RUTHFULLY YOURS

Nobody knows how to game the system for personal gain like an Illinois lawmaker. The political class voted themselves tens of millions of dollars in lifetime pension payouts. It’s time end their ‘pension palace.’

Illinois lawmakers have one of the sweetest retirement deals on planet earth. It’s supposed to be a ‘part-time’ job in the general assembly, but now taxpayer funded legislator pension costs exceed most base salaries. Last year, taxpayers paid a whopping $71,818 per legislator ($15.8 million in FY2015) to fund their ‘golden parachute’ retirement plans. See the top all-time General Assembly Retirement System pensions here.
At OpenTheBooks.com, we looked at who’s receiving what, when and for how long. The results would make Public Enemy #1, the 1930s bank robber John Dillinger, blush. For example, the #1 all-time pension goes to a 31-year long-forgotten state senator. Retiring from Springfield in 2000, with a pension spiking stop at the Chicago schools, Arthur Berman (D) now takes $19,652 a month ($235,824) in annual pension – nearly four times more than he ever made as a Springfield lawmaker.
Here are just some of the Illinois lawmaker ‘big-dogs’ from both parties:

Retired Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley (D) makes $132,384 a year in state lawmaker pension – from a short eight-year ‘career’ as a state senator (plus some pension spiking tricks).
Former Governor Jim Edgar (R) costs taxpayers $337,816 per year: a $156,324 pension, plus an $181,492 salary (FY2013) at our flagship University of Illinois at Champaign.
In 2010, former Governor George Ryan (R) had a $197,028 annual pension ($16,419/month), but it was stripped away by the successful public corruption prosecution conviction.

Even former Speaker of the House Denny Hastert (R) cashed in for a $28,020 ($2,335/month) legislative state pension before heading off to his congressional career.

Both Democrats and Republicans have engineered a system of compliance and largesse – give no pain to party leadership and the lawmaker gets all the gain. As soon as lawmakers ‘retire,’ they move into a pension palace.

Of course, even the losers get into pension palace. Consider the ‘casualties’ of the 2014 elections:

To Turkish President Recip Erdogan’s dismay, Obama did NOT attend today’s opening of the Lanham, Maryland mega-mosque as expected. At the mosque inauguration, the stealth ISIS supporter and arch enemy of the Kurds lambasted “those who are defaming our faith” and singled out U.S. presidential candidates who are exposing the Islamic threat to America as “targeting Muslims.”

Erdogan defended Turkey’s efforts to fight terrorism and pledged to send the “true message of Islam across the globe.” Ironically, the Turkish leader has described his Islamic-supremacist government’s efforts to deliver weapons to Palestinian jihadists and thwart Israel’s blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza as a “peace flotilla” and had the hubris to demand an apology from Israel for its “aggressive” interception of the operation. Under pressure from Obama, Israel was forced to oblige.

The Lanham, Maryland mosque is reputed to be the largest Islamic campus in the Western Hemisphere. Turkey has been busily building mega-mosques on five continents with planned mosque construction projects in Havana, Cambridge, Budapest, Bucharest, Haiti, and several other cities around the world. It appears that Erdogan, an aspiring Caliph, may be close to attaining his goal of reviving and leading the Neo-Ottoman Empire by 2023.

The Lanham mega-mosque, a $110 million project, housed on 15 acres, comprises a 20,000+ square foot mosque, a cultural center, guest houses, and an underground sports complex. (This begs the question, “Why underground?”)

The Washington, D.C. metropolitan area is reported to have the second largest Muslim population in the U.S. (conveniently located at the heartbeat of the country) with at least 25 mosques a.k.a. potential jihad training centers and weapons depots. With estimates from several studies (including the 2005 expose by Freedom House) claiming that over 80% of U.S. mosques are radicalized, doing the math indicates that 20 such facilities potentially threaten the seat of our government and beyond.

The land for the Lanham mega-mosque was originally purchased by Fetullah Gulen, an exiled Turkish cleric, who with over 150 schools, operates the largest charter school network in the United States. It was recently reported that Gulen is infiltrating the U.S. military by establishing publicly-funded schools to target the children of American service personnel. The radical cleric is currently negotiating with the U.S. Air Force to locate a charter school at Nellis Air Force Base with classes to begin in the 2016-2017 school year. As one of the largest national users of H1B* visas, Gulen is able to recruit Turkish Muslim teachers to staff his many schools. He retains a skilled stable of immigration lawyers to insure favorable visa decisions – 684 H1B visas in 2009 alone.

While Americans are busy focusing on other things – March Madness and Kim Kardashian to name a couple, the stealth jihad of over 60 years duration continues apace. In a relatively short time, the civilizational jihad has advanced to an unfathomable degree. Truly, the enemy within has cleverly achieved enormous success raising minimal awareness and relatively contained violence.

*(Beware: Several presidential candidates have called for increasing the number of H1B visas).

Chuck Brooks, vice president for government relations and marketing at Sutherland Global Services, believes the U.S. should exercise vigilance, adopt intelligence and surveillance technologies and deploy trained security personnel to prevent attacks on soft targets.http://www.executivegov.com/2016/03/sutherlands-chuck-brooks-vigilance-shared-intell-tech-key-to-protect-soft-targets/

He wrote in a guest piece published Monday on Federal Times the recent terror attacks in Brussels have brought a new focus to the U.S. government’s national security efforts.

“While no plots have been recently uncovered directed at our soft targets, it does not mean that such plots do not exist,” he noted.

“Increased vigilance, shared intelligence, continued specialized training, and more investments in security technologies, canine detection capabilities, and dedicated security personnel to patrol common spaces will all serve to make us safer.”

The Department of Homeland Security is eyeing a potential integration of physiological and behavioral sensor systems into checkpoints, according to Brooks.

He recommended that DHS checkpoints adopt facial recognition software designed to feed real-time data into a database of suspected terrorists as well as three-dimensional imaging tools that can work to detect bombs.

You know you live in New England when you awake on the morning of the vernal equinox and the ground is covered with snow! But as Mark Twain (who lived in Hartford, Connecticut for seventeen years) once said: “If you don’t like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes.”

It wasn’t only the weather that was out of sorts in March: The Republican race for President took a nastier tone, as the wives of Trump and Cruz were invoked in petty and mean ways. Not to suggest that wives have ever been immune from the scurrilous behavior of their husband’s opponents. Rachel Jackson was called an adulteress and a bigamist. She died of a heart attack, after her husband was elected but before he was inaugurated. Florence Harding was accused by the press of poisoning her husband. Eleanor Roosevelt was reamed by southern newspapers for associating with Blacks. Life magazine referred to Mrs. Truman as “payroll Bess.” It was widely believed that Mamie Eisenhower had a drinking problem. Nonetheless, one hopes for civility; unfortunately, rudeness sells better than decency.

But it was the persistence of Islamic terrorism – seen most vividly in the horrific bombings in Brussels, where the dead were so mutilated that identification was difficult – that defined the month. Brussels received the most attention in our West-centric world, but Islamic attacks in the Middle East and North and Sub-Saharan Africa occurred, literally, daily – including the killing of 70 on Easter, near a children’s swing in Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park in Lahore, Pakistan. Slipping in bathtubs may kill more Americans than terrorists, but that is effectively a tautological argument used by an Administration that refuses to put the qualifier “Islamic” before the noun “terrorist.” According to a report recently out from the nonprofit Investigative Project on Terrorism, the number of people killed annually by terrorists has increased eight-fold since 2010. While Mr. Obama took pride in the killing of ISIS financial chief Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli (and I would rather him dead than alive and free), one cannot help but think how much better it would have been had he been captured, made to talk and then executed. Collateral damage would have been less and we might have learned something that could help prevent future attacks.

In an attempt to divide further an already fractured Republican Party, President Obama nominated Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court. Judge Garland would seem qualified for the position, but he is no Antonin Scalia. He is a moderate. He is a man who interprets the Constitution more liberally than did Justice Scalia. It would be like replacing a Mastiff with a Golden Retriever. It is not that Mr. Obama prefers moderates like Judge Garland – Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan are better examples of his leftist leanings – but he would prefer to trap Republicans in the quagmire he has concocted. In a closely watched case concerning First Amendment rights (a re-hearing of Abood v. Detroit Board of Education), the Court split evenly 4-4. They therefore left in place a decision by a lower court that stated public sector workers had to pay union fees for collective bargaining and political support, even if they chose not to join the union and/or disagreed how their dues would be spent. It was a win for unions and a loss for First Amendment advocates. The decision would have been 5-4 in favor of the appellants had Antonin Scalia been alive.

And how many ex cabinet members and legislators are on Arab payroll? Madeleine Halfbright is on Dubai’s payroll, and the Clinton Scamdation has gotten big bucks from the Emirates in addition to speaking fees…..rsk
If, since 9/11, you’ve begun to think that all American politicians are corrupt, that our national anger was deliberately misdirected to places where it could be expended with absolutely no result, and that our military has been exhausted in a series of pointless, unwinnable wars against third-rate Islamic nations… you’re absolutely correct. Everywhere you look, from George W. Bush holding hands with various members of the Saudi “royal” family on down, the real enemy of civilization wraps its tentacles more tightly around us. Case in point: the sham GOP candidate, widely despised former Naval officer and second-most-loathed man in the U.S. Senate, the ineffable John McCain:

A nonprofit with ties to Senator John McCain received a $1 million donation from the government of Saudi Arabia in 2014, according to documents filed with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

The Arizona Republican has strictly honorary roles with the McCain Institute for International Leadership, a program at Arizona State University, and its fundraising arm, the McCain Institute Foundation, according to his office. But McCain has appeared at fundraising events for the institute and his Senate campaign’s fundraiser is listed in its tax returns as the contact person for the foundation.

Though federal law strictly bans foreign contributions to electoral campaigns, the restriction doesn’t apply to nonprofits engaged in policy, even those connected to a sitting lawmaker.

Groups critical of the current ethics laws say that McCain’s nonprofit effectively gives Saudi Arabia — or any other well-heeled interests — a means of making large donations to politicians it hopes to influence. “Foreign governments are prohibited from financing candidate campaigns and political parties,” Craig Holman, the government affairs lobbyist for ethics watchdog Public Citizen, said. “Funding the lawmakers’ nonprofit organizations is the next best thing.”

Just leave that suitcase full of cash right over there in the corner, Achmed, while I finish this speech on the importance of a strong national defense. And say hello to the Clintons:

Holman said that the Clinton Foundation, whose top donors include Australia, Norway, Saudi Arabia and Sweden, may have started the trend of foreign governments donating to nonprofits connected to political figures.

Founded in 1998 to raise money for then-President Bill Clinton’s presidential library, the Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars from foreign governments over the years, including while Hillary Clinton, now running for president, served as secretary of State during President Barack Obama’s first term. The foundation says that Clinton was not involved in its work when she worked for the Obama administration.

The object of the boycott is not so much to protest the North Carolina law, as to punish anyone who does not conform to the “settled science” of à la carte gender identity.

The traditional source of the law of non-contradiction is Aristotle’s Metaphysics where he gives three different versions.

ontological: “It is impossible that the same thing belong and not belong to the same thing at the same time and in the same respect.” (1005b19-20)
psychological: “No one can believe that the same thing can (at the same time) be and not be.” (1005b23-24)
logical: “The most certain of all basic principles is that contradictory propositions are not true simultaneously.” (1011b13-14)

In short, A is A; A cannot be A and non-A (or B) at one and the same time.

Aristotle did not deal in traditions. Traditions are not a fundamental basis for establishing facts, politics, art, or even gender. Traditions are “time-honored” actions or beliefs, which may or may not be worthy of observation. But they are not philosophy.

In today’s culture, a culture that has more or less repudiated Aristotle in its government, in its culture, and even in “gender identification,” it is possible for transgenders, gays, and other identity-deficient individuals to believe that they can be one gender and not what they don’t want to be. This phenomenon is possible only in a culture of philosophical disintegration.

This writer was banned and all records of his past columns “archived” out of public sight on http://capitalismmagazine.com/ over an article he wrote and posted in June of 2015, “The Prancing Unicorn of Bruce Jenner.” The article criticized Bruce Jenner, who decided he was Caitlyn Jenner, a woman. He claims he is no longer a man. But when he undergoes the emasculating surgery that will enable him (and all his fans) to pretend he is a woman, in fact, he will still be a man, but now a eunuch. Neither the blog host nor many of the site’s readers, cared for that logic. As a consequence, I no longer post columns on the site, and no longer read it.

Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification. Ayn Rand, the novelist/philosopher wrote succinctly and eloquently on the subject:

All thinking is a process of identification and integration. Man perceives a blob of color; by integrating the evidence of his sight and his touch, he learns to identify it as a solid object; he learns to identify the object as a table; he learns that the table is made of wood; he learns that the wood consists of cells, that the cells consist of molecules, that the molecules consist of atoms. All through this process, the work of his mind consists of answers to a single question: What is it? His means to establish the truth of his answers is logic, and logic rests on the axiom that existence exists.

Ghazala Salam has left her job with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). But rather than having made this decision in order to repudiate radical Islam and her work on behalf of an organization associated with the terrorist group Hamas, she instead, joined the staff of another Islamist group, Emerge USA, whose unwritten mission is to promote Muslim infiltration of the American political system to undermine government institutions.

CAIR was established in June 1994 as part of a terrorist umbrella group headed by then-global head of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook. In 2007 and 2008, CAIR was named by the US Justice Department a co-conspirator for two federal trials dealing with the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas. Since its founding, a number of CAIR representatives have served jail time and/or have been deported from the United States for terrorist-related crimes. In November 2014, CAIR itself was designated a terrorist group by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government.

CAIR-Florida has fully reflected the extremism of its parent organization. Its Executive Director Hassan Shibly, who has previously denied that Hezbollah is a terrorist group, wrote in August 2014, “Israel and its supporters are enemies of G-d…” In July 2014, CAIR-Florida co-sponsored a pro-Hamas rally in Downtown Miami, where rally goers repeatedly shouted, “We are Hamas” and “Let’s go Hamas.” Following the rally, the event organizer, Sofian Zakkout, wrote, “Thank God, every day we conquer the American Jews like our conquests over the Jews of Israel!”

Last month, CAIR-Florida featured Ghazala Salam on the ‘About’ page of its website, along with her title as Community & Government Relations Director and accompanied by her bio. Today, that information is gone, deleted from the site.

Salam has now moved on to Emerge USA as the group’s new Florida Executive Director.

In the wake of the terror attacks in Belgium, news reports once again focused on how so-called “No Go Zones” in Europe create neighborhoods where communities develop that, although are geographically located within major cities, insulate themselves from their surroundings, fostering the mindset that cooperating with law enforcement is dangerous and even traitorous.

The residents eye law enforcement officers with great suspicion if not outright animosity. The situation is exacerbated because while they fear law enforcement, they may well also fear their neighbors who may take revenge against them for cooperating with law enforcement.

These neighborhoods become “cultural islands” that eschew the cultures and values of the cities and countries in which they grow — a virtual malignancy that ultimately comes to threaten its host city and country because within this cocoon radical Islamists are shielded from law enforcement, find shelter and support and an ample supply of potential terror recruits.

These communities are inhabited by many Muslim refugees who cannot be effectively screened.

This makes assimilation by the residents of these isolated communities unlikely if not impossible and creates breeding grounds for crime and, in this era and under these circumstances- breeding grounds for terrorism.

While there are no actual “No Go Zones” in the United States, there are neighborhoods scattered around the United States, where the concentration of ethnic immigrant minorities is so great that police find themselves unable to make the sort of inroads that they should be able to make in order to effectively police these communities. Adding to the high density of these aliens in these communities is the issue of foreign languages often being the prevalent language in such “ghettos.” This gives new meaning to the term “Language Barrier.”

Back when I was an INS agent, we had an expression- “Big cases- big problems; Little cases- little problems; No cases- no problems!” That phrase applies to all law enforcement officers.

When police or other law enforcement officers are put into a classic “no win” situation, their commonsense solution is to make their own survival and well-being their priority by minimizing their contacts with such enclaves and taking the fewest actions possible within those communities.

It is time to hold radical ringleader George Soros to account for the growing civil unrest that he has helped to foment in this presidential election cycle and his efforts to shut down Donald Trump rallies using physical force and intimidation.

Soros, the billionaire speculator, is the preeminent funder of the activist Left in America, which means he is the Number One funder of the domestic terrorism that is part and parcel of the Left.

Soros makes no secret of his contempt for leading GOP candidate Trump. In January he said “Donald Trump is doing the work of ISIS.” Ideas like banning entry to the U.S. by Muslims might “convince the Muslim community that there is no alternative but terrorism.”

Soros favors the decline of the U.S. and spends lavishly on activism to bring that collapse about. He has spent an estimated $7 billion or more on giving left-wing groups the resources to screw up the country.

He has used his vast fortune to topple governments in Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. He “broke” the British pound, was accused of wreaking havoc on the Malaysian ringgit, and was called an “economic war criminal” in Thailand. A French court convicted him of insider trading.

America is his current target.

Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, said criminal cartels recently cut a hole through the fence located on a 10-mile stretch of the border in Arizona.

Judd explained that an agent in Arizona notified him that the area was unmanned for more than two days due to a lack of manpower.

“Criminal cartels were able to go to the fence, cut a hole in the fence, drive two vehicles through that hole and escape. They were able then to put the fence back up and try to hide the cuts that they had made,” Judd said during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. “The scariest part of those vehicles entering into the United States is we don’t know what was in those vehicles. We have no idea.”

Judd clarified later in the hearing that he misread his notes and that part of the border was actually open for a period much longer than two days.

During last week’s hearing, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) questioned the Obama administration’s claim that the border is more secure than ever. He pointed out that the administration often touts the annual number of apprehensions at the border as proof the border is secured.

“The Government Accountability Process (GAO) has indicated DHS has no official metrics in place to measure whether our border is secure or not, and so those statements are very difficult to comprehend if there are no metrics in place,” he said.

Chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) asked Judd if the apprehensions figure is evidence that the border is secure. Pointing to the holes cut in the fence as an example, Judd said the Border Patrol does not measure the number of people who avoided apprehension and illegally crossed into the U.S.