Right-Wing ‘Dirty Bomber’ Killed in Maine-Media Ignores
If you were reading the mainstream media, you would have missed this.
A Nazi-sympathizer and white supremacist, distraught over the election of Barack Obama, purchased ‘depleted uranium’ over the ‘net (!?).
According to the dispatch from ‘Raw Story’, trust-fund millionaire James Cummings had the resources to construct a ‘dirty bomb’ and had been in contact with white supremacist organizations:
“According to an FBI field intelligence report from the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center posted online by WikiLeaks, an organization that posts leaked documents, an investigation into the case revealed that radioactive materials were removed from Cummings’ home after his shooting death on Dec. 9,” reported the Bangor Daily News.
“Amber (Cummings) indicated James was very upset with Barack Obama being elected President,” reported the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center (PDF link). “She indicated James had been in contact with ‘white supremacist group(s).’ Amber also indicated James mixed chemicals in the kitchen sink at their residence and had mentioned ‘dirty bombs.'”
“Also found was literature on how to build ‘dirty bombs’ and information about cesium-137, strontium-90 and cobalt-60, radioactive materials,” said theBangor Daily. “The FBI report also stated there was evidence linking James Cummings to white supremacist groups. This would seem to confirm observations by local tradesmen who worked at the Cummings home that he was an ardent admirer of Adolf Hitler and had a collection of Nazi memorabilia around the house, including a prominently displayed flag with swastika. Cummings claimed to have pieces of Hitler’s personal silverware and place settings, painter Mike Robbins said a few days after the shooting.”
He was killed by his wife before he could do further damage. In December.
Will some of the media apologists who occasionally visit this site please explain to El Somnambulo why this story has been virtually ignored by the mainstream media, both print and electronic? Are white supremacists building ‘dirty bombs’ with the possible intent to kill the President not newsworthy? Is this such a commonplace occurrence that it is considered ‘dog-bites-man’? Would the media apply the same standard to, say ‘the shoe bomber’, anyone with an Islamic surname, or to a left-wing whacko engaged in this kind of behavior?
Simply put, can someone with any understanding of journalism please explain why this story has been ignored everywhere except in the local Bangor paper?
Is anybody with a functioning brain awake at editors’ desks across the country? Or has editing been contracted out to Swedish chimps as a cost-saving measure?
Tags: Media
There’s been more than one scary white supremacist story ignored by the media. There was another one similar in Texas a few years ago, where the guy had a lot of fertilizer and other bomb-making materials (I’m assuming he didn’t have a farm).
I don’t understand why this isn’t a big story. Geez, we have to take our shoes off at airports because of one nutcase. Either nutcases matter, or they don’t.
And this guy was obviously crazy, and while he may not have been a direct threat to Obama he was a threat to his community.
This is always a good indication:
“This would seem to confirm observations by local tradesmen who worked at the Cummings home that he was an ardent admirer of Adolf Hitler and had a collection of Nazi memorabilia around the house, including a prominently displayed flag with swastika. Cummings claimed to have pieces of Hitler’s personal silverware and place settings, painter Mike Robbins said a few days after the shooting.”
Look, this cat was mentally ill. I don’t think that every sicko in a nation of 300+ million needs to be the topic of a NYT page 1 story. First problem is that the paper would need about 11 million pages…
Especially since the media bought all of the BushCo hype about Dirty Bombs. I still think that the media sees stuff like this from conservatives and thinks that it is basically normal behavior. And why report on that?
DG, he was building a DIRTY BOMB. a nuclear device used to kill millions. he should, under the right wing Bush doctrine be in Gitmo getting “interrogated”. he was also in contact with groups…. terrorist cells who knew what he was doing.
The problem is that WAR is alive and well. They need to be taken seriously. You don’t need to worry about patriots like Glenn Beck forming a shadow conservative party. You need to be concerned about these Turner Diary guys.l
“…patriots like Glenn Beck”.
Oxymoron of the Day
a nuclear device used to kill millions.
This is abit overheated. A dirty bomb is a basically a conventional explosive devise with radioactive material attached. The radioactive material disperses and exposes people to radiation. Past, of course, the folks outright killed by the explosion. You’d have to have a fair amount of high level radioactive material AND a way to really disperse it for real radiation effects. The psychological effects (and the long term effects to an area contaminated) are probably the biggest concerns. Which isn’t to say this isn’t dangerous. But it isn’t a plutonium device, either.
WAR is alive and well
Against your fellow citizens?
This is the real idiocy here — as if elections and civic government have completely stopped working.
DIRTY BOMB. a nuclear device used to kill millions
Uh, no. Dirty Bombs are meant to kill hundreds maybe thousands depending on the size and location and make large areas uninhabitable due to radioactive contamination.
They are more like a chemical weapon than a nuclear explosive device.
David, Glenn Beck is an unhinged moron who regularly gets facts wrong. He is a fear monger who needs conditions to go south in order to boost his ratings. I don’t think Glenn Beck has the balls to join the people he is stirring up, but the point is he is stirring them.
cassandra_m,
Apparently elections only mean something to these types if they can win them or steal them.
“Uh, no. Dirty Bombs are meant to kill hundreds maybe thousands depending on the size and location and make large areas uninhabitable due to radioactive contamination.
They are more like a chemical weapon than a nuclear explosive device.”
OH a1 that makes it OK than. whats a couple thousand american deaths to make a point
seriously?
They are more like a chemical weapon than a nuclear explosive device.
Only if you can 1) get enough material to disperse (and you know it will disperse properly) and 2) if you can build one big enough. The one that this guy would have been building certainly would not have been on this scale. Even the ones that BushCo were talking up were basically on the order of the OKC bomb + rad materials. If someone could get a military weapon and somehow modify it to include rad materials you might have something that might be that effective.
OH a1 that makes it OK than
Of course not, a. price.
My comment was meant to educate not diminish your main point.
and my point is that they are trying. Not all the terrorists who would want to kill Americans live in caves in the middle east.
That’s true a. price. Terrorism was not invented on 9/11/2001.
I’m glad this guy didn’t succeed but it doesn’t take very many people bent on destruction to cause a lot of problems. Look at the two D.C. snipers (or the one OH sniper) for an example.
I bet if this fella had a mean tan we’d hear about it!
And no, I’m not kidding.
I am not trying to diminish the seiousness of it but the fact remain… I don’t see how we can have an exhaustive story on every racist dipshit who claims she/he is going to build the “Dirty Bomb”… however you define that…
Oh.. and Glenn Beck is a fucking asshole and if you call him patriot you are a fucking asshole. I am so tired of of that…
Not to belabor the point, but there is a difference between someone ‘claiming’ they are going to build a dirty bomb, as opposed to purchasing spent uranium and other chemicals used in the building of dirty bombs, conducting experiments at home, and contacting terrorist organizations about one’s plans.
And just one more question, how can a company sell ‘depleted uranium’ on the internet?
DG, come on – the dude had $10 million per year and had jars full of radioactive metals in his house. He was a hell of a lot further along than Jose Padilla.
‘Bulo – that was the same question I had! I hope the FBI is shutting down a company that sells radioactive materials over the internet.
UI
You buy depleted uranium over the internet by posing as an environmental clean-up outfit. Depleted uranium ammunition is fired at most military training areas, and they have contracts for people to come out an remove it; then those people sell it to other companies that either reprocess it back into ammunition or who have controlled storage/waste facilities. You pretty much would only have to pose as one of those to get an environmental contractor to send you the stuff.
The irony here, however, is that depleted uranium is not really useful for making the kind of “dirty bomb” that everybody is talking about here. You’d explode it, and–as cassandra says–aside from the people hurt in the explosion the net effect of such a bomb might be to increase the cancer risk ten years down the road for the people in the area, not to kill them now. Depleted uranium ammunition is carried around and handled every day by our troops and contractors; again–as cassandra says–it ain’t plutonium.
Which may (or may not) explain the media failure to carry this story, since the guy was apparently a nutcase with not much understanding of how to do what he wanted to do.
anon – Agreed. This guy was worse than Padilla. But Padilla was (see VC’s # 19)…
And we can’t judge what to do here base on what Bush admin did to guys who didn’t do anything. Plus I tend to agree with Dr. Newton. Did this guy have an clue what he was doing?
Wow, I think it’s a crime that this story isn’t getting out there. There has got to be more to this, I didn’t see anything about the circumstances of his death beyond that his wife shot him. For tons of reasons, this story needs exploration.
“Glenn Beck is a fucking asshole and if you call him patriot you are a fucking asshole.”
It starts to make more sense if you make “patriot” the diry word it deserves to be now that the right wing has used it to define what we used to call “traitors.”
Old usage: “I love my country. I’m a patriot.”
New usage: “I love my country too much to call myself a patriot.”
Thanks, Steve.
Yes I do think it is a bit ironic that a so-called “dirty bomb” is actually less deadly than a conventional bomb because it lacks shrapnel. It can be very destructive though, and render an area unlivable for a period of time.