Truck Attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas May Be Unrelated - The Thursday AM Quickie 1/2/25
You shouldn't trust anyone who pretends to know exactly what he is talking about, but when Trump says "the CIA must get involved, NOW, before it is too late," it's only fair to wonder what's going on with his supposed war on the "Deep State." - Corey
ON THE SHOW TODAY
1/2: Welcome back the MR crew with the first live show of 2025!
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Today you'll read about how South Korea's impeached president is relying on far-right YouTubers to protect him from arrest following his insurrection last month, why Donald Trump's endorsement may not be enough to save Mike Johnson's job, and how Palestinian rights activists are bracing for a crackdown on dissent in a second Trump administration.
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THE BIG NEWS
A Bloody Day in New Orleans, Las Vegas, and NYC
A US Army veteran drove a rented Ford F-150 truck bearing an ISIS flag into a crowd on New Orleans' Bourbon Street shortly after 3am on New Year's Day, killing at least 15 people and injuring 30 more. The driver, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, was a US citizen from Texas, who deployed to Afghanistan in 2009 and served in the Army Reserves until 2020, thereafter going to work for the financial services firm Deloitte. Security bollards protecting pedestrians from runaway vehicles were for some reason not deployed for New Year's in New Orleans. "We did indeed have a plan, but the terrorist defeated it," Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said.
After plowing into the crowd, Jabbar got into a gunfight with police, who shot and killed him. Federal investigators said they do not believe Jabbar was acting alone, in part because they not only found improvised explosives in his vehicle but in other locations around the French Quarter, which may have been planted by other people.
The FBI is also looking in to any links between the apparent terror attack New Orleans and a truck explosion nearly six hours later in Las Vegas, Nevada. Someone drove a rented Tesla Cybertruck loaded with firework mortars and camp fuel canisters into the valet area of the Trump International Hotel, where it caught fire and exploded, killing the driver and injuring seven bystanders. So far, only one connection between the two vehiclular attacks has been reported: both trucks were rented using the same budget app, Turo, which is like Airbnb for vehicles. It may well be a mere coincidence and, per the Las Vegas Review-Journal, police "have not found any indication that the Las Vegas explosion was tied to IS."
Finally, at least 10 people were wounded in a mass shooting outside a nightclub in Queens, New York, late last night. According to the New York Daily News, police are looking for a gray Infiniti that fled the scene and have made no arrests. "This is not a terrorist attack," the NYPD says. Just the familiar American drumbeat of violence echoing into the new year.