Federal authorities charged three Trump supporters with bombing a mosque in Minnesota.

Courtesy of TPM: 

Federal authorities on Tuesday charged three men from rural central Illinois with the bombing of a Minnesota mosque last year and said one of the suspects told an investigator the goal of the attack was to “scare” Muslims out of the United States. 

A statement from the U.S. attorney’s office in Springfield, Illinois, says the men also are suspected in the attempted bombing of an abortion clinic. The Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, Minnesota, was bombed just before morning prayers on Aug. 5, causing a fire and extensive damage although no one was injured or killed. And there was an attempted bombing of the Champaign, Illinois, Women’s Health Practice on Nov. 7. 

One of the men, Michael B. Hari, 47, described in an April 2017 Chicago Tribune article how he drafted a $10 billion plan to build a wall along the border with Mexico, citing President Donald Trump’s call for such a wall. Hari drew up the proposal after launching a security company, Crisis Resolution Security Services, the newspaper said.

The other two men charged in the mosque bombing with Hari were identified as Joe Morris, 22, and Michael McWhorter, 29. All three are from Clarence, a rural community of less than 100 residents some 35 miles (56 kilometers) north of Champaign-Urbana. A fourth man was charged with a gun offense, but he was not identified as a suspect in the bombing or attempted bombing.

Boy these Trump supporters seem like a nice bunch, don't they?

Screaming obscenities at brown people, bombing mosques, attacking people on social media, they are just brimming over with hostility for those who are not just like them.

Of course the worst thing they do is to vote.

Which is how we get so many ignorant, anti-science, xenophobes in positions of power.

Sometimes the news is so terrible that even reporters have trouble holding it together.

Courtesy of Mediaite: 

CNN’s Kate Bolduan is a reporter who asks tough questions and is often expressive and emphatic when she does it. Today, however, she was expressive in a very different way. While sharing a video of a five-year-old Syrian named Omran Daqneesh sitting in the back of an ambulance with blood and soot all over him, Bolduan was tasked with explaining that he and his family were pulled from the rubble that was once their house. She said that there had been an air strike — which is common, as the country has been embroiled in a violent civil war for years — but had to stop and compose herself a few times.

I started seeing this little boy's image all over cable TV and the internet today and I have to admit that my reaction was very similar to Ms. Bolduan's.

Here is more about the little boy courtesy of the New York Times: 

In the images, he sits alone, a small boy coated with gray dust and encrusted blood. His little feet barely extend beyond his seat. He stares, bewildered, shocked and, above all, weary, as if channeling the mood of Syria. 

The boy, identified by medical workers as Omran Daqneesh, 5, was pulled from a damaged building after a Syrian government or Russian airstrike in the northern city of Aleppo. He was one of 12 children under the age of 15 treated on Wednesday, not a particularly unusual figure, at one of the hospitals in the city’s rebel-held eastern section, according to doctors there. 

But some images strike a particular nerve, for reasons both obvious and unknowable, jarring even a public numbed to disaster. Omran’s is one.

Unbelievably sad, and this little boy is just one of many innocent victims in a war not of their making.

Now if you will excuse me it seems I have something in my eye. 

Republicans are so pro-war that almost one third of them are willing to bomb the fictional home of Aladdin.

OMG Jasmine! Is that an ICBM missile?

Courtesy of the Guardian:

A poll on Friday by Public Policy Polling perfectly encapsulates the Republican presidential race so far: “30% of Republican primary voters nationally say they support bombing Agrabah.” That would be the fictional country in Aladdin. 

Republican voters, urged on by the Republican candidates, are now eager to bomb anywhere that has a Muslim-sounding name regardless of whether it comes from a cartoon. While the poll itself may be amusing, it’s not exactly surprising given the cartoonish levels of tough-guy militarism that spews from the mouth of every Republican candidate as they try to one-up each other on who would start more wars harder and quicker.

Now before any of you Democrats starting feeling smug, you should know that a full 19% of you are ALSO willing to bomb a Disney animated country into oblivion.

However it should be noted that it is NOT the Democratic leaders who are instilling that level of fear into the voters.

It's these guys.

Which by the way is yet ANOTHER reason that we should not be terrifying Americans while at the same time encouraging all of them to buy guns and get conceal carry permits.

Mississippi man blows up Wal-Mart because they stopped selling Confederate battle flags. You're not helping.

Courtesy of the Clarion Ledger:  

A man is charged after allegedly setting off an explosive at a Mississippi Walmart Sunday morning. 

Marshall W. Leonard, 61, of Tupelo, will be charged with placing an explosive device. Under Mississippi Code 97-37-25 he could get life in prison if convicted, the Tupelo Daily Journal reported. 

Tupelo Police Chief Bart Aguirre said a vehicle pulled up to an entrance of the Walmart in North Gloster around 1:30 a.m. 

“A white male got out, lit the package and threw it in the vestibule,” said Aguirre. “There was an employee on break, and the suspect told him, ‘You better run.

The employee did run and the device went off harming no one and doing only minimal damage to the store.

The reason for the attack? I thought you would never ask:

A supporter of the Mississippi flag, Leonard railed against anyone who wanted it removed because it contained the Confederate battle flag. He spoke out against Walmart when the retail giant stop selling items that contained the Confederate battle flag. 

Last Wednesday, Leonard posted threats on the Daily Journal Facebook page. 

“Journal corporate, you are on final warning,” he wrote Oct. 28. “You are part of the problem. As a result of this, y’all are going down, along with Walmart, WTVA, Reeds department store, and all the rest of the anti-American crooks. I’m not kidding. No messing around anymore!”

Nothing says supporters of the Confederate battle flag are non-racist rational people who are only concerned with preserving their Southern heritage like blowing up the local Wal-Mart with a homemade bomb, don'tcha think?

My favorite part is that his tiny little bomb was essentially just as impotent as his ravings on Facebook.

"Y'all are going down."

boom!

"Y'all down yet?"

Sarah Palin tells President Obama how to defeat ISIS. (Oh this ought to be good.)

Palin and her ghostwriter start off linking to two older articles, one from 2008, to illustrate President Obama's desire to move to renewable energy sources.

Then Palin lets the venom fly: 

Memo to Obama (You know if you really wanted the President to see this wouldn't it be more effective if it were printed someplace besides on Facebook? You know like on Fox....oh sorry I forgot.): you could destroy ISIS in a heartbeat if you wanted to. These desert rats aren't running a covert oil operation - their rigs, pump stations, gathering centers, separation facilities, pipelines, value-added refineries, trucks and transportation corridors are right there under your nose. Bomb them. Let the United States Military do its job and kick ISIS ass... or pull out, like you promised. If you're having a hard time spotting the enemy's obvious funding source on the ground or in satellite images, I'm sure your trusty aides can help. Those same aides assisting you on the golf course with eagle eyes pointing you to your errant hit hundreds of yards off in the drink - surely they can pinpoint billowing oil facilities in the Islamic flatlands that are much larger than your tiny golf balls. (Yes it's a little known fact that the President's military advisers also accompany him to his golf games so that they can spot lost golf balls.)

Physically and fiscally cut off the enemy's funding source. Levy uncompromising, impervious sanctions against any country or corporation doing any business whatsoever with jihadists. Manufacturers, service providers, etc. Anyone in bed with the enemy gets cut off. Got it? 

(Does she mean like this? “The middlemen, traders, refiners, transport companies, and anyone else that handles [Isis’s] oil should know that we are hard at work identifying them, and that we have tools at hand to stop them,” David Cohen, the undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the US treasury, warned.)

Use your noggin, Obama. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure this out. Or maybe it does. (Shout out to you Ben Carson!)

The silver lining in these "$1.5 million daily uninterrupted ISIS-oil trade" revelations is more proof you're barely limping along as the coalition "leader" in this fight for our security. You give even democrats one less reason to have to ask, "Who's side are you on?" Awakened Americans aren't just rolling over for your incompetence anymore; their (sic) arising is seen in presidential campaign polls reflecting disgust with the Washington establishment's complicity with your dysfunction. (Yes, that's why Hillary leads in virtually every poll.) We want a true fighter for America at the helm. We need an outsider willing to go rogue against the perceived powers-that-be in order to regain our free nation's legitimate power. (An outsider willing to "go rogue." Gee I wonder who she is hoping people will ignorantly think she means by that?)

Look around, Obama. There are strong manly leaders on the world stage whom you should try to emulate in your waning days in office. Benjamin Netanyahu is on top. Learn from him. Vladimir Putin is small-headed and wrong, but at least there's no question he puts his country first - and he can wrestle grizzly bears - so on that front, learn from him. (Yeah Obama! Wrestle a damn bear once in awhile! What kind of leader never wrestles a bear?)

And of course, any one of our brave women and men in uniform today, and our honored vets who proudly wore the uniform yesterday, can teach you a thing or two about defeating the enemy so America can be great again. 

Letting Muslim terrorists buy and sell oil to fund the destruction of innocents while you thwart American-made energy opportunities is sick and sinful. Wimpy hacks in your lap representing media won't call you out on this ("Wimpy hacks in your lap representing media?" WTF?), so we will. We ask: from the most powerful office in the world, with the greatest military might wearing our red, white and blue, what are you doing to interrupt the terrorist's obvious funding source? What are you doing to destroy them before they destroy us? (And by "we" Palin means herself, her ghostwriter, the voices in her head, and the Facebook likes she purchased with SarahPAC money.)


- Sarah Palin

So now we know why we have not heard anything from Palin since October 7th. She has been hibernating in her cave  producing copious amounts of venom for this tirade.

Well I am not military expert like Sarah "My son's a combat vet, not an alcoholic!" Palin  but I did a little Googling and this is what I found:

U.S.-led forces want to avoid hitting the oil installations hard because it could hurt civilians more than the militants and could radicalize the local population, analysts say.

"Our options are limited unless you hit the wells - but it does not just hit Islamic State, it hits the entire population and that is not something that the U.S. can do very easily," said Andrew Tabler, a senior fellow at the U.S.-based Washington Institute, who focuses on Syria. 

"It's a good example of the constraints of trying to bomb your way out of it."

In other words the world's problems may seem simple, and the solutions obvious, while sitting in front of your computer in your housecoat and fuzzy slippers posting to Facebook, but it is a lot more complicated when you are dealing with real world consequences.

However if Palin feels this strongly about her "common sense solutions" then she needs to go to the plastic surgeon for a little tune up, shake the mothballs out of her best wig, slowly wean herself off of the Meth, and announce to the world that she is ready to hit the campaign trail.

After all THEN perhaps a few more people will hear what she has to say besides my own loyal readers and the handful of actual human beings who still visit her Facebook page.

Just a thought. (Oh please, please, please do it!)

No pressure. (I'll even donate to your campaign. I promise!)

Whatever you think is best. (Wuss, I KNEW you wouldn't do it.)

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the only Boston bombing suspect left alive, has been found guilty on all 30 counts.

Tsarnaev during his arrest.

Courtesy of the Boston Herald:  

Confessed murderer Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will now be the one pleading for his life after a federal jury took just 11 hours to find him guilty of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings and aftermath that left four dead and 260 maimed and injured. 

In a silent courtroom, a clerk read aloud the verdict finding Tsarnaev, 21, guilty of all 30 counts including conspiracy, use of a weapon of mass destruction and the murders of restaurant manager Krystle Marie Campbell, 29, Boston University graduate student Lingzi Lu, 23, and Martin Richard, 8 at the marathon finish line, as well as MIT Police Officer Sean Collier three days later. 

Tsarnaev swayed slightly on his feet, his head down, as the verdict was read and as the forewoman of the jury stared directly at him. He showed no reaction. 

The jury’s work is far from done. As early as next week, the same 12 deliberating jurors will reconvene for the start of Tsarnaev’s sentencing trial, where they will decide if he is to serve out his days behind bars or be ordered put to death.

This is the biggest story of the day, so it seems appropriate that we discuss it here.

I don't think there was ever any doubt that Tsarnaev would be convicted, the defense case that he was under the spell of his older brother simply never seemed viable to me. 

The next question of course is what is the proper punishment for his crimes?

Life in prison?

Or death?

Your thoughts?

Judge rules that defamation suit against Glenn Beck can proceed. Is it Christmas already?

Courtesy of Salon:

A federal judge on Tuesday denied Glenn Beck’s request to dismiss a libel lawsuit that accuses the conservative talking head of defaming a Saudi man Beck falsely accused of funding the Boston Marathon bombing last year. 

As Josh Gerstein explains, Beck sought to have the lawsuit tossed out on the grounds that Abdulrahman Alharbi, the man who brought the suit, was a public figure because of his presence near the finish line of the marathon, where two bombs exploded, killing three people. As a public figure, Alharbi would have had to clear a difficult hurdle in order for the lawsuit to proceed, proving that Beck intentionally lied or acted with malice in making the accusations. 

But in ruling that the lawsuit could move forward, U.S. District Judge Patti Saris rejected the argument that the mere act of attending the event made Alharbi a public figure. 

“Choosing to attend a sporting event as one of thousands of spectators is not the kind of conduct that a reasonable person would expect to result in publicity,” she wrote. “Quite to the contrary, a spectator at an event like the Boston Marathon would reasonably expect to disappear into the throngs of others, never attracting notice by the press. Because he did not ‘assume the risk of publicity,’ Alharbi does not meet the definition of an involuntary public figure.”

Of course the argument could also be made that Beck essentially MADE Alharbi a public figure when he plucked him from obscurity and essentially blamed him for the terrorist attack.

For those who may not remember Beck claimed to have information from a government source and proceeded to completely manufacture a relationship between the innocent bystander and the Tsarnaev brothers: 

The broadcaster eventually called Alharbi an al-Qaeda “control agent” and the “money man” behind the attacks. “You know who the Saudi is?” Beck asked. “He’s the money man. He’s the guy who paid for it.” 

“Is this speculation or are you reporting something?” a co-host asked. 

Beck ignored the question. “He’s the money man.”

I hope this Alharbi guy takes Beck for millions. 

The dangers of social media and why we should all be sad to see the end of HBO's "The Newsroom."

Click image to play video

I remember when this happened, and when I recoiled in horror at what these amateur sleuths had done in response to that terrible Boston Marathon bombing.

If you remember there was misinformation coming from all directions, much of it driven by the Right Wing mistrust of the government and their absolute certainty that the Obama administration was covering an attack by a known terrorist group.

Hell Glenn Beck was even sued for defamation after making up some insane conspiracy theories.

The Newsroom does something quite unique, and in my opinion quite necessary.

It not only holds puts the media on notice for its cowardice in reporting uncomfortable facts, or for cowering in the face of the conservative forces. It also holds up a mirror so that the public can see themselves revealed for their willingness to be poorly served by our politicians and our media, and how easily we allow ourselves to be manipulated by fear mongering or directed by our prejudices.

I for one will greatly miss what The Newsroom brings to the debate.

CNN removes reporter after she tweets that Israelis cheering the bombing of Gaza are "scum." Apparently no truth telling for CNN reporters.

Courtesy of the Huffington Post: 

CNN has removed correspondent Diana Magnay from covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after she tweeted that Israelis who were cheering the bombing of Gaza, and who had allegedly threatened her, were “scum.” 

“After being threatened and harassed before and during a liveshot, Diana reacted angrily on Twitter,” a CNN spokeswoman said in a statement to The Huffington Post. 

“She deeply regrets the language used, which was aimed directly at those who had been targeting our crew," the spokeswoman continued. "She certainly meant no offense to anyone beyond that group, and she and CNN apologize for any offense that may have been taken.” 

The spokeswoman said Magnay has been assigned to Moscow. 

Magnay appeared on CNN Thursday from a hill overlooking the Israel-Gaza border. While she reported, Israelis could be heard near her cheering as missiles were fired at Gaza. 

After the liveshot, Magnay tweeted: “Israelis on hill above Sderot cheer as bombs land on #gaza; threaten to ‘destroy our car if I say a word wrong’. Scum.” The tweet was quickly removed, but not before it had been retweeted more than 200 times.

 I am not going to argue whether or not in her capacity as a CNN anchor Magnay should have chosen her words more carefully, but her feelings toward those who would celebrate the killing of innocent people with bombs seems quite reasonable.

These people are fighting a conflict based almost entirely on their differing religious views, and the fact that people are still killing each other over the belief that their faith is right while all others are false is shameful and should not be supported or excused by rational people.

Glenn Beck is being sued for slander and defamation by Muslim victim of Boston Marathon bombing.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

A Muslim victim of the Boston Marathon bombing has sued Glenn Beck for defamation and slander after the talk show host accused him of funding the attacks. 

Race spectator Abdulrahman Alharbi filed a federal lawsuit against Beck and his companies, The Blaze Inc. and Mercury Radio Arts, and his radio syndicator, Premier Radio Networks. 

The 20-year-old Alharbi was injured in the April 15 bombings, questioned as a witness, and consented to a search of his apartment. 

Authorities quickly determined that Alharbi, a Saudi national of Middle Eastern descent, had no involvement in the attacks. 

But Beck “repeatedly and falsely” identified Alharbi as an active participant in the bombings, the suit claims. 

The lawsuit also claims Beck questioned the motives of federal authorities who declined to arrest or detain the college student, reported Courthouse News. 

“Let me just say this to those at the highest echelons of government,” Beck said April 21, according to World Net Daily. “We know who this Saudi national is, and it is in your best interest and the best interest of integrity and trust for the people of United States of America – it’s best coming from you, not coming from a news organization. It’s best coming from you. You have until (April 22). We have information on who this man is, (and) we know he is a very bad, bad, bad man.”

I remember the character assassination that Beck was promoting in those days right after the bombing. It was brutal, and he would NOT let it go.

Even after this guy was cleared by investigators, Beck kept saying that he had some secret evidence that would convict this guy.

Guess what? He didn't.

Good for this Abdulrahman Alharbi guy for holding him accountable.

Jahar Tsarnaev: Rolling Stone cover heartthrob or dangerous terrorist?

This is the cover that is causing Twitter to go crazy today and attracting outrage from both the Left and the Right, Mostly the Right.

Much of the anger has been focused on the fact that Tsarnaev looks TOO attractive on the cover, and some have compared his cover to the one done for Jim Morrison of "The Doors."

However in my opinion it does not even reach the level of "controversy" when it comes to Rolling Stone covers.

After all this is a magazine that once had THIS image on its cover.

Not to mention this one:

And as for glamorizing hateful figures Rolling Stone would be hard pressed to beat this one:

Comparatively speaking it is a little difficult to get TOO worked up.

After all the idea is to attract interest and if this kerfuffle is any indication they have certainly done that.

Here is is a taste of what the actual article reveals: 

• As Jahar lay in the boat, surrounded by SWAT teams and police, FBI negotiators mentioned a public plea for his surrender from his former wrestling coach. An agent on the scene later told the coach that it could have been this name from the past – and the memory of that past – both of which were invoked during the standoff, that convinced Jahar to ultimately give up. 

• Around 2008, Jahar’s older brother Tamerlan confided to his mother that he felt like "two people" were inside him. She confided this to a close friend who felt he might need a psychiatrist, but Zubeidat believed that religion would be the cure for her son’s inner demons and growing mental instability, and pushed him deeper into Islam. 

• Jahar never spoke about 9/11. Once, though, he let slip to a high school friend that he thought the terrorist attacks could be justified, and pointed to US policies towards Muslim countries and US drone strikes and other attacks as his rationale. 

As a parent who was shocked to learn that my daughter not only believed that Jahar Tsarnaev had died along with this brother back in April, but who also believed that there was a government conspiracy involved, I am interested in getting more facts to help me understand exactly what did happen and how the United States can keep it from happening again.

(And yes I recognize that part of keeping that from happening again might be exactly the type of program the details of which are currently in Edward Snowden's possession in a Moscow airport.)

So ultimately I think the fuss over the photo is much ado about not very much. If the point was to attract attention and readers, Rolling Stone did just that. If the point was to turn Tsarnaev into a terrorist version of a rock god I think that is only something we could determine after reading the article. But I somehow doubt it.

Innocent men fingered by the New York Post as suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing file suit.

Courtesy of The Boston Globe:  

A Massachusetts teenager and his 24-year-old friend filed a defamation lawsuit against the New York Post Wednesday in Boston, accusing the tabloid of falsely portraying them as suspects in the deadly Marathon bombings by plastering their photograph on the front page under the headline, “Bag Men.” 

The lawsuit filed in Suffolk Superior Court said the photographs and articles published three days after the bombings made it appear that FBI agents were pursuing Salaheddin Barhoum and Yassine Zaimi, avid runners watching the Marathon. That evening, authorities released photographs of the suspected bombers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. 

In the complaint, lawyers for Barhoum, a 16-year-old Revere High School student, and Zaimi, a part-time college student from Malden who also works full time, accused the New York Post of libel, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and invasion of privacy. They are seeking damages, including unspecified monetary compensation. 

“The front page would lead a reasonable reader to believe that plaintiffs had bombs in their bags, that they were involved in causing the Boston Marathon bombing,” according to the court complaint. The lawsuit asserts the newspaper subjected the friends to “scorn, hatred, ridicule, or contempt in the minds of a considerable and respectable segment of the community.”

Good for them!

Now if only that Saudi national will sue Glenn Beck for accusing HIM of being the actual bomber, then perhaps we can send a message to certain "news" organizations that flying off the handle with bad intelligence has dangerous, and expensive, consequences.

Apparently the FBI and Homeland Security were too focused on the Occupy movement to prevent the Boston Marathon bombing.

Courtesy of Truthout:  

The ACLU was able to obtain documents of intelligence reports filed in 2011. They reveal that on September 30, the DHS-funded Boston Regional Intelligence Center, or BRIC, was collecting information about an upcoming Occupy Boston rally in Dewey Square, just two days after Russia sent them the second warning about Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis recently told Congress he “would have liked to know” that there was a potential extremist with violent intentions living in his city, and accused BRIC of failing to properly inform local law enforcement about a possible terrorist threat. 

The DHS, which spent billions of dollars on fusion centers like BRIC, has been accused of gathering “crap intelligence” and using federal anti-terrorism programs and resources to spy on nonviolent protesters exercising their First Amendment rights, rather than stopping terrorists. When they should have been investigating Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s extremist ties, the intelligence arm of the Boston Police Department was busy collecting information on peaceful antiwar activists from Code PINK and Veterans for Peace. That information was assembled in dossiers categorized under “Criminal Act,” “Extremists,” “Civil Disturbance,” and the more disturbing “HomeSec- Domestic.” 

In fact, monitoring the Occupy movement became DHS’ key focus in October of 2011, when the movement’s power and influence was at its peak. Among the topics included in the DHS’ daily intelligence briefing was “peaceful activist demonstrations.” That section was included in the same briefings as “significant criminal activity” and potential domestic terrorist acts.

Yes, well I think we can ALL see how a group dedicated to protesting the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process in this country would warrant that kind of intense scrutiny from our government, while a warning about a potential terrorist barely registers on their radar.

One has to wonder if Obama has done enough to rid of DHS of the Bush administration influences, or if they are now working from his playbook.

Perhaps we have NO real hope of severing the control big business has over government in this country until the day that we see the swearing in of one President Elizabeth Warren.

Rachel Maddow does an amazing job of laying out the various Right Wing conspiracy theories and how Benghazi fits right in with them.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I swear NOBODY does a better job with this kind of thing than Rachel Maddow.

Her research abilities and ability to lay the facts out so that they are easy to understand and absorb is second to none.

Essentially her point, and one that has been made here and other places as well, is that the Republican party is like a mental hospital where the inmates have now taken over the facility. And in my opinion, the GOP either needs to regain control, or burn the place down and start all over.

Fox's version of a special needs classroom, The Five, takes offense at being mocked by Jon Stewart and decide they'd like to debate him. Yes, because there will be nothing mock-able about THAT!

In case you missed it here is the Daily Show bit that has the time-out corner all in a huff.

Let me just say that I have NEVER watched The Five in my life, but IF they get Jon Stewart on to debate them I will gladly sit through the entire program with a huge bowl of popcorn so that I can watch him tear them into tiny bite size pieces.

I am guessing that this group of short bus riders have never seen Stewart's famous Crossfire appearance, which resulted in that show being yanked off the air by a horribly embarrassed CNN. (Luckily for them Fox News is used to being embarrassed.)

All in all it will be a bloodbath,. A very, VERY satisfying bloodbath.

(H/T to Addicting Info.)

The Daily Show sets their sights on the ridiculously bad coverage of the Boston marathon bombing. CNN essentially writes half of the bit for them.

Click image to play video

Hey do YOU remember when CNN was the most respected name in cable news?

Yeah me either!

Having to be shooed away by the police so that your reporters don't get shot while they try and apprehend the suspect is a new low for ANY cable news network.

"Hey you know that arrest you're trying to report on? Yeah we can't do it because you re in the damn way!"

Update: I took out the embed because apparently THAT is why Google keeps identifying malware on my blog.

Final moments of the capture of Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

Courtesy of TPM: 

Massachusetts State Police released a video showing some of the final moments of the capture of Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Friday, using thermal imaging cameras, robotics and flash bang grenades.

If you are like me you have had a lot of questions about this arrest, and have heard a lot of misinformation.

This does not answer ALL of the questions, but it answers some of them.

The Taiwanese animators mock the American media coverage of the Marathon bombings.

Ouch that's going to leave a mark!

Still, they're not wrong.

Let's end the day with a soothing Weekly Address from President Obama.

I swear NOBODY makes me feel more proud to be an American than this man.

With the possible exception of Uncle Ruslan Tsarni of course.

CNN describes Watertown. Massachusetts during police lock down thusly: “It’s as Though a Bomb Had Dropped Somewhere” Doh!

Courtesy of Slate:

At 5:38 p.m. ET, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer threw it to his colleague Susan Candiotti to ask her to describe the scene in Watertown, Mass. Her explanation was a bit on the nose.

Seriously, WTF?

You know this bombing at the Boston Marathon was a truly horrible event, but if anything could be described as a positive, it is that it REALLY helped to identify exactly which news outlets could be trusted and which ones could not.

While CNN was running around saying "We see brown people," and Fox News was desperately trying to drive home the point that the suspects were Muslim, and not, repeat NOT, Christians, MSNBC was carrying the banner of journalistic integrity.

It was Pete Williams who put the brakes on when everybody was reporting that the suspects were already in custody, and was the first to report that suspect number two was hiding in a boat.

In fact his consistently careful and accurate reporting led to Kelly O'Donnell tweeting the following:

Can we just make @petewilliamsnbc "employee of the month" now in our DC bureau at @nbcnews ??
— Kelly O'Donnell (@KellyO) April 19, 2013

I think at one point EVERYTHING that NBC or MSNBC thought they knew about the situation was being run past Williams first for his seal of approval before being reported to the public.

A policy that I think might just serve them well in the future.

Especially since the Right Wing is absolutely convinced that the entire Boston police department, FBI, Homeland Security, and White House have conspired to fool the American people into believing that that these two people were the suspects.

When, according to them, the Saudi National, that was once a suspect and now cleared, was the actual perpetrator of the horrific event.

In fact Glenn Beck is so convinced that he has the goods he is threatening the United States government with an expose on Monday.

All I can say is that I am VERY glad that I am an ardent viewer of MSNBC, and will continue to be a loyal viewer going forward.

And yes I certainly DO hope that Pete Williams gets employee of the year, as well as the many other accolades that he clearly deserves.