RUTHFULLY YOURS

So radical is this proposal that — while Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are arming themselves to the gills and seizing territory — it would reduce America’s nuclear “assets” from over 500 missiles, bombers and submarines to less than a handful of nuclear-armed submarines.

“To my knowledge, our unilateral disarmament initiatives have done little to promote similar initiatives in our potential adversaries, and at the same time, they have reduced our arms control negotiating leverage.” — Admiral Richard Mies (Ret.), former Commander of the United States Strategic Command

America’s nuclear deterrent is roughly 35-40 years old. By the time there has been a complete modernization (by 2020) of the Russian nuclear missile force, the U.S. will not have yet built a single new strategic nuclear weapon for its arsenal.

To help with modernization, Congress and administration needs to get rid of the defense budget caps. Removing them should be America’s #1 arms control and nuclear deterrent priority in the nation.

The biggest problem with our believing in “Truth” is a fatal error in casting. Though Robert Redford is not much older than Dan Rather in 2004, the formerly handsome Redford has aged badly and bears no resemblance to the network anchor whom we scrutinized at close range in our homes for so many years. To make matters worse, Dennis Quaid who plays a military consultant to CBS, does look a lot like Rather and would have been perfect casting for the lead role. As we look at Redford with his sandy blondish hairpiece and fair, sun-damaged skin, we wonder why he’s usurping Dennis Quaid’s proper place as the dark-haired, square-headed Rather who remained telegenic as a man in his 70’s.

Cate Blanchett plays Mary Mapes, an overly frenetic, Xanax-popping, boozy journalist with creds who’s on to a very big story about George Bush’s appointment to and AWOL from the National Guard. The pressures of getting this on the air to take advantage of a scheduling opening in 5 days creates the tension, inducing the Mapes/Rather team to go with the story despite imperfect and incomplete journalistic vetting. As scripted, the villains of the movie are the corporate heads of CBS who don’t want to jeopardize their relationship with the president and the heavy-handed Republican lawyers appointed by CBS to investigate this matter before the company decides how to handle it.

Many columns have been written on the wages of immigration -unchecked and without profiling. This column, reprinted from the October issue of Outpost, the monthly publication of Americans for a Safe Israel is timely and urgent….please read it…and be worried….very worried….rsk
Are the years when the United States was a supremely comfortable place for American Jews coming to an end? Thanks to President Obama’s polices, the answer may be yes, although most American Jews are not only blind to the dangers, but actively promoting those very policies.

Challenged by what U.S. Secretary of State Kerry calls Germany’s “example to the world” in opening its borders to 800,000 (overwhelmingly Muslim) migrants this year, the Obama administration now proposes to boost the number of refugees it accepts to 100,000 annually, including 10,000 Syrians.

In practice, this means a huge increase in Muslim immigrants, much larger than even that number suggests. Breitbart reported that in 2013 there were 280,276 immigrants from Muslim-majority countries. Of these, just under 40,000 were refugees. The rest were divided almost equally into those given permanent resident status and those coming as temporary (in theory) migrants, including students and foreign workers. With Obama more than doubling the number of those admitted as refugees, there is little doubt there will be a substantial rise in the other categories. Don’t forget, family unification is a major source of legal immigrants.

There is no doubt that the American Jewish community is the one most threatened by this immigration. Unlike in Germany, a million more Muslim immigrants will not upend the religious demographics of the United States with its population of almost 319 million. But the radical growth in the Muslim population will have a dramatic effect on the small U.S. Jewish population. There are estimated to be five and a half million Jews in the United States. Even before the current Obama escalation, the Pew Research Center forecast the Muslim population would more than double by 2030 to 6.2 million, over-matching the number of Jews.

There is enough “Red” in Ridley Scott’s The Martian to repaint the Red Planet.

Ridley Scott is a superb director. Most of his films are visually mesmerizing even if one doesn’t like their themes, epistemology, or metaphysics, or share their senses of life. You watch them because of his artistry. He is a kind of cinematic Rembrandt: You may not care for the subject, but the subject is so well executed you can’t help but look at it. As with David Lean’s later work (e.g., Lawrence of Arabia), most of Scott’s directed films are consistently, visually stunning, from the oppressively dark (and rainy) Blade Runner to the edge-of-your-seat claustrophobia of Alien to the brutal combat arenas of Gladiator. I have not seen all of his directed films; some I have avoided seeing because the subjects do not interest or appeal to me (e.g., American Gangster).

It’s too bad he’s a lefty, or is in thrall of Hollywood’s lefty money moguls and studios.

Scott’s film oeuvre is inconsistent in subject and theme, as much as is, say, Otto Preminger’s. Preminger had a bad habit of making suspenseful films and then not resolving the stories, leaving the stories and viewers hanging. Anatomy of a Murder and Advise and Consent are notable examples. I’ve always maintained that some of the best Hollywood directors are, ideologically, the most influential in spreading or sustaining bad ideas. Preminger was one of them. For me, the most memorable film of Preminger’s (in a positive sense) is Laura (1944). Preminger’s output was so eclectic that it is difficult to say whether or not he was a lefty.

For those whose anxiety quotient hasn’t been filled by fears of snail dart extinction and global warming, there is now another impending disaster that hits us in our kitchens where we are most vulnerable. According to conservationist Jonathan Slaght, “the pine nut industry may be contributing to the crash of an ecosystem.” (Pesto? Hold the Pine Nuts,NYT 10/19) Apparently, most of our imported pignoli come from the Korean pine tree found in a rain forest in Russia’s far east where several species such as chipmunks, black bears and red deer depend on these tiny nuts for sustenance during winter. Memo to self: aren’t bears traditionally animals who learned to outsmart winter’s low food supply by clever hibernation?

Our greedy American demand for less expensive pignoli than the Italian Armani version has led to over-harvesting the forests and selling the nuts to the Chinese who sell them to us in typical “made in China” cheaper price points. This international trade is being blamed for the phenomenon of hungry bears leaving the forest to attack residents of Luchegorsk, a town you never knew existed and cannot pronounce that will now live in infamy as the innocent victim of white privilege and culinary cupidity. Mr. Slaght neglects to point a finger at the Italians whose telegenic chefs first taught us how to dress up spaghetti with the leftover rampant basil planted by over-zealous summer gardeners. I sincerely hope that Calvin Trillin gets wind of this crisis as he is the one who suggested changing America’s traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner to spaghetti carbonara. Admittedly, there are no pignoli in that recipe but the nudge to love Italian food became a shove for all readers of Trillin’s classic tome, “Alice, Let’s Eat.”

America, we can grow more of our own pine nuts and/or substitute color-coordinated pistachios in our domestic version of pesto. Or, we can stop worrying about the food preferences of Putin’s bears and say in the immortal words of Catherine the Great, “Let them eat borscht.”

I got a lot of flack for deriding Henry Kissinger’s Wall Street Journal Editorial “A path out of Middle East Collapse”which I called “prattle.” I greatly admire James Lewis who writes for the American Thinker , and enjoy his columns and wisdom , but today he defends Kissinger so I took a second look.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/10/henry_kissinger_is_nuclear_catastrophe_inevitable.html

He calls Henry Kissinger “the wisest foreign policy analyst in the land” and gives these examples: Parenthesis mine

Kissinger’s most crucial point: “If nuclear weapons become established (in the Middle East), a catastrophic outcome is nearly inevitable.” (wow! who would have thunk)

And then enumerates other “high points” of Kissingerian profundity:

1. “With Russia in Syria, a geopolitical structure that has lasted four decades is in shambles.” (no kidding)
2. Four Arab states have ceased to function: Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. All are at risk of being taken over by ISIS, which aims to become a global caliphate governed under shariah law. ( You think?)
3. The U.S. and the West need a coherent strategy. We don’t have one now. (Really?)
4. Treating Iran as a normal power is wishful thinking. It could happen over time. But today, Iran “is taking on an Armageddon dimension.”
Israel is in the maelstrom, but so is the rest of the world, which is why Russia is making an unprecedented military intervention in Syria. Putin is protecting Russia first of all. (Hmmm….sounds ominous)
5. “So long as ISIS survives and remains in control of a geographically defined territory, it will compound Middle East tensions… The destruction of ISIS is more urgent than the overthrow of Bashar Assad.” (How original)
6. “The US has already acquiesced in a Russian military role.” (Gasp!!!)

My case that it is mostly prattle rests….rsk

The Palestinians seek three things:

Creation of an independent state without recognizing a legitimate and permanent State of Israel in any territory.
Sovereign control of East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine.
The right of entry for all remaining 1948/9 Arab refugees from Britain’s Mandatory Palestine, and for their descendants, to any place within pre-1967 Israel in which they, or their antecedents had lived.

Israel seeks three different things:

Recognition of the legitimacy and permanence of Israel within finalized “secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.” This is the security promise of UN Resolution 242 to which Israel is entitled.
The capital of Israel in Jerusalem and Israeli protection for Jewish patrimony in Eastern Jerusalem.
“End of conflict; end of claims.” After an agreement, the Palestinians will not be able to press additional claims against Israel for territory or other “rights.”

For the Obama administration now to pursue a Palestinian state…would likely be seen by both sides as nothing more than a shiny new distraction for the benefit of the U.S. negotiators’ vanity, nothing more.

“Certainly we do not need a disproportionate response to Herr Hitler that initiates a cycle of violence on both sides. We need to tamp down the rhetoric.”
I have nothing to offer you, except blood, sweat, and arugula.

Winston Churchill, well before he became prime minister in May 1940, was busy all through 1939 prompting the British government to prepare for war — and then, as first lord of the Admiralty, helping to direct it once it broke out. But what if Churchill had been Barack Obama? What would Britain’s foremost opponent of appeasement have been like?

The Munich Agreement

Obama-Churchill might have said something like the following in regards to the 1938 Munich Agreement.

“We live in a complex world and at a challenging time. And none of these challenges lend themselves to quick or easy solutions, but all of them require British leadership. If we stay patient and determined, then we will, in fact, meet these challenges. The Munich Agreement is a comprehensive government agreement. It is the first that actually constrains Nazi Germany from further aggression, and one whose provisions are transparent and enforceable. It is a sober and judicious way to preclude war and to bring Germany back into the family of nations and to become a credible regional power, while allowing the German people to express their legitimate aspirations.”