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Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Friday, October 26th, 2018

MAGABomber arrest: Law enforcement takes Trump admirer Cesar Sayoc Jr. into custody

Author­i­ties have made an arrest in con­nec­tion with the mail­ing of live explo­sive devices to crit­ics of Don­ald Trump and his destruc­tive, Repub­li­can Par­ty-sup­port­ed regime. Cesar Say­oc Jr., fifty-six, of Aven­tu­ra, Flori­da, was tak­en into cus­tody today in the park­ing lot of a shop­ping cen­ter in Plan­ta­tion, which is near Fort Laud­erdale. He is a reg­is­tered Repub­li­can with a crim­i­nal record.

Say­oc is a Flori­da res­i­dent, but he is orig­i­nal­ly from New York.

A white van belong­ing to the sus­pect — adorned with pro-Trump and anti-CNN stick­ers — was seized, wrapped in a blue tarp, and towed away.

The Depart­ment of Jus­tice just held a news con­fer­ence head­lined by Attor­ney Gen­er­al Jeff Ses­sions and FBI Direc­tor Christo­pher Wray.

Wray said that thir­teen devices have been inter­cept­ed by author­i­ties, and that Say­oc is being charged with five fed­er­al crimes which car­ry a sen­tence of up to fifty-eight years. The bombs were not hoax devices, Wray emphasized.

A fin­ger­print found on the pack­age sent to Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Max­ine Waters was cru­cial to allow­ing the FBI to pin­point Say­oc as the sus­pect, Wray said.

Ses­sions and Wray said they would not dis­cuss whether Say­oc was coop­er­at­ing with inves­ti­ga­tors, or what his moti­va­tion was. They did spend a lot of time tout­ing the “unbe­liev­able work” done by the FBI and its many part­ner agencies.

Asked why Say­oc was tar­get­ing Democ­rats, Ses­sions hes­i­tat­ed, and then said: “I don’t know oth­er… than what you might suspect.”

Among the MAG­A­Bomber’s tar­gets were for­mer Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma, for­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, the Clin­tons, U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Max­ine Waters, investor and phil­an­thropist George Soros, and the actor Robert de Niro.

None of the devices reached their tar­gets, and mirac­u­lous­ly, no one has been injured by the devices… at least not so far.

Trump has of course not both­ered to reach out to the Oba­mas, Clin­tons, or Bidens since author­i­ties began inter­cept­ing the pack­ages meant to harm them.

Author­i­ties don’t know if all of the devices mailed by the bomber (alleged­ly Say­oc) are account­ed for. Those that have been recov­ered so far have been sent to the FBI’s lab in Quan­ti­co, Vir­ginia, for analy­sis. The work done by the lab was instru­men­tal in the appre­hen­sion of the suspect.

The FBI has not said if Say­oc is believed to have act­ed alone.

This much we do know: Don­ald Trump and his enablers have been reg­u­lar­ly encour­ag­ing and incit­ing the likes of Say­oc to com­mit vio­lent acts through their irre­spon­si­ble rhetoric. Trump is there­fore part­ly respon­si­ble for these attempt­ed acts of ter­ror­ism. So is the Repub­li­can Party. 

The Repub­li­can Par­ty was on a neo­fas­cist path before Trump came along, but under Trump, its march towards dark­ness has accelerated.

The Pres­i­dent is sup­posed to pro­tect the peo­ple of this coun­try — all the peo­ple of this coun­try, not just their own par­ty and their own base — from harm.

But Trump isn’t inter­est­ed in dis­charg­ing the very seri­ous and very impor­tant respon­si­bil­i­ties of the office he holds. He only cares about the trap­pings of the office, the pow­er, and the bul­ly pul­pit that goes with it.

And his Repub­li­can enablers, includ­ing Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, are okay with this. They’re get­ting what they want: tax cuts for their donors and right wing judges on the Supreme Court and oth­er impor­tant courts in this country.

Trump reg­u­lar­ly bash­es the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty and the press at his ral­lies. He has, on many occa­sions, made com­ments clear­ly intend­ed to incite vio­lence. He has even offered to pay the legal bills of peo­ple who com­mit vio­lent acts.

Cesar Say­oc is a Trump admir­er. Footage has already been found of him at Trump hate ral­lies. He is part of Trump’s base of vio­lence-prone, mil­i­tant extremists.

Say­oc is unfor­tu­nate­ly not an atyp­i­cal Trump sup­port­er, because so many Trump sup­port­ers have demon­strat­ed a pro­cliv­i­ty to violence.

Check out the pho­to below of a Trump sup­port­er wear­ing a shirt which says: “Rope. Tree. Jour­nal­ist. Some Assem­bly Required.”

Some Repub­li­cans, blind to the real­i­ty of what is hap­pen­ing in their par­ty, may not wish to acknowl­edge this truth. But it’s impor­tant the rest of us under­stand it and say it. What’s hap­pen­ing right now in this coun­try is not nor­mal. It is dis­grace­ful, it is dis­gust­ing, and it must be called out and addressed by all true patriots.

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