Things are not looking too hot in Syria:
CIA-backed rebels in Syria, who had begun to put serious pressure on President Bashar Assad’s forces, are now under Russian bombardment with little prospect of rescue by their American patrons, U.S. officials say.
Over the past week, Russia has directed parts of its air campaign against U.S.-funded groups and other moderate opposition in a concerted effort to weaken them, the officials say. The Obama administration has few options to defend those it had secretly armed and trained.
The Russians “know their targets, and they have a sophisticated capacity to understand the battlefield situation,” said Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., who serves on the House Intelligence Committee and was careful not to confirm a classified program. “They are bombing in locations that are not connected to the Islamic State” group..
If they are really hitting the necessary targets – and I suspect that they are – then we can only assume that our security has been breached. This would come as no surprise as security under the Obama Administration has been notoriously slack. Syria is turning into a geo-political debacle for us.
The LA Times asks if Clinton can change the gun debate. The answer is “no”, but I’m very hopeful that she’ll make this a key element of her campaign. The American people are, if anything, more in favor of the individual right to bear arms than at any time in our nation’s past. I can’t think of anything better for us on the political front than Hillary, desperate to shore up leftwing support, going on a gun control rampage.
Just to set the record straight for any Trump supporters out there – if Trump does emerge as the nominee, then I’ll vote for him. But Trump is flat wrong on eminent domain.
The Libertarian Moment is stated to be over. I’ll state that it never began. I respect my Libertarian-minded fellow conservatives. I fully understand where they are coming from. I agree with them on a lot of issues. But the United States will never be Libertarian – and any desire for it, if pressed too hard, will just backfire. Better to just get with the right balance – the maximum freedom possible consistent with orderly government.
The Carson campaign finds some uses for Hillary’s Hard Choices.
Blogs For Victory 
Interesting article on gun control at the Blaze. I agree with the author that it’s time for the GOP to go on offense.
Indeed – like to see some offense on the part of the GOP…and the Chargers, especially with Green Bay coming up next week…
“My definition of leadership would be leading on climate change” – Obama
Spoken like a member of the Harvard faculty. Sadly, he’s the President.
Sadly, obame has not led where is counts and what the Constitution authorizes. He has not led on the national security nor has he led on enforcing existing law. Instead, he has not enforced laws he does not agree with and he has thrown around executive orders to skirt Congress.
He leads on “social issues” – whatever garners himself with the most favorability (in his eyes anyway). Meanwhile more Americans are out of work and on the dole since 1977. As I said before, Carter is a happy camper knowing he is no longer the worst pResident in history.
Obame, a pathetic excuse of a “leader”.
Well, “leading on climate change” fits right in with his self-image as a god, our Messiah here to lead us to a new, Progressive, fundamentally changed nation. You can almost hear him say that his first step in climate change will be to part the waters.
Be sure to listen to Bernie tonight – he too is advocating a “transformation” of our country, because apparently Obama hasn’t completely destroyed us yet.
I’m not sure if I can handle watching this thing tonight. I think I have a pretty good idea of what will be said, and it will take a lot of fortification to be up to watching. Maybe Bob can tell me what kind of pie filling, out of the can, he uses to calm himself—though I think the Scotch probably plays a larger role than the gooey stuff. It’s just that a double hangover—liquor plus echoes of The Harridan vs The Codger—sounds soooo unpleasant. I might check out what’s playing at the local cinema.
A couple of glasses of Glenlivet is required
Hey, but the event is being sponsored by the HurryCane….
Cluster, your reference to Harvard made me laugh. Yesterday afternoon I stopped at a large supermarket and near the front of the store, in the handicapped parking area, I saw a vehicle with a large “Harvard” sticker in the window. You know how the handicapped spaces are marked by signs and by a handicapped symbol painted on the asphalt as well? And how the spaces between the actual parking spaces, there to give more room to people who need it to get in and out of their cars if they are in wheelchairs, etc. are marked with white stripes? This Harvard person had parked on the striped area between the marked spaces.
It was a classic example of Liberal elitism coupled with real ignorance.
With ratings in a free fall, the execs at MSNBC are still scrambling to right the ship and more firings are likely to happen. So where are the progressives going for their propaganda? Their options are few, but Al Jazeera and Russia Today are two alternatives, which led Jazz Shaw with Hot Air to say:
if you’re advertising the wonders of Al Jazeera America and Russia Today as “more or less progressive TV news” then it might be time to take a fresh look at exactly which team you’re playing for. There is still (I hope) a difference between content with a liberal / progressive bent and flatly anti-American efforts such as those.
I think we all know which “team” these new progressives play for, and it is certainly not traditional America.
It is past time the GOP go on the offensive. It is time we attack, and destroy.
I’ve noticed plenty of Progs using AL Jazeera as a credible news source – and it make sense, as far as it goes, because anti-Semitism is becoming the special mark of the left these days. I don’t think Russia will be long a Prog favorite, though…and I do worry that too many on the right are starting to feel an admiration for Putin.
I do worry that too many, left and right, are getting willing to quit the Senate and for the Camp – that we are all looking for the “strong man” who will do it all for us. It is, of course, a common failing for democratic republics…running one’s own life gets burdensome after a while and people will start to put up with anything as long as the dictator keeps things on an even keel.
Your comment on the desire for one strong person to step in and take over reminds me of the beginning of Sowell’s book “Conflict of Visions” where he explains that the main conflict of visions lies in one vision of human beings as fundamentally flawed and vulnerable to temptation and error and the other believing that there are some people who are just so damned special we should give them vast amounts of power and authority.
I had never been able to figure out why anyone would feel so good about Obama till I read this and realized that his appeal is to the second kind of vision—that he came across to many as one who COULD be, SHOULD be, put in charge because of his innate specialness. And by “put in charge” I mean really, truly, put in charge. Of the whole enchilada. These are the same people who now object to the efforts to “interfere” with his edicts by referring to Congress, and/or the SCOTUS, or even the voters. There are people who think Obama should be allowed to make any rule or law he wants to make, to overthrow or just ignore any rule or law he doesn’t agree with, and these are the types who would happily accept a true dictator with unlimited power and authority. That is what they want Obama to be.
It’s a distressing shift of American concepts of government, a move from wanting a nation ruled by the people to preferring to just hand off all decisions and responsibility to someone else. It is an erosion of American exceptionalism into Euro-style passivity, and it is creepy to watch it happen. We are seeing American vitality bled off, as our military are becoming weak and silly, our politicians in lockstep with each other because they lack the backbone to stand up for themselves, our once-free press now merely agents of Leftist agendas, our entertainment industry dedicated to coarsening and corrupting our culture, a significant number of Americans screeching that the populace should be disarmed, our legislative branch ignored and impotent, our judiciary becoming bullies unfettered by the Constitution, and many Americans openly preferring government ranging from simple socialism to an outright dictatorship.
This from a guy who continues to frequent a site he is not liked or welcomed at, and of whom admits the unknowns of our existence but is convinced that God is a fairytale and mocks and argues with anyone who believes otherwise.
So your use of the term “”sky daddy” is said with respect?
Rusty, you have used that term often over the years, most recently and not too long ago on Left is Right.
Hardly that – but when atheists use it, they are revealing their theological ignorance.
Assuming that you are talking to Rusty, I am sure he appreciates you keeping his presence alive on the blog even when he is gone. As long as you respond he is succeeding in tainting the blog.
It is time we attack, and destroy.
Have faith — that’s coming, and words can’t begin to describe how much I’m looking forward to it.
I said earlier that I thought the military are becoming weak and silly, and talked about the degeneration of American society. Then I read about a “Christian” group doing a demonstration outside an abortion clinic holding up signs supporting the clinic and those getting abortions. The ultimate in silly was a sign saying “Jesus never shamed women”. Well, he kinda did. There is a whole list of pretty grievous sins He was pretty firm about, and I don’t think He ever condoned the slaughter of innocents.
The new buzzword is “shaming” and I see that these misguided kinda-Christians, the cafeteria Christians who think they can pick and choose among sins they feel pretty good about vs those they agree are bad, are pretty impressed with it.
Shame, by the way, is good. It is a useful and valuable tool in society. There SHOULD be shame for doing some things, and this whole meme that now shame is and of itself not acceptable has led to a serious erosion of our culture and our values. The idea that a female should not feel shame for killing her child because she just didn’t feel like carrying it to term and finding a good home for it is ridiculous. That is one of the most shameful acts imaginable, and as far as I am concern disqualifies the female from even being considered a “woman”, which is a word I feel should represent strength and courage and dignity, not pathological selfishness and self-indulgence resulting in the butchering of her own child, a child most likely conceived because she was doing something that felt good.
It does seem that there is no end to the utter silliness that permeates our culture these days. University of Texas students are encouraged to carry dildos around campus, allegedly to protest the new concealed-carry-on-campus rules in Texas. Yes, folks, college students are now so brain-dead some of the actually think this makes sense. The plan is called “C**cks not Glocks” and the claim is that there is a serious message in there, somewhere, somehow.
Jin told the Houston Chronicle in an interview that she chose the sex toy as “it spotlights the masturbatory nature of the power which people derive from gun ownership, and the self aggrandizing ‘I’m one of the good ones, I’ll protect you’ arguments we’re so often expected to simply trust.”
“If our country continues in the direction it’s headed, everyone will eventually have to carry in order to protect any semblance of freedom or equality,” Jin said. “We clearly already can’t trust each other, and that mistrust is perpetuating a self-defeating escalation of gun ownership in America. Life in a fully armed society resembles something more like a fear-based hellhole than the land of the free, if you ask me.”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/10/11/college-students-plan-to-carry-sex-toys-around-campus-to-protest-campus-carry/#comments
Not a word in the article about the mental health evaluation so clearly called for, for a female so penis-obsessed that she wants to carry a fake one to class with her, or her belief that gun ownership is somehow “masturbatory”. There seems to be a pretty clear sex-based pattern in her thought processes, including her own personal association of guns with sex. I’ll bet her whole life is dominated by phallic symbols, most of which are seen only by her.
As part of the article does comment, it would be better to be defended by someone with a gun than someone who intends to vibrate the gunman into submission, or throw batteries at him.
I’ve seen a lot of Prog arguments on it, and they do tend to believe that men who own guns are compensating for failure elsewhere. They also, as is clear here, don’t think that any rational person ever needs to defend themselves. And in their world, that is true – like the Hobbits in The Lord of the Rings, they are protected but have ceased to remember it. Living in rich, mostly white neighborhoods with good police protection (and often gates around their communities), they never have to deal with the results of the social collapse created by liberalism.
Clinton’s opening salvo was exactly like Obama’s 7 years ago – invest in infrastructure, create good paying jobs, rich need to pay fair share, lower taxes, higher wages for middle class, climate change yada, yada, yada. If America buys this clap trap again God help us.
Another gem from the YCMTSU file.
It sounds like more “safe spaces” are needed.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/03/23/infantilized-college-students-need-safe-spaces-to-avoid-scary-free-speech/
It is kind of these students, and others like them, to illustrate the terrible “education” they are receiving. “Abuser”? “Rapist”? Gee, they forgot to call him a “Shamer”.
Poor little snowflakes (emphasis on the word “flakes”) out and about in the hard, cruel world—well, the cocoon of university life anyway, still isolated from reality in a little bubble of Leftist babble, but at least not having Mom spoon feed them every morning—-and feeling OPPRESSED by a STATUE ??????? Oh me, oh my, whatever can these poor children DO, other than write nonsense on Post-its?
You are right, Spook, YCMTSU. Even ten years ago, these two ideas—one, that students would feel OPPRESSED by a STATUE, and two, that scribbling silliness on little pieces of paper is actually a rational, much less effective, response would be laughed at as too too bizarre. Yet today, this is what people in this age group actually think of as addressing a problem. Instead of having jobs, or getting educations that will prepare them to have jobs, they flutter around in their fog of victimhood, looking for ways to feel like victims, and then settle on the most inane and utterly silly “solutions” to the horrible problems they think they have uncovered.
Evidently none of them are sticking little pieces of paper on the area’s Planned Parenthood clinics, which represent true brutality and true oppression and, yes, true racism and sexism and abuse. Of course, those who tell them what they think are still lined up in defense of this real horror, this real atrocity, focusing instead on someone long dead whose genius and energy helped creat the nation, and its freedom of speech and thought, that enables these impotent little temper tantrums.
How old are these students? 18, 19, 20, 21? Ages which in other generations would be occupied in adult pursuits—fighting to defend their country, preparing for marriage and parenthood, WORKING. This is a stage of life which has always represented early adulthood and the move from childhood to maturity. Now it is an age stuck in rooting around looking for things to find offensive (or OPPRESSIVE) and then in infantile squalling about these imagined insults and dangers.
Evidently today’s dangers can be effectively addressed using sticky paper or sex toys.
These are students that expect and demand rewards for just showing up. These are students whose curriculum involves nothing more that showing up and regurgitating the dumbed down talking points and propaganda – no real thought required.
These are the same students that are unprepared in the high school state run schools (union shops). As you say, they are immature, they believe they know everything, etc. The perfect target for these indoctrination centers of progressive “thought”.
I recall the 60s where we saw the same college students…. the trouble is they are in charge now and have ruined this country further… but they still believe their own BS. Truly independent thinkers can see beyond their BS and see what failures they are and those that will be.
Look at the debate last night, some of the candidates said the greatest threats to national security was terrorism, China, North Korea, a nuclear Iran, open borders while the panderers said “climate change”. I wonder how many of these college student drones agreed with climate change and how many scoffed at terrorism, open borders, nuclear Iran and all the other serious threats this country faces.
Truly pathetic.
A couple of years ago, perhaps in the last election, college students overwhelmingly said that the biggest issue of the day was gay marriage. Not Iranian nukes, not the economy, not terrorism, but whether or not Gary could call Tom his “husband” instead of “partner”
For some reason, childhood is being extended into an endless period of being coddled and protected. Family insurance is now extended to “children” as old as 26. College students are postponing graduation indefinitely by taking endless “studies” classes and then whimpering when the bill for all those years of meaningless pseudo-education comes due and expecting Mommy or Daddy (ie: the government) to pay it, just as the surrogate parents of government or the schools are supposed to pay for birth control, abortion, all health care costs, etc.
It’s the Peter Pan syndrome writ large, if Peter was a whimpering baby afraid of statues and of hearing people with different ideas.
A few years ago I realized that this nation is headed toward a system it rejected and fought against—that is, an aristocracy. It is worse today. I see a time, in an alarmingly near future, when the country is ruled by the elite few who know how to think, how to read, understand history, understand math, understand economics. Unfortunately, at this time the only consistent source of young people like this is the private/charter school world. All the fragile flowers who pee down their legs at the sight of a statue of a Founding Father, or get the vapors at the idea of anyone carrying a gun, will be the serfs, moving at the age of 50 or so from their parents’ homes into communal living with other snowflakes because none of them can earn enough to be independent.
I am concerned that the Republic is winding down – and don’t think that most people will notice it, when it dies. After all, the Romans convinced themselves that they were still under a Republic for quite a long time after Caesar. After all, Augustus was just Princeps Senatus, right? Oh, and Imperator – but that only means “commander in chief”. And while some times Caesar would go too far, what was to be expected? After all, the Senate and the Assembly could hardly ever agree on a consistent policy, and so if Caesar would some times cut through the law and the bureaucracy to get things done, what of it? After all, we got a Flavian Amphitheator out of it…and he sure made certain that the grain ships for the Dole arrived on time, right? Main thing, he kept the army real strong so that the barbarians were kept at bay…though a couple xenophobic idiots started complaining that he was letting a lot of German immigrants in. But what’s wrong with that? They were only doing jobs Romans didn’t want to do…
I don’t believe the students thought it up themselves – not least because I’m certain that most of them couldn’t identify Thomas Jefferson if their lives depended upon it. Some Prog in the faculty, I bet, got this rolling…and that Prog is part of a general demand that American history be erased in favor of the Progressive Narrative.