Don't Leave Our Grandpa! March Avery Exhibit! Elliot Abrams, Caroline Glick Comment!

If, on occasion, you receive a memo more than once I apologize but I send so much I am often blocked and get confused as to who received what.
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Do not leave out grandpa!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aHd-f8g9SM&feature=youtu.be

More bad humor:

Questions and Answers

Q.  What's the Cuban National Anth.     A.      Row, Row, Row Your Boat.

Q.   Where does an Irish family go on vacation? 

A.  To a different bar.   

Q.   What did the Chinese couple name their tan, curly-haired baby  

A.  Sum Ting Wong  .

Q.   What do you call it when an Italian has one arm shorter than the other?   

A.  A speech impediment.  

    

Q.   Why do Driver Ed classes in redneck schools use the car only on  Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays?  

    A.    Because on Tuesday and Thursday, the Sex Ed class uses it.  

  

Q.   What's the difference between a southern zoo
and a northern zoo?

    A.   The southern zoo has a description of the animal along with a recipe. 

Q   How do you get a sweet little 80-year-old lady to say the 'F' word? 

A.  Get another sweet little 80-year-old lady to yell, 'BINGO!' 

Q.   What's the difference between a northern fairytale and a southern fairytale?  

A.  A northern fairytale begins, ....'Once upon a time...'   

      A southern fairytale begins,... 'Y'all ain't gonna believe this shit.'

Q. Why doesn't Mexico have an Olympic team?  

  A.   Because all the Mexicans who can  run, jump or swim are already in theUnited States

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I recently hosted a dinner party for several friends, some of whom I hadn't seen for ages,
 and everyone was encouraged to bring their children along as well. 

 All throughout dinner one of my friend's four-year-old daughter stared at me as I sat
opposite her. The girl could hardly eat her food for staring. I checked my shirt for spots, 
felt my face for food, and patted my hair in place; but nothing stopped her from staring 
at me.

I tried my best to just ignore her, but finally it was too much for me. I asked her, "Why 
are you staring at me?" Everyone at the table had noticed her behavior, and the table 
went quiet, waiting for her response. The little girl said, "I'm just waiting to see how 
you drink like a fish.” 
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Obviously the mood of investors is a sour one. I doubt raising  interest rates  a 1/4 
percent by The Fed is the full reason. I suspect the drop in commodity prices, the 
incompetence of Obama and his inability and unwillingness to offer a strategy to defeat
 ISIS, the prospect of increased unemployment in the domestic oil patch where salaries
 are very good and the prospect of the leading candidates being elected are additional 
and more commanding factors.

Finally, it has to be dispiriting to find we have a president who gets what he wants by way of spending, goes on an expensive vacation believing he has earned it and a Congress that does not have the guts to do what is right by our nation are more discouraging additions to what should be a joyous time of the year. (See 1 and 1a below.)
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March Avery is the gifted artist daughter of the great American Painter, Milton Avery.  My friend owns the Marin Price Gallery, represents March and is having a showing of her recent works.

March paints very much in the vein of her father.  Her colors are vibrant and her shapes extraordinary. (See 2 below.)
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You can hate Trump all you want but unlike your typical politicians his desire to enforce the law is refreshing and even unique. (See 3 below.)
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The SIRC's guest speaker for our 2017, President Day Dinner, Elliot Abrams and  member of The Council on Foreign Relations contributes  to their  ‎Preventive Priorities Survey. (See 4 below.)
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Status of the Arab Spring. (See 5 below.)

Caroline Glick on Americans and their attention to  Foreign Policy. Are they too late?(See 5a below.)
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Dick
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1)

The Omnibus Spending Bill: A Gaping Hole

By Allen West

This was co-authored by NCPA Legislative Director Brian Williams]

When digging yourself deeper into a hole, the best course of action is to stop digging. That’s good advice for one and all. Back in January, the Congressional leadership promised to stop digging, so to speak. They promised to bring “regular order” to an out-of-control spending spree, to fight against the Obama Administration’s spending addiction, and to restore fiscal sanity to the federal government. We had high hopes. But here we are, twelve months later, and Congress is still digging. 

In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, the Congressional leadership introduced a 2,000-page, $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill. It adds an additional $80 billion in spending over the next two years, beyond what Congress already planned to spend! This is an unbelievable action from a Congress that was elected to do just the opposite. Congress already spends $426 billion more than the Treasury collects from taxpayers. That’s the deficit this year alone. And Congress has borrowed almost $19 trillion dollars to pay for federal government activities over the last several years. That’s the national debt. At some point, someone in Congressional leadership needs to get control over this spending addiction. That’s what Americans believed they were doing when they elected a majority of Republicans to the House and Senate last year. That’s what they believed would happen when Rep. Paul Ryan was elected as Speaker of the House. 

Worse yet, the Omnibus Spending Bill not only increases spending that we can’t afford, it also promotes bad policies that will make it more expensive for Americans to work and live. The bill provides more funding to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate power plants. It provides funding for the EPA to regulate ponds and streams and to restrict economic development and growth. It provides funding to the Department of Labor to regulate IRAs and retirement plans. And it provides funding for a refugee resettlement program, just as America is coping with the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino. Where does Congress think this funding comes from? American taxpayers are tired of funding government programs that work against us instead of for us. If government spending isn’t going to help us, at least the government could leave us alone. Apparently, that is too much to ask. Instead, Congress is spending taxpayer money on programs that harass, regulate and potentially endanger the taxpayers themselves. Unbelievable.

As if the increased spending and bad policies aren’t bad enough, the Congressional leadership wanted to quickly pass the 2,000-page bill in a little more than 48 hours. The so-called “Three Day Rule” is supposed to give members of Congress three days to read and understand legislation. But Congressional leadership introduced the bill at 1:34 AM on Wednesday and by 10 o’clock on Wednesday morning they were asking members how they were going to vote. The House passed the bill today and the Senate votes this afternoon. This type of “pass-it-before-you-read-it” process has caused problems in the past. Remember Obamacare? Congressional leadership should have learned that lesson by now. Why not give members of Congress and the public enough time to read and understand legislation before voting on it? We can only think of one reason: Because they don’t want members to read the legislation before voting on it.

To be fair, we aren’t completely unhappy with all of the policies in this bill. The Omnibus Spending Bill does have a couple of good things to applaud. The bill prohibits funding to bail out the insurance companies in the Obamacare health insurance program. It removes the ban on exporting crude oil. And it prevents the IRS from regulating political speech. But on the whole, NCPA believes the backward policies and reckless spending in this bill are unwise and detrimental to the direction we ought to be headed.

1a)  HERE IS WHAT GLEN BECK SAID.

Short and very much to the point!

Lamenting the president’s recent focus on climate change at the COP21summit in Paris, Glen Beck addressed Obama on his radio program in the wake of Wednesday’s deadly massacre in San Bernadino, CA.

“Mr. President, I say this with as much respect as you deserve,” Beck began. “Screw global warming.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked. “If you actually believe that global warming is the biggest problem we face, with terror all over the world, and 18 trillion dollar debt––nine of which is yours––no real allies left that trust us, riots in our streets, riots on our university campuses, race relations worse than I’ve seen since the 1960’s, and a distrust of our fellow Americans unlike anything I’ve ever seen, you, sir, are either delusional or you’re the dumbest son-of-a-bitch on the planet.” 

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2)

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Marin-Price Galleries Marin-Price Galleries, Inc. 7022 Wisconsin Ave Chevy Chase, MD 20815 (301) 718-0622  Off Shore Island (1982), Oil on Canvas, 28" x 60" MARCH AVERY EXHIBIT Saturday, January 2nd - thru Friday, January 29th, 2016 Opening Reception - Sat., Jan. 2, 2016 -- 5:30pm - 7:30pm Click here to view more of March Avery works We look forward to seeing you    Francisco Marin-Price fmp@marin-pricegalleries.com  (301-718-0622) www.marin-pricegalleries.com You are invited to the March Avery exhibit of oil paintings. Very little can be said about March Avery that has not been said before. As Jessica Dawson of the Washington Post once said; "the brush does not fall far from the tree", an obvious reference to the fact that she paints very much like her famous father, Milton Avery. March is painting better than ever. Her work is most collectible. March brings gentle humor and quiet eloquence to interpretations of the most ordinary events. March Avery's work is in many museums. Park Land, Oil on Canvas, 50" x 70"      California Spring (1995), Oil on Canvas, 50" x 62"    Clouds Over Cooper Lake (2015) - 40" x 60" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ================================================================================================== 3)  Subject: Trump comments follow the letter of the law.  The Immigration and Nationality Act passed June 27, 1952 revised the laws relating to immigration, naturalization, and nationality for the United States. That act, which became Public Law 414, established both the law and the intent of Congress regarding the immigration of Aliens to the US and remains in effect today. Among the many issues it covers, one in particular, found in Chapter 2 Section 212, is the prohibition of entry to the US if the Alien belongs to an organization seeking to overthrow the government of the United States by "force, violence, or other unconstitutional means." This, by its very definition, rules out Islamic immigration to the United States. Islamic immigration to the US would be prohibited under this law because the Koran, Sharia Law and the Hadith all require complete submission to Islam, which is antithetical to the US government, the Constitution, and to the Republic. ========================================================================================================================= 4) Elliott Abrams Predictions for 2016 Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. This piece is reprinted with permission and can be found on Abrams' blog "Pressure Points."At the end of every year the Council on Foreign Relations presents the result of a survey of ‎foreign policy specialists on what to watch out for in the coming year. It's called the ‎Preventive Priorities Survey, and the new one is out and can be found here.‎What's the purpose? Paul Stares, who is General John W. Vessey senior fellow for conflict ‎prevention at CFR and who directs the project, said, "Our annual survey aims to highlight ‎potential areas of instability and help U.S. policymakers anticipate contingencies that could ‎be harmful to national interests. By prioritizing conflicts based on their overall risk to the ‎United States, the survey helps to focus their attention and resources for specific conflict ‎prevention efforts in the year ahead.‎The survey results are worth noting on several counts. Eight of the top 11 items revolve ‎around troubles in the Middle East, including the top item: Syria. Problems in Egypt, Libya ‎and Turkey rose from moderate to high priorities. But I am struck by the second and third ‎items, which concern the United States: fears of a terrorist or cyber attack on the homeland.‎Here are the top items of concern:‎ The intensification of the civil war in Syria‎ A mass casualty attack on the U.S. homeland or a treaty ally A highly disruptive cyberattack on critical U.S. infrastructure A severe crisis with or in North Korea Political instability in EU countries stemming from the influx of refugees and migrants Continued political fracturing of Libya Heightened tensions between Israelis and Palestinians Intensified political violence in Turkey Increased political instability in Egypt Increased violence and instability in Afghanistan Continued fracturing of Iraq due to territorial gains by the self-proclaimed Islamic State ‎and ongoing Sunni-Shia sectarian violence Take a look at the entire text. Not exactly Christmas cheer, but, as always, the survey ‎concentrates the mind on what we are likely to face very soon.‎ From "Pressure Points" by Elliott Abrams. Reprinted with permission from the Council on Foreign Relations. ====================================================================================================== 5) The End of the Arab Spring Dream Disorganized urban liberalism couldn’t compete with the politics of tribe—or Islamism. By Sohrab Ahmari Thursday marks a bitter anniversary in the Arab world. On Dec. 17, 2010, a Tunisian fruit vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire after the authorities confiscated his goods and beat him. The incident sparked an uprising that within weeks would topple Tunisia’s venal autocracy. Protests spread to Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria. Despots from Morocco to Mesopotamia felt the heat of popular anger. Many couldn’t withstand it. Yet today the Middle East is less stable, and less hopeful, than it was before the Arab Spring. Five years ago, the denim-clad, smartphone-wielding Arab liberal became the region’s avatar. Now the knife-wielding jihadist and the refugee have risen to prominence instead.  Each Arab Spring country is unhappy in its own way. Tunisia is the only success story among the bunch, having adopted a secular constitution and completed several peaceful power transfers. As Rached Ghannouchi, the leader of Tunisia’s moderate Islamic Ennahda party, recently told me, “We’ve remained on the bridge of democratic transition while others have fallen off.” True, but the birthplace of the Arab Spring is also the world’s top exporter of fighters for Islamic State, or ISIS. The situation in Egypt is similarly mixed. The country is once more ruled by the officer corps and back to its prerevolutionary funk: repressive and paranoid, yes, but also stable and on the path of economic reform. Things are far worse in Yemen and Libya, which have ceased to exist as unified states. Yemen has disintegrated into its sectarian constituent parts, forcing neighboring Sunni powers led by Saudi Arabia to intervene militarily to prevent the Iranian regime from turning the country into a Shiite satellite. Libya is a lawless playground of smugglers and ISIS. Then there is Syria, with its barrel bombs, 250,000 dead, and four million refugees. At the height of the movement, I edited an anthology of essays by young Middle East dissidents. The essayists described an Arab world where men and women were equal, blasphemous cartoonists were tolerated and gay people could live openly, among other fantasies. The book’s now-cringe-inducing title: “Arab Spring Dreams.” How did dreams turn into nightmares? The standard account has it that by crushing or co-opting opponents, secular autocrats like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak empowered Islamist outfits that were the only remaining channel for dissent. Once the dictators fell, the liberals were quickly sidelined as Islamists and remnants of the old order battled for dominance. It’s a theory riddled with contradictions. For one thing, it underestimates political Islam. As early as the 19th century, Islamist intellectuals had called for restoring Islam’s lost glory and expelling Western pollutants. To say that the movement’s grip on the region is a reaction against secular dictatorship is to deny Islamists’ agency and inherent ideological drive. Secular Arab nationalism had already exhausted its energies by the time Mr. Mubarak and colleagues were overthrown. But as the rise of ISIS shows, Islamism represents a longer historical wave only beginning to crest. Many in the West imagined removing the dictators would also diminish Islamism’s attraction. Events didn’t pan out that way. Nor could Arab liberals forge a third way. The “Revolution 2.0” model of leaderless, social-media-driven protest was effective against unpopular regimes. But it proved insufficient for winning power, and the liberals failed to articulate a coherent ideological alternative with broad appeal. Had they spent half as much time learning from Israel how to plant democracy in Middle East soil as they did demonizing the Jewish state, today the liberals might be in a better position. The biggest Western misstep was to treat the quest for freedom as somehow separate from the contest for geopolitical mastery. In Egypt, the Obama administration was likely powerless to prevent the pro-Western Mr. Mubarak’s downfall, but the White House in the subsequent months did little to shape the outcome of the revolution. Washington favored all actors equally, as though Egypt were Luxembourg and the Muslim Brotherhood just another center-right party. In Libya, the U.S. removed Moammar Gadhafi under a legal abstraction—the responsibility to protect—then swiftly abandoned a country with few viable institutions to its tribal furies. In Syria, President Obama declared that Bashar Assad “must go,” and then watched impassively as the Iran-backed tyrant continued to kill and gas his own people, triggering a refugee crisis that has overwhelmed Europe.  The slaughter has continued for nearly five years. In the long term, the most perilous consequence isn’t the birth of a terror state stretching across Syria and spilling into Iraq but the destruction of U.S. credibility. The Arabs know you can’t impose order without being present and engaged in their world.  As for ordered liberty, five years after Mohamed Bouazizi self-immolated, the freest Arabs still are those who are citizens of Israel. Millions fleeing other parts of the region are rendering their own judgment about the state of Arab civilization. The intellectuals and activists don’t dare imagine another uprising because they know that, given an opening, large numbers of Arabs will demand Shariah law, repression of women, and ethnic and sectarian revenge.  Perhaps that’s an unfair judgment, but it follows from a political culture that prizes honor, tribe and piety above reason and compromise. Viewed in that light, it isn’t just the years since the Arab Spring that the region has wasted, but the whole century since it was freed from the Ottoman yoke. Mr. Ahmari is a Journal editorial writer based in London. 5a)  Column One: Rubio, Cruz and US global leadership By Caroline Glick For the first time in a decade, Americans are beginning to think seriously about foreign policy; But are they too late? At some point between 2006 and 2008, the American people decided to turn their backs on the world. Between the seeming futility of the war in Iraq and the financial collapse of 2008, Americans decided they’d had enough. In Barack Obama, they found a leader who could channel their frustration. Obama’s foreign policy, based on denying the existence of radical Islam and projecting the responsibility for Islamic aggression on the US and its allies, suited their mood just fine. If America is responsible, then America can walk away. Once it is gone, so the thinking has gone, the Muslims will forget their anger and leave America alone. Sadly, Obama’s foreign policy assumptions are utter nonsense. America’s abandonment of global leadership has not made things better. Over the past seven years, the legions of radical Islam have expanded and grown more powerful than ever before. And now in the aftermath of the jihadist massacres in Paris and San Bernadino, the threats have grown so abundant that even Obama cannot pretend them away. As a consequence, for the first time in a decade, Americans are beginning to think seriously about foreign policy. But are they too late? Can the next president repair the damage Obama has caused? The Democrats give no cause for optimism. Led by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential hopefuls stubbornly insist that there is nothing wrong with Obama’s foreign policy. If they are elected to succeed him, they pledge to follow in his footsteps. On the Republican side, things are more encouraging, but also more complicated. Republican presidential hopefuls are united in their rejection of Obama’s policy of ignoring the Islamic supremacist nature of the enemy. All reject the failed assumptions of Obama’s foreign policy. All have pledged to abandon them on their first day in office. Yet for all their unity in rejecting Obama’s positions, Republicans are deeply divided over what alternative foreign policy they would adopt. This divide has been seething under the surface throughout the Obama presidency. It burst into the open at the Republican presidential debate Wednesday night. The importance of the dispute cannot be overstated. Given the Democrats’ allegiance to Obama’s disastrous policies, the only hope for a restoration of American leadership is that a Republican wins the next election. But if Republicans nominate a candidate who fails to reconcile with the realities of the world as it is, then the chance for a reassertion of American leadership will diminish significantly. To understand just how high the stakes are, you need to look no further than two events that occurred just before the Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate. On Tuesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency voted to close its investigation of Iran’s nuclear program. As far as the UN’s nuclear watchdog is concerned, Iran is good to go. The move is a scandal. Its consequences will be disastrous. The IAEA acknowledges that Iran continued to advance its illicit military nuclear program at least until 2009. Tehran refuses to divulge its nuclear activities to IAEA investigators as it is required to do under binding UN Security Council resolutions. Iran refuses to allow IAEA inspectors access to its illicit nuclear sites. As a consequence, the IAEA lacks a clear understanding of what Iran’s nuclear status is today and therefore has no capacity to prevent it from maintaining or expanding its nuclear capabilities. This means that the inspection regime Iran supposedly accepted under Obama’s nuclear deal is worthless. The IAEA also accepts that since Iran concluded its nuclear accord with the world powers, it has conducted two tests of ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons, despite the fact that it is barred from doing so under binding Security Council resolutions. But really, who cares? Certainly the Obama administration doesn’t. The sighs of relief emanating from the White House and the State Department after the IAEA decision were audible from Jerusalem to Tehran. The IAEA’s decision has two direct consequences. First, as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday, it paves the way for the cancellation of the UN’s economic sanctions against Iran within the month. Second, with the IAEA’s decision, the last obstacle impeding Iran’s completion of its nuclear weapons program has been removed. Inspections are a thing of the past. Iran is in the clear. As Iran struts across the nuclear finish line, the Sunni jihadists are closing their ranks. Hours after the IAEA vote, Turkey and Qatar announced that Turkey is setting up a permanent military base in the Persian Gulf emirate for the first time since the fall of the Ottoman Empire a century ago. Their announcement indicates that the informal partnership between Turkey and Qatar on the one side, and Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic State on the other hand, which first came to the fore last year during Operation Protective Edge, is now becoming a more formal alliance. Just as the Obama administration has no problem with Iran going nuclear, so it has no problem with this new jihadist alliance. During Operation Protective Edge, the administration supported this jihadist alliance against the Israeli-Egyptian partnership. Throughout Hamas’s war against Israel, Obama demanded that Israel and Egypt accept Hamas’s cease-fire terms, as they were presented by Turkey and Qatar. Since Operation Protective Edge, the Americans have continued to insist that Israel and Egypt bow to Hamas’s demands and open Gaza’s international borders. The Americans have kept up their pressure on Israel and Egypt despite Hamas’s open alliance with ISIS in the Sinai Peninsula. So, too, the Americans have kept Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at arm’s length, and continue to insist that the Muslim Brotherhood is a legitimate political force despite Sisi’s war against ISIS. Washington continues to embrace Qatar as a “moderate” force despite the emirate’s open support for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and ISIS. As for Turkey, it appears there is nothing Ankara can do that will dispel the US notion that it is a credible partner in the war on terror. Since 2011, Turkey has served as Hamas’s chief state sponsor, and as ISIS’s chief sponsor. It is waging war against the Kurds – the US’s strongest ally in its campaign against ISIS. In other words, with the US’s blessing, the forces of both Shi’ite and Sunni jihad are on the march. And the next president will have no grace period for repairing the damage. Although the Republican debate Wednesday night was focused mainly on the war in Syria, its significance is far greater than one specific battlefield. And while there were nine candidates on the stage, there were only two participants in this critical discussion. Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz faced off after weeks of rising contention between their campaigns. In so doing, they brought the dispute that has been seething through their party since the Bush presidency into the open. Rubio argued that in Syria, the US needs to both defeat ISIS and overthrow President Bashar Assad. Cruz countered that the US should ignore Assad and concentrate on utterly destroying ISIS. America’s national interest, he said, is not advanced by overthrowing Assad, because in all likelihood, Assad will be replaced by ISIS. Cruz added that America’s experience in overthrowing Middle Eastern leaders has shown that it is a mistake to overthrow dictators. Things only got worse after America overthrew Saddam Hussein and supported the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi and Hosni Mubarak. For his part, Rubio explained that since Assad is Iran’s puppet, leaving him in power empowers Iran. The longer he remains in power, the more control Iran will wield over Syria and Lebanon. The two candidates’ dispute is far greater than the question of who rules Syria. Their disagreement on Syria isn’t a tactical argument. It goes to the core question of what is the proper role of American foreign policy. Rubio’s commitment to overthrowing Assad is one component of a wider strategic commitment to fostering democratic governance in Syria. By embracing the cause of democratization through regime change, Rubio has become the standard bearer of George W. Bush’s foreign policy. Bush’s foreign policy had two seemingly contradictory anchors – a belief that liberal values are universal, and cultural meekness. Bush’s belief that open elections would serve as a panacea for the pathologies of the Islamic world was not supported by empirical data. Survey after survey showed that if left to their own devices, the people of Muslim world would choose to be led by Islamic supremacists. But Bush rejected the data and embraced the fantasy that free elections lead a society to embrace liberal norms of peace and human rights. As to cultural meekness, since the end of the Cold War and with the rise of political correctness, the notion that America could call for other people to adopt American values fell into disrepute. For American foreign policy practitioners, the idea that American values and norms are superior to Islamic supremacist values smacked of cultural chauvinism. Consequently, rather than urge the Islamic world to abandon Islamic supremacism in favor of liberal democracy, in their public diplomacy efforts, Americans sufficed with vapid pronouncements of love and respect for Islam. Islamic supremacists, for their part stepped into the ideological void without hesitation. In Iraq, the Iranian regime spent hundreds of millions of dollars training Iranian-controlled militias, building Iranian-controlled political parties and publishing pro-Iranian newspapers as the US did nothing to support pro-American Iraqis. Although many Republicans opposed Bush’s policies, few dared make their disagreement with the head of their party public. As a result, for many, Wednesday’s debate was the first time the foundations of Bush’s foreign policy were coherently and forcefully rejected before a national audience. If Rubio is the heir to Bush, Cruz is the spokesman for Bush’s until now silent opposition. In their longheld view, democratization is not a proper aim of American foreign policy. Defeating America’s enemies is the proper aim of American foreign policy. Rubio’s people claim that carpet bombing ISIS is not a strategy. They are right. There are parts missing from in Cruz’s position on Syria. But then again, although still not comprehensive, Cruz’s foreign policy trajectory has much to recommend it. First and foremost, it is based on the world as it is, rather than a vision of how the world should be. It makes a clear distinction between America’s allies and America’s enemies and calls for the US to side with the former and fight the latter. It is far from clear which side will win this fight for the heart of the Republican Party. And it is impossible to know who the next US president will be. But whatever happens, the fact that after their seven-year vacation, the Americans are returning the real world is a cause for cautious celebration. =========================================================================================================

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