RUTHFULLY YOURS

About Those 50 Centcom Whistleblowers — Where Are All the Others?

More than 50 U.S. intelligence analysts working with the U.S. Central Command have filed complaints with the Pentagon inspector general, claiming that their analyses were manipulated by senior officials to downplay the threat from ISIS and the al-Nusra Front (the al-Qaeda branch in Syria), according to a recent Daily Beast story. The journalists reported that authorities have altered intelligence to bolster the Obama administration’s claim that the U.S. is making progress in defeating these Islamist terrorist groups.

Although these are serious complaints that merit an investigation, this story may well be the tip of the iceberg; I believe there is a broad pattern of distorting intelligence analyses to support Obama-administration policy. The real question is why we are not hearing from more whistleblowers.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, for instance, was accused of politicizing intelligence analysis in February 2011 when he said, during a congressional hearing: “The term ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ is an umbrella term for a variety of movements — in the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried al-Qaeda as a perversion of Islam.”

President Obama’s U.N. speech today is filled with nice lines that unfortunately bear no relationship to his seven years of foreign policy — and in some cases, no relationship to reality.

The speech had several strong paragraphs about freedom, human rights, and democracy. For example, Obama said: “I believe a government that suppresses peaceful dissent is not showing strength. It is showing weakness, and it is showing fear. History shows that regimes who fear their own people will eventually crumble.” But his administration has in fact steadily reduced American programs supporting human rights and democracy, and reached out to tyrannies such as Iran and Cuba — delaying the day when they will “eventually crumble.”

He spoke of the nuclear non-proliferation regime as one of the “principle achievements” of the United Nations, but of course that regime has been endangered by his awful Iran deal more than by any other development in decades. (And in what sense were nuclear non-proliferation agreements negotiated by the United States an achievement of the U.N., anyway?)

Obama spoke harshly of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, “who drops barrel bombs on innocent children” and uses chemical weapons, and he called for “a managed transition away from Assad.” But it is Barack Obama who has led the way for three years in doing absolutely nothing about Assad’s terror. When in 2012 even Hillary Clinton advised that the United States had to do more, Obama rejected that advice and stood firmly for inaction. On Libya, he said: “Even as we helped the Libyan people bring an end to the reign of a tyrant, our coalition could have and should have done more to fill a vacuum left behind.” But why did the coalition not do more? Because Barack Obama rushed for the exits, not because “our coalition” got it wrong.

President Obama applies the same principles abroad that he does at home.
At home President Obama is well known for his preference for perceived parity over liberty. Most of his domestic agenda — Obamacare, executive-order amnesties, open borders, near-zero interest rates, quantitative easing, the piling up of $9 trillion in new debt, tax hikes, more regulations — is apparently aimed at shifting power and capital away from the upper middle class to the lower classes.

From Obama’s first appearance on the national scene, his rhetoric has been directed against those whom he perceives as the inordinately privileged — much more the supposedly uncouth upper middle class than the tasteful Martha’s Vineyard Wall Streeters or the jeans-and-T-shirt Malibu super-rich.

Americans who did not favor his redistributionist vision were rhetorically reduced to clingers, nativists, the privileged unwilling to spread their wealth, leaches on government who didn’t build their own businesses and who didn’t realize they had already made enough money. Obama once suggested that he was for higher capital-gains taxes even if such tax hikes would discourage profitable activity and thus lead to lower revenues for the Treasury, simply for the sake of “fairness” — reminding us of Tocqueville’s various warnings that many people would prefer parity even if meant less liberty and wealth for themselves.

Obama sees the rest of the world as he does the United States — and thus in need of a redistribution in power that will bring greater fairness to the planet. Accordingly, under current U.S. foreign policy, the desire for supposed equality trumps most considerations of human rights, values, consensual government, and our own national interest.

She’s never been able to turn down a buck.
How low will she go? We already know that the Clinton Foundation has rather…uh…lax standards when it comes to accepting massive donations. But now Hillary Clinton has attended a campaign fundraiser at the home of a convicted drug dealer. Anita Kumar of McClatchy writes:

Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president, attended a fundraiser in New York hosted by John Zaccaro, convicted on felony drug charges after he sold cocaine to an undercover cop.

The 1988 conviction of the son of unsuccessful Democratic vice presidential candidate Gerraldine Ferraro was reported in numerous publications at the time. But the arrest was unearthed Friday by the Republican National Committee.

“Hillary Clinton can’t seem to kick her decades-long habit of taking money from sketchy campaign contributors,” RNC spokesman Michael Short said. “During her last presidential campaign it was straw donors, now it’s convicted cocaine dealers.”

New polls are out which should help clarify the race based on my presidential “brackets” analysis.

First off, the NBC/WSJ poll for September shows big changes from its July one. While Donald Trump still leads, his support has leveled off at about a fifth of the vote while Carly Fiorina battling him in the businessman bracket has seen her support jump from negligible to 11%.

A handful of candidates saw their support double: Ben Carson now statistically ties Trump. Marco Rubio now ties Fiorina and beats Jeb. John Kasich also saw his support double and seems to have benefited from Scott Walker’s withdrawal from the race.

Other candidates saw their support shrink to half from the previous poll: Jeb Bush saw his support halve from June to July and then halve again from July to September. Ted Cruz saw his support drop to his June levels even with Rick Perry out of the race. Rand Paul’s numbers have collapsed steadily and consistently since April, he and now ties Chris Christie. Mike Huckabee has also dropped steadily since the summer.

Like Cassandra who spurned the advances of Apollo and was forever destined to be ignored, those Americans who refuse to bow to the dictates of Obama are being sidelined as they valiantly attempt to stop the diabolical desire to strengthen the number one terrorist nation of the world.

When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the Iranian President, Joshua Teitelbaum pointed out that Iranian policy was to “order that this Jerusalem-occupying regime [Israel] must be erased from the page of time.” Additionally, it was asserted that “[s]oon this stain of disgrace will be cleaned from the garment of the world of Islam, and this is attainable.” Moreover, “[t]he region and the world are prepared for great changes and for being cleansed of Satanic enemies.”

Under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calls for the destruction of Israel and America are continually echoed at military parades, on billboards, and at demonstrations. Thus, “. . . the cancerous tumor called Israel must be uprooted from the region.” Consequently, the Iranian leadership of jihadist fascists have declared that they “will not be satisfied with anything less than the complete obliteration of the Zionist regime from the political map of the world.” And finally, “‘Death to America'” and ‘Death to Israel’ are not only words written on paper but rather a symbolic approach that reflects the desire of all the Muslim nations.”

Veterans against the Deal reject Obama’s insinuations of warmongering by opponents of the Iranian agreement. Gary Bauer asserts that senators supporting the deal “are now hostages held by the Ayatollah Khamenei,” and Lauri Regan of EMET likens the agreement to the appeasement of Neville Chamberlain. Israeli Brig-Gen Yossi Kuperwasser notes that the deal “does nothing to block Iran from achieving regional hegemony.”

Notwithstanding, far too many Americans are in complete denial concerning the Iranian assertions of extermination for Israel and America. They continue to hold on to empty promises promulgated by the pathological liar — or should I say taqiyya-driven — Obama and the jihadist-obsessed Iranian regime.

“Nostre Aetate,” released in 1965, called for friendship and dialogue between Catholics and Jews, instead of the centuries-long repudiation of Jews by Catholics; St Joseph’s University became the first to respond by establishing the Institute for Jewish-Catholic Relations. Is Pope Francis picking up where Pope Paul VI left off?

Can Pope Francis’ hopes and dreams for reconciliation of Catholics and Jews override some unfortunate but pressing realities, such the Church’s desire to placate the Palestinians?

If Pope Francis is serious about a “journey of friendship” with the Jewish people, perhaps he would not be so quick to approve President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal in the name of a hoped-for peace that will most certainly ignite an unhoped-for war between Iran and Israel.

By assisting the UN in establishing the “sustainable development platform,” the Pope is offering his permission to the UN — one of the most anti-Semitic, anti-Israel bodies on the face of the earth — to usurp power on behalf of a shared utopian agenda. Sustainable development notwithstanding, the UN should be encouraged to clean up its own house before it tries to clean up the world.

A lot of water as passed under the bridge between Catholics and Jews in the past 1800 years or so. Most of it has been polluted by the evils of anti-Semitism perpetrated by the Catholic Church against the Jews of Europe, starting with the earliest published Christian writings by the early ante-Nicene Church Fathers, such as Tertullian. His document “Judeos Adversos” has stood for centuries as one of the key church position papers against the Jews.

Shortly after the IRA had tried to wipe out the British cabinet and assassinate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984, Jeremy Corbyn invited the Sinn Fein/IRA leaders to Parliament.

Jeremy Corbyn did not spend his time bolstering the crucial moderate forces in Northern Ireland. Instead he pushed forward the most violent and anti-democratic forces in the conflict.

Most sinisterly, he has been a constant champion of Jawad Botmeh and Samar Alami, two men who were convicted of the 1994 bomb attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets in London.

Rather than admit to having spent decades palling up to the worst anti-Semites and Israel-haters worldwide, Corbyn is trying to claim that he has in fact been involved — deep undercover, away from the eyes of any respectable negotiator — in a “peace process.”

Whatever political angle you come from, the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader is a seismic change in British politics. Political wonks in the UK have become fond of comparing him with Michael Foot, who led Labour to a disastrous election defeat in 1983, and whose party manifesto for that election was famously described as the “longest suicide note in history.” The election of Corbyn is principally of interest at home and abroad not because of his far-left wing views on economics, nationalization and the rest, but for the fact that it mainstreams current bigotry and racism.

Polls show strong support for military action while politicians dither with ineffective air strikes.
French public-opinion polling says the country wants French ground troops to fight Islamic State in Syria. No kidding.

The Socialist government responded Sunday by announcing it had made air strikes instead. This first intervention hardly differed from the U.S. air-only tactics the French privately insist doesn’t represent an effective Syrian strategy and damages Barack Obama’s pledge to “degrade and destroy” Islamic State as an enemy of civilization.

The poll findings signal a combative reflex from the French, unique so far among their allies. Published in early September, two polls showed the French favoring by 61% and 56% majorities the dispatch of French ground troops to Syria as part of an international force.

Investors sell as hostility to innovation rises in Washington.

Health-care stocks suffered an ugly tumble on Monday, dragging down the overall Dow Jones Industrial Average by nearly 2%. The selloff was particularly marked in biotech, with Nasdaq ’s industry index plunging 6%, extending a 13% drop last week, and erasing all gains so far this year, as the nearby chart shows. Thus does politics injure the real economy.

Analysts attributed the slide to a letter that socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and House Democrats sent Monday to Valeant Pharmaceuticals threatening a subpoena and demanding the drug maker justify price increases for two heart rhythm medications. Valeant shares were off 17% for the day.

The letter illustrates the larger problem of growing political hostility to drug research and development. Last week Hillary Clinton joined the children’s crusade, rebuking “price gouging” and promising to introduce price controls on pharmaceuticals. Enthusiasm for such central planning is rising among Democrats, and even some Republicans, on Capitol Hill.

This political campaign has been dishonest and virtually fact-free, with a focus on list prices that are negotiated down and that the critics know are rarely paid in full. Name-brand prices are rising only modestly after rebates and discounts, and costs over time are rising more slowly than the historical trend.