RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.timesofisrael.com/supermans-75th-puts-spotlight-on-cleveland-roots/

Superman’s 75th puts spotlight on Cleveland roots

Creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, sons of Jewish immigrants, devised the superhero to escape harsh times during the Depression

CLEVELAND (AP) — The tough, blue-collar roots of Superman’s creators are getting a fresh look on the superhero’s 75th anniversary.

Creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster lived just a few blocks apart in the Cleveland neighborhood that shaped their teenage lives, their dreams and the imagery of the Man of Steel.

In the city’s Glenville neighborhood, still in the throttling grip of the Great Depression, Siegel and Shuster labored on their creation for years before finally selling Superman to a publisher.

The Man of Steel became a Depression-era bootstrap strategy for the Siegel/Shuster team, according to Brad Ricca, a professor at nearby Case Western Reserve University who uses Superman in his classes.

“They really just saw it as a way out,” he said.

Author Brad Ricca says Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster reflected Cleveland’s ethnic mix: both were sons of Jewish immigrants, struggled during the Depression and hustled to make something of themselves. (photo credit: AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

In his upcoming book “Super Boys,” Ricca says the story of Superman’s creation is mostly about their friendship: two boys dreaming of “fame, riches and girls” in a time when such dreams are all the easier to imagine because of the crushing economic misery.

Ricca said Siegel and Shuster reflected Cleveland’s ethnic mix: both were sons of Jewish immigrants, struggled during the Depression and hustled to make something of themselves.

“The Depression is all about, you know, if nobody is going to give you a job, you make your own, you find your own niche and we find that’s what they are doing,” Ricca said.

I share the outrage of every American citizen with regard to the terrorism in Boston. We don’t know who did it…what group or lunatic or sleeper cell….let the FBI and CIA do the work and investigation.

I think of Israel whose towns and citizens have been subject to this type of carnage every single year of its 65 year history. Rockets from Gaza, bombs in buses, cafeterias, markets, hotels, celebrations…..endless terrorism.

Now, when the murderers who are responsible for the deadly explosions in Boston are apprehended, will anyone dare suggest that they get an independent state in the heartland of Massachusetts?

Just asking…..rsk

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/bloody-boston

In his short statement following the bombing of the Boston marathoners on Monday, the President did not say either “terror” or “terrorist.” This is an administration that has virtually banished these words, but an unidentified “White House official” did say that it was an act of terrorism within hours after the blast.

On June 1, 2009, Abuljakim Muhammed, a Muslim convert from Memphis, Tennessee, was charged with shooting two soldiers outside a military recruiting center in Little Rock, Arkansas. One died and the other was wounded. He claimed ties to al Qaeda and said the attack was “to fight those who wage war on Islam and Muslims.”

Later that year, on December 25, a Nigerian on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, attempted to ignite an explosive device hidden in his underwear. It failed to detonate and, when taken into custody, instead of being treated as a combatant in war, he was read his Miranda rights. It is noteworthy that he was already on a government watch list thanks to a warning from his father!

In 2010, a car bomb was discovered in Times Square, New York City. It had ignited but failed to detonate. Faisal Shahzad pleaded guilty to the bomb attempt and ten other terrorism and weapons charges.

Since September 11, 2001, America has been remarkably free of terrorist acts on our soil. I wish I could credit the Department of Homeland Security and the other intelligence agencies we maintain at the cost of billions annually, but it only takes one incident like Boston to remind us that one terrorist can wreak havoc with a bomb or two. Reportedly, New York City detected and deterred sixteen comparable plots since 9/11.

So, in effect, it is now September 12, 2001 all over again.

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/kerry-meeting-with-saudi-foreign-minister-abruptly-closed-to-the-press/

Kerry’s previous rounds of meetings with foreign ministers had been open to the press. And the meeting with the Saudi Foreign Minister should have been far less controversial than his meetings with foreign ministers in Asia where the North Korean crisis was still underway.

The meeting with the Saudi Foreign Minister should have been open to the press as well. But then suddenly, it wasn’t.

A meeting Secretary of State John Kerry was to hold with Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal was abruptly closed to press coverage Tuesday morning.

The State Department provided no reason for the change, which was announced just 15 minutes before the scheduled 10 A.M. session, but media reports have said that a Saudi national in the U.S. on a student visa is a “person of interest” to investigators probing the bombings at the Boston Marathon on Monday.

“Apologies for short notice,” the State Department’s press office told reporters as it announced the change. A spokesperson did not immediately respond to a query about the closure of the meeting, which had been scheduled to include a so-called “camera spray” at the top of the session.

The Saudis tend to be aggressive in protecting their nationals, even when they are involved in terrorism. And Kerry clearly is trying to avoid any kind of public exchange or questions at the topic.

The abrupt shutdown suggests that the State Department left the window open as long as possible in the hopes that the Saudi national would become a non-issue. The shutdown suggests that whatever direction the FBI investigation is headed in, its people are unable to tell State that the Saudi national in custody is not a player. Otherwise Kerry could have easily shot down the question.

It also suggests that the Saudis might want to press Kerry privately on their usual agenda of exculpating Saudi Arabia for its terrorist backing and transferring over the Saudi national to their custody.

Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/kerry-meeting-with-saudi-foreign-minister-abruptly-closed-to-the-press/

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/the-post-american-world-war/print/

World War III may already be here. The left spent decades warning that our warmongering would bring on a new global war; but it was their peacemongering that did it instead.

World War II did not begin when the German army entered Poland, but when Britain and France began to appease Hitler. The war was only a matter of waiting around for the inevitable. And now we are the ones watching and waiting for the inevitable.

For half a century, the United States kept the peace through the force of its existence. There were some difficult times, but for the most part it was the sheer bulk of its military budgets and the ranks of nuclear warheads that prevented not only the big war, but also most of the little wars.

The left complained incessantly about those budgets and those missiles. It draped itself in peace signs and slapped on bumper stickers like “Cukes Not Nukes”. Its entertainers made movies ridiculing generals who believed in the balance of power as maniacs. Its pundits wrote books explaining why every problem in the world was caused by American power being used to aid fascist dictators and keep down progressive rebels like Che and Pol Pot.

And then American power finally collapsed. There had been early warning signs under Carter and Clinton, but with Obama it finally happened. The message went out that there was no longer a great power to serve as a stabilizing influence. If anyone wanted to discuss global warming or a fund to empower women in Southeast Asia, they could come down to Washington, but if they wanted to discuss how to use the balance of power keep the world from falling apart, they were out of luck.

The message was received. It was received in Cairo where the Muslim Brotherhood got to work overthrowing allied governments and replacing them with theocracies. It was received in Asia where China and North Korea set to work moving in on American allies.

The Middle East is burning. Asia looks like it might be next. The experts offer all sorts of proposals from giving more free stuff to North Korea to giving free stuff to the Syrian rebels instead, but stability against aggression can’t be achieved with giveaways. Even soft power requires hard power behind it. When there’s no hard power then the soft power is helpless.

URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/blog/boston-mystery-deepens-as-new-one-unfolds-in-d-c/

A frustrating day of no leads or suspects emerging from the FBI’s quest to track down the Boston Marathon bomber took a strange turn Tuesday in Washington as a letter to a Republican senator tested positive for ricin.

Mail making its way to the Hill has been screened off-site for toxic substances ever since the 2001 anthrax letters, and it was here that the letter to Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) was intercepted.

“Earlier today the United States Capitol Police was notified by the Senate mail handling facility that it received an envelope containing a white granular substance. The envelope was immediately quarantined by the facility’s personnel and USCP HAZMAT responded to the scene. Preliminary tests indicate the substance found was Ricin,” said Public Information Officer Shennell S. Antrobus in a statement.

“The material is being forwarded to an accredited laboratory for further analysis. The USCP is partnering with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate this incident. This is an ongoing investigation.” Lab tests in Maryland and field tests were positive.

Wicker, who has been placed under protection, simply added it was an ongoing investigation and said he and his wife “appreciate everyone’s thoughts and prayers.”

“I want to thank our law enforcement officials for their hard work and diligence in keeping those of us who work in the Capitol complex safe,” the senator added.

Senators were told about the incident at an early evening briefing led by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and FBI Director Robert Mueller that was expected to focus on information about the Boston terrorist attack. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) wrongly told reporters that a suspect was in custody for the ricin letter, which had a Mempis postmark and no return address.

For apparently having so little information about the bombing, the administration tried to convey the message that Americans didn’t need to fear a follow-up attack — even as a nervous White House briefly evacuated today because of a suspicious package.

“What I’ve indicated to you is what we now know. We know it was bombs that were set off. We know that, obviously, they did some severe damage. We do not know who did them. We do not know whether this was an act of an organization or an individual or individuals. We don’t have a sense of motive yet,” President Obama said during a morning statement. The daily press briefing with spokesman Jay Carney was canceled, and Obama didn’t take questions from reporters after his remarks.

http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/04/16/as-white-house-utters-the-t-word/?print=1

The Obama administration, which generally chokes on the word “terrorism” and fought against applying it to the jihadist atrocities at Fort Hood and Benghazi, is calling yesterday’s Boston Marathon bombing “terrorism.” Its reasoning, coupled with the way the term was rolled out, is intriguing.

Initially, President Obama made a brief statement to the nation last night in which, characteristically, he did not use the word “terrorism.” Moments afterward, however, an unidentified “senior administration official” pronounced that the bombing was a terrorist attack, telling Fox News, “When multiple devices go off, that’s an act of terrorism.”

In point of fact, while bombing is a common tactic of terrorists for obvious reasons, the choice of attack-method is not what makes violence “terrorism.” If, say, the mafia were to use two or three car bombs to rub out several rival gangsters at the same time, that would not be terrorism even though “multiple devices” would be involved. Terrorism is violence directed at political communities — usually, nations and their governments. It is carried out for the specific purpose of intimidating the political community into submitting to the terrorists’ preferred policies, and, significantly, it is almost always ideologically motivated.

That last attribute of terrorism is the cause of the Obama administration’s paralyzing misgivings about the T-word. The president is mulishly determined to cultivate Islamic-supremacist governments and movements like the Muslim Brotherhood. The stubborn problem is that al Qaeda — the only Muslim outfit the administration seems willing to hang the “terrorist” label on — is also Islamic-supremacist. That is, al Qaeda is adherent to the same ideology — based on sharia, Islam’s legal code and societal framework — as the groups the administration considers “allies” and “moderates.”

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/04/16/saudi-king-to-obama-boston-bombers-belonged-to-no-religion-at-all/

Saudi King Abdullah reached out to President Obama to express condolences for the Boston Marathon bombings and say that the attackers had “no religion,” according to the Saudi Press Agency.

“In his own name and on behalf of the people and government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the monarch expressed profound sorrow and pain for the death and injury of some innocent people as a result of the two terrorist acts in Boston, describing the perpetrators of the explosions as belonging to no religion at all and that no ethics or values ever accept this deed, and wishing the injured quick recovery and the American people steady security and stability,” the news agency said.

Prince Saud Al-Faisal, Saudi foreign minister, met briefly with Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington today in a meeting also attended by Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir and Osamah bin Ahmed Nugali, head of the information department at the Foreign Ministry.

“During the meeting, they discussed bilateral relations between the two friendly countries and regional issues of mutual concern, including Middle East peace efforts and the current situation in Syria,” the SPA reported. “Prince Saud Al-Faisal also expressed his condolences on the victims and the injured in the Marathon attacks in Boston.”

Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu also condemned the bombings today, saying an “act targeting to destroy the peaceful atmosphere of a sporting event was cowardly and reprehensible.”

“He wished speedy recovery of the injured and underlined that the OIC stands with the United States Government and People in rejecting such violence,” the OIC added in the statement.

“These heinous crimes are not consistent with the provisions of any religion, violate international laws, oppose the simplest principles of humanity, aim at destabilizing security and stability of the United States of America, and terrorize its innocent people,” an official source at Kuwaiti Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the SPA.
Bridget Johnson is a career journalist whose news articles and opinion columns have run in dozens of news outlets across the globe. Bridget first came to Washington to be online editor at The Hill, where she wrote The World from The Hill column on foreign policy. Previously she was an opinion writer and editorial board member at the Rocky Mountain News and nation/world news columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News. She has contributed to USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, Politico and more, and has myriad television and radio credits as a commentator. Bridget is Washington Editor for PJ Media.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324600704578405280211043510.html?mod=WSJ_article_MoreIn_Opinion

Unsubstantiated accusations against my son by a former girlfriend landed him before a nightmarish college tribunal.

I am a feminist. I have marched at the barricades, subscribed to Ms. magazine, and knocked on many a door in support of progressive candidates committed to women’s rights. Until a month ago, I would have expressed unqualified support for Title IX and for the Violence Against Women Act.

But that was before my son, a senior at a small liberal-arts college in New England, was charged—by an ex-girlfriend—with alleged acts of “nonconsensual sex” that supposedly occurred during the course of their relationship a few years earlier.

What followed was a nightmare—a fall through Alice’s looking-glass into a world that I could not possibly have believed existed, least of all behind the ivy-covered walls thought to protect an ostensible dedication to enlightenment and intellectual betterment.

It began with a text of desperation. “CALL ME. URGENT. NOW.”

That was how my son informed me that not only had charges been brought against him but that he was ordered to appear to answer these allegations in a matter of days. There was no preliminary inquiry on the part of anyone at the school into these accusations about behavior alleged to have taken place a few years earlier, no consideration of the possibility that jealousy or revenge might be motivating a spurned young ex-lover to lash out. Worst of all, my son would not be afforded a presumption of innocence.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323346304578424881461306920.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop

New Jersey unions wanted a monopoly on Hurricane Sandy reconstruction, but Governor Chris Christie put a stop to that scheme on Monday when he vetoed a bill that would have favored unions on all state public-works projects over $5 million.

The bill would have expanded the state’s ability to mandate the use of so-called project labor agreements, or PLAs, on taxpayer funded projects including roads and bridges. Mr. Christie wrote in his veto message that the bill would “significantly alter public contracting in this State” when the focus should be on rebuilding.

Unions are fond of PLAs because they usually force all contractors to hire workers at union hiring halls and pay into union benefit plans, discouraging non-union firms from bidding on jobs. New Jersey Democrats, including Senate President Stephen Sweeney, say mandating PLAs would have given more jobs to New Jerseyites. That’s curious math, when some 75% of the state’s private construction workforce isn’t unionized.

The real goal is to kick more business to unions and expand their market share. Projects run with PLAs take longer and cost more, but they also squeeze workers by forcing non-union workers to pay union dues to work on a taxpayer-funded project. Under current law, unions can still bid on Sandy reconstruction projects, but they’ll have to do so in open and competitive bidding.