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Obama's Iraq Plan Has a Killer Flaw—and Airstrikes Alone May Not Save It — The U.S. gambled on local militias to keep ISIS in check. The president's authorization of airstrikes is an admission that bet didn't pay off. — Friday morning, with a humanitarian mission already underway …
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The Islamic State (Part 1) — The Islamic State, a hardline Sunni jihadist group that formerly had ties to al Qaeda, has conquered large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the group has announced their intention to reestablish …
Discussion:
Reuters, Business Insider, Lawfare, BizPac Review and Telegraph, more at Mediagazer »


McCain Calls Obama's ‘Pinprick’ Iraq Strikes ‘Meaningless’ and ‘Almost Worse Than Nothing’ — President Obama's limited strikes on ISIS in northern Iraq are “pinpricks” that are “meaningless” and “worse than nothing,” according to one of his fiercest foreign policy critics, Sen. John McCain.
Discussion:
Mediaite, National Review, Hot Air and The Daily Caller


ISIS Threatens America: ‘We Will Raise The Flag Of Allah In The White House’
Discussion:
Western Journalism and Business Insider

Statement by the President
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Washington Post, The New Republic, National Review, Althouse, Constitution Daily, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg View, Power Line, Firedoglake, PoliticusUSA, Globe and Mail, New York Times, White House.gov Blog, American Spectator, New Atlanticist, Taylor Marsh and McClatchy Washington Bureau, more at Mediagazer »

U.S. airstrikes target Islamic State militants in northern Iraq
Discussion:
New Yorker, mccain.senate.gov, Fox News, Hit & Run, National Review, Outside the Beltway and New York Times

Obama, With Reluctance, Returns to Action in Iraq
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Lawfare, Talking Points Memo, TIME, USA Today, Associated Press, Hot Air, The Hugh Hewitt Show, Washington Post, National Review, Politico, blogs.telegraph.co.uk, RedState, The Daily Caller, Ed Driscoll, Spectator, The Dish, Wall Street Journal, Washington Monthly, Prairie Weather and JustOneMinute

Booker Staffer Tells Booker Opponent to ‘Suck It’ — One staffer in Cory Booker's Senate office has a message for his opponent: “Suck it.” — That's certainly at odds with Booker's reputation for politeness and collegiality, but when Booker's opponent, the former Reagan-administration official Jeff Bell …
Discussion:
RedState, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and Talking Points Memo
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Don't Give Booker a Pass — Cory Booker may be the most puzzling man in the Senate. We don't know where he lives. We don't know whom, if anyone, he lives with. And he's been caught in lie after lie about his heroics. Yet, this enigma of a man has emerged as the king of odd-couple bromance …
Discussion:
Weekly Standard


Probate candidate's husband admits to history with white supremacy movement — The husband of a Plainfield attorney running for a probate judge seat was a member of a prominent neo-Nazi group for several years, according to watchdog groups, and currently maintains a pro-white online blog.
Discussion:
Mindweapons in Ragnarok, Liberaland, Mediaite and The Raw Story
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Husband Of Connecticut Judicial Candidate: ‘I Am Pro-White’ — A Democratic candidate for a judicial seat in Plainfield, Conn. was forced to answer questions about her husband this week after a watchdog group exposed his ties to the white supremacist movement.
Discussion:
One People's Project … and Mindweapons in Ragnarok


Smiling Young White People Make App for Avoiding Black Neighborhoods — Is there any way to keep white people from using computers, before this whole planet is ruined? I ask because the two enterprising white entrepreneurs above just made yet another app for avoiding non-white areas of your town—and it's really taking off!
Discussion:
Lawyers, Guns & Money, Hinterland Gazette, Shakesville, DCist, Business Insider, The Daily Caller, Unfogged, Gothamist and The Raw Story


Gaza truce falls apart as more rockets fly — GAZA CITY — A brief three-day peace crumbled Friday after Gaza militants fired dozens of rockets at Israel and Israeli forces responded with their own salvos, including an airstrike near a mosque in Gaza that killed a 10-year-old boy.
Discussion:
Power Line, National Review and Right Wing News
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New Fighting a Bid for Leverage As a Gaza Cease-Fire Expires
Discussion:
Hit & Run, Firedoglake, Outside the Beltway, American Thinker, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and Mondoweiss

Israel strikes Gaza after militants resume rocket fire
Discussion:
Guardian, Hot Air, Pomegranate and The Dish


Shake-up at The View: Two relative unknowns chosen to fill seats vacated by Jenny McCarthy and Sherri Shepherd — It is one of the hottest gigs in daytime television. — And MailOnline can reveal that producers of The View will surprise audiences next season, when they replace departing …
Discussion:
NewsBusters and Hollywood Life


The Big, Long, 30-Year Conservative Lie — Inequality, conservatives insist, is natural. Trying to combat it will slow growth. Well, guess who now says otherwise? Standard and Poor's. — First came Occupy Wall Street, and its pitch-perfect slogan on inequality: “We are the 99 percent.”
Discussion:
Liberal Values and Washington Monthly


America's Moral Obligations in Iraq — Which politician uttered the following words: “Do we sit on the sidelines and watch an entire people be slaughtered or do we marshal military forces and move in quietly to put an end to it?” John McCain? Joe Lieberman? Scoop Jackson? Wrong.
Discussion:
The Dish


Coroner Rules Brady's Death a Homicide, 33 Years After a Shooting, the Police Say — WASHINGTON — The death this week of James S. Brady, the former White House press secretary, has been ruled a homicide 33 years after he was wounded in an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, police department officials here said Friday.
Discussion:
Althouse and Democracy in America


Polls Show GOP Base Has Impeachment Fever, Even As Party Leaders Run From It — Bereft of many good options ahead of the November midterms, Democrats have been eager to use the fringe impeachment chatter as a cudgel against Republicans. The gambit has not gone unnoticed on the right.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly


Donald Trump Deletes Tweet With Huge Factual Error — Either Donald Trump is having second thoughts about a political endorsement or he's once against struggling to accept that he's been proven wrong. — The smart money is on the latter, unless the reality television star had a sudden …
Discussion:
Mediaite

GOP Supreme Court candidate Michelle MacDonald ticketed again — Michelle MacDonald, the Republican-endorsed candidate for the Minnesota Supreme Court, was ticketed last week for violating the terms of a limited license as she awaits trial for alleged drunken driving and resisting arrest.
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo and The Raw Story

The Democrats' Goldwater — Elizabeth Warren leads the party's leftward march. — Republicans had Barry Gold-water. Democrats now have Elizabeth Warren. What do they have in common? Years back, he pointed the way for his party, and now she's doing the same thing for hers.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly

Spy court orders release of phone surveillance opinion — The government needs to release a partially declassified opinion from the federal court overseeing surveillance activities about its bulk collection of phone records, the court said. — In a decision handed down on Friday …
Discussion:
The Daily Caller


Mitch McConnell's wife sits on the board of a group working to kill the coal industry Yahoo News 1 hr ago — For months, Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell has accused his Democratic opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes, of engaging in a “war on coal,” casting her as an outright enemy of one of the state's most vital industries.
Discussion:
Daily Kos, ThinkProgress, ABC News and Booman Tribune


'SNL's Victoria Jackson falls to incumbents — Victoria Jackson, the former “Saturday Night Live” cast member who has made a name for herself as an active tea party participant, conservative activist and outspoken opponent of President Barack Obama, has lost her bid to win a spot on the Williamson County Commission.
Discussion:
Victoria Jackson, Mediaite and The Raw Story

Wolfowitz: We ‘won’ the Iraq War — Paul Wolfowitz, a former senior George W. Bush administration official and one of the chief Iraq War architects, said on Tuesday that the U.S. “won” the war in Iraq. — When asked his thoughts about the current situation in Iraq and whether the war was a mistake …
Discussion:
The Daily Banter, Informed Comment, AEIdeas, The Mahablog and The Dish


Our Lonely First Duffer — What Barack Obama's golf game tells us about his presidency. — To many of us who play golf and generally suck at it—that's me, and most others—it is less a game than a subtle form of torture, a walking stress position. Other sports may be more physically taxing …
Discussion:
The Daily Banter and Liberaland


Plot Thickens as 900 Writers Battle Amazon — ROUND POND, Me. — Out here in the woods, at the end of not one but two dirt roads, in a shack equipped with a picture of the Dalai Lama, a high-speed data line and a copy of Thoreau's “Civil Disobedience,” Amazon's dream of dominating the publishing world has run into some trouble.
Discussion:
TechPresident, Guardian, Valleywag, Re/code, The Daily Caller and CNN, more at Mediagazer »