The people apprehended in this morning’s armed standoff in Wakefield appeared to possess military-style assault weapons, which Massachusetts, unlike other states, prohibits owning and transporting.https://t.co/1ruIKALQVC
— Ed Markey (@SenMarkey) July 3, 2021
My neck of the woods, but I wouldn’t have bothered putting this together, if it hadn’t made the comments here via the Grauniad. Dull story, short: Two SUVs of ‘Moorish’ (i.e., Black) sovereign citizens ran out of gas on their way from Rhode Island to spend the long weekend doing militia training in the Maine woods. Massachusetts state police patrolling for drunks & other holiday mishaps were understandably suspicious of heavily armed guys in camo standing around in the rain in the middle of the night, leading to an all-day standoff.
Things could’ve been much worse, given a busy freeway on a holiday weekend, if the weather hadn’t been so dismal. There would probably have been no real media attention, if not for the dearth of content over a holiday weekend…
People who live near scene of I-95 standoff relieved by peaceful resolution https://t.co/rUuUZ83DZV
— WCVB-TV Boston (@WCVB) July 3, 2021
Mysteriously, I think they're gonna pass this time https://t.co/BbjL7fN6Rw
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) July 3, 2021
I-Team: Jahmal Latimer Identified As Leader Of Wakefield Standoff Suspects Called ‘Rise Of The Moors’ (via @CherylFiandaca) https://t.co/DBoWDfmuv5
— WBZ | CBS Boston News (@wbz) July 3, 2021
Patricia Kayden
So they were on their way to do “militia training” but were so inept that they ran out of gas before they reached their destination? Alrighty then.
HumboldtBlue
Ask any question about what’s most important thing in military operations and the answer is always the same — logisitics.
Gotta have the food, the guns, the ammo and if you’re driving, the fuel. Poor planning by the staff.
Dan
It’s Moops.
Jerzy Russian
I went and bought a face shield from Home Depot. I am happy to report it does not fog up when I wear an N95 mask while working on wood in the garage. All of my other safety glasses fog up when wearing a mask, so this is an improvement.
dmsilev
@Patricia Kayden: I think “have enough gas to reach your destination” is lesson #1 in the training course.
NotMax
@Patricia Kayden
“Me? I thought you filled it up.”
Anne Laurie
@Patricia Kayden: To be honest, my first thought was that these ‘Moorish’ sov-cits tend to be living on the ragged edge, and SUVs expensively suck fuel. The dumb bastids might just’ve miscalculated whether they could nurse what was in the tank until they made it out of Massachusetts, where gas is (relatively) expensive. Especially since they seem to have had an ’emergency’ can of gas in the other vehicle.
Jerzy Russian
@Patricia Kayden: Who among us hasn’t run out of gas while on the way to do militia training?
Tom Levenson
@Patricia Kayden: From Pawtucket! That’s ~80 miles from where they stopped. I’d say someone needs to have a word with whoever was in charge of logistics.
ETA: Should read the thread before commenting. I see many of us have had the same thought.
HumboldtBlue
@Tom Levenson:
This reeks of one too many bong hits before leaving and that unnecessary joint 10 minutes into the trip.
Juju
Is this group part of the same group that tried to claim ownership of a house in NJ by squatting and changing the locks? I thought there was Moors somewhere in the name of that group. I think it was a tic toc.
Brachiator
@HumboldtBlue:
When I was a kid, I had relatives who owned a mortuary. There was a gas pump in the back, which I thought was cool. Free gasoline!
Only much later did it dawn on me that you never wanted the hearse or the vehicles carrying the main family to run out of gas on the way to the cemetery.
NotMax
@Juju
Moor or less.
;)
hoosierspud
It reminded me of Ignatius J. Reilly’s “Crusade for Moorish Dignity” in “A Confederacy of Dunces”.
Another Scott
I’m glad that things ended peacefully.
Entertaining YouTube – unfortunate physics prof bets that air-driven car can’t go faster than the wind (18:12). Mechanics is often counter-intuitive…
(He should have remembered that sail boats often go faster than the wind…)
(via Google News/Vice News)
Cheers,
Scott.
Juju
@Jerzy Russian: I ran out of gas once, actually a few times, when I drove my VW bug as my main car and the gas gauge stopped working. I knew that I got roughly 250 miles for a full tank of gas, and I would write the mileage that I was at plus 250 on the interior windshield. I learned the hard way that a permanent marker and alcohol wipes was better than a water based marker for the mileage estimate, but I wasn’t heading to militia training. So not really the same thing.
stupid autocomplete
Juju
@NotMax: Thanks for that.
Cheryl Rofer
@Juju: Yes, that’s them.
Here’s the Southern Poverty Law Center writeup on the group.
It turns out that White People don’t have a monopoly on convoluted conspiracy theories
Also, props to the cops for not turning it into a bloodbath.
CaseyL
It’s discriminatory of me, and my attitude may be affected by the Nation of Islam who (whatever else you might say about them) seem to be highly intelligent and competent, but I would have assumed black militant/separatist/sov-cits would be better at planning this sort of thing than their white redneck counterparts.
Not least because they’d be, quite rationally, more worried about encountering cops.
RandomMonster
@Juju: I wondered about that too.
Steeplejack
This whole situation was crazy. Someone on Twitter said the Moors probably ran out of gas because they didn’t want to stop at gas stations on the interstate for fear of “attracting attention.” Hey, guys, pro tip: maybe stash the tactical gear and weapons until you get to the militia camp. I don’t know what the black guy equivalent of Madras shirts and cargo pants is, but wear that! (Also good for when you do run out of gas and have to refuel on the side of the interstate.)
JoyceH
On the bright side, I’ve been thinking for a while that the one thing that could make the right wing begin to appreciate the danger of civilians stockpiling high-powered weaponry would be if black people started doing it. The fact that they were also going in for the ‘military maneuvers in the woods’ is just icing on the cake, IMO.
Adam L Silverman
@Anne Laurie: From the reporting I saw this morning, the guy leading the group indicated they didn’t want to make a scene at a gas station and thought doing the fill up this way would be less confrontational.
Juju
@Cheryl Rofer: that was an interesting read. I had never heard of this group before. I think I saw the story of the home owner in NJ who had to deal with them squatting in her house on Wonkette, and now the interstate thing. It’s interesting that they seem to have more of a presence recently. I hope it’s just an odd coincidence.
Adam L Silverman
I don’t mean to be insensitive, but the Moors were not sub-Saharan Africans. Originally the term was used for the indigenous Berbers and then to the Arabs of the Maghreb and the Arabs that conquered the Iberian peninsula.
While I’m at it, while the historic Jesus was most certainly unlikely to be strawberry blonde, he was Judean from the Galilee, which makes him a Semite. Semites are not sub-Saharan Africans either.
HRA
There is a militia group in the US who do not believe in our laws?
Steeplejack
I am striving to resist the temptation to start on my Sunday crosswords—New York Times and three from the Washington Post. Four big beauties that all dropped within the last hour or so. But if I do them now I won’t have anything for coffee and rugelach in the morning. ?
Steeplejack
@HRA:
Inorite. Shocking!
Adam L Silverman
@JoyceH: The history of 2nd Amendment restrictions in the US, outside of restrictions in the post Civil War 19th century (wild) west, is the history of finding ways to restrict African American access to firearms. This was a hallmark of the post-Reconstruction and Jim Crow periods and the limited amount of firearm restrictions that the NAZIs imposed in the mid-1930s, which were restrictions on Jewish Germans’ ability to purchase and possess firearms, were modeled on the American Jim Crow laws. What we think of as modern 2nd Amendment restrictions began in California when Reagan was governor after the Black Panthers correctly identified a loophole in California state law allowing them to carry unloaded long guns everywhere. When they happened to show up at the state capitol all armed up on the same day as a number of public schools class trip day to see the capitol and meet with state legislators, everyone white and conservative, including Reagan and Ed Meese, freaked out. And, as a result, California’s 2nd Amendment restrictions were quickly passed into law and signed.
To a certain extent, the National Firearms Act passed in 1934 was also a result of casual racism against Italian Americans and the other ethnic American communities involved in organized crime. It was passed in the wake of the St. Valentine’s Day massacre, which was a mob hit by one group of Italian American mobsters on another. And it zeroed in on types of firearms or modifications to them that were popularly associated with Italian American and other ethnic American gangsters.
I am not suggesting that reasonable regulations involving firearms are, themselves, necessarily racist. Nor that they shouldn’t be considered. Rather, the history of firearms regulations in the US has deep roots in racism.
Juju
@Steeplejack: You know you don’t need to do all the crossword puzzles one right after the next. You could just do one now and save the rest for later.
Adam L Silverman
@CaseyL: There is some informed speculation that Wallace D. Fard, who founded the Nation of Islam, was the same person, going by the name Wallace D. Ford or Wallace D. Fard depending on the reporting, who was run out of leadership of the original Moorish separatist group in the 1930s. He attempted to claim leadership of the latter after the original founder died, eventually got run out, and suddenly someone with the same name and description turns up in Detroit and founds NOI. He then disappears again with the decade and is never seen or heard from again.
mrmoshpotato
@Patricia Kayden:
Yup. Slapdicks, every last one of them.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax:
“We don’t need gasoline! We have FREEDUMB!”
HRA
@Adam L Silverman: Thank you for the information.
Steeplejack
@Juju:
Moderation? What are you, nuts?!
I am watching Vacation House Rules and awaiting Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries at the hour. Possibly Yashahime on Adult Swim.
Adam L Silverman
@HRA: You’re welcome.
aarrgghh
just thought i’d mention the lawn jockey in the wcvb-tv tweet …
Steeplejack
@aarrgghh:
?
Adam L Silverman
@aarrgghh: @Steeplejack: At least it appears to be white.
Juju
@Steeplejack: I’m watching “Vacation House Rules” as well. The host sounds like a Canadian Kermit the Frog. I tried to type vacation, autocomplete wanted to fill in vaccination. When I was a child my parents always rented something that looked like the before cabin, but I’m one of five and we were a pack of holy terror.
Do what makes you happy with your puzzles.
mrmoshpotato
@Steeplejack: Up all night doing crosswords! You crazy kids!
mrmoshpotato
@Juju:
It ain’t easy being green, eh?
eclare
Can’t sleep, but at least fireworks have stopped here in Memphis. Reruns of Great British Baking Show it is!
Steeplejack
@Juju:
Ah, Vera has come on PBS. A rerun, but still . . .
I’m not sure about Vacation House Rules. The host kind of rubs me the wrong way, but he mostly does good work. And I keep watching it. The place tonight was a gorgeous location—“south-facing lake view.” And there didn’t seem to be a tightly packed row of houses across the lake. And he did a good reno.
Will hold off on the crosswords until the morning. The fever has passed.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
/crossword humor
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
Touché.
VeniceRiley
@Steeplejack: There is a season of Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon I really enjoyed. The perils of farming as seen by a noob.
mrmoshpotato
@eclare:
Earlier in Chicago, it sounded like there was a bombing raid a few blocks south of me. Distant booms still here.
Steeplejack (phone)
@VeniceRiley:
I’ll check it out. Those shows can go either way for me. I hate it when they get me thinking “Why did you ever sign up for this, you idiot?!”
CaseyL
@Adam L Silverman: That sounds more like a typo than an alias.
Probably the same guy, and if he was a black revolutionary in the 1930s… well, hopefully he switched to an entirely different name and made a new life elsewhere. Otherwise he likely came to a bad end.
Mai Naem mobile
When I heard it was a heavily armed bunch of people going from Mass to RI, my first thought was that it involved Curt Schilling.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
One of the best (IMHO) of that general type was Manor House, which appears to be still available on Prime (might be listed as The Edwardian Country House, they keep going back and forth on the title).
Fellow who, by lottery, was assigned to be butler slid into the role as if born to it. And pity the poor guy who ended up as hallboy. Six episodes only, so no extended commitment of time.
tokyokie
@Adam L Silverman: Excuse me, but a minor point: Bugs Moran’s North Side Gang was largely Irish-American, while Al Capone’s South Side Gang was Italian-American. But both Roman Catholic and held in similar contempt by the Protestant majority.
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
I may have seen some or all of that. But it’s been a while.
There were a couple of good Monk episodes in the same vein: one where Monk went undercover as the head butler at a millionaire’s mansion and one where he was infiltrated into a department store and became an all-star employee.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Another one with segments of interest is Snowdonia 1890, which I believe is still hanging out on Prime.
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
Added to the endless “check it out” queue.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Totally unrelated programming – while choppy in quality (and internal logic), slick enough that you might enjoy the movie Steel Rain on Netflix as escapist fare.
Popular enough in Korea to merit a sequel, which has not yet hit the U.S. streaming services as a free offering, AFAIK.
Yutsano
@CaseyL: I’m just going to use the opportunity to leave this here. I am also extremely upset that I just learned about her today. She sounds like a fascinating character.
Anne Laurie
If they didn’t expect a heavy police presence on I95 during a holiday weekend… well, we *all* make mistakes sometimes…
Seriously, if they’d left their guns in the vehicles, I doubt anybody at the 24-hour rest stops would’ve noticed their presence. But I guess an excessive attachment to one’s weapons is a color-blind psychological problem!
NotMax
@Anne Laurie
“It’s my emotional support carbine.”
Steeplejack
@Anne Laurie:
»?«
opiejeanne
@tokyokie: And Bugs Moran survived the massacre by not being there.
He took a train to the west coast and laid low.
About that time a man rented a house for several months from a neighbor of my grandparents. When the tenant decamped in the middle of the night, the owner found a printing press in the living room, and the cops figured out that the renter was Mr Moran. .
NotMax
@opiejeanne
Kind of a shame that both Bugs and Bugsy have gone out of style.
Maybe I’ll start referring to the TV dinner heir as Bugs Carlson.
;)
HumboldtBlue
Just because it’s the 4th … Muppets
HumboldtBlue
I was brought up on them and I’ve always loved a march.
The Liberty Bell
sab
Since it is an open thread: new pet report. Pitbull has settled in fine. She loves all her new cat friends and they like her. Dobby the demon kitty is doing okay with most of the cats, but he doesn’t understand the girl cats with their ” No means no! We are not friends.”
Dobby and I are doing fine. He comes up to me, I scritch his head. A couple of times he has spent over an hour in my lap.
Dobby and husband not so good. Husband has cat charisma, but Dobby is terrified of men. And husband, although cat friendly, is very loud.
Dobby jumped up on back of husband’s recliner last night. Husband was terrified but hopeful. But watching sports. Husband got loud, Dobby clawed his ear and took off.
NotMax
@HumboldtBlue
A march, you say?
;)
NotMax
@NotMax – @HumboldtBlue
Or, titularly more internet-y.
;)
HumboldtBlue
@NotMax:
ain’t got no Marines, disqualified.
NotMax
@HumboldtBlue
Would you settle for paratroopers?
Amir Khalid
A happy Fourth of July to my American friends. A song for the occasion.
JWR
Has this been talked about today? (If so, I missed it.)
And here’s video of a White or Hispanic creepazoid, shirtless and covered with tattoos, swinging a chain, busting one of the (possibly) Antifa peeps up-side the head, immediately getting knocked on his ass. (Ha ha.) Police cuffed and led chain guy away, but no word on any arrests.
sab
@Amir Khalid: Thank you.
Steeplejack
@sab:
Good news about the recent adoptees—better than I expected from your initial reports. Dobby especially has come a long way.
Is there any chance that your husband can mute himself a bit when Dobby makes an overture?
Noname
@Dan:
They also invaded Spain ?
Wvng
My sister in law just sat on a jury where one of these dudes was the defendant. He claimed the court had no authority over him and that he had diplomatic immunity. Also he had changed his name so past felonies didn’t count. It didn’t go well for him.
Central Planning
Over one spring break we drove south to visit my dad. The minivan was maxed out with kids and luggage, and we were flying in bumper-to-bumper traffic. I estimated we were getting around 25MPG.
On the way home, using that 25MPG estimate, I figured how long I could go before getting gas. The low gas light went on and I figured I could make it a few more exits on I-95. As you may suspect, the minivan ran out of gas. Fortunately there was an upcoming exit. I put the transmission in neutral and was able to coast to the exit, up the ramp, and there was just enough momentum to make a right turn out of the way. Thankfully, there was a gas station on the other side of I-95. I had to buy their over-priced 1-gallon gas can but it was well worth it. We refueled and went home.
At the time, my kids were young and being dropped off at school. It was my turn to deliver them on Monday. We got to school and the first thing out of their mouths to the teachers was “Daddy ran out of gas!”
Morals of the story: Don’t trust your own math for MPG, believe the low fuel warning light, and always have AAA.
Obdurodon
I guess they should have brought Moor gas.
artem1s
@Anne Laurie:
obsession with keeping the members of the group under your thumb too. they only needed to have one car stop to refuel. yet they ‘needed’ to do everything in a caravan. that mentality speaks volumes about how these paramilitary and militia groups recruit, indoctrinate and operate. keep the weaker members isolated until they are fully ‘trained’. Hopefully the newish recruits who were being taken on this weekend training learned a valuable lesson about their new friends. some of them will unfortunately double down and see the standoff as proof positive the group has actual legal standing and the establishment is terrified of them. they are opting to use fake legal documents as proof of their legitimacy for now. But they are also collecting heavy arms and training with them. Relying on your cult unity, delusions of granduer, and firearms to prop up your self-image is no way to go thru life son.
Chris T.
@Adam L Silverman:
That assumes there was a single person who was the historic Jesus. But: easily fixed, because if the Jesus that the illiterate Greek fishermen ? wrote about was actually a composite of 4 or so separate people, as some suspect, they were probably all Semites anyway.
Chris T.
@Juju:
Sacrilege!
(Seemed the best word, given my immediate previous comment)
Uncle Omar
@Adam L Silverman: #31 There might be a chance that The Honorable Elijah Muhammed helped him along in the disappearance, perhaps more subtly than how he had Malcolm disappeared.