RUTHFULLY YOURS

““You can hope all you want, [but] the reality is [Mrs. Clinton] is not likely to stray very far from the path Barack Obama has outlined as far as energy,” said Marita Noon, executive director of the advocacy group Energy Makes America Great. “Unfortunately, energy has become a very partisan issue, which I think is a shame. Democrats are totally going down the path of the fantasy that we can power the world on butterflies, rainbows and pixie dust.”

Hillary Clinton’s refusal to even mention the Keystone XL pipeline — let alone take a public position on the project — during a high-profile speech Monday night underscores the mystery surrounding her energy platform, with both environmentalists and coal advocates believing the former secretary of state could be an ally of theirs if she seeks the White House in 2016.

Mrs. Clinton’s address to the powerful League of Conservation Voters demonstrated her appeal to environmentalists, who hope the Democratic Party’s presidential front-runner would stick with President Obama’s ambitious climate change policies if she becomes the next president.

Hillary Clinton’s refusal to even mention the Keystone XL pipeline — let alone take a public position on the project — during a high-profile speech Monday night underscores the mystery surrounding her energy platform, with both environmentalists and coal advocates believing the former secretary of state could be an ally of theirs if she seeks the White House in 2016.

Mrs. Clinton’s address to the powerful League of Conservation Voters demonstrated her appeal to environmentalists, who hope the Democratic Party’s presidential front-runner would stick with President Obama’s ambitious climate change policies if she becomes the next president.

She’s explained away her lack of a position by claiming conflict of interest, since the State Department, which Mrs. Clinton led from 2009 to 2012, is overseeing environmental reviews and permitting processes for the pipeline.

During her address, Mrs. Clinton did indicate energy and climate change would be priorities of hers if she ends up in the Oval Office.

As ISIS continues its brutal occupation of large swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq, effectively blurring the border between those two pseudo nations, a new, if not more menacing threat is emerging in North Africa where the Islamic State is looking to plant its cancerous roots.

In Egypt, the Sinai based Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, an Islamist organization responsible for dozens of terror attacks throughout the country announced on its Twitter account that it had forged a union with ISIS and swore allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed Caliph. ABM has mimicked the Islamic State’s macabre methods and has made use of social media to publicly broadcast grisly beheadings the group videotaped. ABM has also taken responsibility for the murder of America oil worker, William Henderson and was believed to be behind a deadly bombing attack in Sinai that killed over thirty Egyptian soldiers.

In Tunisia, the birthplace of the so-called Arab spring, ISIS has found a virtual recruiting ground for eager volunteers. Tunisia boasts the dubious distinction of being the nation that has contributed the most foreign fighters to Islamic State’s ranks, at least 3,000 according to published reports and many more have been prevented from joining by Tunisian authorities.

Algeria, a nation that experienced 10 years of brutal civil war between Islamists and government forces that claimed the lives of 150,000, is witnessing a resurgence of Islamic militancy. A group calling itself Jund al-Khilafah (“The Caliphate’s Soldiers”) has also recently sworn allegiance to al-Baghdadi. The newly formed group, which splintered from its al-Qaida affiliate, was responsible for beheading a French national in September after ISIS issued a call for the killing of nationals belonging to countries contributing to US led coalition strikes against the Islamic State.

As evidenced by the Iraqi and Syrian experience, ISIS thrives in an environment where lawlessness and chaos prevail and Libya, which saw the overthrow of Kaddafi in 2011, has provided the Islamic State with fertile ground to carry out its objectives and spread its ideology. Libya’s central government is weak and has been unable to exercise any meaningful authority over the country, which has witnessed the rise of a plethora of militia groups with various Jihadist affiliations.

The Libyan town of Darnah, situated on the Mediterranean coastline just south of Crete and east of Benghazi is currently under the complete control of a Jihadist militia that has sworn allegiance to the Islamic State. It is also first town known to be under ISIS rule in North Africa. The allure of ISIS in the Muslim world coupled with the lawlessness that characterizes the current state of affairs in Libya makes it a near certainty that other Libyan enclaves will sooner or later come under Islamic State influence.

It’s been a busy week for the oppression of women under Islam.

A day or two before Americans sat down to turkey dinner on Thanksgiving, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Erdogan – President Obama’s best friend in the Middle East, a man who has made it abundantly clear how he feels about moderate Islam and who has warned that women shouldn’t laugh in public – further endeared himself to feminists everywhere at a summit hosted by an Istanbul-based women’s group when he declared that a woman cannot do every job that a man can do because “it is against her delicate nature.” He dug the hole deeper for himself by claiming that Islam dictated motherhood to be the primary role of women. However, he insisted that his government has always supported equal rights for women and always would.

If that’s true, then perhaps his government could turn its attention to the epidemic of honor murders being committed against Turkish women, many of whom were murdered for seeking to divorce their husbands. Last month in Istanbul, a young mother in the middle of divorce proceedings was stabbed to death by her husband in front of their child. Her murder is the latest of 287 cases documented by a Turkish human rights and advocacy group known as “We Will Stop Women Murders.”

As reported by Huffington Post, the numbers are up from 238 last year, including the slaying of a 30-year old mother of two seeking a divorce. Her abusive husband simply walked into the hair salon where she worked and stabbed her to death without a word. This was after having abused her, forcing a miscarriage, and holding her hostage in their home.

Despite its modern reputation, Turkey has some of the highest levels of violence against women in Europe (as well as some of the lowest levels of female participation in politics and education). Rights activists claim that violence against women has skyrocketed since 2003 when the Islamist AKP party came into power. According to the Turkish Ministry of Justice, from 2003 until 2010, there was a 1,400 percent increase in the number of murders of women.

“The AKP government came under harsh criticism after the release of this information,” says Pinar Tremblay, a Turkish journalist. “So in a last-ditch effort to save its reputation, [after 2010] it started altering the numbers.” The government simply did not report on thousands of women who were murdered, Tremblay says.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article is adapted from one that appeared in the November 3, 2014, issue of National Review.

Minneapolis — “Are you a spy?”

Yusuf laughs as he says it, but the question is not unthinkable. I am, after all, likely the only person of pallor within a square half mile, and definitely the only one perusing the goods on offer in the Somali market at the corner of E. 24th St. and 10th Ave. S. — prayer rugs, pastel hijabs, and discount travel packages to Mecca, on sale to Minneapolis’s approximately 30,000 Somalis. The proprietors who eye me quizzically agree: I am not their target market.

When exactly their target market might arrive, though, is a mystery. Dozens of people are milling about, but none are shopping. The very few women, all older, are clerking the shop counters. There are many more men, of all ages, most of them seated idly around café tables. As the afternoon wears on, the crowd grows younger. One sees less traditional garb, more college sweatshirts and snapback caps.

Which is what Yusuf is wearing, as he leans against a counter and asks whether I am a spy. “There have been more white people around,” he remarks. “Especially with what’s been going on.”

What’s been going on is an exodus of Minnesotans to the Middle East to join up with the Islamic State — at least 15 Somali men and three women from Minneapolis, according to an ongoing FBI investigation. Twenty-nine-year-old Abdirahmaan Muhumed, for example, left nine children in Minneapolis to fight in Syria. In August, he became the second American to die fighting for the terrorist group, following the lead of the serendipitously named Douglas McArthur McCain, not a Somali but a fellow Minneapolitan. That same month, a 19-year-old Minneapolis girl told her parents she was going to a bridal shower. She called them weeks later from Syria, where she was nursing wounded Islamic State fighters.

Somewhere nearby is 20-year-old Abdi Nur, who boarded a one-way flight for Turkey last spring, and is now believed to be in Syria. Abdullahi Yusuf, 18, hoped to follow him, but was apprehended at Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport in May. Both were charged in November with conspiring to provide support to the Islamic State.

Veterans of the law-enforcement and intelligence communities are worried about the federal government’s ability to protect the homeland once President Obama’s executive amnesty takes effect. In interviews with NRO, they expressed concerns about rampant fraud in federal documents and the possibility of a new wave of immigrants at the southern border.

Having lived through the amnesty of 1986, James Chaparro, a former senior official at the Department of Homeland Security who managed intelligence efforts across the department, warns of the potential for massive fraud. “Very frequently you see unscrupulous immigration consultants and criminal organizations taking advantage of new programs that are being implemented,” he says. “You will likely see an industry grow up around fraud.”

Chaparro, who left his position as the assistant director of intelligence at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (part of DHS) in the summer of 2013, says he expects to see instances of fraud similar to the complications that followed the 1986 amnesty.

In fact, fraud has already begun and counterfeiters are already being called upon to provide falsified records for illegal immigrants seeking to take advantage of Obama’s amnesty, says former national deputy chief of the U.S. Border Patrol Ronald Colburn. “All this does is mask those that could or would do harm to the U.S. in the future,” he says. “The worst is yet to come.”

Right now, Colburn says, drug cartels seeking to infiltrate the United States are expanding their operations inside Mexico and around the world. The Sinaloa Cartel, Gulf Cartel, and Los Zetas are among the criminal enterprises that he says have begun training militant Islamist groups in West Africa in exchange for safe passage of the cartel’s contraband into western Europe. As a result, he says the challenge American forces face in West Africa today has shifted from a counterterrorism dilemma to a counter-narcotics-trafficking and counter-organized-crime problem — a problem the amnesty could help bring home.

Rolling Stone has published an incredible story about a rape at the University of Virginia, sending shock waves around the country.

But when I say the story is incredible, I mean that in the literal, largely abandoned sense of the word. It is not credible — I don’t believe it.

I’m not saying that the author of the story, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, deliberately fabricated facts. Nor do I believe that all of her reporting was flawed. There may be an outrageously callous attitude toward sexual assaults at UVA. Rape, particularly date rape, may be a major problem there. I’ve talked to enough people with connections to the campus to think that part is credible enough.

But the central story isn’t about a spontaneous alcohol-fueled case of some creep refusing to take no for an answer (an inexcusable offense in my opinion). It’s an account of a well-planned gang rape by seven fraternity pledges at the direction of two members. If true, lots of people need to go to jail for decades — if.

The basic story is this: Jackie is asked out on a date her freshman year by a junior named “Drew” (not his real name). After dinner, they go to a party at Phi Kappa Psi. Quickly, Drew asks Jackie, “Want to go upstairs, where it’s quieter?”

Jackie is led to a “pitch-black” bedroom. She’s knocked to the floor. A heavy person jumps on top of her. A hand covers her mouth. When she bites it, she’s punched in the face. And for the next three hours she’s brutally raped, with Drew and another upperclassman shouting out instructions to the pledges, referring to Jackie as “it.”

Many alleged details (though Erdely never uses the word “alleged”) aren’t suitable for a family paper. Others are simply hard to believe. The pitch-black darkness doesn’t prevent Jackie from recognizing an attacker or seeing them drink beer. The assault takes place amidst the wreckage of a broken glass table, but the rapists are undeterred by shards of glass.

IF CAROLINE KENNEDY CAN BE CONFIRMED AS, YOU KNOW, LIKE, AMBASSADOR TO JAPAN….ANYTHING GOES…..READ COLLEEN BELL’S LETTER….SUBMITTED WITH HER APPLICATION…..RSK

Why I Want to Live in Budapest for a Year or More

by Colleen Bell

I’m “Hungary” to spend some time in Budapest (LOL) as part of the U.S. government’s Obama Bundlers Abroad program (that part’s also a joke). While I’ve never been a diplomat, I did earn a diploma in high school and college. I hope this essay is good enough to win Senate confirmation.

As a soap opera producer, I bring a world of experience to the task of serving as the U.S. Ambassador to Hungary. My show, “The Bold and the Beautiful,” is seen in more than 100 countries, so they probably know of me already.

Because of my job on the soap opera, I know more than most people do about the challenges of building solid, long-lasting, mutually-satisfying relationships — or at least about pretending to do so.

But if all I had to recommend me was a history of creating high-quality treacherous relationship stories for daytime TV, I could understand how you might be reluctant to send me overseas as the president’s emissary, and the official face of America.

So, you’ll be glad to know that I’m also a campaign bundler for the president, having raised millions of dollars to assure myself an appointment as ambassador. (Just kidding.)

My wealth of experience making phone calls to wealthy Liberals will serve me well in Budapest, as I’m sure they probably have wealthy Liberals over there too, and maybe even telephones. I even hosted a dinner for the president at my house and got Foo Fighters to perform there. If Hungarian government officials haven’t heard of Foo Fighters yet, they’re really good.

Finally, as if all of that were not enough to secure my confirmation, I’ve also been told that I’m an attractive woman. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have mentioned that, but when you’re trying to show the world America’s best face, it never hurts to actually have a nice face.

All the Best,
Colleen Bell

NO YOU DON’T AND LIFTING SPIRITS IS NOT WHAT IT IS ABOUT…THE ECONOMY AND OUR FOREIGN POLICIES ARE IN SHAMBLES, IMMIGRATION IS NOW LAWLESS, OUR NATIONAL CULTURE IS BEING ERODED AS YOU SPEAK, AND YOU OFFER THIS TYPICAL BUSHBLATHER AS A GOAL? THAT IS FOR CLERGY AND COUNSELORS….PULEEZ…NO MORE CLINTONS NO MORE BUSHES!…RSK
WASHINGTON — Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said he is thinking of running for president in 2016 and will make a decision sometime in the near future.

Bush also labeled President Obama’s immigration executive action “extra-constitutional.”

“I’m thinking about running for president and I’ll make up my mind in short order – not that far out into the future, I don’t know the exact timeline,” he said at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council event on Monday.

“Do I have the skills to do it in a way that tries to lift people’s spirits and not get sucked into the vortex? And that sounds easy, it’s easy say, it’s harder to do. Do I have those skills? I’ve really got to do a lot of soul-searching to really make that determination,” he added.

Bush also said running for public office is a “pretty ugly business” that he might not want his family to go through at this time.

“I think people kind of appreciate that, so I’m sorting that out,” he said.

In the discussion moderated by Gerald Seib, the Wall Street Journal’s Washington bureau chief, Bush said the U.S. has been acting like France.

“The United States should not be in any category remotely close to a problem kind of country. We have everything that is necessary – abundant and natural resources, the most innovative country in the world, the most creative place in the world, labor laws that are unique in the developed world, a big place full of chances to expand, the history of productivity, all this stuff has just been cast aside temporarily and we’re moping around like we’re France, with all due respect,” Bush said.

“I don’t want to be disrespectful, they have a lot of interesting things and great things, but we’re not France for crying out loud – and the crisis of opportunity is we’re not seizing the moment,” he added.

Ashton Carter as Defense Secretary a choice that will likely ensure a smooth confirmation in Congress and an easy transition at the Pentagon, where Mr. Carter was until recently a well-regarded deputy secretary. The larger question is whether a technocrat can do much more than mind the store while the White House conducts its meandering foreign policy.
The good news in this presumptive nomination is that Mr. Carter has the managerial chops to run one of the world’s largest bureaucracies. A trained physicist, Mr. Carter has a reputation for knowing his way around the Pentagon’s byzantine budget and procurement systems. That’s a welcome contrast to outgoing Secretary Chuck Hagel, who had to undergo on-the-job training.

Defense is one cabinet position that cannot be occupied by a lightweight. And experience is particularly significant now, as the Pentagon needs to make decisions about investing in a new generation of ballistic-missile submarines and a replacement bomber for our ancient fleet of B-52s and B-1s.

Even more important is the modernization of the nuclear arsenal (average age of a warhead: 27 years), given that recent testing scandals have revealed dangerous shortfalls in management, infrastructure and morale. Russia and China have invested heavily to modernize and expand their atomic arsenals, and Mr. Carter will need to make certain that America’s shrunken nuclear triad remains credible as a deterrent against adversaries and an umbrella for non-nuclear allies.

Addressing long-term challenges isn’t enough, however. The next Defense Secretary will face a world of ambitious geopolitical adversaries, from Moscow to Mosul to Tehran, who believe that Mr. Obama’s final years in office are an opportunity to exploit weakness at the White House. Mr. Carter will face an especially difficult task finding ways to reassure allies that American power remains credible in this era of U.S. retreat.

Michael Brenner (not Lenni Brenner the Trotskyite and not to be confused with another Michael Brenner who writes also on Israel) writes about the new Jewish Nation State legislation in his “Jabotinsky and the Jewish State law”, November 27, 2014. One of my rules of thumb as a half-century old adherent to Jabotinsky’s Revisionist Zionism is that when opponents of right-wing nationalist Zionism and Likud leaders begin to quote Jabotinsky, that’s when one need pay careful and close attention.

Brenner notes that in Jabotinsky’s thinking “all [? YM] a Jewish state meant for him was a territory in which Jews enjoyed a sufficient degree of sovereignty in their internal and external affairs and in which they constituted a majority.”

That, of course, is a facile, if not a shallow, reading of the man’s Zionism.

Books in English have been published disputing Brenner’s bias such as “Every individual, a king : the social and political thought of Ze’ev Vladimir Jabotinsky” by Hebrew University’s Raphaella Bilski Ben-Hur and “The Political and Social Philosophy of Ze’ev Jabotinsky: Selected Writings”, as well as a pamphlet that was issued by the Israel Democracy Institute, “Ze’ev Jabotinsky on Democracy, Equality, and Individual Rights” and many other articles including one on the formation of a ‘new Jew’ personality. Of course, the many Hebrew-language sources that dispute Brenner’s assertion are too numerous to even begin to list.

Beyond this prejudicial build-up, Brenner seeks to surprise and quotes from Jabotinsky’s 1940 book, The Jewish War Front, wherein he proposes that “both Jews and Arabs share equal collective autonomous rights as well”. So much so, that “In every Cabinet where the Prime Minister is a Jew, the vice-premiership shall be offered to an Arab, and vice-versa.”

Of course, that it may be a surprise to many is only a proof that one of the greatest Zionist thinkers of the 20th century was not only ignored and ostracized in his day but posthumously suppressed and banished from our political dialogue.

Brenner sees in the move to legislate a Jewish Nation-State Law “not only an unnecessary provocation to Israel’s Arab citizens” but an act that “also ignores the vision of its founders”. And that is why he quotes from Jabotinsky.

One always need be careful when dealing with quotations from Jabotinsky. Excerpts must be faithful to the fundamental conceptualization of the author’s thinking so that the quotation cannot be used for a purpose which is contrary to the author’s outlook.