What’s interesting in the news today?
We’ll start with a bunch of Benghazi links for those interested.
White House struggles to respond to new Benghazi revelations, from the Washington Times
Diplomat Says Questions Over Benghazi Led to Demotion, from the NY Times
Top U.S. Diplomat In Libya Says Hillary Clinton’s Top Aide Chewed Him Out For Talking With Investigators… from Weasel Zippers
Top Ranking U.S. Diplomat In Libya After Ambassador Stevens Death Says FBI Never Bothered To Interview Him During Their Investigation… from Weasel Zippers
And of course a Democrat blames it all on budget cuts, from The Weekly Standard
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A pair of new studies will make the gun debate a little tougher for one side. From TheWashingtonPost
“Gun homicides have dropped steeply in the United States since their 1993 peak, a pair of reports released Tuesday showed, adding fuel to Congress’ battle over whether to tighten restrictions on firearms.
A study released Tuesday by the government’s Bureau of Justice Statistics found that gun-related homicides dropped from 18,253 in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011. That’s a 39 percent reduction.
Another report by the private Pew Research Center found a similar decline by looking at the rate of gun homicides, which compares the number of killings to the size of the country’s growing population. It found that the number of gun homicides per 100,000 people fell from 7 in 1993 to 3.6 in 2010, a drop of 49 percent.”
“Both reports also found that non-fatal crimes involving guns were down by roughly 70 percent over that period.”
Huh. You mean they’re being dishonest with their rhetoric? After all, they insist that booming gun sales are dangerous. Yet while ownership rose, deaths declined. Go figure. And yeah, it’s also funny that this comes just weeks after the Senate’s attempted regulations. Now you know why they were in a hurry.
Despite the actual facts, the public seems uninformed on the matter. Just like they and their media mouthpieces intended. Here’s more, from TheLATimes
“Gun crime has plunged in the United States since its peak in the middle of the 1990s, including gun killings, assaults, robberies and other crimes, two new studies of government data show.
Yet few Americans are aware of the dramatic drop, and more than half believe gun crime has risen, according to a newly released survey by the Pew Research Center.”
“Despite the remarkable drop in gun crime, only 12% of Americans surveyed said gun crime had declined compared with two decades ago, according to Pew, which surveyed more than 900 adults this spring. Twenty-six percent said it had stayed the same, and 56% thought it had increased.
It’s unclear whether media coverage is driving the misconception that such violence is up. The mass shootings in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., were among the news stories most closely watched by Americans last year, Pew found. Crime has also been a growing focus for national newscasts and morning network shows in the past five years but has become less common on local television news.”
Unclear? No. Not really.
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Joe Biden would like you to know that it’s immoral and callous to want Voter ID. From Politico
“Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday bashed voting rights requirements — calling them “immoral, callous” — and warned of political consequences for those who try to impose barriers to casting a ballot.
“To me it is the most immoral, callous thing that can be done, the idea of making it more difficult to vote,” Biden said at the annual gala dinner of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a minority-focused public policy organization.”
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More radical ties to Boston bombing suspect #1. From YahooNews
“Last year, when Tamerlan Tsarnaev spent six months in the Russian region of Dagestan, he had a guide with an unusually deep knowledge of the local Islamist community: a distant cousin named Magomed Kartashov. Six years older than Tsarnaev, Kartashov is a former police officer and freestyle wrestler—and one of the region’s most prominent Islamists.
In 2011 Kartashov founded and became the leader of an organization called the Union of the Just, whose members campaign for sharia law and pan-Islamic unity in Dagestan, often speaking out against U.S. policies across the Muslim world. The group publicly renounces violence. But some of its members have close links to militants; others have served time in prison for weapons possession and abetting terrorism—charges they say were based on fabricated evidence. For Tsarnaev, these men formed a community of pious young Muslims with whom he could discuss his ideas of jihad. Tsarnaev’s mother, Zubeidat, confirmed that her son is Kartashov’s third cousin. The two met for the first time in Dagestan, she said, and “became very close.””
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The chair of the Congressional Black Caucus is seeking leniency for Jesse Jackson Jr. From TheChicagoSunTimes
“Eight of the letters argued for a break. The most prominent advocate for Jesse Jackson was Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Fudge wrote that even though she and some congressional colleagues in hindsight saw signs of his bipolar illness “during the last 4 to 5 years,” nevertheless, he was a “tireless advocate for the poor and underserved.” He was also the charming “highlight of our karaoke nights.””
So it’s OK to steal campaign donations, as long as you can Karaoke. Got it. 🙄
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Jodi Arias is guilty, and she’d rather have the death penalty. From TheAP
“Jodi Arias spent 18 days on the stand sharing intimate, emotional and oftentimes X-rated details of her life before a rapt television and online audience. She had hoped it all might convince a jury that she killed her one-time boyfriend in self-defense.
But the eight men and four women on the panel didn’t buy it, convicting Arias of first-degree murder after only about 15 hours of deliberations. Jurors will return to court Thursday to begin the next phase of the trial that could set the stage for Arias receiving a death sentence.
It’s a punishment that Arias herself says she wants, telling a TV station minutes after her conviction that she would “prefer to die sooner than later.””
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Wandering Views 
I watching news about the Benghazi heraings, and they kept bringing in the thing about Jodi Airas (whatever?) verdict. She stabbed her boyfried 47 times. She killed him.
I haven’t been following this.
Does anyone know WHY she did that? It was obviously intense rage.
She doesn’t seem to be a big woman. How did he let her do that to him?
Must have snuck up on him while he was asleep.
All this, and the kidnapping will save Hillary from the embarassment of bringing Benghazi to light.
I think it will fade away and Hillary is still the smartest woman in the world.
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Charles Krauthammer
“Normal has disappeared during the Obama years.
Republicans duly submitted annual budgets which the president then used for target practice, most famously demagoguing Paul Ryan’s 2011 budget as un-American.
Meanwhile, the Democratically controlled Senate simply stopped producing budgets for four years. And the ones the White House put out were so preposterous that, for example, the 2011 version was rejected by the Senate 97 to 0.”
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Eric Erickson in RedState Report
Last night on twitter, Dave Weigel of Slate noted he was just hearing from twitterers about the gruesome trial of Kermit Gosnell. Those who care about the story owe a tremendous debt to Kirsten Powers taking to the pages of USA Today to write about it.
It is fascinating how much of a bubble the media lives in with that bubble so DC-NYC centric. It is again one of the problems for news organizations like CNN as it tries to rebuild. With the exception of Fox News, the American news networks focus on the things people along the coast are interested in and not what people along the American river valleys are talking about.
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Had Kermit Gosnell killed dogs, HLN would be giving it wall to wall coverage as they do all sorts of sensational trials. Nancy Grace would be in full outrage mode every night through the course of the trial. It’s sad that a man who engaged in horrific acts of barbarism will never be as known to the public as Casey Anthony or George Zimmerman because Gosnell’s crime is viewed as less than a crime by the vast majority of the producers of American news.
http://www.redstate.com/2013/04/12/can-you-imagine-the-coverage-if-it-were-dogs/
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Give Jodi what she wants, quickly too!
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Bob, 🙂 Yep, don’t mess with her. I didn’t follow the trial either, but I understand that her contention had to do with being abused.
As for the Benghazi hearings, well, I’m afraid they won’t get a lot of attention. Dems aren’t defending the administration but are labeling the attention it’s getting as purely political. (Powers is to be commended here, too, for being openly critical of her party brethren’s dismissal of the story in one interview I saw last night.)
Frustrating, but the most this can probably do (unless some direct evidence links specifically to the president, but even then I doubt much of the public would pay heed) is somewhat damage Clinton for 2016. It did happen under her watch.
I think there’s plenty of evidence that there was some sort of coverup going on (It was the Video, don’t you know) as it happened right in the run-up to the election.
But I’m not sure a lot of people care, unfortunately. The story hasn’t seemed to catch fire and some of the coverage I’ve seen stresses the angle of “Republican criticism of the administration” rather than looking into what actually happened or didn’t happened based on the testimony. Watergate had legs; Benghazi for some reason doesn’t. Or at least it doesn’t yet. Maybe more details will come out that will finally catch people’s attention.
We do live in politically abnormal times, I’m afraid. Things that should matter don’t. Things that do matter really shouldn’t … Up is down, down is up.
Three more years.
Although i’m not sure “normal” will ever return.
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Bob,
Why? Isn’t that letting her take the easy way out? Let her sit in prison for the rest of her life.
Chas,
She also shot him in the head. That probably made it easier to accomplish the rest.
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I will say Jodi looked a bit surprised when the verdict was read.
More on Benghazi and whether it’ll catch the electorate’s attention:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/05/the-benghazi-hearing-did-it-matter.php
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Interesting that the 2 brothers in the kidnapping case aren’t being charged (based on interviews with the victims, apparently; the brothers are saying — I think — that they weren’t aware of the victims’ presence in the house).
What a bizarre story that all is. And apparently the suspect is singing up a storm, waived his Miranda rights.
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Looks like more people are about to release info that the Obama admin will not be pleased with. Unlike with Benghazi where it was govt workers they’re attempting to smear, they’ll have a harder time smearing these folks. There’s supposed to be a press conference on this today. I’ll see what I can find.
http://press.org/events/navy-seal-team-vi-families
“Three families of Navy SEAL Team VI special forces servicemen, along with one family of an Army National Guardsman, will appear at a press conference on May 9, 2013, to disclose never before revealed information about how and why their sons along with 26 others died in a fatal helicopter crash in Afghanistan on August 6, 2011, just a few months after the successful raid on the compound of Osama Bin Laden that resulted in the master terrorist’s death.
Accompanying the families of these dead Navy SEAL Team VI special operations servicemen will be retired military experts verifying their accounts of how and why the government is as much responsible for the deaths of their sons as is the Taliban.
The areas of inquiry at the press conference will include but not be limited to:
1. How President Obama and Vice President Biden, having disclosed on May 4, 2011, that Navy Seal Team VI carried out the successful raid on Bin Laden’s compound resulting in the master terrorist’s death, put a retaliatory target on the backs of the fallen heroes.
2. How and why high-level military officials sent these Navy SEAL Team VI heroes into battle without special operations aviation and proper air support.”
There’s more at the link as well.
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Donna,
I saw that too. And I’m sorry, but I ain’t buyin’ that. Doesn’t pass the smell test. How could they not know when they lived there too? Even if they weren’t involved, they didn’t report it either. How can you not know?
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And here’s one more bit from that press conference. This should outrage the American public.
“7. How military brass, while prohibiting any mention of a Judeo-Christian God, invited a Muslim cleric to the funeral for the fallen Navy SEAL Team VI heroes who disparaged in Arabic the memory of these servicemen by damning them as infidels to Allah. A video of the Muslim cleric’s “prayer” will be shown with a certified translation.”
How’s that for a final insult, courtesy of the Obama Pentagon.
But we’re told Christians are the problem in our military. But it sure seems to me that the fault lies with the appeasers in charge.
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Aj: Have you found anything yet on the press conference? I haven’t, and I’ve already passed on the info from your link, so I sure hope it’s legitimate.
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Tychicus,
It’s been picked up all over now.
See here
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/families-of-seal-team-vi-to-reveal-how-islamic-appeasement-led-to-their-murder/
and a Google search comes up with numerous other hits.
I haven’t been able to find any video other than this at the moment. I haven’t watch it all, so I can’t offer much more, nor any opinion on it’s validity. But yeah, it did happen at the National Press Club.
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Apparently both Michelle Bachmann and Allen West showed up for it too.Gen. Boykin too. Watchin more now.
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I’m jumping around and Col. West speaks at 1:46:30. It’s long. There are quite a few SEALS and military members as well. They’re pretty serious about getting this out.
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If you watch West, stick around for the SEAL who follows. He doesn’t sugar coat his opinion of the current admin.
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AJ,
Why spend any money on her? Prison ain’t cheap! 30 years at $30.000 a year? $900,000! 40 years is $1.2 million. And that is without inflation.
What does the Bible say about murderers?
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As for Benghazi, how can an honest person be a Democrat?
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