KUSHNER IS NOW BEING TARGETED & PUNISHED BY DEMOCRATS.
Sources: BBC News, The Hill, Forbes, YouTube
**** Assange: 'Kushner correct to create channels with everyone'
WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange on Sunday said he thinks President Trump's adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner was "correct" if he attempted to set up backchannel communication with Russian leadership.
"Kushner correct to create channels with everyone," Assange tweeted Sunday, following reports that Kushner sought to set up a line of communication between the Trump transition team and Moscow.
"CIA has no authority over leadership and is financially motivated to increase conflict."
Washington Post reported last week that Kushner in December sought to establish a backchannel line of communication between the Trump transition team and Moscow.
The move came during a meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
The FBI is looking at meetings that Kushner fielded with Kislyak and Russian banking executive Sergey Gorkov in December as part of the law enforcement investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow.
PRES TRUMP'S FIRST JOINT CONGRESSIONAL ADDRESS MET WITH LOUD APPROVAL:
DEMOCRATS RESPOND WITH BITTER DIATRIBES & MOCKERY.
****** HIGHLIGHTS OF TRUMP'S SPEECH WERE:
REBUILDING US MILITARY
REBUILDING THE AMERICAN DREAM
FAKE NEWS & MEDIA PROPAGANDA
TRUE UNITY
ANTI-SEMITISM
DEFEATING ISIL
CIVIL RIGHTS & SCHOOL CHOICE
REPLACING OBAMACARE WITH REAL HEALTHCARE
PAID FAMILY LEAVE & AFFORDABLE CHILDCARE
BUILDING THE GREAT WALL TO SECURE OUR BORDERS
Sources: ABC News, Fox News, Washington Post, YouTube
~ President Trump Addresses The Joint Congress
President Donald Trump delivered his first address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, addressing a host of familiar themes from his campaign and calling for unity to address a litany of issues that he says are plaguing the country.
Trump's call for an end to the "pure unadulterated division" and "trivial fights" comes in the wake of a bruising campaign and a tumultuous start to his presidency, squaring off against critics as well as waging a pitched battle against the media. The speech also comes amid a flurry of questions about alleged contacts between Trump associates and suspected Russian officials, which the president has derided as "fake news."
The time for small thinking is over," Trump said. "The time for trivial fights is behind us. We just need the courage to share the dreams that fill our hearts. The bravery to express the hopes that stir our souls. And the confidence to turn those hopes and those dreams into action."
Trump began the address by condemning the recent threats against Jewish centers and a suspected hate crime in Kansas. The president had drawn fire for not immediately addressing the Jewish Community Center incidents and not making public comments about the fatal Kansas shooting until tonight's speech.
"Recent threats targeting Jewish community centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries as well as last week's shooting in Kansas City remind us that while we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all of its very ugly forms," Trump said.
One of the most emotional moments -- and possibly the longest standing ovation of the speech -- came when Trump praised Carryn Owens, the widow of Senior Chief William "Ryan" Owens who died in a raid in Yemen. The moment has been a political hot point since Owens' father Bill Owens and Sen. John McCain criticized the president's choice to execute the mission. but Trump used the speech to call it "a highly successful raid."
During the speech, Trump revisited what he called the movement that propelled him into the White House.
"In 2016, the earth shifted beneath our feet," he said. "The rebellion started as a quiet protest, spoken by families of all colors and creeds -– families who just wanted a fair shot for their children, and a fair hearing for their concerns. But then the quiet voices became a loud chorus -- as thousands of citizens now spoke out together, from cities small and large, all across our country."
"Above all else, we will keep our promises to the American people," Trump said.
Trump ran through a series of his biggest campaign promises during much of the speech, giving updates on what he and his team plan to do about them. He talked about how "we will soon begin the construction of a great, great wall along our southern border," and later talked about plans for "a new program of national rebuilding."
His call for Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare was met with one of the loudest responses, with Republicans standing while some Democrats were seen giving a thumbs down.
He made a push for unity later in the speech, saying that "everything that is broken in our country can be fixed."
"Every problem can be solved. And every hurting family can find healing, and hope. Our citizens deserve this, and so much more – so why not join forces and finally get the job done? And get it done right. On this and so many other things, Democrats and Republicans should get together and unite for the good of our country, and for the good of the American people," he said.
Trump touched on paid family leave, the need to make childcare more affordable, an effort to promote clean air and water -- all issues that his daughter Ivanka has reportedly championed -- as areas where Republicans and Democrats could work together, along with rebuilding the military and the country's infrastructure.
He went on to call education "the civil rights issue of our time" before asking Congress to fund an education bill that allows children school choice.
"Our children will grow up in a nation of miracles. But to achieve this future, we must enrich the mind – and the souls – of every American child," he said.
While Trump did talk about his administration's plans to build a "great, great" wall, a regular theme of his campaign, he did not talk about who would pay for it; he said regularly during the campaign that Mexico would pay for the wall and he has since wavered about when and by whom those payments would be made.
First Lady Melania Trump attended the speech along with hand-picked guests, including Maureen Scalia, the widow of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Trump's eldest daughter, Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner, who is a senior advisor to the president, were also seated in the first lady's box.
A group of female House Democrats all chose to wear white in an act of support for women's rights. Their sartorial choice was particularly noticeable because they all sat together in the chamber.
On Monday, Trump's team sent out an email to supporters asking for their "input on the direction of our country" before what they called his State of the Union address.
The email called the speech "his biggest speech to date."
PEWDIEPIE FIRED BY YOUTUBE & DISNEY FOR DEFAMING JEWS & BLASPHEMING JESUS:
OTHER YOUTUBERS CENSORED FOR BULLYING.
Sources: TIME, What's Trending, YouTube
****** The Richest YouTube Star of All Time Just Got Fired by Disney
PewDiePie could lose millions of dollars.
If you play video games, or are under the age of 20, you’ve likely heard of PewDiePie. He’s the irreverent YouTube vlogger (or video blogger) who reviews products from Nintendo, Sony-Playstation and the like, while also poking fun at Internet culture.
He also happens to be the richest YouTube star of all time:
Forbes says he made approximately $15 million last year, more than anyone else doing similar work.
In total, his videos have been viewed 14.7 billion times, more than any other individual on YouTube.
And with 53 million subscribers, he has nearly double as many subscriptions as the video streaming service’s next top star.
But this week, the reputation of PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg, suffered a major blow:
Disney, the company that owns the studio that helps promote Kjellberg’s videos, severed its ties with him after the Wall Street Journal reported that Kjellberg has posted nine videos since August that include offensive material.
In some of the videos, he paid two shirtless Indian men to make a video holding up a sign that said “Death to All Jews.” In another, he showed a man dressed as Jesus Christ saying, “Hitler did absolutely nothing wrong.”
which is owned by Google, followed suit, announcing it would pull Kjellberg’s channel from its premium advertising program and cancel the second season of his reality show, Variety reported.
Kjellberg responded to the initial Wall Street Journalreport in a Tumblr post, saying he was “trying to show how crazy the modern world is, specifically some of the services available online.
“I understand that these jokes were ultimately offensive,” he added. “As laughable as it is to believe that I might actually endorse these people, to anyone unsure on my standpoint regarding hate-based groups: No, I don’t support these people in any way.”
While it is too early to say what the lasting impact of his getting dropped will be, NeoReach, a social media data company, told MONEY that losing the YouTube agreement could end up costing Kjellberg millions of dollars.
Fox Sports cut ties with Tampa Bay Rays and Orlando Magic sideline reporter Emily Austen after she made "insensitive comments" on a Facebook live stream with Barstool Sports, per Tom Jones of the Tampa Bay Times.
Austen called Cleveland Cavaliers forward Kevin Love "a little bitch" several times, noted she "didn't even know Mexicans were that smart" and said the "Chinese guy is always the smartest guy in math class."
The video is no longer on Barstool's site, but Kevin Draper of Deadspin found the entire clip (warning: NSFW language).
Toward the end of the session, Barstool'sDan Katz told Austen, "We might have to hire you because you're going to get fired."
Here's Fox's statement (via Jones):
We were made aware that Emily Austen appeared in a social media video unaffiliated with FOX Sports in which she made insensitive and derogatory comments. She was not speaking on behalf of FOX Sports, nor do we condone any of the statements she made in the video. Emily has been advised that her comments were unacceptable, and she is not scheduled to appear on any upcoming FOX Sports Florida or FOX Sports Sun broadcasts.
I HOPE HIS COLOR & RACE DOESN'T MATTER TO YOU EITHER.
Merry Christmas Everyone!
"For unto us a Child is Born, unto us a Son is given." Isaiah 9:6
On today December 25th we celebrate the Birth of JESUS CHRIST.
Even though JESUS was actually born in the month of SEPTEMBER, due to the Judeo-Christian calendar we celebrate his Birthday on December 25.
We all know JESUS was a real Human Being, born in the Middle East to JEWISH parents.
As a curious Christian, I used to be caught up in Foolish arguments about JESUS' race, his Skin color, Eye color and Hair texture.
But no more!
I no longer care what Color JESUS was because such arguments keep Human Beings divided and at odds about Race Relations.
I now only care about the Truth of JESUS' Birth, his Ministry on Earth, his Crucifixion, his Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven where he now sits beside his Heavenly Father GOD Almighty.
In trying to police his depiction, Megyn Kelly is wrong on both the facts and the essential universality of the Christian message.
Fox News television host Megyn Kelly told viewers on her December 11 broadcast that Jesus and Santa are both white men.
"Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn't mean it has to change," Kelly said. "Jesus was a white man, too. It's like we have, he's a historical figure that's a verifiable fact, as is Santa, I just want kids to know that. How do you revise it in the middle of the legacy in the story and change Santa from white to black?"
Setting aside the ridiculousness of creating rigidly racial depictions of a fictitious character that does not actually exist—sorry, kids—like Santa, Kelly has made a more serious error about Jesus.
The scholarly consensus is actually that Jesus was, like most first-century Jews, probably a dark-skinned man. If he were taking the red-eye flight from San Francisco to New York today, Jesus might be profiled for additional security screening by TSA.
The myth of a white Jesus is one with deep roots throughout Christian history. As early as the Middle Ages and particularly during the Renaissance, popular Western artists depicted Jesus as a white man, often with blue eyes and blondish hair.
Perhaps fueled by some Biblical verses correlating lightness with purity and righteousness and darkness with sin and evil, these images sought to craft a sterile Son of God.
The only problem was that the representations were historically inaccurate.
Modern Western Christians have carried these images over into their own depictions of Jesus. Pick up a one of those bright blue “Bible Story” books in a Sunday School classroom and you’ll find white Jesus waiting for you, rosy cheeks and all. Or you could survey the light-skinned Jesus in any number of modern TV or film portrayals, including History Channel’s hit series The Bible.
Interestingly, the Bible is far less descriptive on the matter of Jesus’ skin color than we are. Christian scriptures say very little about Jesus’ physical appearance. They do not comment on his nose, eye color, skin pigmentation, or hair.
The glaring exception is Isaiah 53:2, which prophesies that the messiah won’t be much to look at, another fact that places the Bible at odds with the “well-groomed surfer-dude Jesus” who's often put forth.
If the Bible is silent on the matter of Jesus’ skin color, does it really matter that Megyn Kelly says Jesus is white?
Yes, actually.
As some historians and theologians have posited, the silence of the Scriptures on the issue of Jesus’ skin color is critical to Christianity’s broad appeal with people of various ethnicities. In a world where race often divides communities and even churches, the Biblical depictions of God’s son positions him as one who can bridge those divides.
For this reason, one American Presbyterian minister in the 1880s warned his flock not to trust popular images of Christ:
If He were particularised and localised—if, for example, He were made a man with a pale face—then the man of the ebony face would feel that there was a greater distance between Christ and him than between Christ and his white brother.’ Instead, because the Bible refused to describe Jesus in terms of racial features, his gospel could appeal to all.
Only in this way could the Church be a place where the ‘Caucasian and Mongolian and African sit together at the Lord’s table, and we all think alike of Jesus, and we all feel that He is alike our brother’.
In Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Advice for Living” column for Ebony in 1957, the civil-rights leader was asked, “Why did God make Jesus white, when the majority of peoples in the world are non-white?” King replied, “The color of Jesus’ skin is of little or no consequence” because what made Jesus exceptional “His willingness to surrender His will to God’s will.”
His point, as historian Edward Blum has noted, is that Jesus transcends race.
Those warnings hold just as true for believers today. Within the church, eschewing a Jesus who looks more like a Scandinavian supermodel than the sinless Son of God in the scriptures is critical to maintaining a faith in which all can give praise to one who became like them in an effort to save them from sins like racism and prejudice.
It's important for Christians who want to expand the church, too, in allowing the creation of communities that are able to worship a Jesus who builds bridges rather than barriers.
And it is essential to enabling those who bear the name of Christ to look forward to that day when, according to the book of Revelation, those “from every nation, tribe, people, and language” can worship God together.
Until that day arrives, though, can someone please tell Megyn Kelly that Jesus is not white?
ISRAELI PM Benjamin Netanyahu was Wrong to accept U.S. House Speaker Johh Boehner's recent Political invite to address Congress regarding imposing more Sanctions on IRAN.
GOP leaders would Never have done this Politically Spiteful thing to ROMNEY or BUSH or MCCAIN if they were in the White House.
I too Support ISRAEL but Netanyahu was Wrong!
Just think of the Media Optics if Pres OBAMA were to address ISRAELI leaders without Netanyahu's Blessing?
So does Pres OBAMA hate JEWS?
No of course Not!
But Pres OBAMA already has an Active NUKE Deal with IRAN in place.
What does PM Netanyahu hope to accomplish by addressing Congress next Month?
Does Benjamin Netanyahu want Pres OBAMA to Breach this Active NUKE Deal with IRAN for the sake of Politics?
(2016 U.S. Presidential Election)
By the way.........
What about Professional Courtesy for LEADERSHIP and RESPECT for a sitting Elected U.S. President?
Israeli officials are considering amending the format of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned address to the U.S. Congress next month to try to calm some of the partisan furore the Iran-focused speech has provoked.
Netanyahu is due to address a joint session of Congress about Iran's nuclear programme on March 3, just two weeks before Israeli elections, following an invitation from John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the house.
Boehner's invitation has caused consternation in both Israel and the United States, largely because it is seen as Netanyahu, a hawk on Iran, working with the Republicans to thumb their noses at President Barack Obama's policy on Iran.
It is also seen as putting Netanyahu's political links to the Republicans ahead of Israel's nation-to-nation ties with the United States, its strongest and most important ally, while serving as a pre-election campaign booster.
As a result, Israeli officials are considering whether Netanyahu should speak to a closed-door session of Congress, rather than in a prime-time TV address, so as to drain some of the intensity from the event, a source said.
Another option is for the prime minister to make his speech at the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington the same week, rather than in Congress.
"The issue has been under discussion for a week," said a source close to the prime minister's office. "(Netanyahu) is discussing it with Likud people. Some say he should give up on the speech, others that he should go through with it."
But Netanyahu told voters from the Russian speaking community on Monday evening that he was determined to discuss Israel's objections in Washington to an emerging deal with Iran but he did not say if that meant a public speech in Congress.
"I am ... determined to go to Washington to present Israel's position to the members of Congress and the American people," Netanyahu said, repeating that nuclear weapons in Iran's hands would constitute an existential threat to Israel.
An opinion poll by Israel's Army Radio on Monday said 47 percent of people think Netanyahu should cancel the address, while 34 percent say he should go ahead with it.
Since the issue arose, there are signs it is having an impact on his poll ratings ahead of the March 17 election.
Obama said his decision not to meet with Netanyahu followed basic protocol of not meeting with world leaders before an election.
"Some of this just has to do with how we do business, and I think it's important for us to maintain these protocols because the U.S.-Israeli relationship is not about a particular party," Obama said at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Washington.
A poll by the Times of Israel on Monday said Netanyahu's Likud would win 23 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, four fewer than the centre-left opposition. Earlier polls showed Likud and the opposition alliance neck-and-neck on 24 seats.
Speaking on radio last week, Israel's deputy foreign minister suggested Netanyahu had been "misled" about the speech, believing it to be bipartisan when the Democrats were not entirely on board.
While that may have created some room for Netanyahu to get out of it if the pressure at home and from Washington becomes too great, it may be too late.
If he withdraws now it may make him look weak with core voters.
Furthermore, he needs an opportunity to play up his tough-on-Iran credentials before election, with national security an overriding issue for voters.
Sources: BBC; Reuters; USA Today; Charlottesville Police Dept; Youtube
Mohammed Merah, a 23-year-old former garage mechanic who claimed responsibility for the brutal slayings of four men and three children, was shot dead on Thursday when security forces stormed the apartment where he had barricaded himself for more than 30 hours.
The death of Mr. Merah brought a violent end to a series of events that transfixed France, but also left unsettling questions about potential lapses by intelligence services, and the lives they may have cost.
The authorities said they had hoped to take Mr. Merah alive, seeking information about homegrown terrorists and his shadowy path to Islamic radicalism. While the difficulty in preventing attacks by such “lone wolf” killers is widely acknowledged, Mr. Merah, who had traveled to both Pakistan and Afghanistan, was in fact well known to the French police and intelligence services.
Mr. Molins and other officials seemed at pains to explain why Mr. Merah had failed to attract the attention of investigators earlier, especially before he killed his final four victims, including three children, at a Jewish school on Monday.
“He’s not an individual who went to Afghanistan and Pakistan by taking the usual paths, which are obtained by certain facilitators and monitored by specialized services,” Mr. Molins said. “He figured it out all on his own.”
Yet, Mr. Molins said on Wednesday that Mr. Merah was arrested some years ago in Afghanistan by the Afghan police and turned over to the American military, which transferred him to the French authorities. He had also been on the United States government’s no-fly list for “some time,” an American law enforcement official said on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be identified discussing national security matters. It is not clear whether the United States authorities shared that information with their French counterparts.
Asked why Mr. Merah had not been under closer scrutiny in France, Mr. Molins said that “thousands” of French people travel to Afghanistan and Pakistan, explaining that France does not have the resources to monitor all of them.
Several terrorism experts disagreed, saying that Mr. Merah appeared to have been overlooked or underestimated, and adding that only about 15 to 30 men with a similar profile travel from France to the region each year.
“We’re not good enough at detecting them,” said Laurent Montet, a director and instructor at the Institute of High Studies in Criminology.
Mr. Molins also acknowledged that Mr. Merah was known to have “jihadist sympathies,” and had been questioned by intelligence services as recently as November, after returning from two months in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The officials apparently accepted his explanation that he had been there as a tourist.
Mr. Merah procured a prodigious stock of firearms and ammunition — including several automatic weapons, which are rare in France — activity that is most likely to have involved contact with criminal groups and ought to have drawn the attention of French intelligence, said Mr. Montet, the criminologist.
There were also suggestions that more effective data analysis might have led the police to Mr. Merah in time to prevent his last murders. He was identified as a suspect only Monday afternoon, after the final four killings, according to Mr. Molins. Yet investigators had been in possession of the evidence that led them to him — an Internet trail that connected him to the first killing — since Saturday.
French law is highly protective of personal privacy, Mr. Bauer noted, and French intelligence services are restricted in their ability to mine databases for potential threats, and take a more qualitative approach.
Mr. Merah killed with shocking coldness, witnesses said, shooting each of his seven victims with a round to the head at point-blank range and filming his exploits, Mr. Molins said. According to the prosecutor, in the first recording Mr. Merah can be heard telling his victim, a soldier, “You kill my brothers; I’m killing you.”
In a video from the second shooting, which left two paratroopers dead and one critically wounded, Mr. Merah departs from the scene on a powerful motor scooter shouting, “God is great!”
More than 300 rounds reportedly were discharged in the firefight. One officer was slightly wounded, and two others were in shock.
Over the course of the siege, which began in the predawn darkness, Mr. Merah made a series of disclosures, officials said, claiming the seven killings and saying he had planned at least three more. The killings, he said, were meant to avenge the suffering of Palestinian children and to protest French intervention abroad as well as the banning of the full Islamic veil in France.
While he had earlier indicated that he hoped to live, just before 11 p.m. on Wednesday, Mr. Merah told the police he did not fear death. “I will go to paradise,” he said, according to Mr. Molins. At that point, he ceased communicating with negotiators. The raid began just under 12 hours later.
The authorities found ammunition of various calibers in the apartment, along with materials for gasoline bombs and several empty bullet clips. At his death, he wore a bullet-proof vest, a black djellaba, or traditional robe, and jeans, Mr. Molins said.
Investigators will now seek to determine if Mr. Merah indeed acted alone, as he insisted. Mr. Merah’s brother Abdelkader, 29, whom the authorities have described as a known Islamist radical with connections to jihadi networks, remains in police custody, along with his mother and a friend. Explosives were found in a car belonging to Abdelkader.
Earlier in the investigation, the authorities suspected both Merah brothers of potential involvement.
On Tuesday, the two were identified as primary suspects in the case, Mr. Molins said.
Plans were made late that night to arrest them, along with their mother. Even then, however, investigators had been unable to determine which of the two brothers was the man they were seeking.
It was not until Mr.Merah opened fired on the police agents sent to capture him that he became the prime suspect.
Mohammed Merah, a 23-year-old man described by French authorities as a self-styled al Qaeda jihadist, has been named as the chief suspect in a series of shootings that have left seven people dead.
As a standoff with security forces in Toulouse continued Wednesday, a picture emerged of a man who was already known to the police and had apparently sought out Islamist jihadists in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"He claims to be a jihadist and says he belongs to al Qaeda," Interior Minister Claude Gueant told reporters in Toulouse. "He wanted to avenge the Palestinian children and take revenge on the French army because of its foreign interventions."
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said the suspect told the officers surrounding his apartment that he had acted alone -- and that he had intended to carry out more attacks on police and a soldier Wednesday.
His only regret was that he was not able to kill more people, the prosecutor said.
But, Molins added, Merah indicated he was not on a suicide mission. He "does not have the soul of someone who would commit suicide, does not have the soul of a martyr. He would prefer to kill and to live," the prosecutor said.
A French national of Algerian origin, Merah had been under surveillance by French intelligence for a couple of years, having "already committed certain infractions, some with violence," Gueant told CNN affiliate BFM-TV.
Merah has spent considerable time in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the minister added.
Lawyer Christian Etelin, who represented Merah in connection with previous minor offenses, said his client went to Afghanistan two years ago.
He had become suddenly radicalized, Etelin told CNN affiliate BFM-TV, and wanted to become more involved politically.
Etelin last saw Merah, whom he described as having a "complex" personality, on February 24, when he appeared in court accused of driving without a license and causing an accident with injuries.
Merah was sentenced to a month in prison and was to appear before the judge again in early April to determine where he would serve that sentence, the attorney said.
But a series of clues, some relating to a scooter used in the attacks, instead led investigators to the apartment in Toulouse where he holed up under siege for hours, Molins said.
The shootings have revealed a ruthless and determined killer.
All seven victims were shot in the head, most at point-blank range, and authorities said they were carefully targeted because of their religious and ethnic backgrounds.
The gunman's first victims were three soldiers of North African origin who had recently returned from Afghanistan, who were shot dead in two separate incidents.
Days later, the killer struck again, killing a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school Monday.
Merah claims to want to bring France "to its knees," Molins said.
He told police he had trained with al Qaeda in Pakistan's Waziristan region, bordering Afghanistan, Molins said.
He was sent back to France after being picked up at a traffic stop by Afghan police who reported his presence to international forces, the prosecutor said.
Although his neighbors describe him as being a quiet man, at home Merah had watched violent jihadist videos online, including footage of decapitations, Molins said.
He was sentenced 15 times by a Toulouse juvenile court when he was a minor, the prosecutor added.
The French defense ministry said Merah had twice tried to join the country's armed forces. The first time, in the northern city of Lille, he was turned down because of his prior convictions.
The second time, in July 2010, he attempted to sign up for the Foreign Legion in Toulouse but left during the first round of testing, the ministry said.
As the net closed on the suspect early Wednesday, two police officers were wounded as shots were fired from the apartment where he is holed up.
Gueant said authorities found weapons in the suspect's car, which was parked near the building.
Police tracked Merah down via his brother's computer IP address, which was apparently used to respond to an advertisement posted by the first victim, Gueant said.
His brother Abdelkader Merah has been detained, and police are questioning other family members, including his mother, Zoulika Aziri, Molins said.
She lives in the Toulouse suburb of Mirail, BFM-TV reported.
Merah's activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan led to him being placed under surveillance by France's domestic intelligence agency, the Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence, for suspected involvement as a radical Salafist, Gueant said.
But little is known about what might have triggered a radicalization.
He was born in Toulouse in October 1988, according to Elisabeth Allanic, magistrate at the prosecutor's office in Paris, and at one time he worked in a garage in a Toulouse suburb.
Lawyer Etelin told BFM-TV he had represented Merah since 2004 or 2005, when his client was a minor, mostly over accusations of theft.
He said Merah had been "polite and courteous" and had shown no signs then of a tendency toward radicalization.
That might have changed after his trips to Pakistan and Afghanistan, but Etelin said he didn't notice a big difference.
"I never discussed his political ideas with him. I knew he was politically active but he never spoke to me about this. He didn't want to talk about this," Etelin said.
"He was very discreet on this. But I never had the impression that he was an individual radically different from the one I knew in the beginning. I always knew him as being someone very flexible in his behavior, courteous, polite, soft and certainly not rigid to the point of being led by a certain fanaticism."
Etelin has mainly been in contact with Merah's older sister, who, along with their mother, he recounted, was "exasperated" with Merah's minor crimes and said "it was not possible to see him being serious."
Merah grew up in a northern suburb of Toulouse called Les Izards, which Etelin described as an area with some drug-related activity.
Merah was never mixed up in drug-related incidents but rather with robbery, he said. Etelin has not spoken to Merah since he was named as the suspect in the killings in Toulouse and Montauban but fears the siege of his apartment will end in further violence.
"There is no situation more terrible than the one he is in now, where he will die or will commit suicide," Etelin said.
French authorities continue to negotiate with the suspect as they seek to take him into custody alive.
A 23-year-old man suspected in the methodical killings of four men and three children in this region over the past 10 days barricaded himself in a small apartment building in Toulouse early Wednesday as negotiators tried to secure his surrender.
In a standoff that stretched past 12 hours, he fired several heavy volleys at the hundreds of police officers ringing the building, injuring two, though neither seriously. At one point the suspect threw a .45-caliber pistol from the window, the same kind used in each of the three attacks.
Investigators believe the suspect was the motorcyclist behind the killings of three paratroopers in Toulouse and the nearby city of Montauben, all three of Arab descent, over the past 10 days ago. They also believe he conducted an attack on Monday outside a Jewish school that killed a rabbi, two of his young children, and an 8-year-old girl. The gunman held the girl by the hair to execute, pausing to switch to a 9-millimeter gun when his .45 jammed. Investigators believe he was wearing a camera around his neck at the school to record his murders.
The chief editor of France 24 said in a televised interview that she had spoken by telephone to a man who claimed to be the shooter in the hours before the police surrounded his building. “He was calm, was speaking in very good French and punctuated by Arabic expressions,” said the editor, Ebba Kalondo. She said he spoke of planning more attacks and that he intended to post video of his killings online.
President Nicolas Sarkozy presided over a funeral service for the three paratroopers in nearby Montauban on Wednesday. A fourth paratrooper was critically wounded in the attacks in that city; he was black.
The bodies of those killed at the school were flown overnight to Israel for burial. They were Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, 30, a religious instructor; his two sons, Arye, 6, and Gabriel, 3; and Miriam Monsonego, 8, the daughter of the school’s principal. Rabbi Sandler was a French citizen; the three children had dual French-Israeli nationality.
Mr. Sarkozy had ordered the region’s security alert to the high level of “scarlet,” giving security forces wide powers that include the authority to close some public places, halt and search buses and trains and deploy combined patrols of police officers and soldiers. Police officers were ordered to guard Muslim and Jewish schools and places of worship across the region.
A French lawyer in Toulouse told the BFMTV broadcaster that he had represented a teenage Mr. Merah multiple times for relatively petty crimes. The lawyer, Christian Etelin, said, “I defended him multiple times in juvenile court for thefts and for violence, for the kinds of delinquency that is common in these neighborhoods.”
Before the authorities said on Wednesday that their prime suspect claimed ties to Al Qaeda, many analysts had speculated that he might have been motivated by extreme right-wing passions coinciding with the presidential elections.
After the shootings on Monday, the main candidates in the French presidential campaign, including Mr. Sarkozy, suspended their campaigns as political debate swirled around whether the killings were somehow inspired by anti-immigrant rhetoric. The campaign has been long and heated, and Mr. Sarkozy has been trying to win back voters who drifted to the far-right National Front party.
It remained unclear what the effect of the killings would be on the election, which is only a few weeks away. Nor was it clear whether they would further stoke anti-Muslim rhetoric in the country. Muslims complain widely of feeling vilified by some political elements, on the right in particular, and the anti-immigration far right has been gaining unprecedented popularity in recent months. Some analysts have suggested that the deaths could cause a calming of the political discourse.
In Paris on Wednesday morning, Mr. Sarkozy met with Jewish and Muslim leaders and called for restraint and solidarity among the populace. “We must be united,” he said in a brief address. “We must yield neither to easy falsehoods nor to vengeance.”
Before meeting with Mr. Sarkozy, Richard Prasquier, the national head of Crif, the Jewish organization, said: “It is absolutely excluded that we confuse this character — and the Islamist, jihadist, Al -Qaeda-linked movement he represents — and the Islam of France, which is a religion like all other religions.”
“These acts are in total contradiction with the foundations of this religion,” said Mohammed Moussaoui, the president of the French Council for the Muslim Faith, who also met with Mr. Sarkozy.
A day after an attack outside a Jewish school here killed a rabbi and three young children, the French authorities offered fresh details on Tuesday of an assault that has stunned the nation and terrorized the city, saying the lone gunman seemed to be filming his actions as he coolly shot his victims to death.
The attack has been linked to two earlier shootings of French paratroopers, with the police saying that the same gun, a .45-caliber automatic pistol, was used in all three assaults. The authorities have also said that the methods were the same — a man on a powerful motorbike, also the same in each instance, who killed and then fled.
President Nicolas Sarkozy has called the shooting a “national tragedy” and ordered a minute’s silence at schools across France at 11 a.m.
The bodies of at least three of Monday’s four victims were to be flown Tuesday to Israel for burial, said Nicole Yardeni, who leads the regional branch of the Crif, France’s most prominent Jewish association. Mr. Sarkozy will preside over a funeral service on Wednesday for the three soldiers killed in the earlier attacks.
The “scarlet” alert level, one step short of a formal state of emergency, gives security forces wide powers that include the authority to close some public places like railroad stations and deploy mixed patrols of police officers and soldiers, news reports said.
On Monday, Mr. Sarkozy also said he had sent gendarmes and riot police officers to guard all Jewish and Muslim schools and places of worship in the region until the killer is stopped.
The local prosecutor, Michel Valet, said that a religious instructor, his two children and another child, the daughter of the school’s director, were killed in Monday’s attack and that a 17-year-old boy was seriously wounded. The killer “shot at everything he could see, children and adults, and some children were chased into the school,” Mr. Valet said.
The suspect pursued his last victim, an 8-year-old girl, into the concrete courtyard, seizing and stopping her by her hair, said Ms. Yardeni, who viewed surveillance footage of the killing.
His gun appeared to jam at that point, Ms. Yardeni said. Still holding the girl, the killer then changed weapons, from what police identified as a 9-millimeter pistol to the .45-caliber. He shot her in the head and left, never removing his motorcycle helmet.
“It is unbearable that someone could dehumanize children to this point,” Ms. Yardeni said, choking back tears.
Antiterrorism magistrates arrived from Paris to take charge of the investigation into all three shootings on Monday, officials said, working under the belief that a single person carried out the attacks.
On Monday, the killer arrived and fled on a motorbike, following the same approach used in the two previous attacks. In those shootings, a man wearing a motorcycle helmet killed three French paratroopers and critically wounded another. The soldiers were all Arab or black, and appeared to have been targeted specifically, witnesses said.
“We know that it is the same person, the same arm that killed the soldiers, the children and a teacher,” Mr. Sarkozy said Monday night.
Immediately after the shooting Monday morning, leading politicians and Jewish community leaders descended on the school, Ozar Hatorah, a low-slung brick and stucco complex in a quiet warren of residential streets known as La Roseraie, or the Rose Garden, just outside downtown Toulouse. A tall, white corrugated metal wall fences the school off from the street; six bullet holes, numbered by the police, were visible in the wall.
Officials identified the victims as Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, 30, a religious instructor at the school; his two sons, Arye, 6, and Gabriel, 3; and Miriam Monsonego, 8, who is the daughter of the school’s principal, Yaacov Monsonego.
Rabbi Sandler came to Toulouse from Jerusalem with his family in July to teach at the school, a friend said. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said that the rabbi was a French citizen but that his wife was Israeli and that their children had dual nationality. Israel announced that in accordance with the wishes of the families, the victims would be flown to Israel on Tuesday for burial.
Another student, 17, a boy, was said to be wounded and in critical condition at a hospital.
Security cameras were installed at Ozar Hatorah about 10 years ago, after a string of anti-Semitic incidents, apparently linked to the second Palestinian intifada, recalled Alain Assraf, 53, whose children were students there at the time.
About 550,000 Jews are estimated to live in France, the largest Jewish population in Europe.
There has been no claim of responsibility for any of the murders, though there has been some speculation that the killings might be tied to the court-martial several years ago of a group neo-Nazi soldiers who had been members of the 17th Parachute Transport Regiment. Three of the four soldiers attacked in recent days were members of that unit.
The shooting on Monday was the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in France since 1982, when the Chez Jo Goldenberg restaurant in Paris was bombed at lunchtime, killing 6 people and wounding 22. In 1980, a terrorist group attacked a Jewish synagogue on the Rue Copernic in Paris, killing 4 people and wounding about 40.
The French authorities ordered heightened security and surveillance for all religious schools after the shooting. Mr. Sarkozy and his main rival for the presidency, François Hollande, both broke off their political campaigns to rush to the scene.
On Monday evening, Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Hollande joined numerous other political leaders and public officials at a memorial service at the Nazareth Synagogue in Paris. The congregation sang psalms, but the politicians did not speak.
Ozar Hatorah is a Jewish society promoting religious education among young people, especially in the Middle East, northern Africa and among Sephardic Jews in France.
The authorities have been hunting for the gunman since the soldiers were killed last week, and the military has told soldiers not to wear uniforms in public.
The wave of killings has stunned and infuriated France, prompting tense speculation about its cause. Even before the shooting on Monday, there was discussion about a possible racial or ethnic component to the attacks. Speculation over the motives for the killings ranged from anger at Muslims fighting in Afghanistan — the unit of three of the soldiers has been deployed there — and anti-Semitism, to a hatred of immigrants.
Leaders from across the globe condemned the killings, including representatives of the Vatican and the White House. The Israeli ambassador to France, Yossi Gal, also traveled to Toulouse from Paris on Monday.
Le Figaro, the rightist daily newspaper, also devoted its front page to the killings on Tuesday, with a page-width headline reading, “France Horrified.”
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