#Boston Bomber Relative of Tamerlan Tsarnaev is Prominent Jihadi

At Atlas Shrugs:

But but but Philip Mudd, former Deputy Director of National Security, FBI and the former Deputy Director of Counterterrorist Center for the CIA, said the bomber[s] "doesn’t have much of an ideological background."

"Exclusive: Dagestani Relative of Tamerlan Tsarnaev Is a Prominent Islamist" TIME Magazine via Yahoo, May 8, 2013

Last year, when Tamerlan Tsarnaev spent six months in the Russian region of Dagestan, he had a guide with an unusually deep knowledge of the local Islamist community: a distant cousin named Magomed Kartashov. Six years older than Tsarnaev, Kartashov is a former police officer and freestyle wrestler—and one of the region’s most prominent Islamists.

In 2011 Kartashov founded and became the leader of an organization called the Union of the Just, whose members campaign for sharia law and pan-Islamic unity in Dagestan, often speaking out against U.S. policies across the Muslim world. The group publicly renounces violence. But some of its members have close links to militants; others have served time in prison for weapons possession and abetting terrorism—charges they say were based on fabricated evidence. For Tsarnaev, these men formed a community of pious young Muslims with whom he could discuss his ideas of jihad. Tsarnaev’s mother, Zubeidat, confirmed that her son is Kartashov’s third cousin. The two met for the first time in Dagestan, she said, and “became very close.”

Since April 19, when Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar were publicly identified as being the key suspects in the bombing of the Boston Marathon, investigators have been trying to work out how they were radicalized to the point of wanting to kill and main people in the United States, the country the brothers had called home for much of their lives. (Tsarnaev was killed during a manhunt for the two men in Boston; his younger brother was shot but survived and has been charged with acts of terrorism including using a weapon of mass desctruction resulting in death. If convicted he could face the death penalty.) Much of the investigators’ attention has focused on Tsarnaev’s visit to Dagestan in 2012. It appears that investigators have only recently begun exploring Tsarnaev’s links to his cousin.

On May 5, three agents from Russia’s Federal Security Service, the agency known as the FSB, interrogated Kartashov for the first time about the Boston bombings, according to his lawyer, Patimat Abdullaeva. The FSB agents were interested in whether Kartashov and Tsarnaev had ever discussed Islamic radicalism, Abdullaeva says.

Kartashov told them that they had, but claimed that Tsarnaev was the one trying to “pull him in to extremism,” says the lawyer, who spoke to Kartashov soon after the interrogation. (It was impossible to ask Kartashov about this directly; he has been in jail since April 27 after a brawl with police in northern Dagestan, and prison officials denied TIME’s requests to visit him or have him answer questions in writing. His lawyer agreed to pass a reporter’s questions to him in jail.) In recounting her client’s replies, the lawyer said: “Kartashov tried to talk [Tsarnaev] out of his interest in extremism.”

Kartashov told the FSB roughly the same story, Abdullaeva says, and it matches the accounts of five other men in Dagestan who know Kartashov and spent time with Tsarnaev. All of them dismiss the notion that Tsarnaev was radicalized in Dagestan. Instead, the picture that emerges from their accounts is of a young man who already carried a deep interest in Islamic radicalism when he came to Russia from his home in Massachusetts. But that curiosity evolved during his visit. The members of Kartashov’s circle say they tried to disabuse Tsarnaev of his sympathies for local militants. By the end of his time in Dagestan, Tsarnaev’s interests seem to have shifted from the local insurgency to a more global notion of Islamic struggle–closer to the one espoused by Kartashov’s organization.

Continue reading.

Michelle Malkin Slams Juan Williams' #Benghazi Ignorance: 'Only Somebody Who Did Not Honestly Watch That Comprehensive Hearing Today ... Could Remain in This Bubble of Unreality...'

Juan Williams were utterly pathetic. He had no business even going on the air:

Hillary Clinton's Chief of Staff Told Greg Hicks Not to Talk to Congress

At the Wall Street Journal, "The Benghazi Awakening":

Miracles happen, and even the sleepy Washington press corps seems to have paid some attention to Wednesday's House hearing on the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission last September in Benghazi. What they and the public heard is the beginning of a real accounting for a security failure that killed four Americans.

We say "beginning" because the entire story still isn't clear, in particular the roles played by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama before and after the attack. But the hearing led by House Republicans, amid months of media sneering, gave the civil servants who were on duty that September night a chance to give their side of the story.

Gregory Hicks, the former deputy chief of mission at the embassy in Tripoli, recalled his last conversation with Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who told him, "Greg, we're under attack." Mr. Hicks said he knew then that Islamists were behind the assault. In other words, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice's public claim at the time that an anti-Islam YouTube video spurred the assault was known inside the government to be false when she and White House spokesman Jay Carney said it.

Mr. Hicks said he briefed Mrs. Clinton that night, yet the father of victim Tyrone Woods says she later told him that the YouTube video maker would be "prosecuted and arrested" as if he were responsible for Benghazi. Stranger still, Mrs. Hicks says Mrs. Clinton's then chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, ordered him not to give solo interviews about the attack to a visiting Congressional delegation. Aficionados of the Clinton Presidency will recall Ms. Mills as one of Bill Clinton's impeachment lawyers.

After Stevens and an aide were killed at the mission, the militias turned on the CIA annex nearby. On the advice of the military attaché in Tripoli, Mr. Hicks said he asked for U.S. fighter planes to fly over the complex in an attempt to scare the attackers away. Libyans had seen U.S. air power during the NATO military intervention in 2011 and might have fled. But Mr. Hicks was told no planes were available. Early the next morning, two Americans died in a mortar attack on the CIA compound.

The Pentagon says no F-16s were on call that night, but why not? Why weren't contingency plans in place? The State Department's supposedly independent review panel said in December that "there simply was not enough time for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference." The review blamed lower level officials for the security failure and didn't even bother to interview Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Hicks says he was "effectively demoted" after Benghazi from "deputy chief of mission to desk officer."

Mr. Hicks also revealed that four special forces soldiers at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli were ordered by U.S. African command not to join a State team headed to Benghazi. The soldiers were the remaining parts of a 16-member security team that had been pulled from Tripoli the previous month. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey recently told another House panel that the African command stopped no one from aiding those besieged in Benghazi. That contradicts Mr. Hicks's account....

The immediate press spin on Wednesday's hearing is that there was no "smoking gun" proof of a cover-up, as if that is the only reason to find out what happened. It's clear enough already that senior Administration officials knew in September they had a politically potent debacle on their hands and did their best to delay and obfuscate any accounting. All of this warrants further investigation, and such oversight is part of Congress's job.

And watch the video from Hannity's opening segment earlier tonight. Reps. Jason Chaffetz and Trey Gowdy are interviewed.

And see Hot Air, "Hicks: Higher-ups at State told me not to talk to GOP congressman about Benghazi; Update: “Effectively demoted”." (At Memeorandum.)

Devastating New Testimony on Obama Administration's Benghazi Cover-Up

You can't come away from watching these hearings and not just shake your head at the immense bankruptcy and corruption of our top Democrat administrative officials, including President Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other leftist hack bureaucrats who politicized the response to the attack on the Benghazi consulate. But as devastating as this is, it's already clear that the left-wing partisans in most mainstream media outlets are determined to pooh-pooh today's hearings, and especially the explosive testimony of Gregory Hicks, former deputy Chief of Mission in Libya. Here's Michael Hirsh at National Journal, for example, "Benghazi: Incompetence, But No Cover-up." And also Joe Klein, at Times, "Benghazi Again." (Via Memeorandum.)

I'm going to have more on this throughout the night.

Meanwhile, Fox News Special Report had riveting coverage this afternoon:

And the opening segment with Bret Baier is here, "Benghazi Hearing - Obama Admin Lied & People Died - Wake Up America Our Country In Danger."

Also, from Bryan Preston at Pajamas Media, "7 Things We Learned from the Benghazi Whistleblower Hearing."

Plus, from the editors at the San Diego Union-Tribune, "Benghazi cover-up clear beyond a doubt":

As the events surrounding the Benghazi tragedy become increasingly clear, the Obama administration should no longer even try to deny it has covered up the truth in scandalous fashion.

We now learn that as a U.S. diplomatic outpost in the eastern Libyan city was being attacked by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2012 — an assault that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and State Department official Sean Smith, a San Diego native — embassy officials in Libya’s capital tried to get the Pentagon to scramble fighter jets over Benghazi in the hopes of deterring further attacks.

When the Pentagon refused, according to testimony slated for Wednesday from deputy embassy head Gregory Hicks, American officials tried to get four U.S. Special Operations troops dispatched to Benghazi early the next morning. They were told to stand down, Hicks said, according to a partial transcript of his testimony.

That morning, a second attack — on a CIA complex near the diplomatic outpost — led to the deaths of CIA contractors Glen Doherty of Encinitas and Tyrone Woods of Imperial Beach.

All of this is bad enough. But even more perplexing is the Obama administration’s continued refusal to come clean about exactly what transpired that horrific night — details that are finally emerging and casting the administration in a shameful and dishonorable light.

The Obama administration’s lengthy trail of deception and denial goes back to the very beginning, when the attacks were mischaracterized as a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam YouTube video. U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice made the claim repeatedly, and when it became glaringly obvious the video had nothing to do with the attack, Rice was offered up as the sacrificial lamb and yanked from consideration as Hillary Clinton’s successor as secretary of state.

Two other witnesses said Clinton and an aide tried to cut the State Department’s own counterterrorism bureau out of the loop as they and other Obama administration officials contemplated how best to respond to, and characterize, the attacks. One witness, counterterrorism official Mark I. Thompson, said his account was suppressed by the official investigative panel convened by Clinton. He, too, is scheduled to testify Wednesday.

With the latest revelations, it’s looking more and more like a government that’s either incompetent, dishonest or both. The Pentagon says it’s going to “review” Hicks’ testimony, while a State Department spokesman continues to insist the inquiry is “politicized.”

If anything’s politicized, it’s the Watergate-like cover-up, which began in the midst of what then appeared to be a very close presidential election. And that’s only fueling speculation that Democrats in the administration and Congress are more interested in saving face than in coming clean — because now that Obama has been re-elected, they don’t want Benghazi to hurt Clinton’s future political aspirations.

Shameful, just shameful.

Stay tuned.

Obama's Commencement Speech at Ohio State Would Have Perplexed the Founders

From Roger Pilon, at WSJ, "Graduates, Your Ambition Is the Problem":

Civic education in America took a hit on Sunday when President Obama, giving the commencement address at The Ohio State University, chose citizenship as his theme. The country's Founders trusted citizens with "awesome authority," he told the assembled graduates. Really?

Actually, the Founders distrusted us, at least in our collective capacity. That's why they wrote a Constitution that set clear limits on what we, as citizens, could do through government.

Mr. Obama seems never to appreciate that essential point about the American political order. As with his countless speeches that lead ultimately to an expression of the president's belief in the unbounded power of government to do good, he began in Columbus with an insight that we can all pretty much embrace, at least in the abstract. Citizenship, Mr. Obama said, is "the idea at the heart of our founding—that as Americans, we are blessed with God-given and inalienable rights, but with those rights come responsibilities—to ourselves, to one another, and to Well enough. But then he took that insight to lengths the Founders would never have imagined. Reading "citizenship" as standing for the many ways we can selflessly "serve our country," the president said that "sometimes, we see it as a virtue from another time—one that's slipping from a society that celebrates individual ambition." And "we sometimes forget the larger bonds we share, as one American family."

Not for nothing did he invoke the family, that elemental social unit in which we truly are responsible to one another and to future generations—by law, by custom, and, ideally, in our hearts. But only metaphorically is America a family, its members bound by tendrils of intimacy and affection. Realistically, the country is a community of individuals and private institutions, including the family, with their own interests, bound not by mutual love but by the political principles that are set forth in the Constitution, a document that secures and celebrates the freedom to pursue those interests, varied as they might be.

Alas, that is not Mr. Obama's vision. "The Founders left us the keys to a system of self-government," he went on, "the tool to do big and important things together that we could not possibly do alone." And what "big and important things" cannot be done except through government? On the president's list are railroads, the electrical grid, highways, education, health care, charity and more. One imagines a historical vision reaching as far back as the New Deal. Americans "chose to do these things together," he added, "because we know this country cannot accomplish great things if we pursue nothing greater than our own individual ambition."

Notice that twice now Mr. Obama has invoked "individual ambition," and not as a virtue. For other targets, he next counseled the graduates against the "voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's the root of all our problems, even as they do their best to gum up the works."

The irony here should not go unnoticed: The opponents that the president disparages are the same folks who tried to save the country from one of the biggest pieces of gum now in the works: Mr. Obama's own health-care insurance program, which today is filling many of its backers with dread as it moves toward full implementation in a matter of months.

None of that darkens Mr. Obama's sunny view of collective effort. What does upset him, still, is the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis: "Too many on Wall Street," he said, "forgot that their obligations don't end with their shareholders." No mention of the Federal Reserve, or Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Community Reinvestment Act, or the many other "big and important things" government undertook before the crisis hit, things that explain the disaster far better than any Wall Street greed. None of that fits in Mr. Obama's morality play. For that matter, neither do the Constitution's checks and balances. When the president laments that "democracy isn't working as well as we know it can," he is not talking about those big, misbegotten public projects but about the Washington gridlock that has frustrated his grander plans.future generations."

Well, Obama's a tyrant with tyrannical rhetoric disguised as "community."

Fascist asshole.

More at the link.

Obama's Benghazi Lies Begin Unraveling Today

The hearings are now live on Capitol Hill.

I'll have lots on them tonight.

Meanwhile, from the Washington Examiner, "Obama's Benghazi Lies Begin Unraveling Today."

And Katie Pavlich from this morning's Fox & Friends:

Operation Smear Benghazi Whistleblowers

From Michelle Malkin:

It’s on. As the White House grapples with a growing backlash over its Libya lies and lapses, President Obama’s apologists are gearing up for battle. Put on your hip-waders. Grab those tar buckets. Get ready for Operation Smear Benghazi Whistleblowers.

Capitol Hill hearings this Wednesday on the deadly 9/11 consulate attack by jihadists will feature three compelling witnesses, all State Department veterans: Gregory N. Hicks, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya and highest-ranking U.S. diplomat in the country at the time of the Benghazi jihad attacks; Mark I. Thompson, a former Marine who now serves as deputy coordinator for operations in the agency’s Counterterrorism Bureau; and Eric Nordstrom, a diplomatic security officer who was the top security officer in Libya.

Nordstrom first testified last fall about how State Department brass spurned his requests for increased security at the compound. Hicks and Thompson are coming forward publicly for the first time this week with more damning evidence contradicting Team Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s claims about the administration’s response the night of the attack and in the ensuing months of cover-ups.

According to the House Oversight Committee, Hicks reportedly will refute Team Obama’s claims that nobody was told to stand down and that all military resources available were used in the rescue efforts. As Special Forces prepared to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi to save lives during the attacks, Hicks says the team received a phone call from the U.S. Special Operations Command Africa telling them “you can’t go” and that the decision was “purely political.”

The State Department press office already has accused Victoria Toensing, attorney for one of the Benghazi whistleblowers, of “lying” about administration pressure on her clients. Left-wing operatives funded by billionaire George Soros have taken to Twitter to mock reports of fear and intimidation among the new witnesses. White House press secretary Jay Carney continues to sing “Long, Long Ago” and deny all wrongdoing.
And one anonymous State Department official told Fox News reporter James Rosen that Hicks and Thompson have “axes to grind.”

Continue reading.

Also, from Marc Thiessen, "A Benghazi bombshell." (At Memeorandum.)

Plus, at Daily Mail, "Dick Cheney slams Obama administration's Benghazi performance." (At Memeorandum.)

Pamela Geller Nailed Rick Perry's Jihad Problem — And She's Vindicated Big Time With Outing of Holocaust Denier David Cole

Back during the primaries I wrote at least one post on this, "Is Rick Perry 'Pro-Sharia'?" I looked over some of the curriculum at the time and it didn't look good. Pamela had the goods, but she took heat from the right blogosphere's pro-Perry crowd.

Well, we had lots of new developments on this yesterday. Zilla reports, "Bed Down With Holocaust Denying Fraudsters, Wake Up And Eat Crow." And at iOWNTHEWORLD, "Pamela Geller is a Shrieking Harpy Flashback!!!"

And at Pamela's, "ACE AND WEASEL'S #1 SOURCE ON ISLAMIC CURRICULUM DENIAL IS HOLOCAUST DENIER DAVID COLE, MEA CULPA?," and "PERRY MAFIA PUNKED, "BECLOWNED" INDEED."

More at Jihad Watch, "'Source' who 'debunked' story of Rick Perry's Islam whitewash curriculum turns out to be Holocaust denier with false identity."

BONUS: At Da Tech Guys, "A Simple Fact about Pam Geller & Robert Spencer:

I’ve never understood the willingness of people, particularly on the right to go after Pam & Robert. I particularly don’t get the people who seem to have it in their minds they are all in this for the cash.

Forget about the cash. Even conservatives sometimes struggle to stay on the right side of decency and right. Pamela doesn't. That's why I'm always by her side.

PHOTO CREDIT: Norman Gersman.

Back From 'Schools for Subversion'

Here's the announcement, "Schools for Subversion: How Public Education Lays the Foundation for University Radicalism."

I had a wonderful time meeting and listening to Professor Mary Grabar at tonight's event.

I didn't take a lot of picture nor a lot of notes. I enjoyed all the speakers. And the panel was well moderated by Ben Boychuk. The question and answer session was still rolling along when I left the hotel at about 9:50pm. In fact, I was enjoying the Q&A almost as much as the panelists. There are some really deep and passionate opinions on these issues, and at times it feels as if it's impossible to overcome the enormously deadening leftist bureaucracy. I nevertheless felt as if there's plenty folks can do to make things better in public education. I'll try to have some more detailed thoughts later (on what little notes I took).

Oh, for now though, note that Mary's parents got her out of Yugoslavia (Slovenia) when she was 2-years-old. Mary's a naturalized American, an immigrant. When she talks about the crisis of liberty in education it's not theoretical. It's a real, visceral reaction to leftist totalitarianism in our most important cultural institutions.

Plus, note also that panelist Kyle Olson is the author of Indoctrination: How ‘Useful Idiots’ Are Using Our Schools to Subvert American Exceptionalism. I'm going to order a copy for myself later this week when I get some downtime.

Schools for Subversion: How Public Education Lays the Foundation for University Radicalism

I'll be heading up to Los Angeles after classes today for an education panel, "Schools for Subversion." I'm meeting Professor Mary Grabar for coffee before the event, held at the Luxe Hotel on Sunset Boulevard. Mary's announcement is here.

And at the Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, "Symposium Debates Public School Indoctrination: Symposium Debates Public School Indoctrination":

CJHS Hosts Expert Panel to Dissect Controversial Topic, May 6, in Los Angeles
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Los Angeles, CA
Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, a Los Angeles based non-profit activist group, is sponsoring a symposium and expert panel discussion, Schools for Subversion: How the Public Education Lays the Foundation for University Radicalism, on Monday, May 6, at the Luxe Hotel Sunset in Los Angeles.  It has become common knowledge that universities are bastions of political correctness, but that waterfall is spilling down through public education institutions all the way to the elementary level.  Even a cursory look at headlines reveals that innocent children are being subjected to an all too often vicious form of political indoctrination designed to create a liberal mindset as early as possible.Doris Wise Montrose, president and founder of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors said, “The Nazi model for outcome based education was to transform the world by changing the children. Hans Schemm, leader of the Nazi Teacher’s League, clearly stated:  ‘Those who have the youth on their side control the future.’  We know how that ended and we must connect the dots. We have been asleep at the wheel with respect to public education.  America must wake up and act before it is too late.”It begins early in elementary school, when children are inculcated with lessons steeped in “social justice,” which is essentially radical egalitarian, social engineering. Although parents may not be aware of it, social justice creeps into just about every subject: social studies, language arts, science, even math.  It’s weaved into state curriculum standards. It is the focus of colleges of education. It is promoted by curriculum companies (sometimes tax-supported and tax-exempt) to teachers, cloaked in innocuous titles and feel-good text.The roots and real goals of this radical pedagogy will be examined by this panel. Among the topics for discussion:

• The latest Pew poll shows that 49 percent of young adults believe that socialism is a viable economic system. Only 43 percent say they have a negative view. The poll also found that just 46 percent of people age 18-29 have positive views of capitalism, and 47 percent have negative views.

• Even “global warming,” ostensibly a scientific issue, is really about the expansion of government. According to the alarmists, the alleged climate change has been the product of unbridled corporate America, so the government must rein them in.

• Is Islam really a “religion of peace?”

• Does Che Guevara deserve to be idolized?

• Does “The Three Little Pigs” really have a Eurocentric message?

• Is teaching anti-racist math really necessary?

• Why is it okay to teach young kids about the joys of collective bargaining but not about why capitalism is the best system on earth?

Larry Sand, retired teacher and one of the panelists said, “This is just the tip of the iceberg. It is essential that the public become fully aware of this troubling phenomenon and get more involved in their local schools with the goal of returning them to centers of learning rather than hubs of indoctrination.”

The expert panel includes:

Kyle Olson – Author of Indoctrination: How ‘Useful Idiots’ Are Using Our Schools to Subvert American Exceptionalism and publisher of EAGnews.org, a news service dedicated to education reform and school spending research, reporting, analysis and commentary.

Larry Sand – Retired teacher, president of the California Teachers Empowerment Network, blogger and regular contributor to City Journal. Having taught for over 28 years, he has seen firsthand what Olson has written about.

Mary Grabar – Professor who’s forever battling the “re-educators,” and not coincidentally, forever battling for her continued employment in Georgia. She has written extensively about influence of radicals in our colleges, most notably chronicling the legacy of the late Howard Zinn whose politically charged and factually challenged “textbook,” A People’s History of the United States, is in wide usage in schools across the country. She is organizing the Resistance to the Re-Education of America at DissidentProf.com.

Bruce Thornton – Professor of classics and humanities at Fresno State University and a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the author of eight books, a regular contributor to FrontPageMag.com and perhaps the most articulate and prolific conservative college professor working today.

Ben Boychuk, moderator  – Currently an associate editor of City Journal, and a columnist for the Sacramento Bee and ScrippsHoward News Service, where he writes eloquently on a wide variety of topics. He has long been involved with education issues, including a recent stint at Heartland Institute where he was managing editor of School Reform News and remains a policy advisor on education issues.

Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors (CJHS) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit tax exempt organization dedicated to educating the public in the United States and abroad about the intellectual and cultural climate that led to the Holocaust, and the ideas and philosophy that bring about a totalitarian dictatorship. CJHS seeks to protect freedom by raising awareness of the aggression and scapegoating that inevitably follow the abandonment of individual rights and the embrace of collectivism. CJHS advances these goals by hosting educational events concentrated in four areas: (1) examining U.S. diplomacy toward Israel and the Middle East, with a focus on the right of the State of Israel to exist and be recognized as a Jewish State; (2) restoring the teaching of and respect for Western values in K-12 education; (3) documenting anti-Semitism and promoting human rights; (4) exposing the existential threat posed by Islam to the liberties and freedoms of western society.  We know how it ends


Brad Butler
UniGlobal.Com Public Relations
Los Angeles, CA
323-410-7511

I'll be on Twitter throughout the night, and will be back to blogging ASAP.

Hope to see you there!

Lila Rose With Mike Huckabee

Following up on my earlier entry, "While You're Waiting for the #Gosnell Verdict.."

More at New York Daily News, "Philadelphia jury begins 4th day of deliberations in case of ghoulish abortion doc Kermit Gosnell."

Israel Airstrike Kills Dozens of Syrian Soldiers

At the Times of Israel, "‘Damascus airstrike killed dozens of elite troops’."

Also at the New York Times, "Israeli Attacks on Syria Fuel Debate Over U.S.-Led Effort."

Plus, commentary at Telegraph UK, "Syria’s tragedy can no longer be contained."

And Elliot Abrams, at the Weekly Standard, "Of Presidents and Bluffing."

Jodi Arias Murder Trial Verdict Expected

At CNN, "Haven't been following the Jodi Arias trial? Read this."

Maybe there'll be a verdict today.

Whistleblowers Set to Testify on #Benghazi

Here's the big Fox News report, "Clinton sought end-run around counterterrorism bureau on night of Benghazi attack, witness will say." (At Memeorandum.)

Also at Twitchy, "Must-read: Sharyl Attkisson previews Benghazi whistleblowers’ bombshells; ‘Felt helpless, abandoned’."

BONUS: From John Sexton, at Big Peace, "BENGHAZI WHISTLEBLOWER: 'MY JAW HIT THE FLOOR' AS WH BLAMED YOUTUBE."

Timothy McVeigh Photo Included in New York Times Report on Growth of Homegrown Jihad Terrorism

For the life of me I'm trying to make the connection.

This is supposed to be a report on Islamic jihadis organizing terrorist attacks online, but the World Wide Web was less than two years old when Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City Building, April 19, 1995. I guess as long at it's a "domestic" bombing that's all the connection one needs at the New York Times. Folks wouldn't want to think the online jihadi threat is anything new or more significant, and we certainly wouldn't want to overstate the international terror network effects. I mean these Tsarnaev brothers were just "knock offs," right? And hey, linking domestic bomber McVeigh at the photo is a nice touch, kinda like April 15th in Boston, when some progressives were citing Hitler's Birthday as a motive. You gotta keep hope alive!

See, "A Homemade Style of Terror: Jihadists Push New Tactics":

At a news conference on Tuesday, President Obama suggested that the bombers had acted on their own, saying that “one of the dangers that we now face are self-radicalized individuals who are already here in the United States.” Mr. Obama said such plots “are in some ways more difficult to prevent.”

So far, the Tsarnaev brothers appear to have been radicalized and instructed in explosives not at a training camp but at home on the Internet. Their bombs were concocted from inexpensive everyday items whose purchase set off no alarms: pressure cookers, nails and ball bearings, gunpowder from fireworks and remote controls for toys. Their choice of an open-air event meant no gate, metal detector or security inspection to pass through with their bombs.

In other words, as Dzhokhar told investigators, they followed the script from Inspire magazine, which Mr. Khan published in Yemen along with his mentor, the cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in the same drone strike on Sept. 30, 2011. Mr. Awlaki’s incendiary sermons and Mr. Khan’s training articles survived them on the Web, where the brothers found them.

Read the whole thing. There's no mention of McVeigh at the piece, but again, the composite photo with the caption is perfect for the left's messaging. And the report continues to paint Tamerlan as a forlorn loner who suffered at the hands of the boxing league which disqualified him.

Right. That's gotta be it!

Now for some reality, see Walid Shoebat, at FrontPage Magazine, "The Boston Bombing: Inside The Shocking Web of Terror Training":

With 200 or so attempted terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11, most of which were thwarted, it now becomes easy to understand the origin of these terrorist attacks and where they came from.

Not easy for the progressive Mandarins at the Old Gray Lady, it turns out.

Startling New Information on #Benghazi Terrorist Attack

From Sharyl Attkisson, at CBS News, "Three more officials to testify about Benghazi attacks."

As the deputy chief of mission for the U.S. in Libya, Gregory Hicks was on the ground at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli on September 11, 2012, when terrorists launched two attacks on American compounds in Benghazi.

Hicks and two other government officials have been named as witnesses for a Congressional hearing Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee. The others are: Eric Nordstrom, the former lead security official for the State Department in Libya, and Mark Thompson, the acting deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism at the State Department. Other so-called "whistleblowers" from federal agencies, including the CIA, have provided information to Congressional investigators, but are said to be unwilling - so far - to speak publicly because they aren't authorized by their agencies to do so. Some claim fear of retaliation.

It's been a remarkably long period of silence from the dozens of American survivors and eyewitnesses who were in Libya the night of the attacks. It's not publicly known what testimony the witnesses will give at this week's hearing, but in a series of interviews and communications, CBS News has obtained information about some of areas of knowledge the witnesses can address.

Hicks was number two to Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who was killed in the attacks. With Stevens in Benghazi on September 11, Hicks was the top Foreign Service official at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli. When the first U.S. compound in Benghazi fell under attack, Hicks reportedly took the frantic call.

"Greg, we are under attack," Ambassador Stevens told Hicks on the phone. Those were the last words he heard from Stevens.

According to Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who appeared Sunday on "Face the Nation," Hicks recently testified privately to the House Oversight Committee: "I never reported a demonstration. I reported an attack on the consulate...I thought it was a terrorist attack from the get-go. I think everyone in the mission thought it was a terrorist attack from the beginning."

Continue reading.

That's an extremely compelling interview with Issa at the clip above.

Howard Kurtz Grovels Before the Commissars of Political Correctness

Look, Kurtz screwed up, and bad. But because he screwed up with the Jason Collins coming out story, there was progressive hell to be paid.

Sunday talk shows are usually pretty boring, but to watch this guy give the most abject apology and then to have himself flayed by these two lamestream media flacks is just stunning.

Part 2 is here.

Plus, "Howard Kurtz apologizes on CNN for errors" (via Memeorandum).

'How can we “gun people” honestly be expected to come to the table with anti-gunners when anti-gunners are willfully stupid about guns, and openly hate, despise and ridicule those of us who own them?'

Good question.

See Barry Snell, "Waking the dragon — How Feinstein fiddled while America burned."

Man, that's one hella essay.

Any quote would be outstanding. Here's one:

Gun people don’t trust anti-gun people because they look down on us for defending the Second Amendment as vigorously as they defend the First Amendment — a fight we too would stand side-by-side with them on otherwise. We don’t trust anti-gunners because someone defending the First Amendment is considered a hero, but a someone defending the Second Amendment is figured down with murderers and other lowlifes. Where the First Amendment has its very own day and week, both near-holy national celebrations beyond reproach, anti-gunners would use the First Amendment to ridicule any equivalent event for the Second Amendment, like they did for a recent local attempt at the University of Iowa.

I think fortunately, at least this time around, the idiot "anti-gunners" are losing, and losing badly.

RTWT.

Alanis Morissette Rule 5

That baby mama's doing the full figure bikini stroll with her daughter.

At London's Daily Mail, "'Self Love': Bikini-clad Alanis Morissette shows pride in her womanly curves as she strolls the beach in Hawaii with son Ever."

For something a little more risque, check Bob Belvedere, "Rule 5 Saturday: Taylor Vixen."

More at Pirates's Cove, "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup."

While You're Waiting for the #Gosnell Verdict...

Be sure to watch this clip from Live Action, via Pundette:

And from Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "Waiting for the Gosnell Verdict":

The wait for the verdict in the trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell went on today as a jury continued to weigh the multitude of charges that the Philadelphia abortionist faces for butchering women and their babies. The case has gotten more attention in the mainstream media in recent weeks after conservative columnists lambasted it for ignoring a gruesome story that remains an embarrassment to the pro-choice side of the abortion debate. But it’s still unclear whether the country has even started to fully assimilate what these crimes mean about the state of health care for poor women in this country. Nor are many of us asking the big question that hangs over the Gosnell proceedings: how much of an aberration are the instances of infanticide that the testimony against the defendants revealed?

But there is one thing we know for sure. If Gosnell’s attorneys manage to convince a jury not to convict him, you can forget about any expectations that this case will lead to more scrutiny of clinics where late-term abortions are being conducted.

And that'd be not just a travesty of justice but an ultimate statement that the United States is no longer a nation under God.

More at the link.