Frances Townsend on Face the Nation: How do we defeat #ISIS at home? (VIDEO)

She used to be on CNN, but now she's all over the place, including Fox News.

Here's Fran Townsend on Face the Nation:

Dana Loesch Interview with Carly Fiorina: 'Let's Call This What It Is, Terrorism' (VIDEO)

Shame on me for not posting Dana Loesch more often.

A great interview:

Suspect Syed Farook's Childhood Neighbor-Friend's House Raided by Police (VIDEO) — #SanBernardino

At London's Daily Mail, "FBI raid home of 'ISIS terrorist's' childhood friend - as it's revealed 'HE bought Syed Farook assault rifles, then fell out with him as he became more devout' and checked into mental unit after the attack."

And watch, at CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Rule 5 Sunday

I haven't been doing the huge Rule 5 roundups because they take a long time to write, and the payoff in terms of reciprocal full-metal jacket reach-around is often negligible. That said, hats off to those stalwart Rule 5 bloggers who religiously post the tasty totties each and every weekend.

See Pirate's Cove, for example, "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup," and "If All You See……is heat created snow, you might just be a Warmist."

Also from Dana Pico, "Rule 5 Blogging: Sailors!"

BONUS: From Drunken Stepfather, "STEPLINKS OF THE DAY," and "LADY GAGA NOT LOOKING LIKE LADY GAGA FOR BILLBOARD OF THE DAY."



Photo Hat Tip: Tactical Peaks.

The Sad Reasons for the Delay in Publishing Photos of Tashfeen Malik — #SanBernardino

At Pamela's, from Nonie Darwish:

AFDI Geller Fellow Nonie Darwish explains why several days passed after the San Bernardino jihad murders before any photo of jihad killer Tashfeen Malik was published:

Most Americans are wondering why the photo of the female Muslim terrorist of the recent San Bernardino attack, Tashfeen Malik, was for several days after the attack withheld without explanation by the authorities. Some guessed that it is for the sake of preserving the integrity of the investigation. That is the only logical explanation to most Americans. But I am afraid there are other reasons that only people with deep knowledge of the Islamic culture understand why Malik’s photo was not immediately published.

After the San Bernardino massacre by a Muslim married couple who left their new born baby orphaned for the sake of killing Americans, President Obama still refused to call the well-planned slaughter of Americans “terrorism,” let alone “Islamic” terrorism.

Obama does not even care about appearances when it comes to Islam and protecting Muslim sensitivities. It is not just Americans who are left wondering why Obama appears more concerned about the reputation of Islam than the reputation of America. But many around the world, including Muslims in the Middle East, are wondering about Obama’s loyalties and priorities.

Like her boss, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, instead of meeting families of the San Bernardino terror victims, met with a group of Muslims in Washington DC. She told them that her “greatest fear” was retaliatory violence against members of the Muslim community. That meant that her priority was to prevent a backlash against Muslims before protecting the American people.

Having been born and raised in a Muslim culture, I have little doubt that the Muslim leaders Lynch met with asked her not to show the photo of the Muslim female terrorist. Their explanation for keeping the photo away from the public eye was probably because they claimed that showing a photo of a veiled Muslim terrorist who was also a new immigrant would inflame Americans against veiled Muslim women.

Another reason the Obama administration found good reason to keep the public from seeing her photo initially is because the veiled Muslim female terrorist who killed 14 Americans and injured 21 would have a negative impact on Obama’s plan to bring in hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees to America.

There is also another reason probably not spoken, and that is that observant Muslims do not like their women’s photos exhibited in public, even if the woman in question is a mass murdering terrorist. The Muslims who met with Lynch still expected Americans to respect their traditions of not showing Muslim women’s photos publicly.

The Islamic culture is a “pride and shame”-based culture, and Obama fully understands how important it is for Muslims to not be embarrassed. Obama and Lynch’s desire to please their Muslim friends and to prevent a backlash is more important to them than telling Americans the full story of jihad activity. In Obama’s world, Islam must be protected at any cost, even at the cost of keeping the American people uninformed.

Thousands and even millions of Muslims are not ashamed to openly sympathize with ISIS, but at the same time, they are too proud to accept the consequences of the shame associated with Islamic terrorism. The so-called moderate Muslim leaders who met Lynch were helping, aiding and abetting the Islamic game of eating their cake and having it too. It is a well-known convoluted feature of Islamic cultural logic, to preserve their pride and hide their shame, and Obama is helping them do just that.

Even though Muslims claim that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, they still identify with and want to protect the image of a Muslim veiled woman who committed terrorism in the name of the Islamic State. And that is why the photo of the Muslim terrorist, Tashfeen Malik, were too precious to Muslim leaders to be posted on newspapers and TV screens for several days, until the public made it impossible for them to continue to withhold them. It was all about protecting the image of Islam and Muslims: we are told that the female terrorist does not represent Islam and has nothing to do with it.

The American people need to wake up and smell the jihad, even though their leader is keeping them away from knowing the sad truth.

Leftist Hatred Unleashed by San Bernardino Jihad

From John Hayward, at Big Government, "The Left has gone stark raving mad since the San Bernardino shootings":

If you were online, you could watch it happening in real-time, as the early confident predictions of white redneck Christian-fascist shooters – complete with wishcasting about the distance to the nearest Planned Parenthood clinic – gave way to the realization it was another jihad attack.

At that moment, political necessity, opportunism, and deep-rooted prejudice combined to send raging lightning storms of defective neurons hissing and crackling through every liberal’s mind. The actual killers blurred out of existence in the mind’s eye of the Left, until they saw only guns floating in midair, firing themselves at people who… well, let’s be blunt: liberals are working hard on some narratives about how the victims had it coming, and the jihadi couple were the real victims....

Mrs. Jihad waltzed right through Obama’s vaunted “screening” process, the one he says American voters are bigots and fools to express reservations about, when it comes to flooding the United States with Syrian refugees. Mr. Jihad somehow eluded the all-seeing eye of our trillion-dollar Surveillance State, even though he was chatting with terrorists online and checking out ISIS propaganda. The killers swore fealty to the Islamic State at literally the same moment Obama was offering confident assurances ISIS could never pull off a Paris-style terror attack in the United States. Confronted with these failures, the Democrat Party – to a man and woman – has absolutely no idea what to do, other than smear law-abiding Americans who had nothing whatsoever to do with the crime.

And that’s where the raw, slavering hatred comes in. It’s palpable right now. The Left hates decent Americans so very, very much. They hate your religion, your independence, your stubborn refusal to submit. They hate your prosperity, your resourcefulness, and your refusal to believe their fairy tales about an Almighty State that can take care of everyone’s needs in a fair and just manner. They hate that you keep noticing their failures. They hate that you won’t let them import a more pliable electorate from other countries without putting up a fight. They’re furious that you won’t accept their sacred religious belief that everything is your fault, and you deserve generations of punishment for the sins of your fathers...

Keep reading.

Sharp Partisan Polarization on Gun Control (VIDEO)

Here's the Washington Post, "Mass shootings reveal sharp partisan divisions ahead of 2016 elections."

And at ABC News, the video discusses polling data from the ABC News/Washington Post poll from late October, where Americans identified mental health issues as the problem, not access to guns. I think that's gotten lost in the debate since Wednesday's jihad massacre in San Bernardino. But be sure to push the mental health and jihad angles when debating leftists.

Here, at Town Hall, "Poll: Mental Health Problems, Not Lax Gun Laws, Are Responsible for Mass Shootings."

And at Big Government, "Poll: 2 Out of 3 Americans Say Focus on Mental Health, Not Gun Control."

In any case, from ABC News:

Liquor Store Owner Pulls Out Gun and Robber Flees Like a Punk (VIDEO)

And leftists want to take away your guns.

At CBS News New York, "Connecticut Liquor Store Owner Pulls Gun On Would-Be Armed Robber."

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.

Cocaine Found on Scott Weiland's Bus

Well, he was only 48, with a history of substance abuse, so it's no surprise the police found drugs on the scene.

But see the Los Angeles Times, "Cocaine found on Scott Weiland's bus; former Stone Temple Pilots bandmates issue a statement."

More, on Weiland's death, "Appreciation: RIP Scott Weiland: Rocker, lyricist and self-described 'tenacious drug addict' dies."

Plus, flashback from March, "Guitarist for Scott Weiland's new band dies a day before album debut."

Drugs and rock and roll. A fatal combination.

The Logic of Islamic Intolerance

From Raymond Ibrahim, at Jihad Watch:

A sermon delivered by popular Saudi Sheikh Muhammad Salih al-Munajjid clearly demonstrates why Western secular relativists and multiculturalists — who currently dominate media, academia, and politics — are incapable of understanding, much less responding to, the logic of Islamic intolerance.

During his sermon, al-Munajjid said that “some [Muslim] hypocrites” wonder why it is that “we [Muslims] don’t permit them [Western people] to build churches, even though they allow mosques to be built.” The Saudi sheikh responded by saying that any Muslim who thinks this way is “ignorant” and...

Keep reading.

The CAIR Effect: See Something, Do Nothing

From Michelle Malkin:

“If you SEE something, SAY something.”

The warning should be followed with a big “LOL” and a winky-blinky, just-kidding emoji. It’s one of the emptiest slogans in modern American life.

While the White House pays lip service to homeland security vigilance, it consorts with Islamic terror sympathizers who attack vigilant citizens and law enforcement officers at every turn.

Yes, I’m looking at you, Council on American-Islamic Relations.

After seeing CAIR’s bizarre press conference with the San Bernardino jihadists’ family members, here’s what I’d like to say to them:

You are not to be trusted. You put damage control above border control and jihad control. You are enemies of our national security and sovereignty.

Reminder: The feds designated CAIR an unindicted terror co-conspirator in 2007 in the prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation and others for providing support to Hamas jihadists. Over the alleged objections of Dallas-area federal prosecutors, the Obama Justice Department’s senior political appointees declined to press terror-financing charges against CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad.

Instead, the administration has rolled out the red carpet for CAIR officials “hundreds” of times since 2009 on a “range of issues.”

This is the same group of “Islamophobia!”-shrieking grievance grifters that cooked up the Ahmed “Clock Boy” Mohamed brouhaha in Texas, where the city of Irving and Irving Independent School District are now being sued for $15 million after raising alarms over the teen’s low-tech media stunt. Obama hailed Mohamed before the boy jetted off to Qatar to cash in on a Muslim Brotherhood-linked educational scholarship.

This is the same group of litigious radicals who unsuccessfully sued a Florida gun shop owner this summer for declaring that he would refuse to sell weapons to “[a]nyone who is either directly or indirectly associated with terrorism in any way.” A judge ruled this week that “[t]here are simply no facts grounding the assertion that Plaintiff (CAIR) and/or one of its constituents will be harmed.” CAIR is appealing, of course.

This is the same group of treacherous thugs that squelched critics of Somalia-based jihad group al-Shabab in Minnesota. CAIR smeared whistleblowing Muslims who participated in an educational Minneapolis forum on al-Shabab terrorism and youth gangs as “anti-Muslim.” In 2013, the uncle of a missing young Muslim radical testified before Congress about CAIR’s efforts to pressure families to impede FBI investigations.

“CAIR held meetings for some members of the community and told them not to talk to the FBI,” Abdirizak Bihi told lawmakers, “which was a slap in the face for the Somali American Muslim mothers who were knocking on doors day and night with pictures of their missing children and asking for the community to talk to law enforcement about what they know of the missing kids.”

This is the same group of free speech-trampling zealots that bombarded private citizen, Zaba Davis, with harassing subpoenas over her opposition to a planned construction project by the Muslim Community Association and Michigan Islamic Academy. A federal judge called CAIR’s anti-free speech witch hunt “chilling” and ordered the outfit to pay $9,000 in legal fees.

This is the same manipulative group of controversy-manufacturing instigators who tried to sue “John Does” — innocent American citizens who alerted the authorities about their security concerns — in 2007 after a group of imams falsely claimed they were discriminated against on a Minneapolis flight...

Keep reading.

U.S. Officials Say Homegrown Terror Plots Are Bubbling-Up Like They've Never Seen Before (VIDEO)

At ABC News 10 San Diego:

After San Bernardino and Paris Attacks, Security Experts Foresee Major Changes at 'Soft Target' Venues (VIDEO)

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Muslims in America Allegedly 'Fear for Their Lives'

Amazing how the left has ginned up the specter of "Islamophobia," of which there's minimal evidence.

But see the New York Times, among many other outlets barking the same false memes, "Muslims in America Condemn Extremists and Fear Anew for Their Lives."

Suspect Tashfeen Malik Obtained 'Fiancé' Visa Using Falsified Address — #SanBernardino

She committed fraud to obtain a visa, and we're told not to worry about Sryian "widows and orphans."

At AoSHQ, "So They Finally Did the Vetting of Tashfeen Malik, and It Turns Out the Address She Gave Is Fake, and She's Connected to Pakistan' Most Notorious Radical Mosque."

The Terror This Time — #SanBernardino

At WSJ, "The FBI confirms what President Obama refuses to admit":

President Obama entered the White House believing that the “war on terror” was a misguided overreaction driven by political fear, and his government even stopped using the term. Seven years later Mr. Obama is presiding over a global jihadist revival that now threatens the American homeland more than at any time since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

That’s the distressing lesson of the recent spate of terror bombings that this week arrived at a center for the disabled in San Bernardino, California. FBI Director James Comey said Friday that his agency is now investigating Wednesday’s massacre of 14 people as an act of terrorism and that the two Muslim killers showed “indications of radicalization.”

Mr. Comey added that while there is no evidence so far that the killers were part of a larger terror cell or plot, there are some indications of potential foreign terror “inspiration.” The latter would have to mean Islamic State or al Qaeda, perhaps through the Internet.

The FBI director said more than once that the investigation is in the early stages, but he deserves support for speaking frankly about the evidence and dangers. Every instinct of this Administration, starting with the President, has been to minimize the terror risk on U.S. soil—perhaps because it contradicts Mr. Obama’s political belief that all we have to fear is fear of terrorism itself.

The President made this explicit in his May 23, 2013 speech at National Defense University in which he said Americans should move past the country’s post-9/11 war footing and compared the Islamist terror threat to “many forms of violent extremism in our history.” Few speeches in presidential history have been repudiated so quickly by events.

San Bernardino is an example of the domestic terror nightmare that Mr. Comey has been warning against as he’s told Congress about the thousands of Americans who are now Islamic State sympathizers. That neither Pakistani-American Syed Farook, born in Illinois, nor Tashfeen Malik, his wife by way of Saudi Arabia, was on the FBI’s watch list is all the more worrisome. Their quiet stockpiling of guns, ammo and bomb-making material even as they led seemingly average lives shows that the U.S. may have a larger problem of homegrown terrorism than the government has wanted to admit.

Americans have tended to think they are safer than Europeans and their Muslim immigrant enclaves of Saint-Denis, Molenbeek and Birmingham. But by the account of his friends and even his family, Farook gave no hint of radical conversion until he mowed down the same colleagues who had thrown his wife a baby shower. He shows that jihad is possible even among native-born Americans who give every sign of abiding by U.S. norms.

San Bernardino also shows that the consequences can be as murderous from a jihadist who is “inspired” by Islamic State as one directed by it. U.S. officials said Tashfeen Malik had pledged her allegiance to Islamic State in a Facebook post the day of the attack. If ISIS was her inspiration, this demonstrates that the caliphate doesn’t need a network of agents to spread terror. Its perverse Internet-age genius is to claim to speak for all Sunni Muslims anywhere who can inflict pain on infidels and apostates.

President Obama’s failure to respond forcefully enough, or even seemingly to understand the threat, has allowed this evil inspiration to spread as Islamic State claims to be the vanguard of Islamist history...

More.

On Saturday, New York Times to Publish Editorial on Newspaper's Front Page — For the First Time Since 1920

Yes, an editorial on gun control.

How pathetic.

See, "End the Gun Epidemic in America."

For the first time since 1920, @nytimes runs an editorial on Page One: https://t.co/nx7NByHJqW pic.twitter.com/iilQmyPps2

— Tom Jolly (@TomJolly) December 5, 2015

The Closing of Barack Obama's Mind

Pretty good, although not a new revelation, or anything.

From Peter Wehner, at Commentary:

The Closing of Barack Obama’s Mind - by @Peter_Wehner - https://t.co/wUbkXlTnbP pic.twitter.com/sdCPMioeaf

— Commentary Magazine (@Commentary) December 5, 2015

If you want to witness an adamantine mind at work, you could do a whole lot worse tha[n] observe the 44th president of the United States. Barack Obama is the most rigidly ideological president of my lifetime, a man who has a nearly blind adherent to a particular ideology (progressivism). It’s a disturbing, if at times a psychologically fascinating, thing to witness.

We're seeing it play out in multiple ways, but let me offer just one illustration — his approach to jihadism. It has been clear from the start of his presidency that Mr. Obama has decided that Islam is wholly separate from Islamic terrorism, which explains his refusal to use the words (or variations of the words) radical or militant Islam. It also explains why his administration has used absurd euphemisms like “man-caused disaster” and “workplace violence” to describe Islam-inspired attacks. Why the 2009 Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was an “isolated extremist.” Why the shooting at a Kosher supermarket in Paris earlier this year was “random.” (The gunman had declared his allegiance to ISIS.) And why the president, in an effort to protect Islam, invokes the Crusades at a National Prayer Breakfast, despite the fact that the Crusades happened roughly a thousand years ago. On and on it goes.

We have a president who is eager to put a racial frame around incidents in which white cops kills blacks, even if, as in the case of Officer Darren Wilson and Michael Brown, the shooting was justified and there was no evidence that it was racially motivated. No matter; the incidents fit into Mr. Obama’s worldview, and off to the races he went.

But in the case of jihadism, when the killers themselves are invoking the Koran and the Islamic faith to justify their malevolence — when the caliphate established in the heart of the Middle East is called the Islamic State — the president refuses to confront it. He goes into contortions to downplay or ignore the connection to Islam. He has a narrative to advance, and he will do it even if he has to run roughshod over reality to do it.

No one is asking Mr. Obama to indict all of Islam or have America or the West declare a war on it. He should do neither. But what we should expect is the president to understand the nature of the enemy we’re facing. It would also be refreshing if the president did not live in a world hermetically sealed off from facts that are inconvenient to his worldview. But that is precisely what Mr. Obama is doing...

Still more.

The Consequences of Jihad Denial

Here's Pamela, at Breitbart, "'Motive Unknown' — The Consequences of Jihad Denial":

Obama shrugged. Hillary shrugged. The media shrugged.

“We do not yet know why this terrible event occurred,” said Barack Obama.

“No matter what motivation these shooters had, we can say one thing for certain—they shouldn’t have been able to do this,” said Hillary Clinton.

“Motive unknown.” That’s the mantra from the Obama administration and his running dogs in the media. Obama rushed to say that the motive was undetermined, but when a leftist follower of the Southern Poverty Law Center murdered three Muslims in North Carolina, Obama immediately ascribed the killings to “Islamophobia,” when in fact they were the act of a deranged man who was enraged over a parking dispute, and who had repeatedly said that he preferred Muslims to Christians.

Here’s the motive: it has now been revealed that as the San Bernardino jihad attack was taking place, Syed Farook’s wife and accomplice, Tashfeen Malik, put up a post on Facebook in which she pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS).

This was jihad terror. This was premeditated, methodical, and well planned. The bombs left behind at the site were for first responders. They deleted their email accounts and smashed their cellphones, no doubt to cover up their contacts with other jihadis.

Some have downplayed this connection to other jihadis, saying that the attack was inspired, not directed, by ISIS. That is a distinction without a difference. ISIS has directed devout Muslims to “think globally, act locally.” They have directed Muslims who accept their authority as the caliphate to kill American civilians on U.S. soil. That is their explicit directive, and that is exactly what this cell did. Yet Josh Earnest in Friday’s press conference still refuses to acknowledge the terror connection.

Meanwhile, there are still more unanswered questions than ones on which we have clarity. The Feds have not even been able to tell us exactly who Tashfeen Malik (if that is her real name) is, or provide a picture of her, or records of where she came from, when she married Syed Farook, when their child was born, or proof that Syed is indeed the father and that she had a legitimate claim to be in this country.

Tashfeen Malik was subjected to background checks by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security before she was allowed to enter the country. She passed both. That is a stunning indictment of Obama’s vaunted “vetting process” for the Syrian refugees he is intent upon inflicting upon this country.

You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality. Muslim immigration, the rise of Islamic jihad armies in the Middle East and Africa, and the sanction (even exaltation) of jihad front groups in the U.S. such as the Hamas-tied Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) (how did they get to the family so fast?) have provided the enemy with ample opportunity to grow exponentially. And they have taken full advantage of that opportunity.

In the wake of this jihad attack, Obama wishes to disarm the victims — as if that would stop the jihadists. Machete-wielding Muslims slaughtered a dozen Chinese commuters and wounded over a hundred at a major commuter train station in China. The commuters had no weapons – no way to fight back.

And it has happened here. How would gun control have stopped the Muslim college student in California who recently stabbed four innocent people while carrying an ISIS flag, with the attendant references to Allah and beheadings?

San Bernardino is in one of the most stringent gun control states in the country. The fact is that these mass shootings usually take place in gun-free zones — except for the attempted jihad massacre at our free speech event in Garland, Texas last May. That jihad attempt had the best of all possible outcomes, because the jihadis were greeted by armed freedom fighters.

Besides gun control, the media and Obama’s administration are obsessed with the prospect of an “anti-Muslim backlash.” Obama, Hillary, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the media — they are all groveling before Islam, scrubbing and mopping up after this latest jihad attack, and still it’s not enough. Devout Muslims slaughtered innocent Americans at a Christmas party, and now comes the second wave of the attack — charges of racism (Islam is not a race) and “Islamophobia.”

American Muslims for the umpteenth time are wailing about a fear of reprisals – reprisals that never actually come in reality, but are always the focus of media obsession after every jihad attack. The blood of American Christians and Jews is still on the floor and the walls of a Christmas party, and they are playing the victim. How savage.

Why aren’t American Muslims mourning our dead? Why aren’t American Muslims using their money and influence to call for an “enlightenment” in Islam, a purge of the Quran and the Islamic texts and teachings that call for jihad and genocide?

Law enforcement has been just as compromised as the government and the media: I have been watching CNN — yes, unbelievable (a first), but the failings of FOX are too big to stomach. So imagine my horror when I switched it on and saw swarms of reporters inside the home of Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik. Qurans everywhere, passports, drivers licenses of family members are strewn about.

They released the crime scene? There were no fingerprint forensics anywhere. How do they know who came and went into that apartment?

The FBI did this? Even CNN’s law enforcement analysts appeared shocked by what CNN’s reporters (and other reporters) were doing. They had never seen a crime scene of this magnitude opened to the public so early.

This was an Islamic cell with many people involved. Who gave the order to release the scene? Obama? And how much evidence was destroyed by these reporters tramping through the house? How much of the jihad killers’ activities and contacts were obscured and lost forever?

What’s the result of the universal government, law enforcement and media denial and obfuscation of the reality of the Islamic jihad against the United States? San Bernardino
— and there will be many more San Bernardinos.

Obama’s jihad-free counter terror policies and jihad denial is the cause of this catastrophic intelligence and law enforcement failure...

Still more.

Global Jihad Has Landed in San Bernardino

It's not like homegrown terrorism is unheard of in the U.S. --- not by a long shot.

But the recent increase of mass-scale death by Islamic jihad --- which has more often been a foreign problem --- has left people feeling as if something fundamentally has changed, something indeed existential, right here at home.

An interesting commentary from Steve Lopez, at the Los Angeles Times, "A worldwide war has landed in San Bernardino -- now what?":

“It’s war in the 21st century, and it’s an ugly reality that unfortunately we are going to be plagued with for some time.”

Those are the words of Rep. Adam Schiff of Burbank, the ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

I spoke to Schiff by phone on Friday morning, just after federal officials announced that one of the San Bernardino shooters had declared allegiance to Islamic State before the slaughter of innocent civilians.

That news was the most disturbing reminder since 9/11 that the threat of terrorism is not limited to distant lands, and it raised a litany of scary and complicated questions.

How many radicalized sympathizers of terrorist groups like Islamic State or Al Qaeda are living among us, people who may or may not be taking orders from anyone, but are plotting their own acts of barbarism?

Can we prevent the next one?

And how much of our privacy and civil liberty are we willing to sacrifice in the interest of safety, a question France is wrestling with after terrorists killed 130 people there last month?

“It could happen anywhere,” said a longtime friend who lives in the San Fernando Valley and is worried, as are all parents, about her children’s safety in public places. “It could happen just walking down the street.”

So, too, could any crime. But we’re reasonably safe, so we try to keep some perspective about odds and statistics and all that. We don’t want to overreact, stop going places, stop living.

But San Bernardino may represent a tipping point.

Because it’s part of our community.

Because it’s not a high-profile political or ideological target, like the Twin Towers or the Pentagon.

Because it leaves you with the uneasy feeling that no place is safe from those who identify with the twisted idea that beheadings and the slaughter of innocents are tributes to God’s greatness.

How do you begin to defeat that?

“I think the combination of Paris and San Bernardino, if in fact San Bernardino turns out to have an ISIS connection, may be a turning point in the resolve of the world to try to defeat ISIS, to take the fight to ISIS,” said Schiff, using an acronym for Islamic State.

He thinks it’s key to militarily drive ISIS off the land they control in Iraq and Syria, disrupting the terrorists’ money-making operations and complicating access to Europe and the planning of more attacks in the West.

He may be right, but already there are reports of Islamic State establishing a new stronghold in Libya, terrifyingly close to much of Southern Europe...

Well, Schiff offers a pretty good plan, and as for Libya, we'll take out ISIS there as well. Or, well, we would take them out there as well, if Obama wasn't president. But we've still got 14 months with this cowardly administration of appeasement.

Still more.

FBI Now Investigating San Bernardino Massacre as Jihad Terrorism

At Fox News, "Stating the obvious? FBI awkwardly acknowledges San Bernardino massacre likely terrorism."

Also, at LAT, "San Bernardino massacre probed as terrorism, FBI says."

And watch, at CNN:

Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik Built Bombs Using Instructions from al-Qaeda Magazine (VIDEO)

At the Palm Springs Desert Sun, "FBI checking Al Qaeda link to San Bernardino shooting":

The FBI is investigating whether there's a connection between the San Bernardino shooters and Al Qaeda.

The shooters, Syed Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, had a dozen pipe bombs in their Redlands home and carried three other bombs that were combined into a single device, authorities said Thursday morning.

David Bowdich, assistant director of the FBI's Los Angeles office, said officials are checking whether the bombs were built using directions from an Al Qaeda online magazine, "Inspire."

The magazine is written in English and targets American and European readers.

Wednesday's attack would be reminiscent of the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing. Brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev built a pressure cooker bomb using instructions found in "Inspire."

More.

Tashfeen Malik Linked to 'Red Mosque' in Pakistan, Center for Jihadists — #SanBernardino

At Truth Revolt, "Terror Wife Linked to Radical Mosque in Pakistan":

Terror wife Tashfeen Malik is being linked to an infamous mosque in Pakistan connected to terrorism and whose imam has pledged allegiance to ISIS, according to reports from Britain's Daily Mail.

Malik and her husband Syed Farook killed 14 and wounded more than 20 people in a terrorist attack on Wednesday in San Bernardino, California.

While Farook was born and raised in the United States, and has a brother who is a decorated U.S. Navy vet, Malik is originally from Pakistan...

Here's the piece at Daily Mail, "EXCLUSIVE: ISIS loyalist woman in San Bernardino massacre is linked to Pakistan's most notorious radical cleric and mosque known as center for fundamentalists."

MSNBC Apologizes for Live News Coverage Inside Home of Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik (VIDEO)

Here's the video, "MSNBC takes viewers on tour of California terrorists' apartment."

And at MSNBC on Twitter, "WATCH LIVE: NBC News entering attackers' apartment," and "TUNE IN: Kerry Sanders is live inside #SanBernardino attackers' apartment."

More at TPM, via Memeorandum, "MSNBC: 'We Regret' Live Shots Of Kid Photos, ID Cards From Attackers' Home."

Apparently reporters paid landlord $1000 to get in the home https://t.co/ClXDUUS1pc

— Michelle Fields (@MichelleFields) December 4, 2015

Plus, from Ashe Schow, at the Washington Examiner, "MSNBC embarrasses itself inside San Bernardino attackers' apartment."

America’s Pathological Denial of Reality

From Caroline Glick, at FrontPage Magazine, "In America of 2015, natural conclusions about the San Bernardino jihadists are considered irresponsible, at best":

How much lower will America sink before it regains its senses? Wednesday, two Muslims walked into a Christmas party at a community service center in San Bernardino, California, where one worked. They were wearing [tactical gear] and carrying automatic rifles, pipe bombs and pistols. They opened fire, killed 14, and wounded 17.

The murderers, Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik were killed by police.

Speaking to the Daily News, Farook’s father said his son, “was very religious. He would go to work, come back, go to pray, come back. He’s Muslim.”

Farook’s neighbor told the paper that over the past two years, Farook exchanged his Western dress for Islamic gowns and grew a beard.

These data points lead naturally to the conclusion that Farook and his wife were jihadists who killed in order to kill in the name of Islam.

But in America of December 2015, natural conclusions are considered irresponsible, at best.

In an interview with CNN following the shooting, US President Barack Obama said the massacre demonstrates that the US needs stricter gun laws. As for the motives of the shooters, Obama shrugged. “We don’t yet know the motives of the shooters,” he insisted.

In other words, while ignoring what in all likelihood drove Farooq and his wife to murder innocent people, Obama laid responsibility for the carnage at the feet of his political opponents who reject his demands for stricter limitations on gun ownership.

Here is the place to note that California has some of the most stringent gun control laws in the US.

According to the victims, Farook and his partners were able to reload their weapons and shoot without interruption for several minutes until the police arrived because there was no one to stop them.

Obama wasn’t alone in deflecting attention away from the likely motivations of the murderers.

Wednesday evening, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), held a press conference at the Islamic Center of Orange County. Farook’s brother in law, Farhan Khan was carted out before the cameras to tell the world that he for one had no idea why his brother in law opened fire.

Two other speakers at the event were Hussam Auyloush, CAIR’s regional executive director and Muzammil Siddiqi, the director of the Islamic Society of Orange County.

Auyloush insisted that he had no idea would could have possibly prompted Farook and his wife to murder those gathered at the center. Auyloush raised the prospect that they could have been mentally ill, or perhaps they just didn’t like the victims, or maybe they were garden-variety extremists.

For his part, Siddiqi insisted that Islam had nothing to do with the shooters’ decision to murder innocent people, (how he could be so certain, is unknown).

Siddiqi added that he hopes law enforcement bodies will conduct a full investigation into the “people and motives,” behind the attack.

To a degree, the very fact that Siddiqi had no compunction about stepping in front of the cameras just hours after the attack is proof that the US has lost its way.

If American elites were even semi-competent, Siddiqi would have faded into the shadows, never to emerge again 15 years ago.

Siddiqi is a known jihadist sympathizer. His close ties to jihadists have been a matter of public record since 2000.

In October 2000, Siddiqi spoke at an anti-Israel rally in Lafayette Park in Washington, DC. There he warned the American people that they must abandon their support for Israel lest “the wrath of God” be unleashed against them.

According to a profile of Siddiqi compiled by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, (IPT) in the late 1990s Siddiqi gave a speech extolling jihad and foreseeing Israel’s replacement with an Islamic state.

Among other things, Siddiqi said, “In order to gain the honor, jihad is the path, jihad is the way to receive the honor.”

Siddiqi converted Osama bin Laden’s senior aide, American jihadist Adam Gadahn. Gadahn converted to Islam at the Islamic Center of Orange County in 1995. According to a 2007 New Yorker profile, Siddiqi employed Gadahn at the Center in the years following his conversion. It was during this period that Gadahn was radicalized. He then went to Pakistan and joined al Qaida.

In 1992 Siddiqi hosted a blind sheikh named Omar Abdel Rahman at the Islamic Center. He stood beside Rahman and simultaneously translated his lecture about jihad to the audience of worshipers.

The next year, Rahman masterminded the first jihadist attack on the World Trade Center...

 Still more.

PREVIOUSLY: "EXCLUSIVE: First Photo of San Bernardino Terror Suspect Tashfeen Malik Released," and "#SanBernardino: FBI Seized .22 Caliber Rifle, Dozens of Boxes of Ammo, Weapons Accessories, Invoices from Gun Sellers, Laptop, and Several Data Storage Devices."

#SanBernardino: FBI Seized .22 Caliber Rifle, Dozens of Boxes of Ammo, Weapons Accessories, Invoices from Gun Sellers, Laptop, and Several Data Storage Devices

At the Los Angeles Times, "FBI seized guns, ammo, computer and notebook from home of San Bernardino shooters."

PREVIOUSLY: "EXCLUSIVE: First Photo of San Bernardino Terror Suspect Tashfeen Malik Released."

EXCLUSIVE: First Photo of San Bernardino Terror Suspect Tashfeen Malik Released

At ABC News, "First Photo of Female San Bernardino Shooter Tashfeen Malik."

And at ABC 7 News San Francisco:

#BREAKING: 1st photo of San Bernardino terror suspect Tashfeen Malik, obtained by @ABC https://t.co/5jrNJLMErY pic.twitter.com/HLI9lmNQuT

— ABC7 News (@abc7newsBayArea) December 4, 2015

PREVIOUSLY: "Tashfeen Malik Pledged Allegiance to Islamic State During #SanBernardino Jihad Massacre (VIDEO)."

All Muslims Are Potential Terrorists and Suspects

Well, obviously.

This is the Islamic State attack on the homeland that Americans feared in the yesterday Washington Post poll conducted in the wake of the Paris attacks.

We're not safe. The Obama administration simply does not take the threat seriously, so we're going to be in greater danger until a Republican is elected.

At Astute Bloggers, "THE SAN BERNARDINO ATTACK PROVES ALL MUSLIMS ARE JUSTIFIABLY POTENTIAL TERRORISTS AND SUSPECTS."

Tashfeen Malik Pledged Allegiance to Islamic State During #SanBernardino Jihad Massacre (VIDEO)

At Free Beacon, "Report: San Bernardino Attacker Pledged Allegiance to Islamic State." (Via Memeorandum.)

And at CNN, via Memeorandum, "San Bernardino shooting: Attacker pledged allegiance to ISIS, officials say."

Save $30.00 on Amazon Fire HD 6 Kids Edition Tablet

Shop for the holiday, Fire HD 6 Kids Edition, 6" HD Display, Wi-Fi, 16 GB, Blue Kid-Proof Case.

More, Sales & Deals on Luggage and Travel Gear.

Once again, for under the tree, from Nicholas Stargardt, The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939–1945, and Alistair Horne, Hubris: The Tragedy of War in the Twentieth Century.

Plus, Stephen Kotkin, Stalin: Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928.

Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer Has Run Out of Time for a Turnaround

That's the first thing I thought when I heard the company might be up for sale.

At the New York Times:

Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer has run out of time for a turnaround.

After three years, it’s clear that neither the chief executive, nor maybe any potential replacement, can save the flailing Internet company. The board’s job should be to determine the best way for tidying up the company’s affairs. Ms. Mayer’s best legacy could turn out to be that she got a good price for Yahoo’s core business.

Ms. Mayer has tried to drum up excitement by investing and buying smaller firms in mobile, video and social technologies. That hasn’t worked. Yahoo is expected to earn less than half as much as it did in 2012. The future doesn’t look any brighter, as companies cut into its advertising revenue with software that blocks online ads.

It’s doubtful that any other executive could do better. After all, Yahoo has had six bosses over the last decade, and none were able to figure out how to turn things around. History shows that struggling tech companies rarely regain momentum. Top engineers flee, new technologies and rivals are ignored and sclerosis sets in.

Given that reality, it might be futile for the board to try to replace Ms. Mayer. Instructing her to dismember the company might be the best approach and a way for her to salvage her reputation...

Ouch. That's harsh.

Still more at that top link.

VIDEO: FBI Uses Robot to Search Suspect's Home in #SanBernardinoShooting

From Sean Hannity, last night:

Climate Fanaticism is Sponsored by the Students' Unions

This is from Toronto's Financial Post (via Blazing Cat Fur):

Engage in a discussion with university students or peruse the social media pages they stare at on their devices, and it quickly becomes evident that climate change is the political issue youth are most passionate about. University campuses are home to a sizable contingent of climate justice activists, who proclaim loudly that climate catastrophe is imminent unless we cripple the fossil fuel industry and end capitalism.

Much of the climate fanaticism is sponsored by the students’ unions. There are campaigns to ban the sale and distribution of plastic water bottles on at least two dozen campuses in Canada. The plastic bottle ban is supported by the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), which claims that “communities, not corporations, must control water resources and services.” Evidently, the exchange of money for water is so offensive to their socialist sensitivities that it must be purged from campuses. Surely it won’t be long before students’ unions are setting up “safe spaces” students can retreat to when they feel “triggered” by the sight of plastic bottles.

In addition to the bottle ban, there is a strong and growing movement on campuses – also organized in part by the CFS – lobbying for universities to divest from fossil fuels. The fossil fuel industry “is a rogue industry and it’s immoral for our colleges to continue investing in it,” claims the CFS. According to them, fossil fuel companies are “spending millions of dollars to corrupt our political process,” they are “profiting while our children and communities pay the price” and “their greed for profit threatens the entire planet.” All that’s left is for the CFS to launch a campaign to have the scientist-muzzling, climate-denying oil puppet Stephen Harper deported for setting Canada on the path to Armageddon...

Keep reading.

Official from Loma Linda University Medical Center Discusses #SanBernardinoShooting (VIDEO)

At ABC News:

Inland Regional Center Serves People with Developmental Disabilities (VIDEO)

Watch, at ABC 10 News San Diego, "Regional Center serves people with disabilities."

More at WaPo, "Here’s the inspiring work done at the disability center, site of the Calif. shooting."

Chaos in San Bernardino After Mass Shooting (VIDEO)

From CNN:



PREVIOUSLY: "Cellphones Were Link to Loved Ones in #SanBernardinoShooting."

Cellphones Were Link to Loved Ones in #SanBernardinoShooting

At the Los Angeles Times (which has the best coverage), "'Active shooter.' For those trapped in San Bernardino, cellphones were a link to loved ones."

Also, updates, "What we know."

British Parliament Authorizes New Airstrikes Against Islamic State in Syria (VIDEO)

The British Labour Party's been having an existential time of it.

See the Telegraph UK, "Monday was Labour’s blackest day."

And today's news, "MPs back call to 'confront Isil's evil' by voting resoundingly 397 to 223 to launch air strikes in Syria."

Here's the speech from Labour's former foreign secretary Margaret Beckett:

MPs vote in favour of air strikes against Isil.

Hilary Benn spearheaded a show of defiance against Jeremy Corbyn on Wednesday night as MPs voted in favour of air strikes against Isil in Syria following his call to “confront this evil”.

The House of Commons voted by 397 to 223 in favour of extending RAF action across the border from Iraq.

The margin of victory was far great than expected and included 66 Labour MPs, 11 of whom were shadow ministers - further undermining Mr Corbyn’s position.

More at that top link.

UPDATE: Suspect ID'd as Syed Farook #SanBernardinoShooting

There were loads of rumors earlier on the alleged Islamic background of one of the suspects, but the Los Angeles Times is now reporting on the official identification of one of the terrorists.

See, "San Bernardino shooting live updates: Syed Farook named as a suspect in attack that killed 14."

Also at NBC News, "JUST IN: Suspect in #SanBernardino shooting ID'd as Syed Farook; Another believed to be Farook's brother: Sources."

PREVIOUSLY: "UPDATE: Video Shows SWAT Swarm Inland Regional Center #SanBernardinoShooting."

UPDATE: Video Shows SWAT Swarm Inland Regional Center #SanBernardinoShooting

Here's a very concise Facebook update from Molly Grantham, at WBTV, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

And at ABC News 7 Los Angeles, "Video shows SWAT swarm Inland Regional Center, woman thought it was drill."

More at the Los Angeles Times, "Developing Police have killed man and woman connected to San Bernardino mass shooting."

PREVIOUSLY: "At Least 14 People Murdered in Mass Shooting in San Bernardino (VIDEO)."

At Least 14 People Murdered in Mass Shooting in San Bernardino (VIDEO)

This story is developing.

At the San Bernardino Press-Enterprise, "SAN BERNARDINO SHOOTING: Massive police response following shootout with suspects in SUV (BREAKING)."

And at the San Diego Union-Tribune, "14 dead, more than a dozen wounded in California shooting":

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) — As many as three gunmen believed to be wearing military-style gear opened fire Wednesday at a Southern California social services center "as if they were on a mission," killing at least 14 people and wounding more than a dozen others, authorities said.

Hours later, police hunting for the attackers riddled a black SUV with gunfire several miles away, and one person lay motionless in the street — dead or dying — with a gun nearby. Officers appeared to remove a second person from the vehicle.

San Bernardino Police Sgt. Vicki Cervantes said authorities had not immediately confirmed whether those in the SUV were involved in the morning carnage. And the hunt went on, apparently for a possible third gunman. A law officer suffered minor injuries in the afternoon shootout.

It was the nation's deadliest mass shooting since the Newton, Connecticut, attack in December 2012 that left 26 children and adults dead.

Police shed no light on a motive for Thursday's massacre, which came just five days after a gunman opened fire at Planned Parenthood in Colorado, killing three.

"They came prepared to do what they did, as if they were on a mission," San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said, noting the attackers carried long guns — which can mean rifles or shotguns.

Witnesses said several people locked themselves in their offices, desperately waiting to be rescued by police, after gunfire erupted at the Inland Regional Center, which serves people with developmental disabilities. Some people telephoned their loved ones and whispered to them what was going on.

The attack took place in a conference area where the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health was renting space to hold a banquet, said Marybeth Feild, president and CEO of the center. She said the building houses at least 25 employees as well as a library and conference center.

FBI agents and other law enforcement authorities converged on the center and searched room to room for the attacker or attackers, but it was feared that they had escaped.

Ten of the wounded were hospitalized in critical condition, and three were in serious condition, San Bernardino Fire Chief Tom Hannemann said. Police cautioned that the numbers of dead and wounded were early estimates that could change.

No weapons were recovered at the center, though authorities were investigating unidentified items in the building and brought in bomb squads, Burguan said.

San Bernardino police spokesman Sgt. Vicki Cervantes told The Associated Press there were reports from witnesses of one to three gunmen.

As the manhunt went on, stores, office buildings and at least one school were locked down in the city of 214,000 people about 60 miles east of Los Angeles, and roads were blocked off...

More at the link.

And note that this is an AP report, so expect the Union-Tribune to have more with local news updates throughout the night.

Here's the YouTube page for CNN, and also the website is here.

Freddie Gray Case: Jury Selected, Baltimore Officer Trial to Begin (VIDEO)

Protesters will burn Baltimore to the ground if the officers are acquitted.

"No justice! No peace!"

At the Baltimore Sun.

Also, "Freddie Gray case: courtroom sketches offer peek inside first trial."

ISIS Prevents Civilians from Fleeing Ramadi

It's getting to be like the East Bloc during the Cold War. You can check in, but you can never leave.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Islamic State Prevents Civilians From Fleeing Iraqi City of Ramadi":

Islamic State fighters are preventing civilians from fleeing the city of Ramadi on pain of death after Iraqi forces warned people to leave ahead of an impending offensive.

Amazon Fulfillment Center in Phoenix, Arizona

I think it's Phoenix.

ABC News 10 Phoenix:



And shop, Ultimate Holiday Gift Guide.

Donald Trump Still Dominating as Ben Carson Fades, Poll Finds (VIDEO)

At CBS News, "Donald Trump still dominating as Ben Carson fades in GOP race, poll shows."

And Nancy Cordes reports, for CBS News This Morning:

Long-Hidden Details Reveal Cruelty of 1972 Munich Attackers

At the New York Times:

In September 1992, two Israeli widows went to the home of their lawyer. When the women arrived, the lawyer told them that he had received some photographs during his recent trip to Munich but that he did not think they should view them. When they insisted, he urged them to let him call a doctor who could be present when they did.

Ilana Romano and Ankie Spitzer, whose husbands were among the Israeli athletes held hostage and killed by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, rejected that request, too. They looked at the pictures that for decades they had been told did not exist, and then agreed never to discuss them publicly.

The attack at the Olympic Village stands as one of sports’ most horrifying episodes. The eight terrorists, representing a branch of the Palestine Liberation Organization, breached the apartments where the Israeli athletes were staying before dawn on
Sept. 5, 1972. That began an international nightmare that lasted more than 20 hours and ended with a disastrous failed rescue attempt.

The treatment of the hostages has long been a subject of speculation, but a more vivid — and disturbing — account of the attack is emerging. For the first time, Ms. Romano, Ms. Spitzer and other victims’ family members are choosing to speak openly about documentation previously unknown to the public in an effort to get their loved ones the recognition they believe is deserved.

Among the most jarring details are these: The Israeli Olympic team members were beaten and, in at least one case, castrated.

“What they did is that they cut off his genitals through his underwear and abused him,” Ms. Romano said of her husband, Yossef. Her voice rose.

“Can you imagine the nine others sitting around tied up?” she continued, speaking in Hebrew through a translator. “They watched this.”

Ms. Romano and Ms. Spitzer, whose husband, Andre, was a fencing coach at the Munich Games and died in the attack, first described the extent of the cruelty during an interview for the coming film “Munich 1972 & Beyond,” a documentary that chronicles the long fight by families of the victims to gain public and official acknowledgment for their loved ones. The film is expected to be released early next year...

Video from the movie production here, "Munich Memorial Project Interview with Dr. Steven Ungerleider."

And more from the Times, here.

Paris Attacker Abdelhamid Abaaoud Offers Insights Into Islamic State Strategy

This is a freakin' great cover story, at Der Spiegel, "Europe's Jihadists: What the Paris Attacks Tell Us about IS Strategy":

The biographies of those behind the Paris attacks offer deep insight into the structures and organization of Islamic State in Europe. And they confirm what experts have long warned about: The new jihadists have our cities in their sights.

On the horrific evening in Paris that only ended after 130 people had been slaughtered in jihadist attacks, something strange happened at 10:28 p.m., a development that only came to the attention of investigators much later. On the upper end of Boulevard Voltaire, where the Bataclan concert hall is located, three terrorists were in the process of gunning down people with their Kalashnikovs and exchanging salvos with the police, who were closing in on them. At the lower end of the street, another man exited from the Metro -- Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected leader behind the attacks.

He had just been a part of the group that had killed 39 people at La Belle Équipe, Le Carillon and Le Petit Cambodge. For a while afterwards, he had driven around aimlessly in a black SEAT through the neighborhood's streets, before parking it in the Montreuil suburb. He was then caught on CCTV cameras at 10:14 p.m. inside the Croix de Chavaux Metro station, as he jumped the turnstile to avoid paying and traveled back to the scene of the crime.
Over the next two hours, Abaaoud apparently went for a walk through the 10th and 11th arrondissements, the area where he had just unleashed a bloodbath. Investigators later used the geolocation data from his mobile phone to trace his movements that evening. At 12:28 a.m., as anti-terror units were entering the concert hall, the phone was just next to Bataclan. It's as if Abaaoud wanted to convince himself of his own success and view firsthand the inferno he had helped unleash. It wasn't much later that French President François Hollande arrived at the scene.

It's a disturbing thought, but one that also seems fitting for a terrorist as vain and brutal as Abaaoud. This, after all, was not the first time he had outfoxed security forces.

In terms of media coverage, Abaaoud had been Belgium's best-known jihadist, and yet he nevertheless managed to travel back and forth between Syria and Europe without raising attention and would ultimately conduct the Paris attacks together with an entire group of other jihadists. Few others have reported as openly on social media about their adventures in Syria as Abaaoud. In Dabiq magazine, an official propaganda organ of Islamic State (IS), he had boasted in January that he could "plan operations" and come and go as he pleased despite the fact that "my name and my picture have been all over the news."

Is the Worst Yet to Come?

With Abdelhamid Abaaoud and his men, Islamist terror in Europe has reached a new level. It's the first time that a major European city has experienced such a complex attack at the hands of the Islamic State, which resulted in 130 deaths and 350 wounded. In the week that followed, Brussels, another major European city, announced a state of emergency, a rare occasion in the postwar era. The city shut down its Metro system and closed schools. Local authorities said they took the dramatic steps in order to prevent attacks like the ones committed in Paris the previous weekend.

For years, terror experts had been warning about their fears of terrorist attacks in Europe and, in recent days, they appear to have become reality. The attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris and Copenhagen at the beginning of 2015 weren't isolated cases, Peter Neumann, a professor of security studies at King's College London, warned in his new book "The New Jihadists," published in September in German. He believes what we have just witnessed are the "first, very dramatic warnings of what will play out on the streets of Europe in the next decades." Europe, he cautions, is standing "at the precipice of a new wave of terror that will still occupy us for a generation to come."

French journalist and jihad expert David Thomson offers a similarly bleak assessment. "Attacks like this will no longer be something completely extraordinary," he warns. "I can't say whether something like this will happen every six months or every year."

Thomson says that, according to his research, an Islamic State unit led by a Frenchman is currently preparing attacks in Europe. After the terrorist attacks in Paris, Western intelligence agencies intercepted communications between Abaaoud and Islamic State leadership in Syria. There had been similar clues after the attack in Beirut the day before and also after IS brought down a Russian jet carrying vacationers over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. When IS issued a claim of responsibility for the Paris attacks a few hours later, it provided no information about the perpetrators. But German authorities say this is standard practice for IS: The order is issued by the leadership, but it is then carried out solely by the terrorist cell.

'Islamic State Is Acting in Europe'

"We must assume that this was the first coordinated series of attacks," an internal government paper dating from Nov. 23 states. "The Islamic State is acting in Europe. The concerted action and the means used in the crime point to very well-trained perpetrators prepared to do anything, as well as longer and highly conspiratorial planning of the attack."

It's a disturbing development. In contrast to al-Qaida before it, terror attacks on the West had not previously been a part of Islamic State strategy. Instead, the group had limited itself to expanding its territories in Iraq and Syria and establishing state-like structures....

A Trove of Mobile Phone Photos

For German jihadists, that included questioning from a German-speaking IS fighter about motivation, ancestry and acquaintances. Former jihadist Ayoub B., from Wolfsburg, likens such units to a kind of Islamic State domestic intelligence agency. Upon arrival, he was interviewed by Mustafa K. and Nils D., two men belonging to a group from Dinslaken who were involved in almost all relevant activities undertaken by Islamic State troops. After questioning, Islamic State divides foreigners into two groups: suicide bombers and fighters. Thus far, German officials have identified more than 20 German suicide bombers.

The life of Abdelhamid Abaaoud of Belgium is better documented than almost any other jihadist. In spring 2014, the French journalist Étienne Huver came into possession of photos and videos that had been saved on Abaaoud's mobile phone. Huver had traveled to the Syrian city of Azaz, just a few kilometers from the border with Turkey, not long after Syrian rebels had finally managed to push the Islamic State out following an extended occupation. In Azaz, Huver was contacted by Syrian rebels who offered him photos of European IS fighters. "They told us: You have to publish them. People are coming from you to us and killing Syrians," Huver says.

The rebels had managed to copy the data with the help of a supporter who worked in an Internet café that Abaaoud frequented. When Abaaoud connected his mobile phone to a computer to share his photos with friends via Facebook, the Internet café employee made a secret copy. All of the photos were taken between Jan. 7 and Feb. 26, 2014.

An image taken on Feb. 1 shows him in Syria for the first time, wearing a wool vest and an oversized Afghan pakol cap and posing for selfies with a Kalashnikov. In one photo, he has his head thrown back and the morning sun shines onto his face. He sent the photo to friends and acquaintances back home in Belgium -- and also to young women he wanted to impress.

The photos and videos Abaaoud made during the ensuing four weeks were for his own private use. They consistently show him with the same group of people: Eight young men who speak accent-free French and broken Arabic with a North African accent. All of them are Frenchmen or French-speaking Belgians. It almost seems as though they were a group of friends enjoying a bit of adventure in Syria.

Francophone Fighting Unit

Abaaoud gave himself the nom de guerre "Abu Omar al-Soussi" -- Abu Omar from the Souss Massa, a region in Morocco where his parents are from. Islamic State, however, dubbed him "Abou Omar Al-Beljiki," transforming him back into the Belgian he was.

Some of those in the group already knew each other from Brussels. Others likely only met in Syria when they joined the French-speaking unit that Belgians and French fighters were assigned to for matters of simplicity. It was deemed too problematic to put them in Arabic-speaking units because they wouldn't have been able to understand the orders given.

German security officials believe that the plans for the Paris attacks were likely developed within this Francophone fighting unit. German Islamic State fighters, by contrast, are spread out among several different units.

During his first days in Azaz, it has become clear, Abaaoud had close contact with notorious German Islamists; in spring 2014, his group lived in the same house with the "Lohberger Brigade," a group of young men from the Lohberg neighborhood of the Ruhr Valley city of Dinslaken who joined the jihad in 2013. During the time they lived together, the two groups posed with decapitated heads in front of the same statue in the center of Azaz.

Early on, Abaaoud seemed fascinated by the violence perpetrated by the Islamic State fighters and documented it on his mobile phone. "They fought for democracy and secularism, and thus, against us," Abaaoud narrates in one video of dead rebel fighters -- a comment that had little to do with the power struggle underway between the Syrian rebels of Azaz and Islamic State.

Abaaoud was notable even then, a natural leader because of his charisma. He instructed his comrades to speak into the camera or told them to take a picture of him next to a foreign IS fighter. He seemed to have a clear goal in mind with his photos and videos: that of encouraging more young people from Europe to join Islamic State....

A Shoot Out in Saint-Denis

It was only four days after the attacks in Paris that officials were able to track down Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who spent the evening of the attacks near the Bataclan. Together with two other members of his cell, Abaaoud had barricaded himself in an apartment in Saint-Denis. One of them was his alleged cousin, Hasna Ait Boulahcen.

Officials believe they were planning another attack, this time on the La Défense quarter of Paris. In Saint-Denis, he and his accomplices engaged in a seven-hour battle with the hundreds of police, anti-terror officers and soldiers who deployed to capture him. The operation ended with their deaths.

French security officials knew soon after the operation that Abaaoud was among the dead, but kept the information quiet for quite some time. The police had found several mobile phones in the possession of the now dead terror suspects and hoped to use them to find Abaaoud's contacts.
Still, two weeks after the attacks in Paris, many questions remain open. Not all of the perpetrators have yet been identified and investigations continue into several suspects.

Most of all, though: Nobody knows if the next Abdelhamid Abaaoud has long-since set up shop in Europe.

'Don't stop ... thinking about tomorrow...'

From yesterday afternoon's drive time, at the Sound L.A.



It's a terrible video, but Christine McVie's seen at this more recent comeback concert, "Fleetwood Mac (with Christine McVie) - Don't Stop - The O2 Arena - Live in London - Sept 25 2013."

Don't Stop
Fleetwood Mac
4:09 PM

Cat Scratch Fever
Ted Nugent
4:05 PM

Beds Are Burning
Midnight Oil
4:01 PM

Telephone Line
Electric Light Orchestra
3:50 PM

Sultans of Swing
Dire Straits
3:45 PM

What Is and What Should Never Be
Led Zeppelin
3:40 PM

Takin' Care of Business
Bachman-Turner Overdrive
3:35 PM

De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da
The Police
3:24 PM

Too Much Time On My Hands
Styx
3:19 PM

All Right Now
Free
3:14 PM

Burning Down the House
Talking Heads
3:10 PM

Purple Haze
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
3:07 PM

Can't You See
The Marshall Tucker Band
3:01 PM

ICYMI: Erick Stakelbeck, ISIS Exposed

At Amazon, ISIS Exposed: Beheadings, Slavery, and the Hellish Reality of Radical Islam.

Alana Blanchard Catches Some Great Surf in Mexico (VIDEO)

She's so smooth and effortless.



FLASHBACK: "Afternoon Alana Blanchard Rule 5."

Islamic Jihadists Reach Out to Refugees in Germany

Heh.

Of course it's a huge surprise. Huge!

At WSJ, "German Officials Warn of New Security Risk: Local Extremists Recruiting Refugees":

German officials warn of another security risk: local extremists recruiting refugees https://t.co/IVbT0e4F81 pic.twitter.com/2Wq3oVTcOx

— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) November 30, 2015

BERLIN—The Paris attacks have raised fears of terrorists slipping into Europe by posing as refugees. But in Germany, the top migrant destination, security officials have another worry: Local extremists will recruit the newcomers to join the Islamist cause once they arrive.

German authorities warn that migrants seeking out Arabic-language mosques in search of the familiar are increasingly ending up at those attended by Islamist radicals. In interviews, security officials from Berlin to the southwest German state of Saarland said they have registered a sharp rise in the number of asylum-seekers attending mosques they believed attracted extremists.

Federal officials said they have counted more than 100 cases in which Islamists known to them have tried to establish contact with refugees. According to state and local agencies across the country, Islamists have offered migrants rides, food, shelter and translation help. In some cases, they have invited them to soccer games and grill parties, or brought them copies of the Quran and conservative Muslim clothing.

“They start by saying, ‘We will help you live your faith,’ ” said Torsten Voss, the head of the German domestic intelligence agency’s Hamburg branch. “The Islamist area comes later—that is, of course, their goal.”

Security officials across Germany describe the potential radicalization of migrants, still entering the country by the thousands every day, as a challenge that adds to Europe’s existing security threats. With Germany expecting to take in roughly one million asylum-seekers from the Middle East and elsewhere this year, authorities are scrambling to prevent new pockets of radicalism from forming.

Intelligence services say they have no evidence of successful recruitment efforts, pointing to the risk as a long-term problem.

Many politicians and migrant advocates argue that refugees fleeing Islamic State and religious conflict generally have no interest in extremism. Still, others, including Jewish organizations, warn that many of the migrants are coming from places where radical views are common.

“Many of the refugees hail from societies in which anti-Semitism and enmity of Israel are propagated,” Josef Schuster, president of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, said last week, urging that new arrivals be well-integrated and arguing that Germany’s capacity for doing so was limited.

Germany—the European Union’s most populous country—hasn’t experienced a major Islamist terror attack in recent years, though it is home to one of Europe’s largest Muslim populations. Part of the reason, security officials say, is that most of Germany’s Muslims have roots in relatively secular Turkey rather than the Arab world.

But many of the migrants arriving now are from Syria and other Arab countries and are seeking out Arabic-speaking mosques—some of which have ties to extremists, security officials say.

Berlin authorities describe the Ibrahim Al Khalil mosque, inside a ramshackle, two-story brick warehouse in an industrial section of the German capital, as a key meeting point in the city for fundamentalist and potentially militant Muslims. On Friday, many recently arrived migrants were among the several hundreds who gathered for weekly prayers.

Many of the migrants there said they were there simply out of convenience. One Syrian man, who said at least 40 people in his refugee shelter rode the subway to Al Khalil every Friday, said he had discovered it via a smartphone app listing nearby mosques.

“We come here to do our Islamic duty,” said another Syrian, 27-year-old Ali Kafri. Referring to fundamentalist movements, he added: “We don’t care if it’s a Salafi or a Muslim Brotherhood mosque.”

The chairman of the Al Khalil mosque in Berlin, Adnouf Nazir, rejected the authorities’ claim that his congregation had ties to extremism.

“We want to live in peace,” Mr. Nazir said. “It can be that some people have other thoughts, but that doesn’t mean that we are responsible for this.”

Still more.

USC Names Clay Helton Permanent Head Football Coach (VIDEO)

Hey, USC made a major move here, offering Helton a full five-year contract.

At LAT, "USC names Clay Helton as head football coach."

And from Bill Plaschke, "USC got it right with hiring of Clay Helton."

Watch #USC players go bonkers when the announcement was made that Clay Helton is coach: https://t.co/p5BHP5XZPF

— Lindsey Thiry (@LindseyThiry) November 30, 2015

Anne-Marie Slaughter 'Devastated' After Hillary Clinton Slammed Atlantic Monthly Cover Story About Women 'Having It All...'

This a juicy little piece, at Politico, "Anne-Marie Slaughter 'devastated' by Clinton's take on her 'have it all' article."

What's particularly interesting is that Slaughter, who was Director of Policy Planning at the State Department from January 2009 until February 2011, was jonesing for direct access to Clinton, and was brutally denied. I guess her emails protesting were "forwarded" to Secretary Clinton, heh.

Here's the Atlantic piece, which I vaguely remember reading at the time, "Why Women Still Can’t Have It All."

New from David Horowitz, The Black Book of the American Left — Volume 5: Culture Wars

At FrontPage Magazine, "CULTURE WARS: VOLUME V OF THE BLACK BOOK OF THE AMERICAN LEFT."

And at Amazon, The Black Book of the American Left — Volume 5: Culture Wars.

The Irrationality of the Leftist Narrative

Yeah, leftists are pretty irrational alright.

It's like a clinical syndrome, sheesh.

At iOWNTHEWORLD Report.

Target's Website Crashes on Cyber Monday

At Bloomberg, "Target Site Stumbles on Cyber Monday, Locking Out Some Users."

And USA Today, "Target website couldn't keep up with record traffic on Cyber Monday."