RUTHFULLY YOURS

You may not have noticed, but, over the weekend, Europe died.

“The First World” basically succumbed to a long illness. It gave up the ghost as an economic force, as a culture and even as a continental political entity.

Here are two very different signs:

“Anti-Europe” politicians swept to power in the European Union (EU) parliament on a crest anger at leftist EU bureaucrats who built up layers of regulation of daily life that are unpopular with millions of people;
A well-trained terror squad murdered four people in Brussels, the seat of the EU—only the latest episode of Jew-hatred in Europe’s greatest cities. from London, Paris, Toulouse, Marseilles, Copenhagen

“Oh don’t worry about the Fascists and Right-wingers who won one small election, and don’t get alarmist about one incident of extremism,” say the feel-good crowd, but they are fooling themselves and trying to fool others.

The anti-EU vote in the European Parliament elections is not just a passing phase, and it is not just an eruption of “fascist,” “nativist” or “right-wing” emotions.

There is significant anti-EU feeling among responsible and intelligent people in many countries in Europe—people who have seen years of fat-cat EU politicians living in a fantasy world of statist theories that leave economic and social chaos.

Greece—a country that endlessly rewards incompetence and then gets bailed out—is a prime example. Some Greeks get 14 monthly salaries in 12 months.

Official unemployment continues to rise in most European countries—England, France and even Germany—but the real joblessness has climbed over 20-percent in countries like Spain. Meanwhile, people in England, France and Germany no longer want to pay pensions for slack workers in Greece and Spain.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/a-jailed-marine-and-a-silent-radical-in-chief-on-the-glazov-gang/print/

This week’s Glazov Gang, guest-hosted by superstar Josh Brewster, was joined by Titans Karen Siegemund, Founder of Rage Against the Media, Bill Whittle from BillWhittle.com and TruthRevolt.org, and Mell Flynn, President of Hollywood Congress of Republicans.

The Gang gathered to discuss A Jailed Marine and a Silent Commander-in-Chief, analyzing why Obama hasn’t made a statement that Andrew Tahmooressi could be his son.

The Titans also focused on “A Jailed Marine and a Silent Commander-in-Chief,” “The VA Hospital Scandal and Double Standards,” “Ted Cruz Rising,” “The Growing American Police State?” and much, much more.

Don’t miss it!

Apparently the reality that America’s economic output declined by 1 percent in the first quarter, retail and home sales are plummeting, and a record-setting 1 in 8 (or 10 million) American men in their prime working years between ages 25–54 aren’t working or looking for work will be no impediment for a president determined to impose a radical environmentalist agenda on the nation. On Monday, the Obama administration announced the first-of-their-kind national limits on carbon emissions from the nation’s more than 600 coal-fired power plants. The proposed regulation, implemented by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), will demand a 30 percent cut in emissions by 2030.

At a Feb. 11, 2014 hearing of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations related to the status of clean coal programs, Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) spelled out the real-world consequences of such a plan, explaining that Americans could expect an increase in electricity costs ranging from 40 percent at a coal gasification facility, to as much as 80 percent at a pulverized coal power plant, according to the Department of Energy’s own documentation. The reliably leftist New York Times illuminates the implications, noting that the regulations could lead to the closing of “hundreds” of such facilities.

Unsurprisingly, the effort completely bypasses Congress, undoubtedly because it would be as DOA as it was when the Democratically-controlled legislative branch failed to pass such cap-and-trade legislation in 2010. Thus our constitutionally-comtemptuous president has rendered members of Congress superfluous, even as the EPA becomes their de facto replacement.

The administration offers a degree of flexibility in achieving these goals. They include allowing states to reduce emissions by installing solar, wind or other energy-efficiency technology, and by creating or joining cap-and-trade programs at the state or regional level that allow such entities to cap emissions, and then buy and sell permits that allow plants to continue to emit greenhouse gases—as long as they pay a suitable fee for doing so. That fee that will inevitably be passed down to consumers. Yet in keeping with the administration’s imperialist impulses, if such state- or regionally-imposed rules do not satisfy the EPA’s guidelines the agency will act unilaterally to force such entities into compliance.

Those affected are planning to sue. “Clearly, it is designed to materially damage the ability of conventional energy sources to provide reliable and affordable power, which in turn can inflict serious damage on everything from household budgets to industrial jobs,” said Scott Segal, a lawyer with Bracewell & Giuliani, a firm representing coal companies in anticipated litigation. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt also plans to challenge the regulations in court. “The Clean Air Act clearly sets out a role for EPA to suggest guidelines, while granting states authority to develop and implement specific proposals to achieve the goals of the Clean Air Act,” he told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Should the EPA’s proposed regulation force states to adopt a ‘cap and trade’ scheme or any other specific proposal, it would violate the law and likely be challenged in court.”

Such challenges, as well as litigation anticipated by other industry groups and other states such as West Virginia, North Dakota, Alaska and Texas revolve around the EPA’s use of a little-used section of the Clean Air Act to create its new regulations. The implementation of section 111 (d) of the Act is necessitated by the reality that carbon dioxide isn’t regulated under major Clean Air Act programs that address air pollutants. The EPA claims it has used that section to previously regulate five sources of air pollutants, but none of those approach the magnitude of their attempt to regulate carbon dioxide.

‘We Swore to an Oath and We Upheld Ours. He Did Not.’

The Obama administration is facing mounting questions about the controversial prisoner swap that freed Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from jihadists in Pakistan in exchange for the transfer and ultimate release of five senior Taliban commanders previously held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Lawmakers are questioning the wisdom and legality of the move. Intelligence officials are expressing deep concerns about its ramifications. And those who served with Bergdahl—or took risks in the efforts to rescue him—are directly challenging the Obama administration’s characterization of the former captive and his actions.

In an appearance on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, National Security Adviser Susan Rice claimed that Bergdahl “wasn’t simply a hostage, he was an American prisoner of war, taken on the battlefield.” She added: “He served the United States with honor and distinction.”

“That’s not true,” says Specialist Cody Full, who served in the same platoon as Bergdahl, and whose tweets over the weekend as @CodyFNfootball offered an early firsthand account of Bergdahl’s departure. “He was not a hero. What he did was not honorable. He knowingly deserted and put thousands of people in danger because he did. We swore to an oath and we upheld ours. He did not.”

“He walked off—and ‘walked off’ is a nice way to put it,” says Specialist Josh Cornelison, the medic in Bergdahl’s platoon. “He was accounted for late that afternoon. He very specifically planned to walk out in the middle of the night.”

“He was a deserter,” says Specialist Full. “There’s no question in the minds of anyone in our platoon.”

In interviews, several of Bergdahl’s platoon mates described a soldier who was contemplative, detached and quixotic. He wrote adventure stories—”Jason Bourne, Ramboish type of shit,” says one soldier—that placed himself at the center of the action. “He’d write ‘Bowe Bergdahl walked across the dark and dusty street’ or something like that.”

It is commonplace to attribute much of Israel’s domestic tensions to supposed Jewish discrimination against the country’s Arab citizens.[1] Nearly every Israeli Arab nongovernmental organization insists that such discrimination characterizes the Jewish state in general and its labor markets in particular.[2] The Israeli media routinely interview Israeli Arabs (and non-Ashkenazi Jews) who claim to have been victims of discrimination. These allegeations are echoed by Jewish Israeli academics, think tanks, and journalists, especially on the political Left, not to mention the international anti-Israel movement and the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign. Indeed, the U.S. Department of State has even joined the growing outcry concerning Israel’s alleged racist discrimination against its Arab citizens.[3]

Of course, in reality, Israel is the only Middle Eastern entity that is not an apartheid regime, and the apartheid slander holds no water whatsoever save in the minds of the Jewish state’s enemies and defamers. Yet discrimination is a scientifically empirical question subject to testing and not a matter of subjective personal opinion. Stripping away the venomous anti-Israel rhetoric, the legitimate question remains whether and how much discrimination really exists in Israel.

Inequality Myths

Ethnicity in Israel is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. Both Jews and Arabs are subdivided into ethnic sub-groups, making exploration and analysis of ethnic disparities a complex challenge. In official statistical data on income, Israeli Arabs are treated as a single population group, but this is somewhat misleading. There are important differences in socio-economic status and performance among Arab Christians, Arab Muslims, and Druse. Those sub-categories are in fact amalgams of even smaller divisions. For example, there are interesting differences between “ordinary” Arab Muslims and Bedouins. The Israeli Income Survey sample does not include the Arab population of the “occupied territories,” except for East Jerusalem and the small population of the Golan Heights, both of which are formally annexed to Israel.

Ethnicity among Jews is even more complex. It is commonly measured in Israel for statistical purposes based upon the continent of birth of the person or the person’s father. Jews born in Asia and Africa (or the children of fathers born there) correspond roughly to Sephardic or Mizrahi Jews. Those born in Europe, the United States, or Australia (and their children) correspond roughly to Ashkenazi or Western Jews. These distinctions are imperfect as there are Ashkenazi Jews who come from Asia and Africa (including South Africa and some Egyptian Jews) and Sephardic Jews who come from Europe (including from Greece, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria). Over time this “continent of birth” criterion for defining ethnicity is losing its validity because of the rapid increase in native-born Israelis who are themselves sons and daughters of native-born Israelis. In addition, the high intermarriage rate among Jews in Israel from different communities is blurring ethnic distinctions.[4]

Hillary Clinton will shortly release a memoir, Hard Choices, chronicling her tenure as secretary of state. If what she has to say in its pages resembles what she had to say from the stage at the American Jewish Committee’s (AJC) annual Global Forum on May 14—where she claimed undue credit for implementing sanctions against Iran—it’s worth setting the record straight now.

In reality, the Obama administration, and Clinton ’s State Department in particular, opposed, dragged their feet on, and sought to water down every piece of sanctions legislation introduced by bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate. With that history now being rewritten, let’s review the actual record.

President Obama took office believing that personal diplomacy without “preconditions” would convince Iran ’s leaders to relinquish their nuclear ambitions. As Clinton later explained in an interview with CNN’s Candy Crowley, “We believed that the effort of seeking engagement would actually strengthen our hand.”

Others were unconvinced. In April 2009 Congress signaled its skepticism of this “carrots and carrots” approach by introducing several sticks in the form of sanctions bills—of which the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act of 2009 (IRPSA) was the most notable.

Sure enough the administration’s “outstretched hand” was met with an Iranian middle finger over the following months: There were repeated Iranian rebuffs of negotiations; a stolen election in June; Tehran’s atavistic repression of the pro-democracy Green Movement which followed that election; Iran’s rejection of a comprehensive fuel-swap deal after commitments were made to the contrary; and, finally, Iran’s disclosure of its secret underground Fordow enrichment complex after that site had been discovered by Western intelligence services.

Consequently, towards the end of 2009, congressional skepticism about the administration’s quixotic diplomacy morphed into open hostility.

The Israeli security barrier certainly causes much contention. Despite the enormous length and breadth of China’s Great Wall, Israel’s protective shield is much debated. Although Saudi Arabia’s $700 million electrified wall is grander, Israel’s is more maligned. Thailand’s 75 km barrier with Malaysia was also constructed to protect against Muslims, yet Israel’s is more vilified. Even though more walls exist in the United Kingdom to separate Protestants from Catholics, Pope Francis Xavier finds Israel’s more attention-worthy. Neither does this pope mention the massive walls around the Vatican (photo above), yet the surrounding Italians are peaceful, charming and friendly.

And how about when Pope Francis endorsed redistribution of wealth? Did he ever consider returning to Israel all the Jewish artifacts that had been pillaged by Roman soldiers over the centuries and are now concealed in the Vatican’s vast treasure caves?

The pope never once acknowledged that Israeli lives – Jewish, Christian, and Muslim – have been saved by the security barricade. Rather, by comparing Israel’s safeguard that keeps terrorists from murdering Israelis to the Warsaw Ghetto walls that imprisoned a captured and tormented Jewish people until they were put to death, he validated the Islamic terrorists.

The wall prevents the Palestinians from fulfilling the Qur’anic decree of killing those who will not convert to Islam. It may also be a creative outlet for the illiterate, unschooled, and otherwise-idle youths who have no other method of venting their regime-driven frustration and anger. However, having just read that Hamas pays youths to riot with stones on the Temple Mount, acting out at the wall may be another profitable source of income.

As Nonie Darwish explains in Cruel and Unusual Punishment, Muslims resent the Jews’ having accomplished more in 66 years than their brethren have in 1400, and they experience shame of false prestige for taking ownership of invention and creativity from the vanquished. Therefore, rather than compete in a modern world of ideas, Islam prefers to sacrifice generations of women and children to destroy Israel. Islam is not a religion, but an Arab imperialism and protectionist tool to preserve their supremacist Arab culture. To this end, Islamists created Sharia and jihad, from which they grant themselves to defame, intimidate, lie, terrorize, kill, and wage war.

I spoke Monday with a highly decorated former Special Forces operator and asked what he thought about Bowe Bergdahl, the Army sergeant who was released over the weekend after five years of Taliban captivity in exchange for five hard cases out of Gitmo.

The former operator suggested a firing squad might be appropriate.

His view is widely shared in the community of warriors who risked—and, in at least six cases, lost—their lives searching for a soldier who wrote his parents that “the horror that is america is disgusting” before vanishing from his post in Afghanistan in 2009.

Whether Sgt. Bergdahl was taken by the enemy, deserted the Army or defected to the Taliban remains to be established. But just to be clear where the former operator is coming from, Article 85 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice states: “Any person found guilty of desertion or attempt to desert shall be punished, if the offense is committed in time of war, by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct.”

But wait: We are not “in time of war.” We are in Time of Obama.

In Time of Obama, dereliction of duty is heroism, releasing mass murderers with American blood on their hands is a good way to start a peace process, negotiating with terrorists is not negotiating with terrorists, and exchanging senior Taliban commanders for a lone American soldier is not an incentive to take other Americans hostage but rather proof that America brings its people home.

In Time of Obama, we may get the facts about the circumstances of Sgt. Bergdahl’s disappearance and captivity. But first his parents are going to get an invitation to the White House so Mr. Obama can milk the occasion for his own political purposes. First Sgt. Bergdahl will be welcomed home by Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. First “senior defense officials” are going to prejudge a potential verdict by a military court because, as one such official averred, “five years is enough.”

In Time of Obama it has become impossible to credit claims by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and National Security Adviser Susan Rice that a prisoner exchange had to be made because Sgt. Bergdahl was in dangerously declining health.

This assertion was instantly contradicted by eyewitness accounts that the sergeant was “in good condition” when he was released by his captors. “Freed U.S. soldier Bowe Berghdal developed a love for Afghan green tea, taught his captors badminton, and even celebrated Christmas and Easter with the hardline Islamists,” the AFP reported Sunday, citing a Pakistani militant commander.

No one begrudges Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl and his family the relief and joy they feel now that he is free from the hell of enemy confinement. But in the aftermath of his welcome release, it is striking to read the accounts of his former military comrades who wonder about the price the country has paid to retrieve him after he wandered from his post in Afghanistan.

That price includes the danger that the five Taliban terrorists traded for his release will return to the battlefield to kill again. Perhaps other Americans will be their targets. But more tangibly for those who served with Sgt. Bergdahl, the price includes those who were wounded or killed in the five-year search to locate and retrieve him.

First-hand accounts are appearing, on and off the record, from men who served in the unit with Sgt. Bergdahl or who were part of the special forces teams dispatched to find him. The resources devoted to the search were enormous, and some of those soldiers will never return.

We don’t know the complete story of how and why Sgt. Bergdahl vanished at a forward base in Afghanistan. But there is evidence to suggest that he left his post without authorization and was then captured. Emails he sent to his parents before his capture also suggest he was alienated from the Army and his mission, and perhaps even his country.

What Sgt. Bergdahl now owes his comrades, and his country, is a full accounting of his actions before and after he was taken prisoner. The videos he made while captive were no doubt coerced under duress. But serving as an enemy prisoner is not absolution for any military dereliction that led to his capture. His fellow soldiers and now his government have risked much to get Sgt. Bergdahl home. Now Sgt. Bergdahl’s duty is to face up to the consequences of his own actions as a soldier.

We’ve filed a Senate ethics complaint against nine Senators who prodded the agency to silence opponents.

(Dick Durbin-Illinois, Charles Schumer- New York, Carl Levin-Michigan,Michael Bennet -Colorado, Sheldon Whitehouse -Rhode Island, Al Franken -Minnesotta, Jeanne Shaheen New Hamshire, Jeff Merkley Oregon and Tom Udall New Mexico.

Carl Levin is retiring, Dick Durbin, Al Franken, Jeff Merkley, Tom Udall, Jeanne Shaheen, are incumbents this year)

On Monday the Center for Competitive Politics filed a complaint with the Senate Select Committee on Ethics against nine U.S. senators: for interfering with IRS tax proceedings; for misusing official resources for campaign purposes; and for improper conduct that reflects poorly upon the Senate. Attempting to use the IRS to advance a partisan, electoral agenda is a fundamental assault on good government. We believe these elected officials have staged such an assault.

The complaint documents how the senators improperly interfered with IRS adjudications to further their party’s electoral prospects. They pressured the IRS to undertake income-tax investigations of specific organizations, to find that specific organizations were in violation of the law, to reach predetermined results pertaining to pending applications by individual organizations for nonprofit status, and to adopt specific regulatory interpretations and policies to further their campaign goals.

A year ago in May it became public knowledge that the IRS had improperly targeted conservative organizations. Republicans have since attempted to find a “smoking gun” directly linking the scandal to the White House. That likely does not exist, because that’s not the way these things are done. Meanwhile, their quest has helped enable the press to ignore obvious abuses of power emanating from the Senate.

After the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision on Jan. 21, 2010, Democrats adopted a campaign strategy of attempting to squelch the speech of conservative groups. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.)—named in our complaint—introduced the so-called Disclose Act, saying on Feb. 11 that it would make targeted speakers “think twice” before speaking out. “The deterrent effect should not be underestimated,” he added.

At campaign fundraisers in the summer of 2010, President Obama repeatedly denounced conservative organizations for “running millions of dollars of attack ads against Democratic candidates,” identifying Americans for Prosperity by name. On Aug. 27 the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee filed a complaint with the IRS against Americans for Prosperity.

Senate Democrats twice failed, on straight party-line votes, to end a filibuster of the Disclose Act. Mr. Obama told Democratic donors that they had “tried to fix” the problem but failed.

The attempt to silence opponents through legislation may be ugly, but such hardball politics are not a violation of Senate ethics rules. After failing to pass Disclose, however, the senators in our complaint began a pattern of improper conduct aimed at pressuring the IRS to harass and investigate their political opponents.

Senators may inquire about agency practices and operations. But they cross an ethical line when they interfere in pending tax exemption applications or pressure an agency to investigate or prosecute specific organizations.

Just days after the final defeat of the Disclose Act in October 2010, Sen. Richard Durbin (D., Ill.)—another senator in our complaint—wrote to IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman on his official letterhead to demand that the IRS “quickly examine the tax status of Crossroads GPS,” a major conservative nonprofit.