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Economy

jobs report applications

Americans seeking full- and part-time work fill out job applications at a workshop. (Photo: REUTERS)

The U.S. added 252,000 jobs in December and unemployment declined by 0.2 percentage point to 5.6, but participation ticked down to 62.7 percent. The employment-population ratio, a less-cited by equally important gauge, was a lagging 59.2 percent for the third consecutive month.

Still, monthly job gains are headed into their eleventh consecutive month above 200,000 jobs, though economists agree the economy must create an average of 250,000 monthly jobs to keep pace with population growth. When we include revisions for October and November, which increased total nonfarm payroll employment by 50,000, monthly job increases averaged 289,000 over the past 3 months. In 2014, job growth averaged 246,000 per month, juxtaposed to an insufficient 194,000 per month in 2013.

Economists had forecast 220,000 jobs created in December and that the unemployment rate would hold steady at 5.8 percent, which it would have if more people didn’t give up looking for work.

“Among people who were neither working nor looking for work in December, 2.3 million were classified as marginally attached to the labor force,” BLS Commissioner Erica L. Groshen said in a statement. This is little changed over the year.

“The number of discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached who believed that no jobs were available for them, was 740,000 in December,” she added.

The December job creation figures were widely expected to be strong given the additional seasonal hiring in retail to fill jobs needed during the holiday shopping season.

The Federal Reserve will certainly eye the latest labor market report when deciding the timing and trajectory of interest rate hikes, a move that would push both public and private borrowing costs higher and likely drag equities down.

When rates move higher, then it becomes more costly for consumers, government and businesses to borrow money. The higher costs for borrowing could cut back on consumer spending and business expansion, which could negatively impact labor markets. However, with the federal debt exceeding $18 trillion, the government now finds itself in a precarious situation.

Should the Fed raise interest rates to avoid adverse inflation pressure — in other words, do the right thing — or, continue to give the government a pass to spend?

The labor markets may appear to be stronger, as most focus on declines in the headline unemployment rate and superficial numbers over quality, the fact is that other labor market indicators suggest a slow recovery for most U.S. workers.

Average hourly wages, which have begun to receive more attention, have been stagnant for years, which has kept the Fed from meeting their inflation target rate of 2 percent.

During the past year, average hourly earnings have risen by an average of just 2.1 percent, well below the 3 percent – 3.5 percent rate the Fed targeted. The unemployment rate is likely to drop into the target range (5.2%-5.6%) in early 2015 (aided by declining participation), but the inflation target is not likely to be met. Inflation will not move until wages increase significantly, which frankly may not happen until late in 2015.

The U.S. added 252,000 jobs in December

Opinion

charlie-hebdo-attacker-killing-cop

An image from video posted online shows masked gunmen just before one of them appears to shoot a Paris police officer at close range, following an attack on the office of weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo, Jan. 7, 2015, in Paris, France.

Reading up on the Paris shootings, one has to wonder what the effect of gun laws was in preventing this attack. Judging by the outcome, I would say negligible.

The lack of homogeneity of culture is probably the leading factor in the increasing of violence in a society, not guns. The roots of radicalized citizens acting on behalf of Islam are in the theories of multiculturalism, as well.

Now I’m not talking about skin color, although they are linked, I’m talking about immigrants and other cultures not directly becoming singular with the prevailing culture.

Multiculturalism, in other words.

Leftists like to promote multiculturalism, but interestingly enough, do not support its racist roots which is essentially segregation. Multiculturalism is the opposite of the traditional American ‘melting pot’ theory. It promotes separate cultural and ethnic lifestyle living in the same society side by side. Problem is, that tends to ostracize and compartmentalize a community, and studies indicate it ultimately leads to violence.

If you look at some of the most peaceful cultures around the world you will find they support homogeneity in their culture, not multiculturalism.

Almost all countries and societies with low violence rates have essentially the same culture throughout their society. Japan has some of the lowest crime and murder rates in the world, and it also one of the most homogenous cultures in the world. The highest rates of violence seem to be in African nations where tribal and factional culture separation is extreme.

An interesting study done by Roger Putnam at Harvard indicated that multiculturalism leads also to a natural distrust of societal institutions like media and government; something distinctly on the rise here in America. He writes:

New evidence from the US suggests that in ethnically diverse neighborhoods residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down’. Trust (even of one’s own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friends fewer. In the long run, however, successful immigrant societies have overcome such fragmentation by creating new, cross-cutting forms of social solidarity and more encompassing identities.—Roger Putnam

The problems of immigration and an increase in minority populations is not ethnic diversity, but integration, such as in the original ‘melting pot’ theory of traditional American values. Putnam goes to assess American melting pot societal progress as enormously successful with earlier immigration groups like the Irish and waves of Jewish immigrants:

The best quantitative evidence concerns ethnic endogamy… Conversely, the cultures of the immigrant groups permeated the broader American cultural framework, with the Americanization of St Patrick’s Day, pizza and ‘Jewish’ humour. In some ways ‘they’ became like ‘us’, and in some ways our new ‘us’ incorporated ‘them’. This was no simple, inevitable, friction-less ‘straight-line’ assimilation, but over several generations the initial ethnic differences became muted and less salient so that assimilation became the master trend for these immigrant groups during the twentieth century— Roger Putnam

Violence and societal unrest is not necessarily an issue of guns but rather the natural distrust and increase in tensions from multiculturalism. By increasing diversity without creating homogeneity you increase the risk of a violent and segregated society.

This is the complete opposite theory of what ethnic purity and multiculturalism groups like La Raza, the KKK and the Black Panthers stand for. They all seek to divide and purify their own ancestry, not bring people together as Americans. This is evidenced often in cases like the Trayvon Martin case where ethnic group leaders do not promote an end to violence but rather call for more violence in a modern-day version of a lynch mob. We must reject multiculturalism and embrace the melting pot if we wish society to move forward.

Guns and terrorism are merely the tools of the violent, not the cause of violence. For that we should look to ourselves and our neighbors and we relate to each other. We should look to how we integrate immigrants into our society.

A shoddy house is not built by the tool, but by its craftsman.

Thomas Purcell is nationally syndicated columnist, author of the book “Shotgun Republic” and is host of the Liberty Never Sleeps podcast. More of his work can be found at LibertyNeverSleeps.com.

[mybooktable book=”shotgun-republic” display=”summary”]

The roots of radicalized citizens committing violence

Polls

keystone-xl-pipeline

A large majority of Americans support the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.

President Obama threatened to veto bipartisan legislation approving the construction of the Keystone pipeline, but American voters overwhelming disagree. Further, support for the construction of the pipeline among registered voters increases slightly when respondents are made aware of the findings of multiple State Department reviews.

According to a new PPD Poll of 694 registered voters, 69 percent support the pipeline outright, up from 65 percent measured last year. However, 72 percent support its construction when respondents are told of the administration’s own findings.

Construction of the Keystone pipeline has been delayed indefinitely despite State Department reviews concluding the environmental impact of not building the pipeline would be worse than if the energy resources were transported via the pipeline.

A vote on the pipeline failed by one vote ahead of the Louisiana Senate runoff in December, which resulted in the defeat of incumbent Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu. With the new Republican majority in the Senate, a growing number of Democrats have pledged support for the pipeline, though it remains unclear whether enough will come aboard to override President Obama’s veto.

While lawmakers grapple with lobbyists in their decision-making processes, the American people say it’s a no-brainer, including a majority of Democrats (53 percent), over two-thirds of independents (68 percent) and nearly 9 in 10 Republicans (88 percent).

Survey Question: If no, then respondents were asked the following question:

In Jan., 2014, a State Department review concluded transporting oil via the Keystone XL pipeline is more environmentally friendly than via rail and other methods. If true that it will adversely impact the environment more so than not constructing it, then would you support the pipeline?

While slightly more men (74 percent) than women (68 percent) say build it, the support is overwhelmingly broad. In fact, most of the increase in support came predominately from female voters.

The PPD Poll of 694 registered voters was conducted from January 6 – 7, 2015, and has a MoE of +/- 3 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence. Interviewers surveyed respondents, the results of which are weighted to reflect a breakdown of 50 percent landlines and 50 percent cellphones.

President Obama threatened to veto bipartisan legislation

Economy

honda-motor-company

In this April 25, 2014 file photo, a man walks past a Honda on display at Honda Motor Co. headquarters in Tokyo. (Photo: AP)

The US government is fining Honda $70 million for not reporting to safety regulators more than 1,700 complaints that its vehicles caused deaths and injuries. The Obama administration announced what is the largest civil penalty levied against an automaker Thursday for not reporting to regulators some 1,729 complaints that its vehicles caused deaths and injuries.

The White House said Honda Motor Company (NYSE:HMC) also failed to report warranty claims.

The company acknowledged in November that it failed to report the death and injury complaints to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which took place over an 11-year period beginning in 2003. However, the company said it only learned of the omissions in 2011, yet still waited three years to take appropriate action.

Honda’s failure to report warranty claims and claims under customer satisfaction campaigns occurred throughout the same period, according to officials. The safety administration is actually slapping the company with two fines. First, $35 million for not reporting the death and injury complaints, and second, another $35 million for not reporting the warranty and customer satisfaction claims.

Both fines are the maximums the agency is legally allowed to impose on the company.

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said the maximum fines are to show the government will take tough stances against automakers who withhold safety information from federal regulators.

“What we cannot tolerate and will not tolerate is an automaker failing to report to us any recall issues,” Foxx said.

Honda has recalled more than 5 million vehicles in the U.S. since 2008 to fix a potentially fatal defect in Takata-made air bags, which accounted for a large number of the complaints filed. The air bag inflators were frequently rupturing after a crash and injuring vehicle drivers and passengers with the pieces of metal that essentially turned into projectiles.

On Dec. 29, Honda signed a consent order agreeing to pay the untold number of fines. However, officials said the fine’s amount is due to the fact that they have not yet received all the complaints from Honda and cannot assume a correct number of deaths and injuries that resulted.

“We have resolved this matter and will move forward to build on the important actions Honda has already taken to address our past shortcomings in early warning reporting,” Rick Schostek, executive vice president of Honda North America Inc., said in a statement.

The company said the omissions were a result of “errors related to data entry, computer coding, regulatory interpretation, and other errors in warranty and property damage claims reporting.”

Still, some aren’t satisfied with the record-setting penalty.

Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the center, said $70 million was too small a penalty considering that incidents involving Takata air bags are so representative of the complaints not reported.

“How many other deadly defects are concealed in the 1,729 death and injury claims not reported by Honda?” he asked. “The company must waive all statutes of limitations at the state and federal level over potential recalls or lawsuits arising out of defects concealed in the unreported claims.”

The Honda fine is just the latest in what has amounted to a government crackdown on auto makers by federal regulators in the previous year. The traffic safety administration slapped $126 million in fines against automakers in the year 2014, which is more than all the fines put together in the agency’s previous 43 years.

The administration is on a roll for record-making. In May, the government dropped the first maximum $35 million fine in the administration’s history against General Motors. They allegedly took more than a decade to disclose an ignition-switch defect in millions of cars that has been linked to at least 42 deaths and 58 injuries, so far.

Under an agreement with the Transportation Department, GM admitted it was slow to inform regulators, promised to report problems faster and submitted to more in-depth government oversight of its safety operations.

But many lawmakers and safety advocates place blame with the safety administration, as well, whom they say has been too busy rubbing shoulders with auto makers to conduct oversight. They have also accused the traffic safety administration of not identifying dangerous safety defects based on reports made directly to the agency by consumers and police, or looking the other way for their own crony benefit.

Nevertheless, Foxx said information about Honda’s failure to disclose the complaints have also been sent over to the Justice Department, where officials will consider if criminal charges are appropriate.

The US government is fining Honda $70

Economy

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, missing economists’ expectations for the week ended Jan. 3.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell by 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 294,000, according to the Labor Department report released Thursday.

However, economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims falling to 290,000 last week, while the prior week’s data, which was also higher than expected, was unrevised.

Claims have been more volatile around the Christmas holiday period, a typical reflection of cyclical hiring. But at current levels, claims have little room to fall further. The four-week moving average of claims, which is widely considered a better measure of labor market trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, fell by 250 to 290,500 last week.

Though it has remained below 300,000 for 17 straight weeks, the number is still relatively high considering the low number of eligible participants in the labor market. Chronic long-term employment has reduced the number of people who are able to apply for first-time benefits.

Still, despite terrible manufacturing and service sector data, employment data suggest another month of decent job creation in December. That, of course, is to be expected considering the holiday hiring season. The number of part-time versus full-time jobs will be closely watched when the government releases the upcoming jobs report.

The Federal Reserve will watch the report and the entire labor market to determine if they should take a step closer to raising its short-term interest rate, which it has been dangerously held near zero since December 2008.

The claims report showed the number of people still receiving benefits after an initial week of aid increased by 101,000 to 2.45 million in the week ended Dec. 27. The four-week average of the so-called continuing claims fell by 17,000 to 2.40 million.

Labor said the number of Americans filing

World

charlie-hebdo-attacker-killing-cop

An image from video posted online shows masked gunmen just before one of them appears to shoot a Paris police officer at close range, following an attack on the office of weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo, Jan. 7, 2015, in Paris, France.

If America can learn one thing from Wednesday’s terror attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper offices in Paris, it should be this: Islam is not a religion of peace.

Maybe it is for some. But our politicians should stop treating it as if that viewpoint is the guiding principle. At the very least, this is what America’s view of Islam should be: It sure is an easy religion to skew to justify terror.

And in that, Islam’s very, very different from other religions.

Council on American-Islamic Relations spokesman Ibrahim Hooper would disagree. In a phone interview with The Washington Times, Hooper said that while the Paris attacks were to be “condemned in the strongest possible terms … [as] brutal and cowardly,” they were not to be confused with the ideology of Islam as a whole – and that in fact, many religions, including Christianity, are guilty of committing like atrocities.

Just to be clear: He was discussing the Paris terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo – the same newspaper that was firebombed by purported Muslim extremists in 2011 after it printed a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed. Hooper acknowledged that the most recent attacks were done by radicals who likely shouted “Allahu Akbar.” But he also said the Paris attacks were not representative of what Islam is about – and that even Christianity has its percentage of bad seeds.

“What is your alternative? To say the faith of a quarter of the world’s population is evil and should somehow be destroyed? Any faith of more than 1.6 billion people is going to have some of them who falsely justify actions on that faith,” Mr. Hooper said. “There are all kinds of faiths [that] carry out terrorist attacks. We shouldn’t generalize.”

Okay – so name some examples of Christians carrying out attacks to that in Paris.

“You have the Westboro Baptist Church,” he said, “the killings of abortion doctors based on religious justification, and the racist attacks by white supremacists … Was Christianity [as a whole] blamed for that?”

Well, no – but that’s because that would be insane.

So here are a few counter-examples of Islam at work: Start in the 1980s, the publication of “The Satanic Verses,” and the ensuing fatwa that was placed on author Salman Rushie by the Ayatollah Khomeini. Then fast-forward to 2012, when documentarian Tom Holland saw the cancellation of his show, “Islam: The Untold Story,” because the station that was going to broadcast it had received security threats.

Remember the South Park debacle? Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone faced death threats from the New York-based Revolution Muslim for an episode that satirized the prophet Mohammed. So they piped down their satire. Remember Dutch movie maker Theo van Gogh and his 2004 death, when he was gunned down on the streets of Amsterdam by an angry Moroccan Muslim waging jihad? That’s what Revolution Muslim threatened would happen to Parker and Stone.

And let’s not forget the machete-hacking of British soldier Lee Rigby by two Muslim converts, the Fort Hood shootings by Muslim’s Nidal Hasan – and Sept. 11.

Drop in the bucket. But can you imagine Christian church members doing the same – and then screaming out “In the name of Jesus Christ!” as they fled? Come on, American leaders. It’s high time to look to the safety of U.S. citizens – rather than to the lobby arm of the Muslim community.

As retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney said, about the Charlie Hebdo terror strikes: “Political correctness is killing us,” and America needs to awaken to the realities of Islam.

Cherly Chumley, a full-time news writer with The Washington Times, is also the author of Police State USA: How Orwell’s Nightmare is Becoming Our Reality, available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. To learn more about Cheryl, visit her website.

[mybooktable book=”police-state-usa-how-orwells-nightmare-is-becoming-our-reality” display=”summary”]

If America can learn one thing from

Politics, Video

Sean Hannity confronted radical Muslim imam Anjem Choudary Wednesday night over a tweet justifying the attack on in the the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris.

Following the terror attack on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper, which resulted in the death of 12, Choudary sent out tweets arguing that freedom of expression “does not extend to insult” the Prophet Muhammad, revealing the disconnect between Islam and the values of the West. Choudary also authored an op-ed in USA Today later that evening making the same argument.

https://twitter.com/anjemchoudary/status/552815263834722305

“You’re saying you do not believe in freedom of speech, you don’t believe in freedom of expression, you believe in Islamic fascism, that people must abide by your laws?” Hannity asked.

“Actually, as a Muslim, we believe that sovereignty and supremacy belongs to God and therefore we believe in submitting to the commands of God,” Choudary responded.

“You’re saying you do not believe in freedom of speech, you don’t believe in freedom of expression, you believe in Islamic fascism, that people must abide by your laws?” Hannity followed up.

“Actually, as a Muslim, we believe that sovereignty and supremacy belongs to God and therefore we believe in submitting to the commands of God,” Choudary added.

Hannity, who has been in heated debates with the radical cleric several times prior, ran a series of question by Choudary to expose what the imam argued was “real Islam.”

“So you’re saying anything offensive about the prophet Muhammad should be illegal and it should be worldwide?” the Fox News host asked.

Choudary, admitting the goal is to force Sharia law on the entire world, answered predicatably.

“I still think you’re an evil SOB, but I really want people to hear you,” Hannity said at the conclusion of the interview.

“I think you should look in the mirror Sean,” Choudary snapped back.

In late September, 2014, Choudary was arrested by Scotland Yard as part of a major investigation into Islamist terrorism. Choudary tweeted a number of controversial tweets shortly before his arrest by Metropolitan Police, claiming in one that “it has already been foretold by Muhammad(saw) that Muslims & Christians will fight a big battle in As-Sham & that Muslims will prevail.”

Because of a general weak stance toward radical Islam in Europe, he was released. Consequently, Cherif Kouachi, one of the gunmen in the Charlie Hebdo attack, was already convicted in 2008 of terrorism charges for helping funnel fighters to Iraq’s insurgency and, in accordance with France’s weak stance on radical Islam, sentenced to just 18 months in prison.

He remains at large.

Sean Hannity confronted radical Muslim imam Anjem

US

malia-obama-instagram-photo-featured

Malia Obama appears to be in this Instagram photo (full below) sporting an anti-cop rap group.

President Obama reportedly called for an investigation into how a photo, which appears to be his daughter Malia Obama, surfaced on the Instagram page of an anti-cop gangsta rap group.

The photo appears to be 16-year-old Malia Obama wearing a white shirt with the logo of Pro Era — charming lyrics below — in green, red and black lettering. A representative for the group’s lead rapper Joey Bada$$, who was recently arrested and charged with assault after punching a security guard in the face when the guard asked to see his credentials before a show in Australia, told Gawker that the New York-based gangsta rap group received the photo from a “mutual friend.”

“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Allen West said via Facebook. “Here’s 16-year-old Malia Obama sporting a t-shirt for an anti-cop gangsta rap group.”

malia-obama-instagram-photo

“Malia Obama rocking that classic Pro Era tee! | Make sure you get your official Pro Era gear from theproera.com!”

The authenticity of the Instagram picture has not been verified by PPD, but if the White House is looking into how it landed on the Internet, then the doubters lose some of their argument. If it does turn out to be authentic, which it appears to be, then Mr. and Mrs. Obama will have a little less credibility on race relations.

Critics have long argued that the president has wasted an opportunity to address the deterioration of culture and family in black communities, because he was allegedly such a fantastic father. First lady Michelle Obama famously told Barbara Walters in a 2013 interview that only Malia was able to use Facebook, while Sasha did not have social media access at all. Yet, if they were parenting as much as they claim, then how did the daughter of a president end up on the Internet supporting garbage like this?

Here are a few lyrics from Extortion by Pro Era shared by Free Republic via Gateway Pundit:

I’m screaming who want war ni**a
They don’t want that war
Sh*t your articles of clothing was an issue
With these magazine ni**as talking sh*t, I’ll load a full clip
Never face Defeat, but word up in the streets
We ain’t free, don’t sell me dreams
You ain’t know that talk is cheap

Kirk be the ni**a with problems
We gonna call Prob up, he gonna handle the problems
Vodka blocking my chakras
Bumping that Flying Lo and TOKiMONSTA
Ahh I gotcha
We superior beings, you seen how I been
Been living on clouds but this ain’t no dream
Been riding on nimbus I’m out for the spinach
My b**ch didn’t like it then f**k you, good riddance
It’s hard to stay sane in a world full of sinning
But, see, all I got is my ni**as

The White House has not returned a request for a comment.

President Obama reportedly called for an investigation

Opinion

charlie-hebdo-attackers

French police identified Said Kouachi (left) and Cherif Kouachi, who are brothers and in their early 30s, and 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad as the gunman in the attack on the newspaper Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2015 in Paris, France.

This terrible thing happened.

Three hooded men armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles seized a magazine newsroom in Paris and murdered many of the journalists meeting there. At least 12 people are dead; at least 11 others are injured. A detail I can’t shake: One of the gunmen reportedly began the massacre by calling out the journalists by name.

As I write, we already know that four cartoonists for the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo are among the dead: Editor Stephane Charbonnier, known as Charb; Jean Cabut, known as Cabu; Bernard Verlhac, known as Tignous; and Georges Wolinski.

Charlie Hebdo has made fun of many religious leaders, but it is best-known for having offended fundamentalist Muslims. And even many non-Muslims object to them as racist in their depictions. In 2011, the newsroom was firebombed for its satire on Islam and cartoons ridiculing the Prophet Muhammad.

As various news organizations have reported, Charbonnier had been under police protection since the firebombing, but he made clear that he would not be intimidated by threats of violence.
“It may sound pompous,” Charbonnier told the French daily newspaper Le Monde in 2012, “but I’d rather die standing than live on my knees.”

Eyewitness videos show that after Charbonnier and at least 11 others, including two police officers, were murdered, the killers shouted in the street before fleeing.

“God is great,” they yelled. “We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad. We have killed Charlie Hebdo.”

We journalists are frequently criticized for inflating coverage when one of our own is killed. This week has been no exception. Within hours of the Paris massacre, my Twitter and Facebook feeds were peppered with posts from those demanding to know why we weren’t pursuing with equal vigor the story of a homemade explosive that blew up Tuesday outside an NAACP chapter in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Their outrage is understandable, but I would argue that so is our focus in the immediate aftermath of the Paris massacre. The Colorado Springs explosion reportedly did minor damage to the NAACP office and a barbershop in the building, but no one was injured or killed. The FBI is investigating.

I am writing this before we know the identities of all the victims in the Charlie Hebdo massacre. So much sad news to come. There will be official investigations, but we already know the killers’ dark hearts because of what they screamed — behind the anonymity of hoods, we should always emphasize.

We mourn our colleagues who die in war zones, but this one feels different because of where they were killed. They had simply shown up for work. If you’re a journalist, it’s too easy to imagine this happening again, to journalists somewhere else. To journalists anywhere else.

I understand that not everyone in the general public cares about the safety of journalists. I do ask that you try to understand why many people do. We are, after all, fellow humans.
Of course, we are seeing the inevitable criticism that Charlie Hebdo should have just stopped its habit of inciting. A desire to label satire as needless provocation illustrates its need. Extremists have always relied on fear to cripple their opposition.

Salman Rushdie spent years in hiding after Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa for his assassination because of his novel “The Satanic Verses.” On Wednesday, his support for the slain journalists and the magazine was unequivocal.

“I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. ‘Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.”

Mohammed Moussaoui, president of the Union of French Mosques, was also steadfast: “We condemn … this hateful, criminal act. … While the terrorists are intensifying their acts to exacerbate the confrontation inside our country, both Muslim and Christians have to intensify their actions to give more strength to this dialogue, to make a united front against extremism.”

By Wednesday afternoon, cartoonists from around the world had produced tributes to Charlie Hebdo and the journalists who were murdered.

Some news organizations blurred images of the magazine’s controversial illustrations in their coverage, but many others posted galleries of them. The entire newsroom of Agence France-Presse posed for a picture holding white-on-black signs, which read, “Je suis Charlie,” or “I am Charlie.” The hashtag “JeSuisCharlie” generated a Twitter thread as inspiring as it was informing.

On Wednesday evening, crowds gathered throughout France, including at Place de la Republique in Paris. Many raised pens in tribute to the slain cartoonists.

By the tens of thousands, they showed up, their faces visible to the world. Many of them chanted, “We are not afraid” and “We are all Charlie.”

This terrible thing happened.

Hope survived.

Award-winning columnist Connie Schultz discusses the impact

World

charlie-hebdo-attackers

French police identified Said Kouachi (left) and Cherif Kouachi, who are brothers and in their early 30s, and 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad as the suspected gunman in the attack on the newspaper Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2015 in Paris, France.

French police say they have identified the three Islamic terrorists who stormed the offices of weekly satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo Wednesday morning. Two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, named the suspects to the Associated Press as Frenchmen Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi, in their early 30s, as well as 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad, whose nationality is not yet known.

Police are now executing a raid in Northeastern France. However, while the ids and perhaps location of the gunmen are now known, common sense questions remain unanswered regarding how and why the tragic event wasn’t prevented.

Cherif Kouachi was convicted in 2008 of terrorism charges for helping funnel fighters to Iraq’s insurgency and, in accordance with France’s weak stance on radical Islam, sentenced to just 18 months in prison. Testimony from court records reveals he told officials that he was outraged over the images and treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, which the left-wing media plastered back-to-back stories of all over television at the time.

Charlie Hebdo, which had been repeatedly threatened for its caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad and other Muslim-offending cartoons, was already under additional police protection and surveillance. Unfortunately, strict gun control measures, including those that apply to the police, left the victims little recourse to protect themselves.

One of the officials also said they were linked to a Yemeni terrorist network, which backs up witness testimony from earlier Wednesday.

William Cedric Le Bechec, 33, described the scene of the carjacking on his Facebook page. He said “guys get out of a bullet-ridden car with a rocket launcher in hand, eject an old guy from his car and calmly say hi to the public, saying `you can tell the media that it’s al-Qaida in Yemen.'”

Corinne Rey, one of the newspaper’s cartoonist who said she was forced to let the gunmen in, said the men spoke fluent French and claimed to be from al-Qaida. In an interview with the newspaper l’Humanite, she said she hid under a desk during the five-minute attack.

The staff was in an editorial meeting when the three attackers sought out the paper’s editor, Stephane Charbonnier, better known by his pen name Charb. They killed him and his police bodyguard first, according to police union spokesman, Christophe Crepin.

A cartoon released in this week’s issue and entitled “Still No Attacks in France,” depicted a caricature of a jihadi fighter saying, “Just wait – we have until the end of January to present our New Year’s wishes.” Charb was the artist.

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins gave a partial breakdown of the 12 dead, including 8 journalists, a guest and two police officers. Among those killed were Bernard Maris, an economist who was a contributor to the newspaper and a regular on French radio, and cartoonists Georges Wolinski and Berbard Verlhac, better known as Tignous.

“Hey! We avenged the Prophet Muhammad! We killed Charlie Hebdo,” one of the men shouted in French, which can be heard in a video shot from a nearby building. “Allahu akbar!” — Arabic for “God is great” — could be heard clear as day amid the gunshots.

The gunmen moved with the skill and precision of highly-trained commandos, military experts told FoxNews.com. Moments after the 11:30 A.M. ET attack, the three assassins were gone. A manhunt was quickly launched and reports suggest one may be dead and another in custody, though it is unconfirmed. Nevertheless, when they are caught, there is a danger in ignoring the demeanor of the attackers.

charlie-hebdo-attacker-killing-cop

An image from video posted online shows masked gunmen just before one of them appears to shoot a Paris police officer at close range, following an attack on the office of weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo, Jan. 7, 2015, in Paris, France.

A video of the gunmen stopping their getaway car to wound, chase down and execute a police officer raising his hand in a plea for mercy shows tactics and movement that only comes with training, said retired Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, a Fox News strategic analyst.

“It was evident immediately that this was a carefully planned, sophisticated operation by well-trained, well-armed veterans of jihad,” Peters said Wednesday afternoon. “This was not a pick-up team. These butchers were methodical and efficient. They weren’t just terrorists: They were terrorist commandos.”

“There aren’t little giveaways, it’s the overall skill with which the attack was executed,” Peters said. “And they didn’t just go nuts and shoot wildly, as amateur jihadis do. They set out to kill specific people and never list focus. [They] even stayed cool during the getaway phase. These men had killed before.”

Yet, despite known ties to radical Islam and a record of terrorism convictions, somehow they managed to pull off the worst attack in France in at least a decade.

“This is the darkest day of the history of the French press,” said Christophe DeLoire of Reporters Without Borders.

 

French police say they have identified the

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