RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://pjmedia.com/spengler/

Just after Obama’s re-election we heard Republican leaders explain that Obama had just gotten lucky — the economy was in the recovery phase of a normal business cycle, and Obama caught the right wave. As the stock market rallied through the first four months of 2013 and regained its old peak, the story seemed credible — until a couple of weeks ago, that is.

We’ve had one depressing economic report after another. Employment is barely growing, according to the ADP survey, which showed just 119,000 new jobs created in April and 118,000 in May. The April purchasing managers’ index for manufacturing fell sharply from 54.6 to 52.1 (50 is dead in the water).

The Shadow Government Statistics website calculates the true unemployment rate — the proportion of the working-age population that can work but doesn’t — at 23%. That includes so-called “long-term discouraged workers” not included in the labor force. Even the government’s own broad measure of unemployment still stands at almost 15%, twice the pre-crisis level.

On a GDP basis, the economy grew at an 0.8% rate in the fourth quarter of 2012 and at a 2.5% in the first quarter. That’s just 1.5% without counting inventories. Investment in industrial equipment actually fell during the quarter. It’s an economy that is flying barely above stall speed.

No, Obama didn’t win re-election because the vote happened to occur at the cusp of a normal business cycle recovery. The economy really is that bad. So is Obama. Sadly, so was the Republican ticket.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/how-american-muslims-radicalize/?print=1 If radicalized means self-segregated, embittered, and angry enough to be ambivalent about the mentorship of jihadists, then America needs to pay close attention to neighborhood Islamic centers. There is a nexus between disaffected Muslims and those who graduate to violence, and two [1] studies [2] point to the American mosque. Now that another plot has been executed […]

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/05/vladimir_putin_and_the_boston_bombings.html

Did you really think an proud KGB spy-turned-Russian president would let a crisis in Boston go to waste

The Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is singing you a siren song, Mr. and Mrs. America, about how you and he are struggling together against global terrorism. Don’t you believe it, though — not for one neo-Soviet second. Russia stands with the terrorists, not against them. Russia stands against America, and all she represents.

On April 25, 2013, the Israeli air force shot down a drone aircraft five miles from its port city of Haifa, which has a population of about 300,000. Hezb’allah denied sending the drone, but six months ago, when another drone was intercepted by Israeli Defense Forces, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezb’allah, openly boasted that his fighters had assembled and dispatched the Iranian-designed aircraft and declared ominously that “it was not the first time, and it will not be the last.”

One day after the latest drone attack, Russian deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov met with a Hezb’allah official in Beruit and told assembled reporters: “We cooperate with Hezb’allah and respect the Lebanese people’s will… this party, which has proven its credibility [over the course of time], must [have its opinions] respected.”

The United States recognizes Hezb’allah as a terrorist organization, as does Israel. But for Russia, Hezb’allah is a partner and ally. Similarly, Russia actively supports the genocidal anti-U.S. regime in Syria, and it actively supports Iran. Before they were swept away by popular insurrections, Russia also supported the anti-democratic rulers of Egypt and Libya while the U.S. sided with the popular revolts against them.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323628004578457001748448248.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

The World’s Greatest Orator appeared before the press yesterday, and here are some highlights of his remarks: “This is hard stuff. . . . Maybe I should just pack up and go home. Golly. I think it’s a little–as Mark Twain said, rumors of my demise may be a little exaggerated at this point. . . . Right now things are pretty dysfunctional up on Capitol Hill. . . . You seem to suggest that somehow these folks over there [in Congress] have no responsibilities and that my job is to somehow get them to behave. That’s their job. . . . I cannot force Republicans to embrace those common-sense solutions. . . . We’re going to try to do everything we can to create a permission structure for them to be able to do what’s going to be best for the country.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324482504578454592426005024.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

The new arrests in Boston look like criminal cases. But why was the interrogation of the accused bomber handled like a criminal matter too?

The three suspects arrested Wednesday in the Boston Marathon bombing case appear to be considered accomplices after the fact. It is likely that they will be treated as common criminals rather than terrorists. Unfortunately, law-enforcement has approached the accused bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev that way as well.

A miasma of conflicting views about Mr. Tsarnaev’s legal status has engulfed the case. The rules and principles that should govern the relevant facts are pretty straightforward, but they alone do not explain the actual outcome thus far, which seems rooted instead in the Obama administration’s gauzy notions about what is required of law informed by morality.

At the time of Mr. Tsarnaev’s April 19 apprehension, no warrant had been issued for his arrest. The case law on warrantless arrests requires the initiation of the court process within 48 hours, with exceptions arguably not relevant here. The reason for the 48-hour requirement, as explained by the Supreme Court in County of Riverside v. McLaughlin (1991), is to prevent secret arrests unsupported by probable cause, as determined by what the law calls a neutral magistrate. Of course, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s arrest was not secret, and the facts surrounding it far surpassed the modest probable-cause standard. All that was missing was the finding by a neutral magistrate.

http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/05/01/the-clinical-definition-of-insanity/

President Obama made a number of ill-conceived remarks in his press conference Tuesday, but the topper was the one reported by the New York Times regarding the performance of federal investigators in the aftermath of a 2011 warning from Russian intelligence that Tamerlan Tsarnaev — one of the eventual Boston Marathon bombers — was an Islamic radical:

Mr. Obama said that after the Russian warning, federal agents “had not only investigated the older brother; they interviewed the older brother. They concluded that there were no signs that he was engaging in extremist activity.”

Translation: There is to be no change in our approach — we refuse to acknowledge the causative nexus between Islamic supremacism and the terrorism committed by Muslims. Yes, the agents confirmed that Tsarnaev had adopted the aggressor ideology, but he had not — yet — moved on to aggressive activity. Until activity happens, we take no note of someone’s beliefs … unless they are right-wingers, Second Amendment defenders, or pro-life advocates.

You cannot combat an ideologically driven threat absent an understanding of the ideology and acknowledgment of its catalyzing effects. But President Obama says, no, the FBI shouldn’t take any action until agents have proof that someone is engaging in violent acts – or at least conspiring to do so (since the president favors approaching jihadist terror as a crime, rather than a war, I assume his understanding of “activity” includes conspiracy). This takes us back to September 10th America.

http://jewishworldreview.com/mort/zuckerman050113.php3 The Economy Is Not Advancing — It’s Going Backward: Obama administration is more inclined to PR than hard-headed pragmatism in dealing with unemployment Which way are we going? The stock market has revived, though it still is off a high in real terms. There’s suddenly good news about housing demand, which is showing signs […]

http://cis.org/are-there-really-jobs-americans-wont-do?utm_source=E-mail+Updates&utm_campaign=f21bc2abe0-5_1_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_7dc4c5d977-f21bc2abe0-44705197

WASHINGTON, DC (May 2, 2013) — Supporters of the Schumer-Rubio amnesty argue that the bill’s large increase in future legal immigration will have little impact on the employment of natives because immigrants do only jobs American’s don’t want. But a detailed analysis of 472 separate occupations by the Center for Immigration Studies shows there are only a tiny number of majority-immigrant occupations (legal and illegal immigrants combined). Thus, there are really no jobs that Americans won’t do. Further, the Center found no occupations in which a majority of workers are illegal immigrants.

Co-author Steven Camarota, the Center’s Director of Research, notes, “When more educated and affluent Americans argue that immigrants only do jobs Americans don’t want, what they often mean is immigrants do jobs that they personally don’t want. They forget the millions of their fellow Americans who do precisely these same jobs.”

The millions of native-born Americans and legal immigrants already in the United States who work at low-paying and difficult jobs unfortunately do not seem to be represented in the legislation, which calls for a massive increase in immigration. The Schumer-Rubio bill creates a new guestworker program for less-skilled immigrants, it increases family immigration for a number of years, a large share of which is less-skilled, and creates new categories to admit additional less-educated workers.

  .DO YOU SEE A PATTERN?   By Ed Ziegler Columnist   The United States is known for welcoming immigrants seeking freedom and a better life. The vast majority of immigrants embrace our language, customs and laws. However it appears that many Muslims have developed a pattern to change our way of life to satisfy […]

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/347095/huge-flaw-pew-survey-muslim-views-about-sharia There will be more to say about the findings of the newly released Pew survey ”The World’s Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society.” Of course, such revelations as the approval by upwards of two-thirds of Middle Eastern Muslims of the death penalty for apostates, and by one-third of suicide bombings, are depressing — though not at all surprising for […]