RUTHFULLY YOURS

WASHINGTON – Stretched thin after 15 years of continued conflict, the U.S. is not currently capable of maintaining a modern and effective military against the Islamic State, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Wednesday.

“To address these threats, to maintain the peace, and fight if we must, we have to maintain a capable, ready, and modern military, and the truth is, we’re not ready,” the majority whip said during an appearance at the Wilson Center. “And while I believe America will always rise to the challenges, once roused from our national complacency, it makes a dangerous world even more dangerous.”

President Trump in March proposed a $54 billion hike in defense spending, which would support forces against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Last week, the president freed the Pentagon from Obama-era troop limit restrictions imposed on conflicts in Syria and Iraq, potentially opening the door for troop increases. U.S. strategy has been to support local military units against ISIS.

Cornyn said the military has been bogged down by blanket restrictions on discretionary defense spending and a lack of a coherent national security strategy, with military modernization suffering from a myopic view on financial challenges and deferred investment.

“You better believe our enemies, not hamstrung by red tape and regulations, take full advantage of our reluctance to deal with this on a bipartisan basis,” Cornyn said.

Even if ISIS is pushed backed in Iraq, Cornyn said the group’s “ideology spreads like a contagion through their so-called ‘cyber-caliphate,’ and continues to permeate the West and attract the vulnerable and disillusioned.”

U.S. military and partner forces this week carried out 18 strikes on ISIS targets in Syria and nine strikes on ISIS in Iraq, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. The attacks in Syria destroyed eight ISIS fighting positions, while efforts in Iraq resulted in the destruction of two enemy fighting positions and various weapons and vehicle caches, according to a department announcement.

Democrats and their press allies are going all in to squelch the Susan Rice “unmasking” story, insisting that the decision by Barack Obama’s national security adviser to seek the name of at least one Trump campaign official was routine and no big deal. Tell that to former Bush Administration official John Bolton, whom Democrats pilloried for doing the same with far more justification.

The U.S. routinely eavesdrops on foreign officials, and sometimes U.S. citizens are caught on tape. Intelligence agencies strip the names of those U.S. citizens for privacy. A source confirms that Ms. Rice nonetheless requested the name of a Trump transition official in at least one intelligence summary, and Ms. Rice has all but confirmed that she did.

Democrats and the media have been at pains to call this business as usual. House Intelligence Committee Democrat Adam Schiff released a tutorial on why unmasking is “lawful.” “Susan Rice Did Nothing Wrong,” said an NBC headline, quoting no one on the record.

That’s not what liberals said in 2005 as they opposed Mr. Bolton’s nominate to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Then Senators Joe Biden and Chris Dodd kicked up a fuss that, as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, Mr. Bolton had 10 times over four years asked for the names of American officials who were swept up in National Security Agency monitoring.

Mr. Bolton and the State Department were clear that he followed procedure and provided intelligence officials with sound national-security reasons for requesting the names. Interpreting intelligence was central to Mr. Bolton’s duties, so unmasking names on rare occasions wouldn’t be unusual.

Critics nonetheless assailed Mr. Bolton for behavior for which they now absolve Mrs. Rice. Mr. Dodd claimed unmasking was “rarely requested” and “infrequently” by “non-career political appointees such as Mr. Bolton.” The New York Times reported that the identifies of Americans are released “only in response to special requests, and these are not common, particularly from policy makers.”

Democrats argued (with no evidence) that Mr. Bolton’s requests were politically motivated and the Los Angeles Times questioned whether Mr. Bolton had requested the names to “intimidate intelligence analysts.” A Times editorial called on Mr. Bolton to “step aside,” noting Mr. Dodd was “rightly inquiring about Bolton’s unusual request to look at [NSA] intercepts and why he asked for the identities of analysts. Why indeed?”

House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes recently stepped aside from his committee’s Russia probe after complaints that he talked publicly about the unmasking. But in 2005 Democrats couldn’t stop talking to the press, mostly complaining that Bush intelligence agencies wouldn’t give Congress the names of those Mr. Bolton had unmasked. “I just think it’s important to remember here that Mr. Bolton himself was able to look at this classified information,” said then Sen. Barack Obama.

The Administration ultimately agreed to show transcripts (with the names redacted) to top members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Democrats then drew up a list of 36 individuals whom Mr. Bolton had clashed with over the years and called on National Intelligence Director John Negroponte to rule out that these were the people Mr. Bolton had unmasked.

Senator Jay Rockefeller claimed that Mr. Bolton’s decision to share the name of one unmasked citizen with a direct subordinate (who possessed the necessary security clearances) was improper and amounted to the mishandling of classified information. Democrats dug in, and Mr. Bush was forced to name Mr. Bolton to the U.N. as a recess appointment.

Compare all this to the Rice episode. Ms. Rice had no direct intelligence duties in her NSC post, and no Democrat has provided a valid reason that Ms. Rice might have needed to unmask anyone associated with the Trump presidential campaign. Twelve years on, not one of the 10 individuals unmasked by Mr. Bolton has had his or her identity leaked. By contrast, the Washington Post reports that no fewer than nine Obama appointees or career officials leaked or confirmed the identity and conversations of unmasked former Trump adviser Michael Flynn.

If John Bolton’s unmasking was questionable, then Mrs. Rice’s was more so. The House and Senate Intelligence committees should investigate what she did and why.

THANKS DPS

Actor Richard Dreyfuss, known for roles in “Jaws,” “The Goodbye Girl” and “Mr. Holland’s Opus,” left Fox News host Tucker Carlson utterly speechless on his show Friday night.

Dreyfuss, according to Carlson, emailed the Fox host a few days prior asking to appear on Carlson’s show to talk about a recent issue that Carlson and another guess sparred over: the federal judge’s recent ruling which said that it’s unconstitutional for President Donald Trump to unilaterally withhold federal funds from “sanctuary cities” for not complying with his demands.

Carlson’s point was there was no outcry from Democrats when former President Barack Obama threatened to withhold federal funds from North Carolina last year over the state’s controversial “transgender bathroom law.”

Dreyfuss explained to Carlson that the president and the executive branch, constitutionally speaking, don’t have the right to withhold funds from states. That job, Dreyfuss explained, belongs to Congress.

But Dreyfuss didn’t want his conversation with Carlson to end there.

“I want to mention one thing,” the actor told Carlson. “You were talking about the speakers on university campuses. And I am totally, incontrovertibly on your side about this.”

“I think any intrusion into freedom of speech is an intrusion into freedom of speech. And when one of the presidents of one of the colleges said, ‘this is a school, not a battlefield,’ I said, no, it is a battlefield of ideas and we must have dissonant, dissenting opinions on campuses and I think it’s political correctness taken to a nightmarish point of view,” Dreyfuss explained.

The star actor continued:

I have withdrawn from partisan politics. I am a constitutionalist who believes that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights must be central and the parties must be peripheral. What’s most important for me is what you just mentioned haphazardly, we are over 30. Civics has not been taught in the American public school system since 1970. And that means everyone in Congress never studied the constitution and the bill of rights as you and I might have.

And that is a critical flaw because it’s why we were admired and respected for so long, it gives us our national identity, it tells the world who we are and why we are who we are, and without a frame that gives us values that stand behind the bill of rights, we’re just floating in the air and our sectors of society are not connected.