RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/313785/return-mediscare-editors

On CNN yesterday, Obama strategist David Axelrod claimed that “most of the experts who have looked at this” have said that Paul Ryan’s plan to reform Medicare would put the program “in a death spiral” and “would raise costs on seniors by thousands of dollars.” A day earlier — as Representative Ryan was preparing to accept Mitt Romney’s offer to join his ticket — Obama campaign manager Jim Messina had said the plan involved “shifting thousands of dollars in health-care costs to seniors.”

None of this is true. Any expert who looks at Ryan’s plan — any intelligent and fair-minded person, really — can tell you the actual worst-case scenario for how much more it could make beneficiaries pay: $0.

The claim Axelrod and Messina are making is based on a hostile interpretation of an earlier version of Ryan’s proposal. Ryan has changed the proposal over the last year, however, and Romney has endorsed the new version. The Democratic criticism, applied to the new plan, is indisputably false.

The Romney-Ryan proposal — which has the support of liberal Democratic senator Ron Wyden of Oregon — would let senior citizens choose a coverage plan provided either by the federal government or by a private company. The government would defray the cost of purchasing the plan selected. The providers would submit bids showing the premiums they would charge to cover the benefits Medicare has traditionally offered. The second-lowest bid would set the amount the government would provide for each beneficiary.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/313764/thank-you-ray-kelly-deroy-murdock

As an American and a New Yorker, I have just two words for Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and the New York Police Department, which he leads: Thank you.

Gratitude towards Kelly and the NYPD is surprisingly rare these days, especially regarding the enormous success that Gotham’s cops have enjoyed in preventing America’s largest city from enduring Islamic terrorism in the years since al-Qaeda’s mass murder on September 11, 2001. Rather than salute the NYPD for averting hundreds or even thousands more deaths, critics slam the law-enforcement professionals who successfully have guarded one of the War on Terror’s most active fronts.

“The FBI considers the NYPD’s intelligence gathering practices since 9/11 not only a waste of money but a violation of Americans’ rights, “Newsmax’s chief Washington correspondent, Ronald Kessler, reveals in his new book, The Secrets of the FBI, published Tuesday. “The NYPD has been sending undercover operatives to political meetings,” one FBI official complains to Kessler. “We are not engaging in that kind of aimless intelligence gathering on mosques or political meetings without a predication that terrorist activities might be involved.”

The FBI’s jealousy and turf-mindedness aside, it often is tough to develop “predication” without “aimless intelligence gathering.”

Last May, Congressman Rush Holt (D., N.J.) sponsored an amendment to condemn law-enforcement agencies that practice religious, racial, or ethnic profiling. As the New York Post noted, Holt also demanded that the Justice Department investigate “a pattern of surveillance and infiltration by the New York Police Department against innocent American Muslims in the absence of a valid investigative reason.”

This liberal attack on the NYPD’s counterterrorism activities was defeated 193 to 232 on a mainly party-line vote, with Democrats largely supportive and Republicans opposed.

Similarly, the Associated Press this April won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for highlighting “the New York Police Department’s clandestine spying program that monitored daily life in Muslim communities.” Responding in the June Commentary, however, Mitchell D. Silber — the NYPD’s former director of intelligence analysis — argues that these AP articles are “rife with inaccuracies” and “confuse events and policies in ways that are misleading and cast the tale they are telling in the worst possible light.”

As an American and a New Yorker, I have just two words for detractors of Commissioner Kelly and the NYPD: Back off.

The NYPD’s foes ignore two pivotal realities:

First, Kelly and the NYPD have broken no laws.

Since 1985, the NYPD has operated under the Handschu Guidelines. These rules shield political protesters from overzealous cops. Post 9/11, the NYPD asked a federal court to modify Handschu, given the need to battle terrorism. The court eventually agreed, and now the NYPD follows Handschu, as amended.

Handschu acknowledges a truism that escapes most cop bashers: “In its effort to anticipate or prevent unlawful activity, including terrorist acts, the NYPD must, at times, initiate investigations in advance of unlawful conduct.”

Yes, Virginia: Sometimes cops try to stop crime, rather than react to it. This is doubly true of Islamic terrorism, given its lust for widespread bloodshed.

Handschu further states: “The NYPD is authorized to visit any place and attend any event that is open to the public” and “to conduct online search activity and to access online sites and forums on the same terms . . . as members of the public.”

As Commissioner Kelly declared March 3 at Fordham Law School, “Anyone who intimates that it is unlawful for the Police Department to search online, visit public places, or map neighborhoods has either not read, misunderstood, or intentionally obfuscated the meaning of the Handschu Guidelines.”

For his part, White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan backed Kelly in a visit to One Police Plaza in April. Brennan said: “I have full confidence that the NYPD is doing things consistent with the law, and it’s something that again has been responsible for keeping this city safe over the past decade.”

Second, neither prizes nor prose can obscure the fact that the NYPD has led or supported counterterrorist efforts that repeatedly have scuttled conspiracies to commit mass homicide against innocent New Yorkers and visitors from across the country and around the globe.

“Since 9/11, New York City has been targeted by terrorists in 14 different plots,” Kelly said at Fordham. “Thanks to the work of the Police Department, the FBI, and a good deal of luck, none of these plots have succeeded. In fact, while the city saw terrorist attacks in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, no attack has taken place in the past ten years.”

After staying mum on the specifics of these plots for years, the NYPD finally released a list of these conspiracies. Often in conjunction with domestic and international security agencies, the NYPD has stymied or helped thwart most of these efforts to spill blood on the sidewalks of New York. Details of these plots should remind Americans of the severe danger that terrorists still pose.

1. Subway cyanide plot: As Ron Suskind reported in his book The One Percent Doctrine, “Al-Qaeda terrorists came within 45 days of attacking the New York subway system with a lethal gas similar to that used in Nazi death camps . . . the U.S. learned of the plot from a CIA mole inside al-Qaeda.” In early 2003, U.S. intelligence discovered this conspiracy on the laptop of a Bahraini terrorist caught in Saudi Arabia. The computer contained plans for a hydrogen-cyanide gas-dispersal device nicknamed mubtakkar, or “inventive” in Arabic.

“In the world of terrorist weaponry,” Suskind wrote, “this was the equivalent of splitting the atom.” The plan was to place several of these mechanisms on Gotham subway cars. For reasons still unclear, however, al-Qaeda’s No. 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, canceled the assault at T minus 45 days.

2. Garment District plot: The Pakistani-born Uzair Paracha, according to the NYPD, “discussed with top al-Qaeda leaders the prospect of smuggling weapons and explosives — possibly even a nuclear device — into Manhattan’s Garment District through his father’s import-export business.”

The Justice Department states that this permanent resident alien worked with Majid Khan and Ammar al-Baluchi, both members of al-Qaeda. Paracha helped Khan “obtain a travel document that would have allowed Khan to re-enter the United States to commit a terrorist act,” Justice explained. “Khan intended to carry out an attack on gasoline stations.”

Paracha posed as Khan in order to build a legend of Khan as a visitor to America, even though Khan was in Pakistan. This included Paracha’s masquerading as Khan before U.S. immigration officials and agreeing to use Khan’s credit card domestically. Paracha and his father had discussed with Khan and al-Baluchi their receiving a $200,000 fee for this material support.

Uzair Paracha was arrested on March 28, 2003, and convicted on November 25, 2005, on all five terror-related charges that he faced. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison on July 20, 2006.

U.S. Attorney Michael J. Garcia said: “The FBI Joint Terrorist Task Force’s ability to interdict and prevent [Paracha’s] plan from succeeding does not mitigate the seriousness of the offense, and more than justifies the sentence imposed.”

3. Brooklyn Bridge plot: On October 28, 2003, Iyman Faris — a 34-year-old Kashmiri native also known as Mohammad Rauf — received a 20-year federal prison sentence for “providing material support and resources to al Qaeda,” the Justice Department stated. The naturalized U.S. citizen traveled to an al-Qaeda terror camp in Afghanistan in late 2000, where he met Osama bin Laden.

“The al Qaeda leader spoke with Faris about destroying a bridge in New York City by severing its suspension cables, and tasked Faris with obtaining the equipment needed for that operation. The leader also explained that al-Qaeda was planning to derail trains, and asked Faris to procure the tools for that plot as well.” Faris researched “gas cutters,” which he would use to sever the Brooklyn Bridge’s suspension cables.

Before his arrest, Faris transmitted a coded message that his scheme might fail. The NYPD believes that its robust deployment of officers, dogs, and checkpoints prompted a frustrated Faris to report to his supervisors: “The weather is too hot.”

4. New York Stock Exchange and Citigroup-headquarters plot: The Indian-born, British-reared Dhiren Barot converted to Islam with a vengeance. According to CBS News, he began his terrorist training in 1995 at camps in Pakistan, Kashmir, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Barot made two reconnaissance trips to the U.S. in August 2000 and March 2001. On his second visit, he videotaped the World Trade Center. His footage of the Twin Towers includes a male voice imitating the sound of an explosion.

According to British prosecutors, Barot’s handwritten notebook envisioned a “memorable black day for the enemies of Islam.” He planned to stuff three limousines with gas cylinders, explosives, and nails, and to detonate them in parking garages under London’s Ritz and Savoy Hotels. He hoped to bomb a London subway train beneath the River Thames, which would “cause pandemonium . . . explosions, flooding, drowning,” Barot wrote.

Barot also targeted the Citigroup building and the New York Stock Exchange in Manhattan, Prudential’s New Jersey headquarters, and the World Bank’s offices in Washington, D.C.

Barot was arrested in London on August 3, 2004. He pleaded guilty to terror charges in August 2009.

“You planned to slaughter hundreds, if not thousands, of wholly innocent men, women, and children,” said British judge Neil Butterfield on September 10, 2009 — before giving Barot life in prison. “You were planning to bring indiscriminate carnage, bloodshed and butchery — first in Washington, Newark, and New York, and then London.”

Barot’s seven conspirators, in what the British call Operation Rhyme, are jailed in the U.K. for terms ranging from 15 to 26 years.

5. Herald Square subway station plot: Shahawar Matin Siraj and James Elshafay were arrested on August 27, 2004. According to the Justice Department, they “plotted to plant explosive devices at the Herald Square subway station in order to disrupt commerce and transportation in New York City and damage the economy.” Herald Square is one block from Madison Square Garden, where the 2004 Republican National Convention commenced the morning after Siraj and Elshafay were detained.

As Justice explained, “Siraj and Elshafay drove to the subway station on August 21, 2004, entered and inspected the station, and then returned to their car and drew diagrams of the location in order to help them later place a bomb.” Elshafay reportedly decided to plant the bomb while dressed as a Hasidic Jew, as he put it, “’cause they know Jews aren’t the ones doing it.”

Siraj earned a 30-year prison sentence. Elshafay received five years on March 2, 2007.

Federal prosecutor Roslynn R. Mauskopf, according to Justice, “praised the outstanding work of the New York City Police Department and, in particular, the courageous work of the Intelligence Division’s undercover detective known only as ‘Kamil Pasha’ who testified at trial.”

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/money-down-a-rathole-college-healthcare-housing?f=puball

Households are dumping trillions in hard-earned income down ratholes with marginal returns: costly higher education, healthcare and housing.

What happens when households dump huge percentages of their stagnant incomes down marginal-return ratholes? They get less wealthy, which is exactly what we’re seeing. The average American household has been persuaded that pouring money into costly higher education, healthcare and housing are all “investments” that offer high yields.

Sadly, the opposite is true: the returns on these stupendously costly investments is marginal or negative. Let’s start with higher education, a topic I have discussed at length numerous times.

In essence, a college degree has lost its scarcity value, and in an era of labor arbitrage (a.k.a. offshoring and international competition), automation and relentless pressure to lower costs, even advanced degrees in law, science and business management that once were perceived as guarantees of secure high-paying employment no longer have scarcity value: the number of people with advanced degrees far exceeds the number of open positions.

Meanwhile, the education cartel has raised prices at a rate that is three times the rate of inflation. The credulous “buyers” of expensive higher education continue to pay absurdly inflated prices for degrees that have marginal value in the real-world marketplace.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/for-the-marxists-ye-have-with-you-always?f=must_reads

I was involved in a revealing exchange yesterday. Something I had Tweeted – a diffident question about whether pushing more and more people into university was necessarily desirable – prompted a series of responses along the lines of ‘Typical: like all capitalists, you don’t like poor people’.

The criticism came in such a blizzard that I felt some sort of reply was in order, so I took to the keyboard again: ‘I love all these “capitalists don’t like poor people” Tweets. It’s true: we want to turn them into rich people. It’s socialists who need their client groups.’

What happened next got me thinking. One after another, the Lefties on Twitter lined up to argue that capitalism couldn’t survive without poverty, that its essence was the widening of inequality, that it concentrated more and more power in the hands of fewer and fewer plutocrats, that its days were numbered. I won’t bore you by quoting them all. One – from the prolific Labour blogger Sunny Hundal – might stand for many: ‘In fact capitalism (by definition) needs more poor people and prefers poor bargaining rights and gross inequality’.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/can-you-guess-the-october-surprise

One should never underestimate the audacity of President Obama to do anything to hold onto his presidency. It is safe to assume that, should his currently close but favorable poll numbers drop significantly, he has some critical “October Surprise” hidden away in his back pocket. Election fraud aside, some postulate that some form of pre-election adoption of (or, at least, nod to) some or all of the Simpson-Bowles Commission recommendations remains available. These same believers question why Romney does not do something similar as well.

More likely, however, the October (or September) maneuver will lie abroad; foreign policy is the natural playground for an incumbent commander in chief to manipulate. International crises tend to bring our nation together in support of the president while making it difficult for a challenger such as Mitt Romney to attack. After all, we can’t change leaders in the middle of a crisis. Furthermore, while the choice of Paul Ryan as candidate for Vice-President doubles up on fiscal issue strength, it adds little toward foreign policy expertise. Obama will likely press the issue to both distract from the economy while stressing the advantage of being in the White House. And just as Romney was careful to not criticize Obama when he traveled on foreign soil, he will be pressured from many fronts to quell campaign attacks should the country find itself in some form of actual battle.

While Obama rode the wave of anti-pre-emptive war fervor in 2008, the most critical last minute ploy, however, may be to stage some aggressive use of force against either Iran or Syria in order to further what has been a successful theme of “Obama as warrior.” The Obama campaign has been able to sell the narrative that Obama is “gutsy” and uninhibited when it comes to national security interests. The killing of Bin Laden, originally staged to occur and be announced immediately preceding a media packed White House Correspondent’s Dinner, was sold to the public as an “agonizing” decision by a uniquely gifted executive. One need only ask how the supposed “spontaneous” flash mobs of college kids that so quickly assembled to celebrate obtained that many American flags to see the fine hand of a David Axelrod storyline being sold to America.

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

After serving a few years in prison for his role in the Munich Massacre, Willi Pohl moved to Beirut. The brief sentence was a slap in the wrist, but Pohl had still served more time in prison than the Muslim gunmen who had murdered eleven Israeli athletes and coaches during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. Mohammed Safady and the Al-Gashey cousins were released after a few months by the German authorities. They went back to Lebanon and so did he.
A decade after the attack, Willi Pohl had begun making a name for himself as a crime novelist. His first novel, written as Willi Woss, was Tränen Schützen Nicht vor Mord or Tears Do Not Protect Against Murder.

While Pohl was penning crime novels, Israeli operatives had already absorbed the lessons of his first title. Tears, whether in 1939 or 1972, had not done anything to prevent the murder of Jews. Bullets were another matter.

The head of Black September in Rome was the first to die, followed by a string of PLO leaders across Europe. Those attacks were followed by raids on the mansions and apartments of top Fatah officials in the same city where Pohl had found temporary refuge. By the time his first book was published, hundreds of PLO terrorists and many of its top officials were dead.

Western law enforcement had failed to hold responsible even the actual perpetrators of the Munich Massacre, never mind the representatives of the PLO who openly mingled with red radicals in Europe’s capitals. Israeli operatives did what the German judicial system had failed to do, putting down Safady and one of the Al-Gasheys, while the other one hid out as a frightened guest of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya.

The Israeli raid on the PLO terrorists in Beirut’s Muslim Quarter missed one important target. Arafat. And so, on another September day, some 19 years later, September 13, 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Rabin shook hands with Arafat and proclaimed, “Enough of blood and tears! Enough!” But the blood and tears had only begun, as a PLO on its last legs was revived by that handshake and built its terrorist infrastructure inside Israel’s borders.

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/
PLEASE SEE:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Exploration_Fund

The witness I call, British Major-General Sir Charles Wilson (1836-1905), was chairman of the Palestine Exploration Fund (its website is here), with which he had been long involved, for the last few years of his life.

In July 1899, as reported in the Jewish Chronicle (14 July 1899), he addressed the Fund’s Annual General Meeting in London, regarding his recent travels in the Holy Land:

“The lecturer said that the face of Palestine was changing very rapidly, and the change was due to various causes. The tomb-hunter, who had done such infinite harm in Egypt, was abroad in Palestine and destroying its antiquities. Another change was brought about by a revival of medievalism, which showed itself in a scrambling for holy places. The amount of building of monasteries which had gone on in the Holy Land during the past twenty years was extraordinary. There was scarcely an eminence which was not occupied. Great harm had also been done to the antiquities of the country in this way. Thus the foundations of a synagogue which he had disclosed at Tel Hum [Capernaum], in 1865, had been covered up again. A great change had also been brought about in the landscape of the country, which was due to the Jewish colonies. He was quite unprepared for the extraordinary improvement that the Jewish colonies had effected, turning deserts into gardens and waste places into cultivated fields. Ekron, especially, furnished a fine example of what was done by proper cultivation. [Emphasis added.] As colonists, the Jews showed themselves to be the equal of any people in the world (loud applause).

His visit to Moab and Edom had been a short one, but it enabled him to realise the main features of the country and its description in the Bible. He ascended Mount Pisgah, but, unfortunately, it had been raining, and the valley of the Jordan had been filled with steam, which obscured the view. The river Arnon, the northrn boundary of Moab, was the modern Wady-el-Mojib, which empties itself into the Dead Sea, about twenty-five miles south of Jericho. A journey along the high plateau brought them after a time to a plain, which must be “The Field of Moab,” mentioned in the Bible. One of the most interesting places in Moab was Kerak, where he came across an instance of the little care that the people of those parts evince for their dead. They let them lie about in the open to putrefy and be eaten by jackals. The Tomb of Noah, close to Kerak, was a place of pilgrimage much esteemed in the south of Palestine. Coming to the Biblical Tophel, the view of the Dead [Sea] from there was very beautiful. From the edge of the plateau they got an extraordinarily fine view of Mount Hor,in Edom. They entered Petra through the celebrated defile known as the Sik. They lodged in the Khasneh Phar’aun, the famous structure in which travellers sleep. From Petra they visited Mount Hor. Sir Charles exhibited on the screen a view of the interior of Aaron’s Tomb, this being the first photograph of the tomb that had ever been taken. They found a fragment of a Greek inscription in this tomb. The Turkish Pacha [sic] had mended the road all the way up to Mount Hor.”

On 14 December1899, Sir Charles spoke on the topic “Palestine of Today” to members of London’s Camera Club at their premises in Charing Cross Road.

http://chqdaily.com/author/chqdaily/

WHAT IS GOING ON AT THE PRESTIGIOUS INSTITUTION….HAVE THEY BECOME AN ISLAMIC PUBLIC RELATIONS AGENCY? SMOOTH TALK BELIES AN ORGANIZATION THAT PROMOTES SHARIA….IF YOU CHOOSE SEND A RESPONSE TO THE EDITOR…..RSK

daily@ciweb.org

A few years ago, Sayyid M. Syeed, the national director of the Islamic Society of North America, was on his way to an interfaith meeting in Michigan during the holy month of Ramadan. While on the plane, Syeed began to consider how uncomfortable he would make his non-Muslim colleagues feel if he didn’t eat or drink with them. He then recalled that in the Quran, it says that a person may be exempt from fasting if they are traveling.

“I said to myself, I don’t have to fast, because I’m going from Washington to Michigan, and I will sit there, and I will also drink and eat, because Quran tells me,” he said.

When he arrived at the meeting, he had almost forgotten about his decision to partake in the meal.

“I didn’t see any water there, no coffee, no tea and even no lunch, then I realized what was happening,” Syeed said. “They were fasting in solidarity with me; and I didn’t have to fast.”

Syeed then decided that he would fast, in solidarity with the Christian leaders sitting around him.

“This is the kind of faith environment that we are building in America,” Syeed said.

http://www.joshuarubenstein.com/stalinsecret/intro.html

THESE WERE THE WAGES OF COMMUNISM WHICH THE AMERICAN LEFT DEFENDED TO THEIR ETERNAL SHAME….RSK

Yiddish culture has not entirely disappeared, but it was sentenced to death twice, and each time the sentence was carried out. On the eve of World War II, millions of Yiddish speakers inhabited Jewish communities from Holland through Germany and Poland into the heart of the Soviet Union. Hitler did his best to annihilate every Jew his armies controlled. Individual Jews survived his onslaught, but their communities and unique culture were destroyed. Ironically, the country that saved millions of Jews and not so incidentally played the decisive role in stopping Hitler was the Soviet Union. And the Soviet Union had its own solution to the Jewish problem.

Stalin, like Lenin, expected that Soviet Jews would gradually disappear as the regime offered the carrot of modernization with the stick of forced assimilation. But by the end of his life Stalin could no longer constrain his murderous anti-Semitism and began a systematic assault on the leaders of Yiddish culture who were the primary vehicle for Jewish identity in the country. This campaign culminated on August 12, 1952 with multiple executions in the basement of Moscow’s Lubyanka prison.

Jewish communities across America have increasingly marked this event on August 12 of each year as the “Night of the Murdered Poets.” Convicted at a secret trial in the summer, all the defendants, except for the biologist Lina Shtern, were executed on a single night – twenty-four writers and poets (so it was believed), all men (so it was said) cut down by Stalin’s executioners in the basement of the notorious Lubyanka prison.

But because their trial was held in secret and the regime refused to confirm what actually happened for many years, myriad rumors obscured the nature of the case and the identity and number of the defendants. Today, years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the availability of previously closed archival material – including the trial transcript (which was published in Moscow in 1994) and the tireless research of several Russian and Israeli scholars who have discovered and published hundreds of documents relating to the case and even examined forty-two volumes of investigation records – the details of Stalin’s anti-Semitic star-chamber can be plainly and accurately described.

The trial did not involve twenty-five defendants. There were, in fact, fifteen defendants, all falsely charged with a range of capital offenses, from treason and espionage to bourgeois nationalism. While five prominent literary figures were among those indicted – the Yiddish poets Peretz Markish, David Hofshtein, and Itzik Fefer; the writer Leib Kvitko, who was known throughout the country for his children’s verse; and the distinguished novelist David Bergelson – the remaining ten defendants were not writers at all but connected in various ways to the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC).

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443404004577579490354672410.html
Crime in New York City has dropped 80% since the early 1990s, a decline unmatched anywhere in the country. The change has yielded an explosion of commerce in once forlorn neighborhoods, a boom in tourism, and a sharp rise in property values. Nowhere were the effects more dramatic than in the city’s poorest areas.
When the bullets stopped flying, entrepreneurs snapped up the vacant lots that had served as breeding grounds of crime. Senior citizens were able to visit friends without fear of getting mugged. Children could sleep in their own beds rather than in bathtubs, no longer needing shelter from stray gunfire. Target, Home Depot and other national chains moved into thoroughfares long ruled by drug gangs, providing jobs for local workers and giving residents retail choices taken for granted in middle-class neighborhoods.

Most significant, more than 10,000 black and Hispanic males avoided the premature death that would have been their fate had New York’s homicide rate remained at its early-1990s apex. Blacks and Hispanics have made up 79% of the decline in homicide victims since 1993.

New York’s previously unimaginable status as America’s safest big city is now in jeopardy thanks to a rising campaign against its proactive style of policing. In 1994 the New York Police Department, led then by Commissioner William Bratton, embraced the revolutionary concept that the police could actually prevent crime, not just respond to it after the fact.