Thomas Matthew Crooks, the suspected gunman in the assassination attempt on Donald Trump last Saturday, searched on his phone for the dates of the former president's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and for dates of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News.
Crooks also searched on his phone for images of both the former president and current president, sources said.
The suspect's phone search history revealed no indication of his political views.
This is an open thread where everyone is welcome, especially night owls and early birds, to share and discuss the happenings of the day. Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments
In case you’re wondering why the polls are so weird — take a look at garbage like this.
4 years ago Biden got 95% of the black woman vote. This poll claims it’s at 64%, with 18% suddenly shifting to Trump! It also finds only 50% of these black women support abortion rights. In other words… completely skewed.
...Born to a working-class family in Middletown, Ohio, Vance enlisted in the military directly out of high school. He joined the Marines in 2003 and served as a combat correspondent – or military journalist – until 2007, according to military news site Task & Purpose.
In his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, as excerpted by Military.com, Vance described the press as “the holy grail of the Marine Corps public affairs: the biggest audience and the highest stakes.”
...Vance was deployed to Iraq for six months in late 2005. Based on his memoir, he would “attach to different units to get a sense of their daily routine,” escort civilian press, and write stories about individual marines.
On a mission into Iraqi territory, Vance said he experienced a pivotal moment when he and his unit interacted with local school children. As they handed out school supplies to the children, Vance gave a small eraser to a boy.
After the boy received the eraser, Vance said, “His face briefly lit up with joy before he ran away to his family, holding his two-cent prize aloft in triumph. I have never seen such excitement on a child’s face.”
Vance’s absolutist anti-abortion views appeal to a core part of Donald Trump’s base—and alienate everyone else.
The DNC’s new advertisement—obtained by Mother Jones ahead of its public release—depicts a montage of Trump and Vance’s public comments on abortion, as well as past news clips showcasing the Hillbilly Elegy author and former never-Trumper’s absolutist position on abortion.
“There’s something comparable between abortion and slavery,” an audio recording of Vance says during the DNC’s 90-second spot, which will appear on YouTube. It will also play on a roving mobile billboard around the Republican National Convention’s perimeter during Vance’s first official speech as Trump’s vice presidential pick, which he is expected to make Wednesday evening in Milwaukee.
In recent months, Vance and the broader GOP have quieted their rhetoric on abortion, perhaps in response to how the issue has alienated voters, including many Republicans. According to Pew Research Center, 63 percent of Americans say abortion “should be legal in all or most cases.” Among Republican and lean-Republican voters, more than 40 percent support abortion in all or most cases.
Four days after a gunman’s attempt to assassinate former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally, the public is still in the dark over the extent of his injuries, what treatment the Republican presidential nominee received in the hospital, and whether there may be any long-term effects on his health.
Trump’s campaign has refused to discuss his condition, release a medical report or records, or make the doctors who treated him available, leaving information to dribble out from Trump, his friends and family.
...The lack of information continues a pattern for Trump, who has released minimal medical information throughout his political career.
When he first ran in 2016, Trump declined to release full medical records, and instead released a note from his doctor that declared Trump would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
Dr. Harold Bornstein later revealed that the glowing, four-paragraph assessment was written in 5 minutes as a car sent by Trump to collect it waited outside.
This morning WineRev reminded us that Biden isn’t the first sitting President to be shivved by New York newspapermen, and I thought I’d just pop this in here for those who missed it:
"Mr. Lincoln is already beaten. We must have another ticket to save us from utter overthrow. If we had such a ticket as could be made by naming Grant, Butler, or Sherman for President, and Farragut as Vice, we could make a fight yet." Horace Greeley (newspaper editor, future Presidential candidate)
...Not backing Biden, who the union endorsed in 2020, would compound political damage to the Democratic president's reelection bid.
..."No final decision has been made," said Kara Deniz, a spokesperson for the Teamsters, adding that any reporting that suggests an outcome is speculative.
...Teamsters President Sean O'Brien spoke at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday night, where he offered no endorsement but thanked Trump profusely for opening the convention doors to him. He praised the former president as tough and attacked Washington as being run in a way that hurts working people.
...O'Brien is not yet scheduled to speak at the Democratic convention in August.
The Teamsters leader had reached out simultaneously to the Democratic and Republican national committees to speak at their conventions but only heard back from Republicans, Deniz told Reuters.
A person familiar with the planning of the Democratic convention said no final decisions had been made about their programming.
..."This argument may sound so facile that no serious person could possibly propose it," Chait wrote in his column. "But I promise that numerous conservative analysts — professional commentators, not random social-media users — have made this exact claim."
The claim — that Democrats would support murder if they really believed Trump presented an authoritarian threat — has been made by the Daily Wire columnist Matt Walsh, Fox News analyst Rich Lowry and editors of the Washington Free Beacon, Chait reports.
"If Trump is really an evil supervillain dictator who wants to destroy our system of government or whatever then assassinating him would be morally justified," Walsh wrote. "[Democrats] either have to openly defend this assassination attempt or admit that they’re full of c---."
… As Chait summarized it, "The conservative excuses for authoritarianism keep getting dumber."
From the sandstone cliffs of continental Europe to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, something has been leaving its dazzlingly geometric mark since the dawn of complex life. Despite finding thousands of these perfect honeycomb-shaped fossils, however, scientists are completely baffled as to what type of creature could possibly have been producing the patterns for such an unimaginably long time.
Amazingly, the earliest known record of these bizarre shapes can be found in Leonardo Da Vinci’s Paris Manuscript I. Amongst a series of sketches of marine fossils sits a drawing of a connected grid of perfect hexagons, which scientists later linked to an ancient creature called Paleodictyon nodosum.
The first physical traces of this enigmatic organism were discovered in sedimentary rocks that once sat at the bottom of an ocean during the Eocene, some 55 to 35 million years ago. Consisting of a net-like series of tunnels and shafts that link up to form honeycomb arrangements, P. nodosum has now been found in dried-up sediments across Europe, with the oldest specimens having been dated to the Cambrian Period, roughly 500 million years ago.
...What all this means is that we have absolutely no idea what is generating these mesmerizing patterns, which appear to have been in continual production for around 500 million years. We still don’t even know if the net-like arrangements are burrows or the imprint of some sponge-like creature.
Sorry, I didn’t have much uplifting or cute in this OND. How are you guys keeping it together? Let’s share some inspiration in the comments!
The crew of the Overnight News Digest consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, jeremybloom, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Rise above the swamp, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) eeff, Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw