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CBS 'Face the Nation' Roundtable: Will Donald Trump Become the GOP Nominee (VIDEO)

Who knows at this point?

My sense is, again, we're talking about things that no one else would be talking about, and that's an extremely important contribution. And I'm not ruling Trump out one bit. He could win the nomination, or at least cause the GOP to completely implode.

#SanBernardino Terrorist Attack: Police Find and Stop the Jihadists

This is a great report, at the Los Angeles Times, "'All Hell Broke Loose' as Police Chased the San Bernardino Shooters."

'All hell broke loose' as police chased the San Bernardino shooters https://t.co/EyyKUXrPzZ pic.twitter.com/rntIP3tne7

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) December 13, 2015

Heavy Surf Pounds Ventura Pier (VIDEO)

Wild.

At the Ventura County Star, "Piers, campgrounds, roads closed due to high surf."

Cruz Wins Iowa, Trump Wins New Hampshire

Here's Matt Lewis, looking kinda prognostic, at the Telegraph UK, "Cruz wins Iowa, Trump wins New Hampshire - and the Republicans have a floor fight at the convention":

I haven’t seen anyone really go out on a limb yet and make predictions about the Republican primaries. So it's time to engage in some wildly premature political punditry.

This, of course, is risky. There are so many variables. What happens if one candidate drops out and scrambles things? What is more, factors in the political universe - say, God forbid, another terrorist attack - can quickly swing public opinion. (Remember how Ben Carson’s numbers declined after the Paris attacks?)

It is with all these caveats disclosed that I boldly present my picks.

The good news is that these predictions are based on a study of past primary elections, conducted by elections analyst Henry Olsen, who is the co-author of a new book, The Four Faces of The Republican Party.

If I were betting today, this is how I think things might play out in the New Year:

Texas Senator Ted Cruz wins Iowa on February 1. He’s surging there, having picked up several key endorsements, and his flavour of conservative evangelicalism matches the state’s Republican primary base. (Disclosure: my wife previously consulted on Mr Cruz’s US Senate campaign.)

A few days later, Donald Trump wins the New Hampshire primary. This is the one I’m least confident in. Trump is way ahead in the polls there, and he does surprisingly well with Republican moderates who make up the largest faction of the Granite State’s primary base (see John McCain’s success there).

Still, New Hampshire voters decide late and the state likes to surprise us by playing kingmaker. So someone like Chris Christie or Marco Rubio could conceivably mount a late surge.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio wins South Carolina on February 20. The Palmetto State is thought of as a very conservative state, but as Olsen points out, it “mirrors the nation” and usually goes for the “somewhat conservative” candidate that defines Rubio's constituency.


Cruz wins Nevada on February 23, and then performs very well in what has been dubbed the “SEC Primary” – a collections of Southern states that will hold their primaries on March 1.

At this point, Cruz will have momentum, but maybe not the numbers. His problem? Because of rules governing this primary process, delegates in these states are awarded proportionally. What this means is that Ted Cruz wouldn't receive all the delegates; he could conceivably run the table without really running up the delegate score.

After some smaller contests, the big states of Florida and Ohio vote on March 15. Importantly, these are “winner take all” states, meaning that the winner of these states could rapidly accrue delegates. And, assuming Rubio won South Carolina (my theory is that you have to win one of the first three states to remain viable), he should be well positioned to win these delegate-rich states...

Well, predictions are hard, especially about the future, heh.

More.

I'll hold off on my own predictions. I'm not so good at it, although I have a hunch Trump's going to win both Iowa and New Hampshire, which would give him enormous momentum going into the Southern states. But we'll see. We'll see.

No Political Guardrails

From Kim Strassel, at WSJ, "President Obama broke all the boundaries—and now Clinton and Trump are following suit":

Twenty-two years ago, my esteemed colleague Dan Henninger wrote a blockbuster Journal editorial titled “No Guardrails.” Its subject was people “who don’t think that rules of personal or civil conduct apply to them,” as well as the elites who excuse this lack of self-control and the birth of a less-civilized culture.

We are today witnessing the political version of this phenomenon. That’s how to make sense of a presidential race that grows more disconnected from normality by the day.

Barack Obama has done plenty of damage to the country, but perhaps the worst is his determined destruction of Washington’s guardrails. Mr. Obama wants what he wants. If ObamaCare is problematic, he unilaterally alters the law. If Congress won’t change the immigration system, he refuses to enforce it. If the nation won’t support laws to fight climate change, he creates one with regulation. If the Senate won’t confirm his nominees, he declares it in recess and installs them anyway. “As to limits, you set your own,” observed Dan in that editorial. This is our president’s motto.

Mr. Obama doesn’t need anyone to justify his actions, because he’s realized no one can stop him. He gets criticized, but at the same time his approach has seeped into the national conscience. It has set new norms. You see this in the ever-more-outrageous proposals from the presidential field, in particular front-runners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Mrs. Clinton routinely vows to govern by diktat. On Wednesday she unveiled a raft of proposals to punish companies that flee the punitive U.S. tax system. Mrs. Clinton will ask Congress to implement her plan, but no matter if it doesn’t. “If Congress won’t act,” she promises, “then I will ask the Treasury Department, when I’m there, to use its regulatory authority.”

Mrs. Clinton and fellow liberals don’t like guns and are frustrated that the duly elected members of Congress (including those from their own party) won’t strengthen background checks. So she has promised to write regulations that will unilaterally impose such a system.

On immigration, Mr. Obama ignored statute with executive actions to shield illegals from deportation. Mrs. Clinton brags that she will go much, much further with sweeping exemptions to immigration law.

For his part, Mr. Trump sent the nation into an uproar this week with his call to outright ban Muslims from entering the country. Is this legally or morally sound? Who cares! Mr. Trump specializes in disdain for the law, the Constitution, and any code of civilized conduct. Guardrails are for losers. He’d set up a database to track Muslims or force them to carry special IDs. He’d close mosques. He’d deport kids born on American soil. He’d seize Iraq’s oil fields. He’d seize remittance payments sent back to Mexico. He’d grab personal property for government use.

Mr. Obama’s dismantling of boundaries isn’t restrained to questions of law; he blew up certain political ethics, too. And yes there are—or used to be—such things. Think what you may about George W. Bush’s policies, but he respected the office of the presidency. He believed he represented all Americans. He didn’t demonize.

Today’s divisive president never misses an opportunity to deride Republicans or the tea party. He is more scornful toward fellow Americans than toward Islamic State. This too sets new norms. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid now uses the chamber to accuse individual citizens of being “un-American.” Asked recently what “enemy” she was most proud of making, Mrs. Clinton lumped “Republicans” in with “the Iranians.” Ted Cruz rose to prominence by mocking his Republican colleagues as “squishes.” Mr. Trump has disparaged women, the other GOP contenders, Iowans, wives, the disabled, Jews. (Granted, he might have done this even without Mr. Obama’s example.)

Can such leaders be trusted to administer Washington fairly? Of course not. That guardrail is also gone...

Sobering.

And there's still more.

Victoria's Secret Holiday Commercial 2015 (VIDEO)

It's the extended cut, via Theo Spark:

Loretta Sanchez Attacked for Saying Between '5 and 20 Percent' of Muslims Support Terrorism (VIDEO)

Following-up, "Democrat Loretta Sanchez Says 'Between 5 and 20 Percent' of Muslims Back Terrorism to Bring Caliphate (VIDEO)."

Now, at the O.C. Register, "Rep. Loretta Sanchez attacked for saying between '5 and 20 percent' of Muslims support terrorism":

Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a Democrat from Orange running for U.S. Senate, is under fire for saying that between “5 and 20 percent” of Muslims could be extremists willing to participate in terrorism.

Critics, including Islamic and immigration-rights activists, said the statement was inaccurate, reckless and promoted a false stereotype. One group called for her to bow out of the race to replace retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer.

“At a time when bigoted, Islamophobic rhetoric is spurring troubling incidents of hate across the country - including in Orange County - Rep. Loretta Sanchez' wildly off-the-mark claims are irresponsible and dangerous,” Reshma Shamasunder, executive director of the California Immigrant Policy Center, said Friday.

“We expect California's representatives to uphold our values of inclusion and diversity, not trample them.”

Sanchez, a 10th-term congresswoman who sits on the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, made the comment Wednesday on the online TV program “PoliticKING with Larry King.”

“We know that there is a small group, and we don’t know how big that is — it can be anywhere between 5 and 20 percent, from the people that I speak to — that Islam is their religion and who have a desire for a caliphate and to institute that in anyway possible,” she said.

“And again, I don’t know how big that is, and depending on who you talk to, but they are certainly — they are willing to go to extremes. They are willing to use and they do use terrorism.”

The terrorist Islamic State group known as ISIS has called for a caliphate – a worldwide Islamic government without national borders.

After her appearance on the show, Sanchez issued a follow-up statement that appeared to be an effort to quell criticism.

“I strongly support the Muslim community in America and believe that the overwhelming majority of Muslims do not support terrorism or ISIS,” she said. “We must enlist the voices of the Muslim community in our fight against ISIS instead of alienating them through fear-mongering and discrimination.”

The Muslim population is 1.6 billion worldwide and 2.8 million in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. It is not known how many favor a caliphate, but Sanchez told PBS-TV that her estimate came from an unnamed book published by Harvard Press.

On Friday, she issued another statement, saying there was “equally compelling data to support far lower estimates.”

“I want to reiterate that my reference to those numbers does not reflect my views of the Muslim community in my district, in America or the vast majority of Muslims around the world,” she said. “I believe that Muslim Americans are fully committed to the security and prosperity of our country.”

This Blitzkrieg will be unrelenting. She'll get no respite from the far-left Islamo-enablers. Sad.

'Big Shakeup' in Iowa as Ted Cruz Surges to Lead (VIDEO)

This has got tongues wagging, big time.

At the Des Moines Register, "'Big shakeup' in Iowa Poll: Cruz soars to lead":

Seven weeks from the caucuses, Ted Cruz is crushing it in Iowa.

The anti-establishment congressional agitator has made a rapid ascent into the lead in the GOP presidential race here, with a 21 percentage-point leap that smashes records for upsurges in recent Iowa caucuses history.

Donald Trump, now 10 points below Cruz, was in a pique about not being front-runner even before the Iowa Poll results were announced Saturday evening. He wasted no time in tearing into Cruz — and the poll — during an Iowa stop Friday night.

Ben Carson, another "Washington outsider" candidate, has plunged 15 points from his perch at the front of the pack in October. He's now in third place.

"Big shakeup," said J. Ann Selzer, pollster for The Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll. "This is a sudden move into a commanding position for Cruz."

Cruz, a Texas U.S. senator famous for defying party leaders and using government shutdown tactics to hold up funding for the Obamacare health care law and abortion provider Planned Parenthood, was the favorite of 10 percent of likely Republican caucusgoers in the last Iowa Poll in October. He's now at 31 percent.

Carson's zenith was 28 percent in the poll two months ago. Trump's highest support was 23 percent back in August, when he led the field by 5 points.

And there are signs Cruz may not have peaked in Iowa yet. Another 20 percent of likely caucusgoers say he's their current second choice for president. Cruz hits 51 percent support when first- and second-choice interest is combined, again leading the field.

With Cruz's popularity and his debate proficiency, "it's certainly possible that he could win Iowa big — very big," said Frank Luntz, a Nevada-based GOP focus group guru who follows the Iowa race closely...

Keep reading.

ADDED: From Bloomberg, "Cruz Soars to Front of the Pack in Iowa Poll; Trump Support Stays Flat." (At Memeorandum.)

Shattering Southern California's Illusion of Safety — #SanBernardino

Following-up, "An Existential Fear of Foreign Infiltration."

Now, at the Los Angeles Times, "San Bernardino terrorist attack shatters Southern California's illusion of safety":

As terrorist attacks fueled by extreme Islamist ideology convulsed cities in the U.S. and Europe over the last 15 years, Los Angeles and its sprawling suburbs were spared.

It couldn't last forever.

The assault on a San Bernardino social services center last week by a U.S.-born Muslim man and his Pakistani wife was an event of national significance, potentially reshaping next year's presidential contest and raising Americans' fears of terrorism to levels not seen since the World Trade Center attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

But the killing of 14 people by Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik has had a particular effect in Southern California, a densely populated region whose residents have at times felt themselves remote from the transatlantic waves of terror that have washed over New York, London, Paris, Madrid and Washington, D.C.

That sense of separation is deeply rooted in the state's culture and history, experts say, though it is in many ways unrealistic. The truth is that the Southland — home to more than 22 million people, as well as an entertainment industry that is arguably the foremost exporter of the secular culture denounced by Islamic fundamentalists — is as vulnerable as anywhere else in the U.S. to extremist violence in the post-9/11 era.

"We used to call California an 'island on the land.' There was a sense of — take your pick: outside history, ahead of the curve. But that's simply not true," said William Deverell, a history professor at USC who studies the American West. "The notion that this is an island that can't be breached, that's wrong. And San Bernardino has proven it."

Deverell said the attack was in a sense more jarring for having happened in the far-flung Inland Empire, where many ex-Angelenos have sought refuge from high housing costs and urban crime, rather than at an iconic location in Santa Monica or the Hollywood Hills. Security experts say assaults on "soft" targets unprepared for politically motivated violence are now as much a risk as the spectacular, symbolically resonant attacks on famous buildings or tourist sites.

Farook and Malik appear to exemplify this brand of "homegrown" or "self-radicalized" terrorist. Federal officials have said the pair may have quietly plotted a mass killing for years in relative isolation, taking inspiration but not direction from overseas terrorist groups.

"You can't think of it in terms of, 'Here is someone sitting at terrorist central control who says we have to look at California more seriously.' It's not that at all," said Brian Michael Jenkins, a national security expert at the Rand Corp. "Whether or not something in California is a target of terrorism depends on whether someone who is radicalized lives in California."

Debbie Maller, 55, has lived in San Bernardino for two decades and was at a coffee shop in the city's downtown Friday afternoon. She said she had sometimes worried about terrorist violence when visiting big cities after the 9/11 attacks, but had never had such fears in her hometown.

"I would have never thought of the words 'San Bernardino' and 'terrorism' together," she said...

Still more.

An Existential Fear of Foreign Infiltration

Fear is a natural reaction to danger. Don't let leftists berate you. They're welcoming our enemies with open arms.

At the New York Times, "Attack Spurs New Chapter in History of Dread in the U.S.":

The handsome Washington townhouse where Wayne Hickory practices orthodontics is a landmark of terrorism in America.

In 1919, an anarchist exploded a bomb at what was then the home of the attorney general. The failed assassination set off a wave of violent raids on radicals, Communists and leftists, and the deportation without due process of hundreds of innocent European immigrants — a high point of hysteria in an era known as the first Red Scare.

“Maybe there is something to learn from history,” Dr. Hickory said in a sitting room that now contains advertising for invisible braces. But asked about Donald J. Trump’s call to bar Muslims from entering the United States, Dr. Hickory said that, as implausible as it was, the proposal had prompted a necessary discussion about whether travelers from countries fraught with Islamic extremism should receive increased scrutiny. “Perhaps,” he said, “the line needs to be drawn a little bit more severely.”

An existential fear of foreign infiltration, unfamiliar minorities and terrorist attacks is not a new feeling in America. Neither is the nativist, if at times innovative, language that Mr. Trump has mastered on his way to leading the Republican presidential primary race.

But interviews this week with dozens of American voters, even those who do not support Mr. Trump and reject his ban as an indecent proposal, make clear that their anxiety is on the rise in a climate more fearful than at any time since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. From the Capitol to the campaign trail, from Mr. Trump’s childhood neighborhood to the suburbs near the Islamic State-inspired killing of 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., voters acknowledged, almost despite themselves, the gnawing sense of insecurity that has fueled Mr. Trump’s vision and persistent appeal.

People are seeing things, and saying things...

Heh, what a bunch of Islamophobes!

But keep reading.

Bill O'Reilly's Talking Points Memo: 'Explaining the Trump Surge' (VIDEO)

Watch, from last night, at Fox News, "Explaining the Trump surge."

Carly Fiorina's Not 'Snarling' at CNN's Chris Cuomo (VIDEO)

Here's Tom Boggioni --- the leftist idiot 'TBogg' --- at Raw Story (via Memeorandum), "WATCH: Carly Fiorina snarls at CNN host after he confronts her over Planned Parenthood smears."

She's not "snarling."

Watch for yourself, "Fiorina gets heated over Planned Parenthood."

Why Trump's Muslim Ban Resonates

From David Horowitz, at Front Page Magazine, "Who's the Crazy One?":

Presidential candidate Donald Trump has called for a moratorium on Muslim immigration until we can figure out why Islamic terrorists have been able to enter our country and devised ways to protect ourselves. This has caused the left and right establishments to dogpile on Trump. Echoing the sentiments of virtually all Democrats and many Republicans, a Washington Post editorial has declared that Trump’s proposal disqualifies him as a candidate because in the Post’s view what he recommends is unconstitutional and therefore un-American. But President Obama has issued executive orders – as it happens orders that sabotage our borders - that he himself has called unconstitutional (“I don’t have the authority to stop deportations”).  Has the Post editorialized that this is un-American and disqualifies him for the presidency? Has it called for Obama to be impeached? Have Democrats ridiculed Obama for his un-American prescriptions?

Consider the nature of the threat. A 2009 “World Opinion” survey by the University of Maryland showed that between 30 and 50% of Muslims in Jordan, Egypt and other Islamic countries approved of the terrorist attacks on America and that only a minority of Muslims “entirely disapproved” of them. ISIS has acknowledged its plans to use refugee programs to infiltrate its terrorists into the United States and other infidel countries. In Minneapolis we have a Somali refugee community many of whose members have returned to Syria to fight for ISIS. Other Muslim immigrants like Major Hassan and Tashfeen Malik have carried out barbaric acts of terror here at home. Today Muslim terrorists are using assault rifles and pipe bombs, but we know they have Sarin gas and other chemical weapons which they might use tomorrow. The terrorists inexorably arrive along with the other immigrants, no one in authority apparently knowing who’s who. Who, then, in his right mind does not think that Muslim immigration poses a serious security threat to us?

The outrage against Trump should properly have been directed at our president who refuses to identify the enemy as Islamic terrorism, who has opened the door to nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to the Islamic America-haters in Iran, whose policies have created the vacuums that ISIS has filled, and who even after Paris and San Bernardino is determined to bring 100,000 immigrants from Syrian war zones to our unprotected shores. This outrage is missing and it is precisely because it is missing that Trump’s unconstitutional proposal resonates with so many rightly concerned Americans. When the man in charge of our security is by general consensus out to lunch in regard to fighting the war on Islamic terror, or protecting us at home, a proposal like Trump’s, which at least recognizes the threat, is going to resonate with the public.

In middle of a crisis of national security, the Democratic Party seems to think that climate change and especially gun ownership are greater threats to our survival than the one that comes from hundreds of millions of Muslims who think America should be attacked and who believe the whole world should be put under medieval Islamic law. In the face of this threat, the Democratic Party and its leaders seem to have no problem with the fact that we have more than 350 “Sanctuary Cities” that are dedicated to sabotaging our immigration laws; that we have no southern border and as a result have 179,000 illegal alien criminals and who knows how many terrorists in our country today.

Once again we have Trump to thank for changing the surreal conversation about whether having a border at all is compatible with American values, and forcing people to focus on the dangers we face. Republicans are generally defenders of this country, but not in this controversy over Donald Trump. Would that they would use the same ridicule and outrage over the Democrats’ many betrayals of our country and its citizens through proposals to expose us to our enemies as they do over a proposal to protect us from them. Trump’s idea may be unconstitutional and unworkable, but it springs from a desire that is honorable and patriotic. The appropriate response would be to propose alternatives that recognize the same dangers and serve the same ends but do so within constitutional limits.

Donald Trump’s great contribution is saying the unsayable; putting things on the table that would otherwise be buried; calling a spade a spade in a time when political correctness has made us unable to discuss things that have to do with our basic national survival.  This is the crux of the issue.  Every time he creates a controversy like this he also tells this country that its emperors, Republican and Democrat, have no clothes. That they prefer propriety over defending the country.  That they are dedicated only to keeping the lid on a cauldron of threat and challenge they have allowed to boil over.

The 2016 election will be a referendum on the defense of this country and its survival. Let’s see who answers the call.

Donald Trump's Polling Obsession

At Politico, "The Republican front-runner's faith in the numbers is about to be tested yet again":

Week after week, month after month, Donald Trump has led nearly every poll. And it hasn't been close.

From New Hampshire, to South Carolina — and nationwide, the Manhattan mogul has commanded strong leads across a heap of surveys, despite — or perhaps because of — intemperate remarks that would doom anyone else. Now, after Trump's widely denounced call to bar Muslims from entering the U.S., the puzzled political world is again on the edge of its collective seat, wondering: Is this what finally brings him down?

It's an existential question: Poll numbers are, unlike perhaps any candidate in history, central to Trump's pitch to voters. In his telephone and in-person morning talk show interviews and his evening rallies, not to mention on his hyperactive Twitter account, he rarely lets an opportunity escape without mentioning his titanic standing. "Wow, my poll numbers have just been announced and have gone through the roof!" Trump tweeted Thursday morning.

And yet, unlike rivals who spend thousands on expensive gurus and polling firms, Trump doesn't even employ a pollster, as he often boasts. "My pollster's me," he said at an Iowa rally last week.

One Trump insider likens Trump's obsession with his poll numbers to a TV executive's hunger for ratings: "It’s a barometer of success."

But the polls also serve a legitimizing function for a candidate who has been dismissed all along as unelectable, this person added. "Strategically, it’s made his candidacy look as if it were feasible to primary voters."

And in an indication of the symbiotic relationship between Trump and those who cover him, sometimes Trump even knows the results of his national polling before the embargo lifts.

During an interview with CBS' "Face the Nation" aired Oct. 11, the show featured a segment taped the previous Friday, Oct. 9, in which host John Dickerson shared with Trump that 60 percent of registered voters did not find him honest and trustworthy, among other results collected between Oct. 4 and 8.

Pollsters have watched Trump's fixation with their work with a mixture of fascination and revulsion.

"He is given a big assist by the media when it persists in focusing on the 'horse race' in [a] way that overstates its importance, such as talking about who is in third versus fourth place, even though the polling error suggests there may be no discernible difference between the two," said Monmouth University polling director Patrick Murray. "As someone who Trump has hailed as either a hero or a goat depending on our poll numbers that day, it’s fascinating to watch. Trump saw an opening in the marketplace and decided to harness a pre-existing inclination, especially at this early stage, to reduce elections to popularity contests."

Through the course of his campaign, Trump has also touted polls with shakier methodology, such as unscientific post-debate polls on Drudge Report and online surveys with brief response windows, trashing those showing a name other than Trump in the No. 1 spot.

In a late October CBS News/New York Times poll, for example, Trump trailed Ben Carson by 4 points nationally, days after a separate ABC News/Washington Post survey "that nobody wanted to use" showed him up by 10 points on Carson. Trump groused in an interview with MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Nov. 5 that the media covered the CBS/NYT poll "bigger than Benghazi."

"And I never really understood it, but that's the way the world of politics works, I guess," he said.

Trump doles out praise for outlets as well. After a favorable poll release from CNN last week, for instance, he tweeted his thanks to the network and political team for "very professional reporting."

It remains to be seen what effect, if any, the businessman's proposed Muslim entry ban will have on his polling nationally and in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. But betting that Trump would fade after outlandish comments has proven foolish before...

Actually, we already know: Trump's Muslim comments have given him a fresh boost in public opinion, and have freaked out the Democrats, especially Hillary Clinton.

I'm loving it!

Fear of Terror Attack Highest Since 9/11

Following-up from yesterday, "Fear of Another Attack Lifts Trump to New High in Poll."

At the video, Major Garrett for CBS Evening News:

Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik Were in Final Planning Stages of an Assault on a Location or Building That Housed a Lot More People Than the Inland Regional Center (VIDEO)

At the Los Angeles Times, "Shooters planned bigger attack, investigators believe":

An examination of digital equipment recovered from the home of the couple who killed 14 people in San Bernardino last week has led FBI investigators to believe the shooters were planning an even larger assault, according to federal government sources.

Investigators on Thursday continued to search for digital footprints left by Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, scouring a downtown San Bernardino lake for electronic items, including a hard drive that the couple was hoping to destroy, sources told The Times.

FBI agents will probably spend days searching Seccombe Lake and canvassing the neighborhood for clues after receiving a tip that the couple may have visited the area on the day of the attack, according to David Bowdich, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles field office.

Farook and Malik were in the final planning stages of an assault on a location or building that housed a lot more people than the Inland Regional Center, possibly a nearby school or college, according to federal sources familiar with the widening investigation.

Investigators have based that conclusion on evidence left behind on Farook and Malik's computers and digital devices, not all of which the couple were able to destroy before they were killed in a firefight with police, the sources said.

Images of San Bernardino-area schools were found on a cellphone belonging to Farook, according to a law enforcement source. But the source cautioned that Farook may have had a legitimate reason to have the images because his work as a county health inspector involved checking on school dining facilities.

On Thursday, one of the federal government sources told The Times that Farook asked his friend and neighbor, Enrique Marquez, to buy two military-style rifles used in the attacks because he feared he "wouldn't pass a background check" if he attempted to acquire the weapons on his own. The rifles were bought at a local gun store, the source said.

The timing of the rifle purchases is significant to FBI investigators. Another federal government source previously told The Times that Farook may have been considering a separate terror plot in 2011 or 2012.

Farook was self-radicalizing around that time, FBI Director James Comey said, and met Malik soon after, eventually escorting her to the United States. Farook was a practicing Muslim. Marquez converted to Islam around the time he purchased the weapons, sources have told The Times.

FBI agents believe Farook abandoned his plans to launch the earlier attack after a law enforcement task force arrested three men in Chino in November 2012. The men were later convicted of charges related to providing material support to terrorists and plotting to kill Americans in Afghanistan. A fourth man arrested in Afghanistan also was convicted in the scheme.

Bowdich said federal agents are investigating whether the men had ties to Farook.

Marquez has emerged as a central figure in the investigation. The FBI had been conducting interviews with 24-year-old, who checked himself into a mental health facility after the attacks.

The former Wal-Mart security guard has waived his Miranda rights and cooperated with the inquiry, and it was Marquez who told FBI agents about Farook's earlier plans, according to one of the government sources, who also requested anonymity...

Still more.

Did Trump Just Win?

From James Taranto, at WSJ:

#BestoftheWeb Did Trump Just Win? His Muslim-exclusion idea is likely to prove popular, by @jamestaranto https://t.co/Cn7V8z4v9v via @WSJ

— James Taranto (@jamestaranto) December 8, 2015

Call Islamic Terrorism by Its Name

From Rudy Giuliani, at WSJ:

In 1983 when I was the U.S. attorney in New York, I used the word “Mafia” in describing some people we arrested or indicted. The Italian American Civil Rights League—which was founded by Joe Colombo, one of the heads of New York’s notorious five families—and some other similar groups complained that I was defaming all Italians by using that term. In fact, I had violated a Justice Department rule prohibiting U.S. attorneys from employing the term Mafia. The little-known rule had been inserted by Attorney General John Mitchell in the early 1970s at the behest of Mario Biaggi, a congressman from New York.

I had a different view of using the term Mafia. It reflected the truth. The Mafia existed, and denying what people oppressed by those criminals knew to be true only gave the Mafia more power. This hesitancy to identify the enemy accurately and honestly—“Mafia” was how members described themselves and kept its identity Italian or Italian-American—created the impression that the government was incapable of combating them because it was unable even to describe the enemy correctly.

Similarly, you may hear about ISIS or ISIL or Daesh, but make no mistake: The terrorists refer to themselves as members of Islamic State. Just as it would have been foolish to fail to use the word Mafia or admit its Italian identity, it is foolish to refuse to call these Islamic terrorists by the name they give themselves or to refuse to acknowledge their overriding religious rationale.

Yes, it is essential to emphasize to the public the distinction between Islam and Islamic terrorists. That education has been in progress in the U.S. at least since 9/11. I recall that during my last press briefing on that horrific day, I urged New Yorkers not use the barbaric attacks to attach group blame—for doing so would mirror the sort of thinking that inspired the terrorists. President George W. Bush and New York Gov. George Pataki made similar appeals, and the American people overwhelmingly took that idea to heart, and still do. They knew that the attacks were the actions of people with a warped, evil interpretation of the Islamic religion.

Yet it is also essential to acknowledge that there are portions of the Islamic texts that are used by these terrorists to justify mass murder in the name and for the propagation of their faith. Unfortunately, this confusion between the religion and those who pervert its meaning is exacerbated by the Obama administration and others in prominent leadership positions who engage in euphemisms or misdirection regarding Islamic terrorism. They make it seem that they see no connection between the acts of terror and the terrorists’ interpretation of Islamic teaching and Shariah law.

For example: It was and is ludicrous for the administration to describe Nidal Hasan’s attack at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas in 2009 as “workplace violence,” particularly since as he was committing the murders he was yelling “Allahu akbar”—Allah is great. The administration was similarly reluctant to describe the San Bernardino attacks last week as terrorism, much less as Islamic terrorism, even as evidence mounted making clear the nature of the attack...

Actually, it's "Allah is greater," thus justifying murder of those with a lesser god, the infidels.

But keep reading.

Dana Loesch on Surge in Gun Sales (VIDEO)

Following-up, "Surge in Gun Sales in Southern California (VIDEO)."

Here's Dana, on point and nailing it, as always: