RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/blogs/srdja-trifkovic/

RT: Ukraine’s economy is in a shambles and its people are suffering. Is it morally justified to turn the taps off?

Srdja Trifkovic: Talking about “moral justification,” let’s remember the first OPEC oil crisis in the winter of 1973-74, after the Yom Kippur War. It would have been rather funny for the Western countries which imported Arab oil to say, “We don’t recognize your prices. We are going to pay the old ones.”

Moral justification doesn’t come into it. What we are looking at is business like any other. If the Western countries are so terribly concerned about Ukraine’s economy and about the suffering of Ukrainian consumers, then of course they are more than welcome to re-export Russian gas, which is coming regularly through the North Stream pipeline to Germany, and I don’t think the Russians would mind. If they want to sell that gas to Ukraine on discounted prices, they are more than welcome to do so. But at the same time to say “it’s that horrible Russian bear using the gas weapon,” because the Russians are simply charging normal market prices, is ridiculous.

RT: President Putin has warned that supplies to Europe could be affected. If they are, what sort of further backlash we’ll see against Russia? We are seeing what’s happening in PACE [Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, where Russia’s voting rights are suspended].

ST: Forget about PACE. It’s an utterly useless talking shop, and Russia is better without it. I don’t think Putin meant to say that Russia would play with supplies to Europe via Ukraine, but that it is possible that the Ukrainians themselves will start playing games. After all, they did so with the ‘Orange’ regime in 2006, and even more seriously in 2009. So what Ukraine would need to do, in order to reassure both Russia and Europe, is to stop saying ridiculous things like “We don’t recognize the new pricing regime, we want to buy gas at discounted prices,” because that sounds like a veiled threat. Yes, they do have a weapon in the ability to turn off the pipeline, but at the same time it would be up to the Europeans to make their judgment on whom to blame.

Let’s face it: the Ukrainians can’t have it both ways, or three ways. It reminds one of one of the old Pushkin story about the goldfish and the ever-escalating demands. “We want a European Ukraine, we want Ukraine with the association agreement, Ukraine and NATO, Orange Ukraine, West Ukrainian Ukraine and in the end we want also a gas discount.” Come on…

RT: What about money? $16.6 billion are to be paid to Moscow. If Ukraine can’t even pay for discounted gas, how is it going to pay now when it’s virtually bankrupt?

http://bit.ly/1lWkXbQ

1. The Passover legacy constitutes the foundation of Judaism, and is therefore included in most Jewish blessings (“in memory of the Exodus”). Passover symbolizes the rejuvenation of nature and mankind, spiritually and physically, individually and collectively/nationally. Passover stipulates that human rejuvenation – just like the rejuvenation of nature – must be driven by memory/history/roots. Therefore, parents are instructed to educate their children about the lessons of Passover. Passover was an early – and much more successful – edition of the (19th century) Spring of Nations. It is celebrated in the spring, the bud of nature. The biblical scroll of Song of Songs, which highlights spring, is read during Passover. Spring, Aviv in Hebrew (אביב) consists of two Hebrew words: Father – אב – of 12 – יב – months/tribes. Spring is mentioned 3 times in the Torah, all in reference to the Exodus. Passover – which commemorates the creation of the Jewish nation – lasts seven days, just like the creation of the universe.

2. Passover is the oldest Jewish national liberation holiday, highlighting the comprehensive nature of Judaism: religion, nationality, culture/morality, language and history. Passover underlines the centrality of spiritual, physical, individual and national liberty and optimism, playing a critical role in preserving Judaism, Jews and the yearning to reconstruct the Jewish Homeland during the super-challenging 40 years in the desert and the 2,500 years of exiles, destruction, pogroms, the Holocaust, wars and terrorism.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Column-one-Forgetting-freedom-at-Passover-348232

It is my holiday prayer that on the night of the seder US Jewish leaders will remember that Passover is not about eating matza. It is about the price of freedom, and why that price is worth paying.

Passover, which begins on Monday night, is the festival of freedom.

The holiday reminds us of the brutal enslavement of the Jews by Pharaoh and the Egyptians. We recall their midnight flight from Egypt, pursued by the mighty Egyptian army, and God’s miraculous rescue of the Jews at the shores of the Red Sea. We remember how Moses led them for 40 years in the desert, and taught them what it means to be a nation, and what it means to be free.

We repeat the story of enslavement, flight, redemption and freedom each year at Passover, because our sages wanted to ensure that we never forget the value of freedom, and remain vigilant in our fight for it. In Israel, where our freedom is physically threatened, most Jews understand and live by the lessons of Passover.

But something is happening to the Jews in America.

More and more, every day we see American Jews embracing intellectual bondage. We see American Jewish leaders embracing the intolerant, who seek to constrain freedom, and shunning those who fight for freedom and the rights of Jews and other threatened peoples and groups.

To a large degree, this rejection of the lessons of the Exodus among the American Jewish community reflects the growing intolerance and tyranny of the political Left, to which most American Jews pledge their allegiance.

With increasing frequency, leftist groups and leaders in the US are openly acting to deny freedom of expression to their political and ideological foes, and to destroy the lives of people who oppose their dogma.

For instance, last week we saw the growing tyranny of gay activists. Under assault from homosexual thought police, the Mozilla Corporation of Firefox browser fame fired its CEO Brendan Eich because he once contributed $1,000 to a campaign to block the legalization of homosexual marriage in California.

Eich’s firing was only the latest assault by gay rights bullies on private citizens who oppose their goals.

The aim of these assaults is to silence all opposition to their agenda using the tools of social ostracism and intellectual terror.

Young Americans now embrace intellectual and social tyranny in the name of “liberal” values. In an op-ed in The Harvard Crimson, undergraduate Sandra Korn celebrated the eclipse of academic freedom in favor of what she called “justice.” Korn called for censoring conservative voices for their “offensive” views.

She also embraced the anti-Jewish hate movement popularly known as BDS (boycotts, divestments and sanctions of the Jewish state) as a good way to promote “justice” at the expense of freedom.

In Korn’s conflation of conservative voices with Zionist voices and insistence on delegitimizing and silencing both due to the “offense” they cause to “right thinking” thought enforcers like herself we see the central role that Jew hatred and the denial of Jewish freedom plays in the new wave of mass rejection of reason in favor of passions and hatred.

Sadly, many parts of the organized American Jewish community have embraced leftist tyranny and discrimination.

In 2008, the New York UJA-Federation teamed up with the Jewish Council on Public Affairs and forced the Council of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations to disinvite then-US vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin from addressing a rally opposing then Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad while he addressed the UN General Assembly.

To ensure that Palin would be denied the right to speak, the New York UJA-Federation and the JCPA threatened that her appearance would jeopardize the tax exempt status of the Conference of Presidents and other major Jewish organizations.

It may very well be that this threat was the first instance of leftists threatening prejudicial IRS investigations against their political foes as a means of ensuring obedience to their agenda.

The Palin affair was a rarity in the community. This isn’t because voices of staunch Zionists are usually accepted. Rather it is because such voices are ignored and shunned as a general practice by the major American Jewish organizations, in New York and elsewhere.

Palin’s invitation was an oversight.

While fervent Zionists are silenced, post-Zionists and anti-Zionists are legitimized and staunchly defended.

Six years after Palin was brutally disinvited, in the name of cultivating a “wide tent,” the same New York UJA-Federation and JCPA invited anti-Israel organizations that support the boycott of Jewish Israeli businesses to take part in the annual pro-Israel parade.

http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/

I had planned to begin this column with: Were I fortunate enough to meet her, and provided her security detail didn’t pounce on me and wrestle me to the ground, I would greet her by taking her hand and kissing it. It’s not often I get to meet a real princess, someone of the stature of Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Brandeis University decided to snub Ayaan Hirsi Ali by withdrawing a promised honorary degree and disinviting her from delivering a commencement address. Since “honor” is virtue in visible action (and not some ethereal glow enveloping a person or institution), Brandeis made the dishonorable choice of placing importance on what a terrorist-linked organization said about Hirsi Ali and by cowering in the face of real or imagined Muslim anger over the woman’s record of criticizing Islam, and, in this instance, her role in producing and appearing in a Clarion Project film, Honor Diaries.

Brandeis snubbed Hirsi Ali; others just wished to silence her. Why do these parties wish to silence her? Because they don’t want anyone else to know what Islam is all about. That’s called censorship, or thought control.

Why did Brandeis cave? Primarily, for fear of retribution by Muslims, for fear it would be called “Islamophobic” or endorsing “Islamophobia.” Secondly, it caved at the behest of an alleged “civil liberties” organization, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Hamas-linked organization that is basically a business-suited front for the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic organizations (ICNA, ISNA, MPAC, MSA, etc., aside from the Saudi lobbies). Ibrahim “the Howler” Hooper is its glib, taqiyya-yadda-yadda spokesman. Taqiyya, for those unfamiliar with the term, is the Muslim practice of saying one thing in English, and laughing up one’s sleeve when the gullible press has packed up its cameras and Ipads and left the room.

Brandeis’ Surrender to the Brotherhood on Ayaan Hirsi Ali — on The Glazov Gang. Scholar of Islam, David Wood, takes us behind the scenes of a university’s shameless surrender to Sharia. http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/jamie-glazov/brandeis-surrender-to-the-brotherhood-on-ayaan-hirsi-ali-on-the-glazov-gang/

AN UNBIASED, NON PARTISAN LISTING APPEARS AT FAMILY SECURITY MATTERS: http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/georgia-2014-candidates-for-congress-where-they-stand

This is my list which includes the ratings of incumbents and candidates with their rating by the ARAB AMERICAN INSTITUTE (AAI)….which indicates their votes on the Arab/Israel issues. Please note the majority of the Republicans have a very strong pro-Israel position.

Filing Deadline (Major Parties): March 7, 2014 Filing is complete

State Primary: May 20, 2014

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 (**).

Senator Johnny Isakson (R) Next Election in 2016.

Senator Saxby Chambliss (R ) is retiring in 2014

Vying for his seat:

Phil Gingrey M.D. (R) –Challenger Currently serves as U.S.Congressman District 11 http://gingrey.house.gov/

http://www.ontheissues.org/GA/Phil_Gingrey.htm **

http://gingrey.com/

Rated -5 by AAI, indicating a anti-Arab anti-Palestine voting record. (May 2012)

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

HEALTHCARE

President Obama’s takeover of America’s health care system has been a disaster from day one. Hard-working men and women here in the state of Georgia have seen their existing plans canceled and face premium rates increases as high as 198 percent. As a doctor and as an individual who has taken the Hippocratic oath, this is unacceptable. It is time for Republicans in Washington to stop talking about how they want to repeal and defund Obamacare, and stand up and lead the fight to do it. I intend to do just that.

IMMIGRATION
Illegal immigration is threatening the very fabric of our nation. Liberal politicians on both sides of the aisle fail to grasp just how prevalent this problem is and its ultimate cost to our society. We must start by securing our borders and denying anyone who comes to our country illegally amnesty. I also believe we must insist that immigrants learn to speak English so we can continue to work together using our English language.

ENERGY

Achieving energy independence is paramount to restoring economic prosperity and ensuring national security. We must remove the regulatory handcuffs on energy producers, allow states more control of their resources, and fast-track drilling permits. An “all-of-the-above” energy approach to developing traditional and emerging energy sources will help create jobs and lower prices at the pump. Unlike Obama, who favors taxpayer-funded disasters like Solyndra to privately-funded projects like the Keystone XL Pipeline, I don’t believe the government should pick winners and losers.

Paul Broun M.D. (R) –Challenger

http://www.paulbroun.com/

http://broun.house.gov/

http://www.ontheissues.org/GA/Paul_Broun.htm **

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

http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2014/04/10/mainstream-u-s-muslim-jurists-association-sanctions-female-genital-mutilation/

Mainstream U.S. Muslim Jurists Association Sanctions Female Genital Mutilation

The Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America’s (AMJA’s) mission statement maintains the organization was,

…founded to provide guidance for Muslims living in North America…AMJA is a religious organization that does not exploit religion to achieve any political ends, but instead provides practical solutions within the guidelines of Islam and the nation’s laws to the various challenges experienced by Muslim communities…

A report in The Muslim Observer published October 21, 2010 highlighting AMJA’s “seventh annual American conference of imams,” confirmed that the organization is accepted as such by the mainstream American Muslim community. AMJA and its “training” conference for American imams were described in these banal terms:

The organization AMJA (Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America) has a list of scholars associated with it which stretches from Al-Azhar University to Virginia’s Open University, and back across the ocean to the professors at Saudi universities. Its website, amjaonline.com, provides fatawa on many issues and promises 24-hour access to scholars who can give legal opinions on the issues people face. AMJA focuses on providing fatwas to Americans, and believes it is able to provide culturally appropriate fatwas although many of their scholars are not American–because they have some American scholars and because of the technological ties that bind AMJA’s American scholars with those abroad. AMJA just had, in Houston, its seventh annual American conference of imams, and two local Michigan imams attended, namely Imam Musa of Bloomfield’s Muslim Unity Center, and Imam Ali of MCWS. Mr. Sadiqul Hassan of AMJA explained that “the event was the 7th annual imam workshop…” Mr. Hassan said that AMJA is “a fiqh council basically,” with “scholars who live abroad and inside the US; we have experts in different fields to educate about life in the US–fatawa are based on life in the US.”

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/obama-administration-center-of-gravity-in-a-corrupt-political-media-culture?f=puball

Ambrose Bierce, a 19th century political satirist, once described Washington D.C. as:

“a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles and the conduct of public affairs for private advantage.”

Today few American institutions remain untouched by political malfeasance.

The United States is heading for a financial meltdown. Projected government spending rates over the next twenty-five years will drive federal debt to unsustainable levels from 50% of Gross Domestic Product in 2010 to 101% and 195% of GDP for 2021 and 2036, respectively. By 2036 every American citizen will own $135,547 in U.S. Government debt compared to $36,267 today.

The American military has been politicized by submitting to the agenda of radical Islam, attempting to suppress free speech and undermining public trust by allowing active duty personnel in uniform to engage in partisan politics through their participation in a gay pride parade.

Republican congressional leaders, particularly Senator John McCain and House Speaker John Boehner, endanger national security by refusing to probe Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the Obama Administration and condemning those who legitimately request such an investigation.

http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/obama-admin-fighting-terrorism-but-supporting-terrorists/

News recently emerged that “the Obama administration is imposing sanctions on an Egypt-based group that has claimed responsibility for attacks against Egyptian officials, Israeli interests and foreign tourists in Cairo and the Sinai peninsula. The State Department said Wednesday [4/9/14] it has designated Ansar Bayt al-Muqadis a ‘foreign terrorist organization.’”

While ostensibly a laudable move, some—many in Egypt—think this announcement is a ruse to portray the Obama administration as committed to combating terrorism, even as it supports the head of the terrorist-snake, the Muslim Brotherhood.

For instance, according to Mustafa Zayid, the Coordinator of the Sufi Coalition Forces in Egypt, “The expectation was for the United States of America to announce its designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization—as opposed to Ansar Bayt al-Muqadis, which takes its lead from it [Brotherhood].”

The Sufi leader further added in published comments to Watan “that Ansar Bayt al-Muqadis is a pseudonym for the terrorist Brotherhood organization, clarifying that what the U.S. State Department did was one of the administration’s tricks to deceive the world, mocking it into believing that the U.S. is combatting terrorism.”

He further added that “the U.S. supports the Muslim Brotherhood and sponsors its terrorist activities throughout Egypt.”

Nor is the Sufi the only one making such charges. According to Nabil Na’im, a Salafi, former member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and confidante of al-Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri, Ansar Bayt al-Muqadis is funded by Khairat al-Shatter, the currently imprisoned, multi-millionaire Brotherhood leader.

Of note is the fact that, although al-Shatter was never part of the Morsi government, U.S. diplomats often met with him, including Ambassador Anne Patterson and Sen. John McCain.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=8045

After U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s anti-Israel “poof speech” on Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — and subsequent suggestion on Thursday by his spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, that progress was being made in the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians (a euphemism for additional, unreciprocated Israeli concessions) — it was a huge relief to be treated to some good news.

Since it is extremely demoralizing to have one’s government pressured into pandering to the Obama administration, it has become increasingly easy to sink into despair about the fate of the Jewish state. This leads to thoughts, aroused by the upcoming Passover holiday, that maybe we Israelites never really escaped Egyptian bondage, and that the only thing left of our yearning for Jerusalem is matzah-induced indigestion.

On Wednesday night, this sense of doom suddenly dissipated — poof! — by the successful launch of the Ofek 10 spy satellite into space.

The Ofek 10 is the latest in a long line of radar satellites developed in Israel. This one is equipped with even more advanced technology, which enables observation and imaging at any time of the day or night, and under any weather conditions. It is also quicker, more durable and less expensive than its predecessors, thanks to the know-how, hard work and cooperative efforts of hundreds of experts in the Defense Ministry, Israel Aircraft Industries, Israel Military Industries and other participants in the project.