RUTHFULLY YOURS

Having said that he only found out about many of the numerous scandals in his administration by watching it on TV, it shouldn’t surprise us that the president is blaming his intelligence agencies for not telling him about the capabilities of Islamic State.

If only the press had reported on the rise of the terrorist’s back in 2011.

Washington Times:

Mr. Obama told CNN in an interview that aired late Wednesday, “The ability of ISIL to not just mass inside of Syria, but then to initiate major land offensives that took Mosul [in Iraq], for example, that was not on my intelligence radar screen.”

But some critics are pointing to claims that the administration ignored warning signs from intelligence sources and allies such as Kurdish leaders about the Islamic State’s growing strength after 2011, when Mr. Obama withdrew all U.S. troops from Iraq.

Sherkoh Abbas, chairman of the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria, said in 2014, “We approached the State Department about ISIS before ISIS was in the headlines, and we were ignored.”

In September 2014, Fox News reported that Mr. Obama had been told about the rise of the terrorist group in his classified daily intelligence briefings throughout the previous year.

In February 2014, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, then director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee on the emerging threat of the Islamic State.

The group “probably will attempt to take territory in Iraq and Syria to exhibit its strength in 2014, as demonstrated recently in Ramadi and Fallujah, and the group’s ability to concurrently maintain multiple safe havens in Syria,” Gen. Flynn testified. “Since the departure of U.S. forces at the end of 2011, [Islamic State] has exploited the permissive security environment to increase its operations and presence in many locations and also has expanded into Syria and Lebanon to inflame tensions throughout the region.”

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Gen. Flynn to serve as his national security adviser.

Jay Sekulow, general counsel at the American Center of Law and Justice and a frequent Obama critic, called the president’s latest assertions “unbelievable.”

President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to “drain the swamp” in Washington could begin with the Agriculture Department. Federal aid to farmers is forecast by the Congressional Budget Office to soar to $19 billion in 2017. Farmers will receive twice as much of their income from handouts (25%) this year as they did in 2013, according to the USDA. Whoever Mr. Trump names as his agriculture secretary should target wasteful farm programs for spending cuts.

Here are a few of the most egregious examples:

• Cotton. Incredibly, the U.S. government has paid $750 million to subsidize Brazilian cotton production since 2010. This is the result of a 2002 World Trade Organization complaint brought by the Brazilian government claiming that the U.S. unfairly subsidized cotton producers and depressed world cotton prices. The WTO justifiably ruled against the United States. To deter Brazil from imposing penalty tariffs on U.S. exports, the U.S. paid a king’s ransom to Brazil so it could perpetuate handouts to American farmers.

The federal cotton program was revised in 2014, but farmers continue reaping roughly $1.5 billion a year in aid—more than 40% of the market value of U.S. cotton production, according to a 2015 study by the International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development. The same study estimated that the U.S. program suppresses world cotton prices by up to 7%, costing foreign cotton growers up to $3 billion a year.

• Sugar. The U.S. maintains a regime of import quotas and price supports that drive U.S. sugar prices to double or triple the world price. Since 1997 Washington’s sugar policy has zapped more than 120,000 U.S. jobs in food manufacturing, according to a 2013 study by Agralytica. More than 10 jobs have been lost in manufacturing for every remaining sugar grower in the U.S.

• Peanuts. In 2002 Congress abolished the quota system that required farmers to possess a federal license to grow peanuts. Yet rather than trust free markets, Congress created a new price-support program. In 2014 Congress sharply increased peanut subsidies. Federal peanut outlays are forecast by the USDA to increase eightfold between 2015 and 2017, reaching almost $1 billion a year. As a result, the USDA is drowning in a sea of surplus peanuts that farmers dump on the government. CONTINUE AT SITE

First and foremost is the truly one-of-a-kind American stealth watercraft designed to provide a swift, supportive role in the open seas. It is the first ship that is virtually undetectable by radar. At only 60 feet long, this is not a battleship by any means, but its size offers the advantage of very quick, evasive movement and has the capacity to attack at these high speeds.Juliet Marine Systems, Inc. Announces the First Super-Cavitating Ship, GHOST
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. —July 2011 For the first time, Juliet Marine is able to release photographs of GHOST, the first super-cavitating craft, to the public. GHOST was designed and built by US citizens for the US Navy at no cost to the government to protect US sailors, servicemen and servicewomen.
Juliet Marine Systems, Inc. Announces the First Super-Cavitating Ship, GHOST

Development of the first-ever, super-cavitating craft, in many ways, is as difficult as breaking the sound barrier. GHOST is a combination aircraft/boat that has been designed to fly through an artificial underwater gaseous environment that creates 900 times less hull friction than water. GHOST technology adapts to manned or unmanned, surface or submerged applications.

Any Navy possessing GHOST technology could operate in international waters undetected and would have an overwhelming advantage against conventional ships. GHOST is specifically designed for Fleet Force Protection at its present size. GHOST technology is scalable and JMS is currently discussing a plan to build a larger corvette-sized vessel (150 feet) by partnering with a large international defense company.

The US Navy could reduce its naval footprint and financial exposure by deploying a squadron of GHOSTs from Bahrain, which would free up larger assets, such as destroyers and cruisers, saving costs in manpower and maintenance. GHOST is ideal for piracy patrols and could be sea-based to provide protection from pirate attacks that cost our government an estimated $1.5 billion each year. The world-wide shipping industry could be provided with substantial fuel savings using JMS hull friction reduction super-cavitation.

A squadron of GHOSTs would not be detectable to enemy ship radar and sensors. GHOST can carry thousands of pounds of weapons, including Mark 48 torpedoes, and would be virtually unstoppable. The GHOST platform and technology could reduce the need for LCS completely with the capability to travel long distances and conduct the same missions. GHOST could make LCS a defensible platform for combat – LCS is not currently rated for combat. Today, Iran has the capabilities to stop the US Navy from operating in the Straits of Hormuz, a critical passage for most of the oil our country uses.

The Navy compares GHOST to an attack helicopter with regard to its capabilities for force protection. GHOST can deliver forces to any beach location quickly and quietly with enough weapons to conduct a hot extraction. GHOST is designed to provide military game-changing advantages for the USA.

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.