PrairiePundit

Fox News: Cruz calls for US to bomb Islamic State jihadists 'back to the Stone Age' Some well placed rounds fired from the guns mounted on an A-10 could wipe out ISIL's mobility in The Toyota pickup motorcades.  Our strategy should be to destroy the enemy's ability to make war.

Express: British terror fighters banned from coming home by David Cameron   BRITONS fighting for the Islamic State will be banned from returning to the UK under radical plans to be unveiled tomorrow. They should expand that to anyone fighting for any Islamist entity.  Thwarting the return of terrorist should be a government obligation.

Jon Cassidy: CRIMINALIZING CONSERVATISM   In Scott Walker’s Wisconsin, prosecutors would shut down all conservative activity. These guys are as arrogant as the Travis County, Texas DA's office and there goal appears to be the same.  They are trying to criminalize their political differences with certain conservatives.

NY Times: Israel Claims Nearly 1,000 Acres of West Bank Land The move could herald significant construction near Bethlehem, defying Palestinian demands and challenging world opinion. If the Palestinians want to stop West Banmk expansion of settlements, they best accept a deal with Israel soon.  There refusal to bargain in good faith over the last couple of decades continues to cost them.

NY Times: Putin Urges Talks on Greater Autonomy for Eastern Ukraine In an interview Sunday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia veered between veiled threats and demands that the Ukraine government negotiate directly with separatists. I will take him seriously about autonomy when he offers the same deal to Chechnya.  I do think the chances of that are remote, but bringing it ups show his hypocrisy.  He is just trying to do an annexation on the cheap.

Gallup: Obama's "Strong Disapproval" Double His "Strong Approval"   Republicans are more likely to strongly disapprove now than in 2010 The strong disapproval is at the 39 percent mark which means there are a lot of voters motivated to vote against the President and his party.

Washington Post: U.S. strikes help break Islamic State’s siege Iraqi forces aided by U.S. airstrikes entered the town of Amerli, where thousands of residents had been trapped for two months. This marks the second time the U.S. has intervened militarily in Iraq to prevent an Islamic State attack. The ISIL army has a force to space problem.  It has taken more space than it has troops to hold.  US airpower combined with Iraqi ground forces are beginning to drive them out of some of their recent gains in Iraq.  The US could do much more, if it would bring in several squadrons of A-10's.  These planes with there built in cannons could destroy the ISIL columns of Toyota pickup trucks full of fighters that are used to transport troops to battle.  They are exposed in the open desert in their movement to contact and it is a mistake not to take them and their trucks out.

NY Times: Kochs’ Political Network Wrestles With Expectations Activists involved in organizations backed by Charles and David Koch want a more active role in the 2016 primaries. While there are other aspects of the network of activist, Americans for Prosperity just wrapped up a Defending the American Dream Summit in Dallas. Texas with around 3,000 enthusiastic supporters.  They knocking on doors and find potential supporters who become part of a get out the vote project.  But they are also Involved in a more broad based social media effort to identify supporters.  Democrats have been fearful of conservative activist since the 2010 race and have tried to use the levers of government to thwart them. That effort has back fired with the IRS scandal.

Times of Israel: Under cover of darkness, 40 Filipino peacekeepers who were surrounded and came under fire by Syrian rebels in the Golan Heights made a daring escape, the Philippine military chief Sunday, while 44 Fijian soldiers remained in the hands of the insurgents. After coming under rebel attack Saturday, the first group of 35 Filipino peacekeepers was successfully escorted out of UN encampment in Breiqa by Irish and Filipino forces on board armored vehicles, said Gen. Gregorio Pio Catapang and other military officials. Another group of 40 Filipino troops had remained trapped at another encampment, called Rwihana, by more than 100 gunmen who rammed the camp’s gates with their trucks and fired mortar rounds after the Filipinos refused to surrender with their weapons and instead returned fire in self-defense, Philippine military officials said. Syrian government forces fired artillery rounds from a distance at one point to prevent the Filipino peacekeepers from being overwh...

Fuel Fix: Growing Chinese appetite ignites U.S. methanol renaissance ... ... Made from natural gas, methanol is used in a wide range of products, including plastics, paints, solvents, refrigerants and pigments. ... In some countries it is also used for fuel, although the EPA has not approved it for that use in this country.  With the US's abundant supply of natural gas it should become a major supplier of methanol.

Janet Daley: ... Why on earth did the President of the United States convene a press conference apparently designed to reassure the leaders of Isil, and Vladimir Putin, that America was not about to do any of the things that they feared? There are really only two possible interpretations, neither of them edifying. The first and most obvious is that the Obama team is hopelessly divided. This became embarrassingly evident when the grotesque murder of the American journalist James Foley by Isil landed the Middle East crisis right on the nation’s doorstep. Mr Obama offered a five-minute blast of rhetorical outrage (before returning to the golf course) but notably no material change in US policy. Then things got rather more confusing. His defence secretary, Chuck Hagel, stated that Isil was an “imminent threat” to US interests and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin Dempsey, sitting next to him, delivered a thunderous declaration of the need to confront Isil in Syria: “This ...

Daily Mail on Sunday: Myth of arctic meltdown: Stunning satellite images show summer ice cap is thicker and covers 1.7million square kilometres MORE than 2 years ago...despite Al Gore's prediction it would be ICE-FREE by now Seven years after former US Vice-President Al Gore's warning, Arctic ice cap has expanded for second year in row An area twice the size of Alaska - America's biggest state - was open water two years ago and is now covered in ice These satellite images taken from University of Illinois's Cryosphere project show ice has become more concentrated How can this be when the globo warmers are telling us it has been one of the hottest years in history, as the same time we had one of the coldest winters in recent memory in the US.  It is more evidence of what a challenge the globo warmers have in explaining their theory in a persuasive way.

Independent on Sunday: ISLAMIC militants have reinforced a siege on UN peacekeepers in the Golan Heights this evening. "As we speak more rebels in more than 20 vehicles are approaching and reinforcing the siege around Position 68," a diplomat source said on condition of anonymity. The source added that the reinforcements began arriving at 11:00 p.m. local time. The area on the Syria -Israel border has been the focus of increased violence in recent days. Irish troops operating in the area in a peacekeeping capacity were involved in a rescue mission this morning at another post under siege by militants. 32 Filipino UN peacekeepers at the Breiqa encampment were extracted this morning, with the assistance of Irish peacekeepers who rushed to the scene, said officials. The UN has said there was a firefight - however it is not yet known whether any Irish soldier discharged their weapon. The Irish UN peacekeeper battalion, which is tasked with emergency responses, saf...

The AFP's Defending the American Dream Summit has brought around 3,000 to Dallas.  Among the many things I have found interesting is that Women probably out number the men. The audience is diverse.  It is like all these women did not get the word that they are supposed to not like conservatives.  I just don't buy the Democrat spin and even the polls that attempt to support it.  These women are activist who support the mission of AFP including support for the free market and the freedom agenda.

AFP: King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has warned that the West will be the next target of the jihadists sweeping through Syria and Iraq, unless there is "rapid" action. "If we ignore them, I am sure they will reach Europe in a month and America in another month," he said in remarks quoted on Saturday by Asharq al-Awsat daily and Saudi-backed Al-Arabiya television station. "Terrorism knows no border and its danger could affect several countries outside the Middle East," said the king who was speaking at a welcoming ceremony on Friday for new ambassadors, including a new envoy from Saudi ally the United States. The Islamic State (IS) jihadist group has prompted widespread concern as it advances in both Syria and Iraq, killing hundreds of people, including in gruesome beheadings and mass executions. Lack of action would be "unacceptable" in the face of the phenomenon, King Abdullah said. "You see how they (jihadists) carry out beheadin...

James Robbins: 'Fake' IRS scandal spawns real coverup: Column Lost email, hard-drive crashes, recycled computers, destroyed Blackberry no coincidence. It is hard to believe anything they say about their inability to produce evidence.

Fred Barnes: "Tom Cotton voted against preparing America for pandemics like Ebola,” a TV ad in Arkansas declared last week. The ad came from Democrat Mark Pryor, who is running for reelection to the Senate. Cotton, a House member, is his Republican opponent in the November 4 election. The ad failed to mention that after voting against an early version of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act, Cotton voted for the bill once a provision he objected to was removed. Last spring, Senate majority leader Harry Reid’s PAC said in an ad: “Before Congress, Cotton got paid handsomely working for insurance companies.” The claim was untrue, as was the ad’s insistence that Cotton “wants to end Medicare’s guarantee, giving billions in profits to insurance companies.” The Washington Post’s fact checker gave the ad “four Pinocchios,” calling it “as phony as a three-dollar bill.” In June, a 30-second ad by the Arkansas Democratic party said Cotton opposes disaster reli...

NY Times: Obama Said to Be Weighing Delay in Action on Immigration President Obama appears to be delaying a proposal to revamp immigration laws until after the elections in November, mindful of the electoral peril for Democratic Senate candidates. Amnesty has become a drag on Democrats and any unilateral move by the President will only make the political situation tougher for them in an already tough year.  However, if he waits until after the election he is going to have an even more difficult time with Congress on the issue.

Fuel Fix: Houston rail terminal operator USD Partners  told regulators Friday it plans to make a $150 million Wall Street debut later this year as U.S. oil companies turn to trains to transport crude. It owns a crude-by-rail terminal that starts in Alberta, Canada and can daily load up two trains, each with 120 oil-laden railcars, and send them to San Antonio and West Colton, California. Combined, its trains can carry up to 33,000 barrels per day. It’s one of several crude-by-rail companies that have seized on the oil industry’s need to move oil from major U.S. shale plays or Canadian heavy crude fields to North American markets and buyers. “High-growth production areas in North America are often located at significant distances from refining centers,” the company said in regulatory filings. The North American rail network “has strategically positioned rail as a long-term alternative transportation solution to the growing and evolving energy infrastructure needs.” ... This poi...

Washington Times: The federal government believes a terrorist attack at the U.S.-Mexico border is imminent and has put out a bulletin on the matter, a government watchdog group reported Friday. Judicial Watch released a statement that said Islamic terrorist groups who have infiltrated the city of Ciudad Juarez aim to use car bombs to attack American interests. “High-level federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources have confirmed to Judicial Watch that a warning bulletin for an imminent terrorist attack on the border has been issued,” the statement read. “Agents across a number of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense agencies have all been placed on alert and instructed to aggressively work all possible leads and sources concerning this imminent terrorist threat.” High-level sources in the intelligence community told the nonprofit organization that one of the terrorist groups operating out of Ciudad Juarez is the Islamic State, which beheaded American photojourna...

ABC News: A pair of possible 2016 Republican presidential candidates attacked President Obama 's blunt admission that he does not yet have a strategy to counter ISIS militants in Syria , just as the White House tried to clarify the president's intention. At a conservative gathering in Dallas, Texas Gov. Rick Perry slammed the president for "dithering" on a decision of whether to launch airstrikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria , accusing the president of "always playing catch-up" on the world stage. President Obama Says 'We Don't Have a Strategy Yet' to Bomb ISIS in Syria ABC DEEP DIVE: ISIS' Trail of Terror Perry Warns Terrorists Could Infiltrate US Through Border "ISIS is not the junior varsity," said Perry, who is believed to be considering another bid for president in 2016, directing his comments towards the president. "It is a clear and present danger to the free worldand, Mr. President, the pea...

NY Times: Judge Strikes Down Restrictive Texas Abortion Law The ruling involved a requirement that abortion clinics in the state meet the same standards as hospital-style surgical centers. This puts the lie to the pro abortion argument about women's health.   It is not about health for them.  It is about terminating pregnancy regardless of the risk,

Washington Examiner: U.K. raises terrorist threat level Apparently they have evidence of plot by some of their citizens who have been fighting for the terrorist.

Fox News: Fort Hood shooter wants to become 'citizen' of Islamic State caliphate He is unlikely to ever get out of prison to make this wish come true.  That is a good thing.  Sounds like he is interested in more than "work place violence."

I will be blogging from Dallas the next couple of days catching up on the speakers at the Americans for Prosperity annual conference.  If you are there look me up.  I will be the guy who looks like he is auditioning for the Dos XX's commercial.  It is just my beard these days.  I don't drink the stuff.

Red States: MT-Sen: Things aren’t going well for Dem Nominee Amanda Curtis Her stock answer seems to be "I'll have to get back to you on what I think about the situation in Iraq," or what ever else she is asked.

Washington Post: Landrieu claims parents’ La. home as her own, raising residency questions Opponents of the Louisiana senator say she primarily lives in a $2.5 million brick home in D.C. Or, maybe it is just a scam to avoid having two mortgages.  Perhaps she is just a wealthy boomerang kid.

NY Times: U.S. Oil Bonanza Means Lower Prices at the Pump United States refinery production in recent weeks reached record highs and left supply depots flush, cushioning the impact of the instability surrounding global oil fields. This proves Obama and the anti energy left of the Democrat party were dead wrong when they opposed drilling as away to deal with the high cost of imported oil.  They are still pursuing a policy of artificial scarcity trying to block drilling on federal sites.  There should be a political price for being so wrong and doing so much damage to the US economy.

NY Times: U.S. Identifies Citizens Joining Rebels in Syria, Including ISIS Nearly a dozen Americans are known to have traveled to Syria to fight for ISIS, the militant group that the Obama administration says poses the greatest threat to the United States since Al Qaeda before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. That would seem to be the minimum response for alleged traitors.  Congress needs to pass a law allowing their citizenship to be stripped to prevent their return to this country.

NY Times: Movement to Boycott Israel Gains Strength in Europe The war in Gaza and its aftermath have inflamed opinion in Europe, analysts say, and are likely to increase support for campaigns to divest from and penalize Israel. I find this development puzzling.  Why would they side with war criminals like Hamas?  Hamas deliberately put its on people in the line of fire and refused numerous opportunities for a cease fire like the one they finally accepted.  If they had accepted the first one they could have avoided the destruction they earned with their attempts to kill Israeli non combatants.   I can't phantom why they find it acceptable for Hamas to fire thousands of rockets toward non combatants.  Yet that seems to be what they wanted Israel to accept.

AP/Fuel Fix: The U.S. Bureau of Land Management will resume issuing oil and gas leases next year for federal lands in California after a new study found limited environmental impacts from hydraulic fracturing and other enhanced drilling techniques, the agency said Thursday. The move will end a halt that has stood since a federal judge ruled in 2013 that the federal agency failed to follow environmental law in allowing fracking on public land in Monterey County. The study released Thursday was conducted for the BLM by the state-created California Council on Science and Technology. It concluded the current level of fracking and other well-stimulation techniques by drillers to get more oil out of rock formations did not seem to be poisoning water supplies or increasing earthquake risks in the state. That is partly because fracking and other methods used in California differ from those in some other states, the researchers concluded. ... The anti energy left will probably still try to f...

Guardian: Kurdish forces halt Isis advance in Iraq - video Video (58 sec) Kurdish peshmerga forces retake control of areas south-east of Erbil in Iraq on Wednesday The terrorist are having trouble holding all of their gains in northern Iraq.  We should be doing more to help the Kurds get rid of the infestation.

Washington Times: The U.S. intelligence community has observed a “significant increase” in chatter among terrorist organizations as the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks nears. “We’ve noticed a significant increase in chatter among Islamic terrorist organizations overseas both on the Internet and phone lines,” a U.S. government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Blaze . SEE ALSO: ‘We are in your streets’: Chicago gets chilling Islamic State terror tweet While the intelligence community can not pinpoint whether or not an attack is planned, the official said that agencies “did see this kind of increase in chatter before the September 11 attacks.” Deciphering chatter is more difficult than in previous years because of the rise of the Islamic State group, which threatens to drain al Qaeda of resources as it asserts dominance Iraq and Syria . Like al Qaeda , Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has openly declared its intent to bring terr...

Washington Post: Obama on the Islamic State: ‘We don’t have a strategy yet’ The president said there is no plan to imminently step up military action against the extremist group in Iraq or Syria. Uh oh!

NY Times: Videos Show Mass Killing of Captives by ISIS in Syria More than 100 men, possibly Syrian soldiers, were apparently lined up in their underwear and gunned down. In the Golan Heights, non-ISIS rebels seized United Nations peacekeepers. While the media is duly reporting the atrocities, they seem to lack a sense of outrage.  The were much more excited about Abu Grade in Iraq where no one was killed.  They seem to fear getting people worked up enough to do something about the massacres.

Sharyl Attkisson notes how the DOJ is representing the IRS in the civil case brought by Judicial Watch at the same time it is supposed to be conducting an impartial inquiry into the abuses.

LA Times: Experts see long, tough battle to contain Islamic State Air attacks in Iraq and contemplation of similar action in Syria will do little more than temporarily curb the militants' momentum, analysts say. Says one: 'There is no short-term fix. It will take a sustained effort over several weeks of concentrated air strikes on ISIL mechanized units and also on stopping their movement to contact which will probably mean taking out a lot of Toyota pickup trucks.

Ross Gerber: ... Longer term, however, the trend towards more global turbulence has made one thing crystal clear: The United States must achieve total energy independence. The fact that this is not a novel idea – yes, it’s been discussed during political campaigns and has served as the subject of countless articles and opinion pieces throughout the years – doesn’t make the pursuit of national energy independence any less of a strategic imperative. The United States has always purchased its oil from countries with which we have, at best, a complicated relationship. Consider regimes such as Saudi Arabia. While the United States technically has a diplomatic relationship with the Saudis, they continue to tacitly (and sometimes, not so tacitly) support groups and policies that are hostile to Western culture in general and US interests in particular. Such relationships could change. The United States will soon be the world’s largest oil producer ,  thanks to innovative new extraction...

Washington Free Beacon: Hamas leaders on Tuesday declared the seven-week confrontation with Israel a “great victory for the Palestinian resistance” and a step toward the next round of fighting with the Jewish state, but many Gaza citizens are questioning the usefulness of Hamas’ attacks. One Gazan in the street who lost his home in the bombing asked a reporter—“why did they have to provoke Israel?”—the question suggests Hamas leadership may yet face sharp questioning after the dust settles. The public celebrations after the ceasefire went into effect are seen in Israel as an expression of relief that the bombing and shelling have finally stopped. According to Israel, the pressure on Hamas and other militant groups in the last week of battle was so great that, in an unprecedented move, the local Hamas leadership in Gaza forced Hamas’ political leader, Khaled Mashaal, who is based in Qatar, to drop his opposition to the ceasefire proposed by Egypt even though it included none of the co...

Washington Post: Ukraine fears Russian invasion is now underway Fighting between Russian troops and the Ukrainian military worsened Thursday on a new, southern front as NATO promises to deploy forces to eastern Europe. Putin seems reluctant to go all in, but he is also reluctant to accept the losses of his insurgents and special ops operations.  The results is strange operations of some units that appear to be trying to stave off defeat of the Russian rebels within Ukraine.   If anything his operations seem closer to Lyndon Johnson's handling of the war in Vietnam.

NY Times: Immigration Clash Could Lead to Shutdown President Obama is believed to be preparing to take executive action on immigration, and Republicans are considering removing funding to effectively block the order, possibly prompting a spending stalemate just before November elections. Whether there is a shutdown is up to Obama.  If he wants to shut down the government to coerce funding of his lawless approach to immigration Democrats will pay a heavy price.  His immigration policy is already unpopular and this would only make it more so.

NY Times: Military Skill and Terrorist Technique Fuel Success of ISIS As fighters continue to seize territory, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has built an effective management structure of mostly middle-aged Iraqis, including many military officers under Saddam Hussein. The leaders and fighters lack inhibitions when it comes to war crimes.  This ruthlessness tends to frighten many of the people they face in combat.  They also have become somewhat proficient at maneuver warfare and combined arms operations to a limited extent.  This allows them to overcome lightly armed opposition.  So far they don't seem to have an anser for US air attacks other than to murder a prisoner.

Aaron Gardner: ... Conservatives and libertarians who are war weary have good reason to be skeptical of any plans to go after ISIS while President Obama “leads” the nation. Even the Daily Beast, who you might have noticed called the ISIS war in Iraq “his [Obama's] war”, asks whether President Obama will actually follow through. One huge unanswered question is whether the president will order the attacks, or whether he will ultimately balk, as he did this time last year after preparing for limited strikes against the Bashar al-Assad regime. One administration official working on Syria policy said the purpose of the meetings Tuesday was “to convince one man, Barack Obama,” to follow through on the rhetoric and widen the aims of the war to include destroying ISIS in both Iraq and Syria. While Obama and his top officials have said they will need to address the threat of ISIS on both sides of the Iraq/Syria border, Obama has not said specifically what that means. It amazes me that a...

Byron York: Of all the arguments made in the long and contentious debate over immigration reform , the one heard most often, from all sides, is that our immigration system is "broken." President Obama , John Boehner , Harry Reid , Mitch McConnell , Marco Rubio , Chuck Schumer , John McCain , Dick Durbin — just about every politician who has ever weighed in on the issue has said it. The only problem is, our immigration system is not broken. The part of the system that lets people into the United States is working — not without flaws, of course, but successfully managing the country's immigration needs every day. And while the part that keeps people out of the country, or expels them if they overstay their permission to be here, is not working very well, it's not because the system is broken, but because Congress and the president do not want it to work. First, the part that lets people in. The United States grants legal permanent resident status — better known a...

Shaming people who have no shame is not going to work.

IBD Editorial: Radical Democrat activist groups stand to collect millions from Attorney General Eric Holder's record $17 billion deal to settle alleged mortgage abuse charges against Bank of America. Buried in the fine print of the deal, which includes $7 billion in soft-dollar consumer relief, are a raft of political payoffs to Obama constituency groups. In effect, the government has ordered the nation's largest bank to create a massive slush fund for Democrat special interests. Besides requiring billions in debt forgiveness payments to delinquent borrowers in Cleveland, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Oakland, Detroit, Chicago and other Democrat strongholds — and up to $500 million to cover personal taxes owed on those checks — the deal requires BofA to make billions in new loans, while also building affordable low-income rental housing in those areas. If there are leftover funds in four years, the settlement stipulates the money will go to Interest on Lawyers' Trust Account (IO...

Bloomberg: Russian hackers attacked the U.S. financial system in mid-August, infiltrating and stealing data from JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and at least one other bank, an incident the FBI is investigating as a possible retaliation for government-sponsored sanctions, according to two people familiar with the probe. The attack resulted in the loss of gigabytes of sensitive data, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the probe is still preliminary. Authorities are investigating whether recent infiltrations of major European banks using a similar vulnerability are also linked to the attack, one of the people said. In one case, the hackers used a software flaw known as a zero-day vulnerability in one of the banks’ websites. They then plowed through layers of elaborate security to steal the data, a feat security experts said appeared far beyond the capability of ordinary criminal hackers. The incidents occurred at a low point in relations between Russia and the Wes...

Fox News: 'STEADILY STRENGTHENING': Report says ISIS a crisis 4 years in making AP/Reuters A NEW REPORT from the West Point counterror center challenges the notion that the Islamic State group only recently became a major terror threat, as a source tells Fox News top Obama aides think threat from the group will outlast Obama's time in office. The point is that the administration should not have been surprised by the advance this summer.  I think it can be argued that the administration failed to stop that growth.

Washington Times: At least a third of the contracts the administration inked to help implement Obamacare are over budget, an inspector general’s audit reported Tuesday, highlighting the health program’s potential to inflate costs. Seven of the contracts already have cost twice as much as initially anticipated, the Health and Human Services Department’s inspector general said.  ... Investigators said the 20 contracts pinpointed as already over budget were estimated to cost about $345 million in total, but a review of committed funds so far shows they’ve exceeded projections by more than $283 million. ... It appears the administration is still not managing this program very well.  They either failed to project the cost of operations or they have not controlled spending or both.

David Harsanyi: The Left’s Ridiculous Burger King Freakout What the left needs to do is comprehend the law of diminishing returns.  When you set the price of anything too high people will find alternatives.  If Burger King priced their Whoppers at $10 a piece they will sell fewer of them and make even less money than at the current lower price.  Why can't Democrats understand the tax code creates the same problem when the rate is higher than acceptable alternatives.

Benny Avni: Peace — for now: How is this cease-fire different from any other? It will last only for the amount of time Hamas needs to replace its rockets and tunnels.  If it last that long.  Most of the contentious issues remain to be settled and it is unlikely they will ever be resolved because there is no assurance that Hamas will honor any commitments it makes in these talks.

Washington Times: Intel believes 300 Americans fighting with Islamic State, posing threat to U.S. By  Maggie Ybarra  - The Washington Times  288 SHARES The U.S. government is tracking and gathering intelligence on as many as 300 Americans who are fighting side by side with the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria and are poised to become a major threat to the homeland, according to senior U.S. officials. Who is selling these people all those Toyota pickup trucks?   Did they special order the beige color? We do need to identify those who have adhered to the enemy and make sure if they try to comeback they are arrested and tried for treason and other crimes such as offering material support to terrorist.

Georges Will and Charles Krauthammer comment on the latest revelation of IRS attempts to avoid production of emails.

NY Times: Obama Pursuing Climate Accord in Lieu of Treaty Luke Sharrett for The New York Times A coal-fired power plant in Kentucky. Coal-heavy states could be economic losers in any climate-change protocol that targets such plants, which are among the largest greenhouse gas emitters. To sidestep Senate approval, President Obama’s negotiators are devising what they call a “politically binding” deal to “name and shame” countries into cutting their emissions. The guy is just not very good at the working of a democracy.  He lacks the ability to persuade  those who don't already agree with him.  This action is more like that of a petty despot than a world leader.  But how can he be a world leader when he can't even lead his own country?  The fact of the matter is that the globo warmers appear to be losing the debate over what to do about a warming planet.  Does he really think he can persuade other countries by insulting them and telling them to ...

NY Times: American Fighting in Syria Is Killed Douglas McAuthur McCain’s death is an early clue for American officials as they try to identify the Americans who have joined ISIS. Any American who goes to fight for these Islamic religious bigots should be considered a traitor.  We should not mourn the death of anyone fighting for these terrorist.  We need to do a better job of identifying Americans fighting for the enemy and making sure they can never come back here.  Perhaps we should find room for them in Gitmo where they can be tried for treason.

Washington Examiner Editorial: Why did the government wait until now to disclose doomsday email backup? ... According to Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton, the government is now claiming that it would be “onerous” to retrieve Lerner's emails from the backup system. If these emails do in fact still exist, then the public has every right to be outraged by the runaround the IRS has engaged in with stories of “scratched” hard drives and irretrievable emails. It is obviously worth the effort to find out whether federal executive power has been marshaled to obstruct people or party of one particular persuasion in the service of a people or a party of the opposite persuasion. Is there any abuse of power more obvious and wrong than that, or one more worth the onerous obligation of rooting out? ... I don't think it should be all that onerous.  Even if it is a large data base, it should be searchable using algorithms  like those used by Google to search even larger data storage ...

Leon Wolf: Mark Pryor (D-AR) Accuses Tom Cotton of Being Pro-Ebola Pryor engages in what is called fraud by omission.  He knows Cotton did not vote for Ebola, but objected to a portion of a bill because it attempted to give power to a bureaucracy that the courts said they could not.  This is pretty low even by political standards and it shows the desperation of the Democrats.

Fuel Fix: In a preview of priorities for the next legislative session, state lawmakers at a hearing on Tuesday examined the ways the oil boom is changing life in Texas. Since the legislature last convened in 2013, budget officials have reported an unexpectedly large windfall from taxes on the petroleum industry, filling state coffers with a multi-billion dollar opportunity to address issues like the water shortage, transportation gridlock and troubled public schools. But industry practices have also wrecked roads, strained infrastructure, vexed police departments, drained water resources, polluted the air and set off knotty disputes among landowners, royalty claimants and oil companies. Above all, the oil boom has emerged as a singular force driving the state’s great challenge of the 21st century, the post-urbanization population surge. The industry now employs more than 400,000 people in the state, at an average salary of $120,000 according figures presented at the hearing by ...

Guardian: The government of Mexico has announced a plan to modernise the freight railway that runs through the country in an effort to discourage Central American migrants from riding the trains on their way to the US border. The 6,000m peso (£275m) project includes purchasing 12 satellite-monitored vehicles to run ahead of the trains and relay information about what lies along the track, which is traditionally lined with groups of migrants waiting to board as it trundles by. It could also include replacing large sections of track to increase speed and make jumping on more difficult. The government says the plan is designed to protect the migrants. Hundreds have died or lost limbs in bungled attempts to board the train – popularly known as the Beast – or after going to sleep and falling off . Some have been pushed off by criminal gangs who roam the route. Rapes are common. "The first objective is to prevent migrants from putting themselves at risk by using a cargo train that is...

Telegraph: 1,400 children exploited by Asian gangs while Rotherham authorities turned a blind eye   Damning report lays bear 16 years of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham and accuses council bosses and police chiefs of 'blatant' failings Victims raped, beaten and doused in petrol if they threatened to tell Rotherham abuse continued despite three previous reports into it Rotherham council bosses now in senior posts elsewhere Asian is Brit speak for Pakistani Muslims.  There have been other cases where these gangs have preyed on young white girls.  These girls were a victim of British political correctness.  Those responsible for this abuse should be prosecuted, but the Brits better start defending their culture are they will not have one. BTW, the BBC version of this story does not mention the ethnic background of the perps.  They are still deeply in the political correctness mode.

Peter Wehner: The White House Press Secretary Isn’t Telling the Truth. And I Can Prove It. While you are tempted to say you can tell because his lips were moving, in this case he is trying to deny that Obama ever said ISIL was the junior varsity, when the video tape clearly shows him saying it.  It is as bad as his dissembling about withdrawing the troops from Iraq and then saying he did it because the Iraqis wanted it.

Michael Barone: Noam Scheiber makes a good case for the importance of the Wisconsin governor’s race at the New Republic . But the most interesting thing comes in what Scheiber, perhaps inadvertently, admits. Referring to the limitations on public employee union bargaining imposed by Governor  Scott Walker and the Republican legislature, Scheiber writes, “He’s effectively defunded a key Democratic constituency.” Let’s unpack that. Where do public employee unions get their money? Directly from dues paid by public employees, who in turn get that money from taxpayers. Where does that money go? Politically, almost entirely to the Democratic Party , as Scheiber admits. Public employee unions, whatever else they do, are (in almost all cases) a mechanism for mandatory taxpayer financing of one political party. Scheiber’s complaint is that Wisconsin Republicans have cut the amount of such public financing. What’s the argument for that? I understand that those who want the Democratic Pa...

Washington Post: If Britain were a U.S. state, it would be the second-poorest, just ahead of Miss. Norway was the richest European country on the list, between Massachusetts and New Jersey. From their rationed healthcare to government control of energy projects, socialism has been a failure and while many seem to be content with government insured poorness, it has moved them from a first rate power to a third for fourth tier military power.   Norway is rich because of its energy business.

NY Times: Texas v. Perry Stems From Tangled Political Feud The conflict between Republicans who control Texas state government and a Democratic district attorney’s office has been playing out for years. The DA's office in Travis county is like a ref who calls balls and strikes differently when there are Republicans at the plate. They have a history of ridiculous prosecutions of Republicans.  The Public Integrity prosecutions should be moved to the AG's office.