RUTHFULLY YOURS

The move by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels to force European countries to throw open their borders — and to require them to provide migrants with free clothing, food, housing and healthcare for an indefinite period of time — not only represents an audacious usurpation of national sovereignty, it is also certain to encourage millions of additional migrants from the Muslim world to begin making their way to Europe.

“We are not facing a refugee crisis, we are facing a migration crisis… Let us not forget that those arriving have been raised in another religion, and represent a radically different culture. Most of them are not Christians, but Muslims. This is an important question, because Europe and European identity is rooted in Christianity. Is it not worrying in itself that European Christianity is now barely able to keep Europe Christian? If we lose sight of this, the idea of Europe could become a minority interest in its own continent.” — Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary.

“[T]he continent is experiencing a mass movement of people not seen since the aftermath of the Second World War. Unlike the end of the war, however, none of the masses currently on the move is European… The control over one’s own borders is one of the most important characteristics — and responsibilities — of a modern state. Countries lose control over their destinies and even cease to exist when they lose control over who gets in.” — Arthur Chrenkoff, New York Observer.

Statistics show that of the 625,920 people who applied for asylum in the European Union in 2014, only 29.5% were from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Rep. Wittman won re-election in 2014…He is opposed to amnesty, voted for construction of the Keystone Pipeline without limiting amendments, and rated a minus 2 from the Arab American Institute for his support for Israel….He is running again in 2016….rsk

Washington – Congressman Rob Wittman (VA-1) voted today against the approval of President Obama’s proposed agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. The legislation failed by a vote of 162-269.

“The House’s actions today reflect the will of the people. Iran has previously shown its willingness to break the terms of previous deals, and I have no doubt that they’ll do so again,” Wittman said. “I have visited the Middle East many times to meet with members of the U.S. military and engage with leaders of nations in the region, and I fully understand the threats posed by a nuclear-armed Iran. With the security of our partners in the region at stake, it is critical that any deal effectually prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. I do not believe this agreement includes the enforcement mechanisms necessary for preventing Iran’s government from pursuing nuclear capabilities, and I could not support it.”

I can’t wait to hear the environmentalist lies on this one. Check it out:533,000 more square miles of ocean covered with ice than in 2012
BBC reported in 2007 global warming would leave Arctic ice-free in summer by 2013
Publication of UN climate change report suggesting global warming caused by humans pushed back to later this month
A chilly Arctic summer has left 533,000 more square miles of ocean covered with ice than at the same time last year – an increase of 29 per cent.

The rebound from 2012’s record low comes six years after the BBC reported that global warming would leave the Arctic ice-free in summer by 2013.

Instead, days before the annual autumn re-freeze is due to begin, an unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe already stretches from the Canadian islands to Russia’s northern shores.

The Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific has remained blocked by pack-ice all year. More than 20 yachts that had planned to sail it have been left ice-bound and a cruise ship attempting the route was forced to turn back.

I was told only yesterday by a self righteous prig that “Israel and Jews above all have an imperative to help the oppressed “refugees”….Is that so? Among all the 613 commandments and in the entire Torah where is it written that Jews have an imperative to commit suicide and help their enemies who hate Israel “above all?”…rsk

Despite fleeing civil war and exposure to hardships in crossing the Mediterranean, migrants still have energy to bash the Jewish State.

LAN — At a migrant reception center near Milan’s central train station, two-year-old Mahmoud sleeps on a pillow in a pair of patched-up grey pajamas, exhausted after fleeing Damascus a month ago with his parents and relatives.

Their nightmarish journey across the Mediterranean Sea from Libya was marred by beatings, starvation and dehydration, and the fear of drowning in rough waters. Yet despite the cruelty at the hands of Libyan smugglers, despite the suffering that was inflicted upon them by their own government that forced them to flee for their lives, Mahmoud’s family and other Syrian refugees I met still view Israel as their real enemy.

“First of all I respect all religions, including Judaism… In Syria we have all races and religions living together, we are all brothers… but Israel, Israel is the ultimate enemy, that’s what we’ve been told since we were kids,” said baby Mahmud’s cousin Adman, 21, who studied tourism in Syria. “But I want to stress something: Jews are not my enemy. Zionists are my enemy.”

Adman was surprised that he was being interviewed by a Jewish reporter, and, more so, for an Israeli newspaper.

One of Kant’s categorical imperatives, as I illustrate in my piece, is that you must “do your duty” even if it means your death – even when you know it will mean your death.

“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.” Immanuel Kant, in Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, 1785

Or, to put Kant’s categorical imperative in contemporary language: “Do the right thing!”

See my article, “Just Do It!” – Kant and the Immigration ‘Crisis’” for an explanation of today’s title.
http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2015/09/08/just-do-it-kant-and-the-immigration-crisis-edward-cline/

On September 11th, I responded to Diane West’s foreshadowing article, “Strangers in Your Own Land,” in which she details the inexplicable behavior of European leaders in wanting to “redistribute” the invasion of the Continent by raggedy hordes of Muslims and other “asylum seekers” or “refugees.” In her article she expresses some bafflement about why German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others are inviting the demise of their countries as Western countries committed to Western values and civilization:

I wonder about the wielders of power, the redistributors, seated in their elegant conference rooms, sipping sparkling water, pronouncing on the fate of millions of citizens across Europe. German Chancellor Merkel. Swedish Prime Minister Lofven. European Commission President Juncker, and the rest. Either they have no understanding of the plight of their peoples; or, they have full understanding of it. That is, either they are insulated to a point of numbness to what actually happens to Europe’s people – their churches and remaining synagogues, their schools and languages, their marketplaces and streets, their customs and their lore – when a town or neighborhood is engulfed by an alien and predatory culture such as Islam; or, they sadistically relish the prospect in the name of something they like to call “European values.”

In Monty Python’s “The Life of Brian,” which depicts the events of the life of a man named Brian who is mistakenly thought to be the Messiah in ancient Judea, an argument breaks out among a revolutionary group, the People’s Front of Judea (or is that the Judean People’s Front?) along the lines of “What have the Romans done for us?” The conclusion is that, aside from roads, aqueducts, sanitation and sundry other benefits that improved the quality of life dramatically, the question remains, “What have the Romans done for us?” The skit could be redone, but instead of ancient Judean radicals, it could be depicted as an argument among members of BDS, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Picture a college campus in which a BDS group says Israel is the pits, it is the worst country on Earth, and aside from life saving drugs and medical procedures, the technology that powers PCs, handheld devices and the internet itself, cutting edge security and even a life-saving mask for a sick rhinoceros, “What has Israel done for us?” So to, educate the BDS crowd on what they are missing, and to give the rest of us something to kvell about, here are 53 amazing gifts Israel gave the world in 2015.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt visited Israel this past summer and praised the country for its advancements in high tech. He gave credit for the tech successes to the Israeli attitude, or, as we’d call it in these parts—chutzpah—in the positive sense: “Israel is booming in terms of Entrepreneurship, because you have a culture to challenge authority and to question everything. You are not going by the rules.” Thinking outside of the box also gives Israel an edge in medical advancements, and patients brave great personal danger to travel from all over the Middle East, even from war torn countries hostile to Israel, to seek medical treatment in the Jewish State. Last spring, Israeli doctors were able to perform innovative, lifesaving surgery on an Iraqi Christian girl whose family was fleeing the onslaught of ISIS. The girl’s heart was on the right side instead of the left and had malfunctioning ventricles, and it was a challenge, but the operation was a success.

In an ABC News interview, Hillary Clinton apologized for using a private e-mail while secretary of state, a notable departure after months of not letting the slightest crack show in her steadfast public defense of her arrangement.

The interview was progress. But she has a lot to apologize for. A more fully and properly contrite Hillary might sound something like this:

I’ve repeatedly said that my private system was permitted by the State Department. As anyone who has done a little Googling knows, the State Department’s manual for employees has said since 2005 that day-to-day business should be conducted on the authorized system. When I said “permitted,” I merely meant that no one physically stopped me. I take responsibility for this misunderstanding.

Please forgive me for trying to excuse my classified communications — the ones, it pains me to recall, I used to insist never occurred. Yes, the material wasn’t marked “classified,” but the e-mails couldn’t be marked “classified” because I had my own system bypassing the formal process whereby they could be so designated. As for my contention that the material was only classified retroactively, much of it was “born classified,” and I had the obligation to recognize it as such and handle it properly. In this, I simply let everyone down. I promise to do better next time.

I’m sorry I said that Colin Powell did the same thing I did. He didn’t. Of course, he never set up a private server. Moreover, as he explained on Meet the Press the other day, Secretary Powell had two computers on his desk, one for classified material, the other for routine communications. I regret the error.

The White House announced that it plans to admit 10,000 Syrians next year through the refugee resettlement program, on top of the 1,500 or so we’ve already admitted. But the number could go much higher, since the president claims the right to “parole” into the United States anyone he wants, in any number he wants, for any reason he wants. As Senator Grassley put it this week after being informed by Secretary of State Kerry of Obama’s 2016 refugee edict:

But when pressed, the administration indicated that they were considering opening the floodgates and using emergency authority to go above what they proposed to Congress in today’s consultation. The administration also has not ruled out potentially paroling thousands of Syrians into the United States.

Here’s why we shouldn’t be resettling any more than a handful of Syrians:

Cost. Reihan yesterday at a panel discussion cited a study that found caring for a refugee resettled in Norway costs 25 times more than in the Middle East. In the U.S., such costs are borne almost entirely by the taxpayers of the local communities where the State Department dumps its refugees (without even informing the local authorities). Even the resettlement groups and local “sponsors,” such as churches, only assume responsibility for their costs for several months, until they’re signed up for welfare; in fact, the main function of “sponsors” is to get refugees signed up for welfare. That’s why more than 90% of recent Middle Eastern refugees are on welfare. Concern over costs seems to be the basis of a bill offered by Representative Brian Babin (R-Texas) to suspend refugee resettlement until the GAO thoroughly studies its costs.

With apologies to Golden Gopher fans, Minneapolis, Minn., is probably not most people’s idea of a destination city. Unless, that is, the traveler in question is Somali, in which case Minneapolis is the closest thing this side of the Atlantic to home.

Thanks to American refugee-resettlement and family-reunification policies, Minneapolis has the dubious distinction of hosting the largest concentration of Somalis in the United States — some 30,000, according to census records, though Somali leaders say that underestimates the population by tens of thousands. The influx began in the 1980s, as Somalia succumbed to internal violence, and continued through the ’90s, as it was consumed by civil war. A quarter-century later, Somalia remains among the least stable countries on Earth, and Somalis continue to come to the United States in droves. Before the Obama administration welcomes 10,000 (or more) Syrian refugees, it should consider the Somalis.

I have been wearing readers and my keyboard out for five months over the Republican strategy that abets President Obama’s aiding and comforting of Iran, rather than fighting it with every tool in the constitutional chest. These critiques of the Corker bill (enacted in May as the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015) have seemed unduly harsh to some GOP leaders and right-of-center pundits.

There is a purpose, however, behind my Cassandra-like lament: I have been trying to minimize the damage by persuading Congress to avoid giving the president’s atrocious deal — in particular, its erasure of the sanctions regime that had been squeezing the Iranian regime — the status of formal law.

Without congressional imprimatur — by either approval of a treaty or an authorizing statute — Obama’s deal would be a mere executive agreement. While harmful for the next 16 months, an executive agreement could be fully renounced when the next president takes office in 2017. In the meantime, Congress could enact resolutions stressing that the sanctions remain on the books and should be enforced. On notice that they could face crippling penalties once Obama is gone, individuals, corporations, and countries would be discouraged from commerce with Iran. Iran might even reject the deal.

By contrast, formal law binds our country. Laws must be faithfully executed by presidents — at least presidents not named Barack Obama.