From TDS to 23-person assination plots

FBI arrests 5 people in connection with drone attack plot against White House UFC Freedom 250 event

The FBI thwarted an explosive drone attack against Sunday’s UFC Freedom 250 event on the White House South Lawn and have already taken five suspects into custody, it was revealed Tuesday.

The multi-phase terror attack allegedly involved using explosive-laden drone aircraft to strike buildings in the vicinity of the event, sparking mass panic and driving the fleeing crowd toward a sniper team poised to pick them off, officials told Fox News Digital.

The bureau learned of the plot on June 10 and executed a search warrant in Cincinnati, where the first arrest was made.

Upon investigating a suspect’s iPhone, authorities found at least 23 users of encrypted chat app Signal involved in discussing parameters of what could have been a devastating terror attack in the heart of the nation’s capital.

A suspect told investigators the goal of the attack was to target “capitalist elites,” “billionaires” and politicians who received money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), according to the outlet.

And:

A law enforcement source told CBS News that law enforcement became aware of the threat after a relative contacted them, concerned that a family member was talking about doing something nefarious in Washington, D.C. 

The tip eventually led to the arrest of an Ohio man and the discovery of an informal network of individuals discussing a plot on a Signal chat. Others were taken into custody as the investigation continued.

All of which only makes Matt Margolis’s column of yesterday even more timely:

Trump Derangement Syndrome Is the Defining Pathology of Our Time

Anne Schedeen, who played family matriarch Kate Tanner on ALF during the show’s short run, died at age 77. Her family announced the news Sunday in a statement on Facebook. And the statement said something that stopped me cold.

"It is with the heaviest of hearts that we share Annie has passed peacefully," the statement read. "She leaves behind an extraordinary legacy of creative energy, whip smart humor, delight in her family, adoration for little dogs, burning hatred for Trump, passion for second-hand thrifting, and love for a good story. We are bereft without her. We loved her so so much, as did all who met her."

That’s what her family decided to include in her obituary: that she had a ” burning hatred for Trump." Right there between the little dogs and the thrift shopping.

Look, people can hate Trump. That's their right. I've never lost sleep over the fact that half the country disagrees with me about the guy. But imagine this being the defining quality your family chooses to broadcast in the announcement of your death. Someone in that family thought, "You know what would really honor Mom? Letting everyone know she hated Trump." And not a single person in the room said, “Maybe we leave that part out.”

That's the part that gets me. Grief makes people say things. But this wasn't a slip. Someone drafted it. Someone else read it. Multiple people approved it. And they all decided that her hatred toward one man deserved a spot alongside her love for her own family.

Make no mistake about it, this is what Trump Derangement Syndrome looks like.

Last year, Manhattan-based psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert explained to Fox News host Harris Faulkner that the symptoms he sees from Trump-obsessed patients go far beyond ordinary political frustration. "This is a profound pathology, and I would even go so far to call it the defining pathology of our time," Alpert said. He added that patients often reveal their feelings about the president within "probably five minutes" of sitting down. "People are obsessed with Trump, they're fixated, they're hyper-fixated on Trump," he said. The symptoms, he explained, frequently mirror clinical anxiety and OCD. "They can't sleep, they feel traumatized by Mr. Trump, they feel restless." One patient, Alpert recalled, couldn't enjoy a vacation because seeing Trump on her phone made her feel "triggered."

…. That pattern should worry people far more than it does. The left spent four years treating George W. Bush like a war criminal and fascist. Then John McCain became the new Hitler in 2008. Then Mitt Romney in 2012. And something curious happened over time. Bush, McCain, and Romney each saw their reputations with the left quietly improve the moment a new Republican threat arrived. 

The left has decided that despising Republicans is a core part of its identity. Trump just happens to be the current target. Whoever comes after him will inherit the rage. The cycle always starts again. One day, the left will be nostalgic for Donald Trump.