April 25, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The Boston Herald seems to have struck a nerve in its efforts to uncover the public support that sustained Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his family over the years: The Patrick administration clamped down the lid yesterday on Herald requests for details of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s government benefits, citing the dead terror mastermind’s right to privacy. Across the board, state agencies flatly refused to provide information about the taxpayer-funded lifestyle for
»
April 25, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has its roots in the October 27, 1993 conference at a Marriott Hotel in Philadelphia that was attended by 25 supporters and members of Hamas. The 1993 conference had as its purpose the subversion of the Oslo Accords. Israel had to be destroyed, not accommodated. Among those in attendance was Nihad Awad. The FBI monitored and recorded the meeting. The evidence derived from the
»
April 25, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Today is the anniversary of the birth of Ella Fitzgerald, the First Lady of Song. The lady was a remarkable artist. Each period of her long career is rewarding, though she deepened her art as she got older. She excelled in a wide variety of material and in every musical setting. There is an emotional reserve or detachment in her singing, but there is also joy and an irrepressible sense
»
April 24, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The powers that be at Dartmouth College have canceled classes for all-day left-wing indoctrination today. Like the warden in Cool Hand Luke, they mean to get the students’ minds right. Where can I go to get the pro rata portion of my daughter’s tuition back? Dartmouth senior Blake Neff hasn’t answered that question, but the same issue is on his mind and he has kindly responded to our request for
»
April 24, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The Boston Globe has been engaged in serious damage control on behalf of the Cambridge mosque attended by Tamerlan Tsarnaev. In “About that mosque,” we noted the mosque’s well known Islamist flavor. There’s a story there, and Oren Dorell glimpses it in USA Today’s “Mosque that Boston suspects attended has radical ties.” Dorell’s article is must reading in its entry. One highlight is the purported refutation of its thesis by
»
April 24, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The Gang of Eight immigration bill is an adjunct and analogue to Obamacare. Claims by proponents on its behalf lack veracity. Indeed, the operative assumption should be that the opposite of such claims is closer to the truth. Heather Mac Donald cuts through a lot of blather in “The real risks of amnesty.” It sounds like 1986 all over again, only worse. She writes: Mickey Kaus has demolished the Senate
»
April 23, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The Daily Mail has a colorful report on the release of Elvis impersonator Kevin Curtis from custody for sending the ricin-laced mail to Senator Roger Wicker and President Obama: Charges have been dropped against a Mississippi man charged with sending ricin-laced poison letters to President Barack Obama, a U.S. senator and a state judge after his lawyer argued that he has been framed by a former friend. “I’ve never heard
»
April 23, 2013 — Scott Johnson
In a New York Post column Ralph Peters draws five “Lessons of Boston,” all of them worthy of discussion. Lesson no. 3: “Our immigration system is one of terrorism’s best allies.” Victor Davis Hanson elaborates at length in the course of his NRO column “Obama’s psychodramas.” Analyze this: The checkered immigrant family of the two Boston bombers is a tragic advertisement of almost everything wrong with our current immigration policy.
»
April 22, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Singer/songwriter Richie Havens died today at the age of 72. Havens grew up in Brooklyn singing with a choir in church and with doo wop groups on street corners. He crossed the river to figure out how to make a go of it in Greenwich Village as a performer until he signed a recording contract with Verve. In 1967 Havens seemed to materialize out of nowhere with Mixed Bag, a
»
April 22, 2013 — Scott Johnson
A knowledgeable reader writes from Boston: You may already know this, but the ISB mosque in Cambridge referenced in your Power Line post has a long history, and the group I belong to has been part of it. You can learn more at this Web site. It will be very interesting to see what turns up from various investigations, including our own. As for the Boston Globe, they have responded
»
April 22, 2013 — Scott Johnson
I first became aware of the Gosnell case through Joseph Bottum’s February 2011 Weekly Standard article “To live and die in Philadelphia” and Clarke Forsythe’s January 2011 Weekly Standard online column “The Supreme Court’s back alley runs through Philadelphia.” Bottum’s and Forsythe’s pieces were based on the grand jury report in the case, which has now gone to trial. The Standard takes another look at the Gosnell case today, not
»
April 21, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Roger Simon comments regarding the Marathon bombers: [W]e have the worst possible president to deal with the situation. And even after an event as heinous as Boston, he is supported by a media desperate to preserve his narrative at all costs. It’s already started. On Saturday the Boston Globe published an article titled — I kid you not — “Islam might have had secondary role in Boston attacks.” (Don’t look
»
April 20, 2013 — Scott Johnson
In his five years with the Minnesota Twins, David “Big Papi” Ortiz struck me as a player with awesome potential who persistently underperformed, partly as a result of injuries and partly as a result of poor coaching. The Twins sought to turn him into a singles hitter. As he put it, “They tried to make me hit like a girl!” There’s actually a lot of that going around. Regardless of
»
April 20, 2013 — Scott Johnson
President Obama’s statement last night on events in Boston (with postscript on the Texas catastrophe) conveys at its heart the obligatory multicultural teaching: Obviously, tonight there are still many unanswered questions. Among them, why did young men who grew up and studied here, as part of our communities and our country, resort to such violence? How did they plan and carry out these attacks, and did they receive any help?
»
April 20, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The injuries and deaths resulting from the Boston rampage of the brothers Tsarnaevev won’t be lost in our relief over the capture of Tsarvaev the younger without further mayhem last night. The Boston Globe provides a brief profile of the MIT police officer “who was gunned down by the savages who perrpetrated the Boston Marathon bombing,” as Peter Wehner aptly puts it. Wehner directs attention to the Boston Globe story
»
April 19, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The FBI’s release of photos of the two suspects in the Marathon bombing has precipitated climactic events in the manhunt. Marathon bombing suspect number 1 is dead and suspect 2 is on the loose in the Boston area. The two engaged in a shootout or two with police last night after they killed an MIT security officer. A second officer is in critical condition. Suspect number 1 was treated at
»
April 19, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Andrew McCarthy reminds us that the grand strategy of President Obama involves an inability to sort out our friends from our enemies: The president is mulishly determined to cultivate Islamic-supremacist governments and movements like the Muslim Brotherhood. The stubborn problem is that al Qaeda — the only Muslim outfit the administration seems willing to hang the “terrorist” label on — is also Islamic-supremacist. That is, al Qaeda is adherent to
»
