Charles Pierce: Saying Crazy Apocalyptic Sh*t All the Time Has Consequences

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a37352075/capitol-truck-bomb-suspect-joe-biden-afghanistan/

The Library of Congress is one of my favorite places to avoid work anywhere on Capitol Hill. It’s a block or so from everything, so if you find listening to the House of Representatives a soul-deadening experience, as it can be, you can escape and check out some cool “printed ephemera.” After all, you can never see enough Thanksgiving proclamations from Royal Governour Gurdon Saltonstall of the colony of Connecticut. The air-conditioning is first-rate, too.

On Thursday, a guy drove up on the sidewalk outside the LOC and, over the course of five hours, explained to police that he had a truck bomb. If it detonated, it would have taken out both buildings of the library, as well as a very cool fountain, a hunk of the Supreme Court building and, depending on the size of the bomb, maybe a piece of the Capitol and/or one of the House office buildings. The tourist casualty rate might have been dreadful. Like I said, it’s a block from everywhere. From the Washington Post:

U.S. Capitol Police said in a Twitter message that they were checking a suspicious vehicle near the Library of Congress. The Cannon, Jefferson and Madison office buildings have been evacuated. Police said there is a possible explosive device in the pickup truck, though no explosives have been found at this point.

U.S. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said the incident started around 9:15 a.m. when the man drove a black pickup truck onto the sidewalk outside the Library of Congress at First Street and Independence Avenue SE. He said the driver told an officer who responded to the call that “he had a bomb” and the officer said he saw what “appeared to be a detonator.” Manger said negotiators were “hard at work” talking to the man and that he was hoping to have “a peaceful resolution to this incident.”

*snip*