The United States of Weimar?

by

There is much political violence in the US these days, ranging from attacks on Trump rally attendees  to protesters at those rallies being sucker-punched  to the politically and racially-motivated murder of police officers in Dallas to the throwing of Molotov cocktails at police in the state of Minnesota (where the social climate was once characterized by the term ‘Minnesota nice’)—and there is every prospect that the violence will get worse as the political season moves into full swing.  Indeed, it seems that political violence is in the process of being normalized in this country. To understand the roots of this malign phenomenon, I think it is important to look at what has been going on in America’s universities for the past decade and a half.

In 2002, a pro-Israel event at San Francisco State University was interrupted by ‘protestors’, screaming things like “go back to Russia!” and “get out or we will kill you!’ and shoving Hillel students against a wall.  Laurie Zoloth, a campus Jewis leader “turned to the police and to every administrator I could find and asked them to remove the counter demonstrators from the Plaza, to maintain the separation of 100 feet that we had been promised. The police told me that they had been told not to arrest anyone, and that if they did, ‘it would start a riot.’  I told them that it already was a riot.”

“This is the Weimar Republic with Brownshirts it cannot control”  is how Professor Zoloth summed up the situation on her campus.

This kind of Brownshirt behavior at an American university was by no means an isolated incident: there have been many, many cases of intimidation, vandalism, and outright violence being employed against campus groups and speakers which some people–those people being almost always self-defined ‘progressives’–do not like.

At St Cloud University in Minnesota, for example, the College Republicans had a kiosk supporting Israel, complete with Israeli flag.  Two professors approached the booth and asserted that since the members of the group were not Jewish, they had no right to fly the Israeli flag!  One of the professors told a students that she would break his camera if he took her picture, and then tried to grab the camera–also, according to this report, also grabbed the student by the neck and slammed him up against the wall.  The university administration backed the professors, also asserting that non-Jews have no right to fly the Israeli flag.  (The real issue, I’m pretty sure, wasn’t that the students were non-Jewish, but rather that they were Republican.)

At Yale in 2002, some students had set up a memorial to victims of a car bombing in Israel.  The memorial was destroyed by vandals.  A week earlier, at the same university, a petition opposing divestment (ie, withdrawal of pension fund investments from companies doing business in Israel) was defaced–in the law school.

Theft of newspapers containing unapproved viewpoints has become common at universities. In 2004, the entire press run of the Yale Free Press, a conservative publication, was stolen by people who did not want Yale students to be able to read the opinions contained therein.

In Florida in 2004, a social sciences instructor at a community college walked into local Republican headquarters and punched a cardboard cutout of George W Bush…and then, according to this report, also punched a Republican official in the face.  The punchee reports that the assailant “proceeded to say how he had a Ph.D., and he was smarter than me. I’m a stupid Republican,” and other comments laced with obscenities.

In 2006, “Protestors” of the Brownshirt variety attempted to disrupt a scheduled speech by Congressman Tom Tancredo. The chairman of the campus organization that had sponsored the event was kicked and spat upon by some of the thugs, and the building fire alarms were pulled twice.

Also in 2006, at Columbia University,  left-wing students distrupted a speech hosted by the College Republicans. Angry students stormed the stage, shouting and knocking over chairs and tables and succeeding in their intent to prevent Jim Gilchrist (founder of the anti-illegal-immigration group known as the Minuteman) from delivering his talk. Columbia Public Safety did nothing to prevent the disruption.  Christopher Kulawik, the College Republican president, told The New York Sun he was berated afterward by Columbia University administrators for allowing the speakers to say anything that would infuriate the crowd.

A week later, Columbia administrators interfered with another event planned by the College Republicans. The scheduled speaker was Walid Shoebat, a former PLO terrorist who saw the error of his ways and is now a supporter of Israel and the U.S. Just 3 hours before the event was to take place, a Columbia administrator sent an e-mail  uninviting  many of those who had already RSVP’d for the event–some of whom were already in transit. Apparently, Columbia was afraid of a repetition of the earlier disruption, and preferred to deny legitimate attendees their right to hear Mr Shoebat speak, rather than to take effective action against thuggishness by beefing up security and expelling disrupters.

In 2008, Robert Spencer spoke at U Wisconsin-Madison, on the subject of the thread from jihad.  He says:

I got off the phone a little while ago with one of the student organizers of my address tonight at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He told me that I would be led to and from the stage via secret passageway; that thirty security personnel would be on hand (in addition to my own); that attendees would have to pass through metal detectors; and that a bomb-sniffing dog would also be on hand…and also:  The Rushdiean security precautions and these warnings were all necessary because of the fascist tactics of trying to intimidate and shout down opponents that students and others at UWM have employed in the past against speakers such as David Horowitz.  

In 2003, former Israeli cabinet minister Natan Sharansky visited several US campuses:

When I got to Rutgers University in New Jersey last month, I almost forgot I was on a college campus. The atmosphere was far from the cool, button-down academic reserve typical of such institutions. It was more reminiscent of a battlefield…Things were not much calmer at Boston University: An anonymous bomb threat brought swarms of police to the lecture hall and almost forced a cancellation of my appearance. But here, too, some good resulted when the bomb threat caused the lecture to be moved to a larger hall, which was quickly filled with some 600 listeners who were unwilling to accept the violent silencing of pro-Israel views.

and

During a frank and friendly conversation with a group of Jewish students at Harvard University, one student admitted to me that she was afraid — afraid to express support for Israel, afraid to take part in pro-Israel organizations, afraid to be identified. The mood on campus had turned so anti-Israel that she was afraid that her open identification could cost her, damaging her grades and her academic future. That her professors, who control her final grades, were likely to view such activism unkindly, and that the risk was too great.

Having grown up in the communist Soviet Union, I am very familiar with this fear to express one’s opinions, with the need to hold the “correct opinions” in order to get ahead, with the reality that expressing support for Israel is a blot on one’s resume. But to find all these things at Harvard Business School? In a place that was supposed to be open, liberal, professional? At first I thought this must be an individual case, particular to this student. I thought her fears were exaggerated. But my conversations with other students at various universities made it clear that her feelings are widespread, that the situation on campuses in the United States and Canada is more serious than we think. And this is truly frightening.

 

That’s enough in the way of examples, I think…I could readily find dozens or even hundreds more of the same kind, or you can easily search for them yourself.  The point is that the use of violence, theft, and intimidation for political purposes has been in the process of becoming normalized on America’s campuses. And while American universities have been called ‘islands of tyranny in a sea of freedom,’ it was inevitable that the toxins nurtured on those islands would seep out into the larger society, and now it has.

There has always been a certain amount of political violence in America, of course.  The difference now is that we have millions of people who have learned in their colleges that this sort of thing is quite okay, when employed on behalf of Approved Causes.  Many of these people are graduates of ‘elite’ institutions, and some of them are in important government jobs, ‘nonprofit,’ and private-sector jobs.

What happens when political violence becomes common in a society?  The leading example, of course, is Weimar Germany.  Although the violence may have reached a peak just prior to the Nazi takeover in 1933, it had become a common feature of life since the chaos that surrounded the loss of the First World War and the Kaiser’s abdication.  Sebastian Haffner, in his invaluable memoir, writes about what it was like:

Some days there was no electricity, on other no trams, but it was never clear whether it was because of the Spartacists or the Government that we had to use oil lamps or go on foot.

A major milepost on Weimar Germany’s descent was the assassination of Walter Rathenau: “an aristocratic revolutionary, an idealistic economic planner, a Jew who was a German patriot, a German patriot who was a liberal citizen of the world..cultured enough to be above culture, rich enough to be above riches, man of the world enough to be above  the world.” This was followed by the great inflation–“the unending bloody Saturnalia, in which not only money but all standards lost their value.”

Later, during the  Stresemann chancellorship, when both the economic and the political situation stabilized significantly:

The last ten years were forgotten like a bad dream. The Day of Judgment was remote again, and there was no demand for saviors or revolutionaries…There was an ample measure of freedom, peace, and order, everywhere the most well-meaning liberal-mindedness, good wages, good food and a little political boredom. everyone was cordially invited to concentrate on their personal lives, to arrange their affairs according to their own taste and to find their own paths to happiness.

But…and I think this is a particuarly important point…a return to private life was not to everyone’s taste:

A generation of young Germans had become accustomed to having the entire content of their lives delivered gratis, so to speak, by the public sphere, all the raw material for their deeper emotions…Now that these deliveries suddently ceased, people were left helpless, impoverished, robbed, and disappointed. They had never learned how to live from within themselves, how to make an ordinary private life great, beautiful and worth while, how to enjoy it and make it interesting. So they regarded the end of political tension and the return of private liberty not as a gift, but as a deprivation. They were bored, their minds strayed to silly thoughts, and they began to sulk.

Isn’t this phenomenon–a need to have their emotions fed continually by political chaos and violent or quasi-violent political activity–characteristic of a high percentage of the ‘activists’ in America today, particularly those who refer to themselves as ‘Social Justice Warriors’?

49 thoughts on “The United States of Weimar?”

  1. Isn’t this phenomenon–a need to have their emotions fed continually by political chaos and violent or quasi-violent political activity–characteristic of a high percentage of the ‘activists’ in America today, particularly those who refer to themselves as ‘Social Justice Warriors’?

    It seems that way. Many of these activists appear to be driven by quests for personal validation. There is probably only a tiny number of such people as a percentage of all Americans. However, the Internet and social media are force multipliers.

  2. Universities have been hotbeds of trouble since …. well forever. It’s about what you would expect from young smart people brought together in an institution of learning.

    Israel has screwed the pooch mightily in their relationship with the Palestinians. Ira might even admit if pushed, I’ve been following him for years, that the real plan is to kick the can down the road till all of Israel is Jewish. A great many people, both young and old, see this as the plan, and are opposed to it. This will generate trouble in institutions of learning.

  3. Not just the violence, spilling out from the colleges to the streets – but the determined “otherization” of those with the wrong thoughts, and what appears to be an understanding that anything – up to and including physical violence – is perfectly justified and even laudable.

  4. The Trump-is-like-Hitler-I-mean-maybe-not-exactly-like-Hitler-but-come-on-pretty-much-just-like-Hitler rhetoric from the MSM in the past 9 months or so basically translates as “Will someone please shoot this man?” It’ll be a miracle if he makes it to November without someone actually taking a shot at him.

  5. A lot of the “kill whitey”, “kill the pigs” is indeed familiar from the sixties and seventies. Back then I can’t recall LIFE magazine, or any other mainstream publication calling for the execution of candidates or police. Now, the AG tells the protesters not to be discouraged. Wink, wink, nod, nod.

  6. Whatever happens,
    we have got —
    the Modern Musket
    and they have not.

    Mob violence by a bunch of metrosexual college-age hysterical children is actually pretty low on my list of things to worry about and grieve over these days.

  8. Once is chance.
    Twice is coincidence.
    Three times is deliberate, hostile action.

    Remember the Trump rally in Chicago that had to be cancelled because of threats of violence? Chicago: Democrat ruled for just shy of a century, Democrat-run police force, Police would not respond to the threats. Rally cancelled. Trump blamed. That’s once.

    March 12, 2016: Trump was at a rally in Dayton, Ohio. Democrat controlled city government and police. Thomas DiMassimo got through police lines and charged the stage and was only stopped by being tackled by Secret Service agents. Ended up being charged with a ticket for disorderly conduct. DiMassimo is a known member and activist of BLM, and has been part of ISIS videos shown dragging an American flag in the dirt. Both parents are VERY well connected Democrats in his home town of Atlanta, GA.

    That’s twice.

    June 2, 2016. Trump rally in San Jose, California. Democrat controlled, Democrat police force. After the rally, the police deliberately directed the attendees away from a straight, 1 block, sidewalk back to their cars and sent them on a roundabout route directly into a mob of illegal Mexican invaders and other Democrat thugs, after warning the thugs they were coming. They then stood by, at the acknowledged orders of the mayor and chief of police, while the Trump supporters were attacked and beaten. No police response.

    That’s three times.

    And just so there will be no doubt:
    June 26, 2016: Sacramento, California. City Democrat forever, police Democrat run, forever. State Democrat run.

    On the grounds of the State Capitol. Group called the Traditional Workers Party holding a rally with proper permits and clearance. The Left calls the TWP “neo-Nazi” but I cannot find anything like that. I have seen no denigration of any race or ethnic group, their main issues seem to be moving power from the Federal government to the states, and ending government interference with churches; both of which are opposite of Nazi doctrine. They were also accused of being a pro-Trump group which I can find no justification for.

    California Highway Patrol [in charge of the Capitol Grounds] and Sacramento police on site.

    100-150 black-clad, masked persons carrying clubs, knives, and icepicks approach the permitted rally and attack them. Local law enforcement made no attempt to prevent the attack until it was well under way. 10 people were hospitalized. The attackers were a group of Leftist thugs called “By Any Means Necessary”. They are openly led by a Berkeley middle school teacher. No arrests, even though people were hospitalized, and the attackers bragged about it on the media.

    Anybody else see a pattern here, when there is Democrat local government and police?

    Keep in mind additionally, that in the last week, the Federal government has openly tossed the rule of law aside, and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has just openly and repeatedly violated Canon #5 for Federal Judges and taken sides in political matters.

    Predictions:

    July 18-21 the Republican National Convention meets in Cleveland, Ohio. Democrat mayor, Democrat police. All crowd control, all mutual aid forces from other cities, are under the command of the chief of police of Cleveland. Cleveland has admitted not ordering, and not receiving the riot control equipment they need in time. That may not be accidental.

    Every Leftist thug group in the country is gathering in Cleveland.

    Prediction #1: That there will be “flaws” in the planning by Cleveland PD, and that Leftist thugs will penetrate the convention and attack the delegates. There may be armed attacks like in Dallas.

    Prediction #2: That in the course of #1, there may be an attempt on the life of Donald Trump.

    Prediction #3: The number of arrests, and the level of charges will be far below what would be proportionate for the actions.

  9. Yes – what SB said. The Cleveland convention will likely be overrun with violent protesters who will never face more than a slap on the wrist for vicious acts of assault. Wiemar, indeed.

    I keep having the feeling that we are living through the last handful of days of “things the way they used to be.” Raveling out to a thin shred of how they used to be, but still… it’s horrific and depressing, all at once. I’m taking refuge in writing, though of course I will likely be all right here in Texas, where work and dwell a large element of the last competent and relatively honorable civic authorities in these United States. Austin has its’ mad moments, elements of Houston are and continue to be a pit and some of their elected representatives are wastes of flesh and breath like Sheila Jackson Lee. But the rest of state management are fairly sound and sane. Something about a part-time legislature might have something to do with that.

  10. I request that the proprietors of Chicago Boyz give Subotai the privilege of posting new columns here.

  11. also asserting that non-Jews have no right to fly the Israeli flag.

    I wonder if that applies to the IDF, which has quite a few non-Jews as members, including Muslims.

    The Cleveland convention will likely be overrun with violent protesters

    BLM is working on a landslide for Trump, if he is not assassinated.

    The 405 in West LA was briefly blocked by BLM protestors but it was at midnight Sunday.

    The protestors did not have to be at work Monday morning.

  13. >I keep having the feeling that we are living through the last handful of days of “things the way they used to be.”

    Well, Mom, we may bumble through it and come out virtually unscathed, as we did in the late Sixties. True, our government organs were largely law-abiding, and our culture was largely healthy. I’m old enough to remember the primitive back-to-the-earth Christianity inherent in the hippie movement; I recall hearing the Lord’s Prayer set to rock music on the radio. Even the young dissidents acknowledged the value of home and church and family. None of that is true now, or would be possible, and yet… we may.

    Too, The Donald is not without his own resources. He is not going to walk into baited traps and he is not going to take punches without counterpunching twice and thrice as hard. I listened to part of his rally here in my home town last month, and I admit it sobered me. There *is* a heavy element of demagoguery present in his prose style and presentation. I am not a fan, and that afternoon made me less so. The two things I am confident of is that he fights and that he likes his country the way it is, without the need to perform economic, cultural, and social surgery with a chainsaw as the Left has done. He is all that is on offer. I am resigned to it.

    We’ll just have to see. In the meantime, salt away more ammunition. Whatever you have on hand may turn out to be a lifetime supply, if our vague worst fears come to pass. And pray. Prayer is free.

  14. IMO the lefties won’t go into the convention area due to egress issues. They’re cowards. Plus the delegates would swarm and beat them to death before the police could intervene.

    IMO the lefties will go after delegates at hotel and dining areas, and run into GOP bikers waiting for such opportunities.

    Trump supporters are not normal Republicans. They are MUCH more Jacksonian.

  15. Elsewhere (I can’t remember now) I read that they’ve got a list of targets, hotels where Republicans are staying, restaurants, etc. They also mentioned homes of conservatives. I’m guessing their strategy will be to force police to stretch out their resources as thinly as possible. I’m curious as to what Team Trump has to say, what they know about the B.S. He’s got Secret Service protection, but aren’t they as compromised as the FBI? I wonder if he’s also got private security, not faithful to Team O.

  16. Will,

    Stop thinking about lefties acting by themselves. LEO’s in Cleveland being spread out means they won’t be able to protect the lefties.

    A few days ago I said the Next Spanish Civil War Is Coming. Consider the implications of that.

  17. We are approaching several acts of extreme violence by the progs, whether hired or self-motivated, which, at some point, will be answered by an equally violent reaction from the Trump group.

    The latter are fully aware that the progs will attack with impunity, as the lack of any effective police response has shown, and the relentless campaign against the police around the country will easily carry over into a widespread media cry of “brutality” by the lapdog media if any aggressive action is undertaken against the “peaceful protesters”.

    The media narrative about any of these “disturbances”, as we have already seen, will be to blame Trump’s rhetoric for the rage of the anti-Trump forces, and, further, to blame any significant violence on the reactions of the Trump supporters, not the initial attacks by the progs hired goons.

    This electoral cycle will be the most violent and corrupt in generations. The stage has been set, and the actors have been given their roles, and lines, both in the media and prog groups.

    Act one has concluded, and the curtain is soon to rise on act two…

  18. Not the “Trump group”. They Wil be non-lefties with a penchant for violence attracted by recreational opportunities.

  19. Heads up on Friday:

    http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/07/warning-day-rage-blacklivesmatter-protests-set-friday-37-us-cities/

    Hoft lists the cities and locations. Interestingly enough, it looks as though the local mob (Atlanta) has been exported to the uber-leftist suburb of Decatur.

    Tom- saw your reply on the Spanish Civil War. I have indeed pondered that, but hope it’s not coming down to it. Perhaps I’m delusional, or just worried sick. Because as rough and heartbreaking as that war was, this isn’t just Republican vs. Nationalist.

  20. FYI, Ohio is an “Open Carry” state and Dallas Talk radio this morning said that the New Black Panther Party announced today that it will be protesting with long rifles at the GOP convention.

  21. >>>Trump supporters are not normal Republicans. They are MUCH more Jacksonian.

    This is a hugely important point.

    This Salena Zito comment from back in May 2016 goes with it —

    If you miscalculate the voter universe now and don’t understand what will drive it to vote, then you likely never understood this entire election cycle and will continue making the same miscalculations.

    We are in a Jacksonian Populist election with the most Jacksonian Presidential candidate since Curtis Lemay.

  22. ” He is all that is on offer. I am resigned to it.”

    Yes. If only a more conventional candidate had adopted a couple of his policies with better technique. But they didn’t and we are where we are.

    I would not want to be anywhere near that convention.

    “the New Black Panther Party announced today that it will be protesting with long rifles at the GOP convention.”

    I agreed with the Dallas police chief that open carry of long guns at that BLM protest was very provocative. I’m OK with “open carry” but it does seem to attract an element which seems to crave confrontation.

    I will not be surprised at violence at the convention and even some serious casualties and death.

    I doubt the police will be very effective at prevention and may not be that motivated.

    “He’s got Secret Service protection, but aren’t they as compromised as the FBI? I wonder if he’s also got private security, not faithful to Team O.”

    I am quite concerned about this, as well. Remember Indira Gandhi was killed by her bodyguards.

  24. Oh flipping joy.

    See:

    New Black Panther Party to Attend Pre-RNC Rallies Carrying Firearms
    By Liz Sheld July 13, 2016

    https://pjmedia.com/trending/2016/07/13/new-black-panther-party-to-attend-pre-rnc-rallies-carrying-firearms/

    In particular —

    Meanwhile, police departments are pulling out of RNC security plans. The Mansfield Police Department said “something came up” and the Richland County Sheriff’s department has decided not to attend saying “It’s kind of a long drive.”

    The Cincinnati Police announced back in May they would not be assisting with security.

  25. The students at Case Western are complaining that police will be quartered there during the convention.

    It was a GOPe inspired mistake to put the convention there in deep blue Cleveland. No doubt hoping for Kasich as nominee.

    This will be ugly.

  26. I have no Intel on NBP plans. But violence would clinch election for Trump. A few radicals may show up but not enough for Chicago 68 replay without locals. Philadelphia seems a better venue for out of doors political activity. OWS has campgrounds and busses reserved there. I have not heard of same in NE Ohio.

  27. >>No doubt hoping for Kasich as nominee.

    Likely the GOPe were planning on Kasich as VP for Jeb.

    It didn’t work out that way.

  30. I know nothing of planning events, other than the occasional surprise birthday party. That said, I was wondering, when a huge event such as this is planned, do the organizers have a back-up, in the event of an emergency, or natural disaster of some type? I can’t figure for the life of me why the RNC decided on a Democrat rust-belt city, particularly given who the opposition is.

    If we all knew a White House with a Muslim Brotherhood cabinet, rap goons and Al Sharpton sooner or later meant serious trouble, why didn’t they, was it deliberate?

  31. Will–because the RNC is congenitally stupid? Or, alternatively, really doesn’t want to win?

    What else can you conclude about an organization that repeatedly schedules more than a dozen “debates” run by mostly hostile media organizations?

    What else can you say about in 2012 nominating the one primary candidate who could not run on the biggest issue of the day, Obamacare? And then spending 8- or 9-figures to develop an integrated, comprehensive data-GOTV system that crashed at the start of election day?

  32. After the Spanish Civil War, Franco signed tens of thousands of death warrants. It is hard to feel sorry after one sees how nasty these people had acted.

  33. Will,

    That is why a non-Republican is getting the Republican presidential nomination.

    An elite replacement cycle is in progress.

  34. “an integrated, comprehensive data-GOTV system that crashed at the start of election day?”

    That is the real malpractice of 2012. I donated more to Romney than I have given any politician before. I thought he would be a great president. He was not a very good candidate but the GOTV was somebody’s fault and I’m not sure it was his.

    Isn’t it funny how a disaster like the GOTV collapse has never been explained ?

  36. PenGun speculated that: ‘Israel has screwed the pooch mightily in their relationship with the Palestinians.’

    Which has no relationship that thugist racists are terrorizing American Jews while University administrators stood by and with their inaction showed tacit approval for those heinous acts.

    If you think the thugs ‘were smart young people’ I’d love to have you be a guest at our bi-weekly poker game. While the others are more trusting I would only accept cash from you. Or your car title. Or a quit-claim deed for your house.

  40. Being a foreigner, I am at a loss to see what deep wisdom led the Republicans to choose Cleveland as host for their festival.

  41. dearie, Ohio is one of the states considered crucial to Republicans in presidential races in normal years.

    The brilliant minds of the RNC decided holding the convention in that state would help. The fact that Cleveland is NOT friendly territory did not occur to them.

    Not occurring to them is a common problem.

    Of course, there is the problem that most big cities are run by Democrats and are, for some reason, mostly hellholes of corruption,

  42. Will,

    Trump supporters going to the RNC know damned well what is coming.

    Ohio is an open carry state. So the Trumpkins can drive there with their semi-auto rifles in their car trucks and form ‘escort groups’ for GOP delegates from all the hotels.

    IMO, the Cleveland PD is setting up a lot of Radical Leftists to get killed by Trump’s Rolling Thunder motorcycle supporter contingent.

    For them, the Cleveland PD just announced open season with no bag limits on Leftists.

  43. “the Cleveland PD just announced open season with no bag limits on Leftists.”

    The Cleveland PD and their bosses may figure this is a way to turn leftist violence into anti-Trump sentiment by those who see it on TV.

  44. Mike K,

    The difference is that the Trump supporters know what is coming this time, unlike San Jose.

    Neither the Leftists nor the Cleveland PD have a clue what large numbers of armed, open carry, motorcycle gang Trumpkin flash mobs mean for a Leftist violent national political convention protest.

    You cannot have the law enforcement/security bodies to do large scale crowd control, large scale political VIP protection, multiple wide-spread hotel delegate protection and chase large numbers of mobile armed men -simultaneously-.

    Especially since the Cleveland PD rules of engagement meant that Ohio local police will have nothing to do with participating in RNC security.

  45. Public safety be damned. We’ll make it a referendum on guns then, and the violence that Trump attracts. Fast n’ furious supplied Panthers, alibied and aliased, catch and release. Bikers and “rednecks”, felony and hospital/morgue. Big Steve Loomis, keep us in the loop!

  47. The explosive device described as “home made fireworks” that blew the foot off of a Rock climber in NY City’s Central park was made of TATP. The home made explosive of choice for ISIS and Al-Qaeda bomb makers.

    See Link:

    https://pjmedia.com/trending/2016/07/15/home-made-explosive-device-caused-explosion-in-central-park-over-july-4th-holiday/

    And this text:

    The chemicals used to make the improvised explosive were placed in a shopping bag, investigators said. The bag was pressure sensitive and activated when a tourist put his foot on it and triggered the explosion, suffering severe foot injuries.

    TATP** is a notoriously unstable explosive that has been used in terrorist attacks for decades, including in the Paris attacks last fall and by the shoe bomber Richard Reid. It’s often made from common household chemicals, such as beauty supplies.

    ** Triacetone Triperoxide.

    NB: We are now seeing the emergence of an ISIS-style IED planting campaign inside the USA.

  48. I knew it was an IED from the first news report, especially since it was across the street from Eli Wiesel’s funeral. Explosives have certain characteristics. [note that in the past before becoming a Peace Officer, I was a hard rock miner and would set off charges ranging from 200-1200 lbs of various explosives every day].

    Your actual explosive charge is made NOT to go bang unless a specific detonator is used. The purpose of this is to prevent all sorts of unpleasantness for the operator. This detonator usually involves the simultaneous application of heat and shock. Home made fireworks that the NYPD, et al were blaming it on do not go bang when stepped on. Either there was a pressure detonator, or it was something inherently unstable like TATP. And that is an improvised military munition.

    The key point is that we can assume, based on past actions, that the Federal government is a) trying to cover everything up, and b) will do nothing to prevent further attacks in order to avoid damaging the cover up in a).

    At that point, how do you tell the terrorists from the government?

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