Per The Telegraph, The suicide bomber who killed 22 people and injured dozens more at the Manchester Arena has been named as 22-year-old Salman Abedi.

Born in Manchester in 1994, the second youngest of four children his parents were Libyan refugees who came to the UK to escape the Gaddafi regime.

His parents were both born in Libya but appear to have emigrated to London before moving to the Fallowfield area of south Manchester where they have lived for at least ten years.

He had become radicalised recently – it is not entirely clear when – and had worshipped at a local mosque that has, in the past, been accused of fund-raising for jihadists.

(They’re still changing the article, so you might not find the exact text above.)

I’m sorry to say that lots of us saw this coming. As of last night, the media weren’t releasing his name; the delay always means that the perpetrator is a left-winger or (more likely) a Muslim.

Also, for anyone who follows the situation of Europe drowning under its Muslim immigrants, a recurring theme is that the immigrants very often don’t work (the supposed reason for bringing them in), don’t integrate, and give birth to a second generation that is MORE radical and LESS integrated than the first.

Chicago, Barack Obama’s nominal home base, the city’s whose political culture shaped his ideological and governing philosophy has fully implemented the Democrat agenda of high taxes, gun control, heavily regulated businesses, generous welfare programs, sanctuary for illegal immigrants, lavishly funded public teachers… the whole Pinata of benefits from the party’s whose mission is to use Government to insulate people from the consequences of bad decisions. And Chicago is following in the footsteps of other one-party, Democrat-run cities like Detroit, Philadelphia, Newark, et c…

Social breakdown lies behind Chicago’s historically high levels of violence. Fatherlessness in the city’s black community is at a cataclysmic level—close to 80 percent of children are born to single mothers in high-crime areas. Illegitimacy is catching up fast among Hispanics, as well. Gangs have stepped in where fathers are absent. A 2012 gang audit documented 59 active street gangs with 625 factions, some controlling a single block. Schools in gang territories go on high alert at dismissal time to fend off violence. Endemic crime has prevented the commercial development and gentrification that are revitalizing so many parts of Chicago closer to downtown; block after block on the South Side features a wan liquor store or check-cashing outlet, surrounded by empty lots and the occasional skeleton of a once-magnificent beaux-arts apartment complex or bank. Nonfunctioning streetlights, their fuse boxes vandalized, signal the reign of a local gang faction.

One must ask why these cities continue to vote in Democrat governments even though the result of one-part rule is, invariably, a decline in livability and quality of life. Well, there is a sizable bloc of stupid voters in every major urban area in the USA.  These people are poorly educated (thank you, Democrat-run schools) and heavily dependent on welfare (thank you, LBJ’s Great Society). This makes them susceptible to the constant Democrat propaganda pounded into them day after day by Democrat-affiliated community activists and the Democrat-run media complex. “Republicans hate you. It’s Republicans’ fault your life sucks. Republicans want to take away what little we give you.” They even actively encourage radical groups like #BlackLivesMatter whose actions make life worse for the stupid voting bloc.

Republicans do not even try to contend for the cities any more. A message of “You’ve been voting Democrat for generations and things have only gotten worse, do the math” might resonate with the right messenger and the right medium. On those rare occasions when a larger city elects a Republican mayor, he is often too timid to attempt any real reforms. When Republicans do make successful reforms, they sometimes find they have rocked the boat too much and are unwelcome to for further political advancement, which is what happened to Jersey City Republican mayor Brent Schundler and NYC mayor Rudy Gioliani.

Republicans are also, by and large the party of the middle class, which is a voting populace increasingly driven out by the Democrat-run political machines, by policies of continuous tax increases that go primarily to city bureaucrats and connected cronies while the quality of services valued by the middle class… schools, police, sanitation… diminish. The upper class live in gated communities, towers with private security, and can afford public schools. With a small, connected elite and a large underclass, American cities increasingly resemble third-world countries.

In this environment, it’s only natural for Republicans to look at the cities and say “Let them burn,” and for Democrats to say, “the fires keep us warm.”

Detroit isn’t an outlier; it’s the model.

 

All perfectly logical, but it misses the point of the exercise….to crush traditional American society and force slavish adherence to progressive orthodoxy is their only goal. It is blatantly obvious that the Left cares nothing for transgenders. First; there are so few of them that even if they all voted it wouldn’t matter a whit. Second; if the progs really cared, they wouldn’t push chemical and surgical mutilation as an option for these disturbed people, but would advocate for psychological help. – Open Blogger@Ace

The Left doesn’t really care about any of the groups it pretends to represent; they’re just tools to gain power with. Also, keeping a large segment of the voting population worked up about “#TransgenderRights” and “#BlackLivesMatter” and “#whiteprivilege” and “#ClimateChange” gives politicians cover as the debt explodes, the economy strangles in bureaucratic red tape, Obamacare makes health care worse and more expensive, Iran and North Korea test intercontinental ballistic missiles, triumphalist Islam /ISIS spreads its tendrils into the west, (of course, there will be a new hashtag after the next inevitable terrorist attack, so you can feel like you’re helping) and the fact that both front-runners for president are absolutely horrible people — any of these will be far more consequential than whether sadly delusional people get to pick whatever bathroom they want.

If you ever wondered why places that are one-party Democrat fiefdoms (most rust-belt cities, for example) are so dysfunctional and miserable, John di Leo offers an explanation, that I think is in part on point, but misses another part. It’s a long article, but I’ll try and excerpt the main point.

In today’s case, we see the Left react to a very real problem – the downgrading of a city’s bond rating, which means that all new borrowing will become much more costly for the city than it was before – by identifying other very real problems – a plethora of empty buildings – without any hint that he knows why they’re empty or what steps are needed to fill them, without recognizing that these are all just more symptoms of other, deeper problems.

It is indeed the chicken-or-egg problem, on the grand scale.  Chicago has lost about two-sevenths of its population since its high-water mark in the 1950s.  Rather than seeming to care why the city is bleeding residents, it just looks on it as yet another challenge, not as a symptom of something else.

Ask the very same question of a conservative, and you would receive a very different answer.

Why was our bond rating downgraded again; what does this mean to us?

“That’s a softball question,” a conservative would reply. “it was downgraded because a city that’s been bleeding both population and jobs for generations, plagued with high crime, a greedy leviathan, and a welfare state population locked in stasis, is simply unsustainable. The idea that there’s enough duct tape in America to keep this wreck together indefinitely is obviously fiction.”

“But if you want a hardball question,” the conservative would continue, “ask how to solve it.”

Di Leo correctly identifies a symptom — the refusal of Democrats to govern in accordance with common sense principles of economics and the role of Government in providing basic services. But he doesn’t get into why Democrats govern that way.

Certainly, some of it is because politicians generally and Democrat politicians especially are corrupt. But even the ones who aren’t in it for the graft have motivations that are at odds with good governance. It’s not simply that they don’t grasp basic economics or the basic role of Government,  it’s that theygo into Government with the goal of imposing a Utopian Ideology on everyone else, and being lauded for it by their peers in the media.

While Democrats go on endless crusades to “Fight Climate Change,” outlaw the private ownership of firearms, and ensure transgender bathroom equality… they neglect the necessary and unglamorous work of Government.  I guess because People and Esquire don’t do fawning profiles of politicians who balance the budgets, fix the streets, and clean the deadweight out of state and municipal bureaucracies.

By the way, the Illinois “Human Rights Commission” has fined a Christian business owner $80,000 for declining to participate in a gay wedding.  Freedom of speech and freedom of religious conscience are apparently not Human Rights, as far as the state of Illinois is concerned.

Progressive Activists want to release a million criminals into the civilian population.

Spearheaded by the American Civil Liberties Union and bankrolled by radical speculator George Soros, the “end mass incarceration” movement wants to reduce the U.S. prison population by 50 percent within the next 10 to 15 years.

“We have the largest incarcerated population in the world despite the fact that we’re a democracy and that we value individual freedoms,” Alison Holcomb, national director of the ACLU Campaign to End Mass Incarceration told public radio station KUOW in Puget Sound, Wash.

(Holcomb) doesn’t want thieves and robbers jailed even briefly. If someone steals property, “why is the response to put that person in a cage?” she said.

The thing is, since considerably less than 50% of the prison population is “non-violent,” their plan would necessarily release violent criminals into the population.

It wouldn’t be the first time the Progressive Left has done this.

U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported there are 156 criminal aliens who were released at least twice by ICE since 2013. Between them, these criminals had 1,776 convictions before their first release in 2013, with burglary, larceny and drug possession. In total, ICE has revealed that 124 illegal immigrant criminals released from jail by the Obama Administration since 2010 have been subsequently charged with murder.

So, release a million criminals into the civilian population while denying innocent people the right to defend themselves with firearms. What could go wrong?

Pretty much everything the average leftist thinks he knows about prison comes from watching ‘Orange is the new Black.’

About 57,000 illegal immigrants have invaded Texas.

Obama wants to spend $3.7 Billion dollars providing them legal aid and welfare (housing, food, transportation). [And a little bit for border security thrown in as window-dressing].

That works out to almost $65,000 per border-jumper.

Wouldn’t it be cheaper just to give them $10,000 in cash and send them home? $10K could get you a pretty good life in Honduras or Guatemala. Just make them offer, “You can take the money and go home, or you can stay here in a detention center until we relocate you to an inner city in a red or purple state.”

Can’t see the politicians going for this plan; it would be hard for them to vote Democrat from Honduras or Guatemala.

Peter Fonda does not mince words when criticizing President Obama for his “handling of the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill“:

The star of the 1969 road movie “Easy Rider” was in Cannes for the premiere of “The Big Fix” by Rebecca and Josh Tickell, the only feature documentary in the official selection at the Cannes film festival this year.

Fonda — a keen environmentalist and co-producer of the film which centres on the explosion of the BP oil rig Deepwater Horizon, the ensuing spill and its consequences — accused Washington of trying to gag reporting on the issue.

“I sent an email to President Obama saying, ‘You are a f(expletive) traitor,’ using those words… ‘You’re a traitor, you allowed foreign boots on our soil telling our military — in this case the coastguard — what they can and could not do, and telling us, the citizens of the United States, what we could or could not do’.”

Jane Fonda could not be reached for comment.

What appears to be the fifth largest earthquake since 1900 “with a magnitude of 8.9 rocked Japan Friday afternoon“:

. . . forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes, triggering a 10-meter tsunami that violently swept away cars and other objects in its paths and shutting down phone lines and transportation in most parts of the country. leaving at least five people dead.

The quake was originally reported at a magnitude of 7.9 but was later upgraded to 8.9. That makes it the fifth largest recorded world-wide since 1900, according to the U.S. Geological Service, larger than the 7.9-magnitude Great Kanto Earthquake that devastated Tokyo in 1923 or the 6.8 magnitude quake that hit Kobe in 1995.

The quake caused mass panic around Tokyo, where workers evacuated their buildings and power was cut off at 4.1 million households in Tokyo and neighboring prefectures.

I am watching images of the destruction on TV and it’s just overwhelming.  We’re hearing warnings of a possible tsunami in Hawai’i and even here on the California coast.  Given that I’m writing this just before 1 AM PST, by the time many of you read this, we’ll have a better picture of the damage — and the reality of the tsunami.

More here.

Perhaps, it was the serendipity of catching this headline, 3 officers plead not guilty in Katrina shootings, while pondering the media’s comparatively* kid-glove treatment of the Administration’s reaction to the Gulf Oil Spill that reminded me just how jaundiced was their coverage of Katrina.

Here we have a story of the misconduct of New Orleans police officers, individuals answerable to municipal, not federal, authorities, yet all too many media outlets covered the story as if the Bush White House and the Republican’s appointees were entirely responsible for the mayhem in The Big Easy in the immediate aftermath of Katrina:

Five former officers already have pleaded guilty to helping cover up the shootings, which happened in the midst of another of the scorching days after Katrina. Bodies floated in filthy flood waters. Shots could be heard throughout the city, and many believed they were aimed at the endless stream of helicopters, the police, the rescue crews.

This all relates to the overheated media coverage of Katrina, with many false stories making their way to the public through the media, such as at the “legend” of shot being fired at helicopters.  This is not to excuse the Administration for some of the bungled federal efforts at relief, but to point out that officials from other levels of government responded in a manner which compromised relief efforts and conributed to the chaos.

This story serves to remind us that municipal officials did not always respond in a professional manner, yet somehow, somewhere a narrative was created of George W. Bush’s almost exclusive incompetence.

* (more…)

First off, hat tip to The GOP Alliance for the headline.

Now to the business at hand…

Keep in mind, this is the Federal Government’s estimates and modeling.  So take this with a grain of salt since Obama & Company haven’t gotten one thing right since the explosion.

But there is now a 61-80% chance that the beaches of Key West up to Fort Lauderdale are going to be significantly impacted by the (still flowing) oil rupture.

I wish America had a leader right now.   So THIS is the competency level of our Federal Government — the same one we will have running our healthcare, right?  How much of the coasts of Louisiana, Alabama & Florida have to die before Obama stops golfing and “focuses like a laser beam”?

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

I have been very remiss in not blogging about the terrible flooding that has put the city of Nashville and many other communities in TN and KY under water.  Heavy rain crippled the area last week, but most of the media attention (including mine) was diverted by the oil rig explosion and then the Times Square incident.

As many readers know, I’m a big Country Music fan and PatriotPartner and I frequently attend concerts by our favorite Country singers.  In fact, this will be the second year that we attend the CMA Music Fest (aka – FanFest) in Nashville.  Which makes the stories coming from that city all the more upsetting.

The fact of the matter is that twice as many people have died in the flooding in TN & KY than died in the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion.  That is not to take away from those deaths in the Gulf, but just to point out that we need to pay more attention to what is going on in TN & KY.  Many Americans are suffering and need our help and attention.  The flooding is the single biggest disaster to hit Middle Tennessee since the Civil War.

And the news seems to get worse, not better as the days go by. 

City officials in Nashville say the area’s water supply is now “critically low” after a weekend storm dumped a record 13 inches of rainfall over two days.

Because of potential shortages, the city’s Metro Water Services utility urges residents to cut down on taking showers and is now directing its customers to “use water for drinking and food preparation only.”

The directive comes a day after local authorities reported that at least 10 people are dead from the devastation, including a father and daughter who were swept away by the flood.

Tuesday, President Obama declared four Tennessee counties — Cheatham, Davidson (which includes Nashville), Hickman and Williams — as “major disaster” zones (pdf), clearing the way for federal assistance to help restore the estimated $1 billion worth of damage caused by the flooding.

In addition to shopping malls and beloved Nashville tourist staples (such as the Grand Ole Opry) being submerged in water, at least 50 schools report some type of damage following the heaviest rainfall since Hurricane Fredrick in 1979 (that storm dumped a seemingly small — in comparison — 6.68 inches of rain).

Here is a photo of the flooding of the Grand Ole Opry — the heart and soul of Country Music. 

Finally, here is a heartbreaking video with more photos of the devastating floods in Nashville.  (h/t – SaveOurCountry on Twitter)

Please consider helping out those Americans whose lives have been destroyed and continue to be impacted by the floods.  CLICK HERE TO HELP.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Open thread here.  But I thought I should post in case Dan is unable to.  Hopefully all of our West Coast readers are doing fine.  I haven’t heard of any injuries in California.

More to follow, I’m sure….

I’m quite sick and tired of the unbelievable hysteria being fed by the media and encouraged by the Obama Administration and the World Health Organization.

First of all, here are two facts that you have NOT heard from the saturated coverage of the pig flu.

1. Face masks DO NOT stop the spread of the virus.  Face masks can only help prevent the spread of bacteria-related illnesses — not viruses.
   
2. 36,000 Americans die EVERY YEAR from flu/flu-related illnesses.  Only 16 people WORLDWIDE (all in Mexico) have died from the pig flu.  For crying out loud!

This obsession the media has with scaring everyone to death, then moving onto something else… well, it is pathetic and irresponsible.

Stop the madness.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

As we Americans have shown time after time…. we open up our hearts and give our resources in times of need — whether its New Orleans or Thailand.

The good folks in Southern California who survived the brushfires, but may have lost all of their possessions, now need our help.

I donated to Direct Relief International on Friday to help those in Southern California.

Direct Relief International provides medical assistance to improve the quality of life for people victimized by poverty, disaster, and civil unrest at home and throughout the world. We work to strengthen the in-country health efforts of our partners by providing essential material resources – medicines, supplies and equipment. 

I chose this organization because my company matches my personal contribution dollar-for-dollar. 

There are of course many other good and reputable organizations, like the American Red Cross.  Just please take a moment today and do some good for your fellow Americans on the West Coast.  Give what you can.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

I think I was one of the first mainstream bloggers to openly wonder this week whether there might be an al-Qaeda/Islamic terror connection to the California brushfire disaster.

Andrew Sullivan is outraged that FOX News’ morning program brought the topic up at all.  He calls it “ImaginationLand.”  

If I recall, the 9/11 Commission Report stated that all parts of the Federal Government failed in their “imagination” about what al-Qaeda was capable of and willing to do.  I guess Andrew will have to completely renounce the 9/11 Commission findings now since the winds are blowing against imagination today?!?

However, CNN has no problem casting blame immediately on American youth, greedy homeowners or even a firefighter.

From CNN.com Main Page – 3:50PM – October 26, 2007…From lead paragraph into the main story at the time:

“Arson investigators get on their hands and knees to track how and where suspicious fires began.  Then they have to find the fire-starter, who could be a flame-obsessed kid, a property owner seeking an insurance payout — or even a firefighter looking for glory.”

So even entertaining the thought of a possible terror connection is off-limits in our post-9/11 World, but CNN can engage in broadly brainstorming about which Californian may have started the blaze.

How very typical of Andrew & CNN.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE (from GPW): It’s uncanny sometimes how, without contacting one another, Bruce and I often have similar thoughts, or, in this case, “speculations,” on certain issue. I put the word, “speculations” in quote for two reasons, first, because it sounds awkward in the plural and second, because it is, I believe, the key word in his initial post on the topic. And note how he modifies the word “speculation” with the adjective, “COMPLETE,” which he had put in all caps. I might have called it an interesting speculation. And Bruce accents the importance of that word by using a form of it in the title to this post.

Bruce, gets it exactly right here. As long as we’re making clear that it’s speculation at this point, it is an interesting angle on the disaster and a necessary perspective to have, given our failure of imagination prior to 9/11 and the persistence of the terrorist threat. Bin Laden and his ilk have made clear that they’d like to attack us again.

Given all that, it’s amazing that others are making other speculations, but ignoring the terrorist one — or daring to fault those of who do wonder if there was terrorist involvement. As if history for them began on September 12, 2001.

A match is certainly an easier weapon to use inside the USA than an airplane, nuke or car bomb.  

July 2003:  Al-Qaeda Detainee Spoke of Fire Plot – USA TODAY (h/t – Drudge)

Today:  Officials: Arson Behind Santiago Fire – CBS News

CBS News has learned a task force of agencies, including the FBI, ATF, the Orange County Fire Authority and the California Department of Forestry will announce shortly that the massive Santiago Canyon Fire – which has caused an estimated $10 million in damage – is being officially declared an arson, and a $50,000 reward is being offered to find the arsonist.

Investigators have identified two separate “points of origin” where they believe the fire was set, CBS News has learned. FBI agents secured the scene to “maintain its integrity.”

A terror-fire connection is COMPLETE speculation at this point… but if it did turn out to be true, I wonder how the MSM will try to cover it up and spin it into an anti-Bush story?

Harry Reid already has.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE (from GPW): The LA Times reports that police have captured one suspect and killed another, but that “No additional information, including [the suspect’s) identity will be released until Thursday” (Via Hugh Hewitt). Looks like we’ll have to wait to confirm (or contradict) Bruce’s suspicion, one I should note, which also corssed my mind when I learned it was arson.