Last Call For The Ground Pounders

Daily Banter White House reporter Tommy Christopher makes a great catch: not that it should surprise anyone, but the White House has not ruled out special forces troops in Syria.  CBS's Major Garrett and White House press secretary Josh Earnest had this exchange:

GARRETT: Just to follow up, one last one on Juliet’s question about Special Operations. Is that a permanent declaration — the president will not introduce Special Operations forces either into Iraq or Syria? Or just this particular recommendation was rejected and others can be proffered in the future? 

JOSH EARNEST: Well, Major, you know that it has been publicly reported that earlier this summer there was an operation in Syria – 

GARRETT: Sure, yes. We already know that. I’m talking about going forward. 

EARNEST: Well, I think what that is an indication of is that the line the president is drawing is about a sustained combat operation — a ground war, if you will — in Iraq and Syria. The president will not allow the United States to be dragged back into a ground war. And that is why the president is not contemplating deploying additional combat troops on the ground in either Iraq or Syria. 

GARRETT: But he remains open to mission-specific applications — Special Operations forces if the need arises? 

EARNEST: I’m not willing to broadly take anything — to broadly take anything off the table.

Kind of ludicrous not to think that special operations troops: (Army Rangers and Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Marine Raiders and Air Force SOW guys, what have you) wouldn't be involved in the future in any anti-ISIS operations in Syria and Iraq.  They're almost certainly involved now.  Those 475 "support troops" we're sending in?  Yeah, most certainly consisting of these "tip of the spear" guys.

And yeah, I forsee more of them going in.  As much emphasis as the White House is putting on not sending in regular ground troops and not being dragged into another ground war, the dirty work is going to go to these guys.  It's what they're trained for.

Three Days In Time Out For Being A Woman

Missouri's overwhelmingly GOP legislature has, as promised, overridden Democrat Gov. Jay Nixon's veto of legislation that demands all women wait 72 hours after seeing a provider to get an abortion, because women are stupid and have to be put in the time out corner.

Missouri lawmakers on Wednesday passed a law requiring women to wait three days for an abortion, even in cases of rape or incest, according to the legislature’s websites — overriding an earlier veto from Governor Jay Nixon. 

In July, the Democratic governor vetoed the bill to extend the minimum waiting period before a woman could have an abortion after an initial visit to a doctor to 72 hours from 24 hours. 

Nixon said the bill showed a “callous disregard for women who find themselves in horrific circumstances.” 

The state’s Republican-controlled Senate and House of Representatives on Wednesday overrode that veto with strong majorities, according to both chambers’ websites.
The house passed the measure by 117 to 44 and the senate by 23 to 7. 

“Another 48 hours could very well be the difference between a life saved and a life ended,” Sen. David Sater, who sponsored the bill, told the Star. “Knowing that a life is at stake, this is the least we can do for these children.”

And of course, soon 72 hours won't be enough, because lives have to be saved.  You know, unless they are born to poor black or Latino women, in case welfare babies probably need to have their SNAP benefits slashed so they will work a second job like they were meant to in order to afford day care, so that we can call social services on them for being bad, neglectful parents who work all the time and don't stay home with the kids.

Gentle reminder: Republicans are the party of liberty, unless you have a vagina, in which case shut up and take three days to think long an hard about your slutiness.  No exception for rape or incest by the way in the law, so enjoy your three days to agonize why you were dressed provocatively, right girls?

Waiting period for abortion in Missouri, 72 hours, mandatory in all cases because lives must be saved. Waiting period to buy a gun in Missouri, 0 hours because liberty and freedom.

Counting Chickens And Measuring Drapes

The Senate GOP already has its "first 100 days" mapped out when they take over in January, because of course that's inevitable because Democrats won't vote.

Republicans are putting together an agenda for the first 100 days of 2015 in case they win control of the Senate. 

Authorizing the Keystone XL pipeline, approving “fast-track” trade authority, wiping out proposed environmental regulations and repealing the medical device tax top their list.


“Those would all be positive things. You could come up with a list of very positive things and all of us are thinking about those,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who is poised to become chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee under a GOP takeover.

Other Republicans echoed Corker. 

“Those are four things that could happen that I believe would be great for the economy and enable us to move forward on a bipartisan basis,” Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said during a Thursday breakfast sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor. 

GOP senators insist they are not “measuring the drapes” after six years in the minority.

But why wouldn't they be?  Hell, not only are Democrats going to stay home apparently, but they're so tuned out and so oblivious that they don't even know that the GOP is poised to take control of the Senate.  Greg Sargent:

What if a key part of the problem is that many of these voters simply don’t know that Democratic control of the Senate is at stake in this fall’s elections? 

That’s one of the conclusions veteran Dem pollster Celinda Lake reached after conducting new focus groups and polling for the liberal group MoveOn. Lake conducted two focus groups of people from Detroit and its suburbs. One was made up of single white women under 55 and married white women under 35 (millenials). The second was all African American women. These are the same voters who are expected to drop off in many red state Senate contests, too. 

“We were exploring what would motivate them to turn out to vote,” Lake tells me. “One of the things that came up is that these drop-off voters had no idea that control of the Senate was even up for grabs and were even very confused about who controlled it. These voters are very representative of drop-off voters in a lot of states.” 

Lake says the focus groups — and follow-up polling Lake conducted — determined that one message that motivates these voters is that the outcome of the Senate election in their state could decide Senate control. However, that alone isn’t enough to motivate these voters. They also need to be told why it should matter to them which party controls the Senate, Lake adds.

If it's the middle of September and Democrats still aren't even aware that we're going to lose the Senate unless they vote, then the failure of the party message machine is all but complete.  We've got seven weeks to turn this around, and we don't even know why we're fighting.

Jesus wept.

StupidiNews!

• Convicted high school shooter T.J. Lane has been recaptured after escaping from an Ohio prison last night, found in a church less than 100 yards away from the prison's outer fence.
• Anchorage, Alaska police confirm former GOP Governor and one-time vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family were involved in a "brawl" last weekend at a snowmobile race.
• As Russian troops fighting in Ukraine are not officially there according to the Russian government, the bodies of those who have died fighting raise many questions back home.
• As the EU and US will implement more economic sanctions against Russia today as the ruble hits a global low, Moscow is considering more retaliatory moves of its own.
• Apple's iPhone 6 is available for pre-order starting today from the Apple Store, mobile carriers, and retail stores.