Open season on chump America, Taliban bomb, breach US Consulate grounds in Afghanistan, several Afghan police dead-BBC

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9/12/13, "Herat explosion: Afghanistan Taliban attack consulate," BBC

"Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan have attacked the US consulate in the western city of Herat. The Taliban told the BBC a suicide bomber had detonated explosives outside the building before dawn on Friday.

Other fighters then opened fire on the consulate. Several Afghan police are reported to have been killed and injured in the gun battle. It is the latest in a series of attacks ahead of the withdrawal of foreign combat troops from Afghanistan in 2014.

An Afghan army spokesman told the BBC that the initial explosion had damaged outer defences of the US consulate, allowing the attackers to breach the perimeter and shoot at the consulate buildings. 

The bomb had been placed in a car.

The gunfire continued for some time, reporters at the scene said. The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) tweeted at 0400 GMT that the consulate was secure "with all enemy forces being killed". Isaf and Afghan National Security Forces were at the scene, it added.

The BBC's David Loyn in Kabul says the attack - carried out in the shadow of the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the US - is a demonstration of the ability of insurgents still to disrupt Afghanistan 12 years on.

Two Afghan police and one locally hired guard were killed, our correspondent adds. "All consulate personnel are safe and accounted for," a US Embassy spokesman told AP news agency.

Herat, close to the Iranian border, has been relatively peaceful in recent years. Earlier this month Taliban targeted the Torkham US base in eastern Afghanistan, sparking a lengthy gun battle in which three insurgents were killed."


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US Sec. of State John Kerry paddles near Nantucket Island on July 4, 2013, on his yacht, Wed. July 3, 2013

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Wed., 7/3/13, Sec. of State John Kerry on his yacht, seen mid photo, CBS News photo, twitterpic

7/4/13, Sec. of State John Kerry paddles on a kyack near Nantucket Island, July 5, 2013,  Boston Herald, Ryan Hutton

Secretary of State John F. Kerry paddles a kayak in Nantucket Sound after launching the boat from his home on the island yesterday. - See more at: http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/07/republicans_put_john_kerry_on_a_plane#sthash.eOtSOqVf.dpuf

7/4/13, Sec. of State John Kerry offloads from a 1-person kyack near Nantucket Island, photo Ryan Hutton, Boston Herald, 7/5/13, via Mark Steyn in for Rush Limbaugh

Republicans: Put John Kerry on a plane

'President Palin, we'll see you on January 20, 2013.' Stella Paul hits another home run.

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1/21/11, "Sarah Palin, Combat Veteran," American Thinker, Stella Paul

"Apparently, America's next big scheduled argument is whether women soldiers should be allowed in combat. Mark your calendars now to begin screaming your preferred talking points, yea or nay. Politics Daily:

A study commission chartered by Congress is poised to send up to Capitol Hill a recommendation that the last remaining barriers to women - those that formally exclude them from infantry, armor and special forces -- be removed.

As far as I'm concerned, we already have our first female combat soldier, a breathtakingly brave warrior who suffers the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune for the sake of our freedom, every day.

Sarah Palin stands alone in America and the world. Name one other public figure anywhere on the globe today who symbolizes

• the uncompromising fight for liberty....Waiting...Waiting...

As for her Republican rivals, blogger Kevin DuJan of Hillbuzz has sure got their number: they're not activist members of a political party;

• they're lazy guests at a Cocktail Party.

While Sarah is putting her life at risk -- staffers say that since the Tucson blood libel, she's getting death threats at an "unprecedented rate" -- Mitt Romney can't even bother to lead from the rear.

• He's hanging around the country club, eating soggy cucumber-and-mayonnaise sandwiches,

and waiting for Sarah to win the war. Then he'll gallop on to the battlefield, hair stylist in tow, and flash his Dudley Do Right grin. Naturally,

• conservative pundits will traipse along and dutifully applaud his "gravitas" and outstanding presidential "qualifications."

So much worthier than Sarah, don't you know!

As for Newt Gingrich, he took time off from his busy schedule of cuddling up to Nancy Pelosi on global warming, to sneak onto the battlefield

• and lob grenades -- at Sarah. Hey, right back at ya, pal.

Then there's Mike Huckabee, who, when last heard from, was off somewhere exchanging diet tips with violent cons

• whose life sentences he had blithely commuted.

Tim Pawlenty, a ghostly presence at best, briefly materialized to murmur vague accusations against Sarah, and then faded into the woodwork once again. Wow! Leadership in action! All hail the mighty Tim!

You want leadership; you want steel spine; you want results? Helllooooo...What happened in Congress Wednesday? The House voted to repeal ObamaCare, 245 - 189, with the Republicans voting unanimously for repeal.

To whom do we owe this victory, more than anyone else, clearly and unequivocally?

• Sarah Palin. She showed us courage in real time, leading in every possible way: philosophically, strategically, tactically, and financially.

Next to combat-hardened Sarah, every single Republican man is a trembling dwarf.

In case they haven't noticed (they haven't), we're living through the most dangerously divided time in American history since the Civil War. As Abraham Lincoln once said,

"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other."

So it is in our time. Either we will quickly

• re-establish a government that fears the people, or the people will fear the government -

permanently. Freedom is lethally hard to obtain, and frighteningly easy to lose. Right now, freedom is dying.

When America first met Sarah Palin, she praised her running mate, John McCain, with these words: "There's only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you." Well, there's a new election starting now, and

• there's not a single man in it who has ever bestirred himself to really fight for you.

There's only a woman. The Republican establishment loathes Sarah Palin; the conservative commentariat needs smelling salts at the very mention of her name; and the ruling class took a blood oath to destroy not just her, but her family, too.

• But none of that matters, because

a ragtag army of freedom-loving Americans knows who's got the guts of a real Commander-in-Chief.

• President Palin, we'll see you on January 20, 2013."

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