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Three Explosive Devices Sent to Clintons, Obama and CNN Offices
Explosive devices were sent to former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as to CNN's offices in New York, sparking an intense investigation on Wednesday into whether a bomber is going after targets that have often been the subject of right-wing ire.
A law enforcement official said the three devices were similar to one found Monday at the home of George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist and liberal donor.
[...] The device sent to CNN was contained in a manila envelope addressed to John Brennan, who was the C.I.A. director in the Obama administration and is a harsh critic of Mr. Trump. The president revoked Mr. Brennan's security clearance in what was seen as an act of retribution. The return address bore the name of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida congresswoman who formerly headed the Democratic National Committee.
In a statement, the White House condemned "the attempted violent attacks."
Update 1: The explosive devices have been described as pipe bombs. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says that a device was also sent to his office.
Update 2:
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's spokesman has identified the device sent to his office, originally believed to be suspicious, as a thumb drive containing files on the far right group Proud Boys. It does not appear to be related to the explosive devices.
[...] Another suspicious package has been intercepted at a Congressional mail screening facility in Capitol Heights, Maryland, according to CNN. [...] ABC News reported the package was addressed to Rep. Maxine Waters, a California Democrat.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by insanumingenium on Wednesday October 24 2018, @05:56PM (7 children)
Understand that I agree with you, when he says shit like the above "asshat" is the kindest thing I would call Runaway.
But by the same coin, I am here precisely because this site isn't interested in censoring ANY views.
You are welcome to leave and never darken our door again, but I think that this is a cruicially important point, censorship won't fix anything at all. And censoring repugnant ideas would be the thing that would drive me personally from this place. Not because I agree or disagree with the ideas censored, but because I am so terribly against censorship itself. And that seems to be the overall tone of this site.
You are welcome to call people on their shit, they won't censor you either, and I might just get a chuckle from the exchange.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday October 24 2018, @11:09PM (4 children)
Violence is seductive because it can seem like such an easy and fast solution to problems. Charge in and shoot the bad guys, rescue the damsels in distress, and live happily ever after. That's stock pulp fiction, and it's everywhere in our society.
But of course the world is a much more complicated and messy place. You may have misunderstood the problems, you don't know a lot of details, and you were too credulous and believed too much in the melodramatic presentations our media likes to give. And then, with our obsession with individualism, it's so tempting to think that the removal of a few key people will somehow fix whatever seems to be wrong.
Members of the Party of Lincoln might want to consider that their founder was assassinated, and that his death did not miraculously revive the Confederacy. If anything, it only made things worse for the South.
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Wednesday October 24 2018, @11:25PM (3 children)
I suspect you weren't trying to respond to me with that...
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday October 25 2018, @01:28AM (2 children)
Trying to add to what you said, and had to cut it short. So it came out disconnected, sorry.
Anyway, I don't mind Runaway. I don't agree with many of the things he says, but that's okay. Asshat, you say? Name calling is at least not physical violence, but neither is it usually helpful.
The big danger I see, as exemplified by his offer to accept the deaths of a few Republican leaders in exchange for a few Democratic leaders he'd like to see bumped off, is the slide towards violence. Offing a few leaders won't work. For one thing they aren't really leaders, they're more like "top surfers", riding a wave. Their influence over the direction a wave goes is much less than most people grasp. Demagogues seek out the most easily swayed people (Trump has said that he loves stupid people), and have considerably more influence over a movement than average, and can get away with a lot more lying and cheating, but they too are still riders, and must pander to their base and conform to all kinds of expectations. There's all kinds of things Trump cannot do without being called a RINO or a libtard or worse.
Had the July 20 plot to kill Hitler succeeded, it may not have made as big a difference as the plotters hoped. They wanted to negotiate an end to the war, but with Germany still in possession of some land that had been taken in the war, weren't willing to accept the pre-WWII boundaries.
In the US Civil War, there is really no one in the South or North whose assassination would have made a big difference. What if Lincoln had been assassinated in 1862? Or Jefferson Davis? Or the leading generals, Grant or Lee? Some details would differ of course, but the overall war would have almost certainly ended the same way. Other talented people would have emerged. But the overall social wave is so powerful that even hundreds of thousand of deaths, wholesale destruction of their infrastructure and loss of property and wealth, and losing the war, let alone mere objective scientific findings and facts, weren't enough blows to convince the South they were wrong, it only convinced them that they couldn't win by fighting. They spent the next century wallowing in victimhood and denial (the whole Lost Cause thing) and being a little sneakier and more underhanded and dishonest in promoting their racist ideology (Jim Crow laws), but over the years, it's been ever so slowly beaten back. To be sure, since the elections of 2016, we've taken a step backwards, but I think this reactionary wave is going to be short lived.
What it will take to convince most everyone, really convince them, that violence is ineffective, I don't know. Maybe it can't be done. But there is hope. I would never have guessed that getting rid of leaded gasoline, as well as lead paint and lead plumbing, would have such an enormous effect. Violent crime has really declined, and much credit for that can be pinned on the reduction of lead in our lives. We can expect further declines as new generations come of age. They were never exposed to lead in the quantities those of us now in our 40s and older experienced.
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Thursday October 25 2018, @04:27PM
I didn't respond to Runaway directly for a reason, I don't think anything I could say would help him, don't feel like I need to address his per se ridiculous idea to an audience, and I have no desire to engage him directly. Which is why I was confused by your response about violence to my refutation of a call for censorship.
I called him names as a demonstration that he wasn't even worth engaging seriously, I didn't even take the time to come up with a witty insult, I went as generic as possible. That isn't something I do often, and I didn't do it in the hopes of hurting Runaway, I did it to display that a counterpoint, however valueless, isn't in danger of censorship here either. Perhaps I didn't chose the most elegant or effective way of doing that, as evidenced by the fact I find myself having to explain, ohh well, I tried.
I did respond to Dublet, who was upset that we aren't censoring unpopular opinions. I am much more worried about people getting pissy and starting a row calling for censorship on our tiny little site than I am about trading assassinations with a troll on the internet. It is true we seem to be very clear on the censorship issue, but I have seen that change before, and I would rather not lose this place.
I agree that violence is ineffective, but I also don't think that responding logically to people with violent ideas is "particularly helpful" either. You do as you see fit, I hope from the bottom of my shallow little soul that it works, I am rooting for you.
I agree that taking the lead out of gas has been a huge win, but pinning credit for crime rates on it seems hard to justify. Unless you have some data showing violent criminals have statistically significant blood lead levels or something up your sleeve, I am not going to give it much credence, though if you do you should share that shit it would be a good read. I could argue very similarly that Roe v Wade was responsible, or (my pet theory) that Mr. Rogers was.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 26 2018, @01:35AM
Great post - sorry I've missed it until now. Naturally, I disagree with some of what you say. An assassination possibly does change history.
Let's consider Grant. He was part of a "dynamic duo". Neither Grant nor Sherman were really super, but as a team, they wreaked havoc on the South. Before Grant, the Grand Old Army changed commanding generals like most people change socks or underwear. It was one incompetent leader after another. When Grant and Sherman were given the go ahead, the end result became almost inevitable. Had they been appointed to their respective positions at the beginning of the war, it may well have been a two year war, instead of what we know happened.
Hitler? You seem to dismiss his charisma. So very much of what happened before and during the war depended on that charisma. It's almost certainly safe to go with your points, but only up to a point. The Germans were certainly going to revolt against an untenable situation, with or without Hitler. But, without Hitler's influence, that revolt would probably have been very different from our history. Try to imagine WW2 WITHOUT the Jewish genocide, or killing off all the other groups that Hitler considered to be subhuman. I know, it's really hard to separate that racial hatred out, and hard to imagine how things "might have been". But, try it. Without that racial hatred, the Germans would have feared defeat a lot less, and they might have accepted a surrender. Maybe.
Individuals matter. Some individuals matter a lot more than others. In the case of Soros and the Koch brothers, they matter so much because they can channel huge amounts of money into undermining the will of the people. Without their mountains of money, they wouldn't matter any more than any other communist, or white supremacist. Removing their monetary influence wouldn't remove either communism or white supremacy, but it would remove a lot of influence.
People matter - a lot.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday October 25 2018, @04:43PM (1 child)
Reasonable, but I *do* wish that the ability to filter out posts were more nuanced. Still, that has the problem of enhancing "filter bubbles", where you don't even hear opinions you don't agree with. There's no way to just filter out stupid.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday October 25 2018, @11:16PM
It's good to see (at least some of) the stupid. Unseen stupid cannot be corrected. It's not as fun when it's your turn in the stupid barrel (And it will be. You can't avoid it except by remaining silent.) but if you take care to learn the lesson it's worth it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.