RUTHFULLY YOURS

Edward Said leaves us with the impression that all prejudice is only on the part of the West.

To the traditionally minded, news of such things as man-made laws based on objective evidence, free speech, equal justice under law, democracy, elections, freedom for women, freedom of religion and respect for the “other,” and so on, may have come as a sort of horror. Despots recoiled from the very thought of democracy. Religious leaders fumed at secular education, the freedom to question and say what one liked, even about religion.

“It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated; to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.” — Hasan al-Banna’, Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, 1928.

The vast amount of what is called “Islamophobia,” however, is not that at all. Fair criticism is not phobic, responses to Islamic terrorism are reasonable reactions to violence.

Based on news reports of Muslims murdering other Muslims and killing Christians, there is, ironically, probably more Islamophobia among Muslims for each other than there is from Westerners toward Muslims. There is also probably more “Infidelophobia” by Muslims toward non-Muslims than by non-Muslims toward Muslims.

The position of US voters on the nuclear deal with the Ayatollahs – and therefore the position of Senators and House Representatives – is shaped by their worldview, in general, and US homeland and national security considerations, in particular.

According to RealClearPolitics’ most recent polls, a major wedge has evolved between the US constituent, on the one hand, and US policy-makers, on the other hand, when it comes to foreign policy and national security: a mere 38.5% approval rating of President Obama’s foreign policy. For instance, a CNN poll documented a majority disapproval of Obama’s handling of Islamic terrorism, and a majority backing the use of military force against ISIS.

The chasm between most constituents and the White House is highlighted by the congressional debate on the nuclear deal with the Ayatollahs.

Mr. Mukasey served as U.S. attorney general (2007-09) and as a U.S. district judge for the Southern District of New York (1988-2006).

The question of whether Hillary Clinton’s emails were marked top secret isn’t legally relevant. Any cabinet member should know that.

Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server to conduct public business while serving as secretary of state, followed by the deletion of information on that server and the transfer to her lawyer of a thumb drive containing heretofore unexplored data, engages several issues of criminal law—but the overriding issue is one of plain common sense.

Let’s consider the potentially applicable criminal laws in order of severity.

It is a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than a year to keep “documents or materials containing classified information . . . at an unauthorized location.” Note that it is the information that is protected; the issue doesn’t turn on whether the document or materials bear a classified marking. This is the statute under which David Petraeus—former Army general and Central Intelligence Agency director—was prosecuted for keeping classified information at home. Mrs. Clinton’s holding of classified information on a personal server was a violation of that law. So is transferring that information on a thumb drive to David Kendall, her lawyer.

EXCERPT….AND THANKS TO G. WALPIN FOR THIS ASSESSMENT…RSK

This is par for the course from a man who inherited all the wealth of Richie Rich but acts as if he personally invented money. Probably half the Junior Achievement students in the country could take an inherited $400 million and plaster their names all over ugly buildings, even without needing to hire enough lawyers to figure out how to game bankruptcy laws so as to walk away four times while leaving not just lenders but plenty of small-business vendors high, dry, and undeservedly hurting.

Judging from the nonsense that spews from this man’s blowhole, if his brain were ink, it wouldn’t dot an ‘I.’

His supporters say, though, that they admire him for at least “telling it straight,” saying whatever his feeble mind happens to think. Even that isn’t true, though: Trump doesn’t say what he believes; he says whatever he thinks people want to hear or, if that doesn’t work, whatever will bring him the most attention.

This is a man who first rocketed to the top of the polls by talking tough against illegal immigrants. Yet less than three years ago he was blaming Mitt Romney for not being nice enough to illegals – and he, Trump, was suggesting that the United States should provide a “path” to citizenship not just for 11 million illegals, but 30 million.

Trump is a chameleon, a charlatan, and a certifiable con-man. He pretends to be conservative, but (as has been amply documented) he has a long, long record of being anti-gun, pro-abortion “rights,” pro-taxes, pro-socialized medicine, for even more abusively expanded powers of government to confiscate private land, for massive government spending (he supported Barack Obama’s 2009 “stimulus” that stimulated almost nothing but government debt), and for the most leftist of politicians – giving well over half a million dollars to the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Anthony Wiener, Edolphus Towns, and a host of other of liberal louts who like nothing better than to tax and regulate ordinary Americans into subservience to big-government busy-bodies.

Trump has played footsie with the mob so often that even his socks may be subject to omerta restrictions. He has vulgarized the culture in a way even Madonna might envy. He has spent so much money trying to buy (or at least rent) politicians that he is a walking advertisement for corporate-political cronyism. And, as Megyn Kelly’s debate question indicated, he has treated women with less respect than even Rodney Dangerfield might earn on one of his very worst days.

Trump has no proof for his claims about the Mexican government deliberately sending rapists our way (although it is true that President Obama has let loose hundreds of violent alien criminals); no remotely plausible way to get the Mexican government to pay for a wall across the border that as recently as 2012 Trump himself seemed to want to make more porous; no actual public plan to deal with illegals; no public plan to revive the American economy; no known record of saying he was wrong for advocating higher taxes, socialized medicine, and hundreds of billions of dollars of non-stimulating “stimulus” spending; and certainly nothing indicating he has embraced any limits on the power of government to take the private property of the working poor for the benefit of plutocratic wealth inheritors and squalid deal-makers like himself.

“Of course, Trump is not what he claims to be. He is hardly a paragon of conservative virtue, having supported Democratic politicians and liberal causes until quite recently. And it is all well and good to be frustrated; it is quite another to do something about it. Trump would never get anything done, even if he could win a general election (which he can’t). His in-your-face style might work great on a reality TV show, but the Framers designed our system to thwart such bullies.”

Donald Trump is not going to be the next nominee of the Republican party. The flamboyant businessman has made billions in real estate, but politics is another matter. He manifestly lacks the temperament to be president, and his conversion to the Republican party is of recent vintage. As the field narrows, and voters look closely at the other candidates, Trump will fade.
Still, the Trump surge should remind Republican politicians of a truth they may prefer to forget: Their voters do not like them anymore. Tune out Trump’s bombast and what’s left is a simple, compelling message to the Republican base: The rest of your party has been bought and paid for, but I’m my own man, and I’ll actually represent you.

All else being equal, it is surprising this message should resonate. For a party that does not control the White House, the GOP is in incredibly strong shape. Tallying up the state legislative, gubernatorial, and congressional seats, Republicans are as strong as they have been since the 1920s. History suggests that the GOP should win the White House, too: The Democrats are going for a historically rare third consecutive term; the incumbent president’s approval is weak; and their presumptive nominee has acute ethical problems.

August is traditionally a vacation month, and East Coast elites, following European tradition, are thick on the ground in the Hamptons, Martha’s Vineyard (the Obamas’ choice), and Nantucket.

But news — in some cases, shattering news — keeps breaking out all over, at home and abroad this August. Actually that’s not unusual. Saddam Hussein overran Kuwait in August 1990; Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland in August 1939; the great powers of Europe went to war in August 1914.

Nothing quite so momentous has happened so far this August. But the political world seems to be spinning out of control.

Thus last week 24 million Americans watched the Fox News Republican 9 p.m. Thursday presidential debate, an unprecedentedly enormous audience. And 6 million watched the 5 p.m. debate featuring candidates with low poll numbers. That’s 5 o’clock Eastern, 4 Central, 3 Mountain, 2 Pacific. How many Americans usually watch political debates at that hour?

Let’s be honest. Obamacare was nothing more than a bait and switch. But Americans never took the bait.

In 2010, as President Obama and his fellow Democrats were trying desperately to ram Obamacare down our throats, they made one false claim after another. They told us health-care premiums would go down. They insisted if you liked your health-care plan you could keep it. They guaranteed Obamacare wouldn’t include any tax increases for the middle class. Americans didn’t buy these lofty promises then, and they certainly don’t now, given that each and every one of them has been broken.

Five years after Democrats forced Obamacare on the nation, Americans still don’t support it. We don’t like the president’s health-care plan, and we don’t want to keep it. Therefore, we must pull this dysfunctional and destructive law out by the roots.

We must repeal Obamacare in its entirety as soon as possible. But we can’t stop there. The president’s policies must be replaced with a plan that will send power back to the people and the states, fix the decades-old problems of rising medical-care and health-insurance costs, and support economic growth instead of punishing workers and small businesses. We must do all of this while ensuring affordable coverage for those with pre-existing conditions, and removing the fear that something as simple as changing jobs could result in loss of coverage.

Next week, I will release a plan to replace Obamacare that accomplishes all of these goals, and addresses the following problems with the law:

Given the sort of views and preachers to which this member of the government’s counter-terrorism programme subscribes, he should not be entrusted work in publicly funded counter-extremism. But in the eyes of the media and government, Sulaimaan Samuel’s arguments against ISIS make him a suitable “moderate.”

Once again, hardline preachers and Islamist extremists have been rewarded and praised rather than ostracized. If Britain is to win the battle against Islamist extremism, public officials must be held to account for their irresponsible choice of partners.

A British government body responsible for monitoring the counter-terrorism procedures among Britain’s 44 police forces has admitted, the Daily Telegraph reports, to employing “one of Britain’s most notorious Islamic extremists.”

Abdullah Al-Andalusi, whose real name is Mouloud Farid, worked at Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, at which he was privy to “highly sensitive and classified police and intelligence information.”

Hillary Clinton’s “inevitable” cruise to the presidency has crashed onto the twin sandbars of the Sanders surge and the FBI’s seizure Wednesday of the private computer server and thumb drives that likely contain classified documents. Thus, it is useful to review her initial statements on E-mailgate. In hindsight, she swaddled journalists in lies.

“I did not e-mail any classified material to anyone on my e-mail. There is no classified material,” Clinton declared at her March press conference.

This was a lie. There was classified material.

Among the 30,490 e-mails that Clinton handed the State Department last December, the inspector general for the intelligence community (ICIG) sampled 40 and discovered that four (or 10 percent) were classified. Of these, two (or 5 percent) “when originated” were designated “TOP SECRET//SI//TK//NOFORN.”

This information was not just sensitive, such as the date when Clinton might visit, say, Islamabad — which could tantalize the Pakistani Taliban. Rather, this involved such things as satellite images and electronic intercepts. Executive Order 12356 of 1982 specifies that these secrets’ unauthorized disclosure could cause “exceptionally grave damage to the national security.” If the ICIG’s sample mirrors Clinton’s other e-mails, some 1,500 could be top secret.

Congress Is Waking Up on Mental Health By The Editors

Fervent gun-controllers and cynical political observers sometimes deride efforts to reform America’s mental-health system as a distracting, even unhelpful, answer to the problem of mass shootings. This is unfair, as no small number of young men who commit unspeakable acts of violence do indeed have diagnosable serious mental illnesses. But it is also ignorant, because fixing our mental-health system is also a response to everyday mass suffering — to the burden that serious mental illness presents for the 7 million or so Americans, many of them on the streets or in prison, who have serious illnesses, and the families and communities that want to help them.

Thankfully, Congress seems to be coming around. There is not just one bill currently floating around that would improve the mental-health system, but several, all of which would move public dollars toward treating serious mental illness (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, etc.) and away from trying to diagnose and treat mental-health problems across the whole population.

The best bill is the one that Republican representative Tim Murphy, a psychologist from Pennsylvania, has been pushing for a couple of years now. Murphy’s bill, which has substantial bipartisan support, attacks some of the most perverse aspects of our laws regarding mental illness. It will finally change the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act so that family members of people with serious mental illness can know what medications they have been prescribed, when they are scheduled to see their doctors, and other crucial information. Murphy’s bill will also use federal mental-health grants to encourage the use of assisted outpatient treatment, which, unlike most of the work the federal mental-health bureaucracy supports, has been proven to be effective. The bill will require the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to reconsider whether Medicaid should be paying for long-term hospitalization for the mentally ill. More broadly, the bill would reform the federal mental-health bureaucracy, pushing it toward supporting the seriously mentally ill and reducing support for “patient advocates” efforts that actually hamper effective treatment.