Ned Price, former Special Assistant to President Obama, joined Hallie Jackson today to discuss what we know so far about the 10 explosive devices sent to 8 high-profile critics of "president" trump. Ben Collins had just been on discussing the copy of the meme that had been attached to more than one of the devices, having come from an extreme right-wing blogger who'd created it several years ago. That blogger claimed to know nothing about these acts of terrorism, but Tur and her panel discussed what that info might imply about the socio-political "ecosystem" from which these attacks are coming.
Price was loathe to jump to conclusions, as would be anyone for certain, and he rightly stated, "every piece of information is a clue, but not every clue is dispositive. Just because this clue points to one part of the ecosystem, I don't think we can reach any conclusive conclusions over this." Though, certainly, the FBI is likely looking at everything it can. Hallie came back with the point that as reluctant as people may be to ascribe motive, we must live in a world of facts, and "there are political overtones to these packages and devices that have been sent out as we've been discussing for whatever reason that may be."
During that discussion, though, Price made the point that cannot be hammered home enough. The reluctance of this administration and Republicans to recognize that the real threats to security come mostly from within amounts to complicity. Worse. It is accessory. The insistence that Danger with a capital "D" to America comes only in the form of those with darker skin tones is factually incorrect, grossly irresponsible, and racist beyond belief. Price got to the heart of it in terms of dollars and cents.
[W]hatever this turns out to be, as a country, this administration specifically has not paid sufficient attention to the challenge of domestic terrorism. In fact, in one of their first budget requests to Congress they requested that $300 million be stripped from primarily the DHS budget dealing with this issue of domestic terrorism. Groups that worked with former white nationalists, with Neo-Nazis, they've been defunded. Some of them had to go out of business. And we have to recognize that since 9/11, more Americans have died at the hands of white nationalists and so-called right wing groups than international terrorists. Whatever this turns out to be, we also need to make sure our counter terrorism strategy is appropriately calibrated to actually confront the threats we really really face.
Sing it from the rooftops, Ned. Sing it.
