Month: April 2013

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Boston Bombing Update 4-19-12

One Bombing suspect is dead after a shootout with police, the other is still on the run. A massive manhunt is under way for him.

UPDATE II

Captured!

From FoxNews

“The second suspect in the Boston Marathon  bombing is in custody, after police found him hiding in a boat covered by a tarp  behind a house in the Watertown section of the city, Boston police  confirmed.

Police moved in on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev  Friday evening after tip led them to the home on Franklin Street, where he  apparently had been hiding in the back yard. Neighbors said they heard more than  30 shots one likened to “a roll of firecrackers shooting off.” Police swarmed  the scene, and several explosions, possibly police concussion grenades, were  heard after a robot moved in on the boat.”

Great job by the police, and especially the alert lady that called it in.

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From NBCNews

“The Boston Marathon bombing suspects — armed with explosives and guns — battled law enforcement officers in a Boston suburb early Friday morning, unleashing chaos until cops took one of the men into custody and the other fled, law enforcement sources said.

Officials later said the suspect taken into custody died and authorities identified the man on the run as the “white-hat” suspect, referencing photographs released by the FBI Thursday. Authorities warned he should be  considered armed and dangerous.”

“Law enforcement sources said the suspects have international links and have been in the country legally for about a year.

The suspects approached the MIT officer and shot him in head, the sources said. The two then stole the MIT officer’s cruiser, robbed a nearby 7-11 and carjacked a Mercedes SUV, briefly kidnapping the driver, the sources said. At various points, the suspects threw explosives out the window of the moving car.”

More here from FoxNews

“Authorities urged residents in Watertown, Newton, Waltham, Belmont, Cambridge  and the Allston-Brighton neighborhoods of Boston to stay indoors. All mass  transit was shut down.

“We believe this to be a terrorist,” Davis said in a press conference. “We  believe this to be a man who’s come here to kill people. We need to get him in  custody.””

“A federal law enforcement official told Fox News they are looking into  whether the bombing suspects may have been from overseas and had overseas  military training.”

Watertown, Mass. and the surrounding area is under lockdown this morning. From NBCNews

“Public transportation in Boston was shut down Friday morning and some neighborhoods and towns were in total lockdown as police searched for the second of two men believed to have been involved in the marathon bombings earlier this week.”

“All services on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority were immediately suspended authorities announced and the residents of the city’s western suburbs, including the neighborhoods of Watertown, Allston-Brighton, Cambridge, Belmont and Newton, were asked to remain in their homes.

Police searched the Watertown neighborhood door to door on foot and in patrol cars early Friday morning. Residents were asked to call 911 if anyone other than police came to doors in the neighborhood.

People waiting for buses or other transit services should head home and stay there, police said. No vehicular traffic was being allowed in or out of Watertown, where police engaged in a shootout overnight with men armed with explosives.”

The suspects have been identified. They are from Chechnya. From NBCNews

“The suspects are brothers with the last name Tsarnaev, law enforcement officials told NBC News. The suspect on the loose is 19 and has a Massachusetts driver’s license, they said. Law enforcement officials told NBC News that both men had international ties, had been in the United States about a year and had military experience.”

UPDATE

Here’s an excellent rundown on the bomber still at large, including Tweets, from TheAtlanticWire  with a CONTENT WARNING!!! for the Tweets.

“On Friday, after a chaotic evening saw his partner in crime (and apparently his older brother) killed and as a city locked down to find him, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev emerged as the name of the man in the ongoing manhunt in Boston Friday. According to information culled from multiple reports, Tsarnaev is a 19-year-old reportedly from Kyrgyzstan who has been living, for the past year, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Here’s are the basics of what we know about “Suspect No. 2” — a.k.a. the suspect in the white hat, the one authorities apparently saw drop a bomb-laden backpack in security footages, and the one currently being pursued by police: Tsarnaev was a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, which is closed for the day; he has been in this country for at least one year; his father is currently in Russia and is claiming that the two boys aren’t/weren’t religious. His uncle is also speaking out about Dzhokhar and Tamerlan, his now dead brother and apparently fellow suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings.

By culling social media, official news reports, and beyond, we’re in the process of filling in the blanks about both suspects — beginning with the man in the standoff with scores of law enforcement officers right now:”

It’s a pretty extensive background piece. I would also point out that despite the father’s insistence to the contrary, the older brother’s Facebook told a different story. Those he “followed” certainly were. And the younger’s Tweets speak for themselves. From WeaselZippers with a CONTENT WARNING!!! for the Tweets.

And he’s a 9-11 truther.

More here on a video allegedly posted by the suspect. It reads like a prayer of some sort, from TheInvestigativeProject

And if this is true, heads should roll. From JudicialWatch

“One of the Chechen terrorists who carried out the Boston Marathon bombings could have been deported years ago after a criminal conviction and the other was granted American citizenship on the 11th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the 26-year-old killed in a wild shootout with police, was a legal U.S. resident who nevertheless could have been removed from the country after a 2009 domestic violence conviction, according to a Judicial Watch source. That means the Obama administration missed an opportunity to deport Tsarnaev but evidently didn’t feel he represented a big enough threat.”

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Our Daily Thread 4-19-13

Good Morning!

It’s finally Friday! 🙂

And on this day in 1770 Captain James Cook discovered New South Wales, Australia.

In 1775 the American Revolution began as fighting broke out at Lexington, MA.

In 1892 the Duryea gasoline buggy was introduced in the U.S. by Charles and Frank Duryea.

In 1897 the first annual Boston Marathon was held.

In 1943 the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against Nazi rule began.

In 1951 General Douglas MacArthur gave his “Old Soldiers” speech before the U.S. Congress. It included the quote “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.”

In 1958 the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers played the first major league baseball game on the West Coast.

And in 1982 NASA named Sally Ride to be first woman astronaut.

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Quote of the Day

“My definition of an intellectual is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger.”

Billy Connolly

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Now let’s see you get that outta your head. 🙂

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Anyone have a QoD for us this morning?

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Prayer Requests 4-19-13

Who can we pray for today?

Psalm 147:1-12

1 Praise ye the Lord: for it is good to sing praises unto our God; for it is pleasant; and praise is comely.

2 The Lord doth build up Jerusalem: he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel.

3 He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.

4 He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.

5 Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.

6 The Lord lifteth up the meek: he casteth the wicked down to the ground.

7 Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp unto our God:

8 Who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains.

9 He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry.

10 He delighteth not in the strength of the horse: he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man.

11 The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.

12 Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise thy God, O Zion.

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News/Politics 4-19-13

In other news today………

Reid has had to pull the gun bill from consideration.

From TheWashingtonPost

“Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) announced Thursday that the Senate will “take a pause” and return to consideration of gun legislation at a later date.”

“Reid’s decision came the day after President Obama’s comprehensive gun control effort suffered defeat in the Senate, with all the major proposals he backed failing to gain enough votes.”

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How Obama misread the politics of gun control. From NationalJournal

“Watching President Obama’s fury after Congress failed to pass any gun-control legislation was a sign of his political helplessness. Despite aggressively pushing for expanded background checks, despite enlisting the victims of recent gun violence to lobby their representatives, despite getting one of the more conservative senators to support a watered-down background-check measure, he fell five votes short of getting anything passed in the Senate, including losing four members from his own party.

If this doesn’t demonstrate the limitations of the president’s political muscle and the influence of his newly minted Organizing for Action lobbying group, I don’t know what does. Yet, despite the embarrassing setback, Obama nonetheless argued that he still held the upper hand, politically: “If this Congress refuses to listen to the American people and pass commonsense gun legislation, then the real impact is going to have to come from the voters.”  That couldn’t misread the political environment heading into 2014 anymore. That’s the audacity of mope.

Put simply, the 2014 Senate elections will be fought predominantly on the very turf that is most inhospitable to gun control–Southern and Mountain West conservative states. It’s no coincidence that three of the four Democrats who opposed the Toomey-Manchin bill are facing difficult reelections in 2014 and presumably are attuned to the sentiments of their constituents. Blame the National Rifle Association for the bill’s failure, but the lobby is feeding into already deeply held opposition to gun regulations and a broader sense of anxiety about the president’s and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s intentions–particularly given the president’s past publicized remark about “bitter” rural voters who “cling to their guns and religion.”  It doesn’t take much for the gun-rights crowd, significant in these states, to jump to inaccurate conclusions given that history.”

Inaccurate conclusions? I think he’s describing Obama, not the “bitter clingers.”

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We’ve all seen the President and Senate Dems pitching fits over the whole thing in front of the cameras. But the fits the media are throwing over their failure to persuade the commoners is just as bad. From Politico

“Even by the standards of today’s partisan media environment, the response has  been noteworthy. Television hosts, editorial boards, and even some reporters  have aggressively criticized and shamed the 46 Senators who opposed the plan,  while some have even taken to actively soliciting the public to contact them  directly.

The decision by some members of the media to come down so  firmly on one side of a policy debate has only served to reinforce  conservatives’ longstanding suspicions that the mainstream media has a  deep-seated liberal bias.

“I guess the liberal media get annoyed when Senators listen to their  constituents and think for themselves, rather than doing the media’s bidding,” Bill Kristol, the editor-in-chief of the Weekly Standard, told POLITICO.”

Bias? What bias? 🙄

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So the President plans on doing the only think he can. Make like a third world dictator and do it by decree. From TheWeeklyStandard

“Joe Biden says the president of the United States is preparing to take “executive actions” to deal with guns.

BuzzFeed reports:

Vice President Biden told White House allies in the gun control fight Thursday that President Obama will be announcing new executive actions on gun violence in the days after the Senate voted down a gun violence bill.”

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Meanwhile the Senate has a bi-partisan amendment to prevent the media from releasing gun owner info, with strong support.

From TheWashingtonExaminer

“Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., in an attempt to prevent local newspapers from publishing lists of gun owners in a given area, convinced 66 of his colleagues to support an amendment that cuts funding for state and local governments if they release the information.

“If a state or local government releases private information on gun owners — which we know has happened — then that state or local government will lose part of its funding that comes from the Federal Government,” Barrasso said while arguing for the amendment.  “This includes private information on individuals who have licenses to purchase, possess, or carry firearms.”

Wow. Look at that. Some common sense for a change.

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ObamaCare is causing rate increases? 😯

Say it ain’t so! 🙄 

But Dems like Franken would like you to believe it’s not true, just an insurance industry plot or something. From KaiserHealthNews

“Few aspects of the Affordable Care Act are more critical to its success than affordability, but in recent weeks experts have predicted costs for some health plans could soar next year.

Now health law supporters are pushing back, noting close ties between the actuaries making the forecasts and an insurance industry that has been complaining about taxes and other factors it says will lead to rate shock for consumers.

“Most actuaries in this country — what percentage are employed by insurance companies?” Sen. Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, asked an actuary last week at a hearing of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.”

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And for the last one today, another abortion related story the national media will ignore. From LifeNews

“The former director of a leading abortion advocacy group who was caught in a child sex sting pleaded guilty to his crimes.

Scott Richard Swirling, who was the director of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA), was arrested for attempting to arrange for a sexual encounter with a twelve-year-old girl. He was charged with traveling across state lines to engage in illicit sexual conduct, a crime which carries a penalty of up to 30 years.”

“Sexual predators who impregnate underage girls rely on cooperative abortion clinics to cover up their crimes.  As Live Action, Life Dynamics, and others have documented, Planned Parenthood abortion clinics frequently fail to comply with mandatory reporting laws,” it said.

“The National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association strongly supports taxpayer funding for abortion clinics.  Many Planned Parenthood affiliates are NFPRHA members,” it added. “There is no mention of Mr. Swirling on the NFPRHA website.”

That’s not surprising.

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Our Daily Thread 4-18-13

Good Morning!

On this day in 1521 Martin Luther confronted the emperor Charles V in the Diet of Worms and refused to retract his views that led to his excommunication.

In 1775 American revolutionaries Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott rode though the towns of Massachusetts giving the warning that “the Regulars are coming out.” Later, the phrase “the British are coming” was attributed to Revere.

In 1847 U.S. troops defeated almost 17,000 Mexican soldiers commanded by Santa Anna at Cerro Gordo.

In 1906  San Francisco, CA, was hit with an earthquake. The original death toll was cited at about 700, but later reports put it at 3 to 4 times that.

In 1923 Yankee Stadium opened in the Bronx, NY. The Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox 4-1. 🙂

In 1955 Albert Einstein died on this day.

And in 1983 the U.S. Embassy in Beirut was blown up by a suicide car-bomber.

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Quote of the Day

“One morning, there was a rap on my office door. I looked out and there was a tall young man with blond hair and we shook hands. He was 21 and I was 31. It was Billy Graham and he had traveled in from Wheaton College on a train just to say ‘hello.’ He said he listened to my morning hymn show called ‘Hymns From The Chapel.’ That’s how we first got acquainted. I came into this work with Mr. Graham in 1947 after we had exchanged letters and talked on the phone. He said he wanted me to be his gospel singer. I thanked him but told him the only gospel singers I’ve ever heard about would sing a verse or two and stop and talk a while. ‘Would I have to do that?’ I asked him. He chuckled and said, ‘I hope not.’ With that, I said, ‘Well, I’d like to come with you.’ That was in November of 1947 and I’ve been with him ever since.”

George Beverly Shea

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The music today is in the post on Mr. Shea below. 🙂 It was the obvious choice.

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Now who has a QoD for us today?

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Prayer Requests 4-18-13

Who can we pray for today?

Or if you prefer, share an update or praise.

Psalm 146

1 Praise ye the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul.

2 While I live will I praise the Lord: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being.

3 Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.

4 His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.

5 Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God:

6 Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever:

7 Which executeth judgment for the oppressed: which giveth food to the hungry. The Lord looseth the prisoners:

8 The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind: the Lord raiseth them that are bowed down: the Lord loveth the righteous:

9 The Lord preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.

10 The Lord shall reign for ever, even thy God, O Zion, unto all generations. Praise ye the Lord.

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George Beverly Shea 1909-2013

Yesterday marked the passing of one of the most well known voices in Christian music, Mr. George Beverly Shea.

gbs

He was born on Feb. 1, 1909 in Winchester, Ontario where his father was a Wesleyan Methodist minister. Shea’s first public appearance was in the choir of his father’s church.

His musical career included nearly 500 recordings on 70 different albums. He was a writer, composer, and singer. For 60 years he proceeded Billy Graham in song at his rallies. He shared his voice with people throughout the world while traveling with Graham. Graham first met Shea while in Chicago when he was on Moody Radio. Shea first sang for Graham in 1943 during the radio program, “Songs in the  Night.” Shea faithfully carried the Gospel in song to every continent and every state in the U.S.

The Billy Graham Evangelical Association released a statement on his death yesterday which included this:

“I first met Bev Shea while in Chicago when he was on Moody Radio,” said Billy Graham. “As a young man starting my ministry, I asked Bev if he would join me. He said yes and for over 60 years we had the privilege of ministering together across the country and around the world. Bev was one of the most humble, gracious men I have ever known and one of my closest friends. I loved him as a brother. My prayer for his wife, Karlene, and his children, Ron and Elaine, is that God will strengthen them during this time.”

gbs 2

He was the recipient of 10 Grammy nominations, and a Grammy Award in 1965. Shea was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Grammy organization in 2011.  He was a member of the Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame (1978). He was also inducted into the Religious Broadcasting Hall of Fame in February 1996. And he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Conference of Southern Baptist  Evangelists’ “Hall of Faith” in 2008.

He will be missed, but his music will live on.

gbs 3

And a Hat Tip to Wikipedia for the background info on Mr. Shea

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Life Matters 4-18-13

The more details that come out in the Gosnell case, the worse it gets. It seems he’s been harming women for a lot longer than was previously known.

From LifeNews with a CONTENT WARNING!!!

“More revelations are coming to light about the gruesome abortion business Kermit Gosnell ran where he killed a woman in an abortion and killed babies in grisly abortion-infanticides and kept their bodies as trophies.

But new information is also coming to light about the abortion practice Gosnell ran for decades — including in the 1970s when he injured several women in a odd experiment on women using a new abortion method. Whether Gosnell obtained the consent of women to engage in this experiment is unknown but multiple women were injured as a result.”

“It was called the Mother’s Day Massacre. A young Philadelphia doctor “offered to perform abortions on 15 poor women who were bused to his clinic from Chicago on Mother’s Day 1972, in their second trimester of pregnancy.” The women didn’t know that the doctor “planned to use an experimental device called a ‘super coil’ developed by a California man named Harvey Karman.””

“Nine of the 15 Chicago women suffered serious complications. One of them needed a hysterectomy. The following year, the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade. It would be 37 more years before the Philadelphia doctor who carried out the Mother’s Day Massacre would go out of business. His name is Kermit Gosnell.”

Not surprisingly, Planned Parenthood seems to have been involved as well. And again, CONTENT WARNING!!!

“In 1972, International Planned Parenthood Federation was one of two groups partnering with the country of Bangladesh to bring Dr. Harvey Karman (pictured right) and a small team of “abortion experts,” which included two IPPF doctors, to the newly formed country to commit abortions and train native doctors and paramedics how to commit them.

Abortion was Karman’s “consuming passion,” according to Salon, which acknowledged Karman wasn’t really any sort of doctor whatsoever but had simply “added a Ph.D. to his name, though his degree came from a dubious Swiss diploma mill.”

Karman was, in fact, a convicted felon, having served 2-1/2 years in prison – until pardoned by then Gov. Jerry Brown – for killing a mother in 1955 while attempting to illegally abort her in a hotel room with a nutcracker.”

This is the same “new method” Gosnell used.

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President Obama has finely acknowledged the Gosnell trial. But as expected, it sounds like another “present” vote on the subject by Obama. I guess it’s still above his pay grade.

From Politico

“In the interview, he noted that he was “familiar” with the trial of Gosnell,  which has sparked outrage from some on both sides of the political spectrum, as  many on the right — and some on the left — have charged that the mainstream  media has not sufficiently covered the case, which involves gruesome allegations  including of murder. Obama said he couldn’t comment, however.

“Well, I’m familiar with it. I can’t comment on it because it’s an active trial,” he said.”

Talk about a cop-out. Funny, he wasn’t worried about things like that in the Trayvon Martin case, or the “Beer Summit” fiasco. It’s just cowardly.

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And a college professor at the University of Buffalo has been arrested for profanely ranting at pro-lifers for exposing the truth about abortion.

From FoxNews with a CONTENT WARNING!!! because the “educator” has a foul mouth.

“A University of Buffalo professor was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after she launched into a profanity-laced tirade directed towards a group of pro-life students.”

““I can swear in public because that is profane,” she said referring to the display. “That image is swearing to me. That is profane to me.””

“Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students For Life of America, said pro-life students are typically singled out for attacks on campus.

“As we’ve seen again and again, a pro-abortion supporter couldn’t handle the ugly truth of abortion and lashed out,” Hawkins told Fox News. “She had to resort to yelling and using profane language with police officers.”

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And in another show of the intolerance pro-lifers must endure on college campuses, we have this story.

From LifeNews

“Abortion advocates apparently vandalized a pro-life cross display at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania.

When pro-life groups set up such memorials to remember the number of babies who have been victimized by abortions, they frequently become targets of vandalism by students who are apparently in favor of abortion but too closed-minded to be tolerant of the pro-life message.

Campus Reform has more information on what happened:

Photos of the incident show dozens of crosses flung about the area with a few turned upside down and a pro-choice banner stuck into the ground around the destroyed display.”

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News/Politics 4-18-13

What’s interesting in the news today.

As always, Open Thread.

There was a devastating explosion at a Waco, Texas fertilizer plant late Wednesday. Video from the scene shows a fire which set off a huge explosion. Authorities say 5 to 15 dead, and 160 wounded. Homes and businesses around the plant were leveled in the explosion.

From NBCNews

“At least five to 15 people were killed and more than 160 wounded when a large fertilizer plant explosion rocked a small Texas town late Wednesday, destroying dozens of homes under a cloud of toxic smoke, police said.

Firefighters, including local volunteers, were battling a blaze at the time of the blast, which caused a ground tremor equivalent to a magnitude-2.1 earthquake, the USGS said.”

“”It was a huge explosion,” Swanton said. “It reached blocks, if not miles, in its devastating effect. … My guess is going to be that … we will see the casualty rate rise and the injury rate rise.”

“We know fire was there, we know law enforcement was there assisting with traffic, and I believe there were EMS …,” Swanton said, adding some of those first responders were among the missing.”

Hat Tip to Donna J

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Police have made an arrest in the Ricin letter case. President Obama was a target, as were a group of elected officials. The person responsible didn’t seem to care about the intended victim’s political party.

From NBCNews

“Federal agents on Wednesday arrested a suspect in the mailing of letters to President Barack Obama and a U.S. senator that initially tested positive for the poison ricin.

The suspect was identified as Paul Kevin Curtis of Tupelo, Miss., federal officials told NBC News. They said he may appear in court as early as Wednesday night.

Both letters carried an identical closing statement, according to an FBI bulletin obtained by NBC News on Wednesday.”

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Police believe they have some suspects in the Boston bombing.

From TheAP

” In what could be major break in the Boston Marathon case, investigators are on the hunt for a man seen in a department store surveillance video dropping off a bag at the site of the bombings, a local politician said Wednesday.

Separately, a law enforcement official confirmed that authorities have found an image of a potential suspect but don’t know his name.

The development – less than 48 hours after the attack, which left three people dead and more than 170 wounded – marked a possible turning point in a case that has investigators analyzing photos and videos frame by frame for clues to who carried out the twin bombings and why.”

For some reason they haven’t released photos for the public yet. But at least one website claims to have photos of possible suspects.

From TheNYPost

“In the photos being distributed by law-enforcement officials among themselves, one of the men is carrying a blue duffel bag. The other is wearing a black backpack in the first photo, taken at 10:53 a.m., but it is not visible in the second, taken at 12:30 p.m.

“The attached photos are being circulated in an attempt to identify the individuals highlighted therein,” said an e-mail obtained by The Post. “Feel free to pass this around to any of your fellow agents elsewhere.”

“Meanwhile, officials have identified two potential suspects who were captured on surveillance videos taken shortly before the deadly blasts, law-enforcement sources told The Post yesterday.

Authorities know the names of the two men, but do not have enough evidence to make an arrest for Monday’s attack, which killed three and wounded 176, the sources said.”

UPDATE II  Or not?

From HotAir

“The FBI is (finally!) going to release the footage that everyone’s been clamoring for later today. If you’ve read the New York Post this morning, you probably think you know who the guys in the video will be. You’re probably wrong. I watched an interview on Erin Burnett’s show last night with Fran Townsend (I think it was her), who’d seen photos of the suspects circulated by cops; CNN refused to air the pics but it was abundantly clear from her description that it’s the same two guys in the Post’s story today. If you followed Reddit’s marathon photo sleuthing yesterday, you knew instantly watching that interview who she meant. There were at least five or six different shots of them near the finish line being scrutinized on Reddit — one of them wore a white cap and bulging black backpack, the other a blue track suit with a sagging duffel bag. I went to bed last night thinking that’s who’d be in the video released today.

But apparently I’m wrong. The administrator of the Reddit sleuthing thread posted an alert this morning urging people to back off.”

“We are not waiting for them to be officially cleared, one of the men has contacted the police to try and clear his name. Please understand that the FBI now knows who they are, so our posts now have no purpose. If the situation changes then people can make new posts. It’s not our job to keep their information out there, people are innocent until proven guilty – not the other way around.”

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Some in the left-wing media are pretty upset about the “dark-skinned” references some news sources used. Others on the left are hoping it’s a white male that’s responsible. But only because they fear it could hurt Obama’s agenda or some such nonsense. And believe it or not, it supposedly has something to do with “white privilege.”

From Salon

“As we now move into the official Political Aftermath period of the Boston bombing — the period that will determine the long-term legislative fallout of the atrocity — the dynamics of privilege will undoubtedly influence the nation’s collective reaction to the attacks. That’s because privilege tends to determine: 1) which groups are — and are not — collectively denigrated or targeted for the unlawful actions of individuals; and 2) how big and politically game-changing the overall reaction ends up being.

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.””

🙄

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The Senate has defeated the Obama admin backed gun bill. They couldn’t get the 60 votes needed. The President is not happy.

From TheHill

“The Senate delivered a devastating blow to President Obama’s agenda to regulate guns Wednesday by defeating a bipartisan proposal to expand background  checks.

It failed by a vote of 54 to 46, with five Democrats voting against it. Only four Republicans supported it.”

But they certainly aren’t giving up.

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Meanwhile Benghazi is back in the news, thanks to new, and talkative, whistleblowers.

From CBSNews

“CBS News has learned that multiple new whistleblowers are privately speaking to investigators with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee regarding the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attacks on the U.S. compounds in Benghazi, Libya.

The nature of the communications with the whistleblowers and their identities are not being made public at this time. But in response, the Oversight Committee yesterday sent letters to the three federal agencies involved: the CIA, the Defense Department and the State Department.

The letters make the case for the whistleblowers to be able to share sensitive or classified information with their own attorneys, and ask for each agency’s official description of the legal steps that process must follow. The letters also state that additional witnesses may be “compelled by subpoena to give testimony.””

And a Hat Tip to CBS, who has been on this story from the get go.

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Our Daily Thread 4-17-13

Good Morning!

On this day in 1521 Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1524 New York Harbor was discovered by Giovanni Verrazano.

In 1629 horses were first imported into the colonies by the American Massachusetts Bay Colony.

In 1865 Mary Surratt was arrested as a conspirator in the Lincoln assassination.

In 1961 about 1,400 U.S.-supported Cuban exiles invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro. It was an unsuccessful attack.

In 1964 Jerrie Mock became first woman to fly an airplane solo around the world.

And in 1969 , in Los Angeles, Sirhan Sirhan was convicted of assassinating U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

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Quote of the Day

“When someone saves your life and gives you life, there’s gratitude, humility; there’s a time you’ve been so blessed you realize you’ve been given another chance at life that maybe you did or didn’t deserve.”

Pat Summerall

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Two of the best……

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Who has a QoD for us today?