• Treason in Congress? By Richard C. Young
• Peggy Noonan: America Is So in Play By E.J. Smith
• Defenseless in America Part II By Richard C. Young
• Remembering The Band By Richard C. Young
• Another Cult Personality in the White House? By Debbie Young
• Trump and Cruz Vs Brent Scowcroft and The Cato Institute By Richard C. Young
• Stop Policing the World By Richard C. Young
• But She Was Secretary of State By Debbie Young
• Obama’s Summer Vacation By E.J. Smith

Michael Scheuer, a 20-year CIA veteran and chief the CIA’s bi Laden unit, spent his entire career developing strategies to keep America safe. It was Dr. Scheuer’s job to take available intelligence, by any means deemed necessary, and devise plans to protect Americans without considering bias, position, or even existing alliances.

In “Congress, Israel, and Another Season of Treason,” Mike offers policy makers a little different view of Israel’s importance to America’s national security interests.

In recent months, we have seen most of the presidential candidates and dozens of elected U.S. officials from both parties line-up to do the bidding of the Israeli government and its disloyal Jewish-American advocates, collectively Israel-First. These U.S. officials are now thoroughly involved in supporting a foreign-government-sponsored political and propaganda campaign against their own president, government and, countrymen.

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The fact is that the United States shares no important common national-security interest with Israel. Indeed, the bilateral relationship does nothing but undermine and intensify Muslim hatred for U.S. foreign policy and the U.S. government, further deplete the already the bankrupt U.S. treasury, ensure the continuation of our now two-decade old war with Sunni Islam, and expose the bipartisan U.S. governing elite for what it is, the well-bribed, anti-American lapdog of the Jewish-American community.

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In a world where the expanding reach, numbers, and lethality of the Sunni Islamist movement is the most dangerous threat to the republic’s security – in part, because it is being ignored by Washington — U.S. political leaders have spent 2015 focused on Obama’s Iran deal and the highly public and subversive efforts of Israel, the Israel-First fifth column in the United States, and many in both U.S. political parties to derail it. Whether or not the deal is approved, Americans should be enraged at ability of a foreign power and its U.S.-citizen advocates to divert attention away from the genuine Sunni threat to America and to the non-threat from Shia Iran, which threatens Israel and the Sunni States, but America only because its foreign policy reliably champions and protects Israel and the Sunni tyrants.

Michael Scheuer concludes with his view on the foreign policy position, using presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson as an example: “Dr. Carson may have never run for or held elective office, but on the issue discussed above he sounds like he has long been on AIPAC’s payroll.”

Cato’s Richard Rahn, WSJ columnist Peggy Noonan, and Becky Smith, president of Young Research & Publishing.

Becky and I had the pleasure of meeting Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan last Fall at the Cato 200 in Middleburg, VA. Peggy’s column last week is a must read. It was one of her best: “America Is So In Play.” Donald Trump has hit a nerve. The system is broken. And Americans are fed up with the elites. Peggy writes:

On the subject of elites, I spoke to Scott Miller, co-founder of the Sawyer Miller political-consulting firm, who is now a corporate consultant. He worked on the Ross Perot campaign in 1992 and knows something about outside challenges. He views the key political fact of our time as this: “Over 80% of the American people, across the board, believe an elite group of political incumbents, plus big business, big media, big banks, big unions and big special interests—the whole Washington political class—have rigged the system for the wealthy and connected.” It is “a remarkable moment,” he said. More than half of the American people believe “something has changed, our democracy is not like it used to be, people feel they no longer have a voice.”

Mr. Miller added: “People who work for a living are thinking this thing is broken, and that economic inequality is the result of the elite rigging the system for themselves. We’re seeing something big.”

There is a better way to make America safer, more prosperous and freer.

More here from the Cato Institute policy analysis, Budgetary Savings from Military Restraint by Ben Friedman and Chris Preble (displayed below).

The United States does not have a defense budget. The adjective is wrong. Our military forces’ size now has little to do with the requirements of protecting Americans.

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Embracing our Good Fortune: Our military budget should be sized to defend us. For this end, we do not need to spend $700 billion a year—or anything close. By capitalizing on our geopolitical fortune, we can safely spend far less.

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Contrary to conventional wisdom, counterterrorism does not require much military spending. U.S. military forces are most useful in defeating well-armed enemies. Terrorists are mostly hidden and lightly armed. The difficulty is finding them, not killing or capturing them once they are found. The best weapons in that fight are intelligence and policing. The most useful military tools are relatively cheap niche capabilities: surveillance and intercept technologies, special operations forces, and drones.

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As for our potential great power rivals— Russia and China—we would have no good reason to fight a war with either in the foreseeable future if we did not guarantee the security of their neighbors. Both lag far behind us in military capability.

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As a rich state remote from trouble, we can take a wait-and-see approach to distant threats, letting our friends bear the cost of their defense. We should stop confusing foreign disorder with foreign threats.

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By avoiding the occupation of failing states and limiting commitments to defend healthy ones, we could plan for fewer wars. By shedding missions we can cut force structure—reducing the number of U.S. military personnel, the weapons and vehicles we procure for them, and the force’s operational cost. The resulting force would be more elite, less strained and far less expensive.

In Part III of Defenseless in America I will lay out specific proposals by the authors for reducing spending.

Professor Harold Bloom writes of The Band’s classic, The Weight:

The song is part of what I call the American Religion, which is neither Christian nor non-Christian but a mix of things, including 17th-century Enthusiasm. No American ever really feels free unless he or she is alone, and there’s something of that solitary quality in “The Weight.”

Levon Helm, The Band’s lead singer and drummer, was from Arkansas—the rest were from Canada—and he was the heart and soul of the enterprise, even though Robbie Robertson wrote the song. Ultimately, “The Weight” is border music—a combination of regional musical influences—and has an authentic riverboat sound.

But the beauty of “The Weight” isn’t solely in the lyrics, which are almost surrealistic, or in the music. Instead, it’s the strange flavor that emanates from them. It’s a song that is more than the sum of its parts and suggests it doesn’t quite know itself. In the end, “The Weight” catches something about the contradictions and difficulties of authentic American spirituality.

 

“The summer before an election-year summer tends to be a political clown-time. Voters, like diners in a fancy restaurant, may entertain the idea of ordering the pigeon, but they’ll probably wind up with the chicken,” writes Bret Stephens in the WSJ.

As fringe politics on the right and the left seem to be rising in the West—Marine le Pen in France, Beppe Grillo in Italy, Jeremy Corbyn in Great Britain—Mr. Trump’s political persona seems to be rising.

Frank Luntz’s testing on focus groups indicates that Donald Trump’s fans are responding “almost rapturously to his apparently magnetic persona,” with seeming little regard to the flip-flopping on his political views. As Charles C. W. Cook notes, overnight, Trump seems to have convinced conservatives to abandon their principals.

Mr. Stephen asks, what does this say about the future of the conservative arm of the Republican Party? Would America’s creed of  “give me your tired and your poor” instead become America must not become “a dumping ground” to poor immigrants from South America, as though they were so much garbage? Would those who favor a “plain reading of the Constitution” forgo a plain reading of the 14^th Amendment? After seven years of a cult personality in the White House, would Americans, who have a vital distaste for demagogues, really vote for a loudmouth vulgarian reality-TV star?

“When people become indifferent to the ideas of their would-be leaders, those leaders become prone to dangerous ideas. Democracies that trade policy substance for personal charisma tend not to last as democracies.” Read more from Mr. Stephens here.

September 9^th is the day for the big, Ted Cruz-initiated, anti-Iran nuclear deal rally at Capitol Hill.

Ted’s “guest of honor,” if I can call him that, will be none other than Donald Trump. No lie, Donald Trump will be front and center along with his direct competitor for the GOP presidential nomination.

Both are vocal opponents of the Iran Nuclear deal; as is the rest of the GOP presidential field—lock, stock and barrel. Why would Trump join his competitor Cruz? Easy, Trump is the “uber presence” in the Republican presidential horse race and knows that Ted Cruz carries the backing of the Tea Party and, along with Trump, is the best debater in the field. In Trump’s mind, he has no competition. So why not glom on to what is going to be a marvelous media free for all?

Good so far? Well the central problem here for both Mr. Cruz and Mr. Trump, as well as for the rest of the Republican presidential field, is that they, en masse, are on the wrong side of the Iran nuclear issue.

These are the same war hawks (neocons) that gave America the Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya misadventures and no doubt would have considered the Korean and Vietnam (though Trump has said he opposed the Vietnam war) debacles worthy of support. History is clear—none of these foreign interventions was central to the protection of America and each was a costly loser in terms of death and suffering for tens of thousands of Americans. And the benefit of it all?

As to the Iran Nuclear deal, America’s dean of foreign policy, Brent Scowcroft, has given the Iran accord his approval mentioning that Energy Secretary Moniz, along with 29 eminent nuclear scientists are in support.

I previously quoted Mr. Scowcroft here:

Mr. Scowcroft, according to the Washington Post, “pointed to the caliber of the people who negotiated the deal and who support it.” “There is no more credible expert on nuclear weapons than Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who led the technical negotiating team,” Mr. Scowcroft wrote. “When he asserts that the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] blocks each of Iran’s pathways to the fissile material necessary to make a nuclear weapon, responsible people listen. Twenty-nine eminent U.S. nuclear scientists have endorsed Moniz’s assertions.”

Also in support is America’s most independent and realistic think tank, the Cato Institute (see here and here)(with background here).

Former CIA bin Laden unit chief Michael Scheuer recently wrote “the expanding reach, numbers, and lethality of the Sunni Islamist movement is the most dangerous threat to the republic’s security – in part, because it is being ignored by Washington — U.S. political leaders have spent 2015 focused on Obama’s Iran deal.” Attention has been diverted away from the genuine Sunni threat to America and to the non-threat from Shia Iran.

It’s important to remember that only about 10% of the Muslim world is Shia. The rest is in the Sunni camp, which Michael rightly refers to as the most dangerous risk to America.

The 2016 presidential election offers Americans a chance to get back on the right track regarding how America works with other countries.

The Cato Institute’s website provides a foreign and defense policy mission statement that seeks to restore a principled and restrained foreign policy, calling on lessons learned from George Washington to Cold War realists like George Kennan.

In “Stop Policing the World,” Cato writes:

Cato’s foreign and defense policies are guided by the view that the United States is relatively secure, and so should engage the world, trade freely, and work with other countries on common concerns, but avoid trying to dominate it militarily. [Ed note: See The Power Problem by Chris Preble for more.] We should be an example of democracy and human rights, not their armed vindicator abroad. Although that view is largely absent in Washington, D.C. today, it has a rich history from George Washington to Cold War realists like George Kennan. Cato scholars aim to restore it. A principled and restrained foreign policy would keep the nation out of most foreign conflicts and be cheaper, more ethical, and less destructive of civil liberties.

Why is the State Department vigorously protecting Hillary Clinton on her email scandal and how high up did the knowledge and sign off go? “Whatever the motivation,” Kimberley A. Strassel writes in the WSJ, “what we are witnessing is an extraordinary all-hands government assist for a presidential candidate.”

Ask yourself this: Why does the State Department care so much about what was classified in Mrs. Clinton’s emails—unless its goal is to help her story line? Or ask yourself about a Fox News report this week that State Department lawyers changed the categorization of several Clinton emails, making them “deliberative” rather than classified, a designation that shields them from congressional investigators.

And then there’s State’s lockdown on basic information. Mr. Toner in several wild news conferences this week refused to answer reporters’ questions about whether Mrs. Clinton sent classified material on her server; or whether her server was breached; or if she was bound by the foreign-affairs manual; or who exactly knew about and signed off on her arrangement; or how high up that knowledge went. At one point, when asked whether anyone at State had disagreed with her having a private server, Mr. Toner graciously acknowledged that this was an “appropriate” question, but that it was more “appropriate” for “other” entities to answer. The reporter’s stunned response: But “she was the secretary of state.”

If the State Department exists to serve American interests abroad, how is it that our nation’s diplomatic corps has come to be an arm of the Clinton campaign? Read more from Ms. Strassel here.

For the second year in a row my family shared Martha’s Vineyard with the First Family. They didn’t seem to care that we were there, but I did see Marine One fly over our boat a few times. I wondered if the President was inside and if so, where he was going. I do know he hit the ground running when his vacation ended, taking Air Force One to Las Vegas. “Fresh off his Martha’s Vineyard vacation, a rested and ready Barack Obama set Air Force One on full throttle, flying off to Las Vegas last week to do something really important: Pick a fight with the Koch brothers,” wrote John Sununu former Republican senator from New Hampshire in the Boston Globe (and pointed out in Notable and Quotable in the WSJ). It was yet another example of the President showering money over the industries he supports (think Solyndra) and demonizing those he does not support or simply the Kochs. “Obama condemned fossil fuel interests and ‘the Koch brothers pushing for new laws to roll back renewable energy standards.’” Obama said, “That’s not the American way.”  Sununu, on Charles Koch’s response to being called out by name by Obama, wrote,

First, he observed that a speech that went to great lengths to attack him by name was “beneath the dignity of the president.” It is. Second, he made clear that the brothers’ opposition to Obama’s clean energy subsidies has nothing to do with their support for fossil fuels, but everything to do with their opposition to all forms of corporate subsidy.

Corporate subsidy or Crony capitalism is not the American way. And one candidate speaking out with force against it is Carly Fiorina. I hope she gains the support of some deep pocketed supporters like the Kochs to put an end to the corporate giveaways and Obama’s pet projects.  Sununu writes:

On the surface, Obama’s announcement of billions of dollars in renewable energy subsidies — yes, the very loan guarantees that resulted in the $500 million bankruptcy of Solyndra Energy — looked like business as usual. What set the event apart was his attack on his opponents’ motives, and his calling out the Kochs by name.

Obama condemned fossil fuel interests and “the Koch brothers pushing for new laws to roll back renewable energy standards.” He characterized such efforts in the harshest terms possible: “That’s not the American way.” Opposing subsidies for geothermal energy is un-American? Really?

Interviewed by Politico, Charles Koch displayed the type of restraint one would hope to see in the president. Despite the media bombast — Politico called Koch’s remarks “blistering” — the essence of what Charles Koch had to say was simple.

First, he observed that a speech that went to great lengths to attack him by name was “beneath the dignity of the president.” It is. Second, he made clear that the brothers’ opposition to Obama’s clean energy subsidies has nothing to do with their support for fossil fuels, but everything to do with their opposition to all forms of corporate subsidy.

Koch promised to continue speaking “against corporate welfare as something that hurts everybody except those direct beneficiaries.” While acknowledging that Koch Industries benefits from many subsidies, he remains steadfastly opposed to them all. “We have to show that this corporate welfare and cronyism is unjust . . . many aspects of it are undermining the opportunities for the poor and the disadvantaged,” he said.

His civil tone sends opponents like Reid into fits of rage; they default to flaming rhetoric about the rich, a rigged system, and the Kochs’ attempt to buy influence. In reality, however, the Kochs are doing something quite straightforward: spending money to promote ideas they believe will make the country stronger.

What irritates opponents even more is that they’re right. Subsidies cost taxpayers billions, flow disproportionately to large corporations, and raise prices on goods like milk, sugar, and other staples. The Kochs want to eliminate them all: oil, gas, the Ex-Im Bank, wind, solar, wheat, catfish — you name it.

Obama disagrees. He likes subsidies when they go to companies and industries he favors; he condemns them when they go to those he doesn’t like. That is precisely the reason Charles Koch wants them gone. Politicians shouldn’t be in the business of dispensing favors to business.

Instead of offering a reasoned argument, Obama questions motives and patriotism, and condemns the Kochs’ “big money” activism. Harry Reid used the term “shadowy billionaires.” Yet nothing could be further from America’s true history. Practically every one of our founding fathers was associated with a major newspaper. Jefferson and Madison financed the National Gazette, Hamilton controlled the Gazette of the United States, and Ben Franklin owned the Pennsylvania Gazette for decades.

These publications promoted political ideas and policies with relentless intensity. There were fewer than 100 nationwide when the Constitution was ratified, and they were the only means of public communication. Then, as now, it was speech, and it was expensive. But their influence was far greater than the fragmented digital ads and cable TV buys of any super PAC today.

Charles Koch is no Ben Franklin. But he has a right to speak, write, and purchase advertising that espouses his views. If the president can’t accept — and champion — that concept, he’s running afoul of 240 years of American history. And if he wants to live in a country that doesn’t allow it, there’s always Russia. They don’t do that in Russia.

See the full speech here: