RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/cnn-pipe-bomb-white-powder-harmless-law-enforcement-report/

The pipe bomb and white powder that forced an evacuation at CNN headquarters in New York City Wednesday morning were harmless, a law enforcement source told the Associated Press.

The purported explosive device was similar in construction to those sent Wednesday to former President Barack Obama, former attorney general Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton, Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D., Fla.), and Representative Maxine Waters of California. A package containing white powder was delivered later in the day.

The NYPD said the explosive devices were live during a Wednesday afternoon press conference but subsequent reporting suggests they were not functional.

All of the devices carried a parody ISIS flag featuring comedian Larry the Cable Guy’s signature slogan, “git ‘er done,” NBC News reported late Wednesday.

The most recent wave of potential bombings came two days after billionaire liberal activist George Soros received an explosive device in the mail, which police later detonated. The package left in CNN’s mailroom was addressed to former CIA director John Brennan, who frequently appears on the network.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo said during a Wednesday press conference that his office received an explosive device but the NYPD later revealed the package in question actually contained a letter and a flash drive.

President Trump called the spate of attacks “despicable” in a Wednesday statement.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/10/24/suspicious_packages_sent_to_obama_clintons_cnn_evacuated_138446.html

Crude pipe bombs targeting Hillary Clinton, former President Barack Obama, CNN and others were intercepted Tuesday night and Wednesday in a rash of attacks two weeks before nationwide elections that could reshape Congress and serve as a referendum on the first two years of President Donald Trump’s presidency.

The devices, which officials said shared a similar design, were aimed at prominent Democrats and a cable news network often criticized by political conservatives. A similar device was found Monday at the New York compound of liberal billionaire George Soros, a major contributor to Democratic causes.

The bombs overtook other campaign news in an already-tense political season, which has included pitched fights over immigration, the Supreme Court and sexual violence against women.

The White House quickly condemned the attacks aimed at Democrats and perceived foes of the administration.

“Acts or threats of political violence have no place in the United States,” Trump said. “This egregious conduct is abhorrent.”

https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/chicago-area-man-charged-with-running-pro-isis-media-operation/

The Justice Department has charged a Chicago-area man, Ashraf al-Safoo, with conspiring to materially support ISIS, saying that he led a pro-ISIS media operation.

Al-Safoo, a 34-year-old native of Mosul, Iraq, moved to the U.S. in 2008 and later became a naturalized citizen.

He took orders directly from ISIS officials. Through social media, he spread propaganda on behalf of the terror group, helping ISIS to recruit and encouraging supporters to conduct terror attacks.

A Justice Department press release describes the extent of his online activity:

According to the complaint, Al Safoo is a member of Khattab Media Foundation, an internet-based organization that has sworn an oath of allegiance to ISIS and created and disseminated ISIS propaganda online. Al Safoo and other members of Khattab have created and posted pro-ISIS videos, articles, essays and infographics across multiple social media platforms, at the direction and in coordination with ISIS, the complaint states. Much of the propaganda created and distributed by Khattab promotes violent jihad on behalf of ISIS and ISIS’s media office, the complaint states.

On Nov. 4, 2017, according to the complaint, Al Safoo reposted in a social media application for Khattab members an encouragement for people to help ISIS in any way possible, including by offering money or themselves. Al Safoo wrote, “Thus, it was incumbent on us to support them verbally and with money and soul and by inciting others to target the tyrants and expose the evil scholars and the Saudi rulers,” the complaint states. On May 23, 2018, according to the complaint, Al Safoo posted on multiple social media groups directions and encouragement for Khattab’s ISIS propaganda efforts: “Brothers, roll up your sleeves! Cut video publications into small clips, take still shots, and post the hard work of your brothers in the apostate’s pages and sites. Participate in the war, and spread fear.” CONTINUE AT SITE

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/isis-targeting-water-supplies-power-lines-and-cell-towers/

ARLINGTON, Va. — ISIS is proving to be a “very elusive enemy” in its remaining strongholds in Syria as forces on the ground battle against omnipresent booby traps and a network of jihadist tunnels, and in Iraq where jihadists are tampering with water supplies.

Via video from Baghdad today, Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Col. Sean Ryan was asked why the Syrian Democratic Forces’ Operation Roundup, intended to clear ISIS fighters from the Middle Euphrates River Valley, seemed to be moving at a glacial pace compared to the seizure of ISIS’ capital, Raqqa.

“Raqqa and Mosul, that’s house-to-house fighting, to where this whole area is deserty area, it’s thousands of miles long. So it takes a long time,” Ryan replied. “ISIS has also been using underground tunnels, as we’ve mentioned before. And they are a very elusive enemy, there’s no doubt about. But when they’re underground, it’s very difficult.”

“I think the SDF is making very good ground right now. It just takes a long time,” he added. “And also, you have to remember, ISIS has booby-trapped and IED’d almost every area in there, to where you just can’t go rushing into these areas and clear them. You have to have the equipment and the manpower to do that. And often when you start the clearing, your equipment gets damaged when IEDs go off. So there’s not an, you know, unlimited supply of vehicles that they can use. They have to, you know, get resupplied.”

Ryan said when the SDF asks the coalition for something, “we are usually able to deliver it.”

Asked why U.S. officials have noted for many months that only 2 percent of the original caliphate still is controlled by ISIS, but that 2 percent has not been regained, Ryan replied that “it’s not about the land mass, it’s about taking away ISIS capabilities.”

“It’s not just killing ISIS fighters, it’s taking away their weapons systems, taking away their logistical support and things of that nature. So that’s happening every day,” he said.

Also, he added, “they had planned on this four years ago; they knew that they were probably going to end up in this area.”

“With the tunnels they have underneath and the tunnels that the oil companies left with food and supplies, they’re able to sustain.” CONTINUE AT SITE

https://pjmedia.com/trending/fbi-hazmat-team-descend-on-sen-susan-collins-house-in-bangor-after-ricin-letter-threat/

A hazmat team was called in to Senator Susan Collins’ home in Bangor, Maine, Monday after her husband received a threatening letter that may have been contaminated with poison. A number of other law enforcement groups descended on the Collins house, including the Bangor Criminal Investigation Division, the Bangor Fire Department, and the FBI, Bangor Daily News reported.

Police shut down a road adjacent to her house for several hours Monday afternoon.

“Senator Collins’ husband, Tom Daffron, today received a threatening letter that the writer claimed was contaminated with ricin, a highly hazardous substance which was used in a previous attack against the United States Senate,” Collins’ spokeswoman Annie Clark said in a statement Monday night. “Mr. Daffron, their dog, and parts of their home were quarantined while the crime lab undertook an analysis of the premises. The affected areas have now been cleared, and Senator Collins and Mr. Daffron will be able to remain at home tonight.”

Preliminary test results indicated there was no threat to the public.

Collins, a Republican, was not at home Monday afternoon while local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, including a Hazmat team from Orono, investigated her West Broadway residence. Sgt. Wade Betters of the Bangor Police Department referred questions to the U.S. Capitol Police, the primary investigating agency.

Police had no comment on whether they had identified a suspect, who would probably face federal charges.

Clark said Monday night that the threatening letter was “the latest in a series of threats against Senator Collins, her loved ones, and her staff.”

Collins has had to endure vicious attacks from the left both before and after she cast a decisive vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, including protests in front of her house.

The senator arrived home from Washington, D.C., in the early evening, after most police had cleared the scene, Bangor Daily News reported.

“We are very grateful for the immediate and professional assistance that we received from the Bangor Police Department, the Maine Crime lab, the Maine State Police Department, the Capitol Police, the FBI, the Orono Hazmat Unit, the Bangor Fire Department, the U.S. Army, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service,” Collins said in a joint statement with her husband on Twitter.

“We are also truly appreciative of the many well wishes that we received today. Our friends and neighbors have been incredibly kind and have even offered to open their homes to us. We feel blessed to live in such a supportive community,” the statement continued. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13124/global-zero-baloney

According to the Princeton University disarmament group, Global Zero, an agreement on “No First Use” would be in a new treaty — one in which everyone “sincerely vows” never to use nuclear weapons first.

If warheads were actually removed from both submarine- and silo-based missiles, however, it would take months to put them back on the missiles, assuming the storage facilities used for the warheads were not destroyed in a preemptive Russian or Chinese attack. Talk about painting a bull’s-eye on your nuclear forces.

The Princeton University disarmament group, Global Zero, has released a new 107-page report — “The End of Nuclear Warfighting: Moving to a Deterrence-Only Posture” — that calls for the unilateral disarmament of more than two-thirds of the US nuclear deterrent and the adoption of a Chinese deterrent strategy including placing most US warheads in storage bunkers far removed from the missiles that could carry them.

The report’s conclusions are as follows:
US Deterrent Policy

China and Russia have no incentive to attack the United States, so the US can cut in half its nuclear arsenal — unilaterally — as the US no longer has to worry about the size of the Russian nuclear arsenal in measuring its own deterrent.

A reserve fleet of 40 nuclear bombers, but not readily available for use, is proposed, as opposed to the 75 B52 and 100 B21 bombers for both conventional and nuclear missions in the Trump administration plan. Bomber weapons would be kept in storage only to be used in emergencies.

The US target list to be destroyed in a hypothetical retaliatory strike should only be Russian industry and leadership, including electrical facilities, banking and communications, with 50% of the targets able to be destroyed with conventional weapons and cyber-attacks, further eliminating the need for nuclear weapons.

No Russian conventional or nuclear military targets need to be destroyed. As Russian infrastructure does not “move,” there is no need to destroy it quickly.

Global Zero says the US should unilaterally adopt China’s nuclear strategy, with most of America’s nuclear warheads not on alert but stored elsewhere; a deterrent of no more than 200-300 warheads deployed and in reserve (compared to 3,800 today); and a posture of no first use of such weapons.

Global Zero advocates a submarine-based MONAD deterrent, as opposed to the current US three-legged Triad of bombers, submarines and land-based missiles. Only 260 warheads would be at sea under this deterrence-only plan; at first, total deployed warheads would be 5 submarines x 16 missiles x 8 warheads per missile — or 640 warheads, but then declining after that to under 300.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/hazmat-team-responds-ted-cruz-campaign-office-after-white-powder-arrives-in-mail/

Update 2:58p.m.: The Houston Fire Department confirmed Tuesday afternoon that the substance was found to be non-toxic.

A Hazmat team was dispatched to Senator Ted Cruz’s campaign office in Houston, Texas Tuesday after staffers opened an envelope containing a white powder that may be toxic, The Weekly Standard reported.

While it remains unclear whether the material was in fact toxic, two people present at the office building were hospitalized after coming into contact with the substance, according to the Houston Fire Department.

Two people were taken to the hospital after apparently being exposed to a white powdery substance in an office building at 3200 SW Fwy. The 9th floor of the Phoenix Tower has been evacuated as HFD HazMat is responding to the scene working to determine the nature of the substance.