RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204781804577269903743850814.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
By WARREN KOZAK

It was simply called the “Dayton Exercise” and for obvious reasons it was kept secret for decades. It was also one of the clearest examples of the trouble the United States encounters when it decides to precipitously draw back its military in a troubled world.

At the end of World War II, the U.S. had the most modern and best-equipped military on earth. No one else came close. It had taken the entire war to build it, and at great sacrifice.

U.S. troops fought at a distinct disadvantage until 1944 because of an earlier self-imposed disarmament. But when the atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, forcing the Japanese surrender and preventing a land invasion of the Japanese islands, the U.S. abruptly demobilized again. It had done the same thing 27 years earlier, after World War I.

In the Army Air Forces alone (there was no independent Air Force until 1947), the number of men dropped to just over 300,000 in 1947 from 2.4 million in 1945. On the day the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, there were 218 combat groups in the Army Air Force and 70,000 planes. One year later, there were 52 groups—only two of which were considered combat-ready. The airplanes that American factories had churned out were parked end-to-end in the desert, sold to other countries or junked.

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/03/13/debunking-obamas-energy-policy-lies/

Debunking Obama’s Energy Policy Lies

As U.S. gas prices steadily rise to alarming levels, Republican presidential hopefuls have pointed to the Obama administration’s dysfunctional energy policies as a significant influence in the distressing trend. It’s an issue that endangers the president’s re-election prospects and Team Obama is now in full defensive mode, simultaneously claiming that it is “all in” with respect to energy sources of all sorts, while it says that it has also made important inroads toward increasing domestic oil production and reducing dependence of foreign oil.

In order to support these claims, the administration turned to the tactic that has become a staple among global warming alarmists: pick a couple of convenient data points that support your position, claim they are representative of an overall trend and let the ever-gullible, technologically ignorant mainstream media regurgitate the message. For example, Obama has tried to mollify critics by saying that domestic production of crude oil is up to the highest levels that we’ve seen over the past eight years. While that is technically true, it’s a meaningless factoid, for the president doesn’t seem to understand – or refuses to acknowledge – that market forces have raised the value of crude oil enough that domestic production has marginally increased over the already pitiful rates of 2004.

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/03/13/10-ways-obama-has-made-war-more-likely/print/

Wars begin in a thousand ways. Some begin with lies, others with truth. Some with aggression and others with appeasement. But behind those many beginnings are some familiar qualities. Arrogance, incompetence, ignorance and cowardice.

Those qualities should be familiar because we can hardly go a day without seeing them displayed behind the teleprompter in its familiar place in Washington D.C. or on the endless road trip to the Muslim world that is the Obama Doctrine. We have seen them in Istanbul and Cairo, and we can see their consequences in Tehran and Tunis. In a world where America has kept the peace, they are swiftly leading us to war.

Bombs Away in North Korea

The words “North Korea” and “diplomacy” are a running joke even in diplomatic circles, and seeing a headline like “Clinton hails North Korea food deal” doesn’t give you enough information to determine whether you are seeing a news story from 2011 or 1994. Sadly, the answer is 2011, as the Hope and Change crew have put their faith in their own diplomacy, rather than in history or common sense.

North Korea is more than just a Communist mafia with nuclear weapons; it’s the starting point in the supply chain for any Muslim country that wants its own nuclear weapons. Its ability to blackmail the West encourages nations like Iran to push for their own nuclear programs to be able to have their own atomic blackmail card… and brings us closer to the day when a bankrupt North Korea decides that America really is a paper tiger and our soldiers find themselves fighting a second Korean War.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/293261/costly-united-nations-brett-d-schaefer

WHY DON’T THEY JUST CLOSE IT, SEAL IT AND HANG OUT A SIGN….”CLOSED FOR ALTERCATIONS” ???
Behind schedule and over budget — and still the U.N.’s Capital Master Plan (CMP) is getting high grades. “The first major renovation of the 60-year-old headquarters has been slowed by extra security measures,” the Associated Press reports, noting that “The final cost will be nearly $2 billion — about 4 percent over the original budget.” Still, the article leaves the general impression that the CMP has done a heckuva job of cost containment.
Really?
That 4 percent overrun amounts to real money — more than $80 million. But that’s chump change compared to the real stakes in this story.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/293274/holder-s-identity-problem-rich-lowry

For Attorney General Eric Holder, life must present a hellish vista of pervasive racist practices.

Wherever he goes, people are required to show identification. When cashing a check. When signing up for a library card. When boarding a plane. When entering certain office buildings. When checking into hotels. When (in the case of the youthful-looking) buying a beer or cigarettes, or entering a bar. The tyranny of the photo ID is so all-encompassing that people can’t enter Holder’s own Justice Department without showing one.

Holder is outraged that in a nation where requests for photo ID are ubiquitous, more and more states are requiring that people show them when they vote. In a speech last year, Holder characterized these voter-ID laws as an assault on the voting rights that Congressman John Lewis — the hero of Edmund Pettus Bridge — fought for in the mid-1960s. Back then, blacks in the South had to fear for their safety if they showed up at the courthouse to try to register to vote. Now, states are merely asking everyone, regardless of race, to show identification that is readily available to all, regardless of race.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/nicky-larkin-israel-is-a-refuge-but-a-refuge-under-siege-3046227.html
Nicky Larkin: Israel is a refuge, but a refuge under siege Through making a film about the Israeli-Arab conflict, artist Nicky Larkin found his allegiances swaying.
Nicky Larkin: Israel is a refuge, but a refuge under siege

I used to hate Israel. I used to think the Left was always right. Not any more. Now I loathe Palestinian terrorists. Now I see why Israel has to be hard. Now I see the Left can be Right — as in right-wing. So why did I change my mind so completely?

Strangely, it began with my anger at Israel’s incursion into Gaza in December 2008 which left over 1,200 Palestinians dead, compared to only 13 Israelis. I was so angered by this massacre I posed in the striped scarf of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation for an art show catalogue.

Shortly after posing in that PLO scarf, I applied for funding from the Irish Arts Council to make a film in Israel and Palestine. I wanted to talk to these soldiers, to challenge their actions — and challenge the Israeli citizens who supported them.

I spent seven weeks in the area, dividing my time evenly between Israel and the West Bank. I started in Israel. The locals were suspicious. We were Irish — from a country which is one of Israel’s chief critics — and we were filmmakers. We were the enemy.

Then I crossed over into the West Bank. Suddenly, being Irish wasn’t a problem. Provo graffiti adorned The Wall. Bethlehem was Las Vegas for Jesus-freaks — neon crucifixes punctuated by posters of martyrs.

These martyrs followed us throughout the West Bank. They watched from lamp-posts and walls wherever we went. Like Jesus in the old Sacred Heart pictures.

But the more I felt the martyrs watching me, the more confused I became. After all, the Palestinian mantra was one of “non-violent resistance”. It was their motto, repeated over and over like responses at a Catholic mass.

Yet when I interviewed Hind Khoury, a former Palestinian government member, she sat forward angrily in her chair as she refused to condemn the actions of the suicide bombers. She was all aggression.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/the_necessity_of_anti-sharia_laws.html
The Necessity of Anti-Sharia LawsBy Robert Spencer

Louisiana, Arizona ,and Tennessee have already passed legislation restricting the use of foreign law in state courtrooms, and twenty-one other states are considering similar laws. These statutes are designed to halt the use of Islamic law, sharia, by American judges — a measure that many see as necessary, since sharia has already been involved in cases in twenty-three states. Many see this as an alarming encroachment upon First Amendment protection of religion; however, anti-sharia laws do not actually infringe upon religious freedom at all, and they become more urgently needed by the day.

In the March issue of First Things, law professor Robert K. Vischer equates anti-sharia laws with recent intrusions upon the religious freedom of Christians, such as laws that now require “pro-life pharmacists to dispense the morning-after pill” and “Christian adoption agencies to place children with same-sex couples, and religious entities to pay for their employees’ contraceptives.” He asserts that “[t]he recent spate of ‘anti-Sharia’ initiatives is just the most politically popular example of such threats” to religious freedom.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/215379-specter-says-obama-ditched-him-after-he-provided-60th-vote-to-pass-health-law
Specter says Obama ditched him after he provided 60th vote to pass health reform
By Alexander Bolton – 03/12/12 05:30 AM ET

Former Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) writes in a new book that President Obama ditched him in the 2010 election after he helped Obama win the biggest legislative victory of his term by passing healthcare reform.

Specter also claims that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) did not uphold his promise to grant him seniority accrued over 28 years of service in the Senate as a Republican.

Specter, who rocked Washington’s political establishment and made headlines around the country when he left the Republican Party to join Democrats in April of 2009, has kept quiet about these slights until now.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/free-speech-vs-islamists-worldwide-west-is-losing/?singlepage=true

Recently, Salman Rushdie did not attend a literature festival in India after Indian authorities warned him he was a potential target of assassins, and after numerous protests by various Islamist groups. This is not the first time that Mr. Rushdie found himself at odds with Islamists over his free speech. In 1988, he published his book The Satanic Verses, whose “blasphemous writings” first resulted in death threats to Mr. Rushdie from Islamists — including a fatwa against him by Ayatollah Khomeini — and first alerted the world to the problems Islamists had with free speech concerning Islam-related topics.

After initially trying to apologize to appease his Islamist censors, Rushdie was forced to go underground under protective detail. In 2012, almost a quarter of a century from when he first found himself enmeshed in the struggle for free speech, Mr. Rushdie faced a similar threat and once again was forced to back down.

Unfortunately, the Rushdie example is all too representative of how things are going in the Western struggle to protect speech from Islamist thugs. In other words, not well. Things are probably getting worse.

http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2012/03/12/derrick-bells-love-for-new-black-panther-party-founder-and-white-house-counsel/?singlepage=true

Harvard Law Professor Derrick Bell praised the anti-Semitic founder of the New Black Panther Party. Another strong supporter of Bell was eventually Obama White House counsel Cassandra Butts, the White House lawyer when the New Black Panther voter intimidation case was dismissed.

Powerline has the story of Derrick Bell praising the venomous anti-Semite Khalid Muhammad, former head of the New Black Panther Party. The dots that Powerline connected are the dots between Derrick Bell, Khalid Muhammad and the New Black Panther Party. But White House counsel Cassandra Butts was also involved in the now-famous Harvard Law School rally for Bell. Butts helped organize the rally supporting Bell and escorted him to be introduced.

Butts, nearly 20 years later, may have played a role in the dismissal of the New Black Panther voter intimidation case according to multiple reports.
As a member of the DOJ team that brought the case against the New Black Panther Party, it staggers the imagination that Barack Obama’s beloved law professor Derrick Bell had anything positive to say about this radical racist anti-Semite. This is simply disheartening. You would think “esteemed” Harvard Law professors wouldn’t say nice things about a man who called for the murder of white women and children: