RUTHFULLY YOURS

How did Jerusalem become so important to Muslims?

The importance of Jerusalem for Jews and Christians is beyond dispute,
since the connection of this city to Judaism and Christianity is part
of universal concepts about history and theology. However, when it
comes to modern politics, we hear over and over that Palestinians,
Arabs and Muslims demand that Jerusalem become the capital of the
future Palestinian state, owing to its holiness to Islam. The question
is how and when this city became holy to Muslims.

After Palestine was occupied by the Muslims, its capital was Ramle, 30
miles to the west of Jerusalem, signifying that Jerusalem meant
nothing to them.

Meet Jonathan Gruber, a professor at MIT and an architect of Obamacare. During a panel event last year about how the legislation passed, turning over a sixth of the U.S. economy to the government, Gruber admitted that the Obama administration went through “tortuous” measures to keep the facts about the legislation from the American people, including covering up the redistribution of wealth from the healthy to the sick in the legislation that Obamacare is in fact a tax. The video of his comments just recently surfaced ahead of the second open enrollment period for Obamacare at Healthcare.gov.

“You can’t do it political, you just literally cannot do it. Transparent financing and also transparent spending. I mean, this bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes the bill dies. Okay? So it’s written to do that,” Gruber said. “In terms of risk rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in, you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed. Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical to get for the thing to pass. Look, I wish Mark was right that we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not.
A few points. 1. Notice how lying to the American people is completely justified by Obama administration standards so long as the ends justify the means. Gruber would “rather have this law than not,” and therefore purposely lying about what the law actually is in order to get it passed is completely acceptable. regardless of the negative effects it has on the lives of Americans. 2. Lack of transparency might be a huge political advantage in the short term, but long term there are consequences from voters, which is exactly what we saw last week during the Democrat blood bath at every level of government across the country. 3. Insulting Americans as stupid and deceiving them is a really good way to lose your power on Capitol Hill, which is again exactly what we saw last week in the 2014 midterms. Twenty-eight Senators who voted for Obamacare are now out of the Senate for one reason or another. 4. Obamacare in its entirely was “sold” on lies. From the promise to keep your doctor to claims insurance rates would go down, not up — to hiding that the legislation was in fact a tax until of course it was necessary to argue it was a tax to save the legislation at the Supreme Court. Government bureaucrats promising an expansion of care knowing care under Obamacare would be limited, etc. Hell, even the official name for Obamacare, “The Affordable Care Act,” is a lie. Obamacare isn’t affordable. 5. The process through which Obamacare was shoved through and down the throats of the American people happened as a result of Harry Reid changing Senate rules and without the support of voters. The legislation didn’t receive a single Republican vote in the House or the Senate.

I showed my mother the headline about the stabbing. “A ‘settler’? Why did they call her a settler?”

I wanted my mother to come and see how absurd it is for the entire world – including virtually the entire Jewish world, and that includes most Jews who think of themselves as pro-Israel – to refer to the Jewish towns and communities beyond the 1949 Armistice Line as “settlements” in the “West Bank.”

But I never anticipated she would be at my side as we heard and saw, from a distance of just a few miles, a horrific terrorist attack.

This was the attempt by an Arab terrorist to run down and murder several Jews – any Jews, it didn’t matter who – with his car. When he failed to hit anyone, he jumped out of his car and began stabbing Jews who were just standing on the side of the road at a bus stop.

It happened yesterday, and by now most people who care about Israel have heard about Nov. 10, a day of rage, sadly one of many, a day of disparate attempts to murder as many Jews as possible. Attacks took place within the ’49 Armistice Lines and outside of them. It doesn’t matter, they want to kill us wherever we are.

One of the stabbing murders took place in Tel Aviv.

Just a few days ago one of my daughter’s friends, a young woman who is studying in Israel also this year, told us she really likes to go to Tel Aviv.

“Why?” I asked her.

“Because I never have that weight on my shoulder, wondering if there is going to be some horrible terrorist attack, like we have in Jerusalem.”

But now they’re everywhere.

The Case of Mohammed and Aisha — on The Glazov Gang
Scholar of Islam Louis Lionheart dissects one of the most controversial chapters in the Islamic narrative.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/the-case-of-mohammed-and-aisha-on-the-glazov-gang/

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/attkisson-cbs-intentionally-held-obama-soundbite-to-help-him-win-reelection?f=must_reads#ixzz3IfMI9xt3
Sunday on Fox News Channel’s “MediaBuzz,” investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson told the story of CBS executives intentionally hiding a clip from the day after the Benghazi attacks with President Barack Obama refusing to admit Benghazi was a terrorist attack.

Host Howard Kurtz asked, “Let’s talk about what happened with ’60 Minutes,’ the day after the Benghazi attacks with President Obama. and that sounded like — or some of that interview ended up not being used. after the second 2012 debate, it became a big issue whether or not the president had or had not referred to Benghazi attacks as terrorist attacks.”

During the 2012 presidential debate, Mitt Romney had said it took Obama 14 days to admit the attack was terrorism but Obama bulked saying he did that day, but when asked the next day he is seen refusing to give a terror motive saying, “Well, it’s too early to know exactly how this came about, what group was involved. but, obviously, it was an attack on Americans.”

Attkisson said, “Let me say that that exchange should have been pulled out immediately after the debate, which would have been very newsy at the time. It was exclusive to CBS. It would have to me proven Romney’s point against Obama. But that clip was kept secret.”

The news that President Obama has sent a secret letter to Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei––apparently promising concessions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for help in defeating ISIS–– is a depressing reminder of how after nearly 40 years our leaders have not understood the Iranian Revolution. During the hostage crisis of 1979, Jimmy Carter sent left-wing former Attorney General Ramsay Clark to Tehran with a letter anxiously assuring the Ayatollah Khomeini that America desired good relations “based upon equality, mutual respect and friendship.” Khomeini refused even to meet with the envoys.

Such obvious contempt for our “outreach” should have been illuminating, but the same mistakes have recurred over the past 4 decades. But Obama has been the most energetic suitor of the mullahs, sending 4 letters to Khamenei, none directly answered. In May of 2009 he sent a personal letter to Khamenei calling for “cooperation in regional and bilateral relations.” Khamenei’s answer in June was to initiate a brutal crackdown on Iranians protesting the rigged presidential election. Obama’s response was to remain silent about this oppression lest he irritate the thuggish mullahs, who blamed the protests on American “agents” anyway. Even Carter’s phrase “mutual respect” has been chanted like some diplomatic spell that will transform religious fanatics into good global citizens. In his notorious June 2009 Cairo “apology” speech, Obama assured Iran, “We are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect.” This latest letter repeats the same empty phrase.

But our president is nothing if not persistent. In October of 2009, it was revealed that Iran had failed to disclose a uranium enrichment facility in Qom. Obama commented on this obvious proof of Iran’s true intentions, “We remain committed to serious, meaningful engagement with Iran,” and promised that the “offer stands” of “greater international integration if [Iran] lives up to its obligations.” Iran answered by increasing the pace of enrichment, helping the insurgents in Iraq kill our troops, and facilitating the movement and communications of al Qaeda with other jihadists.

Indeed, every concession and failure to respond forcefully to Iranian intransigence and aggression confirm its belief that Iran is strong and America weak. As Khamenei has said, “The reason why we are stronger is that [America] retreats step by step in all the arenas [in] which we and the Americans have confronted each other. But we do not retreat. Rather, we move forward. This is a sign of our superiority over the Americans.”

The Democrats lost and no one is resigning. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi intend to stay on even after overseeing the largest political catastrophe for their party in decades. In six years, Pelosi went from a House majority of 257 seats to a current running total in the 180s. Harry Reid took a Senate majority and turned it into a minority and all he has to show for it are a lot of donations from out-of-state law firms.

Not only aren’t Harry and Nancy resigning, but they aren’t even taking any responsibility. Irresponsibility is the Democratic word of the day and the decade. Harry is blaming Barry. Barry is blaming Harry. No one is even paying attention to Nancy ever since she became irrelevant four years ago.

The Democrats don’t just preach irresponsibility and pander to the irresponsible. They are irresponsible.

Democrats often point to Congress’s low approval ratings as proof that the public doesn’t support the Republicans. They neglect to mention that its present low approval rating of 14 matches its low point of 14 under Pelosi and Reid’s Democratic majority. The last time Congress had an approval rating above 40, there were Republican majorities in the House and Senate.

It isn’t Republican obstructionism that keeps the approval ratings low. That’s just the narrative that the real Democratic obstructionists used once they lost their majority in order to give Obama sanction for unilateral rule. Now Senate and House Democrats have paid the price for the damage that they inflicted on their party by allowing Obama’s unilateral and incoherent policymaking to define them.

Obama “won” by locking in an opposition Congress that leaves him as the only significant elected member of his party. He has achieved what he sought all along by reducing his entire party to him. By completely isolating himself politically, Obama has eliminated any dissent from within his own party.

He has become a “Party of One.”

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “integrity” in part as “soundness of moral principle; the character of uncorrupted virtue, esp. in relation to truth and fair dealing; uprightness, honesty, sincerity.” This is basically what most of us have in mind when asked to define “integrity.” A man of “great integrity” is a man who is honest, forthright, and incorruptible. In the secular faith that is Americanism, George “I Cannot Tell a Lie” Washington is about as good an exemplar of the idea as one can conjure.

Then again, that’s what we’re supposed to say. It’s a bit like when pollsters ask people, “What is your biggest concern?” No one says, “The Chargers beat the spread this weekend” or “I think I got the clap from that waitress.” But surely that sort of thing is closer to the truth for most people. I live in Washington, and while lots of people say their biggest concern is “the deficit,” I have yet to meet anyone who has lost sleep over it. Regardless, certain answers are expected of us, and so people say things like “entitlement spending” or “the plight of the uninsured.” We say that because it’s the sort of thing we want to believe about ourselves. We want to believe that we’re good people.

That’s one of the interesting things about integrity, according to the moral philosophers (at least the good ones). Integrity in the moral sense isn’t defined simply by doing the right thing, but by wanting to do the right thing. Philosopher Harry Frankfurt laid out a hierarchy of desires. Every animal has the thought, “I want to have sex.” Many animals — mostly the better ones — might have something like the thought (or, if you want to be pedantic, the desire): “I want to reproduce.” Only humans think: “I want to marry a nice Jewish girl who’d make a good mother.” Badgers don’t think to themselves, “I must crush all of my enemies so I can rule supreme as the emperor of the North Woods and have my choice of the finest badger sows to copulate with.” It is the desire to have moral or immoral desires and the decision to act upon them that defines humanity at its best. Integrity is the measure — or at least one important measure — of how successful we are at acting on our desire to have the right desires.

People power and bureaucratic blunder ended the Berlin Wall 25 years ago

The world changed 25 years ago today, on November 9, 1989. If you were in Europe or even in the United States, you probably remember when you heard the news that the Berlin Wall had fallen. As stories go, few can match the intrigue and drama of the Berlin Wall. It stood 13 feet high and was supplemented by watchtowers, alarms, mines, trenches, dogs, and guards with machine guns. More than 100 people died trying to cross it. Imagine other great cities slashed through the middle: New York’s Manhattan at 42nd Street, say, or Paris at the Champs-Elysées.

The fall of the Wall marked freedom for the divided former capital of Germany. Within a year, Germany itself was reunited. Just over two years later, the Soviet Union dissolved, and countries from Estonia to Ukraine won their independence. How tragic that their status as free states should be in doubt on the 25th anniversary of the Wall’s fall.

But that doesn’t mean the celebration isn’t appropriate. One of the best events today was when 8,000 gently swaying white balloons, pegged to the ground and winding nine miles along the Wall’s route, were released as a symbol of liberation.

The irony is that the Wall’s opening actually came about through a bureaucratic blunder. On November 9, East German Politburo member Günther Schabowski mistakenly announced that East Germans would be allowed to cross into West Germany effective immediately. Thousands of people surged to the Berlin border and demanded their “right” of exit. The border guards, despite their intensive training, gave up.

You can see the thrilling moment when the first people spilled across the border at the seven-minute mark of this video:
As former National Review editor John O’Sullivan has noted, “Communism had failed to retain enough true believers who would murder on its behalf.”

America has just welcomed home two of its own, Kenneth Bae and Matthew Miller, both of whom had been thrown in the slammer while visiting North Korea, and sentenced there to years of hard labor for acts that Pyongyang’s regime deemed “hostile.” We can celebrate their safe return.

But it would be folly to celebrate the manner in which it was accomplished. To bring them home, U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper flew to North Korea, carrying what was reportedly a message from President Obama to North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Un. State Department officials have been telling the press that Clapper’s mission involved no quid pro quo. A news story in the Wall Street Journal carries the subhead: “U.S. Didn’t Give Anything to Secure Release [1].”

That’s absurd. The visit to North Korea by America’s intelligence chief was, in itself, a form of tribute, in which the U.S. superpower stooped to beg a favor from Pyongyang. It was a ransom. A payola for North Korea’s hostage politics.

North Korea is an aggressive totalitarian state, which the U.S. — quite rightly — has never dignified with formal diplomatic ties and recognition. When high-ranking U.S. officials — or even former officials — go to Pyongyang to ask for something, they are supplicants. That is a concession to North Korea, all by itself, and in that spirit Pyongyang has long sought ways to procure visits by high-ranking American officials — or even former officials. That does not mean that North Korea’s regime harbors a latent affection for Americans. It means that Pyongyang benefits when high-ranking Americans are cast in the position of paying tribute.

Thus did North Korea’s previous tyrant, Kim Jong Il, back in 2000, demand a visit from President Bill Clinton as the price of a potential missile deal (Clinton did not go, Madeleine Albright and Wendy Sherman went instead [2]). Thus in 2009 did Kim again demand a visit from Bill Clinton (that time, Clinton went) as the preferred emissary to come to Pyongyang to pick up two American employees of former Vice President Al Gore’s Current TV station, Euna Lee and Laura Ling — who had been so foolish as wander across the border from China into North Korea, where they were arrested and sentenced to 12 years at hard labor. Clinton’s visit was the visible price of their “pardon” by Kim.