NOLA terror attack addendum

UPDATE 07:21 pm:  Curiouser and curiouser...

A Tesla Cybertruck burst into flames outside the front doors of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on the morning of Jan. 1, killing the car’s driver and injuring seven more.

Emergency personnel said that two people were hospitalized as a result of the apparent attack.

Authorities described the explosives in the vehicle as a combination of fireworks, camping fuel and gas tanks, according to CNN.

[...]

The electric vehicle was obtained via private rental app Turo, according to a law enforcement source who spoke with the Associated Press—the same app allegedly used by a man who plowed into a crowd of New Years’ revelers in a truck on New Orleans’ Bourbon Street early Wednesday morning, killing 15 people and injuring more than 30 others. Authorities are also investigating that mass killing as an act of terrorism, and whether the two acts were connected.

  Daily Beast

UPDATE 1/2/25:

While officials have not confirmed a link between the Las Vegas explosion and the New Orleans pickup truck attack, both suspects served in the Army.

President Biden said Wednesday that authorities are still working to determine if the two incidents were connected. Both suspects used vehicles from the peer-to-peer rental app Turo.

Matthew Alan Livelsberger was a member of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) and was "on approved leave at the time of his death," an Army spokesperson told Axios in a statement Thursday.

  Axios

The Trump team completely expected response:

Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL), who President-elect Donald Trump has tapped as his national security adviser, said Thursday that the incoming administration should respond to the attack in New Orleans—which was carried out by a U.S. citizen from Texas—by closing the border.

“First and foremost, close our border,” Waltz, a former Green Beret, said on Fox & Friends when asked what should be done to protect the nation from further attacks.

  Daily Beast

It's Sunday

Perfect.  

"Come on church, pray.!"

Not many masks. 

"I go to many churches -- and I love going to churches."

And when was the last time he set foot in ANY church?  I'm not talking about standing in front of one awkwardly holding up a Bible, but actually attending a chruch service.

UPDATE:

Far-right arrests in Vegas

Three far-right followers have been arrested at Las Vegas protests over the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, by police and charged with inciting violence.

The plot was reportedly foiled with help from an informant.

Stephen Parshall, 35, Andrew Lynam, 23, and William Loomis, 40, who allegedly belong to the "boogaloo" movement, all live in Las Vegas where they were arrested on Saturday by an anti-terrorism unit headed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

[...]

Reports of far-right activists, sometimes heavily armed, infiltrating the protests over the past week have included several claiming to be part of the "boogaloo" movement.

[...]

If convicted on federal charges, the men face up to 30 years in prison. They were also indicted on state conspiracy to commit terrorism and other charges, which carry heavier sentences.

  alJazeera

The boogaloo movement?

The "boogaloo" movement, which has adopted Hawaiian shirts as a uniform, promotes "a coming civil war and/or collapse of society", said the Nevada US Attorney's Office on Wednesday.

Trump's wearing a Hawaiian shirt under his suit at all times, isn't he?  His pajamas are Hawaiian print.

According to a report by the Network Contagion Research Institute, the group wants a second civil war organised around the word "boogaloo".

The Boogaloo Wars.

A charge sheet said the three men's initial plan was to "firebomb" a power station to distract authorities as they incited a riot. They also intended to take Molotov cocktails to a Black Lives Matter protest.

I have a feeling the plan would have failed to get the Boogaloo war they want. These aren't the brightest bulbs on the Christmas tree.

Also, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right?

When Vegas shuts down

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Thank goodness for Daniel Dale

Covering another Trump speech full of lies so I don't have to listen to it.  This one in Vegas.  Here are a few excerpted tweets.








Well, thank god for that.







In all seriousness, ONE of the reasons he doesn't read could be because he could be dyslexic.








Wouldn't that be wonderful?


...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Not because of the pressure from March for Our Lives, you understand

Jeff Sessions, the US attorney general, has officially proposed a rule that would effectively ban bump stocks, devices that turn semi-automatic weapons into fully automatic weapons.

The announcement comes as thousands of people in the US take part in the March For Our Lives protests which call for stricter gun control.

"After the senseless attack in Las Vegas, this proposed rule is a critical step in our effort to reduce the threat of gun violence that is in keeping with the Constitution and the laws passed by Congress," Sessions said in a statement.

  alJazeera

Hmmmmm, Jeff? How come you weren't proposing this after that Las Vegas slaughter?

It has nothing to do with the Parkland students.



...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Yet another version of what happened at the Mandalay Bay

Blinders

Mandalay Bay Will Be Up for Sale Very Soon

Or at least in bankruptcy. And, they may be changing the name.

Mandalay Bay hotel officials didn’t notify police about a shooting in a hallway inside the high-rise until after Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd outside at a country music festival, a federal official told The Associated Press on Thursday.

[...]

Paddock began his 10-minute attack on the crowd at 10:05 p.m., firing off more than 1,000 rounds, police said. Police didn’t arrive on the 32nd floor until 10:17 p.m., two minutes after he had stopped shooting.

[...]

Over the past few days, Las Vegas police and the Mandalay Bay’s corporate parent, MGM Resorts International, would not answer questions about whether the hotel informed police about the hallway shooting in the minutes before the massacre began.

MGM has said the chronology given by police is inaccurate, but it hasn’t said what was wrong about it.

  TPM

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  It looks like the hallway shooting did not take place before the crowd shooting. 

Further Bad Optics for Police & the Casino Hotel in Las Vegas

Two days after police revised their timeline for the shooting in Las Vegas, which left 58 dead and hundreds injured, a hotel maintenance worker said he told hotel dispatchers to call the police before the mass shooting started.

[...]

This week, police said [hotel security guard Jesus] Campos was actually shot about six minutes before Paddock began firing on the crowd. “He called it in before” the attack started, possibly using a hallway phone to call hotel security, Clark County Assistant Sheriff Tom Roberts told the L.A. Times. “He manually called down and he used his radio to call … That’s what we were briefed this morning.”

[...]

On Wednesday, the hotel maintenance worker, Stephen Schuck, revealed that he told hotel dispatchers to call the police as well. Like Campos, Schuck was responding to a report of a jammed fire door. When he arrived on the 32nd floor, he heard gunshots and Campos peeked out from an alcove and told him to take cover.

[...]

“It was kind of relentless so I called over the radio what was going on,” he said.

[...]

In an audio recording of Schuck’s call, he’s heard telling his maintenance department supervisor, “Call the police, someone’s firing a gun up here. Someone’s firing a rifle on the 32nd floor down the hallway.”

[...]

“We cannot be certain about the most recent timeline that has been communicated publically, [sic] and we believe what is currently being expressed may not be accurate,” the company said in a statement.

  NY Magazine

Gee, I bet there's a record of that call you could look at.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  It looks like the hallway shooting did not take place before the crowd shooting. 

Uh-oh...Change in Las Vegas Story

The Las Vegas gunman opened fire on a security guard six minutes before he rained down bullets on a crowd and killed 58 people, officials said on Monday in a change to the timeline of the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.

[...]

Previously the sheriff had said the guard’s arrival in the hallway may have caused Paddock to stop firing.

  The Guardian

Six minutes? Kind of puts a different light on Dolt 45's praise of the speedy response being such a "miracle".

Police have dramatically changed their account of how the Las Vegas massacre began on Oct. 1, revealing Monday that the gunman shot a hotel security guard six minutes before opening fire on a country music concert — raising new questions about why police weren’t able to pinpoint the gunman’s location sooner.

[...]

They had credited Campos, who was shot in the leg, with stopping the 10-minute assault on the concert crowd by turning the gunman’s attention to the hotel hallway, where Campos was checking an alert for an open door in another guest’s room.

But Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said Monday that Paddock shot Campos before his mass shooting — at 9:59 p.m. — and they now didn’t know why Paddock stopped his attack on the crowd.

[...]

In a timeline released last week, investigators said Paddock had stopped firing at the concert across the street at 10:15 p.m., and the first police officers arrived on the floor at 10:17 p.m. and encountered the wounded Campos at 10:18 p.m., who directed the officers to Paddock’s suite.
  LA Times

Yes, and the very first report I read said the police had killed Paddock, but everything after that said he killed himself. You can't trust anything the police say.

Police said Paddock fired 200 rounds into the hallway.

Two hundred rounds into the hallway and then had six minutes to start firing on the crowd for at least ten minutes.

Police officers who started searching the hotel after the shooting began didn’t know a hotel security guard had been shot “until they met him in the hallway after exiting the elevator,” Lombardo said. He didn’t say whether Campos notified casino security after he was shot.

He was shot in the leg. Two hundred rounds were fired into the hallway. He didn't notify casino security? What was he doing for six minutes?

After Campos was shot, a maintenance worker appeared on the 32nd floor and “Campos prevented him from receiving any injuries,” Lombardo said.

When did that happen? Why didn't that worker notify anyone? Or did he? I bet there's some serious huddling at Mandalay Bay and the Las Vegas PD.

Lombardo also revised the date on which police believe Paddock checked into Mandalay Bay. While initially they said he had checked in on Sept. 28, three days before the shooting, they now believe he checked in on Sept. 25.

Another lesson in waiting several days, at least, before circulating information on a crime.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  He did call in the shooting.  And so did the maintenance worker.

UPDATE:  It looks like the hallway shooting did not take place before the crowd shooting. 

Don't Politicize Las Vegas

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

And, There It Is

Hmmmmm

A man in Oklahoma City has been arrested for threatening to carry out a mass shooting in San Antonio, just days after 59 people were killed, and more than 500 others injured, in the Las Vegas shooting massacre.

[The man] posted the threats on his Facebook page Tuesday night, has been charged with a terrorism hoax under Oklahoma law and faces a charge in Bexar County of making terrorist threats, reports My San Antonio.

  RT

"Terrorism hoax?" "Terrorism"? The Las Vegas actual mass killing was never reported/charged as terrorism. Why is this?

You guessed it...

He's black.

[Roderick Lamar] Robinson threatened to “kill all” patrons on North Main Avenue, San Antonio, which is reportedly a “hub for the city’s LGBTQ community”.

"It's war b--ches an [sic] no one is safe on the strip," wrote Robinson, who goes by Rod Lamar on the social networking site. He went on to threaten that he would do “more than” what happened at the country music festival in Las Vegas - the deadliest gun massacre in modern US history.

[...]

Robinson later posted an apology to his page, saying that he “regrets” what he said and that there is “nothing to worry about”.

Adam Johnson just released his latest podcast, interestingly enough dealing with this very issue of racially disparate media reports. Check it out.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Planning the Story

“Do you think this was all accomplished on his own?” [ Sheriff Joseph] Lombardo asked, noting the arsenal of weapons the shooter amassed, and the discovery of explosives in his car. He added: “You’ve got to make the assumption he had to have some help at some point.”

[...]

Lombardo also said he had seen evidence that Paddock may have intended to survive his killing spree from the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino, which he used as a base for the attack. The sheriff did not say what the evidence was.

[...]

Lombardo had previously said law enforcement believed Paddock had perpetrated “a solo act”. But on Wednesday, he appeared to change his position. His speculation about the possibility Paddock was aided came after an exchange in which he conceded investigators had not been able to identify any “person of interest” other than Danley.

  The Guardian

Then he needs to STFU. Whatever happened to "can't comment on an ongoing investigation?"

He said investigators were, however, pressing to find others who may have been involved. It was possible that Paddock was “a super guy” who was “working out all of this on his own”, Lombardo said. But he added: “It would be hard for me to believe that.”

The comment appeared to earn a veiled rebuke from the agent overseeing the FBI’s investigation.

No need to veil. Sheriff Lombardo needs to be told to close his trap.

“Theories are great and everyone can have a theory,” said Aaron Rouse, who runs the bureau’s Las Vegas division, and took to the lectern immediately after the sheriff’s comments. “But I need to deal with facts. The sheriff needs to deal with facts.” He added: “He’s not going to make assumptions. I’m not going to make assumptions.”

Sheriff Lombardo already IS making assumptions.

Rouse said the FBI was working with “a number of theories”, but was not prepared to publicize them. Rouse was considerably more cautious in his remarks than the sheriff, refusing to reveal what Danley said after she returned to the US Wednesday from the Philippines to be questioned by agents. The FBI agent declined even to say whether Danley remains “a person of interest”.

Danley, 62, released a statement after being interviewed by FBI agents, saying she had no idea of the massacre her partner was plotting when he sent her abroad to be with her family.

[...]

Lombardo, in another surprising remark, appeared to cast doubt over those comments when he said at the press conference: “Any person put in her situation would probably answer in the same way.”

[...]

But he gave the impression that Las Vegas and the FBI have been left flummoxed by the case, saying Paddock did not appear to conform to the profile of other mass murderers. “We haven’t understood it yet,” he said. “You have to be patient with us.”

STFU, Sheriff. 

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Tweeting Scared

I bet he has to have drugs to sleep at night.

via GIPHY

If it is just made up, they're following your lead.

Find me a Puerto Rican for a picture.  Well, they're Latinos.  That's close enough.

Happy, happy, happy.  Great crowd!  What a good time he had in Las Vegas!  Only 59 people died!

Black?  No, no, no.  No black pictures.

Donate to Go Fund Me for Jonathan Smith

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

A Couple of Terms Explained Via Tweet

A clear explanation of "fake news".  Fake = unfavorable.

A "great day" in a devastated city on a devastated island.  I'm glad he could enjoy himself.

Gee, sorry I missed that.

This from the trustworthy sleaze who got fired.

And, here's that "in many ways a miracle" in Vegas explained:

A miracle they could see blown out windows in the hotel and know exactly where the shooting was coming from?

He'll be spreading the "love" in Vegas this morning.  Where's the golf course?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  (You knew that was coming.)

You Can Never Have Too Many Firearms

Police officers found 23 firearms in the Mandalay Bay hotel room Paddock occupied, Assistant Clark County Sheriff Todd Fasulo said.

Also, investigators now say that 19 firearms have been found at the man’s Mesquite, Nevada home.

  RT

May I ask how many hands this person had?

Or were those guns not reliable, so he needed backups?

Always, we look for a motive. Something to tell us this is an aberration and can't happen with the alarming frequency that it does and will continue to do. We are obviously daft.  We're a violent, aggressive nation that glorifies gunslingers and military action. And we have easy access to firearms. Not too difficult to understand the results.

I don't want to ban guns. An unarmed citizenry is a citizenry easily subdued and oppressed by its governors. But, as long as our culture is a shoot-em-up, warrior-worshipping, shit-talking, racist, female-disparaging culture, and we insist the sale of military grade weapons - and the USE of them by our civilian police forces - is our Constitutional right, and refuse to approach drug addiction and mental illness (and "patriotism" and domestic abuse and police brutality) as national epidemics that require, at the very least, a finessed and medically-oriented solution, and think the death penalty and harsh punishment is the answer, this is our national life.  

USA! USA! USA!  

Stop pretending we want peace.  We spend all our money on war.  What's that old saying?  Put your money where your mouth is.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

To Las Vegas, We Send Our Thoughts and Prayers

Roy Zimmerman from June 2016
(and forever in America)

Platitudes for Las Vegas

Speaking in the Diplomatic Room of the White House, Trump said: “Our unity cannot be shattered by evil, our bonds cannot be broken by violence and although we feel such great anger at the senseless murder of our fellow citizens, it is our love that defines us today and always will forever.”

He added: “In times such as these, I know we are searching for some kind of meaning in the chaos, some kind of light in the darkness. The answers do not come easy. But we can take solace knowing that even the darkest space can be brightened by a single light, and even the most terrible despair can be illuminated by a single ray of hope.”

The president, who is not known for public expressions of faith, went on to read a line from Psalm 34: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

  Guardian

'This is a country-western bunch. Gimme something from the Bible.'

What does all that even mean?  What single light?  What single ray of hope?  Our love defines us.  Just ask the mayor of San Juan.  Ask anyone in Yemen.  Iraq.  Syria.  Afghanistan.  Black Lives Matter.  Children who will be uninsured because Congress let CHIP expire.  Shall I go on?

Or, as Richard Wolffe of The Guardian asks:

Is this Donald J Trump by any chance related to the Donald J Trump who goes by the handle of @realDonaldTrump on Twitter? I only ask because I could have sworn that the last couple of times there was a senseless murder in London, he variously blamed ‘loser’ terrorists, the internet, and its mayor. [...] Answers do not come easy, unless we are detonating an incendiary Tweet. 

A moment of silence was held on the South Lawn of the White House. Trump and vice-president Mike Pence, accompanied by their wives, walked out the White House in between two rows of White House employees including Ivanka Trump, HR McMaster and kitchen staff. They reached the end of the rows, stood silently, and then bent their heads in prayer while a uniformed Marine tolled a bell. Afterwards, the four turned around and walked quietly back to the White House.

[...]

[Sarah Huckabee Sanders] said it was too soon to talk about policy. She said: “Before we start trying to talk about the preventions of what happened last night, we need to know facts.” She said “the only person with blood on their hands is the shooter” and dismissed the efficacy of gun control legislation by talking about the shooting rate in Chicago, a city she described as having “the strictest gun control laws in the country”.

[...]

Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a fervent advocate of gun control reform, made a passionate plea for his colleagues to take action on gun violence, saying: “It’s time for Congress to get off its ass and do something.”

The Democrat, who is from the state where 20 children and six adults were killed in the Sandy Hook shooting of 2012, said: “Nowhere but America do horrific large-scale mass shootings happen with this degree of regularity.

Only in America. But if we didn't do anything after twenty children were killed, we're probably not going to do anything.

Since Trump’s inauguration in January, there have been other mass shootings, including one in Texas last month when a gunman killed eight at a house party. But events in Las Vegas will be seen as the first major test of a president for whom the National Rifle Association (NRA) was a key part of his electoral coalition.

[...]

[Paul Ryan] said “this evil tragedy horrifies us all” and added: “The whole country stands united in our shock, in our condolences, and in our prayers.” The Wisconsin Republican said he had ordered “flags over the United States Capitol to be lowered to half-staff in memory of the victims of this tragedy”.

Shock, condolences, prayers and lowered flags. That should take care of it. It's always sufficed before.

The shooting came days before the House of Representatives was to consider legislation that would partially deregulate noise suppressors for firearms. The provision is part of the Share Act, a bill that would also remove restrictions on hunting and shooting on federal land.

The Share Act was first set for a hearing in June but that was delayed after a shooting at a congressional baseball practice in Virginia injured five people including the Republican House majority whip, Steve Scalise.

Damn. Every time we try to loosen gun control, somebody shoots up the place.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.