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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024

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Isn't this the same broad who was literally cowering behind Trump and the other agents piled onto him instead of forming part of the scrum?

I honestly hadn't noticed that, and it's damning as hell.

Even then, it depends on whether she was even supposed to be jumping in. Close protection officers will have designated roles in the event of an attack. Some will be tasked with covering/moving the principal. Others will be tasked with looking for exits/shooters. It's hard to tell from that angle but she may be looking past the scrum, and be in charge of telling them which way to move. It's hard to do that from inside the scrum itself. And your sniper teams are probably going to be occupied with putting down the target.

Source: I've never been important enough to warrant close protection, but I have travelled extensively with people who have, so I have talked to them a fair bit. Not the Secret Service, but the idea remains similar. Not everyone is supposed to dive on the principal.

Without knowing what her specific task was, we have no way of judging if she was doing it well or not.

She appears to be in a defensive crouch, away from her VIP, with no weapon presented. She appears to be in the exact opposite of an aggressive posture. And again, I'm open to further evidence, but that picture looks real, real bad.

The gunman was what over a 100 yards away with a rifle on a roof, having her side arm out doesn't help. Again, it may be correct that she was not doing what she was supposed to, but there is an awful lot of armchair quarterbacking going on, when we have no idea what her role was supposed to be.

At that moment as well as the snipers there are at least 2 rifle armed officers just below/ to the sides of the podium, who run up while Trump is still being covered.

If her job was to direct the cover and tell them when to move, then she may well be exactly where she was supposed to be. If her job was to dive in front of Trump then she wasn't. But we don't know.

The gunman was what over a 100 yards away with a rifle on a roof, having her side arm out doesn't help.

If they were expecting an Iranian attack, they need to be assuming a team with layered offense, not a lone wolf. (and probably should be at least considering that regardless -- isn't this the whole point of the close protection part of the team?)

(I think the Iran think is some weird lie personally, but you never know I guess)

Sure, it could have been. My point is we don't know what the close protection element knew when and what their preplanned positions and roles were. Was she the coordinator in which case her position there might be fine but she messed up on the roof issue, or should she be in the cover team, or the fire tram, or whatever. There is simply too much we don't know.