RUTHFULLY YOURS

Nothing says Passover as clearly as Moses’ exhortation from the Book of Leviticus: “Proclaim liberty throughout the Land unto all the inhabitants thereof.”
That powerful phrase of highest nobility breathes through every thought in America’s twin founding papers, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

That’s what we’re all about. Or so it used to be. Times change. People change.

America’s anthem also takes its cue from that line in the Hebrew Bible. But…

Land of the free? Ask Dinesh D’Souza, the writer/filmmaker who faces jail-time for displeasing Obama.
Home of the brave? Ask women’s rights champion Ayaan Hirsi Ali who was honored and finally dishonored from Brandeis University because she displeased Radical Islam and its cohorts on the Left.

Logically, given Islamic sensitivities, the next step at Brandeis has to be the bonfire of the vanities: book burning. Surely there are plenty of books throughout our PC-afflicted universities that are objectionable and fail to meet Sharia standards.
Note that on whoring with terrorists, Brandeis is not alone. See here how a former president at Penn State came to a Halloween party dressed as a suicide bomber.

Without much effort you will find that brainless and gutless university leaders are the rule, not the exception. But Brandeis has become something special. Columns keep being written. Letters keep streaming in. People are fearful that “Brandeis” may be a snapshot of our future.
If Brandeis came to test America about its resolve to fight the forces of intolerance, hello? We lose.

The Case of PA Accession to International Conventionsnstitute for Contemporary Affairs, founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation

Derailing the Peace Process

The enthusiasm with which the international community appears to encourage and pamper the Palestinians, and to play along with their attempt to accede to international conventions, under the flawed illusion that there exists a sovereign state of Palestine, will only serve to encourage the Palestinian leadership in its refusal to return to a negotiating mode in order to reach a final status agreement with Israel, solving all the relevant and outstanding issues that can be solved only through negotiation. As such, the Palestinian leadership assumes that the international community will go along with any Palestinian demand, thereby obviating any need for negotiation and agreement. This international pampering of the Palestinians, and utter ignoring of international law and solemn commitments, as well as the massive prejudgment of issues that should remain on the negotiating table, in effect signals a serious turning point in the peace process and raises the question whether there is any hope for progress in its present format.

Book publisher Simon & Schuster releases new title and full description of the former Secretary of State’s upcoming book

Hillary Clinton’s upcoming memoir has an official title and book jacket

Simon & Schuster announced on Friday her tome will be titled, “Hard Choices,” and unveiled the cover which features the former Secretary of State in a black and white portrait with a serious Mona Lisa smile.

The book is due to hit bookstores June 10th as political insiders continue to speculate on the former first lady’s presidential ambitions.

Read the full description of the upcoming memoir:

“All of us face hard choices in our lives,” Hillary Rodham Clinton writes at the start of this personal chronicle of years at the center of world events. “Life is about making these choices, and how we handle them shapes the people we become.” In the aftermath of her 2008 presidential run, she expected to return to representing New York in the United States Senate. To her surprise, her former rival for the Democratic Party nomination, newly elected President Barack Obama, asked her to serve in his administration as Secretary of State. This memoir is the story of the four extraordinary and historic years that followed, and the hard choices that she and her colleagues confronted. Secretary Clinton and President Obama had to decide how to repair fractured alliances, wind down two wars, and address a global financial crisis. They faced a rising competitor in China, growing threats from Iran and North Korea, and revolutions across the Middle East. Along the way, they grappled with some of the toughest dilemmas of US foreign policy, especially the decision to send Americans into harm’s way, from Afghanistan to Libya to the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

By the end of her tenure, Secretary Clinton had visited 112 countries, traveled nearly one million miles, and gained a truly global perspective on many of the major trends reshaping the landscape of the twenty-first century, from economic inequality to climate change to revolutions in energy, communications, and health. Drawing on conversations with numerous leaders and experts, Secretary Clinton offers her views on what it will take for the United States to compete and thrive in an interdependent world. She makes a passionate case for human rights and the full participation in society of women , youth, and LGBT people. An astute eyewitness to decades of social change, she distinguishes the trendlines from the headlines and describes the progress occurring throughout the world, day after day.

Secretary Clinton’s descriptions of diplomatic conversations at the highest levels offer readers a master class in international relations, as does her analysis of how we can best use “smart power” to deliver security and prosperity in a rapidly changing world–one in which America remains the indispensable nation.

An undergraduate pro-life group at Yale University has been rejected for membership in the community service umbrella organization.

Choose Life at Yale (CLAY), spent the past year as a provisional member of Dwight Hall, and organization that calls itself the “Center of Public Service and Social Justice” and enjoys 501(c)(3) nonprofit status.

But the social justice organization voted Wednesday to deny CLAY full membership, which would entail access to Dwight Hall’s funds, meeting rooms, service vehicles, and many other resources. CLAY had one minute to present its case for membership, followed by no deliberations whatsoever. Immediately after the presentation, one representative from each of the 96 member organizations of Dwight Hall voted. The exact tally is unknown to those outside of Dwight Hall, but a majority of which voted against the pro-life group.

On the day before the vote, one of the student leaders of Dwight Hall wrote an op-ed in the Yale Daily News that asked fellow student leaders to reject CLAY’s petition for membership. Andre Manuel argued that the vote was not a matter of free speech but of a difference in opinion over the definition of “social justice.” According to Manuel, a group that denies reproductive rights cannot have a claim to an organization that promotes social justice.

While it is true that CLAY promotes pro-life activism. For instance, there are annual trips to the March for Life in Washington, D.C. CLAY recently hosted its first annual conference, with focuses on constitutional implications of abortion law, interfaith dialogue, and pro-life feminism.

But the group’s work is not limited to such activism. In recent years, with the opening of a nearby crisis pregnancy center, CLAY members have devoted themselves to volunteering and serving mothers in their time of material, emotional, and spiritual need.

In a heated exchange last week, Ibrahim Hooper – national spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) – issued a put up or shut up kind of challenge to his organization’s critics.

Hooper was pressed by Fox News host Megyn Kelly about CAIR’s record of failing to condemn terrorist groups like Hamas and Hizballah and other questionable positions. Hooper tried to deflect, blaming “Internet hate sites” for fueling “hate-filled smears against CAIR, which was founded in 1994.

“Please find something that CAIR has done or said in those 20 years that you find either extreme, objectionable, intolerant, whatever,” Hooper said.

Don’t mind if we do.

We’ve documented CAIR’s dubious record for years, noting in a 2009 report that the group responds to the very kind of specific examples Hooper demands to see by issuing ad hominem attacks against the messenger.

So, in a decidedly-less funny tribute to Late Show host David Letterman’s pending retirement, here are the IPT’s top 10 examples of “extreme, objectionable, intolerant, whatever” actions by CAIR. Together, they undermine CAIR’s credibility as a mainstream, reliable arbiter in the debate about terrorism, extremism and the treatment of Muslims in America:

You’ll have to provide your own drumroll.

10. Using civil rights instruction to scare the daylights out of Muslims and drive a wedge between the community and the FBI.

“Undistinguished, hawkish, corporate, opulent, for sale — Hillary Clinton is like a caricature of a Republican. As long as she can obscure that fact from the Democratic masses, from the anti-corporate doves whose social progressivism is far more strident than her own, she will be able to maintain the illusion of the impregnable frontrunner. But nothing lasts forever. Either Clinton will realize this soon, and spend out her days relaxing and cooing over her grandchild. Or she will realize it later, the hard way, sometime in 2016.”

Hillary Clinton may end up deciding that she wants to spend the 935 days until Election 2016 making corporate speeches and spoiling her grandchild. Recent events have exposed weaknesses in Clinton’s supposedly impregnable armor, gaps through which a Democratic or Republican challenger could damage, perhaps even defeat her. The bad headlines to which she has been subjected are enough to make anyone — anyone who isn’t a Clinton — think twice about running for president.

Look at the polls. This week’s Fox News poll has Clinton’s favorable rating at its lowest point in six years. She is at 49 percent favorable, 45 percent unfavorable — similar to her 47/46 favorable/unfavorable rating when she ended her last presidential campaign.

More important than the individual results, however, is the trend. Since leaving office as secretary of state, Clinton’s favorable rating has been on a downward trajectory. And this is before the rigors of a campaign, before a Biden or a Warren or an O’Malley or a Cuomo or a Schweitzer or a Sanders throws a punch or two, before Christie, Bush, Rubio, Walker, Jindal, Paul, Kasich, Ryan, Perry, and Pence go for the Cobra Clutch Bulldog. A shoo-in? So was The Undertaker.

Already Clinton is finding it difficult to articulate a rationale for her presidency, to pronounce a record of achievement on which to base a campaign. In an appearance this month at the Women in the World Summit, she had trouble naming her proudest accomplishment as secretary of state. It is a question that her strongest supporters, in her party and in the media, cannot answer. “Hillary Clinton Struggles to Define a Legacy in Progress,” read the headline in Thursday’s New York Times. “Mrs. Clinton is striking a delicate balance,” the paper reports, “when discussing a job that would be a critical credential in a presidential race.” The last secretary of state to become president was James Buchanan. He gave us the Civil War.

Clinton, the Times goes on, wants “credit for the parts of Mr. Obama’s foreign policy that have worked,” while “subtly distancing herself from the things that have not worked out.” Imagine that. “The things that have not worked out” compose quite a list. What Hillary Clinton wants is to have it all, to enjoy the fading residual glow of President Obama’s halo without having to answer for all of the messes he will leave behind. Her friends tell the Times that her upcoming memoir, for which she was reportedly paid $14 million, will provide an opportunity to “provide her view of WikiLeaks, Benghazi, and smaller missteps like the Russia reset button.” It will provide an opportunity, in other words, to offer a generous helping of self-serving and exculpatory spin.

The administration still wants civilian prosecution, but the Bureau’s leak investigation is legit.
It is no secret that the Obama administration believes Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other 9/11 plotters should be given a civilian criminal trial in New York City, not a military commission in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The president pulled the plug on military commissions at the start of his first term (only to reinstate them later). The Justice Department announced in 2009 that KSM & Co. would be tried in Manhattan, provoking vigorous protest by the public and Congress that prompted the administration to back down. Attorney General Holder has repeatedly said the case should be in civilian court — even claiming that if the transfer to Manhattan from the military justice system had gone according to his plan, the terrorists would already be convicted and facing the death penalty.

I haveresponded to the attorney general’s claims on other occasions (including observing how brazen it is for someone who has spent years — both in and out of government — undermining military commissions to complain about how long the commission is taking). I’ve also opined that the attorney general’s maneuvering of two al-Qaeda conspiracy cases into civilian court in Manhattan strategically benefited the defense lawyers at Gitmo: They can now argue that the government is violating fundamental fairness by trying their clients in military court while other defendants charged with the exact same conspiracy have enjoyed the enhanced due process of civilian prosecution.

But is the Justice Department trying to get the case to civilian court by willfully sabotaging the ongoing military commission?

That is the suspicion of a number of family members of those killed in the 9/11 atrocities. It has been stoked by the revelation this week that the FBI has been investigating the Gitmo defendants and their legal representatives for possible intelligence leaks — a revelation that appears to have taken the military prosecutors and the presiding judge by surprise, stoking fears that the commission trial process could be imperiled.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/idaho-2014-candidates-for-congress-where-they-stand

Idaho: 2014 Candidates for Congress – Where They Stand
by RUTH KING, 2014 CANDIDATES FOR CONGRESS
To see the actual voting records of all incumbents on other issues such as Foreign Policy, Second Amendment Issues, Homeland Security, and other issues as well as their rankings by special interest groups please use the links followed by two stars (**).

U.S. Senate

Mike Crapo (R) Next Election in 2016.

Jim Risch (R) Incumbent

http://www.senatorrisch.com/ http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/jim_risch.htm **

•Vigorous support for State of Israel against Hamas in Gaza. (Nov 2012)

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

HEALTHCARE I have been an outspoken critic of what is essentially a nationalization and Government takeover of the most personal and important aspects of our lives. I have fought against Obamacare from the start. Voting no at every opportunity and cosponsoring legislation to repeal it. – See more at: http://www.senatorrisch.com/issues/#sthash.xycfYXGX.dpuf

ECONOMY AND JOBS Jobs are created by the private sector and not by the government. In recent years the government has pursued policies that have frustrated the private sector hiring and job growth. Government regulations, higher taxes and Obamacare have cut the growth of economy and the expansion of small business. As Idaho’s 31st Governor I made my top priority to create quality jobs for hardworking Idaho families and as the ranking member on the Senate Small Business Committee I have fought successfully to change those policies. – See more at: http://www.senatorrisch.com/issues/#sthash.xycfYXGX.dpuf

ENERGY Risch Joins Bipartisan Group of Senators to Introduce Legislation to Approve the Keystone XL Pipeline WASHINGTON -U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho) today joined with Senators John Hoeven (R-N.D.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) in introducing bipartisan legislation to approve the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline following nearly five years of study and a fourth favorable State Department environmental review indicating “no significant impact to the environment.

The senators’ bill would approve the 1,700-mile, high-tech project under Congress’s authority enumerated in the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8. Hoeven last year secured an opinion from the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) confirming Congress’s constitutional authority to approve the project.

The Administration has delayed the project for more than four-and-a-half years, but now that Nebraska, the only state along the route with a concern has approved the path through their state, Hoeven and Baucus have been working cooperatively and with their respective party members to press the Administration to get both a timeline and favorable decision. Joining them as cosponsors on the bill are Senators Mark Begich (D-Alaska), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) Mary Landrieu (D-La.), David Vitter (R-La.), Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.).

Nels Mitchell (D) Challenger

http://www.nelsmitchellforidaho.com/

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

EDUCATION

We need to give our kids every opportunity to succeed – and that means starting at a young age and continuing our commitment from K-12 through college. We need to invest more in research and development at our colleges and universities and enable students to go to college, or receive technical training, and not get bogged down with loans they won’t be able to pay off.

WOMEN

I support fairness and equality in the workplace, and I support a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions. I also support the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Jim Risch voted against reauthorization of VAWA. I would have voted for it.
JOBS

Preserving and creating good jobs in Idaho will be my top priority. I will work to promote a stable financial sector, encourage investment in our transportation infrastructure, and ensure that Idaho businesses – including small businesses – can recruit top talent from a well-educated and well-trained work force here at home.

US CONGRESS

District 1

Raul Labrador (R) Incumbent

•Rated -2 by AAI, indicating a anti-Arab anti-Palestine voting record. (May 2012)

http://www.labrador4idaho.com/ http://labrador.house.gov/#dialog

http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Raul_Labrador.htm **

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

HEALTHCARE I strongly oppose the “Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act,” better known as “Obamacare,” and I’ve voted to repeal it. We should replace “Obamacare” with common-sense, market-based solutions, such as allowing people to purchase health insurance across state lines. By passing legislation rooted in the principles of choice and competition, we can lower health care costs, expand access, and improve the quality of care.

ENERGY I support policies to increase energy production in Idaho and make greater use of our natural resources. Right now, the federal government is blocking development of Idaho’s resources, depriving us one of the best ways to bolster our economy and create jobs. We need to empower Idaho’s communities and get government out of the way. As a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, I am fighting hard to pass legislation to do exactly that.

When it comes to energy, Idaho is well-positioned to be a leader in supplying America’s energy needs. We are best known for our vast network of emission-free hydroelectric plants, but we also have extensive geothermal resources, abundant carbon-neutral biomass, and growing wind and solar industries. We also have one of the leading research facilities for another form of clean energy – nuclear power – with the Idaho National Laboratory. These energy sources make Idaho a clean energy leader, and we should strengthen that leadership by spurring more research and production in the private sector.

I will continue to fight for legislation that removes federal roadblocks into energy development, in Idaho and across America. Affordable energy is critical to our economy, and making it more available should be one of our top priorities.

Supports construction of Keystone XL Pipeline without limiting amendments.

IMMIGRATION Our top priority for immigration reform should be securing our nation’s borders and enforcing the immigration laws that are already on the books. To do that, we must give our federal immigration enforcement officials the resources they need to enforce the laws we already have. We must also allow local law enforcement to work together with our federal immigration officers in order to provide the interior enforcement needs of our nation.

Beyond additional enforcement, reform must include modernizing our guest worker programs. Guest workers are vital to keep industries in America, and particularly in Idaho, competitive internationally. By providing a legal avenue for foreign workers to enter the United States, a guest worker program is critical to secure the border and eliminate illegal immigration.

The Senate comprehensive bill repeats the mistakes of the 1986 amnesty. I will oppose any legislation – such as the Senate bill – that is based on the philosophy of “legalization first, border security later.”

Shirley Ringo (D)Challenger

http://www.shirleyringo.com/

District 2

Mike Simpson (R) Incumbent

Rated -4 by AAI, indicating an anti-Arab anti-Palestine voting record. (May 2012)

http://www.simpsonforcongress.com/ http://www.ontheissues.org/house/mike_simpson.htm **

http://simpson.house.gov/

HOT BUTTON ISSUES
HEALTHCARE I voted against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) during the 111th Congress, legislation that represents the first step to a government takeover of the healthcare system. I am an original cosponsor of legislation to repeal the law. I have supported repeated efforts to repeal the law, and will continue working with my colleagues to repeal it and replace it with real market based reforms that will improve care and bring down cost.

ENERGY I strongly believe that our efforts to address this growing problem should be comprehensive in nature and that we should explore every opportunity to develop viable alternative energy sources. I strongly support a responsible, revitalized domestic nuclear energy program, and I am proud of the work done in Idaho to expanding the use of nuclear power to meet our nation’s growing energy needs. I also believe we must increase energy efficiency in the United States and encourage the development of renewable energy sources, while continuing to find domestic sources of traditional forms of energy, like oil and natural gas. Technology, incentives, and innovation can move our economy to a sustainable, independent energy source that will be a real solution to the challenges facing our nation. I believe that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has an important role to play in protecting public health, but like many Idahoans, I am deeply concerned that, under the Obama Administration, the EPA has drastically expanded its regulatory authority. The EPA is pumping out new regulations every week, without Congress’s consent, that impact nearly every facet of Americans’ lives-from whom you can hire to remodel your house to what kind of car you can drive. I am concerned that this Administration is using the EPA to force on the American people an extreme environmental agenda that will hurt our economy and push an unwelcomed government further into the lives of citizens.

As Chairman of the House Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, which oversees funding for the EPA, I am working to bring some common sense to our nation’s environmental policies. I intend to do oversight that shines some light on how the EPA has been spending the dramatic increases in funding that it has received in recent years and look at whether the regulations and actions coming out of the agencies are appropriate, given the regulatory authority provided by Congress. I strongly believe that government should be responsive to the people, not force on them policies that they don’t support.

Instead of creating a host of government mandates, I support using technology, incentives, and innovation to move our economy to a sustainable, independent energy source. I believe that to do so we must look at all the options, including renewable energy, nuclear energy, and domestic oil production.

Supports constructions of the KeystoneXLPipeline without limiting amendments.

IMMIGRATION As Congress considers comprehensive reform of our nation’s immigration system, I am deeply concerned over proposals that would grant amnesty to illegal immigrants in the United States. Giving amnesty to those who have broken our nation’s immigration laws would undermine the policies that were established to regulate our borders and provide an orderly process of evaluating applications for citizenship. Such action would send a terrible message to all those who have complied with immigration laws and are still waiting approval. In addition, by rewarding those who violate United States law, we jeopardize the security and safety of our nation and greatly diminish our ability to protect our own borders.

I will continue working to find the best ways to enforce our borders and set new guidelines for immigration procedures. I have cosponsored legislation to give law enforcement officers power to detain criminals who are also illegal immigrants, prohibit states from issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, expedite and fund the construction of a fence along our southern border, and prohibit access to Social Security by illegal immigrants.

Richard Stallings (D) Challenger

http://democracy.com/Richard-Stallings

Democrat Richard Stallings Mounts Congressional Bid: March 15, BOISE • Former U.S. Rep. Richard Stallings will once again seek Idaho’s 2nd Congressional District seat. Stallings held the post for four terms as a Democrat from 1984 to 1992. Following that, he ran for U.S. Senate but lost against Republican Dirk Kempthorne, a two-term mayor from Boise.

Stallings is the only Democrat to file for the second congressional race. He will face either GOP incumbent U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson or first-time runner Bryan Smith in the November general election, depending on the outcome of May’s GOP primary. Stallings said his experience working on both sides of the aisle will be appeal to moderates tired of Congress’ failure to move things forward.
Read more: Family Security Matters http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/idaho-2014-candidates-for-congress-where-they-stand#ixzz2zEpIhaaq
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/christianity-in-troubled-times

The vast ignorance of American history by far too many Americans is perhaps demonstrated in the failure to understand that it was the free practice of their interpretation of Christianity by the pilgrims that led to the creation of America. Plymouth colony, established in 1620, put the Atlantic Ocean between them and hostilities they had encountered in England.

To understand the role of religion in America, the First Amendment begins with a prohibition that the states shall make no law “respecting an establishment of religion…” The Founders wanted to make sure that neither the federal, nor state governments designated a particular religion as the only one. We can thank James Madison for that and the other enumerated freedoms.

Religious tolerance, which took some time to become fully established in the colonies and the new nation, has been a significant part of life in America—a nation that has always been predominantly Christian. Easter should remind us of that.

As 2012 came to a close, the Pew Research Religion and Public Life Project offered the following numbers regarding the global population of Christians. They were determined to be approximately 2.2 billion worldwide. That’s about one-in-three (32%).

About half of all Christians are Catholic (50%) while an estimated 37% belong to the Protestant tradition. The Orthodox Communion, including the Greek and Russian Orthodox, make up 12% of Christians while those who belong to other branches such as Mormons, Christian Scientists, and Jehovah Witnesses, make up about 1% of the global population.

Though Christianity took root in the Middle East, less than 1% of Christians are found these days either there or in North Africa. The largest concentration is in Europe (26%), followed closely by Latin American and the Caribbean (24%), and sub-Saharan Africa (24%). Most Christians (87%) live in countries where Christians are in the majority. Of the 232 countries and territories in the Pew study, 157 had majorities, but most had relatively small populations.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-next-obamacare-disasters

On Friday the president used the long-awaited resignation of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to again claim victory for his namesake health law. “She got it fixed, got the job done,” Obama said. Right.

Sorry, there is plenty of more bad news ahead.

It’s not called SebeliusCare, and she wasn’t to blame for most of its problems. The horrors were mostly baked into the law, with some made worse by the president’s dishonest hard sell to get unsuspecting Americans to sign up.
Premium defaults

Obama claimed Friday that 7.5 million people have enrolled in exchange coverage. In fact, perhaps 20 percent haven’t paid their first premium and therefore aren’t covered, according to estimates by RAND Corp. and Goldman Sachs.

The bigger question is how many will keep paying premiums. That’s got the American Medical Association, a chief ObamaCare booster, so worried that it’s sending warnings to its members.

Why the concern? First-time insurance purchasers, especially those living paycheck to paycheck, will be shocked by ObamaCare’s high deductibles, about $3,000 for the silver plan (the most commonly selected) and $5,000 for the bronze plan (the most affordable).

Basically, you’ll have to pay thousands out of pocket for appointments, tests and prescriptions until you reach your deductible.