Homeland Security Chief Says He's Clueless Why Garland, Texas Shooters Wanted to Kill Cartoonists

Garland Texas gunmen were trying to enforce Sharia Law, an element of Islam. But the Secretary of Homeland Security is not sure what their motive was? Ahem! Hello! Anybody home?

[From article]
One suspect, identified as Elton Simpson by a federal law enforcement source, linked himself to ISIS in a tweet posted just before the attack.
He also was no stranger to federal investigators. In 2011, he was convicted of making a false statement involving international and domestic terrorism.
The other suspect, identified as Nadir Soofi by two federal law enforcement officials, was Simpson's roommate in a Phoenix apartment.
He wasn't well-known to federal law enforcement and was not on the FBI's radar, one of the officials said. Investigators were combing through evidence retrieved from the shooters' Arizona home to help piece together a timeline of how their plot came together, the official said.
[. . .]
Authorities are still trying to determine the suspects' motives, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson said Monday.
[Huh?]
[. . .]
After the shooting, an ISIS propagandist that Simpson had earlier asked his readers to follow tweeted, "Allahu Akbar!!!! 2 of our brothers just opened fire" at the Texas event.
"If there is no check on the freedom of your speech, then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our actions," tweeted the propagandist, who was identified by two American groups that monitor jihadi websites as Junaid Hussain, a British ISIS fighter in Syria who goes by the name Abu Hussein al Britani.
In 2011, Simpson was sentenced to three years of probation after his conviction on the terror-related charge, court records show. Prosecutors said he told FBI agents that he had not discussed traveling to Somalia to engage in "violent jihad" when, in fact, he had, according to an indictment reviewed by CNN.
[. . .]
"The Islamic jihadis are determined to suppress our freedom of speech violently." Pamela Geller, president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, told CNN. "They struck in Paris and Copenhagen recently, and now in Texas."
Responding Monday to criticisms of her group as anti-Islamic, she said, "There is a problem in Islam, as illustrated last night, and anyone that addresses it gets attacked in this same way."
[. . .]
Simpson was a regular worshiper at the mosque until around 2010 or 2011, about the time the FBI arrested him on the false statement charges.
During that time, he offered no signal that he held radical views, Shami said.
"He was a gentle person," Shami said of Simpson. "He always had a good attitude, a good demeanor."
Soofi came to the mosque less frequently, Shami said. He owned a local pizza shop and would show up at the mosque with his young son.
"They didn't show any signs of radicalization or any signs of even thinking about those things in that manner. So when that happens it just shocks you," Shami said. "How good did you know these people, that's the question that people ask themselves."
In the 1990s, Soofi spent a few years in Islamabad, Pakistan, where he lived with his father and stepmother and attended a prestigious private school, a source with knowledge of the family said.
[. . .]
"The day we give away humor and freedom of speech is the day that we cease to exist as a free and independent people," he told the attendees at the Garland event Sunday night.
[. . .]
"The freedom of speech is under violent assault here in our nation," she said. "The question now before us: Will we stand and defend it or bow to violence, thuggery and savagery?"

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/04/us/garland-mohammed-drawing-contest-shooting/index.html

Garland, Texas, shooting suspect linked himself to ISIS in tweets
By Catherine Shoichet and Michael Pearson

CNN
Updated 10:55 PM ET, Mon May 4, 2015

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http://heavy.com/news/2015/05/elton-simpson-garland-texas-muhammad-cartoon-shooter-gunman-name-phoenix-arizona-terrorist-twitter-tweets-photos-fbi-dead-death-video-atawaakul/

Elton Simpson: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know
Published 8:17 am EDT, May 4, 2015 Updated 6:50 pm EDT, May 4, 2015 

 By Tom Cleary

Winning Cartoon of Contest in Garland, Texas Where Muslim Terrorists Were Killed

Winning Cartoon

[From article]
As authorities continue to investigate an attempted attack on a contest to draw the Prophet Muhammad in Texas on Sunday, the winner of the event has retreated into hiding, saying he faces persistent death threats.
Bosch Fawstin netted $12,500 for winning the contest’s grand prize as well as the “People’s Choice Award” for his drawing depicting Muhammad wielding a sword and saying, “you can’t draw me!”
In an interview on Tuesday, the cartoonist was vague about his whereabouts, saying only that he lives somewhere in the U.S.
“I don’t want to say where,” Mr. Fawstin said, also declining to say his age. “There are Muslims out there who want to kill me.”
Mr. Fawstin said he was raised by Albanian Muslim parents in the Bronx but eventually renounced his faith. He said the 9/11 terrorist attacks motivated him to use his art to denounce Islamic extremism.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/muhammad-cartoon-contest-winner-retreats-into-hiding-1430852911

Muhammad Cartoon Contest Winner Retreats Into Hiding
Man says he faces death threats after winning grand prize for drawing of prophet
By NATHAN KOPPEL

May 5, 2015 3:08 p.m. ET


Winning Cartoonist
Bosch Fawstin

Making The Easy Difficult, Rube Goldberg's Law

Rube Goldberg

[From article]
“The Inventions of Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts” first appeared in the January 26, 1929, issue of Collier’s. “In my cartoons,” Rube noted, “Professor Butts invented elaborate machines to accomplish such Herculean tasks as shining shoes, opening screen doors, keeping moths out of clothes closets, retrieving soap in the bathtub and other innocuous problems. Only, instead of using the scientific elements of the laboratory, I added acrobatic monkeys, dancing mice, chattering false teeth, electric eels, whirling dervishes and other incongruous elements.”
[. . .]
These oblong-shaped satires took on a life of their own. Dr. Seuss acknowledged his colleague’s influence in a cartoon signed “Rube Goldbrick.” In the early 1930s, “Rube Goldberg” entered the Merriam-Webster dictionary as an adjective defined as “accomplishing something simple through complicated means.” Engineering majors in colleges across the country began to sketch their own “Rube Goldberg” inventions.
[. . .]



a 1970 retrospective of Goldbergiana at the Smithsonian Institution. The exhibit, titled Do It the Hard Way, featured drawings, sculpture, writings, and memorabilia, as well as a documentary film about a career that spanned the century.
[. . .]
The New York Timeseditorialized that Goldberg’s “message is a lasting one: Beware of the all-knowing computers, supersonic gadgets and the rest of the hardware. Beware, too, of the proponents who aim to dominate the human element in life.” The Chicago Sun-Times stated that Goldberg’s “fantastically complicated devices to achieve ludicrously simple ends are today more profound commentaries on our times than they were when his mischievous mind first conceived them several generations ago.” Other papers joined the chorus, and then the cartoonists had their say. Karl Hubenthal was typical. In the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, he pictured Goldberg at heaven’s gate. Saint Peter operates it by means of a contraption involving a rabbit, a pistol, a sailboat, a candle, a boiling kettle, a spool, and a length of string.
[. . .]



Theta Tau, the oldest and largest professional engineering fraternity in the U.S., initiated the annual Rube Goldberg Machine Contest in 1989. According to the rules, said machine must be constructed of real materials and use at least 20 steps to accomplish its task within two minutes. Past winners include Screw a Light Bulb into a Socket; Toast a Slice of Bread; and Select, Mark, and Cast an Election Ballot. In 1995, the U.S. Postal Service issued a 32-cent stamp, “Rube Goldberg’s Inventions,” featuring the Automatic Napkin Machine, first drawn in 1931.

http://www.city-journal.org/2015/25_1_urb-rube-goldberg.html

STEFAN KANFER
The Alphabet of Satire
Rube Goldberg was a laugh machine for seven decades.
Winter 2015

Tribute To Victims Of Paris Cartoonist Bombing Closed For Third Time Due to Muslim Terror Threats

[From article]
The Finnish Comics Society is having a hard time finding a venue for its exhibition honouring the cartoonists killed in the Charlie Hebdo terror attack in Paris, reports the daily Helsingin Sanomat.
The show entitled "I am Charlie", was on Monday closed for a third time amid security concerns. The display had only been open for about 15 minutes at Library 10 in the Helsinki’s main post office building.
Originally the exhibition had been on display at another library in the Arabianranta neighbourhood, but was moved last week to the Rosebud bookshop in the city centre.
In all three cases, the building owners had asked to have the show closed because of safety worries – particularly following last week’s attacks in Copenhagen.

http://yle.fi/uutiset/i_am_charlie_exhibit_forced_to_close_in_helsinki/7826592

24.2.2015 16:14 | updated 24.2.2015 16:22
'I am Charlie' exhibit forced to close in Helsinki
The exhibit includes work by 10 leading Finnish cartoonists, paying tribute to their colleagues killed in the French terror attack.

Muslim Terrorist Brothers Yelling Allahu Akbar Shoot Dead 10 Journalists, Two Policemen, In Paris, France

Gunned down in cold blood: Horrific footage shows the injured police officer slumped on the pavement as two of the gunmen approach. In a desperate plea for his life, the officer slowly raises his hand towards one of the attackers, who callously shoots him at point-blank range.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2900259/Gunmen-kill-11-Charlie-Hebdo-attack.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

Anti-terror police raid building in hunt for three suspects, including two brothers 'trained in Yemen as assassins', over Paris magazine massacre that left 12 dead
One suspect killed and two others in custody, US counter-terrorism officials claim, but this has not been confirmed
Masked gunmen storm Paris headquarters with AK-47s shouting 'Allahu akbar!' and 'the Prophet has been avenged'
Stalked building asking for people's names before killing the editor, three cartoonists and the deputy chief editor
Editor Stephane Charbonnier had famously shrugged off threats, saying: 'I'd rather die standing than live kneeling'
Horrific footage shows a police officer begging for his life before being shot in the head at point-blank range
Cartoonist Corrine Rey told how she cowered with her young daughter as she watched two colleagues gunned down
Killers fled in stolen car across eastern Paris after a 'mass shoot-out' with police officers and remain on the loose
Militants believed to be from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula which was behind plane bomb plots in US and UK
Three suspects said to be all French citizens - a homeless teenage man aged 18, and two brothers aged 32 and 34
Newspaper had earlier posted a picture of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on its Twitter account
Publication's offices were firebombed in 2011 for publishing satirical cartoon of Prophet Mohammed
White House had previously criticised Charlie Hebdo in 2012 for publishing its religiously sensitive cartoons
By Mark Duell and Simon Tomlinson and Peter Allen and Jay Akbar and Chris Pleasance for MailOnline
Published: 06:16 EST, 7 January 2015 | Updated: 20:28 EST, 7 January 2015

Syrian Government Thugs Attack Political Cartoonist

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9PBDEM80&show_article=1

Syrian gunmen break artist's hands as 'warning'
Aug 25 07:14 PM US/Eastern
By ZEINA KARAM
Associated Press
Breitbart.com