What we've learned about the New Orleans truck killer:
- He didn't cross the border two days ago. It was a month ago and it was someone else.
- He's not an immigrant. He's a US citizen born in Beaumont, Texas, who served as a staff sergeant in the Army.
- He acted alone, not with accomplices.
- He's not affiliated with ISIS, just "inspired" by them.
But other than that, the initial reports were spot on.
And reports about serving at the same base (Ft Liberty, formerly Ft Bragg) are kinda nonsense - that base contains 1:9 of our active duty personnel in the Army at any one time.
And we should all take a moment to reflect on how well Texas does at making every person feel like they have a stake in the United States and her citizens.
What is your point? If someone feels slighted by Texas that justifies committing a terrorist act? And how exactly was this guy slighted?
My point is that my statement makes exactly as much sense as blaming Muslims.
Except that he was Muslim and motivated by Islam. There’s no evidence he was motivated by Texas politics.
Also, I recall someone asking a question of the nature, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
I’m pretty sure that people who get their news through Fox still believe the guy was an ISIS terrorist who came through Biden’s open border with accomplices. Oh, and the FBI totally failed and so Kash Patel should be quickly approved to set things right with the agency.
I saw a few commercials from NewsNation saying they had all the latest on the terrorist in New Orleans. I told my wife "But we don't know that yet!!" But then, why would NewsNation wait for facts?
I mean, they got one part right: he was a terrorist.
He was just one of theirs.
I haven't seen anything indicating he was a terrorist. "Terrorist" is a matter of motive and intended result; if this guy just wanted to kill a bunch of people, that doesn't make him a terrorist.
+1
"According to Raia, Jabbar is believed to have picked up the truck on December 30 in Houston and driven from the city to New Orleans on the evening of the 31st. During his travel, Jabbar posted multiple videos online professing his support for ISIS, which he joined before the summer, and provided a will and testament. Authorities have recovered three phones and two laptops connected to Jabbar, which are now being examined for evidence.
“In the first video, Jabbar explains he originally planned to harm his family and friends, but was concerned the news headlines would not focus on the ‘war between the believers and the disbelievers,’” Raia said."
Terrorist. Raia is deputy assistant director of FBI counterterrorism.
+1
One of whose?
Of whose?
He was a Muslim "inspired" by ISIS.
Great example of "globalizing the Intifadah".
Yes. I agree. I think the commenter to whom I was responding was implying he “one of theirs” meant he was a Republican and/or MAGA.
I’m at my parents house and Fox News hs been in for about the last 48 hours. I have not heard anyone on Fox say anything like that.
At the end of the day, it’s another Muslim terrorist.
Hmmm...The Army identified the driver as Matthew Alan Livelsberger, an Army master sergeant. He was on approved leave from his Army Special Forces unit. He had seventeen years of active-duty service in the Special Forces.
Yeah, Atticus, with a name like Rivelsberger and a resume like that, how could he be anything but another Muslim terrorist?
You are referring to the Vegas Cybertruck bomber; the post is about the New Orleans truck assailant.
Suspected Las Vegas Cybertruck Bomber Was a ‘Big’ Trump Supporter
https://www.thedailybeast.com/las-vegas-cybertruck-bomber-matthew-livelsberger-was-a-trump-supporter-source/
That’s not what Kevin’s post and the ensuing discussion is about. His post was about the New Orleans Muslim terrorist.
Trump and his bigot crew get excited about these kind of opportunities. Really excited.
Lefties get excited when a right wing person commits a mass shooting. Or when an AR-style weapon is used. Really excited.
+5
The Bush administration built the case for its invasion of Iraq on lies and disinformation.
The Trumpists are building the case for its forthcoming attack on lies and disinformation too. The only difference is the target. This time, they'll be attacking the American people and our heritage as a free and open society.
In case you were wondering...
A quick search shows that martial law has been imposed in the US almost 70 times, and almost always by a governor or mayor. The few occasions that involved federal troops were exceptions (the Civil War, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake). The last time martial law was imposed anywhere appears to be during the Cambridge (MD) race riots of 1963.
Your attachment to traditional journalism is touching.
"Why are conspiracy theories so addictive? Having researched the issue for an investigative report last year, I think there are two main reasons. First, like actual drugs, conspiracy theories relieve boredom. As Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times argued during the height of the drone mania earlier this month, the "drones" were mostly planes, hobbyist drones, and stars, but "life does seem more exciting if you think the Iranians are specifically interested in the everyday activities of New Jerseyans." Boredom was especially high during the pandemic, which is why so many otherwise stable people went straight down the conspiracy rabbit hole.
But while boredom is the gateway, ego flattery is why people keep coming back. The allure of the conspiracy theory is that you, Joe Nobody, understand a topic far more than the experts who spent their lives working on this issue. You understand viral transmission more than medical scientists. You see the hidden secrets of the "deep state" the journalists on Capitol Hill are missing. You, with your enormous brain, understand every field from nutrition science to American history far more than those people who study and research. This is why people who get into one conspiracy theory start digging into others. Feeling like you know better, while not having to learn anything, is intoxicating. It combines laziness with the will to feel superior. That most conspiracy theories affirm pre-existing beliefs is a bonus."
https://www.salon.com/2024/12/26/conspiracy-theory-is-the-new-normal-2024-was-the-year-qanon-went-mainstream/
You leave out the rather important point that so many institutions have been revealed to be lying over the past few years. (This was something the Left was happy to agree to back in the good old days when the NYT supported GWB's war on Iraq, and publicized whatever it could understand from Julian Asange...)
More recently we have had (as items that are generally agreed upon outside the hard-left bubble)
- claims that Trump was some sort of Russian puppet
- Biden claiming there was not a single photo of him available interacting with Hunter's business partners because he never met them (such a photo surfaced a few days ago)
- the year-long coverup of Biden's mental competence
- the pardon of his son after loudly claiming this would never happen
- the astonishing interviews with Robert R. Redfield (former head of CDC) in which he discusses not just the evidence for why covid was probably a lab leak, but why it likely happened, and the issues with mRNA vaccines.
[The virus was probably created in an attempt to create a more-or-less univeral vaccine. The idea is that the virus is (supposed to be...) safe but transmissible, and carries a payload that acts as a vaccine for a particular disease. You could then release this into the population and have it spread to everyone over a year or so, vaccinating everyone. Great idea -- if you could make it work safely...
The original work for this was done at Chapel Hill then, for whatever reasons, was moved to Wuhan. And the list of people involved looks like a who's who of those most aggressive in trying to shut down any sort of lab leak or related ideas...
As for the mRNA vaccines, the problem is that they deliver essentially a spike protein factory into the body. The spike protein acts as an antigen, but it is ALSO the primary cause of the damage wreaked by the covid vaccine. Unlike a protein-based vaccine, like Novavax, the mRNA vaccines can't ultimately control the amount of spike protein created in any particular body, and may well produce too much in some bodies.
Don't like these claims? They are being made by the former HEAD OF THE CDC. You might want to take that into account and actually LISTEN to one of his many interviews over the past two months or so.
You know all those CIA experiments, like MK-ULTRA, that the left has been so eager to demonize over the past 50 years? It's going to turn out, in ten years when all the dust has settled, that elements of the US, in conjunction with China, did the same thing only far worse. And this was all public knowledge and reported upon by Congress: https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/12.04.2024-SSCP-FINAL-REPORT.pdf
And it was the LEFT that decided almost unanimously that no, we need to treat this all as a crazy conspiracy theory and refuse to acknowledge any element of it.
]
What "damage wreaked by the covid vaccine"? I know no one who has suffered more than transient unpleasantness from the vaccine. In my case the "damage" felt like what 6-8 shots of tequila would do- a hangover- though without the fun antics that would come first.
And like a hangover it was over after a day.
In fairness, this is the first vaccination I have every heard of that has side effects beyond a raised scar for a significant percentage of the population. I find that concerning and surprising. (For me personally I had zero - for the first jab I had to ask the guy who did it if he was sure he sick it in me because I literally felt nothing.)
I got the original two shots in the summer of 2021 and a booster in December 2021. I suffered no ill effects except a sore arm. Although the media does not highlight the information, the mRNA vaccine has significantly harmed some people. It is steadily coming out in drips and drabs.
> claims that Trump was some sort of Russian puppet
What? He is a Russian puppet. He doesn't even try to hide it. He's a Russian puppet the same way you are: he's Putin's useful idiot. Why else would Russia be conducting a hybrid war against the US on Trump's behalf all these years?
Your hot air doesn't grow more convincing after that.
1950s dfhoughton: I have here in my hand a list of 205 communists who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department...
I think Martin Stett couldn't have asked for a better response to prove the points he made.
Good post by Martin.
That's some pretty desperate backpedaling there, Kevin, primarily attacking a bunch of strawmen that I had no idea were even being claimed relevant till your post.
I'm not sure that "joined ISIS before this summer" (as stated by the FBI, direct quote) vs "affiliated with ISIS" is the blockbuster political point you seem to think it is.
I'm also not sure that, given the pivot from Alethea Duncan's infamous "this was not a terrorist event" to the FBI telling us minutes later the very obvious point that, duh, OF COURSE it was a terrorist event, you should be too excited about that *working alone* claim.
That's the tentative hypothesis right now -- 36 hrs or so after the evenet -- but could easily change at any minute if the right piece of evidence or right person of interest is found.
I expect it's almost certainly true that this was home-grown terrorism, not a plot controlled from Syria. That's presumably the point Kevin is trying to get at with both these claims. (For all I know that's also what Ms Duncan was trying to say in her bizarrely incomprehensible fashion.)
But since no-one I know of who actually matters has made such a claim, knocking it down seems like a statement more about the knock-downer than about anything else...
Do nothing to make anyone except the ultra-rich's life better.
Blame Muslims when something goes wrong.
That's a great formula! It works like a charm!
I don’t understand all the drama. This won’t affect our overall downward trend in violent crime or murder. It’s just noice really. Ho hum.
Crazy religious nuts are all over. Most are just assholes, but a few are violent. Oh well. It comes with the ideology.
First reports are often wrong but it sure seems like in this case they got more wrong than usual. However, the last two bullets--having accomplices and being affiliated with ISIS-- weren't what was "initially reported," it was what the FBI said publicly. I get that better information becomes available with more investigation but the FBI should have chosen their words more carefully early on.
+1
Wait, didn't Trump destroy ISIS last time around?
Why yes! Yes he did.
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/issues/national-security-defense/