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| Alysia Gustavsen holds a candle in remembrance of the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando during a vigil at the White House last night. (Photo by Oliver Contreras For The Washington Post) |
DAILY MAIL
Those who knew Omar Mateen– whether his ex-wife or former work colleague – have revealed a disturbing portrait of a seething volcano of a man, filled with pent-up hatred and resentment that was likely to erupt without warning.
On paper, at least, Mateen was a classic second-generation immigrant, sharing religious traditions he inherited from his Afghan-born parents with the cultural ways of his native US.
Born in New York, his family – which includes three sisters – moved to Port St Lucie, on the Atlantic coast of central Florida, when he was a child.
There, father Seddique built up a successful life insurance business.
At high school, where he played American football, Mateen was shy, ‘dorky’ and was frequently picked on, although he tried to make light of it, say ex-classmates.
Childhood friend Sean Chagani said he was clearly ‘different’ but definitely not violent.
Mateen long wanted to be a policeman and took a two year minor [associate’s] degree in criminal justice at the local Indian River State college.
An openly gay former high school classmate said Mateen was friendly towards him and showed no sign of homophobia back then.
Mateen, who became obsessed with working out in the gym, applied to join the police but didn’t make it through training school, according to Syed Rahman, the iman of his family’s local mosque.
Instead, after working in half a dozen dead-end jobs, in 2007 he joined the British security giant G4S as a security guard.
Mateen’s responsibilities included working at a local courthouse and later manning the gate at a golf resort.
Tragically in the circumstances, in the US security guards are routinely armed and so Mateen was trained in how to use guns
At G4S, he earned a reputation as a difficult employee. Colleagues complained about his behaviour. He in turn claimed he was being harassed because he was a Muslim.
He was transferred to duties at a local golf resort, PGA Village, earning $1600 (£1200) a month. Former police officer Daniel Gilroy, who was Mateen’s partner there between 2014 and 2015, said he was openly racist and homophobic, continually making derogatory remarks about blacks, Hispanics and gays.
‘It became quite apparent the guy had anger issues and was very unstable,’ he said, describing how Mateen would kick walls, slap desks and even hurl chairs across the room for no reason.
‘I quit because everything he said was toxic and the company wouldn’t do anything. The guy was unhinged and unstable. He talked of killing people.’
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| Sitora Yusufiy, the ex-wife of Orlando shooter Omar Mateen, and her fiance, Marcio Dias, speak to the media at their home outside Boulder, Colo. (Autumn Parry/Boulder Daily Camera via AP) |
The first to experience the violence of his terrible temper was Sitora Yusifiy, an attractive young Uzbek who came to the US with her family aged 11 and settled in New Jersey.
After meeting Mateen through an online dating service, she agreed to move to Florida in 2009 and marry him.
Living in a two-bedroom flat in Fort Pierce owned by Mateen’s parents, Miss Yusifiy said Mateen, who took steroids for his bodybuilding, was within weeks starting to behave oddly, suddenly flying off the handle, verbally and physically.
‘He would be perfectly normal and happy, joking, laughing one minute,’ she said yesterday.
‘The next minute his temper … his body would just [go] totally the opposite.’ He was soon beating her for the slightest offence such as the laundry not being done, attacking her even when she was asleep.
The marriage ended after just four months when her parents, learning of the abuse, came down to Florida to rescue her. ‘They literally saved my life,’ she said.
Public records show he married again, this time to a Californian woman named Noor Zahi Salman. In 2013, they bought a home together near his parents and had a son, now three.
His wife has yet to speak publicly and deleted her social media pages.
Some friends say Mateen became far more religious after his divorce from Miss Yusifiy.
Police reportedly believe Mateen was linked to radical Muslim cleric Marcus Robertson, a former New York gang leader and jailbird who now lives in Florida where he preaches anti-gay hatred.
Police say Mateen had joined Robertson’s online Fundamental Islamic Knowledge Seminary.
It emerged yesterday that he visited Mecca in 2011 and 2012.
Neighbours describe Seddique – known to them as Sid - and Shahla Mateen as ‘very Americanised’ and ‘the nicest people in the world’.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3640030/Friends-colleagues-Omar-Mateen-reveal-disturbing-portrait-man-filled-anger-resentment.html#ixzz4BdR9v49g
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WASHINGTON POST
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WASHINGTON POST
-- Trump’s temperament will again be in the spotlight today.The presumptive Republican nominee pulled no punches in a lengthy statement yesterday, going so far as to call for Barack Obama to resign and reiterating his call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States (despite the fact that the shooter was born in New York).
“In his remarks today, President Obama disgracefully refused to even say the words 'Radical Islam'. For that reason alone, he should step down,” Trump said in his press release. “If Hillary Clinton, after this attack, still cannot say the two words 'Radical Islam' she should get out of this race for the Presidency. If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore. Because our leaders are weak, I said this was going to happen – and it is only going to get worse. I am trying to save lives and prevent the next terrorist attack. We can't afford to be politically correct anymore.”
“We admit more than 100,000 lifetime migrants from the Middle East each year. Since 9/11, hundreds of migrants and their children have been implicated in terrorism in the United States,” Trump added. “Hillary Clinton wants to dramatically increase admissions from the Middle East, bringing in many hundreds of thousands during a first term – and we will have no way to screen them, pay for them, or prevent the second generation from radicalizing.” (To be fair, this mischaracterizes Clinton’s position.)
Trump accused American Muslims 0f harboring terrorists and blamed them for the Orlando attack as well as for last December’s shooting in San Bernardino, Calif.
"'The Muslims have to work with us,' Trump said in a speech delivered Monday afternoon in New Hampshire. 'They know what’s going on. They know that [Orlando gunman Omar Mateen] was bad. They knew the people in San Bernardino were bad. But you know what? They didn’t turn them in. And you know what? We had death, and destruction.'
Mr. Trump’s speech, delivered at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., represented an extraordinary break from the longstanding rhetorical norms of American presidential nominees. But if his language more closely resembled a European nationalist’s than a mainstream Republican’s, he was wagering that voters are stirred more by their fears of Islamic terrorism than any concerns they may have about his flouting traditions of tolerance and respect for religious diversity.
"In a speech laden with falsehoods and exaggerations, Trump was antagonistic and pugnacious, in stark contrast to his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
"But now the kinds of outbursts that might have been disqualifying for any other politician, or at any other time, almost seem like standard fare — which is itself a testament to how Trump has reoriented the axis of politics and discourse. And everyone else is forced to adjust, from lawmakers in Trump’s own party to his likely Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton."
-- Needless to say, Clinton’s response was more measured, conventional and, in a word, presidential. The former Secretary of State did not make reference to a specific religion. Her initial response was characteristically cautious:
To get oriented, let's start with what our actual current president said. Obama wants to strike a balance between hitting terrorists abroad "hard" and cutting off access to weapons back home for the people in the United States they might inspire.
"We have to counter extremism, but we also have to make sure that it's not easy for somebody who decides they want to harm people in this country to be able to obtain weapons to get at them," he said.
Clinton: Stop the bad guys from getting guns
"Hillary Clinton delivered a sober address pledging that as president she would take on 'lone wolves' who might carry out terrorist attacks in the United States and calling for unity in light of the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando on Sunday,"
Clinton essentially echoed Obama's policy prescription, with a few more details. She stressed gun control above all else — specifically, a ban on allowing those on the so-called "no-fly list" to purchase weapons.
“We cannot contain this threat; we need to defeat it," she said. "If the FBI is watching you for suspected links to terrorism, you shouldn’t be able to buy a gun.”
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At least before Orlando, Clinton and Trump were pretty much tied in terms of who Americans think is the best candidate to fight terrorism.
It wasn't always that way, notes The Fix's Philip Bump. As you can see from the chart above, earlier in May, Clinton led Trump on this question by five points. In fact, at one point in the primary campaign, Clinton was the most trusted of all 2016 candidates on this issue, according to Washington Post-ABC News polling.
"Yet in recent polling, pitting her ability to address the threat of terrorism against that of a bombastic businessman from Manhattan, voters view the two about evenly."
“The disparity between the two encapsulates the choice facing voters this fall,” write Juliet Eilperin, Robert Costa and Anne Gearan. “Do they see Trump’s bombast as the solution to a dangerous world, or do they find comfort in Clinton’s more familiar manner? Trump’s way served him well in the Republican primaries. … But it is unclear whether the much larger general-election audience will react as favorably to a candidate who has called for ‘a hell of a lot worse’ than waterboarding, has said of terrorists that ‘you have to take out their families’ and who is willing to circulate unconfirmed reports on social media amid a federal investigation.”
-- “Trump’s tweet speaks to the single largest problem facing his presidential campaign,” writes Chris Cillizza. “While he’s mastered the role of tough and unapologetic leader, he simply cannot seem to understand that at times a president needs to be an empathetic consoler-in-chief, too. The job of president is a deeply complex one. You must be able to play both roles.”
- “Some of Obama’s most powerful moments as president have come amid tragedy,” Chris notes. “His eulogy following the shooting deaths of nine churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., was one of the best speeches of his presidency. His address in the wake of the 2011 shooting of then-Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D), in which 13 people were injured and six killed, ranks as one of his most poignant.
- There’s ample evidence — long before today’s tragedy — that Trump struggles mightily on questions of empathy. Asked which candidate ‘better understands the problems of people like you,’ 47 percent of registered voters in a late May Washington Post-ABC News poll chose Clinton, while 36 percent named Trump. On the question of who better represents ‘your personal values,’ 48 percent chose Clinton, and 37 percent went with Trump.”
Fix Boss Chris Cillizza wrote Sunday that Trump's lack of empathy would probably hurt him with a larger voting bloc.
2) But to play devil's advocate with himself, Chris asked Monday: What if Trump, with his empathy-be-damned approach, is exactly the kind of leader people want after the Orlando shooting?
It's possible, in the sense that Trump's improbable success has been possible. Cillizza: "There is some polling evidence that suggests people want unapologetic strength and decisive action when it comes to terrorist attacks." Trump projects nothing if not unapologetic strength and decisiveness.
Beware of a Beltway disconnect: After the San Bernardino and Paris attacks, Jeb Bush’s campaign thought he would benefit. He and his strategists thought it would be a gut check moment that forced voters to get serious. For a moment, this was conventional wisdom. Instead, Trump spiked in the polls. It turned out that conservative base voters wanted a candidate who they thought would ruthlessly go after the terrorists and they had little appetite for nuance.
Now we find ourselves in the general election, and conservative base voters are not who will decide this election. Chances are that the chattering and governing classes in D.C. will be unnerved, and probably outraged, by Trump’s speech this afternoon. Trump’s core base of support will love whatever he says because, in their eyes, he can do no wrong. The key question is how independents and center-right Republicans who continue to feel apprehensive about Trump respond. Do they like his tough talk because they want to get the bastards?
There is risk for Clinton. Two political scientists have done extensive research on how the public reacts to terror attacks. In their 2009 book, “Democracy at Risk,” Jennifer Merolla and Elizabeth Zechmeister argued that public attitudes shift in three politically relevant ways:
- When terrorist threat is pronounced, individuals become less trusting of others, even their own neighbors. They express less favorable attitudes toward immigrants. In particular, they become less supportive of the rights of Arab and Muslim Americans.”
- “The public’s tendency to rally around a sitting executive when confronted with an external threat is well documented. But we find the public does more than that … On average, leaders who are Republican, male, and have relevant national security experience tend to be viewed as more competent. ... Leaders who are both female and Democratic may therefore experience the most negative political consequences of terrorist attacks.”
- There is more support for hawkish policies in foreign affairs and homeland security, even at the expense of civil liberties. “This hawkishness occurs among partisans of all stripes.
- ”The attack will generate a fresh debate about gun control.The gunman legally purchased the two guns that he used (a .223-caliber AR-15-type assault rifle and a 9mm semiautomatic pistol) within “the last few days,” according to the ATF. The AR-15 is the same weapon used in Aurora, Newtown and San Bernardino.
There have already been 227 pieces of legislation introduced during this Congress related to firearms. “Most or even all of those proposals are going nowhere
Big picture: “The confluence of (gay rights, gun control and terrorism) in a single incident is more likely to muddy our already-sodden politics than to bring any clarity or sense of purpose,” Karen Tumulty writes in a poignant essay. “It has always been true that the toughest issues are those that pit our values against our fears. … Not since 9/11 has a moment like this brought the nation together, and that evaporated quickly. … Across the ideological and partisan divide, it no longer seems possible to even explore — much less agree upon — causes and solutions. So the response has been muddled, even while the next tragedy looms.”
Trump's comments have drawn plenty of attention, but one of them was particularly suggestive and dark, and it came before Monday's speech. In an interview with Fox News on Monday morning, Trump suggested that there might be a more nefarious reason Obama isn't tougher on terrorism.
"Look guys, we're led by a man that either is not tough, not smart or has something else in mind," Trump said. "And the something else in mind — people can't believe it." He repeated the assertion in an interview a few minutes later with NBC.
So what to make of this?
Well, Bump points out that drawing subtle lines from his opponents to conspiracies about his opponents isn't new for Trump; he was a big voice in the birther movement, after all. In this case, Trump is basically all but saying that maybe Obama is a secret Muslim and could be even ready to suggest that he doesn't want to get tough on terrorists because of it.
There's a growing body of evidence to suggest that Trump leveraged this corner of American politics to do well in the primary. But as with all things Trump, we wonder how much broader appeal this brand of divisive politics will have. We shall see.
So: some people say a lot of people think that the "I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'" approach is a core element of Trump messaging, reports Jenna Johnson. At least, that's what we hear.
"Following the country’s most deadly mass shooting, Donald Trump was asked to explain what he meant when he said President Obama either does not understand radicalized Muslim terrorists or 'he gets it better than anybody understands.'
"'Well,' Trump said on the 'Today Show' Monday morning, 'there are a lot of people that think maybe he doesn’t want to get it. A lot of people think maybe he doesn’t want to know about it. I happen to think that he just doesn’t know what he’s doing, but there are many people that think maybe he doesn’t want to get it. He doesn’t want to see what’s really happening. And that could be.'
"In other words, Trump was not directly saying that he believes the president sympathizes with the terrorist who killed at least 49 people in an Orlando nightclub. He was implying that a lot of people are saying that.
"Trump frequently couches his most controversial comments this way, which allows him to share a controversial idea, piece of tabloid gossip or conspiracy theory without technically embracing it. If the comment turns out to be popular, Trump will often drop the any distancing qualifier — 'people think' or 'some say.' If the opposite happens, Trump can claim that he never said the thing he is accused of saying, equating it to retweeting someone else’s thoughts on Twitter."