RUTHFULLY YOURS

Francois Hollande’s Gayetgate in Perspective

http://pjmedia.com/blog/gayetgate/?print=1

Truth be told, despite the best efforts by the French and British media to sell their wares, one can hardly call it Gayetgate. Indeed, the president of France, François Hollande, 60, has a mistress, actress Julie Gayet [1], now 41, whom he met about two years ago, even before being elected. Two weeks ago, Closer, a gossip weekly, published a seven-page report that included pictures of the president paying a visit to Gayet’s love nest, an apartment located on Rue du Cirque, one block away from Elysée Palace, the French head of state’s residence in central Paris [2]. However, 77% of the French see it as a private matter [3]. In other words, they do not care.

Nobody is calling for the president to resign, or apologize, or engage in explanations — even if he appears to be betraying Valerie Trierweiler [4], 49, the partner who lives with him at Elysée and enjoys — at least for the moment [5] — a de facto first lady status. The main political repercussion is that the Gayet case eclipsed Hollande’s January 14 press conference, a very important event where he admitted that his socialist policies — choking taxation (especially for entrepreneurs and the middle class) and welfare benefits for growing numbers of “underprivileged” citizens and residents — were a failure. At the same press conference, Hollande promised to turn to a more pro-business agenda.

One reason for such leniency towards Hollande in the Gayet case is good old Gallic tradition. In France, as in many European countries, kings or presidents have always kept mistresses quite casually. Every French king or emperor was reported to entertain one or several “favorites,” except the devout Louis IX (1214-1270), whom the Catholic Church canonized as Saint Louis; and the reform-minded Louis XVI (1754-1793), who inadvertently ushered in what was to become the Great French Revolution in 1789 — and lost both his throne and his head in the process.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/369430/sp-gets-pitchfork-treatment-andrew-c-mccarthy A dour President Obama was in no mood to hear about Wall Street’s troubles. “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks,” he warned a room full of the nation’s banking titans. They’d been summoned to the White House woodshed over what Dear Leader had decided was excessive compensation for industry […]

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/1.570374
ONLY (AL)- HA’ARETZ, ISRALI LEFTIST PAPER COULD FIND A NEGATIVE ABOUT THIS INCREDIBLE DEVELOPMENT….BUT THEN AGAIN, THEY ARE THE PAPER THAT CRITICIZED P.M. HARPER FOR HIS STOUT DEFENSE OF ISRAEL…..RSK
Over and drought: Why the end of Israel’s water shortage is a secret
Remember all the years of being told to conserve ‘every drop?’ Well, times have changed: Today, Israel has so much affordable water, it can offer to export it. So why is this achievement being kept so secret?

In ancient times and even during the years of the British Mandate (1917-1948), the shortage of water in Palestine, as well as among its neighbors in the Middle East, had a decisive influence not only on the area’s economic development, but also on the political strife between Jews and Arabs. Technology has changed all this. Now, the ability to produce all the water that’s needed, whether for human consumption or for agriculture, may soon change our way of life and perhaps even, if our neighbors agree, bring peace closer.

There is now a surplus of water in Israel, thanks largely to the opening of several new desalination plants – and the development of natural-gas fields that can power them cheaply. Since water is the source of life, the well-known Israeli imperative to “save every drop” should still be respected. But the price the Israeli population is charged for its water supply should be reduced by more than the 5 percent drop announced on January 1 of this year.

If you’re wondering why you haven’t heard about this revolution, you’re in good company. Simply put, for political and economic reasons, the government continues to play down these achievements.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=7129
Earlier this week, The New Yorker published a 17,000 word article by its editor, David Remnick, summarizing his time spent recently in travels with President Barack Obama. That Remnick should get such access to the president is not a surprise, since under his leadership, The New Yorker has shifted in a significant way from a magazine that was once known and widely respected for its fiction, essays and cartoons, to a magazine indistinguishable from many others for its role advancing the favored causes of the Left in the nation’s political wars — whether it be hysteria about climate change, bashing Israel and its American supporters, or mocking Tea Party supporters and their preferred candidates, as well as Republicans of any denomination. Previous editor Tina Brown had turned The New Yorker into a Vanity Fair twin with fewer pictures and longer articles. Remnick has made The New Yorker a close relation of The Nation with more fashion ads and better paper stock, and the one constant — longer articles.

Remnick had already given his loving embrace to Obama in a lengthy biography “The Bridge” that was little read, and now found mainly on remainder shelves or on Amazon.com for a penny for the hardcover edition. Remnick discovered some evidence of creative writing (fiction) in Obama’s memoir, but worked hard to preserve the reputation of the president, ignoring all evidence that Obama was not even the author of the much lauded “Dreams From My Father”. America’s great black hope had to be protected, whatever Remnick discovered (or chose to ignore) in his research for the book.

One part of Remnick’s latest article has gotten a fair amount of attention. After the killing of Osama bin Laden, the administration hoped to coast to a 2012 re-election victory with the theme of “Bin Laden is dead (and so is al-Qaida), but General Motors is still alive.” The attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, provided an inconvenient truth, as if there were not other evidence around, that al-Qaida will still alive and kicking.

http://spectator.org/articles/57474/israel-kerry-back  April is the deadline John Kerry has set for himself. By then he aims to negotiate a peace treaty between the Israelis and the Palestinians. He’s been at it for six months, to the dismay of pretty much everyone, especially the Israelis. Last week, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon blew his stack at Kerry. […]

Kudos to Scarlett Johansson for ignoring the ridiculous boycott of SodaStream and agreeing to be the spokeswoman for the popular “make your own soda at home” product from Maale Edumim, a large community in disputed eastern Jerusalem. The BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanction) crowd ignores the fact that the SodaStream plant employs 1100 workers – mostly Arabs from Judea and Samaria, who, under Israeli law, get paid the same salary as the Jewish workers, which is more than ten times what they might get in the Arab world. I’m glad to say that I own and enjoy the product and gift SodaStream to all my friends and family to whom I wish to give a special treat. I urge everyone to buy the product for themselves.

Kudos also to CAMERA for its giant billboard in plain view of the NY Times bulding in NYC. The billboard reads, “Would a great newspaper slant the News against Israel? The NEW YORK TIMES does. ” The ad continues, accusing the Times of “Misrepresenting facts, omitting key information, and skewing headlines and photos.” It concludes with the demand, “STOP THE BIAS.” CAMERA plans to keep the billboard up for the next six months. We loudly applaud CAMERA for this action and I must add that I cancelled my NY Times subscription years ago when I became aware of the relentless attacks against Israel, not only in their editorials and op-eds, but actually within the reporting itself. We encourage readers to cancel their subscriptions also, if, indeed, they are still subscribers.
A One-way Ticket to the Zero-State Solution A “boycott” is comparatively harmless to the Zero-State Solution.
From Mark Langfan
Earlier this month, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni stated that “the boycott is moving and advancing uniformly and exponentially.”
Exactly to her point, Defense Minister Ya’alon responded that if security compromises would lead to “rockets from Nablus, Ramallah and Jenin onto Ben Gurion Airport, then I would rather have a European boycott” on Israel.
Unable to intellectually or rationally respond to Ya’alon, Livni resorted to sophistry and made an even more intellectually specious statement: “In the context of priorities, I prefer the Galilee, Kiryat Shemona, Tiberias and the Negev over the isolated settlements outside the ‘settlement blocs.'”
What Livni doesn’t understand, or doesn’t want to understand, is that without all, I repeat ALL, the heroic Jewish settlers of Judea and Samaria, there will be no Negev, no Galilee. There will be no Israel, period.
But, as a prefatory note, Livni omitted Sderot and Ashkelon from the fanciful list of Israeli cities that she considers her “priorities.” In her messianic bubble, Livni can’t process the fact that these Israeli cities have been rocketed solely because of her suicidal failed peace ‘policies.’ If anything, for Livni, the Gaza rockets only serve to further convince her of the “end-of-days” messianic and delusional salvation of the “Peace Process.”

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2756/From-US-Helpers-in-Iraq-to-Sex-Criminals-in-Colorado.aspx Two Iraqi men in their 20s have been convicted of a bloody sex crime in Colorado that left the victim, a woman in her 50s, in need of immediate surgery and a colostomy bag. Three other Iraqi men, also in their 20s,were convicted on lesser charges as accessories. Four points set this case apart. […]

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Into-the-Fray-A-public-challenge-to-Michael-Oren-339234 What is it about the Palestinian problem that makes otherwise seemingly smart people expound such utterly stupid ideas?   One solution could be a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian population centers in the West Bank… but unlike in Gaza, most Israeli settlements would remain within Israel, and Israeli troops would still patrol strategic borders. […]

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=7125

Rouhani’s curtain call

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has been strutting through the halls of the World Economic Forum in Davos like an Oscar nominee at the Academy Awards. And why wouldn’t he be working the red carpet with a wide grin on his face, while treated like a movie star?

After all, being an actor comes easily to the head of the Islamic republic. Since taking the reins in Tehran in August, he has been type-cast in as a “moderate.” It is a role he has assumed with ease. Not only does it require few rehearsals, since his script is both short and predictable. But the Western audiences to whom he is playing get caught up in his performance, even when he forgets his lines and lets it slip that he only differs from his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in style but not content.

It is thus that the long-time Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini loyalist — and current Ayatollah Ali Khamenei protégé — has been able to stave off stepped-up sanctions from the United States and Europe by pretending to engage in diplomatic discussions over Iran’s nuclear program. No matter how many centrifuges continue to spin or how much uranium continues to be enriched, all Rouhani has to do to buy more time to perfect long-range ballistic missiles for future nuclear warheads is to assure his P5+1 negotiating partners — the U.S., Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France and Germany — that his intentions are “peaceful.” Then, when presented with evidence to the contrary, he goes on the offensive, accusing them of imposing “illegal sanctions.”

2014.01.21 (Mastung, Pakistan) – Over two dozen Shia pilgrims on a bus are massacred by a Lashkar-e-Jhangvi suicide bomber.
2014.01.21 (Karachi, Pakistan) – Fundamentalists murder three members of a polio vaccination team.
2014.01.21 (Beirut, Lebanon) – Four people are killed when an al-Nusra sucide bomber detonates in a Shia neighborhood.
2014.01.20 (Wulgo, Nigeria) – Islamists take out a teacher in his own home with an AK-47.
2014.01.20 (Baghdad, Iraq) – A series of Mujahideen attacks in Sunni neighborhoods leave fourteen dead Iraqis.
2014.01.20 (Baghdad, Iraq) – Jihadis bomb a market, killing three patrons.