There is just nothing like light shining through bare trees to magnify the beauty of the earth and the sky. You don’t have to wait for the Solstice to enjoy bare trees and sunlight.
Rain will usher in this December– Cold, bone-chilling rain. Will there be snow? Will this winter be snowy? What signs to you look for?
My all time reliable signal of snow to come is trees that are heavily-laden with fruit, nuts, berries or seeds. I think we might be in for some of the white stuff this winter.
Minn. man accused in Black Lives Matter shootings reportedly subscribed to ‘sovereign citizen’ subculture
Play Video2:10
Minnesota prosecutor brings charges against four shooting suspects
Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced second-degree assault and second-degree riot charges against one and second-degree riot charges against three others involved in a shooting at a Minneapolis protest, but stopped short of issuing hate crime charges. (Reuters)
Last year, when the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism surveyed hundreds of law enforcement officials about what they believed to be the greatest terrorist threat in the U.S., the answer was not neo-Nazis or Islamic extremists.
It was “sovereign citizens,” a strange subculture united by little more than anti-government ideology and a sense of desperation. Adherents are said to include Terry Nichols, who helped plan the Oklahoma City bombings, and Jerad and Amanda Miller, who killed two police officers and a civilian who attempted to intervene in Las Vegas last year.
And, according to authorities, the philosophy also found a fan in 23-year-old Allen “Lance” Scarsella, the man charged with shooting five people at a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Minneapolis last week.
Scarsella and three other men, who prosecutors say were also armed, allegedly showed up at the demonstration last Monday intending to set off a confrontation with people protesting the fatal police shooting of Jamar Clark on Nov. 15. Scarsella fired eight shots, wounding five people. He and the three others are facing second degree riot charges.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/01/minn-man-accused-of-shooting-black-lives-matter-protesters-reportedly-subscribed-to-sovereign-citizen-subculture/?hpid=hp_no-name_morning-mix-story-c%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
Domestic terrorism in a much greater threat to America than anything by Isis.
@Starryflights
Starry,
I see the subtle attempt to paint this as involving fringe right-wingers, but it looks like this type of thinking is just as prevalent on the left: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/30/us-usa-chicago-threat-idUSKBN0TJ23K20151130
“Rain will usher in this December– Cold, bone-chilling rain. ”
Supposed to be a “mild and wet” winter, so get used to this kind of weather.
@Starryflights
“Domestic terrorism in a much greater threat to America than anything by Isis.”
So you say: http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/261597-unprecedented-support-for-isis-in-us-analysis-claims
“Majority of violent criminals are Democrats”.
That’s what Ted Cruz says.
Are criminals in court asked about party affiliation, I wonder?
Is it summer yet?
Another mass shooting !
(3 Democrats ????)
Not funny !
Must be Democrats doing the shooting, according to Teddy Cruz.
These shootings are quickly becoming normal in America.
@Starryflights
Not true, according to the FBI. They are just more sensationally covered.
Ok…something’s different here. Reports say “multiple assailants, wearing body armor and masks” plus a “black suv with masked driver”. This isn’t the usual “lone wolf/kook” that seizes the headlines. The target wasn’t something politically onerous one. It was a soft target.
Let’s see how this story unfolds, before we start casting accusations and calling for universal background checks. This smells like a terrorist attack, domestic or foreign, really doesn’t matter.
I think all of it is domestic terrorism. I don’t think the number of shooters has anything to do with it.
And I see that Gavin Newsome hasn’t wasted any time politicizing this tragedy, before police have even secured the scene.
Moon,
Adam Lanza wasn’t a domestic terrorist. He was a mentally deranged individual. A domestic terrorist does his killing for a larger purpose, be it political, social, or some other motivation. The Aurora shooter wasn’t a terrorist either, nor was the Navy Yard shooter.
The numbers of shooters do matter. This implies organization and commonality of purpose. The choice of targets for a group like this matters also.
I don’t think the number of shooters determines whether it should be classified as terrorist or not.
I think SC was terrorist, and so was Colorado. Just my opinion. We don’t know what Adam Lanza was thinking. Hard to say what the motivation was.
In the long run, however, what difference does it make. Dead is dead.
Also, another difference here is the planned get-away. Most spree-killers keep going until they are killed, captured, or commit suicide.
I suspect people upset that they were invited to an Happy Holidays office party instead of a Merry Christmas one.
(Sadly this happens so often that jokes are the only way to maintain sanity.)
@Ed Myers
Ed, are you sure your sanity is maintained?
“This” looks like a domestic terror attack, along the lines of the recent Paris attacks. It is different from Sandy Hook or the Navy Yard, or Vester Lee Flanagan, or VA Tech.
Multiple shooters, Body Armor, Get-away plan. This is not the MO of the spree-killer we’ve seen over the years.
Moon,
You can have a lone-wolf terrorist, like Chattanooga, or Ft. Hood. You can have a lone deranged spree-killer like Lanza and Cho. But when is the last time you saw a mass-shooting with mutliple shooters, that wasn’t terror-related? Columbine.
I’m telling you, this is different. Whether you, other blog contributers, or those running for the Democratic nomination want to hear it, this looks like an ISIS thing. Those who can’t help themselves, rushing to a microphone to blame the NRA, are going to look very foolish I think.
I read about a news reporter who monitors police radio. It was reported that the police are looking for several suspects, described as possibly “Hispanic or Middle-eastern” wearing tactical vests and masks. Whether accurate or not, this is a different kind of shooting, in that the motivations just might be a bit more focused.
It very well maybe be international terrorism. My point is and perhaps I didn’t say this strongly enough…in my own mind, spree killing is terrorism. No, the government doesn’t agree with me.
In my mind, Columbine was terrorism also.
I don’t disagree that three shooters is suspiciously like international terrorism. Finally, we don’t know….yet.
Just read the President’s remarks. He’s politicized it too. I’m done for a bit.
My prayer is for each and every person on this blog have a safe and joyful holiday season, peace and the Lord’s blessings for you all, and I do mean all.
Thank you, Steve. Same to you and your family. See you soon.
Agree with Steve. This appears to be different. I heard a quick comment about an incident nearby but then nothing else. We need to wait and see on this. Also sounds like rescue went in before Police – buts it’s a little jumbled.
Steve might very well be right. I am multi-tasking and not totally committed to blogging at the moment. What I am trying to say is, most of the spree killings, in MY OWN MIND, are terrorism. I know the government doesn’t sharre my definition.
I guess we will find out soon. If its international or ISIS stuff, we should be careful it doesn’t crop up other places.
One terrorist still at large…he might be holded up in a church. Rumors still flying.
Future democrats from the religion of peace?
Generalizations are not very intelligent sounding…as a rule.
@Lyssa
No, they really aren’t. I agree Lyssa.
San Bernadino chief said the word terrorist…but it hasn’t been decided yet. Facts aren’t in.
One of those killed was a woman.
I would expect a terrorist cell to want to attack a memorable site with a short easy to spell name so it is easy to find on youtube.
The location suggests something intensely personal as opposed to something designed to recruit more jihadists. Really, attacking a bunch of handicapped people just invites ridicule, not respect even among those panting for an afterlife of virgins.
Excellent point, Ed. I have thought about that all night…the absurdity of attacking disabled people. How …unmanly.
@Steve Thomas A few days ago it was “we have to get all the facts first.” You’ve already concluded now that Isis did this.
I guess I was wrong about the target of the attack. The target appears to be previous co-workers at a different government agency and not the disabled at that facility. The office party was just using the party facility.
Workplace violence or Jihad? We have to wait for the investigation. I’m leaning towards workplace violence but radicalization is possible. I just think if one is doing this for religious ideology he’d pick a more iconic target and at least mention the cause for which one wants martyr credit.
He was radicalized. All kinds of bomb making materials found at their home.
It looks like we all owe Steve an apology. He was right on the money.
I suppose it was all a matter of time.
Who on earth would would take a 6 month old baby to your mother in laws and then go on a killing spree? Radicalization is like a mental illness. Who would do that!!!
That little baby is going to grow up in America…the very place they were attacking.
He was mad and drew from his personal toolbox of how to deal with things.
He shouldn’t have had all that crap in his personal tool box. Very illogical and he isn’t the only one out there. Those two weren’t lone wolves.
Missouri Walmarts and law enforcement have reported 4 bulk purchases of cheap cell phones.
Missiouri law enforcement has reported the theft of dozens of propane tanks.
Why is this terrifying?
In Fallujah, Marines would detonate a propane tank in the ground floor of the building which had a sniper on the roof. They did this because the sniper would booby trap the building. Propane tanks were common for cooking.
The building would come down.
Why is the ACLU so violent?
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/221043/
NAVY WINS!
Happy Birthday!!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Thanks. It is over and I am officially…older. Sigh.
Thanks. It is over and I am officially…older. Sigh.
Already you’re repeating yourself….
Too funny. I think I will take a few of those down.
Carley needs to get her facts right. The first ipad came out in 2010. She was a year off. Come on Carly, you were CEO of HP. You know damn well when the ipad came out. Ipad 2 came out in 2011.
Yes, I nitpick at her because of the blatant lie she told about Planned Parenthood. Id she can’t get something right in a field where she was one of the big bosses, she is really a fish out of water when discussing Planned Parenthood.
That was an extraordinary admission by Trump that we spent $4 trillion over the last 14 years toppling governments and got nothing for it, and that that money would have been better spent building schools and hospitals at home. I agree with him 100 percent
I fell asleep during the debate. It wasn’t even that boring. I think I just got bored with terrorism. That really shouldn’t be the #1 concern over all other issues.
$4 trillion is a lot of bucks. I am not really sure what we have gotten over it. Of course, I am thinking that about a lot of our wars. What do we have after any of them other than WWII?
I received an update a little while ago regarding the alleged misconduct of Tony Guiffre, the Republican Chair of the Prince William County Electoral Board. Tony was to appear yesterday before the Virginia State Board of Elections to answer allegations regarding violations of state election law. Apparently, the inquiry before the Electoral Board was postponed until some time in January due to the alleged illness of the Republican Chair of the State Electoral Board.
As reported by the Washington Post and this blog some time ago, allegedly contrary to law, Guiffre “deputized” four individuals to review personal information on absentee ballot applications for evidence of fraud. These individuals allegedly reviewed signatures and other personal information, though it is unclear that they had any particularly relevant expertise to do so. The names of the other four individuals involved is publicly available, and they were Marie Hoerst, Deborah Weber, Jan Burch, and Dorothy Miller. Each is a strong Republican, three are financial contributors to various Republican candidates and elected officials, and at least two are current or former officers of the Bull Run Republican Women’s Club.
Guiffre’s allegedly illegal activities, however, appear to go beyond the review of the absentee ballot applications. He is alleged to have additionally submitted one or more false absentee ballot applications himself in an attempt to demonstrate that he could fraudulently obtain a ballot.
Both such actions are potentially serious violations of Virginia law, the first apparently because it constitutes the illegal disclosure of individual social security numbers and the second because it constitutes filing false information on a government form. One source has indicated that State Senator Dick Black is attempting to assist in defending Tony Guiffre.
Comments on the earlier blog post regarding this issue speculated about Tony Guiffre’s motives. I can speak in part directly to that from my own experience. Before Election Day this year, I went to a special meeting of the Electoral Board at which Tony Guiffre expressed his frustration at the number of absentee ballot applications that Delegate Scott Surovell (now Senator-elect Surovell) had filed electronically. As some will remember, this issue of electronic filing came up in a Republican primary this year between Speaker Howell and Susan Stimson. Speaker Howell had obtained a ruling from the State Board of Elections that absentee ballot applications could be filed electronically. Surovell turned out to be very effective in signing up people in this fashion to the consternation of Guiffre and other Republicans who desperately wanted to stop Surovell from being able to do so. It was, frankly, discouraging to witness an Electoral Board member so focused on reducing voter turnout. It seems clear that this latest ill-advised action by Guiffre and four others was a last, desperate attempt to see if they could demonstrate that Surovell had done something fraudulent.
Hi Earnie, thanks for offering additional information on this situation. I had wondered what was happening with this case.
I feel personally violated since I was one who voted absentee. I don’t know if my ballot was one of the chosen to snoop at or not, but just the fact that it could have been is disconcerting.
If Mr. Guiffre had concerns about the ballots, he should have addressed those concerns through the county registrar. How can you “deputize” anyone having to do with elections? By whose authority did he do this?
I hope that he is at least forced to resign from his post. There is far too much taking of liberties with elections going on anyway.
More on that score later.
Hugo’s campaign mailed me an absentee ballot even though I had not asked for one.
Ted ‘Carpet-Bomb’ Cruz
Oliver Munday
This would have been an instructive Senate hearing for Ted Cruz to attend: “U.S. Strategy to Counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and U.S. Policy Toward Iraq and Syria.”
The bellicose senator from Texas blew that one off on Wednesday; he was in New York, shaking his saber on Fox News and courting big-dollar donors at a closed-door luncheon on Madison Avenue.
His favorite line on ISIS seems to be, “We will carpet-bomb them into oblivion,” which he said in Iowa last week. His irresponsible chatter is of a piece with most Republican presidential candidates, who are busy offering phony prescriptions for the biggest foreign threat the United States faces.
Mr. Cruz is a lawyer and a foreign-policy neophyte. Anyone with any understanding of military strategy knows that “carpet-bombing” is a term used by amateurs trying to sound tough. Indiscriminate bombing has never been a military strategy, and it would be senseless in an age of “smart” weaponry and precise targeting.
In Syria and Iraq, mass bombing would kill hundreds of innocent civilians and fuel radicalization. That’s why military leaders utter the term “carpet-bomb” only while laughing at Mr. Cruz.
“That’s just another one of those phrases that people with no military experience throw around,” chuckled retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, a military historian and former commandant of the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa.
The only thing close to “carpet-bombing” was Operation Arc Light in 1965, in which two or three B-52 Stratofortresses bombed sections of Vietnam to support tactical operations on the ground, not to flatten the place. “America has never carpet-bombed anyone at any time because that’s not our doctrine,” said General Scales.
On NPR on Tuesday, Mr. Cruz further betrayed his ignorance by saying he could carpet-bomb ISIS without targeting civilians. “I want to carpet-bomb ISIS. Now when you say ‘carpet-bomb cities,’ look, no — no reasonable military endeavor targets civilians. Now, inevitably in war, there are inadvertent collateral casualties. That — it is impossible to wage a war without their being inadvertent collateral casualties.”
Steve Inskeep, the host, interjected: “But don’t you then end up with the air campaign they already have, where they’re being exceedingly careful not to hit civilians, but they hit a target when they can find a target?”
Mr. Cruz vehemently disagreed. “Let’s go to some facts. In the first Persian Gulf war, we launched roughly 1,100 air attacks a day. We carpet-bombed them into oblivion for 37 days.”
Actually, no, say military leaders. That was highly targeted bombing, which was why the war took so little time.
At the hearing on United States military strategy against ISIS that Mr. Cruz missed on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Paul Selva, assessed Mr. Cruz’s prescription.
The wanton bombing Mr. Cruz repeatedly refers to, General Selva said, is categorically “not the way that we apply force in combat. It isn’t now, nor will it ever be.”
Ted Cruz, a man who thinks he’s qualified to be commander in chief, decries terrorists’ taking of innocent lives while agitating for bombing that would kill thousands of noncombatants and radicalize thousands more. What he’s saying shows an utter lack of fitness to command America’s armed forces.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/12/opinion/ted-carpet-bomb-cruz.html
Idiot.
Pretty much so. He is probably the worst one of all the candidates and far more dangerous than Trump. He is loathed by most people who know him. Doesn’t play well with others is an understatement.
Disabuse yourselves of any idea that ISIS can be killed off in their own lair without civilian casualties. Carpet bombing, targeted bombing, boots on the ground with armor and artillery, special forces raids…doesn’t matter. This enemy will always use innocent civilians as human shields. In western Syria, for instance, the Sunni rebels — not sure which exact groups — are putting Shia Muslims, including women, in cages in the streets in an effort to keep the Russian and Syrian air forces from bombing their sites.
Is it working or do the Russians and Syrian air forces even care?
Graphic designer Oliver Munday didn’t write that NYT article on Cruz. It was the NYT Editorial Board.
This happened in November. The people placed in the cages were Alawite Shia, the ethnic group of which Assad himself is a part. They were captured civilian Alawite men and women as well as captured Assad soldiers. The rebels figured that Assad would not risk killing people who were his primary supporters. They apparently figured wrong. The bombing didn’t stop. Lots of civilian casualties, but I have no specifics on the caged people.
Some additional information has come to light regarding the alleged misconduct of Tony Guiffre, the Republican Chair of the Prince William County Electoral Board. The allegations are more serious than originally thought. Apparently the complainants are asserting not only that Tony Guiffre and associates violated election law, but that they did so in a premeditated fashion with the specific intent of circumventing the instructions of the State Board of Elections and Virginia law.
As I posted on December 16, Tony Guiffre was particularly angst-ridden about the success of Scott Surovell in signing up people electronically to receive absentee ballots — a process essentially pioneered in Virginia by Republican Speaker of the House Bill Howell in a Republican primary earlier this year. Guiffre was apparently so upset with Surovell’s success that before the election he was allegedly instructed by the State Board of Elections that he had no authority to evaluate signatures on absentee ballots cast.
The normal procedure for absentee ballots is that after they are counted they are promptly sent to the Clerk of the Court. Once with the Clerk, they can only be examined by order of the Circuit Court or the State Board of Elections. To circumvent this, Guiffre prevented the Elections staff from transmitting the ballots to the Clerk of the Court in the normal time frame. Then on Monday, November 9, with the Registrar absent, he brought in Republican activists Marie Hoerst, Deborah Weber, Jan Burch, and Dorothy Miller, to have them compare the signatures on the absentee ballots with the signatures on the individuals’ voter registrations (none, of course, where trained or expert in such forensics). Guiffre allegedly asserts that this did not violate the instructions of the State Board of Elections because he did it after the election, not before, and did not illegally make protected private information public because he swore in Marie Hoerst, Deborah Weber, Jan Burch, and Dorothy Miller as elections officers. According to complainants, however, this was not only a violation of the instructions from the State Board of Elections, but was patently illegal, since all elections officials have to be sworn in by all three members of the Board of Elections together — a procedure reasonably designed to prevent just the sort of potentially inappropriate behavior in which Guiffre was allegedly engaged.
The situation got worse. Guiffre and associates did not finish on Monday, November 9, but came back the next day, Tuesday, November 10. Guiffre, however, allegedly did not even stay with Hoerst, Weber, Burch, and Miller the entire time on Tuesday, but left them part-way through the day.
All of this is reported to have caused significant consternation to the professional elections staff, who contacted their supervisor, the Registrar, who had been away while Guiffre and associates undertook their activities.
Guiffre then left all the materials he had found/put together in the Office of Elections and then in an apparent attempt to conceal or minimize what he had done, subsequently tried to obtain them himself after complaints about his activity were filed. He allegedly went so far as to submit a FOIA request to get them, only to be rebuffed because they had been secured by the State Police as a part of the investigation into Guiffre’s actitivies. State Senator Dick Black was enlisted to aid Guiffre, and allegedly also submitted a futile FOIA request.
Now, both the State Board of Elections and the Commonwealth Attorney are reportedly investigating.
It really does get worse, doesn’t it. I voted absentee. I feel I have been wronged and my privacy violated. Who do I complain to?
@Earnie Porta
I have a typo in my December 16 post. The ill member of the State Board of Elections was the Democratic chair.
Not at all surprised.
Earnie, I moved the original post up closer to the beginning of the blog. I don’t want this story to get buried here like the story in the real media has.
If you could, please also post your remarks under the Hot Water post.
Thanks, Moon
I feel particularly outraged over this incident because I did vote absentee this past election.
Oddly enough, I knew about applying online because of a mailing sent out by Jackson Miller. I used to live in his district. Oh the irony. Has Mr. Guiffre addressed Del. Miller about HIS broadcasting of this new way to apply?
Furthermore, all people should be able to vote absentee. In some states, like Washington State, everyone votes absentee. Think how much money would be saved. Think how many (wo)man-hours would be saved.
@Moon-howler
Just reposted under the “Hot Water” post. Thanks.
Is it just me or is the DNC is an absolute free fall? They are now being sued by Bernie Sanders. Keep it up DWS!
I am laughing. I think its just you. How could anything that the DNC does be noticed. All eyes are on the RNC freak show.