NEWSFLASH: Austin Bomber Dead

March 21st, 2018

So ends his reign of terror: The Austin bomber blew himself up real good:

The 24-year-old suspect accused of setting off a string of violent devices in the Austin-area is dead after detonating a device and killing himself, Austin police has confirmed. Austin police are warning the public that there may be other devices out there and to remain vigilant.

The Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said the suspect, identified as a 24-year-old white man, was identified by police in the past 24 hours as a person of interest. The man then became a suspect.

Authorities said they used surveillance video from the FedEx store on Brodie Lane in South Austin to lead them to the suspect, according to KVUE’s Tony Plohetski. Authorities also got information from Google and from the suspect’s computer history that confirmed the suspect was looking at information on where to go to ship devices, according to Plohetski’s sources.

WFAA’s Jason Whitely said law enforcement had identified the suspect at approximately 9 p.m. Tuesday and were closing in on him based on packages he sent from FedEx. Whitely added that police wanted to surprise the man.

Authorities located the vehicle the suspect was known to be driving, and found it at a hotel in Round Rock, Manley said.

Multiple officers from the Austin Police Department and federal agencies took positions around the hotel as they awaited the arrival of tactical teams, Manley said.

The vehicle started to drive away, and authorities followed the suspect. Manley said the suspect’s vehicle stopped in a ditch on the side of the road. As a SWAT team approached the vehicle, the suspect detonated a device, Manley said. The explosion knocked an officer back, causing the officer to suffer minor injuries. Another officer who Manley said has been with the department for 11 years then fired at the vehicle. That officer has been placed on administrative duty, per standard procedure.

The suspect was then confirmed dead. Manley said they are not naming the suspect until next of kin has been notified. KVUE’s Plohetski reports that the suspect is from Central Texas.

Police do not have a motive yet and do not know if the suspect was planning on delivering another bomb at the time of his death.

Manley said at a press conference shortly after the suspect’s death that “it’s been a long almost three weeks,” and this is the culmination of the hard work of multiple agencies.

Chief Manley said they “don’t know where the suspect has been the past 24 hours,” and that there may be other devices out there. The public must remain vigilant and call 911 if they see anything suspicious.

(Hat tip: Ted Cruz’s Facebook feed.)

More details as they occur and when I have time, including some details from the events of yesterday.)

Update: Police have identified the no-deceased Austin bomber as Mark Conditt, 23, of Pflugerville. Not seeing any mention of any radical political or religious affiliation.

Developing…

Update 2: Was he posting to Reddit?

Sounds like an asshole who just wanted to blow things up…

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Posted in Austin, Crime, Texas | 1 Comment »

Sixth Bomb at Austin FedEx Facility Near Airport?

March 20th, 2018

Maybe. But keep in mind this is the part of the cycle where people get spooked at shadows. Could be nothing.

Developing…

Update: Maybe not a bomb, but authorities appear to have closed off the Sunset Valley store on the suspicion that the Schertz bomb was mailed from there.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Schertz FedEx Bombing Linked to Austin Bombings

March 20th, 2018

Another bomb exploded in central Texas, this one at a FedEx facility in Schertz near San Antonio:

At least one person has been injured when a package bomb exploded at a FedEx facility near San Antonio in Texas early Tuesday. Federal agents said the incident is likely linked to attacks by a serial bomber that have killed two people in Austin, the Associated Press reported.

The incident happened at about 12:30 a.m. at the FedEx Ground distribution center in Schertz.

The San Antonio Texas Fire Department said a FedEx employee apparently suffered a non-life-threatening “percussion-type” injury from the blast.

Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the FBI were sent to the scene as well as SWAT and bomb squads from the San Antonio Police Department.

NPR says the package was intended for Austin.

[T]he package was moving from an elevated conveyor belt to a lower section when it exploded,” the television station reports.

It “contained shrapnel consisting of nails and pieces of metal, sources said,” according to the CBS affiliate, which said the Schertz facility has 75 employees.

Developing…

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Posted in Crime, Texas | No Comments »

Fourth Austin Bombing

March 19th, 2018

I should have posted about the Austin Mad Bomber story earlier, but I have no more of a clue who’s behind it than anyone else.

A fourth bomb has exploded, injuring two men. As opposed to previous bombings, this one was in southwest Austin, rather than east Austin, and the two victims were white and Hispanic rather than black (the profile of the previous victims).

Wikipedia has an article and a map of the bombings:

If you have any tips on catching the bomber, the reward is now up to $115,000:

  • Call the Austin Police Department TIPS line at 512-472-TIPS (8477)
  • Call the Texas Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-252-TIPS (8477)
  • Text the letters “DPS”- followed by your tip – to 274637 (CRIMES)

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    Posted in Austin, Crime | 1 Comment »

    Welcome to the Progressive Utopia

    March 18th, 2018

    Pat Condell brings the pith discussing progressives’ free-speech-free utopia:

    “A whole generation has now been successfully taught not to value free speech the very cornerstone of our civilization but to hold it in contempt and to fear it to run from it to seek refuge from ideas in emotional safe spaces and to believe that hurting somebody’s feelings is a form of assault on a par with cracking their skull.”

    “Rational argument, when it hurts someone’s feelings is, you guessed it, hate.”

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    Posted in Social Justice Warriors, video | 1 Comment »

    Texas Sanctuary City Ban Upheld

    March 17th, 2018

    There was a boatload of non-federal-Government-staffing-decisions news this week, and I’m still catching up on it.

    One of the bigger items: The federal 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Texas’ “sanctuary cities” ban:

    Texas law is clear: “The Texas Constitution prohibits a city from acting in a manner inconsistent with the general laws of the state. Thus, the legislature may, by general law, withdraw a particular subject from a home rule city’s domain.”

    Snip.

    The plaintiffs have not made a showing that they are likely to succeed on the merits of any of their constitutional claims except as to the enforcement of Tex. Gov’t Code § 752.053(a)(1)’s “endorse” provision against elected officials. The foregoing discussion demonstrates there is no merit in their remaining arguments, and none of the other challenged provisions of SB4 facially violate the Constitution. Accordingly, we AFFIRM in part the district court’s preliminary injunction, VACATE in large part and remand with instructions to DISMISS the vacated injunction provisions.

    Now let’s see if we can just get those Democratic Party enclaves to obey the ruling…

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    Posted in Border Control, Texas | 6 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for March 16, 2018

    March 16th, 2018

    Last week I had to put Jigsaw, my loyal dog of 13+ years, to sleep due to cancer. He was a good boy and I miss him very, very much, but life goes on.

    Anyway, I hope you’re having a better week…

  • Democrats want to end ICE. Because illegal aliens do the jobs Americans won’t do: voting for Democrats.
  • The shoe drops: “Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes was charged with ‘massive fraud’ by the Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday, a downbeat coda to a once high-flying Silicon Valley start-up that promised to revolutionize the blood analysis process.” Snip. “She will pay a $500,000 penalty, be barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company for 10 years, and return 18.9 million shares she amassed during the alleged fraud. Holmes also cedes her voting control of the company she founded in 2003 at the age of 19 after dropping out of Stanford University in order to pursue her start-up.” Remember when Holmes was held up as the poster child for a bold new wave of female Silicon Valley CEO’s? Pepperidge Farm remembers…
  • Hey, want to guess who Theranos hired to blunt investigative journalism into its fraudulent business practices? Would you believe Fusion GPS?
  • Kurt Schlichter embraces the magic power of not caring.
  • Did Paul Ryan’s superpac help elect Democrat Conor Lamb?
  • Fascinating talk on CIA operational security failures due to telephone metadata.
  • Inside the twisted mind of a a teenage school shooter.
  • Muslim murdered in Houston. So why are the media ignoring the story? Because the killer was an illegal alien.
  • Toys R Us goes tits-up.
  • How Amazon terrifies other companies.
  • Trump Administration blocks Qualcomm-Broadcom merger on national security grounds. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Shout Factory buys the rights to Roger Corman’s New Horizons back catalog. Among other things, it means that MST3K will be able to automatically get the rights to any of those for future episodes…
  • The Nightmare Before St. Patrick’s Day.
  • Chuck Norris programmer jokes.
  • “Wat ho, goatee’d man? Thy skinnee jenes hath byrn’d my corneyas.”

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    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Texas | 2 Comments »

    Twitter Blocks Users From Tweeting Link To “8 Stubborn Facts on Gun Violence in America”

    March 15th, 2018

    I tried to Tweet out a link to this Daily Signal piece on “8 Stubborn Facts on Gun Violence in America”…when I discovered that I couldn’t.

    Twitter has once again decided that there’s information its users should not be allowed to share.

    Try it yourself, and see if the secret block has been lifted or not.

    In the meantime, here are the eight points in the article, each backed up with supporting data:

    1. Violent crime is down and has been on the decline for decades.
    2. The principal public safety concerns with respect to guns are suicides and illegally owned handguns, not mass shootings.
    3. A small number of factors significantly increase the likelihood that a person will be a victim of a gun-related homicide.
    4. Gun-related murders are carried out by a predictable pool of people.
    5. Higher rates of gun ownership are not associated with higher rates of violent crime.
    6. There is no clear relationship between strict gun control legislation and homicide or violent crime rates.
    7. Legally owned firearms are used for lawful purposes much more often than they are used to commit crimes or suicide.
    8. Concealed carry permit holders are not the problem, but they may be part of the solution.

    Read the whole thing.

    Edited to add: I can now tweet this link from my home computer…but I still can’t post it from my iPhone.

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    Posted in Guns, Media Watch, Uncategorized | No Comments »

    Another Day, Another Muslim Child Sex Ring in the UK

    March 15th, 2018

    The latest Muslim-run child sex ring in the UK is bigger than Rotherham:

    The Sunday Mirror blew open ANOTHER child sex abuse ring in Britain. This 18-month investigation found up to 1,000 girls, as young as 11, raped, sold for sex, and even killed for over 40 years in Telford, located 146 miles southeast of London.

    The Mirror reported:

    Police conducted an inquiry into child prostitution called Operation Chalice, which led to imprisonment of seven men in 2013. A report from the local Telford and Wreckin Council that same year said that “[F]rom the late 1990s professionals had concerns about the nature of some of the child sexual abuse cases presented to them.” Nothing happened, though, due to “existing procedures” and “understanding and learning at that time.”

    But people told the authorities about the abuse decades before Chalice. The Mirror found out that two pedophiles started “targeting girls at a local children’s home in 1981.” One of those “abusers earned thousands a night for years trafficking girls around the country for sex with hundreds of men, according to one victim.”

    The publication spoke to 12 victims who “accused more than 70 abusers and claimed that violent rapes were still taking place just months ago.” The Mirror continued:

    One 14-year-old, groomed and abused after her phone number was sold to paedophiles, said: “I hated what was happening and my abusers made my skin crawl but I was told that if I said a word to anyone they’d come for my little sisters and tell my mum I was a prostitute.

    “Night after night, I was forced to have sex with multiple men in disgusting takeaways and filthy houses.

    “I must have been getting the morning after pill from a local clinic at least twice a week but no one asked any questions.

    “I fell pregnant twice and had two abortions. Hours after my second termination, I was taken by one of my abusers to be raped by more men.

    “The worst moment came just after my 16th birthday when I was drugged and gang raped by five men.”

    It goes on in further nauseating detail.

    Rotherham, Telford, Sheffield. All UK child sex rings run by Muslim men that police ignored for years or decades.

    Almost like there’s a pattern…

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    Posted in Crime, Jihad | No Comments »

    SecS Rex Exed

    March 14th, 2018

    So Rex Tillerson is is out as Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo is in.

    Pompeo will have to be nominated and approved by the Senate before he can take Tillerson’s spot in the government. Republicans can approve anyone they want in the Senate as long as they stick together, and Pompeo was confirmed for his current post in a 66-32 vote.

    “His experience in the military, Congress, and as leader of the CIA have prepared him well for his new role and I urge his swift confirmation,” Trump said in a statement Tuesday, as he wished Tillerson and his family well.

    Vice President Mike Pence backed Trump and urged the Senate to confirm Pompeo, “a man of highest integrity with unquestionable qualifications who will do an outstanding job.”

    There were notable foreign policy improvements under Tillerson (the crushing of the Islamic State, significant reform in Saudi Arabia, the embassy move to Jerusalem, arming Ukraine, pressuring North Korea to the negotiating table, etc.), but most were attributable to either President Trump’s unique style of negotiating, or the fact the idiots in the Obama Administration were no longer in charge.

    I thought I was ambivalent about Tillerson’s exit, until I read this:

    His profound disagreements with the president on policy appeared to be his undoing: Mr. Tillerson wanted to remain part of the Paris climate accord; Mr. Trump decided to leave it. Mr. Tillerson supported the continuation of the Iran nuclear deal; Mr. Trump loathed the deal as “an embarrassment to the United States.” And Mr. Tillerson believed in dialogue to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis, but Mr. Trump repeatedly threatened military options.

    Indeed, Tillerson’s efforts to save the asinine Iran Deal appear to be his undoing.

    “President Trump has been clear that the Iran deal is terrible policy and has sought ways to hold Iran accountable,” DeSantis told the Free Beacon. “With Mike Pompeo, Trump will have a Secretary of State who sees the threat posed by the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] and by Tehran in a similar light as he does.”

    Alrighty then. It’s best Tillerson was shown the door…

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    Posted in Foreign Policy, Global Warming | No Comments »

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