Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

You are here: Home / Politics / America / Today in Stochastic Violence and Terrorism: Bloomington, Minnesota Mosque Firebombed

Today in Stochastic Violence and Terrorism: Bloomington, Minnesota Mosque Firebombed

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From The Minneapolis Star Tribune:

A blast caused by what the FBI called “an improvised explosive device” rocked a Bloomington Islamic center before dawn Saturday, just as a small group of Muslim worshipers had gathered for the day’s first round of prayers.

No one was hurt in the explosion, which heavily damaged an imam’s office at the Dar Al Farooq Center and sent smoke wafting through the large building. Windows in the office were shattered, either by the blast or by an object thrown through them.

The blast was reported at 5:05 a.m. as about a dozen people gathered in a room nearby for morning prayers and jolted awake many residents of the neighborhood. Congregants and neighbors expressed relief that there were no injuries, but also reacted with shock and dismay.

When police arrived, they found smoke and fire damage to the building, said Bloomington Police Chief Jeff Potts. Agents from the FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives soon joined the investigation. A large area outside the center was taped off as investigators, including members of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, combed through the grass.

At an early evening news conference, Special Agent in Charge Richard Thornton said an “improvised explosive device” caused the blast, but that investigators still must determine “who and why.”

WCCO CBS Minnesota:

Leaders at the center and the Muslim American Society of Minnesota say a worshiper saw someone throw an explosive device into the building and then speed off in a pick-up truck.

“The Muslim American Society of Minnesota condemns this arson and attack,” Asad Zaman said.

Meanwhile, federal authorities and Bloomington police investigate what led up to the explosion.

Within hours of the explosion, an outpouring of support from neighbors and community members of all religious backgrounds.

And since we have stochastic in the title, we might as well go for broke. Take it away WCCO CBS Minnesota!

 A bomb squad was called to the Cathedral of St. Paul Saturday afternoon after someone starting lighting papers on fire inside the building.

St. Paul police say a homeless man walked into the cathedral and started setting the fires, which were extinguished by bystanders.

The man was said to be carrying a brown paper bag containing a Bible and a Quran tied together, which at first was thought to possibly be an explosive device – but no such device was found.

The man was arrested for disorderly conduct.

Stay frosty!

Reader Interactions

98Comments

  2. 2.

    efgoldman

    A lone wolf with problems in the pickup truck I’m sure. Not someone who has been given permission to hate Muslims by the “president.”
    Too bad incitement won’t be part of the Mueller/impeachment smorgasbord.

    The other guy is probably a street person who’s demons got out of hand.

    ETA: At least nobody got hurt. No shooting.

  4. 4.

    Central Planning

    @Baud: I blame Al Franken. Actually I don’t, but I’ve been reading his new book and he’s the only politician I know from Minnesota

  5. 5.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: Speaking of, you see this?

    Millhiser’s response is hysterical and spot on:

  15. 15.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Which do you prefer? The candid shot of Gorka and Sessions or the posed?

    I’m surprised that Kelly hasn’t turfed General Field Marshall for Life Sebastian yet.

  17. 17.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Adam L Silverman: McMaster fears me,

    Oh my. I figured the guy was more than a little goofy, but that’s just…. he shouldn’t be allowed car keys or grown-up scissors.

    that actually made me chuckle in spite of the godawful subject of this post. Anecdotally, I saw a tweet the other day school counsellors are reporting an increase in bullying. A trans woman was beat up in NYC yesterday. I try not to give in to gloom but it does sometimes feel like the center is not holding.

  22. 22.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: I’m sure it’s on the planning matrix. The issue is, like with Miller, they’re both favorites of the President for how they do on TV. As well as being favorites of Bannon.

  23. 23.

    efgoldman

    @debbie:

    Cernovich retweets someone who thinks Stephen Miller will be the next Communications Director.

    What could go wrong?

  24. 24.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @rikyrah: Yup

    @debbie: apparently they were all high-fifing each other after he called that CNN guy “cosmopolitan”. We’ll have to see if that word starts appearing in trump and other MAGA tweets.

  25. 25.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: As opposed to the crap (memetic) that the Rhesus Rightway to Live guy is pitching, what you’re seeing is mimetic. The President and several people he’s empowered demonstrate the behavior. It is then modeled. This is going to be one of the hardest things to fix.

  26. 26.

    debit

    I believe it was at a rally in the southern suburbs of Minnesota that a crazy old lady told John McCain that Obama was Muslim. After checking, yep. Lakeville. Just south of Bloomington.

  27. 27.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    they’re both favorites of the President for how they do on TV. As well as being favorites of Bannon.

    I expect that we’ll eventually see Kelly tell the boss “either Bannonazi goes or i go.”
    That will be fun. I’d bet on Bannonaszi surviving. He seems to have a Rasputin-like hold on Amber Asswipe.

  30. 30.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: And he most likely would have gotten the same perverse kicks he’s gotten doing what he’s actually pursued as his life’s work.

  31. 31.

    Adam L Silverman

    @debbie: This has been reported in several places. Apparently the President, Bannon, and several others in the West Wing were thrilled with Miller’s performance on Thursday. So we will have to wait and see.

  32. 32.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: Given the war on McMaster that Bannon’s allies are waging, as well as the Russians, this is going to be interesting to watch. I’m fairly sure that the attempt to oust McMaster is a red line for Kelly.

  33. 33.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @rikyrah:

    This is DOMESTIC TERRORISM.

    Yep, it is. Just sickening and awful and sad and infuriating. I feel pretty much the way I felt in 1963 when the Birmingham church was bombed. Helpless but determined to do whatever may be in my small power to help turn things around.

  34. 34.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    As a patriot I offer to go to NSC, teach them how to fight and win memetic wars. McMaster fears me, well let’s fight radical Islam together.

    I recognise all those words, but I have no idea what the tweet means.

    (Might help if I knew who Mike Cernovich. Off to consult Mister Google.)

    ETA: Okay, I looked up Cernovich and he sounds like a very nice person //snark// but there must be a complicated backstory here that I know nothing about.

  35. 35.

    Schlemazel

    @Baud:
    There used to be a nice old Lutheran gentleman in St. Paul that would send anonymous hate mail to people of color whenever they made the news. He was particularly sweet to mixed race couples. He was finally exposed and while he never expressed remorse he did stop sending them.

    There is a nasty streak that goes back long before the Muslims arrived here. Minnesotans did, after all, send Batshit Bachmann to Congress.. It is a small minority and they generally have to hide in the shadows but they exist. I don’t think any place is pure

  37. 37.

    Schlemazel

    @Central Planning:
    He and Kieth Ellison are the only two that matter. Kieth, sadly, is a Bernie bot but he does a great job. This happened in his district & he is a Muslim BTW

  43. 43.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mike J:

    Don’t do it. It’s really not worthwhile.

    Too late. There’s ten seconds of my life I’ll never get back.
    @schrodingers_cat:

    I have no idea and don’t care. Also not fond of the General Fan Club.

    This entire (mal)administration makes it so hard. When you hate all factions and players, and there’s nothing to root for except injuries and meteors — well, it just seems grossly unfair. They are all loathsome.

  44. 44.

    NotMax

    Gotta be on site or nearby CCTV footage. Can’t be all that much foot or vehicular traffic at five in the ante meridian to pore through.

  46. 46.

    Schlemazel

    @debit:
    I remember the event but not that it took place in LAkeville. On the good news side there was a billboard just South of Bloomington on 52 with a photo of hair furor and only one word: EMBARRASSMENT!

    I took that as a good sign

  47. 47.

    MomSense

    Oh FFS. Cernovich is an asshole. His ideology has no place in a modern democracy. I’m disgusted by this. I just got home from the hospital ( dad had a setback) to pack and head back tomorrow. The CNA who cared for my dad most of the day is a Somali immigrant who treated my dad with such compassion and skill. When I peaked in the door after coming back from dinner I could hear her speaking so reassuringly and it really put me at ease.
    Cernovich, trump, the asshole who firebombed the mosque, and the rest of those hateful “alt” jerks don’t possess one ounce of the dignity and beauty of Sandrine.

  51. 51.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Patricia Kayden: I see your /s, but we really have to stop saying that. It is domestic terrorism and we need to say it aloud. Like saying Voldemort’s name if you will.

  52. 52.

    Adam L Silverman

    @SiubhanDuinne: He’s an alt-right guy. The alt-right’s signature tool is creating and using Internet memes to achieve their goals. He’s not the sharpest knife in the plastic chopstick drawer, so I’m sure to him PSYOPs or counterterrorism or unconventional warfare, none of which he has any experience with, just need better memes to be created and deployed so that the US can successfully defeat ISIS.

  54. 54.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @MomSense:

    Sorry about your dad’s setback, and wish him well, but very glad you have Sandrine to care for him. Thinking of you. It’s really hard when our fathers begin to demonstrate human frailty.

  57. 57.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I have decided to disconnect from the minutia of politics. Its serves no purpose, except aggravation. I don’t need to know every happening of the kitchen cabinet stocked with generals and Nazis.

    You are wise, and much stronger than I am. I know it serves no good purpose, and almost certainly is taking something of a toll on my physical and mental health, but I still feel the need to follow along. But good for you in your decision to disconnect.

  58. 58.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @schrodingers_cat: Suggesting that McMaster isn’t afraid of a random neo-fascist blogger isn’t being in a fan club. It is acknowledging reality and mocking someone who doesn’t. My political beliefs were/are quite different from those of about 75% of the officers with whom I served. I do not, as a result, doubt either their competence or their patriotism. I do despise those who showed up as racist or sexist.

  59. 59.

    Mnemosyne

    One of our resident trolls keeps lecturing me that the Democrats are obviously losers because Hillary won Minnesota, a solid blue state, by only a couple of percentage points. Hmmm …. ?

  63. 63.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Thanks, that was the missing link I didn’t know about. Better MEMES?? Seriously, for real? Like, they will hear the lamentation of the women as long as they deploy the “that’d be great” guy from Office Space, or Grumpy Cat, or even their stupid Pepe?

    Thanks. I was feeling a bit apprehensive, but no longer. Not if they’re this stupid.

  64. 64.

    Adam L Silverman

    @SiubhanDuinne: Cernovich is a failed, non-practicing attorney living off of a reported seven figure financial settlement from his ex-wife. She is a high priced Silicon Valley attorney. What he’s done with that is write a couple of largely incoherent and unreadable self help books for men who want to be alpha men and brand some ridiculous supplements while making memes, doing YouTube videos, tweeting, and now periscoping. He clearly has a source inside the White House based on some of the stuff he’s tweeted. He’s also pro-rape. And he’s made some really disgusting statements about transgendered people.

  69. 69.

    Roger Moore

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    Strictly speaking a meme is any self-perpetuating idea. That includes big things like religions and other belief systems. So there’s a grain of truth to the idea that we need to fight terrorists with better memes. We need ideas and belief systems that will convince people who might otherwise join the terrorists to adopt our point of view instead. That would be memetic warfare. Of course you could also call it by one of its well established names, like propaganda, public relations, or information warfare. Calling it “memetic warfare” just makes it sound like something new and cool that we aren’t already working on.

  70. 70.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Sounds like a sweetheart. Tell you what, I’ll try to forget I learned anything about him, and if by chance he does anything of consequence in future, I’ll rely on you to bring it to our attention and explain the inexplicable.

  72. 72.

    Villago Delenda Est

    I have no idea what the fuck “memetic wars” are, but I’ll bet it has something to do with a shirtless Vlad Putin and Cernovich swooning over same.

  73. 73.

    Adam L Silverman

    @debbie: And in case you were wondering, here is the wunderkind giving his speech for student body president at his high school in Santa Monica, CA. From all the reporting on him he was booed off the stage.

  74. 74.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Cernovich claims to have mastered making his semen “addictive” to women, which explains why he has an ex wife, or something.

    The guy is a disgusting sack of MRA manure.

  75. 75.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Suggesting that McMaster isn’t afraid of a random neo-fascist blogger isn’t being in a fan club.

    Point taken.

    OT: I am listening to the oldies, Hindi movie songs that were popular when my parents were kids in the 50s. Soothing. I don’t even remember the first time I heard them

  79. 79.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Roger Moore:

    Calling it “memetic warfare” just makes it sound like something new and cool that we aren’t already working on the core argument of a David Brooks column in FTFNYT.

    Yes, seriously, I take your entire point, and do not disagree. But Jeezus Murphy, this guy.

  82. 82.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Adam L Silverman: Aaaarrrgghhhh!!!!! He would enjoy IOBC; the infantry school makes the lads do a police call at 5:00 AM.* Assuming he got through OCS, 60 % passage rate when I went through. Lower for College Option people like I was and he would be.

    *Artillery was such a good choice.

  85. 85.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: Given that, by his own admission, the two most impactful things on his perverse worldview was LaPierre’s book on crime and guns and 9-11, and he was in high school during 9-11, and he made a proper response to 9-11 his litmus test for everything, had he wanted to serve there were plenty of opportunities. Instead he went to Duke, palled around with Richard Spencer, and made a name for himself going on Fox defending the lacrosse team. And while he had no way to know at the time and he was just gambling, it turned out he was right about the lacrosse team.

  86. 86.

    Jeffro

    @Adam L Silverman:

    the two most impactful things on his perverse worldview was LaPierre’s book on crime and guns and 9-11, and he was in high school during 9-11, and he made a proper response to 9-11 his litmus test for everything,

    Call me crazy, but I think that a significant portion of the U.S. is still dealing with the aftershocks of 9-11…especially the portion of the population that watches Fox and has their fear buttons hammered on 24/7 about any & everything. It’s nuts. But by now the country may well be sorted into ‘those who long ago surrendered to their anxiety’, and ‘those who are anxious about what the first group’s irrational fears will drive them to do’.

  87. 87.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Jeffro: This is why I’m so cynical about the National Anthem. Since 9/11, this country has been anything BUT the “Home of the Brave”.

  88. 88.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jeffro: No argument at all. I’ve remarked many times, including some here, that the US essentially lost it’s collective mind as a result of 9-11 and how it was covered. And it has yet to recover. Largely because it doesn’t believe it needs to go to therapy. Or that anything is wrong with it.

  89. 89.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    If I had to guess, he was probably that affected by LaPierre’s book because he was in elementary school when the LA Riots happened in 1992. Lots of images of scary black people beating people up and setting fires until the National Guard marched in with M-16s.

    (Obviously, it was much more complicated than that, but that’s what a sheltered kid in Santa Monica would take away from it.)

  90. 90.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Jeffro: Call me crazy, but I think that a significant portion of the U.S. is still dealing with the aftershocks of 9-11

    Not only do I think you’re absolutely right, I think it’s one of the under-addressed (ha! now who’s not afraid to look crazy?) reasons trump won– he was gonna get ‘tough’ with terrrorists–, and in general an issue the internet left, broadly speaking, doesn’t give enough consideration to when talking politics. It’s also one of the reasons that let’s just say certain counterfactual theories of how 2016 should have gone strike me as less than convincing.

  91. 91.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jeffro: @Villago Delenda Est:
    http://www.thedailybeast.com/the-truth-about-colonel-klink-when-americas-favorite-comedy-nazi-commandant-was-played-by-a-jewish-refugee

    Comedy should be edgy. Comedy should be triggering. By learning how to laugh at Klemperer’s “HO-gggan!” and Sergeant Schultz’s “I see nothing,” we were saying “I fear nothing”—and am hungry to learn about everything.

    If refugees from Nazism could use comic Nazis to skewer Nazi evil, we can learn to love laughing lovingly at our more benign foibles, to better ourselves and our society.

  92. 92.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well, after 9-11, it was all too easy to paint “terrorists” as the dark-skinned other. And that was a convenient way to deal with the problem. Plus some folks who had been itching to go to war against Saddam Hussein distorted the facts (most of the “terrorists” on those flights were Saudi) to have their war. And that war messed up, badly. Additionally, W ended the Agreed Framework with North Korea, loosing them to make their nukes, and left the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to give Vladimir Putin something to be scared and annoyed about.

    Kind of like 52-pickup

  93. 93.

    Another Scott

    @Adam L Silverman: I’m not sure if the American people lost its mind or whether just the conventional political wisdom of the GOP and the press did.

    W: “And I encourage you all to go shopping more.”

    :-/

    I’m surprised that the DC Sniper and the Anthrax attacks have disappeared down into the collective memory hole. And the Ft. Hood shootings. And the Navy Yard shootings. And the Virginia Tech shootings. …

    We all remember the soldiers and marines being ill-equipped and the bake sales to buy them body armor when they went off to Iraq. The rhetoric of the country “being at war” with a global “battlefield” that covered every square inch of land never matched the governmental response. It was always fought “on the cheap” without demanding that the country explicitly pay for it and recognize the costs, have serious oversight, and debate the alternatives.

    Yes, indeed, there was lots and lots of insanity in our reaction to the attack by roughly 19 people on 9/11. Helping to overthrow the Taliban made some sense, and tracking down bin Laden was a just cause. The argument that we had to stay (implicitly forever) and rebuild the country and install a government, didn’t (the case wasn’t made that the only choices were: to do nothing and let it fester, or to try to convert it into a client state).

    And, of course, Americans are still dying in Afghanistan.

    [ much more stream of consciousness ]

    If we were willing to go about our lives during the weeks of the DC Sniper attacks and forget about it afterwards, I think that shows that we haven’t lost our minds. We can put things in perspective. We simply need to have a “conservative” party that can do the same.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  94. 94.

    joel hanes

    police call at 5:00 AM

    If it didn’t grow there and isn’t a rock, pick it up.
    I don’t want to see anything but asses and elbows.

    Army police call taught me how to leave a park campsight _clean_:
    not one bottlecap or cigarette butt or scrap of plastic,
    regardless of what the place looked like when I walked into it.
    It was my father who taught me to leave behind enough split kindling and firewood for one small fire.

  95. 95.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    I think 9-11 gave American racists their first taste of hard, open racism in a long time, and they LIKED it. They got to publicly unload the kind of open bile they’d get slapped down aiming at blacks. They had validation for their fear of a brown world. They had constant reassurances from cable news that it is a perfectly reasonable debate to ask if all Muslims are inherently evil whether Islam isn’t actually a religion. Actual terrorist events they brush off. it’s being allowed to openly hate and fear brown people they got addicted to. And then the other half of the country, who live in an entirely different world, elected a black president.

  96. 96.

    Mnemosyne

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I’m not going to post the clip for the hundredth time, but Chris Rock called it back in (IIRC) 2009 — once the door was opened for open anti-Muslim hate, it wedged it open to bring back all of the other religious and racial hatred that was barely kept under the surface.

    “That train is never late!”

  97. 97.

    Gvg

    I truly don’t get the 911 panic stop thinking endless fear. I never felt as scared as most people seemed to have. It was a tradgedy and we needed to do things about it but terrible things have happened before and we handled it. what upset me and still does is the allowing Bush to misdirect the energy into pointless nonsense. Not just Iraq latter on but clearly messing up the Afghanistan issue from the start. Trying to do it too cheap instead of right. Not having a plan. Torture screwing up true information and our reputation. Not listening to unpreferred facts. And too many people buying into his mistakes so they would not and could not quit even with years of evidence.
    I think the dead of 911 have been betrayed by the non serious response. It’s too late to correct. Have to come up with plans to contain our own mistakes.

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