RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/rick-perry-the-presidential-candidate-ahead-of-his-time-20130320
….and he has a great track record as Governor of Texas….rsk
The Texas governor ran an awful campaign in 2012. But his platform is now belatedly being embraced by party leaders.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s 2012 presidential campaign was a slow-motion train wreck, capped off by his embarrassing brain freeze in a nationally televised debate. But as Perry mulls another presidential race in 2016, it’s striking that he was campaigning on many of the reforms that Republican Party leaders are now desperately pushing.

Republicans have spent the past several months figuring out how to win over more Hispanic voters, moderating their tone on immigration, pitching education reform as a significant issue, and they have reaped the political benefits of challenging President Obama on balancing budgets and reforming entitlements. On all those counts, Perry was a candidate ahead of his time.

“I think he remains a motivated public official and an energized political figure,” said Perry’s former chief of staff Ray Sullivan. “On that score, I could easily see him seeking another term as governor and making another run at the White House.”

Take immigration reform. Eventual GOP nominee Mitt Romney hammered Perry for his support of in-state tuition for undocumented workers in Texas. That was in 2012. Now Republican standard-bearers Marco Rubio and Rand Paul have changed the GOP’s tune on immigration. Rubio teamed with Democratic colleagues to draft principles that could become the starting point for immigration reform, and Paul broke out some Spanish during a recent speech suggesting a pathway for illegal immigrants to become citizens.

Perry’s support among Hispanics in Texas was decent, especially compared with Mitt Romney’s awkward outreach. Perry won 38 percent of the Hispanic vote in his 2010 Texas gubernatorial race, while Romney only took 27 percent of the national Hispanic vote. Texas Republicans attribute that to Hispanic voters’ familiarity with Perry, who as the state’s longest-serving governor, has also appointed Hispanics as state Supreme Court justices, as well as secretary of state and transportation commissioner.

http://www.jewishjournal.com/rosnersdomain/print/bibibibibibibibibibibibibi_obamas_trip_day_one_in_543_words

MY WONDERFUL E-PAL BARBARA T. CALLS THE PRESIDENT’S SPEECH IN ISRAEL “OPERATION DESERT SCHMALTZ”….

This headline wrote itself as I was watching President Obama’s press conference with Prime Minister Netanyahu. Jeffrey Goldberg nicknamed it Operation Desert Schmoose. I suggested Desert Schmaltz. If you’re not sure about these terms and their meanings, go find yourself a Yiddish dictionary on Google for clarifications.

So what happened in Israel today? Here’s a very brief summary:

Atmosphere:

It was as good as you’d expect if not better. Obama’s limousine getting stuck midway to Jerusalem was a nice start as it kept the sprits up while keeping it real and not too scripted. The President and the Prime Minister still don’t agree on many important issues, but both seem to have come to a point in which they can disagree agreeably.

Iran policy:

Obama essentially said that this is an issue on which the two countries don’t see eye to eye. There is no daylight when assessment of the graveness of the threat is concerned, the President said, but as far as timetables go, well, Obama reiterated Israel’s right to defend itself (which in this case means “if you want to go at it alone, that’s your choice, not mine”)… It is logical to assume that Obama feels safe to say this because he is now more skeptical about the possibility that Israel will launch an attack.

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2451/Washington-Media-Nobody-Home.aspx Found myself in a group conversation that included one of the more instantly recognizable media figures — someone who personifies the phrase “mainstream media.” Since this isn’t something that happens every day, why not make the best of it? Why not ask this VIMP (Very Important Media Person) a question or two on the […]

http://www.radicalislam.org/analysis/staggering-numbers-women-converting-islam/#fm The first thing the Dutch girl did once she’d converted to Islam was change her name – to Soumaya, she says, because “she was the first martyr. She was prepared to die for Allah.” Soumaya, née Aphrodite, is one of a wave of tens of thousands of Westerners who convert to Islam every year, […]

http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/obama-lectured-israelis-promised-and-applauded-arab-palestinians/2013/03/22/
Obama Lectured Israelis, Promised and Applauded Arab Palestinians
So the west will continue pretending that: the PA is a non-terrorist political group deserving of continuing U.S. aid, the Israeli government is intransigent and unwilling to make concessions, and it is Israel which bears all responsibility for ensuring that a Palestinian state – created in its own image – comes into existence as soon as possible.

U.S. President Barack Obama during a press conference at the Muqata Presidential Compound in Ramallah, March 21, 2013.
Photo Credit: Issam RImawi/FLASH90
U.S. President Barack Obama gave two speeches on Thursday, March 21, one to Arab Palestinians in a joint press conference with acting head of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, and the other to Israelis at the Jerusalem Convention Center.

His talks were ostensibly about the state of relations between the different parties, but everyone knew that the animating impulse was to kickstart the “Middle East Peace Process.” Everyone who watched the speeches or read the transcripts, are now desperately looking at the tea leaves to see what just happened.

The substance of Obama’s two speeches, the venues in which they were given, the words chosen, the words avoided, taken all together paint a vivid picture of this president and his beliefs about the region.

One speech he gave in Ramallah, the acknowledged seat of government of the Palestinian Authority, where he gave a joint press conference with Mahmoud Abbas, the acting leader of the PA. The other he gave in Jerusalem, not at the seat of Israel’s government, and not directed to Israel’s elected leaders.

At the Jerusalem speech the U.S. president spoke directly to the citizenry of Israel, mostly university students – minus those, such as students at a newly credentialed Israeli university located in Ariel – which is situated beyond the “green line” and, apparently, for Obama is beyond the Pale, ironic given the large number of Arabs who are students at that university.

The speeches revealed little that is new: Obama believes there should be two states on the land, one, the Jewish homeland, Israel, and the other, a new one for Arab Palestinians, called Palestine. He criticized Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist entities, praised what he said was the Palestinian Authority’s transparency, institution-building and security services, and lauded Israeli ingenuity.

“Only in Israel could you see the Dead Sea Scrolls and the place where the technology on board the Mars Rover originated,” Obama told the audience in Jerusalem.

But there were clear indications of what Obama believes, and what he wants to have happen between Israel and the Arab Palestinians.

He believes that the Arab Palestinians, like all “oppressed” people, are yearning for freedom which, when granted, will quell their hatred for their oppressors. He certainly sees their plight as akin to that of African Americans before the passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, abolishing slavery. And he links the idea of slavery and second status-hood of African Americans with Arab Palestinians.

Rabbi Herschel Schacter, Chaplain At Buchenwald Liberation, Dies At 95

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/national-news/rabbi-herschel-schacter-chaplain-buchenwald-liberation-dies-95

Rabbi Herschel Schacter, a national Jewish leader and the only Jewish chaplain present at the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp, died Thursday at the age of 95.

The first rabbi to be ordained by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the founder of Modern Orthodoxy, the resident of Riverdale led the Mosholu Jewish Center in the Bronx for more than 50 years and held leadership roles in numerous national Jewish organizations, including the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which he chaired from 1967 to 1969.

A statement from Richard Stone, chair, and Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chair of the Conference, described the rabbi as “an exemplary leader who often spoke of his `deep commitment to Jewish inclusiveness and unity.’”
The rabbi’s son, Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter, university professor of Jewish history and Jewish thought and senior scholar at Yeshiva University’s Center for the Jewish Future, and daughter, Miriam Schacter, a psychotherapist, recalled: “Our father modeled for us the great importance of caring for other Jews and devoting one’s life and efforts to the Jewish people.”

Rabbi Shmuel Goldin, president of the Rabbinical Council of America, described the senior Rabbi Schacter as “a warm, friendly man and an orator’s orator, someone his colleagues would turn to [for guidance on] speeches and sermons.”

“This is an important article (URL below). The US administration (Eric Holder?) will undoubtedly attempt to remand Homaidan al-Turki to the custody of the Saudi govt., due to Saudi diplomatic pressure. The Saudi King himself offered to personally meet Colorado law enforcement authorities inside Saudi Arabia, to negotiate for his transfer. These efforts must be resisted and the mechanism for doing so is illuminated here.”Janet L.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2296328/Colorado-corrections-chief-shot-dead-answered-door-bell–gunman-loose.html

The Colorado Corrections Department Chief Tom Clements has enough precedents to reject to transfer Homaidan al-Turki to Saudi Custody, for ongoing incarceration in Saudi Arabia, to wit:

1) SEVEN of our GITMO terror-detainees were earlier transferred to Saudi Arabia on the promissory understanding that they would remain under Saudi supervision and be “rehabilitated”. Instead, all seven emigrated to Yemen, where they resumed terror operations against the United States and other nations. It is notable that while Saudi Arabia is a ‘police state’, where a cockroach cannot operate without notice, somehow the world’s worst manage to get out under the radar screen, to operate in Yemen.

2) In 2006 Uthman Ghamdi was released from GITMO to Saudi custody. He emigrated to Yemen, to become a top aid to the late Anwar Awlaki.

3) In 2007 Said Ali al-Shihiri was released from GITMO to Saudi custody. He was officially designated as “rehabilitated” and released. He quickly emigrated to Yemen where he became the #2 leader of ‘AQ in Yemen’.

4) In January 2010 the Pentagon established a policy of refusing to transfer any more GITMO detainees to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. i.e. DOD policy officially acknowledges Saudi Arabia’s official role in promulgating terror.

Also, the Saudis undoubtedly resent the ‘Kuffir’ (non-believers, infidels) implementing justice on an Islamic believer. That is something instantly abhorrent to any Muslim. i.e. there is a basis in Islamic precepts that prohibits Kuffir from passing judgement on, and penalizing, a Muslim believer.

When I was in Saudi, Prince Mansour bin Saud al-Saud (a son of the late King Saud) informed me that the late King Fahad informed all the royal princes they “can do anything they want in foreign countries, except the United States.” He told me that if any Saudi royal misbehaves in the United States, he will lose millions / billions / govt. contracts / access to the King’s Majelis. That was the Saudi King’s policy for the princes, communicated in Majelis. Furthermore, if a prince cannot go to the King’s Majelis, he is shunned by all other princes who will refuse to interact with him, because if they do, they will also lose.

http://www.prudenpolitics.com/newsletter?utm_source=P&P%20Auto%201&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=6668

A late education is better than no education at all, even for a president of the United States. The man who is a mighty legend in his own mind is even showing a little humility. Barack Obama, who usually finds someone else – usually George W. – to blame for every little thing that goes awry, finally admitted this week in Israel that even a synthetic messiah can make mistakes.

“I hope I’m a better president now than when I first came into office,” he told reporters at one stop early in his trip. “I’m absolutely sure that there are a host of things that I could have done that would have been more deft and, you know, would have created better optics.”

Now if he’ll only turn from an obsession with “better optics” to the serious statecraft at hand, we can all breathe a little easier. Not a lot, but a little.

There’s no more crucial place to get a late education than in the Middle East, where graduate schools abound in every nook in the brambles and crannies in the ancient rocks. This is one place where making crucial and momentous decisions on the fly risks not only disasters, but invites catastrophes. This is no place for “a man without a foreign policy,” as one commentator remarked, a man with only naïve aspirations who operates on the notion that a chaotic and perilous world can be changed by “the transformative power of a good speech, but no clear path to achieve anything.”

Perhaps the president burned a little midnight oil just in time. Vali Nasr, who was not so long ago a senior insider at the Obama White House, describes in his forthcoming book, “The Dispensable Nation,” how decisions have sometimes been made. On Afghanistan, for example, he says Obama policy-makers were determined not to make long-reaching strategic decisions but to satisfy shifting public opinion. These policy makers, according to an advance reading of Mr. Nasr’s book, comprised “a small cabal of relatively inexperienced White House advisers whose turf was strictly politics.”

Campaign politics Chicago style, where every problem can be solved with a favor or an expertly placed shiv, clearly doesn’t work in the Middle East. President Obama arrived in Jerusalem just when the strategic interests of the United States and the strategic concerns of Israel seemed to be on a collision course. The president has been concerned with spreading clichés and bromides, the prime minister with survival. The photographs of Mr. Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, unarmed and smiling, were staged to show everyone that despite their history of hostile relations, they could, too, get along without taking or giving a punch.

Another Tack: Bad Jews = Good story It was a PR windfall for Hamas when 11-months-old-Omar Misharawi was killed by a rocket that hit his family’s home on November 14, 2012 – at the very outset of Operation Pillar of Defense. During that confrontation, thousands of Hamas missiles and mortars rained on Israel. The long-range ones […]

Starting way back when the “peace process” started with the Rogers Plan of 1969 every time an Arab terrorist declared that his group only wanted two thirds of Israelis dead rather than all of them, the appeasers, the pundits, the statesmen all gushed at the “winds of moderation” wafting through the Middle East. Every single American administration then recycled the Rogers plan giving it their own imprimatur….But, it was the same tired old fix it now kit.

The Arabs continually rejected the offer and the “winds of moderation” were dispelled.

Now according to President Obama in Israel we have more wind power:

“Across this region the winds of change bring both promise and peril.”

Promise? Where? What is he talking about? Iran, Egypt, Libya, Syria, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, calls for Jihad and imposed Sharia throughout the Arab world?

And yes he does mention the peril…and what will be his solution? Why a dusted off two-state solution will be the end run of his charm offensive…and I do mean offensive….in Israel.

But will the Israelis fall for it?