Yale awards racial reconciliation prizes to 2 students who harassed professor over Halloween costumes @tabletmag https://t.co/tjNlfs4wFf
— Jamie Kirchick (@jkirchick) May 26, 2017
Believe it or not, they are still counting votes in the special election held Thursday in Montana. Greg Gianforte, the Republican nominee to replace former congressman and current Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, has been declared the winner over Democrat Rob Quist. Speculation had abounded that the race could tighten -- or even flip to Democrats -- because of Gianforte’s alleged assault of Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs the day before the election. This didn’t pan out, as Gianforte seems headed for a win in the six-to-seven-point range.RTWT.
Here are four thoughts on the outcome...
Found at the Scene in #Manchester: Shrapnel, a Backpack and a Battery #Islam #Jihad #Muslims #Terror #Leftists https://t.co/tFE5nfoamn
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) May 25, 2017
From 9/11 to Manchester, by @DanHenninger https://t.co/KdnehMV8Ss via @WSJOpinion
— Daniel Henninger (@DanHenninger) May 25, 2017
Now we have Manchester and its 22 dead, many of them children. Somehow, we always end up back at 9/11, leaving flowers and candles again.Still more.
A political constant since 9/11 is that terrorism inevitably changes U.S. presidencies. I think the events this week—the president’s overseas trip and then Manchester—may have a similar effect on Donald Trump.
On Inauguration Day in January 2001, George W. Bush’s mind no doubt was filled with plans for his first term. Months later, his was a war presidency and would remain so.
Several things sit in my memory from the politics of that period. One is President Bush’s face as he addressed Congress on Sept. 20. He was a changed man. Also remembered is the solidarity of national purpose after the attack. The final memory is how quickly that unity dissipated into a standard partisan melee.
The Democratic point of attack became the Patriot Act’s surveillance provisions, a legal and legislative battle that ran the length of the Bush presidency. By the end of his second term, George Bush had become an object of partisan caricature and antipathy equal to anything President Trump endures now.
During Barack Obama’s presidency, four major terrorist attacks took place inside the U.S.: Fort Hood in 2009, the Boston Marathon in 2013, San Bernardino two years later and then Orlando in 2016. During these years, the locus of terror migrated from al Qaeda to Islamic State.
Volumes have been written about Barack Obama and terrorism, much of it about the president’s struggles with vocabulary terms such as war, Islam, extreme and radical. The killing of Osama bin Laden evinced a rare, passing moment of national unity.
With the opposition to the Trump presidency programmed for driverless resistance, there will be no national unity in the war on terrorism. The Democrats have become the Trump-Is-Russia Party, and that may be as good a way as any for them to spend their waking hours.
But even Hillary Clinton couldn’t duck the terrorism problem in the 2016 presidential campaign, and when Mr. Trump said he would “defeat ISIS,” his lack of nuance no doubt won him votes.
Which brings us to Manchester this week and memories of 9/11.
Note the political response to the Manchester murders. Again, total solidarity, such as this from European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker : “These cowardly attacks will only strengthen our commitment to work together to defeat the perpetrators of such vile acts.”
Post-9/11, naturally one expects such commitments to erode like sand castles. But this time, by coincidence, alleged Manchester bomber Salman Abedi murdered concertgoers in the same week Donald Trump was using his first overseas trip to build a coalition to defeat Islamic State.
This was not a routine presidential foreign trip for self-pomp and circumstance. Mr. Trump went to Saudi Arabia to initiate an anti-ISIS policy designed and midwifed by three Trump appointees and Middle East specialists—Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and national security adviser H.R. McMaster.
The policy entails the U.S. sale over 10 years to Saudi Arabia of $450 billion of military equipment—tanks, ships, precision-guided bombs—in return for Saudi leadership of an Arab-state coalition, which is their idea, to fight Islamic terrorists in the region and thwart Iran’s territorial ambitions.
A New York Times online summary of the speech Mr. Trump delivered Sunday in Riyadh called it “a speech about Islam.” I thought it was about something larger than that.
For instance, the Times and Washington Post ran stories about how the Trump foreign policy has demoted human-rights issues. It has not. Implicit in the Trump-Tillerson formulation is that defining the abuse of human rights as oppression by governments, such as Saudi Arabia’s, is too narrow. Now, any discourse over human rights must include the right not to have one’s life ended by acts of organized terrorism.
Grasping at Trumpian straws is a fact of life, but I am going to hazard not much more than a thought, which is that the president who left for Saudi Arabia last Friday will not be the same president who returns here this weekend...
1. According to this article, a congressman confirmed to @AP that the explosive used in Manchester was TATP. https://t.co/daVo28bpQW
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) May 25, 2017
@AP 2. TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, has become ISIS' signature explosive for attacks in Europe. The 1st attempt was in Cannes in early 2014
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) May 25, 2017
@AP 3. That thwarted attack by French ISIS member Ibrahim Boudina involved packing TATP into three Red Bull soda cans: https://t.co/wDVq91xJp4
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) May 25, 2017
@AP 4. Among his belongings, police recovered a USB stick with a TATP manual in French decorated with the ISIS flag. He brought it from Syria
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) May 25, 2017
@AP 5. It dates to at least 2013, pre-declaration of caliphate. Because it was written in French it suggests they wanted to educate Fr speakers
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) May 25, 2017
@AP 6. A thwarted ISIS plot in the Belgian town of Verviers in the first weeks of 2015 found the precursor ingredients used to make TATP
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) May 25, 2017
@AP 7. That plot was orchestrated by Abdelhamid Abaaoud who fled to Syria and then re infiltrates Europe to carry out the Nov 2015 Paris attacks
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) May 25, 2017
@AP 8. TATP had been sewn into the suicide belts of the Stade de France and Bataclan attackers and into the 1 used to bomb Comptoir Voltaire
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) May 25, 2017
@AP 9. A few months later in Brussels, it was again TATP that was packed into the suitcase bombs that ripped through the airport and metro
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) May 25, 2017
@AP 10. Numerous foiled ISIS plots since then also relied on TATP
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) May 25, 2017
In modern Britain everyone seems petrified to officially say what we all say in private. Politicians tell us they are unafraid, but they are never the victims. How easy to be unafraid when one is protected from the line of fire. The people have no such protections.I have a newfound respect for the Smiths, heh.
Amazon’s first bookstore in New York City sucks the joy out of buying books https://t.co/KmCqdYAGuR— Quartz (@qz) May 24, 2017
“We talk about ourselves as a physical extension of Amazon.com,” said Jennifer Cast, vice president of Amazon Books, on a tour for press. Indeed: Amazon Books heavily promotes its data-driven approach all around the store, just like the site does with its many recommendations—and makes Amazon’s Prime service feel irresistible, just like the site does. But by making the store an extension of Amazon.com, rather than a place in which people really want to spend time and forget their screens in lieu of something quieter, Amazon Books takes away one of the greatest pleasures of a bookstore: escapism. With the entire store blinking like a banner ad for Amazon Prime above your head, you lose the ability to fade away into the printed word...RTWT.
"You can ignore reality. But reality will not ignore you."
— The Swog Blog (@TheSwogBlog) May 24, 2017
Tolerance won't protect us. RIP Martyn. pic.twitter.com/qdYI2S9PHp
Manchester bombing probe seeks ‘network’ of suspects as Britain tightens security https://t.co/5Atj16F0vh— Post World (@PostWorldNews) May 24, 2017
MANCHESTER, England — The police chief leading the investigation into a suicide bombing that killed 22 people at a Manchester concert said Wednesday that the attacker had not acted alone and authorities were trying to unravel a wider web of plotters.Still more.
“It’s very clear that this is a network we are investigating,” said Greater Manchester Chief Constable Ian Hopkins.
The comments — which came as British troops fanned out across London at prominent sites such as 10 Downing Street and Buckingham Palace — confirmed what other senior British officials have hinted. It also offered further insights into Britain’s decision to raise the nation’s threat level to its highest point.
Hopkins said British police had taken at least five people into custody in connection with the attack since Monday night.
Raids continued Wednesday in Britain, including one in the heart of Manchester — not far from the concert venue where Salman Abedi carried out the blast that claimed victims as young as 8 years old.
Hours after Hopkins spoke, police said a person was arrested in Wigan, about 20 miles west of the city.
Among those detained in Britain was Abedi’s older brother, Ismail. Meanwhile, the Reuters news agency reported that Salman’s younger brother Hashem was also arrested by authorities in Libya.
The bomber Abedi was a British-born citizen whose parents emigrated from Libya.
Britain’s domestic security chief, Home Secretary Amber Rudd, said did not provide details on possible associates of the 22-year-old Abedi.
But she told the BBC that security services — which had been aware of Abedi “up to a point” before the bombing — were focusing on his visits to Libya, at least one of which was very recent.
Rudd’s French counterpart, Interior Minister Gerard Collomb, told broadcaster BFMTV that Abedi may have also gone to Syria and had “proven” links with the Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the Manchester blast and called Abedi a “soldier.”
Abedi’s father, Ramadan Abedi, said his son sounded “normal” when they last spoke five days ago. The elder Abedi told the Associated Press by telephone from Tripoli, Libya, that his son planned to visit Saudi Arabia and then spend the Islamic holy month of Ramadan with family in Libya.
“We don’t believe in killing innocents,” he told the AP. “This is not us.”
The local mosque where Abedi’s family worshiped — and where Ramadan Abedi had once worked, issuing the call to prayer — denounced the attack. Mosque officials also denied reporters that the bomber had worked there.
“The horrific atrocity that occurred in Manchester on Monday night has shocked us all,” said Fawzi Haffar, a trustee with the Manchester Islamic Center, which is also known as the Didsbury Mosque. “This act of cowardice has no place in our religion, or any other religion.”
Abedi was reported Wednesday to have been a college dropout who had recently become radicalized. Security experts said it was unlikely that he coordinated the attack, and the BBC reported he may have been “a mule” tasked with carrying out the bombing, but who had little role in creating the explosive or choosing the target.
Of particular concern to British investigators was the possibility that the bomb-maker was still at-large, and may be planning to strike again.
On Tuesday night, British Prime Minister Theresa May took Britain’s alert level from “severe” to its highest rating, “critical.” The decision, she said, was “a proportionate and sensible response to the threat that our security experts judge we face.”
The impact was quick and visible.
In London, nearly 1,000 soldiers were deployed onto the streets to help free up police. Soldiers were seen at prominent locations including Downing Street and Buckingham Palace...
Hailey Baldwin is a scam, her family is in the industry, she’s a golden child who has managed to find the Kardashians / Jenners / Hadids to leverage…
It just took the family publicists to make that magic happen, the scam of the scams…keep the 1 percent 1 percenting – which is why content is such shit lately – the talent has left the building and the entitled kids of the talent are taking over.
Supermodel @haileybaldwin tops the #MaximHot100 list. https://t.co/sQjzogRQIF pic.twitter.com/JuXEkDY6vI
— Maxim (@MaximMag) May 23, 2017
