RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/snowdens-hypocrisy-on-russia/2014/02/07/23c403c2-8f51-11e3-b227-12a45d109e03_story.html?utm_

Gabriel Schoenfeld is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and the author of “Necessary Secrets: National Security, the Media, and the Rule of Law.”

Edward Snowden’s removal of thousands, perhaps millions, of highly classified documents from the National Security Agency and his decision to turn them over to journalists for publication ignited a fierce debate about who and what he is. On one side are those who hail Snowden as a whistleblower, someone who, as the New York Times editorialized, “has done his country a great service.” Others regard him as a criminal or traitor. Neither this debate nor the public discussion of government secrecy and surveillance policies that Snowden’s actions sparked will be resolved anytime soon.

Snowden, meanwhile, says that his “mission’s already accomplished,” that he has given Americans a “say in how they are governed” and that he has succeeded in exposing the workings of what he has called the unbridled “surveillance state.”

But one must ask: Are Snowden’s actions in consonance with his words?

Snowden has taken sanctuary in Russia, a country that, when it was under communist control, epitomized the idea of a surveillance state, complete with a secret police force — the KGB — that worked assiduously to monitor and control the population. Today Russia is a quasi-democracy that has retained some features of its communist past. Over the past decade or so, under the tutelage of President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer, it has been sliding ever deeper back into authoritarianism.

That authoritarianism is maintained in part by a domestic surveillance system. Two intrepid Russian journalists, Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, explain in the fall 2013 issue of World Policy Journal how it works. They show that the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor organization to the KGB, has invested in technology that allows it to monitor telephone and Internet communications and to collect and store not just metadata — information about call destinations and durations — but also the content of communications. The Russian state uses that technology to engage in essentially unchecked surveillance of telephone calls, e-mail traffic, blogs, online bulletin boards and Web sites. Soldatov and Borogan conclude that over the past two years “the Kremlin has transformed Russia into a surveillance state — at a level that would have made the Soviet KGB . . . envious.”

http://spectator.org/print/57703 Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War By Robert Gates (Knopf, 618 pages, $35) Robert Gates’s memoir, Duty, bridges the gap between the Bush-era memoirs of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Tony Blair and the Obama era. Gates, perhaps the ultimate Washington insider, is the only defense secretary ever to be held over from one […]

http://bit.ly/1ixkIQx According to Winston Churchill, “an appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” The US Administration is leading the easing of economic sanctions against – and the legitimization of – the regime of Iran’s apocalyptic, almost-nuclear Ayatollahs and Mullahs, the allies of North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba and other anti-US […]

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

The American left has never had it this good. It has never had two terms of an unabashed and uncompromising leftist in the White House dedicated to its agenda functioning as a dictator without the military uniform, making and unmaking laws at a whim, siccing the IRS and Federal prosecutors on political enemies and transforming the country at a breathtaking pace.

Obama is what generations of the left have dreamed of and worked toward. This is the flicker of hopethey kept alive after JFK’s assassination, the Nixon years, Carter’s collapse and the long stretch of Reaganomics. This is what Bill Clinton robbed them of prematurely by gauging his actions against the polls instead of blasting full steam ahead regardless of what the public wanted.

The left finally has its Un-American tyranny. So why is it so angry?

Watch MSNBC or browse any left-wing site and you see a level of anger that would make you think that Al Gore had just conceded or Nixon had just won reelection. There’s more anger in the privileged circles of the left than in the political rearguard of the Tea Party.

That anger trickles from the top down. Obama’s interview with Bill O’Reilly was yet another opportunity for the most powerful man in the country to blame a vast right wing conspiracy. A day doesn’t pass without another email from Obama, his wife, Sandra Fluke or Joe Biden warning that without another five or ten dollar contribution, the “right” will take over America.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=7293

During an interfaith breakfast in Washington on Thursday, President Barack Obama made a point of thanking Secretary of State John Kerry “for his extraordinary passion and principled diplomacy that he’s brought to the cause of peace in the Middle East.”

This particular public display of affection was Obama’s response to a barrage of verbal attacks on Kerry this week from Israeli sources. The criticism followed a speech Kerry delivered last Saturday at the Munich Security Conference, in the course of which he issued a veiled threat. If the peace process fails, he said, the call for anti-Israel boycotts would intensify. In addition, he called Israel’s current prosperity and security “illusionary.”

Obama’s show of support for Kerry also came on the heels of the recent release of a satirical YouTube clip, produced by the Yesha Council and MyIsrael, in which Kerry is ridiculed for his ignorance and incompetence in relation to Israel and the Palestinians. This parody clearly struck a nerve. When asked about it during a press conference on Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, “We find [its] rhetoric unacceptable.”

As Kerry’s mouthpiece to the media, she ought to know about unacceptable rhetoric.

If anything characterizes her boss’s behavior, it is his pattern of placing the onus on Israel for reaching a peace deal with the Palestinian Authority. Each time he returns from a trip to the region empty-handed — due to unrealistic Palestinian demands — he warns Israel of the consequences it will suffer in the absence of an agreement, such as a third intifada and international boycotts, divestment and sanctions.

Then, when members of the Israeli government react negatively to his threats, he huffily denies all allegations and casts aspersions on anyone who dares doubt the sincerity of his support for Israel.

This pattern was on display during his interview on Wednesday with CNN’s Jake Tapper. “Israel needs to understand we will always stand by its security needs, but no one should distort what we’re doing or saying because they’re opposed to the peace process or don’t like two states or whatever,” he said. “And, you know, words — I have to tell you, my friend, I’ve been attacked before by people using real bullets, not words, and I am not going to be intimidated. I am not going to stand down with respect to President Obama’s commitment to trying to find peace in the Middle East.”

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304549504579320581530052114?mod=Opinion_newsreel_9 Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte had a will of steel and an unrelenting stubbornness not unlike that of her legendary brother-in-law. In the 1870s, a still-beautiful and distinguished old woman could be seen walking through the streets of Baltimore holding a red parasol against rain or sun, a splendid hat on her head, said to hold […]

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303942404579361421256273630?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop The nods to Russian culture and history in Friday’s opening Olympic ceremony are said to include ballet dancers, a fleet of ships under the command of Peter the Great, and current czar Vladimir Putin’s favorite folk rock band, Lubeh. Mr. Putin wanted the Sochi Games to be a showcase of modern Russia, and he […]

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/bruce-thornton/republicans-go-on-an-immigration-reform-bender/print/

Rather than twisting the political knife in the gaping wound that is Obamacare, House Republicans are off on a “comprehensive immigration reform” toot. The latest news has the Speaker putting off any action for now, and waiting until after the midterm elections in order not to anger the anti-amnesty base, and “to goose Latino turnout or to swing purple districts” in 2016, as political blogger Allahpundit put it. In other words, electoral timing rather than principle is determining what happens.

But principle, not to mention common sense, is what’s at stake here. Anyone proposing “comprehensive” anything after the debacle of Obamacare is delusional. Complex problems are not going to be solved with grandiose legislation that tries to politically please everybody. Nor are most sensible voters likely once again to play Charlie Brown to the Congressional Lucy jerking away the promised “enforcement triggers” and “border security” football after the de facto amnesty is already in place. We went through all that in 1986, when the same promises of employer checks of legal residency and beefed-up border security were broken, more than doubling the number of illegal immigrants from 5 million to 11 million today.

And please, let’s stop all the delusional dreams of Hispanic “natural conservatives” flocking to the GOP after the boon of amnesty is bestowed upon them. John McCain partnered with Teddy Kennedy in 2005 and 2007 to craft legislation to create a “path to citizenship,” and still got half as many Hispanic votes (31%) as Barack Obama did in 2008. By the way, McCain beat Mitt “self-deport” Romney by a whole 4 points with Hispanic voters. Voters vote their interests, and the interests of the majority of Hispanic voters are best served by the Democrats, as evidenced by the fact that 75% percent favor a “bigger government providing more services,” according to a Pew poll. That’s why the best a Republican candidate has done with Hispanics, George W. Bush in 2004, was still 18 points behind the Democrat John Kerry, one of the least likable and most incompetent candidates since Mike Dukakis. To think that being nice will trump those interests is nonsense. And any gain that might accrue is likely to be offset by losses among the base angered at such pandering.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/the-most-corrupt-village-in-america/print/

When the police stopped Luvina Mobley Smith, they found a pound of pot in her car and five EBT food stamp cards which drug dealers often take in payment for drugs. It would have been an ordinary enough story except that Smith, despite being a convicted felon, was also the Deputy Clerk of Alorton.

Luvina is the daughter of Callie Mobley, Alorton’s former mayor, who had collected double her salary and served time in jail for income tax evasion. Mayor Mobley, who had been the mayor of Alorton for two decades, had been doing the same thing back to her days as liquor commissioner.

St. Clair County State’s Attorney Brendan Kelly warned, “Alorton City Hall is becoming a criminal narco state at the expense of the citizens of Alorton.”

Alorton, an African-American village run by Democrats, may actually be the most corrupt village in Illinois and the United States.

Alorton’s violent crime rate has been as high as ten times the national average. Its biggest employers are health care, fast food, welfare and education. The unemployment rate for black men is at 31%. Half the people in Alorton live below the poverty line. 70% of poor households consist of single mothers.

The village has the fourth highest poverty rate of any place in Illinois. Its corruption and misery are examples of what happens when the Democratic Party’s power goes unchallenged.

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/02/06/why-is-the-u-s-postal-service-buying-ammunition/?print=1

This posting by the U.S. Postal Service is certainly eye-catching. On January 31, 2014, the USPS posted this solicitation for purchasing small arms ammunition. Contrary to some reports, the posting does not specify a quantity or type, other than specifying “assorted small arms.” It closes on February 10, 2014.

Synopsis:

Added: Jan 31, 2014 4:54 pm

The United States Postal Service intends to solicit proposals for assorted small arms ammunition.If your organization wishes to participate, you must pre-register at https://uspsesourcing.emptoris.com, the Postal Service’s eSourcing tool. From the login page, click on the “Register Supplier Organization” hyperlink and provide all required information. Organizations are encouraged to have each participating representative registered individually. When registering, include 332992 as one of your NAICS selections.

It may seem odd for the USPS to be in the business of buying ammunition, but actually it has had armed officers for centuries. Chances are, this buy is for the US Postal Inspection Service. The USPIS employs about 1,600 special agents who investigate mail fraud and related crimes. Some of these investigating agents pack firearms, usually a Beretta semi-auto 9 mm pistol.

The USPIS is not new nor is its having armed agents new. The inspection service has been around since the days of Ben Franklin, who created the post of “surveyor” when he was postmaster general. Surveyor eventually evolved into the present-day special agent, which is a detective or investigator. Think of them as similar to arson investigators, who typically work for a fire department but carry firearms, investigate crimes, and have some police powers. USPS has periodically purchased guns and ammunition for longer than the United States has been a country.