Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the “underwear bomber” who attempted to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane on Christmas Eve 2009, will receive a life sentence in Detroit, the conclusion of a trial that ended abruptly with a guilty plea.

Tonight we have a special double feature. Co-directors Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman will discuss their Academy Award nominated film If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front for the first two-thirds of Movie Night before Sam leaves us, and in the final half hour we’ll delve into Racing Dreams, a look at three ‘tween NASCAR hopefuls during a season of the World Karting Association races, which Marshall directed.

Is the national focus on terrorism justified? Kevin Drum has this chart showing that indictments for homegrown support for terrorist attacks have declined significantly. In addition, violent attacks carried out by Muslim-Americans in 2011 were almost non-existent. And a Department of Defense official now suggests we over-estimated the al Qaeda threat.

A new poll shows that the lack of forceful opposition to Administration counter-terrorism policies, especially from Congressional Democrats, has led to them becoming broadly popular. This is true even for controversial policies like the continued presence of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, or drone strikes abroad.

The ACLU filed suit in federal court yesterday seeking to force the White House to turn over records related to the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, the US citizen assassinated in a drone attack in Yemen last year.

It’s a sad commentary on our media that the President had to answer questions yesterday about drones for the first time, and the questions didn’t come at a White House press briefing or major print interview, but in a virtual YouTube town hall with members of the public. FDL’s Kevin Gosztola covered this at The Dissenter last night, but there’s more to say about the disconnect between the concerns of the media and the concerns of ordinary Americans in that.

A provocative article in Foreign Policy magazine suggests that Israeli Mossad officers recruited members of the Pakistani terrorist organization Jundallah to aid in the covert operations against Iranian targets, including bombings in the Baluchistan region and potentially the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. The Mossad officers, according to Mark Perry, posed as American intelligence agents during the recruitment, using US passports.

Everything changed on September 11, 2001. It’s become an American truism. And for many, it’s also absolutely true. It certainly was the case for Tom Engelhardt. He was roughly seven miles north of the World Trade Center that morning and that’s about the furthest he’s been from it since.

It’s not like there is no evidence suggesting at the very least targeted assassinations, regardless of who is directing them. So why do media outlets resist the label of terrorism for these acts?

The President signed the defense authorization bill today, appending a signing statement expressing concerns with the detainee measures in the bill.