Michigan.com reports that:
Nearly 20 black families in one Eastpointe neighborhood received viscous, threatening letters Tuesday telling them they need to "move across 8 Mile."
"We tired of u n------ keep movin in are neighborhood!!" read the letter. "you need to move across 8 mile. we just need to start killing you n------ one by one!"
There also have been terrorist incidents related to the most recent one, and these included cross burnings and hate messages delivered to black residents.
Glenn Greenwald points out that:
It really is the case that every new Terrorist incident reflexively produces a single-minded focus on one question: which rights should we take away now/which new powers should we give the Government? We never reach the point where we decide that we have already retracted enough rights. Further restrictions on rights seems to be the only reaction of which our political and media class is capable in the face of a new attack. The premise seems to be that if we keep limiting rights further and further, we'll eventually reach the magical point of Absolute Safety where there will be no more Terrorism. For so many reasons, that is an obvious myth, one that ensures that we'll reduce rights infinitely and with no discernible benefit. We're not the target of Terrorist attacks because we have too many rights; we're the target because of our own actions, ones that we never reconsider in light of new attacks because we're too busy figuring out which rights to erode next.
The New York Times provides the details:
A naturalized United States citizen from Pakistan who lives in Connecticut was pulled off a jet bound for Dubai at Kennedy Airport just before midnight on Monday and arrested for driving a car bomb into Times Square, in what turned out to be an unsuccessful attack, Justice Department officials announced.
The man, Faisal Shahzad, 30, was taken into custody at Kennedy Airport aboard an Emirates flight to Dubai along with three other men, one of whom was believed to be his roommate, according to a law enforcement official. The pair had apparently driven to the airport in a white Isuzu Trooper that was found in a parking lot with a handgun inside, the official said.
The New York Times reports:
The surveillance video shows an unidentified white man apparently in his 40s slipping down an alley and taking off a shirt, revealing another underneath. In the same clip, he's seen looking back in the direction of the smoking vehicle and furtively putting the first shirt in a bag, Kelly said.
The New York Police Department has released surveillance video:
The motive for the attack remains unclear.
Manhattan suffered a failed terrorist attack yesterday evening, according to news reports (this, this, this, this and this). The attack began around 6:00 PM. According to the New York Times' report:
A crude car bomb of propane, gasoline and fireworks was discovered in a smoking Nissan Pathfinder in the heart of Times Square on Saturday evening, prompting the evacuation of thousands of tourists and theatergoers on a warm and busy night. Although the device had apparently started to detonate, there was no explosion, and early on Sunday the authorities were still seeking a suspect and motive.
…
A large swath of Midtown — from 43rd Street to 48th Street, and from Sixth to Eighth Avenues — was closed for much of the evening after the Pathfinder was discovered just off Broadway on 45th Street. Several theaters and stores, as well as the South Tower of the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel, were evacuated.
At this time no one has taken credit for the attack and there are no suspects.
Finally, Mayor Bloomberg disgraced himself by proclaiming:
"Terrorists around the world who feel threatened by the freedoms that we have always focus on those symbols of freedoms and that is New York City," said Bloomberg, who had been in Washington D.C. attending the White House Correspondents' Association dinner.
Update
The most recent New York Times report informs us that the:
Federal authorities have joined the search for a suspect who planted a crude car bomb of propane, gasoline and fireworks in a smoking Nissan Pathfinder in the heart of Times Square on Saturday evening, prompting the evacuation of thousands of tourists and theatergoers on a warm and busy night. Although the device had apparently started to detonate, there was no explosion, and early on Sunday the authorities were reviewing surveillance tapes and forensic evidence as they sought out a motive.
…
Federal authorities said the incident appeared to be an isolated one, and that there was no evidence of an ongoing threat to the city.
"We are treating it as if it could be a potential terrorist attack," Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security secretary, told CNN, one of several television appearances she made on Sunday morning.
The bomb itself was not a sophisticated device, Ms. Napolitano said on ABC's "This Week." She said there was no clear sense about how large the explosion might have been. "Right now, we have no evidence other than it is a one-off," she said.
Last updated on May 2 at 12:35 PM
The Teabaggers are having conniptions. In their minds the Countdown to Judgment Day has begun. Obama and the Democratic Party threaten the republic. They have usurped the power that rightfully belongs to, well, to the far rightwing of the Republican Party. The Teabaggers want their America back. They intend to get it back. Yet as Frank Schaeffer observes:
When the Tea Party folks say they want to "take back our country" who do they want to take it back from? It turns out it's going to be taken back from the democratic process itself. The effort here is to reverse the last election result.
In this scenario any time there is not a white, wealthy, far right Republican in the White House and any time Congress isn't controlled by the far (white) right of the Republican Party, then the country has been "stolen" from "us" "Real Americans."
Since the mechanisms of democracy, when in the hands of the American people, cannot be trusted to do what's right and Godly, the Teabaggers "…must now turn to 'other means'" to set things right. This, by the way, is one lesson the right can take from the 2000 presidential election. The means available to them are limited when they cannot be legal and democratic in character.
I find it odd, though, to read public declarations that express a willingness to engage in armed rebellion against a democratically authorized government. When did Congress or the Supreme Court abolish the Smith Act? Why does this law fail to apply to the Teabaggers? Who or what authorized an "armed insurrection exemption" for the far right? Must the country endure another Oklahoma City Bombing before public opinion turns decisively against the right?
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The National Abortion Federation provides here a brief history of the violent acts anti-abortionists committed against abortion providers (the original link can be found at TPM).
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