Florida mosque bombed; FBI calls for help; national media mute
On May 10th, a middle-aged man carried a can of gasoline and a pipe bomb into the Jacksonville Islamic Center of Northeast Florida during evening prayers and detonated it. Fortunately, there were no injuries to people, though the bomb did damage property.
The surveillance video above gives a fairly decent picture of this man, who is clearly white, middle-aged, and on a mission.
The local news is all over it, of course. WOKV.com reports the FBI investigating it as a hate crime and possible domestic terrorism.
"It was a dangerous device, and had anybody been around it they could have been seriously injured or killed," says Special Agent James Casey. "We want to sort of emphasize the seriousness of the thing and not let people believe that this was just a match and a little bit of gasoline that was spread around."
Casey says surveillance video from the Islamic Center shows the arsonist carrying gasoline and the pipe bomb. When the explosive went off, parts of it were found 100 feet away on 9A.
So, a mosque is bombed by a white guy and the bomb isn't exactly small, but the national media sees no value in reporting it? Really? And yet, that is evidently the case.
Anti-Muslim sentiments in Florida have been bubbling to the surface, particularly after Republican Dan Fanelli's campaign commercial was aired asking if a man appearing to be from the Middle East "looked like a terrorist." According to Yahoo News, there were two other ads with even more pointed messages against Muslims:
Another ad has Fanelli saying, "This is a terrorist," as he presents a "Middle Eastern" man strapped with a "bomb" and wearing what appears to be a dish towel "turban."
Yet another ad shows two Arabic-speaking "terrorists" constructing a bomb while discussing "martyrdom" and "killing infidels." The ad also mocks long-standing due process rights such as Miranda warnings and access to lawyers.
These ads air, and a mosque is bombed. The bomb could have killed many people. To further stir the pot, this:
Last month, CAIR reported that a Muslim university professor was appointed to the Jacksonville, Fla., Human Rights Commission despite a prolonged smear campaign by the anti-Islam hate group ACT! for America, whose leader says Muslims should not be allowed to hold public office.
There's a deep pattern of anti-Islam behavior in Florida. CommonDreams.org has the list. It's a story worthy of attention by every single citizen in this country.
I did a quick Google news search. I found lots of local stories. But look what happens when I try major news sites:
FOX News: Nothing
CNN: Nothing
MSNBC: Nothing
CBS News: Nothing.
Why is that?
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You act like we still have a news media here in the dear ol' USA!!
(I get my information online, often from C&L. I wouldn't watch the MSM if you paid me large quantities of money and/or begged...)
There is no real TV news service at this time is there?
A genuine news show would be handy. One that's not in competition with the cold truth.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
.
FEAR the Hispanic... (Gypsy)
FEAR the Muslim... (Jew)
FEAR the Gay... (Duh!)
Same chit, different generation.
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Starve the WAR Beast...
... Feed Americans.
I've known intellectually that the news media here sucks, but I've never seen it demonstrated so definitively. I don't even recall hearing about this on NPR.
"Brown people with strange accents are dangerous."
and this is the first I've heard of it! Granted, Jacksonville is a hemisphere apart from this area (and a world away from WPB to Miami), but still...
Thanks, karoli.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
I live in Florida and we get the Palm Beach Post. If there was anything about this in the Post I sure missed it. As for the local tv news, I haven't heard about it there either. Remember the students, I forget what country they were from, that some lunatic shot and killed up in the panhandle of Florida last year or the year before, we still have not heard one word about that anywhere.
Just a quick aside. Congressman Weiner really got under Beck's skin with the comments about gold because for at least the first 15 minutes of his show tonight Beck has talked about it. And continues to say it doesn't bother him.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
..could the guy be any more juvenile?
Beck has even set up a web site now called WeinerFacts, where he talks about Congressman Weiner and what beck calls "other weiner facts. We are now half way through his show and he's still talking about it to one degree or another.
As to this thread, what if they catch the guy who did this and he has a Muslim sounding name. Will we hear about it then?
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
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Local news stations picked it up. That's more or less the only ones who did.
was released? Can that be why no one has heard of it before now?
Local stations have run the footage, have it on their websites. On the 14th, FBI ramped it up, saying they believe it's not just a hate crime but domestic terrorism. Still nothing. It's really pretty atrocious.
I smell weasels.
Lets remember that this is the same media that hammered us for 20 years that Saddam Hussein was a monster and threat to the world and then when things started to go badly they all of a sudden proclaimed the nicest most innocent fella that ever walked the earth and we were the monsters .
This same media may have been working for the Christian rewriters who had children being thrown to the lions by the Romans .
Jesus protect me from your followers !
Beck will need to get used to it. He's going to meet the same people going down, that he pissed on going up.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
"On Your Way Down"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUkVXi_S-iM
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
he convinced his dealer to buy gold. But I'll bet the connection has already invested in lead...
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
Yes, the local media did a few stories along the lines of the ones quoted in this posting. But after 2-3 days, it's gone away. Not a word in the last couple of days.
What's more appalling than the media coverage, or lack thereof, is the noise vacuum coming from local, state and national elected officials.
Remember, this came a week or so after the loud hubbub over the appointment of a local professor, Muslim, to the Human Rights Commission. That incident was so bad, one of the City Councilmen, during the public hearing on the appointment, asked the appointee to "pray to YOUR God" during the hearing. He, of course, refused.
There has not been a single word from any of the City Councilmembers, the Mayor, or the Sheriff over this issue.
Residents have asked all of the above to comment, as have reporters. Their response has been that they can't comment on an ongoing criminal investigation.
Bullshit!
i don't have a tv and i wouldn't touch the right wing rag that passes for a paper. i do read "folio weekly", i get local news there,but it is always late. the racist pig council person you refer to represents my district. please check out this video. it's hilarious. it's sad,it's awful. it is embarrassing to my city.i want people to see it. [bit.ly/yourgod].
by the MIC and the corporate media going for naught with a story like this, can we?
So, they feel no obligation to present the news. They are entertainment and propaganda tools for their owners. Plain and simple. The FCC should hold hearings on how they can better serve the public or lose their broadcast licenses. No reason not to push them over to cable except that the FCC doesn't do its job.
Perhaps the FCC should look into how to convey "news" that can be trusted. Leave these MSM jokers to their political theatre and simply create a trustworthy news service that the nation can depend on.
If the FCC can't do it then let some other protection agency do it.
Don't you think something like that would be a great success and make the political theatre groups look exactly like what they really are?
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
I shudder to think what might happen if the repugs get back in the WH and take control of this official news source.
country like Switzerland or Norway will broadcast the truth to us.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37109617
Not a big story but not ignored either.
You can find it on their site, but it doesn't make it into their broadcasts. They're just pulling affiliates' content, not reporting it.
At present there is nothing about this on either BBC or Al Jazeera.
following this story. I could not get through, and my computer hung. Don't waste your time on BBC America, as there is a disclaimer on the bottom of one of their pages that says they do not respond to any inquiries they get themselves. Someone else want to try? Now I'm just pissed. If you do, go directly to BBC.
Hell man..it's hardly known here in Jax. I live here and virtually nobody has heard of this incident. Now..why not? Because it it implicates a white guy, probably a pissed off Tea Bagger, in terrorism. Nor does Muslim as victim to WASP terrorism fit the mold. Move on folks..nothing to see here.
since a terrorist ignited an incendiary device under Obama's watch. Obama is certainly a national security failure.
Mart
Of course they're not talking about it - but it is exactly the type of violence the right-wing talking heads have been fomenting for. I'm sure they're trilled to the bone - but no ... they're not going to talk about it.
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I don't recall seeing it over at Huffingtonpost either - did I miss it? Or did they? This is exactly the kind of thing we rely on they to catch. It's definitely headline material.
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Plugged Jacksonville Islamic Center into search box on MSNBC's website and found 3 stories about the bombing; as the blogger states came up with zip on the other sites.
from the local sites. You can probably find syndicated content on the other sites too, but syndication isn't reporting. It's just sucking up the local sites' content for page hits.
So the M$M shills for the corporations, they have a bad effect on our politics and elections AND they cannot actually report anything?
I (once again) recommend off button!
OFF BUTTON!
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
South Pacific - Carefully Taught
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
I just wanted to come back and tell you Karoli, in the words of my dad, you're a peach. You have been bringing news to this site like this and we sure do appreciate it. Please stay with us.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
I plan to be around for as long as they'll have me. :)
They better have you around for a very long time. I would hate to have to come over there and get nasty with John. :)
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
The lame stream corporate media's job is to stir the pot, not report on what happens after the pot has been stirred. For example, the #1 local all news radio station in my area,(D.C.metro)has spent the entire day telling it's listener's about all of the POSSIBLE bombings that may or may not have occurred recently or in the past or in the future. No details of course....they just keep on stirring the pot. Makes me wanna scream.That and another non stop stream of stories blaming the MMS for the oil spill. BP, RIG and Halliburton must have just been innocent bystanders.
The reason why this isn't being reported in the so-called "liberal media" is probably the very same reason why the national mainstream media never bothered to report the story of William Krar. Krar is a right-wing anti-government white supremacist now serving a eleven-year prison sentence after pleading guilty back in 2004 to possessing a weapon of mass destruction. Although the Feds may have had an eye on him as far back as 1995, he came to the attention of the authorities in 2003 and was arrested when a package which he had mailed containing counterfeit birth certificates was accidentally sent to the wrong address. At the time of his arrest, the following items were found to be in Krar's possession:
* a nearly-completed sodium cyanide bomb which was estimated to be capable of killing thousands
* stockpiles of chemicals, presumable for the production of other bombs
* over 50 pipe bombs
* several suitcase bombs capable of being detonated by remote control
* half a million rounds of ammunition
* racist and anti-government literature
* documents suggesting the potential existence of a plot which would have involved detonating the gas bomb once it was completed.
I think we all know that if Krar had been a Muslim, every single mainstream news outlet without exception -- especially in post-9/11 America -- would have been all over the story like white on rice. So why did this story go largely unreported? Unfortunately, the most likely explanation is simple -- Krar happens to be a white American and therefore one of Us rather than one of Them. In a similar vein, I think we all know that if this had been the act of a Muslim setting off a bomb at a synagogue or a church, every single mainstream news outlet in the country would have made it their top story for the past week.
Never trust anyone who insists that patriotism requires you to blindfold yourself with the flag.
i think your search syntax was wrong. I searched google for site:msn.com florida mosque and it found links. I also searched the actual msnbc site and found this: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37139953/ns/local... and four other articles.
...from local affiliates. They're the same content I pointed to in the post, but they don't represent any effort on national media reporting this, paying any attention to it, featuring it on their site, or otherwise bringing national attention to it.
ah, well i stand corrected. didn't notice that those were links to local news.
Wait a minute! The guy is on the loose! Why isn't the country being informed there is a domestic terrorist on the loose, last seen blowing up a church in Florida?
I was about to dismiss the story until i realized the terrorist is still here, out there somewhere, planning more terror, and not rotting in jail. Suddenly this MSM silence makes even less sense.
Unless they believe reporting on it somehow endangers the public. I'm not coming up with anythying though...
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Which, in the case of Amber alerts, for example, triggers a national media alert. Here, it seems to have triggered a national media yawn.
I guess maybe there needs to be endangered people around the bomb area, for an act like this to be worthy of national news. Was the Church completely empty at the time?
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
More likely they were in a courtyard, or interior area.
They don't want all of the rednecks running around doing copycat bombings of other mosques. So the Feebs told the media to put a lid on it until they see if there is a group of them to infiltrate.
Even the red necks around these parts appreciate the Muslims for the community work that they do. They wouldn't dare pull that shit around here.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/health/article78...
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"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
...for help in identifying the man if they wanted to keep it quiet?
Right? If it makes the national news...more eyes, more kooks, more possibility of copycats. At least until they find out who it is. Even Rach and Keith haven't touched on it.
...and in this article, they're expressing some surprise and frustration about not receiving more tips. http://www.news4jax.com/news/23545690/detail....
Why is this site coming to the defense of an insular, pedophile-prophet led, sexist cult?
Is that really what you're arguing?
What do the Fundy Mormons have to do with it?
hmm, ok i stand corrected. I didn't notice that those were just links to local news.
Have you tried forwarding to Keith or Rachel? I'm sure you or Dave or John would have more pull than one of us.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
They are pointing out that the media loves on the Muslims and want to coddle them see and now, since this story appears, they don't want to appear that way so they are ignoring it to show that SE Cupp... You know what, I can't even go along with their stupid theory.
The media isn't liberal and liberals aren't pro or anti-Muslim. We just feel that do what you want to do so long as it doesn't infringe upon the rights of others. But those 2 idiots along with Coulter and others would problem present that as the reason for silence on this story while they push the idea that really, the media just loves Muslims.
Just checked:
Washington Post: Nothing.
New York Times: Nothing.
AP: Nothing.
Reuters: Nothing.
UPI: one article.
Wallstreet Journal: Nothing. (o.k., so that was a long-shot)
L.A. Times: Nothing
Paired with the failed Times Square bombing, this provides the sort of paired example of media bias that Chomsky and Herman employed (unfortunately, New York and Times Square receive vastly greater coverage than Jacksonville, so we must expect more and broader coverage of the Times Square attempt).
Well at least nobody was hurt.
I just don't like the fact that muslims come here and build mosques on american soil. their religion respects no other religions, and according to muslim law the muslims have to dominate non-muslims. this doesnt fit in with the american spirit of freedom.
Could be a Jew.
I'm wondering if you have ever posted an article emphasizing the race of a perp that was non-White? How about that rapist recently filmed - he was clearly Black.
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