Governor Abbott meets with Barack Obama. Washington Post/AP.
A Texas woman has been arrested for sending letter bombs to former President Barack Obama, Texas Governor Gregg Abbott and the Social Security office. Washington Post. The woman, Julia Poff, mailed the packages last year while Obama was still president. Governor Abbott actually opened the one mailed to him but it failed to explode because he didn't open as designed. Had any of the devices exploded, they could have caused severe burns or even death. Poff disliked Obama and was upset with Abbott because she blamed him for not receiving support from her husband. She was also angry at the Social Security Administration because she was denied benefits. Poff was captured due in part because of cat hairs found on the letter for Obama.
My Comment:
This was an extremely serious situation that could have killed Governor Abbott. It was pretty much luck that it didn't go off and the only reason it didn't because he opened it in a way she didn't expect. Had he done it like she wanted him to, he would be dead or severely injured right now.
The threat against Barack Obama wasn't as severe. The President of the United States is better protected than the Texas Governor. All of his mail is screened and he has the secret service to protect him. Plus, I doubt he opens his own mail, he has staffers for that and this is a major reason why. Still, one of his staffers could have been killed or injured which is also horrible. I also have to say that even though I never liked Obama as President, I would have been furious if this attack against him had succeeded, just as I would with the Governor or any of the workers at Social Security.
I'm kinda surprised that Abbott was opening his own mail though. Doing so has risks, as this incident shows. Abbott might want to take that risk in order to better serve his constituents, and if so that speaks to his character, but that might have to change after this incident. Abbott's a good governor and it would be a tragedy if something like this were to happen again.
As far as the suspect goes, she's pretty strange. In this age of hyper-partisan politics, it's rare to find a bipartisan attempted assassin. She attacked a Democratic President, a Republican Governor and a neutral government office. That's fairly surprising these days. Her political alignment hasn't been released, but either way, if she was a Democrat or a Republican, she was attacking both sides. Everyone should agree that we should throw the book at her.
She also seemed like a very entitled person. Though she just seemed to dislike Obama for whatever reason, she was mad at Abbott and the Social Security office just because they wouldn't give her what she wanted. In both cases that was money. And when she didn't get it she tried to murder people. She's an extremely dangerous person and was likely to end up killing someone eventually if she hadn't been caught.
From my reckoning this is the third or fourth major assassination attempt on a political official recently. We all remember the Steve Scalsie shooting and the attempt on Donald Trump's life as well. I think the assault on Rand Paul probably counts as well considering how critically wounded he was. It is very disturbing to me how close these nuts are getting to actually killing one of these politicians. Sooner or later one of these people is going to get lucky or one of our politicians will not be.
I don't think that this particular case is due to the high amount of discord in the country right now. Instead it just seems like this woman was angry in general and would have been angry regardless of the political parties involved. She was a danger to everyone around her and it is very good that she is likely to go to prison for a very long time. She also got a couple of charges for fraud so she's not likely to get out of prison anytime soon.
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