RUTHFULLY YOURS

Not too long ago the American people were held captive to the Liberal mantra that because President Obama won the election he should be due his picks for his cabinet and agency heads without reservation. This mantra extended to nominees to the US Supreme Court as well. People like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer were beside themselves that Senate Republicans weren’t simply rubber-stamping Obama’s nominees.

Fast forward to 2016 and the song is upside-down. Today the buzz in the news and from the corners of Washington where propaganda is created and advanced has Democrats and Progressives “very concerned” about President-Elect Donald Trump’s cabinet and agency picks. They are specifically upset about the number of ex-military officers – Generals – being named. “We don’t want to have an extensive military influence on our government,” they say.

But this avenue of thinking is disenfranchising – or at least disenfranchising for a period of seven years – those who have served the American people in our country’s most important role: that of defender and freedom protector. Those they seek to bar from appointed office have actually put their lives on the line for our country; far more than any non-military service politician has ever done.

When the “War Department” was replaced by the Department of Defense in 1947 – in the aftermath of World War II, Congress added the restriction that no military officer could hold the post of Secretary of Defense until he or she had been retired for 7 years. They expanded this restriction to include presidential cabinet secretaries and agency heads as well. They did this in fear of an undue “military influence” on the civilian-run US federal government. As with everything politicians do, they built into that law a back door; the ability to issue waivers to their own rule, which they have used.

In recent administrations, this restriction has garnered little concern. The occasional waiver has been issued without much concern for any undue military influence on the federal government. But now that the status quo is threatened in Washington, DC – and on both sides of the aisle, the idea of just one too many military officers in positions like Secretary of Defense, Homeland Security, National Security Advisor or Director of National Intelligence is fodder for disingenuous politicians seeking relevance.

The idea that a military leader could go rogue with the Defense Department is an antiquated fear. The DoD is so intertwined with myriad agencies – and has so many civilians in its employ – that a military coup under a “Dr. Strangelove” scenario is the thing of over active imaginations and disingenuous politicians.

Conservatives have to be delighted by the administration Donald Trump is building. There is, as one would expect, a showman’s flair to the exercise. But what do I care about Trump’s meeting with Al Gore to shoot the warming breeze if two days later he gives me Scott Pruitt to make actual environmental policy — or, better, to gut EPA’s oppressive, unconstitutional policy?

And after eight years of “workplace violence” and “man-caused disasters” in which the administration’s knee-jerk response to jihadist terror was to suppress mention of jihadist terror while anguishing over phantom “blowback” against Muslims, I’ll take a president — okay, a president-elect — who prefers to console the Ohio State victims and celebrate the heroism of the cop who took out the jihadist.

This is good. I don’t like everything Trump has done so far, but I like an awful lot of it. And saying so is only fair.

I was never in the immovably #NeverTrump camp, but I’ve been a critic. Despite my reservations, I tried to help the campaign craft national-security and immigration policies. (I am, for example, the principal author of the immigration memo Josh Rogin reported on in the Washington Post this week). I voted for Trump because, unlike some colleagues whose opinions carry a lot of weight with me, I was never persuaded against the reality that the election was a binary choice between him and Hillary Clinton. Since I was immovably #NeverHillary, the choice was easier than I thought it would be once I closed the voting-booth curtain.

All that said, though, I did repeatedly argue that Trump’s history was that of a New York limousine-liberal spouting all the hidebound pieties while digging into his wallet for Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Andrew Cuomo, Harry Reid, and the rest of the gang. I was hopeful, more because of the advisers he’d surrounded himself with than because of his campaign rhetoric, that Trump would be marginally better than Clinton — a low bar he could surmount with just one good Supreme Court pick (and had arguably surmounted even before Election Day by picking Mike Pence as his running mate). But I stressed that, if he won, we’d have to be skeptical that he’d govern much differently than Hillary would have until he proved otherwise, given his gushing admiration for the Clintons over the years.

Well, if there had been a second Clinton administration, do you think we’d have gotten Pruitt? How about Jeff Sessions at Justice, or General James Mattis at Defense? Or Trump’s promised upgrade in immigration enforcement to be carried out by General John Kelly, the clear-eyed So-Com commander who has warned about radical Islam’s inroads in Central and South America (and a Gold Star dad whose son laid down his life in Afghanistan, fighting our jihadist enemies)? Do you figure Hillary would have tapped teachers-union scourge Betsy DeVos for the Education Department? Or a staunch Obamacare critic such as congressman (and doctor) Tom Price to run HHS?

…….the Atlantic Theater Company’s off-Broadway premiere of “The Band’s Visit,” a huge-hearted small-scale musical directed by David Cromer that has warmth and charm to burn.

Adapted for the stage by Itamar Moses (“Nobody Loves You”) and David Yazbek (“The Full Monty”) from Eran Kolirin’s 2007 Israeli film, “The Band’s Visit” is a tender comedy of international manners that is cleverly disguised as a farce. The protagonists are the members of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, who have come to Israel from their home in Egypt to perform at the opening of a new Arab cultural center in the city of Petah Tikva. But there is no “p” in Arabic, and most Egyptians therefore unconsciously replace that consonant with “b” when speaking English. As a result, the musicians, unable to pronounce the name of their destination in a way that is fully intelligible to Israelis, instead end up in Beit Hatikva, a tiny town somewhere in the middle of the Negev Desert. It’s the Middle Eastern counterpart of…well, perhaps we might emulate the Egyptian musicians and call it “Bodunk.”

If you think that sounds like a sitcom plot, you’re right. But here as in the film, the underlying comic situation serves as a pretext for a subtle exercise in group storytelling in which we watch the members of the orchestra interact with the citizens of Beit Hatikva. To be sure, plenty of preposterous things happen along the way, many of which arise from the fact that the characters speak English, not Arabic or Hebrew, to one another. Some speak it better than others, but none is quite fluent, thus leading to all kinds of comic complications. I especially liked the jazz-loving trumpeter (Ari’el Stachel) whose standard pickup line is to ask women whether they like the music of “Shit Baker,” after which he sings them a few bars of (what else?) “My Funny Valentine.” But it also makes for complications that are more touching than funny, above all when Tewfiq (Tony Shalhoub), the stiffly inhibited widower who leads the band, and Dina (Katrina Lenk), the lonely café owner who offers to put the hapless musicians up for the night, realize that they are attracted to one another.
As this plot twist indicates, “The Band’s Visit” is an “of course” show: Of course Tewfiq and Dina fall in love (though there is nothing at all obvious about what happens next). Of course there is a brief moment of tension when an overzealous Israeli soldier regards the Egyptian musicians with glowering suspicion. Of course the moment passes without incident, and everybody ends up getting along so well that you can all but hear Ernest Hemingway muttering “Isn’t it pretty to think so?” in the distance. But even if “The Band’s Visit” is a fairy tale, it is one so unabashedly open-hearted that you won’t hesitate to buy into it.

This has been a disappointing political year for Democrats, and those with Senate seats decided to end it with a final blaze of ineptitude. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and colleagues were threatening a partial government shutdown ahead of a midnight deadline, only to fold shortly before we went to press on Friday.

On Thursday the House passed a continuing resolution funding the government through April; the 326-96 vote included a majority of both parties. The House has now left town for the year, but all 46 Senate Democrats deemed the measure inadequate. They dropped their objections with the vote looming, but there are more than a few ironies folded into their obstruction.

One is that liberals used to say that holding up a budget (at least when Republicans take the hostage) would hurt the economy and lead to anarchy, if not an extinction-level crisis. The truth is that American life goes on when federal functions not deemed “essential” are interrupted for a couple days until Washington resolves its differences. Usually shutdowns also provide an education in how few functions really are essential.

Now Democrats have rediscovered the power of the purse, just in time for a Trump Administration. We opposed the various Republican brinksmanship strategies over the years not because they were illegitimate but because they were politically inept and likely to fail on the merits. This Democratic stand was dumb and illegitimate.

Mr. Manchin’s complaint is that health benefits for 16,300 retired coal miners expire on Dec. 31. But the continuing resolution has a stopgap preserving these benefits through April while the debate continues. If Democrats had blocked the CR, the miners would lose their benefits on Dec. 31.

Mr. Manchin and the likes of Sherrod Brown of Ohio were also demanding that Congress bail out the coal miners union pension fund. This is the kind of request that typically requires legislation and in any case the fund is solvent for a couple more years, but this Democratic stand on the alleged behalf of the working man is a little rich.

President Obama has been a four-star general in the war against coal. Then there’s Hillary Clinton’s campaign platform, which she herself managed to describe in May as “we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.” The unions would have more money to pay for pensions and health care if Democrats didn’t do so much to bankrupt the industry.

Meanwhile, Minority Leader Harry Reid gave his farewell address on Thursday, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the place, because everybody is so happy he’s leaving the Senate. The Nevadan used the occasion to denounce the scourge of “fake news.” “Separating real from fake has never been more important,” said the man who once told a completely fabricated story about Mitt Romney’s taxes.

The city that hosted anti-Trump demos after the election has a record of blatant anti-Zionism, which is a crude mask for its twin, anti-Semitism.

The late November sky was gray and murky over Portland, Oregon when hundreds of Israel haters descended upon City Hall with the sole purpose of driving yet another nail into the reputation, honor and survival of the one Jewish state in the world: Israel.

The meeting was held in the city known for its renowned and beautiful rose test gardens, yet for supporters and defenders of Israel very little was coming up roses.

According to a Jewish Federation of Greater Portland survey taken some years ago, the Jewish population numbers some 47,500. Yet from this surprisingly high number of Jewish residents in this Pacific Northwest city barely a handful came to City Hall to defend and support the Jewish state.

In stark contrast, the City Commissioners were assailed with a tsunami of anti-Israel falsehoods so ugly and groundless that they could only have been manufactured in the fevered minds of those consumed by a corrosive and anti-Semitic hatred.

There is now a great danger to the integrity of the Portland City Council if it succumbs to the mendacious anti-Israel hate fest launched upon it by the notorious BDS movement in collusion with far left church groups and the renegade and morally confused organization calling itself Jewish Voice for Peace: All masquerading as human rights organizations.

Among the many falsehoods leveled against the embattled Jewish state – and the grotesque demonization of it – was the regurgitated myth of Rachel Corrie as a valiant peace activist. She was anything but.

Before the City Commissioners was the demand that Portland, Oregon divest from its investment pool all those companies that have business with the Jewish state, such as Caterpillar.

Among the many falsehoods leveled against the embattled Jewish state – and the grotesque demonization of it – was the regurgitated myth of Rachel Corrie as a valiant peace activist. She was anything but.

At best she was a foolish and indoctrinated useful idiot for Hamas. At worst she was a hater of America and Israel, but that did not stop her relatives from being present and poisoning the meeting with the pernicious myths they have helped weave around her.

In his article titled, Rachel Corrie Was No Peace Activist, Jonathan S. Tobin wrote a scathing expose of the Rachel Corrie myth, which has so effectively been exploited by BDS, ISM and others to disfigure Israel’s image and delegitimize it.