RUTHFULLY YOURS

Hillary Clinton — the woman assumed to be the next Democratic Party presidential nominee and quite possibly the next president — is evidently a big snooze. According to Mediate [1], her interviews to promote her book on CNN and Fox had underwhelming numbers. In the case of Greta Van Susteren’s show, she sent people fleeing midway. More importantly, her book itself is a sales disappointment and, I would wager, even more disappointing if you could ascertain how many who did buy it read actually past page 15. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was in single digits.

No, I haven’t read it and don’t intend to. Almost all books by contemporary politicians are intellectually vacuous, ghostwritten exercises in self-promotion or, as in the case of Barack Obama, a straight out pack of lies. Who would spend their valuable reading time on that with the thousands of great books, past and present, available? I haven’t even made my way through half of Dorothy Sayers [2].

Which leads me to the deeper reason the country is sleeping through Hillary’s book and it’s not just because it’s hugely over long and therefore a totally un-green waste of paper and trees (although that’s true). Most people know she’s basically dishonest, a prevaricator. Even liberals, though they won’t readily admit it, know this. Who can forget her blaming her husband’s compulsive philandering on the “great, right-wing conspiracy”? If they only had such power. Or the dim-witted claims of being under fire when she hadn’t been (at least Geraldo makes a show of ducking) and, more recently, the banshee-cry of “What difference does it make?” concerning the deaths of our people in Benghazi? The Benghazi lies are actually exponential. (I’m not even going to go back to Whitewater, the miracle quick killing on the stock market, the mysterious Rose Law Firm bill and all the rest.)

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s new book has been in the spotlight over what she says about Benghazi. That chapter, which starts on page 382, is not the only fascinating passage in Hard Choices. Consider, for example, what Hillary says about Islamists.

“The term Islamist generally refers to people and parties who support a guiding role for Islam in politics and government. It covers a wide spectrum, from those who think Islamic values should inform public policy decisions to those who think that all laws should be judged or even formulated by Islamic authorities to conform to Islamic law. Not all Islamists are alike. In some cases, Islamist leaders and organizations have been hostile to democracy, including some who have supported radical, extremist, and terrorist ideology and actions. But around the world, there are political parties with religious affiliations – Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Muslim – that respect the rules of democratic politics, and it is in America’s interest to encourage all religiously based political parties and leaders to embrace inclusive democracy and reject violence. Any suggestion that faithful Muslims or people of any faith cannot thrive in a democracy is insulting, dangerous and wrong.”

Here readers see the straw man at his finest. Nobody is contending that people of any faith “cannot thrive in a democracy.” The issue is whether Islam itself has a problem with democracy, multi-party elections, free speech, women’s rights, gay rights, diversity, co-education and so forth. The evidence suggests that it does.

Islamists want more than a “guiding role” for Islamic law. They want an exclusive, dominating role. In Islamist regimes non-Islamic groups are second- or third-class citizens. In more than 600 pages Hillary includes nothing on the Islamist group Boko Haram, fond of kidnapping hundreds of girls and burning boys alive.

Some readers will be familiar with Huma Abedin, Hillary’s deputy chief of staff and her ties to Islamic supremacism. Consider how Hard Choices handles the matter.

In one meeting in Cairo, an agitated participant brought up an “especially outrageous canard. He accused my trusted aide Huma Abedin, who is Muslim, of being a secret agent of the Muslim Brotherhood. This claim circulated by some unusually irresponsible and demagogic right-wing political and media personalities in the United States, including members of Congress. . .” Hillary includes no background information on Abedin and her main argument is that Sen. John McCain has publicly defended her.

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll reveals that President Obama’s overall approval rating has cratered to 41 percent, tying the low-water mark of his presidency. Moreover, only half of those polled consider the president to be competent, a lower percentage than that accrued by George W. Bush following the pounding he and his administration took for its response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. One year later, Democrats took control of both houses of Congress. Whether the 2014 election will produce similar results remains to be seen.

Chuck Todd, Chief White House Correspondent for NBC News, minced no words assessing the results. “This poll is a disaster for the president,” Todd said. “You look at the presidency here: Lowest job rating, tied for the lowest; lowest on foreign policy. His administration is seen as less competent than the Bush administration, post-Katrina.” Todd then addressed the leadership issue. “And then the issue of do you believe he can still lead? A majority believe no. Essentially the public is saying your presidency is over,” he added.

Todd is referring to the 54 percent of respondents who said Obama is no longer able “to lead the country and get the job done” compared to only 42 percent who thought he could. That pessimism is buttressed by the 41 percent who believe his performance has gotten worse over the past year, compared to only 15 percent who thought it had improved.

The economy is another sore spot for the president, with 54 percent of the respondents disapproving his handling of it, compared to only 41 percent who think he’s doing a good job. This suggests Americans are very much aware that the current 6.3 percent unemployment rate cannot obscure the reality that more than 92 million Americans have given up looking for work, dropping the labor force participation rate to its lowest level in 36 years. That economic discontent was reinforced in an April poll conducted by the WSJ revealing that 55 percent of registered voters believe “the economic and political systems in the country are stacked against people like me,” versus only 39 percent who disagreed with that statement.

By a massive 57-37 percent margin, Americans disapprove of Obama’s foreign policy and national security decisions. Despite such a dismal spread, Obama may have actually caught a break with regard to polling on this subject. Because the nationwide telephone poll of 1,000 adults was conducted between June 11-15, it occurred largely before the consequences of his decision to prematurely withdraw from Iraq in 2011 was thrust front and center by the media.

The number of unaccompanied children from Central America into the U.S. has reached 47,000 since October, and may hit 90,000 by the end of this year. The official story is that they are fleeing drug-gang mayhem and political violence in their home countries, and so are refugees and asylum-seekers. But the Guatemalan ambassador has said they are seeking economic opportunity and the “American dream.” It’s hard, however, not to see a connection with Obama’s 2012 Deferred Action for Arrivals Program, which defers deportation for illegal aliens who are minors. Obama enacted by executive fiat––and just recently extended for 2 years––this open invitation to illegal minors when Congress proved unwilling to pass the Dream Act legislation.

This sudden surge of illegal immigrants couldn’t help but remind me of Jean Raspail’s 1973 dystopian novel The Camp of the Saints. In the story millions of impoverished Third World people, starting in India, highjack ships and begin sailing to the south of France. Once they land they swarm the rich Côte d’Azur while the French flee in panic to the north. Most interesting are Raspail’s descriptions of why this mass invasion happened––as the inevitable suicidal response of a people who no longer believe in their own civilization’s ideals or principles. The French consul in India, for example, chastising the Catholic bishop who approves of the mass immigration and says he is proud to be “bearing witness,” retorts, “Bearing witness to what? To your faith? Your religion? To your Christian civilization? Oh no, none of that! Bearing witness against yourselves, like the anti-Western cynics you’ve become. Do you think the poor devils that flock to your side aren’t any the wiser? Nonsense! They see right through you. For them, white skin means weak convictions. They know how weak yours are, they know you’ve given in.”

For nearly 3 decades we have undergone a slow-motion version of Raspail’s parable. In 1969 there were an estimated half a million illegal immigrants in the U.S.; today the low-end estimate is 11,500,000. There are many explanations for this increase. Perverse incentives such as the 1986 amnesty and Obama’s Deferred Action for Arrivals Program, the need for cheap workers for jobs Americans don’t want to do, and the Democrats’ hunger for political clients all explain this increase. But as always, bad policies are created by bad ideas. The problems of immigration, whether legal or illegal, are in part created, and definitely worsened, by the erosion of national and civilizational identity and pride that Raspail dramatizes in his novel.

A participant in the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll provides this amusing quote, which appears in today’s Journal story about the results: “Anita Windley, 30, who voted for [Barack] Obama in 2008 and again in 2012, doesn’t think he’s doing enough to help people in her New York City neighborhood. She complains that jobs are still hard to find and the local schools are subpar. ‘It’s time for somebody new,’ she said, ‘like Hillary.’ ”

That would be Hillary Clinton, who if she wins the presidential nomination in 2016 will be the oldest Democrat ever to do so. Lewis Cass, 66 when he lost the presidency to Whig Zachary Taylor, has held the record since 1848, 99 years before Mrs. Clinton’s birth.

Although she hasn’t even declared whether she’s a candidate, there’s a common view that Mrs. Clinton’s nomination and election are inevitable. If you’re convinced that is true, you can put money on it: According to OddsChecker.com, London bookmakers are offering slightly better than even odds on her victory in November 2016. Before risking your life savings, consider that you’re betting on three contingencies. For the bet to pay off, she has to run and win the nomination and win the election.

Mrs. Clinton is by far the favorite. No bookie is offering less than 7-to-1 odds on any other prospective candidate. That’s because, with no one else having declared a candidacy either, the Republican field is wide open, as is the field of prospective Democratic challengers to Mrs. Clinton or alternatives should she decide not to run.

The WSJ/NBC poll found Mrs. Clinton “remains the undisputed favorite for the Democratic nomination, drawing positive reviews from four out of five Democrats,” writes the Journal’s Patrick O’Connor. “But her prospects in a general election look a little less secure.” In a WSJ.com blog post, Reid Epstein elaborates:

Americans think Hillary Clinton is capable of being president, but they’re still not sure whether to trust her.

The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found 55% of all voters think Mrs. Clinton is “knowledgeable and experienced enough to handle the presidency,” but more voters disagree than agree with the statement that she is “honest and straightforward.” . . .

With 2½ years left in the Obama presidency, it is at least an open question what will be left of it by December 2016. Or us.

In this week’s Wall Street Journal-NBC poll, conducted as the disintegration of Iraq began, Mr. Obama’s approval rating has fallen to 41% and his handling of foreign policy to 37%.

Respondents to this poll know what is going on in the world—Ukraine destabilized, Iraq disintegrating, their economy eternally recovering.

Mr. Obama’s world this week consisted of flying to the University of California-Irvine to give a speech about a) himself (check the text if you doubt it) and b) climate change. On Wednesday he was in New York City for a midtown fundraiser, an LGBT fundraiser and a third, $32,000 per person fundraiser at the home of Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

The Hill newspaper ran a piece earlier this week wondering if Mr. Obama is “done with Washington.” Jamal Simmons, a Democratic strategist, says, “He’s never really made it a secret he’s not a fan of this place.” Or Syria. Or Ukraine. Or Iraq.

The defenders of the Obama presidency—which increasingly is becoming a project separate from the person—argue that GOP obstruction thwarted the president’s agenda. If the Republicans were the rank partisans of Democratic myth, Eric Cantor would still be Majority Leader and Mississippi’s Sen. Thad Cochran would be waltzing to his seventh term.

As to the American people now pushing his approval below 40%, Barack Obama entered office with more good will than any president since John F. Kennedy. If the Obama presidency has run out of aerobic capacity 2½ years from the finish line, it is because of Mr. Obama’s own decisions. He did this to himself.

If there’s one Obama foreign-policy decision that sticks in anyone’s mind it is the “red line” in Syria. It was Mr. Obama’s decision last September, at Vladimir Putin’s invitation, to step back from his own criteria for punishing Syria’s Bashar Assad if he used chemical weapons against his own people. The voters now tanking Mr. Obama’s foreign affairs number don’t think it’s just random bad luck that Russian tanks ended up in Ukraine and some al Qaeda group they’ve never heard of took over half of Iraq in two days. The world is slipping beyond President Obama’s control, or interest. From here on out, it—and we—are in God’s hands.

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The Veterans Affairs scandal has exposed a failing bureaucracy, so naturally Congress’s solution is to give the same bureaucracy more money. The underreported story is that taxpayers could end up paying $50 billion each year so Congress can claim to have solved the problem.

The Senate recently whisked through with only three dissenting votes a bill cobbled together by Bernie Sanders and John McCain that authorizes $500 million to hire additional VA providers, over $200 million to lease 26 medical facilities and an unspecified amount to contract private care for veterans who live more than 40 miles from the nearest VA or experience treatment delays. Minutes before the vote, CBO issued a “preliminary” estimate that private care would cost $35 billion over the next two years and $50 billion annually thereafter. This is more than Mr. Sanders had proposed to spend when he was pitching a Democrats-only bill earlier this year.

Majority Leader Harry Reid then rushed to vote on the Senate floor before anyone might notice this future tab. As CBO notes, the “magnitude of [the bill’s] budgetary effects is highly uncertain” because it’s unclear how many more veterans will seek care once they don’t have to drive four hours or wait three months to get it. Only 8.4 million of more than 16 million veterans who qualify for VA care are enrolled.

Nor is it clear how much more care veterans will seek. The VA doesn’t charge premiums, immunizations and preventative screenings are free, and out-of-pocket costs are negligible. Even the lowest “priority group” pays a mere $10 daily co-pay for inpatient care. The upshot of this all-you-can-eat buffet has been rationed care, which is the real cause of the VA waiting-list scandal.

The truth is that many doctors won’t treat patients at Medicare reimbursement rates, which the VA started paying in 2011 to curb costs. The VA Office of Inspector General and Government Accountability Office have also reported improper payments and claim delays in non-VA “fee basis care.” A March 2012 report by the OIG reported an improper payment rate of 12.4%, which is one of the highest in federal programs.

The Senate bill would create a new private-care option called “choice cards” that allow veterans to seek care from outside providers if wait or driving times are excessive. The trouble here, as the CBO notes, is “the specific parameters of the new program would depend on regulations that would need to be developed.”

U.S. Border Patrol will put in place new policies to restrict the use of force by agents. The new rules come amid the revelation that illegal immigrants are entering the U.S. at record rates and overwhelming federal resources.

Under the new restrictions, Border Patrol agents will be required to avoid situations where deadly force may be used. “Examples include refraining from blocking moving vehicles’ paths or firing at rock-throwers unless in imminent danger, the Huffington Post reported. “Additionally, agents will be trained on how to carry and use lighter weapons, while also facing restrictions on taser use.”

Placing tight restrictions on Border Patrol agents could hinder their ability to protect the border or their own lives. Shawn Moran, Vice President of the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) told Breitbart Texas that Border Patrol agents put their lives at risk every day. Leaving them few options to defend themselves could put their lives in further jeopardy. “The lives of Border Patrol agents should not be pawns in the political games of Washington, D.C. and this administration is literally risking our lives,” Moran said.

Despite this, liberal media outlets and activists wasted no time praising the new restrictive policies.

“This is a monumental victory for border communities advocating for transparency and policy reform,” Andrea Guerrero of the Southern Border Communities Coalition told the Arizona Republic.

Complaints that Border Patrol agents “abuse their power” seem to have prompted the tightened restrictions. Perhaps most influential in prompting the policies was the so-called “scathing report” obtained by the Los Angeles Times in February, which supposedly found that Border Patrol agents had “fired in frustration” at illegal immigrants throwing rocks on the Mexican side of the border.

Lightning and relentless attacks marked the German Nazi blitzkrieg, which overwhelmed European nations during the onset of World War Two.

Just as each nation fell under successive bouts of German aggression, so too America has been reeling under one scandal after another – coming so fast from the White House and in such a lightning and unrelenting manner that we have barely had time to absorb and understand the latest scandal before another one has enveloped us. Consider some of what we have endured:

As the American President knowingly smiled, while listening in the White House Rose Garden to the father of the American deserter, Bowe Bergdahl, invoking in Arabic the opening words of the Koranic phrase claiming land for Islam – in this instance, claiming the very White House itself – the Taliban warlord, Mullah Omar, gloated over the release of the five top Taliban commanders. He called it a “big victory for the entire Afghan Muslim nation.”

In the Muslim dominated Middle East, respect is only reserved for the strong. Obama is happily projecting America as weak while he abases the U.S. at the feet of the assorted mullahs, emirs, kings, imams, thugs and tyrants whose Islamic “ideology wrapped in a religion,” as Sir Winston Churchill once described it, pronounce repeatedly that, “They love death more than we love life!”

Senator John McCain, no true conservative, nevertheless correctly called the five Muslim Afghan terrorists, “the worst of the worst,” as outrage set in throughout the United States of America. McCain added: “There will be a price to pay for this exchange.”

Yes, it will inevitably be a high price in the shedding of yet more American blood and treasure and a re-energized Islamic war against Judeo-Christian civilization.

Meanwhile Obama, during his recent visit to Brussels, rejected any apology for releasing the five top Taliban terrorists from Gitmo. But then why should he? Let us not forget that on the second day in office during his first term, Obama signed an executive order directing that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility be closed. This is all part of his “transformation of America,” or rather the destruction of this wonderful country.

Three years before Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki would be forced out of his job because of the veterans who had died under him, he visited the Massachusetts National Cemetery. He wasn’t there to see the men and women who had died because of him.

While vets were dying, Obama and Shinseki had turned their attention to something truly important; seeing to it that all the cemeteries where they were being buried had wind or solar power.

The Massachusetts National Cemetery was getting a wind turbine so that the dead veterans would have all the sustainable energy they needed.

A VA press release about the cemetery turbine boasted that “under the leadership of Secretary Eric K. Shinseki… VA is transitioning into a 21st century organization that better serves America’s Veterans.”

Shinseki arrived in person at the dedication ceremony to flip the switch on the cemetery wind turbine.

“Nationally, VA continues to expand its investment in renewable sources of energy to promote our Nation’s energy independence, save taxpayer dollars, and improve care for our Veterans and their families,” he said.

The cemetery turbine had cost $533,000. Veterans were dying to save the VA a few hundred dollars. Shinseki had made his order of priorities clear. Green energy boondoggles came first. Improving veteran care came last.

Acting Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs Steve Muro told the crowd, “With one of VA’s first wind turbine projects, the Massachusetts National Cemetery is leading the way in the use of renewable energy while providing the burial benefits that New England Veterans and their families have earned.”

Muro had made the entire macabre spectacle worthy of a Joseph Heller novel. Obama’s people had not only killed veterans, they had killed satire.

When the VA wasn’t installing a wind turbine at a cemetery, it was installing solar panels at cemeteries to better serve the dead veterans that it was killing.