RUTHFULLY YOURS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Ukraine crisis has created a catalyst for Sino-Russian rapprochement. Events in Ukraine have persuaded Russia that it cannot rely on Western Europe as its primary market for hydrocarbon exports. Consequently, after decades of negotiations between Moscow and Beijing for a long term natural gas mega-contract, it seems that Russia has finally relented to China’s terms, with China becoming the senior partner in a lopsided China-Russia relationship.

There is broader context to the struggle over sovereignty in the Ukraine, and China may emerge as the victor. After a decade of negotiations between Moscow and Beijing for a long-term natural gas supply contract, it appears that Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to sign a 30-year deal during his state visit to China next week. Events in Ukraine appear to have persuaded Russia that it cannot rely on Western Europe as its primary market for hydrocarbon exports. It has therefore chosen to turn towards China. Evidently, Russia is willing to make price concessions that China has long demanded and Russia has long resisted.

China’s “New Silk Road” investment program is one of the most ambitious undertakings in world economic history. Beijing plans to build high-speed rail and broadband networks from China through to Turkey, with major spurs to Southeast Asia in the South, and through Israel and Egypt in the West. China will spend $7.3 billion to build a 3,700 kilometer pipeline from Turkmenistan, as well as shorter energy pipelines through Pakistan and other areas.

China’s economic presence in Russia’s Central Asian “near abroad” now dwarfs that of Russia. According to a report by GlobalRiskInsights,

Due to its proximity and reliability, Central Asian energy is increasingly important to Beijing. Turkmenistan is already China’s largest natural gas supplier, and Beijing invested $45 billion in energy projects in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, including oil, gas and uranium deals. Chinese-built pipelines have helped CA countries reduce their energy dependency on the Soviet-built pipelines running through Russia for oil and gas distribution. In addition, China overtook Russia as the region’s largest trade partner in 2010, with deals reaching $46 billion in 2012, compared to Russia’s $27 billion.

http://carolineglick.com/our-world-letting-go-of-abbas/ What makes PLO chief and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas tick?   In 2008, when Abbas rejected then prime minister Ehud Olmert’s expansive offer of Palestinian statehood, he did so for the same reason that Yassir Arafat rejected then prime minister Ehud Barak’s expansive offer of Palestinian statehood at Camp David in 2000.   […]

Since Business Week was bought by the Bloomberg corporation (yes..that Bloomberg), it has taken a sharp turn to the left. They recently published an editorial that called for America to welcome rapists, murderers, thieves and dope dealers to our shores.

In “Exporting Mayhem Across The Border” the magazine calls for a halt to deportations of illegal aliens (called “unauthorized immigrants” by the magazine)-especially deportations of violent criminals.

The magazine reasons deportation of these criminals is making lives rougher in the countries where these criminals are sent. The nations are being de-stabilized and weakened by the influx of the deportees with records of violent crime.

What did the U.S. expect would happen when it dumped more criminals into countries already notorious for their high homicide rates, thriving made-in-the-USA gang networks, and weak judiciaries?

Well…maybe those countries should beef up their own crime-fighting or take measures to boost their economies.

The magazine does exhort America to send funds to Latin American economies to do so and justifies this spending by blaming America for the problem.

Never mind the immorality of the U.S. outsourcing the drug war to those least capable of prosecuting it and U.S. culpability in incubating Central America’s gangs

The magazine should send a crew to chip Emma Lazarus’s poem (“The New Colossus”) off the Statute of Liberty and replace it with it:

“Give me your criminals, your thieves, your rapists, yearning to hook kids on drugs, commit crime and mayhem on Americans”.

THE MONICA VOTER
There are two types of victims. There are those Americans who consented to have a political relationship with Bill and Hillary. Twice. And there are those who didn’t.

There are the Monica Lewinskys and the Juanita Broaddricks.

There are Americans who were raped by the Clinton Administration. And there are Americans who chose to be abused by it and would still be willing to be abused by it all over again.

Obama and Clinton voters have much in common with Monica Lewinsky. They caused their own problems and yet, like Monica, they whine about being unable to find work. They blame Republicans for humiliating them by revealing their disgusting relationship with a politician who is a serial liar.

And they act as if the whole thing is someone else’s fault.

Monica Lewinsky Wasn’t a Victim —- America Was

Saudis Protest Camel Kissing Ban by Kissing Camels

CURTAINS FOR OBAMA
Dr. Richard Krugman, former associate chief of staff at the Veterans Affairs health care system based in Harlingen, Texas, said his boss implemented a policy in 2010 that colonoscopies would only be approved if the patient tested positive in three successive screenings for bloody stools.

“By the time that you do the colonoscopies on these patients, you went from a stage 1 to a stage 4 [colorectal cancer], which is basically inoperable,” said Krugman.

“That was done because of dollars and cents. For the VA, they have to be bleeding out of their rectum before they would authorize a colonoscopy. That was the standard of care,” he said.

The VA has spent a total of $489 million to upgrade conference rooms, buy draperies, and purchase new office furniture during the past four-and-a-half years.

To make the office makeovers complete, draperies, roller shades, and cornice boxes were also purchased. The VA spent $10.7 million in the past five fiscal years on curtains and draperies.

Obama’s VA Bosses Blew $500 Mil on Office Furniture While Vets Died

http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2014/05/16/from-jewess-sol-hachuel-to-christian-meriam-ibrahim-200-years-of-sharias-brutal-injustice-for-non-muslim-women-of-faith/

The striking cover art which adorns my 2008 The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, Alfred Dehodencq’s “Execution of a Moroccan Jewess” is based upon the actual execution of a Jewess from Tangier, Morocco, Sol Hachuel, believed to have occurred in 1834.

Accused, falsely, of having become a Muslim, upon adamantly and steadfastly maintaining her Jewish faith—“A Jewess I was born, a Jewess I wish to die,” the 17 year-old Sol was beheaded publicly for this contrived “apostasy” from Islam.

Fast forward nearly two centuries to a Sharia court in Khartoum, where on May 15, 2014, Meriam Ibrahim stoically refused to forsake Christianity, her lifelong faith, and the religion of the mother who raised her. Agence France Presse (AFP) described how just prior to her sentencing, “an Islamic religious leader spoke with her in the caged dock for about 30 minutes,”—likely one last ditch effort to convince Meriam to renounce her Christian faith, and become a Muslim. But despite the possibility of having her sentenced reduced, perhaps even annulled by “accepting Islam,” Meriam refused this coercive conversion, and calmly told the presiding Sharia judge the objective truth:

I am a Christian and I never committed apostasy.

In response, Judge Abbas Mohammed Al-Khalifa, addressing Meriam by her father’s Muslim name, Adraf Al-Hadi Mohammed Abdullah, rendered his Sharia-based punishment sentence:

We gave you three days to recant but you insist on not returning to Islam. I sentence you to be hanged.

Judge Khalifa also sentenced Meriam to 100 lashes for “adultery.”

Vladimir Putin has a portrait of Peter the Great prominently displayed in his office. Peter, a 17th century “czar of all the Russias,” is best remembered – at least by Putin – for having made Russia an empire by military conquest.
In the Oval Office, before President Obama sent it back, there was a bust of Winston Churchill. Now, the only counterpoint in the president’s office to Putin’s portrait of his favorite czar is probably the “selfie” the Danish prime minister took of herself and Obama at Nelson Mandela’s funeral.
The benchmark of the Obama administration’s foreign policy has been ineptitude. It is comprised of the rejection of allies, the embrace of adversaries and the failure to give the most important crises the most urgent attention.

There is an underlying narcissism and immaturity that gave rise to it all. Instead of dazzling the Queen of England with his understanding of world affairs, Obama presented her with an iPod containing some of his speeches. When then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a toy “reset” button to illustrate the supposed resetting of the two nations’ relationship, it had the wrong Russian word on it. Instead of “reset,” it said “overcharge.” That was long before former National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor, in answering a Brett Baier question on Benghazi, said, “Dude, that was, like, two years ago.”
In an equally risible example, last week first lady Michelle Obama made a plea to rescue the 276 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamic terrorists of Boko Haram. She posed with a “#BringBackOurGirls” sign which is as significant an act as the latest Tweet from Jennifer Lopez.

1. Intel is investing, additional, $6bn in its Israeli research & development centers and manufacturing plants, which currently employ 9,800 persons, expecting to add 1,000 employees, mostly in R & D. The current $3.5bn annual export by Intel – out of Israel – is expected to rise by $1bn-$2bn annually. Intel’s annual operation cost in Israel is $1bn (Globes Business Daily, May 1, 2014). The California-based pharmaceuticals giant, Hyperion, is acquiring Israel’s Andromeda for $570mn, which consists mostly of milestone payments (Globes, April 25). Pratt & Whitney (a subsidiary of the $108bn United Technologies) acquired 51% of Israel’s Lehavim – thus controlling 100% of the company – for a few hundred million dollars (Globes, May 2). Germany’s media tycoon, Axel Springer, acquired Israel’s Yad2 for $230mn (Globes, May 8). The San Diego-based giant, Qualcomm, is expected to acquire Israel’s Wilocity for $300MN. Currently, Qualcomm owns 13% of Wilocity, along with the Silicon Valley’s Tailwood Venture Partners (19%), Benchmark Capital (19%) and Sequoia Capital (19%), Cisco (4%), etc. (Globes, May 12).

2. The fiscal responsibility and growth of Israel’s economy is attested by the continued declining ratio of public debt to GDP: 66% in 2013, compared to 67% in 2012, 82% in 2006, over 100% in 2002. The 2013 OECD’s ratio was 108.5%, G20 – 115%, USA – 106%, Japan – 243.5%, Britain – 92%, Germany – 80%. Israel’s budget deficit during the year ending in April, 2014 was 2.5%, the lowest in five years (Globes, May 14). Israel’s unemployment rate during the first quarter of 2014 – 5.8%, compared to 6.2% and 6.7% during the same period in 2013 and 2014, and compared to the OECD average unemployment of 7.5% (Globes, May 1). According to the OECD, Israelis’ life expectancy is 82, 8th among the developed countries, higher than the OECD average of 80 (Israel Hayom, May 7).

Republican governors and state legislatures across the country are under pressure to accept Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, and the Obama administration and health-reform liberals are excited to announce their latest victory: Indiana governor Mike Pence has announced he’ll take the money and buy into the law he’s supposed to want to repeal.

Well, not so fast: Pence isn’t doing what, say, governors John Kasich and Chris Christie (Republican governors of bluer states) did, and decide to expand their state’s Medicaid programs basically as-is. Pence wants to use federal funding to expand an altered form of Healthy Indiana, a program the state’s run since 2008 for people with incomes up to 200 percent of the poverty level. Pence isn’t really “expanding Medicaid,” and the Obama administration can’t really claim that he’s going along with the law — he’s trying to bend it as much as possible.

But that doesn’t mean what he’s doing is a great idea, because there’s only so much he can bend it. Healthy Indiana was praised by many conservatives but criticized by others, and now Pence’s proposal both supersizes it and waters down in order to have a chance at approval from federal health-care bureaucrats. What did he have to do to it?

A brief explanation of the original Healthy Indiana (“HIP”) program: Everyone earning under 200 percent of the poverty line not already eligible for Medicaid could apply, though the number of spots were limited. HIP enrollees to make contributions between 2 and 5 percent of income every month to a health-savings account, called POWER, which the state would subsidize so that the contributions equaled $1,100 each year. The deductible for their plan was equivalent to that, $1,100, after which they had catastrophic coverage paid at Medicare (not Medicaid) rates. Preventative care was totally free — which is a good thing for the unhealthy population Medicaid serves — and were required if enrollees wanted to roll over their HSA contributions from year to year. (A good simple explanation of the program can be found in this FAQ.)

Before the ACA, lots of states around the country chose, like Indiana, to expand Medicaid beyond its standard federal eligibility categories with their own funds, but HIP was probably the most conservative and most consumer-driven. It certainly was much better than ordinary Medicaid: It required contributions from the enrollees and incentivized them to use the right care and avoid the emergency room, while ordinary Medicaid has almost no cost-sharing at all. It also got them much better access to care because its reimbursement rates were much higher than standard Medicaid’s. It was expensive — more expensive than expected — but getting health insurance for poor Americans is never going to be cheap. It was extremely popular, and though health outcomes weren’t yet clear, preventative care use was up and emergency-room use was down versus normal Medicaid.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is Jonah Goldberg’s weekly “news”letter, the G-File. Subscribe here to get the G-File delivered to your inbox on Fridays.

Dear Reader (including those of you who’ve opted not to get “Reader” tattooed on your back for fear I and this “news”letter will one day go the way of Jill Abramson),

I have breaking news!

My dog is quietly sleeping on the couch! That’s right, she is a warm puddle of furriness. Earlier this morning she rubbed up against me and asked me to feed her. Even weirder, when I asked her to sit, she didn’t. She just stared at me as if I owed her money.

My only regret is I don’t have video of this amazing activity. For if I did, I’m sure The Today Show and Good Morning America would lead with it.

I can only reach that conclusion given the global hysteria over a cat that attacked a dog that was attacking a small boy. What I mean is, if one cat out of a billion acts like your typical dog, surely when a dog acts like a typical cat, it should also be big news.

Of course, that wouldn’t happen. Why? Because we expect dogs to be dogs. Not all dogs are heroes, of course. Not all dogs follow commands. Some dogs even do bad things, like attack little kids in the driveway. But these are exceptions to our expectations. Every day some dog somewhere protects a member of his family. Every day a dog does amazing things when asked. Every day millions of dogs do less-than-amazing things like sitting or fetching or rolling over.

But here’s the thing: When a cat does it — BOOM — everyone applauds like finish-line huggers at the Special Olympics. Put a video of a cat fetching a ball up on YouTube and it will rack up views like notches on Bill Clinton’s headboard.

Through months of Obama administration stonewalling, the redoubtable Judicial Watch perseveres in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, finally uncovering bombshell documents that have eluded several congressional investigations. For the second time in a matter of days, we find that standing oversight committees with competing subject-matter jurisdictions and limited attention spans are incapable of the grand-jury-style probe needed to get to the bottom of administration lawlessness. For that, in the absence of a scrupulous special prosecutor reasonably independent from the Obama Justice Department (not gonna happen), it becomes clear that a select committee will be necessary.

Just two weeks ago, the scandal involved the cover-up of administration duplicity regarding the Benghazi massacre. (See my related article in the new edition of National Review.) Now, it is the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service.

For a year, the administration and IRS headquarters in Gomorrah by the Potomac have attempted to run an implausible con-job: The harassment of organizations opposed to Obama’s policies by an executive-branch agency had nothing to do with the Obama administration — it was just a rogue operation by an IRS office in Cincinnati which, though regrettably overzealous, was apolitical, non-ideological, and without “even a smidgen of corruption.”

The story had about as much credibility as the administration’s “blame the video” script that Susan Rice dutifully performed on the post-Benghazi Sunday shows, or the Justice Department’s 2011 assurance to Congress that its agents would never knowingly allow the transfer of a couple of thousand guns to criminal gangs in Mexico. The “Cincinnati did it” yarn has been unraveling since it was first spun by IRS honcho Lois Lerner and, soon afterwards, by President Obama himself. The lie has now been exploded by e-mails clawed from the IRS by Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act suit.

These include one from a top IRS lawyer in Washington succinctly explaining that “EOT [i.e., the revenue agency’s “Exempt Organization Technical unit” in Washington] is working Tea party applications in coordination with Cincy.” This was in July 2010, which is to say, in the key final months of Obama’s reelection campaign. “Tea party applications” were requests by conservative groups to be granted tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. By selectively setting aside their applications, delaying the conferral of tax-exempt status to which the law entitled them, and putting them through inquisitions that violated their constitutional rights to political speech and association, IRS headquarters prevented them from raising funds and organizing as an effective opposition.