RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/282998
Have you been following this so-called Supercommittee? They’re the new superhero group of Superfriends from the Supercongress who are going to save America from plummeting over the cliff and into the multi-trillion-dollar abyss. There’s Spender Woman (Patty Murray), Incumbent Boy (Max Baucus), Kept Man (John Kerry), and many other warriors for truth, justice, and the American way of debt. The Supercommittee is supposed to report back by the day before Thanksgiving on how to carve out $1.2 trillion dollars of deficit reduction and thereby save the republic.
I had cynically assumed that the Superfriends would address America’s imminent debt catastrophe with some radical reform — such as, say, slowing the increase in spending by raising the age for lowering the age of Medicare eligibility from 47 to 49 by the year 2137, after which triumph we could all go back to sleep until total societal collapse.
But I underestimated the genius of the Superfriends’ Supercommittee. It turns out that a committee created to reduce the deficit is instead going to increase it. As The Hill reported:

Democrats on the supercommittee have proposed that the savings from the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan be used to pay for a new stimulus package, according to a summary of the $2.3 trillion plan obtained by The Hill.

Do you follow that? Let the Congressional Budget Office explain it to you:

The budget savings from ending the wars are estimated to total around $1 trillion over a decade, according to an estimate in July from the Congressional Budget Office.

Let us note in passing that, according to the official CBO estimates, a whole decade’s worth of war in both Iraq and Afghanistan adds up to little more than Obama’s 2009 stimulus bill. But, aside from that, in what sense are these “savings”? The Iraq War is ended — or, at any rate, “ended,” at least as far as U.S. participation in it is concerned. How then can congressional accountants claim to be able to measure “savings” in 2021 from a war that ended a decade earlier? And why stop there? Why not estimate around $2 trillion in savings by 2031? After all, that would free up even more money for a bigger stimulus package, wouldn’t it? And it wouldn’t cost us anything because it would all be “savings.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203658804576638812089566384.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird

OBAMACARE WRIT LARGE? ….RSK

ATHENS—A few years ago, George Gianakouras, a retired salesman of hotel supplies from the Greek port town of Volos, was feeling sluggish. His doctors diagnosed heart disease. He was given cardiac drugs and scheduled for angioplasty and stenting at a hospital in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second city.
Plagued by corruption and hobbled by debt, the Greek health-care system exemplifies what’s wrong with the Greek state itself. WSJ’s Charles Forelle reports from Athens.

Like nearly all Greeks, Mr. Gianakouras was covered by a state social-security fund, which paid €10,000 ($13,600) for the hospital bill. There was one more thing: Mr. Gianakouras said he gave his surgeon “black money”—€5,000 in cash—to perform the operation.

“If you don’t pay,” he said, “you don’t get anything done.”

Greece’s constitution obliges the state to provide health care to citizens. By and large, it does. But the system is a mess. It is stuffed with debt, plagued with corruption such as the bribes Mr. Gianakouras said he paid, and hobbled by inefficiency and inequity.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/11/11/pa-tv-un/#more-774401

The Obama approach to Middle East peacemaking, it can’t be emphasized enough, is premised on the gamble that if Israel stops building schools and homes in the West Bank, then this will go away. Other people have suggested that broadcasting primitive “nature provides rain to cleanse away the filthiness of Jews” incitement is evidence of deeply-seated cultural bigotry. So there are arguments on both sides.

The theory was broadcast on Fatah-controlled PA TV last Sunday. The key part goes:

The golden dome [of the mosque] shines with colors of the sky, with the white of clouds, while the joyous holiday [Eid Al-Adha] is good to the residents. The light rain cleanses the steps of the foreigners [Jews] so that the feet [of Muslims] in prayer will not step on impurity.

This broadcast is a kind of follow-up to one from September. That one described Jews praying at the Western Wall as “sin and filth” and asserted that the Jewish connection to Jerusalem was a “false history.” So you can already tell that the Palestinians’ UNESCO ascension – which was meant to set up an international campaign against Israeli control of its capital, and which is already getting started – is going to be delightful.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2060342/Putins-model-army-strikes-raunchy-video-Russians-voting.html#ixzz1dSDBK1H4 Is this the sexiest political ad campaign ever? Putin’s model army strikes again with raunchy video to get Russians voting They’ve washed cars in skimpy outfits and torn their clothes off – all to promote the hardman of Russian politics, Vladimir Putin. Now his model army has launched its latest charm offensive – with […]

Update on MA Terrorism Trial: British Investigator Tells Court of Contacts with Terrorists
http://vinienco.com/2011/11/11/update-on-ma-terrorism-trial-british-investigator-tells-court-of-contacts-with-terrorists/

Update on Canada ‘Honor’ Killing Trial: Jury Hears Wiretap of Accused
http://vinienco.com/2011/11/11/update-on-canada-%E2%80%98honor%E2%80%99-killing-trial-jury-hears-wiretap-of-accused/

83 Seek $750M from Army for Fort Hood Shooting
http://vinienco.com/2011/11/11/83-seek-750m-from-army-for-fort-hood-shooting/

England: Police Raid Houses Connected to Muslims Against Crusades Group
http://vinienco.com/2011/11/11/england-police-raid-houses-connected-to-muslims-against-crusades-group/

Palestinian Authority Threatens ‘Violence and Anarchy’ if UN Bid Fails
http://vinienco.com/2011/11/11/palestinian-authority-threatens-violence-and-anarchy-if-un-bid-fails/

Sharia Banking Dispute Heard in Toronto Court
http://vinienco.com/2011/11/11/sharia-banking-dispute-heard-in-toronto-court/

The View from Egypt’s Christian Garbage City, by David Ignatius
http://vinienco.com/2011/11/11/the-view-from-egypt%E2%80%99s-christian-garbage-city-by-david-ignatius/

Apostates Beaten and Detained by Police for ‘Luring’ Muslims to Christianity
http://vinienco.com/2011/11/11/apostates-beaten-and-detained-by-police-for-%E2%80%98luring%E2%80%99-muslims-to-christianity/

Radical Islam in the Heart of Europe, Jeffrey T. Kuhner
http://vinienco.com/2011/11/11/radical-islam-in-the-heart-of-europe-jeffrey-t-kuhner/

Indiana: Dhimmi Students Protests Professor’s Facebook Comments about ‘Moderate’ Muslims
http://vinienco.com/2011/11/11/indiana-dhimmi-students-protests-professors-facebook-comments-about-%E2%80%98moderate%E2%80%99-muslims/

Another Catholic Trader Kidnapped by Muslims in Southern Philippines
http://vinienco.com/2011/11/11/another-catholic-trader-kidnapped-by-muslims-in-southern-philippines/

Muslim Outrage: South African Company Labels Pork and Kangaroo Meat as Halal Beef
http://vinienco.com/2011/11/11/muslim-outrage-south-african-company-labels-pork-and-kangaroo-meat-as-halal-beef/

German-Afghan Charged with al-Qaida Membership
http://vinienco.com/2011/11/11/german-afghan-charged-with-al-qaida-membership/

U.S. May Sell Precision Missiles to UAE, Obama Building up Arab Gulf States
http://vinienco.com/2011/11/11/u-s-may-sell-precision-missiles-to-uae-obama-building-up-arab-gulf-states/

Bosnian Court Jails Three for Terrorism Plot
http://vinienco.com/2011/11/11/bosnian-court-jails-three-for-terrorism-plot/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/11/colin-powell-occupy-wall-street_n_1088141.html The Occupy Wall Street demonstrations are “as American as apple pie,” former Secretary of State Colin Powell said during a recent interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan. According to Powell, there is plenty of justification for the movement’s outrage, but also some reason for concern over its direction. Powell began by recalling his upbringing in […]

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2011/11/sierra_club_at_the_metropolitan_club.html Norman Rogers is a physicist and a senior policy advisor at the Heartland Institute.  He maintains a website, www.climateviews.com. My dirty secret is that I’m a member of the Sierra Club.  I joined at the $15 rate for retired senior citizens and received a bonus shoulder bag.  The Sierra Club idolizes nature and demonizes […]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100116910/green-charities-way-more-evil-and-dangerous-than-exxon-or-the-koch-brothers

Sorry, I find Europe so paralysingly depressing I can’t possibly blog about it. Instead, here’s a piece of investigative journalism to gladden the heart from Norman Rogers – a physicist and senior advisor at the Heartland Institute.

It describes how he cunningly infiltrated his way into the belly of the Green Beast – aka the America’s oldest environmental organisation, the Sierra Club – using the brilliantly clever device of paying for membership. Like Greenpeace, like the WWF, the Sierra Club would love you to imagine that it is a plucky little David battling the Goliaths of Big Carbon, Big Industry, Big Pollution, Big Corporate Greed, Big Koch, and so on. In fact – again like Greenpeace, like the WWF – it is enormously well-funded with an $84 million annual budget and 1.4 million members. This would be nice if it didn’t use all that money and influence promoting such terrible causes.

The Iranian Nuclear Maze Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought” “Israel Hayom” Newsletter,November 11, 2011 http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=811 The assumptions that tougher sanctions could deny Iran nuclear capabilities, could pacify Iran’s nuclear programs, and could produce a regime change in Teheran, defy reality. These assumptions and the suppositions that Mutually-Assured-Deterrence (MAD) would enable the Free World to […]

http://www.examiner.com/jewish-culture-in-philadelphia/new-issue-of-jewish-exponent-features-four-articles-hyping-leftists?render=print#print

Guest commentary by Moshe Phillips (Jewish Exponent Watch: November 10 issue)

The November 10th edition of the Philadelphia area’s Jewish Exponent features several articles which each give a profoundly one-sided view of Jewish leftists and their organizations. The Exponent continues to bolster the most hard-left elements of the community and alienate both moderates and those on the right.

The feature by Bryan Schwartzman about Rabbi Marcia Prager is perhaps most shocking. Prager is a leader of radical Arthur Waskow’s so-called Jewish Renewal movement. Waskow and Prager were among the headliners at Tikkun Magazine’s Network of Spiritual Progressives conference earlier this year. Rabbis Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Shawn Zevit and Leonard Gordon are all interviewed for the article. None are identified as the radicals they are. All five had leadership roles in either J Street, the Jewish Fast for Gaza or the Rabbis for Human Rights or all three. Gordon was an originator of the J Street PAC and was listed as on its Advisory Council in its April 15, 2008 press release.