You are never going to believe this, but according to Patrick Poole at PJ Media,those Syrian rebel soldiers the US has been arming and funding for over a year – have not been working out so well.
The latest report he points to indicates that a U.S.-trained Syrian rebel leader has “deceived his American handlers and has defected to Jabhat al-Nusra — the official al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria.”
Yeah, who could have seen this coming? Besides practically everyone?
On September 17, 2014, I regretfully reported that the GOP-led Congress had very stupidly voted to authorize Obama’s (obviously underdeveloped) plan to arm and train the terrorists rebels.
I really really want to be wrong about thinking this is a huge mistake, but I have a very bad feeling about arming people with values and loyalties so antithetical to ours with American weapons. My greatest fear is that these weapons will eventually be turned on American soldiers, and will lead to more Christians and ethnic minorities being slaughtered in the Middle East.
Why on earth do we think this is a good idea?
One thing I didn’t foresee was the colossal waste of money we would spend to arm and train 4-5 dudes. I mean – I think we all could have predicted that it was not going to be cost efficient with Obama in charge – but $500 mil to arm 5 guys, huh? That is some impressive malfeasance right there – even for the Obama administration.
And it all comes courtesy of the Stupid Party.
Take your bows, Lindsey and John. Brava.
Just when you think it can not get any worse…tomorrow comes.
UPDATE:
More from the UK Telegraph:
Telegraph: Reports indicate US-trained rebels crossed into Syria, immediately handed weapons over to Jabhat al-Nusra. http://t.co/hx2TjD6zU8
On the Kelly File, last night, Megyn Kelly blasted Obama’s radical housing usurpation – calling it “social engineering of the worst kind,” and possibly an attempt to “change the way neighborhoods vote.”
Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, has been ringing alarm bells about the “Radical in Chief’s” plan to transform (read: destroy) American suburbia since 2012.
The feds now want to take billions in housing grant money, and condition it on communities proving that they have (what the Feds consider) the correct mix of citizens based on income, race, ethnicity, etc.
“This is what happens when you put a community organizer in the White House – he tries to organize your communities from Washington,” Kelly’s guest Marc Thiessen said.
The good news is– Congress is trying to stop Obama’s power grab by exercising their power of the purse.
Tuesday night, on a vote of 229-193, the House passed an amendment to the THUD (Transportation Housing and Urban Development) bill that blocks any HUD funding that enforces President Obama’s fair housing rule (AFFH). The amendment, offered by Arizona Republican Congressman Paul Gosar, protects local zoning rights from federal overreach.
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The Gosar amendment is endorsed by Americans for Limited Government, Freedom Works, Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, Taxpayers for Common Sense and Eagle Forum.
It now goes to the Senate, where the prospects for passage are good — but not guaranteed. Kurtz predicts that Obama’s power grab will likely become a major issue issue in the 2016 presidential campaign should Senate Republicans fail to block the AFFH.
The question of whether or not Hillary Clinton signed an exit statement saying she turned over all of her public information to the State Department when she departed, is now dogging Hillary Clinton when ventures out in public.
Fox News’ Ed Henry tried to pry an answer from her on Monday, but she rushed right past him, refusing to even acknowledge the question.
Bill O’Reilly said he was confused as to why she wouldn’t answer the question and the State Department is stonewalling.
Here’s another question, Bill said, “who is telling Miss Psaki to stonewall. Somebody is. John Kerry’s in charge, but he’s negotiating nukes with the Iranians. Why would he care about the exit document? I mean – this is so strange…everybody KNOWS the State Department is dodging. Why are they doing it?”
Excellent question. Not that we will ever be given an answer.
O’Reilly noted that the way they’re handling this issue is similar to the Bowe Bergdahl situation. “Everybody knows, the Army knows exactly what Bergdahl did in Afghanistan,” O’Reilly explained. “So why delay the announcement? The fallout is going to be the same whether it’s now or in two months. Why embarrass a proud institution like the Army by playing games?”
“None of this makes any sense at all,” he continued.
“She either signed it or she didn’t! So say it, already!”
“All of this is insulting to we the people,” he added. “I’m teed off here – this game playing at our expense is horrendous!”
But I will post an audio of Rush Limbaugh responding to it.
I think Victor Davis Hanson articulated what Rush was trying to convey in his latest PJ Media Column:
Amid all the charges and countercharges in Washington over the government shutdown, there is at least one common theme: Barack Obama’s various charges always lead to a dead end. They are chaos, and chaos is hard to understand, much less refute.
By that I mean when the president takes up a line of argument against his opponents, it cannot really be taken seriously — not just because it is usually not factual, but also because it always contradicts positions that Obama himself has taken earlier or things he has previously asserted. Whom to believe — Obama 1.0, Obama 2.0, or Obama 3.0?
When the president derides the idea of shutting down the government over the debt ceiling, we almost automatically assume that he himself tried to do just that when as a senator he voted against the Bush administration request in 2006, when the debt was about $6 trillion less than it is now.
When the president blasts the Republicans for trying to subvert the “settled law” of Obamacare, we trust that Obama himself had earlier done precisely that when he unilaterally subverted his own legislation — by quite illegally discarding the employer mandate provision of Obamacare. At least the Republicans tried to revise elements of Obamacare through existing legislative protocols; the president preferred executive fiat to nullify a settled law.
When the president deplores the lack of bipartisanship and the lockstep Republican effort to defund Obamacare, we remember that the president steamrolled the legislation through the Congress without a single Republican vote.
When the president laments the loss of civility and reminds the public that he uses “calm” rhetoric during the impasse, we know he has accused his opponents of being on an “ideological crusade” and of being hostage takers and blackmailers who have “a gun held to the head of the American people,” while his top media adviser Dan Pfeiffer has said that they had “a bomb strapped to their chest.”
When the president insists that the Republican effort to hold up the budget is unprecedented, we automatically deduce that, in fact, the action has many precedents, and on frequent prior occasions was a favored ploy of Democrats to gain leverage over Republican administrations.
In short, whenever the president prefaces a sweeping statement with one of his many emphatics — “make no mistake about it,” “I’m not making this up,” “in point of fact,” “let me be perfectly clear” — we know that the reverse is always true. For Obama, how something is said matters far more than what is said.
Here, via The Senate GOP Conference, is a video compilation of King Barack I The Petulant and his toadies refusing to negotiate:
Republicans have passed more than a dozen bills to open the government and provide Americans with relief from ObamaCare, but Democrats continue to just say “no.” The American people reject the Democrats’ “my way or the highway” approach. It is time for Democrats to engage congressional Republicans to solve our problems.
Speaker Boehner at his press conference today addressed President Obama’s refusal to negotiate a path forward on funding the government, raising the debt limit, and protecting all Americans from ObamaCare.
Via his Blogthe Speaker struck back at Obama’s charge that what the Republican “hostage takers” are doing is “unprecedented”:
President Obama has offered every excuse in the book to justify his refusal to negotiate with Republicans on the debt limit, but perhaps none is more absurd than his claim that doing so would be “unprecedented.” Not only have presidents of both parties negotiated over the debt limit for decades, the president himself has done so – twice. The first was in 2010, when Blue Dog Democrats in the House conditioned their support for a debt limit hike on passage of PAYGO legislation. As Politico reported at that time:
“Blue Dog Democrats are threatening to derail any legislation that raises the debt ceiling if the bill does not include provisions that would constrain Congress from continuing to add to the nation’s debt. …
“Rep. Baron Hill (D-Ind.), the Blue Dog’s policy chief, issued his most pointed threat Friday morning in a news conference with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), calling this the ‘bewitching hour’ for controlling the nation’s debt.
“‘The Blue Dogs are ready to make some very tough decisions on some legislation that’s still pending if we don’t get statutory pay-go,’ Hill said. ‘It’s time to deliver now.’”
So, what did the President & Democratic leaders have to say about this “ransom” demand?
Then-White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs: “Obviously the President and the White House Are of Course Negotiating in Good Faith.” QUESTION: “Is the White House negotiating in good faith with these White House Democrats? Are they serious about enacting statutory PAYGO, attaching it to raising the debt limit?” … GIBBS: “Obviously the President and the White House are of course negotiating in good faith. We share the concerns of many in the Blue Dog caucus and many in the Democratic caucus and the Republican caucus that are concerned about the fiscal health of our country.” (Press Briefing, 12/22/09)
House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD): “Their Proposition Is, I Think, a Fair One.” “And the debt limit is something that, from my perspective, and responsibly, we’re going to have to pass. But we need to pass it with fiscal discipline attached to it. … I’d think it would be very difficult to raise the debt limit without support in either chamber of those people who are very concerned about fiscal discipline. Now, their proposition is, I think, a fair one.” (Press Conference, 12/11/09)
House Democrats weren’t the only ones taking a hardline against a clean debt limit hike. Over in the Senate, several Democrats leveraged their support on the debt limit to try to force the creation of a deficit commission. As The Washington Post reported:
“A group of Senate Democrats insists that an increase in the debt ceiling be coupled with the creation of a bipartisan task force that could push deficit-reduction measures through Congress. Separately, conservative House Democrats are demanding rules be put into law that require new spending increases or tax cuts to be offset by spending cuts or a tax hike. … Negotiations between House and Senate leaders and the White House on the conflicting proposals are expected to continue into next week.”
In fact, 10 Democratic Senators – including Sens. Begich (D-AK), Bennet (D-CO), Feinstein (D-CA), Klobuchar (D-MN), McCaskill (D-MO), Nelson (D-FL), Udall (D-CO) and Warner (D-VA) – sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) at the time stating they “strongly believe that as part of the debate to increase the debt limit, Congress needs to put in place a special process that allows Congress and the Administration to face up to our nation’s long-term fiscal imbalances.” Sen. Feinstein went so far as to say “I will not vote for raising the debt limit without a vehicle to handle this.” Were these the “hostage-takers” the White House refers to?
“Refusing to negotiate is an untenable position,” Speaker Boehner said today. That position is made all the more untenable by the president’s arbitrary distinction between the demands his own party was making in 2010, and the demands House Republicans are making today, which are backed by the majority of the American people. It’s time for the president to stop talking to the cameras, and start a conversation with Republicans on a path forward on the debt limit, government funding, and protecting all Americans from his disaster of a health care law.
Obama in a campaign speech today:“You don’t negotiate by putting a gun to the other person’s head. Or worse yet, by putting a gun to the American peoples’ head.”
Those of us who have watched, appalled, at the Divider-in Chief’s Chicago thug politics over the years can only shake our heads in disgust but not disbelief at his mendacity at this point.
Obama let slip his true feelings in an interview with NPR on Monday, when he said, he shouldn’t have to offer anything to Republicans in exchange for getting what he wants.
Obama stood with his party members in the Senate. Steve asked if that opportunity to avoid a shutdown exists, what was he willing to offer.
“Steve when you say what can I offer? I shouldn’t have to offer anything,” Obama said.
Hugh Hewittfound the Petulant One’s admission there to be no less than astonishing:
Thus did the American public get a very candid glimpse of the president whose contempt for duly elected Republican opponents is exceeded only by his fecklessness in the face of America’s enemies abroad. To Putin and the Iranians come offers of all sorts. To the Speaker of the House, only ultimatums.
The President’s position is: – Do what I want, and if you don’t you’re to blame for whatever happens.
Senate Democrats blocked four resolutions to fund government programs, including paying the National Guard and opening national parks, as Republicans offered the limited measures in an attempt to win the government shutdown fight by financing popular programs and leaving those they oppose untouched.
“Unbelievably, today Senate Democrats went on record to oppose funding for National Guard and Reserve salaries, veterans’ services, lifesaving medicine and cures, and national parks and museums,” Senate Republican Conference chairman John Thune, R-S.D., said in a release following the procedural battle.
They think America approves of this?
The Shut Down Theater featuring “the Barry-cades” has thus far been a public relations disaster for the Democrats. (The latest outrages, here.) And the divisive trash-talking and fear-mongering antics by Democrats and RINOs aren’t helping their cause, either..
With all that in mind, enjoy this “accidental” hot-mic moment from last evening between Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Rand Paul:
Nice Deb 