Pompeo A Great Candidate. Lying Among Top Intelligence Agency Heads Remains A Threat. Fascinating Conference Call On Israeli Abilities.

Survived by his wife:

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Man Survived By Wife

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Mike Pompeo would make an excellent president or VP. Compare his background and talent to anyone the Democrats will offer and it is a no contest:
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Mike Pompeo:

Until 1776, human beings pretty much everywhere were ruled by might and brutality.

The founders changed the course of history when they established a nation built on the premise that government exists not to diminish or cancel the individual’s rights at the whims of those in power, but to secure them.

I’ll never forget being spellbound by the founders’ ideas for the first time. 

As a cadet, too many years ago now, at West Point, I was issued uniforms, a rifle, and a copy of the Constitution. I still have that copy. 

 

It’s a bit more tattered now. But I’ve continued to flash back to those central ideas that these men brought to this great nation. 

Do you have a favorite part of our Constitution? If so, I’m asking you to please share it with me today. 

 

SHARE YOUR ANSWER

With so many brilliant ideas and guaranteed freedoms in this awesome document, I want to know which parts mean the most to you. 

I’m looking forward to hearing your response and hope you have a pleasant day.

Unapologetically American,

 

Mike Pompeo

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Over the years we have had far too many senior agency heads get too political and then lie (Brannan comes to mind among others,).  This is particularly true when it comes to the matter of intelligence. Trump, being who he is, disregarded advice, even from Schumer, not to take on the Intelligence people because you will not win. They will destroy you.  

It is frightening to believe that those with such power will do anything to protect both themselves and the "cause."  As long as we allow concentrated power and government to grow and assume larger and larger control over our nation's productivity that is the recipe for "we the people" losing our freedoms.  

This is what Biden''s new tax bill that will reduce inflation is all about.  It is a sham and we swallow it like lambs as we go to be slaughtered once again.  We never learn and, even if we have, the political monied interests have the wherewithal to get what they want.

I am reminded of a recent ad by AARP asserting how their mission has been defending against drug price increases. Empirically, drug prices have gone up every year since AARP was established. In defense of the industry, the burdens government places on them for drug approval have escalated, caused delays in approval etc. so some of the drug price escalation is attributable to government bureaucracy. Also new drug discovery costs have escalated because the industry is taking on far more difficult issues like Alzheimer, cancer and other intractable diseases etc. 

Much of the low hanging fruit has already been picked.

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Today, I listened to a fascinating review of Israel's new strategies to defend itself from Hamas and Palestinian Jihad terrorists seeking to attack Israel.

First,  Israel is advantaged to be defending itself against low tech terrorists whose missiles are not overly effective, many go astray and actually often fall short and kill their own people. 

Second,  the Iron Dome will soon be replaced by laser technology. Each Iron Dome launch costs $50,000 so Israel only targets missiles likely to do damage and lets the rest of the missiles fall into open areas,  The effectiveness of the Iron Dome against targets is in the upper 90% range.

Laser technology will be vastly cheaper and even more effective and is coming soon so terrorist technology will be largely neutered.

Third, Israel's IAF has perfected an ability to track cell phones of terrorist leaders that is so effective they know where they are at all times and can literally send a rocket through a ten story building, into the exact room where the terrorist is hiding.  Consequently, Hamas has begun to temper themselves and much of the various attacks are now coming from splinter terrorists groups among the most prominent of which is Palestinian Jihadi's. These slinter groups are not as effective.

Finally, Israel has finally come to realize the attacks they are fighting have two components, ie military and social media.  This is why they have perfected an ability to reveal immediately after what the nature of the attack was and explain  in detail why. They also can show pictorial evidence that is so accurate it tends to restrain the biased reporting..

Finally, they also chose  the latest response to occur over a weekend knowing they would end before Sunday and thus the level of criticism would be somewhat muted.

Once again, Israel is the only nation the mass media attacks for being attacked and the IDF continues to perform military engagement mindful of the sensitivity.  This is why, in the latest response, several intended targets were  surrounded by children playing andwho might be harmed by collateral damage. Thus, the IAF pilot chose not to launch.

There was more but these, I believe, are the main points discussed I found interesting enough to reveal.

And:

Beat the press

Reporters in Gaza have never been free and aren’t now

By Clifford D. May 

 

Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood branch that rules Gaza, sat out this month’s conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a smaller Gaza-based terrorist group tied to Iran’s rulers. But, perhaps to show it still rules the roost, Hamas issued sweeping restrictions on foreign journalists working in Gaza.

Among them: a prohibition against reporting on Gazans killed by misfired Palestinian rockets and a requirement that Israel be blamed for the battle.

In addition, Hamas ordered all foreign correspondents to employ Palestinian “sponsors” who must submit full reports on where those correspondents go, what they do, and any “illogical questions” they ask.

The new rules warned that sponsors must “demonstrate national spirit, defend the Palestinian narrative and reject the foreigner’s bias to the Israeli narrative.”

The Foreign Press Association protested these “severe, unacceptable and unjustified restrictions on the freedom of the press.” Discussions ensued and, before long, the FPA was happily announcing that Hamas officials had come around.

Salama Marouf, director of the government media office in Gaza, agreed. “There are no restrictions,” he said. “We welcome all foreign journalists and media into Gaza, and we call on them to come.”

A happy ending, right? Not exactly. The Associated Press, one of the media organizations represented by the FPA, pointed out: “Even if the rules are officially withdrawn, Hamas has still signaled its expectations, which could have a chilling effect on critical coverage.”

That, too, fails to reflect reality which is this: Reporters in Gaza have never been free and are not now.

Since Hamas wrested control of Gaza from rival Fatah in 2007, foreign journalist have been unable to work in the territory without Palestinian sponsors (more commonly known as “minders,” “stringers,” or “fixers) answerable to Hamas. They endanger both themselves and these hires if Hamas disapproves of their reporting.

Matti Friedman, a former reporter and editor in the Jerusalem bureau of the Associated Press has revealed all this and more in articles he wrote for Tablet, the Atlantic, and more recently Sapir (a journal covering Jewish issues).

His pieces exposed Hamas’ intimidation and censorship, as well as the limits most journalists covering the Palestinian-Israel conflict impose on themselves based on ideology, bias, and the desire for acceptance within social circles dominated by UN officials and employees of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who ignore Palestinian terrorism and rejectionism while regarding Israeli Jews as oppressors who don’t sincerely want peace. 

Within this milieu, dissent is not tolerated. Just last weekend, the UN removed the head of one of its offices serving Palestinians after she posted a tweet condemning Islamic Jihad’s “indiscriminate rocket fire” – even though she subsequently apologized for “my poor judgment.”

The media are usually obedient. For example, during the conflict with Israel in the summer of 2014, Mr. Friedman wrote, the AP staff in Gaza City could see that Hamas was launching missiles from “right beside their office endangering reporters and other civilians nearby—and the AP wouldn’t report it.”

Nor did they inform readers that Hamas fighters had “burst into the AP’s Gaza bureau” and threatened the staff. And cameramen “waiting outside Shifa Hospital in Gaza City would film the arrival of civilian casualties and then, at a signal from an official, turn off their cameras when wounded and dead fighters came in, helping Hamas maintain the illusion that only civilians were dying.”

The most recent conflict featured such headlines as “Israel strikes what it calls terrorist targets” (ABC News) and “Israel cheers its wins, Gaza mourns its dead as cease-fire holds” (the Washington Post).

Toeing the Hamas line does not guarantee safety: In 2006, Fox News reporter Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf Wiig were kidnapped, blindfolded, handcuffed, and held in an abandoned garage in the Gaza Strip by “a previously unknown group” calling itself the Holy Jihad Brigades. The two men were forced at gunpoint to denounce American policies and convert to Islam.

Released after 13 days, they were escorted to a Gaza hotel to meet with Hamas leader Ismail Haniya who, The New York Times reported, “had called for their captors to free them.”

The Times added that, “there was speculation” that the kidnapping was an attempt “to embarrass Mr. Haniya.”

Such embarrassment was not apparent. And Mr. Haniya was doubtless pleased when, at a press conference, Mr. Wiig said he hoped his experience would not prevent other foreign journalists from covering Gaza. “That would be a great tragedy for the people of Palestine and especially for the people of Gaza,” he said.

The kidnappers, as far as we know, were never arrested. Nor has there been any further reporting on the “Holy Jihad Brigades.”

Last week’s AP dispatch on the new restrictions added what we might call the requisite moral equivalence clause: “In the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict, both sides have attempted to impose their narratives and limit negative coverage.” How so? Israeli authorities restrict media access to some military activities as well as to the country’s nuclear program.

So, the AP considers concealing who is killing whom on a par with Israelis not revealing military secrets and not lifting the veil on their last-resort deterrence capabilities. Really?

While I see no cure for this situation, I can imagine treatment. It would entail reporters working under duress in Gaza – and elsewhere, e.g., Iran, Russia, and China – acknowledging that to readers and viewers. And maybe media commentators at such high-visibility outlets as CNN and Fox might occasionally and honestly discuss this reality.

At the very least, they should stop propagating the falsehood that there is no significant difference between Hamas-ruled Gaza and Israel when it comes to “the freedom of the press” along with an extensive list of other human rights.

Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for the Washington Times.

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