A Pamela Geller sponsored event in Garland, Texas, “Jihad Watch Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest,” at which Geert Wilders, an anti-Islamist Dutch politician, gave the keynote speech, was the scene of an attack last night by two gunmen. Both of the attackers were killed by local police. One security guard was wounded, but has been treated at an area hospital and released according to at least one news report.
A Twitter account associated with the terrorist organization, ISIS, claimed responsibility for the attack. The Daily Mail has reported that one of the gunmen, identified as Elton Simpson, was the subject of an FBI investigation into possible links with overseas Islamist groups. The Dallas Morning News has more details:
A senior FBI official confirmed that one of the suspects in the attack has been identified as Elton Simpson, an Arizona man who was previously the subject of a terrorism investigation, ABC News reports. […]
KPNX-TV (Channel 12), an NBC affiliate in Arizona, reported that the two suspects had been roommates. The second man, though, has not been named officially or in media accounts.
Simpson was well known to the FBI, ABC News reported. Five years ago he was convicted for lying to federal agents about his plans to travel to Africa, “but a judge ruled the government did not adequately prove he was going to join a terror group there.”
Twitter reports by various journalists and others have reported the sound of a large explosion near the site of the attack. Authorities feared the car used by the gunmen was wired with bombs or incendiary devices. Both local and FBI Bomb squads are reportedly on the scene.
The only response I can make to any violent attack of this type, regardless of the justification advanced by the perpetrators, is to condemn those responsible.
Paradoxically, if no radicals would flip out about depictions of Mohammed, crass idiots probably wouldn’t bother to draw depictions of Mohammed. It’s juvenile on both sides, but it results in actual harm.
Honestly, if Atlas and her gang of nitwits fully dedicated themselves to getting terrorists to out themselves, I’d dislike them a lot less.
Suicide mission, clearly. There were extra security guards because an assault was expected. Almost like setting a honey trap for terrorists.
Breaking: Highly provocative event gives rise to violent response.
Worthwhile additions …
○ Hate Event in Garland Tx Attracts Extremists [my diary]
○ Pam Geller is Our Very Own Pastor Terry Jones | Tikun Olam |
Hi Steven and BooMan as well.
I must respectfully disagree; and yes, I am a Christian Conservative of the Patrick J. Buchanan stripe.
I believe that Pamela Geller should be brought up on hate speech charges over this little incident.
I wrote all about it here:
http://thoughtsandrantings.com/2015/05/04/my-thoughts-on-the-events-in-texas/
I hope you like it.
I don’t disagree with your views on Geller at all.
Thanks… But.
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeiiit! A Democrat is someone with good feet, but cannot walk, because he is waiting for someone else to tie his shoes!
HA!
A bit slow in recognizing a scam artist? I don’t like Pat Buchanan, so I most likely don’t appreciate your writing either. Do you need reminding what you wrote as a by-line under her photo …
“Pamela Geller: A very pretty Lady. But, if you mess with her; she will rip your liver out and feed it to you on bread with mustard! O_o I pity the poor towel-head, er, um, I mean…. Radical Muslim that tries to tangle with her. If there ever was a ‘Super-Jew’ superhero type, it is this woman right here.”
I agree. Pam is just yelling fire in a movie theater and that is not the exercise of free speech.
Yeah, that’s very true.
What really pissed me off, I saw it on TV where geller and them idiots starting singing the National Anthem! Now, I’m an American, okay? But, that’s nothing more than anti-Muslim and anti-Arab Bigotry wrapped up in the American flag.
The ironic part? It’s a JEW and an Catholic behind it all… And they call we Buchanites bigots?
As that dude says on that one show… (I cannot think of it….):
Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!
Geller et al. must be ecstatic — they got exactly the response they were trolling for, at no cost to themselves, and a boost to go mainline rather than fringe with their hate.
As to the attackers, the idiots who snapped at the bait? One can only quote — yet again — Friedrich Schiller: “Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.”
I swear, this world will be destroyed by stupidity, not evil; the stupid is so much stronger, and all evil has to do is hop aboard and steer it.
That might be your only personal response. Generally hardly anyone would disagree with you. But someone else might also ask why does Ms Geller go to so much trouble and expense to provoke her object of hate so calculatingly. Hate it is, mindless, pure bigotry, without redemption. Be in no doubt of that. At least that deserves mention. She’s hardly the ingenue being victimized by the barbarians. Get it? Everyone knows why Geert Wilders does it: he is just a nasty little twat.
So, a Geller from NY and Wilders from Holland go to Texas to engage in anti-Muslim hate speech and a wannabe mass killer from AZ with a sidekick or ringleader shows up. One guard is slightly injured and the two wannabes are shot dead. Whatever the wannabe intended to do, it definitely didn’t go according to their plan. Geller is ecstatic.
Something feels off to me about this — but authentic weird does happen everyday.
Slightly off topic, but on the topic of free speech, Tarzie did a seven part post about it over on his blog. The last entry ends with:
White Supremacy and Magic Paper
Remember it well. Tied ACLU members into knots. In real time, it was difficult to articulate from a legal perspective why taking on the case was wrong. Today it’s still a tough call to say that it was wrong. However, it did cross that line from being an advocate for the civil liberties of oppressed minorities to supporting subgroups within the dominate white and racist majority. Was the city of Skokie in the wrong by not issuing a parade permit to a Nazi group? Was Germany wrong to ban all speech, symbols, etc. of Nazism? Would it have been wrong to ban symbols of the traitorous Confederacy? Not easy to answer.
This issue, and prostitution, are the hardest issues for me to square with my own ideology, quite frankly.
Prostitution because in a vacuum it’s your body and you should have control over it. Flip side, we don’t exist in a vacuum, and while criminalizing it is bad, legalizing it doesn’t really solve the problems that pop up due to its criminalization. Mix in patriarchial capitalism, and then you’re forced to ask how many choose it on their own volition (forced as in you have to eat), and how many are trafficked/forced (enslaved)? But what of the ones who genuinely do choose it? What of their choice? No easy answers.
The same goes with this free speech stuff. I’m all over the place, and I readily admit I don’t have any answers, and I can’t even really say where I fall. I just know where I want to get (not to serve power). Is power better served by restricting speech? As documented in the link, we already do restrict certain kinds (and not the bullshit “FIRE” crap, either). Which then brings me to the Red Scare, and how when/if the state wants to restrict speech, explicitly with law or implicitly with the threat of losing livelihood, is what we have much better?
Sigh…
Seeing what the information about this incident is like, I’m ignoring almost everything until the authorities tell their story. Apparently the only things known right now are that the attack happened at a Pam-Geller sponsored event venue in Garland TX and that one or more of the suspects killed lived in an apartment complex in Phoenix AZ.
Any claims of responsibility I take as propaganda and aspirational.
Let’s see where the money rolls in off of this.
And how long takes the NRA to capitalize on it.
○ Gunmen were Phoenix roommates, and one was on FBI watch list after jihad announcement/prosecution
one was on the FBI watch list…
Aren’t they always? And amazingly always seem to slip through the cracks.
Of course bigot pal Geert Wilders also spoke in Garland Tx … on the same tour after a visit to the U.S. Congress!
○ Jewish Dems Condemn Reps. King and Gohmert for Hosting Anti-Muslim Bigot
○ Geert Wilders’ Anti-Muslim Agenda | ADL |
Dutch MP Wilders is often invited to Israel to speak about Palestinians who don’t exist as a people and advocating transfer of all Muslims to Jordan.
Btw Geert Wilders is a leading MP in Holland and in a tight race to become next Dutch PM as far as getting the most seats in Dutch parliament.
False flag? I usually don’t give credence to such claims, but it does seem to dovetail too smoothly to the wishes of those who want more troops in the Middle East. Sort of, “See we’ve got to stop them there before they attack us here.”
Welcome back. Trust you’re fine.
comme ci, comme ça
I’m glad to hear that. I had to shut off Thom Hartmann this morning. I couldn’t listen any more to his disgusting justification of these killings. I have lost all respect for the man.