RUTHFULLY YOURS

The killers in San Bernardino hadn’t even been identified Wednesday before President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and the rest of Progressive America had blamed the murders on the lack of “common-sense gun safety laws.” The motives of the shooters apparently didn’t matter. But now that more details about the two killers are dribbling out, motive may turn out to be relevant in a way that Mr. Obama and the left won’t find so politically congenial.

Law enforcement officials haven’t made judgments about the motives of Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, for opening fire with semiautomatic weapons on a meeting of county employees. This restraint is more admirable than Mr. Obama’s rush to political judgment. Perhaps Farook had long seethed with animosity toward his work colleagues, or he had some personal feud or mental illness.

But the couple had certainly prepared for more than a single act of revenge. They came armed with pipe bombs with a remote trigger, which didn’t detonate, and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Police say they found 12 more “pipe bomb type devices” and material to produce IEDs at the couple’s home. These are the tools of the modern jihadist.

Republicans talk often about using the “power of the purse” to rein in a lawless Obama administration. If they mean it, they ought to use their year-end spending bill to stop a textbook case of outrageous executive overreach.

This scandal comes courtesy of the Justice Department, which for 16 months has engaged in a scheme to undermine Congress’s spending authority by independently transferring dollars to President Obama’s political allies. The department is in the process of funneling more than half-a-billion dollars to liberal activist groups, at least some of which will actively support Democrats in the coming election.

It works likes this: The Justice Department prosecutes cases against supposed corporate bad actors. Those companies agree to settlements that include financial penalties. Then Justice mandates that at least some of that penalty money be paid in the form of “donations” to nonprofits that supposedly aid consumers and bolster neighborhoods.

The Justice Department maintains a list of government-approved nonprofit beneficiaries. And surprise, surprise: Many of them are liberal activist groups. The National Council of La Raza. The National Urban League. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition. NeighborWorks America (which awards grants to left-leaning community organization groups, and has been compared with Acorn).

Wednesday’s mass-murderer had recently argued with one of the victims, a pro-Israel conservative, insisting that Islam is a peaceful religion.

Well here’s a possible motive: a strongly pro-Israel, anti-Islamic, politically conservative Evangelical Christian was one of the victims of the mass murder in San Bernardino. Not only that, but the man posted on social media the day before the attack that he had recently received threats, including a death threat.

How do we know this?

Information about the victims is finally being released.

By 3:30 p.m. local time on Thursday, Dec. 3, the families of all fourteen of the deceased victims of Wednesday’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, California had been notified. Once that was completed, the San Bernardino County Coroner then released the names, ages, last residence and date of birth for each victim.

According to the feminist blog Bustle, seemingly harmless phrases including “no can do” and “long time, no see” are actually terribly racist and so we must stop using them “immediately.”

Huh?

Basically, the idea is that these two phrases are considered racist because they originated from Westerners mocking what’s called “pidgin English,” which are forms of English that immigrants have used to make it easier for them to communicate in America.

The piece was based on a video that aired on MTV, which explained that the phrase “no can do” originated from Westerners’ mocking Chinese immigrants’ “pidgin language” in the early 20th century, and “long time, no see” was a way of mocking the speech of indigenous people.

The host of MTV’s segment, Franchesca Ramsey, clarified that the history of these phrases did not mean that people have to stop using them. In fact, she said that all of the phrases — other than the word “gypped,” which she referred to as a “racial slur” for the Romani people — were “pretty harmless” and that there was no reason to ban them from our speech.

Though over 100,000 people claimed asylum in the United States in 2014, the federal government only has “limited capabilities to detect asylum fraud,” according to a new government audit.

About 4,500 people claimed asylum with the assistance of lawyers and application preparers who were later convicted of fraud, the Government Accountability Office’s audit found. “Granting asylum to an individual with a fraudulent claim jeopardizes the integrity of the asylum system by enabling the individual to remain in the United States, apply for certain federal benefits, and pursue a path to citizenship,” the report says. “Given the potential consequences of asylum decisions, it is important that the asylum system is not misused.”

The number of asylum claims has doubled since 2010, a statistic that surely will stoke questions about whether President Obama’s immigration policies are a “magnet” for people who try to enter the country illegally. The report also feeds into an ongoing debate about whether the federal government has the capability to ensure that terrorists can’t take advantage of refugee programs to enter the United States.

There were over 108,000 asylum claims filed in fiscal year 2014, up from about 47,000 in fiscal year 2010, and the U.S. Customs and Immigration Services have struggled to keep up with the surge in paperwork. They currently face a backlog of 106,121 applicants.

When the Redlands Tea Party Patriots objected to the resettling of Syrian Muslim migrants in their community, CAIR accused them of “paranoia and phobia is rooted in a combination of ignorance and bigotry.”

But “paranoia and phobia” are the modern condition that the free world has found itself living in. Islamic terrorism can strike anytime and anywhere from a Paris concert hall to a San Bernardino County facility where disabled children were being helped. It’s ignorance to ignore that and bigotry to defend it.

“What will be done to ensure the safety of our community? Our biggest concern is the safety of our family, our children and our grandchildren,” Victoria Hargrave of Redlands Townhall had asked.

It was a good question. As the country watched police charge towards a home in the Redlands, it has become an even better question.

The shooter has been named as Sayeed Farouk. His father described him as a religiously devout Muslim. “He was very religious. He would go to work, come back, go to pray, come back.” Co-workers say that he “grew a beard and started to wear religious clothing. The long shirt that’s like a dress and the cap on his head.”

And at some point his “religiosity” took him down the familiar path of Jihad.

San Bernardino’s police chief confirmed that the mass shooting at a county Christmas banquet did not look like a spontaneous attack due to the amount of planning, devices, weapons and tactical gear involved.

Chief Jarrod Barguan told reporters in a late-night press conference the shooting suspects, both killed in a gunbattle with some 20 officers at the end of a pursuit, have been identified as Syed Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27. Farook was a U.S.-born citizen; the chief wasn’t sure of Malik’s background. He said he had no information on whether either had a criminal record.

Barguan said there was a relationship between the two; CBS News reported that the pair had been married for two years. CAIR said earlier that Farook and his wife have a 6-month-old baby.

Farook was an environmental specialist at the county health department. He had attended the Christmas party last year, and this year left the party early “angry” under circumstances that led police to the Redlands residence. The Daily Beast reported that Farook’s mother lived there.

“Where intelligence starts and stops is at the White House,” Lt. General Michael Flynn gruffly exclaimed in response to a question posed by Megyn Kelly on The Kelly File. “The president sets the priorities, and he’s the number-one customer. So if he’s not getting the intelligence that he needs, and if he’s not paying attention to what else is going on, then something else is wrong there between them and the advisers that he has.”

With that, General Flynn, the personification of a bald eagle, is discussing an issue that’s near and dear to his heart: military intelligence and how it’s being manipulated. It’s the latest Obama administration scandal, and it’s being whisked along on an assembly line chock-full of them. The nature of this one, however, is far worse than “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” Dumbed down intelligence at the insistence of someone in the military or the administration is a clear and present threat to our national security.

Flynn, a no-nonsense, intensely bright, and “ground-truth” general, has been an intrepid and stormy critic of the Obama administration, its “whack a mole” air campaign against ISIS, and its mealy-mouthed narrative about terrorism in general. He is the tip of the spear of a growing vanguard of those in the intelligence sector who fiercely defend their craft and the solid information they provide. Top-notch analysts have been appalled to learn that the intel they’ve been supplying has been watered down like a glass of cheap wine in a cheesy bar.

A congressional panel said it has uncovered an array of previously unknown security lapses by the Secret Service showing the agency is “in crisis’’ and needs major changes.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform report, set to be released Wednesday, documents what it says are widespread problems at the Secret Service. The committee, led by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah), has been probing the agency since a 2012 scandal over agents bringing prostitutes back to their hotel rooms in Cartagena, Colombia.

The newly revealed security breakdowns cited in the report include:

Security at Vice President Joe Biden’s home in Delaware was breached in 2013 when four young adults went fishing in his backyard. The Secret Service learned of their presence from neighbors of Mr. Biden, according to the report.

A previously disclosed incident in which a man pretended to be a lawmaker to get backstage at a Congressional Black Caucus event was worse than initially thought. The man managed to speak directly to President Barack Obama at the 2014 event before being removed, the report says.