RUTHFULLY YOURS

Lawyers for the Obama administration compared Israel’s control of Jerusalem to Russian claims over the Ukrainian territory of Crimea during oral arguments this week before the Supreme Court in a case concerning the rights of U.S. citizens to list Jerusalem as part of Israel on their passports.

U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, who is rumored to be in the running to replace outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder, drew the comparison on Monday while he attempted to convince the Supreme Court that Jerusalem is not officially part of Israel.

The controversial case hinges around Menachem Zivotofsky, who was born in Jerusalem in 2002. Zivotofsky’s parents requested that Menachem’s U.S. passport bear “Jerusalem, Israel” as his place of birth, a request that was denied by the Obama administration on the basis of its longstanding policy to not recognize the holy city as part of Israel.

The Zivotofsky family sued following the decision and the case has been stuck in judicial limbo since. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and initial arguments by both sides were presented this week.

Obama administration lawyers argue that the case infringes on the president’s executive right to conduct foreign policy. By acknowledging Jerusalem as Israeli territory, the White House would lose its credibility in the peace process, as well as its jurisdiction to manage foreign affairs, the government maintains.

Lawyers for the Zivotofsky family disagree.

King Abdullah is shaky on his throne. He is contending with a host of radical forces at his border, thousands of Syrian refugees inside of his border, and pressure from Palestinian Arabs. Thus he plays it in a manner that he believes will best protect him.

And, consequently, Netanyahu has always done a very careful balancing act with Jordan. It is in the Israeli interest that the king should not fall.

With all of this said, however, it is instructive to consider the text of the 1994 Peace Treaty Agreement between Israel and Jordan. With regard to this issue, it says (emphasis added):

ARTICLE 9

PLACES OF HISTORICAL AND RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE

1. Each party will provide freedom of access to places of religious and historical significance…

2. In this regard, in accordance with the Washington Declaration, Israel respects the present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem. When negotiations on the permanent status will take place, Israel will give high priority to the Jordanian historic role in these shrines. (This has to do with Israel not giving the PA priority on the Mount.)

3. The Parties will act together to promote interfaith relations among the three monotheistic religions, with the aim of working towards religious understanding, moral commitment, freedom of religious worship, and tolerance and peace.

Not only does this not give Jordan great power on the Mount, it would seem that Jordan has been severely remiss in meeting its responsibilities. Freedom of access to places of religious significance? Freedom of religious worship? Well, now.

Housing Minister Uri Ariel (Habayit Hayehudi) has it right:

Depressing revelations about the sexual abuse of teens and young women in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England continue to rear their ugly head. Just last week the Freedom Center’s own Robert Spencer wrote about reports that the “sexual exploitation of vulnerable children has become the social norm in some parts of Greater Manchester.” Now the Daily Mail reports that dozens of child sex offenders are still at large there because the police aren’t bothering to arrest them.

In early 2012 nine “Asian” men (the Euro-media’s familiar euphemism for “Muslim”), ages 22 to 59, were convicted of rape and sex trafficking and jailed for a total of 77 years. They had “groomed” vulnerable white girls as young as 13, passed them around the group for sex, and kept the victims quiet with alcohol, food and small sums of money. Even more disgusting was the later revelation that the girls were victims of the grooming gang longer than necessary because police and social workers who were aware of the abuse turned a blind eye to it, rather than clamp down on the mostly Pakistani gang and be accused of racism.

Last Wednesday, Greater Manchester’s Police and Crime Commissioner put forward a report listing a whopping 13,000 cases of child sex abuse in the last six years, of which only 1,078 offenders were convicted. The Commissioner promised to review the unsolved cases of sex abuse allegations, but whistleblower Sara Rowbotham isn’t optimistic that further justice will be served.

According to Rowbotham, a social worker with more than 13 years experience who was responsible for gathering the main evidence in the 2012 Rochdale investigation, the police have put a “cap” on the number of child sex offenders they would arrest for raping and abusing young females. She said that during the 2012 case, police officials became “obsessed” with convicting just nine of the perpetrators, while “limited resources and manpower” resulted in the police allowing many more sex offenders to remain on the loose:

It’s very shocking, but there are dozens of child sex offenders still on the streets because they put a cap on the number of people they would arrest. In the end this was just a tiny proportion of the number of offenders raping and abusing children and they were allowed to escape. But not only did they cap the number of offenders but they also put a ceiling on the number of victims they would interview and proceed with.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/rula-jebreals-deceptions-about-islam-on-the-glazov-gang/

This week’s episode of The Glazov Gang was joined by Dr. Mark Christian, the President and Executive Director of the Global Faith Institute. He is the son and nephew of high-ranking leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in his home country of Egypt. A former Islamic Imam who converted from Islam to Christianity, he dedicated his life and work to the proposition that “the first victims of Islam are the Muslim themselves.”

Dr. Christian discussed Rula Jebreal’s Deceptions About Islam, unveiling the falsehoods Jebreal recently uttered on Bill Maher’s program about Islam in her effort to delegitimize the Real Time host’s truth-telling about Islamic terror and tyranny (starts at 9:00 minute mark).

Dr. Christian’s discussion of Jebreal’s falsehoods occurred within his focus on Reza Aslan’s Lies About Islamic Female Genital Mutilation, in which he gave a first-hand and harrowing account about a vicious Islamic crime perpetrated against Muslim girls. He pinpointed the Islamic theology that serves as the buffer to Islamic FGM and shared his own experience as a doctor trying to help the Muslim women who have been victimized by it.

Jewish leftists keep threatening to break up with Israel. They deliver a list of their demands, scribble nasty things about the Jewish State on social media and even write entire books in which they threaten to break up with it for good, but they never actually move on to stalking some other country.

Peter “Crisis of Zionism” Beinart, Jeffrey “Chickens__t” Goldberg act like jealous boyfriends constantly warning Israel that they are about to break up with it.

But the break up never happens. It can’t.

Stalkers use their victims to prop up their shaky identity. Without Israel, Jewish leftists who call themselves liberals become indistinguishable from the generic left.

They can hate Israel, but they can’t let go of it.

Jewish “liberal” support for Israel isn’t fading. The Jewish liberal is becoming less liberal and less Jewish. He is becoming a leftist with a Jewish last name and no amount of Israeli concessions to terrorists will convince Jewish leftists to put their Jewish identity ahead of their leftist politics.

Israel can’t do anything to reverse that trend. Banning more Jews from living in Jerusalem, the latest demand of Obama and J Street, won’t save them from themselves.

This isn’t an Israeli crisis. It’s a crisis of American Jews.

J Street churns out editorials urging Jewish groups to connect with young Jews by bashing Israel. And who better to lecture us on connecting with Jewish youth than an astroturfed organization backed by an 84-year-old Nazi collaborator who called his own mother a Jewish anti-Semite.

The left’s hatred for Israel predated its existence. The left doesn’t hate Israel because of its policies. It hates Jews.

BACK IN APRIL 2014 FAMILY SECURITY MATTERS ELECTION SERIES FEATURED JONI ERNST

Joni Ernst (R) Challenger

http://www.joniforiowa.com/

HEALTHCARE Repeal and Replace Obamacare Joni is staunchly opposed to the Obamacare law. Joni supports immediate action to defund Obamacare, repeal it, and replace it with free-market alternatives that put patients first, and healthcare decisions back in the hands of doctors rather than bureaucrats.

SCRAP THE TAX CODE The IRS is a disaster. The greatest nation on earth should not have one of the most predatory, bureaucratic, out of control tax agencies on the planet. Our system is backwards. Joni believes real, fundamental tax reform will require more than tweaks to the tax code. It’s time to scrap it and start over, to make our tax system fairer, flatter, simpler and more certain.

UNITED STATES/ISRAEL PARTNERSHIP http://www.joniforiowa.com/u-s-israeli-partnership/ Since recognizing Israel’s official founding on May 14, 1948, the bond between the United States and the Jewish State has steadily grown stronger through many historic and turbulent moments, to include the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Six-Day War, and Gulf War to presently underway efforts to downgrade, and ultimately eliminate, the offensive capabilities of terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and Hezbollah and to eliminate the regional threat posed by a potentially nuclear Iran. As history has proven time and time again, America has no better friend or more loyal ally than she does with Israel.

Today this strategic alliance has grown well beyond these essential military and intelligence ties to other vital areas such as rapid expansion of trade, cultural exchanges and shared interest in the sciences. What has nourished this growth is the fact that these two powerful nations share the values of democracy, appreciation of free market principles, strict adherence to the rule of law, and culture of innovation.

While over the last few years there has been an unfortunate slight uptick in misguided rhetoric coming from Washington concerning matters related to Israel and her self-interest and security, Joni Ernst believes the United States must remain committed to growing and nurturing this relationship in a host of ways, including the continuation of aid programs, sharing of intelligence, close coordination on foreign policy relating to strategic international and regional importance, and extension of a mutually-beneficial and growing trade relationship.

As a soldier who has commanded an Army unit in the Middle East in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and current Lt. Colonel in the Iowa National Guard, Joni Ernst looks at the U.S.-Israeli relationship not only through the standard foreign policy and national security prism, but also from an on-the-ground, military readiness and capabilities standpoint. And as the next United States Senator from Iowa, she will enthusiastically fight to expand the bond that exists between these two partners while prioritizing efforts aimed at strengthening the only democracy in the Middle East with a recognition that doing so will preserve the safety and security of both America and Israel for generations to come.

Republicans wrested control of the U.S. Senate from Democrats last night, setting the stage for potentially dramatic legislative showdowns with President Obama during the final two years of his already-catastrophic presidency.

After a GOP electoral wave wiped out several Democratic senators who supported Obamacare, around 11:15 p.m. Eastern time major media outlets projected Republicans would hold at least 51 seats in the Senate in January. In the approaching 114th Congress both chambers will be under GOP control and in a position to hinder Obama’s agenda if lawmakers so choose. It also clears the way for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to become the Senate’s first Republican majority leader since Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) left the post at the beginning of 2007.

The first big confrontation between Obama and Congress, a massively unpopular immigration amnesty that could trigger a major constitutional crisis, is already on its way. Several hours before the first polls closed in the East, ABC News reported that White House officials said the president would move forward with an executive order on immigration reform “no matter how big a shellacking Democrats” got Tuesday.

And what a shellacking Democrats received.

In Arkansas challenger Tom Cotton (R) picked off incumbent Mark Pryor (D). In Colorado Cory Gardner (R) defeated incumbent Mark Udall (D).

In Georgia, David Perdue (R) dispatched Michelle Nunn (D). Perdue garnered more than 50 percent of the vote, thereby avoiding a runoff election. The seat is currently held by retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R).

In Iowa Joni Ernst (R) triumphed over Bruce Braley (D), a sitting congressman. The seat is now held by retiring Sen. Tom Harkin (D). In Kansas, incumbent Pat Roberts (R) beat back a fierce challenge from Greg Orman, an Independent with close ties to Democrats.

In the Bluegrass State, incumbent Mitch McConnell (R) easily bested challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes (D), Kentucky’s current secretary of state. Grimes refused in the closing days of the campaign to say if she voted for Obama for president.

In Montana Steve Daines (R) defeated extreme-left candidate Amanda Curtis (D). The seat is now held by John Walsh (D) who was embroiled in a plagiarism scandal.

Incumbent Jeanne Shaheen (D) in New Hampshire fended off a challenge from Scott Brown (R) who represented Massachusetts in the Senate from 2010 to 2013.

North Carolina incumbent Kay Hagan (D) was taken out by Thom Tillis (R). South Carolina’s Tim Scott (R) triumphed over Joyce Dickerson (D) to become the first popularly elected black senator in the South elected since Reconstruction.

In West Virginia U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R) beat Natalie Tennant (D) to take the seat of retiring Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D).

As of just after midnight Tuesday night, Republicans had already gained a net seven Senate seats and control of the chamber, with Virginia likely going to a recount, Alaska pending, and a probable runoff win in Louisiana. Already it seems that they’ve gained at least a net of twelve House seats.

Back in May, we felt there could be a Midterm Tsunami. In August we again speculated about it. But how did Republicans pull it off?

Our last national poll, in October, showed that the president had significant disapproval – 56 percent of Americans disapproving of the job he’s doing — which had the potential to drive the election to the Republicans.

Although the Republicans led the generic ballot for Congress at the time by a point, 42–41, among very likely voters it was 46–41, and the undecideds for Congress disapproved of the president by 64 percent. In the last two weeks of October, it appears, these voters nationalized the race, and we finally saw the tsunami.

In the national exit polls from this election day, the president’s disapproval was similar to our poll — approve 44 percent, disapprove 54 percent.

Among the 44 percent who approved of the job the president was doing, Democrats led 88–11. But among the 54 percent who disapproved of the job the president was doing, Republicans led 82–16. The Republican strategy to nationalize congressional races worked.

What didn’t work? The president’s and Democrats’ strategy to run against Congress. Clearly Congress is less popular than the White House: Only 20 percent in exit polls approved of the job that Congress was doing, and 78 percent disapproved.

On the night of his 2012 re-election triumph, following his victory speech, President Obama walked off the stage and made separate phone calls to Nancy Pelosi and House Democratic campaign chairman Steve Israel . He told them he would spend the next two years helping Democrats retake the House in 2014, and he pledged to raise $50 million and devote his 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina to the task.

Two years later we know how that turned out. The Republicans on Tuesday defeated at least four incumbents to take control of the Senate and are adding to their majority in the House. Add the GOP sweep of most of the close races for Governor, including in states Mr. Obama won twice, and the vote is a major repudiation of the President’s governance.

That 2012 episode, reported at the time by the Washington Post, speaks volumes about the reason. Mr. Obama has consistently put liberal policy demands and partisanship above the goals of economic growth and compromise. Far from cementing a Democratic majority, his political posture has helped the GOP make a comeback. The question now is whether he will change enough to salvage his last two years as President.

Former Senior White House Advisor Karl Rove on the likelihood of a Republican Senate majority. Plus, his predictions for House, gubernatorial and state legislative races. Photo: Getty Images

Liberals are busy discounting Tuesday’s results as meaningless, a “Seinfeld” election about nothing, and it’s true that Republicans failed to offer much of a unified policy agenda. Yet the one issue that has been on the ballot everywhere this year is President Obama and his record.

The main common Republican theme has been linking incumbent Democrats to Mr. Obama and his 42% approval rating. In left-leaning Colorado they have moved the polls by charging that Mark Udall had voted with the President “99% of the time,” and in other states it was 96% or 98%. Mr. Udall lost.

Those Democrats in turn studiously avoided appearing with Mr. Obama, much less having him campaign for them, and the Senate challenger in Kentucky famously wouldn’t even say if she’d voted for him. Georgia Democrat Michelle Nunn identified herself explicitly with George H.W. Bush. Mr. Obama was consigned to campaigning in heavily Democratic states, like Maryland.

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama hoped the midterm elections would help break the capital’s gridlock. Instead, they became a referendum on his presidency.

Voters went to the polls Tuesday deeply frustrated with the political system and handed Republicans a decisive victory. Mr. Obama was a central figure in key races where Republicans criticized his leadership.

Most Democratic Senate candidates refused to appear with Mr. Obama on the campaign trail, trying to distance themselves from an unpopular president. Democrats tried to keep the focus on policies of particular importance in their states.

Mr. Obama campaigned with just one Democrat running for the Senate—at a rally last weekend in Michigan, where his party’s nominee was widely expected to win. Mr. Obama said during the campaign season that while he wasn’t on Tuesday’s ballot, his policies were.
Republicans sought to make their races about both Mr. Obama and his policies. The president’s health-care law was the top issue in pro-Republican television ads run in four of 11 competitive Senate races this cycle, according to an analysis of Kantar Media/CMAG data by the nonpartisan Wesleyan Media Project.

In a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released this week, 67% of registered voters said they want to see Mr. Obama change the direction he is leading the country “a great deal” or “quite a bit,” while just 42% approved of the job he is doing.

The president now finds himself seeking to rebound with a public that, however they voted Tuesday, is deeply dissatisfied with his leadership.

Other presidents have made significant changes after midterm elections. George W. Bush replaced his defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld , after Republicans lost control of Congress in 2006 midterm elections that were dominated by deep voter disapproval of the Iraq war.