I just wanted to take a quick moment and follow up on BettyC’s post from earlier. My initial thoughts have now been confirmed. Pete Williams, NBC’s justice correspondent, is reporting:
Officials say this arrest doesn't break JCC case; this person considered “copycat” made calls “to settle a personal score” —@PeteWilliamsNBC https://t.co/8tQ0WcjTsd
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) March 3, 2017
It is important that they were able to make this arrest and to do so fairly quickly. It is important because 1) it gets a clear copycat who was using the threatening calls for his own purposes – to harass his ex girlfriend – out of the equation and 2) it demonstrates that the threatening calls are being taken seriously and a proper investigation is being done. But it also shows that these investigations aren’t easy. As I wrote back in February, the person making the threats:
…may or may not even be in the US, given VOIP technology.
For instance, back in early 2016 a number of bomb threats were made against churches in Boston.
The rash of emailed bomb threats targeting local schools appears to have originated in Russia.
Many high schools in Massachusetts have received emailed threats throughout this year Schools in three Rhode Island cities got similar threats last week.Police in Rhode Island said the emails have been traced to St. Petersburg, Russia. The emails were generated by automated robo-calling programs.
So far, Russian authorities are not cooperating with the investigation.
The alleged perpetrators weren’t in the US, they were in Russia ( ? ), and they used an automated robo-calling program. These programs have become a scourge as it makes it easy for someone to just spam email or inundate cell phones with calls. It makes it easy to engage in activities from the annoying to the dangerous. It was reported yesterday that investigators have indicated that spoofing technology was being used and that it is making the investigation more difficult:
The latest bomb threats against Jewish community centers across the U.S. were reportedly carried out using “spoofing,” technology that makes a call appear like it’s coming from a “friendly” or known source, while in fact it is not.
The threats came in the form of prerecorded “robo-calls” in some cases and live calls in others. In both types, the callers used voice disguising technology. Experts believe the calls are coming from a single source, though the phone numbers have were made undetectable. Thus far, no actual bombs or other signs of a physical threat have been found at any of the locations.
By removing Thompson from the equation, the Federal investigators have removed some of the extraneous noise, which will allow them to more accurately identify the signals or signals they’re looking for. Unfortunately today’s arrest will not end these threats and they may actually cause an escalation. The perpetrator or perpetrators of the majority of these calls (not Thompson) may feel that they’ve had their publicity stolen or have had their motives and reasons, and therefore the credibility (in their eyes) of their actions called into question by Thompson piggybacking on their efforts to harass his ex girlfriend. If this is the case I would expect to see an escalation in the frequency of the calls, to include making them on the Jewish sabbath (Friday sundown to Saturday sundown) and Jewish holidays (Purim is a week from today), not just on a Monday or a Tuesday, and/or an actual physical attack at some point – more vandalism or attacks on Jewish Community Centers, synagogues, and/or other Jewish institutions.
This will likely get worse before it gets better. It is important to remember that these threats, Mr. Thompson’s dangerous shenanigans aside, are:
…an ongoing, coordinated campaign of terrorism. The point is to make the children attending these schools be afraid to go to school. It is to make their parents afraid to send them. And to make the teachers, administrators, and other staff afraid to go to work. It is intended to coerce all of these people, as well as members of the wider Jewish American community and the communities of other religious and ethnic minorities in the US. It is also intended to coerce and intimidate the neighbors, commercial or residential, of these institutions to demand they relocate in order to minimize the threat to themselves.
The good news is that communities are pulling together, specifically the Jewish American and Muslim American communities. In the case of the former, Jewish Americans have both offered the use of their synagogues to Muslim Americans that have had their mosques burned down and/or raised funds to repair them.
The Muslim man who started a crowdfunding page to help repair a mosque in Tampa damaged in an arson attack realized that many of the donors were Jewish after noticing the gifts came in multiples of 18.
Karim’s campaign raised nearly $60,000 in less than a week, surpassing its $40,000 goal.
“I couldn’t understand why people were donating in what seemed like weird amounts to the cause. There are sums of 18, 36, 72.00 dollars etc. then I figured out after clicking on the names Avi, Cohen, Gold-stein, Rubin, Fisher…. Jews donate in multiples of 18 as a form of what is called “Chai”. It wishes the recipient a long life,” Karim wrote Monday in a Facebook post.
“You learn something new every day. The Jewish faith has shown up in force to support our New Tampa Islamic community. I’m floored,” the post continued. It concluded with the hashtag #chaidelieverd.
And Muslim American veterans have offered to protect Jewish cemeteries and synagogues.
https://twitter.com/MuslimIQ/status/836318977462833152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
I'm a Muslim in #Harrisburg. If your synagogue or community center needs someone 2 stand guard, I will stand guard 4 you. Islam requires it.
— Momin (@BhattiMomin) February 28, 2017
https://twitter.com/Khalidwhalid1/status/836388519308320768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
I'm a #MuslimMarine in Chicagoland area. If your synagogue or Jewish cemetery needs someone to stand guard, count me in. Islam requires it.
— The Muslim Marine🕊 I Stand with Palestine (@MuslimMarine) February 27, 2017
Stay frosty!
philpm
I expect the “Muslims are looking for easy targets” emails to begin soon.
Funny how I haven’t seen any of the fundy Christian churches offering up their support for any of this.
LAO
I’m not crying, you’re crying!
(The response of Muslim American veterans really chokes me up — and I’m a super cold hearted New Yorker).
Humboldtblue
@LAO: Same here, now I need a fucking tissue
Lyrebird
@Humboldtblue: Especially after the garbage this Republican proto-administration heaped on the Khans, the travel ban, etc… Wow!
hitchhiker
I need to say how much I hate DT and everyone who enables him. The spectacle of that person in office is unspeakably vile, and I’ll never, ever not be ashamed that it happened.
efgoldman
As we said in last night’s thread, most non-fundie, non-christofascist faith communities are very quick to offer space and other kinds of help when a place of worship and/or school is made unusable by either malicious or natural causes. It happened when black churches were burned in the South, and it’s happening now when mosques and synagogues are attacked.
Always remember: They are louder and nastier, but there are way more of us.
MattF
@LAO: @Humboldtblue: Me too.
Lyrebird
PS: Thanks Adam for highlighting this (yesterday, too)… The JTA article you (or a commenter?) linked is being shared around at my workplace…
Brachiator
I had not thought about this before, that Internet technology has allowed for “innovation” with respect to crazy ass phone calls.
I don’t have enough words of praise and gratitude …
Betty Cracker
Agree — Thompson is certainly an opportunistic copycat; there’s no way he’s behind nearly 100 phoned-in threats plus vandalism in multiple cities. And the people who are the perpetrators might very well react as you say since they won’t want him to get “credit.”
Humboldtblue
@Lyrebird: @MattF:
We’re better than those motherfuckers and our tent, even with me inside, is a lot bigger and filled with a lot better people than the fucking GOP could ever dream of.
Corner Stone
@hitchhiker: I feel like I am looking into a mirror. Hold me.
Adam L Silverman
@Lyrebird: That was me in a comment.
ArchTeryx
@efgoldman: Unfortunately the louder and nastier ones not only get all the press, but all the political power. They all vote without fail and they’ve decided to go ALL in on the GOP. So far, that’s working out swimmingly for them save for a few of their pet social issues (like gay marriage).
And to repost from dead thread downstairs: Emigration would be a pretty piss-poor option for me, mostly because most European countries won’t touch folks like me (poor and with heavy health care needs) with a 10-foot pole. They want ’em young, healthy and rich. I fail on all three, and being an undocumented immigrant isn’t exactly easy when you’re also heavily, chronically ill.
The one ace I have is my sister, a dual citizen of France. She’s lived there nearly 25 years and works for the government, so she knows immigration people. She and her husband will go to the mat to try and get me in legally to save my life.
The best option, however, remains getting a damn job before my clock runs out, and I’m working furiously at that.
Mike in DC
People are fundamentally good. Empathy and compassion are the glue that holds us together.
efgoldman
@Brachiator:
We get spoofed robocalls every day.
Adam L Silverman
@Betty Cracker: While the usual suspects, and they’ve already started, will use him to pin anti-Semitism on Democrats, folks on the left of center, etc in order to absolve themselves of their sins – of omission and commission. Ann Coulter got an early start:
clay
It must be said that, although times of crisis can bring out the worst of America, it can also bring out the best. These Jewish and Muslim citizens represent the best of this country, and Trump and his ilk WILL. NOT. BREAK. US.
Although this:
can’t possibly be true, because I keep hearing how it would be so great for us to get along with Russia.
efgoldman
@Betty Cracker:
Yet the mouth breathing flying monkeys and their fearless leader in the WH are going to make Thompson a false flag meme, just as surely as the sun coming up.
ETA: Typed while Adam was posting the Coulter twit above.
I don’t know who disgusts me more, Coulter or Kelly Anne. Are we sure they weren’t separated at birth? Has anyone ever seen them in the same room at the same time?
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
You know we’re all looking for the Reichstag Fire but I think we’re already experiencing, but in slow motion. These bomb threats (courtesy of Pooty Poot) are giving plenty of cover for Trump to make meaningless proclamations about supporting the Jews while mobilizing his LE forces to attack immigrants (and any blah and braw people who look suspiciously mooslim).
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: I do too. I then block the caller and after a few days it stops for a week or two. Then it starts back up again.
trollhattan
@efgoldman:
If the threats were to suddenly stop anyway, it would be a decent outcome at least (if not for Mr. Thompson).
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
It’s a good bet that the vandalism and bomb threats are coming from different people. I would guess that the most of the bomb threats are coming from a single individual or small group, but that the vandalism is coming from different small gangs in each city where it’s occurred.
LAO
This is certainly off topic — but it made me chuckle — Arnold is leaving Celeb Apprentice. I can’t help but feel that our Troll-in-Chief won this battle. Sad face!
opiejeanne
@efgoldman: Thank you.
randy khan
Can someone explain the “Islam requires it” statements in the tweets?
Major Major Major Major
Open thread/off-topic: There’s a tweet going ’round in response to some of the other day’s idiocy:
trollhattan
@efgoldman:
I vote Coulter for first into the crocodile pit. Conway is a craven opportunist willing to lie for a buck with a straight face (she’d do the same for any Democrat crazy enough to pay her) while Coulter is evil incarnate and would would happily commit genocide to advance her odd political views.
ArchTeryx
Actually, this all reminds me heavily of David Brin’s Uplift series of books. It’s set in the Five Galaxies, an intergalactic federation which is defined by ‘uplift’ – existing races finding pre-sentient ones and raising them to sentience, for which they then owe somewhere around 100K years of indentured servitude. After that – if they survive at all – they become patrons and can raise their own ‘children’. Entire family trees stretching out millions of years exist.
They humans get discovered, and they have no patron – yet they’ve already uplifted two species on their own, dolphins and chimpanzees. That touches off an enormous religious debate in the galactic community, which breaks down to three factions that readers of BJ will find very, VERY familiar.
The Powerless Liberals – mostly the fox-like race the Tymbrini and their tiny family tree. They’re open advocates for humanity because it’s the Right Thing to Do. Their greatest weapons are mockery, snark and practical jokes, since militarily they are a nonentity. They think the old system is hopelessly corrupt, but lack the power to change it directly, even to assist humanity.
The Mushy Centrists – The vast majority of the races, which simply want to be left to their own devices and their families, and don’t care about the ‘wolfing’ humans one way or another. They are the biggest power, collectively, but they don’t care to use it unless directly threatened. They are the status quo ante.
The Religous Reactionaries – the Tandu, the Soro, the Gubru, the Jophur and other assorted baddies, that want to forcibly adopt us. They abuse their client races without mercy and believe God is on their side in all things. Tradition is everything and power is all they care about, to nihiliistic extremes. They possess a minority of military and political power, but they aren’t afraid to use it, and when they do, they use it without mercy. Their political power stems from very, very old, very long family trees, and it also is used without mercy on anyone weaker then they are – but they carefully avoid pissing off the centrists so they stay sidelined.
There are even right of center races such as the Thennanin, which support the reactionaries but aren’t themselves jihadists. They play a crucial part in one of the books.
Probably the most politically nuanced sci-fi I’ve ever read, and by a died-in-the-wool liberal activist at that.
Corner Stone
@randy khan: Sure thing. It’s the religious version of when Cole was linked to by Kthug that one time re: ZEGS and the healthcare debate:
The math demands it!
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman:
They’re sales spam or fraud calls, no harassment. I get a little psychic satisfaction from answering and then hanging up, seeing if I can do it in 3 seconds or less.
Except the Indian “We’ve detected a bad computer problem and we can fix it for you.” I love stringing them along with some made up problem (“I have green and purple smoke coming out of the CD drive, and p0rn sites keep opening faster than I can close them!!” Sounding desperate.)
MCA1
Off topic, but news alert: another shoe just dropped/bomb went off/pick your metaphor:
twitter.com/Acosta/status/837442704170696704
Drumpf/Secessions personally active in the change to RNC platform position re: Ukraine. Contrary to various prior statements from campaign/President/AG. If I’m not mistaken, Secessions just said yesterday he was unaware of any reason why Kislyak might want to discuss Ukraine with him.
Maybe not all that off topic, because this will probably bury the arrest news in this JCC matter.
Corner Stone
@trollhattan:
Facts not in evidence. I don’t think she has any actual beliefs at all except for being atrocious and despicable for as much commotion and eyeballs as possible. She’s all about that phat cash. If she thought it would sell another book deal she would have a heavy makeout session with Rosie O while Rosie was cosplaying as Bannon and Coulter doing a Milo impersonation.
Adam L Silverman
@randy khan: The commands for jihad – as in the sense of sanctioned violence and warfare favorable to the Deity – requires Muslims to protect synagogues, churches, and mosques. And in the Quran that is the order of priority. While I don’t know the guy, that’s what he’s likely talking about. I covered all of this in my January 2002 article: Just War, Jihad, and Terrorism: A Comparison of Western and Islamic Norms for the Use of Political Violence. Someone, conveniently (as in ignoring copyright), posted it here:
google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=…
Given that it keeps getting republished in edited volumes without my permission, this doesn’t bother me too much. Its also posted on a bunch of Islamic theology websites – so I’m flattered. It was the first article published in a peer reviewed journal post 9-11.
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone: I judge people’s beliefs largely by what they do.
Origuy
A Unitarian church in NYC was defaced with swastikas this week. They declared themselves a sanctuary for undocumented persons.
JPL
@MCA1: One would think that would be an important piece of the puzzle, but since that tweet was a day ago, MSM didn’t care.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: As a professional, I can honestly state that a $54 katana is going to be useless.
hovercraft
@LAO:
He only won to his fans, in the real world, the fact that it was associated with him, even after he left, was to me the biggest reason for it’s failure. People who dislike him wouldn’t watch because we associated it with him, and his fans wouldn’t watch because he was no longer on it, lose lose. The other hing to remember is that it was failing when he left, ratings were already way down.
Adam L Silverman
@MCA1: I saw that earlier. This stuff has me so far behind I still haven’t done my “here’s where we are in the fight against ISIL” post I’ve been planning for a month!
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: Not if it scares the person away before the fight actually starts.
hovercraft
@Major Major Major Major: Stupid liberals, you can’t eat if you are dead! We are in danger, there are Muslims and immigrants roaming free in America today, must spend more money to defend us, once you are secure and safe from these grave dangers, we can worry about feeding you and educating you.
Chris
I can’t possibly overstate how good and how important this is. Particularly given the number of people, including and especially those who don’t belong to either community, who’re constantly egging the two of them on to kill each other. The number of people in the American Jewish and Muslim communities and civil society who’ve rejected this and chosen solidarity, as two of the most visible and targeted communities of our day and age, is one of the most uplifting things I’ve seen in the last few months (a time when such things are rare and all the more precious for it).
SiubhanDuinne
The messages from the Muslim Americans offering to guard synagogues and JCCs warmed my heart as few things do these days. I took a screen shot of the three tweets and posted the image to my FB page.
Gravenstone
@Adam L Silverman: not entirely true. You can always throw it at them, then get a head start while they duck. If you’re really lucky they may even be immobilized by laughter at the low quality.
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
I think she truly hates the Clintons, and she dislikes democrats. She loves authoritarians, she is a great admirer of Cheney, Rumy and now Twitler. Obviously she has issues.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
Just in American culture terms, it’s probably also meant to emphasize that people who claim that Islam is only about killing people are full of shit and don’t know what they’re talking about.
Major Major Major Major
@hovercraft: The first twitter reply notes how a sword can get you free groceries.
Yutsano
@Brachiator:
Oh yeah. It’s a huge problem. You know those scam calls claiming to be from the IRS? All are coming over VOIP from countries like India and Bangladesh. They’re almost impossible to trace and if folks fall for it their money is pretty much good as gone.
randy khan
@Adam L Silverman:
Thanks. That’s really helpful.
Jeffro
Is it just me or are the rest of you also waiting around for our usual Friday afternoon document dump bombshell on Trumpov and Co ( or did we already have enough bombshells over the past couple days ?)
trollhattan
@Corner Stone:
Methinks the facts are in plain view anytime she’s on a talk show. She’s not acting or, if she had been at one time she’s long since embraced her “acquired” viewpoint. Same thing happened with Rush L FWIW.
? Martin
@Brachiator:
Honestly, that’s because the innovation has been one-sided. The telcos could take advantage of the same technology and eliminate the whole problem, but they choose not to.
Roger Moore
@hovercraft:
Conveniently ignores importance of food and healthcare in preserving life. Excellent impression.
efgoldman
@Chris:
Such things are not rare, as I noted above. The reason we haven’t heard much about them is because they really are routine and not publicized. It’s the confluence of president Bannonazi and the specific actions against Jews and Muslims that have brought it to the fore – which is a Good Thing.
Corner Stone
@trollhattan: Wrong! SAD!
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: You might not have time to write about ISIS.
Rex Tillerson skips State Department’s announcement on Human Rights
Nothing is normal
chris
@MCA1: Also, in OFFS! news: But her emails!
From the daily Beast, Pruitt also lied to congress about his private email server.
debit
@LAO: Shut up. Who’s cutting onions in here?
rikyrah
John FugelsangVerified account @JohnFugelsang
John Fugelsang Retweeted Donald J. Trump
A surgeon running housing, EPA-hater running EPA, homeschooler for Ed, DWTS reject for Energy, a perjurer as Top Cop. Everything you wanted.
hovercraft
So this is where The Twitler’s Official News Network is today. No I didn’t go there, and no links. These people are insane, and Bannon is in the White House deciding policy.
rikyrah
@JPL:
He’s the Secretary of Exxon…the rest of this stuff doesn’t matter to him.
efgoldman
@Jeffro:
I think if Evil Leprechaun is going under the bus. it’s going to be after dinner time tonite.
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
You are a gem of knowledge without parallel, thanks for sharing your learning with us.
I knew it was something like that, but you have it down chapter and verse, to use an analogy from western literature, hopefully without offense. Will be reading your paper asap.
Regarding spoofed phone calls— I do have a smart phone, Android 6 Galaxy Tab E, have had it for maybe 4 years now. Last winter (Feb 2016) I was driving in Tucson in a rental P U Truck, which I needed to access our camp and to move building materials and firewood. The phone was on (which is unusual, I mostly turn it on to make a call and then turn it off) and suddenly came on speaker phone at volume.
It announced that a new Amber Alert was declared, and then proceeded to describe my rental truck right down to the license plate number. I was totally wigged out at first, and then realized it was probably a cell phone hacker in a vehicle near me, spoofing my broadcasting telephone.
I almost looked up the nearest police station to drive there, but decided it couldn’t be a real Amber Alert since I had not kidnapped a child. I pulled over and checked news sites and didn’t find any stories about Amber Alerts, which confirmed my suspicions.
But if someone can spoof my cell phone while I’m driving with an Amber Alert about my vehicle, that’s dangerous… and scary.
ETA: have to wonder what would have happened if I had gone to a police station? They seem to be a professional big city cop shop, but I am kind of a wild looking mountain man kind of guy. With kind of an unbelievable story there. What would my motives be to show up messing with them? What would they do if they decided my story was bogus?
Glad I didn’t.
rikyrah
Reuters Top NewsVerified account @Reuters
EXCLUSIVE: Trump considering separating women, children who cross Mexico border illegally
rikyrah
Gabe OrtízVerified account @TUSK81
Undocumented parents are asking for help in securing guardians for their US citizen kids in case they are deported
efgoldman
@JPL:
Shocked face!
Gin & Tonic
@MCA1: A few weeks back, in response to a comment here, I identified JD Gordon as the guy in the room at the Platform Committee, but I alleged that he was acting on Manafort’s direct instructions – because I didn’t think DJT was stupid enough to leave a trail that pointed directly back to him. Certainly he’d use a cut-out for that effort.
I was wrong. He was in fact stupid enough, and JD Gordon certainly doesn’t seem like he likes the looks of the underside of the bus at this point.
rikyrah
Steve MarmelVerified account @Marmel
The SCOTUS appointment should be on hold until we know which government appointed him.
There’s a reason they’re rushing it all.
#Resist
WereBear
@ArchTeryx: Thanks, I’ve put it on my list.
Wishing you good fortune on the job hunt. What a daunting set of tasks you keep juggling.
And that really sucks.
Gin & Tonic
@MCA1: A few weeks back, in response to a comment here, I identified JD Gordon as the guy in the room at the Platform Committee, but I alleged that he was acting on Manafort’s direct instructions – because I didn’t think DJT was stupid enough to leave a trail that pointed directly back to him. Certainly he’d use a cut-out for that effort.
I was wrong. He was in fact stupid enough, and JD Gordon certainly doesn’t seem like he likes the looks of the underside of the bus at this point.
efgoldman
@chris:
More shocked face. It’s going to get stuck like this.
What’s that, six (or more) of the lying liars who lied to the senate in the “vetting” process?
ETA: And it was a FOX affiliate (!!!!) that broke the story.
rikyrah
Bradd JaffyVerified account @BraddJaffy
Arkansas is rushing to execute 8 men in 10 days, before its lethal injection drug expires
Gin & Tonic
@MCA1: Twice I’ve tried to respond to this comment, and my post vanishes. I don’t think I’m using any bad words or names of trolls, but my pearls of wisdom just disappear.
Miss Bianca
My gosh, I’m actually getting tears in my eyes reading all this. If something good comes out of this terribly twisted saga, it will be a new Jewish-Muslim solidarity in America. Steve Bannon, eat your diseased and depraved heart out.
Brachiator
@Yutsano:
One good thing. Pretty soon, if you get a call claiming to be from the IRS, you’ll be able to say, “Impossible. I know that President Trump starved the IRS to death. They can’t afford telephones, anymore!”
rikyrah
WHY THE ALT-LEFT IS A PROBLEM, TOO
Much of the media spotlight has been on the “alt-right.” But the “alt-left” provides a mirror image distortion: the same loathing of Clinton, rejection of “identity politics,” and itch for a reckoning.
BY JAMES WOLCOTT
MARCH 2017
excerpt:
The alt-right receives the meatiest share of attention in the media, as it should. It’s powerful, vicious, steeped in neo-Nazi ideology, nativist white supremacy, men’s-rights misogyny, and Ayn Rand capitalist übermensch mythos, and it heralds a conquering hero in the White House in President Donald J. Trump, while the former executive chairman of the venereally right-wing Breitbart News, Steve Bannon, functions as despot whisperer, trickling Iago-ish poison into Trump’s receptive skull.
The alt-left can’t match that for strength, malignancy, or tentacled reach, but its dude-bros and “purity progressives” exert a powerful reality-distortion field online and foster factionalism on the lib-left. Its outlets include not only Jacobin but also the Intercept, one of whose co-founders is the inexhaustible Glenn Greenwald, lawyer, author, journalist, and crucial conduit for Edward Snowden’s stolen N.S.A. data to The Guardian; Web sites such as Truthdig, Consortiumnews, and Naked Capitalism; and anomalous apostates such as Mickey Kaus, a former contributor to liberal percolators of ideas and opinions such as Washington Monthly, the New Republic, Harper’s, and Slate, who migrated sideways and down to the right-wing Daily Caller, did a temporary hitch as a columnist for the Breitbart bughouse in 2016, and serves as a tweeting defender of Trump’s proposed wall. Other busy beavers on Twitter include Michael Tracey, Freddie deBoer, Mark Ames, Connor Kilpatrick (a Jacobin contributor), Jeremy Scahill (journalist and Intercept co-founder), and similar fun guys.
A Tumblr site devoted to “Trumpian Leftism” captures the intellectual flavor of their temperaments. One of the alt-left’s political darlings is Tulsi Gabbard, a progressive congresswoman from Hawaii who met with then president-elect Donald Trump in Trump Tower and was rumored to be under consideration for a Cabinet position, and its quixotic preacher-man and noble leper is Cornel West, once an orator at every social-justice convocation who got so uncoiled by his rancorous contempt for Obama and cast adrift into the hazy fringes of the alt-left—see Michael Eric Dyson’s definitive autopsy, “The Ghost of Cornel West,” the New Republic, April 19, 2015—that in 2016 he supported the Green Party candidacy of Jill Stein, that stellar mind.
D58826
@rikyrah: And from Reuters:
Beyond words other than I am ashamed to be an American at this point.
reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-children-idUSKBN16A2ES?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews…
StringOnAStick
@Jeffro: I almost didn’t go skiing yesterday because I wanted to see how the Sessions thing played out. Then I decided I should go skiing and then have a restful evening of reading all about it. I had hoped we’d get home and get to read a “Sessions resigns” headline, but we and the rest of us were not that lucky. Yet.
The Moar You Know
I finally managed to browbeat management into paying for a VOIP system with the usual bells and whistles; the vast majority of our calls were sales/spam.
Well, it’s been educational. Over 90% of our incoming calls are from spoofed numbers. Most obvious and some not nearly so obvious. So the ability to do this is well within anyone’s reach.
rikyrah
Daniel DaleVerified account @ddale8 38m
Memphis’s mayor and police leader requested this DOJ review last year. Now halted under Trump and Sessions for reasons unknown:
Justice Department halts federal review of Memphis Police Department
59 minutes ago
The U.S. Department of Justice said Friday that it has ended its federal review process of the Memphis Police Department.
“The Department of Justice’s COPS Office will no longer proceed with the collaborative reform process with the City of Memphis and Memphis Police Department,” Justice Department officials said in a news release Friday morning.
The DOJ said its COPS office would still provide technical assistance and training resources to MPD.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: They left out their patron saint, the senator from Vt, with the wild hair.
chris
@efgoldman:
It has been since November.
PPCLI
@D58826: If they put in to the bill that crossing the border with an infant and without proper documents constitutes abandonment of parental rights, then they can turn the infants over for adoption to good Christian couples who haven’t been able to conceive naturally.
rikyrah
they are sociopaths. The entire lot of them!!
Judd LegumVerified account @JuddLegum
Republican Congressman says poor people don’t want health insurance, JUST LIKE JESUS SAID
efgoldman
@The Moar You Know:
Hell, forty years ago the clever kiddies at MIT (and i assume elsewhere) were building and selling little “blue boxes” that generated tones to bypass toll call(*) protocols.
(*)Yes, kiddies, At one time calls outside your “local calling area” incurred extra charges (“tolls”)
gvg
Churches and synagogues cooperate in crisis and food/warmth projects all the time around here. I think there is at least one mosque too although it’s kind of a small town. I first heard about the Interfaith Council back around 1991 when there was a string of church fires throughout Florida and into Tennessee. Eventually there were over 50 fires in 2 years. about 22 were caused by a paranoid schizophrenic drifter not guilty by reason of insanity and the rest were copycats, several different ones.
The story that touched me then had to do with the various congregations offering to share space with the burned ones even before anyone was caught when no one understood what the motive was. One of the churches met across the street in a synagogue for more than a year while their church was rebuilt. the Methodists met in the Episcopalians church for almost 3 1/2 years while their church funds were raised and building rebuilt. Those 2 churches still hold anniversary celebrations together.
I just googled the old stories to refresh my memory. there were even more fires than I remembered and some of the copycats had pretty petty reasons like disagreements among the congregations themselves. the reasons were all over the place and all odd by my values.
The good people stuck together and helped though. Many people stood guard in many churches during those months.
laura
@Corner Stone: Sorry, got to pull your coat tail a bit. Her Dad was a high powered union busting attorney, and if there’s anything daddy’s girl hates more than Jews, it’s working people and the unions that represent them.
Harrumph!
rikyrah
House Budget DemsVerified account @HouseBudgetDems
NEW REPORT: Key part of GOP leaked “plan” could drive deductibles as high as $15K/individual & $30K/family #NotAPlan
efgoldman
@PPCLI:
Or sell them. Yes, I’m that cynical.
Wouldn’t surprise me if they sent pictures of the teenage girls to Gropey McRapey, either, for extra credit.
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: That’s why there was a magazine called “2600” — that was the frequency of the first tone you needed to free the line.
rikyrah
Matthew YglesiasVerified account @mattyglesias
Trump’s team forced Nikki Haley to fire career staff who were coaching her in how to talk tough to RUSSIANS.
Woodrowfan
@ArchTeryx:
and then non-believers say “why don;t we hear from you? Why do we only hear about bigoted RW Xtians?” Because
1. they’re very, very loud
2. they have a much larger media infrastructure (TV networks, radio shows, Fox, etc)
3. The MSM covers them a lot more. they’re more interesting because they’re appalling
4. the RW Xtians tend to be evangelicals, who by their nature are out there “witnessing.”
gvg
@D58826: those doofuses don’t even know that someplace to put the children doesn’t grow on trees. I was a foster mom. there aren’t enough licensed homes to put many more kids in. IMO thats the biggest bottleneck to removing endangered kids. there aren’t orphanages either. there isn’t money for this and frankly there aren’t enough people who want to volunteer even if there was money. So where are they going to put these kids? Bet it turns into some kind of PR disaster, I just hope it’s not fatal. The stupid is so aggravating. they think they can just dream something up and it will work the way they imagine!
Brachiator
@efgoldman:
I think Trump has been suggesting that the role of the State Department is not diplomacy or advancing human rights, but advancing economic nationalism. Maybe he gets this from his Dark Lord, Bannon.
This is consistent with Trump’s statements in the primary and during the campaign. The new motto of the United States is “make us a deal that’s good for us.” And in the end, “us” will mean Trump and his cronies. We’re headed towards an authoritarian oligarchy that would make Putin envious.
@chris:
Laws, rules, tradition, precedent, no longer apply to the Republicans.
hovercraft
@rikyrah: @D58826:
So I know I sound like a broken record, but they keep proving that they are evil, pure evil. Who conceives this stuff and why is there no one there to tell them no, this is depraved. Where the hell is Lucretia, isn’t she supposed to be the moderating influence? The suns still up on the East Coast, she doesn’t have the Sabat excuse yet.
Woodrowfan
@ArchTeryx: added to my Amazon list. thanks
DesertFriar
Also
JPL
@rikyrah: You got to be f.king kidding me. MomSense might have to knit more hats.
hovercraft
Questions About the Man Who Will Take Over the Trump/Russia Investigation
by Nancy LeTourneau
March 3, 2017 2:47 PM
In a move that went completely unnoticed at the time, President Obama issued an executive order on January 13th (a week before he left office) that changed the order of succession for the Attorney General, should the person in that position die, resign or become incapacitated. Gone from the previous list was the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Dana Boente.
Interestingly enough, when Donald Trump fired Acting Attorney General Sally Yates because she refused to defend his travel ban, the president replaced her with Dana Boente. Then on the day that Jeff Sessions was sworn in, Trump signed an executive order reversing the one Obama had signed just four weeks prior. In addition, Boente was made Acting Deputy Attorney General.
Now that Sessions has recused himself, Boente is the one who will be in charge of the investigation of ties between the Russian government and Donald Trump.
JPL
@rikyrah: You are a wealth of horrible news. Truth be known, if he does follow through by April 18th, the democrat would have a good chance in the sixth district.
Jon Ossoff has already started running ads. youtube.com/watch?v=4m9nvdo-25w&feature=youtu.be
PPCLI
@rikyrah: A hint of the New Republican health care plan. The Mark 13 3 – 8 Act. Eliminate Medicare, Medicaid, VA hospitals, etc. and use all the money to buy lots of perfume for Jesus.
rikyrah
Andrea MitchellVerified account @mitchellreports
Fmr Deputy CIA Dir David Cohen on Yemen raid: It was not approved by the Obama administration. I was there, I was in all of those meetings.
Emma
@rikyrah: God almighty. I thought you were joking.
JPL
This is another Ossoff ad. Since this is a 60/40 district, I don’t think it helps during a runoff, but it should convince people to vote on April 18th.
youtube.com/watch?v=omHFCkeSrsM
Brachiator
@LAO:
I can’t believe that the president of the United States gets involved with a two-bit reality TV show. But then again, I can’t believe that the president of the United States is Donald Trump.
Lyrebird
@Adam L Silverman: Oh hey, the memory system works sometimes!
rikyrah
There are not that many coincidences in the WESTERN WORLD
Impeach Donald Trump @Impeach_D_Trump
4 Russian diplomats named in the Steele Dossier died in the last 60 days. Every single time, Trump supporters brush it off as a coincidence.
efgoldman
@rikyrah:
The fucking MDs are the worst of the kkkrazy kkkaukus. How the fuck did they graduate med school and their licensing boards?
Chris
@efgoldman:
“Such things” = “uplifting things in this society at the moment.” Good Samaritans emerging from various religious groups to help one another are, indeed, not rare. Overall phenomena that give reason for hope are, these days, thin on the ground.
D58826
@Emma: The problem with the current GOP and Trump is there is no room left for satire/parody/sarcasm . They behave so badly in real life that it is difficult to out do them with humor.
PPCLI
@MCA1: These guys really don’t know how to run a conspiracy. Gordon thinks that by saying “Oh, yes we had this meeting, and Trump was there and Sessions chaired, and we discussed the Ukraine part of the platform and we totes didn’t say anything about this being payback for hacking, no sirreee.” he thinks he is helping the cause. What a prosecutor hears, and puts in the bank for future use, is “Oh, yes we had this meeting, and Trump was there and Sessions chaired, and we discussed the Ukraine part of the platform and blah, blah, some other stuff.”
rikyrah
Trump slashes Great Lakes funding by 97 percent in early budget plan
March 03, 2017 at 9:59 AM
The White House is proposing to slash Environmental Protection Agency funding that pays for Great Lakes pollution cleanup by 97 percent, according to a budget document obtained by the National Association of Clean Air Agencies.
The potential cuts are part of President Donald Trump’s initial 2018 budget proposal, detailed in a U.S. Office of Management and Budget “passback” to the EPA that outlines drastic cuts to an agency Trump has called a “job killer” and promised to reduce to “tidbits” as a candidate.
The proposal would virtually eliminate annual Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) funding, slashing it from $300 million to $10 million among other cuts that would altogether reduce the EPA’s total budget by a quarter.
Chris
@Woodrowfan:
Yep. Like everything else in our political discourse: consult The Script. The Script says right wingers are the religious ones. (This despite the fact that the most liberal demographic in America is the same as the most churchgoing demographic in America: black women).
bystander
I’ll admit my tinfoil hat has been feeling a little tighter lately, but what would it signify if the phone-in threats were emanating from outside the US, like from Russia? Especially considering Trump’s nonchalant response? Or am I overthinking this?
@rikyrah: Chris Coons was on Andrea today, and she asked him if Comey had been forthcoming about his counterintelligence findings. Coons would not directly answer, but he said that Comey should realize he must fully disclose to both Senate and House Intel committees the transcripts of conversations which are said to exist that clearly show whether trumputinites were colluding with the Russians. Mitchell was shocked and asked if there were indeed such “transcripts” and Coons said he believed them to exist. I thought it was a great way of leaking while admonishing Comey.
Brachiator
@PPCLI:
And so, with this, the Trump Administration could bring back the despicable Orphan Trains:
Gravenstone
@D58826: You just know there to be a fundamentalist adoption scam or child trafficking ring buried underneath that mess.
rikyrah
MarketWatchVerified account @MarketWatch
Foreign travelers spend $250 billion a year in the U.S., but fear may be ruining America’s biggest export industry.
Mnemosyne
@hovercraft:
I would try to make a bet that Boente has strong financial ties to Russia, but I doubt anyone would take the “no” side of that bet.
Iowa Old Lady
@Gravenstone: Cruelty is its own reward.
Mnemosyne
@Gravenstone:
Sadly, I suspect you guys are right. Fundamentalists LOVE to steal babies from Africa and South America and then demand that those children give them fealty for the rest of their lives for “rescuing” them from their birth parents.
JPL
@rikyrah: It’d be a shame if Florida’s economy suffered.
El Caganer
@bystander: Could it be that these threats are coming from…..THE CYBER?
rikyrah
Raw StoryVerified account @RawStory
Texas GOP wants to let doctors lie to women about pregnancies to trick them out of having abortions
rikyrah
Ben RhodesVerified account @brhodes
What if Susan Rice, David Plouffe, David Axelrod, Eric Holder, Valerie Jarret met with Russians who hacked McCain in 08 and lied about it
rikyrah
Norman Ornstein @NormOrnstein
Man with no criminal record, married to American citizen, being deported. General Kelly, have you no decency?
Chris
@Brachiator:
Yep. Stealing children to raise them in your religion. They’re totally bringing that back – fundamentalist movements are all about that shit, and many of them don’t, in fact, consider the religions of Latin American to be “real” Christianity, so they’d leap at the chance to remake them all as good pure “real” Christians.
(This happened during the Holocaust too, by the way. More than a few places where the local Catholic authorities happily promised to take in and shelter Jewish children whose parents couldn’t protect them, and then, after the war… refused to give them back, lest their now purified souls be “corrupted” by an ungood religion).
Mike in DC
@rikyrah:
How long would it take someone earning 30 to 60k to pay off a 15,000 dollar medical bill?
5 to 10 years?
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Kelly, Mattis and McMaster are props in DT’s reality show.
Ohio Mom
@Mike in DC: Your question assumes that the medical bill represents a one-time occurrence — say you have your appendix removed, you’re over and done with.
But what if that hospitalization represents the start of a complicated condition? You poop blood, are hospitalized and find out you now have colitis, a chronic condition that is going to cost big bucks over the years to monitor and treat, and hopefully prevent other flare ups and hospitalizations.
You’d never catch up on your debt.
But maybe that is the idea.
bystander
@rikyrah:
No, none. Why do you ask?
Brachiator
@Chris:
Much of this had nothing to do with fundamentalism. It was just straight up racism and nativism.
In 1904, a train carrying white Catholic orphans to be adopted by Mexican Catholics was halted, and the white children given to Anglo parents.
D58826
@Mnemosyne: Obama must have had a reason for doing what he did. He was usually playing 11 dimensional chess so I doubt this move was done on a whim.
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
Your questions answers itself: NO!
Of course Kelly himself has unleashed the most odious of the dolt45s working for his agency to to their worst, and has no idea how bad that “worst” is. But that’s OK, because he doesn’t care, and was told not to look into the most egregious examples of overreach because that’s the say Bannon and Miller and their minions want it.
In a just world they would all spend the rest of their lives in a camp where they are taught how to be human, or at least learn how to fake it well enough to get along with people. For most of them it would be a life sentence, as they don’t have the slightest idea what humanity means.
Chris
@Brachiator:
Oh, of course. But the two go together very well. There’s a reason the religious right of the last few days is essentially the segregationist bloc with a paper-thin makeover.
PIGL
@Mike in DC: about 70% of us are fundamentally good. About 5% are downright evil. The remaining 25% are sorta lawful neutral but evil-curious with daddy issues. The problem is, the 70% seem unable to come to terms with this and deal appropriately with the 5%. So, the Evil rule.
PIGL
@Adam L Silverman: against the real thing, sure. Is still sharp and poky enough to be dangerous though. Heck, I could hurt someone with my collapsible plastic jian.
Kathleen
@Gin & Tonic: Remember Captain Crunch?
@efgoldman
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Draper
John Thomas Draper (born March 11, 1943), also known as Captain Crunch, Crunch or … The phreakers informed Draper that a toy whistle that was, at the time, packaged in boxes of Cap’n Crunch cereal could emit a tone at precisely 2600 …
Joey Maloney
@Corner Stone: Is Vivid Entertainment still around? They’ve put $1M on the table for all kinds of atrocious celebrity couplings.