RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/360460/obamacares-unconstitutional-origins-andrew-c-mccarthy

Tax legislation has to originate in the House; the health-care law didn’t.

Of all the fraud perpetrated in the passage of Obamacare — and the fraud has been epic — the lowest is President Obama’s latest talking point that the Supreme Court has endorsed socialized medicine as constitutional. To the contrary, the justices held the “Affordable” Care Act unconstitutional as Obama presented it to the American people: namely, as a legitimate exercise of Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce.

To sustain this monstrosity, Chief Justice John Roberts had to shed his robes and put on his legislator cap. He rewrote Obamacare as a tax — the thing the president most indignantly promised Americans that Obamacare was not. And it is here that our recent debate over the Constitution’s Origination Clause — the debate in which Matt Franck, Ramesh Ponnuru, Mark Steyn, and yours truly have probed the historical boundaries of the “power of the purse” reposed by the Framers in the House of Representatives — descends from the airy realm of abstraction and homes in on a concrete violation of law.

It is not just that the intensely unpopular Obamacare was unconstitutional as fraudulently portrayed by the president and congressional Democrats who strong-armed and pot-sweetened its way to passage. It is that Obamacare is unconstitutional as rewritten by Roberts. It is a violation of the Origination Clause — not only as I have expansively construed it, but even under Matt’s narrow interpretation of the Clause.

It is worth pausing here briefly to rehearse an argument often made in these pages before the Supreme Court ruling two summers ago. The justices’ resolution, whatever it was to be, would in no way be an endorsement of Obamacare; it would merely reflect the fact that our Constitution, designed for a free people, permits all manner of foolishness. “Constitutional” does not necessarily mean “good.” What Obamacare always needed was a political reversal in Congress. Thus, it was unwise for Republicans to become passive while hoping the justices would do their heavy lifting for them — both because it was unlikely that this Supreme Court would invalidate Obamacare and because a ruling upholding it would inevitably be used by the most demagogic administration in history as a judicial stamp of approval for socialized medicine.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Into-the-Fray-How-urban-legends-become-universal-truths-327839

Oslo brought virtually no benefit to Israel and inflicted massive and lasting – or at least, long-term – damage. Even in areas where benefits did allegedly accrue, closer examination will show that these were largely illusionary or, at best, transitory.
The nightmare tales of the Likud are well-known. They promised us rockets from Gaza. For a year already the Gaza Strip is for the most part under the Palestinian Authority; there hasn’t been a rocket, and there won’t be a single one… All this [empty] talk. The Likud is scared to death of peace. Cowards afraid of peace. That is the Likud of today.

– Yitzhak Rabin, June 25, 1995

I spent several previous columns discussing how control of the political discourse by left-wing elites determines political realities in Israel. I argued that this discourse determines decision-makers’ perceptions of constraints acting on them and possibilities available to them – and hence has a defining influence on the parameters of their policy choices.

Fortuitous happenstance

As it happens, by “happy” circumstance, I recently came across a starkly graphic example of how this process is conducted; how the media accepts unquestioningly wildly fictitious claims to support and sustain the myths of Left-leaning elites as to the inevitability/desirability of their political perspectives – thus aiding and abetting their propagation; and how vulnerable even potentially unsympathetic publics are to these machinations.

This was provided by an interview in The Times of Israel, conducted by its editor David Horovitz, with Eitan Haber.

Haber was billed as “Yitzhak Rabin’s closest aide” and can be indisputably categorized as belonging to the Oslophilic elites.

After all, he is a longstanding apologist for that ill-conceived process – which he frequently defends in his regular column in the widely read Hebrew daily, Yediot Aharanot, and in his numerous appearances in the mainstream media, to which he has ready access.

In the interview, titled “When they become PM, they realize how utterly dependent Israel is on the US,” Haber provided his assessment of “the 20 years since that White House handshake…”

Fabric of fabrications

Virtually everything Haber conveyed throughout the interview was – demonstrably – either illogical or inaccurate.

Even more regrettably, he was not challenged, even once, on any of his not infrequent non sequiturs and misrepresentations – leaving readers with the impression that they were being provided with a reasonably accurate account of events by an authoritative, well-connected individual.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The major points Haber attempts to make is that not only was the Oslo process enormously beneficial to Israel, it was made inevitable by US pressure on Rabin, something that Binyamin Netanyahu did not grasp when he castigated him for adopting it.

According to Haber, no one really understands the pressures on Israel until he/she becomes prime minister, and Israeli prime ministers actually have no freedom of choice to make independent policy.

Even though he acknowledges that “the accords had holes, that is true… and even though it did not lead to the hoped-for end-of-conflict…” Haber alleges that “Israel benefited immensely from the Oslo process,” asserting that “… the accords brought the State of Israel a considerable benefit.”

He continues, “Netanyahu opposed Rabin when he didn’t know anything…and what is it that the Likud leader didn’t know 20 years ago, that he does know as prime minister today? That only when you make it to the Prime Minister’s Office… do you understand the extent to which Israel ‘is dependent on America…We are in America’s little pocket.’”

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4007/israel-warning-iran With no military threat, Iran has no incentive to stop its nuclear progress. Iran might well conclude that the sanctions could disappear in the course of endless rounds of diplomacy. No one in Israel seeks war, but a central tenet of its own defense doctrine is that Israel cannot depend on any external power […]

Robert W. Nicholson, a researcher in the areas of law, religion, and Jewish-Christian relations, holds degrees in Hebrew studies and history as well as a JD from Syracuse University. A former U.S. Marine and a 2012-2013 Tikvah Fellow, he has published in, among other places, Jewish Ideas Daily, the Jerusalem Post, and the Times of Israel.

http://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2013/10/evangelicals-and-israel/?utm_source=Mosaic+Daily+Email&utm

At a time when the state of Israel lies under existential threat from jihadist Islam, and under ideological and diplomatic assault in foreign ministries, international organizations, churches, universities, editorial offices, and other circles of advanced Western opinion—and when even some Jews in the Diaspora seem to be growing disenchanted with the Zionist cause—millions of evangelical Christians unabashedly continue their outspoken, wholehearted, stalwart defense of both the Jewish state and the Jewish people.

By all rights, this rather stunning fact—the fact of a vibrant Christian Zionism—should encourage a welcoming response from beleaguered Jewish supporters of Israel. Instead, it has caused palpable discomfort, especially among Jewish liberals. Wary of ulterior religious motives, and viewing evangelicals as overly conservative in their general outlook on the world, such Jews either accept the proffered support with a notable lack of enthusiasm or actively caution their fellow Jews against accepting it at all. To many, the prospect of an alignment with evangelicals, even one based on purely tactical considerations, seems positively distasteful. Very few have attempted to penetrate the evangelical world or to understand it in any substantive way.

This is a pity, for many reasons. It is also a serious strategic error. For the reality is that today’s Christian Zionism cannot be taken for granted. For one thing, not all evangelicals do support Israel. For another, more alarming thing, a growing minority inside the evangelical world views the Jewish state as at best tolerable and at worst positively immoral, a country that, instead of being supported on biblical grounds, should be opposed on those same grounds.

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2674/Vets-at-the-Memorial-Showing-Us-What-It-Means-to-Be-American.aspx “Vets at the Memorial: Showing Us What It Means to Be American” WASHINGTON, D.C. – A question Americans should answer for themselves is the one I am thinking through while standing at the National World War II Memorial on the Washington Mall this week. What kind of president doesn’t do everything he can to […]

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=5869

‘Grounds’ for emigration

This week, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in New York addressing the United Nations General Assembly — and hitting the talk-show circuit to make the case for remaining vigilant on Iran — two domestic stories were taking precedence at water coolers across Israel.

The first was a three-part series of news items presented by Channel 10’s senior economic correspondent, Matan Hodorov, on the phenomenon of Israeli emigration. The second was the grand opening of a Tel Aviv cafe called Cofix, which offers take-away coffee and baked goods for only 5 shekels (about $1.40) apiece.

Hodorov’s program, “The New Yordim” (a traditionally derogatory term for Israelis who abandon their homeland for greener pastures abroad), examines the latest wave of young people leaving Israel, many of them in favor of Berlin. Naturally, there’s nothing like a tale of coming full circle — from Jews fleeing the Nazis, only to have their grandchildren flock back to Germany a few decades later for affordable housing, easily obtainable marijuana and trendy pubs — to make for an interesting study. But not all of the Israelis interviewed had moved to Europe. Some were in the United States, of course, and others in Australia. Nothing new about that.

Indeed, throughout Israel’s very short history, there have been waves of emigration and an equal number of newspaper articles, doctoral theses and dinner-table discussions on their significance. Periodically, when talking about where Zionism is headed, journalists point to the illustrious founding fathers, politicians and authors whose offspring live outside of Israel. One example often cited is Alon Ben-Gurion, the grandson of Israel’s first prime minister, who manages the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York.

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/

NOT A PEEP ABOUT THE TRULY BARBARIC SEXUAL MUTILATION OF GIRLS, OR FORCED CASTRATION OF BOYS BY MOSLEMS…..RSK
In Europe, The War Against Brit Milah Wins A Battle

It seems that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has in effect cast itself in the role of “Captain Foreskin” the superhero of an obnoxious American cartoon series (see here).

For it’s handed a victory to the secularists and medicos who, like these in Norway, class male circumcision as child abuse and want it outlawed.

Admittedly, it’s not only brit milah that’s targeted, but the fact that Muslim male circumcision seems to be driving this assault on ancient custom is hardly comforting. Nor is the fact that male circumcision is lumped together with a truly barbaric and reprehensible practice, female genital mutilation, which migrants from benighted countries have brought to Europe, and which does deserve a zero-tolerance policy.

As Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the European Conference of Rabbis, recently declared regarding Sweden’s proposed ban:

“It betrays a dangerous ignorance of what is involved in the practice of milah as compared with the abhorrent practice of female genital mutilation.”

http://newmediajournal.us/indx.php/item/9438

As the so-called “government shutdown” drags on, one thing is hard not to admit: the Obama Administration is acting in a manner that is attempting to extract the maximum amount of pain on the American people. While many are wondering how it came to this point, those of us who actually paid attention in Social Studies, Civics and American History classes – school subject that are, today, given little, if any, attention – understand it’s because the US Constitution and the purity of the original governmental process has been raped by the opportunistic political class.

Our nation has always had a robust political discourse, commencing from before we were even a documented nation. We have always been represented by a passionate, spirited political class; strong in their beliefs, but educated and knowledgeable enough to legislate and govern for the good of all the people. Today, this is not the case.

Today, we have a political class that insists on the importance of ideologically motivated political “achievements” over the honest representation of the American people; loyalty to political faction – of which each and every Framer and Founder warned – over loyalty to those who delivered them to power via the ballot box.

Today, we literally have people in the political class that have an inferior command of the English language, an inferior and under-performing understanding of the principles of the Constitution and the Charters of Freedom, and a devotion to Progressivism; a non-indigenous, Marxist-based ideology that believes the State is the Alpha and the Omega; the giver of rights and the final arbiter of freedom and liberty.

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/frontpagemag-com/steven-emerson-on-his-face-off-with-jihad-on-the-glazov-gang/

This week’s Glazov Gang was joined by Steven Emerson, the Executive Director of The Investigative Project on Terrorism.

He discusses Hillary’s Secret Deal With Morsi [starts at the 12:00 mark]. The discussion was preceded by a spotlight on Who Is Eric Holder? and The Sordid World of CAIR.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/360345/budget-fight-and-obamas-vindictive-streak-jonah-goldberg Shutting down the government in an effort to use a budget fight to get rid of Obamacare is not the strategy I would have recommended for the GOP. And while Republicans can be blamed for starting the shutdown, it’s increasingly apparent that President Obama and the Democrats deserve the lion’s share of blame for […]