All Purpose News and Politics Thread Part IV: The Center Cannot Hold

[Tendrin]

Trump seems to be influencing more acts of terrorism than ISIS.

bUt AnTIfa1111

[Sacred Knight]

Saw the manifesto. Mexicans were indeed his target. Piece of garbage.

[Gray Lensman]

Saw the manifesto. Mexicans were indeed his target. Piece of garbage.

Garbage can be recycled into something useful. The guy is more like toxic waste.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Trump is American White Nationalism's Osama bin Laden

But, of course, Trump will deny any and all responsibility for setting off these human time bombs with his dangerous rhetoric. The GOP will duck and cover as usual when reporters come calling for comments on their president having triggered another madman with his inflaming words when not offering the usual round of meaningless “thoughts and prayers” while Faux News talking heads steer clear of the shooter’s xenophobic rantings like the plague.

Plain and simple: Trump is the Pied Piper of white nationalist terror.

[aja_christopher]

"On August 3, 2019, at around 11am local time, initial police reports indicated that a gunman had walked into an El Paso Wal-Mart and opened fire. As of the publication of this article, at least eighteen people have died and several others have been injured. One victim was a four-month old infant. As we’ve seen with two other mass shootings this year, the killer announced the start of his rampage on 8chan’s /pol board. The poster also attached a four-page manifesto to the post, along with a document in his original post that included his name — Patrick Crusius.

The El Paso shooter’s manifesto and 8chan post show his radicalization and turn towards white suprematism, the Christchurch shooter’s manifesto, and the video of his massacre, likely acting as major influences in his eventual attack. The most important takeaways from the El Paso shooting are twofold:

- 8chan’s /pol board continues to deliberately radicalize mass shooters.
- The act of massacring innocents has been gamified.

This second point is illustrated clearly by some of the comments I found online in the wake of this shooting. In this discussion thread, after one anon posts screenshots of the El Paso shooter’s thread, another asks, “Is nobody going to check these incredible digits?” This statement is likely a reference to the shooter’s substantial body count...

There is nothing new in this killer’s ramblings. He expresses fears of the same “replacement” of white people that motivated the Christchurch shooter, and notes that he was deeply motivated by that shooter’s manifesto. In the article I wrote after the Poway Synagogue shooting I noted that 8channers had dedicated a great deal of time to spreading that manifesto, in an effort to inspire more shooters. The El Paso shooting is further proof that this strategy works.

What we see here is evidence of the only real innovation 8chan has brought to global terrorism: the gamification of mass violence. We see this not just in the references to “high scores”, but in the very way the Christchurch shooting was carried out. Brenton Tarrant livestreamed his massacre from a helmet cam in a way that made the shooting look almost exactly like a First Person Shooter video game. This was a conscious choice, as was his decision to pick a sound-track for the spree that would entertain and inspire his viewers.

The Poway Synagogue shooter attempted to copy Tarrant in both these tactics, posting a musical playlist along with his shooting. At this point it is unknown as to whether or not the El Paso shooter attempted to livestream his massacre, but posts like this on 8chan suggest that anons tried to claim the shooter as “ourguy” and tried to brigade live chats of news coverage of the event (the YouTube link was for live coverage of the shooting).

In the wake of the Christchurch shooting I published my first Bellingcat article about 8chan. I was interviewed by numerous media agencies about the website, and I warned all of them that additional attacks would follow – every month or two – until something was done. This prediction has proven accurate. Until law enforcement, and the media, treat these shooters as part of a terrorist movement no less organized, or deadly, than ISIS or Al Qaeda, the violence will continue.

There will be more killers, more gleeful celebration of body counts on 8chan, and more bloody attempts to beat the last killer’s “high score”."

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/amer...ion-of-terror/

[JCAll]

Trump seems to be influencing more acts of terrorism than ISIS.

Every day I remember the midterm bomber. I'm sure you all remember the man who sent more than a dozen bombs to prominent democratic candidates and ex-presidents. That should have been the last red flag anybody needed no know what the Trump ideology is doing to people. And yet, nobody seems to care, why doesn't anyone care, why does this keep happening...

[Farealmer]

This second point is illustrated clearly by some of the comments I found online in the wake of this shooting. In this discussion thread, after one anon posts screenshots of the El Paso shooter’s thread, another asks, “Is nobody going to check these incredible digits?” This statement is likely a reference to the shooter’s substantial body count...

On the pit sites that's usually about the last digits of the post number to see if they are the same. So likely the post number ended on something like 7777 or 444 or something like that.

[aja_christopher]

On the pit sites that's usually about the last digits of the post number to see if they are the same. So likely the post number ended on something like 7777 or 444 or something like that.

"This statement is likely a reference to the shooter’s substantial body count. [Update: Or, also possible, a reference to the repeating “14” in a post ID, referencing the 14 words, or more benignly, “dubs” of repeating digits on post IDs]

If you have not spent hours upon hours reading /pol, that statement might not be particularly legible, but within the context of months of posting the meaning is clear. Ever since the Christchurch shooting spree, 8chan users have commented regularly on Brenton Tarrant’s high bodycount, and made references to their desire to “beat his high score”. For example, this image macro was passed around rather regularly in the months after the shooting:



The image title was “beatmyscore.png."

On April 19, 1995, right-wing extremist Timothy McVeigh detonated a truck bomb outside the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. Four years later, in 1999, Erik Harris and Dylan Klebold killed thirteen of their classmates in Columbine High School in Colorado. Prior to masterminding the attack Erik Harris wrote constantly of his dedication to Hitler and Nazi ideology. Dave Cullen, a journalist who studied the attacks and combed through Harris’s journals, noted that the young killer was also obsessed with Timothy McVeigh. Cullen writes:

“In his journal, Eric would brag about topping McVeigh. Oklahoma City was a one-note performance. McVeigh set his timer and walked away. He didn’t even see his spectacle unfold.”

Harris and Klebold did not beat McVeigh’s “high score” in their lifetimes. But to date the Columbine attacks have inspired at least 74 copy-cat attacks, which have killed 89 people and injured 126 more. This is the way far right terrorism works: it is foolish, bordering on suicidal, to attribute attacks like the El Paso shooting or the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting to “lone wolves”.

Both shooters were radicalized in an ecosystem of right-wing terror that deliberately seeks to inspire such massacres.

The Gilroy shooter specifically referenced “Might is Right”, a white supremacist text by “Ragnar Redbeard”. PDFs of this book have been deliberately spread on 8chan and 4chan for years, and it has become even more popular in the wake of the Gilroy shooting."

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/amer...ion-of-terror/

[GindyPosts]

Nah. Tampa Bay Comic-Con. Got to meet Kevin Conroy, so that was nifty at least.

Had a run in though with some protestors parked outside the building that made my eyes roll.

Congratulations. You just saw every 40 miles of interstate (the Christian Aid Ministries' "855-Find-Truth" folks) in Indiana and Missouri in human form.

[Robotman]

"On August 3, 2019, at around 11am local time, initial police reports indicated that a gunman had walked into an El Paso Wal-Mart and opened fire. As of the publication of this article, at least eighteen people have died and several others have been injured. One victim was a four-month old infant. As we’ve seen with two other mass shootings this year, the killer announced the start of his rampage on 8chan’s /pol board. The poster also attached a four-page manifesto to the post, along with a document in his original post that included his name — Patrick Crusius.

The El Paso shooter’s manifesto and 8chan post show his radicalization and turn towards white suprematism, the Christchurch shooter’s manifesto, and the video of his massacre, likely acting as major influences in his eventual attack. The most important takeaways from the El Paso shooting are twofold:

- 8chan’s /pol board continues to deliberately radicalize mass shooters.
- The act of massacring innocents has been gamified.

This second point is illustrated clearly by some of the comments I found online in the wake of this shooting. In this discussion thread, after one anon posts screenshots of the El Paso shooter’s thread, another asks, “Is nobody going to check these incredible digits?” This statement is likely a reference to the shooter’s substantial body count...

There is nothing new in this killer’s ramblings. He expresses fears of the same “replacement” of white people that motivated the Christchurch shooter, and notes that he was deeply motivated by that shooter’s manifesto. In the article I wrote after the Poway Synagogue shooting I noted that 8channers had dedicated a great deal of time to spreading that manifesto, in an effort to inspire more shooters. The El Paso shooting is further proof that this strategy works.

What we see here is evidence of the only real innovation 8chan has brought to global terrorism: the gamification of mass violence. We see this not just in the references to “high scores”, but in the very way the Christchurch shooting was carried out. Brenton Tarrant livestreamed his massacre from a helmet cam in a way that made the shooting look almost exactly like a First Person Shooter video game. This was a conscious choice, as was his decision to pick a sound-track for the spree that would entertain and inspire his viewers.

The Poway Synagogue shooter attempted to copy Tarrant in both these tactics, posting a musical playlist along with his shooting. At this point it is unknown as to whether or not the El Paso shooter attempted to livestream his massacre, but posts like this on 8chan suggest that anons tried to claim the shooter as “ourguy” and tried to brigade live chats of news coverage of the event (the YouTube link was for live coverage of the shooting).

In the wake of the Christchurch shooting I published my first Bellingcat article about 8chan. I was interviewed by numerous media agencies about the website, and I warned all of them that additional attacks would follow – every month or two – until something was done. This prediction has proven accurate. Until law enforcement, and the media, treat these shooters as part of a terrorist movement no less organized, or deadly, than ISIS or Al Qaeda, the violence will continue.

There will be more killers, more gleeful celebration of body counts on 8chan, and more bloody attempts to beat the last killer’s “high score”."

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/amer...ion-of-terror/

Absolutely disgusting.

Not surprised that these terrorists use phrases like “invasion”. Similar rhetoric used by Trump and right wing media.

[aja_christopher]

"A Database Showed Far-Right Terror on the Rise. Then Trump Defunded It."

Is the administration trying to thwart efforts to combat white supremacy?

"In August, the University of Maryland filed an official protest with the Government Accountability Office, alleging, among other things, that the State Department was biased against it. The Trump administration, for its part, claimed it made its decision on the basis of cost (Development Services had advanced a slightly lower bid for the contract), and the GAO dismissed the charge. But the Global Terrorism Database is not the first program to be shuttered after it called attention to the rise in violence on the right.

Shortly after Donald Trump took office, the administration rescinded a $400,000 grant to Life After Hate, a group dedicated to stopping right-wing extremism in America. The Department of Homeland Security also backed out of a $867,000 grant promised to researchers at the University of North Carolina who were developing a program to stop young people from embracing ideologies like jihadism and white supremacy. The Office of Community Partnership, an arm of DHS whose mission is to prevent violent extremism before it begins, had administered those grants. After Trump took office, its name was changed, its staff cut in half, and its budget slashed by more than 85 percent.

Republicans have tried to bury reports about right-wing terror before. Perhaps the best-known instance occurred in 2009, when the Department of Homeland Security, under Obama appointee Janet Napolitano, released an intelligence brief outlining how white supremacists, radical anti-abortionists, and a few “disgruntled” veterans were particularly susceptible to radicalization.

When the document leaked to conservative media outlets, Republicans on Capitol Hill were furious; Minority Leader John Boehner called it “simply outrageous” that Napolitano would seek to demonize conservatives, and Napolitano eventually apologized. (A month later, a pro-life extremist shot George Tiller, a doctor in Wichita, Kansas, who worked at a local abortion clinic. Ten days after that, a neo-Nazi killed a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.)

The situation with the GTD, however, is different, and arguably more troubling, because, as president, Trump has often pushed ideas about terrorist violence that directly contravene the available data. He has not only firmly maintained that the “alt-left” is as dangerous as the “alt-right” (“I think there is blame on both sides,” he said after the protests in Charlottesville—something not borne out in the data, which shows that right-wing extremists have become much more active than left-wing extremists in the last ten years), but also that immigrants are inciting violence in the United States.

On the campaign trail, he’d refer to Somalian refugees “joining ISIS and spreading their extremist views all over our country and all over the world.” Here again, the data indisputably contradicts him; most convicted domestic terrorists are U.S. citizens."

https://newrepublic.com/article/1526...mp-defunded-it

-----
"O'Rourke: Trump is a 'racist,' responsible for El Paso shooting"

"Former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas) said Saturday President Trump bore some responsibility for a shooting in El Paso, Texas that killed at least 20 people.

Asked by news reporters whether the president was in some part responsible for the shooting, O'Rourke, who formerly served as the city's mayor, responded firmly.

"Yes. We've had a rise in hate crimes every single one of the last three years," O'Rourke said Saturday evening. "During an administration where you've had the president call Mexicans rapists and criminals."

"He is a racist, and he stokes racism in this country," the former congressman and current 2020 candidate for president continued. "It does not just offend our sensibilities; it fundamentally changes the character of this country and it leads to violence."

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaig...-paso-shooting

[Dalak]

Puns are a form of terrorism according to some.

I've refined my pun-game to weapon's grade!

[Tami]

I've refined my pun-game to weapon's grade!

As long as you don't start carrying around a 'Machine Pun', you should be okay.

[PaulBullion]

Yup.
Guess which non-Democratic politician went right to that talking point?

"I think all over the world people are looking at the United States and wondering what is going on, what is the mental health situation in America where time after time after time we're seeing indescribable horrors."

spoilers:

Bernie Sanders

end of spoilers

[PaulBullion]

Now reports of an additional mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio.