Gray Lady Speaks: The New York Times has run a front page editorial, its first since 1920, condemning the failure of American political leaders to do anything to stop the proliferation of guns and the growing phenomenon of mass murders. Coming from the Times, this is the equivalent of a scream.

The editorial says, “It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection.”

It goes on to say, “It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Second Amendment. No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.”

Homeland: Minutes before she and her husband opened fire on an office holiday party, Tashfeen Malik posted on Facebook a pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State, the FBI says. 


“As of today, based on the information and facts as we know them,” the agency is investigating the attack “as an act of terrorism,” David Bowdich of the FBI’s Los Angeles office said at a news conference. “There’s a number of pieces of evidence which has essentially pushed us off the cliff to say we are considering this an act of terrorism,” he said.

So far there’s no indication that Malik and her husband Syed Farook were part of a terrorist cell, but in Washington, FBI director James Comey said, “The investigation so far has developed indications of radicalization by the killers and of potential inspiration by foreign terrorist organizations.”

News Gaggle: Dozens of reporters covering the San Bernardino massacre were allowed into the suspects’ apartment yesterday and managed to make a spectacle of themselves as well as the personal effects of the two dead assailants. CNN and MSNBC reported live from the apartment while other journalists rifled through photographs and other possessions. Reporters show a drivers license and a social security card on live television.

CNN and MSNBC both said they had been allowed into the home by the landlord, which doesn’t explain the questionable taste and journalistic ethics of what they did once they were inside.

Econ 101: The economy added a reassuring 211,000 jobs last month, all but guaranteeing the Fed will raise interest rates. Low interest rates are designed to stimulate the economy, but now at near zero, the Fed has nowhere to go next time the economy sours. So they have to inch up the rates.

Where is this going? We turned to the Report’s chief economist, Mark Nussbaum, who gave us an explanation too long to publish, and the following summary nugget: “Janet Yellen says she wants to ‘normalize rates.’ But normal would suggest 3%, which is just not going to happen any time soon. So my guess is that her near term target is 1%. Timing is three moves of 0.25% each.” Done by next fall, Nussbaum says.

From the Smoke Filled Room: Democratic and Republican negotiators in Washington are close to a deal that would cut taxes by $700 billion over the next ten years. It’s a compromise between Republican demands for business breaks and Democratic mandates to ease up on the middle class.

Both sides appear to have given up on trying to make the changes “revenue neutral,” meaning that the cuts will not add to the federal deficit. They will.

Treasure Hunt: Columbian President Juan Manuel Santos has announced gleefully that the wreck of the San Jose galleon, a gold ship sunk by the British 300 years ago, has been found off the coast of Cartagena. Carrying somewhere between $4 billion and $7 billion worth of gold in current value, the ship is one of the richest wrecks of all time.

But where there’s money, there’s litigation. The Columbian government is in a dispute with an American salvage company over who owns the gold.

Say it Ain’t So: The Miami Marlins have hired baseball’s all time leading home run hitter Barry “The Juicer” Bonds to be their batting coach. “Here … take this pill then hold the bat like me.”

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