RUTHFULLY YOURS

The first hour of “The Immigrant” is stunning in its cinematography that’s both gritty and glowing, its set-up of the plot, its immediate insights into the main characters and its perfect rendition of the look and texture of the lower east side of New York in 1921. Marion Cotillard plays Ewa, a young Polish woman escaping to America with her consumptive sister and hoping to be met at the ship by her aunt and uncle. Instead, the sister is remanded to the Ellis Island infirmary for six months, no one shows up to greet them and Ewa is scheduled for a hearing prior to being deported for low moral behavior on the ship. Cotillard is an actress whose face, even in repose, conveys all sorts of emotional undertones and this is a part that gives her free rein to express the full range of human responses – disappointment, gratitude, fear, anger, shame, love and forgiveness. She manages to do all this with unusual restraint, considering the drama of her situation. Joaquin Phoenix plays Bruno Weiss, an oversized character who is both burlesque impressario and pimp, and though he isn’t averse to using his stable of women, he also genuinely cares for them and pays them a fair share of their earnings. He first appears at Ellis Island and rescues Ewa from the line for rejects, paying off the immigration agents to remand her to him and bringing her into the double-edged quagmire of protection at the price of degradation.

Ewa has the face of an angel but she has witnessed the murder of her parents and undoubtedly many other grotesque events in Poland and she is capable of making quick adjustments to the exigencies of her unexpected situation; she is smart enough to also make demands for greater compensation. A nightmarish rebuff by the family she was searching for tightens the vise around her, narrowing her options and leaving her hostage to the life of a prostitute, albeit one who is adored by her pimp. Even the bit parts are perfectly cast and Marion Cotillard’s Polish is a fluent and well-accented tour de force.

With the graceful, balletic entrance of Jeremy Renner as an incomparable magician, the movie ups the ante, creating a rival for Ewa’s attention and pushing Joaquin Phoenix down a too-familiar road of histrionic violence and impending explosive actions. He’s melted down in so many recent movies that it now ceases to frighten us and instead, turns the movie into melodrama with a predictable outcome. More back-stories are revealed regarding the relationship between Renner and Phoenix and the jealousy between the prostitutes until the ample frame of the original plot becomes overladen with too many sidebars that simply weigh it down.

Despite this cavil, this is a serious movie that reminds us of how difficult the adjustment was to the realities of emigrating, how very far it was from the dream of new beginnings in a country envisioned with gold-paved streets, and how much courage it took for millions of ordinary people whose stories often became as extraordinary as this one.

ttorney General Eric Holder said the Monday announcement of the indictment of five People’s Liberation Army officers was meant to tell China, “enough is enough” on its massive cyberespionage campaign against the United States.

China’s reaction – a diplomatic harrumph – didn’t indicate that the indictments were taken at all seriously.

Nor should they be. For at least a decade, China has been engaged in the most massive and far-reaching of all cyberespionage campaigns against the United States. From it, the Chinese have benefitted in a variety of ways, including bypassing expensive research on military systems for stealth aircraft and gaining intelligence on how many American assets – from financial markets to the power grid – work.

There is no more reason to expect China will repent and change its ways after these indictments than there was when President Obama imposed economic sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. The Russians shrugged the sanctions off as the diplomatic flatulence they were. The indictments announced by Holder will have an equal effect on China, namely none at all. They won’t stop or even reduce China’s cyberespionage program against the U.S. because it’s reaping too much benefit from it and because the indictments are another empty gesture by the nation it once labeled a paper tiger.

With thousands of attempts each day, China’s cyberespionage operations are trying to penetrate American defense, intelligence, financial and electric power networks, among other targets. And they are too often successful. Chinese cyberespionage has resulted in their theft of much of the secret design data for the F-35 fighter, which have already been observed in the newest version of China’s J-20 stealth fighter, which looks a whole lot like the F-35. (It now sports a new engine nozzle design, one of the many features evidently stolen from the American design.)

So why these indictments and why now? The answer to that question must be political, because there is nothing the Obama administration does that isn’t. Among the victims of the Chinese operation are Westinghouse Electric, U.S. Steel, SolarWorld, United Steel Workers Union, Allegheny Technologies Inc. and Alcoa. Were the indictments issued because a campaign donor — perhaps a generous and friendly union — demanded them?

All too many Israeli politicians brazenly seek to star in compulsive remakes of Shimon Peres’s original London and Oslo escapades.

The Israeli penchant for dismissing official authority and embarking on freelance diplomatic endeavors could presumably be dismissed as an almost endearing eccentricity. The problem is that it’s anything but endearing. It triggers real disasters.

The hubris to flout the authority of any government – no matter who heads it – exclusively emboldens left-wing players. They range from relatively unknown individuals (though they’re always well-connected to the real clout-bearers) all the way to top-ranking ministers who, fired up by their own chutzpah, set out to hijack history-making prerogatives.

Soon-to-retire President Shimon Peres still does it in his ostensibly ceremonial role of president. But he already behaved badly as foreign minister to both prime ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin.

The latest to dabble in unauthorized diplomacy is Justice Minister Tzipi Livni. She recently conferred with Ramallah figurehead Mahmoud Abbas in London, despite the government’s decision (which she supported) to freeze contact with him for his kiss-and-make-up with Jihadist Hamas.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was reported to be displeased with this rendezvous (by way of significant understatement).

It cannot be easy for him (again, by way of significant understatement). His hold on the reins of Israeli diplomacy is continuously challenged by cliques of conceited self-appointed competitors. Livni’s controversial initiative came only days after Peres informed the nation straight-faced that he had single-handed all but achieved a comprehensive peace agreement (no less) with Abbas in 2011 and that said salvation from all of our existential woes was summarily scuttled by none other than Netanyahu.

More precisely, Peres claimed that Netanyahu asked him to wait “three or four days,” then “the days went by,” and the deal disappeared with them. Of course, one would assume that had there been any substance to whatever it was that Peres claims to have cleverly concocted – and had it been bolstered by any authentic Palestinian commitment – it would have survived for a few additional days.

However, Peres’s aim isn’t to make peace or to make a sense. It is, as per many a precedent on his part, to impart innuendo and garner glory for himself.

Both of these should be fundamental no-noes for anyone who accepts that it is the right of an elected government to determine its own diplomatic strategy. It’s one thing for the opposition or for overly ambitious coalition members to carp and take potshots domestically but quite another to launch their own foreign policy projects. So, anyway, it ought to be wherever the basics of the voters’ democratic verdict are minimally respected.

U.S. Navy admiral and University of Texas, Austin, alumnus William H. McRaven returned to his alma mater last week to give seniors 10 lessons from basic SEAL training when he spoke at the school’s commencement.

McRaven, the commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command who organized the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, stressed the importance of making your bed every morning, taking on obstacles headfirst, and realizing that it’s OK to be a “sugar cookie.”

All of his lessons were supported by personal stories from McRaven’s many years as a Navy SEAL.

“While these lessons were learned during my time in the military, I can assure you that it matters not whether you ever served a day in uniform,” McRaven told students. “It matters not your gender, your ethnic or religious background, your orientation, or your social status.”

Here are McRaven’s 10 lessons from his years of experience as a Navy SEAL, via University of Texas, Austin:

I have been a Navy SEAL for 36 years. But it all began when I left UT for Basic SEAL training in Coronado, California.

Basic SEAL training is six months of long torturous runs in the soft sand, midnight swims in the cold water off San Diego, obstacles courses, unending calisthenics, days without sleep and always being cold, wet and miserable.

It is six months of being constantly harassed by professionally trained warriors who seek to find the weak of mind and body and eliminate them from ever becoming a Navy SEAL.

But, the training also seeks to find those students who can lead in an environment of constant stress, chaos, failure and hardships.

To me basic SEAL training was a life time of challenges crammed into six months.

So, here are the ten lesson’s I learned from basic SEAL training that hopefully will be of value to you as you move forward in life.

Every morning in basic SEAL training, my instructors, who at the time were all Viet Nam veterans, would show up in my barracks room and the first thing they would inspect was your bed.

If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack—rack—that’s Navy talk for bed.

It was a simple task—mundane at best. But every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection. It seemed a little ridiculous at the time, particularly in light of the fact that were aspiring to be real warriors, tough battle hardened SEALs—but the wisdom of this simple act has been proven to me many times over.

If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another.

By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter.

If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.

And, if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made—that you made—and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.

If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.

JNS.org – Yedioth Ahronoth has interviewed Jay Leno, who after retiring from the Tonight Show is taking a trip to Israel.

Leno hosts the Genesis Prize ceremony on Thursday at the Jerusalem Theater in the presence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where the prize will be awarded for the first time to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

“I love Israel, that’s why I’m here,” he told reporters after landing at Ben-Gurion Airport. Israel is “a little paradise in the Middle East,” he added in a later sit-down interview with Yedioth Ahronoth.

Leno also spoke about his plans and activities after leaving the Tonight Show. See the article and video clip from the interview here and here.

American television host Jay Leno arrived in Israel on Tuesday evening ahead of the Genesis Prize ceremony, which he will host on Thursday, and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

During the event, which will be held at the Jerusalem Theater in the presence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the prize will be awarded for the first time to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

“I’m excited. It’s a real honor,” Leno told Ynet after landing at Ben-Gurion Airport, adding that the weather was great. “I love Israel, that’s why I’m here.”

The pope’s imminent visit to Israel will rightly attract much attention. But two largely untold stories about global Christianity have the capacity to shake the world order.

The first is the persecution of Christians in the developing world at the hands of Islam. Boko Haram, which has kidnapped more than 250 Christian schoolgirls in Nigeria, is merely one of many Islamist groups increasingly terrorizing and killing Christians across the developing world.

According to Open Doors, a nondenominational Christian group, about 100 million Christians are being persecuted in more than 65 countries, with radical Muslims the main perpetrators in 36 of them.

In Egypt, Coptic Christians have been attacked, murdered, and driven out. In December 2013, at least 1,000 Christians were killed in the Central African Republic. In February this year, jihadists bombed churches in Zanzibar as “dens of non-believers.” In March, members of Somalia’s al-Shabaab militia publicly beheaded a mother of two girls and her cousin after discovering they were Christians.

The same month in Nigeria, more than 150 Christians were butchered in a massacre in Kaduna; this week, hundreds died in bomb attacks in the Christian areas of the towns of Kano and Jos.

In Sudan, Christians have been hacked to death for refusing to convert to Islam or burned alive inside their churches.

Last week, a pregnant mother was sentenced to death there for allegedly converting to Christianity. In Eritrea, more than 3,000 Christians are in prison. In Iran, Christians are being jailed and thousands have fled. There are countless other examples.

Perhaps when our time is relegated to the history books it will be remembered as the “Era of Self-Important Divisiveness,” or something to that effect. Truth be told, there have been few times in the history of our nation when politics was so basely divisive. I say basely because although politics in the time of our Founders and Framers was combative, it was so on an intellectual level; a battlefield of higher thinking, as it were. Today, our politics is centered on the self-important stature of those whose only claim to narcissism is the falsely elevated self-esteem foisted upon them by the Progressive operatives who have commandeered the education system.

Today, our society lauds the illiterate rap artist and the talentless faux-beauties of Hollywood; thugs with a cursory grasp of rhythm but not music, and surgically enhanced spotlight seekers completely devoid of talent. Today, our culture’s media places more importance in the political opinions of an American Idol runner-up, than those who served in government during an era when the Iron Curtain fell and the Soviet Union disappeared from the maps of the world.

So, it is no surprise that our narrative-controlling media (or at least that’s what they strive for) would be wasting the precious “attention span time” of the non-engaged and no- and low-information American public with the candidacy of Clay Aiken, nominee in the North Carolina 2nd congressional district election. Not to take anything away from Mr. Aiken’s musical talents (he is a talented singer), but to quote a superior musician, Frank Zappa, “There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.”

The Washington Times is reporting:

“Democrat congressional candidate Clay Aiken has reportedly deleted a tweet in which he fantasized about punching conservative author Ann Coulter ‘in the face.’

“‘Anyone else watching @piersmorgan want to punch Ann Coulter in the face?’ the former American Idol runner-up tweeted in October 2012…

“Mr. Aiken won the North Carolina Democrat nomination last week with a lead of less than 400 votes, just one day after his main contender, Keith Crisco, was found dead in his home.”

On Tuesday, May 20, 2014, Georgia held its state primary to narrow the field in both parties for Senate and Congress to the final contenders. Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss (R) is retiring in 2014. Two outstanding Congressmen gave up their seats to run for Senate. They were both defeated and now their seats are open to new contenders. Too bad…rsk

Phil Gingrey M.D. (R) who served as U.S. Congressman District 11
http://gingrey.house.gov/

http://www.ontheissues.org/GA/Phil_Gingrey.htm ** http://gingrey.com/

•Rated -5 by AAI, indicating a anti-Arab anti-Palestine voting record. (May 2012)
•Oppose Arms Treaty that limits gun trade to Israel & Taiwan. (Nov 2012)
•Commitment to unbreakable U.S.-Israel bond. (Mar 2010)

ISSUES

HEALTHCARE President Obama’s takeover of America’s health care system has been a disaster from day one. Hard-working men and women here in the state of Georgia have seen their existing plans canceled and face premium rates increases as high as 198 percent. As a doctor and as an individual who has taken the Hippocratic Oath, this is unacceptable. It is time for Republicans in Washington to stop talking about how they want to repeal and defund Obamacare, and stand up and lead the fight to do it. I intend to do just that.

IMMIGRATION Illegal immigration is threatening the very fabric of our nation. Liberal politicians on both sides of the aisle fail to grasp just how prevalent this problem is and its ultimate cost to our society. We must start by securing our borders and denying anyone who comes to our country illegally amnesty. I also believe we must insist that immigrants learn to speak English so we can continue to work together using our English language.

ENERGY Achieving energy independence is paramount to restoring economic prosperity and ensuring national security. We must remove the regulatory handcuffs on energy producers, allow states more control of their resources, and fast-track drilling permits. An “all-of-the-above” energy approach to developing traditional and emerging energy sources will help create jobs and lower prices at the pump. Unlike Obama, who favors taxpayer-funded disasters like Solyndra to privately-funded projects like the Keystone XL Pipeline, I don’t believe the government should pick winners and losers.
and
Paul Broun M.D. (R) who served as Congressman for District 10

http://www.paulbroun.com/ http://broun.house.gov/

http://www.ontheissues.org/GA/Paul_Broun.htm **

ISSUES

HEALTHCARE Dr. Broun voted against the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and for repeal.

ENERGY : Dr. Broun is a strong supporter of domestic energy production and construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline without limiting amendments.

•Rated -2 by AAI, indicating a anti-Arab anti-Palestine voting record. (May 2012)
•Oppose Arms Treaty that limits gun trade to Israel & Taiwan. (Nov 2012)
•Commitment to unbreakable U.S.-Israel bond. (Mar 2010)

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/discredited-in-benghazi?f=puball

The abandonment of the State Department-CIA mission in Benghazi that came under attack on September 11, 2012 marked the failure of the Obama administration’s foreign policy toward the Muslim world. That American generals and admirals raised no protest to the decision not to go to the American contingent’s defense dishonored our military and undercut its sense of duty, responsibility, and self-respect. The discredit brought upon the United States by foolish, dishonest foreign policies is dangerous and hard enough to live down. But history teaches that militaries whose moral qualities have been undermined court disaster, and that restoring those qualities is very hard.

Public discourse has focused on whether the destruction of the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was spontaneous or a planned terrorist attack, as well as on why the mission had not been provided with adequate security. But these questions are important chiefly from the standpoint of domestic politics.

Of greater importance to our nation is that the so-called consulate annex was destroyed by a regular, conventional military assault and finished off by very accurate mortar fire. This annex, a CIA outpost, seems to have been facilitating the transfer of weapons to Syrian rebel factions-something that the Obama administration was doing quietly while publicly debating whether to do it- as well as engaging in other covert activities in the region. More likely than not, this is how it could become the target of a regular military attack. This may also explain why a CIA team swept the ruins of the annex for two weeks before FBI investigators were allowed to enter it.

As bloody bodies and smoke rise into the air after a cry of Allahu Akbar and a bomb detonation, each Muslim terrorist attack is followed by “Muslimsplaining” why the latest act of Islamic violence had nothing to do with Islam.

Sometimes the Muslimsplainers are Muslims. Often they aren’t even Muslims.

When Boko Haram, an Islamic terrorist group aligned with Al Qaeda, kidnapped Nigerian girls, the media’s Muslimsplainers sprang into action to explain why it had nothing to do with Islam.

Time featured “5 Reasons Boko Haram is Un-Islamic”; a listicle friendly article from one of those non-Muslim experts on why Islam is feminist

“With their sustained campaign of murders and kidnappings, the members of Boko Haram conduct themselves in a manner that could barely be more alien to the Prophet Muhammad teachings,” the article claimed.

Mohammed spread Islam through a sustained campaign of murders and kidnappings. Claiming that murder was alien to Mohammed is like claiming that pledge drives are alien to PBS.

As proof, Time cited a statement from Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti, Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh, that Boko Haram was “set up to smear the image of Islam.”

This is the same Sheikh al-Sheikh who called for destroying all the churches in the region and marrying off 10-year-old girls. Destroying churches and raping schoolgirls is exactly what Boko Haram stands for. If you believe the media, the same grand mufti who supports raping children in Saudi Arabia as Islamic… opposes raping them in Nigeria as un-Islamic.

The only reason the double Sheikh who speaks out of both sides of his mouth denounces Boko Haram and other Al Qaeda groups is because he is a mouthpiece for the Saudi ruling family which opposes them.

Saudi Arabia isn’t opposed to Al Qaeda because it’s un-Islamic. It’s opposed to Al Qaeda because the Islamic group wants to replace the House of Saud, upsetting the deal between Wahhab and Saud that created a balance between the tyrannical royal family and the mosque.