RUTHFULLY YOURS

You knew this was coming:

It has become increasingly clear that terrorist groups such as ISIS can extend their reach to American territory via the Internet. Using their own websites, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other platforms, they lure young men and women to their mission—without having to risk the capture of foreign agents on U.S. soil. The Americans ensnared in ISIS’s net in turn radicalize others, send money to ISIS, and even carry out attacks.

Never before in our history have enemies outside the United States been able to propagate genuinely dangerous ideas on American territory in such an effective way—and by this I mean ideas that lead directly to terrorist attacks that kill people. The novelty of this threat calls for new thinking about limits on freedom of speech.

Consider Ali Amin, the subject of a recent article in the New York Times. Lonely and bored, the 17-year-old Virginia resident discovered ISIS online, was gradually drawn into its messianic world, eventually exchanged messages with other supporters and members, and then provided some modest logistical support to ISIS supporters (instructing them how to transfer funds secretly and driving an ISIS recruit to the airport). He was convicted of the crime of material support of terrorism and sentenced to 11 years in prison. Amin did not start out as a jihadi; he was made into one.

At a House Oversight Committee hearing yesterday, a State Department official admitted the government does not know the whereabouts of thousands of foreigners who had their visas revoked over terror concerns.

“You don’t have a clue do you?” Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told Michele Thoren Bond, assistant secretary for the Bureau of Consular Affairs.

Bond told the committee that the U.S. has revoked more than 122,000 visas, 9,500 of which were revoked due to terrorism concerns.

Chaffetz asked Bond where those individuals were located now, to which she responded: “I don’t know.”

The startling admission came as members of the committee pressed administration officials on what safeguards are in place to reduce the risk from would-be extremists.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch has no intention of reversing the Justice Department’s defiance of the Inspector General Act. She made that clear during a House Judiciary oversight hearing last month. Indeed, her own Office of Legal Counsel has issued a badly flawed opinion that insists DOJ and FBI officials can, at their discretion, withhold information from the Justice Department’s inspector general — the individual tasked by Congress with investigating those very same officials.

This is an all too “transparent” continuation of the administration’s habit of trying to hide what the government is doing from Congress, the public, the media, and those who are supposed to be policing the executive branch.

Congress created the federal Inspector General (IG) system in the 1970s to combat problems of “waste, fraud, and abuse within designated federal departments and agencies.” Then-President Jimmy Carter said the IGs would be “the most important new tools in the fight against fraud,” and that “their ultimate responsibility is not to any individual but to the public interest.”

Only with independence and absolute access to internal information can the IGs fulfill their intended purpose. And the IG Act of 1978 could not be clearer.

With enabling Republican chumps acting precisely with the fiscal abandon of Democrats, what’s the difference? Who needs any of them?

In Paul Ryan’s acceptance speech as new House speaker, he said: “But let’s be frank: the House is broken. We are not solving problems. We are adding to them. And I am not interested in laying blame. We are not settling scores. We are wiping the slate clean.” In light of his budget-busting deal, what has he done other than become the very problem he castigates?

No doubt, the average American had hoped that statement signaled new leadership, but what it has resulted in is predictable crybaby Boehner-like capitulation. Same as the former speaker’s political expediency, another budget deal has been struck, with Democrats forestalling the threat of a government shutdown and debt default until September of 2017. At the time, Mr. Boehner claimed he was “cleaning the barn,” but what has Mr. Ryan done other than step in it with both feet while simultaneously kicking the can down the road? The old Washington adage of “the more things change, the more they stay the same” is in full holiday display.

Mr. Ryan’s Washington-insider “clean slate” double-speak was cheap political theater – lip service given and just as quickly forgotten. Likewise is his already tiresome clichéd excuses like “we played the cards that we were dealt with as best as we possibly could.” Mumbling such platitudes, Mr. Ryan’s floor-averted eyes and new, impressive peach fuzz lay bare what he is: a feckless political poser. He looks like an errant teenager caught speeding and wrecking the American public’s new Porsche. That Porsche is our faith, dashed once again, in our elected representatives to act like responsible adults with the country’s purse strings.