Oldie but goodie, from Ungrateful Bread's Greatest Hits.

Posted by: LauraW at 02:46 PM | Comments (128)
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Speaking now, to get on the 6:30 news.

Clarification: He didn't really say the last part in the headline. That's me just reminding everyone of his last vow, with regard to Benghazi.

By the way, CNN has made an editorial decision to call it terrorism.

Flashback:

DHS questioned over decision to let Saudi passengers skip normal passport controls

Posted by: Ace at 02:13 PM | Comments (331)
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It didn't happen.

So how did the "news" organizations let themselves be used yet again to advance the Narrative of the hard, Paranoid Left?

Posted by: Ace at 01:44 PM | Comments (241)
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He had shrapnel woulds. Another report says he was seen running from the explosions -- I assume this means he was seen running from the explosions, before they happened. Or else it would make no sense.

Authorities have confirmed to The Post that they have identified a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing.

The suspect — a Saudi national who suffered shrapnel wounds in today's blast — is currently being guarded in a Boston hospital.

A law enforcement source confirmed to The Post that 12 people were killed and nearly 50 were injured in today's blast.

CNN had on an expert who of course immediately launched his suspicions at American conservatives.

He also claimed Al Qaeda was a "rightwing" organization. He thought the crime might have been carried off by either Al Qaeda or "a different rightwing organization."

I'm still waiting for confirmation that Wolf Blitzer let out a similar speculation earlier.

More: Cell phone coverage in Boston has been shut down by authorities, to prevent the possibility of cell phones being used to detonate more bombs.

Blitzer Innocent? If this is the only reference he made as far as "Patriots Day," then he did not speculate that this was the doing of "anti-tax groups."

However, even though Buzzfeed presents this as case closed, Blitzer was on the air a long time. I'm still waiting to see if anyone can confirm the claim that he mentioned "anti-tax" groups.

If this was the only reference, then he was unfairly accused.

Although he does suggestively say "It is Patriots Day," well, that's a fact. I wondered about that myself (though my thinking was more along the lines of this-- just as they'd chosen American Airlines for terrorism on 9/11, so might the perp have chosen Patriots Day for this latest carnage).

As it's an interesting fact, I think, that might have something to do with any of this (it could just as easily have nothing to do with any of this, of course) I can't see the harm in noting it.

Update: Ignore false reports that the cops have no "suspect" in custody. Cops don't want to call anyone a suspect until they slap the bracelets on. They parse words and call people a "person of interest" until they're ready for an arrest.

When you're a detainee (or subject to detaining, should you ask to leave) your right to counsel attaches. Not so if you're a "person of interest."

So while cops shoot down the NYPost's story that a "suspect" is in "custody," sources are confirming that they have a "person of interest."

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Posted by: Ace at 01:00 PM | Comments (513)
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Early reports claim so, but early reports are often wrong.

At Hot Air, one witness report seeing two severed legs on the ground.

Further claims that there are additional secondary devices, intended to catch responders or fleeing crowds, but they never detonated.

The New York Post is reporting that at least 12 are dead, but they seem way out front with that. So far the Boston PD says 2 dead, 22 injured.

The @nytimes is advertising its "free" coverage on mobile phones, hoping to use the tragedy to gin up marketshare; meanwhile, Nick Kristof springs into action, blaming the explosion on the GOP:

Over Bloomberg... They're now saying that two more bombs are being disabled.

Pipebombs: ABCNews claims it's confirmed the devices were pipebombs.

More: NYP update: 12 dead, 50 injured, 10 people had limbs sheared from their bodies.

I have to express a grim caveat on that: I don't know if they mean there are 10 severed limbs or 10 people had one or more limbs severed.

The Post also claims, on twitter, that a suspect is in custody-- but this last article doesn't mention that.

Shrapnel Wounds: From the NYPost:

Authorities have a identified a suspect, who is currently being guarded in a Boston hospital with shrapnel wounds.

Posted by: Ace at 12:12 PM | Comments (607)
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Retracted "Bomb" From Headline: I immediately wrote "a bomb exploded" because I couldn't imagine other possibilities. However, as a strict factual matter, there are other possibilities, such as (as soothsayer keeps insisting) a gas main explosion (or two of those in rapid succession, in a chain reaction explosion-- something that seems plausible).

Now, the placement and timing of this explosion would seem deliberate -- do gas main explosions usually conspire to go off near huge throngs of people while being photographed for TV -- but it's wrong to say this is a "bomb" as of now. It would guess it's bombs, but we don't know that.

Update: The Boston PD says The police also just performed a controlled demolition on a 3rd suspect device -- this may have been the suspected incendiary device outside the JFK library, but I don't know. I also think they blow up suspect devices to render them harmless -- so an explosion isn't proof that the device detonated was itself a bomb.

Of course the cameras would naturally be on at the finish line-- making this another terrorist event (assuming that's what it is) that's televised live, so that everyone can see the horror.

Patriots Day: @johnekdahl notes that Patriots Day is a big deal in Boston. I wonder if the day were chosen for the "Patriots" symbolism.

Live Video from Bloomberg: Here.

There's very little about this on the wires -- yet -- but George Scoville's Twitter feed is covering it.

I think a bomb just went off in Boston. Can't tell. Can smell smoke. Emergency vehicles everywhere. instagram.com/p/YItk1gTIUJ/

— George Scoville (@stackiii) April 15, 2013

Lots of people crying. Does anyone else know WTF is happening? Hard to tell from here.

— George Scoville (@stackiii) April 15, 2013

Many spectators walking through Copley Plaza crying. One says they were close to the explosion.

— George Scoville (@stackiii) April 15, 2013

Paramedics attending to someone. instagram.com/p/YIuTbPTIUw/

— George Scoville (@stackiii) April 15, 2013

Hard to see but windows of Starbucks and Forum blown out. instagram.com/p/YIu-3DTIVl/

— George Scoville (@stackiii) April 15, 2013

Loudspeaker in the mall says BPD believes there is "more activity" happening along Boston's Boylston Street.

— George Scoville (@stackiii) April 15, 2013

Picture here, if the link doesn't work.

Another picture:

20-30 Injured? On open mic someone at the scene was heard saying, "Oh my god, they're dead."

Which doesn't mean that person was right to believe that. But bombs -- there were apparently two of them, the second bigger than the first -- usually have a death toll.

More Pictures: At Breitbart.

In this one you can see what I'd guess is a vehicle burning in the distance. Update: Someone else identifies this as a snapshot of the actual bomb blast, which I think is unlikely. Smoke and fire would come after a blast. Hm: More people are claiming this the "moment of the explosion." I suppose that might not be smoke, but rather dust blown at the forefront of the bomb's shockwave. On the other hand, the picture could be a fake; I don't know where it comes from.

Another Device?

Walkback: A Twitter user, @moronpundit, who was following the coverage says that this "device" is really just a suspected device -- after a bomb blast, cops are going to be very, very wary of anything that even looks slightly suspicious. He says this "suspect object" was listed of one of many -- so there's a good chance this is nothing at all, except some prudent suspicion.

On the other hand, he says cops now think they may have found an incendiary device outside the JFK library.

Posted by: Ace at 11:13 AM | Comments (668)
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Wow.

“The president does not and cannot take a position on an ongoing trial.”

He could take a position of Government Oversight and Regulation. He could take a position on a laissez-faire Whatever the Market Wants out-of-control industry. He seems to like doing such things.

Except now.

And didn't TFG say something like: "if we can do anything at all to save one child's life, we must do so"? Yes, he sure did.

Posted by: Ace at 11:04 AM | Comments (132)
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CBS ends its own embargo on the story and, in doing so, explicitly mentions its own lateness to it.

Gosnell was the target of multiple complaints to the state medical board, but state officials had not inspected the clinic since 1993. Gosnell, on trial for his life, says he's not guilty.

Walt Hunter has covered the case since 2010 for CBS News' Philadelphia station KYW. "There are images and details of this story that I am never going to be able to wash out of my mind," he said.

Hunter broke the original story, and is now covering the trial, where clinic employees have begun to testify. Hunter said, "You can look at the skyline of Philadelphia and some of the top medical facilities in the country right from the front of that clinic. This was not hidden away."

But outside the state, few have even heard about the allegations against Gosnell because his trial has received little national news coverage. CBS News reported on the story at the time it broke in 2011. Just last week, a column in USA Today accused the media of ignoring the story because of what it called a bias in favor of abortion rights. Those charges went viral on Twitter and were picked up by Republicans in Congress.

"Will the decades-long national news media cover-up of the brutality and the violence of abortion methods ever end?" Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., asked.

Criminal defense attorney William Brennan has been involved in many high-profile trials, and even represented Gosnell until the drug case became a murder case. He said, "A case involving a medical doctor charged with eight counts of murder. It would seem to me that just that fact pattern would make national news."

NBC and ABC continue the full embargo.

The Washington Post has an article denying there's any such thing as bias, or gravity, or The Sun Which Shines. They claim this embargo is easily explained by things like the lack of cameras at the Gosnell trial, which supposedly explains Jodi Arias getting gavel-to-gavel coverage and Gosnell not even a mention.

They also plead ignorance-- they also say they never even heard of this story until last Thursday.

I sort of believe them -- but that's because I know for a fact that these supposedly neutral reporters only read left-leaning news sites and only seek out left-leaning tipsters for news.

Which is bias. How can you claim to cover the country when you're not even keeping current with "respectable" publications like the National Review?

Here are some more reporters lying to you:

The story is on our radar,” said Liz Fischer, a spokeswoman for NBC News. “We understand the importance of the issue and we’ll continue to cover the broader questions as news warrants.” She declined to comment further.

On our radar, but not on our broadcasts or our website. Don't worry, though: We'll report if anything important comes up.

“CBS has been working the story,” said a spokeswoman, Sonya McNair. She declined to explain why CBS hadn’t reported on it until Sunday’s “CBS Evening News.”

I appreciate that CBS broke the embargo but obviously they were not working on a damn thing until this week. Perhaps Crawford pitched the story earlier; if so, she was spiked. CBS itself was not working on anything, except keeping the story off its air.

“We feel our coverage, both online and on television, has been thorough and appropriate,” said Allison Gollust, a CNN spokeswoman.

What? Jake Tapper reported 72 words on the story March 28th. That's thorough?

By the way, the CNN-spawn Headline News has no plans to taint its gavel-to-gavel Arias coverage with any mentions of Gosnell.

An ABC News representative, Julie Townsend, declined comment.

Arrogant, in not even deigning to offer an answer, but then again, they don't lie about it either. ABC is apparently just taking the F*** You Too position on this.

And then there's the clownshow:

Lauren Skowronski, an MSNBC spokeswoman, said her network was paying attention to the story, but added, “We don’t cover criminal trials to the extent of others in cable news.”

Ah yes. MSNBC is too busy doing important elevated journalism to cover such a silly crime story.

Posted by: Ace at 09:44 AM | Comments (399)
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One "pathway to citizenship" is difficult; the other is easy -- just sneak across the border and wait for the Amnestias to amnesty you.

Politicians are stupid, but people aren't. Illegal immigrants -- I'm sorry, "undocumented criminals" -- are already rushing to take advantage of the much more generous Option B.

Posted by: Ace at 09:10 AM | Comments (128)
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The other day I had complained that our side, collectively, is not very good at a writing legislation, and the other side is; the result is that our side tends to believe it has won a victory, misunderstanding the words in legislation, when in fact it has lost.

Sometimes people may think they are far smarter than they actually are. For example, if you've really "snookered" your opponents in a deal not yet finalized, should you go bragging about the secret victory before it's in hand?

Mr. Gottlieb said that despite claims to the contrary, the amendment that would expand checks to sales online and at gun shows is “not registration” and went on to list a host of gun-rights protections in the measure, such as allowing interstate handgun sales for dealers and protections for veterans, for example.

“It’s a Christmas tree,” Mr. Gottlieb said. “We just hung a million ornaments on it.”

“We’re taking the background check and making it a pro-gun bill,” he added. “Unfortunately, some of my colleagues haven’t quite figured it out yet because they weren’t sitting in the room writing it,” he continued. “My staff was. I’ll be perfectly candid about it. This will probably break on Monday in the Wall Street Journal.”

“If you really read what’s in the Manchin-Toomey bill — man, it’s a godsend,” he went on to say. “We win rights back like crazy.”

Is he right? Well, Dave Koppel of the Volokh Conspiracy has no pride of authorship in this bill and so isn't tempted to egotistically brag about how much he's accomplished in negotiating it. And he finds it is in fact the right which once again has gotten snookered.
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Posted by: Ace at 07:55 AM | Comments (183)
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