WH Correspondent’s Dinner - Trump evacuated, shooter in lobby

Bobfripp said:
Why the hell else would these folks fund Trump's ballroom? It's a conflict of interest that no reputable private business would allows its employees to engage in. If Biden built a ballroom as POTUS with private funds, would you be okay with that, honestly?
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If im ok with trump doing it I’d have to be ok with Biden doing it or be a hypocrite.

Every large donor to either party is doing the same. Why did countries (or their reps) contribute to the Clinton foundation? Why does Elon musk contributing millions to political pacs differ? They don’t. Pretending a donor making a large campaign contribution is somehow different is nuts. So, if you have no problem with soros, Bloomberg, muskovitz, or meta, alphabet, or apple contributing hundreds of millions to the democrat party, then you shouldn’t have a problem with the ballroom being privately funded. It’s all done for influence and favors.

So that is the current reality and forgive me if I’m skeptical that the left isnt losing its shit because trump. Now if you want to talk about whether I would change the system and if I would then be ok with it then that answer would be no.
 
Callatoroy said:
Every large donor to either party is doing the same. Why did countries (or their reps) contribute to the Clinton foundation? Why does Elon musk contributing millions to political pacs differ? They don’t. Pretending a donor making a large campaign contribution is somehow different is nuts. So, if you have no problem with soros, Bloomberg, muskovitz, or meta, alphabet, or apple contributing hundreds of millions to the democrat party, then you shouldn’t have a problem with the ballroom being privately funded. It’s all done for influence and favors.

So that is the current reality and forgive me if I’m skeptical that the left isnt losing its shit because trump. Now if you want to talk about whether I would change the system and if I would then be ok with it then that answer would be no.
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1. The Clinton Foundation was post-presidency. It is a terrible analogy for what you're talking about. Jimmy Carter started Habitat for Humanity, or at least popularized it at the beginning. That's more like Clinton Foundation than private ballroom.

2. Campaign contributions are in the same ballpark, I'd agree, but you need to understand the issue precisely. Donors are prohibited from donating unlimited amounts to candidates. They can donate to PACs that spend money -- but historically the PACs couldn't coordinate with the candidates' campaign. That, incidentally, is why negative ads became so popular (or at least one reason).

3. Why the distinction? Because the Supreme Court said so. It held, back in the 1970s, that campaign contributions could be restricted, but independent advocacy could not. That's the origin of the classic ad saying, "call your congressman to say, enough is enough." That is giving the appearance of being an independent advocacy when it's really, substantively, a contribution. Whatever, both sides do that and have been doing that. That's just a fact.

So why did the Supreme Court draw that distinction? Because, it said, direct contributions could create control. It could create a quid pro quo or the appearance of one. Independent advocacy, much less so.

4. So in terms of your analogy, the private ballroom is like the direct campaign contributions, and the law says those can be limited.

There are other considerations too but I'll let you digest these
 
There's so many questions. This seems like a legitimate thing, with no attempt for a fist pump and yell like with Butler.

That being said, the news is all about how this happened and how partisan political violence is a problem.

What I want to know is the following:

1. Why was the line of succession all basically there, including the Acting AG and FBI Director? I mean, that's just stupid. That's the dumbest thing I've seen and the media ought to be making a bigger deal about it.

2. How in the hell did that guy exchange gunfire with the feds, wounding one of them in the process, and get un-harmed? Yes, he was arrested. But how in the hell did that happen? He should be dead or at least wounded.
 
MendotoManteo said:
There's so many questions. This seems like a legitimate thing, with no attempt for a fist pump and yell like with Butler.

That being said, the news is all about how this happened and how partisan political violence is a problem.

What I want to know is the following:

1. Why was the line of succession all basically there, including the Acting AG and FBI Director? I mean, that's just stupid. That's the dumbest thing I've seen and the media ought to be making a bigger deal about it.

2. How in the hell did that guy exchange gunfire with the feds, wounding one of them in the process, and get un-harmed? Yes, he was arrested. But how in the hell did that happen? He should be dead or at least wounded.
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I don't know how noone saw him with a shotgun, handgun and knives before he ran through the metal detectors.
 
TurdFerguson said:
I don't know how noone saw him with a shotgun, handgun and knives before he ran through the metal detectors.
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I'm not going to go full conspiracy theory on this one. Yet.

But if Iran, say, had a trained gunmen squad, they possibly could have broke through.

This is why I'm incredulous about how half the Cabinet and line of succession was in that place at one time.
 
MendotoManteo said:
I'm not going to go full conspiracy theory on this one. Yet.

But if Iran, say, had a trained gunmen squad, they possibly could have broke through.

This is why I'm incredulous about how half the Cabinet and line of succession was in that place at one time.
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A trained gunmen squad would have a decent shot at taking out the president -- not just at WHCD, but at numerous other public appearances. But post-9/11, it is not so easy to get a trained gunmen squad into the country or coordinated online.

The secret service is not designed to resist a military assault, but to create layers of security against civilian attacks and have escape routes planned out.
 
Calheel said:
The author of that article wasn't attending the dinner, just one of the related parties -- where the president was not located. The author complained how easy it was to get into the Hilton and into the party, but that does not seem much different than any press event. It is much, much easier to shoot reporters than presidents. If the shooter wanted to take out Wolf Blitzer, he could have accomplished that. Likewise, if the shooter wanted to crash the Vanity Fair party after the Oscars and take out Tom Cruise, he probably would have a pretty decent shot at that, too. We don't expect SS-level security at press gatherings, we expect it for the President, himself.

Rather than linking articles, why don't you specifically state what security measures the Hilton should have implemented to prevent this guy from running toward the event space with a gun? In general, if someone's plan of attack is to just run really fast with a gun (not a particularly great plan), there has to be some first layer of security that is breached. It is not like this guy actually got into the dinner.
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This is getting silly, and really not sure why you picked this hill to die on... but sure:

By now you have certainly seen the wide ranging reporting about what a security failure this was. And by now you surely know the only ones claiming it wasn't are Trump's guys Blanche and Bessent.

CNN reported the security plan was essentially the same as over 20 years ago. Kasie Hunt and all her stupid panel laughed about the easy access via back door that was shared by all from Pres down to the caterers, makeup, and press that were able to come and go freely.

Even Oz Pearlman said he was shocked by lack of security. Mentioned the Golden Globes requiring actual ticket scans (not just waive what could easily be a copy) and multiple security lines after entry. This is for the Golden friggin Globes!!!

So yeah, I would think treating the event on par with the Globes -- or maybe even go YUGE and match the security for the Oscar's-- and then we would be getting closer to the destination.

Agree to disagree as you wish, but no reason for me to keep this one up -- reckon the evil mainstream media will keep doing their bit to explain it

Edit: forgot to add that if Wolf and a few other media bigwigs had actually been killed, as could have happened EASILY, then this would have been an epic failure beyond imagination. If the gap between the Secret Service and local agencies for security is that wide -- then damn, I'd say that is a massive gap and failure of security
 
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