RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-politicization-of-military-service

TOO BAD REP. JOE WALSH WHO IS A SPLENDID MAN IS BAHAVING SO BADLY WITH RESPECT TO HIS OPPONENT…..RSK

Americans have traditionally respected military service, and have over the years chosen many veterans as political leaders. George Washington had been a general in the Continental Army. Teddy Roosevelt rode up San Juan Hill and into the White House. Harry Truman was an artillery officer in WWI. Dwight Eisenhower was a renowned general and theater commander during WWII. John Kennedy was famed for his service aboard the PT-109. There are many other examples.Aspiring politicians have long-known and exploited the link between military service and electability. Military experience is usually an asset with voters, provided the candidate in question handles his service tastefully and in a manner that is not overtly manipulative. Then-Senator John Kennedy ran successfully for the White House in 1960 partly on the strength of his wartime service in the U.S. Navy aboard the now-famous PT-109. His opponent, Richard Nixon, had also served in the U.S.N. during WWII and military service – or lack of it – did not become a major issue during the campaign.

Conversely, an obviously-staged photo of Democrat presidential candidate Michael Dukakis (a U.S. Army veteran) posed in an M1 Abrams tank in September, 1988 – may have cost him the election that fall. Rightly or wrongly, “Dukakis in a tank” has since entered the public relations lexicon as shorthand for a mishandled photo op.

Who can forget John Kerry’s appearance at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, sporting the very same medals he allegedly had thrown away in disgust thirty years earlier over the Vietnam War? Candidate Kerry accepted the Democrat Party nomination with a salute and the words “Reporting for duty” – but the voters didn’t buy it. He lost to George W. Bush.

These and other episodes come to mind in the wake of the tawdry and unseeming dust-up between incumbent Congressman Joe Walsh (R-IL, 8th District) and Democrat Tammy Duckworth, who will oppose him in the fall election.

Duckworth, an army officer and helicopter pilot, lost both of her legs in action in Iraq in 2004, when an RPG hit her UH-60 “Blackhawk” helicopter. Walsh, who is not a veteran, has accused Duckworth of exploiting her military service for political gain. Said Walsh, “Now I’m running against a woman who, I mean– my God– that’s all she talks about,” Walsh told an audience in Elk Grove, Ill. “Our true heroes, the men and women who served us, it’s the last thing in the world they talk about.” Duckworth campaign manager Kaitlin Fahey fired back in a July 3rd statement, “Congressman Walsh’s comments insult those who sacrificed to make this country free.” Duckworth herself, appearing on MSNBC’s “Hardball” in an interview with Michael Smerconish, said that “that she never claimed to be a hero” and that Walsh’s charges were “irresponsible.”

http://news.yahoo.com/ex-israeli-pm-olmert-cleared-corruption-case-092442556.html JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli court cleared former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday of the central charges in a multi-case corruption trial that forced him from power, but convicted him of a lesser charge of breach of trust.The verdict was seen as a major victory for Olmert, who stepped down as prime minister […]

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/07/09/House-ethics-committee-Shelley-Berkley
I’M HAPPY FOR A VICTORY IN NEVADA…BUT HOW COME CHARLIE RANGEL AND MAXINE WATERS GET A PASS AND THIS LADY DOES NOT?…..RSK
In a stunning blow to the Senatorial hopes of Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV), the House Ethics Committee today unanimously voted to open an investigative subcommittee into conflict of interest charges stemming from her alleged attempts to direct cash toward the kidney health care industry – and, in particular, toward her husband, who runs the Kidney Specialists of Southern Nevada. Breitbart News led the charge in demanding investigation into Berkley’s activities.

The House Ethics Committee, chaired by Rep. Jo Bonner (R-AL) and ranking member Rep. Linda T. Chavez (D-CA), released the following statement:

In accordance with Clause 3 of House Rule XI and Committee Rules 14(a)(3) and 18, the Committee on Ethics (the Committee) unanimously voted on June 29, 2012, to establish an investigative subcommittee. Pursuant to the Committee’s action, the investigative subcommittee shall have jurisdiction to determine whether Representative Shelley Berkley violated the Code of Official Conduct or any law, rule, regulation, or other applicable standard of conduct in the performance of her duties or the discharge of her responsibilities, with respect to alleged communications and activities with or on behalf of entities in which Representative Berkley’s husband had a financial interest.

http://www.prudenpolitics.com/newsletter?utm_source=P&P%20Auto%201&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4004

Barack Obama, the Chicago messiah who promised to unite a fragmented nation, is succeeding beyond his dreams, and maybe even the dreams of his father, which he wrote about so eloquently in his campaign autobiography.
We’re all terrorists now.

The Department of Homeland Security, ever on the scout for opportunities to blow taxpayer money, commissioned one of those “studies” so popular among college professors, to find clues that would identify prospective terrorists before they blow up airplanes, bring down skyscrapers and otherwise wreak havoc.The “new studies” show that just about everybody must be dreaming of terrorism, plotting mayhem and chaos and teaching others how to do it.

Something called the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (learned professors dream of being paid by the word) went to work at the University of Maryland and produced a $12 million magnum opus called “Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States, 1970-2008.” And not a moment too soon.

Islamic terrorism, the scourge of the civilized world, like bubonic plague in an earlier time, largely gets a pass; the study does not even mention the first attempt to bring down the World Trade Center in 1993 in the name of Allah. But the professors have got the number of the rest of us.

http://www.meforum.org/3282/muslim-brotherhood-democracy Prior to Egypt’s presidential elections, Islamists made clear that the electoral process was an obligatory form of “holy war.” Then, any number of Islamic clerics, including influential ones, declared that it was mandatory for Muslims to cheat during elections—if so doing would help Islamist candidates win; that the elections were a form of jihad, […]

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/07/09/romneys-doldrums It’s more than miserable hot weather that’s causing our grumpiness toward the Romney campaign. Romney’s summer doldrums have him stuck behind the comprehensively beatable Obama. We’re impatient, but we have the right to be. Romney seems to be letting our side down. House Speaker John Boehner’s statement that “…the American people probably aren’t going […]

http://www.radicalislam.org/analysis/amil-imani-iranian-dissident Amil Imani is an Iranian-American writer that opposes the Iranian regime and Sharia Law. He is a contributor to Family Security Matters, American Thinker and the author of Obama Meets Ahmadinejad and Operation Persian Gulf. In 2010, he was honored with the “Speaker of the Truth Award” by Endowment for Middle East Truth. Below […]

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/
PRESBYTERIANS WHO WANT TO DIVEST FROM ISRAEL DO GET SICK LIKE THE REST OF US….THEREFORE, THEY SHOULD ALSO BOYCOTT THE MYRIAD LIFE SAVING MEDICAL ADVANCES AND TECHNOLOGY THAT EMANATE FROM ISRAEL…RSK

In his latest article via the antipodean J-Wire service, Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer turns his attention to one of the Israel-undermining Protestant churches. His article is entitled “Palestine, Peoplehood and Prebyterians”.

The attempt by the Palestinian Arabs to create a second state – in addition to Jordan – reached the hallowed halls of the two million members of the Presbyterian Church in America this week.
By a razor thin margin of 333-331 with two abstentions, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), being held in Pittsburgh, rejected a motion to divest from Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Motorola Solutions.

The General Assembly is the highest decision-making body for the church.
A 2011 church report found that Caterpillar supplies bulldozers for the demolition of Palestinian homes, Motorola provides cell phone technology to West Bank settlements and Hewlett-Packard manages information technology for the Israeli Navy. The decision to vote on divestment came after the companies allegedly refused the church’s entreaties to change their policies in regard to providing services to Israel.
The ongoing fascination the Presbyterian Church apparently has for the cause of the Palestinian Arabs does not appear to be matched by any concern for other peoples around the world struggling for recognition of their right to self-determination.

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2174/Is-Janet-Napolitano-Gunning-for-Rush-Limbaughs-Job-by-Executive-Order.aspx

I don’t know. But on July 6 — a holiday-weekend Friday — the White House posted an Executive Order setting up Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security as the uber-communications authority during a national emergency with some peculiar little clauses that make me wonder. (Hat tip: John L. Work.)

Obama’s Order creates an Executive Committee for National Security/Emergency Preparedness (NS/EP) under the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, and a Executive Committee Joint Program Office under the Secretary of Homeland Security to support the Executive Committee.

That’s the blah-blah part. The parts enumerating duties and powers, however, despite the same mind-numbing official patois, seem like anything but hot air.

Sec. 5.2. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall:…

(d) receive, integrate, and disseminate NS/EP communications information to the Federal Government and State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, as appropriate, to establish situational awareness, priority setting recommendations, and a common operating picture for NS/EP communications information;

(e) satisfy priority communications requirements through the use of commercial, Government, and privately owned communications resources, when appropriate;

I sure hope Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, et al have read this part. Then again, it is not only “communications resources” featuring conservative radio hosts that could come under such a wide-open clause. Is DHS now waiting in the wings to seize — sorry: “satisfy priority communications requirements through the use of commercial … and privately owned” radio networks “when appropriate”?

http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p19036.xml

In Lone Survivor, a chilling, firsthand account of the loss of eleven members of the Navy’s elite Sea, Air, Land (SEAL) Team and eight Army aviators, Petty Officer Marcus Luttrell describes the fateful decision that led to disaster for him and death for his comrades. It came down to a judgment call about whether to risk prosecution and jail-time for doing whatever it took to complete their mission, or to allow three Afghan goatherds to rat out his unit to the Taliban.

When Luttrell cast the deciding vote to turn loose the farmers who had stumbled upon him and three other SEALs shortly after they had been dropped behind enemy lines to take down a particularly dangerous Taliban leader, he described the thought-process:

“If we kill these guys, we have to be straight about it. Report what we did. We can’t sneak around this….Their bodies will be found, the Taliban will use it to the max. They’ll get it in the papers, and the U.S. liberal media will attack us without mercy. We’ll almost certainly be charged with murder….”

Such concerns prompted Luttrell to make the call to release the goatherds, setting in train calamity for his buddies and sixteen others dispatched to rescue them from the massive Taliban assault that ensued. It turns out those concerns were well-founded, as was most recently demonstrated in a case before the U.S. Military Court of Appeals. By a 3-2 vote, the judges outrageously determined that an Army Ranger, First Lieutenant Michael Behenna, was deemed to have no right to self-defense when he killed the Iraqi prisoner he was interrogating after the latter threw a concrete block at him and tried to seize his firearm. Unless he is pardoned, Lt. Behenna will remain incarcerated for the next twelve years.