RUTHFULLY YOURS

At the end of the 18th century, there were two great Western revolutions — the American and the French. Americans opted for the freedom of the individual, and divinely endowed absolute rights and values.

A quite different French version sought equality of result. French firebrands saw laws less as absolute, but instead as useful to the degree that they contributed to supposed social justice and coerced redistribution. They ended up not with a Bill of Rights and separation of powers, but instead with mass executions and Napoleonic tyranny.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration is following more the French model than the American.

Suddenly, once-nonpartisan federal bureaucracies have become catalysts for fundamentally transforming America. Often-ideological bureaucrats have forgotten their original mission. NASA might do better to ensure that our astronauts are independent of Vladimir Putin’s Russian rockets rather than claiming that its primary mission is to reach out to the Muslim community.

Intelligence directors vie with one another to please superiors with fatuous but politically correct analysis. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper assured us that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was largely secular. CIA director John Brennan once termed a now-emerging Islamic caliphate as “absurd.” Former Director of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano once warned that returning veterans and right-wingers were the chief domestic terrorist threats, not Islamic jihadists.

The IRS has lost its nonpartisan reputation by hounding perceived ideological enemies. It no longer abides by the historic standards — transparency, rapid submission of documents, honesty — that it demands from those it audits.

The good news is that The New York Times has to dump another hundred reporters. The bad news is that Tom Friedman is still on the beat.

But the paper, constantly eyeing Der Sturmer for inspiration, keeps losing readers in droves. People have begun to catch on.

They’re catching on to what I’ve been saying for years, that The New York Times is the most anti-Semitic newspaper in the entire world. The only people still paying money for it are likeminded loonies who can’t get enough Israel-bashing – like people addicted to porn. They need their daily fix.

Today’s op-ed needle comes from yet another scoffer named Roger Cohen – or is this the same dunce who appears time and again? I don’t know. Honest, I can only read so much from these nutty professors. But I have been wise to the trick for some time. It’s a cut and paste job.

So, no, it is not Roger Cohen all the time. The paper runs the same column every week, only it slaps on a different name. Last week it was somebody else.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/jamie-glazov-and-luke-kruse/a-cartoon-the-death-wish-of-islam-denial/

Frontpage Editor Jamie Glazov and illustrator Luke Kruse have joined forces to depict the taboo truths about the Unholy Alliance between the Left and Islam. Below is their first production:

tc

Don’t miss Frontpage Editor Jamie Glazov discuss his book “United in Hate” and the Left’s romance with Islam below:

The NYPD hate Crime Task Force is investigating a bias attack, after a man was pyscially attacked by pro-Palestinian supporters in Brooklyn Tuesday night, following the Nets – Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball game at Barclay’s Center, according to a press release sent out by Kings Bay Y.

Leonard Petlakh, Executive Director of the Kings Bay Y, says he was physically attacked by anti-Israel protesters while exiting the Barclays Center arena with his children and friends.

As the anti-Israel demonstrators chanted “Free Palestine” and “Your people are murderers,” one of them struck Petlakh in the face. Petlakh was taken to Methodist Hospital, where he was treated for a fractured nose and lacerations under his eye that required eight stitches. The attacker fled the scene.

The NYPD’s Hate Crimes Unit is investigating the incident, which occurred in the presence of hundreds of people and was caught on camera.

In a statement, Petlakh said he hoped that the “vile anti-Semitic hooligans masquerading as anti-Zionists will be caught soon.” He also called for a more active police presence at venues that host Israel-related events and noted that the anti-Israel protest was publicized days in advance.

“I am upset that my children witnessed this unprecedented violence, but I hope it sends a strong message to them to stand up for their values as proud Americans and as those who will eventually volunteer to serve in the Israel Defense Forces,” Petlakh said.

Riot police separate hundreds of Kurds and Islamist supporters in Germany after at least nine are killed in protests in Turkey

Kurdish protesters confronted Salafist Muslims outside a mosque
Both sides came armed with iron bars, machetes and sharp objects
Police say 14 people were injured before they could quell disturbance
Tear gas fired in Ankara and Istanbul after demonstrations erupt there
Activists are demanding more support for Kurdish fighters in Kobane
Protests spread across Europe and saw demos in Germany and France

“From the first moment I heard about Che, Ernesto Guevara,” gushes Columbia University’s SDS (Student’s for a Democratic Society) leader in 1968 Mark Rudd, “he was my man, or, rather, I was his. Brilliant, young, idealistic, a daring commander of rebels, willing to risk his life to free the people of the world, I wanted to be like him. I was a member of the cult of Che. Who wouldn’t fall for this rifle-toting poet … ?”

Columbia University College Republicans, for one. The Young America’s Foundation (YAF) for another. Indeed such is these organizations’ penchant for blowing raspberries and horse-laughs at the staggering imbecilities swallowed (and spouted) by gasping groupies like Mark Rudd that they’re a staging a “No More Che Day” at Mark Rudd’s own Columbia University on Oct. 9th.

Worse still (for such as Rudd and fellow Che groupies), this event features a speaker who — you might say — “wrote the book” on exposing the real Che Guevara and the staggering stupidity (or other mental malfunctions) that motivate those who idolize this amazing sadist, coward and epic idiot.

For starters, most of Che’s “rifle-toting” was done in the face of utterly unarmed enemies. “When you saw the beaming look on Che’s face as the victims were tied to the stake and blasted apart by the firing squad,” said a former Cuban political prisoner Roberto Martin-Perez to your humble servant here, “you saw there was something seriously, seriously wrong with Che Guevara.”

Even as a youth, Ernesto Guevara’s writings revealed a serious mental illness. “My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any vencido that falls in my hands!” This passage is from Ernesto Guevara’s famous Motorcycle Diaries, though Robert Redford somehow overlooked it while directing his heart-warming movie.

The Spanish word vencido, by the way, translates into “defeated” or “surrendered.” And indeed, “the “acrid odor of gunpowder and blood” very, very rarely reached Guevara’s nostrils from anything properly describable as combat. It mostly came from the close-range murders of defenseless men (and boys). Carlos Machado was 15 years old in 1963 when the bullets from the firing squad shattered his body. His twin brother and father collapsed beside Carlos from the same volley. All had resisted Castro and Che’s theft of their humble family farm, all refused blindfolds and all died sneering at their Communist murderers, as did thousands of their valiant countrymen. “Viva Cuba Libre! Viva Cristo Rey! Abajo Comunismo!” “The defiant yells would make the walls of La Cabana prison tremble,” wrote eyewitness to the slaughter, Armando Valladares.

In 1920 H.L Mencken wrote prophetically, “As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic moron.”

Like the long tradition of antidemocrats from Plato to Founding Father Fisher Ames, Mencken believed that a democratic leader would reflect the self-interested aims and passions of the necessarily mediocre mass of voters. The disaster of Barack Obama’s administration invites reflection on the truth of this proposition.

Obama’s narcissistic self-regard by now is obvious to all but the most besotted of tingle-down-my-leg, smartest-president-ever, trousers-crease-bedazzled Obamaboppies, as Mark Steyn calls them. Obama’s favorite words are “I,” “me,” and “my,” except of course when he’s dodging responsibility for his failures, as he did recently when he blamed his intelligence agencies for his own neglect of the growing threat from Islamic State in northern Iraq. He’s still blaming George W. Bush for many other failures, most recently when he blamed him for the lack of a status of forces agreement with Iraq––something he really didn’t want so he could brag, as he did in 2011, “The tide of war is receding. Now, even as we remove our last troops from Iraq, we’re beginning to bring our troops home from Afghanistan . . . Our troops are finally coming home.” A year later he made this political calculation explicit when he said of the SOF agreement during the foreign policy presidential debate, “What I would not have done is left 10,000 troops in Iraq that would tie us down.”

Dodging accountability and refusing to confess one’s mistakes are classic signs of the egomaniac. So too is seeking out audiences that uncritically accept one’s own estimation of personal greatness. That’s why the president prefers fund-raisers to governing. It’s not just about garnering money for his party; it’s also about bathing in the waves of adulation from the carefully selected audience of fans. That’s certainly more gratifying than sitting through the Presidential Daily Briefings, 56% of which he missed in his first term, and 62% in his second. George W. Bush, in comparison, almost never missed the PDB.

And when someone does get by the gatekeepers and asks an even slightly challenging question, Obama gets a bit snappish, as those convinced of their own brilliance are wont to do. For example, when asked at a recent town-hall gathering about double-digit rate-increases for health care, he sniffed, “The question is whether you guys are shopping effectively enough.” It’s your fault, not mine. So too when his handlers can’t control the questions, as in presidential debates. There he relies on juvenile snarkiness to defend his amour propre. Remember when he responded to Mitt Romney’s warning about Russia, which recent events have proven prescient? “The 80s called, they want their foreign policy back,” he jeered with the air of a junior-high witling.

A new year is generally a time to assess the past and consider the future. The year 5775 (in the Jewish calendar) is no different. A look back at this past year, with the grim reality of the Islamic State’s (IS) cruel terror, the general instability in the Middle East, and the recent 50-day war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist terror group Hamas, could easily lead one to despair. This mayhem and bloodshed has also obscured the dynamism and progress the marks Israel’s society.

A comparison between Israel, circa 1984, with Israel of 2014 reveals the country’s incredible growth and its maturity as a developed nation – a nation now commonly referred to as the “Start-Up Nation.” A few statistical facts convey the nation’s dramatic growth. Israel’s population in 1984 stood at 4.1 million, doubling in 30 years to 8.2 million. This means more security for the nation by virtue of a larger standing army and reserves, and less impact on the economy during military mobilization.

While Israel is faced with an existential threat from a nuclear Iran, terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, IS and al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front in Syria, and Hamas in Gaza, the disintegration of Iraq and Syria with their substantial armies and armament, have lessened the overall strategic threat facing the Jewish state. Egypt, under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the largest and most powerful Arab state, and Saudi Arabia, the primary Sunni Arab state, have found common cause with Israel. They share a concern over Iran’s quest for regional hegemony, and its drive for nuclear arms, as well as Israel’s opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood, and other radical Islamist movements.

A nation’s strength is not measured by the size of its military, and its ability to deter its enemies alone. National strength is also a function of its economic, social, and cultural achievements. Since 1984 Israel has experienced dramatic improvements in its economy. The inflation rate has declined from 447% to 1.5%, and the interest banks charge declined from 771% to 5%; national debt as a percentage of the GNP has declined from 17% to 2.5%. Likewise, the defense expenditures as a percentage of the GNP went down from 20% to 5.6% (2013), still a bit higher than the U.S. military expenditure of 3.8%. Foreign exchange reserves in dollars grew from $3.3 billion to $90 billion. Exports in 1984 were $10 billion and by 2013 had reached $291.36 billion, while per capita income in 1984 was $7000, and in 2013 it was $34,120. Women in Israel’s labor force amounted to 30% in 1984; it now stands at 53%. And while the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the U.S. (2013) grew by 1.9%, in the U.K. 1.7%, France’s 0.2%, Israel’s GDP growth was 3.3%.

Naturally, Israel has economic and social problems. To reach its full potential Israel needs to increase the number of ultra-orthodox Jews and Arabs in the labor market. The high cost of apartments (due to shortage in supply) has been especially difficult for young couples seeking their first home and is a factor in the emigration of bright young people. There are not enough rental apartments for the post-military young. Defense expenditures are still high, but unavoidable. However, when compared with the rest of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) states, Israel’s situation is improving yearly, which is not the case elsewhere in Western countries.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/the-nightmare-of-a-nuclear-iran-on-the-glazov-gang/

This week’s Glazov Gang was joined by Conservative Entrepreneur Monty Morton, who came on the show to warn us about The Nightmare of a Nuclear Iran – and everything
Obama isn’t doing about it [starts at 8:20 mark].

The discussion occurred within the context of Two Lethal Threats to America, in which Monty stressed two dire dangers facing the U.S., the other one being focused on in the first half of the episode:

Joe Biden is making his latest round of apologies for that rarest of gaffes, especially coming from him: the truth. Biden’s crime was stating that ISIS had been empowered by the backing of Sunni states, including Turkey and the UAE, for the Syrian opposition.

“They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad — except that the people who were being supplied were al Nusra and al Qaeda,” Biden said.

Biden, who insulted plenty of people over the years, has been forced to apologize, making private phone calls to the Islamist thug ruling Turkey and to a UAE prince. It’s a humiliating performance for a man who is only a heartbeat away from becoming the President of the United States to be forced to apologize to some tinpot despots for telling the truth about them.

When Biden decided to throw a temper tantrum in Israel, it was the Israelis who were forced to apologize to him. Biden recently boasted of insulting Putin to his face (though it probably never actually happened) without being forced to make any apologetic phone calls to Moscow. It’s telling that only Muslim countries appear to be able to compel apologies from the Vice President of the United States.

But the one time that Biden did apologize for something he said was also the one time that he should not have apologized because it was the one time that he was telling the truth.

Biden didn’t tell the whole truth. He left out any mention of Qatar and the blank check its weapons smuggling had received from his administration. He also neglected to mention that the roots of the Syrian Civil War had come out of Obama’s Libyan War and the Arab Spring. Still there’s only so much truth that you can expect from a top Democrat who also happens to be a notoriously compulsive liar.

Truth may be the rarest quality in this conflict.