Last Call For Arming Up

Looks like Republicans in the House at least are backing President Obama's plan to arm and train Syrian rebel moderates, whoever they are.  But it means the GOP can't duck things if and when they go wrong.

The House on Wednesday approved President Obama’s plan to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels to counter the growing threat of the Islamic State terrorist organization even though lawmakers in both parties remain deeply skeptical about its chances for success.

The vote put Congress one step closer to authorizing the third prolonged U.S. military operation in Iraq in the last quarter century and delivered Obama much-needed domestic political support as he seeks an international coalition to combat the growing threat of Islamist terrorism in the Middle East. It also put lawmakers on the record for the first time approving U.S. engagement in the years-long Syrian civil war.

But the tally — 273 to 156 — also revealed widespread misgivings about the chances of success for the plan, even among many lawmakers who voted in favor of it.

Obama’s proposal was opposed by more than 40 percent of Democrats, many of whom are concerned that new U.S. military operations in the Middle East could fester for several years with no clear strategy or definition of success.

Republicans provided the lion’s share of support, but many are worried about the limits of Obama's early plans. One top GOP leader suggested Congress could go as far as giving the president blanket military authority, even if Obama doesn’t want it, when the lawmakers hold a much broader debate after the November elections about the fight against Islamic terrorists.

So there are skeptics on both sides at least.   But it means that the President's plan is moving forward, even there's a healthy chunk of Dems that oppose it.  GOP owns this as much as the President does, so it's time to stop sabotaging it.

Oh who am I kidding, they'll sabotage him regardless.

Matt Bevin Is Back, Baby

Last time we heard from GOP Tea Party Senate hopeful Matt Bevin, he was getting his ass handed to him by Mitch McConnell and his 32% approval rating.  Bevin was a candidate so bad he couldn't even find a way to run to Mitch McConnell's right without screwing up and losing by 20 points.

So it seems he's shifted gears and appears to be considering running for Governor in 2015 instead.

Former Republican U.S. Senate candidate Matt Bevin is looking past his race against Kentucky U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell and says he is considering the encouragement of those around him to run for another office. 

Bevin told Pure Politics at the annual Fancy Farm picnic that he has been encouraged to run for another office. And in a poll about the 2015 governors race, Bevin topped the list of potential Republican candidates with 25 percent. 

On Wednesday, Bevin told Pure Politics he has continued to receive encouragement to run for another office and is thinking about it because he cares about the future of the state. 

“I am absolutely considering not only the gubernatorial but frankly any other way to serve going into the future. What I have no desire to do is make this a new rest of my life kind of venture,” Bevin said (at 1:15). “I am 47 years old, I am not a kid anymore. But I hopefully have a little gas left in the tank too and to that end, I know there are things that need to be done, I know what my abilities are and are not and if I think I can apply those in a way I think will help my children and other people’s children have a better possibility in the future then I’ll consider that.” 

In terms of a timeline, Bevin said he will know if he is going to run or not by the end of September but will not make any kind of announcement any time soon because he does not want to distract from the important issues at play in the 2014 races.

Will Matt Bevin push already declared GOP candidate and current Ag Secretary James Comer further to the right should he enter the race?  Sure hope so.  Bevin's not going to have Mitch McConnell, Dinosaur Steve, or even Barack Obama to run against, and the means he's going to have to make the case for why he should win as opposed to why everyone else should lose.

I hope Bevin does as much damage as possible to Comer so that Jack Conway can sweep in for the win.

Point Of View In Ferguson

A new survey out by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch shows a pretty stark divide in the way people in the community view last month's deadly shooting of Michael Brown by police office Darren Wilson.

The survey, released Monday morning by the Kansas City-based Remington Research Group, found that 65 percent of African-American county residents believe that Ferguson Police officer Darren Wilson acted unjustly when he ended Brown's life Aug. 9 on a Ferguson street. 

Conversely, 62 percent of the white residents surveyed by Remington believe the shooting death of Brown was justified.

The fissure broke even wider when surveyors asked if Wilson should be "arrested and charged with a crime" with 71 percent of African American residents responding "yes" opposed to the 71 percent of white survey-takers who believe the police officer should not be held liable. 

An equally stark divide emerged on the question of whether Brown was "targeted because of his race." 

Over three-quarters of the white respondents - 77 percent - responded "no" while 64 percent of the African-Americans answered in the affirmative.

I can't say that I'm surprised.  Black respondents overwhelmingly believed Wilson took Brown's life without justification, that as a result he should be arrested and charged, and that Brown was a victim because of his race.  White respondents overwhelmingly saw the opposite.  Whether or not you believe race had anything to do with Michael Brown's death, there's no question race is driving St Louis County's response to that death.

Seven in 10 whites think Wilson should walk.  Seven in ten blacks think he should be arrested.  If there's any silver lining, it's that the Justice Department and Eric Holder are all over this one, because I seriously doubt anyone who lives in Ferguson believes Wilson will ever spend a single minute in jail if it were up to the county prosecutor.

Frankly, I only have any hope at all for a federal case, but that will take years and if a Republican president gets in power in 2016, well, remember the DoJ's civil rights division under Dubya?

It's going to take a very long time to see justice for this, regardless.

StupidiNews!

• Federal authorities have indicted a Rochester, NY store owner on charges of providing material support and recruitment for ISIS.
• The Baltimore Police Department is facing a $35 million lawsuit as a video shows an officer repeatedly punching a man for the crime of littering in June.
• South Korean President Park Geun-hye says that the door to reunification talks with North Korea will remain open at the upcoming UN General Assembly.
• Scots will vote in tomorrow's independence referendum and those votes will be carried to Glasgow by ship, plane, and even helicopter to reach the furthest of the country's many islands.
• NASA administrator Charles Bolden has announced that both Boeing and Space-X will be providing vehicles for the next phase of US spaceflight operations.

Last Call For The Polls Moving Blue

All the three major polling statistical models for the Senate: WaPo's Election Lab model, NYT's Upshot Leo model, and Five Thirty Eight's model, have shifted significantly towards the Democrats keeping the Senate in November based on a series of polls out in the last two weeks.

Election Lab puts Democrats' chances of retaining their majority at 51 percent -- a huge change from even a few months ago when the model predicted that Republicans had a better than 80 percent chance of winning the six seats they need to take control. (Worth noting: When the model showed Republicans as overwhelming favorites, our model builders -- led by George Washington University's John Sides -- warned that the model could and would change as more actual polling -- as opposed to historical projections -- played a larger and larger role in the calculations. And, in Republicans' defense, no one I talked to ever thought they had an 80 percent chance of winning the majority.)

So, what exactly has changed to move the Election Lab projection? Three big things:

* Colorado: On August 27 -- the last time I wrote a big piece on the model -- Election Lab said Sen. Mark Udall (D) had a 64 percent chance of winning. Today he has a 94 percent chance.

* Iowa: Two weeks ago, the model gave state Sen. Joni Ernst (R) a 72 percent chance of winning. Today she has a 59 percent chance.

* Kansas: Sen. Pat Roberts' (R) re-election race wasn't even on the radar on Aug. 27. Today, Election Lab predicts he has just a 68 percent chance of winning.

In addition to that trio of moves in Democrats' direction, Louisiana has moved slightly in Democrats' favor (from a 57 percent chance of losing to a 53 percent chance) as has North Carolina (a 97 percent chance of winning now as opposed to a 92 percent chance on Aug. 27).

By contrast, Alaska has moved in Republicans' direction (Democratic Sen. Mark Begich's chances of winning are down from 66 percent to 53 percent) and Georgia has become more of a sure-thing hold (a 91 percent GOP win versus an 84 percent hold).

Upshot's Leo model has also made big moves.  It has Republicans favored in 5 pickups, with Iowa and Alaska as tossups favoring the Dems: one short of what Republicans would need.  Five Thirty Eight has Alaska's tossup shaded towards the GOP, giving them six pickups, but Kansas, Alaska, Louisiana ans Arkansas are all in play for the Dems.

The bottom line:  Two weeks ago all these models had Republicans getting 6-10 seats.  Now it's 5 to 7 at most.

Expect more polling data as the weeks go by, but don't be surprised if the Dems start putting away races now that voters are paying attention.

I Sure Hate Obama. But I Love Obamacare

Anyone who thought poor white Kentucky voters would be grateful in any way, shape, or form to the Democrats and especially President Barack Obama for the Affordable Care Act knows absolutely nothing about political science, social science, or race relations in the Bluegrass State.

The Affordable Care Act allowed Robin Evans, an eBay warehouse packer earning $9 an hour, to sign up for Medicaid this year. She is being treated for high blood pressure and Graves’ disease, an autoimmune disorder, after years of going uninsured and rarely seeing doctors.

“I’m tickled to death with it,” Ms. Evans, 49, said of her new coverage as she walked around the Kentucky State Fair recently with her daughter, who also qualified for Medicaid under the law. “It’s helped me out a bunch.”

But Ms. Evans scowled at the mention of President Obama — “Nobody don’t care for nobody no more, and I think he’s got a lot to do with that,” she explained — and said she would vote this fall for Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and minority leader, who is fond of saying the health care law should be “pulled out root and branch.”

Ms. Evans said she did not want the law repealed but had too many overall reservations about Democrats to switch her vote. “Born and raised Republican,” she said of herself. “I ain’t planning on changing now.”

You thought Obama was going to get credit for Obamacare here in Kentucky?  Suckers.

Why would people like Ms. Evans who are benefiting from the law vote for candidates who would dismantle it? Gov. Steven L. Beshear, one of the few Democrats forcefully promoting the law here, said many were driven by a dislike of Mr. Obama. A recent CNN poll found that only 33 percent of likely voters here approved of his job performance, and that 63 percent disapproved.

“The campaign by the Affordable Care Act’s critics against it has been very effective in demonizing the phrase Obamacare and anything to do with the president,” said Mr. Beshear, who cannot seek re-election next year because of term limits. “So I think you find a reluctance on the part of people, even though the law is benefiting them, to publicly acknowledge it.”

You think a bunch of white voters in Kentucky are going to be grateful to a black President for any goddamn thing?  Tell me another one.

That message has not persuaded people like Billy Bishop of Lexington, who is retired and gets health insurance through his former employer. He said his out-of-pocket costs had risen sharply while his coverage had gotten worse. He blames the Affordable Care Act — particularly its expansion of Medicaid to many more low-income Americans.

“I haven’t heard anything good about it, to be honest,” said Mr. Bishop, who has diabetes and heart stents. “I’ve heard with this, you can’t get doctors’ appointments and people get put on wait lists for surgery.”

Nonetheless, at the state fair, Mr. Bishop, 57, and his wife, Cindy, 56, stopped by an information booth run by Kynect, the state’s health insurance marketplace. Mrs. Bishop was curious about whether she could get less expensive coverage through Kynect, even though her husband refused to consider it for himself.

She took some brochures but said that regardless of what she learned about the cost, she and her husband would vote for Mr. McConnell. Mrs. Bishop said Ms. Grimes was “with Obama on everything,” and she called the president “the worst we’ve ever had.”.

They'd rather die than sign up for Kynect.  They will complain, lie, bitch, and moan every step of the way before they admit it's helping them.  They don't believe a word about Kynect...but they don't believe Mitch McConnell will repeal it, either.

But wait until Hillary starts running on fixing Obamacare.  Suddenly it'll be the best thing Democrats ever did.

Is Maine's Eliot Cutler The New Ralph Nader?

It sure looks like it.  The latest PPP poll finds incumbent Tea Party Republican Gov. Paul LePage only getting 42% of the vote.  But that might be enough as Democrat Mike Michaud has 43%, and independent Cutler has 11% of the vote, enough to spoil the race and keep LePage in power.

Public Policy Polling’s newest survey of the Maine Governor’s race continues to find a tight contest with Mike Michaud at 43% to 42% for Paul LePage. Eliot Cutler trails in a distant third at 11%. We attribute the closeness of the race to a continued split among progressive-leaning voters. Without Cutler’s presence in the race, his supporters would overwhelmingly choose Michaud over LePage; in a two way matchup between Michaud and LePage, Michaud’s lead would be 50/46.

The good news is Cutler's progressive supporters are realizing that if he stays in the race, LePage is going to win again.  They're starting to turn to Michaud:

Cutler is becoming a less viable candidate as we get closer to Election Day. When PPP started polling in this contest in January of 2013, Cutler was at 26%. By August of last year, he had dropped down to 18%, then to 14% this April, and now he’s at his lowest level of support yet at 11%. Cutler is in a distant third place even with independents, despite being an independent. 

53% of Cutler’s supporters say they would pick Michaud in a head to head contest, compared to only 32% who say they would vote for LePage. The support he’s pulling from Michaud could be enough to reelect LePage in this razor thin contest. 

Paul LePage is one of the most unpopular governors in the country, and most voters in Maine want to replace him. Given the closeness of the race right now, they will need to unify around one of the two candidates challenging LePage. This poll is further confirmation that Michaud is the only candidate with the support necessary to defeat LePage in November.

So that's good.  Mainers are starting to realize that Cutler's taking enough support from Michaud to give LePage the possible win, and they're moving to Michaud.  Hopefully this trend will continue, because LePage really is one of the worst Tea Party governors in the country right now and he has to go.

For that to happen, Cutler can't be allowed to Nader this one into the GOP column.

StupidiNews!

• Three NATO troops were killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan on Tuesday, the Taliban-claimed attack targeting a troop convoy.
• A 17-year-old Missouri boy is in critical condition while in a medically-induced coma after police used a Taser on him for failing to roll down a car window that was not working properly.
• President Obama will unveil a US plan to combat Ebola in West Africa with training healthcare workers, establishing new health care centers, and providing a base for coordinating a response.
• Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba says demand for its upcoming stock IPO is so great that the company will boost the initial offering to a record $21.8 billion.
• Republican groups opposed to the FCC's net neutrality regulations are claiming nearly 800,000 signatures to strip the FCC of any authority to regulate the internet at all.

Last Call For Alison's Firing Line

Alison Lundergan Grimes's newest ad doesn't pull any punches as the sheet-shooting candidate takes potshots at Barack Obama and Mitch McConnell.  Joe Arnold:

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes fires a shotgun six times in a new television ad, each shot aiming to poke a hole in the campaign of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell. 

Most significantly, Grimes leaves no room for interpretation that she disagrees with McConnell's assertion that a vote for her is a vote to further the agenda of the Obama administration. 

"Mitch McConnell wants you to think I'm Barack Obama," Grimes' voice is heard as she fires a shotgun to begin the ad. 

"I'm not Barack Obama," Grimes says later. "I disagree with him on guns, coal and the EPA," Grimes says, turning toward the camera after firing the shotgun, her safety glasses and ear plugs intact. 

It's not like Mitch has left her much of a choice.  This is Kentucky, as I keep saying, and the only way Grimes is going to win is to run against Obama as much as she is running against Mitch.  His latest ad ends with the tagline "Obama needs Grimes, Kentucky needs Mitch."  But Grimes takes her shots at ol' Turtle Face too.

Grimes also uses the shotgun blasts to target a mix of McConnell campaign flubs and arguments against her. 

"This is the same guy who thought Duke basketball players were U-K," Grimes says, referring to a flub by McConnell's ad maker in a March web video which showed Duke University players celebrating the 2010 NCAA basketball championship rather than an intended University of Kentucky highlight. The clip lasts less than one second, but has become frequent fodder for Grimes. 

"... or who's attacking me on coal," Grimes continues, " after doing nothing while we've lost thousands of coal jobs." 

"He even said it's not his job to bring jobs to Kentucky," Grimes intones, repeating a quote McConnell insists was taken out of context but a Beattyville newspaper editor says was reported accurately.

The end of the ad seeks to undermine what the McConnell campaign has used as imagery in its favor, McConnell holding a shotgun over his head at the Conservative Political Action Conference before presenting it to Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn (R).
"And, Mitch," Grimes laughs, "That's not how you hold a gun."

Chuckle all you want.  That works in the Bluegrass State.  It's a good ad, for a bad situation, to get rid of an awful incumbent.  If this gets Mitch out of the Senate, Grimes can disagree with President Obama on some issues.  Better than trying to actively block him on all issues.

Hillary: And It Begins

If there somehow was a remaining shred of doubt that Hillary Clinton was somehow not going to run for President in 2016, that doubt was flambeed, chopped, crushed, mangled, and the ashes ground into a fine powder and sprinkled all over the state of Iowa this weekend.

Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin said Sunday Hillary Clinton’s “fingerprints are all over” Obamacare. The Iowa senator was introducing Clinton to speak at his 37th annual Steak Fry.

“One of the things she always worked on was advancing this concept, this idea that health care should be a right and not a privilege in this country,” Harkin said. “So, Hillary was not there when the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, she was of course secretary of state, but I want you all to know that her fingerprints are all over that legislation. It would not have happened without her strenuous advocacy in that committee all those years.”

Speaking at high-profile event, headlined this year by former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is often seen as a sign of laying the foundation for a presidential run.

Sen. Tom Harkin is giving Hillary Clinton credit for Obamacare.  This is a really, really important clue, you think?

Look for more of this.  A lot more of this, in fact, in the months to come.  I'm glad that Hillary is playing up Obamacare, but she has to be careful not to make it look like she's trying to take credit for passing Hillarycare in 2010, otherwise she's going to alienate a lot of Democratic primary voters.

We'll see.

Snowden, Germany, And Putin's Retaliation

Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed retaliation against Friday's US/EU sanctions against Moscow, targeting Russia's big oil players like Gazprom.  Shifty ol' Vlad, the former GRU intelligence chief, has followed up on this threat and played the card he's gone back to time and time again on Monday: Edward Snowden's hoard of NSA documents.

Deutsche Telekom said it had found no indication that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and Britain's GCHQ had obtained access to its computer network, but said it was investigating the matter following a report in Sunday's Der Spiegel magazine.

"We are looking into every indication of possible manipulations but have not yet found any hint of that in our investigations so far," a Telekom spokesman said in a statement on Sunday. "We're working closely with IT specialists and have also contacted German security authorities.

"It would be completely unacceptable if a foreign intelligence agency were to gain access to our network," the spokesman added.

Der Spiegel said it had seen information suggesting the NSA and GCHQ had gained access to the networks of Deutsche Telekom and smaller German provider Netcologne.

That Der Speigel report credits Snowden's latest "revelation" that the NSA is working with its counterparts in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to "map all devices on the internet".

When it comes to choosing code names for their secret operations, American and British agents demonstrate a flare for creativity. Sometimes they borrow from Mother Nature, with monikers such as "Evil Olive" and "Egoistic Giraffe." Other times, they would seem to take their guidance from Hollywood. A program called Treasure Map even has its own logo, a skull superimposed onto a compass, the eye holes glowing in demonic red, reminiscent of a movie poster for the popular "Pirates of the Caribbean" series, starring Johnny Depp. Treasure Map is anything but harmless entertainment. Rather, it is the mandate for a massive raid on the digital world. It aims to map the Internet, and not just the large traffic channels, such as telecommunications cables. It also seeks to identify the devices across which our data flows, so-called routers.

Furthermore, every single end device that is connected to the Internet somewhere in the world -- every smartphone, tablet and computer -- is to be made visible. Such a map doesn't just reveal one treasure. There are millions of them.

The breathtaking mission is described in a Treasure Map presentation from the documents of the former intelligence service employee Edward Snowden which SPIEGEL has seen. It instructs analysts to "map the entire Internet -- Any device, anywhere, all the time."

Treasure Map allows for the creation of an "interactive map of the global Internet" in "near real-time," the document notes. Employees of the so-called "FiveEyes" intelligence agencies from Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, which cooperate closely with the American agency NSA, can install and use the program on their own computers. One can imagine it as a kind of Google Earth for global data traffic, a bird's eye view of the planet's digital arteries.

If you wanted to drive a huge wedge between the US and the EU, this is exactly how to do it: a breathless report that states that Germany's biggest telecom has been hacked by the US and UK to MAP EVERY SINGLE DEVICE ON THE INTERNET EVER.  The Germans, I'm sure, are pissed.  What better way to break up sanctions than by getting the countries leveling them against you to turn on each other?  There doesn't have to be proof of course, but anyone who thinks this report dropping now is a coincidence doesn't know how this game is played at all.

I have to hand it to Putin, when the man promises retaliation, he follows through...and just a few days before the Scottish independence vote in the UK, too.

Well played in return, Mr. Putin.

StupidiNews!

• US, EU, and Middle East diplomats are meeting in Paris today to discuss coalition building to fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria after the beheading death of British aid worker David Haines.
• Scientists have invented an "artificial spleen" for the treatment of sepsis, capable of filtering out toxins, bacteria, and viruses from human blood.
• UK PM David Cameron will visit Scotland today ahead of this week's Scottish independence vote to press keeping the United Kingdom together amid polls showing the vote is too close to call.
• As the Ebola outbreak in West Africa continues, Sierra Leone's government announced lower than expected revenues due to the embargo on flights into and out of the afflicted country.
• Democrat Sen. Patrick Leahy is urging the restoration of a decade's worth of federal court documents to the PACER database after an upgrade removed them from online viewing.

Last Call For Freedom Of Screech

Conservatives should be smarter than this, but then again they're being paid good money by the corporate interests that own them to howl about Democrats wanting campaign finance reform and calling it "repealing the First Amendment".

Free speech just won an important victory in a federal courtroom, though it is shameful that the case ever even had to go to court. Ohio had enacted a plainly unconstitutional law that empowered a government panel to determine whether criticisms offered in political advertisements were sufficiently true to be permitted in the public discourse. Those who have followed the IRS scandal, the Travis County, Texas, prosecutorial scandals, or Harry Reid’s recent effort to repeal the First Amendment will not be surprised that this measure was used as a political weapon against a conservative group, in this case the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List. SBA List criticized a Democratic House member for having voted for the so-called Affordable Care Act (ACA), noting that the law will implicate American taxpayers in the funding of abortions, an entanglement previously minimized through measures such as the Hyde Amendment. Despite the fact that the ACA regime would, among other things, permit federal subsidies for abortion-funding insurance plans, the Ohio Inquisition ruled the ad impermissible, and banned it.So much for free speech.

Fortunately, an Obama appointee whose ability to read the letter of the law had not been utterly drummed out of him ruled that the Ohio Inquisition obviously violated longstanding free-speech protections, the First Amendment notable among them. Last week, a similar case in Minnesota came to a similar conclusion.

Which is why Harry Reid wants to repeal the First Amendment.

Democrats pushing the measure to repeal free speech pretend that it is a campaign-finance measure, but the only criteria it establishes for Congress to ban an advertisement — or a book, or a film, or a television show, or a magazine — is that money is expended in an attempt to influence a political outcome. Under those rules, the Ohio Inquisition’s successful move to ban billboards critical of an embattled Democratic congressman would have been totally acceptable under the provisions of a gutted First Amendment.

To recap here, an amendment to the Constitution that would enshrine limits on endless corporate cash used to buy our elections and our politicians is somehow an assault on free speech, because conservatives realize that without hundreds of billions used to buy voters, they'd lose every single election, state, local, and national.

These guys are all in on the Constitution somehow giving you the right to spend as much money buying an election's outcome as you have, as if that somehow was what the drafters meant 235 plus years ago.

So we get long, sputtering diatribes like this from Kevin Williamson and his buddy Assrocket who with a straight face says this:

Why have the Democrats pushed the Udall amendment, knowing that it can’t possibly pass? They are playing a long game, I think. Historically, the idea of repealing the First Amendment would have been unthinkable. The purpose of the Udall amendment, I believe, is to mainstream what has always, until now, been inconceivable. The public is being accustomed to the idea that the First Amendment might be repealed–not flag burning and nude dancing, but the innermost core of the amendment, supporting and opposing candidates in elections–and if the Democrats ever have the votes, it will be.

It's funny that the first thing these clown come up with is using legislation to destroy the opposing political party.  If you want to know what Republicans are planning the next time they get into power, look what they are accusing the Democrats of doing next.

By the way, this is what an assault on free speech and silencing of dissent actually looks like, just in case you're confused.

Hitting Putin Where It Hurts

The newest US economic sanctions against Russia are ones that Vladimir Putin is finally going to notice, as they directly target the Russian oil and gas industry.

New U.S. sanctions handed down on Friday are designed to effectively "shut off" Russian oil conglomerates from oil exploration projects, U.S. officials said, in a move aimed squarely at Russia's $425 billion-a-year petroleum industry.

The measures are "designed to effectively shut down this type of oil exploration and production activity by depriving these Russian companies of the goods, technology, and services that they need to do this work," a senior Obama administration official said Friday.

The official added the intention of the new sanctions was to ensure that "we have effectively shut off the capacity" of Russian oil companies to draw on U.S. expertise for deepwater, Arctic offshore, and/or shale oil exploration projects. The official stressed this was an important step because Russia's companies did not possess the kind of technology needed to undertake the operations.

The new sanctions prohibit U.S. companies from exporting goods, services, or technology to support five Russian energy companies in exploration or production for Russian deepwater, Arctic offshore, or shale projects that have the potential to produce oil. The U.S. Treasury Department said companies have until Sept. 26 to wind down existing transactions affected by the new sanctions.

The Russian energy companies hit by the sanctions include Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, Lukoil, Surgutneftegas, and Rosneft. European companies will have similar prohibitions, under mirroring sanctions handed down by the European Union.

Let's stop and think.  US companies can no longer partner with Russia for oil exploration in the Arctic and offshore.  But I thought Obama was in the pocket of Big Energy?

Mark Dubowitz, the executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and an expert on previous sanctions leveled against countries like Iran, told Business Insider it was a smart escalation in sanctions.

"The new sanctions are smart and targeted and will impact Russia's access to Western technology and services that are needed to develop Moscow's medium to long-term oil exploration and production capacity," Dubowitz said.

"There will be winners and losers, including companies like Exxon and BP, but Western companies will adjust as they have to past energy sanctions against countries like Iran, Iraq, Sudan, and others. The real pain will be borne by Moscow, for whom energy is their economic lifeblood."

 It's going to hurt Moscow, definitely.  But it's going to hurt the big US oil giants too.  I'm all for that, frankly.

Well played, Mr. Obama.

The Enemy Of My Enemy Is What Again, Exactly?

I understand that President Obama feels he is taking the least awful option in Iraq and Syria for dealing with ISIS.  But as the NY Times editorial board points out, arming one side of a civil war (the "moderate" Syrian rebels) to defeat two different sides that we're against (ISIS and the Asaad regime) is not exactly a foolproof plan.

During the three-year-long Syrian civil war, Mr. Obama has been rightly reluctant to provide significant weapons and military assistance to the Syrian rebels. From the beginning, it was nearly impossible to determine the makeup and character of the rebel groups, of which there are about 1,500, according to James Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence.

Groups identified by Western intelligence agencies as the moderate opposition — those that might support democracy and respect human rights — have been weak, divided and without coherent plans or sustained command structures capable of toppling the Assad regime. Today, those so-called moderates are even weaker and more divided; in some cases, their best fighters are hard-line Islamists.

In ruling out sending American combat troops into yet another Muslim country, Mr. Obama’s plan relies on these rebels to serve as ground forces to defend and seize territory after American airstrikes in Syria, for which he needs to seek congressional approval. But training and equipping them will be complicated and risky, and will take months, if not longer. ISIS, which the C.I.A. said Thursday has as many as 31,500 fighters in Iraq and Syria, is already well-equipped and has proved to be stunningly skillful at waging war and seizing territory in both Iraq and Syria.

Despite efforts by the United States and others to persuade the insurgent groups to unify under a common political and military command structure, there is still no shared leadership. In fact, these groups may be close to defeat in Aleppo, where they are fighting both the Assad forces and ISIS.

And let's be honest here:  we're getting involved in Syria's civil war and the Sunni/Shi'a divide at the same time.  ISIS is hardcore, extremist Sunni, and the reason they've been able to take territory in Iraq and Syria is because both governments have been oppressing Sunni minorities for the last several years.  Sunnis in Iraq and Syria are happily helping ISIS, in fact many of ISIS's top military commanders are ex-Iraqi and Syria military who were relieved of their jobs by Asaad's secular government and Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'a-backed government.

Iraq has a new government now led by Haider al-Abadi that's literally about a week old, but he's Shi'a as well and nobody knows if they will start going after Sunnis again.  Certainly after all these years the Sunnis in the area don't trust the Iraqi government.  Why should they they trust the Shi'a?

And of course the biggest Shi'a player on the board is Iran.  And hey, let's remind ourselves that arming Middle East rebels has not exactly been the greatest idea in US military history over the long-term.

Look, I support President Obama and always will, but if this is the best choice we have, the situation in Iraq and Syria is pretty much a stone's throw from totally screwed.