Rain-soaked road trip for me today: Just got a mobile alert thingy saying THIS week’s shooting may be domestic terrorism. Militia crazies or religious nutbags — what’s your guess? In either case, you can bet your boots it has nothing to do with firearms.
Open thread.
JPL
This is the shooters name Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez
If his name was Dylan Storm Roof , it wouldn’t be labeled as domestic terrorism.
Initially, they were looking for a white guy in a silver mustang.
Chet
Meanwhile, at the you-dub, the College Republicans are WATBs.
CONGRATULATIONS!
I’ll let others make the call. I’m about 2,000 miles away. But this is just sad, no matter which group of assholes did it. As for why, I am out of fucks to give about that.
Shooter’s apparently dead so that’s good.
Gimlet
Did the shooter say he hated our freedom or “Death to Christians”?
JPL
@Gimlet: He apparently didn’t care much about freedom.
I hope that those in the hospital recover.
Gimlet
@JPL:
If he truly is connected to events in the Middle East rather than just a religious nut, the choice of target suggests a perceived wrong done to family or friends by our military over there.
mdblanche
“I’m sorry, little girl, but there’s no room in Germany for any more of your sort. In fact, lack of living space is why we had to send the Jews to go live in your country. No, don’t cry, we took care of as many of them as we could first. Here, let me show you something President Bush taught me.”
kindness
I think it rains too much in Florida.
JPL
@Gimlet: The only thing I know, that there will be 24/7 speculation based simply on his name.
Mike J
The Onion, always first with breaking news.
JPL
@mdblanche: She is evil.
Loneoak
@kindness: Just wait till it’s under water.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@mdblanche: Merkel is possibly the most despised leader in the world right now. And for some damn good reasons.
What they’ve done to Greece is unconscionable.
Dolly Llama
Hey, Betty, I heard a piece on NPR this morning about salmonella outbreaks that had been traced back to backyard chicken owners who liked to hold/pet/kiss their chickens, and of course I thought of you. I haven’t sensed from your posts that you are quite that affectionate with your fowl, but if so, don’t say you weren’t warned.
pea
humans snapping all over the place.
beltane
@Dolly Llama: We used to have some Speckled Sussex hens who loved to be picked up and cuddled by my husband, who they mistook for a rooster. I’m pretty sure he never kissed them, but insufficient hand-washing after petting them could pose the same sort of threat.
JPL
Who we going to bomb?
Cheney would bomb someone.
glory b
So, I put this in the last, dead thread, but there’s the incident involving Sandra Bland, an African merican 28 yo woman, driving through Texas to take a job at Texas A & M Prarie View.
She was pulled over for failing to properly signal a lane change and was arrested and held for three days, Friday to Monday. On Monday, she was found hanging in her cell. The coroner has ruled this a suicide, saying she hung herself with a plastic bag.
She was a Black Lives Matter activist from Illinios, college educated and accepting a position at her alma mater.
rikyrah
another Black person gets pulled over for a PHUCKING TRAFFIC STOP AND WINDS UP DEAD!!
rolandsmartin
✔ @rolandsmartin
BREAKING NEWS: Source: Texas Dept of Public Safety has asked the FBI to join the investigation in the Waller County death of #SandraBland
1:40 PM – 16 Jul 2015
gene108
@Mike J:
The prescience of this 2001 Onion article is chilling:
http://www.theonion.com/article/bush-our-long-national-nightmare-of-peace-and-pros-464
JPL
@rikyrah: Good.
rikyrah
Now, it seems as if the TN shooter was Arab, maybe Muslim.
Let’s get the glasses on and see how differently he’s treated from Roof in the MSM.
I’m just sayin’.
mai naem mobile
I’ve been watching a fair bit of WWll German stuff on the History channel and AHC recently. I know about winners writing the history etc but,jeezus, the Germans were assholes and the shit they’re pulling in the Greeks could really come back to bite them in the ass. It’s not just the Greeks, the austerity they’ve pushed on the Spaniards, Portuguese and Italians is not making them any friends. And,oh yeah, Merkel looks like your typical James Bond East German female villain. She just needs the appropriate leather clothing with a leather whip. Achtung!
Major Major Major Major
My cat doesn’t seem to realize that I’m trying to do math here
Betty Cracker
@glory b: Glad the feds are looking into it because that is fucked up. How does a person end up in jail over something so minor in the first place?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JPL: He’s a naturlized Kuwaiti, so obviously if we had 50,000 troops in Anbar this wouldn’t have heppneed.
mdblanche
@JPL: @CONGRATULATIONS!: It’s both amazing and appalling how much damage she’s done to seven decades worth of reconciliation in less than seven days. I’m almost beginning to think she’s going to enter the Republican primary.
catclub
@JPL: Canada? Ghostbusters?
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m beginning to think that we should have allowed Saddam to keep Kuwait.
Linnaeus
@mdblanche:
Jürgen Habermas agrees with you.
JPL
@catclub: Maybe Germany.
Linnaeus
@mdblanche:
My original reply got stuck in moderation, so I’ll say it here without the hyperlink: Jürgen Habermas has pretty much said the same thing.
Benw
@Betty Cracker: seriously. It’s appalling she’s dead, but jailed for 3 days for a lane change violation? Shit, a white person wouldn’t even have been stopped.
JPL
@Linnaeus: John Boehner will invite her to speak to Congress. The right will have photo shopped pictures of her on a white horse.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Well, I’m sure that Muhammad the Kuwaiti Asshole will get the same treatment that Dylan Roofie did; what drugs was he on? Why did he do this, it couldn’t be his ideology or religion. Maybe he was crazy?
Ha, who the fuck am I kidding, I guess I should be grateful he’s already dead so that the wingnuts don’t start screaming for him to be burned alive in a cage in the middle of Times Square.
And for what it’s worth, both him and his fucked up religion suck. Talking about both Muhammad and Dylan there, just so it’s clear that I am an equal-opportunity bigot.
JPL
@mdblanche: That story reminded me about the time that Michelle Obama visited an elementary school in the DC area. A little girl admitted her parents were illegals and she was concerned she wouldn’t be allowed to stay in school. Michelle hugged her and assured her that she was okay.
Tommy
@mai naem mobile: I try my best to be something of a student of history. It is hard well because a lot of shit has happened. The Nazis were kind of rude, to use a polite term, to the Greeks during WWII. This wasn’t a million years ago, there are many still alive in Greece that know what went down. Now that nation is telling them do this or that or else. I can so see them saying fuck you!
Roger Moore
@gene108:
Yeah, it’s a classic of satire: they say something everyone knew was true but that only a humorist is allowed to say out loud.
Tommy
@Betty Cracker: That is a very, very good question. I am upper middle class and white, but I guess I live in another world from that lady. How isn’t that just a ticket and a shaking of the finger from the cop saying don’t do that again? Jail, I can’t compute it.
maya
Perhaps PM Merkel really needs another back rub. Has anyone thought of contacting Dubya about this?
Tree With Water
The Associated Press: “BREAKING: TLC is officially canceling ’19 Kids and Counting’ following Duggar molestation revelations”.
’19 Kids and Bankrupt’… it’s a more interesting premise for a show, anyway.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and now an update on bitter old men watching their legends fade….
Ta-Nehisi Coates tweets Cornel West:
and John “Build the Dang Fence” McCain mocks Li’l Marco for flip-flopping on immigration:
As I see it, McCain has been consistent on two issues: War mongering and fetus fetishism, other than that he has taken pretty much every position on every major issue, depending on political expediency and even more, who he’s mad(dest) at.
Tommy
Watching Master Chef and they are using rice. I was raised in a house where rice came in bags you cooked. Not how I live now and I got like ten types of rice in my pantry. I always figured if much of the world could live on rice I could as well. And you can :).
mdblanche
@JPL: And your story reminds me of the scene in “Catch-22” where the old Italian man reminds Nately of his father by being nothing like his father.
dedc79
@Tommy: To put some numbers to it (via Wiki)
At the start of WW2 Greece was a country of 7.2 million. They lost about 35k in military deaths, 171k civilians in military and crimes against humanity related deaths (including over 90% of its jewish population), and 300-600k from war related famine and disease. That put total deaths at 7-11% of the population, which is one of the higher figures for any country involved in the war.
trollhattan
@Tree With Water:
Suspect E! is already working up a treatment titled “It’s Not a Clown Car”
Duggars cannot fail, they can only be failed.
chopper
@JPL:
exactly. dude has an arabic name == terrorism. dude is white as elmer’s glue == “boy’s will be boys”, or maybe “he’s just mentally ill is all”
chopper
@mai naem mobile:
that isn’t true about the civil war, apparently. in that case apparently history was written by the whiners.
Tommy
@dedc79: It is freaking Greece. You can watch on YouTube, and I have many times, the Parade of Nations at the Olympics when they hosted. And when they say “Greece” and their athletes walk in I start to cry a little. Greece is where I think as a white European we got our laws. How we learned to live in the world. Greeks rock! So they didn’t manage their finances well. In my world we help them out, say don’t do this again, but as the Parade of Nation starts, “Greece.”
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Three. You left out the career advancement of John McCain, which has always been his #1 issue.
Mandalay
@rikyrah:
This stinks to high heaven:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/naperville-sun/crime/ct-nvs-sandra-bland-death-naperville-st-0717-20150715-story.html
It’s fine for the autopsy to conclude that hanging was the cause of death, but how on earth can the autopsy conclude that the death was a suicide?
And this “suicide” is being publicized within 48 hours of the autopsy, before the Texas Rangers have even started their investigation, which could take “from a few weeks to a few months”.
bemused
@Tommy:
When I was a kid, hardly anyone ate rice and then only from the box. If you had the rare salad, it was head lettuce with french dressing. It was a meat, potatoes, boiled vegetables generation. It was quite a revelation to eat steamed green vegetables that were not soggy and pale green. Shudder, so glad that is far, far in the past.
jl
Read an article about black women in TX arrested for not using turn signal, jailed and found dead, currently presumed suicide.
Supposedly the officer was going to leave it at a warning, then she kicked him (WTF?) and was arrested for that…
Sounds fishy to me. If no video of the stop, and just the officer’s word, a very thorough investigation better start there.
Unless she was the sort of person who had self-control issues, or a history of emotional problems that led to such issues, that sounds very fishy to me.
Woman Found Dead In Jail Cell After Moving For New Job In Texas
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/sandra-bland-death-texas-police-jail
JPL
@jl: They did call in the FBI to investigate. Scan the comments, you will see lots of information.
Peale
@jl: Yep. Who kicks a cop AFTER getting off with a warning?
Tommy
@bemused:
Oh I so know that! Dinner in my house at 5:30 was a consistent. You were not there and things went sideways. Mom cooked. We didn’t eat out of a microwave.
She had no ideas about rice. She cooked veggies until they were really done. Steaming them would have been a totally foreign concept to her.
Belafon
@chopper:
Whites won the Civil War.
Roger Moore
@Tommy:
I guess I was lucky. I grew up in a family where there were several kinds of rice, and it was cooked very differently depending on whether it was for a Chinese dish, an Indian dish, a Spanish dish, etc. My parents taught me to use chopsticks when I was too young to have my own knife at the table; I was actually taught the difference between Japanese and Chinese chopsticks at a very young age. It helps that one grew up in San Francisco, and the other was an Army brat whose father served two stints in Japan.
JPL
@Belafon: There is a local show called GA Capital Gang, or at least I think that’s the name. I don’t tend to watch the show. Any how Sunday I switched channels and heard someone bloviating about the stars and bars flag. His comparison was if France made us remove American flags at Normandy. He also quipped that knowing France they could. Of course, he didn’t know the difference between winning and losing.
lol
Mike in NC
@bemused: When I was a kid, most of what we ate came frozen or canned. Ravioli and spaghetti? Franco-American or Chef Boyardi. Swanson TV dinners with rubber chicken and peas. Salisbury steak. And so on. Ugh!
Fresh vegetables and pasta were almost unheard of, but we did have fruit.
Tommy
@Roger Moore:
I learned to use them because my first roommate after college was from Korea. I told the dude never can she live here. But he married her and she lived with us. She taught me many things, how to use chopsticks just the first of many.
Tommy
@Mike in NC: I bet that is how most people lived. Not how I lived.
donnah
I love rice, but never had it growing up, either. My mother was from a poor, West Virginia coal mining community. They only got meat on Sundays, and sometimes it was less than fresh. She said that rice looks like maggots and reminds her of those days, and she won’t eat it.
Fortunately, we moved past her standard meat and potatoes menu as we got older. We never would have eaten Mexican, Italian, or Asian food when I was a kid.
Mandalay
@glory b:
This is what the JP who was called to cell after she died has said:
WTF???….you get called to a jail cell after someone dies and you are not even sure about what you saw?
Based on the (police-biased) information released so far, it’s very difficult to believe that this death was a suicide.
Chris
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
If nothing else, this whole drama has been rekindling my “glad to be American” side. Good to remember that people like Grover Norquist exisy everywhere, and that it could be so, so, so much worse – even in the “developed” West.
elmo
@Tommy: Red cargo rice FTMFW.
PaulW
so far, nearly every statement from the police on her arrest and death have been lies or mis-statements.
the FBI and DOJ need to step into these questionable deaths ASAP. We cannot trust the police to investigate themselves especially when unarmed people are dying under suspicious circumstances.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: There’s a difference between Chinese and Japanese chopsticks?
A guy
Shooter has a Muslim name. Go figure
jl
@Mandalay: Very difficult for me to believe the officer’s story about the arrest too. She kicks him because he lets her off with a warning after a stop for not using turn signal? Really….?
Yeah, whenever a traffic cop lets me off with a warning, that’s when I really get angry…
chopper
@Belafon:
the…whiters? hm.
chopper
@Tommy:
that explains some things.
PaulW
@efgoldman:
It would be nice if our electoral system made it so that the ads only show during the actual calendar year of the election? And that the ads be tested for reduced annoyance?
Chris
@PaulW:
There’s no way to nationalize (federalize?) every police force in the nation, is there? Please? Pretty please?
Elizabelle
Very sad about the Marines. My dad was a Marine. Semper fi.
Any guesses in these last minutes on the the Denver area-James Holmes verdict? I am hoping it’s insanity, although he planned quite well.
Criminal justice system, its use and misuse is on my mind today.
raven
@Mike in NC: Ever have the Swanson canned whole chicken???
Elizabelle
@jl: Yeah. That poor woman’s “suicide” in custody looks sheerly unbelievable. Hope there’s a full and fair investigation.
Plus, video of her being mishandled during the arrest, was there not? A lot to answer for.
raven
Looks like the dude was driving a nice ragtop!
Elizabelle
Aurora verdict up in a few.
The Thin Black Duke
@Elizabelle: It never fucking stops, does it?
JPL
@Elizabelle: You can still plan and suffer from a severe mental illness. Since the verdict was quick, I assume they discounted the mental illness part.
Keith G
@jl:
No one should be pulled over for not using a signal (because so few do) unless a dangerous incident was occurring. So I am curious, did she cut someone off?
Waller is next door to Houston and the Houston press is reporting that the deceased had criminal priors.
I wonder if the cop ran the plates before the stop and some of this info popped? If not and if there was not a dangerous situation, why make a such a stop?
The DPS and the Waller authorities have a lot of explaining to do.
jibeaux
@Peale:
and why would she be out of the car? They want you to stay in the car, generally speaking. Was he going to search it or something?
Patricia Kayden
Looks like terrorism. My sympathy to the families impacted by this latest shooting.
JPL
@jibeaux: I read they pulled her out of the car when she resisted.
Elizabelle
Meanwhile: Yet another fed in the news, a “rock star” doing a great job.
K9 inspector, Emeril, at O’Hare Airport.
Good dog, Emeril. Another pic.
jl
@Keith G: @jibeaux:
If that history would appear by running license plate number, then scenario of cops fishing for, or worse, planning, a profitable drug bust comes into view. Would explain why she was out of the care for a relatively minor thing that supposedly didn’t even justify a ticket.
Elizabelle
@JPL: Good assumption. Hearing a lot of murder in the first degree convictions.
Patricia Kayden
@glory b: Yeah. Doesn’t sound like suicide. Plus why was she in jail for a traffic violation? There’s a video of her arrest which shows the cops manhandling her. Feel so sorry for her family who said goodbye to her not knowing she’d end up dead thousands of miles away from home. She had so much promise.
Elizabelle
@The Thin Black Duke: It’s horrible. Thank god for smartphones and cameras. But what an untimely death. After a traffic stop. Improper lane change. Not usually a transgression that portends a death sentence.
jl
@Elizabelle: That Emeril looks like a genuine Elliott Ness. Great job, Emeril!
JPL
@Elizabelle: IMO, this should have been plead similar to Gabby’s shooter. He needs to be locked up for life.
Elizabelle
@JPL: Yes. Agreed. Defense tried to plead guilty two years ago, in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table. Prosecution went ahead and tried the case and put everyone through this again.
I’d like to know what that served?
This MSNBC analyst is flat out wrong about the Mass. death sentence. She totally did not inform that prosecution insisted on a “death qualified jury.” It’s not people becoming more intolerant of mass shootings.
JPL
@Elizabelle: I was just streaming that and was appalled that Al didn’t question that. Appalled but not surprised. Who woulda thought that a jury made up of death penalty proponents would rule for the death penalty.
PaulW
@Chris:
Unfortunately there is not. Law enforcement has to respond to local/county needs. The problem right now is there are far too many police departments in dire need of federal oversight…
Chet
@Peale: Why, one of those uppity, dangerous, feral blackity-black blacks, that’s who.
Chris
@PaulW:
The question was mostly rhetorical, but yeah, that’s exactly the problem. The policing culture problems go so far beyond any one police department it’s hard to imagine how to fix them without that kind of drastic action.
(Though even if federal intervention were possible, it’s not like federal policing agencies don’t have their own sordid history when it comes to race relations).
Keith G
@jl:
I have a feeling that the civil forfeiture angle was not in play. One should never rule out DWB. Since Prairie View A&M University, is a historically black university stuck in the middle of nowhere, Waller County, TX, that will be easy to find out if there is a pattern.
We may come to find out that the lane change brought the attention and the officer ran the registration info before turning on the lights (as in my next to last last traffic stop).
Arresting officer was a State Police (DPS) official. She died in the custody of the Waller County Sheriff Dept.
When it comes to police officials in Texas, I would rather deal with DPS than sheriff folks….and the sheriff folks running jails (not good enough to be out on patrol) are my least favorite of all. I know of what I type/speak.
Google the street view of the Waller County Jail. Not a big place. This happened over the weekend and into Monday. There were other inmates there, I bet.
This will be an interesting investigation
Elizabelle
@Keith G: It made the ABC network news. Good package, including the bystander recording the arrest and Ms. Bland calling out her thanks to him.
This is happening. Too. Damn. Much.
Roger Moore
@BillinGlendaleCA:
That’s what I was taught. Chinese chopsticks are approximately the same thickness for their whole length, but transition from square in the handle to round for the end you use to pick stuff up. Japanese chopsticks have a square cross section for their whole length, but taper to a point.
jl
@Keith G: The possibilities are not mutually exclusive. I hope the investigation is thorough and honest, which it might be if the feds have already been brought in.
Roger Moore
@jl:
I hope the local police haven’t already gotten their stories straight and the incriminating evidence destroyed.
jl
@Roger Moore: Seems like too late to get the stories straight. Why would the driver be out of the car, for no particular reason mentioned at all, for a minor thing that did not even merit a citation? The guy reporting the suicide has a lack of any story at all to an extent that is laughable: I thought I saw a plastic bag thing hanging from something… or something… or whatever. Like he was reporting where he found some lost towels or something.
So, driving while black in the South, possibly driving her own car I would guess with out-of-state plates, and if so, maybe cops learned she had some minor drug violations in past. Too many opportunities for mischief, and with some convenient synergies for the cops.
A guy
My guess is the shooter is Muslim. I also guess he was on the government radar but that dumb ass Obama wouldn’t chase him down
jl
Trolls need to at least try in order to merit a response, as far as I am concerned.
Baud
@jl:
The quality of trolls has gone way down.
I blame Obama.
A guy
How bout this response, Betty crackers first posit was whether is was militia. Lol. Talk about dumb asses. The moment I heard I knew it was Muslim.
jl
@Baud: What I find most disturbing is the decline in work ethic.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@A guy: the August 15 PDB will clarify a lot. You know what that’s about, don’t you Steve?
A guy
Nope tell me
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
” don’t you Steve? ”
Aw shit, another one of Cole’s cats can take over his blog? That means big trouble. Thanks for info.
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: What really upsets me is that Obama is not able to take guns away from children, who find them in their homes, ready to be fired.
Baud
@jl:
They take after the GOP in that respect.
A guy
Heading to beach for evening relax with friends. Rest of u keep telling yourself the Muslims ain’t coming to kill and that Obama is your friend.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jl: “A guy” is, I think, also known as “Steve” who runs a huge job-creating business, where he keeps the cash flowing on his discover card.
I did get the date on the PDB wrong
JPL
@A guy: The NRA is your friend. Every time a child shoots himself accidentally, you remember that
If only that child had more guns, he wouldn’t know which one was loaded.
jl
Just for the record:
” The shooter was later identified by the FBI as 24-year-old Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez. The Associated Press cited a U.S. official in saying there was no indication that the suspect was under investigation by the FBI or on the radar of federal law enforcement before the shooting. ”
But then, that is the cover story they would put out, isn’t it?
Shootings at Chattanooga military facilities leave 4 Marines, gunman dead
http://news.yahoo.com/chattanooga-active-shooter-officer-down-live-coverage-154953657.html
Origuy
While we’re on the subject of chopsticks, Thai food is not eaten with chopsticks. Except for Chinese imports like noodles, Thais eat pushing food onto a spoon with their fork. Traditionally, they used their hands, until the Thai king met with the British ambassador. Wanting to appear more westernized than his neighbors, the king ate with fork and spoon. Consequently, the British never tried to colonize Siam.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Thanks, I was afraid Tunch left instructions lying around for how a cat can take over a blog.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jl: I just saw this part
A deeply devout Muslim, of course.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@A guy:
You’re far more likely to be murdered by a family member than anyone else. Then a friend, then an acquaintence.
But I’m guessing you’re one of those idiots who’s terrified of being attacked by a shark if you go swimming but refuses to wear a seatbelt because you’re the safest driver in the world.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jl: I had almost forgotten about Steve. He doesn’t get as much press since Thurston came along….
Well, I’m guessing Steve is one third safer than most people. But maybe when his mom says, “if you keep leaving the Taco Bell wrappers lying around, I’m gonna kill you!”, it’s not hyperbole
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: you have to make sacrifices for years of deep cover. He is younger than Obama, so clearly, strict geometrical logic leads to the inevitable conclusion that the ursurper trained him. What was he drunk on? WH craft beer, clearly. Still waters run deep, very deep, my friend.
Omnes Omnibus
I would like to register a complaint about the quality trolling on this blog of late. Do you think I should email or tweet to Cole? Either way, I shall really on all caps so that he knows I am serious. Maybe I should do both, just to be safe. What do you guys think?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Omnes Omnibus: Persistence is key. You should send those emails several times a day
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That is a wonderful suggestion. Thank you.
jl
@Omnes Omnibus: Punching Cole in the neck is a good way to get his attention. Cole respects a good punch in the neck. It signals resolve and credibility.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: I would either need to drive to WV or wait until he comes to Madison again.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’d try to email Cole’s mom. Or call.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Intriguing thought.
A guy
Haven’t been to Taco Bell in 20 years. Have 8 guns in house. Two in kitchen left in corner after deer season. I have five kids who don’t touch them cause they know better. At end of day that’s what matters, my kids know better than the other folks kids. And my wife gets the credit