The New Egypt - Starving For The Muslim Brotherhood

 

The new Islamist Egypt has a number of problems, but the biggest one is that it's starving to death, because it has a population of $80 million it can't feed.

As I reported earlier, Egypt is being forced into a choice of starvation or bankruptcy:


In Egypt, in Syria, in Jordan, in Tunisia, the Arab autocrats survived by providing subsidies to their populations for food, cooking oil and other staples.Last year, when the price of cereal grains and other staples almost doubled, the subsidies simply weren't affordable any more.

When this happened in the past, the brunt was born by Asians in places like India and China. Now, with those economies expanding rapidly, the Arabs are simply being outbid and are the lowest on the food chain.{...}

Tourism, once a major source of income is severely curtailed after the reports on rapes and assaults of both locals and foreigners in places like Tahrir Square.The new Egyptian law that allows 'citizen's arrests' of foreigners is killing most of what's left.

The only part of the tourist trade that survives is sex tourism from the Arab world. That's not an attraction for westerners in view of the other risks involved in simply visiting a country that the World Economic Forum ranked lowest out of 140 countries for safety and security.Nor does it provide anything like the old revenues.

Egyptian cotton is being underbid on the world markets by countries in Central, South and East Asia, foreign investment is almost non-existent, and the gas Israel used to buy from Egypt is no longer in the picture because of sabotage of the pipeline and public outrage in Egypt against any trade at all with the Jews. Foreign aid and the fees Egypt gets from use of the Suez Canal aren't enough to make the nut.

The Islamist government had been basing its hopes on a desperately needed International Monetary Fund (IMF)loan, which would allow the Muslim Brotherhood government to pay subsidies again and give it some breathing space to get from point A to point B. Unfortunately, the IMF has other fish to fry at the moment, and is insisting on austerity cuts including cuts in the subsidies. At a time when EU countries are chafing under austerity cuts, it's politically difficult for the IMF to do anything else. And if Egypt agrees to that, they'll be facing massive civil disorder, as well as a major loss in credibility.

The Egyptian pound is in worse straits than the Iranian Rial, and no one wants it. It  has lost 60% of its 2012 exchange value against the dollar, and Egypt's supply of foreign currency is down to about three months.

Egypt, once one of the richest countries in the world agriculturally is now the world's largest importer of whea,t which accounts for an estimated $32 billion trade deficit.
The price of fava beans has skyrocketed 40% this year. The average Egyptian lives on government subsidized bread, sugar and oil. And those subsidies are in jeopardy.

The Egyptian government is expected to be short by as much as 4 million tons of wheat imports this year. Essentially they've slashed orders because they simply don't have the hard currency needed to purchase them, and instead are overestimating the coming crop.

Last week, Libya and Qatar announced that they might be prepared to lend the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood government around $5 billion. Unfortunately, Egypt already owes that amount to the foreign companies that produce its oil and gas, and the amount it owes already for oil and wheat imports almost certainly exceeds its cash reserves. Egypt is not a major player in gas or oil, and its doubtful production will continue unless the arrears are paid up.

Even if Libya and Qatar actually produced the money(especially doubtful in Libya's case)the money would probably only cover a month or two.

Another problem in Egypt is capital flight. Anyone who actually has any money is spiriting it out of the country, usually to the EU or the Emirates.

The Morsi government likely has about three months, tops before the country goes bankrupt. What they're likely doing is playing for time to try and get better terms from th eIMF and their creditors.

The Obama Administration's contribution to all this was $1 billion in debt forgiveness, and about $3 billion in military aid to Egypt over the last year and half in spite of congress' objections and a formal hold.Oh yes, and a shipment of 140,000 teargas canisters to help the Islamist government retain power when the inevitable protests start.

President Obama has a vested interest in seeing the Muslim Brotherhood regime he helped take power stay in power.Where that ends is anyone's guess.

Racism, Hypocrisy and Cowardice In One Nasty Package

The Slate's David Sirota made a small wave for himself yesterday with a piece he wrote on how much he hoped the Marathon Bombers would be white:

This has been most obvious in the context of recent mass shootings. In those awful episodes, a religious or ethnic minority group lacking such privilege would likely be collectively slandered and/or targeted with surveillance or profiling (or worse) if some of its individuals comprised most of the mass shooters. However, white male privilege means white men are not collectively denigrated/targeted for those shootings — even though most come at the hands of white dudes.

Likewise, in the context of terrorist attacks, such privilege means white non-Islamic terrorists are typically portrayed not as representative of whole groups or ideologies, but as “lone wolf” threats to be dealt with as isolated law enforcement matters. Meanwhile, non-white or developing-world terrorism suspects are often reflexively portrayed as representative of larger conspiracies, ideologies and religions that must be dealt with as systemic threats — the kind potentially requiring everything from law enforcement action to military operations to civil liberties legislation to foreign policy shifts

“White privilege is knowing that even if the bomber turns out to be white, no one will call for your group to be profiled as terrorists as a result, subjected to special screening or threatened with deportation,” writes author Tim Wise. “White privilege is knowing that if this bomber turns out to be white, the United States government will not bomb whatever corn field or mountain town or stale suburb from which said bomber came, just to ensure that others like him or her don’t get any ideas. And if he turns out to be a member of the Irish Republican Army we won’t bomb Dublin. And if he’s an Italian-American Catholic we won’t bomb the Vatican.”

Because of these undeniable and pervasive double standards, the specific identity of the Boston Marathon bomber (or bombers) is not some minor detail — it will almost certainly dictate what kind of governmental, political and societal response we see in the coming weeks. That means regardless of your particular party affiliation, if you care about everything from stopping war to reducing the defense budget to protecting civil liberties to passing immigration reform, you should hope the bomber was a white domestic terrorist. Why? Because only in that case will privilege work to prevent the Boston attack from potentially undermining progress on those other issues.

Yes, those 'white dudes' have certainly killed a lot more Americans than jihadis, according to Sirota. So if the bombers turn out to be whitey, let's make sure we demonize that group too, to make up for that awful White Privilege.

That's why Sirota obviously hopes the bombers were White Tea Party Republicans, because it would be a political assist to the Left's agenda. He's actively calling for the Tea Party and its adherents to be demonized. The horror of hoping that one of your own countrymen murdered a bunch of his fellow citizens as opposed to a radicalized foreigner escapes this tool totally.

Now that its obvious that the Boston Marathon bombing was jihad, here's what he tweeted today:



Muslim jihadis setting off bombs in our cities? We have to make sure we don't dare do anything like profiling at airports or being more careful about whom we issue visas to. But if it had been the Great White Terrorist, he would have been perfectly happy to use it to destroy the Second Amendment, demonize the Tea Party and advance the Left's agenda - yes, to use his own words, predicate our reaction to terrorism based on the demography of the terrorists.

As long as it's you know, the right one.

The worst enemy is always the one inside the gates.

The Two Boston Marathon Bombers And What It Says ABout Jihad And The West

As the story of the Boston Marathon bombers enfolds, it's providing a good example of how jihad recruits potential terrorists.

The Tsarnaev brothers emigrated here from Chechnya and Dagestan, mostly Muslim areas in the Caucasus known for terrorist activity.

 

The Chechens are almost alone in the Muslim world in having an actual grievance. Chechnya was conquered by Russia in 1859, but after the Soviet Empire imploded, the Chechen sought independence. After a couple of fairly bloody wars, the Chechens were subdued,but with incredible brutality by the Russian forces including shelling of civilians in Grozny, the capital.

For their own part, the Chechens carried out a series of terrorist atrocities after the war, including one in Moscow in 2002 in which a group of Chechen militants took 800 people hostage in a movie theater. Chechens were also part of the forces that carried out an attack on a school in Beslan that involved the rape and murder of a number of the hostages and the deaths of over 330 people, about half of them children. There was also al-Qaeda participation in Beslan.The chief financier of the 'operation' was Abdul Omar al-Saif, a Saudi.



I cite this not because we need to 'understand their rage' as Pravda-on-the-Hudson would have it.America did nothing to deserve 9/11, and Boston didn't deserve the horrifc Marathon bombings. I mention it because it's important to get a sense of the historical 'narrative' the Tsarnaev brothers were raised on. It made them predisposed to the idea of violent jihad and good pickings for jihadis looking for recruits.

Because that's exactly how it's done.The majority of mosques and madrassahs in the non-Muslim world are funded by the Saudis and the Emirates and controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood, usually through the North American Islamic Trust( NAIT). The imams are almost always chosen by the Muslim Brotherhood or by the Arab financiers to push the Wahabi brand of Islam.As young Muslim men (and increasingly, Muslimas) frequent these institutions, they come more and more under the influence of those whom run them. Conversations happen, the indoctrination proceeds, likely candidates are identified  and perhaps the potential jihadi is given a small 'mission'  in the home country to perform, something illegal but not too significant if it should go wrong. After they're groomed, many times they're sent back to the Old Country for jihadi training, which is likely what happened to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older brother when he went back to Chechnya and perhaps even Afghanistan six months ago.

What we're seeing here now is jihad as franchise. It's not even necessary for al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Lashkar e tieba or Hamas to have one of their agents directly involved anymore, although in the case of the Boston Bombers there's a good chance they had a controller, someone to oversee things, help them plan and facilitate things.

The two brothers both evidenced significant support for Islamism and jihad in their social media pages, especially YouTube and the Russian language site VK. There's no doubt about their commitment to violent jihad against the infidel.

The Underwear Bomber was prepared and used in exactly the same way.

We will eventually find that a radical mosque along with a Saudi funded imam was a big influence on the Tsarnaevs. They were groomed for jihad.

The next question, the obvious one, is how do we, as an open society defend ourselves against jihad terrorism, especially if it comes from within, as it did with the Tsarnaevs.

We can, and I'll address it in a subsequent essay, but I'll give you a hint. The answer isn't denial, or downplaying the part an increasingly mainstream part of Islam plays in what's going on.

That's a recipe for suicide.

UPDATE: Bingo..we have our Saudi-funded radical Muslim Brotherhood mosque.

Speech Lessons for the Lapdog Media!!

As SooperMexican says, he's here to help.

Heh!

Marathon Bombers Not Indian, But Chechen Muslims

 

Much of the media (including yours truly!) was misled by early reports from Boston TV,the Boston Globe and the local police scanner into misidentifying the two Boston Marathon suspected bombing suspects. That sometimes happens when you jump on a story in the early hours of the morning, but let's just say I had plenty of company, including the alphabet networks and the AP so I don't feel too badly about that, with this exception...I and everyone else who reported on this owes an apology to Sunil Tripathi, Mike Mulugeta and their families.

I have no clue why the cops would have said their names over the scanner. Perhaps they didn't know themselves who the dead terrorist was, were adrenalized after being shot at and read speculation about "Sunil Tripathi," in the Boston media and identified White Hat as such.

The truth, however, is going to be even worse for the Left, who were absolutely beside themselves wishing for The Great White Tea Party Terrorist...'White Boys' as one commenter on this site put it.

The bombing suspects have been re-identified as two Chechen Muslims, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, both of them who'd lived in Boston for ten years.

They are originally from Dagestan, an area next to Chechnya which is largely populated by ethnic Chechen Muslims and which, like Chechnya, has seen heavy fighting in the wars between Russia and the Chechens.

Here's what happened last night. The two brothers held up a convenience store in Cambridge near the campus of MIT and shot  a university police officer who responded to a report. They then car jacked a Mercedes-Benz and drove away from the scene with a hostage, whom they later released.They apparently said something to the hostage that fingered the two brothers as the suspects in the bombing.

The police closed in on the brothers Tsarnaev in Watertown, and in the ensuing car chase s authorities said the suspects threw explosive devices from the car and exchanged gunfire with police.

Tamerlan was killed in the shootout, but Dzokhar escaped and is still at large. There's a possibility that Tamerlan may have tried to blow himself up.

 The search for Tsarnaev has effectively shut down Boston and the surrounding cities today, including Watertown.

 At least one of the brothers is a legal permanent resident in the United States.

Both brothers are described as devout Muslims.I can almost guarantee that as the investigation continues, somewhere in the mix will be a radical mosque and/or a Wahhabi Muslim Brotherhood imam. There almost always is.

By the way, none of this precludes al-Qaeda or involvement by Saudi nationals. As I mentioned yesterday, Osama bin-Laden, Ayman Zawahiri and other salifists and Islamists have actively sought what they called 'white Moors' to carry out operations, and many Chechens are not Middle Eastern in appearance.

So yes, the Boston Marathon bombing was jihad, as I and other said all along.That's absolutely no excuse for anyone to assume that all American Muslims approve of this, or that they're involved.

It is definitely a reason for America to be increasingly careful about whom it allows in from Muslim countries, and to not allow Muslim Brotherhood fronts like the Islamic Trust of North America(ITNA), teh North American Islmaic Trust(NAIT, CAIR and the Muslim Paublic Affairs Council (MPAC) to have th einfluence they do or control an increasing number of mosques. We need to understand that there is a mainstream sector within Islam that thinks what happened in Boston is perfectly legitimate.

In that context, the increasing Muslim immigration into America since the Bush Administration needs to be re-examined, and decisions like President Obama's  to  end post-9/11 restrictions on Saudis entering the US three months ago and give them special, preferred status should be seen as the folly they are.

A Gallup survey done in 2008 showed that 36.6% of Muslims worldwide thought that the 9/11 terror attacks were partially or wholly justified. And a more recent Pew survey found that almost 60% of Muslims believe the West is at war with Islam.

Any way you read the numbers, that's a huge amount of the estimated 1.5 billion Muslim population that have no problem with terrorism as a jihad tactic, and a large pool of potential jihadis.

There's a long history of terrorism in Chechnya, with Chechens carrying out many terrorist attacks in Russia, including one in Moscow in 2002 in which a group of Chechen militants took 800 people hostage in a movie theater and held them for two days before Russian forces stormed the building, leading to the deaths of 129 of the hostages and all 41 captors.

The Chechen were also part of the force that committed the atrocity in Beslan in 2004, where they took over a school and raped and murdered a number of the hostages. More than 330 people, about half of the children were killed.

In fairness, I should also mention that the Russian forces who were sent to subdue the breakaway Chechens behaved with absolute brutality.

More on this as it comes in.

The Council Has Spoken! This Week's Watcher's Council Results

 

Alea iacta est...the Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and we have the results for this week's Watcher's Council match up.

A pretty full week newswise, and the varied entries this week reflect that!



This week's winner, Joshuapundit's Unmourned, Unloved and Politically Inconvenient  was my reaction to the Gosnell Trial, the Left's reaction to it, the media's attempt to bury it by ignoring it, and what it says about our culture.I was frankly surprised at the response this got from my readers and my fellow Council members, given the difficult subject matter.Here's a slice:

Dr. Kermit Gosnell ran an abortion clinic in the city and is accused of a number of horrendous crimes, according to the Grand Jury report:

"This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable babies in the third trimester of pregnancy - and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors."

"The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels - and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths."

He's been charged with 7 counts of first degree murder.

The illegal part of what Dr. Gosnell did is worthy of reflecting on.

According to his former clinic staff, at least 100 living babies were murdered moments after Dr. Gosnell (or in some cases, his unlicensed assistants) ripped them out of the womb.Pennsylvania law forbids abortion in most cases after 24 weeks (the end of the second trimester). His standard method of killing the children was snipping the spinal cords, what one of his assistants described as 'a virtual beheading.' Dr. Gosnell frequently used drugs to induce labor so as to deliver the babies faster and make the killing process easier. One of his assistants in testimony described 'fetuses and blood flying around everywhere.'

Dr. Gosnell has also been charged with the murder of a 41-year-old Virginia woman who died from an overdose of anesthetic drugs, possibly administered by another unlicensed 'doctor'.

Several women patients were badly injured, according to the report. One was left simply lying there after her cervix and colon were torn in the process of trying to pull a baby out of her womb so it could be 'dealt with'. Another, only 18 years old, was not given proper care after her uterus was punctured and had to undergo a hysterectomy. Others actually contracted venereal diseases, painful infections and other complications because of the unsanitary conditions, where rusty and outdated machines, dirty, unsterilized instruments and filthy surroundings.

When the police finally got around to investigating Dr. Gosnell's clinic because of a tip he was illegally 'proscribing' drugs, they found fetal remains "stored throughout the clinic - in bags, milk jugs, orange juice cartons, and even in cat-food containers."

So what Dr. Gosnell is being charged with, actually, is performing late term abortions (illegal in Pennsylvania but not in a number of states), keeping a sloppy and unsanitary shop, allowing unauthorized and unlicensed personnel to perform procedures and administer drugs and the injuries and at least one murder that resulted from that.

Had he worked for, say, Planned Parenthood in a clean, up-to-date environment with licensed assistants in a state like California that allows abortion on demand for any reason no matter how far along the pregnancy is, he would have been doing essentially the same thing without any problems.

What Dr. Gosnell was doing to babies is not that much different than other doctors when it comes to late term abortions. They are merely more skillful and using better equipment.

A lot more at the link.

In our non-Council category, the winner by a nose was Caroline Glick  with Moral Relativism and Jihad   submitted by Joshuapundit. ( with a hat tip to my pal Terresa at The Noisy Room for the suggestion). This seems to be a week for what I call the larger issues, as Ms. Glick writes about the increasing tolerance in our culture when it comes to anti-semitism and violence associated with jihad and Islam...especially when it comes to American Jews on the Left.  Do read it.

OK, here are this week’s full results:

Council Winners

• *First place with  5 votes! Joshuapundit –Unmourned, Unloved and Politically Inconvenient


• Second place with 3 votes – The Noisy Room - Honoring Margaret Thatcher – The Ultimate Progressive Hunter


• Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – Bookworm Room-No matter what happened yesterday, today shows the deep fissures Obama has created in America


• Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – Gay Patriot- Boston Aftermath: A nation (that should be) united in grief & outrage


• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Right Planet-Pat Condell Is Waiting for Jesus ... And He's Pissed!


• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Razor- We Are Idiots


• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote –  GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD-Aegypt"s Aepic Fail


• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Colossus of Rhodey –  Look in the mirror, Cenk Uygur


• Fourth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Simply Jews – Social justice for fantastika? Or entitlement of parasites?


• Fourth place *t* with 1/3 vote – VA Right! –With America Under Attack, Liberals Disarm Us and Open the Gates to Barbarian Hordes

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 2 1/3 votes! – Caroline Glick-Moral Relativism and Jihad   submitted by Joshuapundit


• Second place *t* with 2  votes – Sultan Knish – Violence On Their Behalf submitted by The Noisy Room


• Second place *t* with 2  votes –  Drawnward – Boston's Best Day submitted by The Glittering Eye


• Third place *t* with 1 vote -Angry White Dude -Is Anyone Really Surprised At The Boston Marathon Bombing?   submitted by The Political Commentator


• Third place *t* with 1 vote- American Spectator -The Thatcher Haters submitted by The Right Planet


• Third place *t* with 1 vote - Mark Steyn – The Anti-Declinist submitted by The Watcher


• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote - The Texas Scribbler –The mass murderer who’s not on Page 1   submitted by Simply Jews


• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote -USA Today/Kirsten Powers –Philadelphia abortion clinic horror   submitted by Bookworm Room


• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote -The Council of Higher Education –Biblical Blame Shift   submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey


• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Bloomberg/World View –Chinese Send Boston Condolences and Conspiracy Theories submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD


• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Urban Grounds –Art Acevedo: A Willing Puppet in the Left’'s War on the Second Amendment submitted by Rhymes With Right


• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Oleg Atbashian –How Thatcher Changed Hearts and Minds Behind the Iron Curtain submitted by The Razor


• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Weasel Zippers –Palestinians Dancing In The Streets Of Gaza After Boston Terror Attack   submitted by VA Right!


• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Powerline –One Word On The Boston Massacre   submitted by Gay Patriot


• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -WSJ/Andy Kessler –The Pension Rate-of-Return Fantasy  submitted by The Watcher

See you next week! Don't forget to tune in on Monday AM for this week's Watcher's Forum, as the Council and their invited special guests take apart one of the provocative issues of the day with short takes and weigh in...don't you dare miss it. And don't forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.....'cause we're cool like that!

First Marathon Bombing Suspect Is In Custody!

He's Samil Tripathi, an Indian American and a former Brown Student. As you can see by what he's wearing, not exactly The Great White Tea Party Terrorist the Obama Administration and the Left were hoping for...if he actually was the bomber at all. No word on whether he's an Indian Muslim.He was suspect Number One.

Suspect Number Two is still at large.

UPDATE: WCVB Boston is reporting Tripathi was killed in a shootout with police a few minutes ago:

 WATERTOWN, Mass. —One suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings was killed early Friday morning, while the second suspect was being sought following an attack on police officers in Watertown that involved explosives and gunfire, Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis said in a Twitter post.

The man known as suspect 2, the man wearing the white hat, is the suspect being sought, Davis said. Sources called the situation "fluid and dangerous."

State police spokesman David Procopio said, "The incident in Watertown did involve what we believe to be explosive devices possibly, potentially, being used against the police officers."

The situation was linked to the fatal shooting of an MIT policer officer late Thursday night, sources told NewsCenter 5.

The scene was located on Laurel and Dexter Street in Watertown. Dozens of police officers and FBI agents were in the neighborhood and a helicopter circled overhead.

A State Police spokesman says an MBTA police officer was wounded in Watertown.

"I can confirm that a Transit Police officer was wounded. He is being treated at this hour at a local hospital," said spokesman Joe Pesaturo.


More as it comes in

UPDATE: The second suspect being sought has been identified as Mike Mulugeta. The Boston Police Scanner is reporting that Mulugeta is dead in a shootout with police. The Boston Globe is reporting him in custody as of 3:50 AM EST.

If in fact they're both dead, this is going to get very interesting.

FBI Releases Photos of Boston Bombing Suspects - Sort Of

The FBI finally held that long promised press conference on the Boston bombings. Well, actually it wasn't really a press conference just a statement with some visual aids which is pretty much what I suspected it would be. As a matter of fact, Special Agent Richard DesLauriers essentially say 'no questions' if you listen carefully.Not just from the press either, but from anybody.Nor does he want anyone coming up with additional photos or videos that might point in a different direction.These are the Official Renderings of the men he refers to as 'suspect one' and 'suspect two' who 'appear to be associated'. He not sure about that yet, but he doesn't want anything that might deviate attention from suspects one and two in the mix.

It's also interesting thatthe photos and videos are deliberately unclear.

Agent DesLauriers doesn't have a name for these men (or if he does, he isn't revealing it, perhaps because it might reveal something about their background that might be politically incorrect, perhaps for some other reason) and he says he doesn't know for sure if they were working together, but he does say emphatically that they're armed and dangerous and the public shouldn't approach them.

Oddly enough, and contrary to the usual announcements in these situations, there's no physical description of the suspects. No height, no weight (such things are ordinarily extrapolated by the Bureau's trained agents), no eye color, no distinguishing features that should be visible with the enhancement technology the Bureau has available..nada, nichevo, nothing.

It's impossible to tell the ethnic background of these suspects from these images, and some of the immature clowns on the Left are already daring to hope that what we have here is The Great What Tea Party Terrorist. The fact that these creatures would rather have this be one of their own countrymen so they could use that for political purposes to demonize anyone who disagrees with them is pretty revealing,especially since if the perpetrators turn out to be Muslims, from President Obama on down they will likewise rush to defend Islam and assure us that the attack in Boston had nothing to do with Muslims.

Trust me, this bunch would have no difficulty with gulags,show trials and re-education camps.


As it happens, Islam isn't a race but an ideology, and Leftist idiots like the Slate's David Sirota drooling at the thought of the Great White Terrorist might be surprised to find out that it's exactly the way the late Osama bin-Laden wanted them to think, and how the current head of al-Qaeda, Ayman Zawahiri and other Salafi and Islamist terrorists the world over want them to think.

All of them emphasized the recruitment of what bin-Laden called 'White Moors' in attacks, the better to defeat attempts at an protective profiling and add to the shock effect. John Walker Lindh, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki and Adam Yahiye Gadahn aka 'Azzam The American' are a few examples from our own country.

Besides, to divide is to conquer, kuffar.

And to show how silly this point is, we don't know that these 'suspects' are or aren't Arabs or Muslims. We don't even know if these are the men who pulled off the bombing.

As for my take on all this, nothing that happened today changed my views whatsoever. The Administration is treating this as a political problem, not a national security one and acting accordingly to protect itself and the Saudis by cleaning things up and diverting attention elsewhere.

I figured this 'press conference' would show us how the Obama Regime is going to spin this. They've given the Saudis a pass, literally, so no one is going to ask awkward questions about why someone with major ties to al-Qaeda was in the country on a visa after President Obama ended post-9/11 restrictions on Saudis entering the US three months ago and gave them special, preferred status. No one is going to ask why a Saudi national with that background whom we know was at the Marathon and at the every least a witness with more than a few questions left unanswered was rushed out of U.S. jurisdiction as 'a national security risk' shortly after a closed door unscheduled conversation between Saudi Foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal and President Obama.

What we're getting now is 'look a squirrel' and if they can't somehow link it to a Great White Terrorist, we'll either see this whole thing fade away while the Obama Regime pledges to 'work nonstop to bring the people responsible to justice' or if necessary, they'll pin it on unnamed al-Qaeda elements and launch a few drones.

If anyone thinks anything else, I have some magic beans to sell you.

Biden: 'The President Is Already Lining Up Some Additional Executive Actions' On Guns

After President Obama's hysterical rant yesterday, I suppose this is to be expected.

Vice President Biden told a number of anti-Second Amendment allies in a conference that President Obama,having failed to get his way is going to be implementing what he wants via yet another executive order:

"Look I know you're going to say that I'm just being an optimist and I'm trying to put a good face on this. But you know I've been around here a long time and we've already done, because of you, some really good things," Biden said. "Number one, the president is already lining up some additional executive actions he's going to be taking later this week."

G-d forbid this wanna be dictator would actually honor his oath to defend and protect the Constitution.

President Obama passed the constitutional point of no return on this sort of thing long ago.Although I admit to getting an ironic chuckle over this president referring to anyone else as a 'liar'.

By the way, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has already pulled the gun bill from the Senate floor.I'm sure that this was coordinated in advance with the White House, because Reid undoubtedly knows what's being planned in the gun grab.

Janet Napolitano's response to Congressman's Questioning Saudi 'Person Of Interest' Alharbi's Deportation: ‘Not Worthy Of An Answer’

I think Congressman Duncan went easy on her, but...

Remember, this is the same national security maven who was pushing the notion that this was a 'lone wolf bomber' for the Obama Regime even after every real expert at the scene said it was a coordinated team effort.

I love how she tried to wiggle at first claiming no one involved with Boston had been deported...

Nothing to see here folks, just move along.

The Latest On The Boston Bombing Coverup - From The Saudi Press

As I reported earlier, Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi, a Saudi national reportedly with connections to al-Qaeda  was originally arrested as a suspect in the Boston Bombing. But after closed door meetings between Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal and Secretary of State John Kerry and between Prince Saud al-Faisal, Alharbi was first downgraded from suspect to 'person of interest', then cleared, but then after the meeting with Obama, Alharbi was ordered quickly deported as a national security risk.

Photos of the bombing suspects surfaced, and they likewise appear to be Arab males.Not the one in the blue jacket on Drudge,who went to police to clear his name and is just a 17-year-old Arab teen, but this trio, one of whom resembles Alharbi:




Notice how one of them appears to be toting a back pack like the ones used in the bombing.

Today, in the prominent Saudi newspaper Okaz, this item appeared:

Ambassador to the royal crown, Adel ben Ahmad Al-Jubeir, had several phone calls with the paper as well as with the Royal family. He stated that very high-ranking, U.S. government officials stated that there is no suspicion of any Saudi nationals relative to the Boston marathon explosions.

The Saudi Consul General in New York, Abdel Karim Alqin assured Okaz that all Saudis have been cleared and two Saudis were injured, including Alharbi and a Saudi female doctor named Nura Khalid Saleh al-Ajaji.

Prince Saud al-Faisal, Prince Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah from the Foreign Ministry, and Prince Khaled bin Saud were involved in the entire affair.

Three other Saudis were cleared from the forbidden area, two of which were put in a hotel at the expense of the Saudi consulate.

Alqin disclosed that he cleared three Saudis from the forbidden area and housed two of them in a hotel; the third stayed with a friend. He also met with a group of Saudi students, telling them to carry on with their lives and that Saudi ambassadors would handle everything. These students were also told not to cooperate with any media entities and to lay low.

Alharbi, who was arrested with his clothes smelling strongly of gunpowder and was hospitalized and treated for badly burned hands (something questionable in itself considering that this was a IED attack using a pressure cooker bomb)is being rushed home before he's even healed and is now off limits to questioning. And apparently,according to the Saudi press, after the president's meeting with Prince Saud al-Faisal, all Saudis are off limits as well.

Three months ago, the Obama administration ended post-9/11 restrictions on Saudis entering the US and put them on the 'trusted traveler list', which is how Alharbi and a lot of other Saudis got into the country.

If Saudis were involved, that would constitute a nasty problem for both the president and the Saudis.

Aside from reflecting badly on President Obama's unilateral decision to  change U.S. law to let Saudis in without restrictions or background checks, there's  a multi-billion dollar arms deal with the House of Saud in the works, not to mention this president's fondness for Islam and Islamists, all  that oil, and continued Saudi access to America.

So they're cooperating in cleaning things up and the White House appears to be indulging in coverup...just like Benghazi, Fast and Furious and numerous other incidents.

I'll repeat what I said earlier. The Obama Administration will handle this one of three ways, depending on what they feel they can get away with.

Their chosen scenario would be to somehow pin this on  a Great White Tea Party Terrorist, but so far that hasn't been successful.

The White House's second choice if number one's not possible will be to simply let the whole thing fade away while pledging to 'bring the people responsible to justice' . Or if necessary,  they'll blame it on unnamed al-Qaeda elements and launch a few drones while the Saudis responsible slip quietly out of the country. That's  happened before.


Finally, as a last resort if Saudis were involved and  there's no way to get spin it, they might  be forced to imprison and try the bombers, while telling Americans what a religion of peace Islam is and emphasizing that the bombers were only  caught  'thanks to the help we got from our Saudi allies'.

This is a problem in national security or terrorism for this president. It's a political problem, just like almost everything else in the last four years and that's how it will be handled.

There's another press conference scheduled at 3 PM Eastern today. The last one was canceled,but by now the White House probably knows very well how they want this handled and today's presser should  give us an idea where they're going with this.

Breaking: Boston Suspects Identified..And The Saudi Connection They're Not Telling You About

Today has to go down as a real landmark in what passes for journalism these days.

It started out when someone involved in the investigation blabbed to CNN that the feds had a photo of someone with the kind of large backpack used to carry and camouflage the 6 liter pressure cooker bombs and that they were seeking what was described as 'a dark skinned man.'

So rather than act with the responsibility you might credit a 12 -year-old with and think about the possibility that they might be alerting a fugitive he was on the fed's radar, of course they broadcasted that information publicly, via CNN talking head John King and claimed an arrest had been made.

Of course, no actual arrest had been made, and CNN was reprimanded by the feds,but the damage of course was already done.Meanwhile, in a desperate lunge back to political correctness King walked back the 'dark skinned' remark:

I want to be very careful about this because people get very sensitive when you say these things. I was told by one of these sources, who is a law enforcement official, that this was a dark-skinned male. The official used some other words, I’m not going to repeat them until we get more information because of the sensitivities. There are some people that will take offense even at saying that.

Nevertheless, now that the clowns are offstage, there are some interesting new developments.

The Lord and Taylor security video cam apparently caught images of two men toting back packs of exactly the kind used to transport and camouflage the bombs, as well as an image of what appears to be a man leaving a backpack near the finish line.It shows him
placing it outside the railing, and there's another shot of the man running away from the scene while the rest of the crowd is caught up in the blast and scrambles for cover scrambles for cover.






There's also another image of a man dialing a number on a cell phone moments before the blast. Cell phones are very popular ways of remotely detonating a bomb of this kind, but the feds are able to check cell records to see who used a phone at that exact place and time. Of course, if the caller was part of the team who set off the bombs and he was the least bit professional, there are obvious ways to use a cell phone as a detonator in this fashion and leave no record which I'd just as soon not mention, because there's always the chance someone could be reading this whom shouldn't. But there's always the chance that if this person was part of team, he screwed up, so it's worth the feds checking out.

Now we get to go in a different direction and look at some other pictures.

 



These are  three Arab males at the Marathon before the bombing,one  of whom appears to toting a back pack of the kind used for the bombs.

One of them has a striking resemblance to Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi, the Saudi national who was apprehended leaving the scene of the bombing with his clothes smelling of gunpowder and made several curious statements, declaring  “I thought there would be a second bomb” and  “Did anyone die?”

We were told he was not a suspect but was still being held as a witness, 'a person of interest'. But more on that later.

As I mentioned in the above link, Alharbi hails from the Asir province near Yemen, a part of the Kingdom where Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)is not exactly unpopular.So do his two roommates that lived with him in an apartment in Revere, a Boston suburb. One of  those roommates  my sources tell me is still being sought by the FBI and another is in custody over what are described as 'visa problems'.

 You'll remember that after Alharbi was detained by the FBI,  his apartment  was searched and a number of bags of evidence removed.

But wait,  there's more.

Alharbi has quite  an interesting family background. As former terrorist Walid Shoebat reveals, our friend Alharbi has no less than six family members  openly affiliated with al-Qaeda, plus another 5 who have served time at Guantamano. And in fact his entire clan has a significant jihadist orientation. That doesn't mean Alharbi is part of al-Qaeda, but it opens up another question.

By this time, your jaw is probably dropping and you're wondering 'how did someone with this background get a visa to come to America'? Walk with me awhile.

While Alharbi was in custody and was declared a suspect, our Secretary of State had a routine press conference and photo op scheduled with  the Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal. Usually these sort of things are public. But in this case, Secretary Kerry and Prince Saud al-Faisal abruptly canceled the presser and held a secret, behind closed doors meeting.

Shortly afterwards, it was announced that Alharbi was no longer a suspect  and was simply a person of interest..in less than 24 hours since he was picked up.

And today, Alharbi, who supposedly had nothing to do with the bombing is going to be speedily deported as - wait for it - 'a national security risk'.



They're getting him out of the country and cleaning this up.

Today, no less than President Obama had a meeting with Prince Saud-al-Feisal that was not on his schedule. According to the White House, the meeting concerned Syria, but that's the sort of thing that would have been handled by Kerry in the earlier meeting.This was almost certainly something different.

Another clue was that a major press conference on the status of the investigation of the bombings scheduled for 5 PM EST today was abruptly postponed after the president's meeting with al-Feisal occurred. My gut tells me they have a pretty good idea of who was responsible by now but are waiting on instructions from Washington before going public.

If  Saudis were involved in the Boston Marathon bombing, it's a rather nasty mutual problem.

Three months ago, the Obama administration ended post-9/11 restrictions on Saudis entering the US and put them on the 'trusted traveler list', which is how Alharbi and a lot of other Saudis with questionable backgrounds got in -  not that there was ever all that much of a restriction on visas from young men from the Kingdom or other Arab countries anyway.

So if a Saudi national or nationals were to be linked with the Boston Bombing, it would point yet another finger at President Obama and his team's less than stellar performance when it comes to foreign policy and national security. One can only live off someone else's ordering the  assassination of Osama bin-Laden so for so long, especially with the rest of the Middle East unraveling.

In addition, there's  a multi-billion dollar arms deal with the House of Saud in the works, not to mention this president's fondness for Islam and Islamists, all  that oil, and continued Saudi access to America, all of which might be looked at by Americans rather badly if the carnage in Boston was the result of people the Obama Administration changed U.S. law to let into the country.

So  if this was jihad, it's in the mutual interest of both the president and the Saudis to handle this carefully. If Saudis were involved, my guess is that the Obama Regime will employ one of these scenarios in this order of preference:

Either they'll somehow find a Great White Tea Party Terrorist to pin the Boston Bombing on, simply let the whole thing fade away while pledging to 'bring the people responsible to justice' ( how I hate that phrase) or if necessary,  pin it on unnamed al-Qaeda elements and launch a few drones while the Saudis responsible slip quietly out of the country. It's happened before.

As a last resort, if Saudis were involved and  there's no way to get around  it, they might  be forced to imprison the bombers, while telling Americans what a religion of peace Islam is and that the bombers were only  caught  'thanks to the help we got from our Saudi allies'.

To President Obama, this isn't really terrorism, in spite of what he finally admitted. It's a political problem to be handled .

President Obama Throws A Tantrum After Gun Bill Loses

Even I have trouble believing this one. But it is what it is.

First, we see one of the Newtown parents President Obama flew to Washington at taxpayer expense to lobby congress making some scripted remarks and being used as political cannon fodder and a warm up act, and then we see the president of the United States in a full on tantrum, in essence blaming the Evil Republicans and the 'Gun lobby' for the deaths of children.

Aside from the obvious lies (most Americans do not consider restrictions on Second Amendment rights that important an issue, and the bill that was shot down definitely restricted those rights) there's his childish, angry tone at not getting his way.

He still can't resist making this a partisan rant against Republicans, even though enough Democrats crossed the line to vote against this awful legislation to make it a bipartisan rejection; he still can't resist shrieking against Emmanuel Goldstein in a modern version of the Two Minute Hate.

This is the same president who did nothing about gun grabbing back when he had 60 votes in the Senate during his first term, the same president who kept his mouth shut about it during the last election when all those battleground states were on the line and the same president who had no problem helping his attorney general stonewall the investigation of his administration's gun trafficking of weapons across the Mexican border in Fast and Furious, stretching Executive Privilege beyond anywhere it's ever gone before. How many innocent lives did Fast and Furious cost?

And he has the nerve now to point the finger at others for what he calls political expediency?

At one point in his rant he says that if even one child's life is saved by what amounts to an unconstitutional breach of our Second Amendment rights, by taking people's guns away, it's worth it.

Yet, just as he's silent about the innocent Mexicans that died because of Fast and Furious, he obviously isn't concerned about saving kid's lives if they're children in the womb who are aborted just before they're born or who die after they survive an abortion.

This kind of hypocrisy, this kind of evil is beyond political agendas, beyond politics.

Who is Barack Obama really, and where is he leading us as a nation? Isn't it time we started asking ourselves that question?

Benghazi: Survivors Reportedly Now Speaking To Congressional Investigators

The fiction may be starting to crack on this one. From ace CBS reporter Sharyl Atkinson:

Sharyl Attkisson ‏@SharylAttkisson 5h

CBS News has learned that previously unknown whistleblowers on #Benghazi are now speaking to Congressional investigators.

 

Retweeted 433 times 

 

*********************************************

 

One of my Lil' Birdies confirmed this via e-mail. Apparently the Benghazi survivors were under the distinct impression that talking to Congress could result in them being  prosecuted by the  Obama regime for reveling what was claimed were 'state secrets'.

 

Apparently some kind of immunity or protection was worked out. 

 

More as this develops.

Senate Kills Anti-Gun Bill With Bi-Partisan Majority

The Democrat dominated Senate killed the new gun control bill championed by Majority Leader Harry Reid.

It ended up getting only 54 votes, six short of the 60 needed to avoid a filibuster. President Barack Obama brought thew parents of the Newtown tragedy to DC at taxpayer expense to twist the arms of the Senate, and the president, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, (D-Ariz), and with her husband, Mark ( 'I'll take an AR-15 please') Kelly, had personally lobbied senators, but it the end it failed.

It was an extremely anti-Second Amendment piece of legislation no matter what its proponents said, and while it didn't specifically mandate a federal gun registry, it lay the way open for one and created the means to create it. The bans on 'assault weapons', which the Left defines as 'scary looking guns' since there's no other criteria for them and what are termed high capacity magazines were downright silly and should have ensured the bill's defeat all by themselves.

And finally, while the people pushing the bill said that certain exemptions for personal sales would be allowed, they weren't in the bill itself.The new regs for background checks and the banning of certain firearms and magazines definitely were.

As I wrote before, this was an open attempt to subvert the Constitution by legislating away part of the Rill of Rights.

And among other things, the gun grab doesn't poll well. Only 4% of Americans consider more restrictive gun legislation an important issue, according to Gallup.

Democratic Sens. Mark Pryor (Ark.), Max Baucus (Mont.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Mark Begich (Alaska) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) voted against it. Reid voted against it to preserve his ability to bring the measure up again.

GOP Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), Susan Collins (Maine), Pat Toomey (Pa.) and Mark Kirk (Ill.) all voted "yes."

Toomey in particular did himself some serious damage, as did West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin, both of whom were instrumental in engineering this bill as one of those bi-partisan compromises that really isn't.

Our Founders provided us with a legal and constitutional way of repealing amendments or inserting new ones. You pass the legislation in both Houses of Congress, with a 2/3 majority and then it goes to the states, where 3/4 of them must ratify it.

Thankfully, enough senators cared enough about the Constitution (or at least about getting elected again) to do the right thing this time.

And underline 'this time'. President Obama isn't giving up on this one, as he said today .

Thatcher Laid To Rest - And The Left's Promised 'Violent Protest' Falls Flat

Baroness Thatcher was laid to rest today in a state funeral attended by the Queen.

Her flag-draped coffin was carried from a small chapel in Westminster to St. Paul's Cathedral for the funeral service escorted by members of Britain's military, including 700 veterans of the Falkland's War.

The Angry Left had promised 'violent protests' and had promised they would pelt the coffin with eggs and coal. For a sample of that rhetoric, look at the comments section here.

In the end, thousands of people lined the road to pay tribute to the Iron Lady,many of them throwing white roses in her path while the promised 'protest' turned out to be a joke. According to Reuters, hardly a conservative friendly site, only about two dozen people booed or turned their backs on the coffin, chanted 'ding dong the witch is dead' or booed.



The Daily Mail was a little more charitable, characterizing the number of protesters as around 200 at most, scattered throughout the crowd.

While security was heavy, both the military and the police had said that they would not impede protest. And since the Thatcher Haters are not noted for qualities like common decency, I can only ascribe the lack of attendance to cowardice.

It's one thing to make a speech to the converted, be a has been pop star singing an insulting song to try and resuscitate your career or to leave a hate-filled, anonymous comment on line.It's another to go public, where you might just have to engage in a vigorous debate at street level, if you get my meaning.

The funeral service was attended by 2,300 mourners, including a number of heads of State including Canada's PM Harper, Israel's PM Netanyahu, PM Mario Monti of Italy and Polish PM Donald Tusk. The Obama Administration was conspicuous by its absence, saying it was 'too busy' to send anyone just now. America was represented by former Secretaries of State James Baker, George Schultz and Henry Kissinger, all of whom attended as private persons. And by a private,mostly Republican delegation from the U.S. House of Representatives.

It's actually quite fitting that no one from the Obama Administration could be bothered to attend the funeral of one of our staunchest allies, a woman who played a large part oin defeating the Evil Empire.Mrs. Thatcher didn't care much for commies and socialists in life, and I'm sure her spirit doesn't miss them now.

One particularly moving moment in the service came when Baroness Thatcher's grandaughter Amanda Thatcher, 19, read from the book of Ephesians to mourners.

Her reading, delivered with remarkable poise and confidence called for the righteous to put 'on the whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil'.

And one off putting note came from the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, who in his remarks at the funeral called Thatcher 'just an ordinary woman' and referenced the Tolpuddle martyrs, a 19th century group of icons for Britain's trade unions, whose strangling grip on Britain's faltering economy was successfully broken during Thatcher's administration.

The Bishop, like a lot of Church of England clergy is fairly Left wing in his outlook (Thatcher, by the way was a Methodist) so his remarks were not entirely unexpected.

Margaret Thatcher was not 'just an ordinary woman'. She was an extraordinary woman from an ordinary background. There's a big difference.

Quite simply, she was one of those rare people who saw something wrong and decided to do something about it, and she refused to be put off. She had her defeats, and her autobiography recounts them. But she had her victories too. And in the end, what matters is that she was willing to get in to the arena in the first place, because someone had to.In the end, she fought the battles she had to fight and left things better than she found them, which is all you can really ask of a leader.

So the greengrocer's daughter who changed so much has made the passage, to be reunited with her beloved Denis and her great friend Ronald Reagan.

A number of people along the procession and in the service were openly weeping as they said goodbye to Baroness Thatcher today. She was a symbol of Britain's greatness, and perhaps part of what they found so sad was their sense that greatness has departed and will not return.

-Selah-

Watcher's Council Nominations: Round Up The Usual Suspects Edition

Chris Muir at Day By Day, of course

Welcome to the Watcher's Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the 'sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday.

Council News:
This week, Liberty's Spirit, Ask Marion , and The Pirate's Cove took advantage of my generous offer of link whorage and earned honorable mention status with some great articles.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

Simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address ( which won't be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category. Then just return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week.

Simple, no?

It's a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members. while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

So, let's see what we have this week....

Council Submissions

• The Noisy Room – Honoring Margaret Thatcher – The Ultimate Progressive Hunter


• Simply Jews – Social justice for fantastika? Or entitlement of parasites?


• The Political Commentator –
  Is Pamela Geller an extremist?


• Joshuapundit-Unmourned, Unloved and Politically Inconvenient


• The Colossus of Rhodey – Look in the mirror, Cenk Uygur


• The Glittering Eye -Personal Computers Aren’t Too Good


• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Aegypt"s Aepic Fail


• The Right Planet – Pat Condell Is Waiting for Jesus ... And He's Pissed!


• The Mellow Jihadi – Raymond Davis, the Cause of All Our Pakistan Issues


• VA Right! - With America Under Attack, Liberals Disarm Us and Open the Gates to Barbarian Hordes


• The Razor – We Are Idiots


• Rhymes With Right – Senator Seeks Censorship


• Gay Patriot – Boston Aftermath: A nation (that should be) united in grief & outrage


• Bookworm Room – No matter what happened yesterday, today shows the deep fissures Obama has created in America
  

Honorable Mentions

• Liberty's Spirit - Political Correctness, Cultural Relativism and the Need to Repair the World


• Ask Marion - 6-Month Benghazi Attack Anniversary… Where is the media coverage? The answers? And Where are the Survivors?


• The Pirate's Cove - Climate Scientists Really Looking For “Explanations” To Explain Missing Warming

Non-Council Submissions

• Sultan Knish –Violence On Their Behalf submitted by The Noisy Room


• The Texas Scribbler – The mass murderer who’s not on Page 1 submitted by Simply Jews


• Angry White Dude -Is Anyone Really Surprised At The Boston Marathon Bombing? submitted by The Political Commentator


• Caroline Glick – Moral Relativism and Jihad submitted by Joshuapundit


• The Chronicle Of Higher Education – Biblical Blame Shift submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey


• Drawnward – Boston's Best Day submitted by The Glittering Eye


• Bloomberg/World View – Chinese Send Boston Condolences and Conspiracy Theories submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD


• American Spectator – The Thatcher Haters submitted by The Right Planet


• Red Bull Rising –Stick a Book of Poetry in Your Left Cargo Pocket submitted by The Mellow Jihadi


• Weasel Zippers – Palestinians Dancing In The Streets Of Gaza After Boston Terror Attack submitted by VA Right!


• Oleg Atbashian –How Thatcher Changed Hearts and Minds Behind the Iron Curtain submitted by The Razor


• Urban Grounds – Art Acevedo: A Willing Puppet in the Left’'s War on the Second Amendmentsubmitted by Rhymes with Right


• Powerline -One Word On The Boston Massacre submitted by Gay Patriot


• USA Today/Kirsten Powers-Philadelphia abortion clinic horror submitted by Bookworm Room


• WSJ/Andy Kessler – The Pension Rate-of-Return Fantasy submitted by The Watcher


• Mark Steyn – The Anti-Declinist submitted by Watcher

Enjoy! And don't forget to like us on Facebook and follow us Twitter..'cause we're cool like that!

Boston: The Usual Suspects

Chris Muir at Day By Day, of course

Not Unexpected: Obama Refuses To Send Envoy To Margaret Thatcher's Funeral

 

Apparently Baroness Thatcher, one of America’s staunchest Cold War allies rates a great deal lower on President Obama's priorities than a fascist thug like Hugo Chavez, who received an official U.S. envoy.

The White House informed the British government that it would not be sending an envoy to here funeral, citing 'a busy week'. That decision was made before the Boston Bombing, by the way:

Friends and allies of Baroness Thatcher expressed ‘surprise and disappointment’ last night as it emerged President Obama is not planning to send any serving member of his administration to her funeral.

Whitehall sources have revealed that the US delegation at tomorrow’s service in St Paul’s Cathedral will be led by two Reagan era secretaries of state: James Baker and George Shultz.

Though President Obama himself had not been expected to attend, there had been speculation that he would be represented either by Vice President Joe Biden or wife Michelle. However, the Obama administration had said it would not be attending Thatcher’s funeral before the Boston bombings.

The Queen’s decision to attend Lady Thatcher’s funeral has effectively elevated it to a state occasion unprecedented for a political figure in Britain since the death of Sir Winston Churchill in 1965.

Other world leaders, including Canada’s Stephen Harper, Mario Monti of Italy and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, are attending the service in person.

What is the White House so busy with? A spokesman from our UK embassy clarified the matter, saying that both the First Lady and the Vice President were 'the President's point people on gun control', adding: 'This is a week when there is a lot of movement on Capitol Hill on gun control issues.'

Joe Biden is riding shotgun? Heaven help us.

One correction. The phrase 'U.S. delegation ' implies some kind of official status. Baker and Shultz were going to attend as private citizens. So are former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. And House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announced that the House will send a delegation to London this week to represent the U.S. House of Representatives at the funeral, led by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN).

We all know by now that out president is not exactly a class act,and that this is a calculated and deliberate insult, and while the Brits are phrasing their 'disappointment' in diplomatic language, they understand.

After all, President Barack Obama has already let it be known on a number of occasions that he has little regard for any special relationship between America and Britain.

But that brings something to mind.

When Mitt Romney traveled to the UK as a presidential candidate, he received a rude, foul and totally unjustified reception from the British,being criticized and insulted for things he never even said.The Obama media here made a huge deal out of it, and I recall the Obama worship in the British press.

But had Romney gotten elected, I guarantee you he would have come to Britain to pay his respects to America's great ally in spite of that.

That might just be something for our cousins across the Pond to consider.

Boston Bombing Update

 

We're starting to learn more about the Boston Marathon bombing.

The death toll has definitely been put a three so far, although an undisclosed number of people are in critical condition and some have been put into medically induced comas to try and recover.

The bombs themselves are of interest. They were made using large 6 liter pressure cookers as containers and filled with nuts, metal shards, bolts and nails bearings designed to act as shrapnel and maximize casualties.

A recipe fo rthese bombs appeared in the al-Qaeda magazine 'Inspire'.

There were at least two men involved, one who was described as dark skinned, with s a foreign accent who was carrying a large backpack and kept on trying to enter an area closed to the public near the finishing line. The second man was photographed walking on a rooftop overlooking the finishing line after the second bomb exploded by a spectator.

Both men were wearing hoodies.

These types of bombs in similar containers have been used before in Afghanistan, Iraq,India and in Israel before the security barrier went up. One of the three bombs used in the attempted May 2010 Times Square bombing was a pressure cooker. Typically they're constructed with an initiator, a switch and an explosive charge and can be triggered remotely with a cell phone (a favorite method) or with a timer.That and the sequenced explosions designed to maximize casualties point to professionalism by people whom knew what they were doing.

The Saudi 'person of interest' has now been identified as Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi, who was living in an apartment with two Saudi roommates in Revere. He's still being questioned by the FBI. Apparently he wasn't picked up by police merely because of his Arab headgear. Reportedly he smelled of 'gunpowder', had badly burned hands and declared, “I thought there would be a second bomb.”

He also asked: “Did anyone die?”

I have a report from one of my notorious Lil' Birdies that the FBI is more than casually interested in the three roommates of that apartment.One of men was taken into custody over what's officially being called 'visa problems', while a third is reportedly still being 'sought for questioning' to use the usual law enforcement lingo. I'm told they all hail from the Asir province near Yemen, a part of the Kingdom where Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)is not exactly unpopular.

It's worth pointing out something at this point. If in fact we eventually find out that Muslim terrorists were involved, rest assured that the usual media suspects and the Obama Administration will do handsprings to tell us that Islam is a religion of Peace, that this is a perversion of Islam, that there are millions of peaceful Muslim who do not condone what happened.And that last statement is certainly true.

On the other hand, if the perpetrators turn out to be anyone who can even remotely be linked with the Right, with the Tea Party or with Republicans, expect these same people to behave like starving sharks thrown some raw bloody meat. And expect them to use it to demonize anyone connected with those groups, no matter how peace loving and no matter how quickly they moved to condemn the actual perpetrators of the violence.

Speaking of the Muslim world, the mood is downright celebratory in a number of places.

In Gaza, for instance, there was quite a bit of street dancing and passing out of sweets in celebration, just as there was after 9/11.Apparently half a billion dollars worth of jizya to these people is yet another example of th eold saying that money can't buy love.

Similar scenes were reported in Cairo, Egypt and in Jenin and Ramallah in th eAreab occupied part of Judea and Samaria.

The Muslim Brotherhood provided yet another example of how they operate differently in English and in Arabic.

 In English, the Brotherhood released a statement "categorically reject[ing] as intolerable the bombings committed in the U.S. city of Boston," and "offer[ing] heartfelt sympathies and solemn condolences to the American people and the families of the victims."

In Arabic to the home town crowd, things were just a wee bit different. Brotherhood leader and the vice chairman of the group's political party Essam el-Erian published  a post on his Facebook page with a pro forma condemnation of the Boston bombing, but said America brought in on itself, and it was our own fault.

"Who disturbed democratic transformations, despite the difficult transition from despotism, corruption, poverty, hatred, and intolerance to freedom, justice tolerance, development, human dignity, and social justice?" he asked. "Who planted Islamophobia through research, the press, and the media?

Translation? : 'well I'm required to condemn the bombing, sadiq, but it couldn't have happened to  more deserving people, ins'hallah'.

More as it comes in.