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December 2015

BOOKS FOR THE NEW YEAR

Notes from Old Lyme by Sydney Williams

This book is coming in February 2016. The author is an e-pal and friend and a wonderful essayist whose many columns have been posted in ruthfully yours. They appear on his own blog

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/, the latest is a lovely essay on “Christmas and Christianity.”

Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win Hardcover –byJocko Willink (Author), Leif Babin (Author)

I plan to read this book and post a review in January. It is the story of two combat proven U.S Navy SEAL officers, who led the most highly decorated special operations unit of the Iraq War. The book was sent to me by one of the authors Leif Babin with a lovely inscription. This will be a holiday treat for me….rsk

BOOKS: GENERAL TOPICS

Roosters of the Apocalypse: How the Junk Science of Global Warming is Bankrupting the Western World (New, Revised…Nov 25, 2013 by Rael Jean Isaac

I have long suspected that that common sense conservation has been coopted by the climate changelings whose entire agenda is an assault on industry and capitalism.
Many good writers have exposed this duplicity, but none as concisely as Rael Jean Isaac. In this book all the corruption, the hypocrisy and the faux science of the cult of global warming are laid bare. It is essential reading and should be distributed widely in the academies. rsk

The Road to Serfdom: Fiftieth Anniversary Edition by F. A. Hayek and Milton Friedman

The Road to Serfdom is an astonishing book. I had to remind myself that it was not written yesterday as it details the incompatibility of democracy and central government rule, as well as the ineluctable path from socialism to totalitarianism. planning. rsk

BOOKS: HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY

A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East by David Fromkin

This is absolutely the very best book I have read on the subject of history and the Middle East. The alliances and deceptions and betrayals of history’s major players in the Middle East- Turkey, France, Great Britain, Germans, Arabs, Zionists are brilliantly cataloged. I could not put this book down- all 600 pages are a must read…. rsk

Churchill: A LifeOct 15, 1992 by Martin Gilbert

The late, and greatly lamented historian Martin Gilbert wrote a three volume biography of Churchill, and this book packs much into one volume on the life of one of history’s greatest statesmen-who for all his warts with respect to Palestine and the White Papers, was the greatest leader of World War II and the last century.Elegantly written and full of detail…rsk

Garibaldi: Hero of Italian Unification by Christopher Hibbert and Ross King

I once heard the late Menachem Begin state that his favorite statesman was Garibaldi-a fact that intrigued me enough to read this biography of Italy’s hero. Giuseppe Garibaldi was praised for his military genius, his courage, and his charisma. Known as the “Hero of Two Worlds,” Garibaldi’s military prowess extended to the Americas, where he played a major role in the Brazilian struggle for independence. During his fight for Italian unification Garibaldi personally led an army of local untrained rebels to victory in Palermo, Naples, and Sicily. If this bio is a tad too lavish in praise, the history of the unification of Italy is amazing. rsk

BOOKS: ISRAEL AND JEWS

Jews Against Themselves by Edward Alexander

Who could have imagined that in the heady and optimistic days following Israel’s victory in 1967, the “progressive” and radical Jewish anti-war groupies would turn their attention and venom towards the state of Israel?Israel became the target of libels, bias, calumny, and its unrelenting enemies and oppressors became victims. What were marginal organizations and individuals are now “mainstream” while those who proudly defend Israel citing its pluralist, advanced and civilized society are pushed to the margins. How this came about is described in meticulous detail by Edward Alexander in this essential and eloquent narrative.

Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide by Michael B. Oren

The President Against the Historian Michael Oren’s candid account of Obama’s Mideast policy has won him the right enemies.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB11486026120286184909004581077992565304976

Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel, 1917-1947Feb 24, 2015 by Bruce Hoffman

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2015/08/02/david-isaac-a-review-of-anonymous-soldiers-by-bruce-hoffman/
By David Isaac a Review

Bruce Hoffman’s Anonymous Soldiers is a deftly written account of the Jewish revolt against the British in 1940s Palestine. Despite its scholarship—it draws heavily on recently declassified British documents—and its significant bulk, it is a page-turner that leaves the reader feeling sorry once the book is finished.

Unlike most accounts of the Jewish underground, this one tells the story from the British point of view, though without taking Britain’s side. It leaves the reader with no doubt that it was the Irgun, and to a lesser extent the much smaller Lehi, that drove the British from Palestine, and not, as the longtime mythology of Israel’s Laborites would have it, David Ben-Gurion’s skillful politicking.

The Four-Front War: From the Holocaust to the Promised Land Hardcover –by William R. Perl (Author), Menachem Begin (Foreword)

William Perl is more than a historian, more than a simple eyewitness. He stands among a few key figures before the war who organized and directed The Action who played a vital role in its highest levels of operation. Using the texts of secret official memoranda, most never before published, his personal diary of the period, as well as notes and dozens of taped interviews, he presents an astounding chronicle of this unknowing aspect of the war.

MY SAY:HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!

T’was the night before Christmas, when in the Senate and House
Not a legislator was stirring not even Ryan the mouse.

Incumbents were home but hardly slept
Knowing the anger for promises not kept

The budget, and energy, immigration and Obamacare,
The Constitution defiled and the terror scare.

Were enough to fill their stocking with coals
Especially when parsing the latest polls.

Then I suddenly heard such a clatter,
I ran to the window to see what was the matter.

I peered through the window and put on my glasses
It was a miniature sleigh with eight tiny jackasses.

With a spry old driver, so lively and chipper
I knew in a flash twas the ghost of the Gipper

“Debbie, Nancy, Durbin, and Sanders the jerk!”
He shouted with glee as he gave them their work.

“Schumer, Reid, Pingry, and Jackson Lee!”
Sweep the House and make it clean for the GOP!

With a smile and knowing and friendly look
He gave every pol Barry Goldwater’s book.

Another election may we all live to fight.
Merry Christmas to All and to all a good night!!

Betsy McCaughey :Veterans can expect more bad health care from Obama’s VA

Don’t be fooled by last week’s headlines about more money and greater accountability at the Veterans Affairs Department. It’s the usual malarkey coming out of Washington. The prognosis for veterans who need health care remains poor, with vets likely to get the run-around and face delays again in 2016.

On Friday, Congress passed an omnibus spending bill for the coming year that allocates a whopping $163 billion to the Veterans Administration – even more than the department requested. But as long as the VA is riddled with corruption and saddled with job-protection rules that favor employees instead of vets, that’s throwing good money after bad.

As for the latest highly touted whistleblower-protection law signed by President Obama last Friday, there were whistleblower protections already on the books. What’s lacking is the will to enforce them. Adding more pages of laws won’t fix that.

The last whistleblower-protection law, passed in 2002, mandated training for VA employees in how to treat informants. VA facilities are wallpapered with posters announcing whistleblower safeguards. There’s an entire federal agency – the Office of Special Counsel – to protect them. Despite all this, VA executives penalize whistleblowers and get away with it.

James Schlesinger and Alan Dershowitz Were Right About ‘Stupid’ Iran Intelligence Fred Fleitz

Eight years ago, the late James Schlesinger, who served as CIA Director, Secretary of Energy, and Secretary of Defense, denounced in a Wall Street Journal editorial one of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s most controversial intelligence assessments on Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons as “stupid intelligence.”

In addition to calling this assessment stupid intelligence, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz referred to it in a December 6, 2007 Huffington Post op-ed as “one of the most dangerous, misguided and counterproductive intelligence assessments in history.”

A December 2 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which was formally released on December 15, proved Schlesinger and Dershowitz were right.

The Iran intelligence assessment was a national intelligence estimate (NIE) which is supposed to be the U.S. Intelligence Community’s most authoritative analysis of a national security issue. Issued in November 2007, this NIE found that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

The IAEA’s new report found that Iran continued its nuclear weapons research at least until 2009.

A December 5, 2007 Wall Street Journal editorial cited an intelligence source who said the NIE’s main authors included three former State Department officials with previous reputations as “hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials:” Tom Fingar, formerly of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research; Vann Van Diepen, the National Intelligence Officer for WMD; and Kenneth Brill, the former U.S. Ambassador to the IAEA.

Islamic Revenge? Muslim Eats Enemy’s Penis to ‘Cure Heartache’ A macabre true-life story and its roots in the Religion of Peace. Raymond Ibrahim

Is every bizarre and/or savage anecdote committed by Muslims related to Islam? Consider the following story of a man who “decapitated” the penis of his wife’s alleged rapist before ordering her to prepare it for their dinner:

[T]he bizarre tale begins in September, on the wedding night of 30-year-old Rudi Efendi and his new bride, Nuriah, in the Indonesian province of Lampung. When Efendi discovered that Nuriah was not a virgin, he demanded an explanation—and was told that she had been sexually assaulted by a man she dated.

Efendi ordered his wife to contact the alleged rapist and set up a meeting. But when the ex arrived, he found only Efendi, who proceeded to stab him to death and set him on fire—first taking care to chop off and collect his man parts.

“I was so outraged,” Efendi told reporters last month, that the only way “to cure my heartache” was to eat the victim’s genitals—which he ordered his 20-year-old wife to cook for him. He also insisted that she sit down and eat along with him.

Although the man who did this is of Muslim background (as evinced by his name and Indonesia’s status as the world’s most populous Muslim nation), one would normally conclude that such behavior—if not the killing and burning, then surely the penis eating—has nothing to do with Islam.

FrontPage Magazine’s Man of the Year: America’s Sheriff One man stands tall against Obama and the Left. Daniel Greenfield

There is a war on police.

It’s the post-Ferguson truth that every cop knows, but there is one man who has emerged as a passionate and articulate spokesman for law enforcement and is willing to call it a “war on police.”

“War had been declared on the American police officer led by some high profile people, one of them coming out of the White House, and one coming out of the United States Department of Justice,” he said. “And it’s open season right now.”

For decades, Sheriff David A. Clarke, Jr. put his life and his energies into protecting and serving the people of Milwaukee County. Though always a man of strong opinions, it was when the White House cheered a war on police and pushed through pro-crime policies, freeing drug dealers while locking up police officers that he emerged as a national figure of unquestionable moral authority.

When Attorney General Eric Holder met Sheriff Clarke he sneered, “What’s up with the hat?” Political opponents have mocked Sheriff Clarke as a “big cowboy.” And indeed, the Sheriff of Milwaukee County wears a cowboy hat and he can be seen riding a horse. He also preaches “cowboy values” like speaking frankly and telling people that they have to be ready to stand up to criminals.

The process of selecting the successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei already seems underway.

President Rouhani, government cabinet officers, and deputies of the Majles (consultative assembly/parliament) usually have little to no influence in the vetting process of candidates.

The Revolutionary Guards, ranking intelligence officers, and the regime’s plutocrats do not want to elevate anyone with an independent power base or a charismatic personality.

Whoever is ultimately selected, regime stability at least for the next few years seems assured: anti-regime networks remain shredded after the 2009 nationwide protests were violently suppressed.

While U.S. policymakers, media talking-heads and many think tank pundits are fixated on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and Tehran’s nuclear weapons projects, the focus of Iran’s power-brokers is on regime continuity and leadership succession. Iran’s next parliamentary elections are scheduled for February 26, 2016.

The process of selecting the successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei already seems underway. Former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989-1997) hinted as much, according to a Reuters report. The aging first generation of the 1979 Islamic Revolution’s leadership are determined to maintain regime stability during the transition to a new rahbar (leader) upon the retirement or death of Khamenei.