Megyn Kelly Interviews Larry and Ruthanne Dolezal

There's still more steam to this story, as Rachel Dolezal is expected to hit some major network talk shows today, especially the Today Show on NBC.

Obama's Plan for Islamic State: Leave It for the Next President

"Maybe that's not such a bad idea after all," says Fuzzy Slippers, at Legal Insurrection.

Obama on Track for Least Successful Foreign Policy Record of Any President, Bar None

From Walter Russell Mead, at the American Interest, "Obama’s Grave Miscalculations":

Obama is in danger of the achieving the least successful record in foreign policy of any president, bar none. http://t.co/QpxQWs9vSS

— Walter Russell Mead (@wrmead) June 12, 2015

Driving residents from their homes, imposing an iron-fisted dictatorship, looting and murder—no, this isn’t ISIS in Iraq. It’s the Shi’a militias backed by Iran and the government that President Obama has a kinda-sorta strategy for working with. The Times of London:

The Iranian-backed Shia militias used by the embattled Iraqi army to fight Islamic State have looted Tikrit and exiled most of its population, a development that will confirm some of the West’s worst fears.

Two months after the supposed liberation of the city that once was home to 260,000 people, it has been turned into a ghost town, controlled by the militias who run it with an iron fist.
The city’s mostly Sunni civilian population has not been allowed to return, even though the Baghdad government has promised to protect their rights.
A Sunni official inside Tikrit said that Shia militias, commanded by Iran, maintained total control over the city. A local force of about 1,000 government police and Sunni tribesmen were little more than totemic and were banned from leaving their bases after sunset.

It’s worth noting that President Obama, who inherited two difficult wars in the region, made exactly the wrong strategic decision about both of them. He abandoned Iraq, where victory was won and remained to be consolidated; he doubled down on what he called the war of necessity in Afghanistan, and six years later is no closer to either victory or a safe withdrawal than he was on the day he took the oath of office. (Indeed, new reports indicate that Iran has been increasing its support for the Taliban in Afghanistan—the same people who have led to more than 2,000 dead and more than 20,000 wounded U.S. servicemen in what has become America’s longest-running war.)

In any case, the people of Iraq, like the people of Syria, face the prospect now of increasingly bitter religious conflict, with escalating atrocities on all sides of the war. The radicalization of Saudi foreign policy, and its growing alienation from the U.S. means that radical Sunnis throughout the region can now count on many more arms with many fewer questions asked than they would have faced if U.S. policy had been more robust and clear-sighted. And of course Iran is on the brink of acquiring billions of dollars in new resources to feed the Shi’a radicals and push the region closer to an even greater catastrophe.
Particularly in his second term, when the consequences of errors made in the quieter years before 2012 have begun to take their toll and the significant misjudgments and missteps made since the election have added to the chaos, President Obama is in danger of the achieving the least successful track record in foreign policy of any American president, bar none. The White House is still hoping, perhaps, that an Iran deal could turn that around, and trade deals could still soften history’s verdict a bit, but with every passing week it looks more and more as if future Democratic presidential candidates will have to persuade the public that they won’t repeat President Obama’s mistakes...

Devastating. And there's more at the link.

And flashback to last September, "Foreign Policy Editor David Rothkopf Hammers Obama's Foreign Policy: Says Barack Should Take a Page from George W. Bush's Second Term."

Yeah, well, the Bush years were the good old days. G.W.'s even pining for a return to office, heh.

Megyn Kelly Eviscerates Obama for Shameful 'No Major Ground Wars' Memorial Day Comments (VIDEO)

Megyn Kelly is the freakin' best!

Background at Gateway Pundit, "In Memorial Day Speech Obama Brags About ‘Ending’ War in Afghanistan … (No One Applauds)."

Watch, "Reaction to President Obama's Memorial Day Remarks - The Kelly File."

Megyn Kelly: Oklahoma Beheading Suspect Alton Nolen Shouted Islamic Phrases During Attack

Yes, but we wouldn't want jump to conclusions, because racism!!

At Truth Revolt, "Megyn Kelly: Suspect Nolen Shouted Islamic Phrases During Attack - Workplace. Violence."



And ICYMI, "Alton Nolen 'wasn’t just mildly Islamic in the nothing-to-do-with-terrorism sense, he was super-Islamic in the really-totally-no-terrorism-to-see-here sense...'"

Foreign Policy Editor David Rothkopf Hammers Obama's Foreign Policy: Says Barack Should Take a Page from George W. Bush's Second Term

A phenomenal piece, at Foreign Poilcy, "National Insecurity: Can Obama's Foreign Policy Be Saved?":

"YOU'RE STILL A SUPERPOWER," a top diplomat from one of America's most dependable Middle Eastern allies said to me in July of this year, "but you no longer know how to act like one."

He was reflecting on America's position in the world almost halfway into President Barack Obama's second term. Fresh in his mind was the extraordinary string of errors (schizophrenic Egypt policy, bipolar Syria policy), missteps (zero Libya post-intervention strategy, alienation of allies in the Middle East and elsewhere), scandals (spying on Americans, spying on friends), halfway measures (pinprick sanctions against Russia, lecture series to Central Americans on the border crisis), unfulfilled promises (Cairo speech, pivot to Asia), and outright policy failures (the double-down then get-out approach in Afghanistan, the shortsighted Iraq exit strategy).

The diplomat with whom I was speaking is a thoughtful man. He knew well that not all of these problems are the result of the blunders of a single really bad year or the fault of any one president. The reality is that any president's foreign policy record depends heavily on luck, external factors, cyclical trends, and legacy issues. And, to be sure, Obama inherited many of his greatest challenges, some of the biggest beyond his control.

Obama's presidency is largely a product of a moment in history that likely will be seen someday as an aberration -- the decade after 9/11, during which a stunned, angry, and disoriented America was sent spinning into a kind of national PTSD. Call it an age of fear, one in which the country and its leaders were forced to grapple with a sense of vulnerability to which they were unaccustomed. The response of George W. Bush's administration -- entering into the long, costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, remaking U.S. national security policy around the terrorism threat -- led to a backlash that ushered Obama into office with a perceived mandate to undo what his predecessor had done and avoid making similar mistakes.

The problem is that in seeking to sidestep the pitfalls that plagued Bush, Obama has inadvertently created his own. Yet unlike Bush, whose flaw-riddled first-term foreign policy was followed by important and not fully appreciated second-term course corrections, Obama seems steadfast in his resistance both to learning from his past errors and to managing his team so that future errors are prevented. It is hard to think of a recent president who has grown so little in office.

As a result, for all its native confidence and fundamental optimism, the United States remains shaken and unsteady more than a decade after the 9/11 attacks. Many of its problems have only grown dangerously worse: Its relative influence has declined; the terrorism threat has evolved and spread; and U.S. alliances are superannuated, ineffective shadows of their former selves. Compounding this is such gross dysfunction in Washington that, on most issues, the president is presumed to be blocked by Congress even before he has had the opportunity to make a move.

If the nation is to recover fully, Obama must not only identify and attempt to reverse what has gone wrong, but he also must try to understand how he can achieve new gains by the end of his second term. That is to say that huge challenges remain unaddressed and rising to them requires a hard look at himself -- his responses, his messages, his management, and his team.

He must start by devoting special attention to the instances that knocked his foreign policy off the rails. And one stands out, even in the minds of some of the president's most prominent loyalists...

Keep reading.

Rothkopf wraps up the essay with a comparison of Presidents Obama and G.W. Bush. The former should take a page from the latter. (Although I don't expect he will.)

Islamic State Ties Woman to Car, Splits Her in Two

Because the Yazidis won't convert to Islam, but Islamic State is not Muslim, or anything.

At Pamela Geller's, "Report: Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) split woman in two with cars, buries non-Muslims alive," and Pat Dollard, "PURE EVIL: ISIS Ties Woman To Car, Splits Her In Two."

The Yazidis, followers of an ancient religion derived from Zoroastrianism, are spread over northern Iraq and are part of the country's Kurdish minority.

Many of their villages were destroyed when Saddam Hussein's troops tried to crush the Kurds. Some were taken away by the executed former dictator's intelligence agents.

Now they feel helpless again. Fellow Kurds abandoned them. Iraq has a new prime minister who is seen as moderate and may be less inclined to engage in disputes with the Kurds over budgets and oil than his predecessor, perhaps bringing political stability that could benefit the north.

But many Yazidis have lost faith in Iraq and its leaders. They have few options. Some complained that Kurdish forces would not let them travel to Turkey.

So for now, it seems all they can do is wait, and try to forget what caused them to flee their homes.

"They put women and children under the ground. They were alive. I still hear their screams. They were trying to keep their heads up to keep breathing," said car repairman Dawud Hassan, 26.

"Iraq is finished for me. We had houses, shops, they all burnt our things. We have nothing. We want to cross to Turkey but the peshmerga is not letting us. We will not stay there, we want to go to Europe."

It is not clear if Iraqi government forces or peshmerga will manage to claw back territory and then hold it - something that could help Yazidis believe in their country again.

Islamic State is getting more ambitious. It has already grabbed much of the north and resources such as oil fields that will help fund its self-proclaimed caliphate.

Some Yazidis, like Hassan, 22, a student, shake their heads in disbelief when recalling how only foreign Kurdish fighters from Turkey or Syria extended a lifeline in the face of Islamic State.

"They tied the hands of one woman to the back of a car and her legs to another car and they split her into two," he said beside makeshift tents as women cried.

"Have you seen anything like this? This is all because she is not Muslim and did not want to be converted. We barely made it."

Former NSA Director Michael Hayden: Airstrikes Are Like 'Casual Sex'

At the Hill, "Ex-NSA chief: Airstrikes like ‘casual sex’":

The United States is at war with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS or ISIL), the White House and Pentagon said Friday, a day after Secretary of State John Kerry repeatedly declined to use that phrase.

"The United States is at war with ISIL in the same way that we are at war with Al Qaida and its Al Qaida affiliates all around the globe," White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters at the White House.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby echoed that sentiment, telling reporters that while the effort was "not the Iraq war," they should "make no mistake, we know we are at war with ISIL."

VIDEO: Secretary of State John Kerry: We Are 'Not at War' with #ISIS

At Free Beacon, "VIDEO: Secretary of State John Kerry: 'We Are Not at War' with #ISIS."



Also at CNN, "Kerry: U.S. not at war with ISIS."

Foreign Fighters Flock to #ISIS — Unexpectedly!

At CNN, "How foreign fighters are swelling ISIS ranks in startling numbers."

Yes, but these fighters aren't real Muslims or anything.

Unexpecedly! #ISIS Ranks Swell to Over 31,000

At Lonely Con, "ISIS Ranks Swell to Over 31,000."

Yeah, and we're still trying to figure out if we're really "at war" with the Islamic State.

Unexpectedly! Arab States Give Tepid Support in Fight Against #ISIS

It's just like Ralph Peters said: Arab regimes don't trust Obama. He's f-ked 'em over too many times by now.

At the New York Times, "Arabs Give Tepid Support to U.S. Fight Against ISIS" (via Memeorandum):

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Many Arab governments grumbled quietly in 2011 as the United States left Iraq, fearful it might fall deeper into chaos or Iranian influence. Now, the United States is back and getting a less than enthusiastic welcome, with leading allies like Egypt, Jordan and Turkey all finding ways on Thursday to avoid specific commitments to President Obama’s expanded military campaign against Sunni extremists.

As the prospect of the first American strikes inside Syria crackled through the region, the mixed reactions underscored the challenges of a new military intervention in the Middle East, where 13 years of chaos, from Sept. 11 through the Arab Spring revolts, have deepened political and sectarian divisions and increased mistrust of the United States on all sides.

“As a student of terrorism for the last 30 years, I am afraid of that formula of ‘supporting the American effort,’ ” said Diaa Rashwan, a scholar at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, a government-funded policy organization in Cairo. “It is very dangerous.”

The tepid support could further complicate the already complex task Mr. Obama has laid out for himself in fighting the extremist Islamic State in Iraq and Syria: He must try to confront the group without aiding Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, or appearing to side with Mr. Assad’s Shiite allies, Iran and the militant group Hezbollah, against discontented Sunnis across the Arab world.

While Arab nations allied with the United States vowed on Thursday to “do their share” to fight ISIS and issued a joint communiqué supporting a broad strategy, the underlying tone was one of reluctance. The government perhaps most eager to join a coalition against ISIS was that of Syria, which Mr. Obama had already ruled out as a partner for what he described as terrorizing its citizens...

More.

Lt. Col. Ralph Peters Hammers Obama's Cowardice, Incompetence, and Indecision

The irrepressible Ralph Peters.

Via RCP, "Ralph Peters: Obama 'A Terrified Little Man In A Great Big Job He Can't Do'."

He's not going to get neutral states and others in the Middle East to step up. Why? Because they cannot trust Obama. He's screwed over the Eastern Europeans on missile defense to get a crappy arms deal with Putin. He's bailed on our allies in Iraq. He's run NATO all over the map in Afghanistan. He's drawn red line after red line and never lived up to any of it. He won’t call an invasion of Ukraine an invasion. He won’t call a war a war. He won’t call Islamist terrorists Islamist terrorists. This president is a terrified little man in a great big job he can’t do.

Obama Honors 9/11 Victims a Day After Announcing New Mission Against Terror

At the New York Times, "On a Day Devoted to Past Events, Focus on New Terror Link":

WASHINGTON — The morning after committing the nation to an expanded military campaign against Islamist terrorism, President Obama honored the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as the White House argued that he had the right to wage his new fight under the same legal authority he used to hunt down Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

On a day suffused with memories of four hijacked planes and the war they ignited, the president’s new mission seemed less a break from the past than the continuation of a long national struggle.

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the administration said, was formerly the Iraqi affiliate of Al Qaeda, and has maintained ties with Al Qaeda even after its very public falling-out with Qaeda leaders. It uses brutal tactics that are out of the Qaeda playbook, and is viewed, even by some members of Al Qaeda, as the legitimate heir to Bin Laden’s legacy.

The argument, laid out Thursday by Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, could spare the president’s lawyers from having to negotiate a new legal authorization from Congress, should Mr. Obama decide to ask lawmakers to approve a prolonged military campaign.

But it ties his efforts against ISIS more firmly to the war on terrorism waged by him and his predecessor George W. Bush in the decade after the 2001 attacks, even though Mr. Obama insists they are different. In his prime-time speech to the nation on Wednesday, Mr. Obama drew a distinction between the ISIS campaign and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying it was a new kind of counterterrorism operation that would rely on bolstering local troops rather than deploying American ones.

On Thursday, Mr. Obama paid tribute to the service members and civilians killed at the Pentagon. Speaking before a giant American flag draped over the part of the Pentagon wall where one of the hijacked planes crashed, Mr. Obama said, “Thirteen years after small and hateful minds conspired to break us, America stands tall and America stands proud.”

The president hailed the “9/11 generation” of soldiers who have served in the years since the 2001 attacks, noting that “three months from now, our combat mission in Afghanistan will come to an end.”

Mr. Obama made no mention of ISIS, speaking only of challenges facing the country. But his description of a nation coping with the threat of terrorism seemed entirely relevant today. “We carry on because as Americans, we don’t give in to fear — ever,” he said.

Keep reading.

Megyn Kelly Destroys Obama in 82 Seconds

At Western Journalism, "Epic Rant: It Took Just 82 Seconds for Megyn Kelly to Utterly Destroy Obama."

Lt. Col. Ralph Peters Rips 'Horse's Ass' Bill Ayers

A great segment from last night's Kelly File, via Nice Deb, "Lt. Col. Ralph Peters Responds to “Horse’s Ass” Bill Ayers: “It’s Time People Stopped Insulting Vietnam Vets”."

Bureau of Land Management Preps for Massive New Land Seizure?

At Big Government, "BLM Eyes 90,000 Acres of Texas Land."

Also, "BLM Attempting to Seize 90,000 Acres of Texas Ranchers' Land!"



More from Dana Loesch, "Is Harry Reid Trying to Incite Violence With More Volatile Bundy Ranch Rhetoric?"

Viewers Reject Megyn Kelly Dress That Highlights Her Rack

It does look kinda strange, heh.

At Twitchy, "Viewers adore Megyn Kelly, not so sure about Friday’s dress" (via iOWNTHEWORLD).



More Megyn Kelly blogging at the link.

9/11 Survivor Lauren Manning Slams Terrorist 'Coward' Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

Megyn Kelly's been hammering on this story, bless her heart. At Twitchy, "Megyn Kelly blasts release of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed manifesto [video]."

More at the Los Angeles Times, "Khalid Shaikh Mohammed issues 'nonviolence' manifesto."

Bullshit propaganda, published in full at the Puffington Host. See Robert Spencer, "He is doing this in accord with Islamic teaching, but the "people in the court" should take note that if the "invitation" is refused, then comes jihad." In other words, convert or die.

Megyn Kelly Shines on Fox

I missed the first week or two of Megyn Kelly's prime-time debut on Fox (I was watching the World Series), but I rarely miss it now. She's fantastic ---- and she's in my wheelhouse with her politics.

At the Washington Post, "Megyn Kelly, Fox News’s brightest star":

NEW YORK — The anchor who might beat Bill O’Reilly gets her eyelash extensions applied one at a time, with tweezers and dabs of glue, about 90 minutes before showtime, right after a motorized gun sprays foundation over her face, neck, shoulders, collarbone and sternum, wiping out a galaxy of light freckles that spreads across her —

Let me stop you right there.

Would you write this way about a man?

About O’Reilly himself?

At least that’s what Megyn Kelly might ask at this point. Kelly, 43, is the host of “The Kelly File,” a live TV program that airs weeknights at 9 p.m. on the Fox News Channel, where she interrupts and challenges guests whenever they resort to talking points or petty distractions. It debuted just over two months ago, and so far its ratings among 25-to-54-year-olds have exceeded those of “The O’Reilly Factor” six times. In November, her first full month in prime time after years in daytime, Kelly was second only to O’Reilly in the overall ratings, which means she’s the No. 2 person on cable news’s No. 1 channel.

“It’s like working on a supermodel every day — a brilliant supermodel,” says makeup artist Maureen Walsh, as she air-brushes Kelly’s skin from milky white to Technicolor...

Continue reading.

Well, Michael Savage made the crude remark sometime back that watching Megyn Kelly's show was like watching porn.