Package Bombs

[Howl]

Sad to start this post, and I hope the perp(s) are apprehended quickly.  

Trump critics and CNN receive explosive devices  has links to other article and updates. 

Sarah is very busy lying right now, providing cover for Trump and throwing shade at the media.  I have some admiration for Sarah in that she sticks to her talking points and never wavers, kind of in the same way one might have admiration for the Germans and how efficient their ovens were.  Really, this morning I am fucking pissed at her for her simple lack of common decency.  

So grateful that none of the bombs have exploded.  The FBI will find him or them.  Someone will rat someone out.  This is terrorism and I'm so sad it is happening.  Sadly as well, the paranoiac conspiracy theory spin machine is on overdrive in the fever swamps. 

My city had a crazy package bomber  this past spring who targeted random people, killing two and maiming five innocents.  It took awhile to find him (even with FBI), but eventually he was identified.  The young man was 24; his family and housemates had zero clue what he was up to.  Zero. He blew himself up as he was apprehended.  And yes, he was a Christian homeschooled boy who had trouble finding his way in the real world.  But it was a time of terror.  No one felt immune.  And as this is going on, I know that postal workers must be terrified, as they should be. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[Briefly]

5 hours ago, Howl said:

Sad to start this post, and I hope the perp(s) are apprehended quickly.  

Trump critics and CNN receive explosive devices  has links to other article and updates. 

Sarah is very busy lying right now, providing cover for Trump and throwing shade at the media.  I have some admiration for Sarah in that she sticks to her talking points and never wavers, kind of in the same way one might have admiration for the Germans and how efficient their ovens were.  Really, this morning I am fucking pissed at her for her simple lack of common decency.  

So grateful that none of the bombs have exploded.  The FBI will find him or them.  Someone will rat someone out.  This is terrorism and I'm so sad it is happening.  Sadly as well, the paranoiac conspiracy theory spin machine is on overdrive in the fever swamps. 

My city had a crazy package bomber  this past spring who targeted random people, killing two and maiming five innocents.  It took awhile to find him (even with FBI), but eventually he was identified.  The young man was 24; his family and housemates had zero clue what he was up to.  Zero. He blew himself up as he was apprehended.  And yes, he was a Christian homeschooled boy who had trouble finding his way in the real world.  But it was a time of terror.  No one felt immune.  And as this is going on, I know that postal workers must be terrified, as they should be. 

 

My sister lives in Georgetown.  She said it was really scary, it was so random and nobody knew where was safe

This time around, let's see.  The idiot in the White House is trying to blame the press.  Which is about what we expected.  Jim Inhofe, intelligent man that his is (not!) said that it's not aimed at any particular political party.  Inhofe is really kind of a jerk but this is so much dumber than he normally is.

The postal workers are in so much danger.  There could still be more explosives out there, it may take a few days for them to work their way through the system.  If the person or persons are not stopped, they may keep at it.

[Ozlsn]

5 hours ago, Howl said:

  And as this is going on, I know that postal workers must be terrified, as they should be. 

I was working in a parcel facility during the anthrax letters going out. We weren't terrified (it was on the other side of the world and it did seem unlikely that anyone would mail anthrax spores to us*) but we still got to go through all the training and refreshers about how to deal with suspicious parcels and as a result we were... more cautious  (well, for a couple of days at least.) The first thing I thought when I heard about the most recent bombs was that if one of them goes off in a facility then it will cause a lot of really bad injuries to a lot of people just going about their daily work. I really hope the protocols are in place to identify the parcels quickly.

*we also all realised that if someone did send us spores then everyone working that day was screwed... the two suspicious parcels we had the manager 1. tasted the dust to identify it and 2. sniffed the dust to identify it. The only consolation was hey, we were doomed... but that manager was going first. 

[Gobsmacked]

Wow! Children are taught from a young age NOT to put random stuff into their mouths. A grown man/women puts random dust in his/her mouth.  At work! Now I really am Gobsmacked. 

[CTRLZero]

14 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

the two suspicious parcels we had the manager 1. tasted the dust to identify it and 2. sniffed the dust to identify it. The only consolation was hey, we were doomed... but that manager was going first. 

I bet this wasn't part of the training, yikes!  I worked in a local government office when the anthrax scare was going on, and occasionally we'd take turns working in the mailroom.  Although toxin and bomb detection was part of the training, our office also received mail from inmates,* so we were told to expect some bodily fluids.  Ick.  The person who opened the mail was always isolated and suited up with gloves and masks.

I hope nobody is hurt by some MAGA idiot.

*Also, some sovereign citizen types liked to sign or seal their signatures with blood.  Charming.

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

They've arrested a man in Florida.

Spoiler

BREAKING: A man in Florida has been arrested in connection with the mail bombs, according to a law enforcement official.

Authorities on Friday recovered two more potential explosive devices sent to public figures, the latest packages addressed to Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr.

These packages — recovered in Florida and New York — push the total number of devices found by law enforcement to 12. None have detonated, but all have pushed officials onto high alert as they worry about additional devices being delivered.

...

 

[fraurosena]

Chants. Chants in the White House. In.the.White.House.

 

[Howl]

This is the peak Florida man*.  A white man in his fifties, with right wing stickers completely covering all the windows in his white van.  He also has three businesses listed under his various names,  with Native American as part of the business name of two of them.  Feeling pretty happy that he was captured alive, so we can get some answers and the reich wing spin machine will have to adjust.  Actually, they won't.  They will stay with "the fake news MSM drove him to do it." 

*For those who don't follow Florida Man thread over on fj's Wide World of Snark, here's the Urban Dictionary definition of Florida Man, with numerous true examples: 
 

Spoiler

 

Florida Man

A key word used a lot to describe all the weird news stories about random Floridians committing weird and dumb crimes, due to the state law regarding freedom of press about the fact that every police or court case must be public. Most of these weird stories, however, are related to white Florida men, the police and drugs. Can also be used as Florida Woman.

Examples: 
- Florida Man lights off fireworks inside Wendy's restaurant 
- Florida Man caught watching solar eclipse while stealing car 
- Florida Man swings 4ft alligator towards customers 
- Florida Man attempts to steal car that isn't working until police arrived 
- Florida Woman arrested for pelting brother with chicken nuggets 
- Florida Man bites head off hamster 
- Florida Man has sex while stealing trailer 
- Florida Man attempts to swallow bag of weed while being pulled over by police 
- Florida Man banned from beach after allegedly giving sugardaddy business cards to young girls              - Florida Man pissed that AT&T trucks are working outside his house, shoots tires 
- Florida Man accidentally kills girlfriend after thinking it was a hog 
- Florida Man beats up accused rapist in front of deputies 
- Naked Florida Man breaks into neighbor's house to top his burgers with sesameseeds 
- Florida Man poops into jewelry parking lot 

 

 

[fraurosena]

Those stickers on that van of his are horrifying.

If the targeted people in the pics are any indication, it might well be that there is a package in the mail to Michael Moore as well.

[prayawaythefundie]

I‘m weirdly fascinated by the amount of stickers on the van‘s windows. Is it legal to drive that van? How are you looking to the side / in the mirrows to check when you‘re turning left or right?

[fraurosena]

Wowsers.

 

[fraurosena]

More info on Cesar Sayoc. As he is known for abusing steroids, wanna bet the Repugs will blame the opioid epidemic?

Pipe bomb suspect: Cesar Sayoc, Jr. in custody for allegedly sending suspicious packages

Quote

A Florida man with a troubled past was identified Friday as the suspect who sent more than a dozen pipe bomb packages to prominent critics of President Donald Trump, law enforcement officials said.

DNA evidence played a role in the arrest of 56-year-old Cesar Sayoc Jr., whose past criminal history includes an arrest for making a bomb threat — and who, according to a cousin, worked as both an exotic dancer and bouncer in a number of strip clubs.

Sayoc's white van, which had pictures of Trump and the presidential seal plastered to the windows, was seized by the officials and hauled off to a secure facility.

In Washington, Trump praised the FBI and Secret Service for the swift arrest of the suspect.

"It’s like a needle in a haystack," Trump said. "And they have done an incredible, incredible job."

Sayoc has a criminal record in Florida and was arrested in 2002 for making a bomb threat, according to Miami-Dade County court records. He pleaded guilty. There were also two arrests, one in 1992 and the other in 2014, for petit theft.

In the latter theft case, Sayoc tried to walk out of a Walmart with a shopping cart filled with $239 worth of merchandise, according to an arrest affidavit.

Sayoc also appeared to have money troubles. Records revealed he had a property foreclosed on in 2009 and filed for bankruptcy in 2012. At the time, he was living with his mother and employed as a store manager, records show. But of late, Sayoc had been living in his van and showering at the gym where he works out, a Florida-based cousin who asked not to be identified told NBC News.

A registered Republican, Sayoc appeared to attend a Trump rally in West Palm Beach, Florida in 2016. His Facebook page and Twitter accounts contained several postings in support of Trump. There were also several on his Facebook page critical of George Soros, the liberal philanthropist who was targeted with one of the package bombs earlier this week.

Sayoc had previously lived in North Carolina, New Jersey, Michigan, and Brooklyn, New York, according to records.

On Facebook, Sayoc also claimed to be a booking agent with Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. A spokesperson for the tribe told NBC News that Sayoc was not a member and had never been employed at the casino.

Sayoc grew up in North Miami Beach with his two sisters and was thrown out of his house as a teenager, his cousin said. The cousin described him as a "loose cannon" and a "lost soul" who was estranged from his family and had been abusing steroids.

"He's been in the strip clubs since he was 22, that was his life," the cousin said. "He was a male dancer and he wanted to be a wrestler. He was taking steroids. He was all buffed up....He was built like a rock."

Another cousin, who lives in another state, told NBC News she was stunned by Sayoc's arrest.

"Oh my God," the woman, who also asked not to be identified, said. "He's always been a very nice, thoughtful person. I don't know anything about this. It's shocking."

The cousin said she hadn't seen Sayoc for two decades but that he called her recently after her father died.

"It was mostly just small talk," she said. "How's your family, that kind of thing. I don't really know that much about him. We have a very big family."

The dramatic development came on the same day that two new suspicious packages were found, one addressed to Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and the other to James Clapper, former director of national intelligence.

 

[47of74]

Yeah if MAGABomber or his local groupies have any illusions about dissuading me allow me to take a moment to say they can go fuck themselves. 

[adidas]

Yesterday I write this but forgot to hit submit. Oops sorry.

*

Why isn’t Trump calling this an act of terrorism? Would it be terrorism if they were sent to Republicans?

(I don’t live in the US so these are not snarky questions. I genuinely don’t get it).

* 

Today I woke up to the Magabomber headlines and I’ll admit, I love that Trump is going to hate the name this guy has been given. It’s so apt that the hate and violence associated with MAGA is now linked to terrorism - because that’s what Trump’s policies are imo. 

[Ozlsn]

44 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

More info on Cesar Sayoc. As he is known for abusing steroids, wanna bet the Repugs will blame the opioid epidemic?

Oh that and he'll be mentally ill. Waiting for the media diagnosis in five, four, three...

 

2 hours ago, prayawaythefundie said:

I‘m weirdly fascinated by the amount of stickers on the van‘s windows. Is it legal to drive that van? How are you looking to the side / in the mirrows to check when you‘re turning left or right?

I guess it's not that different in terms of visibility coverage from those vans with hard sides but yeah, I wondered the same thing too. Although do they have different mirrors that give more coverage? I've never driven one so I have no idea.

 

[onekidanddone]

46 minutes ago, adidas said:

Today I woke up to the Magabomber headlines and I’ll admit, I love that Trump is going to hate the name this guy has been given. It’s so apt that the hate and violence associated with MAGA is now linked to terrorism - because that’s what Trump’s policies are imo. 

Because to him it isn't terrorism. 

[fraurosena]

It turns out there were 13 devices found. Real devices. Not fake. Real.

 

[fraurosena]

This guy found some tweets by the MAGAbomber and managed to save them before the account got suspended.

(three tweet thread)

 

[ViolaSebastian]

Seems people of a certain affiliation can’t understand the difference between “real bombs that were crudely made and didn’t explode” with “hoax bombs designed just to scare.”  

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6322145/Were-MAGAbomber-explosives-way-operational.html

[GreyhoundFan]

The WaPo has pictures of the crap on Sayoc's van and explains some of the stickers and drawings. Because of the many images, I can't copy here, but it's worth a look.

[Rachel333]

6 hours ago, Howl said:

A white man in his fifties

I'm seeing that he is half Filipino (son of an immigrant). He claimed to be Native American but there's no evidence he actually is, and he definitely has no affiliation with the Seminole tribe. A really strange case.

[AmericanRose]

So if my hunch is correct, he pretended to be Native American just so he wouldn't be viewed as the son of an immigrant, but rather as a 'real' American.

That's some self-hate right there.

[GreyhoundFan]

"The mail bomb suspect and the right-wing conspiracy machine"

Spoiler

Who’s responsible for the bombs sent to prominent Democrats and critics of President Trump this week? The mailer, of course.

A suspect was arrested Friday, and soon we’ll learn who he is, whether he had any help and why he may have shipped those 12 suspicious packages. But the narrative of right-wing radicalization so many have seized on has drawn attention to a frightening phenomenon: Not only do addled Internet lurkers, the anti-mainstream media and the man in the Oval Office create a pipeline for furious falsehoods to travel from the fringes to the forefront of the national conversation, the rest of us, trying to figure out what’s going on, also often end up making it worse.

The perpetrator of the bomb mailings, it’s worth noting, seems to have lived at least partly on the Internet: NBC News reports that an image on the device sent to former CIA director John Brennan appears to be a parody of an Islamic State flag popular on the right-wing web. What is believed to be his van is plastered with similar memes.

But anyone with a television set could have developed an obsession with George Soros as the leader of a globalist cabal, with the Clintons and CNN embedded in its upper echelons. The prototypes for conspiracy theories and conservative calls to arms are often born on message boards, where users can bounce notions off each other and build them into something bigger. When they’re ready for prime time, though, that’s where they end up.

What’s really unprecedented — more so than conservative talking heads’ willingness to don tinfoil hats — is that the president of the United States is just as happy to participate in the trend. From Fox’s mouth, crackpot concepts go straight to Trump’s ear — and then to the rest of ours.

It gets even stickier. In these cases, legitimate news outlets don’t always help; sometimes, reporting on absurdities brought in from the periphery by Rush Limbaugh and his ilk only gives oxygen to theories that might otherwise have burned out. QAnon truthers appeared on television screens all around the country after supporters showed up at a Trump rally, but it was the breathless coverage (including some, I must admit, from yours truly) that turned it into the phenomenon it became.

The problem is, when what starts small becomes a worldwide phenomenon — with the help of Ann Coulter or President Trump or the nonpartisan press simply trying to report on what matters to Americans — it only prompts more theorizing. A sense of powerlessness runs through the world of online wackiness. There has to be a reason things are not going right, and unraveling that reason provides an illusion of control. This control feels far greater when the people in power, or at least close to it, really begin to listen.

Nothing delighted QAnon adherents more than reading into the president’s words acknowledgments of the plot they thought they had spotted — and seeing the same acknowledgments peppered throughout the day’s top stories. When Trump, or Fox or newspapers like this one pick up on what began on the outskirts on the Web, it’s only a sign to keep going.

The bomb scare shows this cycle in full swing. Someone may have been radicalized by widespread conspiracy theories that may have begun online but were given a huge boost by bigger-name right-wingers and the president. That person may have taken action. And the translation of angry imaginings into the week’s biggest event, with front-page splashes across the country and constant cable news coverage, has now further energized the theorizers. Already, netizens and prominent right-wingers alike have transformed the tale of the suspicious packages into yet another conspiracy theory, the false flag. And already, we’re writing about it.

Conspiracy theories, and false flag accusations in particular, are nothing new. What’s new is the machine. Discrete online communities constantly generate conspiracy theories, a conservative media set seeks them out and spreads them further, a commander in chief happily helps — and reporters struggle to tell the public what they need to know without smoothing the way for the next outburst of absurdity. Who’s responsible? All of us, who have yet to figure out a way to degrease the gears.