RUTHFULLY YOURS

Among the Affordable Care Act’s many economic and political disruptions, the law has unintentionally encouraged employers to convert full-time jobs into part-time jobs. ObamaCare mandates that employers offer health insurance to employees who work more than 30 hours a week, or pay a penalty up to $3,000 an employee. But employers have no such obligation for employees who work less than 30 hours a week, making part-time employment less costly.

It’s a simple fact: Make something more expensive and people will use less of it; make something less expensive and they will use more of it. So naturally employee hours have been reduced, particularly in the retail segment, which has lowered wages and reduced consumer spending.

On Thursday the House addressed this issue by passing by 252-172 the Save American Workers Act, a bipartisan bill that would restore the definition of “full-time employee” to the 40-hour workweek threshold. Now it will head to the Senate, where Republicans will need six Democratic votes to send the legislation to the White House, which has already threatened to veto it. This isn’t Republicans’ first try; in April 2014, the House passed a near-identical measure that, like so many other bills, died in Democrat Harry Reid ’s Senate.

Below is the most recent opinion piece by the Austrian writer Andreas Unterberger, as published last Friday at the author’s website. Many thanks to JLH for the translation:

The new book by the bestselling French author Michel Houellebecq is on everyone’s mind, because of the Paris attacks. It envisions a Muslim president of France in eight years, and the elimination of all “infidels” from the “Islamic University of the Sorbonne.” Actually, the demographic development makes that most likely a few years later. But, in fact, the triumph of Islam over what was once the West could take place in eight years. Indeed, the tendency of most leftist parties is to prefer voting for Muslim candidates than for those from anti-Islamic parties.

That is the logical result of their intensive efforts in recent years to label all Islam critics as neo-Nazis. It was ostensibly a strategy to retain power, but with no factual basis. This characterization has become an unquestioned axiom and, therefore, a self-made trap.

Something similar is happening in Germany, where there has been increasing support for Islam-critical demonstrations. Where, however, all the Bundestag parties (excepting only the CSU*) have made the mistake of denouncing as rightist-radical the rapidly growing concerns of that portion of the population that is still in the majority. Even as partisan tactics, that is stupid. It is to be expected that Muslim-qua-Muslim parties will be forming everywhere in Europe in coming years. And as that happens, the present membership of Muslims in red and green parties will be a thing of the past.

The SPD parliamentary leader Opperman had a particularly dramatic reaction after the Paris attacks. “These are killers, not Muslims,” he decreed, without explaining why these two terms should be mutually exclusive, And, as a reaction to this attack on freedom of expression, he actually demanded that PEGIDA stop its demonstrations. With no understanding of the fact that this is what the Islamists want — for any further peaceful exercise of freedom of expression to be made impossible. Some Europeans believe that prognoses about an Islamic majority are like predictions of economic cycles — just reading tea leaves. But that is wrong, because demography — even in reference to the future — is based on hard facts. The mothers of the next generations are already born. Or not born. And the tendency to be prolific is an amazingly firm constant. The more educated, the more cosmopolitan, the more non-Muslim women are, the fewer children they have. That has been true for decades now. And in every country in Europe. It is therefore almost inevitable that several European countries will have Muslim majorities sometime in this century.

Sweden: A Democratic Joke
by Alfred Fredriksson

The Swedish Domestic Minister Anders Ygeman said during Folk och försvar (Swedish defense conference) today that it is possible that there will be terror attacks in Sweden. At the same time he strongly criticized opponents of mass immigration and compared them to terrorists.

“Je Suis Ahmed”, he proclaimed.

The domestic minister briefly addressed the terror attacks in Paris followed by a long description of Muslims in Europe and Sweden as an oppressed group. He compared critics of mass immigration with terrorists who murder people.

“Je Suis Ahmed”, he proclaimed and continued, “Ahmed Merabet, the 42-year old Muslim police officer who gave his life to defend Charlie Hebdo’s right to joke about Muslims.”

He chose to focus on Merabet because he was a Muslim, but he did not mention the fifteen other people who died in the gruesome attacks. That is not to say Merabet doesn’t deserve our respect and his family our condolences, but not even mentioning all the other people who died is blatantly disrespectful. Afterwards Ygeman focused on the fire at the mosque in Eskilstuna — a fire which after media speculation and a comprehensive police investigation turned out to be the result of an accident, not hate crime against Muslims.

“Dark forces on both sides are trying to make the struggle against terrorism into a war between religions,” he claimed.

Before discussing the likelihood of Sweden’s suffering a terrorist attack he also claimed that the “brothers in Paris were no warriors,” referring to Said and Chérif Koachi who shortly before the terrorist attacks were in the Middle East waging war on behalf of the Islamic State.

“We have to dare to think that this could happen in Sweden and take necessary steps to protect ourselves,” he said and continued, “It is extremely difficult to protect against perpetrators who are prepared to die to harm others. We can’t protect ourselves against everything.”

During the questions after his speech Ygeman admitted that it is easy for immigrants to get Swedish passports — passports often used for smuggling of illegal immigrants and by terrorists who travel to Syria and Iraq to participate in gruesome acts of violence.

“It shouldn’t be possible to obtain ten to fifteen passports; we have to tighten regulations,” he said.

Your Excellency, many Palestinians nearly fell off their chairs upon seeing their president march at the front row of a rally in your capital to protest against terrorism and assaults on freedom of the media.

Undoubtedly, you are unaware of the fact that President Abbas is personally responsible for punishing Palestinian journalists who dare to criticize him or express their views in public. Every day we see that the Western media, including French newspapers and magazines, does not care about such violations unless they are committed by Israel.

Your Excellency, you are completely mistaken if you believe that Abbas and his Palestinian Authority are tolerant toward satire or any form of criticism. While he was attending the rally, a human rights group published a report accusing the Palestinian Authority of “waging war” against university students in the West Bank.

President Abbas has managed once again to deceive you and the rest of the international community. He now has managed to create the false impression that he cares about freedom of speech and independent journalism

Palestinians like me will now pay a heaver price because Abbas has been emboldened and will now step up his assaults. France will be helping to establish another corrupt and repressive Arab dictatorship — one that glorifies and rewards terrorists no different from those who carried out the Paris attacks.

I hope now your Excellency understands why I am too scared to reveal my identity.

The spread of Islam apparently trumps the First Amendment in the view of President Obama.

By now, most of America should realize that Barack Obama has a special mission in life to shield Islam from criticism.

But pressuring the media should be a step too far considering the President takes an oath to defend the Constitution and thus the most important of amendments: free speech.

But, according to the president’s press secretary, Barack Obama has no such desire when it comes to criticism of Islam.

Neil Munro of the Daily Caller writes:

President Barack Obama has a moral responsibility to push back on the nation’s journalism community when it is planning to publish anti-jihadi articles that might cause a jihadi attack against the nation’s defenses forces, the White House’s press secretary said Jan. 12.

“The president … will not now be shy about expressing a view or taking the steps that are necessary to try to advocate for the safety and security of our men and women in uniform” whenever journalists’ work may provoke jihadist attacks, spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters at the White House’s daily briefing.

So the man who reckoned Obama would make a great president because of his “perfectly creased pant” thinks that Charlie Hebdo belonged at the “kiddie table”. One of the problems with public discourse in America is that David Brooks is considered what the French call an homme sérieux.

~I have complained in recent days about the horrible, self-flattering, evasiveness of all those pen-is-mightier-than-the-sword cartoons. So (via The Prussian) credit where it’s due to the Berliner Kurier for the front page at right, with the headline “NO! You cannot murder our freedom” and underneath, for once, a cartoon that lives up to it: the Prophet gleefully bathing in blood.

Unlike the Hamburger Morgenpost, they have not (yet) been firebombed.

~Speaking of des hommes sérieux, one other casualty of a bloody week in Paris appears to be the latest novel by Michel Houellebecq. M Houellebecq was, in fact, pictured on the cover of last week’s Charlie Hebdo – the issue that hit newsstands just before its editorial staff were murdered. His novel, Soumission (Submission) was published that very day:

Environmentalists have a host of arguments for not building the Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline would traverse the environmentally sensitive Sandhills region of Nebraska and the Ogallala aquifer; it would increase global warming by encouraging more development of Canadian tar sands; it would transport oil to the Gulf only to have it trans-exported to other countries. Finally, it was the subject of an ongoing landowner lawsuit that would have to be resolved before construction began, so the project might be blocked by the courts anyway.

Each of these arguments has been refuted, so the left has come up with an even more fanciful objection. When oil prices were high, they argued that more supply had failed to reduce prices, so the pipeline would make no difference. Now that increased supply from fracking and other sources has cut prices by more than half, the same crowd argues that the Keystone XL is not needed because prices are already low. They now admit that increased oil supply from the pipeline would lower prices, but since prices at the moment are low, why build it?

When it comes to condemning Islam for inspiring terrorists to kill, the mainstream media is addicted to moral relativism and shilling for Mohammad.

My Dangerous New York Times Interview

In a startling and unexpected turn of events, I was granted the opportunity to interview over lunch the two top journalists of the New York Times, Steven Wackenhut and Jody Faelton, with Barbara Goodish and Rashid Owst of the Washington Post standing by for moral support of its sister publication and who will write their own accounts of the interview. A somewhat incestuous zeitgeist, I thought, but there it is. The subject was the terrorist attack on the French newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, and the murder of twelve of its staff, together with three other terrorist incidents in Paris, including the gratuitous murder of a French policewoman and two hostage-takings by Islamic terrorists.

What I focused on was the Times’ report of January 7th, “’Dangerous Moment’ For Europe, as Fear and Resentment Grow,” which nattered on about the rising anti-Islam and anti-Muslim immigration feelings among non-Muslims in Europe. While Mr. Wackenhut and Miss Faelton did not write the story, they did not seem in the least uncomfortable with the idea of discussing another reporter’s story, after we had established our talking points over the phone.

I had wanted to interview the actual authors, Steven Erlanger and Katrin Bennhold, but was told by Mr. Wackenhut that they were unavailable for an interview, having been sent to Buffalo to report on the lake effect on that snow-bound city. I had been told by Mr. Wackenhut over the phone that being assigned a story in Buffalo was tantamount to being sent to Beirut, Lebanon, or some other strife-ridden foreign capital. “They were very excited about the assignment,” remarked Wackenhut over the line.

We were seated around an indoor café table in Le Occupé Bagatelle, quiet, a tony, secluded bistro just a block away from the garishly anonymous headquarters of the New York Times on Times Square. The place was once a tawdry pornography and sex toy arcade, one of many such enterprises which once populated Times Square and 42nd Street before the Square was Disneyfied. Here a glass of Evian mineral water goes for $7.50, and a minuscule chunk of Angus prime, about the size of my palm, topped with a handful of off-color Brussels sprouts or some other hapless vegetable, will sock you at $35.00, not including side dishes (or tax, or gratuity). We loosened up with some pungent house wine (“from our deepest cellar,” the wine list read), at $11.00 a shot glass. I gather that meant the basement. God knows whatever else was still aging down there.

Mr. Wackenhut is head of the overseas desk, having been the Times’ deputy bureau chief in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia for several years, and then senior correspondent in Berlin and Buenos Aires. Miss Faelton has written about political and social women’s issues her entire career, first for the Bismarck, North Dakota Bugle, then as foreign editor for the Arkansas Yahoo, before moving to the Times as women’s issues editor.

I did not enquire into the journalistic antecedents of the Post’s Goodish and Owst.

I let the Times and the Post engage in their tech talk and journalistic camaraderie before the waiter took our drink and lunch orders. I didn’t want to frighten them yet with my extraordinary and soul-scouring questions. They were a jolly group and I was reluctant to spoil the mood. I sipped my mineral water. I’d already finished the colored vinegar.

At one point, Mr. Wackenhut said with a chuckle and in an execrable French accent, “My nickname for Ulaanbaatar was ‘Oulan-Bator,’ or ‘Ooh-la-la! That’s better!’”

The Post pair giggled. I guess they thought it was a sexual innuendo. Or something equally lascivious. But it was lost on me.

Jody Faelton scowled and replied, “You told me once it was ‘Oh, my ulcerous bladder!’”

Mr. Wackenhut sighed and shook his head. “Oh, it was that, at times, Jo. That Mongolian rotgut they call a native port there really kept me jumping up to excuse myself. It was a lot like seasickness.”

A headline in London exclaims that what happened in Paris “has galvanized France.” Well, that’s good, so far as it goes. Galvanized can be a good thing only if the galvanizee stays galvanized. The record is not encouraging.

September 11 galvanized the world, a date that, like December 7, would live in infamy. In the wake of September 11 a leading newspaper in Paris proclaimed that “we are all Americans now.” President George W. Bush, standing in the ruins of the World Trade Center, with wisps of smoke and ash curling at his feet, promised to avenge the blood and bone of the 3,000 Americans who perished on a day with a harvest of dead to rival that at Antietam or Pearl Harbor.

We know how all that turned out, galvanized or not. Within a matter of weeks the naysayers were picking apart the resolve that united the nation, and the spirit of September 11 turned out to be not even a ghost of December 7. The infamy remained, the infamy of short memories, impatience and wilting resolve.

This is not your grandfather’s country, where resolve thrived, multiplied and prospered, as we’re reminded a hundred times a day. Resolve is like ice cream, delicious and satisfying in the moment, but it melts quickly. Some of the most heroic galvanized words fall from the tongue of the British and French prime ministers, and theirs are the countries most overrun with the waves of immigrants with no taste for the melting pot that once could transform an immigrant from Pakistan or Syria into an Englishman or a Frenchman, or at least a fairly reasonable facsimile thereof. No longer. Whole neighborhoods in London and Paris have become places where “outsiders,” including police, no longer dare go. Cities are soon divided by tribe and caste.

WHO IS ANDRE CARSON?
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., will appoint the first Muslim member to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which deals with sensitive information on America’s war against terrorism.

International Business Times reports that Rep. André Carson, D-Ind., the second Muslim elected to the House, following the election of Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., in 2006, will take a seat on the committee.

Politico reported that Carson’s nomination was announced by Pelosi in a closed-door weekly Democratic caucus meeting and would be announced publicly “in the coming days.”

Carson was first elected to the House in 2008 and converted to Islam 10 years before taking office, IBTimes reports.

In 2014, Carson came under fire for being scheduled to appear on a panel entitled, “Ferguson is Our Issue: We Can’t Breathe,” at a convention of the Muslim American Society/Islamic Circle of North America in Chicago, along with Mazen Mokhtar, a webmaster and fundraiser for al-Qaida, the Center for Security Policy reports.

However, after delivering a keynote speech, without explanation, Carson did not appear on the panel.