FBI's superb professionalism

In a Friday afternoon news conference, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray both emphasized the cooperation of agencies in identifying the suspect in the mail bomb case.   These include, along with the FBI:  DoJ's ATF Division, its counterterrorism forces, the New York City Police Department, the post office mail sorters and its bomb detection units, law enforcement agencies in at least six states, and the FBI's own forensic labs.

But make no mistake.   The FBI was at the center of it all, and they coordinated the vast investigation, involving perhaps a dozen different agencies, and arrested a suspect within 36 hours of finding a single fingerprint on one of the packages.

It helped that the individual had a police record and that he was so open with his support for Trump and his opposition to anyone who opposes him.   The suspect was identified as 56 year old Cesar Sayoc, a South Florida man who is a registered Republican.  He drives a van plastered with pro-Trump photos and messages, as well as a photo of Hillary Clinton in a gunsight crosshairs.  There are decals that say "dishonest media" and "CNN sucks."

Investigation of his social media confirms his right-wing conspiracy activity, including being a follower of a site named "Kill George Soros," the first recipient of his 13-and-counting bombs sent to prominent Democratic individuals who have openly spoken in opposition to Trump.

These include President Obama -- and his Vice President (Joe Biden), Secretary of State (Hillary Clinton), Attorney General (Eric Holder), CIA Director (John Brennan), and Director of National Intelligence (James Clapper).  Bomb targets also included Rep. Maxine Waters, Sen. Cory Booker, Sen. Kamala Harris, wealthy Democratic donors George Soros and Tom Steyer, and actor Robert De Nero, who denounced Trump at an awards ceremony.   Two bombs addressed to Brennan and Clapper were sent to CNN, often a Trump target for claims of "fake news."    Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was listed as the return address on all the mailings, and one of the bombs was returned to her address.

None of the bombs went off;  but FBI Director Wray referred to them as having all the components of a bomb;  "they were not hoax bombs," he said.   This was perhaps meant to counter claims that President Trump had made, calling them hoax bombs.

Right-wing spokesmen, including Fox News, had begun calling this a "false flag" operation, meaning that the apparent victims (Democrats) had actually sent these "hoax" bombs themselves to make it look like Republicans were responsible.  They offered zero evidence for this conspiracy theory.

It's clear now that was not the case.   The president and his followers are simply dead wrong on this.    Although some who knew the suspect have called him mentally ill, it is just such a disturbed person who is most likely to be influenced by rhetoric that we have been bombarded with for weeks by Trump and his right-wing base.

Ideally, this should be a moment of awakening for President Trump;   but it appears that is not going to happen.    He read a prepared statement that initially said all the right things:   political violence has no place in our country;  we must be united, etc.   But even at a rally Thursday night, he was already making light of it,  again blaming the media -- and semi-mocking himself by pointing out to the crowd "how good I'm being" [at not pushing divisiveness, he apparently meant]

It's not just his being wrong about the blame for this and his refusal to accept any responsibility for the effect of his relentless divisiveness and his constant lying to increase that division.   Instead, he calls on the media to "set a civil tone" and to "stop the endless hostility . . . and false attacks."

Trump is the one who makes false attacks and who lies.   When the media fact-check him, then that's what he calls their hostility and false attacks.

Beyond that reprehensible position is his refusal to acknowledge publicly that he has been dead wrong about the FBI too.    This is one of the finest hours for an institution that should be respected and honored as the epitome of government service.   They are the best, most effective investigative law enforcement agency in the world.

The way Trump has denigrated them, and the way the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, has even threatened to hold them in contempt, is nothing short of shameless -- and should be condemned by us all.

Ralph

Trump acknowledges Saudi prince may have been involved in murder plot

The Guardian news is reporting that President Trump has, for the first time, acknowledged that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) could have been involved in the ordering of the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

This was from an interview with the Wall Street Journal, and it seems to mark a shift in Trump's view of what happened on October 2nd in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.  Previously, at least publicly, he had appeared to accept the royal denials of any prior knowledge or involvement, either on the part of the Saudi king or the crown prince.

As quoted from the WSJ, Trump said:  "Well, the prince is running things over there more so at this stage.  He's running things and so if anybody were going to be, it would be him."

So what has changed?   U.S. CIA Director Gina Haspel flew to Ankara, Turkey on Monday to assist in the investigation and to confer with Turkish officials.  As reported by Reuters, according to four individuals with knowledge, Haspel asked and has been allowed to play the audio and video evidence of the torture and murder of Khashoggi in possession of Turkish officials.

Also Turkey's President Erdogan has addressed his parliament on the issue on Tuesday;   and, although he did not mention the tapes, he told them that top Saudi officials carried out a "premeditated murder" in a "ferocious" manner.   He also said that he rejected the Saudi explanation of what happened.

President Trump described Erdogan's account as "pretty rough."    Trump's own expressed view has evolved from finding the Saudi royal denial as "credible," to provisional acceptance of the "rogue killer" theory, to now saying that it's possible -- despite the personal denial to him from the crown prince -- that he was involved.

And on Tuesday, Trump told reporters that the Saudi story was "one of the worst cover-ups in the history of cover-ups."

That latter remark is perhaps the most damning from Donald Trump -- because it represents a failure in a transactional fabrication.    He hasn't said anything quite so condemning about the assassination itself;   but to fail in your attempt at a cover-up story?   That's bad.

Since I always focus on what is so bad about Donald Trump, let me say something positive for a change:    at least, on this occasion, he has at least allowed his ideas to evolve with new evidence.   That's not something he is often willing to do.

Ralph

NYT op-ed: "Count me among the mob."

One of my favorite op-ed columnists, the New York Times Charles M. Blow, wrote this about Donald Trump.

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"Count Me Among the Mob"
by Charles M. Blow

"One thing that I find profoundly disappointing about modern liberalism, particularly as it now stands in opposition to Trumpism, is the degree to which it is reactive, governed by what is being done to it rather than its own positive vision.

"It is true that Donald Trump is not only antithetical to liberal values, he is antithetical to most American values, and as such limiting his power and limiting the duration of his tenure are of paramount concern and absolute urgency.

"Therefore, resisting what Trump represents becomes a central point of moral rectitude and ultimate patriotism.  Resistance is a reaction to Trump.

"But that can't be the sum total of one's statement of principles.  You must be driven toward a concept of what you want this country to become, and not just driven by a fear of what the country could descend into.

"Liberal enthusiasm can't hinge solely on prospects for overwhelming victory due to conservative lethargy.  Enthusiasm can be a highly fluctuant variable in a political cycle.  The only enthusiasm you can control is your own.

"All campaigns are to some degree an act of public manipulation, hopefully to the good, but often to the ill.  There are two ways to drive turnout:  excitement or incitement.  Voters can either be animated by hope or fear, optimism or angst.

"Trump's default position is the use of fear.  Scared about his prospects should Democrats take control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, Trump is campaigning like crazy, trying desperately to stir his base to action, and he knows that the easiest way to do that is to stoke its anger, to appeal to the same misogyny, racism, nationalism, and insecurity that carried him to the White House.

"In campaign stops, he keeps saying that he's on the ticket, that these state and local elections are not about the individual candidates but about him, his supporters and whether or not the dark vision of diminished America that he has ushered in will survive.

"Last week he debuted new talking points, saying that this will be an election about "Kavanaugh, caravans, law and order and common sense."

"First, the defense and championing of Justice Brett Kavanaugh after publicly attacking, discrediting and diminishing the women accused him of sexual assault is to me a clear expression of misogyny.  Trump has a habit of not believing the women who accuse powerful men of sexual assault, a position that probably comes naturally to him because he was accused himself.

"Second, Trump is trying desperately to elevate immigration as a burning issue again, focusing his fire on a caravan of immigrants from Central America plodding northward toward the U.S.

"This is an easy target for Trump and his base because it encapsulates a sentiment without expressly articulating it:   America is being invaded and overrun by people who are not white and not European, which risks the maintenance of American heritage, which is white heritage.   White people's control of this country is in danger and under assault and must be defended and protected at all costs.

"But rather than ever using words like white supremacy and white nationalism, he uses proxies, like law and order, border walls and infestation.

"And he now wants to cast liberals and Democrats as mobs, saying Democrats produce mobs while Republicans produce jobs.

"Well, count me among the mob, if that means people who stand in opposition to Trump's degradation of the country in all ways.  If the mob stands up for women and stands up to the National Rifle Association, I want in.   If the mob hates corruption and loves the increasing diversity of this country, then it is for me.  If the mob finds it abhorrent that during the same week that it became clear that Washington Post columnist had been killed in a Saudi Arabian consulate, Trump praised an American politician who assaulted a journalist, then yes, yes, yes to the mob.

"Make no mistake:   Trump's strategy will work.  He now knows the people who support him very well.   He has never stopped playing to them and campaigning for them.   They are family.  They feast together on hatred and intolerance.

"But none of that should dampen liberal enthusiasm or soften liberal resolve.  What we want this country to be cannot be subject to the whims of Trump and his base.

"This election and indeed all that follow it must no longer be about reactions, but about realignment.

"We must conceive of the country we want and drive relentlessly toward it, not because we are thunderstruck by the sheer immorality that has risen to the pinnacle of power, but because we know that power is in fact a possession of the people in a democracy and we can both harness it and assert it.

"Trump is going to be Trump.  Stop playing by his rules.  Don't allow him to dictate the terms of the debate.  Let him call you whatever he likes.  If he says you are part of a mob, so be it.

"Stay focused on the future.  It belongs to an America that looks absolutely nothing like Trump's America.   Vote!"

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Sears' bankruptcy brings back old memories

Last week, the Sears corporation filed for bankruptcy protection -- and I had an attack of nostalgia remembering my childhood days of pouring over the vast, 1500 page/100,000 item "Sears Roebuck Catalog," which was mailed to our house every year.

It was nothing like the slick-coated-paper, high-style catalogs of today.  It was utilitarian for rural and small town folks who had no other access to the shopping our city cousins had.

I'm thinking of the 1940s mostly.   Living in a small town with little shopping choices beyond basic needs, the catalog was a window into the availability of a range of things, from the necessary to the frivilous.   It was a highlight of my pre-teen years to go to Atlanta to visit my cousin, whose mother, my Aunt Myrtle, actually worked as a secretary for one of the executives in the Atlanta Sears Roebuck store.  I got  to go visit the great place -- and was disappointed that they didn't have all the goods displayed.  It was primarily a mail-order business in those days.   So the catalog was the thing.

But that big building I visited still stands, now converted to apartments rising above what has become the trendy Ponce City Market.    The old Atlanta Crackers baseball stadium was just across the street -- and after we visited Aunt Myrtle at her job in the Sears Roebuck building, we went to a baseball game.    It was an exciting trip for a small town boy in the 1940s.

An article in yesterday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution referred to Sears as "the Amazon" of its day.   I suppose, in the way of a retail-by-ordering experience;   but Sears in the 1940s was an institution in a way that I don't believe Amazon is or will become.    Amazon's virtues are efficiency in delivery and low prices.    Sears' catalog was a window into the world -- and it was all for sale.    But, first, it was a valued thing unto itself and for you.

We called it "the wish book."   Hours would be spent pouring over things you wanted -- as well as things you didn't even know you could want.   Often it was the first knowledge people would have of some new style of washing machine or radio.  As a teenager, I ordered the equipment for my first photo developing darkroom, including my prized enlarger, from the Sears catalog.    That was about 70 years ago.

Kids would pick out what they wanted Santa to bring.   A farmer could order a cream separator;   his wife could buy a Sunday dress and shoes, as well as a washing machine;   there were toys for kids, household items, clothing, bed linens and even mattresses.   And for young boys (before the age of Playboy and internet porn) there were always the pages of models wearing the advertised underwear, sometimes just a wee bit racy -- at least in the imagination of a young boy's budding sexuality.

The current focus on Sears, as it goes under, has even brought a new insight into what else the Sears Roebuck of my youth was for some people.    I heard an interview on NPR (I was late tuning in and didn't get the name of the speaker).  She was telling of an additional advantage the Sears catalog was for African-American people in that Jim Crow era.      Black people were either barred from shopping in certain stores, or limited to certain areas with cheap goods;  or else they had to wait until all the white people had been taken care of.     And of course they had to encounter the "white only" rest rooms and drinking fountains.

But they could order from the Sears Roebuck catalog without any restrictions.    The order form did not ask for your race;  the person filling the order didn't care who was buying it.

If this valued institution, which has lost its glory days, does go under -- may our memories and our surviving purchases Rest In Peace.

Ralph

PS:  This is a bit indelicate, but for the rural folks without indoor plumbing, the left-over Sears catalog from last year was often kept in the outhouse, it's pages serving yet another purpose in substitute for store-bought toilet paper.