What is 'Extremist Rhetoric'?

Melissa Clouthier put up an interesting post this morning at Right Wing News: "Violence Serves The Left." But it wasn't the discussion of political violence that caught my attention (although Melissa's right to note the total hypocrisy in leftist slurs of tea-partiers as "violent" mobs). No, I really liked this section asking, "What is 'extremist rhetoric'":

What I wonder is this: What is “extremist rhetoric”? Ironically, almost anything Glenn Beck says is viewed as “extremist rhetoric”. In fact, anyone who disagrees with neo-liberal orthodoxy is considered an extremist.

Carrie Prejean? Extremist gay hater.

Glenn Beck? Extremist Obama hater.

Rush Limbaugh? Extremist race baiting hater.

Mark Steyn? Extremist Muslim hater.

Ann Coulter? Extremist self and women-hating hater.

Michelle Malkin? Extremist illegal alien hater.

Glenn Reynolds? Extremist Tea-Party loving hater.

When center-left Obama-voting Democrats like Ann Althouse are accused of hating, really who isn’t a hater?

I’m sick of the p.c. rhetoric police. Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Michael Moore, and all the whacked out lefty pundits can say anything. The word is a tool and a sword. They wield it with impunity and want the conservatives to stay muzzled.

So, somewhere between psychotic, crazy loud-mouth libs and meek muzzled, passive, submissive conservatives there’s a balance. Incite violence? No. Stir to positive action, yes.

Yes, violence serves the Left. So does a silent majority. They’ve had it both ways for too long.

So true.

Check Melissa Clouthier's blog as well. Tonight's feature, "Breitbart: NEA Conference Call, Your Tax Dollars, And Artistic Coercion."

Obama's DHS Warns of Right-Wing Extremist Threat

I wasn't taking it too seriously when I first saw it, but as Michelle Malkin indicates, the report from the Department of Homeland Security is the real thing: "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment."

As Michelle notes, the timing's perfect:

The “report” was one of the most embarrassingly shoddy pieces of propaganda I’d ever read out of DHS. I couldn’t believe it was real.

I spent the day chasing down DHS spokespeople, who have been tied up preparing for a very important homeland security event later today: The First Lady is coming to visit their Washington office. Priorities, you know.

Well, the press office got back to me and verified that the document is indeed for real.
They were very defensive — preemptively so — in asserting that it was not a politicized document and that DHS had done reports on “leftwing extremism” in the past. I have covered DHS for many years and am quite familiar with past assessments they and the FBI have done on animal rights terrorists and environmental terrorists. But those past reports have always been very specific in identifying the exact groups, causes, and targets of domestic terrorism, i.e., the ALF, ELF, and Stop Huntingdon wackos who have engaged in physical harassment, arson, vandalism, and worse against pharmaceutical companies, farms, labs, and university researchers.

By contrast, the piece of crap report issued on April 7 is a sweeping indictment of conservatives. And the intent is clear. As the two spokespeople I talked with on the phone today made clear: They both pinpointed the recent “economic downturn” and the “general state of the economy” for stoking “rightwing extremism.” One of the spokespeople said he was told that the report has been in the works for a year. My b.s. detector went off the chart, and yours will, too, if you read through the entire report — which asserts with no evidence that an unquantified “resurgence in rightwing extremist recruitment and radicalizations activity” is due to home foreclosures, job losses, and…the historical presidential election.

In Obama land, there are no coincidences. It is no coincidence that this report echoes Tea Party-bashing left-wing blogs (check this one out comparing the Tea Party movement to the Weather Underground!) and demonizes the very Americans who will be protesting in the thousands on Wednesday for the nationwide Tax Day Tea Party.

Michelle cites a number of passages from the report, but this one caught my attention when I read it this afternoon:

Historically, domestic rightwing extremists have feared, predicted, and anticipated a cataclysmic economic collapse in the United States. Prominent antigovernment conspiracy theorists have incorporated aspects of an impending economic collapse to intensify fear and paranoia among like-minded individuals and to attract recruits during times of economic uncertainty. Conspiracy theories involving declarations of martial law, impending civil strife or racial conflict, suspension of the U.S. Constitution, and the creation of citizen detention camps often incorporate aspects of a failed economy. Antigovernment conspiracy theories and “end times” prophecies could motivate extremist individuals and groups to stockpile food, ammunition, and weapons. These teachings also have been linked with the radicalization of domestic extremist individuals and groups in the past, such as violent Christian Identity organizations and extremist members of the militia movement.

I was in graduate school, in the 1990s, when we had the big worries over right-wing militias following the Oklahoma City Bombing. The threats were obviously real. I read a number of articles on this, as well as James Coates', Armed and Dangerous: The Rise of the Survivalist Right.

This administration must be supremely spooked to have DHS cook up something like this cockamamie report. I know militias, and I know right wing extremist ideologies. And I can tell you, the Tea Party movement is no fringe groundswell. In fact, I have a feeling this report could cause major political damage to the White House, so expect to see some damage control in the next few days, particularly as we see Wednesday's massive citizens' anti-tax demonstrations sweep the nation. Leftists will continue to paint everyday Americans as fascist extremists. If the administration does so as well it will only be courting even greater grassroots mobilization.

Proud To Be a Left-Wing Extremist?

Here's the post by Kyle at RightWingWatch, "Is The Right Still "Proud To Be a Right-Wing Extremist?"

Mark at Snooper Report responds, "Is The Left Still 'Proud To Be a Left-Wing Extremist'?" An excerpt:

The Leftinistra are the singularly most ugly, mean-spirited pieces of trash outside your viral Haji yet the Leftinistra support the enemy over their own nation and those that protect their very rights to exist. And yes, the Leftinistra toss the term "neocon" around like they know what a "neocon" is or something. I merely laugh in disdain because their use of the term "neocon" is allegedly a term of derision - tolerance at work I am sure. If they ever learn what a "neocon" is, they would drop it like a hot Pelosi panty.

The Leftinistra labeled the holocaust Museum shooter a right-winger when it has been shown that he was/is nothing of the sort. All we hear no is silence from their sheeple He was one of their own - a hater of Christianity, an anti-Semite (there are no anti-Semites on the right-wing) and a hater of the "neocon". Amazing isn't it? Yet the fools on the left try and blame others for what they themselves partake in on a regular basis and call it good. Why? Because they did the deed and the Leftinistra never do anything wrong. Just ask this buffoon Kyle.

Right Wing Watch? By all means, watch. We are watching back and we are better at it and I wear my Right Wing Extremist Badge with honor and courage. The Leftinistra do not because they are the very cowards they hate. The self-loathing of the Leftinistra is all too obvious.

Perhaps the Left-Wing Extremist Report by the DHS is "right" after all, eh?

I have a question for these cretins on the left-wing. If the right-wing is as you all claim that we are, seeing that there are millions of us and we are all killers, murderers and such, is it wise to back us into a corner and piss us off?

Just sayin'. Think about that.

We can debate issues and beliefs and argue various programs, policies and laws on their constitutionality or not. We are willing but the Leftinistra are not because they would lose every time. Remember, Conservatism wins every time in elections and that is why in tough races, democrats put up conservative candidates against liberal republicans...and win. John McCain lost because he might as well join the DNC because he is in fact one of them at heart, just like his esteemed colleague Arlen Specter and Lindsey Graham. There isn't a conservative bone in their bodies. This is why candidates like Sarah Palin frighten the Leftinistra on the democrat side and the republican side. I am neither.

If I have a label, I am a conservative libertarian constitutionalist. Neocon? Don't make me laugh.

Catch the chatter of those that agree with little boy Kyle at Memeorandum.

Another Leftinistra moonbat spanked.

ADDENDUM: Here's this from the DHS report, "Leftwing Extremists Likely to Increase Use of Cyber Attacks over the Coming Decade:

Anarchist extremists generally embrace a number of radical philosophical components of anticapitalist, antiglobalization, communist, socialist, and other movements. Anarchist groups seek abolition of social, political, and economic hierarchies, including Western-style governments and large business enterprises, and frequently advocate criminal actions of varying scale and scope to accomplish their goals.

Hmm ... it's not like we have too many of those folks to worry about!

Leftist Tech Companies Rely on Discredited SPLC to Demonetize Conservative Critics of Islam (VIDEO)

You know, it's not a lot of money, but my Amazon affiliates blogging has been keeping me interested and returning to the blog day after day. Frankly, the books and intellectual stimulation have been the fun for me this summer. Political blogging has been so-so, and I'd probably be doing a lot less of it if my side gig with the Amazon books were to go away.

I'd been thinking about how compared to Google (AdSense, etc.), Amazon's been pretty hands off. I appreciate it and I think that approach deserves respect and promotion. But now I come to find out that even Amazon's been in on the "demonetizing" attacks against un-PC views. That bums me out. Not because I'm going to lose my side business. But because I was naive to think that the Bezos people were holding themselves to a higher standard, staying above the fray of hateful leftist politics. Boy, not so much it turns out.

Check this mind-boggling story of complete media lack of self-awareness, at ProPublica. Really, these people, and I'm talking now about the journalists writing the story, think they're doing something noble and just when in fact what they're doing is ignorant and evil.

Here's another reason why I hate politics right now.

See, at the safe link, "Despite Disavowals, Leading Tech Companies Help Extremist Sites Monetize Hate":

Most tech companies have policies against working with hate websites. Yet a ProPublica survey found that PayPal, Stripe, Newsmax and others help keep more than half of the most-visited extremist sites in business.

Because of its “extreme hostility toward Muslims,” the website Jihadwatch.org is considered an active hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League. The views of the site’s director, Robert Spencer, on Islam led the British Home Office to ban him from entering the country in 2013.

But its designation as a hate site hasn’t stopped tech companies — including PayPal, Amazon and Newsmax — from maintaining partnerships with Jihad Watch that help to sustain it financially. PayPal facilitates donations to the site. Newsmax — the online news network run by President Donald Trump’s close friend Chris Ruddy — pays Jihad Watch in return for users clicking on its headlines. Until recently, Amazon allowed Jihad Watch to participate in a program that promised a cut of any book sales that the site generated. All three companies have policies that say they don’t do business with hate groups.

Jihad Watch is one of many sites that monetize their extremist views through relationships with technology companies. ProPublica surveyed the most visited websites of groups designated as extremist by either the SPLC or the Anti-Defamation League. We found that more than half of them — 39 out of 69 — made money from ads, donations or other revenue streams facilitated by technology companies. At least 10 tech companies played a role directly or indirectly in supporting these sites.

Traditionally, tech companies have justified such relationships by contending that it’s not their role to censor the Internet or to discourage legitimate political expression. Also, their management wasn’t necessarily aware that they were doing business with hate sites because tech services tend to be automated and based on algorithms tied to demographics.

In the wake of last week’s violent protest by alt-right groups in Charlottesville, more tech companies have disavowed relationships with extremist groups. During just the last week, six of the sites on our list were shut down. Even the web services company Cloudflare, which had long defended its laissez-faire approach to political expression, finally ended its relationship with the neo-Nazi site The Daily Stormer last week.

“I can’t recall a time where the tech industry was so in step in their response to hate on their platforms,” said Oren Segal, director of the ADL’s Center on Extremism. “Stopping financial support to hate sites seems like a win-win for everyone.”

But ProPublica’s findings indicate that some tech companies with anti-hate policies may have failed to establish the monitoring processes needed to weed out hate sites. PayPal, the payment processor, has a policy against working with sites that use its service for “the promotion of hate, violence, [or] racial intolerance.” Yet it was by far the top tech provider to the hate sites with donation links on 23 sites, or about one-third of those surveyed by ProPublica. In response to ProPublica’s inquiries, PayPal spokesman Justin Higgs said in a statement that the company “strives to conscientiously assess activity and review accounts reported to us.”

After Charlottesville, PayPal stopped accepting payments or donations for several high-profile white nationalist groups that participated in the march. It posted a statement that it would remain “vigilant on hate, violence & intolerance.” It addresses each case individually, and “strives to navigate the balance between freedom of expression” and the “limiting and closing” of hate sites, it said.

After being contacted by ProPublica, Newsmax said it was unaware that the three sites that it had relationships with were considered hateful. “We will review the content of these sites and make any necessary changes after that review,” said Andy Brown, chief operating officer of Newsmax.

Amazon spokeswoman Angie Newman said the company had previously removed Jihad Watch and three other sites identified by ProPublica from its program sharing revenue for book sales, which is called Amazon Associates. When ProPublica pointed out that the sites still carried working links to the program, she said that it was their responsibility to remove the code. “They are no longer paid as an Associate regardless of what links are on their site once we remove them from the Associates Program,” she said...

Still more (FWIW).

(And recall the SPLC has been so widely discredited, even on the left, that's it's beyond logic that these idiots at ProPublica would be so reliant on it.)

And from earlier, "Pamela Geller Banned (Then Restored) by PayPal."

Finally, here's Robert Spencer on Tucker's show the other night:

Islamic State Claims Responsibility for #Nice Jihad Terror Attack (VIDEO)

At WSJ, "Islamic State Claims Responsibility for Attack in Nice":

Islamic State on Saturday claimed responsibility for the deadly truck attack in the French city of Nice, saying the assault was a response to calls by the extremist group to target those nations allied against it.

Despite the assertion of responsibility, the nature and scope of the Sunni Muslim extremist group’s involvement in Thursday’s attack, which killed 84 people and wounded scores more, was unclear.

French authorities said Saturday they had found no evidence of ties between terror groups and the man who carried out the assault in Nice, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian man living in the city. Prosecutors also said they had little doubt the militant group had, at the very least, inspired the attack.

In its statement Saturday quoting an unidentified security source and carried by its affiliated Amaq news agency, the Sunni Muslim extremist group said, the Bastille Day attack “was carried out by one of the soldiers of the Islamic State, and the operation was done in response to calls to target nations of coalition states that are fighting the Islamic State.”

The statement was reported by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist activity.

France is one of 66 participants in the U.S.-led military coalition fighting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, according to the U.S. State Department. U.S. President Barack Obama announced the formation of the coalition in September 2014.

On the internet and social media, supporters of Islamic State cheered the truck attack by Lahouaiej Bouhlel, but as in some previous claims of responsibility by the militant group, no clear link to the group has been established.

U.S. and European officials were running checks on financial, social media and internet communication networks to try to determine whether Lahouaiej Bouhlel had accomplices or received foreign support...

Keep reading.

The Dangerous Power of Radical Islam

Some time back, I read Paul Berman's penetrating treatise on the challenge of post-9/11 Islamist extremism, Terror and Liberalism. It's a must read.

Berman, who's intellectually to the left of the spectrum, woke up to the terrorist challenge like many other liberal hawks after the collapse of the Twin Towers.

He's got an essay today at the New York Times, "Why Radical Islam Just Won’t Die." Check it out:

THE big surprise, viewed from my own narrow perspective five years later, has taken place in the mysterious zones of extremist ideology. In the months and weeks before the invasion of Iraq, I wrote quite a lot about ideology in the Middle East, and especially about the revolutionary political doctrine known as radical Islamism.

I tried to show that radical Islamism is a modern philosophy, not just a heap of medieval prejudices. In its sundry versions, it draws on local and religious roots, just as it claims to do. But it also draws on totalitarian inspirations from 20th-century Europe. I wanted my readers to understand that with its double roots, religious and modern, perversely intertwined, radical Islamism wields a lot more power, intellectually speaking, than naïve observers might suppose.

I declared myself happy in principle with the notion of overthrowing Saddam Hussein, just as I was happy to see the Taliban chased from power. But I wanted everyone to understand that military action, by itself, could never defeat an ideology like radical Islamism — could never contribute more than 10 percent (I invented this statistic, as an illustrative figure) to a larger solution. I hammered away on that point in the days before the war. And today I have to acknowledge that, for all my hammering, radical Islamism, in several of its resilient branches, the ultra-radical and the beyond-ultra-radical, has proved to be stronger even than I suggested....

The entire sequence of events [since the invasino of Iraq] may suggest that America is uniquely destined to do the wrong thing. All too likely! But it may also suggest that America is not the fulcrum of the universe, and extremist ideologies have prospered because of their own ability to adapt and survive — their strength, in a word.

I notice a little gloomily that I may have underestimated the extremist ideologies in still another respect. Five years ago, anyone who took an interest in Middle Eastern affairs would easily have recalled that, over the course of a century, the intellectuals of the region have gone through any number of phases — liberal, Marxist, secularist, pious, traditionalist, nationalist, anti-imperialist and so forth, just like intellectuals everywhere else in the world.

Western intellectuals without any sort of Middle Eastern background would naturally have manifested an ardent solidarity with their Middle Eastern and Muslim counterparts who stand in the liberal vein — the Muslim free spirits of our own time, who argue in favor of human rights, rational thought (as opposed to dogma), tolerance and an open society.

But that was then. In today’s Middle East, the various radical Islamists, basking in their success, paint their liberal rivals and opponents as traitors to Muslim civilization, stooges of crusader or Zionist aggression. And, weirdly enough, all too many intellectuals in the Western countries have lately assented to those preposterous accusations, in a sanitized version suitable for Western consumption.

Even in the Western countries, quite a few Muslim liberals, the outspoken ones, live today under a threat of assassination, not to mention a reality of character assassination. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-Dutch legislator and writer, is merely an exceptionally valiant example. But instead of enjoying the unstinting support of their non-Muslim colleagues, the Muslim liberals find themselves routinely berated in the highbrow magazines and the universities as deracinated nonentities, alienated from the Muslim world. Or they find themselves pilloried as stooges of the neoconservative conspiracy — quite as if any writer from a Muslim background who fails to adhere to at least a few anti-imperialist or anti-Zionist tenets of the Islamist doctrine must be incapable of thinking his or her own thoughts.

A dismaying development. One more sign of the power of the extremist ideologies — one more surprising turn of events, on top of all the other dreadful and gut-wrenching surprises.

I'd like to see Berman elaborate his points further, particulary with regard to the United States in Iraq.

You see, Berman took the entire foreign policy establishment to task Terror and Liberalism. National security elites, in his view, have not taken new threats as seriously as they should, and while he suggests here that we've perhaps made mistakes in Iraq - even, let's say, stoked the hornet's nest - he illustrates that it's not essentially U.S. policy that is the danger, but Islamist fundamentalism outright.

That's a point the radical left cannot accept. To them the greatest danger is the U.S. and America's alleged neo-imperialism. Consequently, some activists on the hard-left work to aid the forces of Islamist terror in the destruction of our country.

So in that sense, there remains some of that "ardent solidarity" Berman mentions, a solidarity on working toward the utter annihilation of the world's leading liberal capitalist state.

For more to that effect, see my previous post, "Where's the Revolution? Wait Until November".

German Officials Reopen 1980 Oktoberfest Bombing Investigation

This is interesting.

At Der Spiegel, "Oktoberfest Bombing Under Review: Officials Ignored Right-Wing Extremist Links":

It was less than two weeks before the Oct. 5, 1980 German parliamentary election, and the CSU and its then Bavarian state governor and chancellor candidate, Franz Josef Strauss, were not interested in right-wing extremist terrorism. In their worldview, the threat always came from the left. The social climate was toxic, and the Strauss camp, and others, treated left-wing extremist terror group the Red Army Faction (RAF) and its sympathizers as Germany's public enemy number one.

What did not fit into this worldview was the idea that right-wing extremist groups were at the same time developing their own, loosely defined terrorist network, with cells in Hamburg, Nuremberg, Esslingen near Stuttgart, as well as in Antwerp and Bologna. Not surprisingly, efforts to investigate the threat from the far right were half-hearted at best.

For three decades, the official explanation for the Oktoberfest attack involved the theory of a confused "sole perpetrator." In May 1981, after just eight months of investigation, the Bavarian State Office of Criminal Investigation (LKA) postulated this theory in its "final comment" on the case. The Federal Prosecutor's Office also noted that there was "no evidence whatsoever" that "third parties" could have influenced Köhler. Case closed -- or so it seemed.

Until now, this final comment was the only document relating to the case that had been made available to the public, while the investigation files on which it had been based remained unknown. Now SPIEGEL has evaluated these files for the first time, in addition to dossiers from the former East German secret police, the Stasi, and other records, some of which were formerly classified -- a total of 46,000 pages.

Rand Paul on Rachel Maddow: 'IDEOLOGICAL EXTREMISM = RACISM'

It's a long video, but compelling --- and the very best segment is near the end, where Dr. Rand Paul states one more time, as unequivocally as can be, that he abhors and rejects government-sponsored "institutional" racism, but that for leftists the "totality" of his views are irrelevant to the debate they want to have. It's a political debate, not an intellectual one, the Democratic race-grievance activists will push, and one, frankly, they're likely to win. It's a sad state of affairs that a conservative Republican can't talk about federal-state relations --- and the scope of federal power into the private business decisions of individuals --- without being pilloried as an "extremist" and "racist." What's especially interesting is that Dr. Paul knows exactly what's happening, and he stands his ground. This is the point David Weigel makes in his entry, "Rand Paul, Telling the Truth." And I'm not a big fan of Weigel, but both he and Rand Paul have gained points in their favor on my account.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

You see, as America enters its second decade of the 21st century, political competition is essentially a postmodern battle of ideas and meaning. Ron Paul says he opposes any official institutional racism, and we can take that to include any local "black codes" or similar ordinances to segregate the races. Paul wants government out of enforcing behaving among individuals, consumers, and places of business in the economy. We are 46 years since the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and it certainly seems difficult --- given the crises of that era --- to envision progress in eradicating that kind of Jim Crow racism in the absence of federal intervention. But to even discuss that possiblitity today is emotionally polarizing. So what ends up happening is leftists win on emotion. And the more rigorously argued political positions are attacked as extremist. That's what radical Ezra Klein does in his piece, "Rand Paul May Not Be a Racist, But He is an Extremist." I don't like Ezra Klein, and I particularly don't like this argument, because anyone knows that to be attacked as an "ideological extremist" on racial issues is tantamount being attacked as racist. Leftists don't do nuance on conservative ideology and race. Frankly, Rachel Maddow says the same thing at the end of the clip, so we can come up with a simple equation that's going to dog Rand Paul's campaign going forward: IDEOLOGICAL EXTREMISM = RACISM.

I'm not sure how Dr. Paul prevails here. I do know that it takes either a tremendous amount of courage or a tremendous amount of stupidity to take such a firm yet thoughtful stand on the left's signature bludgeon of political demonology. This is the top issue at Memeorandum today. And it's an issue that's not likely to go away soon. Frankly, as the political heat --- leftist, unrelenting, and opportunistically polarized -- escalates, I won't be surprised if Rand Paul decides he needs to issue a retraction and public apology in order to save his campaign. And just to recall how totally FUBAR all this is, all one has to do is remember that neither Rachel Maddow or Ezra Klein (to say nothing of their neo-communist cohorts) repudiated the racial extremism of Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

And that is totally messed up.

Lieberman Calls for Fort Hood Investigation: 'Nidal Malik Hasan an Islamist Extremist', 'Fort Hood an Act of Homegrown Terrorism'

Senator Joseph Lieberman's discussion today on Fox News Sunday was one of the most succinct, morally compelling commentaries on the Fort Hood massacre we've heard thus far. Certainly Lieberman's statements are the most forceful we've heard from any Democratic Party leader. See Chris Wallace, "Lieberman Calls for Fort Hood Investigation":

Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee Senator Joe Lieberman says he plans to begin a congressional investigation to determine whether the shooting of 13 people at Fort Hood was an act of home-grown terrorism.

Lieberman said there were "strong warning signs" that the alleged gunman, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was an "Islamist extremist."

"If that is true, the murder of these 13 people was a terrorist act and, in fact, it was the most destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11," Lieberman told FOX News Sunday.

He said he also wants to find out whether the Army missed warning signs that Hasan was becoming extreme in his Islamist views.

According to bystanders at Fort Hood, Hasan shouted the words "Allah Akbar," Arabic for "God is great!" when he opened fire. Over the past few years, Hasan reportedly made a series of statements justifying suicide bombing and comparing it to the bravery of an American soldier who would throw himself on a grenade to protect his colleagues.

Lieberman said if Hasan was showing signs he had become an Islamist radical, the Army should have shown "zero tolerance" and discharged him immediately.

Referring to the very same broadcast, Raw Story suggests that the "New York Times reports, however, that investigators have tentatively concluded it was not part of a terrorist plot."

Of course, there's no necessary reason for Hasan to have acted as part of a formal jihadist cell in a planned terrorist operation. Perhaps a solitary Muslim extremist, the facts are clear enough for anyone to make a reasonable case that Nidal Hassan is responsible for the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. We know now that Nidal Hassan:

* Attended the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, where he worshipped with three of the 9/11 terrorsts; and where he trainded under Anwar al Awlaki, a radical Islamist cleric and fanatical al Qaeda booster.

* Posted anti-American hate-speech at online social-networking sites, and hailed Islamist suicide attacks against American forces.

* Criticized American foreign and military policies.

* Claimed a "Palestinian" heritage.

* Donned a traditional Muslim robe and distributed Holy Korans the morning of the rampage.

* Announced that Muslims should "rise up" and attack Americans in retaliation for the war in Iraq.

*Screamed "Allahu Akbar" before opening fire on the innocents.

And now, it turns out, according to London's Telegraph, "Fort Hood Gunman Had Told U.S. Military Colleagues That Infidels Should Have Their Throats Cut" (via Memeorandum):

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the gunman who killed 13 at America's Fort Hood military base, once gave a lecture to other doctors in which he said non-believers should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats.

He also told colleagues at America's top military hospital that non-Muslims were infidels condemned to hell who should be set on fire. The outburst came during an hour-long talk Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, gave on the Koran in front of dozens of other doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington DC, where he worked for six years before arriving at Fort Hood in July.

Colleagues had expected a discussion on a medical issue but were instead given an extremist interpretation of the Koran, which Hasan appeared to believe.

It was the latest in a series of "red flags" about his state of mind that have emerged since the massacre at Fort Hood, America's largest military installation, on Thursday.

No doubt the White House and its mainstream media apologists will continue to remind us not to jump to conclusions.

Thank God for Joe Lieberman, in any case.

The Lessons of Flight 253

While taking a freeway-flyer's (chauffeur) break yesterday (while with R.S. McCain), I read this week's cover story at Time Magazine, "What We Can Learn from Flight 253." Like anyone should be, I'm extremely wary of the MSM newsweeklies, but I was surprised by the evenhanded reporting by Michael Duffy and Mark Thompson at the piece. The article's worth a read, certainly. I'll just leave two quotes that particularly caught my interest.

This one's from the introduction, focusing on the reaction among passengers to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's terror attempt:

Passengers later said there was something curious about the spare young man who had tried to bring down their plane: he was silent throughout the attack. He didn't panic. He didn't yell any last-second religious slogans. He was calm and methodical as he set himself on fire. It was as though he had been trained.

Of course, he had been trained, and fortunately not even better than he was. The remainder of the piece lays out the "four lessons" of the bombing attempt -- all of which have been rehashed over and over since the day after Christmas. But I give credit to Duffy and Thompson for their review and analysis, and "lesson #3" is something I discussed here over a week ago:

3. Al-Qaeda is bigger than Osama bin Laden:

As Obama sends 30,000 more troops to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a haven for terrorists, it is obvious that al-Qaeda has set up franchises to wage offensive war against the U.S. in places like Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Yemen, which has vast tracts of lawless countryside, has been harboring — and nurturing — terrorists for years. It is the site of the 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole that killed 17 U.S. sailors, as well as the stomping ground of Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical cleric and cyber–pen pal of Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood, Texas, shooter who killed 13 people in November. Abdulmutallab visited Yemen at least twice, most recently from August to December 2009, studying Arabic — and, apparently, bombmaking.

The Yemeni government, under pressure from neighboring Saudi Arabia and the U.S. — and facing internal threats — has recently stepped up operations against al-Qaeda within its borders. With American help, it carried out air strikes Dec. 17 and 24, killing more than 60 militants. But al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), is a distinctly creative branch. In August a supposedly repentant member of AQAP drew close to Saudi Arabia's Deputy Interior Minister before detonating a bomb secreted in his anal cavity, according to Stratfor, a well-regarded private intelligence outfit based in Texas. Although the attacker died, his target was only slightly wounded. A Stratfor report issued five days later concluded, "The operation could have succeeded had it been better executed" — a judgment that sounds a great deal like the early verdict on Flight 253.

And it turns out that there's yet another day of breaking (and damaging) news on the Flight 253 attempt. From the Los Angeles Times, "U.S. Learned Intelligence on Airline Attack Suspect While He Was En Route" (via Memeorandum):

U.S. border security officials learned of the alleged extremist links of the suspect in the Christmas Day jetliner bombing attempt as he was airborne from Amsterdam to Detroit and had decided to question him when he landed, officials disclosed Wednesday.

The new information shows that border enforcement officials discovered the suspected extremist ties involving the Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, in a database despite intelligence failures that have been criticized by President Obama.

"The people in Detroit were prepared to look at him in secondary inspection," a senior law enforcement official said. "The decision had been made. The [database] had picked up the State Department concern about this guy -- that this guy may have been involved with extremist elements in Yemen."

If the intelligence had been detected sooner, it could have resulted in the interrogation and search of Abdulmutallab at the airport in Amsterdam, according to senior law enforcement officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

"They could have made the decision on whether to stop him from getting on the plane," the senior law enforcement official said.

But an administration official said late Wednesday that the information would not have resulted in further scrutiny before the suspect departed. Abdulmutallab was in a database containing half a million names of people with suspected extremist links but who are not considered threats. Therefore, border security officials would have sought only to question him upon arrival in the U.S., the administration official said.

Nonetheless, the disclosure shows the complexity of the intelligence and passenger screening systems that are the subject of comprehensive reviews that the administration will release today.

Is it just me, or as more news comes out the "complexity" angle is increasingly offered up to take the heat off the administration?

At least at the Duffy and Thompson piece they hammer DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. But she hasn't been fired, so the "lessons" for the administration aren't quite sinking in enough yet, I guess?

More later ...

The Wright Ticket to the McCain Comeback

The Los Angeles Times reports that John McCain is looking for another comeback:

John McCain unveiled a feisty new campaign speech Monday, but the talk of change and promise of a fist-shaking fight to November failed to allay Republican concerns that the presidential race may be slipping beyond his grasp.

With 21 days to the election, there was widespread agreement that Wednesday night's third and final presidential debate would be a crucial opportunity - and perhaps the last one - for the Arizona senator to change the course of a race that appears to be moving strongly in Democrat Barack Obama's direction.

But the consensus ended there. For just about every Republican urging McCain to focus relentlessly on the economy, there was another who said McCain should continue questioning Obama's character by citing his association with William Ayers, a Vietnam-era radical. Some said the GOP nominee needed to do both, and also bring up the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., Obama's controversial former pastor; others called that a mistake and said that a mix of messages was part of McCain's problem.

It now appears that McCain will raise Obama's relationship to Ayers in tomorrow's debate.

I'm one those who've been disappointed in McCain's aversion to attacking Obama's radical ties, although I understand the reasoning: McCain's been searching for the right approach that balances toughness and the bounds of decency (for fear of being labeled "racist").

It's been a difficult process, and it may be too late in many respects, at least on Ayers and ACORN.

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright is another story, however. Obama was badly damaged by viral videos and revelations of his pastor's fire-and-brimstone anti-Americanism. If McCain wants to get serious about attacking the Illinois Senator's questionable associations, Wright's the ticket. Obama admitted a close friendship to his pastor, and he attended Trinity United Church for close to two decades.

Stanley Kurtz, who's done more than anyone else to reveal the extent of Barack Obama's radical associations, has a new report indicating that Obama's relationship to Wright was more significant than previously reported - that from Wright, to Ayers, and the Annenberg Challenge, Barack Obama's radicalism can be seen as a set-piece of funding, planning, and indoctrination.

Can this be the October Surprise?

It looks like Jeremiah Wright was just the tip of the iceberg. Not only did Barack Obama savor Wright’s sermons, Obama gave legitimacy — and a whole lot of money — to education programs built around the same extremist anti-American ideology preached by Reverend Wright. And guess what? Bill Ayers is still palling around with the same bitterly anti-American Afrocentric ideologues that he and Obama were promoting a decade ago. All this is revealed by a bit of digging, combined with a careful study of documents from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, the education foundation Obama and Ayers jointly led in the late 1990s.

John McCain, take note. Obama’s tie to Wright is no longer a purely personal question (if it ever was one) about one man’s choice of his pastor. The fact that Obama funded extremist Afrocentrists who shared Wright’s anti-Americanism means that this is now a matter of public policy, and therefore an entirely legitimate issue in this campaign.

Read the whole thing.

Barack Obama's ties to anti-American pedagogists and extremist black-separatists are not insignificant.

For John McCain, in looking for a comeback, he need look no further than Barack Obama's long history of funding and empowering groups who would denounce the U.S. as an "ineradicably racist Eurocentric civilization."

Photo Credit: Los Angeles Times

America Confronts New Menace After #SanBernardino Jihad Massacre

At WSJ, "Nation Confronts a New Menace After San Bernardino Shooting":

Chilling terror danger seen from extremist sympathizers who, unnoticed by authorities, amass deadly arsenals to attack anywhere in U.S.

Even with many details about the San Bernardino, Calif., massacre still unknown, law-enforcement officials see a chilling terror danger from extremist sympathizers who, unnoticed by authorities, are able to amass deadly arsenals to attack vulnerable gatherings anywhere in the U.S.

Much about the case has crystallized trends that officials have feared for years: The attackers, a young married couple with a baby, had never surfaced as subjects of any terror investigation and lived apparently ordinary suburban lives while secretly stockpiling guns, ammunition and homemade bombs.

The attacks Wednesday believed carried out by Syed Rizwan Farook, a religious Muslim and U.S. citizen, and his wife,  Tashfeen Malik, a native of Pakistan, targeted a gathering of county workers far from any high-profile metropolis. The couple entered the room armed to kill a lot of people, quickly.

“Terrorists have adapted and evolved in order to carry out heinous plots since 9/11, and this tragedy reinforces the need for law enforcement to evolve its intelligence-gathering and investigative techniques,’’ said U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

As the shooting rampage was about to begin, authorities said, Ms. Malik posted a message on Facebook pledging her allegiance to the leader of Islamic State. Pipe bombs later found at the couple’s Redlands, Calif., home echoed designs posted online by the al Qaeda publication, Inspire. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said they had evidence the couple showed signs of radicalization.

An Islamic State-linked news agency said the California shootings were carried out by their supporters, part of string of attacks that included those in Paris last month, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks online postings by extremists. The claim couldn’t be verified.

U.S. counterterrorism has long focused on people traveling to and from Syria and Iraq. Now, another threat looms from local terrorism sympathizers inspired to violence by Islamic State, but who act without any direct orders, said Lorenzo Vidino, the director of the Program on Extremism at the Center for Cyber & Homeland Security at George Washington University.

People with sympathies but no formal communication or ties with extremist groups can operate under the radar, he said, until they act. “That’s the big threat,” he said.

Unlike the Paris attacks, which were carried out by people whose friendships and family connections appear to have formed the backbone of one or more terrorist cells, the husband and wife in Wednesday’s attack hadn’t trained in Syria and, so far, don’t appear associated with a terrorist cell.

The San Bernardino attack “shows that a small number of people determined to plan but not boast can get away with it,” said Patrick Skinner, a former case officer with the Central Intelligence Agency. “In this way, terrorism is exactly like any other crime.”

The couple, who were killed Wednesday in a gunbattle with police, apparently sought to hide evidence that might connect them to others, law-enforcement officials said. Two relatively new cellular phones were found smashed in a garbage can and a computer in their townhouse was missing a hard drive. Investigators have subpoenaed email service providers to retrieve any communications.

Some questioned whether U.S. and local law-enforcement officials may have missed signs that the couple had become radicalized. Mr. Farook had communicated with at least one FBI terrorism suspect, for instance. But U.S. law enforcement agencies had no case files on either Mr. Farook, an environmental-health specialist who worked for San Bernardino County, or his wife, whom Mr. Farook married during a trip to Saudi Arabia, where she had lived most of her life.

The U.S. has seen similarly motivated attacks. In May, two Phoenix men were killed in a Dallas suburb after they opened fire outside an event that featured cartoon drawings of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad...

Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer were the primary targets at the attempted jihad attack in Garland, Texas.

The terror is picking up speed. It's the deadly signature of the Obama interregnum.

Still more at the link.

Does Obama Share Wright's Views?

Lanny Davis, at the Wall Street Journal this morning, argues that while Barack Obama "clearly" does not share the extremist views of his paster, Jeremiah Wright, he's nevertheless remained a member of the reverend's flock (via Memeorandum):

I have tried to get over my unease surrounding Barack Obama's response to the sermons and writings of his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. But the unanswered questions remain.

I am a strong supporter of and a substantial fundraiser for Hillary Clinton for president (though in this column I speak only for myself). I still believe she should and will be the Democratic nominee. But if Sen. Obama wins the nomination, he needs to understand that this issue goes well beyond Clinton partisans. Now is the time to address these questions, not later.

Clearly Mr. Obama does not share the extremist views of Rev. Wright. He is a tolerant and honorable person. But that is not the issue. The questions remain: Why did he stay a member of the congregation? Why didn't he speak up earlier? And why did he reward Rev. Wright with a campaign position even after knowing of his comments?

My concerns were retriggered when I read for the first time three excerpts from Rev. Wright's sermons published several weeks ago in a national news magazine:

- "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."
-- Sept. 16, 2001 (the first Sunday after 9/11)

- "The government . . . wants us to sing God Bless America. No, no, no. God damn America; that's in the bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human."
-- 2003

- "The United States of White America."
-- July 22, 2007

As I read and reread these words, I keep thinking: If my rabbi ever uttered such hateful words from the pulpit about America and declared all Palestinians to be terrorists, I have no doubt I would have withdrawn immediately from his congregation.

In his eloquent Philadelphia speech, Mr. Obama likened Rev. Wright to a beloved, but politically extremist, family member with whom one profoundly disagrees but whose rage one understands.

But this comparison just doesn't work for me. I don't get a chance to choose my family members. I do get a chance to choose my spiritual or religious leader and my congregation. And I do not have to remain silent or, more importantly, expose my children to the spiritual leader of my congregation who spews hate that offends my conscience.

Mr. Obama made a choice to join the church and to ask Rev. Wright to marry him and his bride. He said for the first time a few weeks ago that had Rev. Wright not recently resigned as pastor of the church, he would have withdrawn. But that only reraised the same questions: Why didn't he act before the resignation?

Well, why didn't he? Why didn't Obama act to separate from his relationship to the preachings of an America-bashing black liberation theologian.

It's an assumption, based on Obama's statements alone, that the Illinois Senator "clearly" does not share Wright's views. But if this is so clear, so self-evident, what substantiation do we have other than Obama's public professions?

If actions speak louder than words, Obama still going to have Wright as a political liability in the fall.

Obama's come up short in putting to bed concerns about Wright's teachings. He needs to return to the question once again, indicating that he's reexamined his statements since the crisis erupted. He needs to make a new address renouncing Wright's hatred once and for all. That will require, of course, a total renunciation of all ties to his church.

It should not be difficult.

All he has to say is "I will no longer attend a church that blames America for the evils befallen its people. My campaign is above that. I'm ending the division right now..."

People on both sides of the political aisle, as Davis' essay here shows, are waiting.

The Obama Doctrine of Extremist Diplomacy

I've recently discussed the dangers of a Barack Obama presidency for the direction of American foreign policy (see here and here).

Not only is Obama inexperienced, but, as I've noted, his call for greater engagement with extremist regimes would "open uncritical diplomatic arms to our enemies, placing America's hard-fought gains against the world's nihilist henchmen at risk."

Apparently Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution agrees in an article at today's Wall Street Journal, "Obama as Diplomat in Chief":

Applied categorically, this would be a bad idea. Meeting with enemy heads of state is neither as original as Mr. Obama implies, nor as promising as he claims. As a specific option for dealing with difficult regimes, it has potential merit on a case-by-case basis, and should always be considered -- but only after a careful assessment of what the United States believes it can get out of such meetings and dialogues.

The would-be Obama doctrine has understandable roots. Upon becoming president, George W. Bush ended American efforts to promote a peace process in the Middle East, and Israeli-Palestinian violence worsened. He turned a cold shoulder to Kim Jong Il and North Korea wound up with perhaps eight more nuclear bombs. His administration successfully worked out a modus vivendi with Iran at the Bonn conference on Afghanistan in 2001, but Mr. Bush's subsequent "Axis of Evil" speech, pre-emption doctrine, and termination of contact with leadership in Tehran led to a deterioration in relations that has haunted us in Iraq and that worsened when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office in 2005.

However, just because Mr. Bush went too far in one direction does not mean these situations would be rectified by going to the other extreme. U.S. negotiations with difficult regimes may sometimes be catalyzed by presidential engagement, but they only tend to work when we are in a commanding negotiating position or when we are prepared to make trades with foreign leaders that serve their interests as well as ours. Implying otherwise risks being labeled as naïve in the fall elections, with Democrats sounding like they believe ruthless dictators would behave better if only we took the time to try to understand them.

In fact, the U.S. has a long history of talking to unsavory extremist leaders. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't....

Mr. Obama is not wrong about the utility of negotiations with unsavory regimes. They are often useful, and they need not amount to appeasement or even a false raising of hopes. If handled carefully, they can be done in a manner that minimizes the prestige accorded a foreign leader we do not wish to risk strengthening. But such high-level contact is not a new tool of American foreign policy, nor does it guarantee success.

If elevated to a doctrine, reliance on presidential-level diplomacy is a mistake. It risks rewarding foreign leaders who cause the most trouble, creating perverse incentives for those desiring the attention of the U.S. It also can confuse us about the nature of diplomacy. Foreign leaders, nice or not, make deals based on assessments of their interests, and any new diplomatic doctrine that fails to recognize as much would ignore centuries of history and potentially damage American security.

I've omitted O'Hanlon's case-study analysis at the core of the article.

I don't have any big disagreements, however. I'd only add that Obama's also speaking more and more to the language of retreat in Iraq, and by implication the larger war on terror. It's not just his apparent bear-hug approach to our most implacable enemies (a highly ill-considered gambit), but that he's also been one of the Democratic congressional majority's biggest boosters of U.S. failure in Iraq.

The Illinois Senator's badly out of sync with our tough progress on the war. His pronouncements that Iraq's been a complete failure discredit the mission and our service personnel in the theater.

On diplomacy and war, Obama's shown he's unfit for command.

See more at Memeorandum.

Is Markos Moulitsas an Extremist?

A discussion at Bloggingheads:

Kos' forthcoming book is entitled "American Taliban." Here's how Kos describes it:

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m putting the finishing touches on my new book, American Taliban, which catalogues the ways in which modern-day conservatives share the same agenda as radical Jihadists in the Islamic world ...

Rich Lowry's criteria is that to attack the other side as equivalent to the Taliban makes you an extremist. So, that begs the question: What about those who criticize the Obama administration, which has given direct access to Jody Evans? The Code Pink Founder met with the Taliban in Afghanistan last November, and she's had direct access to the president? So even if we give the president credit for trying to do right in Afghanistan, his ties to Taliban enablers is deeply troubling.

Does that make me an extremist? It all depends on the evidence, I guess. See, "Jodie Evans is Barack Obama's Code Pink Liaison to Taliban Insurgents."

Anders Behring Breivik — No Clear Ideological Program

I linked previously to the New York Times's report: "Right-Wing Extremist Charged in Norway." The Times altered the headline at the newspaper's website, "Christian Extremist Charged in Norway" (and Memeorandum, at 7:50pm, had "Death Toll Rises to 92 in Norway Attacks"). And now it's altered it again, "Oslo Suspect Wrote of Fear of Islam and Plan for War." The Old Gray Lady is notorious for altering its news reporting, without citing changes, in furtherance of its progressive political agenda, so that's a glimpse on the witch hunt reporting that we're already seeing. FWIW, here's this from the introduction at the report:

OSLO, Norway — The Norwegian man charged Saturday with a pair of attacks in Oslo that killed at least 92 people left behind a detailed manifesto outlining his preparations and calling for a Christian civil war to defend Europe against the threat of Muslim domination, according to Norwegian and American officials familiar with the investigation.

Also, the Wall Street Journal has this, "Suspect Identified With Far Right." After a boilerplate lede, the report indicates:

While Oslo police have remained largely silent about Mr. Breivik's possible motives and background, the 32-year-old described himself on a now-shut down Facebook page as a Christian conservative with hobbies in hunting and body-building. He also had at one time been a member of the youth movement of the Norwegian Progress Party, which is widely considered as a right-wing populist party.

Populist parties are generally oriented toward elite opposition and economic injustice. Outright racist appeals are generally secondary or a function of economic dislocation. And in the European context "far-right" parties conjure images of the Nazis or the French National Front under Jean-Marie Le Pen. And for that matter, Norway's Progress Party has been shifting toward a moderate neo-liberal economic program for over a decade, attempting to downplay party schisms over immigration. So for all the media reporting, it's not definitely accurate to cite Behring Breivik as a "right wing extremist." He doesn't evince a coherent or systemic ideological program. I've read through portions of his Internet postings, translated from Norwegian. See: "This is a complete list of comments Anders Behring Breivik has left at Document.no." Positions that would normally be considered extreme right wing, especially in the traditional European context, aren't in evidence:

Anyway, we are not in a position where we can pick and choose our partners. That's why we have to ensure that we influence other culturally conservatives to take our anti-racist pro-homosexual, pro-Israeli line of thought. When this direction has been taken we can take it to the next level.

That's interesting, especially the anti-racist and pro-gay statements, and of course historic European right-wing ideologies were implacably anti-Semitic. And get this, at Telegraph UK:

Eyewitness reports from the island of Utoya, where the shootings took place, have also described a tall, blond haired, blue-eyed Norwegian man dressed as a police officer.

On the Facebook page attributed to him, Mr Breivik describes himself as a Christian and a conservative. It listed his interests as hunting, body building and freemasonry. His profile also listed him as single. The page has since been taken down.

The odd point is Behring Breivik's identification with freemasonry, which would contradict the media claims of him being at Christian zealot. New York Daily News also stresses freemasonry, "Who is Anders Behring Breivik? Norway shooting suspect's profile emerges."

All in all, most media reporting is lazy and incoherent. And to top it off, James Alan Fox, a criminology professor at Northeastern University, identifies Behring Breivik as a clinical mass murderer rather than an ideological terrorist. See, "Norway massacre fits the mold":

As details surface in the days and weeks ahead about Friday's massacre in Norway and about Anders Behring Breivik, the man believed to have perpetrated the bloodbath, we will hopefully be able to make some sense of what now seems so unfathomable. However, even with the sketchy information uncovered in the immediate aftermath of the shooting/bombing, the crime and the accused fit the mass murder mold in many respects. ...

Mass murderers do not typically see themselves as criminal, but instead as the victim of injustice. They often consider themselves as a heroic champion for right over wrong and their crimes as absolutely justified.

RTWT.

In sum, while no doubt Anders Behring Breivik dabbled in conservative politics and social movements, it's not the case that he had a clear cut ideological agenda. He identified as culturally conservative, but he did not attach his beliefs to classic racial supremacy theories or historic anti-Jewish movements of genocidal purity ("right-wing" by definition). He combined a frustration with the growth of Norway's multiculturalism with what would normally be seen as tolerance toward social and religious minorities. The latter points are tendencies that are championed by progressives. For Behring Breivik to exhibit these things, along with expressions of freemason beliefs, and a "hatred" of the modern institutional church, indicates a more complex pyschological profile than MSM outlets have portrayed. We saw a similar pattern of conclusion-jumping almost immediately upon the Jared Loughner shooting in Tuscon early this year.

RELATED: See the interesting discussion from Dana Loesch, at Big Journalism, "A Quick Lesson for Media on the Definition of “Right Wing”."

Also, from Mike McNally at Pajamas Media, "Can the Left Resist the Temptation to Exploit the Norway Attacks?"

Paris Terror Mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud Also Visited Germany

At Der Spiegel, "Abdelhamid Abaaoud's Death: Paris Terror Mastermind Also Visited Germany":

SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected mastermind behind Friday's Paris terrorist attacks who was killed in a Wednesday police raid, also entered Germany multiple times.

The man who has been described by French officials as the mastermind and "brains" behind Friday's terror attacks in Paris has been confirmed dead. The local public prosecutor said Thursday that Abdelhamid Abaaoud was killed during a raid on an apartment in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis on Wednesday. Officials identified the terror suspect by way of skin samples of the 27-year-old Belgian extremist.

According to information obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE, Abaaoud made repeated visits to Germany. Federal Police at the Cologne-Bonn Airport registered him on Jan. 20, 2014 as he tried to catch a flight to Istanbul. At the time, he told officials he wanted to visit friends and relatives in Turkey before returning to Cologne. Officials believe he then used another route to return to Europe.
At the time, Belgian authorities had issued orders to track Abaaoud's movements in the Schengen Information System (SIS), a database used by countries that are members of the European Union's Schengen area of borderless travel. Under the Belgian orders, he was not to be arrested or detained. German officials passed the information on to Belgium at the time.

Security sources in Germany say that Abaaoud also visited Cologne back in 2008, when he reportedly applied for an export registration plate for a large vehicle. But the circumstances surrounding the visit remain unclear. Investigators say they have no further information about the visit.

Abaaoud was considered Belgium's most dangerous Islamist extremist and was believed to have been a key figure in Friday's deadly attacks in Paris. The Islamist extremist, born in Brussels' Anderlecht district, is suspected of having organized the attacks, and security forces had conducted a desperate search for him after the massacre. French security forces killed Abaaoud during a seven-hour police deployment early Wednesday morning in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, during which officers fired more than 5,000 rounds.

In addition to Abaaoud, Hasna Aitboulahcen, a woman identified by officials as the terror mastermind's cousin, also died in the raid on Wednesday after detonating a suicide vest...

Actually, reports now say that Hasna Aït Boulahcen did not detonate a suicide bomb. See the London's Daily Mail, "'Cowgirl' cousin did NOT blow herself up... but died when third ISIS terrorist detonated suicide vest standing next to her in Paris siege apartment, police reveal."

In any case, still more at Der Spiegel.

U.S. Promises Long Campaign in #Syria

At the Wall Street Journal, "Syria Strikes: U.S. Reports Significant Damage in Attacks on Islamic State, Khorasan; American, Arab Warplanes Hit Targets Around Iraq-Syria Border":

WASHINGTON—The first U.S.-led airstrikes on extremist groups in Syria hit militant leaders, training camps and control centers, U.S. officials said, promising this was only the start of a long campaign.

The attacks were conducted with the aid of Arab allies, but the U.S. carried out the bulk of the raids. After the first wave of strikes, the U.S. said it conducted follow-on attacks during the day Tuesday that hit two Islamic State armored vehicles in Syria.

The U.S. and its allies unleashed more than 160 missiles and bombs on targets inside Syria, disrupting infrastructure used by the extremist groups Islamic State and al Qaeda-linked Khorasan, Pentagon officials said in the first assessments of the impact of the strikes.

While it will be days before a definitive conclusion can be drawn, U.S. officials said they believe some leaders of both Islamic State and Khorasan were likely killed in the strikes on training camps and headquarters buildings.

The expansion of the military campaign against Islamic State from Iraq to Syria carries significant risks for President Barack Obama's administration.

Mr. Obama has spent his presidency extricating the U.S. from two long and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now there is the prospect of getting mired again in a protracted Middle East war.

Western-backed rebels fear U.S.-led airstrikes on Islamic State and other extremist groups inside Syria will ultimately tip the balance in the multi-sided civil war in favor of the Syrian regime that Washington opposes.

Also, Islamic State made a new threat against a Western hostage. The family of British captive Alan Henning, an aid-convoy volunteer being held by the group, said on Tuesday that they had received an audio recording of the prisoner pleading for his life.

Islamic State has released videos showing the beheadings of three Western hostages—two of them Americans—since the U.S. began airstrikes on Islamic State targets in Iraq in early August.

U.S. officials didn't provide estimates of casualties, though local residents said many were killed, including civilians. American officials said there were no indications of civilian casualties and promised to review any such claims.

The U.S.-led strikes will continue over coming days, U.S. officials said, though they cautioned that future waves are likely to be smaller than the opening round as the campaign quickly settles into a lower, but persistent beat.

"I can tell you that last night's strikes were only the beginning," said Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary...

More.

And don't miss Walter Russell Mead, "THE PARALLELS BETWEEN BARACK OBAMA AND GEORGE W. BUSH" (via Instapundit).

Still more at Memeorandum.

John Russell 'Rusty' Houser

The "Hate Watch" blog (of the SPLC) posted an entry at the Medium site, "Lafayette Theater Shooter Fan of Hitler, Neo-Nazis, and Anti-government Conspiracies."

From just skimming it, this dude Houser definitely looks more the stereotypical "far-right extremist" than Dylann Roof ever did, but when you're dealing with the radical left, facts don't matter. All you have to do is find a couple of social media posts, or a photo with the Confederate flag, and poof! You've got your poster boy for the "contemporary radical right."

Of course, people like this are literally lone wolf losers, exactly the opposite of the so-called "lone wolf" jihadists who're radicalized by Islamic State and al-Qaeda hate-preachers like the now-dead Anwar al-Awlaki. They're part of a real movement of global jihad with millions of adherents. The Lafayette shooter not so much.

American society, from the White House to the mainstream media to college classrooms across the land, is now increasingly infected with cultural Marxism, and so you'll never get accurate coverage of the nature of extremist threats in the country today. No mainstream conservative, for example, embraces anything even remotely resembling the pro-Nazi rants of a guy like Houser. Meanwhile, mainstream leftists hail all kinds of historical figures from 20th century Communism as icons of movement progressivism. These are just facts. And that's the harsh reality mainstream and traditional Americans face in this country, as normal values have been rebranded as deviant and where murderous leftist and Islamist ideologies are simply redefined in meaningless terms like "workplace violence" and so forth.

Oh, and this Houser dude had serious mental illness, but that will be discounted by the radical left ghouls as they demonize conservatives and exploit the murders to hammer down their hateful, gun-grabbing extremist agenda.

In any case, see the New York Times (FWIW), "Lafayette Shooting Adds Another Angry Face in the Gunmen’s Gallery":

LAFAYETTE, La. — It was about 20 minutes into the 7 p.m. showing of “Trainwreck” when moviegoers heard a couple of pops, like a sound effect glitch. But when the sounds rang out again it became horribly clear that this was something else entirely.

“From the reflection of the movie, the light, you could see his gun shining,” said Lucas Knepper, who was seated in the same mostly empty row as the man in the short-sleeve, button-down shirt who had begun firing at the 20 or so people in the theater. “And then you could see the flash coming from the chamber.”

Soon two young women lay fatally shot, nine other people were wounded, and with that, on Thursday night, Lafayette, which boasts of being the happiest city in the country, joined Chattanooga, Tenn.; Charleston, S.C.; Aurora, Colo.; Newtown, Conn., and so many others on the long list of cities scarred by gun violence. The gunman, John Russell Houser, became the latest figure in a gallery of angry men with weapons who walked into a movie theater, a church, a school or a workplace and shattered the lives of people there.

Accounts from acquaintances, law enforcement officials and court records portrayed Mr. Houser, 59, of Phenix City, Ala., who also took his own life, as a man with a diffuse collection of troubles and grievances — personal, political and social — who had a particular anger for women, liberals, the government and a changing world.

Because he had been accused of both domestic violence and soliciting arson, though never successfully prosecuted, he was denied a permit to carry a concealed pistol. His family repeatedly described him as violent and mentally ill; his mental health had been called into question going back decades, and he spent time in a hospital receiving psychiatric care. He vandalized the house he was evicted from last year, and tampered with the gas lines in a way that could have caused a fire or explosion.

Given his history, he should not have been allowed to own a gun, said Sheriff Heath D. Taylor of Russell County, where Mr. Houser lived.

President Obama has said repeatedly that each mass shooting cries out for stricter controls to keep mentally ill people and criminals from obtaining guns, but the issue has not resonated on the campaign trail.

The police identified the women Mr. Houser killed as Jillian E. Johnson, 33, who owned, with her husband, two stores that sell toys, jewelry and printed goods, and played in a bluegrass band; and Mayci Breaux, 21, recently a student at Louisiana State University at Eunice, who was soon to start radiology school at Lafayette General Hospital...

This Houser dude was a sick fucker, and I mean that in every sense of the word. And leftists are just as sick in exploiting the murderer's mental illness to score heinous political points.

God bless the families of these two wonderful women lost in this evil rampage. It was not "senseless violence." It was sick, evil murder the kind leftists just love. Call it what it is.

More at Memeorandum.

Please Take Me off Your List of Hate

Dr. Helen Smith, Glenn Reynolds' "Insta-wife," destroys the disgusting hate-addled pseudo-science psychologist Kirk J. Schneider Ph.D., who published a book smearing the tea party as "extremist":

How DARE YOU send me this trash associating law abiding American citizens with Nazi Germany and Maoist China. I am a psychologist who has sympathy for my fellow Americans who are so “extremist” that they believe in lower taxes and the Second Amendment. Horrors!

What is “killing us” are polarized minds like Kirk J. Schneider Ph.D who is so narrow-minded that he thinks those who have different political beliefs than himself are the enemy and seeks to assign them with a “diagnosis.” What is truly extremist and scary to those of a more conservative or libertarian persuasion is that so many psychologists such as the one below are such political hacks for the Democratic Party. Please take me off your list of hate.

Helen Smith, Ph.D.

I get these idiotic far left-wing solicitations, and sometimes I'm almost as pissed off as Dr. Helen. I don't think I could express my disinterest which such exquisite contempt, but that's a template for the ages. Kudos. (And be sure to read Dr. Schneider's pathetic solicitation at the link.)