Also media.
This is it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis and joined with James Stout. We planned a more silly intro and then decided not to do it due to the intense nature of the topic today.
Yeah, so today we're going to discuss the assassinations of the Minnesota Democrat farm labor leader Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, and the attempted murder of Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman and his wife effect. So, if you don't prefer to listen to topics like that, now will be the time to gep this one. If you're not familiar with this topic, I guess the news cycle has been pretty hectic, but no.
This one's been memory hold really quickly.
Yeah, considering we had just a straight up political assassination, but that is what this was, and it was less than a month ago. I don't really see people talking about it. I don't see it being reported on that much. I understand that the news cycle has been insane, but so is this. So we're going to talk about it. So just to give you if this has somehow passed
you by or you've forgotten about it. In the very early morning of the fourteenth of June, Minnesota DFL Democrat Party in Minnesota is called the Democrat Farm Labor Party. You can interchange it with Democrat, be bluffed and do so. Minnesota DFL leader Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were fatally shot along with their dog shortly before State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette, had also been shot, with a vet protecting her daughter from the bullets by
diving on top of her. According to one account, a man called Vance Belter it pronounced Belter. I've watched a video of him saying his name, but it's spelled b o e l t e er. If you're a searching about this online, had banged on their door, impersonating a cop and then asked if there were guns in the house. When they opened the door, he claimed a shooting had
been reported at their residence. At that point, if Vett noticed that he was wearing a silicone mask he had which referred to in the affidavit I read as a hyperrealistic silicon mask, and they confronted him about this, saying you're not a cop, and at that point he began shooting at them. It appears that he shot both of them eight or nine times with a nine milimeters pistol and then fled the scene in his Ford Escape suv,
which he had made up to look like a cop car. Right, He had a police looking a light bar in there. He had bought some supplies apparently at a fleet farm to change the license plate to make it look like the license plate said police. After that, he left the scene of at first shooting and they said it his daughter called nine one one. That was the first time the police were alerted. So he went garrison, you were telling me. He went to another public officials house who
was on vcation. Is that right?
He went to two people's houses in between the next actual shooting. Yeah, one of them. He stopped at the house of a local state representative who was on vacation. He then moved on to another person's house where he was confronted by a police officer.
And he during this time that the police officer noticed a white man and what they assume as a squad car. And this person wouldn't talk to the cop, just kept looking straight ahead and not.
Speaking like a normal human.
Yeah, a very normal I don't know how cops interact with each other, but that doesn't seem normal to me anyway. This cop then proceeded to move towards this second of public officials house and ignore the guy in a cop car in a silicon mask who wouldn't say a word. I guess that prevented that second public official from being targeted, correct, And that's when Bolt moved on to the Hortman home.
It seems like local cops, when they heard that there had been shooting at the Hoffman residence, went to check on other DFL politicians. This includes that incident that I just related to you, but also at the Hortman home. When the cops arrived at a Hortman home, they found a police looking suv in the driveway with red and blue lights on, and what looked like a cop in the doorway of the house. They confronted him. He seems
to have fired through the door. I'm a little unclear on the exact timeline in the next minute of this, but at some point they confront him. At some point he shoots through the door. He then enters the house and kills both the people inside as well as their dog. The police engage him and he flees through the back of the house. The police then enter the house and drag out Mark Cortman, who had been shot through the door, and they attempted to do CPR, but they were unable
to save him. They then and established a perimeter and entered a house with a drone and that it just a drone that finds Melissa Hortman's remains. She's also dead. In the vehicle that he abandoned, they found several AK pattern rifles, a notebook with other targets, and also in the notebook he'd written the online search tools he'd used to find these addresses, the different like online people searches, data brokeer websites, data brokers away. I'm like, oh, thank you. Yeah.
He remained on the run throughout that day and the next. During that time, he purchased an e bike and an old buick with cash from his bank account, which he emptied on Sunday, So the next day, authorities found the car in the afternoon. In the car, he had left a letter addressed to the FBI admitting his crimes. He was then spotted by somebody on a game camera or a trail camera, and shortly after that he was located by a drone and then he was arrested in a field.
The day before the shooting, he'd turned off his phone and left it in a home depot. Employees the day after the shooting found the phone turned it on. Police tried to raid the home depots. They assumed that he was in the home depot on his phone, and then they realized it was just a phone. I think it was in like an suv or like it was in like a truck bed or a vehicle outside the home depot.
Okay, he just dumped his phone. Yeah. They did also find the location of his wife based on her cell phone. Right, let's just explain a little bit about who this guy is. I guess when we get on to his wife. Yeah, Belter was fifty seven years old. Is fifty seven years old. He's a father of five. As I said, his vehicle, we're going to get into this a bit later, contained another list of targets and included Democrat politicians and abortion providers.
His roommates confirmed that he was a Trump supporter, but they were still very shocked that he did this. In all the interviews I've seen, one of his roommates, David Carlson, said, quote, he kept things inside. He's being kind of down. He was not as upbeat he usually is. He had it seems like a couple of residences, like he would stay somewhere closer to work some of the time.
Yeah, he was renting a room in one of his friend's houses. Yeah, and then he had a larger house outside of town that he was trying to like keep up with payments on.
Yep. And he gave three months of rent in advance to the friend whose room he was renting. And he'll send a messaging baie to his friends. He and his wife were both preppers, and it seems that he sent a text message to his wife that read quote, dad went to war last night. So there was some other stuff in it tube. I thought that part was relevant. She was detained shortly after he began murdering people. In her vehicle. There was a revolver in a semi automatic handgun.
The handgun was in a cooler. I don't know why. She also had ten grand in cash passports, and she seemed to be following their sort of bug out plan, right.
Yeah, they had a quote unquote a bailout plan for like this, like apocalypse prepper scenario that his wife was instructed to carry out shortly after he did the shooting, and he warned his wife that men with guns might be coming to the house soon.
Yeah, his wife has been released.
Right.
There seems to be no suggestion that his wife was She.
Didn't seem to be aware of his plans to do this.
Yeah, it does seem a strange thing to just text someone that men with guns might become at your house and then you immediately leave the house with ten large in cash, your passports, and two hangguns. But who am I to judge?
I guess sometimes preppers are just like that.
Yeah, yeah, right, if you have spent your entire life preparing for the moment when the big bag government's going to come to your house, and I guess you know you've been working up to this for a while. We're in a different mindset. Yeah, talking of mindset, Garrison, I'm in the mindset to buy some things. So let's hear some advertisements.
It sounds like a much happier mindset than the past ten minutes.
Okay, all right, we are back, and I wanted to have a little chat about some of Belta's professional background, because I think some of this has probably been overplayed.
It's certainly confusing because he seemingly had a lot of jobs over the course of his career, some of which were real, some of which were kind of not real, but he tried to make real. Yeah, he's had what they've called, i quote unquote varied career.
Yes, what we're seeing is like LinkedIn manifesting. Right, this
is a thing that middle aged guys especially do. Right, but I've seen it from all kinds of folks, like posting on LinkedIn like you're some kind of C suite executive what you're struggling to make rind Definitely, yeah, And I think LinkedIn is often the first thing that pops up on Google when you startain one's name, and so sometimes these things can be overplayed and are understanding of someone's background, especially when something there's some people who might
not have ocented a lot are trying to ocinth something in the moments after the name of a shooter comes out. Let's talk about his LinkedIn. On LinkedIn, he is listed as the director of security Patrols for a company called Pratorian Guard Security Services. If you afteing a security company, don't call it that because there are so many of them, and many of them I think have been getting unwelcome
attention as they're confused for his company. I did a company search on the Minnesota Registry of Companies there for Pretorian Guard Security Services, and I found it was established in his wife's name in twenty eighteen. On the website says quote once has been involved with security situations in Eastern Europe, Africa, North America, in the Middle East, including the West Bank, Southern Lebanon, and the guards A Strip. He brings a great security aspect forged by both many
on the ground experiences combined with training punctuation. It's just not happening here by both private security firms and people in the US military. He worked for the largest US oil finding company, the world's largest food company based in Switzerland No Comma, and the world's largest convenience retailer based in Japan. First of all, very difficult to read that series of sentences aloud. But involved with security situations is an incredibly vague term.
I mean, like, yeah, he's just listing a number of places that he's been or maybe not even been, right like texting someone because he has been to I think most of these places, Okay, I can find him in Gaza is there. There's yes, No, he has been, and I'll get to that in a second. So he's certainly been to these places. He has not necessarily worked security in all these places, right, And he has worked with
companies that he's alluding to here. He may be kind of exaggerating or talking about them in a grand jaz fashion, but he has worked for a lot of food industry companies over the course of his career, which we'll get to in a sec He also started an earlier security company in nineteen ninety nine that shut down around two thousand and nine. Similarly did not seem to like really do very well, and it was kind of more of like a side hustle. Yeah, as he was working at
these different food companies. So this wasn't the first kind of like sort of fake security company that he started, nor was it the last a fake security company that he started.
So I was cruising the Portraying Guide website which someone had archived, and so there are like four tiers of membership, so membership based.
Model, subscription service security.
Yeah, Iron, Bronze, Silver, and gold with options maybe the platinum. I don't recall. He uses his PhD, which we can get onto at some point. But what was more interesting to me was that they have a series of quote unquote red lines on the website, things that customers cannot expect him to change or compromise write their integral day's business, and part of that was quote we offer armed security. If you're looking for unarmed guards, please work with another service to meet your needs better.
He only works with the arms theecurity, no unarmed security.
Right. Yeah, if I'm not carrying guns, I'm not doing it, which kind of seem he wants to pretend to be a cop. We drive the same make and model of vehicles at many police departments due to the US Currently we drive Ford Explorer utility vehicles. He also has a big thing about how they wear the most up to date body armor and they won't not wear body armor.
ACAB includes the Ford Explorer once again.
Yeah, this stuff really kind of illustrates I think what he was in it for, which is to dress up like a cop and do cop shit. The website Coffee is incredibly generic and very poorly written. The photos are like we're talking MS paint tier photoshopping on here. Yeah.
Now, he just loved making websites. I've looked through maybe like five of this guy's websites. He specifically, I know previously in the twenty like Ronto is and eleven, he specifically paid a website designer in Jerusalem to be in support of Israel, to design a number of his websites.
And by twenty twenty three, Praetorian Guard Security Services had yet to secure any clients at all in its entire history as a company, which his wife blamed COVID for, saying that they were just trying to get this business up and running and then COVID hit and then it kind of all fell apart.
Let me tell you, there has never been a place in human history where there was more demand for private security services than Minnesota.
In twenty twenty twenty.
I have seen outrageous day rates paid to private security consultants in Minneapolis in twenty twenty. I had a whole article that that we never ended up publishing about this. But I think it's fair to say that if you couldn't start it up there, then you ain't started it up anywhere. The lowest rate, just for reference, was six to ninety five a month.
Iron membership six one hundred and ninety five dollars a month for the lowest membership.
They'll like pop round your house a couple of times a month. Was was basically what you got for that, and then you had access to upgrade your protection level if civil and occurred.
Basically, oh thank goodness.
Yeah.
Yeah, this guy was kind of like a crank, and as we'll see, he's like he's both like a cop LARPer a bit of a crank and a Pentecostal evangelical. Yeah, and it's much to put all these pieces together. You can immediately identify what type of guy this is.
Yeah, Like one of the things I do just sort of periodically is check in on like right prepper culture, right.
Like God's holiest warrior here.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's absolutely people who have like a a print of a picture of a crusader somewhere in the home or perhaps a statuette. Yeah.
He literally called it the Praetorian Guard, Like, yeah, no.
Is this guy probably uh maybe he might own an actual Gladius. It's a decent chance. So, yeah, this is a type of guy, and we'll continue to build that profile for you here. David Carson, his roommate, said of the company quote, it wasn't a reality. It was like a goal he had, but it was never realized. He bought a couple of cars and maybe some uniforms. It was never a real company. There's some more documents I'm going to order from the Minnesota REDI story of companies,
just just to scope amount. But I think this was basically another failed business venture, right. He from twenty twenty three to twenty twenty five was working for a funery services provider. He posted a video it seems to be an introduction for some kind of business class. I believe he was enrolled in some community college classes.
He took a few like online mortuary science classes as well.
Yeah, because that's what he was doing. Right. So, he's working full time at Wolf Funery Home and then also at something called Metro First Call, which was another funeral services provider. He does mention in some detail that he works with police in that video of Dooks about how he works with police when he's removing the remains of deceased people. Right, it might be someone who just died
or their death may have been violent. The second security company that he claimed to be the CEO of listed on his LinkedIn again was called the Red Lion Group along with a dead URL.
Which is more than just security company too. I think, yeah, it did fishing. Actually kind of was trying to be a sort of humanitarian company or like, yeah, nonprofit charity. I'll get to it more later.
Yeah, in a model of the old the Gaza model, I guess kind of yeah, actually yeah, yeah, no, I mean yeah. The URL was registered for Redline in twenty twenty three. According to who is lookup, I did while he was working for the Funery Company. Right, he appears to have done a few things or given a few accounts of what he was doing in Africa. A local farmer he had told he was relaying modern farming techniques
to people in Congo. I've spent a decent about my life in agriculture, Like, farming is quite different in Congo and Minnesota. Actually, unless I guess there's something they could learn. He also talked about helping with food supply systems. He talked about running this company s Garrison is going to cover in more detail. He also did some evangelical preaching a Presbyterian who's a Presbyterian?
Right?
Quick correction.
In the first copy of this eppisode, we incorrectly called him a Presbyterian. He is in fact a Pentecostal. I mixed up my Christian pa words. John Calvin will still pay, but yes, this is a Pentecostal evangelical.
He says in his video that he and his wife first went to Congo alone without employee support to help with food services. On his LinkedIn page, he wrote, I have been doing projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo in Central Africa for the last three years with Red Lion Group. Just to be clear, he wasn't located in DRC for all of that time, but he seems to have taken several trips there, maybe on his time off
and working at a funery home. He seems to have taken some mission trips in twenty eighteen to twenty twenty three timeframe. From what I can work out, it.
Seems like most of his trips there were mostly for missionary work, and specifically he picked up these jobs at the funeral homes to pay for this while also trying to get this company off the ground in the Congo. In archive version of the Redline website states that they specialize in food production and that they are quote working on building the first modular oil refinery in the Democratic Republic of Congo, developing a logging company, and have one
of the only glass manufacturing facilities in the entire country. Unquote. They later say, quote, job creation is our number one goal. Profits are important, but that has always been and always will be our number two goal. But even if profit isn't there in the end for Red Lion, but if we were able to create good jobs that can be self sustained by the project, where people can support themselves and their families, then that is good enough for us. Unquote.
He has an interesting way of saying words there.
Yeah, you don't need a high level criminologist to find out what this guy wrote, like, it'd be pretty obvious, pretty obvious if he wrote his own manifesto, etc.
So, yeah, it's a company that was trying to do everything and actually kind of did nothing.
I'm aware of a Red Lion group operation in that area, but it's not linked to his name. There are US probably people as part of private security companies doing private security work in the DRC, mostly around mind right, So we're protecting infrastructure and employees and a lot of Israelis kicking around as well in that area.
Many such cases.
Yeah, and there will be front groups right that allow. I mean a lot of the like straked up mercenary fighters who you're finding Congo are from Romania. People remember a bunch of them were captured in Kiva recently. And like there will sometimes be American or other global North companies that are essentially passed throughs for those No.
I'm sure this like former like middle manager at food like industry companies was not doing PMSC work in the Congo. Yeah, that's just not true.
He was. They're like preaching, Yeah, exactly, And I think he yet again, right, he aspired to do cool guy gunshit, and this was an attempt to do cool guy gunshit in twenty twenty five. He went to the DC earlier this year apparently again to try and get this business going, when he had purchased a fishing boat again like a diversification. Yeah, he failed. I guess some arm groups will exercise and
control of the area he wanted to presumably fishing. Not surprising, feels like he's not really engaging with this as an expert. Might The failure of this seems to have had a negative impact on his mental health. And then just just to I guess wrap up on his mental well being, and then where he's at right now. Since his arrest, Belta has complained several times about jail conditions. He says lights around twenty four hours a day, he's constantly working
by loud noises. He doesn't have a pillow. A court appearance, he said he had slept in nearly two weeks, which obviously is not good for the human body. I think it's a lot of called. Sheriff detaining him said that, like, it's disgusting that he's made himself the victim here. So he's been charged federally, right, and the federal charges will
come first, and then any state charges will come. The DOJS was the interesting in getting involved here because of the imitation of a police officer, because these are clearly politically motivated assassinations, right, and they can see the death penalty federally. I don't know if they will, but I
don't know if they can do that in Minnesota. Since his arrest, he has also waived at attention hearing, saying that he wanted to get to court faster to quote from him here, that gets us to court faster where the truth can come out. Quote. I think Minnesotans want to know what's going on, Yes, they do. His court
appearance could be interesting. Yeah, should we, Garrison, talking of interesting, take a break to hear about some interesting products and services that people might like to avail themselves off.
I think we shall. All right, we're back. Let's talk a little bit at least briefly mentioned some of the conspiracy theories regarding this fella, and then we'll get into some of his religious background and kind of fill in the gaps from these many different business ventures he's tried to get up and running. So, James, what kind of theories do people have out in the world about what's really going on here?
There have been a few, Garrison. One of their tweld ones was said he was a Democrat, which is not a page to be true, to have any evidence of that.
No, he did not politically register to parties for the past eight years, but had supported Trump and wrote in twenty eighteen that the upcoming election was the most important one of their lifetimes, which, to be fair, many people also said.
Yeah, and have said for every election since.
But he has a conservative Christian evangelical who has supported Trump seemingly his main political motivating factor was abortion. Yeah, as we will get into more shortly. No, not a Democrat, not a Democrat, but he works for Tim Waltz. This is not Tim Wall's the strongest soldier. I'm sorry, Fellows, it's not true.
The reason the Democrat theory, one of the reasons behind the Democrat theory continuing to spread is that US Senator Might Lee shared.
It right, Yeah, in an unhinged rant.
Yeah, maybe I'll to pull out that tweet really quick. Lee has since taken down his tweet his seat, but in the seat he posted they're on Wall Street with the picture of Belt.
Another Lee post, and that's Walls the street. To clarify for those who do not speak British.
Esp functionally, Garrison there from Canada where they understand both British and American English.
Well, actually we speak in native Minnesotan.
I think you are. You are uniquely equipped. Lee also posted quote, this is what happened when Mark's don't get their way, with another picture of Belter.
Yeah, sitting US senator calling this guy like Mike Walls, like Marxist super soldier. None of this is true. Now, Belter had been appointed to serve on a State Economic Board back in twenty sixteen by then Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton, one of the surviving victims of the shooting. S Senator John Hoffman also served on this board. But this board had forty one members. It's unclear if the two actually
ever interacted or knew each other. It seems unlikely. They only met a few times a year as a group, and most of that's been online the past few years, so you're basically just joining a zoom call. We do not think that Vance Belter and Senator John Hoffman actually interacted on this board. Now, Tim Walls later reappointed Belter because he just served on the board already for four years, so it's not like this was a big political appointee.
This was an economic advisory board because Belter had worked for a lot of different corporations, So this is really not a real connection. Walls did not know this guy, and certainly this guy was not a Marxist, nor was it carrying out orders from a future Lieutenant Commander of the Midwest, Tim Walls and the People's the People's Army of the Midwest Western America. What's actually going on here is that instead of being a Marxist, this guy is
a pretty bog standard evangelical. Bilter got a diploma in quote Practical theology in Leadership and Pastoral from the Christ for the Nation's Institute in Dallas back in nineteen ninety who was ordained in nineteen ninety three. Instead of security consulting work, it seems most of his overseas travel was actually missionary work. Starting nineteen ninety three, Bolter and his
wife ran a Christian nonprofit called The Reformation Ministries. According to Federal tax records version of this ministry's website archive from twenty eleven says that Bolter travels to Gaza and the West Bank during the Second Intifada, where he quote sought out militant Islamists in order to share the Gospel and tell them that violence wasn't the answer unquote. There's a lot of things to unpack there. Evidently this guy eventually determined that violence was the answer.
So right, yeah, it's some simile hypocritical.
Certainly actually took a took a note from the militants. In the end, it does seem like he was traveling in the Middle East in the nineties. This does seem to be true. In twenty and six, he self published a Christian book called original Ability Can man Obey God? Unfortunately I have not been able to locate a copy of
this book. It seems to not really exist online. Many such cases as a self published Christian book from twos and six that this was before you could use like you know, Amazon publishing as readily as you do now now all of the Crank book I can easily buy on Amazon the day after shooting. Not the case for this now. Bolter did work in the food industry. It worked for Johnsonville Sausage Gerber seven to eleven, and this
was what he did for most of his career. CNN claims that in twenty twenty one, he quit his job and started traveling to the Democratic Republic of Congo more frequently to do missionary work and with the express interest in solving hunger. Friends say that after quitting his job, he started putting more of his money into these bizarre startup businesses like security work and this fishing company in
the Congo. A friend who asked to remain anonymous told CNN quote, I was more on the side of, hey, buddy, this doesn't sound right. It's irresponsible to quit your job and now you're burning through cash. It just made no sense to me. Unquote.
I guess we should addressed the name of that company as a conspiracy that I'd forgotten Garrison.
Oh good, Oh, another conspiracy just dropped in.
Some of the herald reassociated with the non existent state of Rhodesia are red lions. I don't see any particular evidence that is where he got his red line from. I think from the Crusades and the heraldry associated with that is much more likely given what you've just outlined. Yeah, that makes sense to me as well. He doesn't strike me as like I'm sure this person probably wasn't like woke, but like his whole thing is not racist.
Evidently not. Actually we can say for certain this guy that work.
Okay, yeah, yeah, not woke confirmed, But he's not like a massive racist, Like he's not no, like that's not his main motivating factor here. Yes, No, he's not the next last Rhodesion.
He's he's racist in the way that all Christian missionaries who go to countries full of not white people are racist, but not in like the neo Nazi Rhodesian way.
Yeah.
Now, his friend and roommate to David Carlson told scene end quote the problem is he quit all his jobs to go down there. Then he comes back and tries to find new jobs. Wasn't working out too good? Quote that's saying mildly. Yeah. As recently it's twenty twenty three, Belter was still preaching evangelical sermons in the Congo. In one sermon uploaded to YouTube, he attacked game trans people, saying quote, the enemy has gotten so far into their
mind and their soul. In another sermon, he preached against churches that affirmed a woman's right to choose and said quote, God will raise an apostle or prophet to correct their course. God is going to raise apostles and prophets in America to correct his church. Unquote interesting, which might sound a little weird or violent if you're unfamiliar with this style of preaching. But this is frankly very common. This is the common all across this country or like America. Like,
this is a very normal style of preaching. That's not good, right, that's not saying it's good, But that's that's why so much of you know, the megabased and Republicans are like that. It's because this is what they go to listen to every Sunday. Yeah tired found in his now deleted Facebook that he liked and followed several other evangelical and pentecostal missionary organizations that target countries in Africa, as well as the anti abortion ANTILGBTQ legal advocacy group the ADF the
Alliance Defending Freedom Now. As horrifying as what happened on the Saturday of the shooting, this was just a little bit of what he had planned. In his vehicle. There was a list of over seventy named political targets, like Minnesota politicians Tim Walls and Elana mar This list included other Democratic politicians from Wisconsin and Ohio, one from Texas. The list also included abortion rights activists as well as
current and former Minnesota Planned Parenthood staff. This was primarily a shooting directed at people and organizations that he saw as being pro abortion. This is the main motivating factor that we can tell so far. This is the thing that links all of these people together.
I think he failed into that model of anti abortion terrorism quite neatly. Yeah, just like the Olympic bombing. Now flyers with information on the No King's protests later that day were also found in the car, with those rallies being another possible target for violence. Things did not go that way because he was intercepted by police, probably earlier than he expected.
Now. In the home that he was renting, police found more notebooks and handwritten lists of names and home addresses of quote, numerous in Minnesota public officials. This includes Portman's home, which he wrote has a quote big house off golf course, two ways in unquote. So he was making notes on the homes of targets, how to get in them, the surrounding area. He was familiar with these areas.
Concerning to me actually that like these people, I did notice that the California Assembly has recently tried to authorize spending of more campaign funds on private security for legislators. But like some of these people are relatively high up in the Minnesota DFL, others working for Planned parenthood. The person that was killed was the top state Democrats. Yeah, an extremely serious person in state politics. Yeah, that their addresses is that easily searchable is scary. Uh, I'm worried
for them. I'm sure that this will provoke a change of people's security practices.
Yeah, I mean we've been warning that things like this were down the pipe for years, and.
For abortion providers, like this has been the case for decades exactly.
This has already been a This has already been something that you can threat models reality. And as for targeting democratic politicians, there's hundreds and hundreds of posts of Republicans and conservatives frothing at the mouth that the idea of killing democratic politicians, Yeah, that's what they wanted to do on January sixth. This isn't like an unforeseen event.
It's kind of a logical conclusion to the way we've been traveling for a long time.
Yeah, this is an extremely predictable aspect of our politics now, and at least for Belter, Like it's pretty clear now to investigators that he was researching targets and planning this for months. Yeah, like this this wasn't like a snap of the moment decision, like he just like went crazy one night, Like he was wanting to do something like this for a long time and had put months of planning on work into it.
Yeah, he had a series of silicon masks, right, he ditched them. After he ditched his first mask, after the first shooting, he disassembled his handgun and ditched that in various parts after the first shooting, he had a series of weapons he was planning on moving along to. He had a police vest, he had a taser to appear more like a cop.
Police badge, Yep, a.
Badge to appear more like a cop. I heard a press conference where I think it's probably the chief of police said, if he was standing with us, you would assume he was another cop. Right, Like, he'd got a long way, yeah, into planning this and clearly as a model a threat that the police had modeled too. Right, because they immediately responded to other Democrat politicians' homes or quickly responded to the politicians' homes.
How quick the police response was to other people's homes who were not like immediately evident were the ones under attack is pretty notable.
Yeah, it is notable, and like it probably saved more people's lives. Yeah, because this guy he had a GPS device a garment like an old school you know, there's little GPS's used to garrison. This may not have occurred in your lived experience. Used to be able to buy a GPS that you'll put on the dashboard of your vehicle. Yeah, and you can put addresses into there. I'm getting I've used, I've used. Okay, okay, yeah, Garrison, old Garrison, get in
the get in the replies. If you are Jen Alpha and you don't know what that is, would make Garrison feel old.
Oh no, we do have Gen Alpha listeners now, damn.
Yeah, yeah we do. Yeah, carrying them to the jungle buddy.
Yeah, but no, he was. He was playing this for a while. Like in his main home outside the city, police found forty seven guns and twenty thousand dollars in cash.
Why I didn't take his cash?
Well, I think this is like a prepper type thing. He was arrested near his home, so he was probably honest way back there to grab shit and then like get out, continue to buy.
Yeah, and he bought that e bike, Like I think that's probably how his fangs travel. I think he used the GPS right, because it's not traceable like a phone is. He drained his bank account and met someone at a bus stop and bought the e bike off them, and then found out he had a car and went took the bus back and bought that car. Like he was trying to get a car that wasn't traceable to him.
Is what he's trying to do, right, and he's trying to get the e bike, which is a vehicle that allows him to travel kind of off road and not be detectable. He really thought this out and like it could have been a lot worse.
I guess, yeah, this is this is all I had on here. I guess The last thing we will want to talk about before we closed is just like how really how it relates to like the general political temperature at that moment. Yeah, we've had like a series of assassinations or targeted assassinations, attempted assassinations in the past year, Like the Trump assassination attempt was less than a year ago. Yeah, obviously, Luigi Mangioni.
With the second Trumpet assassination attempt, yep.
You had the man who tried to burn down Joshapiro's home, someone.
Tried to burn down Nathan Fletcher's home in San Diego.
Like this is just something that happens now. You can even look at things like the shooting of the two Israel embassy staffers like, ye, this style of assassination kind of went away for a while, and then I think really around shinzo Abe, you started to see this spread throughout the world and now America as a strategy that siphons away people who maybe would have done a mass shooting are now doing stuff like this, But it's also attracting a whole new base of people, people who would
actually never do a mass shooting. Instead can direct a level of animosity in this direction. Yeah, it's people who think they are the good guys in this way. The people doing mass shootings, I think tend not to think they're the good guys. They just kind of you know that. We don't need to dive into the motivation to mass
shooters here. Yeah, but there's like rejecting society and nihilistic display vihilism, Yeah, exactly, Whereas this is not that this is someone who thinks that they're striking a blow for good and against evil. Now this is ideological. This is like spiritual warfare.
Yeah, we're going to keep tracking what he says in court because I think that will tell us a lot more about this. We'll find out like what I assume he wants to use his like use the court as a pulpit right from which ways to preach, which to share his views, because he's admitted to doing this in this letter to the FBI, and it was very obviously him, So that will be very telling. It will be a while before we see this guy in court. Nearly all
federal prosecutions and implea deals. If they I don't know if they will pushure the death penalty, but he might be able to pleat that down to life in prison,
So he might end up doing that. But at this point seems determined to have a trial, and so we will probably see a grand jury indictment and then a trial, right So, I think part of the reason there have been so many conspiracy theories about his particularly his pre security consulting, particularly in the DRC, is that for so many Americans, to include people who go there to preach, often Africa in general and the DRC in particular, they see it through the same lens as Joseph contracted as
this heart of darkness, this place where things are two hundred years behind and everyone is quote unquote. I'm using these terms because these people would use them because I believe they are true. Many friends from Congo, like Congolese people, that they think people there are primitive and backwards that need to be like uplifted, civilized and Christianized right, and that is reflected in our media, where you cannot write about Africa other than from an extremely condescending perspective. In
this country. Is someone who covers conflict as someone who's covered terrorism. You know, the Islamic State is a life and well in Africa, but you wouldn't know it if you even if you read front to back cover of most of the major dailies every day, because Africa is seen as a country, not a continent by far too many people, including in the media in this country. And I think that is what has led to some of
these kind of spiraling conspiracies about his work there. And it's something we in the media need to address because it will only become more relevant on the global stage, I think in the next few years.
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