Archive for 2020

MAYBE BESPOKE TERRORISM IS A BAD IDEA: FBI nabbed accused cop car arsonist by tracing her T-shirt to Etsy.

Federal investigators in Philadelphia used twee shopping site Etsy and a host of social media platforms, including Instagram and Vimeo, to nab a massage therapist accused of torching a cop car, according to a federal complaint.

The suspect, 33-year-old Lore-Elisabeth Blumenthal, was identified by FBI agents who examined footage of a May 30 George Floyd protest and noticed her distinct forearm tattoo and a political T-shirt she was wearing when she allegedly set the police cruiser ablaze.

The T-shirt — which had the phrase “Keep the Immigrants Deport the Racists” emblazoned on it — led investigators to an Etsy page that was selling the custom-made shirts.

The investigators noticed a review on the page written by a username they later determined was linked to someone named Lore-Elisabeth in Philadelphia, according to the complaint.

They then searched the name on LinkedIn, which turned up a hit for a woman employed as a massage therapist in the city. On the company’s website, videos show a woman giving massages with a peace-sign forearm tattoo that matched Blumenthal’s.

The website listed a phone number for Blumenthal, which federal authorities used to track down her address in the Germantown section of the city.

If you watch old cop shows, they always ask if the criminal was wearing anything unusual, or had any tattoos or distinguishing marks. Though in some milieus nowadays, I guess you might stand out more by having none.

CHARLES LIPSON: The Political Logic of Trump’s Executive Order on Policing.

First, it allows Trump to tell swing voters, “See, I’m not a hardline law-and-order president. I want to restore order, of course, but I want enforcement to be fair and applied in a race-neutral way. Policing is a difficult and dangerous job, but a necessary one. Whenever possible, it should be done with the least violence possible.” Who could object to that message? It is especially important for the president to deliver it after the harsh police confrontation around Lafayette Park last week and Trump’s support for it.

Second, Trump’s Rose Garden speech does something he normally does poorly: speak to the country with a unifying voice. He much prefers to punch back, not rise above. But there are times when the country cries out for unity and a calm voice, not a smack in the kisser. This is one such moment. Democrats will try to strip Trump of that unifying mantel, saying his speech and his executive order did not go far enough and were purely partisan. Speaker Pelosi, Minority Leader Schumer, and their colleagues will say that they alone can speak for the country, and especially for African Americans. The mainstream media will reinforce their message.

Third, Trump’s executive order lets him embrace widely agreed-upon points about police reform, make them his own (or at least bipartisan), and leave the Democrats fighting for only the more controversial and extreme proposals.

Read the whole thing.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Atlanta PD Seems to Suffer Outbreak of ‘Blue Flu’ After Charges Brought in Rayshard Brooks Case. “After charges were filed against the officers involved in the Rayshard Brooks shooting in Atlanta, several members of the police department didn’t seem to be up to coming into work. The exact number of cops who didn’t show has been difficult to determine as the police union won’t admit that it’s actually happening and the media is just hoping this will go away.”

The media helped egg this on. The next time one of them tries to call the police, I hope there’s nobody there.

QUESTION ASKED: Why can’t you get canceled for anti-Semitism?

[Chelsea] Handler said a Farrakhan statement on racism from an old clip from “The Phil Donahue Show” was “powerful.” Farrakhan is a purveyor of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and vituperation against Jews. But according to Handler, his comments about the evils of racism directed at blacks deserved to “stand alone.”

When a commenter asked her if she would single for praise out some out-of-context statement of Adolf Hitler, she argued that Farrakhan’s hate was different because “he is just responsible for his own promotion of anti-Semitic beliefs. They are very different.”

In other words, anti-Semitism is just another opinion an otherwise laudable person might hold, not evidence of murderous hate.

In the current moral panic about racism, one might have expected a surge of anger directed towards Handler by her colleagues in the entertainment industry, in addition to announcements that indicated that both individuals and companies wouldn’t work with her in the future. That didn’t happen. Instead, several celebrities even more famous, such as Jennifer Anniston, Jennifer Garner and Michelle Pfeiffer, voiced support for Handler.

Handler’s ability to survive this incident with her career intact shows that myths about Hollywood being controlled by the Jews are nonsense. It’s also likely that most Jews in the entertainment industry are either so cowed by the Black Lives Matter movement that they wouldn’t dare to act against her or actually agree that anti-Semitism shouldn’t disqualify Farrakhan from being considered a respected voice.But the pass for anti-Semitism doesn’t just exist in the arts.

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SO THIS ISN’T GOING ACCORDING TO THE PLAN: Better than Obama: Happiness with ‘personal finances’ just shy of all-time record.

In the face of a wave of media reports that people are unhappy with their lives and see the nation failing amid the coronavirus crisis and Black Lives Matter movement, there is a new survey that is giving the White House confidence that a strong economic message can help President Trump’s reelection bid.

It comes from Gallup and shows that people in the United States are upbeat about their personal finances and “more optimistic about the direction of their finances.”

While Trump foes and the media have played up the gloomy surveys, the latest Gallup poll shows that American optimism in personal finances is just three points shy of the all-time record and significantly higher than it was under former President Obama.

Well, Obama’s stimulus plan sent money to big banks; Trump’s put a lot of it in the hands of the working class.