RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/371784/when-failure-success-victor-davis-hanson

Losing a job is freedom from job lock. A budget deficit larger than in any previous administration is austerity. A mean right-wing video caused the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi. Al-Qaeda was long ago washed up. The Muslim Brotherhood is secular. Jihad is a personal journey. Shooting people while screaming Allahu akbar! is workplace violence. Unaffordable higher premiums and deductibles are the result of an Affordable Care Act. Losing your doctor and your health-insurance plan prove you will never lose your doctor and your health-insurance plan — period! Being a constitutional lawyer means you know how to turn the IRS and the FCC on your enemies. Failure is success; lies are truth.

President Obama’s polls are creeping back up again. They do that every time the latest in the series of scandals — the IRS, AP, NSA, Benghazi, and Obamacare messes — recedes into the media memory hole. The once-outrageous IRS scandal was rebranded as psychodramatic journalists being outraged. The monitoring of AP reporters and of James Rosen is mostly “Stuff happens.” The NSA octopus was Bush’s creation. You can keep your doctor and your health plan — period — begat liberation from “job lock” and the ability to write poetry because you don’t have to work.

There will be more momentary outrages on the horizon, as a president who would fundamentally transform America continues to circumvent the Constitution to do it. The latest are the failed efforts of acting FCC director Mignon Clyburn — daughter of a Democratic stalwart, Representative James Clyburn. She dreamed about monitoring news outlets to ensure that they prove themselves correct in matters of race/class/gender thinking.

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2014/02/why_mrs_clintons_entire_history_matters.html We are about to be bombarded by the mercenaries of progressivism, who will harangue us to agree that all or part of Hillary Clinton’s past has no bearing on what kind of president she would be.  To a lesser degree, some have offered a variation on this theme, suggesting that when weighing Mrs. Clinton’s past, […]

http://pjmedia.com/blog/pentagon-budget-cuts-army-to-pre-wwii-strength-despite-more-volatile-world/?print=1

WASHINGTON — Stating that a postwar environment was the time to do some shrinking, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel unveiled a budget proposal Monday that reduces the Army to pre-World War II levels despite “a world that is growing more volatile, more unpredictable, and in some instances more threatening to the United States.”

“Our force structure and modernization recommendations are rooted in three realities: first, after Iraq and Afghanistan, we are no longer sizing the military to conduct long and large stability operations; second, we must maintain our technological edge over potential adversaries; and, third, the military must be ready and capable to respond quickly to all contingencies and decisively defeat any opponent should deterrence fail,” Hagel told reporters at the Pentagon today.

“Accordingly, our recommendations favor a smaller and more capable force, putting a premium on rapidly deployable, self-sustaining platforms that can defeat more technologically advanced adversaries.”

For the Air Force, Hagel said, “an emphasis on capability over capacity meant that we protected its key modernization programs, including the new bomber, the Joint Strike Fighter, and the new refueling tanker.”

“To fund these investments, the Air Force will reduce the number of tactical air squadrons including the entire A-10 fleet,” Hagel continued. “…The Air Force will slow the growth in its arsenal of armed unmanned systems that, while effective against insurgents and terrorists, cannot operate in the face of enemy aircraft and modern air defenses. Instead of increasing to a force of 65 around-the-clock combat air patrols of Predator and Reaper aircraft, the Air Force will grow to 55, still a significant increase.”

In the Navy, the proposed funding is enough to maintain 11 carrier strike groups, but the USS George Washington aircraft carrier would be retired if sequestration-level cuts were to be reimposed.

http://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2014/02/24/the-human-face-of-obamacare/?print=1 If you like your president, you can keep him. Period. But what if you don’t? Stephen Blackwood, the president of the fledging Ralston College in Savannah, Georgia, has a sad, infuriating piece about his mother’s experience with Obamacare this morning in the Wall Street Journal. [1] We’ve all heard stories — but not as […]

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2014/02/23/what-if-they-gave-a-review-of-your-life-and-you-had-to-come/?print=1

ditor’s Note: Click here for Part 1 of P. David Hornik’s new series: Near-Death Experiences—A New Take on Life, Part 1: Sam Parnia Explains Where the Field Is Leading. And click here to see his previous articles on the subject here: Do You Believe in Life After Death?

Out-of-body experiences, tunnels, bright lights, deceased relatives, a being of light—and life reviews. These are the most commonly reported elements of near-death experiences. They have been reported now for decades from all over the world, across cultures and religions. Of all of them, the life review may be the most difficult to imagine and “otherworldly.” Out-of-body experiences, encounters with dead people, mystical experiences of a deity—all these have long been on record outside of NDEs as well. The tunnel experience seems to have been represented in a painting by the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch over five hundred years ago. Life reviews, however, may be the most “exotic” compared to our familiar modes of perception. Dutch cardiologist and NDE researcher Pim van Lommel quotes this life-review account of one of his patients:

All of my life up till the present seemed to be placed before me in a kind of panoramic, three-dimensional review, and each event seemed to be accompanied by a consciousness of good or evil or with an insight into cause or effect. Not only did I perceive everything from my own viewpoint, but I also knew the thoughts of everyone involved in the event, as if I had their thoughts within me. This meant that I perceived not only what I had done or thought, but even in what way it had influenced others, as if I saw things with all-seeing eyes…. Looking back, I cannot say how long this life review…lasted, it may have been long, for every subject came up, but at the same time it seemed just a fraction of a second, because I perceived it all at the same moment. Time and distance seemed not to exist….

This is only one account, but anyone who has delved even modestly into the NDE literature as I have knows there are numerous other, remarkably similar ones.

Life reviews, then, bear some resemblance to traditional religious conceptions of a judgment, a moral assessment, in the afterlife. They differ from those conceptions, though, in that—while many people report a compassionate presence of an otherworldly being during the review—no judgment occurs, except by the person.

As in this case, from the NDE of a woman during an emergency operation:

http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/meet-the-richerals/?print=1

The new millennium has also given us a new American profile — the hip richeral. Richerals are, of course, well off. But they are even more cool and liberal. The two facts are not so much incompatible, as complementary.

For some, big money allows three things: wealth’s cocoon enables you to dream safely about utopia [1] rather than being laid off and broke; it exempts you from worrying much about the high taxes [2] and regulations [3] needed to pay for your redistributionist fantasy agendas; and it gives you the influence, capital, and opportunities to flee from the messy ramifications of your own ideology.

The other side of being liberal is just as important for the richerals. Guilt is a primordial human emotion — usually in civilization’s history assuaged by religion and the accompanying fear of damnation in the hereafter. But richerals are more likely than average to be either agnostic or atheistic. Yet that fact does not mean that they feel any less guilty about unfairness and inequality. So they do have deities of sorts — a hip Olympic pantheon of race, class, gender, and environmental gods. Their own privilege — be it the techie lifestyle of the Silicon Valley, the Ivy League quad, the Malibu gated estate, the Montana getaway, the Upper West Side ambiance — even under Obama just cannot yet be extended to everyone.

And that’s the rub, isn’t it? How can a richeral be redistributionist and statist when such ideologies are targeted at one’s own cherished lifestyle? So penance, medieval exemption, and confessions [4] step in as civilization’s age-old remedies for the guilt of such a pious sinner.

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/if-the-bds-wins-the-jews-are-next/

If the BDS movement achieves its goal of normalising a blanket boycott of Israel, its next target will be the Jews. That, if nothing else, is why Jews in the Diaspora must get a grip and battle the demonisation of Israel before it endangers their own wellbeing.

The odious BDS aims for the “euthanasia” of the Jewish state, in the words of founder Omar Barghouti. But it also directly threatens Jews worldwide who refuse to jump aboard the anti-Israel bandwagon: not just Zionists, but those who refuse to convert to anti-Zionism. Jews who believe they can afford to let a boycott of Israel become the norm, while still freely retaining personal ties to Israel, are embracing an illusion. It could soon be rudely shattered.

Norms do not develop at a steady, gradual pace: they build up, and if they don’t lose steam, eventually reach a tipping-point – and are universalised rather suddenly. At some point, social disapproval becomes strong enough to forge a new consensus: once a critical mass of people conforms to a certain behaviour or adopts certain attitudes, this outlook becomes not only normal but socially required. The flip-side is that non-conformity with the norm becomes taboo. The boycott, therefore, will hit suddenly if it becomes mainstream; it is already gaining serious traction in Western cultural establishments.

There are three distinct reasons why the boycott of Israel threatens all Jews directly if they refuse to throw in their lot with the boycotters.

First, Jews risk becoming demonised for retaining ties to Israel after cutting off ties becomes the norm.

http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2014/02/federal-fly-swatters-pit-bulls-vs.html
It may come as a surprise to many, but the Library of Congress has its own SWAT team, 85 bodies strong. Learning this elicited a chuckle from me and a recollection of a classic Seinfeld shtick: the Library Cop. It otherwise isn’t a laughing matter. A Library of Congress SWAT force showing up outside your door, to paraphrase Mr. Bookman’s closing line, would be worse than a pit bull sicced on a poodle.

That’s because the federal government regards all non-federal employees as poodles to harass, throw down to the floor, cuff, arrest, and cart off to an unknown future or even fate. And if you resist, you will be shot. If you successfully resist by shooting, in legitimate retaliation against the initiation of force against you, one or more members of a federal SWAT force, and survive the ensuing fusillade, you will be charged with assault or murder. Your home or office will be ransacked. Your computer and private papers will be confiscated, likely never returned, and if returned, then damaged. Damages to your property will not be compensated. No one on the SWAT team will be charged with anything, except perhaps poor marksmanship or maybe using foul language. More likely promotions in grade and pay will be in line.

If you’re lucky, and the authorities admit a mistaken identity, or find no evidence of what they were searching for – with or without a search or arrest warrant – you may sue, and incur the costs and stress of fighting a government that has unlimited financial resources to fight back in court.

This is the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) at work. Not for you. But against you. You’re paying for it.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4193/islamophobia-agenda

Islamists have been successful in building the Islamophobia industry: it diverts attention from activities they would probably prefer not be noticed, such as promoting sharia law in the West, stealth jihad, and a push to implement a global Islamic caliphate, among many others.

What is ironic and hypocritical about the Islamophobia hype from members of the OIC is their double-standards when it comes to minorities in their own lands. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, Mauritania, Nigeria, Sudan, Bangladesh, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, the Palestinian Authority and Iran are among OIC members that have appalling human rights violations against minorities.

Islamophobia has almost become a fad for a certain group of academics and Muslims across North America. 2013 was a bumper year for Islamophobia conferences in America and abroad.

“Islam, Political Islam, and Islamophobia: an International Conference” was held at Indiana University, Bloomington on March 29-30, 2013.
“Islam, Politics and Islamophobia,” an international conference of the Ottoman and Modern Turkish Studies Chair, took place at the Indiana Memorial Union Faculty.

The European Commission asked France to avoid new tax hikes, and repeated that France had to bring its public deficit down. Soon France will have to do what needs to be done — cut taxes and spending; reform the job market and the welfare system, and give entrepreneurs breathing space — or the consequences could be worse than the strikes and scenes of insurrection.

French President François Hollande was all smiles during his three-day state visit in the United States. Now he is back home, and he does not smile anymore. He cannot escape the reality that France is in extremely bad shape.

On January 26, thousands of people marched through Paris, chanting “Jews, France does not belong to you.” Some demonstrators were members of the extreme right. Most of them belonged to the so-called “black white Arab France”: young Muslims coming from suburban slums, leftist students and urban professionals imbued with politically correct ideas. Anti-Semitism in France has become so commonplace that it is now a part of the cultural landscape. The event was called “Day of Wrath,” a truism, considering that wrath now runs rampant through French society.

Police charge a crowd of rioters at the January 26 “Day of Wrath” protests. (Image source: YouTube “Jour de Colère” screenshot)

On February 2, another protest took place. It brought together a different group of people: Catholic conservatives wanting to defend the traditional family and reaffirm their opposition to gay marriage.

A few weeks earlier, a rebellion against taxes on trucks using French roads mobilized crowds in Brittany’s main cities : the rebels wore red caps, the symbol of revolts in the region since an anti-tax uprising in 1675. Some of them were workers furious at factory closures, others were Breton separatists. Several toll booths and cameras designed to monitor the trucks were destroyed. Manure was dumped at official buildings.

Although no large-scale riot has occurred since last fall, every weekend, dozens of cars are burned throughout the country, and violent attacks take place daily.

In October, a report prepared by the Ministry of the Interior spoke of a “widespread and multidimensional frustration” that had not yet crystallized, but could “ignite” anytime soon and lead to “sudden eruptions of fury” or even to a “full scale uprising.”

Surveys conducted by the government were recently published in the magazine Valeurs actuelles. They ​show that “frustration” is reaching an unprecedented level, and directed at a multitude of targets such as “European construction,” “globalization,” “capitalism,” “finance,” politics in general, and even democracy, which is rejected by more than 50% of the French. They report a sense of national decline (76% of the French think the country is “terminally ill”), and a growing xenophobic hatred against Muslims, as well as against Jews. They also report a strong desire to see a “strong person” emerge who would restore “order.” Twelve percent of respondents explicitly say they want a military dictatorship.

Various economists describe France as the “new sick man of Europe,” and they have good reasons to say so. In 2013, 62,000 businesses have closed their doors, and their employees have virtually no hope of finding a new job. Growth has been close to zero for almost a decade. The number of poor now exceeds 9,000,000, more than 15% of the population. The official unemployment rate is higher than 10%, and does not include 2,200,000 beneficiaries of the guaranteed minimum income (RSA) that any adult over twenty-five has the right to collect. Public spending accounts for 57% of GDP, an absolute record in the developed world. Compulsory levies are up to 46% of GDP and are the highest in Europe. Foreign investments fell 77% in 2013. The country’s debt is growing at an ever faster pace, and nothing for the moment seems able to stop a movement resembling a free fall.