Gun Control Advocates Have Scored a Major Victory that Nobody is Talking About

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Photo Credit: YahooThis week G.E. Capital Finance announced that it would no longer finance gun purchases, becoming the latest in a string of companies that have decided to leave a large amount of money on the table rather than risk their reputations on the gun business.

It’s one of the few places where the high-profile publicity campaign in support of increased gun control has led to a real world result.

Last week advocates for gun control were dealt a humbling blow when legislation to require background checks at gun shows publicly flopped on the floor of the Senate after weeks of work.

Despite the political defeat, however, something very interesting has happened in the private sector.

GE is based in Fairfield, Conn., and several employees have children in Sandy Hook Elementary School, the site of the December mass shooting, according to the WSJ. Jeff Immelt, the CEO of GE, had a meeting with employees after the shooting. This, among other reasons, led to the lender ending financing for guns.

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Guilty: Fraud Put Obama on the Presidential Primary Ballot in 2008

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A jury in South Bend, Indiana has found that fraud put President Obama and Hillary Clinton on the presidential primary ballot in Indiana in the 2008 election. Two Democratic political operatives were convicted Thursday night in the illegal scheme after only three hours of deliberations. They were found guilty on all counts.

Former longtime St. Joseph County Democratic party Chairman Butch Morgan Jr. was found guilty of felony conspiracy counts to commit petition fraud and forgery, and former county Board of Elections worker Dustin Blythe was found guilty of felony forgery counts and falsely making a petition, after being accused of faking petitions that enabled Obama, then an Illinois Senator, to get on the presidential primary ballot for his first run for the White House.

Morgan was accused of being the mastermind behind the plot.

According to testimony from two former Board of Election officials who pled guilty, Morgan ordered Democratic officials and workers to fake the names and signatures that Obama and Clinton needed to qualify for the presidential race. Blythe, then a Board of Elections employee and Democratic Party volunteer, was accused of forging multiple pages of the Obama petitions.

“I think this helped uphold the integrity of the electoral system,” the prosecutor, Stan Levco told reporters. “Their verdict of guilt is not a verdict against Democrats, but for honest and fair elections,” he said.

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Part of 9/11 Plane's Landing Gear Found in NYC Alley Near Ground Zero

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Photo Credit: NYPDA piece of landing gear from one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center towers on 9/11 has been discovered in a small alley near Ground Zero more than 11 years after the terror attacks.

The twisted metal part, jammed in an 18-inch-wide sliver of open space between the buildings, has cables and levers on it and is about 17 inches wide and 4 feet long, New York Police Department Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Friday.

“It’s a manifestation of a horrific terrorist act a block and a half away from where we stand,” he said. “So, sure, it brings back terrible memories to anyone who was here or who was involved in that event.”

Kelly edged down the narrow passageway to look at the object Friday evening, noting there is also a piece of rope intertwined with the part in what looks like a broken pulley that may have come down from the roof of the site of the planned Islamic community center, at 51 Park Place.

The piece of equipment was discovered Wednesday by surveyors inspecting the lower Manhattan site of a planned Islamic community center on behalf of the building’s owner, police said.

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Immigration Officials Holding Two Fellow Students of Boston Bombing Suspect

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsTwo people seen in a photo with suspected Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in New York’s famed Times Square are being held by authorities on administrative immigration violations, Fox News has confirmed.

The two men were identified to Fox News as Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, both citizens of Kazakhstan. They can be seen standing next to Tsarnaev in a photo believed to have been taken in April 2012 in Times Square, which authorities suspect was another of the bombers’ intended targets.

Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov were arrested April 20 — five days after the attack at the marathon — at the Hidden Brook apartments by the FBI and Homeland Security in New Bedford Mass., and they are being detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement at the Suffolk County House of Corrections in Boston because of problems relating to their student visas, sources told Fox News.

New York City officials held a news conference Thursday confirming that the city was another target following the bombings in Boston, which killed three and wounded more than 200 near the finish line of the Boston race.

“We learned through the Joint Terrorist Task Force that the Boston Marathon bombers had planned to travel to Manhattan to detonate remaining bombs in Times Square,” New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said, though it is unclear when this information was relayed to New York City officials.

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Mother of Bomb Suspects Eyed in Radicalizing Son; was on Terrorism Database

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Photo Credit: Reuters The mother of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects is a “person of interest” to federal authorities seeking to learn who radicalized one or both of her sons, according to lawmakers, and a separate report said she was on a federal terrorism database some 18 months before the attack.

Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, who had reportedly become more militant in her Muslim faith around the same time as her son, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was added to the classified intelligence database known by the acronym TIDE at the CIA’s request. Two key lawmakers said authorities now want to know if she helped put her son, who died a week ago following a shootout with police in Massachusetts, on the road to radicalism.

“She is a person of interest that we’re looking at to see if she helped radicalize her son, or had contacts with other people or other terrorist groups,” Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters.

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, also pointed to Zubeidat as someone who may have led Tamerlan down the path toward Islamic extremism.

“The mother in my judgment has a role in his radicalization process in terms of her influence over him (and) fundamental views of Islam,” McCaul said.

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Intel System Broken: US 'Going Backwards in National Security'

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Photo Credit: Vjeran PavicFrustration is mounting among congressional Republicans who say the U.S. intelligence system remains broken more than a decade after authorities failed to stop Osama bin Laden.

Reports that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the two brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon attack, was placed on a terrorism watch list at the request of the CIA a year before the bombings has heightened fears of an intelligence failure with parallels to 9/11.

GOP lawmakers say the same information-sharing problems that hobbled the CIA and FBI in the run-up to the 9/11 attacks have resurfaced in the Tsarnaev case.

“I have no idea who bears the blame. I just know the system is broken,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Thursday after White House officials briefed senators on the investigation into the Boston attacks.

“The FBI and the CIA have great people, but you know [we are] going backwards in national security,” he said. Russian intelligence officials separately warned the FBI and CIA about Tsarnaev’s 2011 trip to Russia, where he may have reached out to militant Islamic groups in Dagestan.

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Wikileaks Suspect Manning Named Honorary Grand Marshal of San Francisco Homosexual Pride Parade

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Photo Credit: DonkeyHoteyRainey Reitman, a member of the Bradley Manning Support Network, said Friday that her group was notified this week that a committee of former San Francisco Pride grand marshals had voted to select the imprisoned intelligence specialist for the distinction that each year recognizes about a dozen celebrities, politicians and community organizations for their contributions to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities.

Manning is openly gay, and his lawyers have argued that his experience as a soldier before the repeal of the U.S. military’s ban on gay service played an important role in his decision to pass hundreds of thousands of sensitive items to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.

“As a longstanding Manning supporter, I’m thrilled to see our community publicly embrace his courage in disclosing classified truths about the war in Iraq and other facts, which empower the American public to promote smarter future policy,” Reitman said.

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TSA Employee Caught in DHS Sting, Suspected of Theft in Other Cases

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Photo Credit: jurvetsonColumbia Police Sergeant Joe Bernhard said the arrest took place after what he called a Department of Homeland Security honesty check. As part of the honesty check, a DHS official posed as a traveler gave [TSA Agent] Dunlap a bag with $500 inside, claiming he found it at the airport.

Bernhard said officials then saw Dunlap leave the airport Thursday morning with the bag and arrested him.

Columbia Public Works Public Information Specialist Steven Sapp said the arrest came after reports from passengers at Columbia Regional had notified TSA and Department of Homeland Security officials that they believed items were missing from their bags. Officials then identified Dunlap, the employee suspected of removing the items from their bags, after reviewing video surveillance footage.

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Rep. Chaffetz Claims DHS has 1000 More Bullets Per Agent Than US Soldiers

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Photo Credit: APRepublican Rep. Jason Chaffetz said Thursday that the Department of Homeland Security is using roughly 1,000 rounds of ammunition more per person than the U.S. Army, as he and other lawmakers sharply questioned DHS officials on their “massive” bullet buys.

“It is entirely … inexplicable why the Department of Homeland Security needs so much ammunition,” Chaffetz, R-Utah, said at a hearing.

The hearing itself was unusual, as questions about the department’s ammunition purchases until recently had bubbled largely under the radar — on blogs and in the occasional news article. But as the Department of Homeland Security found itself publicly defending the purchases, lawmakers gradually showed more interest in the issue.

Democratic Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., at the opening of the hearing, ridiculed the concerns as “conspiracy theories” which have “no place” in the committee room.

But Republicans said the purchases raise “serious” questions about waste and accountability.

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Officials: Boston Suspect had no Firearm when Barrage of Bullets Hit Hiding Place

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Photo Credit: Washington PostAlthough police feared he was heavily armed, the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing had no firearms when he came under a barrage of police gunfire that struck the boat where he was hiding, according to multiple federal law enforcement officials.

Authorities said they were desperate to capture Dzhokhar Tsarnaev so he could be questioned. The FBI, however, declined to discuss what prompted the gunfire.

Other law enforcement officials said the shooting may have been prompted by the chaos of the moment and some action that led the officers to believe Tsarnaev had fired a weapon or was about to detonate explosives.

These new details emerged as investigators continued their examination of the movements and motives of Tsarnaev, 19, and his brother, Tamerlan, in last week’s coordinated bombing, which killed three people and wounded more than 250.

Law enforcement officials said they do not believe the brothers were connected with a terrorist organization, but they cautioned that the inquiry is at an early stage.

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