All in the Morning Paper - TTG

SUZANNE CARR ROSSI / THE FREE LANCE-STAR

Chris Cameron was all set for a dinner engagement with some friends Friday evening when he stopped by the basketball courts in Olde Forge subdivision. After several impromptu games with some neighborhood kids and other members of the Stafford Sheriff’s Office, the sweaty detective decided he’d better clean up before continuing on to dinner.

Cameron, who earned the nickname “Officer Swish” from the kids after sinking a few baskets, was one of about a dozen members of the Sheriff’s Office who showed up in Olde Forge for a gathering arranged by subdivision resident Kathleen Wright. “When the community reaches out, the least we can do is to extend our hand back,” Cameron said. “Besides, I had a lot of fun today.”

Wright, 29, who has lived in Olde Forge for two years, said she came up with the idea for the gathering in response to the recent nationally publicized police-involved shootings, which continued over the weekend with the killings of three officers in Baton Rouge, La. She decided it would be a good thing to encourage more deputies and residents to get to know each other on a personal basis. (Keith Epps/Free Lance-Star)

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This is why I like reading my local paper. There is plenty of good news, as well as thought provoking news, to balance the ever present bad news. And stories like this certainly increase this old New England Yankee’s pride in his Virginia home. The only sour note was when someone from the HOA showed up to complain about the lack of prior HOA permission to hold the ice cream social. These HOA types can be such dicks. 

I have always been impressed by our Stafford County Sheriffs. They look sharp. They act professionally and courteously. SWMBO and I have always noticed that they invariably catch the bad guys who pass through our county. I’m convinced this is primarily due to the character and efforts of our recently retired, long time Sheriff Charles Jett. He’s a life long Stafford resident who aggressively sought to bring his department closer to the community it served. His predecessors were no slacks either. This is a home grown sheriff’s department... the best kind of law enforcement.

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In other news, today’s Free Lance-Star included an AP story about the Nice attacker being recruited by an Algerian IS member only two weeks ago. So, if this guy’s uncle is to be believed, it wasn’t self-radicalization and it wasn’t an angry, depressed loser acting out. It was a damned effective IS “case officer” who spotted, assessed, recruited, trained and tasked his agent. All this in a few weeks. Stopping these people is going to be tough. Certainly doable, but tough.

TTG

Comments

[Babak Makkinejad]

TTG:

Read that he gave 110,000 Euros to his family prior to attack.

[kao_hsien_chih]

At the risk of being too snarky for my own good, as long as mostly people with mental health issues are recruited by terrorist "case officers," the problem is not really terrorism, but mental health issues, much the way all auto accidents can be blamed on the invention of the internal combustion engine.

[The Twisted Genius]

Babak,

If so, that would clinch the IS recruitment theory for me. If I was allowed to throw that much money at an agent, I could have recruited someone in a couple of weeks, too.

[Stonevendor]

TTG:
This is clearly off subject. But some time back, it was around Thanksgiving, someone from N.E. entertained us with a story about growing up in a small town (Conn.?) where there were caves on the outskirts. As I recall there were three Cavaliers who had fought under Chas. I who subsequently departed for the colonies. Later they hid out in the caves when Roundhead officials showed up looking for them. If it was you, would you mind revealing the name of the town. It is a great story.

[r whitman]

What was not in the newspaper was a story about H Clintons emails. Two weeks ago on this blog I predicted that the HRC email story was over and would be forgotten in a few weeks by everybody except DT.

[The Twisted Genius]

Stonevendor,

I'm pretty sure it was me. I and my friends roamed the Blue Trail system that criss-crossed Connecticut. One of the trails, the Regicides Trail, ran along the ridge close to my home down to Judges Cave on West Rock Ridge overlooking New Haven. Here's a link to a good article on Judges Cave.

https://environment.yale.edu/blog/2013/11/welcome-to-judges-cave/

I'm struck by the line on the historical plaque for the cave. "Opposition to tyrants is obedience to God." Sounds similar to Virginia's motto and our committee's blog's title... in a very Puritanical way.

[turcopolier]

r Whitman

She is liable for much more that the e-mail caper. pl

[Nightsticker]

TTG,

I share your respect for the Stafford
County S.O. and the previous Sheriff Jett.
A very professional and successful organization.

To paraphrase your remarks above re recruiting, if my
target asset pool were young,unemployed,
ignorant,brutal, drugged young men with
mental health problems I could be tremendously
successful recruiting in 2016 America. In
my day "crazy in the head" was about #10,000
on the list of desirable asset traits [of course
some were anyway as I sometimes found out the
hard way; some great stories there but they
weren't so funny at the time!]

Nightsticker
USMC 65-72
FBI 72-96

[David Habakkuk]

TTG,

‘Opposition to tyrants is obedience to God.’

Ah yes. But then, people here had to live with Cromwell’s Major Generals. And – a lot of us didn’t like it. Hence the Restoration.

After Cromwell’s death, Lord Fairfax, who as Sir Thomas Fairfax had been ‘Lord General’ of the ‘New Model Army at the decisive defeat of the Royalists at Naseby on 14 June 1645, was instrumental in bringing back Charles II.

In the Civil War, he had and his father had been critical in swinging the North behind the Parliament; the former ‘Lord General’ was equally critical in the destruction of the ‘Parliamentarian’ cause there a decade and a half later.

(See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Fairfax .)

There is an odd American coda to all this.

In his last story Herman Melville gave the English captain who – reluctantly – hangs the press-ganged American sailor Billy Budd the name ‘Edward Fairfax Vere’.

The captain’s nickname ‘Starry Vere’ is taken from the poem ‘Upon Appleton House’ – Fairfax’s house in Yorkshire – by Andrew Marvell, who was tutor to the Lady Mary Fairfax, the Lord General’s only surviving child, there at the start of the 1650s.

In the poem, ‘Starry Vere’ is Lady Mary’s mother, Anne, daughter of Sir Horace de Vere, who had been Fairfax’s commander in the Netherlands, when he ‘cut his teeth’ on military matters there as a young man, fresh out of St John’s College Cambridge and the Inns of Court.

When her husband was listed as one of the commissioners to try the King, and his name called, Anne de Vere called out in the courtroom ‘He hath more wit than to be here,’ before being forcibly removed.

They were, in my view, consistent people – always trying to hold a centre.

[ISL]

TTG,

Having just watched a documentary on Deutsche Welle on anti-depressants, which were argued as causing in some cases either suicidal or homicidal or both tendencies, I did a few minutes of google research and:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/15/bastille-day-truck-driver-was-known-to-police-reports-say

He also was on anti-depressants, which would also make him a good recruiting target.

in the DW documentary one of the interviewers related how she started having fantasies about killing her parents.....

[The Twisted Genius]

David Habakkuk,

That was a fascinating time in history. I remember being shown an old Catholic church in a village outside RAF Sculthorpe where the baptismal font still showed the damage wrought by the musket butts of the New Model Army. I could see the musket balls embedded in the rafter beams.

There was a BBC series about that time that you're probably familiar with. "By the Sword Divided" traced the lives of two families during that time in a most entertaining way. I watched it on PBS out of Boston while stationed at Fort Devens.

[Kooshy]

TTG sorry for being OT but for all the US elections is very important.
Colonel Lang, you can call this my Middle Eastern conspiring mentality, but IMO last night' plagiarised speech of Trump' wife was planted and an insider job. Mistakes like that ar not common in key not speeches in presidential election' of major parties. Last one I remember was Joe Biden when he ran for president a while back. IMO someone was fully ready for this and the MSM was very ready on how and how fast to run the story. If I am corect, a planted insider job by the other camp then IMO this is no less than the watergate.

[turcopolier]

All

IMO that was just buffoonery followed by MSM pursuit of HC's election. pl

[The Twisted Genius]

Kooshy,

Someone in the Trump camp screwed up royally. Who was supposed to check the speech? I'm sure Melania didn't write the speech by herself and keep it to herself until she gave it. Or maybe she did and that's why Trump didn't fire somebody over this. Your conspiracy theory of a plant in the top circles of the Trump campaign is a little too rich for me unless it was a closet Republican Dump Trump person. That would have been obvious at this point. Of course the MSM jumped all over it like it was a mass murder. As Colonel Lang said it's part of their pursuit of HC's election.

[Tyler]

Mr. Habakkuk,

I've always felt an empathy for Cromwell.

[Tyler]

Kooshy,

Wouldn't be surprised if it was a purposeful "inside job", much like other supposed slip ups by Trump.

Melania's whole speech was packed full of hatefacts that the Left tries to bury and pretend does not exist. Now people are going to go read the whole speech because of two lines of common rhetoric.

CNN continues to whore for Clinton, between panning away from Sen. Sessions' speech on illegal immigration and referring to those who had family members killed by illegal aliens "impacted by undocumented immigrants".

[Cvillereader]

Then perhaps you should study up on what he did in Ireland.

[aleksandar]

Sorry, but that's BS all over.
1 – Quote : « The uncle said he learned about the Algerian recruiter from extended family members who live in Nice »
So far none of the relatives of Mohamed Lahouaiyej Bouhlel interrogated by the police has said such a thing. Look like the guy, who see the guy, who see the guy.who see the guy..........................the guy who see the bear.
2 – If someone in a poor city as Msaken has received 100 000 €, approximatively 352 months of average tunisian income, il should have directly gone to a supermarket and buy a new fridge, a freezer, a hair cooler, and all the things you need when you are poor. And probably a new car, a new flat or a new house.
Even if he had gone to the bank to put such a sum on his account, everybody would have know this before the end if the day.
Don't be tricked please, I know Tunisia quite well, it's a poor country.
Give 300 or 500 $ to a guy ( brother or uncle ) and he will tell you what you want to hear.

[different clue]

The Twisted Genius,

The commenters over at Naked Capitalism have discussed the "Melania speech plagiarism" and generally seem to feel that it is the sort of thing that only a bunch of twittering liberals would get upset about. Some of them speculate that the Trump Team has a hidden Clintonite mole who was involved in seeding that speech with "plagiarism" in order to fabricate a lifesize cardboard-replica scandal.

[Tyler]

Cville,

I did well before you mentioned it.

[kooshy]

TTG thank you for your reply, a few points that comes to mind, first I agree that Melina did not write the speech frankly I can’t think that Trump, his children, his campaign, and above all RNC would want Melina, who english is not her first language to write the opening night’s keynote speech. Second I would think all above mentioned persons would one a good professional speech writer to write that important speech from wife of the nominee, I would think that professional speech writer will do a through research on the past party’s first ladies convention speeches and who said what, how and when starting with current first lady’s speech. So IMO that speech writer knew exactly to the last word what Michelle said in her speech, professional speech writers know how to not plagiaries specially not in this obvious way almost word for word. Once that speech is written and before be delivered by the party’s first lady I am sure someone trusted by Trump once to check and read it, same as for RNC after all is their convention, Trump is not even the leader of the party until he is officially nominated by the roll call. Diffidently something major went wrong, but it could have been a mole planted knowing the campaign don’t have many points of checks and balances.

If I were the campaign I wouldn’t fire anybody yet till investigation is done and people get questioned, who did what and what connections he or she has. The point pressed by the media and clintons was well delivered, as I heard, even inside the RNC convention, the point raised was if Trump is so incompetent to have a control on his campaign to protect his own family, how can he be competent to hold and govern. Clintons, are their usual, are doing politics like Mafia do business. For them is a no holds barred match.

[The Twisted Genius]

different clue,

The level of outrage is clearly partisan. A similar situation doomed Biden's presidential bid in 1987. He was forced to withdraw when a few sentences in one of his speeches were very similar to those in a Brit politician's speech. There are many services dedicated to finding potential plagiarism now. I consider it to be political incompetence not to use something like this to check these kinds of speeches. The stakes are too high.

[Dubhaltach]

In reply to The Twisted Genius 19 July 2016 at 09:25 PM

The speech by Mr Kinnock, as he desperately tried to remodel and rebuild the Labour Party, was widely judged to be a dramatic and powerful piece of political rhetoric - making it particularly tempting, but also unusually unwise, for Mr Biden to borrow its most significant passage without attribution to the British politician.

NEIL KINNOCK addressing the Welsh Labour Party conference May 1987:

"Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Was it because our predecessors were thick? Does anybody really think that they didn't get what we had because they didn't have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment? Of course not. It was because there was no platform upon which they could stand"

JOE BIDEN IN Sept 1987 first presidential campaign stump speech:

"Why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go a university? Why is it that my wife... is the first in her family to ever go to college? Is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright? ...Is it because they didn't work hard? My ancestors who worked in the coal mines of northeast Pennsylvania and would come after 12 hours and play football for four hours? It's because they didn't have a platform on which to stand."

Biden shamelessly stole a key passage from Kinnock's speech - it was a good speech that got massive coverage - how on earth he thought he'd get away with it I have no idea.

[David Habakkuk]

Dubhaltach,

At the risk of being off-topic, the Kinnock speech has always amused me.

The opportunity for Welsh boys from families without means to go to university came as a result of the Welsh Intermediate Education Act, which was passed in 1889 under a Conservative Government headed by Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury – a descendant of Lord Burghley and the 1st Earl of Salisbury, chief ministers to Elisabeth 1.

The Act predated similar legislation in England by a dozen years.

It was the Labour politician Anthony Crosland – an English public school boy – who replaced the grammar schools with comprehensives in 1965. If his wife Susan is to be believed, he told her: ‘If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to destroy every fucking grammar school in England. And Wales and Northern Ireland.’

(See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Crosland .)

[turcopolier]

David Habakkuk

"grammar schools with comprehensives" Unfortunately few of us gringos know the difference. pl