RUTHFULLY YOURS

The establishment media has found a new heroine: Rumana Ahmed, a hijab-wearing Muslim woman who worked at the National Security Council during the Obama administration and for eight days into the Trump administration, at which point she quit.

Ahmed explained: “I had to leave because it was an insult walking into this country’s most historic building every day under an administration that is working against and vilifying everything I stand for as an American and as a Muslim.” That’s enough to send the media into self-righteous ululations of anti-Trump fury, but as always, there is more to this story than what the media is telling you, and a good deal about Rumana Ahmed that they would prefer you did not know.

In her piece in The Atlantic explaining why she left the Trump NSC (and it is important to note that she wasn’t fired by her supposedly “Islamophobic” new bosses; she quit), Ahmed sounds themes of post-9/11 Muslim victimhood that have become familiar tropes among Leftists: after recounting her idyllic life “living the American dream,” she says: “After 9/11, everything would change. On top of my shock, horror, and heartbreak, I had to deal with the fear some kids suddenly felt towards me. I was glared at, cursed at, and spat at in public and in school. People called me a ‘terrorist’ and told me, ‘go back to your country.’”

Not surprisingly, Ahmed made no mention of the fact that this Muslim victimhood narrative has been sullied, if not vitiated entirely, by the high number of “anti-Muslim hate crimes” that turn out to have been faked by Muslims. The Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other Muslims have on many occasions not hesitated to stoop even to fabricating “hate crimes,” including attacks on mosques and even murders: a New Jersey Muslim was found guilty of murder that he tried to portray as an “Islamophobic” attack, and in 2014 in California, a Muslim was found guilty of killing his wife, after first blaming her murder on “Islamophobia.”

Ahmed blamed yet another murder on “Islamophobia”: “A harsher world began to reemerge in 2015,” she wrote in The Atlantic. “In February, three young American Muslim students were killed in their Chapel Hill home by an Islamophobe. Both the media and administration were slow to address the attack, as if the dead had to be vetted before they could be mourned. It was emotionally devastating.”

In reality, there is no evidence that the Chapel Hill murders were committed by an “Islamophobe.” U.S. Attorney Ripley Rand declared the day after the murders: “The events of yesterday are not part of a targeting campaign against Muslims in North Carolina.” Rand said that there was “no information this is part of an organized event against Muslims.” Nor has any emerged since then, although that fact has not stopped Islamic advocacy groups from routinely treating these murders as evidence of a wave of anti-Muslim hatred in the U.S. Ruhana Ahmed in The Atlantic abets this cynical and disingenuous agenda.

As the utterly pointless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan drag on, going on 16 years after 9/11, the U.S. has finally moved to cut some of the bureaucratic red tape that’s prevented our troops from getting the job done for the past eight years:

Just a few months ago, Lt. Col. Browning’s phone conversation would have been impossible. Rather than request assistance directly, his call would have likely been routed through a joint command center much farther from the battle zone.
In the fight against ISIS in Mosul, the United States has adjusted its rules of engagement as American and other international troops are now closer to front-line fighting than before. During the push to take Mosul International Airport on Thursday, American and European advisers were embedded with forward Iraqi rapid response and special forces units.

Didn’t Obama say he ended the war in Iraq? Never mind:

Coalition officials say the changes are helping speed up Iraqi military gains, but they mark a steady escalation of U.S. involvement in Iraq that also reflects lingering shortcomings on the part of Iraq’s armed forces and growing political and military pressure to finish the Mosul operation quickly. This closer relationship is new.

In the lead-up to the operation to retake Mosul, U.S. forces steadily increased their footprint in Iraq, increasing the number of troops in the country and moving outposts closer to front-line fighting. But the number of U.S. forces on or near the front lines remained relatively small.

Under the December directive and an additional directive issued a few weeks ago, Browning said advisers like him embedded at the brigade level are now able to directly deliver support such as airstrikes and artillery fire to the units they’re partnered with. Previously, such support “would have gone through a whole bureaucracy and through Baghdad,” he said.

The spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, Air Force Col. John Dorrian, confirmed to The Associated Press the rules of engagement in the fight against ISIS in Iraq were adjusted by the December directive, explaining that some coalition troops were given the “ability to call in airstrikes without going through a strike cell.”

Its about time. One of the reasons, historically, that American forces have been superior is that combat decisions were made on the ground, right down to the junior officer level; this was one of our strategic advantages over the Wehrmacht in World War II. But of course under the Democrats (and, to be fair, under Bush as well), American troops were hobbled so as not to give offense to our “coalition partners” and to mollify the excitable locals.

Now, please, let’s get on with it, finish ISIS, and get the troops home.

As you may have heard, or even watched (that’s ok, don’t be embarrassed, many people did) the bash President Donald J. Trump (R) specially wrapped into a self-love-fest known as the Academy Awards simpered for four hours Sunday night. Attired in outfits that cost more than a month’s salary for the average citizen — and that’s just the men — while surrounded and protected by guards (some even with guns) and other protective barriers, (sort of like uhm, walls) several of the presenters, the winners, and the host, Jimmy Kimmel, threw in digs at the president while proclaiming their own superiority and love. Yeah, that smugness will pack the 48% of the people who voted for Trump into the theaters.

Even an aging Warren Beatty, who did more than grab his you-know-what (I can’t really tell you as this is a blog suitable for family reading) in his prime, did manage to squeeze in a few cliches of love and peace and getting along with everyone which proved handy when he mistakenly announced the wrong winner of the best film at the finale. And so, quite suitably, the messy program ended as it began. And the lo-o-o-ng in-between wasn’t much better.
Of course the foreigners, (or should I say non-citizens?) got into the self-righteous act. Graciously nominated for best foreign language film, the nominees released a puffy, self-righteous statement two days before the big event, knocking the host country, the U.S., while

condemning “the climate of fanaticism and nationalism” in the U.S. and other countries.

They dedicated the Oscar, no matter which film wins, to those working toward unity.

They directors symbolically rejected the borders that define their category’s nominees, saying, “We believe there is no best country, best gender, best religion or best color. We want this award to stand as a symbol of the unity between nations and the freedom of the arts.”

The statement does not name President Trump but points in his direction, referring to an unhealthy climate stoked by parts of the population, “including leading politicians.” (snip)

On Friday, Farhadi joined with the other directors — Martin Zandvliet, Land of Mine (Denmark); Hannes Holm, A Man Called Ove (Sweden); Maren Ade, Toni Erdmann (Germany) and Marin Butler and Bentley Dean, Tanna (Australia) — to decry division and dedicate themselves to using the power of film to bring people together.

The statement opens with a condemnation of the political mood: “On behalf of all nominees, we would like to express our unanimous and emphatic disapproval of the climate of fanaticism and nationalism we see today in the U.S. and in so many other countries, in parts of the population and, most unfortunately of all, among leading politicians.”

The directors then spoke against division by gender, race, religion and other categories.

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump’s first budget will seek a sizable increase in military funding but won’t make changes to the largest future drivers of government spending: Social Security and Medicare.

Work to prepare the president’s first budget proposal, expected to be released in mid-March, ramped up last week following the Feb. 16 confirmation of Mick Mulvaney as director of the Office of Management and Budget.

The White House plans to send federal agencies their proposed budget allocations on Monday, a person familiar with the matter said. Mr. Trump will preview some of the budget priorities in his speech to Congress on Tuesday and release a budget outline in mid-March after gathering information from federal agencies.

The budget outline due next month will include only targets for discretionary spending programs and not any new proposals on taxes or mandatory spending programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, said John Czwartacki, a White House budget office spokesman. The decision to defer the release of part of the budget blueprint is due in part to the delay in Mr. Mulvaney’s confirmation, he said, and those additional proposals will be included in Mr. Trump’s full budget submission later this year.

“It would be premature for us to comment or anyone to report on the specifics of this internal discussion before its publication,” said Mr. Czwartacki.

The president’s budget proposal marks the opening of the monthslong process to set funding levels for the following year. Spending bills originate with Congress and need 60 votes to clear procedural hurdles in the Senate.

In his address to Congress, Mr. Trump also is expected to emphasize two of his top legislative priorities: simplifying the tax code and dismantling the Affordable Care Act and replacing it with something else, White House officials said Sunday.

Speaking Sunday on Fox News, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the budget outline won’t include any changes to entitlement spending programs. “We are not touching those now. So don’t expect to see that as part of this budget,” he said.

Mr. Mnuchin, in an interview last week, said an increase in military spending “is an important priority, and I think it’s likely that you’ll see that reflected in the president’s budget.”

By pushing for more military funding and taking entitlement spending changes off the table, the Trump administration also would need to propose funding cuts for nondefense programs to avoid sending deficits much higher.

Mr. Trump, for example, is expected to seek cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency and in other areas of domestic spending.

Congressional Republicans have said they would look to Mr. Trump’s speech for hints about the first budget proposal his administration will send to Capitol Hill, expected in mid-March. CONTINUE AT SITE

Well, that was nuts, even for Hollywood.

Let’s be clear: the Oscars were already a fairly ridiculous exercise. A cathedral of glamour and ego, the movie industry’s annual awards conclave is a bloated exercise of hype and self-satisfaction that takes as long to complete as the second year of medical school. This is, of course, why we watch it. An Oscars ceremony that isn’t too long, inane and occasionally infuriating—that’s not a proper Oscars, buddy!

And yet, what happened late Sunday in Los Angeles redefined the already high standard for absurdity at the Academy Awards. An event that once gave us a Rob Lowe duet with Snow White, as well as Telly Savalas,Pat Morita and Dom DeLuise singing “Fugue For Tinhorns” from “Guys & Dolls,” now has its signature moment of insanity: “Bonnie & Clyde” compatriots Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway erroneously awarding Best Picture to “La La Land”— rather than the actual winner, “Moonlight.”

I’ve watched the sequence on replay several times now and, to be honest, it’s way too bizarre to be infuriating. It appeared that Mr. Beatty and Ms. Dunaway were somehow in possession of an incorrect envelope, containing not the Best Picture winner, but the Best Actress, which had just been awarded to Emma Stone of “La La Land.” Opening the crimson envelope, 79-year-old Mr. Beatty seemed baffled, pausing briefly before handing it off to Ms. Dunaway, who announced “La La Land” as the winner.

The most painful thing, really, is that mistake wasn’t recognized immediately. Where was the production team? Already tucking into steaks at Musso & Frank? Even Steve Harvey botching the prize for Miss Universe 2015—the previous gold standard for bungled awards show finales—was faster to repair the damage of a winner incorrectly named.

Instead, the poor “La La Land” producers, cast and crew are allowed to ascend the stage, deliver speeches and experience the weightless feeling of capturing moviemaking’s greatest honor. Think about this for a second: They really thought they had won. Everyone had thought they had won. With 14 nominations, the film was a heavy favorite; a Best Picture win was utterly plausible.

They’re close to wrapping up their acceptance speeches before an anxious-looking production person in headgear starts barreling around the stage, looking like a guy who forgot his iPad on an airplane.

Except he’s Lucy, about to rip the football away from Charlie Brown. CONTINUE AT SITE