U.S. Airstrikes in Syria

Folks were tweeting the news a little while ago. And now the developing story at the Los Angeles Times, "U.S. begins airstrikes over Syria."

Jordan Arrests 11 Islamic State Jihadists

At the Times of Israel:

Security official says suspects admit to plotting attacks in Hashemite Kingdom; Israel has indicated it will act should group reach neighboring state.

Jordan said it arrested 11 members of the Islamic State group suspected of plotting terrorist attacks inside the Hashemite Kingdom

A security source said the suspects were planning to harm high-value interests in the country and admitted to the charges against them, Israel Radio reported.

Earlier this month, Israel told the US that should the extremist group start operating in neighboring Jordan, it will not hesitate to act, according to a Channel 2 TV report which cited diplomatic sources.

The report did not specify what actions Israel might take if Islamic State started impacting upon Jordan, but Israel is wary of its eastern neighbor being challenged by the brutal terror group, and would seek to guard against further inroads that would directly threaten Israel...

More.

Awesome! Neocon Robert Kagan Slams Leftist Jane Harmon's Soft Power Narrative to Beat #ISIS (VIDEO)

National Review has the abbreviated clip, "Robert Kagan: Obama Administration Must Prove It’s Willing to Fight ISIS in Order to Gain Allies."

But the whole segment is good, from Face the Nation this morning. Kagan says soft power is fine and dandy, but ISIS doesn't care about soft power. If you want to beat folks like this you need to destroy them on the ground and bolster American respect around the world. Allies will flock to your banner then.

A great panel. Kagan's comments on hard power come at about 6:20 minutes.

Ambassador Samantha Power Is a Bleedin' Moron

I can hardly bear to watch this, man.

And this woman was once one of the greatest voices speaking out against Western inaction in the face of genocide.

Face it, if you're about to be ethnically cleansed by ISIS right now, you're screwed.

Samantha Power sounds like a bleeding idiot calling the Islamic State "issel." Hey don't count on Obama admin. if you're about to be killed.

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) September 21, 2014

Face it, if you're about to be ethnically cleansed by ISIS right now, you're screwed. #IslamicState

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) September 21, 2014

Cowardly Obama Vows to 'Rally the World' Against Islamic State

All this multilateralism is simply a cover for appeasement and cowardice.

Here's the president's address yesterday, at the White House YouTube page: "Weekly Address: The World is United in the Fight Against ISIL."

And commentary at Truth Revolt, "'Obama: 'The World is United Against ISIL, but Calling on America' But "This isn’t America vs. ISIL'."

'Republique' in Los Angeles Defends #ObamaCare Surcharge

Expect to be seeing lots more of this.

At Eater, "LA's Republique Defends Its 3% Health Care Surcharge."

And from Hot Air, "Video: L.A. restaurant now tacking on an extra three percent to cover its new ObamaCare costs."

What Republique’s really charging here is an uncertainty tax, just in case the administration reverses course yet again. Thank your president for it.

Why Putin Freed Mikhail Khodorkovsky

From Julia Ioffe, at the New Republic, "The Khodorkovsky Case: Putin Giveth and Putin Taketh Away":

This morning, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an oil tycoon who was once Russia’s richest man and who, for the past ten years, has been Vladimir Putin’s most famous, most irksome, and most ironic political prisoner, woke up in Segezha, a former Soviet gulag in Russia’s bleak northern stretches. He cleaned up the metal shavings on the floor of his section of the penal colony’s workshop where he spent his days making metal file binders. Then he had lunch: noodles. Then, at 2:20 pm, he was checked out of the penal colony, loaded onto a helicopter and flown, apparently, to St. Petersburg, though it later turned out he was on his way to Germany, where his mother is receiving cancer treatment.

It did not escape people’s notice, that almost exactly forty years ago, the same thing had happened with dissident and writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who, in February 1974, was arrested and dumped in Frankfurt. Nor that his freedom came on the Day of the Chekist, which celebrates the Soviet and Russian security agency once knows as the Cheka and, later, the KGB.

It was also the final twist in a nail-biting and wholly unexpected finale of a saga that has kept Moscow’s liberals and business community riveted for two days. Over the decade that Khodorkovsky has spent in prison, his children grew and the world moved on—his wife spoke of his wonder on seeing an iPhone for the first time—and a consensus set in: as long as Vladimir Putin is in the Kremlin, Mikhail Khodorkovsky will be in prison. The fact that the Kremlin manufactured not one, but two cases against him, and that there was official talk of it preparing a third; the fact that the mere mention of Khodorkovsky’s name infuriated Putin—and given the paralyzing pall his 2003 tarmac arrest sent through the Russian business community, it came up a lot—and led him to say things like “a thief must sit in jail”; the fact that Khodorkovsky underwent a profound and, through myriad op-eds, a very public transformation from robber baron to the conscience of a country, he had become the issue that never went away, the thorn in Putin’s side all added up to a grinding, hopeless inertia that touched even the seemingly unbreakable Khodorkovsky himself. In a recent interview, Khodorkovsky, who famously stayed in Russia even when he knew his arrest was imminent, even said that had he known how it would all go down, he would have committed suicide.

And then, yesterday, the bombshell: at the end of a four-hour press conference, Putin announced that, as part of a broad amnesty project to free some 3,500 prisoners to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Russia’s constitution, he would be freeing his arch-nemesis, Khodorkovsky, because his mother was ill.

The announcement was so shocking that it completely obscured that the two members of Pussy Riot who were still in jail were also being freed, as were four people wrapped up in the politically fraught case of opposition protests that turned violent in May 2012...

Continue reading.

Obama Denies Death and Burial Benefits to Families of 4 Dead Soldiers

Clearly Obama relishes extracting pain from everyday citizens.

Absolutely outrageous.

At the New York Times:

You have to shake your head at the Obama death benefit snit. Beyond the gross immorality of it, it's just plain stupid. #caring

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) October 9, 2013

Pentagon military and civilian personnel have largely escaped furloughs through legislation signed by President Obama and on orders from the defense secretary. But the death benefits — at least for the families of military personnel killed since Oct. 1, when the government shut down — are not covered by either move.

Last week, Congress quickly passed the Pay Our Military Act to ensure that active-duty soldiers and civilian support staff members were paid for their work. Over the weekend, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the Pentagon concluded that most of its 400,000 civilian employees were covered by the bill.

Some House Republicans have suggested, without citing specific language in the bill, that it also covered death benefits. “The intent of Congress was to permit D.O.D. to honor all payment and allowances to service members,” Representative Duncan Hunter, Republican of California, said in a letter to Mr. Hagel.

“The department’s decision to not make these payments is a matter of choice,” he added. “And until a correction is made to the law, it is up to you to make the appropriate judgment based on a more correct interpretation.”

The House Appropriations Committee is moving to get a bill to the floor to reinstate the benefits as early as Wednesday.

“Frankly, I think it’s disgraceful that they’re withholding these benefits,” Speaker John A. Boehner said in a brief news conference Tuesday afternoon. “But again tomorrow, the House is going to act specifically on this and I hope the president will sign it.”

Ted Cruz Takes to Senate Floor: 'I intend to speak in support of defunding #ObamaCare until I am no longer able to stand...'

Mandy Nagy has the live feed, at Legal Insurrection, "WATCH LIVE: Cruz “filibusters” to #MakeDCListen on defunding ObamaCare."

Plus see all the debate on the floor debate at Memeorandum.

Don't Wave the White Flag of Surrender — Sarah Palin Slams Cannibalistic RINOs on #DefundObamaCare

Sarah Palin's laying down some major support for Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee.

She references her Big Government piece today at the clip, "Sarah Palin: Americans Are Fed Up with #ObamaCare."



And see William Jacobson, "What are the Republican doughboys afraid of?"

Also at Twitchy, "‘See your filthy paw prints, Rove’ Who sent oppo research on Ted Cruz to Chris Wallace?", and "Sarah Palin to Chris Wallace: Expose which GOPers are trying to ‘trash Sen Cruz’."

Sarah Palin: Americans Are Fed Up with #ObamaCare

From Governor Palin, at Big Government, "BOMBS AWAY ON OBAMACARE; CRUZ IS OVER THE TARGET":

Americans who are fed up with Obamacare won a victory yesterday. The House voted to defund Obamacare while still funding the federal government to avoid a “devastating” shutdown. (I shall not digress, but it’s beyond distressing to hear liberals try to convince Americans that any government slowdown is comparable to “terrorism.”)

Now the battle goes to the Senate, and we’ll find out if Harry Reid is so committed to the horrendous “Un-affordable Care Act” that he’ll be the one to shut down the government to fund the unworkable Obamacare.

Let’s be clear. Republicans in Congress aren't advocating a government shutdown. That’s why they voted in the House to fully fund our bureaucracy while defunding Obamacare. The conservatives in Congress are listening to the majority of Americans who do not want Obamacare.

Following the will of the people is apparently a novel idea in D.C. these days. Just ask Senator Ted Cruz and his liberty-loving posse on Capitol Hill who have led the charge to defund Obama’s train wreck.

Those of us who hang in there supporting a major political party with our energy, time, and contributions would like to believe that that party would praise principled conservatives like Ted Cruz and Mike Lee for following through on campaign promises. We’d like to believe that the GOP establishment would applaud the way these bold leaders have rallied the grassroots to their cause. But, no, such praise would require a commensurate level of guts and leadership, and the permanent political class in D.C. is nothing if not gutless and rudderless.

We’re now, once again, subjected to the “anonymous sources” backstabbing game. The Capitol Hill cowards are rushing to anonymously denounce Senator Cruz to any reporter with a pad and pen.

Welcome to our world, Ted. The same people have been denouncing conservatives like me for years (right after they ask for help fundraising for themselves or endorsing the latest candidate they’ve suckered into paying their exorbitant consulting fees). We can compare shiv marks next time we meet, my friend.

Continue reading.

More at Memorandum.

PREVIOUSLY: "'A Vote for Cloture is a Vote for #ObamaCare' — Senator Ted Cruz on Fox News Sunday."

'A Vote for Cloture is a Vote for #ObamaCare' — Senator Ted Cruz on Fox News Sunday

The interview this morning with Chris Wallace, via Becca Lower.

Discussion at PuffHo, "Ted Cruz: Republicans Who Vote To Take Up Bill Defunding Obamacare Are Voting For Obamacare."



Also at Politico, "McCaskill: GOP should stop throwing 'tantrums'" (via Memeorandum).

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."



More at Randy's Roundtable, "Friday Nite Funnies," and "Reaganite's SUNDAY FUNNIES."

CARTOON CREDIT: Nate Beeler at Town Hall.

Julia Ioffe: Obama Got Played

She's a good lady, appearing yesterday on Jake Tapper's show at CNN:



And see "The Syria Solution: Obama Got Played by Putin and Assad" and "How Long Before the Syria Deal Fails? Any Minute Now."

Also, "Here's What Went Unmentioned in Putin's New York Times Op-Ed."

The Creepy OFA-Style 'Help Kickstart World War III' Video

Via Instapundit:

Obama's Efforts to Do Something About Syria Invite Only Criticism and Push Back

And ridicule.

From Glenn Reynolds, at USA Today, "Obama is a laughing stock":

Remember that dumb cowboy George W. Bush, who alienated all our allies and dragged us into wars of choice in the Mideast? And remember that goofball Mitt Romney, whom Joe Biden a year ago accused of wanting to go to war in Syria?

Both of them must be having a big laugh over the way things are going for Obama now. When I wrote last week on our bumbling Syria diplomacy, it seemed that things couldn't possibly go further downhill. Boy, was I wrong.

Last week, it seemed our only ally was France. But now the French are having second thoughts. Obama's efforts to get support at the G20 conference came to nothing. Even the pope is undercutting him.

Meanwhile, at home, polls show Americans are against a strike, and Obama is facing double-digit defections among Democrats in the Senate. The outlook for passage in the House, meanwhile, looks so bad that a resolution to authorize war may not even make it to a vote. If it's sure to fail, why force members -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- to go on record? You can bet they don't appreciate Obama putting them in this position. The Pentagon isn't happy, and even The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates, a reliable Obama supporter, calls his policy "dumb."

Some critics are even comparing the collapse of American influence under Obama to the end of the Soviet Union. Well, that may be an exaggeration -- but Obama promised a "fundamental transformation," after all...

Continue reading.

My Military, Mine!

Neener-neener-neener!

Poor baby.

From the hilarious hashtag on Twitter, #WarofChoice:



And at Twitchy, "Whose military is it anyway? President Obama claims it for himself — again — at G20 summit [video]."

#MockObamaDay

On Twitter.

#MockObamaDay: Cult of Personality ~ pic.twitter.com/xz72YOprEF
— Adam Baldwin (@AdamBaldwin) August 13, 2013

Missouri State Fair Bans Clown Who Mocked President Obama

I saw Dana Loesch tweeting on this last night, "Clown Dresses as Obama at MO State Fair, Democrats Cry “Racism®” *UPDATED."

More at Twitchy, "Smash! Dana Loesch pulverizes Dems, media over #MOStateFair racist rodeo clown idiocy."

And at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "Missouri State Fair bans rodeo clown who mocked Obama."






More at Legal Insurrection, "Video killed the rodeo clown."

And check Memeorandum.

Yep, 'Clean as a whistle...'

Oh my goodness what a meltdown!

Via National Review, "Chris Matthews Swoons: Obama Has ‘Never Done Anything Wrong in His Life’."