$500 Million Program an 'Embarrassing Failure'

Though an official announcement on the matter has not been made yet, reports are emerging that the Pentagon has suspended the “train and equip” program intended to create a new faction of “pro-US” Syrian rebels, which has been dubbed the New Syrian Forces (NSF).
Two classes of NSF fighters ever reached Syria during the program’s history. The first class of 54 fighters was overrun quickly, and “four or five” were confirmed to still be active earlier this month.The second class, estimated at 70-75 fighters, entered Syria ten days ago.
If the first class was a failure, the second class was embarrassingly so, with the group almost immediately surrendering its weapons and vehicles to al-Qaeda. Centcom today released further details about the chain of events leading to this surrender.
...
Despite reports that the training itself has halted, Col. Ryder suggested about 50 more fighters, the sum total of classes three and four, might be sent to Syria anyhow.

And so it ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Shit, I'm afraid to even think about when these were relesed.

link

"With advances in medical technology, prescription drugs and ways to treat injuries and illnesses, Americans are living healthier lives. Because of these changes, we must adjust your premium to stay in line with increased costs."
- letter from Blue Cross Blue Shield justifying why premiums are going up

It's a beautiful morning here in Portland. Crisp and breezy even though it's going to be 81% this afternoon. Hope you all have a great day. Although I'm trying to rearranging my work schedule so that I start early and don't hit the net until late afternoon my fingers have a mind of their own and went to my usual wake up spots to read the news and check out dkos and spend some time reading here. In my short sweet trip around the net this morning I found one story that cheered me up.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/09/28/another-world-possible-corby...

As austerity comes under fire across the European continent, the UK Labour Party can show that "another world is possible," Jeremy Corbyn's top economist said Monday—one that rejects harsh cuts while embracing a platform of fair and progressive taxation, living wages, and "a radical review of the national institutions that manage our economy."

On Monday, McDonnell said "austerity is not an economic necessity, it’s a political choice."

Over the weekend, Labour leadership announced it it had set up an economic advisory committee including Nobel Prize-winning U.S. economist Joseph Stiglitz and Frenchman Thomas Piketty to help develop its anti-austerity policies.

"There is now a brilliant opportunity for the Labour party to construct a fresh and new political economy which will expose austerity for the failure it has been in the UK and Europe," said Piketty.

"Be in no doubt, if you were before," added Deputy Leader Tom Watson, in a separate speech at the party conference. "Labour is now unashamedly, unapologetically, avowedly an anti-austerity party."

I tried earlier this summer to wade through Piketty's huge book. I ended up reading about 1/3 of it. I was impressed with his assessment of the economic global, 'world as we find it'. Too bad that the Democratic party does not have an economic team that looks like this. Compare this line up with Obama's team of economic advisers.

I wish that America had a real two party system as people want a real choice. The Labour party managed to reject the Blairite, Nu Labour ,Tory lite, so called 'moderates'. Bernie's popularity has shown me that ordinary people are ready for some real opposition to inevitable global oligarchy rule. The liberal Brit's seem to have had enough of the fear and austerity that New Labour pumped out. Bernie's surge is a start but he certainly isn't Corbyn. His 'it's a dangerous world' view reeks of the New Democratic neocon/neoliberal fear mongering foreign policy. Then there is the congressional Democrat's including the so called progressive caucus who all dance to the corrupt Dem. political machine and refuse to fight for we the people.

They suck as the loyal opposition and they suck worse when they have a majority. The best of them fall in line when push comes to shove and the DC Kabuki show is pathetically transparent. It does not mean a thing if your elected representatives local, state or national are Democratic, other then you won't get fundamentalist theocratic rule with your austerity, security state and endless war. I had to laugh when Bernie talked about the dangerous ' radicalized extremists' in the ME and yet went to LU and spoke of 'morality' with our own homegrown radical extremist fundies.

It's looking like it

... We have been looking for the market to retest the spike low from August at 1,867, and then medium-term support at 1,820, the October 2014 low. With several key sectors now also falling to major support levels – notably industrials ‒ and looking vulnerable, we think the risk a major top may be established has risen sharply. Below 1,867 should keep the risk lower for price and "neckline" support at 1,832/20. Below here would mark the completion of an important top, turning the core trend bearish. If achieved, we would target 1,738/30 initially – the low for 2014 itself, and the 38.2% retracement of the 2011/2015 uptrend. Although we would expect this to hold at first, a break would be favoured in due course for 1,575/74 – the 38.2% retracement of the entire 2009/2015 bull market...
Credit Suisse is far from the first (or only) market participant to highlight troubling technical analysis patterns recently. A Bloomberg report earlier this month pointed to a downward sloping "head and shoulders" pattern in the Dow Jones Industrial average, suggesting further selling pressure ahead.
A "Dow Theory sell signal," one of the oldest technical indicators around, was also triggered in August when the DJIA and Dow Jones Transportation Average fell below the low of a previous selloff, set in October 2014.

Full disclosure: I started shorting the market several weeks ago, so the further it falls the more money I make.