Charles Lister's article today on our epic misreading of the problem in Syria is getting tons of praise from analysts on Twitter. Shorter version: The U.S. is walking into an abyss on Syria. Some quotes:

[T]he US and its European partners remain dangerously disconnected from Syria's realities. The threat posed by IS has become a convenient obsession, while the more complex dynamics in the rest of the country appear all but ignored and misunderstood.

... IS remains a potent force in Syria and must be countered, but it will not be marching on Damascus anytime soon, contrary to some uninformed fear mongering. Al-Qaeda also poses a pressing and more long-term threat, perhaps more so than has been acknowledged. But at the end of the day, the root cause of the entire Syrian crisis is Assad and his regime.

Our efforts in Syria to date: "To label the mission a catastrophic failure would be a generous assessment." [More...]

First, the U.S. admitted equipment it provided to the Syrian Rebels it was training ended up with al Nusra, the Al Qaida affiliated group. But it denied knowing or training the person who gave it to them.

The Daily Beast says Centcom then admitted a little more:

The Pentagon, responding to reports in The Daily Beast that a specific U.S.-trained commander had defected along with most of his unit to a group affiliated with al Qaeda, will now concede that an unnamed commander who actually had been rejected by the U.S. as a possible trainee for the fight against the self-proclaimed Islamic State had somehow acquired access to U.S. equipment that he then handed over to al Qaeda affiliates.

But it gets worse. [More...]

The sequel to Shantaram is finally coming. Gregory David Robert's Mountain Shadow, will be available Oct. 13. You can read the first five chapters here.

Shantaram introduced millions of readers to a cast of unforgettable characters in the hidden heart of Bombay through Lin, an Australian fugitive, working as a passport forger for a branch of the Bombay mafia. In The Mountain Shadow, the long awaited sequel, Lin must find his way in a Bombay run by a different generation of mafia dons, playing by a different set of rules.

On TV tonight: Blood and Oil (with Don Johnson) and Quantico, The Great Food Truck Race, and on Unimas, Nino Santo, which is a very strange drama that pits young doctors against a religious cult figure in the jungle, where the doctors end up questioning whether science is more powerful than faith. It's based on the real legend of Niño Fidencio, a 1920's faith healer who never made it to sainthood, but is considered one by many anyway. It just started last week, and only airs on Sunday nights. It has subtitles.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Donald Trump will unveil a new tax plan tomorrow. Tonight he is on 60 Minutes. (no link due to autoplay video.) And in a new NBC-WSJ poll, he's fallen to only one point above Ben Carson.

Are his days numbered? Bill Clinton doesn't think so.

I'm surprised he's lasted this long, but I still don't believe he'll end up as the nominee.

Pope Francis has concluded his visit to the U.S. It was a big success. Today, among other stops, he visited a jail in Philadelphia and met with inmates.

Pope Francis also rebuked society for not doing enough to rehabilitate prisoners. “It is painful when we see prison systems which are not concerned to care for wounds, to soothe pain, to offer new possibilities,” the pope said, speaking in Spanish through an interpreter. “It is painful when we see people who think that only others need to be cleansed, purified, and do not recognize that their weariness, pain and wounds are also the weariness, pain and wounds of society.”

...Visiting the imprisoned is a traditional good work in the Catholic Church, one of the seven corporal works of mercy.

USA Today reviews the results of recent investigations into how DEA has handled the misconduct of its agents and finds the treatment too lenient for serious instances of misconduct.

Here are the 52 pages of logs from 2010 to 2015 showing the punishment meted out for agent misconduct.

France has announced its first independent airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria. The airstrikes hit an ISIS training camp in Deir Ezzor. French analysts are not impressed.

[A]nalysts say that by sending fighter jets to Syria, France is mainly seeking to ease domestic political pressure, and remain relevant abroad in the latest scramble for a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

"To say that we will prevent terrorist attacks in France thanks to air strikes in Syria is, and I am weighing my words, absolute bullsh*t," said Eric Denece, the director of the French intelligence think-tank CF2R.

Deir Ezzor is one of the places where ISIS established camps for children. No word yet on fatalities.

Was about even last week- a little under .500 and breakeven for the year. This week's picks:

UCLA @ Arizona +4 (3 units), Missouri @ Kentucky -2 (3 units), Mississippi State +3 (3 units) @ Auburn, Texas A&m; -7 (3 units) @ Arkansas, San Diego State +16 (3 units) @ Penn State, Virginia Tech @ East Carolina +10, Western Michigan @ Ohio State -32 (3 units), Massachusetts +30 @ Notre Dame, @ Florida, Ohio +11 @ Minnesota, Maryland @ West Virginia -17 (4 units), Northern Illinois @ Boston College -4 (3 units), Indiana @ Wake Forest +3, Bowling Green -3 @ Purdue, Navy -6 @ Connecticut, Georgia Tech -7 (3 units) @ Duke, Southern Mississippi +22 @ Nebraska, LSU -24 (5 units) @ Syracuse, Central Michigan +28 @ Michigan State, Kansas +15 @ Rutgers, Central Florida +15 @ South Carolina, BYU +7 (3 units) @ Michigan.

Go Gators!

Looking at the polling in the Dem primary, it's clear that there is a "Biden Effect." What is Biden's impact? Where would his supporters go if he decides not to run? A few polls ask the question.

In the Fox poll, including Biden yields a 44-30-18 result, Clinton-Sanders-Biden. And without Biden?

It's Clinton 56, Sanders 32. Clinton up 12 and Sanders up 2. Obviously no Biden helps Clinton.

More.

Here's a new open thread, all topics welcome.

Steven Aftergood:

The Central Intelligence Agency has improperly classified and withheld from release at least five categories of information related to its post-9/11 rendition, detention and interrogation program, according to a detailed complaint filed by Openthegovernment.org with the Information Security Oversight Office. Classification of this information has impeded government accountability for the controversial CIA programs and derailed a full public reckoning over abuses that occurred, the complaint said.

Good luck with that. Have you forgotten the "IC equities" in this (NewSpeak for coverups). From the complaint:

For two hours in the car today, the only news was the Pope's visit to Washington. He rode in a small Fiat. He talked politics, taking sides on issues that showed his independent thinking. Republicans seemed less happy than Democrats, even though he espoused positions both in line with and against those taken by partisans. His views on immigration and climate change more closely matched Democrats while his views on same sex marriage and abortion were closer to Republicans. His views on sex abuse were expected to anger Catholics who think he has aligned too closely with Bishops.

He held a ceremony naming a new saint. Tomorrow he will address Congress. He mingled as much as possible with the people. He's also expected to to visit a homeless shelter at some point where he may serve food. And he'll go to Philadelphia to meet with sex abuse victims. And also visit New York.

Mexico announced today that a judge has approved an arrest warrant for the extradition of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to the Western District of Texas. Mexico's announcement (in Spanish) is here.

Here are the details of the Texas Indictment, which was returned in 2012. [More...]

I've got jail visits in the mountains today. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Kim Dotcom's extradition hearing has begun in New Zealand. It is expected to take 4 weeks. It's being heard together with the extradition requests for his MegaUpload partners, Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann, and Bram van der Kolk. [More...]