Yet Another Great City Becomes the Victim of a Suicide Bomber, Likely ISIS
Damn. I hate waking up to news of a suicide bomber. At least 10 people including both foreigners and Turks have been killed in an explosion in a tourist area of Istanbul, Turkish officials said. Turkey's President Reccep Tayyip Erdogan said the attack in the Sultanahmet district had been carried out by a Syrian suicide bomber. The blast took place near the Blue Mosque. Fifteen people were also wounded in the blast, the Istanbul Governor's Office said in a statement on its website. The authorities are investigating the type of explosive used, the governor's office said. "It was a suicide bomb. I went there and saw it and came back to the hotel. There was chaos. Everybody was running somewhere," eyewitness Murat Manaz told the BBC. "Policemen did not see this coming. They were distressed but at the same time they were trying to evacuate the area because they said there was a possibility that a second bomb could go off." This is not some far-off corner of the city. This is more or less their Central Park, in between the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia. If you're a tourist in Istanbul, there's a good chance you walked by that precise spot. Guess who: There is high probability that Islamic State militants were responsible for an explosion in the heart of Istanbul's historic Sultanahmet tourist district which killed at least ten people on Tuesday, two senior Turkish security officials told Reuters. Remember back in early December? The U.S. consulate general in Istanbul canceled public services, citing a possible security threat to the compound. While other consular posts in Turkey will run normally, the warning asked Americans to "maintain a high level of vigilance, be aware of local events, and take the appropriate steps to bolster your personal security." The closure comes just four days after the U.S. embassy in Turkey's capital Ankara warned citizens to avoid diplomatic missions in Istanbul, Ankara, Adana and Izmir. Remember, about 18 months ago, Obama administration officials were assuring us that ISIS wasn't interested in striking targets in other countries? Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken, speaking on CNN, August 8, 2014: One is the question of the threat that ISIS poses to us here in the homeland. Unlike core al Qaeda, right now, their focus is not on attacking the U.S. homeland or attacking our interests here in the United States or abroad. It's focused intently on trying to create a caliphate now in Iraq and a base from which over time to operate. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, writing on the White House web site, August 11, 2014: While both are terrorist forces, they have different ambitions. Al-Qaeda's principal ambition is to launch attacks against the west and U.S. homeland. That's the direct threat that we have taken direct action against for many years. Right now, ISIL's primary focus is consolidating territory in the Middle East region to establish their own Islamic State. So they're different organizations with different objectives. Who could have possibly imagined that the world's most ruthless terrorist group could multitask? To Hell with Ted Cruz Birtherism Ann Coulter, who is now insisting that Ted Cruz is not a natural-born U.S. citizen and cannot be president, was confronted with the fact that back in 2013, she wrote that Cruz was completely eligible to be president. Her response? "I changed my mind." Manu Raju of Politico reported, "Jeff Sessions, immigration hardliner, believes the 'consensus' is that Cruz is a natural-born citizen. But cautioned that he doesn't know." Oh, good heavens. Follow this step by step. Ted Cruz was a U.S. citizen from birth. His mother, Eleanor Darragh, was a U.S. citizen, born in 1934. Ted Cruz was born in 1970; his mother was 36 when she gave birth to him. Under the law, for births that take place outside the United States between December 24, 1952 and November 13, 1986, one U.S. parent "must have lived in the United States for at least ten years, with five of those years occurring after he or she was 14 years old." Darragh had lived in the United States for more than ten years and five of those years had occurred after age 14. If you are United States citizen from birth, you are a natural-born citizen -- no naturalization is required. Back in 2008, I did the exact same thing -- looked at the law in place when the candidate was born: Rumor one: Obama was born in Kenya. Rather unlikely, as it would require everyone in his family to lie about this in every interview and discussion with those outside the family since young Obama appeared on the scene. However, if it were true, it would probably raise a major question of "does he qualify as a natural-born citizen"? If Obama were born outside the United States, one could argue that he would not meet the legal definition of natural-born citizen under because U.S. law at the time of his birth required his natural-born parent (his mother) to have resided in the United States for "ten years, at least five of which had to be after the age of 16." Ann Dunham was 18 when Obama was born – so she wouldn't have met the requirement of five years after the age of 16. For that I still get called "birther" by people who can't read, of course. Remember this, Cruz fans. Remember who jumped on this Looney Tunes birther bandwagon and who didn't. The one guy who isn't beating the drum on Cruz being a Canadian is the guy who might benefit the most, Marco Rubio. The Florida senator told reporters after a town hall at a community college automotive building that he didn't agree with Trump: "I don't think that's an issue." Kurtz: Rolling Stone & Sean Penn Agreed to Help El Chapo Soften His Image Our Ian Tuttle with a headline I wish I had written: "If stupidity were a crime, Sean Penn would be the fugitive." Howard Kurtz on the journalistic dumpster fire that is Rolling Stone and Sean Penn's interview of the drug lord El Chapo: Penn also says he is "drawn to explore what may be inconsistent with the portrayals our government and media brand upon their declared enemies." So Senor Guzman is just the victim of bad PR? This reminds me, sadly, of what came off as a sympathetic profile when Rolling Stone put one of the Boston bombers on its cover. And it comes as the magazine is trying to erase the indelible stain of having accused members of a University of Virginia fraternity of a horrifying gang rape that never took place -- and still employs the reporter who wrote it. I don't have a problem with journalists interviewing bad guys. If Penn had talked to El Chapo while he was behind bars, fine. But he had busted out of a Mexican prison for the second time. He is not merely alleged to have run a global narcotics business, he was convicted of these crimes. What this piece amounted to is a successful attempt by El Chapo to soften his image as a ruthless murderer. He gets to say, largely without challenge, that he only uses violence when he is attacked. In the end, the actor and author finds a way to blame America and its drug users: "Are we saying that what's systemic in our culture, and out of our direct hands and view, shares no moral equivalency to those abominations that may rival narco assassinations in Juarez?" ADDENDA: I'm not quite endorsing Jeb Bush; I'm just saying the man has exquisite taste in reading material, and everyone should emulate him:
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