Well, CNN

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CNN Stealth Edits Article on Dearborn Plot From 'Islamophobia' Theme to 'Terrorists Caught'

CNN really, really hates the Trump FBI, so when [the agency] announced that it had arrested terrorists plotting a terrorist attack in Dearborn, MI, it ran with an article that all but said the plot was fake and concocted to discredit Islam. 

Earlier today, CNN cast doubt on the ISIS attack being planned by residents of Dearborn, Michigan, framing it as “Islamophobia.”

Later, the DOJ released a 70-page criminal complaint revealing that Dearborn residents Mohmed Ali and Majed Mahmoud possessed multiple assault rifles, over 1,000 rounds of ammunition, and detailed plans to carry out an attack on behalf of ISIS.

Following that development, CNN stealth-edited its article, effectively deleting it by transforming it into a piece about the DOJ complaint — not about “Islamophobia.”

When new details emerged in a criminal complaint against the plotters, CNN memory-holed the original piece and replaced it with one that merely detailed the accusations. 

Here's some of the spin from the first article:

Shortly after, FBI Director Kash Patel boasted on X the agency had “thwarted a potential terrorist attack” and arrested “multiple” people in Dearborn “allegedly plotting a violent attack over Halloween weekend.”

Considered to be the heart of Arab America, Dearborn is home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States and has frequently faced Islamophobic and hateful remarks. Abdullah Hammoud, the son of Lebanese immigrants, became the first Arab American mayor of Dearborn when he was elected in 2021.

Members of the community, including neighbors and attorneys for the people taken into custody, say they are skeptical of the allegations.

One of these neighbors is Laraib Irfan, who says his Dearborn community is a close-knit, peaceful place where everyone looks out for each other like family. ... 

Patel’s initial X post applauded the FBI for “crushing our mission to defend the homeland,” yet he gave no explanation or evidence to support claims of a foiled terrorist plot.

“More details to come,” he wrote — but so far, none has been alleged.

The FBI has not released any additional information, offering no clarity on when, where or how the alleged plot was meant to unfold.

“It’s curious to me,” Colin Clarke, a domestic terrorism and international security expert, told CNN. “What it makes me think is that the plot wasn’t maybe as mature as they led people to believe.” ... 

“An allegation like this is dangerous to this community,” Makled said. “So when you have the national director of the FBI putting out a statement that there was a thwarted terrorist attack and then the news covers the raids of homes in the city of Dearborn, immediately the backlash on the internet is homegrown terrorist cell.”

Footage of the raid posted on Facebook sparked bigoted comments: “A real shocker that they reside in Dearborn,” one person wrote. “Well, Dearborn does have a major Islamic population who aren’t exactly friendly to anyone else,” said another. Some accused the people in the home of being “sleeper cells.”

Although Dearborn’s large Arab population, which makes up nearly half the city, makes it an easy target for Islamophobic, racist comments, the city has been ranked the second-safest large city in Michigan, according to the FBI’s 2024 annual crime report. ... 

A neighbor, who asked to only be identified as “Ahmed,” said the people who lived in the home were kind, and he was not convinced the raid was based on credible suspicion.

“You never hear anything from them, they are perfect, smiling, and I do not believe anything happened (from them), they are very good people,” he said.

When asked about the FBI’s claim they stopped a terrorist plot, Ahmed interrupts and rejects the possibility completely: “No, no, no, no,” he says. “I don’t think so.”

Another neighbor, Kathy Sisson, also speaks highly of her community; she says she’s disabled and her neighbors, who are from Brazil, Pakistan and Iraq, are constantly checking on her to make sure she’s OK.

A person in the home where the FBI activity took place who did not want to share their name told CNN the people taken into custody “were just kids” and the situation was “being blown out of proportion and shouldn’t have happened.”

CNN has a convenient memory hole to hide its bogus reporting in; the terrorists’ lawyer probabky wishes he had one too:

Michigan lawyer says a Halloween terror plot that FBI Director Kash Patel described never existed

Lawyer Amir Makled, who represents a man from the suburb of Dearborn who was still detained on Saturday, said federal authorities haven’t given him many details about the investigation but after reviewing the matter, he concluded that no terror event was planned. He said he doesn’t expect any charges will be filed. 

“I don’t know where this hysteria and this fearmongering came from,” Makled said.

He described the all-male group of U.S. citizens as gamers, and said they range in age from 16 to 20.

“If these young men were on forums that they should not have been on or things of that nature, then we’ll have to wait and see,” Makled said. “But I don’t believe that there’s anything illegal about any of the activity they were doing.”

You can read the details of the crime (ironically, they were preparing to shoot up a gay bar - don’t tell the Queers for Palestine) in the story below. Attorney Makled notwithstanding, his boys were caught dead to rights.

Suspects in foiled Halloween terror plot pictured practicing at Michigan gun range: FBI

FBI recovered stockpile of weapons from suspects who allegedly planned Detroit-area Halloween terror attack

Che GueMurphy speaks

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He said the ideas that folks like he and Bernie are suggesting aren't "that fundamentally radical" but they are trying to "return us to a world in which we had a little bit higher level of commitment to each other."

"Don't be afraid of it because the world we are looking to build is one that is not going to be super unfamiliar to you" (Not if you’ve studied the history of communist regimes, no)

Murphy Claims Socialism Isn't Radical, Trump's Movement Rooted In "False, Perverse, Misogynist, Racist Nostalgia"...

Sen. Chris Murphy joined Anand Giridharadas on his October 29 podcast to talk about "fighting the authoritarian takeover, remaking the Democratic Party, and how you, today, can cure the disease that led to Trumpism."

According to Giridharadas, Murphy is one of the clearest, loudest and most unafraid voices against Trump.

Giridharadas wanted to get some insight from Murphy on what reflecting has been done by Democrats in the nearly one year since Trump won. 

"I think many people were not ready for how dizzying the campaign of destruction was going to be," said Murphy. "Trump and his crowd, they were ready this time, and from day one they began to unwind our democracy."

Murphy couldn't explain why no one on the democrat side has otherwise taken stock of what went wrong for them. He complained that corporate America just joined Trump, and blamed the media for not doing any "stock-taking."

"But inside the democratic party... there are some interesting sort of strains of thought, but I would say that almost all of the energy has been spent on trying to figure out how to engage in conventional resistance and we are still stuck as a party that is probably still unelectable in broad swaths of the country, as you know," said Murphy who has his own take on how to address the Democrat Party's "electability problem."

"My view, which is I think kind of the view of people like Bernie and Elizabeth and Mamdani, has not taken root as the conventional mainstream view," said Murphy. "I think most people just want to run back the same version of the democratic party that has gotten our clock cleaned in election after election."

Giridharadas pointed out that Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Zohran Mamdani scare certain kinds of people -- like those who fear socialism -- and asked Murphy to explain why they shouldn't be afraid of those "ideas". 

…. He said the ideas that folks like he and Bernie are suggesting aren't "that fundamentally radical" but they are trying to "return us to a world in which we had a little bit higher level of commitment to each other."

"Don't be afraid of it because the world we are looking to build is one that is not going to be super unfamiliar to you," Murphy promised.

…. Murphy said Trump is just a symptom of an underlying disease -- "a country that is having trouble finding connection to purpose and to meaning" -- and just beating Trump won't be enough to fix that. 

Murphy doesn't want his party to put its "thumbs on the scales against candidates who have really big ideas for how you deconstruct concentrated power in this country"... a comment he made in reference to Graham Platner, the democrat candidate in Maine who identifies as a communist and has a Nazi tattoo.

Giridharadas asked if it was possible to have more candidates like that -- in a scaled and systematic way -- without having to first change leadership in the Democrat party.

Murphy assumed the question was about Chuck Schumer whom Murphy says has "got a fucking hard job because this caucus is pretty diverse." Plus, Murphy said there aren't enough Democrats willing to take risks and "live outside the sort of conventional boundaries of politics at a moment of real peril like this."

Then Murphy said he wants to make sure that Democrats "do not sign onto a budget that funds a corrupt Department of Justice, a corrupt Department of Homeland Security, a corrupt FCC."

He further suggested we are in the "middle of the authoritarian takeover" and anyone not willing to stand up to the authoritarians should just step aside right now.

Probably not as much as they'd hoped but hey; they're rid of this troublesome house

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11 Langhorne Lane, a hangover from the collapsed Antares real estate (cardboard) empire, has sold for $17,370,000, on an asking price of $19.950 million. 26,500 sq. ft., 8.9-acres. The buyer’s from West Palm Beach and no doubt intends to use it as summer weekend getaway cottage.

Antares built this monstrosity of a spec house during the last real estate bubble and tried selling it in 2007 for $25 million, then $28 million, then went bust and unloaded it, unfinished and “as is”, for $13.750 in 2008. That buyer initially tried to resell it a year later for $14.5 but gave up the effort in 2010 and fixed it up, sort of, and attempted to get $27.5 million in 2011 on a promise to finish the construction. He didn’t, so far as I know, but he accomplished enough that these sellers were willing to pay $17 for it in 2014.

Why can't we erect this kind of camp on the grounds of John Cooper's Rock Ridge estate?

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Rock Ridge putting green

Not to single out John, of course; there are many other suitable sites for hobo camps, including David Rafferty’s Riverside manse, and Christ Church’s front lawn. Where there’s a liberal, there ought to be a way(farer)

Advocates call for heat at tiny home encampment in New Haven

City officials cut off electricity and heat to Rosette Village, citing zoning and building code violations

Advocates at a New Haven homeless encampment of tents and tiny houses, known as Rosette Village, are asking elected officials to do more to help them work through government regulations to get their heat turned on before the weather gets colder this winter.

Local officials had cut off electricity, which powers heating in the encampment, citing zoning and building code violations. 

The encampment is situated in the backyard of a house on Rosette Street in New Haven’s Hill neighborhood. The village’s organizers, Mark Colville and his wife Luz Catarineau, live in the house. It’s similar in concept to other communities that have been created around the country, including one called Dignity Village in Portland.

Cheer up, John — that’s not a jukked-up junkie wino pissing on your kitchen floor, it’s just a new neighbor you hadn’t met yet, until just now.

“The idea is to shift the culture around homelessness and think of unhoused people as neighbors rather than problems to be dealt with”, Colville said.

But the program has come into conflict with the city. 

When Rosette Village installed the tiny homes in October 2023, they did so without building permits. City officials said they were violating regulations and cut off electricity to the development in 2023.

The village has since gotten easements from the city Board of Zoning and Appeals, but it then ran into conflict with the state building code. That code requires that dwellings have kitchens and bathrooms. The tiny homes have neither. Residents use the kitchen and bathroom inside Colville and Catarineau’s house, said Colleen Shaddox, a volunteer with the organization.

Advocates pointed out that many college students live in dorms, which also require residents to walk a few yards to use a bathroom or the kitchen. 

…. Lenny Speiller, a spokesperson for the city, said the state Department of Administrative Services and Building Inspector have said the structures don’t meet minimum safety requirements including structural strength for wind and slow loads, fire resistance rated walls and sanitary provisions. The homes were issued permits in summer 2024 as temporary structures, which are only supposed to be up for 180 days, Speiller added.

On Monday, progressive members of the state legislature spoke at a press conference with the Rosette Village Neighborhood Collective. State Reps. Josh Elliott and Laurie Sweet, both Democrats from Hamden, said they want to pass legislation that makes it easier to replicate the model of addressing homelessness used at the encampment and introduce other protections for the unhoused population.

Rev. Gini King of the First Congregational Church of Guilford said her church wants to see the power turned back on. The congregation has helped support the village for years.” [the huts went up in October ‘23, so … 2 years?]

“Our faith calls us to justice, and having electricity turned off was not justice. It was a betrayal of justice,” King said.

During this year’s legislative session, state lawmakers proposed bills that would have allowed temporary tiny homes on property owned by places of worship and keep police from arresting people for sleeping outside. Both passed committee but weren’t called for votes on the House or Senate floors.

“I worry that we missed the opportunity to change laws for Rosette Village,” Sweet said. She is vice-chair of the newly formed Homelessness Caucus.

She said when the legislature reconvenes next year, she wants to address arrests for people sleeping outside, which has become a nationwide issue following a U.S. Supreme Court decision last summer. She also wants to look into ways state building code can be adjusted to allow housing like Rosette Village.

“We need to create and pass bills to change state statues so that neighborhoods like Rosette Village can have heat in the winter and continue to provide dignified housing year round,” Sweet said. 

Anyone checked out Greenwich Country Club’s 165 acres? There’s bound to be room for, what, 70 shacks? 100? Look for a strong letter to Greenwich Free Press’s editor from Cooper or Rafferty or both in support of just such a project, “but not in my backyard, please.”

I missed this sale last month

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188 Rogues Hill sold on October 11 for $ 11.250 million, a slight premium over its last asking price of $10.995, and not so awfully far from its 2006 purchase price of $14.650 million. That buyer almost immediately regretted his purchase and has been trying to undo it since 2008. Now he has.

I wrote about this property back in January of this year when, after a contract had fallen through the previous April, it was brought back on at $12 million:

After 14 years on the market, 6 brokers, and 4,312 (aprox) price changes, it's back, seemingly stronger than ever

188 Round Hill Road, 11 acres on the corner of Rogues Hill and Walter Noel Memorial Highway, is back after a brief hiatus and is now asking $12 million. Purchased for $14.650 on 2006, it’s been on the market since 2008, beginning at $18 million, dropping as low as $8.750 in October 2019 and now, as noted, it’s back up to $12.

It’s nice land, and even has a residence on it, so it must be worth something; maybe we’ll find out what that something is this year.

"No, no no; not weakened, our appeal has just become 'more selective'"

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Maine’s totenknopf senatorial candidate Graham Platner says controversies have ‘strengthened’ his campaign

The self-avowed communist, man of the people, who has previously described rural Mainers — his future constituents, he hopes — as dumb white racists, and wears (or wore, until two weeks ago) an SS death head tattoo on his chest, says he’s not worried about today’s primary contest.

Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner said a string of controversies have only “strengthened” his campaign.

Platner’s comments to NBC News come on the heels of the resignations of his national finance director Ronald Holmes III and his campaign manager and longtime friend Kevin Brown last week [and on October 17th, that of the campaign’s political director Genevieve McDonald]. Holmes said he resigned Friday because he feels his “professional standards” are “no longer fully aligned with those” of Platner’s campaign. Brown resigned days into his role after learning he has a baby on the way.

“It is amusing for me to watch the campaign described in the media as collapsing or falling apart — when internally, we frankly have not felt this strong since the beginning,” Platner told NBC News. “It hasn’t sunk my campaign. In fact it seems, in many ways, it’s strengthened us.”

The insurgent Democrat’s bid to take on Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins in 2026 has been beset with controversy over the past three weeks.

Last month, a video of Platner surfaced showing him with a tattoo depicting a skull superimposed over crossbones, similar to the Totenkopf symbol adopted by the Nazi SS during World War II. 

Platner, a 41-year-old oyster farmer from Sullivan, denies knowing that his tattoo was a Nazi symbol. He has said he got the tattoo in 2007 while deployed abroad with the U.S. Marines. While on leave, Platner and other Marines went to Croatia, where they got “very inebriated” and decided to get tattoos. He said that they all picked “terrifying” designs off the wall.

Platner has further denied allegations from Genevieve McDonald, a former state representative who resigned as his campaign’s political director, that he knew the tattoo was problematic weeks ago. He told The Associated Press that he has covered the tattoo.

Before that, his campaign was contending with the fallout from numerous deleted Reddit posts in which Platner asked why Black people “don’t tip” and suggesting that women concerned about rape not drink around certain people, among others.

Then, on Oct. 22, Platner confirmed to The Advocate that he was the author of a number of Reddit posts featuring homophobic slurs, anti-LGBTQ+ jokes and sexually explicit stories denigrating gay men.

He called the posts “indefensible,” according to The Advocate.

And then proceeded to try to defend them.

If Graham is sent packing after April’s primary, he can always go home, grab a handle of vodka and watch “This is Spinal Tap”

Fortunately, Graham will always have his inclusion in New York Magazine’s (they’re still around?) cover story on “25 Young(ish) Democrats to Watch” to console him, and remind him of better days.