The weekly bomb threats against Jewish Community Centers and the Anti-Defamation League is now back to Tuesdays.
The Anti-Defamation League says it received bomb threats at four of its offices Tuesday, the same day more Jewish Community Centers across the country were also targeted in a new round of threats.
The JCC Association of North America also released a statement, saying “several JCCs have received either emailed or phoned-in bomb threats overnight and this morning.”
#UPDATE: Posnack #JCC placed on lockdown after school evacuated over #BombThreat. https://t.co/1jGXtEUiIx https://t.co/sQ0DqQSMuH
— CBS4 Miami (@CBSMiami) March 7, 2017
This lovely fellow was arrested over the weekend for vandalizing a synagogue.* He’d also, apparently, upset quite a few people at a church with a primarily Hispanic congregation earlier in the year.
Synagogue hate crime suspect an educated, suburban accountanthttps://t.co/R50uZGMJzo
— Jacob Wittich (@JacobWittich) March 6, 2017
Another Sikh-American was targeted and shot last Friday because he was mistaken for being Muslim.
Kent police are searching for a gunman they say opened fire in the East Hill neighborhood.
Officers say the victim, a 39-year-old Sikh man, was in his driveway working on his car Friday around 8 p.m. when another man approached him and began yelling, “Go back to your own country.”
Police say the victim was shot in the arm. Authorities expect the man will make a full recovery.
The shooting suspect is a white male about 6 feet tall. Police say the man has a stocky build and was seen in dark clothing and a mask covering the lower half of his face.
Detectives are investigating. The FBI is also involved in investigation the possible hate crime.
Also last Friday another Indian-American, Harnish Patel, was shot dead in Lancaster, SC.
Breaking: Lancaster Co. Coroner says 43-year-old Harnish Patel was found shot and killed in his yard on Craig Manor Rd last night.
— Greg Suskin (@GSuskinWSOC9) March 3, 2017
Patel was the owner of a Speedee Mart and was targeted on his way home. It is unclear from the reporting at this time if this was a robbery-homicide or if Mr. Patel was targeted because of his ethnicity.
Patel was the owner of the Speedee Mart on Pageland Highway.
Police said that he closed his store and left in his Toyota minivan at 11:24 p.m. Thursday.
Investigators believe he drove from the store directly home, where he was confronted by his killer when he got out of the vehicle.
Authorities have not made any arrests but are urging people to come forward.
“We ask anyone with information he or she thinks might be related to this incident in any way to please contact us,” said Sheriff Barry Faile. “If you saw anything at the store, in the area of Craig Manor Road, or anywhere in between, let us know. Even if you think it is not important, it could be the lead that solves this case.”
Anyone with information about this or any other case should call the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office at (803) 283-3388 or email Crimestoppers.
Mr. Patel is survived by a wife and young child.
And it is important to remember, despite the fact that the anti-Semitic incidents, and, of course, those involving physical attacks, injuries, murders, and significant property damage, get a lot of press and coverage, we definitely need to keep in mind that every day in the US is today in anti-Muslim domestic terrorism and stochastic violence.
Most Americans don’t actually know any Muslims — at least, not personally.
More than 6 in 10 have seldom or never had a conversation with a Muslim, according to a study conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute. Most Americans also say they know little (57%) or nothing at all (26%) about Islam.Those numbers have barely budged in 30 years, even after 9/11, two American-led wars in Muslim-majority countries, local and national outreach campaigns by Muslim mosques and organizations, dozens of terrorist attacks worldwide, high-profile congressional hearings and copious media coverage of Islam. All of which suggests that Americans are not just widely ignorant about Islam and Muslims, they are also oddly incurious.Muslims have been shot and killed, execution-style, in their living rooms and outside of their mosques. They have been fatally stabbed on their way home. They have been beaten in their stores, in their schools and on the streets. They have been kicked off airplanes, egged outside Walmart, scorched with hot coffee in a park, shot in cabs and punched while pushing their children in strollers. Their clothes have been set on fire and their children have been bullied. Men have come to their door and told them that they would burn down their house if they did not move away. They have been fired for wearing hijabs and for praying. They have seen their cemeteries vandalized and their Quran desecrated. A Muslim congressman has received death threats, and business owners have posted signs advertising “Muslim-free zones.“Heavily armed men have protested outside mosques in Texas and Arizona, arguing that it’s their patriotic duty to protect the country from Islam.People have covered the doors of a mosque with feces and torn pages of the Quran, left a severed pig’s head outside a mosque, firebombed mosques, urinated on mosques, spray-painted the Star of David and satanic symbols on mosques, carved swastikas and crude drawings of penises into signs at mosques, set fire to mosques, threatened to blow up mosques and kill “you Muslim f****,” fired rounds from high-powered rifles into mosques, wrapped bacon around the door handles of mosques, left hoax bombs and fake grenades at mosques, threatened to decapitate congregants at mosques, sent suspicious substances to mosques, written notes saying, “We hate you,”“We will burn all of you” and “Leave our country” to mosques, rammed a tractor-trailer into a mosque, thrown bricks and stones through the windows of mosques, pelted Muslims with rocks as they left mosques and stood outside mosques shouting, “How many of you Muslims are terrorists?”American Muslims have been told that a mosque, unlike churches and synagogues, cannot serve as an election polling station. Dozens of communities have fought to keep Muslims from building mosques in their neighborhoods, sometimes threatening violence.From 2001 to 2015, there were 2,545 anti-Islamic incidents targeting 3,052 Muslims, according to the FBI. Last year, anti-Muslim hate times surged 67%, reaching a level of violence not seen since the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, and many Muslims believe hate crimes are underreported by victims and not pursued vigorously by police and prosecutors. This year, the FBI has begun counting anti-Arab incidents as well.
Here’s the link to the FBI’s 2015 Hate Crime Statistics information, which also captures the increase in anti-Muslim hate groups and actions. The 2016 has not yet been finalized.
In February I wrote that this is:
…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.
It is important to add that the campaigns of violence directed against Muslim-Americans, including the attempts to prevent them from opening new mosques or cemeteries or expanding existing ones is particularly dangerous. It is dangerous because the perpetrators can’t tell the difference between Americans of Arab, Iranian, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indonesian, Sinhalese/Sri Lankan, or Tamil (of Indian or Sri Lankan origin) descent, and other Americans of color and just assume they are all Muslims. This results in attacks on Americans who are Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or any other religion they may identify with. The anti-Muslim animus among non Muslim-Americans is particularly dangerous because those who have it are not only ignorant about Islam and Muslims, they’re ignorant about Americans who are of North African, Horn of African, Middle Eastern, Central Asian, and Southeast Asian descent. The ignorance of the attackers increases the potential target populations. And these actions – both the physically violent and the non-physically violent – contribute to the ever present, ongoing, low level campaign of domestic terrorism and stochastic violence against the members of these communities.
And here too, as is the case with the attacks on the Jewish Community Centers and synagogues and Jewish-American organizations, the intention is to intimidate and coerce the victimized population to either change their behavior or leave. It is also intended to intimidate and coerce the larger American citizenry to take action against the victims. To push them to demonstrate against them because they are perceived as a threat or because by being targets they increase the likelihood of an attack. To rezone areas so mosques, community centers, and cemeteries cannot be built – again because they are a threat or because by existing they increase the threat profile within the community. To make Muslim Americans, and those mistaken for them, feel unwelcome in their homes, businesses, places of work, and places of recreation. To collapse the public into the private – destroying the Grey Zone, the civil space of American life – and then deny the victims and potential victims even the private portions of their lives as refuge. So that they feel unsafe in public and unsafe at home. To deny them any safe havens or respite.**
And while this is a good start, it does not go far enough.
Update: Sen. Paul (R-KY) has now signed on, bringing it to 98 senators. https://t.co/psZapqLnD7
— Elana Schor (@eschor) March 7, 2017
Senators decry 'accelerating' anti-Semitic threats in bipartisan plea https://t.co/syh6Hm08Do
— POLITICO (@politico) March 7, 2017
This needs to be broadened to include anti-Muslim, anti-Sikh, anti-Indian American, anti-Arab American, anti-Pakistani American, anti-Hispanic American, anti-African American, anti-LGBTQ American, and any other at risk demographic. And they have to put the power of the public purse where their mouths are. They have to introduce and pass legislation that prohibits DHS from turning its Task Force on Violent Extremism into a Task Force on Countering Islamic Extremism or Radical Islamic Extremism. And to fix its problems and expand its scope, not narrow them in the pursuit of an ideologically incorrect agenda.
As always, we leave the last word to 18 U.S. Code § 2331, highlighting the relevant part:
(5) the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that—
(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;(B) appear to be intended—(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.(Added Pub. L. 102–572, title X, § 1003(a)(3), Oct. 29, 1992, 106 Stat. 4521; amended Pub. L. 107–56, title VIII, § 802(a), Oct. 26, 2001, 115 Stat. 376.)
Jeffro
It would be good to add “Speak Up Against Domestic Terrorism – specifically acts against Jewish and Muslim Americans!” to our phone calls and town hall topics-to-be-raised with MoCs, folks. President Bannon and his puppet won’t ever step up to the plate, but we can put pressure on those Reps and Senators to do so. I see these Senators are doing ok…but they need to get louder…and of course Rs in Congress need to feel the heat at any/all times.
dr. bloor
Jewish Community Day School in Providence was evacuated today as well. It’s just across the street from the JCC that had to be evacuated last week.
schrodingers_cat
I get the message loud and clear, these people don’t want me here.
schrodingers_cat
@dr. bloor: You were fluffing Kelly, Mattis and McMaster the other day. So what’s your reaction to Kelly’s proposal of separating mothers from their children to deter illegal border crossings.
Adam L Silverman
@dr. bloor: Yep, it should be in the list. Apparently the various tracking organizations are still updating who got threatened.
MomSense
From the linked article on Stuart Wright.
Woah. Maybe someone should tell him that Jesus was Jewish.
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodingers_cat:
True, but they are in the minority, and the rest of us do, very much.
Mike in DC
Adam, off topic, but do you think the Wikileaks stuff, specifically about the CIA being able to make its hacks look like Russia did it, is legit, or is it just more disinformation? Seems way too on the nose to me.
TenguPhule
The only sure thing at this point is that its going to get worse.
We have too many entitled Republicans (most of them white) who don’t deserve to breathe the air in America and who are determined to get rid of the rest of us by any means, fair or foul.
Its not going to go away in 2018 or 2020.
Its going to end in blood, tears and fire.
dr. bloor
@schrodingers_cat: LOL. I wasn’t fluffing anyone. Do you have a life to speak of?
Yutsano
Unreimbursed employee expenses?
ArchTeryx
@schrodingers_cat: They don’t want me here either, and I’m white and male – I just happen to be poor. Anyone that’s read my Johnny One Note since Trump was elected knows the stakes for me.
I get the impression that they don’t want many of us here at all, and would rather we all flee or die, preferably at their hands. The ACA repeal and this latest horror are all one and a piece.
gvg
I don’t want the haters here.
Roger Moore
I always have mixed feelings about how to treat the problem of bigots not being able to tell their intended targets from others. Yes, there’s something awful about Sikhs being targeted by bigots unable to tell them from Muslims, but is it really worse than if the bigots were targeting them specifically? They’re being attacked either way. More importantly, it seems to me that their being targeted is a sign that the anti-Muslim bigotry is really more about Muslims being perceived as foreign than anything about Islam specifically. The bigots don’t really care that Sikhs (or Hindus, Bahai, etc.) have very different beliefs from Muslims; they may focus their hate on Muslims because they’re the current target, but they’ll happily go after everyone else who is insufficiently white and the right kind of Christian once they’ve finished with Muslims.
schrodingers_cat
@dr. bloor: I don’t have a life because I am commenting on the same post you are? I must say that you have excellent deductive skills.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike in DC: Wikileaks is a distro arm, and has been for a while, of the Russian government. Given that some of what was dropped – and please remember I am, like everyone else with a clearance, not allowed to actually look at anything wikileaks posts because I don’t need to know it whether its spilled onto the unclassified Internet or not, so I’m working off of other people’s reporting – claims that the CIA has the ability to make its cyber activities look like Russian Intelligence’s cyber activities. And that this is the stuff being pushed heavily by the known Russian governmental propaganda outlets, their fellow travelers, and sites/individuals that seek to shield the President from all criticism, I’m going with this was dumped to assist the President’s claims that the US Intel Community was ordered to spy on him. I would expect the claim will now begin to be adjusted to the US Intel Community was ordered to spy on him, and is still spying on him, but they’re making it look like its Russia for “insert nefarious purpose here”. That will then be used to discredit whatever further leaks out, as well as the results of the counterintelligence investigation. It is important to remember that there is a remarkable amount of overlap, in terms of time and language, between what is reported and tweeted and distroed by other social media by RT and Sputknik towards the US on this stuff, what is then reported and tweeted/retweeted and distroed by other social media by FOX News personalities (Hannity, the Fox and Friends lack of brains trust), right wing radio talkers (Levin, Hewitt, etc), Breitbart, WND, etc, and then, ultimately the President and a number of folks in and around his inner circle. This pattern has been going on and remarked on for months and is quite bizarre.
Iowa Old Lady
On the way home just now, I listened to a report on the TX bill to make trans people use the bathroom of the gender on their birth certificate, no matter the goddam what! I was already depressed at the cruelty and stupidity of the right and this report just confirms my mood. They are unforgiveable.
Mike J
JCC in Toronto today too.
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: This.
Mike in DC
@Adam L Silverman:
Okay, thanks. Yeah, the pretzel logic of the CIA undermining Clinton to get Trump elected, then blaming it on Trump and Russia to get President Pence…eludes me.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
I want you here.
It enrages me…..and, them allowing this Administration, which has done nothing but foster hate, to skate away from their responsibility in all of this.
TaMara (HFG)
#MAGA
Also, FYWP. ugh
TenguPhule
@Roger Moore:
Black = Death
Brown = Death
Funny Beard = Death
White Liberal = Death
White, attractive but not attracted by GOP Alpha Male = Rape, then Death
White, unfit = Death
I don’t think we can find an area of compromise with these people.
SFBayAreaGal
@TenguPhule: I don’t and won’t find an area of compromise with those people.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike in DC: Its the underpants gnome theory of profit applied to the Intel Community and its practices, by people – some who actually have significant credentials and should know better – that don’t seem to know anything about how the Intelligence Community works or even how the US government works.
hovercraft
Obviously I totally agree, all hate towards “others” should be decried, but in this instance I really wish the current statement was about Antisemitism and Anti Muslim behavior, the most heartening thing I’ve seen in the last few weeks is the way Muslims and Jews have pulled together to fight intolerance. It sent a powerful message to all the haters that we are all stronger together.
As an “other”, I get that sometimes we have to be more specific in our statements, just as the bullshit, “why only BLM”, is nonsense, what’s going on right now with the Jewish and Muslim communities if unique, and should be handled that way. The general xenophobia is also a big issue, that must be decried, but I think the fact that people of other faiths, particularly South East Asians being sucked into this anti Muslim fervor is tragic, but they are being targeted because they are being mistaken for Muslims, not because of their actual faith. I also think for some of these deplorable people doing this they don’t care that they are taking the time to distinguish what faith the people they are attacking belong to, they are just using the “Muslim Terrorists” as an excuse to terrorize or even kill brown people.
Finally since as you point out, most Americans do not know any Muslims and have never had any contact with the community, I think an alliance between the two groups is a powerful weapon against Islamophobia.
Guys like the asshole with the two tattoos are beyond reach, to say Jesus is love and embrace Nazism is just sick.
MomSense
@schrodingers_cat:
I wish I could say you were wrong. The hatred that 45 has encouraged is a national tragedy.
trollhattan
O/T but since Adam’s in da house.
Emphasis mine. “Judge Navarro” sounds suspiciously non-American, so how are the Patriot Bundys supposed to get a fair trial?
hovercraft
@MomSense:
You Lie !
Adam L Silverman
@TaMara (HFG): Did you do something wrong?
A Ghost to Most
@TenguPhule:
For them, it is a feature, not a bug. Principles, they call them. Cleeks Law, I call it.
trollhattan
@MomSense:
Now now, all he’s done is lift the cruel burden of political correctness from the shoulders of untold millions of innocent sufferers. They have a lot of catching up.
Adam L Silverman
@trollhattan: It seems like a bygone, halcyon age when we could take a few moments out of our day and focus on things like the Bundy Bunch and their elite Snack Team 6.
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: Now that the White House has made an official statement by Sean Spicer at today’s press conference, I intend to have more on what you’re talking about later today or tomorrow.
WereBear
Quick! Scan everyone’s online To Do list!
He’s sure to have put it on there so he won’t forget…
zhena gogolia
Will life ever be good again?
Yarrow
Adam, I thought white supremacy violence had recently been re-classified as not a problem, not terrorism, or something wrong like that.
Woodrow/Asim
@Adam L Silverman: That was a great synopsis and explanation — do you mind if I repost on my Medium, crediting you?
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
Yep. And let’s not forget, a lot of right-wingers use “Muslim” as their new secret replacement for the N-word, which is why so many people were consistently polled as saying that Obama was a Muslim. It wasn’t his religion they were talking about, it was his skin color.
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
The black helicopter, conspiracy nuts are more prevalent on the right, and since they distrust government, the idea of the government doing a double switcheroo to make it look like the Russians just to make them look bad makes sense, after all this is the same government that blew up the Murrow building and staged Sandy Hook and or killed those kids, depending how far through the looking glass you live. Our side has the GWB blew up the towers, yes I know, the difference is that we try to shut them up and shout them down, Twitler praises Alex Jones and any day now I expect to see him in the WH briefing room.
Millard Filmore
@Adam L Silverman: I do not see how this mitigates the criminal and seditious activity carried out by Trump, his family, his inner circle, and the upper levels of the Republican party.
The information that has come out against Trump has not come from Russia. Before this article, I had not heard anything about the Russians spying on Trump, nor heard that the US IC was making any spying they are doing “look like its Russia.”
True or False, this is a completely independent distraction.
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: It always existed but now people feel free expressing it.
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
Thanks looking forward to it.
Adam L Silverman
@zhena gogolia: Yes.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: I’m looking for a level of precision in classification, based on official definitions* and statutes that properly take no account of race, ethnicity, religion, and/or sexual orientation, that the news media and a lot of elected and appointed officials don’t seem to care about.
* For full disclosure, I was a participant in the National Institute of Justice’s 2002 Special Conference on Violence and Terrorism. The determination at the conference is that the conceptualization/definition of terrorism presented in my paper, based on my doctoral dissertation and co-authored with Ron Akers (my crim chair for my PhD), was the most useful and effective definition of and empirical theoretical explanation of terrorism. The proceedings of the conference were collected into an edited volume and can be found here:
“Toward a Social Learning Model of Violence and Terrorism.” (co-authored with Ronald L. Akers, PhD). In Violence: From Theory to Research. Margaret A. Zahn, Henry H. Brownstein, and Shelly L. Jackson (eds). Cincinnati: Anderson Publishing, 2004.
https://www.amazon.com/Violence-Theory-Research-Margaret-Zahn/dp/1583605614/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1488918058&sr=8-1&keywords=violence+from+theory+to+research
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman:
Indeed, those were good times and I was so looking forward to President Hitlary issuing thumbscrews and carnivorous horses to BLM employees with instructions to tame the American West a second time.
Instead, here we are.
Adam L Silverman
@Woodrow/Asim: You don’t have to credit me. Its not a particularly original explanation. I’ve seen half a dozen other folk make similar ones today.
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman:
No wonder Bannon and Gurka make your blood boil.
Hungry Joe
I don’t quite understand the purpose of calling in bomb threats. Yes, it’s harassment and even (with a stretch) small-scale terrorism, but what, ultimately, is the goal? Is it just to be mean and to scare people? And, what’s the history of these callers — do some of them eventually get around to planting bombs? And if they do, do they still call it in?
It seems there are three basic types: 1) Those who call in false bomb threats; 2) those who plant bombs, then call so that people can evacuate; and 3) those who plant bombs and don’t call in. Very different behaviors and, I suspect, very different goals.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks, Adam.
Adam L Silverman
@Millard Filmore: I’m generally stunned by what is being bandied about as an attempt to explain away what is going on, including “there’s nothing going on, but we’re not going to provide the explanation to back that up, you just have to trust us”. So anything is possible at this point. I think what you’re going to see, and I want to clarify from above, that the claim will be that the CIA did the hacking into the DNC and RNC on Obama’s request, but made it look like Russia and made it looked like Russia was helping the President’s campaign. That’s the only reason you start talking about the CIA having the ability to make its hacking tools and malware look like Russia’s. This will be in order to discredit the charges of Russian hacking and a Russian campaign of active measures in support of the President’s campaign.
Hopefully that makes more sense.
Roger Moore
@Hungry Joe:
It’s hard to know what the goal is at this point. It could be simply to harass and terrorize, or it could be to desensitize people to the threats so they won’t evacuate when you finally call in a real bomb.
rikyrah
The Breitbartization of the News
by Nancy LeTourneau
March 7, 2017 8:00 AM
The Columbia School of Journalism recently published a fascinating study of media coverage during the 2016 election. Kevin Drum has a nice summary of what they found, but his title, “Breitbart Takes Over the Right” is a bit misleading.
Let’s take a look at two of the charts CSJ produced. First, here is the Twitter ecosystem during the presidential campaign.
Notice that Breitbart dominates on the right (even dwarfing Fox News), while there are several major players on the left/center (yeah, I don’t agree with how all those outlets are labelled either — but that’s for another day).
But the real kicker is something most of us noticed as it was happening — the focus of the coverage. Here is the CSJ graph on that:
What got the most coverage by far are scandals related to Clinton. Scandals related to Trump got very little coverage, while reporting on Trump issues was more prevalent than reporting on Clinton issues. But even with that disparity in mind, CJS demonstrates that:
This pro-Trump media sphere appears to have not only successfully set the agenda for the conservative media sphere, but also strongly influenced the broader media agenda, in particular coverage of Hillary Clinton….While mainstream media coverage was often critical, it nonetheless revolved around the agenda that the right-wing media sphere set: immigration.
Here is their conclusion:
Adam L Silverman
@trollhattan: It is what it is. The best question I ever received on an exam was during my IR subfield qualifications for my PhD. One of the faculty, real good guy, asked me (and I’m paraphrasing from memory): “What you study is interesting and important and understudied (at the time this was true!), and you are trying to do it in a way that few have tried with empirical theory and appropriate methodologies* and scholarly rigor. But how to you keep those less scrupulous from using your research like a weapon, how do you keep your research from being a loaded gun left on a table for anyone to pick up and use?” The answer is precise terminology and painting with a very fine brush. And even then its not a perfect safeguard.
* Amusingly I used the wrong statistical test in my dissertation. In my and my committee’s defense, the methodologist the department hired, who publicly stated he’d review everyone’s methodologies even if they weren’t his student as that was part of the job, blew me off completely. The amazing thing is that ordinary least squares is still robust enough to handle the non-parametric data I had. When I eventually learned I used the wrong methodology, after I had earned my PhD, and then learned what the right methodology was and how to use it, I got very similar results.
rikyrah
A Mandate By Any Other Name Is Still a Mandate
by Nancy LeTourneau
March 7, 2017 10:15 AM
Last night the Republicans released their Obamacare repeal/replacement plan. They’re calling it the “American Health Care Act” or AHCA (I’m sure there’s no intention to confuse people with the ACA, is there?) If you’d like to read a summary of what it does/doesn’t do, I’d recommend checking out what has been written by Sarah Kliff, Tierney Sneed, Kevin Drum and/or Michael Hiltzik.
After checking in with all those expert wonks, I think that Ezra Klein nailed the overarching problem with this:
Adam L Silverman
@Hungry Joe: I wrote this back in February as part of an earlier post on this subject:
rikyrah
I KNOW which side I’m on. Have no qualms about it.
…………….
Trump or CIA: Which Side Are You On?
by Martin Longman March 7, 2017 1:33 PM
………………
Or consider this. Since WikiLeaks has just released a trove of documents from the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence, who do you think our president will side with? Will he side with the folks who worked with his buddy Roger Stone to destroy Hillary Clinton’s campaign?
Or will Trump side with the folks who are pretty clearly convinced that he was in collusion with the Russians and have been treating him as a counterintelligence case?
Will people on the left be outraged that Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah said that they can just give up their Android phones if they need extra coin to afford health insurance, or will they save their energy to criticize the CIA for making sure that Android phones are insecure?
Roger Moore
@Adam L Silverman:
That seems like the place they’re going to go, but it [ETA: that story] still makes zero sense. Why would Obama use the CIA to hack both the Democrats and the Republicans and then release data specifically designed to help Trump? Why would the CIA launder their data through Wikileaks? Why would Wikileaks accept data from the CIA, and why wouldn’t they just directly admit that’s where they got their information rather than doing it by such a roundabout route? I guess people who want to believe will buy it, but from a high level view it’s obviously nonsense. It seems like the bigger goal is to throw so much dust in the air that nobody can feel confident in anything.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Easy to blame Brietbart and Fox News but Vichy Times was vicious about HRC and covered T with kid gloves, also so called liberal media like PBS News Hour.
rikyrah
America Is Failing Workers Left Behind by the New Economy
Trump thinks tearing up trade deals is the answer. It isn’t.
by Karen A. Tramontano
March 7, 2017 12:37 PM
Organized labor and civil society organizations have been critics of U.S. trade policy for years. Yet, it wasn’t until the 2016 election of President Donald Trump—who as a Republican candidate made anti-trade rhetoric a centerpiece of his campaign—that a rethinking of U.S. trade policy is finally in the spotlight. Since his inauguration, President Trump has moved quickly to reshape America’s approach to international economic affairs, including pledging to give “American workers a fair deal” by renegotiating or withdrawing from U.S. trade agreements.
Rejecting trade agreements outright will not end global competition for U.S. workers who will continue to confront corporate relocation and dislocation; the global economy is here to stay. What the United States is failing to do is to help American workers whose jobs have been displaced by the complex forces unleashed by globalization and automation.
Today’s highly competitive global economy regularly produces winners and losers, as competitive pressures lead to thousands of jobs being created and destroyed every day. And while trade has a role to play in this dynamic, it is not the only explanation for this volatility and instability. It is just one among many factors, which include technological change, industrial shifts, tax incentives, global workforce expansion, the pursuit of low-cost labor, and customer tastes and desires, among others.
Still, when it comes to the debate over the costs and benefits of trade, proponents of open trade focus disproportionately on its benefits without paying equal attention to the plight of those on the losing end of the stick. This is not a fair approach. Moreover, ignoring those who have been negatively affected by the impact of trade and other factors has led to the intractable debate we find ourselves in today.
? Martin
Was nearly knocked over yesterday by a student in a complete fleeing panic, crying and screaming in their native language, followed by a number of other students trying to calm him down (not speaking the same native language – would have been humorous in a different setting). By the time I caught up with them they had settled him down a bit and had a staffer I recognized talking to him, so I returned to my meeting knowing he was in good hands. Found out later he had just received a text from his sister I think it was, that their parents had been picked up and were likely to be deported. Pretty sure the student was persian, possibly afghani.
As we compare notes across the institution we realize this is nearly a daily occurrence here now, intermixed with anti-semitic acts, some new adventures in misogyny, a handful of students openly calling out muslims, etc. The mood has changed. Some groups are definitely demoralized, lots of people are on edge. We are ramping up our suicide intervention efforts and preparing for violent protests.
hovercraft
@Hungry Joe:
To terrorize, to make you change the way you live to make you contemplate moving to somewhere you do feel safe, preferably outside the country. The body count while nice to these people is not the end goal, it’s to let you know your place, to remind you who’s in charge, and that you don’t belong. Scared people tend to be cowed, less vocal, so even getting you to shut up and fall in line is a victory.
Millard Filmore
@Adam L Silverman:
I must be thinking too logically. The DNC-RNC hacking, the helping Trump’s campaign … that is all independent of secret meetings with Russian ambassadors, laundering Russian mob money, laundering money for terrorist governments. Then there are the local Republican re-election committees that gleefully accepted and used information that they knew was stolen by what they already assumed was a hostile foreign power.
I don’t see how “it was really the CIA” negates any criminal activity on the part of the Republican party, or mitigates the cover up. As a distraction its great. A few decades can be spent by Republican congressional committees chasing these things before they have time to investigate Trump’s crimes.
gene108
@schrodingers_cat:
Fuck ’em.
We’re here. We make the country better than their cracker ass.
LAC
@Mnemosyne: Noooo. So when they bring up “economic anxiety” as to why they voted for Trump, that might be code too? OMG…. (snark sound effects on)
Adam L Silverman
@Roger Moore: @Millard Filmore: No argument here. None of their explanations make sense. And that’s what is both troubling to me as a national security professional and why I think the media and others aren’t going to let go of this. None of the explanations make sense, most of them aren’t consistent with each other, so if there’s no there then why not just quickly show your cards?
Roger Moore
@Millard Filmore:
I think so. It isn’t necessarily about providing a coherent alternative explanation; it’s obscure the issue enough that people who don’t want to believe the Trump/Russia connection can feel good about their continued disbelief.
hovercraft
@schrodingers_cat:
The graphic with the story is what pissed me off, the crazies are supposed to be purveyors of stupidity, that’s what they’re there for, the fact that “reputable” organizations followed their lead is the problem, looking at the coverage of e-ghazi, Benghazi, and the Clinton foundation is all you need to know as to why Hillary lost, the scary thing for republicans should be that even with all the media stacked against her it took Comey and Vlad to put them over the top. That is a party in trouble, for all the states they control and their voter suppression efforts, they are a party in need of a new approach, this perfect storm wil not happen again, we are awake and pissed off.
Lizzy L
@Adam L Silverman:
Do you think this claim will be made by people who actually speak for the president, like Conway and Spicer? Or will it come from surrogate sources like Breitbart, Limbaugh, Coulter, and similar friends? Or both?
? Martin
@MomSense: I think it makes clear that “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
We can hold most of these worse instincts off by simply making them socially unacceptable. As soon as you back off of that, even a bit, they flow freely forward. Trump just needed to take the choke off of CBP and INS to let them do what they naturally want to do.
Lapassionara
I hope Stuart Wright, if guilty, serves a long sentence in an Illinois state prison.
Adam, do you have any ideas for us ordinary people? Some action we could take to counter this trend?
? Martin
@Adam L Silverman:
Because jet fuel can’t melt steel beams.
Adam L Silverman
@Lizzy L: The latter. Once it circulates there, if it can be pushed into the news mainstream – as in NY Times or WaPo or CNN or the networks are just reporting on it and stating there’s no evidence to support it, then the actual surrogates will begin using it. Just the way we saw things play out starting last week. First with Levin on the radio. The Limbaugh referencing Levin. Then Breitbart covering it. The FOX News covering it with lots of Levin interviews. Then the President’s tweets. Then actual journalists got involved, reported on what was happening and that there was no evidence, which then allowed Levin to come back, as well as Hewitt, and the FOX folks, and then Huckabee-Sanders and Conway and Scaramucci and others, to reference the actual journalism and falsely state that the Times and WaPo and CNN and other actual journalists had confirmed it.
MARCION
Jewish school in Edgewater here in Chicago got a bomb threat. Police shut down basically the whole neighborhood. Had to go around for my commute this morning.
I feel like thia country is bending, bending, bending to some kind of breaking point. I dont know what kind and that scares me
Mnemosyne
@LAC:
Inorite? Such a shocker! Nobody saw that plot twist.
Well, except Chris Rock, who knows that train is never late.
Iowa Old Lady
OT but I seen on FB that Cole’s car died halfway to Connecticut. Because of course it did.
Adam L Silverman
@Lapassionara: Pay attention to it. If you see someone exercising their inner asshole towards a person of color or a recognizable religious minority call 9-11 and if you’re comfortable doing so, place yourself in between them by going and engaging the victim. Talk to your friends and neighbors about what is going on. Call your local, state, and Federal representatives and politely but firmly tell them what you think is going on and that you expect them to stand up, be counted, and do the right thing in response to what is happening. Things like that.
trollhattan
@Iowa Old Lady:
Any prime abandoning fields in Connecticut? Kind of a dinky state, as I recall.
schrodingers_cat
@Iowa Old Lady: Return of the Subaru in the field!
Hungry Joe
@Adam L Silverman: But why would a for-real bomber even bother to “de-sensitize”? If they want to plant a bomb to kill people, just plant the bomb and shut up about it. Why go through the rigamarole of calling in false threats for a while?
Adam L Silverman
@MARCION: I fixed the most problematic typo in your comment. The one where you had an “i” for the “u” in shut. These things happen…
? Martin
@trollhattan: Some. More likely a wooded area suitable for a shallow grave, though.
JPL
@Iowa Old Lady: Hope she let him bring some overalls.
Gin & Tonic
@Iowa Old Lady: So he was trying to throw us off the trail when he said she was from Niagara Falls? Or was that just another joke I didn’t get?
Adam L Silverman
@Hungry Joe: Because actually being able to plant a bomb within one of these facilities is not easy, because access is monitored. I actually once planned out, as part of a security consult, how I would do it and I’m not going to post it here, but if you want to cause major structural damage and mass casualties, you’re not going to just place the bomb against the side of the building. Not that that would be good in terms of outcomes either.
? Martin
@trollhattan: Oh, actually, if it was halfway to Connecticut then he’s in Pennsylvania. Lots more suitable fields there.
Lizzy L
@Adam L Silverman: Of course. More effort toward more destabilization. The word “puppet” springs to mind, I wonder where I heard it…? I can’t quite recall.
Vlad P. must be sleeping well these nights.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
Random question about the shooting in Seattle: my first thought is that the guy wore a mask because he was known to the victim. Have I just been watching too much “Law & Order”?
? Martin
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah, they had a threat at the JCC near my office a week ago, and I’d taken my son there for a number of classes years ago, and the security then was frankly a little shocking (and I trust warranted). Frankly I think it would be easier to sneak a bomb into police HQ than the JCC.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: I have no idea.
Another Scott
@Iowa Old Lady: I had a bad feeling when it had issues on the previous shopping trip and the proposed “solution” was to replace all the spark plugs. That didn’t make sense to me (plugs usually gradually degrade – they don’t usually suddenly fail all at once).
It reminds me, though, of the old GTO my mom had. It died on I-75 on a trip from GA to OH. It just gradually slowed down and then wouldn’t start. We had it towed and the mechanics couldn’t figure out what was wrong, so their proposed solution was a tuneup. We didn’t want to do that (didn’t have the money). Eventually after sitting a while, the car started up and seemed OK and we drove it home. But it was weird – it wouldn’t go above about 60 mph even though you could rev the engine to the red line in park…
Many months pass, time spent replacing parts, etc., etc. as we could afford it.
Eventually a friend’s father (a farmer) figured out that the car was running out of gas (pulled off the gas line to the carburetor and ran the engine with gas just trickling out of the line). Since I’d recently replaced the fuel pump, we figured that wasn’t the problem. He got underneath, followed the fuel line back to the tank, and found a ~ 4″ long section of rubber hose that had a kink in it. He shortened the line a bit to remove the kink, put it back, and the car ran “better than new!”. We eventually figured out that its top speed was 120 mph with 5 people in the car. ;-)
Cole – if you’re reading (Ha! I crack myself up!!) – check the gas line, and look for kinks.
“Engines need fuel, air, and spark!”
Cheers,
Scott.
rikyrah
@Iowa Old Lady:
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Not funny, but it is……
Can’t wait to read this story.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
I was hoping there would be something in the literature. Oh well. It seems logical, but shooting someone based on their race or perceived religion isn’t particularly logical in the first place.
Gin & Tonic
@Another Scott: Wow, your Mom had a GTO? Nor really a Mom car, I’m impressed.
trollhattan
@JPL: He just best not mess up his fancy eatin’ overalls.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: I’m sure there’s something in some literature somewhere.
Adam L Silverman
@trollhattan: Are those the ones you serve with a sprig of parsley?
trollhattan
@? Martin:
Maybe he can leave it in Pickett’s charge field. “I took my Outback to Gettysburg and all I gut was this crappy t-shirt”
trollhattan
@Another Scott:
Misspelled “spork.”
Gin & Tonic
@Another Scott: In homage to your Mom.
Jeffro
@rikyrah: Just saw that same thing, asking the same question that many of us here have been asking for quite some time: What does it make better? What is it even trying to achieve?
And the answer of course is, “Randians’ wallets, and the fattening thereof”. There is no other goal here, no increase in health or coverage or anything beneficial. Except that the taxes on the wealthy used to fund Obamacare’s subsidies go away. Full stop.
Adam L Silverman
@trollhattan: No. And don’t joke about that.
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman:
Now that you mention it, Cole could totally sport a parsley boutineer. Pinned to the LH suspender.
Mike G
All of which suggests that right-wingers are not just widely ignorant about everything, they are also oddly incurious.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:
Yeah, I’m confused. And if they’re in CT, why don’t they come visit me?
Gravenstone
@Another Scott: A former college roommate had a GTO. Changed the oil religiously, but didn’t see the value in replacing the filter. You’d think an engineering major might know better than that. I occasionally wonder how long that thing lived under his care?
JPL
@Gin & Tonic: Maybe she is, maybe this is a little vacay, or maybe this is a go to meet the parents trip. If the latter, it got off to a bad start.
Villago Delenda Est
So, are all those senators going to do something about the Nazi fuck Bannon who works in the WH?
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: I was in Hartford last week. Are you nearby?
Another Scott
@Gin & Tonic: She bought it from a woman friend who bought it new in 1970 in California. It was a fun car! Got about 16 MPG, downhill, on the highway. :-/
I learned a lot working on it. Eventually it overheated (another learning experience – using a cooling system cleaner that eats aluminum isn’t a good idea on a car that (unbeknownst to me) had an aluminum impeller on the water pump) and threw a connecting rod driving through Indiana. (Amazingly, the engine still ran with 7 functional pistons…) I replaced the original 400 CID engine with a used 455 ($200!) and we got a couple more years out of it before it developed a rod knock, then a friend of hers wrecked it, etc., etc. :-( The 455 was amazing. It was almost impossible to start moving from a stop without spinning the tires – just a huge amount of torque… Of course, it got about 14 MPG on a good day. ;-)
Modern cars are orders of magnitude better now, but it was a fun car for the times.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Gin & Tonic: I actually bought that album and may still have it around here somewhere. Talk about a one-hit wonder!
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
Half an hour.
zhena gogolia
JGC’s twitter says, “At a walmart in lewisburg pa because my car died approximately four hours into an eight hour drive. living yhe fucking dream.”
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman:
My God, I was just thinking about this – that a year ago we all were feeling secure enough in how our institutions were working to actually LAUGH at these guys in addition to wanting to thump their heads against something hard.
Well, I was, anyway.
Another Scott
@Gravenstone: There’s someone around here who has a ’64 that he putters around in on nice weekend days. It’s got a nice snarl to it. :-)
They’re archaic, heavy, dangerous cars. But they’re fun.
Cheers,
Scott.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman:
Wait, I…what? Dear God, my head hurts,
“See, Obama ordered the CIA to hack both the DNC *and* the RNC but only to release the information on the DNC…to help Donald Trump Birther-in-Chief, win the Presidential election! – What are you looking at me like that for? WORK WITH ME HERE, PEOPLE!”
Mobile RoonieRoo
Grumpy and I are going to see Tom Nichols speak tonight.
Patricia Kayden
@schrodingers_cat: They don’t want a whole lot of us here. Too bad for them because most of us aren’t leaving. This country belongs to us as much as it belongs to them.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: We should have a meetup. You don’t seem to be that far away.
1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)
@Hungry Joe: Why does a cat play with a mouse instead of killing it at once?
Woodrowfan
@Adam L Silverman: Are you at the War College???
schrodingers_cat
@1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet): Kittehs practice their hunting skills, playing is like hunting. Also for fun. Kittehs can be vicious bastards. Cute and fury but with murderous intent.
Another Scott
@trollhattan: D’Oh!!
Since he’s at Walmart, maybe John can pick up one of these to solve that problem.
I’m sure John appreciates the correction!!
But maybe The Lady Friend™ already had that picked out as a birthday present or something. I hope I didn’t spoil the surprise! ;-p
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Don’t think about it to hard. You’ll give yourselves an aneurysm.
Adam L Silverman
@Mobile RoonieRoo: He doing a book talk? That should be good.
ThresherK
@schrodingers_cat: Hey, there are other Juicers in Whalerland.
mar-a-smallo
@Adam L Silverman: The idea that the CIA hacked and released DNC emails is a bit too nonsensical even for most Internet kooks, so the reigning theory du jour is: the DNC info wasn’t hacked by the CIA, it was leaked by hero whistleblower Seth Rich, who then got murdered by the Hillary Death Force in retaliation. The CIA then faked Russian hacking evidence to deflect attention from the horrific, damning content of the emails and muddy the waters by creating a McCarthyite witch hunt.
Anyone taking bets on how long until this gets blared from Twitter Prime?
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
Are you in Hartford often?
schrodingers_cat
@ThresherK: I thought you were a fellow Masshole.
1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)
@schrodingers_cat: Pretty much. The person who does this sort of thing is, in part, entertaining themselves with the target’s sufferings and struggles to deal. But my kittehs are not trying to claim they live according to a higher moral code while they slap that mouse around.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Not often, but I don’t live that far away. About an hour away.
Yarrow
Love her!
schrodingers_cat
@1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet): I am pretty sure, bosscat would eat me if he was any bigger or I was smaller.
Adam L Silverman
@Woodrowfan: I was assigned to the US Army War College by US Army Training and Doctrine Command from July 2010 to July 2014 as the Cultural Advisor to the Commandant and the Professor of National Security Strategy and Policy, renamed as Professor of Culture, Strategy and Policy in 2012. I was also triple hatted as the Deputy to the Director of the Army Culture and Foreign Language Directorate from November 2012 through to that office’s closure in February 2014. This assignment was a civilian mobilization under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA). I did a short, follow on assignment with the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Security Dialogue (Special Envoy for Middle East Peace) and US Army Europe from July through August 2014. I then demobilized, cleared post, and left the area about ten days later.
JPL
@1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet): Not just cats, dogs will also. Mr. Finch caught a field mouse and was tossing it in the air, like a toy. I made him drop it and come into the house.
ChrisGrrr
@Adam L Silverman: Another exceptional post, A.
I am being educated despite myself and my expectations, here, once again.
Adam L Silverman
@ChrisGrrr: Well we can’t have that.
ThresherK
@schrodingers_cat: No, that’s where I went to college (Springfield), and from whence Spousal ThresherK emigrated (Worcester).
? Martin
So I think I figured out that Trump tweeting about whatever crap he sees on the morning shows is almost identical to my daughter yelling at her video games when some enemy is kicking her ass.
Crusty Dem
Lancaster SC, not NC.
Though it is 10 miles to the border..
Adam L Silverman
@ChrisGrrr: And thanks for the kind words.
Adam L Silverman
@Crusty Dem: Thanks, I’ve fixed it.
SFAW
@Villago Delenda Est:
Decided to become a jokester, have you?
gex
@Hungry Joe: As Adam said, it is a lower amount of effort (and presumably less trouble if you are caught) to call in a fake threat.
Especially, as this and others of his post discussed, given that this accomplishes an assault on gray spaces. These children are scared to go to school. Their parents are scared to take them. The people who work there are scared to go to work. They will start to remove themselves from public spaces.
And, this is the big part in how you groom the population to move towards something worse, you turn people who might otherwise be accepting against marginalized folks. You don’t want the mosque or temple in your neighborhood if it bring bomb threats. So instead of being supportive, moderate folks turn away.
The people who want marginalized folks to go away might really like to blow them up, but if they can accomplish it some other way they are perfectly fine with that too.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
but, but…. paid speeches!
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
Except with much larger real-world consequences.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman:
Yup. For those interested in the long version, check out Brock’s The Republican Noise Machine. Still all you need to know about how the RW echo chamber is designed to get nonsense started and keep even the dumbest right-wing tropes rolling around for weeks/months/decades.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: Now completely weaponized by a group of bots and trolls on behalf of Putin’s strategic objectives.
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman:
Your explanation makes sense. As usual, the claim makes no more sense than your average two year old’s explanation of nuclear physics.
Another Scott
@? Martin: rofl.
“Die, Centipede, Die!!!1″
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: That too.
JPL
I’m streaming MSNBC and Hugh Hewitt said the Trump supporters are still behind him, because they don’t want someone who speaks to the Manhattan elites. Did anyone on the panel say Hugh, Trump is a Manhattan elite….
wtf
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman:
It has been ripe for the plucking for some time now.
We joke about how Obama could have come out in favor of oxygen at any point in his term and solved half (or better!) of his problems…but that is indeed what has been built here. Plus Facebook and Twitter and hackers.
efgoldman
@zhena gogolia:
I know just where that is. Visited one of my sisters-in-law last summer, she lives in Watsonville, a (literally) two traffic light town just North of Lewisburg.
I wonder if Cole knows that the biggest local employer, fairly near that WalMart, is the prison.
Roger Moore
@JPL:
But he isn’t, though not for lack of trying. He’s from Queens and a huge part of his resentment is that all his money hasn’t bought him entry into the Manhattan elite.
Mike J
This is what a JCC bomb threat feels like
The Moar You Know
@Jeffro: That shit never dies. I still hear the same shit I used to hear from the lunatics staffing the John Birch Society booth at our local fair, forty years later on the internet. Sometimes the names change, but not even usually those.
Closest thing to immortality that humans have ever built, that goddamned RWNJ noise machine.
The only way to kill it now is to kill the entire internet. And, by design, that’s probably not possible.
Baud
@efgoldman:
If I know Cole, he soon will.
JPL
@Roger Moore: I stand corrected. Maybe some of those supporters need to go play golf with him at Mar Lago. Trump is a phony and so is Hewitt.
errr
Roger Moore
@The Moar You Know:
It would probably be easier to kill all the right wingers. Better for the world, also, too.
hovercraft
@JPL:
We;; everyone knows that “elites” look down on them so having someone who speaks to them is not desirable. Add in the fact that Manhattanites hate him and love Obama, makes them hate them even more. The media being based out of Manhattan takes it up to eleven.
TenguPhule
@Roger Moore: I second that option!
Or at least put them to use in the fields as involuntary servants.
Corner Stone
@Another Scott:
My mom had a 67 Pontiac LeMans 4 on the floor that I am still pissed to this day we couldn’t keep.
Corner Stone
@efgoldman:
“Hey there, buddy. Looks like you could use a little help? Me and Muggs here are pretty good with the tools. How bout we take a look?”
Corner Stone
@Adam L Silverman:
Insert the side eye “I’m looking at you” emoji:
debbie
I was listening to the news about this Wikileaks leak while driving home. They really seem to be crowing about their achievement. The CIA says they won’t comment, but I don’t understand why they wouldn’t come out and say Wiki faked all this stuff and none of it came from the CIA. How could Wiki prove them wrong?
Jeffro
@The Moar You Know:
More & better education chips away at it…a stout “Resistance”-style program of laying into wayward MoCs keeps it in check…
debbie
@Mnemosyne:
These guys are all cowards. He just didn’t want to be caught.
El Caganer
@Adam L Silverman: Totally OT, but I’m interested in what you thought of Carlisle. GF used to live in Harrisburg and we’d go over there, either to hang or to make a long stop on the way to see my relatives in Pittsburgh. I really liked it, like I do a lot of the small Pennsylvania cities like Lancaster (and Harrisburg).
HeidiMom
@efgoldman: WatsonTOWN. (I lived there for two years a long time ago.) And while Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary may be the biggest employer in the Lewisburg area, Bucknell University has a big presence, too. In fact, Lewisburg is considered by some in the area to be elitest and artsy. You may not think so if you just drive by on Route 15, but it’s true (I worked there for 10 years or so, also a long time ago).
HeidiMom
Response to El Caganer: While waiting to hear from Adam, let me tell you what I think of Carlisle, because I’ve lived here since 1995, and before that attended Dickinson College and Dickinson Law School here. (Well, technically, I’m in North Middleton Township, just north of the Carlisle Borough line, but same school district and mailing address.) I love it. Carlisle is a classic liberal arts college town in a classic central PA Republican area. Carlisle votes Democratic; the rest of Cumberland County votes Republican. I’ve had a Clinton/Kaine bumper sticker on my car since August 2016 or so, and haven’t had any problems. There was a very active Clinton campaign presence here (I did phone banking). There’s considerable diversity, with college students and faculty; law students and faculty; Army War College students, both American and international, and faculty; a substantial African-American community; a substantial Bosnian-American community (the local supermarket has a big “Eastern European foods” section); and even a small mosque not a mile from my home. Also, plenty of lawyers, because the law school is here, we’re the county seat, and we’re within easy commuting distance of Harrisburg, the state capital. For the past two decades or so, Carlisle has been known for its varied and ever-changing selection of restaurants — among the current crop are Cafe Bruges, Andalusia, and Issei Noodle, for example. And my personal favorite, Leo’s Homemade Ice Cream, which may be the world’s best — Adam, were you ever there when it was a little hole in the wall off Trindle Road, just east of town? It’s now in larger quarters on East High Street and is open year-round. And what I may be proudest of is the public library system — Cumberland County’s is the busiest in the state, and we have — wonder of wonders — a dedicated library tax. Books and great ice cream go a long way to make a livable place, IMHO.
Seanly
While I am sure that the attacker thought his victim was Muslim, he would still be shouting for him to get out of our country regardless. These asshats don’t want any Muslims, Mexicans, Asians, Africans, South or Central Americans, Sikhs, atheists, Jews, Indonesians, Phillipinos, etc, etc. etc. in our country. They long for the mythical days not just of the 1950’s but the 1850’s.
There are parts of Arkansas where being Catholic (or Papist as I used to hear on occasion there) was almost as bad as being Jewish.
Also, I used to live in Mechanicsburg and Harrisburg. Pretty area, but a bit too insular for us. Never feel like you fit in if you didn’t go to HS in the area. Miss ABC Brewing. And Yuengling.
El Caganer
@HeidiMom: Don’t forget Market Cross……I love it down here in Florida, but there’s a lot I miss about Pennsylvania,
Adam L Silverman
@El Caganer: I enjoyed both my assignment and living there. I miss both USAWC and Carlisle/Harrisburg.
Adam L Silverman
@HeidiMom: I was at Leo’s at both location. Am also a big fan of Massy’s frozen custard too!
Adam L Silverman
@El Caganer: Alibis is my preference over Market Cross. Now you all have me all nostalgic…
El Caganer
@Adam L Silverman: Never tried it. Now I’m duty-bound to recruit my sister and BIL to make another pilgrimage from Philly to Pittsburgh with appropriate stops in Lancaster, H’burg and Carlisle,,,this time Alibis, not Market Cross. Of course, will have to stop in Hershey, too, to soak up some food and suds at Troeg’s (very prejudiced on my part, but I think they make the best beer in America).
Adam L Silverman
@El Caganer: Alibis was originally owned by a USAWC grad and retired Army colonel, He sold it in 2013 to another local guy who owned another restaurant in town. The new guy, smartly – at least while I was there through August 2014, didn’t mess with the menu. He did paint the place, which, to be honest, was a good call. I also highly recommend both the Boiling Springs Tavern and Rustic Tavern and I was just informed yesterday by a friend still in the area that they’ve redone the restaurant in the Comfort Inn downtown. Its now 1794 the Whiskey Rebellion or somesuch and supposed to be very good.
The Lodger
@HeidiMom: Also not far from one of the easiest stretches of the Appalachian Trail – completely flat and covered with a 3-4 inch layer of pine needles. Like walking on carpet.
Adam L Silverman
@The Lodger: That’s my former backyard you’re talking about…
El Caganer
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks! Central PA has become a hotbed of craft brewers and craft distillers to complement all the wineries (I was a big PASA supporter for years – local food, local wine, etc.). I’ll have to find a way to make a tour; maybe this spring,
El Caganer
@Corner Stone: Hmmm….reminds me of the story I heard about Jackson, Michicgan, home of the state’s largst prison. The town used to greet toursts with a sign that read “You may never leave,” Somewhere along the way they realized that perhaps their message might be misinterpreted,
Gretchen
The Jewish Community Center daycare was one of the choices when my daughter was considering where to send her son. I think they’ve been receiving bomb threats. There was a shooting there a year or two ago where three people were killed. I can be brave for myself, and say “they’re not going to stop me going where I want to go.” But the thought of sending my little grandson to a place that gets weekly bomb threats……That’s where terrorism gets very effective.