What’s interesting in the news today?
1. President Obama met with a group of foreign policy experts on what to do about ISIS. He also invited Sandy Berger, I assume for his expert advice on how to get rid of incriminating documents. You know, like the ones showing the Obama admin aiding “moderate Syrian rebels,” some who fight with Al-Qaeda and some that have now merged with ISIS.
From TheWeeklyStandard “President Obama hosted “a private dinner with a group of foreign policy experts,” the White House announced last night. Among them: Sandy Berger, who was caught stealing and destroying classified documents that related to President Clinton’s record on terrorism issues.”
“Here’s the White House’s announcement of the dinner:
Tonight the President and Vice President are having a private dinner with a group of foreign policy experts, including former Administration officials from Republican and Democratic Administrations, academics and think tank experts. The President looks forward to engaging with this group and hearing their views on a range of national security and foreign policy issues.”
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2. Moderates huh?
From TheDailyCaller “A spokesman for the family of murdered journalist Steven Sotloff claimed Monday night that Sotloff was sold to the terrorist group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) by Syria’s “so-called moderate rebels.”
Sotloff family spokesman Barak Barfi, a foreign policy research fellow at the New American Foundation, made the startling claim in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper.”
“Asked how he knows this, Barfi referred to sources he and the Sotloff family have “on the ground.”
Barfi then turned his ire toward the Obama administration for making “a number of inaccurate statements.”
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3. And about those other “foreign policy experts”…..
Also from TheDailyCaller “MSNBC’S Andrea Mitchell claimed President Barack Obama’s new cabal of foreign policy advisers “looks like a review of our guest list” on the liberal cable news network, with the AP’s Julie Pace explaining that the White House is trying to bring the commentators “into the fold.”
Mitchell spoke Tuesday with Pace about Obama’s Monday night dinner with the DC foreign policy intelligentsia, presumably designed to help craft a strategy to contain an aggressive Russia and defeat ISIS in the Middle East.
But as the MSNBC host ticked off the guests — including former Clinton aide Sandy Berger, longtime Democratic adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and former Democratic congresswoman Jane Harman — she couldn’t help but notice a trend.
“It looks like a review of our guest list here at ‘Andrea Mitchell Reports,’” she said. “Julie, why did the president finally reach out and bring in all of these different voices on foreign policy?”
“It was a pretty unusual thing for the president to do,” Pace explained. “Not only does he not usually reach out to folks like this, he actually has criticized what he calls ‘the Washington chattering class,’ people who tend to comment from the outside.”
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4. Looks like Sandy Burglar may have some work to do disappearing some more incriminating documents.
From PJMedia “Last week here at PJ Media, I reported on the ongoing relations between the U.S.-backed “vetted moderate” Free Syrian Army and ISIS. I also noted that, at this time last year, the received wisdom of the Washington, D.C. foreign policy establishment was that the Syrian rebels were largely moderate.
Now, a report in this past Sunday’s L.A. Times from the frontlines in Syria finds that another “vetted moderate” rebel group, Harakat Hazm – which has received anti-tank missiles from the U.S. — has been working with al-Qaeda’s official Syrian affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra: a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.”
“As Al-Akhbar reported back in May, in addition to having U.S. backing, Harakat Hazm is also backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey, and Qatar.”
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5. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before….
From FoxNews “The company that runs the conservative Breitbart.com news site says the IRS has selected the network for an audit, in a move company executives suggest is politically motivated.
Breitbart News Network, a California-based company which runs several conservative websites, says the IRS recently audited its 2012 financial information.
“The Obama administration’s timing on this is exquisite, but try as they might through various methods to silence us, we will only get more emboldened,” Stephen K. Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart News Network, said in a written statement.”
“The IRS asked for a litany of documents, including logs of its receipts and expenses, but also its partnership agreement and a “written narrative” of the business.”
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6. Hmmmm…..
From Cincinnati.com “Medical officials admitted a record number of children to a local hospital over the weekend because of what they believe to be a rare respiratory virus spreading throughout the country.
Although there’s been no confirmed cases of the enterovirus at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, officials admitted 540 patients Friday, said Dr. Derek Wheeler, associate chief of staff at the hospital.
The previous record was around 515, Wheeler said.
Some reports out of Missouri and Colorado suggest the virus, with symptoms similar to the common cold, brought sicker patients to hospitals, Wheeler said.”
“This particular type of enterovirus — EV-D68 — is uncommon, but not new. It was first identified in the 1960s. “I suspect that it’s something that hasn’t been around for a while and so there’s a lot of people susceptible to it,” Wheeler said.
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7. But hey, it’s not all bad news today, at least if this guys correct. 🙂
From Politico “Political analyst Stu Rothenberg sees a wave election coming for Senate Republicans in November.
In a Roll Call column published Monday, the electoral expert said he is expecting Republicans to gain at least seven seats in the Senate and earn a November victory more dramatic than several pollsters have suggested.
“I am now expecting a substantial Republican Senate wave in November, with a net gain of at least seven seats,” he said. “But I wouldn’t be shocked by a larger gain.””
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Wandering Views 
From Drudge
President Obama was turned down at several top golf courses in Westchester while he was visiting the area over Labor Day weekend, sources tell NBC 4 New York.
The Trump National Golf Club, the Winged Foot and Willow Ridge were among some of the elite courses that rebuffed the president’s request to tee off there, according to several sources who were told about the president’s advance team’s calls to the club managers.
Club managers apparently did not want to inconvenience their high-powered and high-paying members over Labor Day weekend by shutting down their courses to accommodate the president.
Makes sense. There is always lots of commotion around the president.
And Labor Day is when most of the clubs make money. He can come back sometime in December.
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We have a Trump golf course in our area overlooking the ocean. Maybe he’ll be playing golf there someday, I heard he and Michelle have bought a (one of several, I’m sure) post-presidency house in California.
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Obama plans to stay in Washington. He isn’t going anywhere.
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Unless something changes, I suspect his presidency is pretty much over already. His ideas will still be pushed by others, but I think the polish has all but completely worn off of his once-legendary mystique, even among some of his supporters.
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Even if he loses the Senate, Obama will still issue executive orders. They will remain the law of the land until some Republican President rescinds them. If we get a president with the nerve to do so, that is.
GW Bush was better than the rest, but he would not have revoked any previous president’s orders.
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I understand Obama takes 5 hours to play 18 holes. So did Clinton. No real golfers want such slowpokes on their course.
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Ricky, I understand that they close the golf course for the President. When I become president, we won’t do that. It just doesn’t seem right.
But you’re right. Five hours is 17 min/hole. I was only a duffer and I did better than that counting looking for lost balls.
🙂
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Maybe he makes a speech before each shot. He seems to think that helps.
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1-4. I once thought Obama may have a independent or different foreign policy., but he’s really no different than any president since WW2. In Syria he has cont’d the policy of Bush which wasn’t too different from any other president keep the Russians and secure the oil. Assad is Putin’s only Arab ally so he had to go and thus they armed anybody. Not that different from Reagan funding what would become the Taliban.
The sotloff family hasy sympathy but in area of civil disorder boots on the ground could be anybody from a legitimate source to a fraud seeking to make money from a tragedy.
5. Normally I scoff at conspiracy theories but the Canadian conservative govt is doing the same thing; using the tax dept to audit all their political enemies.
7. Nate silver gives the republicans a 62% chance of winning the senate . Iowa Kansas and north Carolina are the close races.
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