RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/371625/print

Cancel the philosophy courses, people. Oh, and we’re going to be shuttering the political science, religion, and pre-law departments too. We’ll keep some of the English and history folks on for a while longer, but they should probably keep their résumés handy.

Because, you see, they are of no use anymore. We have the answers to the big questions, so why keep pretending there’s anything left to discuss?

At least that’s where Erin Ching, a student at Swarthmore College, seems to be coming down. Her school invited a famous left-wing Princeton professor, Cornel West, and a famous right-wing Princeton professor, Robert George, to have a debate. The two men are friends, and by all accounts they had an utterly civil exchange of ideas. But that only made the whole thing even more outrageous.

“What really bothered me is, the whole idea is that at a liberal arts college, we need to be hearing a diversity of opinion,” Ching told the Daily Gazette, the school’s newspaper. “I don’t think we should be tolerating [George’s] conservative views because that dominant culture embeds these deep inequalities in our society.”

Swarthmore must be so proud.

When someone speaks out against discrimination and ignorance, and evidences those same flaws, what can be expected of the audience? Does it depend who is being ignorant, and at whose expense? Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/mandela-grandson-at-brandeis-disses-us-israel-and-insults-china/2014/02/20/ It was the kind of opportunity most Jewish institutions are incapable of passing up. Two of the grandsons of the […]

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/371565/print

The “blame it on the video” fraud so carefully orchestrated by the Obama administration in connection with the Benghazi massacre on the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks has always rested on a premise that remains unquestioned by the mainstream media – and that is itself a fraud. To wit: the Libyan violence, in which a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were murdered, was triggered by rioting at the U.S. embassy in neighboring Egypt which was unquestionably provoked by an anti-Islamic video (an obscure trailer for the more obscure film, Innocence of Muslims).

As I’ve previously recounted, “blame it on the video” was a fraud as to Egypt as well – a calculated fraud set in motion by State Department officials in Cairo who began tweeting about their outrage over the video before the rioting started. At the time they did so, our government well knew both that there would be demonstrations at the embassy and that those demonstrations were being spearheaded by al Qaeda. In addition to the general animus against the United States that is its raison d’etre, the terror network and its Egyptian confederates were animated by their long-running campaign demanding that the U.S. release the Blind Sheikh (Omar Abdel Rahman, the master jihadist I prosecuted in the nineties and who Osama bin Laden later credited with issuing the fatwa that approved the 9/11 suicide hijackings).

There is now more evidence corroborating the fact that al Qaeda-linked jihadists, not the video, propelled the Cairo rioting — just as al-Qaeda-linked jihadists, not the video, propelled the Benghazi attack. Tom Joscelyn of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who is the nation’s best informed analyst of the global jihad and its tentacles, recently testified before the House homeland security committee (specifically, the subcommittee on counterterrorism and intelligence). The testimony, on the topic of al Qaeda’s expansion into Egypt, has been posted at the invaluable Long War Journal site. While it is all worth reading, Tom offers the following observations on the Cairo rioting:

http://sarahhonig.com/2014/02/21/another-tack-happy-days-are-almost-here/

Palestinian Authority figurehead Mahmoud Abbas (Abu-Mazen) has this week assured us – at a meeting with a pre-selected group of left-wing Israeli students – that happy days are (almost) here again. That in itself should suffice to allay our anxieties – all, he says, products of that well-oiled Israeli propaganda machine. If we merely take his word for it, we could sleep soundly.

If Israel only improves its act, and conducts its affairs as per Abbas’s directives, peace and bliss will surely be ours. To hear him, there’s no obstructionism whatsoever on his turf. The obstacles to peace are all Israeli-made. Abbas has absolved himself of any responsibility if things go awry. He’s only seeking justice for an indigenous population oppressed by an artificial entity, a foreign interloper.

Those among us who still possess historical perspectives will recognize the resemblance to contentions made by one Adolf Hitler on the eve of the infamous Munich Agreement, which sold out Czechoslovakia as the alleged cause of all that ailed Europe.

In a long letter telegraphed by Hitler to Franklin Roosevelt on September 27, 1938, the German fuehrer stressed: “I can and must decline all responsibility of the German people and their leaders, if the further development, contrary to all my efforts up to the present, should actually lead to the outbreak of hostilities.” The identical argumentation, minus the national designation, had been repeatedly enunciated by Abbas.

Abbas has a problem with the existence of a Jewish state and like him Hitler couldn’t tolerate the existence of Czechoslovakia. He insisted that the root problem arises from “the founding of the Czechoslovak State and the establishment of its frontiers without any consideration for history or nationality. The Sudetenland was also included therein, although this area had always been German… Thus the right of self-determination… had been simply denied to the Sudeten Germans.”

Hitler accused the “Prague Government” of having “attempted by increasingly violent methods to enforce the Czechization of the Sudetenland. It was inevitable that this procedure should lead to ever greater and more serious tension… Political persecution and economic oppression have plunged the Sudeten Germans into untold misery. To characterize these circumstances it will suffice to refer to the following:

“We reckon at present 214,000 Sudeten German refugees who had to leave house and home in their ancestral country and flee across the German frontier, because they saw in this the last and only possibility of escaping from the revolting Czech regime of force and bloodiest terror. Countless dead, thousands of wounded, tens of thousands of people detained and imprisoned, and deserted villages, are the accusing witnesses before world opinion of an outbreak of hostilities.”

Similarly, Abbas postures as the dogged defender of the downtrodden. Pay heed to the pitiable noises he makes, totally sidestepping the issue of Arab-instigated wars and terror: “It’s a big shame on you, what settlers do against us; without any reasons they come and kill, uproot trees… They slaughter us, they kill my sheep and my livestock. It’s a shame on you. And by the way, every time we take one step toward peace it takes us back 20 steps, because our people wonder, what is peace with these people?”

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4184/palestinian-refugees-return Many Palestinians said that Abbas was not authorized to make any concessions or speak on behalf of the refugees. “Our refugees will not accept any alternative to their right to return to their homeland and we do not care what Abbas’s position is.” — Ali Huwaidi, expert on Palestinian affairs. The reactions to Abbas’s […]

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4183/muslim-right-of-return-spain

Observers say that by granting citizenship to all descendants of expelled Muslims, Spain, virtually overnight, would end up with the largest Muslim population in the European Union.

“Is Spain aware of what might be assumed when it makes peace with some but not with others? Is Spain aware of what this decision [not to include Muslims in the return] could cost?… Does Spain have alternatives to the foreign investment from Muslims?” — Ahmed Bensalh, Morisco-Moroccan journalist.

“Persecution of Jews was just that, while what happened with the Arabs was part of a conflict. There is no basis for comparison.” — Jose Ribeiro e Castro, Portuguese lawmaker who drafted Portuguese law of return.

Muslim groups are demanding Spanish citizenship for potentially millions of descendants of Muslims who were expelled from Spain during the Middle Ages.

The growing clamor for “historical justice” comes after the recent approval of a law that would grant Spanish citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in 1492.

Muslim supporters say they are entitled to the same rights and privileges as Jews because both groups were expelled from Spain under similar historical circumstances.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/371520/cuba-holodomor-next-door-robert-zubrin I just got back from a business trip to Mexico. While there, I met with some Mexicans who had recently traveled to Cuba. What they told me was shocking. The Cuban people are being held on the edge of starvation. According to my Mexican friends, ordinary Cubans are not allowed to eat beef. Instead, […]

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/371501/print

Someone must communicate GOP ideas, and party leadership can’t be bothered.

I AM SO WEARY OF THE TED CRUZ BASHERS…HE HAS CLEARLY IGNITED CONSERVATISM IN THE GOP….INSTEAD OF BOWING TO PLEASING WOMEN, FAUX VICTIMS AND THEIR DEMANDS….HE IS A LONE STAR SENATOR BRIMMING WITH IDEAS AND ACTION….READ HIS LIPS….RSK

Senator Ted Cruz is a hero in some Republican circles — and the opposite among many of his Senate Republican colleagues.

At this crucial juncture in the history of America, internal battles within the only party that can turn things around are the last thing Americans need. Moreover, each side in this political civil war has all too many valid criticisms of the other.

The Republican establishment’s criticisms of Senator Cruz are criticisms of his rule-or-ruin strategy, which can destroy whatever chance Republicans have of taking back the Senate in 2014 and the White House in 2016. And, without political power, there is no real hope of changing things in Washington.

Senator Cruz’s filibuster last year got the Republicans blamed for shutting down the government — and his threatened filibuster this year forced several Republican Senators to jeopardize their own reelection prospects by voting to impose cloture to prevent Cruz from repeating his self-serving grandstand play of last year. The Republicans need every vote they can get in the Senate — plus additional votes by defeating some Democrats who are running for the Senate this fall. It can be a very close call. Jeopardizing the reelection of current Republican senators is an act of utter irresponsibility, a high risk with zero benefits to anyone except Ted Cruz — and the Democrats.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/371510/outdated-business-model-diversity-inc-victor-davis-hanson

In today’s divided society, universities would be wise to stress unity and academic rigor.

Diversity has become corporatized on American campuses, with scores of bureaucrats and administrators accentuating different pedigrees and ancestries. That’s odd, because diversity no longer means “variety” or “points of difference,” in the way it used to be defined.

Instead, diversity has become an industry synonymous with orthodoxy and intolerance, especially in its homogeneity of political thought.

When campuses sloganeer “celebrate diversity,” that does not mean they encourage all sorts of political views. If it did, faculties and student groups would better reflect the U.S.’s political realities and might fall roughly into two equal groups: liberal and conservative.

Do colleges routinely invite graduation speakers who are skeptical of man-made global warming, and have reservations about present abortion laws, gay marriage, or illegal immigration — if only for the sake of ensuring diverse views?

Nor does diversity mean consistently ensuring that institutions should reflect “what America looks like.”

If it did, all sorts of problems could follow. As we see in the NBA and NFL, for example, many of our institutions do not always reflect the proportional racial and ethnic makeup of America. Do we really want all institutions to weigh diversity rather than merit so that coveted spots reflect the race and gender percentages of American society?

Does anyone care that for decades the diverse state of California’s three most powerful elected officials have been most undiverse? Representative Nancy Pelosi, Senator Barbara Boxer, and Senator Dianne Feinstein are all mature women, quite liberal, very wealthy, married to rich professionals or entrepreneurs, and all once lived within commuting distance of each other in the Bay Area.

Is the University of California, Berkeley, ethnically diverse? If it were, Asian students might have to be turned away, given that the percentage of Asian students at UC Berkeley is about three times as great as the percentage of Asian residents in California’s general population.

Hard sell? Pakistani merchants use President Obama’s face to sell imitation Viagra

Black market versions of the anti-impotence drug featuring different caricatures of Obama — apparently a symbol of strength and virility — can be found across Pakistan.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/hard-sell-pakistani-merchants-president-obama-face-sell-imitation-viagra-article-1.1620047#ixzz2trQ8LsP2

While the Obama White House has spent billions of dollars in foreign aid trying to erect democratic institutions in the violence-plagued country, Pakistani men seeking a little “democracy” of their own can purchase four of the imitation blue pills for just $1.