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Suspect In Custody For Norwegian Terror Attacks Allegedly An Anti-Islam Right-Wing Extremist

By Ali Gharib on Jul 22, 2011 at 11:33 pm

Presumed Norway bombing and shooting suspect Anders Breivik from apparent Facebook page

After a horrific day of violence in Norway that left more than 80 dead, police detained a man in connection with the massive bomb blasts that blew out windows for blocks in downtown Oslo and an attack on a youth camp about 20 miles away that followed shortly thereafter.

Police and the justice minister said a 32-year-old Norwegian man was arrested on the Island where a man who reportedly introduced himself as a police officer opened fire on teenagers attending a camp of Norway’s ruling Labour Party. The man was reportedly also seen in Oslo before the bombs went off. “The police have every reason to believe there is a connection between the explosions and what happened at Utoya,” police told the New York Times, referring to the island.

The Associated Press reported that a Norwegian public broadcaster named the man in custody as Anders Breivik. The British newspaper The Telegraph reported the same name for the suspect, citing the justice ministry. According to earlier reports on Norwegian television, Breivik, not named yet, had connections to right-wing politics.

A Facebook page (now taken down) bearing the same name as the apparent suspect lists his religion as “Christianity” and his political views as “Conservative.” The interests listed on the page range from the computer game World of Warcraft to the U.S. television show The Commish. A Twitter account also surfaced bearing the name Anders Breivik, but only one tweet had been issued. “One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100 000 who have only interests,” it read. Neither of the online accounts were immediately verifiable.

Another Norwegian news account, as translated by Google, indicated that Breivik harbored anti-Islam sentiment. The report said he identified strongly with nationalism and posted on an anti-Islam right-wing website, where he expressed views in opposition to multiculturalism and internationalism. He also expressed admiration for controversial Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders’s party.

Update

The New York Times updated its story, confirming the suspect’s identity with official Norwegian sources, as well as offering a few additional details, such as Breivik’s “farm-related business in Rena, in eastern Norway, which the authorities said allowed him to order a large quantity of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, an ingredient that can be used to make explosives.” Authorities are investigating the possible links.

Update

Norwegian authorities on Monday, July 25, lowered the death toll to 78.

Related Posts

Yglesias

No Deal

By Matthew Yglesias on Jul 22, 2011 at 7:10 pm

Once again, things fall apart in the debt ceiling talks. The way clear of this seems to me to be something like:

— Debt ceiling hiked by $2 trillion and paired with $2 trillion in spending cuts.
— House passes full extension of the Bush tax cuts.
— Harry Reid tries to bring extension of the middle class Bush tax cuts to the floor, but GOP filibusters.
— Bush tax cuts expire in 2012.
— Obama and GOP nominee fight it out in 2012.

This seems to me to achieve a substantive outcome better for progressives than the deal Obama is pushing for. At the same time in political terms achieves congressional republicans’ goal of avoiding an affirmative vote in favor of tax increases, and avoiding letting Obama play the Grand Bipartisan Dealmaker.

Economy

FAA Will Close at Midnight, Furloughing Up to 4,000 Workers

By Guest Blogger on Jul 22, 2011 at 6:45 pm

The Federal Aviation Administration will shut down at midnight after GOP senators refused to let go of an anti-union provision amending the National Mediation Board’s union voting rules. Speaking of the matter, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) lambasted his colleague Sen. Orinn Hatch (R-UT) on the Senate floor over the political manuevering, saying that Hatch is only presenting “one side of a story”:

We’re going to lay off 4,000 people at midnight tonight. Do you think that means anything to them? What I offered was a clean extension that didn’t get into the merits of this, which said let’s put this big debate aside and that debate aside and keep the agency working, the federal aviation administration. [Hatch] said, ‘No, you either take the Republican approach or else.’

And incidentally, he told you at the outset, the House Republicans have gone home. They’re gone. They sent this over and said, ‘Take it or leave it or close it down.’ That’s not a very sound choice for our country.

Watch it:

As a result of Congress’ failure to pass any sort of long-term funding deal for the FAA, around $2.5 billion worth of airport construction will cease and airlines will have to stop collecting around $200 million a week in ticket taxes. The up to 4,000 furloughed employees will include engineers, administrative assistants and computer specialists, but air traffic controllers will stay on duty.

–Sarah Bufkin

Alyssa

‘X-Men: The Animated Series,’ Technology, and Character Development

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Jul 22, 2011 at 6:36 pm

In between my Breaking Bad binges, I’ve been revisiting a bit of X-Men: The Animated Series, of which I saw a few episodes in my largely TV-less childhood. Aside from the fact that the creators clearly don’t trust public-private collaborations very much (I would love to see a Government Accountability Office audit of the Mutant Control Agency), and the extent to which the show clearly tries to balance out the fact that Magneto is right and Professor X is wrong by surrounding Magneto with morons like Sabertooth and giving Professor X cooler henchmen, the thing that’s striking me most is how the animation seems to impact the storytelling.

By contemporary standards, the animation’s really just passable. Things like wildly distorted body proportions, which have never really been comics’ strong suit especially when it comes to women, don’t bother me that much. But it is clear that to keep things simple, most of the motions that are animated are necessary to drive events forward rather than to establish character, and the show isn’t wasting a lot of time animating, say, chit-chat. As a result, a lot of the dialogue can sound a little bit portentous. Jean Grey and Wolverine don’t spend a lot of time flirting before he’s very seriously declaring his affections for her. People don’t spend a lot of time discussing tactics: they boil down to the core question of whether it’s right or wrong to leave Beast and Morph behind at the Mutant Control Agency. When Storm beats Callista and has her rule over the Morlocks in Storm’s place, they don’t discuss the condition of that new regime: Storm pretty much does a lightsaber drop and walks out. We may be walking into an established universe along with Jubilee, but we have to take a lot of things on faith rather than on evidence.

I understand it’s also a kids’ show, and thus intended to be simpler. We don’t actually need Wire-level of complexity here, or First Class-level debate. The show’s still quite entertaining, and quite good at laying out issues of governance, morality, and politics. But if this was in production today, my guess is that it might be a somewhat chattier show (and folks who have seen the whole thing, maybe it does during the run?). And man, would Jubilee have lost that outfit.

NEWS FLASH

Breaking: Boehner calls off debt talks with Obama | CNN reports that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has said he is walking away from deficit reduction talks with the White House. Boehner will instead hold direct negotiations with the Senate leadership to reach a compromise. “In the end, we couldn’t connect,” Boehner said in a letter circulated to the Republican caucus.

Update

Via Slate’s Dave Weigel, here is Boehner’s letter to his GOP Caucus on his decision to pull out of negotiations. In reaction to Boehner’s decision, President Obama said “When it comes to actually doing something difficult, folks walk away…We showed ourselves willing to do the tough stuff on an issue Republicans ran on.” Boehner Letter

By Faiz Shakir on Jul 22, 2011 at 6:06 pm

Special Topic

Bernie Sanders Says It Would Be A ‘Good Idea’ To Primary President Obama

By Zaid Jilani on Jul 22, 2011 at 5:50 pm

Recently, President Obama has faced fire from many in his own base for endorsing unpopular proposals that would include regressive cuts to Social Security in order to win a hike in the debt ceiling.

Today, while appearing on Thom Hartmann’s radio show, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) — who, while being an independent, caucuses with the Democrats — said that one way progressives can make sure Obama does not enact huge cuts to major social programs is to run a primary challenger against him. Sanders told a listener who called in to protest a debt ceiling deal that cuts Social Security that such a challenge would be a “good idea”:

SANDERS: Brian, believe me, I wish I had the answer to your question. Let me just suggest this. I think there are millions of Americans who are deeply disappointed in the president; who believe that, with regard to Social Security and a number of other issues, he said one thing as a candidate and is doing something very much else as a president; who cannot believe how weak he has been, for whatever reason, in negotiating with Republicans and there’s deep disappointment. So my suggestion is, I think one of the reasons the president has been able to move so far to the right is that there is no primary opposition to him and I think it would do this country a good deal of service if people started thinking about candidates out there to begin contrasting what is a progressive agenda as opposed to what Obama is doing. [...] So I would say to Ryan [sic] discouragement is not an option. I think it would be a good idea if President Obama faced some primary opposition.

Listen to it:

Sanders did not say that he himself would run in a primary against Obama as he is not a member of the Democratic Party.

NEWS FLASH

Coburn: It’s ‘Stupid And Naive’ To Think We Won’t Have Tax Increases | Combining a bit of basic economic common sense and hard political calculus, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) said on CSPAN today that it’s “pretty stupid and naive” to think that anti-tax absolutists like activist Grover Norquist will be able to avoid raising taxes forever. Sounding almost progressive, the hard-right senator noted that government revenues are at a 60-year-low and that people are unfairly benefiting from tax expenditures, thus loopholes will have to be closed and more revenue raised. He also made the obvious political calculation that Republicans only control the House, so they should not be dictating terms. Watch it:

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Jul 22, 2011 at 5:45 pm

NEWS FLASH

Rep. Moran: The GOP is the ‘Know-Nothing Party;’ ‘They Just Don’t Know, They Don’t Care’ | Speaking with ThinkProgress today, Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) offered a take on the reasons behind House Republicans’ obstinacy on the debt ceiling. Describing it as the “the party of denial,” Moran compared the current GOP to the historical, nativist “Know-Nothing party” that, incidentally, wanted to restrict types of immigrants and have daily bible readings in public schools. Moran said Republicans “don’t know enough to know what they don’t know,” including “how serious lifting the debt ceiling it,” or “the results of any of their own actions.” “They just don’t know, they don’t care,” Moran said, adding that “a majority of the House Republicans ran on the basis that government doesn’t work. And now that they’re elected they’re determined to prove it.” Watch it:

By Tanya Somanader on Jul 22, 2011 at 5:45 pm

NEWS FLASH

8 Key Points From Today’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Certification Presser | Here are the takeaways from today’s press conference on the certification of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal: (1) the policy will be gone in 60 days, on September 20, 2011, (2) the decision to certify was unanimous among the service chiefs, (3) in the meantime, a court injunction still prohibits the military from discharging or investigating individuals under DADT, (4) the Pentagon doesn’t believe it needs to impose a new nondiscrimination policy on the basis of sexual origination and gender identity, (5) because of DOMA the partners of gay and lesbian servicemembers still won’t be eligible for most federal benefits, although the implementation team will conduct a review to determine which benefits they can apply for, (6) the Department of Justice will argue that the Log Cabin Republican lawsuit challenging DADT should be dismissed since the policy will be officially gone by the end of September, (7) transgender people still can’t enlist, (8) discharged gay and lesbian servicemembers can re-enlist if they meet all of the qualifications of service.

A video compilation of some of the highlights from this afternoon’s press conference, which began at 4:30:

Yglesias

If Only Milton Were Around…

By Matthew Yglesias on Jul 22, 2011 at 5:29 pm

Will Wilkinson posits that if not for the death of Milton Friedman, hard money views might not have regained their currency on the right and the Federal Reserve might be in better position to deliver monetary stimulus.

Maybe so. That said, it’s not as if the country lacks for Republican Party members who are also well-known Ph.D. economists with views somewhere on the New Keynesian-monetarist axis. Greg Mankiw’s not dead, nor is Martin Feldstein. But these guys and other longtime GOP economic hands have largely been doing the usual Beltway wonk dance of speaking up for Republican positions when they agree with them, and staying quiet when they don’t. You don’t even need to see this as a particularly cynical way of behaving. In Washington, it’s ultimately a question of all power to the politicians. A wonk who insists on picking fights with prominent party leaders just finds himself marginalized. Next thing you know and you’re Bruce Bartlett. It’s arguably more useful to just keep your head down and make sure that if your team takes over they have some sensible people to turn to.

I think it’s especially difficult to be an advocate for monetary stimulus when the party you prefer is out of power. After all, it kind of seems like cheating. Here’s President Obama implementing tax policies you don’t like, health care policies you despise, and environmental policies you deem misguided. This is all stuff that you think will seriously impair jobs and growth over the long-term. Meanwhile, more or less by coincidence a shortfall in aggregate demand has created elevated unemployment and is making him unpopular. If AD stays too low, he’s likely to lose and his policies will be reversed — saving the country from a long-term drag on growth. Alternatively, the Fed could ride to the rescue with five or six years of Reagan-era inflation and ensure that Obama’s policies are entrenched. Sure that would help growth in the short-term, but there’d be a high long-term price to pay. So why contradict the Paul Ryans and Michele Bachmanns of the world when they run around complaining about currency debasement? I’m not sure a living Friedman’s calculus would be that much different.

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