RUTHFULLY YOURS

There they go again. Former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren writes a book – and a Wall Street Journal opinion piece – offering a devastating critique of Barack Obama’s treatment of Israel. And when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly asked by the U.S. Ambassador (according to an anonymous source in Haaretz) to publicly repudiate Oren, Bibi refuses.

Why is it that after 60 years of fairly connubial bliss, the U.S. and Israel now seem to be estranged lovers? Some put it down to personal antagonism between Obama and Netanyahu; or to public insults (an Obama advisor saying “Bibi is a chickens**t); or to Bibi’s un-White House sanctioned Congressional speech about Iran.

Representative Trey Gowdy (R., S.C.), the chairman of the special panel investigating the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, voiced a new level of frustration with his Democratic counterpart today.

Gowdy accused Representative Elijah Cummings of helping the Obama administration to hide Benghazi records. “Worse than inaction, you have enabled this failure to produce and contributed to a culture of intentional non-compliance and correspondingly incomplete public record [sic],” he wrote in a biting letter to the Maryland Democrat that accompanied the release of longtime Clinton loyalist Sidney Blumenthal’s emails to Hillary Clinton.

Meet DeRay McKesson, the public face of #BlackLivesMatter.

Hours after last week’s shooting in Charleston, S.C., Al Sharpton announced plans to travel to the Charleston peninsula. “The Rev” never showed. But DeRay did.

Meet DeRay McKesson: Bowdoin ’07, a former Minneapolis-area school administrator — and now the public face of “Black Lives Matter.” Imagine Al Sharpton, circa the Crown Heights riot, with access to Twitter. That’s DeRay.

When protests began in Ferguson, Mo., McKesson was still working in Minnesota as a human-resources executive with Minneapolis public schools. He would drive to St. Louis on the weekends and tweet — incessantly. He quickly became one of the most recognizable members of the demonstrations. With fellow protester Johnetta Elzie, he launched a newsletter, This Is the Movement, that pulled in 14,000 subscribers at its peak. In March he quit his job and moved to St. Louis permanently.

A new batch of e-mails released by the House Select Committee on Benghazi reveals that Cody Shearer — a man investigated by the State Department in the 1990s for falsely representing himself as an agent of the U.S. government while taking cash from a genocidal warlord — wrote at least one crucial intelligence memo on Libya that was sent directly to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

On March 6, 2011, longtime Clinton consigliere Sidney Blumenthal forwarded Clinton a memo written by Shearer on Mahmoud Jibril, then a relatively unknown figure in the Libyan opposition against Gaddafi. In it, Shearer urges the U.S. government to make immediate contact with the Libyan politician. Clinton met directly with Jibril within days of receiving the memo. He was named head of the interim Libyan government soon after.

The Confederate battle flag is far from the only worrisome symbol in America today.
“Symbols, flags, organizations, and phrases that emphasize racial difference and ethnic pride are growing fissures in the American mosaic.”

Everyone is weighing in on the horrific murders in Charleston and blaming the mindset of the mass murderer on wider social pathologies. After the airing of the racist crackpot ideas of the unhinged Dylann Roof, calls have gone out to ban the public flying of the battle flag of the Old Confederacy, which has also been incorporated in various forms in four state flags. Perhaps we should step back and eschew symbolism that separates us by race rather than unites us as fellow citizens.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has posted a list of “Women Against Islam” which targets twelve prominent conservative women who are known to speak out against radical Islam, calling them “the most hardline anti-Muslim women activists in America.” Judicial Watch described the list as “a starter kit” for jihadists to go after the women like Floyd Corkins went after the Family Research Council in August of 2012.

A few years ago a gunman received a 25-year prison sentence for carrying out the politically-motivated shooting of the Family Research Council (FRC) headquarters after admitting that he learned about the FRC from the SPLC “hate map.” Prosecutors called it an act of terrorism and recommended a 45-year sentence.

The SPLC routinely smears conservatives as “haters” for holding positions that are contrary to those of SPLC on social or political issues. Last February, for example, they put noted pediatric neurosurgeon and Republican candidate for president Dr. Ben Carson on an “extremist list” because of his pro-traditional marriage stance, opposition to ObamaCare, and support for a flat tax. They placed him alongside genuine extremists like the KKK, Neo-Nazis, and the Westboro Baptist Church and backed down only after a public outcry ensued.

Castrillo Matajudíos is ending almost 400 years of history, and changing its name to something less controversial

A Spanish town whose name translated as “Kill the Jews” has agreed to change its title, after a referendum to end almost 400 years of history.

Castrillo Matajudíos, an 11th century settlement half way between Madrid and the northern coast, announced that from now its name will be Castrillo Mota de Judíos – Jewish Hillock.

“Castrillo, by changing its name, is righting a historic wrong – which does not correspond neither to history nor to the wishes of the residents,” said Lorenzo Rodríguez, mayor of the town, at an event in May which brought Sefardi Jews from around the world to the town.

If the means by which Latvia and its neighbours regained their independence were illegitimate, as Putin supporters are loudly insisting, their continued independence is likewise illegitimate. Given any excuse, real or confected, who can doubt that Putin would stay his hand?
A few days ago, it was reported that Russian Duma members Evgeny Fedorov and Anton Roman had requested that Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika assess the legitimacy of the 1991 decision by the then-State Council of the USSR to recognise the independence of the Baltic States. In their letter, the duo claim the State Council, also created in 1991, was an illegitimate and unconstitutional body, and that its decisions caused “great damage to the sovereignty, security and defence capability of the country”. Moreover, these decisions were, “criminal acts and especially dangerous crimes against the state”.

Worth noting is that these two Duma members belong to Putin’s ruling United Russia Party. Were these two on some frolic of their own, independent of the powers that be? The West might hope that this is the case. However there has been so far no sign of any disavowal from the Kremlin. This may be yet another sign of Russia’s reversion to its Soviet past. After Ukraine is reabsorbed into the empire, the Baltic States will be next on the menu. After all, if the means by which the Baltic States regained their independence were illegitimate, their continued independence is likewise illegitimate. Implicitly, Russia has the right to terminate their independence as opportunity offers.

One obvious risk of a nuclear deal with Iran is that the mullahs will pocket Western concessions even as they work on their atomic capabilities in secret. That much was suggested this month by Gen. Michael Flynn, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who told Congress that “it is prudent to conclude that there are elements of Iran’s nuclear program that still remain hidden from view.”

But here’s a less obvious risk: The U.S. might find evidence that Iran is cheating but fail to act out of bureaucratic neglect—or a political desire to look the other way.

That’s the message of a report last month by the Government Accountability Office, which found that the State Department had failed to provide timely reports to Congress on the proliferation activities of Iran, North Korea and Syria. Instead of delivering reports every six months, as required by law, delays ranged from 22 months to three years.

There are still far too many Americans who do not perceive the terrifying Nazi-like intentions of Islamic jihadists either through their outright destruction of the infidel and/or the implementation of sharia law as Allah has ordained it to be.

The alphabet-soup-named groups’ ultimate goal of extermination of Jews, Christians and any others deemed infidels has still not penetrated the consciousness of the media or academia. And no matter how many ardent efforts are made to educate and raise awareness of the Islamists’ goals, people either ignore or minimize the dangers.

And, yet, like Churchill, there are those of us who feel a moral obligation to continue the clarion call and not bend, dhimmi-like, to the whims and wishes of those who deliberately abuse the freedoms of this country in order to abolish those very freedoms for the rest of us.