RUTHFULLY YOURS

Like everyone else I knew in the Forest Hills of my boyhood, my parents were the American–born children of immigrants from Eastern Europe. But my grandparents, who left Russia and Romania in their desperate quest for freedom, opportunity and children who would become genuine Americans, always remained foreigners. They spoke Yiddish, brewed tea in samovars schlepped from Odessa, and shrieked hysterically – doubtlessly reminded of the Czar’s army – when my beloved uncle was drafted during World War II.

Their allegiance to the United States was pledged every four years when, like the overwhelming majority of American Jews of their generation, they voted for Franklin D. Roosevelt. During my childhood I believed that Roosevelt’s first name was “President”; he was the closest thing to a Savior that our brand of Americanized Judaism permitted. We listened to his “fireside chats” and during the 1944 presidential campaign my mother dragged me to Queens Boulevard in pouring rain to cheer his passing motorcade. I vividly remember glimpsing his delightful dog Fala, but not the President. At my father’s suggestion, I even wrote to the White House to ask him to buy a war bond to support our school’s patriotic campaign.

Six months later, the impact of his death registered only with the arrival of Life magazine. It displayed the photograph of a mournful black accordionist, weeping as he played “Going Home” when Roosevelt’s body left Warm Springs for burial in Hyde Park. That image ranked in memory – and still does – with the Jewish boy in Warsaw, my age exactly, raising his arms in terror as he confronted Nazi soldiers; and with the first horrific Life photos of emaciated survivors in the extermination camps.

All those memories were rekindled while I watched “The Roosevelts,” Ken Burns’ new documentary. As a professional historian, mentored by one of the commentators, I had long ago come to realize that FDR hardly was the saint that my parents, extended family, and virtually every American Jew outside privileged German Jewish circles, had worshipped. So I took with many grains of salt, but rising anger, the whitewash of FDR’s indifference to the plight of European Jewry that I was witnessing, even though I knew that disgraceful story all too well.

But not until I read (or reread) some of Roosevelt’s most despicable statements about Jews, extensively documented in a series of on-line commentaries by Rafael Medoff, founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, did the depths of Roosevelt’s loathing for Jews, and refusal to lift a finger (which, unlike his legs, was not paralyzed) to rescue them, fully penetrate. As far back as 1920, when FDR was the Democratic party candidate for vice president, he had proposed that “the greater part of the foreign population of the City of New York” should be “distributed to different localities upstate” so as to feel pressure to “conform to the manners and customs and requirements of their new home.” As a member of the Harvard board of directors he supported a Jewish admissions quota.

Adam Andrzejewski is the founder of OpenTheBooks.com a project of American Transparency 501(c)3. a unique organization that sheds light on fraud and corruption. Visit the site and interactive map….rsk

Salary spending is up 2.5 times with additional billions of dollars spent on a building binge, but IL student enrollment is flat since 2000. Is this a higher educational system or a jobs farm and patronage pool?

Here is what’s wrong with higher ed.

Over thirteen years, Illinois colleges and universities vastly increased the size of their payrolls, spent lavishly on salaries and benefits, and expended billions on construction, but have yet to see a measurable increase in students. Since 2000, enrollments are up just one third of one percent annually (4.28% total).

With tuition rates becoming unaffordable for lower and middle class students, high property taxes forcing homeowners into foreclosure, and student loan debt headlining the national news, many are wondering, “what’s the matter with higher education?”

Here are some of our findings from the Land of Lincoln:

Student enrollment flat. Enrollment was 542,450 (2000) and 566,198 (2012)- a slight .3367% average annual increase (1/3 of 1 percent per year). Source: OpenTheBooks.com
Employment explosion. 51,439 system wide employees (2000) to 90,589 employees (2013)- employment outpaced enrollment by 17x.
Gross salary spike. $1.817 billion total payroll (2000) vs. $4.4 billion in total payroll (2013)- payroll grew 36x faster than enrollment. Click here to see annual totals by institution.
Binge Building boom. Net assignable square footage was 14.756 million (2000) vs 18.144 million (2012) for community colleges and 37.176 million (2000) vs 45.085 million (2009, last year available) for universities – that’s more than 6x the pace of enrollment. Source: Illinois Community College Board and Illinois Board of Higher Education.

Spending abuse: at College of DuPage (COD), an Illinois community college, watch a video tour of their wine cellar within their upscale French restaurant. Enrollment is down over 5,000 students over the last 14 years.

The big foreign policy debate now is whether we should ally with Sunni or Shiite Jihadists to defeat ISIS.

The pro-Iranian camp wants us to coordinate with Iran and Assad. The pro-Saudi camp wants us to arm the Free Syrian Army and its assorted Jihadists to overthrow Assad.

Both sides are not only wrong, they are traitors.

Iran and the Sunni Gulfies are leading sponsors of international terrorism that has killed Americans. Picking either side means siding with the terrorists.

It makes no sense to join with Islamic terrorists to defeat Islamic terrorists. Both Sunni and Shiite Jihadists are our enemies. And this is not even a “the enemy of my enemy” scenario because despite their mutual hatred for each other, they hate us even more.

The 1998 indictment of bin Laden accused him of allying with Iran. (Not to mention Iraq, long before such claims could be blamed on Dick Cheney.) The 9/11 Commission documented that Al Qaeda terrorists, including the 9/11 hijackers, freely moved through Iran. Testimony by one of bin Laden’s lieutenants showed that he had met with a top Hezbollah terrorist. Court findings concluded that Iran was liable for Al Qaeda’s bombing of US embassies. Al Qaeda terrorists were trained by Hezbollah.

While Shiite and Sunni Jihadists may be deadly enemies to each other, they have more in common with each other than they do with us. Our relationship to them is not that of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” That’s their relationship to each other when it comes to us. In these scenarios we are the enemy.

The pro-Saudi and pro-Iranian factions in our foreign policy complex agree that we have to help one side win in Syria. They’re wrong. We have no interest in helping either side win because whether the Sunnis or Shiites win, Syria will remain a state sponsor of terror.

It’s only a question of whether it will be Shiite or Sunni terror.

Speaking at the United Nations on Wednesday, President Obama performed the signal feat of cramming his head so far up his own ass that his head actually emerged from his mouth again, thereby creating the first human Escher loop. His speech at the United Nations was chock-full of moronic platitudes, internal contradictions, and morally disgusting sentiments.

Here are the top fifteen:

“Together, we have learned how to cure disease, and harness the power of the wind and sun.” Which is, of course, why disease remains rampant in Africa – so much so that Obama is sending 3,000 troops there to combat Ebola virus – and why America garners a whopping 4.13 percent of her electricity from wind and 0.23 percent from the sun. But the Godking hath reined global forces to his chariot, and shall ride the moonbeams!

“We are here because others realized that we gain more from cooperation than conquest.” Well, no. We are here because civilized nations banded together to defeat Nazis and then communism, not because of some global revelation about the power of cooperation. This is a third grade rendition of history.

“We believe that right makes might – that bigger nations should not be able to bully smaller ones; that people should be able to choose their own future.” If Obama believes this, he has the mental capacity of a chipmunk. Obviously, right does not make might. If it did, millions of Jews would still be living in Germany and Poland, the Soviet Empire never would have risen, and the Yazidis would be decimating ISIS. We actually believe that it is the duty of right to grow its defense capacity and then fight for its principles – both notions foreign to President Obama.

“While small gains can be won at the barrel of a gun, they will ultimately be turned back if enough voices support the freedom of nations and peoples to make their own decisions.” Again, no. Millions of voices have cried out for freedom in North Korea and China for decades, to no avail. It isn’t about raising voices. It’s about strategically outflanking evil nations and crippling their capacity to continue functioning.

“My message to Iran’s leaders and people is simple: do not let this opportunity pass. We can reach a solution that meets your energy needs while assuring the world that your program is peaceful.“ Iran’s mullahs are still laughing at this one.

“America is and will continue to be a Pacific power, promoting peace, stability, and the free flow of commerce among nations. But we will insist that all nations abide by the rules of the road, and resolve their territorial disputes peacefully, consistent with international law.” The Chinese politburo is still laughing at this one.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/when-silence-is-not-an-option-on-the-glazov-gang-2/

This special Glazov Gang episode was joined by Dr. Ari Babaknia, an Iranian-born doctor who wrote and published a 4-volume book in Farsi “The Holocaust” (which in English is “Humanity, NOT”).

He came on the show to discuss “Humanity, NOT,” which takes an in-depth look, in words and images, at the captured emotions of the victims, perpetrators, bystanders, and survivors of the Holocaust, told in their own words.

Dr. Babaknia focuses on the evil of genocide, the indifference of man in the face of evil, and when silence is not an option:

Attorney General Eric Holder is at long last relinquishing his cabinet post after nearly six unprecedented, catastrophic years of racial demagoguery and gangsterism.

Holder, who announced yesterday that he will leave office when a replacement is selected, will leave behind what is probably the most ugly and toxic legacy of any attorney general ever in the history of the republic.

Although he has all the moral authority of disbarred Duke Lacrosse prosecutor Mike Nifong, Holder knows he is immune to criticism because he is black and a radical leftist. He is a protected, pampered member of the ruling class and his arrogance knows no bounds. He ignores court orders and gives congressional overseers the finger.

Holder has transformed the U.S. Department of Justice into a racial grievance incubator, an intensive care unit for kooky, authoritarian ideas that should have died after the 1960s. The DoJ, especially its rotten, totally corrupt Civil Rights Division, is a lawyerly commune for revolutionaries who oppose the very idea of the rule of law. Critical Legal Theory and Critical Race Theory govern much of what goes on in the department.

It is no exaggeration to say that Holder leaves death and destruction behind after saturation-bombing the Constitution, orchestrating criminal activity in order to whip up public support for policy changes, fomenting racial tension and violence, persecuting political opponents and disfavored industries, obstructing justice, and enforcing laws arbitrarily and capriciously and in a manner calculated to benefit his friends and allies.

It was all too predictable. Holder was the official assigned to vet President Bill Clinton’s 176 last-minute pardons in January 2001. Among those pardoned were former Weather Underground members Susan Rosenberg and Linda Evans. He was deeply involved in Clinton’s pardons of fugitive financier Marc Rich and Puerto Rican terrorists. Holder is an archetype, a living, breathing embodiment of American political corruption.

“The news that Holder is going to resign should be bittersweet to anyone who cares about racial equality and the rule of law,” says Injustice author J. Christian Adams, a lawyer who used to work at the DoJ.

“The damage he has already done to the country leaves a turbulent wake that is ill-matched to the financial reward awaiting him at a shameless and large Washington, D.C., law firm. Our country is more polarized and more racially divided because of Eric Holder. He turned the power of the Justice Department into a racially motivated turnout machine for the Democratic Party. That was his job in this administration, and he did it well.”

Barack Obama’s address to the U.N. General Assembly was so insubstantial, so full of airy platitudes, and so adulterated with the gaseous clichés of bankrupt internationalism and progressive bromides that I thought at any minute he might just float away.

First was the obligatory call “to renew the purpose of the U.N.’s founding,” which apparently is “to observe and enforce international norms,” the most important being “to ensure that no nation can subjugate its neighbors and claim their territory” and to promote “the path of diplomacy and peace and the ideals this institution is designed to uphold.” Such phrases are so common and uncritically received that we forget “international norms” do not exist. Different peoples have different “norms” about, for example, the use of violence to achieve their aims. Nations will sign treaties that seemingly express our norms, but that doesn’t mean they believe in them. More often, such treaties are mere mechanisms for one nation to get what it wants from another. The sorry history of U.S. arms-control treaties with the Soviet Union and then Russia, treaties the Russians violated for decades to improve their nuclear arsenal at our expense, is just one example.

As for seizing territory by force, the U.N. did nothing to prevent Turkey from seizing northern Cyprus, or China from seizing Tibet, and more recently Russia from seizing Crimea. The Serbs’ attempts in the ’90s to “claim territory” were stopped not by the U.N., but by American bombs. So too was Saddam Hussein’s aggression against Kuwait. Nor should we be surprised at the serial failure of the U.N. to enforce its lofty founding principles. Nations belong to the U.N. because they think they can use it to advance their interests, not “to enforce international norms,” especially when their own “norms” see nothing wrong with using duplicity and force to achieve their aims. Indeed, the continuing violence justified by other “norms” since the U.N.’s founding has claimed some 41 million lives. The U.N. serves the conflicting, zero-sum interests of the member states, not the “path of diplomacy and peace.”

From that preposterous beginning, the speech went downhill. “Islam teaches peace,” the President intoned. No, Islam teaches submission. There is no peace for those who refuse to submit, even for Muslims considered heretics by other Muslims, but especially for “polytheists” or “infidels.” In their case, Islam teaches jihad against them if they refuse to accept the “call” to convert. Far from being extremists “who have perverted one of the world’s great religions,” as Obama scolded, the proliferating jihadist outfits that are kidnapping, torturing, raping, beheading, and enslaving people around the globe are acting on the doctrines and past practices of Islam’s founding fathers.

http://weaselzippers.us/200716-isis-publicly-executes-iraqi-woman-activist-after-sharia-court-convicts-her-of-apostasy/

ISIS Publicly Executes Iraqi Woman Activist After Sharia Court Convicts Her Of “Apostasy”…
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Seventh-century justice.

BAGHDAD (AP) – Militants with the Islamic State group publicly killed a rights lawyer in the Iraqi city of Mosul after finding her guilty of apostasy in a self-styled Islamic court, the U.N. mission in Iraq said Thursday.

Samira Salih al-Nuaimi was seized from her home on Sept. 17 after allegedly posting messages on Facebook that were critical of the militants’ destruction of religious sites in Mosul.

According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq, al-Nuaimi was tried in a so-called “Sharia court” for apostasy, after which she was tortured for five days before the militants sentenced her to “public execution.”

She was killed on Monday, the U.N. mission said. Her Facebook page appears to have been removed since her death.

“By torturing and executing a female human rights’ lawyer and activist, defending in particular the civil and human rights of her fellow citizens in Mosul, ISIL continues to attest to its infamous nature, combining hatred, nihilism and savagery, as well as its total disregard of human decency,” Nickolay Mladenov, the U.N. envoy to Iraq, said in a statement, referring to the group by an acronym.

Although he has no Democratic challenger, he did not have a clear victory against Art Moore, a Republican challenger in the primary, so both go as candidates on November 4th. Rep. Tpm McClintock is one of the most intelligent, most principled Congressmen in America. He deserves re-election…..rsk http://www.tommcclintock.com/
Contrary to the President’s assertions last week, the Islamic State IS Islamic and it IS a state – or at least has all the attributes of a state. It is precisely this combination that makes it so dangerous: a messianic and clearly stated intention to wage jihad on American soil and the resources and equipment to do so.

In response to this danger, the President proposes that the United States wage a continuing air war against the Islamic State, but to avoid any commitment of ground forces. Instead, he seeks to use vetted elements of the Free Syrian Army as the American proxy force and proposes to arm and train them for that purpose.

This raises two major concerns.

First, many elements of the Free Syrian Army have a long history of collaborating with the Islamic State. Its principal mission is to destroy the Syrian government which, though utterly despotic, is currently fighting against the Islamic State. We court a very real risk that this equipment will either be turned against Syria as it fights the I.S. or turned over to the I.S. as elements of the Iraqi Security Forces recently did.

Second, committing insufficient force in any conflict is self-defeating, and air strikes alone cannot win a war. For 13 years, the brave young Americans who stepped forward to defend our nation after 9/11 have found themselves hamstrung by political correctness on the battlefield; perilously commingled with hostile forces; endangered by rules of engagement that undermine their ability to defend themselves and denied the full resources and commitment of our country.

We are in precarious times with an administration that either cannot or will not learn from the mistakes of the past. Until we are prepared to put the full might and resources of our nation behind a war against the Islamic State, we can at least act to contain I.S. advances, protect our people, and restore the martial strength and national will that we will certainly need in the years ahead.

First, I believe the President is correct to order selected airstrikes in tactical support of resistance forces where they are actively engaged against the I.S. Where we can turn the tide of battle in these engagements, we must. And the immediate destruction of oil fields under I.S. control is vital to reduce the resources it is currently converting to cash.

Attorney General Eric Holder, the first Black man to be appointed as United States Attorney General, has resigned. Americans who suffered the slings and arrows of rising above the racial divide since – and before – the enactment of Civil Rights legislation are jubilant in his departure. Never before has an Attorney General belittled the American citizenry as Mr. Holder has in his comments on racism. Never before has an Attorney General abused the power of his office as Mr. Holder has in the pursuit of racial retribution. And never before has an Attorney General overseen such an aggressive division of our citizenry based on race as has Mr, Holder. To put it directly, Mr. Holder, don’t let the door smack you in your racist behind as you leave.

I was raised in the 1960s and 1970s. My parents taught me, in no uncertain terms, to consider individuals through a lens that evaluated their character, not their skin color. When I didn’t, my attitude was “adjusted” and I am thankful for their unyielding insistence on that issue.

I remember all too clearly the evening when my Father returned home from his office the day he found one of his best friends – a Black man – dead on the office floor. He was devastated. Eddie Kaine was more than an employee to my Father. Each day as he arrived at his fledgling business – a new and struggling metal manufacturing company – he was greeted by Mr. Kaine. Each morning they took the time to have a cup of coffee, or two, and discuss family, life, and current events. It was irrelevant that my Father that was the boss and Mr. Kaine was the custodian. Both men looked upon each other with respect, as family men both struggling to achieve so as to take care of their respective families. They were men of equal honor talking like the friends that they were.

Many times, my Father would confer with his friend on business realities that weighed heavily on my Father’s mind. Many times the common sense advice that Mr. Caine offered my Father – as a friend – were decisions that helped to ease my Father’s mind. I like to think that it was out of the catalyst of their friendship that my Father was moved to institute a profit sharing plan that included all of his employees. Mind you, this was in a day and age when such things were considered revolutionary. The harder everyone worked – from the custodian to the CEO – the more everyone would financially benefit; capitalism at its purest; everyone has “skin in the game.”