What’s interesting in the news today?

1. For those wondering how this thing with ISIS got so out of hand, a little background.

From CNSNews  “The leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS,) Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was formerly held by the U.S. military at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq from 2005 to his release in 2009.

Why such a dangerous man was slated for release in 2009, or who made the decision is not known. The Telegraph offers that “one possible explanation is that he was one of thousands of suspected insurgents granted amnesty as the US began its draw down in Iraq.”

In 2010, shortly after his release, al-Baghdadi was announced as a new al-Qaeda leader. When bin Laden was killed in 2011, Baghdadi pledged to revenge his death “with 100 terrorist attacks across Iraq” – but with al Qaeda leaders dropping like flies in Pakistan and Afghanistan, no one took him seriously.”

Read the rest, and much more background on it’s leader at the link.

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2. Releasing him was the first mistake. Underestimating him was the second.

From TheWeeklyStandard  “On June 29, 2011, John Brennan, who was then a senior adviser to the president and is currently the CIA director, explained the Obama administration’s counterterrorism strategy.  

“Our strategy is…shaped by a deeper understanding of al Qaeda’s goals, strategy, and tactics,” Brennan claimed. “I’m not talking about al Qaeda’s grandiose vision of global domination through a violent Islamic caliphate. That vision is absurd, and we are not going to organize our counterterrorism policies against a feckless delusion that is never going to happen. We are not going to elevate these thugs and their murderous aspirations into something larger than they are.””

“Three years later to the day, on June 29, 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) announced that it now ruled large swaths of Iraq and Syria as a caliphate.”

The Obama strategy is to ignore the obvious. Clueless seems an apt description.

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3. In case you’re wondering why the Obama admin has stopped touting their “8 million enrollee ObamaCare success story,” here’s why.

From InvestorsBusinessDaily  “ObamaCare exchange statistics should clear up any doubt as to why the Obama Administration has been tight-lipped about enrollment since celebrating 8 million sign-ups in mid-April.

Reality, evidence suggests, could require quite a come-down from those lofty claims.

The nation’s third-largest health insurer had 720,000 people sign up for exchange coverage as of May 20, a spokesman confirmed to IBD. At the end of June, it had fewer than 600,000 paying customers. Aetna expects that to fall to “just over 500,000” by the end of the year.

That would leave Aetna’s paid enrollment down as much as 30% from that May sign-up tally.”

Yeah…..

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4. Operation Choke Point continues to rack up victims among legitimate businesses.

From TheDailySignal  “With no explanation, Brian Brookman last month lost the bank account for his pawn shop.

He had no idea why. Brookman says his store in Grand Haven, Mich., never had been in trouble with federal or state officials. And being in the pawn industry, he was required by law to get a city license every year.”

“After researching his case on the Internet, Brookman says he concluded that his banker, JP Morgan Chase, closed the account because two of his business activities — dealing in vintage coins and selling firearms — were labeled “high risk” by federal bureaucrats as part of an Obama administration initiative called Operation Choke Point.

Critics say Operation Choke Point, so dubbed by Department of Justice officials, seeks to weed out businesses that the White House considers objectionable.

The Justice Department contends the goal of the program is to combat unlawful mass-market consumer fraud, although recent evidence suggests otherwise.”

This operation is punishing business owners who’ve done nothing wrong, and who’ve broken no laws. Read the rest. It should frighten all business owners when the govt abuses it’s power like this.

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