President Obama, in his annual address to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, cited "the cancer of violent extremism" in the Middle East as the single issue that could derail future global progress, and said six years into his presidency that the world is at a crossroads. He specifically called on Muslim communities in the region to confront the threat of extremism and reject such ideology.
While we still haven't finished paying for the previous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — remember that pesky budget deficit the GOP keeps threatening to shut down the government over? — America appears to be marching into action again without a plan to pay for it. The country spent $1.5 trillion on Iraq 2.0 alone. You don't need an e-book meme to wonder how that money could've been better spent.
Is ISIS successfully manipulating U.S. politicians and media? Did the U.S. government threaten the families of the beheaded journalists if they paid the ransom allegedly demanded by the extremist group?
Twitter and some other social media outlets are trying to block the spread of gruesome images of the beheading of journalist James Foley by Islamic State militants, while a movement to deny his killers publicity is also gaining momentum. In a Tweet, CEO Dick Costolo said his company "is actively suspending accounts as we discover them related to this graphic imagery," and he gave a link to a New York Times story about Foley's killing.
Iraq's top Shiite cleric urged unity on Friday after Nouri al-Maliki agreed to step down as prime minister, reviving hopes for a new government that can take on Sunni insurgents who have overrun large parts of the country. Al-Maliki announced he was giving up his post on national television late Thursday, standing alongside senior members of his Shiite Islamic Dawa Party, including his rival and premier-designate Haider al-Abadi.
The U.N. on Wednesday called its highest level of emergency for the humanitarian crisis in Iraq, where hundreds of thousands have been driven from their homes and tens of thousands have been trapped in a desert mountain by the advance of Islamic militants across the north of the country. The declaration of a "Level 3 Emergency" will trigger additional goods, funds and assets to respond to the needs of those displaced, said U.N. special representative Nickolay Mladenov, who pointed to the "scale and complexity of the current humanitarian catastrophe."
Finally, proof that the GOP has truly hit rock bottom. No, it's not their "corporations are people with religious beliefs" piling on in the wake of the Hobby Lobby case. It's not even their candidates and talk radio loudmouths who think women only use birth control for "recreational sex." Nope, it's these "I Miss W" t-shirts the GOP is shilling for $27 a pop.
