Hey, How About a New TV for Football Season?

Now that would be a huge commission, lol.

At Amazon:

Cecily Strong Out as SNL 'Weekend Update' Anchor

The New York Times reports, "New Comic to Anchor ‘Update’ on ‘S.N.L.’":

The new season of “Saturday Night Live” will have a significant change in its cast and its most prominent segment, “Weekend Update.”

Michael Che, a comic perhaps best known for his role as a correspondent on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” will replace Cecily Strong, who will remain on “S.N.L.” as a regular cast member.

More.

And at Rolling Stone:

'SNL' will replace Cecily Strong as 'Weekend Update' anchor with writer Michael Che http://t.co/WxfGgRdI5y

— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) September 12, 2014

Germany Bans Islamic State

Now there's an idea.

At WSJ, "Around 400 German Nationals and Residents Have Joined Militant Group in Syria and Iraq":

BERLIN—Germany banned all activities of the Islamic State militant group in the country on Friday after hundreds of German nationals and residents traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the radical faction there while returnees were agitating and rallying supporters at home.

The ban, which also includes the seizure of IS's financial assets, is one step away from classifying IS as a terrorist group—a decision that can only be made by a court of law at the end of what is generally a time-consuming process. The ban targets propaganda on the Internet and social media and includes the display of IS symbols and flags.

About 400 German nationals and residents had joined IS in Syria and Iraq, said Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, who announced the ban.

"More than 100 Islamists have returned. Many frustrated, but others with combat experience. They have learned to hate and kill," Mr. de Maizière told reporters.

"They are well connected. They have been well trained to fight and are possibly willing to share their knowledge with other supporters and recruit new supporters. We must prevent radical Islamists bringing their Jihad to our cities. We don't know what they are doing but it could be that they will carry out attacks."

The ban includes displaying IS symbols publicly during gatherings or in writings, photos, recordings, images or illustrations. These symbols include the IS flag which displays the beginning of the Islamic profession of faith as well as the prophet's seal in white script on black background. The ban doesn't target Islamic symbols in general but only those that the IS group has been using since 2004 in a terrorist context.

Last month, Berlin took a rare decision to deliver antitank weaponry and machine guns to help Kurdish fighters in Iraq battling Islamic State in norther Iraq. This week, however, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier overruled some conservative lawmakers who had called on the government to assist the U.S. in conducting airstrikes against IS positions in Iraq and Syria.

While Germany has dispatched troops abroad since the 1990s, most notably in the Balkans and Afghanistan, and has occasionally delivered weapons in crisis regions, it has generally sought to avoid overseas military involvement because of its history of international aggression under the Nazis.

"The [IS ban] is necessary because the biggest threat to internal security stems from returning IS fighters and because support activities, such as publicly expressing sympathy for IS and recruiting members and collecting money, are putting the internal security of our country at risk—not only that of countries and regions where IS is fighting," said Wolfgang Bosbach, head of the lower house of parliament's interior affairs committee and lawmaker with the ruling Christian Democratic Union party, ahead of the announcement.

The planned ban comes after supporters of the IS group attacked a group of Yazidis in the western German town of Herford last month. IS has been accused of ethnic cleansing and attempted genocide after systematic attacks on the religious minority in northern Iraq.

In its 2013 report, published in June this year, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the internal intelligence agency, said it had no information about IS' structure or members in Germany. But it said Islamic terrorism is the main security threat facing Germany.

Overall support for Islamic groups has been on the rise in Germany. The agency estimates that the number of potential supporters rose to 43,190 last year from 42,550 in 2012 and 38,080 in 2011.

The growing visibility of such groups also made headlines last week when a patrol of self-proclaimed Shariah Police took to the streets to urge Turkish people in the western German city of Wuppertal to stop drinking alcohol and gambling for money.

Mr. de Maizière called on the public to help the government in its efforts to fight IS influence in Germany.

"The security forces alone won't be able to win the fight against the Islamic radicalization," he said. "The radicalization often takes place unnoticed by the public, on the Q.T., on the Internet. That's why parents, siblings, neighbors and friends are called upon."

Still more.

Maria Menounos Bikini Shots for Shape Magazine October 2014

She's a sweetie.

At Egotastic!, "Maria Menounos Poses for Shape Magazine October 2014."

VIDEO: Code Pink Communist Medea Benjamin Denounces U.S. Combat Operations Against #ISIS

Communist Amy Goodman describes Code Pink's Medea Benjamin as "one of the country's leading peace activists."

They're all traitors who're allied with America's enemies. Seriously, it's too bad we can't have them lined up and shot. But hey, dissent is the highest form of patriotism, or something.

Benjamin denounces this "insane never ending war," as if it's America that's on the genocidal march around the world. It's all America's fault. It always is, if you're an America-hating radical leftist.

At Democracy Now:



And remember, Code Pink's got extremely close ties to the White House, so you know that these fifth columnists are exerting considerable influence on the "we're not at war with ISIS" Obama administration.

Republicans Have 47-44 Advantage in Generic Ballot for the November Elections

It's not huge, but polling experts say that surveys typically under-report the Republican vote on the generic ballot, so the GOP could be looking even better than this.

Oh, and the generic ballot question measures support in House races. Some experts say there's also a strong correlation to patterns of support in Senate elections.

Via Pew Research:

Republicans have 47%-44% midterm edge among likely voters; at this stage in 2010, it was 50% to 43% http://t.co/k6IOFIslzL

— Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) September 12, 2014

RELATED: At Astute Bloggers, "WASH POST/ABC NEWS POLL SPELLS DOOM FOR THE DEMS AND SALVATION FOR THE NATION!"

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."

VIDEO: U.S. Troops in Afghanistan Mark September 11 Anniversary

Via Reuters:

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.

OBILLARY!

OMG this is brilliant!

At Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – What Difference Will It Make?"

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.

'I feel morally compelled at a serious personal level to call for and defend the development of weapons of overwhelming power and sophistication and then to call for their employment against all nation states and ideologies currently waging wars against any liberal democracy...'

Heh, my friend David Swindle gets personal in the name of national self-defense.

At PJ Media, "When the Grandchildren of the Atom Bomb Wake Up, There Will Be No More 9/11s":

Whether Jew, Christian, secularist, or a tech-minded, neo-pagan confabulation of all three like myself, the broad reading of the history of war against nature-worshipping slavemasters from the Canaanites to the Nazis reveals that the way to achieve peace is to impose it on the enemies trying to destroy you with weapons which make surrender the only viable option.

And at the post --- indeed, what inspired the post --- is this clip from Prager University:

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.

First Lady Michelle Obama Commemorates 9/11 with KaBOOM!

Sounds like she wants to blow some shit up on September 11.

And man, we still have two more years of this bull.

@AceofSpadesHQ If this tweet and pic does not prove that the Obamas hate American children, what does https://t.co/KjNmMo1f2V
— KBDaBear (@kbdabear) September 12, 2014

The Democrat Radical Left is Destroying and Wussifying the American Military

An astonishing segment.

John Stossel interviews former Marine Aaron MacLean:



You'll be fuming by the time you get to the $150.00 a gallon for green fuels for American military aircraft. Obama did that. Something he actually did, the f-king treasonous scumball.

'Scottish independence would seriously weaken Britain as America's most important ally and as one of the key pillars of the Western world's security posture in the Middle East and Eastern Europe...'

An awesome piece, from Brendan Simms and Jason Pack, at the Los Angeles Times, "The Scots have little to gain and a whole lot to lose with independence":

The gravest immediate threat to the West's long-term security does not emanate from Vladimir Putin or from the militants of the Islamic State. Rather, surprisingly, it comes from peace-loving Scots.

With polls now showing a majority of Scots supporting independence in the referendum set for Sept. 18, it's suddenly clear that Scotland might actually break away from Britain. In the words of Lord West of Spithead, former First Sea Lord, "A 'yes' vote for Scottish independence would make it more difficult to defend Britain. It would diminish NATO and the West's ability to do things."

Bluntly put, there is no rational upside for a 'yes' vote. In Scotland, the independence campaign runs on emotions alone. Abroad, its supporters are the postcolonial left who will revel in Britain's resultant weakness. Independence may increase Scotland's national pride, but its economy will suffer as companies and jobs flee south amid uncertainties about currency and taxation.

There will be no political dividend either. Unlike the "Irish problem" of the 20th century, the Scottish question is not a running sore in European or transatlantic politics. It does not involve a serious terrorist threat, nor would independence eliminate a destabilizing political movement — as would Corsican independence from France or Basque independence from Spain.

Simply put, Scottish independence is a solution in search of a problem. It would unwittingly destroy history's most successful political merger, the Anglo-Scottish Union of 1707, which enabled Britain to punch above its weight in the world, served as a model for the United States Constitution, and provided a dynamic core for a fiscal-military state that defeated its illiberal and undemocratic opponents in World War I, World War II and the Cold War.

Scottish independence would seriously weaken Britain as America's most important ally and as one of the key pillars of the Western world's security posture in the Middle East and Eastern Europe...

Keep reading.

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.