In the light of morning of the next day, I'm going to posit the Occam's Razor theory of what happened. I think this is logical and is the most reasonable understanding of what happened:

1. A deranged young Democrat gun enthusiast was heavily influenced by fascistic Democrat/media rhetoric and decided it was just and necessary to assassinate Trump in order to "save our democracy."

2. He was a lone gunman, as acting alone is the only way to pull this sort of thing off.

3. Despite some individual acts of bravery, the Secret Service acted incompetently.

4. To the extent anyone wants to uncover conspiracies directly related to the shooter inside our government, nothing is there. The real conspiracy is simply the denial by the Biden Administration of the Trump campaign's repeated requests for additional Secret Service protection.

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You don't need to know the burglar to facilitate the burglary, you just need to leave the front door unlocked.

I think that's the whole story. I could be wrong, but don't think I am. Let's not let wild theories hide the fact that Democrat rhetoric caused this and Biden denying Trump protection allowed it. I'm reading the replies.

Never underestimate the incompetence of under-resourced government agencies staffed with DEI hires.

In my military career I have so many times seen things that were so dangerously unprofessional that one could easily believe they were due to intent when in reality they were due to gross incompetence.

If you see that enough you begin to understand it and are able to recognize it when it happens.

So the other day the great Buzz Patterson posted a story about serving in the Bill Clinton White House. The story was about Clinton blowing off national security issues at a golf tournament, and while it told us nothing materially new about Clinton's character, it was a nevertheless a FASCINATING insight into a piece of important recent history. I really, really enjoyed reading it. Now Buzz had the Clinton nuclear football and was a USAF pilot, and I definitely do not want to make anyone think my military career was anywhere near as sexy or glamorous as his was, but I do have a few stories to tell. So I want to tell my one Bill Clinton story, because it’s about a historic event, and in a similar vein to the ripping (and 100% truthful) yarns of Buzz Patterson.

It was 1993. I was a U.S. Army Captain, fresh out of company command, and I was amazingly fortunate enough to be selected as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Internship Program (today it’s called the Bradley Fellowship). Basically, as a mere O-3, I was given an opportunity to act as an actual O-5 action officer on the Joint Staff doing actual, real JCS-level stuff, and that also came with an awesome intern educational program that included things like chatting with Colin Powell and meeting an amazing array of political and military luminaries. This is where I first learned about the meat-grinder that is the Washington D.C. Beltway (although at the time I admittedly was a bit naive and start-struck and found it all to be pretty cool). As awesome as this program was, me and my fellow interns were also nevertheless the junior officers in every one of our Joint Staff directorates, and as a result we were prime targets for becoming what we called a “rent-a-crowd.” Basically, any time some D.C. dignitary needed a bunch of military officers to act like they were really into hearing a speech about some arcane policy issue, we interns got the call. I kept my Class A jacket in my office so I could put it on for my twice a week rent-a-crowd duties, and routinely me and my fellow uniformed interns (from all four services) were called to sit looking adoringly at some pontificating blowhard as if we cared about what he or she was spewing. We were well-paid stage props, but it was pretty interesting nonetheless. The worst was when Clinton came to the Pentagon to get an initial briefing from the Joint Chiefs right after he was inaugurated, and we were ordered to stand on the steps outside the Pentagon River Entrance en masse and we were ORDERED to wave at Slick Willie as he departed. I kid you not. You have to realize that Clinton was an avowed and unrepentant draft dodger as part of his still fresh-in-our-memories campaign, and none of us had forgotten that—these were the very most sarcastic waves ever waved in the history of waves.

But that’s not my Bill Clinton story.

This is my Bill Clinton story.

In July of that year we got a rent-a-crowd call: “Put your Class A’s on and go over to Fort McNair, the President is giving a speech.” Now that was pretty cool. Even though I despised Clinton, hearing a Presidential speech was a really big deal, so my Navy lieutenant and fellow intern buddy Werner and I got all dolled up in our best shiny brass dress uniforms and took the Metro over to the Waterfront Station in D.C.’s Anacostia neighborhood. We walked the rest of the way to the National Defense University’s auditorium in Fort McNair. We got there super early, before the NDU students who would make up most of the crowd, so we got to pick our seats. The first two rows were reserved, so we got the third row, front and center, twenty feet from the stage. We had no idea what the subject of the speech was going to be, but soon the Clinton White House crew came in and sat right in front of us: David Gergen, George Stephanopoulos, Dee Dee Myers (not Dee Dee Ramone) and the rest of the Clinton henchmen and henchwomen entered and sat literally two feet away from our seats. Soon we overheard (because as far as that crowd was concerned we had the same tangible existence as the auditorium chairs) that the speech was about gays and lesbians in the military, and we rapidly realized we were human stage props sent there to pretend we approved—this was the infamous “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” speech. I was about to be a stage prop to history.

Soon the principals came in on stage: SecDef Les Aspin, Vice President Gore, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Slick Willie himself. The secondaries were all given seats high on the stage right behind the Prez, and it was clear that the JCS were every bit the stage props that poor little O-3 me was. We were all there to give the illusion that we supported and endorsed what the President was about to dump on the American people, and that realization was sickening.

I’ll drop a link to that actual speech in a comment right below if you are interested, but it’s not the content of that infamous speech I want to cover. Rather, it is two observations as a near-front row participant to history that I want to relate:

1. As David Gergen and George Stephanopoulos came in, their s***-eating grins were palpable. They were so, so, so, SOOOOO very pleased that they had created the illusion that the uniformed military was totally behind what their draft-dodging President was about to say. They looked like the Grinch after he stole all the Christmas decorations from Whoville. Even then, when I was still almost apolitical and really did not care who had sex with who, I found this appalling. I was being used and I did not like it one bit. It got worse when Gergen and Stephanopoulos sat down—they were verbally high-fiving each other over the illusion they had created, and I could overhear them celebrating in nefarious whispers. Even when Clinton spoke, they were whispering and giggling in glee like little girls, and… it sickened me. It was one of the very first times that I understood that politicians viewed the military as mere pawns in their social engineering schemes, and that idea has stuck with me to this very day.

2. As I mentioned, the Joint Chiefs were ordered to sit behind Clinton. The Commandant of the Marine Corps at the time was bada$$ Vietnam vet warrior USMC General Carl Mundy, and he had been an outspoken critic of gays in the military prior to that time. They sat him at the far side of the stage, mostly out of view of the cameras, but I had my eye on him the whole time. I swear to you, Mundy sat down, legs spread, hands on his knees, with the facial expression of a stone-cold killer, and he remained almost completely and totally immobile as a glowering, frightening statue during the whole speech. He did not move a muscle, except I could see his jaw muscles tightening and loosing repetitively. It’s a wonder all his teeth did not crack on that stage. I loved it. To me, Mundy was like one of those USAF Vietnam War POWs in the Viet Cong propaganda films who was blinking his eyes to spell out T-O-R-T-U-R-E in Morse code. He was coerced into being there, he was used like a horse in a gladiator chariot movie, and he knew it. I only wish he had resigned in protest. Nevertheless, on that day he became one of my heroes.

So that’s it. That’s my Bill Clinton story.

There is nothing all that Earth-shattering here, and the whole “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” thing is now water long passed under a very murky rainbow bridge. Still, this is a wee part of history, and I hope it shows how politicians (particularly Democrat politicians) view the troops as mere inanimate pawns on a political chessboard and not living, breathing, bleeding Americans whose lives and sacrifices actually matter.

I hope my little story was enlightening or at least interesting—let’s not let politicians do this again to our duty-bound and selfless military. Here is that speech, if you are so inclined:

Why is it that almost every taxpayer in the productive, private sector workforce that generates 100% of our national wealth is an "at will" employee but it's nearly impossible to fire any of the civilian federal government workers whose salaries we pay?

(Related question--why do those civilian federal workers get extravagant pensions that virtually no other sector of society any longer receives?) Once upon a time in America if you wanted to have the best, most secure middle class income to provide for you and your family, you would learn a trade, open a small business or get a union manufacturing job.

Today the most secure career you can choose is government civilian employee.

There is something fundamentally wrong with this.

I want to explain why it is important that we call Democrats "fascists" and not "Marxists."

Let's start by debunking the university-taught lie that the political spectrum runs with fascism on the far right and Marxism on the far left. That's balderdash. The political spectrum runs from the top with totalitarianism down to the bottom with anarchy. Fascism and Marxism sit side-by-side at the very top of that totalitarian stack, with very little to distinguish between the two. They are virtually identical in practice, with only subtle differences (for example--government owns industry (Marxism) versus government wholly controls industry (fascism)--the end result is the same).

With that in mind, it is fair to call the Democrat Party of the 21st Century both "Marxist" and "fascist." But here's the thing--Democrats are secretly kind of proud of being called Marxist. They see it as a badge of honor. They view the collectivist impulse of Marxism to be moral and just, so calling them a "Marxist" makes them smile. But the HATE being called "fascist." They DESPISE being called fascist, especially when you can explain cogently and accurately how they behave just like 20th Century fascist regimes (see my Tweet immediately below for an example). They HATE it because deep down they know it's true, and they feel trapped when someone calls them on it. It embarrasses them, makes them act rashly, and disempowers them just like showing a mirror to a vampire.

Please get on board "the Democrat Party is fascist" train--it's a winning formula. Example:

https://twitter.com/CynicalPublius/status/1708199286503346576

Anyone who follows me knows that I have an intense distrust of all forms of government and most of my Twitter feed consists of exposing the lies and misdeeds of the US federal government.

However, by stating that a 757 hit the Pentagon on 9/11, and by stating that I know this because of my close relationship with numerous eyewitnesses, I am apparently now some federal agent engaged in a massive coverup--at least in the eyes of some.

To those of you who think that about me, realize this:

Sometimes the cover-up is to make you think there was a cover-up when one never existed.

In the case of the 757 hitting the Pentagon, the conspiracy theory about a missile exists to distract you and prevent you from digging deep into the REAL issues. You think you are clever and see past the lies, when in reality it is you who have accepted the lies, hook, line and sinker. @BrendaH40921283