Glenn: It's time for a reboot

On Thursday's Glenn Beck Program, Glenn explained why the world is in need a reset... but it's not as scary as you may think. Using the metaphor of attempting to reboot an old computer, Glenn showed why 'rebooting' the system might be exactly what America needs. How do we do that? Glenn offers some solutions in the clip below.

The below is the transcript for Glenn's monologue:

We brought this old dusty computer up here, and it’s amazing how slow our computers used to be.  This is an old one from the studio that has just been kind of sitting around.  When was the last time you use one like this?

Alright, I have this here for a reason, because this is the American system.  This is what we have.  Some would say that it’s old, it’s antiquated, it’s not working, blah, blah, blah.  But just a few changes need to be made.  I’ll get back to this here in a second.

First, earlier on this program, earlier this week, we mentioned the story of Madison Root, an 11-year-old girl from Oregon who wanted to help pay for her braces that her parents got her, so she came up with the idea to go to her uncle’s farm and to gather mistletoe which they grow there, put them into bags.  And so she did, and then she started selling them on the street in Oregon.  Great idea, right?  Except that’s not what the town said.

The town decided that they had to shut her down because she didn’t have the proper license or permit.  She’s 11, and they came and said you have to stop.  The town wouldn’t allow her to sell.  They actually told her, because she said what about the people over here that are begging?  And they said well, you can beg.  You just can’t sell.

You can’t sell in the marketplace, okay.  Well, it was the word “marketplace” that caught my ear when I heard the story because I have a marketplace, TheBlaze Marketplace.  Here’s the update to the story.  I had her on this morning, and I asked her if she would sell 1,000 of those.  Well, because of what she said – I’m going to play it for you in a minute – because of what she said and who she is, she sold those 1,000 mistletoes in 30 minutes.

So we called her back and said do you want to do another 1,000?  Do you have another 1,000?  Yeah, within an hour, those were sold out.  We called her up again, and she said I don’t know if we can get these out.  Her dad said we can get another 1,000 out – sold out again.  God bless America.  This isn’t about money.  This isn’t about anything, except someone being exceptional, someone saying I want to work for it.

Now, obviously she has exceptional parents.  We haven’t talked to the parents, but I did talk to her on the radio today.  I want you to listen to what she said.

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Glenn:  Did he volunteer that you could beg for the money?

Madison:  Well, we asked him about the beggars around us, and he said that they’re begging for money, so you could beg, but you can’t sell.

Glenn:  Does that make any sense to you?  You’re 11.  Does that make any sense to you at all?

Madison:  No, it does not make sense, because I’m working hard and trying to get something that I want, and I’m doing something.  I’m applying myself.  But now they’re saying that you don’t need to apply yourself.  You can just sit down and ask for money.  But what it really boils down to is this generation’s work ethic, and I think that how it’s going right now, it’s just disappointing.  It disappoints me that this country has come down to begging instead of working hard for something you want and need.

Glenn:  You go to public school.  Where are you learning this?  Because you’re not learning it in public school, are you?

Madison:  I don’t know.  My dad has his own company.  He’s an entrepreneur.  Everyone, my whole family, has always been entrepreneurs.  They always have some business going on.

That is an exceptional girl.  I mean, I love the fact that she’s like I can’t believe what this country is coming to.  I remember when I was eight, it wasn’t like this.  I mean, come on.  You don’t need a fancy Harvard education to solve America’s financial problems.  What you need is a little determination and common sense, and that is what we sorely lack.

When you have the people in charge in both parties that are supposed to be the adults, and they’re not, and they’re actually advising kids to beg for money instead of working for money, it’s not exactly surprising to learn that America has serious economic trouble.  We’re a group of people that quite honestly our men are addicted to pornography, our young men, and video games, and they’ve been sold a load of goods, a load of goods that everything will just fall their way.  And they know that they’ve been lied to.

So what do you do?  Jim Rogers, one of the top economic minds around the country, a guy I really appreciate, he’s been on the show several times because at least he’ll tell you the truth, no matter how ugly it is.  Now, whether you agree with him or not, that’s for you to do your own homework, but here’s his latest warning.

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Jim:  But eventually, Amanda, of course, the whole world is going to collapse.  We in the West have staggering debts.  The United States is the largest debtor nation in the history of the world.  This is going to end badly.  We’re all floating around on a sea of artificial liquidity right now, Amanda.  This is not going to last.  You know, 2008 was worse than 2002 because the debt was so much higher.  You wait until 2015 or 2016, Amanda.  The debt has gone through the roof.  The next one’s going to be really bad.  Be very careful.  Be prepared.  Be worried, and be careful.

Be worried.  Be careful.  So he says a global collapse.  The world has never seen what is coming, and you know, if you disagree, I hope you’re right.  But this is why Progressives have been feverishly working on building a framework, and when I say that, remember that Progressives are in both parties, because a massive reset is coming.

Let me explain it.  Go back to the computer.  Computer’s finally up.  Our system is like this old computer, and we have just put too much crap on it.  We have put all kinds of bugs in the system.  We’ve just been loading it up with all kinds of applications that are slowing it down, that are bogging it down, that don’t work, and so what happens?  It’s freezing up.  It’s not working, which means because we have done all kinds of repair, at some point, this has to happen, a reboot.

Now, this is the scary part, because you and I can sit here for a while and watch it reboot.  We can sit here and go okay, installing update one of 15; however, when a global system goes down, what happens when all systems go down?  The world doesn’t sit around and go okay, hang on, we’re just rebooting; we’re just trying to put together a new monetary system.  It ends badly.

Every successful investor always says the time to buy is when everybody else is selling.  When everybody else sees calamity, they see opportunity.  The same lesson applies here.  There is opportunity, but not financial opportunity.  We have the opportunity soon to be the people that our founders knew eventually would come.

In the Constitutional Convention, New York was asking for free stuff, and they wanted more free stuff in the Constitution.  And they said we won’t be able to bring this to the people in New York.  They’re not going to want it – what a surprise.  They’re not going to want it.  They didn’t want a new constitution.  They want the Articles of Confederation.

And that’s when George Washington stood up and said with everything that we have given – I’m paraphrasing – with everything that we have given everything, everything that we’ve done, we can’t screw it up now.  We can’t screw it up now.  Let us do the right thing.  Let us raise a standard.  Let’s put a banner up that everyone can see around the whole world and say this is what we think is the best thing, and then let us raise that standard so the wise and the honest can repair it.

We’ve screwed it all up, gang.  We’ve loaded everything onto it.  We have a spending and debt crisis.  If you taxed all Americans 100%, you still wouldn’t solve it, 100%.  There’s overregulation.  When you have an 11-year-old who’s being shut down on the streets because she’s trying to pay for her own braces, what is that?

State sovereignty is on life support.  Your own personal sovereignty is, your church’s sovereignty.  If you’re an atheist, you have…your sovereignty is up for grabs.  The federal government has overwhelmed the system of checks and balances, and the founders knew all of this.  Despite all of the protections they put in, they knew a government would eventually reach overbloated, out-of-control levels because they knew it would go corrupt because people do when power and money is involved.

But that’s why they included Article V of the Constitution, George Washington, so the wise and the honest can repair it.  Well, what is Article V?  Well, Article V basically says Congress can amend the Constitution at any time if two-thirds of both houses of Congress agree.  Well, are you ever really going to get term limits?  No, you’re not.  Why?  Because they’re not going to limit their time in office.  They have to vote for it.  It’s not going to work.  You think you’re ever going to get budget limits where you say spending limit?  You’re not going to get that.  Why?  Because it hurts their power.

The founders knew it.  They had one lever to pull.  If everything else failed, the American people could pull this one lever.  It’s our escape pod.  They lay out a possibility of a convention of states.  If you can’t get Congress to do it, all you have to do is call two-thirds of the states to submit applications on the same issue.

Now, this is something that Mark Levin has come out, and I am wildly intrigued by a convention of states.  And it’s starting to happen.  Check and find out if it’s happening in your state.  If not, find out why.  The question is can we get two-thirds of the states to participate?  Well, there’s a lot of people that are dealing in fear right now and saying well no, it could go horrible.  We could have this global government.

No, you need 13 states, 13 states.  If we can’t get 13 states to say no to global government, we’re going to get a global government anyway, gang.  Yaron Brook, he is from the Ayn Rand Center.  He was on last week.  He actually said something, you know, I think we should rewrite the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence.  Now, that might sound counterintuitive because most people, you know, the ones who are suggesting that we replace these documents are usually the Progressives, and they want to replace it with a charter of positive liberties instead of negative liberties, all the things the government has to do.

No, that’s not what we’re talking about.  Remember, you only have to get 13 states, 13 to disagree.  For an amendment, if you can get 38 states to say yes, do you think we could get 38 states to say term limits in Washington?  Remember, they’re local, so you’re with them.  You’re with the state.  Why wouldn’t they be for federal term limits?

How about unlimited spending?  Do you think your state wants the government to continue to straddle them with all of this debt?  How about do you think we can get 38 common-sense states to say Congress has to live by the same rules that we do for healthcare?

How about this one, I mean, I don’t know if there’s any ground support for this one, but how about matching the salaries of Congress to the median salary of those in the private sector?  They start making $65,000 a year like you are, and they don’t have all the fancy healthcare and everything else, they’ll fix this damn economy.  They’ll want your salary to go up because theirs will.

The point is we’re standing at a crossroads, and geez, we’re still on 15 of 15.  What happens when we reboot the system?  Because nobody has ever printed money and had it work out.  So what happens?  Are we going to move forward in fear or in love, in charity, in hope, in thinking about a brighter future?  I choose the latter.

All the tools have been put in place to make it happen.  It’s just going to take a major change in consciousness.  Einstein said the consciousness that created the problem can’t solve the problem, so it’s a major change in consciousness.  Get out of the system.  But it’s not just consciousness.  It really is only perspective.  A change of perspective, I believe, is a miracle really.

In Miracles and Massacres, we highlight some of the miracles, and people say no, a miracle is when, you know, God parts the Red Sea.  Really, is it?  Is it?  I can tell, I’ll bet you, you give me ten minutes, I bet you I could come up with 100 miracles I’ve seen in my lifetime, and none of them were parting the Red Sea, but they’re miracles because it’s a change in perspective.

And that’s what we need in a big way, because the current train of thought is leading us off a cliff.  We need to rid an entire generation of the lies that they have been taught and are currently being taught, that you can’t make it on your own, that you’re not good enough, that you’re not successful or you’re going to have a crappy job because somebody else became successful.  No, that’s not true.

We need to think out of the box.  We need more Madison Roots, more 11-year-olds that say I just want to sell this to pay for my own braces.  We need more voices teaching opportunity over hatred, oppression, more people teaching work ethic over welfare.

I’ve had a miracle happened in my life in the last few weeks, quite honestly.  I was on Hannity’s TV show for the first time ever this week.  That wasn’t a miracle.  The miracle was, and David Barton wrote to me last night about it.  He said Glenn, I’ve never seen you like this before.  I said I haven’t been this way.  It’s a miracle.  I had a very awkward pause.  Watch.

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Hannity:  What do you think privately is going to happen to this country?

Glenn:  I think…I think that we are…

Hannity:  In trouble.

Glenn:  Yeah.

This was the strangest thing for me on television, because I really couldn’t answer that question.  You know what I feel is coming.  I mean, reboot, it’s coming.  I couldn’t answer the question, what do you think is coming?  Now, I know I’m usually the Debbie Downer at parties because, you know, oh Glenn’s going to talk about economic collapse and make everybody cry.  Okay, I mean, I got it.  I got it.

But that’s not the way I view things really anymore.  I mean, I do think the reboot is coming, but I’m more optimistic than ever before.  My perspective is changing.  I am seeing the calamity, but in that calamity I am seeing tremendous opportunity if we choose it.

The Jim Rogers comment I played earlier, I don’t agree with that entirely.  I do think that it is coming, but you don’t need to be afraid.  Don’t be afraid, in fact.  If you are afraid, everybody else around you will be afraid.  Be confident.  Know that we survive.  Be good to your neighbors.  Be good to your family.  Raise them to be ready, to be prepared.

We have a chance.  In fact, I tell you now we are the people that our founders saw, the wise and the honest.  They knew it would fall apart.  They knew the system would have to be rebooted, and in 1822, Jefferson and Adams are going back and forth, and they said you have to trust the people, trust the people.  They’ll see what we were doing, and they’ll do it better.  We don’t have to deal with the compromises on slavery.  We need to free all people.

I’m really deeply religious.  You’re an atheist?  I’m fine with that.  We can’t regulate each other.  That is old thinking.  All of these czars and everything else, I mean, think of the miracle that has happened to a good portion of America in the last ten years.  Are you the same person that was reacting today the way you were reacting after 9/11?  I mean, are you the same person?  Would you say yes to the Patriot Act today?  I wouldn’t.  I wouldn’t.  I’ve changed.  That’s a miracle.  America is waking up.

We are the people who will raise a new standard, and it’s already happening.  You’re just not seeing it.  The amazing story from Highland Michigan, this is a town that is now known for prostitution and drug dealing and crime and violence.  Unemployment is 24%.  It is about as desperate as you can imagine, but there is a group of people that are not accepting any excuses.  They are not accepting the circumstances around them.

A 25-year-old teacher, affectionately known as Mr. V to his students, has decided he thought he could pull off a miracle.  What you’re about to see is that, a change of perspective.  It is a miracle in progress.

How did Trump's would-be assassin get past Secret Service?

PATRICK T. FALLON / Contributor | Getty Images

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday was targeted in an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. It occurred just after 6:10 p.m. while Trump was delivering his speech.

Here are the details of the “official” story. The shooter was Thomas Matthew Crooks. He was 20 years old from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. He used an AR-15 rifle and managed to reach the rooftop of a nearby building unnoticed. The Secret Service's counter-response team responded swiftly, according to "the facts," killing Crooks and preventing further harm.

Did it though? That’s what the official story says, so far, but calling this a mere lapse in security by Secret Service doesn't add up. There are some glaring questions that need to be answered.

If Trump had been killed on Saturday, we would be in a civil war today. We would have seen for the first time the president's brains splattered on live television, and because of the details of this, I have a hard time thinking it wouldn't have been viewed as JFK 2.0.

How does someone sneak a rifle onto the rally grounds? How does someone even know that that building is there? How is it that Thomas Matthew Crooks was acting so weird and pacing in front of the metal detectors, and no one seemed to notice? People tried to follow him, but, oops, he got away.

How could the kid possibly even think that the highest ground at the venue wouldn't be watched? If I were Crooks, my first guess would be, "That’s the one place I shouldn't crawl up to with a rifle because there's most definitely going to be Secret Service there." Why wasn't anyone there? Why wasn't anyone watching it? Nobody except the shooter decided that the highest ground with the best view of the rally would be the greatest vulnerability to Trump’s safety.

Moreover, a handy ladder just happened to be there. Are we supposed to believe that nobody in the Secret Service, none of the drones, none of the things we pay millions of dollars for caught him? How did he get a ladder there? If the ladder was there, was it always there? Why was the ladder there? Secret Service welds manhole covers closed when a president drives down a road. How was there a ladder sitting around, ready to climb up to the highest ground at the venue, and the Secret Service failed to take it away?

There is plenty of video of eyewitnesses yelling that there was a guy with a rifle climbing up on a ladder to the roof for at least 120 seconds before the first shot was fired. Why were the police looking for him while Secret Service wasn't? Why did the sniper have him in his sights for over a minute before he took a shot? Why did a cop climb up the ladder to look around? When Thomas Matthew Cooks pointed a gun at him, he then ducked and came down off the ladder. Did he call anyone to warn that this young man had a rifle within range of the president?

How is it the Secret Service has a female bodyguard who doesn't even reach Trump's nipples? How was she going to guard the president's body with hers? How is it another female Secret Service agent pulled her gun out a good four minutes too late, then looked around, apparently not knowing what to do? She then couldn't even get the pistol back into the holster because she's a Melissa McCarthy body double. I don't think it's a good idea to have Melissa McCarthy guarding the president.

Here’s the critical question now: Who trusts the FBI with the shooter’s computer? Will his hard drive get filed with the Nashville manifesto? How is it that the Secret Service almost didn't have snipers at all but decided to supply them only one day before the rally because all the local resources were going to be put on Jill Biden? I want Jill Biden safe, of course. I want Jill Biden to have what the first lady should have for security, but you can’t hire a few extra guys to make sure our candidates are safe?

How is it that we have a Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheatle, whose experience is literally guarding two liters of Squirt and spicy Doritos? Did you know that's her background? She's in charge of the United States Secret Service, and her last job was as the head of security for Pepsi.

This is a game, and that's what makes this sick. This is a joke. There are people in our country who thought it was OK to post themselves screaming about the shooter’s incompetence: “How do you miss that shot?” Do you realize how close we came to another JFK? If the president hadn't turned his head at the exact moment he did, it would have gone into the center of his head, and we would be a different country today.

Now, Joe Biden is also saying that we shouldn't make assumptions about the motive of the shooter. Well, I think we can assume one thing: He wanted to kill the Republican presidential candidate. Can we agree on that at least? Can we assume that much?

How can the media even think of blaming Trump for the rhetoric when the Democrats and the media constantly call him literally worse than Hitler who must be stopped at all costs?

These questions need to be answered if we want to know the truth behind what could have been one of the most consequential days in U.S. history. Yet, the FBI has its hands clasped on all the sources that could point to the truth. There must be an independent investigation to get to the bottom of these glaring “mistakes.”

POLL: Do you think Trump is going to win the election?

Kevin Dietsch / Staff, Chip Somodevilla / Staff, Kevin Dietsch / Staff | Getty Image

It feels like all of the tension that has been building over the last four years has finally burst to the surface over the past month. Many predicted 2024 was going to be one of the most important and tumultuous elections in our lifetimes, but the last two weeks will go down in the history books. And it's not over yet.

The Democratic National Convention is in August, and while Kamala seems to be the likely candidate to replace Biden, anything could happen in Chicago. And if Biden is too old to campaign, isn't he too old to be president? Glenn doesn't think he'll make it as President through January, but who knows?

There is a lot of uncertainty that surrounds the current political landscape. Trump came out of the attempted assassination, and the RNC is looking stronger than ever, but who knows what tricks the Democrats have up their sleeves? Let us know your predictions in the poll below:

Is Trump going to win the election?

Did the assassination attempt increase Trump's chances at winning in November?

Did Trump's pick of J.D. Vance help his odds?

Did the Trump-Biden debate in June help Trump's chances?

Did Biden's resignation from the election hand Trump a victory in November? 

Do the Democrats have any chance of winning this election?

What is the Secret Service trying to hide about Trump's assassination attempt?

KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI / Contributor, Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

This past weekend we were mere inches away from a radically different America than the one we have today. This was the first time a president had been wounded by a would-be assassin since 1981, and the horrific event has many people questioning the competency and motives of the supposedly elite agents trusted with the president's life.

The director of the Secret Service apparently knew about the assassin's rooftop before the shooting—and did nothing.

Kimberly Cheatle has come under intense scrutiny these last couple of weeks, as Secret Service director she is responsible for the president's well-being, along with all security operations onsite. In a recent interview with ABC, Cheatle admitted that she was aware of the building where the assassin made his mark on American history. She even said that she was mindful of the potential risk but decided against securing the site due to "safety concerns" with the slope of the roof. This statement has called her competence into question. Clearly, the rooftop wasn't that unsafe if the 20-year-old shooter managed to access it.

Glenn pointed out recently that Cheatle seems to be unqualified for the job. Her previous position was senior director in global security at America's second-favorite soda tycoon, PepsiCo. While guarding soda pop and potato chips sounds like an important job to some, it doesn't seem like a position that would qualify you to protect the life of America's most important and controversial people. Even considering her lack of appropriate experience, this seems like a major oversight that even a layperson would have seen. Can we really chalk this up to incompetence?

Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI / Contributor | Getty Images

The Secret Service and DHS said they'd be transparent with the investigation...

Shortly after the attempted assassination, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees the Secret Service, launched an investigation into the shooting and the security protocols in place at the rally. The DHS promised full transparency during the investigation, but House Republicans don't feel that they've been living up to that promise. Republican members of the House Oversight Committee are frustrated with Director Cheatle after she seemingly dodged a meeting scheduled for Tuesday. This has resulted in calls for Cheatle to step down from her position.

Two FBI agents investigate the assassin's rooftop Jeff Swensen / Stringer | Getty Images

Why is the Secret Service being so elusive? Are they just trying to cover their blunder? We seem to be left with two unsettling options: either the government is even more incompetent than we'd ever believed, or there is more going on here than they want us to know.

Cheatle steps down

Following a horrendous testimony to the House Oversight Committee Director Cheatle finally stepped down from her position ten days after the assassination attempt. Cheatle failed to give any meaningful answer to the barrage of questions she faced from the committee. These questions, coming from both Republicans and Democrats, were often regarding basic information that Cheatle should have had hours after the shooting, yet Cheatle struggled with each and every one. Glenn pointed out that Director Cheatle's resignation should not signal the end of the investigation, the American people deserve to know what happened.

What we DO and DON'T know about Thomas Matthew Crooks

Jim Vondruska / Stringer | Getty Images

It has been over a week since 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks narrowly failed to assassinate President Trump while the president gave a speech at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennslyvania. Despite the ongoing investigations, we still know very little about the would-be assassin, which has left many wondering if the agencies involved are limiting the information that Congress and the public are receiving.

As Glenn has pointed out, there are still major questions about the shooter that are unanswered, and the American people are left at the whim of unreliable federal agencies. Here is everything we know—and everything we don't know—about Thomas Matthew Crooks:

Who was he?

What we know:Thomas Crooks lived in Bethel Parks, Pennsylvania, approximately an hour south of Butler. Crooks went to high school in Bethel Parks, where he would graduate in 2022. Teachers and classmates described him as a loner and as nerdy, but generally nice, friendly, and intelligent. Crooks tried out for the school rifle team but was rejected due to his poor aim, and reports indicate that Crooks was often bullied for his nerdy demeanor and for wearing camo hunting gear to school.

After high school, Crooks began work at Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center as a dietary aide. In fact, he was scheduled to work on the day of the rally but requested the day off. He passed a background check to work at the facility and was reportedly an unproblematic employee. Crooks was also a member of a local gun club where he practiced shooting the day before the rally.

It was recently revealed that sometime before his attempted assassination, Crooks posted the following message on Steam, a popular computer application used for playing video games: "July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds." Aside from this, Crooks posted no warning or manifesto regarding his attack, and little other relevant information is known about him.

What we don't know:It is unclear what Crook's political affiliations or views were, or if he was aligned with any extremist organizations. Crooks was a registered Republican, and his classmates recall him defending conservative ideas and viewpoints in class. On the other hand, the Federal Election Commission has revealed he donated to a progressive PAC on the day Biden was inaugurated. He also reportedly wore a COVID mask to school much longer than was required.

Clearly, we are missing the full picture. Why would a Republican attempt to assassinate the Republican presidential nominee? What is to gain? And why would he donate to a progressive organization as a conservative? This doesn't add up, and so far the federal agencies investigating the attack have yet to reveal anything more.

What were his goals?

What we know: Obviously we know he was trying to assassinate President Trump—and came very close to succeeding, but beyond that, Crooks' goals are unknown. He left no manifesto or any sort of written motive behind, or if he did, the authorities haven't published it yet. We have frustratingly little to go off of.

What we don't know: As stated before, we don't know anything about the movies behind Crooks' heinous actions. We are left with disjointed pieces that make it difficult to paint a cohesive picture of this man. There is also the matter that he left explosives, ammo, and a bulletproof vest in his car. Why? Did he assume he was going to make it back to his car? Or were those supplies meant for an accomplice that never showed up?

The shocking lack of information on Crooks' motives makes it seem likely that we are not being let on to the whole truth.

Did he work alone?

What we know: Reportedly, Crooks was the only gunman on the site, and as of now, no other suspects have been identified. The rifle used during the assassination attempt was purchased and registered by Crooks' father. However, it is unlikely that the father was involved as he reported both his son and rifle missing the night of the assassination attempt. Crooks' former classmates described him as a "loner," which seems to corroborate the narrative that he worked alone.

What we don't know: We know how Crooks acquired his rifle, but what about the rest of his equipment? He reportedly had nearly a hundred extra rounds of ammunition, a bulletproof vest, and several homemade bombs in his car. Could these have been meant for a co-conspirator who didn't show? Did Crooks acquire all of this equipment himself, or did he have help?

There's also the matter of the message Crooks left on the video game platform Steam that served as his only warning of the attack. Who was the message for? Are there people out there who were aware of the attack before it occurred? Why didn't they alert authorities?

We know authorities have access to Crooks' laptop and cellphone that probably contain the answers to these pertinent questions. Why haven't we heard any clarity from the authorities? It seems we are again at the mercy of the federal bureaucracy, which begs one more question: Will we ever know the whole truth?