RUTHFULLY YOURS

UNESCO, the United Nations and, just this week, the Vatican, have recognised that the “State of Palestine” exists – despite the fact that it lacks all four basic requirements laid down in Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention 1933:

“The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a ) a permanent population; b ) a defined territory; c ) government; and d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.”

Reverend Federico Lombardi – the Vatican spokesman – confirmed the Holy See’s stance:

“Yes, it’s a recognition that the state exists”

The Vatican is justifiably concerned to protect Christian communities in the Middle East against further ongoing death, dispersion and destruction of their churches as has occurred to Christian communities in Syria and Iraq during the last twelve months.

The Greek crisis has all but pushed Israel out of the picture as far as many normally Israel-obsessed leftists on social media are concerned.
Meanwhile, though, American singer Gloria Gaynor, due to perform in Tel Aviv on 29 July, has received a billet-doux imploring her as a “woman of color” to cancel the gig, and Israel-haters are encouraging the like-minded to harass her on Twitter.

The missive referred to begins:

‘We, the undersigned, the Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel in Lebanon (CBSI) and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) are pleased to learn that you plan to perform in Lebanon on July 31, 2015 but are deeply dismayed that, two days earlier, you are scheduled to sing in Tel Aviv. We call on you to cancel your Tel Aviv performance, as no matter what your intentions are, Israel’s regime of oppression will use your name, as the South African apartheid regime used artists’ names, to whitewash its crimes.

Eighty-nine years ago today, President Calvin Coolidge gave this speech about the 4th of July. It is well worth reading in its entirety today.

…Governments do not make ideals, but ideals make governments. This is both historically and logically true. Of course the government can help to sustain ideals and can create institutions through which they can be the better observed, but their source by their very nature is in the people. The people have to bear their own responsibilities. There is no method by which that burden can be shifted to the government. It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation.

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

“And there, in a nutshell, is the story of the modern western world: not enough wild independent spirit, just more paperwork.”

Meanwhile, here’s a Glorious Fourth column from 16 Fourths ago in The Daily Telegraph, in which features of life that have become far more oppressive of late were nevertheless already present, even in my beloved New Hampshire, even on the national holiday:

“On Thursday I was in the Province of Quebec for Canada Day. Going to Quebec for Canada Day is a bit like going to Baghdad for the Fourth of July, but I try not to let the indifference of the locals weigh heavy on me. Instead, weighing heavy on me were the vast raft (so to speak) of new boating regulations from Canada’s federal government – mandatory PFDs and MBDs (personal flotation devices and manual bailing devices), waterproof flashlight, 15-metre buoyant heaving line, etc – all for a short canoe trip. I’m sympathetic to Conrad Black’s case for Britain joining Nafta, but I sometimes wonder if it wouldn’t make more sense to offer the European Union Canada in return.

So I was glad to get back to New Hampshire, the “Live Free Or Die” state. Yet at the town beach, where we’ll be gathering for the Fourth of July fireworks, there was a problem. Thanks to a new US federal law, it seems the children’s swings are not surrounded by appropriate cushioning material. The Recreation Committee had done its sums and figured compliance would cost about $15,000 – for some foam rubber and extensive landscaping to disguise its visual impact.

“Why do we have to spend 15,000 bucks?” asked one of the selectmen (the New Hampshire equivalent of the town council). “The swings are surrounded by sand. That’s a cushioning material, right?”

“Well, yes,” admitted the Rec Director.

Including ‘bad b******s plotting another Boston bombing’, National Guardsman who wanted to ‘repeat Charlie Hebdo’ and ‘Minnesota Martyrs’

FBI and other law enforcement agencies on top state of alert ahead of July 4 holiday over fears of an ISIS strike
Daily Mail Online has uncovered 30 arrests on US soil of men and women accused of plotting terror attacks inspired by ISIS
National Guard soldier is among those awaiting trial while one women – a former Army Explorer – is serving four years for turning to ISIS
Arrests have been made in states including New Jersey, New York, Minnesota, Kansas and Illinois
Total does not include two men shot dead as they tried to attack Texas ‘draw Mohammed’ contest and man with knife shot by police in Boston.

FBI agents have made at least 30 arrests on US soil this year as they try to combat the murderous reach of ISIS and its warped followers, Daily Mail Online can disclose.

Officials revealed this week that the Islamic terror group has a foothold in all 50 states as it continues to target disaffected Americans through its torrent of online propaganda and slick videos of barbaric beheadings and mutilations.

The stark warning comes days after ISIS-inspired gunman Saif Rezgui unleashed horror on at a Tunisian beach resort, killing 39 vacationers and wounding dozens more.

The FBI has reportedly set up command centers in each of its 56 field officers in case extremists try to mark the July 4 weekend by unleashing similar carnage here in the U.S. American ISIS ‘recruits’ to date have included schoolgirls, a young nurse, a pizza shop boss and even a National Guard soldier who hatched a plan to gun down 120 of his own colleagues.
Terror alert: Isis fighters, such as the ones pictured here in Syria, have allegedly inspired at least 30 Americans who have been arrested by the FBI

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Terror alert: Isis fighters, such as the ones pictured here in Syria, have allegedly inspired at least 30 Americans who have been arrested by the FBI
On edge: The FBI is setting up command centers at each of its 56 field offices across the country ahead of the July 4th weekend over fears of a possible ISIS-inspired terrorist attack

How much should we worry about Islamic terrorism? How much should we worry about other kinds?

There’s no exact right answer to this question. Who is out there in dark places plotting murder most foul? We can only guess, using imperfect information. Of course, there’s “imperfect” and then there’s downright distorted.

The New York Times highlighted one data set recently, in an article headlined “Homegrown Extremists Tied to Deadlier Toll Than Jihadists in U.S. Since 9/11.” “Since Sept. 11, 2001,” the article says, “nearly twice as many people have been killed by white supremacists, antigovernment fanatics and other non-Muslim extremists than by radical Muslims: 48 have been killed by extremists who are not Muslim, including the recent mass killing in Charleston, S.C., compared with 26 by self-proclaimed jihadists, according to a count by New America, a Washington research center.” The article goes on to cite a nationwide survey of police and sheriffs departments, noting that “74 percent listed antigovernment violence, while 39 percent listed ‘Al Qaeda-inspired’ violence, according to the researchers.” Well, I guess that settles that, then.

Ah, no. You’ve been reading this column too long to believe that. Statistics are useful, but fragile. How you handle them makes a big difference.

The return of the Confederacy was averted in the summer of 2015 when major retailers frantically scoured through their vast offerings to purge any images of a car from the Dukes of Hazzard. If not for their quick thinking, armies of men in gray might have come marching down the streets of New York and San Francisco to stop off for an Iced Mocha Frappucino ™ at a local Starbucks before restoring slavery.

History will little note nor long remember the tired wage slaves making $7.25 an hour while checking Amazon and eBay databases for tin models of an orange car with a Confederate flag on top. During this courageous defense of the homeland from the scourge of a mildly politically incorrect 80s show, Hillary Clinton committed her own unpardonable racist hate crime by saying, “All lives matter”.

The politically correct term is, “Black lives matter.”

Within the space of just 48 hours, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the president is above the law; that straightforward statutory words may be twisted to mean the opposite of what they say; that discrimination — heretofore, the textbook example of a willful act — can be committed unconsciously, thereby supplanting our constitutional foundation of equal opportunity for all with the totalitarian’s dream of guaranteed outcomes for favored factions; and that five politically unaccountable lawyers, by dint of being issued robes, may impose their vision of the good society on 320 million Americans, reimagining our most basic institutions, our founding law, centuries of jurisprudence, and millennia of civilization.

Like millions of Americans, Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) thought this was a disastrous couple of days for the country. So did the rest of the Trumped-up cavalcade of GOP presidential hopefuls — or, at least, they said they did. Cruz, however, undertook to do something about it. He proposed an amendment to the Constitution that would subject the justices to retention elections.

Urges Others to Rebel Against Democracy ‘Forced Down Our Throat’ Posted

A missing family of 12 has turned up in the Islamic State — and confirmed their move with a statement urging others to pack up and make the same family vacation.

The family ranges in ages from a 1-year-old baby to a 75-year-old patriarch.

The Mannan family were reported missing to British authorities after they failed to return to their home in Luton following a May trip to their native country, Bangladesh. Their flight stopped over in Turkey.

Bedfordshire Police released photos of the missing family members and has been investigating the disappearance. Remaining family members in the UK released a statement calling the move “completely out of character” for the family. “We can only think they have been tricked into going there, it is no place for elderly or young people.”

So she doesn’t know how to use a fax machine. Big whoop. If there is a “smoking gun” in the 3,000 pages of Hillary Clinton e-mails released by the State Department this week, it’s not in her technological ineptitude, or her calling her hairdresser “Santa,” or her continuing to encourage Sid Blumenthal to offer bad advice, or her fetish for ice tea, or her bizarre demand that John Podesta wear socks to bed. The most revealing dispatch, the one dripping with unintended irony and status detail and sanctimony dressed as social conscience, is the e-mail Lynn Forester de Rothschild, centimillionaire, addressed to Clinton on the morning of August 26, 2009. It is 122 preening and obsequious words long. I reprint it here:

H,

I spent yesterday with Les Gelb on Nantucket. He had lots to say which might be of interest, but I thought the most important thing to tell you is to make sure are aware of the Parade magazine piece he wants to do about you. He would like to do a day in your life, when you meet with members of Congress and international figures. He wants to show the impact you are having domestically and internationally. He said he would give you a veto over content and looked me in the eye and said, ‘she will like it.’ Maybe you know this, but did not want it to fall between the cracks. Enjoy your vacation and love to all of you.

Xoxo

L

Ah Nantucket! The island redoubt of the well heeled and au courant, where the billionaires go to escape the proles of the Vineyard, where you watch John Kerry windsurf from the starboard window of your private jet. Only a matter of time before this exclusive hideaway made an appearance in the correspondence of Hillary Clinton. And how perfect that it was during a summer in Nantucket, with the breeze coming off the sound and a Waterford pitcher of Cape Codders sitting on the patio table, that Lady Lynn communed with Dr. Gelb, who has worked in the Senate, at the New York Times, at the Brookings Institution, and is now president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. Difficult to find such established and credentialed personages. In Nantucket they’re everywhere.