RUTHFULLY YOURS

Adopting the dubious theory that compromise on the part of the stronger power and appeasement can change the behavior of tyrants, can make them behave more like us, has been at the core of the Obama administration’s foreign policy. Obama declared his intentions in his first inaugural address suggesting negotiations with adversaries through “mutual interests” that would lead to “mutual respect.”

The Obama administration’s internationalist ideology has in fact succeeded in what late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan called, in 1993, “Defining Deviancy Down” in the international arena.

Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer expanded Moynihan’s point by proposing that not only were we “normalizing what was once considered deviant,” but we were also “finding deviant what was once considered normal.”

Effectively, there seems to be no tyrant who is “as bad as all that,” who doesn’t deserve gestures of kindness, and a bonus now and then. On May 6, at the Pentagon, the president reinforced everything he has said in the past about America’s avowed adversaries.

Lately I’ve been looking at Organic Opposition instead of Organizational Opposition. The latter is still important, but people are rightly disappointed and angry with everything from the GOP to assorted national groups and bewildered by a wide array of candidates.

Organic Opposition doesn’t require organizations or a movement. It’s about living in ways that naturally oppose the left.

Most of the people here already live in ways that the left resents without even thinking about it. Organic Opposition is about finding new ways to oppose the power of the left in your life.

This is not a complete checklist. It’s a set of general ideas and people are welcome to add to them in the comments.

5. Don’t Give Money to People Who Hate You

The latest word from Vienna is that the July 7 deadline has come and gone, and ‎now the P5+1 and Iran hope to wrap things up by Friday, July 10.

The three-day ‎slippage may not appear to be a big deal, but it is a delay the administration ‎hoped to avoid, since the Corker-Menendez bill provides for 60 days for congressional review of an Iran agreement if the terms are submitted to Congress ‎after July 9, but only 30 days if submitted by that date. Given summer vacations ‎and the general undesirability (heat, humidity) of being in the nation’s capital ‎during the summer months, the extra 30 days allows for both houses of Congress, ‎controlled by Republicans in each case, to set up less compressed schedules for ‎reviewing the agreement, calling in witnesses and taking the votes. And of course, it ‎provides more time for skeptical lawmakers and their staffs to read the details of ‎what has been conceded and given away and to try to determine what our side got ‎in exchange for removing most sanctions — American and ‎international — almost immediately, and providing about $150 billion to Iran.

Top economic aide: With right policies, Israel avoided Greece’s fate Just a decade ago, says Professor Eugene Kandel, the Israeli and Greek economies were on a par. Not anymore.

Is there a lesson for Israel in the Greek tragedy playing out in Athens? There is, according to outgoing National Economic Council Chairman Prof. Eugene Kandel.

“Long-term fiscal credibility is a critical component for any economy,” Kandel told ministers at Sunday’s cabinet meeting. Over the past decade especially, he said, Israel has been a model of fiscal stability, as it has cut its public sector, reduced debt, and — most importantly — encouraged foreign investments.

A splashy new documentary promises to expose the Israeli military’s censorship of atrocities committed in the 1967 war. What it exposes is its creators’ agenda.

On January 26 of this year, the New York Times ran a prominent article by its Jerusalem correspondent Jodi Rudoren about a new Israeli documentary then premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. According to Rudoren’s lengthy report, the film, Censored Voices, was an attention-grabbing exposé about the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war, also known as the Six-Day War, as told in conversations with soldiers conducted immediately after the war itself.

We have entered a new era of scientific breakthroughs and technological applications that will change life as we know it. Accelerated technological development is transforming our civilization. The pace of innovation is growing so rapidly that it is becoming exponential as each year passes.

Futurist Dr. Michio Kaku characterizes this blazing technological shift as moving from the “age of discovery” to the “age of mastery.”

This next decade beckons many new technological discoveries and applications. This includes genetic engineering and regeneration of body parts, new cures for diseases, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, nano-technologies, robotics, ultra-high speed trains and self-driving cars, renewable energies, sustainable agriculture, big data, 3-D Printing, digital security, quantum computing, mobility, and paper thin flexible personal computers.

The Iran nuclear talks have missed the June 30 deadline imposed by US President Barack Obama for a final agreement, but the US negotiators are hoping a deal can be struck by July 7. This is an important date because under the Corker-Cardin bill (the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015), if an agreement is sent to Congress by July 9, the House and Senate will have only 30 days to review it. If submitted after July 9, however, legislators will have 60 days.

We believe the Obama administration has made unacceptable concessions to Iran in the nuclear talks and, as a result, that any agreement produced by these talks will be a very bad deal.

But what would a “good” deal with Iran look like? To answer this question, the Center for Security Policy, in conjunction with many experts, came up with the following nine red lines, which we have nicknamed “The National Security Nine,” for an acceptable nuclear agreement with Iran. These red lines are:

The deconstruction of literature is not so much the purpose of Critical Literary Studies as it is the deconstruction of your mind.

There is a left-wing “tradition,” decades old now and imported from Europe, of cyclists amassing at key city intersections and just sitting there for the purpose of immobilizing and snarling motor traffic. It’s called “Critical Mass.” There are chapters of this club of thugs in many major American cities, just as there are still chapters of Occupy Wall Street extant. OWL simply wanted to stage a massive “sit-down” demonstration to bring Wall Street to a screeching halt, which it didn’t, and wasn’t interested in cycling anywhere, but was motivated by the same malign purpose.

Pastor James McConnell’s “Satanic Islam” rhetoric may not be everyone’s cup of tea. But should he be facing prison for it? Conservative leaders’ ridiculous rhetoric that Islam State isn’t Islamic is surely more damaging to the future of the West

At 78 years of age, Pastor James McConnell is being treated for both cancer and diabetes. He faces six months in a Belfast prison for a sermon delivered to his church in May last year.

As the fate of indigenous Christians across Syria and Iraq played on the minds of his flock the Evangelical minister took to his lectern in Northern Ireland to address the exterminations being carried out by the soon to be declared Islamic State.

“Today we see powerful evidence,” he began, “that more and more Muslims are putting the Quran’s hatred of Jews and Christians alike into practice.” As always, McConnell’s remarks at the Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle were also streamed online.

He then delivered the sort of rhetoric, for which Ulster churchmen are renowned. “Islam is heathen,” he declared. “Islam is Satanic. Islam is a doctrine spawned in Hell.”

Within a month, McConnell was being questioned under the provisions of the Communications Act (2003) for causing a video deemed “grossly offensive” to be put on the internet.

It is axiomatic to suggest that if the UN issues a report it will be anti-Israel. Last week a report was issued drawing a false moral equivalence between a terror group – Hamas – and a democracy in which Arabs are represented in the Knesset – Israel.

This libel that any Israeli response to violence, any retaliation for unprovoked rocket attacks, is reprehensible belongs in the book of shame. Nevertheless, the U.N is shameless. The report blames Israel for war crimes despite a statement from military leaders from four continents that “Israel not only met a reasonable standard of observance of the laws of armed conflict, but in many cases significantly exceeded that standard” during last summer’s war.

It was clear from the outset that Hamas was the aggressor having launched thousands of rockets into Israel before there was any military response. But that is merely part of the story.