funds. Her web site says nothing about her suspension.

If his sister is an attorney, this may help explain the apparently lenient treatment Ryan has previously received for his previous criminal convictions. Commentators have occasionally raised the question of how Routh could have been charged in 2002 with

possession of a fully automatic machine gun, referred to in court filings as a weapon of mass destruction[, a felony]. He was also charged with carrying a concealed weapon, as well as driving without a valid license and resisting, delaying, and obstructing law enforcement, according to Greensboro News and Record.

While the disposition of the case isn’t entirely clear, Routh did plead guilty to carrying a concealed gun.

Possession of a weapon of mass destruction in North Carolina is a Class F felony, which can result in up to 41 months in prison. Routh's prior criminal record should have resulted in a more severe penalty than what he eventually seems to have received. Another source says,

In exchange for pleading guilty, the state gave him 60 months of probation where his firearms and explosives were seized and destroyed by Greensboro police. He also had to have a mental evaluation. (Editor's note: we are working to see if Routh completed this requirement and how it went).

Records also show Routh's criminal background in North Carolina stretches back to 1984 when he had a failure to report an accident charge.

In 2010, Routh said he had never tried drugs or alcohol. That's the same year he was convicted of possession of stolen property. A judge wrote that Routh's stolen property conviction was the possession of three trailers of stolen tools and building materials (welding torches, tanks, carts, power cords, etc) from sites where he worked as a roofer. He also had a stolen pickup truck.

A police investigator found Routh kept the stolen property at his business and the property was a big mess. When a neighbor asked him to clean up the property "he pulled a knife on him and told him to leave the property."

The property owner said Routh was using the property with no lease and without her knowledge.

We're still left with the question of how Routh lived in Florida between August 14 and September 15, and the separate question for his sister as an attorney -- it's hard to avoid thinking that, given her brother's record, she knew, or should have known, he was up to no good. At least for now, she's starting to look like an enabler at best, leaving aside the possible suspension of the attorney Kelly Routh, which doesn't bode well for her own future.

But the most we can say for the time being is that the prosecutors seem to have a great deal more than they've made public.

Sen Fetterman On Eating The Cats

Welker: "Why should voters trust" Kamala wouldn't ban fracking?

Fetterman: "It's so strange why we keep talking about fracking"

Welker: You called fracking a "stain on Pennsylvania." What do you now like about fracking?"

Fetterman: "They're eating dogs. They're eating cats." pic.twitter.com/kkVkT13PU7

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) September 22, 2024

Sen Fetterman uttered a sphinx-like remark over the weekend that seems to have pundits confused. In the wake of the apparent non-sequitur in the clip above, Tim Haines said,

When repeatedly pressed about abandoning his opposition to fracking during a "Meet The Press" interview on Sunday, Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman said he doesn't have to answer that kind of specific policy question because "the other side" doesn't take policy seriously.

I don't think that was whnat the senator said, and I definitely don't think that was the subtext of what he said. Here are key excerpts from the transcript quoted in the story:

KRISTEN WELKER: . . . In 2018 you said you don't support fracking at all. But then in 2022 you said you absolutely support fracking. Senator, what exactly do you like about fracking now?

SENATOR JOHN FETTERMAN: . . . And you know, here I am now, I'm a United States Senator, and I won by five points, a record margin back in '22. And again, it might be an issue in fracking. And I totally support fracking. So does the Vice President Harris. And now if you want to have a serious conversation about policy, then I would challenge Trump and Vance to have one other than talking about eating pets.

KRISTEN WELKER: . . . But to the point, what do you now like about fracking? You say you're not going to ban it; you support it now.

SENATOR JOHN FETTERMAN: "They're eating dogs, they're eating cats." You know, again, so okay. Yes, any more on fracking?

His basic answer to Kristen Welker's question obout fracking was an appeal to realpolitik: he ran on fracking in 2022, he supported it in that election, and he won by five points. She continued to press him, and losing patience -- he's a surprisingly smart guy -- he answered with another appeal to realpolitik: Trump and Vance are running on Haitians eating pets, and it's winning, the same way he won by supporting fracking in 2022. That's his answer.

This is consistent with his earlier remarks on Trump:

“Trump has created a special kind of a hold” among voters in the Keystone State, said Fetterman, securing “a special kind of place in Pennsylvania.”

Fetterman said, “I want people to understand, it’s not science, but there is energy, and there is kinds of anger on the ground in Pennsylvania and people are very committed, and Trump is going to be strong.”

Earlier in Sunday's interview, he suggested fracking won't be the issue that decides this year's election in Pennsylvania:

While Fetterman suggested fracking is now a fringe issue among Pennsylvanians, a recent poll showed broad bipartisan support, with 68 percent of those polled supporting fracking and just 19 percent against the practice.

But what will be the issue that decides the election, then? I think he gave his answer -- "They're eating dogs, they're eating cats." There's anger on the ground in Pennsylvania.

This is where many republicans misread Trump's strategy. Karl Rove had this to say after the September 10 debate:

Rove, who is also a political contributor for Fox News, recalled Trump’s previous insult of Harris in July as “dumb as a rock” and wrote: “Which raises the question: What does that make him?”

The question concluded Rove’s withering critique of Trump’s debate performance, which he said was a “train wreck” for the former president and “far worse than anything Team Trump could have imagined.”

Trump “let his emotions get the better of him” and “did a terrible job at his most important task — tying her to President Biden’s failed policies,” said Rove.

Harris “came across as calm, confident, strong and focused on the future” while Trump was “hot, angry and fixated on the past, especially his own,” he added.

Except, as Sen Fetterman says, there's anger on the ground, something Trump sees, and he's reflecting it in his manner. Why was the one memorable line in the debate about eating dogs and cats? Why did that find its way into a viral video? Why is legacy media so intent on using it to call Trump supporters racist?

Sen. Marco Rubio responded to questions about what Donald Trump has said about the migrant crisis in Springfield, Ohio, during an interview with Margaret Brennan on CBS's "Face The Nation."

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, here in this country, in terms of people being inspired to take action, we have been looking, as you heard about, what the perception of the public is right now, particularly some of the things that Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance say. Our poll shows two thirds of Trump supporters believe those false and disparaging claims about Haitian migrants are true. . . . the verbal attacks dilute and cloud what should be a winning argument for Republicans about the border. Do you agree that this kind of thing is a distraction from the broader point and dangerous?

. . . SEN. RUBIO: That is a story here that everyday Americans are being made to feel like they're haters because they're complaining about something all- any of us would complain. If any of us, I don't care who we are, live in a city of 4,000 people, and you bring in 2,500 migrants overnight into one place, there are going to be problems there.

MARGARET BRENNAN: There are absolutely problems--

SEN. RUBIO: It doesn't make you a bigot there. That should be what we're focused on.

Margaret Brennan is simply supporting Sen Fetterman's insight: CBS's own polls show that Trump's remarks about eating the cats have had a powerful effect. These are the subliminal messages that Trump understands instinctively. and Sen Fetterman, a politician who seems to have been underrated, understands that Trump understands them.

A Harris-Trump Second Debate? Of Course Not.

A puzzling exchange between the Harris and Trump campaigns over a second Trump-Harris debate hasn't drawn much attention. Yesterday, on a Saturday. the New York Post reported,

Vice President Kamala Harris has accepted CNN’s invitation to debate Donald Trump for a second time ahead of the November election — despite the latter’s insistence that he doesn’t see a “need” to face-off again.

“The American people deserve another opportunity to see Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump debate before they cast their ballots,” Harris-Walz campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said Saturday.

“It would be unprecedented in modern history for there to just be one general election debate. Debates offer a unique chance for voters to see the candidates side by side and take stock of their competing visions for America.

“Vice President Harris is ready for another opportunity to share a stage with Donald Trump, and she has accepted CNN’s invitation to a debate on October 23.”

Well, for starters, weren't there actually two debates, scheduled when Joe was still in the race? The first was June 27, and we know what happened. Kamala appeared for the second one, in which Joe was originally scheduled to appear, on September 10. The background for that schedule is given in Wikipedia:

On May 15, 2024, the Biden campaign announced that it would not participate in the [Commission on Presidential Debates]-hosted debates and instead invited Trump to participate in two alternative debates to take place in June and September, each hosted in a TV news studio without an audience. Jen O'Malley Dillon, the Biden campaign manager, laid out three reasons for sidelining the CPD, indicating that the debates were not completed until early voting started, that the debates had become "a spectacle" and that the CPD could not "enforce its own rules". . . . Biden and Trump accepted an offer from CNN to hold the first of these debates on June 27 and from ABC to hold the second on September 10.

Trump indicated the same day that he had accepted a Fox News debate to be hosted on October 2, 2024, though the Biden campaign dismissed the prospect of a third debate.

In other words, Jen O'Malley Dillon, at the time the Biden campaign mabager, set the debate terms and schedule on May 15. Following Joe's withdrawal, she continues as Kamala's campaign manager, although the actual organization chart by this point is unclear. And as of May 15, she rejected the idea of a third debate.

Except that by September 21, the same Jen O’Malley Dillon, campaign manager, announced that the American people deserve the same third debate that she rejected on May 15 -- even though the date she proposed, October 23, is well after voting starts, one of her reasons for rejecting the original CPD schedule.

At a Wilmington, NC rally later in the day, Trump rejected the call:

Trump revealed that he would reject CNN’s invitation to face off against Harris. He cited multiple factors, including that she’s losing the election, he’s already done two debates, voting has begun, and CNN won’t be fair.

The last two are particularly critical because perhaps over half the country will have already voted by the time October 23 arrives, and CNN was scratched by their media peers for being too fair to Trump. Thus, there is no upside to a second showdown.

So Jen O'Malley Dillon has done a 180 on one of her reasons for not having an additional debate, that it would be held after voting starts. That says to me that she, at least, wants a do-over for the September 10 debate, even though the conventional wisdom (which I noted that Sean Trende signed off on) was that Kamala "won" it. How could this be?

Well, here's a headline in Rolling Stone: In Springfield, Trump and Vance's Campaign of Racist Terror and Panic Is Working:

It didn't have to be this way - but, former President Trump and his running mate, Ohio's junior senator, gave voice to a baseless, racist lie about the small city's growing Haitian immigrant community stealing and eating pet dogs and cats, and made it a centerpiece of their campaign during the final weeks of the 2024 presidential election.

A TikTok video of Trump chanting "Eat the cats! Eat, eat the cats!" went viral. Ir didn't help that the Sunday after the debate, Trump survived a second assassinationm attempt, and a few days after that, he went on Gutfeld to record ratings and cracked jokes about the episode. I've said already that Gutfeld's poopy-pants routines about Biden probably had more to do with driving him out of the race than the June 27 debate.

But then Kamala had a disastrous appearance at a rally with Oprah, which followed the refusal of the Teamsters to endorse her. But pay no mind! Nate Silver says,

Harris is pretty clearly getting a bounce in national polls. She’s now up by 2.9 points in our polling average, as compared with 2.2 points on the day of the debate (and 2.0 points on the day after the debate, when there wasn’t yet any post-debate polling included in the averages).

Among the most recent polls that conducted some interviewing on Sunday or Monday, Harris has a larger lead: 4.6 points. So it’s possible that Harris is benefiting not just from the debate but also from the favorable news coverage that it’s brought her.

So why would Jen O'Malley Dillon seem to want a do-over on this same debate that has Kamala soaring in "the polls"? Good question. In fact, I have other questions:

• Why did Jen O'Malley Dillon announce that she wanted a third debate on a Saturday morning, when nobody would be paying attention?
• Why did she choose October 23 for the proposed date, when half the country would already be voting, and less than two weeks before November 5, election day, so late that the debate probably wouldn't matter anyhow?

One possible answer to the first question is that Trump's rejection would also come on a Saturday, when nobody would be paying attention. An answer to the second question would be that not even a Hail Mary play of a second debate would help the campaign. Trump clearly sees a second debate as nothing but the same waste of time the first one was, and Jen O'Malley Dillon pretty clearly agrees.

The strategy all along has been the same, whether for Biden or for Harris: the less voters see of them, the better. They didn't want an extra debate in May, and they understand pretty clearly that another debate in October won't help now. All I can think is that Saturday's announcement was some sort of token gesture intended to keep someone happy -- possibly Kamala herself.

So the debate proposal was on its face a feckless token, made for reasons that aren't clear by someone whose position on the org chart isn't clear, either. I don't think this augurs well for the campaign, but this isn't the picture "the polls" are painting. I think this shows you still have to watch for other, more subliminal signs.

Springfield, OH Mayor Profits From Haitians

In this post a week ago, I suggested that municipalities like Springfield, OH, Aurora, CO, and Charleroi, PA have experienced particulary troublesome influxes of illegal or quasi-legal immigrants because local power players, abetted by politicians, have exploited government subsidies, routed via non-profits, to make money off them. It hasn't been hard for local investigative reporters to uncover these schemes, as I discussed at that link regarding the case in Aurora, CO.

Now it turns out that the mayor of Springfield, OH is in on the same sort of boodle. Via the Buckeye Reporter,

A Buckeye Reporter investigation has confirmed that Mayor Rob Rue of Springfield, Ohio, is renting out apartments in buildings that he owns to Haitian immigrants—a move that some local residents are calling a conflict of interest.

. . . A few blocks away from Little and Rue Funeral Home, also owned by Rue, a 37-year-old man who introduced himself as “Works” lives in an apartment on an estate worth an estimated $1.3 million.

Works told Buckeye Reporter that he and other Haitian immigrants reside in properties owned by Rue.

. . . According to public records, Rue owns several rental properties in Springfield through his company, Littleton Properties of Springfield LLC.

. . . Rue became the Mayor of Springfield in 2023 and previously served as City Commissioner and Assistant Mayor, and is actively involved in local community boards.

Several residents have expressed disappointment with Rue’s leadership, suspecting he may have ulterior motives as he has overseen a significant influx of Haitian immigrants over the past two years.

Approximately 20,000 immigrants from Haiti have been brought into the community, with rumors suggesting that another 10,000 may arrive.

. . . “If Mayor Rue is renting out his properties to illegals the public should know. He should recuse himself from any vote on the Commission because he directly benefits financially from any federal funds received to support the illegals,” the Futurist™ X account said last week.

Residents of Springfield have noted they have been kicked out of their apartments to make room for Haitian immigrants.

“They've been raising the rent a lot,” 16-year-old Saphire Flores told Buckeye Reporter.

Rentals and government-subsidized rents are just one way the local power players make money off the Haitians.

[Springfield activist Bill] Monaghan said the situation is being exploited by certain individuals who are turning a profit.

“You've got this George Ten guy from First Diversity who now, you live in his house, he drives you to work, he takes a cut of your pay. It's just like a modern day slave operation,” he said.

Next door to Ten's First Diversity offices are a general store geared towards the Haitian population as well as a Haitian religious and community center.

. . . Through Ten Enterprises, LLC he owns at least 42 buildings in Springfield.

“He runs these temp agencies, brings in migrant workers, recruits them at the border, or probably with that all of these Haitians,” Monaghan said. “They're probably flying in straight from Haiti with this TPS program (Temporary Protected Status). So, yeah, he's kind of one of the leading slumlords, slave masters or whatever you want to call the guys in his operation.”

Monaghan said the entire immigration operation in Springfield reeks of corruption.

Let's recall that the people who've been consulted by the media that's been "fact-checking" claims that Haitians are eating cats, dogs, ducks, and geese have been the Mayor of Springfield and other city officials like the city manager and police chief, who at best don't want to get crosswise with the mayor, or at worst may be in on the boodle themselves. Thus we heard last week,

Springfield city and Clark County officials sought to set the record straight Tuesday after Springfield became fodder for the broader immigration debate as misinformation about Haitian immigrants garnered national attention.

Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said at a press conference Tuesday that rumors of pets or wildlife being eaten by Haitian immigrants were absolutely false, with zero verified reports of specific claims. He said Haitian immigrants had also not been reported to police to be squatting or littering in front of people’s homes.

“Rumors like this are taking away from the real issues such as issues involving our housing or school resources and our overwhelmed healthcare system,” Rue said.

Except that Rue himself, a Republican, is making money off the Haitians and raising rents on everyone, profiting from the housing shortage he's caused by bringing in the Haitians. And he definitely doesn't like it that Trump is focusing attention on his city, and neither does Republican Gov DeWine, who seems to be allied with Rue on this:

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said at a press conference Thursday that they would like former President Donald Trump to stop making false claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield and added they had not been in direct contact with him about his upcoming visit to the city.

Asked during a Q&A session if they were directly asking Trump not to come to Springfield, neither would go that far, but Rue came close. “As a visit from the former president will undoubtedly place additional demands on our safety infrastructure, should he choose to change his plans, it would convey a significant message of peace to the city of Springfield,” Rue said.

. . . In response to a question about whether he is hopeful that Trump will stop making baseless claims about Springfield, DeWine said “Well, I hope he does.”

Baseless claims indeed. Eat the cats! Eat, eat the cats!

Who's Really Bugging Trump?

Here's another puzzling data point, from Politico on Wednesday:

Iranian hackers sent sensitive information stolen from the Trump campaign to President Joe Biden’s campaign earlier this summer, U.S. investigators said Wednesday.

The emails were sent in June and July to individuals “associated with the Biden campaign” and “contained an excerpt taken from stolen, non-public material from former President Trump’s campaign,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI and CISA said in a statement.

. . . It is unclear to what extent the then-Biden campaign read or made use of the information the Iranians sent.

The three agencies said the emails were unsolicited and campaign staff did not reply to them.

Although the account refers to Iranian "hackers", it doesn't say whether the hackers got the information from hacking the Trump campaign directly, or whether they obtained it indirectly, possibly from sources within the US government. We do know, again from Politico, that the Biden administration's Iran envoy, Rob Malley, had his security clearance suspended and was subsequently placed on unpaid leave in summer 2023. The FBI is investigating whether Malley

moved classified information onto his personal email, where it may have fallen into the hands of a foreign actor, according to a person briefed on the case and a letter from Republican lawmakers.

Investigators are trying to determine if any crimes were committed, according to the person briefed on the case and another person familiar with the matter. But it is not yet clear if the Department of Justice will bring any charges against Malley or what the scope of any charges might be. The people were granted anonymity to discuss a highly sensitive issue.

. . . Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote a letter this week [May 10] to Secretary of State Antony Blinken seeking more information.

In the letter, the pair wrote that they have come to “understand” that Malley “allegedly transferred classified documents to his personal email account and downloaded these documents to his personal cellphone.” The letter continues: “It is unclear to whom he intended to provide these documents, but it is believed that a hostile cyber actor was able to gain access to his email and/or phone and obtain the downloaded information.”

However, Malley has been on leave since last year, so he wouldn't have been involved in whatever means the Iranians used to transfer Trump campaign materials to the Biden campaign -- except that having sources within the US government transmit sensitive material to Iran, wittingly or unwittingly, via careless handling of e-mail has already demonstrably occurred. I can't discount Sundance's reasoning at Conservative Treehouse:

In the 2016/2017 version of the FBI/DOJ/DNI effort we eventually learned it was the FBI/DOJ/DNI who manufactured the “hacking stories” around Russia as an excuse to cover their illegal election surveillance operation over Donald Trump. This is no longer disputed amid the intellectually honest.

So, riddle me this…. Is there a reason to believe the 2024 version, where Iran is inserted to replace Russia, does not emanate from the same FBI/DOJ/DNI justification premise?

. . . You see, from the outset of the DOJ -now Special Counsel- case against Trump in the “classified documents” case, the DOJ-NSD framed every aspect of their accusations and indictment(s) around the issue of “Classified National Security.”

That approach is seemingly useful if the same Biden administration interests wanted to continue the use of Title-1 FISA surveillance warrants; a 2024 justification coincidentally facilitates hidden surveillance of yet another Trump presidential campaign in an identical manner as they did in 2016.

But wait… wha?

Yup, again if accurate, that would mean the entire construct of the Jack Smith special counsel case that Judge Aileen Cannon eventually threw out of her court, would be predicated on a hidden motive to keep Donald Trump under full (national security) surveillance.

What Sundance has been sayong is that Trump is likely the subject of a Title 1 FISA Surveillance Warrant that allows the government to target him with electronic surveillance, i e, to bug Mar-a-Lago, but of course, not just that.

Title I of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act governs the targeting of foreign powers or agents of foreign powers for electronic surveillance by the U.S. government. Agents of foreign powers can be either U.S. persons or non-U.S. persons. If the agent of a foreign power is a U.S. person, the government must show that the U.S. person is engaging in espionage, terrorism, or sabotage by or on behalf of a foreign power that involves a violation of a criminal statute.

. . . If the application is approved, the U.S. government can conduct electronic surveillance of the target for the period of time specified in the application. At the end of that time period, the government must stop surveilling the target unless it goes back to the Court and applies to renew the surveillance. For targeted U.S. citizens, FISA applications must be renewed by the FISC every 90 days with a separate finding of probable cause to continue surveillance.

I spent part of my career in computer security, and I know that hackers want to take the easiest path to their goal. It's possible to crack passwords through muiltiple attempts using strings like "12345", for instance, but why go to that trouble if you can find an easier way in? If you know someone who has what you want, and they're careless with their e-mail -- maybe intentionally "careless" -- why go to all the trouble of bugging Mar-a-Lago yourself?

In other words, whom did the hackers hack? Did they hack Trump directly, or did they hack (cough, cough) someone in the US deep state? It sounds to me as though Trump has his own idea, and he may well be right:

WOW, JUST OUT! THE FBI CAUGHT IRAN SPYING ON MY CAMPAIGN, AND GIVING ALL OF THE INFORMATION TO THE KAMALA HARRIS CAMPAIGN. THEREFORE SHE AND HER CAMPAIGN WERE ILLEGALLY SPYING ON ME. TO BE KNOWN AS THE IRAN, IRAN, IRAN CASE! WILL KAMALA RESIGN IN DISGRACE FROM POLITICS? WILL THE COMMUNIST LEFT PICK A NEW CANDIDATE TO REPLACE HER?

I think he's fully aware that he's being bugged under a FISA warrant, and that's how the information reached the Iranians. Trump is surrounded by savvy people. He may well have deliberately planted bogus information knowing it would be passed on, and he'd recognize it if it were. This is his way of sending that message to the deep state.

A Couple More Data Points Support Yesterday's Conspiracy Theories

Yesterday I raised two possible hypotheses that might explain the puzzling constellations of events that led a freelance whack job off the plane from Hawaii to find just the right spot at the golf course fence to set up a shot at Trump when nobody was supposed to know he was on the golf course at that time. The one I tend to favor is my own, that some deep state cabal knew of Trump's golf plans because they'd bugged Mar-a-Lago during the August 2022 raid -- in fact, its main aim was simply to gain access to the place, especially the office and conference areas, to plant the bugs, not to retrieve documents.

This tweet supports my theory:

Can I just point out again, yes again, that in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case; a case against Trump where the official position of the DOJ asserts a "vital national security interest;" there is almost virtually guaranteed to be a Title-1 FISA authorized warrant.... The… https://t.co/MsdO6CZc0S pic.twitter.com/ipoZpTTfsf

— TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) September 19, 2024

The other hypothesis I mentioned yesterday is from Arizona Rep Eli Crane, that there's a mole in the Secret Service. Missouri Sen Josh Hawley raised questions on Jesse Watters's show last night that suggest there may have been a method to the weaponized incompetence the agency displayed at both Butler and the golf course:

Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley on Wednesday sent a letter to the Secret Service, demanding answers on allegations from a whistleblower about alleged "known vulnerabilities" at a golf course that led to a second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.

. . . Hawley claimed in the letter to acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe that a Secret Service whistleblower, identified as an agent who has protected Trump at the golf course in the past, alleged that the agency failed to address "known vulnerabilities" at the golf course, including areas that offer a clear line of sight of people playing on the course.

"[T]he whistleblower alleges that it has been Secret Service protocol to 'post up' agents at these vulnerable spots when Trump visits the course," the senator wrote. "That apparently did not happen on September 15. Instead, the gunman was permitted to remain along or near the fence line for some 12 hours."

The senator also stated that it was unclear if the Secret Service used drones or did a sweep of the golf course perimeter before the former president visited on Sunday. He then asked whether the allegations were true, and questioned why the suspect was not spotted by security earlier. This story has more detail on the whistleblower allegations:

According to a whistleblower, protocol requires them to put agents at the areas of vulnerability that exist around the course. They normally put people there; they've done it many times before.

Yet they didn't this time, as the suspect lay in wait.

Hawley said the whistleblowers told him, "That's strange. That's out of protocol."

"It's not even clear Secret Service swept the perimeter before Trump took to the course," Hawley said. If they had, they likely would have found the suspect.

Hawley said this was a breach of protocol, and the whistleblowers want to know why this happened. "The Secret Service deserves to give us answers."

Think about that a moment. It's protocol to check the perimeter. It's protocol to put people at those vulnerable spots. They know about the vulnerable spots. Yet somehow, on this occasion where there's a suspect lying in wait, they throw all the protocol out the window? And the suspect somehow knew that Trump would be there, despite it not being on his schedule.

How do you have that on top of failing to secure a roof with a direct line of sight to Trump in Butler?

These data points, and the possible explanations for what lies behind them, aren't necessarily in conflict. If the FBI had Mar-a-Lago bugged and was able to get non-public information on Trump's movements, if there was a deep state cabal involving the FBI and the Secret Service, they could then have passed instructions on to their patsy Routh based on inside knowledge both of Trump's movements and the specific vulnerabilities of the golf course fence. Sen Hawley asks,

Secret Service is stonewalling: it’s been over 2 months since the Butler assassination attempt

Secret Service has yet to hand over docs. Why? pic.twitter.com/f3pZFy5PBN

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) September 19, 2024

This post at The Last Refuge adds,

The U.S. Secret Service gave congressional investigators a briefing on the Trump assassination attempt by Ryan Routh at Trump National in Florida. . . .

[Florida Rep] Mike Waltz repeats how the FBI are keeping all of the pertinent details surrounding the assassination attempt concealed from the investigating committee under the auspices of an ongoing investigation. Waltz is calling for transparency in both the Pennsylvania attempt and the Florida attempt; however, despite the USSS providing information, anything from the FBI is not being shared.

Let's back up for a moment. The most sophisticated investigative agency in the world knows who the perp is, and he's in custody. They have his phone, which means they can track where he's been. They have his texts and e-mails. Given his travel schedule and location tracing, they have tapes of every time he stopped to buy a burger, every time he passed a traffic camera. Normally, law enforcement would be saying a great deal more -- persons of interest, maybe additional arrests.

So far nothing.