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Truth – A Review By Marilyn Penn

Posted By on October 26th, 2015

The biggest problem with our believing in “Truth” is a fatal error in casting. Though Robert Redford is not much older than Dan Rather in 2004, the formerly handsome Redford has aged badly and bears no resemblance to the network anchor whom we scrutinized at close range in our homes for so many years. To make matters worse, Dennis Quaid who plays a military consultant to CBS, does look a lot like Rather and would have been perfect casting for the lead role. As we look at Redford with his sandy blondish hairpiece and fair, sun-damaged skin, we wonder why he’s usurping Dennis Quaid’s proper place as the dark-haired, square-headed Rather who remained telegenic as a man in his 70’s.

Cate Blanchett plays Mary Mapes, an overly frenetic, Xanax-popping, boozy journalist with creds who’s on to a very big story about George Bush’s appointment to and AWOL from the National Guard. The pressures of getting this on the air to take advantage of a scheduling opening in 5 days creates the tension, inducing the Mapes/Rather team to go with the story despite imperfect and incomplete journalistic vetting. As scripted, the villains of the movie are the corporate heads of CBS who don’t want to jeopardize their relationship with the president and the heavy-handed Republican lawyers appointed by CBS to investigate this matter before the company decides how to handle it.

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A Perfectly Clear Discourse on Evil: Edward Cline

Posted By on October 26th, 2015

There are two kinds of evil: the passive, and the active.

“Clearly, it seems to me that Hillary Clinton is: a) a liar and an amoral scoundrel who ought to be serving jail time; or b) an upstanding woman of the highest character and virtue and a paragon of honesty.”

I’ve seen that one-step-forward-two-steps-back syntax too many times in written and verbal statements. If something seems to be to a person, then it isn’t clear at all to him, regardless of the subject matter He is confessing that he isn’t quite sure what it is he is pronouncing judgment on. We can thank a long line of philosophers – for example, Rene Descartes – for making that contradiction of certainty-cum-doubt ubiquitous as a bad thinking habit, and as a repeated element in common language. We can also cite David Hume and John Dewey, among others.

It’s a far more grievous error than speakers and writers, in making comparisons, saying different than and not different from. Different than means absolutely nothing. As a conjunction, than is not synonymous with the preposition from.

It seems to me is also symptomatic of a lack of courage and resolve to be forthright in one’s statements. It’s a woozy approximation that is supposed to stand in for rock-solid certainty. It’s cowardly. It’s a half-full/half-empty glass of nothing. It’s like Michael Moore substituting for Cary Grant, or Rosie O’Donnell for Audrey Hepburn.

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Ted Cruz – A fresh approach to American foreign policy and US-Israel relations- Caroline Glick

Posted By on October 26th, 2015

US Senator Ted Cruz, the conservative Republican firebrand from Texas, is running for president. Up until a few weeks ago, his candidacy was met with indifference as the media and political operatives all dismissed its viability. But that is beginning to change. The voices arguing that Cruz, the favorite of Tea Party fiscal conservatives and Evangelical Christians may have what it takes to win the Republican nomination have multiplied.

Since arriving in Washington four years ago, Cruz has arguably been Israel’s most avid defender in the Senate. During Operation Protective Edge in July 2014, Cruz used his authority as a member of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee to force the Obama administration to end the Federal Aviation Commission’s ban on US flights to Ben-Gurion Airport. Cruz announced at the time that he would put a hold on all State Department appointments until the administration justified the flight ban.

Rather than defend its position, the administration restored flights to Israel after 36 hours.

Last summer Cruz led the national opposition to US President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. He brought thousands of activists to the Capitol to participate in a rally he organized calling for Congress to vote down the deal. Rather than use the rally as a means to promote himself, Cruz invited Republican front-runner real estate developer Donald Trump to join him at the rally. Trump’s participation ensured that the event received wide coverage from the national media.

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The Beersheba lynching and us: Ruthie Blum

Posted By on October 26th, 2015

On Monday evening, a Palestinian terrorist stabbed an Israeli soldier at the central bus station in Beersheba, then stole his rifle and began shooting randomly at commuters.

The soldier died of his wounds in the hospital; the terrorist was killed on location by security forces. About a dozen other people were injured — some seriously, some lightly — and many more left traumatized for life.

In the chaos of the attack, a 29-year-old Eritrean who worked at a plant nursery was mistakenly fingered as a terrorist, and he was shot by a security guard.

As if this weren’t tragic enough, after Habtom Zarhum was shot and “neutralized,” an angry mob began to beat him with anything they could get their hands on.

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Germany: Asylum Seekers Make Demands by Soeren Kern

Posted By on October 26th, 2015

“Human traffickers and the media in their home countries are making promises that do not correspond to reality.” — Hans-Joachim Ulrich, regional refugee coordinator.

The migrants said they were angry they were being asked to sleep in a huge warehouse rather than in private apartments. Hamburg officials say there are no more vacant apartments in the city. “The city lied to us. We were shocked when we arrived here,” said Syrian refugee Awad Arbaakeat.

“One of the men, who spoke broken German, said they [a family of asylum seekers from Syria] were not interested in viewing the property because I am a woman… I was taken aback. You want to help and then are sent away, unwanted in your own country.” — Aline Kern, real estate agent.

“A constitutional state cannot allow itself to be blackmailed.” — Marcel Huber, Bavarian politician.

“I man. You woman. I go first.” — Muslim male with a full shopping cart at the supermarket.

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JED BABBIN: IRAN’S PHONY RATIFICATION OF OBAMA’S NUCLEAR DEAL

Posted By on October 22nd, 2015

The ayatollah has already vowed to break the terms of agreement.

On Oct. 18 President Obama signed his nuclear agreement with Iran and thus began his administration’s implementation of it. His action followed the many international headlines proclaiming that Iran’s parliament — the “Majlis” — has ratified the nuclear weapons deal agreed to by Obama and endorsed by the United Nations Security Council.

Mr. Obama’s actions are premature and those headlines are comprehensively false for one compelling reason: The Majlis’ “ratification” never happened. To understand why requires some dissection of Iran’s internal politics.

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Foreign investors demonstrate confidence in Israel: Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

Posted By on October 22nd, 2015

1. Moody’s investors service (Oct. 7, 2015): “Israel’s resilient growth model, effective governance and steadily improving debt metrics underpin its A1 government bond rating and stable outlook…. Israel’s economic growth has outpaced that of most advanced industrial economies over the past decade, supported by a competitive high-tech export sector, substantial spending on research and development and a well-educated labor force…. Israel is one of the few advanced countries that have a lower debt-to GDP ratio….” Bloomberg (Aug. 2): “Israel’s workforce participation rates have reached the targets set by the government for 2020…. In the age group 25-64, the labor force participation rate was 77.2% for the first half of 2015….“

2. The US content solution giant, Pro Quest, acquires Israel’s Ex Libris for $500mn (Globes, Oct. 8).

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Palestinian Muslims: El-Husseini’s—And Muhammad’s—Willing Jew Executioners Andrew Bostom,

Posted By on October 22nd, 2015

During a speech yesterday (10/20/15) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appropriately decried the “apologetics” which have minimized the role played by ex-Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin el-Husseini (1895-1974)—founder of the modern Palestinian Muslim movement—in fomenting genocidal Islamic Jew-hatred. Netanyahu made these simple, irrefragable points, demonstrating how from the 1920s through (in particular) the World War II era, the father of the Palestinians at that time, with no [Jewish] state and no so-called “occupation,” no territories and no settlements, already sought, through systematic incitement, to annihilate the Jews. Regrettably, Hajj Amin el-Husseini is still a venerated figure in Palestinian society, he appears in study books and is exalted as the father of the nation, and this incitement that began then, incitement to kill Jews, continues.

On June 30, 1922, a joint resolution of both Houses of Congress of the United States unanimously endorsed the “Mandate for Palestine,” confirming the irrevocable right of Jews to settle in the area of Palestine—anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The Congressional record contains a statement of support from New York Rep. Walter Chandler which includes an observation, about “Turkish and Arab agitators . . . preaching a kind of holy war [jihad] against . . . the Jews” of Palestine. During this same era within Palestine, a strong Arab Muslim irredentist current—epitomized by Hajj Amin el-Husseini—promulgated the forcible restoration of sharia-mandated dhimm­itude for Jews via jihad. Indeed, two years before he orchestrated the murderous anti-Jewish riots of 1920, that is, in 1918, Hajj Amin el-Husseini stated plainly to a Jewish coworker (at the Jerusalem Governorate), I. A. Abbady, “This was and will remain an Arab land . . . the Zionists will be massacred to the last man. . . . Nothing but the sword will decide the future of this country.”

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Palestinian Deformative Years: Richard Ferrer

Posted By on October 22nd, 2015

Teach kids colours, numbers and their ABCs and they’ll embrace life and adulthood. Teach killing, nihilism and AK-47s and they’ll embrace death and the afterlife. Palestinian children are brainwashed right from the start. Rejectionism and the cult of death are at the core of their culture

Today’s column is brought to you by the letter ‘J’ for jihad and number 72 for virgins in paradise.

Once upon a time there was a little mouse called Farfour [Mickey’s copyright infringing twin], star of a children’s show called Tomorrow’s Pioneers on Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV. Farfour loved to tell all the boys and girls about world Islamic supremacy and how an AK-47 assault rifle would one day ”liberate all of Palestine”.

And the children squealed: “Oh Jerusalem, it’s the time of death and we will fight a war!” Farfour squeaked his last in a touching season finale, which saw him “martyred” at the hands of Israeli soldiers while “defending his land”.

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Why, Really, French Jews Are Leaving France :Michel Gurfinkiel

Posted By on October 22nd, 2015

They’re not willing to sacrifice their Jewish identity in exchange for their security as individuals.

By coincidence, on the same day “The Twilight of French Jewry, the Twilight of France” was published in Mosaic, I came upon some highly pertinent remarks by Christine Angot in Le Monde’s weekly literary supplement. Angot, a staunch liberal now in her mid-fifties, is a prize-winning playwright and novelist whose plotlines are largely drawn from her own life as the product of a dysfunctional family. (The French term for this is autofiction.) The subject of her remarks was a television program in which she had participated for Arte, the quality French-German channel, about Chateauroux, the town in central France where she was brought up.

Some Americans may remember Chateauroux as the locale of a U.S. army base in the 1950s and early 60s. Until recently, it could be described as quintessentially “deep France”: a sleepy local capital, surrounded by dark woods and rivers. Things are changing, however, as Angot realized with a start on her filmed visit there. Muslim immigrants are taking over many parts of the town, including her former neighborhood of public housing, and turning them into semi-independent enclaves, what the French police refer to as “no-go zones.” As she put it in Le Monde:

When we arrived—all of us, the TV crew complete with their cameras and sound booms, and the writer who grew up there—we had to account for ourselves, to show our identity cards, to prove who we were, to state exactly where I had lived. . . . And then, the director’s first name—David, his full name being David Teboul—supplied material for unsavory jokes…. Some of the locals tried to intimidate us, saying that television was a cartel of the Jews… All this was uttered in a very menacing tone.… We shot a few scenes under a running fire of jibes and jeering, and as we left we were told to pay our compliments to the Talmud…. I swear we felt most uncomfortable.