Inland Regional Center Reopens: 'You Can't Beat Us,' Rudy Giuliani Tells Terrorists (VIDEO)

At the Riverside Press-Enterprise, "SAN BERNARDINO SHOOTING: ‘You can't beat us,' Rudy Giuliani tells terrorists in memorial speech."

And watch, at AP, "Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and evangelical pastor Rick Warren are spoke at a memorial for those killed in the San Bernardino terror attack on Monday."

More, at ABC News 7 Los Angeles, "SAN BERNARDINO MASS SHOOTING: INLAND REGIONAL CENTER REOPENS AFTER SAN BERNARDINO TERROR ATTACK."

Concealed Carry Permit Inquiries Surge After #SanBernardino Attacks (VIDEO)

Remember, from a couple of weeks ago, "Surge in Gun Sales in Southern California (VIDEO)."

Now, even as leftists push more and more restrictions on firearms, folks want to be able to carry.

Watch, at CBS News 2 Los Angeles, "Concealed Carry Permit Inquiries Jump In Wake of San Bernardino Terror Attack."

German Jihadist Returns from Syria and Gives Testimony

At Der Spiegel, "Back from the 'Caliphate': Returnee Says IS Recruiting for Terror Attacks in Germany":

Islamist extremist Harry S. wasn't in Syria for long. But during his stay there, he claims, Islamic State leaders repeatedly tried to recruit him to commit terror attacks in Germany. Security officials believe he could be telling the truth.

It was an early summer morning in the Syrian desert, with not a cloud in the sky, when Mohamed Mahmoud asked those gathered around him: "Here are some prisoners. Which of you wants to waste them?"

Not long before, Islamic State (IS) had taken the city of Palmyra, and now jihadists from Germany and Austria were to participate in the executions of some of the prisoners taken in the operation. They drove to the site of the executions in Toyota pick-ups, bringing along an IS camera team in order to document the atrocity in the city of antique ruins. Even then, Mohamed Mahmoud was known to German security officials for his repeated propaganda-video calls to join the jihad. On that early summer day in Palmyra, though, he didn't just incite others. He grabbed a Kalashnikov himself and began firing. That day, Mahmoud and his group of executioners are thought to have killed six or seven prisoners.

The story comes from someone who was in Palmyra on that day: Harry S., a 27-year-old from Bremen. "I saw it all," he says.

Harry S. returned to Germany from Syria and is now in investigative custody. He has told security officials everything about the brief time he spent with Islamic State and has also demonstrated his readiness to deliver extensive testimony to German public prosecutors. He stands accused of membership in a terrorist group. His lawyer Udo Würtz declined to offer a detailed response when contacted, but said of his client: "He wants to come clean."

German investigators are extremely interested in the testimony of the apparently repentant returnee, even as they are likely unsettled by what he has to say.

A Vital Witness

Harry S., after all, is more than just a witness to firing squads and decapitations. He also says that on several occasions, IS members tried to recruit volunteers for terrorist attacks in Germany. In the spring, just after he first arrived in Syria, he says that he and another Islamist from Bremen were asked if they could imagine perpetrating attacks in Germany. Later, when he was staying not far from Raqqa, the self-proclaimed Islamic State capital city, masked men drove up in a jeep. They too asked him if he was interested in bringing the jihad to his homeland. Harry S. says he told them that he wasn't prepared to do so.

Harry S. was only in IS controlled territory for three months. Yet he might nevertheless become a vital witness for German security officials. Since the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, fear of terrorism has risen across Europe, including in Germany, and security has been stepped up in train stations and airports. And the testimony from the Bremen returnee would seem to indicate that the fear is justified. Harry S. says that, during his time in the Syrian warzone, he frequently heard people talking about attacks in the West and says that pretty much every European jihadist was approached with the same questions he had been asked. "They want something that happens everywhere at the same time," Harry S. says.

Harry S.'s path from the Bremen quarter of Osterholz-Tenever to the jihadists of Islamic State was not particularly remarkable. His radicalization was similar to many other young, directionless men from European suburbs, from the Molenbeek district of Brussels to Lohberg in Dinslaken. In Tenever, some of the residential towers are up to 20 stories tall.

The son of parents from Ghana, Harry S. grew up in "difficult conditions," according to a court file. His father left the family just as he was entering puberty. Even though Harry S. initially only managed to graduate from a lower tier high school in Germany, he dreamed of returning to his parents' homeland and working as a construction engineer.

There was even a brief moment when it looked as though he was going to get control over his life. But then, in early 2010, he and some friends robbed a supermarket, getting away with €23,500, and flew to the island of Gran Canaria for a vacation. It wasn't long before the authorities were on to them and Harry S. was sentenced to two years behind bars for aggravated theft.

A Dangerous Radical

In prison, he met a Salafist named René Marc S., the "Emir of Gröpelingen" -- a man who Bremen officials consider to be a dangerous radical. It didn't take long before prison officials noticed a "change in character" in Harry S. According to prison records, he converted to Islam and expressed "radical sentiments" about world events. After his release, the new convert visited the Furqan Mosque (which has since been shut down) in the Gröpelingen neighborhood of Bremen. At the mosque, he became part of a Salafist clique which sent at least 16 adults and 11 children to Syria in 2014.

Harry S. tried to make the journey as well. From Istanbul, he flew in April 2014 to Gaziantep, a large Turkish city near the border with Syria, but his trip came to a premature end. Turkish authorities arrested him and sent him back to Bremen, where he told police that he had wanted to help out in Syrian refugee camps. The authorities didn't believe him and confiscated his passport in an effort to prevent him from making another attempt. On Tuesdays and Saturdays, he was required to report to the local police station.

But the authorities were still unable to prevent the Salafist from traveling to Syria to join the war. Harry S. simply grabbed an acquaintance's passport and, with another Islamist from Bremen, traveled overland via Vienna and Budapest. This time, there were no police waiting for him at the border to Syria. Instead, he was met by smugglers who brought him across the border to an IS safe house set up for new arrivals from around the world.

Harry S., a large man with broad shoulders, was trained as a fighter in Syria. He claims to have been drilled in training camps together with 50 other men: sit-ups, hours of standing in the sun and forced marches lasting the entire day. Those who gave up were locked up or beaten. His Kalashnikov, it was driven home to him, should become like his "third arm" and he was told to keep the weapon in bed with him while sleeping.

Once he finished training, he says he was to become a part of a special unit, a kind of suicide squad for house-to-house combat. Harry S. claims that, during his brief time in Syria, he was never sent into battle -- but he claims to know many young men, including Germans, who died in battle. "Luckily, I managed to get away," he says.

Still more.

Gun Sales Booming This Holiday Season (VIDEO)

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

And notice how California has the extended background checks, requiring background checks even for private sales.



PREVIOUSLY: "Surge in Gun Sales in Southern California (VIDEO)."

Abdirizak Warsame, Alleged ISIS Conspirator, Bragged He Could Take Down Planes at 2,000 Feet (VIDEO)

The fucker once worked at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, in baggage handing, which should tell you something, especially in light of the downing of Russia's Metrojet Flight 9268 over Egypt.

I'm shaking my head at this. Just wow.

At CBS News 4 Minnesota:

How to Manufacture an Anti-Muslim Hate-Crime 'Epidemic'

From Michelle Malkin:

Step one: Find an expert with an impressive-sounding academic title to legitimize shoddy advocacy propaganda.

Meet Brian Levin. He’s the one-man band behind something called the “Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism” at California State University, San Bernardino. The “center” (that is: Levin) claims to be “nonpartisan” and “objective.” But he is a former top staffer of the militant, conservative-smearing Southern Poverty Law Center, which was forced to apologize earlier this year after including famed black neurosurgeon and GOP 2016 candidate Ben Carson on its “extremist watch list” of hate groups.

At SPLC, Levin infamously posited that the 2002 Beltway jihad snipers were Angry White Men, a fatal error echoed by politically correct law enforcement officials whose wild-goose chase needlessly cost lives. A decade later, the SPLC’s target map and list of social conservative groups were used by convicted left-wing domestic terrorist Floyd Lee Corkins to shoot up the Washington, D.C., office of the Family Research Council.

The radical left-wing SPLC, whose annual “hate and extremism” report spawned Levin’s sham “center,” brazenly declared that its mission is to “destroy” its political opponents. Harper’s Magazine writer Ken Silverstein called the SPLC and its work “essentially a fraud” that “shuts down debate, stifles free speech, and most of all, raises a pile of money, very little of which is used on behalf of poor people.”

Step two: Enlist gullible, lazy, biased, and complicit journalists who recycle the “expert’s” sweeping pronouncements as proven facts, backed up by other ideologically vested advocacy group spokespeople.

NBC News, The New York Times, the Daily Mail and Slate all quoted Levin over the past week hyping his new “study” (published in esteemed academic journal The Huffington Post) on an alleged “increase,” “surge” and “spike” in “crimes against Muslims and mosques” this year.

Levin’s “methods” of “analysis”? Stringing together “apparent hate crimes reported in the media and by civil rights groups across the United States.” Most prominent among his sources: the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose jihad-apologizing frontman Ibrahim Hooper was quoted by both NBC and The New York Times backing Levin’s “research” (which were, of course, based on several of CAIR’s grievance-grifting claims). Cozy, huh?

“We’re seeing so many of these things happening that it’s unbelievable,” Hooper told the Times.

Indeed, it is.

In his list of “Suspected Hate Crimes Directed at Actual or Perceived Muslim Institutions or Individuals Since Paris Attacks,” Levin cites a Nov. 26 incident in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, noting, “Cab driver shot. Attempted Murder.”

The rest of the story: The suspect is 26-year-old Anthony Mohamed, whose father is Muslim. Authorities have so far refused to press hate crimes charges despite CAIR’s demands. At a hearing this week, the cab driver denied in court that he had been subjected to negative comments about his religion before Mohamed allegedly shot him in the back. Court filings fail to mention any evidence of anti-Muslim bias in the case.

Or take a look at Levin’s No. 23: “12/6 Buena Park, CA. Sikh Temple. Vandalism, Crim. Mischief.” CAIR’s Los Angeles office publicized vandalism at an Orange County Sikh temple, immediately condemning a “tiny minority of bigots who violate our nation’s longstanding principles of religious tolerance and inclusion.”

The rest of the story: Authorities arrested a local, 20-year-old Brodie Durazo, after he admitted spray-painting the temple, a tractor trailer and other property in the gang-infested neighborhood. “I have lived alongside this temple for many years of my life and have never once seen you as anything but a peaceful people,” he told the temple-goers in a personal apology at the house of worship. “I just hope that you will see by my presence that all I want is for peace as well.”

Not a menacing “bigot.” Just a bored punk.

Or consider Levin’s No. 33: “12/10 Tampa, FL. Rocks/shots at 2 Muslim drivers. Assault, Threat leaving relig. service in hijab.”

Both women are unidentified. Their unvetted stories were immediately publicized by, you guessed it, CAIR. “Both incidents were investigated by Hillsborough County sheriff’s deputies,” according to local Florida media, “though investigators said neither case involved definitive proof of a hate crime.” In one case, the sheriff’s office spokeswoman said, “It could have been road rage or just a misunderstanding.” In the second case involving alleged shots fired at a vehicle, investigators said the woman “was not sure where or when” a bullet hole found on the car was made.

Step three: Attack the messenger. After I published a lengthy post on my blog outlining an epidemic of Muslim hate-crime hoaxes at colleges, mosques and businesses dating back to 2001, Levin took to Twitter to accuse me of “smears.” The facts, which the rest of the media failed to inform readers about while hyping Levin’s work this week, speak for themselves (see michellemalkin.com).

Step four: Classify this article as “hate” and any media outlet that publishes it as a “hate group” so that other journalists shun the truth and continue perpetuating the hoax.

Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik Revealed Personal Details in Visa Application (VIDEO)

At the Los Angeles Times, "What Tashfeen Malik's visa application reveals about the San Bernardino killers":

They had only met online — first on a matrimonial website, and then in what he called “several weeks of emailing” — when Syed Rizwan Farook first sat down with Tashfeen Malik during his pilgrimage to Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, in October 2013.

They got engaged that same day, and the couple disclosed extensive personal details, including her birthplace in a historic Pakistani town and his Social Security number, when Farook filled out a K-1 fiancee visa application so he could bring Malik to Riverside to marry him the following summer.

But the 21-page application and supporting documents gave no hint of whether Farook and Malik’s then-secret commitment to violent jihad, rather than romance, brought them together in a conspiracy two years before they carried out a rampage that left 14 people dead in San Bernardino.

That, together with their motive for shooting his co-workers at the Inland Regional Center on Dec. 2, and their whereabouts for nearly four hours before police spotted their car and killed them in a shootout, are among the key unanswered questions three weeks after the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 2001.

The documents were released Tuesday as FBI Director James B. Comey visited San Bernardino for a briefing from agents from the Los Angeles field office.

The paperwork doesn’t appear to substantiate charges from some Republican lawmakers that immigration officials failed to catch errors on the visa application that should have blocked Malik’s entry, and that the Obama administration thus allowed a budding terrorist into the country.

The FBI has concluded that Farook and Malik separately radicalized on the Internet as early as 2011, largely from English-language sermons and other material posted online by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The Times also has reported that Malik sent private messages to friends on Facebook in 2012 and 2014 expressing support for jihad.

Farook also had considered a terrorist spree in Southern California long before the two met. He hatched plots to gun down drivers on the 91 Freeway and butcher students at a community college in Riverside, according to a federal indictment against Enrique Marquez, who bought the semiautomatic weapons used in the San Bernardino attack.

None of that evidence came to light before the shootings, however, and Comey has said the couple appeared on no terrorism or criminal watch lists that would have led to greater scrutiny by law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

On the K-1 visa application form, Farook answered “no” to questions of whether he had ever committed “homicide, murder, manslaughter” or other crimes, including illegal drug use and domestic violence.

The application provides the first public look at the evidence that Farook, a U.S. citizen born in Chicago, gave immigration officials to prove he and Pakistani-born Malik had met in person and were planning to marry...

More.

'CBS wanted its own tidy narrative of patriotic Muslims who have no problem with this president...'

Following-up, "Muslims in America Focus Group (VIDEO)."

At Instapundit, "THE PALACE GUARD DEFENDS THE PALACE: CBS Edited Out Harsh Critique of Obama, U.S. ‘Militarism’ by Muslim Focus Group":

“They ripped into Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, but CBS wanted its own tidy narrative of patriotic Muslims who have no problem with this president.”

Plus:

He shut me down when I said that President Obama and Hillary Clinton has killed many Muslims under the administration when we were discussing Trump, and ironically for a GOP strategist, he shut me down when I talked about how Democrats have enacted some of the most deadliest and discriminatory policies against Muslims. . . .

The edited version of the focus group interview was mainly about proving our American identity, condemning terrorism, and Trump’s bashing of Muslim-Americans. This is problematic.

He kept saying how he felt bad that no one listens to Muslims and how he wanted to give us an opportunity to talk to the general population. But how can that happen when we’re manipulatively edited to have us fit their own narrative and agenda?

They call that journalism, these days. Interesting that they muted criticism of Obama and Hillary, but focused on complaints about Trump.

The Democrats Are Totally Unserious (VIDEO)

From Noah Rothman, at Commentary, "Not a Serious Party":

Democrats are understandably enjoying themselves as Republicans flirt with handing their presidential nomination over to an individual who is objectively unqualified in character, experience, and temperament for the job. They shouldn’t be begrudged a moment or two of schadenfreude as their opposition elevates their only candidate who consistently loses and loses badly in head-to-head polls against their likely nominee. The GOP frontrunner speaks in vagaries, frequently contradicts himself, and displays almost no grasp of the fundamentals of geopolitics. The fact that Republicans are celebrating a neophyte doesn’t itself render Democrats a serious party. For those Americans who were without plans on a Saturday night the weekend before Christmas, they were privy to a series of fictions Democrats find pleasing but which do not amount to a serious set of foreign policies.

Perhaps the most galling of contradictions was offered by Hillary Clinton in her defense of the creation of a “no-fly” over Northern Syria. “[O]ne of the reasons why I have advocated for a no-fly zone is in order to create those safe refuges within Syria, to try to protect people on the ground both from Assad’s forces, who are continuing to drop barrel bombs and from ISIS,” Clinton said. “And of course, it has to be de-conflicted with the Russians, who are also flying in that space.”

“Of course,” as though that was a minor detail. This administration already negotiated “de-confliction” of the space over which NATO forces and Russian warplanes operate, but that did not prevent Turkish forces from shooting a Russian fighter jet out of the sky.

Clinton repeatedly insisted that a “no-fly zone” over Syria would, by virtue of its very existence, stop the outflow of refugees over the Turkish border. She did not, however, speculate on the kind of forces that would be needed to secure a safe zone on the ground in Syria in which refugees could be safe. Much to Ankara’s consternation, a substantial portion of Syria’s north is occupied by Kurdish forces, but not all of it is in the hands of pro-Western militias. Worse than the present humanitarian crisis associated with the exodus of refugees (most of whom aren’t spilling over the Turkish border) would be the prospect of a poorly secured safe zone that becomes a kill box for Assad or ISIS.

When asked if she would shoot down Russian or Syrian warplanes that penetrate that space, Clinton said she did not “think it would come to that.” What else is the point of a no-fly zone but to prevent through force its penetration by enemy air forces? Clinton went on to strike an even more incoherent posture: “The no-fly zone, I would hope, would be also shared by Russia,” Clinton claimed. “If they will begin to turn their military attention away from going after the adversaries of Assad toward ISIS and put the Assad future on the political and diplomatic track, where it belongs.” Pardon?

The administration finally caved to Moscow’s demand that a transitional Syrian government minus Assad is no longer in the cards. Barack Obama’s 2011 contention that Bashar al-Assad must go has been abandoned, but the region-wide Sunni insurgency against a regime that killed over a quarter million people and deployed chemical weapons against civilians will never abate so long as Assad rules in Damascus. The Russians got what they wanted from Barack Obama, and Clinton declined to criticize that about-face. So, why should Russian behavior change? What Clinton means by her wish that Russia would stop trying to prop up Assad militarily and instead do so diplomatically is anyone’s guess.

To Clinton’s credit, her delusion was still more concrete and realistic than the policies of any of her competitors...

Look, pushing gun control after San Bernardino is more important than serious efforts to stop another attack on U.S. soil.

The Democrats have disqualified themselves from office. Only the stupidity of large segments of the American electorate will give them another chance.

Keep reading, in any case.

Public Schools Struggle with Lessons About Islam Amid Renewed Fears of Terrorism (VIDEO)

Teachers pushing the ideology of Islamic jihad in the classroom should be fired.

At LAT:

The assignment on world religions that was handed out to students at Riverheads High School in rural Virginia seemed pretty simple, on its face.

A teacher's printout explained why calligraphy was religiously significant to Muslims. The assignment asked students to re-create the complex strokes for the Shahada, the Islamic statement of faith, "to give you an idea of the artistic complexity of the calligraphy."

The Shahada was not translated, but in Arabic, it states, "There is no god but God, and Mohammed is his messenger."

It was religious indoctrination, parents charged. The angry calls and messages that flooded the district grew so intense last week that Augusta County school officials shut down the district Friday, keeping 10,500 students home "out of an abundance of caution."

The incident was just the latest in a series of disputes involving Islam and the classroom, which come as the nation experiences a rise in anti-Muslim attacks and vandalism and renewed fears of terrorism after the bloodshed in Paris and San Bernardino...

More.

Really.

Who would be so stupid as to assign that project? Only an America-hating leftist.

Redlands Tea Party Speaks Out Against Syrian Refugees After #SanBernardino Attack

Great piece, at LAT, "After the San Bernardino shootings, voices rise on both sides of the refugee debate":

Bill Whittle scanned the crowd of more than 200 Redlands Tea Party Patriots and Unite Inland Empire members gathered for the yearly Christmas party. The tables in the Western-themed barbecue restaurant were decorated with stickers hailing the 2nd Amendment and proclaiming: "Don't Tread on Me."

"To say that this is a war on terror is designed to make sure that we don't say that it's a war on Islam," Whittle told the crowd last week.

"Amen!" a woman shouted.

"The president said just a few nights ago [that] America is not at war with Islam," Whittle, a conservative blogger and political commentator, continued. "I think that's probably true. But Islam is at war with America, and they have been for some time now."

The Dec. 2 terror attack in San Bernardino, which left 14 dead and injured 22 others, has intensified the debate over whether the U.S. should accept Syrian refugees and inspired some people — most notably GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump — to oppose allowing any Muslims into the country.

For some in this swath of Southern California, which has strong conservative undertones, the massacre at the Inland Regional Center provided a "told you so" moment."

John Berry, a California state coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots and a cabinet member of the Redlands chapter, said the terrorist attack by Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik validated what he and others have been saying for years.

"I take no satisfaction in saying, 'I told you so.' None, because this is a horrible, horrible atrocity," Berry said. "But in some ways I'm surprised it hasn't happened before."

More.

Muslims in America Focus Group (VIDEO)

Leftists don't care about Muslims. Well, they care about them to the extent that Islam helps take down America. Frankly, the most racist, regressive people you could possible know are leftists. They're hateful, hideous ghouls.

In any case, Frank Luntz admits that he backed off his usual high-pressure style in focus group settings, certainly in fear of being attacked as "racist" and "Islamophobic."

Watch, at CBS This Morning, "Focus group of American Muslims talks politics, fear and faith."

Enrique Marquez Accused of Plotting Terrorist Attacks Against Riverside City College and 91 Freeway

At the Riverside Press-Enterprise, "SAN BERNARDINO SHOOTING: Marquez charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism":

Enrique Marquez, the former neighbor and close friend of San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook, has been charged with conspiring with Farook in 2011 and 2012 to commit crimes of terrorism, including attacks on Riverside City College and the 91 freeway.

The U.S Attorney's Office filed the conspiracy charge against Marquez, 24, of Riverside, on Thursday, Dec. 17. His arrest Thursday morning was the first stemming from the investigation into Dec. 2 attack at the Inland Regional Center that left 14 people dead and 22 injured.

Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, who had both become radicalized several years ago before their marriage, were killed in a shootout with police.

Federal prosecutors said there was no evidence that Marquez participated in the Dec. 2 attack or had advance knowledge of it.
The charges against Marquez include conspiring with Farook to provide material support – including himself, a firearm and explosives – for crimes of terrorism.

"Marquez was also charged today with the unlawful purchase of two assault rifles used in the deadly shooting two weeks ago," the U.S Attorney's Office said in a statement.

"A three-count criminal complaint filed this afternoon additionally charges Marquez with defrauding immigration authorities by entering into a sham marriage with a member of Farook’s family."

Marquez, who was raised Catholic, was married to a Russian woman whose sister was married to Farook's brother, Syed Raheel Farook.

An affidavit by FBI Special Agent Joel T. Anderson filed with the criminal complaint said Marquez moved to Riverside in 2004 and met Farook, his neighbor on Tomlinson Avenue. "In late 2005, Farook introduced Marquez to Islam and began educating Marquez about religion."

Marquez converted to Islam in 2007, the affidavit says...

More.

The L.A. Schools' 'Not Credible' Threat

From Robert Spencer, at FrontPage Magazine, "“I’m kinda tired of hearing all this ISIS,” but they’re still coming":

When the Los Angeles Board of Education closed all its schools Tuesday because of a terror threat, officials in New York City, which had received a similar threat, were contemptuous. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio characterized the threat as “so generic, so outlandish” that it was beneath serious notice. “It would be a huge disservice to our nation,” he declared, “to close down our school system.” New York Police Department Commissioner Bill Bratton said “we cannot allow ourselves to raise levels of fear. Certainly raise levels of awareness. But this is not a credible threat.”

Fair enough. But there is enough of a credible threat in general to warrant taking every precaution. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-California), said that the threat (which was initially reported, of course, as a generic “terrorist threat,” with no indication that it was Islamic,” lacked “the feel of the way the jihadists usually write.” He pointed out, according to the Los Angeles Times, that “the roughly 350-word message did not capitalize Allah in one instance, nor did it cite a Koranic verse. He said the elements of the threatened attack also seemed unlikely, such as the claim that it would involve 32 people with nerve gas.”

Sherman claimed that “there isn’t a person on the street who couldn’t have written this.” Smearing the flyover states with Hollywood insouciance, he added: “Everybody in Nebraska could have written this.” He even suggested that an “Islamophobe” wrote the threat: “I don’t know whether this was sent by a radical Islamic jihadist or somebody who had an anti-Islamic agenda or just a prankster.”

Maybe the threats did come from someone with “an anti-Islamic agenda or just a prankster.” But those with an “anti-Islamic agenda” don’t really need to work that hard. Islamic jihadis are doing a fine job of issuing threats all by themselves. In September 2014, the Islamic State issued a lengthy communiqué calling upon Muslims in the West to murder non-Muslims. It included the exhortation to “strive to your best and kill any disbeliever, whether he be French, American, or from any of their allies.” It followed this up with a quotation from the Qur’an: “O you who have believed, take your precaution and [either] go forth in companies or go forth all together” (4:71).

The Islamic State exhortation continued...

More.

And previously, "Don't Let Fear Undermine Freedom?"

Long Beach Unified Schools to Stay Open After 'Non-Credible' Threat

Well, I hope they have real experts evaluating those threats.

See the Los Angeles Times, "Long Beach schools remain open after emailed threat called 'non-credible'."

And previously, "Don't Let Fear Undermine Freedom?"

Don't Let Fear Undermine Freedom?

I don't know. I'd support my kid's school if they received a threat. I'd want my kid home.

In any case, here's the libertarian O.C. Register, "L.A. schools closure: Don't let fear undermine freedom":

Regardless of whether the threats were sent by a wannabe terrorist or a prankster, we can acknowledge and reaffirm that this is the new age of terrorism. But while we understand that the LAUSD did not want to take any chances with student safety, we must balance our fear with a resolute stand to maintain our way of life and the freedoms that make it possible. Once we surrender to fear the ideals that made this nation great, we will have ceded a victory to the terrorists.

RTWT.

Word is the L.A. Unified threat was a shoddy hoax, easily decipherable as fake. But then, an "abundance of caution" isn't a bad thing. Americans expect more attacks.

More here, "After San Bernardino shootings, no one is taking chances with safety":

FULLERTON – The note found taped on a door Wednesday at Sunny Hills High School included no bomb threat, no link to terrorism.

But two weeks after a radicalized couple killed 14 people in San Bernardino, and one day after a threatening email closed Los Angeles public schools, the note was deemed worrisome enough. Principal Allen Whitten, along with a team of teachers, soon began ushering students off campus, and the school was shut for the day.

Fullerton police would not elaborate later on the details of the note, and Sunny Hills was expected to reopen Thursday. But the swift and decisive reaction to what once might have been dismissed as a prank highlighted a hyper-vigilance about public safety that has become routine in Southern California in the wake of the Dec. 2 terrorist attacks and other recent mass shootings.

“This is my children’s lives. What if it wasn’t a hoax?” said Brenda Matto, the mother of two Sunny Hills students. “Am I willing to take that chance?”

In Orange County this week, it has been clear that no one charged with protecting the public’s safety is taking any such chances...

More.

Praise for San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan After #SanBernardino Attack

Amazingly professional. The kudos are quite justified.

At the Los Angeles Times, "San Bernardino police chief kept his cool after the massacre":

As police officers kicked open doors in the Inland Regional Center in the search for the armed assailants who had just massacred 14 county employees, San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan was outside scanning the terrain for a safe place to coordinate the sweeping emergency response.

He found it a block away — an abandoned house with a dirt yard and boarded-up windows, one of many pocking the streets of this hollowed-out city. Within minutes, police, fire and other emergency agency commanders huddled inside, out of gunshot range.

It was a no-nonsense move by a city police chief who has been praised for his cool-headed response in the chaotic aftermath of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11.

When standing before television news cameras, Burguan's cleanly shaven crown and thick, linebacker frame punctuated his blunt, straightforward accounts of the manhunt and the rapidly developing investigation.

"He was quite effective in giving out whatever information he could, calming the public and discouraging any other lunatics from committing acts of backlash," said Brian Levin, a former New York City police officer and terrorism expert teaching at Cal State San Bernardino. "The response, of all the agencies, was a national model for first responder actions regarding terrorist attacks."

Burguan knew that the nation was watching, and that San Bernardino was on edge. He held three news conferences on the day of the attack. He didn't dodge questions but also knew some leads could not be made public.

"I believe in transparency," Burguan, 45, said. "My philosophy has always been that if I can tell you, I'm going to tell you. And if I can't tell you, I'm going to say I can't tell you."

Burguan also took to Twitter to provide instant updates and knock down rumors: "Suspects are down, one officer wounded. Details still unfolding," he tweeted shortly after the assailants were killed in a gun battle with police.

On Friday, he was at home and sending out a series of tweets explaining why a UPS station was evacuated after a delivery driver spotted a package addressed to one of the killers. "Item was safe, posed no threat." Moments later, he watched, amazed, as his tweet popped up on a television news broadcast.

"The power of social media," Burguan said.

Burguan, named chief two years ago after two decades as a San Bernardino officer, is uneasy with the attention, sensitive to the lives lost and victims maimed in the terrorist attack and the long list of agencies, including the FBI and San Bernardino Sheriff's Department, involved in the case.

His pride, however, is difficult to hide.

"We knew the response was good, we knew people were very, very happy that we hunted down these guys and caught them very quickly," he said. "There's no doubt that these guys were going to do something else. They had an arsenal on them. They were going to continue fighting."

Burguan, a former football star at Bloomington Christian High School, just outside of Rialto, was 21 when he joined the San Bernardino Police Department in 1992. It was near the height of the crack epidemic, when gunfire echoed around the city almost every night and the homicide rate was double what it is today. He worked the night shift and went to night school, eventually earning undergraduate and master's degrees at the University of Redlands.

San Bernardino was a different city then. Lumbering C-141 Starlifters still flew out of Norton Air Force Base. There were two malls in town and a hopping restaurant row. Burguan, living on a traffic officer's salary, failed to qualify for a loan when he tried to buy a home up near Cal State San Bernardino.

"I watched the decline. I've watched businesses leave, and I saw Norton close," he said.

This once-proud blue-collar city has been hamstrung by years of bankruptcy, poverty and noxious politics. Since 2009, the police force has been cut by 100 officers. The anti-gang and other crime prevention programs "are a shell" of what they used to be, he said. There is a proposal to beef up the agency over the next five years, but it is before a federal bankruptcy judge awaiting approval.

"We're largely a reactive agency. I hate to say it, but that's the truth of the matter," Burguan said. "Our response times are not good. And the irony is, people are praising us for our response to this incident."

More.

I watched the press conferences. He's totally no nonsense.

Also, at the letters to the editor, "Readers React San Bernardino shooting: In praise of the police response."

Poll: Heightened Fear of Terrorism is Rippling Through the Electorate

Yes, and the Democrats want to mock people for it.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Poll Finds National Security Now a Top Concern":

WSJ/NBC poll finds that after terror attacks, national security is now a top concern. https://t.co/f1uyRwCFEl

— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) December 15, 2015

Fear of terrorism surges after attacks in Paris and California, WSJ/NBC poll finds, and likely will impact 2016 election.

Heightened fear of terrorism is rippling through the electorate, thrusting national-security issues to the center of the 2016 presidential campaign, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released on the eve of Republicans’ latest presidential debate.

Some 40% of those polled say national security and terrorism should be the government’s top priority, and more than 60% put it in the top two, up from just 39% eight months ago.

More than one quarter worry they or their family will be a victim of a terror attack. The most prominent news event of 2015, in the public’s mind, was the terrorist attack in Paris.

“For most of 2015, our country’s mood and thus the presidential election was defined by anger and the unevenness of the economic recovery, and now that has abruptly changed to fear,” said Fred Yang, a Democratic pollster who conducted the survey with Republican Bill McInturff.

That undercurrent of anxiety, if it lasts, has the potential to reshape the 2016 policy landscape, shifting attention to national-security issues that traditionally are Republicans’ strong suit and away from the economic issues that Democrats prefer to spotlight.

But for now, the increased concern hasn’t seemed to change the election’s fundamentals: The new poll, as ones before the recent spate of attacks, found voters evenly split on which party they want to control the White House. Still, Mr. McInturff said, candidates are now facing “a very different campaign than the one we thought we were going to be running.”

Republican presidential candidates will be trying to adapt to this environment when they meet on the debate stage Tuesday night in Las Vegas. In the run-up to the debate, candidates have increasingly focused on foreign policy as they try to promote their own leadership skills and discredit their rivals.

Businessman Donald Trump has been betting that his trademark swagger will be a selling point at a time when voters are looking for someone to stand up to terrorists. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is talking tough about defeating Islamic State, but he has stopped short of calling for U.S. ground troops in Iraq and Syria. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida has argued that Mr. Cruz has taken votes in the Senate that weakened U.S. intelligence gathering.

Overall, the mood of the electorate has turned bleaker in the weeks since the latest Journal/NBC News survey in late October—a period that included the terrorist attacks in Paris, the shootings by a lone gunman at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado, and the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., by a pair of Islamic militants...

Still more.

Democrats Mock Americans' Terror Fears

It's come to this, despite overwhelming --- and bipartisan --- polling data that show a genuine anxiety about U.S. national security.

From Noah Rothman, at Commentary, "Dems Turn to Mocking Terror Fears":

In just over a year, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has graduated from taking and holding territory inside its nascent “caliphate” to exporting terrorism around the globe. From Sydney to Ottawa, from Copenhagen to San Bernardino, this terrorist organization is directing or inspiring jihadists to conduct heinous acts of mass-casualty terrorism. Since October of last year, three such attacks have taken place in the United States; one of those being the worst act of radical Islamic terror in America since September 11, 2001. Subsequently, Americans now rate terrorism as their number one concern. They feel unsafe and insecure. They are justifiably afraid of the threat that might be just around the next corner. Americans are lunging for the shotgun and barricading the door. And what do they get from their leaders? Reassurance? Understanding? Resolve to defeat terrorism abroad before it comes home? No, they get a lecture on their latent hostility toward the Islamic faith and practicing Muslims. Stranger still, now that it has become inescapably clear that the fear of terrorism is broad-based, the left’s mission to convince itself that these concerns are isolated to the fever swamps has become even more urgent.

For Democrats, particularly those who must defend President Barack Obama’s record on foreign affairs and terrorism, there is no good news. According to the latest New York Times/CBS News survey, seven in 10 Americans now describe ISIS as a major threat to national security. Another 44 percent of respondents believe another attack inside the United States at some point in the next few months is “very” likely, greater than at any point since October 2001. 57 percent of those polled disapprove of Obama’s handling of the issue of terrorism. According to Gallup, 67 percent believe future “acts of terrorism” inside the United States are either somewhat or very likely. Gallup further revealed that confidence in the government’s ability to keep its citizens safe is lower than it has ever been since the 9/11 attacks.

Simultaneously, a majority of Americans fear they will be the next victims of that forthcoming attack for the first time since 2001. Perhaps most ominously from a Democratic perspective, satisfaction in the direction the country is headed has not been this depressed since November of 2014 when Republicans rode a wave of voter dissatisfaction to pick up control of the U.S. Senate.

Regarding the potential political ramifications of this negative development for the president, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was asked today about Gallup’s numbers. Earnest’s tart reply: “Gallup predicted Mitt Romney would be president.”

There is no worthy response to this non sequitur; it was not designed to elicit one. The strategy here is clear, and it is one that this president has used to great effect in the past: Project to like minds in media that concerns over terrorism are a preoccupation of the intellectually sequestered right. To lend any credence to that notion would be to align yourself with that brutish, unthinking element in flyover country, and you wouldn’t want to be thought of by your peers in that way, would you?

Even Democrats are finding themselves the target of this rather elementary form of manipulation...

More.

U.S. Counterterrorism Officials Plan to Beef Up Social-Media Scrutiny

Folks were really fired up about this on Twitter this afternoon.

At ABC News, via Memeorandum, "Secret Policy Kept Social Media Out of Visa Vetting."

And here's WSJ, "The Department of Homeland Security is working on a plan to scrutinize social-media posts as part of its visa application process":

WASHINGTON—The Department of Homeland Security is working on a plan to expand scrutiny of social-media posts as part of its visa application process before certain people are allowed to enter the country, a person familiar with the matter said.

The move is part of a new focus on the use of social-networking sites following the shooting rampage in San Bernardino, Calif.

Currently, DHS looks at postings only intermittently, as part of three pilot programs that began in earnest earlier this year. It is unclear how quickly a new process could be implemented, and other details couldn’t be learned.

Investigators are looking for clues in Facebook posts, computer records and elsewhere that may have hinted at the intentions of the Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, the married couple suspected of killing 14 people at a holiday gathering Dec. 2 before dying in a shootout with police.

Ms. Malik lived most of her life in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia but moved to the U.S. in 2014 on a K-1 visa given to those engaged to Americans. The day of the shooting, she pledged allegiance to the leader of Islamic State, law-enforcement officials have said, on a Facebook account registered to a pseudonym. Counterterror officials are looking to see if she made similar postings in the past.

Islamic State and other terror groups have used social media to communicate with one another and seek converts. Intelligence, law-enforcement and counterterrorism officials have spent years trying to unearth clues about attacks in such postings.

The House of Representatives on Tuesday will vote on a bill to require the Obama administration to come up with a comprehensive strategy to combat terrorists’ use of social media. Under the measure, the White House would have to inform Congress about the social-media training it provides law-enforcement officials.

That bill is the latest to respond to public anxiety following the San Bernardino killings, which investigators believe could have been inspired by Islamic State propaganda fueled by social media. House Republicans have worked to advance several bills since the rampage that aim to show they are taking concrete steps to address Americans’ security concerns.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said the DHS move is overdue. “It is time this administration stopped worrying about the privacy of foreigners more than the security of Americans,” he said.

Separately, congressional negotiators were looking at including in a fiscal 2016 spending bill a measure to impose new curbs on travel by citizens who live in one of the 38 countries that enjoy expedited travel clearance to the U.S...

More.