The purpose of the canary in the coal mine is two-fold: to live and presumably sing as long as things are going well, reassuring the others in the same space; and if things aren’t, to die and warn others before they suffer the same fate. We have numerous portents and omens and warnings every day that things are not well with the republic. Craig Robertson kind of fits the bill as canary.
We don’t know much about the guy the FBI decided to kill this week in Utah, but they knew it was defensible, and they knew their masters in Washington would approve.
Robertson is what happens when Walter Mitty meets social media. We do know seventy-five year old Robertson was, according to neighbors, “overweight,” “walked with a cane,” and was “frail of health.” We do know he posted on Fakebook his ridiculous fantasies of sniping Biden in his camouflage Ghillie suit, and even posted a photo of himself on the ground looking like an old fat guy covered with a clump of hay. We do know he posted fantasies, ranging from unlikely to impossible to execute, of seeing Manhattan D.A. and California governor Gavin Newsome on the ground bleeding out from head wounds delivered by his “9 millimeter.” He even referenced his M24 sniper rifle, all in a display of some kind of “gear porn.” An M24 is known to hunters and shooters as a Remington 700 rifle. Nothing magical. Please.
Did this clown need to be arrested? Uh, yeah. Clowns with guns making threats against individuals need to be arrested. Did the FBI need to stage an early morning raid? Probably not, but they do like the theater for the blood-thirsty blue-coastal elites. Justifies that war on “white supremacists,” otherwise known as white people. And we do know he was a self-described “MAGA Trumper,” which we know from thousands of posts by the “right people” merits the death penalty, no trial required. Tim Ryan, Dem former senator: “kill and confront” the MAGA movement; REDDIT post: “kill MAGA people;” and on, and on.
There is a law against threatening a president, and it applies no matter how much that president threatens the citizens he rules, I mean, represents. Normally, however, the crime of assault, threatening someone with physical violence, requires the apprehension that the person making the threat, and the intended victim, actually has the reasonable expectation of real violence. If I threaten to punch someone in the face, on the telephone, a thousand miles away, there is no real threat there. If I’m in the same room, it’s a different situation. This caution does not apply to the FBI, who can kill you because they say so. Just set up the right situation. Arrive before dawn with your assault team (with assault rifles, oh my!) at the residence of a man who is evidently unhinged, and kill him when he reacts as anticipated. Containment? Not necessary? Contact by a negotiator? Who needs that? We’re the FBI, and we are the unimpeachable secret police. Catch Robertson when he leaves the house, on an empty stretch of road? Catch him at the gas station? Set up cameras so that you can know when he leaves home to shoot the president? You know, the way responsible law enforcement does? Not sexy at all.
So, arrest Robertson? Sure, but, going all the way back to Bill Clinton and Waco, the FBI really really loves a good raid. As with David Koresh, who regularly went into town, and had met with the local sheriff on more than one occasion when complaints arose, couldn’t the FBI have just arrested Koresh on the street, avoiding a barricaded situation with a lot of weapons and a lot of potential innocent victims (women and children)? Yes, they could have, but what fun would that have been?
So, when the FBI sends agents with rifles and up-armored vehicles, even a boat, for cat’s sake, and over twenty armed men to arrest an almost seventy year old (Roger Stone) who is unarmed, to serve an arrest warrant for a non-violent crime, when you could have just told his attorney to have him turn himself in, or when you send a SWAT team to the former president’s house over a records dispute, you know you’re watching political theater.
Craig Robertson, evidently one of the more volatile, that is to say, weak, indicators of the toxic atmosphere of the coal mine with his insane rants, was nevertheless helpful. You know, everyone knows, the air is getting foul, and now that this canary has fallen over, I wonder, who are they coming for next?
Great article Gary. Do I sense a little sarcasm?
God bless you, Dave
Pretty much always, Dave.