RUTHFULLY YOURS

Jack Moore reports for International Business Times, Aug. 26, 2014, that a new poll by ICM Research found that almost a sixth (16%) of the French population (16%) have a favorable disposition towards the jihadist group ISIS or ISIL (now known as the Islamic State).

The younger the respondent, the more likely they were to have a favorable view of IS, with the youngest age group, the 18-24 year-olds being most favorable.

Worse still, France has witnessed a growing threat of terrorism in recent years as hundreds of young French Muslims are believed to have flocked abroad to fight for jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq, with the potential to return home as radicalized members of society.

ISIL’s territorial ambitions are evident in its name — Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Levant today consists of the island of Cyprus, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and part of southern Turkey. (See “ISIS: the savage jihadists laying waste to Iraq”)

http://online.wsj.com/articles/henry-kissinger-on-the-assembly-of-a-new-world-order-1409328075?KEYWORDS=KISSINGER

The “con”-cept that has underpinned the modern geopolitical era is in crisis

What a remarkable feat…First: Kissinger has just undergone heart surgery and seems mighty indomitable. Second: He has been dead wrong on virtually everything….China, “detente” the Middle East, Vietnam…and out of the halls of power since he was Sec. of State for the parenthesis President Gerald Ford. Ronald Reagan in 1976 exposed all the faux strategies laid out by Kissinger. Furthermore, his terrible treatment of Israel during and after the 1973 war is a stain on his legacy. His crude threat of “a reassessment of relations” if Israel did not bow to the post war (a war that Egypt waged in a surprise attack meant to destroy Israel) demands by Egypt was outrageous…..Furthermore, he understood nothing of the threat of Islam to the west or civilization.Nothing shines in his resume as National Security Adviser to Nixon of as Secretary of State…He is a major fraud…..rsk

Libya is in civil war, fundamentalist armies are building a self-declared caliphate across Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan’s young democracy is on the verge of paralysis. To these troubles are added a resurgence of tensions with Russia and a relationship with China divided between pledges of cooperation and public recrimination. The concept of order that has underpinned the modern era is in crisis.

The search for world order has long been defined almost exclusively by the concepts of Western societies. In the decades following World War II, the U.S.—strengthened in its economy and national confidence—began to take up the torch of international leadership and added a new dimension. A nation founded explicitly on an idea of free and representative governance, the U.S. identified its own rise with the spread of liberty and democracy and credited these forces with an ability to achieve just and lasting peace. The traditional European approach to order had viewed peoples and states as inherently competitive; to constrain the effects of their clashing ambitions, it relied on a balance of power and a concert of enlightened statesmen. The prevalent American view considered people inherently reasonable and inclined toward peaceful compromise and common sense; the spread of democracy was therefore the overarching goal for international order. Free markets would uplift individuals, enrich societies and substitute economic interdependence for traditional international rivalries.

1. Do you think your book “Hard Choices” bombed due to a vast right wing conspiracy?

2.When you left the White House flat broke, did you apply for government assistance in purchasing your mansion in Washington, D.C. and your mini estate in Chappaqua?

3. At the beginning of Syria’s civil war you said “”There is a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer.” How would you appraise him now?

4. You once called the Russia “reset” a “brilliant” event. What do you think now?

5. You explained in July that Hamas hides their military weapons among civilians due mainly to geography and size, not religious extremism or hatred of the state of Israel. When asked about Hamas use of schools to fire rockets at Israel, thereby endangering children, you had this to say: “Hamas puts its missiles, its rockets in civilian areas; part of it is because Gaza is pretty small and it’s densely populated.” Is that an example of doing stupid stuff?

GO TO THEIR WEBSITE AND SEE THE AMAZING WORK THEY DO….RSK
This story of spending malfeasance and Board complicity at the second largest public higher education institution in Illinois continues to develop. And what we continue to discover is not pretty. But on the positive side, our efforts are having some impact….to the unhappy detriment of a bloated bureaucracy. Even the Tribune is weighing in and NOT in favor of the status quo. Refreshing.

-Matt

http://www.openthebooks.com/

CASE STUDY: “EVERY DIME. ONLINE”
AGGRESSIVE FINANCIAL TRANSPARENCY & REFORM

Illinois Junior College Goes Wild

Wine Cellar, French Restaurant, Shooting Club, corrupted
$20 million state grant, a President’s $500,000 Comp Package,
$600 Million in Construction Projects, & much more…
Read our summary, click here

Rather than institute reform, the college targeted the reformer

Today, from the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board…

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/wyoming-2014-candidates-for-congress-where-they-stand?f=puball

Primary: August 19, 2014

To see the actual voting records of all incumbents on other issues such as Foreign Policy, Second Amendment Issues, Homeland Security, and other issues as well as their rankings by special interest groups please use the links followed by two stars (**).

U.S. Senate

John Barrasso (R) Next Election in 2018.
Mike Enzi (R) Incumbent 2014

http://www.enziforwyoming.com/ http://www.enzi.senate.gov/public/

http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/Michael_Enzi.htm**

Rated -1 by AAI, indicating a mixed Arab/Palestine voting record. (May 2012)

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

IMMIGRATION An important part of securing our nation is securing our borders. Illegal immigration is just that – illegal and should be treated as such. Federal law provides enforcement authority to address the illegal population within our borders, but these laws have not been enforced properly. Better enforcement of our laws is the first step. I oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants. Congress should continue to examine our immigration policy and determine what legislation is needed and in what areas, but for me – amnesty is off the table. Amnesty rewards people for breaking the law. It puts illegal immigrants at the head of the line in front of those who are following the rules in order to gain United States citizenship. Below are my principles on how the Senate can address immigration reform. This six-step proposal reflects ideas and concepts from a host of proposals already discussed. We could enact any one of these sensible proposals today and produce results tomorrow. Amnesty for illegal immigrants is not a part of this proposal and I will not support amnesty.

HEALTHCARE – Fight to Dismantle Obamacare:

Mike has worked against Obamacare at every opportunity. Fox News called him the “Paul Revere” of the Anti-Obamacare movement. Before the law passed, Mike took to the Senate floor to denounce several possible bad effects which proved true.
Mike Enzi has been a steadfast opponent of Obamacare from the beginning. As early as 2010, he was proposing market-based healthcare solutions directly counter to monstrosity of the Obamacare legislation.
He voted against Obamacare in committee and on the floor of the Senate. He co-sponsored legislation to fully repeal Obamacare and another to fully defund it. Mike has supported 17 bills that would dismantle the worst parts of the law.
Mike also led an effort to overturn the HHS “grandfathering” regulations that has resulted in millions of Americans, including 2,600 Wyoming residents to date, being forced off their insurance coverage.

The Democratic Party and its leader, U.S. President Barack Obama, have spent several years ‎developing election themes around supposed “wars” directed by Republicans ‎against particular segments of society.

The war talk has served to fire up the base ‎among the groups supposedly under attack, and boost turnout for “progressive” ‎candidates. The most repeated and ridiculous of the war themes is the alleged “war ‎on women,” supposedly manifested most recently by challenges to the new ‎contraceptive coverage mandate under Obamacare by owners of businesses ‎opposed to the new mandate on religious grounds.

Other battles in this “war” ‎include Republicans refusing to support “equal pay for equal work” for women ‎workers, though virtually all of the alleged pay gap can be explained as having ‎nothing to do with discrimination: ‎”The [American Association of University Women] has now joined ranks with serious economists who ‎find that when you control for relevant differences between ‎men and women (occupations, college majors, length of time in ‎workplace) the wage gap narrows to the point of vanishing.”‎

There are other wars the Obama administration is fighting at ‎home, now that it has withdrawn from pretty much all the real ‎global conflicts, many of which have become uglier in light of ‎the vacuum created by the increasing absence of an American ‎presence in the Middle East. The recent flare-up in Ferguson, ‎Missouri, after an 18-year-old black man was shot by a white ‎police officer, was used to argue that there is a war in America ‎by white cops against black men. Although blacks comprise ‎only 13 percent of the population, they ‎commit or are the victims in about half of all murders in ‎America, almost all of which are black-on-black murders. Yet blacks represent barely 30 percent of those ‎killed by police. In addition, more than half of the shootings ‎and killings of black suspects were by black police. If anything, one might argue there is a war ‎on white suspects in America, since they are disproportionately ‎killed compared to the number of murders whites commit.

The fake wars dominate media coverage of campaigns, not a ‎surprise, since well over 90 percent of Washington journalists support ‎Democrats according to several surveys, and see their job as a ‎way to advance the causes and candidates they believe in. ‎Nonetheless, there are actual campaigns, if not wars, against ‎groups in America that never see the light of day, and whose ‎various fronts are never connected. One of these, and in some ‎ways, an ominous, and dangerous new development, has been ‎the beginnings of what might be called a war on Jews in ‎America. ‎

It’s getting lonely out here, Dear Israel. Around here in the United States we don’t have too many friends, either. We look to you to pick it up. Drop the Gaza malaise. Pick up the Entebbe Spirit. We are counting on you. Who else do we have out there in the big world?

People we don’t know now rule your neighborhood, and strangers in this very country of ours now push us around.

At a restaurant in a small town in Vermont, Winooski, a sign that promoted bacon offended a Muslim lady. She demanded that the sign get taken down. It was, immediately. That wasn’t enough. Terrified owners of the restaurant apologized and said it would never happen again. Imagine that – in the land of the free, home of the brave.

We turn to you, Dear Israel, to get us back on track. We share the same values as articulated in our Liberty Bell: “Proclaim Liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” This was borrowed from The Book of Leviticus and we do not take that summons lightly.

We have fought and died to preserve those liberties and so have you. That was before. This is now. You have had your setbacks. We have ours.

If you don’t have the moxie to properly defend your own people, Netanyahu, in other words, if you can’t do it for yourself, do it for our sake, here in America.

In 1967 and again in 1973 as you defeated the Arab armies you shared with us the booty of captured Soviet tanks and fighter planes. Our generals say that this exchange of Intel was so vital that it absolutely turned the tide of the Cold War in our favor.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/failure-and-opportunity

A unique confluence of forces has arisen in the Middle East that represents an historic opportunity. It will take vision, courage, and a willingness to cast aside traditional mistrust and enmity. It will require inspirational leadership in religiously skeptical populations, but it represents the possibility of a final break from a colonialist past to an independent future.

In six short years, Barak Obama has squandered 60 years of assiduous diplomacy and expanding American influence in the Middle East. For nearly a century, successive presidents, Republican and Democrat alike, carefully navigated the esoteric alleyways of shifting Middle Eastern politics to American advantage. American primacy was solidified by the decline and collapse of the Soviet Union, leaving a uni-polar sphere of influence. If there is one principle underlying Middle Eastern political culture, it is an acute sense of the importance and consequences of power and alliances. Until now, the sole exception in America’s policy continuum was Jimmy Carter, whose ideal driven incompetence was responsible, in large measure, for the rise of Islamic radicalism and the loss of one of our most reliable allies in the region. &;

Anwar Sadat initiated Egypt’s gradual gravitation toward the United States and by the mid-1970’s, America’s reliable allies in the Middle East included all of the largest and richest nations in the region. Carter’s craven abandonment of the Shah, though, revived regional instability and consigned Iran not only to the ranks of American enemies but the Iranian people to oppression far worse than any ever imposed by the Shah. It also provided a home for Islamic radicalism, the intellectual and cultural foundations for fundamentalist Islamic revival and the subsequent rise of the organized Jihadis with whom the world has had to struggle ever since.

The convicted shooter in the Fort Hood massacre has written a letter to the leader of the Islamic State saying he wants to become a “citizen” of the caliphate, in the latest example of the terror group’s reach inside the U.S.

The letter from Nidal Hasan, obtained by Fox News, comes after two Americans reportedly died fighting for ISIS in Syria. Sources late Wednesday identified the second as Abdirahmaan Muhumed, of Minneapolis. Fox affiliate KMSP-TV in Minneapolis reported that Muhumed was killed in the same battle as Douglas McArthur McCain, who grew up outside Minneapolis in the town of New Hope and most recently lived in San Diego.

The State Department said Thursday it could not confirm Muhumed’s death and efforts to reach his family were unsuccessful.

In the undated letter, Hasan — who fatally shot 13 people and injured more than 30 at Fort Hood in 2009 in what the Defense Department called “workplace violence”– tells ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi that he wants to join the caliphate.

“I formally and humbly request to be made a citizen of the Islamic State,”Hasan says in the handwritten document addressed to “Ameer, Mujahid Dr. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.”

“It would be an honor for any believer to be an obedient citizen soldier to a people and its leader who don’t compromise the religion of All-Mighty Allah to get along with the disbelievers.”

The two-page letter includes Hasan’s signature and the abbreviation SoA for Soldier of Allah.

Do not be fooled by Hillary Clinton’s attempt to rehabilitate her term as Secretary of State ahead of the 2016 presidential election. From 2009 to 2013, Clinton embodied U.S. foreign affairs even as President Obama’s avowed policy of self-effacement descended into listless, desultory abdication. Notwithstanding her recent critiques of Obama’s performance, Clinton’s failures as Secretary of State helped bring war to Europe, an arms race to Asia, and inferno to the Middle-East. The U.S. and its international standing are weaker for Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.

Clinton’s mistakes began early, with her contribution to the misconceived and poorly executed Russia Reset. President Obama campaigned on a sunshine foreign policy platform, and one of his first foreign policy priorities was to improve relations with Russia. Bilateral relations froze when Russia invaded Georgia in August, 2008, and President Bush deployed warships into the Black Sea and facilitated Georgia’s recall of its combat troops from Iraq. Secretary Clinton’s first major assignment was meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva in March, 2009. They drank, ate, talked, and posed for now-infamous photos in which the pair “pushed” a kitschy, red, plastic button mislabeled with the Russian word for “overcharge” instead of “reset.”

To give substance to the show, Clinton and Lavrov discussed the U.S.’s “flexibility” on plans made during the Bush administration to build installations housing missile defense interceptors in Eastern Europe. Russia vehemently opposes locating interceptors in Eastern Europe, and Poland and the Czech Republic incurred Russia’s wrath for agreeing to host the systems anyway. Six months after the Geneva meeting, the U.S. cancelled deployment of the systems, leaving Poland and the Czech Republic bereft of the economic and security benefits of the installations but still saddled with Russian anger.

In the first of what would become a pattern, the U.S. sacrificed allies’ interests to a rival in the fatuous hope that the rival would feel some sort of gratitude or obligation in return. The Wall Street Journal’s scathing editorial has proven prescient. TheJournal warned that bowing to Russian pressure would only encourage it to demand ever more concessions and that “[n]ext time, perhaps, the West can be seduced into trading away the pro-Western government of Georgia, or even Ukraine.” The Journal continued that “inclusion in NATO and EU was supposed to have [ended great power use of Eastern and Central Europe as bargaining chips], but Russia’s new assertiveness, including its willingness to cut off energy supplies in winter and invade Georgia last year, is reviving powerful fears.” The Journal and a litany of foreign policy commentators rightly predicted that Putin would take such gestures only as an invitation to aggression.