RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Wall Street Journal has a remarkable story this week, entitled as follows:”Kerry Tries to Drum Up Some Business in Europe for Iran.”

Mr. Kerry, traveling in Europe, was urging European firms to do business with Iran in the aftermath of last year’s nuclear deal. The story continues:

“If they don’t see a good business deal, they shouldn’t say, ‘Oh, we can’t do it because of the United States.’ That’s just not fair. That’s not accurate,” Mr. Kerry said. The secretary is here through Thursday for an anticorruption summit and diplomatic meetings. He will meet with European banking leaders to “address their concerns about conducting business with Iran” after the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, a U.S. official said. In New York last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif pressed Mr. Kerry and other U.S. officials to do more to reassure other countries that they could do business with Iran without penalty. “Iran has a right to the benefits of the agreement they signed up to and if people, by confusion or misinterpretation or in some cases disinformation, are being misled, it’s appropriate for us to try to clarify that….”

Iran is the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism. It continues to rally its population with shouts of “Death to America.” It supports Hezbollah, a murderous terrorist group with the blood of hundreds of Americans on its hands. It has a nuclear weapons program that has been delayed, one hopes, by the nuclear deal–but continues its ballistic missile program, whose only logical purpose is to deliver nuclear weapons. It is an enemy of American allies such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel.

Why, then, is our Secretary of State trying to assist its economy? The so-called “spirit” of the nuclear agreement? There is no such thing, or Iran would not have captured and abused American sailors in the Gulf in January. Iran’s “rights” to benefits from the agreement? That is nonsense. Iran has the “right” to an end to nuclear sanctions, but has no “right” to additional business. There are many reasons companies may hold back, ranging from American terrorism and human rights sanctions, to uncertainty about future American policy, to fear that entities in Iran with which they may undertake business are also involved in illegal or terrorist activities. Moreover, Iran is not a democracy with a reliable legal system, but a dictatorship run by the ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guard where legal rights cannot possibly be guaranteed. There is simply no defensible reason for an American official, much less our top diplomat, to concern himself with how much investment and profit Iran can eke out of the nuclear deal. The effort to do so betrays America’s real interests in the Middle East, which are challenged by a richer and better resourced Iran.

The White House and congressional Republicans are once again sparring over the Iran nuclear deal, with the House Oversight Committee chairman calling on one of President Barack Obama’s top aides to testify at a hearing about how the administration sold the agreement to the public.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah) plans to convene the hearing Tuesday to look at “White House narratives on the Iran deal” and the administration’s public message on the negotiations and final agreement.
Mr. Chaffetz had asked Ben Rhodes, one of Mr. Obama’s top foreign policy advisers who led the White House communications effort, to testify. The request followed a New York Times Magazine story in which Mr. Rhodes discussed the administration’s media strategy, leading to charges the White House misled the public on aspects of the Iran negotiations and eventual agreement.

The White House has said it didn’t provide misleading information on the deal and that the House hearing is politically motivated.

Mr. Chaffetz said later Monday that the White House informed him Mr. Rhodes wouldn’t testify. “Talks to reporters and his ‘echo chamber’ but not Congress. Disappointing but typical,” Mr. Chaffetz said, in a Twitter message.

http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2016/05/it-didnt-start-with-marx.html An extraordinary book came my way, one which alters to some degree my own focus on the current conflict between socialism and conservatism, between secular political collectivism and religious political collectivism in America. This is George Watson’s The Lost Literature of Socialism, originally published in 1998 and reissued in 2001. Then, as now, it […]

Clinton Cash, the documentary film which I watched in previews yesterday, is based on the best-selling exposé of the same name by Peter Schweizer, the tireless investigative journalist who has devoted himself to confronting political corruption and crony capitalism regardless of the political affiliation of the perpetrators. Produced by Breitbart’s Stephen K. Bannon and directed by M. A. Taylor, Clinton Cash is crisply narrated by Schweizer and provides a relentless and devastating portrait of brazen financial venality in exchange for political favors.On Clinton Cash, Or, It’s Always Worse Than You Think | PJ Media

I read through Clinton Cash quickly when it came out last May. This was no right-wing hit job (as the Clinton campaign asserted) but rather a methodical and exhaustively sourced chronicle of how the Clintons parlayed Bill’s celebrity, Hillary’s position as secretary of State, and her possible future tenure as president of the United States into a veritable Niagara of cash.

Eye-popping speaking fees for Bill — $250,000, $500,000, even $750,000 a pop — and millions upon millions directed to the Clinton Foundation and its offshoots. Where was the money coming from? Did they actually find his “wisdom” that valuable?

No. The money came from multinational corporations that needed a favor. Shady foreign financiers. Dubious state entities in Africa, Saudi Arabia, Russia, South America, and elsewhere.

Are you worried about “money in politics”? Stop the car, get an extended-stay room, and take a long hard look at the Clintons’ operation for the last sixteen years.On Clinton Cash, Or, It’s Always Worse Than You Think | PJ Media

The Associated Press estimated that their net worth when they left the White House in 2000 was zero (really, minus $500K). Now they are worth about $200 million.

How did they do it? By “reading The Wall Street Journal” (classical reference)?

Not quite. The Clintons have perfected pay-to-play political influence peddling on a breathtaking scale. Reading Clinton Cash is a nauseating experience.

At the center of the book is not just a tale of private greed and venality. That is just business as usual in Washington (and elsewhere). No, what is downright scary is way the Clintons have been willing to trade away legitimate environmental concerns and even our national security for the sake of filthy lucre. CONTINUE AT SITE

Engines of Anxiety: Academic Rankings, Reputation and Accountability by Wendy Nelson Espeland and Michael Sauder, Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 2016

The three weekly news magazines, Time, Newsweek and US News and World Report, at one time printed and sold around ten million copies combined each week. All have been greatly reduced in scope and circulation, unable to compete as weekly new journals with rapid-fire instant news feeds available from online sources or 24-hour cable news channels. One of the three, US News, under the direction of its owner Mortimer Zuckerman, chose a different course a quarter century back: becoming the bible of annual higher education rankings. This venture has proven to be a great success, whatever the profitability of the enterprise for the company. Today, US News rankings of undergraduate universities and colleges, top high schools, and graduate and professional programs, have become a primary source of information for applicants, faculty, school staffs, employers, and alumni, and an important measure of status and achievement for the various schools and programs.
The ratings have always been controversial. How do you assess the quality of a program? Are the annual surveys measuring the right things? Are the weightings of various factors which produce a rating score and a ranking reflective of what should matter most in evaluating schools or programs? Do the ratings capture the student experience and the value of a college or graduate program? Are the distinctions among schools real, or just a factor of a need to rank order? Can the ratings be gamed? Do the ratings themselves influence some of the scores that are measured in the next ratings cycle, rather than just neutrally present a status report on a school or program?

Wendy Nelson Espeland and Michael Sauder’s new book, Engines of Anxiety, focuses on the US News rankings for one particular professional program, law schools. The authors argue that whereas there are alternative rankings for other professional schools or graduate programs, such as business schools, which provide alternatives to the US News survey, and there are many books which try to evaluate and score undergraduate programs, there is no real alternative to the US News rankings of law schools. US News divides undergraduate colleges and universities into national universities, and national small colleges, as well as regional universities and colleges. A business school can pick and choose one of the surveys which ranks its program, or components of its program highly, and sell that to prospective students. But US News has no real competition for its law school rankings (latest rankings here), for which one ranking system is applied to all law schools, virtually all of whom comply with the “system” and submit their data to the magazine each year.

The authors argue that the high compliance rate relates to the fact that US News will estimate a law school’s data for each factor measured when it does not submit its own. This would include data on job placement, admissions rates, LSAT scores, and GPAs for entering students, and the US News“estimates” are designed to be conservative — lower rather than higher than what might be the real experience. Why not get ranked 89th with your own data, than 116th when US News fills in the blanks?

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8043/germany-christians-persecuted Thousands of Christians in German refugee shelters are being persecuted by Muslims, sometimes even by their security guards, according to a new report by the NGO Open Doors. “A major obstacle to the survey was that many victims were afraid to participate. … Their concern was not only on the possible consequences for them […]

A fit of high dudgeon has gripped many of my Republican friends, ex-friends, and soon-to-be-ex-friends now that Donald Trump has all but won the Republican nomination. My advice to them: get over it. This presidential race will look like Alien vs. Predator. I’m for Predator, without a second’s hesitation, because he’s our Predator. For all his faults Donald Trump would be (and I’m confident will be) an incomparably better president.

I’m not pleased about the outcome of the primaries. I supported Ted Cruz and helped out in his campaign with economic research and news analysis. Yes, Trump is a vulgarian with poor impulse control. I don’t like him and find his vulgarity objectionable and his insulting remarks about Mexicans (for example) deplorable. The mother of my children is Mexican, and I take this sort of thing personally. If I ever have the opportunity I will give Trump a black eye.

But there’s a war on–three different wars, in fact. To remain neutral is moral cowardice; to choose the wrong side would be downright wicked.

First, there is a war on between Judeo-Christian principles and the political correctness inspired by the Frankfurt School and the French existentialists. Lunatics have seized control of our universities and have stamped out dissent with the zeal and vigilance of the Spanish Inquisition or the Taliban. The distinguished historian Paul Johnson said it best in a Forbes essay:

America has been a land of unrestricted comment on anything–until recently. Now the U.S. has been inundated with PC inquisitors, and PC poison is spreading worldwide in the Anglo zone. For these reasons it’s good news that Donald Trump is doing so well in the American political primaries. He is vulgar, abusive, nasty, rude, boorish and outrageous. He is also saying what he thinks and, more important, teaching Americans how to think for themselves again.

Certainly the most famous transgender in America is Caitlin Jenner who has graced the cover of many magazines, occupied two slots on reality t.v., received recognition and many awards from the media, the LGBTQ movement and praise from the president of the U.S. Her Woman of the Year award from Glamour magazine for her “courage” in telling her story prompted the return of a similar award issued in 2001 to first responder police officer Moira Smith who rushed into the South Tower to save lives on 9/11, dying at the age of 38. Her husband questioned why this award was now being given to a man when there were so many heroic women in the military, police force, fire brigades or medical teams who put their lives on the line daily. Less forgivable was President Obama’s own use of the word “courage” coming from his position as Commander in Chief with dedicated troops offering their lives in Iraq, Afghanistan and various other global hotspots. That same word simply doesn’t apply to a man squeezing himself into a bustier, hiding his package between his thighs and posing for the cover of a magazine whose title more aptly fits the situation – Vanity Fair.

Caitlin, formerly known as Bruce, has not had sexual reassignment surgery although it does appear he has had breast implants; we may soon find out if the rumor that she will be photographed nude turns out to be true. In any event, it is true that gender dysmorphia can now be rectified by the sufferer without altering the biological equipment that was present at birth. This means that many transgender women are actually bi-gender, sporting features common to both sexes: breasts, hairless face, smooth skin, female hormones and a penis. Ordinarily, what’s underneath one’s clothes would be unknown to anyone but the individual and those people with whom he was intimate. That has changed however, with the Justice Department stipulation that transgenders must be entitled to use the bathroom, locker room and shower facilities of whichever sex they choose to call their own. The state of No. Carolina disagreed and issued a law reserving bathrooms and locker rooms to biologically appropriate users. In answer to this flouting of her department’s ruling, Loretta Lynch claimed, “They created state-sponsored discrimination against transgender individuals who simply seek to engage in the most private of functions in a place of safety and security.” (NYT 5/10/16) The question is for whom?

For adolescents who have been spared exposure to the multiple pornographic sites on t.v. and the internet, the sight of a boy or man with a penis and breasts would certainly be confusing, if not alarming. The same is true for many adults, despite the growing attempts by social and conventional media to become increasingly explicit with previously considered “fringe” elements of sexual behavior. Several series and films on cable tv have featured bondage, torture and recreational urination as just some other kind of sex the folks enjoy. This defining deviancy down has now decided that the rights of bi-genders trump the rights of those with conventional gender identity. Somehow, a girl who thinks she’s a boy and vice versa, has been parlayed from a gender dysmorphic problem with an abnormally high suicide rate (even after sexual reassignment surgery) to a civil rights issue. Our president, attorney-general and NY governor want us to believe that all the Caitlin Jenners have not only the freedom to morph into the opposite gender but the constitutional right to do so. Why bi-gender people deserve more consideration than people suffering from other forms of delusional thinking remains a mystery. A white woman who chooses to identify as black will not be protected under the same acts that prohibit discrimination by race. A man who wishes to be known as Napoleon and dresses accordingly will not be tolerated in the military and probably not even at the local gym. Neither the military nor the gym will be forced to provide a place for him to park his horse.