RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/843/one_more_cuban_martyr_and_latin_america_s_leadership_turns_a_blind_eye_
One more Cuban martyr – and Latin America’s leadership turns a blind eye

The day of reckoning will inevitably come for the tribunal of History to deliver the last word with respect to the Cuban ordeal. On that day, some of Latin America’s leaders will receive a moral condemnation.

Whoever has endured the yoke of a long and cruel dictatorship knows that one of the most comforting feelings one may experience under those circumstances is to be able to count on the solidarity of people and institutions from the outside world. That solidarity gives strength to those who struggle from within.

All too naturally, when those like-minded voices go missing or run low; when the crimes of the dictatorship fail to arouse international indignation; when those who lead countries living in democracy turn a blind eye, it is revulsion which, most understandably, springs from the hearts of dissidents thus abandoned to the mercy of a tyrant.

Such revulsion is what the Cuban people must be feeling vis-à-vis the leaders of Latin America. Cubans have received only sporadic scraps of sympathy and support from within their own region, as the bulk of Latin American governments and regional organizations tend to shun – whether by fear or by convenience – any quarrel with the longest tyranny in the history of that continent.

That indifference is all the more reprehensible as it comes from a continent with seasoned experience in struggling against military dictatorships. Its democratically-elected leaders, therefore, should have been in the forefront of international initiatives aimed at assisting the Cubans in their fight to rid themselves from the claws of Castroism.

http://news.yahoo.com/jordans-king-receives-hamas-leader-120924266.html

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — A senior Jordanian official says the country’s king has received Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, who is on his first official visit to the kingdom since his expulsion 13 years ago.

The official says talks with King Abdullah II opened in the presence of Qatar’s crown prince, who mediated Mashaal’s visit. He says the visit is meant to “break the ice” with the militant group banned in Jordan, Israel’s closest Arab peace partner.

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

Before Obama got around to digging up his copy of last year’s State of the Union address, crossing out a few lines, adding something about Iraq and Bin Laden, before heading out for another round of golf, David Brooks wrote a New York Times column urging Obama not to forget to mention the importance of promoting education for a free market economy. He titled it, Free-Market Socialism.

Now the idea that Obama or any Democratic politician running for the presidency would forget to mention what has become the chief talking point of their political class on jobs and globalization is about as likely as Bill Clinton taking a vow of chastity. When the working class timorously asks where the jobs are, that are always told the jobs are mostly gone and the only way they will ever come back is if they educate themselves for the better jobs that are out there somewhere.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2093129/Al–Turkish-fashion-magazine-created-women-wear-headscarves.html

It’s Vogue for the veiled! Turkish fashion magazine created for women who wear headscarves

A magazine for the modern, fashion-conscious Muslim woman is proving that when it comes to Turkey, you don’t need bikinis, breasts and legs to sell issues. Outraged when he saw photos of transsexuals in a magazine, devout Muslim Ibrahim Burak Birer, 31 decided to create a magazine in Istanbul that would contest the ‘diktat of nudity’.

With his friend Mehmet Volkan Atay, 32, he created Alâ, a magazine described as the avant-garde of ‘veiled’ fashion. The first issue: Released in June, Alâ has been described as the ‘Vogue of veiled fashion’. It appeals to the modern, education, fashion-conscious Muslim woman

The magazine only shows women in headscarves

http://melaniephillips.com/why-iran-will-not-come-to-its-senses War with Iran is a truly fearsome prospect.

YES..THE WEST’S CULTURAL HUBRIS INCLUDES THE FAILURE TO RECOGNIZE THAT ISLAM IS ON AN INEXORABLE MARCH TO CONQUER AND SUBDUE…IT IS NOT ONLY IRAN…..RSK
“What really threatens to bring the west to its knees is its own cultural hubris. Refracting everything in the world through the prism of its unshakeable faith in universal reason, it is incapable of recognising or understanding religious fanaticism – and insists instead upon treating the fanatic as a rational actor. Ironically, it is this belief in reason which has led the west to behave so irrationally in refusing to acknowledge the evidence of the mortal threat to itself posed by Iran — and that there is no alternative to force if it is to be stopped. And now, alas, we’re about to discover the consequences.”

Its likely consequences would include attacks on US air bases from thousands of Iranian missiles, the unleashing of terrorist attacks within the US and Europe, the rocketing of Israeli towns from the tens of thousands of missiles trained on Israel from Lebanon, the closing of the Straits of Hormuz thus paralysing western oil supplies, and doubtless other horrors.

But however fearsome this prospect, that of a nuclear-armed Iran is worse. The consequences are simply insupportable.

http://news.yahoo.com/un-nuclear-inspection-gets-under-way-iran-114616187.html

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — U.N. nuclear inspectors began a critical mission to Iran on Sunday to probe allegations of a secret atomic weapons program amid escalating Western economic pressures and warnings about safeguarding Gulf oil shipments from possible Iranian blockades.

The findings from the three-day visit could greatly influence the direction and urgency of U.S.-led efforts to rein in Iran’s ability to enrich uranium — which Washington and allies fear could eventually produce weapons-grade material. Iran has declined to abandon its enrichment labs, but claims it only seeks to fuel reactors for energy and medical research.

The International Atomic Energy Agency team is likely to visit an underground enrichment site near the holy city of Qom, 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of Tehran, which is carved into a mountain as protection from possible airstrikes. Earlier this month, Iran said it had begun enrichment work at the site, which is far smaller than the country’s main uranium labs but is reported to have more advanced equipment.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/289549/myth-gop-stinginess-andrew-c-mccarthy
The Myth of GOP Stinginess
Obama is driving off the cliff, but Republicans filled the tank.

Mitch McConnell wanted you to know he was livid on Thursday. The Senate was about to Greece the wheels for adding yet another trillion and change to President Obama’s yet-again tapped-out credit card. “More spending, more debt,” brayed the minority leader. “That’s what we’ve gotten from this administration.” Well, no, Senator, that’s what we’ve gotten from you.

Yes, I know, Obama is the one driving us off the cliff. But as McConnell and his fellow Republicans are well aware, he couldn’t have filled his tank without them — and they are the guys who got us halfway up the summit before handing the president the car keys. No one is falling for this week’s debt-increase “disapproval” charade, the stage for which was set by last summer’s sleight-of-hand, when Republicans agreed to borrow another $2.4 trillion. As if to prove that Obama has not cornered the market on cynicism, the GOP apparently feels the need to insult your intelligence while it helps our latter-day Robin Hood take from the unborn to give to the insatiable.

For the record, it was Republicans who nearly doubled the national debt during the Bush years — increasing it by almost $5 trillion dollars. Some context: It had taken the nation over 200 years to accumulate roughly the same amount of debt rung up from 2001 through 2008 — a time during most of which, besides holding the White House, Republicans held the Senate (with McConnell in the leadership, first as whip and later as leader) and the House (with now-speaker John Boehner in the leadership, first as a committee chairman, then as leader).

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/289543/state-our-union-broke-mark-steyn
The State of Our Union Is Broke
Obama calls for more of the unaffordable same.

Had I been asked to deliver the State of the Union address, it would not have delayed your dinner plans:

“The State of our Union is broke, heading for bankrupt, and total collapse shortly thereafter. Thank you and goodnight! You’ve been a terrific crowd!”

I gather that Americans prefer something a little more upbeat, so one would not begrudge a speechwriter fluffing it up by holding out at least the possibility of some change of fortune, however remote. Instead, President Obama assured us at great length that nothing is going to change, not now, not never. Indeed the Union’s state — its unprecedented world-record brokeness — was not even mentioned. If, as I was, you happened to be stuck at Gate 27 at one of the many U.S. airports laboring under the misapprehension that pumping CNN at you all evening long somehow adds to the gaiety of flight delays, you would have watched an address that gave no indication its speaker was even aware that the parlous state of our finances is an existential threat not only to the nation but to global stability. The message was, oh, sure, unemployment’s still a little higher than it should be, and student loans are kind of expensive, and the housing market’s pretty flat, but it’s nothing that a little government “investment” in green jobs and rural broadband and retraining programs can’t fix. In other words, more of the unaffordable same.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1399069&format=text

Who’s Mitt Romney hiring as his top advisers — Hugo Chavez and Kim Jong Un?

According to NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, a “top Romney adviser” says that if Mitt loses Florida on Tuesday, “we’re going to have to try to reinvent the smoke-filled room which has been democratized by all these primaries and come up with someone as an alternative to Newt Gingrich.”

Finally — a Republican campaigning against the scourge of democracy! First we’ll go back to the good old days of the “smoke-filled room,” then we’ll bring back Prohibition and get rid of women’s suffrage, too!

Personally I can’t think of a better way to be perceived as an entitled elitist than to have your supporters announce that, unless you win, the voting shouldn’t count. And it’s not just Romney’s team.

Establishment Republicans are in “full panic mode,” as Newt called it yesterday, filling the press with hopeful speculation about a “brokered convention.” That’s when no candidate has won a majority of delegates at the ballot box and the GOP insiders get to pick who they want.

Smearing Newt: Taking Names for 2016
http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/

I never thought I’d see so many purported conservative writers, and once proud conservative websites, shilling for Mitt Romney. Michael Graham of WTKK-FM in Boston certainly isn’t one of them. He has “Smoke Gets In Mitt’s Guise” in today’s Boston Herald:

After the electoral fiascoes of ’06 and ’08, it wasn’t the Washington GOP that turned things around. It was the conservative base and the Tea Party. They helped elect Sen. Scott Brown here and handed the House back to the GOP.

And now party bosses wonder why the base refuses to take our “Mitt medicine” and do as we’re told. Maybe it’s because we’re tired of losing.

That’s the real message Republican voters are trying to send. No more losing politely with some moderate squishy candidate who cares more about what East Coast elites think of him than conservative voters do.

You really want to stop Newt? It’s simple. Dump Mitt. Stop whining about Gingrich winning, stop flogging the GOP’s “designated establishment loser of 2012″ and back someone else.

Graham predicts that if Romney is nominated, he will lose. Which brings me to the taking names part.

Obviously if Romney wins the nomination, only the irrational wouldn’t prefer a Romney presidency to an even more radicalized second Obama term. But if Graham is right, that Romney can’t beat Obama, then we need to hold those in the conservative movement accountable that shilled so. . . demonically for Mitt. We need to remember who they were, and hold them accountable.

Holding them accountable means ignoring them the next time.

It won’t be hard to find them. Elliot Abrams can top the list. There are many many more. Keep the list handy in 2016. When we hear from the Dole-over-Gramm crowd the next time, or the McCain-over-Huck corner, we can check to see if they were part of the Mitt-over-Newt establishment panic of 2012, and appropriately disregard them in 2016.

Of course it is not too late to disregard them now, particularly those who cling to an obsolete linear political model from a generation ago. A candidate does not become more electable the closer they are to the center. Favorable coverage on NBC Nightly News no longer swings elections. In today’s polarized political landscape, the opposite may be true. A candidate that creates no excitement, even if nicely positioned in the non-offensive middle, cannot win. It is a lesson some conservatives have yet to learn, particularly inside the Beltway.