RUTHFULLY YOURS

Four Americans killed in Libya embassy attack
CBS News
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
News
Four Americans killed in Libya embassy attack
Libyan officials said Wednesday that U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens was among four Americans killed in an attack by Muslim protesters on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi the previous evening. Only one death had been verified Tuesday night by U.S. officials. Read more…

Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz26Fsh1eW3
Democrat platform strays from Jeffersonian roots
Human Events
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Commentary
There are no mentions in the Democratic platform of the Declaration of the Independence and only passing references to the Constitution. It is shocking that a party that traces its lineage to Thomas Jefferson would leave out references to the Declaration, the bedrock of American principles. Read more…

Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz26FrzYe80
PIPES: Obama: ‘My Muslim faith’

PIPES: Obama: ‘My Muslim faith’

Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz26Fs8XP6X
China VP disappearance fuels succession concerns
Associated Press
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
News
As Xi Jinping’s absence carried into an 11th day Wednesday, party officials were saying nothing. Their silence added to the momentum of the rumors and raised an important question: What happens to China’s leadership transition if the 59-year old is unable to assume the mantle of power as planned this fall? Read more…

Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz26FsQ7qdj

http://news.yahoo.com/peres-sets-1-million-grant-brain-research-104528863.html

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s president Shimon Peres has launched a $1 million grant program to pursue innovation in brain research technology.

Peres says he hopes the initiative will help turn Israel into an international hub for innovation in brain research technology.

The fund is open to researchers from around the world. The grant of $1 million will awarded next year.

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/mark-tapson/barbarians-at-the-gate/

Yesterday angry protesters scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, tore down the American flag, and held up shredded bits of it to television camera crews. Welcome to the new democratic Egypt, a product of the glorious, Obama-inspired Arab Spring which sent so many thrills up the collective leg of the mainstream media.

The embassy had been cleared of diplomatic personnel earlier that day, ahead of the imminent threat. Shots were fired (by whom it isn’t clear) as a large crowd gathered around the compound. Egyptian police and army personnel attempted to prevent the demonstrators from advancing farther, but not before the protesters planted the black flag of Islam atop a ladder inside the embassy. On it was lettering that read, “There is no God but Allah and Mohammad is his messenger,” the profession of Muslim faith.

The demonstration was apparently in protest of a film which the crowd deemed insulting to their prophet Mohammed. It was unclear which film upset them – in fact, it’s probably unclear even to the protesters, who rarely need a specific reason to become insanely offended and rampage through the streets. Some took the opportunity to express their perceived grievances over U.S. policy, with the usual chanting of anti-American slogans. It’s difficult to imagine what they have to complain about where Obama’s America is concerned, since our President actively assisted the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power there and just signed off on a $1 billion aid package to the new regime.

CNN reported that several individuals claimed responsibility for organizing the demonstrations, among them Wesam Abdel-Wareth, the president of Egypt’s conservative Hekma television channel. Mohammed al-Zawahiri – the brother of al Qaeda bigwig Ayman al-Zawahiri – added that “we called for the peaceful protest joined by different Islamic factions including the Islamic Jihad, Hazem Abu Ismael movement.” By “peaceful” he means there was not yet any wholesale slaughter of infidel Americans or any unlucky Copts who might happen to be in the vicinity.

Al-Zawahiri added that “the film portrays the prophet in a very ugly manner, alluding to topics like sex, which is not acceptable.” Sex, eh? Perhaps he’s referring to his prophet Mohammed’s marriage consummation with a nine-year-old, which would indeed be an ugly – yet truthful – portrayal. No wonder the crowd is upset – unlike a film about Christianity’s Jesus, a film that depicts Islam’s model for the perfect man in an historically accurate manner wouldn’t paint their religion in a very flattering light.

“I just want to say,” al-Zawahiri went on, “how would the Americans feel if films insulting leading Christian figures like the pope or historical figures like Abraham Lincoln were produced?”

The answer is that films insulting Christians and American historical figures are produced almost nonstop in the entertainment biz, and Americans don’t form spit-flecked, bloodthirsty mobs to storm Hollywood studios and threaten Bill Maher with death. Christians and patriotic Americans are routinely insulted in pop culture and most don’t even bother to shoot off an irate email to a TV network. But of course al-Zawahiri wasn’t expecting empathy; these mobs don’t want our respect – they want our submission.

And they got it. How did U.S. embassy officials respond to this unacceptable behavior? First they issued a warning to Americans in Egypt, telling them to avoid the demonstrations because “clashes may occur.” Note the neutrality and moral equivalence of the word “clashes,” which suggests equal aggression from both sides, when in fact one side is peaceful and civilized, and the other becomes savagely violent at the drop of an imaginary hat.

Next, the U.S. Embassy issued a stern condemnation – of the filmmakers and their free speech. It stated that it “condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.” So the official stance of our government is that the filmmakers – and bear in mind that it’s unclear who the filmmakers are or even that this supposedly offensive film exists – are misguided and intentionally offending Muslims, and they are the ones responsible for the barbaric behavior of the rioters, not the rioters themselves.

“Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy,” the Embassy statement continued. Sadly, this kind of platitude is always trotted out in defense of the hair-trigger feelings of murderous Muslims but never for the members of any other faith group – largely because no other faith group ever needs placating like Muslims. “We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.” Apparently our own embassy is confused about the definition of free speech, a freedom which is meaningless unless it is protected from people who claim that it “offends” them.

This is craven dhimmitude, pure and simple. When our own embassy in Cairo is under assault; the American flag is torn down and shredded, and another raised in its place; and our official response is to leap to the defense of the delicate sensibilities of the fanatics storming our embassy, then we are no longer a beacon of freedom and human rights in a dark land. We are appeasers and collaborators in their totalitarianism.

http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/316565 Everywhere I went Monday, conservatives were spooked by a Gallup poll showing President Obama with a six-point lead over Mitt Romney. Then on Tuesday, a Washington Post/ABC News poll had the margin down to a single-point Obama edge. What is going on? As Election Day draws closer, most major public-opinion surveys shift from interviewing […]

http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2012/09/11/doj-documents-argued-for-sc-voter-id-approval/?singlepage=true PJ Media has learned that a team of career lawyers, expert analysts, and supervisors in the Justice Department Voting Section recommended that South Carolina’s photo voter identification law be precleared under the Voting Rights Act as non-discriminatory. Presidential appointees in the Justice Department then disregarded the career recommendation and an objection followed, blocking South […]

http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2012/09/12/democrats-and-second-holocaust/

“But imagine those “boos” in another time and place… on the floor of the Reichstag in the 1930s or the floor of the Majlis last week… and you may not be so emotionally blocked, may not find it so easy to sleep, as I said.So to my Jewish brethren: difficult times ahead. Time to make some tough decisions that call a lot of old assumptions into question. I know it’s not easy. But it’s necessary.”

I admit the title of this article is incendiary, but these are incendiary times — not just because the U.S. consulate in Benghazi has been torched and the embassy in Cairo attacked by Islamic fanatics protesting a movie no one ever heard of, let alone saw, but because, in the midst of this, the president of the United States declined to meet with the prime minister of Israel when Benjamin Netanyahu is in the U.S. next week for the convening of the General Assembly.

Not surprisingly, the White House has branded this a false report and — mirabile dictu in this election season — Obama did speak with the Israeli prime minister for an hour Tuesday evening.

Was this a hurried arrangement to avoid a public relations debacle for the president?

Most likely. The result was a fairly bland announcement by the White House. And we all know Obama despises Netanyahu. He said as much to Sarkozy on an open mike. Our president prefers the likes of the charming Russian leadership (also available on open mike) and the quasi-Islamist prime minister of Turkey who massacres Kurdish civilians and opposes the equality of the sexes [1].

But Netanyahu, like him or not, has a weight on his shoulders far greater than has the president of the United States. For the prime minister of Israel, it’s not the economy, stupid. It’s the preservation of his people. In other words, it’s genocide, stupid.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444273704577637560538194478.html?mod=opinion_newsreel Beijing’s navy and weapons systems are intended to push the U.S. back from the Western Pacific. China’s assertive territorial claims in the East and South China Seas have flared intermittently over the years into diplomatic and even physical confrontations. Until recently, however, these incidents—seizures of islands, reefs or rock outcroppings, or naval vessels ramming […]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444017504577645783452753176.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop No ‘red lines’ for Iran and no time to meet Netanyahu. Does President Obama want Israel to bomb Iran before the election? If we had more faith in this Administration’s competence, we’d be tempted to think so. Both publicly and behind the scenes, Administration officials have insisted they oppose a unilateral Israeli strike for […]

http://www.steynonline.com/5130/the-abhorrent-vacuum

“In an American election year, the Middle East is a side issue in a nation ever broker and, in large part, weary of global responsibilities it never sought. But, to modify Trotsky, you may not be interested in Islam, but Islam is interested in you.”

In the breast of the Western media, hopes of Arab Spring spring eternal. First we were told the Muslim Brotherhood would contest only a third of the seats in the Egyptian parliament, just to ensure they had some representation in the legislature among all those students, women, and Copts. Then we were told it would be half the seats, but don’t worry, they had no plans to contest the presidency. Next we were told they were taking a run at the presidency, but most unlikely to win compared with all those far more appealing time-serving hacks from transnationalist bureaucracies like the Arab League and the International Atomic Energy Agency who were itching to jump in the race. And finally, after the Brothers took the presidency and swept the parliament, we were assured that they could govern only in a finely calibrated balance of power with the secularist military.

Inevitably, within a few weeks of taking the oath of office, President Morsi fired the head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, purged the top brass, including the chief of staff and the heads of the air force and navy, and reversed such restraints on his power as they’d imposed. Equally inevitably, the view from Washington was that this was no more than “a generational change in military leadership.” It is true that General Sisi is a younger man than Field Marshal Tantawi. However, the fact remains that, in his first month in office, Mohamed Morsi has accomplished what it’s taken the post-Kemalist regime in Turkey its first decade to pull off: the end of the army’s role as constitutional guardian.

Indeed, he seems to have ended the constitution, such as it is. No piece of paper gives him the unilateral power to revoke Article 25 of the constitution, but he did. No piece of paper gives him the authority to dismiss the Supreme Council’s constitutional declaration on parliament, but he did. Whatever new piece of paper eventually emerges will be written by men appointed by him alone. And why stop there? The independent newspaper al-Dustour (“The Constitution,” indeed) has just had a print run seized for “harming the president through phrases and wording punishable by law.” In whatever lucid moments he still enjoys in his prison cell, the unloved ex-“Pharaoh” must marvel at that CNN coverage of the “Facebook Revolution”: As Zvi Mazel wrote in the Jerusalem Post, “Morsi now holds dictatorial powers surpassing by far those of erstwhile president Hosni Mubarak.”

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/true-caring-compassion-and-social-justice

THIS IS NICE AND DANDY….BUT I AM ALSO A FORMERLY “LIBERAL” DEMOCRAT….AND CARING, COMPASSION AND SOCIAL JUSTICE HAVE TAKEN A BACK BURNER TO SURVIVAL AS A JEW, AS AN AMERICAN, AS A DEFENDER OF ISRAEL….THE REST IS FEEL GOOD STUFF IN THE FACE OF BLATANT ANTI-AMERICAN, ANTI-SEMITIC, ANTI ISRAEL LIBELS….READ ROGER SIMONS COLUM “HOW DO YOU SLEEP’….THAT’S MORE LIKE IT…RSK

A former Democratic Jew reflects on our politics of caring and compassion.

I’m part of a minority within a minority: a Jewish Republican who volunteers for the Jewish Republican Coalition and Republican Party. I know Jews take pride in being socially conscious and compassionate. However, I also know there is a tension in the American Jewish world over defining these virtues.

Now that the Holiday and election seasons are upon us, moral and intellectual clarity is demanded.

My experience suggests that most Jews today see “caring” through a lens far astray from a Biblical one. It’s called Progressive, Leftist or Liberal.

The minority, including myself and many traditional Orthodox Jews, believe this viewpoint is not the true Jewish or American perspective. We believe conservative Republican values and policies actually express the true definition of caring and compassion, especially on two central topics of this year’s elections: abortion, and the size and role of government.

The typical response I receive from typical liberal Jews is that , “Conservatives are terrible on social issues. They have a war on women. They support government invasion into women’s bodies and elimination of woman’s right to control her reproductive freedom.”

It’s a classic straw-man argument, mixed with distortion and untruth, but it effectively guides Jewish votes to liberal Democrat candidates, election after election, as though abortion were the only social issue and this deliberately narrow interpretation the only valid viewpoint.

The irony is that the conservative philosophy actually holds the most nuanced, just, Jewish and traditional American views on this social justice topic. This philosophy says abortion cannot be merely some binary pronouncement on a “right to choose or not.” The issue is far more complex, involving life and death, the nature of our moral compass. It is deeply connected to our traditional Biblical and American belief that all people are created in the image of God. It demands a profound consideration of the developing human.

Most fundamentally, it is not simply a woman’s “right” to decide to eradicate a developing human baby – especially if it is merely for convenience. Society, our moral character, potential adopting parents, the child’s father, grandparents, sisters and brothers, all have claims and interests that must be carefully regarded.

The Liberal turns the mother alone into the final arbiter, the philosopher, policeman, lawyer, judge, jury and death administrator regarding this human life. The Liberal approach is also illogical, producing a viewpoint that at one moment a human inside a woman’s uterus has only the worth of a tooth abscess to be shed, often at whim; but a moment later, outside the uterus, that same life is of infinite God-level worth.

But that is where the argument tends to end with the Jewish Democrat. The conservative is seen as regressive on abortion, and abortion is by definition “social issues.” That is incorrect.

The size and scope of government, and its proper role in our lives and economic system are likewise vital to our society – central “social issues.” Abortion affects each of us rarely, while these other social issues profoundly impact our daily lives.

THIS IS NICE AND DANDY….BUT I AM ALSO A FORMERLY “LIBERAL” DEMOCRAT….AND CARING, COMPASSION AND SOCIAL JUSTICE HAVE TAKEN A BACK BURNER TO SURVIVAL AS A JEW, AS AN AMERICAN, AS A DEFENDER OF ISRAEL….THE REST IS FEEL GOOD STUFF IN THE FACE OF BLATANT ANTI-AMERICAN, ANTI-SEMITIC, ANTI ISRAEL LIBELS…..RSK

A former Democratic Jew reflects on our politics of caring and compassion.

I’m part of a minority within a minority: a Jewish Republican who volunteers for the Jewish Republican Coalition and Republican Party. I know Jews take pride in being socially conscious and compassionate. However, I also know there is a tension in the American Jewish world over defining these virtues.

Now that the Holiday and election seasons are upon us, moral and intellectual clarity is demanded.

My experience suggests that most Jews today see “caring” through a lens far astray from a Biblical one. It’s called Progressive, Leftist or Liberal.

The minority, including myself and many traditional Orthodox Jews, believe this viewpoint is not the true Jewish or American perspective. We believe conservative Republican values and policies actually express the true definition of caring and compassion, especially on two central topics of this year’s elections: abortion, and the size and role of government.

The typical response I receive from typical liberal Jews is that , “Conservatives are terrible on social issues. They have a war on women. They support government invasion into women’s bodies and elimination of woman’s right to control her reproductive freedom.”

It’s a classic straw-man argument, mixed with distortion and untruth, but it effectively guides Jewish votes to liberal Democrat candidates, election after election, as though abortion were the only social issue and this deliberately narrow interpretation the only valid viewpoint.