…Look, we’re going back to war.

Not tonight, not tomorrow, probably not this year, maybe not next year either.  But it’s gonna happen. The President can attack my party all he likes because we had the bad taste to be right about the Middle East while he was being catastrophically wrong; but if I was advising Democrats I’d be telling them to sit Barack Obama the Hell down and inform him that he’s letting his pride and wounded ego make all the decisions for him, and that he’d be better off letting his brain do the thinking.

There.  That’s me putting country over party.  Because right now Barack Obama is busy making sure that no Republican will ever vote for Hillary Clinton by next November, and crossover voting can actually be kind of an important thing in the electoral calculus.  And since I’m not yet convinced we’re going to be going back to war in 2016 anyway…

Alleged ISIS laptop had a checklist for creating bioweapons.

Background: …well, read my friend and RedState colleague Aaron Gardner, who wrote on this subject himself (including stuff about the laptop mentioned below).  But specifically… Syrian rebels (against pretty much both Assad and ISIS these days) reportedly found a laptop and handed it off to Foreign Policy magazine.  Said laptop apparently turned out to have quite a number of alarming files in it.  How alarming?  Well, FP is calling it “The Laptop of Doom:”

The laptop’s contents turn out to be a treasure trove of documents that provide ideological justifications for jihadi organizations — and practical training on how to carry out the Islamic State’s deadly campaigns. They include videos of Osama bin Laden, manuals on how to make bombs, instructions for stealing cars, and lessons on how to use disguises in order to avoid getting arrested while traveling from one jihadi hot spot to another.

But after hours upon hours of scrolling through the documents, it became clear that the ISIS laptop contains more than the typical propaganda and instruction manuals used by jihadists. The documents also suggest that the laptop’s owner was teaching himself about the use of biological weaponry, in preparation for a potential attack that would have shocked the world.

Continue reading Alleged ISIS laptop had a checklist for creating bioweapons.

New York Times: TREMBLE, mortals, at the power of the Koch Artillery War-Zeppelin!

Seriously,  that’s the image that the New York Times is going with in their editorial “The Koch Party.”  EXPLICITLY.

Only a few weeks into this midterm election year, the right-wing political zeppelin is fully inflated with secret cash and is firing malicious falsehoods at supporters of health care reform.

…honestly? I just stopped reading at that point.  Mostly because I go distracted by the possibilities; if the Koch Brothers are handing out War Zeppelins then I want mine to be cyberpunk, with electro-cannons and a steam organ.  And maybe ornithopters.  Yes, definitely ornithopters: otherwise, there’s no freaking point.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: I am taking this editorial as seriously as it deserves.  Look, you throw Artillery War-Zeppelins right over the plate, fat, slow, and happy: I’m going to take a swing at it.

Ambassador Susan Rice’s grim, vaguely bigoted, Libyan point-defense.

You may be wondering why the Obama administration (in the guise of UN Ambassador Susan Rice) is claiming that last week’s protests and murders in the Middle East were spontaneous, ad hoc exhibitions of ire against an obscure anti-Islamic YouTube movie, despite the fact that the Libyan government itself is saying that the aforementioned murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens and members of his staff was part of a “precalculated, preplanned attack” by a terrorist group.  After all, not only is the latter explanation the more believable one (disorganized rioters rarely bring rocket-propelled grenade launchers to spontaneous demonstrations); it’s frankly the less insulting one, given that the administration is essentially taking the position that it’s reasonable to expect Muslims to bring rocket-propelled grenade launchers to spontaneous demonstrations.  And yet there Ambassador Rice is there, busily embarrassing herself all over the television – and with the pitying disapproval of her peers, too.

What’s going on?

Sheer pragmatism.  A clumsy lie beats admitting to eight years of hypocrisy, you see. Continue reading Ambassador Susan Rice’s grim, vaguely bigoted, Libyan point-defense.