| Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty August 25, 2014 What Does ISIS 'External Operations, I Believe, Under Way' Mean? Get ready for war: The Islamic State presents the greatest terrorist threat to Americans since 9/11, and fighting it will take more than airstrikes in Iraq, according to a top member of Congress and a retired four-star general. The Islamic State, also referred to as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, has vaulted in notoriety after the beheading of American journalist James Foley last week. On ABC's This Week, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, who chairs the Homeland Security Committee, called Foley's murder a turning point. | | You know you want to come! Get complete info at NRCruise.com. | | | | "I do think they present the greatest threat we've seen since 9/11," McCaul said. "This has been festering for the last year, and now it's culminating with the killing and the beheading of an American journalist. . . . The American people — it has sort of opened their eyes to what ISIS really is, the true character of ISIS, how savage they really are and . . . their intent to harm Americans." Retired Marine general John Allen, who served in Iraq and commanded all allied forces in Afghanistan, said attacking militant support areas in Syria will be necessary. The limited U.S. airstrikes that have helped Kurdish and Iraqi forces retake a strategic dam near Mosul in northern Iraq are not enough, he said. Another ominous comment from McCaul, which one wonders is based upon intelligence reports or speculation: "Their focus right now is establishing the caliphate. But don't kid yourself for a second, they are [sic] intent on hitting the West. And there are external operations, I believe, under way . . . We have tens of thousands of foreign fighters from all over the world pouring into this safe haven that's now been established, including hundreds of Americans with Western passports and legal travel documents, which would enable them not only to travel to Western Europe, but to the United States." On Friday, local police received this generic warning from the Feds: In a joint bulletin issued to local, state and federal law enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security and FBI said that while they are "unaware of any specific, credible threats against the Homeland" and find most threats to the U.S. homeland by supporters of ISIS "not credible," they cannot rule out attacks in the United States from sympathizers radicalized by the group's online propaganda. "[B]ecause of the individualized nature of the radicalization process -- it is difficult to predict triggers that will contribute to [homegrown violent extremists] attempting acts of violence," the bulletin states. Moreover, such lone offenders "present law enforcement with limited opportunities to detect and disrupt plots, which frequently involve simple plotting against targets of opportunity," according to the bulletin. I don't want to alarm anyone. But somebody sympathetic to ISIS is taking pictures of U.S. landmarks and holding up a very clear ISIS message: We're already here. 
Maybe it's just some nut. Or two nuts. Or a network of nuts.
But . . . If you're the Islamic State, hitting the U.S. homeland is the jackpot, right? We're about three weeks away from an early September date that means a lot to Americans and Islamist extremists. Wouldn't you figure the bad guys would want to do something that day? The Nation's Gloom Doesn't Mean We Have to Be Gloomy Now that I've started out your morning by freaking you out, let's point out what we can do . . . be alert. If you notice something strange or out of the ordinary, tell a cop. Trust your instincts. If it's nothing, it's nothing. Here's Ace, telling us something we need to hear, whether or not we want to hear it: Obama is a scourge. He's terrible. He's making things much, much worse, and many suspect this is not entirely by chance. That said, as I said to someone last week: There is what Obama does to us, and then there is what we do to ourselves. When life hands you a setback -- a disease, a death of a close one, a financial crisis, Obama -- that's bad. But how we deal with that setback is on us. Whether we handle adversity gracefully, or whether we let it bend us and twist us, that's a choice. Everyone's angry, and everyone's afraid, and, honestly, they should be. A friend of mine feels it in his bones that another 9/11 is coming, and, while I don't have that intuition, I can't tell him he's just making things up or being silly. That's certainly out there in the possibility-space. These are frightening times, and our political leadership's reaction to this is to double down on failure and futility and fairways. But people don't make good decisions in a state of anger, and they usually don't say useful or correct things in that state, either. A Democratic Candidate, Scoffing at Stay-at-Home Moms Don't you love it when a man insists he's the women's candidate? [John] Foust, a Fairfax County supervisor, finds himself running against state Del. Barbara Comstock, a Republican who worked for Wolf, as well as three third party candidates: Independent Green Dianne Blais, Independent Brad Eickholt and Libertarian William Redpath. He's crossing the district now on his Women's Priorities Tour in which he is casting himself as the women's candidate in a race where he faces two women. On creating jobs, Foust said of Comstock, "In her mind that means giving tax benefits to special interests and the super wealthy. I don't think she's even had a real job." Barbara Comstock's bio: As an at home mom, Barbara was fortunate that her husband could work two jobs so she could be home with their young, growing family while she attended and graduated from Georgetown Law Center. She knows the challenges of trying to live on one income, while trying to save for a house, the kids' education, and retirement. As a Working Mom and Trusted Aide to Congressman Wolf, Barbara was privileged to be able to go back to work on Capitol Hill for our Congressman Frank Wolf, who hired her after she had been out of the workforce to raise her family. In Rep. Wolf 's office, Barbara was immersed in issues important to Northern Virginia such as federal employees and health care issues, business and transportation issues such as leading efforts for telework solutions, and tax relief for families. She then went on to be the Chief Counsel on the largest House committee tasked with investigations into waste, fraud and abuse. She also worked on the research team for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000, was director of public affairs at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2002-2003, and has served in the Virginia House of Delegates since 2009. But hey, none of those are real jobs, like being Fairfax County supervisor, right? This is a nominally Republican district, so Barbara Comstock -- one of the first fans of the Kerry Spot on NRO, way back in May 2004! -- could probably use a little help. Public Discussion ADD: How Wrongdoing Becomes 'Faux Scandals' A throwaway line in Ruth Marcus's newest column, worrying about Obama's historical legacy with the threat of the Islamic State rising: "In the broader sweep of history, however, the legacy achievements may outweigh those lapses and the parade of faux scandals, from Solyndra to Benghazi to the Internal Revenue Service." There you go. The feds make a giant loan to Solyndra, it goes belly-up and leaves the taxpayers holding the bag . . . . . . four Americans get killed on September 11 after the State Department declines their requests for additional security . . .
. . . and the IRS treats Americans differently based upon their political views, then "accidentally destroys" all kinds of records they're legally required to keep…
. . . and they're all dismissed with half a sentence as "faux scandals."
Gotta have that "clean narrative"! ADDENDA: I'll be appearing Friday on some panels at the Defending the Dream conference in Dallas, Texas . . . . . . There are now 98 reviews of The Weed Agency on Amazon. The book is now down to $9.81 there, $7.99 on Kindle . . . The next host of Meet the Press wrote, "No matter your politics, Jim provides an entertaining look at just how the good intentions of a federal law or regulation can get misused over time to become more of a problem than a solution. Interestingly, lock any two veteran Washington politicians from opposite parties in a room and they'll admit that some federal agencies need to be reined in. Like anything with Washington these days, sometimes all it takes is a little sunlight to grab their attention." Don't delay! Sign up today for the NR 2014 Post-Election Caribbean Cruise, and for our spectacular pre-cruise kick-off gala November 8th featuring Ambassador John Bolton and Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio! Learn more here.
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