Do you ever wonder how stupid the Brits have to be to provide welfare benefits for immigrants who hate their guts—you know, people such as Abu Hamza al-Masri who preached jihad in the heart of London?

Oh, wait—Tamerlan Tsarnaev was receiving Massachusetts state benefits to tide him over while he made plans to kill and maim Bostonians. The Boston Herald reports:

Marathon bombings mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev was living on taxpayer-funded state welfare benefits even as he was delving deep into the world of radical anti-American Islamism, the Herald has learned.

State officials confirmed last night that Tsarnaev, slain in a raging gun battle with police last Friday, was receiving benefits along with his wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, and their 3-year-old daughter. The state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services said those benefits ended in 2012 when the couple stopped meeting income eligibility limits. Russell Tsarnaev’s attorney has claimed Katherine — who had converted to Islam — was working up to 80 hours a week as a home health aide while Tsarnaev stayed at home.

In addition, both of Tsarnaev’s parents received benefits, and accused brother bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan were recipients through their parents when they were younger, according to the state.

The news raises questions over whether Tsarnaev financed his radicalization on taxpayer money….

Their taxpayer-funded status came to light last night after repeated calls and emails to welfare officials from the Herald. They refused to comment throughout the day, but pressure mounted last night when the Herald started asking lawmakers whether the Department of Transitional Assistance should release the information.

Why am I not surprised that the Boston Herald rather than the Boston Globe (which has done otherwise commendable work on the bombings) broke this story?

The mainstream media seems determined to pursue the “terrorist next door” meme—that’s from the headline on a column by Ruth Marcus, who writes of the “seeming normalcy” of the younger bomber. Lead:

The bomber went to prom.

Okay, alleged bomber.

As to those who believe the definite article is missing from the sentence above — the prom — my teenage daughters inform me that phrasing is irredeemably antiquated.

Love that homey touch from Ms. Marcus’ teenage daughters!

Marcus, while admitting that their “demons” were different, ties prom bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to mass killers such as the Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook killers.

Here’s a hint Ms. Marcus: Tsarnaev’s “demon” was radical Islam. You can't parody Marcus' column because it is a parody:

Look at Tsarnaev and you see . . . a regular-looking kid, one who — to outside appearances — had, like generations of immigrants before him, assimilated quickly and seamlessly. If he smoked pot, he also volunteered with the Best Buddies program and earned a college scholarship.

He looks like the bad boy in a boy band. His version of wildness: driving his car backward down a one-way street at a prom party — an eerie foreshadowing of the Cambridge, Mass., shootout in which a fleeing Dzhokhar reportedly drove a stolen SUV over his brother, Tamerlan.

“He was just this scrawny little kid who was always giggling and happy,” Juliette Terry, 20, an elementary school friend and part of a group with whom he attended prom, told the Wall Street Journal. “I can’t remember him saying a mean word in his life.”

The Washington Post also reveals that Dzhokhar has no ties to foreign groups. How do we know this? Well, golly, he told them so. Right there in his hospital bed. It may turn out that this is true. What is most certainly not true is that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was the boy next door unless you live in an awfully strange neighborhood.

Juliette Terry may never have heard him say anything mean—but he has now killed three Americans. Thanks to this monster and his brother other severely wounded Americans are now preparing to learn to live the rest of their lives with missing limbs.  

Kudos to the Boston Herald.