Ok this device that Rachel is covering is NOT

[nadinbrzezinski]

unsophisticated. It was also placed in a way to act as a shaped charge.

This is not a minor event... JAYZUS... we are definitely there...

[gateley]

1. Can't tune in, nad -- is she talking about the bomb that was discovered at the

Martin Luther King parade?

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Yes, this was not a kid putting together a pipe bomb

Remote detonator, shaped charge (placement), and enough shnarpel... not a kid's toy.

[Skittles]

2. details please?

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. The device had a remote detonator

explosives (they are not telling us what explosives) Shnarpel (my guess nails, that is a classic)... and placed against a solid wall so it would act as a shaped charged, most of the energy would go towards the people. This is not a beginner.

Alert city workers figured out an abandoned bag with wires sticking out was out of place. Only reason why I suspect we avoided a real tragedy.

This is escalation.

[Common Sense Party]

6. How is it escalation in comparison to Times Square, Christmas Tree guy,

etc.?

I'd say continuation, not escalation.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. BOth of those were related to threats from abroad

(and the Times Square bomb was amateur hour)

This is internal. And it was not amateur hour.

If this happened in NYC or LA, you;d have a point that it was foreign in origin. It will sink, but I am betting this is very much INTERNAL.

[Common Sense Party]

10. This could very well be external.

External threats are very capable of going other places than NYC or LA.

At this point, it's MORE likely to be external, until evidence arises to suggest otherwise.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. In spokane????

Not even a quaternary target.

I remember though when we were told by the media that OKC was also external. And for the same reasons that OKC was pretty much... internal, this will be internal.

If there were olympics or any other high profile... sure have at it..

[Common Sense Party]

14. The Christmas tree lighting plot was in Portland.

We will see.

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. Tings that are striking about that story

Somali born US TEEN.

But we shall see. I am willing to consider our INTERNAL boy scouts. but that is just me.

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. Please read this from the FBI

“I think the link to the Martin Luther King celebration and march is inescapable,” Harrill said. “At that point, it falls directly in the realm and sphere of domestic terrorism. Clearly, there was some political or social agenda here.”

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2011/jan/18/fbi-says-backpack-spokane-parade-route-was-bomb/

No, they will not use those words just for fun. This WAS internal.

[RamboLiberal]

32. numerous incidents of anti-government and white supremacist activity during the past three decades

Another explosive device was found March 23 beside the Thomas S. Foley U.S. Courthouse in downtown Spokane. No arrests have been made in that investigation, Harrill said, and agents didn't know if the two incidents were related.

The Spokane region and adjacent northern Idaho have had numerous incidents of anti-government and white supremacist activity during the past three decades.

The most visible was by Aryan Nations, whose leader Richard Butler gathered racists and anti-Semites at his compound for two decades. Butler was bankrupted and lost the compound in a civil lawsuit in 2000 and died in 2004.

In December, a man in Hayden, Idaho, built a snowman on his front lawn shaped like a member of the Ku Klux Klan holding a noose. The man knocked the pointy-headed snowman down after getting a visit from sheriff's deputies.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41139894/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. Yes, I know

this is very much internal. And this was NOT a kiddie device either. This is escalation.

By the way, good evening, you doing ok?

[RamboLiberal]

35. Doing just great - thank you

[Major Hogwash]

39. Thanks for that article.

I think there is no doubt about the link to the MLK march and the fact that the device was found along the parade route of said march.

[JDPriestly]

43. A Christmas event might be the target of a disturbed person

influenced by external propaganda, but a Martin Luther King parade? No way. What kind of political point (terrorism by definition has a political purpose) would it make to place a bomb at an MLK parade? Think about it for a bit.

[jwirr]

16. Have you ever been in Spokane? There is nothing there that any

external source would care about. And they could not even be sure they would get any big notoriety out of it.

[Common Sense Party]

20. Terror in the heartland would have a bigger psychological

effect than another NYC attack.

But, yes, it's possible it was domestic.

We'll have to get more details before we know one way or the other.

[JDPriestly]

42. External -- at a Martin Luther King parade?

Why would an external threat be aimed at a Martin Luther King parade? Seems to me that the marchers in that parade would be the wrong demographic profile to be of interest to someone external.

[Common Sense Party]

46. How so?

They're Americans.

[JDPriestly]

49. I was asking the same question. Why would an external

threat be aimed at a Martin Luther King parade? Looks more like something racist, but I can't be sure. That is just a guess.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. And they also found devices back in March

this is really of concern. This the FBI was released a lot of info. For the record, they usually do not.

There are two groups in Spokane per SPLC hate map... not saying it was them... but.

One of them is a christian identity group. I will leave it at that. And this is just damn speculation on my part.

[gateley]

9. And Idaho is a relative stone's throw away. nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. I know

[gateley]

7. The bomb squad was called out to Queen Anne Hill in Seattle this evening due

to a "suspicious package". It's an area of Seattle that's a thriving neighborhood, lots of apartment buildings and beautiful homes. They detonated it but there's been no further news thus far.

Am I correct in thinking that if they blew it up they probably thought it was benign? Would they blow up something they felt might be a real device without evacuating the neighborhood? :shrug:

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. They probably brought one of these

The round thing in the back is an explosions chamber, where you can safely blow them up on site, if they are small enough.

[gateley]

15. Maybe. They showed a photo but it was dark and you could just see the

silhouette of a bomb squad guy, so it didn't show much. I'm hoping there's more info on the news.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Just went trolling, can't find any, so far

[gateley]

19. And if anybody could find any..... :=) nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. Here your local tv

http://www.kirotv.com/news/26534682/detail.html

Looks like a pipe bomb, they used a robot.

[gateley]

22. Wow - so maybe a real bomb! How odd to just stick it out on Queen Anne Ave,

I really thought it would be somebody's groceries or something. It's getting so crazy here - and everywhere. People are becoming desperate and they're ripe for the hate talk they hear. At least feeling hate and rage makes them feel somewhat in control. :(

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. That was a real device

a small one. Why I said pipe bomb would not surprise me. Enough to be dangerous, perhaps deadly real close.

On the bright side, it just could be a kid ... some teens build them.

[gateley]

24. You may be right on about a kid -- the location just doesn't make sense if someone

was trying to make a statement. We'll see.

[Maine_Nurse]

25. yeah

any self-respecting kid can hop online and come up with plans for any number of "advanced" devices in a couple of minutes, most of which can be whipped up from stuff and home and a Dollar Store. And lets face it, the average 12-year old is light-years ahead of most neo-nazi's/white supremacists/etc in terms of intelligence and abilities. If you can follow the recipe for bread dough, you can come up with this kind of thing pretty easily.

[nadinbrzezinski]

30. I still remember the kid we took to the ER

who went into the chemistry lab... it was just a prank.

Thankfully he was fine, beyond the breathing injury. (Yes it could have been more serious than it was... and three hours later they sent him home, after of course he got a hell of a lecture from me, the cops, the DA... another country and all that)

[TheWraith]

31. Have you ever tried that?

Sure, you can make some simple things with surprising materials, but making real live explosives is not easy, and creating something like a remote detonator takes real skills and an understanding of electronics. I doubt I would have been able to do that at 12, and I have a much better knowledge of tech than most people.

[nadinbrzezinski]

34. Talking of the one in Seattle

go to the link... it looks like a small pipe bomb. Those are well within the capabilities of teen agers.

:-(

Yes that is unfortunate.

And yes most of them are shall we say less energetic than the kid expected.

[TheWraith]

38. The FBI described it as capable of multiple fatalities, so it appears they take it seriously.

As for the size, a small bomb can still be extremely powerful--it depends on the design and the explosive material. If you have a piece of drainage pipe packed with black powder... not so powerful. If you're talking about a few pounds of HMX or plastic explosive packed into a heavy steel casing, then you have an order of magnitude more dangerous device which is still very compact.

[Maine_Nurse]

40. I gotta believe

if you had someone with the juice to pick up RDX or something similar, you probably wouldn't have had wires sticking out of the bag. And don't underestimate black powder. It is certainly not a high-order explosive, but if you put it in heavy wall seamless pipe, it can pack one hell of a punch.

Either device is something to be taken seriously by the FBI.

[Maine_Nurse]

36. Yeah, when I was much younger

We made some of our own fireworks when I was a kid (back in the old days when some firecrackers wouldn't bring ATF down on you). We also used farm explosives to blow stumps out (back when you could buy those over the counter too). I also had some basic experience in the military, but it is pretty easy to make some relatively high performance devices. Maybe you should look up some of the plans/instructions/recipes available. They are quite complete and very simple. In fact most of the better (safer) ones are published by our government (military field manuals on improvised munitions) and other governments and are targeted towards use by your average soldier or even an effectively illiterate indigent population.

A remote detonator can be as simple as gutting a garage door opener and remote or even a radio controlled car. Just a remote that makes a simple mechanical movement on the other end to make two contacts come together. Simple and effective and no electronic knowledge needed, simply disassemble here and reassemble there.

I'm not saying this was children playing around, but the idea that this was some kind of professional conspiracy is quite a stretch too.

[JDPriestly]

44. What kind of teen would build such a thing and place it in the

path of a Martin Luther King parade? Kid or not, it is a terrorist act.

[freeplessinseattle]

53. crikey, I didn't know that!

what the hell?

[Matariki]

26. Can't help but note that Spokane is so close to Coeur D'alene - famed white supremacist hotbed..

[nadinbrzezinski]

27. You noticed that too

I went to the SPLC hate map...

[Major Hogwash]

37. Me neither.

You have to know they are still operating in that area.
And more active than what other people thought they were.

[JustAnotherGen]

48. Amen

So the Klan rises again? Eh? I've come to view them and all their activity since the late 1860's as Domestic Terrorism. Angry, racist, caucasians are indeed CAPABLE of this type of thing. Too much history with them behaving this way . . .

[AsahinaKimi]

28. for once the FBI is calling it what it is..

Domestic Terrorism.

[Common Sense Party]

41. Another IED was left at Spokane courthouse last year.

http://www.kxly.com/news/23080126/detail.html#

I wonder if they're related.

[Recovered Repug]

45. "Shaped charge" doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.

From the description, it could be classified as a directional charge (like a claymore mine). A shaped charge is a narrowly focused explosion intended to burn through armor.

[nadinbrzezinski]

50. The wall will make it act like one

But if you want to be technical yes... And your point? Placement and device are not the stuff of amateur hour.

[Recovered Repug]

57. The placement could also be a way to

keep it out of the way of most people (less likely detected). I don't see how leaning a bomb up against the wall suggest sophistication.

[spanone]

47. FBI calls it 'domestic teorrism' just now on m$nbc

[OneGrassRoot]

51. Where? You say "we are definitely there"....

a tipping point for domestic terrorism or something?

TIA

:hi:

[nadinbrzezinski]

54. It is the frequency now.

We are having an incident every two months on average now. The intensity has really picked up. We are at the low intensity phase.

[malaise]

52. So why isn't this big news on cable today

I can't believe this 'silence'

[nadinbrzezinski]

55. Cause it is internal and white

Yes, I am a cynic.

[DemReadingDU]

56. +++