ISIS Takes Mosul as Iraq Security Forces Flee

At the Other McCain, "Al-Qaeda on the Offensive in Iraq."

And at WSJ, "Militants Overrun Iraq's Second-Largest City as Government Forces Flee: Mosul Strike Is Serious Blow to Baghdad's Efforts to Control Widening Insurgency":

BAGHDAD—Al Qaeda-inspired militants seized control of Iraq's second-largest city on Tuesday in a brazen military operation that underscored the weakness of the Baghdad government across vast swaths of the country.

Hours after government forces fled Mosul in disarray following four days of fighting, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared a nationwide "state of maximum preparedness" but didn't indicate whether government forces were mobilizing to retake the Iraqi city, 220 miles north of the capital Baghdad.

The capture of Mosul by rebels linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, is the latest evidence of the weakness and disorganization that have beset Iraq's security forces since the U.S. forces withdrew from the country in December 2011.  It also underlines the group's determination to establish an Islamic emirate encompassing the Iraqi-Syrian frontier, weaken the already fragile Iraqi state and expand the theater of the three-year-old civil war in neighboring Syria.

Residents of Mosul said they were shocked at the ease of the rebel takeover of government buildings, television stations and military installations where U.S.-supplied fighter airplanes, helicopters and other heavy weaponry are based.

"The whole of Mosul collapsed today. We've fled our homes and neighborhoods, and we're looking for God's mercy," said Mahmoud Al Taie, a dentist. "We are waiting to die."

Videos showed victorious insurgents waving black flags emblazoned with an Islamic script—the standard brandished by al Qaeda militants world-wide.

The Obama administration, responding to the fall of Mosul, said ISIS "is not only a threat to the stability of Iraq but a threat to the entire region."

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the group has drawn strength from the Syrian civil war, where it can acquire recruits, weapons and other resources for its fight in Iraq.

Jessica Lewis, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, said ISIS fighters won a notable victory in Mosul.

"ISIS is designing its campaign around the state that it believes it has already created," said Ms. Lewis, currently research director for the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, D.C.

"I think that means that Iraq is going to start to look more like Syria. It's a gauge of the severity of the conflict and the trajectory that it's on. That's a very bad sign."

More.

RELATED: From Bruce Thornton, at FrontPage Magazine, "The Fruit of Obama’s Abandonment of Iraq,"  and David Webb, at Breitbart, "Precipitous Withdrawal Without a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) Has Consequences."

Activists Hijacking Feminism to Attack Israel at Women's Studies Association Meeting

Well, what else is new?

Still, astonishing leftist hatred. It continues to shock time after time.

From Phyllis Chesler, at Big Peace.

No More Colonoscopies?

Here's this, just as I go today for my first colonoscopy.

At WSJ, "New Ways to Screen for Colon Cancer No More Colonoscopies? Less-Invasive Methods Are Coming."

RELATED: At NYT, "Colon Cancer Screening Saves Lives." (Via Instapundit.)

Hillary Clinton Takes to the Road

If I've said it once I've said it a hundred times: There's no doubt Hillary Clinton is running for president. Her every move is political. Her every statement is measured against the political winds. Right now she's distancing herself from the White House on just about every single decision Obama has made, from Syria to Bergdahl, and that's not even getting into the domestic policy weeds.

My sense (and a bit of a hope) is that she'll be damaged goods in 2016, no matter how hard she tries to distance herself from the imploding Democrat Party brand. She could win the nomination, of course, and still be elected president, mostly as a result of GOP incompetence. But it's going to be extremely difficult for the Dems to extend their hold on the presidency for a third consecutive term, despite all the progressive "analyses" about "inevitable" demographic trends, or what have you. I expect the public to be tired of the Democrats after two terms of Obama. Hillary will be running against Democrat fatigue as much as she will the GOP nominee.

In any case, here's this from yesterday's front-page at the Los Angeles Times, "Hillary Clinton book tour could serve as dry run for a campaign":

She's traveled the country mixing weighty policy pronouncements with joking references to her hair. She's reflected on gender bias and offered career advice to young women, gushed about becoming a grandma and raked in a fortune in speaking fees on the lecture circuit.

After all that — and even having a shoe flung at her at a trash collectors' convention in Las Vegas — Hillary Rodham Clinton takes her flirtation with the 2016 presidential race to a new level this week, beginning a minutely orchestrated book tour that will whisk her coast to coast for a mix of book signings and carefully calibrated television interviews.

Since stepping down as secretary of State 16 months ago, Clinton has managed to effectively freeze out any Democratic competition for the presidential nomination, no small feat in a party with a history of upstarts and upsets — especially for someone who has yet to say whether she even plans to run.

Throughout, she's weathered a relentless degree of scrutiny, her daily travels exhaustively chronicled, her every utterance parsed for meaning. Even matters like her daughter Chelsea's pregnancy are put to the will-or-won't-she test.

"She's got the toughest job in American politics" being the prohibitive front-runner, said Stuart Spencer, a longtime Republican strategist who helped shepherd former California Gov. Ronald Reagan in a years-long trek from Sacramento to the White House. "And she's managed it just about as well as you can."

Clinton's months-long book tour, combined with other stops, appears unprecedented in the annals of both publishing and politics, bearing many of the trappings of a full-fledged presidential campaign. A strike team, to push back Clinton critics, has been stocked with family loyalists and others practiced in aggressive political communication. (Conservatives have set up a counter-operation to offer their interpretation of events recounted in Clinton's 600-plus-page memoir, "Hard Choices." An e-book, "Failed Choices," is being released to coincide with her travels.)

A busload of Clinton supporters, chartered by a friendly political action committee, will follow the non-candidate to events and seek to sign up new acolytes; one of her first book signings is scheduled for a Costco in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, the battleground portion of a battleground state. A Los Angeles stop is scheduled for June 19 at the Grove shopping center.

Her TV appearances, including a visit with the cheery crew on "Good Morning America" and a grilling on the less-amiable Fox News Channel, will allow Clinton a chance to spotlight two sides of her persona, warmth and toughness, in the same manner as the sneak previews doled out by her publisher: a gauzy Mother's Day tribute for Vogue magazine and her telling of the 2012 attack on U.S. diplomats in Benghazi, Libya, for Politico.

"It seems to me that the rollout of Hillary's book has been letter-perfect," Paul Begala, a campaign strategist who served in the White House under President Clinton and remains close to the family, said in an email. "Rather than wait for the inevitable leaks, Team Hillary has released select excerpts, both to satisfy the press and to build anticipation for the book's release."

Some suggest that it seems a bit too perfect...

Yeah, well. It's battlespace preparation.

But continue reading.

'This woman, Marie Larf [Harf], seems to be the White Susan Rice, except even dumber and more preposterous...'

At AoSHQ, "State Department Refuses to Say if Cash Payoff Was Part of Bergdahl Hostage Deal."



A paid liar, and dumb at that.

VA Halted Visits to Troubled Hospitals

At the Wall Street Journal, "Change Came as Growing Number of Facilities Had High Death Rates."

PREVIOUSLY: "Depraved Leftists Run Interference for Obama on #VeteransAdministration."

The International Crisis of Unaccompanied Migrant Children at U.S. Border

From the editors, at the Sacramento Bee.

RELATED: At KNXV-TV ABC15 Phoenix, "Transfer of undocumented kids sparks threat."

Is Obama Considering Surrendering to the Taliban?

I think the real question is "Has Obama already surrendered to the Taliban"?

But see Marc Thiessen, at the Washington Post:

Obama administration officials are arguing that the Taliban release was inevitable, because the war in Afghanistan is ending. But the coming withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan does not end the state of war between the United States and the Taliban. There are only three ways that state of war can end: 1) we reach a peace accord with the Taliban; 2) the Taliban surrenders; or 3) the United States surrenders.

The first two are not happening anytime soon. Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar declared the release of his five commanders a “great victory.” Enemy forces don’t tend to capitulate after a great victory. And a Taliban spokesman declared last week that the prisoner exchange “won’t help the peace process in any way, because we don’t believe in the peace process.”

So unless Obama capitulates, there is no reason under the laws of war why the president must release Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. These detainees have been approved by the Obama administration for indefinite detention. The president’s authority to hold Taliban detainees indefinitely is not extinguished when U.S. forces withdraw. The only thing that would require the United States to hand over Taliban prisoners would be if Obama issues a declaration that we have no further conflict with the Taliban. That would end his authority under the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to continue holding Taliban prisoners...

Supreme Court Rules Against 'Aged Out' Illegal Immigrants

Heh, no "special consideration" for illegals whose parents failed to get a permanent visa before they turned 21.

Back of the line, sucka!

At USA Today, "Justices deny visa priority to children who turn 21."

Also at Scotus Blog, "Quick take: Court defers to agency on “aged-out” immigrants."

Krauthammer Destroys Endless White House Lies on Bowe #Bergdahl

It's just "lie after lie," and the "pretense" that this deal was something to celebrate is just "appalling."

And just compare Krauthammer's comments here to the meme Politico was spinning last week. The MSM propaganda is just terrible: "Charles Krauthammer backs Bowe Bergdahl deal."

Poll: Veteran Households Slam #Bergdahl Swap as 'Wrong Thing to Do...'

From the new USA Today/Pew Center poll, "USA TODAY poll: Obama mishandled Bergdahl exchange."

Also, "Public Has Doubts about Bergdahl Prisoner Exchange":

Veteran Households’ Views of Bergdahl Deal.

Households that include a military veteran take a more negative view of Bergdahl and the prisoner exchange than do households without a veteran.

Overall, 33% of the public says someone in their household has served in the U.S. military or the military reserves at some point. Among this group, 55% say the exchange of five Taliban prisoners was the wrong thing to do, compared with just 26% who say it was the right thing to do. Non-veteran households are evenly divided (37% right thing, 38% wrong thing).

Furthermore, veteran households are somewhat more likely to say they are angry with Bergdahl (23%) than sympathetic toward him (12%), though most (57%) say they hold neither feeling toward him.

And when it comes to U.S. responsibility toward Bergdahl, 37% of veteran households say the country was not obligated to do all it could to secure his release because he walked away from his post; 47% say the U.S. has a responsibility to do all it can to return an American captive soldier, no matter what the circumstances. Non-veteran households are more likely to back U.S. efforts to free captive soldiers, regardless of the circumstances (60%-26%).

The American public agrees that we should make every effort to bring the troops home. But the poll finds Americans especially critical of White House communications with the Congress.

It's especially telling how the military families view this, however. Remember the president's "icy" reception at West Point? The chill has yet to thaw.

More at Memeorandum.

Whoa! MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Not Buying #Bergdahl Spin from State Department's Marie Harf

Harf's a paid liar.

From Noah Rothman, at Hot Air, "Andrea Mitchell not buying State Dept.’s spin on Bergdahl Swap."

Enjoy Bikinis

At Bananarama, "Bikinis Are the Only Way to Enjoy" (via Linkiest).

BONUS: At Egotastic, "Abbey Clancy Bikini Pictures."

Obama Administration Gave #Bergdahl Parents Exclusive Insider Access

The White House planned all along to use Bowe Berdahl's capture to empty Guantanamo.

At the Washington Times, "Bergdahl’s parents got rare access to insiders; data for sympathizer of Gitmo detainees":

Soon after Sgt. Bergdahl went missing in Afghanistan in June 2009, the Obama administration approved an outreach program that involved the Bergdahls traveling from their home in Hailey, Idaho, to the state’s National Guard headquarters in Boise.

There they were hooked into secure video conferences that included representatives of U.S. Central Command, which runs the war in Afghanistan, as well as with White House, State Department and intelligence officials.

Robert Bergdahl has expressed concern for prisoners at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. From that prison, the U.S. released five senior Taliban commanders May 31 in exchange for the 28-year-old Sgt. Bergdahl, who was held five years by the violent Haqqani Network, a Taliban ally.

Air Force Col. Timothy Marsano, Idaho’s National Guard spokesman, said the Bergdahls participated in video conferences quarterly — or perhaps as many as 20 — over the five years.

“Mr. and Mrs. Bergdahl were regularly informed about what was happening throughout the duration using video teleconferencing [with] various military and other government agencies,” Col. Marsano said. “There was a great effort to keep Mr. and Mrs. Bergdahl updated on developments.”

Keep reading.

More at Twitchy, "Bob Bergdahl now tweeting for more Guantanamo releases." And IJR, "Why Did Robert Bergdahl Stand Next to President Obama and Praise Allah for His Freed POW Son?"

PREVIOUSLY: "Robert Bergdahl's #Taliban Tweets: Allāhu Akbar!"

Steve Coburn Apology on 'Good Morning America'

Bit by the backlash, I guess.

Here's the rant from Saturday, "California Chrome Owner Steve Coburn: 'This Is the Coward's Way Out...'"

And now at ABC News, "California Chrome Co-Owner 'Ashamed' of Angry Rant After Belmont Loss."

And Robin Roberts has the interview, "California Chrome Co-Owner Apologizes."

Quebec City Prison Escape

Wow.

At Toronto's Globe and Mail, "Quebec on alert after second jailbreak with helicopter," and at the National Post, "Three inmates use a helicopter to escape from Quebec prison — similar to daring 2013 jailbreak."

And at the Los Angeles Times, "Helicopter lands in prison yard, takes off with three inmates."

Saxby Chambliss and Dianne Feinstein on 'Face the Nation' — #BergdahlTreason

At WaPo, "Feinstein, Chambliss criticize White House over Bergdahl secrecy."

And videos, "Saxby Chambliss: Hard to 'validate' reports Bowe Bergdahl was tortured," and "Dianne Feinstein: Bowe Bergdahl prisoner swap 'mixed bag at best'."

D-Day Veteran Jock Hutton, 89, Parachutes Into Normandy Again

At the Scottish Daily Record, "Scottish D-Day veteran Jock Hutton, 89, takes part in tandem parachute jump with Red Devils."

'I am glad that we got our guy back, however I do not feel it is right that we subject ourselves to these acts of terrorism...'

She got one heckuva round of applause at that response.

At Twitchy, "Did Miss Louisiana say it was a mistake for Obama to release five Taliban leaders from Gitmo? [video]."

Pakistan Taliban Attacks Karachi International Airport

Because we've got those terrorists on the run alright!

At WSJ, "Gunmen Attack Karachi Airport: Masked Men Attack With Guns, Grenades; At Least 23 People Killed."

KARACHI, Pakistan—Militants stormed Karachi's Jinnah International Airport late Sunday, exchanging fire with security forces and leaving at least 23 people dead, officials said.

Separately, gunmen and suicide bombers attacked pilgrims from the minority Shiite sect of Islam in the west of the country, killing at least 23 pilgrims.

The Pakistani Taliban, a group closely linked to al Qaeda and its militant allies, claimed responsibility for the airport attack. No responsibility was immediately claimed or assigned for the attack on the pilgrims, but the Pakistani Taliban frequently targets Shiites, who make up about 20% of Pakistan's population.

More.

Also at Pamela, "Jihadists disguised as police guards and wearing suicide vests kill 18 during five-hour siege at Pakistan’s largest international airport."