(Boston)  Two men from Kazakhstan and a man from Cambridge were arrested and charged today in the Boston Marathon bombings investigation, federal prosecutors said.

Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev, both 19 and of New Bedford, were charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice by plotting to dispose of a laptop computer and a backpack containing fireworks belonging to bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the US attorney’s office said in a statement. (more…)

Odd mixes of irony surrounding the Boston Bombers.   After information came out that taxpayers had funded their endeavors; providing welfare, food stamps, child care and housing assistance, tuition and possibly unemployment benefits, we now provide the best defense money can buy.

We know Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has the benefit of the most Islamist Sensitive Judge, Marianne Bowler, who has guest lectured in Kuwait 1997, and even in Egypt [2012] after the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and their candidate, now President, Morsi.

So it should come as no surprise the most skilled, well-versed, prolific and successful public defender of all things Jihadist would be hand-picked to represent Tsarnaev.

Associated Press […] The team that will be led by Miriam Conrad, the chief federal public defender for Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, got a major boost Monday with the addition of prominent San Diego lawyer and death penalty opponent Judy Clarke. Not that Conrad is considered any slouch.

“She is as tenacious as they come,” said Joshua Levy, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Boston who has gone up against Conrad in federal court. “I always found her to be very smart and focused on whatever she perceived as chinks in the armor in the government’s case. She would zone in on that.” (more…)

WASHINGTON DC – At least four career officials at the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency have retained lawyers or are in the process of doing so, as they prepare to provide sensitive information about the Benghazi attacks to Congress, Fox News has learned.

Victoria Toensing, a former Justice Department official and Republican counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee, is now representing one of the State Department employees. She told Fox News her client and some of the others, who consider themselves whistle-blowers, have been threatened by unnamed Obama administration officials.

“I’m not talking generally, I’m talking specifically about Benghazi – that people have been threatened,” Toensing said in an interview Monday. “And not just the State Department. People have been threatened at the CIA.” (more…)

What do you argue when you have nothing to excuse your position?  Yep…..

PHILADELPHIA — The description of a shuttered abortion clinic as a “house of horrors” is a “political press fabrication,” a lawyer for a doctor charged with killing four babies allegedly born alive there said Monday.

Authorities say Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, ran a clinic where desperate women sought late-term abortions they could not get elsewhere. And he got rich doing so, prosecutors said, making millions of dollars over a 30-year career.

Gosnell is charged with killing four babies allegedly born alive and in the overdose death of a 41-year-old patient.

During closing arguments Monday, defense attorney Jack McMahon showed photographs of a relatively neat waiting room and other areas in Gosnell’s clinic, saying that pictures don’t lie. (more…)

“We are not recommending any policy other than one exception. That is, if the United States decides to arm the Syrian rebels with lethal weapons, not just defensive weaponry, that those rebels and those weapons be very carefully vetted. We had a very bad experience with Libya where shoulder-fired missiles went disappeared very quickly and showed up in our backyard. We don’t want that to happen again in Syria.”

I’m putting together some more “in depth” information using prior and current research about Syria.   But I just want to throw out a note of caution on the Chemical Weapons issues.

Obama set the red line as WMD use.   I said at the time that was stupid and still believe it.

Forget the damned “red lines”.   Why?

We don’t know who would use the WMD.  Just because it’s used doesn’t mean Assad is using it.  Think about who benefits?

The Assad regime probably would never use chemical weapons period.   The guy is a facist marxist just like Quackdaffy – but he’s also a realist and more westernized than the media will openly tell you.

The “rebels” or resistance in Syria fighting Assad is not just some random collection of democracy loving freedom individualists.  That crew was kicked out about 20 months ago.  It is now 100% al-Qaeda radicals – Al-nursa front. (more…)

The FBI works for, and falls under the authority of, the Federal Department of Justice, Eric Holder.   Which brings in a strange series of questions regarding the stoppage of questioning by the FBI of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.   Megyn Kelly outlines the initial issue:

Initially the feds proclaimed Tsarnaev would fall under the “public safety exception to miranda” which would have given them 48 hours to question him prior to the delivery of Miranda protection.   The feds didn’t even need to charge him with anything right away – but they did.   In addition, something, obviously unexpected by the FBI interrogators, was changed.  Who changed it? Why? and why was the FBI not notified of the intent to change direction?

Boston AP [excerpt] … Once Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was read his rights on Monday, he immediately stopped talking, according to four officials of both political parties who were briefed on the interrogation but insisted on anonymity because the briefing was private. (more…)

This is a story about consequences, progressive consequences, once again on full display.

In Maryland Political Correctness runs rampant throughout the state. You might remember it was Maryland:

• …who instituted the quota system of race-based school discipline under the guise of “Adverse Impact”.
• …where the kid who chewed the pop tart into the shape of a gun was suspended.
• …where the school confiscated cupcakes because they were adorned with plastic soldiers.
• …where the flash mob hit the convenience store and police refused prosecution.

Carrying that same “Maryland Sense” forward – This is yet another level to the visibility of what happens when you remove historical common sense from the Criminal Justice System, specifically in Prison Correction.

To be PC, and avoid contemporaneous race-driven query, the Maryland State Corrections System put Black Female officers in charge of Black Male inmates. Here’s what happened: (more…)

Floyd Corkins, the shooter who attempted a mass killing at the Family Research Council at the ideological behest of the SPLC, is on trial.    The government said, in making its recommendation  for 45 years in prison, that if not for the security guard’s actions, Corkins ‘would have almost  certainly succeeded in committing a massacre of epic portions.’

(Via Daily Mail) The sandwich-heavy contents of his backpack may look amusing, but government prosecutors are demanding that the Virginia man who attempted a killing spree at the Family Research Council last year deserves a 45 year sentence.

Floyd Corkins II entered the the Washington headquarters of the conservative Christian lobbying group in August with nearly 100 rounds of ammunition and 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches stuffed in his bag as part of an elaborate plan to shoot as many people as possible. (more…)

Last week we brought you the story of Abdul Rahman Ali Al Harbi, the Saudi exchange Student whose apartment was searched immediately following the Boston Bombing. Glenn Beck promised to reveal more information – and indeed he has….

Background points:

• A Saudi national originally identified as a “person of interest” in the Boston Marathon bombing was set to be deported under section 212 3B — “Security and related grounds” — “Terrorist activities” after the bombing
• As the story gained traction, TheBlaze’s Chief Content Officer Joel Cheatwood received word that the government may not deport the Saudi national, originally identified as Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi
• Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano refused to answer questions on the subject when confronted by Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) on Capitol Hill.
• An ICE official said a different Saudi national is in custody, but is “in no way” connected to the bombings.
• A congressional source, however, says that the file on Alharbi was created, that he was “linked” in some way to the Boston bombings (though it is unclear how), and that documents showing all this have been sent to Congress.
• Key congressmen of the Committee on Homeland Security request a classified briefing with Napolitano
• Fox News’ Todd Starnes reports that Alharbi was allegedly flagged on a terrorist watch list and granted a student visa without being properly vetted.  Sources close to the investigation also told him the Saudi is still set for deportation.
• New information provided to TheBlaze reveals Alharbi’s file was altered early Wednesday evening to disassociate him from the initial charges
• Sources say the Saudi’s student visa specifically allows him to go to school in Findlay, Ohio, though he appears to have an apartment in Boston, Massachusetts
• Sources tell us this will most likely now be kicked from the DHS to the DOJ and labeled an ongoing investigation that can no longer be discussed.

Monday morning Glenn Beck laid out what he knows about the Saudi connection to the Boston marathon bombings.  (more…)