RUTHFULLY YOURS

The head of the Gallup polling firm recently backpedaled on his claim that the official unemployment rate being trumpeted by the White House, Wall Street and the media is a “big lie.”

Jim Clifton, the Chairman and CEO of Gallup, recently told CNBC that he was worried he might “suddenly disappear” if he disputed the accuracy of what the U.S. government is reporting as unemployed Americans, Wall Street on Parade reported.

“I think that the number that comes out of BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics] and the Department of Labor is very, very accurate. I need to make that very, very clear so that I don’t suddenly disappear. I need to make it home tonight.”

But he contended that the percent of full time jobs in this country as a percent of the adult population “is the worst it’s been in 30 years.”

His appearance on CNBC came days after he claimed the official unemployment rate being trumpeted by the White House, Wall Street and the media is a “big lie.”

Virtually every time top military figures have departed from their field of expertise & ventured into one where they have none (politics), they have–almost invariably—been disastrously wrong.

[Israeli] security experts didn’t anticipate one major event in the Middle East in the past 50 years.
– Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, Saban Forum, December 2014

Allow me to begin this week’s column with three somewhat lengthy excerpts from an essay, “Israel: The Case for Defensible Borders,” published in the influential journal Foreign Affairs.

‘One does not have to be a military expert…’

The selected excerpts relate to three topics:

(a) The indefensible pre-1967 lines “One does not have to be a military expert to easily identify the critical defects of the armistice lines that existed until June 4, 1967. A considerable part of these lines is without any topographical security value; and, of no less importance, the lines fail to provide Israel with the essential minimum of strategic depth. The gravest problem is on the eastern boundary, where the entire width of the coastal plain varies between 10 and 15 miles, where the main centers of Israel’s population, including Tel Aviv and its suburbs, are situated, and where the situation of Jerusalem is especially perilous…”

(b) The territorial imperative in the age of modern longrange weaponry “The purpose of defensible borders… is to provide Israel with the requisite minimal strategic depth, as well as lines which have topographical strategic significance… there are some who would claim that in an era of modern technological development such factors are valueless [and] that the appearance of ground-to-ground missiles, supersonic fighter-bombers, and other sophisticated instruments of modern warfare has canceled out the importance of strategic depth and topographical barriers… this argument is certainly invalid regarding Israel… where the opposite is true… the innovations and sophistication in weaponry… not only fail to weaken the value of strategic depth and natural barriers but in fact enhance their importance.

How and why the West needs to spearhead the effort to undercut the Sharia narrative.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/frontpagemag-com/to-undermine-sharia-on-the-glazov-gang/

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/143014/mitchell-a-orenstein-peter-kreko-and-attila-juhasz/the-hungarian-putin

ALMOST half the Jews in the world find themselves today under the Nazi heel. It is impossible to determine the rate at which their physical destruction is proceeding. Nor is it possible to visualize the condition in which the Jewish masses of Poland, Rumania, occupied Russia and even Hungary will be found when the pall of darkness is finally lifted from Nazi-occupied Europe. Tragic as is the position of the Polish peasant, he is rooted in his native soil — at least where he has not been dragged away from it and made to slave in an armament factory. The Jew in his Ghetto, on the other hand, finds himself despoiled of everything. Deprived of his meagre possessions, driven from his home, torn from his family, he has become the most abject of all the abject victims of the terror. In the reconstruction of a new and — let us hope — a better world, the reintegration of the Jew will thus present a peculiarly difficult problem, and one which is likely to tax both the energies and the good will of the countries of Eastern and Central Europe.
The experience of the past twenty years, and the vexed problem of “minorities” which has caused so much trouble in Europe, hardly give much ground for hope of a satisfactory solution on the spot. No doubt many Jews will return and re-adapt themselves to the new conditions; but there will be vast masses which will have to emigrate. It would probably be unduly optimistic to assume that countries like the United States, Canada, and some of the South American republics, will radically change their immigration policy after this war — particularly in the strained economic conditions then to be expected. The hunted and disinherited will once more be faced with the eternal question: “Whither?” And little promise can be held out for them unless decisive steps are taken towards a radical solution of their problem.
It is a complex problem, which means that it will have to be faced with courage, imagination and sympathy. After the agonizing experiences through which European Jewry has passed in the last eight years, no makeshift or temporary expedients can suffice, and indeed such would be unworthy of the spirit of the Atlantic Charter and the principles so often enunciated by the leaders of the democracies. Responsibility for the solution will rest with those charged with the task of reconstruction, and also with the Jewish communities which have escaped the fate of their European brethren. Of the latter, it is estimated that the Jews in the Western Hemisphere number about five millions; in the British Empire about half a million; in Palestine about half a million; and there are smaller communities in Turkey, Egypt, Syria, ‘Iraq, India and French North Africa, totalling perhaps a further half-million (though some of them can hardly be ranked as “free” communities).

Marshall McLuhan’s claim that ‘the medium is the message” is a rule of thumb adopted by today’s news media. Truth is optional, and the means by which it is delivered to the public has become a matter of “style” and bias. If truth does not fit comport with an established narrative, falsehood is permissible. After all, the public, to whom the news is directed, doesn’t know the difference.

Truth, in the news media, is becoming more and more as rare as a halal hamburger in Riyadh, or a wine list in a Tehran restaurant. If a news event doesn’t fit the New York Times’s printable meme or mantra, it isn’t going to be reported without slanting and bias so severe that even a cursory examination of it will capsize the story to reveal the rust and barnacles on its hull. The same rule of thumb goes for most news organizations and outlets, including the Washington Post and other “major” dailies. Almost every one of them delivers messages, not news.

New data shows that the “vanishing” of polar ice is not the result of runaway global warming

When future generations look back on the global-warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records – on which the entire panic ultimately rested – were systematically “adjusted” to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified.

Two weeks ago, under the headline “How we are being tricked by flawed data on global warming”, I wrote about Paul Homewood, who, on his Notalotofpeopleknowthat blog, had checked the published temperature graphs for three weather stations in Paraguay against the temperatures that had originally been recorded. In each instance, the actual trend of 60 years of data had been dramatically reversed, so that a cooling trend was changed to one that showed a marked warming.

The European Union’s opposition to Israel’s West Bank settlements is well known. Preventing Jews from having homes on the biblical hills of Judea and Samaria is apparently a top foreign-policy priority for Brussels. Of course in attempting to justify their fixation with this matter the Eurocrats generally appeal to international law, making mention of its stipulations in the gravest tones. But now it turns out that the EU has been flouting international law and backing illegal West Bank settlements after all. In fact, it’s been funding and building them directly. Only these West Bank settlements aren’t for Jews, they’re for Palestinians. So apparently the rules don’t apply.

A report by the Israeli NGO Regavim has revealed that in recent years the EU has funneled millions of euros into constructing more than 400 housing units in 17 illegal settlements. Somewhat bizarrely these outposts fly the EU federal flag and are staffed by EU personnel boldly dressed in EU uniform. But unlike Israel’s West Bank settlements which have a disputed legal status, there can be no doubt that these EU settlements are in clear and open breach of international law.

Williamsport is a town of 29,000 in Pennsylvania’s upper Susquehanna Valley. When I decided to stop there in the spring of 2012 on the way to upstate New York, I figured it for a place lost in time—a sleepy burg still guided by small-town values (Williamsport hosts the Little League World Series every summer) but with the sad and deserted appearance you’d expect in an area where the main industry, steelmaking, receded from sight in the 1970s.

That is why I was surprised to find a new mall on its outskirts, as well as construction sites for banks and office buildings. Instead of a boarded-up downtown, there were new restaurants opening. The hotel was also bustling—and expensive. I had had trouble finding parking in a lot jammed with pickup trucks and SUVs. In the hotel elevator were two men in green jumpsuits, both carrying tool bags of a kind I recognized from crews working on offshore oil rigs in the North Sea. They were natural-gas drillers coming back for some sleep after a long night working in the gas field.

The Homeland Security Department has set up hotlines for illegal immigrants who believe their rights under President Obama’s amnesty policy have been violated.

In a memo announcing the customer complaint line, U.S. Customs and Border Protection asked illegal immigrants to “please tell us about your experience” if they believe they were treated “contrary to the new DHS enforcement priorities.”

The department alerted “stakeholders” last week of three complaint hotlines: one for CBP, which oversees the Border Patrol; one for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which handles immigration laws in the nation’s interior; and one for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is poised to handle the millions of amnesty applications expected to be filed.

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The amnesty policy grants tentative legal status to up to 4 million illegal immigrants and orders Border Patrol agents and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents not to arrest other illegal immigrants who say they have been hiding in the U.S. for years but don’t meet the criteria for full amnesty.

Border Patrol agents said the complaint lines amount to a slap in the face to those who put their lives on the line to enforce the law.

“Instead of supporting our agents, this administration has decided it is more important to find new ways to solicit complaints and invite ridicule against them,” said Shawn Moran, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, the labor union that represents line agents. “We demand that this administration spend more time defending the men and women defending our nation and less time promoting the extreme agendas of pro-illegal-immigration organizations.”

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He said he would like the Homeland Security Department to set up a complaint line for agents instead, so they could register their concerns over the administration’s failure to enforce laws involving their own pay, the disparity in the firepower they bring to the fight with drug cartels and the administration’s “failure to fully enforce our immigration laws.”

Immigrant rights advocates, meanwhile, are torn over whether complaints have proved effective. Some say they are useful, but others say they rarely produce results and question the department’s ability to investigate complaints against itself.

The Homeland Security Department and CBP issued memos detailing the customer complaint lines last week. CBP’s notice included this invitation: “If you believe you (or a family member) were apprehended and processed by a Customs and Border Protection officer or Border Patrol agent contrary to the new DHS enforcement priorities, please tell us about your experience by contacting the CBP INFO Center.”

The Homeland Security memo says it expects more “questions and feedback” from the amnesty and lists all three complaint lines.

The Obama administration has tried to walk a tight line, insisting it is boosting enforcement even as the president and his political appointees at the Homeland Security Department have carved an ever-widening circle of illegal immigrants for protection in order to appease their advocates.

In the past two years, Mr. Obama has tilted toward the advocates’ position, cutting deportations 20 percent from 2012 to 2014 even as illegal crossings of the U.S.-Mexico border have increased.

In November, Mr. Obama announced an amnesty for illegal immigrant parents whose children are American citizens or legal permanent residents, granting them legal status for three years and work permits entitling them to compete for jobs. He also expanded a 2012 amnesty for illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children.

He also had top officials at the Homeland Security Department issue “guidance” ordering agents to generally ignore illegal immigrants who have hidden in the U.S. for some time or who claim other extenuating circumstances.

The guidance indicates that agents should not bother pursuing illegal immigrants who don’t have serious criminal records or aren’t recent illegal immigrants, meaning those who arrived in the U.S. since Jan. 1, 2014. Even immigrants convicted of domestic violence may not be “priorities” for deportation if they were also victims at some point.

The guidance has confused and angered immigration agents.

Mr. Moran, testifying to a Senate committee last week, said agents now have to go through a checklist when they encounter illegal immigrants. Those who give the right answers are likely to be released.

“The messaging on the training from CBP has been inconsistent at best,” he said.

Sen. Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican and chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said it sounded as though immigrants only had to say “magic words” to avoid arrest.

During the border surge this summer, Mr. Moran said, agents discovered that some of the illegal crossers had written scripts with them to coach them on what to say to be released into the U.S.

A Homeland Security spokeswoman said the hotline memo was intended to make sure stakeholders knew where to go for information.

“This provides one place for all stakeholders to find out more about the new DHS guidelines, deferred action, eligibility for new initiatives, or to register comment or complaint,” said Ginette Magana, the spokeswoman. “DHS continuously engages with stakeholders, members of Congress and interested individuals to provide the most up-to-date information and answer questions about any new initiatives.”

But the memos go further. The page providing the complaint hotline for Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the Border Patrol, specifically invites complaints from immigrants who believe agents didn’t follow Mr. Obama’s priorities.