© YahooUS President Donald Trump
Trump previously dismissed the notion that he bears any responsibility for the crude pipe bombs mailed to high-profile Democrat figures, including former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Attorney General Eric Holder, as well as big party donor George Soros and the CNN headquarters. A total of 13 such explosive devices have been discovered so far, but none actually exploded.
Speaking at a rally in Charlotte, NC, Trump accused the media of working hard to make him look guilty.
The suspect, Cesar Sayoc, 56, was apprehended on Friday and is facing up to 46 years in jail for five federal crimes. Sayoc, who has a vast criminal record, including making bomb threats, was reportedly an ardent supporter of Trump, attended Make America Great Again (MAGA) rallies and had his van plastered with pro-Trump slogans and anti-Democratic stickers."We have seen an effort by the media in the recent hours to use sinister actions of one individual to score points against me and the Republican party. "
Trump compared the mail bomber to the shooter who wounded House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) during Congress baseball practice in June 2017. Several people were injured in the shootout and Scalise was on the edge of death when he was taken to hospital.
Trump appeared to blame the media for creating a divisive environment and fueling the attacks. "Everyone will benefit if we can end the politics of personal destruction," he said.Yet when a Bernie Sanders supporter tried to murder congressional Republicans and severely wounded Steve Scalise and others we did not use that heinous attempt at mass murder for political gain, because that would have been wrong.
Before the suspect was arrested, Trump took to Twitter to lament that the bomb scare had consumed all the news coverage, distracting Americans from the upcoming mid-term elections. In his tweet, he referred to the plot as "this "Bomb" stuff."
While there were reports that some of the devices might have been dummies, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the media on Friday that the IEDs were real, albeit rudimentary pipe bombs. Since none detonated, however, it's unclear whether the suspected intended them as threats or just botched their construction.
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Nebojsa Malic comments further:
The history of criminal behavior and online threats by Cesar Sayoc, the Florida man charged with sending suspicious packages to prominent Democrats, somehow went ignored by both government and social media police.
Sayoc, 56, was arrested on Friday, and stands accused of sending pipe bombs - 14, as of the last count - to former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, actor Robert De Niro, billionaire Democrat donors George Soros and Tom Steyer, and several Democrat lawmakers.
© Reuters / Geo Rodriguez / FileTwitter has remarked on the legality of the van's windows being blocked, the apparent newness of all the decals, and the fact that vehicles in liberal areas have been vandalized for much less.
© Cesar Sayoc / TwitterA screenshot showing a small portion of Cesar Sayoc's threat- and conspiracy-filled Twitter account
Then there is the matter of Sayoc's social media accounts. Over the past two years, under intense pressure by Democrats and drummed-up charges of "Russian meddling," Twitter and Facebook have cracked down on users left and right. Time and again, people engaging in protected free speech have been "shadowbanned" or suspended, permanently or until they deleted posts someone reported as "offensive."
Yet when Democratic strategist Rochelle Ritchie actually reported Sayoc's account to Twitter two weeks ago, over a threat she received from him after appearing on a Fox News show, Twitter did not find the post objectionable.
Within hours of his arrest, however, Sayoc's account was suspended.
Richie then received an email from Twitter saying the previous response to her complaint had been "an error."
Whether Twitter had made an honest mistake, or scrambled to engage in damage control, is sort of immaterial at this point. Some of his posts have been archived, but not responses to them. All that suspending his account accomplished is to make it more difficult to parse the Florida man's motives. By the way, Sayoc's Facebook page was likewise taken down on Friday.
Both Twitter and Facebook claim they are trying to improve "conversations" on their platforms, and that their purges are nonpartisan. While technically correct, that's misleading. Establishment figures and outfits somehow always skate, while both critics of Clintonism on the left and Trump Republicans end up under the banhammer.
Meanwhile, the social media giants continue to insist they are not publishers, and delegate the dirty work of policing to quasi-NGOs like the National Endowment for Democracy and the Atlantic Council. They end up deciding who's a "Russian bot" or "Iranian troll" based on arbitrary criteria, which the mainstream media repeats uncritically.
That someone like Sayoc ended up under the radar of both the authorities and social media police suggests that he was either deliberately tolerated, or that their "defense of democracy" is a sham. It is perhaps fitting that none of Sayoc's bombs actually exploded; the only thing they blew up in the end seems to be some illusions.
No cop would allow a van with the windows blocked like the pictures of his van show to stay on the road, and recent pictures don't show the decals, none of which are sun-faded, showing recent application. The man's former lawyer says he didn't have the mental capacity to assemble a bomb in the first place. This joker is being set up and the bomb scare is a Democrat election ploy. Stories are now out saying his "best friend" has been a CIA agent for 25 years.