RUTHFULLY YOURS

“Will she, or won’t she?” That is, will Greece, with a population of eleven million, abandon the Euro and strike out on her own, or will she just strike out? Will she default? Would there be collateral damage? It is not as though Greece is critical to Europe’s economy (her GDP represents less than 1.5% of the Eurozone’s GDP), but her exit could start a precedent – contagion is the word preferred by the cognoscenti. But the most important question: Why has this happened? Are Europe and the West also vulnerable?

Europe, along with much of the world, suffered a protracted recession in the wake of the 2008 credit crisis. Other than a brief interlude of little over a year, Europe’s recession lasted five years, from early 2008 through early 2013. (Greece’s GDP is still 30% below where it was in 2008.) But the troubles in Europe are more pestiferous than simply the aftershocks of a damaging recession. According to Eurostat, for the twenty years ending 2014 Europe’s GDP growth has compounded annually at a mere 0.35%. Europe’s problem is (and has been) a lack of economic growth.

For black lives to start really mattering, black violence has to matter.

Baltimore has the fifth highest big city [2] murder rate in the country. The four cities ahead of it are Detroit, New Orleans, Newark and St. Louis. All these cities have something in common. Not racism, but race.

The killers and the dead are black.

The murder rate in Baltimore stood at 37.4 to 100,000 people. There have already been 63 murders this year. Fifty-six of the victims were black. Of the 16 murders in the last 30 days [3], 14 of the victims were black.

If black lives really mattered, then black violence would matter. But that would mean taking responsibility for a broken culture which few leaders in the black community are ready to do.

Instead the death of Freddie Gray in police custody became the excuse for another round of #BlackLivesMatter riots, looting and assaults. Rather than dealing with the violence killing black Baltimore, it became another excuse for more of the same.

The media is always ready with the usual lies about peaceful protests being “marred” by sudden outbreaks of violence. Ferguson’s peaceful protests of screaming and throwing things at cops were suddenly marred by days of looting, arson and shootings.

The world is witnessing the horrific genocide of Christians, reminiscent of the genocide of Armenian Christians that began this month one hundred years ago. The Vatican has estimated that “more than 100,000 Christians are violently killed because of some relation to their faith every year.” Three Christians a minute are being murdered. As many as 100-150 million Christians are being persecuted.

Statistics alone do not tell the whole story of the toll of human suffering the Islamic genocide of Christians is exacting. The horrific killings include, for example, four Iraqi Christian children, who were beheaded for refusing to say that they would follow the Prophet Muhammad and for telling their ISIS captors that they will always “love” and “follow” Jesus.

Hillary Clinton will probably survive her latest ethical disaster. James Carville — of “if you drag a hundred dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you’ll find” fame [1] — is back again to pronounce the Clinton Foundation scandal as “diddly-squat.” [2] He may be right in the political sense. After all, we know the standard Clinton rescue plan from the past: her aging point-men like Carville, Lanny Davis, and Paul Begala flood the airways, yelling “prove it!” at their television hosts and declaring:

That the accusations are “old news.”
That the accusers are funded by right-wing conspiracists.
That everyone does what the Clintons did.
That the media pick on the Clintons.
That there is no hard evidence (because they have destroyed documents) that would ever lead to a criminal case. And:
That they are moving on, to work on behalf of the folks.

US Secretary of State John Kerry assumed the chairmanship of the Arctic Council, and immediately made it clear that despite worrisome Russian military moves in the Arctic, the US would not challenge them.

Washington Examiner:

In assuming the leadership role, Kerry laid out a robust agenda to face the threat of climate change in the Arctic, which he says is being affected by global warming more than anywhere else in the world.

But when faced with questions over whether the U.S. will use its new leadership position to address threats posed by Russia, Kerry said no.

Kerry said the idea of using the Arctic forum to confront Russia on its actions in Ukraine and elsewhere was “kicked around,” but concerns that it would “complicate” the council’s environmental agenda forced the U.S. to decide against it.

More than half of the Arctic Council’s eight members — Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland — signed a pact earlier this month to guard against a new wave of Russian military aggression not seen since the Cold War.

Guided by bad science, regulators are flushing away millions of gallons of water to protect a three-inch fish.

In California, it takes about 1.1 gallons of water to grow an almond; 1.28 gallons to flush a toilet; and 34 gallons to produce an ounce of marijuana. But how many gallons are needed to save a three-inch delta smelt, the cause célèbre of environmentalists and bête noire of parched farmers?

To protect smelt from water pumps, government regulators have flushed 1.4 trillion gallons of water into the San Francisco Bay since 2008. That would have been enough to sustain 6.4 million Californians for six years. Yet a survey of young adult smelt in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta last fall yielded just eight fish, the lowest level since 1967. An annual spring survey by state biologists turned up six smelt in March and one this month. In 2014 the fall-spring counts were 88 and 36. While the surveys are a sampling and not intended to suggest the full population, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service warns that “the delta smelt is now in danger of extinction.”

The focus should be on the seriously ill. At a gathering in New Hampshire last Monday, Hillary Clinton announced that mental health will be a big part of her campaign. That could be a disaster for those with serious mental illness. To understand why, look back to January 25, 1993, when President Bill Clinton created a President’s Health Care Reform Task Force charged with developing a national health-care plan. While Bill is not Hillary, he appointed her to head the task force.

Hillary’s task force created a Working Group on Mental Health headed by Tipper Gore, wife of Vice President Al Gore, who had a degree in psychology, suffered from depression, and had strong connections to Mental Health America. Mental Health America is not focused on helping the most seriously mentally ill. It is a trade association with the very expansive agenda of “helping all Americans achieve wellness by living mentally healthier lives.” The key issue facing the task force was whether government funds should be used to “help all Americans live mentally healthier lives,” or be limited to helping those who are so severely mentally ill that they genuinely need government aid. This is still a key issue today. It is the seriously ill, not the worried-well, who are overcrowding our jails and shelters and living a hellish existence encased in psychotic delusions. The working group rounded up all the usual mental-health trade associations and naturally concluded that the national plan should cover all mental-health services for everyone.

Washington, D.C. — The annual White House Correspondent’s Dinner is indeed — as President Obama put it last night — “where Washington celebrates itself.” Little real news is ever made, but Beltway media, politicians, and consultants attend in such large numbers that you can get a sense of the current conventional wisdom.

Cecily Strong, the Saturday Night Live comic who followed President Obama on the podium, was so blatantly in Hillary’s corner that it was jarring. But what was striking about last night’s dinner was that many people have come to the conclusion that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is in deep trouble and she is no longer as inevitable as people once thought. Working reporters who cover her and other Democratic politicians wouldn’t go on the record, but you heard the same thing from several of them:

“It’s not that she’s too old — she just can’t relate to younger generations.” “A couple more scandals, and you’ll wonder if they will start to define her campaign.” “Younger women know a female will become president in their lifetime; many of them don’t think it has to be or even should be Hillary.” “How can she possibly distance herself from the Obama administration she served for four years, but whose policies increasingly alienate independent voters she needs?”

That last comment goes to the heart of her problem with Democratic insiders. Publicly, they praise Hillary as a candidate of exceptional experience in government and one who is likely to harvest bushels of votes from people eager to elect the first female president. Privately, they fret about a recent Quinnipiac poll in which 54 percent of Americans say Clinton is not honest or trustworthy. Among independents, that number hits 61 percent. “Candidates distrusted by that many people can win the White House, but it leaves no margin for error or another big scandal,” one Democratic former officeholder admitted to me.

Revelations of donations to the Clinton Foundation after Hillary Clinton joined the Obama administration in January 2009, invite a second look at her decisions as Secretary of State.

In early January 2011 U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was en route to the Gulf region with planned visits to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Her office announced that she will discuss “regional security issues including Iraq, the Middle East peace process, Lebanon, Yemen…and Iran….”She’ll want to take stock of where we are on the sanctions regime.” The growing tension in Egypt was not on her agenda.

But on February 11, 2011, violent clashes between demonstrators and security forces in Egypt led to President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation and transfer of his powers to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. Next, violent protests, the first major Libyan protests in years against Gaddafi rule, erupted in Benghazi, Libya.

Gaddafi’s days were then numbered when on 25 February the U.S. flew its diplomats out of Libya. Within minutes of their departure the Obama administration, citing numerous human rights violations, announced it had imposed sanctions on the Gaddafi family and the Libyan regime. President Obama stated, “We will stand steadfastly with the Libyan people in their demand for universal rights, and a government that is responsive to their aspirations. Their human dignity cannot be denied.”

The next day the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to impose sanctions on Libya. And with events moving rapidly, on 27 February the rebels announced the formation of Interim National Council. The INC, later termed the Transitional National Council had its base in eastern Libya. It survived because it was protected by the West and its ranks were fed by Islamists, some freed from jails in Egypt. What was then dubbed the ‘Arab Spring,’ was happening.

The Clinton Foundation’s finances are so messy that the nation’s most influential charity watchdog put it on its “watch list” of problematic nonprofits last month.
The Clinton family’s mega-charity took in more than $140 million in grants and pledges in 2013 but spent just $9 million on direct aid.
The group spent the bulk of its windfall on administration, travel, and salaries and bonuses, with the fattest payouts going to family friends.
On its 2013 tax forms, the most recent available, the foundation claimed it spent $30 million on payroll and employee benefits; $8.7 million in rent and office expenses; $9.2 million on “conferences, conventions and meetings”; $8 million on fund-raising; and nearly $8.5 million on travel. None of the Clintons are on the payroll, but they do enjoy first-class flights paid for by the Foundation.
In all, the group reported $84.6 million in “functional expenses” on its 2013 tax return and had more than $64 million left over — money the organization has said represents pledges rather than actual cash on hand.
Some of the tens of millions in administrative costs finance more than 2,000 employees, including aid workers and health professionals around the world.