Putin Neuters Obama in Syria

ON SYRIA OBAMA PLAYS TIDDLYWINKS;  PUTIN PLAYS CHESS

from Investors’ Business Daily:

Geopolitics: The White House was “surprised” by a new intelligence-sharing pact among Iran, Syria, Russia and Iraq to fight the Islamic State. But given their own actions, anyone else could have seen it coming.

For the Obama administration, there’s always a surprise when it comes to the Middle East. Having pulled out of Iraq before Iraq was ready, they were taken unawares by the Islamic State’s rise. Now Russia’s strategic moves to be the big dog on the block in the Mideast have thrown them for another loop.

Russia has forged an alliance with Syria, Iran and Iraq to share intelligence to destroy the Islamic State — without inviting the U.S. The pact has a powerful moral rationale, given the monstrosity of the enemy and the U.S. lack of will to fight. But it also will permanently extend Russian power in the region, something that Russia had under the USSR but that is also a longstanding imperial ambition dating back to the days of Vlad the Great.

What we are seeing here is the totally predictable outcome of a U.S. victory thrown away.

No matter how much Obama blames former President Bush or Syrian dictator Bashar Assad for the current shambles in the Middle East, the facts on the ground remain: Our military was on the cusp of victory after a painstaking process of engagement, but the entire effort was discarded for the far cheaper aim of pulling troops out and calling the pullout “peace.”

Please read on:

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/092815-773146-on-syria-obama-plays-tiddlywinks-putin-plays-chess.htm

Will GOP Now Function without Boehner?

A Chance to End Republican Dysfunction

by Kimberley Strassel at the Wall Street Journal:

The rebels who ousted Boehner have beefs but no candidate. Can they and the next speaker work it out?

“If California’s Kevin McCarthy becomes the next Speaker of the House, it won’t be because he “won” the job the conventional way. He’ll have to make more than a few promises to get it. That’s notable, and it gets to the heart of this Republican Congress’s current dysfunction. And to whether it can be remedied.

Think about it. John Boehner is resigning because a sizable rump of his own party is bitter over his leadership and blocks his every move. Mr. McCarthy, who announced his run Monday, has been at Mr. Boehner’s side since 2009 as chief deputy whip, majority whip and majority leader. He has backed Mr. Boehner’s decisions, and he generally ascribes to Mr. Boehner’s view that Republicans have better things to do than engage in repeated political showdowns that have no chance of success.

Yet it is generally assumed that Mr. McCarthy will face no credible challenger. After all the Sturm und Drang, how can this be? The reason is that the opposition rump has no alternative. It has beefs, but no candidate.”    Please read on:

http://www.wsj.com/article_email/a-chance-to-end-republican-dysfunction-1443485928-lMyQjAxMTA1ODIzOTkyMzk5Wj

Iraq Turns to Russia to Replace Feckless America under Obama

by Paul Mirengoff  at  PowerLine:

IRAQ TURNS TO RUSSIA TO FILL VOID LEFT BY “UNSERIOUS” OBAMA

“The Washington Post reports that Iraq plans to set up a joint-intelligence-sharing hub with Syria, Iran, and Russia to fight ISIS. The center is expected to be operational within a matter of weeks, according to a spokesman for the Iraqi Defense Ministry.

The Post’s Loveday Morris explains the meaning of this move:

The deal is the latest indication of expanding Russian influence in the region as Moscow embarks on a major buildup of troops and military assets along the Syrian coast. A larger role in Iraq could come at the expense of U.S. clout, with Washington struggling to compete with Iran for influence on the battlefield.

Actually, the opening for Russia to play a larger role exists because the Obama administration isn’t seriously trying to compete on the battlefield. As Morris says:

Efforts to push back militants in Iraq have virtually stalled, with U.S.-backed troops around Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, apparently unable to make any significant progress in retaking the city from the Islamic State. Despite a $1.3 billion train-and-equip program for Iraqi forces, Iraqi officials complain that assistance has been slow compared with support from Iran and Russia.

A member of parliament from Iraq’s ruling State of Law bloc stated the matter more succinctly:

Iraq has had enough of the unserious support and procedures of [Obama’s] international coalition.

The intelligence center may well prove to be just the beginning of Russia’s role in Iraq. A Russian news agency reported that a committee for “planning operations and controlling armed forces units” fighting ISIS may also be created.

Obama’s “unserious” approach to the fight against ISIS hasn’t gone unnoticed among our allies, either. The Post reports that French jet fighters conducted a five-hour bombing operation against an ISIS training camp in Syria this weekend. Although France is a member of the U.S. led coalition, it is deciding on its own which targets to attack in Syria.

France’s military role is, as ever, related to its quest to be a major diplomatic player — in this instance, in formulation on a political solution for Syria, if things ever get to that point. Francois Hollande has proclaimed that, to this end, “France is talking with everyone and excluding no one.”

Like Russia, France can always be counted on (albeit for less malignant reasons) to try to fill, in its own way, a vacuum left by the United States. And President Obama can be counted on eventually to leave a vacuum.

Does he care who fills them? I see no evidence that he does.”

Muslim Activist, Rula Jebreal Talks Muslimist: Blood on Trump, Cruz, and Ben Carson

Rula Jebreal: Carson, Trump, And Cruz Will “Have Blood On Their Hands” If Gunman Targets Mosque

Muslim activist Rula Jebreal scolds Republican presidential candidates for the language they use about Muslims and Islamic fanatics. Jebreal said criminalizing Muslims appeals to the Republican base.

(Note:  It would seem to me that Muslims throughout the Near East and jihadi volunteers from the USA do a good enough job criminalizing  on their own to enjoy the terror they cause anyone nonMuslim.)  Please view the following realclearpolitics video recording of Muslim talk:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/09/29/rula_jebreal_carson_trump_and_cruz_will_have_blood_on_their_hands_if_gunman_targets_mosque.html

A Quick and Easy Guide to Planned Parenthood Videos

A QUICK AND EASY GUIDE TO PLANNED PARENTHOOD VIDEOS

by Mollie Hemingway  at the Federalist:

“On July 14, the Center for Medical Progress began releasing a series of videos about the Planned Parenthood abortion clinics. Reporting for the video project was done undercover and took place over the course of several years. The videos feature executives and staffers at Planned Parenthood and affiliated businesses discussing and demonstrating human organ harvesting and the fetal body part trade. Some of the discussions and footage taken inside abortion clinics is quite graphic.

The journalism project immediately went viral, with millions of people watching the videos. But the media have largely struggled to even mention the videos and what they show. When presidential candidate Carly Fiorina mentioned the videos during the 2nd GOP presidential debate, the media claimed to have no idea what she was talking about. The weak media coverage has left many Americans in the dark about the content of the videos. And sloppy reporting has led to misinformation about the videos.
Here’s a quick and easy guide to the 10 videos that have been released thus far and what they show.

1) Planned Parenthood Uses Partial-Birth Abortions to Sell Baby Parts

Please read further…..

http://thefederalist.com/2015/09/29/a-quick-and-easy-guide-to-the-planned-parenthood-videos/

Head of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards claims before a Congressional Committee, that the videos were doctored……    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/09/29/forensic-analysis-planned-parenthood-videos-show-no-evidence-manipulation/?intcmp=hpbt1

Hillary Can’t Explain Why Previously Undisclosed Emails Turned Up……Blames GOP

Hillary Clinton Says She Cannot Explain Why Previously Undisclosed Emails Turned Up

“Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Sunday that she could not fully explain the discovery of a string of work emails sent from her personal account more than two months earlier than when she has said she began using that address as secretary of state. But she said she hoped that voters would look past what she called the “drip, drip, drip” of the furor over her emails.

“There was a transition period. You know, I wasn’t that focused on my email,” Mrs. Clinton said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” when asked about emails sent from her personal account in her first two months after taking office in January 2009. She had previously said she did not begin using a clintonemail.com address for State Department business until that March.

The State Department said on Friday that Mrs. Clinton had exchanged emails in late January and February 2009 with Gen. David H. Petraeus, then the commander of the United States Central Command.

Pressed to explain the discrepancy, Mrs. Clinton said it was beyond her technical understanding.”……Please continue:

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/09/27/hillary-clinton-says-she-cannot-explain-why-previously-undisclosed-emails-turned-up/

Immigration is Remaking America

……”Is that what we want?”  by John Hinderaker   at PowerLine:

This Pew Report quantifies the explosive impact that immigration, legal and illegal, is having on the United States. This year is the 50th anniversary of the Ted Kennedy-inspired Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. This simple chart shows the consequences of the unprecedented wave of immigration that followed passage of the act:

Please read further:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/09/immigration-is-remaking-america-is-that-what-we-want.php

Politico with a fair article about Ted Cruz by Burgess Everett

TED CRUZ’S BIG MOMENT    by Burgess Everett   at Politico:

“If Ted Cruz is ever going to break through in the Republican presidential primary, the time is now.
Cruz has been the workmanlike conservative of the GOP field: a strong fundraiser but no Jeb Bush, well-liked by the activist right yet unable, so far, to generate the kind of breakout moments that have vaulted his anti-establishment rivals out of the single-digit doldrums.

But Cruz’s supporters see the showdown in Congress over Planned Parenthood and the budget — which kicks into high gear this week and could stretch into the winter, on the cusp of voting in early states — as a critical opening for the first-term lawmaker. With the spotlight focused on Congress, they say, it will allow Cruz to make a sustained case to tea party and evangelical voters that he’s the one candidate doing battle in the trenches for their causes, just as many of them are picking a horse in the race. The goal, he and allies stop just short of saying, is to expose his chief competitors for the outsider mantle as pretenders by comparison.
“Every election we see campaign conservatives who talk a good game on the campaign trail, and yet haven’t walked the walk,” Cruz told POLITICO in an interview last week. “The clearest distinction is that, of the Republican candidates running, I am the only consistent conservative who on issue after issue after issue has been the same yesterday, today, tomorrow.”
“The fight is in Washington,” said Steve Deace, an influential conservative Iowa radio host who has endorsed Cruz. “You can be great in debates, you can be great on Fox News … but really, ultimately, are you great where the battle is the hottest?”
Other Republicans, however, warn that the fiscal fights this fall could define Cruz — whose time in Congress is best known for the two-week government shutdown he helped instigate in 2013, and the routine ire he draws from his Senate colleagues — as too doctrinaire and too much of a pariah within his own party to win a general election. Flirting with a second government shutdown in as many years is a risky play for a candidate with any hope of being more than just a favorite of the far right.”……….please continue reading below:

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/ted-cruz-planned-parenthood-2016-government-shutdown-214098

June, 1954……A Spectacle to be Seen and Remembered……A Total Solar Eclipse Hit the Twin Cities

(Warning:  Do Not Look Into the  Sun at any time during a solar eclipse without proper protection.   We were casually warned through local news sources then to look through at least four levels of used photo film for safety sake to avoid permanent blindness.  That is what I did and survived blindness….but that was so yesterday.

Today, for those planning to view the total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017, it is highly recommended to purchase the special solar eclipse glasses prepared for such eclipse viewing.)

A total  lunar eclipse gathered news recently here in the Twin Cities…..an evening event which occurs more frequently with significantly less drama than a solar eclipse.  It is a night affair.

The word “eclipse” reminded me of a unique morning in my life  in June, 1954, the morning  a total SOLAR eclipse hit the Twin Cities where I was born and raised.

Few people  have ever  had an opportunity to get out of bed shortly after dawn, as I and friends did here in urban St. Paul-Minneapolis  on a beautiful June morning sixty years ago this past Spring,   to drive about ten miles to  find a hill to climb to  look across a valley eastward over downtown St. Paul  to view the  moon cut “rudely”  in front  of our Earth’s sun.

The rudeness of it all…..

“Early this evening, I found  “the Universe” on the history 2 channel.   It had just begun its lessons about the total eclipse of the Sun.

To catch viewer interest it displayed a spectacular view of the full eclipse with all its beauty and mystery.   Immediately I remembered the one  I had actually seen  in my life…..a real one……in 1954.

I had to drive about ten miles  from home for the best view one could ever get, and it was free.     I had convinced my girl friend and two other   couples that the solar eclipse  might be worth seeing.  It wasn’t an easy sell.

The narrator mentioned that almost no humans outside the specialized scientific community has ever actually  seen a  TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN.

Suddenly I felt very important…..special.   Being a guy I perked up.    I was suddenly statistically unique among  earthly creatures who speak.

For I did  see that   TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN, from an hour before to about one after and everything inbetween.   I hadn’t thought about it for decades!   I remember referring to it one time  when I was a public school teacher in the  1960s describing it as a sight for a lifetime  that I would never forget as long as I lived.

But, I did forget……until the moment watching ‘the Universe’.

I report the following  to you Prager friends from  memory.   Many of you Twin City readers well  above  retirement age might also have joined the curious  that Saturday morning   early June, 1954 to see, for real, one of the most memorable and rarest of  our environment’s  great shows.

There were three couples of us who set out early that Saturday morning  to hunt down a location for the best view.   Experts had warned  viewers  NOT to look at  the Sun with  the naked eye or with a pair of sun glasses even at the height of the show, the full eclipse.

I don’t remember there being a lot of hype about the event in the press.   Television had been around in the Twin Cities for only about eight years.  I had taken an astronomy class at the University of Minnesota.  I  knew  it was a very rare occasion when  a total solar eclipse  crossed over   a large metropolitan center.    The press did get excited  when they learned of this honor.

I did too.   As I recall, but fuzzily, I and my two buddies were graduating from the University that evening.    The eclipse was scheduled  for something like 5:30 AM.   There was some static about the timing being too early for us to stir.   Our girl friends wanted to go with us to see it…..and so, we, all of us decided to  go together  to  the  big SHOW.

It was reported there might be a problem with the weather.   The forecast was for partly cloudy  in the morning clearing toward noon , the time the moon was to disturb the sun’s rays from our points of view.

Clouds would have ruined  everything.

In 1954 no one had any money.   I owned a 1946 used and beaten Nash  Ambassador; friend Jake Jacobson a more reliable and newer, 1952 Plymouth.   He had bought it new.    His dad owned a Deep Rock service station where Jake could work.   I remember discussions about what equipment  we might need  to look at the Sun with or without the moon in front of it.    Who was in it in Greek mythology who was blinded by looking straight into the Sun?   Icarus, I knew ‘flew’ too close to the Sun and persihed when his wings melted.

No one remembered.

The newspapers recommended camera  film.    My  family’s camera was a 1929 Kodak.   Leftovers from  printed rolls were always returned with the prints after processing.   I taped a couple of these film pieces into my dad’s sunglasses fixing them neatly into the rims.

We  drove to a hilly undeveloped  area, south of St. Paul, across the Mendota Bridge near Acacia Cenetery.    We climbed up a large  grassy knoll and waited.   We had arrived early…..early enough to start  grumbling about how tired we all were and what in hell were we doing on this weedy hill looking eastward down into a valley as if worshipping  downtown St. Paul in the distance?   We, in time,  decided it was a rather attractive  setting ….We waited and waited some more.

“This better be  big!”…….the  threat appeared out of more than one set of lips.    I think it came from my own mouth as well, even though I was the butt of the charge.

The day was beautiful……absolutely perfect.   Not a cloud in the sky.   Clear, clear as clear could  be…..a fresh 70 degrees F.   Not a breeze.   Our voices could carry everywhere.    We felt great.

We were the only flock nesting on the hill.

Suddenly we got tense:  “Does anyone  see anything?”   “Isn’t it    time for “it”  to begin!”   “Look again!”….(through film with  sunglasses)….”Yes, yes…look, up there to  the left!”  “Yeah, what’s going on over on the left?”  “It’s starting!”

The moon had made its move to begin the  show as if drawing  a spectacular curtain.   We were excited, for sure, very excited.   There was an electricity all around us as well.   “Can you imagine what primitive man must have thought looking at an eclipse?  someone asked…maybe it was me.   “What do you think WE  are?’   Jake inquired.

All of us were enjoying ourselves.   It seemed like a fun party….without beer,  and at 6:00 AM on a Saturday. Who could have believed it?

More and more of the moon encroached upon the Great Light   behind it.   A breeze began and immediately dogs started howling and birds fluttered noisily.  Trees began to stir and bend.   And then, a  dark shadow exploded noiseless  in the distance suddenly covering downtown St. Paul and rolled speeding   toward us as if to attack bringing a cold wind with it.   It enveloped   us, and then  passed   by as quickly as it arrived,  leaving  darkness in its path as if  night itself were about to fall.

Then   total silence……including  silent humans in awe of the sight and feel.   For eight or nine minutes the circlish fire of the Sun ringed the circle of the black  Moon.   We were mesmerized, awed,  and thrilled all at the same time.

The ‘Universe’ program narrator said that a total eclipse of the sun can be seen from Earth  about once every sixteen months.

Despite lefty dogma and its  entitlements, we all should know that the vast majority of the Earth’s surface  is covered by water.    Most of the land above sea level is generally uninhabitable to the human animal.    Those worried about carbon dioxide, the UN  ‘pollutant’ no animal or vegetable  can live without, should know that the state of Texas could house all seven billion of us human creatures.

For more than a generation, American ‘educators’ have permitted the ignorant to lead the ignorant.   Know-nothing students could invent their own educational needs, about which they also  knew nothing.    Leftwing dogma filled with Marxism’s entitlements and bigotries replaced knowledge as the base of study  in the social science curricula of universities and schools from coast to coast.

None  of us were alcoholics.   No one was  on drugs…..We didn’t swear at each other.   Crime  was never a problem on college campuses.   Girls were female.  Guys were male.   Tails didn’t wag dogs.   Families mattered.    Young blacks had  fathers and didn’t run around raping, pillaging and burning in their communities.

We enjoyed school and learning.    We worked to pay for our tuition and books.  We knew what a total eclipse of the sun was.   We studied to gain knowledge, not to become bigots learning to hate our America.

I have recorded my  thoughts,  and the fond memories I have of that June 1954 total eclipse of the sun.    I  include the following quote by historian, Arnold  Toynbee:

“Great civilizations aren’t murdered.    They commit suicide!”

Global Warming Models are NOT SCIENCE!!!

ALMOST ALL US TEMPERATURE DATA USED IN GLOBAL WARMING MODELS IS ESTIMATED OR ALTERED

by John Hinderaker   at PowerLine:

“We have written many times about the fact that the temperature data used in the alarmists’ global warming models are not original data as measured by thermometers. Rather, they are “adjusted” numbers, consistently changed to make the past look cooler and the present warmer, so that more billions of dollars will flow from the world’s governments to the climate alarmists who serve government’s cause. This is, in my opinion, the greatest scandal in the history of science.

This article at Watts Up With That? adds incrementally to that picture. John Goetz analyzes the U.S. temperature data that finds its way into “official” tabulations. This is particularly important because, while the U.S. represents only 6.6% of the total land area of Earth, we account for close to half of the data relied on by the Global Historical Climatology Network. This is a big topic, and you should study the Goetz article in its entirety if you have time. I am still digesting it.

But a few highlights are obvious. First, Goetz finds that approximately 92% (or even more, depending on how you calculate it) of US surface temperature data consists of estimated or altered values. Very little raw data finds its way into the warmists’ climate models–which, of course, is the way they want it. Second, the adjustments that are made to the U.S. data consistently skew the numbers as we have described many times before–they try to make the present look warmer, compared with the past.”    Please click below to continue reading and review  the charts provided:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/09/almost-all-us-temperature-data-used-in-global-warming-models-is-estimated-or-altered.php