RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324183204578565501794475788.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop

‘One of the things I intend to do as President is restore America’s standing in the world. We are less respected now than we were eight years ago or even four years ago.”

— Barack Obama, first presidential debate, September 26, 2008.

The Obama Administration wants the world to know that it cares very deeply about bringing self-admitted national-security leaker Edward Snowden back to the U.S. to stand trial. If only the world seemed to care as much about what the U.S. thinks.

Last week the U.S. announced that it had indicted Mr. Snowden on espionage and other charges and asked Hong Kong, where he’d been hiding out and giving interviews, to detain and extradite him. On Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder called Hong Kong Secretary of Justice Rimsky Yuen to ask the government “to honor our request for Snowden’s arrest,” according to an official cited in the Washington Post.

Tom Donilon, the White House national security adviser, added his own rare public demarche on Saturday, saying, “Hong Kong has been a historically good partner of the United States in law enforcement matters, and we expect them to comply with the treaty in this case.”

On Sunday, Hong Kong let Mr. Snowden board a plane to Moscow.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/24/lisa-weiss-sex-chats-anthony-weiner-2013-mayor_n_3492210.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl24%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D335249

Although the women involved in the Anthony Weiner’s sexting scandal are still struggling to put ‘Weinergate’ behind them, at least one says she’d still vote for the former congressman, given the chance.

“I cannot tell you the devastation,” 42-year-old Lisa Weiss, a blackjack dealer in Nevada, told The New York Times of her life since the world learned of the lewd messages she and Weiner exchanged. “I obsess about it everyday.”

In 2011, Weiss gave RadarOnline.com access to the explicit Facebook correspondence she shared with then-Representative Weiner. It was a decision she regrets. “I thought I could control it,” she said of the story.

Weiss’s relationship to Weiner, however, is complicated.

“So great to see you back!” she commented last year on his Facebook page next to a photo of Weiner with his wife, Huma Abedin, and their new baby. “Your wife and son are beautiful! Please let me apologize again for any pain I caused your (sic) or the beautiful Huma…it was unintentional…I still think you are our liberal hero and we need you back in politics!!”

Now she tells the Times that despite everything Weiner would still get her vote.

“If he lived here, I’d vote for him,” she said. “He is such a big fighter for all of our causes.”

http://www.prudenpolitics.com/newsletter?utm_source=P&P%20Auto%201&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=7609

Barack Obama’s critics are loud enough and persistent enough, but maybe we’ve been baying at the wrong moon.It’s not the president’s ideology, his arrogance, his attention-deficit disorder, his endless deference to alien religious faith and his contempt for the faith of those close to home (or even his backswing) that’s what’s wrong with the man in charge of the government. It’s the sheer incompetence of the leader and his gang.

This is the gang that can’t shoot straight, eager to stifle or soften the First, Second, Fourth and Fifth Amendments and ever ready to stumble abroad with timidity in the face of governments that mean us ill. In the circumstances, maybe incompetence is not necessarily a bad thing. They could be doing a lot more harm if they actually knew how to do what they’re trying to do. The Obama legion can’t figure out which is the business end of the gun.

The spectacle of a 29-year-old computer geek armed with a laptop and a credit card racing across the hemispheres, eluding the FBI, the CIA, the TSA, the IRS and the rest of the alphabet soup available to the president, taunting the entire U.S. Government to catch him if it can, has much of the rest of the world applauding, cheering and laughing. This is the entertainment nobody has seen since Bonnie and Clyde redefined the job of bank examiner on the front pages of 80 years ago. This is also something new in our history, the world laughing at the ineptitude of the United States. Only Mr. Obama, who set out years ago to cut America down to a size to suit the third world, can be pleased.

Nobody roots for the fuzz, and a petition to the White House to grant a full pardon to Edward Snowden had collected 111,000 signatures by mid-day Monday, seeking “a full, free, and absolute pardon for any crimes he has committed or may have committed related to blowing the whistle on secret [National Security Administration] surveillance programs,” and calling him “a national hero.” The petition, to the White House “We, the People” website, has earned an official White House response, even if all the petitioners can expect is the usual argle-bargle, full of mush and slurry, signifying nothing.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/351804/amended-or-not-no-editors

In a final theatrical flourish in the immigration-reform drama, the Senate has scheduled a hasty vote on the so-called amendment offered by Senators John Hoeven and Bob Corker — an “amendment” that amounts to an entirely new piece of legislation. The Senate is to be presented with a Monday vote on a 1,200-page bill substantially amended on Friday, meaning that few if any of our senators will have had the chance even to read the final bill, much less to digest its details. As Yuval Levin and others have noted, this amounts to another case of passing the bill to find out what’s in it. Republicans should not be party to that.

Among the many promises he has made regarding this issue, Senator Marco Rubio averred that he would not support the passage of a bill without sufficient time for debate, discussion, study, and public input. This is yet another assurance from Senator Rubio that has gone by the wayside. If the amendment is adopted on Monday and Senator Harry Reid follows through with his plan to have a vote on the legislation before the July 4 recess, that leaves a matter of mere days to evaluate it. That means no score from the Congressional Budget Office, though the bill will have hundreds of billions of dollars in fiscal consequences. That means no time for detailed analysis of the so-called security triggers in the bill, which are much less robust than the Gang of Eight would have us believe.

This is, in a word, dishonest. No senator — and especially no Republican — associating himself with this sort of charade deserves to escape with his reputation undamaged. Perhaps that is no great loss for Senator John McCain, who has for years shown himself to have grievously defective judgment on the subject of immigration, but Senator Rubio emerges from this process much diminished.

The fundamental problem with this bill, both in its earlier form and in the new Hoeven-Corker form, is that it confers an immediate amnesty on illegals already present in the country in exchange for promises of tightened border security at some point in the future. Not very tight, mind you: The bill’s own supporters do not contest forecasts that over the next 20 years we would once again find ourselves with 11 million or more illegal immigrants, just as we have now. Stronger security provisions, such as requiring that the border fence be completed before amnesty is handed down, were rejected. Under this bill, the only purported consequence of failing to secure the borders is delaying the process under which the newly legalized residents would be able to apply for green cards and citizenship. Given that many illegals have been here for decades — and that they care more about legalization than about the prospect of citizenship — slowing down that process would not matter very much.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/351718/far-broader-bolo-list-eliana-johnson

The scandal involving the IRS’s discrimination against conservative groups seems to grow more dizzying by the day.

Acting IRS commissioner Danny Werfel on Monday told reporters that the now-infamous “Be On The Lookout” list was far broader than originally disclosed in the Treasury Department inspector general’s report. News accounts in outlets such as the Associated Press and Bloomberg News supported Werfel’s claim, indicating that terms on the list ran the gamut, politically speaking, from “tea party” to “progressive” and “occupy,” and even to groups whose applications included the word “Israel.”

A November 2010 version of the list obtained by National Review Online, however, suggests that while the list did contain the word “progressive,” screeners were instructed to treat progressive groups differently from tea-party groups. Whereas they were merely alerted that a designation of 501(c)(3) status “may not be appropriate” for progressive groups — 501(c)(3) organizations are prohibited from conducting any political activity — they were told to send applications from tea-party groups off to IRS higher-ups for further scrutiny.

That means the applications of progressive organizations could be approved by line agents on the spot, while those of tea-party groups could not. Furthermore, the November 2010 list noted that tea-party cases were “currently being coordinated with EOT” — Exempt Organizations Technical, a group of tax lawyers in Washington, D.C. Those of progressive organizations were not.
To Werfel’s account, add the testimony of Holly Paz. The highest-ranking official interviewed by the House Oversight Committee to date, Paz did not contend that the lookout list was politically inclusive. Rather, she told committee investigators that the use of the term “tea party” to flag applications was politically neutral. Paz, who served as the director of the IRS’s Office of Rulings and Agreements before she was put on administrative leave earlier this month, told committee investigators that “tea party” merely served as shorthand for an application for tax exemption from any group, conservative or liberal, that showed a potential for political intervention. “It’s like calling soda ‘coke’ or, you know, tissue ‘Kleenex.’ [Line agents] knew what they meant, and the issue was campaign intervention.”

Paz continued, “The criteria didn’t seem to limit what side of the issue,” according to an interview transcript reviewed by National Review Online. “There was a variety of different political persuasions amongst the groups that were — you know, whose applications were in this bucket of cases.”

Her testimony, however, stands in stark contrast to that of Cincinnati IRS agent Elizabeth Hofacre, who handled all tea-party cases between April and August 2010. Hofacre told investigators that she understood “tea party” to be a proxy for conservative and Republican groups; she said she sent back the applications of liberal groups for general processing.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/351916/immigration-bill-or-it-corker-hoeven-amendment-everything-wrong-washington-andrew-c

I was just watching Senator Ted Cruz’s floor speech in opposition to the atrocious immigration bill and took note of a remarkable exchange between Senators Cruz and Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and mastermind of the legislation. The short YouTube video is worth your time (Schumer interrupts about a minute in). Cruz pointed out that the hefy 1,200-page Corker-Hoeven Amendment was dropped like a stealth bomb late Friday with supporters now pushing for an immediate vote when it is perfectly obvious that no one could possibly have read, studied and analyzed the proposal. As if it were a defense, Schumer insisted that of the 1,200 pages “only” 100 pages are new, and that certainly a senator should be able to read “only” 100 pages of “important legislation” over a weekend.

Let’s pretend Schumer is correct — and he’s not: Senator Corker says it is actually 119 new pages. When a bill is amended in a sneaky manner, as this one has been, no responsible senator could just read 100 new pages. The amendments are interspersed thoughout the bill — it’s not like you could sit and read them as a unit, even if you had the time. Since the proponents are clearly trying to pull a fast one, prudence, as Senator Cruz pointed out, would dictate rereading every line of text, old and new, to search for insertions — and, indeed, news reports indicate that numerous new buy-offs and pot-sweeteners have been inserted.

But there is a larger point: no “important legislation” should be 100 pages long, much less 1,200 (or the even more mind-boggling girth of monstrosities like Obamacare). The United States Constitution is about 4,500 words long — outfits like Cato and Heritage publish it in small pamphlets that can be read in a few minutes. Nowadays, not only are the bills so gargantuan that no one could conceivably master them and predict their consequences; each page produces even more pages of regulations. They can’t even be lifted, much less digested.

http://spectator.org/archives/2013/06/24/the-nsa-isnt-the-irs Which is why Edward Snowden needs to be hit with more than a tax audit. Momentary Muscovite Edward Snowden is now in Russia’s capital, enjoying Vladimir Putin’s hospitality while en route to Caracas or Havana or some other totalitarian hellhole where, presumably, he thinks he’s going to be feted as a hero. He should […]

http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/novelists-view-world/2013/jun/24/bigotry-paula-deen-weeps-alice-walker-laughs/

WASHINGTON, June 24, 2013 — Celebrity chef Paula Deen is a celebrity no more. She was fired from the Food Network for a racial slur, the N-word, which she uttered some time ago. She has since apologized for those hurtful remarks against African-Americans. Deen has begged for forgiveness. Nothing doing. Life will never be the same for Paula Deen.

Life is much sweeter for celebrity author Alice Walker, who remains kosher despite remarks hurtful against the Jewish people. She has made no apologies. None necessary. Despite her festering grudge against Israel and her acrimony against Jewish people in general, life is good.

A new book of hers has just been published and already she has book tours lined up across the country. She is being praised and applauded.

No forgiveness necessary for Alice Walker.

In this new book of hers, some 80 pages are given to tantrums against the Jewish people. No problem. Who cares? Last Sunday she starred on C-Span.

A few weeks earlier she was honored at the New York’s 92nd Street Y. Her fan-base remains strong and loyal.

http://politicalmavens.com/

Something must happen to sound judgment at high altitudes. In Colorado, the state’s civil rights division has ruled that a six year old boy who dresses as a girl must be allowed to use the girl’s bathroom The state ruled that “compartmentalizing a child as a boy or a girl based solely on their visible anatomy, is a simplistic approach to a difficult and complex issue.” This is an interesting conclusion which can be rephrased as stating that a six year old’s personal evaluation of his own gender and sex is more accurate than the biological evidence of same. Even more to the point, it implies that the willingness of parents to give in to the demands or supplications of a very young child, or for them to shape those demands willfully or unconsciously, must be valued above biological facts. In the photograph accompanying the news story in the NYTimes of Jan 24th, the mother is wearing pants that are several inches longer than her legs. Perhaps her own dysmorphic disorder has her believing that she is six feet tall and needs to dress accordingly; is this someone whose judgment about how to dress her own son should be automatically trusted?

At six, children are usually in first grade learning to read and write and deal with rudimentary lessons in socialization and the three R’s. If the concept of gender determination is so complex, should it be left to children that young and immature to decide? Shouldn’t parents delay acting decisively on such important matters until their child is older and more mature? Coy, the six year old boy in question, is viewed as having made his own choices as to what to wear, selecting dresses and growing his hair long. Anyone who has been a parent knows that children can choose only between choices they are GIVEN – not every parent would agree to let a boy wear his fantasy clothes to school. Not every parent would allow a young child to be the sole determinant of his haircut.

There’s an old joke about a doti

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324637504578565530512048940.html At this writing, Edward J. Snowden, the fugitive National Security Agency contractor indicted on espionage charges, is in Moscow, where Vladimir Putin’s spokesman insists his government is powerless to detain him. “We have nothing to do with this story,” says Dmitri Peskov. “I don’t approve or disapprove plane tickets.” Funny how Mr. Putin always […]