Footholds of Influence

Overtly
After Mr. Tsarnaev’s visit to Dagestan and Chechnya, signs of alienation emerged. One month after he returned to the United States, a YouTube page that appeared to belong to him was created and featured jihadist videos.

Posting such videos alone, without overt threats of violence, should not necessarily sound alarms, some counterterrorism specialists said Monday. (NYT, 4/22/2013)

Because lots of ordinary folks post jihadist videos? 

Maybe some "retraining" of our counterterrorism specialists is in order. 


Issues
Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and the chairman of the committee, took issue with conservative commentators and Republican lawmakers who suggested that any debate about an immigration overhaul should take into account that the two suspects in the Boston bombing emigrated to the United States from Kyrgyzstan.

“Last week, opponents of comprehensive immigration reform began to exploit the Boston Marathon bombing,” Mr. Leahy said. “Let no one be so cruel as to try to use the heinous acts of these two young men last week to derail the dreams and futures of millions of hard-working people.” (NYT,4/22/2013)

"Last week, proponents of gun control began to exploit the Newtown massacre. Let no one be so cruel as to try to use the heinous act of one young man last week to impugn the reputations of millions of law-abiding gun owners."


Oh Happy Day!
The trustee overseeing MF Global Holdings Ltd.'s bankruptcy sued former Chief Executive Jon S. Corzine and two other executives for their role in the brokerage's collapse. (WSJ, 4/23/2013)

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren railed at Ben Bernacke recently about the lack of prosecutions of financial executives. Problem solved!  Or was she not thinking about Democrats....


Bumper Crop
Howie Carr noted today that the car hijacked by the Boston bombers had a "COEXIST" bumper sticker. That's too funny!