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December 2013

MICHEL GURFINKIEL: MANDELA- THE TRUE STORY

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/12/22/nelson-mandela-the-true-story/ Nelson Mandela will stay in history on two accounts. He will be remembered for acceding to his country’s presidency after more than thirty years in jail, including 27 years uninterrupted imprisonment in Robben Island, Pollsmoor, and other places. It happens quite often, of course, that rebels, dissidents, or political prisoners turn into heads of […]

MICHAEL MUKASEY: THE AIR OF UNREALITY IN NSA REFORM

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304367204579270431939767244?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop The president’s panel found no official malfeasance but recommends overhauling surveillance programs anyway. Grope through the Styrofoam pellets of rhetoric that surround the 46 recommendations in the report issued last week by the president’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, and you will discover that the authors “have not uncovered any official efforts […]

STATEMENT ISSUED BY THE PRESIDENT OF INDIANA UNIVERSITY MICHAEL McROBBIE

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Indiana University President Michael A. McRobbie has issued the following statement on the proposed boycott of Israeli institutions of higher education:

“Indiana University joins other leading research universities in condemning in the strongest possible terms the boycott of institutions of higher education in Israel as proposed by the American Studies Association and other organizations. Boycotts such as these have a profound chilling effect on academic freedom, and universities must be clear and unequivocal in rejecting them. Indiana University strongly endorses the recent statement on this matter by the Association of American Universities

http://IndianaUniversity.pr-optout.com/Tracking.aspx?Data=HHL%3d8032%3b7-%3eLCE17-9%2f%3c8-GLCE17.6&RE=IN&RI=746473&Preview=False&DistributionActionID=23528&Action=Follow+Link and the long-standing position in this area of the American Association of University Professors.

“Indiana University values its academic relationships with colleagues and institutions around the world, including many important ones with institutions in Israel, and will not allow political considerations such as those behind this ill-conceived boycott to weaken those relationships or undermine the principle of academic freedom in this way. IU stands firmly against proposals that would attempt to limit or restrict those important institutional relationships or this fundamental principle.

“Indiana University will contact the ASA immediately to withdraw as an institutional member. We urge the leadership of the ASA and other associations supporting the boycott to rescind this dangerous and ill-conceived action as a matter of urgency.”

JED BABBIN: THE NSA’S BAD WEEK

http://spectator.org/print/57242 History admonishes us that the law has to be maintained like a carefully tended garden. Even when a law has undergone a thorough modernization less than ten years ago, when it deals with critical national security issues directly affected by technology — as does the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in regard to terrorism — […]

Kerry’s Oh-So-’90s Security Nonsense: Caroline Glick

Kerry’s oh-so-’90s security nonsense Like his supporters, US Secretary of State John Kerry has apparently been asleep for the past 20 years. Kerry has proffered us security arrangements, which he claims will protect Israel from aggression for the long haul. They will do this, he argues, despite the fact that his plan denies the Jewish […]

MY SAY: A CHRISTMAS SONG WRITTEN FOR SOLDIERS OVERSEAS

This is one of those World War 2 songs that mists the eyes.

Dreaming of home at this Christmas time
Even more than I usually do
And although I know it’s a long road back
I promise you

I’ll be home for Christmas
You can count on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents by the tree

Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love light gleams
I’ll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams

Lyrics by James Kimball Gannon- an author and lawyer Music by Walter Kent, a Jewish architect.

Obama’s Powers or Lawlessness? — on The Glazov Gang

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/frontpagemag-com/obamas-powers-or-lawlessness-on-the-glazov-gang/ Obama’s Powers or Lawlessness? — on The Glazov Gang This week’s Glazov Gang, hosted by Monty Morton, was joined by Morgan Brittany, Dwight Schultz and Michael Chandler. The Gang gathered to discuss Obama’s Powers or Lawlessness? Part I:

DAVID HORNIK: ARI SHAVIT’S “DOOMED ISRAEL”- A LEFTIST’S WARPED VIEW

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/davidhornik/ari-shavits-doomed-israel/ I haven’t read My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, the new New York Times bestseller by Israeli left-of-center journalist Ari Shavit. In my book-reviewing days I read more than my fill of “Israel is losing its soul” books. I have a lot of resistance to subjecting myself to another, along with other priorities. Shavit, of course, is not just […]

DANIEL GREENFIELD: AMERICA TAKES DOWN OSAMA BIN LADEN’S LAWYER

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/america-takes-down-osama-bin-ladens-lawyer/ Osama bin Laden’s lawyer didn’t live in a cave in Afghanistan. Like so many terrorist lawyers, he was a New Yorker. His law office, which has seen more terrorists and their files pass through it than an Afghan cave, sits above a Muslim 99 cent store that offers discounted napkins, sandals and toasters, and […]

KEVIN WILLIAMSON: OUR “SELFIE” PRESIDENT

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/366951/print

Dorothy Parker knew how to give credit where due — in verse, no less: “If, with the literate, I am / Impelled to try an epigram / I never seek to take the credit; / We all assume that Oscar said it.” Hillary Clinton, being Hillary Clinton, once stole a perfectly good line from Oscar Wilde, and, being Hillary Clinton, messed it up: “The market knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.” Wilde’s formulation, in Lady Windermere’s Fan, did not describe “the market” but “a cynic.” No doubt Mrs. Clinton believes the market to be cynical, or the product of cynicism.

The belief that markets are cold and inhumane is one of the great errors of our time, and it leads to a great deal of public stupidity, from British unionist Len McCluskey’s declaration that “there are some things too important to be left to the market” to endless Democratic demands that we put “people over profits.” Mitt Romney was mocked for maintaining that “corporations are people,” but that mockery is only one more piece of evidence that Mr. Romney is a good deal more intelligent than his critics: Of course corporations are people. That is what the word “corporation” means — a group of people acting as one body (corpus) toward some shared end. “Corporation” assumes “people” the way “hive” assumes “bees.” Profits accrue to people. Scratch an evil corporation and a retired teacher bleeds: Government pension and benefits funds such as CalPERS are among the largest shareholders in the United States, and the world. Two-thirds of Chevron shares are held by mutual funds, which are in turn held by what Mr. Romney recognizes, seemingly alone, as people.