RUTHFULLY YOURS

Our lazy president skipped his daily briefings — and missed the rise of ISIS

If Obama always looks stunned by America’s throbbing foreign-policy headaches, it may be because more than half the time, Obama is not listening to warnings about national-security threats — literally.

On last Sunday’s 60 Minutes, Obama pointed fingers, yet again. This time it concerned his being surprised by the rise of ISIS. Obama said: “I think our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.”

Obama should have fingered himself. He might have been able to anticipate ISIS’s steamrolling across Syria and Iraq if he had not blown off nearly 60 percent of his Presidential Daily Briefs (PDBs) with America’s top intelligence officers.

The Government Accountability Institute, a conservative watchdog group, has analyzed the official White House calendar and Politico.com’s presidential schedule from Obama’s January 20, 2009, inauguration through September 29, 2014. Overall, Obama skipped 58 percent of his PDBs.

This outrage has gotten worse throughout Obama’s tenure. He missed 57.6 percent of his first-term PDBs, GAI calculates. In his second term, his truancy increased to 58.7 percent. So Obama was more AWOL from these interactive sessions after his reelection — even as the embers of the deadly Benghazi attack roared into pan-Libyan bedlam, Vladimir Putin snatched Crimea, Hamas’s rockets pummeled Israel, and America’s southern frontier became a moving sidewalk for illegal aliens from around the world.

Are significant chunks of the mainstream media in despair over Barack Obama? This past week, Obama used 60 Minutes to attempt to shift blame for the failure to anticipate the rise of ISIS, endured a cover-up of White House security disasters by the Secret Service, and saw a government-agency report that he had skipped nearly 60 percent of his intelligence briefings.

The reaction from some longtime Obama defenders was swift and harsh. “President Obama this week committed professional suicide,” wrote former CNN host Piers Morgan, now an editor-at-large for Britain’s Daily Mail.

He called Obama’s throwing of the intelligence community under the bus a “shameless, reprehensible display of buck-passing” that will result in some analysts’ exacting “cold-blooded revenge on Obama by drip-feeding negative stories about him until he’s gone.” As for the Secret Service fiasco, Morgan said it was “no wonder the Secret Service gets complacent when The Boss exudes complacency from every pore.”

Chris Matthews of MSNBC, the former White House speechwriter who once rapturously recounted that he “felt this thrill going up my leg” as Obama spoke, didn’t hold back on Wednesday’s Hardball. “Let’s get tough here,” Matthews began, as he lambasted Obama for being “intellectually lazy” and “listening to the same voices all the time.” He even named names, saying that Obama had become “atrophied into that little world of people like Valerie Jarrett and Mrs. Obama.”

Jonathan Alter, a columnist for Bloomberg News and the author of a sympathetic book on Obama’s first term, reported that Jarrett is an unusual presence in the White House: “Staffers feared her, but didn’t like or trust her. At meetings she said little or nothing, instead lingering afterwards to express her views directly to the President, creating anxiety for her underlings and insulting them by saying, ‘I don’t talk just to hear myself talking.’”

Everyone expects a presidential spouse to weigh in on issues, but the reference to Valerie Jarrett, the White House senior adviser who mentored both the president and the first lady at the start of their careers in Chicago, is telling. Her outsize role in many presidential decisions is known to insiders, but she remains resolutely behind the scenes. So when Jarrett does enter the news, it’s significant, because it may provide a window into how the Obama White House really works.

This week, Greg Hinz of Crain’s Chicago Business noted that President Obama was back visiting Chicago but “having to share headlines with Valerie Jarrett.” She began the week with a cameo appearance on CBS’s highly rated show The Good Wife. Then a column by Michael Sneed in the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Jarrett “may be the worst abuser” of any executive-branch official with a Secret Service detail, using guards “round the clock” even while she was shopping, at the gym, or visiting friends in Chicago.

WASHINGTON – Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.), a member of the House Budget Committee, said education is the best way for the federal government to respond to the Ebola outbreak, rather than reduce the number of U.S. visas granted to citizens of West Africa nations.

Cárdenas also said the Ebola crisis demonstrates that reducing spending is the wrong approach.

“I think the best response is education. We have the best system of preventative measures in the world but yet at the same time we need to educate the communities, so I think it’s important that we not act in an alarmed fashion but just have responsible, methodical education,” said Cárdenas at the Noche de Gala for the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts on Wednesday night.

“It’s my understanding that when it comes to the actual hospitals and facilities that will have to receive individuals that may have Ebola, that we’re doing well there but again until we see them being challenged, we’ll have yet to see if they’re actually truly ready – but we’re getting strong assurances that they are, but the best thing is education,” Cárdenas also said.

U.S. health officials estimated on Thursday that the Liberian man hospitalized for Ebola in Texas had contact with as many as 100 people. The man was reportedly visiting the U.S. on a tourist visa. Cárdenas was asked if the U.S. should temporarily stop issuing visas to West African nations affected by Ebola.

“Again, that would be reacting in an alarmed fashion. I think that what we ought to do is education domestically and also education abroad and make sure that we have the kind of communication and the honesty with us and other governments that we need to be making sure that they understand the seriousness of it, and then respond after we find out if they are acting responsibly,” Cárdenas responded. “Then, we can go ahead and be more trusting, but otherwise, then we will take action just based on facts, not based on hyperbole, not based on being upset or reactionary.”

Administration Criticism That Israel ‘Poisons Atmosphere’ with Jerusalem Construction Is ‘Deplorable,’ Says Senator : BY Bridget Johnson

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) slammed as “deplorable” the White House’s condemnation of Israel, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was visiting, for housing construction in Jerusalem.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters yesterday that the U.S. is “deeply concerned by reports that Israeli government has moved forward with the planning process in the sensitive area — or in a sensitive area of east Jerusalem.”

“This step is contrary to Israel’s stated goal of negotiating a permanent status agreement with the Palestinians, and it would send a very troubling message if they were to proceed with tenders or construction in that area,” Earnest continued. “This development will only draw condemnation from the international community, distance Israel from even its closest allies, poison the atmosphere, not only with the Palestinians but also with the very Arab governments with which Prime Minister Netanyahu said he wanted to build relations.”

“It also would call into question Israel’s ultimate commitment to peaceful negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.”

Earnest said the construction issues “did come up in the conversations” between President Obama and Netanyahu.

Netanyahu told MSNBC today that the Obama administration “should get acquainted with the facts first.”

“I find that curious, because the criticism was leveled at a new neighborhood that was mixed. It had a substantial part of the apartments apportioned — parceled out to Arabs, to Palestinians alongside Jews. So it’s — why not have them live together?” Netanyahu said.

New evidence pried from the government under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) proves the point I have posited here at Ordered Liberty: The federal government willfully intervened on behalf of al Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki on October 10, 2002, undoing his arrest on felony fraud charges when he was detained at JFK International Airport in New York, and allowing him to walk away with a Saudi handler. As I argued over two years ago, the government’s story to the contrary – viz., that it was moved by sheer coincidence on the eve of Awlaki’s arrival to pull the plug on a weak case – does not pass the laugh test.

Twelve years ago, when the FBI intervened to “un-arrest” Awlaki despite the pendency of a valid felony warrant, he was a suspect – or, at the very least, a highly material witness – in the 9/11 conspiracy that resulted in the killing of nearly 3000 Americans. He went on to become one of al Qaeda’s most effective operatives. Awlaki is suspected of involvement in or incitement of the 2009 Fort Hood jihadist attack in which 13 U.S. soldiers were killed and many others wounded; the attempt to bomb a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009; the attempted bombing of Times Square in 2010; and the modernization of al Qaeda’s international recruitment practices.

In 2011, he was finally killed as an enemy-combatant by an American drone strike in Yemen.

Fox News chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge, who in 2012 broke the news about Awlaki’s mysterious un-arrest a decade earlier, has stayed on the case. So has Judicial Watch, thanks to whose FOIA lawsuit, the government has been compelled to turn over 900 pages of documents about its investigations of, and communications with, the jihadist. As Ms. Herridge’s new reporting elaborates, the FOIA disclosures show that Awlaki had numerous contacts with the FBI well into 2004 – when the 9/11 Commission was trying to locate him for an interview based on mounting evidence of his likely knowledge of, if not complicity in, the 9/11 conspiracy.

Consistent with our government’s seemingly incorrigible penchant to dismiss extremist Islamic incitement as harmless rhetoric, and to perceive Islamic supremacists as “moderate Islamists” with whom it can collaborate, law enforcement officials knew about Awlaki’s extensive contacts with some of the 9/11 suicide-hijackers but excused them as “random [and] the inevitable consequence of living in the small world of Islam in America.” Years later, law enforcement and military officials knew about but ignored startling jihadist communications between Awlaki and eventual Fort Hood killer Nidal Hasan.

The new information corroborates my suggestion here two years ago that, in letting Awlaki go rather than arresting him on the pending fraud charge, the government was “acting on the misguided hope of using him as an informant.” This is not only cause for potential embarrassment in its own right; it adds to the concerns over the circumstances of Awlaki’s death.

1. Yom Kippur commemorates God’s forgiveness for the sin of the Golden Calf and God’s covenant with the Jewish people.

2. Yom Kippur is a day of forgiveness only for sins committed against God. It is customary to dedicate the eve of Yom Kippur to apologies for sins committed against fellow human beings. However, an apology or compensation are not sufficient if they do not elicit an expressed forgiveness by the injured person. One is commanded to be community-sensitive and invite everyone, including transgressors, to participate in Yom Kippur services. Thus, Yom Kippur underlines unity, as synagogues become a platform for the righteous and the sinner.

3. Yom Kippur’s focus on seeking forgiveness highlights humility, fallibility, faith, soul-searching, compassion, thoughtfulness, being considerate, accepting responsibility and magnanimity. Speaking ill of other people (“evil tongue,” Le’shon Ha’Ra, in Hebrew) may not be forgiven.

4. Yom Kippur is a happy Jewish Holiday, replacing vindictiveness and rage with peace-of-mind and peaceful co-existence between God and human beings and, primarily, between human beings.

5. Yom Kippur is observed on the tenth day of the Jewish month of Tishrei, whose astrological sign is Libra (♎). Libra symbolizes the key themes of Yom Kippur: scales, justice, balance, truth, symmetry, sensitivity and optimism. Libra is ruled by the planet Venus (Noga, נגה, in Hebrew), which reflects divine light and love of the other person. (Noga is the name of my oldest granddaughter). The numerical value of the Hebrew letters of נגה is 58 (נ-50, ג-3, ה-5), just like the numerical value of אזן, which is the Hebrew word for “ear,” as well as, the Hebrew root of “listening,” “balance” and “scale.”

6. Yom Kippur is observed on the tenth day of Tishrei – an Acadian word for forgiveness and Genesis. Ten has special significance in Judaism: God’s abbreviation is the tenth Hebrew letter (Yod – י); there are ten attributes of God – Divine perfection – which were highlighted during the Creation; the Ten Commandments; the Ten Plagues; there are ten reasons for blowing the Shofar; The Prayer of Veedooi – וידוי (confession/reaffirmation in Hebrew), is recited ten times during Yom Kippur one is commanded to extend a 10% gift to God (tithe); Ten Martyrs (Jewish leaders) were tortured/murdered by the Roman Empire; there were ten generations between Adam and Noah and between Noah and Abraham; a ten worshipper quorum (Minyan in Hebrew) is required for a collective Jewish prayer; etc.

7. The Hebrew word Kippur, כיפור (atonement/repentance), is a derivative of the Biblical word Kaporet כפורת,, the cover of the Holy Ark at the Sanctuary, and Kopher, כופר, the cover of Noah’s Ark and the Holy Altar at the Temple. Yom Kippur resembles a spiritual cover (dome), which separates between the holy and the mundane, between spiritualism and materialism. The Kippah, כיפה (skullcap, Yarmulka’), which covers one’s head during prayers, reflects a spiritual dome.

8. The Hebrew spelling of “fast” (צם/צום) – abstinence from food – reflects the substance of Yom Kippur. The Hebrew word for “fast” is the root of the Hebrew word for “reduction” and “shrinking” (צמצום) of one’s wrong-doing. It is also the root of the Hebrew words for “slave” (צמית) and “eternity” (צמיתות) – eternal enslavement to God, but not to human beings. “Fast” is also the root of עצמי (being oneself),עצום (awesome), עצמה (power),עצמאות (independence), which are gained through the process of fasting, soul-searching, spiritual-enhancement and faith in God.

9. A Memorial Candle, in remembrance of one’s parents, is lit during Yom Kippur. This reaffirms the “Honor Thy Father and Mother Commandment,” providing another opportunity to ask forgiveness of one’s parent(s), as well as, asking forgiveness on their behalf.

10. The Scroll of Jonah is read on Yom Kippur. It demonstrates that repentance and forgiveness is universal. Among its lessons: commanding one to assume responsibility; getting involved socially/politically; sounding the alarm when wrong-doing is committed anywhere in the world; displaying compassion for all peoples and adhering to faith and optimism in defiance of all odds.

Every year at this time, the Israeli public is treated to tips on how to get through Yom Kippur with minimal suffering. Pointers include the best methods for avoiding feeling faint from hunger and thirst, and the most effective ways to cope with caffeine withdrawal.

In addition, as soon as Rosh Hashanah ends, it is customary during the period leading up to the holiest of the Days of Awe for passers-by to wish one another an “easy fast.”

This social convention is puzzling. After all, the whole purpose of fasting is to put one’s body in a particular state of physical discomfort, in order to create the optimal conditions for undertaking a tough spiritual task. Atoning for sins against God and man is a serious endeavor, especially since doing it with genuine intent is supposed to seal one’s fate in the Book of Life.

Theoretically, then, the process of abstinence is not meant to be easy; it is geared toward maximizing the effect of prayer and confession. In practice, however, it often becomes like the proverbial forest that can’t be seen for the trees.

Indeed, no sooner does Yom Kippur end than people who spent days apologizing to their friends and family members for any wrongdoing they may have committed — and hours upon hours in synagogue beating their breasts before God — promptly return to their old habits without so much as a blink of an eye. Just try maneuvering the traffic following what in Israel is a full day of empty roads: It is business as usual among disgruntled drivers and inconsiderate pedestrians. The following morning, no vestige of atonement or forgiveness is visible. And everybody is too busy hammering away at the Sukkot they are building even to remember why they had starved themselves the day before.

Jews aren’t the only people who miss the big picture while focusing on the more controllable minutiae, however. Indeed, it is a general human tendency that has the benefit of providing a manageable universe, like a chess match played by someone who knows the function of each piece, without grasping the grand strategy or anticipating the moves of his opponent.

This is the key to understanding how and why the worst elements of history repeat themselves so seamlessly, especially when the enemies of civilized society have their eye on a long-term end game and a hefty supply of pawns at their disposal.

Take the events of the past two weeks in New York and Washington as a classic example.

Wacko Birds: The Fall (and Rise) of the Tea Party — a Book Review By Ethel C. Fenig
In March of 2013, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) criticized his colleagues Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), calling them wacko birds for their outspokenness and refusal to participate in the get-along, go-along style of working in the Senate. McCain, once proudly known as a maverick for his outspokenness and sometimes refusal to participate in the get-along, go-along Senate style, was particularly upset with Paul’s “nearly 13-hour filibuster that pressured President Barack Obama’s administration to clarify its position on the use of domestic drones.”

Paul later retorted, “The GOP of old has grown stale and moss covered.”

Although McCain later apologized for his public criticism — intra party disagreements are usually resolved quietly with little, if any, publicity — this exchange revealed the split between the old “stale and moss covered” Republicans who often seemingly differ from their Democratic colleagues in nuance rather than as true opposition and their more conservative, younger members, the wacko birds.

But just who are these wacko birds? Where did they come from? What do they believe in? Will they be able to influence the Republican Party? This country? What about their success? Failures? Joel B. Pollak explains in his important new e book Wacko Birds: The Fall (and Rise) of the Tea Party.

A wacko bird himself, Pollak first gained notoriety as a Harvard Law student persistently questioning then Rep Barney Frank (D-MA), chair of the House Financial Services Committee, about Frank’s responsibility for the global economic meltdown. A little over 10 years later, in 2010, Pollak, formerly a very liberal Democrat, challenged extremely liberal 10-year incumbent Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), for a Congressional seat in a midnight deep blue district. (Full disclosure: I worked on and contributed to his campaign and even served as a genuine Republican election judge to combat any election irregularities.) Although Schakowsky won easily, Pollak managed to reduce her victory percentage. He is now Senior Editor at Large and in-house counsel for Breitbart News. So he writes from experience, as an actual participant in the political process, as well as a political analyst.

One by one, Pollak examines the more prominent wacko birds, the Tea (Taxed Enough Already) Party candidates and legislators, such as Michele Bachmann, Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, Sarah Palin, and even Christine O’Donnell, the failed Delaware senatorial candidate “witch”, candidly analyzing their successes and failures and their impact on the party and the country.

In recent days, a small fixture of Middle East ceasefire monitoring disintegrated, with scarcely anyone noticing. The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), the multinational force that had monitored the Israeli/Syrian ceasefire lines since 1974, disappeared as though it had never existed. Yet, in the view of Secretary of State John Kerry, an Israeli/Palestinian peace settlement should include entrusting Israel’s security in the strategically vital Jordan Valley to international peacekeepers.

UNDOF’s fate discloses why Kerry’s idea is foolhardy. Two weeks ago, the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front seized the strategic Quneitra border crossing from UNDOF, sending a contingent of Filipino peacekeepers scrambling for safety to Israeli lines. The Nusra Front also took 45 Fijian peacekeepers hostage, who were subsequently released. This was the fourth abduction of peacekeepers since March 2013, leading several countries to withdraw their troops from UNDOF.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, “Armed groups have made advances in the area of UNDOF positions, posing a direct threat to the safety and security of the U.N. peacekeepers along the ‘Bravo’ (Syrian) line and in Camp Faouar.” Mr. Dujarric added that all UNDOF forces have been withdrawn to the Israel side of the ceasefire lines.

In short, peacekeepers are fair-weather friends. It is nice to have them when the going is good. When the going gets tough, however, they get going — elsewhere, or do nothing. Meanwhile, Israel is left holding the bag.

To take one example, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has been around since 1978. It was created to monitor Israel’s withdrawal from its Litani Operation in southern Lebanon, following the PLO’s coastal road terror attack on an Israeli bus in which 37 Israelis were murdered. That’s how the UN tends to operate. As in the tradition of the oft-heard schoolyard complaint, it all began when Israel struck back. The original terrorist assaults on Israel don’t produce the apparatus of peacekeeping; Israeli responses do.

In the latest grim tiding of the public mood, merely 42% think the American dream that “if you work hard, you’ll get ahead” remains true, down from 53% in 2012 and 50% in 2010. According to the Public Religion Research Institute poll last week, the steepest declines in belief in the last two years were among people under age 30 (down 16 percentage points), women (14 points) and Democrats (17).

In other words, the most disillusioned belong to the coalition that elected President Obama. But before giving up on upward mobility, they ought to blame the policies he has enacted. Mr. Obama has been the best President for slow growth and inequality in modern history, as new economic surveys show.
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Start with the Census Bureau’s annual poverty and income survey, which came out this month. Real U.S. median household income—or the wages earned in the middle of the wage distribution—was $51,939, a 0.3% increase over 2012. But the 2013 figure is still 3.9% lower than the median income when the recession ended in 2009, and 7.9% lower than the median in 2007.

One trick some liberals use to obscure the uniquely bad performance of the Obama years is to go back to the height of the dot-com bubble in 1999 when real income peaked at $56,895 and compare it to 2013. But this conveniently ignores that real median household income rebounded smartly in the middle of the last decade. That rebound occurred after the Bush tax cuts on capital income and marginal income-tax rates became law in 2003.