RUTHFULLY YOURS

The importance of Cicero in Western thought cannot be underestimated. According to Garrett Lysford, the “American Republic is hardly a new idea and is in fact a mere innovation of a far more ancient political system: The Roman Republic.” The Founders “especially revered Cicero for his ardent patriotism, poisonous contempt of demagogues, and extensive dialogues on philosophy and statecraft; for this reason his ideas figured prominently in the political theory undergirding the Constitution. John Adams especially held Cicero in the highest esteem”.

John Adams wrote “The Defence of the Constitutions of the United States of America” and the “text is replete with Ciceronian thought.” It can be stated that “the influence of Cicero through Adams ultimately shaped the structure of the American Constitution and brought about the birth of the American Republic.” In fact, the Founders were “steeped in the classical tradition” and “college entrance exams required knowledge of Cicero, Virgil, Homer and the Greek New Testament.”

If a Texas judge’s temporary stay against it is upheld, it could be headed to the Supreme Court.

Late Monday, a federal district judge in Texas issued a temporary injunction that bars the Obama administration from proceeding with the president’s unilateral decree of effective amnesty for millions of illegal aliens.

To be clear, the order issued by Judge Andrew Hanen of the U.S. court for the southern district of Texas in Brownsville is a temporary stay. It is not a ruling on the merits of the lawsuit brought by 26 states that claim they will suffer profound financial and other damage from the president’s lawless executive action — an action that Obama himself many times conceded would be lawless before he finally took it late last year.

Today, the Justice Department will seek an emergency order from the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to block Judge Hanen’s injunction. There is a good chance the Justice Department will succeed, at least temporarily. If the Fifth Circuit blocks the injunction, that, too, would not be a ruling on the merits of the case. It would just mean a return to the status quo that allows Obama to proceed with the implementation of his amnesty decree.

Never in the history of public relations have an institution and its representatives been so mismatched as at the current U.S. Department of State, where, tasked with articulating America’s position toward Middle East terror outfits, Russian aggression, and the world’s other vicissitudes, are Jen Psaki and Marie Harf, currently in the midst of an interminable Lucy-and-Ethel routine as Foggy Bottom’s spokesperson and deputy spokesperson, respectively. In an administration that has always given the distinct impression of being directed by second-year poli-sci majors from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Psaki and Harf are the only two under the impression that Legally Blonde was a documentary — one that they are apparently trying to re-create, with little success, at Foggy Bottom.

Start with Harf, who apparently fell back on government work after losing out on Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” anchor job. Talking to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews this week, she proclaimed that since “we cannot win this war by killing [Islamic State fighters] . . . we need in the medium- to longer-term to go after the root causes that lead people to join these groups, whether it’s lack of opportunity for jobs, whether . . .” Matthews interrupted before she could offer another possible motive, but we can assume it was not going to be “whether . . . they are Islamic fanatics who enjoy murdering in the name of the world’s second-largest religion.” No, clearly driving the recent spate of beheadings and burnings-alive is the absence of a neighborhood Gap store. That is, it seems, the wisdom bestowed by a master’s degree in foreign affairs at Mr. Jefferson’s University.

VIDEO: Biden at Extremism Summit: I Know Lots of Somali… Cab Drivers

URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2015/02/17/video-biden-at-extremism-summit-i-know-lots-of-somali-cab-drivers/

The White House’s Countering Violent Extremism summit opened in Washington today with criticism from both sides – those who thought the administration’s effort was “stigmatizing” Muslims, and those who objected to the conference’s wide breadth beyond radical Islam.

It wasn’t even clear who was participating in the summit, besides representatives from more than 60 countries, according to the White House. State Department press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Tuesday that she’d try to get a list.

On the Wednesday schedule: a late afternoon address from President Obama. On Thursday, Obama will speak again to official ministerial delegations. Secretary of State John Kerry will take center stage Thursday in “outlining the action agenda and moderating the third section which is about getting senior-level perspective on the changing threats of violent extremism, which comes in many forms,” a senior administration official said.

Not only the worst president in the history of our country, but the worst person to be president.

I can’t believe I’m actually asking if Obama is a Manchurian candidate. I am so NOT into conspiracy theories. For me, it was always Oswald with the Mannlicher-Carcano in the Texas School Book Depository. The only conspiracy I ever believed in was the Black Sox Scandal. And yet… and yet….

No, I still don’t believe it. It’s simply not true. Barack Obama is not the Manchurian candidate. That’s just an excuse. The only problem is…

He’s worse. He’s far worse. Barack Obama doesn’t have to be a Manchurian candidate. He can and is doing more damage without being one. A Manchurian candidate could be exposed (yes, and possibly could not). Barack Obama doesn’t need that. He and the media and the brainwashed public that elected him are destroying our country (and the West) all by themselves. They don’t need any secret conspirators in the back room. They’re all there in public view. And how.

It’s hard not to notice certain parallels between Saturday’s events in Copenhagen and events in Paris last January 7 and January 9.

In the latter case, first people were attacked (at the Charlie Hebdo offices) for having insulted Islam, and then “folks” (in President Obama’s memorable formulation) were attacked for being, well, folks. In the Copenhagen case, similarly, first Islam-insulters were attacked, and then…folks.

In both cases the “folks” were Jews—what a coincidence.

Of course, sarcasm aside, it wasn’t really a coincidence at all. For thousands of jihadists in the world and many millions of Muslims—certainly not all, but significant numbers—who support them, having been born a Jew is sufficient grounds to be killed. In an earlier iteration, this was known as Nazism.

Yet, while there is clearly an Islamic tradition of antisemitism rooted in the Koran, Jews and Jew-killing have generally not been an obsession in the Islamic world. What makes our era different, of course, is the existence of that intolerable outrage known as the state of Israel, which occupies one-sixth of 1 percent as much land as the Muslim Arab countries, and of course, an even tinier proportion of the total land mass of the Muslim countries.

Comparative religion is not a statistical exercise: it is meaningless to tally up the victims of Crusaders and compare them to the victims of Islam and quibble about which religion is more violent. Religious war of conquest, that is, jihad, has the same role in Islam that the Lord’s Supper has in Christianity. Christianity (and Judaism) have exercised violence in the past but never sacralized violence. That is unique to Islam among the self-styled Mosaic religions.

The great German-Jewish theologian Franz Rosenzweig argued that Islam was not a monotheistic religion, but a “parody” of one, a monistic paganism in which the old pagan gods were rolled up into a single deity. I have summarized Rosenzweig’s views in a number of locations, and taken the argument further in two essays published a decade ago (“Jihad, the Lord’s Supper, and Eternal Life” and “The Blood is the Life, Mr. Rumsfeld”). Below I offer some extracts from those essays, first published in Asia Times.

Even if the Israeli government will not cooperate, there are other avenues to obtain relevant information regarding the incidents you are investigating.

Everyone knows what will happen to a person in Gaza who speaks against Hamas. In addition, the shameless, almost pathological, mendacity of Hamas (and other Palestinian spokespersons) has been exposed over and over again.

I have heard you will be taking submissions of “evidence” by private telephone call.

It is impossible to understand what is happening on the region without reference to Hamas’ charter calling for the destruction of the State of Israel and the elimination of the Jewish people.

As you well know, the legal concept of proportionality does not involve a simplistic BBC/New York Times-style body count,

“A crime occurs if there is an intentional attack directed against civilians…or an attack is launched on a military objective in the knowledge that the incidental civilian injuries would be clearly excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage.” Luis Moreno-Ocampo, former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court

If Hamas has the resources to fund and arm a new “Liberation Army” consisting of 17,000 fighters, why does it continue to demand that the international community allocate billions of dollars for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip?

Hamas has turned the Gaza Strip into a huge training camp for jihadis and militiamen affiliated not only with it, but also with the Islamic State.

Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar declared that some of the boys would be recruited to fire mortars and rockets at Israel. And of course, he reiterated Hamas’s true goal, namely the destruction of Israel. When Hamas talks about “liberation,” it means it wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth and replace it with an Islamic state.

Obviously, the Palestinian Authority and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, do not see Hamas’s cynical exploitation and abuse of Palestinian children as a war crime.