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Analysis: Trump Is Not Responsible for the Actions of a Mentally-Disturbed Supporter

The biggest story of the day is the arrest of a Florida man, in connection with the series of mail bombs sent to prominent critics of President Trump. In addition to reportedly having a criminal record for minor offenses and threats, the suspect appears to be a mentally unstable and cartoonishly-fanatical Trump supporter. This is unsurprising information. As I wrote yesterday, based on the identities of the bomb targets, Occam’s Razor suggested that these acts of terrorism were politically-motivated. It now seems likelier than ever that they were. Allow me to make a handful of non-mutually-exclusive observations:

(1) Our country would be better off if our public officials and other prominent political figures debated issues with more substance, greater civility, and less hysteria. This very much applies to the president, who likes to claim — among other things — that his opponents “favor” or “love” ruthless gangs who murder Americans. It also very much applies to Democrats, who frequently frame Republican proposals as world-ending, or tantamount to mass killings.

(2) Overheated partisan rhetoric that falls well short of direct incitement to violence can be grotesque and counter-productive, but it should not be blamed for the actions of disturbed people. It’s possible, if not likely, that this bomber heard Trump’s words and decided to take it upon himself to punish or eliminate Trump’s opponents. If so, that’s a reflection on the bomber’s evilness or mental illness, not Trump. Similarly, it’s quite likely that the Congressional baseball shooter heard the words of numerous high-profile leftists and decided he needed to save the country by assassinating Republicans. That was a reflection on the shooter’s evilness or mental illness, not the leftists he followed or favored.

(3) Demands that politicians and commentators calibrate their language in order to prevent depraved and insane people from engaging in depraved and insane conduct is more likely to harm free speech, or be exploited to disqualify legitimate political dissent as “dangerous,” than it is to achieve that ostensible goal. Crazy people find reasons and imagine “cues” to do crazy things; the argument that non-incitement speech might push someone over the edge strikes me as slippery and specious. Couldn’t something as simple as politician X alleging that politician Y is “hurting America” have this effect? The threshold for ‘triggering’ harmful impulses in the mind of a deranged person is unknowable, inconsistent and subjective. We therefore cannot shape our rules for discourse based upon that standard — even if we agree that our broader discourse needs serious rehabilitation.

(Read more from “Analysis: Trump Is Not Responsible for the Actions of a Mentally-Disturbed Supporter” HERE)

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Boston Marathon Bomber’s Aunt Says FBI Set up Her Nephew and She Has PROOF

On April 15, 2013, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, alongside his brother Dzhokhar, would become the infamous murderers in the Boston Marathon Bombings. According to the official reports, the duo blew up two homemade pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line at the marathon.

The attack killed and injured nearly 300 people. The subsequent manhunt led authorities to the Tsarnaev brothers, who went on the run after learning the authorities were on their trail. Tamerlan was shot 9 times by police and then finished off by his brother after he panicked and ran him over with his car. Dzhokhar was later shot and captured while hiding inside a boat.

Now, in a bombshell revelation, the Russian aunt of Dzhokhar has filed a motion in his death penalty appeal case that reveals new details on the meetings her nephew’s attorneys had in Russia with his parents and makes a bizarre allegation that the FBI said the bomber had a “heavy-laden black backpack,” not the white one he can be seen carrying in video taken before the deadly blasts, according to Newsweek.

In the court filings, Maret Tsarnaeva, an attorney, and sister of the Tsarnaev family asks to join the appeal defense team to plead with the courts to overturn the death penalty.

According to the report:

Tsarnaeva’s filing includes a still photograph of Dzhokhar taken from a 29-second clip recorded by a Whiskey’s Steak House surveillance camera on Boylston Street. Of it, she says that “the FBI and the indictment have together affirmed that the culprits who detonated these explosions were carrying large, unusually heavy black backpacks concealing pressure cooker bombs.” But her affidavit states, “Dzhokhar was carrying a small-sized white backpack,” which she calls exculpatory evidence.

“The very evidence used by the FBI to identify the ‘Boston bombers’ referenced in the indictment excludes Dzhokhar as plainly as white is distinguished from black,” Tsarnaeva’s filing states. “What can be more compelling than the difference between black and white?”

Both the family and legal team expressed their concern that Dzhokhar’s legal team—who was appointed by the state—was insufficient in defending Dzhokhar.

“As Dzhokhar’s family we expressed our concern that [the legal team] was untrustworthy, and might not defend Dzhokhar properly since they were paid by the government of the United States which was prosecuting him, as many believe, for political reasons,” Tsarnaeva wrote in the motion.

As Newsweek reports:

Minnesota lawyer John Remington Graham filed Tsarnaeva’s affidavit in Tsarnaev’s federal appeals case last week as part of a motion requesting that a judge allow her to work with his current defense attorneys, a request denied this year by O’Toole and rebuffed by his legal team.

“In my judgment, a trial court presiding over criminal prosecution should not receive or consider volunteered submissions by non-parties,” O’Toole wrote.

What makes this new revelation peculiar is the fact that early this year, as TFTP reported, while the FBI admitted, at the time of the bombings, that it had interviewed Tamerlan, it was only this year that it released the details of the interview.

On the 23rd day of April in 2011, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was interviewed by the FBI, at the request of the Russians who said they were concerned about the young man’s ties to Chechen Islamic Extremists.

The young man said he was approached by four well-dressed men, who spoke without any accents and identified themselves as FBI agents. They told him they wanted to talk with him and said they’d be back the following day to speak with him but never returned. They offered no business cards nor any contact information.

Nothing from the interview reportedly raised any red flags in the eyes of the FBI, but something interesting to note, and what might be fodder for conspiracy theorists, was the strangely peculiar encounter, not documented, with four men reportedly belonging to the FBI.

As we’ve learned from subsequent FBI investigations, one even announced this week in which a man was supported by the FBI, given a fake bomb and told to blow up a mall in Florida, the bureau has an extensive network of informants and patsies ready to do their bidding in carrying out staged terror attacks.

Once these fake attacks are carried out, the FBI then takes credit for preventing a terrorist attack, thereby validating their anti-terrorist budget and activities. Some critics of the FBI call those actions nothing less than entrapment. And without the help of the FBI, those individuals would arguably be going about their everyday activities, unconcerned with carrying out acts of terrorism. The FBI’s anti-terrorism activities, some have said, actually create terrorists out of regular citizens.

While it’s still unclear, from Tsarnaev’s interview and from the presentation of this allegedly new evidence, whether or not the Boston bombings was one such sting operation that went horribly wrong, the case is now taking a dramatic turn. (For more from the author of “Boston Marathon Bomber’s Aunt Says FBI Set up Her Nephew and She Has PROOF” please click HERE)

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DIPLOMATIC DISTRICT ROCKED: at Least 64 Dead, More Than 300 Hurt in Kabul Suicide Car Bombing

A massive explosion rocked a highly secure diplomatic area of Kabul during rush hour on Wednesday morning, killing at least 64 and injuring 320.

Authorities said the blast was so heavy that more than 30 vehicles were either destroyed or damaged at the site of the attack. “We don’t know at this moment what was the target of the attack, but most of the casualties are civilians,” said Danish.

Windows were shattered in shops, restaurants and other buildings up to a half mile from the blast site.

“There are a large number of casualties, but I don’t know, how many people are killed or wounded,” said an eyewitness at the site, Gul Rahim.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast but both the Taliban and the Islamic State group have staged large-scale attacks in the Afghan capital in the past. (Read more from “DIPLOMATIC DISTRICT ROCKED: at Least 64 Dead, More Than 300 Hurt in Kabul Suicide Car Bombing” HERE)

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Dad Finds out Daughter Plotting School Bombing by Reading Her Diary

A Thurmont, Md., father discovered his 18-year-old daughter was planning to bomb and shoot up her high school after reading her diary, according to local reports.

Honor roll student Nichole Cevario, 18, bought a shotgun and bomb-making materials in preparation for the attack, which was planned for April 5. It is unclear if the date had any special significance, or what Cevario’s motivations were, but her diary showed she had meticulously planned out the attack.

Cevario’s father alerted the Catoctin High School of the plot after reading the diary. Hours later, she was removed from her classroom and taken to the hospital for psychological evaluation.

“We felt this was going to be carried out,” said Frederick County Sheriff Charles A. Jenkins at a news conference. “There is no doubt in our minds that we diverted a disaster up there.”

Cevario reportedly obtained her weapon and materials legally, according to the sheriff’s office. Her arsenal included a 12-gauge Remington shotgun, ammunition, pipes with end caps, shrapnel, fireworks, magnesium tape and fuse materials. (Read more from “Dad Finds out Daughter Plotting School Bombing by Reading Her Diary” HERE)

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Bombing at Egypt’s Main Coptic Christian Cathedral Kills 25

A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt’s main Coptic Christian cathedral killed 25 people and wounded another 49 during Sunday Mass, in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory.

The attack came two days after a bomb elsewhere in Cairo killed six policemen, an assault claimed by a shadowy group that authorities say is linked to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and which claimed responsibility for a pair of assassination attempts earlier this year in Cairo that targeted Egypt’s former mufti, or chief Muslim theologian, and an aide to the country’s top prosecutor.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Sunday’s attack. However, Islamic militants have targeted Christians in the past, including a New Year’s Day bombing at a church in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria in 2011 that killed at least 21 people. More recently, the local affiliate of the Islamic State group targeted Christians in the Sinai Peninsula, where the extremist group is waging attacks against security forces. Christians endured a wave of attacks against their property and churches in provinces south of Cairo in the weeks and months that followed the July 2013 ouster by the military of an Islamist president. (Read more from “Bombing at Egypt’s Main Coptic Christian Cathedral Kills 25” HERE)

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Politicians Exploit School Shooting, Silent About Obama’s Bombing Victims

Following the recent Oregon school shooting, many politicians rushed to the microphones to call for new gun control laws. President Obama even called on gun control supporters to “politicize” the shooting, while some members of Congress worked to establish a special commission on gun violence.

The reaction to the shooting stands in stark contrast to the reaction to the U.S. military’s bombing of an Afghanistan hospital run by the international humanitarian (and Nobel Peace Prize winning) group Doctors Without Borders.

Our Nobel Peace Prize winning president did apologize to his fellow Nobel laureate for the bombing. However, President Obama has not “politicized” this tragedy by using it to justify ending military involvement in Afghanistan. No one in Congress is pushing for a special commission to examine the human costs of U.S. militarism, and the mainstream media has largely ignored Doctors Without Borders’ accusation that the bombing constitutes a war crime.

The reason for the different reactions to these two events is that politicians prefer to focus on events they can “politicize” to increase government power. In contrast, politicians ignore incidents that raise uncomfortable questions about U.S. foreign policy.

If the political and media elites were really interested in preventing future mass shootings, they would repeal the federal “gun-free” schools law, for example. By letting shooters know that their intended victims are defenseless, the gun-free schools law turns schoolchildren into easy targets. (Read more from “Politicians Exploit School Shooting, Silent About Obama’s Bombing Victims” HERE)

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