RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://washingtonexaminer.com/a-contrary-view-on-bob-gatess-duty-as-he-saw-it/article/2542414

By now, a lot of journalists have mined all the “money quotes” from former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s memoir, Duty.

Even before the book came out, we learned that Gates is contemptuous of Congress, believes that Vice President Joe Biden has been wrong on pretty much everything in foreign policy for four decades, that Hillary Clinton is a politically-motivated poseur, and that he believes his “minimalist goals” on Iraq were realized.

These revelations have to be considered in the context of two facts: First, Gates was the first defense secretary ever held over from one administration to another despite the glaring differences in policies, ideologies and personalities; and second, that by virtue of the fact that his name isn’t Donald Rumsfeld, he apparently believed he’d be treated with greater respect and dignity than was his predecessor.

Kerry’s Oblivious “Peace” Efforts In Kuwait, after 10 failed trips to negotiate peace between Israel and the Palestinian authority, Secretary of State John Kerry proudly declared “Everywhere I go, even here today, everybody I talk to expresses gratitude to the efforts the United States is making … to try to make peace between Palestinians and […]

http://spectator.org/print/57466

SIFTING THROUGH THE HOGWASH

You might think that in the sixth year of his presidency, Barack Obama would no longer be blaming George Bush for everything that is wrong in the world. And you’d be wrong, as he proved in another tiresome speech this morning.

For about fifty minutes, Obama droned on, telling us how he would use his administrative powers (and possibly work with Congress) to “reform” the intelligence gathering activities of the NSA and, presumably, the rest of the intelligence community. He began by lecturing us (for those who didn’t pay attention in fourth grade or see the Disney movie about “Johnny Tremain,” Paul Revere and the “Sons of Liberty”) about the history of American intelligence gathering. Most important to him, Obama told us that the “worst abuses” occurred before he became president.

As a senator, he reminded us, he opposed “warrantless wiretapping,” and told us that the Bush-era “enhanced interrogation techniques” which, he said, contradicted our values. (The EITs, for those who forget too quickly, were outrages such as slaps to the face, and which — according to George Tenet’s memoir — produced more valuable intelligence than all the rest of the intelligence community’s efforts combined.) And he reminded us that he might not be president but for the sacrifices of those such as Martin Luther King who were spied on by their government.

So how does Obama want to correct the NSA’s abuses of its authority — either real or imagined in the media frenzy surrounding the Snowden leaks — to satisfy the world? Well, he really doesn’t know.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com  http://blogs.jpost.com/users/just-look-us-now ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS   It’s down to the wire.  (Thanks to Atid-EDI) Trans-Catheter Aortic-Valve Implantation (TAVI) procedures are saving thousands of lives but are extremely difficult to perform.  The Acwire from Israel’s MediValve allows cardiologists to implant these heart valves at exactly the right position.  Acwire has just received European CE mark approval. […]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/368563/israel-double-standard-victor-davis-hanson An obscure academic organization called the American Studies Association not long ago voted to endorse a resolution calling for a boycott of Israeli universities. The self-appointed moralists were purportedly outraged over the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians. Given academia’s past obsessions with the Jewish state, the targeting of Israel is not new. Yet why […]

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2014/01/beyond_bridgegate_ignoring_the_elephant_in_the_room.html The political flap over Chris Christie’s role in “Bridgegate” has thrown a spotlight once again on the rough-hewn, plain-speaking New Jersey governor.  But the drama of the current brouhaha has drawn attention away from the governor’s more serious, ongoing missteps — namely, his cultivation of relationships with those associated with known terrorist groups.  Remarkably, New Jersey’s […]

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ The study of any philosophy is doomed eventually to the solipsism of the idea as the real world falls away and is replaced by the construct of the world. When Buckley favored being governed by the first 2,000 people in the Manhattan phone book than the faculty at Harvard, he was on solid ground. […]