Tag: Terrorism

Another Step Back from the Slaughter in Yemen

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President Biden has reversed Trump’s designation of the Yemeni Houthis as terrorists.

This is significant in a number of ways:

  • It facilitates humanitarian aid in the war-ravaged nation.
  • It simplifies any US role in negotiations regarding a permanent resolution of the conflict.
  • It is a rebuke to the House of Saud.

 It’s pretty clear that Biden is less favorably inclined toward Riyadh than either Trump of Obama.  (It should be noted that Obama’s go to on intelligence while in office was John Brennan, who was for his entire career a fanatical supporter of the Saudi royal family)

To the degree that the US can disentangle its foreign policy from slavish devotion to the House of Saud, this is a good thing.

And Marjorie Taylor Greene Has Much More Free Time

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It would have been nice if the Republicans had dealt with this, but given that she has repeatedly called for the assassination of member of the House, but the Democrats (plus 11 Republicans) had to take action, meaning that Marjorie Taylor Greene will sit on no committees at all, the first time since, IIRC, Steve King was removed from his committees by the Republican Caucus after he explicitly supported white nationalism in 2019.  (Before that, the Democrats refused to assign Jim Trafficant after he voted for the Republican Rpeaker of the House in 2001)

Normally, removal from committees is done by the Congressman’s own party, but Kevin McCarthy is too much of a wimp to do the right thing:

The House on Thursday exiled Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from congressional committees, blacklisting the first-term Georgian for endorsing the executions of Democrats and spreading dangerous and bigoted misinformation even as fellow Republicans rallied around her.

The House voted 230 to 199 to remove Ms. Greene from the Education and Budget Committees, with only 11 Republicans joining Democrats to support the move. The action came after Ms. Greene’s past statements and espousing of QAnon and other conspiracy theories had pushed her party to a political crossroads.

The vote effectively stripped Ms. Greene of her influence in Congress by banishing her from committees critical to advancing legislation and conducting oversight. Party leaders traditionally control the membership of the panels. While Democrats and Republicans have occasionally moved to punish their own members by stripping them of assignments, the majority has never in modern times moved to do so to a lawmaker in the other party.

In emotional remarks on the House floor, Ms. Greene expressed regret on Thursday for her previous comments and disavowed many of her most outlandish and repugnant statements. She said she believed that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks “absolutely happened” and that school shootings were “absolutely real” after previously suggesting that aspects of both were staged.

………

Democrats argued that Ms. Greene’s comments — and Republican leaders’ refusal to take action against her — had required unusual action. In social media posts made before she was elected, Ms. Greene endorsed executing top Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi; suggested a number of school shootings were secretly perpetrated by government actors; and repeatedly trafficked in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic conspiracy theories.

………

Ms. Greene also told the House that she had broken away from QAnon in 2018. “I was allowed to believe things that weren’t true,” she said, “and I would ask questions about them and talk about them, and that is absolutely what I regret.”

However, that does not square with a series of social media posts she made in 2019, including liking a Facebook comment that endorsed shooting Ms. Pelosi in the head and suggesting in the same year that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had been replaced with a body double, an element of QAnon’s fictional story line.

………

But the majority party, at least in modern history, has never before leveraged its power to dictate the minority party’s committee assignments. Democrats, who have been particularly incensed by Ms. Greene’s previous calls for violence after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, have insisted that Ms. Greene’s conduct demanded extraordinary measures.

………

“If anybody starts threatening the lives of members of Congress on the Democratic side, we’d be the first to eliminate them from committees,” Ms. Pelosi said.

Of course, when the Republicans regain power in the Congress, I’m sure that they will do this to Muslim members of Congress, claiming that this is a precedent, because acting in profoundly bad faith is their thing.

If He Were Black, They Would Have Already Shot Him Multiple Times

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Instead, it appears that, on the recommendation of an anonymous Kenosha police captain, teen murderer Kyle Rittenhouse and his legal team has been deliberately deceiving the court as to his whereabouts.

Obviously, this from my perspective as a non-lawyer, but this appears to be a BIG no-no for someone who is out on bail:

Prosecutors apparently couldn’t find admitted Kenosha killer Kyle Rittenhouse, so now they are seeking a warrant for his arrest.

On Wednesday, the Kenosha County District Attorney’s office said Rittenhouse had violated the conditions of his release. Prosecutors said they need a new arrest warrant specifically because Rittenhouse failed to inform the court after changing his address. The defense, however, responded by saying they intentionally concealed Rittenhouse’s true whereabouts because a local police captain instructed them to lie about where he was staying.

………

According to the conditions of his bond, Rittenhouse was supposed to relay such a change within 48 hours of moving. The motion asks Judge Bruce E. Schroeder to issue a new arrest warrant and increase Rittenhouse’s bail by $200,000.

………

The Illinois teenager was charged with first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide, attempted homicide, and two additional felonies over the admitted shooting deaths of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber. Rittenhouse also severely wounded Gaige Grosskreutz with a rifle carried across state lines. He further faces one misdemeanor charge of possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under the age of 18. Rittenhouse was 17 at the time of the August shooting and is now 18.

………

In sum, the defense says it intentionally wrote the wrong address on the release papers after being advised to do so by local law enforcement. This, the defense claims, was to protect the location of a “safe house” for Rittenhouse.

The motion notes [emphasis in original]: “Pierce was directly informed by a high-ranking member of the Kenosha Police Department not to provide the address of the Rittenhouse Safe House because of the numerous threats made against Kyle and his family.”

………

“While I was completing this form, I was approached by a Kenosha Police Department Captain, who offered his assistance,” Pierce continued [emphasis in original]. “I asked the Kenosha Police Captain what address to put on the form. The Kenosha Police Captain told me that I ‘absolutely should not‘ provide the address of the physical location of the Rittenhouse Safe House on the form, but to instead provide his home address in Antioch, Illinois.”

There are a couple of points here:

  • What lawyer doesn’t pass this by the f%$#ing judge? (I’m already regretting ending my swearing for February)
  • What cop tells a defendant in a murder trial to lie to the court?

Well, I guess the answers to this question are pretty straightforward, and the expression, “Racist dirtbag,” figures prominently in both.

Rittenhouse needs to spend his pre-trial in jail, and his lawyer should be his cell-mate, at least until he gives up whatever police captain told him to lie to the court.

Would Have Been Better to Address This Early

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It turns out that the FBI is conducting background checks on National Guardsmen in the Capitol for the inauguration to make sure that a right-wing terrorist is not embedded in the force.

White Nationalists and their Talibaptist Christian Dominionist brethren have been infiltrating the US State Security Apparatus, both the military (particularly the USAF) and law enforcement.

It comes as no surprise that they are concerned about a random soldier might choose the occasion to engage in assassination.

Getting these folks out of these institutions may be the most important national security issue of the next decade:

U.S. defense officials say the federal government is conducting insider-threat screening on the 25,000 National Guard troops who have begun flowing into the nation’s capital to secure the inauguration, as concerns intensify about extremism in the ranks.

The extra precaution comes after a number of pro-Trump rioters involved in storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 turned out to have military ties, raising questions about extremist sentiment within the armed forces. Dozens of people on a terrorist watch list were in Washington as the deadly riot unfolded.

A U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive preparations, said the Army is working with the FBI to vet all service members supporting the inauguration. The Army maintains awareness of threats but does not collect domestic intelligence itself, the official said. It was not immediately clear how extensive the FBI vetting of the military personnel would be.

As the great Walt Kelly noted, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” 

It is going to take a very long time to fix this.

When a Prank Goes Awry

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Trippy

A coupole of podcasters decided that it would be fun to put an OAN tags on their microphones, and do interviews of people who they would later mock.

Instead, they found themselves in the middle of a violent lynch mob: 

Vloggers Walter Masterson and J.P. Scattini went undercover at the StopTheSteal rally to make what they thought was a comedy video, but it soon turned far darker and scarier in real time.

They put an OAN marker on their microphone, donned a Trump flag, Trump hats and flag masks, and started interviewing people. It didn’t take them long to realize they were on the edge of an angry, misinformed mob. By the time that mob had broken into the Capitol, they realized this was no ordinary rally, there wasn’t anything funny about it, and they needed to get the hell out of there.

They started off doing Borat, and they finished up doing Marie Catherine Colvin.

A Terrorist and His Mommy Arrested

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Remember this guy?

It turns out that  the only way he was allowed to go out and play with his friends was if his mommy came along. 

Man, this is lame:

A mother-son duo who wielded flex cuffs at the Capitol on Jan. 6 — and openly talked of a violent revolution — are facing conspiracy charges related to the assault on Congress last week, with the FBI describing a plot that may include others “known and unknown” to federal authorities.

In a Saturday legal filing, the FBI indicated that Eric Munchel — who was seen masked and wielding the plastic cuffs inside the Senate chamber in a now widely circulated image — and his mother Lisa Eisenhart would face charges of conspiracy for their efforts to disrupt lawmakers’ efforts to certify the presidential election.

Munchel and Eisenhart are facing charges of “knowingly and willfully conspiring with persons known and unknown” to impede law enforcement, unlawfully entering a restricted building and violently forcing their way into the halls of Congress.

Munchel had been apprehended earlier in the week, but Eisenhart was arrested Saturday in Tennessee and the charges updated to include conspiracy.

………

Although Munchel was masked in the Senate image, the FBI relied on open-source information and distinct patches and symbols on his clothing, as well as surveillance footage and other video shot at the hotel where the pair were staying to identify them. They have since searched Munchel’s home and discovered the items seen in the Capitol picture, including “distinctive black in color Black Rifle Coffee Company hat with American flag and rifle logo, black boots, black camouflaged pants and shirt, and black tactical vest with patches to one of a Punisher logo.

It is reassuring that these losers’ operation security is so unbelievably poor.

It Really Sucks to be You

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It appears that in addition to being contemptible people, the purveyors of Parler, the now-shuttered right-wing Twitter, were technically incompetent.

Their tech was incompetently managed, and  a security researcher managed to download almost every post in Parler, including deleted posts and extensive metadata.

I’m sure that the FBI will be most interested in this information:

In the wake of the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by scores of President Trump’s supporters, a lone researcher began an effort to catalogue the posts of social media users across Parler, a platform founded to provide conservative users a safe haven for uninhibited “free speech” — but which ultimately devolved into a hotbed of far-right conspiracy theories, unchecked racism, and death threats aimed at prominent politicians.

The researcher, who asked to be referred to by her Twitter handle, @donk_enby, began with the goal of archiving every post from January 6, the day of the Capitol riot; what she called a bevy of “very incriminating” evidence. According to the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, among other sources, Parler is one of a several apps used by the insurrections to coordinate their breach of the Capitol, in a plan to overturn the 2020 election results and keep Donald Trump in power.

………

In the wake of the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by scores of President Trump’s supporters, a lone researcher began an effort to catalogue the posts of social media users across Parler, a platform founded to provide conservative users a safe haven for uninhibited “free speech” — but which ultimately devolved into a hotbed of far-right conspiracy theories, unchecked racism, and death threats aimed at prominent politicians.

The researcher, who asked to be referred to by her Twitter handle, @donk_enby, began with the goal of archiving every post from January 6, the day of the Capitol riot; what she called a bevy of “very incriminating” evidence. According to the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, among other sources, Parler is one of a several apps used by the insurrections to coordinate their breach of the Capitol, in a plan to overturn the 2020 election results and keep Donald Trump in power.

………

Operating on little sleep, @donk_enby began the work of archiving all of Parler’s posts, ultimately capturing around 99.9 percent of its content. In a tweet early Sunday, @donk_enby said she was crawling some 1.1 million Parler video URLs. “These are the original, unprocessed, raw files as uploaded to Parler with all associated metadata,” she said. Included in this data tranche, now more than 56 terabytes in size, @donk_enby confirmed that the raw video files include GPS metadata pointing to exact locations of where the videos were taken.

………

Hoping to create a lasting public record for future researchers to sift through, @donk_enby began by archiving the posts from that day. The scope of the project quickly broadened, however, as it became increasingly clear that Parler was on borrowed time. Apple and Google announced that Parler would be removed from their app stores because it had failed to properly moderate posts that encouraged violence and crime. The final nail in the coffin came Saturday when Amazon announced it was pulling Parler’s plug.

………

The privacy implications are obvious, but the copious data may also serve as a fertile hunting ground for law enforcement. Federal and local authorities have arrested dozens of suspects in recent days accused of taking part in the Capitol riot, where a Capitol police officer, Brian Sicknick, was fatally wounded after being struck in the head with a fire extinguisher. 

My suggestion to @donk_enby is that if someone comes sniffing around for the archive that she made, don’t without a subpoena.  Providing the information under compulsion indemnifies you, so if someone wants to sue you for someting like “Invasion of Privacy”, you are covered.  (NOte that I am an engineer, not a lawyer, dammit.*

My second piece of advice is that turning your personal information over to an online site is a stupid thing, and doing so to a business that caters to reactionaries is even dumber.

Businesses that cater to conservatives on the basis of politics tend to be scams.  All you have to do is listen to Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity, and see how many of the ads are transparent bullshit like fat burning plant extracts, overpriced gold, phony ED cures, Corona Virus Cures, etc.

For them, it’s all about the Benjamins.

*I love it when I get to go all Dr. McCoy!

Susan Collins is Peewee Herman

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I Think They’re Iranians

In an interview with the Bangor Daily News, Susan Collins said that when the terrorist attacked the Capitol on Wednesday, she thought that it was the Iranians, because ……… because ……… because ……… because ……… OK, I have no clue as to why she would say this for a non-nefarious reason.

My guess though, is that this is, much like it was for Peewee Herman in Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie, (I am not suggesting that she was caught masturbating in a porno theater) it was a ploy to manipulate the situation, because Susan Collins is a profoundly evil person who lies like the rest of us breath:

………

The proceedings began calmly enough. Around 1 p.m., we senators proceeded to the House for a joint session. Soon there was an objection, baseless in my view, to accepting the electoral count from Arizona. We returned to the Senate to begin our two-hour debate with senators, beginning a series of 5-minute speeches. Sen. James Lankford had just started speaking when, all of a sudden, the Capitol Police and staff from the Sergeant at Arms burst into the chamber and removed Vice President Mike Pence who was presiding. Shortly thereafter, the two Senate leaders were also rushed away.

My first thought was that the Iranians had followed through on their threat to strike the Capitol, but a police officer took over the podium and explained that violent demonstrators had breached the entire perimeter of the Capitol and were inside. Several of us pointed out that the doors to the press gallery were unlocked right above us. That tells you how overwhelmed and unprepared the Capitol Police were, although many, many of them were very courageous.

First, while the Iranians have said many intemperate things in response to our assassinating the head of the Republican Guard, the Iranians have never suggested that they would hit the Congress, and Collins would know this, being on the Intelligence Committee.

My more detailed guess is that Collins knows that here political future is tied to former Maine Governor  Paul “The Human Bowling Jacket” LePage’s antediluvian wing of the Republican party, and she so is desperate to avoid saying anything about a potential impeachment.

She is a toxic mix of entitlement, hypocrisy, and cowardice, and somehow or other, the best efforts of the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) could not even manage to make the election close this year.

Need a Hobby?

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Did you know that there is a group of left-wing analysists dedicated to naming and shaming Nazis, Fascists, white supremacists, and other extremists:

Before a mob of Trump supporters staged a riot in the U.S. Capitol and thousands of Americans became amateur detectives working to identify the culprits, a loosely connected group of seasoned online sleuths were ringing alarm bells and picking off extremists online, one by one.

For a nationwide network of left-wing activists who seek out and publish the identities of those they believe to be violent “fascists,” some investigations can take months, years even.

Or it can take 10 minutes.

If you need to get in touch with these folks, you can go to the Left Coast Right Watch and volunteer.

What ……… The ……… Fuck?

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When I Referred to Republicans


as Ravening Hords, It Was


Supposed to be a Metaphor

Trump supporting rioters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of the electoral college votes.

There has been at least one death so far, a woman died from gunshot wounds.

It is unclear whether the shots came from the Capitol Police or from the invading MAGAts. 

Members of Congress were spirited away to undisclosed safe locations as the rioters streamed into the building.

In what is a remarkable display of assertiveness, (for him, at least) Chuck “I Wish it Were Amy” Schumer described the rioters as domestic terrorists, while Mitt Rmoney described the events as an insurrection.

Of particular concern to me is the fact that the Capitol an DC police appear to have been unreasonably solicitous to the rioters:

Many Americans and people around the world watched in horror as a mob of Donald Trump supporters rushed the US Capitol in Washington DC on Wednesday afternoon, wreaking fear and chaos with seemingly little resistance from police on Capitol Hill.

The events inside the building quickly unfolded on social media as tweets poured out from concerned members of Congress and images of the insurgents inside the Capitol went viral.

Capitol during Capitol
BLM protests today pic.twitter.com/5NAcaIUsCq

— Ricky Rocksteady (@RocksteadyRicky) January 6, 2021

Only This Was Intentional

………

People were quick to point out the hypocrisy of law enforcement letting the mob, which was overwhelmingly White, take over the Capitol building with little hindrance.

“Always interesting to see how white protestors can encounter so little resistance and breach the capitol with the vice-president there, while black protestors would be lying dead in front of the capitol building right now,” wrote the writer Roxane Gay.

“White privilege is on display like never before in the US Capitol,” tweeted the author and scholar Ibram X Kendi.

Others pointed to the stark contrast between law enforcement’s response to the mob at the Capitol versus their treatment of protesters against police brutality.

“Peaceful protestors got pepper sprayed so Trump could hold a Bible upside for a photo in front of a church,” tweeted Shannon Sharper, a former American football player, referring to an incident that took place over the summerin the midst of protests following the police killing of George Floyd.

<Claude Raines>I am shocked, shocked to find that police are pro-fascist racists.</Claude Rains>

In an attempt to dodge the “Trump Stink” a number of White House staffers have resigned following the violence.

If there is any justice in the world, it will not help them.  I hope that the stink clings to them for the rest of their days.

As to where we are now, a 6pm — 6am curfew was ordered, and the National Guard was sent out on the streets, and it appears to be quiet now, with Congress expected to return shortly to vote.

(This post has been updated)

Oh, Snap

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The leader of the white supremacist group Proud Boys has been arrested in Washington, DC.

He publicly copped to vandalizing black churches during their last round of rioting, and when he got busted, he was found to be carrying illegal weapons:

The leader of the Proud Boys, the violent far-right group, was arrested in Washington DC and charged with destruction of property and a firearms offense, according to local police.

The arrest of Enrique Tarrio on Monday comes ahead of pro-Donald Trump protests in Washington planned for Tuesday and Wednesday to coincide with the US Congress’ vote on Wednesday affirming Joe Biden’s election victory.

The demonstrations are organized by the Proud Boys and other rightwing activists, who falsely allege election fraud and want to see the results of the presidential election overturned in Trump’s favor.

The property destruction charges are related to Tarrio’s admitted role in burning a Black Lives Matter banner torn from a historic Black church during a previous pro-Trump protest in Washington on 12 December, which DC police and the FBI said they had been investigating as a potential hate crime. Police said Tarrio, who lives in Miami, Florida, was arrested after his arrival in the District of Columbia on Monday.

DC police said Tarrio had also been charged with possessing two high-capacity ammunition magazines, which were with him when he was arrested. The District of Columbia, which has some of the strictest firearms laws in the nation, bans the possession of firearm magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

………

The National Park Service said it had received three separate applications for pro-Trump protests on Tuesday or Wednesday, with estimated maximum attendance at 15,000 people.

………

The US capital has mobilized the national guard ahead of the planned protests. Mayor Muriel Bowser requested a limited national guard deployment to help bolster the metropolitan police department, and has asked local area residents to stay away from downtown DC.

“There are people intent on coming to our city armed,” said Robert Contee, the acting police chief, on Monday.

Am I a bad person for being VERY amused about all of this?

Tweet of the Day

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I may be wrong but I think there’s room at the Four Seasons.
Landscaping.

— The Palaeoanthropologist (@HamishAlexande6) December 29, 2020

The favorite hotel of the Proud Boys is shutting down for 3 days rather than deal with them, and their violent protests, and virus spreading behavior at the inauguration.

This is glorious, as is the Four Seasons Landscaping snark.

Nashville Bombing Update

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Profoundly Odd

And it has gotten profoundly weird. 

First, it appears that this was a suicide bombing with the remaining tissue samples found on site being identified as Anthony Quinn Warner , a 63-year old “IT Guy”, who transferred his house to some random woman in California in late November, and the truck was blaring the Petula Clark song Downtown before it detonated.

There are also scattered reports that the bombing might have been motivated by 5G conspiracy theories: 

Anthony Quinn Warner was responsible for the Christmas morning explosion that rocked downtown Nashville, officials said Sunday, and he was killed in the blast.

Investigators matched human remains found at the scene with Warner’s DNA, confirming suspicions that he blew himself up in a recreational vehicle, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director David Rausch told reporters. Law enforcement said they were still investigating a motive behind the incident.

………

Warner, 63, was unmarried and rarely ventured from his home, according to neighbors, living for years with his parents and then by himself. He once owned an alarm company, and he protected his home with an array of security cameras, rarely returning a neighborly wave and not responding to an offer of Christmas dinner, neighbors said in interviews.

………

In November, Warner transferred his property at 115 Bakertown Rd. to a Los Angeles woman for “$0,” according to property records of a quitclaim deed. The woman said in a brief telephone interview that the FBI told her not to discuss the matter and declined to comment.

………

A Nashville real estate firm, Fridrich & Clark Realty, confirmed that Warner worked there as a computer consultant for about 15 years before announcing his retirement earlier this month. “The Tony Warner we knew is a nice person who never exhibited any behavior which was less than professional,” co-owner Steve Fridrich wrote in a statement.

………

The officers heard a strange recorded warning, which started to play a 15-minute countdown, coming from the RV. Officers started knocking on doors, contacting dispatch to get access codes to buildings, clearing them floor by floor, warning residents who answered to gather family members and safely evacuate.

“That’s stuff that I’ll never forget, the sound of the announcement saying … ‘Evacuate now,’” said Amanda Topping, one of five officers who spoke to reporters during a morning news conference. “Just odd. And I’m pacing back and forth because I kept on having to turn pedestrians around.”

The RV began to play music — officer Tyler Luellen told reporters he later learned it was “Downtown” by Petula Clark. The officers prepared themselves, some going back to their cars for heavier gear.

………

While it is unknown whether the AT&T building was the intended target, experts on critical infrastructure said the Christmas morning episode makes clear that federal and local authorities and the private sector ought to find ways to reduce their vulnerability, either through moving key pieces to more fortified locations or building in redundancies.

As Alice Liddell would say, “Curiouser and Curiouser.”

Possible Terrorist Attack in Nashville

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There was a massive explosion in downtown Nashville this morning.

What is known at this time:

  • This was an explosive device, not Walter White’s meth van exploding. 
  • The explosion was near AT&T headquarters, and much of the network was down today., and this triggered a shutdown of the airport.
  • The bomb was in a white RV, which had speakers which told people to evacuate before the explosion.
  • No confirmed deaths, but there were some hospitalizations.

What is not known at this time:

  • Who.
  • Why
  • Details of the bomb.

Given the current spate of right wing terrorism in the US in the past year or so, that is the most obvious place to point fingers, but it could be just be some guy who really hates AT&T: (That’s a pretty big suspect list)

In the hours immediately following an urban explosion like the one that rocked Nashville on Friday morning, investigators are focused on two things: safety and collecting evidence.

“They’re really kind of determining how it happened, almost more so than why,” said Adam Hall, assistant professor in Biomedical Forensic Sciences at the Boston University School of Medicine.

“It’s difficult, if not impossible, to say how long it would take them to identify an individual or individuals of interest. But at the same time, whatever physical evidence is collected is likely being prioritized for analysis so at least they can determine the type of explosive that was used, because that can give some indication as to what the source may have been.”

………

Nashville authorities believe an explosion that occurred in downtown Nashville early Christmas morning was an “intentional act” and sparked by a vehicle.

Police came across a suspicious RV parked outside an AT&T building near Second Avenue and Commerce Street before 6 a.m., when initially responding to calls of shots fired in the area, said Metro police spokesperson Don Aaron.

The RV was playing a recording indicating it contained an explosive device and telling people to evacuate the area, police have confirmed.

Three people were hospitalized with injuries, police said.

………

Investigators’ first task is to make sure there are no secondary or tertiary devices in the area that could injure law enforcement or civilians, he said.

Though authorities said there are no indications of additional devices, police were going door-to-door with dogs in the downtown area to search nearby buildings Friday morning.

 Hopefully, we’ll have more information before the start of the work week.

About Bloody Time

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The Philadelphia City Council has finally apologized for bombing its own citizens and allowing a city block to burn to the ground. 

It would have been nice if some of the people behind those decisions had actually faced consequences for their actions:

The Philadelphia City Council this week formally apologized for the decision in 1985 to drop an improvised bomb on a rowhouse occupied by the MOVE separatist group, a desperate action that resulted in a fire that killed 11 people and destroyed 61 homes.

The resolution, approved on Thursday, marked the first time that the city had formally apologized for the action. The measure, which also calls for an annual day of remembrance on May 13, the anniversary of the bombing, was sponsored by Jamie Gauthier, a city councilwoman who grew up near the West Philadelphia neighborhood where the bombing happened.

Ms. Gauthier recalled watching the aftermath of the bombing on television as a child, and said that the neighborhood was only now starting to fully recover from the devastation.

“There have been divisions in our city between police and community for decades, and I think if we had done the true work of acknowledging what happened with MOVE and with other acts of police violence, and we had really worked on not only the acknowledgment but building better relationships and working towards reconciliation, we wouldn’t find ourselves in the place we are now,” she said in an interview on Friday.

“It was always striking to me that we did this, that our city did this and that no one ever was held accountable,” she added. “I thought that was unconscionable.”

People should have gone to jail and lost their jobs, but a 11 people, including children, were murdered, and a whole block was wiped out, and no one cared because they were black.

True

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Glenn Greenwald makes a very good point, that by any impartial measure George W. Bush was a more damaging to the US and the world:

That the liberal belief in and fear of a Trump-led fascist dictatorship and violent coup is actually a fantasy — a longing, a desire, a craving — has long been obvious.

The Democrats’ own actions proved that they never believed their own melodramatic and self-glorifying rhetoric about Trump as The New Hitler — from their leaders joining with the GOP to increase The Fascist Dictator’s domestic spying powers and military spending to their (correct) belief that the way to oust The Neo-Nazi Tyrant was through a peaceful and lawfully conducted democratic election in which vote totals and, if necessary, duly constituted courts would determine the next president.

………

I began writing about politics in 2005 as a reaction to the lawlessness, executive power transgressions and authoritarian Article II theories imposed by Bush/Cheney officials in the name of fighting terror. They claimed the right to violate Congressional statutes restricting how they could spy, detain, or even kill anyone, including American citizens, as long they justified it as helpful in the fight again terrorism.

They invented new theories of secrecy to hide virtually everything they did and, worse, to bar courts from subjecting their actions to legal or constitutional scrutiny. Josh Marshall’s entire career is based on a well-documented claim that the Bush White House and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales fired U.S. Attorneys who were investigating their own associates, including those of Karl Rove. The Obama administration prosecuted more whistleblowers and sources under the 1917 Espionage Act — enacted by Woodrow Wilson to criminalize dissent from U.S. involvement in World War I — than all prior presidents combined.

………

That the War on Terror itself was racist and Islamophobic — how else to explain year after year of predominantly Muslim countries being bombed by the Bush and Obama administrations? — was barely disputed in liberal discourse. Karl Rove’s core campaign strategy in 2002 and 2004 was to place anti-gay referenda on as many state ballots as possible, and disseminate slanderous propaganda about same-sex couples, all to incentivize evangelicals to vote. And now we’re subjected to the revolting sanctimony of the very same same operatives and supporters who did that, trying to prove the unprecedented evil of Trump by insisting that at least prior administrations did not rely on bigoted tropes or racist rhetoric.

………

And even if Trump has lied more frequently and more blatantly than prior presidents — a conclusion I would probably accept — how do those lies compare to the one sustained over many years, from liberals’ most currently beloved neocon pundits and journalists, that convinced Americans that Saddam Hussein was pursuing nuclear and biological weapons and was in an alliance with Al Qaeda and thus likely responsible for the 9/11 attack, leading to the invasion and destruction of a country of 26 million people and, ultimately, the rise of ISIS?

………

And even if Trump has lied more frequently and more blatantly than prior presidents — a conclusion I would probably accept — how do those lies compare to the one sustained over many years, from liberals’ most currently beloved neocon pundits and journalists, that convinced Americans that Saddam Hussein was pursuing nuclear and biological weapons and was in an alliance with Al Qaeda and thus likely responsible for the 9/11 attack, leading to the invasion and destruction of a country of 26 million people and, ultimately, the rise of ISIS?

It is not an exaggeration to say that much of the division on the center-left over the past four years has been shaped by whether one sees Trump as a symptom of American pathologies or as its primary cause, of whether one views the return of pre-Trump “normalcy” as something to loathe or something to crave, of whether one views the Bush/Cheney years and War on Terror abuses (to say nothing of the horrors of the Cold War) as at least as bad as anything Trump has ushered in or whether one sees those pre-Trump evils as somehow more benign and less ignoble. 

Bush killed more people, Obama deported and assassinated more people, and both of them normalized the excesses of the US state security apparatus.

Trump is a lesson that can be learned from, because the evil that put him in power did not come from him, though he certainly has no lack of personal evil, it came from a broken and corrupt society.

No fundamental change means that in 4 or 8 years something worse, if just because it is more subtle and more competent, will be knocking at the orifices of the American body politic.

Boy, I Screwed up This One………

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In 2014, as Gamegate affair was metastasizing into an orgy of white male privilege and terrorism, I made fun of what I referred to the “Quinnspiracy“, seeing it as little more a controversy about gaming and gaming journalism.

Shortly after that, what was a kind of an inside-baseball controversy became the blueprint for white male (and it is almost always white male) terrorism via the internet.

At the time, I thought that it was a metaphor for the corruption in game journalism, and how it made it difficult for independent studios to get any coverage. (Valid, but irrelevant to what it revealed)

The real story, which was that an army of violent racist, sexist, and homophobic dirt-bags poised to terrorize our society, and in 2016, our electoral politics.