The Would-Be Health Care Terrorist
Really, Mayor Bloomberg?
Bloomberg later told CBS Evening News Anchor Katie Couric that the suspect behind the bombing attempt could be a domestic terrorist angry at the government who acted alone.
"If I had to guess 25 cents, this would be exactly that. Homegrown, or maybe a mentally deranged person, or somebody with a political agenda that doesn't like the health care bill or something. It could be anything," he said.
Proving once again that when a billionaire offers his 25 cents' worth, chances are the results are worthless.
I suggest the following official responses next time something terroristic happens:
* When you don't know, say "I don't know."
* When you don't know, don't say "It probably wasn't terrorism," particularly if it was a violent act intended to kill innocents.
* "Terrorism" is not equivalent to "part of an organized international conspiracy with a well-known terrorist group." It is possible to make that distinction in one, maximum two, sentences.
Here to help, etc.
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dangerously delusional
if giuliani were dead, he'd be spinning in his grave
He may not be dead, but he certainly is UN-dead. I'm sure he eats the brains of children for brunch.
Using a terrorist act to attack political opponents without the slightest factual basis is what I like to call reprehensible.
That's really an extraordinary statement? as someone who lived through the attack of September 11 that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq.
Wait, the SUV was a Nissan Pathfinder, right?
Clearly the work of those fiends at Toyota, trying to draw attention away form its own terroristic actions.
That was bad, too.
"If I had to guess 25 cents"
Small risk for a billionaire.
I don't even know what Bloomberg is saying there. It seems like nonsense.
"if I had to guess 25 cents"
Maybe he is like rainman, and someone just dropped some pennies on the floor.
Unless this is a common phrase, anyone here ever hear that before?
Bloomberg is better than others in his own estimation. Thus, his two cents worth actually amounts to twenty-five cents in his crooked head.
But wouldn't you say "if you want my 2 cents worth", or "I'll throw my 2 cents worth in".
Only a piece of shit, nanny stater, pederast would say "if I had to guess two cents", then they would ban bacon or something.
Yes, it's basically a combination of insane ego (his 2 cents are worth 25 cents as JLE points out) and his lack of off-the-cuff wit.
I am shocked, SHOCKED, to learn that someone from another country would want to commit a crime like this against a country led by a Nobel Peace Prize winner who is also not George Bush.
No, it simply can't be. Everyone loves us now. The Congress and the President are touchy, feely liberals.
All our Islamic terrorism problems should be gone.
Yes, I am sure that the families of those killed by predator drones while attending wedding parties in Afganistan and Pakistan understand that it is the Nobel Peace Prize Winning President now, so the killings are OK.
We welcome our bomb-drone drone overlords!
Two words for you: predator drones. You will never see it coming. You think I'm joking?
Bloomberg is perpetuating the idea that, these days, terroristic threats can ONLY come from "the right".
Not saying they can't/won't happen from the right, just that it's not a sure thing.
We still don't know what the suspect's political leanings are. He could be a conservative tea partier. I have yet to hear that specifically ruled out.
I didn't say it couldn't *be* such, Gobbler. But any excuse by the left to rehash the name "Timothy McVeigh"...
10 bucks he beats off to pictures of Palin. 10 bucks.
What about your 25 cents?
I deny that allegation!
Bloomberg = Palin-lover? Not likely. He's not nearly right-wingy enough.
He couldn't handle her. Not even in his fantasy.
He's not the only one. I have a liberal friend who is now disappointed that it wasn't some RW militia group or RW hater like McVeigh.
Some people are just sick. They wanted so badly for this to be a RW attack so they can even further justify their demonization. As if they need an excuse.
"Also, this just proves we need to confiscate all the scary guns from everybody in America."
Not to mention 15% more of their income to accomplish such a daunting task.
The feds will probably ban SUVs and four way flashers.
...and propane tanks. People don't kill people, BBQ grills kill people.
"The white zone is for exploding vehicles only. The red zone is for non-exploding vehicles. There are never any explosions in the red zone."
1.Regulate Craigslist
2.Ban private auto sales
3.require tracking chips in propane and fertilizer
#1 was proposed this morning on NBC only over prostitution ads, not private vehicle sales...yet.
Don't forget biometric sensors in the steering wheel of all SUV's.
Who can blame him for thinking it was a homegrown healthcare opponent? Isn't that exactly what the White House fear-mongers have been telling us would happen?
That's a very good point.
This administration has a troubling and puzzling tendency to deny, even before all the shrapnel has landed, that Islamic terrorism is to blame. A story breaks at 6:15 "Explosion rocks city." At 6:30 "FBI (or State Department or whoever) says no link to Middle Eastern terrorism established."
Think Skip Gates arrest v. Oil rig. This administration is so schizophrenic. Obama has no trouble telling everyone the cops "acted stupidly" before all the facts are in, but then takes nine days to make a statement on the rig explosion.
"" At 6:30 "FBI (or State Department or whoever) says no link to Middle Eastern terrorism established."""
Based off the information they had at the time, it wasn't established.
Yeah, but why the big rush to point that out? That's like someone saying at 1:00 that my lunch cost about $5, but no link to Subway $5 footlongs has been established yet.
That's right. They never say Christian militias or Tamul tigers or Red Sox fans aren't connected. Just Islamiacs.
How about they just say what happened and wait until they have some facts or official word before saying this or that group may or may not be responsible?
"Explosion rocks city. No word yet on who may be responsible." Wouldn't that be the best way to go about it?
Do you want to see Americans inciting violence against the government? I can show you that. Just last week I saw a car parked in a nice neighborhood in Cambridge, MA with a < / BUSH > bumper sticker. Yes, if you want to pronounce it, it will be "SLASH BUSH".
To be fair, that could just be a call for better personal grooming.
The standards have changed. These days if you can come up with an anti-government or racist interpretation, then this is the only interpretation that matters.
That's our business model!
Good point. I saw a bumper sticker on a car in Cambridge that said "landing strip"!
I read that as End Bush.
That's just HTML (web coding language) for "end Bush.". As in, Bush's presidency should end. Not "slash Bush" as in "cut him."
For example, if you want to show bold text, you put before the text to be bolded and after to turn off the bolding. You just saw a geeky bumper sticker, not an incitement to violence.
So what would happen if I had a sticker that read "kill -9 obama"?
Oops, I just got Reason added to the SPLC list.
Way ahead of you, wingnutx. Reason was on our terrorist radar a LONG time ago.
Political bumper stickers are so lame.
I'm waiting for the two press conferences (the one he said that it was probably someone upset over health-care) and then today's that would there would be no backlash against any one group to be put in a video.
< /BUSH >
Did you get her address?
It was fun and games under the Bush regime. Now, a statement like this is an incitement of violence.
No, I'm pretty sure he was talking about pubic hair.
My other regular hangout (BigSoccer.com) had its thread on the event chock-full of people making a very, very similar claim, with plenty of "Teabagger, HURR DURR" fun. And that's a place that tends to be a whole lot more reasonable and intelligent than the mainstream, like H&R (except decidedly left-ish).
There are just a whole lot of people who clearly were almost praying for this to be a confirmation of their political biases.
You do know that soccer is the planet's gayest sport, right?
Ahem...
Not even close to being as gay as soccer. Not even in the same stadium.
But I must admit the Aussies do love their Johnnie Jousting.
Wait, who would win in a bar fight between a soccer team and a lacrosse team?
I'd go with the soccer players.
Hell no, soccer players are powerless without refs to flop in front of.
The lacrosse team, because they have sticks and the soccer players can only use their feet to kick like the sissy little girlies they are.
Nice try.
There are just a whole lot of people who clearly were almost praying for this to be a confirmation of their political biases.
Absolutely. I saw this all over the message boards. One Facebook thread I'm on said (qoute) "Please, PLEASE let this be about the teabaggers!!!"
Think about this for a moment. If the bomb had gone off, one of Bloomberg and the media's first responses would have been worry about backlash against the Pakistani community.
But if the bomb had gone off and it had been some anti-government nut from the right, those same people's response would have been to collectively blame anyone ever associated with a Tea Party.
Yep. Never thought about that, but you are correct, sir.
When a live mic is in the face of a politician they just can't help themselves. How about prefacing the statement with "I have no way of actually knowing the religion, ethnicity, nationality, motive, income or sexual orientation of the person of interest due to the dearth of actual evidence at this point, but I'm going to guess anyway."
More than 80 San Francisco police officers have criminal histories or misconduct records that the Police Department withheld and prosecutors did not disclose to defense attorneys in cases in which officers testified, a failure that could put hundreds of felony convictions in jeopardy, The Chronicle has learned.
The potential fallout could be far more severe than that caused by the cocaine-skimming scandal at the San Francisco police drug lab, which prompted prosecutors to dismiss more than 600 narcotics cases, experts say.
"We are not potentially talking about possession of cocaine cases - we are potentially talking about very serious felonies," said Lael Rubin, a prosecutor with the Los Angeles County district attorney's office who oversees that county's disclosure process and leads training seminars on the subject for prosecutors in California.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....z0myUhos29
And this is relevant to the NYC bombing attempt?
Everything relates to everything.
Oh, and fuck you.
The "Morning Links" is a daily open thread.
People thread jack other threads as well. If you don't like it, just do what I do. Ignore it.
I said, "It could be anything," so FCC you.
This administration has a troubling and puzzling tendency to deny, even before all the shrapnel has landed, that Islamic terrorism is to blame.
Bush's guys did the same thing (because they're almost all the same guys). The high-level consensus is that America is a nation of Confederate hicks itchin' to pitch a trailer-park Kristallnacht at the first official admission of a Muslim doing something shitty. It keeps not happening despite the regularity of Muslims doing shitty things, but the consensus isn't based on fact, so it's immune to disproof.
And shouting "Teabagger McVeigh!" at every odd thing that happens can't stir up any crazy, because the Confederacy is deaf to it, and everyone else is good people.
Yep.
Maybe McVeigh came back from the dead and planted the NYC bomb...
I think someone didn't like the slice they got from "Rays" or was it "Famous Rays" ? I can never remember which is the good one.
You all are so quick to jump to conclusions. Maybe this guy was motivated by his hatred of the universal health care bill and his love for Osama Bin Laden.
Didn't Osama come out for Obamacare?
Maybe he just figured the SUV was a crappy car and decided he wanted to make a public demonstration of how much he hated it.
Propane and black powder- flex fuel!
Wow, that actually makes perfect sense.
Lou
http://www.whos-logging.se.tc
Homegrown, or maybe a mentally deranged person, or somebody with a political agenda that doesn't like the health care bill or something.
I've come to accept this type of rhetoric as code for anti-social, misanthropic, selfish fucks who never think about the retarded children. Did I mention, they sacrifice animals to Wall Street.
Reason readers in other words.
Rather, their stereotype of Libertarians in general. In a broader sense, it is useful (and on the same level as Bush's "you don't support the troops bullshit") to label opponents of anything this (or any) administration does. One caveat, I forgot to mention racist above because everyone knows Libertarian types are just secret Klan members, falsely spouting jargon about non-aggression and the evils of coercion, so they can just fool the country and enslave the "lower" races. In the end, that's what the stooges think of anybody who is sick of seeing their unborn children's future sacrificed so we can buy giant houses, expensive cars, and sweet impossible to fund retirements for the assholes today. Only closet racists would have a problem with that.
Meanwhile:
"DETROIT ? A judge says nine members of a Michigan-based militia accused of trying to plot war against the government can be released from jail on bond until trial."
http://www.lansingstatejournal...../1001/news
http://reason.com/blog/2010/05.....nt_1689421
The hypocrisy of the left is truly amazing.
After any and all crimes/terrorist acts/whatever-want-to-call-it that in any way might have some Middle Eastern or Islamic connection, they all rush to proclaim that we should all be carefull not to engange in profiling or stereotyping or talking about an "Islamic war" etc, etc.
But they are just panting to smear and blame the Tea Party folks for anything and everything.
And then of course what about the protestors of the Arizona immigration bill? All the same rhetoric that Clinton and the other lefty talking-points yappers were saying about Tea Party folks and talk radio people whipping up "violence" could be applied just as equally to the people criticizing and protesting the Arizona law. But you won't hear a peep out of the leftists about that either.
The hypocrisy of the left is truly amazing.
After any and all crimes/terrorist acts/whatever-want-to-call-it that in any way might have some Middle Eastern or Islamic connection, they all rush to proclaim that we should all be carefull not to engange in profiling or stereotyping or talking about an "Islamic war" etc, etc.
But they are just panting to smear and blame the Tea Party folks for anything and everything.
When did Michael Bloomberg become the left?
Oh also, you want to talk about hypocrisy? How about all the law and order/rule of law types types on the right who think certain americans are less equal than others.
And these types of statements come on the heels of other GOPers talking about deporting American born children of immigrants.
Yeah, the problem is really "the left"
Fucking idiot.
Tom,
Whatever your valid points about McCain statements are, and I think this guy as an American citizen arrested on US soil, clearly has Miranda rights, you don't do your case any good by ignoring the other point. Just McCain is stupid doesn't mean the media and many on the Left who rush to paint all of their political opponents with the taint of violence when it suits them any better.
You would better off if you put up two posts. In one post, you can bitch about McCain's statement. And I don't think many people on here will argue with you. And in another post, you can admit the obvious by pointing out that yes the Left is hypocritical as hell because you know as well as I do if the bomber had been some right wing white guy, the media and the President's allies would have slimed the entire Tea Party movement with guilt by association in ways they would never do to any other group of people.
Trying to link the two facts or justify one by pointing to the other, just makes you look like a troll. And it totally diminishes your valid point about McCain's stupid statement.
As vehemently as I disagreed with you on the morning links thread, you pretty much nailed this one.
I'm going to go with troll as my final answer.
"When did Michael Bloomberg become the left?"
He's always been one of the left.
Always.
The GOP is on the left Tommy.
Teh Teabaggers are taking over Pakistan!!!
"Sources tell CBS News that multiple people have been taken into custody for questioning in Pakistan in connection with the Times Square bomb plot."
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/times.square.car.2.1673810.html
BTW, the Pakistani Taliban boast of involvement in the Times Square plot had been discounted in mainstream media.
Bring on the Talibaggers!
I am NOT using "Talibaggers" on my show. No matter how clever the pun may be, it doesn't fit in with the template.
Mr. Welch, I have read your post and I find its tone threatening.
Having seen something, I have now said something.
So there.
When did Michael Bloomberg become the left?
When wasn't he a crony capitalist/leftist/authoritarian/nanny?
When you are claiming Bloomburg isn't a leftist, you have pretty much gone full on troll.
or are just exceedingly ignorant.
Crony capitalist, authoritarian, and nanny are not just for the left. The right seems to like those too.
Statist would probably be a better word. But then most of the left has pretty much gone in that direction anyway, so I'd say the two words pretty much mean the same thing at this point.
Stupid terrorist. If he wanted to strike at the heart of American power and scare our profession political class, he would have parked the vehicle outside of Goldman-Sachs' headquarters.
"It looks like an amateurish job done by at least one person," he told Couric.
Oh, so we should be looking for at least one person. Thanks for narrowing it down, there, Bloomy. I was looking at theories where no person did it, but I'll focus on the 'somebody did it' theories now.
Christ.
"Suspect is hatless. Repeat, hatless"
Hey Bloomingidiot, if this was a "domestic terrorist angry at the government who acted alone", the SUV would have been packed with salt, transfats and cigs.
They're not called "domestic terrorists" anymore.
They're Jihadi-Americans you racist!
Bloomberg's last words, when the towel-heads finally vaporize Manhattan with a crude nuclear weapon: "FUCKING TEAB..."
at the government who acted alone.
I have to admit that I get really angry when I feel my government is acting alone.
I was going to comment on the article er a post, but then I saw the ad for good morning america and almost lost my cookies.
good post