Clock kid keeps ticking — and so does media interest

The Washington Post ^ | 10/1/15 | Justin Wm. Moyer

[Faith Presses On]

The saga of the clock kid, now entering its second month, keeps on ticking.

In September, Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old freshman at Irving MacArthur High in Irving, Tex., was arrested for building a device thought to be a bomb until it turned out to be a clock. Ahmed is Muslim, and accused his school of anti-Muslim bigotry. And, most memorably, he was invited to the White House, among many other places, as right-wing commentators seethed.

(snip)

And just this week, in response to records requests from The Post and the Dallas Morning News, among others, the Irving Police Department asked Texas’s attorney general, more or less, for permission not to release anything.

“The Irving Police Department has received requests for information which fall within exceptions to required disclosure under the Texas Public Information Act,” the letter, sent to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, read. “The Department has withheld that information, and requests an opinion from your office holding that the information is excepted from mandatory public disclosure.”

[Faith Presses On]

Breitbart earlier reported that police are denying records requests due to the possibility of the Mohamed family filing a lawsuit:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/24/police-report-blocked-muslims-clock-case-lawsuit/

[mylife]

By God! this kid is bigger than Tesla!

[Kandy Atz]

If they sue, doesn’t that mean the end to little bomb hoax boy’s right to privacy? It sure would be nice to hear from the adults at IPD and Irving ISD.

[mylife]

It would mean there would be a discovery process

[TChad]

Since this is the leftist Washington Post, there is no mention of the critical fact that Ahmed built nothing original. The functioning parts of his clock were the innards of an old Micronta clock. He just moved those innards to a new container.

Since Ahmed built nothing original, he knew that he had done nothing that might impress his teachers. He wasn't trying to impress his teachers.

He took the clock to school as a bomb hoax. That also explains why he refused to answer questions from school staff and police about the clock. Had the clock been a legitimate "invention," he would have been happy to answer those questions.

He staged the bomb hoax so he and his family could scream "ISLAMOPHOBIA," and rake in any perks that might come from his fabricated victim status. Those perks have been flooding in ever since. He won the false-victim jackpot!

Not that you'd ever guess that from reading the Washington Post.

[Faith Presses On]

It would be nice to be able to hear from them. While secular humanists commenting on the case seem to think that they’re conservatives, that isn’t necessarily so. It could very well be some Democratic-voting, ultra-liberal teachers just thinking they need to exercise caution like they routinely do all the time. I read in one news report that it is three teachers that “filed a complaint,” or something like that, against Mohamed in the case. Perhaps that meant two teachers and the principal? After all the publicity the family has gotten for themselves, without equal scrutiny, the public is owed answers.

[The_Media_never_lie]

In September, Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old freshman at Irving MacArthur High in Irving, Tex., was arrested for building a device thought to be a bomb until it turned out to be a clock. Ahmed is Muslim, and accused his school of anti-Muslim bigotry. And, most memorably, he was invited to the White House, among many other places, as right-wing commentators seethed.

Why the gratuitous dig at the "right wing" commentators? The kid baited police and the school administration and is being rewarded from the Community Agitator in Chief. Why shouldn't everyone be up in arms?

[Faith Presses On]

The very same Post author has those angles covered. He dismisses them all as conservatives playing politics while liberals just stand up for principles, innocent children, and the American way:

t was early Saturday — 12:26 a.m. Eastern time, to be exact — or, if former Alaska governor Sarah Palin were in the state she once ruled, Friday evening. But the onetime Republican vice presidential candidate had something on her mind. It was an issue her daughter Bristol had chimed in on a few days earlier — but one so vital that Mama Grizzly had to get her thoughts out, albeit a few days late.

Palin was thinking about Ahmed Mohamed, Muslim clock kid.

“Yep, believing that’s a clock in a school pencil box is like believing Barack Obama is ruling over the most transparent administration in history,” Palin wrote in a lengthy Facebook post condemning the “dangers of a reactionary-slash-biased media.” Palin said this press machine allegedly helped compel the White House to invite Ahmed, the Texas teen arrested for building a device thought to be a bomb until it turned out to be a clock, to Washington.

(snip)

For decades, liberals and conservatives have fought about states’ rights, government’s role in the economy and freedom of religion. Now they were fighting about whether or not a clock was a clock.

(snip)

“Ahmed Mohamad [sic] did not invent, nor build a clock,” a widely circulated piece written in a Buffalo, N.Y., alt-weekly by Anthony DiPasquale, the alt-weekly’s webmaster. “He took apart an existing clock, and transplanted the guts into a pencil box, and claimed it was his own creation. It all seems really fishy to me.”

(snip)

At least the conservative media, however, was no longer “ignoring” the story, as Mother Jones said.

“I realize that this kind of thing doesn’t interest conservatives much, but it’s such a blatant and stupid abuse of power that you’d think it would at least give them an opportunity to show that occasionally they care about obvious bigotry like this,” Kevin Drum wrote. “Plus they’d get to take a shot at a public school and its stupid overpaid administrators. What more do they want?”

(That was their conclusion to the article)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/09/21/muslim-clock-kid-biased-liberals-love-him-bizarre-conservatives-hate-him/

[Calpublican]

Oh, gag me already.

[Timpanagos1]

“By God! this kid is bigger than Tesla!”

Not just that. He had exploited his faux arrest and is making more money than Tesla. By the time this is all done and forgotten he will be worth millions.

[madprof98]

He is the anti-KIM-DAVIS, worldly, multicultural, cocky, hostile to authority (except Sharia law) and totally not Christian. If they found out it really was a bomb hoax he had in mind, they’d just yuck it up . . . with him and his friend in the Rose Garden.

[Faith Presses On]

And there's more. He's doing motivational speaking already:

Ahmed Mohamed @IStandWithAhmed Sep 29
Life is what you make of it, being creative is a major part of it. Think outside the box, BE YOURSELF. Love Who you are and you will fit in.

https://twitter.com/IStandWithAhmed

[mylife]

The new Edison. LOL

[Republican Wildcat]

“Ahmed Mohamad [sic] did not invent, nor build a clock,” a widely circulated piece written in a Buffalo, N.Y., alt-weekly by Anthony DiPasquale, the alt-weekly’s webmaster. “He took apart an existing clock, and transplanted the guts into a pencil box, and claimed it was his own creation. It all seems really fishy to me.” (snip) At least the conservative media, however, was no longer “ignoring” the story, as Mother Jones said. “I realize that this kind of thing doesn’t interest conservatives much, but it’s such a blatant and stupid abuse of power that you’d think it would at least give them an opportunity to show that occasionally they care about obvious bigotry like this,” Kevin Drum wrote. “Plus they’d get to take a shot at a public school and its stupid overpaid administrators. What more do they want?”

LOL - it wasn't just a "widely circulated" story, what was in it happens to be very true. It's not even disputable. The 9volt battery wire was a dead giveaway not to mention the part stamps.

With liberal authors like this, you can't tell if they are lying or just stupid. The effect is the same in that they are presenting misinformation as fact to their readers. No amount of skepticism as to the kid's story being valid or any desire to verify the information they are presenting is actually true - it is all about the false narrative.

[Republican Wildcat]

It’s also false. It was thought to be a “hoax bomb”. Why did he plug it in and set the alarm to go off in class to draw attention to it? How can you tell time when the clock face is INSIDE the casing? What is so creative about taking a standard, cheap, commercially available bedside alarm clock out of its casing and putting into a pencil box shaped like a briefcase as an “invention”? Why are “right wing commentators” supposedly the only ones seething?

[TChad]

The very same Post author has those angles covered.

No, he does not. The article you linked includes this quote:

“He took apart an existing clock, and transplanted the guts into a pencil box, and claimed it was his own creation.”

Rather than rebut that critical point, the Post author then ignored it as though it was unimportant, so that he could ignore the obvious consequences if it was true.

If the "existing clock" story was true, then Ahmed did nothing original. He did not demonstrate his prowess as an inventor. He proved only than that he was able to use a screwdriver to disassemble an old clock.

If Ahmed did nothing original, he knew it. If he knew it, then why did he bring the clock to school? There is one very likely explanation.

I suspect that Ahmed had no idea that his little stunt would succeed so spectacularly. His thought process probably went something like this:

"I'll just make up something that looks like a bomb using the inside of my old clock, and I'll set the alarm so it beeps while I'm in class. If the teachers and principal take the bait and calls the cops, I'm home free! I'll be a certified victim of Islamophobia!"

This might have worked without the national publicity, but after a blogger identified the specific Micronta clock that Ahmed claimed to have invented, the story broke down. Unless the clock was substantially original, Ahmed had no justification for bringing it to class except as a bomb hoax.