RUTHFULLY YOURS

As the week ended, Obama’s palace guard in the American media were demanding that every other Republican candidate distance himself from Donald Trump’s failure to correct, among thousands of attendees at his events, one who apparently is under the reprehensible illusion that the President is a Muslim.

Any candidate who plays this game with the Obamamedia is a fool. Assuming for the sake of argument that the questioner is genuine and not a plant (like, say, the 14-year old all-American schoolboy clockmaker who didn’t make a clock at all and is the son of a belligerent Muslim activist and perennial Sudanese presidential candidate whose brother runs a trucking company amusingly called Twin Towers Transportation), putting all of that to one side, there are several entirely reasonable responses one could make to the gentlemen of the press:

1) Unlike Hillary Clinton’s under-attended “rallies”, a voter doesn’t have to undergo a background check or sign a piece of paper pledging to support her in the election before being permitted into a Republican candidate’s presence. So at our campaign events there are all kinds of people with all kinds of views – and it goes without saying I won’t agree with them all. If you find that odd, maybe you’ve been covering Hillary too long.

The votes are in, and supporters of the Iran deal appear to have won a big victory in the U.S. Congress. The Corker-Cardin legislation set up a process whereby the Iran deal would be handled as an executive agreement rather than a treaty, and as a result, deal opponents would have needed two-thirds of both the Senate and the House of Representatives to secure a victory (meaning a rejection of the deal), through an override of an Obama veto of their initial rejection of the agreement.

How did the deal opponents do? In the Senate, 58 of the 100 senators announced their opposition to the agreement — all 54 Republicans and 4 Democrats. Some 42 Democrats announced their support for the deal. To protect President Barack Obama from the humiliation of having to veto an initial rejection of the agreement (his self-described signature foreign policy and second-term “achievement”), Democratic senators filibustered and refused to allow a vote on the deal itself. But in the vote on cloture — the attempt to cut off debate so that there would be a vote on the agreement itself, the 42 Democrats in the president’s corner held together and prevented that vote. Of course, every vote on the cloture resolution was the same as the announced support or rejection of the deal by senators before the discussions before the actual vote began. So it is not as if we did not know where every senator stood on the deal.

Brainsway’s Deep TMS therapy system helps treat PTSD, bipolar, depression and other conditions

The US Navy will be using an Israeli-developed transcranial magnetic stimulation system to treat patients with a range of psychological conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), stress, major depressive disorder, and others.

The Navy has ordered several Deep TMS therapy helmets made by Jerusalem-based Brainsway for use in several of its medical facilities to help treat sailors and their families, as part of a therapy plan that could include counseling, anti-depressives, and other therapies.

“Our validation as a supplier to the US Navy is an important stepping stone for our company into the US market,” said Brainsway CEO and president Guy Ezekiel. “The Navy provides health services to many service people and to their families at a large number of treatment centers, and we are proud to be a part of those services.”

Twenty alarmist climate scientists – including UN IPCC lead author Kevin ‘Travesty’ Trenberth – have written a letter to President Obama urging him to use RICO laws to crush dissent by climate skeptics. Their hypocrisy and dishonesty, especially that of the main signatory, almost defies belief.
The letter goes like this:

September 1, 2015

Dear President Obama, Attorney General Lynch, and OSTP Director Holdren,
As you know, an overwhelming majority of climate scientists are convinced about the potentially serious adverse effects of human-induced climate change on human health, agriculture, and biodiversity. We applaud your efforts to regulate emissions and the other steps you are taking. Nonetheless, as climate scientists we are exceedingly concerned that America’s response to climate change – indeed, the world’s response to climate change – is insufficient. The risks posed by climate change, including increasing extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and increasing ocean acidity – and potential strategies for addressing them – are detailed in the Third National Climate Assessment (2014), Climate Change Impacts in the United States. The stability of the Earth’s climate over the past ten thousand years contributed to the growth of agriculture and therefore, a thriving human civilization. We are now at high risk of seriously destabilizing the Earth’s climate and irreparably harming people around the world, especially the world’s poorest people.

The great task of diplomacy in the 21st century is a sad and dreary one, namely managing the decline of Muslim civilization. There is a parallel to the great diplomatic problem of the late 19th and early 20thcentury, the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, which the diplomats bungled horribly.

It is no job for the idealistic, namely the Americans, nor for the squeamish, namely the Europeans. The breakdown of civil order in a great arc from Beirut to Basra has already displaced 20 million people and raised the world refugee count from 40 million in 2011 to 60 million in 2014, with scores of millions at risk. After it failed to build democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States fell into a sullen torpor in which serious discussion of intervention in the regime is excluded. The hypocritical Europeans averted their eyes until millions of desperate people appeared on their doorstep, and remain clueless in the face of the worst humanitarian crisis since the last world war.

The House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee on Thursday, as part of an investigation of federal law enforcement officers, held a hearing into allegations of serious misconduct by members of the Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS) working out of their Chicago office, according to a report released by Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Transportation Security Sub-committee Chairman John Mica, R-Florida.
The allegations made against the air marshals, the majority of whom are stationed in Chicago, include hiring prostitutes and using the government telephones and other government-issued equipment to film or videotape pornographic material involving sexual encounters between the marshals and women who were propositioned to participate in what amounts to production of pornographic images.

Among those testifying at Thursday’s hearing was Roderick Allison, the director of the Office of Law Enforcement/Federal Air Marshal Service, Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Also testifying was the TSA’s Heather Book, the assistant administrator of the Office of Professional Responsibility, also a part of DHS.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/isis-suspects/

U.S. authorities have charged 64 men and women around the country with alleged Islamic State activities. Men outnumber women in those cases by about 5 to 1. The average age of the individuals — some have been charged, others have been convicted — is 25. One is a minor. The FBI says that, in a handful of cases, it has disrupted plots targeting U.S. military or law enforcement personnel.
The charged, by state
Mufid A. Elfgeeh Rochester, N.Y.
Charged: Sept. 15, 2014 | Age when charged: 30

Elfgeeh encouraged two other people to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State and helped prepare them for the trip, according to the U.S. government. He also discussed the idea of shooting U.S. military members, saying he was thinking that he would “just go around and start shooting.” After he purchased two handguns with silencers and ammunition, the FBI says, he was arrested by members of the Rochester, N.Y., Joint Terrorism Task Force. Source.
Nihad Rosic Utica, N.Y.
Charged: Feb. 6, 2015 | Age when charged: 26

Rosic, a Bosnian native who became a naturalized citizen, is among six other Bosnian immigrants accused of sending money and military supplies to terror groups in Iraq and Syria. The government said that last July, he tried to board a flight from New York to Syria to join the fighting. Source.
Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev Brooklyn, N.Y.
Charged: Feb. 25, 2015 | Age when charged: 24

Juraboev made a posting on an Uzbek-language Web site propagating Islamic State theology, offering to kill the president of the United States if ordered by the Islamic State, according to the government. The indictment said he then planned to travel to Turkey and then Syria to wage jihad on behalf of the group. Source.
Akhror Saidakhmetov Brooklyn, N.Y.
Charged: Feb. 25, 2015 | Age when charged: 19

Saidakhmetov, a citizen of Kazakhstan, was arrested while trying to board a flight to Istanbul. The government alleges that he and Juraboev were planning to go to Syria to wage jihad on behalf of the Islamic State. Source.
Abror Habibov Brooklyn, N.Y.
Charged: Feb. 25, 2015 | Age when charged: 30

Habibov, who is Uzbeki, helped pay for Saidakhmetov’s effort to join the Islamic State, the government alleges. Source.
Noelle Velentzas Brooklyn, N.Y.
Charged: April 2, 2015 | Age when charged: 28

Velentzas and Asia Siddiqui were allegedly preparing an explosive device to detonate in the United States. According to the government’s complaint, Velentzas at one point pulled a knife from her bra and demonstrated how to stab someone to Siddiqui and an undercover police officer, saying, “Why we can’t be some real bad bitches?” Source.
Asia Siddiqui Brooklyn, N.Y.
Charged: April 2, 2015 | Age when charged: 31

Velentzas and Siddiqui were until recently roommates in an apartment in Queens. Siddiqui acquired multiple propane gas tanks, as well as instructions on how to turn them into explosive devices, according to the government. Source.
Dilkhayot Kasimov Brooklyn, N.Y.
Charged: April 6, 2015 | Age when charged: 26

The government alleges that Kasimov, together with Habibo, helped fund Saidakhmetov’s efforts to join the Islamic State, collecting more than $1,600 for him to use on his trip to Syria. Kasimov also encouraged other people to join the fight, according to the charges. Source.
Akmal Zakirov Brooklyn, N.Y.
Charged: June 8, 2015 | Age when charged: 29

Zakirov allegedly helped fund another person’s trip to join ISIS. Source.
Munther Omar Saleh Queens, N.Y.
Charged: June 16, 2015 | Age when charged: 20

Saleh, a college student in Queens studying electrical circuitry, allegedly planned to attack New York City landmarks on behalf of the Islamic State. The government said Saleh also translated Islamic State propaganda into English.

Chancellor Merkel today seems to be promising nothing less than absolution for Germany’s sins of the Holocaust. The problem is, of course, that Muslims are quite different from Jews.

German media outlets have suppressed the stories of rampant rape and child abuse among the migrants housed in government-run accommodations.

The editor-in-chief defended her decision to suppress the rape story on public TV broadcaster ZDF: “We don’t want to inflame the situation and spread the bad mood. [The migrants] don’t deserve it.” That the poor rape victim deserved justice was apparently of no concern to the broadcaster.

Germany under Chancellor Merkel wants to play “Miss Congeniality” at the global scale, and wants Europe to pick up the tab.

Iran hails Jeremy Corbyn for ‘shaking the British ruling class’The Labour leader is lionised in Tehran for taking on the “British aristocracy” – and appreciating Iran’s contribution to peace in the Middle East.

Jeremy Corbyn is a “lifelong human rights activist” who recognises Iran’s ability to “bring peace” to the Middle East, according to a senior ally of the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader.

Syed Salman Safavi, who serves as an aide to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has lavished praise on Mr Corbyn, following the example of Iran’s official media which has chosen to lionise the new Labour leader.

Most British politicians are portrayed in Iran as wicked conspirators, bent on destroying the Islamic Republic at the behest of “Zionists” and “capitalists”. But Mr Corbyn is seen as the great exception.

This statement is so apposite to the pseudo campaign of Donald Trump….and the appeal of Carson and Fiorina….rsk

“Mr Corbyn has spent his political life as an unofficial leader of what Mark Steyn once called the National Coalition Against Anything That Works. Now he is obliged to offer proposals that have to work. Instead, all we are hearing are platitudes about “making the world a better place”. It is time to make the case for professional politics, but for that to be credible, the professionals will have to stop behaving like a confederacy of rule-bending opportunists. ”

Self-serving, rule-bending MPs have a lot to answer for after the rise of Jeremy Corbyn Disgust with our political class made the new Labour leader’s ‘authenticity’ the be-all and end-all of his insurgent campaign.

When exactly did “professional” become a term of abuse for politicians? Or, put that another way: why is running the country the only job in which being unprofessional is considered to be a virtue?

The opposite of “professional” is “amateur”. Would you really want an amateur prime minister presiding over an amateur government that ran an amateur economic policy and an amateur system of national security? I doubt it. Maybe you would trust a doctor who crowdsourced his diagnoses and asked laymen to offer possible treatments. Again, I doubt it. Perhaps you would consider handing over your worldly affairs to a lawyer or a financial adviser who appealed to the public for solutions to your problems. I’m inclined to think not.

Of course, democratic politics is different from the learned professions – or even the skilled trades. It is not supposed to be an arcane expertise in which only the initiated can participate. The power over how people are governed should belong to them, and that power should not require specialist qualifications or technical knowledge. That principle is, supposedly, what Jeremy voice-of-the-people Corbyn’s brand of party leadership is about. This can have a kind of plausibility.