RUTHFULLY YOURS

A court says Lafe Solomon should not have had the job.

One of President Obama’s legacies will be his abuse of executive authority, and his hits keep coming. On Friday a federal appeals court struck down a ruling of the National Labor Relations Board because, incredibly, its acting general counsel was in the job illegally.

The scofflaw was Lafe Solomon, whom readers may recall for his legal complaints against the likes of Boeing for wanting to build planes in right-to-work South Carolina instead of union-dominated Washington. It turns out Mr. Solomon was the one violating the law.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a 2014 NLRB ruling against an Arizona ambulance company, SW General. The panel found that Messrs. Solomon and Obama had violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, which generally holds that a person cannot serve as an “acting” officer of an agency while also nominated for the post.

Who you gonna call when the green police unleash a toxic river?

‘Ghostbusters” has been playing again on cable, so we are reminded that the villain of that movie classic was a bully from the Environmental Protection Agency. He broke the ghost-containment grid and all hell broke loose. So who you gonna call today when the E-men dump three million gallons of toxic slurry down the rivers of the West?

Last week an EPA hazmat team hoped to inspect an abandoned Gold Rush-era mine near Durango, Colorado, and the backhoe digging out the collapsed cave entrance breached a retaining wall. The blowout spilled the contaminated sludge that had accumulated for nearly a century in the mine’s tunnels into a creek that is a tributary of the Animas River, flowing at a rate of 740 gallons a minute.

The long-term consequences of allowing Choudary to be free constitute a terrible mistake: the main impact of Choudary on the wider public has been colossally to exacerbate suspicions of Muslims as a whole.

Broadcasters have for years introduced him as a “sheikh” or a “cleric,” without often casting doubt on his qualifications to such titles, or noting the comparative paucity of his following.

It is perfectly possible that Anjem Choudary will slip between the UK’s terrorism laws once again. Or perhaps now it is he that has slipped up, and the most visible chink in the UK’s counter-extremism policy has finally resolved itself.

If there was a single flaw in the British Prime Minister’s recent speech on countering extremism in the UK, it might be encapsulated in the name “Anjem Choudary.” His speech went into terrific detail on the significance of tacking radicalism through the education system, the Charity Commission, the broadcasting license authority and numerous other means. But it failed the Choudary test.

The EPA is not only a jobs killer, but …..regulations that save toads and earthworms have halted much needed repairs to infrastructure and new construction….rsk

While President Barack Obama intensifies his rhetoric denigrating Republicans and anyone else who opposes his nuclear pact with Iran, he remained silent about one of his favorite agencies being accused of harming the American environment. On Monday afternoon, Colorado’s Gov. John Hickenlooper reacted to a toxic water incident perpetrated by Obama’s enlarged Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the agency that frequently refers cases to the Department of Justice for prosecution of polluters, according to numerous media outlets.

The EPA has been accused of unilaterally increasing its power over private-sector organizations and citizens with the blessings of the White House, while not holding itself up to the same standards they insist others uphold. It is also being criticized for arming some of its personnel with heavy fire-power and equipment that’s usually found in police forces or military units.

What is it about dictatorships that make Americans swoon?Juxtaposing two recent articles published within 24 hours of each other on Cuba is instructive.

First, a Wall Street Journal article titled “Amid Thaw, First Authorized U.S. Yacht Sails to Cuba on Hopes of Travel Surge” reads:

The 78-foot Still Water docked in the marina late Wednesday after a four-hour jaunt. Aboard the sleek yacht were three crew and 12 passengers eager to see Cuba before the sharp economic and social change that many Americans expect to sweep the country as a long-frozen U.S.-Cuba relationship thaws. Some also hoped to sniff out business opportunities that such a transformation might spawn.

“Being born in the 50s and being indoctrinated the way we were, it’s interesting to be able to see this,” said 57-year-old passenger Jack McClurg, who manages his personal investments from Colorado and sails the Caribbean in his own 115-foot Italian-made yacht. “I’m just wanting to see this change happening.”

“For all their talk about Middle East peace, Obama and his advisors are not at all interested in achieving it.”The US has striven to achieve peaceable relations between the states of the Middle East for nearly 70 years. Yet today, US government is disparaging the burgeoning strategic ties between the Sunni Arab states and Israel.

In a briefing to a delegation of visiting Israeli diplomatic correspondents in Washington last week, a senior Obama administration official sneered that the only noticeable shift in Israel-Arab relations in recent years is that the current Egyptian government has been coordinating security issues “more closely” with Jerusalem than the previous one did.

“But we have yet to see that change materialize in the Gulf.”

The FBI has taken possession of thumb drives containing Hillary Clinton’s emails, some of which have been deemed to contain highly sensitive classified information, according to a U.S. official briefed on the matter.

The official was not authorized to be quoted publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Clinton’s lawyer, David Kendall, turned over the emails after the FBI determined that he could not remain in possession of the classified information, the official said.

Over 700 students from all over Europe participated in the debating competition where the Israeli team was declared the ESL champions.

Stav Singer and Iddan Golomb, a pair of debaters from Tel Aviv University, brought home a gold trophy from the European Universities Debating Championship that took place in Vienna over the past week.

More than 700 students from all over Europe participated in the debating competition, vying for prizes in two language categories – English as a first language (EFL) and English as a second language (ESL). Singer and Golomb were declared champions in the latter category.

Six Israeli teams made it into the knockout rounds of the ESL tournament: Three teams from Tel Aviv University, a team from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, a team from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and a team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Dan Lahav and Ayal Hayut- Man from Tel Aviv University also made their way to the grand finals of the EFL category, a rare achievement for non-native English-speaking teams.

“Jewish supporters of the Iran deal can’t possibly think that the agreement itself makes America or Israel safer. They are driven by something else – by a desire to find favor with the current occupant of the White House, the news media, and the academic and intellectual elites whom they admire. It’s disturbing, and in some ways hard to understand. Jews Against Themselves sheds much-needed light on the subject and deserves to be on everyone’s “must reading” list.”

Isn’t it remarkable how much of the fight over the Iran deal is a battle between different factions in the Jewish world?

First off, one would think it would be an argument primarily over whether the agreement endangers America, not Israel. After all – as Prime Minister Netanyahu reminded us in his webcast this week – Iran still regards America as “the Great Satan.” Israel is just “the little Satan.” Sure, Iranian protesters add an occasional “Death to Israel” to their chants, but it is “Death to America” that is heard loudest and longest.

Yet on Capitol Hill, the question that seems to be occupying everyone’s mind is: how will Jewish Congressmembers vote? And on the op-ed pages and the radio talk shows, we hear mostly about AIPAC vs. J Street, and pundits speculate as to whether other Jewish organizations will support or oppose the Iran deal.

Aptly named Senator Dick Durbin is Schumer’s closest rival to succeed Senator Harry Reid who is retiring. Dick Durbin is a favorite of CAIR and gets very high marks from the Arab American Institute for his anti Israel stance…..rsk
Democratic senators say Sen. Charles Schumer’s opposition to President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran won’t prevent him from becoming their next leader.

Even a potential rival to Schumer said Democratic senators who back the Iran deal will not turn on Schumer over the divisive vote.

“I don’t think the choice of the next Senate leader is going to be based on any single vote. Members of the caucus respect Chuck and know he’s gone through a thoughtful reflection. I don’t think it has any impact on the leadership race,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat, told The Hill in an interview.