RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.clarionproject.org/print/news/iraqi-cabinet-oks-law-allowing-child-marriage-marital-rape

Clarion Project’s new film, Honor Diaries, features nine women’s rights activists who expose the oppression of women in Muslim-majority societies. Watch a clip about the film narrated by the film’s producer Paula Kweskin and find out how you can help spread the word.

The new legislation, which institutes sharia law in family matters, will be sent to the legislature for approval.

Women in Iraq took to the streets on International Women’s Day to protest the recent decision by the cabinet to approve draft legislation to institute sharia law in Iraq based on Shiite jurisprudence.

The legislation would change Iraq’s current personal status law, which has been called the most progressive in the Muslim-majority Middle East countries. The current laws uphold women’s rights in the areas of marriage, child custody and inheritance.

The new legislation would permit marriage for girls as young as nine-years old. In the case of divorce, custody of any child over the age of two would automatically be given to the father. In addition, the new legislation allows marital rape, giving the man the right to sexual intercourse with his wife whenever he chooses. Overall, all marriages, divorces and inheritance cases would be legislated according to the Ja’afi interpretation of shariah law and administered by Shiite clergy members

Protesters took to the streets, shouting, “On this day of women, women of Iraq are in mourning.”

http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/03/13/israel-ranked-best-middle-eastern-country-to-live-in-as-a-woman/

The bar is set rather low in a region where stoning for adultery, “honor killings”, forced teen marriages, rape and enslavement are prevalent. What is curious is the number of women who join the BDS movement, frolic with terrorists, march and stomp and whine to bash Israel while ignoring what would happen to them among the true believers of Islam. Furthermore, they don’t lift a finger to support women’s rights groups who bravely confront the tyranny of Sharia….rsk

Israel was the ranked the best country in which to live as a woman in the Middle East and North Africa region, according to a 2013 report cited by The Huffington Post on Thursday.

Each year since 2006, the World Economic Forum has released its annual Global Gender Gap Report examining efforts to close the gap in four categories: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival and political Empowerment.

While raked first for its region, the Jewish state came in 53rd in the overall Gap Report for 2013, moving up three spots from its 2012 ranking.

Iceland took the top spot for the fifth year and Colombia was the biggest riser, moving up 28 places to rank 35th.

Out of the 110 countries that have been included every year, 95 have shown improvement over the last four years, The Huffington Post noted. Women are getting more opportunities than ever for economic participation, gaining greater access to education and are living longer and healthier lives. They are also playing a much larger role in the political decision making process, according to the report.

http://thefederalist.com/2014/03/13/war-stories-an-interview-with-david-mamet/

David Masciotra is a columnist with the Indianapolis Star. He has also written for the Daily Beast, the Atlantic, and Splice Today. He is the author of All That We Learned About Living: The Art and Legacy of John Mellencamp (forthcoming, University Press of Kentucky).

It has become nearly impossible to live in America without struggling against the inescapable dread that life has become overwhelmingly dull. The pervasive boredom of American life is largely a product of the predominant character of many American citizens – cowardice. The cowardly impulse manifests in many Americans finding perverse enjoyment in invented roles of victimhood, political correctness, and materialistic excess substituting for character and authenticity.

David Mamet, a Pulitzer Prize winning genius and giant of theater, film, and literature, has led a life of achievement in which he has made an immeasurable contribution to boredom relief in America. Recently, he has also generated his share of controversy by coming out as a conservative after many years of self-avowed “brain dead” liberalism.

The conversion announcement surprised many admirers of the Renaissance man, but some observers saw it coming for a long time, including political analyst and social commentator Shelby Steele, who said, “I think he (Mamet) has the same values today as he did before. He’s always been conservative without knowing it.”

When I had the pleasure of speaking to David Mamet on the phone recently, the perception that a gulf of dislocation separates Mamet’s early period of plays and film – Glengarry Glen Ross, American Buffalo, and The Verdict to name an illustrious few – from his current role as the rightward drifter in Hollywood, arose quickly.

http://nsroundtable.org/as-we-see-it/the-disease-and-the-antidote/

Jerusalem — Talking to Israelis feels a bit like talking to fans of Millwall FC. ‘No one likes us, we don’t care,’ sing Millwall fans. Israel is the undoubted Millwall of global affairs, loathed by almost every Westerner who considers himself decent and they’ve adopted a similar cri de coeur. ‘Europe doesn’t like us. Americans do not like us. We can live with this,’ says a kippah-wearing guy at the Western Wall. He sums up a sentiment I hear across this country.

If you were in Iran or North Korea, long-time chart-toppers in the international community’s gallery of rogue states, you wouldn’t bat an eyelid when a citizen expressed disgruntlement with the wicked West. But Israel? This tiny nation was for so long the West’s best bud in the Middle East; a bright democratic outpost in an otherwise autocratic desert. To hear Israelis speak ill of the West, to see them raise their eyes to the heavens at every mention of the United Nations or the European Union, feels weird.

Everywhere I go, people wonder out loud why the West, especially Europe’s chattering classes, hates them so. Israel is being treated like a ‘pariah state’, says Uri Dromi, executive director of the Jerusalem Press Club and former spokesman for the Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres governments.

‘Europe doesn’t like us,’ he says, and now I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard that said. Dromi has a striking theory as to why our governments are now so sniffy about his ‘shitty little country’ (remember that French diplomat in 2001?). It’s because, he says, we’ve had a hike in Muslim immigration which forces us to adopt anti-Israel postures in a bid to ‘quieten new arrivals’.

Report Card For Obama — on The Glazov Gang
The grades are in for ObamaCare and the administration’s handling of the economy and foreign policy.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/report-card-for-obama-on-the-glazov-gang/

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/03/13/US-Philosophy-Professor-Jail-Denialist-Climate-Scientists-For-Criminal-Negligence Scientists who don’t believe in catastrophic man-made global warming should be put in prison, a US philosophy professor argues on a website funded by the UK government. Lawrence Torcello – assistant professor of philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology, NY, writes in an essay at The Conversation that climate scientists who fail to communicate […]

http://sarahhonig.com/2014/03/14/another-tack-what-obama-furtively-furthers/

One outrageously insolent remark was remarkably ignored in the hullaballoo generated by US President Barack Obama’s Bibi-bashing interview on the eve of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s latest White House visit.

Wedged into the presidential malarkey was a new allegation against the Mideast’s sole democracy. Obama accused Israel of no less than continuing to “place restrictions on Arab-Israelis in ways that run counter to Israel’s traditions.”

Huh? Really? What restrictions? And does Obama now also presume to pass judgment on what are indisputably our domestic affairs? Is there no limit to his meddling and hubris?

Again, it needs be stressed, the villain of Obama’s piece is ultra-liberal, ultra-pluralist and ultra-tolerant Israel.

That unavoidably raises the question of whether America’s know-it-all-in-chief is at all aware of the shrill hysteria with which Israeli-Arabs denigrated Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman’s idea of swapping Israel’s own Wadi Ara region with the Palestinian Authority. If anything, this indicates how desperately attached to their Israeli identity Israel’s Arab citizens are.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/arkansas-2014-candidates-for-congress-where-they-stand

To see the actual voting records of all incumbents on other issues such as Foreign Policy, Second Amendment Issues, Homeland Security, and other issues as well as their rankings by special interest groups please use the links followed by two stars (**).

U.S. Senate

Senator John Boozman (R) Next Election in 2016.

Senator Mark Pryor (D) Incumbent

http://pryorforsenate.com/

http://www.pryor.senate.gov/public/

http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/mark_pryor.htm **

Pryor serves on six Senate Committees, including the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. He was recently named Chairman of the Subcommittee on Agriculture Appropriations-a position that will allow him to prioritize funding for federal programs that benefit Arkansas farmers, producers, and rural communities, and keep Arkansas’s agricultural sector strong.

Pryor also serves on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee; the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee; the Senate Rules Committee; and the Senate Ethics Committee.

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

ECONOMY/JOBS/ENVIRONMENT

http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/96974/coalition-including-mark-pryor-backs-keystone-xl-oil-pipeline

Backs Keystone Xl Pipeline

HEALTHCARE

http://americarising.tumblr.com/post/57610782446/mark-pryor-says-obamacare-has-been-amazing-success

Mark Pryor Says ObamaCare Has Been Amazing Success Story So Far

Continuing his full embrace of ObamaCare for 2014, Mark Pryor called ObamaCare an “amazing success story so far”:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/01/03/politicos_john_harris_obama_and_obamacare_dragging_down_mark_pryor.html

IMMIGRATION

http://immigrationstance.diggersrealm.com/ar/senator_mark_pryors_record_on_immigration_reform_and_illegal_aliens.html

Senator Mark Pryor has voted in favor of giving illegal aliens further rewards and other incentives to come such as in-state tuition, educational benefits, welfare and health care services.

Rep. Tom Cotton (R) Challenger

Presently Rep. District 4, Attorney, Afghan War Veteran

http://cotton.house.gov/

http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Tom_Cotton.htm **

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

DEFENSE AND NATIONAL SECURITY

http://cotton.house.gov/issues/defense-and-national-security

I volunteered to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I believe those wars are just and necessary. As a veteran, I want to bring our troops home as much as anyone, but I want to bring them home victoriously. I don’t believe in exit strategies; I believe in victory strategies. In Congress, I will stand up to President Obama, whose short-sighted and politically motivated decisions threaten the lives and money that America has invested in these wars. I strongly support the many critical fronts in our global war against Islamic terrorists. We must continue to track and monitor our enemies through terrorist-surveillance programs. We should target these terrorists aggressively through the use of drone technology wherever possible. We should employ our special-operations forces and intelligence professionals where feasible. When we capture terrorists, they should go to Guantanamo Bay for vigorous interrogation-not to a civilian court in America

ECONOMY/JOBS/ENVIRONMENT

http://cotton.house.gov/issues/energy

We must open federal lands and the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) to more exploration and production. The oil-and-gas reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, the Arctic Ocean, and federal public lands in the West and Alaska are a tremendous untapped source of economic growth. Greater exploration and production will increase the reliability of our supplies and reduce prices, create high-paying jobs that can’t be sent overseas, and reduce the deficit through higher lease and royalty payments. In Congress, I will work not only to open these lands and the OCS, but also to ensure that regulators act on drilling and production permits in a timely, responsible manner. I strongly oppose all forms of a “cap and trade” schemes, which are nothing more than a massive new tax on energy I will fight tirelessly against cap and trade, both in Congress and against the EPA’s abusive use of the Clean Air Act to implement cap and trade unilaterally.

HEALTHCARE

http://cotton.house.gov/issues/health-issues

President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare, is a job-killer, a health-care disaster, and an assault on liberty. I will fight to repeal and replace ObamaCare with free-market reforms that empower patients and doctors to make health-care decisions. I will also help states to reform the medical-malpractice system to protect our doctors and serve our patients.

ObamaCare must be repealed entirely. If that does not happen, it must be repealed piece-by-piece. And if that fails, it must be defunded.

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/freddy-gray/2014/03/ten-handy-phrases-for-bluffing-your-way-through-the-ukraine-crisis/

May I add an eleventh phrase? “Of course we have to watch the Ukraine but a crisis of far more serious consequences i heating up in the Middle East as Israel announces the construction of a porch on an existing home in a settlement.This is a provocative act on the cusp of real movement on the peace process……” rsk

We’re all journalists now, apparently, so when a major foreign policy crisis comes along it is important to be prepared. Everyone must learn the art of winging it as the big news breaks. That’s not easy these days. What with Wikipedia on every mobile phone, our understanding of international relations can be called into question at any moment.

So here, as a beginner’s guide, are ten handy phrases for bluffing your way through a conversation about the situation in Ukraine:

‘It’s simplistic to think in terms of east versus west in today’s global, multi-polar world.’ A classic this: the phrase can be adapted and used in just about any serious conversation about anything. Say it early in the discussion, before anyone else can.
‘Sevastopol is of great strategic importance for Putin, especially given the ongoing situation in Syria.’ A useful ploy, this remark establishes you as a bigger-picture guy, who grasps the geopolitics of both eastern Europe and the Middle East — and that global, multi-polar world you were just talking about.
‘What we are seeing here is the return of geography.’Similar to the last, this one neatly lifts you away from the intricacies of Eastern European diplomacy and has the advantage of being almost completely meaningless.
‘The similarities with Hitler and the Sudetenland/Anschluss/Peter the Great/ Stalin and the Tartars/Genghis Khan are striking.’ Historical analogies are invaluable to the experienced bluffer, but the amateur must tread carefully. It is terribly easy to become unstuck in the past. When in doubt, hedge: ‘I am not saying that Putin is Hitler, but …’ or ‘it’s easy to get carried away with these comparisons, but …’ Try to look pained, as if contemplating both the complexity and the imminent possibility of human suffering.
‘Ukraine literally means “borderland”, of course’ — easy one to remember, but a sentence that hints at real wisdom. It has the added benefit of not requiring any follow-up knowledge. Use in the context of ‘statelets’, ‘the great game’ and ‘annexation’.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/tee-time-the-optics-of-presidential-vacations/?print=1
Tee Time: The Optics of Presidential Vacations :Bill Straub

WASHINGTON – Franklin Delano Roosevelt used to hop on the presidential railcar, the Ferdinand Magellan, and roll down to Warm Springs, Ga., seeking relief for his shriveled legs.

Harry Truman would gather his cronies, including Chief Justice Fred Vinson, and head for what became known as The Little White House in Key West, Fla., for marathon poker games and afternoons of fishing. Those trips were vital, Give-Em-Hell Harry once explained, because 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. was the “crown jewel of the American prison system.”

Not to be outdone, Ronald Reagan embraced Rancho del Cielo, better known as the Western White House, near Santa Barbara, Calif., where he could ride horses and occasionally delight pool photographers by wielding an ax to chop wood.

The history of presidential vacations is a long one. John Adams, the second president, left Washington, D.C., in 1798 to tend to his ailing wife, Abigail, back in Massachusetts.

He didn’t return for seven months.